“I’m only trying to make you remember.” He said with his dirty old hands on the wheel. Grease had rubbed the leather raw. Grease had stained the fabric seats. “It’s important that you do.” With one muster eye on the road, the other on the rearview mirror, he grinned at her. It was difficult to see with only the passing headlights to illuminate his profile. But he saw, he saw well.
She squirmed in the backseat like a cat in a basket. With both hands tied behind her, cat was incorrect, a pig over a pit was far more fitting. The tape was tight. The tape caused the bones in her wrists to scuff together, rub her raw like the worn down leather, like the scabs on her knees. She screamed behind the glue, but glue did as glue does and sealed her lips shut.
“This certainly isn’t who you are.” He had dirty fingernails, just awfully chipped, and as mustard as his left eye. She could see them turn the radio on. She could see it tap against the greasy wheel as he hummed a tune. “Soon you’ll remember.” He sang with a baritone.
A brown paper bag accompanied him in the passenger seat. It too oozed grease. His dirty fingernails dug in. “Sunshine,” a snaggletooth chomped down on a meaty burger. The inside was as pink as her cheeks, as pink as her throat from screaming itself hoarse. “Sunset.” This song she does not recognize. She did recognize the passing truck, the roofs of cars, the sound of the highway. They were speeding, going quickly from one destination to the next, and everyone knows once she leaves the initial spot she’s as good as a picture on a milk carton. “You’ll remember.”
Her wrists burned as red as the streaks in her hair. If only she could break the tape. Right now she tried. She tried by tugging, and tugging, and tugging until the skin broke and it stuck to the glue, but like her lips, it did not budge.
“We’re here.” The van came to a halt, the engine switched off, and the world outside was quiet. There were no streetlights, not like before. She met him in a Burger Queen parking lot. His eyes twinkled under a busted streetlight. Couldn’t make him out much, but he seemed so nice. How foolish she felt at the moment.
How foolish.
The door shut, yet the keys remained in the ignition. She watched them jingle together as she heard his boots outside. Wet and gushy like thick mud. Steady, rhythmic, yet chaotic as if a walk could be such a thing. It was only a second of this, yet still she held her breath, and still she paused her tears, and still she felt the air leave her lungs. It’s when he opened the door did she notice how tall and lanky this strange man was. In the dark his silhouette had a pair of fraternal horns as if reality itself bent around him. He leaned in, and his goatee was the only thing sticking from his head. “Hmm, you’re bleeding.” She’s grabbed by her collar, hoisted on her bum. “You’ll be just fine, I’m sure.” His dirty claws snapped the tape from her mouth. That too bleeds.
She felt so dry. Her throat was sandpaper. So tall. So greasy. She tried her hand at appealing to his humanity. “Please, I have no money…” where that thought was going was hard to tell.
Still, he made his way down her tank top and to her wrists. They too were cut. “Good. I haven’t a need for that.”
“I have…” she swallowed to moisten her throat. “I have friends who are looking for me as we speak.” Unfortunately, that was a lie, and he knew. She knew he knew by the way his brows raised in suspicion then returned to a straight line.
“Friends? Now that’s new.” He pets her head like an animal. What more could she do but put up with it? “I’m no stranger to the power of friendship. There’s been plenty of times I fell on the tail end of it, though, I don’t think we need to worry about that.” Now he traveled down her legs to snip the tape shackling her ankles. “It’ll be days before anyone realizes you’re gone, and by then it’ll be too late.”
Her skin went cold, much more cold than his icy fingers. “You’re gonna…” and the tears were starting up all over again. “…kill me?” And she couldn’t raise her voice over a whisper.
“Of course not. I’m no murderer.” The blackness in his pupils told otherwise, but he wore a mischievous grin, and that alone distracted her. “I am here to free you, Sunset Shimmer.” Those horns returned when he stood up straight and the moon casted a shadow over his face. If a man could purr he’d do just that. “The real you.”
She had no idea what he was talking about.
She was her in her purest form. There was no little Martian living in her brain, she was no doppelgänger, she was no android, so what he meant she did not understand. She refused to understand, because Sunset Shimmer wanted to settle in her blissful ignorance.
“I am me.” Her hands were free, her legs along with them, so with all her might she gave this strange man a mighty kick to knock him off his feet. It did not, but it did cause him to stumble enough to give her space to flee. She took it in a heartbeat.
Sunset ran from the back of that van and she did not look back.
All around was mud, and shit, and forest ahead. There was the path beneath her, there was the moon above, but there was not one single soul in the vicinity. Well, there was him, and he was coming after her quickly. So she screamed out in hopes someone, somewhere, would hear her. It was a loud enough scream to set off an alarm, but before she could properly alert the wildlife or any late night hunters, she was tackled and mud rushed down her throat.
“If you would’ve done it the right way, I would’ve let you go.” Despite his appearance, the stranger was heavy. He sat on her back like a saddle, pinning her with both knees. “If you were your real self you could’ve easily outran my human body. It’s far too limiting, after all.”
“Please let me go!” She gurgled through the mud, and yet her voice pitched. Those same dirty fingernails grabbed a fistful of her blonde hair and tugged it all the way back.
“Your face is a mess, but this is good. We must get the human stench off.” With cold fingers, he gathered more shit and smeared it on her cheeks, around her eyes, down her neck. She was in a puddle and already drenched, this appeared pointless, but Sunset knew this was all psychological. When he finished he grabbed her by the hips. “Now you must stand like yourself. Up with it.” He pulled.
She gripped at the soil to remain on solid ground.
“I won’t launch you, silly thing. This world suppresses far too much of my magic to do it properly.” He still held her hips. “I throw you and you simply go splat. Ideally, a large flower would sprout from the ground to catch you before then, but again, no fun magic.”
“So what do you want!?” She sobs. Her clothing was drenched. She could feel his cold fingertips through her shirt as she was forced on her knees.
“Well, certainly not that.” There was a click of disapproval. All she wanted was his hands off of her, yet they lingered. “You aren’t a dog. Your knees shouldn’t touch the floor.” He moved her like a doll, palms in the mud, tippy toes, back arched. “That’s it. That’s more like you.”
This didn’t feel natural, in fact it was uncomfortable. Sunset could feel the blood rush to her head, and perhaps that was a good thing. She’ll likely pass out and not have to endure anymore.
“Now trot.” He barked.
“How?” She cried.
“With your hooves, of course.” He kicked her tush, and she moved forward. “Not like that!” Sunset walked on her toes and fingers. She attempted to make herself tall. “You are not a spider.” He kicked her again. “Left side forward, right side back. Right side forward, left side back.” He clapped, and she tried to follow along.
Left side forward, right side back.
“Good!” He barked. “Just like that.” She made progress, now a foot away. “Canter!” He barked.
“How?!” She sobbed. This was absolutely ridiculous.
“Just like before, but a little faster.”
Right side forward. Left side back. Right side, left side. Left side, right side. It did not feel natural, but she made more progress.
“Now gallop!” She heard, and it sounded like quite the distance between them. Sunset hadn’t realized she had her eyes closed, she hadn’t realized until she peeked, and she was right. He was a yard away, and she could not believe it. “Gallop, Shimmer! Gallop!”
She did. Her palms on the mud pushed her forward, her feet kicked out in the air as it did, and now she moved quicker than expected. Now the barn was just behind her, now the trees up ahead. Despite the aches in her muscles, this felt natural.
This was her. She was born for it, she was born to gallop.
But she was no horse. She was human.
As her brain registered this solid fact, as her mind decided that upright is how she’d stand, Sunset Shimmer tripped over her own feet. She tumbled face first, she rolled in the mud and the shit, and her ankle twisted in a way it shouldn’t. “Gah!” The girl bit her lip to stifle her scream.
Then the world went still.
The leaves of the tree above her shaded her from the moon. The trunk bumped her head, or perhaps she bumped it. With the circling birds, Sunset hadn’t a moment to think. Everything hurt, and then it did not. Was this the rush of adrenaline? She thought. Get up, she thought too.
Unlike a horse with a broken fetlock, Sunset Shimmer got back on her two feet.
To flee was equine, but to flee was also a result of human intelligence. A small girl versus a lanky stranger? He looked as brittle as old bones, but she felt his weight. Without a weapon she didn’t stand a fighting chance.
“You’re doing it all wrong!” He yelled as he came full speed ahead like a linebacker. His movements were otherworldly; too fast to be conceivably human, too rigid, yet loose. Too chaotic.
The forest was still ahead. She limped for cover, but he was right; she was doing it wrong. She was too slow.
A swift kick to the back of the head sent her back on all fours. “That is not how it’s done! You should know better!” Despite him screaming, he sounded entertained. And how could he be? How could he treat her like this with a smile on his face? “What are you?!” He asked.
What is she? “A girl?”
He kicked her again. “What are you!?”
“Human.” She said, she was, and that was the only right answer.
He kicked her again, and again. “What are you!?”
“Sunset Shimmer!” She screamed for mercy. She screamed out of fear, out of denial, but how long could she lie to herself? How long would she? He prepared to kick her again, but she did not finish. “I am Sunset Shimmer! A pony!”
With a body as elastic as a rubber pencil, he twisted, and curled to meet her watery gaze. That same mischievous grin nested on his face. That was the right answer. “Then say it like one.”
How—she would’ve said, but Sunset knew. She knew exactly what to say and how to say it. She neighed, long yet loud. She neighed with a purpose, she neighed in deep sorrow for the form that was no longer her, and Sunset did not want to go back. Was she man or mare? Was that ever a question.
“You’re you.” He answered as if he could read her thoughts, and perhaps he could. “You’re perfectly you.” But that was wrong because this was forced on her like the kiss on her forehead now. So kind and tender. A creature like him must’ve learned it from somewhere.
“Well, up with it.” He clicked his teeth, her ears perked. “There’s more mares in the stable, though they do not look like you. Tonight you’ll sleep, then we’ll get saddles fitted on your back.” Ridiculous. Ponies in Equestria didn’t live that way. She neighed her grievances. “Yes, well this isn’t your Equestria. Out here in the real world you are just a plain old animal, and animal’s sleep in a stable.”
Her brain was filled with confusion. How could he teeter back and forth so effortlessly? One instance she is denied her humanity, and the next—well, she is denied her humanity.
“It makes sense.” He replied, and now she was certain he could read her thoughts.
One last gallop, the mare begged despite her broken ankle. One last chance to feel the wind through her mane, to stretch her muscles, to do what is natural.
“With that leg?” It was only a minute of consideration. “Oh, why not. It isn’t like you have any magic.” He patted her back then lifted her by the hips again. “You remember how, don’t you?” She did, she got up just like before. “That’s it. That’s a good pony.” And he let her go.
And she trotted. Slowly, left side forward, right side back. He herded her around, he herded her away from the forest and towards the old barn.
And she cantered. Her body felt heavy, the pain on her ankle a lot to bear, but Sunset Shimmer kept on with a steady clop. Her eyes were forward, not very pony-like. Her eyes were focused.
And she galloped. Her body lost that weight. Her legs carried her the way they were supposed to. In her soul the pain was ignored to feed the urge for the speed, for the run, for the freedom. She was faster than a human girl, she was a ghost in the wind.
And she reared up, but instead of a whinny she let her two feet be as one. She allowed her mind the answer it was seeking. She allowed her soul to be what it was; Sunset Shimmer the centaur. The hybrid, the kindred spirit of two creatures lovingly made one with an engraved place in either world. It wasn’t a question of whether to deny one side for the other, but to embrace both.
So with her hands, not very pony-like, she pulled the van’s door open and she climbed in. With her two human hands she gripped the greasy wheel, she turned the key, and she put it into reverse.
“You’re denying yourself!” This strange lanky man yelled as he ran after her, but Sunset was not. Sunset knew who she was and she wasn’t ashamed to be both. “You’re denying—“
With her human feet, but a pony smile, she ran him over with his own van.