Sunset Shimmer found herself in an unknown place that was not where she needed to be. The train had stopped here and was now being prepared to retreat back to Tall Tale in reverse. Annoyed, angry, and fed up with everything that life had done to her, Sunset turned her ire upon the station manager, the sole, lone pony that worked at this pathetic stop that wasn’t even a real train station.
“I need to be in Sleepy Creek,” she said, almost shouting.
“Can’t,” the station manager replied, his voice tired and weary.
“Well, why not?” Sunset demanded. “Also, where am I? What is this place?”
“This is Willow Creek. Mind the willows, Miss. You can’t go to Sleepy Creek because somepony tore up the tracks. The town’s been cut off. Some unicorn up that way went nutters. I wouldn’t go there if I were you. Nutter unicorns are dangerous. No offense.”
In spite of his words, Sunset found herself offended.
On the verge of exploding, she tried once more to relay the fact that she had somewhere to be, and she tried to keep her voice down to a somewhat reasonable level. “Well, I need to go there. I need somepony to take me there. I had a ticket to go there, and I am not getting what was paid for. So as the station manager, you need to arrange a way for me to get there.”
“Miss,” the station manager replied in the weary manner of service ponies who have to endure unreasonable demands, “you can sod off.”
“What?” Almost shrieking, Sunset stared incredulously at the pony who’d refused her. It took several seconds, but then she remembered that she was unrecognisable. She wasn’t Sunset Shimmer, Student of Princess Celestia… she was Seabreeze, or Seafoam Something-or-other, a name she couldn’t be bothered with remembering.
The station manager, a pegasus, bristled at her brazen, angry outburst. His lip curled back, his feathers were thoroughly ruffled, and his hackles rose. “I am getting so sick you unicorns that come through here and think you own the place, or that you are in charge just because you have a horn. That one mare, the one calling herself the Empress, she came through here and made a real mess of our town one day. Stole away all our unicorns with pretty words and left. Something about eternal teatime. Now we’re having a rough patch. Good day, Miss.”
Before Sunset could respond, the station manager whirled about, strode away, slipped through the door of the tiny cabin that was his office, and them slammed the door behind him. She thought about ripping the door right off of its hinges; she could do that, it would be easy, and then making the insolent station manager obey. How dare he speak to her in that manner! Just who did he think he was, anyhow?
Then, the more analytical part of her brain brought an important fact to her attention; Nadir had come to this place, wherever this place was, and had lured away the local unicorns. This… this was worrisome. Was she dealing with unicorn supremacists? Glaring daggers at the station manager’s door, she took a moment to digest this new information. Her mission packet mentioned nothing about this, and she wondered if her master, Princess Celestia, knew about this development.
Quite without warning, her fury abandoned her, replaced by a weird, eerie calm.
Perhaps, if she’d been a bit more diplomatic, she might have learned a bit more. But it was too late now. She had somewhere she needed to be, and the sooner she finished this business, the sooner she could go home and continue her studies of meta-charismatic magics. To finish her task, she had to get to Sleepy Creek, and it seemed that the only logical way to get there was to follow the tracks.
Or maybe there was a road.
Either way, she had a long walk ahead of her, and it was best to get started now.
“Spike! No! Don’t eat the teacup!”
Jolted from her reverie, Celestia’s attention quickly focused on Spike, who was, indeed, eating a teacup. He’d nibbled the edge and was now thoughtfully crunching away while poor Twilight waved her hooves at him to make him stop. All that hoof waving didn’t have much of an effect, and Celestia waited to see what would happen. Would Twilight lose her temper, as she sometimes did? Would this become a time for an impromptu lesson?
“You had gems, Spike. Lots of them. Why eat a teacup?”
No. No sign of Twilight’s temper, just patient resignation. This was good. Spike was already teaching Twilight a great deal, perhaps patience first and foremost. Twilight lowered her hooves, pressed her thin lips together, and gave Spike her best big sisterly stare—an expression that Celestia was intimately familiar with.
It pained her to see it, though she showed no outward sign.
“Twilight, dear Spike is an omnivore. Do you understand what that means?”
“He eats everything,” the filly replied, sighing out the words in an exasperated, resigned sort of way. “Toys, gems, my favourite blanket, and now, teacups.”
“Are you angry?” Celestia asked.
Twilight hesitated, and did not respond right away. She seemed to be thinking, perhaps wondering if she could get away with a fiblet, or maybe even an outright lie. It didn’t happen often—but it did happen, and Celestia had a keen awareness of it. The real trick was to figure out why it happened, what motivated these rare instances, and then correct it.
“A little,” Twilight said in a small voice.
“It is just a teacup, Twilight.”
“He ate my favourite blanket.”
“Twilight, have you ever considered why he does this? What do you think it is that motivates dear Spike?”
“Hunger?” Twilight was quick to say, without much time spent in thought.
“You said it yourself, he just ate some gems.”
“Oh.” Lip protruding in a pout, Twilight slumped down in her chair, and with her face almost hidden below the edge of the table, she peered at her dragon companion with a puzzled expression.
Meanwhile, Spike took another cautious bite of his teacup, and sat there, crunching away.
Sipping her tea, thoughtful, Celestia watched her student cogitate. Twilight was a visible cogitator, and if one watched carefully, one could see the gears turning inside her head. Spike, baby dragon though he might be, was Twilight’s best teacher, and Celestia didn’t mind being second-best. The baby dragon had much to teach, and right now, a lesson was in progress.
Regretful, she thought of another student who could have used this lesson.
While Twilight wrestled with her thoughts, Celestia, never one to suffer boredom, thought of puns. She didn’t particularly like thinking of puns, but they happened from time to time, and as old she was, she could be quite clever when it came to doling out punishment. With Twilight cogitating, Celestia thought of a clever pun, a student that did nothing but sat on a sofa and thought about great big thinkity-thunks all day.
A cogitator could be called… a cogitatoe.
She was careful to hide her smirk, lest her inner-amusement betray her.
“I got nothing.”
“You have nothing.” Celestia’s gentle correction was swift and held no trace of disappointment. Little Twilight wasn’t always successful in her thoughtful ventures, but she tried, and that was important.
It didn’t take long to think of a suitable example. “Twilight, beloved student of mine, did you like broccoli the first time you tried it?”
In response, Twilight shrugged, and her eyes remained on Spike. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Twilight, sometimes you have to eat something to see if you like it. For Spike, everything is edible.” Celestia took a moment to consider what she had to say next. “Perhaps if you took a more active role in helping him. Give him things to try. Talk with him. Spend time with Spike and teach what is acceptable to eat, and what isn’t. Just like your mother does with you.”
“Dad gets me to try new things,” Twilight replied.
“Well, Twilight… you and your father should sit down with Spike and give him things that he can try. Things that are fine for him to eat. Try to see the world through Spike’s eyes, Twilight. If a problem comes up, try to see it as Spike might, and then take steps to make things right. If you only ever fix problems as you see them, Spike could end up with hurt feelings, or just hurt, period.”
At this, Twilight’s small head swiveled around, her eyes went wide, and she looked up with an expression that seemed on the verge of tears. “I don’t want Spike hurt.”
“Good.” Relieved, Celestia let go the breath she didn’t realise she was holding, and right away, the tension in her barrel melted away. That Twilight was clearly so emotional was a good sign—a promising sign.
Twilight was a creature with immense, almost unfathomable power, and a talent for magic as well. That much power could so easily corrupt and lead to moral laziness, if not outright moral turpitude. Celestia’s worst fears haunted her, she had nightly visits from past spectres that tormented her with vivid cinematics of her every failure, and she desperately did not want Twilight to end up as one of those failures that she saw paraded past her nightly whilst she tried to sleep in bed.
So far, at least, Twilight showed promise, and Spike kept her leveled out.
If this didn’t work, Celestia wasn’t sure what would.
After centuries of students, she still hadn’t found a way to temper absolute power with benevolence, but she felt that she was getting closer. Twilight would be The One. Of this, she was certain. After so many failures, she had to be close to seeing results—or if not results, progress. Spike, unwitting test-subject though he was—happened to be a great controlled variable to change the outcome. Twilight adored her dragon, even if she had some troubling moments with him.
“Sunny Sunshine, she had trouble thinking about other ponies feelings.”
“Yes, Twilight, that is true.”
“It’s hard, sometimes.”
“Also true, Twilight. Sometimes, I myself fail to do so.”
“You?” Little Twilight seemed downright incredulous of this revelation.
“Does that surprise you, Twilight?”
“A little.”
Celestia found the honesty of her student refreshing.
“Yes, Twilight. Sometimes, I fail to think about the feelings of others…”
It was all uphill. This whole stupid walk was all uphill, and Sunset Shimmer hated every minute of it. Her pack was rubbing her raw, she was covered in dust, she was thirsty, and her tummy had a dreadful case of the rumbles. As it turned out, there was—well, it wasn’t so much a road, as it was a cart path, a narrow, rough trail that meandered along the railroad tracks. A towpath, perhaps, for stout, sweaty earth ponies to pull a cart along the tracks when there was no train.
Somepony was going to pay for this indignity, and it might very well be Princess Celestia.
Birds sang a mocking song, taunting her every step, and Sunset was certain that her mentor made the sun shine extra-hot. A thick dusting of yellow pollen covered everything, it coated every surface, and the dirt path was yellowed with it. No doubt, there were ticks and fleas, and she was already assailed by all manner of bitey bugs. Gnats, perhaps, Sunset wasn’t sure what they were, but she had incinerated them and in doing so, almost set the woods ablaze.
She didn’t have supplies. Supplies had not been brought. She was supposed to arrive by train, not by hoof, so supplies were never procured. Princess Celestia should have planned for this outcome, and provided supplies. Sunset didn’t even know how far she had to walk. How long would she have to trek through these abysmal woods? Days? Weeks?
“I HATE EVERYTHING!” she shouted, with only nature to witness her fury.
Right away, she wished she hadn’t, because now her throat was scratchy and she was thirsty. Oh, this was just the worst, the absolute worst. Conjuring fire was easy, but water? Not so much. She’d never seen the point in struggling to overcome her seeming aversion to water-magics. There were always fountains, faucets, and sources of readily drinkable water.
Except for now.
And she hated it.
She hated everything.
And for good reason.
So far, the tracks seemed fine. The train could have at least brought her this far. She was Princess Celestia’s student, and on a mission for the good of Equestria. The engineer could suffer a bit of inconvenience for the greater good. Yes, the train could have brought her this far. The tracks were perfectly good here, and up ahead as well, for as far as she could see. It was stupid having to walk all this way when she could have been riding on a train.
Everything felt so pointless.
If only she had an airship.
But no, friendship.
Stupid Princess Celestia wanted her to travel by train, so that she would make friends and meet ponies. It was impossible to make friends on a train, because the swaying and rocking left her slightly queasy, and it was difficult to be friendly when one was on the verge of tossing their cookies. Trains were the worst, and Sunset couldn’t wait until they were replaced by something better.
It occured to Sunset that there were no lavatories out this way, no modern sanitation facilities. She halted, disgusted, and whipped herself with her tail for lack of anything better to do. Banished to the boonies with no little fillies room was just too much; her teacher was going to get an earful when she returned home. If she returned home. For all she knew, she might die out here, ambushed by some horrible ravenous bugblatter beast or a toothy, tushy-terrorising tarrasque while squatting in a bush.
If she died, it would all be Princess Celestia’s fault.
That’d teach her to send civilised Canterlot unicorns out into the alicorn-forsaken hinterlands.
Princess Celestia deserved to have her student gobbled up for this indignity.
Muttering, mumbling, cursing, swearing, Sunset continued her trek up the mountain.