Anarchy!!!by -newt-ChaptersPrefacePrologue: Parchment and InkBelfrys of Canterlot: Part 1Belfrys of Canterlot: Part 2Belfrys of Canterlot: Part 3PrefaceThe first words Sunset Shimmer ever spoke to me were “Look away.” As were the last. Of course, some rhetoric shuffling is required to achieve this degree of symmetry. Even in something as simple as first and last words, Sunset rejected homogeneity. You could never count on anything, with her. You could count on her. There is a difference. Anyways, back to symmetry. They were not the first and last words she addressed to me (those were scribbled into her magical journal, “Who is this?” and “Trust me.” respectively.) They were not the first and last words she spoke in my vicinity (“Excuse you!” and “I will strangle you.”) They were not even her first and last words (both unknown). But I feel these words in particular are a microcosm of our relationship – though it was my castle, my crown, and my title, she took the lead. Our relationship was not particularly contentious, or fraught with melodrama. But, at that point in our lives, Sunset was the headstrong one - the one with radical ideas about politics and change, the one with style and determination, the one with a clear-cut purpose; a goal she was working towards day and night. As for me? I was content to follow. To learn. That's who I've always been. I feel that we grew past it reasonably, if not pretty, quickly. I started grounding her more - I pushed back on her analysis, criticized her ideas, finally got a definition of lumpenproletariat that wasn't just 'anyone I don't like'. We found a balance. Because, though the first words she ever spoke to me were a command... the last were a promise. One she made with tears in her eyes, and what could arguably be called her dying breath. There's so much in those words. Look away. Don't worry. I'll be fine. Trust me. But I am wary of dedicating more than a couple of paragraphs to them. If possible, I'd rather focus on her actions. As the rules of storytelling forbid me to espouse her character to you any longer, I suppose we will have to start at the beginning. With the way most things start - that is, with parchment and ink. Prologue: Parchment and InkWhen I was ten years old, I found a dusty old journal in an even dustier, older bedroom. This wasn't an anomaly. After all, by the time I had turned ten years old, I already held the dubious honors of: Being the first pony in recorded history to lose control of their magic and reduce an entire wing of the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns to rubble. Being the only student at said School for Gifted Unicorns to completely misunderstand their assignment anddump enough magical energy into a dragon egg to hatch it. Despite both these facts, also being the first student in two decades to catch the eye of Princess Celestia and be taken under her wing as her personal student. Suffice to say, I was used to going off the beaten track. But this escapade - a search for a mystical library that contained the last of Starswirl's known work - had gone on for just a little too long already. Traipsing through silent hallways was much less fun that I thought it would be, and all the dust in the air was giving me a headache. I was too tiny to push open the windows, so I couldn't even get fresh air. What I didn't realize, at the time, is that I'd inadvertently wandered into the East Wing of the Royal Palace. This was known colloquially as 'the abandoned bit', for reasons that should be obvious. That meant no inhabitants, no guards, no servants, and - by extension - not a single adult to help out when my adventure finally went south. I screamed. I cried. I tried teleporting, but I was panicking so hard I couldn't summon a single drop of mana into my horn. Then, I ran. As hard and as far as I could, darting down random hallways and scrabbling at flights of stairs, in search of something, anything, familiar. What I found instead was a long-forgotten bedroom - posters of old bands peeling off the walls, bedsheets that had lost all their fluff, sunlight barely visible through a gap in the drooping curtains. And the dust. Oh, the dust. It was everywhere, billowing clouds of it making me twitch and sneeze. It was on the pillows, on the rug, on the hundreds and hundreds of books scattered in pillars around the room like an elaborate trap from a Daring Do novel. The first rule of getting lost is to stay in place, I remembered, and began weeping. I don't know how long I stayed there, wallowing in my self pity.It wasn't just fear that kept me there, of course. It was shame. The thought of what Celestia would do when she found me made me tremble - would she dismiss me as her student? Banish me from the kingdom? Eventually, fear gave way to boredom, and I started perusing the piles and piles of books. Some were ancient, at least a century or two old, while others were published closer to the modern day. I recognized some as books Cadance had read to me, and others as obscure magical texts. Maybe this was the library of a different, more recent grand wizard? I glanced at the desk in the corner of the room, and stopped. There, wedged between a pulp fiction novel and a textbook of theoretical thaumatology, sat a book with the sun on its spine. I bolted for it. Call me naive all you want, but I'd seen how Celestia corresponded with her most loyal staff. Parchment, vellum, everything - emblazoned with that same mark. I threw it open, scrambled for an inkpot, and began scratching out a message. And that's how I met Sunset Shimmer. Our first interaction was cutthroat. Sunset was not a fan of me"defacing" her journal, and even less of a fan of me taking her place as Celestia's student. Things got heated, we started comparing accomplishments... ...and that's when I admitted that Celestia had never told me about her. If I'd have known how much that admission would hurt Sunset, I never would have said it. But I only found out years and years after the fact - far too late to take it back. Suffice to say, she went quiet for almost ten minutes; which is a very long time when you're counting the seconds. She came back with detailed directions from what I now know was her old room to Celestia's chambers. Never write to me again, she finished. Which is why, the second I was tucked into bed that night, I lit up my horn and scribbled out another message. So, what was it like being Celestia's student? I'm not going to go through every single fight, point of contention, and bad choice we made while writing back and forth to one another. That would be a completely different story, wouldn't it? The point is, despite her animosity, we kept talking. About everything. How I was settling in to my new position, the best reading nooks in the palace, gossip among the diplomats... And, one day, the conversation turned to why Sunset left. It spiraled out of control from there. I shouldn't say that - it makes it sound like it was against my will, and it absolutely was not. Even now, looking back on it, I'm proud of what we did. I learned something important that day - to doubt. To doubt, and to verify, and only then to trust. It expanded out of control from there. That's better. From then, we were joined at the hip. For the rest of my tenure as Princess Celestia's student, Sunset remained my closest friend. We told each other everything we did, everything we thought, everything we dreamed of. We were as young and ambitious as you could get - volatile, like spilled oil. My discovery of the thousand year prophecy was the match. Before I'd even finished relaying my findings, Sunset had already arranged a rendezvous. It's about time I showed Equestria what it's been missing. We were to meet on a fine summer morning, in the belly of the beast - Canterlot itself. If the thousand year prophecy was the match, then our meeting was the fire. What was to follow changed our lives, as well as the course of Equestrian history. It was beautiful, it was crazy, it was perfect - and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Then again, it did place me, not twelve hours later, under the iron-shod hoof of a megalomaniacal tyrant. So, there's two sides to each coin. Silver linings and all. Author's Note I posted a story on this site in 2019, got embarrassed, then deleted it. In the five years since, I've posted almost none of what I wrote online. This all reached a head today morning, when I realized I have over a hundred thousand words worth of stories all in various stages of non-completion because I don't think they're "good enough" yet. I'm sick of it. This is going up, and it's going up in whatever state I can get it to by the time my self-imposed deadline hits. New chapters every Tuesday, I guess. Don't worry - I think I know where this is going. And hey, even if I don't, I promise to make it as fun as possible :) Belfrys of Canterlot: Part 1"Bells played a central role in premodern Equestria. They were used to broadcast time of day, special messages, weather information, emergencies, celebrations, and more. A manuscript from 1500 BNM describes one of the grandest uses of a town's bells - an indulgent medley that signalled the arrival of the Princesses. 'So the streets were decked in flowers of every coloration, and the bells cried hoarsely, so loud they could be heard deep in the Everfree, where they scared off game. The Princesses, in their stately gowns, bid hush so we could better hear their dulcet tones. I have never heard them sound so sweet as when Luna Herself was transfixed by their song…'" Longhoof, "Liturgy in Premodern Equestria." I second-guessed myself before I stepped out of the front door. It was far too late at that point - Spike had been tucked into his childhood bed, Mom and Dad had been assured that this was a routine outing, and Celestia was none the wiser. My saddlebags were full to bursting; emergency supplies, research notes, and my journal (aglow with a scrawled message). The gears were in motion - they weren’t going to screech to a halt for a little anxiety. None of that stopped the wormy sensation of doubt that wiggled its way through my lungs, growing larger and larger until it felt dense and tangible - a hairball I could have choked on. I closed my eyes and repeated what Mom had said to me last night when, on this very doorstep, I’d been on the verge of tears. Breathe. Ground yourself. If you want to turn back - so be it. This will always be your home, Twilight. I crossed the threshold and made sure to shut the door behind me. The sky was still dark, though bands of light were marching in legions towards the zenith. Lamplights beat against their glassy cages, sending shadows fluttering like butterflies. The streets all seemed to converge towards the eastern horizon - invisible behind the skyline, whose buildings got taller every year. Sometimes, it felt like everything in this kingdom grew towards the sun. I kept a steady tempo as I walked. One hoof, two hoof, canter, carefree. The first step to not being suspicious was acting like you had nothing to hide. The second step was believing it. Onwards, sprightly as a sparrow, down Theater Boulevard (a marketing stunt so successful the name had persisted long after the business had shuttered), along the Cousine Canal (a hotspot for the candycane black market), to the manufacturing district, where machinery sang unceasing hymns to industrialization and the canals ran black with soot. I cantered just a little faster and tried not to breathe. The manufacturing district, with its belching smokestacks and endless stream of workers, was the bulwark of the richer neighborhoods. I supposed the industrialists preferred seeing their factories on the horizon to the slums that - make no mistake - they had had just as much of a hoof in creating. I slowed when the streets narrowed to single-file width. If I walked just a block or two further, the city would fall away under my hooves. Built as it was on the side of a mountain, Canterlot didn’t have much room to expand. So, anytime land near the castle got bought up to build another rich neighborhood, the people living there were pushed further and further out, until eventually they were over the rim of the Canterhorn and clinging to sheer cliff faces like mountain goats. I couldn’t go down there, where the streets plunged towards sea level and the houses cried for succor from gravity. I could barely even stay here, where the buildings twisted upwards like competing trees, swallowing the last of the nascent sunlight into their concrete canopies. Academically, I knew that it was the best possible time to go for a walk: at that precise hour, I was threading the needle between the haunt of the ne'er-do-wells and the hours when the streets were packed with day-workers. I knew that it had been years since the last major landslide, and almost a decade since one without survivors. I knew that Celestia had assigned her best structural engineers to the area - in fact, looking over the edge for a vertiginous millisecond, I could see the scaffolding keeping some of the more precarious constructions in place. I could rattle off crime statistics, and which streets to avoid, and how to blend in. I had, many times, in preparation. Still, every shadow loomed, and every side-alley rattle made me jump. I turned left and continued walking. The edge (“The Lowlands”, in posh speak) was prime real estate, fresh pickings for young professionals who wanted a bit of spice in their life before they returned to their family homes and stately furnishings. Most buildings around here were apartments, a minimum of five stories high and with private security. The alleys around them smelled of burnt incense with an undertone of dead things. My voice wobbled like laminated paper. “Spike, take a - nevermind.” The echo persisted for a couple of seconds, mocking me with its shakiness and lack of conviction. At least if I was being followed, I’d hear it pretty easily. What kind of tail would follow me in here, anyways? I didn’t bother pursuing the thought. If there was a will, there was a way - and Celestia’s agents were more cunning than most. And, now, I was overthinking. Catastrophizing. If I was going to get caught, it would’ve been when I’d snuck into the restricted section of the Canterlot archives. Or when I’d tracked down Sun Chaser, a former academic of erstwhile renown who’d spent the past five years living off the land in Whitetail Woods. Or when I was corresponding with - I wasn’t going to think about that. One thing at a time, I told myself. Worry about getting there, and then you can worry about her. Besides, they weren’t going to wait until I went to a place where even the streetlamps had ulterior motives to haul me off in handcuffs. If they wanted me gone, they would’ve found me on their own terms. The absurdity of it was almost funny. The implications of my rebellious actions hadn’t even felt real until today morning - until I’d grappled with leaving everything I’d ever known behind. Spike. My parents. Raven. Crotchety old Inkwell. Shiny. Cadance. Hay, even Celestia. She’d been my mentor for seven years - a couple of epistolatory conversations couldn’t even begin to change that. Still, here I was. Deep in a brick-and-mortar forest, answering the call of the Big Bad Wolf, hoping the Bigger, Badder Grandma hadn’t set her people on my scent. She wouldn’t have. Blood of the covenant and all. You better hope you’re right, a mutinous voice sneered. Blood of the womb didn’t stop her doing much, much worse… I tried to keep my breathing steady. Hyperventilation was suspicious. A panic attack here would attract attention I didn’t want. And couldn’t afford. They could have lured you here. They could have captured her when she came out of the mirror and taken her journal. In fact, I think they have. Now, they’re going to disappear you. Just like they disappeared Luna. “Sunshine, sunshine, ladybirds awake…” I sang under my breath the rest of the way, tapping out a tune with my steps when I was gasping so hard I couldn’t make a peep. It was only two blocks, at that point, so it didn’t matter that I was playing hopscotch to make progress. You’re almost there. Three steps, two steps, one… I stopped at a cross-street that looked like it had been scored with a knife. Slab-of-brick buildings hemmed it in on both sides, and if I’d been just a little wider I wouldn’t have fit. I removed my saddlebags, levitated them in front of me, and walked the length of the street without hesitation. There was no room for hesitation, here and now. If I’d wanted to hesitate, I should’ve done it before agreeing to this harebrained scheme. The sun had just crested the horizon when I emerged onto the spur, jutting out from the Canterhorn into the sky. Canterlot hadn’t yet grown desperate enough to literally build into thin air, but with the way things were going I gave it only a couple more years. There was only one structure here - a Gothic belfry, towering and imposing, built into the side of the mountain. My destination. I walked right past its imposing facade and wrought-iron trellis. Instead, I followed a trail worn into the dirt - a natural continuation of the street I had just been on. It led me a ways up the spur, onto a knoll with knee-high grass billowing in the early-morning wind. There, I stopped. I closed my eyes. I turned towards the horizon, letting the wind and sunlight play in tandem across my face. I breathed. In, out, in, metronomic and even. “You’re here,” I said, and had to sit down. Anxiety was a strange mistress. For awhile, it gripped you by the throat. Then, abruptly, it faded. Hope blossomed. Dreams returned. The world seemed… brighter, somehow. Or maybe that was just the rising sun, splitting the sky into a rainbow of color. In that light, with the dew against my barrel and warmth against my eyes, what could possibly do me harm? I thought of the route I’d just walked. How different would the sidewalks look after the revolution? The buildings? The canals? The people? I thought of the journal and the last message Sunset had left me before she’d (presumably) crossed through the mirror. Meet me at the Lunar Cathedral - it’s an abandoned building on the easternmost spur of the Canterhorn. I’ll be there at first light. I thought of Luna and how we were going to bring her back. The spire of the cathedral caught the light of the sun, glinting like an uncut jewel. It was a grand old thing, all gargoyles and vaulted arches and granite. I let my eyes track down its squat posture, all the way to the base… …where a cloaked figure, all shadows and soft edges, was barreling towards me with far too much haste for comfort. Anxiety is a strange mistress. It’ll make you worry endlessly about distant, inconsequential, or even impossible threats, while for some reason making you ignore real ones. In fairness to me, my bout of hyperventilation had probably deprived my brain of all the oxygen I needed to make split-second decisions. So, even as the figure advanced towards me, I didn’t move. “Can I help you?” I asked. I guess I was thinking it was a crusty old crone who was going to ask me to get off her lawn. “Look away,” the figure said in tones far more dulcet than any shadowy figure I’d ever known. “What?” I asked, and by the time it finally clicked that I might be in danger, it was already too late. “Look away!” The figure flicked her hood up - I saw a flash of red hair, green eyes, a blazing horn - then everything went black. Author's Note Wow, I wasn't kidding when I said this thing was going up in whatever state I got it to. Tone is kinda all over the place, I had a really hard time balancing where I want this to be (campy adventure) with the seriousness of Twilight and Sunset fighting a deep seated conspiracy in the highest levels of governance. But I'm proud of it, especially with all my false starts and especially since I wrote this entire thing in the five hours I had after work today. There might be some broken formatting in here, let me know if so and I will fix it. Hope y'all enjoy! Belfrys of Canterlot: Part 2I dreamed of Celestia. It started as a dream about a beach. Sand in my fur, salt-water in my eyes, air heavy with the weight of a clear, blue sky. Waves frolicked and tossed playfully. They were nothing like the books; no shipwreckers sending geysers of spray skywards, no accursed depths and slimy creatures, no, these waves were practically domesticated. They lapped up at my hooves timidly, then retreated for fear of reprimand. Celestia was standing at my side, dress flapping in the breeze. Most of my dreams came back to her, one way or another. “What are you doing?” She asked. “Recording the erosion of a sandcastle.” I tilted my chin towards a rambling old ruin that, scarcely a half-hour ago, had been a grand affair with ramparts and a moat. Now its crenelations had dropped away and the waves were tearing at its innards like vultures. Everything crumbles, I thought with the sage wisdom of someone who still had their wisdom teeth. Celestia nodded, not quite understanding but happy to let me continue. I don’t remember why we were there (or where ‘there’ was) but it couldn’t have been a surprise, because she was dressed for the occasion - a frilly sundress and a sun-hat, both apple-flesh white. Behind her, I could see a city climbing into the sky - a forest of small, blue-white houses that stood out against the mountainside like teeth. I stopped what I was doing and turned to face her. I was used to grown ups not fully engaging with me - but Celestia was different. She always had an interesting question, a new angle from which to tackle the problem. That today she was being so silent was confusing to me. Or, maybe, it was simpler than that - studies show that children are good at picking up on subtle signs that their caregiver is feeling off. In hindsight, the signs weren't especially subtle. When I hear the word melancholy, I think of Celestia on that day. The sun in her eyes, the wind in her hair, a beautiful city behind her, and a beautiful sea to match. Her student there with her. And yet she was staring into the horizon, as if she could see through the that startling robins-egg blue. The lines on her face were pronounced - she seemed tired, if such a thing was possible. Absently, I noticed that the waves stopped right before they met her hooves. “Why do you look so sad?” I asked her. This was before I’d gotten into the habit of biting my tongue. My mouth ran away from me, without fail, at least once a week. In front of teachers, friends, maids, soldiers, parents. Celestia too, on occasion. But I suspect my observations had never before been this astute. She flinched like she’d been struck. “Twilight, I-” Her eyes flicked up, and I turned in time to see a wave - a real wave, not the playful ones that had been nipping at us for hours - roar up, foaming like a rabid dog. It blocked out the sun. I didn’t put up my hooves. I knew Celestia would protect me. And, sure enough, an instant before it hit, the wave dissolved into a fine mist. I turned back to face her - though my hair was soaked through, clinging to my cheeks, hers was perfectly dry. “Was that why you were sad?” Her face did this curious thing, then. It went perfectly motionless, taught and proud, like the old portraits she kept in the abandoned wing of the palace. Featureless as a statue. “…many years ago,” she spoke in a voice as distant as a cloud, “I left something here. Something of… importance.” Before I could reach out and touch her to see if she had turned to stone, I felt something pool around my haunches. The waves were back, more timid than ever. They drained away slowly, cautiously, picking their way around myself, the sandcastle, and Celestia’s pristine hooves. “Why don’t we go somewhere else?” Celestia asked me. That was where the dream collapsed. Celestia flickered, her voice cracking like a skipping-record, and I was falling backwards into an unimaginable darkness. Lakes in the dead of night, wellspring-eyes, an ocean of water cresting into a tidal wave that hung, motionless, above me. If I moved, if I breathed, if I so much as blinked, it would fall. Celestia couldn’t protect me from this one. Or, maybe, she didn’t want to. The roaring of water became too loud to bear. I felt tingly, all over, as if I was trapped in something’s thaumatic grip. The world spun, faster and faster. At some point during the carousel, I awoke. Stars swam before my eyes, and for a moment I wondered if I too had been banished to the moon. Then, the dizziness faded into a deafening headache, the tinnitus so loud I had to grit my teeth against it. Every part of my body throbbed with my pulse. With trepidation, I cracked open one eye. Nothing of note. Dust motes, a shattered balustrade, rotting wood and gaps in the slats through which I could see the afternoon sky. I was inside the belfry, clearly, and it looked the way I felt - a ruin, crumbled away, waves pounding at my innards. “You’re awake.” A figure emerged from the dark corner of the room, wrapped in a dark brown cloak. It was the unmistakable garb of a ne'er-do-well. I did my best to turn my wince into a glower. “Feel better?” They asked. I spat my words at them. “You’ll never get what you want from me.” “Well, that’s a shame. I’ve traveled so far, after all…” Their magic flared bright red. I gasped - then breathed a sigh of relief. The pounding in my head receded, then ceased. “W-what-” “Relax, Twi.” My captor shot me another grin - I caught a flash of teeth below the cloak - then, like a magician pulling away a tablecloth, she removed her cloak. And there she was, my best friend of almost a decade, in all her glory. Tall and proud, all the colors of a warm hearth, and a vibrant smile that hovered somewhere between tired and glad. “Nice to meet you,” Sunset Shimmer said. “Now, what did you find out about Princess Luna?” Author's Note The next chapter is going to be some exposition, then chapter after that is going to be some setup, and then we're going to get into the meat of the story I promise lmao. I'm really excited for the first crisis our gang has to deal with, it's going to be a huge Rube Goldberg machine of a disaster. Belfrys of Canterlot: Part 3Sunset Shimmer’s methods were an enigma until you looked at the world from her perspective. Then, they emerged naturally as the paths of least resistance - the parts of the woods where the brambles were the least thorny and, hey, if wearing a full suit of armor prevented you from getting scratched then so be it. Take, for instance, her sunglasses. Not literally, of course. As Rainbow Dash would eventually find out, Sunset could get scary when she wanted to. And if you told her she was already scary, she’d look you in the eyes and tell you she wasn’t trying yet. It took me years to understand her relationship with her glasses. First of all, they were old and worn to bits. The arms were faded, black chipped away to expose silver beneath. One was held together with “duct tape, no prayer required”. The lenses were opaque in the sunlight, but when angled just right you could make out an extensive network of scratches like the surface of an ice sheet. The corner of the left lens was cracked, though it hadn’t propagated across Sunset’s field of view. Looking at the way she wore them, you got the impression it wouldn’t have mattered if it had. They were one and the same - ragged, resplendent, resilient. She wore them constantly - outdoors, indoors, underwater, while sleeping in an unfamiliar room. If you asked her why, she’d cock her head to one side with a knowing smile; a nonverbal “wouldn’t you like to know.” And I would, very much. Very, very much. Some part of me wanted to believe it was a fashion statement. She was too cool for school, anyways - why not advertise it with her shades? And I’m sure that was part of it. But with the benefit of hindsight, it became obvious why Sunset wore sunglasses. It’s because she didn’t like eye contact. Really didn’t like it. It’s why she never looked you in the eyes unless she wanted to make a point. And even if she wasn’t looking at you at all, the glasses made it feel like she was staring, unabashed and unperturbed. When she finally did lose them - I’m getting ahead of myself, I apologize. Regardless, it makes it all the more flattering that, for our very first meeting, she chose to forgo them. Perhaps as an apology for knocking me out. As an apology it was, unfortunately, similar to many of mine; sincere, difficult for her, and entirely insufficient for me. Actually, let me rephrase that - entirely incomprehensible to me. It would be the last time I saw her eyes without her sunglasses for many years. Though I understand why I reacted the way I did, I wish I’d taken the time to admire them more. Because, though she has a habit of not believing people when they say it, they are very beautiful. Gleaming like emeralds, with all the mischief of a plunge pool. Go ahead, they seem to say. Dive in. The water’s fine! ~ “You thought I was what?” Though I tried, I was having a hard time keeping the incredulity out of my voice. “Bugged,” Sunset responded, confidently, as if that made any sense. “What does ‘being bugged’ mean, exactly?” I asked as she began fiddling with the ropes that kept me tied to this chair. With how confidently she was undoing the knots, you’d think she had a good reason for this. “Being implanted with a listening spell.” With one final heave, Sunset unshucked me from the nest of ropes. “The Protection Bureau has one of those. Along with a mind control spell, a truth serum, a machine that predicts the future-” “That one sounds fake.” “You know, I wasn’t convinced by that last one either.” Sunset glared at me, hard as steel and cold as ice. “But the rest? I’ve seen them, Twilight. You don’t know what they’re capable of.” That stopped me in my wobbly, blood-recirculating tracks. Sunset was right. I didn’t know what the Protection Bureau - the shady monolith of bureaucrats, middle-managers and secret agents (read: war criminals) - was capable of. Most documents pertaining to their cases were stored underground somewhere in the Yakyakistani mountains (some sort of treaty, last I heard). I hadn’t even known about them until Sunset had told me. I deferred. “I… I know, Sunset. But - it’s been a long morning. And I…” I trail off. It felt embarrassing, as an adult, to admit that I was scared. But what other word was there? Sunset eyed me, then clapped a hoof on my back. “That’s just what high treason is like. Tiring, isn’t it?” I smiled up at her. “It is.” She hugged me, then. And I hugged back. I think it was only then that I registered her as a real person - a tangible being instead of words on a piece of paper, magicked out of the air to plant terribly disloyal thoughts in the mind of someone supposed to be Celestia’s most loyal follower. I buried my face in her shoulder and took in her scent. She smelled of wood smoke and lavender incense - the same type Celestia burned nonstop in her wing. It should have reminded me of the terrible things my Princess had done. It should have told me that, no matter how far I ran, I’d still be in her shadow. Instead, it felt like coming back home. “Can I ask you a favor?” She asked after a while. I sniffled lightly. “Sure.” It had been an emotionally draining day. If she’d asked me to bring down the sun, I would’ve done it. Or tried my best. “Could you disguise me?” ~ Sunset’s sunglasses weren’t the only things that made her look cool and aloof. It was a medley of subconscious signals, most of which wouldn’t be apparent without deep study. Thankfully, after all this time (and all these disguises) I’ve become an expert. Her collar was always up. She never stood - she leaned, either against a wall, an inanimate object, or other people. Her hair was cropped short and spiked up, so at a glance she looked androgynous. Like I said, she never looked you in the eye. But that made her seem even cooler - it was like you weren’t worth her time. For a while after her rise to mainstream prominence, all newspapers carried the same two sets of pictures. One, her official portrait from her time as Celestia’s student. Therein she was precocious as a candle flame - baby fat and a big, beaming smile. Next to it, for some chronological contrast, was the current day picture of her - sunglasses, a scowl, graffiti in the background reading “Truth”, a wildfire incarnate. I’ve always loved that second picture. It was captured guerrilla style by a journalist, and Sunset wasn’t even posed for it. It was widely disseminated as a representative example for well-meaning parents, who could use it to instruct their children not to end up like her. As a result it was up on every Equestrian teenager’s wall for the rest of that fashion cycle. ~ Her first disguise was a simple change in coloration. From yellow and red to dark blue and burnt-orange. “This is nice,” she said when I cast the spell. I had to concur. She now looked like an ocean sunset - subdued but still able to hurt. “Do you know when you’ll be able to cast magic again?” I asked. I’d seen her attempt it at my behest - her horn had sparked, and the backlash had made her grit her teeth. It was rare for someone of her magical prowess to end up in this situation - essentially, even though she had the know how, her horn wasn’t used to channeling magic anymore. Think of it as a dry riverbed - where first the bank could easily keep the water contained, now it had lost its definition and any attempt to flow would cause a spillover. “I don’t know,” Sunset said, softly. “Losing my magic was like losing a limb - but I’ve been there and done that already. I’m not worried.” She channeled her magic again, this time slower, and the sparks were more controlled, frizzing out of the tip of her horn like a birthday candle. “I just have to keep practicing, and I know I’m going to get better.” Her tenacity was admirable, though her trust in my disguise was a little bit concerning. “What if it drops in the middle of something? Maybe something incapacitates me - you won’t have the mana to keep this up. Do you have a backup?” “This cloak.” Sunset grinned, holding up the trusty garment. “It’s gotten me this far.” “I know, but-” “Look.” Sunset said. I stopped. It was her tone of voice - aloof but sincere. Just looking at her, you’d think the thought of sincerity would cause her to gag. But, as in many things, Sunset wasn’t all that she seemed. “We can sit around here and plan out every second of our attack, and wait for something to go wrong. Or, we can trust the plan that’s already in here.” She tapped the side of her head with a hoof. Clunk. “You wrote and rewrote it in the journal so many times that I’m pretty sure I recite it in my sleep. Say it with me - we can do this.” “We can do this,” I repeated. “We can do this. Yeah. We’ve spent months planning. We can do this.” “Of course, we can. Now,” Sunset sat back expectantly. “What have you got for me?” ~ Sunset refused to go within five leagues of Celestia’s being or domicile, which I felt was fair. So, instead, she made her way towards the more upscale neighborhoods. Solarists tended to be wealthy by dint of being more politically palatable. Given that it had taken me months of research to discover as much as I had about Princess Luna, I doubted anyone espousing similar beliefs would be considered anything but a lunatic. ~ Sunset scowled at the poster I’d brought along - trite and overproduced, with a forest of cartoon rainbows and a beaming, grinning sun. ‘Enjoy Celestia’s light!’ It said along the top. ‘Not sanctioned by HRH Celestia or the Equestrian Government’, it said in slightly smaller lettering along the bottom. “This has to be a honeypot. Just try and tell me the Protection Bureau doesn’t have a hoof in this.” “Possibly,” I said. “But I have it on good authority something big is going to go down there today. Besides, Solarist gatherings aren’t as heavily regulated as Lunarist ones. There’s still active laws on the books against those.” Sunset sighed. “Literally against Lunarist gatherings? Or technically?” “Technically. Literally, they’re laws against the formation of paramilitary organizations like the Lunar Liberation Force. But you already know how that can be exploited.” She nodded - she’d heard this story before. “Quickly and easily.” “Okay.” I sucked my gut in - it was broiling with anxiety. “Final recap of the plan. You’re going to the Solarist gathering in Can Neighborhood, hopefully going to figure out what they’re doing, and if it puts a stop to Luna’s return then you’re going to put a stop to it. After that, you’ll be travelling to the Everfree and intercepting Luna upon her arrival.” “And you’ll be staying by Celestia’s side, encouraging her to follow the path of nonviolence and feeding her bad information so she doesn’t think of Luna as much of a threat.” “Correct.” I released the air I’d been holding in my stomach. “That simple, huh?” “Yep.” Sunset popped the ‘p’. “Easiest thing we’ve ever done.” ~ Sunset’s destination was an ominously tall old church, decked in banners the color of the sun. This part of the city, perched on the westernmost flank of the Canterhorn, was the domain of the Can barons. Having made their fortune in canning, they scooped up the last scenic view over Equestria the Canterhorn had to offer - but failed to consider that, being the westernmost side of the mountain, it would regularly receive the high, dry winds coming off the Saddle Arabian Desert far over the horizon. As a result, the place looked like the set of an old western - bone dry and completely abandoned. You could see the heatwaves coming off the cobblestone. Most ponies in this part of town stayed indoors, and those that didn’t made haste to get to their destinations. The clock struck high noon. Sunset wished they’d gone thematic with the place. It could really use some tumbleweeds. Before she entered the church, she turned. The castle dominated the skyline from here, soaring towers speckled with windows like glitter. I was clambering up one of those towers, flanked by guards, ready to present my findings in a personal meeting with the Princess. We didn’t coordinate it. But I like to think we crossed the threshold at the same time. ~ “So, it’s decided.” Sunset said. “Do or die.” “Well,” I coughed. “Ideally, we don’t die.” “Ideally.” I nodded, and she flicked open her sunglasses. With them on, she seemed almost a completely different person - a cool, aloof, rebel-older-sister type. I felt my heart start racing - this was it. “Do, and try not to die.” Sunset grinned a daredevil’s grin, all teeth and no self-preservation. “That’s the best I got.” Author's Note Oh my god we're done. The setup and recap of everything is so exhausting, nothing's happening and there's no characters to play off each other yet... and before you say, yes, I know that's my fault lol. Getting back into the swing of writing a serial has been hard, I forgot what keeps the blood pumping. Next week is when everything goes wrong, and I start justifying the title of this story. Hope y'all are having a good time!
PrefaceThe first words Sunset Shimmer ever spoke to me were “Look away.” As were the last. Of course, some rhetoric shuffling is required to achieve this degree of symmetry. Even in something as simple as first and last words, Sunset rejected homogeneity. You could never count on anything, with her. You could count on her. There is a difference. Anyways, back to symmetry. They were not the first and last words she addressed to me (those were scribbled into her magical journal, “Who is this?” and “Trust me.” respectively.) They were not the first and last words she spoke in my vicinity (“Excuse you!” and “I will strangle you.”) They were not even her first and last words (both unknown). But I feel these words in particular are a microcosm of our relationship – though it was my castle, my crown, and my title, she took the lead. Our relationship was not particularly contentious, or fraught with melodrama. But, at that point in our lives, Sunset was the headstrong one - the one with radical ideas about politics and change, the one with style and determination, the one with a clear-cut purpose; a goal she was working towards day and night. As for me? I was content to follow. To learn. That's who I've always been. I feel that we grew past it reasonably, if not pretty, quickly. I started grounding her more - I pushed back on her analysis, criticized her ideas, finally got a definition of lumpenproletariat that wasn't just 'anyone I don't like'. We found a balance. Because, though the first words she ever spoke to me were a command... the last were a promise. One she made with tears in her eyes, and what could arguably be called her dying breath. There's so much in those words. Look away. Don't worry. I'll be fine. Trust me. But I am wary of dedicating more than a couple of paragraphs to them. If possible, I'd rather focus on her actions. As the rules of storytelling forbid me to espouse her character to you any longer, I suppose we will have to start at the beginning. With the way most things start - that is, with parchment and ink.
Prologue: Parchment and InkWhen I was ten years old, I found a dusty old journal in an even dustier, older bedroom. This wasn't an anomaly. After all, by the time I had turned ten years old, I already held the dubious honors of: Being the first pony in recorded history to lose control of their magic and reduce an entire wing of the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns to rubble. Being the only student at said School for Gifted Unicorns to completely misunderstand their assignment anddump enough magical energy into a dragon egg to hatch it. Despite both these facts, also being the first student in two decades to catch the eye of Princess Celestia and be taken under her wing as her personal student. Suffice to say, I was used to going off the beaten track. But this escapade - a search for a mystical library that contained the last of Starswirl's known work - had gone on for just a little too long already. Traipsing through silent hallways was much less fun that I thought it would be, and all the dust in the air was giving me a headache. I was too tiny to push open the windows, so I couldn't even get fresh air. What I didn't realize, at the time, is that I'd inadvertently wandered into the East Wing of the Royal Palace. This was known colloquially as 'the abandoned bit', for reasons that should be obvious. That meant no inhabitants, no guards, no servants, and - by extension - not a single adult to help out when my adventure finally went south. I screamed. I cried. I tried teleporting, but I was panicking so hard I couldn't summon a single drop of mana into my horn. Then, I ran. As hard and as far as I could, darting down random hallways and scrabbling at flights of stairs, in search of something, anything, familiar. What I found instead was a long-forgotten bedroom - posters of old bands peeling off the walls, bedsheets that had lost all their fluff, sunlight barely visible through a gap in the drooping curtains. And the dust. Oh, the dust. It was everywhere, billowing clouds of it making me twitch and sneeze. It was on the pillows, on the rug, on the hundreds and hundreds of books scattered in pillars around the room like an elaborate trap from a Daring Do novel. The first rule of getting lost is to stay in place, I remembered, and began weeping. I don't know how long I stayed there, wallowing in my self pity.It wasn't just fear that kept me there, of course. It was shame. The thought of what Celestia would do when she found me made me tremble - would she dismiss me as her student? Banish me from the kingdom? Eventually, fear gave way to boredom, and I started perusing the piles and piles of books. Some were ancient, at least a century or two old, while others were published closer to the modern day. I recognized some as books Cadance had read to me, and others as obscure magical texts. Maybe this was the library of a different, more recent grand wizard? I glanced at the desk in the corner of the room, and stopped. There, wedged between a pulp fiction novel and a textbook of theoretical thaumatology, sat a book with the sun on its spine. I bolted for it. Call me naive all you want, but I'd seen how Celestia corresponded with her most loyal staff. Parchment, vellum, everything - emblazoned with that same mark. I threw it open, scrambled for an inkpot, and began scratching out a message. And that's how I met Sunset Shimmer. Our first interaction was cutthroat. Sunset was not a fan of me"defacing" her journal, and even less of a fan of me taking her place as Celestia's student. Things got heated, we started comparing accomplishments... ...and that's when I admitted that Celestia had never told me about her. If I'd have known how much that admission would hurt Sunset, I never would have said it. But I only found out years and years after the fact - far too late to take it back. Suffice to say, she went quiet for almost ten minutes; which is a very long time when you're counting the seconds. She came back with detailed directions from what I now know was her old room to Celestia's chambers. Never write to me again, she finished. Which is why, the second I was tucked into bed that night, I lit up my horn and scribbled out another message. So, what was it like being Celestia's student? I'm not going to go through every single fight, point of contention, and bad choice we made while writing back and forth to one another. That would be a completely different story, wouldn't it? The point is, despite her animosity, we kept talking. About everything. How I was settling in to my new position, the best reading nooks in the palace, gossip among the diplomats... And, one day, the conversation turned to why Sunset left. It spiraled out of control from there. I shouldn't say that - it makes it sound like it was against my will, and it absolutely was not. Even now, looking back on it, I'm proud of what we did. I learned something important that day - to doubt. To doubt, and to verify, and only then to trust. It expanded out of control from there. That's better. From then, we were joined at the hip. For the rest of my tenure as Princess Celestia's student, Sunset remained my closest friend. We told each other everything we did, everything we thought, everything we dreamed of. We were as young and ambitious as you could get - volatile, like spilled oil. My discovery of the thousand year prophecy was the match. Before I'd even finished relaying my findings, Sunset had already arranged a rendezvous. It's about time I showed Equestria what it's been missing. We were to meet on a fine summer morning, in the belly of the beast - Canterlot itself. If the thousand year prophecy was the match, then our meeting was the fire. What was to follow changed our lives, as well as the course of Equestrian history. It was beautiful, it was crazy, it was perfect - and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Then again, it did place me, not twelve hours later, under the iron-shod hoof of a megalomaniacal tyrant. So, there's two sides to each coin. Silver linings and all. Author's Note I posted a story on this site in 2019, got embarrassed, then deleted it. In the five years since, I've posted almost none of what I wrote online. This all reached a head today morning, when I realized I have over a hundred thousand words worth of stories all in various stages of non-completion because I don't think they're "good enough" yet. I'm sick of it. This is going up, and it's going up in whatever state I can get it to by the time my self-imposed deadline hits. New chapters every Tuesday, I guess. Don't worry - I think I know where this is going. And hey, even if I don't, I promise to make it as fun as possible :)
Belfrys of Canterlot: Part 1"Bells played a central role in premodern Equestria. They were used to broadcast time of day, special messages, weather information, emergencies, celebrations, and more. A manuscript from 1500 BNM describes one of the grandest uses of a town's bells - an indulgent medley that signalled the arrival of the Princesses. 'So the streets were decked in flowers of every coloration, and the bells cried hoarsely, so loud they could be heard deep in the Everfree, where they scared off game. The Princesses, in their stately gowns, bid hush so we could better hear their dulcet tones. I have never heard them sound so sweet as when Luna Herself was transfixed by their song…'" Longhoof, "Liturgy in Premodern Equestria." I second-guessed myself before I stepped out of the front door. It was far too late at that point - Spike had been tucked into his childhood bed, Mom and Dad had been assured that this was a routine outing, and Celestia was none the wiser. My saddlebags were full to bursting; emergency supplies, research notes, and my journal (aglow with a scrawled message). The gears were in motion - they weren’t going to screech to a halt for a little anxiety. None of that stopped the wormy sensation of doubt that wiggled its way through my lungs, growing larger and larger until it felt dense and tangible - a hairball I could have choked on. I closed my eyes and repeated what Mom had said to me last night when, on this very doorstep, I’d been on the verge of tears. Breathe. Ground yourself. If you want to turn back - so be it. This will always be your home, Twilight. I crossed the threshold and made sure to shut the door behind me. The sky was still dark, though bands of light were marching in legions towards the zenith. Lamplights beat against their glassy cages, sending shadows fluttering like butterflies. The streets all seemed to converge towards the eastern horizon - invisible behind the skyline, whose buildings got taller every year. Sometimes, it felt like everything in this kingdom grew towards the sun. I kept a steady tempo as I walked. One hoof, two hoof, canter, carefree. The first step to not being suspicious was acting like you had nothing to hide. The second step was believing it. Onwards, sprightly as a sparrow, down Theater Boulevard (a marketing stunt so successful the name had persisted long after the business had shuttered), along the Cousine Canal (a hotspot for the candycane black market), to the manufacturing district, where machinery sang unceasing hymns to industrialization and the canals ran black with soot. I cantered just a little faster and tried not to breathe. The manufacturing district, with its belching smokestacks and endless stream of workers, was the bulwark of the richer neighborhoods. I supposed the industrialists preferred seeing their factories on the horizon to the slums that - make no mistake - they had had just as much of a hoof in creating. I slowed when the streets narrowed to single-file width. If I walked just a block or two further, the city would fall away under my hooves. Built as it was on the side of a mountain, Canterlot didn’t have much room to expand. So, anytime land near the castle got bought up to build another rich neighborhood, the people living there were pushed further and further out, until eventually they were over the rim of the Canterhorn and clinging to sheer cliff faces like mountain goats. I couldn’t go down there, where the streets plunged towards sea level and the houses cried for succor from gravity. I could barely even stay here, where the buildings twisted upwards like competing trees, swallowing the last of the nascent sunlight into their concrete canopies. Academically, I knew that it was the best possible time to go for a walk: at that precise hour, I was threading the needle between the haunt of the ne'er-do-wells and the hours when the streets were packed with day-workers. I knew that it had been years since the last major landslide, and almost a decade since one without survivors. I knew that Celestia had assigned her best structural engineers to the area - in fact, looking over the edge for a vertiginous millisecond, I could see the scaffolding keeping some of the more precarious constructions in place. I could rattle off crime statistics, and which streets to avoid, and how to blend in. I had, many times, in preparation. Still, every shadow loomed, and every side-alley rattle made me jump. I turned left and continued walking. The edge (“The Lowlands”, in posh speak) was prime real estate, fresh pickings for young professionals who wanted a bit of spice in their life before they returned to their family homes and stately furnishings. Most buildings around here were apartments, a minimum of five stories high and with private security. The alleys around them smelled of burnt incense with an undertone of dead things. My voice wobbled like laminated paper. “Spike, take a - nevermind.” The echo persisted for a couple of seconds, mocking me with its shakiness and lack of conviction. At least if I was being followed, I’d hear it pretty easily. What kind of tail would follow me in here, anyways? I didn’t bother pursuing the thought. If there was a will, there was a way - and Celestia’s agents were more cunning than most. And, now, I was overthinking. Catastrophizing. If I was going to get caught, it would’ve been when I’d snuck into the restricted section of the Canterlot archives. Or when I’d tracked down Sun Chaser, a former academic of erstwhile renown who’d spent the past five years living off the land in Whitetail Woods. Or when I was corresponding with - I wasn’t going to think about that. One thing at a time, I told myself. Worry about getting there, and then you can worry about her. Besides, they weren’t going to wait until I went to a place where even the streetlamps had ulterior motives to haul me off in handcuffs. If they wanted me gone, they would’ve found me on their own terms. The absurdity of it was almost funny. The implications of my rebellious actions hadn’t even felt real until today morning - until I’d grappled with leaving everything I’d ever known behind. Spike. My parents. Raven. Crotchety old Inkwell. Shiny. Cadance. Hay, even Celestia. She’d been my mentor for seven years - a couple of epistolatory conversations couldn’t even begin to change that. Still, here I was. Deep in a brick-and-mortar forest, answering the call of the Big Bad Wolf, hoping the Bigger, Badder Grandma hadn’t set her people on my scent. She wouldn’t have. Blood of the covenant and all. You better hope you’re right, a mutinous voice sneered. Blood of the womb didn’t stop her doing much, much worse… I tried to keep my breathing steady. Hyperventilation was suspicious. A panic attack here would attract attention I didn’t want. And couldn’t afford. They could have lured you here. They could have captured her when she came out of the mirror and taken her journal. In fact, I think they have. Now, they’re going to disappear you. Just like they disappeared Luna. “Sunshine, sunshine, ladybirds awake…” I sang under my breath the rest of the way, tapping out a tune with my steps when I was gasping so hard I couldn’t make a peep. It was only two blocks, at that point, so it didn’t matter that I was playing hopscotch to make progress. You’re almost there. Three steps, two steps, one… I stopped at a cross-street that looked like it had been scored with a knife. Slab-of-brick buildings hemmed it in on both sides, and if I’d been just a little wider I wouldn’t have fit. I removed my saddlebags, levitated them in front of me, and walked the length of the street without hesitation. There was no room for hesitation, here and now. If I’d wanted to hesitate, I should’ve done it before agreeing to this harebrained scheme. The sun had just crested the horizon when I emerged onto the spur, jutting out from the Canterhorn into the sky. Canterlot hadn’t yet grown desperate enough to literally build into thin air, but with the way things were going I gave it only a couple more years. There was only one structure here - a Gothic belfry, towering and imposing, built into the side of the mountain. My destination. I walked right past its imposing facade and wrought-iron trellis. Instead, I followed a trail worn into the dirt - a natural continuation of the street I had just been on. It led me a ways up the spur, onto a knoll with knee-high grass billowing in the early-morning wind. There, I stopped. I closed my eyes. I turned towards the horizon, letting the wind and sunlight play in tandem across my face. I breathed. In, out, in, metronomic and even. “You’re here,” I said, and had to sit down. Anxiety was a strange mistress. For awhile, it gripped you by the throat. Then, abruptly, it faded. Hope blossomed. Dreams returned. The world seemed… brighter, somehow. Or maybe that was just the rising sun, splitting the sky into a rainbow of color. In that light, with the dew against my barrel and warmth against my eyes, what could possibly do me harm? I thought of the route I’d just walked. How different would the sidewalks look after the revolution? The buildings? The canals? The people? I thought of the journal and the last message Sunset had left me before she’d (presumably) crossed through the mirror. Meet me at the Lunar Cathedral - it’s an abandoned building on the easternmost spur of the Canterhorn. I’ll be there at first light. I thought of Luna and how we were going to bring her back. The spire of the cathedral caught the light of the sun, glinting like an uncut jewel. It was a grand old thing, all gargoyles and vaulted arches and granite. I let my eyes track down its squat posture, all the way to the base… …where a cloaked figure, all shadows and soft edges, was barreling towards me with far too much haste for comfort. Anxiety is a strange mistress. It’ll make you worry endlessly about distant, inconsequential, or even impossible threats, while for some reason making you ignore real ones. In fairness to me, my bout of hyperventilation had probably deprived my brain of all the oxygen I needed to make split-second decisions. So, even as the figure advanced towards me, I didn’t move. “Can I help you?” I asked. I guess I was thinking it was a crusty old crone who was going to ask me to get off her lawn. “Look away,” the figure said in tones far more dulcet than any shadowy figure I’d ever known. “What?” I asked, and by the time it finally clicked that I might be in danger, it was already too late. “Look away!” The figure flicked her hood up - I saw a flash of red hair, green eyes, a blazing horn - then everything went black. Author's Note Wow, I wasn't kidding when I said this thing was going up in whatever state I got it to. Tone is kinda all over the place, I had a really hard time balancing where I want this to be (campy adventure) with the seriousness of Twilight and Sunset fighting a deep seated conspiracy in the highest levels of governance. But I'm proud of it, especially with all my false starts and especially since I wrote this entire thing in the five hours I had after work today. There might be some broken formatting in here, let me know if so and I will fix it. Hope y'all enjoy!
Belfrys of Canterlot: Part 2I dreamed of Celestia. It started as a dream about a beach. Sand in my fur, salt-water in my eyes, air heavy with the weight of a clear, blue sky. Waves frolicked and tossed playfully. They were nothing like the books; no shipwreckers sending geysers of spray skywards, no accursed depths and slimy creatures, no, these waves were practically domesticated. They lapped up at my hooves timidly, then retreated for fear of reprimand. Celestia was standing at my side, dress flapping in the breeze. Most of my dreams came back to her, one way or another. “What are you doing?” She asked. “Recording the erosion of a sandcastle.” I tilted my chin towards a rambling old ruin that, scarcely a half-hour ago, had been a grand affair with ramparts and a moat. Now its crenelations had dropped away and the waves were tearing at its innards like vultures. Everything crumbles, I thought with the sage wisdom of someone who still had their wisdom teeth. Celestia nodded, not quite understanding but happy to let me continue. I don’t remember why we were there (or where ‘there’ was) but it couldn’t have been a surprise, because she was dressed for the occasion - a frilly sundress and a sun-hat, both apple-flesh white. Behind her, I could see a city climbing into the sky - a forest of small, blue-white houses that stood out against the mountainside like teeth. I stopped what I was doing and turned to face her. I was used to grown ups not fully engaging with me - but Celestia was different. She always had an interesting question, a new angle from which to tackle the problem. That today she was being so silent was confusing to me. Or, maybe, it was simpler than that - studies show that children are good at picking up on subtle signs that their caregiver is feeling off. In hindsight, the signs weren't especially subtle. When I hear the word melancholy, I think of Celestia on that day. The sun in her eyes, the wind in her hair, a beautiful city behind her, and a beautiful sea to match. Her student there with her. And yet she was staring into the horizon, as if she could see through the that startling robins-egg blue. The lines on her face were pronounced - she seemed tired, if such a thing was possible. Absently, I noticed that the waves stopped right before they met her hooves. “Why do you look so sad?” I asked her. This was before I’d gotten into the habit of biting my tongue. My mouth ran away from me, without fail, at least once a week. In front of teachers, friends, maids, soldiers, parents. Celestia too, on occasion. But I suspect my observations had never before been this astute. She flinched like she’d been struck. “Twilight, I-” Her eyes flicked up, and I turned in time to see a wave - a real wave, not the playful ones that had been nipping at us for hours - roar up, foaming like a rabid dog. It blocked out the sun. I didn’t put up my hooves. I knew Celestia would protect me. And, sure enough, an instant before it hit, the wave dissolved into a fine mist. I turned back to face her - though my hair was soaked through, clinging to my cheeks, hers was perfectly dry. “Was that why you were sad?” Her face did this curious thing, then. It went perfectly motionless, taught and proud, like the old portraits she kept in the abandoned wing of the palace. Featureless as a statue. “…many years ago,” she spoke in a voice as distant as a cloud, “I left something here. Something of… importance.” Before I could reach out and touch her to see if she had turned to stone, I felt something pool around my haunches. The waves were back, more timid than ever. They drained away slowly, cautiously, picking their way around myself, the sandcastle, and Celestia’s pristine hooves. “Why don’t we go somewhere else?” Celestia asked me. That was where the dream collapsed. Celestia flickered, her voice cracking like a skipping-record, and I was falling backwards into an unimaginable darkness. Lakes in the dead of night, wellspring-eyes, an ocean of water cresting into a tidal wave that hung, motionless, above me. If I moved, if I breathed, if I so much as blinked, it would fall. Celestia couldn’t protect me from this one. Or, maybe, she didn’t want to. The roaring of water became too loud to bear. I felt tingly, all over, as if I was trapped in something’s thaumatic grip. The world spun, faster and faster. At some point during the carousel, I awoke. Stars swam before my eyes, and for a moment I wondered if I too had been banished to the moon. Then, the dizziness faded into a deafening headache, the tinnitus so loud I had to grit my teeth against it. Every part of my body throbbed with my pulse. With trepidation, I cracked open one eye. Nothing of note. Dust motes, a shattered balustrade, rotting wood and gaps in the slats through which I could see the afternoon sky. I was inside the belfry, clearly, and it looked the way I felt - a ruin, crumbled away, waves pounding at my innards. “You’re awake.” A figure emerged from the dark corner of the room, wrapped in a dark brown cloak. It was the unmistakable garb of a ne'er-do-well. I did my best to turn my wince into a glower. “Feel better?” They asked. I spat my words at them. “You’ll never get what you want from me.” “Well, that’s a shame. I’ve traveled so far, after all…” Their magic flared bright red. I gasped - then breathed a sigh of relief. The pounding in my head receded, then ceased. “W-what-” “Relax, Twi.” My captor shot me another grin - I caught a flash of teeth below the cloak - then, like a magician pulling away a tablecloth, she removed her cloak. And there she was, my best friend of almost a decade, in all her glory. Tall and proud, all the colors of a warm hearth, and a vibrant smile that hovered somewhere between tired and glad. “Nice to meet you,” Sunset Shimmer said. “Now, what did you find out about Princess Luna?” Author's Note The next chapter is going to be some exposition, then chapter after that is going to be some setup, and then we're going to get into the meat of the story I promise lmao. I'm really excited for the first crisis our gang has to deal with, it's going to be a huge Rube Goldberg machine of a disaster.
Belfrys of Canterlot: Part 3Sunset Shimmer’s methods were an enigma until you looked at the world from her perspective. Then, they emerged naturally as the paths of least resistance - the parts of the woods where the brambles were the least thorny and, hey, if wearing a full suit of armor prevented you from getting scratched then so be it. Take, for instance, her sunglasses. Not literally, of course. As Rainbow Dash would eventually find out, Sunset could get scary when she wanted to. And if you told her she was already scary, she’d look you in the eyes and tell you she wasn’t trying yet. It took me years to understand her relationship with her glasses. First of all, they were old and worn to bits. The arms were faded, black chipped away to expose silver beneath. One was held together with “duct tape, no prayer required”. The lenses were opaque in the sunlight, but when angled just right you could make out an extensive network of scratches like the surface of an ice sheet. The corner of the left lens was cracked, though it hadn’t propagated across Sunset’s field of view. Looking at the way she wore them, you got the impression it wouldn’t have mattered if it had. They were one and the same - ragged, resplendent, resilient. She wore them constantly - outdoors, indoors, underwater, while sleeping in an unfamiliar room. If you asked her why, she’d cock her head to one side with a knowing smile; a nonverbal “wouldn’t you like to know.” And I would, very much. Very, very much. Some part of me wanted to believe it was a fashion statement. She was too cool for school, anyways - why not advertise it with her shades? And I’m sure that was part of it. But with the benefit of hindsight, it became obvious why Sunset wore sunglasses. It’s because she didn’t like eye contact. Really didn’t like it. It’s why she never looked you in the eyes unless she wanted to make a point. And even if she wasn’t looking at you at all, the glasses made it feel like she was staring, unabashed and unperturbed. When she finally did lose them - I’m getting ahead of myself, I apologize. Regardless, it makes it all the more flattering that, for our very first meeting, she chose to forgo them. Perhaps as an apology for knocking me out. As an apology it was, unfortunately, similar to many of mine; sincere, difficult for her, and entirely insufficient for me. Actually, let me rephrase that - entirely incomprehensible to me. It would be the last time I saw her eyes without her sunglasses for many years. Though I understand why I reacted the way I did, I wish I’d taken the time to admire them more. Because, though she has a habit of not believing people when they say it, they are very beautiful. Gleaming like emeralds, with all the mischief of a plunge pool. Go ahead, they seem to say. Dive in. The water’s fine! ~ “You thought I was what?” Though I tried, I was having a hard time keeping the incredulity out of my voice. “Bugged,” Sunset responded, confidently, as if that made any sense. “What does ‘being bugged’ mean, exactly?” I asked as she began fiddling with the ropes that kept me tied to this chair. With how confidently she was undoing the knots, you’d think she had a good reason for this. “Being implanted with a listening spell.” With one final heave, Sunset unshucked me from the nest of ropes. “The Protection Bureau has one of those. Along with a mind control spell, a truth serum, a machine that predicts the future-” “That one sounds fake.” “You know, I wasn’t convinced by that last one either.” Sunset glared at me, hard as steel and cold as ice. “But the rest? I’ve seen them, Twilight. You don’t know what they’re capable of.” That stopped me in my wobbly, blood-recirculating tracks. Sunset was right. I didn’t know what the Protection Bureau - the shady monolith of bureaucrats, middle-managers and secret agents (read: war criminals) - was capable of. Most documents pertaining to their cases were stored underground somewhere in the Yakyakistani mountains (some sort of treaty, last I heard). I hadn’t even known about them until Sunset had told me. I deferred. “I… I know, Sunset. But - it’s been a long morning. And I…” I trail off. It felt embarrassing, as an adult, to admit that I was scared. But what other word was there? Sunset eyed me, then clapped a hoof on my back. “That’s just what high treason is like. Tiring, isn’t it?” I smiled up at her. “It is.” She hugged me, then. And I hugged back. I think it was only then that I registered her as a real person - a tangible being instead of words on a piece of paper, magicked out of the air to plant terribly disloyal thoughts in the mind of someone supposed to be Celestia’s most loyal follower. I buried my face in her shoulder and took in her scent. She smelled of wood smoke and lavender incense - the same type Celestia burned nonstop in her wing. It should have reminded me of the terrible things my Princess had done. It should have told me that, no matter how far I ran, I’d still be in her shadow. Instead, it felt like coming back home. “Can I ask you a favor?” She asked after a while. I sniffled lightly. “Sure.” It had been an emotionally draining day. If she’d asked me to bring down the sun, I would’ve done it. Or tried my best. “Could you disguise me?” ~ Sunset’s sunglasses weren’t the only things that made her look cool and aloof. It was a medley of subconscious signals, most of which wouldn’t be apparent without deep study. Thankfully, after all this time (and all these disguises) I’ve become an expert. Her collar was always up. She never stood - she leaned, either against a wall, an inanimate object, or other people. Her hair was cropped short and spiked up, so at a glance she looked androgynous. Like I said, she never looked you in the eye. But that made her seem even cooler - it was like you weren’t worth her time. For a while after her rise to mainstream prominence, all newspapers carried the same two sets of pictures. One, her official portrait from her time as Celestia’s student. Therein she was precocious as a candle flame - baby fat and a big, beaming smile. Next to it, for some chronological contrast, was the current day picture of her - sunglasses, a scowl, graffiti in the background reading “Truth”, a wildfire incarnate. I’ve always loved that second picture. It was captured guerrilla style by a journalist, and Sunset wasn’t even posed for it. It was widely disseminated as a representative example for well-meaning parents, who could use it to instruct their children not to end up like her. As a result it was up on every Equestrian teenager’s wall for the rest of that fashion cycle. ~ Her first disguise was a simple change in coloration. From yellow and red to dark blue and burnt-orange. “This is nice,” she said when I cast the spell. I had to concur. She now looked like an ocean sunset - subdued but still able to hurt. “Do you know when you’ll be able to cast magic again?” I asked. I’d seen her attempt it at my behest - her horn had sparked, and the backlash had made her grit her teeth. It was rare for someone of her magical prowess to end up in this situation - essentially, even though she had the know how, her horn wasn’t used to channeling magic anymore. Think of it as a dry riverbed - where first the bank could easily keep the water contained, now it had lost its definition and any attempt to flow would cause a spillover. “I don’t know,” Sunset said, softly. “Losing my magic was like losing a limb - but I’ve been there and done that already. I’m not worried.” She channeled her magic again, this time slower, and the sparks were more controlled, frizzing out of the tip of her horn like a birthday candle. “I just have to keep practicing, and I know I’m going to get better.” Her tenacity was admirable, though her trust in my disguise was a little bit concerning. “What if it drops in the middle of something? Maybe something incapacitates me - you won’t have the mana to keep this up. Do you have a backup?” “This cloak.” Sunset grinned, holding up the trusty garment. “It’s gotten me this far.” “I know, but-” “Look.” Sunset said. I stopped. It was her tone of voice - aloof but sincere. Just looking at her, you’d think the thought of sincerity would cause her to gag. But, as in many things, Sunset wasn’t all that she seemed. “We can sit around here and plan out every second of our attack, and wait for something to go wrong. Or, we can trust the plan that’s already in here.” She tapped the side of her head with a hoof. Clunk. “You wrote and rewrote it in the journal so many times that I’m pretty sure I recite it in my sleep. Say it with me - we can do this.” “We can do this,” I repeated. “We can do this. Yeah. We’ve spent months planning. We can do this.” “Of course, we can. Now,” Sunset sat back expectantly. “What have you got for me?” ~ Sunset refused to go within five leagues of Celestia’s being or domicile, which I felt was fair. So, instead, she made her way towards the more upscale neighborhoods. Solarists tended to be wealthy by dint of being more politically palatable. Given that it had taken me months of research to discover as much as I had about Princess Luna, I doubted anyone espousing similar beliefs would be considered anything but a lunatic. ~ Sunset scowled at the poster I’d brought along - trite and overproduced, with a forest of cartoon rainbows and a beaming, grinning sun. ‘Enjoy Celestia’s light!’ It said along the top. ‘Not sanctioned by HRH Celestia or the Equestrian Government’, it said in slightly smaller lettering along the bottom. “This has to be a honeypot. Just try and tell me the Protection Bureau doesn’t have a hoof in this.” “Possibly,” I said. “But I have it on good authority something big is going to go down there today. Besides, Solarist gatherings aren’t as heavily regulated as Lunarist ones. There’s still active laws on the books against those.” Sunset sighed. “Literally against Lunarist gatherings? Or technically?” “Technically. Literally, they’re laws against the formation of paramilitary organizations like the Lunar Liberation Force. But you already know how that can be exploited.” She nodded - she’d heard this story before. “Quickly and easily.” “Okay.” I sucked my gut in - it was broiling with anxiety. “Final recap of the plan. You’re going to the Solarist gathering in Can Neighborhood, hopefully going to figure out what they’re doing, and if it puts a stop to Luna’s return then you’re going to put a stop to it. After that, you’ll be travelling to the Everfree and intercepting Luna upon her arrival.” “And you’ll be staying by Celestia’s side, encouraging her to follow the path of nonviolence and feeding her bad information so she doesn’t think of Luna as much of a threat.” “Correct.” I released the air I’d been holding in my stomach. “That simple, huh?” “Yep.” Sunset popped the ‘p’. “Easiest thing we’ve ever done.” ~ Sunset’s destination was an ominously tall old church, decked in banners the color of the sun. This part of the city, perched on the westernmost flank of the Canterhorn, was the domain of the Can barons. Having made their fortune in canning, they scooped up the last scenic view over Equestria the Canterhorn had to offer - but failed to consider that, being the westernmost side of the mountain, it would regularly receive the high, dry winds coming off the Saddle Arabian Desert far over the horizon. As a result, the place looked like the set of an old western - bone dry and completely abandoned. You could see the heatwaves coming off the cobblestone. Most ponies in this part of town stayed indoors, and those that didn’t made haste to get to their destinations. The clock struck high noon. Sunset wished they’d gone thematic with the place. It could really use some tumbleweeds. Before she entered the church, she turned. The castle dominated the skyline from here, soaring towers speckled with windows like glitter. I was clambering up one of those towers, flanked by guards, ready to present my findings in a personal meeting with the Princess. We didn’t coordinate it. But I like to think we crossed the threshold at the same time. ~ “So, it’s decided.” Sunset said. “Do or die.” “Well,” I coughed. “Ideally, we don’t die.” “Ideally.” I nodded, and she flicked open her sunglasses. With them on, she seemed almost a completely different person - a cool, aloof, rebel-older-sister type. I felt my heart start racing - this was it. “Do, and try not to die.” Sunset grinned a daredevil’s grin, all teeth and no self-preservation. “That’s the best I got.” Author's Note Oh my god we're done. The setup and recap of everything is so exhausting, nothing's happening and there's no characters to play off each other yet... and before you say, yes, I know that's my fault lol. Getting back into the swing of writing a serial has been hard, I forgot what keeps the blood pumping. Next week is when everything goes wrong, and I start justifying the title of this story. Hope y'all are having a good time!
