//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12 - I'm Burning For You 
// Story: Sundowner 
// by King of Beggars 
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I was dreaming.

In the dream I was sitting in what had once been the library of a beautifully appointed mansion in the Sierras. Just the library by itself was three stories tall and wide as my house, and it put my little basement study to shame. It had a fireplace that you could roast a pig in, and literally thousands of books of every genre penned by human hands.

It was on fire, just like the rest of the estate was.

Across the room from where I sat, laying in the splintered remains of a bookshelf, was the body of someone I knew with tender familiarity. She was someone who’d taught me magic… someone who could have been a friend, if things had been just a little different. Worst of all, she wasn’t the only body I’d left like that, just the last one.

I hated this dream. I wanted to walk away, to wake up, to not have to see this again. This was my worst memory – a hard won title for such a shitty life. That wasn’t how it went, though. Try as I might, I couldn’t leave. I had to stand here and watch myself, knowing exactly what was about to happen.

My last waking moments were still vivid through the usually disorienting filter of my own dreaming mind. Even as I watched the dream play out, I could still remember the feeling of my lungs filling with blood, and the way the gun barrel felt as it dug into my soft palate. I was probably dead. This seemed like an appropriate dream for the final firing of my last dying synapse. The perfectly miserable end to commemorate the last microseconds before my soul got tugged away.

As if summoned by my thoughts of him, Fiddler stepped out of the burning fireplace, his smile gleaming as he scanned the steadily-rising inferno around him.

“Ah, kid, you’ve done me proud,” he said as he strode over, cane tucked under his arm, his hands working in a slow, polite little clap. He stopped, took that dumb straw cabana hat off his head, and doffed it with a mocking bow like some genteel musketeer-wannabe.

“They were my teachers,” Sunset, the dream one, said. The grave, flat tone of her voice filled me with a terrible remembered grief. “And you made us fight.”

Fiddler straightened, fanning himself with the brim of his hat as he turned to look right through me, to the broken body behind me. “You shouldn’t worry about that, kid,” he said with a chuckle. “I told them that I’d break the contract of anyone that managed to kill you, and they all agreed in a heartbeat. You could hardly call any of them friends when they turned on you that easily.”

Dream-Sunset looked up, confusion finally breaking the cold trauma. My heart bled for her.

“What?” she asked. “You told them to kill me?”

Fiddler ignored her. He just walked over to where the body lay, prodding it with the tip of his cane.

“Why would you do that!?” Sunset demanded.

“Because I had to get them to fight you with everything they had. It was the only chance they’d have to push you. You’re far stronger than they were, you know.”

The other me was on her feet, trembling with an anger that I knew all too well. She lifted a hand, as if to hex the demon, but she and Fiddler both knew she wouldn’t dare. All she could do was take that hatred, wrap it in her fist, and clutch it uselessly to her breast.

“What was the point of this?” she asked, her voice quavering just at the edge of tears.

Fiddler set his hat back atop his head with a tap of his cane, like Fred Astaire in mid-dance. “Because for tonight’s lesson you needed to spill a little bit of blood,” he said, as if such simple words explained everything.

“They were my teachers…” Sunset murmured again, still shaking with anger.

“And you overcame them.” Fiddler approached the girl, his cane thumping with every other step in pure affectation. “Honestly, you don’t have anything to feel bad for. I raised them for this purpose. It’s no different from a farmer butchering a hog to feed his child. So what’s to worry about?”

There was no time for Sunset to reply. Fiddler touched the brim of his hat, and suddenly the burning mansion was gone. The rows of books were replaced by walls of roughly-carved stone, and the slow, steady drip of water trickled down the walls, cutting mossy grooves across the floors. Bioluminescent lichens grew along the walls like festive garlands, and the damp, earthy smell of the underground cavern was strong. The memory of this place was so vivid, so real, that even knowing this was just a dream, I felt like I could reach out and scrape the moss from the walls.

“We’ve got things to do, kid, so hurry along,” Fiddler said, twirling his cane as he went. “It’s a big, big night!”

Dream-me tried to pull off her shirt, which had soaked through with blood.

“Leave it,” Fiddler demanded. “Don’t clean yourself.”

The tone of his voice brooked no room for argument. It was the sternest I had ever heard Fiddler being with me in all the years I’d been with him, and it was the closest I would hear to his true nature for many years.

Sunset just nodded silently and followed, and I followed her. Neither of us had much of a choice in the matter – I, the dreamer being strung along, and she, the stupid little girl who, even after all this, wasn’t yet ready to fight for her freedom. The ordeal I’d just survived had pushed me to the edge, but the hold that Fiddler had over me wasn’t broken, not just yet.

Though, that would come very shortly.

Fiddler led us to a set of stairs cut directly into the stone. They led down, deeper into the ground, closer to Hell. The soft green glow of the moss was the only light, but it seemed that the moss was growing more plentiful the deeper we got. The walls narrowed, until it was a tight squeeze, even for me and my younger self.

Fiddler had no trouble, despite being larger than I was. He simply led the way, with cane taps echoing off the walls and heralding our descent.

At the bottom of the stairs the walls opened up a little, revealing a chamber with several iron doors riveted into the stone. Fiddler strode past the bank of doors, straight to the one at the end of the room opposite the stairs.

I’d had this dream several times over the years, and every time I did, I couldn’t help but try to push one of the doors open. Not to get away, but because the sickness of my mind refused to let go of the mystery of what might have been behind the doors I never got to go through.

“She’s here,” Fiddler said as he opened the door and stepped inside.

“She?” Sunset asked.

She went in and I went with her, unable to resist the pull as I was dragged along by the damnable vision.

The room turned out to be a prison cell, a bit larger than your average bedroom, with a wooden cot pushed up against one wall. There was a girl laying on the cot, breathing heavily as she struggled to sit up.

I knew this girl, and not just from the dreams. She was tall, and thin as a rail – lanky, you’d say. She wore a plain white sundress that hung shapeless on her scrawny frame, like a hospital gown. She sat up in bed, and bits of the straw bedding used in place of a mattress fell from her long red hair. The last time that I’d seen her we’d both been children huddling together in the doorway of a shop, and that silky mane had been a crunchy rat’s nest of filth and tangles. If not for the bits of hay and the sallow complexion of her skin, she might look like one of those hotties from the shampoo commercials. Even her eyes, a stunning icy-blue that had only grown more intense since I’d last seen her, had an otherworldly beauty about them.

“Sunset,” the girl called out in a thin, sickly voice. She rose on unsteady feet, bits of hay from the bedding . “You’re really here.”

“Of course she is, dear girl,” Fiddler said, again doffing his ugly straw hat like a proper gentleman paying respects to a lady. “Just as I promised you.”

The girl rushed up to the other me and threw her arms around her, hugging with every ounce of strength she could manage from those twiggy arms. Now that she was on her feet, I could appreciate just how thin she was – how very sick she looked. It wasn’t something I had noticed at the time, but standing here, outside the moment, it was easy to see. The way she struggled and wheezed with every breath was heartbreaking.

“What is this?” Sunset asked, holding the girl at arm’s length and looking her up and down. “What are you doing here?”

“Your friend said he could bring me to see you,” the girl said, her voice an excited whisper. The rasp in her voice was harsh, and just the sound of it made my non-existent lungs ache with sympathetic pain.

“He’s not my friend,” Sunset demanded.

The girl, whether she had heard me or not, just kept talking. She asked about how I was, how I’d been, why had I never told her I could do real magic. All the while, all through her breathlessly enthusiastic questioning, she never said a word about herself. She only wanted to know about me.

Dream-Sunset slowly overcame her shock. She stepped towards Fiddler, shouldering her way forward to interpose herself between the girl and the demon. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Fiddler just laughed. “Kid, I told you that tonight was going to be a big night, didn’t I?” He tilted his head from side to side, smirking at the ceiling like he was mulling over some joke he wanted to tell. “Let’s go ahead and call this a graduation day of sorts.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Sunset asked, her voice rising a few notches. She cast a furtive glance back at the girl behind her, and then at the door. I knew what foolish thoughts were running through her head, and I pitied her. “What does she have to do with it?”

“It’s simple,” Fiddler said. He let go of his cane, which stayed upright, perfectly balanced as he removed his hat and hung it from the jeweled handle. His hand raked through his coal-black hair, smoothing it handsomely. “For all these years I’ve been working on something special for you, and tonight it’s finally going to pay off. That little affair back in the mansion was just the first part of the ceremony – something to season you, get you ready for the rites.”

I watched, my heart aching as Sunset stepped back until she was pressed against the girl behind her. I could see the look of fear in my own eyes, but what truly unsettled me was the lack of it in the other girl’s. The lanky redhead just stood there, allowing the other me to protect her, all the while looking at her back with a kind of sadness I’d never seen on another human being’s face.

“And what’s she got to do with it?” Sunset repeated. “Stop dancing around it.”

The sound of a knife hitting the floor was the answer that came. It was a golden-handled blade of silver, as big as a hunting knife. A small jewel, the same color and cut as the big one topping Fiddler’s cane, was embedded in the handle.

Fiddler merely shrugged with his hands, still smirking as he lifted his chin towards the knife. “I was going to try to give you ladies a bit of time to catch up, but if you’re so eager to get started then I can’t say I disagree. I’ve waited a long time for this, sooner is better than later, I say.”

He didn’t need to say more than that. Even as young as I was at the time, I knew enough to know what the implications of his words, and of that knife gleaming in the pale bioluminescence, meant.

“No,” Sunset said.

Fiddler laughed. “I’m afraid so.”

Sunset stepped forward, kicking the knife aside as she strode up to Fiddler. “No. I’m not killing her. No more death.”

Fiddler’s smile wavered, teetering on the edge of diminishing to a mere grin. He caught himself, his lips pulling back into an even wider smile, with teeth sharper than human, and brighter than mortal.

“Afraid there’s not much of a choice here, kid,” Fiddler insisted. “The ceremony has already begun, and I think it’s best if we just go ahead and get on with it.”

“I’m not going to let you,” Sunset said, with fire in her voice and in her hands. I felt a surge of pride every time the dream got to this part, even knowing what came next. “I’ll fight you if I have to. I’m not taking another life in your name. Not tonight, not ever.”

The smile never left Fiddler’s face, even as he seemed to fill the room with nothing more than his presence. He didn’t need to move and inch, but he was touching every corner of the room, filling every inch of space, pressing down on me, into my lungs, against my eyes. It was like he was everything all at once, and he wasn’t happy.

“Stop disappointing me,” Fiddler’s voice boomed, shaking the dust from the stone walls. “I raised you better than this.”

Sunset’s knees nearly gave way, but she held strong, clenching her fists as a trickle of blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth. I knew she was biting the inside of her cheek, focusing on the pain to help her keep her wits in the face of fear. It was the same trick I always used, and it had carried me far.

The girl behind her wasn’t as strong. She’d already fallen to the floor, clutching her chest and wheezing pathetically as Fiddler’s anger pressed on her like the weight of the world.

“I won’t bend,” Sunset growled, and the fire in her hands sparked, crackled, and burned with enough power to push back the oppressive aura surrounding Fiddler. “If you want someone to die tonight, then kill me, because I’m done with this.”

The presence began to withdraw as suddenly as it had come, like the wash of a wave rolling back out to sea. The girl on the ground curled up, coughing violently into her hands as the air rushed back into her wheezing lungs.

Fiddler just shook his head, his smile still present, but diminished in some unquantifiable way.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he said, and something in his tone made me think he meant it, “but this isn’t like a bargain. I don’t need you to want to do this. I just need you to do it. So pick up that knife and stab her.”

It was the first and only time that Fiddler had ever compelled me to do something. I’d never been particularly good at the skill, but I’d always been hard-headed enough that I had a pretty good resistance to it. None of that mattered when Fiddler was involved. He was a demon, more ancient than any I had ever heard about. If he wanted to force you to do something, you did it.

And so I did.

The dream-me picked up the knife, her eyes going over all cold, glassy. It was a look I’d seen on dozens of faces over the years. The mind was there, but behind a fog, the body moving with a will other than its own.

I could only watch as Sunset walked up to the girl, who had finally managed to rise to a sitting position from where she’d fallen. She watched her childhood friend approach her with a knife clenched in her fist.

“It’s okay,” the girl said as Sunset kneeled down next to her. She touched the other me’s face, gently, with more tenderness than I could ever show to my imminent murderer. “Don’t be scared. I’m okay with this, and I’m glad I got to see you one last time.”

The knife stole any further tender words, bleeding them from her opened throat before they could reach her lips. Then the knife found its way into her chest, buried up to the hilt. I could almost imagine her heart fluttering weakly around the blade, like the last struggles of a still-living insect pinned to a corkboard.

The compulsion left, leaving the two girls a few moments of mutual recognition. One dying, one wishing she had died.

And then the me in the dream began to scream.

Somehow I was finally able to look away, and I clenched my eyes shut as tight as I could as I listened to the sound of my own torment. I didn’t need to see to know what was happening – I’d already lived it. I’d felt the Fiendfire in my bones burning me for the second time in my life. I’d felt Fiddler placing his hand on my chest, holding me down as he took that fire and used it like ink as he etched that damnable sigil into my soul.

I'd felt as the thing he put in that sigil first began to claw at the walls of its cage, to pace around my soul like a tiger stalking out the boundaries of its enclosure.

I covered my ears, trying not to hear as I whimpered, hurting not merely in body but in soul, in my heart, in my pride – in everything that I was. I tried not to hear as I told Fiddler I never wanted to see him again. It was a stand, a movement towards independence, but no wounded animal could have made a sound as pathetic as my mewling demands had been.

Fiddler agreed, promising to never seek me out again, and congratulating me on finishing the rite, whatever the hell it had been meant for. He even laughed, telling me how proud he was of me for getting as far as I had.

I looked up, just in time to see Fiddler wave his hand over the room, making both himself and the other Sunset disappear. I was alone now, in the dimly lit prison cell, with the body of the poor girl. She’d been left here to rot in this filthy underground prison. For all I knew we weren’t even on Earth.

I knelt down, reaching for her, to touch her with the same care she’d shown me as I was killing her. She looked at peace, her beautiful skin as white as paper. My hand passed through her cheek, as insubstantial as the gesture itself.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, cradling the hand against my chest.

“You don’t need to be. I told you it was fine.”

I looked up to find the girl standing over me, dressed in the same plain white slip of a sundress, though she filled it out quite a bit better than the girl laying dead beside me. She looked good. Even her skin had a healthy sun-kissed glow.

“So…” I rose to my feet, feeling numb as I looked at the ghost of the woman I’d just listened to myself murder. “You finally got out…”

The girl smiled at me with more warmth than I’d felt in a thousand of Fiddler’s wicked grins. I wasn’t used to smiles that genuinely tender. Maybe from Luna, when she wasn’t angry at me, and once or twice I’d felt that kind of warmth from Twilight. The kid’s smiles were understandably few in the short time I’d known her, but I could still feel that warmth, like a seedling hiding beneath the snow, waiting to show itself in better weather.

“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” the girl said, kneeling down beside her own body. She gently placed her hand over the eyes and pulled them closed. She was actually able to touch things in the dream, which made sense.

“I’ve had some time to think about this night,” I said, backing up until I could feel the wall against my back. It felt insubstantial still, but with every passing second it was growing more solid – a sure sign that I was losing my connection to the physical world as my body died. “I knew he’d put something in my chest, and I never knew for sure what it was. Honestly, I probably would’ve never even considered that it might have been your soul if I hadn’t gotten wrapped up in all this mess. Once I knew for sure it was possible for a higher being to stuff a soul it owned somewhere other than its own mouth, it didn’t take much theorycrafting to make the leap that the thing inside me was you… Of course, I didn’t really have any proof until just now, but you being here… well… guess that was it.”

She looked pleased with me as she took a seat on the hard, bloody ground. She sat cross-legged, injun-style, like a kid waiting for storytime. “You told Clavus that the soul and the mortal body were linked. That no other vessel could contain it.”

“No other vessel should be able to contain it, but this sigil carved into my soul seems like it breaks that rule, or at the very least stretches it,” I explained, tapping the spot directly over my heart. “Your soul isn’t really a part of me, or my body. You’re just sort of… there. Taking up space.”

“In Limbo.”

I shrugged. There was something funny about the idea that I was someone else’s mobile purgatory. Not funny enough to laugh, but definitely funny.

“You heard me talking to Clavus?” I asked.

This time she shrugged. “Vaguely,” she said, and she had the good grace to look at least a little embarrassed about her supernatural peeping. “It’s harder to focus when you’re awake. It’s like I’m stretched really thin by your thoughts. They’re so much louder than mine.”

“‘When I’m awake’?”

“It’s easier when you’re asleep.” She twiddled her fingertips together shyly. “When you’re asleep your brain is kind of doing its own thing, so it’s not so loud. It makes it easier to look through your memories, and your dreams are very vivid, so those are good for watching.”

“I’m glad my shitty memories could amuse you,” I said with an angry snort.

“It’s not like there’s anything else to do,” she said. She was clearly still embarrassed by her impropriety, but there was a little iron in her voice now. “I can’t exactly turn on the TV on my own.”

I pushed away from the wall, and it actually felt a little solid, like I was pushing against the wall of one of those inflatable bouncy castles. I probably didn’t have much time left.

“You should’ve thought about that before you got mixed up with Fiddler and got yourself in this mess,” I snapped, pointing my finger at the body. “What were you thinking? Why would you even make a deal with that monster?”

“You made one,” she said.

“Yeah, because I’m an idiot!”

The girl tittered into her hands, her shoulders shaking as she suppressed full laughter. The pleasant sound of her laughter was a stark contrast to the sight of her sitting in her own blood. It would’ve been unnerving given any other context.

“This isn’t funny,” I groused. “What did he even give you?”

Her laughter slowed, but it never left her eyes. She climbed to her feet, smoothing out the wrinkles of her blood stained dress.

“I got to see you,” she explained.

“Never heard of a phonebook?”

“You weren’t listed,” she said, setting her hands on her hips and grinning with damnable amusement.

“Even still, a deal with a devil just to look up a childhood friend?”

She shook her head, and the laughter finally left her eyes. “I didn’t have time,” she said as she looked down at the body lying at her feet. “You heard that cough… I was dying. I had been for a long time.”

My mind went back to that snowy night, the night she and I had parted ways. The night I’d met Fiddler. She’d been coughing for a while before that night.

“What was wrong with you?” I asked. I groaned inwardly at how insensitively I’d asked the question, but it was already out there.

At least she didn’t seem to take offense to how blunt my question was.

“Cancer,” she said, patiently, as she backed away from the body to sit on the wooden cot. She looked down at her feet, seemingly unable to meet my eyes. “Lung infections are really common in the early stages. It progressed really fast, but I was able to get treated thanks to some children’s charity. It went into remission, and when I was better I went looking for you. I searched for weeks, but I couldn’t find you anywhere. I finally gave up and let them take me to live in a foster home until I was eighteen.”

She laughed again, far less joyfully than her previous fits. It was the kind of laughter born of absurdity, at disbelief over how unfair life could be. “I was barely on my own a year before I started coughing again. I was too old for the charity, and the treatment was too expensive for the chances that the doctors were giving me…”

“You should have done it anyway,” I said. “You should’ve tried! Even if you went into debt over it, at least you would’ve been alive!”

She just shrugged. “I didn’t have the strength for it… I’d spent too much of my childhood in a hospital bed, puking my guts out, crying myself to sleep because my chest hurt so bad, and because my throat was raw and bleeding from all the things either coming up, or getting shoved down there by doctors.”

Her breath hitched, and I knew she was crying even before she looked up.

“I had no one who cared about me,” she said. “I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go through that suffering again by myself. I decided to give up. I was going to let the sickness have me, that way at least I'd die on my own terms. I was resigned to it, and in the end, the only thing I regretted was that I never got to keep my promise to find you when I got better.”

“Fiddler could’ve cured you!” I said, desperation in my voice as I ran up to shake her by the shoulders. I could touch her. She was soft, and her skin was just a bit warm to the touch. “If you were going to make a deal, it should’ve been for that! You pissed away your soul for a hug that didn’t even last a whole minute!?”

The girl looked down at where I was touching her, her eyes wide with surprise. “And what would I have had after he cured me?” she asked, gently brushing my hands away. “Life had never been kind to me, and I had no reason to believe the future would be any better. Meeting you was the only good thing that ever happened to me, and Fiddler told me that if I made a deal with him, I could help you with your lessons… and that a piece of me could be with you forever…”

“And you believed him?” I asked in disbelief.

“He showed me magic,” she said, as if that alone explained everything. A sad smile came to her lips, and her gaze became distant. “He told me about you. How you were from somewhere else. How you’d traveled the world learning magic, that you had money and beauty and power… it was like hearing a fairy tale. And he explained to me that if I helped you, I could be a part of that.”

I tried to reach out to her again, but she pulled away, shrinking from my touch.

“You can go ahead and think I’m weak, but I really was ready to let myself die. It was my choice to make, and Fiddler promised me that if I went with him, then my death would at least mean something.” She was shaking, her knuckles bloodless as she clenched her fists in her lap. “Maybe you think he took advantage of me, but that's wrong. I knew what I was doing. I won’t have you cheapen it by saying I was tricked like some stupid child.”

My anger faded as I watched her pouring out her heart. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why the idea of her giving up like that, essentially killing herself, made me so angry.

And then I realized, it was because I cared. As difficult as it had been for me to admit as a child, I knew that she had been a very real friend to me. The first one I’d ever made, in either world. And every time I was forced by my own mind to revisit this tragic night, I could see how much she cared about me, even as I opened her throat and plunged a knife into her breast.

I cared about her, and I had never known why she’d stood there and just let me do that. She hadn’t even tried to run away, to even defend herself… and now I knew why.

I took a seat next to her on the cot, the hay crunching beneath me as I sat – time was almost up, I could feel it – and pulled her into a hug. I held her as she wept into my shoulder. I let her get it out, stroking her hair as she bawled her eyes out.

“It was worth it,” she said, sniffling as her tears died down. “I got to live an entire life with you. I got to experience everything you did through your memories. I even got to see a whole other world – to see an alicorn that could control the sun and moon.” She rubbed her damp face against my collar, sniffling one last time as she pulled away. “It was definitely worth it.”

“How could sharing my awful life have been worth it?” I said. “Maybe it was more magical, but you saw what I went through. I was just as alone as you were.”

She shook her head, the smile returning to her face. “From my perspective, you were never alone, I was there with you for all of it.”

I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was, and to find some way to vent this terrible frustration. But my time was up. As I stood there holding her, I could feel the strength leaving me. Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, and I could feel myself slipping away. I couldn’t even sit up anymore. I just collapsed onto the cot, pulling the other girl down into the pile of straw with me.

“Sunset, you’re starting to fade, there's no time left,” she said, pulling me tighter against her body. She stroked my hair, desperately trying to soothe my ragged breathing. “Hey, stay with me. We still need to save Twilight.”

I wanted to tell her it was too late, but the words wouldn’t come. I was in a dream, but somehow I couldn’t even breathe.

As if reading my mind, the girl shook her head and gently brushed the hair away from my eyes. “No, it’s not too late,” she said. “Fiddler spent days convincing me to go along with his plan. He told me all about it. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I’ve lived everything you ever experienced. I know everything about magic that you do, and I can tell you that it didn’t take. The ritual wasn’t completed… but I can do it if you let me use your magic. I can finish it and save your life.”

I groaned in protest. There was only one ‘rite’ she could be talking about – the one we’d just acted out in this dream. I wanted nothing to do with whatever evil Fiddler had called my ‘graduation’. The memory had haunted me for years, driven me from magic to live a life of mediocrity as a conwoman tricking superstitious tourists out of a few bucks with card tricks and jangly bracelets.

“We don’t have a choice, Sunset,” she said. “We have to save Twilight. Even if you don’t care about what happens to anything else, I know you care about her. I care about her too, and this is the only way to save your life so that you can save hers. All you have to do is accept it. Just let me in.”

It was a temptation as enticing as any Fiddler had ever dangled before me. I wanted to save Twilight, I wanted the chance to make things right with her. I wanted to be able to tell Luna I was sorry, and to see how far our budding romance could go.

I wanted to live.

“That’s it, just keep thinking about them, just like when you made that pact with the spirit. Remember how they made you feel." Again it was as if she could read my mind, which she probably could. With surprising strength, she laid me out properly on the cot and climbed on next to me. She pulled us together as tightly as she could, her chest against mine, heart-to-heart. “Just let me in.”

I did what she asked, trying to focus on the way Twilight’s eyes lit up when she saw the mountain of books in my basement. I thought back to that first night I’d kissed Luna, and how cute she looked, getting all flustered by her own attempts to lure me up to her bedroom. I thought back to that day in front of Night Light’s office, when I’d first seen Celestia, and how the sight of her walking down that hallway had filled me with the strongest sense of homesickness.

“There we go,” the other girl said. I could hear the smile in her voice. “There’s so much love inside of you, you’ve just buried it under all this anger. Never forget that it’s there. No matter what you’ve done, or what you think you’ve become, don’t forget that love. It’s what keeps you human…” She let out a soft, tinkling laugh. “...or pony. I’ve lived inside your heart, so even if you can’t believe yourself, at least believe me. You’re a good person, Sunset Shimmer. No magic can change that.”

I could feel something inside me stirring. It was warmth, like the caress of sunny skies in Spring as you laid in the grass. It filled my chest, spreading throughout me, beating back the darkness creeping in at the edge of my vision.

Even as I grew stronger, slowly I could feel myself slipping away, but in the other direction. Not towards oblivion, but back to the waking world.

“My mother hated me,” the girl said in a whisper that I could barely hear over the thumping of my own racing heart. “She was hardly ever home, and whenever she was, she was drunk. And when she was drunk, she’d hit me. Then finally one day she drank herself to sleep and didn’t wake up. I was so young, I didn’t know what to do, so I left the house. I think I was afraid that the police would think I had killed her, as if they’d somehow know how much I had hated her and would suspect me of the crime, like the detectives on TV.”

As if driven by instinct, I returned the embrace of the girl holding me with what little strength had returned to me.

“I was supposed to have an older sister,” she continued. “Something went wrong. The baby died inside of her, and she blamed herself for it. Even when she had me to try and fill the void left behind by the daughter she’d lost, she never got over it. That was why she was so hard on me, I think. Because I reminded her of that loss. I spent my entire childhood being compared to a ghost.”

I still couldn’t answer her. I hadn’t yet found my voice again, and all I could do to let her know I was listening was to hold her just a little tighter.

“And then I got to meet you…” She laughed, weakly. I could feel her fading away in my arms. “The universe sure is a strange place… but I’m glad I wasn’t alone in the end...”

My grip on the girl was slipping away. I could feel myself being pulled away from the dream and back into my own body. It was a strange sensation, like slowly walking through a house and flipping on all the lights in every room one at a time.

I found strength enough to speak, my voice barely a whisper as I said, “I never even got to ask your name…”

Suddenly my sight was awash with light, blinding, flooding out everything but the girl in my arms. The halo of light surrounding her as I looked into her smiling face was enough to blind me, but I refused to look away.

She leaned in and pressed her lips to mine. I’d never felt a kiss like this. There was no passion, or lust, only love. It was the innocent affection of siblings imitating kisses from their parents. I let that feeling of love in and drowned in it.

“My name is Sunrise…”



* * *



I woke to pain. Something was wrapped around my throat, trying to strangle me. My vision was literally clouded, filled with black smoke, gray ash, and glowing cinders that danced in the air like snow flurries.

I grabbed at the thing around my neck, nails sinking into scaled flesh. Whatever I had grabbed let out a loud, shrieking hiss that shook the air like the rumble of a collapsing mountain. I yanked and tore at the hissing thing’s flesh, and streams of green blood flowed down my arms, bubbling as it touched my crimson-red skin.

A snake's head appeared from the smoke, lunging at me with jaws open wide enough to swallow me whole. Dozens of sharp teeth filled that mouth, dripping venom that sizzled in the air.

I grabbed the snake behind the head, the long talons at the end of my fingers sinking with ease into its body. It thrashed and constricted, its massive wings beating to try and pull away, slapping at my hands with enough force to crush stone in an attempt to try and shake free of my grip.

I refused to let it go. A foul, dark hatred of the thing rose up in me, and with a scream I tore the head from its body, tossing both into the distance. Somewhere beyond the endless smoke I heard the sound of its body crashing to the ground, and the earth trembled beneath my feet.

I looked down, and somehow I could see through the smoke to Ahuizotl, who was standing at my feet looking up at me in terror. I reached down for him, and the ground came up to meet me.

He grew closer, a hundred feet of distance between us contracting in a fraction of a second, and my hands – my normal, human hands – had found his throat. I lifted him up off his feet and squeezed.

“Look at me,” I hissed, shaking the man like a ragdoll. His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he gurgled pitifully, and his eyes fluttered as he barely held on to consciousness. I shook him again. “Don’t you close your eyes. Look at me while you’re dying. My name is Sunset Shimmer and you should have never touched what was mine.”

Ahuizotl lifted the ritual blade with his one remaining hand, trying to stab blindly at me. His pathetic swings cut nothing but air. I could feel the magic in him trying to gather, to cast some spell against me, but I reached into him with my own magic and undid every spell he tried to weave. I tightened my grip on his neck for just a second, then loosened up, toying with his windpipe like the throttle on a motorcycle. His attempts to cut me grew weaker, and the knife eventually slipped from his fingers. I stomped on it, cracking the stones beneath my boot as I ground the glass blade into dust.

“I did this to you,” I growled. “I did this.”

I gave one last squeeze, bearing down until I felt the bones in his neck snap like I was slaughtering one of my hens. I let him fall bonelessly to the ground, and kicked him as hard as I could. He flew off into the distance, disappearing into the smoke. With a snap of my fingers his body went up in flames, glowing like the cherry of a cigarette burning on a foggy night.

Somewhere in the smoke I could hear someone shouting. Ahuizotl’s croney was stumbling around blindly, trying to find his way out of the haze, hacking and coughing as he tried to escape without the use of his dead master’s power. I could feel the smoke filling his chest as if it were my own hands, my thousand tiny fingers worming into every crevice in his lungs meant for air. I filled him more, and more, until there was room for nothing but smoke. The muzzle of his gun flashed in the smoke as he fired in a panic. I listened to him retch and whine, the hammer on his revolver clicking impotently. His struggle eventually ended, and I left him there without even the courtesy of immolation.

I walked over to Twilight, who was still on the altar, with that beautiful white halo of light surrounding her. She was wrapped in a gown of linen, embroidered with some kind of arcane formulae.

I reached for her, hesitating for only a moment as the glow of magic surrounding her seemed to push back against me. So this was what Ahuizotl had needed the special knife for. Whatever this aura of magic was, there was no way he would’ve gotten through it without preparation. This was probably what had kept her alive for so long.

The glowing aura of magic seemed alive, keeping at bay anything that might try to harm the unconscious girl. I tried again, this time opening up my heart, the way Sunrise had shown me, and trying to express in my touch exactly what I felt for this child. The offering of my unvarnished feelings was accepted, and the light receded into Twilight’s body.

The rain had stopped, but a freezing wind  had taken its place. Twilight shivered as the aura left her exposed to the cold. I removed my jacket, which was now ruined and covered in my own blood, but at least it offered more warmth than the flimsy gown.

I picked her up, feeling relief so powerful it almost took me off my feet.

Something stirred in the sky, and a great presence made itself known as it stared down on me and the girl in my arms. It seemed like the master of this place was finally awake enough to notice what was going on.

“Piss off,” I said with a sneer. “I’m leaving now, and don’t you ever come after my kid again.”

I didn’t bother waiting for a response. I just shifted Twilight’s weight around, hooking my arm under her legs and putting her against my shoulder like an overgrown toddler. I needed a free arm for this. I’d never been able to forcefully open a rift between worlds before, but I’d seen Fiddler do it enough times to have a guess. The surge of magic inside of me did the rest of the work, filling in the gaps in my artistry with raw power.

I dug my fingers into the air, tearing the veil between this place and the human world like cheap cloth. The air shimmered where I pulled open the gateway. The edges of the hole in the fabric of reality burned with smouldering fire as I stepped through.

I came through the other side of the rift at the utility station. Philomena was parked right where I’d left her, patiently waiting for my return like any good steed. I put Twilight in the passenger’s seat and buckled her up, then got in the driver’s seat and started us for home.

The rain had calmed considerably, down to a pleasant drizzle during the uneventful ride home. It had already let up by the time we pulled up to the house, and the sky was just beginning to brighten.

Luna and Celestia were both obviously waiting for me. They were both at the passenger side door before I was even out of the car. Celestia fumbled with the seatbelt before getting the kid free. She was practically howling as she pulled Twilight’s unconscious body into her arms.

“Don’t worry, that’s not her blood,” I said as I walked past Luna, making a beeline for the house. I had promised myself a hot shower the second I got home, and I planned to make good on that. “She’s just asleep. Let her rest.”

I burned off my laces, kicking off my boots as I went straight upstairs. I stripped in the hallway as I walked to the bathroom, leaving the ruined, bloody clothes where they dropped.

I didn’t even wait for the water to get hot before I got in. The ice cold water in the pipes fell on me, and I didn’t feel so much as a shiver. I stood there, watching the water fall down my body and down the drain until it stopped running red.

With a strangled sob I fell to my knees, the cast-iron tub singing mutely as I collapsed beneath the shower. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. I beat my fists against the tub, wishing I could just punch straight through, but the inhuman strength I’d had back in Tlalocan was already fading.

What was I?

For years I’d feared that I was a monster. That I could never be human, or unicorn, or anything else but the very demon Fiddler had made of me. And now I had proof of that. I’d found Twilight and brought her home, but in the end I’d had to give up the last pretense of humanity still in me.

Sunrise… I’d eaten her soul.

I could feel the place where she’d been, the sigil on my soul that had been her prison. It was no longer hollow, and I could no longer feel anything moving around in there like a rat scuttering about behind the drywall.

That was a cruel analogy for a woman’s soul… much less for the soul of a girl who might’ve been my…

My what?

I suddenly felt ill, like I was going to throw up, but nothing came of it. Not even dry-heaves. It felt unsatisfactory, like I’d been denied the comfort of sickness.

I kneeled there, in scalding hot water, feeling nothing but frustration. I was vaguely aware of someone shouting at me, and of the squeak of faucet knobs being hastily turned. A moment later I dimly registered the changing temperature of the water with nothing more than passing interest.

A pair of arms wrapped around me, and, more interestingly, the unmistakable touch of lace-covered breasts pressed against my back. I looked down at the arms. They glowed with an impossibly beautiful light – a sharp, brilliant blue with streaks of darkness, and twinkling motes like stars in a night sky. It was the color I knew instinctively as Luna’s, just the way the brilliant orange and reds in the driveway could only have been Celestia.

“Is it over?” Luna asked.

“Yeah,” I said, numbly, “for good.”

The lights around my chest tightened, and Luna’s head rested against the nape of my neck as she pressed herself further into my back.

“You did it,” she muttered. “I knew you could. Thank you.”

The light flared and the stars twinkled. I could feel warmth coming from Luna that I hadn’t felt from the water, warmth that filled my whole body, right down into my soul. I carefully turned myself around, so I could look directly into the beautiful blue glow. I concentrated, focusing beyond the light, and slowly, like she was coming out of the fog, Luna’s face came into view.

No matter what you’ve done, or what you think you’ve become, don’t forget that love. It’s what keeps you human…

I repeated those words to myself, over and over. The only thing I allowed myself to experience outside those words was the sensation of Luna’s body against mine.

Something cold and empty inside myself demanded to be filled with more of her warmth, so I pulled her close... and I let her in.



* * *



It was early morning. The sun was up, and the chickens were strutting around in their enclosure, pecking at the ground and probably impatient for their feed. I watched them for a while, just for something to do.

The bed creaked behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to find Luna snuggling up against my pillow, sleeping off the sinful things I’d done to her in a philosophically feeble but otherwise enjoyable attempt to reaffirm my humanity. She was flesh and blood again. At some point during our lovemaking the effects of… whatever… had worn off. If I concentrated, I could still see the faint glow of her soul around her, like a shimmering aurora in night-sky tones, but she was otherwise the same solid flesh-and-blood human she’d always been.

I looked back to the window, suddenly ashamed of what I’d done. It felt selfish to have done that with her just so I could feel like I wasn't such a monster. That she didn’t complain did little to assuage this nasty feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.

“Well isn’t she pretty?”

I turned to find Fiddler standing next to the bed, holding the edge of the comforter up as he peeped at Luna beneath the covers. I should have been angry about that, but I knew he wasn’t looking at her with anything even resembling lust.

“What’d I tell you?” I tightened the sash of my silk kimono in what I hoped was an intimidating way – what a strange sentence that was – and turned to face him. “Get away from her.”

Fiddler let the comforter fall, holding up his hand in mock-surrender.  “I’m only here to visit,” he said. “I’ve no intention of breaking my promise, but I had to see you.”

On a hunch, I cast a glance back out the window, craning my neck to look back down into my chicken coop. The birds were all frozen in mid-strut, and one was hanging in the air, its wings flapping and feet clawing at another hen as they fought over some wriggling treasure they’d prised from the dirt.

Yup, he’d stopped time alright.

I turned back, surprised as I realized that Fiddler wasn’t smiling. Though his face wasn’t the icy glare of impending death I’d seen earlier that night. If anything, he almost looked… sad as he came around the bed, his steps as smooth as if he was gliding two-inches off the ground.

“I suppose you must have a lot of questions.” He set his cane and leaned on it, bearing his weight with both hands atop the jeweled handle. “Go ahead.”

A million little thoughts bounced around in my head, each trying to find purchase. I sorted through the mess of my thoughts and one question, though at first blush seemingly not as important as others, stuck out as immediately most perplexing.

“What the hell are you?” I asked. I reached over and rapped my knuckles against the window frame, reaching into the very bones of the house with my magic to touch the latticework of runes making up the wards protecting my house. I could even feel the spirits dwelling in the walls, strangely dormant as an intruder stood not ten feet away from me. “I don’t care how strong you are, no demon could possibly waltz past my protections without at least tripping the alarms.”

The ghost of his usual smile flickered across his face, vanishing as quickly as it came. “Still clever as the day we met,” he said.

“You’re not a demon at all, are you?” I asked, prodding him again so he couldn’t escape the question with ambiguity as he was so often wont to do.

He remained quiet, as if uncertain whether he should answer. “No,” he said at last. “I’m not a demon.”

“A god?”

He shook his head.

“Then the name I had,” I said, thinking out loud to myself, “it didn’t mean anything.”

“No, it didn’t,” he admitted. “I am known by that name, but honestly, I don’t have anything like a true name in the magical sense. My kind are older than names, but the oldest of demons used to call us Primal Fiends, and they worshipped us the way lesser mortals worshipped gods.”

If I wasn’t standing in my own bedroom, I would’ve spat on the floor. “That sounds made up.”

Against everything I knew of the creature, Fiddler wilted at my rebuke, as if wounded by it. “I’d never lie to you, you know that.”

“Do I? You lied to Clavus when you gave him ‘Mephistopheles’ as a binding name. How do I know you haven’t lied to me?”

“Never,” he repeated. “Not to you. To others, yes, but never you.”

I wanted to believe that, I really did. For years Fiddler had been the most reliable source of knowledge I knew. So much of my learning, down to my very philosophy on magic, had been based on things I’d learned from him, and never had I even once had reason to suspect he’d ever given me anything but Truth. Even considering that he might be capable of lying was a legitimate crisis of faith.

“Whatever,” I grumbled with a huff of exasperation.

Little wisps of smoke curled up out of the corner of my mouth as I exhaled, rising just a few inches before dispersing. I frowned as I watched the smoke fade away, and I looked back to Fiddler just in time to see a legitimate twinkle in the monster’s eyes.

I licked my lips. They were dry, and a little sore from all the kissing and nibbling. I would’ve given anything for a drink of water, just to rinse out this ashy taste in my mouth.

“The girl, Sunrise…” I hesitated, afraid of the answer, but I had to know. “Was she really my…”

The next word caught in my throat, far too big to voice so soon after I’d consumed the poor girl.

Fiddler tilted his head, studying my face as if he could read the rest of my question written on it. “You once asked me about the similarities between this world and the one you come from,” he said. “I told you not to pay too much mind to it, because the mechanics of the multiverse were dreadfully convoluted. I still would rather you pay it no mind, at least until you’ve grown a little more, but for now let’s just say… Not everything that shows a reflection is a mirror.”

I frowned at that.

“So she was,” I surmised.

“If that’s the way you want to feel about it,” Fiddler replied, lifting a hand in a noncommittal shrug. “She was no more your sister than that girl downstairs is the Twilight Sparkle who stole your place as your princess’ number one apprentice.”

The old Fiend cast his eyes downward.

“Pity you won’t let me meet her,” he said. Floors and walls didn’t mean anything to a creature like him. I could tell he was peering into the living room, to my couch, where Celestia was no doubt still holding Twilight. “She’s a beautiful child.”

“And you’re going to stay away from her,” I growled.

“Yes, yes,” Fiddler said, sighing. “I did promise.”

I snapped my fingers, drawing his attention back to me. He did look up, albeit seemingly reluctantly, and that twinkle in his eye from earlier was gone.

I licked my lips again, gathering the courage to ask the question that I probably should have asked first. I’d been scared, though, of what the answer might be… but I had to know.

“What did you do to me?”

This he didn’t hesitate on.

“Do you remember the night we met? When I offered to teach you magic, and you asked me what I wanted out of the deal? I told you, more or less, that I wanted the same thing from you that your Princess Celestia did.”

The look that Fiddler gave me was eerily similar to the one that Clavus had given me so recently. If there was anything I would have thought Fiddler incapable of, it was pity, but there it was, etched into his face with the unsettling air of a man wearing a grotesque carnival mask.

“You didn’t honestly think that meant your soul, did you?” he asked.

Tears stung my eyes as the implications of those words sunk in. I looked down, just so Fiddler wouldn’t be able to see so clearly what just a few words had done to me.

“So I’m like you, then?” I asked, my voice barely a trembling whisper. “I’m going to live a billion eons eating souls like some goddamned demon?”

“My girl, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Fiddler said. I felt his hand on my shoulder. “The fire inside you doesn’t yet burn hot enough to sustain itself, but if you choose to, you can barter for souls to stoke the fire until it no longer has need for them. Unlike lesser beings, once you come into your own, the necessity of consuming mortality will pass. The ‘horse trade’ of souls, such as it is, will serve as little more than a distraction from the ponderousness of eternity, just as it does for me.”

I pushed his hand away, shaking my head. “I’ll never be like you,” I declared. “I won't ever eat a person's eternal soul just to fill my gut. I don't want power that badly.”

“That’s your choice to make,” he said, nodding with a slight dip of his head. “No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do – not now, not ever. Not even me.”

Something moved in the air, fluttering just a few inches away from my face. I caught it, and the char-black bit of ash smouldered in my palm. I looked up and realized for the first moment that the room had filled with smoke, just like it had back in Tlalocan, with gray flakes of ash and glowing embers dancing in the haze. If Fiddler hadn’t stopped time, the smoke alarms definitely would’ve gone off already. I swatted at the air instinctively, and with that single movement the air was clear.

“Smoke and ash,” Fiddler said, rubbing his chin curiously. “Everything that’s left behind once flame has consumed everything else… seems appropriate.”

“Yeah, it’s real poetic,” I groused, staring at the palm of my hand. All that was left of the smoke that had filled the room was a thin layer of greasy soot coating my hand. “One last thing and then I want you gone – for good this time.”

Fiddler held out his hands in invitation, his face still set in the sad, pitying look that felt so unnatural against the image of him in my head. It was such a strange thing that he should wear false-cheer so much more naturally than his real emotions.

“What was even the point of all of this?” I asked. “Why me? Why do this at all? Are you planning to make more like me?”

“My dear daughter, I could never make another like you,” he said. “I searched for so, so long for someone suitable. I’ve always told you that you were special, and it’s not just because of where you're from. No, down to your very soul, you are beyond unique. Only you could have survived the tempering to gain this perfect, flawless Primal body.”

Fiddler strode past me, walking to the window to gaze out at the clear blue skies. I couldn’t help but wonder what that sky must look like to eyes that had seen the infinite expanse beyond them.

“You don’t know what it’s been like. How much I’ve missed them all… how much I miss pitting my strength against my brothers, or talking with my sisters about whatever their latest interesting creation was. I really do hope that someday you decide to develop the gifts I’ve given you, but even if you don’t, that’s fine. If you decide you want to live a miserably brief mortal life and die as humans do, that’s okay. I can accept that.”

He leaned back his head, his hand pressed lightly against his forehead as he laughed. It wasn’t the dry, cruel laughter he usually affected. It was lighter than air, and the sound filled my chest with a strangely pleasant tingle of happiness just by proximity.

“It doesn’t matter if you live another hundred years or another hundred billion… because right now, for the first time in a long time… I’m not alone anymore.”

And then he was gone.

Time started again. One of the chickens outside clucked angrily as it had its worm stolen, and I could hear the distant pops of gunfire as one of my neighbors did some recreational shooting on his property – one of the perks of living at the edge of town, I supposed.

Fiddler had come and gone like a summer squall, leaving nothing but the ugliest truth I’d ever heard, that the thing I’d feared most had finally come to pass: I wasn’t human anymore. I was some monster, the same as him, a thing born of his infernal alchemy, ultimately no different from the beasts Ahuizotl had crafted. For one brief moment, I’d had all the power I could’ve ever dreamed of having, and all that it had cost me was the essence of who I was, and my sister’s soul.

And she was my sister, fate and happenstance and alternate timelines be damned. Whether I agreed with her reasoning for doing so or not, Sunrise had sacrificed herself for me twice. She knew everything about me, having lived inside my head for all these years, and even after learning what I was and what I’d done… she had loved me. I truly believed that.

Luna let out a cough behind me, inadvertently bringing me back from the edge of a mental breakdown. I watched as she rolled over in bed, pawing at the comforter and bundling it up into something she could snuggle with, pulling it just high enough to expose her bare back.

No matter what you’ve done, or what you think you’ve become, don’t forget that love. It’s what keeps you human…

“I won’t let it be for nothing, I promise…”

I settled onto the floor, leaning against the wall beneath the window, and watched Luna for a while more. I wasn’t sleepy, but by the stars, was I tired.



* * *



Sleep had evaded me, so I’d busied myself with a book I had found under the bed. Luna had slept for almost the entire day, and, afraid to wake her, I sat on the floor beneath the window, letting her have the bed to herself.

Eventually I finished the book, and Luna was still asleep, so I decided it was time to go down to the kitchen to fill my empty stomach. I hadn’t eaten anything in days, and while all the magic I’d been running around with certainly kept the hunger pangs in check, the transformation into whatever the hell I was now had burned through all of that, and now I needed real sustenance.

I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be disrespectful to Sunrise’s memory to make a joke about Soul Food usually being more filling. I figured she would have laughed, having spent all that time inside my head. Our senses of humor were probably about the same, and I definitely would’ve wanted her to make the joke, were our predicaments reversed.

I was careful to avoid the living room on my way to the kitchen. I could still hear the murmur of Twilight’s breathing as she slept, and I didn’t want to wake her up. Sleep was the best medicine for trauma – I knew that from experience.

I stepped into the kitchen and was met with a disheveled – dare I say, haggard? – Celestia. She was sitting at the table, with an empty bottle of orange juice next to her and a full mug held firmly in both hands as she stared blankly at the wall.

She looked terrible, and that thousand-yard stare was enough to worry even me.

“Hey, you okay?” I asked.

“Huh?” She gave a little start, turning her head to scan the room and overlooking me more than once as she searched for the source of the question. Her bloodshot and darkly-ringed eyes finally found me in whatever haze she was in. “Oh, good morning.”

“It’s like three in the afternoon,” I replied, checking the clock hanging on the wall. “Have you not slept?”

“Been afraid to,” she said languidly, turning her head to peer into the living room. “I jerk awake every time I start nodding off, scared that she’ll be gone when I wake up.”

Putting aside my own biological needs for the moment, I went to join Celestia at the table. I pulled out a chair, spun it around, and straddled it, leaning my chest against the backrest in a very hip and casual manner. I was still in my itty-bitty kimono, but I had made sure to put on some underwear before coming down – I was, after all, a dignified and refined lady.

“She’s not going anywhere,” I assured the woman. “I made for damn sure that nobody’s coming after her this time.”

Celestia’s lower lip quivered ever so slightly as she said in a near-whisper, “She didn’t run away from my house because of some stupid wizard. It was because she hated me.”

In an act that could only be called heroic, I took Celestia’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “She didn’t do it because she hated you, she just…” I sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”

“But you understand,” Celestia said, and the tiredness in her voice couldn’t hide the bitterness.

“Yeah, I do.” I gave her hand another squeeze and let go. “Be glad that you don’t. For your sister’s sake, if not your own. I doubt she’d want either of you to go through anything even close to the kind of hardship Twilight has.”

“We had something close,” Celestia said in retort. “Maybe not the same… uncertainty, since we weren’t ever scared of being without a home…” Celestia slumped against the table, palm pressed against her forehead as she groaned. “Who am I kidding? Our parents weren't taken away from us, they were just assholes. It's not even remotely the same. I just wanted so badly to be able to relate to her...”

“Give her space,” I said. “Just enough for her to walk away from you when she needs to. Long as she knows you’re there waiting, she’ll come back to you.”

If Celestia heard me, she gave no indication. That same look came over her as she stared off into the far corner of the kitchen. I left her to her musings – or lack thereof – and went to make some coffee. I may not have liked the stuff myself, but I was starting to get used to the smell, thanks to Luna. And I did have a percolator for it, snagged from a yard sale for a song, and a can of grounds that Luna had brought over on one of her visits.

The water was already heating up by the time Celestia snapped out of her stupor enough to talk again.

“What happened?” she asked. “You came back covered in blood, with your clothes all torn up.”

“The fight was bad,” I explained. “I almost didn’t make it. Kid’s tough, though. She held her own. I’m not even going to ask what happened before I got there. It’s enough to know she survived, and if she wants to tell us later, that’s up to her.” I opened a cabinet, wondering where I might’ve left the sugar. “But if we’re lucky she won’t remember any of it. Doubt it was anything pleasant.”

The percolator started dripping coffee into the pot.

“As for me?” I turned and gave my best cocky grin as I patted my gut. “Got shot a couple times. Almost died. Magic, though, yanno?”

A few emotions flashed across Celestia’s tired face in quick succession – disbelief, worry, anger, even a little amusement. The parade of conflicting moods settled back into that distantly-focused look as she lifted the mug in front of her with both hands, sipping gingerly as though she was expecting the lukewarm juice to scald her. It was behavior that I could only assume was ingrained from countless mornings sitting at the kitchen table in her home and sipping her morning cup of steamy-hot coffee. Her brain seemed to have checked out again, leaving her body on autopilot.

I had the sudden puckish urge to get a toothbrush from the bathroom to see if she’d start brushing at the table, but I managed to resist temptation for once. My relations with Celestia to date had been shaky, to say the least, and I wasn’t really trying to rock the boat, especially not with her sister lying naked in my bed upstairs. She might not be that amused by me toying with her while she was all pudding-brained.

The coffee maker had finally brewed enough for a cup, so I poured it into a mug and, after a thought, took it to the table. I grabbed the mug of juice out of Celestia’s hands and swapped it out with the coffee, figuring she could use it more than I could.

She just blinked at it a few moments before taking a sip. “Thanks…” she murmured, immediately going in for another drink. The coffee seemed to help. She looked up at me, her tired eyes a little sharper, more aware, as she asked, “So what now then?”

I looked at the clock again, pursing my lips in contemplation. “It’s kind of late, but I think pancakes, maybe.”

“You know what I mean,” Celestia said, annoyance ringing in her tone. “What do we do about Twilight?”

I already knew what I wanted to say, but I needed to talk to Twilight first. I wanted to keep her, and I knew she wanted to stay with me, but I had to hear it from her before I felt comfortable enough to say it to anyone else.

“Dunno yet,” I said. “I have to talk to Twilight.”

Celestia withered right before my eyes. “I see,” she said in a bitter whisper. “So you’re thinking about keeping her… is it because she’s still in danger?”

“Not any more than anyone else,” I said. “I already told you, I finished it for good... I know I said that before, but this time there’s no mistaking it.”

“That’s good,” she said. She took another sip of coffee, the motion almost mechanical in nature. “I’m glad.”

I turned away, giving her a moment of privacy to grapple with whatever struggle she was having. After a long while, Celestia let out a deep, soulful groan.

“If she wants to live with you, I won’t fight you about it,” she said. “I just… I want what’s best for her, and if she doesn’t want to live with me then I’ll just have to accept that.”

“She’s still going to need you in her life, Celestia.” The percolator beeped, letting me know that it had finished its work. I set it to keep the pot warm and left it alone, so Luna could have some whenever she woke up. “I’m not exactly the best role model, so she’s going to need someone to show her the things I can’t. Like… I dunno, table manners.”

Celestia sputtered, snickering into her coffee at my attempt at a joke. I was actually glad to see her take my teasing well, because I was absolutely expecting a fight for this next part.

“And I am going to keep seeing your sister,” I blurted out. “Romantically.”

“Fine, whatever,” Celestia said, leaning back in the chair. She set the mug down and fixed me with a hard, Celestia-like glare that was only slightly diminished by how ghastly she looked. “I’m telling you right now, I still think it’s dangerous for us to get mixed up with someone like you… but I guess it’s better to stand in the eye of the hurricane than at the edges of it. Just promise me that you’ll do everything in your power to take care of both of them.”

That was an easy promise to make, but I didn’t have the chance to make it. A white blur darted into the room, running headfirst into me and wrapping its arms around my middle.

I looked up from Twilight to find Celestia watching us with barely-masked hurt in her eyes. Twilight had run straight past her to get to me, and it looked like a little piece of Celestia had died at that moment. All I could do as the kid cried into my middle was mouth a silent, “Sorry,” to the other woman.

Celestia got up, muttering something about getting a change of clothes out of her trunk, and walked out of the room with her head held high. I got the feeling that she was going outside to cry.

“I was so scared,” Twilight said, sniffling into my silk robe. She wasn’t sobbing, but I could feel the tension in her body that told me she was very near to it.

I knelt down and put my arms around her. “It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything. You’re home now.”

You’re home now.

They were heavy words to pass my lips so lightly, but Twilight seemed to understand. The sniffles finally turned to sobs, and her fingers clawed at my back with terrible desperation, screaming out all the frustration and fear in her tiny body – more than any one person, no matter how old they were, should ever have to bear.

Once her tears were under control, she pulled away and yanked up the hem of her dress, blowing her nose into it. Her face was a mess of tears and snot, and she wasn’t shy about smearing it all over the beautiful sigilwork that represented Ahuizotl’s magnum opus. I giggled internally at that.

Screw that guy and his masterpiece. I was going to burn that thing the second we found her something else to wear.

“Can I have some coffee?”

My newly-discovered parent-like instincts told me I should say no, but I thought better of it and figured that if the kid wanted coffee, she could have some coffee. She’d earned it.

“Go sit at the table,” I said as I grabbed the mug of orange juice I’d taken from Celestia and washed it out.

I only poured a half cup for the kid, and added a ton of sugar, and a splash of milk. I set it down on the table, and Twilight gave me a watery smile as she accepted it.

“Careful,” I warned, “it’s hot.”

“I know,” she said in the weary tone that kids used when adults told them something they’d already heard a hundred times. She blew on the cup like it was a cup of soup and took a dainty sip.

Man but she was cute.

Much as I would’ve liked to let her just enjoy her coffee, I had to have a talk with her, and the nervousness bubbling inside me told me to get it out of the way before I vomited all over my own kitchen. I took a seat at the table and brushed the hair out of Twilight’s eyes, doing my best to hide the butterflies in my stomach with a smile on my face.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

The kid hesitated, but it seemed to be contemplative more than fearful. “I think I feel okay…” she said as she took another sip. “Everything seems really bright though.”

I frowned. “Bright like how?”

She shook her head, looking embarrassed that she couldn’t find the words. “Dunno. Just bright.”

I wasn’t the only one that had changed that night, and this ‘brightness’ probably had something to do with it. Whatever Ahuizotl’s ceremony had awakened in Twilight, it was still there, just seemingly asleep. I couldn’t sense that crazy magical light that had protected her when she was lying on that altar, but there was just a little hum of something magical in her, I could feel it when she’d touched me.

Twilight was more human than I was now, but she was definitely more than just human. If she wanted to learn, and I knew she’d say yes if I brought it up, I could probably teach her a little magic. Just enough to protect herself.

That was something I’d have to talk to Luna about, though… and Celestia, I supposed.

“So… uh, you asked me something back at the...” I frowned, unsure how to phrase this question without bringing up the whole kidnapping thing. “You asked me if it’d be okay to see me every now and again…”

Twilight looked up from the coffee. A mixture of excitement and worry was written on her face.

“I was thinking…” I cleared my throat.

This was really hard to say and I wasn’t sure why. Luckily Twilight saved me a lot of hemming and hawing.

“Can I live here?” she asked, with the shameless hope that only a child could express.

“Yes?” I cleared my throat again and repeated, with more confidence, “Yes. I want you to live with me.”

I had expected another bone-crushing hug. The little purple-haired child-missile that was Twilight Sparkle slamming into my gut had become something I was getting used to, even if it did hurt a little.

Twilight didn’t rush to hug me, though. She just smiled, nodded, and said, “Cool.”

I laughed. I don’t know why I laughed, but I did. I leaned onto the table, covering my head with my arms and giggling like an idiot. Maybe I was relieved, or just happy, but something inside of my body was bubbling up, and all I could do was laugh.

For just a moment, as the laughter died down, I felt like maybe Sunrise was laughing with me.

“I’m a screw up,” I said, looking up at Twilight from where my head was resting on the table, “and I’m probably going to make some mistakes, but I’ll do my best, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. She reached out her little hand and patted me on the head. “Let’s both do our best.”

The room lit up with a flash, followed by a tinny, digital-sounding click. Twilight and I both looked up to find Luna standing in the doorway, wearing my oversized Mötley Crüe shirt – the one with the sick caduceus from the Dr. Feelgood album on it – as a nightgown.

“Sorry,” she said, holding up her phone. “You two were just too cute.”



* * *