It was a relatively quiet day at Canterlot High School. Classes proceeded at their usual pace, the weather was cool and pleasant, and no one had been possessed by Equestrian magic or abused an ancient artifact to enact some form of revenge fantasy upon their peers and associates.
Principal Celestia idly wondered if she should put an ‘X Days Since a Magical Disaster’ sign up in the teacher’s lounge, as a joke. Cranky complained about who would pay for it, however, both ruining that joke and starting a budgeting battle that would drag on for a week between the administration and the Union.
But, otherwise, it was a quiet day at CHS.
Rainbow Dash wasn’t buying it.
“I’m telling you guys,” she complained to Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Twilight Sparkle at lunch, “something’s up. I can feel it! We’re gonna get into a magical fight with something any day now!”
Rarity sighed, and took a dainty spoonful of yogurt before she responded. “Darling, you’ve been saying that for a week, straight. Enough is enough.”
“Y’know y’all’ll just jinx it at this point,” Applejack complained, taking a sip of water. “Frankly, I’m good with things bein’ a little quiet around here fer a while.”
Pinkie Pie looked up from her lunch-cupcake, and said through a mouthful of frosting, “You already complained about fighting magic and monsters on the boat trip, Dashie. This seems like a bit of a repeat…”
Twilight frown, and readjusted her glasses. “Which boat trip? The cruise ship or the… other one?”
The table became almost deathly quiet.
“We promised not to talk about the yacht… or the song…” Fluttershy sighed, forlorn, remember the hip-hop video she and the Rainbooms once made. The one they’d sworn to never speak about again.
Rainbow Dash took a moment to compose herself, before she shoveled another bite of hamburger into her mouth.
“Still say we’re overdue,” she mumbled. She swallowed, and looked to Twilight with a questioning eyebrow. “Hey, Twi! When’s Sunset getting here? Lunch is half over!”
Twilight Sparkle regretfully closed out a science article she was reading via her phone, and shrugged.
“I saw her in math class,” she said, “but she said she needed to get something before she could join us. Some sort of surprise, she called it. I guess I should look her up on my GPS tracker…”
Applejack frowned at that. “You have a GPS tracker fer Sunset?”
“Don’t be silly, Applejack!” Twilight laughed, and rolled her eyes. “I have all of you microchipped!”
“What!?” Rarity sputtered a moment. “But, how!? And how dare…!?”
“We’ve been sucked into alternate dimensions, pocket dimensions, a shed that one time…” Twilight began counting on her fingers, phone drifting in her telekinetic grip. “Frankly, being able to track everyone would have been extremely helpful on more than a few occasions.”
Twilight’s phone rumbled in the air, and gave off a series of chirps and whistles. She spun the device back around, and stared at her home screen.
“Aha!” she cheered, “She’s coming!”
She turned her phone back towards the others, revealing a sort of blueprint of CHS’s layout on her screen. Six highly familiar symbols – what Sunset explained would be called Cutie Marks in the other world – congregated around one corner of the lunchroom, representing all of their relative positions.
But just down the hall, according to the projection, it appeared that Sunset’s own mark was moving swiftly towards them.
“See!?” Twilight laughed, and pointed out Sunset’s location to the others, which now included an incredulous Applejack, a curious Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash, and a fuming Rarity. “Science saves the day yet again!”
The others let their resident nerd-girl have her little win, choosing to let the matter slide and greet their other friend Sunset as she reached the cafeteria.
Which was when they started to suspect what Sunset’s supposed surprise might have been. The cafeteria doors swung open, admitting the red-and-gold haired teen into the large room. She wore a bright and beaming smile on her face, and there was a noticeable spring in her step.
Sunset Shimmer being happy wasn’t the surprise, of course.
No, the seven-foot-tall ram walking alongside her took that particular honor.
The girls all gaped, and stared wide-eyed as Sunset walked across the room with that behemoth in tow. The ram’s horns may have represented a good chunk of that height, but he was also something of a peak specimen of his species. Broad, tall, and literally barrel-chested. He must have weight a ton, at least, the way his hooves sent a shuddering echo through the room.
And it wasn’t just the Rainbooms who’d fallen silent as the ram appeared. Trixie walked straight into a wall while holding her food tray, her eyes fixed on the gigantic thing as it entered the room. Wallflower Blush tripped, and fell over herself. Even Principal Luna, standing over on the other end of the room, nearly lost her balance as she watched the ram steadily march across the floor.
Oddly, Derpy just gave Sunset a happy wave as they passed her.
Fluttershy was the first to break the awkward silence. She ‘ooed’, and clapped her hands over her cheeks as stars and sparkles flashed in her eyes.
“Omigosh!” she squealed – almost above a whisper, as it was still Fluttershy – and stared at the ram. “He’s magnificent! I’ve never seen a sheep that size before!”
“Uh, I don’t think anythin’ is s’pposed ta be that size,” said Applejack, squinting suspiciously at the ram. “I mean, I don’t want to say it, but…”
Rainbow Dash shot Applejack a championship-winning smirk.
“What was that?” she said with a faint, gloating chuckle. “I was right?”
Everyone else, except for the still-amazed Fluttershy, groaned, and shook their heads.
Twilight then added, “Yeah… this seems like an Equestrian magic thing. But, outside of looking a bit intimidating, that sheep isn’t… blowing anything up, right?”
“Oh, the poor thing!” Rarity suddenly gasped. “It must have been some cute little thing caught up in another magical catastrophe!”
Pinkie Pie also gasped. “Oh! Like Spike, back when he learned to talk! Or Angel Bunny that one time he—”
Fluttershy rounded on Pinkie with a glare that instantly deflated the pink girl’s usually voluminous hair.
“The police never found a suspect,” she intoned icily, “and Angel’s an herbivore, so he couldn’t have…”
Rainbow shushed the two. “She’s coming!” she said.
Sunset Shimmer finally reached the table with her guest in tow.
“H-hey girls!” she said in a shaky voice, and gave a little wave. “How’s everyone doing?”
Each of the girls waved back, and threw in their own quiet hellos and welcomes. Except for Pinkie, who shouted out her own greeting at full volume, as usual.
The ram simply stared.
No, ‘stare’ would imply some sort of neutral stance on the subject. This particular blue ram glared at Pinkie and the rest; his red eyes unblinking as they bored into the girls’ very souls. It was quite intimidating. So much so that even what little sound they’d generated with their simple greetings had been utterly silenced.
Rainbow took the opportunity to fold her arms across her chest, and smile up at her friend.
“So, I see you’ve brought your ‘surprise’ to show us,” she said in a smooth, gloating tone.
Sunset smiled back, though hers was more chagrined. She scratched the back of her head, and stuttered. “Oh, um, yeah I guess he is.”
“You seem awfully nervous about this,” Applejack offered with a shrug. Then, staring back at the ram’s hate-filled eyes, she added, “Though I suppose I can see why…”
“Yeah, I really should have done this weeks ago,” Sunset said with a sigh. “But then I got distracted, and the timing never seemed to work out, and there was the question of you guys liking him or not…”
Rainbow’s smirk quirked at the edges. She, like everyone else at the table – or, indeed, everyone within earshot – frowned, and pursed her lips.
“Uh, what?”
Sunset flashed a smile again, and clapped her hands in front of her. “Well, here it goes!”
She took a deep breath, and placed one hand on the ram’s withers.
“Guys… this is Grogar.”
All eyes drifted from Sunset’s worried expression, to that of the glaring ram… this Grogar. Then, the eyes shifted back as frowns formed on every one of the Rainbooms’ faces.
Rarity worked her mouth for a moment, trying to puzzle out just what was going on.
“Uh, darling?” she said, finally, slowly. “That’s… nice? But you seem a tad worried, if I might say. Who or what is a Grogar…?”
The ram’s red, hate-filled eyes flicked over to Rarity, and her blood ran cold.
Then, Grogar spoke.
“Greetings, human slaves of my mistress,” he growled in a soul-crushing, gravely baritone. “Behold me, for I am—"
“SWEET HEAVENS WHAT THE BUCK!?” Rarity screeched, her lunch tray sailing into the ceiling as she flailed her arms in a whirlwind and nearly fell out of her seat.
The voice of the… of Grogar was terrible. In that it begat terror. It was a low, rumbling, gravely sound not unlike the closing of a tomb door. The deep, deep baritone washed over the student body like a shadow, like a tide of blood. Everyone who heard it cringed as they felt their souls shrivel and their hopes die.
“As I said,” Grogar thus spake, “I am Grogar. Dark Lord of Tambelon…”
“Yeah, yeah, we heard you!” Rainbow shouted over the talking ram. “But… why did we hear you?”
“Because I spake,” Grogar said, his voice rolling over his audience, “and when Grogar speaks… all must pay heed.”
All joy and wonder had left Fluttershy’s gaze, by this point. She, like everyone else at the table, simply blinked a few times in rapid succession.
Then, glancing over to Pinkie Pie, she asked, “Wait, could the rest of you hear that too?”
“Grogar, what did I say?” Sunset chided the abomination with a wag of her finger. “These are my friends. Not slaves.”
The beast tilted his head down towards Sunset, and his thick, white eyebrows raised themselves up his scalp a few centimeters.
“You were serious about that?” he asked.
Applejack took a quick hearty sip of apple cider, and cleared her throat.
“Uh, so… this is some critter y’all found what was enchanted with Equestrian magic?” she asked hopefully, one eye on Rainbow Dash, whose smile had gone completely by this point.
Grogar barked a cruel laugh at this. Twilight noted with irritation that the sound of Grogar’s guffaw instantly wilted her salad.
“What? No!” Sunset cried out, her cheeks blushing. “He’s my… uh, my…”
“I am not a ‘critter’, orange human,” Grogar scoffed. He spoke in his grumbling, growling voice, and a deeper scowl overcame his features. “I am the Beast of the Bells. I am the hollow sound in your heart. I am the encroaching darkness, the End of All Things. I…”
Sunset’s hand fell across his brow, instantly stopping the Dark Lord’s tirade.
Twilight’s eyes went from that hand, and the glare beneath it, to Sunset’s.
“So,” Twilight said, slowly, “he’s…?”
“Grogar is from Equestria, originally,” Sunset said. Then with a blush breaking out across her cheeks, she took a breath, and added, “He’s… also sort of my boyfriend.”
The table fell utterly silent. As did the nearby tables. And the tables beyond those. And the entire lunchroom and everyone in it. Even the nearby school grounds grew cold and quiet, though the students out there did not know why.
If you could have heard a pin drop before, when Sunset was merely walking through the school cafeteria with a gigantic monster behind her, then even the pin would be shushed to silence once the word was out that Sunset was dating said monster.
“B-boyfriend?” Rainbow Dash asked, incredulous. She took a moment, as did everyone else, to pick her jaw up off the floor.
“For all of this passed fortnight,” Grogar said with a slow, solemn nod.
Pinkie’s frowned showed that a truly terrifying amount of brainpower was currently expending itself behind her pale blue eyes.
“But… but he’s a goat…?”
“I am not a goat!” Grogar roared, causing the lights in the ceiling to briefly flicker in their sockets. Unseen due to the glare of the sun, a few stars in the sky also flickered in and out of existence. “Grogar is a ram. A Nec-ram-mancer, even.”
Pinkie’s left pupil shrank, slightly, and her hair poofed out in a few distressing directions. “But… he’s a ram. He’s not… how is he…?”
“He’s a gaht-dang farm animal!” Applejack spat. “Ye can’t date that!”
“That’s illegal,” Fluttershy added, quietly. Maybe a little sadly. “I checked…”
Sunset gasped, and flashed a furious glare Applejack’s way.
“Applejack!” she snarled, “You can’t use the F-A word! That’s so offensive!”
She turned back to Grogar, and sighed, “I’m so sorry about this. I didn’t think…”
“It is alright,” Grogar said with little inflection besides pure menace. “We are more than used to such tribalist talk.”
“I ain’t a racist!” Applejack snapped back. She tilted her hat up with a thumb, and scrunched up her nose. “It’s illegal, Sunset. Didn’t we talk about that last time I let ya ride my horse?”
Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose. “One time,” she groaned. “I asked one innocent question one time, and everyone assumes I’m into bestiality!”
Fluttershy, unseen and unheard, wearily sighed in sympathy.
“Look, guys,” Sunset said, more evenly, “this isn’t like that.”
“In what way!?” Twilight half-screamed, and half-guffawed.
Sunset waved her arms about, for emphasis, as she explained. “Look! In Equestria, the only thing anypo— anyone cared about was sapience, consent, and sexual maturity. One of my best friends married a cow, and no one made a big deal about it!
“Well, except Blueblood,” she admitted with a shrug, “But that guy was a jerk…”
The Rainbooms stared at her a moment. Then, they collectively turned towards Grogar. He glowered back at them.
Rarity hummed… and then said, “Alright, darling. That’s… horrifying, I suppose. But fair enough. Why is he still a goat—?”
“Ram,” Grogar insisted.
“Fine, ram!” Rarity spat. “If he’s from Equestria, why isn’t he human?”
Sunset opened her mouth to answer, but wasn’t quite as quick as Twilight when it came to pedantic corrections.
“Spike,” she said, tilting her head towards Rarity. “The other Twilight’s Spike became a dog when he came here, right?”
Pinkie scratched her head, and frowned. “Yeah, but that Smolder chick was also a dragon over there, and she was just over with that Rarity for tea with me and this Rarity. So how does that…?”
“One questions at a time!” Rainbow Dash shouted the others down. “So? Why’s this Grogar guy not a guy? And why’s he so…?”
Sunset’s brows furrowed, and another snarl threatened to escape her lips.
“So…?” she prodded.
Fluttershy lowered her head, and whispered, “Um… so evil?”
Here, Grogar chuckled darkly. The rippling sound of his malevolent laughter caused the girls, except Sunset, to flinch away from him.
“In the first place,” said Grogar, his hateful eyes roaming over the lunchroom, “wherever he finds himself, Grogar is Grogar. I am immutable. Inevitable. I am the darkness behind your eyes, and the tigerforce at the heart of the world.
“When you cry out at your nightmares,” he hissed with menace, “it is Grogar that you see. I dwell in the darkest hearts of men, and I exist in the hurried, hateful thoughts you carry with you through life. I...”
Sunset giggled, and gave the ram a quick scratch under his chin.
“Aw, isn’t he great?” she asked. “Such a sense of humor! We met at the ice cream parlor.”
Grogar paused. Glancing to one side, one could almost think he may have been blushing beneath his blue coat.
“And sometimes I go to ice cream parlors,” he said, somewhat meekly. “They have over thirty-one flavors…”
Twilight steepled her fingers, and focused her eyes back on Sunset, notably ignoring the way Pinkie had started nodding along with Grogar. She hummed, and seemed to mouth Sunset’s words back at her.
Then, after a few more seconds, Twilight cleared her throat, and screamed, “ARE YOU CRAZY!?”
“Gee, thanks a lot, Twi,” Sunset pouted. “I was really hoping you’d support this.”
“How can you not tell this… this thing is super evil!?” Rainbow cried out. “I mean, he just used the word tigerforce!”
Grogar snorted, “You, spectral human, are just upset you did not think of it first.”
“That’s beside the point!”
“How did he even get here then?” Pinkie asked, while stuffing another cupcake in her mouth. “Through the Mirror? When?”
Grogar’s voice rumbled in his chest.
“I was cast into this wretched dimension centuries ago, after my magical Bewitching Bell was stolen by an upstart unicorn named Gusty the Great,” he said, eyes taking on a distant look. “I wandered your earth for an age, taking whatever I wished, and slaying whom I desired. I burned empires, child. I ravaged this world… and found such things meaningless, with time.
“Now, I teach woodshop at the community college,” he finished with a shrug. “But, yes. I am still evil.”
Sunset chuckled, and pat Grogar on the withers again.
“You crack me up, Groggy!”
“Ah, stars an’ bars,” Applejack swore beneath her breath, “she’s nicknamed the psychopath…”
“Hey,” Sunset suddenly said to her ram, “could you grab us food? I wanna talk to the girls.”
“Hmm,” Grogar grunted. “Very well. I shall give you a moment. Then, the feasting shall commence!”
And with that, he withdrew to the nearest food station, leaving the girls’ table behind. Sunset continued to smile after him a moment, before she turned back around and gave her friends a full-on Sunset glare she hadn’t employed since before the Fall Formal.
“What is wrong with you guys!?” she snapped, the sheer anger in her tone causing at least Pinkie Pie’s poofy hair to lean away from her. “I bring along someone I like and you insult him!?”
“Sunset, he’s totally evil!” Rainbow Dash said, hands raised up to the ceiling. “Like, even Demon-You wasn’t as spooky and nasty as that guy!”
“An’ he ain’t a ‘guy’,” Applejack added. “He’s some sort of monster y’all are convinced it’s normal ta date!”
Sunset’s face turned bright crimson, and she jabbed a finger at Twilight.
“Hey! I didn’t say anything when she started dating Timber Spruce!”
“The fact that you’re equating those two is very concerning…” Twilight whispered.
“Darling, beside the fact that, well…” Rarity briefly looked for the right words to say… and then gave up. “He’s literally an animal. Regardless of sentience—”
“Sapience.”
“Shut up, Twilight,” Rarity said without breaking stride. “It’s still illegal, unethical, and immoral.”
Again, no one noticed Fluttershy’s sigh.
Pinkie tried to chime in, pointing across the room while saying, “And he’s—”
“Yes, I get it!” Sunset stamped one foot on the floor, and growled. “I know he’s evil! He’s literally the villain from the oldest bedtime story I ever heard as a filly! He’s the stuff of nightmares, and he’s admitted a lot of horrible things he’s done.”
The table was stunned to silence.
“Guys,” Sunset sighed, and almost collapsed into herself. “Guys, I… I know he’s a bad guy. But so was I. And despite all that, you gave me a chance, right?”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed, and she glanced over Sunset’s shoulder. “Uh, sure, but Sunset…?”
“But there’s more to him than that!” said Sunset, nodding affirmatively and crossing her arms. She stood straight, and proud as she added, “He’s sweet, and sensitive. He has a sense of humor. He’s a gentleram in all the ways that I wanted to be swept off my hooves as a lonely filly, back then…”
She sighed, and looked over to her friends with a sad smile.
“He’s wonderful, really. And if you’ll just give him a chance, I know he’ll…”
“Aw, fer…” Applejack shook her head. “Sunset, he’s eatin’ Flash Sentry!”
Sunset blinked.
“What?”
Finally turning around, Sunset could finally see what all her friends had noticed. Over by the lunch line, Grogar had his jaws latched onto Flash Sentry’s head, and was swinging the screaming teen back and forth like a ragdoll. Derpy stood by, screaming her own head off, while Mr. Cranky and Principal Luna tried to grapple with the ram’s horns.
Sunset’s nose scrunched up.
“I mean… Flash is my ex…”
“SUNSET!” Twilight snapped.
“Alright, fiiine!” Sunset whined. “I guess we’ll stop Grogar…”
Dear Princess Twilight,
Today, I learned that I might be a terrible judge of character.
None of my friends liked Grogar!
Wait, really!? But he seemed so sweet when you introduced him to Celestia!
I know, right!?
Author's Note
Written for the May 2021 Pairing Contest by the Original Pairings Group.
