Sunset's human world origin

Mac Carthaigh farmhouse
Date: July 14th, time: some bumfuck hour

*Sunset’s perspective*

Sunset woke up with a groan. Looking out the window, Sunset saw that it was late in the night. Well, time to figure out what woke me up. Sunset sat up and rubbed her eyes. Hmm, not my bladder. So, what the hell woke me? Sunset wasn’t exactly a light sleeper, so this was odd. Sunset looked around the room. When her search reached the closet, she saw a tall, black figure. Despite how terrifying this sight should be, Sunset wasn’t scared. “Hello?”, Sunset asked. The figure walked closer. As it got closer, Sunset began to be able to make out the figure’s features. “Riona”, Sunset said in astonishment. Riona stopped and looked down at the ground. Sunset got out of bed and walked over to where Riona was standing. Looking down where Riona was looking, Sunset didn’t see anything at first, but after analyzing the floorboards, she found one with a niche just big enough for a finger. Sunset bent down and removed the floorboard. Under the floorboard was a small chest. Sunset removed the chest and sat down to examine it. Inside the small chest was a red-gold locket, a ring, some other pieces of jewelry, and some pictures. Riona picked up the wedding ring and placed it into Sunset’s hand then disappeared. The ring had a thick band with a celtic knot carved out of it and a ruby shaped into a heart recessed into it.

Sunset opened up the locket. It had a picture of Brigid, her parents, and her siblings. Brigid, her brother, and her father were the only ones in the picture with red hair, but the rest still had puffy, curly hair, especially Fiadh (fee-a). Everyone else had brown. Brigid was the only one with blue eyes, Nicholas and Meabh (Maeve) had green, and every one else had reddish brown. Brigid, Fiadh(14 ATD), and Meabh(11 ATD) were almost identical to Riona, and Clancy(16 ATD) was almost identical to Nicholas(46 ATD). The other side had a picture of Nana with her family: Great Grandpappy Hugo(67ATD), who had brown hair and reddish brown eyes; Great Nana Mairead(65 ATD) (mi-rade), who had white hair and gray eyes; Great Uncle Garret(16 ATD), who had brown hair and gray eyes and was the oldest; Nana(45 ATD) was second oldest; Pristine, who, to Sunset’s surprise, was originally a clone of her mother and absolutely gorgeous It’s like she did everything she could to distance herself from her family.; Great Uncle Nolan(43 ATD), who had brown hair and blue eyes; and Great Aunt Fiona(43 ATD), who had white hair and blue eyes and was the youngest. Turning over the locket, Sunset found the message “For my little queen of love. -Father” was written in Gaeilge.

Looking through the other pictures, Sunset found that they were of the Mac Carthaigh family going back several generations. Sunset didn’t recognize anyone past her Great Grandparents. One of the pictures had Nolan, his wife, Nessa(44 ATD), and their kids, Conor(18 ATD), Brion(15 ATD), Niall(14 ATD) (niel), Roisin(9 ATD) (ro-sheen), and Cara(6 ATD). Another picture had Fiona, her husband, Grady(47 ATD), and their kids, Fionn(20 ATD), Donovan(16 ATD), and Clodagh(15 ATD). Two more of the pictures were the ones Riona had in her locket. “How can anybody slaughter an entire family? How can someone slaughter their brother’s family? All this hate for a family whose only crime was loving and caring for others. Uhg, people are shit.”

Mac Carthaigh farmhouse
Date: same day, time: 6:00 am

*Brigid’s perspective*

“Sunset, time ta get up!” Brigid pounded on the door.

“Grrr”

“Ah know, but we need ta get ta work.” Brigid walked down to the kitchen where Anzhong was making breakfast. Brigid went to sit at the table.

“Emi!”, Sunset shouted. “Ya snooze, ya lose, sucker.”, Emi retorted. “I’m gonna get you for this!” Sunset ran down the stairs and out the door. Brigid chuckled in amusement.

After a couple of minutes, Sunset ran back inside and back upstairs. Soon, Sunset ran back downstairs with something in her hands. Wait- “Sunset, where did ya find that? Ah thought it was stolen.”, Brigid said in astonishment.

“I found it under one of the floorboards in my room. I guess it used to be Nana and Grandpappy’s room.”

“It was. Were ya really scrutinizing da floorboards in y’r room?”

“No, Nana showed me where it was.”

“Ya saw Nana?”

“I did, and I think she specifically wanted me to find this.” Sunset held out a locket that Brigid immediately recognized. “I think she wanted to make sure you got this. On the back it says “For my little queen of love. I guess now that Nana’s dead, that’s you.”

Brigid took the locket and held it to her heart. “Ah was always called da princess a’ love. Can Ah see da box, Sunset?”

Sunset handed the box to Brigid. “Oh, one other thing.” Sunset reached into her pocket and pulled out a ring. “Nana put this in my hand.”

“Dat’s the Mac Carthaigh ring. It’s been passed down through da Mac Carthaigh clan f’r generations. It was me mothe’s ring n’ her grandmothe’ before her. It was always given ta da eldest male ta prepose ta his wife, until me mum. Da ruby represents good fortune, courage, love, passion, n’ raw emotion. Da knot represents eternity n’ loyalty. Whoeve’ gets ta put da ring on y’r finger is goin’ ta be very lucky.”

“If this is a Mac Carthaigh heirloom, shouldn’t it go to Emi?”

“Sunset, dis ring goes ta da eldest Mac Carthaigh child. Dat’s ya, no matte’ whose blood runs through y’r veins, n’ Ah guess dat makes ya da next princess a’ love.” Despite what Brigid said, Sunset still looked unsure. “How ‘bout we put it back into da box f’r now, n’ when we get back ta da states, we c’n get ya y’r own jewelry box?”

“Sure” Sunset handed the ring to Brigid, and Brigid placed the ring and the locket back into the box. Emi’s footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs. “Took you long enough. What the hell were you doing in there for so long?”, Sunset said, aggravated.

“That’s none of your business.”, Emi said, crossing her arms and turning her head away.

“Emi, did ya fix whateve’ broke?”, Brigid asked.

“Yes”

“Good, because breakfast is ready.”, Anzhong said.

O’Apple barn
Date: same day, time: 4:00 pm

Don't read this while eating

*Sunset’s perspective*

If Sunset had to say which farm job was the crappiest, she would say it was the one she’s stuck doing now, and this was not something that could not be debated as she was literally shoveling horse crap. Sunset initially felt insulted when her mother told her about how instead of getting grounded, Mac Carthaigh and O’Apple children would be put on shoveling duty, but now that she was stuck with it, she was less insulted and could see why it was so effective. They had their own version back home called compost duty where you were responsible for taking care of everything compost related. It wasn’t a punishment, but if you slacked on your responsibilities, you got an extra week added to your turn. When there was nobody that needed grounding, it would be whoever messed up the most or did XYZ embarrassing thing or drew the short straw. Sunset was in that last category, but the other kids on doody duty, as Emi likes to call it, Honeycrisp(17) and Pazazz(16), were in the first category. Apparently, those drunkards from yesterday were their friends, and they invited them over. A good thing did come out of that incident. Because their shenanigans had directly affected Sunset, she was appointed forewoman. That means she got to boss them around and make them do the really nasty stuff, like chipping away at the stuff fused to the floor or scooping the really runny stuff. Even with that being the case, Sunset would gladly switch with Emi, who was helping Dad fix up the house.

Their job consisted of them scooping the crap onto a designated trailer. The driver would then take the trailer to this hole in the ground filled with a crap soup. The trailer contents would be added to the soup, and the soup will be used to make manure. On a farm, everything gets reused.

Honeycrisp and Pazazz spent just as much time complaining as they did working. Sunset had to tell them to shut up and get back to work on multiple occasions. She even had to get Envy, their mother, to get them to listen to her instructions. It had gotten to the point she would come check on them just so she could tell the boys to behave. It boggled Sunset’s mind that these farm boys could be just as entitled as Equestrian nobles. Holstein, their father, speculates it has to do with the crowd they hang around with. Apparently, going out into the countryside and trespassing onto private property in order to illegally drink was on the lower end of the list of criminal activities they would do. These two were raised in the same environment as Jonagold, Gravenstein, and Winesap, but they turned out completely differently. Jonagold, Gravenstein, and Winesap were the kindest and most honest people one could hope to know. Envy and Holstein were hard working and respectful. It really does go to show how much those you choose to associate yourself with really do have an incredible impact on yourself.

Honeycrisp and Pazazz had stopped working again. Sunset turned to face them, shovel aimed at the boys. “If you two don’t get back to work, you’re gonna be shoveling with y’r hands.”, Sunset said in her most commanding tone.

“Ya know what, no. Y’r jus’ a wee kid. Ya c’n’t make us do any‘hin’.”, Honeycrisp said.

“I may not, but y’r mom can, and she’ll be back soon. So, unless you want to get another talking to from her, get back to work.”

“Fine”, Honeycrisp quickly said.

The speed at which he agreed made Sunset suspicious but turned to get back to work anyway. Before Sunset could start scooping, she was pushed from behind and landed with her arms and face submerged in crap. She quickly extricated herself, but her face and hands were still covered in crap. Sunset quickly began to wipe the crap from her hands, mouth, eyes, and nose. The boys were laughing at her. They had purposely pushed her and were now laughing.

This would normally be where Sunset blacked out and attacked her assailants, but since Anzhong suggested she had PTSD, Sunset had been researching and learning about her condition. She had since learned that she is indeed suffering from what the humans call “post traumatic stress disorder”, a condition referred to as common cowardice by the higher ranking members of Equestrian society, and her black outs were a defense mechanism to prevent further trauma. Now knowing what was wrong, Sunset had used meditation in hopes to regain control of her mind. Now was the time to see if her work paid off.

Sunset regained control of her breathing and stood up. She had not blacked out yet. Sunset turned to the boys. During her research, Sunset also learned about the four human threat responses: fight, flight, freeze, friend. These responses existed within Equestrians too, but they leaned more towards flight or friend, whereas humans leaned more towards fight or freeze. Sunset knew which option she leaned towards more. Sunset jumped on the closest boy, who happened to be Pazazz. Pazazz toppled to the ground, with Sunset on top of him. Sunset bared her teeth at him with a snarl. Her canines were long and prominent, a fact Pazazz was now acutely aware of. Sunset slipped one of her shuko on and grabbed Pazazz’s throat. The fear in his eyes intensified as he felt the metal spikes make contact with his skin. “I believe I got my point across.”, Sunset said with cold venom.

“Ye-yes ma’am.”, Pazazz stuttered in fear.

Sunset stood and turned to face the older brother. At no point did he try to come help his brother, he froze. This fact angered Sunset more than that he was an entitled brat. Even though they did not share blood, Sunset’s brain was hardwired to protect Emi. She was her older sister. It was her duty. This khange khodah, as the farsi would put it, just stood there while his brother was being threatened. Sunset glared at him with enough hatred that she knew he felt it. “Go n-ithe an cat thu, is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat.”, Sunset told Honeycrisp and then stormed off.

Sunset walked to the hose and sprayed herself off. It took a while because she was shaking like naked chihuahua in winter. She wanted to go back to their house and take the longest, hottest, most soap filled shower she had ever taken, but the boys might take that as her running away, as weakness. She needed to show them that, despite the age gap, she was dominant. Humans were creatures that respected strength, and it was time for Sunset to show that she was the stronger one.

As soon as she got her shaking under control, Sunset marched back into the O’Apple barn. The boys were back at work. They were most likely told to stop acting the maggot by their mother. The boys froze and looked at each other when Sunset walked in. Sunset was not 100% sure if it was because she had successfully shown her dominance, or it was because they were surprised to see her. Maybe it was both. Sunset fixed the boys with a steely glare. “Get back to work.”, she ordered. The boys quickly averted their gaze and continued working. These boys are truly cowardly. Sunset grabbed her shovel and continued her work.

It took them another half an hour to finish their work. It had gone a lot faster after the boys stopped “taking breaks” every five minutes. Sunset’s first mission was to get into the shower and scrub every part of herself until she felt clean again. After that was to get something to get the smell out of her nose. It was unreal how bad it smelled. According to Brigid, the smell comes from gut bacteria that gets passed along with the waste, and that every mammal has these gut bacteria. The reason Sunset hadn’t noticed the smell before was that human toilets were designed to contain the smell, horse poop has a particularly pungent odor to it, and nobody thinks their own crap stinks. Apparently, gut bacteria is absolutely necessary in order for Earth mammals to digest their food. Clearly the Equestrian digestive system was different to Earth mammals as Equestrian crap doesn’t have a noticeably pungent smell. Sunset added this to the biological differences she would need to study. Although, that would likely involve bringing human technology to Equestria, as ponies haven’t discovered microorganisms yet. Her last mission was to, hopefully, get her hands on some alcohol. Sunset was not sure she didn’t ingest any crap and wanted to sterilize her mouth, as much as you can sterilize a human mouth. The problem with that last mission is that her parents might not allow her to. Sunset knew the drinking age for humans was over the age of the group from yesterday, but never checked the exact age as she was never much of a drinker. Equestrian society, as a whole, was not opposed to alcohol, but the warrior class was. Drinking alcohol is outright forbidden in most pegasi cities. The reasons range from completely reasonable, like flying and cloud walking while drunk is bad, to being a holdover of the pre-Equestrian era religion of Po’haidism. The Equestrian drinking age was fifteen, roughly equivalent to a human eighteen year old. It would make sense for the human drinking age to be eighteen. Well, I’ll find out soon.

Sunset mounted Saoirse and rode back to the Mac Carthaigh house. After securing Saoirse in the barn, Sunset ran inside and straight into the shower. When Sunset was done, it was past 6:00 pm. She entered her room and plopped down on her bed. The smell was no longer burned into her nostrils, but she still felt paranoid about having gotten shit in her mouth. Sunset decided the sooner she took care of that, the better. Once she was finished drying herself and had gotten dressed, Sunset went down stairs. Brigid and Emi were nowhere to be seen, but Anzhong sat at the table, reading a book. Fat chance of sneaking anything past him. Unlike their house, the Mac Carthaigh farmhouse had no basement. Here, the alcohol was kept in a rack above the sink. Looks like I’m gonna have ta ask him. Well, if I fail, I could always wash my mouth out with soap. Sunset walked over to where Anzhong was sitting. She stood behind him, waiting to see how long it would take for him to sense her. Her stealth had gotten to the point where she could sneak up on Brigid without even meaning to. Even with that being the case, it only took Anzhong a few seconds to detect Sunset.

“Hello, Sunset.”

“Hey Dad, can I get an alcoholic drink?”

“Sure”

Wait, what?

“You weren’t expecting that answer, were you?”, Anzhong said, knowingly.

“I was not. Alcohol consumption is highly restricted in my culture, if not outright banned.”

“That is also true here and in America, but the laws are a bit more nuanced than just ‘no’. In certain states, including Maine, minors can consume alcohol so long as they are in their own home and are being watched over by their parents. I’ll get you some sake.” Anzhong got up to do just that while Sunset took a seat at the table. Returning with the sake, Anzhong poured a glass for Sunset and himself.

Sunset had long since become familiar with sake. It was her parents' alcohol of choice. They had never expressed why this was, but Sunset theorized it had to do with sake not having a strong smell. During the few times Sunset saw them drinking other types of alcoholic beverages, she had seen them both scrunch up their noises, an action meant to limit olfactory intake without straight up plugging the structure. Both had mentioned, in the past, that their functioning senses were stronger than the average human. A predicament Sunset could sympathize with. Sunset took a large sip and swished it around her mouth. After swallowing, Sunset compared it to other alcohols she had tasted. Rice was not something found on Equoes, as far as anypony knew, along with wheat and potatoes. The closest thing that Sunset could compare it to was the hcena seed in its early stages of development, but those are more jelly-like and bigger. This sake was mango flavored. Sunset remembered the time she first discovered strawberries, bananas, and mangoes existed on Earth. She had accompanied Brigid to the grocery store and was introduced to the marvel that was the produce aisle. It was the first time she truly felt happy after coming to Earth. The sake still tasted like rice, white rice to be exact. We are ingesting a poison. It’s not like anyone’s gonna care about the nutritional loss. By alcoholic beverage standards, Sunset liked mango flavored sake. However, Sunset was still not a big fan of the taste or smell of alcohol.

“Not that bad.”, Sunset said.

“I figured that you would like the mango one.”

“Why is it you and Mom don’t drink beer, wine, or much of the stronger drinks? There are much wider selections of everything else.”

“Beer’s nasty and has less alcohol in it than my left toe, wine’s smell is too strong, and the alcohol drowns out the taste in everything else.”

“My theory wasn’t that far off then.”

“I love that you have such an analytical mind.” It was about a minute before Anzhong spoke again. “Sunset, do you watch teen sitcoms?”

“You mean shows like “Witches of Wave Street”? Some.”

“Then you know that in those shows, the characters will get themselves into potentially dangerous situations and not tell their parents in fear of being punished. Sunset, I want you to know that if you get yourself into any situation that you can’t handle, you don’t need to fear coming to us for help. Our main concern is keeping you safe.”

“Thank you, Dad.” -- “Honeycrisp and Pazazz pushed me into a pile of horse shit while we were cleaning the barn, and I pounced on Pazazz.”

-

-

“Well, I guess we know what we’re doing first thing tomorrow.”

Farm pastures
Date: July 15th, time: 10:00 am

*Sunset’s perspective*

Today was the last day they were going to be patrolling the property. Once they were done, the rest of the property could be patrolled by car. The area they were in mostly held sheep. Sunset couldn’t remember for sure if sheep existed in Equestria or not. Sunset was leaning more towards “not”. There was no way she could forget such adorable creatures, but then again, it could be that she's only perceiving them as cute now that she’s a human. Sunset had noticed an interesting phenomena. She had begun viewing humans as more attractive than odd and pony as more cute than attractive. She could still think of some mares and stallions she found attractive, but over all, Equoes ponies brought about emotions more akin to those she felt when viewing a dog. This was a new development too. Six months ago, she still found Equestrians very attractive. It would appear that certain neurological changes are gradual.

The sheep used to be allowed to roam around the property as they pleased, but about five years ago, “animal rights activists” started stealing the animals and releasing them “back into the wild”. What those idiots failed to realize is that cows are aggressive, chickens could easily be eaten by anything, and sheep will first become blinded by their wool, then immobilized, and then starve to deathwithout humans to shear it off. Pigs are able to survive without humans, but they are an invasive species. Because of that, all the animals were put into pens and brought further away from the roads. The pens are massive, so the animals care little about the change.

As Sunset rode around one of the pens, she noticed that one of the lambs was outside it. Sunset dismounted and went over to pick up the lamb. The creature had very little wool due to its young age. Sunset began to pet the lamb. It seemed to enjoy it. Walking to the gate, Sunset soon found how the young one got out. There was a small hole in the fence. It was barely any larger than the lamb. Luckily, the other sheep seemed to not be aware of it. Sunset continued walking over to the gate. Once she got there, she went to put the lamb down in order to open the gate, but when she tried, the lamb began to cry out in protest. “I need ta put ya down.”, Sunset tried to explain to the lamb. As she tried to put the lamb down again, it made its displeasure with that action clear again. “You’re not making it easy for me ta do my job.” Sunset tried again, but the lamb's cries seemed to pull at something deep inside Sunset that prevented her from putting it down. Sunset was impressed by the human ability to quickly bond with another being, one of a different species no less. Undoubtedly, the creature’s age helped it in that regard.

That was not to say ponies are incapable of doing the same, Spitfire’s (and arguably her own) existences are evidence to that, but ponies that can, or are willing to, drastically decrease the closer to Canterlot you go, and ponies like her mother are all but unheard of anywhere except for along Equestria’s borders. The only reason why they live in Equestria’s heart of prejudice was because that’s where her parents were stationed when Mom got her injury, and after that, Canterlot was one of the few places Mom could get the medical help she needed, and she was too weak to move away. Eventually, they just got used to it, and she and Spitfire passed well enough.

Sunset was pulled back to reality by a headbutt from the lamb. She had apparently stopped petting it. “Spoiled little cunt.” Mustering up all her will power, Sunset placed the lamb on the ground. It fussed, and once Sunset put it down, it began “pawing” at her boot. She quickly opened the gate and placed the lamb back inside of the pen. The lamb gave her a sad look but bounded off back to its family. Sunset quickly grabbed the fence repair stuff from Saoirse and went back to the hole. The fence consisted of two parts, a standard wooden fence and added chicken wiring due to the sheep’s smaller size. The chicken wire was the part that was broken, and it was broken in a way where there was a flap of sorts. This was easy to fix. All Sunset had to do was bend the flap back into place and then use the spool of wire and tweezers she was provided with to “stitch” it closed. This would not take longer than a few minutes. When Sunset was about half way done, the same little lamb came bounding up to her. Sunset could tell it was the same one because it had a little scar on its nose. It would not surprise Sunset if it got the scar from squeezing through a past hole. “Sorry, but you are gonna have ta find a new hole.” The lamb didn’t seem to react, but Sunset could see something along the lines of a conniving glint in its eyes. This one’s gonna be trouble.

Mac Carthaigh farmhouse
Date: same day, time: 3:00 pm

*Sunset’s perspective*

Sunset, Brigid, and Emi rode back to the Mac Carthaigh barn. When they got there, they saw Anzhong working on something outside the barn. He was wearing a high quality filtration mask over his nose and mouth. Ki was sitting in front of the door, watching Honeycrisp and Pazazz. After she had recounted the events of the barn incident, Anzhong suggested a suitable punishment for the boys was to help him do repairs inside their barn. Envy and Holstein wholeheartedly agreed. They were a bit freaked out when the boys gave their side of the story but were calmed a bit when it was explained that shuko were climbing tools. Given that the boys were still working, the ladies decided to put the horses out to pasture.

Sunset debated going into the barn and giving them a proper scare but decided against it. Her parents would likely deem that as unnecessarily cruel, and Sunset would be disciplined. Brigid walked over to Azhong. Sunset couldn’t hear what they were saying, and they never got all that animated while talking to each other; so, Sunset couldn’t guess what they were talking about that way.

Emi came walking out of the barn, carrying two horse brushes with her. She handed one of the brushes to Sunset, and the girls got to work bushing the horses. Despite her initial discomfort with this arrangement, these horses were clearly living comfortable lives, and they didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Come to think of it, I know a couple Equestrians that would pay money to be in these horses’ position. Of course, a different kind of riding would be involved. Sunset paused at that thought and slowly turned to stare Saoirse in her black, beady eye. Saoirse was looking off into the distance, not paying Sunset any mind. “I’m watching you.”, Sunset said, almost inaudibly. Saoirse showed no reaction.