“Do you have anything to declare, Miss?”
The words had their work cut out for them, as the distance of their journey was great. A mere three feet separated them from their goal - the ear of the intended target, where their mission culminated in disbursement over the brain of the listener. But they were sore afraid, for in their path was a miasma of stress and a great ocean of exhaustion. They arrived in due time for the speed of sound, but their efforts were for naught; as they died in vain, the speaker sent another party of words in their place.
“Miss? Do you have anything to declare, please?”
Sunset Shimmer blinked thricely. The gray cloud over her turquoise eyes lay heavy, and the bags beneath them ran deep from long hours and late nights. She was young still - mere months perhaps from doctoral awards - but a few hairs tucked behind her ears had already lost the scarlet hue of youth. She was used to dotting the ‘I’s and crossing the ‘T’s of her research with the ink of caffeine, but even that had done little to offset nearly forty-eight hours of wakefulness. Her attention thus escaped to greener pastures.
“Miss?”
“...huh?”
Sunset repeated her rapid blinking, finally shaking her head. The kaleidoscopic world came into focus, painted in shades of gray, white, and red from the terminal about her. The dull throb in her left shoulder from the weight of her bag bled into her thoughts, and the attendant behind the counter, whose smile had just barely begun to erode with annoyance, was full in her vision.
“I’m sorry...declare?”
The attendant gazed pensively at Sunset over smart-looking wire frames. He pointed at a sign on the marquee above, depicting a stick figure surrounded by various dangerous substances with bold red lines through them. “Your luggage, Miss. I’m asking if you have any hazardous materials to declare.”
Sunset glanced down at the single rolling suitcase that lay at rest opposite her burdened shoulder and wrinkled her nose. “Like a customs declaration? But I’m only going to the coast.”
The attendant’s smile was all but gone. Behind him, a flourescent light in an empty office flickered with accusation. “Be that as it may, the policy of our railroad is to refuse the transport of any illegal, contraband, or potentially hazardous materials according to the list above. The list includes unlicensed firearms, blades in excess of four inches in length, certain pressurized aerosols, spare lithium batteries, pepper spray, stunguns…”
Sunset listened to the attendant rattle on as though reading from a teleprompter. Indignant, she finally interrupted. “Are you serious? It’s a train. We’re not thirty thousand feet up. What could possibly happen to a can of hairspray or a nine volt?”
The attendant, seated at a long counter, steepled his fingers and arched a brow. “It’s our policy, Miss.”
Sunset rolled her eyes and glanced nervously at the silver diesel waiting beside the terminal gates. She hugged the large purse about her shoulder to her side and grasped at straws. “But I paid for a suite car. Isn’t there some kind of...first-class express boarding exception or something?”
“No,” the attendant said simply. He nodded over Sunset’s shoulder, where both conversationalists could hear slight murmurs from a line of white collar rat-racers who were trying to politely show their annoyance. “Miss, others would like to board the train. If you can’t answer the question--”
“N-no!” Sunset stammered, and then sheepishly: “I mean...no. I don’t have anything like that.”
The attendant, a lanky man with a hawk-nose, nasally voice, and gaunt features, threw one glance at each of Sunset’s bags. He then gestured to his left, where a metal-detection arch and a luggage conveyor that Sunset was quite certain not everybody before her in line had been sent through waited. “Very well. Step this way please. The attendants will assist you.”
Before she could make protest, Sunset found herself hastened to the inspection area. There loomed the great arch, its sensors waiting to ravish her every secret as she passed through. To delay the inevitable, she hoisted her rolling suitcase and placed it on the conveyor first. Within there was naught to unnerve her beyond hastily assembled clothing, toiletries, and a small photo album with memories of better days. The bag passed its test, and was immediately whisked away to Sunset’s cabin upon emergence from the other side of the scanner.
The new attendant - an overweight woman in a security uniform with a tight hairbun, surgical gloves, and an accusatory stare - jangled a plastic tray before the condemned. Sunset deposited the keys to her apartment, her phone, and a remnant of pocket change she had used to purchase an energy drink from a vending machine three hours earlier. These too found their way safely into paradiso. The attendant spoke without feeling.
“Bag please.”
Sunset clutched the strap of the navy bag and feigned ignorance. “You just took it.”
“Pocketbook, please,” the aged attendant amended.
Sunset mulled over the antiquated word for a moment and considered her carry-on luggage. The seams of the bag were showing in an awkward way, for she had turned it entirely inside-out to hide the logo of the research facility that served as her doctoral alma mater. For the past three years she had displayed the emblem with pride in pursuit of her degree , but it was now a bullseye on her person, and the only reason she bore it along on this trip was because she had no other bags that were free of it.
Her wardrobe fared no better. Insufficient time out of her life to go shopping (or anywhere other than to work) had left her with few garments that had not come from the facility’s store. This left her with no alternative but to don an ensemble from her halcyon high school days she had found in the back of her closet; consisting of a plum skirt, a t-shirt bearing her personal mark, and a sleeveless, spiked leather vest. It made her look like a rebellious teenager, and all of it was ill-fitting against her adult hips and bustline.
For a brief moment, Sunset considered flight. The station attendants, ignorant of her affairs, weren’t likely to give chase. But where would she go? The town was a small rural affair primarily engaged in the business of the university and research facilities, buffered by endless fields of wheat and corn that stood as insulation against the outside world. Just before the autumn harvest they were a labyrinthine maze with little hope of escape, and those who were searching for Sunset would already be on the roads. The town had a modest airport, but that had been Sunset’s first destination - she had gone there with no intention of claiming a seat on a plane, instead doubling back along her course to sow confusion. They would be there too by now, watching and waiting. Without a vehicle of her own, there was nowhere else to run.
Swallowing against a sudden thickness in her throat, Sunset held out the bag, both straps in one fist, and held her breath. The flop of the totebag on the conveyor was gentle. But the alarm was like a corkscrew to her temple.
“Wait--!!”
But it was too late. Sunset held her hand out towards the bag, resolving to snatch it away, give up on all her plans, and try her luck in the wheatfields, but the attendant was surprisingly fast. Already with it firmly in her grasp, she drew forth a small box inlaid with flower patterns in pink plastic. She thumbed the latch, and the box popped open to the tune of "If I Only Had a Heart", with the slowly spinning statuette of a young lady in blue before a tiny mirror. The box was filled with metal trinkets and cheap jewelry; this prompted a soft smile from the attendant intended to reassure children, as she handed it all back to Sunset.
“Don’t worry Miss. Nobody’s going to take your pretty things.”
Sunset stayed herself from snatching the box in a rush. She forced a smile, secured the box in the totebag, and played herself off as a first-time traveler who didn’t know what was going on. After due thanks, she hastened across the terminal to the private car she had burned most of her petty cash for the month on.
“...aluminum…” Sunset sighed to herself. “God I’m an idiot, the canister is aluminum...whew…”
Her nerves shot, Sunset patted the heavy bag that rested upon her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Just a little bit more.”
* * * * *
Sunset blushed.
Her private train car had every amenity from restroom to posh lounge area, but the hearty old cherub of a conductor who had prepared her quarters seemed to have thought the trip was for a pair of young lovers. The lounge was as comfortable as a small sitting room in a mansion, but there was an abundance of satin pillows that made it reminiscent of a Sultan’s harem, and a champagne bucket she hadn’t ordered was waiting on the coffee table with two glasses. At the very least, Sunset felt that she could expect privacy.
When the train finally churned into motion, she sat her totebag down and melted into a comfortable couch, stress emanating from her in nigh-tangible waves. For a time she lay still, watching the countryside just after the time of day that shared her name, until a sudden lurch from the train caused her to accidentally bat her totebag entirely to the floor. It landed on a mound of pillows and spilled out, revealing its contents: the juvenile jewelry box she had received as a birthday gift back in high school, and a cylindrical canister, marked for hazardous materials, that shimmered a soft green in the incandescent light of the car.
“O-oh...sorry…”
Sunset spoke directly to the canister, but the sudden hum of her phone drew her attention away. Pulling out the device, she read:
Time: 08:44:53 pm
From: Twilight Sparkle
Sunset? Are you okay?
They say you took the sample. Is it true? I don’t believe them. You’d never do a thing like that, it would mean the end of everything you’ve worked so hard for.
...would you?
Just stay put. When I get there, we can talk. Everything’s going to be okay.
-----------------------------
“You got that right,” Sunset huffed aloud. “At least...it’s going to be okay now.” She turned away from the screen, pausing only when a shock of realization bit into her like fangs.
“...‘stay put’? ‘When I get there’?”
Sunset nearly tossed the phone across the room. Knowing that would only prolong trouble, she instead feverishly mashed the poweroff button, exhaling only when the device was neutered to a lifeless black screen. Only then did she cast it aside, following up the gesture with a slap to her own forehead that was so hard she nearly knocked herself prone.
“Idiot!!” She remonstrated herself. “GPS locator app! We set them up as safety precautions ages ago! How could I possibly forget that!?” She grumbled as she wrapped several ice cubes in a napkin and held it to her head, in the hopes of freezing away the headache she had just given herself. “...dammit, why did they have to move up the testing schedule...if I had just one more week to plan, there wouldn’t have been so many close calls...now I might have ruined everything…”
Swirling colors danced at the edge of Sunset’s vision. She glanced at the canister. No bigger than her forearm, it projected hues she knew represented patience. Her expression softened, and she went to it.
“I’m sorry...I know...here…”
On the floor now, she settled her back into the base of the couch, her rump on the pillows, and carelessly uncapped the hazmat container. Therein oozed forth a jelly-like substance, apparently capable of its own locomotion, that rolled slowly from the container up her bare arm. Rather than recoiling, she smiled and touched its spongy surface affectionately with her other hand.
“It’s okay...we got away,” she said softly. “I won’t stuff you in anything like that again, I promise.”
The substance found its way to Sunset’s cheek. It nuzzled her there like a beloved pet, but her reaction was anything but. Turning her face to it, her lips came in contact with its surface, and she shared with it a kiss that burned away much of her stress. The substance flexed, flowing about her nose and jaw in a gentle caress, and might have accidentally asphyxiated her if not for what it had learned of human anatomy. It pulled back, allowing her to breathe as it shimmered a rosy red to match the color of her cheeks. She lidded her eyes by half and watched it for a time, as if gazing upon the face of a sleeping lover.
“...how many times have I called this crazy the last couple months,” she muttered. “But we’re still doing it.”
The substance’s surface showed a rainbow of color. Sunset knew the meaning behind every hue, displayed exactly where and for how long; even if her attempts to pass the knowledge on to others had been to no avail. Earthy brown meant hunger, and she reacted so completely to the shade that it elicited a rumble in her stomach as well. She placed a hand there, chuckling softly.
“Eh heh, I guess Rockstars and Slim Jims aren’t exactly part of our balanced...anything, really.”
With the jelly on her shoulder, Sunset retrieved the jewelry box and reorganized herself before the coffee table. She took up one of the champagne flutes and began to ‘pour’ some of the small jewelry items into it, until it clinked full of cheap copper rings, cubic zirconia studs, and costume necklaces encrusted with gaudy, oversized gems.
“This is all that was left,” Sunset said apologetically. “Just a few donations left in the box from the research team. But then, they never knew what would happen if they gave you the good stuff, huh.”
The substance slipped down Sunset’s arm and began to envelop the entire flute, until the entire glass seemed frozen in a block of green amber. The glass remained, but the semi-precious metals quickly dissolved, as though heated to the melting point of each in seconds and evaporated like water into effervescent bubbles inside the substance. The jelly expelled the glass, glowed brightly, and increased in size until it was approximately the diameter of a basketball. It strained, pulsing and stretching as if trying to increase its mass further, but nothing came of the continued effort.
Sunset sighed deeply and looked into her empty palms. “...it’s not enough, is it.”
The substance coiled itself into a thick spring and reached out to caress the back of one of Sunset’s hands. She looked on it longingly...and then closed her fist.
“It’s not enough,” she repeated. “You need more. Something pure, not that cheap junk the researchers were willing to part with just to run tests on you.”
The jelly flashed colors Sunset knew to be placating, but she shook her head at it. “You can say that all you want, but you’re forgetting that I saw your memories that first time we touched. Being able to do that is what tipped me off that there was more to you to begin with. I know you won’t survive the journey back down into the sea if you’re not in tip-top shape. And besides…” she glanced at the tiny, dark dot floating somewhere towards the rear of the jelly, “...you’re, you know...swimming for two now.”
As if sensing Sunset’s very thoughts, the substance slipped close to her and presented itself, the separate little nucleus that hadn’t been there weeks ago front and center. Sunset reached out and touched the jellylike surface, as if patting the tummy of a pregnant woman. That portion of the jelly vibrated involuntarily in response.
“...this is just so weird,” Sunset sighed as she kept up her caress. “How did it come to this? I...I should have told Twilight, I should have tried harder...she would have understood…”
The substance’s glow darkened.
“...I know,” Sunset muttered. “I did tell her, didn’t I. At least, I told her some of it. But even she won’t understand.” Frustrated, Sunset pulled away and rose abruptly, walking to the window for want of a different view. “She’s smarter than I am, she always has been. If I could figure out that you were just trying to communicate with us all that time with your patterns and your movements, why is she like all the others? Why does she refuse to see it?”
But Sunset knew the answer. It was simple, concise, and cold in its calculations. It was the simple march of time. The Great Nullifier - healer of all wounds and ender of all things.
It had been nearly a decade since high school, and half that time since she had exchanged anything more than text messages with her friends from the old days. Twilight had been the only exception, since she and Sunset found themselves working on the same research project. All of them had gone on to follow their passions: Rarity to the nation’s top runways, Rainbow Dash to any sports scholarship she wanted, and Fluttershy to the frontiers of the world, to save endangered species. Applejack had dropped out of college two years in to return to her family farm, but everyone knew her passion was for the land, and being away from it would have been akin to a death sentence. As far as Sunset could remember, Pinkie Pie was a bastion of good cheer in a tiny town somewhere out in Oregon, at the head of her bakery and party planning business with her loving mate and three adorable little ones.
They had all gone to their dreams, great and small. All except for Sunset Shimmer, who had only ever come to the realm of man in the first place to raise a mighty army in conquest of her original homeland. They had all expected her to follow Twilight Sparkle into science, and so she had - both to fulfill their expectations and for lack of anything better to do. Having just missed the exam scores for the top universities, undergraduate work had been a lonely affair. Sunset had muddled through it while receiving text messages from her best friend of them all, who was off on an ivy league adventure that even landed Twilight abroad at the Sorbonne for three semesters. They had met again during graduate work after acceptance to the same research program, but time had left its mark, and something beneath the surface would never be the same.
Sunset felt something slip into her hand. She glanced down to find a tendril of the substance, which had handed her back her cell phone. It was reactivated, safely in airplane mode, and already opened to her photo gallery.
“How did you...?”
The substance replied by glowing in warm colors and slinking again up her arm, enveloping the appendage by half as it went. Sunset sighed, a small shiver rising under the familiar sensation until the creature was draped about her neck like a pillow. The fact that it had ciphered the lock on Sunset’s phone was enough of an answer to her question, and testament to what she could not make the others on her team understand. The creature was beyond the mere sentience that connected humanity with every other living thing capable of feeling. It was sapient, a being of awareness and thought, though it could scarce communicate in ways human beings were capable of understanding without research. Sunset had put in the requisite time over months of late nights in the lab whilst feigning other research, and it had led to a connection with the ‘sample’ that went beyond mere communication or even friendship. In a world that no longer held the connections the young researcher craved, the substance had been there for her - to listen to her on long nights, hear her troubles, and ease her woes.
To her, the creature represented companionship. And after all, isn’t that what all humans and ponies alike crave?
Sunset found herself chuckling. “You know, I can’t just keep calling you ‘Sample’. You’re like the photo that came with the wallet with a name like that.”
The substance flowed around Sunset’s neck. It became warm to the touch, smoothing her own body heat around her, and she sighed as it began to work on the kinks in her shoulders.
“I can’t pronounce your real name like I saw it in your memories...I don’t think anybody with a human tongue can. How about...umm…”
There had been no need to use names before, for they were always either alone, where names had no meaning, or with other researchers, where ‘Sample Ooze’ prevailed. They were still a solitary pair, but she was no longer satisfied with monikers that separated the creature from her as an oddity of nature. It needed a name, like those of her own kind had, and as she thought about it, Sunset’s eyes fell on the discarded hazmat canister.
[03 - Item 8472.451 “Sample Ooze”]
“Sample…ooze...” Sunset tasted the words. “Sample...simple...seee-emple...samuel...samooze...smooze...suuma--smooze.” She blinked, eyeing the creature in the reflection of the window. “Smooze.”
The ‘Smooze’ glowed its approval with a splash of purple, softening into an orange hue similar to Sunset’s flesh. She touched it, one corner of her mouth cocked up in a whimsical smile.
“Smooze. It’s unconventional, but then...so are you.”
The Smooze extended itself down Sunset’s arm again, up to her wrist. It gently pushed, bending her arm for her so that the phone was in her field of vision.
“What? You want to look at old photos?”
The Smooze waved Sunset’s hand before her face and grew pleasantly warm again.
Sunset glanced at the cabin’s clock. At least five hours remained until their final destination, and though Sunset was in need of sleep, the last thing she wanted to do was leave the Smooze alone. With no better ideas to pass the time, she returned to the couch, poured for herself a measure of the champagne (combining it with a mere bag of peanuts from her own totebag, for she did not want to call for service), and turned her attention to her device. The Smooze situated itself in the space between the back of Sunset’s head and the wall, serving as the perfect comfortable support pillow. The first image to appear on the phone was one that she had frequently used as a wallpaper, and thus it stayed handy in memory - that of her six friends and herself, as they all appeared in their last year of high school. Sunset pointed at them each in turn.
“Twilight you know. This is Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and the one in the Stetson hat is Applejack.”
The Smooze oozed far enough around Sunset’s head to be seen, and altered it’s surface to display the favored colors of each of her friends as they were named. This encouraged the worn researcher, and she began to thumb through images that lay dormant in her oldest directories.
“Pinkie likes to bake. Really, I can’t even begin to explain the things she’s capable of when you stick a bowl of flour and eggs in front of her. She’d have liked you. It would have been enough for her to know you’re squishy, bouncy, and huggable like a balloon, eh heh.”
The Smooze glowed an interrogative teal.
“No, I haven’t seen her in years. She got pregnant halfway through our first year of college, before I switched schools. Some accident at a party. It...sorta changed her. At first she was still a tank of flaming nitrous oxide like always, but when she miscarried that first time, well...something on the edges of who she was never quite got over it. None of us could stop her from going overboard on the ‘wild college years’ thing, so we just tried to be there for her. She kept on laughing, but...it didn’t feel as genuine as before that first pregnancy.” Sunset paused. “...you should have seen how excited she was, even though she didn’t even know who the father was. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of somebody so happy to be knocked up as an undergrad. But that was Pinkie. It wasn’t possible for her to see anything in the cloud other than the silver lining.”
The Smooze knew there was more. It’s color persisted.
“...she almost died of an overdose later that year, after she lost the baby. More hard partying. It was a wakeup call, and she took it so hard that to this day I believe her when she said she would never touch another drop of alcohol or any sort of drug ever again.” Sunset rolled her eyes and snerked, “And wouldn’t you know it? Even without the hard parties, the same thing happened to her the very next semester. Another pregnancy, with no father in the picture. She...always had a curious way of interpreting ‘friendship’ in those years. But she delivered that time, no complications or anything, and even though she never got her degree, things worked out for her. She’s...happy now, with her family and her little bakery. Who can ask for anything more?”
The Smooze lounged patiently, waiting for Sunset to go on.
“This is Rarity. She has a heart of gold. She’d give you the shirt off her back and her shoes too, but in a week she’d make new ones, even if all she had to work with was a sewing needle and pile of goose feathers. You never met anybody as stubborn as her, and although she could be prissy sometimes, she’d have done anything to make her dreams a reality. And she did, too. As soon as she got to a certain point in her gen-eds, she applied for a transfer to a high-roller fashion school. It was all going great for her, she was a shoe-in, but she screwed up and missed one question on her entrance exams…”
Sunset paused.
“Then she...lied to us. Told us she had passed. We believed her for years, until we found out later that the headmaster of the school had brought her in anyway, in return for...certain favors.” Sunset sighed. “I...don’t even know what that must have been like for her, to do that for so long just to keep from having your future ruined, but we never once even guessed what was really happening. She just soldiered right on, same happy face as always. She finally realized her dream though. The last time I talked to her she was doing assistant work - legitimate assistant work - for some big name in ‘the business’, and she has a line of her own now. I dunno how her undergrad years ended, but there was no big comeuppance for her tormentor. I guess she just moved on.”
Sunset grit her teeth. She wanted to explode, to condemn the beast who would do that to her friend, but Rarity had never allowed any action to be taken. It was in the past, and as a friend, Sunset’s holding a grudge would only have made trouble for Rarity in the longrun.
“This is Rainbow Dash. As far as I know the only problem she ever had after high school was having people take her seriously as a female athlete.” Sunset waved her hand, “Don’t get me wrong, that’s totally a thing I know, but Dash? She competed on the boys’ teams. It ended up drawing ire from all directions. The boys resented her for wounding their egos by being there at all, and the girls’ teams seemed to think she thought she was better than them. None of it was true. All she wanted was to play the games she loved in her own way. She never did get through the gender barrier in major league sports, but I think she’s a fitness trainer now and a dietician for celebrities. With a sweet gig like that, I’m not even sure she bothered staying in school.” Sunset laughed. “Listen to me. ‘Sweet gig’. Dash was pretty infectious, I guess.”
The Smooze curled around its companion’s neck again, rolling into a hug.
“This is Fluttershy, there next to Applejack. They got really close after high school, I think because they connected so well on their passions. The Earth and its creatures mean a lot to both of them.” She glanced at the Smooze. “I guess they would have liked you too. I’m not exactly sure how close they were, but sometimes I wonder if they weren’t a little more than friends...maybe even a lot more. Applejack went to college for awhile because we all did, but she never chose a major, and eventually she decided to be honest with herself. All she ever wanted was to work her family’s farm. Simple things like that sometimes mean a lot to human beings. I guess she just needed somebody to actually tell her it was okay for that to be her dream.”
Sunset helped herself to the odd combination of peanuts and champagne, her stomach happy for anything at this point, and continued her story.
“Fluttershy might have been the bravest of us all. I’ve been shy before, I know how it feels. It’s like...some sort of hot coal burning in your gut or something, that makes you second guess everything you do or say, and think you’re always in the wrong. But some people are shy all the time, and they never get over it. They just learn to deal with it. What that must be like, carrying that around every day…” She shook her head. “A-anyway. She tried so many things, but there was always too much pressure in every field for her. It took passion to finally get her out of the gate, and last I heard she was off in Africa or Asia or something, saving endangered species. I bet they never had anybody who could actually talk to animals out there before. Must be a heck of a thing. I...dunno if she and Applejack still have feelings for each other or not.”
Sunset fell silent. The Smooze pushed gently on her back, easing her forward so it could locate and massage more tenseness out of her muscles. She closed her eyes, her grip slackening, and the phone thudded to the carpet below.
“...and then there’s me. The big meanie. And I know, I’m not that person anymore - that chapter of my life is over. But what I wasn’t planning for is what to do with my life afterwards. I spent so long vowing revenge on Princess Celestia for censuring me, that I was sure I would succeed. I didn’t need a plan because I was going to be Queen of Equestria…good lord, how awful that sounds to even say. And now I’m here. I don’t even really know what I want. I haven’t known since back when what I wanted was horrifying.”
The Smooze reflected the stripy colors of Sunset’s hair. It flowed over her shoulders and upper back, gently pulsing as if with its own heartbeat.
“Yeah, heh. I guess you’re right. Maybe now I finally do know what I want. Or at least...I know what I want to do next.”
In the window’s slight reflection, Sunset noticed that the Smooze had taken on a violet shade, with a raspberry stripe. She frowned.
“You know about Twilight already. She’s my best friend, but...time changes people.” She quickly appended, “D-don’t get me wrong, she’s still a wonderful person. She’s the glue that kept us all together. But she’s realizing her dream. I can’t blame her for that. She’s got her foot in the door, and now that she’s being recognized, she’s probably on the way to becoming one of the most renowned scientists in the world. She’s kind, but...her eye has been on the prize for way too long.” Sunset hung her head. “And so, she won’t listen to me. She tries to listen, but I don’t think she’s capable of understanding certain things anymore. Something in her brain won’t allow her to accept that you might be sapient enough for what we’re doing to you to be wrong. Because if that were so, it would ruin everything.”
The Smooze showed teal again. Flecks of gold within told her what it was asking.
“I already told you, it’s because we’re not the same people we once were. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, to change. Change is what we are. But sometimes, when you focus on one goal for too long, nothing else matters, and you start to lose the ability to see things any other way.”
Sunset’s own words gave her pause. She gazed at the photo. “...just like me. All those years ago.”
The Smooze was on the table. It coiled and flexed, swirling myriad colors within itself as it bounced about. Sunset smiled mirthlessly.
“No. I can’t help her the way she helped me. It’s too late for that now.”
The Smooze seemed to wilt. It formed a perfect sphere, dropped off the table, and rolled into a corner. Sunset got off the couch, knelt beside it, and promptly scooped it up in her arms, holding it to her chest like a pillow.
“This is not your fault. We’re in this together. I knew what I was doing when I got you out of there, and I would do it again.”
The Smooze did not respond. It was still soft to the touch, but solid and firm like a pillow, and Sunset knew that the harder it became, the more trouble it was having wrestling with its own feelings.
“You do know that I wanted this too, right? You didn’t think...all this was only about rescuing you, did you?”
Again, the Smooze did nothing, save for a slight, involuntary bounce with each bump of the track. Sunset’s brows knitted.
“Don’t get all mopey with me because you think you’re screwing up my life. What did I just say? I want this too. What we shared, those times...it means something to me.”
The Smooze maintained its shape, but it pushed to its surface the secondary nucleus. Sunset stared at it, losing herself, until the miasmic amniotic sea it floated in was all there was for her. It sat, waiting in patience and innocence.
“I…” she muttered, “...what we did, I…”
Sunset thought back. The night had been bleak - one of those instances where too much time alone had led to introspection, and a thorough self-lashing for the life decisions she had made. In high school she had made a promise to herself that so long as she had friends by her side, life would never get her down. But the friends were distant, the days cold and repetitive, and she couldn’t answer the question ‘if I had to do it all over again, would I’ the way she wanted.
The Smooze had been her companion that night, as on so many before, but she had wanted more. Before she knew what was happening, the Smooze was taking her to heights of bliss no human, or even pony, could ever be capable of. It had flowed inside her, touching everything all at once, and when it was all over, the nucleus had appeared. The Smooze wasn’t able to communicate what it meant clearly, so she looked into its memories, and found that it had acted on mating instinct and taken one of her eggs. This was apparently part of its normal mating practice - to genetically alter and incubate material from a different-species partner. Whatever was now growing inside it she had contributed to, and that made her the ‘father’ of the joining.
Through her unique gift, Sunset had learned even more about the Smooze. She learned it had come from the deepest depths of the sea, beyond man’s ability to explore. It too had been involved in exploration, but it knew as little about the surface as the surface dwellers knew of it. Soon it soon found itself helplessly snagged in ocean currents, until it was swept into a mire of swamps in a coastal bay where it became trapped. After local discovery and analysis it ended up at the research facility, where it had been identified as an ‘unknown substance’. It was filled with impurities as a result of the swamps, but it boasted a promising molecular structure with applications ranging from medical science, to plastics, automotive, and even a clean energy source.
Needless to say the Smooze had caught the attention of many a commercial giant, who would pay dearly for any means by which to purify it and create many, many more. The first step was simple, and the Smooze soon returned to meager health. The second step was unknown, but when the nucleus ‘inexplicably’ appeared, the researchers looked forward to the exciting prospect of random cell-division, which they hoped to find a means of inducing at their will. Proposed experiments involving tearing the Smooze apart had been the last straw, and Sunset took action.
And now, here she was, on a night train to the coast, flying from those who would harm her unorthodox lover. It was the plot of a contrived romance novel, and Sunset smirked ruefully at herself as she attempted to fathom how her life had come to such a thing. She returned to the couch, and with the Smooze clutched to her chest, she rested her chin upon it and watched the countryside go by.
“I’m sorry. Sorry that this is what you found when you came to learn about the surface. I just wanted you to know about my friends. So maybe you can tell your kind that we’re not all like that.”
The Smooze glowed warm. Sunset twitched in involuntary protest, but her lover knew she was exhausted, and demanded of her rest. Its radiance was like a narcotic, and it softened its form until Sunset found herself falling as if into the endless expanse of a five-star down featherbed. Her eyelids fluttered and she attempted words, but the cadence was erratic, until her nonsensical mutterings became the stuff of dreams. When her breathing and heartbeat placed her at the edge of consciousness, the Smooze altered itself, spreading out over her chest, neck, and shoulders; laying on gentle pressure to keep Sunset from doubling over. It nudged at her, enveloping portions of her upper body and shifting her joints until she was arranged for sleep. Leaning her onto one of the couch arms, it slid down to her legs and used her own muscles to pull them up onto the couch and lay her out properly. As soon as she was stretched out, the Smooze poured itself into her boots, one at a time, and expanded its body, painstakingly inching them bit by bit from her calves until each one clunked to the floor.
Sunset whimpered, her brow furrowing, and rolled onto her side; clutching her shoulders until she nearly speared her own palm with a spike from her aged vest. She shivered despite the warmth, ravaged by years of coldness that transcended mere physicality.
The Smooze perched upon the back of the couch and scanned the lounge. The bedroom was in a separate part of the car, and though it knew which button called for the conductor, it didn’t dare attempt to put in a request for linens. Instead, it stretched itself into a long arc, like a child stretching chewing gum from its mouth, and ‘walked’ end over end like a Slinky to the door. There, it slipped through the keyhole, checked to ensure the coast was clear, and then stole through the darkness to the bedroom. Blankets were beyond its ability to transport without dragging them clumsily down the hall and risking discovery, but it had no trouble with the lightweight ‘do not disturb’ sign, which it tossed upon the doorknob before sliding under the door of the now-secure lounge. Lastly it extinguished the lights, leaving nothing but the pale glow of the moon to cast Sunset’s troubled sleeping features in relief.
The Smooze sat upon the floor, watching its lover slumber. Sunset was grinding her teeth and muttering fitfully. Her shivers stubbornly persisted, and the smooze reflected a deep cerulean to match her distress. Finally it perked up, a nacent thought tickling its mind. It stretched its form to paper-thinness, as far as it could manage without tearing itself apart, and blanketed Sunset from shoulders to waist in its own body. There it used its natural insulative properties to reflect her own body heat back upon her like a quilt.
Sunset shuddered one final time, and finally grew still. Her breathing fell into a rhythm and her mutterings quieted. Carried through the night by the clacking train, Sunset Shimmer slept in the embrace of the only companion left to her, and the one, perhaps, that meant the most of all.
The train ran on.
The fire burned.
In the transitional hours of late night to early morning, miles from anyplace she had ever been, Sunset Shimmer sat on a hill by an abandoned lighthouse. Thick with surrounding brambles, the solitary tower stood as a rotting sepulcher to days that had long passed it by. On a coast so famed for such structures the lonely monolith’s condition seemed shocking, but the hillock it stood upon was wooded, the placement poor, and the surrounding land in little better condition. The rusted signs marked the spot as private property, but whomever held it in trust had apparently too little interest to allow anybody to make it beautiful again. A gentle but extant slope led down to a watery cove, where a dusty beach lay unmarred by the prints of man or beast. By the light of the moon it was a foreboding place, likely connected to enough ghost stories among the locals to keep loitering teenagers away. Having no real plan beyond reaching the coast at all, Sunset thought it a spot of luck to find a place where she and her lover could enjoy their last few moments in privacy.
Here perched Sunset Shimmer, upon a hard log that had already caused her rump to go numb. She hadn’t moved in half an hour other than to poke with a stick the embers of the small conflagration she had created, and though her goal of the sea lay but a few score yards away, she had found herself unable to take another step. The coastal night was cold with salty seabreeze, but with her knees tucked to her chest and the flames licking a pile of gathered brush before her, the chill stood at bay.
The Smooze, again in the shape of an orb, sat far from the fire like an oversized tiger-eye marble. It was a creature of the sea, and though Sunset didn’t know for certain if it’s surface was combustible, fire as a concept seemed enough to keep it away. She looked mournfully upon her companion, knowing that the research team had every intention of finding out.
“We’re just wasting our time,” Sunset finally declared, her chin partially mooshed between her knees. “...aren’t we.”
From bonding with it, Sunset knew that for the Smooze to return to a state that would survive the pressure of the deep, it required materials so pure and precious that a mere ounce of them would cost more money than she could ever hope to see. Junk metal could only take the organism so far, and it was already at the peak of efficiency that the equivalent of soda and potato chips could provide. It needed saffron and caviar over lobster to move on, and she had no capacity to feed it anything but dime-store ramen noodles. Without anything more, their ill-conceived adventure was at an end.
The Smooze had adopted a metallic gray sheen; a uninspired color, like a rainy day taken form. Sunset looked upon it with her own flavor of despair, for even her fiery locks were now ruffled, weighed by moisture, and no match for the spry flames that reflected their color.
“Maybe...maybe we need a plan B. We could...I dunno...hide you somewhere. Somewhere they’ll never find you.” Sunset wracked her pressured brain, gritting her teeth in annoyance when a thought didn’t present itself. “But no matter where we go, they’ll still be looking. You’re too important to the project, and if I keep running they’ll know for sure that I took you. So eventually we’re just going to have to do this all over again--” she waved at the beach. “Say goodbye again, I mean. And who knows where you’ll have left to run by then.”
A siren blared in the distance. Sunset tensed. She considered stamping out the fire, abandoning her bags, pouring the Smooze down her shirt and running like hell, but the sound began to fade as quickly as it came. Local law enforcement, off on some unrelated errand. She ran her hand through her hair and bit her lip.
“This is ridiculous, I’m so jumpy I can’t even think.” She forced the wheels inside her head to twist to tortured life, and clutched at the first mad light bulb that flared up. “We...we just need more precious metals - really precious ones - to get you back to full health. I...I could rob a jewelry store, yeah…” she muttered. “I can do that, if I just pony up I’d have the power to. I wouldn’t hurt anybody and I wouldn’t take anything except what you need--”
Sunset paused. The Smooze was creeping up her leg, flashing colors of complaint. She made a face when it reached her knee and came to eye level.
“Alright fine. Do you have any better ideas?”
The Smooze sparkled placatingly, popping silly looking bubbles inside itself.
“S-so what if I’m stressed?” Sunset replied. “Of course I’m stressed. Can you blame me? I can’t just pour stress out of my body like...pouring you out of a fishbowl or something.”
Cycling with pastel silliness, the Smooze reached out a tendril and booped Sunset right on the nose. She went cross-eyed trying to bring the appendage into focus, but before she could say anything, it threw itself straight into her face. Sunset gagged and lost her balance, toppling backwards into the sparse, sandy grass, but her paramour gave her no time to recover. It moved over her with surprising speed, assaulting her under the arms, the sides of her torso, and even the little ticklish spots under her wrists that she had never told anybody else about. It knew exactly where to touch, and in the turning of a second Sunset Shimmer found herself writhing on the ground, cackling out her sorrows for all she was worth.
“Wa--waiahh..ahh..HAHAHAHHAHA…!! S-st-stop-somebody might heaaaarhhAAHAHAHAHHAH!!”
The Smooze had amazing tensile strength, but by virtue of mass alone Sunset had the edge in terms of raw power. She rolled several yards away from the makeshift fire pit into the pale moonlight with the Smooze in tow, but it was unphased by this. She was rendered powerless by the surprise attack, and the Smooze did not let up until Sunset surrendered completely over to laughter, tears streaming from her eyes; her jaw no longer capable of forming protests. Only then did the Smooze ‘accidentally’ slow itself enough for her to gain some ground. She threw her arms around the reformed ball and let its surface push her hair into the sand as it claimed her lips, their movements mutually slowing as they shared another tender kiss under the grace of the moon.
The Smooze held her there, the shivers rising from her body like steam and fluttering away. She kissed it with abandon, smacking noises rising from their union until it finally flowed off her her face to allow her breathe. Sunset drank in deeply of the crisp coastal air, lying prone as she sought to fill her lungs anew.
The Smooze had become opaque. Its reflective, silver surface was like a mirror, and Sunset saw herself in it, smiling brightly like a blissfully ignorant child. She stroked the Smooze lovingly as it displayed its feelings using her face, and touched her cheek; unable to recall when she had last seen herself this way.
She glanced down at the reflection of her neck. And then the answer came.
“Yes!!” Sunset shrieked, sitting up with such force that the Smooze was nearly thrown off of her. She grabbed it with both hands and kissed it once again, roughy and quickly. “That’s it! You’re a genius!”
The Smooze glowed interrogative teal.
“Don’t you see!?” Sunset sat the Smooze on her lap and gathered up the pendant around her neck in one hand, presenting it. “My geode! It’s not only made from precious metals, it’s also chock full of Equestrian magic! I bet it’s worth more than a thousand tons of platinum to you!”
The Smooze considered this. It’s hue darkened, and it slowly rolled off of Sunset’s lap.
“...what?” Sunset held the gem out further, as far as it could go whilst still anchored to her neck. “What’s the matter? This is the best possible thing that could have happened to us. You know it’ll work, right? This can get you home.”
Sunset got up on her knees and scooted forwards, but for every movement she made, the Smooze rolled the same distance away.
“Don’t be afraid. It’s magic...my magic. It’s the Magic of Friendship. It won’t hurt you, I promise.”
The Smooze began to flash complex swirls of color from all ends of the spectrum. They appeared even to a discerning mind as little more than a pretty light show, but Sunset had spent months intensely focused upon their study - she knew that the Smooze had something more complex to say. She watched the patterns patiently, and then snorted derisively.
“Tch, oh don’t worry about all that,” she said simply. “I can still see people’s memories even without my geode, It’s not as clear, but I’ve tried it before and it still mostly works. I can’t pony up or make lightshows or whatever without it, but…” she glanced down into her palm, where the gem waited. “...but that doesn’t matter anymore. All of that is pointless without the others. So you see? I don’t need it as badly as you do. You have to take it.”
The Smooze’s patterns continued. Sunset’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re being ridiculous. This is your life we’re talking about.” She pointed at the secondary nucleus, “And it’s not just your life anymore, even. I don’t have time to make friendship for other people anymore, and the world still goes around regardless. It doesn’t matter what defines me or makes me unique now, that’s not important. How can I just walk away from here with all my hocus-pocus intact, when they could find you and torture you to death trying to make you into god’s gift to clean energy? I can’t just let that happen--” Sunset folded her arms, “--I won’t just let that happen.”
The Smooze had neither eyes nor face, but it spun about and tilted itself in such a way that Sunset got the impression it was turning away from her and sticking its nose up. It sat perfectly still, save for the occasional ripple over its surface. It was capable of assuming an entirely solid shape, but she had observed in the past that it seldom did so unless required - typically there was always some sort of little shimmy to it, like ripples from a leaf landing in a pond. The pattern was akin to breathing, and it gave Sunset an idea. In a flourish of exaggerated movements, she scooted forward and pointed to the peak of the hillock that she had partially rolled down during the tickle-assault.
“Oh yeah? Well if you don’t become healthy again, what are you planning to do about that?”
It was the oldest trick in the book, but it was also a book the Smooze had yet to read. It became oblong and tilted in the indicated direction curiously. With perfect timing, Sunset ripped the geode from her neck, destroying the fine chain that held it, and jammed it into the Smooze’s body through one of the ripple-windows. To promote confusion she followed through with her lunge and tackled the Smooze like a fumbled football, throwing her body over it in the hopes that the few precious seconds before it altered itself to escape her might make a difference.
Sunset grappled, rolling around with the Smooze in the sandy grass for a few seconds, but it was like trying to wrestle with a water balloon. Inevitably, the Smooze altered itself to make holding onto it impossible. It escaped and began to jump around in a flurry, bucking like a pony as it tried to expel the glowing object inside it, but the power and refined perfection the geode gave off was like a smorgasbord of raw lamb’s flesh to a starving wolf. The Smooze fed involuntarily until the geode discorporated. An orange glow lit the Smooze from the inside out, growing in intensity until Sunset was forced to look away, lest she go blind from retinal burn.
When the light finally faded and Sunset dared to blink again, her jaw nearly hit the sand.
“...wow…”
Before her stood the Smooze, as never she had laid eyes upon it before. Breaching six feet in height, it stood as the perfect silhouette of a chiseled yet androgynous humanoid, though it lacked entirely in hair, facial features, or discernable genitalia. Its body remained transparent, and the ripples flowing about its musculature gave it an otherworldly appearance, as the harbinger of some divinity. It glowed with the moonlight like a wraith from the deep. The only flaw it seemed to possess was a slightly distended stomach, where the secondary nucleus, borne of Sunset’s own genes, floated peacefully.
Covered in sand, dust, and residue from her lover’s form, Sunset rose slowly, unused to looking up at the Smooze. “I...is this...what you really look like…?”
The Smooze, its swirling colors brighter and more robust than ever before, nodded its expressionless head. Sunset marveled, circling the new creature with the rekindled fascination of a young scientist who had yet to be dulled by the grueling path of achievement. When she had made her circuit, she clapped her hands and grinned merrily, nearly hopping in the air with excitement despite herself.
“See, I told you it would work! Isn’t this wonderful!? You can go home now! Everything really is going to be okay!”
The Smooze flexed its palm and stared down at it. From there it regarded itself all over like a freshly rebuilt android, testing limbs and rotating joints that it didn’t actually possess. When it was satisfied, it turned to Sunset and simply opened its arms to her. Sunset required no hesitation, and as she leapt into its grasp, the Smooze lifted her a foot off the ground with ease and spun her about across the sand.
Sunset was no dancer - she hadn’t any practice beyond what the Crystal Prep girls had showed her way back in high school, and there had been no cause to use those skills in years. The Smooze was moving her across the base of the hillock in fluid steps that didn’t resemble any dance she knew of, but it compensated for her awkwardness by dipping and twisting her whenever she was about to fall. They were gyrations intended for two beings of the Smooze’s kind, and she found herself mingling with its body as it pressed her in and out of itself; the closeness beyond any form of human intimacy. When she finally managed a misstep so great that her partner could not compensate, she tumbled to the sand on her rump, her body hot and her cheeks volcanic.
The Smooze, still on it’s ‘feet’, paused to glow a merry magenta. She pretended to give it the stink-eye, and then cackled at the ridiculousness of it all as she collapsed on her back into a spread eagle position. There she gazed at the stars, finding in them a certain promise that hadn’t existed since the bewilderment of youth still touched upon her once-young mind.
A transparent humanoid appeared in her field of view, standing before the moon and plunging it into a sea of violet plasma. She gazed lovingly up at the Smooze, took its offered hand, and allowed it to pull her into a gentle embrace. With her ear against its chest, she thought that she could hear the sea.
“...you can finally go home,” she said simply. “I didn’t even know how we were going to pull this off, but it’s all going to work out now...you’ll be safe…”
The Smooze raised Sunset’s chin with a gentle grasp and ‘stared’ into her eyes. She hooked a wayward lock behind her ear and shared with her unprecedented partner another lover’s kiss; murmuring into it as the warm substance that made up the Smooze flowed about her lips and face. Sunset finally stepped away, determined not to let her resolve waver.
“It’s getting into the morning,” she said. “It’ll be light soon. You should go.”
The Smooze merely stood.
Sunset blinked and gestured towards the surf. “I know...I don’t like goodbyes either, but we can’t be sure nobody will be on the adjacent beaches in the morning, and we’d be noticed in the daylight for sure. Now’s the time.”
The Smooze took Sunset’s hand in its own. The transparent hand melted into hers and ran up to her elbow, until the pair was quite literally ‘arm in arm’. It gestured towards the tide, a romantic sangria shade predominating over its upper body. Sunset knew the Smooze’s ‘language’ well. Knew what it was asking of her.
“N-no, no,” Sunset pulled out of the grasp. “We talked about this. I can’t go with you. Even if I could breathe underwater, I’d be crushed by the pressure long before we got to your home. For us to be together you would have to stay near the surface. As long as they have some idea about your unique chemical makeup, they’ll have a way to track you. There’s nowhere up here that’s safe.”
The Smooze seemed unconvinced. It stood there, scant yards from freedom, and again sought to envelop Sunset’s arm. This time she pulled back sharply, her brows going heavy over her tired turquoise eyes.
“No, you don’t get it. You don’t understand how human beings are. It doesn’t matter if you’re…” she gestured at the Smooze, “--this, now. You’re too valuable to them. They’re never just going to let you run free. Even if they believe you’re a sapient being and they don’t try to harvest you for fuel or cosmetics or some other damn thing, the best you can hope for is to be a specimen for the rest of your life.”
The Smooze glowed in the raspberry colors of Sunset’s best friend.
“I-it doesn’t matter if I tell Twilight about this now!” Sunset replied. “Maybe now she might believe me, but even then, even with our powers, we can’t protect you from the entire world! Even if we could, what sort of life would that be for you? Don’t you want to go home? Don’t you want to see your family and friends again?”
The Smooze’s color became a soft yellow. It was the color of truth - an insistence by the Smooze that it was happy only with her, and didn’t require its own world anymore. Sunset might have acquiesced, until she caught sight of the tiny tinge of putrid, liar’s green that the Smooze was trying to keep behind it. Transparency had its disadvantages, and to Sunset, the meaning was unmistakable.
“See!? You’re not happy here! You can’t be happy here! What about our...our…” Sunset pointed straight at the nucleus in the Smooze’s stomach, “--what about that? It’s not fair to raise it like this! It deserves to go home!”
The Smooze turned from the water. Interposing itself between the sea and its partner, it tried continually to grab at Sunset’s arm.
“St-stop it!” Sunset cried, her brain instantly going on emotional damage control. “We promised we wouldn’t do this! We made a deal to stick with the plan once our minds were made up!”
The Smooze leaned in to kiss Sunset, but she stepped back. Her teeth ground into a snarl, for fear of what might come out of her if she didn’t force it down with anger.
“This isn’t fair!! Do you think this is only hard for you? I’ve never felt like this about anybody before, and even though I know I’m never going to see you again, I know this is the right thing to do! How dare you just chuck it all out the window at the last minute! Do you enjoy ruining me!?”
The Smooze darkened to a smoke color. It’s ‘feet’ melted into the grassy sand like tree roots, and it folded its arms in defiance. Sunset shoved at it, but it was no ordinary human, and she stood no chance of budging it so long as it could weld itself to the spot.
“So you’re just going to stand there like an idiot until they find you, unless I agree to spend the rest of both our lives, and our...our…” she finally used the word, “our child’s life on the run!?”
The Smooze, merely nodded in response. It was livid with vile green and black, but Sunset saw only red.
“Don’t BET on it!”
With that, she turned and dashed towards the apex of the hillock. Her teenage boots, worn and sitting unused in the back of her closet for years, chose that moment to fail; her right heel cracking apart against a rock. She toppled over, her vision blurred with the moisture that threatened to rip holes in her, and tore furiously at each boot until she had pulled them both free. Barefoot she reached the summit. There, she grabbed the largest flaming branch from the fire in both hands and whirled on the Smooze, brandishing it like a baseball bat.
“You’re going to leave!” Sunset roared, the heat bringing an instant sheen to her brow. “Or so help me I’ll make you leave!!”
Sunset sprinted over the return distance down the slope like a charging thoroughbred, her legs pumping with the beat of her belabored heart. She took a running swing right at the Smooze’s head, but the creature dodged the blow easily without so much as moving one foot. Again and again Sunset swung wildly at its upper body, but the Smooze’s quickness and ability to alter its form however it pleased made every attack an exercise in futility. Exhaustion set in, and when the branch was finally too hot and heavy to control, Sunset used the last of her strength to simply lob it at her target. She Smooze’s body split in twain down to the waist, reforming without injury when the branch sailed by.
Sunset collapsed onto her knees, unable even to cry for the greedy gasping of her lungs. She held her splintered palms before her, gazing at them in futility, and was about to hide her face from the world with them had the Smooze not finally set itself to action. It knelt beside her, it’s color back to a soothing, shimmering, sunset orange, and stroked her from the top of her head to the middle of her back.
Sunset wanted to throw herself into its embrace, and if she had any luck, drown herself in it until she could never feel anything ever again. Instead, knowing her attempt to sway it had been futile, she employed the only weapon she had left to see to its safety in the deep, beyond human reach. In her mind, she smashed through the glass cover and slammed her palm down on the red armageddon button.
Sunset’s open palm caught the Smooze right on the cheek. It hadn’t been expecting the blow, and thus her hand passed through it with some spray, as if slapping the surface of a swimming pool. With her eyes shut tightly, Sunset began to scream.
“I don’t love you!! I never did! Everything I told you about my friends was a pack of lies! Human beings are all the same! I’ve just been testing you for months now, like we’ve all been doing since we found you! If you don’t go away, I’ll put you in that tiny container and take you right back to the laboratory, so they can pick you and your awful little spawn thing apart!”
The Smooze hesitated. It removed its hand and stared dumbly, as a fountain cherub made from the very water that pumped through it. Sunset fixed it with a stare worthy of her earliest days in the human world, when the power of warped Equestrian magic held her in sway.
“Didn’t you hear me, you dirty monster!? I’m a human! How could I ever love something as ugly and twisted as you? Nobody here cares about you, so there’s nothing left for you here now! Get out of my face!!”
The Smooze, lanced by the evil in Sunset’s burning gaze, lost its perfect balance and stumbled backwards on its humanoid limbs, forgetting even to cushion the blow by altering itself. It shook its head a few times and continued its clumsy retreat, until it was once again back on its feet and on its way to the water.
Sunset didn’t watch it go. With her hands cupped over her ears, she sprinted up the hillock and madly kicked sand at the embers of the fire, just to watch them die.
“God-DAMMIT!!!”
The cry tore through the waning hours of night, and with it escaped the last of her inner flame. She threw herself to the ground, only avoiding the burning sparks by coincidence, and gave herself over to a howling sorrow that shamed the wail of a banshee.
In that place, Sunset Shimmer wept with a raw intensity that frightened her, for she had never in her life allowed the floodgates to be so thoroughly obliterated. Power could not be hers. Friendship had gone cold over the years, and now, even love was beyond her reach. She had come full-circle from those early days; once again miserable and alone, she could do nothing but hug her shoulders and curse herself for a fool with a litany of explicit verbal abuse.
Time passed, and somewhere around the moment where the night sky became pregnant with the promise of dawn, Sunset ran out of tears. With her voice all but gone from wailing and pain in her ankle from where the broken boot had twisted her gait, she rolled onto her side, facing the sea, and stared dully at the empty beach through bloodshot eyes.
But the beach was not empty.
There, standing up to its gelatinous calves in the water, stood the Smooze. It had been watching her all the while, standing there at a distance and waiting patiently to see her face one last time. It glowed with a fantastic pattern of glittering brilliance in the colors of Sunset’s hair, and raised one arm in a motionless wave.
Sunset found her way to her knees. She choked on bile and reached her hand out as if to touch it from a distance, as children pretended to squish the sun between their fingers.
“Please…” she whispered to herself. “...please don’t come up here...I’ll die if you come up here…”
The Smooze paused. It then completely lost its form, oozing out into the open water like a second skin over the waves.
This time, Sunset watched it retreat. When it was a hundred yards from land it began to writhe, as though with pain. Sunset rose with concern, adrenaline pushing her to automatic pilot, but was stopped in her tracks when she saw a small portion of the Smooze’s body break entirely free from the rest of it. The new shape moved with an infantile uncertainty, and as the Smooze swirled around it to carry it safely out to sea, Sunset could see the secondary nucleus at the center of the new creature’s form.
“That…” Sunset blubbered. “That’s...my…”
Her legs moved. Before she knew it, she was at a run.
“W-wait….WAIT!!”
This time Sunset’s footfalls were true, and she was at the edge of the tide in mere seconds. Never breaking her stride she waded into the sea, continuing her calls until the surf broke as high as her chest.
The Smooze, and its offspring, were gone.
“I just...wanted to meet you once, that’s all…”
In an adopted world, where no ponies moved the clouds and no princess kept the moon, Sunset Shimmer stared out across the endless expanse of blue horizon. The plan had gone off exactly the way she wanted it.
And now, she had nothing.
* * * * *
Time: 04:18:31 am
From: Twilight Sparkle
Why did you turn your phone off?
The last place the GPS said you were was in the train station. There was only one train leaving around then, and you weren’t there when I arrived. Did you take the train? Why?
Sunset, please...what’s going on? I still don’t believe them when they say you took the sample. You know as well as anybody what’s at stake here. What this could mean for the world if we complete our experiments. But I have to know what’s happening here.
I’m sorry for snooping, but I found the itinerary and the passenger list. I’m already en route. Please talk to me when I get there.
-----------------------------
It was the final message out of half a dozen from Twilight, and it was barely ninety minutes old. Sunset chuckled in the face of her phone and helplessly shook her head. She might have known that if anybody could pick up her trail and follow it both quickly and accurately, it would be the superior intellect and cunning of Twilight Sparkle. With no more need to hide herself, Sunset pressed the sleep button and tossed the phone aside, where it landed with a soft thud in the grass.
The sun was not yet up, but the moon had already become transparent with morning light, and would soon be gone. The dawn was gradually dismissing the fantastical night, and Sunset found that the tower she had made camp under wasn’t even a lighthouse at all. It was merely a tall storage shed made to resemble one, probably as a result of an old architect who had become enamored by the local flair. It remained ruined by time; its position on the small hillock quite useless for any beacon to the sea mounted in its eaves.
The campfire, though contained, devoured its latest fuel with whetted rage. Within Sunset watched the last vestiges of her past die, for she had tossed into it her entire outfit: the ill-fitting plum skirt, the old, spiked leather vest, the shirt bearing a personal emblem that had once been her ‘cutie mark’ in a different life, and her damaged boots. The clothes were too stained with residue from the Smooze’s body, and she had resolved to leave as little trace of it for the eyes of man as possible. With any luck, the research team would be disbanded for lack of proof to their claims, and memories of the Smooze would die off for good.
In Sunset’s luggage were no less than three replacement outfits. They were all products of the research laboratory store, and donning any of them was an admission that it was truly all over. Thus she sat naked in the shadow of the faux lighthouse shed, warming herself by the ashes of her youth until she could bring herself to cover up.
Sunset touched her neck, and pulled from it the empty chain that had once anchored her geode to the world. It was useless now, but she had felt a need to dangle the broken chain across her collarbone still. It had been a constant presence on her body since those many years ago at Camp Everfree, and she only felt truly naked in the absence of the thin links.
Her phone beeped again. The assigned tone indicated another message from Twilight, who no doubt had a GPS fix and would be there soon. Sunset retrieved the device, but ignored the message to type out one of her own.
Time: 05:49:47 am
From: Sunset Shimmer
Everything is fine.
I don’t know where the sample is--
-----------------------------
Sunset paused in her typing. Her original plan had been to lie - to claim she had no idea where the 'sample' was. She had been extremely careful covering her tracks at the lab itself, and there was no longer any trace that the hazmat container, now also destroyed by fire, had ever been in her possession. She had even worked out an elaborate story to explain her coincidental departure, involving emotional issues stemming from the monotony of her life. It wasn’t entirely untrue, and if anything, she hoped it might help to open a dialogue between herself and her best friend of old - Twilight Sparkle.
She had planned to lie. But all she had left were her memories, and they proved to be a final scrap of evidence she could not bear to part with. She backspaced.
-----------------------------
The sample...it’s gone now, Twilight.
I’m sorry, but we’ll never see it again.
Meet me at the GPS coordinates. I promise I’ll tell you everything.
-----------------------------
Sunset muted her phone and placed it aside. From her luggage she retrieved the juvenile music box, where she placed the empty geode chain to live anew. For a time thereafter, she watched the miniature Dorothy within the box turn to the Tin Man’s tune. Heedless of the great outdoors, she stood up tall, bearing herself to nature, and turned to the sea. The breeze licked her fiery locks and kissed about her form, but she stubbornly refused to shiver. She placed a hand on her fallow stomach, appreciating the irony of it all, and then held her arms akimbo; the melody bringing a tune to her lips.
“...just because I’m presumin’...that I could be kind-a human...if I only had a heart.”
Sunset Shimmer considered her future. It was practically a certainty that she would be fired, and probably blacklisted from other doctoral research projects. Likely she would face criminal theft charges, and due to any sort of evidence to back her claims, she might even be subject to psychological evaluation.
But she wouldn’t have had it any other way.
