Daydream
Fear.
That was what Sunset felt when she stepped into Cinder’s mind for the second time, and that surprised her. When she had been here last Cinder had been full of rage, full of hatred, full of wrath directed against all the things and all the people that she perceived to have wronged her: Atlas, Mistral, Pyrrha, the world in general. But now the overriding emotion that Sunset felt was a debilitating a fear, a fear against which she armoured herself using the courage of her own experiences. So much fear. Fear and sadness too, a deep sadness, a despairing melancholy that admitted of little hope.
The skies were dark, and not only because it was night; the brooding clouds had gathered overhead. Amber’s clouds had thundered forth to signify her maelstrom of anger at what had been done to her, but Cinder’s clouds of fearful melancholy were just dark and gloomy overhead.
Sunset stood in the Amity Coliseum, she was in the stands looking down; that surprised her, because she didn’t think that Cinder had ever been here.
Certainly she didn’t think that Sunset had ever been in the arena itself, and…facing Pyrrha?
That was what Sunset was looking at right now: Cinder, her glass swords at her sides, standing in the central hexagon of the arena, while Pyrrha walked out of the tunnel towards her. Pyrrha moved slowly, her every step heavy with the weight of inexorable destiny, and her expression was as hopeless as the atmosphere of Cinder’s mind. And yet still he walked into the arena nonetheless.
“So,” Cinder said. “The fool has come.”
Sunset frowned. “This never happened.”
“No,” Cinder said, not the Cinder down in the arena facing Pyrrha, but Cinder who suddenly appeared next to Sunset in the bleachers. She seemed to suddenly appear at least, it might be that Sunset hadn’t noticed her being there until she spoke. “This isn’t a memory. It’s a dream. A dream I didn’t want you to see.”
Sunset didn’t reply. She watched as Pyrrha reached the centre of the arena, raising her shield and her spear, squaring off against Cinder.
“This was…what do you mean, a dream?”
“This was my plan, after Salem betrayed me,” Cinder said softly. “I was going to make my way up into the arena, use the cameras to broadcast myself to the entire world, take credit for everything. Of course, with the CCT down that became impossible.” She closed her eyes, and looked away as, down below, Cinder and Pyrrha began to fight. “I was going to kill her in the sight of the world, become…infamous for cutting down the shining hope of the world…and enrage you enough that you would kill me in turn. I was going to ensure that you would become a hero, as well as the Fall Maiden. Stupid. Foolish. The last mad hope of a girl who didn’t see any way forward, or any place to go.”
“But you didn’t do it,” Sunset said.
“What would have been the point, with no one to see it done?” Cinder replied.
“Is that the only reason you didn’t go through with it?” Sunset said. “I don’t believe that.”
Cinder hesitated. “I…I didn’t want you to hate me. Even though the whole point was to make you so full of hate that you would cut me down without hesitation because I would have driven you past the point of mercy I…I didn’t actually want that to happen. I didn’t want to die with you thinking that I was nothing but a monster in the end, that everything we’d been through had meant nothing to me. I didn’t want you to think that you’d caused Pyrrha’s death because you were too weak to do what had to be done regarding me. And you would have thought that, wouldn’t you? And you would have hated me for it?”
“Yes,” Sunset said softly. As much as she would have hated Cinder for killing Pyrrha, and as much as Jaune would have blamed Sunset as much as Cinder for allowing it to happen, neither emotion would be anything like the blame that she would have attached to herself for having let things come to pass.
“And that…that’s why I didn’t want you to see this,” Cinder said, as down in the arena Cinder began to beat Pyrrha into submission. “I didn’t want you to see that this was my intent.”
“An intent you didn’t go through with.”
“But I thought about it.”
“But you didn’t do it,” Sunset repeated. “What you actually did was save Pyrrha down in the vault. That’s who you really are now, not this. Now, where-“
A roar split the air, although the Pyrrha and Cinder battling down in the otherwise empty coliseum didn’t hear it. Sunset and the real Cinder – for a value of real which admitted that this was all happening in Cinder’s head – heard it loud enough and clear enough, and they both looked up as the clouds of melancholy were briefly parted by a nevermore swooping down out of the dark sky to descend upon the arena.
Sol Invictus was in Sunset’s hands immediately, summoned by instinct and desire, just as Cinder’s bow appeared in her own grasp as the two took aim at the grimm which descended upon them both.
The nevermore swooped down, and as it swooped the sky grew darker than they had been, the moonlight fading to nothing at all. Sunset’s finger began to squeeze the trigger, but before she could the nevermore had struck the shield protecting the Amity Coliseum, and as its claws struck the barrier the entire floating arena simply fell away. It crumbled as though it had only ever been made of paper or playing cards, it fell apart as the Pyrrha and Cinder who had been fighting down below simply vanished, and as the arena broke apart beneath their feet both Sunset and Cinder fell into the darkness.
“Cinder!” Sunset yelled, reaching out for her with one hand. “Take my hand!”
Cinder reached for Sunset in turn, but as the arena fell apart around them, as bits of stand and sections of the floor and various challenging combat environments all plummeted through the dark depths the two of them began to be pushed away from one another. A section of fiery field fell in between the two of them, and a section of the stands nearly hit Sunset before it fell past her, and something was pulling the two of them apart, wrenching Cinder further and further away from Sunset’s grasp as they fell into the bottomless darkness.
“Cinder!” Sunset cried again, futilely, as Cinder was drawn further and further away until she had lost sight of her completely.
Sunset hit the floor roughly, and groaned a little as she lay there.
“Cinder?” she asked, as she got up and took in her surroundings. This was not a dream, but a memory: it was the party in Mistral where she and Cinder had met. She remembered the ancient palace in which it had been held, with the fountain courtyard in the centre of it all. She remembered the colourfully dressed Mistralian elites, and grey Professor Lionheart – no wonder he had looked so worried, considering that he’d been betraying everyone by that point – and stern old Lady Nikos. She could see Jaune and Pyrrha standing by the fountain; was that the moment when he started to fall for her?
And she could see the memory of herself, and the memory of Cinder too. It was kind of funny, if you’d told either of them where they would end up she doubted that either she or Cinder would have believed it.
And yet here we are.
Now she just needed to find the real Cinder. Surely she had to be around here somewhere?
“Cinder?” Sunset called. “Cinder, where are you?”
“She isn’t here.”
Sunset turned at the sound of voice behind her, and jumped back with a strangled cry because it was Amber standing there, her face unmarred by any of the scars that Cinder had dealt to her body, wearing the clothes that Professor Goodwitch had gotten out of storage, the clothes that she must have been wearing when the attack happened.
Sunset’s sword appeared in her hands; she held it before her in a low guard, the flames igniting on the black blade at her command.
Amber flinched away from it. “Please, don’t! I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to hurt you…it’s Sunset, isn’t it? Sunset Shimmer.”
“You know it is,” Sunset growled. “You know me.”
“No, I don’t,” Amber insisted. “Well…I suppose I do, a little. But only through Cinder’s memories. I’ve seen you in them. Some of them she thinks about often, even though they’re very recent. But why would you…have you met the real me?”
Sunset frowned. “Wait…when Cinder attacked you…when she stole your magic, when she ripped your aura apart…did some of you end up in here with her.”
“I suppose I must have done,” Amber said. “I’ve been here ever since. I…I try to stay out of the way, not to draw attention to myself. This isn’t a very nice place, it’s full of monsters. But, when Cinder thinks about something…there are times when I can’t help seeing it too.”
Sunset’s eyes narrowed. “So…what’s the last thing that you remember as yourself?”
Amber looked down at her booted feet. She clutched her two hands together in front of her. “I was attacked. I remember…it hurt so much and Cinder…I begged her not to, but she…it hurt so much.”
That made sense. This was, in a way, the other Amber, the Amber who had existed before Cinder’s attack had damaged her soul and brought forth all the consequences that Twilight had warned off but that Sunset had brushed aside in her arrogance and her desire to spare Pyrrha having to go through with the transfer.
This was the Amber that Professor Ozpin had loved as a daughter; this was, hopefully, a better Amber than the one Sunset had known and who had betrayed them all.
“But you knew me!” Amber cried, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “Which means that I didn’t die, doesn’t it? It must do, because I never met you before, so that means…am I alright? Did someone rescue me? How am I?”
“You were rescued,” Sunset said. Her mouth felt dry, even in this mental place. “But…you…”
Amber stepped backwards. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”
Sunset hesitated, but in the end she nodded once. “I’m afraid so.”
Amber didn’t ask how she had met her end. She simply closed her eyes, and screwed up her face and looked as though she was about to start crying. Looked like, but did not. When she opened her eyes again there were no tears, although there was regret.
She smiled sadly as she looked around the Mistralian palace. “This is a beautiful place, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Sunset said softly, not knowing what else to say.
“When I was a girl I used to dream of coming to places like this,” Amber said. “And singing for all the people. I only wanted to make people happy. I know that I wasn’t the nicest girl in the world, but I only ever wanted to make other people happy, and they seemed to be happy when they cared about me, so it wasn’t wrong what I was doing, was it?”
Sunset frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“My semblance,” Amber said. “I can…I could…I could make people see me in a certain way. I could become what they needed me to be, in their hearts. Uncle Ozpin seemed so sad and lonely, but when I used my semblance on him-“
“You became the daughter that he never had,” Sunset murmured. That would explain why Dove seemed to fall so hard for her so fast, her semblance had made her the perfect damsel girlfriend for him to protect and love in equal measure. That explained the whole of Team BLBL, actually. And the way Amber phrased it explained why it hadn’t worked on Jaune, who already had a lady to his knight in Pyrrha, as much as Amber might have wanted it to.
As much as Amber might protest that she had only done it for the benefit of others, Sunset couldn’t help but find the idea pretty reprehensible…and yet equally she found that she couldn’t really blame the Amber standing before her for it. Amber was dead, the girl in front of her was just a memory, and a memory from a time before she had committed any truly wicked deeds either with her semblance or without it.
And besides, she needed Amber’s help.
“I had my faults,” Amber admitted. “But that doesn’t mean that I deserved all of this, does it?”
“No,” Sunset said. “It wasn’t your fault. You were…you were caught up in things too big for you, given responsibilities too great for you to handle alone.”
“I know,” Amber said. “I knew that I couldn’t do it. After my first battle I knew that…that wasn’t for me. That was why I was running away, when- Uncle Ozpin! How is he? Is he alright?”
Sunset shook her head sadly. “He…I’m afraid that he didn’t make it either.”
“Oh no,” Amber gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. “If I hadn’t run away then maybe this wouldn’t…I’m so sorry.”
“Amber,” Sunset said. “Do you know where Cinder is?”
Amber was silent for a moment. “I don’t really understand you, Sunset Shimmer,” she said. “Cinder has memories of you, and they’re pleasant memories…but she thinks of you as someone kind, and as an enemy too. You knew me, and you know Uncle Ozpin as well. Who are you? Who’s side are you on? Why are you here, and how?”
“I’m a huntress,” Sunset said. “Or I was training to be one. I’m not quite sure what I am now, or what I’ll be when this night is over. I knew Professor Ozpin; he was a teacher and something of a mentor to me. Like you I didn’t always trust him, but…in time I came to respect him a great deal, and…I hope he understood that because I’m not sure that I actually told him. I…I’m sorry that he’s gone, and not just because we could have used his help, his wisdom, his guidance. Cinder and I…we were on opposite sides of this war between dark and light, but in spite of that I still thought of her as a friend and now…now we’re not on opposite sides any more and so I’m here, using my semblance, to save her from the consequences of her actions, if I can.”
“Because you care about her?” Amber said.
“Yes,” Sunset said. “Because I care about her.”
Amber was silent for a moment. “I hated her when I first…woke up, or came here or however you say it. But now…after so long…I feel sorry for her. She…she doesn’t have a lot of happy memories. A lot of people have been very cruel to her.”
“I know,” Sunset said. “I’ve been here before, but now…I need to find Cinder. Do you know where she is?”
“Was I happy, when you knew me?” Amber asked. “Before I died, did I live? Did I fall in love?”
“Yes,” Sunset said, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. You could even call it true depending on how you looked at it. “You fell in love with a dashing, handsome boy with bright blue eyes and messy hair.”
“Just like I dreamed,” Amber sighed happily. Her smile remained, and she seemed to spend a moment dwelling in the imagining of the brief but pleasant life she believed herself to have had in the interval between Cinder’s attack and her unseen death. She looked at Sunset. “Cinder is…infected with something. It’s holding her prisoner somewhere in her memories.”
“Do you know where?”
“I have an idea,” Amber said.
The air was rent with the howling of beowolves outside the palace. None of the memories enjoying the party noticed them, but they gathered in number and volume outside even as the palace itself began to tremble as if in the grip of an earthquake that would split the mountain and plunge all Mistral into the abyss.
“They’re coming,” Amber murmured. “Come with me.” She grabbed Sunset’s hand, and Sunset felt herself being pulled towards the open doors that led out of the trembling palace.
The howling of the beowolves did not abate, not even as the scene ebbed and flowed around them; Jaune and Pyrrha dissolved into nothingness, as did the Sunset and the Cinder of memory, and Lady Nikos and Professor Lionheart too and all the great and good of Mistral. The palace dissolved, and with it the ancient fountain, replaced by a wide thoroughfare somewhere in the upper levels of the city. It was night, and though the moon was obscured by the clouds of Cinder’s despair the effects of its silver light could still be seen upon the street below.
But as a source of illumination the moonlight was being outdone on this particular night by the flames rising from a great house sitting beside the road as it burned.
Cinder stood in the street, watching as the mansion was consumed by flames, the flames which danced in her golden eyes even as they danced up the building itself. A smile played upon her lips as she drank in the sight of the flames, the screams coming from inside the house, the girl banging at the window – locked, Sunset assumed – as she tried to get out. Cinder smiled with delight as she watched it all…and yet at the same time tears fell from her face.
Sunset had seen this before: the night that Cinder had escaped from her stepmother’s house, trapped her stepmother and her stepsister Philonoe inside and burned down said house, killing them both.
“She thinks of this sometimes,” Amber said, as the two of them watched the house burn. “I think it’s a horrible thing, but she keeps coming back to it…she thinks of it when she feels unsure, or that’s what it seems to me. It’s as if it reminds her of something.”
“It reminds her that she isn’t helpless,” Sunset said. “It reminds her that she can be the master of her own fate.” She looked around. “She’s not here.”
“I know,” Amber said. “But this…it’s like a road. It leads to other memories. And back. It’s like the centre, going forward and back. You can get almost anywhere from here.” She smiled thinly at Sunset. “I know it seems strange, but I know how this works. Come on, follow me.”
And Sunset did follow, away from the burning house and the dying family and the gleeful look on Cinder’s face as she committed her first two murders; Sunset followed the memory of Amber as she led her down the road which changed once again, the burning house disappearing along with the road and the whole of the outside.
This was a memory that Sunset hadn’t seen before, either from the perspective of Cinder or of herself. It looked like some kind of inn, one of those old-fashioned ones where you came in and then had to descend down a flight of steps because the common was lower than the street level, like a cellar with windows high near the ceiling that nevertheless were only at the level of the ankles of those passing without; there were places like that in Canterlot, though Sunset had never spent a lot of time in them. This place in Cinder’s memory was such an inn, or perhaps a building that had been an inn but had been since appropriated to serve some private function, for it didn’t seem like the kind of place that was visited by the general public. Although there was a man behind the bar, and a couple of very nervous looking waitresses serving drinks, all of the tables that Sunset might have expected to be scattered here and there about the common space were all lined up in a long row in the centre of the room, and at that long table set as scurvy a bunch of cutthroats as Sunset had seen outside of, well, outside of Blackwall prison, to be perfectly honest. They were rough-looking men and women, muscular, frequently tattooed and just as often scarred, almost of them carrying pistols or knives or short throwing axes. Sunset made an educated guess that these were some of the denizens of Mistral’s famous underworld, and that even if they didn’t actually own this inn it was so well known as theirs that they could do what they like with it and no honest citizen dared darken its door.
Cinder stood at the foot of the stairs leading down into the common, two swords and a bow secured at her waist. She looked at the man at the head of the table, a bear of a man – a bear faunus, judging by his claws – who sat like a king or a great lord, swathed in a silver wolf pelt, with golden bands around his arms, drinking out of a golden goblet.
“So,” he said. “What would make a pretty thing like you want to join my crew? You look like you might be more at home in a-“
“No, I wouldn’t,” Cinder said, cutting him off before he could finish. “I’m here because I think I could be useful to you.”
A few of the crooks and scoundrels chuckled darkly at that, while the bartender looked at her with pity in his eyes.
Cinder didn’t say what she was hoping to get out of this gang, but Sunset could guess: she had been looking for a place to belong.
The bear faunus looked at her, weighing her up. “Well, we’ll see about that. Take your seat,” he said, gesturing expansively down the table at which all seats were already occupied. “No aura now, and no tricks.”
Cinder smirked as she walked towards the table. They were seated in order, Sunset realised: at the far end of the table, furthest from the leader, sat the weakest members of the gang, pathetic creatures just clinging on to their place in the organisation; they looked at Cinder with fear in their cringing features, but Cinder – having too much pride to be content with a place at the farthest periphery – ignored them; instead she walked up the table, where the men and women got stronger and meaner looking the closer they got to the big man himself, and looked more and more incredulous at how close to the leader she was getting.
Cinder stopped about five places down from the bear faunus, looking down at a muscular man with the build of a prizefighter.
“You’re in my seat,” Cinder said.
The man looked at her disdainfully, even as his comrades around him began to cheer him on, or else mock Cinder for her foolishness. He didn’t reach for the knife at his belt, instead he grabbed the nearest bottle of dark red wine and smashed it on the table, spilling the liquid across the varnished wood as he started to stand up, holding the jagged stump in one hand.
Cinder smirked, and made a little gesture with her hand. The shards of broken glass from the smashed bottle flew up from the table and buried themselves in the neck of her opponent. He stared at her in astonishment before, as she took a step back, he fell down dead at her feet.
The whole room was silent.
The bear faunus looked at her. “I thought I said no tricks.”
“And I thought that was a test to see if I was smart as well as strong,” Cinder said. “You didn’t honestly expect me to fight fair, did you?”
The bear stared at her in silence for a moment. Then he smiled. “Take your seat, and welcome.”
Amber didn’t move, nor had she said anything while that memory played out, although it was obvious from the glances Sunset had stolen of her face that she didn’t like it. Now, as the scene changed, she said softly, “These two memories always go together. She never thinks of one without thinking of the other.”
The common disappeared, although judging by the slightly dingy antique aesthetic it appeared that they were still in the inn, just in a different room within it. A bedroom, and probably the bedroom of the gang’s leader considering the size of the bed and the many glittering golden decorations that cluttered up the room. Cinder was looking at one of them, running her fingers over a golden statue of an elephant that sat in the corner.
“Do you like that?” the bear faunus asked as he came in, shutting the door. “I like to keep a few choice pieces from our jobs and raids, things that catch my eye.”
“A perk of being the boss,” Cinder said. “I doubt anyone else would dare to hold back from the crew in such a way.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” he said. “But I am the crew.” He grinned, and took a swig out of the bottle of wine he held in one hand. “You know why you’re here?”
“I think I can guess why you asked me to come to your bedroom, alone,” Cinder said dryly, although it had only just dawned on Sunset and only really because she suddenly noticed that Cinder had opened the top of her dress, exposing much more of her cleavage than usual. “Tell me,” Cinder continued. “Should I take it as a compliment, or is this a tithe that all the women in your organisation have to pay?”
The bear faunus chuckled darkly into his beard. “This place can be good to you,” he said. “I can be good to you. But you’re not wrong in thinking that there’s rent to be paid.”
“I do everything that you ask of me,” Cinder said.
“And now I’m asking this,” he said. “You’re good. Very good. You could climb higher up the tables than you now…until someone better comes along and you’ll end up on the floor just like everyone you stepped over to get your high seat.” He advanced upon her, taking another swig of wine. “But if you’re good to me, then I can be good to you. I can make sure that nobody ever challenges you.”
Cinder smiled as she walked towards him, her hips swaying provocatively. “Tempting,” she murmured. “I do want to be powerful, and to be unassailably so…that sounds perfect.” Sunset saw the knife drop out of her sleeve and into her hand before the big man did; he didn’t notice until Cinder had rammed it into his neck. “But in your particular case I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”
He stared at her in astonishment, his eyes wide with disbelief as blood spilled out of his mouth and neck. He tried to speak, but no sounds emerged as he sank to the floor.
“I’d say its nothing personal, but I’d be lying: the fact that you have a face like a worn boot was certainly a consideration,” Cinder said. “But even if you were the most handsome man alive…I have grander ambitions than to be the mistress of some low life. But thank you for teaching me one important lesson: if I want a place to belong in this world I’ll have to carve it out with my own two hands.”
She kicked him in the face, knocking him onto his back and stepping over him as he bled to death. A pair of glass swords formed in her hands as she stepped out of the bedroom. Sunset made to follow, but was stopped by Amber’s restraining hand upon her arm.
“I don’t like to see what comes next,” Amber said. “And it’s over quickly anyway.”
Outside the sounds of shouting and screaming rose.
“She killed them all?” Sunset asked.
Amber nodded. “I think…from what I’ve seen…the first person to ever show her honest kindness, since her parents died anyway, was you. The first person to offer her anything without strings attached.”
“The Forever Fall,” Sunset murmured.
Amber nodded. “She thinks about it a lot. It seems to calm her, or maybe cheer her, it’s hard to tell sometimes. It must have happened recently, because I didn’t see it at first, but now…you were the first person to offer her a place without wanting anything in return.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Sunset said. “I wanted her to stop trying to kill me and my friends.”
Amber chuckled. “As things go, I don’t think that’s very much to ask for,” she said. “Come on, I think we’re almost there.”
The inn began to shake, and outside the beowolves began to howl.
“We need to go,” Amber said.
“How much further?” Sunset asked.
“Not far, we’re almost there,” Amber replied. “It’s this way.”
She led the way, and once again Sunset followed.
The howling of the beowolves was replaced by the howling of the wind upon the desolate moor as Cinder half walked, half crawled on her hands and knees up the side of the mountain towards the cave that lay further up the summit. The Mother’s Cave; this was the night when she met Salem and became a part of the great war between light and darkness, life and death. For her to be imprisoned – whatever that meant – within this memory was…not entirely inappropriate, Sunset had to admit.
Cinder was a ragged sight within this memory; she still had her bow and her pair of swords, but her clothing was in rags, falling off her thin, malnourished body that was little better than skin hanging off bone in places. Yet still she walked on, crawling when she could not walk, inching her way up the side of the mountain towards the cave.
The cave from which an eerie sound was echoing down into the night. Cinder had described a voice, but what Sunset heard was more like music: eerie, echoing, distorted music. Music…or was it singing? She thought that she could hear a violin being played in that way that…it wasn’t being played well, but it wasn’t as easy as to say that it was being played either, there was a kind of discordant harmony in the scratchy, screechy sounds, and the singing…there was something attractive in the sound, even if it wasn’t what Sunset would call beautiful according to her own taste.
And when she strained her ears Sunset found that she could hear a voice, a whispering voice of encouragement and promise. It was the inner voice that had driven Sunset to leave Canterlot and come to Remnant seeking, only this time the temptation was externalised as a boost in case Cinder’s inner resolve might be flagging. It was a voice that promised much, but was silent about the consequences that would ensue.
But those promises were enough draw Cinder upwards, onwards, and into the spider’s web, and so Sunset and Amber followed.
Sunset stopped. “What are you hoping to get out of all this? I’m not sure if you’re the type to help Cinder for nothing.”
Amber hesitated for a moment. “You say…you said that you want to save Cinder. I don’t know if you can save me too, but maybe you could try? I don’t want to be here forever?”
Sunset was silent a moment. “I don’t know if there is any saving you now, Amber,” she said. “But…perhaps there is freedom, although I’m not entirely sure what that would mean for you.”
“It has to be better than this,” Amber said.
“It might be nothing at all,” Sunset pointed out. “Actual nothing.”
“Even that would be better than this,” Amber replied.
Sunset couldn’t really argue with that. “I’ll try my best,” she said, before resuming following Cinder up the mountainside.
The cave was even darker than the night without, so dark that Sunset couldn’t see a single thing within it, just the darkness. She stood at the mouth of the cave, feeling a chill wind issuing forth from it. She glanced at Amber, who shrank from the darkness. “You can wait here, if you want.”
Amber hesitated. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Sunset nodded, and stepped into the cave. She couldn’t see anything, but she kept on walking. Amber thought that Cinder would be here, and Sunset could see why. And once she found her, then they could confront her darkness together.
“Why have you come?” issued the voice from the darkness. Salem’s voice, Sunset recognised; it sounded as she had under Mountain Glenn.
Sunset said nothing. She couldn’t see the Cinder of memory, so she didn’t know what she had said in response.
“I asked you a question, Sunset Shimmer,” Salem said. “Why have you come?”
Sunset felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Clearly this wasn’t just a memory any more.
The cave was illuminated by a sickly green light, a light which revealed Salem standing before her. Her face was just as it had been within the Seer under Mountain Glenn: dead and ghostly and ghastly, pale and covered in prominent red veins; the rest of her was just the same, if covered in a dark robe with a red cape. Sunset gasped, and stepped back in a fright and fear that she could admit within the sanctity of her own mind and soul. For a moment she forgot that this could not really be Salem, the enemy of the world against which they all strived; this was only the representation of the darkness in Cinder…but even so, for it to take this form said something about the strength and source of what she was up against.
In her hand she held a chain, a chain of oily black liquid that was dripping on the ground even as it appeared to be firm and strong at the same time; and in that chain was bound Cinder, wrapped in it, her mouth gagged so that only muffled sounds emerged.
“Let her go,” Sunset demanded, as she watched Cinder struggle futilely against her bonds.
“Let her go,” Salem repeated incredulously. “Have you forgotten that Cinder is far from being some innocent victim in all of this? She forged these chains herself, if you recall.”
“And now she wants rid of them,” Sunset growled. “So let her go.”
“If only you had come to me instead of Ozpin,” Salem said. “What a team you two would have made.”
“Fortunately for me that didn’t happen,” Sunset said, dreading to think what Salem would of made of her as she had been: so full of bitterness and entitlement. “Now release Cinder.”
“Why would I do that?” Salem asked. “She has betrayed me, and the punishment for betrayal is not release.”
“I won’t ask again,” Sunset said.
“Then you must do something besides ask,” Salem said.
Sol Invictus appeared in Sunset’s hands, summoned by her thought, and Sunset shot Salem in the head. Her aim was true, and the bullet lodged itself in the middle of Salem’s forehead, which was blown backwards with a crack that looked as though it had broken her neck.
Her body did not fall. It stood there, motionless, still gripping Cinder’s chain, until with another snap her head resumed its usual position. Salem smiled as the bullet fell from her forehead and the wound closed up as though it had never been there.
“You can do better than that,” she said.
Cinder cried out something, but the gag meant that Sunset could not understand her words.
Sunset took a deep breath, gathered her courage and resolve, and then attacked.
This was all in the mind. There were no limits to the power at her command. Her magic was practically limitless, even her aura could be stronger if she wished it so. Her gun need never run out of bullets no matter how often she fired it, her sword would never stop burning, nor her jacket either, the dust in her gauntlets would never run out. This was a battle in the mind and her strength was as her mind could conceive it.
But this was Cinder’s mind, not hers, and this darkness was in Cinder’s soul, and it soon became clear to Sunset that Cinder had spent so long with Salem, spent so long with this darkness that Salem had implanted within her to turn her into a monster that could be bent to Salem’s will in Salem’s service that she had conceived of it as this unstoppable force against which no foe could hope to stand. This darkness was her curse, it was the ruin of her, it had turned her into a monster, but it was also the power upon which Cinder had pinned all her hopes and dear ambitions. That was why it took Salem’s form, not that of a grimm hunting her: this represented Salem standing behind her with all her power at Cinder’s disposal, her patron and her backer, the unstoppable force with whose help Cinder would be unstoppable in her turn.
And that was why Sunset could not beat her.
She tried. She tried everything. She shot her, she slashed at her with her flaming sword, she expended ever jot of fire dust in her phoenix cape to burn her and then conjured even more fire dust out of air and hope and imagination to burn her all over again, she shocked her with discharge of lightning dust, she threw vast amounts of magic at her in great beams of power that would have had the mightiest grimm reeling in pain. None of it worked. At times Sunset watched as her spells blew holes through Salem’s body, only to watch as those holes reformed exactly as they had been before; when Sunset flung magic at Salem’s chains to shatter them those chains did nothing; when she attempted to dispel them as she had dispelled the grimm before the city walls that didn’t work either because Cinder had no hope that that would work. Sunset wasn’t fighting Salem, but she was fighting Cinder’s conception of Salem the indomitable and against such a power she could not prevail.
She tried everything. She summoned the memories of her friends to fight alongside her: Pyrrha, Ruby, Jaune and Blake called by her to fight alongside her, and not as they were but rather – just as this was Cinder’s imagining of Salem that she was fighting – Sunset’s imagining of them as the mighty heroes that she was honoured and humbled to fight alongside. It was not enough. Salem was not only immortal, not only did all the wounds that were dealt to her simply disappear in moments as if they had never been, but she had magic at her command: magic to destroy which she flung in balls of fire at Sunset and her mental allies, magic to create which she used to conjure grimm to harry them with and add to their troubles. And all the while Cinder stared in horror as Sunset battled to no avail for her, fighting a battle she could not win but refused to lose. Yet she was losing. Even with the help of her friends, the mightiest warriors that she knew, she was losing. She burned Jaune alive; she grabbed Pyrrha by the neck and slammed her into the ground so hard that it shattered her aura, and then she snapped her neck; Ruby used her silver eyes and it did nothing to her at all, only seeming to irritate her before she picked Ruby up with her telekinesis and crushed the girl while Sunset watched in helpless horror.
Sunset flung herself at Salem again, slashing at her with her flaming sword until Salem swatted her aside with bored disinterest. Sunset summoned Team RSPT to her aid, the Atlesian fighters dropping out of the sky, but they fared no better than her own team-mates and Blake had done: Penny she ripped apart and scattered her fragments across the floor; Ciel she turned to ash, and seemed to watch for a moment to see if she would rise again; Rainbow she bound in hands of shadow and made her watch, struggling in the same futility with which Cinder struggled against her bonds, as she beat Twilight Sparkle to death while she begged for help and mercy. Then she strangled Dash. Sunset even imagined an Atlesian cruiser overhead, dumping its payload on her but she had shrugged that off as she shrugged off everything else. Sunset threw everything that she could imagine at her, and Cinder could imagine it surviving all of it.
There must be something else, something that I can…Princess Celestia! Yes, she could do that, she could imagine her old teacher at her side…at her side to die like everyone else. No, no she could not do that. It had been hard enough to watch the death of her friends, to watch them perish in such agony, she could not bear to see that happen to her princess, no. No, she would…she would find another way. Another way that she could not see.
Salem flung a trio of fireballs at her. Sunset dispelled two of them with counterspells, but the third struck her in the chest and hurled her backwards. Sunset lay on the ground, gasping for breath. She was reaching the limit of her imagination of how much she could take.
“Is Cinder really worth your life?” Salem asked. “Is she worth this continued futile struggle? Accept defeat, and I might even let you leave this place.”
“No,” Sunset said, as she struggled to her feet.
“Why not? Why continue to prolong the inevitable?”
“Because Professor Ozpin once told me that the most powerful kind of magic in Remnant was the magic of choice,” Sunset said. “Just like he chose to keep fighting to the very end, just like all my friends have chosen to fight no matter the odds. And so I choose to keep fighting too, I choose to never give up on Cinder. I don’t care how strong you are, I don’t care how invincible Cinder believes you are, I don’t even care how little Cinder thinks of herself that she believes she can’t be saved; I will save her, no matter what. Because Cinder Fall is my friend, and in my world the most powerful kind of magic…is the magic of friendship!”
A brilliant white light erupted within Sunset, growing to consume her, washing over her as cool as a breeze and as warm as a tropical ocean as it covered and transformed her. Her clothes were turned into a dress of pink and white, with white fingerless gloves covering her hands. Her boots were golden, and emblazoned with her cutie mark, which she also wore just beneath her shoulders strapped around her arms, and on the white feathery choker around her throat. Her hair blew up above her head, and from Sunset’s forehead erupted a horn of brilliant white as long as a lance, and from her back…from her back burst a pair of golden wings that burned like fire.
Sunset flew up into the air, hovering above the ground, staring impassively down. Cinder looked astonished, and even Salem looked a little concerned.
Sunset smiled. “Trust me, Cinder, you’ve never seen anything like this before.” Her hands began to glow with golden light, a light which became a beam erupting from her palms to strike at Salem, consuming everything, the entire world, with light as Salem screamed in horror and Cinder’s voice cried out.
The world was gone. There was nothing left of the cave or the mountain or the battlefield. There was only white, a void in which Sunset floated.
“What…what is this place?” Amber asked. She was floating too, sustained by the stumps of wings growing out of her back. It looked as though they had once been as golden as the maple leaves, but someone had ripped at least half the feathers out of her wings, breaking them, leaving only stumps behind, barely sufficient to keep her aloft. She stared at Sunset with wide-eyed amazement. “What are you?”
“Someone who’s sorry,” Sunset said. “Sorry that…that I couldn’t save you, the real you, the…the you out there. I didn’t get the chance to apologise to her for what I did, and I’m sorry that I can’t save you now. All I can do…is set you free.”
“Freedom is all I want now,” Amber said. She held out her hands. “I wish I could have known you longer.”
Sunset smiled. “And I wish I could have known you before,” she said, and took Amber’s hands.
Amber went very still, as though she had been frozen. She was still smiling as she began to dissolve, her from crumbling. She was still smiling as she was turned to dust, blown away by the wind blowing gently through this place.
“Goodbye,” Sunset whispered. She still wasn’t strong enough to save everyone; maybe she never would be. But she could at least save Cinder.
She could see Cinder now, on the other side of this white void, for whatever meaning it had to talk of sides and spaces here. Like Sunset, and like Amber, she had wings: they were the same maple-golden colour that Amber’s wings had been, only hers were full and radiant and beautiful; like Sunset, her wings were touched with fire.
They were hunched inwards, just as Cinder herself was, her whole body tucked in on itself as she sobbed. She had a second pair of wings, Sunset noticed; they were not immediately obvious in this place of light, hard to discern, but they were there: dark wings, like shadows hovering above her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
Sunset floated gently towards her. “Take my hand, Cinder. Let me show you there’s a better way.”
“Even…even after everything I’ve done?” Cinder asked. “All the people that I’ve hurt.”
“Even then,” Sunset said. “Provided that you’re willing to try.”
Cinder hesitated. “I don’t deserve this power,” she said. “Everything evil thing I did I did to obtain this power of the Fall Maiden. How can I ask forgiveness for my crimes when I retain the power for which I committed them?” Cinder looked around her. “Sunset, do you believe that in this place anything is possible.”
“I believe that with the magic of friendship anything is possible, yes.”
Cinder smiled, despite the tears in her eyes. “I’m glad, because that was what I needed to hear.”
She placed her hand in Sunset’s open palm, and as Sunset’s fingers closed around her a golden light leapt from Sunset’s hand to travel up Cinder’s body. Cinder threw back her head as her shadow wings dissolved into nothing, and though a spasm of pain seemed to wrack Cinder she said nothing.
And then a golden light emerged from Cinder’s breast, flowing out of her and flowing…flowing into Sunset as the light consumed them both.
“I’ve missed you, Sunset Shimmer.”
Sunset blinked as the light faded. Cinder was gone, or at least Sunset couldn’t see her any more. She was standing in the middle of a field of stars, floating with no visible floor or other support, with twinkling lights all around her.
Princess Celestia stood before her, every bit as radiant as Sunset remembered. No, that wasn’t right, she was even more so than Sunset remembered, she shone like the sun itself in this celestial place.
“Princess Celestia!” Sunset cried as she ran towards her. It was only when she had reached the princess’ side and buried her muzzle in the princess’ coat, while Celestia embraced her with hoof and wing and craned her neck down to nuzzle Sunset’s cheek, that Sunset realised abruptly that she had a muzzle. And four legs. And a horn. She was a pony again. She was a…
Sunset noticed last of all that she had a pair of amber wings emerging from her flanks.
She was a unicorn no longer.
“Princess,” Sunset gasped. “What’s going on? What…what did I do?”
“You fulfilled your destiny, just as I always hoped you would,” Celestia said. “I’m so proud of you, Sunset.”
Sunset stepped backwards away from her. “But…how? I…I’ve made so many mistakes.”
“And learned from all of them, in time,” Celestia said. “Sunset, every pony who has ever ascended has made mistakes. What matters is what they did afterwards.”
Sunset glanced back at her wings. “But I stopped looking for this. I stopped caring.”
“And when you let ambition go from your heart you opened it up to the magic of friendship, which enabled you to triumph over all your obstacles,” Celestia said. “You embarked upon an unknown magical path to protect your friends, and brought back a soul from the brink of death; you saved Cinder by banishing the darkness from her spirit; you understand now that a hero does not get to decide who lives or who lives, but must always seek to save the lives that lie in front of them. Do you doubt your worthiness for this?”
Sunset nodded. “I don’t really feel as though I’ve done anything.”
Celestia smiled. “Your journey is not yet complete. You still have many miles of road before you, and much to see and more to do. But wherever you go, and in all that you do, never lose sight of how far you’ve already come.
“And never forget how much I love you.”
Cinder and Sunset descended to the ground surrounded by a circle of light. Pyrrha, Jaune looked on in awe as they saw the two of them, who had disappeared in a flash of light not long before, returned unharmed and yet with the unmistakable sense that they had both been changed by their experiences, whatever those experiences might be. Cinder was sobbing in Sunset’s arms, while Sunset held her close and rested the crying Cinder’s head upon her chest.
And around Sunset’s eyes there burned the anima of the Fall Maiden.