Stumbling Toward Redemption -- Chapter 2 (Equestria Girls)

[Chapter 1 of this story is here.]
[Originally posted at Fimficiton.]
[I'm using "~ ~ ~" to indicate changing perspectives without changing scenes.]

When awareness first returned to her, Sunset felt pretty good, all things considered.  That changed very fast when she realized the ground beneath her was moving and deforming under her weight.

She resisted the urge to bolt upright, and instead started to take an inventory of her body while pretending to still be asleep.

Her fingers and toes were still intact, though her toes protested a bit because she was still wearing her boots.  She had various aches and pains, but nothing unexpected.  Actually, considering she'd been blasted by one of the most powerful magical artifacts in the history of Equestria, she would have expected to have rather more discomfort than usual.

It wasn't hard to figure out why the ground was so disturbingly not-solid.  She was in a bed of some sort.  Not just any bed either. A warm bed with actual sheets on it.  If she had come here, wherever here was, to go to sleep, all of that would be great.  When it came to waking up, though, it was concerning.  Why would she be in a bed?

She didn't exactly have an overabundance of people who would let her crash at their places.  Also, if some mysterious bed-giver had appeared out of nowhere, Sunset would have taken off her boots before going to sleep.

It wasn't that she was unaccustomed to sleeping in them, it was just that --since she rarely had the opportunity to take them off-- taking them off would have been almost immediate if she'd been given a warm place to stay.

The alternative to a mysterious benefactor, however, didn't make sense any either.  If someone with ill intent had taken her, they'd have dumped her on the floor.  Probably inside a closet.  Likely with the door locked.

People did not, so far as Sunset knew, keep beds in closets.

Since this was going nowhere, Sunset opened her eyes.  She was alone for the moment.  No reason not to take a look at her surroundings.

There was nothing familiar, but also nothing that stood out as threatening.  As she allowed herself to examine the room more, she actually found it to be incredibly generic.

After getting out of the bed as quietly as she could, Sunset looked for anything she could use to defend herself.

Soon after, she was walking down a hallway while armed only with a lamp.  The hallway had more character --it was painted sky blue with accents in every color-- but it didn't tell her much.  Anyone who liked clear skies and rainbows, which was sort of an odd combination when you thought about it, could live here.

The hall ended in an open plan kitchen/dining room/living room.  At first she thought this area was empty too, but a closer look revealed familiar rainbow hair peaking over the back of the couch in the living room section.

“Rainbow Dash?” Sunset asked in confusion as she let her arms drop to her sides.

~ ~ ~

Rainbow Dash gave a startled yelp, and her whole body jolted involuntarily.  It wasn't the best introduction ever, so she took a moment to compose herself and make sure she'd look cool and calm before she greeted Sunset.

In a single smooth and, she hoped, casual-seeming motion she transitioned from the jumble she'd been in to a sort of kneeling position, with her left arm draped over the back of the couch, that allowed to look in Sunset's direction. As she did that, she said,

“Hey you're--” and the rest of the sentence was forgotten, because now that she could see Sunset, she had an entirely unrelated topic on her mind, “Why're you holding a lamp?”

“I woke up in a strange place,” Sunset said as though that explained everything; “I didn't know where I was or who I might be facing.”

“And your first thought was to pick up a desk lamp?” Rainbow asked.

“Yes, because your guest room is absolutely brimming with defensive weapons,” Sunset said.  If her tone hadn't conveyed her extreme annoyance, the exasperated gesture she made with her non-lamp hand would have gotten the point across on its own.

Rainbow attempted not to laugh.  She utterly failed.  What ended up coming out started with a snort and ended with a snicker.  It wasn't the smoothest transition in the history of laughter, and neither was it quick.

“Are you finished?” Sunset asked.

“Not sure,” Rainbow said.

In a quick movement that was part flip and part roll, she deposited herself behind the couch, so that she was standing facing Sunset with nothing between them.

In other circumstances she probably would have made a bigger deal out of what went into that roll-flip.  Right now, however, there was a lamp-wielding Sunset Shimmer asking her whether or not she was done laughing, and that took precedence.

Rainbow said, “I'll have to check what's on the agenda,” and instantly regretted it.  If there had been a laughter-related agenda, that comment wouldn't be on it.

Sunset seemed to agree. “Truly, you are a comedic genius.”

Rainbow said, “Thank you,” as though Sunset had been sincere, because she didn't know what else to do.

After that, it seemed that Sunset didn't have anything to say.  Rainbow didn't either.  Well, that wasn't quite true.  She had questions, but they weren't things you started a conversation with.

A few seconds passed in silence.  Maybe having the couch hiding most of her body had been a good thing.  Rainbow was in danger of becoming fidgety, and that was most definitely not awesome.

Sunset seemed to have taken up an interest in ceiling tiles.  Possibly the number or arrangement of ceiling tiles rather than the tiles themselves.  Definitely something ceiling-related.  Given that that wasn't an ordinary thing for Sunset to do, Rainbow figured that she wasn't the only one finding this whole thing awkward.

The silence had to be broken somehow, so Rainbow asked, “If you weren't expecting to see me when you woke up . ? .” and realized that it probably would have helped if she had actually had a before asking.  With that in mind, Rainbow settled on, “Well, what do you remember?”

~ ~ ~

Figuring it was best to just get it over with, Sunset said, “You mouthed off when I was about to surrender, I decided that I'd get the crown just to spite you, it turns out that twisting an Element of Harmony to your whims when you're pissed off is a bad idea, things went pear shaped, there were rainbows, I was reduced to tears, Rarity wants an apology for the Spring Fling, Pinkie Pie apparently thinks that running face first into solid stone is a good idea, and I took up bricklaying as a hobby.”

“And after that?” Rainbow asked.

Sunset closed her eyes and attempted to call up any additional memories.  None came.  She was laying bricks, then . . .

“Not a thing,” she said.

“I think that Luna was making you stay and work so that she could keep an eye on you,” Rainbow said.  “It's not a bad idea in theory but she's only one person and I saw kids holing up in places she wouldn't notice them.”

That was just silly.  Sunset said as much.  She didn't actually say those words, but she did say, “Kids were holing up?  Is there a war or natural disaster, of which I was unaware, presently ongoing?” which meant the same thing.

“They were waiting for you,” Rainbow said.  “You didn't think everyone would be satisfied with just a tearful apology, did you?”

“Of course not,” Sunset said, then walked in a small semicircle so she was looking at the wall instead of Rainbow.  Things weren't going to go well, that much was obvious.

Sunset sighed.  “That doesn't explain why I'm at your house.”

“Escort duty.”

“Assigned by whom?”

“Kinda gave myself the job.”

Ok, that was definitely believable, except for one thing.  “I would have said, 'No.'”

“I uh,” Rainbow started, “I didn't give you a choice.”

That got Sunset's attention.  The idea was so absurd that she nearly laughed as she turned around to face Rainbow again.  When she was looking the other girl in the eyes, Sunset asked, “You kidnapped me?” in disbelief.

“No,” Rainbow said.  “I threatened to kidnap you, then we hammered out an arrangement whereby you'd let me take you to your home if I bought you dinner.”

That brought things back to not making sense.  It wasn't that what Rainbow was saying seemed unreasonable, but, much like before, there was one tiny detail that threw the whole thing into doubt.

“This is not where I live.”

“Good,” Rainbow cracked smile, an impish little thing, before continuing with, “because if you'd been living here all this time, and I never noticed, I would be very disturbed.”

“So . . .” Sunset said.  That was all she said, because it should have been enough. It wasn't.

“So what?” Rainbow asked with the kind of 'innocent' look that is only ever employed by people who know exactly what they're guilty of and are proud of it.

“How did I get here?” Sunset asked.  She had to make an effort not to growl.  Apparently, not being an asshole was more difficult than it appeared from the outside.

“When we were stopped at a red light, you ran off through the woods. so you could eat pizza out of a dumpster.”

Sunset nodded.  That made sense, especially because, “That does sound like me.”

There was a beat of silence, then Rainbow asked, “What do you have against pepperoni?” as though it were the most serious and important topic in the world.

How Sunset answered really depended on what Rainbow already knew, so she asked, “Did Twilight Sparkle tell you where we come from?”

“Pony Princess land?” Rainbow said in a way that was clearly more question than answer.

That made things easier.  If Rainbow knew 'pony' instead of 'human', then she was probably ready to accept that things might be vastly different on the other side.

“Equestria has animals that look like the ones you have here,” Sunset explained, “but when it comes to cognition they couldn't be more different.”

Sunset took a breath, decided to massively oversimplify things --Rainbow was asking about pepperoni not neuroscience, after all-- and said, “Short version: you might as well be eating people if you eat meat other than fish.”

What followed was the first time Sunset had ever seen Rainbow utterly horrified. Her 'we're all gonna die' face actually looked serene in comparison.

That was not what Sunset wanted to do.  It wasn't just that Rainbow had been reasonably nice so far, in spite of having so very many reasons not to be.  It was also . . . everything.  It was warmth.  It was a bed.  It was how they weren't talking about what Sunset had done, and tried to do, before the bricklaying last night.

Because of all those things and more, breaking Rainbow Dash's brain was not on the agenda for the day.

Rainbow started to ask, “But here they're not--”

“No, they're not,” Sunset answered, “but that doesn't mean I suddenly want to eat things I spent my entire childhood thinking of as . . . that.”

“Ok,” Rainbow said quickly. “Good.”

Rainbow nodded to herself.  When she said, “I was worried there for a second,” it looked and sounded like she had completely recovered from her Soylent Green moment.

That was good.  Now Sunset could leave without anything new to feel guilty about, and leaving sounded really good right now.  There hadn't been all that much to say, they' said most of it, and she was still holding a damned lamp.  There was, she was pretty sure, only one question left to ask, “What happened after the peperoni?”

“You started to give an impromptu lecture on magic,” Rainbow said, “and then you fell asleep.”

Sunset tilted her head to the side as she said, “Oh.”

A few moments later she added, “That does explain why I'm here, I guess.”

Sunset was reasonably sure that that covered everything.  She looked around, though she wasn't entirely sure why she did.  She didn't think of anything else.

She lifted the lamp a bit and looked it over.

“Thanks for not leaving me in the parking lot,” she said to Rainbow.  “I'll . . . put this lamp back, now.”

Sunset turned around and headed back to the guest room.

~ ~ ~

Rainbow hadn't realized she'd been expecting anything, and still didn't know what she'd been expecting, but she must have been expecting something, because she was absolutely sure that this was so very much not the unknown thing that she'd been expecting.

As she started to follow Sunset, Rainbow said the first thing that came to mind, “That's it?”

Sunset kept walking down the hall, she didn't look back or break her stride when she answered with, “All of my questions are answered, everything makes sense,” she reached the guest room door and went in, “so yeah: that's it.”

When Rainbow entered the guest room the lamp was already in place and Sunset was performing the contortions necessary to actually plug it in.  Rainbow wasn't sure whether it was the outlet or the desk, but something was placed in just the wrong way, which is why the outlet in question was generally considered a lost cause.

That wasn't important at the moment, though.  It was just easier to think about than the fact that Sunset, who had seemed pretty normal, lamp notwithstanding, earlier was now acting in way that screamed, 'Abnormal!'

Rainbow didn't know how to approach that, and she fell back on some questions she wanted answered, “How about why you were eating out of a dumpster--”

“It's where the food is,” Sunset said.

“--why you were undernourished enough to pass out--”

“That wasn't about nutrition, it was about the magic,” Sunset said.  She had said as much last night, but Rainbow was pretty sure that wasn't the whole truth.

“--and where you live?”

“Wherever I want to,” Sunset said.  A moment later she gave a grunt, then announced, “And it's in.”

As Sunset slid out from under the desk, Rainbow said, “Sunset . . .” in a way that she hoped would be gentle and friendly enough to turn the suddenly snippy back and forth into a conversation again.

Unfortunately, Rainbow's attempt at 'gentle and friendly' happened to coincide with 'slow', which allowed to Sunset to interrupt with, “Rainbow . . .” said in the same way Rainbow had spoken her name.

Rainbow pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to remember if she was stocked up on headache medicine.  She said, “. . . if you're from another world--”

“Then I'm here illegally, yes,” Sunset said as she got back on her feet.

Rainbow hadn't thought about that at all, and didn't plan to start now.  She tried to get things back on track, “That's not--”

Sunset cut Rainbow off again; it was annoying, “After everything else you've learned about me,” Sunset checked that the lamp turned the lamp on and off, which it did, “I fail to see how that would be surprising.”

At this point Rainbow wasn't sure if Sunset was actively trying to be aggravating, or if that just came naturally to her.  Regardless, Rainbow finally got to the question she'd been trying to ask, “--where do you live?”

“Already answered that one,” Sunset said as she headed toward the hall.

Rainbow considered pointing out that Sunset's answer had answered nothing, but decided to drop that point and move on.  She asked, “Who do you live with?”

This time Sunset did actually stop walking to answer.  More than that, she actually turned and made eye contact.

“Rainbow, you've known me for years,” she said.  “Do you honestly think I could cohabitate with someone for any length of time without one of us killing the other?”

Then she turned right back around and walked out of the room. Rainbow followed.

Because it was the most straightforward way to approach things, Rainbow responded the way she would have if Sunset had said the same thing in a normal conversation, “This isn't a joke.”

“I don't know,” Sunset said, “after last night I'm kind of feeling like a punchline.”

Rainbow thought that statement over for a moment, just to check, then said, “I'm not convinced that makes sense.”

“A demon unicorn redeemed by weaponized rainbows walks into a bar . . .” Sunset said.

“That's a premise, not a punchline.”

“. . . and she gets kicked right back out because the bouncer thinks she's a human . . .”

“And that definitely doesn't make sense,” Rainbow said.

“No,” Sunset said, as she reached the front door.  “And humans aren't allowed to drink until a ridiculous age.”

While largely beside the point, Rainbow felt obligated to tell Sunset exactly what she thought of the alleged 'joke', “If there's such thing as the opposite of funny--”

“Goodbye, Rainbow Dash,” Sunset said as she left.

Rainbow followed her out the door then picked up where she'd left off, “--that's it. It's not even a bad joke, it's just . . . nothing.”

Sunset stopped and turned around, which left her standing in the middle of the street.  Rainbow was still on the sidewalk.

“That's not the joke,” Sunset said.

Rainbow couldn't tell what it was --it could have been her voice, her expression, her body language, or something else entirely-- but something about Sunset was different. It was not different in a good way.

Whatever it was, it was disturbing.  It was like looking at an injured limb hanging at an unnatural angle.  It was deeply, unnervingly wrong.

“The joke is that I'm standing here,” Sunset said, her volume just below a shout.  “A unicorn in a world with no magic.  An adult in a world that thinks adults are children because how the fuck can you people not realize that teenagers are old enough to look out for themselves?  The personal apprentice of a very real, and very powerful, god-Princess in a world where gods are naught but legends and princesses are impotent figureheads.”

Rainbow thought that Sunset's eyes were on the brink of tears, though she wasn't completely sure.  Sunset kept going, “The joke is that everything I am is made for another world and nothing about me belongs in this place.  I'm the non-sequitur.  I'm the thing that doesn't fit and makes no sense that you stick at the end of the joke to get a cheap laugh.”

Apparently to prove that point, Sunset started quoting a commercial their class had been shown when they covered non-sequiturs and other calculated forms of randomness, “'Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady,'” Sunset said in a very non-Sunset way.  It wasn't hard to see where this was going.

“I'm a horse!” Sunset shouted so loudly that Rainbow was sure it must have hurt.

Rainbow said the word, “So,” slowly, drawing it out while she tried to think of how to respond.

Part of her wanted to say that teenagers shouldn't have to take care of themselves.  Rainbow's life, for instance, was only possible because someone else paid the bills. That allowed her concentrate on things like sports.

Part of her wanted to tell Sunset that everything would be all right, though she had no idea if it were true.

Part of her wanted to apologize, though she didn't know what she would be apologizing for.

Part of her wanted to avoid weighty topics entirely and instead mention that she'd completely forgotten about that silly commercial until Sunset quoted it.

There were doubtless other parts that wanted other things, but there was only so much one could think in the span of a single 'so'.

She ended up finishing the sentence with, “. . . you're not taking this well at all,” which was pretty weak and had become painfully obvious.

“I got hit by a magical light show and left in a hole in the ground,” Sunset shouted, “not six months of therapy!”

And they'd gone in a circle, because the only thing Rainbow could think of in response to that was, “I'm not even sure that sentence makes sense.”

“I want,” Sunset said. “To be. Alone.”

Sunset paused.

“Please leave me alone.” She was definitely blinking back tears now.

It wasn't that Rainbow was against that, but she was worried.  She took a moment to clear her head.  Then she asked, “If I do, am I gonna see you again?”

“Are you being morbid,” Sunset asked in return, “or do you think I'm a flight risk?”

Honestly, Rainbow wasn't sure.  She said, “Just . . .” and then gestured as though that would somehow get the point across.  It came as no surprise when it didn't. She tried again, “Just tell me.”

“I'll be at school on Monday,” Sunset said. She looked at the ground.  “Whether I'll be allowed to attend classes remains to be seen.”

Rainbow believed her, and said, “I'll see you then.”

Sunset didn't look up.

Rainbow wanted to say something else.  She didn't know what, but this wasn't how she wanted the conversation to end.  It felt like there had to be some better way to part ways.

She couldn't come up with anything.

Sunset, for her part, barely moved.  She just kept on looking at the same spot on the ground that she'd been looking at.

Rainbow walked back to her house.  Sunset hadn't moved.  Rainbow went inside, headed back in the direction of the couch, glanced at the window, then stopped.

Through the curtains, Sunset was a vaguely person-shaped blob.  What bothered Rainbow was that Sunset still hadn't moved.

After a few seconds, which felt like an eternity, the Sunset-blob did finally move.  When Sunset was on the opposite sidewalk, Rainbow let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and looked away.

It still didn't feel right to let Sunset go in the state she was in, but Rainbow didn't know what else to do.  Also, she was well aware that continuing to watch Sunset would definitely cross the line between being concerned and being creepy, assuming she hadn't already, so she tried to turn her attention to other things.

It took a minute to get her mind moving in the right direction, but she eventually started thinking about the day ahead.  She should call her friends and figure out a good time to meet.  They still had a lot of catching up to do. Lost time to make up for too.

Of course, they also needed to discuss Sunset, and right now Rainbow wasn't up for that.

Things had seemed pretty good at first, too.  Though, truthfully, that was the problem.  If it had happened in the opposite order, 'shouty breakdown' first and 'normalish conversation' second, she probably would have had no problem dealing with it.  As it was, everything was a mess.

Rainbow walked over to the couch and let herself collapse onto it.

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So, notes.

I wrote a thing!  Given how I've been lately, that's pretty major for me right now.

This was originally supposed to be part of a chapter with larger scope.  It was going to be three scenes.  This one, the relevant adults (Celestia and Luna) discussing the previous night, and Rainbow and her friends discussing Sunset.

Much of this was already written, the other parts as as stalled out as anything, and I crammed in so much here between the lines of dialogue that it's as long as Chapter 1 anyway, so I figured I'd polish it and post it as a chapter.

That didn't exactly go as planned.  A lot of this was overhauled or rewritten from the ground up, and I'm not sure if I managed to take out everything that no longer applies in the revised version.

If I'm doing this properly, familiarity with Equestria Girls is not required to understand this story.  No idea if I'm pulling this off.

I generally don't like assuming that the setting has the same pop culture as the real world because there are some huge differences.  Naming conventions, skin colors, and hair colors are the big ones.  Given how huge appearance is in the real world's present and past, the world of Equestria Girls can't have the same history or culture as our own.

So, with all of that in mind, I just included Soylent Green and the Old Spice man (and Just the two of me has the Twilight Zone, which is absurdly prominent in Chapter 2.)  I might not be the best at sticking by my convictions on this topic.

For reference, Soylent Green is people and this is the Old Spice commercial:

A cool tidbit about it is that the only CGI is the diamonds and the old spice rising out of them, the rest of it was done in a single take using only practical effects.

Rather less cool are the implicit assumptions it's built upon.