It was supposed to be her destiny.
The mirror said so! It showed her as much! Her, with wings and a crown. A ruler. A queen. With Celestia nowhere to be found, so clearly, she had surpassed her mentor! It was a vision! It was destiny! It was her heart’s desire!
But Celestia... as always, the princess went out of her way to stifle her! Too worried about her potential ascension. Too busy fretting over perfect little Cadenza who had already “earned” her horn. Too busy trying to distract her, Sunset Shimmer, with such distractions like friendship!
She’d confronted the princess over it earlier. It… hadn’t gone well.
Princess Celestia… had tossed her aside. So easily. So callously. Dismissed her! HER! A lifetime of servitude, of being her perfect student, and it all amounted to nothing! But what else had Sunset expected… she had known deep down that Celestia hadn’t really cared. That Sunset was only worth her time and tutelage so long as she was useful.
And now that Sunset wished to surpass her former mentor… she was no longer useful. No longer obedient. Not like Cadenza was. And so… she’d been tossed aside…
Fine. FINE! THIS WAS NOTHING NEW! SHE WAS USED TO IT!
Sunset Shimmer was a strong pony. The strongest, most magically talented unicorn in generations! She could handle this… she wouldn’t crack- she wouldn’t break… she would rise above! Like the sun did every day!
And she knew exactly how she was going to do it.
If Starswirl’s mirror had gotten her into this mess… then it would get her out of it…
Her bags were packed. The guards were ready to take her away from the palace without a single bit to her name. The fools. She had been running laps around the palace guard since she had been a filly. A quick dash, a minor illusion spell, and a short teleportation array later… and there she was.
Staring at herself once more in the mirror.
And there before her still stood the image that haunted her.
That imperious expression. The larger than life crown. The wings that rivalled Celestia’s own. Yes! This was her destiny! This is what was promised to her!
So without any thought to her own safety and well being, Sunset Shimmer charged through the glass. It was nebulous, fluid, as she knew it would be. Her calculations were all correct. The faded tomes had been right!
Starswirl’s Mirror wasn’t just a way to view the future… it was a portal!
To where, Sunset did not know. That didn’t matter. Anywhere was better than here, in the palace, under Celestia’s thumb. Let her land in Griffonia for all she cared! No matter what, she would seize her destiny with her bare hooves if need be!
It was what Princess Celestia had promised her… the liar…
Sunset Shimmer awoke with a start.
The portal. That had been… unlike anything she had ever experienced. It had felt… it had felt like being turned inside out, like being stretched to infinity…
A shiver went up Sunset’s spine as she recalled the sensation. Ugh, she never wanted to go through that again. Clearly, she had blacked out during the process. Inconvenient… She had thought that she was made of sterner stuff, but the mirror was made from ancient, eldritch magic…
Her first order of business was making sure that she still had her supplies on her… Which was when she noticed the first differences.
Where… where were her hooves?
Every time she moved her arm, all that responded were these weird… dragon-esque appendages. Claws? Did she have claws now? What… what the buck did the portal do to her?
In a panic, Sunset attempted to get to her hooves and immediately feel flat on her face. Wait- Where was her muzzle? Where were her rear hooves?!
Sunset reared around… and peered into the mirror.
For it could be nothing else but THE mirror. Just perhaps the other end of it. Embedded into the base of a statue. Strange, but not as strange as her reflection. What… what was she?
There was nothing about her appearance that Sunset recognized, save for a few aesthetic similarities. Her mane remained, if not in a slightly different style and length, as did her tail. The aqua eyes that peered into the reflective glass were the same, but everything else…
What… what was she? Some kind of… overgrown monkey? And her horn… Sunset’s hoov- claws reached up to grasp what should be at the top of her forehead but had vanished. HER HORN WAS GONE!
“Buck, buck, buck, buck…” Sunset muttered in a panic. That the mirror had been kind enough to replace her fur with clothes didn’t even register in her mind. All that mattered was her lack of a horn. Her lack of…
She could… she could still feel it. Her magic. Deep down. Further away. But… still there. Still accessible… maybe. Maybe…
It was something that would have to wait, Sunset realized, as she glanced around her surroundings. Wherever this was… it had long since abandoned. The mirror was polished to perfection, with nary a scratch on it, but Sunset chalked that up to its arcane status. Because everything surrounding it, including the statue itself was… ruined. Cracked and overrun with vegetation.
This was the sort of place that had once been inhabited by ponies(?) but had long since been abandoned. No one had been here for… decades, perhaps? Hard to say.
It was hard to dwell on such things though, because out of the corner of her eye, Sunset spotted them.
The eyes. The glowing, malicious red eyes.
And the growls that came with them.
She… she didn’t think that she was in Equestria anymore.
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