Sabbatical, or the Study of Garden Gnome Anatomy in South Perjina

Chapters

3: Starlight Finds A Bowl
4: Sunset Shimmering
5: Vilage Conspiracy 1
6: Vilage Conspiracy 2
7: Vilage Conspiracy 3
8: The Grand Destrier
9: Guest Speakers
10: Thrombosis
11: The Court of Public Opinion 1
12: The Court of Public Opinion 2
13: The Court of Public Opinion 3
1: Foreword
2: Starlight Glummer

3: Starlight Finds A Bowl

What had seemed initially like a grand canyon was, upon closer inspection, nothing but an abandoned dig site. Red sand, indicating high amounts of iron ore, and sparse bush, staking uncontested claims as sole inhabitants of the land — it was enough to dry throats just by looking at it.

The horrific sound of wheezing echoed across the pit, and by echoed it was more of a matter of crawling, since the sand did not reflect sound well on account of the roughness of its surface dispersing the waves. Additionally, it was red.

Along with the crawling coughing was Sunset's frantic, ineffectual cries, alternating between assurance that no, Starlight was not going to choke to death, yes, Starlight would be okay, and what the hell, "drink in the sights" was not a literal phrase.

"Oh, gosh, I'm so rusty with my magic. Water spell, water spell... Heh, rusty. You know, 'cos this was probably an iron mining site. And if you're the one with iron sand in your mouth, you'd be the rusty one, eh?"

Starlight's mixed noises of pain and giggling at that would never really leave Sunset's memory. Late at night, on unexpected rainy days, her mind would wander, and it would perhaps settle on this one memory to replay — a cackling that could rival thunder in its guttural qualities — while she tucked herself in tighter with a warm blanket and the reassuring glow of the beside lamp she bought for cheap at I*EA.

Eventually, Sunset realized that there was still some water left in the bottle in her saddlebag. It being in a bottle didn't stop her from murmuring "Hey presto" as she dumped the contents down her friend's tongue, thus relieving her.

"Good one," croaked Starlight, as she laid her head gently on Sunset's trembling lap.

"I thought it was a little forced," said Sunset, forcing a smile.

"I meant the water spell," continued Starlight. "Where did you learn that from? Saddle Arabia?"

"Funny you should mention there, because when I visited ages ago, while I was still Celestia's student, they were in the middle of one of the worst dry spells in recorded history. Dry spells. Heh."

"You're killing me, Sunset."

4: Sunset Shimmering

The forest had been pretty meh on all accounts. Same old trees, same old brush, same old insects—nobody ever mentioned the insects in books or stories or motivational speeches about journeys of self discovery. A very convenient omission that helped to romanticize what was actually a sweaty, sticky, itchy process.

It was the flies that were the worst. Equestrian flies were literally horse flies, and horseflies were the worst sort. These just ran into her snout, flitting in and out of her sight, up and down her skin, triggering the slightest of itches in the highest of frequencies. And it wasn't as if she could just brush them away with a hand any more, because trying to walk with three feet—hooves—while the other arm swung uselessly was somehow so much more difficult than walking with four, or walking with two. Sunset had really not given her humanization the recognition it deserved. Being human for so long had made her forget certain things.

It was so strange, when she thought about it—how the phrase was "it's like riding a bicycle, you never truly forget". There were no bicycles in Equestria. Walking on fours was somehow easier to forget than riding a bicycle, which required her to change species and dimensions.

It wasn't just being a pony that was taking getting used to. It was being a unicorn too. It was the odd weight between her eyes, and the fact that she could now actually use magic. She had grieved over not having it for the longest time. Suffered jealousy, rage, despair even. Tried to rationalize it away, tried to distract herself from the... the hunger, of missing power, by replacing it with silly high school clique politics.

She remembered distantly the Friendship Games, and the fear she had felt when Twilight had sucked away the trace amounts of magic from her life. The little that she had, the change in a pauper's can, rattled down the drain while bystanders stood with their phones out, ready to capture the next viral video. They were paupers too—these faceless figures in the scene in the world of this unnecessary metaphor—so poor of, so desiring a different sort of commodity.

Being a unicorn wasn't difficult, honestly, it was just remembering to be one. It wasn't even about being aware that she could use magic—her old unicorn self didn't need to be aware, because she just was. Something that went along the lines of: if observation was even to be considered, then it wasn't as natural as nature, since nature did not observe itself. Nature didn't observe, period—not these trees around them or the insects. They just were, and did what they did, and in one very particular case, bee what they bee, without ever knowing or realizing.

Starlight Glimmer evidently had no such troubles.

"Stop fidgeting," she had said, and a ray of heat sizzled the fetlocks off an irritated hoof as collateral. She had looked so pleased as the ashes fell to the ground. "Gottem."

"Whoops—hold still, Sunset." Bzzt. "Another one?" Bzzt. "Gosh. Persistent creatures." Bzzt.

Starlight Glimmer had tremendously accurate aim. Honestly, it was impressive, though also concerning at how callous she was towards life. Not that Sunset wouldn't have killed the pests with a can of Begone or a handy electric swatter, of course.

"I'm so sleepy," mumbled Starlight, as they drew near to the edge of the forest, and orange light spilled from the heavens, forcing Sunset to squint. It was another cliff—the rest of the forest was spread below them, boring irregular patches that led to a wide horizon. The sun in its fiery glory was retiring and making a grand fuss of it, burning the cloudless sky as a last hurrah.

The two sat down on the grass. Starlight curled up and leaned on Sunset, sighing contentedly.

"Sunsets always make me sleepy," said Starlight. "Never knew why. Don't like orange light, I guess."

"Do I make you sleepy?" said Sunset. "I'm orange."

"You're more of a goldie. Golden Shimmer. Makes more sense."

It was the nicest thing anyone had called her in a while, even if it was delivered in a drowsy slur. It was a bit sad. Yet Sunset couldn't help but feel warm inside.

"You like sunsets?" asked Starlight.

"They're okay," said Sunset, truthfully.

"Why do I feel so sleepy when I see the sunset?" asked Starlight.

"God knows," laughed Sunset softly, stroking Starlight's mane.

"Who's God? And why does she know?"

"I'd rather not go down that road." Sunset exhaled. "It's a human thing. You know, they teach you that there's three things you don't talk about: politics, religion, money. And God's in the second bit."

"Why don't you talk about politics?"

Sunset frowned and said nothing.

"Or money?"

This one was easy. "Maybe it's uncomfortable. You know, if some ponies are poorer and they feel ashamed of it, you don't want to push them into a subject they don't like."

"But everypony has everything they need. Money's just for extra stuff. I mean, we're in Equestria. Who'd feel ashamed of not having more money?"

"I dunno. Other ponies."

"And what's religion anyways?"

"It's... like Celestia. She rules the sun and the world and can do whatever she wants. But she always chooses good."

"Why can't you talk about Celestia?"

Sunset bit her lip. "I don't know."

"Did you talk to Celestia?"

"No. I haven't spoken to her since, well... since she sent me away."

"Good riddance then."

Sunset Shimmer was about to make an excuse to get up—probably about setting up camp for the night. But then she looked at Starlight's sleeping face. It wasn't smiling, and there was a bit of tension around the jaws, but it was relaxed. Maybe she could let Starlight rest just a little longer before she pushed her off her lap.

This wasn't a bad thing.

Yes, this was just fine, as Sunset closed her eyes and waited—waited for the humid warmth of dying day to pass into whispering breeze and twinkling stars and the noise of waking crickets.

Soon, they would retire, into a small palace constructed from conjured crystal and barricaded with spikes to ward off bears and the like, but it didn't have to be now.

For now, they could wait on the cliff, bugs and all, and it was okay.

5: Vilage Conspiracy 1

The weather wasn't objectionable by any means, with a nice lot of cloud cover. Grassy hills that were equal parts tiresome and leisurely to cross had been the local flavour, along with wild daisies that were in full bloom.

Nopony else was in sight. Nopony but the two mares, making their way at a relaxed pace.

"Dead men don't tell tales," hissed a raspy voice in Starlight Glimmer's ear.

"What?" she retorted. "They do. In fact, they tell the best ones."

"Hm?" asked Sunset Shimmer.

"Nothing," said Starlight. "Those daisies weren't too bad."

"The flowers around here are a little fresher than usual," agreed Sunset.

Starlight breathed in the fresh country air. "I'm actually surprised you've gotten used to eating grass so quickly. Don't humans eat different things?"

"I was a vegan there. That means only vegetables," explained Sunset.

"The word for eating only vegetables in Humania is 'vegan'," repeated Starlight, shaking her head. "Here, it's called 'normal'. Or 'not being a barbaric second-class race'—oops—forget the second-class part."

Sunset replied with a pained smile. She had been doing that a lot lately.

"But yeah," she said, "it's not too different. Except here it's fine to eat off the ground. Over there, they have this five second rule. If it touches the ground for less than five seconds, it's still good to eat, but if it's been longer, it's contaminated."

"Contaminated?" Starlight frowned. "With what?"

"Germs," said Sunset. "You see, there are these tiny—"

"I know what germs are," said Starlight.

"Ah. Yes. You probably do," said Sunset.

"Biology's come a long way since you were last here," offered Starlight kindly. Malice free.

Not that Starlight had been evil or anything in the time Sunset had been with her. Definitely odd, odd enough to count as an acronym representing a disorder found in ten percent of children under twelve, but not evil. Just really, really odd sometimes. And the rest of the time, she was almost normal.

Truth be told, she didn't really know who Starlight was. Well, she knew who she was, but not who she was.

"You know, Starlight, I've been meaning to ask... but why did you bring me back to Equestria?"

Starlight tilted her head slightly. "Oh. Well, I knew that Princess Celestia used to have a student before Twilight. I did some research and found out it was you. I did some more research, and found out you were in Humania. So I did some calibration to Twilight's compactor, and—"

"No, no," interrupted Sunset, "not the how. You told me that before. The why."

"Zee ae bee cee," sang Starlight happily.

"Starlight." Sunset bit her lip and ran in front of her, stopping them both on an incline. "Please. I want to know. Why did you choose to bring me back here?"

"Why did you choose to be with me?" Starlight asked.

"What?" asked Sunset, stunned. "Hey. You can't ignore the question."

"You can't ignore my question either," said Starlight. "Why did you accept? I didn't drag you or anything. I thought I had to, but I didn't. You just looked at me—yeah, with that face there—and you jumped through the portal."

Sunset squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head.

"Well... you caught me at a bad time," murmured Sunset.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," said Starlight softly, placing a hoof on her shoulder.

"Would you still tell me why you brought me here, though?" asked Sunset, looking up with determination.

"Yeah." Starlight smiled honestly.

That was the word Sunset felt was best to describe it. It was an awkward sort of smile, like it was learned not from any natural instinct, but from watching other ponies, and then modelling the actions to fit it. It was controlled. It was a very good imitation. It was a perfect smile by any technical or aesthetic definition, a craft. It was called art in the same way characters in leotards froze on spongy mats was called art.

Her honest smile was when she smiled deliberately, not uncontrollably from some joke or random instance of misery. That one was her other smile, and it was not as appealing. That one was natural. But this one was honest, because Starlight wasn't the sort of pony who did things unless she wanted to. So if she did, it was because she meant it.

"I mean..." Starlight shrugged. "I told you that I looked you up, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, I wanted to do something that would tick Twilight Sparkle off. You know, like really, really annoy her. But I couldn't get my hooves on the Elixir of Black to undo Discord's conversion, or any information on Tartarus at all... Besides, letting those two loose would probably ruin the point of my sabbatical." Starlight did shrugs really well. "Then I realized that you were the one! Let's free a prisoner that Celestia banished! And I know that she's your friend, so she'll feel extra guilty about wanting you banished again. But she has to find you and banish you, because it's by Celestia's law." She clapped her hooves together gleefully. "You were literally the perfect trigger."

Sunset thought over that for a while. Knowing what she knew about Starlight, that made sense.

"Though," Sunset added, a little ruefully, "me and Twilight are more of acquaintances at this point. I don't think she cares as much as you think. We haven't spoken to each other in a long time."

"Hum? But didn't you have that magic book? The connected one?"

"Yeah, well..." Sunset looked into the distance. The hills really did stretch on forever. Either they were near the coastline, or this was a very wide stretch in between the mountain ranges. "Something happened. A while back. I learned that sometimes I just had to rely on myself." Sunset tried to smile, she really did. "Since then, I've stopped talking to her. Twilight's not a crutch. And... it's not like we have much to say, you know. What with her being a princess here, and me being over there." Sunset did not dare to look at Starlight. "And we already have our own version of Twilight. It gets a bit awkward, you know, talking to two people who are the same, but not really. Heh heh."

Probing. Digging. Still not malicious whatsoever. It had to be concern of a sort, even if it was stilted. Then Starlight's eyes eased up. Mercy.

"Yeah," Starlight said at last, "Twilight can be a real ********** every now and then."

"Uh, excuse me?" Sunset blurted.

"You know. **********." Starlight giggled. "When a &&&& and a %%%%% @#$%, and the result *#&$ with another &%^#*, you get **********."

"That's... wow." Sunset shivered. "I don't know what to say."

"It's a bit elaborate, I know," conceded Starlight. "To be honest, it loses a lot of meaning outside the context of the Southeast."

"I'll take your word for it," said Sunset, waving a hoof. "Shall we continue?"

"Sure," said Starlight.

viLaGE 300m NORF

The post was a rotting mess of worm-eaten wood, the words faded from the rough belly rubs of time. It punctuated their otherwise silent trek to nowhere in particular.

Sunset raised her head and squinted. There wasn't anything three hundred meters ahead but more abandoned terrain.

"I think," said Starlight, "the sign meant to read east."

Sunset turned accordingly.

"No, no, the other east."

Sunset turned accordingly, and saw a river—what had been one, at least. It looked like just a dry bank now, but she could tell that there was a difference in the grass there and everywhere else.

"You want to check it out?" asked Sunset.

"Could be fun," said Starlight.

6: Vilage Conspiracy 2

The river bank smelled weird in that it smelled great. Sunset Shimmer had been around quite a few dried river banks in her time as part of a conservation project. She knew that those tended to stink of peat and mulching life, as innocent riverbed grass, now exposed to the elements, was broken down by hungry worms who were looking for a change of pace. Then it was their feces which fed new types of bacteria, which in turn did nasty things to the rest of the stuff at the bottom, leading to one helluva gunk to have to wash off one's favorite pair of shoes until one in the morning because that one night had to be the night she ran out of Miracle Clean, and of course there hadn't been any spare bottles because Sunset Shimmer lived alone, and so there was nobody else but her who could buy what she needed to scrape together a convincing attempt at living out her lifetime sentence—

"Peaches?" asked Starlight.

"More like honeydew," said Sunset.

"I guess," replied Starlight.

"There's something strange going on here," said Sunset.

"Tell me about it," said Starlight. She wrinkled her nose. "My cutie mark is telling me that somepony's messed up big time around here."

"Do you think it could have anything to do with the village?"

"Probably." Starlight pointed down the bank. "The feeling gets stronger down this way. Come on."

They walked along the dry patch. It was odd, too, how there was nothing growing in the bank. The fertility that came from river life no longer being in a river usually led to a burst of savagery by things like bulrushes or even mushrooms. But now...

This had probably been one of those crystal clear rivers. The sort that made postcards and beautiful scenes in folk stories. The sort that ye fayire maidenes bathed in, their faces reflected across their smiling, radiant faces. Yet nobody ever wondered why it was so clear, so devoid of living things.

It made Sunset want to taste the water, except there wasn't any. She was fairly certain it would taste of lead.

Actually, there was still a way she could find out.

With a strand of focus, she willed into being a spoon made of magic, and dug into the dirt.

Starlight turned, and said, "Or we could regress into foalhood, that's all right too."

"Wait. I'm trying to confirm something."

"That the inner child in us never really dies, despite the bitterness of reality, the strain of adult responsibilities, and even our own misguided efforts to fit in to the world around us, rather than harnessing it to bring to it that which is unique?"

"I'm not playing with the freaking dirt," growled Sunset. She flipped through her memory for the metal detection spell. The last time she had used it was when she had a bedroom in Canterlot Castle...

The spoon exploded, and so did the clod of dirt.

"It looks like that to me," said Starlight.

"Can you run a metal detection spell on the mud?" asked Sunset reluctantly. "I've forgotten how to."

Starlight shrugged, nodded, and sent a beam of light into the patch. Shortly after, a virtual panel popped up, with tiny Equestrian letters scribbled along its surface.

"Looks like nothing out of the ordinary to me," said Starlight, peering.

"I don't recall the metal detection spell being quite as... fancy," said Sunset. "Didn't it just, you know, glow red or green if the metal you were looking for was present?"

"Magic's come quite a bit since then," said Starlight.

"I guess it has," murmured Sunset.

"But your senses were spot on," said Starlight. Again with the kind smile. "While the physical properties of the mud are normal, they're also completely off. This mud matches the profile of a dry valley range about five hundred kilometers west. It's very unusual."

Sunset couldn't help but gape. "How did you figure that out?"

"Magic's come quite a bit since then," said Starlight.

"I... guess it has?"

"Anyways, so for some reason, there's dirt from way over there that's over here. It's all plains, so it can't have been runoff. There's no rivers from here to there either."

"Somepony might have been moving dirt," suggested Sunset.

"Mhm," said Starlight. "The question is: why?"

"And why so far away, too," murmured Sunset.

"Ponies normally move dirt to bury bodies," said Starlight, in what Sunset couldn't help but call fart-like. The thing with Starlight Glimmer was that, nice as she was, and earnest, she was—well—she had freed a convict so dangerous she had been banished to another dimension. Not even Nightmare Moon had gotten that degree of treatment. And that was it, with Starlight—she just didn't care.

It very well might have been carelessness, like eating too much cabbage and not enough nuts. It might be planned, in which case, it was mind-blowingly diabolical and Sunset's deepest, darkest, quietest fears were true, that she had entered the darkest timeline.

But sometimes, the stuff she said was just so random and uncontrolled. Fart-like.

"Or farm," said Sunset, because she didn't feel ready to take the next step in conversational confidence with her companion just yet. "Ponies move dirt to farm too."

Starlight nodded, but didn't seem too convinced.

It was strange. Sunset would admit that. Why was dirt from all the way there over here, in a weirdly peach-scented dried up river bank, a fair walk away from a haphazardly grammar-adherent sign? It was a mystery. It couldn't be packaged any other way.

But Sunset also knew that it likely would not lead to anything. As inexplicable as the situation was, it just wasn't... wasn't fun to unravel. There was no excitement. It was just flat out random. Like Starlight's thoughts and words and actions. It was all too likely that, just like the case of the juice box landfill, the sand pit at the top of the Vyze mountain, and that brief bout of gout about in the South, this would end in a shrug. As uneventful a shrug as befitted the scenario.

"I think it was for burying bodies," repeated Starlight.

The right thing to do was to be polite. "Hmm? What makes you say that?"

"There's a skull in the bank."

Sunset blinked and looked ahead, where Starlight had apparently opened an excavation site. The pit was wide enough to house half a house.

"Sorry," said Starlight bashfully. "I was just digging for samples, you know, and my mind got carried away. You know how it is."

"I do," said Sunset, staring down the pit, where the dirty white of an unearthed pony skull gleamed in the afternoon sun.

To be fair, the case of the juice box landfill at least had a surprising twist somewhere in the middle.

7: Vilage Conspiracy 3

"So, what, you think this could be murder?" asked Sunset.

"Probably." Starlight wrinkled her nose. "Man, I'm no good around death. Give me a couple of moments while I look away."

"That's a bit surprising, considering what you, well, what you said you've done in the past."

"The super scary future full of death was what got me." Starlight's lips stretched into a thin curl. "And Our Village was a new way of living, not dying. I'm actually all about not dying."

"Mhm." Sunset stepped forward gingerly, half-sliding down the pit. With a sweep of her magic, she dusted off the grime, revealing a few more bones—legs, tail pieces... another head. "Oh. Another one."

"More corpses?"

"Mhm. Say, Starlight, do you think this could be the village? From the sign?"

"What are you thinking?"

"Some sort of plague or accident happened. The river gets blocked up, or whatever—completely irrelevant, though. The key is that the whole village must have died, and over time, travelers or survivors must have buried the poor souls." Sunset bit her lip and found herself assumed a more taut position—upright, like somepony was about to deliver a long overdue eulogy. "Still doesn't explain how dirt from so far away got here, though."

"Yeah, about that..." Starlight's head peeked past the edge of the pit to reveal sorry eyes. "My information may have been a bit off."

"As in, the dirt wasn't from five hundred kilometers away?"

"No, no, that part's correct," said Starlight, waving a hoof. "No, it's just that somehow, the sample I tested happened to be from there. Most of the other dirt is just plain dirt from around here." She shrugged. "Crazy coincidence, but that's what it is."

Sunset frowned. So the most mysterious part of the mystery had turned out to just be—surprise—random, after all.

"I mean," continued Starlight, "it makes sense, right? Over time, the smallest specks are carried by wind or beast to places unknown. Even specks move on from where they belong, out into a great beyond." Her voice grew distant. "To be found by wandering unicorns, messing up their diagnostic skills. That's kinda like us, don't you think?"

"I think the unicorns are us?" suggested Sunset helpfully.

"No, no—I meant the specks. The specks are like us. With time, we are made to move on by nature's hooves." Starlight shot her a rueful expression. "The unicorns are us. Of course I know that."

"Ah." Sunset nodded, and would have been more in the mood to appreciate the philosophy if it weren't for the bones at her hooves. She made her way out of the pit and stood by Starlight's side.

"Can you handle this? Filling the hole, I mean."

"Of course."

With that, Sunset turned to stare into the cloudy, endless horizon, as the sound of scooped dirt returning to its place rang through the valleys, fading into silence. And, for a moment, when the breeze kicked up, she thought she could hear Starlight whisper a prayer for the deceased.

8: The Grand Destrier

"Starlight, what the hell? We have to help them!"

Starlight let her eyes linger over the scene for just a second longer, before saying:

"No."

"But why?!" An indignant Sunset Shimmer glowered with the force of her former mentor's sun. The bright red in her mane made her already intense glare even more powerful; even Starlight could feel her breathing choke up a bit at the sight.

"It's not our business to interfere," said Starlight.

"You're just scared of what you might see, aren't you?" seethed Sunset. "You're scared of death! Remember that time at the banana plantation? And that time at the abandoned village next to the river?"

"That—that was months ago!" protested Starlight, but she knew that Sunset had scored a vital point.

"I didn't see you go through any life-changing experiences since then," snorted Sunset. "But this could be your chance. Can't you set aside your own personal fears to do something good? Just this once? These ponies obviously need our help!"

"The biggest help I gave to the world was when I succumbed to my personal fears," muttered Starlight. But she knew she wouldn't have much time before her companion's passion transformed into rebellion. It was just like those other times. Sunset wasn't somepony who followed the flow. She generated it.

Starlight, too, believed she had that kind of ability. She had founded a whole new way of life for a sizable colony after all, founded on her own tragic past, twisted convictions, and S grade black market magic. But Sunset's force of personality was different. It wasn't just burning charisma that gave her eyes an enchanting depth, or her pose a captivating regality. It was a kind of awkwardness, the kind observed from square pegs in diamond holes. As if she were dislodged from the natural flow of things, just enough to send her off the course in her own direction, but not enough to stop her from being popular or attractive or all those other things that kept ponies within a social environment.

"Now you have a chance to change that!" said Sunset. She waved an arm at the expanse below. "Together, with our combined powers, we can solve whatever's going on! I know we can!"

"Maybe—maybe they're just have a festival!" stammered Starlight.

"Yeah, right! The Burn Your House and Let's All Scream In Agony Festival?!"

"I admit the burning roofs are a bit suspicious."

"There are children down there!"

"But I—"

"If you're not going to do anything, stay right there until I come back! I'll just deal with it myself!"

Starlight raised a hoof, but it was too late. Sunset had ran off, bouncing roughly against magic platforms that guided her down the cliff to the township below.

She gulped. There she went. Towards the place with all the crying and screaming and sounds of structural collapse.

Perhaps—perhaps it wasn't a town of ponies. Maybe it was a town of cows or goats instead, in which case Starlight would have absolutely no issue. Armed with such superb logic, her mind was about to propel the rest of her in pursuit when she heard a rustling from the side.

"Gah," choked the figure, as Starlight's instinctive magic lash yanked him from hiding by the neck.

"Who are you?" asked Starlight. "And why are you sneaking around here?"

"Gah," repeated the figure—a older stallion, it seemed, decked in full armor. It was not like anything Starlight had seen in Canterlot or elsewhere, with gleaming ornamental wings along the sides, and hoof protectors that extended well past the knee. It was as if the final say on the design had been handed to a narrow-minded but well-meaning porcupine.

He waved at the lash. Starlight gripped it harder. The trick was that ponies could do anything if they tried. To get them to try, though, they had to be pushed.

"Go on. Show me that you can answer."

"Gra... Grandiose Fervor!" the stallion managed, with the last of his breath.

Starlight eased up and dropped him to the floor with a clank. "And why were you hiding?"

"Please... miss unicorn," he wheezed in a hoarse voice. "The village. You have to—"

"Have to?"

"Have to help," said the stallion, and he looked up at her with tears in his bloodshot, hateful eyes.

"No."

"But I'm begging you!"

Starlight's horn glowed once more and hoisted him up, binding his legs in a magical clasp. She gave him a keen stare, and found out everything she wanted to know.

"Scuffed knees. Bloodied hoof guards around the bottom, splashing up. Most of the scratches were reaching up from the ground." Her eyes narrowed. "You caused this."

"I—I can explain—"

"I don't want your explanation." Starlight shrugged. "What good would it do? Look at that." She swung him over, hanging him off the cliff, making him scream. "Oh, shut up. You can hear them, you know. From all the way up here. Even if it's a bit faint, you can hear their cries of pain."

"I had a good reason!" yelled the stallion, sobbing. "It had to be done!"

"Everypony always has a good reason. These things always have to be done." The lash wobbled. "I used to think like that. Wait, no, I still do." Starlight tapped herself on the head. The lash wobbled even more.

"Who are you?!"

"My name is Starlight Glimmer," she replied.

"Starlight Glimmer?" the stallion repeated. "You... I've heard of you! Old Gerry's grandson left the village because of you!"

"I don't know who that is."

"You're a villain!" He strained to glare at Starlight Glimmer, twisting his neck so hard that she could see the skin around it flop. "You steal ponies' cutie marks!"

"Was," said Starlight. "Was."

"You've done worse things than I have! In fact, you're the reason why I had to do what I did!"

Starlight raised an eyebrow.

A cocky grin spread across the stallion's face. "Yes, that's right. You... you're the scourge that drives poor ponies like us to desperate measures. You are to blame—"

The rest of his sentence was cut off by screaming as the lash vanished, leaving him to fall freely.

Pick him up? Or not? Pick him up? Or not?

It wasn't as if the fall would kill him, reasoned Starlight. It would probably paralyze him, or at the very least break a few bones. Then the hunger, or the thirst, or not being able to escape from the wildlife, or even the internal bleeding... that would kill him. It was unfortunate. He was an Earth pony. Gravity did that to Earth ponies. Or crippled pegasi. Or, yes, crippled unicorns.

No, Starlight was not interested in finding out the cause of the event. It was a tragedy, plain and simple. He had brought about X event that caused Y village to blow up in conflict, due to Z reason, and purportedly that reason was her, in which case the reason was not Z but SG. What did it matter? Ponies were dead and dying now. With Sunset's magic on the fray, likely a few might be saved, but by the time they had reached the area, Starlight already knew the worst had passed, and the ones whom Sunset would find—they were the lucky ones who would have lived anyways.

No matter how elaborate or gripping or gray the story was, it didn't change reality. And Starlight wasn't looking for entertainment right now.

There was the case of murder; yes, Starlight was squeamish about ponies dying, and she could never find it in her heart to kill another pony. But then again she had established quickly that the perpetrator was not a pony. Just like how scum were scum, and flies were flies, ponies who were not ponies were, simply, not ponies.

Was it up to her to judge? Sure, why not? Even Equestria had laws that exiled its criminals, stripping them of citizenship. Denying them of the most fundamental facts—the geographical location of their birth—second only to the fact of the birth itself, was a constitutional exercise. Or in Sunset Shimmer's case, it wasn't just exile, it was the outright ridding her of her pony form.

Though it perhaps wasn't quite the same. Her identity had been taken as a result of standing trial. The stallion, however, could only stand trial after his identity had been removed, in the court of her opinion.

Starlight frowned. Sunset would probably slap her if she could hear what she was thinking.

That mare really did generate her own flow. She was driven by a set of principles and values and a conviction that probably rivaled even Twilight Sparkle's. With that kind of power, she not only could change the world, she had to. Whether she did it subconsciously or not.

Whereas Starlight...

She shrugged at her own thoughts. She knew. It wasn't so much conviction with her as it was the simple absence of a moral compass. She didn't really need one when she knew what she wanted, and what she didn't, and when that was enough...

Well, maybe it could be argued that that was a moral compass. An innate sense of what was right to want, and what was wrong to deny, shared across ponykind. And as such there were actually no such things as morals, just needs, wants and don't wants under a different name.

But then again there was this stallion at the bottom of the cliff, and he would have said that it was his morals that drove him to do what he did.

She shrugged again. It didn't matter because he wasn't a pony.

"Sunset?"

"Starlight?" Sunset turned to reveal a face flecked with ash. "You came here!"

"I changed my mind," said Starlight. "How are things?"

"You couldn't have come at a better time." Sunset looked back at the ground, where a row of injured ponies were lying on scraps of cloth. "I managed to pull out some of the survivors, but they're all badly wounded. And I've..." Sunset pounded the ground with a vicious stomp. "I've forgotten a lot of medical magic, so I need you to show me again. I'm so useless."

"You're not." Starlight placed a hoof on her shoulder and gave her a smile. "You got them out, right? I'm sure they would have suffered more if you hadn't taken them out here where it's safe. You're familiar with Engsen's Painkillers, right?"

Starlight delivered the crash course on magical first aid and for a while, it was quiet. The victims before them were mostly unconscious. The victims around them were no more. Either Sunset had doused it out, or the fires did move faster than expected; the last of the buildings had burnt down, and now it was just spent charcoal creaking and splitting. This was the end of it, and all they had to do was see it through and move on.

"They told me what had happened," said Sunset quietly, as she continued working. "Before they passed out."

"Oh?" said Starlight.

"You see, they were purely an Earth pony tribe. Not Equestrian, but pony still. Their ancestors carved out a home for themselves in this wild forest, fought off the beasts, and managed to cultivate the land." Sunset stopped briefly as she focused on her healing efforts. "Warrior-hood and strength have been considered noble virtues for as long as this village was founded."

"Mhm."

"But then, as they grew and traders came, they realized how strong magic was." Sunset shook her head. "There were a few bad apples that antagonized them with powerful magic, and in the face of that, their strength was of no use. In the end, they managed to survive, but only through cunning and luck. Since then, the younger ponies have been demanding for more books, more knowledge, and even getting magic of their own to defend themselves with.

"But the older ponies refused, and saw it as lingering corruption caused by the bad magic. So..."

"They started a war within their village?" asked Starlight.

"Kinda?" replied Sunset. "It was to show them that strength was still important. The Grand Destriers—that's what they called the council—went around, dragging the leaders of the movement out of their homes. They wanted to stage a challenge in the town square to show that strength still ruled. But the rest of the ponies, they couldn't believe that their council would do such a thing. They thought that it was some kind of enchantment placed on them. They panicked, and everypony thought everypony else was under a spell... and the result is this."

"Some ponies barricaded themselves in. Some fought to the tooth and nail. Others were just careless, and set fire to things. It happens. I've seen it before." Starlight shrugged. "Grand Destrier, huh. That's a fancy title."

"They were too proud to move on," spat Sunset. "Sounds like a bunch of old farts that couldn't accept being obsolete."

"I guess." Starlight waved at the charred earth before them. "It's easy to say that they were wrong with all of this going around, though."

"Even if they hadn't burnt the village to the ground, it would still have been wrong!" exclaimed Sunset. "Those young ponies would have been beaten to a pulp!"

"You don't know that."

"I do." Sunset's gaze coursed with fresh steel. "I had to fight off a couple of them. They were dressed in some kind of ridiculous pointy armour. Like... like a porcupine had designed it."

"Or just made the final decision," said Starlight.

Sunset blinked. "Huh? Whatever. Anyways, they were not weak. Compared to the young ones, they would have trounced them for sure."

"I wouldn't discount any kind of revolutionary. Passion is a remarkable asset in fighting." Pointing to the prone ponies, Starlight added: "Are any of them here, you think?"

Sunset shook her head. "I wouldn't know."

"Not that it matters."

Starlight sighed and looked around. It was late evening again, and the orange light was making her sleepy, in a way that the fires from before, oddly, hadn't. There was a haze blanketing everything. It was likely that she could make half a bit from it.

"Bet you half a bit that my booger is gray," said Starlight.

"What? No!"

Eh, thought Starlight, and she glanced back to the surroundings. It wasn't as if she was wrong.

"Whichever way, I suggest we get moving soon," said Starlight. "I'm tired and we need to find some food."

"But we can't just leave them here," protested Sunset. "They need our help!"

"You said that they fought each other because they thought somepony had cast a spell. When they wake up, they're going to find two strangers who happen to be unicorns." She lifted her hooves. The left one made a soft crunch as it knocked against the right one, as a layer of grime slid off. "They'll put two and two and panic together. And then we'll become late additions to the barbecue. Like potatoes, really..." She frowned. "Why are they always the last to go in when they take the longest to cook? I don't get it at all."

"We saved them," said Sunset, pursing her lips. "You're forgetting that."

Starlight added: "There's also the small issue of me having stolen one of their ponies a while back..."

"Starlight?"

She waved a hoof as if to bat the accusing tone away. "I'm sure he's happy. Or she." She glanced around again. "Happier than these guys at least. Call it... net positive karma, right? That my 'bad' action a long time ago has become an act of good, outweighing the bad."

The crunch of Sunset taking one step forward was uncomfortable. "You stole one of them away?"

"Can we just go?"

"I think this is a great time for you to apologize," said Sunset, as the beginnings of a storm brewed in her expression.

"I'm sorry guys," Starlight said in the general direction of the villagers. "I feel so much better now."

"It's not about you!"

"You can let them forge a new life with a clean past, or you can dig it back out and change their destiny forever," said Starlight coolly. "I'm not trying to make this into a good thing. It's not. But that's what you do with bad situations, you make them better in the best way you know how. And I know a thing or two about founding villages from scratch."

Sunset bit her lip. Starlight tried not to swallow.

Then Starlight turned, heading for the exit, and behind her, the sound of weary hoofsteps on sooty ground followed.

It was always a point of fascination just how dark the night was. Living in civilization had made nighttime illumination such an expectation that the real night, in its absoluteness, was amazing. Of course, it wasn't so bad if you were outside under the moon. But if you were outside, you were sharing that darkness with the two-headed snake, the three-headed snake, the five-headed snake, and a host of other colourful creatures that would make impressive albeit impractical guards for a prototype Our Town. All of which were much better suited to said darkness than herself.

Yes, to be sheltered meant to remain in the dark. So profound. Starlight wanted to scratch a grid of two vertical lines cutting two horizontal lines in the dirt nearby for some reason, as if it were not sufficient to quietly ruminate on the matter, but express her preoccupation. "Look at me! I'm thinking!"

"Can't sleep?" asked Sunset, in the darkness.

Starlight turned to face her, wondering if the rustle of her mane on the sheets was enough response. When it wasn't, she grunted in acknowledgement.

"I can't stop thinking about what we saw down there."

Starlight took a deep breath, collecting the air needed for a gentle crooning voice. "You did the best you could. And that's what matters."

"But those poor youth. They were trying to do their best. And those elders just wouldn't listen."

"The same could be said the other way around," said Starlight. "And no, I'm not trying to start an argument. Just saying that there's always many sides."

"Mmm."

"And that wasn't what was keeping me up anyways."

Sunset's curiosity was like newly sprinkled sugar in a bowl of water. "What is it then?"

"We're near to somewhere I used to operate," mused Starlight out aloud. "That means we're actually heading closer to Equestria, not further. We have to do a 180."

"Technically we've been in Equestria all this time," said Sunset helpfully.

Starlight groaned. "The continent. We're supposed to have left the nation. This is no good. We must have wasted at least a week."

"Hey."

"Hm?"

"You're really serious about not wanting Twilight to find you."

"I am."

It was quiet for a bit.

"Goodnight, Starlight."

"Goodnight, Sunset."

9: Guest Speakers

Starlight wondered how long it had been since she last had pie.

It was one of those things on the middle of the list of things she didn't expect to miss when she left Ponyville Friendship Whatever Castle. Pinkie Pie, being who she was, brought treats every other day to share, and every thirteen days instead of frosted cupcakes it was pie. Starlight was outstandingly indifferent about pie in general, but Pinkie had a magic (proven) touch that brought a smile to even her thin, chapped lips.

And the reason why she was thinking of pie was because she had smelled it.

"I don't smell it," said Sunset, whose nose was obviously not attuned to the finer figs in fife.

"Haven't seen figs in a pie in a while," murmured Starlight.

"I mean, I guess they could work well since they enjoy a light heat treatment to soften up, but—"

"And is that a folk band I hear?"

Sunset's nose wrinkled. "Oh. I smell it now."

Their walk along a strip of beautifully green rolling hills in the highlands, following the ancient paved road borne of loving dedication and an admirably powerful selflessness, had taken them to what looked like a brick outhouse.

"That's a school!" exclaimed Sunset.

Starlight's kidneys twisted in disappointment, but she managed to keep it in.

"And the pie smells so good, too," said Sunset.

Starlight's stomach lobbied for stronger action. Silly stomach; how could it not know that Starlight did not negotiate with rebels? Especially not after their long history together in Our Town.

Yet...

"We should steal the pie," said Starlight, absentmindedly.

"What? No!"

"How do you suggest we get the pie then?"

Sunset placed her hooves firmly on Starlight's shoulders, as if she were cradling a child. It made her heart tingle a bit, which was a surprisingly unpleasant feeling as it clashed with the organized rioting below.

"We use our words."

"They didn't work on you though."

"No, no, Starlight. In that case your words don't count. You were going to steal the pie instead of asking for some like a proper pony." Sunset's expression darkened a bit. "Asking nicely is probably going to matter a lot more considering this is a school."

"And it will work?"

Sunset stretched her shoulders back. "I dunno. Country ponies generally treat strangers well, right?"

They approached the door, behind which the sounds of a dilettante orchestra of uncommon, wonderful instruments puttered out under the command of a single voice.

"Rosies, you're lagging behind a little. Try to follow Bluesies' timing. Summerset, remember that there's a sharp on that D in bar twenty three. Write it down now."

"I'm betting there's a sharp D somewhere," whispered Starlight to nopony in particular.

"And... that should be it. Five minutes, class, and then we resume."

On cue, Sunset gave the door a string of sharp taps.

The pony who opened the door was a fair bit older than her voice hinted. A mostly white flowing mane was held in place by a dark headband. Spectacles, polished, only served to intensify the small tired eyes it supported. Starlight couldn't really care what the colour of her coat was.

"Can I help you two?" asked the teacher.

"Hey there," said Sunset cheerily. "We're travelers looking for a place to rest a while, and we happened to smell your delicious pie..."

Starlight blinked. Only Sunset had that kind of honest trust in generally preconceived notions towards rural demographics.

"And delicious it is," smirked the teacher. "An old family recipe passed down from my great grandmother. I'm supposing you want to try it?"

"We'd be willing to wash the dishes or clean the yard in exchange," continued Sunset, flashing her a radiant smile. "Any sort of chore, really."

The teacher peered past them. "As you can see, there is no yard, and I teach my students to wash their own dishes. It builds character. I see you are unicorns, and hold yourselves in proper fashion; can either of you teach music?"

Sunset shot a glance at Starlight, waking her mind from its prior state of blankness.

"I can sing and play the guitar," tried Sunset.

The teacher remained unmoved.

"Uh. My companion here's a student of the Princess Twilight Sparkle?"

"Oh my," said the teacher.

Outside, two mares argued in hushed tones.

"You want me to talk to these kids about learning?" exclaimed Starlight.

Sunset waved a hoof. "It's fine, right?"

"Uh, no. The whole point of us being here is that I stopped my learning."

"I don't think I'm asking for much here!" burst Sunset. "Just yammer at them for half an hour about your experience! Or you could go the cheesy way and tell them to study hard!"

"The problem is I have nothing good to say," said Starlight painfully. "All I did was read, read, read. Reading assignments made up eighty percent of every semester."

Sunset frowned. "That's not right."

"Twilight Sparkle, remember?"

"Oh." Sunset's burning eyes probed Starlight's own. "How about the other twenty percent?"

"I had to make friends," muttered Starlight.

"And how did that go?" asked Sunset, wide-eyed.

Starlight rolled her eyes. "Put it this way: I set off on an indefinitely long trip. For company, I chose you, a criminal banished to another freaking dimension, over anypony else. Does that answer the question?" Then a lightbulb lit up, and she added: "You were Princess Celestia's student! Why don't you say something instead?"

"That was ages ago! I don't think the teacher would buy it," protested Sunset. "And technically I wasn't really banished so much as, uh... you know. We've talked about this before."

"Whatever."

"Anyways, you're up."

Through the window, the teacher waved at them to enter while her hooves remained planted on the ground. It was crazy how a pony's stare could be refined to such control...

...and then Starlight found herself with a dry mouth in front of about twenty wide-eyed tiny ponies.

Either Sunset had somehow pushed her into the classroom sans friction, or the teacher's gaze was an eldritch mind control spell.

"Uh. Hello," said Starlight.

"Hello, Starlight," chanted the class in disarray.

It was... familiar, somehow. This lack of organization.

"So, uh, you know that I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle's student. From Equestria. Who here's from Equestria?" half-yelled Starlight, her smile brittle like the skin of a day-old dinner roll left in the oven to reheat for too long.

Nopony raised their hand.

"Figures. Well, uh, how many of you are studying super hard?"

There was a mess of answers in various tones, all to the tune of "Eh". A skilled sound magician could probably pick out each voice and rearrange them to make art. A skilled psychologist could pick out the energy in each voice and make far-fetched hypotheses about their family lives. But Starlight had a different set of skills altogether, and right now she got an idea.

"I notice that this class has a bit of trouble working in unison." She turned to the teacher, who nodded. "I was also outside listening to you play for a while. Now"—and here Starlight grinned—"I happen to know a thing or two about getting ponies to work as one..."

Outside, two mares walked, wiping crumbs of pie off their lips.

"I can't believe they fell asleep!" groaned Starlight.

"I'm relieved they did," snorted Sunset. "That way, none of that should stick. What were you even trying to do?"

"Hey, I got into the zone," said Starlight. "I thought it would be useful, seeing as they lacked the ability to work as a team. Beats talking about my studies, that's for sure."

Sunset gave her a poke in the ribs. "One, they're kids. It probably doesn't matter too much outside of band practice. Two, I'm pretty sure all that equality stuff is technically your studies. Weren't you over it?"

Starlight shrugged. "Poor execution isn't cause to completely scrap the idea."

"There was something kind of like it in Humania," said Sunset. "The humans didn't think much of it, though. A lot of shared wealth, leaders being more equal than others, stuff. I didn't pay much attention."

"Well, at least we got pie."

Sunset seemed to ponder over this for a while before replying: "It was pretty good pie."

Starlight could tell, sometimes, when ponies held back things they wanted to say. It was the easiest to detect in Applejack, and it was the most frequent with Rarity. It wasn't that Fluttershy didn't want to say anything—if you listened, you realized that she always did—neither Pinkie or Rainbow Dash bothered with restraint.

Sunset had held something back. Starlight guessed that it was the start of a diatribe about the ethics of essentially proselytization to children, seeing as Equestria's government was also its religion. Or maybe it was a casual slip that would open up a discussion on Starlight's pet subject, an exploration of observations, philosophies and principles, in that order, that honestly neither of them would appreciate while the taste of baked figs remained on their tongues.

Sunset was such a graceful pony. And to her act of grace, Starlight simply nodded, as the two settled into a content quiet.

10: Thrombosis

It hurt.

That wasn't common. She knew that she wasn't the most settled of ponies, and she had been at an impressionable age when psychosomatic theories blazed their way through every expert column in every paper, lighting up conversations among bored mothers at markets and sprinkling it down to their children, who knew not the implications, the mechanics, or even the validity, only that "psychosomatic" was a fantastic word. The mind, linked to the body, and the state of mind, linked to health. If that theory was true, it was a wonder that she still had all four limbs with the fracture she had for a psyche.

And the pain was not a common component of an otherwise common, even welcomed occurrence, when the blood in her chest seemed to rush through or drain out suddenly, invoking the sensation of a tiny black hole. She wasn't worried about it because they didn't last for more than half a thought. She liked to think that it wasn't a clue to a deeper, more insidious disease, but that it was a sign she was alive and could feel. The way the books described it—love, anger, passion, serendipity—the garam masala or appropriate regional equivalent of life—seemed to match up to that feeling. The logic was that no, she wasn't denying that it might be a medical symptom. She was respecting the equal chance of it just being an emotional symptom, a proof of existence.

And it was something she needed, once in a blue moon, to remind herself that she was still a pony, and not as utterly dysfunctional as she had thought herself to be on that darkest night three months after she had turned eleven. Since Sunburst had walked out on her, she had sworn to never make friends again, not unless they were guaranteed to stay. The equality thing which it eventually led to was well documented, but before she had gotten there, she had traveled down a few other murky paths of the mindset, and at the end of it all she wondered if she had only ended up dead inside instead.

Because while she liked the idea of being an edgy standout who didna need nopony, she did not like the idea of just being plain dead inside. There was no edge to being dead.

But, yes, she did have feelings after all. She did have the capacity to feel. Maybe she could even find it in her heart to love.

She breathed deeply. The pain was subsiding slowly, like an ink blot on a blank sheet in reverse.

"I think I have thrombosis," said Starlight.

"In your legs?" replied Sunset.

"No, in my chest."

"Isn't the correct term 'palpitations' then?"

Starlight blinked.

"Thrombosis is like a blood clot," said Sunset.

"It could be a blood clot."

"Well, I guess so. I mean... it's not like I'm a doctor."

"Neither am I."

"Are you okay to keep going?"

"Yeah. It doesn't hurt, it was just weird."

"All right then."

And they continued to walk.

11: The Court of Public Opinion 1

Sunset's eyes flared open, like the wings of a bat taking flight. The one thing she didn't do was scream, because she was not going to let her kidnappers see her fear. Of course she struggled against the binds that held her down—

—she did cough, though, as her snout hit the hard wood floor.

Okay, so maybe there weren't any binds.

She rolled backwards into a defensive stance, pouring as much magic as her tired brain could muster into a guarding aura. Her eyes darted here and there. Then they blinked shut, because the room was really, really bright...

Bookshelves along one side of the room. A beautiful poster bed covered in messy fluffy white sheets on the other. A small, unused writing desk, a large purple rug in the center of the room, an oak cupboard, and the feeling of stain curtains against her back...

Sunset steeled herself. This was a bedroom. And a pony one, at that.

"Did you hear that?" came a startled mare's voice from beyond the door, at the far end of the room.

Sunset immediately dropped her guard and her jaw. "It can't be..."

"I hope she's okay—Sunset? Sunset, are you okay?"

The door swung open in a shroud of lavender magic, and through it stepped her.

"Sunset!" she gasped. "I heard a kind of rolling around, like something had fallen on the floor. I thought maybe, somepony had knocked something down, and..."

"Twilight?" whispered Sunset.

"Oh. Right. That rolling was you." Twilight grinned sheepishly and took half a step back. "Sorry if I scared you. It's just, when we found you, it wasn't the most pleasant of situations. And I was so worried."

Sunset shut her eyes closed and sank to her hooves. She took a deep breath. It smelled of air freshener.

The last time she had been awake, she had been surrounded by warm, sticky underground air, and the sense of impeding death one gets from tunnel walls collapsing all around. Somehow, they had taken the road less traveled, through the mountain instead of around it, and of course that was when the earthquake had to happen, and...

"Starlight. Starlight Glimmer!" Sunset shot up. "Is she okay?"

Twilight bit her lip. "Well, ah, we only found you. To be honest, we didn't even know anypony was underneath the mess."

"What do you mean?" breathed Sunset slowly.

"Well, I was in the area for a diplomatic trip, when a villager came into the hall, reporting a collapse of the nearby tunnels, and a flash of magic from inside. So we thought, there had to be a pony in there... but I never expected that pony to be you." Twilight bowed her head and stepped closer. "I'm sorry. If I had known..."

"No."

Against all logic—despite the tranquil scene of a Celestia-damned normal bedroom, despite the fact that Sunset had probably gotten am ample amount of rest, despite the fact that Twilight Sparkle was here in the flesh, and somehow their reunion was more radiant and cheerful and just more than Sunset had imagined it to be—against all logic, Sunset's heartbeat doubled. It knocked the wind out of her lungs, and the strength from her knees. She fell head first and pawed at the ground in shock.

"Sunset! Sunset, please, I know this must be difficult, but you have to calm down! Sunset!"

Throbbing; it was always throbbing. Pounding in the ears, in the jaws, in the throat, just behind the eyes, like a pressure canister filling up. It was like this when Flash Sentry had betrayed her for the first time in Canterlot High. It was like this just after her demon form had spluttered out into public humiliation. It was sickening and it was the closest feeling to death she could remember.

"Medic! Spike, get a doctor here now!"

Then, to Sunset, Twilight said softly: "I'm sorry. Forgive me. It's for your own good."

When she came to for the second time, there was no rolling or magic. Sunset simply opened her crusted eyes and shut them again.

Sheets. So warm. So fluffy. She could die in comfort. Wasn't it sad that she hadn't been guaranteed even that, just hours ago? Ponies expected to go like this. Well, if they didn't live in high-risk zones, at least.

Yes, it was sad. That was why it was fine to cry, nestled under the sheets, where nopony could see or hear her.

"I'm so sorry," whispered Twilight's voice from beyond the warm darkness. The space tightened up a little; it was either her legs or her wings closing in an embrace. Not the best gesture for somepony who had been trapped in a collapsing tunnel, but Twilight meant so well, and the contact was so appreciated, that Sunset didn't mind.

"She insisted," Sunset blurted at last, when the sobbing had stopped.

"Want some food?"

Sunset peeked out. Behind Twilight's fatigued expression, a sandwich on a plate hovered. She nodded, and the sandwich was passed over.

"What do you mean 'she insisted'?" asked Twilight softly.

"Starlight insisted on taking that path," murmured Sunset. "She said it was much faster. She was a bit panicky..." A dead smile. "She might have sensed that you were nearby."

Twilight's eyes closed. "She was that serious about avoiding me?"

"I've been wondering about that," said Sunset, shoring up the blankets around her. "If you don't mind me asking, that is. What was it that made her run away?"

The embrace was renewed.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to talk about it right now."

Sunset sighed and drew closer to Twilight.

"Uh, Twilight?"

Spike tapped on the door with a claw. "The girls are here to check up on you."

Twilight frowned and stood up. "I thought I told you to keep it a secret!"

Spike shrugged. "Pinkie somehow found out and told everypony."

"You bet I did!" shrieked Pinkie, and everypony in the room yelled as a pink blur dropped from the ceiling, landing with less poof and more bump than looked comfortable. "Pinkie always finds the good stuff and shares it because that's what friends do!"

"Pinkie Pie?" stammered Sunset.

"Hmmmmm?" Pinkie was already in the bed, eyeing Sunset at snout distance. "So you're Sunset Shimmer." A hoof stretched out and tousled with her mane before she could bat it away. "You have a nice mane."

"Uh, thanks," said Sunset.

"Pinkie!" berated Twilight.

"Twilight!" replied Pinkie.

"Darling?"

Sunset watched as the rest of the gang poured in. Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash, all in pony form. While it might have been exciting in a different time and place, when mashed against the feelings of guilt and loss, it ended up being a spectacularly eerie experience, and she felt a chill shoot up her spine.

"Um. I guess I should do some introducing?" said Twilight.

Everypony had been very kind post-backstory. They had all shown a good deal of pain at the news of Starlight's fate. It made Sunset all the more determined to find out what had happened, because firstly, damn if she hadn't tried while Starlight was still around, and secondly, seeing firsthand proof that Starlight hadn't been as off as an angled traffic sign had stoked her curiousity afresh. Yet her former mentor was equally elusive, sometimes claiming duties, sometimes claiming migraines, sometimes shaking her head and outright walking away. None of the gang could really say why, either.

"She was such a dear. Shy at first, but really a dear."

"She weren't a bad pony. She tried, y'know. Hard worker, really earnest."

"She was cool. Not as cool as me, but... yeah... she was pretty cool."

"Uh..."

"Yes, Fluttershy?" said Sunset kindly. It was weird talking to somepony she knew so well who knew nothing of her in return. Like the conversational equivalent of a one way mirror. And it was more weird since it was Fluttershy, who she couldn't help but slip into a certain tone for.

"Can I take a walk with you? Um, just the two of us?"

Sunset followed the bobbing pink tail as she was led through the labyrinth that was, apparently, Twilight's new castle, to the gardens outside. There was a polished tea table and a few chairs, all dressed in lacework; Fluttershy suddenly whistled in the air, and a collection of critters emerged from the hedges, bearing a covered picnic basket like a monarch on a recliner.

With Fluttershy... she was kind. Almost self-harmingly so. It was only courtesy to return the favour in other ways, and one of the most appreciated forms was taking the initiative in conversations.

"Oh, a picnic basket!" said Sunset, lifting it daintily to the table. "You shouldn't have."

"Pinkie wanted to stuff you with sugar," said Fluttershy, bowing. "When Twilight said no, it all went to me. I thought that maybe you'd like to try a little since you're new... but we're not new to you, oh..."

"No, but I'd love to," said Sunset. She dug out a glistening donut. "I haven't had Equestrian pastries in a long while. Not even when we were on the road, either, since muffins don't grow on trees." She smiled and took a bite. Where such lengthy asides might have been seen as rude or overbearing, Sunset saw it as an assisted setup, to get their talk to a point where Fluttershy felt comfortable enough to say what she wanted to say.

"Want one?" said Sunset.

"No thanks, I'm good," said Fluttershy, eyes droopy and shuffling from one patch of grass to another.

There were stages. It was the same with the human Flutters, too, Sunset guessed. First it was the rapid blinking. Then it was the fidgeting around her waist. Then it was maximum tilt of her head so that her fringe hid as much of her eyes as possible, hinting at the base instinct of every living thing to think that if I can't see them, they can't see me, before finally:

"Did Starlight become evil?"

Sunset carefully licked away the remaining glaze on her lips. Pony Fluttershy was a bit better at being blunt.

She figured that maybe it was good to take some time before answering. To reflect on Starlight's quirks and words and deeds, and assess them in the view of both her own humanity and the pony morality. In some contexts Starlight could probably be christened a saint purer than the first snowflake of winter. In some, yes, admittedly distant, even alien contexts. It wasn't as if she hadn't thought it over everytime Starlight acted out, yet, sans time or assessment or judgement, Sunset's immediate response was: "No."

Fluttershy blinked. Sunset shook her head.

"Whew. That's a relief," said Fluttershy.

"What makes you say that?" asked Sunset, and the irony was not lost on her. She blamed the flow, and this narrow-minded view she had of Fluttershy, that the onus was always on her to keep talking.

"Well..." Fluttershy placed her hooves on the table. "I hate to say it considering she's... mmm... but she seemed not quite all here. Like there was something bothering her deep inside. I, um..." Her hooves began to tremble. "It reminded me of, uh, when animals sometimes go feral. Ah, and Discord said he was suspicious too."

Discord? Sunset's eyebrows lifted. Now that wasn't a name she had heard in a while. For Fluttershy to be in contact with Discord, that must have meant his reformation was a success. In the human world, well, it was sufficient to say that man's modern progress had devoured old school chaos and replaced it with unlucky coincidences good only for a rant online, and maybe justification for an extra Twinkie to go with lunch.

Now that every teenager took basic probability as part of the common core, and thought they now could grasp the scope of the universe's occurrences in enough ink symbols, discord in Humania had been bastardized.

"What did he say?"

"He mostly agreed with me," murmured Fluttershy. "I tried to help, I did. I kept asking her if anything was bothering her. But she wouldn't tell me anything. I was really worried for her..."

"You and me both," sighed Sunset. She tapped her hoof lightly across the table, immersed in the clacking. "Say, do you know why she and Twilight fought? Maybe we could exchange information. I could tell you what she's been up to, and you could tell me what happened back then."

"I do know. But—but I promised Twilight I wouldn't tell anypony else." Fluttershy bit her lip. "I'm so sorry, Sunset."

Something else was fast encroaching on Sunset's mind, and that was the realization that she was now living with Twilight Sparkle.

All those feelings from before—feelings of longing, feelings of betrayal—were coming back to her. How she had yearned for Twilight's replies in the magic diary day after day! It had been her only connection to the realm of magic, and she had been Sunset's first real friend in essentially forever. That sort of relationship didn't break easily, but it had, and Sunset found herself with a million old questions, spilling forth from the mental box she thought she had sealed away and hid for good.

How could you just ignore me? Were you too busy for me? Was I not good enough because I wasn't a pony?

"Sunset, dinner's ready," said Twilight, and Sunset snapped out of her spiraling thoughts.

Or so she had hoped. It was more of a derail, with said thoughts crashing and spinning into beautiful messy vortexes as she carried her weight from the bedroom to the dinner table.

No, moping around was not how she did things. Sunset Shimmer was a pony who went for what she wanted, and this... this shouldn't be any different.

12: The Court of Public Opinion 2

And yet it was.

"Tell me about your travels," said Twilight, and so Sunset did. It was easier than gouging out her frustrations and her trauma. It was easier than exposing her bleeding heart to the present company. Why did Spike have to be here? All it did was give her a cornerstone, a foundation to build a solid excuse on. Sure, maybe she could have a heart-to-heart with Twilight, but not in front of the kid, right? It was just so awkward. It was one of the best excuses Sunset had made for herself to not do something, and she hated it.

"Well, there was this one time when we ended up in a desert, and I said, 'Isn't it amazing to just drink in the view?' And you wouldn't believe what Starlight did next..."

It felt dirty. Talking to an eagerly listening Twilight, in person, at last, after so long, only to spend the moment on pointless recollections of events that were horribly mundane. It was like that time when Sunset had spent her first bits from her allowance on reference books for school. That was not how she had wanted to spend her special moment. She had wanted a double choc superwhipper with only green sprinkles. Her parents had made her use it on math.

"You seem a bit pale," said Twilight. "I should have made the soup a bit thicker to nourish you better."

"No, no," said Sunset, forcing her smile and not hiding it particularly well. The weariness might have been physical; Sunset was sure that it was mostly mental.

More than anything, this kind of shallow catching up was such a human thing. Conversations of no real weight over cups of equal parts sugar and cream labelled as coffee, sold like sterling silver. They did it because they were humans and humans were, on the whole, more susceptible to being horrible than ponies, so honesty usually meant being a metaphorical slubbering mess.

How did you become an alicorn? What's it like having wings? Did you hook up with the Flash Sentry from here?? Or maybe you decided you wanted a marefriend instead? Spill the damn beans, girl!

And I missed you—dear Celestia, I missed you so much. How could you not return my letters, my journals? Even when I swallowed my pride, and all but begged you to respond, because I needed your advice—

"...and there was this one time when Starlight thought that palpitations were called thrombosis..."

Cracks were forming. Years of honing people skills, be it for good or bad, had made Sunset an expert conversationalist, and she could see the signs in Twilight's expression. Twitching at the edges of the lips, because it was getting hard to hold the smile. A sudden rigidity of the hooves because she had to keep them from wandering. Eyes that darted away whenever Sunset feigned looking away, gasping for relief from that sadistic convention: that you were supposed to meet one's eyes right on to show you were listening, even when you didn't want to. And Sunset didn't care. She didn't care about the stories. That was why Twilight was having a hard time doing the same.

"Could you be a dear and take the dishes away, Spike?" asked Twilight after a soulless bout of Neapolitan ice cream.

The sigh, the shrug, the little flick of his tail as he carried the stack away that showed he was actually glad to be free. Sunset grinned a little. She knew that being sore towards him just for being there was unfair. But satisfaction was satisfaction.

Twilight got up and stepped to her side.

"I get the feeling something's bothering you."

Sunset met her gaze.

"Aside from Starlight Glimmer's passing."

Sunset's politeness faltered.

"I think I know why."

"Hm?" asked Sunset. The surprised act was so unconvincing that she could hear the closest performance artist hissing with hatred.

"I... I've been caught up with things." Now Twilight looked away, and the air grew thicker. "First it was the Cutie Mark Crusaders and their cutie marks, then it was figuring out what to do with the bumper harvest, and the map was sending us to further and further away..."

"All you had to write was 'I'm sorry, I'm busy'," whispered Sunset.

"But Sunset—"

Whatever had been pent up had been lit. Her ears started to burn. "I would have understood. Just one reply..."

"I was afraid you'd hate me!" pleaded Twilight. "I was worried that you'd get mad and grow resentful of me, and think I wasn't your friend anymore!"

"And you were right!" sniffed Sunset, shaking away the tears with sickly vehemence. "I would have been mad. I would have hated you. But at least I wouldn't have raised my hopes up!" She shot up and shoved Twilight hard, making her yelp. "If you had just told me that, then I'd have resigned to my fate! Then I could have moved on, and maybe I could have tried to accept it!" She stomped into the ground as the fur on her cheeks began to pad up. "Then I wouldn't have come back to Equestria at all!"

Twilight blinked, frozen. "Wait. What are you talking about?"

"My future, dammit!" Sunset shot a glare that barely scratched the churning surface of her emotions. "What I'm supposed to do, where I'm supposed to go when high school ends! Was I ever going to come back? Was I ever going to be a pony again? Or did I have to face life in Humania until I died?! Damn university applications, damn degrees, damn everything!" She screamed. "Damn money and damn getting a job and living out the rest of my life as if nothing had ever happened! As if I was just plain, normal, without the slightest trace of magic left!"

"Twilight?"

"Spike, not the time!"

The slam of the kitchen door barely registered in Sunset's mind. There it was. She had gotten what she wanted after all. She had done it, Sunset style. She had gone for what she wanted. But it was all horribly, horribly wrong. It wasn't meant to be like this.

For one, Twilight wasn't supposed to admit that she had been busy.

Denial, the first stage of grief. Sunset thought that the human analysis of grief was fascinating and remarkably insightful. Ponies didn't study grief much on account of not being grieved often. Which also said something about the human condition that such a thing was being taught in schools to children who weren't even a fifth into their lifespans.

She gagged a little as she choked on her tears. The words spluttered, toxic fumes from a worn exhaust without a muffler: "Well? Say something, Twilight!"

Sunset could feel her horn crackling. It was a bad habit that she couldn't care less about now. She reveled in the feeling now, in the warmth and power of magic. She felt like she could root herself in the leylines, dive, let it envelop her, and double her emotions in the process. She didn't hate the hate. She enjoyed it. All she wanted was to feel, until she knew nothing but that feeling, until she became nothing but despair and fury.

"Sunset, I'm sorry!" Twilight fell to her knees, and she was crying too. "I'm so, so sorry! Please, you have to understand!"

"You never gave me the chance to!"

Crystal. There was a disproportionate amount of it in the dining room. Sunset wondered if it could burn.

"I know! And I realize it's all my fault!" Twilight's horn was flaring up now, and there was real panic in her expression. "But you have to calm down! This isn't the way to do things, and I thought we were over it!"

"Just some closure. Was it too much to ask for?" Sunset swiped at her face, half-expecting black smudges from the mascara she had forgotten to put on. "And last time was me being wrong. But this time... this time you wronged me."

She gasped sharply as a chill suddenly set in. Her skin suddenly felt dry, as if she had been dropped back into the barren wastelands of Otherside. That had not been a happy two months. Her knees were stinging now, as if the tendons had decided to give up on work altogether.

She wobbled. The room was spinning.

"Twilight?" stammered Sunset.

"Oh, no," said Twilight, and she dashed over. With her wingspan in full flourish, casting a shade over her trembling body, she lowered her horn to meet Sunset's. There was a pop.

"This is not good. Sunset, you need to lie down. Now!"

"What's... what's going on?" wheezed Sunset.

"It's rare, but there's been several cases of it in the past year," said Twilight, gritting her teeth. "Sunset... your magic is poisoning you. We need to treat you immediately."

"You're going to knock me out again, aren't you?"

Twilight laughed. It was the saddest laugh Sunset had heard.

"Just... I'd like to keep my magic," continued Sunset.

Twilight swallowed hard. Sunset watched a teardrop fall from her reddened eyes on to her muzzle, before a flash of violet stole her consciousness away.

Getting real old, isn't it? The ratings dropped by a bit...

It's fine. We still have the largest volume this side of the show times!

Sunset woke up to something warm and something taut in her neck. As it turns out, that something was very close and very purple, and the second something was an inexpertly supported neck. Hers.

"Ow," groaned Sunset.

"Mmm," murmured Twilight, stirring and gently poking Sunset's eye in the process.

"Ow!" groaned Sunset a little louder.

"Sorry. Sorry!" Twilight scrambled back to stand beside the bed.

Sunset was a quick riser. It came with the personality. And she could figure out that Twilight had been hugging her as she slept.

Her eyes widened.

It was creepy. But... it wasn't as if it wasn't nice.

But it was still creepy!

And then, as her brain caught up to speed, and her body warmed up to live out yet another day, it struck her.

How inspiration worked was an unpopular subject among the philosophy club, which she had joined very briefly in Humania. It wasn't as popular as describing inspiration, which everybody liked doing so they could show off their superlatives, hyperlatives and ultralatives (which had the effect of laxatives), and because the average philosophy dabbler was not inspired often enough to make working observations on it.

In Sunset's case, it was often coincidence, and this was one of them.

"I think I know why you and Starlight fought," said Sunset slowly. It made sense based on what she knew of Twilight. It made sense based on what she knew of Starlight.

Twilight bit her lip. "Sunset. Please. Now's not the time..."

"You were too secretive around her, right? That's the reason, isn't it?" Sunset gripped the bedsheets. The plush was comforting, stirring up primal memories of simpler times long ago. "She probably wanted to know something. A spell, or some history, and for whatever reason you couldn't tell her. But you didn't communicate that right, and so she had enough and left. Isn't that right?"

"I don't know," said Twilight, shaking her head.

"What?"

"I said I don't know!" shouted Twilight, and as she lifted her face into the light spilling from the full moon, she could see the eyebags and wrinkles around her face. Had those always been there? "I don't know why Starlight left!"

"That's... no."

"It's the truth, Sunset."

"No. You—" Sunset leapt out of the bed and pointed a stern hoof at her. "You think you don't know. But I'm telling you that's what happened! And don't think I don't know what's going on. Twilight..." The hoof faltered. "Twilight, I know you're a princess now. I know that you think that sometimes, you're doing it for the good of everypony. But it doesn't have to be like this. Dammit, you can trust us, Twilight. Just open up and trust us."

"You mean you," said Twilight, sniffling.

Sunset lowered her head.

"All right. Okay. I'll come clean," said Twilight, rubbing her eyes. "What do you want to know?"

"I want to know..."

Deep in her gut, something triggered. It dashed through her neural network, shooting up the spine, and cut in front of the queue for whatever thought had been lined up.

"...what exactly is going on here."

The words surprised even Sunset. True, something had felt a little off. For one, why hadn't Starlight teleported, or even better, used that silly "Grand Invocation: Supreme" she was so fond of? Surely they'd have found the body by now? Held a funeral? They were unicorns for goodness sake. If she wanted to, Twilight, Princess of freaking Magic (which friendship was) could level half the continent. But it wasn't just that, or Twilight's overfriendliness. Even if... even if it wasn't unwelcome, it all felt off. And it wasn't the shock, either. At least, Sunset felt it wasn't shock. Though it could be.

But her gut was telling her it wasn't.

"What's going on here?" asked Sunset again.

Twilight wordlessly stepped forward and held Sunset's hoof. Both of them blushed. Twilight's hoof was so warm.

Gently tugging, she led Sunset to the balcony, and sighed, looking up at the moon.

Sunset did so too.

And then a force whacked her from behind, shoving her off the rails.

13: The Court of Public Opinion 3

Sunset screamed.

What had been dirt was now white, painful bright white light. What had been her falling form was now a stable, sitting, completely whole form.

And she was bound. Two sterile, polished metal cuffs held her to a kind of chair.

Well, she had been right about being bound the first time, then.

Blast of magic up the horn... yet somehow she couldn't muster up the slightest spark. Now she was really starting to panic.

Immediately the rest of her senses kicked in. She smelled something faintly pleasant, like vanilla. She heard a low buzzing, like a snuggly bumblebee sans the risk of an unfortunate potentially allergic brush-up with its sting. And in front of her was a pony, whose coat and mane were both the same shade of baby blue. She was dressed in some kind of uniform, a buttoned black coat with lapels.

Right behind her was a dimmed television screen, showing the scene of some kind of rally. Crowds of ponies, looking like a bowl of blended candy, were waving signs, foam fingers, and balloons. How they did the last one struck Sunset as interesting, and she would have tried to pay more attention if not for the blue pony blocking her view.

Wait. Binds.

"What's going on?" asked Sunset.

"All right, miss Sunset Shimmer," said the pony in a sweet voice. "I know you've got a lot of questions right now, and I'll do my best to answer them! But what we've found is that it's always best for you to stay calm and listen. I'll give you a proper explanation about everything that's been going on. If you do still have questions, there is time at the end of each section where you can ask them." She flashed a winning grin. "Is that okay?"

"Um. Could you release the cuffs, please?" asked Sunset. "I think I'm cramping up here."

The mare looked shocked. "Oh dear! That shouldn't have happened! Our Rotory 6000 was designed to keep your muscles and your blood flow healthy and active during the stasis period. We'll have to run some checkups..."

"Actually, you know, it's fine," admitted Sunset, and it was true. Now that the mare had pointed it out, she did feel fine. As if she hadn't been in stasis.

Then she frowned. Stasis?

"Go on," said Sunset, a little more suspiciously.

"So then, miss Sunset, first and foremost: welcome to Kreyvonshyiel! You may know it as the City of the Future, the Kingdom of True Democracy, or even 'utopia', though we don't dare to make such claims ourselves." The mare giggled. "My name is Elia, and I am your personal guide assigned by the Broadcasting Corporation."

Sunset's frown solidified. None of this rang a bell. Meanwhile, the screen flickered, and the display changed to a looped cartoon drawing of a city, with a single pony going in. The pony figure sat down in a chair, and thought bubbles emanated from it. Arrows stretched from those bubbles to TV sets in living rooms, where groups of other ponies watched.

"For the past couple of days," continued Elia, "you have been subject to Kreyvonshyiel's entry policy: none may enter unless the majority of the populace agrees with it. You see, in Kreyvonshyiel, we pride ourselves on being the one true democratic nation. We make all nation-related decisions like this! And, well, especially in the case of travelers, it's sort of become a tradition around these parts to do this. It's all in good fun, you'll come to realize." Another giggle.

Elia tapped the floor with a hoof and the visuals changed once more. A sleek, 3D logo, an abstraction of B.C., strutted along the screen.

"By now you may have wondered: 'Wait Elia, did you say 'all the nation-relation decisions'? And did you say 'majority of the populace?'' And you'd be right to be amazed! Miss Sunset, you're obviously a social pony. You would know how difficult it is to get ponies to do things. And you definitely seem like the kind of pony who understands the workings of traditional democracies."

Sunset found herself nodding, but Elia was seriously weirding her out. She was certain this had to be a script. If it was—and it had to be—it was eerily spot on with its assumptions of her knowledge.

"Yes, the usual democracy gets the populace to vote on representatives, and they make decisions in the courts," continued Elia. "But these representatives can be swayed. Bought. Influenced. They can switch sides and change stances. It's just a monarchy with the king divided up into little pieces, really. But just getting everyone to vote is tough. Ponies don't have the time to be constantly updated on national matters, on national contexts, and making a system available to everypony to interact with—that's really difficult!"

Elia's smile somehow widened even more.

"Which is where the Broadcasting Corporation comes in!"

The thought bubbles replaced the logo, and grew and morphed into various scenes of ponies doing wildly different things. Cycling one moment, crying the next, running away from a burning house?

"The Rotory 6000 is a national treasure. First, we put you into stasis. Then we access your brainwaves. The magitech is complex, but simply put, we guide your consciousness through a test of character that you yourself come up with. Are you mentally well? Who are you as a pony? What do you like? What worries you the most? What's your goal in life? The Broadcasting Corporation then harnesses these, as well as your own imagination, to cook up a short series that's then televised to the nation! We put you into stasis, guiding your consciousness through a test of character that you yourself come up with."

Sunset blinked in horror. All of that... had been fake? And televised?

"Yes, that's right," said Elia, snapping up the cue like a novice pool player hustled of his weekly wages. "The old systems—paper ballots, digital voting, daily emails—none of those managed to get full participation from the populace. Nopony wanted to slog through boring information, so we changed our approach and made it not boring. Mayors, public issues, trade agreements, the Broadcasting Corporation is responsible for spinning it all into easily digestible, interesting content for the populace to enjoy. That way, not only is everypony well-informed enough to vote, they want to because it's fun. It's the best and only proven way to achieving true democracy, you'll agree! Which brings us to you."

The screen changed to show Sunset's smiling, ghastly, technicolour visage.

"Now, you may be worried about your health, your privacy, your body. I want to assure you that the Broadcasting Corporation takes these things very seriously. If you recall, you did sign a waiver agreeing to this?"

Sunset did not recall that. There was a form at the gates, but...

"Round-the-clock footage of your time in stasis is available for your review. Your physical health is regulated by the Rotory; your nutrition, rest cycles, and even circulation are all cared for. In fact, we've had ponies tell us that they awake from stasis feeling healthier and more well-fed than being out and about!"

Sunset felt inclined to believe that. It wasn't much of an achievement considering how deep in crap she had been in before—"hey guys, we're better than literal pony hell"—but Elia probably held the remote control for the cuffs, so Sunset simply nodded.

Elia nodded in return. The display flickered to reveal a number of charts.

"Normally, you're left alone during the period. Normally your debriefing is done via an instructional video. But as it stands..." Elia shuffled where she stood. "The Corporation has made a special case for you."

"Hmm?" said Sunset warily.

"We love you."

Sunset blinked.

"Hmm?" she repeated, more meaningfully.

"We love you! Everypony in Kreyvonshyiel loves you! Your story, your drive, your hope in a better future... We haven't had such a powerful yet relateable character in months." Elia was actually blushing. "Personally, miss Sunset, it's a great honour. I'm a huge fan of yours."

As if it wasn't weird enough, now she was some kind of television star? Unlike stasis or whatever, being swooned over was something Sunset had experienced before. It came with being part of a band. A magical band at that. That got invited to cross-campus events as guests and stuff. The taste of star power was like a letter from an old friend. It caught her off-guard.

"You mentioned 'we'?" asked Sunset despite herself.

Elia nodded vigorously and tapped a hoof on the floor. The display changed back to the swarm of ponies. Now it made sense:

"Those are your fans," said Elia. "They've been lining up, waiting for your awakening. From stasis, you know. I haven't seen a crowd like this in ages."

Sunset took a deep breath. "Wow."

"Wow indeed, miss Sunset."

"Um, one question."

"Anything for you!"

"Could you release the cuffs?"

"Of course!" chirped Elia, and there was a hydraulic hiss. Sunset got up and tested her legs out. They actually felt fine. Properly exercised, even. How did they do that? And, of course...

"So my friend's all right? Starlight Glimmer?" asked Sunset. "She must be here too."

Elia's smile weakened. "Ah, yes. About her. We regret to inform that she... didn't make the cut. The populace, well, voted overwhelmingly against her in the first two hours of broadcasting. So..."

"What did you do to her?" asked Sunset, advancing. "If you harmed her—"

"No, no," said Elia, shaking her head. "All that means is that she is not allowed to stay. It's likely that she's at the gates, waiting for you. You, however, have a choice. Whether you wish to stay as a tourist, or even as a citizen. Your approval rating, quite frankly, gives you access to a lot of premium rights, to the point where you could be almost anything you want to be. Immediately, too. District manager, executive, politician, and if you tried you could probably even become president."

"No, that'll be fine," said Sunset warily. "I'm just a bit surprised, I guess. Did you say two hours?"

"A record," said Elia meaningfully. "I can show you if you want. Oh, right, almost forgot. Feel free to order a copy of your show at the reception when you leave the building. It's all there, along with the security camera recordings."

"Show me Starlight's show," said Sunset, and Elia tapped her hoof on the floor.

Five minutes in. Sunset found herself wincing a lot more than expected.

Seven minutes in. Elia was starting to fidget. Sunset frowned. Maybe these utopian ponies were just pansies. It wasn't that bad.

Ten minutes in:

"So, uh... you said that these shows are made by the chair? Rotory thing?"

"They harness it," replied Elia. "No, the shows are actually made entirely by your brain. The Rotory just encourages it and converts it for audiovisual preparation..."

"Ah."

Twenty minutes in. Elia's fidgeting morphed from hoof shuffling to a full on sit-up-sit-down cycle. Sunset didn't blame her.

Thirty minutes in. Sunset's hooves had gone numb, somehow.

"So, uh, this broadcasting thing. Do you show it to children?"

"Children are not allowed to vote, so no."

Sunset had lost track of how many minutes had passed, but it was well past the summoning of the ten-headed Apolloytic Creature, somewhere between its brawl with The True Ruler of The Wretched and the hordes of weeping forgotten souls from the Era of Ancients, and Sunset suspected that the gates of Bish'mal, mythical underworld of the centaur race, were about to be breached from the resulting chaos. When she waved for the showing to stop, and blinked, she could still see splatters of maroon behind her eyelids. That, and was it echoing screams in here all of a sudden?

The pause was awkward. To stop it from filling with horrific recollections, Sunset coughed.

"So," said Elia, her enthusiasm now brittle.

"Yeah," said Sunset.

More silence. It seemed that Elia hadn't fully recovered yet.

"She does that a lot," said Sunset, feeling she needed to clarify.

"What does who do?" asked Elia, head snapping around to face her.

"You know. 'Grand Invocation: Supreme'." Sunset expanded her reach a bit, trying to infer the sense of big explosions. "She really likes that spell. It's, uh, not as gory as that, though. Television, amirite?"

"Eheh."

"Well."

"Well, miss Sunset."

"I, uh... Thank you for hosting me, but I think I'd better go and meet my friend," said Sunset.

"Sunset!" called Starlight, as Sunset trotted out into the light of the sun.

"Starlight," replied Sunset.

"Whew. I'm glad you're all right," said Starlight. "What a rude city this is. We signed this form, remember? Then we got led into the doors, and then the next thing I know I woke up and these ponies in suits were dragging me back outside." She rolled her eyes. "What's up with that?"

"I have no idea," said Sunset.

"Anyways, that was a disappointment." Starlight produced a little book and entered a vehement stroke with a quill. "City of the Future, my rear end. Come on, let's get going."

Sunset took a deep breath. The air in the real world was different. Fresher, more, somehow. Just more.

She stepped forward, and caught up to her companion's side.

1: Foreword

Twilight,

I'm done. I am officially tendering my request and notice of leave as your student. I will be taking an indefinitely long sabbatical. When it ends, you will know.

I will be performing studies in the meantime on the anatomy of the garden gnomes in South Perjina. Do not come looking for me.

Starlight Glimmer

P.S. Do not come looking for me.

P.S.S. You will find enclosed with this letter twenty four bits. Please pass this on to Fluttershy with my apologies.

2: Starlight Glummer

"So," said Sunset cheerily, "where is South Perjina anyways?"

"Sunset," said Starlight evenly.

"Yes."

"There is no South Perjina."

A moment. Slightly faltering steps. Just enough space for bird song to creep in before a slow breath, and:

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"So... there's no garden gnomes."

"No, Sunset. There are no garden gnomes."

"Okay." The voice contained equal parts of disappointment and stubborn optimism, like a con man's bottle filled with immiscible halves of snake oil and water. "I had been looking forward to it. I like garden gnomes."

Silence, hoofsteps, and the encore of bird song.

"So, Starlight—it's Starlight, right?" A toss of wavy bacon mane, out of her eyes, smelling delicious, but not of bacon.

"Star light, star bright, star right," said Starlight. "First star you see tonight."

"Where are we going then?"

"Forward. Away."

"Away from Twilight Sparkle."

"Yes."

"Okay. Just checking."

Bird song erupted, filling every space there was to fill in the canopy of branches above. Below their hooves, tiny microbes turned useless nitrogen into life-giving ammonia, and below those still, ancient bones slept in a sludge of black goo that would be ignited for fuel much, much later in the future, when the magic died out and was replaced with free markets.

"It's nice to be back," said Sunset Shimmer, though the words lacked conviction.

"There is a something-jina, though if I were to say it in full we'd have a much smaller audience," said Starlight, apparently not listening.