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// Stop making sense 
// Story: Talking Heads 
// by Dave Bryant 
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I regarded the plates being placed before us with some curiosity, for it would seem the chef was tinkering rather freely with the usual procession. Soup and salad had arrived individually, and while, like Sunset, I hadn’t been briefed on the meal’s contents, I did know there would be no separate accompaniment following the current course. Though I heard no raised voices elsewhere in the room, there likely was some befuddlement and possibly even outrage at the meal’s scandalous informality, extending right down to the plated servings. On the other hand, the beautiful presentation continued the meal’s elegant simplicity.
No garnishes distracted from the generous cut of poached salmon centered on the squarish plate, arranged to make room for the rows of asparagus spears on either side, drizzled with flakes of slowly melting hard cheese. For our purposes it was an excellent choice. Even as a pony, Sunset certainly had eaten fish to get the protein and calories urgently required by a furnace-like metabolism resulting from a child’s rapid growth, a sapient creature’s large, complex brain, and magic powered by the body’s own reserves. Thus it was a safer bet than meat, while still being acceptable, though a bit eccentric, in the eyes of other patrons as the center of a four-course dinner. Indeed, her delight, if a bit dampened by the circumstances, was plain in the brief widening of her eyes and slight smile—partly, I suspected, because it wasn’t a direct copy of anything from her childhood home, or at least not an obvious one.
Pin Stripes had said nothing about the unusual arrangements despite the experience of more formal dinners than I could count easily. I gave her a covert sidelong look, which she returned blandly. If I had any doubts before she had a hand in the menu, they were laid to rest. Sunset, in turn, seemed blissfully unaware anything was out of the ordinary. But then, with Celestia setting the agenda for any meal, I doubted she ever forced her young students to suffer through the whole, for a foal, boring panoply of service and courses.
With the waitstaff’s departure, all three of us dug in with a will, albeit decorously enough to suit the staid setting. By now the dining room had livened up as more patrons arrived than departed. The quartet had gone on break, leaving their instruments in place for their return, but the low, pervasive rooba-rooba of conversation handily covered our sensitive discussion. For the moment, though, Sunset was given a respite.
I wondered briefly how many of the other tables similarly were occupied by powerful people with powerful topics. This restaurant, high-end or no, couldn’t have been picked out of a hat. Doubtless the management maintained all sorts of agreements, most of them informal, involving discretion and security arrangements as well as menu requests; Mister Brown almost certainly was merely one of a dozen or more individuals carrying concealed holsters and DSS badges, and those might not be the only armed people on duty here at the moment. In such a case, not all the agreements in question would be aboveboard, though one of them would be a tacit truce, if both sides of the law met here. Even in wartime enemy nations maintained lines of communication, however sketchy and roundabout; it would be the same here.
I blinked away the daydreaming when Pin Stripes at last spoke up once more. “No more ambitions on the throne, eh?”
Sunset closed her eyes wearily and sighed again. Her fork paused, but she didn’t bother to put it down. “No. Nothing like that, okay? I was a spoiled brat running away from an authority figure who wouldn’t give me what I wanted, if we’re gonna use psychobabble, and after that my plans were all I had to hold on to. I was lonely and mad and scared, even if I hadn’t figured that out, so I just did everything I could to wreck everything around me, and I was gonna do everything I could to wreck Celestia too.”
Aqua eyes reopened on a distant expression as she took a slow pensive bite of fish. “I know my temper is my biggest fault. When I get angry, I stop thinking. I guess a lot of people, and ponies, do, but for me it’s like a red haze. I’ll jump on really bad ideas and run with them.” Suddenly her focus shifted to Pin Stripes’ face. “You have to know all this already, unless Cook’s fallen down on the job, and I know he’s too good for that.”
Sunset was absolutely right; I’d reported on the whole subject in detail, but neither of us replied to the assertion. I didn’t need to, and Pin Stripes apparently didn’t want to. Instead she mused, “Mm. Just an ordinary high-school student, then.”
“Yeah, just an ordinary high-school student. With the most amazing friends anywhere, enchanted pendants that give us superpowers, a side job cleaning up magical messes, and the attention of really high-ranking people. Just one semester away from graduating summa cum laude, by the way, if nothing goes horribly wrong.” Sunset looked down at her plate, cutting a few more chunks of asparagus. “Here’s one lesson I learned a couple of months ago that I’m sure didn’t show up in Cook’s reports, because I didn’t tell him about it. When everything falls apart, when all your big plans burn to the ground, it doesn’t matter. It’s okay to build a new life, even if it’s not about conquering the world. Sure, it’s great to hear the cheers of the crowd—and I love that about being up on stage—but one friend saying something you need to hear, or something they need to tell you, is worth more than all the cheering in the universe.”
“Something you didn’t tell Mister Cook.” Now it was my turn to be pinned to my chair by a gimlet stare. I did my best to return the look impassively.
“It wasn’t his business, and it was confidential.” Sunset spoke sharply, perhaps to pull attention away from me. At least I liked to think so. “It was about the Dazzlings, and their privacy is just as important as anyone else’s. So are the rules to protect them and whoever’s working with them, even if those aren’t up in the stratosphere where you are. They taught us about the rule of law in civics class at CHS, and even Princess Celestia talked about the same kind of principle, even if she didn’t call it that. Did they teach you about it too, or did you skip that part?”
If drawing fire from me was Sunset’s intent, it looked like she succeeded. Pin Stripes examined her thoughtfully, lips pursed and brows elevated a little. “You’re angry.” I could imagine a certain bespectacled purple nerd-girl using just the same detached tone in announcing the results of an experiment.
“You bet I’m angry.” Sunset certainly looked angry, and I winced. We were just discussing how anger affected her, and I feared it would cause her to step over the line, but she had herself well enough in hand to pause for a few emphatic bites of fish. “And I think it’s on purpose.”
“Do tell.” Pin Stripes also continued eating, though her hooded eyes seemed far more intent than the cool manner she’d exhibited since our arrival.
“You have to be the one getting Cook’s reports, and you have to be the kind of person who’d read ’em all, or you wouldn’t be so high up. That means you know everything about me already, like I said before.” Sunset spoke rapidly as she laid out her deductions. “The kind of questions you’ve been asking aren’t just about fishing for more information. You’re trying to jab at me, see how I’ll react. Am I different than the way Cook’s been writing about me? Am I still a spoiled brat? Am I still dangerous, especially now that we all have these geodes? Come to think of it, that’s why you’re wearing gloves, isn’t it? So I can’t touch your arm and read your mind.”
“Really. What else?” The words sounded genuinely interested.
Sunset paused in finishing her serving and said more slowly, “I think I know why you’re doing it, too.”
“Oh?” This was a classic bureaucratic technique: give them enough rope to hang themselves, as the macabre old saying had it.
The amber complexion paled a little beneath the minimal cosmetics. “You’re here to decide if I should be sent back.”