Book three of "Who We Become."
Sunset's life is far from glamorous, but when she learns that Fluttershy has it even worse, Sunset can't help but take it upon herself to solve her friend's problems and give her a safe place to live.
For Fluttershy, t...
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Sunset wondered if she was making another mistake. If she thought about it too much, she knew she probably was. For once, she found she was able to get around this detail in the simplest way possible – she didn't think about it.
Sunset opened the wine bottle and began pouring. She thought of very little as she watched the red wine leave the bottle.
All night long, Sunset had been thinking. It was what she was good at, or so she told herself. During her time thinking, she had reached several realizations, and no conclusions. She gathered information and learned a great deal of things that she would need to know, but she found that she was no closer to knowing how to proceed.
It had been very late at night by the time Sunset's body gave out from exhaustion, more mental than physical. Or it had been very early in the morning, depending on how one were to look at it. What was certain was that her sleep was not comforting, and the rising of the sun woke her only an hour later.
Despite the stress from the night before mixing into the haze of only having an hour of restless sleep, or perhaps because of it, Sunset found she was no longer in a state of mind to be hung up on thoughts.
And so, Sunset didn't think. She rose from the couch, went into the kitchen, and pulled a bottle of wine from the fridge.
"Sunset?"
Fluttershy's voice was barely audible. Sunset turned to see her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her meek posture suggesting she might flee at any second.
"Good morning, Fluttershy," Sunset said gently, as if afraid she'd scare her away. Perhaps she was, just a little.
"What are you doing?"
Sunset watched as the last of the wine poured into the sink, then set the bottle down beside it. There were several other bottles next to the sink by that point, all of which were recently emptied. She rinsed the sink to get the last of the wine down the drain, then turned around in order to face Fluttershy properly. "You can't drink, Shy. Not for another eight months."
Fluttershy looked between Sunset and the bottles in confusion, never moving from where she stood. "I don't understand."
Sunset wanted to move closer, but wasn't sure if that was a good idea. She wound up shifting in place restlessly. "Well, I figure... If you can't drink, then I'm not going to either, you know?"
"But... why?"
It was easy to see what Fluttershy was obviously getting at, and dancing around it wasn't going to avoid the topic. It really wasn't a topic that could be avoided, anyway.
"Because... I'm sorry." Sunset took a deep breath. "Last night, I was... scared. And I'm still scared. This is a terrifying decision. But it's your decision, and mine is whether I want to support you in it, and that's a much easier one."
