About five seconds after the bell tower finished sounding its last chime across the castle courtyard, the doors to the chapel swung open. A group of children in uniforms began to file out in a pair of neat rows. As they made their way down the front stairs, their teacher came out behind them; already being forced to shout to those in front to “walk please” before they could burst into a run and shove past anyone on the courtyard walkway as they headed to the gardens to play.
Once the last of them were out, the other attendees began to leave at their own rate. Most of them were adults or very small children with their families, but mixed in with the rest was a fiery-haired girl also dressed in a uniform. However, neither the teacher, the other students, or anyone else involved with the academy gave it any mind as she went down the steps; keeping her head low and not making eye contact with anyone.
Nevertheless, by the time she reached the walkway, the two rows of students had already broken off and dispersed. One group of three girls remained behind, chatting with each other, until they spotted her. “Hey Sunset!”
The fiery-haired girl slowed in her step but didn’t stop and looked up to them.
“We need another player for badminton! Want to join us?”
“No thanks,” she answered in a rather distracted away, before lowering her head and resuming her former speed.
It wasn’t long before she had left both them and the chapel far behind and was walking more or less alone across the courtyard. She glanced up to the clock tower and noted the time, but sighed to herself soon afterward on remember that the last day of the week was a free one. She’d have the library more or less to herself, though, considering none of the other students would be there. With that, she took the path that crossed directly across the courtyard to minimize her distance.
It didn’t take long to see the library building up ahead, even while it was still rather far off, thanks to the open space in the middle of the castle grounds. However, she only walked a short distance before her eyes drifted to toward the largest structure on the grounds.
Although the royal palace stretched out farther and ultimately took the most space in Canterlot, the great spired structure right in the center stood the highest above the whole of the courtyard. Towering a good 450 feet in the air was the Canterlot Cathedral. Majestic, expertly crafted, without the slightest sign of moss or cracks upon it. It was in many ways more picturesque than the main palace itself. Sunset remembered how the headmistress told her that all of the Cathedrals of Harmonia were made such that they would be representations of Divine Perfection; a vision of the halls of paradise. Sunset had seen many pictures in books of them and the other great cathedrals of the world, but this one stood far above and beyond them. The architecture was not only majestic but of a style that she had never seen anywhere else. Not only art, but a truly unique work of art.
It was for that very reason that Sunset often found her eyes looking to its front doors, which stood padlocked and chained shut that day as they had every other day since she arrived.
She stared at it a short while before continuing to the library.
The headmistress used only one finger to draw a small symbol in the air, before she extended and flexed her hand. In response, the stack of circular cards flew up of their own accord and across the practice chamber like a flock of birds. As soon as they were a good distance from her, one after another they began to flip vertically and show their colors.
Sunset twisted her mouth a bit in concentration, but also smiled with a look eager to rise to the challenge. Bracing her casting arm with her opposite one, she quickly began to rattle off spells. The first card was red; her favorite element. It took less than half a second for her to conjure a fireball to turn it to ash. The next was green. It took her a bit longer to get off the whirlwind spell, but it succeeded and crumpled it up in its tempest. There was another after that followed by another red, both of which she dealt with far more easily.
Blue came next. Last time she had seen this, she had ended up using the wrong spell, but since then she had been practicing. Rather than performing the icicle formation, she did a bit of water conjuration to fling a sphere of liquid at it and soak it to the point of deterioration. Another fireball after that, then a tan card. This one was the hardest. It took her so long that the next color (green again) was shown before she dealt with it, but she forced a rock to break off from the floor and to strike it. Following the next green came a light blue, and this time she hit it perfectly with an ice crystal.
Twenty more flowed outward from there, and Sunset dealt with each and every one. She broke a sweat and was breathing a bit hard toward the end, especially so close to afternoon tea, but she held on and forced the spells to keep coming.
The third to last one, however, was yellow. And no sooner had it turned than the next one afterward did the same, exposing another yellow, and another after that for a third yellow. Three lightning cards. No doubt meant to push her to her limit. Lightning magic was hard to control even at her best, and hitting three targets one after another would push any student at her age.
Almost any.
Sunset grinned even wider before clenching her jaw. She grasped her spell arm even tighter and let out just one small grunt before she performed a far more complicated gesture. Her skin strained a bit as she felt something inside her being “pulled”, but she stuck with it.
As a result a single bolt of lightning projected and broke into three different branches: each one hitting a target simultaneously. All three were taken out together.
Sunset exhaled a deep breath and let her hand fall afterward, but she nevertheless lit up again on hearing the headmistress. “Oh my!”
She turned and saw Celestia marveling over her.
“That was amazing, Sunset! I didn’t think you would be ready for a move that advanced for another half of a year! Very well done!”
Although she felt a bit dizzy, she smiled again. “Heh…no problem for your star student…”
Celestia saw how exhausted the girl looked, and cracked the corner of her mouth wider. “Oh really? In that case, I’m guessing we can skip tea and go straight into the next lesson?”
Sunset’s smile fell, turning to anxiety. “Actually, I didn’t eat a lot for breakfast, so…I think I’d like just a tiny break.”
The older woman laughed as she patted Sunset on the shoulder. “Of course. Besides, even if you’re still feeling up for more, I think I could go for a bit of a rest this afternoon.”
She raised her hand and gestured around the rotundra. The fragments of the targets that Sunset had destroyed were rapidly gathered up in a whirlwind and carried away to a waste container at the edge of it, before a few more gestures gathered up the remaining targets and tools they had used. Another spell afterward took the pieces of the room that had been damaged, replaced them, and quickly patched them. After that, a final spell sent a thin wave of water to gently glide about the room; cleaning it from top to bottom. Once all was in order, Sunset had caught her breath and both she and Celestia walked to the side of the chamber. It seemed to be just into an ordinary wall, but on reaching it she spoke a word of power to it. At once, it separated and opened wide into a concealed door. The two exited and it automatically shut again behind them, sealing their private practice chamber once again.
A minute later, both were back in the headmistress’ office. Sunset lit up on seeing one of Celestia’s attendants had already brought the cart with their usual three-plate “tower” for tea time. The aroma was a bit different today, but still smelled wonderful. She had to suppress the urge to hop into the comfy chair across from Celestia’s own seat. As soon as the headmistress levitated the tea trays over to them, she was so eager that she took up her plate and nearly jumped right in.
Celestia gave her a look as she did that said “mind your manners”. She froze where she was, then grinned bashfully as she leaned back in her seat and calmly unfolded her napkin across her waist and set her plate down on her side. Only then did she draw herself up and ask. “May I?”
She nodded. “Yes you may.”
Much more calmly, Sunset took her helping of a scone, jam, butter, cucumber sandwich, salmon sandwich, and chicken salad croissant. As for Celestia, she took up setting the teacups in front of her and raised the teapot to pour.
“We’ll be having something a bit different today. This is a ‘white tea’. It tastes a bit lighter and it has citrus inside it.”
“What’s citrus?”
“Things like oranges and lemons.”
“Oh! Sounds neat!”
She finished pouring Sunset’s cup. “Sugar?”
“Two lumps, please.”
“Really? You don’t want to try it without it first?”
“Nah, I like candied oranges.”
Celestia chuckled before giving her two lumps and passing it over. She stirred as Celestia finished pouring her own cup. Only when both had their teacups in their hands and had looked to one another for confirmation did they both take a sip; studying the other’s reactions the whole time.
On lowering her own cup, Celestia turned her head to one side and thought over the flavor. Sunset herself swished her mouth a little.
“What do you think?”
“I can’t taste that much lemon or orange.”
“It’s nice, but I don’t think I’m ready to give up my Roasted Chestnut.”
“I like Trottingham Breakfast better.”
Both set their respective cups down and went to work. Sunset, as she usually did, dove right into her cucumber sandwich while Celestia went to work buttering and jamming her scone. As always, she was so precise and delicate that not a single crumb was spilled. Sunset always made a mess of it whenever she tried.
“So, any questions for me today?”
Sunset nodded around a bite of sandwich but waited to swallow before speaking. “Can only people who have a Promethian Sigil do magic?”
“The short answer is yes, but it’s far more complicated than that. The truth is not everyone who has one can do magic either. It has to do with the role. Remember how you told me you noticed that my sigil wasn’t quite the same as yours?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s because your sigil is for the Caster. Mine is for the Healer.”
Sunset paused in her eating, glancing down at the symbol on her hand before looking up to the one on Celestia’s. “What’s the ‘Caster’ and ‘Healer’?”
“The best way to think about it is what role someone has innately. What they can do without pushing themselves in any new direction or trying to be more than what they are already.”
“Role?”
“Think of that like an occupation. A job. Like a baker or a singer or a mason.”
Sunset looked again to her symbol and Celestia’s.
“And…what does a ‘Healer’ do?”
“Healers are wielders of the forces of creation and harmony.”
“And…a ‘Caster’?”
“Their opposite. A Caster wields the forces of destruction and chaos.”
The girl looked unnerved to hear that. Moments later, she looked at her hand again and began to grow uncomfortable. “But…does that…that mean that I’m supposed to destroy things?”
Celestia caught this, and immediately put her scone down and focused entirely on the girl.
“Isn’t that…bad?”
“Sunset.”
She looked up to the headmistress. She was fixing her on the spot with her scholarly look, but her eyes remained kind and gentle.
“If you were in a shipwreck but you managed to swim to shore, and you were soaking wet and freezing, what would you do?”
The girl was a little puzzled by the question, but shrugged. “I…I guess I’d build a fire to keep warm.”
“And then what?”
“Find something I could eat…”
“And then?”
“Um…build a shelter?”
“Really?” Celestia’s voice turned into a tone of faux surprise. “Are you telling me you’d willingly cause a fire, rip apart plants and animals, and ruin trees by killing them and cutting them into smaller pieces? You’d destroy all of those things so recklessly, Sunset?”
The girl was struck mute. Yet as she sat there silently she began to realize what Celestia was saying.
“Creation and destruction, harmony and chaos, are both necessary for proper balance of the world, Sunset. It’s never just a matter of one or the other. It’s not enough to practice harmony and call yourself good or practice chaos and call yourself evil. If a tyrant establishes harsh laws that reduce people to slavery and oppression, he’s created harmony. If a hero comes along who breaks those same laws to free slaves and incite people to overthrow the tyrant, he’s created chaos. It always comes down to how you choose to use what you have.”
Sunset leaned back and thought about that for a time. After a minute she began to nibble on her sandwich again and looked up to Celestia once more. “But…I’ve seen you do the kind of spells I use before.”
“Healer is only my base role, Sunset. As I told you, it only represents what I am innately. I’ve grown past that original role by now. And one day, I expect you to do the same.”
Sunset smiled at that, although she honestly couldn’t tell if it was with a touch of anxiety or pride. She finished the rest of her sandwich and washed it down with a good amount of tea. Soon after, she subconsciously straightened in her chair. Perhaps she had pushed herself too hard, but her midsection was feeling uncomfortable. By then, Celestia had returned to her scone.
“Headmistress?”
“Yes, Sunset?”
“What’s the cathedral in the middle of the courtyard?”
She smiled as she finished dressing her scone. “My great, great, great grandparents were very devoted to the Harmonium faith. They wanted to build a Cathedral of Harmonia, and so they ended up building that same one in the courtyard. They named it Coronam De Caelesti Nuntio, but they never lived to see it past the foundation. It wasn’t until my grandparents were old men and women that the final stone was laid.”
“I noticed…we always go to service in the castle chapel. We never go in there. It’s always locked.”
Celestia nodded as she took a bite. “That it is. It’s been locked ever since it was finished. Locked since before I was born.”
Sunset shifted in place uncomfortably. She definitely pushed herself too hard. “But why? Why build a cathedral and not open it?”
“Simple. It’s not ready yet.”
“Not ready?”
“It’s still waiting for the right time.”
Sunset’s face began to tighten. It was getting a bit harder to focus on the conversation. “What right time?”
“When my family made that cathedral, they didn’t just intend for it to be like the others. They meant for it to be a palace. A throne. While everyone who follows Harmonia worships in chapels or their own cathedrals because they represent the heavens, my great, great, great grandparents intended for this to be used when the ones who dwell in the heavens finally came down.”
Sunset didn’t really hear the last of this, for by now she was clutching her side. Her face was twisted and wincing. There was not only a distinct pain in her side now, but it was growing stronger. Sharper. More like a knife…
Celestia set down her scone. “Sunset? Is something wrong?”
“It just…it…” She cut herself off, for the pain was growing so strong that she was having to regulate her breathing to subside it. It only grew hotter and stronger yet, though.
“Sunset, what’s the matter?” She began to rise; not that the girl noticed. “What’s happening? What’s hurting?”
She tried to speak, but it was too late for that. All that came out was an anguished moan that quickly turned into a cry. She could feel burning and throbbing, like a hot coal was in her side, and it blocked out all other senses. She tried to get up, tried to call for Celestia to help, but she couldn’t take it. All she managed to do was inch forward in her chair, but that only made the pain more intense.
With one more yell, she spilled forward so suddenly she smacked her head against the edge of Celestia’s desk, and then darkness.
Sunset wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she finally heard the familiar ticking of the clock in her room. All she knew, as her senses came back to her, was that she was far from Celestia’s office. She felt the familiar comfort of her own bed and sheets, and the darkness about her indicated it was night. Nevertheless, a faint glow was on her right that had to be from her nightstand oil lamp.
Her memories slowly returned, but when they did she recalled the intense, crippling pain she had felt before oblivion. It was gone now though. She felt fine, aside from the fact that she was rather sweaty.
Why was that…?
“Sunset?”
Hearing a kind, familiar voice caused the girl’s eyes to open even as she tried to remember what could have made her so hot. She turned at the same time and found Headmistress Celestia seated in a chair near her nightstand. Her clothing was looser and a bit disheveled, and she had a basin and a cloth nearby. It took Sunset only a moment to realize she had been tending to her.
She leaned in as soon as she was up. “Are you alright? How do you feel?”
Hearing the concern in her voice puzzled Sunset a little; not thinking it had been that bad. She had only strained herself too much, hadn’t she?
“I’m fine. I feel fine. What are you doing here, Headmistress?”
At first, Celestia smiled in relief. “That’s great to hear. You looked like you were having a terrible nightmare. And you got so hot I was afraid you had gotten a fever from infection.”
This confused the child even more. “What…fever? Infection?” She began to look around. “How…how long was I asleep? Have I been here since two o’clock?”
Celestia’s expression became rueful. “Sunset,” she spoke more solemnly, “I’m afraid it was a bit worse than that. You collapsed in my office at tea time three days ago.”
Immediately she turned back to Celestia—shocked at what she just heard.
“Sweetie, you got very sick, very quickly. You had something called ‘appendicitis’.”
She was almost too nervous to ask. “What’s…appendicitis?”
“You have a little organ inside you called an appendix. Sometimes when you’re growing something happens that causes it to get very sick, which is when we say it got an infection. When that happens, it starts to hurt very, very badly, and it’s in danger of breaking open. If it does that, whoever has one could get very sick. Even die. That’s why it’s very important that someone who gets sick like that have their appendix removed. The castle surgeon had to operate on you right away as soon as we found out what was wrong with you.”
The girl looked even more nervous at that. The thought of an operation was enough to make her shake all over. Especially one she didn’t remember.
“It’s ok, it’s ok,” Celestia soothed. “Everything went just fine. You won’t miss it at all. Did you feel any different when you woke up?”
Sunset paused. While her mind was conjuring all sorts of fears now, she had to admit she hadn’t felt any different aside from the sweat and lack of pain on waking up.
Celestia reached out and pulled back her covers enough to touch alongside her abdomen. “See?” she asked as she ran her hand along it. “You can’t feel anything. I healed you up myself as soon as it was out. You won’t even have a scar. It’ll be like nothing ever happened.”
Sunset, as disbelieving children tend to do, reached out and felt for herself. However, there was nothing. Her skin was just the same as always and she felt fine. Nevertheless, she remained shaken up on hearing all of that.
“But you were tossing and turning a lot while you woke up from the operation. I was afraid something else had gone wrong.” She reached over for the cloth. After putting it in the basin again, she brought it over and wiped Sunset’s forehead. She had to admit it felt very good, and just listening to the headmistress and knowing she was there began to ease her fear. “Were you having a nightmare?”
Sunset leaned back into her pillow. She looked back at Celestia for a while, not only still uneasy but thinking it over. “I…I think I was, now that I’m trying to remember.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “I can’t remember what it was about. Just that I had one.”
“What do you remember?”
Sunset paused. She closed her eyes, but just like any other nightmare the memory was fading fast. And this time, it had gone away so quickly that she hadn’t even realized she had one until Celestia suggested it. However, there was one thing that stood out in her mind.
“This…place…with all these rough blocks put together…like a dungeon… People were talking…”
She shook her head.
“I can’t remember any more.”
Celestia replaced the cloth. “Do you want me to stay here with you until you fall back to sleep?”
The girl nodded. “I’d like that. Thank you, headmistress.”
She smiled and nodded back before leaning back in her chair. She dimmed the lamp again, and all was quiet. Sunset exhaled and began to ease back into bed.
Her brow furrowed.
“Headmistress?”
“Yes, Sunset?”
The girl remained quiet. She lay there silently a few moments.
“…Nothing. It’s nothing.”
She closed her eyes and exhaled. The unsaid question lingered on her lips a few moments more before she let it fade. She assumed that she’d forget it by morning and that would be that.
However, she still remembered it the next morning, and continued to remember it every day afterward.
“What’s an ‘Angra Mainyu’?”
“…Excuse me, ma’am?”
Sunset looked up from the window on hearing the voice of the first mate. She turned and looked, and saw her staring back in puzzlement.
She gave her a sour look. “Nothing,” she half-muttered before turning back to the window.
The first mate resumed going about her task, while Sunset looked to the cigarette in her fingers. Burned almost down to the tips. With a frown, she tossed it on the floor and crushed it under her boot before getting out another one. Ever since she had started this ‘mission’ she had been zoning out from time to time; a fact that made her visibly more irritated every time it happened. She almost angrily jutted the fresh cigarette in her mouth and lit up, before she took an especially long drag and blew it all out through her nostrils.
Dawn was still a few hours away but there was plenty to see outside. The last flyby they had made showed the giant Light Eater wasn’t deviating from its path in the slightest. Nevertheless, unless one had an airship and happened to be flying near the mountains like they were, there wasn’t much chance of spotting it. It was keeping right to the middle en route to its destination at the bay to the south; right through the east side of Grifftham City according to the navigator.
They were much further south now; where the mountains began to narrow. The giant Light Eater would be there by the time the sun rose, most likely, but for now Sunset was using the location for its view of Griffonstone. Even she was reluctant to open fire in there, considering the tentative partnership with Trottingham. Getting the regent into fights with established enemies was no skin off her nose, but firing on Griffonstone would likely get a fleet of Trottingham airships dispatched with orders to shoot the Rising Sun down. And from this high, far above the smog and filth of the country, she could see she was not alone.
Griffonstone was so narrow at this point she could see clean across for miles to the former border of Cloudsdale. She counted at least four sets of lights in the air at her elevation, obviously Fillydelphian airships. They were likely looking right back at her and had heard the news from Appleloosa about Trottingham airships attacking. Likely the Griffonstone territory was the only thing keeping them from getting closer.
Things were definitely heating up.
However, they weren’t her only concern either. It had been hours since she had dispatched her greatest asset, and he still hadn’t returned. While it was possible he had been waylaid, it was also very possible he was dead. Either way, the indication was that his quarry had likely escaped, which made Sunset rather upset at this point.
Not the least because they had picked up another Anima Viri being used to its full potential within the mines, meaning that she could have been among them…
“Lady Sunset.”
She looked up again to the bridge; spotting one of the crew on the voicepipe.
“Monitor reports spotting the Endeavor on the Starboard. They’re signaling.”
“Well, what are they saying?”
“Stand by,” she answered before pressing her head to the voice pipe. “Operator is translating.”
Sunset fully turned to her and crossed her arms; her impatience showing a bit more as she took another drag and exhaled. It took some time before the officer was finally able to pull away.
“My lady, the Endeavor identified your primary target on a beached cattle barge moving down the river along with at least one other individual bearing a Promethian Sigil.”
Sunset’s irritation evaporated as she nearly dropped her cigarette. “And did they capture her?”
“Unfortunately no. One of the ship’s gunners got too antsy and fired upon the boat.”
For a brief instant, Sunset’s face stared back blankly; right before twisting in absolute rage.
“They did what?!”
Everyone in the bridge stiffened at their consoles. Not only had none of them ever heard Sunset yell that loudly or sharply, but in that instant the temperature in the room suddenly rose ten degrees. Their leader herself looked about ready to set the entire place on fire. It took all the crewmember on the voicepipe had not to cower.
“And here I thought that crew was supposed to be the smart ones! How many times have I told you all that I wanted her alive?! What’s so complicated to understand about that?!”
“She survived the attack!”
Sunset’s face remained wrenched in fury, but eased slightly. The officer at the voicepipe herself was sweating quite a bit now, for their captain looked moments from “shooting the messenger”. Seeing her hesitate, she swallowed and kept speaking quickly.
“They report she survived and was washed down the river! They followed at a distance to avoid her spotting them again and saw that she surfaced downstream! They weren’t able to follow her from there but she has to be headed for Grifftham City! It’s the only way she can go!”
Sunset continued to stand there with her face incensed. She studied the officer as if still deciding whether or not to take this out on her.
After a few moments, she finally eased. Calming herself fully she rose again. She took a deep breath and exhaled, then raised her cigarette for another drag. As she slowly blew out the smoke, she became calm again and tossed the rest of the tobacco away before smiling.
“Alright then, this will work out. Send them this message and make sure we pass it along to the Prodigy once we reach it: we’re all headed for Grifftham City. And as soon as we arrive, dismount and deploy. We’re finding everyone with a Promethian Sigil and taking them with us. We’ll sort them out later.”
No one on the bridge moved. A few crewmembers swallowed.
Sunset didn’t react at first, but several seconds passed with no change. At that point, she put her hands on her hips as her smile vanished again. “Was I not clear that what I just said was an order?”
“My lady,” the first mate spoke up, “Grifftham City is right in the path of that Light Eater. There could be hundreds of smaller ones with it, and hundreds of thousands of Nighttouched-”
“Y’know,” Sunset cut off, crossing her arms, “I’m getting the impression that all of you are rather scared of the Light Eaters in spite of the countermeasures I personally built into these airships. Perhaps more scared of them than anything else.”
The bridge was silent. The crew looked at Sunset attentively but uncomfortably.
Her eyes narrowed as she began to raise her hand. The first of the five runes on it began to blaze.
“Maybe I need to remind you all who you really need to be scared of. Or maybe you need to remind me why I recruited you in the first place when you can’t even do what I say…”
In a snap, the crew whirled around to their controls and went to work. Soon she could hear the sounds of the engines humming and the course being laid in.
Sunset smirked as she lowered her hand. “That’s better.” Spinning around, she looked out the window again. “Oh, spotlight operator?”
“M-Ma’am?”
“Send another message back to the Endeavor. Tell the captain not to bother punishing their gunner. I’ll handle that once we’re done in Grifftham City.”