Book one of "Who We Become".
Sunset always knew that she was destined for greatness, but she never dreamed of how great she could become. Not until she had seen it - the mirror had shown her as an alicorn. Ignoring Celestia's warnings, Sunset goes l...
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It had not been a good couple of days. Ever since the incident at the mall, Sunset had been on edge. She had resolved to spend as much of the winter break as possible hiding away at New Horizons, but being confined was starting to get to her. It was with some reluctance that her caretakers even allowed her to go out at all, but they were eventually convinced to allow her to go to the library. At least Rose Petal seemed to understand that getting away from the other kids once in a while would actually be good for her well-being. That, or she just knew that if Sunset wasn't given a long enough leash, she would eventually rip it off again.
To this end, it was fortunate that Sunset's favorite place to be was the library. It had to be a lot harder to prevent a kid from going to the library than it would be to prevent her from going anywhere else. After all, she knew that she'd only been allowed to go to the mall because she was meeting with Violet, and then only allowed to stay because of Applejack.
Applejack. Every thought worked its way back to her. Sunset didn't know what she wanted to do, but she knew that she only had another week to figure it out. Christmas was over, New Years was around the corner, and then soon after that they'd be back in school.
Every thought returned to Applejack, which was frustrating. But Sunset could handle that. It was what came after that was making her miserable, what thinking of Applejack reminded Sunset of. Because whether she liked it or not, Applejack had come dangerously close to something resembling a friend.
There were lots of people who had encouraged Sunset to make friends. They had all long since given up, but there had been plenty over the years. There was no real reason why one memory should stand out so much in particular. No reason that the basic idea of making an honest to goodness friend should remind Sunset so damn much of her.
Sunset took a deep breath and held the cold air in her lungs. She willed herself to not think about her false memories, then exhaled, imagining that she was letting them out with the breath. It was a silly trick, but sometimes it helped. Although when the thoughts came so quickly, and continued to come back to back... Well, it was impressive that Sunset was holding herself together as well as she was.
Sunset was sitting on a hill overlooking Mirror Pool Lake. It was always one of her favorite places, especially when it was empty. The day was unseasonably warm, which meant that the lake wasn't suitable for ice skating, but was still far too cold for any sane person to be outside now that the sun was setting.
Although she hated being out in the cold, Sunset had specifically gone to the lake after leaving the library. She told herself that the fresh air would help clear her head, and it was close enough to New Horizons that the walk home at night wasn't going to be a problem.
But the lake was only half of the appeal. The setting sun was really what Sunset was focusing on. It wasn't exactly that she liked watching the sunset. It was just a thing that she did. She didn't often think about it, but she suspected the ritual was just something that made her feel comforted because of the repetition.
