A few days had passed without word from Alphabittle or the pegasi guards with him at the Tree of Harmony, and Queen Haven was getting frantic. Eventually Flurry, after being asked by Zipp and Pipp, sent a letter down there asking to send back a pegasus every couple of days so that Haven wouldn’t lose her mind. This request was accepted, and Zoom returned to Zephyr Heights that night to report that there were no signs of the villains, though they were visited daily by Midge, who was probably hoping to open up a good relationship with the pegasus city so that the creatures in the Everfree Forest wouldn’t be contained to the woods anymore. Of course, he never revealed that he was actually a changeling. That would have to wait.
Sunny kept having her dream - trapped in a cyclone of wind while pictures from her life flashed in and out of existence. The voice would come and talk to her, but this time, there was no pink glowing star to save her. Each night the voice seemed to develop a more triumphant tone, sounding more confident. And each night Sunny sank deeper and deeper into despair. She was glad that Izzy would keep her friends from going after her when she inevitably left, and she was also secretly glad that the unicorn had insisted that Sunny remained with her friends for the time being. Sunny suspected that they were why she had lasted this long.
The fact that Sunny would lose herself to an evil creature and never return was like a dark cloud on the horizon of a beautiful day - you knew the storm was coming, you knew that it would be awful, and you knew that there was nothing you could do about it. And that feeling of helplessness was the worst thing in the world.
She was glad that she hadn’t told the others about it. It was weird enough to have Izzy following her around everywhere and giving her worried looks - she wouldn’t have been able to stand it if the others had been doing that as well.
One morning, Sunny woke up to find Izzy sleeping outside her door.
“Izzy?” she asked, taking a startled step back as she spotted the snoring, slightly drooling unicorn blocking the doorway.
“Huh?” The unicorn snapped to attention, blinking the sleepiness from her eyes. “Oh… Hi, Sunny. I-I was just worried about you, so-”
“Izzy, I get that you want to protect me,” Sunny said, lowering her voice. “But it won’t do any good, okay? It’ll still happen whether you’re sleeping outside my door or not.” She caught her friend’s defeated look and hastily added, “But I appreciate you doing it. Thank you.”
“Happy to help,” Izzy replied happily.
Your friend doesn’t trust you. That’s the real reason she’s out here.
Without much else to do, Pipp suggested having trivia nights. Of course, she recorded them and posted them on the Internet, and it was surprisingly getting a lot of popularity. Each of the group would find a topic that they liked and create a set of trivia questions on it. This was also supposed to expose Flurry to as many things related to the modern world as possible, though she had never hosted a trivia night herself - she hadn’t found something that she liked enough yet. Which only prompted her friends to double their efforts.
Tonight’s topic was the laws of magic, by Zipp, of course. The pegasus stood in front of the other six ponies, each of whom had a buzzer in front of them. One of the royal guards kept score. He sat in a corner with a piece of paper and a pencil, wondering why he was doing this.
“Which law states that ‘All creatures have a magic within them that makes them who they are’?” Zipp asked, pacing in front of them.
Flurry slammed her hoof on the buzzer in front of her. “Sunburst’s Second Law of Magical Energy,” she announced, looking confident in her answer.
“Correct!” Zipp announced, slamming a hoof on one of two buzzers in front of her, making a ding sound ring through the station, and the guard made another mark on his scroll.
“You’re really good at all of this magic stuff,” Izzy commented, sitting next to Sunny, as always.
Flurry beamed. “I had a lot of really good teachers,” she said. “I actually knew Sunburst personally - he was my Crystaller, and-”
“Next question,” Zipp continued. “What is…”
Hitch leaned over to Sunny and whispered, “Do you have any idea what she’s saying half the time? And how exactly does she know all of this?”
Sunny snickered, and Zipp glared at her. “No, and I think she read a few books on it,” she hissed in answer. Hitch shrugged as Flurry hit her buzzer, once again with the correct answer. “And I don’t know half the things she’s saying, either,” Sunny added.
She’s so much smarter than you. You don’t know anything.
When they weren’t holding trivia nights, they were putting the stained glass windows they had found back together. Queen Haven had decided to put them right in her throne room, where she already had a bunch of empty frames that looked about the right fit. These windows had been kept empty so that the light could help sell the charade that the royals could fly - as Zipp had said, it was all about good lighting. But now they were unnecessary, so Haven had her guards take out the golden swirls and shapes that had originally stood there to make room for the windows. Phyllis had decided to stick around to help, so they were filling her in on what each of them stood for and the stories behind them.
“Ugh, I am covered in glue,” Pipp complained, shaking a little bit off her hooves. “Izzy, how in Equestria are you fine with this?”
The unicorn looked down at herself and shrugged. “I guess I get so excited to finish the project that I don’t notice how messy it gets,” she said, squeezing a glue bottle to gently lather the sharp edges of the piece of glass she was holding with glue, then levitated it up a little higher than she could reach and gently set it in its place.
Zipp swooped down to where the earth ponies were standing next to the open cardboard box. They were setting up the rest of the window on the floor so they could see where the rest of the pieces went. “How’re we doing, sheriff?”
Hitch handed her a large piece of blue-green glass. “Almost halfway done,” he said.
“Only halfway?” Pipp groaned and wiped glue from her wings. “I’m going to need a bath after this. Please tell me this glue comes out.”
“Um.” Izzy frowned at the container she was holding. “Maaaybe?”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Zipp said to console her sister before she could start freaking out. “And if it doesn’t come out with water, I’m sure there’s a magic spell for it, right, Flurry?”
Flurry laughed. “There’s definitely a way, don’t you worry,” she assured Pipp, who still looked sulky. The alicorn hovered next to Zipp and levitated a few more pieces into place. With a quick glance at Sunny to make sure the earth pony was occupied, she whispered to the princess, “When we’re all done, I’m going to zap it with a magic repair spell, just so that we know it’ll stick.”
Zipp looked down at her earth pony friend and sighed. “I guess that would be better. She just seems so… conflicted. Like, a few weeks ago, she was completely against using magic. But since then, she’s used her own sometimes. I don’t know.”
Down below, Sunny winced and shook her head as if she was having an argument with herself. Hitch looked over, a concerned expression on his face, but the mare smiled and waved him off.
“I am not a big fan of trickery,” admitted Flurry, “and I hate having to do this to Sunny. But until we know what’s going on - what’s making her flip moods and almost swap ponies like this, we can’t risk it.” She put her hoof on Zipp’s shoulder. “I know Sunny’s your friend, and she’s my friend, too. But this may be for the best.”
“I guess so,” Zipp said unenthusiastically. She flew down to the earth ponies to get another piece of glass.
Meanwhile, Sunny had been watching the exchange between the two princesses out of the corner of her eye, and she wondered what they had been talking about, and why they didn’t care to share it with her, or anypony else. It made her feel left out, like the other ponies were avoiding her on purpose. Then again, they probably should. This was for the best. But it still made her soul ache.
Your friends don’t care about you anymore. They’re plotting to get rid of you.
“Sunny?” she heard Izzy call. “Are you okay?”
She blinked; without realizing it, she had walked to the door and had pushed it open. When had that happened? “Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “If you don’t mind, I’m just going to take a few moments to myself.” She slipped out the door and gently shut it behind her.
Sunny was in the airstation, sitting in front of the window with a scroll spread out in front of her, lit up by magenta pink light. Tears streamed down her face as she read the messages that her ancestors had left for her, hidden until revealed by the light of Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark.
“I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed, wiping tears from her cheeks only to have them replaced by more. “Every second I can feel myself slipping away, and it’s the worst feeling in the world. I feel like I’m going to hurt my friends, and if I do, I’ll never be able to live with myself. Everything’s going to go wrong, I just know it, and I know it’ll be all my fault. And I just can’t help but think…” She paused, looking up at the window, at the star glowing brightly from sunlight up there. “Are you really there? Why is this all happening?”
It is happening because the end is near, Sunny Starscout, and you will be a key player in that, the voice in her head replied, and Sunny could almost hear the sneer in its tone. You are all alone now - nopony will help you when you call. Your friends have abandoned you. There is nothing left for you.
That night, Sunny had her nightmare again. Only this time, as it came to a close, she felt herself dissolving and swirling away in the chaos.