Prologue: Your past will always find you; your past won't go away
Apple Bloom stormed into her room and kicked the door shut behind her. Somehow this was all Sunset Shimmer's fault. The fact that that didn't quite track didn't hinder the angry girl's assignment of blame at all. Sunset Shimmer was somehow responsible. Maybe the demon was protected by some kind of hex set up to bring misfortune on those who opposed her.
That had to be it.
How else could you explain Apple Bloom's master plan falling apart in less than a day when it when it wasn't even supposed to shift into gear until The Rainboom's next slumber party? She hadn't even recruited Sweetie Belle and and Scootaloo when it all came crashing down.
How else could one explain her phone just happening to slip out of her hand when she just happened to be logged into the Anon-a-Miss account for the only time since making it that morning? How else could you explain all that occurring right in front of Diamond Tiara, who had of course picked it up and seen things that weren’t her business.
How else could you explain how the phone, after Apple Bloom had tackled Diamond, managed to bounce and slide across the floor in such a way that it skidded to a halt directly at Applejack's feet?
Or the fact that all this happened to happen in the cafeteria: the one place in the entire school where her grandmother, instead of some teacher or other, would be the one to lecture her in front of the entire student body?
Yeah, this was definitely the result of some kind of demonic magic. It couldn't possibly be that Apple Bloom had brought any of this on herself.
Still . . . it was obviously some kind of passive magic. A charm or curse or something that brought misfortune on Sunset's enemies without notifying Sunset of who those enemies were. Sunset had shown precisely zero recognition that any of this was aimed at her. Like everyone else, Sunset believed that Apple Bloom had been playing a prank on Applejack, no connection to Sunset had been made, so Apple Bloom still had the element of surprise.
On the other hand, how could she use that element of surprise to her advantage when eldritch forces would turn luck itself against any plan she made? Things had been derailed so fast. The plan had been perfect, that much was clear.
All she'd meant to do today was plant the seed that it might be Sunset in Applejack's mind and let Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo in on the plan. They wouldn't be convinced yet, but they would have kept quiet and Sunset's own evil would have spelled her doom.
Sunset was making their sisters (honorary in Scootaloo's case, sure) ignore them at best and treat them badly as often, so when Rarity, under Sunset's influence, was dismissive or cruel to Sweetie Belle, which was sure to happen before or during the sleepover at Rarity's, that would ensure Sweetie Belle joined in. She'd have access to Sunset's phone once the girls were all asleep and would be able to get something --it didn't much matter what-- that would seem like it could only have come from Sunset.
That would be when things could really get moving. Sure the girls would think of some way to rationalize it away, but the doubt would be still there afterward: How had Anon-a-Miss gotten that whatever from Sunset's phone?
Sunset's influence meant that Rainbow Dash would inevitably mistreat Scootaloo, and then the crusade would be in full swing. With the three of them working together they could do what Apple Bloom could never do on her own: make sure that Sunset was the only single person that had been present for everything the account revealed.
Eventually Applejack and the others would have to accept that it was Sunset --back to her old ways. They'd all leave Sunset, with luck Sunset would leave, and after that everything would go back to the way things had been before Applejack made the mistake of befriending a literal demon.
The plan was perfect. There were absolutely no flaws.
So if the perfect plan couldn't take down Sunset, thanks to her stupid demon luck field, what would?
Maybe the solution was to avoid having a plan at all. Apple Bloom would just have to do everything in one fell swoop, then there would be no opportunity for the demonic magic to interfere. She needed something that was over as soon as it started. Something that couldn't be stopped by making her fumble a phone. Something that once unleashed could never, ever, be undone.
She had just the thing.
* * *
Apple Bloom did not, in fact, have a secret laptop in case her phone and regular laptop got taken away and Granny Smith unplugged the the ethernet cable that ran to Apple Bloom's room. She had a secret laptop because if any of the others knew about it they'd ask questions about where it had come from.
Explaining that she'd made friends with a couple of less than reputable older girls, one of whom did not-quite-legal things for fun, had never been a conversation Apple Bloom was particularly interested in having. Sure, she'd never been into that, and there were no attempts to convert her to the dark side, but the gift of a fully working computer would have seemed suspicious to the other Apples.
Even Apple Bloom herself had been flummoxed, briefly wondering if she was being buttered up for some untoward proposal, when she was given a completely free fully functional computer. Then its origins had been explained to her.
While Cipher was a hacker in the usual sense, Puzzle was a hacker in a far more literal sense: breaking down equipment and then Frankensteining it back together in ways never intended by the manufacturer. She hacked things up and then soldered, screwed, and wired them into something new and different. The laptop had been practice for her, taking some obsolete tech from a handful of different systems and making them into a single cohesive whole. Once it was finished and tested, neither Puzzle nor Cipher had had any actual use for it. It was just a waste of space that they were more than happy to give away.
Add to that their abject horror at learning that Apple Bloom didn't have her own computer back then, and it really was a foregone conclusion that they'd give it to her.
Then time passed and things changed. While Granny Smith still spoke with awe about the transition between 300 bits per second to 1200 back in her day, she accepted that modern technology did have a place in the rest of the family’s life. When Sweet Apple Acres got hard line internet connections in most rooms, including most of the bedrooms, and Apple Bloom got her own desktop, most of the reason to use the ancient laptop had gone away. When Granny Smith gave Apple Bloom a laptop last Christmas, all of the reason to use the secret one was gone.
Because of that, Apple Bloom hadn't used the it in ages. She hadn't thought about it in ages. Now, though, it was exactly what she needed. An ancient laptop with both wireless and USB connections, when combined with a thumb drive she'd been keeping hidden for some time now, would mark the downfall of Sunset Shimmer.
Unless the ambient demon magic protecting Sunset stopped the computer from working.
After Apple Bloom excavated it, plugged it in, and turned it on, it seemed like demon magic might not be necessary. The oldness of the computer alone was probably one of the tortures of Hell in and of itself.
She was greeted by the symbol of a decade old operating system, a reminder that the laptop had been little more than a paperweight between when Puzzle was finished making it and when it was given to Apple Bloom. Her fingers danced across the keys, her password was entered, and she . . . waited an excruciatingly long time for the desktop to actually be ready to use.
Every step involved looking at a how her cursor transformed into a pixelated hourglass and everything told her “(not responding)” before eventually deciding to respond in a way that more resembled embracing sloth than it did actually working.
Her initial plan had been to do the whole thing in one go, without ever opening her door, in order to minimize the chances of being caught.
Her will to go through with that plan, though, had not merely been ground down. It had been sacked, hoisted, de-sacked, dropped through the hopper onto millstones, thoroughly ground down, resacked, sent through the whole process again (being routed to different millstones via automatic processes, of course), and finally exported for sale as ultra fine grain.
Shortly after getting a sandwich and bringing it back to her room, the internet chat program was actually up and running.
“Finally,” she said to no one in particular. “Ya better be online right now,” she muttered to someone who had no way to hear her. She scanned the list of friends and lucked out when she spotted a green check mark indicating someone was logged in. Unfortunately Apple Bloom didn’t know which someone because, Puzzle and Cipher had a habit of using whatever account was already open, regardless of which of them the account in question actually belonged to.
She opened a chat box, which automatically invited the other user to a private chat. Before she finished typing her message, one popped up from the other user:
<...hello?> A glitched out icon appeared next to the message, Apple Bloom still had no idea if it was the actual avatar, being artistically glitched out, or if the glitching was a function of her laptop being constructed from literal garbage.
Apple Bloom Typed.
Apple Bloom could sense the pout. Cipher it was.
<... Well well, if it isn't PoisonApple27! Don't remember picking up necromancy.>
Apple Bloom responded with a frown.
<*centuries>
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes, then typed:
The moment that message had been sent out she started uploading a video from the thumb drive. It was the best her phone could manage, which meant that it was a low resolution mp4.
Apple Bloom huffed:
She calmed down a bit:
Cipher started typing.
It no longer said Cipher was typing.
Apple Bloom let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in.
The video was only halfway through uploading. She had time to cancel the upload and reconsider. She thought about the risks. The fallout. There was still time . . .
Nope. This was the plan, it was perfect, and she was doing it. She typed out a paragraph in a hurry, gave it a glance over, fixed a couple mistakes, and sent it:
A link popped up.
And the timing was perfect.
With a bing, the video was up, ready for Cipher to watch for herself.
Silence reigned in the chat for a few minutes, stretching on into several. All the while, Apple Bloom glared at the red figure in the thumbnail coldly. Despite the blazing inferno of hair frozen in a single moment of the video, she could still feel the heat on her skin from that night.
Applebloom raised an eyebrow:
<...I don't understand that joke.> Apple Bloom typed with a frown.
Apple Bloom grinned darkly,
<...why are you telling me this, AB?>
Apple Bloom found herself wishing she could type faster, much faster.
Adrenaline pumping, Apple Bloom started tapping her foot on the ground. She wanted this over quick. As soon as it was out of her hands there would be nothing left that could go wrong with this, she just had to pass it off.
It didn't really matter exactly what went down, just that the word got out. Whether shady people came wanting to experiment on Sunset or the response was limited to a slow but steady trickle of creepy true believers coming to find absolute proof, the attention could result in one thing and one thing only: Sunset would be forced to retreat through the portal to her home world because there would be nowhere in Canterlot, perhaps nowhere in the country, she could run to get away from whatever the result of all this ultimately turned out to be.
As for Apple Bloom, in ten minutes time she would wash her hands of everything and truly be done with the entire situation. After that she'd probably have dinner.
<"doxxing"?>
Cipher was typing, but Apple Bloom finished first:
Her hands were shaking, she was punching the keys so hard the tips of her fingers hurt, and her mouth was locked in a sharp frown.
The chat showed that Cipher had deleted whatever she'd been about to say, and hadn't started typing again.
Then fresh typing.
<...well there's no need to shout.>
A moment later the account logged off.
Apple Bloom smirked as she shut the laptop. It would power down automatically, so she didn't have to wait before rehiding it. After that she sat on her bed, leaning back against the headboard, and let her fingers tap out a rhythm as she sang to herself:
“Ya don' know what your future holds,
“So hear me when ah say:
“Yer past will always bind you;
“Yeah your past is here to stay.”
The setting sun cast a shadow over the young girl's face, her eyes narrowing as her frown turned upwards into a cold smirk.
“Yer past will always find you,
“'Cause yer past won't go away.”
Author's Note
Ok, this is so important that I actually considered sticking it in the story's long description even though it doesn't belong there. Fortunately I came to my senses.
It's about Apple Bloom.
In the source material Apple Bloom's motive is incredibly shaky. The other crusaders don't have this problem. Sweetie Belle is shown having an understandable reason for doing what she does*; in contrast Scootaloo is barely present in the comic so we can't really judge the same way we can with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.
So, here's the problem:
Apple Bloom is the ring leader of the entire operation and she is trying to trick Sunset's friends into ostracizing her. (This is, quite literally, her stated goal.) She didn't understand the consequences it would have with the rest of the school, and so was unprepared when she saw the extent to which Sunset was suffering in her post-friend life, but she was seriously setting out to make Sunset's friends ditch her.
That's a pretty strong reaction, and you'd expect it would have a pretty strong cause. Unfortunately it doesn't.
At the time Apple Bloom initiates Anon-a-Miss (which is actually the night before she creates the account) she has exactly as much reason to target Sunset in the comic as she had to target pony Twilight Sparkle in the movie Rainbow Rocks. That reason: Applejack wasn't at home with her because there was an impromptu sleep over at Pinkie Pie's house. In Rainbow Rocks it was because of Twilight, in the Holiday Special comic it was because of Sunset. In both cases that was the whole of what happened.
The difference, of course, is that in Rainbow Rocks Apple Bloom was under the sirens' spell and therefore magically compelled to be hateful, vindictive, and mean. Yet she didn't target Twilight, while she did go after Sunset with figurative guns blazing.
To make sense of this, I've given Apple Bloom a reason. It's not a good reason, but it is a reason. Without some reason we'd have to asking why she Anon-a-Miss various other characters, with pony Twilight Sparkle being at the top of the list. Yes, I used "Anon-a-Miss" as a verb.
With the long and annoying side track about Apple Bloom out of the way, I did want to make some notes on the major departures from the draft version written and shared by Uria.
In Uria's version "Puzzle" and "Cipher" are one person, and Apple Bloom's question about "Puzzle" and "Cipher" is about changing screen names. There's no implication that this single character does anything hardware related. Apple Bloom thinks of the character as "he" but doesn't actually know. Further, the "ancient laptop" has no connection to Puzzle/Cipher.
Thus "Puzzle" and "Cipher" being two older girls, one of whom is a hardware hacker that gave Apple Bloom the laptop, is entirely my invention. On the "older" bit, picture them as Applejack-aged. Or don't picture them at all, as they're just names on a screen right now.
Also my own invention is Apple Bloom inventing theories about Sunset Shimmer having some kind of protective demonic luck field.
I completely dropped how Apple Bloom explained away Anon-a-Miss beyond "Prank on Applejack." This explanation, by the way, works because the account only had time to release Applejack's nickname before everything fell apart.
In Uria's version it isn't clear whether or not the other crusaders were involved yet. (They do end up getting blamed.) In mine they explicitly weren't. It isn't stated, but the reason that Apple Bloom had logged back into the account was because she was about to show them and explain her plan.
-
Mostly I shared the above because I like record keeping, but there is another reason for drawing attention to differences. "Your Past Is Here To Stay" is in development, and if you want the first chapter of it to stick closer to Uria's original draft than this does (in any area), you should say something at the forum thread where the draft exists.
Finally: yes, Apple Bloom has a shady internet contact that owes her a favor.
* Sweetie Belle saw her sister treat her in an extremely rude, patronizing, and infantilizing manner because of Sunset (though it wasn't Sunset's fault, it was Rarity's own) so you can at least understand how she became angry enough to do what she did.
Chapter 1: No, I would not give you false hope on this strange and mournful day
Sunset had forgotten to charge her phone, and that could only mean one thing: Donut Joe's. The differing values and economies of worlds meant that human-Joe ran six stores in the greater Canterlot area, and did most of his work behind the scenes. That had come as something of a shock to Sunset, given that pony-Joe was always the one working the counter in his store, but in spite of the differences, one thing that remained the same was the quality of both the doughnuts and the coffee.
In addition to having accessible outlets, good food and drinks, and staff that never told you to hurry up and leave, they also had something else Sunset often relied upon: free Wi-Fi. When she needed more than her phone could offer, internet-wise, Sunset would lug her battered old laptop in and set up shop.
One or the other happened often enough for her to be a regular customer, which was why, when Sunset reached the front of the line, a cup of coffee and a bagel sandwich were laid out for her. The scent of allspice was in the air, but when Sunset breathed deeply she could distinguish the aromas of real ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves as well.
Sunset laid her money down and playfully asked, "Whatever will you do if I decide to get something different someday?"
That was met with look of mock horror, then, "You mean I might be forced to drink a pumpkin spice coffee and eat an egg and eggplant bagel?" Next came a fake shudder, then a smile, and finally, "It'll be hard, but I'll find a way to survive."
"Thanks," Sunset said before heading to her usual spot.
She was in no hurry to check her phone, so she left it off when she plugged it in, slowly enjoyed her bagel, and occasionally sipped her coffee.
Once upon a time Sunset had eaten as fast as she could. It was a habit she'd picked up during her early years in this world. She didn't understand it at the time --if she didn't have much food, wouldn't it be better to savor it-- she just knew that she felt like she had to. Now she understood that it had been a result of a deep, almost instinctual drive to get as much food as she could while it lasted so that when she went back to the edge of starvation she'd have as many calories in reserve as possible.
Her mind might have known that she'd have this or that item of food for however long it took her to eat it, but her body was terrified that she might lose access to it at any moment. It all had to be eaten right away, because a predator might drive her off, or a rival might steal some, before she finished eating.
Given that it didn't arise from a position of rationality, it wasn't really something she could think herself out of. It had been a hard habit to break, and she still had relapses, but she definitely seemed to have put it, mostly, in the past.
She made the bagel last for half an hour. There was still plenty of coffee left, but with the bagel gone she had to do something else, so she turned on her phone.
That was when things stopped making sense.
It said she'd missed dozens of calls and hundreds of texts. The only thing she could think of that might provoke this was a new magical threat, but if that were the case she should have seen or felt something. Magical monsters were seldom subtle.
When she tried to figure out what was going on, the texts were extremely unhelpful. The most recent ones all fit into three categories, the first was, "Are you ok?" the second was, "Please contact me," and the third was both of those in a single text.
As Sunset was scrolling up through messages like that, hoping to find a message that revealed what had set this all off, she got a call. It took her a couple rings to recognize the number --Principal Celestia had never called her before-- but the moment she did, she picked up.
"Hello?" Sunset asked.
"Sunset!" was the response. Celestia wasn't exactly known for being shouty. Sunset wasn't sure whether that was more or less disconcerting than everyone on earth thinking she wasn't ok for reasons no one had bothered to share, but it was very definitely not concerting. "Thank God I got a hold of you; where are you?"
"Donut Joe's," Sunset said automatically. "The one by the rail yard."
"I'll be there in five minutes," Celestia said.
"Ok," Sunset said, "that's nice. Would this have anything to do with half the school calling or texting me in the last two hours?"
"You don't know?"
"I thought that was obvious," Sunset said, then she realized she was being rude. "Sorry. It's just, when my phone died everything was fine, now I'm inundated with messages, and so far none of them--"
It was probably a good thing Celestia cut her off, given that she'd been on the verge of shouting. The way Celestia cut her off, though, was as confusing as everything else. Specifically, "Do you have an internet connection?" didn't really feel like a relevant question right now.
"I can," Sunset said, making no effort to hide her confusion.
"Look yourself up on a video site," Celestia said, "any video site." That didn't sound ominous at all. "I'll be there soon."
⁂
Sunset was sitting in shock when Celestia came into the store. She did manage to notice Celestia's entrance and wave to make sure Celestia spotted her, but that was about the limit of what she could do right now.
When Celestia sat across from her, she didn't even respond.
"Sunset . . ." Celestia said.
"I don't . . . I just . . ." After those two failed attempts, Sunset gave up on talking.
"Sunset," Celestia said. Then she paused, seemed to think a moment, and said, "Actually, you know what? I'll be back in a second." After that she stood up, and left Sunset's field of vision.
After an indeterminate period of time that was, most definitely, longer than a second, Celestia reappeared. She was holding two drinks and a brown paper bag. One of the drinks was pushed to Sunset, and from the bag Celestia produced a chocolate glazed doughnut with strawberry frosting. It was Sunset's favorite.
"How did you . ? ." Sunset asked, counting on context to fill in the rest of the sentence.
"I asked them to give me whatever you liked most," Celestia said.
"They don't even make these," Sunset said, "the only reason I ever had one in the first place is that some mix up led to the wrong doughnuts being frosted."
"That would explain why they had to go into the back to produce the proper product," Celestia said.
Sunset considered pointing out that they weren't actually supposed to do that. Joe's culinary philosophy involved doing a certain set of things very well, not experimenting to create new and different things. She decided it didn't matter. Instead she took a bite of her doughnut.
"I take it from your earlier, near-catatonic, state that you've caught up on current events," Celestia said.
"Yeah," Sunset said, sarcasm seeping in, "I'm famous. My fifteen minutes have come round at last, and now the whole world knows my name."
"Have you thought about what you want to do about it?" Celestia asked.
"What's to do?" Sunset asked. "It's out there. Even if there were some way to get rid of every copy of the video, it's in people's minds. There might be magic capable of making people forget, but if there is it's absurdly evil and should never be used."
"I meant," Celestia said patiently, which Sunset tried to remind herself wasn't the same as 'patronizingly', "do you want to fight to keep what you've made for yourself here, or would you rather start over in a world with a certain purple princess who would probably welcome you like a recently rediscovered sister?"
"I don't want to run away," Sunset said. She had been planning on following that with, 'but I don't see how I can stay,' but Celestia responded before she could.
"Good," Celestia said, "I don't want you to leave either."
"So I'll just wait to be quietly abducted and carted off to some secret lab," Sunset said.
Sunset expected Celestia to say something to offer comfort and dismiss the possibility that terrible things would happen. Instead Celestia asked, "How do you know the religious fanatics won't get to you first?" After a moment spent with Sunset looking at her in disbelief, she added, "Exorcism seems at least as likely as experiments."
"Whatever the case," Sunset said, "it's everywhere. We can add the people who think angels and demons are highly advanced aliens and cryptozoologists to the unethical scientists and religious fanatics."
"Don't forget potential suitors who think Demon Sunset Shimmer is hot," Celestia added in a way that was far too playful for Sunset's liking.
"I thought you wanted me to stay," Sunset said as flatly as she could.
"I do," Celestia said. "So let me tell you what's going to happen. Tomorrow this will be all over the news as the latest thing to go viral and various experts will comment on the things that might have gone into making the 'hoax'," Celestia used airquotes in a way that would make any teenager proud, "and only true believers and reporters who have literally nothing else to do are going to bother coming to Canterlot."
"True believers can be dangerous," Sunset said, "and with the video in so many places eventually someone is going to realize it wasn't faked."
"Yes," Celestia said, "eventually someone will. No one in the general public will take them seriously, but that may not matter. You're right to fear that someone might attempt to abduct you."
"Do you have a plan for that?" Sunset asked. "Because I don't."
"Yes, actually," Celestia said. "Right now you're very abductable."
While she didn't make a noise, the look Sunset gave Celestia conveyed a message of, "I'm what now?" as clearly as any words ever could.
"Sunset," Celestia said, "legally you don't exist." Sunset nodded at that. "Which means that disappearing you would be relatively low risk. If someone who doesn't exist isn't around anymore, who --legally speaking-- notices?"
"You're really selling the whole 'Stay in the human world' angle," Sunset said with all due sarcasm.
"So our first step is to make you exist," Celestia said.
"How?" Sunset asked.
"I've been looking into the matter for some time now," Celestia said, "and I was going to suggest that we start with a birth certificate, but in light of recent events I think it's more important to get you family."
"I don't think I can order one of those off of ebay," Sunset said.
"No, but I feel that 'This person has close relatives who will notice their absence and try to find them' would be a stronger deterrent than 'There is documentation that this person was born'," Celestia said. "So, I think, we should start with family."
"Well," Sunset said with a shrug, "I've always wanted one of those."
Celestia closed her eyes, tilted her head down a bit, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Sunset," she said as she opened her eyes and looked up, "this isn't something to be flippant about. You've been living on your own since before I met you; you're used to being independent. This would mean giving that up."
Sunset closed her own eyes and thought things over.
"I'm talking about being part of an actual family," Celestia said. "In all senses. Until your next birthday, you'd legally be under someone else's authority. You've never been one to follow orders, and I doubt you like the idea of someone else having final say on your medical decisions."
Sunset kept thinking for a few more moments, then opened her eyes and said, "I don't." She paused. "But you're right: I think 'That's my daughter' is probably more powerful than 'That's a girl with no family that I happen to know.'"
Sunset sighed then let her head droop. Eventually she stopped with her head held in her hands, as she stared down at the table. "So," she said, "what do you recommend?"
"It needs to be someone that you trust," Celestia said. "Someone you'd listen to even if they didn't have power over you, someone that you believe wouldn't abuse that power, intentionally or otherwise. Someone who understands you well enough that you don't think the whole thing will turn into your own private Hell."
"And someone who wouldn't mind adopting a seventeen year old ex-bully with no documentation," Sunset said. She lifted her head, went back to looking at Celestia, and asked, "Do you have someone like that in mind?"
Celestia gave her a look that said, "Really?" and said it sarcastically.
"I didn't want to presume," Sunset said.
"Well, you're not," Celestia said, "I'm offering."
"When do I move in?" Sunset asked. "I can't wait to slam a door in your face."
"See? That's what I mean about being flippant," Celestia said. "I'm completely serious. If you don't trust me or if you do but you aren't willing to give up your autonomy, then this will go very badly for both of us. You're going to--"
"Ok," Sunset said, now completely serious, "you are right. I am used to being on my own, having final say, and generally being an adult. I'm not in any hurry to give that up, especially since Equestrian law says I've been an adult for about half a decade--"
"So young?" Celestia asked with clear surprise.
Sunset shrugged. "I honestly think your way is better," she said, "but not for imposing on people who grew up in a completely different culture." She paused. "The point that I was getting to, though, is that I'm well aware that nothing is free, and sometimes you have to give up something you don't want to lose for something you actually need."
Celestia said, "Considering it a transaction--" and Sunset cut her off.
"Look at it from my point of view," Sunset said. "If you can send me to my room, it means I have a room. If you can order me to make my bed, it means I have a bed. If you give me a 'While you're under my roof,' speech, then it means I have a roof over my head. If you tell me I have to finish the food on my plate, it means that I have both food and a plate to put it on."
Sunset took a deep breath. The next one, which Celestia herself had noted, was probably the biggest one for Sunset.
"If you pull rank when it comes to a medical decision, I will be unspeakably angry and possibly reconsider whether I want to be in this world, but at least it means I'm getting medical care," she paused a beat, then finished with, "and I don't think you'd do something like that."
Celestia definitely seemed receptive to this.
"Or," Sunset said, "for the extremely short version: if you tell me I need to be home by such and such time every night, it means I have a place to spend the night, and --more than that-- it means I have a home."
"So you have thought this through," Celestia said. It wasn't a question, but Sunset nodded anyway. "That makes me feel a lot more comfortable about this."
Sunset suppressed a smirk, then said, "So, mom, where do we live?"
"And you're flippant again," Celestia said.
"I am ready to get out of here," Sunset said, serious once more. She was going to say more, but she didn't get the chance.
"You've taken all of one bite out of your doughnut," Celestia said, and she pointed for emphasis.
Sunset blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be, "I forgot that existed." She picked it up, took another bite, and then said, "I can eat it on the way while you regale me with the process and paperwork that lies ahead of us."
Celestia stood up, Sunset followed suit, and soon they were both heading for the parking lot.
Celestia spoke as they walked, "The good news is that I have friends who are helpful, and much of the groundwork was already laid when I first realized you could potentially need a legal guardian in a hurry. The bad news is that since everything needs to hold up to close scrutiny, we don't get to rush anything from here on out."
"Meaning?" Sunset asked, then took another bite of her doughnut.
"All that's needed for custody is the two of us in court and your consent," Celestia said, "that can be done tomorrow, but as for adoption . . . the only thing we can do now is placement."
"And 'placement' is?" Sunset asked.
"The part where you move in," Celestia said. "Six months have to pass," they reached Celestia's car, and both got in, "between placement and the finalization of an adoption."
"So . . . it's not so much that you get to say, 'Don't vivisect my daughter,'" Sunset said, "as it is that you get to say, 'Don't vivisect the the girl who will be my daughter in six months.'"
Celestia rolled her eyes. "I get to say 'daughter', and if anyone asks me to back it up, I point out that I have full custody and the adoption process is underway." After a pause, Celestia added, "And --even if we don't go through with this-- if anyone tries to vivisect you," there was a hardness in her voice, the kind made one think bodies would soon need to be disposed of, "words and legal notions of kinship will be the least of their worries."
Sunset appraised Celestia.
Celestia, apparently, found being appraised disconcerting or some such because she asked, "What?" with a slight edge and a great deal of confusion.
Sunset gave a small nod to herself, then said, "I think I can see you as my mother."
Celestia smiled. Sunset gave a slight smile in return, then let herself collapse back into the passenger seat. "Now," Sunset said, "I guess I have to tell the whole of CHS that I'm neither dead nor missing."
"You do that," Celestia said, then she started the engine, and soon they were on the road.
Author's Note
Celestia and Sunset are both completely serious in this, by the way. Celestia is planning to treat Sunset as her daughter; Sunset is planning to respect the authority over her that this gives Celestia.
That's how they plan to act, whether they actually end up seeing each other as mother and daughter . . . pretty sure everyone can figure that one out.
Sunset's "If you do [X], it means I have [Y]" speech is all true, but if it were enough for her to give up her autonomy on it's own, she would have looked into getting an adult caretaker ages ago. It's that, plus trusting Celestia, plus the fear that without family ties she might become a lab animal that makes her accept.
The title comes from the Paul Simon song "Mother and Child Reunion".
The transitive usage of "disappear" here refers to a very specific kind of abduction. Those who have been disappeared "vanish without a trace into a world beyond all legal and human rights."
"Vivisect" means "dissect while still alive".
