1 You can’t ever really go home again.
A flash of magical energy of every type washed over the unicorn Sunset Shimmer as she stepped through the mirror. Crying and angry, she fled headlong through the forbidden magical glass surface built a thousand years ago by Starswirl the Bearded, a unicorn known as one of the founding pillars of Equestria.
How could Celestia have been so mean? What was wrong with her? Sunset thought. She took care of me after my parents died and now she kicks me out after an argument and throwing a book at her? I’ll show her! Kick me out of Canterlot will she? I’ll go much further away than she’ll ever dare to go! And when I come back she will have to admit how wrong she was!
True, she probably would be in extreme trouble after stunning the two guards who had been ordered to escort her from the castle... and there was the small matter of breaking into the restricted section of the archives. But they had provoked her! Poking her with their spears and telling her she was a brat who didn’t deserve to be Celestia’s personal student. She was just so angry. Celestia had LIED to her face. Cadence was not her distant relation! She was just some hick pegasus! Why had Celestia raised her to alicorn-hood while she, the princess’s most faithful student, a unicorn who had mastered the ninth circle of magic years ago, and who lived for her approval been denied?
Celestia’s canterlot voice echoed in her ears.
TOO ANGRY!
SELFISH!
SELF CENTERED!
NOT READY!! She’d show her not ready!! She was ready for anything!!!
NEVER!!!!
The mirror was elegant, beautiful... flawed. As she traversed its amazingly intricate design she saw just how fragile it was... and the slight damage... it had degraded. She fixed The matrix reflexively but by then it was far too late. Maybe if she hadn’t been so angry...
The crack of the partial failure of a thousand year old spell and the subsequent explosion of energy threw her hooves over tail for forty feet through a white room lit with glass tubes. Her saddlebags snapped free as they tangled in some strange object and her body torqued violently as it spun on three axes. She was thrown through chairs and furniture and her head smacked into a table. As consciousness faded, a pair of tiny startled blue eyes in a squashed flat strange face peered down at her.
It turned out she was not as ready for anything as she had believed.
—-
She awoke to darkness. Pain filled her senses. Her side and right foreleg were shattered. Bands of something strong held her to the padded surface she lay on. It was cool to the touch, but the room she was in was warm. Warm and dark.
What had happened? The last she remembered was jumping through the mirror to avoid arrest by her teacher and surrogate mother.
The spell had failed she realized. It had almost completed though, but some small function failed at the end, after the transport had destroyed the connection. Fortunately it had been after her transition from Equestria to wherever she was now had completed. Breathing hard she began to move slightly.
She was tied down. She could hear beeping. There was a tiny bit of light filtering through. She realized something was covering her eyes. Tentatively she lit her horn.
She screamed. White pain rang through her head, pain like she had never before experienced. It went on and on and on. When it ended, she began to heave from the shock. Her sick sprayed from her mouth and she realized that she had wet herself.
Cracked horn! Cracked horn! I’ve cracked my horn! Dear Celestia help me I think I’m going to die from the pain! She grit her teeth hard. She heard noises in the dark, all around her. She began to panic. In a strange place, bound and with no magic! She tried to thrash, but was bound too tightly. Panicking she redoubled her efforts. She had to get free!
There was pressure on her neck,firm but not painful. A voice spoke in the darkness. It was in a language she had never heard, but she was well aware of a parasympathetic magic spell that instantly translated it as “Woah woah! Easy there!”.
The mirror. It had been casting spells on her when she emerged. Three spells, a conjuration one, a divination one and a transmutation spell. Why? Only the divination one had completed, and only… partially. She could see it in her mind. It was an external translation matrix. It would divine the nature of words spoken to her by another even if they did not share a common language. That was highly advanced magic! But it had failed. It was meant to be two way. She could see the failure in her magic sense.
So not broken. Damaged. Damaged. She could receive magic and interact passively.
She calmed. Her thrashing was accomplishing nothing. She needed to calm down and think. Her adrenaline was wearing off, causing her to sweat and shake.
“There, there” whoever it was said in a gentle tone. The voice sounded female.
There was a chorus of voices,, babbling, some angry, some sounding frightened.
“Hey”, a second voice called clearly, “i need you guys to back up and give us room. And stop pointing those things. She’s not going anywhere. We have this under control.” It sounded like a male to Sunset, though she couldn’t say why.
“Not from where I stand you don’t. You didn’t know it was going to wake up and you sure as hell didn’t say it was going to start screaming like that.” This voice sounded older.
“What did you expect? You saw how damaged it was when it came in. You’d be screaming too”
The whatever it was continued to pat Sunset reassuringly. A second ‘paw’,set of claws? Whatever it was, began to absently run through her red and gold mane. It scritchy scratched her neck. It felt incredibly good and reassuring, and the incongruity between her earlier panic, the ... petting, and the shouting now going on contrasted so strongly. The voices soothing calm amid the pain and shouting produced complete confusion in the unicorn.
“Well we’re in charge. Unless it poses a threat or tries to leave I have complete authority.”
“It sure looks like a threat to me. I’ve heard the stories.” sounded an older gruff voice.
“Look, we don’t know anything for sure, so put those away and lets everyone calm on down.”
The other voices sounded unconvinced.
“Please, can you give us the room?”
“Fine, but we’ll be monitoring from out here.”
Agreement seemed to be reached and the sound of shuffling and doors closing with muffled conversation seemed to make the darkness around her retreat a little.
“They’re just doing their job.”
“I know but they’re idiots.”
Sunset tried to speak.
She meant to ask “Who are you? Where am i! Who were those ponies? But what she said was “Kiu vi estas? Kie mi estas! kiuj estis tiuj poneoj?” It was equestrian and she knew it. The damaged spell…
“Wow so it really can talk!” Said the male voice.
“Its gibberish” said the female patting her.
“I think i heard a question in there.”
Sunset tried to nod. Her neck erupted in pain, again she tried to move, but her right side, right hip and fore leg erupted in pain.
“Woah woah, stay still.”
“She’s going to damage herself.”
Her neck was immobilized somehow. She realized she was bandaged about her chest and that her right leg was in binding of some type. She could feel the bite of metal in the flesh of her right foreleg.
Where had the mirror taken her?
Broken and hurt she started to cry into the cloth covering her face.
Eventually the two voices left and she faded into dreamless darkness.
—-
They woke her. They wanted her to drink. She drank. They fed her warm mush. She swallowed. She slipped back into oblivion.
—-
She awoke hours later, but she was not alone. She could hear breathing. Someone was watching her. Exhausted, she tried to relax despite her pain and tried to fall back to sleep.
“...eye on her…”
“...dangerous…”
“...can’t keep her…”
“...the Compact finds out…”
“...plan B. Security is my highest priority...”
—-
It was quiet. Sunset Shimmer’s stomach growled. She realized she was still laying on her side. She was in pain, but it was down to a dull roar now.
She lay in the darkness thinking. Where am i? Who are these creatures? Her throat was dry.
Her horn hurt. She was scared to use it. Carefully she ran through basic magic exercises, testing the internal magic pathways of her brain and body, letting her mana pool rise very slowly without using her horn. So far so good. The damaged divination spell was still in place, but weakening slowly. She gritted her teeth and very very gradually let the smallest trickle of mana into her horn.
The crystalline bone of her horn sent fire rushing back at her. The damaged structure burned as she cried out quietly. But it wasn’t the same as the first time. She could tell only 2 of her deca thaumic spiral pathways were damaged. U1 and U4. But... U3... it was just… gone, severed above what felt like 2 inches over her brow. She mapped the centa thaumic pathways in her horn. She winced when she realized 28 centa thaumic pathways had been destroyed. This was gross damage on a massive scale. Her fine control and power were gone. One spell at full power would blow out her horn. Her ability to focus and prevent excess diffraction would be severely restricted. Unicorn horns were famously tough. They could pierce thin steel plate and had enormous mechanical strength. They had to be filed and trimmed with diamond. But hers had been severely damaged. She began to weep again.
It might heal, in time. In months, in years or, or even in decades. Unicorns lived a long time and could even regrow a severed horn given enough time… if they could live with themselves after such a radical alteration of self. But this much damage would take years to repair if ever.
But Sunset Shimmer was tough! She was resilient! And she was angry! Anger was her go to emotion and she used it to rouse herself. She set her feelings aside and detached them. It was just like working through a magic problem at the academy. But here she was the problem. She began to map the damage of her micro thaumic subpathways. In her mind she formed a mental map of the damage. It was deep, but went only halfway through her horn. A perfect circle. As if someone had… had… no. No! No! NO!!! Sunset became incensed with rage. Someone had drilled through her horn! This was no accident. This was deliberate damage! Someone had maimed her! Someone would pay! She winced as the automatic mana she had begun to gather reflexively poured into her horn. No, stop, calm down. You can’t do anything if you’re unconscious.
Still with careful control she should be able to cast small spells.. maybe. From 9th circle to… to this. Crippled. She had never felt like a littler pony.
Before, Sunset could cast 10 spells at a time, independently and with precision. But now with 2 pathways damaged and another destroyed, a compromised regulator and who knew what other damage could she even cast a single one? She sat and thought. She thought hard.
Perhaps, at some tiny fraction of her former power?
The biggest problem would be fatigue and burnout. She would have to watch that carefully. Ok. So if she could only use the narrowest focus…. she lit her horn with the damaged L1 alone.
—
She came to with the taste of copper in her mouth. She had come dangerously close to burnout, maybe even a stroke. That could happen. It was invariably fatal. The bleed through made her cry. The white hot headache gradually receded though.
She would have to be careful. Clearly her power regulation was damaged. There were no nerves in the core of her horn. She had no idea how damaged.
She decided to repeat the experiment at the smallest power output she could manage. A single milli thaum. Them two, than three. The familiar exercises to build control. She ramped up till the pain grew too intense. Barely a decithaum. She wanted to scream. When she had been a foal she’d had more power. Eagerly she lit U4-U10 for the briefest moment, and nearly passed out from agony.
She lay there panting for a dozen minutes.
Gradually she lit her 7 working pathways and was bitterly disappointed as she carefully built up power. This was barely a quarter of a thaum. The pain was almost unbearable. Rage filled her. Somepony would pay!
Seconds of casting at most. Not one one-hundredth of her full power, or she would risk burnout or even death. All her best spells would be out. Even simple levitation would be a mere fraction of her normally exceptional strength. Still though… she had magic.
First things first. She immediately began to cast a refresh spell on the divination charm that was upon her. It didn’t require power, just time and precision. Charging it was like watching grass grow, but after two hours and some more panting from strain she was done.
— -
She slept.
—- - - - -
More mush. Water. Different voices. Arguing.
—- - - - -
She awoke somewhere new. She was on a bigger flatter surface. Softer, but still strapped down.
Turning her hornsense inward, she analyzed the damaged translation spell and over the course of a few hours, a few minutes at a time, and another nosebleed she had managed to repair much of it. Some small parts were completely gone, but the overall pattern was there, so she was able to fill in most of the missing magical automatons.
She had no doubt it was Starswirl’s work. Cute. Complex. Elegant and dangerously terse. No safeties at all. She shuddered. The old unicorn had been a brilliant menace. Only the most reckless unicorns would try and cast his spells unmodified and without great study. One mistake in this work and she knew she would be lucky to ever speak again. But Sunset _was_ brilliant. She had earned her place by Celestia’s side. Their twin suns had to mean something didn’t it? She shared a mark with her mentor. A sun on her flanks. It was a source of secret pride.
She thought about the legendary Starswirl, Celestia’s foalhood teacher so long ago. She thought she could give the old coot a run for his money if he were still around. Well, not in her current condition, but when she was in top form, sure. Maybe. Possibly. If he was tired and hung over and she was fresh and had a few cups of coffee. Ok, probably not, but she still knew she was up to patching up his work.
She began to feel herself again telekinetically. Gently. Nothing missing, broken foreleg, ouch, What the heck was this? Pins sticking out of her leg going right through the skin attached to some rig to hold it in place. Weird. I’ve never even heard of griffons or minotaurs doing something like that. I wish I could manage a basic healing spell…
She felt down her body. There were bandages covering her entire chest and there were three, no four broken ribs. But the real pain was in her hip. She could feel the metal screws someone had used to pin her hip back together.
Well I won’t be walking for a while, she thought.
She felt the cloth covering her eyes. There didn’t seem to be any damage around her eyes. She didn’t feel any pain when she gently pressed on them and bandage covering your face - it didn’t feel gause-like as the rest of the material covering her body did. It just seemed like some sort of dense fabric. “They” must’ve had a reason for putting it on though so she left it in place.
She heard a door open and footsteps as a person or persons walked into the room. She ceased her magical activities at once, the glow in her horn quickly fading.
“I think she’s awake“
“I’m sure she’s awake. We’ve been watching her for a while now. We went back to the security tapes. That horn on her head lights up. We’ve no idea why. It did it briefly before she screamed the day she woke up after surgery.”
“I wonder if it’s because of the sample we took. Do you think we could’ve hurt her?“
White hot rage and indignation filled her. “Yes you idiots! Horns are special. You can’t just go drilling into them. Who the heck are you guys? Where am I?”
“Oh my God she can talk! She can speak our language! How’s that even possible?”
“OK I want everybody out of here now. And someone call the get director. Keep your traps shut till he gets here.”
“Listen little miss unicorn. I’m real sorry if we hurt you, but none of us are supposed to talk to you without permission. Someone who can will be along any minute now.”
Sunset asked who the director was, and other questions but she was met by silence now. The others whoever they were bustled about the room though noises and scrapes continued as they went about their business. Nobody touched her or even grew close as she resigned herself to waiting in silence. It was a brief wait. Her ears swiveled toward the sound as another creature stepped out of the room. After a moment the new voice introduced itself.
“Hello. I’ve been authorized to speak with you on the governments behalf. I understand you can speak our language.”
“Yes “ Sunset replied.
“Well that’s good. I have a lot of questions for you.”
I have a few of my own Sunset thought.
“First of all, I’d like to know what your name is.”
She thought to herself than guardedly decided that the truth would serve - for now. “I’m Sunset Shimmer. May I have the courtesy of yours?”
“Yes. I am deputy director Marsh of Re-United States intelligence. I’ve been asked to determine why you’re here and if you pose a threat. I feel I should warn you. You are in a heavily guarded facility far from where you… came. There are hundreds of guards. This is a secure military base. I assure you escape is quite impossible. You’ll be staying here until we are satisfied that you don’t pose a threat.”
Sunset thought to her self, What do I say? I don’t even know where I am. I don’t even know _what_ I’m talking to. She said “Why am I blindfolded?”
“Well honestly it’s for your protection, as well as ours. You see we’ve had some dealings with your type before.”
“My type?”
“Yes. Quite frankly you are, well a fairly scary fairy tale..”
“I don’t even know what you are.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“No. Seriously. Starswirl never told anyone what was on the other side of the mirror. He forbade everyone from going through the mirror…”
The mirror? We call it the doorway. This Starswirl, he was like you?
“Yes he was another unicorn. He built a magic mirror. Actually he built a whole lot of them. I’ve studied them.”
“Magic mirror? Really, that’s what you call it? Well than… Why did you come here?”
Celestia had banished her. The closest thing she had to a family had kicked Sunset out for demanding that she change her into an alicorn. Celestia had flat out refused, and when confronted they had had an epic shouting match that had ended with her throwing a literal book on alicorn ascension into her teachers face. The alicorn of the sun had actually shouted at her! Yelled at her in front of everyone. Sunset stayed silent.
Eventually the male voice said “fine then.” when he realized she was not going to volunteer more information.
“Why did you come here?”
“i didn’t mean to”, she said at last.
“Oh?”
“Well not here specifically. I wanted to get far away..”
“From?”
“My… teacher. Princess Celestia. Of Equestria. What does it matter?””
“This princess… she is a member of this “Equestria’s” government?”
“She… is the government.”
“A dictatorship?”
“No… not exactly.”
“Explain.”
“She’s rued Equestria for as long as anyone can remember. She raises the sun and moon, she is kind and fair and just and basically perfect in every way.”
“But not to you?”
“She hates me.”
“But why? You’re her student you said.”
Cringing Sunset thought of how the last few months had been. Ignoring Celestia’s lessons, pestering her constantly as she nattered on about friendship and harmony, while Sunset had more important things to do. She wanted magic, and power. The power to move the sun and stars. Not stupid friends. And now, here she was banished and crippled. It all seemed so… so pointless. Damn that Cadence. Everything had been perfect until Miss Pretty in Pink had shown up.
“I didn’t want to be a yes mare anymore.”
“Were there many students?”
“Yes in her school. But I was special. Her personal student. At least i thought i was…”
“Things changed?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fine. Lets talk about something else. Your saddlebags. They were stuffed with gold and gems.”
“Yea.”
“And a book.”
“...”
“Did you steal those?”
“What? No that’s stupid. She gave me that book, as for the rest, those are just trinkets. Crap I had from school. I just scooped up what I could grab around my room, a few hundred bits I’d saved and some casting crystals. I left in a hurry.” Kicked out by impatient guards more like.
“Trinkets”
“Yes. Look, gems are useful in spell crafting and making charms etcetera. Celestia has mountains of them. She wasn’t going to bitch about something petty like me taking something i’d already been given. I had a fealing I wouldn’t be back for a while.”
“Spells. Magic.”
“Yea”
“Thats a bit hard to believe?”
“What is?”
“So one of these bits, those are the large gold coins?”
“Yea, with Celestia’s face on one side and the sun on the other.”
“What would one of those coins buy?”
“Well like a sandwich. Or maybe a big cider drink. A few apples. Not much. Why?”
“And these gems… what are they worth?
“Well that depends. They have to be found and dug up or traded for. They can get pretty pricy depending on size or clarity. Like the big red focusing ones. Those are like 18, 20 bits, less with my student discount.”
“Twenty sandwitches?”
“Well sure, for a nice gem or a bushel of apples.”
“Are apples rare in “Equestria”?”
“Well no… they grow on trees.”
The voice chuckled. “Wow.”
“What?”
“Lets just say your bits would go a lot farther here.”
“Huh”.
“The doctor said not to overdo it with you. He gave me an hour, I’ve exceeded that. I’ll see you in the morning Sunset Shimmer.”
—-
“What do you think deputy director? Could you understand her at all? You were talking to her and it seemed like you understood her. “
“You couldn‘t?””
“No sir all we heard was gibberish.”
“Yea, check the tapes.”
…
“Well thats strange.”
“She was as clear as a bell to me.”
“I can’t make heads or tails of it”
“I have no idea. I could understand her perfectly, but it sounds incomprehensible when you play it back.”
“So what did she say?”
“I’ll write it up. But I don’t think there is an immediate threat. Even so keep the door isolated. And I want her kept under constant surveillance. Keep contact to a minimum.”
—-
“I’ve been here a month.” Sunset missed sunlight and blue skies. She’d been given a white windowless room lit by dim electric lights.
“I’m sorry. At least you have your own room.”
“Is this blindfold necessary?”
“We let you take it off when we aren’t in the room.”
“I know you’re not equine.”
“How do you know that?”
“Your chairs, your doors, the height of everything. You must be quite tall.”
“Its been a nightmare keeping you safe.”
“I still don’t understand from what.”
“I guess I can tell you. Just over six hundred years ago... another creature like yourself - a talking unicorn came through the “doorway” - what you call a ‘magic mirror’, and appeared in a, well a primitive village. This was before this country was even a nation. Tribes lived here. It was a long time ago. They’re all gone now. Anyway this unicorn pops out mysteriously from thin air. Frightened, the villagers seized this creature, but before they could do anything he supposedly turned those near him to stone. He then left through the same doorway from which he had stepped. It closed behind him, leaving only an indestructible mirror that could be neither moved nor destroyed hanging unsupported above the ground. The frightened villagers buried the entire village in a huge mound of sea shells claiming it was haunted. It was only excavated two centuries ago, during a time of great conflict within our nation over - well, slavery I’m afraid to say.
The two sides fought for eight years. They separated for fifty but came back together later on, once the slave side saw how foolish it was being, and we’ve been reunited ever since.
Anyway getting back to the story...
The mirror defied all attempts at analysis and attempted destruction. The stone statues laying about and surrounding the mirror were incredibly lifelike. When they were broken open they were found to contain the micro structures of bodies - as if they had been petrified. The mirror itself was apparently indestructible with a dangerous razor thin edge. It remained a curiosity until you appeared at the secure site which had been built around the object.”
“Oh. Well that explains a lot. Like why you damaged my horn.”
“I told you it was not deliberate. We were just studying you. We took samples. We were actually trying to keep you alive”
“I know and i’m grateful. Do you believe be?”
“About you being a refugee? Or that your land is filled with tremendous wealth and wonders and is ruled by a flying unicorn god that can move the heavens and control the weather?”
“The Pegasi do that. But you’ve seen me pick things up. You watch me all the time through those glass eyes.”
“Cameras”
”Whatever.”
“Well some of what you have told us we have verified. We still have no idea how you do the things you do. But we aren’t going to call it magic. Your horn for instance. Its unbelievably complex. Its obviously artificial. We can’t even identify some of the matter its made of.”
“I told you Celestinium, Lunerium, Alicorn and the other royal particles are absent from your world. I don’t know why.”
“And your horn should be healing”.
“But its not.”
“But its not.”
—
“Its been three months.”
“I’m sorry. The Compact. Is encouraging an embargo against the West. We are at war.“
“A cold war. And not with me. I’m not going to stay in here forever.” Sunset was bored. Trapped in tiny rooms, behind mirrors and alone. Sunset missed the companionship of other ponies. Hers was a herd species. They were not meant to live alone.
“These force blades you made us. They have been very useful.”
“The mirror, you said its ‘atomically precise’ cleaving was useful. I thought if I helped you I could build some trust. Maybe get out of here.” Sunset missed equestria. It was silly, happy, bright. Not grim and dull like this place. These... people. She was afraid it was rubbing off on her.
“We need more of them.”
“Give me the gemstones to make them. I’ll see what I can do”
“Sadly apart from the ones you brought and the few dozen we gave you, we don’t have any more that are large enough. We are working on the problem”.
“I want my journal.”
“We aren’t done studying it.”
“I’ll let you look while i use it. Maybe you’ll learn something more than the rudiments of Equish.”
—-
Sunset stared at the journal. It magically connected her book to her… Celestia’s book. Whatever was written in one appeared in the other. Celestia had written PAGES. She wrote of her sister returning, of a new student she had taken in, of the progress Equestria was making with three alicorns at the helm. Of rising tensions with the zebras, dragons and gryphons. Of trouble with Discord and the Changelings. It seemed hard to believe. But mostly she wrote to Sunset. Celestia poured her heart out and it broke Sunset’s. The pages were stained with tears. She had read the last hundred and seventy entries. Increasingly desperate attempts to reach her, or apologize, than finally an entry to “whoever or whatever is holding the book” begging for word from her ‘daughter’. It was too much - too disturbing and it hurt Sunset’s heart.
The director talked to her frequently. He wanted help. Apparently the conflicts between the Compact and the West were escalating. At one time there had been a third power, some authoritarian regimes, but they had collapsed one by one after making war on both the West and the Compact twice in a century. The new governments there had mostly allied with the Compact.
She missed Celestia. She missed Raven and Kibitz. She even missed her odious potions teacher. The mean one who never tried to suck up to her.
She even missed Cadence truth be told. The pink milksop had at least always been pleasant even if she could only do the simplest magical tasks and ate with her hooves. She wanted to apologize. Isolation and the pain of the loss of so much of her power had shaken Sunset to her core.
The infrequent visits of the director over the “speaker phone” did nothing to cure her isolation. His news was even more disturbing.
That was not the worst thing. The worst thing was the date of the Celestia’s last entry. It had been fourteen years from when she left. Time. Time was running so much slower here, so much faster in Equestria. She lit her horn, winced and began writing.
Dear Princess Celestia….
—-
She responded.
—-
The creatures asked questions. They made her write volumes to Celestia. They offered to trade Sunset eventually for trade relations now.
Celestia balked but eventually agreed. Apparently goods started to flow through the mirror.
—-
“Sunset, If she honors her part of the bargain we will send you home.”
“She will. What are you exchanging?”
“Coal, for gold. Tools and machines for gems.” She is offering us a hundred times their value and her needs seem reasonable if insatiable. We agreed to consider other things later.
—- —
Between the letters on trade and diplomacy Celestia continued to pour her heart out to Sunset. Sunset did the same, feeling a deeper connection to her teacher than she ever had before.
But Celestia’s letters got darker and darker. She wrote of war. Bloody and awful. And them she wrote of Littlehorn. Hundreds of dead foals. The war rolled on. But Celestia had quit. She had left governing to her little sister Luna and her student Twilight and her student’s friends. Things had gone from bad to worse to awful.
— - -
“We are sending you home.”
“Why now?”
“Because Celestia requested it. Apparently She begged and Luna agreed. Equestria’s war is not going well, and Luna would prefer to have you by her sister’s side in this troubled time. Besides you are not the only unicorn here now. There have been... exchanges.
We came to an agreement with Luna. We will exchange goods through the mirror continuously now instead of every thirty days.
The volumes have increased substantially over the past year. Apparently the mirror was throttled from the Equestrian side, but now no longer.”
“That’s good then right?”
“Very good. You leave tomorrow. Oh, and you can dispense with the blindfold.”
—- - -
The door to her room unlocked. She walked down a white hall, up three flights of stairs to a large enclosed steel wagon attached to a strange machine. Strange tall bipeds in suits with shiny reflective helmets stood everywhere. She ignored them, walking past and into the trailer. The trailer and machine rolled onto a strange box with huge moving parts. She recognized the sensations of flight even from within the walls.
How can they fly without magic or wings? she wondered. Soon the sensation ended along with the short flight. She was driven a short distance, and the light coming from under the door disappeared. The door opened.
Rows of bipeds stood ready on either side holding metal machines - tubes with complex club like ends. With a shock she realized those those looked like guns - these were guns! Super advanced guns. Others were loading racks of munitions and tools onto small mine sized cars.
In equestria cannons and an experimental long gun or two had been laboratory curiosities. She knew things had advanced. Celestia had told her so. These beings had evidently perfected them.
Far ahead of her, past three sets of giant metal doors it glittered and called to her. The magic mirror! At last. It was bright and glittery. Everything else was sad and grey around her. It struck her that all the colors of this world were muted, but Starswirl’s mirror shone in supersaturated silver and gold.
As she watched, endless minecars of coal rolled into the mirror. Occasionally they stopped and carloads of gold and gems rolled out the other way, somehow dulling and dimming as they rolled away from the mirror. Dozens and dozens disappearing into the mirrored surface, or appearing from it. Soon they were replaced with machines, some she recognized. Drill presses, vises, engines, generators and guns. Rows of guns. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. She watched bombs, bullets, gas cylinders, and tons of war material flow through the mirror. An occasional unicorn dressed in dark blue trotted through as well, holding or levitating something bulky. Somehow they looked both grim and colorless. None met her eye.
A tear slid down her cheek.
Sunset Shimmer wanted to go home. Celestia had traded all of this for her. She knew what she had to do. As she walked toward the mirror, Sunset Shimmer charged her horn,
Author's Note
When I started writing this I had a specific ending in mind. Sunset had other ideas....