It was late, the bedside clock reading a short time after midnight, yet sleep eluded Twilight Sparkle. Instead she lay awake, tucked snugly against Sunset’s warm body, the redheaded girl sound asleep and snoring softy. Amber skinned arms held her firmly, refusing to let go even in sleep, her head resting close enough to Twilight’s that she could study the details of her face, even in the dimly lit room with her glasses resting on the nightstand by Sunset’s clock. She took in her features, the shape of Sunset’s nose, the line of her jaw, the way her eyelashes rested on her cheeks… It was the only time she ever saw Sunset so relaxed, asleep at her side during their weekend sleepovers. The tension and stress melted away in slumber, leaving only a normal teenage girl behind, the lids shuttered on eyes that seemed too old for their owner, haunted by the past as well as the present.

Twilight shifted slightly, kissing the corner of her girlfriend’s mouth lightly. Lips turned upwards at the touch, as if recognizing the affection and its source, before her face burrowed into a lavender neck. “….Sparky…” she sighed happily.

That brought forth a smile for the dark haired teen. These few weeks since the shy confessions on the sofa had been filled with dozens of these little moments with Sunset, their first few kisses having acted as some kind of catalyst for the other girl’s need to give and receive affection. Before, Sunset had very rarely initiated their hugs—though she had never fought Twilight’s spontaneous displays of friendly affection. That first kiss had merely been the beginning of the change, with the redheaded girl constantly seeking physical contact of some form when they were alone. It manifested in a variety of displays: more of those warm, tingly kisses stolen in the privacy of the loft or in Twilight’s room, tight hugs that pressed them together in a way that left the dark haired teen giddy and half drunk (endorphins, the analytical part of her mind supplied), snuggling or cuddling together on the couch or under the covers during their sleepovers, and of course, in the form of sweet, little emotionally intimate gestures that seemed unique and deeply meaningful to Sunset Shimmer. So rapid and intense was the shift that Twilight had begun to wonder just how long her girlfriend had been starved for simple, affectionate human contact—and earlier that evening, she had learned that the answer, in a story that had given her a much clearer picture of the girl who had somehow spent time as both a horrible bully and the caring, compassionate young woman that kissed her shyly and made butterflies dance in her stomach.

The two girls were stretched comfortably on the bed, reading. To most it would not have been the kind of activity worthy of being called a date, but for them, there was something enjoyable about the closeness and quiet broken only by the rustling of turning pages, soft giggles, or the sound of lips meeting in brief exchanges. Twilight had finished the novel she’d been working through, and was taking a few minutes to study the loft from her vantage point. Her eyes lingered on the guitars hanging from the wall, and she had to know.

“Sunny?”

Blue-green eyes looked up as she lowered the book. “Yeah?”

“Do you play? Or are they…some form of collectible?” She gestured to the instruments.

“I play. Took it up as a hobby when I first came here…helped me through some rough times.” She gave Twilight one of her lopsided smiles, her voice shy and nervous. “Would…you like to hear something?”

Twilight nodded. Even had she not actually been interested, she would have said yes anyway. Sunset was so hesitant to open up, and she was afraid that shutting down these attempts when they happened would break the trust between them.

The redhead rolled off the bed and went to retrieve the acoustic guitar, fingers brushing along Twilight’s arm when she walked by. She brought it back to the bed and spent a few minutes tuning it until she was satisfied with the sound it produced.

Sitting up fully, Twilight leaned against the headboard and took a sip from her bottle of water, watching her girlfriend with open curiosity.

Sunset looked down at the guitar for a minute, then began to play the opening to a song that Twilight recognized from her parents collection of albums. “It took me forever to learn this song,” she admitted, “but it was one of the first songs I remember hearing after I ran away. It stuck with me for a long time.” The chords were slow and melancholy, but the way her fingers danced over the strings was no less than impressive. And that was before she started to sing.

Twilight found herself lost in the song she’d heard a thousand times in a way she never had before. There was just so much emotion in Sunset’s voice, in the chords from the guitar, the pain and confusion and sense of loss coming through clearly. It cut into her, realizing that the hurt was coming from the deepest recesses of her companion’s soul.

When the song came to a close, Twilight was crawling across the bed to her girlfriend before she even registered what she was doing, arms finding their way around the other girl. “Your playing is wonderful…but you sounded so hurt, so sad…and that song…” Purple eyes focused on blue-green. “Its because of the reasons you ran away, isn't it?”

The instrument was set aside so Sunset could pull Twilight into her lap. “….yeah…” she murmured, resting her chin on the smaller girl’s shoulder. “I promised I would tell you when I was ready…and…I think I’m ready, if you…still want to hear…”

Lavender fingers laced with amber ones, bringing them up so she could press them to her cheek. “I’m always here to listen, Sunset.”

The tale that had unfolded was heartbreaking. An orphaned child with no answers and no memories of the parents who gave her life. She could barely grasp how that must feel—her family loved her, and had for as long as her memories could tell her. Even if something took them from her, she would at least have that to comfort her. What was it like to not even have that, in the the darkest, loneliest moments in life? To only be left with questions that had no answers, never knowing who or how or why? It hurt, to think about, to know that it was a reality for Sunset, a wound so old that she barely felt it anymore.

Especially because the story didn’t get any happier, not when it was one of a little girl who wanted a family but got a caretaker. Twilight had studied human psychology, at least in brief, to better understand her own psyche and problems, and she was aware of what kind of effect that had on developing minds. She could picture it, a little Sunset growing up with all of her physical and mental needs met beyond expectation, but none of her emotional ones filled. No warm hugs or goodnight kisses. No ‘I love yous’, nothing to let Sunset know she mattered just by being alive.

It was no wonder the relationship had degraded so badly, with Sunset lashing out in anger and frustration at everyone around her, especially the caretaker. Running away when her guardian had made the decision to send her away from her home to a boarding school was almost a foregone conclusion at that point for an emotionally neglected child who wasn’t able to understand why no one loved her.

She sighed, trying to imagine what kind of woman Sunset’s guardian had been to be so…so cruel and distant. If she didn’t want to be a parent, why take Sunset into her care at all? She hadn’t been a relative, as far as Sunset had indicated, so familial obligation seemed out. Why spend so much money and effort on her education? Private schools weren’t cheap, and the one Sunset had briefly described sounded like a particularly prestigious one, frequented by the children of the affluent, the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers, diplomats and politicians.

Maybe that was the answer? Perhaps the woman had been some sort of public figure or member of high society? It certainly wasn’t unheard of for someone of wealth and extremely high public social status to adopt children from ‘less fortunate’ situations. Taking in a ‘poor orphan’ would be the kind of thing to act as good PR, and sending her to a fancy school made sense. So would the strict expectations of high grades and excellence in behavior and academics. It would also add a layer of separation from her charge, if she could afford staff to deal with the foundling child in most everyday situations, only needing to step in on the most important matters.

Whatever the situation might’ve been, she found herself furious at the mystery guardian for doing this to Sunset—beautiful, caring, intelligent, affectionate Sunset, with her lopsided smile and blue-green eyes that glittered with wit and humor. For the other girl to weep the way she had, with tears streaming down her cheeks in an unceasing river, anguish etched into every line of her features as she spoke with that flat, deliberately emotionless tone as much as she could, the pain had to cut deeply in a way that had not even started to heal. No one should have to feel that way, but the fact that it had been done to someone who had, in a very short amount of time, become so important to her was inexcusable and roused a simmering anger in Twilight that she was unaccustomed to experiencing.

Twilight frowned pensively in the dim room, dropping another soft kiss against Sunset’s skin, just at the top of her ear. “No matter what,” she whispered softly, “I won't do that to you, I promise.”

The entire time the redhead had spoken of her past with her guardian, Twilight had held onto Sunset tightly, murmuring soft affection into her ear as she curled up in Sunset’s arms, providing comfort and support by simply being there. They’d spent the next few hours like that, with Twilight being held like a living comfort toy, happily trapped in the circle of deceptively strong arms and long, lean legs. Even after falling asleep, Sunset refused to let go, leading to their current arrangement.

She found herself stroking through fiery hair with her fingers, smiling softly. Some people might feel claustrophobic being held by a partner this way, but it was something Twilight had discovered she had started to crave. Somewhere, early in their friendship, Sunset Shimmer had become synonymous with safety in Twilight’s brain, and the feeling only cemented itself further the more their bond deepened. Nothing could get to her when Sunny had her, not even her own anxieties, and even simple hugs could settle her like nothing else, quieting the constant storm of mental noise. Even things that used to get under her skin from external forces could be banished now with even the thought of her best friend and girlfriend, like the bits of nastiness from the other students at Crystal Prep when they lashed out verbally because she had taken the top score in an important test, or the tight feeling in her chest of a potential panic attack.

It didn’t hurt that Sunset liked it just as much as she did, more than happy to pull Twilight into her arms anytime she asked or any time they cuddled up together, especially if it gave her the chance to rest her forehead against Twilight’s or tuck her face into the crook of Twilight’s neck. As near as the dark haired teen could surmise, these gestures—which Sunset treated as intensely emotionally intimate—had some form of significance in the place in which the other girl had been raised. They were acts performed without conscious thought when Sunset was emotionally vulnerable and they seemed to assuage a need for tangible reassurance and physical contact, especially when she was agitated or upset—and with the way the situation at Sunset’s school sounded like it had been degrading steadily, it was something Twilight foresaw a lot of in the future.

The anger returned, this time directed at the other students Sunset went to school with. Whatever the redhead had been in the past, what they had been doing to her was beyond cruel, a sadistic form of vengeance that kicked the former bully while she was trying to turn her life around. There was no other way to describe the way Sunset had appeared on her doorstep the previous weekend, disheveled and exhausted, with dark bruise-like circles under red, puffy eyes and the remnants of tears drying on her cheeks, looking ready to collapse.

Twilight took one good, long look at her best-friend-turned-girlfriend and pulled her inside, supporting her with one arm. “Mom! Sunset and I are going up to my room for a bit! Call us for dinner!” she called over her shoulder before ushering the redhead up the stairs.

Sunset held herself back until they were in Twilight’s room, the door shut and locked before she pulled the other girl into her arms tightly, pressing her face into a lavender skinned neck and inhaling deeply through her nose. “Sparky…” she breathed like a prayer, a fraction of the tension leaking out of her frame.

“I’m here.” Fingers found their way into Sunset’s hair, stroking through the fiery strands the way Cadence and her mother had for her when she was little and upset. “Sunny? What’s wrong? You seemed okay this morning in your messages.”

“Nightmares. School. People.” Her voice was muffled but she didn't let go or lift her head to talk; instead, she continued to inhale deeply through her nose while it was pressed against Twilight’s skin. She let her, feeling more and more of the tightness go out of Sunset with every breath. Twilight spent those moments with one hand continuing to fingercomb through the wild mane, the other pressed to Sunset’s back, just rubbing gentle circles.

“Haven’t slept right since Wednesday...today was awful. Needed you.”

Twilight’s heart jumped, the joy at Sunset’s last words conflicting with her worry over her distressed state. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what to do next, and she settled on a simple request that might help. “Lay down with me? It’ll be more comfortable for both of us.”

To her surprise, Sunset moved them both as they were, her arms adjusting so she didn’t have to stop hugging Twilight in order to walk to the bed. She just picked her up in the hug and shuffle-walked, turning so she could fall on her back on the mattress. The dark haired girl landed on top of her, and Sunset rolled them so she could have the warm body firmly in her embrace, curling around her like Twilight was a beloved teddy bear.

Twilight giggled when Sunset nosed her cheek in an affectionate nuzzle, and she moved a little until she could press their lips together, letting the kiss linger for more than a few heartbeats. “I’m here. Talk to me, Sunny. What happened at school?”

The tension returned to Sunset’s body, her limbs trembling around Twilight’s smaller frame. “...people hate me at school, Twilight...I was so awful to them for so long...and ever since the night of the dance...they’ve been writing on my locker, leaving notes inside it, making sure I know how they feel...they hate me so much, Sparky, and they’ve been getting worse. I could handle the shoving and the notes hurt but I deserved it...but today was worse. So much worse...”

Twilight pressed herself closer to Sunset, arms tightening. “What did they do today, Sunny? What happened?”

“Got shoved in a locker...it made me late to gym. Coach kept me late running laps...I wanted a shower after—I could smell me and I hate it...and when I was going to shower...they had... had a bucket of.." her voice rose a little, panicky sounding, "...meat...not meat...the insides, all the blood and gooey, slimy parts..." She swallowed, a whining moan escaping as her breathing came more quickly, "All the inside stuff, and it smelled...and they dumped it on me and I was trapped inside that bucket, and...I couldn't breath, and it was in my eyes, and...it got all over me..." Tears spilled over and her breath hitched painfully as her arms tightened to an almost desperate grip on Twilight. “I can still smell it, still feel it, Sparky, it's still there, even though I scrubbed and I scrubbed, and I threw away my clothes...”

The redhead gave up on trying to talk, and Twilight redoubled her efforts to provide comfort, pressing their bodies flush together and offering several soft kisses to Sunset’s forehead to let her know that she wasn’t alone as she struggled to breathe around her sobs. Once it sounded like her breath was no longer struggling, Twilight addressed her girlfriend more directly. “We can solve part of that, Sunny. You can use my bathroom, take a real shower, get cleaned up so you feel clean again.” With a little effort, she coaxed her off the bed and down the hall...

It had taken her most of the rest of that night and some help from her parents to restore some of Sunset’s normal equilibrium—her mother had given Sunset some warm, comfortable clothes to sleep in, as well as thoroughly cleaning her regular clothing to destroy any lingering scents (including Sunset’s beloved leather jacket) and her father had brought home a pint of Sunset’s favorite ice cream to help chase away inevitable nightmares that kept Twilight awake most of the night, clutched in shaking amber skinned arms as if she were Sunset’s only lifeline. The rest of the story hadn’t come out until well into afternoon the following day, about how another classmate had made threats, and how she’d broken down trying to clean the horrible graffiti off her locker. The knowledge that her Sunny had been dealing with such an extreme level of bullying and harassment for weeks brought her to tears more than once during the weekend, and the only thing that kept her rapidly rising defensive fury at bay was learning that the administration at the school was just as appalled as she was.

More concerning to her was the severity of Sunset’s self-flagellation, and Twilight had done a little research in her free time the week after on self destructive habits, depression, and other related topics, in order to make sure she was better prepared and better aware; she focused on information like warning signs and the best methods to help discourage the destructive mindset and encourage more positive feelings. She was going to do everything she could to help Sunset work through this, even if she had to do it alone…though from what Sunset had told her, there were at least a few girls at that school that were trying to help too, and the Principals had actively taken a stance to combat the bullying. That part was better than her own school, at least. Her Principal only cared about test scores, sports victories, and successes that made the school look good. She was extremely glad Sunset didn't go to her school.

The whole thing had brought another matter to the fore between them: Sunset’s compartmentalization of her life. She had known that the redhead didn’t like to talk too much about her time at school or the people there—bits and pieces, like her worries about the girls who had helped unseat her as the school’s ‘tyrant queen’—as she had so eloquently phrased it—and how several of them had started to make friends with her, some on her classes and homework, a little on her punishment (months worth of detention)…but for the most part, she remained close mouthed about it. Twilight hadn’t worried overly much—she didn’t bring up her own school much beyond the academics, but in her case it was simply because there wasn’t much to mention. She didn’t talk to most of the other students, her small circle of friends having dwindled to a single remaining girl, and she ignored pretty much everything else. She had simply assumed it was a similar situation; to learn that her girlfriend had kept such severe harassment to herself…it made her worried enough to broach the subject.

“Sunset? Is there a specific reason you’re trying to keep such a severe degree of separation between different parts of your life? I can understand not wanting to share every moment of every day, but…the locker graffiti? The locker room? Bullying and harassment so bad that you broke down in the hallway and then came to me looking ready to fall apart again—why didn’t you tell me?” Twilight kept her tone gentle and curious, making sure to keep accusation as far away as possible.

It didn’t stop Sunset from curling up on Twilight’s bed, knees drawn up to her chest as she engaged Spike in a staring contest. The dog finally huffed, and deliberately turned around on the far end of the bed, putting his back to her—he was coming around to Sunset slowly. “I…because I want to keep them away from you. Away from here,” she admitted eventually.

Pushing her glasses up on her nose, she scooted closer until Sunset unknotted herself enough to drape an arm around her shoulders. “Can you explain to me why?”

More silence, emotions and indecision flitting across her face too fast for Twilight to decipher. Abruptly, Sunset turned her head and kissed her, a far cry from all the previous ones they’d shared. This kiss was intense, searing her with fire and heat that made her body tingle pleasantly. It was lips and teeth and tongue, plundering her mouth with forceful urgency, and for a single fleeting heartbeat she caught a glimpse of a creature of passion and hunger hidden beneath amber skin and blue-green eyes.

Twilight was openly panting when Sunset released her, and one hand pressed to kiss swollen lips, cheeks flushed. The other girl rested their foreheads together her eyes filled with so many feelings, one of which was fear; it struck Twilight like a bolt of lightning, just how vulnerable Sunset really was in that moment, and she moved her fingers off her lips to rest the hand on Sunset’s neck. “It's okay…You can tell me. I’ll listen.”

“I don’t want them to take you away from me,” came the hoarse whisper. “I can’t lose you…and I’m afraid of what they would do if they knew about you. Look at what they were willing to do to just me, to punish me for the things I did to them. They hate me, Twilight, and some of them have said they wish I was dead.” Blue-green eyes stared into purple. “…I don’t want them to attack you, attack your family, just to get to me. This place, you, your family…some days…some days you’re the only good thing in my life…If I lost that, lost you…” The thought went unfinished, but Twilight could hear the despair and hopelessness that crept into it, and it frightened her.

A shiver ran through her at the memory of Sunset talking to her like that, the depth of the fear in her voice and the intensity of her gaze, the way she had reacted, the way Sunset had kissed her when her emotions were running high. It stirred up feelings Twilight wasn’t sure either of them was in the right place to deal with just yet, desires and wants that could overwhelm both of them of they weren’t careful.

It was why she had soothed and reassured Sunset’s worries, making it clear that she was willing to wait to come out on Sunset’s terms, not her own—not that she was in a particular hurry to come out to her own family just yet, and she had absolutely no intention of telling anyone at Crystal Prep anyway, since most of them would use that knowledge as ammunition against her in their ridiculous competition for perceived status and academic standing. The situation at Sunset’s own school had left Sunset too wound up and emotionally distressed to think clearly, and coupling that with teenage hormones would prove disastrous in the long run for the fledgling romance with her best friend. That was exactly the kind of thing Twilight wanted to avoid—Sunset’s inexperience with interpersonal relationships meant she likely didn’t see it, and so it fell to her to be the rational, cooler head that made sure they didn’t leap into things. Sunset was just too important to the dark haired teen to risk for a night or two of heat and passion, and were she thinking rationally, Twilight knew Sunset would feel the same.

A yawn escaped Twilight, and she moved to close the little distance between their bodies, sneaking a few feather light kisses along her girlfriend’s neck and jawline as she skirted the edge of unconsciousness.

Sunset shifted in her sleep again, her grip tightening as a noise escaped her. Twilight didn’t have any word really to describe the noise, and it had freaked her out the first time. It was not really a sigh, not a grunt or a groan or a snort, but just a throaty sound. In fact, it kinda reminded her of the time she’d fed a pony at a petting zoo when she was twelve. Ultimately, she’d filed it away as one of her girlfriend’s odd little gestures, just one more piece in the package that was Sunset Shimmer.

And that was a package she was extremely determined to hold onto.

Just for the record, Sunset did not tell Twilight she's a magic talking pony. She told her as close to the truth as she could, just leaving out the "extra dimensional visitor" bit. It also fits more in line with the "official" story that is in her "legal" identity in the human world. Its complicated, but I've got it all mapped out here somewhere in my notes.