Sunset woke with her head still cradled in Twilight's lap, and a sticky spot of drool connecting her cheek to Twilight's skirt. The living room was dark, and the TV's screen snowy; its pale glow threw long shadows across the cramped space.
She yawned, and slid to the floor.
"Twi," said Sunset groggily, rubbing her eyes. "You up?"
Twi was not up – her head was lolled onto one side, her cheek snuggled against the couch's armrest. A thin trail of saliva leaked from the corner of her mouth, pooling on the couch's upholstery.
"Oh, so you're allowed to drool, huh?" Sunset snorted. "Better not give me any grief about your skirt, then."
She pulled off her jacket and draped it over Twilight, who smacked her lips and stirred slightly before nuzzling deeper into the armrest.
Sunset smiled to herself and headed for the kitchen, flicking the light switch on and reveling in the emptiness that greeted her. The microwave clock read 5:38 – she'd been out for nearly twelve hours. And Twilight had just let her sleep. On her own lap.
Guess she really feels guilty about the Starlight Glimmer thing.
She shrugged it off and headed for her broken coffee maker, more out of habit than anything else. It wasn't until she reached it that she recalled the thrice-damned thing was—
"...Huh," she said with genuine shock. "Hello there, big ol' pot of coffee."
The pot was filled to the brim with steaming brown liquid. Sunset pulled it free, flipped open the lid, and sniffed. The heady aroma of hazelnut filled her senses, and she compulsively released a slow, shuddering sigh. Not convinced that she wasn't dreaming – or hallucinating – Sunset poured a cup for herself, and took a tentative sip.
Her eyes widened. She swirled the coffee around with her tongue and moaned, relishing in its rich, bold flavor.
This is the greatest thing I have ever had in my mouth, she thought, gulping it down with a smile.
But a glance at the pot sent needles of paranoia up her spine – the amount of coffee inside hadn't decreased in the slightest. It was still filled to the brim.
Sunset bit her thumb and mulled this sudden turn of events, trying to string together some kind of logical explanation. Once, she'd had a coffee maker. It had stopped working. Then, one day, a floating eye from another dimension occupied her kitchen, and when it left, her coffee pot was literally bottomless.
Sunset glanced quickly at the pot's underside.
Figuratively bottomless, she corrected.
The Eyeball had done something before it left, Sunset remembered. It looked at her, deliberately; it formed a shape with its pupil. A U. Or so she'd assumed. In hindsight, it was more likely...
"A smile."
Sunset downed a swig of coffee and poured a refill – yet again, the volume of coffee did not decrease. She set her mug down and stared pensively at it, gnawing harder at her thumb. Could this have been a show of gratitude from the Eyeball? A token of farewell after she'd spoken to it and shown it kindness? A parting gift, because they developed a weird, mostly burrito-based friendship, against all odds and in defiance of communication barriers?
She had no way to be sure, really. But, she mused as she picked up her mug again, it would probably be a good thing to discuss with Twilight when she woke up.
Whenever that'll be.
Sunset took a long sip, smiling all the while.
Then she slammed her mug on the counter as a sudden realization took hold of her.
"Son of a bitch. I never got my phone back."
The Eyeball bobbed freely in the tides of a world without friction, awash in the nothing-that-was-everything, as she made her journey home. A nightmarish symphony played everywhere and nowhere – screams and laughter and childish weeping, crashing thunder and shrieking metal, underscored by the distant beating of insect wings. Swarming flies, phantasmal subjects to a degenerate Lord, raged impotently against the walls of a world forever beyond their grasp.
She had no sympathy to spare – for the Lord, for his subjects, or his plight. His world, all worlds, were better off without him.
A current of rainbows caught her, and swept her away. Home was yet beyond.
Borne by the tide, the Eyeball spun about, and stared into the infinite. Translucent orbs, like glass baubles, rippled and burst as realities formed and died by the thousands, the fleeting realms of mortals who existed within the constraints of dimensional space. In one, she glimpsed a house, built upon a rock in a sea of black and purple – the dwelling of her friend, the Old Chaos. His home, a quaint and paradoxically mortal construction, was a constant in all but the dreariest of realities, a fact which would no doubt vex him if he knew. Constancy is anathema to chaos, after all.
Through its window, the Eyeball glimpsed him – Discord, yet not Discord, alike and dissimilar from the one she knew. Standing apart from him was Sunset Shimmer, who saw the Eyeball, and waved.
The Eyeball had no sentiment to spare for this girl, for though she was Sunset Shimmer, she was not Sunset Shimmer as well – merely a different iteration from a different reality. Curious, then, that Sunset-Shimmer-Yet-Not recognized and greeted the Eyeball. The Eyeball sensed another's hand in this, and wanted no part at all.
She allowed the current to carry her away. Home was yet beyond.
The world shattered like ice, falling away into a stark land of white space – a backdrop, upon which mortal dwellings were drawn in two dimensions, colored in a spectrum visible even to the humdrum denizens of dimensional space. A being wandered about this backdrop, a hollow thing of neck and head and toothless mouth. Wide, glassy, lidless eyes glimpsed the Eyeball; he opened his mouth, and sang a song of shining darkness and four-sided triangles.
The Eyeball forsook the current. She toppled heedlessly into the mouth of her Spouse, for she knew she had come home.
The Spouse closed his mouth lovingly around the Eyeball. In their union, their thoughts swirled and bled together – the Spouse's fear at the Eyeball's disappearance, his certainty that he would never again cradle her in the warm embrace of his soft, felt mouth. And the Eyeball shared with her Spouse the memory of her time in the human purgatory, when her luminous existence was constrained by the chains of corporeality. A miserable, anxious, time – yet time well spent.
The Eyeball was not always a luminous being. She was born a meager thing of flesh and blood, of a kind with Sunset Shimmer. But that was ages past; she had outgrown such mortal conventions as ages, and forgotten the profundity of mortal life. Sunset reminded her that there is beauty, and meaning, to the fleeting lives of the lesser beings. They think, and they feel; they rejoice and despair. They love, and they lose; they grieve for what slips away. And though they are small-minded and short-lived, though they are as children to ones such as the Eyeball and her Spouse, they are not so dissimilar.
For in the moment where Sunset's thoughts were as one with the Eyeball's, they saw in one another the same want: To be loved and understood by another, utterly and wholly. If nothing else, they were alike in that.
The Eyeball sank into her Spouse's embrace, and hoped that Sunset would someday find the same.
Woo!
Yay, happy ending. Thank you for that crazy story, I never expected two plots like this (Sunset and Twilight friendship problem and an other-dimension entity) could fit, but you made it work quite well.
Finally caught up. A visionary masterpiece. Bravo.
Petunia Paleo? I can already see that the next story will be fun.
Very nicely done.
*cough*
I'm reminded of someone's D&D campaign with a decanter of endless lemonade ...
Sequel hook!
That poor eyeball.
From start to finish, this was a pupileasant read. Eye applaud your vision in crafting this lens through which a hairy escapade in Sunset Shimmer's life was viewed.
This eyepilogue, in particular, really socked it out of the park. It was sweet, yet somberero. I really have to hand it to you on the genius of the closing scene.
And now, to iris out on my parting thoughts on this spectacleular tale before I lash out with any more humors.
Wonderful from start to finish. The only blemishes are Sunset's obliviousness and the fact that she doesn't drink her coffee black. Everything else? Magnificent. Especially the nature of the Eyeball's home and Spouse.
That said, I do hope you aren't serious about that sequel title. Much as I'd love to see a sequel to this story, no one likes sand in their eyes.
8149250 That story is gonna be CoffeeMinion's province, actually. I'll leave it to him to determine who gets sand where.
That was the worst story I've ever edited for.
0/10 - kys fgt
Call me when you have a draft for the sequel.
The Eyeball is one of the strangest, yet most profound characters I've ever read about.
EYE hope to see her again!
Spectocular storeye!
An unlimited pot of phenomenal hazelnut coffee? Holy shit. Eye, I'll be PMing my dimensional address.
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I wasn't going to set it in the sandbox, but otherwise yes, this is a thing that's happening.
What the fuck did eye just read.
...
10/10 original pun
Eye'm glad the Search lid me to this story. It was very good. Iris my case. I liked the focus on Sunset. Still sorry Flash was so traumateyesed.
That was more puns than I've seen in a very long while!
Darn, I barely stopped meyeself from putting one in this comment!
A great story, thoroughly ridiculous but not enough to be nonsensical, just perfect fun reading!
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Just to follow-up with you guys: It happened. (Will also cross-post to my shorts collection.)
I never thought a story about a pony turned human befriending a floating eyeball could be so poignant. Then again, I never thought I'd reach a point in my life where that sentence would actually make sense, but here we are!
Great job as always, Mr. Horsepionage Man! These were some quality horse words.
Edit: Also just realized, and I don't think anybody else picked up on this, but the Eyeball totally passed the Lord of the Flies from PGS, didn't she? That's some classy cross-continuity foreshadowing there bud.
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Man, Senor Huevos is a lot odder than he looks.
Took me long enough to read it, but worth it. That was a helluva nice parting gift, one that Sunset will enjoy for decades. And I've day take back to equestria, most likely. And/Or pass along as a family heirloom of incredible power and dubious utility.
Still a mean cup of joe, though.
This ended up being more about human relationships with each other than a floating eye, but it was good.
8937053 That occurred to me after I finished drafting it, yeah. The Eyeball itself turned into the catalyst for some human(e) drama between Sunset and Twilight.
I rather like it more this way, tbqh. I'm glad you enjoyed it, too.
Somewhat reminds me of another story, WORLD IS IN DANGER, DON'T TALK TO ME by Aragorn, in that the supernatural weirdness the girls go through is treated as the B plot, taking a backseat to the interpersonal drama between them.
Making the magical mundane and the mundane magical, in poetic terms.
Personally, I love it. It somehow feels like exactly what EqG should be. At least in my opinion.
11770257 What a flattering comparison for him.
Anyway, I appreciate your compliment. Funny thing, I was just thinking about this story yesterday, and about another in a similar vein I’ve been meaning to write. This one hasn’t aged terribly well, I think, and I don’t consider it my best, but I’m glad it brought you some joy.