The Mysterious Box and its Associated Horrors
The Heart Simulacra
The one thing that Sunset didn’t expect to see immediately upon exiting the portal was, honestly, Pinkie Pie. Seated on the steps to the school, her bubbly-pink hair held up by a sweat band around her forehead, Pinkie drank deeply from a bottle of water.
“Hey Pinkie,” Sunset said. “What are you up to?”
“The Autumn Marathon was today,” Pinkie replied, squirting a jet of water up and down into her open mouth. “Rainbow Dash and I just finished an hour ago.”
“Neat,” Sonata said, phasing through the portal after Sunset. “You don’t look tired though.”
“She never does,” Sunset muttered. “All that energy.”
“Oh, I’m plenty tired,” Pinkie said, standing up. “All sweaty and stinky over here. Here, I’ll let you—“
“Err, that’s okay, really,” Sunset said hastily, holding up both hands as Pinkie advanced on them, her armpit exposed. “So, you’re all done? Where’s Rainbow Dash?”
“She went for a cool-down lap around the school,” Pinkie said, sitting again.
“Of course she is,” Sunset said, smiling fondly.
“So, where did you two go?” Pinkie asked, bouncing her eyebrows suggestively. “A little qua-a-a-ality time in Equestria?”
“Twilight offered to take us to the Ponyville Food Fiesta,” Sonata said eagerly, pressing her fists to her chest and tensing every muscle in her body. “It was so yummy! You really do forget what pony food is like when you’ve been away so long!”
“Did you try the hayburgers?” Sunset asked. “You know I never liked them much when I lived there, but when I bit into it...”
She stopped as she felt her mouth beginning to salivate. Pinkie Pie on the other hand simply gave them a “Wut?” kind of look.
“You guys just went to a food festival?” she asked, as though disappointed. “I thought you’d do something exciting! Didn’t you fight dragons, or save the world from a giant, red-skinned centaur?”
“Nope,” Sonata said, shrugging.
“You didn’t beat hordes of shape-changing bug-creatures? Or blast ancient spirits of disharmony with rainbow lasers? Did you at least put on an amateur stage production and remind a local population of the importance of togetherness and community? Tell me you at least put on a play!”
“Err,” Sunset began, raising an eyebrow. “No. Sorry.”
Pinkie’s eyes roved this way and that, apparently searching for some last-ditch guess. “You didn’t spend any quality time together at least?”
“We were with each other most of the time,” Sonata said.
“Yeah, but I mean...” Pinkie made a rotating gesture with her hand as though asking Sonata to keep describing. “No quality time?”
Sunset, who’d caught on to what Pinkie meant the moment she’d implied it, kept silent, but couldn’t prevent a wash of warmth to spread through her cheeks, and a familiar gnawing in her gut. Looking sideways at Sonata’s profile, she bit her lip.
When it became obvious that Sonata at least wasn’t going to understand what she meant, Pinkie’s shoulders slumped.
“Oh well. At least I didn’t miss anything.”
“We’ll try to bring you something back next time,” Sunset said, thinking that perhaps Pinkie simply felt left out.
“Ponies eat cake, right?” Pinkie shot suspiciously.
“Tons,” Sonata said in awe. “Like, literally tons. If I weighed it on a scale, it would be in the tons.”
Sunset said nothing to counteract this hyperbole, since it wasn’t in the least hyperbolic.
Pinkie hummed. “Very well,” she said solemnly. “See you two later!”
“Do you want to come with us?” Sunset offered. “We have some cake at home if you really want some.”
“Nah, I’m needed here,” Pinkie said, waving them off politely. “I have to drive Rainbow back home.”
“Do you think it’s weird that Pinkie and Rainbow are here?” Sunset asked.
“Huh?”
Seated in the bus stop, Sonata looked up from her usual vagueness to find Sunset looking questioningly at her from her leaning position against the bus stop wall.
“Well isn’t the marathon supposed to have been at the centre of town?” Sunset said. “That’s a good bus ride or so from here.”
“Pinkie lives around here,” Sonata said, chewing a thumb nail.
“True,” Sunset conceded. “Pinkie did say they were using her car to get around.”
“Maybe she’s using the school track to do her cool-down run,” Sonata suggested.
“Meh,” Sunset shrugged, suddenly bored of the topic. “Anyway. So how did you like the fiesta? It was new to me, you know. We didn’t have anything like it in Canterlot.”
“I liked that muffin eating contest they held,” Sonata admitted. “But did you see the grey pony who won? She out-ate pony-Pinkie!”
“It was a close thing,” Sunset agreed.
“And I didn’t like that security pony much. It’s not my fault I set off the dark magic alarm when I don’t even have any dark magic anymore.”
“It tends to linger, dark magic,” Sunset said, looking out down the road. “Leaves scars. But Twilight’s spell seemed to have the right effect, didn’t it? You didn’t set off the alarm twice. And it perked me up at least.”
“I still don’t get why she did it to you too.”
“She reckoned since we live together...“
“Oh,” Sonata said, sounding a little glum.
“Hey, don’t look like that,” Sunset said, sitting next to her. “It’s not your fault. Like I said: Dark magic just tends to linger a little. It goes eventually.”
“Were you serious when you said we had cake at home?” Sonata asked after a short pause.
“Yeah,” Sunset said, smirking. “But I’m not telling you where it is.”
As Sonata began protesting this injustice – Sunset ostentatiously ignoring her just to wind her up a little more – Sunset noticed the bus trundle laboriously around the street corner.
“Come on,” she said, standing up. “That’s our bus.”
“Can you at least tell me what flavour your keeping me from enjoying,” Sonata pouted, turning up the guilt-trip factor a few decibles.
As Sunset put one step onto the bus, she halted at the sound of a familiar voice behind her. Turning, she blinked two or three times as she saw Twilight, her purple hair flying wildly behind her, running up to them with a crate in her arms.
Sunset and Sonata looked briefly at each other as Twilight sprinted towards them, tripping alternatively with the weight of the box, and calling loudly for them to wait. When she finally arrived, puffing and wheezing, the bus-driver was losing patience.
“Just a moment, please,” Sunset said as politely as possible, noticing several of the passengers peering interestedly or irritably through the windows at them.
“I need...” Twilight gasped. “I need... you to take... *gasp* these. I made... mistake.”
“A mistake?” Sunset asked as Twilight handed Sonata the crate. “What mistake?”
“No time to explain,” Twilight panted, bending over with her hands on her knees. “Have to... *kaff* have to get back and... research how to reverse it. Don’t open the crate... until you’re alone. And try... try to be quiet. They’re sleeping.”
And with that, she took a deep breath, and pelted back towards the school, and the statue that bore the portal back to Equestria.
“Twiligth!” Sunset called. “Wait! What is—“
It was too late of course. Twilight disappeared around the white base, and was gone. Sunset looked around at the wooden crate in Sonata’s arms. It was a light pink, and aged. In between the planks could be seen a white blanket or sheet, hiding the contents from view.
“They’re sleeping?” Sonata asked, evidently confused. “What’s she mean?”
Before Sunset could reply, the bus driver gave his horn a honk.
“Excuse me,” he said sternly. “Are you boarding, or what?”
Having held up the bus already, Sunset was not made comfortable by the fact that Sonata’s luggage seemed to be garnering some degree of attention from the passengers. Whilst in no way overtly obtrusive, almost every visible eye was directed at it, with one or two of the more brazen individuals whispering to their neighbours in plain sight.
“What is it?” Sonata asked, reaching for the lid.
“Twilight said not to open it yet,” Sunset warned. “We don’t know—“
Sunset halted immediately, as a small sound came from inside the box. It was barely audible, like something light falling into snow. It might have meant nothing at all, but all of a sudden, Sunset was overcome with an unaccountable feeling of warmth and contentedness. It became very clear to her that what she wanted to do was to hold onto something. Something warm, and soft, and just hold onto it.
Strangely, Sonata seemed to have the same idea. Before Sunset could quite comprehend her own feelings, Sonata was leaning into her, and hugging her around the middle with a gentle sigh.
“Um...” Sunset began, noticing all of the staring people a little more forcefully than before.
“Hm?”
“Did you feel that too?”
Sonata made an affirmative noise, but said nothing more.
Disconcerted, but somewhat overwhelmed by the feeling of closeness, Sunset stayed still for the rest of the journey, simply enjoying Sonata’s presence.
As the bus trundled on through the city to the base of the mountains, Sunset was reminded forcefully of what Pinkie had suggested about their visit to Equestria. Pinkie Pie and Rarity, and even on occasion Rainbow Dash, had been making similar remarks and allusions for some time since Sunset and Sonata had moved in with each other. Rarity made the comments in the manner of an overbearing parent, concerned that so much freedom and solitude might run away with them, and take them places that perhaps it wasn’t wise to tread this early in life. Rainbow Dash took a different view, and saw the whole situation as a means of teasing the two of them. Pinkie Pie on the other hand always had an inquiring, one even might say hopeful, view on the matter.
The uncomfortable part was that, privately, Sunset did want to engage Sonata in the implied activities. For herself, in her native state she was a fully grown adult pony, quite capable both physically and legally to settle down and have foals should she have chosen to. Sonata, although a different species, was several thousand years old. Surely questions of age restrictions were laughable when contemplating centuries.
But Sunset had kept her feelings to herself since she’d acknowledged them. In the main, it was Sonata that kept her from admitting her feelings; her girlfriend was a carefree, sweet-natured person, and bringing up the subject of sex with her just seemed... somehow wrong. A feeling of discomfort would arise and overwhelm Sunset’s other feelings, and the subject would never be broached. But Sunset could not deny those feelings, and more than once she’d had to excuse herself to take care of the business before it became too pressing.
Thus the months had passed, and so far as Sunset knew, Sonata was none the wiser.
When the bus stopped at the edge of the mountain range where their house lay, Sunset drowsily tried to rouse Sonata, and accidentally knocked the box to the floor. Something that sounded strangely like a startled squeak emanated from the fallen crate. The sound seemed to jolt both her and Sonata out of their strange torpor. Sonata hurried to pick the box up, and with the eyes of the other passengers still upon them, hastily exited the bus.
“Did you hear that too?” Sonata asked as soon as the bus rumbled away.
“That little high-pitched noise when you dropped the crate?”
Sonata nodded.
“I did, yeah. No, we’ll open it when we get in,” Sunset said hastily as Sonata made to reach for the lid again.
Perhaps it was just the after-effects of the bus ride, but Sunset was feeling what she thought to be an unreasonable level of paranoia as they walked up the hill towards their house. She found herself looking around at the empty gardens and innocent standing trees all around as though expecting there to be people staring out from them. The feeling went right down to the bone, right into her gut. The merest sound or the merest little movement out of the corner of her eye made her look around in alarm. When she pulled out her keys to open the door, Sonata let out a little squeal of terror, causing Sunset to leap back into the peony bush.
“W-What!?” Sunset stuttered, extricating herself from the slightly smooshed plant.
“Sorry!” Sonata gasped. “Sorry, I just—“ She looked suddenly back to the road, her eyes wide and searching.
Sunset noted this jumpiness. “Come on, lets get inside,” she said, pushing the door open. “Something’s wrong here. We need to figure out—Sonata!”
CRASH!
“Sorry!” Sonata cried from the floor.
Having tried to rush into the house quite before the door had swung all the way open, she’d hit the edge, bounced off, and promptly tripped on the metal strip of the doorframe. The crate crashed to the floor again, bouncing once and bursting open, disgorging its contents onto the living room carpet.
“Ah!” Sunset cried suddenly, clutching her arm. “Ow! What the—“ She stopped as she saw what had been inside of the box.
Both she and Sonata approached cautiously, Sunset still holding her inexplicably painful arm as they edged closer, staring unblinkingly at the tiny thing lying stunned on the floor.
Its body was small and fragile looking, like a doll, its head looking as though it were too big for the body to lift. Its small ears were held down close to its head, and its enormous eyes were tightly closed. As they watched, it opened them tentatively, lifted its head, and opened its mouth.
“Myah!” it cried thinly, apparently in distress. “Myah! Myah!”
“Holy Celestia...” Sunset breathed. “It’s... it’s you.”
“Aww!” Sonata cried rapturously.
Taking no notice of them, the tiny blue pony lifted itself awkwardly on its four thin legs, and looked around, its wide magenta eyes sparkling with tears.
“Myaaah!” it called again, slightly louder than before.
“It...” Sonata said, sniffing loudly. “That’s so sad!”
“What?” Sunset muttered, looking at Sonata and frowning. And then it dawned on her. “Oh no,” she said, looking down in horror at the tiny creature. “No, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.”
She looked down at the crate, upside down where it’d been dropped. It was budging slightly, shifting across the floor with the pace of a winded snail. Cautiously, Sunset lifted the box, and felt her insides go cold with what she saw.
Sonata gasped in delight. “It’s a little you!” she shrieked, reaching down for the little pony.
“No, stop!” Sunset barked, seizing Sonata’s wrist.
Sonata jumped, startled. “What?” she asked, looking at Sunset in alarm.
“Don’t touch them,” Sunset said seriously. “If they’re what I think they are...”
She stared at the miniature her. It limped across the floor towards the mini-Sonata, holding its forward right leg up as though it were in pain. Sunset felt her own right arm unconsciously.
“What do you think they are?” Sonata asked after a few moments.
“Heart Simulacra,” Sunset said, frowning.
“Ooh,” Sonata said eagerly. “Magic explanation time?”
“Magic explanation time,” Sunset confirmed, watching the tiny ponies reach each other and begin snuggling. “They’re facsimiles of us, of our deepest feelings and most private thoughts. They are a manifestation of what is in our hearts right now.”
“Why does my one keep crying?” Sonata asked, tilting her head to one side as the tiny-her intertwined its neck around the tiny-Sunset’s. Its enormous eyes were still glistening with tears, and it kept sniffling loudly.
“The point,” Sunset said, “is that they’re magically connected to us. Anything that happens to them, happens to us. Within reason.”
“Within reason?” Sonata repeated.
“Well, see how the little me hurt her arm? My arm hurts.” She rubbed her arm where it felt as though something heavy had been swung into it. “But the effects can’t actually produce physical results. There’s nothing wrong with my arm, it’s just a trick signal in my brain. The body is wired for survival, so anything that happens to the simulacra will only feel like it happens to us.”
“So don’t hurt them,” Sonata summed up. “Got it.”
“Don’t do anything to them. Making them feel any strong emotions will correspond that feeling onto us. And vice versa.”
“Well that explains why your mini-me is lecturing mine,” Sonata said, pointing at the simulacra.
The tiny-Sunset was seated, its good-hoof raised, and its air serious. Whilst the tiny-Sonata blinked and sniffled, the tiny-Sunset ratted off a stream of nonsensical sounds like a mouse giving a speech.
“I don’t lecture!” Sunset protested. On the floor, the tiny-Sunset stood up, let out a horse-like snort, and stomped away. The tiny-Sonata gasped in shock and trotted after it, trying vainly to nuzzle the other.
“Wow,” Sonata said, blushing. “This is really awkward.”
“I’m going to get Twilight,” Sunset said, trying to stay on topic. “She knows what’s happened, she must be trying to find a way to reverse it.”
“So we can’t keep them?” Sonata asked, picking up tiny-Sunset. “But they fill my heart with unfathomable joy.”
As she spoke, the tiny-Sonata on the floor stared up at the tiny-Sunset, and started making a pining sound.
“And now I feel sad,” Sonata added, her shoulders slumping. She set the tiny-Sunset down, where it was permitted to have the tiny-Sonata tug it into an encompassing embrace.
Trying to ignore the sudden burst of affection blossoming inside of her, Sunset said “Stay here and watch them. But don’t mess with them, okay?”
“What exactly are you going to do?” Sonata asked.
“Go back to Equestria and sort out this mess. If Twilight made them by accident, she might not know how to safely get rid of them. Until they’re gone, we’re stuck feeling whatever they do. And given they’re a pure expression of our inner-most feelings unencumbered by doubts, social constraints, or better sense, it’s only a matter of time until they get us into some kind of trouble.”
“Should I separate them or something?” Sonata asked doubtfully, as Sunset made for the door.
“No,” Sunset decided. “I don’t really want to travel back to the portal feeling overwhelming sorrow and loneliness.”
“How do you know you’ll feel that?”
“Because it’s how I feel when I’m away from you for too long.”
Sunset smiled at the glowing look on Sonata’s face, but then instantly regretted it. In a fit of excitement, the little simulacrum Sonata glomped the simulacrum Sunset, sending a wave of pain pulsing up Sunset’s arm.
“Just make sure they don’t do anything crazy, okay?” Sunset managed to say through gritted teeth. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Take your time!” Sonata called, lying on her front on the floor and watching the two tiny ponies.
As Sunset closed the door and made her way down the garden path to the slanted road, a sudden creeping sensation slid over her back. Dearly though she loved Sonata, she knew her well enough to know that, like everyone else, she had her weaknesses. It suddenly became rather apparent that leaving her alone with two adorable ponies the size of kittens might not have been the wisest idea given the current circumstances.
As the bus rolled on back towards the school, however, Sunset began to wonder whether her fears weren’t altogether misplaced. No unnatural spikes in emotion or physical feeling had struck her since leaving the house, and as the bus rumbled along, Sunset began to feel herself calming down.
It’ll be some odd mistake, she thought, thinking about just how Twilight could have come into possession of the two simulacra. That’ll be why she gave them to us for safe keeping whilst she sorts it out. We have the most to lose should anything happen to them.
With comforting thoughts like these on her mind, Sunset was able to turn her thoughts towards more idle topics; first and foremost was Sonata herself. Sunset began to feel guilty that she’d had doubts about Sonata’s ability to handle the situation alone, and began to feel a warm disposal towards an imaginary Sonata in her head. The imaginary Sonata giggled in that way the real one did, and as always, Sunset’s insides did a little twist as she imagined Sonata taking hold of her hands and holding them close. Sonata leaned in forward, her deep magenta eyes full of a singular meaning. Her lips drew closer, closer...
KEESSSSSSH
Sunset jumped out of her daydream, her face glowing as the bus ground to a halt, hissing loudly. As she tried to suppress her blush, a passenger tottered over to her seat.
“Ya don’t mind if ole’ Granny Smith takes this ‘ere seat, do ya?”
“Huh?” Sunset said stupidly, looking up. “O-Oh! No, not at all.”
“Thank yez,” Granny Smith said, sitting down with a groan and plopping her shopping bags down on the floor.
“Are you going home?” Sunset asked. “I thought the farm was the other way.”
“It is,” Granny Smith confirmed. “Ah’ma have’ta ride the bus back round. Ah don’t mind it though. I like me a little bus ride now’n again. Did ah eva’ tell you the story of how I met mah husband? It was on a bus, y’know. Or it mayt have been’a tram service.”
Sunset felt a cold sort of dread steal over her as she realised that Granny Smith seemed to be starting a story. She began to purse her lips, but then felt the coldness begin to abate, and a warm sort of anticipation burgeon inside of her, a heady mixture of glee and wariness. That didn’t seem right...
A sensation flared across Sunset’s midriff, and she let out an involuntary laugh. Slapping a hand to her mouth, she looked automatically around to see if anyone was looking at her.
“Ah know!” Granny Smith cackled. “Right in the chops! Mah wrist ain’t been right eva’ since.”
“Damnit, Sonata...” Sunset mumbled. “What are you—“ She choked as the sensation burst again, this time at her neck and behind her knee. She snorted loudly into her hand, trying to muffle the sounds of laughter.
“If’n y’all liked that story, ah got another ya might find even more rib-ticklin’.”
“Oh, that’s alright, you don’t have t—“
“It started laik many stories do, with a beautiful young thing, beginnin’ her first day at school,” Granny Smith began.
Sunset could barely walk as she stepped off the bus. Her legs felt like jelly. And not a solid chunk of jelly either; no, more the sort of jelly that’s been given to a two year old and been allowed to be played with for half an hour without supervision. The sensation of being repeatedly tickled seemed to have seeped into her bones, so that she could barely tell any longer whether it was still happening. Stumbling along the path towards the school, she suddenly felt a different feeling. A need to run. A need to move. Before she knew what she was doing she was sprinting, her legs working madly, a mischievous glee urging her to keep going forward, but for what reason she didn’t know. She let out a giggle without meaning to, and instinctively looked around just in case anyone saw her do it. Maybe she should hide too, that seemed like a good idea. Again, quite why was not really very clear, but it seemed like a good plan. She pelted along the school path towards the statue, hurtled around the side of it, and ran straight into a mane of wild pink hair.
“Woo!” Pinkie Pie cried from the ground. “You look like you’re in a hurry!”
“Sorry, Pinkie,” Sunset said, pushing herself off of the statue and rubbing her painful arm. She pulled Pinkie to her feet. “Is Rainbow Dash not done yet?”
“She went to the bathroom. She should be done in a minute.”
“Oh,” Sunset replied, eager to return to the subject at hand. “Pinkie, did you see Twilight go by?”
“Yeah,” Pinkie said, sitting down on the stairs. “In and out,” she went on, indicating the statue. “Looked like she was in a hurry.”
“Good, she did go back then,” Sunset muttered. “Pinkie, if anyone asks you where I—Oof!”
“Where you oof?” Pinkie asked, raising an eyebrow.
Sunset sucked down a great breath of air, it having been knocked out of her a second ago. It felt as though the atmosphere around her had just squeezed her insides, forcing the air out of her lungs. Then the entire world spun, making her instantly dizzy. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground, Pinkie Pie’s face inordinately close to her own.
“Are you okay?” Pinkie asked, giving her a look of some concern.
“I-I’m fine,” Sunset said, pushing herself up and leaning away from Pinkie’s enormous blue eyes. “I just need to get to Twilight. She can fix this. She’d better fix this,” she added menacingly.
“You’re acting weird,” Pinkie said bluntly. Coming from her, this was saying something. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’d be fine if Sonata would just stop messing with my...” she let the sentence tail off. It probably wasn’t a good idea to tell Pinkie of all people about the little cute ponies that could affect her physical and emotional feelings. Celestia only knows what Pinkie might do with knowledge like that.
“Look, I’m sure that if Twilight’s done anything, the best thing to do is to let her figure it out for herself,” Pinkie said, sounding unusually lucid. “She’s, like, a super smart girl. Pony. Princess. Thing.”
“Well, yeah, but—“
“And just what is Sonata doing anyway that you don’t want her to be doing?”
“Oh, um, it’s just—“
“Wait a minute,” Pinkie said, suddenly staring at the ground and rubbing her chin. “Something to do with Twilight. Sunset acting weird. Sonata doing something far away that’s doing something to you, all the way over here?”
Sunset blinked, wondering if Pinkie was about to pull out one of her patented psychic-appearing spot-on explanations about the truth of what was occurring that no one else would ever believe unless they saw it with their own two eyes.
“You and Sonata are having relationship problems, aren’t you!” Pinkie finished, pointing dramatically at Sunset.
Sunset’s insides did something hard to describe. They seemed to freeze in place, as though her very heart had ceased beating, and her brain had paused in its electro-chemical activity.
“Huh?” Sunset asked, blankly.
“Mmhmm,” Pinkie said knowingly, in the tone of a doctor dealing with a troublesome patient. “Well, I don’t want to be interfering or anything, but if you’re putting your hopes on Twilight helping you through your issues, I don’t think it’s going to work.”
“What?” Sunset asked stupidly. “Pinkie, no, you’ve got the—“
“What you need to do is go home, and talk,” Pinkie said firmly, taking a hold of Sunset’s shoulders and spinning her around. “Now you get back on that bus, go home, and sit down with her until you work something out. And if either of you feel any urges of a physical nature, then do not repress them! It’s unhealthy.”
“Pinkie, stop! You don’t know what you’re—You’ve got the wrong idea!”
It was no use though. Pinkie had tuned her out, and Sunset knew that nothing short of a quintuple layer chocolate cake would be enough to turn her attention. That, or a phone ringing.
Pinkie stopped as Sunset’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Sunset pulled it out and looked at the caller ID.
Oh, this should be good, she thought, seeing Sonata’s name. Explanation time.
“Well answer it, then,” Pinkie said, for some reason sounding eager.
Sunset walked the few steps to the bus shelter so that she was out of earshot of Pinkie, and touched the little vibrating phone icon.
“Yello’?” she said.
“Sunset!” Sonata shouted from the other end of the phone.
Taking a moment to wince at the unexpected volume, Sunset tentatively brought the phone back to her ear.
“What? What is it? And what have you been doing with those simulacra?”
“Simul-what-now?” Pinkie asked, appearing at Sunset’s shoulder.
“Not now, Pinkie,” Sunset said, trying to edge away from her.
“I wasn’t doing anything with them!” Sonata cried over the phone. When Sunset said nothing to this, she went on “Honest! I was just sitting there watching them, and they were being just so cute, cuddling each other and—“
Sunset waited patiently for her girlfriend to go through the particulars; she knew from long experience that any interruption would only prolong the proceedings.
“Alright,” she said. “So what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Oh, yeah,” Sonata said, apparently remembering. “Well, they kinda... um, they sorta...”
“What?” Sunset asked, feeling a coldness run up her spine at Sonata’s hesitancy.
“I tried to catch them, I really did,” Sonata said reluctantly, in the sort of voice usually employed by small children standing over broken objects. “I caught the little-you for a moment, but little-me bit me on the ankle and they both kinda... erm, vanished.”
“Vanished?” Sunset demanded. “Are you serious?”
“That’s why I’m calling!” Sonata cried hysterically. “I don’t know what to do! I don’t know where they could be!”
“Alright, alright,” Sunset said. She looked back around at Pinkie, who was standing at a respectful distance, a wide, toothy grin on her face. “I’m coming home. Twilight will have to fix this alone. At least until we find them again. Just make sure there aren’t any open windows or doors, okay? Don’t let them leave the house or we could be in serious trouble.”
“I don’t see how locking her in the house is going to solve your relationship problems,” Pinkie mused as Sunset put her phone away.
“It’s not—We don’t—“ Sunset pinched her nose. “Pinkie, don’t you have a rainbow to follow?”
“Fine, fine, Pinkie can take a hint,” she said, winking. “Good luck!”
“Thanks,” Sunset called back ill-naturedly. “I guess,” she muttered to herself. As she waited for the bus to turn back around however, she wondered what Pinkie had meant by Good luck!. There’d been an additional meaning in how she’d said it, like a sort of knowing tone had crept in, and Sunset found herself shuddering at the prospect of what Pinkie had meant.
The bus appeared several minutes later, the driver now giving Sunset a slightly raised eyebrow at how many times he appeared to have seen her today. The seat next to Granny Smith had been occupied by a suited gentleman reading a newspaper, so Sunset sat down nearby on a bench against the wall, where her only company was a woman discoursing loudly on her mobile phone. In sight of Granny Smith, the elderly woman gave Sunset a friendly smile and a wave, which Sunset returned.
And then the bomb dropped. Sunset’s jaw simultaneously tightened and dropped, her eyes widening in horror.
“N-No way,” she breathed, as the residual feeling washed over her. “What in the hell is she—“
And then it happened again. She put her hand to her mouth as she felt a funny sort of tingle run over her lips, spreading down her neck and chest. Heat rushed into her face and neck as goose bumps erupted across her flesh. Before she could fully come to terms with what was going on, she felt the most ominous feeling of all. Being a teenage human, she’d long since figured out the delicate methodology of a very particular sort of stress relief, and was quite familiar with the sensations it inspired. The only question was, why was it happening now? Oh dear Celestia, why!?
Sunset kept her hand clamped over her mouth, and tried her hardest to keep still and quiet.
What the hell is Sonata doing!? she thought furiously. I told her to leave them... UAGH!
She clamped her legs hard together, hoping that the rumble of the engine and the loud voice of the woman on her phone would mask the little squeaks and moans escaping her mouth. The rest of the journey was pure agony, fighting back every fresh wave of ecstasy as it tried to break over her, denying every instinct to moan, to reach for her sensitive spots, keeping herself perfectly still, and focusing on one thing to hold it altogether.
I am going to KILL HER!!
Just what Sonata was thinking, doing this to the tiny-Sunset, she could only imagine, but the full-sized Sunset was not laughing. Her face burned with arousal and humiliation as she screwed her eyes shut, hoping against hope that no one on the bus was looking too closely at her.
Muttering a stream of inarticulate swear-words under her breath, she gave herself over to the fact that it wasn’t likely to stop, and so simply prayed that it would be over soon, and that when it eventually came, she’d be able to cover it up.
With what remained of her available brain power, she probed what parts of her might give away to the passengers what was happening to her:
Right hand clamped over mouth: Check.
Left hand wedged beneath left thigh: Check.
Legs crossed and tightly clamped together: Check.
Mouth clamped shut by aforementioned right hand: Obviously.
Everything seemed in order. All she could do now was wait for the inevitable end. And by the feel of it, it was just... just...
Almost... almost there... oh Celestia, don’t stop!
Focusing as hard as she was on the subject at hand, it came as quite a shock when she felt a hand touch her shoulder. Unfortunately, the surprise of the unexpected contact ramped her inner excitement into overdrive, and she jumped so much she almost stood upright before her jellified legs collapsed her onto the woman next to her. If this wasn’t enough, her ears were simultaneously assaulted by an intolerably loud and high-pitched noise that, until it stopped, she didn’t recognise.
She had screamed.
Drawing deep, shallow breaths, she looked around to find Granny Smith leaning away from her and looking surprised
“Sorry t’wake ya, dearie,” Granny Smith said hesitantly. “But I think this here is yer stop.”
Sunset blinked, dimly aware that everyone in the bus was staring right at her.
“S-Sorry,” she muttered shakily to the woman beside her. The woman said nothing, but was staring at her, white in the face, her phone lost somewhere under the seats.
Standing up tremulously, Sunset opened her mouth to say... something. Anything. But no sound came out but a curious sort of braying noise, like a strangled sheep. Swallowing, she nodded curtly and ran from the bus, her cheeks burning with humiliation.
“Madam, do you know that girl?” the bus driver asked into the silence.
“Wha?” Granny Smith said, caught off guard. “Eh, mah granddaughter does.”
“Well, tell her if she does that again, I’ll report her to the transit service. She has no business doing that in public, and certainly not on my bus!”
With a “hmph!”, the driver turned back in his seat, and resumed the bus’s interminable path back down the mountain, leaving Granny Smith alone bewildered.
The feeling come back slowly to Sunset’s legs, and so a great deal of her trek up to her house was done purely on mechanical memory as she recovered from the prickly heat still tingling over her body.
“I’m... going... to kill her!” she gasped, climbing the couple of steps to her garden path. Stumbling along the stone flags to the door, Sunset collapsed against it, reaching for her keys as she instinctively grasped for the door handle. Taking a second or two to catch her breath, she turned the key and opened the door.
The first thing that she noticed was the crate still on the floor where it’d been left not an hour ago. The second thing she noticed was the distinct sound of slow, regular breathing in the room, like that of someone sleeping. She looked swiftly around, until her eye was caught by something utterly bizarre.
“Err...” Sunset muttered, unable to help herself.
For reasons best known only to herself, Sonata was... sitting? Sitting upside down on the sofa, her ponytail lying like a dormant snake across the floor whilst her booted feet were splayed over the back of the headrest. She appeared to be fast asleep. If this was not bizarre enough, Sunset couldn’t help but notice Sonata’s rather dishevelled appearance and reddened expression. Although the latter may have been due to her being upside down.
“Fbluh!”
With this rather inarticulate sound, Sonata shook awake at the sound of Sunset’s voice. Seeming to notice for the first time the fact that she was upside down, she attempted to right herself, but doing it awkwardly with stiff limbs, she somehow managed to overbalance and fell with a crash to the floor.
“Sonata,” Sunset began, trying to sound stern. “What have you been doing? I told you not to touch the simulacra.”
“I didn’t touch them,” Sonata groaned, picking herself up from the floor. Sunset noted dimly that she seemed unsteady on her feet.
“Sonata, I am in no mood to mess around. I just had the most humiliating experience on the bus ride back here. Just what you think you were doing to those—“
“I was doing?” Sonata demanded, her eyebrows just about taking flight in indignation. “I was doing? I wasn’t doing anything! It was all them! I tried to stop them, but—“
“Wait,” Sunset interrupted, an unpleasant thought striking her. “Where are the simulacra?”
“That’s what I said on the phone!” Sonata moaned. “They ran off somewhere. I looked all over the place and couldn’t find them. But then when I thought to look under the chairs, I started feeling weird.”
“Weird how?” Sunset asked.
“Weird, like,” Sonata began, and then hesitated. Her cheeks flushed. “You know. Like... weird down there.”
Sunset’s mouth fell open. “Wait, so what you’re telling me, is that you lost the simulacra.”
“Yeah.”
“Then they ran off somewhere into the house, and you don’t know where they are.”
“Mhmm.”
“And whilst they were lost, both you and I... well, you know...”
“Felt the kitty being petted,” Sonata supplied matter-of-factly.
Sunset coughed. “Y-Yes. So that means, where ever they are, they’ve been...”
“Up to some mischief,” Sonata finished again. “Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
Sunset bit her lip. “Well if all of that is the case, and given what they are and what they represent...”
“Yep,” Sonata agreed, nodding solemnly.
“We have to find them quickly. It’s only—“
“It means that you’re a pervert,” Sonata said.
Sunset stopped speaking faster than a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
“WH--! What!?” she spluttered.
“It’s okay, Sunset,” Sonata said soothingly, draping an arm around Sunset’s shoulders. “It’s perfectly normal for people our age.”
“Oh dear Celestia...”
“And let’s face it,” Sonata said with a little chuckle. “I am the cutest thing. I’m surprised you’ve kept your hands off of me this long.”
“Now just wait a second,” Sunset said, pulling out of Sonata’s grip. “I didn’t get the feeling that your mini-me was holding back.”
“No, I didn’t get that impression either,” Sonata snickered, grinning toothily.
Sunset glared at her narrowly. “Your teasing me, aren’t you?”
“Only a little bit,” Sonata replied in an altogether different voice, touching Sunset’s nose with one thin finger. She looked Sunset full in the eyes, a particular glint in her deep magenta eyes that Sunset had never seen there before.
Sunset cleared her throat.
“Yes, well,” she said, trying not to sound flustered. “Anyway, we should really—“ Sunset paused. “Wait, do you hear that?”
Looking unwilling to change the subject, Sonata turned her head to one side, listening.
“They’re snoring,” she said. “You hear that?”
“But where is it...?” Sunset zoned in on the sound, and frowned. “Oh, no way,” she mumbled, stepping over to the fallen crate. With Sonata on her heels, she knelt down, and carefully picked up the crate. Underneath, covered in the cloth like a blanket, were the two little simulacra, fast asleep with their necks intertwined.
Sunset gave Sonata a cool look.
“You didn’t think to look in the box?” she asked in a deadpan voice.
Sonata grinned toothily again, her cheeks reddening.
“Err...” Twilight began.
Sunset didn’t say anything to this. She had a dull ache growing in the side of her head that quite distracted her from caring a great deal, and Twilight seemed to take the hint that Sunset was not in the mood to be talking about her and Sonata’s dishevelled appearances.
“Wow!” Pinkie gasped, blunt as a broken ruler. “You two look awful!”
Sunset gave Sonata a brief look up and down. If she, Sunset, looked anything as dishevelled as Sonata did, she could see Pinkie’s point. Both of them looked pale and wan, exhausted by the simulacra’s afterglow. Sunset would have been happy to sleep, but seen as how she had to deal with this last exchange first, she bore her tiredness until the end, trying to ignore how she could feel the pulsing of her own blood.
“Anything to drink?” Sonata asked half-heartedly, repressing a yawn.
“N-No,” Twilight said quickly. “Thank you, but, erm... I hope they haven’t been too... I mean, there hasn’t been too much—“ She stopped as both Sunset and Sonata gazed at her impassively.
“Twilight,” Sunset said, holding the side of her head and trying to press the ache back a little. “I’m going to go to bed in a little while. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to write to you a number of questions. I’m going to expect swift, satisfactory answers to them. Is that okay with you?”
Twilight gulped, sensing the implied “or else” in the artificially sweet tone of voice Sunset was managing to affect.
“Once again,” she said hastily, “I’d like to apologise for the trouble. Of course I’ll answer any questions you have. I just...” she hesitated, looking sideways at Pinkie as though silently pleading for her to intervene. “They didn’t cause any, um... trouble, did they?”
“No,” Sunset said flatly, as Sonata took in a deep breath. “Nothing at all. Thanks for driving Twilight up here, Pinkie,” she said, turning to Pinkie, who as usual was smiling widely. “I don’t think I could have faced that bus driver again.”
“It was my pleasure,” Pinkie said in as close to a matter-of-fact voice as was possible for her to do. She folded her arms around Twilight’s shoulders, almost dislodging the crate from her arms. “I wouldn’t pass up a chance to spend time with Twilight, you know?”
Once Sunset had closed the door on Pinkie and Twilight’s retreating backs, she held up a finger to be sure Sonata didn’t speak just yet. She glanced behind the curtain, and saw Pinkie’s car trundle off down the hill.
“I don’t suppose we should really tell anyone what happened,” Sonata said shiftily, once Sunset had lowered her finger. “You know.” She gave a guilty little half-smile.
When Sunset said nothing, Sonata dropped her smile and looked inquiring.
“No, it’s nothing,” Sunset said at Sonata’s wondering what was the matter. “It’s probably nothing. It’s just that...” she paused, tracing her lips with her finger. “I’m starting to feel as though this was all... well, contrived.”
“Smaller words?” Sonata said meekly, after a short silence.
“I think that Twilight might have done this on purpose,” Sunset explained slowly.
Sonata gaped, her tiredness receding slightly. “On purpose?” she demanded. She frowned, considering the problem. “Oh. Well. Good.”
Sunset blinked, her finger stopping mid-trace. “What?”
“Good,” Sonata repeated stoutly. “I mean, even if it was con...con-triv—“
“Contrived,” Sunset said helpfully.
“Yes, that. Even if it was that, well...” She cleared her throat. “It kinda cleared the air.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I mean, we both kind of know the score now, don’t we?”
Sunset paused for a moment, not knowing what Sonata meant. And then almost immediately felt a flush come over her face. “Oh,” she said, her eyes roving over a quick succession of objects. “Yes, well, I suppose so.” She looked sideways at Sonata, who under the tentativeness of the look, seemed to become slightly abashed herself. “So, you’ve felt the same for me?”
When Sonata gave a small nod, not meeting Sunset’s eye, the latter watched her steadily for a moment, and then felt a trembling in her gut. Her lip curled upwards, and she started to snicker.
“What’re you laughing about?” Sonata asked, evidently disconcerted.
“We’re ridiculous,” Sunset chuckled in between snorts of laughter. “It took two little pony-versions of ourselves banging in a box for us to realise that the other—You see the funny here. Tell me you see the humour.”
“No, I don’t think I do,” Sonata said earnestly. “But if Twilight did it on purpose, then, why?”
“If it was someone like Rainbow Dash who’d done it, I could understand very easily why,” Sunset said. “She’d jump on this prank faster than you could blink. But Twilight... I don’t know. Even though we’re friends, I don’t know her character enough to know if she has a darker side like that. Even if she were inclined towards pranking someone, this just doesn’t seem her style.
“Maybe she thought she was... helping?” Sonata suggested, grasping at straws in Sunset’s opinion.
Sunset considered the point. “From what I’ve been told, she can be a little neurotic and interfering.”
“I think that this would count as interfering,” Sonata breathed.
“Maybe,” Sunset said quietly, folding her arms and frowning into space.
Sonata bore this thoughtfulness for another few moments, and then gently took Sunset’s upper arm.
“Well come on, then,” she said.
“Come on?” Sunset asked, snapping out of her thoughts as Sonata tugged her towards the stairs. “Um, where?”
“To bed, obviously,” Sonata replied. “I’m good for round two.”
“Round two?” Sunset repeated, momentarily dazed. “You mean, uh—” she added, catching on. “But, Son—“
“Didn’t you just say a second ago how ridiculous we both were for not just telling each other what we wanted?”
“Uh, yeah, I suppose I did,” Sunset said humbly.
“Sunset,” Sonata said, taking hold of both of Sunset’s hands and looking full in the face. “You’re an adult pony, I’m several centuries old, and I have something that I want us to do. I want to have sex with you.”
Sunset said nothing for a full five seconds, her brain processing furiously. The echo of her own thoughts on the subject rang in her mind, and she realised that there was only one logical conclusion.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
Pinkie Pie hummed cheerfully as she drove Twilight back down the hill, a familiar tune that the Equestrian sitting next to her recognised as one that the Pinkie Pie she knew sometimes employed. Twilight herself sat with her head slightly bowed, her hands set firmly on the crate with the sleeping simulacra resting peacefully within. She glanced at Pinkie once or twice, as though expecting her to say something, but Pinkie Pie said nothing.
Finally, her guilt getting the better of her, Twilight spoke.
“Was it... right? Doing this?”
They came to a stop sign at the foot of the hill. No other traffic moved here, and so Pinkie set her foot to the brake and considered the question.
“It worked,” she said simply. “Didn’t it.”
Twilight cast a worried eye onto the box’s lid.
“I suppose so,” she mumbled. “And, if it helps them, I guess it can’t be... but still, interfering with them like that. I just can’t help but think that doing that was wrong. Invasive.”
“Twilight,” Pinkie said, in her usual sing-song voice. “Don’t you worry your pretty little purple pony head about any of it. As far as you’re concerned, you simply paid Auntie Pinkie back a favour. That’s all.”
“Well, yes, I did owe you. But don’t you think—“ Twilight said.
“That’s all,” Pinkie Pie said, putting a finger tenderly to Twilight’s lips.
Twilight blushed and looked away, her face still scrunched with worry.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Pinkie Pie said. “I knew bad things were going to happen between them soon. I don’t really know how, but I felt it. I couldn’t let them break up over something as silly as not talking to each other about their feelings. What kind of friend would that make me?”
“Felt it?” Twilight asked, frowning. “Like, in your heart?”
“No, in my hair,” Pinkie replied, as though this were a commonplace sort of thing to say. “And in my left ring finger. Wobbly hair means a bad day is coming, and the left ring finger means it’s gonna be a friendship problem.” She licked her teeth once over, and then said “At least, that’s usually what it means. Girlfriends is a kind of friendship, wouldn’t you say?”
Twilight stared at her. “I should think so,” she said, rubbing your chin. “So in short, your Pinkie Sense was going.”
“Hah! That’s what Maud calls it,” Pinkie giggled.
“So you figured that something was straining their relationship through your Pinkie Sense,” Twilight surmised. “I’m guessing it went off when you were around them?”
“Seven times,” Pinkie agreed.
“Well, how did you find out what the cause was? What made you think these would work?” she asked, inclining her head towards the box.
At this question, Pinkie actually laughed. “Oh Twilight, it’s like you don’t know me or something.” She snickered as Twilight gave her a slightly frightened look. “I always find it out, Twilight,” she said, accelerating her little blue car into the dim yellow lights of the city’s night time streets.
“I always find it out.”
- The End
