//------------------------------// // 01 - Driver's License // Story: EQUESTRIA GIRLS: Sunset's Not-Saga // by Soufriere //------------------------------// Sunset Shimmer sat on the navy blue sofa in her apartment, upside down such that her long two-toned hair touched the off-white carpet, bored out of her mind. Her television kept flipping involuntarily every six seconds through each of the four over-the-air channels she received via her aerial. She had no desire to get up for fear she would bonk her head on her stolen cable spool of a coffee table again. Eventually enough blood rushed to her head that her body took matters into its own hands and she rolled off onto the floor with a thud. After Sunset allowed herself some time for her brain to recalibrate, she stood up… and smacked her head against the coffee table, causing her to utter a loud curse in Classical Equestrian. She sighed as she slowly made her way to the refrigerator to pour herself a glass of iced tea, taking care to avoid the giant eyeball hovering in the middle of the room. It followed her, unblinking, as she availed herself of liquid sustenance. She then took out a second glass, filled it with water from the tap, and poured it over the eyeball, which immediately spun around in place in some vain attempt to remove the liquid. “Is that better, Jackson?” she asked it. Jackson the giant eyeball, being a spherical entity with no known orifices of any kind, said nothing as its enormous blood vessels silently pulsed around its blue iris. “Whatever,” Sunset shrugged as she gulped down the last of her tea and let out a burp. “I need to go talk to my neighbours and see if any of them have a spare internet. I didn’t pay my bills again and they cut me off.” Jackson remained silent. Somewhere off in the distance, a dog barked. “Effing dog,” groused Sunset. “Always off in the distance. Anyway, Jackson, you do indeed have a point that, in the decade-plus I’ve been living in this apartment, I’ve never met any of my neighbours. May as well start now, right?” No response as Sunset began to make her way to the door, stopping for a moment to turn off the television, then approached the coat-rack where her two leather jackets hung. “Sasha, Rachel,” she addressed the jackets. “Which of you should I wear today? I guess Sasha because it’s warm out and you don’t have the inner liner. Maybe I should invest in a sleeveless jacket or one of those tarty half-jackets for warmer climes? But what would I name them if I did? That’s the hardest thing about this, honestly.” She donned Sasha. As she stared at one of the sleeves, a thought popped into her mind. “It’s been, what? Seven or eight months since I bought you and Rachel from that boutique. Life since then has been …uneventful at best. No further adventures, no Twilight, certainly no boys or girls declaring their undying love for me.” She scoffed. “Not like anyone would anyway. I just feel like I’m in a holding pattern, going through the motions. Like my life could have taken interesting turns but hasn’t, save for Jackson over there.” As Sunset began to undo the multiple chains and deadbolts to open her door, the relative quiet was shattered by a purple Volvo sedan crashing through her window, into Jackson, who promptly collapsed into a puddle of rank, viscous black goo. She approached the vehicle with a bored expression on her face, not even remotely curious how it ended up on the fifth floor of a downtown apartment building. Through the steam erupting from the engine, she saw the driver. “Hello, Rarity,” said Sunset with absolutely zero affect. As Rarity spoke, she appeared to be bouncing up and down within the driver’s seat, her lips unmoving and voice distinctly robotic. “Hey, Sunset. Guess who just got her license,” stated the voice from Rarity’s being. Sunset shrugged. “I assume that would be you,” she said while looking down at the putrid sublimating remains of Jackson the Giant Eyeball. “You know it’s going to take me forever to clean this up.” Suddenly, Rarity was standing next to Sunset’s couch. Sunset had not seen her leave the car; she had simply teleported. As Sunset began to look Rarity over, she noticed her classmate had a rather stiff look. “Also I wanted to tell you, that Brad and I broke up,” Rarity explained. Sunset cocked her head in confusion. “Who’s Brad?” At that point she could hear a man’s scream, quiet at first, but growing louder by the millisecond until its owner came crashing through the ceiling headfirst before landing on Sunset’s floor with an unceremonious splat. Sunset stared at her new skylight with mild irritation. The man, wearing a suit, stood up, revealing himself to look like Nicolas Cage. Sunset Shimmer blinked at the cardboard fellow who wore a nametag on his lapel reading simply, “BRAD”. “Why are you here?” Sunset asked Brad. “…Gimme that cake,” Brad replied. Rarity approached Brad. “Didn’t I already tell you? It’s over between us. I found a new love of my life and I no longer need you because I got my license.” “Dramatic,” snarked Sunset as she rolled her eyes. Rarity instantaneously flipped around. “Sunset. I love you.” Sunset’s eyes widened slightly at this revelation, but more at the cheesy love song music that had queued up in the background from out of nowhere. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” Sunset declared with a sigh. “I’m afraid I don’t swing that way. Or any way, really. Besides, you seem like a literally flat girl right now. Shouldn’t you have some, you know, development? Motivation? Perhaps an entire character arc?” Brad screamed as he was suddenly crushed by an enormous Pink Lady apple that had fallen through the same hole in the ceiling. Sunset slowly surveyed the carnage that had been her apartment, asking herself aloud, “Did I eat jimson-weed or something? Nothing is making any sense.” Just then there was a knock at her door. Before Sunset could answer it, the door flew inwards, straight into Rarity, knocking her into her car, which promptly exploded, leaving no trace of it or her, merely an enormous hole in her kitchen. In the doorway stood Applejack, who simply stood there looking at her in a flat sort of way. She entered without Sunset saying a word and approached the giant fruit. “Appul,” she said. Two seconds later both Applejack and the giant apple rocketed up into the stratosphere, creating an even larger hole in Sunset’s ceiling. Sunset shrugged. “Torsdaag. I never could get used to Torsdaags.”