In Paper and Bones

by EpicGamer10075

Rating: everyone
Tags: Other, Romance, Sunset Shimmer, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 6249

It may have started as a simply infatuation, but Sunset wasn't content to let it rest, even she had to bend what reality truly was to be with that Skeleton that struck her so...

The concept of what is ‘real’ is an interesting subject, truly, and is oft debated to this day, and shall be for eternities to come. Lines of thought around it have brought the most brilliant of mares down into madness, all while being ignored by those who cannot comprehend such madness.

Ignorance may be bliss, but sometimes one may be forced to ask themselves what they truly are, if they are real or merely the product of another’s imagination, and if they have any free will at all... Some may find these questions less hazardous, and simply accept it all, but others will push the bounds of what it means to be real, bending the truth to their will, and all for the sake of a simple infatuation...

Sunset x Skellinore ship, done for the Sunset x Villain Monster-Shipping Contest, as well as the May Pairings Contest

Published 2024-05-13 02:30:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-05-13 02:30:00 UTC

More Than Just Fiction

It all started as a dumb hobby.

It was a game Sunset played between herself and some of her friends, but as others were dragged in, it eventually went off the rails.

Apparently, just sitting at a table and imagining the stuff the fictional characters were going through wasn’t enough for some, so some others decided to hijack the spellwork of an enchanted comic book so they all could truly be inside the story.

Thankfully it worked with no real ill effect, but Sunset had started to have doubts about it all after she had helped kick it all off. She wasn’t the type to get philosophical or think through her actions that much, but the consequences had begun to weigh down on her, as now it meant something so very precious to her was hanging in the balance...

And now, she found herself within the world of the game once again, the rather generic woodlands around her seeming more familiar than ever after her numerous revisits to this place. She wore her crimson fire warlock outfit as she trotted across the paths and teleported past fallen trees, keeping her horn lit as she travelled in case of any unwanted enemies as she kept her eyes peeled for—

Her.

Sunset knew there was not a reason in Tartarus that she should have felt what she did for the creature she saw, as not only was it a monster meant for nothing more than blocking her path, it was also a completely fictional creature that a dubious—at best—consciousness, and thus, ability to even feel anything in return for Sunset.

Perhaps it was simple spite that the Unicorn wanted her, or perhaps...

Perhaps it was just because she was so cute.

Sunset, despite all her tenacity and stubbornness, had no recourse but to admit that to herself, especially with how the creature acted as she watched from afar. She mostly just wandered about, looking for any would-be adventurers to slay, peering about curiously and wiggling her body in a mix of what seemed like nervousness and eagerness. Of course, with her backside facing the Unicorn that keenly watched her so, her little wiggles showed off what lay back there, which could best be described as...

Absolutely nothing.

Sunset slapped herself as she caught herself somehow being so fascinated with the barely existent hindquarters of a literal Skeleton, despite their being nothing to be fascinated by except for the joints between a few bones. And, while she may have been a nerd, she wasn’t as much a nerd as Twilight, who would actively study such anatomy—though, certainly with no success, as it was all a fiction...

Really, it was that bull-headed Alicorn’s idea to actually create this whole world anyhow, and in turn, put Sunset into the situation she now found herself in, on multiple different levels. Obviously, the world itself was one such facet, and another was how she was going behind her friends’ backs to visit the Skeleton she so desired, but the rest...

Well, the recklessness of jumping into a fictional world created in an afternoon didn’t stay quelled by its novelty for long.

Sunset could recall the look Rarity had given Twilight when the possible dangers were brought back up; sure, she, Starlight, Sunset herself, and even Trixie (mainly to keep the world from being stale) made sure to have any real threat of injure swiftly eject a Pony out back into reality, but the possibility that they could’ve screwed up was not something that could be ignored. Edge cases about what would eject them needed to be considered too, and given the time frame, there’d inevitably be some, so the worries were definitely founded.

While Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Spike may have generally been keen on trusting the mages with their work, their own lives being put at the mercy of a hastily-constructed work made for little more than entertainment was too much for them, and they held their ground. Rainbow Dash may have been the one that inspired the whole idea in the first place, and Pinkie Pie just loved fun, and both of them were pretty keen on trusting their magically-inclined friends, but when they saw how affected the others were getting at the danger, they went to their side.

And then, the Unicorns and Alicorn were left alone to explore the world of their own making. As a party made of a warlock, a witch, a rogue, and a wizard, they weren’t the most balanced team, which only strengthened the gloom they felt as they tried to make something of the world they had built. Eventually, such negative emotions was enough for even the enemies they faced to pick up and comment on, with the Skeleton in particular really not wanting to hurt somepony that was already so sad.

That was the spark, and across the numerous visits Sunset and her friends went back into this world, it only grew further until she could no longer deny to herself the flame of infatuation she held within her for that creature. And then, her visits were taken on her own, and she sought the Skeleton out to learn more about her, find out what she enjoyed or did in her free time, only to find... nothing.

She really shouldn’t have been surprised, though; the Skeleton was a complete fiction and existed for no more reason than to fight and be fought, but... Sunset was determined to make sure that she had a life beyond just what she was made for, and slowly, she got results.

Games were brought and shown to the Skeleton, and Sunset soon heard of how she liked to spend time exploring or tossing axes for fun, so it was clear that spending time with her was having an effect...

BONK!

...For better or worse, Sunset reflected as she fell to the ground, a sharp pain suddenly having made itself known on the back of her head. And then, a light-hearted, somewhat scraping voice called out from behind her; “Got you.”

The Unicorn smiled in spite of the pain, and looked back and up at the Skeleton that had found her way behind her in during her own mental reflection. “Hey, Skelly,” She replied, seeing the somewhat taunting smile on that bony maw and in those green eyes amidst the black pools of sclera.

“Good to see you again, Sunset,” Skellinore returned, heading around to other side of the living mare, then threw her mini-axe into the grass beneath her, and held out her now-free boot-clad hoof to her. “I see you finally got some more time away from those nosey friends of yours.”

Sunset laughed a bit and rolled her eyes, but grabbed the Skeleton’s hoof and let her help her up to standing with a grunt from both of them. “Yeah, thankfully I got this project secured away a while ago, else I’d probably be dealing with them here, too!”

“Yes, but it does mean there’s no adventurers here for me to try and behead,” Skelly sighed in response, keeping her hoof held in the other mare’s for the time being.

“Yeah, I guess not,” Sunset replied with a smile, hardly phased by the dark sense of humour—it wasn’t like she herself was any better, after all, as she soon added; “I wish they were a bit more open to the idea of toying around with death here; we’ve already gone on this one adventure long enough, and it’s not like beheading’s the worst way to go.”

The Skeleton just shrugged in nonplusment, replying casually, “Oh well, I guess my own friends will have to do for the time being.” Grinning a bit, she pulled her hoof back from the other mare and grabbed her axe back from out of the ground, then tossed it around a bit while saying, “I can’t imagine that living Pony heads would go flying as far as a Skeleton’s. Wingdings’s certainly did, getting launched allll the way over—” She gestured widely, going from around her current position to far behind Sunset, likely over the hill and beyond the bridge, “—To the river over there. It floated along for a while, and took us a really long time to actually return to her. Turns out having your head in a completely different place makes flying really hard, so we had to hoof it.”

Sunset rolled her eyes, but then gave a light hmph at part of that; “I’ll never understand how those types of wings actually allow a creature to fly...”

“Oh, come on,” Skellinore returned with a quirked head, and gestured to the landscape around her, “Is that really weirder than this place existing at all?”

Eyeing her for a moment, Sunset then sighed and assented, “No, I guess not...” Shrugging in mild annoyance and exasperation, she sat down onto the grass below and looked around the woods they were inside of, then muttered, “I’m never gonna get used to the feeling of this world...”

The Skeleton looked around as well, to the forest and the world beyond, made of plains and mountains visible off in the distance, with caves and caverns deep underneath and castles of cloud and rainbow high above... All of it a work of fiction...

“It’s always strange for me, too,” Skelly then commented, sitting down beside the Unicorn. “My friends are always slower on the whole ‘free will’ thing, but...” She laughed lightly, swinging a foreleg around the mare to her side and saying, “We still have fun, and this is a whole world we can play in! Sure, it’s not real, but it’s as real as us, and filled with all sorts of things to see and do.”

“Yeah...” Sunset replied, her tone outwardly calm, but the moroseness in her slightly slumped posture and almost vacant gaze told the other creature what she was truly feeling.

The Skeleton pulled her closer to hive a side hug for a second, and uttered, “It’s messy. I wasn’t made to... deal with all of this.” She retreated her hoof from around the living mare to set it down just in front of her, and she slumped a bit in her own posture, her eyes flitting down to the grass in worry. “I do like this, being able to think and have friends, but there’s never going to be much beyond that, I think...”

“Yeah, well,” Sunset shrugged, slinking a hoof along the ground over to the other creature’s, “Existential dread is one of the worst things about being self-aware. Anyone intelligent enough to feel it always dragged down by it somewhat, and...” She looked over at her would-be partner, “Destroys a part of us...”

“That’s not really what I mean, Sunset,” Skellinore shot back with an understanding smile, pushing her own hoof over to settle onto the Unicorn’s as she looked over into her eyes, “We’ve already talked about that. Right now, I just mean, between us.” Her smile more solemn, but so less understanding as she continued, “I know you want to pin the blame on this world being a fiction, but it’s really just how we live in different places, Sunset. I doubt it would be all that different with Ponies that just live apart.”

“Well—” Sunset quickly tried to retort, but cut herself off with a wide-open maw as she paused to consider it.

Rubbing her hoof with her own boot in reassurance, Skelly said in kind, “I like when you visit, Sunny. I like you. But...” She sighed, looking back out at the world around them, “I also like this world, and my friends. I couldn’t leave them any sooner than you would for yours, and I don’t even know if you’ve really even considered leaving your world to join mine—permanently, at least.”

“...It’s different,” Sunset soon interjected, but eyes flitted away for a moment in thought. Bringing them back to see the Skeleton looking sideways over at her, she explained, “I can visit this place easily, but you can’t visit mine unless I allow you to stay all the time... And, with how this world’s a fiction, I can’t just leave my world and all of my friends to live here.”

“But I can?” The undead creature replied with a more dubious tone, though she clearly knew what the response would be.

Biting her lip and flitting her eyes away in shame for a moment, Sunset then said, “It’s... different. Your friends... aren’t as real as mine, or even you... This whole place could die from someone deciding they wanted to recycle our game. I...” She trailed off for a moment, keeping her gaze away as she chewed her lip further in uncertainty, “I get it... I’m really the only reason you have to be in the real world, but... I do really want you to see it. I know you’d like it,” She looked back up at the Skeleton, “I know you’d be happy there, but... I don’t know whether you’d want to stay.”

Skellinore kept her gaze on the living mare, cautiously looking back at the confliction clear in her words. After a couple seconds of silence between them, she slid her boot up along Sunset’s foreleg, going up across the fur and then the sleeves of her cloak, then resting upon her shoulder, drawing her attention to the fictional, yet all too real eyes that gazed upon her. “If you can pull me out, and I can stay there ‘all the time’,” She spoke carefully and calmly, “Then you should be able to put me back in, right?”

“Well, yeah,” The Unicorn answered with a casual shrug, “If you have any sort of body and mind and magic, you can just use the same enchantment I and my friends used to get here. It’s just—” She cut herself off, turning away once more and gulping in trepidation, “...It won’t be the same as it is now. We can go in, but we still belong out there; you can’t go out, and if we make you, then you’ll belong out there, just like all of us, and you won’t be able to reverse that...”

After a few moments’ thought, Skelly simply asked, “Does that matter?”

Sharply looking back with an open maw, Sunset paused for a second, then tilted her head to the side a bit and replied, “Well, yeah, actually... You can visit both worlds, but you won’t live here, and the enchantment has a limit on it...” Pursing her lips for a moment as she saw the confusion on the other creature’s face, she then asked, “..Do you remember when we fell asleep together, and didn’t wake up like that?”

Skelly quickly responded with a lovely smile as she said, “Of course; how could I forget those little purrs you make when snoring?”

Sunset looked away with a crimson blush, and she laughed embarrassedly, “Hehe.. yes...” Pulling in a breath and holding it for a few seconds, she then let it out noisily and looked back to the Skeleton and spoke with only some of the previous blush still on her face, “W-well, the enchantment slowly gets more strained the longer Ponies spend inside it, and we built in a failsafe that pulls them out after a few hours, and that’s what happened there.”

“Oh, okay then,” The other creature returned with appreciation, though clearly didn’t comprehend the full implications.

“Yeah, and because of that,” Sunset spoke with slightly pointed look at the Skeleton, more firmly imparting her point, “You wouldn’t be able to actually live here like you do now. You could visit, but you’d eventually get dragged out just like I did...”

With that, the realization quickly crossed Skellinore’s face, and her smile faded into a more neutral frown as she clearly pondered it for a time. Eventually though, she turned her eyes back to the Unicorn and asked tentatively, “Well, wouldn’t there also be a way to fully put me back in?”

Flitting her eyes away, Sunset squinted for a moment in thought, then shrugged uncertainly and replied, “Maybe. I already know there’s a way to pull you out, but I’m pretty sure trying to put you back in would work fundamentally differently...”

“Wait, why though?”

“It—” Sunset cut herself off, looking back into those fictitious pools that could never have been aware of the mayhem of magic that brought her to life, “...It’s really complicated, and I don’t even have the full picture yet, so...” She shook her head, looking more earnestly back at her would-be partner, “But I don’t know how much it’d matter. Like I said, you could still go here, but you’d just be living with me and friends instead.”

Skelly looked away once more, turning her eyes out across the landscape around the two creatures, seeming to reminisce on what she loved about this world and weigh her options. Sunset only kept her eyes upon the Skeleton’s own, a deep pang of horror and guilt running through her mind as she saw the pensive, uncertain look on that face that had replaced the more lovely innocent look she usually held, all due to Sunset’s own desires to pull her away from her friends...

After a short while, Skellinore looked back to the living mare beside her with uncertainly still plastered across her face, and she asked in turn, “Could you give me some more time to think about it?”

The Unicorn jerked just a bit out of her own thoughts, then nodded quickly and replied, “Uh—yeah, of course!”

A light smile returned to the Skeleton’s face as she noticed the slip, but she didn’t say anything about it, instead continuing her thoughts; “I do like talking with you, Sunny, and I’m sure your friends are really nice too. I know you all can come up with something if I want to go back here for a long time, but for now...”

“Yeah, I get it,” Sunset returned with understanding, “And I could probably come up with something, given enough time...”

“You and your friends, right?” Skelly replied with a grin, likely at the living mare’s stubborn nature driving her to complete the problem herself, but then she paused and tilted her head, then amended, “No, that’s right; you told me before that they don’t know you’ve been visiting me.”

Gulping, Sunset nodded in response, quite anxious despite the innocent way the statement leveled at her was actually spoken. “T-that’s right... But I would need to introduce you to them, if.. you were ever going to go to that world in the first place.”

“Of course, I’d like to meet them!” Skelly replied with a bigger smile, but it soon shrunk down into a calmer one as she slid her foreleg across her back, settling into place beside the Unicorn, “But I’m alright with just you for now.”

Laughing a little nervously, Sunset let her eyes linger on the innocent, enthusiastic gaze of the Skeleton as she peer out across the forest around them, both of them content for the time being with each other’s presence, but knowing there could always be more...

A Night Not of Nightmares

“Well, this isn’t really what I imagined this world would be like...”

The voice, slightly airy and filled with surprise and awe, shook Sunset out of her rumination of the magical mayhem that had brought this moment into existence, turning her attention to what—or rather, who—made it so special in the first place.

“Like...” Skellinore started, the points of her eyes looking around the massive crystalline room they stood within, “I... suppose I thought things would look less...” She trailed off uncertainly, noticing all of the furniture in the room, from all of the safety equipment on one wall to multiple magically-shielded shelves of books on another.

“Extravagant?” Sunset suggested, recalling how she had felt the same level of awe upon seeing a literal castle made of crystal.

The Skeleton slowly nodded in agreement, but eventually managed to shake her head and clear her mind, turning her gaze to the living mare with her lovely, innocent smile. “So, where is everybody?”

Sunset cringed just a tiny bit, remembering just how... persistent her friends had been with their questions about this whole enterprise, in all of its facets. “Well,” She started cautiously, mustering up a nervous smile, “They wanted to leave us mostly alone for the day, um, partially just so I could perform the spell without interruption or worry of hurting anypony.” Glancing around the room as well, she gestured to what stood in the relatively barebones room and added, “That’s also why.. we had this room setup like this in the first place; for spells that might blow up in our faces.”

Skelly tilted her head in confusion, and asked, “Is is really that big of a deal? I’ve seen you misfire spells before, and they weren’t that dangerous...”

“Those spells weren’t nearly as powerful as this one,” The Unicorn replied, looking down at the rune circle that laid across the floor, then back up the Skeleton, “And, well, the rules between this world and yours are a little different, so...”

“Oh...” Skelly muttered in acknowledgement, though not with full comprehension as she looked down at the complex network of magic that made her so. Looking back over to the living mare, she asked, “Well, so what did you want to show me first, Sunset?”

Said mare’s awkward little smile returned, and she deliberately turned her gaze to the magically-sealed door of the room, and replied, “W-well, you’ve always been the most interested in.. this world itself, and the castle... doesn’t really do it justice.”

“Ah, so outside, then?” The undead creature questioned in turn with her little head-tilt, and got a nod from the other mare, making her cheer, “Well, that sounds nice! Though,” She added, but not sounding all that accusatory, “I do still hope I get to meet your friends.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Sunset grumbled in response, “I’m sure they’ll show up sooner or later to ‘check on us’...”

“Oh...” Skellinore gasped lightly as the massive doors of the castle were opened up, revealing the quaint town of Ponyville outside, the wood houses and thatched rooves that had become so familiar to Sunset as of late being displayed below a lovely backdrop of the dark twilight sky, bands of orange and purple just above the horizon in the distance, with the void of space above it all, smattered in carefully-constructed constellations.

“Yeah...” Sunset said from the Skeleton’s side, her own eyes also somewhat captivated by the sight, “It does look a lot nicer than I thought it would before I moved here...”

“...You didn’t always live here?” Skelly asked somewhat absent-mindedly, still mostly taken by the sight that must’ve been so unfamiliar to she who had only lived in dank castle dungeons as well as empty forests and plains.

The Unicorn shrugged silently for a time, recalling where she had lived for quite some time, but then took a breath in and answered, “Nope.” Looking towards the horizon, she could spot a lone mountain in the middle of the vast plains of central Equestria, and upon its side, an extravagant city and castle, and she gestured to it and spoke, “Up there.”

The other creature glanced to her, then followed her foreleg over to the city far in the distance, then gasped a little again, and muttered a more curious, “Oh...”

The both of them remained silent as they took in the sights for some time, with Sunset rather content to simply be in the innocent little Skeleton’s presence, and she eventually looked back over to her, simply observing the wonder she was going through as it passed over her face. It was strange how such emotions could be displayed on a face made entirely of bone, but, as Sunset noticed the less awe-stricken and more simply curious look she had as she looked at Canterlot...

“I suppose I should’ve guessed those eyes wouldn’t be super good...” She muttered to herself absent-mindedly.

However, it was still loud enough to draw the attention of the other mare, who after a moment, glanced over at her and grunted out a ‘hm?’

Sunset blushed a bit at being so out of focus, but then cleared her throat and elaborated on her thoughts, “Well, your eyes... I don’t really know how they work...” Sighing just a bit, she begun to muse, “Even with the spell that made you, I can’t tell if you’re a magic construct, a pseudo-skeleton with a bunch of extra magic, or an actual skeleton with ectoplasm for any non-bone aspects...”

Skellinore blinked in response, clearly utterly befuddled by what had just been said, but then opened her mouth with a small smile and said, “Am I supposed to know what any of that meant?”

Focusing back on the other creature’s eyes, Sunset flinched a bit at her foolishness, then looked away in embarrassment. “Eh... n-no, I guess not...”

“Well... I guess it doesn’t matter,” Skelly then muttered, “Your magic worked, and I trust you know how it works, even if I don’t understand a lick of it. And, don’t even worry about trying,” She added with a slightly bemused manner, “I know you love to, but I’m not smart enough to understand it, even if you explained it a thousand times.”

The Unicorn looked back at her, seeing the calm, lovely smile of that innocence she so coveted, but beset by the words she spoke... “Don’t say that...” She said to her almost desperately, lifting a hoof to place on her shoulder so she could look her directly in the eyes, “Don’t say that like you’re an.. idiot, Skelly...”

However, instead of any somber appreciation, Skelly just laughed lightly in response. “Sunny...” She said, lifting one of her own boots to rest on Sunset’s extended foreleg, “You don’t need to feel bad about that. I’m not smart, and I wasn’t even supposed to be; I’m a Skeleton Barbarian—Tartarus, I don’t even have a physical brain!” She laughed again, pulling her boot up to knock onto her hollow skull a few times, then place back onto the living mare’s foreleg as she continued in a more sympathetic tone, “Not everyone is that smart, and I’m alright with that. You don’t need to comfort me over that, even if I do appreciate the sentiment.”

Sunset just stared back at her at that, jaw slightly agape at the casual acceptance of such aspects of herself; but then again, perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised, as Sunset herself was the main exception with how... spiteful she was about her own flaws, and how Skelly had already shown herself to to completely accepting of her existence as a fictional character with all of her facets made out of another’s imagination.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and recognized that she had been projecting with her anticipation that Skelly wouldn’t actually like being.. stupid. However, from there, she didn’t quite know what to do... except...

Looking back at the other creature, she tentatively asked of her, “S-so, what do you want to do now?”

Skelly smiled more happily at the question and replied, “Well, what do you have to do for fun around here?”

“...and now we have this piece, the Knight, which is definitely a more unique one; it moves two spaces on one axis, and one on the other,” Sunset explained, levitating the gold-painted wooden statuette of a Horse around the few places on the board it could go according to her rules, and, on the other side of the table, Skellinore sat with an observant and slightly puzzled look on her face as she watched the board. “It also doesn’t get blocked by other pieces, like how I showed with the Rook earlier, so I can just make it hop over...” She continued, moving the piece over a few Pawns to sit in the middle of the board, “...here. Got it?”

The Skeleton nodded slowly in understanding, and looked at her own pieces with a contemplative expression for some time, before then moving one of her own, midnight blue Knights over her lane of Pawns. “Is that alright?” She asked, looking back at the living mare across from her.

“Yep!” Sunset nodded eagerly in affirmation, though in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but note the less enthused demeanor of the other creature; she certainly knew how much of a nerd she herself was, and how she had hobbies to match, but... at least Skelly didn’t seem all too bothered by the prospect of a more slow-paced and thoughtful game.

...However, perhaps she should let her choose the next game, so she could actually enjoy it more than she likely would chess.

Regardless, it was her turn now and she didn’t have to spend much time thinking before moving another of her Pawns forward two spaces from its starting position, with intent to free up some of the pieces behind it, and from there—

Knock knock!

A pair of knocks suddenly came from the entryway to the castle’s Library, startling Sunset out of her thoughts and pulling her attention over to it, where the large pair of crystalline doors was opened and Rarity trotted inside.

“Oh, um, hi,” Skellinore spoke a little awkwardly at the intrusion, turning towards the mare herself, but held only a vague level of recognition on her face. “You’re... Rarity, right?”

“That’s correct, Darling,” The Unicorn replied with a light grin on her face—one that Sunset knew meant she had plans—while she closed the door behind her and approached the other two creatures. “I assume my dear friend Sunset has told you quite a lot about me, no?”

Skelly observed her, tilting her head for a moment, and then said, “She’s said a little. Mostly just what you look like and how you make clothes, as well as, um, how you’re a little... overdramatic?” She ended with a slightly nervous and guilty look, clearly able to tell some offense may have been made unintentionally.

Thankfully though, Rarity just raised an eyebrow in intrigue and looked over at Sunset, who just shrugged and deadpanned back at her, “What? I’m not wrong, you know.”

The other Unicorn tsked back at her, but after arriving before the table where the other two sat, she turned her attention back to the Skeleton in the room, and spoke, “Well, I have been made aware that you may like to meet the rest of our friends here, Miss Skellinore. Unfortunately,” She continued, sighing in a level of exasperation, “The level of work that has gone into getting you here has taken a toll on our dear Twilight, and the rest of our friends are attempting to both soothe her... shall we say, malcontent with her current situation at the moment, and prevent her from destroying anything in the process.”

“Oh...” Skelly muttered in response, guilt weighing heavy in her voice, “I didn’t realize how much of a problem that would be—”

“Hush,” Rarity stopped her from going further as she held up a hoof, “It’s not your fault, Darling, only that of Twilight herself for her present eccentricities and how she pushed herself too hard. I know little on the matter, but,” She looked over at Sunset and prompted, “Sunset, dear, you worked alongside her, I believe?”

The other mare nodded in affirmation and sighed as she recalled what happened; “Yeah, but I definitely didn’t ask Twilight to work throughout multiple nights in a row on that spell. She may be used to doing stuff like that, but even she’d get exhausted after a while, and at that point, I don’t think she was helping the spell along much, either...”

Skelly still seemed rather concerned however, and asked thusly, “So, she was just tired from working too long?

Rarity looked over at her, and Sunset could practically hear the ‘Aww, how polite!’ that must’ve been spoken within the fashion-bound mare’s mind, and cut it off by answering, “It’s a bit more than that, but still hardly your fault, Skelly. It’s more of... well, working on the spell, as well as being so delirious from sleep deprivation, seemed to make her think that since your reality wasn’t truly real, neither was ours.”

“That seems to be the case, yes,” The other Unicorn returned, and Sunset was thankful she had been there to console Twilight in her stead. “I suppose her being an Alicorn has granted her a greater sense of connection with.. the Universe, really, and leads her to believe that we’re all ‘irrelevant in the grand scheme of things’, as she has said, though I can’t claim to truly understand what she means by it all. Sunset?”

Glancing back at her friend with a level of vexation, Sunset just replied, “Why are you asking me? You’d have better luck with Celestia or Luna. If you actually want real answers, you’d probably have to ask Faust, though.”

Rarity laughed a bit in response, but Skellinore was just confused. “Who?”

Both Unicorns looked over at her from the question, and while Sunset started to think of a comprehensive answer, Rarity just shrugged lightly and replied, “Oh, just a hypothetical God-Pony, Darling. Nothing to be concerned about.”

That proved well enough an answer for the Skeleton, who uttered out an ‘oh’ of comprehension, but a thought was given to Sunset; that ‘hypothetical’ mare was supposedly known only to Celestia and Luna, so perhaps it was possible that Twilight may have garnered some awareness of her, and thus her own existence as a mere actor to Fate, upon her ascension...

Swiftly shaking her head, Sunset realized that no good would come of that train of thought, especially given the state it had already put Twilight into. Focusing back on the other two creatures with her, she managed to catch Skelly’s words as she begun to hesitantly ask, “So, um, I guess we can’t meet your other friends today?”

“Not today, no,” Rarity replied with a shake of her head, “But, given that you’re here now, I suppose you’ll be staying at the Castle, and we ought to be able to meet them tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Sunset butted in, recalling the agreement she had made with the Skeleton before pulling her into reality, “There’s a ton of other bedrooms in this place, so she can just take one of those.”

Quickly turning to the other Unicorn, Rarity let out a bewildered ‘wha..?’, and the surprise was clear on her face. After a moment, she managed to ask of her friend, “Er, I presumed you two would be sharing a room?”

Sunset quirked her head in her own bewilderment in response. “Um, no?” She replied, glancing between the other mare and a baffled Skellinore, “I know the rooms are pretty big, but it’d make us both uncomfortable as neither of us are used to dealing with other Ponies as we sleep—especially given that neither of us really have proper sleep schedules.”

“Oh?” Rarity raised an eyebrow, looking between the others as well, “I understand that for you, but...” Focusing more on the Skeleton, after a couple seconds, a grin slowly grew on her face and she stepped back as she begun to laugh. “Ohohoho... I see...”

“Rarity—” The other Unicorn started, and stated firmly, “No.”

That damned grin on the romantically-inclined mare’s face as she looked at Sunset only irritated her further, and her words made it yet worse; “I do hope your proclivities aren’t such a reason behind your partner’s discomfort, Darling.”

“That is not what’s happening, Rarity!” Sunset impressed even further upon the other living Pony, stomping a hoof onto the table for emphasis.

“Oh, so are you two simply having issues down there?”

“RARITY!” Sunset shouted back, standing up quickly and flaring her magic at the aggravating mare.

Tittering more as she backed away, Rarity seemingly couldn’t help but reply, “Oh, don’t worry about me, Darling; I just simply wish the best for you two and your relationship. But do please know that you can ask me, or any of us, if you two need some help to get it on, yes?”

Sunset only seethed harder, and the other mare quickly took that as her leave, magicking open the door behind her and hurrying out through it, but still laughing all the while even as she fled down the hall.

“U-um...” Another voice spoke up from behind Sunset, and while she didn’t process it immediately due to the irritation coursing through, when she did, she could only sigh heavily and sit back down, letting Skelly ask of her concernedly, “..Are you okay..?”

The Unicorn already found herself weighed down by the worry in that voice, and knew she couldn’t bare the Skeleton’s expression on top of that, and so kept her gaze away as she replied, “...Yeah. Just, annoyed.”

“Oh...” Skelly responded, seeming to understand that much, but was a bit skeptical. “Um, I-I don’t think she meant to annoy you...” She muttered tentatively, still seeming rather worried about her friend.

Shrugging, Sunset sighed in annoyance once more. “No, not quite...” She muttered to herself, and turned to see Skellinore looking at her with that damned worried expression, the one she recalled had infatuated her at the beginning of all of this. Gulping instinctively, she said, “Just don’t worry about her. Let’s just each other’s company for right now, yeah?”