//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13 - Melt Down 
// Story: Empathy is Magic, Pt. 1 
// by SisterHorseteeth 
//------------------------------//

The quartet detoured to fetch Sugarcoat from her little “office” on the way back from the Shroud of Dusk. No words were exchanged besides a “Please follow me, Sugarcoat,” from Cadance, and an “Okay,” from the activity coordinator – though Cadance did cast a mane-regrowth spell on her (after a very concerning few seconds of pointing her horn at the back of Sugarcoat’s unwitting head, apparently trying to remember the process). It was Chop Shop’s Little Less Off the Top, if Sunset remembered her beauty magic elective correctly.
This earned her no thanks from Sugarcoat beyond a grunt of vague acknowledgement.
Anyways, the first thing that Sunset noticed was different about the Break of Dawn as they returned was that it smelled disgusting. Cooked bird wafted on the breeze that Indigo was bellowing around with her wings to clear the fog.
Now that the fog had thinned out a bit, it quickly became apparent why it was there in the first place: while they were talking to Sugarcoat, there had been a fire, and apparently she did such a good job at being a dense rockhead that nopony looked out the banished window to notice it.
–Or, Sunset should say, there had been another fire, because the lingering motes of smoke in the air didn’t smell like whatever she caught a whiff of at the Shroud. This was more greasy and organic, like burnt hay, and much less chemical.
This one was also way less controlled.
It started at the kitchen, by the looks of it. Scorched grass radiated from the kitchen-tent’s doorflaps. The picnic tables were consumed, their charcoaled boards crumbling in on themselves. Countless dishes spilled onto the grass, their cranberry-based treats completely carbonized to the ceramic.
Sunset scanned for the parties she’d pin the responsibility on. Of the four Cranberries present that day, she spotted three of them gathered by the stage, disinterestedly picking at a blackened husk of a turkey. Separately, Bearberry was prodding the grass with his hooves, fruitlessly trying to work that earth pony magic into its revival.
Well, they seemed to have gotten out safe and sound. With a clean conscience, Sunset snarked, “So much for ‘coming along fine’,” and ignored the dirty look Sour Sweet shot her anyways.
It seemed she was the twin wearing the soot-darkened fireproof suit now. If she was the one at the fryer, that made Sour the accidental(?) arsonist.
Swirling spirals of ash and char criss-crossed the entire court, where it seemed Indigo’s whirlwinds had picked up the radiating flames and spread them even further to patches of grass they couldn’t have jumped to naturally. If it weren’t for the timely fire-blanket of fog, there wouldn’t be any living grass left in the entire courtyard.
Well, except for one spot. As it was, the only section completely untouched by flame was the circle where Sunny had been standing when the Royal cohort fetched her. Either Indigo avoided blinding her in the fog on purpose, or Sunny cleared it away herself.
That just left Lemon unaccounted-for, and Sunset spotted her ruddy coat belly-flopped onto the stage.
Since so many of the ponies were gathered on the stage-side of the Break, that’s where the Princess decided to bring her retinue. She called out to Indigo and Bearberry as she passed, asking them to join her there. Indigo’s cleanup wasn’t exactly done, so a dewy mist hung over the field in weird, angular patches, like the chalk on a blackboard that dodged the lecturer’s eraser. It was ugly as Tartarus to just leave the job unfinished, but sooner or later, the pegasus magic keeping it together would wear off and the four-in-the-afternoon sun would disperse the rest, if a pegasus palace-gardener didn’t get around to it first.
Cadance flew up to the platform. Shining teleported. Sunset… honestly couldn’t trust herself not to teleport to the train station and buy a one-way ticket to a new life in New Horseleans if she sparked up her horn at all, so she detoured up the stairs at the side, where she proceeded to bang her cannon bone on the first step. She finished cursing under her breath right as she positioned herself beside Cadance, opposite Shining.
Sunny Flare and Sugarcoat did not follow the trio up the stage.
Instead, Sunny huddled among the crowd of her former(?) friends, from which she cast soemthing between a grimace and a sneer up at Sunset Shimmer – for just a fraction of a second, before shifting into that vacant smile she put on around her mother.
Meanwhile, Sugarcoat sat down and set about retying her hair the way it was, by hoof and by mouth. Admittedly, it didn’t take her nearly as long as Sunset would have thought. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a single ponytail would be more professional. Definitely couldn’t imagine her keeping the tri-tail ‘do in court.
Of course, a certain pegasus also seemed to miss the memo that the Princess was using the stage. Lemon Zest didn’t even seem to notice she wasn’t alone anymore – not until Shining cleared his throat and telekinetically nudged her into crawling off, at least. She tried to land on her hooves, but they buckled and sent her to the ground with a soft thud and a groan, where she seemed content to remain.
Peering over at the heap of horse limbs below, Sunset noticed that her feathers were singed, and her barrel rose and fell like she’d just flown a marathon. She probably helped – or, more likely, was coerced into helping – with the firefighting, probably by the herding dog Indigo Zap made herself into for the layabout pegasus.
Ms. Zap herself, drenched head to hoof, dripping from every feather, and still wild-eyed with adrenaline, was clearly the MVP in extinguishing it… But of course, she was also the LVP for enabling it to spread so far in the first place.
She gave Lemon a soft kick in the ribs and pulled her back onto her hooves, whether Ms. Zest wanted to stand or not (and she did not, but she didn’t have the energy to fight Indigo about it).
Sour Sweet, reeking of fryer-oil and smoke, gave up on the charcoal bird she dispassionately nibbled at. With one kick, she sent it hurtling a dozen yards away, where it shattered into a million flakes of ash and grit against a pillar. The sound of ripping velcro returned Sunset’s attention to the mare as she stepped out of her suit and rejoined her coworkers.
Nopony had the energy to ask why they’d all been called together. They already knew what it was about. It was time to give up the farce.
Cadance took a deep and reluctant breath before addressing the gathered crowd. “May I please have your attention, everypony? Or, I guess I should say, my little ponies? I have some announcements to make.”
All eyes were on her.
“I don’t have a speech prepared,” the fledgling Princess admitted, “so please forgive me for being brief.
“You’ve all done so much in the single week of lead time you’ve been given to arrange my Coronation ceremony. For that, I am truly grateful.”
“There’s going to be a ‘but’,” Sour predicted.
“But–”
“Of course.”
Shining Armor thumped his hoof on the stage floor, and she quieted down.
“–we will be going back to the original plan for a quiet, private coronation. Your services as event coordination contractors are no longer necessary. I wish I could just give you all more time, but the political situation is… Well, Equestria needs a Princess, and I cannot properly act as one until I’ve been properly crowned. I’m sorry.”
Heads hung low. Ears flattened. Shoulders slumped. Eyes wandered to the floor.
“I think it’s clear that one week was just… not enough time at all,” she continued. The crowd murmured their general agreement. “There was a lack of communication on my part that led to this, and I am sorry for causing you all so much heartache and stress as a result.”
Hold on.
Was she really taking the blame?
…Did anypony actually believe her?
Or – as Sunset considered, her blood temperature rising a few degrees Pferdenheit – was this one of those Celestial “opportunities to come clean”?
Yeah, to Tartarus with that.
“Look, cut the crap,” interrupted Sunset, drawing hisses and gasps from the crowd. “You wanna talk about blame, point your pinions at these five.” Just in case it wasn’t clear, Sunset projected bright, blue, blinking arrows over the heads of each of her subordinates. “And Cinch, too. We asked for six good, smart ponies, and instead we got five drooling clowns who couldn’t brush their own manes without burning their houses down. She ripped us off!”
Everypony went so silent you could hear them blink. The silence hung for what felt like minutes before–
Before that hideous, awful laughter filled the air and split her ears. Porcine snorts, hacking cackles, and dying gasps, almost proudly obnoxious, erupted from Sour Sweet’s mouth like so much gunk out of a backflowing shower-drain.
“What’s so funny?!”, Sunset demanded. “You ruined Princess Cadance’s coronation!”
Sour tried to answer for herself, but she lacked the breath. Instead, she dropped to the ground with a heavy whump, convulsing in horrid glee.
So, Sugarcoat volunteered to answer for her. “You made yourself the manager, but you didn’t really do that much actual management. You mostly just stayed inside and avoided us until the end of the day, whereupon you came out to yell at us, scat on all our work, and then yell at us some more, without actually telling me how to actually do the job you put me in as an afterthought.” She always sounded annoyed, but for a moment, she lapsed into outright-peeved. “We’d have gotten more done if you weren’t even on the committee at all.”
Sunset snapped back without hesitation. “You wouldn’t have gotten this job in the first place if it wasn’t for me! I ignored so many red flags to give you ungrateful throwbacks this job!” It only occurred to Sunset how culpable that made her sound after she’d already said it.
But Indigo butted in before Sunset could walk it back. “You call this a job? ‘Cause yeah, what Sugar said – you sure haven’t been putting in any work for somepony with a Princess to please. The only thing you seem to care about is badgering Sunny for some moon-banished reason. I’m tryna figure out whose Team you’re even on,” she says, with an odd punch to the ‘t’ in ‘team, “‘cause it sure ain’t our Team, and it sure ain’t Cadance’s Team, so that just leaves you on a Team. Of. Your. Own.” Indigo snorted and turned away. “Whatever your Team is, you let ‘em down. I ain’t working for you ever again, ‘boss’, no matter what kind of opportunity you dangle in front of me.”
“Good! You’re never gonna get another, anyways! You don’t deserve it.” ‘Same as me,’ whispered the back of her mind.
Lemon stumbled in-between Sunset and Indigo before the latter could snap back. “Sunset, dudette, you gotta relax–”
“Relax?!”, Sunset shrieked. For some reason, that peeved her off more than anything. Maybe because it didn’t give her anything new to work with. Though, it was probably for the best. Sure, she could go off on a rant of her own – and she sure wanted to – but her self-preservation instincts were starting to punch through the wall of rage in her brain.
But then she saw Sunny Flare, with a scowl on her face and her lips poised to speak, and the fire within hungered for the fuel she would speak.
When Miss Flare locked eyes with Sunset, however, she froze. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks and her mouth just hung silently, stupidly, sheepishly open.
“Go on, Flare,” Sunset spat, steam practically boiling from her nose and ears, “Might as well finish the set. Aren’t you dying to rip into me, too?”
But all Sunny did was shut her mouth with a frown and step back into the crowd, weirdly glancing around as though trying to remember where she was.
Whatever she wanted to say, she’d clearly decided against it. Not that it really helped Sunset’s case, seeing as Sunny’d already had a private tattle-session with the Princess herself.
And honestly? That was just insulting.
“Don’t you try and spare my rutting dignity, you little snake!”, Sunset screamed. “What were you gonna say?! Lemme hear it!”
Whatever confusion afflicted her, Sunset’s volume snapped her out of it, at least enough to mumble something about hearing more mean-spirited corruptions of her name in one week than she heard in six years at Crystal Prep.
It was at that point that Lemon tried to plead again, “I’m telling you, Sunset, you gotta chill out.”
“‘Chill out.’ Ha! You idiots murdered my last chance to save my destiny and make Cadance happy, and you want me to take it in stride?!” She stomped her hoof. 
Sunny’s frown curdled into that rictus of discomfort again. “‘Save your destiny’? What on Equus are you talking about?”
“Might as well tell you; it’s not like it’ll make a difference, soon enough!” Without warning, Sunset leapt off the stage, marched up, and mashed her hoof against Sunny Flare’s chest. “You’re wrong, you know?”
Sunny backed up. Or maybe the thump was just that forceful. “…About?”
Every step Sunny Flare retreated, Sunset Shimmer advanced. “About how the ‘Princess of Patience’ would never disown me! Guess what!” Another shove. “She did!” Another shove. “And when she went missing before she could make good on it, I thought my life was saved! Cadance was willing to give me a second chance!” Another shove. “Whole lotta good that did me! Now she’s going to kick me out, too.”
Then, like a candle in a draught, the fire animating Sunset snuffed itself out before her hoof could connect one last time. Her leg fell passively to the ground. “Is this what you wanted? Are you happy?”
Sunny gave no reply; just an awkward, uncomfortable stare, like that cat of hers was trying to gift her a dead songbird.
And then a wing was around Sunset’s back, soft and merely warm. Sunset didn’t resist, but she didn’t lean into it, either. She just turned to look up and shuddered at what she saw.
There, the eyes of Celestia (set in pink instead of white for some reason) flickered between the Sun Princess’s favorite three emotions with which to regard her student: disappointment, sorrow, and pity.
Well, come on then. Where was the Royal rage? Where was that fury, enkindled and stoked by Sunset’s self-determination, her deviation from the railroaded path? Where was the wrath Celestia brought to bear, in order to banish Sunset from her heart?
“Do it already,” Sunset spat, trying to coax her m– her mentor’s bile out.
But instead, the illusion broke. Celestia’s eyes – no, Cadance’s eyes – hid themselves behind scrunched-up lids as the Princess put herself through a breathing exercise. “Please, Sunset,” she began, but then shivered like she was trying not to cry.
The Princess. Crying. In front of everypony.
She didn’t, but everypony saw how close she got. Cadance couldn’t save face about that. Enough weakness had been shown, and these climbers and lunatics, these dogs-in-the-shape-of-ponies – they couldn’t be trusted not to sink their teeth into that vulnerability.
To be honest? There was a rabid part of Sunset that wanted to bite into Cadance as well – to get one last petulant lash-out in, before she was forced to say goodbye to the Palace forever. This mutt was kept in check by the same part that wanted to protect Cadance, to cover up her weaknesses and spare her dignity. Subconsciously, her hooves tried to put her own body between Cadance and those horrible mares, and it was only the earthly strength within her alicorn frame that held Sunset in place.
Why, though? The odds of Cadance giving Sunset a third chance seemed pretty rutting slim. What would Sunset stand to gain from shielding the Princess? What would she stand to lose by leaving her to the dogs? Nothing!
So why did she feel bad for even having the idea?
Before Sunset could put name to a reason, the time for introspection was rudely interrupted.
From a door to the south thundered the hooves of a guardspony aide, desperately trying not to show the panic beneath the rigid muscles in his face.
At the same time, from a balcony to the north, a short, garnet-red dragon (no more than a foot and a half over Smolder) unsteadily flapped and glided his way over to the stage as well, carrying some gray slab of stone. Smolder herself hobbled after him, wide-eyed.
Sunset had to assume this second dragon was Garble, whom she’d managed to avoid this entire time. The dragons’ chosen ‘diplomat’ appeared to be a young teenager, which really shouldn’t have surprised Sunset, given what else she’d gathered about the dragons’ improvisationalist approach to all aspects of government that did not immediately concern the collection of tithes.
The aide reached the stage – and Shining’s side – only a few seconds before the dragons, where he whispered something in his ear that made every muscle in the captain’s body tense up. Immediately, he shored up Princess Cadance’s other, unoccupied flank, his horn bluing at the ready.
He landed, shouting to get the attention of the “big pink pony lady”. His crooked, snaggle-toothed, kickable-looking snout suggested a lot about how he got his name – yet his actual voice, thankfully, did not. How he spoke so clearly with a mug like that was anypony’s guess.
His hollering was interrupted when Shining got between him and Cadance with an arcane shield-wall like a block of solid sapphire-and-tourmaline, treating Garble as though he were a pillaging raider instead of an official envoy.
Garble, for his part, raised his hands, furled his wings, and slowly backed away.
Wide-eyed, Cadance begged to know, “What’s going on? Why are you…?”
Garble, Smolder, and Shining answered in unison.
From Shining, “The dragons are coming.”
From Garble, “The big guy got tired of waiting for his sceptre.”
From Smolder, “Torch is leading a warflight here!”
Ah, scat.