Politics by Many Means

Chapters

Politics by Force
Politics by Archaeology
Politics by Mercy
Politics by Will

Politics by Force

Away from the crowd, stony face half-hidden in shadow, she stood alone while the cleric murmured their words over the dead.

Twenty-seven caskets, all but two for Guards, stood open to the sky. It had taken the full three days Razzaroo had warned, but at last the memorial service was going ahead, all the city (though that wasn't much) coming out to mourn the dead. Soon, they would be interred in the city cemetery, and they could finally turn back to the matter of Starlight.

Her fist clenched. If Shining had taken her advice, they'd've been in pursuit days ago, maybe even managed to catch up to her. Any agents she'd left behind in the capitol would be easily overwhelmed by the reinforcements from Crystal City if they showed their faces, either that or drawn away to help their master. There was no need for Shining's game of hide-and-seek, a game which had cost them two valuable days of pursuit. Yes, more reinforcements had been able to arrive in that time, and brought the materials needed to repair the Guard's damaged vehicles, but nothing was worth delaying their pursuit of Starlight; a rebel in all but name had more or less attacked Homestria, almost certainly kidnapping several important citizens in the process, she needed to be stopped before she did any more damage.

The priest gave their censer another shake over one of the coffins, the one containing Adagio. Her face darkened as she remembered the autopsy report; the Siren's back had been a nightmare of scars, welts, and burns, while the rest of her body showed signs of malnutrition and starvation. The gash torn in her throat was one of the least ugly things about her. They still didn't know exactly who'd made that gash, but with her previous treatment at the Unmarked's hands it didn't take a genius to realize the most likely suspects. Of course, those they'd managed to take captive protested, saying that Starlight wanted Adagio alive, but she took their opinions with a grain of salt; even if they weren't lying, there were other Unmarked than their leader, who might have been lying to them about what she wanted done with the Siren.

"...and may your perpetual light shine upon them," the priest concluded. "May they rest in peace. Marsine."

She didn't join the crowd's echo; she understood religion, of course, and she believed that there was something out there, something beyond death, but she also knew that whatever it was wouldn't, couldn't, be intelligible to her. She couldn't understand whatever was out there anymore than an ant could understand her, or a piece of paper understand three-dimensional space. The qualitative jump from the mortal world to the world beyond death was too big to cross.

Music began to rise up again, a dirge keening from the crowd's throats. She kept her eyes firmly forward, fighting against the urge to roll them with all her might; saying that the dead had died too soon or that one hoped they'd found peace did nothing. Without using words of command, speech was empty air; if you truly wanted to help someone, you needed to act. What good did telling someone "Find peace" do? Did saying that make them find peace? Were they unable to find peace until you spoke it into being?

Thunk went the first spade of earth over one of the lowered coffins. She nodded approvingly; the gravediggers were really helping the dead, actually doing something for them instead of just talking. Some might argue about whether you could actually help a corpse, whether there was anything there to accept and appreciate that help, but there was too much evidence, circumstantial and otherwise, that the dead were aware and could act for her to believe otherwise. Countless stories, and a surprising number of records, said that the passage to whatever lay beyond death wasn't one-way. And even if she was wrong, even if the dead were beyond their power to touch, the ways the dead had touched their lives had earned them at least a hole in the ground.

Thunk went the last spade of earth over the last coffin, and then the crowd began to disperse, some heading straight away from the cemetery, others spending some time near one or another of the new headstones. She remained where she was, half behind a statue, for several moments, only leaving her place when the last of the mourners had departed. Boots crunching the grass and gravel, she marched over to Adagio's grave, tracing a gloved hand over its few words:

Here lies Adagio Dazzle,
506-532 A.U.
May you sing unto eternity

That was it. No titles, no personal achievements, not even her real age (they couldn't let the public know just how old she'd really been, not yet; the autopsy report, which said that biologically speaking she was the equivalent of a 26-year old, gave them their cover story), just her name, a lie, and a stupid phrase that could've been on a greeting card. Even with her past with the Siren, she felt that it was wrong; there had to have been more to her than that, something beyond her magic and schemes. But both of her sisters were still missing, and the only other person who might've been able to tell her what life to record lay beyond life now.

Tears threatened to leave her eyes, and she fought them back with an iron will; she wouldn't cry, she wasn't a little filly anymore. Death didn't make her sad anymore, it made her angry: she raged, not grieved. She wouldn't cry for Adagio, that wouldn't do anything except dehydrate her a little bit. Words and tears did nothing; it was action she needed. Saying that Adagio didn't deserve to die the way she had, murdered and buried in a liar's grave, would only fill the air. Catching and punishing her murderer, bringing them to justice, would do far more good.

"I will avenge you," she whispered to Adagio. "Whatever differences we might've had, nobody deserves to die the way you did. I will fix this, I promise you."

"That's a very mature way of looking at it," startled her, causing her to whip around to look at the speaker. Principal Cadance stood behind her, a soft smile on her face, Razzaroo standing at her side. The Guard held her helmet under one arm, the last missing piece in her war gear; even though Shining was leaving her and a few others behind, she wasn't letting her guard down. Until Starlight was caught, the Guard in Castellot was going to be more militarily disposed.

That would be a lot sooner, she darkly thought, if Shining took more people with him. Out loud, though, she merely said, "Hey, Cadance. You here to see Shiny off?"

"Partially," the Principal shrugged. "Someone asked for my help up here, too. They wanted me to see if I could help someone with some... emotional problems."

"Well, if anyone can help them, it's you," she smiled. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go help see Shining off." I should've seen him leave days ago.

"Oh, so do we," the Principal smiled. "Why don't we head over together? With Miss Razzaroo with us," she clapped the Guard on the back. "we should be able to get a good seat."

I don't intend to sit and watch Shining leave, Sunset thought with a shake of her head. "Sorry, Cadance," she replied. "I'm going to be sitting with Radiance and the rest of the government." Lie.

"Well, we can at least walk over together," the Principal shrugged, causing Sunset to grit her teeth. "Who are you going to be sitting next to, though? I'll try to keep an eye out for you."

"You probably won't be able to see me," she frantically replied. Truth. "Radiance said something about putting me with the Senate staffers," Truth. "and they're going to be behind the Cabinet, almost off-stage. I doubt you'd be able to even notice this," she tugged a strand of flaming hair. "back there." Lie.

"All the more reason for us to walk you over, then," Cadance smiled, stepping towards her. "If we're not going to be able to see you after the event starts, we should make good use of the time beforehand. However bad they might otherwise have been, these last few days have taught me the importance of spending time with those you love. Come on," she stretched out a hand, preparing to wrap it around Sunset's shoulder. "let's-"

"Don'ttouchme!" Sunset hissed, dodging Cadance's grip.

Cadance withdrew her hand, a startled expression on her face, while Razzaroo's hand went nervously to her sword hilt.

"My magic's been growing stronger lately," she hastily explained. Lie. "If someone even touches my clothes, now, I'm able to read their mind." Lie. "It's not that I don't want you to touch me, Cadance," Lie. "it's just that you deserve your privacy."

That last point was more of a half-truth; Cadance did deserve her privacy, yes, but that wasn't the main reason Sunset didn't want her touching her. Any touch threatened to feel through her billowing black mourner's robes, feel through to the borrowed (Truth, actually) Guard armor underneath and reveal her plan.

Shining Armor didn't want her to help him stop Starlight? Then she, Sunset Shimmer, wouldn't go with him. Dire Helm, though, the new recruit who kept her helmet on at all times, hiding her face and distorting her voice, would help him, and if it turned out to be Sunset Shimmer under her helmet, so what? Would Shining Armor really send an eager soldier home when he needed every Guard he could scrounge? So long as she kept her identity secret long enough, she could help Shining, help stop Starlight and bring her to justice. All she needed to do was lose Cadance, find the cache where she'd hidden whatever equipment she couldn't hide under her cloak, and rush to join the coming muster, and she'd be able to execute her plan; watch Shining leave, yes, but while standing in the midst of his host, not sitting on the sidelines.

The trumpet calling the troops sounded. "Sorry to leave you like this," she blurted out to Cadance. "but Radiance is probably expecting me," (Lie; she'd told the professor she wouldn't be going to Shining's departure, she couldn't have her absence commented on) "I should get going." She turned to flee-

-but before she could, Cadance's hand lashed out and grabbed her arm, causing the mail underneath her robes to clatter.

She winced as the clanking echoed through the graveyard, the unmistakable sound of Guard armor spelling the end of her hopes. She tried to escape Cadance's grasp, desperately hoping that she and Razzaroo would simply ignore the noise, but to no avail; the Principal had an iron grip, and the expressions on their faces made it clear that they wouldn't just ignore the sound of her plan.

Unexpectedly, the Principal's immediate response seemed to be to laugh at it, though an undertone of sadness laced through it. Eventually, the sad chuckling faded away, and she said, "Looks like I owe Chip fifty bits."

Sunset swallowed. "What for?"

"I thought you would simply sulk after Shiny ordered you to stay here," Cadance replied. "Chip thought you were going to try to defy him, find some way to sneak after him. Looks like she knows you better than I do."

"Shining needs everyone he can get," Sunset protested. "Starlight's proven herself to be a danger to the realm, going after her half-heartedly isn't going to be enough. We need to treat her like the threat she is, and that means not holding anyone back. We need every man, woman, and child to do their part to bring Starlight down, and for those able to fight," she untied her robe, casting aside her last vestiges of cover. "that means going with Shining."

"But what about those who can't fight?" Cadance asked. "What are they going to do if something attacks them while all the able-bodied are away?"

Sunset swallowed; this was going to be hard for Cadance to hear. "Whatever happens to them," she said quietly, gently. "it won't be as bad as what'll happen to them if Starlight isn't dealt with. We can't let a bird tapping at our window distract us from the bear trying to break down our door."

"That's why you need to stay here," Razzaroo piped up. "Starlight's trying to distract you from the real problem, magic's return. Whatever good you do going with Shining, it's going to get undone by magic in your absence. You're going to save some people's lives, yes, but then they're going to lose those lives because we have no clue what to do about magic because our expert's missing."

"Until we defeat Starlight and get Rarity back," Sunset snapped. "your expert's not going to be able to do her best anyway, and not just because of the distraction; without Rarity, I'm not sure how strong mine and the others' magic is going to be, I'm not even sure how much of it we'll be able to use. Whether she knows it or not, Starlight dealt Homestria a huge blow, potentially a crippling one. Until we get Rarity back, your expert isn't sure how much much good she's going to be able to do, which is why your expert is going with Shining to get her back."

"Whatever good you can do teaching us," Cadance replied, bringing her back to a halt. "however little it may be, is good that no one else can do. Someone can take your place with Shining, no one can take your place with Radiance, and we need as many places filled as possible now. Homestria is on the brink of multiple crises: like you said, we need everyone to do their part, to do as much good as they can, and you can do the most good by staying here."

Sunset turned back to glare at her. "I will not," she said, voice heavy with anger and menace. "stand by while one of my friends needs me. Rarity's in danger, and I am going to help her. Me staying here is out of the question. So what will it be?" she asked as she took up a fighting stance. "Will you help me? Or are you going to stand in my way?"

"This is ridiculous," Cadance protested. "Sunset, we're all on the same side."

"Are you?" she retorted. "If you stand in my way, you'll be stopping me from stopping Starlight. That makes it sound like you're on her side, not mine. Which is it, Cadance? Are you with me or against me?"

Cadance bit her lip, clearly debating with herself. When the second trumpet call sounded, she sighed. "I'm with you," she decided.

Sunset curtly nodded, then began marching away. It would be close, but if she moved fast, she would still-

"-so please forgive me for doing this," was the last thing she heard before the wind sliced by her ear, a hand cracked into the side of her neck, and she fell into darkness.

Politics by Archaeology

Cadance frowned as she looked over the documents Chip had given her. There were those expected of her job here--health records of her subject, character testimonies, whatever they'd been able to scrounge from across the mirror--but there were others, too, more worrisome ones.

Someone's been a busy bee these last few days, she thought as she looked over the papers; orders for high-quality gemsteel, lithumite, even deepstone had been sent out by Sunset after the Riot, purpose unknown. A lab had been requisitioned and then fitted with iron, but now lay empty. And a messenger had gone to Canterlot High, returning with what Radiance swore looked like blueprints.

She sighed, then looked at the unconscious, tied-up girl. When Shining had asked her to come help Sunset, she'd demurred, remembering what Stygian had told her about her duty to her school. In the end, though, he managed to convince her to come, and she'd left the school in Radiant Hope's capable hands. She'd arrived in Castellot in secret yesterday, hoping to use the time before Shining left to prepare for her meeting with Sunset. And she had, Chip had even helped her prepare.

"I thought I was going to help you with your past," she murmured to Sunset. "not attempted treason."

She'd wanted to disbelieve the frantic Treasury Minister, wanted to defend the wonderful young woman who'd saved her ladybug from Chip's horrible accusations, but to no avail; between her clear desire to fight Starlight, her requisition of Guard equipment ("for personal protection," she'd said), her refusal to attend Shining's departure, and her seeming lack of interest in what she was scheduled to do in the days immediately following, all the evidence supported Chip's claims. As much as it broke her heart to do so, Cadance agreed to help Chip plan for Sunset's move, eventually deciding to follow her to the memorial service and plead with her to stay.

She winced as she remembered her failure, and the aching feeling in her hand from her last resort. Carrying an unconscious, armored woman through the city had been difficult, though thankfully the streets had been clear. She and Razzaroo had bundled Sunset into her office, tied her up to prevent her from doing something she would regret, and then the Guard had left, standing just outside to give them at least a modicum of privacy. She'd been forced to deny Sunset her movement and her choice in going with Shining or not; she wouldn't deny her anything else if she could help it.

A groan drew her attention; Sunset was coming back to consciousness. She tried to stand up, but found herself frustrated by the cords Razzaroo had used. She strained against them, trying to either slip or break them, but to no avail. She sighed in defeat, then turned and saw Cadance. Instantly, her face darkened, lit up only by the fiery light of her glare. "If Starlight manages to defeat Shiny," she croaked. "she'll owe you a medal for helping her."

"I'm sorry, Sunset," Cadance sighed.

"Sorry?" Sunset snapped, almost laughing. "Is 'sorry' supposed to make up for helping Starlight? Is 'sorry' supposed to make up for stabbing Shining Armor in the back? Is 'sorry' supposed to make up for destroying the kingdom? If it is, it's not doing it very well."

"It's not meant to make up for anything," Cadance shook her head. "It's only meant to show regret, in this case for the way I treated you. I shouldn't have hurt you like that, there were other ways I could've brought you here."

"That's what you regret?" Sunset laughed. "You're not sorry for possibly ending Homestria, you're sorry about how you did it? Oh, that's so backwards, it would be funny if it wasn't about treason."

"Treason?" Cadance raised a brow. "Treason like I prevented you from committing?"

"I wasn't committing treason," Sunset retorted. "I was trying to help the kingdom, not hurt it."

"By abandoning your official post and disobeying the orders of the Captain of the Royal Guards," Cadance noted.

"Those orders would've hurt the kingdom," Sunset snarled. "He tried to get me to stay back when Homestria needs every able-bodied person after Starlight. As for my post," she laughed humorlessly again. "you could have a sock monkey there instead of me and you'd get the same amount of work done."

"Radiance would beg to disagree with you," Cadance smiled at her. "She says the instructional material you've helped her and the others develop has been a big help, and not just here; they've managed to send copies to coworkers in more impacted places, like Crystallot, Manehattan, even Griffonstone, and they've really helped the response. If the early reports are right, then your work actually helped save Fillydelphia from some sort of monster. It might be hard to see, but you are doing good here, Sunset."

"It's hard to see," she retorted. "because it's not enough. Stopping Starlight and getting Rarity back? That would help a lot. Trying to keep teaching the Bureau Magic 101? Not really. Sending people out to actually conduct research in those places you mentioned would help a bit more, but the Senate's refused to do that a million times. Basically all I can do here is teach cutie-grade magic, and that's not going to help us if anything worse than a level-1 event breaks out."

"What if you do get Rarity back?" Cadance asked. "What will that change? Your friends will be back together, yes, but Radiance won't know anything more about magic. The Bureau will still be at 'cutie-grade' level."

"Me and the girls will deal with whatever comes up," Sunset replied. "while I teach the Bureau on the side. If worst comes to worst, we can always ask Equestria for help."

"Twilight told me her calculations regarding that," Cadance shook her head. "Even before magic started coming back in force, she wasn't able to predict what heavy use of the portal would result in. Her calculations varied from 'minimal impact' to 'reduce the universe to the size of an atom.' Unless there is no other possible way, we can't risk calling in Equestria." She swallowed, then took some of the papers out of the folder Chip had given her and put them on the table in front of Sunset. "And there is another way," she murmured. "one that you thought of."

"Where'd you get these?" Sunset asked furiously. "Have you been spying on me?"

"Yes," Cadance simply nodded. "Along with Radiance, Chip, and Shiny."

"Wow," Sunset snorted. "I expected Chip, and I thought she'd rope Radiance in, but I'd've expected you and Shiny to have a bit more integrity than this."

Cadance flinched, then said, "We tried to stick to public materials as much as we could, to try to give you some privacy. Aside from those," she pointed at the invoices in front of Sunset. "we didn't search anything that the average person on the street wouldn't be able to access."

"And, what?" Sunset snarled. "It was fine to break into these?"

"Look at the signature," Cadance whispered.

Sunset frowned, but did so, then bowed her head with a groan. "You have got to be joking me."

"The princess put the Minister of the Treasury personally in charge of business relating to your work," Cadance shook her head. "at least according to Aunt Tia. She didn't include these because she was spying on you, though; she was honestly confused about them, and wanted me to ask you why you ordered them."

"You already know," Sunset grumbled. "That's why you're here, isn't it? To convince me not to build it."

"I'm here because I'm worried about you," Cadance replied. "Even if everything else was going perfectly, even if we weren't in a crisis, I still would have come, because you're hurting, and I can't stand for that. I'm not here because of your work, or what you tried to do, or magic at all; I'm here because of you, because of the girl who saved my ladybug, the girl I owe a debt I can never repay."

"And you're gonna, what?" Sunset sneered. "Psychoanalyze me? Tell me that I really want to go with Shining because my subconscious wants to abandon responsibility that the capitol symbolizes? Tell me what's what?"

"I want to understand," Cadance replied, her voice pleading. "I want to understand what's wrong, what you think is the right thing to do, and why. I want," she swallowed. "I want to know why you need to save everyone."

Aside from her relationships with Celestia, Shining, and Twilight (and by extension Sunset), there was another reason Cadance had been brought into the fold of knowledge;

She'd begun to exhibit magic.

She'd always been empathetic towards others, but now that empathy had been heightened, to the degree that it almost seemed to constitute another sense. She could sense others' emotions as easily as she could see or hear them, and with a bit of practice she'd thankfully learned to suppress that sense as easily as she could suppress her others. Over the two weeks she'd had it, she'd managed to train it, partially with Sunset's help, honing it into a powerful tool. It wasn't without its drawbacks, though; sensing too much of one emotion could lead it to infect her, while sensing too many different ones at once left her with a headache.

And now, in the face of the overpowering, black rage directed at her by Sunset, she was almost knocked out of her seat, almost knocked out period. As she regained her balance and blinked the spots out of her vision, she looked up at Sunset to see her face twisted into a mask of hatred, eyes burning bright as the Sun as they glared at her.

"Alright, Cadance," she said in a clipped, icy voice barely masking the volcano of wrath just waiting to burst. "Here's what's going to happen. You are going to untie me and send Miss Razzaroo away. You are going to drive me after your co-conspirator and convince him to let me join the Guard. Then you are going to drive away and find some rock to spend the rest of your miserable life hiding under. If, after that, I ever see you again, I will pull whatever strings I need to to have you declared an outlaw and have Shining Armor sent after you with orders to send your twisted, pathetic excuse for a soul down to Tartarus from whence it came. If he fails to catch you, for whatever reason, I will have him declared an outlaw and pursued by every Guard in the kingdom with orders to, upon capture, send him down to your home in the slowest, most painful way they can. If I hear you breathe a word of this to anyone, I will find you, in the ruins of the kingdom if I have to, and flay every last secret from your mind before sentencing you back to Tartarus. Am. I. Clear?"

Cadance swallowed. "Crystal."

"Good," Sunset curtly replied. "Now, untie me."

Cadance swallowed again. "No."

Sunset looked up at her, a thin veneer of curiosity covering a storm of fury preparing to erupt. "No?" she whispered. "I thought I was clear?"

"You were," Cadance nodded. "You made it clear, crystal clear, that you need help."

The storm exploded. "What I need," Sunset boomed, her bonds groaning against her efforts. "is for you to shut up!"

"Yes," Cadance agreed. "You need to be healed so that I can shut up, so that it's wrong for me to intervene like this."

"I was perfectly fine before you and your little soldier butted into my business!" Sunset roared.

"Were you?" Cadance asked. "Both Shining and Chip discovered anger like-like this, both times after a fairly short questioning. If Twilight burst into anger like this, would you say she's okay, or merely experiencing a reprieve from her pain?"

Her ladybug's name seemed to bring Sunset out of her rage, somewhat; she was still clearly angry, furious, but she'd stopped her futile struggle against the ropes. She might be able to reach her, now. Hesitantly, she stretched out a hand to Sunset, a standing leap of faith. Gingerly, she laid it on Sunset's shoulder, causing the girl to glare at her.

"If you're going to give me some 'arm-around-the-shoulder' advice," Sunset snapped. "save it."

"I'm not," Cadance nervously swallowed. "I'm-I'm extending a gesture of trust. Can-can you use your magic on me?"

Wagging her head in confusion, Sunset replied, "I'm pretty sure, yeah. What-"

"If," Cadance interrupted, before her courage could flee. "if at any point you feel like you don't trust me, I want you to use your magic on me. If it turns out I'm lying to you, feel..." She faltered for an instant, then blurted out, "... feel free to use it however you wish. Do... do with me what you will."

Sunset gaped at her, then frowned, clearly remembering her earlier anger. Closing her eyes, a faint light began to glow from within her armor. Taking a deep breath, Cadance closed her own eyes and tried to remember...

"Kerioth," Sunset whispered before she could focus. "You-you thought of yourself as Kerioth, back-back in the graveyard."

"Why wouldn't I?" she whispered back, momentarily shivering; Sunset had seen memories she hadn't even been thinking about. She was leaving herself defenseless. But, she thought as she shook her head, that was the point; she was trying to show Sunset that she trusted her, and hiding behind walls would send the opposite message. However risky it might be, she couldn't hold anything back. "After all," she spoke up again. "I, too, was about to be a traitor."

Sunset sniffled, then shook her head and set her face. "I know you really did, do, feel that way," she said. "but that doesn't change the fact that you went through with it. Why, Cadance? Why did you stab me in the back if you thought it was wrong?"

"Because I thought that letting you do something potentially self-destructive at the behest of a past trauma was worse," Cadance replied. "Because I thought that your need to save others might lead to you needing to be saved. It's unlikely, extremely unlikely, but Starlight might win against Shiny, and if she took you prisoner... Losing Shiny would be horrible, losing you would be a disaster. It would be far too dangerous for you to go with Shiny."

"So, what?" Sunset grumbled. "I'm supposed to just sit in my-my cage like a bird?"

"You're supposed to live your life carefully," Cadance said. "You can't avoid all danger, but that doesn't mean you should seek it out. And, once again, you have a lot to live for, a lot of other lives depending on you."

"Pfft," Sunset rolled her eyes. "I'd agree with you more if those other lives weren't trying to stop me from saving them."

"Sometimes, people don't know what they need," Cadance admitted. "Sometimes they try to stop others from doing what's needed to fix a problem because it requires some sacrifices. All you can do is try to get them to see that what you're trying to do needs to be done, for however long it takes."

"Or do it anyway," Sunset retorted, pointedly stretching against her ropes. "no matter how much they don't want to do it."

Cadance winced, but nodded. "Sometimes," she said. "if the need is great enough, wants can be overruled. But, Sunset, once again, the need that drives me isn't Starlight, or Homestria; it's you, the pain Chip and Shining told me about. Even if you were completely isolated or Homestria wasn't in danger, I would still have done what I did."

Sunset's eyes flashed with magic, and she frowned as she saw the truth of Cadance's words. She took a deep breath, then asked, "If you don't want me to go with Shining, then what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to talk to me," Cadance replied. "Help me understand what's hurting you. Let me help you heal. Then, I want you to think about what your next course of action should be. Whether that's continuing to help Radiance, going forward with your... other project, or even chasing after Starlight despite the danger, I want you to think clearly and deliberately about what course of action you think would be best for you to take. You know which one I prefer, but I don't know everything that you do; whatever you decide, I'll trust your decision. After," she stretched out a finger and tapped Sunset's heart. "we do what we can to heal whatever's hurting you here."

"Seriously?" Sunset snorted. "You've basically been telling me not to go after Starlight since you came here, and now you say you're willing to help me?"

"I don't know as much about the situation as you do," Cadance replied. "If you think that, objectively speaking, going after Starlight would be the best course of action, I won't argue. However, at the moment I'm afraid that your pain is clouding your mind, preventing you from looking at the situation objectively."

"That... makes sense," Sunset raised a brow. "Which begs the question; why didn't you put it that way at first?"

"I'm imperfect," Cadance blushed. "I thought that appealing to your sense of duty would work, and..." She hesitated.

Sunset's eyes flashed again, and her face fell. "You were afraid of me," she murmured. "You were actually afraid of me, of the anger you thought you'd find."

"I wasn't afraid of you, Sunset," Cadance reassured her. "only what the anger Shiny and Chip described to me might make you do. I wanted to wait until we were somewhere more constrained to risk setting that anger off, that's why I held back on telling you exactly why I came." Taking her free hand, she gently brushed it through Sunset's hair. "What need drove me here. And what need," she turned back to Chip's dossier. "drove us to dig up your past."

Sunset's face darkened again. "Some people would say that if something's buried," she growled. "it should be kept buried."

"Not this," Cadance shook her head. "I agree, some things that are buried should stay there, but if they start impacting the world aboveground I think it would be prudent to dig them up. And your past is impacting the present, Sunset; leaving aside your reaction when Chip started asking you about it, I'm reasonably sure that it also plays a part in your need to save everyone, something which I think is preventing you from looking at the question of whether you should go with Shiny or not objectively. You've been burying this for a long time, Sunset; I think it's time to bring it into the light."

Sunset shrugged against the ropes. "Not like I have a choice, do I?" she asked caustically.

Cadance winced; there was anger coming from Sunset, still, but now it was joined by pain, deep emotional pain. Its acridity made her eyes water and her throat burn, like she was sensing the smoke from a burning, broken heart. She grit her teeth and grabbed some papers from the dossier, preparing to dive deeper into the smoke in a quest to put out the fire that produced it.

Clearing her throat, she passed the papers over to Sunset's side of the table, allowing her to see them. She did so, and her eyes widened. "These," she whispered. "these are Equestrian documents. Where--how did you get these?"

"Celes," Cadance cleared her throat. "Celestia wrote to Twilight, across the mirror, asking her to look into your past. It took some digging, but eventually she found you in the public records. Public, not private; again, we tried to preserve your privacy as much as," she coughed out the lost wisp of pain. "as possible."

"That would've been a lot easier," she snapped back. "if you didn't try to spy on me."

"That might've been easier with regards to privacy," Cadance replied. "but not for helping you heal. We had to be careful of more things in our investigation-"

"Spying," Sunset sneered.

"-spying," Cadance sighed. "but we thought it was better to have to take care regarding maintaining your privacy than for you to suffer any longer. Yes, we ran a bigger risk of violating your privacy, but we still managed to keep that risk low, and I'm confident we never crossed it."

Sunset's eyes flashed again, and then she grunted, clearly still not pleased but allowing it to stand, at least for the moment. "So you guys spied on me and dug out my birth record," she jerked her head at the top paper of the pile before her. "I'm guessing two of the others are my parents' death records?"

Cadance nodded, then spread the pile out, revealing four papers; Sunset's birth certificate and the death certificates of her mother, father, and uncle.

She's just like me, Cadance thought sadly as she looked at the collage of death. She's lost those she can't afford to lose, and younger than I did to boot.

"You're an orphan, too?" Sunset whispered, reminding Cadance of her magic.

Startled, she nevertheless nodded. "I lost my father the night after I was born," she explained. "My mother died when I was in third grade. I'm not saying I know your pain, but I can at least understand it a bit."

Her guarded expression returning, Sunset grunted, then looked over the four papers again. After a few seconds, she shrugged. "What do you want me to say?" she asked. "If you want to know what happened to them, you can read, it's not that hard."

"I know what happened to them, yes," Cadance nodded. "I even know the broad strokes of what happened to you-"

She paused briefly as Sunset tensed up, then continued, "-over there; you lost your parents, then entered the care of your mother's sister and her husband, who died a few years later. Eventually, you went to magic school, tutored under Auntie Celestia's counterpart, and eventually ran away, arriving here. The rest I already knew, in some form or another. But there's something I don't know, something important; what impact what happened to your family had on you. That's what I want you to say, Sunset; help me understand how you reacted to all this," she gestured at the macabre spread of papers.

"You already know how I reacted," Sunset replied in a clipped voice. "Aunt Flare took me in, I went to Celestia's school, she took me under her wing, I fell into darkness, she had to kick me out, I ran away from my punishment like the little brat I was, and the rest you-"

"'React' wasn't the right word, then," Cadance interrupted. "'Respond,' maybe, how did you emotionally respond to what happened to you?"

"Nothing," Sunset curtly answered. "happened to me."

Cadance raised a brow in confusion, flicking a glance at the papers on the table.

"Those," Sunset jerked her chin at the same. "are losses, losses I endured and became stronger for. They tried to hinder me, drag me down, and I refused to let them. Things don't happen to me, Cadance, I happen to things. Death tried to take me and my home, but I escaped; he tried to take my new home away with Uncle Lightburst, and I foiled him again. Nothing happened to me, Cadance, not for all Death's trying."

"You lost your parents," Cadance whispered in shock. "How can you say that nothing happened to you?"

"Their deaths did cause a few problems for me," Sunset admitted. "but I rose above them, just like I rose above those caused by Uncle Lightburst's death."

Cadance gaped at the casual dismissal. "How can you say that?" she croaked. "They were your parents, didn't you love them?"

Sunset's face darkened. "I love them more than you can imagine," she icily replied. "All my family, even the ones I didn't lose. Don't you dare think for even a second that I didn't, don't still, love them."

"'Their deaths caused a few problems for me,'" Cadance said. "If you love them, how can you be so-so callous about losing them?"

"I'm not being callous," Sunset frowned. "I'm just saying that, whatever Death tried to do to me after he took them, it wasn't enough to stop me; yes, he stole mom, dad, and Uncle Lightburst from me, but I managed to overcome whatever obstacles that put in my path."

"Don't you miss them, though?" Cadance asked. "Or wish they were still around?"

"Of course," Sunset snapped. "I'm just smart enough to know that that won't do any good. That-that's what Death wants me to do; he wants me dead, either by straight-up dying or over time by spending the rest of my life regretting and weeping. Unfortunately for him," she smirked. "I've gotten pretty good at defying Death over the years. He wants me, he's gonna have to try."

"But then how can you say nothing happened to you?" Cadance pleaded, confusion written across her face. "Even if you overcame whatever happened, it still happened, you still experienced it."

Sunset frowned, then used her magic again. Coming out of her trance, she ahed and nodded, muttering, "So that's what's confusing you, I see. You're right," she spoke up. "I did experience all that stuff. I just think 'happened' isn't the right word. 'Happened' implies chance or-or a lack of agency, of choice. That couldn't be further from the truth; what I experienced was the result of choices, significant choices, both those made by the Death who inflicted my losses and those I made in reacting to them. Nothing happened to me, Cadance; what I experienced was either a loss that was inflicted on me, or a choice that I made in response to it."

"Death itself caused that flood, then," Cadance murmured. "He tried to kill you, and your parents, every one else in the village, ended up caught in the blast radius."

"I don't know if his obsession with me started the flood," Sunset shrugged. "or if he only started haunting me because I escaped, but yeah, that's the gist of it."

"How did you escape it, anyway?" Cadance asked.

"Magic," Sunset replied. "Literally. I'm a unicorn back in Equestria, and-"

She woke up to two hooves of rising water.

"Mommy?" she cried. "Daddy? What's going on?"

No reply, aside from the steadily, swiftly, rising water.

Taking a deep breath, she plunged into the (cold) water and swam down the stairs, the only light a faint, wavering orb at the tip of her horn. She didn't see Mommy or Daddy anywhere downstairs, and her lungs were starting to burn. Paddling back up the stairs and into her room, she gasped for breath on the canopy of her bed, the mattress itself now submerged. Books and toys floated in the water, Ms. Smarty-Pants riding her sailboat in an attempt to keep her homework dry. It was an attempt doomed to fail, judging by the rapidly-rising water.

Desperately, she took another, even bigger breath of air and plunged into the deep again, this time swimming over to her window. She knew Mommy had said never ever to use it as a door again, but this was an emerging sea, and besides, the water outside was using it as one first.

She fought against the current, and emerged into a watery wasteland. Her flickering horn-light couldn't show her much, and what it did show her she wished she couldn't see; drowned houses, sunken street signs, ponies drifting along like Ms. Smarty-Pants' boat.

A faint burning in her lungs dragged her out of her horrified stupor, and she began to swim for the surface, as high as the cliffs surrounding her little village.

Before she could go very far, though, she felt a tug on her hoof. Turning around to look, she squealed in fear, a squeal that rose from her mouth in bubbles; there were dead ponies on the ground, reaching up to grab her with drowned hooves. She fought against them, but the more she struggled the harder they grabbed her, until it felt like she was drowning in a sea of hooves as well as water.

And she was drowning; her lungs were on fire, and the edges of her vision were beginning to curl black. Even if she broke free of the dead hooves, she wouldn't be able to swim to the surface in time. She had only one hope, a hope as faint as her rapidly fading vision.

Lighting up her horn, she reached out to the stars, finding the three her father had pointed out to her on one of their stargazing nights. Finding them, she poured all her magic into her horn, desperately trying to cast a spell she'd only ever read about, and then only once.

A moment later, she flopped damply onto the grassy cliff, her stomach roiling from her near-drowning and emergency teleportation. Rain beat down on her as she whimpered her way over to the cliff edge, looking down in shock at the lake that stood where her village used to be.

Her home was gone. Ms. Smarty-Pants was gone.

Mommy and Daddy were gone.

She fell, numb, onto the grass, staring sightlessly out at the devastation that had once been her home. Everything was gone. Everyone she knew, every place she'd visited, everything she had, was gone.

"What happened?" she rasped, throat ravaged by water and grief. "Why's there so much water? Why didn't anypony wake me up?"

New water and grief trickled down her cheeks. "What do I do now?"

Cadance reeled backwards as the vision ended, Sunset's geode still gleaming faintly beneath her armor.

"Huh," Sunset murmured, faint tears at the edge of her eyes. "Didn't know it could do that. Well, that might come in handy in future. Anyway, yeah, that's how I survived; untrained teleportation, something only a bit less deadly than trying to swim would have been. It's, uh," she nervously chuckled. "not just a miracle that I survived the flood, let's just say. Teleportation's... tricky, especially for a foal. I'm still not sure how I managed to pull it off. Anyway, eventually a weather patrol came by and spotted me, and, after the usual bureaucratic delays, they managed to place me with Aunt Flare. The dam was rebuilt, eventually, but the village..."

Her face fell. "I was one of ten survivors," she whispered. "The other nine were out of town when Death drowned the place. The crown offered to help them rebuild the village, even expand it, but nopony accepted; we'd lost too much, more than any rebuilding could make right. Flutter Valley died that night, Cadance, even if not all of its inhabitants did."

Cadance's heart sank into her stomach. "And ever since that night," she quivered. "Death's been haunting you, trying to take you and those you love."

Sunset nodded.

"That's why you have to save everyone," Cadance said, a statement, not a guess. "Because it's your fault they're in danger."

"Because I can defy the Death that threatens them," Sunset proved her wrong. "I know not everyone's danger is my fault, thank goodness, but I also know that I can face whatever danger they're in. Death wears a lot of masks--war, poverty, monsters--but it's him under all of them, and no mask can stop me from being able to fight him. It's my duty, my destiny, to do so, to protect those who can't. Death made an enemy of me the night of the flood, Cadance, an enemy I will do everything in my power to fight."

Cadance fell silent; she understood, now. Sunset's refusal to frame what she'd experienced as anything other than conflict, Death trying to take her and those she loved, her fighting back by surviving and saving, picked out her motives in heart-wrenching light.

Softly, Cadance began to sing:

There be many shapes of mystery
And many things God makes to be,
Beyond our hopes and fears,
And the end Men looked for cometh not
While a path is found where none was thought;
So hath it fallen here.

"Eweripedes wrote that in one of his plays, The Ypiretes I think. Pater Tregua, an old spiritual counselor of mine, taught me them shortly after I lost my mother. I was distraught with grief, searching, pleading for an explanation for her passing. Why? Why did she die? What did she do to deserve death? Like everyone forced to come face to face with death, I struggled to answer those questions, but Pater Tregua helped me. With those six lines, he taught me something, something important, something I'll never forget; I was looking at it backwards."

"Huh?" Sunset raised a brow in confusion.

Cadance swallowed; this was going to be painful.

"'It's not our place to ascribe meaning to death, Cadenza,'" she replied, quoting the Pater's words. "'Whatever meaning there is to it is beyond our poor power to choose. Don't look to your mother's death for meaning; look to her life. It's not one's death that matters, but the life they lead up to it. Two people can die in the same way, but the context of their deaths will be completely different based on the meaning of their life. Whatever meaning lies in their deaths would be far beyond us to determine, even to comprehend; the meaning of their lives would be far easier for us to grasp, though even then it would still be difficult. I don't know the meaning of your mother's death, Cadenza, but I do know the meaning of her life, a life of love, and that's enough for me."

"I'm going to be blunt, Sunset," she continued, putting her other hand on Sunset's right shoulder. "You're wrong; Death doesn't hate you, he didn't try to kill you when you were young, he didn't kill your parents."

"Liar," Sunset snapped, surging against her ropes.

"You want him to have done so," Cadance ignored her. "so that way your parents' deaths had meaning, so that way your uncle's death had meaning, so that way you weren't just a lucky foal who survived an unlucky chance."

"Liar!" Sunset bellowed in rage, rage marinated with grief. "I'm not lucky, I make my own luck!"

"And that's the thing, Sunset," Cadance whispered reassuringly. "That's the beautiful, beautiful thing; you can't give your losses any meaning because you don't need to. Silver Blaze and Setting Star died in a random flash flood; so what? Their lives had meaning before that, meaning that the nature of their deaths did nothing, absolutely nothing, to diminish. I may not know the meaning of their deaths, but the meaning of their lives is standing right in front of me."

"No," Sunset growled. "No, you're wrong, Mom and Dad didn't just die to a-a flood, Death killed them, he-he tried to kill me, he killed Uncle Lightburst, he hates me, I'm his worst enemy-"

"If you are," Cadance cut her off, her voice like steel. "it's because you made yourself his enemy, not because he's trying to fight you. Death didn't declare war on you, Sunset, anymore than he declares it on the families of those who pass away due to old age. There is no war against you, Sunset, no grand conspiracy; what you endured, what happened to you, was horrible, but it wasn't malice. Your parents died of natural causes. Your uncle died of natural causes. Death didn't try to steal them, didn't try to wage war against you, didn't do anything to them at all. I understand why you want him to have done so, Sunset, I understand perfectly, but he didn't; your parents died naturally, Sunset, as did your uncle, as did everyone and everypony you wanted to be a victim of Death's war against you. I don't know the meaning of their deaths, and I don't know that I ever will, but I do know it wasn't that."

YOU'RE WRONG! roared in her mind, tearing her psyche to shreds. YOU'RE LYING!

Painfully, she dragged herself back together, reknitting herself through the miasma of rage, grief, and fear that was Sunset's presence in her mind. She needed to calm her, quick, she didn't know that she could survive another event like that, and who would help Sunset then? Would she even survive, stuck in a dissolving foreign mind?

"You want your parents to have died heroes' deaths, I understand!" she shouted into the maelstrom of her mind. "But they did, no matter how they died! They lived raising you, and that makes them heroes in my eyes, in the eyes of the world! So what if they weren't Death's personal prey? How they died doesn't change how they-"

A bolt of lightning seared through her consciousness, ripping almost all of it away; memories, emotions, even words were torn away like debris in a riptide. With an agonizing expenditure of rapidly-degrading focus, Cadance reached out to the one thing she wouldn't allow herself to lose, even if she lost all else.

As the last flesh was flayed from her ethereal hand, she grasped her love and held it tight.

Politics by Mercy

There was only the love, now, surrounded by a swirling maelstrom of rage and wrath and sorrow. It stood like an island in the sea, the last monument to the mind that had once dwelt there. No song or loving whisper sounded there, now; only the winds of wrath, and the heaving breaths of the invader.

Heaving breaths which choked off as she returned to her senses. C-Cadance? came the fearful query. W-Where are you?

"Iamo," the love, the last remnant of Cadance, replied. "Iamo." Sunset didn't know the language it spoke in, but the words spoke to her heart, and she understood them; "I love."

"Oh no," she whimpered, shame overpowering all other emotions. "Oh, no no no no no. No, I-I didn't want this to happen! Cadance! Cadance, where are you?!" Desperately, she reached out with her magic, and felt her heart break; the debris of Cadance's mind was scattered all across the mindscape, ripped asunder by her anger.

In a frenzy, she reached out to the shards, calling them with her magic and trying to put them back together. To no avail; she didn't know which pieces went where, and none of them stuck together. Whenever she tried to link two, they refused to connect, and fell apart as soon as she turned her attention to a third piece.

"I can fix this," she manically repeated to herself. "I can fix this, I can fix this, I can-I can-I-I-I-"

She broke down wailing as her attempts at rebuilding failed again, falling apart into a heap. Cadance was gone, as good as dead. And Sunset had killed her; she'd been trying to help her, trying to soothe her pain, and Sunset had killed her. She was the true Kerioth, the traitor who deserved nothing more than death.

"I'm a monster," she spat at herself. "I'm nothing but a monster. Save people from Death? More like send them to him in the first place." Putting her head in her hands, she snarled, "The flood should've taken me, too..."

"Iamo," the love interrupted.

Sunset blinked in confusion, then watched as ethereal strands of affection wiped away her tears. Warmth wrapped around her, and comfort, the love trying to ease her pain.

Just like Cadance had...

"Cadance?" she whispered, hoping against hope. "Is that-are you still there?"

Light shone down on her, purest sunlight; it lightened her worries, eased her cares, lessened her burdens. It rejuvenated her, renewed her, resurrected her from her despair. And from the sunlight, from the love that shone it down, two words came, two words that brought hope back to life in her heart; "Ti amario," words that once again spoke to her heart instead of her ears.

"I love you, too, Cadance," Sunset whimpered, tearing up in relief. "I'm so, so, so sorry. I know there's nothing I can do to make up for this-"

"Ti amario," the love cut her off. "Ti amario."

More tears came to her eyes, and were wiped away by the love before they could fall. Words of apology, of guilt, of shame crawled up her throat, and were silenced by the love before they could be spoken. All fell away before the love's battlecry of "Ti amario."

Eventually, the love's enemies ceased their attack, and Sunset lay at peace in its embrace. She enjoyed her respite for but a moment before turning back to the debris of Cadance's mind, and setting her jaw. "Cadance?" she asked. "Can you help me? There's something I need to fix, but I-I can't do it alone."

"Ti amario," the love affirmed, before moving over to the other shards, which hummed at its arrival.

Sunset took a deep breath, pushed her resurgent worries to the back of her mind, and focused on Cadance, on the loving woman who'd tried to help her, now shattered by her-

"Ti amario" dragged her out of her shame, and she smiled wanly in thanks. Closing her eyes, she reached out with her magic, gently wrapping it around the shards of Cadance's mind. Gingerly, painstakingly, she began assembling them again under the guidance of the love. Every so often a fragment would fall off of her creation, and each and every time the love would catch it and put it back into place, until eventually all the shards were back in their proper place. Cadance's mind was almost restored; all she needed to do now was-

With a pop, the love rushed into the mind, and then Cadance stood before her, clutching her head as her eyes whirled.

"You're alive!" Sunset cried, wrapping Cadance in a hug.

"I was never dead," Cadance reassured her, putting an ethereal hand on her shoulder after a few tries. "Even if you'd fled, I would've been able to put myself back together... eventually. But would you mind sticking to the telepathy in future? What just happened wasn't... particularly pleasant, let's say."

"Don't worry," Sunset replied, tears of joy streaking down her face. "After I wake up, I'm ripping my geode off and never using it again. Oh!" she smiled. "I know! I'll give it to you! You'd make good use of it, and you wouldn't-"

"If I were in your place, I would've misused it today," Cadance cut her off. "There was someone attacking the foundation of your identity, Sunset, the core of your being; is it a surprise that you used your magic in self-defense? Who wouldn't have in that situation?"

"I could've killed you," Sunset protested. "I could've turned you into a vegetable, a-a husk!"

"Twilight could've crushed my heart," Cadance replied. "Pinkameena could have blown me up. If it were Shiny in your position, he could've beat me, or strangled me. All of us have the capacity to inflict harm, Sunset, in one form or another. It's the inclination to do so that we should worry about, and the fact that you're so horrified at the thought of what you did, what you could have done, tells me that we don't have as much to worry about as you fear."

"But there's still a chance," Sunset stood firm. "How can I take that chance?"

"There will always be a chance to misuse something, Sunset," Cadance answered. "Everything can be misused in one way or another, just like they can be used properly to do wonderful things. Starlight's wrong to condemn all magic, good and bad, just as you're wrong to condemn your use of magic, good or bad. Yes, you can misuse your magic, just like you can misuse anything else, and just like anything else you can also use it well. You say that you can't let yourself keep it because there's a chance you'll misuse it; isn't there an equal, if not greater, chance that you'll hurt Homestria by not using it? Giving up your magic won't reduce the risks you face, Sunset; it will only change what form they take. There are no safe roads here, only a choice of which risks to run."

Sunset bit her lip, looking anxiously down at her hands, hands which had almost committed an unspeakable act. Closing them, she sighed, and thought to herself, Truth. "Point taken," she admitted. "I'm not sure how long it'll be before I can trust myself to use it again, though."

"Don't worry," Cadance reassured her. "The fact that you're so suspicious of yourself means that you can be trusted not to misuse it again. After all, you keep a careful eye on those you're suspicious of to make sure they behave, don't you?"

"So I'll keep an eye on myself and try to keep myself in check," Sunset murmured. "Point taken, again. Even if I'm not giving up my magic, though," she spoke up as a whirling thought passed her and Cadance by. "would you mind if we finished this discussion in the real world? I'd rather not risk breaking your mind... again." Guilt and shame flooded her-

And were quickly dammed up by Cadance saying, "Again, you were acting in self-defense, if against an emotional threat instead of a physical one. I forgive you."

Sunset weakly smiled at her in gratitude, then closed her eyes and woke up.

A man in iridescent armor making faces into a transparent jar...

"No Man or beast shall cast you down, save one who bears the heart and crown..."

"Ho dato il mi amore alla mi gente, non l'ho tenuto per me..."

Sunset groaned as Cadance's memories streamed off of her, the remnants of her deep dive into the Principal's psyche falling away as she rose back up to her own. Even when she did, she felt groggy, like she'd just woken up.

More reason not to do that again, she noted drily. Looks like the deeper I go, the harder it is to come out. I'll probably want to keep an eye on myself, make sure I don't start dissociating. It would probably be a good idea to keep Cadance here for a while, too, make sure she doesn't suffer any long-term effects.

"Ugh," the woman herself groaned, clutching her head. "Okay, after this, I think both of us could use some rest, my head feels like Shiny's using it as a tap-dance studio for the Guards. Speaking of whom," she cleared her throat. "do you see what I meant by your pain clouding your reasoning, now? You didn't just want to go with Shiny to save Rarity or Homestria, but to give your parents' deaths meaning, to have a better reason for their passing than 'the levee failed.' At least, that's how it seems to me; do you agree?"

Grimacing in pain, acid filling her throat and gnawing at her soul, Sunset nodded.

And the spell was broken; all her walls came crashing down, the magnificent facades she'd built on the false foundation Cadance had shown her disintegrating. She saw herself; she wasn't the Defier of Death, the arch-nemesis of Fate, or the master of doom; she wasn't the sole survivor of Death's attack on Flutter Valley or his hunted prey in the years afterwards; she wasn't the axis of the world, the hinge of fate, the keeper of the keys of life and death. She was a lonely little girl, orphaned after a flash flood, deluded after an uncle's heart attack, playing pretend to try to give herself a better answer to "Why did Mommy and Daddy die?" than "Because the levee failed."

Whatever levee held back her tears failed, too, the grief and agony of too many years falling from her eyes in beads of saltwater. Cadance rushed over and embraced her before the first tear fell, but Sunset barely noticed; the scourge her heart was being wracked with took almost all of her attention. Years, decades of lies were whipped out of her soul, truth as clear and sharp as glass taking its place. Grief ripped through her throat, tearing its way out in a piercing wail as her life was melted down and reforged, the realization Cadance had brought her to destroying her old history and restoring the truth.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the pain dulled as her rebuilding decelerated, exhausted for the moment. It had done a lot of work with the help of Cadance, shaking her foundations of lies and laying new ones of truth, from which, with the help of time, effort, and thought, she'd build new structures even grander than the ones she'd built on lies. But building a replacement for her shattered self-image would take more time than the breaking had, much more time, and much of it would be guesswork, fumbling her way towards her true self. And one of the broken pillars would never be replaced, right when it would've been most useful. Her self-conception as Death's archenemy, one with the power to fight and defy him and his ally Fate, had given her confidence in the past; no matter how bad a situation had looked to her, she could always reassure herself that she was beyond the power of Death, free from destiny and Fate. She would succeed, no matter how much Death and Fate tried to stop her. Now the truth had torn that armor away from her, showing her that she was vulnerable right as war threatened to break out. Homestria would really appreciate the princess' help, but now Sunset saw that she was Raven Inkwell, not the princess she served.

Princess or not, she thought as she loosed one last sniffle, new me or not, I'll still help my friends, my home. Even if it's not my duty as Death's defier, I'll still stand with my friends, and if it's not my destiny to save them, she set her jaw, then I'll make it my destiny. Defier of Death or not, master of doom or not, I won't just stand by while my friends are hurt. Whether I stand a chance or not, I will fight.

"Cadance?" she croaked, throat ravaged by her crying. "Would you mind untying me? I need to get to work."

"Where will you be working?" Cadance asked in reply, wiping away the last of Sunset's tears. "Objectively speaking, where do you think you can do the most good? Don't just say you'll stay here to make me happy; I'll be happiest if you make what you think is the right choice, even if it means going after Shiny."

Sunset closed her eyes in thought. As far as she could see, there were three main paths she could take; stay in Castellot, go after Shining, or go investigate whatever was happening in the north. She did her best work in the field, so one of the paths away from the capitol would fit her best, but Homestria needed a teacher as well as a field researcher, and teaching people how to handle something as dangerous as magic needed to be done in person in case of emergencies. Leaving the capitol would fit her best, yes, but it would fit Homestria poorly, and it was the latter she needed to keep in mind.

Not really much of a choice, then, is there? she drily noted. "Objectively speaking," she said. "I think that I can do the most good by staying here and helping Radiance. I want to be the hero with Shining, or the explorer in the north, but Homestria needs me to be the teacher here."

Cadance nodded solemnly, then pursed her lips. Thoughtfully, she looked back at the papers Chip had given her, the records, invoices, and evidence. After a few silent moments, she nodded, then began untying Sunset's bonds. As she did so, she leaned in to Sunset's ear and whispered, "And she might need you here as an inventor."

A chill went down Sunset's spine. "Maybe," she shakily replied. "Maybe not." Lie.

"Of course," Cadance nodded. "But if you think that, objectively speaking, she does, know that I trust your judgement. You know more about this than I do, Sunset; if you say that Homestria needs you to be an inventor, then I'll believe you. Just try to decide whether she does or not with your head," she gently tapped Sunset's temple. "instead of your heart."

"I," Sunset swallowed as the last cords came undone. "I will." Unknown.

Politics by Will

Razzaroo notified them that they'd taken Sunset as Shining knelt before the princess, a host of six hundred Guards standing tall behind him. Radiance sighed, her desperate hope that Cadance would manage to figure out some other way to hold Sunset back proving false, and sent a quick reply.

"Sir Shining Armor," the princess' voice pulled her away from her phone. "Homestria is in danger, and we have reason to believe that speech alone will not be enough to rescue her from it. Are you willing to take up staff and shield to do so?"

"I am," he solemnly replied.

The princess bowed her head, then said, "Then with these duties, I charge you; I charge you to gather those necessary, pursue the threat, defend the realm, and defeat her enemies; I charge you to restore order to the kingdom, peace and security to her people, and harmony to those in rebellion; and, as I charged you three years ago, I charge you once more to be faithful in word and deed, to be charitable in act and thought, and to bring hope to those you know and those you come to know."

"I accept these charges," Shining bowed his head. "and will do all I can to fulfill them."

The princess reached inside her gown and pulled out the jeweled baton of command, the symbol of authority over Homestria's armies. "Command over the Royal Guard is given to you," she said as she offered the scepter to Shining.

"I will wield it well," he promised her as he took it. "and return it as soon as I can." Then he stood up, and turned to face his host.

"About turn!" he ordered, and Radiance watched as the Guards obeyed, turning around like so many gears in a machine. "Let fly the colors!" caused the banner of Homestria to snap into the air, stout oak and blue field catching the light, cloud-with-thunderbolt shining in it, and crown of stars twinkling brilliantly. "Forward march!" saw the banner borne away, the host marching away to the shores of Lake Canter where their vehicles sat, preparing to begin a long-awaited chase. The constant drum of their footsteps was overpowered by the cheering of the crowd, though Radiance herself (as well as most of those around her) only clapped politely.

Eventually, the last of the Guards left the city limits, and the cheering faded away. The show of chilavrism over, the princess took her leave, and her departure lifted the plug that kept the crowd in place, sending them spiraling away back to their regular lives. Soon, it was just her and Chip, watching the empty stage of Shining's splendid departure.

The treasurer sighed. "You got Razzaroo's text, too?" she asked.

Radiance nodded. "I'd hoped that she'd see reason," she replied. "but I suppose I should've known better. If there's one thing my work with Miss Shimmer has taught me, it's that when she makes a decision, she sticks to it. Expecting her to behave otherwise, especially when it's regarding one of her friends..." She chuckled. "Not very scientific of me, was it?"

Of course, nothing about their plan was; everything they'd seen about Sunset indicated that she had a will of iron, one which stiffened under pressure instead of bending. It would take truly compelling evidence, something Radiance doubted they had, to get her to change her mind, and if what Razzaroo said Cadance had done was true that bar had just been raised even higher. Trying to force Sunset to admit she was wrong would only make her more certain that she was right, everything Radiance had seen of her said that that would be the case; if they truly wanted to change her mind, they needed to show her that she was wrong, that she could do the most good in the capitol instead of on the march, and they lacked enough definitive evidence to show her that she was. Her work in the capitol was doing good, of course, her efforts were helping Homestria's understanding of magic grow dramatically, but they weren't bearing visible fruit yet; the first harvest was coming, Radiance knew it, but she didn't know when, and until it came all the results of Sunset's work lay out of sight. Compared with the easily-detected good that going with Captain Armor would bring (defeating Starlight, rescuing her friend), the good staying in the capitol would do seemed almost invisible.

Our plan, she realized with a sickening lurch of her stomach, is a series of illogical proposals held together by deluded hope, wishful thinking, and the idea that Cadance is the answer to any emotional or communicative problem.

"No," Chip shook her head, reeling Radiance out of her horror. "No, but you can't use science to solve everything. It's just a tool, like a screwdriver or a hammer; it's really useful, yes, but not in every situation. Here, I think the good dean's-sorry, principal's, hard to keep that straight-skill at dealing with-with things like this will serve us better than science would."

I hope so, Radiance darkly thought as they began walking back to the palace, because science tells me that this can only end badly.

Observation: Sunset had been compressing herself since the Senate Square Riot, spending less and less time with others and more and more time on projects that she refused to talk about. What they'd discovered of her actions indicated that she was trying to find a way to go with Captain Armor, trying to find or force a way through the wall separating them.

Hypothesis 1: Sunset was trying to leave the capitol to go help Captain Armor bring Starlight Glimmer to justice.

Hypothesis 2: Sunset was nearing her limit for compression, and would become volatile once she reached it.

Hypothesis 1 had already been proved, now they simply awaited Cadance testing hypothesis 2. She hadn't proved it by the time they returned to the palace (judging by the fact that it was still standing, at least), and now they sat in one of the conference rooms, anxiously awaiting her conclusions.

Some more anxiously than others, Radiance mused as she watched Chip's finger drum her arm. Every five seconds, the treasury minister took out her phone and scoured it for updates from either the principal or her protector, putting it back again with a tsk when it proved to be to no avail. Radiance herself simply sat, hands clasped, phone in front of her on the table, though she would be the first to admit that she found herself throwing glances at it as often as Chip.

She remembered when she'd first met Chip, almost a decade ago now. She was a research assistant fresh from Crystallot Polytechnic, Chip the excitable auditor charged with watching her department's spending, a job she performed with relish. Though, as Radiance soon learned, that was true of all the jobs she was assigned; "If it's worth doing," the joke went, "it's worth obsessing over." Chip threw herself into any work put in front of her, studying the subject matter ravenously and practicing, as she put it, "FILO working hours." ("First In, Last Out," she'd explained at Radiance's initial blank stare. "If you were an accountant, that would be hilarious.")

But enthusiasm and energy weren't always a good substitute for experience, especially when something required patience. Chip might've been able to find her way around a lab, decipher a surveyor's report, and write a balance sheet well, but she never seemed to have learned how to wait; if a problem was presented to her, either she tried to solve it or gave up, she never simply waited to see what happened, if it became easier to solve or even solved itself with the passage of time. She was energetic, and energy needed to be transferred out or stored, and Chip didn't seem to have much storage space.

So like our Equestrian friend, she realized. Sunset seemed to like not doing things as much as Chip did, turning to a side project if her main one was being frustrated, or trying to overcome the frustration through sheer exertion. Between helping develop the Basic Guide to Magic, providing advice on tests and experiments, and whatever she'd been planning since the Riot, Radiance wasn't sure when she had time for sleep; if Chip practiced FILO working hours, Sunset had seemed to practice FINO ones, First In, Never Out.

Is that why you're so invested in this, Chip? she thought as she looked at her anxious friend, Do you see yourself reflected in Miss Shimmer and not like what you see? And if so, are you trying to alter that reflection because you don't like seeing her make your mistakes, or because you don't like being reminded of what those mistakes are?

Their phones chimed simultaneously, and simultaneously were scoured for information. All that they found, though, was a brief text from Razzaroo, telling them that Sunset was well and wanted to talk to them in a few minutes. That had no business working, Radiance thought even as she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hm," Chip hummed as she put her phone away and got up from her seat. "Looks like Cadance was the right choice. Seems she managed to solve whatever problem was troubling Miss Shimmer."

Always problems and solutions with you, Radiance frowned, following the treasurer, everything nice and clean, black and white, sliced up and discrete. What about mixtures, greys, nuances? What about problems with no solution, or at least no conclusive one? What about multi-step problems? You can solve a step of them, yes, but that doesn't solve the whole thing, and acting like it does is just begging for trouble. People are puzzles, not questions, and Miss Shimmer is more puzzling than most. Cadance might have been able to help put a piece in its proper place, yes, but that doesn't mean the puzzle's solved, and acting like it does...

"What are the potential consequences of misusing magic?"

"Only limited by how much energy you put into it."

She shivered; Cadance seemed to have gathered some evidence against Hypothesis 2, but some wasn't enough. And they needed enough to disprove it, before trouble answered their pleas.

Razzaroo ushered them into Sunset's office when they arrived. Inside, Cadance stood behind the main desk, hand on Sunset's shoulder in comfort, while the office's current owner sat bolt upright, arms at right angles to her desk.

Razzaroo closed the door, and tension and pressure flooded the atmosphere, crushing Radiance's voice before it could speak. Danger pressed on her, turning Sunset's office into a minefield, a place where one false step would turn her or Chip into evidence supporting Hypothesis 2. She held her tongue, waiting to see if the field gave any guidance regarding where to walk, and mentally pleaded with Chip to do the same, to hold back the match of her energy for once, hold it away from the gas surrounding them. Thankfully, the treasurer did so, and silence fell on the room.

After several moments, a sigh from Sunset broke it as she said, "I'm sorry for being so short with you two about my past. Yes, you were poking your noses somewhere I wasn't comfortable with, but that doesn't make it right for me to have snapped at you like I did. You were genuinely curious and concerned, not just nosy."

"It's forgiven," Radiance reassured her, flicking a quick glance at Chip to make sure she agreed. "We probably would've done the same in your position."

"Would you?" Sunset snorted. "Neither of you seems to have as bad of a temper as I do, or to be the type of person who..." A gentle rub from Cadance's hand caused her voice to trail off. Taking a deep breath, she lifted it up again, saying, "I'm sorry for being so hostile to you, and I thank you for your concern. Cadance helped show me that you were, in at least some way, right to be worried about me. What I've experienced, what happened to me in the past... Burying it did no good, only led to more pain. You were trying to help me," her knuckles whitened. "and I tried to stop you, tried to..."

"Forgiven, forgotten," Chip smiled. "So, it sounds like Cadance managed to help you, is that right?"

"Yes and no," Sunset replied. "Yes, she did help me come to terms with my past, but only somewhat, and what she's helped me realize makes my job a lot harder. I'm not Death's archenemy, I'm not the master of doom, and that means I can't help as much as I thought I could; I'm..." She swallowed heavily. "... I'm just a regular girl, not the Chosen One. I can help teach you about magic, but I can't respond to magical problems as easily as I thought, or at least not with as much confidence. I'm not the Chosen One, I'm a mentor."

"But do you feel better?" Radiance asked. "Has Cadance been able to help you emotionally?"

Sunset swallowed again. "My parents died in a flash flood when I was four," she answered. "A random storm struck, the levee failed for some reason, and for little to no reason, Setting Star and Silver Blaze died." Locking haggard eyes with Radiance, she said, "Today was the first time I was able to admit that to myself. Today was the first time I really came to terms with what their deaths meant as opposed to what I wanted them to mean. Cadance helped me do so. Actually, by showing me that what I thought their deaths meant was wrong, she helped me discover myself, in a way. Not all of myself, no, discovering that is going to take time, but she helped start me on the right path. She," she sniffled. "she gave me her hand and helped me up when I didn't even realize I was on the ground. Yes, Radiance, Cadance did manage to help me emotionally."

"Then that's what matters," Radiance smiled back. "So long as you're okay, it doesn't matter what challenges we have to face; it's easier to solve a hard puzzle with a clear head than an easy puzzle with a wounded one."

"I'm not okay," Sunset shook her head. Turning back to Cadance, she softly smiled, gently placed a hand over the one the principal had placed on her shoulder, and murmured, "But I'm on the way to becoming it."

"She'll need help, though," Cadance cautioned. "and not the kind you tried to provide me. Sneaking and spying-"

"It wasn't spying," Chip protested. "Whatever we gave you was public, something anyone on the street could've gotten."

"And things that I could've learned easily," Cadance retorted. "by simply talking with her. I learned more in minutes than you did in days, Chip, do you know how? By trusting Sunset and being honest with her. That's the kind of help she'll need; trust, honesty, and care, not sneaking or pseudo-spying. As simple as it may sound, Sunset will need friendship, not well-intended schemes."

Wincing in shame, Radiance nodded. Chip, on the other hand, prepared to protest, but was stopped by a raised hand from Sunset.

The girl swallowed, then said, "Chip, I understand why you did what you did, but listen to me; both of us did what we thought was right, trusting in secrecy and planning instead of friendship, and in the end, that's all but torn us apart. Meanwhile, Cadance trusted in friendship and, while there were some," she swallowed again. "rough points, in the end she managed to help me a lot. Look at it scientifically; one method obtained the result we wanted, the other obtained the exact opposite. I know it's hard to trust friendship, I really get that, but it works better than mistrusting it does. In order to show that," she reached into a drawer and pulled out some papers. "I'm going to be honest with you, about something that I'm going to have to ask you to be careful about who you tell. I know it sounds wrong, praising honesty right before telling you to try to keep something a secret, but it is possible; being honest doesn't mean shouting everything from the rooftops, it means providing others the information they deserve to know, an explanation that I realize doesn't sound much better, but you have to trust me that it is. We don't have time to debate metaphysics right now."

"You're basically the friendshipologist, we trust you on this," Radiance smiled.

Sunset weakly smiled back, then spread the papers out on the desk. Craning her neck to look over them, Radiance frowned as she realized that they were the invoices Chip had collected, a bone of contention between her and the treasurer; using documents like them to resolve what appeared to be a personal problem struck her as wrong, ethically murky at best.

"You were wondering what this," Sunset asked Chip, gesturing at the papers. "was for, right?"

"Yeah," curiosity glittered in Chip's eyes. "It was strange, to say the least. You barely ask for anything, and what you do's pretty mundane, then after the Riot you start asking for more, and not all of it simple. Gemsteel, pure lithumite... what're luxuries like these doing with iron and construction workers?"

"Something to do with those blueprints you brought from CHS," Radiance guessed, flinching as Sunset's gaze snapped to her. "I wasn't spying, I was just letting that messenger you sent out to get them in and caught a glimpse of them by accident. I promise."

Sunset relaxed somewhat, and replied, "Okay, I believe you. And you're right, those materials are meant for something based on those blueprints. Something," she reached inside a hidden panel in her desk, pulling a rolled up paper out. "based on this."

She spread it out over the invoices, swallowing them up in a sea of blue, white marks marking the plans for... for...

"I have no idea what this is," Radiance confessed after a moment.

"I do," Cadance murmured. "I've seen it made, once before. But not with the materials you're using, Sunset."

"The one you saw," Sunset replied quietly. "wasn't made to power itself with magic."

"A magic gadget," Chip beamed. "That's what you're going to use that stuff for, magically enhanced technology."

"Really?" Radiance raised a brow, pleasantly surprised. "You've managed to figure out how to get magic and electricity to work together?"

"It wasn't that hard," Sunset hid her face. "And I didn't discover it myself, I read a lot of research about it back in Equestria. It took a bit of fine-tuning because of how magic works on this side of the mirror, but that was only about 10% of the work."

"Big or small, a breakthrough's a breakthrough," Chip said. "I can just see it, Sunset Shimmer presenting Homestria's first example of magical technology. Don't worry, Sunset, we'll keep our lips zipped."

"This isn't what I want you to keep quiet about," Sunset whispered.

Radiance blinked, then frowned; the girl before her looked reluctant, anxious. No, not anxious; afraid. Sunset was afraid of telling them what she needed them to keep their silence about. Or perhaps, she thought with a frown as she looked at the indecipherable blueprints, she's afraid of what it is that she has to tell us.

"You can do this, Sunset," Cadance whispered to the girl. "I believe in you."

Sunset nodded back, then took a deep breath and released it. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, putting a finger to her lips. "Before I tell you," she said hesitantly. "I need you two to promise me, Pinkie Promise me, that you'll keep this quiet. It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I can't afford to trust anyone with this, it's too dangerous. If even a whisper of what I'm planning gets out, things could get very bad very, very fast. Do you understand?"

Frowning, Radiance nodded. What in the world could you be talking about, Sunset? Why are you so scared of doing what you were hired to do? "I promise not to unduly inform anyone about what you tell us," she offered in reassurance. "cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."

No distant voice answered the pledge Sunset had taught her and Chip over one of her few breaks, nor did its inventor appear to warn them of the consequences of breaking their promise as she did when they were first told of it (they still had no idea how she'd managed to get in).

Chip repeated the promise, then leaned in, Sunset's wariness only stoking her curiosity. While Radiance wouldn't deny that she was curious as well, and she perhaps might have leaned in a bit along with Chip, Sunset's wariness inspired caution in her as opposed to suppressing it in Chip; science was about experimentation, yes, but part of experimentation was ensuring that safety was maximized, and every hair on her body was telling Radiance that what Sunset was about to say was soaked with peril.

The girl herself swallowed one last time, then leaned in and pulled the heads of her audience together, gathering them around the fire of her words. After that, she paused for a moment, clearly gathering her courage to speak. She almost faltered, preparing to break away, but then turned around and caught sight of the principal. Seeing Cadance seemed to restore her courage, and, jaw set, she turned back to Radiance and Chip.

"This isn't just going to be Homestria's first magical technology," she whispered. "It's also going to be its last."