A character study of Sunburst, done for Letters From a Little Princess Monster · 11:21pm Jul 7th, 2018
... Much earlier that morning, in the Canterlot railroad station.
It had taken Sunburst Flare many days of scrimping and saving to get the bits for his trip to Yakyakistan for his next field of study. Yak magic was a strange melange of earth pony and other sorts of enchantments, wrapped up into their history like a long, braided rope of yak hair. Which incidentally was the same way they kept their history books. And cooking recipes. And family trees. Sometimes all on the same strand of knotted rope. Considerable wheedling had gotten him a small grant from the Canterlot school to visit, copy, and return with as much yak history as possible, then translate it for future generations of scholars.
Without getting smashed by a yak like the last researcher.
Personally, he was starting to think the grant was just a way for the teachers to get rid of their worst ex-student. During school, the stress, the competition, the endless class sniping, all had made him a nervous wreck. Eight years of cowering in his dormitory room between classes, not answering mail or seeing visitors, had left him going prematurely bald and with a nervous tic just under his eye, while he still had not managed to pass his exams.
Since flunking out, Sunburst had taken a job in a bookstore and spent all of his spare time happily reading the various tomes for sale, making notes and being thankful about not being in school any more. His present job allowed him to regain his confidence, regrow his mane, and even sprout a small goatee which bothered his mother something fierce. And it left him with the free time and spare change to research his favorite topics on his own, without being shoved or channeled into somepony else’s priorities.
It was like school, without all the bad parts.
“One ticket to adventure, please.” He pushed the pile of bits forward to the ticket salespony, who regarded them with the same bland enthusiasm as if he had dropped a hoof-full of gravel on the counter. “I mean… to the Yak empire, please.”
“North…” The train station was nearly uninhabited at this hour of night, but the mare in line behind Sunburst was close enough that her breath was blowing right against his tail. His thick cloak normally protected his thin hide from such indignities, but she brushed up against him again while continuing to mutter quietly under her breath.
“Ticket to Yakyakistan,” said the ticket mare. “Red-eye special or day rates?”
“Red-eye, obviously,” responded Sunburst. “That’s why I’m here, after all. If I wanted the day rates—”
“Your tickets,” said the mare, pushing the flat pieces of paper through the counter hole in the window. “Next!”
“But I have change coming,” protested Sunburst before being jostled from behind again. “Excuse me, young—”
Turning around put Sunburst nose-to-nose with a pony that he had never expected to meet. A much more impressive pony than he expected, too, although most of that was probably due to her immense bulk. The Princess of Love stood on the train station decking just a hoofstep away from him, her eyes hooded closed in the darkness of the night and her mane tangled around her head like a snarl of spider webs.
Even then, she was beautiful.
“North,” breathed Princess Cadenza again. “North.”
“Yes, north,” said Sunburst with a frantic smile as he tried to remember just what was in the research grant paperwork that he had signed so rapidly. “To the adventurous land of the Yak, and knowledge. Um… Are you supposed to go with me, Princess?” His eyes tracked to her wide sides and he could not help but add, “I thought you would be with your husband.”
The silence that followed was broken by the faint chuffing of a train pulling into the station, and Sunburst checked his ticket. Well, tickets. “And here is my train. Five stops north, Your Highness. I… um… This way?”
He trotted in the direction of the train, taking a look back over his shoulder to see Princess Cadenza matching his path, if a little unsteady due to her eyes still remaining closed. She was not carrying any luggage, so for a moment he thought Princess Cadenza was only there to see him off, but that hope was shattered when she stumbled on board right behind him.
“North,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
“Heh. It’s a train, Your Highness. You can’t hurry them up,” said Sunburst, looking in all directions for the guards that should have been right behind her, or even her husband, who would not be very appreciative of some dropout escorting his wife into the frozen tundra.
And he was still looking when the train pulled away from the station.
~ ~ Ω ~ ~
There was certainly something odd going on with Princess Cadenza, and if Sunburst had wanted strange in his life, he would have moved to Ponyville. No, that was not entirely true. Ponyville was strange and dangerous. Sunburst preferred a much simpler life, with his strange events being isolated to books and his worst danger being a paper cut. There were only two kinds of ponies who went willingly into danger, fools and heroes, and Sunburst was neither.
The way Princess Cadenza just stood next to Sunburst’s table with her eyes closed as if she were sleeping was… creepy, at best, terrifying at the worst. None of the spell books he had brought were any help diagnosing exactly what was wrong with her, although one of the books on Yak lore had references to crystal magic which when combined with Princess Cadenza’s crystal cutie mark, had been fascinating to read but all too short. In fact, the magazines in the train had more information about the strange land he was headed into than his books.
“Listen to this, Princess. The arctic tern migrates into the Shamash-Whump valley of Yakyakistan every summer without the assistance of pegasi. Isn’t that exciting?” He looked up at the drowsy princess for any kind reaction before returning to the wildlife magazine. “They fly over thousands of furlongs of Equestria until they return to the very pile of rocks they were born at, where they build their own nest to raise their new generation of terns. Wow. I wonder what their siblings do for a home.”
Still getting no response, Sunburst returned to his reading. A homing instinct like that would have been a terrible inconvenience for his own life. Returning to Sires Hollow was the last thing he ever wanted to do, even if Starlight was still there.
My first, last, and only friend. She was always such a genius. And I’m a dropout failure.
“So cold,” whispered Princess Cadenza, which made Sunburst immediately take his own warm cloak off and drape it over her shoulders, much like a blanket. It did not stop her from shuddering, little ripples passing over her pristine pink coat like ripples in a pond.
“When we get to Yakyakistan, I’ll have the yaks put you in a warm yurt,” said Sunburst, although with a glance at her expanded middle that made him resolve to find a yak who knew about foalbirth too.
“Stop,” whispered the princess. She turned in the walkway between the train seats and headed for the train door, where she pawed at it lightly. “Stop.”
“There’s no train station here for us to stop at,” said Sunburst, although he had grabbed all of his luggage anyway and tossed it over his back. There was a certain inevitability to the princess’ words, made only more plain when her horn lit up with a pale blue magic and every brake on the train froze up at once.
Sunburst went flying, and by the time he had picked himself up from the jumble of items, the door was open and the princess was gone. When he scrambled to the door, Princess Cadenza was just vanishing into the indistinct fog that surrounded an old train station, long abandoned to the northern air and soggy snowdrifts.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” snapped the conductor, who poked his head through the door to the next car. “We got ponies scattered all—”
“Princess Cadenza’s in trouble!” shouted Sunburst, jumping off the train step and following her indistinct figure. “Send word back to Canterlot! There’s something out here!”
Putting his head down, Sunburst galloped into unknown danger.
Pst. Those shudders across her coat? They're not shivers due to the cold. Get your stopwatch.
I wonder if this is her and Shinings second foal or a foal with another?!
Intriguing, either way!
4896858 First. Flurry Heart is about to make her entrance. Also, the Crystal Empire. And Sunburst gets to be midwife to them both.
Hmm. Can't find a good pony face for "intrigued".
Yeesh. Pregnancy hit Cadence like a ton of bricks. Good luck Sunburst, you're gonna need it.
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Poor Sunburst! He's going to have a big learning curve! Flurry will be the more traumatic of the two, I think!
4896881 To be fair, this is the Monsterverse, in which Cadence is the Queen of the Changelings now, Twilight has been regressed to a seven-year-old alicorn foal, and considerable changes have swept over the other two alicorns in the four-five months since Luna was freed from Nightmare Moon by the Elements of Harmony.
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Running about in circles, panicked babbling, possible screaming then fainting dead away at the sight of all the blood and various womb accutraments?
I assume he's going to handle the suprise childbirth in the same time-honored, dignified manner as many proper stallions before him?
4896860
Well that a hell of a job interview.
There's something of a tradition of bookish unicorns going from Canterlot to adventure. Wittingly or not, Sunburst is following the theme nicely.
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The Princess of Destruction vs. the King of Shadows? Flurry may set an untouchable record for youngest vanquisher of evil ever.