//------------------------------// // Bright Skies Fade to Falling Colours // Story: Unworthy of the Sun // by Impossible Numbers //------------------------------// She still had time to think, years later, when all around her the leaves showered the gardens of the Academy with hot hues: crackling oranges, dazzling reds, flashes of yellow. Celebrating around the descending sun, the skies faded to graceful streaks as though transforming into one vast rainbow. Laughter burst out of her while Sunset kicked up the leaves and danced beneath the bare boughs. The odd two or three students sat at benches and gave her puzzled looks, but she barely cared. Free, at last! She levitated the Aeolian harp. A mere box with strings inside became, under the subtle winds she summoned, a humming choir. Another curl of the air, and she created the sounds of moaning baritones. Her complex spell shifted again, and thrumming strings, whimsical strains, booming tones – “All right, all right,” muttered Trixie beside her. “We get it. You’re talented. You don’t have to show it off at the drop of a hat.” Sunset stopped dancing at once. “Oh. H-Hello, Trixie. I-I didn’t see you there.” You prancing buffoon, muttered the nagging voice coldly. “I can’t help it.” Nonetheless, Sunset cut the spell and let the box rest on her saddle. “Six years, Trix! It’s been six years! I still feel like I’m young all over again! It’s as if I never really lived before then. Just… existed.” Trixie grimaced at the box. When she adjusted her hat, three doves burst out of her cape and flapped away. “Music lesson, was it?” she muttered. “Lucky you.” Yes. It’s luck that got you here. Nothing more. Shut up, Sunset thought, but she knew the nagging voice would speak up again before long. “Prophecy today,” she said as brightly as she could. “Not that I’m much good at it. Now music, on the other hoof –” “Oh yes? Fortune-telling, and all that?” Trixie licked her lips. “Of course, I was telling fortunes when I was a mere filly.” Sunset wisely kept her counsel. Prophecy was to fortune-telling what an international swimming tournament was to a jump-about in a rain puddle. “I feel like I could do anything.” Sunset glanced across and suddenly stopped. “Trix! What happened to your leg?” “Nothing, nothing.” Trixie tried to raise the leg up to her cape, but a few stumbles later gave in to the inevitable. “Oh, all right. Someone threw a cabbage, but it’s only a little bruising. Nothing a strong magician couldn’t handle.” “Oh, Trix. You should tell the City Guard about this. It’s not right.” Or tell me. She calls it “only a little bruising”, but I’ll bet she limped part of the way up here. Why does she do this? Perhaps some ponies don’t want you treating them like second-class citizens, whispered the nagging voice. Especially since you never earned it. You stumbled into it. Sighing, Trixie held still. A couple of billiard balls dropped down before she extended the leg for inspection. “I know just the healing spell.” Sunset barely had to concentrate; compared with the fireworks of the heavy-duty spells, this was a sparkler that lasted two seconds. A flash was about as dramatic as it got, and then the bruise vanished. Trixie stared sadly at the vanished blot. Sunset knew better than to call attention to this. The magician only got an audience because she’d stopped claiming to use real magic, which was technically true, but it had taken weeks of agonized speeches and arguments to get to that point, and Trixie had still sulked about it afterwards. “My offer still stands,” said Sunset as gently as she could. She didn’t want to give the impression she was granting Trixie a favour; that suggested a superior reaching down to an inferior. “Still grateful, but still not interested.” Trixie’s face softened. “You don’t need to be a worshipper to gain magical powers, you know. All the great conjurors of history got by on innate skill and talent. As with tradition, so with Trixie!” And that’s why they throw things at you, thought Sunset, and she burned with outrage. She could never imagine it herself – wouldn’t even begin to imagine her own life outside of worship – but that would never give ponies an excuse to hurl cabbages at non-worshippers. But then, she held herself to a totally different account. Yes, murmured the nagging voice, and you still fail even at that. No wonder Celestia has less and less to do with you. You think you’re so good, but deep down, you know it’s all wrong… “I just wish I could do something… better,” she admitted. “Why?” said Trixie sniffily. “I was under the impression you were rising quite rapidly.” “Oh, I am, I am. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. It’s only that power isn’t enough. It’s great –” a grin broke out across her face “– but it can’t be all there is to it.” “Odd way of looking at it,” said Trixie, back to staring at her own leg as though trying to summon another bruise. “Uh. Heal-Quick spell, was it?” “Kind of.” Sunset kept her face carefully blank before the feeble imitation of Moondancer's name-dropping. “I meant that… I get this feeling Celestia’s holding something back. Something she’s not telling me.” Beside her, Trixie took in the ivy-twined arches, the bubbling fountain, and the songbirds of all colours darting to and fro. Her groan was low and stretched, as of one who’s seen paradise and never gotten the ticket. She was only able to visit in the first place because Sunset had insisted. Since the tutors of the Academy were aware of the special arrangement between Sunset and Celestia, she got what she wanted. Often at haste, with many tutors tripping over themselves and apologizing over and over. Sunset smirked at the thought. But Trixie the travelling magician, who even now had cards slipping out from under her cape, was her one last remaining link to the streets. To a time when the bangs of the stage and the creak of the caravan’s wheels had been better than the Old City Clocktower. You’re no different from her. The nagging voice burrowed further into her mind. But for a twist of fate, she’d be in your horseshoes. And you’d be in hers. “I think she’s waiting for me to do something,” Sunset said. “I have to keep moving. There’s no rest for me. She deserves nothing less. I can’t settle for anything less.” You know what they call ponies who settle for less. You don’t want to be exposed as one of them. It’s wrong to be idle. It’s wrong to leech off others, simply because you’re selfish and thoughtless and lazy and a fraud who got lucky. Isn’t it, Shimmer? She sighed. “You’re quite lucky in some ways, Trix.” The sky darkening overhead, Sunset raised the Aeolian harp for a few experimental twangs. “If you say so.” Trixie glanced at the strings of the box, and every iota of her face wilted with the leaves.