Equestria
Afternoon
Twilight turns her head-.
Whaw pony necks are flexible. Turns her head back to glare at me.
"And you weren't going to
introduce us?"
"Well-."
Princess Cadance flaps her wings and passes neatly over Twilight before landing just inside the room. "Hello, I'm-."
"Mi. Amore."
Cadance spots Sunset, her
eyes widening and her body tensing.
"
Cadenza."
Twilight pivots on the spot at the sound of discord, and goes into friending mode. "Sunset was just telling me that you two knew each other?"
Sunset grits her teeth for a moment. "
Yes. Yes we did."
Cadance cringes. "I…
Didn't know you were back?"
"
Clearly."
Cadance
backs up slightly and misjudges the angle, her haunches hitting the wall rather than going back through the door. As Sunset gets closer Cadance
falls onto her haunches with a nervous grimace of a smile on her face, Sunset gritting her teeth and grinding them in what would be a bad idea for a human. But I guess it's fine for equine teeth? Or maybe becoming an alicorn fixes dental issues?
"M'm rryeh."
Cadance blinks. "
Ah..? Pardon?"
"I'm-.
Sorry."
Sunset breathes
heavily, the glare of her eyes not
quite matching her words. Though it does match their
tone.
"You're… Sorry?"
The teeth grit again. "
Yes. I'm..
sorry for how I treated you when we were living together."
"Oh, that's alri-."
Sunset raises her right forehoof. "
No. No. No it's not."
"Okay?"
Sunset lowers her hoof. "I was-." She takes a look at Cadance's face and sags slightly. "And I'm scaring you again. And this time I'm not even
trying to." She shakes her head and backs up a little in the hope that Cadance will feel secure enough to stand. When that doesn't work she shakes her head sadly and trudges back to the blackboard.
"Cadance?" Twilight looks curiously at her former foalsitter. "You.. knew Sunset Shimmer? You never mentioned her?"
"I… No. Um. Yes. She was living at the palace when Princess Celestia first brought me here. I didn't-."
"It's
fine." Sunset turns around dejectedly. "Magic is my special talent, the same as yours. I doubt Cadenza wanted you to turn out like
I did."
"Why? What happened between you two?"
"I wanted to learn magic. Celestia wanted me to learn civics. We argued, and Celestia -in her
wisdom- decided that the best way to convince me she was right was to show me my
future in Starswirl's mirror. I saw myself as a powerful alicorn."
"So you were jealous? You thought Cadance was trying to take your place?"
Sunset shakes her head. "Cadenza wasn't living in the palace at that point. But after that I spent all my time studying alicorns, trying to work out how the transformation
worked... I spent
months on that and didn't find anything. I bugged Celestia to tell me how it worked and got nowhere. In the end I started to think that I'd-" She glances at the blackboard again with a rueful smile. "-need to work it out from scratch all by myself. Which was..
fine. I
like doing magical experiments."
"And then
Cadenza happened."
Twilight frowns. "What do you mean 'happened'?"
With Sunset a safe distance away, Cadance gets back to her hooves. "I ascended. I didn't plan-."
"Oh, I
know you didn't. I finally worked out how you did it, and if you never want to sleep again I'll show you my calculations for what would have happened if you'd been standing an inch to the left when the amulet exploded."
Twilight looks from Cadance to Sunset. "So you were.. envious?"
"A little. But when I met her she was so clearly
clueless-" Twilight frowns a little. "-that it didn't really
last. I just wanted her to give me as much information about what happened as I could so I could add a first hoof account to my data. And she
wouldn't."
"Oh." Twilight looks at Cadance. "Why.. not..?"
"Because-."
"Because Celestia told her not to." Sunset shakes her head. "I can't
believe I didn't work it out sooner."
"Aunt Celestia was
worried about you! You were becoming
obsessed! Everything was about becoming an alicorn!"
"And it didn't
stop just because you were withholding information from me!" Sunset gives a humourless chuckle. "The funny thing is, telling what happened probably
wouldn't have helped me all that much. All it would have done is made me stop
hating you for
obstructing me." She sags. "Because I couldn't bring myself to hate the mare
actually responsible." She tosses her mane and straightens up a little. "So, yeah, I'm sorry for all the things I did to try and
make you tell me. And now I'm putting the blame
firmly where it belongs."
Twilights right ear twitches in a way which probably conveys all sorts of meaning to other ponies. "So…
You've realised that your obsessive behaviour was self-destructive and you've come to apologise to everyone you offended and repair your old friendships?"
"No. I've come to prove that I was right all along."
Twilight frowns. "Ah-?"
"And that Celestia was
wrong."
Twilight gasps in absolute horror!
I nod. "Yeah, I just got back from talking to Celestia. You… Kind of lost your temper, there."
"I know, I know." She sighs. "She just
did it again!"
"I think she was trying to be
nice."
"How is she this
bad at it?!"
"A thousand years of ponies not wanting to get sent to the moon?" Cadance stares at me, her eyes wide. "Too soon?"
"Nopony's
afraid of Aunt Celestia! I'm sure-" She turns her head towards Sunset. "-that she didn't mean whatever it was that made you so angry."
"Is it
better that she's
massively condescending by
accident?"
Cadance starts to answer, hesitates to consider the question, then nods confidently. "Yes, it is. Because it means that she didn't do it deliberately to drive you away, and the fact that she's still reaching out to you shows that she really does want to improve your relationship." She takes a hesitant step towards Sunset. "The question is, do you?"
"I…" Sunset slumps. "Yes? I just-. I've spent a
lot of time thinking about why I left, and I-. I
know I could have handled it better. But so could
she! I need her to.. acknowledge that, or something. And not just a generic 'I'm sorry you feel that way' thing, I need her to actually
get what she did wrong." She huffs. "Maybe I'll go talk to her again before I ascend. But right I just want-. Twilight, could you get on the-?"
"Celestia was
wrong?!"
