“Sunset! You’re awake!” The shout, although sharing words, tone, and timing almost exactly, echoed from five throats, making the girl in question glance up from her lap--before she remembered that she was wearing a blindfold and couldn’t see who was talking to her. She did, however, recognize the voices responsible, and thus her expression was not one of confusion but relief as she smiled in the direction she assumed to be the door.
“Hey girls! It’s good to see you!” Sunset greeted in return, and her smile widened just a touch as sudden silence descended. She could almost imagine the sight of all her friends, even the one who had already been there, pausing and giving her disbelieving glares. Then there was a cough, and what sounded like Applejack’s voice spoke up with wry humor.
“Well ah see yer doing just fine, Sugarcube, if’n you can make jokes like that.” Another beat passed, the silent darkness pressing down, before suddenly Sunset snorted, shattering all tension in the room.
“Yes, Applejack, I’m pretty good. So you all know better than to treat me like I’m glass.” And she really was good, surprisingly. Already the pain that had permeated her body and soul ever since she first broke her Geode had faded almost to nothing, and with the knowledge that her blindness was a temporary thing Sunset was easily able to lay her annoyance to the side for a bit. She had actually suffered a few similar injuries in her youth, although never to this extent and with Equestrian magic to help speed along the recovery. That was the cost of dealing in Solar magic without an Alicorn’s physiology to protect you.
“Hey, I wasn’t going to say anything if you weren’t.” Another voice spoke up, Rainbow Dash’s if she remembered correctly. Sunset smiled in that direction, thankful for once for her friend’s gruff attitude. Sunset had always hated being treated as fragile, even when she reasonably could be considered such, so it was a relief that at least one of the girls would take her request to heart.
“Of course we won’t treat you like glass, silly! You’re made of meat, and not see through at all!” And there was the other person Sunset could always trust to be generally unaffected by the goings on. If she paid close enough attention, Sunset could almost swear she felt the reverberations of the pink-haired girl hopping up and down, but that might just be her imagination.
“Thanks Pinkie, rainbow Dash,” She said thankfully, turning her smile between where the two voices were coming from. The expression died, however, when a fourth voice spoke up, much more hesitant than the last three.
“So, uh, we were wondering Sunset… what happened to you? One moment you were just sitting there, and then the next-”
“-I was screaming, yes.” Sunset cut off Twilight, grimacing sharply. “Rarity already told me. It’s a bit complicated, but put simply I poked my nose where it didn’t belong and paid the price.” A sigh of relief echoed through the room at her explanation, but more than one iteration were also tinged with exasperation as the inhabitants likely remembered her other attempts at understanding magic and how they ended up.
“So it was an accident?” A soft, quiet voice asked from the far corner, attracting Sunset’s attention. “It wasn’t because of the Geode, right?”
“Well sort of,” Sunset hedged, turning towards Fluttershy’s voice. “Technically speaking the it was an overload from the Geode’s magic that hurt me, but only because I basically turned off all the safeties. I don’t think any of you could have done the same, even by accident.” There was a beat of silence as once again everybody let out sighs of relief, before Rarity spoke up, for the first time since the other girls had arrived.
“Well that is certainly a relief, Dear. After your incident the six of us agreed to take off our amulets at least until we could figure out what caused it, but I think more than one of us missed their gifts.” This declaration was followed by several exclamations of agreement, most notably Rainbow Dash and even a small yay from Fluttershy, surprisingly. “Of course, it’s a shame your own was destroyed. And after you were the one to convince us to accept them…” Rarity trailed of, and Sunset heard a shift of movement next to her before the cold touch of a slim hand patting hers intruded--and then she gasped as suddenly she could see.
“What-” Sunset shot out, before just as suddenly as they appeared the brief burst of color and sound which had assaulted her disappeared as Rarity withdrew her hand. For a moment, Sunset experienced intense confusion.
“Sunset? Are you alright?” A concerned Twilight asked, and then there was another touch of flesh as the girl pressed her hand to Sunset’s other arm. This time, Sunset managed to hold in her shock as sight flickered in her mind once again, if only just. Thus she was able focus on just what was happening, and what she found was certainly unexpected.
Unlike before when Sunset had flickered that weird emotional sight, this time she could see perfectly fine. The problem, however, was that she could see herself, from an angle almost perpendicular to where she was sitting up in an easily-recognized hospitable bed. It wasn’t a pretty sight--Sunset looked horribly bedraggled, with her normally wavy hair in a total frizz, pale and bruising skin with a few scrapes here and there, and a plain white blindfold wrapped tight around her eyes. She was shaking too, just a touch but enough to be noticeable if one knew how to look. All in all, it was about what she might have expected from spending several days asleep and utterly wracked by agony, which was completely appropriate. On the other hand, Sunset was too shocked by the fact that she could see at all, and the sight of long lavender arms stretching out from--in her perspective--where she was to touch her own body. Oh, and then there was the deluge of thoughts in what Sunset distinctly remembered as Twilight’s own mental voice flooding into her and the disturbingly dual sensation of touching her own arm getting mixed up with being touched., but that was less noticeable.
It took Sunset a moment to understand what was going on, and in that time Twilight had moved her hand away, ripping the new sensations out along with it. Sunset didn’t mind though, too busy contemplating the new discovery. She had just, if her theory was correct, read Twilight’s thoughts. And not like how she did before gaining the Geode, where she touched someone and saw a few few fragments of memory or what they were currently thinking about. This was a full dive into Twilight's mind--including sharing senses alongside the thoughts--even if only to the surface level.
“Uh, Sugarcube, you’re spacing out on us.” Applejack’s voice suddenly broke into Sunset’s thoughts, making her blink fruitlessly, before she realized she was still blind and settled for shaking her head.
“Sorry,” The bacon-haired girl apologized, “I just-- I think I still have magic.”
“Wait, what!? How!?” Rainbow dash exclaimed over the sound of Rarity gasping, as well as a few scuffing sounds as if several people had just recoiled. Sunset paused, raising an eyebrow at the shocked reactions, before shaking her head.
“I’m not sure, but I think I used some of it when talking with Rarity, before. And when you girls just touched me, it happened again but different. Here, Twilight--let me see your hand.” Without waiting for an answer, Sunset reached out towards where she remembered the girl being. It took a bit of scrabbling in thin air at first, but eventually she managed to grab her surprised friend’s hand, once again restoring the sensations of Twilight’s mind. “Uh, okay. Rarity, you’re wearing a black skirt with dark blue highlights, Pinkie’s shirt is yellow, and Applejack has her hat tilted back on her head about thirty degrees.” There was a beat of silence as everybody in the room froze, turning their attention to stare directly at Sunset. It was a little bit odd for her field of view to be moving without Sunset twisting her neck the necessary direction and amount, but even more so when she realized her vision was once again focusing on herself. Staring at yourself in the mirror of one thing, but this crossed a whole new level of creepy.
“Well ah’ll be,” Applejack said once it became clear that no one else was going to break the silence. “How’d you know all that, Sunset?”
“I’m borrowing Twilight’s eyes at the moment.” Sunset explained, smiling wryly.
“My eyes?” The girl in question asked, and huh, her voice sounded a lot different in Twilight’s ears than it did normally, even without the confusion of hearing it from two places at once. Sunset felt Twilight frown as a sudden wave of curiosity swept through her. “Wait, is this like what you did before? Touching people and reading minds?”
“Sort of,” Sunset answered, frowning herself. “Then it was just fragments, bits and pieces of memories or thoughts. This is a lot deeper than that though. I can hear your thoughts right now, see what you see and feel what you feel. Even the emotions are shared, I think.” She paused, sudden embarrassment and indignation assaulting her, before quickly pulling away from Twilight and breaking the connection. “Uh, oops.”
“It’s uh, it’s okay.” Twilight stammered, but Sunset could hear the slight heat in her voice. That wasn’t surprising, really. The last time Sunset had read Twilight’s mind there was a lot going on to distract her from the specifics, but suddenly being told your thoughts and emotions are being laid bare was understandably shocking.
“Well I think it’s awesome,” Rainbow Dash broke in after a moment of silence, and Sunset could almost hear the smirk in her voice as she said it. “Mind reading is cool.”
“Perhaps she should read yours next then.” Rarity shot back at Rainbow before Sunset could respond. Instead of becoming offended, however, there was a sound that might have been Rainbow shrugging her shoulders, before the track star answered back casually.
“Eh, why not. I don’t mind.” A creak sounded, then a few seconds later Sunset felt another touch on her hand, and was once again gifted sight. Rainbow Dash had pushed past rarity to come stand beside Sunset’s bed, and was indeed wearing a smug smirk as she poked the back of Sunset’s hand while turning the rest of her body to face Rarity. The white-skinned diva was glaring at her friend, nose rankled in annoyance while all the rest of the girls were looking between the two in well-worn expectation for a fight to break out. Then Rainbow Dash turned to Sunset, her smirk morphing into a grin. “So what’s my mind like, huh?”
“Very… cool.” Sunset answered hesitantly. It was certainly an active mind, jumping from one thought to another without pause or slowing down, but Sunset had a somewhat different definition of what could be considered cool than her friend--rocket powered jet skis? Really?--so the assessment was pretty subjective to a degree. But hey, Sunset wasn’t going to shoot her friend down just because of a difference in opinion.
“Hah!” Dash crowed, jumping in joy and inadvertently breaking their connection. Sunset didn’t mind, but it was a little disappointing when the darkness came crashing back in. She was distracted, however, when Fluttershy’s voice spoke up from right next to her, on Twilight’s side of the bed this time.
“Um, Sunset?” The softly-spoken girl asked, sounding so timid Sunset could easily imagine her biting her lips. “Do you, um, know why your powers are different now?” Sunset blinked at the question, useless as it was, but before she could answer another voice interjected, this one inordinately loud compared to Fluttershy’s.
“Ooh, I know, I know!’ Pinkie shouted from--wait, was she above the bed!?--her spot in the room, the voice bouncing up and down as she did.
“Why do you think, Pinkie?” Sunset asked before her instincts could kick in, and the next second she had the distinct urge to bludgeon herself for such a foolish mistake. One never asked Pinkie Pie to explain herself, not if they wanted to remain sane. Alas, it was too late, and the pink-haired party girl quite literally squealed in joy at her question.
“Well it’s totally because when she broke her Geode she didn’t just trigger a temporary overload of power, but actually shattered the barrier keeping a shard of divine energy separate from herself while keeping the conduit open, letting it slip past and permanently bond with both her body and soul. Now she’s a living goddess who possesses a whole suite of new powers to learn and play with over the next few weeks.” Here the girl paused, probably shrugging, before finishing sheepishly. “At least, that’s my hunch.”
“That’s… actually a disturbing possibility.” Sunset replied thoughtfully, considering the proposal. Depending on the exact nature of what she had connected to, especially if it wasn’t just some vast well of power which had been drained then expended over the course of the last week, but an actual power source--wait, what was that last bit? “Er, except for the goddess part. That just sounds ridiculous.” Not even Princess Celestia was considered an actual goddess except by the most radical and devoted of her citizens, and she could literally raise and lower the sun. The idea of Sunset having somehow become one by sheer accident was… well, it was ludicrous, which made it perfect for a Pinkie Pie explanation.
“I, um, don’t think you would be a bad goddess,” Fluttershy offered, making Sunset smile. Of course she would say something like that.
“Thanks Fluttershy, but it’s okay. I think I would know if I was suddenly a goddess, and a lot more people would notice. Besides, I tried that route before, and it did not end well.”
“Oh, um okay.” Fluttershy replied, her voice dipping downwards as if she were slouching in her seat as she started to speak quieter and quieter. “I just thought, with the Seer missing…”
Sunset shook her head, sighing. It was a gratifying thought at least. Turning her attention back to the rest of the room, where by the sounds of it Rainbow dash and Rarity had broken out into some argument or another, with Applejack and twilight playing mediator for either side, she didn’t even try to hide the warm smile she wore.Who needed to be a goddess when you had friends like these? No, she was perfectly happy leading her life just as it was. Plain, peaceful, and surrounded by the people she had come to love more than anything else--with maybe just a bit of adventure once in a while, just to spice things up. Sunset was content. After all, what could really go wrong?
XXX
On a lonely street deep in the city of Equis, a single woman bustled, eager to get where she was going. She was a perfectly ordinary woman, all things considered, with a perfectly ordinary life. She had never once committed any sort of crime, nor become involved with supernatural business of any sort. Even her name was forgettable among the many, many colorful examples one could find in just this city alone. And so, being as normal as she was, it was quite a surprise when a skinny, pale grey arm reached out from the shadows of a nearby alleyway to snag her about the waist, tugging the shocked woman into its domain before she could even blink.
“What-!?” She managed to get out before a surprisingly strong hand clamped over her mouth, silencing even the screams that tried to emerge.
“Now, now,” A cool, cultured voice emerged from the hood her captor wore, one which obscured the entirety of her face. “Dinner shouldn’t speak. It ruins the experience to have to listen to your incessant babbling.” At that the woman tried to scream louder, but it was to no avail. For a brief moment, the hood shifted, a tiny sliver of light glinting of sharp fangs.
“Bon appetit.” The fangs descended, and then there were no more screams.only a glassy-eyed stare as the perfectly ordinary woman died without sound or struggle. The perfect meal.