//------------------------------//
// 9 - Coat 
// Story: First Hoof Account 
// by TCC56 
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Sunset hated the castle gardens. 

Not specifically the greenery or the bright flowers or the ugly statues, mind. She hated it for the same reason she hated a lot of places: the lack of control. 

When possible, Sunset preferred to keep encounters to her room because it was someplace she controlled - it was her space, laid out how she wanted it and secure in her protections. It was a place of power for her. The rest of the castle? That was Princess Celestia's place of power, surrounding Sunset's on all sides. Out here, Sunset was always the lesser. 

At the same time, when Cadance practically begged for Sunset to meet her in the gardens for their next lesson? Sunset couldn't deny her. Mostly because she couldn't come up with a good reason without it being an obvious power-play (and that would admit weakness, ironically.) 

So around her the birds were singing, the sun was shining and Sunset was grumpy. 

Cadance smiled beatifically. 

"Sunset! I'm so happy you could join me!"

The happiness was not returned. Sunset grunted in acknowledgement, though. 

It didn't slow Cadance one bit. She cheerfully pranced around the little tea table she'd had set up for them beside the zinnias and approached Sunset. But just in time, she stopped short with an abrupt look of concern. "Sunset? I'm going to hug you - if that's okay." 

That she asked was a surprise - one that Sunset masked with an irate snort before giving a grudging nod.

And then Cadance wrapped Sunset up in a big wing-hug.

It took a moment, but Sunset leaned into it. A little.

Breaking away, Cadance cantered back towards the table. "So I've ordered more of those sandwiches we both like from Gastro for lunch later, plus I already have tea and some light pastry out for us now. This way when we have to take a break because my magical endurance is still low, we can be comfortable!"

Cadance smiled too much. Sunset didn't like it. But she put her best cheerful fake grin on in return. "Great." 

"Anyway! I had a wonderful idea for our lesson today." Cadance continued to trot, passing the tea table, the zinnias and to a small open greenspace that faced the center of the rose gardens.

Sunset immediately raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, you think you're deciding what I'm teaching now?"

Cadance merely shrugged. "I just thought we could do two things at once. We wanted to learn more about each other, so I decided to share one of my hobbies with you. And by coincidence, I think it could make good practice." And to pre-empt the next question, she picked up a set of wooden rods from the ground. A moment of setting up - and then she placed a blank canvas on the easel. "Tada!" 

"Uuuh..." Sunset didn't want to admit her confusion, but that didn't make her any less confused. 

"It's for painting," Cadance explained without being even slightly fooled by Sunset's attempt to hide her thoughts. "Normally I paint by feathertip, but I thought it might be useful to do it unicorn style." Her horn lit up - with only mild concentration on her own part - and lifted one of the thin brushes up with a flourish. "See? Perfect for practicing my fine manipulation and dexterity!"

Sunset grunted, still covering for herself. "Yeah, I get that part. But what do you mean about sharing your hobbies?"

Beaming like a lighthouse, Cadance motioned at the ground beside her. "Because I brought a second easel and canvas! We can paint together!"

Once more, Sunset squinted in confusion. "...Why." Before Cadance could respond, Sunset rephrased herself. "I mean, why would I want to? I stopped playing with hoofpaints years ago."

"Why do you want to do any of your hobbies?" Cadance squint-glared at the paint-pots as she levitated them individually up into position. "I paint because it's fun and it helps me work out my emotions."

Sunset snorted loudly. "I don't have anything to 'work out'."

The sarcasm washed off Cadance's back like rain off a duck. "If you say so! But what's the harm in giving it a try?" She turned her head to smile, fixing Sunset's eyes with her own. "You said you wanted us to share stuff and learn about each other. This is part of learning about me."

She had a point. It was unfair. Sunset grumbled - but trotted over to the second easel.

Beside her, Cadance dabbed her brush in a dark green paint, the tiny bit of extra weight making it wobble unsteadily in her magic. "I think I'm going to do a landscape today. There's a very nice set of flowers around that lilac bush near the hedge maze entrance that I already painted last week. Then I can compare when I do it by magic to when I paint by feather." She turned her head. "What do you feel like painting, Sunset?"

Her response was a lackluster shrug. "I dunno. Last thing I painted was a couple of stick-ponies and a sun with a smiley face. I was six." Sunset paused. "Maybe seven." Her eyes went to Cadance's canvas and the single glob of green she'd put on it so far. "This is your hobby. Shouldn't you be trying to teach me about it?"

"I can't tell you what you find fun," Cadance quipped with far too much cheer in her voice. "And I know you're about to say you don't think this is fun, but you haven't even tried!"

A grudging mutter was Sunset's only response - because Cadance was right. Or at least right enough to not be worth the argument. 

The fluffy pink alicorn continued on. "If you want advice, I would suggest starting abstract. Making something picture perfect takes a lot of practice, but abstract works are more about the emotion you put into it than trying to get the veins on a leaf just right."

Sunset frowned, looking the canvas over again. "I guess? That isn't much to work with, though." 

"Just paint what's in your mind!" Cadance was far too perky as she said it. "It's like therapy! Take what's inside your head and get it out into the world."

Again, a frown from Sunset. "So what's inside your head is a lilac bush?"

Cadance snorted, taking it as a joke. "No, it's... it's the same as how sometimes you want a good, solid meal to fill you up, and sometimes you want to eat chocolate all night." She unsteadily levitated the brush up, holding it away from the canvas as she compared her work to the real original. "I want to do something more precise right now." 

"And you think I want something more abstract." Sunset squinted, now at the brush. She lifted it with her magic, slowly rotating it around in front of her. 

"I think," Cadance offered, "That you're a pony with very strong emotions and that expressing those should come naturally to you." She started on the dark green of the bush, heavy-laden brush unsteadily wobbling in her magical grip with each wide stroke.

That was entirely wrong, of course. Sunset prided herself on not expressing her emotions. Not that Cadance had any way of knowing that. 

There was another moment of hesitation - and then Sunset definitively jammed her brush in the glob of red paint. 

Cadance bit her lower lip.

Sunset glared at the alicorn, already feeling the scolding coming. 

"Be careful not to damage the brush's bristles?" Cadance's smile was at least mostly earnest. 

Sunset grunted in response and turned to her easel. Then she redirected the frustration at Cadance's little admonishment into a slashing stroke that left a bleeding red wound across her canvas. 

And Sunset frowned more at the momentary feeling of cathartic release. 

Then she made another stroke - this one downwards, with more of a curve to it. Then another, swooping to the side. Sunset swang the brush around, sweeping it through the paint to pick up a fresh glob before giving the canvas another wild stroke. 

The brush smashed against the canvas in a barrage that splattered the flat white with stunning crimson.

Somewhere along the way, her lips pulled back into a manic grin.

Yellow now - pale goldenrod. Sunset's tail thrashed as the brush moved across the canvas in decisive, violent strokes. 

And yet, despite the strong purpose behind each movement? There was no plan. And there was something liberating about that - for so long, everything Sunset had done was part of a plan. Part of Celestia's plan at first, then part of her own once she had seen the Mirror. Every action taken towards a goal. Keep pushing, keep focused.

But there was nothing calculated about the paint. Sunset simply slapped it on, placing each stroke's worth where instinct and gut feeling told her to. Intellectually she knew that made it empty - acting without purpose, without direction. And yet she couldn't deny that there was something almost... weightless about it. Each time her brush moved without that purpose, something primal inside her squirmed and pushed harder - that gut instinct trying to throw off her iron-willed control. 

Orange paint hit the canvas, but Sunset's movements were slowing now. The initial rush was past and her thoughts were catching up again, encroaching on that momentary lapse of regimented discipline to clamp down her internal restraint again. And she ground to a halt, brush hanging in mid-air and a deep frown on her face over the uncharacteristic outburst.

"Hm." Cadance's voice broke Sunset the rest of the way out of her reverie. The unicorn's head whipped around, ready with a snappy retort to the oncoming critique. But Cadance's tongue wasn't nearly as sharp as Sunset expected. "That's your cutie mark, right?"

Sunset looked back to her canvas. Rather than answer, she found her mouth dry. 

"That's pretty common," Cadance noted blithely. "Ponies know their mark better than anything, really, so it makes a good first subject for art." The alicorn squinted a little. "It's a little... abstract, but I think it came out pretty well!"

What Cadance called 'abstract' was what Sunset (and any other pony with sense) would call 'sloppy and amateurish'. Which, to be fair, was expected as Sunset's first experience holding a paintbrush had been less than half an hour before. But it wasn't the low quality that had Sunset's heart racing. 

Because yes, she knew her mark. The blazing red and yellow sun was imprinted in her mind in a way nothing else could be. And while (once you accounted for the artist's lack of skill) the red half was correct? The yellow side was not. The fiery rays that came off it curved the wrong way, hooking back on themselves. They were too regimented and regular. The painting was only half Sunset's cutie mark - the other yellow half was undeniably Princess Celestia's.

Not that Cadance noticed. It wasn't her mark, after all. It wasn't burned into her very soul. So she smiled and complimented and laughed while Sunset's bile-sour breath hung in her throat. 

Sunset swallowed it down. A princess wouldn't be so easily rattled. A princess couldn't afford to be. So Sunset Shimmer couldn't be, either. 

"Not bad for a first attempt," Sunset quipped through a smile fake as a 3-bit coin. "Gotta admit, it's a little different than hoofpainting."

Cadance giggled musically. "You seemed pretty focused on it, too." A smug smirk played over her lips and she gave Sunset a playful nudge. "I'm guessing that means you enjoyed yourself?"

She hadn't. The directionless, meaningless half-hour went against everything Sunset Shimmer defined herself as. It was nothing but a lazy waste of time. She knew it had to be. So Sunset shrugged. "Eh." 

Anther nudge from Cadance, with the smugness of her smile increasing. "But I bet you wouldn't say no if I made this a regular part of our time together?"

Sunset hesitated. It was wasteful and stupid. But. But it also got into Cadance's good graces. So it was part of the plan - and only because it was, Sunset grudgingly nodded. "We could keep it as part of the practice exercises."

With a gleeful giggle, Cadance clapped her hooves. "Wonderful!" She spun about, grabbing her own work in her hooves - only to be interrupted by Sunset clearing her throat loudly. 

"Horn," Sunset admonished. 

Meekly, Cadance replaced the canvas and lifted it again with her unsteady magic. 

Sunset nodded approvingly at the action - then looked at the art. 

She squinted.

She hummed.

She nodded. 

"Cool, I guess." 

Cadance pursed her lips. "I meant how does it look for my magical dexterity."

Sunset looked at the painting again and frowned. "You do realize I don't know a thing about art, right? I mean..." She motioned at her own drying canvas. "It looks okay to me because you've got more paint on this than on you."

Instantly, Cadance started looking over herself for stray spots of paint. There were none - but that little show was enough to bring a smile back to Sunset's face and a laugh to her lips. 

Giving the pink princess a gentle shove, Sunset directed her towards the tea table. "Come on, lunch is gonna be here soon. Let's eat and talk basic theory." 

The two plopped down in their respective chairs, and Sunset lifted up one of the little pastries that had been brought out to tide them over before the meal proper. "So beginner unicorns think about their magic enveloping what they're manipulating. And they're not wrong about that - it's the easy way." She rotated the apple turnover in the air. "Kinda like this. It's easy when you're putting all the filling inside one big lump of dough." Sunset cracked it open, showing off the sugary filling. "Experts know that you don't need to, though. It's harder to only cover a little of an object with your magic and still lift it, because you have to worry about balance, weight distribution, all of that. Like filling leaking out of the pastry. But you can cover more filling with less dough - or use less magic to manipulate a specific object, leaving you more to do other things." 

Cadance reached out with her own, feebly pulling half of the turnover out of Sunset's magical grip. "Okay, I think that makes sense..." 

Sunset nodded. "Right. So that's the principle behind your next lesson - let's talk about manipulating multiple objects at once..."