Chapter 15
Drag Me to Tartarus
Twilight paced up and down, one ear constantly listening out for a knock on the door. “Do I look all right?”
“You look wonderful, just like always,” Cadance said reassuringly.
“Do you think I should have worn a dress?”
“No,” Cadance replied with infinite patience. “What would be the point in Ponyville? You’d look ostentatious, and if Sunset wasn’t dressed up then you’d embarrass her.”
“Do you think Sunset will be wearing a dress?”
“I very much doubt it,” Cadance said.
“What if after all this, we end up not having a very good time?” Twilight asked. “What if we don’t connect? What if we don’t have anything to talk about? What if there’s no spark, what if-“
“Twilight,” Cadance said firmly, her voice rising a little. Twilight stopped, one hoof still raised for the next, abandoned, step. Cadance climbed to her hooves. “Deep breath.” She breathed in, Twilight doing likewise, before the two princesses exhaled at the same time.
“And calm,” Cadance said. “You’re getting worked up over nothing, Twilight. You and Sunset have already proven that there’s a connection between you, so what are you worrying about?”
“Everything,” Twilight said with a nervous smile. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been this jittery since Princess Celestia said she was going to set me a test. Where you ever this nervous before a date?”
“I was even worse before my first ever date,” Cadance confessed. “I didn’t know how to act, what to say, I didn’t even know the boy half as well as you know Sunset.”
“What did you do?”
“I freaked out,” Cadance said. “Until a wise mare told me something I’ve never forgotten: if he’s not that into you, then more fool him. Be yourself, and if it’s meant to work out then it will.”
Twilight’s smile broadened, becoming a little less nervous and a little more genuine. “Thank you, for everything.”
“I’ll be waiting up,” Cadance said. “When you get back you can tell me all about it.”
“Okay, mom,” Twilight said, chuckling. “When do you think Sunset will-“
There was a knock on the door.
“Ah, perfect timing,” Cadance said.
Twilight trotted quickly down the stairs and to the door. She paused for a moment, primping her mane with one hoof, before she opened it.
Sunset stood on the doorstep, a bundle of lavender and pink carnations levitating beside her. “Hey! Um, these are for you. I didn’t want to go for anything too generic, so I chose colours that matched your mane.”
Twilight laughed as she took them. “That’s really sweet of you. Thank you.”
“You know,” Sunset said. “When human Flash showed up for our first date with a bunch of red and yellow flowers because they went with my hair, I thought he was the dumbest thing I’d ever laid eyes on. Well, to be fair, he is. But on the other side of the door I can kind of see the appeal.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re that dumb.”
“That dumb?”
“You have done a few stupid things,” Twilight reminded her.
Sunset laughed. “Yeah, I can’t deny that, can I? But I am confident this isn’t one of them. Are you ready?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re not going to go powder your nose while Cadance tries to intimidate me are you?”
“Did you see all my guards outside?” Cadance called from upstairs.
“See you later, Cadance,” Twilight said with amusement as she stepped outside and closed the door. The air was cool and refreshing on her face. The sun still shone bright above them, but Twilight guessed that there was not so much time left before Celestia lowered the sun to make way for the moon and for the night.
“So where are we going?” Twilight asked, as Sunset led the way.
“Up to the gazebo,” Sunset replied. “I thought we could eat first and then…well, you’ll see once we’ve eaten.”
As they climbed the hill towards the gazebo, Twilight saw that Sunset had decorated it in lights, like a thousand fireflies crawling down the walls. She had also set up a table within, laid out for a formal dinner. The cushions to sit on looked plump and soft, the tablecloth looked pristine, the silverware shone with the reflected lights of the gazebo.
“You’ve been busy,” Twilight said.
“I had a little help from your friends,” Sunset said. “I suppose I should be flattered that they think I can make you happy. I doubt they’d give me a chance otherwise.”
“Probably the opposite,” Twilight murmured.
Sunset reached the gazebo entrance first and bowed her head, gesturing Twilight to go inside. “After you.”
Twilight chuckled, shaking her head as she went in and sat down. Sunset took the jug of cider already sitting on the table and poured some of it into a pair of flute glasses.
Sunset raised her glass, the aura of her magic surrounding it, and paused. She seemed to be at a loss for words. Eventually she said, “To you.”
“To happiness,” Twilight countered, raising her own glass in turn.
Sunset snorted. “Yeah, why not. To happiness.”
They drank, the cider felt rich and strong down Twilight’s throat.
Sunset set her glass down. “Now dinner should begin arriving-“
She was interrupted by the sound of a cart being pushed up the hill, rattling at it went. As it crested the hilltop, Twilight could see that it was a two-storey cart laden with silver platters, being pushed by Pinkie Pie, wearing a chef’s hat and a fake moustache that reminded Twilight a little of Gustave le Grande.
“Good evening, ladies,” Pinkie said in a distinctly fake accent. “My name is Diane, le Pie au Pink, and I have prepared zis delicious meal for you to enjoy tonight. Now I recommend you begin with-“
“Pinkie,” Sunset interrupted. “What are you doing?”
Pinkie looked around. “Pinkie, who is zis Pinkie? I have told you that my name is Diane-“
Sunset stood up, pulling off the fake moustache with a tug of her telekinesis. “Pinkie, I know it’s you. Twilight knows that it’s you. The photographer in the bushes trying to get pictures of our date knows that it’s you and he’s never seen you before. Yes, I see you in there, you creep! Beat it!”
“Aww.” Somepony moaned by way of reply.
Sunset took a deep breath. “Pinkie, what are you doing here? I asked Mrs Cake to do this.”
“And she would have, if Pound and Pumpkin hadn’t had a major emergency,” Pinkie hissed. “When that happened I was more than happy to volunteer.”
“Then why the disguise?” Twilight asked.
“I didn’t want to distract you from your alone time,” Pinkie said. She put the ridiculous moustache back on, though the accent did not return. “Just sit back, relax and pretend I’m not even here.”
Sunset sighed as she sat down. “Okay.”
Pinkie took a big platter of pasta off the cart and laid it on the table, removing the lid with a flourish. “Bon appetit!”
Sunset frowned. “Aren’t we supposed to have a starter first?”
“But I want to see you start on the same piece of spaghetti from different ends and kiss!” Pinkie protested.
“Pinkie,” Sunset growled.
“Okay, okay,” Pinkie said, taking the pasta back and setting out two light salads.
“Thank you,” Sunset said.
“Yes, thank you, Pinkie,” Twilight said. “It’s really nice of you to want to do this.”
Pinkie did not respond, instead settling into an impression of Spike at his most self-consciously servile, eyes closed and nose in the air.
Sunset took a bite out of a piece of celery. “I hope you don’t mind such a traditional choice. I’ll come up with more imaginative ideas in future.
“Why didn’t you just ask me for help?” Pinkie said. “I could have come up with tons of really cool ideas for you-“ she stopped, seeming to remember that she had sworn to be invisible. “Sorry.”
Twilight chuckled. “I don’t mind at all. I think it’s a good idea, something quiet to get us started. Just being with you is enough.”
Sunset flushed bright red, turning away as she looked down. For a moment she also looked like Fluttershy, and the contrast with the Sunset that Twilight had first met was so strong that Twilight couldn’t help but laugh.
“What?” Sunset asked.
“I was just thinking about how we met,” Twilight said. “If we could know then what we know now, if we had known where we would both end up, how do you think we’d react?”
“You mean you haven’t caught on to the brilliance of my scheme yet?” Sunset asked. “I knew I had to make some kind of grand gesture to attract the notice of a princess, so I stole your crown because I knew, I knew, that if I did that you would have to chase me. And you did, and I let myself be caught.” She waved her hooves to encompass their surroundings. “And the rest is history.”
“Yes, because clearly your theft of an element of harmony, corruption of an entire school and attempt to conquer Equestria using an army of zombies was all just the initiation of an unorthodox courtship,” Twilight said, her tone deadpan. “It all makes so much sense now.”
“Exactly. I can’t believe you didn’t work it out sooner,” Sunset said with a smirk. She leaned back upon the cushions. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Everything that you are, everything that I love, was there all along,” Twilight whispered. “I just helped a little.”
The blush on Sunset’s face became even redder than before, and she might have said something else had not the placid evening been suddenly disturbed by the sound of somepony starting to play on an accordion.
It was Pinkie, of course.
“Tell me she’s not,” Sunset sighed.
Pinkie started to sing.
“She is,” Twilight said, a grin spreading slowly across her face.
Sunset sighed, her eyes glancing upwards towards the sky as a grimly resigned expression occupied her face.
“This is not what I planned,” she muttered, and she looked as though she would have said something to Pinkie if Twilight hadn’t put a hoof on Sunset’s outstretched arm.
Sunset looked at her, surprised. “Really?” she asked, scepticism evident in her tone.
Twilight nodded. “If I didn’t like Pinkie’s singing I’d have had to leave Ponyville a long time ago. Listen to her; she’s pretty good, isn’t she?”
Sunset’s ears pricked up. She smiled. “Hey, Pinkie!”
Pinkie stopped playing, the sound of the accordion coming to a clattering halt. “Yes, Sunset?”
“Can you play something a little faster?” Sunset asked. “It’s time for the dancing.”
“Can I?” Pinkie exclaimed. “Just who do you think I am, Sunset?” And with that, she launched into a fast paced reel, her forelegs working the bellows with astonishing speed.
Sunset stood up, offering one hoof to Twilight. “Your Highness, may I have the honour?”
No sooner had Twilight reached out and taken her hoof than Sunset pulled her onto her hooves and into her embrace. Twilight started to feel very warm as Sunset half-led, half-dragged her out of the gazebo and onto the hillside where they reeled to the sound of Pinkie’s playing. Sunset’s coat was warm against Twilight’s body, her eyes were large and beautiful in Twilight’s gaze. So bright, as though an inner fire burned behind them: the fire that burned in Sunset’s soul. As they pranced upon the grass, Sunset’s mane waved about her, brushing against Twilight’s cheek, covering her face. It looked, Twilight thought, as though someone had woven sunlight into it.
“I half feel like we ought to be singing a duet, don’t you?” Sunset asked, gasping for air from the exertions of the rapid dancing.
Twilight didn’t have the breath to respond, but she did manage a staccato giggle in between deep breaths.
The sun began to sink low in the sky, descending rapidly under the compulsion of Celestia’s power. Twilight and Sunset stopped dancing, sitting down on the hillside to watch as the sun approached the horizon.
“What were you thinking, before?” Sunset asked. “You had a weird look on your face.”
Twilight shrugged. “I was just…just, um, realising again how smart and beautiful you are.”
“So I’m looking in a mirror for you, basically?” Sunset said.
Twilight snorted. They both watched the sun redden as it began to disappear from view.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Sunset asked.
“The Sunset?”
“The Twilight.”
They looked at one another. Twilight could feel a crackle in the air; she knew what she wanted to do but, she had no idea how to start. She had never been in this situation before.
“Oh, the hay with it,” Sunset said, putting her hooves around Twilight’s neck and moving into a kiss. Twilight’s widened as their lips met, but then they closed as she allowed herself to melt into Sunset’s embrace and passionate kiss.
They broke off. Sunset gasped. “No way that was your first time.”
“Hey, it really was,” Twilight replied.
Sunset’s eyebrows rose. “Talk about natural talent.” She blinked, her eyes glancing downwards for a moment. When next she spoke, her voice was softer and more tender. “I’m really happy with you. Honestly. I don’t think that I’ve ever been happier.”
A crack of thunder split the sky, rolling over the hillside and out across Ponyville.
Twilight looked up, the sky was clear blue all the way to Canterlot, she couldn’t even see a cloud. “Rainbow didn’t say anything about a storm today.”
A lightning bolt came from that clear sky, landing directly in between Twilight and Sunset and hurling Twilight backwards head over hooves, sending her rolling across the hillside.
“Twilight!” Sunset yelled.
Twilight came to a stop on her belly, her face in the grass. Spitting green blades out of her mouth, Twilight looked up to see Pinkie out cold beside the gazebo and Sunset surrounded by a circle of blue fire which rose high but gave off no heat. Rather it seemed as cold as ice.
“Sunset!” Twilight cried, climbing to her hooves and running towards the flaming circle that held Sunset captive. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Sunset shouted. She ran towards the flames but some force pushed her back from them.
“Hold still,” Twilight said, her horn glowing as she conjured a spell to put the fire out. It had no effect. Neither did her failsafe spell.
Is Discord doing this? Twilight wondered, remembering the time her spell had had absolutely no effect against his corrupting influence, but her question was answered a moment later by the appearance of three figures.
They looked a little like the humans that she had met on the other side of the mirror, but where the friends she had made in that world had possessed the same bright hues as her friends in Equestria, these creatures had skin of slimy green and putrid grey, the colours of scaly reptiles and decaying death. They had wings like bats, but tattered and torn with holes as though these creatures were so old that their bodies had started to fall apart. They had clawed hands and talons for feet, and serpents coiled around their waists, hissing and spitting at Sunset.
The first of them had hair of fire, crimson and gold like Sunset’s mane, but angry and alive, pulsing and moving. In one clawed hand she gripped a flaming sword, in the other a whip that looked to be made of living fire. Her eyes were red and her teeth resembled the fangs of a wolf.
The second also had hair that burned, but her fire was an icy blue and her eyes were a pure green. In one hand she bore a sword of ice, in the other a crude iron knife, dripping with poison.
The last of them had no fire in her hair. Instead, she had what Twilight realised after a while were spines of bone instead of strands of hair. Spines topped with miniature skulls of ponies and humans alike, moaning and howling as they waved in a wind that had not been there a moment earlier. She carried an ancient-looking stone axe and, strangely, a book with yellowing pages bound in crumbling leather.
They hummed in unison as they surrounded Sunset, who cowered in the centre of the circle of fire, whimpering in fear.
“No,” Sunset murmured. “No you cannot be here. You have no power save in my dreams. Go back! I defy you!”
“Defy?” hissed the one whose hair burned red. “To defy our sisterhood is to defy justice itself, and what are you, small mortal wretch that you are, to defy that power?”
“You know them?” Twilight demanded. “Sunset, what’s going on?”
“We are the Furies, pony child,” snarled the fury with bone for hair. “I am Tisiphone, fury of justice, I speak for the downtrodden, for those who have no voices, for those who have suffered at the hands of those who thought their might or wealth or influence rendered them beyond reproach, above redress.” Tisiphone smirked. “No one is beyond my reach.”
“I am Megaera, the fury of envy,” hissed the fury with the blades of ice and poison. “All those driven to evil by their jealousy are my prey. I punish those who sin for worldly possessions, who take what they want without caring who they hurt in the taking, who seek to tear apart those who are more beautiful or more talented. Faced with me, all thieves must ask if their prize was worth the punishment.”
“And I am Allecto, the fury of wrath,” cried the fury with burning hair. “I punish those who succumb to their rage, who let it drive them to wickedness. All who allow their hatred to dominate them will answer to me, and they will find their fury pales in comparison with mine own. We are the Furies, the natural check upon the corruption of the world, and we have come to claim an unrepentant sinner.”
“No!” Twilight shouted. “You’re wrong, Sunset has changed, she’s a better person now. She doesn’t deserve to-“
“Changed?” Allecto roared. “There is no change, there is no redemption, there is no mercy! There is only the act and the penalty.”
“Driven by envy, this creature has wrought misery and suffering in countless lives,” Megaera hissed.
“She committed crime after crime, evil after evil, abused her power and her influence to lord it over all she knew, flaunting her invulnerability from them. Then, when she feared that she might have to answer for her acts, she fled beyond the reach of any mortal law,” Tisiphone said. “Such affront to justice cries for answer.”
“Her soul is blighted by the scourge of wrath,” Allecto declared. “And driven by her rage she sought to commit even murder, the blackest of acts. Yet now she claims to be happy? What right has she to happiness, she who ought to have wandered the world in torn rags with ash upon her face in penitence? What of the happiness of her victims, what of their suffering? The wretch known as Sunset Shimmer has been weighed by us and found wanting: her soul is black as pitch, and as such it belongs to us by ancient right. Do not interfere, pony child.”
“I’m not a child!” Twilight snapped. “I’m a princess, and I-“
“Then take care you do not become our prey in your turn,” Tisiphone sneered. “I adore puncturing the arrogance of over mighty princes.”
“Peace, sister,” Allecto said coldly. “Our code is clear, and the child is innocent.”
“For now,” Tisiphone said sibilantly. “Who knows what a crown and the passage of years will make of her. It may be I will see her again.” She seemed to be positively looking forward to it.
“What may be is not our concern,” Allecto replied. “We are bound by the iron chains of laws older than gods or mortals. Sunset Shimmer is ours, and no other. Let us go.”
Her whip leapt forward and coiled around Sunset’s neck, pulling her to the ground. Sunset gasped as she floundered like a fish on a line, thrashing wildly as she sought to escape.
“No, wait!” Twilight yelled as the furies converged around Sunset. “Sunset!”
The three furies closed in, blocking Sunset completely from Twilight’s view.
“Tartarus awaits,” Megaera said, a slow and ugly smile upon her face.
The blue fire leapt up, glowing so bright that Twilight was blinded for a moment. Then it died down, and was gone.
So was Sunset, and so were the Furies.
“No,” Twilight murmured, tears starting to well up in her eyes.
“What do I do?” Twilight asked, but nopony answered.