Sunset could not help the wide grin on her face as AJ traded her prize for a handful of bits. She had won the joust and, with practice, she could do it again… If she could convince the others, they might yet change their fates.
Applejack gave the merchants hand a firm shake and returned to her friends with a smile of her own. “Fifteen bits for the little trinket,” she laughed, “That’s five for Sunset, five for Dash, and five for me. I’m goin’ straight home to Canterlot.” She tossed Dash and Sunset their cut and beamed at them.
“We could do better,” Sunset mused, “we could earn a king’s ransom.”
Rainbow Dash snorted and rolled her eyes, “you’ve lost it Shimmer. We’ve got the bits we need to eat a good meal and get home, that’s more than enough for me.”
Sunset shook her head, “and then what? We go home but then what? We’re three squires of a dead country knight; how many knights do you think are running around desperate for a new squire right now? We’ll get home and be right back in the street with nothing! But we could change that, look at what we pulled off today! There’s a tournament in Trottingham in a month. With fifteen bits we could eat decently, get a bit of training, and if we do well in Trottingham we could split a prize three times the size of this one!”
Applejack shook her head at the fire in Sunset’s eyes. “You’ve always been like this; you aim far higher than your station Sunset. Always you’ve been gunning for glory. I want to go home.”
“And where is home AJ? You’ve grandmother is gone by now, they took your farm for their damned war with the Changeling empire. And Dash? What do you have to go home to? Hell, what do any of us have to go home to?”
“I’ve got a family!” Applejack snapped, “Damn you Sun, I want to find Mac and Apple Bloom! My brother and sister are reason enough to make for home.”
“Then why not come home with some coin?” she argued, “Trottingham and most of the tournament posts are on the way back toward Canterlot. Think of it girls, if we could pull this off, if I could win a tournament of two we’d be set for life!”
Dash groaned, “It’d be a short life if we’re caught Sun. They’d behead us for impersonating a noble.”
“Not us. Me. They’d behead me for impersonating a noble. You two would just be the poor saps who believed my lie.”
“Yeah, right,” Rainbow ruffled her hair and sighed, “like we’d let you go out alone. We’d have nothing to laugh at if you died, you’d take all the stupidity with you to hell.”
Sunset grinned and flung an arm around her shoulders, “Sure sounds like you’ve decided to join me there Dash. What about you AJ?”
The third of the trio glared at them both, “may the Goddess love you two. You're both rotten apples… If I don’t come you’d both be dead in a week.”
And so it began. Rainbow Dash used a deadly sharp dagger, nicked from a drunken merchant, to cut Sunset’s shaggy hair. She cut it short, a bit above her shoulders. It was the style that many of the female knights had taken to in order to keep their hair out of the way in battle. Applejack put part of their winnings into gear and food that would keep on their journey north.
While Sunset had always had a natural talent for jousting and fighting, tournaments were different. She could ride well enough and could take a hit but she was not used to the relentlessness of fighting match after match without a break. Applejack pushed her, and by extension Dash, day after day. When they were not traveling or sleeping, they were training. Having been with Sunburst the longest, Applejack knew the most about how to compete and what events would make them the most money.
“The joust will net you tournament champion but only if you do well enough in a least one other event,” AJ explained. They had set camp for the night on the outskirts of Trottingham for the first tournament.
“Then I should compete with the spear,” Sunset grunted. “Name a nobleman that could compete with me on a level playing field with a spear!”
“A javelin,” Applejack corrected, “the nobility call a spear you throw a javelin. I’ll concede to you competing with the javelin so long as you join the melee too.”
“The melee is vicious,” Dash protested, “all those knights at once with so little training? She’ll be obliterated!”
Sunset gave her a half-hearted shove and took a big bite of the stew AJ had provided. “I can do it. I’m not keen on the melee but most times they let you choose your weapon for it. So long as the horse doesn’t spook I could do well with a spear or sword in the melee.”
Dash shook her head and rose to her feet, “I’ll go into town and see about getting her highness a javelin.” The sarcasm was not lost on Sunset who made a rude gesture and went back to her dinner.
By the time Rainbow returned with a sturdy spear for Sunset the knight was dozing near the fire. Applejack stared into the distance with a faraway look in her eyes. Rainbow recognized the expression and sat next to an unconscious Sunset without comment. She was patient enough to wait for her friend to voice her concerns.
“You remember when we first found Sunset, Dashie?”
“How could I forget? She was just a tot, all by herself in the ruins of a little house in Stalliongrad.”
Applejack turned to face her; the ghosts that floated in her eyes were as familiar as an old friend. The day they found Sunset had been a hard one. Sunburst had been dragging them all over the country; the war with the Changelings had just begun and was already far worse that anyone could bear. An order from his lord had led Sunburst to patrol the nearby villages for raiders. They had seen many ugly sights but none so horrible as the slaughter that took place in Stalliongrad.
The little town sat just a few miles from Canterlot palace. The Changelings attacked it in the night and by the time any soldiers came to help, the town was already alight. The fires spread faster than they could be fought and the enemy cut down anyone who made it out of their burning homes. It was in this bloodshed that they had come across Sunset. All but a handful of villagers were dead when AJ, only twelve at the time, had heard the heart wrenching cries of a baby. She and a ten year old Rainbow had been dispatched to look for the source.
Sunset was found trapped beneath a fallen piece of her family’s home. Still in her crib, the three year-old’s back was burned from the fallen pieces of ceiling and wall but she was alive. The sturdy crib had taken the majority of the impact and shielded her from the collapsing wall. Sunburst, though somewhat self-absorbed, was a generous enough knight. He had allowed the girls to keep Sunset, provided of course, that she did not disturb him or cause any trouble.
“Do you remember why we named her Sunset?” Applejack asked softly, turning her attention to their sleeping companion.
Rainbow chuckled lowly and brushed Sunset’s hair from her sleeping face, like she used to do when they were young. “I wanted to call her Rain but you said she was a light and she needed a proper, noble name.”
“The house we got her from had a sigil on it, for all we know she could be royalty. Sunset suits her, I don’t like the idea of changing her name just so she can compete in these damned tournaments. I don’t like any of this.”
“C’mon AJ, if she was noble someone would have come looking for her. We stayed in the poor village for weeks and none of those people knew who that family even was. And no one ever claimed her, as far as Sunset’s concerned we’re the only family she’s got.”
“Damn right.” Both girls jumped and Sunset smiled as she cracked open an eye. “Are you two going to keep talking about long gone history or are you gonna sleep?”
“You need a name Sunny,” Applejack sighed. “One that sounds foreign enough that everyone will believe you’re just another traveling knight. But has to be noble enough that they won’t question it.”
“I like my name,” she whined.
“Yeah but Sunset is as Canterlot a name as you can get,” Rainbow chuckled. “You need an outsiders name... something that sounds, y'know, regal.”
“Let’s keep it as close to my real name as we can,” Sunset sat up and thought for a moment. “Sunburst used to talk about a distant uncle of his… Sol something… Sol means sun, right?… what about, Solaris?”
AJ hummed in thought, “Solaris was the name of an old legend in Trotland I think. We could pass you off as a foreigner from lower Trotland. How about Solaris Incarnate? I knew a Trotish knight with the name Incarnate once. Incarnate means that you embody something, I think. So, it'd mean you embody the sun?”
Sunset smiled, “Solaris Incarnate it is.”