The evening was drawing to a close as the Herd Bronco SUV made its way down the lane that would take its driver to a place they could set for a spell. On the back, a bumper sticker that said ‘Cowboy up’ along with another that said Calgary Stampede, and one more proclaiming Frontier Days. Along the way, scattered houses pass by along with the occasional larger building and vacant lots as the city of Canterlot grew closer. The truck was painted vermilion red with a white panel along the sides and a white shell on the back. Snow fell as the sun set. Inside the midsize truck, a man in his late thirties dressed in blue jeans and a heavy tan jacket listens to a song on the radio about trains, pickups, mamma, and the girl that left taking the dog with her. In the back a saddle, tack, a lariat, an old blanket or two, a well-cared-for guitar case, and an old beat-up suitcase.
The wiper blades flicked back and forth pushing the accumulated snow clear of the windshield, and up ahead a large steel truss bridge with a draw on one side that could open up and allow commerce along the Avalon river to pass through, approached.
The truck slowed as the bridge came nigh. The driver knew the bridge could be dangerous, especially when it snowed, and taking it nice and slow just seemed the right thing to do. After all, he’d no desire to be late to his destination where his first wife’s mother had invited him to stay over for the Winter Holidays.
Elsewhere that night in a little cafe known as Sugar Cube corner a girl with long pink hair is clutching a diary with a two-fold sun on it to her chest. She’s made it about halfway to the door.
“Damn it Fluttershy, if you go after her we aren’t friends anymore!” shouted a girl with rainbow hair.
“Couldn't you see how much she was hurting?” Fluttershy pleaded.
“Just another one of her games. It’s all just one game after another with her,” offered a cowgirl. She is sitting at a table with the rainbow-haired girl, a girl with wildly curly pink hair, and a socialite with mulberry violet hair in long curls. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m just going to have to agree with Dash on this.”
“I as well, darling,” Offered the socialite.
“Well then, I guess we're through then. I’m sorry,” Fluttershy replied, turned, and rushed for the door ignoring the angered calls of her friends. A moment later she was out the door.
Out on the Bridge over the Avalon River, a girl with fiery hair stands mid-channel shivering violently. She is just standing there gazing out at the river while snow collects on her head and shoulders, and most importantly, she is on the wrong side of the handrails.
If she hears the truck approach she makes no indication. After all, it wouldn't be the first to pass by without a second glance.
No one cared.
The people she thought she could rely on, the people she thought were her friends had all rejected her. That nickname, Piggly Wiggly, wasn’t her fault, but she had taken those damned photos. No, she wasn't the one who posted them on the Internets, but if she hadn’t taken those damned pictures they couldn't have been stolen from her phone in the first place. The worst part is she hadn’t realized someone could take things from her phone without her knowledge. She hadn’t even bothered to set a strong password on the phone and there was no telling how much info had been stolen.
Whoever was behind the My Stable profile Anon-a-Miss wanted her gone and no secret was off-limits. Secrets that she hadn’t even known about were being published. Secrets that needed to be kept secret were being published. Lives had been destroyed, she had been blamed, and there was no going back. Not now. Not ever.
The entire school hated her now whereas before it was just a handful of thugs and spoiled brats she’d leveraged to keep their behavior in check.
Sunset had been completely unaware of the lariat that had tightened around her torso as she began to lean her body forward. When her momentum stopped she just stood there perplexed as she was no longer capable of rational thought.
“Easy now, that a girl,” spoke the calming voice of a man in a big Tom Mix style cowboy hat. That’s the full ten gallons with a sloped front to a peak in the back. His skin tone was golden like her own, a bit of gold and red hair could be seen around the edges of his hat, and his eyes were as blue as a Montana sky.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that voice.
“Come on, let’s get you over that rail.” His voice began to kindle a fire deep in Sunset’s soul.
“Let me go,” she protested hoarsely, stubbornly, her mind registering that this person had somehow prevented her from dropping to the river below. She’d made up her mind and this man had the gall to say hold on there, little filly.
“No can do, little lady. I’ve lost too many to that damned river, and I ain't gonna lose you. Not here. Not now.”
He’d been slowly working his way up the line of the lasso until he was up to the railing.
“Just let me go. It’ll be better that way. I’m a horrible pony.”
“Pony is it? No such thing as a bad pony, just one that’s been mishandled.”
“I…”
“Friends call me Dusty. Any chance you've got a name?”
“It’s Sunset,” Sunset offered as she let her head drop forward.
“Sunset, that’s a pretty name. Now let's just get you over that rail…”
Sunset could feel the pressure of the rope gripping tighter, part of her wanted to fight, but she found she had no will to resist as she was lifted up and over the rail. She was further dismayed when the line was wrapped around her. From there she was carried to a waiting Herd Bronco, set down on her feet by the passenger door, the door opened, a woolen blanket retrieved, and wrapped around her. A moment later she was loaded into the truck.
Sunset’s heart began racing at the sight of what was to her S & M gear in the back of the vehicle as the door shuts. Bound as she is she’s unable to do a thing as the big man walks around the vehicle and gets in.
“So, um, where are we going?”
“To the hospital. You have hypothermia,” He offered as he cranked up the heat.
“Hospital? I can’t. Please, no,” Sunset pleads as the Bronco moves forward.
“Maybe I could take you home?”
“I … I don’t actually have a home. Not anymore.
“Evicted, during Christmas? Or was it your family kicked you out?”
“I don’t have any family. I had a foster family, but I moved out to live in my own place. When I got home, there was a padlock on my door.”
“Then we go to the hospital because I ain't leaving you out here to die. So, your name was Sunset wasn’t it? Don’t you fall asleep on me!”
“I’m sorry,” Sunset replied as she snaps back to alertness. “Yes, I’m Sunset Shimmer. Dare I ask what all that is in the back?”
“Sun…” Dusty hazards a quick look away from the road ahead to get a better look at this girl. It was Sunset. The same young woman Granny Smith had told him about when she first showed up in Canterlot. Granny had advised him and kept him up to date on how Sunset was doing. After all, he’d a vested interest in that young woman's welfare. He’d nearly dropped everything to come back home when he’d heard about the gas explosion at the Fall Formal. Such was the life of a drifter that you didn’t always get to do what you wanted.
“I’m a cowboy. I ride ponies for a live’n,” he offered to explain the tack in the back.
“You what?”
“Ride ponies.”
“For a living?”
“Sure do. In front of big crowds too.”
“You do that as a spectator sport?!” Sunset was a gasp. Not only was the man an unabashed gigolo, but he also did IT in front of spectators. Oh dear Celestia, what kind of world was this?
“Um, ya. At Rodeos. Surely you’ve heard of rodeos?” he asked as he turned a corner. He’d an idea Sunset had the wrong end of the stick.
“Rodeo?” She had to think for a moment. “Oh, like the big event’s Applejack goes to.” Sunset had to breathe a sigh of relief.
“You know Brandy?”
“Brandy?”
“Goes by AJ or Applejack.”
“Her real name is Brandy?” Sunset was surprised, and it was just one more proof that AJ had never truly been her friend. “So how do you know her?”
“She’s my niece.”
“You can stop now.”
“No.”
Let me out!” Sunset began banging against the door.
“Don’t do that, the door might spring open.”
“Good! Just let me die!”
“No!”
Silence save for the sound of rubber hitting the road filled the interior of the truck.
“Care to tell me why you dislike my niece so much?”
“I don’t dislike her.”
“Then what is it about her that would make you want to die?”
“Because when I needed her she and every pony else turned their backs on me. That’s why.” Sunset’s words had come out with a pile of emotion and she was crying now.
“Sunset, I don’t know what happened, or what you’ve been through, but I swear to everything I hold dear that I will not turn my back on you even if it causes a family feud.”
“Please, I don’t want to be the cause of a feud.”
“Then we’ll just have to find a way to fix everything.”
“I doubt it’s fixable now.”
“And that would be because of…?”
Sunset saw no other choice but to tell him about Anon-a-Miss, the online profile that was actively destroying lives and Canterlot High School.
Sunset was still shivering when they pulled up to the hospital, and if Dusty had an opinion on Anon-a-Miss he kept it to himself. He stopped the Bronco right in front of the Emergency entrance of the hospital, got out, went around, retrieved Sunset, and carried her in. Moments later the hospital staff was asking him why Sunset was tied up.
“Because I found her on the Avalon Bridge on the wrong side of the railings. That’s why. Tried to jump out on the way here as well.”
His announcement was greeted with dismay as they removed the rope and handed it off to him.
“She’s a little out of it too. Talks like she thinks she’s a pony.
“I’m going to go park the truck, and I’ll be right back to sign for everything.”
“Sir, we need to get in touch with a parent or guardian, um…”
“Her name is Sunset and I will be taking full responsibility. She’s my little girl. I’ll be right back,” Dusty offered and headed for the door wasting no time in going.
Dusty returned to his truck, tossed the rope into the back, got in, drove it around to the parking area, parked, got out, locked the doors, and went back inside.
“Was she really about to jump?” Asked the nurse at the reception desk as he approached.
“If I hadn’t have lassoed her she’d be in that damn river,” Dusty offered with a barely hidden tone of anger as a clipboard is handed over to him. “People promised they’d look after her.” He quickly filled out the first page, flipped to the next, filled that out, went on to the next, and when he’d filled out and signed everything he could he handed it back.
The nurse looked at it, and then back at him with a confused look.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I haven't seen my daughter since she was six. She was declared dead. Her mother drove off that same bridge presumably with Sunset in the car. It was during a snowstorm just like this. Showed up again about three years back.” He paused a moment. “I’m driving across that bridge when I see someone where they shouldn't be and did what I had to. And no, I have no idea where she’s been living. She’d been in a foster home but decided to move out on her own. Every bit as stubborn as her mother. She had a place but someone had put a padlock on the door. Sunset was rather adamant that she not go to the hospital so I can only wonder what’s been going on in her life other than she seems to have been targeted by Someone called Anon-a-miss. -
“How’s she doing?”
“We’ve gotten her out of her wet clothing, dried, got some hot liquids in her, and she’s snuggled in a bed with a warmed Intravenous fluid. She was dehydrated, is way too thin for her age, and someone has given her a fairly vicious beating. If you hadn’t have stopped…”
“She as likely wouldn't have made it to the river, I’m guessing. She was shaking really hard. Just getting her in the truck helped.”