Late-Night Phone Call

There were many times in Sunset’s life where she thought to herself, “I have made a mistake.” Some of those times were when she woke up, just like she did now, and felt the vice around her skull and the sand intricately woven throughout every square millimeter of the her eye tissue, knowing deep in her heart that she likely had anywhere between two to thirty minutes before she needed to be out the door that morning.

You would think she’d eventually learn to stop being up all night during the school week. That would be conducive to general comfort and represent an overall improvement to the net-average of her life choices. Unfortunately, if Sunset Shimmer made good life choices, she would still have the flesh she was born with, would still be able to cast magic, would have a functional relationship with her goddess and surrogate mother, and probably would have inherited a kingdom by now. She’d also wake up in her own bed every morning, probably beside a loving spouse, would have a day job she halfway liked, and never would have cast so much as a stray thought in the general direction of the element of Magic.

Above all else, she might also be allowed to have nice things, and we definitely can’t have that. Especially not if your name is Sunset Shimmer.

Sunset was barely aware of her surroundings as her body all but dragged itself out of bed and did…something. A couple somethings. It was difficult to navigate around in the dark, but the light leaking in through her home’s tape-sealed windows collectively provided enough light to navigate the dust-choked spaces for her to gather up about sixty percent of her worldly belongings in the form of school necessities.

At some point in her addled haze, Sunset paused as she finished packing her toothbrush, contemplating whether she would need to bring her own shampoo today. PE didn’t happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and as a result the showers wouldn’t be accessible without risk of some scrutiny. She thought about what day it was for entirely too long, and just as the single functioning gear in her head dedicated to facilitating every thought process began to belch black smoke, she had the idea to check the date on her phone. This would also give her the current time, giving her an idea of how much of it she had left this morning. It was a genius plan.

Unfortunately, Sunset did not make wise choices, and her phone did not respond at all when the Home Screen button was pressed. The battery had died during the night.

It was at about this time, at long last, that it occurred to Sunset that she was having a conspicuously easy time navigating her home despite everything still being sealed up. It was late autumn by now. If she was on time for school, it would be dark. Even if she was running late, it would still be shady out. It was currently rather bright outside.

Sunset breathed in a long breath, then slowly exhaled both the air in her lungs and her reservations about violence as a low growl.

So it was going to be one of those days. Classic.

Sunset did not do much more preparation after that. Not only did she not have time for it, she was fresh out of fucks to give about it. After stomping into her shoes, she all but kicked the door open, slammed it shut behind her, and began storming down the sidewalk, her furious strides kicking up a baleful black cloud over her head that began gorging itself on the vile mood this morning had left her in.

Winter was fast on its way, and the sharp morning air reflected as much as it flensed at Sunset's lips and extremities as she marched. It didn't take long at all for her to tuck herself deeper into her jacket, pulling her chin beneath her collar, though her clenched fists remained exposed to the elements for a while longer until the volume of the pain outweighed any satisfaction it may have initially brought.

The tight weathered jeans Sunset wore were not nearly sufficient to keep out the cold, and every inch of her legs prickled with the chill wrapped around them beneath and through the fabric. One of the perks about being in a caustic kind of mood: angry marching made for a pretty good generator of heat, which took the edge off. Even still, these were the warmest pants she owned, and while the jacket was serviceable for now, it was very apparent that the few clothes she owned were not going to get her much further into the year.

Of all the things that would kill me, it would be the fact that I like skirts, wouldn’t it? Not some vigilante justice type or falling on my sword to restore my honor, just that it’s winter and I don’t own any good bucking pants.

Cold and exertion from the unregulated pace she’d been marching at had made this walk unbearable. Her legs burned, both with fatigue and exposure, and as Sunset reached a crosswalk, any spite-based motivation to push through the discomfort had made way for a budding desperation to find relief from it. She looked around at any of these surrounding buildings she might be able to take cover in, just enough to hold off the cold-

A truck in the lane closest to Sunset honked its horn suddenly, and Sunset jolted like she’d been jabbed with a cattle prod. As she whirled about to face the truck, murder in her eyes, the stream of the most vicious profanity she could spit up did not reach her lips before the window on the passenger’s side rolled down. Her eyes registered Applejack a split second before her ears did: “Need a lift?”

Sunset’s heart was still ricocheting off of the inside of her rib cage like a Ping-Pong ball, so while her brain couldn’t quite work past the adrenaline to process this entire situation, her legs had just enough feeling left to know what was good for them, and she wasn’t about to argue. She hopped forward off the curb, yanked open the filthy passenger door, and pulled herself into the cab without a second thought.

Applejack and Rarity both had loosely similar vehicle aesthetics: both families owned especially old cars, and while neither girl possessed their own, they were able to use their families’ vehicles enough to see their needs met at the expense of driving around in cars old enough to be their grandparents. A key difference between the two was that while Rarity’s vehicle looked like it was from a car restoration magazine, Applejack’s old Chevy pickup looked like it had been pulled out of a ditch that it had been left in for about 30 years, then was worked for about 30 years more while driving down every dirt and gravel road in North America. It was so caked in dirt that it was almost impossible to tell that it had a red coat of paint underneath, and said layer of dirt was probably the only thing holding the vehicle together at all. Between all the loose panels, the sheer debris buildup likely doubling the vehicle’s overall mass, and the way the engine rattled several decibels above anything else on the road, it seemed as though one good pothole would make the entire thing shatter like a tower of jenga blocks that someone had struck as hard as they could with a socket wrench.

All that being said about the vehicle, however: it had heat. The vent in the dashboard as well as the one tucked in the space where the passenger’s legs would go was belching hot air directly onto Sunset's prickling legs, and it was absolutely magnificent. Sunset sighed a heavenly sigh, sinking back into the tattered leather seat as the vehicle rumbled and began to move into the intersection. "H'ohthankthestars."

Applejack gave a single amused "Heh," looking at Sunset out the side of her vision as she navigated the vehicle into the flow of morning traffic. "Dressin' a lil' light fer this weather, aincha? I'm gettin' cold just lookin' at ya."

Sunset nodded, still completely awash in the relief of the truck's glorious heating to think of much else. "Didn't expect to be walking."

"Well, fancy that! I didn't expect you’d be walkin', either." Applejack flashed Sunset a grin. "Lucky you. Actually, thinkin' on it," only a slight pause as the rickety Chevy pickup did a slow turn into the other lane, "lucky me too! I ain't seen much of ya these days, and I been missin' you."

"You have, huh?"

Sunset must have done a worse job at covering up the sound of walls rising than she intended, because Applejack looked surprised by the doubtful tone. "Course I have, sugarcube! I ain't seen hide 'er hair 'a you fer goin' on months now. I mean heck, I wouldn't'a halfway known you was even around, if Rares wasn't lettin' us know you was still kickin'."

Sunset didn't have much to say to that. While the heat still felt great, she was far less relaxed now that it had fully registered where she was and who she was talking to. She kept her eyes forward on the road ahead of the truck, not looking Applejack's way, though she could feel the farmer's eyes on her through the side of her head.

After a few more seconds, Applejack finally asked: "Are you mad at me, sugarcube?"

"No," Sunset replied, though it was only in the second or two following this that she actually thought about the question. After a few more moments, she shook her head and repeated, "No.” She willed her shoulders to un-tense where she had begun to hunch forward slightly. “Um...sorry, I'm not, no. It's been a rough morning."

This, in turn, made Applejack relax a bit, the edges of her lips tugging up as she gave her passenger a brief once-over before looking back at the road again. "...heh, well. No offense, sugarcube, but ya look it."

Sunset's lips curled upwards, grimly smiling at her own expense as she wondered what she must look like right now. "That bad, huh?"

"If by 'that bad' ya mean about as well put-together as a set 'a Lincoln logs in a barrel fulla monkeys, then yeah,” Applejack nodded along conversationally, “'bout that bad."

That coaxed a laugh up out of Sunset, smiling despite herself. "Yyyyyep. I've been awake for about twenty minutes, and in that time I've found reason to hate everything and everyone. Not my finest hour."

"Yeesh. Well ya know what?" Applejack gave the steering wheel a thump with one hand as her tone became more cheerful. "Let's change that! Startin' with gettin' you where ya need to be right'n proper-like. Where ya headed, sugarcube?"

…right, she did have places to be. "School. I'm really late."

Silence was Sunset's answer. She could already tell something wasn't adding up, and as she looked at Applejack, she saw the farmer looking back at her, giving her an odd look with a furrowed brow. "What're ya headin' there for?"

Sunset found a growing sense of concern rising up in her, and as she thought of why this could be, she realized something: Applejack was also here at this hour. It was 11:23 AM, according to the dashboard clock, and yet here Applejack was, driving around picking her up instead of being in class that should be in session right now. Why wasn't she in school?

"You do realize it's Saturday, right?"

And with a simple combination of equally simple words, Applejack spoke the exact incantation needed to pop the cork on Sunset's soul and allow all remaining will to live to escape her body simultaneously. Her eyes slid closed, and as she turned back around in her seat, she made the very meaningful, deliberate effort to not let her hands come into contact with anything in this vehicle that they were not already touching out of consideration for the driver.

"...I'mma take that as a 'no.'"

Sunset sat very slowly back into the passenger seat, replying with entirely too much control in her voice, "No."

"Welp." There wasn't much sound in the truck for several seconds except the motor's own excessively reverberating rumbling as it ran, though after a while Applejack let out an awkward chuckle. "Wow, you wasn’t kiddin' about the rough mornin', huh?"

Sunset said absolutely nothing and did not move a muscle.

Applejack shook her head with a smile, equal parts understanding and just a pinch entertained. “Let’s uh,” she took a turn to their left, though Sunset did not see to where, “let’s getcha somethin’ in yer belly, alright?” This elicited no response. After a few seconds she followed up with, “Don’t suppose this’s one of them there rough mornin’s where ya had time to have a proper breakfast, was it?”

Sunset silently shook her head.

“Well there ya go!” A resonating thump through Sunset’s seat marked where Applejack had given the spot by her shoulder a camaraderic thump in favor of the girl herself. “Best first step ‘a turnin’ any bad day around: a nice hot meal. Works every time! We’ll have you as right as rain before ya know it. Matter ‘a fact,” the truck slowed as it prepared for another imminent turn, “I know just the place. Yer gonna love it. Neat little place, I found- heh,” the grin that just manifested was as audible as it was visible. “Alright, so back last year, I was headin’ down this way with Mac- he had the truck, see, and he’d just picked me up, cuz we was haulin’ the last pumpkins that’d come in that season. Real nice haul. We was passin’ through this street right here - and there was like fifty pumpkins in the back, mind, and they wasn’t small ones, I’m talkin’ ‘could feed a family ‘a seven ‘er eight’ levels ‘a fat ol’ thangs - and he says to me outta nowhere-“

Sunset was only half-listening. Even then, it was likely that only half of her half-listening was functioning as intended with the amount of fog still hanging thick over her thoughts. The anger did well to wake her up and to increase the forcefulness of her presence, but cloudy thoughts are still cloudy thoughts, even if they slammed into her consciousness at Mach 3 and translated into action just as fast. If you asked her to remember even just parts of what Applejack was currently saying (and just kept on saying), she’d struggle to come up with any examples.

In saying that, though, Applejack was also just nice to listen to. She had this way of having a full-on conversation with herself in how she continually prompted her own segues into different topics, each of which she seemed to have some kind of story she was ready to tell, yet in spite of completely filling the airspace with a constant stream of never-ending chatter, it was oftentimes nice to just…let her talk. Even when not paying attention to anything she said, she had a pleasant voice and always seemed to be enjoying whatever she was talking about in a way that almost made you want to listen. Failing that, if you were tuning out and didn’t have anything else to focus on, the quality of her voice was pleasant enough that it made for good background noise to zen out to. You could probably fall asleep to her voice if she was really going on and if you weren’t carefu-

Time skipped. They were no longer moving. A gentle nudge made Sunset’s eyes open, though she did not remember closing them.

The “I’m awake” that was intended wasn’t even comprehensible to her own ears, never mind Applejack…though as she blinked the sleep from her eyes and looked at who was leaning into the truck through the now open passenger door, Sunset did not see Applejack’s face.

”There you are.” Rarity’s voice was already soft, though it somehow managed to soften further as she smiled and warmly half-sung, “Hi, darling~”

“Hey.” Sunset didn’t think about returning the smile, and it came out wide and full all on its own. “What’re you doing here?”

“Well, I happened to be nearby when I was informed you’d chosen a rather peculiar spot to take a nap.” At this, Rarity gave Sunset an appraising stare and an arch of the eyebrow. “What have we learned about staying up all night, mm?”

Sunset lowered her head slightly at Rarity and quirked an eyebrow. “You know, it wouldn’t happen nearly as often if not for you.”

“That is entirely beside the point.”

Sunset smirked, about to say something more when movement caught her eye, and the farm girl smiling at them reminded Sunset that it wasn’t just the two of them right now and that maybe she should be a little more conservative than her intended response would have been. She glanced forward through the windshield as Applejack approached, briefly taking stock of where they were.

It was a very long, narrow building with a pink wall and green roof that stretched out horizontally across most of the length of the parking lot in front of it, with the entire wall mostly consisting of windows. The aesthetic had a very old-timey vibe that Sunset wasn’t overly familiar with other than in art and pictures online of advertisements for products that had come out the better part of a century ago in the human world. The most noteworthy thing about the place, in her mind, was the way the roof was designed. Atop the overhang and the rest of the roof, it appeared that the back end of a particularly massive oldie-style convertible with gold spikes for rear headlights had passed over the top of the structure and was stuck like that, wedged ass-up in the alley between the diner and the building in the lot behind it.

Sunset snorted and chuckled groggily at the sight. “What is this, bad parking jobs anonymous?”

Rarity mumbled something under her breath that Sunset didn’t quite catch (something about her mother’s parking), unlatching Sunset’s seatbelt as she leaned back around the open truck door to ask Applejack, “What’s this place called again?”

“Sweet Snacks Cafe!” Applejack called back. Applejack leaned forward to see around the door and flashes Sunset a smile. “Mornin’, sleepyhead. Er, well, it’s not so much mornin’ now, but…”

Sunset smiled apologetically and in greeting in equal measure - she instinctively pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time, only to be greeted by a black screen that refused to light. “What time is it?”

“‘Bout half-past noon. I think you was out fer like an hour.”

Rarity shot Applejack an affronted look with a scoff to match. “You left the poor girl here for an hour, just sitting in the parking lot?”

“Well it’s not like I walked off on ‘er!” Applejack protested, looking more than a little sheepish despite it. “I mean, she obviously needed the shut-eye, so I couldn’t just shove ‘er out.”

Rarity rolled her eyes and shook her head, turning her attention from Applejack and instead helping work a bleary Sunset out from the seatbelt she was being rather slow to remove herself from. ”Honestly.”

“Oh don’t you honestly me, yer gettin’ a meal outta this.” Applejack put her hands on her hips as she scolded. “Ain’t yo momma never tell you ‘bout lookin’ a gift horse in th’ mouth?”

“Well a gift horse is nice and all, but I wish it had at least brushed its teeth first. It could do with some floss while it’s at it.”

Applejack threw her head back and moaned equally to her as the sky, “Cripe’s sake, woman.”

Sunset couldn’t help but chuckle along as she rubbed some of the lingering grogginess out of her eyes. She followed Rarity’s lead and slid out of the mud-caked pickup, taking a little extra care to not bring any of the mud along with her as she did - wouldn’t want Rarity to have a stroke. She still wasn’t entirely present yet, and she didn’t say much while Applejack and Rarity bickered, simply staying next to Rarity as they went inside.

The three of them stepped out of the late autumn afternoon of modern day and directly into a time machine currently calibrated to the 1950s. The colors were a bit more on the pastel side compared to what few scenes of such places Sunset had ever seen - lots of pinks and greens and blues intermingled with the usual reds and whites on the seats and wall décor - but beyond that, it was the spitting image of how media had portrayed a 50s diner, complete with the iconic circular seats lined up against the counter, strips of neon lights along the top of the wall where it met the ceiling, and a soda machine where the alcohol shelving in a bar would go. There was even a jukebox in the corner, and some space for dancing to it tucked aside away from the seating. It wasn’t being used currently, so it wasn’t clear if it worked or if that was just part of the décor. There were about six other people here in three of the booths, so not terribly full.

“They certainly don’t slouch on the aesthetic,” Rarity commented as the doors closed behind them. “A bit niche, in my opinion, but I can’t fault the dedication…”

“I think it’s neat!” Applejack led the way in, unzipping her jacket as she selected a booth seemingly at random to nominate as their seating spot. “Only other place I found in town that’s got one’a them there classic soda fountain thangs. Y’all shoulda seen how excited Granny Smith got about it when we hauled her in here one time. Ya woulda thought Hearth’s Warmin’d come early!”

The two friends continued chattering. Sunset remained quiet, silently sticking by Rarity as Applejack led them to the booth she’d apparently chosen. She opted to leave her jacket on as the other two shed their coats and made themselves more comfortable. Rarity slipped in the seat next to her while Applejack sat across from both of them.

While the two Rainbooms talked and bantered, Sunset’s eyes briefly touched on the few patrons here and what staff she could see, inspecting for faces she knew. None of the patrons were remotely familiar, but the employees all seemed to be concerningly close to the trio’s age group, sans the middle-aged woman behind the counter. No one seemed to recognize any of them.

Sunset swallowed and crossed her arms, sinking down a little in her seat as her eyes gravitated to the window that made up the wall to her right. Normally she preferred wall seats, but the fact that anyone on the street outside could peer in and see her seated here left Sunset feeling particularly exposed.

The sensation of a gentle weight on her arm brought Sunset’s mind back into focus. She turned her head to look and saw Rarity’s hand resting on her arm, with Rarity herself giving her a concerned look. She didn’t say the words, ‘Are you ok?’, though her face did.

Sunset smiled. She didn’t respond verbally either, giving a smaller, slightly different smile that seemed to do what she intended it to do, as Rarity gave a small smile in turn - understanding or sympathy, a little hard to read, but appeased nonetheless. The hand left her arm, and Sunset felt a little weight leave her shoulders.

It was a very brief exchange, but one that Applejack seemed very interested in, judging by how she watched the both of them. “You two really have been gettin’ along, huh?”

Sunset didn’t know what to say to this, shrugging helplessly with an awkward smile. Rarity flipped some of her hair a little over her shoulder with a dispassionate air, leaning forward to examine herself in the window past Sunset. “I’m not certain what you expected, darling. I’m positively spilling over with character.”

“Yer definitely a character, I’ll give ya that.” Applejack was spared whatever was intended to follow Rarity’s scalding look by a well-timed leaning to the side just out of the booth, waving down the waitress that was already on her way to their table. “‘Scuse me miss, you got an oversized lump ‘a bubblegum back there somewhere?”

The waitress - a girl with green-tinted skin and maroon hair who definitely could be their classmate, but who Sunset hadn’t seen before - only paused a split second before she laughed, “I’m guessing you mean Pinkie!”

Sunset’s head snapped towards Applejack with a start.

Applejack gave the waitress a finger gun and declared, ”That’s the ticket! She ain’t popped up from under our table yet, so I figured…”

“Yeah, no, sorry! She doesn’t come in until four today, I think.”

“Aw, shoot.” Applejack’s hand fell back to the table. “Rotten luck.”

“Pinkie works here?” Rarity asked, echoing Sunset’s thoughts. Her voice was calm, though it had an edge to it.

It seemed to escape Applejack’s notice, as she care-freely replied, “Yep!” She then looked over at Rarity, saw her hard expression, and frowned. “What?”

Rarity cast a quick glance at Sunset. Sunset, in turn, looked at Rarity, posture stiff and tension no doubt written all over her face. Rarity turned back around, but rather than respond to the question, she looked at the waitress and oh-so-cordially told her, “Three waters, please.” The girl’s response was cut off by Rarity snapping her head back at Applejack and crisply demanding, “A word, if you would.”

Applejack threw her arms out with a vexed sound, visibly asking what she did wrong, though Rarity didn’t acknowledge it and swiftly rose to march to the bathrooms. Applejack, left with little other recourse, stood and followed her. The waitress, no doubt confused but more than capable of reading a room, said absolutely nothing and scooted back to the kitchen.

Sunset’s chest felt like it had constricted about a half-inch inwards. She stared off in the direction that Rarity had made off with Applejack in, one hand gripping the table tightly where it had been resting when she suddenly realized she had no control over the situation.

She shouldn’t be surprised. She had known that the Rainbooms wouldn’t be willing to sit back and do nothing forever - undoubtedly they were doing things in the background, even if she couldn’t see them or tell what they were up to. Of course they’d start making moves of their own eventually. She expected it.

But what she hadn’t expected was that they would sneak up on her. That’s what this felt like: like they’d intended to creep up on her when her guard was down, and she’d almost let them. She should have known the moment Applejack ‘happened’ by her on the street. Had they planned that? How many of them were going to just ‘happen’ to drop by today? Two of five were already here, and a third one apparently worked at this restaurant. Give it five minutes and she’d be surrounded on all sides by each of them, cornered, being shook down for answers. She didn’t even have an excuse to leave that wouldn’t evoke scrutiny. No clean exit.

She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be in this situation. This was a mistake.

Sunset’s eyes found the street outside the diner window. She didn’t recognize the area outside, and her brief nap and generally sleep-deprived state coming in had denied her knowledge of which way they’d come to get here. It was entirely possible she would be out and walking for quite some time before she found an area she recognized. Canterlot was a big place, and she wasn’t dressed to be out in it.

Maybe it’s worth it.

It was in the midst of Sunset’s deliberations of escape that Rarity emerged from the bathroom. Her stride straddled the line between ‘purposeful’ and ‘brisk’ as she made her way back to the booth, then leaned forward and insulated her apparent displeasure with a softly asked, “Darling, do you want to go?”

Sunset stared at Rarity for a second or two, processing the question, then gave her a terse pair of nods.

“Alright.” Rarity reached into the booth next to Sunset and pulled her coat and purse from the seat. “Grab your things.”

Sunset barely thought, just started moving. There wasn’t anything she brought that she was not already wearing or had in her pocket, so she quickly got up from the seat and emerged from the booth as Rarity slipped her coat on. Rarity then gently took Sunset by the arm and the two strode down the aisle back to the front door, passing a somewhat confused waitress with their waters on a tray. Sunset didn’t know whether Applejack had left the bathroom or not, and she took great care throughout the entire process of leaving to not cast a glance anywhere near the back.

They left the diner, and Sunset didn’t stop moving till she reached Rarity’s station wagon, which looked weirdly normal in the parking lot of this old-fashioned restaurant. Sunset might have appreciated it more if she didn’t have her hand glued to the passenger door handle, opening it the instant Rarity unlocked the car. The feeling of the leather seat to Sunset's back brought a wave of relief, and as she slammed the door shut, she let her head fall back against the headrest and breathed out a quiet sigh.

Rarity was not quite as hasty to get in the turquoise station wagon, though she didn't keep Sunset waiting long before she was in the vehicle as well and buckled herself in with a steely kind of calm that betrayed the heat it was holding back with its forcefulness. “There are days where I could backhand that girl,” she growled just over the sound of the engine starting, “There really are.”

Sunset did not intend to say anything. Now that it was just her and Rarity, however, she swallowed the lump in her throat and asked with a stilted cordiality, “What was that about?”

It was briefly unclear who Rarity was scowling and shaking her head at - Applejack or the guy who didn’t slow down at all as Rarity tried to merge onto the main road as she pulled out of the driveway - but Sunset knew where her money was at. “I told her. I told her, do not crowd. I told her to give you some space, and then she-“ She mouthed the start of a few words, hand raising to emphasize some point she didn’t end up making, and then slapped her palm back down at the steering wheel, glowering at the road as she breathed out a fuming breath.

Sunset was silent. She watched Rarity, but otherwise didn’t move or speak. Rarity followed this example for a little while, save only for the necessary motions to continue driving, though the smoldering energy hanging over her did not ebb as time passed.

It remained like that for a while. Sunset’s attention eventually left Rarity as minutes passed, eyes finding the cityscape all around them as it streaked by at a rate that felt a half-notch above the normal speed limit.

“Nobody ever listens to me,” Rarity snapped suddenly, voice audibly rippling with heatwaves. “Maybe at the start, but then it stops. It’s like they’ll humor me at first, but then they get tired of playing along, or decide I’ve had enough attention. No one sticks to my suggestions. No one ever–“ her hand slammed against the steering wheel, “–takes me seriously.”

Sunset said nothing, and found herself quite still, both outside and inside.

“Is it because I like a little bit of flare?” Rarity waved her hand in a spiral going up as she continued, getting progressively more animated as she went. “Because I like being over the top sometimes? Does that make me silly? Am I incompetent because I do a little bit of performative nonsense to entertain myself? Is that how it is? ‘Oh, she doesn’t take anything seriously! Look at her, doing her little song and dance, she must be some kind of idiot. There’s no way she’s invested, or cares, or could possibly know what the hell she’s going on about!’” The hand she had been gesticulating with came slamming down against the steering wheel again with a hard thump. ”God forbid I keep myself sane with all this shit going on around me. They have no idea what I deal with on a daily basis. Fuck it, maybe I shouldn’t care. It’s not being appreciated anyway, and I’d probably be a lot happier if I just didn’t give a fuck. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Just be an awful person, not care about anyone else’s feelings? How positively splendid that would be!”

Sunset barely heard herself speak up: “It wouldn’t.”

The tirade stopped as suddenly as it began, though Sunset didn’t know whether it had anything to do with what she’d said, or if Rarity had even heard her. She watched Rarity clench the wheel with a white-knuckled grip, wishing bloody murder upon the world with her eyes alone. Sunset failed to breathe until the momentum of the vehicle suddenly ebbed - Rarity realizing how fast she had been going and taking her foot off the accelerator. Sunset couldn’t see the speedometer, but she was reasonably sure that they had briefly reached freeway speeds on what was most certainly not a freeway.

There was no more talking after that. Sunset had her attention divided evenly for a while between Rarity and the road, though the road eventually won over and treated her to the never-ending procession of the sights of Canterlot as they drove straight through the city and out the other side. She had no idea where they were headed, but she also didn’t really care. No doubt Rarity didn’t, either. She may have been driving, but both of them were along for the ride at that point.

At some point during the drive, the sun had come out from behind the clouds, complimenting the car’s heater with the warmth of midday sunlight. Sunset found her mind going slightly numb from the warmth in addition to the monotonous harmony of the road’s hum and station wagon’s motor, and as the passage of time steadily lost all meaning, the post-stress crash set in. Sensing the energy already on its way out, the lack of sleep seized the opportunity to close the distance. Holding her eyes open was too difficult, so she allowed them to close.

Sunset faded in and out of consciousness at that point. She remembered very little of the drive from then on, her clearest memories being small disjointed blurbs of attempting to find a comfortable position to lean and a half-decent spot to put her head, as none of the spots she could most readily find were particularly good. She must have found out how to lean the seat back, because eventually she was most of the way horizontal where she laid.

Most of the sleep was dreamless. At some point, however, consciousness lapsed and made way for a terse, feverish series of feelings and images that Sunset would hesitate to describe as a dream, though no other words fit to describe it. She dreamed she was being beaten by something - maybe a whip, she couldn’t remember - and it didn’t really hurt, though in the dream she would grunt and cry out with each strike against her as though it did, and was distantly aware of the knowledge that it should. Her mouth felt very dry and like it was full of something, and despite her best effort, she struggled to make any kind of noise.

The transition in the dream was abrupt. She next had one of those dreams where she had a fairly clear view, or at least perceived view, of where she was. It was Rarity’s car, and she could see it, though she couldn’t look around and most of the details were wrong - a lack of doors, for instance. There was a weight against her, though it wasn’t uncomfortable. Time didn’t have much meaning in this odd in-between state of conscious and unconscious, though she could tell it was passing. She felt something against her face and lips at one point, though she wasn’t able to think about it.

Consciousness came without a transition - she simply surfaced, and saw things now. Sunset was laying back in Rarity’s car, which was both still and quiet, seat completely reclined. The sun had gone back behind the clouds outside, and the outside world was tinted a whitish-grayish tint compared to the last time she saw it. She could see trees flanking the roads from where she was laying, and for the most part all was quiet. Every once in a while there would be a faint sound of a car passing nearby.

Rarity was not in the driver’s seat. She was, in fact, in Sunset’s seat, currently laying atop her on her side. Half of Sunset’s vision was filled with purple from the top of Rarity’s head, and she felt a pressure around her waist through her jacket that must have been Rarity’s arm around her.

Sunset, having woken up seconds ago and still not feeling particularly rested, did not have the mental faculties necessary to think about this. She instead sluggishly willed her arms to move, placing them around Rarity. It was a light hug at first, though it didn’t last long, and her arms ended up just lying atop Rarity’s body where it laid atop her own.

One of the few thoughts Sunset managed to have was how odd it felt. This was the most she’d ever touched Rarity at once. She didn’t have her coat on, so Sunset could easily feel the shape of her torso and back under her shirt. It was odd. Nice, though. Stranger was the faintest scent of cigarette smoke, though that thought ended there.

Rarity shifted ever so slightly at one point. Her head moved up more towards Sunset’s face, who tucked her chin down a bit to let her face gently press into the top of Rarity’s head. The next shift of Rarity’s felt like a response to it - a gentle nestling closer.

Neither of them spoke. The one and only sound was the occasional passing car on a nearby road out of sight, which served only as intermittent background noise.

It wasn’t clear how long they laid there like that. Eventually, however, the comfort of the environment and the warmth of the midday sun pulled Sunset’s mind into the fog. Her senses blinked out as her mind was gently nudged back into dreamless, peaceful sleep.