I stretched as I woke. There had been no visits in my dreams this time around. The Dreamwardens seemed to have been serious that they wanted me to get proper rest. That was mostly fine. I would have liked to have seen Tonya, even if she was still mad at me, but could do without the almost certainly forthcoming commentary from Yinyu.
I glanced at the clock and noted it was a quarter till six. That was early, even for me. My normal habit was to wake up and lay in bed thinking about my plans for the day for at least a half-hour or so, but I really needed to relieve Trixie of her foalsitting duties so she could leave and get some sleep. I also probably should call Phobia to get some parenting advice. Yeah, it is kind of ironic that I'd need to go to my own daughter for parenting advice, but she almost certainly knew more about parenting than me. Even if I hadn't been a lackluster parent at best, she would know more than me. My parenting experience was as a human taking care of a human. I had no experience with foals.
I almost lit my horn to remove the blanket covering me, but managed to catch myself in time to prevent another stabbing headache. With a sigh I just physically pushed it off of me and onto the floor. Maybe I could try doing some light levitation again tomorrow, but I wasn't going to attempt anything today. One of the odd benefits, if I wanted to call it that, of having weak magic was that it didn't take as long to recover from this sort of thing. A more powerful unicorn might have their magic out of commission for a week or more, but I'd be fine after two or three days. I take whatever benefits I can find from my circumstances. I always have.
My phone was still on my leg from the night before. Now my leg was sore from it rubbing against it in my sleep. I didn't take it off, since I had calls to make, but I really wanted to. Maybe I could take time for a bath in a little while if Lántiān was going to be watching her siblings. A bath would be wonderful.
The selfish thought that I could just dump all the parenting duties on Lántiān crossed my mind. She clearly would have prefered being the one parenting her siblings rather than me. She had experience with them that I didn't. I'd still need to be the one making sure they had food and shelter, but that could be done without getting too involved. I already was going to be depending on her to help me with them as it was, and it would be more her taking care of things despite me rather than with me in many of those cases. It wouldn't be hard to just let her do it.
Except Tonya wanted me to do this. I could care less what Yinyu wanted. If Tonya wanted something to happen I'd find a way to make it happen. If I had listened to her before…
Should have, would have, could have, those things weren't worth worrying over. I was going to listen to her now.
I slowly, not quite ready to be moving yet-but still doing so, walked out of my room and back towards the living room. As I reached the base of the stairs I walked straight into something and fell down against an unseen barrier.
"Sorry! I blocked that off so he wouldn't try going up the stairs. I really should have adjusted the spell to only block traffic from one direction."
That was not Trixie's voice. I didn't immediately go on the defensive against an intruder (not that I could do much to fight one while magically exhausted), since something about the voice was familiar, and not familiar in a bad way. The fact that a unicorn that could put up a non-maintained magic barrier was in the living room was still something worth being concerned about.
The forcefield that had been blocking the stairs abruptly vanished and I tumbled down the last step. It wasn't enough of a fall to seriously hurt me, but my snout connected hard with the floor. That was a new shot of pain to add to my steady stream of aches over the last day. I had previously rethought my theology about God where he took a more passive approach to events. I briefly reconsidered this belief, since it seemed like God was actively trying to punish me.
"Sorry again! I should have let you get back to your hooves before I took that shield down. Are you alright?"
I pushed myself to my hooves then rubbed my nose. The pain was already fading from that. I did however have a new ache in my shoulder. There was probably a bruise under my fur, but that could be ignored. It would just be more of an annoyance than usual since I needed to use my legs to manipulate things while my horn was temporarily out of commission. I could suffer the inconvenience though.
Standing by the couch was none other than Starlight Glimmer. A quick visual scan of the room showed no sign of Trixie. Méng was in the middle of the room. He was chasing what looked like a soccer ball, except it was engulfed in a magic aura and trying to get away from him. Starlight's horn was lit, but she didn't seem to be actively paying attention to the ball she was manipulating. She seemed to be doing a good job of constantly keeping the ball just outside his reach. Where'd she even get the ball from? Did she bring it from the other condo? If so, why did she even have it? It wasn't a very important question, but it was one of those weird things that nagged at my mind. It was my nature to try to figure out how everything fit together or could fit together, and the soccer ball felt out of place.
I quickly put together what information I had before answering. "I'll be alright. I'm guessing you relieved Trixie sometime during the night?"
Starlight nodded. "Yeah. Something you might want to know about Trixie is she gets bored easily. She wasn't going to stop watching the foal, but I could tell she was struggling to keep her eyes open. I sent her back to bed next door and took over."
"When was this?"
She shrugged. "Around three, I guess. I have a tracking spell on her just in case she decides to break her restriction. So I knew where she was as soon as I got back to the condo. She explained the situation to me, and I said I'd take care of it."
I heard footsteps behind me that stopped abruptly halfway down the stairs. "Ma'am? What is she doing here? She's an enemy of all ponies on Earth. She should not be welcome into our home."
I sighed. What a way for Lántiān to start off the morning. I turned around and saw her glaring daggers at Starlight. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if she actually tried to put a dagger into Starlight, if she had one.
"Lántiān, Starlight Glimmer is a guest, and you will mind your manners," I said firmly.
The filly gave me a look of disbelief. "Ma'am, she is one of the ponies that stopped ETS. If not for her we would be living in a world of ponies. She should not be trusted."
"Manners, Lántiān!" I repeated harshly. "I understand your feelings. I used to feel the same way. I've moved past that, and now I consider her a friend. She is a friend and a guest, and you will not behave this way towards her. Do I make myself clear?"
She gave Starlight one last withering glare before turning back to me. "I will do as you say, ma'am. Do you have any instructions for me this morning?"
I sat and considered it for a few seconds. "You have free reign of the kitchen, and should prepare breakfast for yourself and the younger foals… I'm assuming you can do that."
She gave me a stiff nod. "I can do that, ma'am."
"Good," I replied. "It will be up to you to figure out where things are in the kitchen, but it should be simple enough. You don't need to wake your brothers up until whenever they normally get up. I have several calls to make, and I need to be undisturbed unless there is an emergency. Can I count on you to make sure of that?"
She nodded again, but less stiffly this time. "Yes, ma'am. You can have faith in me. May I make a request?"
I tried to figure out what she could be requesting, but came up empty. "Yes, what is it?"
She scrunched her head back towards her body as if embarrassed. "Do you have paper and pencil that I may use, ma'am?"
Did she need to make a list of something? I had no idea what she'd need to be writing. "Uh, yes. There's an office across from the kitchen. It has a big desk and a printer. You should be able to find some pens on the desk and some paper in the printer."
"I would prefer pencils with erasers, ma' am."
"There may be pencils in there as well. I don't really know. Are you trying to write a formal letter or something?"
She shook her head. "I wish to draw, ma'am."
That made me blink. I suppose having a hobby wasn't a bad thing though. "You're an artist?"
For some reason this question made her scowl. I had thought I had figured out how this filly thought, but apparently I was wrong. She gave a quick flick of her tail like she was cracking a whip before answering. "No, I am not, ma'am. Something Mama said to me last night made me want to get better at drawing."
Well, if Yinyu was encouraging her daughter to draw I wasn't going to complain. "That's fine. Although you should also make a list of things that you, your brothers, and your daughter are going to want, and especially anything that is needed. You can review it with me tonight. I need to figure out exactly what kind of budget we need. Can you do that for me?"
"Yes, ma'am." She stood straighter as she answered.
I got the impression her ability to do what she was ordered to do came as some badge of pride for her. Many pegasi were like that, needing constant affirmation of how capable and talented they were. It wasn't strictly a pegasus trait, since I knew I sometimes was guilty of the same thing- to my detriment, and Tonya didn't really display that trait, but it was still very common in pegasi. If making peace with this filly meant stroking her pegasus ego then I'd happily stroke away.
"You're my most important resource when dealing with your brothers. I need to say ahead of time that I appreciate your assistance, and will listen to your input. I can't promise that I'll always go along with what you say, but I promise to listen. Thank you for stepping up. I'm sure your mother is proud." I was mainly trying to butter her up, but I wasn't lying.
Unfortunately, that didn't go over as well as I hoped, since she started scowling again. "I will not disappoint you, ma'am." She then turned and walked back up the stairs. I'd figure that filly out, sooner or later. I'd figured out how much more complicated individuals ticked.
With my grumpy charge taken care of I turned my attention back to Starlight. The powerful unicorn seemed unperturbed by being ignored during my conversation with Lántiān, and had gone back to playing with Méng. Right now she was levitating the ball at low altitude and letting Méng try to jump at it.
"Sorry for ignoring you, and sorry about Lántiān," I apologized. "That filly is a diehard Shimmerist."
Starlight looked back at me with a raised eyebrow and then broke out into giggles. "A few short years ago you'd have treated me the same way. I have faith that ponies can learn to be friends." Her laughter stopped and she frowned. "But I do get a lot of that from Chinese ponies, and tend to avoid going to China if I can help it. It reminds me a lot of my trip to Riverview during that first year where everypony was glaring at me."
I hung my head. "I'm sorry about that as well. You can tack on about a thousand nasty things I've said about Equestria on top of that for me to make apologies for."
She walked over to me and gave me a light embrace. "One apology is good enough, if it is sincere. I did some bad things way back when that I needed to apologize for. I was lucky I ended up with a teacher who accepted my first one, and was ready to accept me as a friend after that. Trixie even badly betrayed my trust a few years ago, and we've since repaired our friendship. You don't need to keep apologizing to me."
"You Equestrians are too forgiving," I mumbled.
She pulled back from me. "Hardly. I might have gotten forgiveness from others, but it took me a long time to forgive myself. I'm told Princess Luna went through the same thing, punishing herself long after everyone else had forgiven her for the whole Nightmare Moon thing. We can be pretty unforgiving to ourselves."
"I empathize with that," I mumbled.
She laid a hoof on my shoulder (thankfully not the sore one). "You'll find ways of making peace with yourself in time. The key thing to remember is you aren't that same pony anymore. When you actually start believing that you'll feel better." She withdrew her hoof. "Now, even though I just said that, I did have reasons I wanted to talk to you before I ended up taking over foalsitting duties last night. Are you making some sort of shadow play to get back into politics?"
My eyes went wide. "No! Why would you think that?"
"Because your name has come up linked to two different major events in the last week," she replied. "The Dreamwardens assure me that they didn't get pressured by you to make you the guardian of these foals, but you have to admit, you're a pretty high profile and unusual pick to be chosen to do so. Then we have a large group of Southern Shimmerists declare themselves no longer Shimmerists, and they literally name their new group after you. You have a reputation as a behind the scenes manipulator, so I want answers. I'm not accusing you of any wrongdoing, but anyone looking sees the same things I do. We want to know what your goal is, so nopony can assume the worst."
I stepped back. "I'm not trying anything. I was completely blindsided by Yinyu appointing me the guardian of her foals, and I didn't even hear about these Blessingists until last night. I still don't even know what the heck that group stands for. I've been trying to keep my head down and stay out of trouble. All I just want is to retire from public life, not get involved with any other organizations or philosophies."
Starlight cocked her head. "But, I'm sure the Blessingists must have tried to get in contact with you. They quote off things from you like you're some sort of divine prophet."
I shook my head in disbelief. "Great, let's keep a tally of wacko-groups I influenced: the Southern Shimmerists, the Chinese Shimmerists, and now this new group that slaps my name on themselves."
"To be fair, the Blessingists don't have the same speciest tone of the Shimmerists," Starlight replied, as she wiggled her hoof in front of her. "They seem more focused on the things you said from a few days before Riverview blew up to after you were pardoned. They're all about responsibly advancing magical knowledge and making it so humans have equal use of magic. You kind of demonstrated there are ways of giving humans magic without making them permanent ponies, and that kind of undermines one of the big draws that Southern Shimmerism had for humans."
I sighed. "Okay, so a somewhat less hateful group. I still just learned about them, and I'm not getting involved with them. Whatever they are doing they are doing it without me. I'm done with all that crap. I did nothing but harm, and I'm never going to mislead people like that again."
Starlight frowned. "That's actually kind of disappointing."
I did a double-take. "What? How is that disappointing? Were you hoping I'd go off and do something else that needed to be stopped. Are you sad that I refuse to be the villain of the week for better people to fight against?"
"No, I'm disappointed because you aren't making any attempt to live up to your potential or use your talents for good. You're just giving up," Starlight replied in a quiet voice. "You're not an average pony, Sunset. You've influenced so many things on Earth since ETS. Yeah, some of it wasn't good, but a lot of it was. Your reasons might have been misguided, but you were one of the primary ponies that helped with bringing about peaceful relations between humans and ponies. You're an influencer, a leader, and a very brilliant mage, and it's sad seeing all that you could be doing going to waste."
I shook my head dismissively. "I'm no brilliant mage. Everything I ever discovered or came up with was based on the work of others. I just tweaked it."
"That's what makes you brilliant," Starlight said as she stepped next to me. "Those ponies dismissed all that work as failures, but you found applications and possibilities in their work that they never saw. It takes a special type of mage to do that. I should know, I adjusted Starswirl's time travel spell to be much more powerful, and had a habit of combining spells to create powerful effects the original creators never thought of. Even my cutie mark removal spell is based off of the 'failed' work of other ponies. You and I are alike, where others see failure we see possibility."
"Well, it's time that someone else got a chance to build something better from my failures," I replied. "I've reinvented myself enough times. Each time has just highlighted how flawed I really am. I can't keep doing this; I've lost too much. If I accomplished anything worthwhile it should be someone less screwed up who should be taking advantage of that and building on it. As I said, I'm done."
Starlight gazed unblinking at me. "You know, Twilight and Luna said you not being out there doing things would be a waste. Luna advocated for you with the hope you could help make a better world. You're free and walking around because others have faith in you. You were given a second chance, since when does Sunset Blessing not take advantage of whatever she has?"
"Since I got my wife killed and hurt everyone I ever cared about!" I screamed, making her backpedal and fall over. "I don't want to discuss this anymore. Can you just let it go?"
She looked at me with big eyes then got back to her hooves. "Okay. I need to go take a nap anyway. It wasn't my intention to hurt you. I'm your friend, and I just want you to heal. Maybe you just need more time. I'm available if you ever need me."
With that she teleported out of the room, and only then did I notice that I had started to cry.
"Um… ma' am?" Came a hesitant voice from the stairwell. I turned and looked up and saw all the foals gathered, including Méng who must have slipped by me at some point. They all looked upset, with the exception of Lántiān who still looked deeply concerned. "I was going to feed the others. Is it alright if we pass by you?"
I nodded and stepped aside. The foals cautiously made their way down the stairs and gave me a wide breath as they reached the foot of the staircase. Lántiān was the last down, and she paused briefly in front of me with her ears and tail sagging. "I'll see to it that you are not disturbed, ma'am. I hope… I hope the rest of your day is less stressful."
With that she quickly retreated to the kitchen with her siblings and daughter in tow. I stood alone, crying, and wondering why anyone thought this was a good idea.