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...