The last thing I remembered when Brandywine left me on Lavender Lather's bunk was him saying, "One of us needs to be rested." That and he didn't kiss me good-night as would have the brave young colt in any romance novel at this point in the story. He did hesitate, smile, then close the door.
Almost good enough.
I slept instantly. Both my former queens-mare, Loquacious, and my personal trainer at the castle—one of the perks and downsides of being the princess' protégé—called it soldier-sleeping. Living on the street, especially in the early years, I had learned to snatch sleep any time I could, and to be instantly awake when anypony came in range.
I trace that to what I figure was a year after my mother abandoned me on the street in Canterlot. I'm not a fan of snow, because I have a visual memory of snow and an aural memory of hooves crunching in the snow. I suspect I had been abandoned originally with some provisions, food, clothing, and maybe a doll, because sometimes I get flashes of those things that were stolen from me. I never get flashes of my mother, though. What hadn't been stolen was a pendant. It was for this trifle of gold that a fiend a year or so later thrashed me to within moments of death. My memories of snow always get colored with flashbacks of red.
But it was good in the end. It was how Loquacious found me. Bleeding in the snow. And she nursed me back and, despite her living on an unseen dimension populated with the ghosts of her foreign legionnaire comrades, she demonstrated the value of protecting ponies.
As for that pendant...
The dream showed it as tantalizingly sun-shaped, not unlike my new cutie mark, but enameled with a black sigil that seemed to be floating within hoofs-reach as I strained to grab...
"That timberwolf led the army that devastated Equestria seven hundred years ago. Celestia would never let her out of maximum restraint. Never!"
I was instantly awake.
I would never know who my parents were. Stupid subconscious! It was my new tame-self fighting the old feral-self that had vowed to kill her mother if she ever found her but knew that wasn't right. What I would do were I to meet her, or him because there had to be a him, would remain for the day we met. I was at least smart enough to know that all logic aside, my emotions would drive me that day with barbed whips.
I pushed two hooves off the bed and stretched deeply that way, listening, before creeping to the door. A light brush with the frog of my right hoof opened it a crack. Two vanguard, one with a bandaged head, stood before Lavender Lather at her unfinished pine desk. Brandywine faced her on her side of the desk and I looked at his flank (okay with me).
What kind of pony was a timberwolf?
Brandywine clarified, "I am not arguing that a monster got out of maximum restraint or the coincidence that I showed up at the same time—"
"And I'm pointing out that one of my vanguard, White Stockings, my deputy no less, hasn't returned. Look at Crinkle Paper here. Her ear was bitten clear off. It could have been her head!"
Miss Paper glanced at me with violet eyes and Lavender Lather spun her squeaky chair to glare at me. "I dislike coincidences."
I took my cue and trotted out and insinuated myself between Brandywine and the desk. I liked that. That he smiled at me, despite my cheeky closeness, I liked even more.
Obviously trying to break the sheriff's train of thought, he asked, "Did you sleep well?"
"I did—!"
Lavender Lather said, "And you? Is Jewel's report about you correct?"
"Yes, ma'am!" I said brightly and pushed my luck to rub cheeks with Brandywine. Warm. Velvety. I hoped we weren't both blushing. "I am the Queen of Cliffside. I did try to pull Celestia's wings off. Sadly, I only dislocated one... but I did pull off all her flight feathers!"
I felt Brandywine's skin shudder against mine. Okay, maybe I ought not sound so gleeful.
The sheriff narrowed her purple eyes. "Funny, that. Celestia usually reports prisoners she's sent."
"Really? Too embarrassed perhaps that a foal—"
"No ring either."
Ring? I hid my confusion and just grinned toothily.
"And that name. Sunset Shimmer. I can't place the name, but I recognize it from somewhere."
If you're too stupid to not have heard of Celestia's one protégé, foo on you.
"Were you under maximum restraint? You act like a child, but that could be an act. Have you been here more than ten years?"
"Why?" I asked with as fascinated a "childlike" expression and tone as I could muster. I widened my eyes and blinked blankly.
"There was a fire—" She stopped herself. Adults can be sooooo predictable.
"—and you lost all your records?"
Her lips compressed.
"If I answered your questions, would you believe me?"
"No."
"No restraint zone can hold the Queen—"
"No. J-just, n-no. No."
I grinned. Well, because it was funny and because I had an inkling where her discussion of a rampaging monster was going. I knew my colt-friend's agenda. Find papa. Check. Travel home. Check.
I would help with that.
I used my shoulder and nudged Brandywine behind me as I backed past the end of the desk. I said to the two vanguard, "You two can go now." I gestured dismissively with a hoof.
They looked at Lavender Lather who stood unceremoniously. "Inmate," she warned in a growl.
"I am Brandywine's advocate and—"
"His special somepony, as if I couldn't see that. Many decades older, I'm thinking—"
"I have told you who I am, what I have done, and how I am going to act. I cannot make you think." This was almost a direct quote from a thinly-disguised "Celestia" in Her Mare and the Stallion by Lunatique. Locked in a steamy affair with a dark (literally black and gray) and dangerous prince, the protagonist also had to tend to her own lands and fight repeatedly to set limits. I'd stood tall as I imagined the fictionalized Celestia did and heard her no-compromise voice in my mind. "What we are going to say, you—" I scrunched my nose and pursed my lips, shaking my head. "You probably don't want inmates to hear."
We locked stares for a half minute as the vanguard shuffled uneasily and Brandywine prodded my flank, but demonstrated his intelligence by not intervening.
Her purple eyes blinked first. She turned and said, "Crinkle Paper, find a map and mark all the sightings. Marvelous, you round up ponies to set a watch at the perimeter of the town." She had to bellow, "Shut the door!" after they left.
Somepony bucked it closed.
Before the sheriff could speak, I cut her off and spoke as a teacher speaks to a class. "You're observant, or you claim to be. What in Tartarus has gone wrong?"
"Monsters have gotten out of the restraint zones—"
"Not it." By way of demonstration, I picked up Brandywine in my magic as I trotted to the front of her desk, stacked all the papers on its surface, and rearranged her book shelf at the same time. With Brandywine's loud whinny, I made the maximum amount of noise. The desk banged to the floor. Oops, I guess I picked it up, too.
For her part, Lavender Lather glared at me and didn't once look at the window where angry rainbow crows ought to be streaming in to "mob" me.
Nope. Not a bird in sight. Very silent long seconds later, still... no angry birds.
I stated. "You knew. And you hoped Brandywine didn't so you could convince him to protect Central with his lovely known-to-be-unfettered horn."
"I don't want the inmates of the town to get the idea they can use their magic."
"Lady Jewel, you know, the drake you hinted at, she passed word of me so swiftly everypony knew about me before I got to Central."
She harrumphed.
"You remember Pear Brandy? I dealt with her... magically."
She looked at Brandywine who grinned, caught in a lie.
I said. "It was reflex. He was trying to protect a friend."
"Ponies know Brandywine isn't an inmate. They'll assume you're like him."
"You really think that?"
"Whoever you are, Sunset Shimmer, I will figure it out—"
I shook my head. This is where I could pull rank, I suppose, but this mare was stupid and since she knew Brandywine had lied to her, she'd not believe his verification. I sighed as she went on.
"—and see that you are punished for whatever disturbance you cause, and if I find out you are responsible for—"
"What? You'll arrest me? You'll throw me in the maximum restraint zone? I am not responsible for these horse apples, though I do know who is breaking Tartarus. Wait!" I laughed before I could stop myself, which brought Lavender Lather up short in her next red-faced retort. I continued, "That goth purple runt! She made Tartarus friendly, removing everything that made it unique. She made Tartarus free like the rest of Equestria!"
All the blood drained out of the sheriff's face, turning lavender to gray. She understood she was surrounded by Equestria's worst criminals and monsters. She understood that all the safeguards that protected her were broken.
Brandywine said, "If you want me to help, then I must."
I turned to the golden-brown colt, his amber eyes regarding me under his fabulous red gold-streaked mane. "You could help... but what's the point? And what about your father?"
"Ponies could be hurt."
"Right. Persecuted ponies like your father—or the other ones?"
He compressed his lips. Indecision wrinkled his black beauty muzzle.
"This is not something one pony can do," I said and faced the sheriff. "As the Queen of Cliffside, even as a magically powerful foal, I understood I could not protect the homeless of Canterlot by myself. Sure, I could intimidate and break noses occasionally, but I had to get ponies to cooperate—to not cause the constables headaches, to not steal stuff especially from one another, to not fight—so they could pool resources. I made that happen. They coronated me, though I didn't understand the concept at the time, because with me leading them life became good. They protected me in return. After all, I was just a foal and I had to sleep sometimes."
"And? You're boasting about this, why?" She sat again and put her hooves on the desk, purple eyes narrowed, ready to pounce, trying to figure out how to wrest her authority back.
"This foal—" I tapped my chest. "—nearly beat Princess Celestia one on one, and that's not boasting; it's to make a point to the both of you. You can be powerful even if you're not if you make the right decisions and get ponies to agree with you. If you have Brandywine fighting for you, you have one pony fighting. He'll lose and you'll lose."
"Thanks, Sunset," Brandywine said sullenly. He lowered his head, ears drooping.
"If you explain Tartarus is broken, tell everypony it's temporary—and I'm guessing it is—and tell them, and mean it, that you and Celestia will fix any consequences for using magic that should occur, they will cooperate. You realize that rather than fighting, running from trouble, having ponies take as much food as they can carry, may be the best idea. You have plenty of ponies here with plenty of unique talents. Show them you want to protect ponies. They'll reciprocate. The few that don't will find they have no choice but to go along. It's pony nature. Go. See what I say is true."
Lavender Lather's mouth hung open.
"In any case, we're leaving, now." I turned and nudged Brandywine with my nose, getting him to turn and look at the door ahead of me.
He'd hung his head. His muzzle brushed the tile floor. I guess my comment had hit a soft spot. I spoke into his ear. "My point was how many monsters can you face until one kills you? I nearly beat Celestia and I am not an alicorn."
Indecision had turned him to stone. "But you tried. And I understand your point."
I said louder, "The sooner we go, the sooner Lavender Lather can help the ponies of Central save themselves."
"Huh?" he said with a plosive ha, perking up, nodding as he thought about it. "You do have experience in this and I don't. I need to trust you, Queen of Cliffside." He operated the door latch with his magic without hestitation.
The moment he trotted through, two things happened.
One: Lavender Lather said, "Sunset Shimmer, perhaps you're the better choice—"
Two: Brandywine turned transparent.
I lunged forward, assuring I was neck to neck with him as a frigid darkness enveloped us.