Destiny's Hues

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White

Destiny’s Hues

White

I am sixteen years old. I have sky blue eyes and an orange coat. I am a unicorn whose talent is the same magic wielded by Princess Celestia herself. As such, I hold the title of Faithful Student. I am training to be the greatest defender of the Crown, of Canterlot, and of Equestria itself. Most ponies who meet or see me think of me in these terms, I’m sure, but I don’t. Not usually anyway. I’m just Sunset to myself. Sunset Shimmer if I’m writing a letter and feeling more official than normal. All of my titles, dreams, and physical traits I do my best to keep out of my head when I’m studying. It’s an art form, studying, and I’ve learned by experience that the only thing that helps me concentrate is ambition. Not directed or anything, but just having it resonating in my head makes all the difference.

I turn the page of the history book from my favorite cushion in the Royal Archives, and I smile at how perfect the sound of old, used, and bound pages is. It’s an interesting book between my hooves and on my summer reading list. So far as I can tell, it’s a kind of tome of origin stories for all of the foal tales told in nurseries. Princess Celestia expects a lot from me, so as I’m skimming down the table of contents and recognizing somewhat familiar titles, I’m already piecing together what I should be looking for. A comparison between the morals of the original stories and the evolved versions pops into my head first. Eh, too easy. The folly of changing the stories for younger ears is a possibility, but only if there are severe deviations. Hrm. Those two are a start, but I’ll only get a clear idea of the things I’m supposed to see once I actually start reading.

I turn into the first story, and I’m flying through the words. The tone and language are older, obviously, but I’m essentially rereading stories I’ve been told hundreds of times. The report may be a pain in the flank to scratch out, but at least I’ll be finished with the book in record time. I’ve already blasted through half the pages in the thing when the inevitable happens. There’s a disturbance closer to the front of the Archives. My personal rule of hoof is that whenever an assignment is easy, there will always be something to distract me and cause the assignment to take far too long to complete. I growl out a sigh, glance at my page number, memorize it, and snap the book shut with a huff. I think it’s warranted. This commotion had better not be somepony overreacting to something anypony could deal with.

I stalk through the rows of ancient books, and I’m quite aware of the irritation coloring my features. If it is something ridiculous, I certainly won’t let them off the hook about it. Once I arrive at the edge of the front balcony, I peer over into the crowd of other students from school trying to register themselves for access to the deeper sections. Prudence is a virtue, I always say, and nopony in school seems to get it. But anyway, I can’t see anypony making a scene or ruckus except for the filly at the archivist’s booth. She’s yelling and waving her hooves in frustration, but that’s not uncommon. Everypony at the school, even me, has had trouble with somepony from the Archives division of the Canterlot Royal Library. They’re stubborn beyond belief, and it took me almost an hour to get in early even with my note from Princess…

My eyes are wandering through the waiting and common area, searching for any signs of an insincere foal in what’s supposed to be a peaceful, quiet place, when my brain stops meandering off about the archivists and whips my head back to the filly at the booth. If I hadn’t been so cross with being interrupted, I probably would have recognized her immediately, even from this height and distance. I squint-check just to be sure, and when I’m positive it’s her, I trudge my way down onto the main floor. I catch their on-going argument as I get closer. “I’m sorry, again, but we cannot accept the royal seal on a scroll as a pass for entry.”

“If I could show you the princess’s personal seal on the inside, then I would!” the filly shouts. “I’m not even here for the books! I’m here to deliver the scroll! That’s a runner’s job you know.”

“Cut it out, Flitz,” I say in my sharpest voice once I’m close enough. “Hoof it over now. Please?” I try to stay cold and disapproving like our professors, but nopony can stay mad at Flitz for very long. She’s too go-lucky, even when she’s angry.

“Here you are,” she says to me, twirling the scroll to me in dramatic fashion and emphasizing her syllables with acting flair. “From Princess Celestia herself. Urgent.”

“Thanks, Flitz,” I sigh at her and grasp the scroll in my magic. I’ll find a way to get her for holding up my assignment. Transmuting her courier’s badge to sugar could be funny. They’re a bit a dozen apparently. “Now shoo. I’m pretty sure you’re going to be late delivering everything else anyway, but still, hurry up.”

“Yee!” she screams, as if just now realizing how much time she’d wasted trying in vain to get access to the Archives. “Oh gosh! Catch you later!” She slips her way out of the line, spreads her wings, and is off like a shot despite the heavy bag slung around her shoulder.

“Sorry for that, everypony,” I tell all my ‘classmates.’ We all go to the same school, but I’m with the princess more often than I am with them, so it’s a little hard for me to off and think of myself as one of them.

“You should get a dragon with all the messages the princess always sends you,” one of the colts tells me with a huff in the direction Flitz had left. “Would be less of a pain than her.” A murmur of agreement goes up from the crowd, and I have to just smirk.

“I wouldn’t trade Flitz for the world,” I say. “Sure she’s a little loud and distracting sometimes, but hey, at least I didn’t have to steal her from a fortified Knight stronghold, magically hatch her, take care of her as an infant with all the fun that entails, and have her on my back day and night. But sure, if you want a dragon instead, be my guest.” And with that, I whip around and start my walk back up the balcony. The silence behind me makes my smirk get even bigger against my better judgement. Ah, it’s fine. They’ll learn to respect me and my decisions eventually. But in the meantime, why not have a little fun? A dragon courier… Hahaha! What a laugh.

I shove my amusement into a separate corner of my brain to be enjoyed later on. For the moment, I have an urgent letter from my teacher to digest. Once I’m among bookshelves where I’m sure nopony will find me, I rip off the seal, and burn it right on the spot. I don’t like leaving traces of these things if they even have a potential to be important. The scroll is fresh, and I can still smell the ink when I twist the paper open with my magic. It crinkles too, but just not in the same way. But it doesn’t need a special sound to set my heart beating faster and faster with a spike of nervous energy. Stamped across the horn inked, flowing cursive of Princess Celestia is the capital word ‘CONFIDENTIAL.’ I have never received a letter, urgent or otherwise, labeled like it’s for the princess’s top advisors and captains.

My first instinct is turn my head immediately. It wouldn’t be the first time Flitz has given me somepony else’s letter, but something this serious would be hard to mistake. I’m staring off into a bookshelf, keeping the scroll hovering well out away from me. I almost ignite it right on the spot. It’ll cover Flitz’s flank and mine if nothing secret gets out because nopony read what was inside. But at the same time, Flitz hasn’t ever failed when Princess Celestia has sent me an urgent message. I peak open one eye and levitate the scroll even farther from me. When I’m sure it’s too far off to read, I stare at it with both eyes open. A little touch of my magic and the part of the scroll holding all the important text rolls back. I’m left with only Princess Celestia’s seal, signature, and the name of the pony she’s addressing. I nervously bring it closer, and my heart reallystarts to pound out of my chest when I was wrong. My name isn’t a generic one that’s easy to mistakenly pen. Yet, there it is, in plain, black authoritative ink.

I end up staring at it for a lot longer than I mean to, just trying to be sure my eyes and brain aren’t playing tricks on me, but I frantically whip my eyes to the top of the letter when the ‘urgent’ aspect of the message knocks me in the back of the metaphorical head. This could be the chance of a lifetime to prove myself to the princess, especially if there is a threat roaming into Equestria. I do a small, excited jig in place as my eyes take in the words.

My Faithful Student, Sunset Shimmer,

A most odd event has just been brought to my attention via a correspondence from a unknown source of origin. This correspondence arrived in the form of an invitation and a proposal I have not personally had to consider for over three thousand years. It is paramount this proposal be addressed immediately, as it offers itself up as being able to change the course of history.

Neither myself nor my advisors suggest a Guard response or my own presence at the site of these events. Thus, I have before you, your first true assignment as my Faithful Student. I shall entrust you to be my envoy and voice in this matter and to use sound judgement when dealing with the situation. I will give you you more details in person. Meet me in the Royal Hall as soon as you can.

My magic sort of dies on my horn when I finish reading. The scroll falls to the ground without making even a flutter of a noise, and it’s a good thing it doesn’t. My mind might well have imploded at any distraction. Just trying to process it all is making me slack-jawed and nigh on oblivious to anything else around me. But, once I’ve gone over the last lines a good seven more times, being almost paralyzed is slowly replaced by a feeling of liquid giddiness. My legs are as wobbly as jelly with all the firey energy flying through them, and the only way I can even stand is by running.

I take off out of the Archive building into the brilliant light of a Canterlot afternoon, and once out of earshot, a whooping scream flies out of my mouth. Giggles and small laughs follow, and I don’t even bother turning corners. I just jump and land in the right direction before peeling off again. This is that chance I was hoping it would be! No more mundane studying! Everything I’ve learned I can finally use in a mission for the princess! Oh! This must be what it’s like to graduate the Guard Academy. Or maybe what it’s like to fly for the first time if you have wings! I know I would be flying right now, the way feel, if I had the darn things. It’s unreal! Quests, danger! Sure I fantasized about it, but I always knew it was the stuff of Breezy tales. I knew it never - oh who cares what life normally is! I don’t even know what great journey I’ll be sent on, but all that matters is that there even is a journey.

The guards let me pass inside the castle proper without even a second glance, and I’m weaving my way through the corridors and staircases of home faster than even some of the veteran servants. I have to dodge those too, but they’re used to me darting around frantically by now. A couple of the mares still yelp a bit if my mane or tail happens to flick them, but for the most part, a nice clean path is cleared for me. Unfortunately, I have to slow to a complete stop at the gates to the Royal Hall. Know me or not, the Guards who protect these two gargantuan doors abide nopony to pass without security questions unique to anypony in the castle. I reckon it’s a good thing though. I’m able to catch my rapidly falling and rising breath and compose myself before seeing Princess Celestia. Having to breathe so hard holds my bouncing eagerness at bay, thank goodness.

I step up to the guards and nod to the one on my right, doing my best not to huff my sweaty breath all over him. “Sunset Shimmer, Student to the Princess,” he says to me with an iron stare, “recite the equation for determining the growth rate of fire from an incendiary spell.” I rattle off the sequence, one of the harder things I had to learn when I was first chosen by the princess, but that’s as easy as cake for me now.

“Correct,” the second guard states, and I pan my head to eye him. He too gives me a steely look as he asks, “What is your favorite kind of preserves?”

“Pear,” I reply, feeling my mouth water just a touch at the thought of warm buscuits with the stuff spread in nice, copious amounts all over each side.

“Also correct,” he tells me. “You may enter.” They move in synchronized harmony to the split in the doors and as one, push each open. I know the white columned hall better than I feel I have a right to sometimes, but that familiarity’s a blessing so often. Like now, I’m no longer awed by the spectacle of it all, and I can ignore it to head straight for my mentor, Princess Celestia. She’s standing beside her throne, not sitting in it, like I’ve always found her. Her face is turned away from me, facing out the stain-glass windows. This is the first time I’ve come in on her like this, though I’ve half-suspected she does it a lot for some reason. I want to believe she’s sad over something, but she is always so determined and strong, even like she is now, that I’m never sure enough to try to do something for her. But some of my nervous, bounding excitement drains away nevertheless when I come up to stand behind her.

“Princess,” I say, softly as I can in the echoey space of the Hall, and I take a knee.

“Come stand by the window with me Faithful Student,” she tells me, never looking around at me. I stand and gaze out at Canterlot and beyond. The color is warped by the glass itself, but I can still appreciate the vastness of it all. I can’t imagine how it must feel to be the princess, knowing so many ponies out in Equestria look up to and depend upon her. “Sunset, from here I can see a small slice of the peace I have built in Equestria. It’s a peace kept not by soldiers or fear or grand weapons, but of Harmony and Friendship and Love. And we have prospered under these ideas. You understand the importance of Harmony, don’t you, Sunset?”

I know it’s a rhetorical question, but I answer anyway. I’ve learned that with the princess, sometimes she just likes to know that you’re really listening and that replying alone will brighten her mood. “Harmony keeps us working together over the small and the big things. We know we can rely on each other when there’s Harmony between ponies.” It was a bit of textbook answer, I’ll admit, but I actually have to hoof it to the ponies who write about Harmony. They know how to describe it pretty well.

“Yes, so it does,” the princess continues, and I’m glad there’s a little bit of an uplift in her tone. “But, some ponies believe that Harmony is merely an internal force within Equestria. Ponies like these make fair judgements, and it is to them whom I entrust the Guard and the keeping safe of our borders and castles. But it has long been my firm belief that the Royal Guard are to be a sure defense. Never an offense.”

“Has somepony been killed by a Guard?” I ask. The despicability of the crime makes my mouth fill with a nasty taste, and it takes some serious concentration not to spit. I enjoy having a greater connection to magic than most unicorns, but I’d die before I used that power to harm somepony else.

“Oh no!” the princess gasps out. “Oh goodness no, Sunset,” she says, and when I turn to look at her, she’s gazing back with the same soft violet eyes I’m used to. They’re nice comforting eyes. Eyes that tell somepony that no matter what, everything will be okay in the end. I’ve always admired her for that look she has, and I wonder if I’ll have that same look someday. “No, it’s not something that is, by itself, bad. The letter I received came from a place calling itself Halter Labs. I have never heard of such a venture before, and my advisors had not either, even after tapping their business contacts. By their own admission, these Halter Labs have created something they say shall replace the institution of the Royal Guard defending Equestria.”

“Ha! Fat chance,” I scoff. To think anything built, whether it’s a devious trap or better spell security, could replace a pony with a spear and armor.

“Don’t be so quick to judge their claims, Sunset,” she says with a wry smile. “I am not sending you to them of my own volition. They themselves requested a representative or myself to come see their work in person to verify their statements.”

“But… Okay, look,” I say, and I can hear my voice becoming short and stubborn. “I don’t see any feasible way they could come up with something so good it could replace our ponies in armor. And even they have managed it, it’ll be too expensive to use in large numbers.”

“Which is why I want to send you, Faithful Student,” she continues on and now I feel skeptical, excited, and confused all at once. This is just the kind of mental state I needed to be in before a quest. “Unlike my other advisors, or even myself for that matter, I know you will remain observant and critically minded no matter how extraordinary this invention is. Take this.” Princess Celestia levitates a small package from somewhere behind me until I take it in my own hue of magic. “In there is a supply of food for the day long chariot flight to the location the letter provided and plenty of ink and parchment.”

“I’m to keep you informed of everything that happens then?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Everything,” she repeats, firm and definitive. “Now go and be safe,” she says, and when I bow for my exit, her hoof brings my chin up, and she plants a small kiss on my forehead just below my horn. “You have my blessing, Sunset Shimmer.” The part of me that was full of whizzing fire and passion now has a direction. A place to focus it all. And I hope that my contained but purposeful stride out of the Hall gives Princess Celestia confidence in my ability to perform as she asks.

The flame of determination setting my face straight and my hooves to iron placement lasts all the way through the castle and into my own rooms. I scan through what few belongings I have (mostly books) and decide it’d be best if I traveled light. Princess Celestia has already given me food and parchment in the package, so there’s not much else I would need. All the same, I drape my saddlebags over my back. The package I stuff into one side, and it just barely manages to fit. The other I fill with my diary and a book on defensive magic for some light reading over the course of the flight. I grab a map of Equestria that includes a little bit of the border lands just for safety’s sake. If this flight is going to take a full day, I just might be closer to the outlying regions than I ever have been, and it would be frankly embarrassing to fail only because I got lost. I run through a mental checklist twice more to be sure I haven’t forgotten anything that might be important, and when everything seems to be in order, I make my way out of the castle.

My composure actually lasts through my entire trek of Canterlot. I suppose it’s just the idea of all the other ponies watching me, but I want to appear professional. Like the Guard ponies. They serve the princess day and night, and in their job, they allow no room for silly outbursts of anticipation or excitement. It’s all business all the time when they’re in armor. And really, when I think about it, I should subscribe to the same attitude now that I’ve been given a task by the princess. It’s just, it’s my first big assignment where I’m the one pony responsible and off on my own. The fact that the princess has put all her trust in me sends shivers up my spine. Good shivers, mind. So when I finally reach the Guard’s chariot yard, I at least prance in place and let out a small squeal.

Only one chariot is ready on the take-off strip, and the two Guards latched to it aren’t wearing any armor, most likely so they’ll go faster. To top it all off, the golden chariot has been completely covered in wet ash, and torn, holey strips of white cloth are strung to it. If I didn’t know better, I’d have though it almost looked like a part of… oh. Oh yes. A satisfied grin splits my face, and I leap my last few steps into the cart where my place has been spared ash and merely been draped with cloth. This is a magnificent disguise, and I wonder if the Guard came up with it or if it was by Princess Celestia’s orders. Either way, it leaves me even more tensed with anxiety.

“Let’s get going already then,” I tell the pegasi. “You’ve been given directions?”

“Yes, Miss Shimmer, we have,” the lead pegasus leans back to say. “Now hold on, we’re flying light and fast. Things are not going to comfortable.” Before I can even process the reality of what they mean, the chariot is rattling off down strip of smooth dirt with dangerous noises I didn’t even know they could make. I grip onto the front of my seat, trying not to bounce with every bump the wheels catch. I find I can’t look straightforward for more than a few seconds, and I eventually have to duck my head down while my eyes water at the fierce cold sharpness of the wind. And sooner than I expect it, I feel my stomach drop out of my chest as the chariot ascends into the sky at a sharper angle than I think is safe. My heart beats faster and harder, not from excitement, but from genuine fright. It’s all I can do to keep myself from sliding out of the back end of the car, and I have to hold onto my saddlebags with magic to be sure they aren’t torn off my back. The relentless whipping and smacking of the cloth strips doesn’t help either.

When we final level out, I’m finding it harder to breathe than normal; and when I peek over the top of the car, it doesn’t take me long to figure out why. We’re soaring at altitudes usually only even attempted by pegasi, and the ones pulling on my cart have their legs tucked and wings angled like veteran racers. The chill in the air, I realize, isn’t from the wind so much as it is the height. I cast a quick heating spell on the metal around me and attempt to erect a barrier between my face and the rushing air. The shield works for a little while, but the effort isn’t worth it in the end, and I take it down and hunch as best I can inside the car.

When I break open the princess’s package for supper as the sun starts to set, I let out a small chuckle to myself. Not at the food. That’s the typical shaved oats any smart pony takes on long trips, and I don’t expect anything more grand. Besides, I actually like the taste of plain shaved oats. No, wrapped up in the parchment is the letter from Halter Labs. I smile with a bit of regret, but in good humor anyway. This is something I would have looked at much, much sooner in the trip had I known the princess had sent it along. But I can’t cry over sparking horns, so I unfurl the thing to see if I can glean anything more than the princess.

Of course, the first thing I notice is that it’s not a scroll. It’s a typical folded, rectangular letter. Right then, a friendlier means of communicating. Good choice, if I do say so myself. Princess Celestia didn’t leave anything out though. The wording is a little awkward, I’ll admit, but maybe they were trying to reinforce the olive branch tone by keeping the letter from being too formal. I ponder the letter, reading it over several times, before deciding there’s not any hidden subtext to find. It’s a straightly played invitation all considered.

I’m about to fold it back up and get out my own spell book to pass the time when a nagging at the back of my mind bothers me. I’ve learned to trust my subconscious, since it always seems to have a better idea of what’s going on than my awake and alert brain, and I gently peel the letter open again in the glow of my magic. The soft blue light from the telekinesis is the only light I can read it by now, the sun’s rays finally being replaced by the half-glow of the Mare-in-the-Moon. But I don’t need to read the words to see what I’m looking for. It’s the letters themselves. Pony writing, hoof, mouth, or horn, always has a little bit of flare usually just from the way we have to use the writing tool. These letters aren’t like that at all. They are perfect, exact versions of the Dragon Knight letters everypony is taught to emulate.

Which leaves me to wonder if a Knight is helping these ponies or extorting them and all of this is a big ruse. A trap. Nopony can ever know where a Knight’s loyalty lies, even if they act like they’re on your side. This is probably what the princess was really worried about. This is my true quest. It’s more dangerous than anything I’d ever thought I’d face, but I know I’m ready. The princess thought so, and if there’s anypony who can measure a unicorn’s magical talent, it’s her. Not that the idea of meeting a Dragon Knight doesn’t fill up my head with anticipation, dread, and curiosity as I drift to sleep against the walls of my magic-warmed chariot car.

Green

Destiny’s Hues

Green

I’m standing on a cloud, looking over a massive map of Equestria. Or it could be a diorama. The map is the same one that hangs in every government building and which is currently stuffed in my saddlebags. I don’t have my saddlebags with me at the moment. Odd. No matter, this map below me… Funny, there’s no cloud anymore. I’m not standing on anything at all. Regardless, the thing is ridged and grooved, almost as though the mountains and canyons and rivers are all actually there. The stylized painting of Princess Celestia is even there at either end. I try to see over the edge of the map, but it’s far too large to manage. I’m somehow able to lower myself to inspect Canterlot more closely. It’s interesting. I’m certain I never used magic, especially since no sound came from my horn.

I toss the thought aside at the wonder that is this miniature. I can gaze down inside it to see each and every one of it’s citizens go about their lives. The roofs of the homes are even detachable to allow me to peek inside. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I somehow float to being over the top of Canterlot Castle itself. Perhaps they were forced to make it larger than it’s true proportionate size to fit in all the details. That or I’ve somehow become smaller. Either way, the ceiling of the castle’s hall comes off effortlessly, and I lean over in hopes of catching a glimpse of a tiny Princess Celestia. She is there indeed, but unlike everypony else in the city, she seems to notice me. “Sunset!” she screams, but not in a surprised and impressed way. There’s fear in her voice, and I can’t understand why. It’s not as though I’m going to try to pick up tiny little her. I might hurt her, what with how large I am in comparison. “No! Sunset! You don’t need to do this!”

“Oh… Okay, I’ll put the roof back on, princess,” I apologize, feeling a tad perturbed. I pull my head from inside the hall, but the top of the castle is nowhere to be found. I could’ve sworn I had it balanced perfectly on one of the peaks. “Heh, sorry princess,” I pop my head back in to tell her with a sheepish grin. “I think you may need to pay all the mini-ponies out there to build you a new roof.”

“SUNSET!” the princess wails, and it hits me like a hammer blow how disturbed her screaming is. And she doesn’t stop, crying out manically until I try to go back up. Only, now I’m falling, and I’m screaming, and Canterlot is it’s normal size, and…

“Miss Shimmer!” A lurching sensation slides through my chest, and I sit up with a start and small gasp. Judging by the whistling of the wind and the early morning sun, it was just a dream. “Awake finally, Miss Shimmer?” the lead Guard asks. I nod, still trying to catch my breath. I hate waking up to that sensation of falling. It’s not to be expected really, not when I notice how quickly we’re descending.

“Are we nearly there?” I ask in return, forgoing answering the obvious question.

“Yes, Ma’am,” the second pegasus tells me through the wind. “Thought we could use an extra pair of eyes lookin’ for this place!”

“Right then,” I mutter to myself, latching my saddlebags onto my back. “Onto trying to spot the place that shouldn’t exist.” I sigh, and the chariot dips beneath the clouds. A an open-mouthed smile jumps across my face as I take a few moments to enjoy the countryside below us. These are the Chess Mountains, and according to geology books, are only just large enough to qualify as real peaks. But they’re beautiful with the young sun glistening on the snow, regardless of how the books think of them. It’s for sights like this that I enjoy going on assignments that take me out of Canterlot. All the books in the world can give me everything I need to know about a place, but I haven’t found one yet that really captures what it feels like to be there. And the Chess Mountains are no exception.

The pegasi dive deeper into the valleys, whipping around corners at speeds that keep my hooves firmly gripping the car. I’m certain I hear the metal scrape against stone at one point. They’re covering good ground though, and we’ll have combed the area described in the letter well before nightfall. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I suppose there is a reason nopony ever noticed a laboratory in the mountains before. I dart my head from side to side, searching for any change in the texture or color of the rock. I know the pegasi are doing the same, and the longer we stay within the valleys, the less eratic their flying becomes. We settle into slower, level passes of the troughs, but I still can’t see anything that stands out. The Guards call out and bring us onto the ground once or twice, but it always turns out to be nothing.

But it’s when we’re circling back up to try for a new vantage point that I notice something off. It’s not a glimmer of gold or the smoother look of building stone, but a sound. A slight boom in the air as if some part of something were straining against it’s brothers. I tap the bottom of the car with my hoof to be sure it’s not anything to do with my chariot, but that possibility is expelled when three more follow in rapid succession in the middle of my test. “Stop! Stop!” I hiss at the pegasi, and unlike Flitz would do, they slow to a hover while keeping in place with a few circles. They don’t question me, which I’m grateful for since I’m swiveling my ears in every direction to catch the noise again. “There, southeast!” I yell out when a groan reverberates through the air. The pegasi rocket off, whipping the car and my neck almost painfully. We crest a larger set of peaks, and it’s undeniable we’ve found it.

I put a hoof over my mouth to suppress my girlish glee at the sight of what has to be Halter Labs. It’s engineering and science at its finest and nothing short of breathtakingly spectacular. Four gargantuan balloons are suspending an ovoid shape in the air, and four equally massive chains are embedded in the mountains to keep the entire thing from floating away. It was the chains making the heavy noises I heard, as a particularly strong gust whips into the valley and they tighten to keep the lab in place. The entire structure must have been built with magic, since it seems to have been constructed from a single sheet of silver. Only when the Guards circle up and above it do I see the entrance near the object’s crest. There’s even a small strip (also of silver) for chariots to land and take off from. “This is it!” I’m unable to hold back my excitement. “This has to be it!”

“Not gonna argue there, Miss,” the lead pegasus tells me, and I can tell he’s impressed too. “I don’t see anypony out here to greet us. Should we still attempt a landing?”

“I’ll check the strip for security spells first,” I reply, my voice ironing a little in my concentration. I focus my magic on the spit of flat surface beneath us and run my sixth sense over it. I check for anything and everything, even old Knight enchantments and prankish spells. I triple check it to be sure, but there’s nothing. Or, probably more accurately, if there were any spells, they’ve been called back. “I can’t sense anything,” I tell the Guards. “Be careful though. Some spells can be built to avoid being detected.”

“Hold on then, Miss Shimmer,” he grunts to me before they pull the chariot around and start in on a perfect descending glide. My teeth grind against each other the closer we get, and when the wheels rattle with more noise than the rushing wind, I wince from biting my tongue. I roll it around in my mouth for a few seconds, trying to work the taste of blood out of my mouth, but there’s nothing for it. I lean down on my chest and reach my hoof near the surface of the strip (which I now can definitely tell is silver) and tentatively brush it. It doesn’t shock or attack me, but I jump back into the cart with a small squeak. It ripples instead, like it’s a solid kind of water. I put my whole hoof onto the surface the second time, and ripples go out from it. It even feels a little like warm water.

“Any idea what this stuff is, Ma’am?” the second pegasus asks, lifting his hoof and flicking it despite the strip’s material not clinging to it.

“It’s silver,” I say, not bothering to hide my own perplexity. “But it’s been enchanted to act like this for some reason.”

“Miss Shimmer,” the lead Guard says in a grunt. “Somepony comin’ from the entrance.” My previous distraction with the surface of the strip vanishes, and I edge my way around the pegasi to present myself a firm representative of the princess. But the pony coming toward us has such a jovial smile on his face, I can’t help but be reminded of Flitz. And being reminded of Flitz in this faraway wilderness of Equestria relaxes me a bit.

“Welcome! Welcome!” he calls out to us before reaching us properly enough to touch hooves. He’s a deep shade of dark grey, with a simple lighter grey mane. His tail I can’t see. He’s wearing a full, spotless lab coat. I really had expected our arrival to be greeted by some business pony or the hired security. “Welcome to Halter Labs!” he says once we’ve exchanged the pleasantry. He smiles even at the stone-faced Guards. I guess I can give him credit for not being intimidated by them like most ponies, but now that he’s up close, he’s just too cheery. And all it does is make me feel awkward. “You’re the delegation from Princess Celestia?” he asks, looking to each of us in turn again.

“Yes,” I say flatly, deciding to be as professional and diplomatically plain as possible. My inner magician is crying out for me to just burst out with hundreds of questions, but if Princess Celestia can restrain herself in court, the least I can do is do well to represent her here. “My name is Sunset Shimmer, Faithful Student to the Princess. I am here to be her eyes and ears.”

“Excellent, excellent,” the pony (he must be an earth pony, without the usual wing bulges or horn) says, appearing to distract himself for a moment. “Ah yes!” he pops back up, “I am Dr. Wobble. Pleased to make your acquaintances! You must come inside, quickly! All of us are simply ecstatic at the chance to show off seven years hard work!”

“Shall we wait outside, Miss Shimmer?” the lead Guard asks me with an annoyed glance at Dr. Wobble.

“Outside!?” Wobble answers for me, and I decide to throw him my own irritated look. “Dear sir, the tour of the facility will take at least a day!”

“Ah… No,” I say and offer a forced smile to convey the rest of how I feel. “You promised us a look at a new defensive weapon for Equestria. That’s what we’re here to see.” I continue to stare at him as he obviously fumbles with how to handle a rejection he probably didn’t expect to happen. I hate doing it, but I know his type since I used to be one, and immovable refusal will be the only way to force him to accept our stance. Princess Celestia had to break that to me young, and I’m glad she did it then, since I can barely remember it. Still, I can’t help but cringe a little at having to refuse the chance to see experimental magic. Perhaps, if the visit goes well (the weapon in question being useful or not), Princess Celestia will let me come back to do an end of year project. It certainly looks big enough on the outside to be full of things to learn.

“It is our crown jewel,” Dr. Wobble tells me with a bit of a deflated energy. “Are you certain you would rather not save the best for last?”

I’m about to keep my position firmly in ‘no’, but all that comes out is a strangled, “Rrrg.” I shouldn’t do it, but I turn and ask my lead pegasus, “When are we expected back?”

“If they can cut down a tour to half the day, we can manage, Miss Shimmer,” he answers me with a knowing smirk. “There’s a favorable current we can ride on the way back to make the trip faster.”

“Can we compromise?” I ask Dr. Wobble, internally berating myself for giving into my wants.

“Certainly!” the doctor lights up again immediately. “Please, unhitch yourselves and follow me! And prepare to be amazed!” He almost bounds away, stopping at the entrance while the door folds upward to open. I light my horn with several basic spell layers, just to be safe, and wait for the Guards to be free of the chariot before following after the doctor.

“Keep a lookout,” I hiss to them. “I’ll pay attention to what he’s showing me, but I need you two to keep an eye on everything else around us. I want to know if there’s a Knight or something else involved.”

“Will do, Miss Shimmer,” the reply comes from behind me, and I nod my approval.

“We’ll cut directly to the main antechamber,” the doctor tells me once we’re standing at the doorway. I chance a peak inside, and it’s nothing more than a crystal-lit hallway. “But there are some really fascinating things we’ve done that I can show you along the way. Perhaps the princess will take a fancy to any one of them too.”

“Doc, this is a compromise,” I reiterate and arch an eyebrow just for emphasis. “Half the day is the maximum we can stick around, but if you can move us through the most important things faster, do so.”

“I’ll be taking you along the shortest route, yes,” he says with a wave of his hoof. “Now, come! Come!” We step inside the hall, but before we’ve reached the end or even seen any doors, the doctor stops in the center and clears his throat with a self-important cough. “Halter Labs was originally called Cloudsdale Medical Research,” he begins, and if his tone were any more rehearsed, I’d roll my eyes. As it turns out, they almost go in the top of my skull anyway as the floor drops out from beneath us. A single tile is now taking us deep inside the lab via some rapid pulley system I can’t see. Or it could be magic. Regardless, the narrow, square tube we’re in isn’t silver like the hall or outside of the object. It’s stark white. Sterile.

“Seven years ago, our teams bought the laboratories ourselves and began moving the facility around the world as we switched from Cloudsdale ordered work to our own projects. Since that day, Halter Labs has been laboring to give Equestria her finest defense in history,” the doctor drones on. The dropping floor tile eases into a halt, and a portion of the wall opens at our approach. Once through, I’m standing on the longest, highest catwalk I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s just wide enough for two ponies to walk side by side, but there are no rails to keep me from falling off into space. That space is filled, above and below, with large and small cubes labeled with massive, black numbers. I can only assume they’re the actual labs, since there seems to be nothing else in the bizarrely open space. There’s even a cold breeze, it’s so large.

“Impressive, no?” Doctor Wobble asks us with a proud tilt in his smile. “We have a project in each one, actually. Let’s see, ah! P57!” The numbers and letters he shouts into the chasm around us, and it feels like it should echo more than it does. Nothing clearly dangerous has happened yet, but I suppose it’s all so foreign… My gut’s telling me something is very wrong with this place the longer I’m here. Maybe it’s the air. I don’t know, but any rabid interest I may have had in the place is being gradually choked to death.

In response to the doctor’s shout, a beam of magic connects the cubic module labled with the fifty-seven to the catwalk. I half expect to be asked to touch it or some other nonsense, and I’ve already prepared my abhorrent ‘no’ when Wobble reaches into the beam with his own hoof and scoops something out from it. “You gentlecolts will appreciate these, I’m sure,” he addresses my Guards. “We took the concept of the thestral reaver shoes and have created scores of modified versions for everypony.” He holds out his hoof, and a pair of the bladed boots are there. “These in particular we enchanted and constructed specifically for cutting up clouds more precisely.” The two pegasi lean over to peer at them for a moment, but with appropriate caution don’t touch them. They only nod with a courteous amount of intrigue.

“How about these then?” the doctor asks, dropping the reavers back into the beam before shouting again, “P29!” A second beam follows the fist, this time on the opposite side of the catwalk. From it, Wobble presents us with a hoof-full of ordinary brown seeds. “These little marvels seek out the best soil within twenty miles.”

“And if there’s no good land within twenty miles?” I ask. “Can you not plant them?”

“Oh, you can plant them anyplace, to be sure,” he tells me with an enthused, encouraging nod. “They’re just supposed to help a farmpony maximize his yield.” I merely nod in response. This whole place is throwing me for a loop, and I can’t see or sense anything that might tell me why. I probe out with my magic just a touch more, and I’m not surprised at the muddled image I find. Layers and layers and layers upon even more layers of spells permeate the walls of the place. I grunt in annoyance. There’s not much I’d be able to sense in that mess without a dedicated slicing of the enchantments themselves. It’s not as though my abilities aren’t able to do such a thing (it’d be foals’ play, actually), but it would also make a scene.

I’m lost in my thoughts, I know, as I barely register Doctor Wobble returning the seeds to the beam of magic. But I feel like I’m chasing after something in my head. There’s something like a half-formed idea that I know’s important, but I just can’t seem to grasp it… My body yanks me back to the present with a startled jump, and I turn to see the lead Guard with his hoof on my shoulder. Both he and his subordinate have stern but wary frowns, and I realize it must not be just me that feels something is very wrong with this place. “We need to find what they brought us here to see, Miss Shimmer,” the lead whispers to me. “The aura in here is worse than the remains of a Dog’s camp.”

“Your assessment?” I ask in the same hushed tone while keeping an eye on the now pacing doctor.

“There’s been murder here, or something very close to it,” he tells me. I try to conceal my horror, but I don’t think I can hide it all away. My mouth twitches, and I see the doctor’s cheeriness in a far darker shade. Could they actually have killed somepony just because of scientific curiosity? I let my magic flow out in waves, silently searching for other ponies, and more specifically, for ponies who might be suffering. I find plenty of others, all healthy, but I find something else as well. Directly ahead of me, where the catwalk leads into the largest cube, marked 01, is a pure void. My magic contacts it and vanishes from my sense. And if there’s anything in the library that’s ever held my fascination and stuck in my memory, it’s the concept of a magical impossibility.

The idea of murder occurring here isn’t so out of place now, and I instinctively send out an arrow of magic aimed at the doctor. The thin band of magic crashes into and forces a yelp out of him before throwing him in a heap on the catwalk. The Guards don’t even need an order to speed around me and grab him by the forelegs and drag him up. I stalk up to his face, preparing to scream at him the way I used to interrogate the ponies that teased Flitz. But he’s still got a ridiculous smile on his face, glancing to each of the Guards with a nod. “I’m guessing you found our jewel over yonder, heheh?” he asks me with a shake of his head in the direction of the zero one cube.

“What’s going on here!?” I growl at him. “What’re you all hiding!?”

“We’ve made the greatest magical breakthrough of the age!” he exclaims to me. “And we wish to share its potential with the princess!”

“Screw all this other crap then,” I say. “Take me in that lab right now!” My voice bounces around the empty space, and the severity in it helps to drive away the alien feel of the air.

“Very well, very well,” he says. “Would you gentecolts please let me down now?” I flick my head at them, and they ease the doctor onto the catwalk again. He tilts back and forth a bit before righting himself properly and when he doesn’t immediately lead the way to the cube, I roll my eyes in it’s direction. He raises his hoof and opens his mouth as if to say something in response, but decides against it and leads us off to the lab’s entrance.

The door to the place opens for us just like the one from the elevator, and the nearly blinding whiteness doesn’t change from the outside to the inside. We pass through an archway hazed with a veil of violet magic, which I’m positive is a decontaminating spell of some kind, and through a second door is the actual lab. And the atmosphere inside could not be more different than that on the catwalk. Wobble is joined by other ponies in lab coats, and I notice each and every one of them is a unicorn. They’re all carrying clipboards or sitting at tables filled with chemistry setups, vials filled with liquids of every hue, or convoluted arrays of magnifying lenses. I’m not sure if it’s the presence of other ponies or small noises from the work going on around me, but the constraining feeling is lessened. Of course, the utter silence of the other ponies maintains it to some degree, but the dedication filling the room is at least something familiar I can latch onto.

“Here she is,” Doctor Wobble crows once we’ve all taken several steps into the room. “The surest defense for our ruler.” He waves his hoof to the center of the room where a single half pillar juts from the floor. It’s smooth, white, and rather unremarkable to look at, but however a void is existing, I know it’s within that cylinder. “Don’t be too alarmed,” Wobble takes a consoling tone. “It’s not active yet.” He presses his hoof into a tile on the floor, and I narrow my eyes in cautious observation. The white barriers around the cylinder slowly descend into grooves in the floor and… my breath catches in my throat, and my heart stops.

Clamps are keeping her bolted to the bottom of the tank. Her mane is splayed out from whatever circulating current is in the fluids. My hooves walk me closer to the tank of their own accord, and my mouth is hanging open. My breaths are coming in shuddering gasps. Everything in me is screaming the impossibility of what my eyes are telling me. It’s a filly, maybe a few years younger than me. Her eyes are shut like she’s sleeping and a trio of bubbles escape her nose every few minutes. “What… what is this?” I whisper in horror, not to anypony in particular. The need to vomit is getting stronger, but I can’t take my eyes off the pony in the tank.

“This… Oh this…” Wobble says triumphantly. “This is the - !” My eyes were starting to inch to his face, but they whip back to the filly and every movement and sound in the room seems to cease. Her eyes are wide open, blank, and staring inexorably at me. I can’t not return her gaze, and just before her lids close again, her lifeless gray eyes glisten with an exact match to my own sky blue eye color.

Orange

Destiny’s Hues

Orange

The scratching of the quill is an odd sound in the lab space. Everything is made of that same white metallic material, and it sends echoes bouncing around the room in odd ways. I adjust the crystal lamp casting the gentle blue glow onto my parchment. That’s another thing about the white surfaces. After almost every line I write, I have to adjust the lamp to keep the glare from making it impossible to see when I look away. Of course, all the other lights in the lab are off, and experience in the library back home under the same conditions tells me it’s really only my fault for working in half light. I guess I just expected even little problems like that to be non-existent in a place that can make hopping seeds. Who am I kidding?! The seeds don’t even compare.

I stop short of signing my name to look at the once again encased tank. I know that… thing is behind the barriers, but since I’m writing with my horn, I can feel it there. If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed since we got here, it’s the magical void it occupies. I lay my quill down just to cut myself off from my own magic, and by extension, sensing it. I breathe a heavy sigh of released tension. It’s not as strong as when I first felt the emptiness, but I’m guessing that’s only because I’m getting used to it. Still, even trying to stand conjures up the need to vomit, but when I grab the bucket, my instinct uses magic, and my nausea fades. I lean my face down inside the empty pail, making a careful note to keep my magic wrapped around something.

It has to be something to do with the paradox nature of the void. Not being able to feel it even though I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s there. I swallow and lift my head from the bucket and replace it under the table. I switch my magic from it to my quill and quickly scribble out my name at the bottom of the parchment. I curl it into the proper scroll shape, apply the seals the princess set along, and grasp it in a levitation spell as I slide out of the chair and around the table.

I try to keep as far away from the canister as possible as I walk to the door, but every table and workstation seems to have been set-up to force ponies to walk inches from it when entering or leaving the lab. I manage to get by without grinding my ribs on the corner of the nearest table though. I push open the lab entrance, and despite the lights around the catwalk still being dimmed for the night, the sheer number of blue twinklings forces me to blink several times to adjust. Once I do, I’m glad to see both the Guards still in their stalwart posts on either side of the door. “Team Leader,” I address the older pegasus. He turns to me, and when our gazes lock, I continue, “I have a letter to Princess Celestia explaining our delay and what might be going on here. Which of you will be faster in getting to her and back?”

“Lift, you take the letter,” he answers with the command to the younger Guard. “Make it back here by the next morning without any hiccups, and I’ll have no qualms about signing off on your Wonderbolts application.”

“Sir! Yes, sir!” Lift replies with a snappy salute before I offer him the letter. He snatches it from my magic and tucks in inside his armor before barreling off toward the pulley system across the catwalk. I keep my magic alive on my horn, doing my best to not end up focused on the void behind me.

Something, probably from all the false vomitting lurches, in my face must be off, because my remaining Guard grunts in an undertone, “Would you like to call it a night, Miss Shimmer?”

“Would I? Of course I would,” I almost spit in frustration. “But I unfortunately just spent the last two hours trying to figure out what to write to the princess about that… ugh, I don’t even know what to call it yet, and I spent the four hours before that trying not to lose my oats being so close to it.” I huff, staring off into nothing.

“We’d send you to a nurse in the Guard and force you to call it a night, Miss Shimmer,” he tells me. “You’d be better off starting fresh tomorrow.”

“That’s what you think,” I say, already turning back inside the lab before muttering to myself, “but if I let my head slow down, I know I’ll miss something.” I could activate the entire array of lighting crystals in the lab, but I don’t. I slam the door shut instead and decide to rely only on the illumination coming from my lone lamp and the light around bottom edge of the tank. I focus my wandering magic away from the tube and into a manipulative spell. I yank open every drawer and cabinet in the room with a fair bit of clattering and banging. The most recent stack of papers from each one finds it’s way into my magic, and I bring them all under the blue glow of the lamp.

I quickly sort out the day-to-day notes and fling them back into their places, leaving the thicker, bound documents for my brain to pick through. One is just pages and pages of medical jargon I don’t have time to decipher, and another turns out to just be the energy and chemicals required to maintain the tank’s static environment. But as much as I don’t like it, both of the files keep me glancing up at the shielded tank. And I can’t see the project they’re referring to. I groan and walk shudderingly close to the tank and press in on the tile in the floor. But I don’t bother watching the barriers fall, instead going right back to my seat.

The next file is the thickest and only labeled as “Halter Labs, Project 1.” And just cracking open the first page tells me I’ve found what I need. Diagrams of the pony skeleton from nearly every angle and in a plethora of extreme poses litter the first few pages. But unlike the medical folder, each skeleton has a detailed, highly accurate and complex casting circle beside it. This is my language. But as much as I recognize the method and even some of the parts involved, the arrangement of the runes in the circles is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I end up glaring at one in particular for at least thirty minutes by my estimate. I come away only knowing for sure that the spell loops on itself. In fact, I notice each and every one of the casting rings have a looping feature.

And the more pages I pass through, the more baffled and frustrated I become. Every muscle, nerve, organ, and even body fluid has been assigned a specific casting ring. It would be a feat in and of itself to create so many unique circles and rune orders, but I begin to see patterns, especially in areas around the brain and heart and lungs, where the spells repeat themselves. I can only assume I’m looking at assembly steps and instructions. It’s far too detailed to be anything else, and now that I think about it, explains the size of the cube compared to the lab itself. I know for a fact that for some of these rune patterns to work, there has to be a considerable bit of distance between them and some of the other circles.

After the hundreds of thousands of diagrams though, I find a set of pages which I think, personally, should have been in the front of the file. It’s hoof written as opposed to horn drawn like the rings and is in much plainer language. Bland, but understandable. There’s just no middle ground for these ponies, I fume before I begin running my eyes over the words. The beginning I don’t even bother with once I realize it’s essentially Halter Labs praising itself, and I skip the middle too. I’m young, but I grew up in Canterlot where sales pitches were born. Finally, near the end, is the information I’d been looking for.

Our most important project is the Advanced Defense Assistant Machine. It is an accomplishment of medicine, magic, and a comprehensive scientific understanding of pony psychology and biology. An ADAM is the ultimate defensive tool ever built and is impossible to detect. And the first ADAM ever constructed is the Active Universal Restraint Assistant, or A-type, as we like to call it. Using over one million consecutive casting rings, an A-type unit learns from everypony and everything around it until it becomes indistinguishable from a real pony. Utilizing this and it’s second feature, an enemy will never know you are defended or be able to attack.

Each A-type has, within those million layers of spell work, been given an ability no living being could ever have. It is the High Arcane Radius Manipulation, Oscillation, and Neutralization Effect. I re-read that several times just to be sure I’m seeing what I think I am, and when I can’t deny it, my lips curl in raw disdain. “HARMONE…” I breathe out in disbelief before rolling my eyes and saying a touch loudly, “Cheeky.” But the name aside, I have a vague wrinkle in my gut. I’m pretty sure I know what HARMONE is. Using a complex set of magical principles, this system allows an A-type to ‘mute’ the magical connection inside any living creature. This can range from unicorns to a blade of grass in a meadow. By doing this, the most common ways attacks are carried out by the creatures of our world are stopped before they even happen.

I fall back into my chair, and my eyes can’t help but be drawn to the A-type’s tank. A huff of shock escapes my chest and my head shakes back and forth. It’s a machine. A machine made of flesh and bone. And my mind is already starting to tickle me with those ‘complex magical principles.’ I’m already beginning to put the pieces together. But I shake my head to clear it and lean it back with a deep, shuddering intake of breath. I may have an idea of what the thing in the stasis liquid is now, but theory isn’t going to get me far. I dive back into the casting ring diagrams, now that I know exactly what they’re for and what they’re supposed to do. The glyphs start to align right in my head, even as I realize that most of them are new runes entirely. Or rather, they’re new runes cobbled together from existing ones. That makes them obviously more difficult to decode, but I wasn’t named Princess Celestia’s student for nothing.

The description was accurate in claiming over one million spells, but even clearing a single page, I see that nothing about pony anatomy has been left out. The rings I sorted out were all just designed to be sure blood flowed efficiently. And the HARMONE construction isn’t hard to locate once I know what the void exists to do. It’s surprisingly easier to unravel than the others, but there are almost infinitely more layers. I’m tempted to just keep following the code down until I’ve effectively worked out how to build my own magic vacuum, but I manage to avert my eyes. It’s the kind of spell that… honestly, scares me a little bit, despite how deliciously academic it is.

I want to keep my thoughts off diving fully into the spell’s construction, so I turn to the back of the file. More medical jargon for the most part, but if I hadn’t been strictly looking for other things to read, I would have missed it. It’s a small piece of what looks like scrap paper, but it’s filled with hastily scribbled horn writing listing off a variety of mental disorders. They fly from extreme to common with no clear order, and I can only think they must be a general checklist of things to build counterspells for.

But the list is hardly engaging enough to take my mind away from the idea of a void field. Until I find myself staring at the A-type again. I don’t know why, but I walk right up to the tank. I can even see myself in the glass. Granted, I’ve still got my magic active and gripping the file, but the sense of the void isn’t bothering me so much. A press my hoof noiselessly against the tank. It’s undeniable. She’s fascinating. Unbelievable even. I mean, I know what the file says and shows, but the thing in front of me… it’s… it’s not doing anything. Not since opening it’s eyes for me. Really, it could be dead for all I know.

I don’t know why I don’t go through the logical steps with the idea, but all I’m certain of is that I’m spontaneously searching for any signs of a switch to drain the tank. I… I want to see it move. Act like a real pony. There aren’t any more tiles that give to pressure or any kind of force for that matter, and even after turning on all the crystal lamps, I can’t find any switches or the like around the workstations. I suppose Dr. Wobble would know how to release her, but without him, I have turn to my talent. It’s difficult, being so precise with it like I’ve never done before, but I manage to weave my magic around the A-type’s void to manipulate the clamps. I grasp all four and with a strained grunt, and I snap them open.

The A-type floats up immediately, but a deep boom beneath me shakes the floor and unbalances me to the point of falling on my plot. A flurry of impressively sized bubbles shoot up from the bottom of the tank, and the fluid inside begins draining away. It clears out so quickly in fact, that I’m only just getting back up again by the time the machine is standing in rapidly falling inches of liquid. It’s rigid and the mane clings thickly to its body. The eyes still haven’t opened like that time before. I edge up to the glass and tap against it. It’s a dumb move, and just as well, because nothing changes. I sigh. I’m lucky nothing catastrophic happened. But just thinking that, my head darts to the door, waiting for the scientists to burst in with frantic worry plastered all over their faces. After several minutes pass, and nopony even hammers on the entrance, I let myself relax a little. Now I just have to figure out how to properly turn this A-type on.

I glance back up at its unmoving stance with what the princess has always called my ‘stubbornly perplexed look.’ I levitate the file full of the operating spell circles over and leaf through it once more to be sure I didn’t miss anything that might explain how to activate the machine. There’s nothing, as I thought, so I move onto the other files I had yet to discard. But when I look up at the A-type again, my heart skips, and my hooves clatter in place. My mouth tries to form words, but only ends up moving up and down like I’m having some sort of seizure. It’s eyes are open again and staring very clearly at me. At least they’re not an exact copy of my eye color, but it refuses to blink or even look away. Or, it does until I do. Only mere seconds after my eyes begin watering and force my lids to flutter shut and open, its do the same. But it’s still staring at me.

“Can… Can you speak?” I ask, finally managing to form a cohesive thought that makes it out my mouth. Nothing. It just keep staring at me. “Can you not hear?” I wait for several moments, but still, it doesn’t show any signs of having heard me. All it does is blink when I do. I tentatively place my hoof on the glass again, and somehow, it hits me. A simple examination with my horn proves me right. The glass is enchanted to be sound proof. I loose several transmutation bursts at it, and to my satisfaction, it falls into a perfect ring of sand. “So, can you hear me now?” I ask it.

“Yes,” it answers, and it even has a young voice like mine. But there’s something… wrong about it. It’s short and sharp, almost in a reprimanding way, but at the same time far too flat to be disapproving.

“And…?” I prod. “Don’t you have something to say after being in that tank for so long?”

“No,” she answers in the same way.

“Then… what? Nothing? You have absolutely nothing to tell me?” I ask, a little incredulously. It certainly isn’t living up to the description of being a seamless replication of a pony. She’s still standing in the same spot like a board, and one word answers aren’t something I hear many ponies use unless… “Are you angry?” I ask with a stroke of concern.

“No,” she says.

“Seriously?” I grumble aloud to nopony in particular. To think I was getting my hopes up over studying something like this. I looks like the only thing they got right was the HARMONE attribute. But I’ll bet I can even call that into question if she can’t project it. Still, it doesn’t hurt to double check just to be sure your experiment is a disaster. “Do you feel anything at all right now?” I round on her.

“No,” comes the answer I expect, and I wheel around with an audible growl in my throat except… “What is your… name?”

I feel like a merry-go-round, the way I’m turning first to the door, then back to the A-type. But I do it anyway, with my brain trying to sort out my raw confusion from the fading disappointment and frustration. “What did you just ask me?” I think I might have whispered.

“What is your name?” she replies, now with a bare hint of sounding like she’s actually asking a question.

“I’m Sunset. Sunset Shimmer,” I say. “Um… your’s?”

“Mine?” she repeats, and my confusion from earlier is echoed back at me perfectly. Nothing short a direct match.

“Your… your name. What’s your name?” I ask and point my hoof at her.

“I’m an Advanced Defense Assistant Machine, classified Active Universal Restraint Assistant, X00,” she rattles off in an even more rote tone that before.

“That’s not a real name,” I sigh and drag my hoof down my face. “Don’t you have something easier I can call you?”

“There are a variety of words you can use to describe me,” she tells me, and all of my surety in the success or failure of this endeavor proceeds to jump off the peak of my metaphorical mountain. Her words were almost natural. The volume was wrong, and I can’t help hear myself in her tone, but it was already less artificial than at first. Never mind that she used words other than ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ “Would you like me to list them for you, Sunset Shimmer?” She sits down when she says it. It’s not exactly a plop. It’s too purposeful.

“No, no, I’m fine,” I wave her off.

“I did not ask if you were hurt, Sunset Shimmer,” she follows up before I’ve even take a breath. “Are you at all injured?”

“Ugh, no. I meant you didn’t have to run through a list of words,” I say, and I end up staring at her again. I can’t see what her real eye color is in the half-glow of the room, and she continues to blink only when I do. I keep half-thinking she’ll say something to me at some point, but she seems perfectly content stare at me as much as I am at her. I’m not sure if she’s examining me, but I know I’m not thinking about her so much as I’m trying to understand how her brain works. Or even if she has a brain for that matter. At least, in the way I would normally think about somepony having a brain.

I’m pretty sure the spells that govern her behavior are reactive, so without having to worry about her surprising me unless I ask her a question first, I slide the main file over and start searching for any signs of how they constructed her thought processes. I’m leafing through the fifth page with no luck when my ears catch a rattling sound, and I look up to see her shivering all over. Her face hasn’t changed a whit, but her entire body is shaking from cold. “Oh horeseapples!” I swear and clamber to my hooves in search of a blanket or towel of some kind. There’s no sign of anything, not even any spare lab coats, so I canter over to her with a heating spell at the ready. “Why didn’t you say you were cold from being wet?” I ask her, trying to keep my own irritation from not noticing out of my voice.

“It is a normal phenomenon,” she answers even while I have to delicately warm her dry and keep my magic from making contact with the void inside her. “There was no need to state the obvious.”

“But you were shaking and uncomfortable,” I say, bewildered. “You should’ve told me sooner.” I finish wringing out her mane, and I have to admit it’s very nice and silky. “See, doesn’t that feel better?”

“Is my current state the definition of comfortable?” she asks me. I can only shake my head. How in Equestria can she not know if she’s sore? Or hungry? Or tired? Never mind not knowing what it’s like to be angry or emotional at all, even trees know when they need food.

“Well…” I try to start, thinking of the order of things I need before I’m content to enjoy a nap or something else relaxing. “Are you thirsty? I’m pretty sure they didn’t have you surrounded by water in that tank.”

“Being thirsty is a need for fluids, correct?” she asks, and I nod. “My throat does hurt when I swallow. Is that -”

“Hush.” I push my hoof to her lips to silence her. It works, thankfully, and I search for a water fountain or sink. Sink. There. On the wall. A twitch of my magic later and the faucet is flowing freely and the water is being levitated in a sphere to the… she needs a name. “Drink from this. Not too fast though. Feeling bloated is worse than being thirsty.” She dips her head to the sphere and slurps it noisily. And she doesn’t stop drinking except to breathe until the sphere is gone. “Better?”

“Yes,” she says with a smack, and I can’t tell if it was unintentional or not. “I will be sure to mention it to Doctor Wobble the next time I am taken out of the tank.”

“Wait. They’ve taken you out before?” I ask and take a seat beside her.

“Yes,” she says. “I am woken. Nopony speaks. I am pinched by needles. I am put to sleep again.”

“Why?!” I ask. “Why wouldn’t they feed you, or…” I glance back at where the tank I powdered used to be, and it becomes pretty plain. That liquid must have been some kind of preservation formula. It kept her body from decaying without the need for actual food or water.

“It was the same procedure every time I woke up. I infer I was being tested,” she says plainly.

“But… but… No. There’s no way…” I stutter out, my thoughts still trying to arrange themselves and my head still attempting to act. To do something. “Princess Celestia. Princess Celestia will know what to do. You know how to walk, right?”

“I do,” she answers.

“Okay. Princess Celestia needs to see you, so I want you to - !” I’m pulling her hoof up to hold onto it when the door to the lab bursts open to a cascade of voices. My head jerks back and my hoof drops her’s.

“Enough! That’s far enough Miss Shimmer!” Doctor Wobble is at the front of a group of other ponies, and he’s wearing some kind of lance saddle. I let my eyes slip past them to catch a glimpse of my Guard, but he makes it so I don’t need to be subtle about it.

He strides in after Wobble’s ponies and booms out, “Doctor! You promised my charge uninterrupted access!”

“To study our research documents!” Wobble shouts, even though it’s pitiful by comparison. “I did not say she could activate the ADAM unit!”

“I cannot leave the laboratory, Sunset Shimmer,” she says but doesn’t bother to lower or raise her voice, which somehow makes it all that more prominent and sends a spike of worry into my gut. “It is against the rules.”

“Yeah? And what other rules do you have, Wobble?” I sneer at him. “She was thirsty and is probably hungry too!”

“The ADAM unit was supposed to be a clean slate!” Wobble shouts, and with a shrug of his shoulders, the lance whines. Before I can register exactly what he’s about to do, he jabs it forward and into her. It doesn’t pierce her skin, but red sparks and lanes of electricity fly up and down her body. And she screams. Her legs buckle, her head flies back, and she screams like any pony would. It’s almost like my life is forced into a time warping spell. It all happens so slowly, and her cry lingers in my ears.

And the world only returns to it’s right pace when I see her falling, unconscious. My hooves push me forward, and I manage to catch her before she crumples on the floor. “Hopefully, you haven’t damaged her too much, Miss Shimmer,” Wobble says, but I can barely hear him. I’m looking down on a filly my own age… but, she’s not really. She’s… she’s a machine. But she was hurting. There was no way spells could fake a scream like that. I don’t… It doesn’t make any sense. She’s not alive the way I know I am…

There’s frantic yelling around me, and when I look up, my Guard’s forehoof is reeled back. I realize what’s about to happen just in time for me to duck my head and throw myself over her. The yelling turns into screams, and I hear hoof connect to bone… twice. It’s followed by the sound of somepony crashing head over hooves across the lab’s workstations.

My eyes split open to see one of the scientists rushing at me with a smaller lance, and the world slows again. Only this time, there’s a distinct clarity to everything. And the world vanishes into a swirling mass of searing white light.

Yellow

Destiny’s Hues

Yellow

“Shimmer! Shimmer! Don’t pass out on me!” The shout manages to pierce through the whiteness that is my world. I feel the need to shake my head and blink my eyes, but none of that seems to translate. The world is still a mass of unending whiteness… and a throbbing in my horn. And thinking about my horn, I’m actually able to blink from white to black, and back to the dimly lit room. Except it’s not dimly lit anymore, and it’s no longer a silent lab. Twin lanes of leaping orange, cerulean, and violet flames cast flickering shadows and roaring noise throughout the space. Only me, my Guard and the A-type are between the flames. The other scientists are trying to yell over the power of the fire, and I’m simply trying to think coherently enough to do more than fling my head from side to side.

“Shimmer!” the voice shouts at me again, and I realize it’s my pegasus Guard. “Snap out of it! C’mon, you made these flames, so let’s beat it before they go out!”

“I… I…” I shake, only able to gesture and point at the magically colored fire. I’ve never been able to generate a spell this powerful or unique. This is casting circle level complex. I’m not to that point yet, I know.

“He is not lying to you,” the A-type says to me, and the lack of concern in her voice contrasts weirdly with my delirium and my Guard’s energy.

“Move! Both of you!” he screams at us, and my hooves finally decide to listen to my brain, or something like that. I don’t bother asking. I just grab the A-type’s hoof in one of my own and clamber after the Guard.

“C’mon,” I breathe to her, my instincts telling me not to inhale too deeply this close to fire. “You’re not staying here. You’re coming back to Canterlot with me.”

“It’s against the -” she starts to say, but I don’t have time to listen to her and yank on her hoof harder. She let’s out a little yelp from almost tripping, but I seem to have gotten my point across. She doesn’t try to resist leaving anymore, but when I glance back to be sure she’s okay, her eyes are dilating back and forth far more rapidly than’s natural. And when we exit onto the catwalk, her mouth drops open a little. I desperately keep tugging her along, trying to keep up with my Guard. The protective lances of magical flame go all the way to the elevator, and through the momentary breaks in them, I can see multi hued embers floating around in the entire space.

Then the screaming and the shaking and the shattering starts. All around us, I can hear ponies crying out in fear and loss, and the whole facility begins to shudder and tilt as explosions begin to go off. I look up, unable to see past the flames any other way, and very magic protecting us is shredding through every inch of the lab space. I must slow down some, because my Guard yells something unintelligible from the pulley chamber. When we’re close enough, I pull harder on the A-type to throw her inside before leaping in myself. We collapse in a heap, and my Guard doesn’t wait to send the contraption soaring to the surface. I roll off the A-type, letting out gasping breaths.

“Care to explain that mess back there, Miss Shimmer?!” my Guard asks. He’s not quite yelling at me, but the intensity is there anyway. “Why in Tartarus’s pits did you take that thing out?!”

I stand to my hooves and look over her. She’s standing perfectly straight, no sign of harm, and her eyes have stopped dilating. “Did you believe them?” I ask him as truthfully as I can. “Did you honestly believe they’d built a pony?”

“I chose not to think about it,” he growls at me, but I think he’s satisfied with my answer. “But your magic… That would have been nice to know about.”

“I didn’t know I could do anything like that until today.” I scratch at my forehoof, trying to conjure up memories of when it would have happened and getting nothing. I know he’s scrutinizing me for a few seconds, so I choose to stare at the A-type some more. Even if I can’t remember how I produced fire of that kind of power, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get her scream out of my head. Yet she’s already gone back to being less than real.

The shaft rattles violently again, and I turn back to my Guard. “We’ll need to get off this thing as fast as we can. Are you strong enough to carry both of us in that chariot by yourself?”

“We won’t be going anywhere fast,” he tells me with a grunt. “But I’ll manage until we run into Lift on the way home.” The tile crashes into it’s place on the surface of the facility, and both me and my Guard gaze down the tunnel to the unguarded chariot. “If they came ready to take us down, they’ll have posted security on the strip,” he echoes my suspicions.

“I can craft a shield long enough for us to figure out where -” I start, but…

“This world is quite fascinating,” the A-type says, and she shoves between us to stand ahead. Her head turns first to one side then to the other. “There are three ponies in front of you, one on the right and two on the left.” And before either of us can question or comprehend her assertion, a soft aura of light, the same as my eye color, encases her mane and tail. They rise up and whip about like she’s underwater, though she seems completely at ease with her condition. “The pony on the right is no longer a threat,” she says plainly.

“Can… can you move?” I tap her on her shoulder experimentally, and she turns to face me with her eyes once again an exact mimic of my own.

“Of course,” she says.

“Damn liars. That effect’s obvious as Her Majesty’s plot,” the Guard says with a hearty chuckle and takes a running lead out of the tunnel. I shake that mental image out of my head before shivering as I grasp her hoof and run after him. I glance to the right when we burst into the fresh air, and one of the earth ponies is already unconscious when my Guard leaps into the air to take on a pegasus. On the left, there is indeed a unicorn, but he looks traumatized and is frantically touching and tapping on his horn. I ignore them all and tear straight for the chariot. She climbs in easily enough, and before I join her, I rip away the camouflaging cloth and wrap it around her like a blanket as best I can. I jump in beside her, squeezing my side against the freezing, ash smeared metal and tucking my tail inside the car. But as I’m using my magic to ready the harness, an echoing, thunderous boom drowns out everything else. The fire from before rips out the top the facility, spewing sparks and shrapnel and bursting one of the balloons with an ear-shattering cacophony. I yelp and force her down inside the car with me, even as the entire structure slowly leans, abruptly yanking back as the anchoring chain prevents it from falling from the sky completely.

“Keep her inside the car, Sunset!” I hear the Guard’s voice in my ear despite the rattling and heat and groaning of metal. “And whatever you do, the both of you, keep your heads down!” A click sounds from the front of the chariot, and when I look out the back of the car, we’re moving. But not straight. There are winding lanes of fire all over the surface of the leaning facility, and they’re constantly bursting from inside. Metal lies in bits and chunks all over, and - ! My head yanks down and my hoof puts more pressure her head to keep it out of harm’s way as well. Another of the balloons explodes, and the chains can’t keep the place upright any more. The wheels of the chariot are rattling like mad on either side, and when I look out the back agian, my stomach lurches. The entire structure is leaning forward, and all I can see is the sky as my Guard rides the firey descent for as long as he can. Clattering rocks join the bits of metal as the chains whip back with untold tension and cleave the ceiling in two. Barriers of violet fire erupt to around the edges of the gaping wound, and in an instant, we’re no longer dodging the collapsing pieces of Halter Labs.

The wind replaces roaring fire and creaking metal, and after a few moments, I can watch the whole spectacle as the facility completely smashes into the snow covered valley. Our ascent is easy and steady, and once I’m sure we’re well away from danger, tension I didn’t even notice before drains out of my limbs and chest. I let my hoof fall from the A-type’s head and try to regulate my breathing. She seems entirely unperturbed, but it doesn’t surprise me all that much. Her mane and tail have gone back to silky normalcy, and I can finally clearly see that she has gray eyes, a whitish-cream coat, and a grey-blue mane and tail. She sits up, and her mane is immediately yanked back from the force of the wind. I follow her, but keep my face turned away from the front.

“You weren’t hurt, were you?” I ask. “Either of you?”

“I am unhurt,” she says, and her head actually moves to look over the side of the chariot. “The world outside the lab is very fascinating.”

“We’d be dead if I was injured, Miss Shimmer,” my Guard says through labored breaths.

“Land if you need to,” I tell him and haphazardly tap against the edge of the car, feeling like there’s something else I should say. I leave him be. He’s probably using all of his concentration on keeping the two of us in the air. Instead, I turn my attention to the A-type and watch as she lolls her head around. She actually has an expression of amazement on her face, and I figure her dilating eyes are some kind of external indication of her filing away new information. “Thanks, by the way,” I mention to her. As if it’s some kind of signal, her eyes immediately snap back to normal, and she turns her head to face me. Once again, she’s gone emotionally blank. I decide to elaborate anyway. “For stopping that unicorn and telling us about them, I mean. We probably wouldn’t - Oof!”

I’m cut off for what feels like the upteenth time tonight, but this time, it’s because she’s hugging me. It feels forced and… I guess necessitated would be a good word.

“I’m glad,” she tells me, still embracing. “It’s what I’m for, after all.”

“Yeah,” I try to say without hurting her… but she doesn’t feel… it’s very awkward. “You… you don’t have to keep holding onto to me though,” I say, edging her off with a little pressure to her shoulders. She pulls away, and I let out a mental sigh when she doesn’t react negatively. I assume it must be some kind of in-built reaction. “A nod or smile is fine,” I say.

When she doesn’t reply, I look away hesitantly and decide to busy myself with the warming spell. She goes back to gazing around of her own accord in short order, but since the heating spell is something even a first year at school could do, I’m left with nothing but my thoughts. And now that I’m not surrounded by what I’d equate to a secret society and on my way home, they’re ordered and logical again. Wait. Home. The castle… the princess. My hoof finds it’s way to my forehead, and my eyes shut while I mutter about how much of an idiot I am. Even if she would believe me, trying to explain how I destroyed a flying laboratory won’t end well. That, and I’ve technically stolen property… A shiver runs down my spine at the thought. It just popped into my head that way, even though she’s sitting right there next to me, breathing the same air I am.

But it doesn’t keep me from having to explain myself. If not stealing, I’ve kidnapped somepony. I’ve burned the equivalent of a small town, and probably killed every scientists there. I can already see Princess Celestia’s eyes and her tone as she tells me to get out of the castle, and… and… All of their faces, even the one that tried to attack me, come swimming into my mind, and I can’t stop myself. I crawl over to the back of the car, hang my head over, and vomit. A lot. But when I come back up, wiping my face and coughing at the taste of bile, my thoughts are even more transparent. How am I going to explain myself. And worse, what will they decide to do with the A-type if I don’t explain myself well enough?

But I’m not even given time to really think about it. “You okay, Shimmer?” the Guard asks, though he isn’t able to look back.

“Just… ugh, just…” I want to say I’m fine so I can go back to figuring out what I’m going to do, but doing that in the first place ended with me losing my stomach over the side. “What are we going to do?” I ask as straightly as I can. “The princess won’t be pleased, we have her to explain… It’s going to be a nightmare, and I’ll be lucky just to be expelled.” Even though I try to keep my tone set, I can’t help as a little panic runs into the end.

“They attacked us first,” he says without a flinch. “Both you and I were well within the law to retaliate. So we damaged a control system that happened to collapse the entire structure, not something we could have known.” He pauses to catch his breath, and it’s somewhat comforting to hear him confident we won’t be thrown in a dungeon for that. “That experiment next to you’s what’s complicated. Figure that out first.” I nod even though he can’t see me. It’s true any way I look at it. Some dark part of me tries to insist that she’s not real, and that the easiest solution would be to push her out of the car to the ground far, far below. But it’s gone before I’m even able to express revulsion at myself. I lean against the car’s side, letting the pulse of the heat spell lull me into pondering. I’m looking in her direction, but not at her. More through her to nothing.

“Is that what thinking looks like?” she asks with her straight, unregulated volume. She’s staring right at me too, which she seems to do when addressing anypony. I blink to refocus and nod.

“What am I going to do with you?” I sigh, not intending for my voice to carry to her ears. Thankfully, the wind carries it away before anypony knows I said anything, and I turn to stare off behind the chariot rather than at the A-type. There’s no chance I can take her to the princess. Nevermind having to explain what actually happened at Halter, but no matter how hard I try to convince myself it would be in a far better environment, I know the A-type would just be taken to another lab. And perhaps they wouldn’t mistreat her, but if the princess decided she was an abomination or a threat to Equestria, nopony would hesitate to put her down. And what’s worse, I’m not sure she understands she can be killed. She would just let them. I’m not sure why I’m the only pony that seems to look at her… differently, but if I can just get everything settled down, I know I’ll be able to figure out why.

I consider putting her in the care of my Guard. He knows the delicacy of our situation and would understand me wanting to keep her on a low profile for now. But at the same time, she’d be exposed to a Guard’s lifestyle. Ponies might accuse me of being classicist, but even though Guards are the spitting image of perfection on duty, I know most of them get drunk and find mares of the night whenever they have the chance. I shudder to think it, but they might even make a pass at her if she was around their quarters.

I need to hide her. Keep her someplace I know is safe until I’m able to sort out the mess this aftermath is going to be. And maybe I can get her to act more naturally in that time so I can make a stronger case against having her taken off to an examination room and used as an experiment. My rooms in the castle aren’t even remotely an option. The maids alone would find her. I don’t trust any of the colts or fillies from school to keep a secret for Sunset Shimmer. She’d just be a blackmailing tool to them. I haven’t spoken to my mother or father for years now. My older sister is across the country in Trottingham… It’s a possibility if I can’t think of anything else. But only if I can’t think of somepony in Canterlot. I knock my hoof against my head, trying to force an idea out.

And for once, it works. Flitz. Her mom works long night hours, and Flitz and I get along really well. It’ll be a hassle trying to explain everything that happened and why I need to keep an emotionless, staring filly in her room, but I think I can manage. I glance at her again, and a small giggle can’t help but escape my lips. She’s taken on my pose from before, low eyelids and all. “It doesn’t suit you that well,” I tell her.

“Oh, then I will stop,” she replies, and returns to her open-eyed, straight-backed sitting. “But how should I appear to be thinking?”

“It’s different for everypony,” I say. “Some ponies don’t even look like anything in particular when they’re thinking.”

“How will I decide how to appear to do so?” she asks.

“You’ll figure it out for yourself, I guess,” I say with a small shrug. “I never paid much attention to ‘how’ I do it. What were you thinking about anyway?”

“I was cataloguing the data I have gathered about wind speeds and cloud formations at these altitudes,” she says with a blink, separate from my own for once. “And that I need to eat some kind of food to become comfortable.”

“I’d give you some of my traveling oats if I had any,” I sigh. “They fell out of the car with my saddlebags when the building was collapsing. And you can just say you’re hungry. I think all of us are.”

“I’m hungry then,” she says, and I could be imagining it, but I think I hear the faintest hint of a whine. We leave it at that, and she continues to gaze while I huddle up in the car to try to sleep the day away. I must wake up at some point and tell her she can do the same thing if she’s tired, because I drift in and out throughout the day and she’s always sleeping when my eyes peek open. She doesn’t curl up, but I’m not one to judge somepony for how they sleep.

Again, I wake fully when I feel the car beginning to lose altitude, and I sit up in the cart to see Canterlot approaching fast. I take a look at the A-type briefly and think it best to let her stay asleep and innocuous for as long as possible. My second Guard, Lift, has joined back up with us, and both he and his commander look far more focused now than ever. “We’re detouring away from the castle strip!” I yell over the wind to the two of them. “Find an alley on Bagging Street in Lower Canterlot you can land in without drawing too much attention!”

“Aye, Miss!” my lead shouts his reply. “Duck inside! It’ll be better if nopony sees either of you!”

“Duly noted!” I confirm hearing him, and curl back down. I take careful note to wrap my tail inside and actually have to use my other hoof to pull her’s out of the wind as well. When the car takes a sharp dive and the whistling of the air around us dies away a little, I poke at her side until her eyes snap wide awake.

They dilate until they look normal and the color shimmers through a rainbow of hues, but she eventually looks at me and asks, “Did you need me Sunset Shimmer?”

“Look, you can just call me Sunset,” I impress upon her. “But yes, we’re about to land, and I need you to do exactly as I say until we reach Flitz’s place.”

“Yes?” she asks. “I am ready to receive your commands.”

“Oh… um, yeah, walk right beside me, a little off set so you don’t look awkward and don’t make eye contact with anypony unless they’re headed right for us. If that happens, just give them a look and smile.”

“I will do exactly as you say,” she replies, but also asks with a small tilt to her head, “But what does this show to the other ponies?”

“I… well, I guess it makes you look purposeful but not angry or sad. It keeps you from being stopped by total strangers is my point,” I explain in a rush. Brick walls are surrounding us now, and the chariot rocks to no end as the Guards make a full hovering stop before touching down.

“Go! Go!” the lead Guard hisses to me. “Make it snappy!” I jerk my head in response and wait for the A-type to step down and to my side. I stick my head out of the alley and look both ways, trying to use the limited lamp light to see any approaching ponies, but when I don’t see any obvious movement, I motion to her with a hoof. I do my best not to tip-hoof or make any long, careful strides, but I’m pretty sure I’m not walking exactly normally. I just don’t do conspiratorial stuff. Anything that might require it that I would want to do I can just get permission from the princess for. I’m woefully out of practice, though I think that might be a good thing in certain ways.

The alley we landed in was quite a way from Flitz’s house (well, Flitz’s mom’s house actually) but I’m used to walking the whole of street to it from Upper Canterlot. We reach the door of the small and quaint home, and there’s a new inspirational plaque on the outside, just like every week. Thankfully, we didn’t run into any other ponies out late, and the A-type moved beside well enough. She was still a little artificial, but I’ll take what I can get at the moment. I rap on the door several times and wince at how loud it seems at night.

But with her mom out late and her work day not starting until later in the afternoon anyway, Flitz is a tried and true night owl. She’s really a great pony to spend long study nights with. And because of that, she comes to the door almost right away. Not that I don’t repeat hushed thanks over and over as I push past her while dragging the A-type inside after me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I murmur. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but I couldn’t think -”

“Woah, slow down Sunset, what’s going on? Who is she?” Flitz asks, sounding half dazed.

“It’s complicated,” I settle for saying to stall for time. I turn to the A-type, but before I can tell her what to do, it hits me hard how badly she needs a proper name. I wrack my brain for several long moments and shake it with squinted eyes. “Aura,” I blurt the first thing that stands out about her. “Your name’s Aura. Okay, Aura, this is Flitz. Flitz this Aura.”

“Uh… he- hello,” Flitz says and waves nervously before frantically trying to fix her messy bed mane.

“Hello,” Aura replies in her typical tone, but she at least follows through with a wave like Flitz gave her. “Why have you brought me here, Sunset? Are you assigning me to protect her?”

“No. No, no,” I say. “While you’re here, I don’t want you to use your… ah, ability, at all.”

“Look Sunset, could you please explain what’s going on?” Flitz butts in, and I have to admit, frustration doesn’t go well with her.

“I’m sorry, I really am,” I preface, “but I need you to look after her for a while. Nopony can know about her. Nopony. Not even if Princess Celestia herself came asking could you say. I need to sort out everything else first, but she’ll make it impossible if I let her known from the get-go.”

“I… Look, you can tell me if you’re in deep with something illegal, Sunset,” Flitz says. “I mean, is she like some brain washed prostitute or something…?”

“No!” I reply vehemently. “No! I’ll give you all the details tomorrow, but she’s part of a mess of an assignment that letter you gave me sent me on.”

“Oh, sorry,” Flitz answers. “What… what should I do with her?”

“Aura’s a little… odd. Just take my word for it, I think she’s still assimilating behavior from other ponies. It’s why she doesn’t seem normal. So, just treat her like you’d treat me or any other pony. She’s not gonna react the same way, but just keep at it.”

“I’m in for a long night, aren’t I?” Flitz asks me with half-lidded eyes.

“To Tartarus if I know,” I reply with a shrug. “I barely know what I’m doing as is.”

“You have to promise to go over why I’m supposed to do this tomorrow,” she demands, and I can’t say I blame her or think it’s unwarranted.

“I already knew I was going to have to,” I say anyway, “but I promise. Aura, stay with Flitz for now. I’ll be back to check up in the morning.” She takes it as silently as always, and I bump a quick hoof with Flitz before heading back to the door. It’s only a few steps away, but in that time, something stops me.

“Sunset?” Aura’s voice asks, and I whip back at how soft it is, at least relative to the hard and loud I’m used to hearing. “What is going to happen to me if I am left alone here?” Her eyes are beginning to glow, but not tear like. It’s a more subtle version of what happened when her mane and tail were hazed.

“You’re not alone,” I try to reassure her, despite how wrenchingly confusing it is to be offering consolation of any kind. “I trust Flitz. She’s my best friend. She’ll take care of you.”

“I feel… afraid,” Aura states simply. “I do not know what will happen. Is this normal?”

“Yes,” I say even though my mind is struggling to comprehend how she jumped from blank emotional disinterest to something like this. “But if you’ve learned to fear, I’m guessing you can learn to trust. So trust I can get it sorted out, and trust I know Flitz will take care of you.”

“Move quickly,” she says. “I have decided I would rather learn a different feeling. This one makes me uncomfortable.”

“You also owe me a trip to Joe’s,” Flitz hisses in my ear just before I shut the door behind me. I may have told her trust Flitz, but already having to leave her in somepony else’s care is driving my mind into thinking up the worst possible things that could happen while I’m gone. I just need to visit the Night Court and make an afternoon appointment with the princess. Just take it one step at a time. And try not to rush back to Flitz’s place instead of sleeping in my rooms. This had better resolve itself quickly because I can already see myself losing it and becoming a piping hot mess.