Cadance obviously didn’t have any special skills, but her ability to stretch mundane conversations to their breaking point was at least noteworthy. Despite Sunset’s best efforts, the picnic had droned on for a full hour longer. How anypony could go on for so long about the intricacies of cultivating grapes for icewine was beyond her, let alone how Cadance even knew so much about the process.
And that was to say nothing of the targeted questions Sunset had been forced to dodge and deflect like spells in a magic duel. Honestly, who asked somepony they’d known for barely a day what their birthstone was? Or how many siblings they had? Or anything beyond a simple: “How are you?”
But she had endured, and they finally reached Cadance’s chambers by the final needles of daylight. While Cadance fiddled to find her key, Sunset just magicked the lock open and pushed inside. “All right,” she said as the wall sconces flickered awake. “Now we have privacy, and you’ve had plenty of time to think over what you want to say.” She laid her scribing instruments across the table like surgical tools. “Ready?”
Cadance nestled the wicker basket near the door. She pinned her ears and rubbed her foreleg shyly. “Not quite yet. I’d like to, um, take a few minutes to meditate, if that’s okay.”
Sunset pursed her lips. “Meditate? Really?”
A small smile grew on Cadance’s face. “My village elder, Elder—that’s his name. Confusing, I know.” She giggled. “Anyway, he taught me all about it years ago. He even gave me some therapeutic plants as a moving-out gift.” She tipped her head to the balcony, where a small jungle grew in ceramic planters. “They’re great for calming nerves. You’re welcome to join me, if you like.”
“Not a chance,” Sunset said—the response had been on her tongue before the offer was even made. She sighed. “Go ahead. Just don’t take too long. I don’t want to be here all night.”
“Of course.” Cadance stepped out to the balcony. “I’ll only be five or ten minutes at most. Make yourself at home in the meantime!”
Wish I could, Sunset thought as she turned to the Everheart. The gem glowed a deep maroon.
She wasted a couple of minutes trying to find a way into the display case. No luck, but she did manage to identify the presence of an Agnoscus enchantment as she’d assumed. It wouldn’t be the only spell protecting the Everheart, but it would be the lynchpin due to its binding strength. It could be cast by just about any unicorn who could read, but to dispel it was notoriously difficult without the unique magic signature of the pony who’d cast it. Given that this one had been conjured by the single most powerful magic-user in Equestrian history, Sunset put her chances of breaking it at roughly the same probability of finding a new dimension in her bathroom mirror.
Shelving that, she perused the other knickknacks scattered across the dresser. Most of them she guessed to be mementos: an oval stone, an artificial carnation, a rough wooden carving of a fang, a shiny black scale as big as her head. But the only one that really grabbed her attention was the book: a dusty, mud-coloured tome with The Cadance Collection embossed in gold on the front. She flipped open the cover to a rendition of Cadance’s cutie mark in the same golden ink, and a short message below that:
We know how much you love a good fluttertale, so here are a few of your favourites to remember us by! Best of luck, Princess (!!), and don’t forget to write!
Love always,
♥ Olive & Honey ♥
Sunset snorted. Fluttertales? What are you, five? She flitted through the pages. A few of the titles she recognized from the stories her father had read when she’d been a filly, but the vast majority she had never heard of. A couple weren’t even written in Ponish. What did she say the name of her village was? Woodwind? I should find out where—
She blinked, then flipped back a few pages to the title of the current story:
The Kingdom of Everheart
Her eyes narrowed. Not a relic, she says. She only had a moment to process it before Cadance called, “Hey, Sunset! Come outside for a second!”
Quickly closing the book, she gave the balcony a glare she normally reserved for ponies who interrupted her experiments. “Why don’t you come here? If you’re done with your ‘meditation.’” She threw the Everheart a brief glance—its light swirled on the border of yellow and green.
Only silence answered. Sunset groaned and started towards the balcony, but she paused mid-step when Cadance said, “Okay!” Moments later, she trotted back inside.
Only now she wasn’t alone.
Sunset’s eyes softened. “Philomena?”
The phoenix turned to her and chirped brightly. She launched from Cadance’s back and landed at Sunset’s side, leaning in for their usual greeting. Sunset paused to shoot Cadance a dark look—which she correctly took as a warning to avert her eyes—before returning the nuzzle.
“She was on the railing when I finished meditating,” Cadance said, her smile oozing mirth. “I’m really glad she’s here, to be honest.”
“Why are you happy to see her?” Sunset said, sidling closer to Philomena.
“Oh, she’s been just great in helping me adjust. She always seems to know when I need some company—sometimes she’ll even spend the night when I’m homesick. It’s almost uncanny.”
“Is that right?” Sunset said. She turned a cool stare on Philomena, who nudged her side with a wing. Sunset rolled her eyes and huffed. “Well, she’s been my friend since I was a filly.” Way before you showed up. “She even helped me earn my cutie mark.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Cadance said. “You two must be really close.”
Practically sisters, Sunset nearly said, but Cadance didn’t deserve to know that. “Right, well, are you ready to talk now?”
Tension cascaded down Cadance’s face. Her smile held strong, if wounded. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.” She meandered to the four-poster and climbed up, collapsing in an awkward sitting posture atop the blankets. “Where to begin?” she said, her pupils wandering as though searching a cluttered attic.
Sunset waited, her quill primed. Philomena swooped up onto the dresser and perched beside the Everheart, which shone pale blue.
A few moments passed, punctuated by the tedious tick of the wall clock, as Cadance chewed on her words. Eventually, Sunset’s patience ran out. “Just start with the main event. What did you do to get that?” She flicked her quill towards Cadance’s horn.
Cadance crossed her eyes up, and her mouth formed a little “o” like she was just noticing it for the first time. “Sure, that’s easy enough. There’s a lot of, er, context you’re missing for this, but what finally did it was… well, when I reminded Prismia how much I loved her. After that, there was this bright light, and the next thing I knew I was talking with Auntie Celestia.”
Sunset waited for Cadance to continue. When she didn’t, Sunset said, “That can’t be it.”
Cadance sighed, her body buckling. “You’re right. It’s not. I suppose you need to know more about Prismia for it to make sense. She, um… I told you how the Everheart amplifies the wearer’s emotions, right?”
“Duh. That’s literally the only thing I know about it.”
“Right. Well, Prismia had worn it for a really long time—pretty much since the day she took it from me, so about sixteen years. And…” Her gaze broke away, slumping to the blankets. “She wasn’t exactly the nicest pony most of that time.”
Amplifies good and bad emotions, Sunset noted. Then her brain caught up with her ears. “Hold on, sixteen years? How old are you?”
Cadance scratched the back of her head. “Seventeen next month.”
Sunset’s eyes widened, if barely. “She stole it when you were a baby?”
With a slow nod, Cadance said, “She found me out in the forest where…” Her eyelids fluttered. “…where my mom… where she left me. Alone. The Everheart was around my neck.”
“Oh.” It was all Sunset could say. She coughed, pretended to make a note, and rolled straight past the ursa in the room. “What did she do with it?”
“Um…” The glaze in Cadance’s eyes tarnished. “Well, it wasn’t what she wanted to use it for at first, but she discovered she could use the Everheart to… to, ah… steal emotions. Love, mainly.”
Can steal love. Other emotions? Sunset tapped her quill idly as she played connect the dots in her mind. “Like a changeling?”
Cadance shook her head. “That’s what I thought at first—we’ve had to deal with them in Woodwind before—but it wasn’t the same. Changelings drain your love, but you can still feel it. It just gets exhausting after a while. Prismia used the Everheart to”—she stopped to swallow—“take it away entirely. When that happens, you just can’t love anything, or anypony. All that’s left is…” She pawed at the blankets with one hoof. “Hate.”
“Fascinating,” Sunset said, jotting down a couple more notes. A feather swept across her withers, dragging her attention over her shoulder. Philomena stood statuesque, her gaze firmly fixed on the Everheart. Its light sparkled the dark blue of final twilight. Wrinkling her brow, Sunset asked, “Do you know why it changes colour?”
“Hmm?” Cadance pulled her head up, blinking like she’d just awoken. “Oh, uh, not really. It never used to do that. I think it’s tied to my emotions somehow, but I usually don’t even notice when it happens, to be honest.” As she spoke, yellow pinpricks stabbed out across the Everheart’s facets like blinking stars. The navy light swallowed most of them as soon as they appeared.
Tied to your emotions? Geez, how long’d it take to figure that one out, Shadow Spade? “Not important right now,” Sunset said. “So, Prismia was using the Everheart to steal love. What then?”
“It took a while to realize what was happening.” Cadance shuffled off of the bed and made for the picnic basket. “I started noticing it a few weeks before… well, before everything. Ponies who I’d known my whole life started acting like I was a thorn in their hoof any time I talked to them.”
So they gained common sense? Sunset stifled a snicker.
Cadance continued, “But it was all ponies I wasn’t super close with anyway, so I thought they might have been sick, or maybe I’d hurt them without realizing it. Ponies being harsh with me wasn’t exactly a new thing.” She drew the pitcher and tankard from the basket and poured herself a drink.
“But then it got… worse.” She gulped down roughly half of her mug and took a seat next to the basket. “My neighbors, my best friends, my… my guardian. None of them wanted anything to do with me. All of the good times we’d shared. The happy memories. It was like they didn’t remember any of it. Or… didn’t care.”
Cry me a river, Sunset thought with only the thinnest sliver of regret. “Sounds terrible,” she said, emphasizing the deadpan in her voice.
Cadance’s face crumpled. “It was. They were the only ponies who had ever really loved me. And it took me a long time to accept that it wasn’t just pity.” She chuckled harshly. “It might sound silly, but I started to think of us like… well, like a family. And… all of a sudden…” She took another sip—likely trying to hide her sniffle. “Palm Heart just… she just—” A hiccup cut her off. “She kicked me out one night. Sh-she told me to… t-to…” The tankard trembled in her hooves.
A warm gust blew through Sunset’s mane as Philomena took off, landing atop the picnic basket. She leaned down and gently pecked Cadance’s withers. Cadance offered a flimsy smile but didn’t otherwise react.
Sunset shot daggers at Philomena—sheathed, but daggers all the same. She made to interrupt, but pins and needles suddenly hammered down her back like stampeding buffalo. She threw a deadly look over her shoulder, which was instantly washed slack.
A thunderstorm raged in the Everheart. Grey magic roiled in thick swirls across the facets, and arcs of white energy sparked throughout. Sunset lost herself in the fathomless dark. Wicked memories she’d buried ages ago clawed to the forefront of her mind.
“Sunset, your turn!”
“You should go, sweetheart. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Who invited you?”
“Everypony, get out!”
“I never want to see you again!”
She yanked herself free of the hallucination because that’s all it is and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled down her cheeks in thin streams. She quickly wiped them away and said, “All right, maybe we should take a breather.” No response came. “Cadance?” She glanced across the room.
Cadance lay on the ground, hooves clutching her head as waves of tears pressed out between her eyelids. Philomena attempted to nuzzle her, but she didn’t seem to notice. And despite how warm Sunset knew that gesture to be, Cadance trembled like a leaf on the edge of winter. She choked out a few haggard sobs.
“Uh,” Sunset said, “you okay?” A stupid question, but the only one that came to mind.
Cadance shook her head wildly, as if trying to escape a nightmare. “I trusted her. Even after all of that, I still trusted her. I wanted to believe she was good. That she’d changed. That she actually wanted to be friends.”
“What are you…?” Sunset started, but a sudden icy wind whipped the words from her brain. The air fell glacial in a matter of moments, and she darted away from the Everheart. She peeked at it from the corner of her eye. The gem had gone nearly black, but faded colours rippled across its facets like raindrops in an ocean. “What’s—?”
“We talked about personal things, Sunset,” Cadance said, meeting Sunset’s eyes through wet lenses. Have they always been blue? “Really personal things. The stuff you only tell somepony if you trust them. If you really care about them. After everything I told her… After everything she told me… How could she still be so… so awful?!” A banshee in Cadance’s mouth screamed the last word.
The Everheart boomed like thunder in a bottle. Sunset turned just in time to see a few twinkling lights fade from around the gem.
Then it pulsed white in a blinding shock. It cracked the display case and rattled the dresser.
Sunset inched towards the door. “Okay. Whatever you’re doing, stop,” she said. “Seriously.”
“Do you know what the worst part is?” Cadance said, as if she hadn’t even heard. “I knew she was using me. Everypony told me not to trust her. But I… I-I convinced them to give her a second chance and… a-and…” She buried her face in the plush carpet and punched the floor. “I’m so stupid!”
More cracks spiderwebbed across the glass case, and Sunset took that as her cue to teleport out. She closed her eyes, imagined the warm, quiet interior of her study, and—
Her horn burned as the spell failed. Her whole body tensed up in the half-moment before the Everheart exploded. A horrible sound like howling windigos ripped through the room. The glass shattered and the dresser ruptured, the drawers flying out.
The shockwave flung Sunset through the air. She slammed into the nightstand, tearing all the air from her lungs. She collapsed on her side with a yelp, then just caught sight of Philomena careening off the balcony. Cadance still lay curled up in the middle of the room, her sobs unnaturally loud in the roaring wind.
The room had gone dark too, the sconces all snuffed out. And on the far side of the chamber, the Everheart floated in the air on its own. Sunset assumed it was the Everheart anyway; she couldn’t see past the searing pink light.
She attempted a shield spell, but her horn wouldn’t even ignite. When she tried to command any magic, it felt as though she was fighting a black hole for control. Giving up on that, she stood on shaky hooves and made a beeline for the door, but the wind bowled her backwards like a paper doll.
Sunset glared through her windswept mane at the blubbering, silhouetted heap. “Snap out of it! This is dangerous! And it’s only happening because of you! Get a grip or… or…”
Her tongue went numb as she stared up at the Everheart. Its rosy light had extended into a long cylinder. Blurry at the edges, but it gained more definition with each passing second.
Sunset’s heart jumped to her throat. “What is it doing?” No answer. “Cadance. What is it doing?!”
“I should have known better,” Cadance said between wheezes. “It wasn’t even her first time doing something like that. And she didn’t even have my help back then! She took… Sh-she took Flow’s emotions without… She said it was an accident!”
The lightform stretched and tightened into a slender, serpentine shape. The nearest end bulged, swelling into a… head? A lion’s, or something close to it. Hundreds of thin tendrils snaked out behind it in a twisting, eerie mane. The Everheart itself protruded from its forehead, glowing bright pink.
Sunset retreated to the wall. “Okay, what is actually—?” Survive first! Questions later! She blinked lucid and scanned the room for options. Magic-less options, she reminded herself.
She could duck under the bed, which would have been sheer genius for a foal. Given how this thing had broken Princess Celestia’s enchantments like sugar glass, a bedframe probably wouldn’t stop it. The only other route she saw was to the balcony. She could leap, but the tower was tall, and she couldn’t guarantee that her magic would be back in time to save her. Of course, Philomena might still—
She froze, staring at the plants on the balcony. She looked from them to Cadance, still a useless mess, then to the light creature—which had grown a full set of shining teeth and two broad, feathered wings. Lustrous purple spirals spun in its eye sockets like angry, molten galaxies.
And they were aimed squarely at Sunset.
Now or never. Crouching low, Sunset launched herself forward. She somehow breached the windstorm and tackled Cadance, who clutched her hooves around Sunset in a death grip. “Get off!” Sunset said, wriggling out of the embrace. She tugged Cadance’s hoof, trying to make her stand, but she may as well have been attempting to lift a sleeping cow. “Get up! If the Everheart really is tied to your emotions, this thing might stop if you just calm down!”
The serpent slithered into the air above them, hissing like compressed steam. It circled slowly, coiling lower and lower.
Sunset’s stomach clenched. She doubled her efforts.
“I-I’m sorry,” Cadance stammered, her eyes halfway open. “I… B-but I…” She yanked her hoof free and covered her face like a filly afraid of the bandersnatch. “I-I can’t!”
“You have to! This is your fault!” Sunset's vision rimmed red. “This never would have happened if you weren’t so sentimental! The Everheart amplifies emotions! Why would you want to be right next to it when talking about this?! Did you plan this?! Honestly, you deserve—”
Deathly cold punched Sunset’s whole body and sent her flying onto the balcony. She skidded on her already-bruised side and knocked a plant over the railing. Panting, she looked up to where the dragon, for lack of a better term, lorded over Cadance, radiant as a neon sign. A grey force field sheltered them both.
Standing and spitting dirt, Sunset looked the monster in its ridiculous swirling eyes and shouted, “All I wanted was to learn more about you! Why are you making it so difficult?! Because Cadance is upset?! Is that all?!” She marched a step into the chamber. “Let me in and I’ll give her a good reason to be upset. You stupid, gullible, weak—”
The dragon struck her quicker than lightning. It sank its teeth into her chest and lit her on fire. Or that’s how it felt—she couldn’t move her head to look. In fact, she couldn’t move anything. Not her head or her legs or her tail or her eyes or—
The monster released her. She still couldn’t move, but at least the burning sensation faded. The beast returned to Cadance, but Sunset briefly caught her reflection in the Everheart’s facets.
Rather, the reflection of a statue. Carved in her likeness.
Which was impossible, of course. Only a cockatrice could petrify somepony, and only extraordinarily strong beings could induce stone sleep. Alicorns, for instance. Which the Everheart had created…
All right, maybe.
Still, nothing she couldn’t manage. She simply lit her horn and—
No, that wouldn’t work.
Well, she could scream for Philomena or Princess—
Couldn't do that either.
Fine! Maybe it’s not so easy, but there’s no challenge I can’t beat. Just take a deep breath—
Nope.
She started to hyperventilate, or well she would have if she could have but obviously she couldn’t because statues couldn’t breathe but how could she be a statue like honestly these things didn’t happen to her she was smarter and stronger than this and the Everheart was just a dumb piece of dumb jewelry so there’s no way it could best her like this and Okay, haha, brain, very funny. You got me! I’m ready to wake up now. Joke’s over. Anytime.
Any. Time.
Any—
Still a statue.
Sunset discovered that there was no worse feeling than trying to cry through stone eyes.
Right then, a crimson missile split the darkness overhead. Philomena pierced the barrier, swooped beneath the monster—which didn’t even seem to notice, its maddening gaze still locked on Sunset—and wrapped Cadance in her wings.
Sunset tried to cry out that she needed the hug more but of course that didn’t work why why her why did you go for her instead of me?! She attempted to shoot a flare from her horn which also didn’t work so she just tried thinking really hard because yeah obviously that would work but it wasn’t like she could do anything else besides—
Princess Celestia thundered to the balcony like an angel from on high. She kneeled down and touched Sunset’s cheek, which Sunset couldn’t actually feel, and she decided she’d been wrong about the ‘crying through stone eyes’ thing.
A few tears glimmered in the princess’s eyes. “You’ll be okay, Sunset,” she said. “I promise.”
Sunset had never been one for hugs, but she would have broken the world for one in that moment.
Turning away please don’t leave me, Princess Celestia called, “Mi Amore!” Her voice boomed over the pandemonium. “You are safe. There is nopony here who wishes you harm.”
Sunset rolled her eyes but argh!
“A-Aunt Celestia?” Cadance said between sniffles. Her half-cast face peered out from beneath the red- and orange-feathered bunker. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Mi Amore. I’m here.”
The tumult slowed, then redoubled. The dragon's roar shook the room, and Sunset swore she felt cracks form along her body and Princess please help I can't—
Stop. Just don't think about it. Focus on anything else.
At least that she could do.
Cadance sobbed sharply. “I’m… I'm so sorry. I… I don’t deserve any of this! Not this room. Not this horn. Not… Not you. None of it ever should have happened.”
Finally, something we can agree on. The thought rang in Sunset’s head like a funeral toll.
Princess Celestia took a step closer. “That isn’t true—the Everheart is only making your fears more potent. You must fight it. Believe in yourself.”
The dragon growled, but did nothing more.
“How can I?! I’ve caused ponies so much pain. Ponies I care about more than anything! Who does that to their family?! Everypony would be better off if I just… disappeared.”
The pause before Princess Celestia spoke, brief as it was, weighed heavier than the moon. “You may believe that, but how do you think those ponies would feel if they heard it? They care for you just as much as you do for them. Such is family, and it is beautiful. To disappear from their lives is the greatest pain you could inflict.”
Long, dark shadows loomed on the edge of Sunset's mind. She ignored them.
Cadance’s sobs fell quiet. The gale turned to a zephyr, and the dragon reared up with a snarl. “B-but… what if I hurt them again?”
“You will, and that is okay. We tend to hurt those closest to us the most—it’s an unfortunate consequence of love. What matters is how we handle that pain. And from what I’ve seen, you manage it better than anypony I’ve ever known. Where most would let that pain fester for fear of confronting it, you take it head on and do all you can to resolve it, even at great personal risk. That takes incredible strength, Mi Amore.”
Sunset tried to fold her ears. It wouldn’t have silenced the phantom voices in her head, but it was the best she could do.
“I-I… I don’t… I haven’t…” She stopped for a horrible moment, and Sunset half-expected the dragon to lunge at Princess Celestia. “I’m not ready for this…”
“Of course you're not. You’ve hardly been here a month.” Princess Celestia unfurled her wings, standing tall and regal. “But with patience and faith in your friends and yourself, you will be. You already have three good friends here at your side. Embrace that feeling.”
It was probably best that Sunset couldn’t speak in that moment.
And just as the thought crossed her mind, warmth flooded her chest like hot spring water—a feeling greater than a thousand perfect grades. The winds died to little more than a breeze, and the dragon gave a low grumble as it receded into the Everheart.
Sunset barely knew what happened around her next. Adrenaline hammered through her veins in tidal waves. A deafening crumble filled her ears as the stone dropped from her body in clumps. Her legs came first, and she stretched them because she could, then her body, and she had never been so relieved to feel pain in her side, then her head, and—“Princess!” Her voice came out chalky and dry, but that didn’t slow her charge. She ran up and threw an embrace around Princess Celestia, burying her face in her coat.
The princess returned it, wings and all. “Are you hurt?”
Sunset shook her head. Then she remembered herself and pulled back, running a hoof through her mane. She tried and failed to meet Princess Celestia’s eyes. “I’m fine. Just… shaken.” She bowed her head. “Thank you so much, Princess.”
“Don’t,” Princess Celestia said. “I fear this was my fault for leaving the Everheart so loosely protected.” She guided Sunset’s chin up with a hoof. The smile Princess Celestia wore looked off on her usually stoic face. Pleasant, but off. “There will be time for discussions later, but for now I think you have more than earned a good night’s rest. I need to speak with Mi Amore. Why don’t you gather your things and—?”
“C-can… can she stay?”
Sunset’s focus broke away. Philomena stood on the floor next to Cadance, who had risen to her hooves. She resembled a swamp horror with her mascara-matted face and savaged mane—her mane scrunchie had gone loose at some point. She looked to Sunset with glistening eyes. Somehow her smile had weathered the storm.
“I… suppose,” Princess Celestia said. “I do owe both of you an explanation, as I have not been completely forthright about the Everheart. But there are many things I would like to discuss with you, Mi Amore—some of them quite intimate. Are you certain you don’t want privacy?”
Cadance snort-laughed. “I don’t think it gets much more intimate than what just happened. I’d be more comfortable if Sunset stayed.” Her face tightened as she turned back to Sunset. “If you want to, that is. I would understand if you want to be alone.”
Did you forget the part when I called you stupid and gullible? Sunset kneaded her lips together for a moment. A massive part of her wanted to just tell Cadance off and go collapse into bed, but a louder part knew she wouldn’t want to miss this.
“Honestly,” she said, “I kind of need the company right now.”
Princess Celestia’s mouth curved into another weird smile as she looked between Cadance and Sunset. “Very well. But before anything can be said, I feel I should find a safer home for this.” She levitated up a gold-trimmed, black clamshell box. Icy blue light shone in a thin line through the box’s opening.
Cadance’s smile fell and she nodded. “Probably for the best.”
Sunset bit her tongue.
“Then shall we?” Princess Celestia tipped her head to Philomena, who took a perch on her back. The princess started towards the door, saying, “We can stop by the vaults on our way to my study. I’ll send for some tea as well.”
Cadance fell into step beside her, and the two alicorns crossed the threshold to the ramp outside. “Sunset?” Cadance said, tossing a filly-like look over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”
Sunset blinked from her stupor and said, “I’ll, um, catch up. Need to get all my stuff together first. I’ll be quick.”
With a soft nod, Cadance took one step, paused, mouthed the word, “Sorry,” then followed Princess Celestia’s lead down the tower, leaving Sunset alone.
Dozens of disjointed thoughts swam through the quagmire of Sunset’s mind, none of them quite breaking the surface before getting pulled back under. She fell back on her hindquarters, closed her eyes, and took a few long, slow breaths. A cocktail of sweet and earthy smells met her nostrils, sending a calming stream through her whole body.
A minute or so later, true to her word, Sunset gathered up her belongings in numb silence. Once she thought she’d gotten everything, she stepped over to the broken dresser and hesitated just a moment before swiping The Cadance Collection into her saddlebags. She galloped into the night to catch up with the princesses.