Sunset turned her face sideways, looking up towards the stranger. "Who are you?" she asked. "What do you want? I haven't done anything to--"
Sunset gasped, as she felt a knife press into her flesh, at the point where her neck and shoulder met. "Ouch!" Sunset struggled harder than before, but with little effect.
Sunset felt a finger touch her cut. The stranger lifted her hand, and sniffed a droplet of blood smeared across her finger.
"At least this doesn't look or smell like transmission fluid, or motor oil, or Vitaline. That's...a good sign. But it isn't enough to be sure."
"What are you TALKING about? Do you think I'm a robot? Can't you SEE I'm a person?"
The knife-holding hand moved to the stranger's hood, and pulled it back. Sunset saw a face that looked very like her own. If it wasn't for the many scars, and the toll of sunburns and harsh weather, the stranger might have been Sunset's twin.
"Don't you know?" the stranger asked. "How can you not know? There were some robots designed to look just like humans. They were sold for...special purposes." The stranger grimaced. "The designers wanted sexbots, not lovebots. So there's one very important difference."
"What are you TALKING about?"
The stranger lowered her face towards Sunset's. She kissed Sunset's cheek. Sunset's eyes opened wider.
The stranger put her knife away, hiding it somewhere within her cloak. She said, "Each of us needs to know the truth about the other. Are you human, or are you a robot that might be programmed to destroy me when I let my guard down? We have to find out for sure. So...kiss me, the way only a human can. And make sure you slip me some tongue."
The hand returned, pressing on Sunset's cheek. By reflex, Sunset's mouth opened slightly. The stranger's mouth covered Sunset's, lips pressing hard at first, then softening.
From surprise, Sunset's mouth opened wider, as the very tip of the stranger's tongue teased Sunset's lips.
The other's face now drew back slightly. "Well?" she said. "Now it's your turn. Show me how human you are."
"You're insane," Sunset replied. Her eyes darted, looking around at what she could see of this strange new world. More softly, she said, "(Or are you?)"
The stranger's mouth very gently covered Sunset's. The tongue barely touched the opening between Sunset's lips...entreating, not pushing.
This was a new experience for Sunset, something she'd only heard of and read about.
After a moment, her own tongue moved forward, finding the stranger's. The two tongues played softly together, exploring.
Back home in Equestria, Sunset had worked very hard at studying magic, and science, and history, and any subject that she thought might be useful to a unicorn mage who aspired to become an alicorn princess. She hadn't spared much time for a social life.
Sunset had never kissed anycreature in this way before...not as a pony, or as a human, or in any other transdimensional form. Not with tongue.
After a minute of delicate, intimate lip and tongue touching, the stranger's face pulled back from Sunset's. "Huh," she said. "Have you ever even DONE this before?"
Sunset snarled, "You grabbed me and put a knife to my neck and kissed me, and THAT'S how you react? And...you didn't even ask, either! You just...you just...you just TOOK!"
"I'm sorry," the near-twin said. "But I'm so happy to find out you don't kiss like a sexbot. They're more...aggressive. They kiss like they know they're probably supposed to rush on to the 'main event.' And their kisses are...kind of mechanical. They don't kiss like blushing virgins, that's for sure."
Sunset became aware her face felt very hot. She was sure she was, indeed, blushing. "A blushing virgin? So what does that make YOU? Some kind of...slut? A slut who has sex with sex robots?" She made a disgusted face. "Eeew! I just kissed someone who has sex with...WHOREBOTS, I guess. I don't know if I can ever wash my mouth out enough times!"
The stranger blushed a little herself. "Hey," she said. "I've never done THAT! Not with any kind of robot! But I've read the manuals, and looked at what the different settings were. And before the Collapse, I...talked to people. A lot of people used to try it with sexbots at least once or twice, back when it was safe. I didn't have to try it myself, to hear about what it's like." She smirked. "But at least I've kissed GIRLS, which seems to be more than you've ever done."
"Hay! I was...busy! It's not my fault."
"Maybe you WERE busy. I haven't met a survivor in...a couple years, at least. I didn't know there were any. Not anymore." She eyed Sunset appraisingly. "I guess you might have spent your time doing SOMETHING special, and maybe lots of it, to be able to survive this long."
Sunset was silent. She wasn't sure she wanted to explain her very unusual background, especially to someone she'd only just met.
Someone who aggressively grabs people, and pushes them down on the ground, and kisses them without even getting permission! Someone who does things like that, and makes excuses after the fact, to say she wasn't really doing anything wrong.
Sunset knew nothing about this world. Sure, the near-twin might be telling the truth. But how could Sunset really know?
Sunset was forced to conclude, she really didn't know at all.
If Sunset was forced to trust this stranger conditionally, in a limited way, for lack of any better options?
That was all it was. Conditional, forced, and limited. And at the first sign something was really wrong? Sunset would make this weirdo sorry she'd ever tried to mess with Sunset Shimmer! She'd show her a thing or two!
Sunset remembered that so-recent kiss. The stranger had certainly already shown Sunset something. Something worth knowing about. Someday, when Sunset decided who she wanted to kiss...at least now Sunset knew something about how it's done.
She thought, a first kiss in an alien world where nearly everyone is dead could have gone a lot worse.
But first things first. Sunset bucked her body up suddenly, and pushed the stranger off. As the stranger fell, Sunset reached under the cloak, grabbing the knife. A moment later, Sunset was on top, holding the knife to the stranger's throat.
"I surrender!" the strange woman said. "Please don't hurt me! I just wanted to make sure you weren't a robot that might try to kill me in my sleep! Please don't kill me!"
Sunset rolled her eyes.
"Even if you DO kill me, at least I'll know there's another human being still alive. So maybe it will almost be worth it."
"Oh, buck it," Sunset said. "How about we declare a truce? With so few people left, we should try not to hurt each other."
"I agree!" the cloaked stranger said. "Let's try to keep humanity alive."
Sunset pulled the knife away from the other woman's throat, and carefully tucked the weapon back into its hiding place under the cloak. "There. We're both alive." She pushed herself up off the ground, and stood up.
The stranger stood too. "So," she said, "what's your name?"
"Sunset. And who are you?"
"Call me Sunrise. My old name...doesn't matter anymore. I don't like it. I never want to hear it again. It's one thing I'm not sorry to have lost."
"Ok." Sunset looked at the world around Sunrise, at the signs of years-ago catastrophe. "So...what ARE you sorry to have lost?"
The stranger grimaced. "People, mostly. And thinking the world wasn't trying to kill me...that was nice. But if I had taken too long to understand what was happening...I wouldn't be here now. I'd be dead along with all the others. So I guess that feeling of peace and safety is another thing I can't really complain about losing, because losing that illusion quickly enough was what saved me."
"Wow, harsh." Sunset shook her head. "Not that I can talk."
"How about you?" Sunrise asked. "What do you regret losing? How are you even here? I don't see even one serious scar on you. How did you do it?"
Sunset wasn't sure what to say. But she noticed she was ravenously hungry. Time to eat more questionable salvaged food! She wasn't eager to search through more old buildings, wondering if every single package was long past any 'doesn't taste like horrible expired crap' date.
"Hay," Sunset asked, "can you tell me what year it is?"
Sunrise's mouth fell open. "You're a TIME TRAVELER? Now it all makes sense! Your not having scars, your...not knowing what the hell kind of world you're even IN." Her face lit up with joy. "Take me back with you! I can at least carry a warning...maybe there's some way we can prevent the Disaster!"
Sunset shook her head. "I can't go back. I'm stuck in time like everyone else, living one day after another in the usual order." She had a thought about how to 'explain' herself...or rather, how to avoid having to explain herself. "And what's worse...or maybe just really weird...I can't remember anything I've ever done in this world more than three days ago. I guess that was when I arrived."
Sunrise's eyes narrowed. "Huh." She thought for a few moments. "You poor thing. Well, you're a human, so I'll do the best I can to help you. It's the least I can do."
"Thanks," Sunset said. Her face slowly took on a smile. In a strange, alien world, she decided, she'd finally found a friend. "I mean that. If there's anything I can do to help you too, please let me know. I mean, if it wouldn't be stupid or too risky." She shrugged. "Even if you don't see any way I could do it, tell me anyway. I have a feeling I might be...very resourceful. If I do say so myself."
Sunrise nodded. "Will do. I don't know how you survived, but like I said before, you must have been doing something right. And I'm so happy to see a real live human." She stepped forward slowly, and hugged Sunset.
After a moment of hesitation, Sunset relaxed into it, and hugged the stranger back. She hadn't had a proper hug in too long. She wasn't even sure how many weeks or months it had been, partly because interdimensional travel can confuse timekeeping and calendars so badly. Sunset thought, at least this world has a sun, and both night and day. In her long journey through many different universes, she had long since learned not to take even that for granted.
Really, this wasn't even as weird as the time she'd been grabbed and hugged by that octopus creature...who had turned out to be nice in its way. Probably this Sunrise would turn out to be nice too. For someone who had weathered the destruction of everyone in her world, she seemed to be handling things pretty well.
Sunset's stomach reminded her she was hungry. It grumbled and growled.
Sunrise glanced downward and smiled. "When was the last time you ate?"
Sunset looked at her wrist, where her watch had been before another world's angry natives broke it and burned it for being a witch. "No idea. I ate earlier today, but it tasted so bad, I couldn't make myself eat very much of it. The reason I asked about the date is, I've been hoping to find packages of food that aren't expired."
Sunrise frowned. "You won't find much, nowadays." She told Sunset the date. When Sunset asked more questions, about how the calendar worked, Sunrise answered them.
Sunrise finally concluded, "Wow. You really HAVE forgotten a lot. I guess." Sunrise pursed her lips. "Or did you come here from another country? I've read that Neighpon numbers their years by the current emperor, or some such thing."
Sunset snorted. "I wish I knew. I don't think I've even..." She stopped herself from saying, kissed anyone before. "I don't think I've even figured out what all I don't know. Not yet."
"So," Sunrise said, "Dinner."
"Yes!" Sunset thought about the expired food problem. "More expired grossness, I guess."
Sunrise smiled. "I want to show you something. Follow me, if you don't want a stomachache." She led Sunset along a path between some trees.
After about twenty minutes of walking, the path opened up into a patchwork of planted beds, hedges, and fruit trees.
"Wow," Sunset said. "I guess I was going to go right past this place, and never would have known it was here." She marveled at the bountiful garden. "Is this really what it looks like? Real food?"
Sunrise smirked, but the smirk faded. "Yep." She picked an apple, and took a bite. "This garden was started by...someone who didn't survive. Someone I miss a lot. But in her memory, I've been taking care of it, and expanding it, in the hope I could share it with someone someday."
"Thank you so much!" Sunset enthused. She plucked a pear from a tree, and tasted. "I haven't had a pear in..." She paused. "In I don't even know how long, I guess."
"Just don't eat too much of any one thing. Some of these have to be allowed to go to seed, so I...or WE...can replant next year. And some of the root crops, like potatoes, have to be saved so we can split them and replant, to multiply the bounty. But you can eat SOME potatoes...just be careful to leave plenty in the ground too."
Sunset asked, "Do you have any carrots? I want to roast carrot dogs on a stick." She barely caught herself, before saying that was a traditional Equestrian food.
"Carrot dogs on sticks? I've never heard of that. But it sounds good."
"Oh, it IS good! Or I think it is. I don't really know the last time I had them."
Sunrise pointed across the garden. "There's a bare area over there where you can build a fire. If you want to start working on that, I can catch us a few fish."
Sunset asked, "Fish? Are fish...good to eat?"
Sunrise laughed. "You have no idea. But you'll find out! Just wait here. I'll be back."
Sunset pulled a carrot out of the ground, and started eating without even washing it. "Oh, this is SO good. I have missed real food SO much."
***
Alerted by the clashing of branches and the crunching of twigs, Sunset turned to see Sunrise returning, carrying five freshly caught fishes (but no loaves, alas) in a creel.
"Hay, Sunrise!"
"Hi, Sunset." Sunrise held up the five fishes. "This should be more than enough." Her brows furrowed. "There's just one problem. I don't know how to COOK fish. I never received that volume of the survival manual, before...well, you know. Things got bad, and then they got worse."
Sunset eyed the fishes speculatively. "Well...I guess you heat them up for a while, like carrot dogs or a lot of other things you eat. But fish have poo in them, and I don't think we'd want to eat poo." She seemed to droop.
"No, wait!" Sunset added. "I think I can do this! All I have to do is remember my biology class, the time we dissected a fish to help us learn anatomy. I'll dissect these fish too, and carefully remove the parts that have poo in them. A surgical pooectomy!"
Sunrise laughed. "A pooectomy. I've only heard it called cleaning them or gutting them, but I think you've got the right idea." She handed the fishes to Sunset. "Here you go, Doctor Sunset." She pointed to a nearby stump. "How's that for an operating table?"
"Looks...ok, I guess? Just one question."
"What's that?"
"Do you have a sharp scalpel? A dissecting tray would be useful too."
"Um...I'll see what I can do."
***
Two hours later, Sunset and Sunrise each held a stick with a partly burned, partly half raw fish on it. Sunrise nibbled bits of charred flesh off the outside of hers. "Interesting," she said. "This must be gourmet cookery, then."
Sunset laughed. "Try further inside. I guess in Neighpon they might call the inner part sushi, almost?" She took a bite, spat out a piece of charcoal, and bit into a part of the fish that had been underneath the char. That bite was almost properly cooked. "But hey, for my first time cooking fish with no cookbook, it isn't TOO bad, right?"
"Sure," Sunrise agreed. "It's mostly edible. So it's a success!" She gazed off into the distance, at the remaining colors of the slowly darkening sky, and looked back at Sunset. "It's a good thing you remembered something from your biology class. How much is coming back to you, now?"
Sunset grinned sheepishly. "Maybe the reason I remembered was, it was more of a skill, not so much...anything else?" Even to herself, her explanation sounded unconvincing.
"Hey, don't worry about it." Sunrise put a hand on Sunset's shoulder. "Just be glad something came back to you. Maybe that's how it works, after whatever happened to you. Maybe when you need to remember more, you will. Just let it come in its own time."
Sunset and Sunrise devoured their poorly-cooked fishes. Sunset enjoyed the fish's deliciousness compared to the terrible, expired packaged foods she'd been trying to live on for the last three days.
After Sunset took her last edible-seeming bite of fish, she said, "Hay! I just remembered something."
"What?"
"Maybe this is silly...but after you went away for a while to catch some fish, how do I know you're still a human? I mean, how do I know you're the same person as you were before, and not some robot trying to take your place?"
Sunrise nodded. "You're very sensible." She sat down on the same log as Sunset, almost hip to hip. She leaned in towards the interdimensional traveler, and puckered her lips.
Sunset put her arms around Sunrise, and pulled her even closer. "You're warm." She kissed Sunrise's cheek, and kissed her cheek again, working her way towards Sunrise's lips, which parted expectantly.
A minute later, Sunset said, "Ok, I guess you're real. Or at least your kisses are real. This is the best security protocol ever."
Sunrise grinned. "I agree. It IS the best." She returned Sunset's kisses with interest.
***
The next morning, Sunset woke up fully clothed, and in the same sleeping bag with Sunrise. "Morning."
Sunrise wriggled, turning around to face Sunset. "Wow! A survivor! I can't believe how lucky I am! And she can kiss, too!"
Sunset snorted. "I'm glad I can kiss ok. Seeing as how you taught me everything I know about that."
"Oh, I'm sure you knew LOTS about kissing before you ever met me! You were just kind of shy at first. It must have been like cooking fish. When you really, really tried, your skills came back to you, and you did great!"
"My cooking is horseapp--I mean, crap."
"You're the best cook I know. The best living cook, at least."
Sunset winced.
"Did I lay it on too thick? I didn't mean to make you feel bad about your skills. I mean...what did I do?"
Sunset patted Sunrise's arm. "You didn't do anything. It's just...thinking about how almost everyone is dead, it's hard to take, you know?"
Sunrise nodded.
"Also...I had something I was supposed to do. A journey I was supposed to make."
"But now you've found ME. And who else is even alive to do something for? Stay here with me, so we can be happy together, and turn this little garden into a big, beautiful farm. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
Sunset laughed. "You might be the most wonderful woman in the world. But I still have to do this. I'm sorry."
"At least stay here for long enough that I can catch us some more fish, and we can eat breakfast together!"
Sunset smiled. "Pretty please. You don't have to twist my arm."
Sunrise unzipped the sleeping bag to wiggle out. "Be back soon."
***
When Sunrise returned, Sunset had carrots, potatoes, and some kind of cabbagey thing roasting properly, she hoped. She'd used a shovel to bury the vegetables in the coals and ashes of last night's fire.
Sunset smiled playfully at Sunrise. "Who are you? Prove your identity."
"Oh no!" joked Sunrise. "What if I'm a sexbot, pretending to be me? What will you do then?"
Sunset shrugged. "ARE you a sexbot impostor? Let's test you."
Sunrise walked closer, grabbed Sunset by the shoulders, and pushed her down onto an old wooden chair. Sunrise unbuttoned her own flannel shirt. She lifted a shirttail, and brushed it across Sunset's face.
"Hey! This doesn't prove anything!"
Sunrise stood with her legs on either side of Sunset's, and wiggled her body in a silly little dance, lowering her hips towards Sunset's lap. She bent forward, kissing Sunset right on the lips.
The kiss was slow and gentle. Sunset said, "I think it's really you. But we'd better check some more, just to make sure."
Smiling, Sunrise reached for Sunset's T-shirt. "Better safe than sorry."
***
Resting on the grass in the morning sunlight, Sunrise said, "I hope you don't mind that I was so forward. It's just...do you know how long it's been for me, since I...you know."
Sunset held Sunrise close. "Me too. It's been literally forever. Um, I mean I can't remember ever doing this in a very long time."
"Hey," Sunrise said, "I saw how you did that thing with the fish. Want to take a rest while I have a go at it?"
"Maybe? I should dig up the vegetables I'm cooking. I buried them in what was left of last night's fire. I don't know about the potatoes and the cabbage, but I'm sure the carrots are ready by now. Since carrots are even good raw."
Soon enough, breakfast was ready.
"Huh," Sunset said. "Are you sure you've never cooked fish before?" She took another bite. Sunrise had done something with a skillet propped over the fire, instead of impaling the fishes on sticks.
"Oh, I've cooked other things over the fire. But I had no idea how to clean a fish, until you spent an hour or two last night reinventing the skill from zero, and showing me both how and how NOT to do it." Sunrise patted Sunset's shoulder. "Thanks for the lesson."
"Oh, you're welcome." Sunset gave Sunrise an appraising look. "You're a fast learner."
"Thanks. But is it any surprise? The world practically ended, and I'm still here. I don't think many stupid people have lasted this long." Sunrise grinned. "Tell me the truth. Had you REALLY kissed anyone before me, do you think?"
Sunset blushed. "You're a good teacher too." She sighed. "I'm really going to miss you."
"So you're still determined, then? To leave me and this nice garden? This paradise, this Eden?"
"Yup. Still determined. I'm sorry, but it's something I have to do."
Sunrise shook her head. "I guess I have to accept it."