Being the Avatar? The so called savior, which the world had been waiting for the last hundred years? It would have sound ridiculous if it weren’t because she knew a bit about strange stories. She knew she was way out of her league. She, the exiled student of the monarch of Equestria, admitting that she was on a very bad position? No one back home would believe it, but fact was stranger than fiction. Not that Sunset would say her doubts aloud, she still had an image to protect, but to ask her to be the one that will bring peace to a land ravaged by a hundred years war was a tall order.
Feeling the wind blowing and the pressure of flying on a high altitude, Sunset relaxed, closing her eyes and focusing on the feeling of flying. She had been able to use balloons and ships before, but the amazing feeling of freedom found on top of the bizarre creature called Appa was exhilarating and also calming for a reason. Sunset would never have changed her horn back in Equestria, but sometimes she wondered how life would be with wings, to be able to jump up and leave the pull of the earth completely, to fly in the sky like pegasi did. One of the many reasons why she wanted to become more than just a unicorn. Just another dream that had died alongside the girl she had been.
In a way, being on top of Appa, flying through the air and feeling the cold breeze of this altitude, reminded Sunset of Canterlot and the way it was perched on the precipice. It was not a most would envision a city as important as the center of government of a nation, the mere idea of something like that being done now would simply boggle the mind of most, but it was there that the old ponies decided the capital will be, and the royals and monarch simply reside there now. Sunset meanwhile, have seen the dangers, have thought about the ways in which it could have been done, had studied and read the stories of those that had made something so majestic, but after so long, knew that it was useless, no other city could be created like Canterlot without enormous quantities of resources. But the sights at the time of twilight, the way in which the sun’s light was like a blanket across the land, it was worthy. To Sunset, the feeling of fresh breeze, cold and refreshing, filled with the aromas of bakeries, printing houses and cafes, it was intoxicating.
She wondered how sea breeze will compare to it.
Now here she was and had the best of both worlds. Both the cold and thin air of the sky and the salty feeling of the sea engulfed her as she traveled across the world, almost free, quite, but not so.
Sunset knew that the only reason she could be enjoying this air was due to her enviable position of being the Avatar, the hope of the free world. She wasn’t sure how to feel about the whole situation, especially the way she had been ‘discovered’. Sunset wasn’t stupid, far from that; after all she knew all she could about the so called hero. She didn’t have the resources, or the sources to know everything, but piece by piece she had been able to find information about the Avatar and what had happened a hundred years ago to start the war.
Everyone that could have given her information about that important part of the world was dead or gone into hiding. The one that could bend all four elements was the only one that could defeat the Fire Nation and reestablish the balance. Well, there were those that changed the last part into lay waste to the Fire Nation, bunch of idiots in her opinion.
It was an important part of this world and still, it was forgotten across the Earth Kingdom, almost as if it had been a fairy tale or an old wives tale, but here he was, no more than a little kid, lost among the world, with everyone he knew gone and dead. In a way, she saw a little bit of her on him. The world that he knew was gone, never able to come back again, completely lost, but at least he had found allies. Sunset’s own temper had pushed all that could have maybe helped her aside.
She had learned her lesson soon, to never let her temper and her own darkness put her in danger. At first it was easy, after all, not only had she lost all of her magic, but she wasn’t even a bender. She was just a little kid, with no idea of the world and with no way to come back home. She didn’t know where the portal was or when it would open. She could try to track the place where she first arrived at this world down, but it was worse than finding a needle in the haystack, She was lost and it was only her own fault.
She had cried, screamed and swore revenge on Celestia and those that had done wrong to her, but that fire had turned into mere embers. It made the once proud and haughty foal turn into a bitter, uncomfortable teenager; one that thankfully was left to her own devices most of the time, or at least when she was capable of hiding herself.
Village after village she had traveled through, never staying in one place, never falling into charity or an orphanage. It was a small relief the fact that Earth Kingdom never recruited women for their armies because she would have been dead by now. So she had decided to learn and wait for a time she could use, to save herself or be powerful enough to do it.
Then it happened.
Looking at a candle and thinking about how easy it had been to ignite them, Sunset tuned out the bar in which she had been working and with one stretched hand went back to her days as an innocent filly. One filly, whose only dream was to be as amazing as Princess Celestia, one filly that had been killed by time and hardships. In the next moment, sparks had left her fingers and she had found herself repudiated by everyone, at days of her own execution.
She had lost all respect that she may have had for that town and she had let the worst of her take control once more. Even now, with miles and miles of distance, Sunset couldn’t even feel pity of what had happened back there.
So now, here she was, atop a mythical creature accompanying a group of kids, still not understanding what she had to do, who attacked them and what made them so scared. The only thing she knew was that now she could fight back, she was not defenseless and she never will be.