A/N: This idea just sorta shot into my head one day after watching how lovably awkward our version of Twilight is and this story will occur after friendship games and at the beginning of legend of everfree.
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilightor mlp. When I typed this, funny enough autocorrect changed disclaimer to disclaimed. You have all been here by disclaimed!
"So I am not a broken heart.
I am not the weight I lost or miles or ran and I am not the way I slept on my doorstep under the bare sky in smell of tears and whiskey because my apartment was empty and if I were to be this empty I wanted something solid to sleep on. Like concrete.
I am not this year and I am not your fault.
I am muscles building cells, a little every day, because they broke that day,
but bones are stronger once they heal and I am smiling to the bus driver and replacing my groceries once a week and I am not sitting for hours in the shower anymore.
I am the way a life unfolds and bloom and seasons come and go and I am the way the spring always finds a way to turn even the coldest winter into a field of green and flowers and new life.
I am not your fault."
― Charlotte Eriksson
Twilight Sparkle hated the outdoors. It wasn't the most poetic of statements and a tad on the dramatic side but she was having a hard time to come up with anything brilliant to say at the moment. Chewing on the inside of her lip, she peered out her window at the quickly moving green and brown colors. They were awfully droll, she thought having observed the more or less same view on this winding road. The woods.
Camp . . .
It was truly a terrifying prospect. Already cramped inside the schools ghastly purple bus, a far too peppy tone sung by the other students, Twilight couldn't help but lean her head into the glass with a hard 'thump'.
Oh how she wished to be back in the safety of her room. To just curl up in her bed with a good book and let the world blur away. Nothing could reach her there. Lost within the realms of whatever fancy took Twilight's interests that particular night she could just forget for a little while. Science didn't judge her. Math didn't despise her. History didn't call her an outcast. A monster...
Sighing, her fingers clicked lightly against the glass. Perhaps I should be grateful, she mussed lightly. She blinked through her reflection as it distorted, being white washed upon the woods before turning away. This was a chance to begin a new. She had friends now, however new the tentative bonds were. She actually felt like she belonged here. Maybe things could change?
Her brow furrowed slightly at that. It was hard to imagine it being so easy, regardless of what her new friends told her. To just start over... Was it really so simple? Could she truly forget all the terrible things she had done?
She wasn't that Twilight after all. She wasn't some magical princess. People didn't just naturally flock to her and creating friends wasn't second nature to her. In fact it was anything but to the book worm. Since her transfer of schools, the only thing Twilight had left behind was her academic records. No friends. It was just Spike, Twilight, and a single suitcase that made the journey to Canterlot High.
This was so far out of Twilight's comfort range. She was used to the intellectual type. The reading quietly in the library type of student. Canterlot was nothing like her old private school. For such a tiny school, they sure were loud, she thought with a slight grimace. Even now, after that awful song had died off, the kids were shouting, throwing things. They jostled, spilling out all across the cramped little bus.
Spotting what appeared to be a massive bag of marshmallows thrown at someone's head, Twilight sunk even further in her seat in an attempt to be invisible. It was hopeless.
"Hey there," Twilight blinked. A gentle touch on her shoulder had her looking back.
A smile as bright as the sun greeted her. There was so much warmth in the genuine gesture that Twilight couldn't help but return it immediately. For a moment, her thoughts were distracted from her somber thoughts.
"You looked a little spaced, Twi. Everything okay?"
Twilight nodded mutely, before a inexplicable smile burst across her face at the nickname. Her brain was such a strange thing. Always one used to over analyzing and thinking far too much, never quite able to make up its mind. But under that gaze she stopped thinking, staring into those stormy depths of cyan.
Sunset shimmer. Her friend, her first true friend.
The girl the embodiment of the sun itself. She had the most vivid shade of red hair. A thought brought to mind as it was sweeping over the back of her seat, the girl smiling down at her. She had been immensely intrigued by it when they first met. Streaks of orange and gold only highlighted the warm, amazing personality underneath. Again if she were more poetically gifted she would have came up with an eloquent statement and how it gave her own strange little sliver of pink highlighting cause. That it inspired her to be more like her or something else terribly cliche. She didn't dare speak it aloud though. It was far too embarrassing to mention how Twilight had gotten it to imitate her first friend. Far too embarrassing.
"Yeah, sorry." She said fidgeting slightly with her hair. She still wasn't quite used to having it down yet. "I was just thinking."
A curious little expression crossed Sunset's features as she eyed her, "It can be a bit overwhelming I know." She replied softly. Her eyes switched back behind them watching the rest of their friends for a moment before looking at her once again. She watched her before coming to some kind of decision, settling onto the seat opposite her. "Just give it time okay? I promise they don't care about that."
She knew?! What? How? Her mind, while brilliant often times had the embarrassing habit of allowing her mouth to flail about without ever catching up. A well of emotion rose in a panicked undignified 'eep'.
"I...what? But, I... That's...not. How did you know?"
Sunset chuckled at her display but thankfully there was no mocking in her laughter. Just a playful demeanor of two friends. Was this what it was like? Was this what she had been missing out on all this time?
Slipping easily inside Twilight's little sanctuary, Sunset made it look easy as her shoulders bumped casually with her own. The girl unused to the simple display of contact was aware of how her skin tingled. Twilight errily focused on the light brush of skin. So very easily focusing all her attention on it.
"Come on now, if anyone knows what you're going through it's me." The voice brought her back. Eyes darting up as if caught for some reason. Her nerves on edge, oddly enough before chuckling nervously. "I'm the one who tried to take over the world, remember?"
Twilight blushed at the reminder. "Oh," She murmured, fiddling with her hair again. "I almost forgot about that."
She'd heard a brief summary of how Sunset used magic in an similar fashion to herself but it was still hard to believe. She hadn't expected to learn this fiercely loyal girl had done something so...so evil.
"I-" Twilight faltered slightly on nerves. "I know that...you aren't...you aren't like that Sun."
"And neither are you." Sunset said simply.
It occurred to Twilight that the two of them were very close all of a sudden. Sunset wore an expression of amusement laced with a hard edge as she slipped closer across the seat. She didn't have to set that close. While the leathery seat was anything but extravagant, it was plenty big enough for the both without them every having to touch.
It was so very strange. The contact so innocent and inconsequential that the mere brush her friends shoulder should elicit this strange response within her. It was a bit out of her comprehension. The sudden pounding within her ribcage. The hot flush spreading her cheeks. Even the way her eyes couldn't stop staring south . . .
Placing a hand over her nervously gittering limb, Sunset silenced it as she oh so gently pushed it behind her ears, dragging her dark locks along with.
"There." She whispered, smiling that gut churning grin again. "You don't need to worry, alright? I promise things will get better Twilight." The unspoken notion that she was going to be the one who made it okay all too clear.
This was the first time anyone had really touched her in such a way. A strange thought. This girl, who was but a stranger a few short weeks ago felt so close to share what many might consider an intimate exchange. And she did it so casually. Was this what friendship was?
Sunset moved with such gentleness that it really confirmed the resolve in their conversation earlier. She truly meant it. They all did. For a very long time she had known nothing but betrayal. The others that Twilight called 'friends' were nothing like what these people here in this strange little school were like. The conniving and schemes to get ahead. You could trust no one, only yourself to get ahead.
Again, Twilight wasn't like other teenagers her age. She didn't have Sunset's beautiful warmth. Nor did she have Rainbowdash's courage. Rarity's grace and natural beauty were a lost cause because of her painfully award demeanor. The list just went on. Appledash's easy going nature, Fluttershy's kindness, even her own doppelgängers strange ability to garner friendship; it was all beyond her. She didn't have any traits that stood out. Nothing to say this was why people should like her. She was a know it all. Twilight was self aware enough to know this little fact about herself, even if it hadn't been painfully pointed out before. A social pirria. She even had trouble forming simple responses to her own family.
Twilight was an outcast. But...so was Sunset.
She's experienced the same pain as I have, she thought faintly.
How many times had I wished for this? She thought as her hand over laced Sun's own. For someone to take notice. To not just simply tolerate her flaws but actually enjoy them? To want her company. To seek it out? It had felt like a dream the way Sunset just seemed to gravitate toward her. Even after hurting her, nearly killing them all, Sunset and she had become something special these last few weeks.
She twisted her fingers together with those tanned digits belonging to this amazing girl. The corners of of her vision beginning to blur wetly but she blinked them away.
"Can I ask you something?" Twilight spoke suddenly. Her chest was aching and constricting so hard that the question almost didn't make it past her lips. If they weren't but a breath away she was sure Sunset wouldn't have heard. She was evading the other girls eyes, looking just below across her lips but she could tell Sunset blinked at the outburst.
"Of course," she said moving even closer. Twilight watched the smile with interest. She was so sweet, not sure what to expect but ready to do anything for her.
She didn't know how to handle such clear and unsolicited devotion.
"Are..." She paused for a moment before sighing. "Are we friends Sunset?"
The other girl sat there for a stunned moment. Her hand still holding its place at the side of Twilight's ear. She could feel the reflexive way her fingers flexed slightly, just pulling across her cheek.
"The best of friends, Twilight."
A/n: Review you fools! Review or you've doomed us all! REVIEW!?