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Maybe being alone onstage wasn’t even the worst of it.
The worst of it is seeing Twilight—her Twilight in the crowd, her smile shining oh-so brighter than all of the others as she cheers. The worst of it is being able to recognise her no matter how far Twilight stands from Sunset; no matter what, Sunset will always find her.
In any crowd.
And maybe the curse’s cherry on top was that there was no one beside her.
Just the concavity of Sunset’s soul, tipped upside down with her insides spilling out.
“You never thought about it?” Sunset had asked quietly.
“No.” Twilight responded, just as simply as Sunset would ask her a question about the arithmetics homework. “I don’t want to be in a relationship right now.”
“Have you ever liked anyone? Guys? Girls?”
“There was a guy.” Twilight said.
The silence passing was everything Sunset needed to know.
Her fingers are leaden, and her chest has never felt this heavy in her life before. Even when she saw the crown being given to the Princess, when her back hit the ground from twenty feet in the air—when she saw her for the first time.
They say hope is a thing with feathers.
Sunset didn’t know something so soft could make her whole world end up in complete demolition.
“Come on, Sunset—woo!”
“Yeah, Sunset!”
Her smile is uneasy—it feels fake. It’s felt like a mask for the past couple of months. Sunset stares down at her guitar.
The only thing she’s ever best at, and yet it’s still correlated to her.
It seems that Sunset wouldn’t ever be able to escape her.
Sunset sucks in a deep breath, glancing up at the ground. It’s not for them that her heart starts jackrabbiting in her chest—and not in the good way either.
She begins to strum.
For it being the only thing she’s good at, Sunset feels she’s never quite felt the meaning of music as people put it. The only thing capable of Sunset putting her soul into had been spells—but emotions were irrelevant when it came to those sorts of things.
She only realises now.
Chords hurt.
And it’s not her fingertips that burn.
It’s a visceral burning in her body from head-to-toe, as the vibrations ring through her.
Her eyes sting as she gazes down at her fretboard, switching between melancholy chords to settle a slow, almost pensive rhythm. The silence in the auditorium room isn’t any heavier than the creature settling in the centre of Sunset’s splintered sternum.
“I can’t stop thinkin’ about you.”
Her alarm rung for the fifteenth time. Sunset could only stare at the ceiling, her hands clasped to her chest. Multiple missed calls—multiple emails she’d left unread for the past few days. It was hard to even think of doing anything else.
“All of the things that I thought we had.”
A couple messages—here and there.
Dark fingertips tucking in crimson locks, a wide—special smile from a face that was rarely graced with such, and the routines that only they had.
It goes unsaid.
“It was your heart dolled up a miracle—I thought I knew.”
It was hard to not imagine.
It was hard to not feel special.
Sunset can’t count on two hands how many times she’s been fucked over by the world, and right now—this feels the worst, it’s the heaviest of them all. She can feel purple eyes watching her warmly in the crowd.
She tries not to look, as the strumming continues.
“Wait up, now.”
Sunset swallows, before parting her mouth once more.
“Am I to pretend that all of that meant nothing to me?”
Sunset had never been good with reading cues. She is an alien in a human body—she was an reject back at home.
“Hold up, how?”
“Am I meant to move on from something that had set me free?”
A look.
Through everybody else’s ushered words and coddling, it was that look from Twilight that struck Sunset. Sweat had frozen on Sunset’s clammy skin, her ears ringing from the commotion of everybody flocking to her and shaking her awake.
All it took was that look.
She knew.
“Set me free.”
“Set me free.”
The crowd is silent as a pindrop.
Sunset wonders if she knows.
Does she know?
Does she know that it’s her who’s been driving the source of Sunset’s misery these days?
“Think the lies I made caught up to me.”
Fantasies.
She likes me—in the way she looked for Sunset in the mornings.
She likes me—in their late night texts about everything they shared.
She likes me—in her warmth.
She is so warm.
“Think I should’ve left you alone that day.”
“I’m sorry.” Twilight sniffled, her eyes raw and burning. “I—I didn’t mean to.”
Sunset picked up her spectrometer.
And looked her in the eyes.
“Now the next thing’s in my chest stuck and it’s feathery.”
Perhaps this is Sunset’s wakeup call from life.
…
“You were amazing, Sunset!” Pinkie squeals, clinging to her arm as Sunset gets off from the stage for the next performer to come on.
“Seriously, which guy broke your heart—man? You got Rarity cryin’.” Rainbow points to said girl, who is currently dabbing her eye and looking away from Sunset.
Sunset only smiles.
There are only five girls surrounding her right now.
…
“Hey.”
Wind cuts in sharp breezes on the rooftop—tousling her deep indigo locks as they tumble over her bare shoulders. Night drips like ink, casting over the small specks in the sky but Sunset can see her clear as day.
Twilight looks up.
“Hi.” Twilight’s smile is warm.
She has always been warm.
Sunset stands not far behind her, as Twilight perches her elbows over the railing before the edge of the roof—her hands shoved in the pockets of her leather jacket. And for the first time in weeks, Sunset steps forward.
To stand side-by-side with Twilight.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Sunset echoes.
She’s not particularly looking at the view.
But she’s making well of an effort to not look at Twilight either.
“It would be prettier if I wasn’t freezing my butt off.”
Sunset wordlessly sheds her jacket, chuckling quietly. She turns to Twilight, holding it out and facing her then—she expects some sort of uncertainty and hesitancy in those intelligent violet eyes beneath rectangular-rimmed glasses.
But there’s none.
“Thanks.” Twilight accepts it, pulling it over her shoulders.
Does she know?
It’s always been like this.
This purgatory—this state of limbo ever since Twilight answered her question.
“I liked your song.” Twilight’s words are quiet—bitten away by the sharp wind.
Then, she pauses. “Did you… get over them?”
Five words.
She knew.
She knows.
And yet, it doesn’t hit as hard as Sunset thought it would. Her heart is not thudding—but rather at a slow, almost pensive pace in her chest. There’s nothing changed about the way Twilight looks at her now, awaiting her response.
Sunset swallows.
“No.”
The wind whips, coursing down to a shrill whisper in the air.
“But I will. Soon.” Sunset breathes out the last few words.
Silence has always been their thing.
Their.
It’s been hard to change Sunset’s perception of that word by definition. Because their has always meant Sunset and Twilight—not Twilight and Sunset. What Sunset felt and what she thought Twilight had felt towards her.
But silence perches like a guardian between them, watching.
Then, Twilight speaks again.
“Do you really wish you left me alone that day?”
She doesn’t mention anything else.
She doesn’t mention the fact that this the first time they’ve had a full proper conversation in a couple of weeks—or the implication of Sunset’s song. There’s only a soft pinch in her words that suggest that Sunset’s response will weigh heavily.
“Sometimes.” Sunset answers truthfully.
Twilight doesn’t respond.
“But then again, no.” She continues, gazing down the wayward dark entrance of Canterlot High. “Because I think we work too well for me to give up on something so easily.”
Then, a sharp pressure nudges Sunset’s shoulder harshly. She tilts her head over in surprise, finding Twilight staring out the streets with a barely-suppressed smile on her lips.
“You’re an idiot, Sunset Shimmer—you know that?” Twilight rises her palm to press against her eyes, as she turns to look at Sunset with her nose scrunched. “A corny idiot.”
“You’re the one crying.” Sunset blusters with a huff of amusement, rewarded with a widening of shiny violet eyes and another knock to her shoulder.
“Oh, shut up.” Twilight retorts.
Silence is their thing.
It’ll always be their thing.