The Unexpected Adventures of Trixie and Sunset

by Sixes_And_Sevens


Gold Fever

In the high, snowy mountains of Griffonstone, the Blood Claw watched the world below. They sharpened their talons and spoke in hushed voices of the prisoners who had arrived in the night. Some claimed that they were traitors, or spies. Others murmured that they were a pack of marauders. Some few even claimed that the resistance had captured the Witch Under the Mountain and her beast, but those few were quickly scoffed out of the room.
In her own quarters overlooking the western face of the mountain, their general sat staring out of her window. She was not officially their general, of course. This revolution was no army, and there were no leaders. None of the others would have stood to be an underling. It was the cat in them showing through. But the general was respected. She was the best non-leader any of them had never had.
There was a knock at the door. “It’s not locked,” she grumbled.
The door opened to reveal a griffon matron with pink-streaked feathers. She was built like a Valkyerie, and had a voice to match. “Hell-oo!” she called, causing the rafters to shake. “I’ve brought your lunch, dearie!”
“Hm,” said the general, taking her claws out of her ears. “Cool. Put it on the table, Glinda. Uh, thanks.”
“Oh, not at all,” Glinda cooed. “Let me just pour you a little tea.”
“Great, great. Shut the door, will ya? You’re letting the heat out.”
Glinda did as she was told, humming happily. “There’s nogriff around that can hear us now,” she said, mildly admonishing.
The general smiled and got up from her seat. “Yeah, I guess not,” she said. “Okay, Glinda. What’s the dirty?”
“Discussion of an attack on Budgiepest tomorrow,” Glinda said, setting out a pair of cups. “There are more than a few dissenting voices, of course."
"Of course there are."
"More than a few dissenters against you as well."
"Like I said, of course there are. What're they saying this week?"
Glinda scratched her chin. "Well, you know. They're wondering about your chosen spoils of conquest. They'd understand gold and jewels, or prisoners and concubines, things like that. But books..."
The general glanced back. The walls of her quarters were heavy with leather tomes and vellum scrolls. “Look, if they can make sure that all of these ancient and delicate relics that make up the history and culture of all griffonkind are gonna survive the revolution, then I won't bother with them. Until then, they’re mine.”
“You don’t have to tell me, dear.”
“Hrm. Yeah. My bad.” The general stirred her tea, brooding. "Alright, what else?"
"Two more griffons have fallen ill."
"Damn. Same as the others?"
"It seems so."
"Shit. Where's a doctor when you need one?"
"Enjoying the relative benefits of the upper crust of our society, most likely."
"Yeah, less of the sass, Glinda. You're my spy, not my chief color commentator."
"Yes, general."
“What about the prisoners?”
“What about the prisoners, dear?”
“They escaped. Twice. We’ve only had them for a day.”
“They’re under stricter guard, now.”
“The last two were built like stone statues! How much tougher can you get?”
“We sent Gabby.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’d do it. ‘Why are you leaving? Don’t you want to stay with me?’ I mean, those big eyes should be illegal.”
“They want to talk to you.”
“Me?”
“Somegriff in charge, at least. You’ve spent the most time with ponies. I thought you would be the best choice.”
The general groaned and sat back. “Ugh. I can just imagine one of the others trying to do it. Yeah, alright, I’ll do it when I’m free.”
Glinda smiled. “And isn’t it a lucky thing that you’re free right now?”
The general almost spat her tea back into its mug. “Glinda. Where are the prisoners?”
Glinda's smile widened. “Right outside the door.”
She thumped the table. “Dammit, you said there was no one around!”
“Nogriff, dear. I said nogriff,” Glinda replied, rising to open the door again.
Chained to a bar on the other side of the hallway were two ponies. Their horns were capped, and the one with wings had them bound to her sides with more iron chains. Both of their mouths were tied shut with rope which one of them was attempting to chew through. The other one, the one with wings, seemed content to just glare bloody murder at her captors. The general sighed. “Okay, fine. Help me bring them in.”
She stepped out into the corridor and started untying the ropes around their mouths. “Hi,” she said. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. My chief of espionage is a little enthusiastic.”
As soon as she had gotten the rope off of the orange one’s mouth, the mare started shouting. “Who are you griffons? What do you want with us? I’m the student of Celestia herself, and I could blow the top off this mount-urk!”
The last was because the general had wrapped her talons around her mouth and gripped. “Don’t even think about it. You like tea?”
The orange one hesitated, but the blue one nodded enthusiastically. “Great. I’m Gilda. Welcome to the rebellion.”

***

Gilda was a little surprised that her reputation had preceded her. Apparently, both of these ponies knew Rainbow Dash pretty well. Trixie had started chattering away almost the moment her gag had been cut off, but Sunset remained staring at her broodingly over her tea.
Both of them were giving her a headache the size of a beach ball. After enduring perhaps five minutes, she slammed a claw on the table. “Alright, that’s enough,” she snarled. “I’m in charge, you’re trespassing. Give me one good reason that I shouldn’t lock you up.”
“If you let us go, you’ll never see us again,” Sunset said.
Gilda snorted. “How ‘bout I keep you where I can see you? No. You’re a threat to the revolution. I don’t care why you came here, or what you want. If I let you go, this whole thing will fall apart.”
Sunset blinked. “...What revolution?”
Trixie and Gilda stared at her. “You can’t be serious,” Gilda said.
“Sunset has been in another world for the last decade, at least,” Trixie defended. “She only got back last week.”
“Seriously, what revolution?” Sunset repeated.
“The Blood Claw cultural revolution, duh,” Gilda said.
Sunset gawked. "Blood. Claw."
"Ugh. You ponies, always getting hung up on the 'blood' thing," Gilda grumbled. "FYI, Miss Prudish, it's because we're revitalizing this country. Putting the blood back into it!"
“Griffonstan has been in decline--”
“Hey! Miss Magician! My country, my revolution, my explanation. Geddit?”
Trixie huffed. “Trixie will allow it.”
Gilda glared. “Again. My revolution.”
She turned to Sunset. “So, basically, Griffonstan is in the toilet. Has been ever since we lost the Idol of Boreas, and it’s just been getting worse. Our economy is trash, our culture barely exists, and we’ve been ruled by bureaucrats ever since the last king died and nogriff could be bothered to appoint a new one.”
“...Wow.”
“Yeah. ‘Wow’ is the word,” Gilda said. “Worst of all, we grew up on this stuff. Thought it was normal. Then some of us went to Equestria and found out what an actual working government is like.”
“Oh,” said Sunset. “So you’re introducing friendship to Griffonstan?”
“What? No! You think we don’t know what friendship is just because we’re not ponies or something?”
Trixie clucked. “Racist.”
“What? I--” Sunset’s face fell. “Yeah, I guess it was. Sorry.”
Gilda clutched the bridge of her beak. “Let's get one thing straight.”
“Trixie isn't,” Trixie quipped. She then reeled back under the force of the griffon’s glower. “Trixie will be quiet now.”
“We don't want Griffonstan to be Equestria the Second,” Gilda ground out. “We’re not ponies, and we never will be ponies. Your whole culture is built around friendship and being nice and stuff, but ours is based on personal glory. Cunning, bravery, individual strength. But…” she deflated slightly.
“But that's gone too far,” Sunset said.
Gilda nodded. “Yeah. We're all isolated from each other, only thinking about ourselves. That's not brave, or smart, or strong. It's just selfish. And stupid.”
She turned and stared over the cliffs to see Griffonstone. “It used to be so great,” she said quietly. “I’ve read a lot of history books about it. There aren't that many that go so far back, but I found them. Weren't exactly pricey. Nogriff wanted them but me. Plus, I looted a lot of them from the ass-crack of a bunch of closed museums. Had to pitch the really moldy ones, but I got a pretty good selection.” She waved a talon at the walls of bookshelves.
She pointed to a viaduct that stretched around the western rim of the city. “That used to be the Way of Gordon. All covered in gold and jewels, spoils of war. The last of it was pulled off about a century ago. Not for any reason, either. No war, no disaster. Nogriff actually needed it. They just wanted it. For themselves. And sometimes you just…” she shook her head. “Dunno. I just dunno.”
Both mares were silent. “Okay,” Sunset said. “Great. I’m glad for you. But we really need to just… get back to Ponyville? Can you please just point us to the nearest train station, and leave the rest to us?”
Gilda shook her head. “You really don’t get it, do you?” she said. “I can’t let you go. If I let you go, then I show weakness, and I don’t get any respect. I was one of the founders of this revolution. If I’m out, this whole thing will fall apart, and everything goes back to being garbage. You’re stuck here until you can prove you’re on our side.”
Sunset folded her hooves. “Can we at least not be put back in those cells? There was ice forming on the ceiling, and it smelled like feet.”
“You’re made of fire, what do you care about the cold?”
“I am, but she’s not. If she’s not literally right next to me, her teeth are chattering like they’re gonna fall out of her head.”
Gilda fixed Trixie with a stare. The magician didn’t meet her eyes. “Huh. Alright, fine, I’ll see about you getting better quarters if you promise not to try and escape again. If you do, you’re going back in those cells, got it?”
“Fair enough,” Sunset said, extending a hoof. They shook on it.
“So,” Trixie said. “If we are to be your guests here indefinitely, then Trixie, for one, would like to know where the dining hall is.”
Gilda grunted. “Yeah, okay. I’ll show you the most important stuff. I gotta go for a walk anyway. I’ve been reading so long, I think my butt shaped itself to the chair. Ha! Guess I’m as much of an egghead as Dash is these days. How’s she doing, anyway? The mail service is pretty bad up here.”
“Well,” Sunset began, “she started dating Applejack, but that’s sort of a secret, so don’t let on that you know…”
As Gilda led them down the hall, none of them noticed the male griffon lurking in the shadows. He turned to watch them. His eyes reflected luminous gold in the dim corridor.

***

“...And in here,” Gilda continued, “we have the hospital wing.”
Sunset looked around, disgusted. “Remind me never to get sick here.”
“Hey!” Gilda glared at her. “We haven’t got any doctors, alright? This was the best we could do.”
Trixie grimaced. “Do you not have any cleaning staff, either?”
“You volunteering?” Gilda demanded.
An elderly griffon cleared his throat and glowered at them all.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, Gaius!” Gilda cleared her throat and spoke a little more quietly. “Keep it down in here. Patients are trying to sleep.”
“If he’s not a doctor, then who is he?” Sunset asked.
“Caretaker. He cleans up as best he can, feeds the inmates, gets them their medicine.”
“What medicine?”
Gilda shrugged. “Whatever we can steal or make, mostly. We’ve still got a better survival rate up here than any of the towns nearby. Almost forty percent!”
Sunset swallowed hard. “Geez. That’s…”
“Terrible?” Gilda suggested.
“Yeah.”
“Welcome to Griffonstone.”
There was a scuffle near the back of the wing. Trixie glanced around. “What was that?”
“Shit. Gaius, the inmates are getting restless again! Come on, move yer butts.”
“Do the patients usually try and escape?” Sunset asked, trying to get a better vantage.
Gilda picked her up like a football, tucked her under an arm, and walked out. “No. There’s a bug going around that makes griffs go loopy, that’s all.”
Trixie quickly hurried out to avoid meeting the same indignity as Sunset. However, Gilda had made one tactical error. She was holding Sunset so that she was facing back into the room. For just a second, she saw a flurry of beaks and claws behind the curtain, matched with furious glowing golden eyes. And then Gilde turned into the hallway and the sight disappeared from her view.
Sunset was no doctor, but that had looked like a little more than a ‘bug going around’.

***

“Well obviously she was lying,” Trixie said, taking a seat on the bed. “Trixie saw that right away.”
“Then why didn’t you bring it up?”
“When? This is the first time you and Trixie have been alone all day.”
Sunset conceded the point. “Okay, then why?” she asked. “What’s she trying to hide from us?”
“Ah. There, you have Trixie,” she said, belly flopping on the straw mattress. “Mmm. Just like being on the road again.”
“I don’t like this, Trixie.”
“Of course not. Ponies tend to dislike being lied to, unless it is by a qualified stage magician such as myself.”
“Trixie, focus. There are some sick griffons up here, and for all we know, they might be contagious to ponies. We could be in serious trouble, and Gilda isn’t talking.”
Trixie rolled onto her back. “Well, what is it that you are proposing?” she asked.
“We need to go and investigate the hospital wing.”
“And get busted for escaping? We’re prisoners, remember?”
Sunset scowled. “Oh, yeah…”
She sat down heavily next to Trixie, who rolled over to get closer. “Ack! Hey, personal space!”
“Trixie is sorry,” Trixie murmured. “But you’re so warm…”
“Ugh. Fine. But ask next time.”
“Mmkay.”
“Okay, how about this,” Sunset said. “One of us goes to check out the infirmary, and the other one stays here. Neither of us would escape and leave the other behind, right? I bet the griffs know that, too, especially Gilda.”
Trixie considered that. “Very well. Trixie will go forth--”
“No, sorry. I meant I would do that.”
“What? Trixie is more than capable of investigating on her own.”
“Yeah, but if they catch you, then they might throw you back in the cells, and I won’t be there to warm you up.”
“Bold of you to assume that Trixie could ever be caught.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got less to lose. I don’t feel the cold anymore. Besides, you’re the expert liar. If one of the guards checks in, you can make them think I’ve gone to the bathroom or something.”
Trixie preened. “True, true.”
“So we’re agreed?”
“Fine. But don’t get caught. The blankets in this room are not doing it for Trixie.”
“Glad to know I’d be missed,” Sunset said drily before pushing open the door to their quarters and trotting out into the hallway.
Trixie bit back a curse. Comparing her to a blanket? That was the best she could do? She threw herself back on the bed. She liked Sunset. A lot. She wasn’t going to pretend it was love, exactly. She didn’t even know why she felt this way, but it was a sort of familiarity that might just lead to something more.
So she was wandering after Sunset, powerful, no-nonsense, clever Sunset, with all the affection of a lost puppy and all the tact of a rogue elephant.
Not that it mattered. Sunset would never accept her advances. She didn’t do romance. Not too long ago, the TARDIS had landed them in a bar in the far-distant future, and Sunset had attracted a suitor who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Instead, he took a hoof to the teeth before Sunset picked him up and threw him out the door before sitting down to finish the last of the fried cheese sticks.
That was definitely at least one of the reasons why she might be in love with Sunset. Trixie really liked the idea of a mare who could carry her around in one hoof without breaking a sweat.

***

Sunset trotted down the hall, chuckling softly to herself. A blanket? Sweet chaos, Trixie sure was something. She couldn’t believe that they had managed to mutually put up with each other’s shit for this long without one of them snapping. She was actually starting to find Trixie’s little quirks endearing. Kind of nice, even. She smiled. Maybe this trip wasn’t such a disaster after all. They were becoming friends in a much different-- and undeniably more interesting-- way than they might have back home.
She heard movement from up ahead and pressed herself against the wall. In retrospect, maybe she should’ve let Trixie do this after all. At least she didn’t glow like a beacon in the dark.
Of course, Sunset thought as the steps drew closer, she didn’t have the ability to do this, either. She shut her eyes tight and focused. She had only learned the barest aspect of chaos magic-- Discord wasn’t a teacher by nature. But fire was a natural shape-shifter. She squeezed herself down, willing herself unseeable until she was no bigger than a birthday candle.
As the noises resolved themselves into voices, she flew up to the ceiling, a firefly on the wall.
“Well, like I said,” said one, “I don’t like it.”
“‘Course you don’t. Who does? All around us, griffs going off the deep end for gold.”
“Not that part.”
“You don’t mind that they’re losing their minds?”
“No- Yes- Look, all I’m saying is, it doesn’t seem like a disease to me.”
“I’d say they’re pretty diseased. Remember what Ginerva nearly did to Gallus? Good thing the kid got his bracelet off in time, or he’d have been roast turkey.”
“That’s not what I--” The first speaker stopped, growled. “Look. All I’m saying is, it’s not natural, and if you say one damn thing about the griffon condition I’ll break your face. What I’m saying is, it’s some kinda freaky magic.”
“Freaky magic?”
“Freaky. Magic.”
“Like that little light up there?”
“Huh?”
Sunset shot away before the first griffon could even look up, zooming like an arrow to the far side of the hall. She felt like Tinkerbell, some glowing sprite zipping through the air at speeds to rival Rainbow Dash. Of course, mindful of what had happened to Tinkerbell, she regained her normal size quickly. Sunset had no desire to be trapped in a lantern.
The infirmary was just around the corner now. She peered around the bend. No griffons. Silent as dancing sparks, she slunk down the hall and cracked open the door she wanted.
Gaius the caretaker was still there, snoozing at his desk. Of course, he also happened to be resting his head on a heavy old battleaxe. Sunset slipped into the infirmary, easing the door shut behind her. It closed with a soft click. Gaius stirred in his sleep, but didn’t rise.
She hurried down between the mostly empty hospital beds toward the back of the room, where a curtain had been hung. She put her belly to the ground and wiggled under it like a snake. Never in her life had she been so glad for PE drills. Coach Biceps, I swear when I get home, I’m writing you a thank-you note, she thought.
She pulled herself to her hooves and looked around. Her jaw dropped. Easily two dozen griffons lay in piles of gold. Each of them wore a little box over their eyes, also made of gold. Each of them had little earplugs in. Each of them seemed to be frantically trying to bury themselves in gold. She reached out a hoof, but she suddenly found herself dangling in midair, a talon gripping her mouth shut. “Gotcha,” Glinda whispered in her ear.

***

Trixie lay on the straw mattress, half in a doze, daydreaming about making the Statue of Harmony disappear in front of all of Manehattan. Trixie! Trixie! Trixie! the crowd cheered.
Trixie’s eyes popped open. Trixie! Trixie!
She could still hear it.
She scrambled to her hooves. It was coming from down the hall. Trixie pulled the door open, but hesitated on the threshold. If she left, the room would be unoccupied, and there was a much stronger risk that she, Sunset, or both would end up back in the cells. Trixie! Trixie! Trixie!
On the other hoof, that chanting did sound very urgent, and apparently she was already halfway down the hall anyway, so she might as well go and check it out, right?
There was a golden glow coming from a door down the hallway. Trixie didn’t stop to think about how that was possible when the door was shut tight. Right now, she wasn’t thinking much at all. She pushed open the door. The roar of the crowd answered her. She basked in it, trotting in, letting the door swing shut behind her. It washed over her as she smiled and waved, wading through the hordes of her admirers, making her way to the stage at the center. She winked, and every mare in her field of vision swooned, toppling like dominoes.
After what might as easily have been an hour as five minutes, Trixie arrived onstage. There was a statue sitting there, an ugly little bust of what might have been a griffon, a hippogriff, or a mutated pigeon. She scowled at it. How dare it steal her spotlight? She reached out a hoof to shove it over.
The crowd fell silent. When Trixie looked around, she discovered there was a perfectly good explanation for that. They were gone. The stadium was empty. The silence was deafening.
Trixie took a step forward. It echoed in the hollow space. She turned to look at the bust, and saw now that it was a perfect image of herself. She started to scream.

***

Gilda’s tail lashed. “I left you two alone for one hour,” she ground out. “One. And you manage to break into the hospital wing, and your friend manages to touch the rutting statue that’s been causing all this!”
Sunset didn’t look up. All she could see was Trixie, laughing madly as tears ran out of her golden eyes, running to hug her, begging to put on a show, begging to be loved. Apparently, it hadn’t affected her in the same way it had the griffons. Gabby and Gallus, the one who’d almost died because he’d been wearing gold around a patient, were serving as a temporary audience for her show. “What is it?” she asked.
Gilda sat down heavily. “We’ve been calling it gold fever,” she said reluctantly.
“General,” Glinda warned.
“She already knows most of it, Glinda,” Gilda snapped. “Her friend’s got it.”
She turned back to Sunset. “We don’t know why it happens, exactly. Best we can tell is, it calls to somegriff-- someone. For a minute, it makes all their dreams come true at once. Gets into their brains, digs out what they most crave. All those griffs in there, it was gold. Your pal, I guess, it was attention.”
“Makes sense,” Sunset said. “She went into magic because her parents never paid any attention to her.”
“Sure. Anyway, then they touch the thing. And it all goes poof. Mountains of gold turned to lead in their minds. A crowd turned into an empty arena, as far as we can tell. And they’re still there in their minds, scrounging in the real world for the last drops of whatever they crave.”
Sunset let out a long, shaky breath. “Okay. So how do we stop it?”
Gilda barked a laugh. “You think if I knew, I wouldn't have done it already?” She shook her head. “No. Not a clue.”
Sunset thought about that. “Well, is it mentioned anywhere in those books you recovered?”
Gilda grimaced. “I dunno. I’ve been reading them from cover to cover, but I haven’t found any mention of it. I’ve only made it through maybe a fifth of them, though.”
She waved a talon at a shelf, standing alone in a corner. “Nothing.”
Sunset stood and trotted over to look at the books, levitating them off the shelves. “...This one’s a cookbook. And this is an atlas.”
“Yeah, I know. I read them.”
Sunset stared at Gilda for a long moment, the books still hovering around her. “...You’re exactly as much of an egghead as Rainbow Dash,” she said flatly. “Come here, and let me show you how to catalog a library.”

***

After about twenty minutes of giving the griffons a crash course in basic scholasticism, with particular focus on categorizing books and using indices to search for basic information, Sunset, Gilda, and Glinda had managed to find about twelve books with sections on statues, five with sections on curses, and three with sections on scones that Gilda insisted be put aside for future reference.
They pored over the fourteen tomes they had selected. Sunset insisted they pay especial attention to the three books that had sections on curses and statues both. “Here,” Gilda said at last. “It’s called ‘Tantalus’.”
“Sounds promising,” Sunset said, setting down her own book. “He was from Minoan mythology, a glutton who wound up in his own personal prison in Tartarus. He stood in a pool of water, and a fruit tree dangled over his head. But whenever he reached for either, they shrank away from him.”
“Sucks.”
“Yeah. Question is, why’s he a griffon here?”
Gilda looked over the book. “Huh. Says he led a bunch of campaigns against the minotaurs back before Equestria took up the territory between Minos and Griffonstone.”
“He was real?”
“Looks like. His statue was said to be 'imbued with his desire and tainted by his final loss', whatever that means.”
Sunset flipped through her books. “Ouch. Looks like he fell from glory, hard. His troops threw him out of power, and he spent his last days with nothing but that bust for company.”
“All that is quite lovely, dearies,” Glinda said. “But how do we undo all this?”
Gilda checked her book again. “It says… last time, it was a group of ponies and griffins working together that did it. That’s it.”
Sunset thought for a long minute. “A lot of multi-victim curses can be broken if someone refuses to let it affect them,” she said at last. “Probably, the group was able to beat it because they all wanted different stuff, so they could pull each other back from the edge.”
“Huh,” said Gilda. “Okay.” She stood up. “Let’s go.”
“What, now?”
“Yeah, now. We’ll go, you and me. Glinda, I want you keeping an eye on us. If all else fails, pull us away from the thing.”
The pinkish griffon nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Only two of us, though?” Sunset protested. “More griffons means more minds to please.”
“And more to stop if something appeals to all of them at once,” Gilda snapped. “You and me, dweeb, and if we get out of it with our brains un-fried, I’ll let you and your friend go.”
Sunset stopped. “I thought you couldn’t--”
“Not a lot is gonna prove you’re on our side like stopping this curse,” Gilda said. “Are you in, or out?”
Sunset thought about Trixie, how desperate she’d been, almost drooling whenever anyone so much as looked at her. “I’m in.”

***

“Uh,” said Gilda. “Turn on! Activate!” She scowled and prodded the pedestal. “Do something, ya ugly chunk of metal.”
Glinda stood in the hall outside, ready to bust the door down at the slightest provocation.
Sunset sighed. “Come sit with me,” she instructed. “Hold my hoof, and let your mind empty.”
Gilda scowled at her. “You think that’ll do it?”
“Worth a try.”
“Hold your hoof?”
“Makes us harder to separate. If you can’t feel me, scream.”
“Ugh.” Gilda stomped over and grabbed Sunset’s hoof with a talon. “Now what?”
“Watch the statue.”
“Until?”
“Something happens.”
Gilda grumbled a little more, but eventually silence fell in the room. Time passed. How much, how quickly, it was impossible to tell. But eventually, Sunset became conscious of the fact that the floor was much bumpier than it had been. And a little colder. And covered in gold coins. “We’re in,” she breathed.
“Hnh?” Gilda jerked awake and glanced around. “Whoa.”
It was an Aladdin’s cave of a room. Gold and gems and priceless spices piled high to the ceiling, and they sat at the center of a crossroads in that treasure trove. “Okay,” Gilda said. Sunset could feel her heartbeat speeding up just from holding her talon. “Now what?”
Sunset thought about that. “Now,” she said, “we walk. Don’t touch anything except the floor.”
Gilda exhaled. “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”
They stood awkwardly. Their joints were stiff with the time spent watching and waiting. Together, they made their way down one of the halls. They were still in sight of the statue when Gilda stiffened. “The Idol of Boreas,” she breathed.
Sunset gripped her talon tighter. “It’s not real,” she reminded the griffon. “It’s an illusion, nothing more.”
“...Right. Yeah,” Gilda said, deflating. “Come on, let’s keep going.”
The Idol popped up a few more times as they walked, but Gilda got progressively less excited each time. Eventually, she took to ignoring the walls of treasure entirely.
Not long after that, Sunset heard a jingling. She glanced up and saw that the mountains of treasure were sloughing off gold and treasure, almost like an-- “AVALANCHE! Run!”
“Better idea,” Gilda growled. “Let’s fly!”
Sunset was jerked off the ground, her shoulder twisting painfully until Gilda did a sort of barrel roll and held her to her chest. But it wasn’t enough. Gold rained upon them, forcing them down, down, down…
And then they were out in the open air again.
“Where’s this?” Gilda asked, glancing around.
“If you got off me, I might be able to tell you,” Sunset said tetchily.
“Well, excuse me, princess,” Gilda grumbled, letting Sunset crawl out. Then her jaw dropped. “Uh, wow.”
“What?” Sunset asked. “Hey, did you get shorter?”
Gilda shook her head. Sunset frowned and conjured up a mirror. She gasped. Staring back at her was an alicorn the size of Celestia, mane flowing in a breeze only she could feel. She let the mirror fall away and glanced around. “This is Canterlot,” she said. “This is Canterlot… and I’m the Princess.” She spread her wings. “I… I have to go and see--”
Gilda tackled her. “No, you don’t.”
“You don’t understand. I wanted this for all my childhood.”
“Yeah, well, I wanted a cake for my birthday. We’re grown up now. Time to be realistic.”
Sunset struggled a little more, then went still. She sighed, took off the tiara, and hurled it at a statue. Its head fell off and plopped into the bushes with the dented diadem. “Nice one,” Gilda said. “Hey, do you smell something?”
They turned around. Behind them, a long table stood, laden with every kind of food imaginable. Sunset squeezed Gilda’s talon. “Not one bite,” she said. Then her eyes fell on something. “Oh man, they’ve got hot dogs. Actual hot dogs, not stupid carrots in a bun…”
“Quit it,” Gilda said.
Sunset frowned and tried to swallow the drool gathering at either side of her mouth. She glanced around. Canterlot was gone, replaced with a stone banquet hall, complete with…”
“Grab one of those torches,” she instructed. “Then throw it at the table.”
Gilda obliged. With all the grease the two had dreamed up, the whole thing went up pretty quickly.

***

“And now, ladies and gentlegriffs!”
Gallus leaned over. “She knows there’s only one of us apiece, right?”
Gabby shushed him. “For Trixie’s next trick,” Trixie continued, “she will need a volunteer from the audience.
Gabby brightened. “Ooh! Ooh! Me, me! Pick me!”
“Hm… you, sir! Yes, the blue one!”
“Aw…’ Gabby sighed. Gallus cussed, but rose and approached the attention-starved magician.
“Now, young griff--”
“Gallus,” Gallus ground out. “The same name it was the last dozen times you had me ‘volunteer’.”
“Trixie wonders if you would care to take her hat?”
“What am I, your butler?” He took the hat anyway. “Holy shit. Are these explosives?”
“Oh.” Trixie quickly took the hat back. “Trixie was wondering where those had got to.” She flourished her cape over the hat, then hoofed it back. The various fireworks were gone.
Gallus stared into the hat. “Great. The one interesting thing that happened today--”
He stopped. Trixie had gone oddly stiff. “The audience…” she breathed. “Where is the audience?”
Gabby cocked her head. “We’re right here, Trixie. Ooh, is this another trick? Are you gonna make us disappear?”
Trixie twisted around like a hunted animal. “Where?” she demanded. “Where have you taken them?”
Gallus stepped back, clutching Trixie’s hat to his chest. “Uh, Gabby, I don’t think this is part of her act.”
Trixie spun around, facing away from the two griffons. “There…” she said. “Worry not, devotees! Trixie is coming!”
Gabby frowned as Trixie ran off. “Isn’t that direction where the statue is being kept?”
Caretaker Gaius ran down the hall, screaming. Gabby and Gallus looked back. Dozens of pairs of glowing golden eyes shone in the darkness. They were getting closer. “Run!” Gallus yelled, chasing after Gaius, Gabby hot on his tail.

***

The fire was getting closer now. “Now what?” Gilda shouted.
“Uh,” Sunset said.
“Oh, come on! You’re literally made of fire! Talk to it!”
“Oh, right,” Sunset said. She concentrated, and the fire rippled and bent into a tunnel. “Come on, let’s go.”
The hurried through, only to find themselves in… “A boxing ring?” Sunset asked.
Gilda grinned ferally. “Finally. Something fun.”
“Not a chance. We can’t go with the program, remember?”
Gilda looked back and her eyes shrunk to pinpricks. “Uh…”
Sunset looked, too. “Wow. That’s a lot of griffons.”
“Yeah. So it looks like that's basically everyone I’ve ever fantasized about beating up.”
“Why is Pinkie Pie there?”
“...Reasons. Why is Trixie there?”
“Reasons which I’m mostly over. So, not to put too fine a point on it, but they look pretty angry.”
“Yeah.”
“And we can’t fight back.”
“Apparently.”
“So I think it might be time to run now.”
Gilda scooped her up and flapped for all she was worth. Behind them, the shouts of furious combatants followed, along with a very incongruously chirpy song about the joy of punching. “Why is this even here?” Gilda shouted. “I mean, I like beating stuff up, but this--”
“I’ve got a theory,” Sunset said. “We’re working our way through the seven deadly sins. Greed, envy, gluttony…” She gestured. “Wrath.”
Gilda crash landed, and they bounced along. “What the-- pillows?”
Sunset pulled herself from Gilda’s grip. Looking around, she saw that they were in a large room filled with mattresses, pillows, blankets… she wanted to yawn just looking at it. “Sloth,” she said, twisting around to help Gilda up. “Don’t be lazy.”
Gilda glanced around. “So… I can do something like this?” she asked, ripping a hole in the nearest mattress.
Sunset turned and sprayed a wide field of fire over the scene. Several teddy bears fell, engulfed in flames. “I think so. Let’s have a little pillow fight.”
It was tremendous fun tearing everything apart. Sunset felt quite rock’n’roll. If that had ever been invented on this side of the mirror, she was sure that Gilda would feel much the same. But eventually, the bedding could take no more. The mattress beneath them ripped, and mare and griffon fell together into a crowded auditorium.
“This must be where Trixie went,” Sunset observed. “Pride!”
“What?” Gilda yelled.
“I said, this is pride!” Sunset shouted.
“Oh. What do you think they’re yelling for?”
“Who cares? Let’s go!”
She tried to make for the exit, but Gilda stood fast. “It’s me,” she murmured. “They’re cheering… I fixed Griffonstone.”
“Gilda, don’t listen. Gilda, it’s all fake, remember?”
But the griffoness was slowly making for the stage, her eyes glazed and her mouth hanging open. Sunset saw that the statue was standing there, and Gilda was making a beeline for it, and her death-grip on Sunset’s hoof meant that she was being dragged along for the ride.
Sunset did the only thing she could. She zapped Gilda’s butt.
“OW! You little--” Gilda stopped. “Shit. Thanks.”
“No problem. C’mon, let’s blow this pop stand.”
“Sunset! Wait!” Twilight Sparkle had taken the stage. “Come accept your award for Excellence in Friendship Studies!”
Gilda and Sunset exchanged glances. They turned tail and walked out, each lifting a wing and raising their middle feather. “If I’m right,” Sunset said, ignoring the shocked gasps from the crowd, “there’s only one trial left, and it’s the one I’m basically immune to anyway.”
“What’s that?”
“Lust. And what’s lust to an asexual?”
Sunset opened the door at the back of the theater, and they stepped out into a cloud of fog.

***

Gallus and Gabby rounded the corner to where Tantalus was being held, then stopped dead. “What…” Gabby began.
Glinda looked up. She was holding Trixie back from the door to the statue room, one talon resting on the mare’s forehead. Trixie was clearly straining, but her slight figure was no match for the powerful, matronly griffoness. Gaius, meanwhile, was busily barricading the door, hauling all the furniture “Well, don’t just stand there like a pair of lumps!” Glinda bellowed. “Grab a stick and get ready to start whacking!”
The gold-fevered griffs were thumping down the hallway. Gaius broke two legs off of a table and tossed them to the younger griffs. “Better do as she says,” he grumbled. “After this, I swear, I’d better get some manacles for that hospital wing!”
The noise was getting closer now. Glinda raised a talon and bonked Trixie over the head. She fell insensate to the floor, and the griffoness took up a club herself. All of them readied for battle.

***

The fog was thick and swirling to the point where the duo could hardly even see one another, let alone the way ahead. “Gilda, whatever you do, don’t let go of my hoof,” Sunset instructed.
“Gee, thanks for the advice.”
“And let me know if you see anything. Anything at--”
The fog lifted. “--what.”
“Oh, wow,” Gilda said.
Griffons. Griffons everywhere. There were also occasional ponies, some hippogriffs, and other things besides. All shapes, sizes, genders, and various other qualifiers were on display. And they were posed extremely provocatively. Oh, yes, and there was a beach, as well.
“...Why is Pinkie Pie here, too?”
“...Reasons,” Gilda said, her eyes glazed. She blinked rapidly and shook her head. “Whoo. I don’t suppose you brought along a camera?”
“No. I don’t think they’d develop, anyway.”
“Oh, I’d say these guys are developed enough as it is,” Gilda muttered. “Alright, fine. Then let’s move on.”
“Oh. Wow. That was… easier than I thought,” Sunset said as they turned and walked back into the fog.
Gilda shrugged. “Eh. Compared to a successful revolution, getting laid is pretty small potatoes. So, what now?”
“I don’t know,” Sunset said, frowning. “I was sure it was the seven deadlies.”
“Well, that one was kinda targeted at me. Maybe you’ve got your own thing cooking.”
“Don’t be silly. Like I said, I’m totally immune to--”
The fog lifted. “--lust…”
It wasn’t much to look at. In comparison to Gilda’s temptation, it was bordering on ascetic.
“A mirror?” Gilda scoffed. “I pegged Trixie as the narcissist, not you.”
“No,” Sunset said, voice distant. “It’s much more than a mirror.”
Her hoof slid out of Gilda’s grip, lubricated by sweat. The griffoness grabbed for her, but her talons went through like the mare was smoke. “Come with me. Let me show you,” Sunset said. The mirror’s surface rippled. Gilda didn’t like the thought of being the last one standing in here. She had seconds, if that, to stop Sunset.
“Trixie!”
Sunset stalled. “What about Trixie?”
Gilda thought fast. “Er, if you go any farther, then you’ll never see her again!”
“...Uh?”
“Oh, fer-- come on! It’s not that hard to get. Trixie’s over here, not wherever that mirror leads! Come back and treat that mare right, or I swear I’ll pop you one.”
Whether it was the offer or the threat, Sunset turned around, brow furrowed. Behind her, the mirror faded back into the mist. “What… just…”
Gilda rolled her eyes. “And what’s lust to an asexual?” she mimicked. “You were lucky I was here to pull your butt out of the fire, that’s what happened.”
“Yeah, well, you were lucky I was here to set your butt on fire.” The fog began to seep away, leaving the duo standing back in the little alcove where all the trouble had started.
“Dweeb.”
“Jerk.”
"Dork."
"Asshole."
“Friends?”
“Oh yeah.”
Gilda bumped her hoof. “Alright, Glinda! We’re ready to come out!”
There was a muffled groan from the other side, followed by the sound of scraping furniture. “Huh." Gilda glanced over her shoulder. "We might be here awhile.”
“Cool. While we wait, you wanna play a round of ‘bust the bust’?”
Sunset grinned and lit her horn. She swore the statue gulped.
When they were released some fifteen minutes later, there was no longer a cursed statue. There was, however, a very interesting and culturally significant puddle of molten metal splashed all over one wall.

***

Trixie awoke much later, back in the TARDIS.
“Hey,” said Sunset.
“...Hello,” Trixie said. “What…”
“I’ll explain in a bit. You got knocked out. Gilda offered you a bed in the hospital, but I said there was one in the TARDIS. I gave them a few things that were probably medical supplies too. Just to give a little helping hoof.”
“Oh,” Trixie said, still a little abstracted. “Did you find out what they were hiding in there?”
Sunset let out a breath. “Look, you want some water? This is gonna be a long story.”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay.”
Sunset turned tail and trotted off to find a kitchen. Try as she might, she couldn’t forget Gilda’s words to her. Treat her right. And all the cuddling Trixie had insisted on in the cells…
The only conclusion Sunset could come to was that Trixie was in love with her.
The million-bit question was, did she love Trixie back?