Sunny found Flurry in the throne room the next morning before many other ponies were awake, finishing another stained glass window, this one depicting Twilight Sparkle as an alicorn. They had decided to put the stained glass windows of past rulers in the throne room, along with space so that more could be added for current rulers. The alicorn lit up her horn and took a step back when she noticed Sunny out of the corner of her eye.
“Oh! Hi, Sunny,” the alicorn said hurriedly, dousing her horn and turning to her.
“Hi,” the earth pony replied warily. There was something about Flurry’s smile that made her suspicious. “What are you doing?”
The alicorn shrugged. “Just finishing up here,” she said airily, waving her hoof at the completed window. “We’ve got a lot of these to get through, so I thought I would work on them some more while everypony was asleep.”
“Want me to help?”
“Um… sure?” Flurry looked a little wary, but she nosed over a new box of glass and a few bottles of glue. “Where do you think we should put this one?”
Sunny looked around the room - so far, they seemed to be in chronological order. She opened the flaps of the box and peeked inside, able to tell that it was a picture of the Guardians of Harmony defeating Discord. “This one should go out in the hallway with the others,” she decided, and Flurry nodded, lifting the box with her magic and trotting out into the hallway, Sunny at her heels. They had already assembled the Guardians of Harmony defeating Nightmare Moon, as well as many of Celestia and Luna’s first defeats of many of the villains that the Guardians of Harmony later defeated. They had been arranged in chronological order, so Flurry set down the box in front of the empty space next to the window showing Nightmare Moon’s final defeat.
“How many of these do you remember seeing?” Sunny asked as they took the pieces out of the box and laid them on the floor. Flurry’s hoof hovered over the picture of her late aunt and sighed.
“All of them,” she said miserably. “And now… whenever I look… and I remember… that’s when it hurts the most. That everything… everything is gone now. And I have to learn to live with it.” She gave Sunny a sideways glance. “You get it, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was quiet. “I get it.
The two lapsed into comfortable silence as they spread the rest of the window out on the floor and started putting it together. Eventually, Flurry began to put pieces into the empty frame, casting a look at Sunny every time she used her magic to levitate a piece of glass into place.
Magic is dangerous and cannot be trusted.
It was an old refrain, but somehow it had even more effect. Sunny stumbled back a step and just barely managed to collect herself before Flurry noticed.
Not now! she mentally pleaded. Please not now! I know it has to come, but can it wait?
Oh, no, my little pony, the voice inside her head told her in a gleeful tone, no, it cannot wait. We are ready for you.
“Sunny?” Flurry’s voice. Sunny blinked. The alicorn was right beside her, looking worried. “Are you okay?”
“I…” Sunny swallowed. The simplicity of forming her own words was becoming more challenging, as if somepony was trying to make her say things she didn’t want to say. “I don’t know.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s keep working.” She turned back to the pieces of glass, though she felt Flurry’s gaze on the back of her head. “Please, Flurry.”
With every second that passed, Sunny could feel her own consciousness slipping away. She felt herself reach for a piece of the window, but it was like she was outside herself, watching herself do things without actually having any control over them. And with every second, she thought of her friends. She thought of bubbly Izzy, so kind and cheerful and friendly to everypony. She thought of Zipp and her desire to fly again, her wanting to be honest to her subjects. Pipp, and her encouragement and somewhat hilarious obsession over her cell phone. Trusty, dependable Hitch, who had been her friend since foalhood, who had crashed a pegasus party to come looking for her. And Sprout, who was trying so hard to be accepted and forgiven and part of the group…
Sprout. She made a promise about him… If only she could remember…
Think, she commanded herself. What could it be? She mentally scanned her memories, searching for something, anything…
That was strange. There seemed to be a lot less memories there than usual. And the few that were there were fuzzy and hard to focus on. Something flashed in her mind - a memory of her father on the balcony of their lighthouse, watching something float away in the sky, and he did… something…
She couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember. Sunny froze, concentrating on the last thing she remembered about her father. There was a story, a story that he would tell her every night… What was it? He disappeared that night, and then Sunny knew she figured out what had happened, but she couldn’t put her hoof on it. The very thought that she was forgetting her father, the pony who meant the most to her in the world, was enough to make her freeze and almost let down her defenses. But once the darkness in her head reached out its tendrils to take command of her, Sunny slammed her walls back up.
Or, at least, she thought she did. But these walls were thin and easily breakable. She heard the voice hissing on the edge of her mind, preparing to strike, and she knew it would only be a matter of time before she fell.
I have to get out of here.
Leave her friends, leave her mission, leave everything behind. She had to get away. She had to protect her friends, and this was the only way.
“Sunny? What’s wrong?”
That voice - she knew that voice. Where had she heard that voice before-
She looked up and saw a purple unicorn in front of her, and behind the unicorn were two earth ponies, two pegasi, and a unicorn with wings, all looking at her with concern. She felt like she should know them, but she couldn’t put her hoof on any of their names.
And why did they keep calling her Sunny? She didn’t know them. That wasn’t even her name.
What was her name?
These are not your friends, Sunny Starscout, a voice in her head whispered comfortingly. It sounded so kind, so sincere, so friendly, that she decided to listen to it. They are nothing but a group of fakes who don’t care about you at all. They have lied to you on many occasions. They scheme and plan behind your back. They think you’re dangerous and not to be trusted. They are afraid of you, but they will not help you. They put their faith in magic, but magic is dangerous. It corrupts those who have it. If everypony can’t have magic, than nopony should have it. If these were truly your friends, they would share their magic with you, but alas, they refuse to do so. They enjoy seeing you powerless and pathetic.
These are not your friends.
I am your friend, Sunny Starscout. Follow me, and everything will be fine.
The sound of the voice was so comforting and lulling that she almost forgot what was going on in front of her.
“Sunny?” the unicorn said again.
She felt her mouth opening, heard words coming out of it. “I’m fine, Izzy. Not that you would care. After all, you all just can’t wait to get rid of me, isn’t that right?”
The unicorn took a step back, looking wounded. Everypony else looked shocked, and one of the pegasi looked angry. But she didn’t care. She stood up and took a step towards the group of ponies, and they all backed away.
“Sunny…” The unicorn reached out to her. “We’re your friends, remember?”
“My friends?” she snapped, taking another step forward. Nopony looked shocked or angry now - now, they all looked scared. “Friends don’t lie to your face. Friends don’t conspire behind your back. Friends don’t abandon you when you need them most!”
She didn’t know the words coming out of her mouth, but she didn’t care anymore. These ponies deserved every word.
“You lied to me, you planned to get rid of me! Is that what friends do? They think that, because you’re acting a little strange, you’re dangerous and need to be confined and locked in a cage like an animal? They think that they can trick you and make you believe things that aren’t true? They leave you alone when you’re hurting? They leave you to carry the struggles of life all on your own when they’re supposed to help? Is that what friends do?”
Icy tendrils of darkness seeped into her mind and took control, reaching down to her heart and oozing into every crack, filling her with a cold emptiness, like something was just ripped from her soul - something vitally important to her. The feeling was so awful that, somewhere deep down inside, she steeled herself, tried to push back against the horrible coldness, but it was a feeble and pathetic attempt. She no longer felt her hooves against the floor, no longer felt her mouth moving, no longer knew the words coming out of her mouth. She had completely lost control, and it was as if she were watching her own self from an outsiders perspective - helpless to anything she was doing.
The other ponies scrambled back as she took another step forward. “You aren’t my friends. You don’t care about me at all, and I certainly don’t care about you. You’re just a bunch of lying, faking traitorous jerks who don’t know the first thing about friendship!”
One of the earth ponies stepped forward - the yellow one with the greenish mane. He put his hoof on her shoulder, and even when she glared at him, he didn’t let go or look away.
“Sunny,” he said, and his voice was like warmth seeping into her bones, chasing away the frigid coldness like a fire, “I know you’re still in there. And I don’t know who is doing this to you, but trust me when I say that we can work through this together. That’s what friends do. And we are your friends. We care about you - about each other - more than anything else in the world. We won’t - I won’t - ever let you go.”
Something flapped at the edge of her mind, and for a moment, the darkness seemed to recede, and she began to hope, and hope was like a flood of warmth, pushing back the darkness even more. She felt the ground beneath her hooves once more, could control herself, and she began to remember, remember these ponies, remember her name-
And then the darkness came rushing back, stronger than ever before. Now, it seemed that it wasn’t just one pony, but many, working together to force her to bow to their will. Her knees buckled, and the earth pony in front of her caught her in his hooves, but she didn’t feel it, didn’t know it. All thoughts of love and hope and happiness vanished from her mind, replaced instead by a thirst for vengeance, a hatred of friendship and all it brought, a kind of seething anger that consumed her mind with nothing but the thought of revenge on those she blamed responsible.
“You think you’re my friends?” she whispered, her voice not her own. “You think you care about me?”
All the ponies nodded, taking a collective step forward, the looks on their faces showing that they were daring to hope.
She stood up and stepped away from them all. The hope in their eyes fizzled and died as something - somepony - else invaded and took control. Something changed - she was no longer herself, but rather a puppet for others to move around and force to carry out their bidding.
“You are no friends of mine,” she said, her voice low and harsh. “And I will never care about you.”
And with that, Sunny Starscout, the earth pony-turned-alicorn who had always dreamed of unity and harmony, the one who brought the tribes together and allowed magic to return, the pony who had dared to hope, the last remaining Sparkle, curled up in the depths of her soul and surrendered.