“...and I don’t know who they would have given that money to anyway; it’s not like anypony in this city needs anything else after all. You’ve got the buildings, the towers, the parks, flowers-” Sunset paused in her pacing at that one, glancing over to the wilting potted plant on her desk, right alongside many other dead ones, but shook it off and kept going, “For food and otherwise--the mines are fine, the trains are good last I saw them, and...” She stopped in her place and fully planted her feet on the plush carpet, staring pointedly at the painting off her ‘dear mentor’ that the alicorn insisted be hung in her room.
“It’s not like we’re suddenly braking into war; we’ve had pretty good relations with the other nations recently ‘cuz of her...” The mare rambled, keeping her eyes on that irritatingly undecipherable smile, but quickly jerked away to look towards her bedside desk, where the quill held in her magic just above her personal diary. “She’s good at that at least...” She whispered irately, keeping her gaze on her quill as it wrote her every word in her diary.
A sudden knock at the door broke the young unicorn out of her thoughts, making her jump back and drop her quill. “Miss Shimmer!” A distinctly feminine voice called out urgently behind the large double doors of her personal room within the Canterlot Palace, clearly being that of the maid that so often bothered the student. “You’re late for your breakfast with Princess Celestia!”
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute!” Sunset shouted back, and sighed in annoyance. “Once again... the fuckin’ schedule...” She muttered, picking up her quill and closing her book with her magic, setting them both off to the side of the desk before lighting up the teleportation spell in her mind, lining up the two locations of her room and the dining hall, and firing it off.
Celestia didn’t flinch at the ‘pop’ of air and magic that came with her student’s entrance, though it was clear in her expression she was disappointed at the lack of manners as she looked back at the unicorn, a large amount of cake stuffed into her mouth. The student in question scoffed under her breath and rolled her eyes at the all-too-familiar look and trotted over to one of the highly-polished wooden chairs still tucked into the table, pulled it out with her magic and plopped her rear onto it.
“Sunset,” The Princess said, forcing the mare to sigh heavily as her food was getting placed before her only to look up to see a napkin held in her mentor’s golden magic wiping her maw of the cake--‘as a proper mare should’, the quote having been beaten into her head. In response to the irritated ‘What?’ clear in her student’s eyes, the alicorn continued, “I have a job for you today.”
Sunset stopped herself from eating the juicy fruits and elegant flower petal-sandwiches on her plate, if only to prevent another lecture being thrown her way, and gestured with her head for the other mare to elaborate.
Complying, Celestia spoke, “As you may know, there is a ball to be hosted in the Palace Grounds in less than a week. While my of my staff is setting it up as we speak, there are some things that are too specific to be found in most establishment. I would be extremely grateful if you could go out and retrieve them.” A scroll and coin-purse were levitated up from beside her and moved over to her student, setting them beside the platter. “The decorations need to be finished before the fourteenth, which gives you five days to get everything necessary. Can you do that for me?”
The unicorn took only a moment to grab the scroll with her magic and open it, barely skimming it as if to make sure everything on it made sense, and closed it back up and replied off-handedly, “Yeah, sure.”
“Sunset,” The ivory mare spoke again, slightly admonishing this time as she pulled away her student’s platter slightly to keep from her indulging herself for the moment, making the much younger pony take a deep inhale to bate her irritation before looking up sharply into her mentor’s eyes. “This ball is being held to commemorate the contributions the people of Canterlot have made to the world. I hope that you can take it seriously. Now... will you help me?”
Sunset stared back for several seconds, but soon turned back to the scroll still in her cyan magic, and read it more thoroughly and saying under her breath every item on the list. When she was done, she again looked up the gaze of the very Princess of Equestria with a disappointment just under the surface, and nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”
“What!?” A distinctly feminine voice broke out in shock, the sound heard by few in the outskirts of Manehattan at dusk.
“Sadly, yes,” A middle-aged orange earth pony mare replied, her fuchsia and pink mane drooping over the right side of her face as she looked down in despondence. “We have only received five thousand of the needed sixteen thousand bits to keep this place operational for the next year...”
Trixie, still clad in her usual eye-catching pointed hat and starry cape, the former playfully tilted from her magic show earlier in the day, gave a long, exasperated sigh that faded into anger. “Sweet Faust, do they really need to be so selfish?” She muttered under her breath, but soon looked back towards the orphanage caretaker and asked, “Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of law around this? A... ‘minimum relief... effort’ or something?”
“Well, there is,” The other pony replied, not-so-subtly irked by the situation herself, “But it’s horrendously outdated, not even having been adjusted for inflation.”
The showmare huffed in frustration, looking out across the skyline to see the large mountain visible that held the capital of Equestria, its pretentious ego unable to be on the same level as other cities. “I’m pretty sure the only reason they did that much was because of the public forcing them to...”
The caretaker nodded somberly, looking out towards the city as well. “I... want to believe they’re truly good people who are doing everything they can to help those in need, but...” She took a glance behind her towards her establishment, the many foals inside sleeping on dirty beds and playing in the dim, broken lights, “I can’t help but think that they have truly... abandoned us...”
“You should, Miss Song,” Trixie stated, mildly startling the older pony with rage in her voice. “They can’t be bothered to care about us. They only really care about themselves, with us as just... a resource for them to manage so they can get more famous and rich. And...” She took a deep, shaky inhale, tears visible welling in her eyes, “Most times, they can’t even go that far. They just... screw us over and lie about it.”
Those harsh words hung in the air for many seconds, the truth in them unable to be denied as the mares stood in silence, not even whispers of wind seeing fit to break it.
Eventually, though a door creaked open behind them, making them look back to the orphanage, a white-coated colt with a off-white and ice-coloured mane peeking out behind the slightly unlevel door. “Miss Trixie?” He called out, making the mare in question wipe her eyes and clear her throat before fully facing him.
“Yes, Snowy?” She asked back, her voice quieter and calmer as she approached the child, who looked back with slightly saddened eyes and fiddled with something in his hands before walking out from behind the door, holding tight his favorite snow globe.
“U-um...” He mumbled as her moved towards the magician, who slowed to a stop and crouched down to get eye-level with the foal, his wings twitching on his back worriedly. “Are...” He began when he stopped before the unicorn, and had to bite back some tears before continuing, “Are we gonna be okay?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Trixie said warmly as she wrapped her arms around the colt, “Trixie’s going to do everything she can to help you.” She rubbed her arms up and down the child’s back to help him calm down, being careful around his wings as to not hurt them.
The two stayed that way for a few seconds, the caretaker looking on with a small smile, before the magician pulled away to place a hand on his head and ruffle his mane. He giggled a bit from the treatment, but it soon faded into a yawn as his mane stopped getting tousled.
“Alright, kid,” Song spoke to the foal, getting his attention as Trixie stood up, “You get back to bed, now, you hear?”
“Mm-hm,” Snow murmured and nodded, but looked up to the showmare. “Umm... t-thank you, Miss Trixie,” He said, fiddling with his snow globe some more while getting a genuine smile from the sapphire unicorn, and then turned and quickly walked back towards his home, both the mares’ eyes following him until he eventually closed the door behind him.
A heavy sigh emanated from the sapphire mare’s lips as looked down in sorrow, but then looked back up towards Canterlot above the horizon with a glare. “I guess I’m going to have to really shove this in their faces, then,” She states in subdued anger.
“A-are you sure?” The earth pony stuttered with her eyes widening in surprise, “You don’t have to do that much for us--you’re hardly even half my age...”
Trixie didn’t reply, keeping silent for multiple seconds before she looked obliquely back at the caretaker and said, “I’ll see you later, Miss Song.” She faced the city again and walked to retrieve her wagon, using her left hand to level her playfully-tilted hat and remained quiet in her thoughts.
“I...” Song spoke half-heartedly, but kept still as her patron walked off into the distance, the boot-steps fading in volume and bringing her joy with them. “I truly hope you can do something, Trixie...” She whispered out, and turned back to head into her orphanage.
Sunset slammed the double doors closed behind her, the cool wind of dusk hitting her in the face and snapping her dreary eyes open. However, from the shop now behind her, the cheery green and yellow shopkeeper went over the large glass window by the door and shouted through it, “-And may the Sun light your way, Miss Shimmer!”
“Yeah, yeah...” The unicorn said back half-heartedly, rolling her eyes as she adjusted the satchel hanging from her shoulder, the newly-acquired Zebrican striped flower stuffed into it. She pulled out the scroll given to her by the Princess and checked the item off the list, and looked down at the rest while her legs started taking her away from the half-greenhouse building.
“Alright, so next there’s Lonsdaleite dust...” She muttered to herself, and looked up to think out loud, “Where the Tartarus where would I get that? I barely even know what that is...” With herself looking up though, Sunset noticed how dark and cracked all the stone was around her, thin hairline fractures running through some of the buildings while the groundwork was rough and patched together, easily able to be felt even without looking.
The fiery mare was also offput by the odour suffusing the air, the dry dust and raunchy gasses made the air feel dry and disgusting in what would otherwise be a nice cool breeze. Looking towards the signs on the establishments in her line of sight, she could see many bars, rave clubs, and similarly debauched shops about her, with the lonely flower shop as an odd exception.
The ponies still outside were hardly much better, with their drunk demeanors and bawdy ardor making the cleaner unicorn ask herself, “What the heck are they doing with themselves...? Surely they could do something other than waste their lives away, right?”
Sunset shook her head and put away the scroll in her bag, still continuing on through the city to get to wherever she may pick up her next item, however little sense it made to her. “How does she plan to combine this things anyway...?” She muttered to herself, glancing around at the names of the shops and trying to ignore the behavior of the ponies around her. “The charged magic in crystals doesn’t really play well with sensitive combinations of magical gels and plants...” She thought out loud, recalling the bottle of ichor flux she got as well.
“Dammit, Celestia,” She spoke out in irritation, slightly louder than before, “If there’s some crazy new magic stuff you’re working on, why do you need to keep it a secret?!” However, her ears being brought to attention by the louder words, she suddenly noticed how it was a decent amount quieter than it was a few minutes prior, and looking around, she saw many of the ponies around not-so-subtly looking at her with envious, spiteful glares.
Frightened--though certainly never wanting to imply such a thing could happen to her--Sunset headed for one of the darker alleyways on her side of the street to possibly cut away from the stares and quickly walking into it, unaware that it may not have been such a good idea...
Trixie closed the door to her wagon and magically locked it, her orchid aura glowing faintly in the dark, nigh-abandoned part of Canterlot she was in. She then wrapped the entire thing in her magic and cast a mild obfuscation spell over it lower its noticeability, which would make it make it practically impossible to spot by anyone walking by. Only after all that did the unicorn push her tired body off of it before turning around and walking out of the gap between buildings and onto the streets lit by the orange and purple rays of dusk, the black hoodie and dark blue jeans keeping most of her body warm from the cool wind, the golden scarf wrapped around her neck doing the same for it as well.
“How old this thing must be...” She mused to herself as she walked through the city, looking out of the corner of her eye at the enchanted fabric, gleaming as though it were silk and flowing in the breeze. She shook her head, smiling lightly in poignant remembrance, and looked out at the darkened buildings around her, the cracked stone and splintered wood that made up apartment buildings and stores, with those in better condition being bars and clubs of all types.
The magician was hardly foreign to this place, of course, and she pulled out a half-empty box of cigarettes from her jacket pocket with her left hand and sparked a small flame in her magic just before her, and lit the cigarette with it. She stopped in her tracks and dismissed the flame while putting the cigarette to her lips and breathing in, keeping it down for a few seconds as she felt the smoke invade her senses, and then exhaled it, a few small, slightly laboured coughs pushing it out as well.
“It’s been a while,” She stated, and just took everything in.
The beaming lights and blaring sounds filled the dim streets with colour, the odours of those many establishments--the sweat of moving bodies that danced the night away, the alcohol and smoke of those that wanted their pain to go away, the musk of, well, what else?--all of it spilled out as well, into the waiting eyes, ears, and nose of Trixie Lulamoon, causing a fuller smile to grow on her muzzle. It just felt so right to her, the natural desires of ponykind brought out into the open for all to bare, so pure and raw in its nature that it was unable to be suffused or ignored by anyone that entered its bounds, as they would be forgoing what made this place what it is.
Unfortunately, her eyes soon landed on the place she was headed towards; Canterlot Castle. Its pristine marble towers and golden decorations gleamed in the distance, acting like a beacon of hope to anyone that would follow its message, and a mocking stain onto the world for anyone who knew the truth.
The sapphire unicorn took another dose of smoke, and breathed it out through her nostrils, growling in anger and disgust. How much money they had up there and kept to themselves, how luxurious their lives must’ve been as they lived in ignorant bliss of the Tartarus-scape they stood atop of, how much suffering happened because they were too fucking greedy to even notice anything other than themselves.
She sighed heavily and looked down at the streets around her, the escapism she knew to run so much of it coming to the forefront of her mind, and the pain she knew so well that happened with no-one to help. She looked at the ponies around her, and while she didn’t recognize any of them, she knew what they all felt, she knew the suffering that their torn clothing and copious drugs covered up, she knew the anger on their faces as they looked at a pony who came from that ‘palace’ that held itself above everyone else...
And when she looked at that pony, so ignorant and clean of their sins, she felt that anger as well, but with it, confusion. Trixie quickly recognized her, of course; the fiery mane and tail on an orange unicorn, the distinct look of Celestia’s own ‘precious’ student, but she had to ask herself, ‘What would that fool be doing out here?’
The naïve mare seemed to be looking for something, though also trying to ignore the ‘dirty’ world and its people around her as she seemed to be talking to herself. Light blue ears perking forward, her sounds sharpened, grumbled utterances of ‘crystal’, ‘magical’, and ‘damn Celestia’, along a with faint jingling of bits, but the girl soon looked up to see the glares around her, and hurried off towards an alleyway.
“Why are you cursing the name of your beloved princess, hmm?” Trixie murmured in thought as her legs took her towards where that mare was, and quickly assented, “Oh well. It hardly matters when such a large prize is on the menu, so I may as well take that before heading off the castle.” She smirked while keeping her cigarette down away from her face, the irony of stealing from the princess’s student, and then going to berate the princess herself was getting to her, but she kept quiet and went after the other unicorn.
“Alright, breathe...” Sunset muttered to herself, holding a hand to her chest as she stood still in the dark, dirty alleyway. “You’re probably the most powerful unicorn in Equestria; they can’t hurt you...” She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, held her breath for several seconds until she felt herself shaking from a lack of air, then released it in a voluminous exhale.
Opening her eyes, the orange unicorn resumed walking down the alley, adjusting her satchel and jacket out of habit and keeping herself as calm as she could. But, that was not to last, as smoke soon billowed forth from behind her, rising up from near the ground to act as a thick fog arising before her, her panic setting right back in and forcing her to stop immediately.
The mare shivered in fear, looking up at the smoke as it continued to rise; she knew what was coming, and objectively she knew what to do about it, but... fear kept her at bay, her legs locked in place as they shook, rapid, quivering breaths forced out from her partially-open mouth, and mind frozen, unable to think.
“GAAAAHHHH!!!” She suddenly shouted as a piercing hot pain flared on the side of her neck, and she tried to grab whatever that was causing it with her hands, but somepony else’s grabbed hers, and then quickly whirled her around on her feet, with what Sunset could see of their figure as she spun twirling as well, only to jump up in a roundhouse kick that landed right on the unicorn’s face.
She let out a pained grunt as she went tumbling over to the ground, rolling multiple times before she stopped and was left sprawled over the ground, dizzy and with a headache and burn still on her neck. Getting her grounding, she gathered that she was face-down, and placed her hands on the ground and pushed herself up, looking up at the pony in front of her, who was garbed in a black jacket, blue jeans, and with a golden scarf lifted to cover their muzzle. However, the pony also had a horn protruding from their forehead, a pink glow about as well as a substantial bag of jingling metal levitated beside her.
“W-wait!” Sunset shouted, and realized what that bag was, but the other unicorn quickly turned around and sprinted away, keeping the bag with her. As much pain as she was in, though, the fiery-maned mare wouldn’t have that, and flared her cyan magic and looked down the alleyway, and then worked through the crushing effort of erecting a shield in front of them.
She was hardly sure it worked until she noticed them skidding to a stop before her shield, seeming to look at it. “Hey!” The orange mare shouted at them, still keeping the magic up as she pushed herself up to stand, though nearly toppled back over due to her shaking legs. Looking back at the other pony, who hadn’t moved since they stopped near her shield, she demanded, “What in Celestia’s name are you doing?!”
Said other pony slowly turned around to face her, the orchid magic emanating from their horn lighting their face up somewhat, their eyes looking into her own with a scrutinizing look. “Why do you ask?” They soon spoke in a distinctly feminine voice, their tone infuriatingly calm and unperturbed despite being on the firing line of the solar unicorn’s powerful magic.
“I need those bits,” Sunset said tersely as she stared back at the other unicorn, her senses returning enough to pick out the coat and mane colour of them as light blue and cyan-silver respectively. “They’re hardly yours to steal, thief.”
“Perhaps,” The mare replied thoughtfully, only to derisively add, “But it’s hardly as though you need them, pretentious little princess’s pet that you are.”
The orange unicorn was slightly thrown off having her status called out like that; she didn’t see any reason for it to be known or notable, after all. However, having her position mocked quickly let her anger flood back in, her magic flaring and sparking with a twinge of lasting pain as she growled out, “I’m not her pet, you fool. I was merely trying to get her some things she needed for a ball she was hosting.”
A low ‘hmmm’ came from the masked mare while she cocked her head slightly, seeming to think for multiple seconds before finally settling on, “You’re right. You’re not her pet.”
Sunset was blindsided by the response, and her magic flickered and wavered, her mouth open in surprise and unable to form words... at least until the light blue pony corrected herself, “You’re her lackey.”
“L-l-lackey!?” The fiery-maned unicorn shouted in shock and anger, her cyan magic flaring back to life and immediately blasting powerful bolts of her magic towards the thief in wild, unpredictable trajectories, unable to speak from the appalling accusation thrown so casually at her.
Those bolts, while fast, rapid, and sparking with sheer power, posed no threat for the cerulean pony, who quickly twirled to the side to avoid one that flew directly towards her, and with many others shooting near her head, she ducked and rolled forward, jumping out and over the next few that were nearer the ground. Sunset was unable to tell her distance through her blind rage, allowing the other unicorn to deflect another bolt with a slanted shield and summon a whip made of her pink, glowing magic and whip it towards the orange mare’s legs, quickly wrapping around them and getting yanked back, those legs getting pulled out from under their owner, causing her to yelp in surprise and fall and slam her back against the ground.
Her attention was drawn right back up, though, by the jingling of bits, which she quickly saw was being creating by the other unicorn’s magic shaking the bag of bits it somehow still had a hold of. At Sunset’s furious expression, she seemed to smirk beneath her scarf, humour showing in her eyes as she tossed the bag leftward over to the side of the alleyway, letting it land loudly right next to the wall.
Taking the initiative, the orange mare got up as quickly as she could while the other watched in amusement, but when fully standing, she ran forward with flaming fury, her fist cocked back to clock the foolish blue pony in the face...
Only for her attack to get swiftly side-stepped, the calm unicorn left unscathed while the angry one continued forward, unable to stop her momentum from nearly making her stumble to the ground. Not to be discouraged, however, she quickly regained her balance before turning around and throwing another punch straight at the thief’s muzzle...
But they too dodged that one, bending backwards just enough to leave the attack’s range, only to right herself right after. Sunset kept trying, though, throwing more punches in a frenzy, though minimalistic dodges to backward, to the side, and downward kept her out of harm’s way, and when the barrage gained some more precision, she used her left forearm to deflect more of the punches with seemingly no effort.
Cyan magic soon joined the blitz, rapid bolts firing from her horn with angry, snarling flicks, but they got easily deflected as well, this time with quickly bursts of shields that swatted them away. Eventually, the orange hands did more than just throw punches, and instead moved to grab that arm that nullified so many of her attacks, and quickly grasping it with her left hand after the third try. The sapphire pony’s right arm raised up with intent to strike their hands to separate them, but Sunset somehow managed to catch it as it flew down, though not without some pain and effort.
Their were then crossed in an ‘X’ between them, grabbing tightly onto the others’ with a growling strain clearly exerted by the fiery-maned mare, which was in direct contrast to the calm expression of her opponent, who showed no signs of stress even under the surface. Regardless, the former unicorn charged magic in her horn with a flaming sound and pain growing back inside it, making the other gather her sparkling orchid magic that held more control and flare within it...
However, unlike the competing blasts of magic against each other, as Sunset expected, the frosty-maned pony lifted their left leg up from under them--with no semblance of losing her balance--and raised it up between them... and them slammed it down hard. The strike blindsided the other mare with the pain that immediately made itself known in her arms, but her cool competitor merely twirled around with her magic still charged, and then blasted it at the faltering mare’s chest.
The bolt landing with an oddly firework-like CRACK, blowing the solar unicorn off her feet and sailing backward, only for her to slam harshly against the rocky ground and roll for at least a second or two before stopping face-up, groaning in pain.
“Now then,” The other pony said, their calm, smooth voice flitting into the fallen one’s partially cognizant ears, “If you are done, you may leave, and let whatever self-absorbed ‘ball’ your cult leader is organizing go without your fanciful ‘things’ you were getting for her.”
Sunset took a moment to breathe; the pain wasn’t as bad as they thought, with their attacker only seeming interested in knocking her down, even though it was with a harsh slam, roll, and scraping against the dirty stonework that still chafed into her back. She looked up at the sky, the Sun seeming to have fallen lower, if the dimmer light was any indication--but the alleyway she was in was already rather dark to begin with, so the pink-coloured magic of the other unicorn was the only real thing keeping their surrounding fairly visible.
Eventually, the orange mare managed to use her arms to push her top half up off the pavement, then she gathered a deep breath before turning her head to glare at the sapphire pony, and said with fury, “Don’t, mock, me.” Her horn swiftly blazed to life and shot sparking, nearly flaming bolts of magic at her assailant, though unlike last couple time, which were done in a rage-blinded fight against some blasphemous fool, she now aimed with much more intent.
The cool-hued mare had more trouble with this volley, her magic glowing brighter than before as she used it along with her arms to smack away the bolts headed for her, and even taking the liberty of dodging a few others, one still headed right for her chest, she only managed to raise her arms in an ‘X’ to defend before it slammed into them, blowing up with a powerful BOOM! that sent her flying backward even further than she had to Sunset.
However, yet another difference between the two unicorn’s was with how they landed; where the solar unicorn was clumsy and pained, the other practically danced, showing a grace and panache as she hardly rolled across the ground once before pushing herself off it to twirl with her legs spread behind her center of mass, her right hand keeping herself from falling to her face by only its fingertips while she spun to a stop, her left arm raised in a possible attempt to keep her balance, though it seemed more likely that it was just to add some more flare.
“Is that all you have?” She asked, slightly taunting with a voice no worse for wear than before, “Just a bunch of angry, manic bolts?” She could be heard bit clearer as well, her scarf having fallen away from her face during the landing, which also revealed the self-assured grin across her muzzle, the orchid light that she kept glowing from her horn painting her cerulean face with a calming brilliance.
“Y-yeah, well...” Sunset said with awe lingering her tone, but she shook it off and recalled she was still sitting and braced against the ground, “The Princess never bothered to teach me any combat magic, since she was too busy leaning over my shoulder and pushing me towards whatever random spell of the week she wants.”
The other mare looked at her for a moment with a hard to decipher look, possibly filled with surprise, shock, or disgust, but eventually she broke into laughter, nearly throwing off her balance enough to make her fall onto her face, but she quickly brought her other arm beneath her and pushed herself up to stand, still laughing with a bitterness just beneath the surface.
“That’s the worst thing you have to say about her?” She said, looking back up to Sunset’s eyes with a slightly disbelieving expression and tone, “That she’s an overbearing teacher?” She scoffed and shook her head, pulling out a small box from her jeans pocket with a hand and opened it, pulling out one of the half-dozen dim rods and putting the box back away before lifting the rod into her magenta light, revealing it to be a cigarette that she lit with her magic and put to her mouth, taking a deep breath, and then exhaling a large plume of smoke.
“She’s a lot worse than that,” The sapphire unicorn spoke, braking the other out of her perplexed stare to slowly get to her feet and watch orchid eyes focus on her own. “Your ‘perfect princess’ has really let this world fall into ruin, you know. Some ponies starve out there on the streets, other creatures often get killed or captured for no reason, children get left with abusive or... no parents...” She trailed off, looking down at the ground in silence.
“She...” Sunset tried to retort, but her voice faded with no thoughts behind it. “She didn’t do that, though...” She said, knowing very well how much her mentor cared about everypony she knew.
The other mare nodded, raising her head back up. “That’s the problem,” She said tersely, staring back into her solar counterpart’s eyes. “She didn’t do anything.”
She sighed heavily before adding, “Even with everything else I’ve been dealing with; travelling between cities for days on end, always exhausted and hungry when I get there, subjecting myself to all the cruel stupidity hecklers can muster...” She paused and waved her cigarette before herself to gesture to it, then kept staring with intent and resumed, “Even with all that, I still do everything I can to help others.
“I’m a magician--‘The Great and Powerful Trixie’, you may have heard of me before--and while I a lot of times perform in just public places like parks or plazas,” She--Trixie, apparently--continued, “Most other times I perform in front of orphanages, charity foundations, and retirement homes to raise money for them. And not just that,” She said, renewing her intent, “But to give them hope, to give them something to fight for, some entertainment, some...” Her voice trailed off as her head hung back down, her eyes again looking towards the ground. “To give them something other than suffering that no-one else’s willing to help them out of...”
The cerulean mare’s voice faded into silence, her words having left Sunset dumbstruck; she never imagined anything outside the palace could be so bleak. She had always lived in peace, with food and comfort in obvious abundance, and imagined that while others may not have had it as well as her, they weren’t hopeless or starved...
“But,” Trixie spoke back up, looking once more into the stunned orange unicorn’s eyes, “What I’m trying to say is, that your... ‘revered’ Celestia, despite being the richest, most influential, most powerful creature in the world... has done practically nothing to help those that have been tossed aside by so many others, leaving us to try to pick ourselves back up by ourselves.”
Those words, those bitter harsh words that were fueled by such pain that they could hardly be lies, they struck Sunset with a blow she could have never prepared for, forcing the tension out of her sitting posture and making her slump in dread. She didn’t want to believe those words were true, to believe somepony she’s never met before and who has robbed and attacked her, to turn away from her mentor and the very Princess of Equestria herself, but...
“H-how...” She started, but her voice broke with agonized tears welling in her eyes, “How do I know... you’re not lying?”
Trixie’s face turned somber as she gestured with the hand still holding the cigarette to their surroundings and said, “Look around you. This place, the Lower Districts of Canterlot, is practically Celestia’s backyard, and yet... it’s dark, broken... it’s falling apart. Sometimes literally.” She paused for a moment to think before continuing, “I’ve been in this city to perform quite a few times, and I know a lot of the landmarks in these districts... the bars, the clubs, the apartments, the single hospital... and the four orphanages.”
“F-f-four?!” Sunset shouted out, brought utterly aback by the number.
The other unicorn nodded and took another inhale with her cigarette, then let out a voluminous sigh of an exhale. “Look,” She said, her eyes showing an odd sympathy with her counterpart, “I know you so desperately want to believe that I’m wrong, to believe that everything’s perfect and everyone’s happy... but that’s not how the world is. That’s just the lies that you’ve been fed, what she wants you to believe.” She moved to the wall on her side and leaned against it, her posture demonstrating just how normal the darkness was to her.
“When I said ‘cult leader’, I meant it,” Trixie added, glancing up in thought at her still-glowing horn, “She has indoctrinated you, making you do whatever she wants and preventing you from ever questioning it.” She remained quiet for a few seconds before looking with intent back at the half-collapsed solar unicorn and asked, “Tell me; have you ever thought about any of this before? Anything beyond your little bubble? Any of the suffering out there, or why everything is so ‘perfect’ where you are?”
Sunset couldn’t respond, her preconceptions utterly destroyed; she never bothered to think about the bigger picture, the larger scale, always too focused on what was right in front of her as she was. She imagined herself as rather independent, perhaps relying on what others have created, but never allowing them to control her--but that hubris, that single-minded drive to keep achieving bigger and better things was the very thing that made her so easy to control; just put a goal in front of her, and she’ll go right for it, now questions asked.
The sapphire pony still leaning against the wall stared at her with a neutral frown across her muzzle for multiple seconds, watching as horror slammed into the usually confident unicorn, forcing shivers to rock through her body with her arms wrapping around herself to give her a pitiful form. “I didn’t think so,” Trixie muttered just loudly enough for the other mare to hear while shaking her head in disappointment, then pushed herself off the wall and started down out of the alleyway.
“W-wait...” The broken pony managed to call out, her voice dry and wracked with fear, rapid breaths interspersed being forced out of her mouth into the cool air that became so dark in absence of direct horn-light around her. The other unicorn stopped, though remained facing away, so Sunset tries to plead, “P-please... I... I can do better...”
“Really?!” Trixie immediately snapped back, swiftly turning herself around to glare at the fallen pony, a burning hatred on her face that went in stark contrast to the cool flare she possessed earlier. “After your entire life, after several years of living in your ivory palace, completely leaving the rest of the world to rot, you think you can do something now?!”
The solar mare flinched at the accusation, and her shaking only grew in intensity with her wrongdoings laid so bare, but she still managed to plead, “I-it wasn’t m-my fault... I didn’t know any better...”
“That’s exactly the fucking problem, you moron,” The standing unicorn bitterly deadpanned back, folding her arms to glare irately down at her counterpart, “You never even tried to think about the larger world.”
“She was manipulating me!” Sunset suddenly shouted back, tears welling in her eyes from the outbursting emotion, and they only grew and fell down her face as she continued, “You said it yourself! She’s controlled me for most of my life! How could I anything anything else than what she tells me?!”
Her words seemed to strike Trixie, leaving her standing still with slightly wider eyes as her mind ran through what was said; she herself said Celestia indoctrinated the young mare before her, and that had likely started very early on in her life, what with all the societal worship around the ‘princess’ that was everywhere. She would have accepted it as normal, and it would have grown and festered into an utter obsession with no real reason to escape it, as any idea of Celestia being negligent or malicious would have been unthinkable to someone who had lived their entire life in the one place the alicorn paid great care to.
“I-it doesn’t matter now, though...” Sunset soon spoke again, getting the other mare’s attention to see her eyes now cast down onto the ground with rivers of tears flowing freely down her face, “Just...” She tried to continue, but she couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be an excuse for being so... useless. “W-why...?” She eventually asked, looking back up at the other mare.
“...Because you deserve it,” Trixie said simply in response, “You’ve so utterly neglected the world, so I’m going to show you that very same pain, of being left alone, broken, and forgotten.” Her words carried an acceptance to them, as though she had planned them for a long while, but beneath it, a pain and guilt of knowing she was doing exactly what had hurt her so much in the past. “That and,” She added, glancing down to the cooled cigarette in her hand before looking back and up across the skyline visible from the alley, and gestured her hand towards where the white and gold spires of the palace in the distance rose above the dark and dreary buildings around her, “Maybe hurting you so badly will finally your precious ‘princess’ the kick in the ass she needs to actually do something.”
The orange unicorn, pushed back into darkness by the limited horn-light around her, continued to look at her counterpart, who was still facing away in seeming contemplation. “...So y-you’re just...” She spoke up in a dry voice, forcing herself to clear her throat before resuming, “...Exploiting me... to hurt somepony else?” Her sobs faded somewhat, being replaced by a mild anger, though it was all still built atop an acceptance that kept her from moving. “If treating p-ponies... like that... is what makes C-Celestia so bad... h-how are you any different?”
The other pony didn’t respond immediately, instead keeping her gaze focused out across the skyline as she kept silent. “That’s not the point,” She eventually replied, her tone slightly low and terse, as if she wasn’t sure of her words. Turning her head back to look at the solar mare and bathe her in orchid light again, she explained, “That’s just something that’ll happen; ...it’s not why I’m actually doing this.”
Sunset took a moment before responding as well, letting her anger quell and fade into confusion, leading her to ask, “T-then why? Just... to hurt me?”
“...There’s no other option.” The two unicorns’ eyes remained locked with somber reluctance and accepted dread clear in their respective faces. Trixie soon broke the eye contact by glancing down and adding, “You’ve been pretty terrible, and I can’t let that go, but it’s hardly right to kill you either...” She ignored the faint gasp from the other mare at how casually she mentioned death, instead continuing, “And there’s no way I’d try to make you help me as well, being you wouldn’t ever come around to my way of thinking given how different you are, nor would I be able to trust you in any capacity, so...”
A cold, hollow feeling filled Sunset as she fell back into dread and fear--there were too many conflicting emotions and thoughts before to let that emptiness take hold, with the reasoning behind it still uncertain, but now she was left alone in the dark, her fiery tenacity only managing to spark up the words, “H-how do you know that?” The other mare gained a modicum of surprise with the lack of giving up, and showed her confusion through her eyes, letting her counterpart gulp down the suffocating despair and elaborate, “H-how do you know... that I-I’m a lost cause...?”
Trixie stayed silent again, just looking back into the orange unicorn’s cyan eyes, whirling with fear and confusion as they were. “I-I didn’t mean for any of this to happen... y-you know,” Said unicorn spoke up again, her voice mildly pleading as the breaths between her words remained loud and laboured, “I... I couldn’t have possibly known... a-about any of this...” She gestured faintly around to the surroundings with a hand, which she then used to wipe some of the drying tears off her face.
“J-just... give me a chance, please...” She nearly begged, focusing herself onto the still-silent pony before her. “T-that’s all I ask... I... I-I don’t want to try to... face her again if I’m... like this...” She gulped down a lump in her throat as panic started to set in, “She’ll... maybe not hurt me, but... s-she’ll know. A-about this, about y-you... about how I’m... no longer useful to her...” Her breaths became rapid and she wrapped her arms tighter around herself as she fell onto her side, her eyes still locked onto the other unicorn’s, pleading, as she well and truly prayed, “P-please...”
Trixie said nothing, only looking back and down at the fallen pony with sympathy for a long while, seeing the regret and horror at what has been done, and the terror and dread with what may come next, all encompassed by a sense of worthlessness in knowing that nothing could be done to stop it. The cerulean unicorn herself knew how hard it was to fight off emotions; she so often had to resist the temptation to give up and move on, and in the end, she always fought for what she believed to be right... and leaving someone to suffer for being unable to stave away an immortal’s manipulation was hardly right.
“...Alright,” She spoke to the other mare, and turned herself around to walk back over to her, reaching a hand down to regain some focus from those horror-filled eyes. “Just don’t make me regret this.”