Sunset Shimmer was having second thoughts about going on this field trip. The sight and scent of horses was making her even more homesick than usual, and the guide was droning on and on about super–basic stuff that everybody knew before even starting kindergarten ... and most of the students were listening attentively, as if he was a font of esoteric knowledge. Were they all autistic? She snorted, but with her stupid human nose, it was so soft that probably nobody heard it — that and these sorry excuses for ears they, and now she too, were cursed with.
Since everyone else’s attention was on the guide’s continued belaboring of the obvious, she moodily slunk off to one of the corral areas holding the horses. She looked over the creatures. In a way they were mockeries of earth ponies, several times their size but not nearly as intelligent. Yet she felt a kinship with them that was lacking with those who shared her new form. She spent a few minutes watching them. Now that she was up close and saw how they groomed and greeted each other and other just pony‐y stuff, it brought a small grin to her face. Maybe this trip was a good idea after all. She saw a brown‐coated stallion muscle a mare and her colt away from a water trough that was easily wide enough for all three of them, and she chortled. Now this was her kind of horse!
She waved to him, “Hi there, big boy,” but the stallion ignored her. Of course. That was all wrong. She tensed her throat as hard as she could and made the worst nicker in ponykind’s history, but the best she could pull off as a human. The stallion’s ears swiveled her way — she had his curiosity, at least for a moment. Her best attempt at a whinny was even more pathetic, but it was enough to get him to walk towards her. Sunset slid herself between the fence’s slats into the corral. The stallion came over to her, and as he got close the sense of just how large he was became overwhelming. She tilted her head down and whinnied again. He brought his face down to hers and huffed, and she huffed back. He stamped his hoof lightly and Sunset kept her head down, whickering in acceptance. You’re the boss. What do you want? He tossed his head towards the corral’s gate. Sunset grinned, “You want out, mmm?”
Rarity nervously rode her mount at a slow walk, getting used to the way the saddle moved beneath her, as the guide advised. Suddenly Sunset Shimmer, riding a brown stallion and grinning like a maniac, came charging towards her from the side. Rarity’s mount bolted, and purely from being startled she dropped the reins and brought her hands up to her mouth. As they passed a small depression that led to a bog, Sunset cut her off and Rarity’s mount turned hard to avoid getting mired. Rarity, barely keeping herself in the saddle before the turn and being both surprised at the turn and inexperienced at leaning away from turns, slid off the saddle and into the muddy ground.
After rolling to a stop, Rarity screamed, “Sunset!”
But Sunset just laughed at her from atop her whickering mount, “You should thank me! Now you won’t have to pay to get a mud bath at the spa!” Then she nickered — Sunset actually nickered! — and the stallion trotted off with her. In the months since Sunset Shimmer’s unfortunate arrival in her life, she’d grown accustomed to Sunset causing her misery of one kind or another then laughing at her, but sitting in the mud she somehow knew — she couldn’t say how, but she knew — that the horse had laughed at her too.
Pinkie Pie and Micro Chips watched Sunset Shimmer whoop and laugh as the horse she was on cantered across the riding area.
“Is Sunset having fun without hurting others?” Pinkie asked incredulously.
“I can’t believe it either.”
Then they saw Sunset cut off Pinkie’s former friend and send her into a mudhole.
“Oh, never mind.”
“Shit, we’ve got a reckless rider out there,” Steeple Chase reported.
Hay Bale groaned, “Great. OK, I’ll put everything on hold until we get all the riders back. Which horse are they riding?”
“Nathan.”
“What?! Who the fuck saddled up Nate for schoolkids?”
“Nobody. She’s riding him bareback.”
“He’s not bucking her off?”
“Nope. Take a look for yourself.”
“I want to know how she’s staying on his back.”
“Yeah, me too.”
The girl looked at Chase like he was an idiot, “Because he wanted me to.”
“How did you know?” he asked.
She shrugged, “I knew. When he let me know he didn’t want me on his back anymore, I got off him.”
“He told you he didn’t want you riding anymore?”
“Yeah. Of course not in words, but it was obvious.”
Chase rubbed his temple, “OK, but how did you control him?”
Now she looked at him like he was crazy. “Control him? He’s what, something like five times my weight?” She paused to think, “More than five. He went wherever he wanted. I just, you know, made suggestions.”
“But — the point of riding is for the horse to go where you want.”
She shrugged, “He went where he went. I was just along for the ride.”
“You can’t do that! You need to have control of your mount at all times. We made that quite clear during orientation.”
The girl frowned and fidgeted uncomfortably, “He’s ... not a slave.”
Oh. She was one of those. “Listen, young lady—”
“Sunset.”
“Sunset, he’s not a slave because he’s not a person.”
“I know, I know, just...” She closed her eyes, then covered them with her hands. “Just..., just..., I want to be able to forget that for a while.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that, but you charged another rider. We do not tolerate that kind of misbehavior.”
Sunset crossed her arms, “He thought it was fun.”
“First, you don’t know that,” — that earned him a glare — “and second, even if he did, it’s still unacceptable.”
Sunset snorted at that.
Bale rode over to them. He’d managed to get Nate into a halter, and handed its lead over to Chase.
“Thanks, Bale. Think you can find Lucy and bring her in too?”
“Sure thing,” Bale said and set off.
Sunset suddenly pointed at him, “He just jabbed that thing into her side!”
“What thing?”
“That thing on the back of his boot!”
“You’ve never seen spurs before?”
“No!”
“How can you know how to ride an unbroken horse but not—”
“You break them? You’re all monsters!”
“Us?! You practically pushed your classmate off her saddle!”
“At least I didn’t jab things in her sides!”
“While her horse was running!”
“And I didn’t brainwash her!”
“You have to know how dangerous that was!”
Sunset sat on the bench and seethed. This miserable excuse for a world just kept on coming up with ways to be worse and worse. One of the grooms was not at all subtly keeping an eye on her as she watched all the other, not‐blacklisted‐from‐the‐ranch‐for‐life students do their pitiful attempts at horsemanship atop mounts drained of all autonomy, and she despaired at her powerlessness. She was so caught up in her ruminations that she forgot to compensate for her stupid forward‐facing eyes and stupid rigid, ineffective ears and failed to notice that somebody had approached her from the other side, and the soft, timid voice nearly startled her out of her skin.
“Sunset, um, I appreciate how you care about the treatment of—”
“Leave me alone, Flutterby.”
She pulled in on herself, “It’s Fluttershy.”
Sunset glared at her, “Fuck off.”
She squeaked like a mouse, “OK. Bye now.”
Eventually the ranchers directed everyone back to the stables. When the students began funneling back to the buses, Sunset stood up and strode towards the corral holding Nathan, and whinnied. The horse walked over, but that doofus of a groom moved to intercept her.
“Hey, lady, you’re not allowed to—”
She whinnied again and tossed her head. Nathan stuck his neck over the top of the fence and pushed his head into the nitwit’s back, causing him to stumble forward and trip over Sunset’s outstretched foot. Sunset exchanged huffs with Nathan, then touched his cheek with hers for a second while the groom got back on his feet. Then, having said her good‐bye, Sunset strutted straight past the fuming groom and back towards the road.
Author's Note
Originally a chapter in a story covering the gap between FoSS and EG1.
I couldn't get myself in Flash Sentry's head enough to make that story work, so I expanded this a bit to make it into a standalone short.
