Three Little Visitors: Pt 7
The effect was instantaneous and frankly uncomfortable. If Sunset had been obliged to describe it to someone, she would have said that it was like travelling through the portal to Equestria. The principal differences were that as opposed to the wide array of colours and unending whiteness beyond, all she could see were shadows flickering over a black and white background, murky and indistinct. Perhaps it was only the rapid passage through this odd landscape that made it seem so, but it seemed to Sunset that the shadows were not stationary. They appeared to her to be moving in wild, erratic twists and lunges, as though she moved through a host of dancing demons. The effect of most disconcerting.
The second difference was that, unlike the portal to Equestria, Sunset herself didn’t seem to move. She stood perfectly still, her breath caught in her lungs as though she was frozen in time, and her surroundings moved instead. Most assuredly they did, for Sunset felt the very ground beneath her feet surging underneath her, although it felt like no floor she had ever stood upon before.
After what might have been a few moments, or possibly several dragging years, Sunset managed to build up the courage to look around. For the first time, she noticed something beyond the shadows. In between their flickering, twisting forms, she saw places, flashing in and out of sight like photographs seen through a broken camera lens. Out of curiosity, she attempted to focus on one of them, although what this might achieve she didn’t know.
Sunset blinked. Everything had stopped moving. And everything had changed.
She looked around, and found herself in what appeared to be either an alley, or a small side-street of some kind. She frowned. Something was off about this place.
“All of the buildings are made of wood,” she observed, scratching her cheek. “And they’re not particularly well built either.”
This was true. The close-connected shacks and ramshackle buildings surrounding her varied in their standards of withstanding the elements. Some were solid looking but very old, whilst others were barely more than bits of broken timber fashioned together into primitive sorts of shelters.
Another weird thing, Sunset thought: “Where is everyone?”
The lack of people all around was incredibly unnerving. It was so quiet that Sunset could feel her senses heightening. Her ears filled with the indefinable whining of utter silence, her eyes flicking from broken down doors to far off shadows, fully expecting that the moment she looked away, something would appear.
Then she nearly jumped out of her skin as a sound echoed all around; a child’s laughter. In the utter silence it sounded sinister, reverberating in her ears so that it became impossible to know where it was coming from. She looked around desperately to see where it was coming from, and then she gasped.
Like holograms being belatedly activated around her, people began to appear in a great wave. It started behind her, a multitude of people appearing seemingly from nowhere, until the narrow little street became choked with them. The formerly silent street filled with the cacophony of the crowd, people arguing and shouting and talking.
And then another odd thing happened. All of the people changed for a brief instant. Sunset’s heart skipped a beat as she saw every person’s form flicker and change, morphing from two legged humans to four legged creatures, and then back again. This happened several times, completely entrancing Sunset, befuddling her, like watching a cinema screen distorting with a burning reel.
What’s going on? she thought desperately. What’s happening? Where am—
“Ah!” she cried.
Something small, about half her height, had run straight through her. Right through her back, and out through her chest, apparently without noticing her in the slightest. Sunset’s words of wonder caught in her throat as she recognised the bushy mane of orange hair.
“Come on!” Adagio shrieked happily.
And then two more people about the same height sprinted past Sunset, one with purple and green hair, and another with brightest blue. And then the weird flickering effect happened again. The three girls disappeared, replaced momentarily by three...
“They’re ponies!” Sunset gasped, unable to help herself. And she had just enough time to see that everyone around her were different as well. Some of them were ponies, but the vast majority of them seemed to be sheep.
“Um...” Sunset muttered, as the children disappeared around the corner. Instantly all of the people around her and their associated sounds vanished. Before she could react, her surroundings darkened to black as though the sun had been extinguished.
When the light returned, she found herself in a dimly lit building. The edifice was made of stone once painted with bright colours, but now dulled and chipped to show the greyish material beneath. Sunset felt curiously small, as though she had shrunk, since everything around her seemed to be larger than she expected them to be. And she couldn’t seem to be able to move, not even her eyes. Then her head moved of its own volition. The sensation brought on a feeling akin to sea-sickness, her stomach lurching with the feeling of her body moving without her commanding it to.
What the— she thought wildly. She saw her own hands and feet. She was sitting on the floor, her hands in her lap. Her body was definitely smaller, and her clothes were different. But they were definitely her hands; they were the same yellowish hue... or were they?
“Are you okay?” asked a voice.
Her head moved again, and turned her eyes towards a boy with white skin and purple curly hair. Or was it a boy? Again the odd distorting phenomena swept over her surroundings, and the few people she could see in the dimness of a nearby wall sconce changed. The boy turned into a lamb. The girl beyond him turned into a filly, and the girl beyond her a ewe. In the periphery of her vision her own hands turned to hooves.
“I’m fine.” Her own voice sounded high and child-like. She wished that her body would stop acting on its own.
She heard footsteps, and everyone fizzed back to human. From the shadows at the far end of the room came a broad figure, square-ish and oddly proportioned. A woman, clad in many shawls and holding a tureen of some sort, shuffled forward, and set the food down in the middle of the room.
“Don’t crowd, don’t crowd!” she called authoritatively, as all of the small figures around surged forward, Sunset herself amongst them. They all paused at the sight of the woman’s raised finger. She held it for a few moments, and then pulled out some wooden bowls. Deliberately, and with her sharp eyes still holding them all in place, she knelt down and scooped up whatever was in the clay container with the bowls, and handed them out. “Bunch of animals, the lot of you,” she said with familial humour.
When she handed one to Sunset, Sunset felt herself scamper back to the wall instead of staying with the rest of the children, and began scooping the contents of the bowl up with her hands to her mouth. Then her form flickered again, and she was plunging her muzzle into the bowl instead, lapping up the contents greedily.
What the hell is going on? Sunset thought, as she changed back to human. A great confusion had set in her mind. Or perhaps, not her mind, but the person she was at the time. She felt feelings unconnected to her, and realised that she could feel physical sensations that shouldn’t have been hers. She suddenly realised she had an intense hunger that the thick and tasteless food she had just ravenously devoured was barely able to alleviate.
Another, even more potent feeling within her, was one of trepidation, or fear. Rampant, undiluted fear. Something was going to happen to her, and she knew it. Something awful, something that had happened before. She probed her own mind to see what it was, but it was as though her own mind were trying to block out the memory.
“Adagio?”
That was the woman, the woman with the food. Sunset looked up, and saw her leaning down over her.
“Adagio, dear?” the woman said again. “It’s time to go now.”
Her mouth opened, her jaw tight and shaking.
“I-I can’t... I don’t w-want to...”
The woman’s brow creased. “I know you don’t. But there is no choice.” She reached down and grasped her arm. Sunset felt her heart leap in her chest. Panic she did not understand enveloped her, clouded her mind. Her surroundings warped, became a confusion of lights and sounds.
“No! Please don’t make me!” she screamed.
The scene changed.
She couldn’t be sure of what was happening, for everything was black. Then she realised that she had her eyes closed tight shut. She could only hear, and smell, and what she heard and smelt set her flesh tingling. The air was very close, warm, and moist. Low, male voices whispered all around her, interspersed with other, primal sounds. She could feel herself trying desperately to block them out. She smelled sweat on the air, and something sweet like perfume or incense.
A low chuckle very close to her made her skin crawl, and then a large, thick fingered hand touched her shoulder. It began to nudge aside the fabric there so that it slid down her upper arm.
“Sunset!”
Sunset drew in a breath, feeling as though she had been near drowning. She careened backwards into the makeup table and scraped her back against its side.
“Sunset, the pendant!” Twilight screamed.
Sunset opened her mouth, her fuzzy brain half-forming a question, until a sudden burning pain blocked out all other thought. Her hands flew to her chest. The shards of broken stone were fixed there, pressing towards her heart through the fabric of her coat. They burned like molten metal. She screamed.
Twilight leapt forward and tried to seize the shards, pry them free, but she screamed too, backing away with her hands steaming.
Sonata shrieked in horror, and Aria dropped the hairdryer which clunked to the floor and bounced away from her. Adagio backed slowly away, her eyes wide and brimming with tears, tripping backwards against the bed. Rapid footfalls from below indicated that their friends had heard the noise.
Sunset seized hold of the shards, and despite the fact that they burned her fingers, she couldn’t let go of them. They would burn though her coat, reach her chest and scorch into her heart! She cried out as her flesh hissed. The room filled with a sinister red light, the shards glowing with a bloody radiance.
Without warning, something bowled her over and swatted her hands aside. Sunset looked up through streaming eyes to see Aria’s pinched little purple face, her brow furrowed as she scrabbled at Sunset’s chest. With enormous effort, she yanked the largest shard away from Sunset’s chest, and with a grunt of disgust, threw it hard across the room.
Sunset looked down desperately, about to pull away the other shards too, but the heat abruptly stopped, and the deathly radiance dimmed. The pressure lessened, and with a revolted gasp, Aria swatted away the remaining pieces.
“Stop right there, dirtbag!”
Everyone in the room jumped as the door blew open and a mass of pink flew into the room. Executing a forward roll, Pinkie stood up on one knee, aiming a pair of salad tongues into the shadowy corners of the room.
“Um...” she said after a short pause. “Where’s the dirtbag?”
“Dear me, what is going on up here?”
In scattered fashion, the rest of their friends burst into the room, staring around shining torch beams into the shadows.
Rarity spotted Sunset and Twilight huddled by the dresser, both of them holding their burnt and blistered hands in front of them. “Oh my darlings!” she cried, leaping down next to them. “Whatever happened to your hands?”
Neither Twilight nor Sunset were much able to form comprehensible sentences at that particular moment. Fluttershy vanished and reappeared carrying a number of supplies that she hastily explained she found in a bathroom cupboard down the hall, and with Rarity’s help began to bandage their hands. Meanwhile, Sunset noticed, Pinkie was talking to Aria. Sunset had never seen the little siren talk so much before, but right now she was gabbling away in rapid Greco-dialect, pointing at the chunk of red pendant glimmering on the floor.
“No Pinkie, don’t!” Sunset exclaimed, as Pinkie went to pick it up.
“What?” Pinkie asked, looking puzzled. She held the stone between forefinger and thumb, and nothing whatsoever was happening.
Sunset frowned. She began to puzzle over the incongruity of this, but soon found that her curiosity and confusion was being steadily overridden by something else inside of her. As the pain in her bandaged hands receded into a dull pulse, her mind returned inexorably to the images the pendant chunk had inspired in her.
“Sunset?” someone said.
Sunset felt something touch her shoulder. She let out a shriek and tried to leap back from her seated position on the floor, tripping on the carpet and falling backwards onto her elbows.
She stared up at Rainbow, who had pulled back her hand in shock.
“Um... sorry?” Rainbow said feebly.
Sunset felt cold sweat on her head, and her entire body was shaking. She’d never felt so frail, so brittle, so... exposed before. Not even her defeat and exposure to the school for the terrible person that she’d been compared to this feeling. It was more than just emptiness, a fragile form revealed to unfriendly eyes. There was a sense of unwanted intimacy, of violation. The touch on her shoulder had sent a thrill of terror through her that she couldn’t quite understand.
She looked up at her friends, all looking shocked and concerned. Sonata stood beside her, pulling at her fingers and looking tearful.
After a few moments, her heart rate returned to normal levels, and she regained control of her ragged breathing. It felt so much like coming back to her own body that she took hold of her own arms as though to ground herself. The feeling of fear receded quickly as the memory of what she had seen fell into a well of time inside of her. It felt like an old memory, something that she had buried deep within her for a long time. And with this mental certainty came a feeling of loneliness, a terrible feeling of solitude. A cracked reality of infinite darkness she dare not reach out towards, lest it fall away and reveal some even more ghastly world beyond it.
All of these feelings came upon her so fast that for a while she wasn’t sure of her surroundings. When she came back to herself again, she found that someone was nudging her shoulder. Sonata. She managed not to jump this time.
“Oh... hello...” Sunset rasped. Her throat was so dry...
Sonata’s face was streaked with tears. She put her arms as far around Sunset as possible and gripped her tight, as though she thought Sunset was going to fall into the floor.
“Whoa, hey there,” Rainbow said tentatively, as Sunset rubbed Sonata back. “You back with us?”
“What?” Sunset asked.
“You kinda... zoned out on us,” Rainbow explained awkwardly.
“Whatever is the matter?” Rarity asked, her face pale. “You’ve been sitting there staring into space and crying.”
“We didn’t wanna move ya or anything, considerin... well...” Applejack glanced at Rainbow. She too looked white and afraid. Sunset suddenly began to feel a little ashamed.
“I... I s-saw...” Sunset began, but then something occurred to her. She looked around. All of her friends were crowded in front of her, all eyeing her with concern. Sonata had pulled away and was looking frightened. Aria on the other hand wasn’t near the group. Sunset looked behind her, and found out why.
Sunset stood up. The movement was so sudden that her friends all gasped or stood back. Without paying attention to any of them, Sunset moved over to where Aria was kneeling next to Adagio.
The lead siren was sitting against the bed, her knees tucked up to her chest with her arms around her shins. Sunset wasn’t entirely aware of moving towards her, but she knew exactly how Adagio was feeling. She didn’t know how she knew; perhaps it was the haunted, deadened look in the eyes, or the glittering dew on her brow, or the way she was trembling as though expecting something to happen, or perhaps it was all or none of these things. Whatever it was, Sunset knelt down next to her, and carefully pulled her into a close embrace.
Adagio reacted as Sunset had expected her too. She shook violently as soon as Sunset made contact, and for a few moments she fought wildly, trying to swing out her arms, kick her legs. She opened her mouth and began to cry out words Sunset did not understand. After a while however, her words thickened, and she began to sniffle; Sunset did not let go.
“It’s alright,” she breathed, almost sobbing herself. “I know. But it’s okay.”
Sunset had the uncomfortable feeling that, despite the fact that she was saying this to Adagio, it was at least in part meant for herself. But whatever she was feeling, Adagio had felt before her, and Sunset needed warmth, the proximity of another person, to be told she wasn’t alone with this terrible emptiness. In a vague, emotional way, she reasoned that Adagio needed the same thing.
After a few moments, Adagio’s sobbing cries that Sunset presumed were demands to be let go lapsed into incomprehensible sniffles and crying. Much to Sunset’s surprise, she felt Adagio’s thin arms grip her suddenly around the middle.
“Err...”
Sunset looked up. Twilight was kneeling next to her, Sonata hovering uncertainly behind the alicorn’s back.
“Sunset, would I be asking too much if I asked...” she seemed to cast around for the words she wanted.
“I’ll explain,” Sunset said, her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat. “I’ll try anyway. But I don’t think that I can now.”
“I understand,” Twilight said, nodding.
Somehow, Sunset really didn’t think that she did. She, Sunset, didn’t think she herself understood. What she suspected, she dearly hoped was wrong.
The set up for the sleep-in was simple enough, but fraught with many minor complications. Unable to find any alternative heat sources other than the battery-powered hairdryer, they had no recourse but to hunker down in the main lounge next to the fire. Applejack and Rainbow Dash made their way around the room using whatever materials they could find to plug up the numerous means for the draft to come through, Rarity all the while hooting and complaining at their use of such exquisite fabrics like the curtains to be used in such a manner.
Much to Fluttershy’s unease, Pinkie Pie made it her business to call all of their parents and explain where they were.
“Hi Mrs. Rarity’s Mom, we’re staying in an abandoned scary mansion on Stepton House Road because we’re hemmed in by the snow, hope we don’t freeze to death in here, see you later, bye!”
“Um... Pinkie?” Fluttershy ventured tentatively. “Perhaps we could be just a little more informative, and a little less... direct.”
“What’s wrong with the way I’m doing it?” Pinkie asked, genuinely bemused.
“Well, it’s just that, um, the way you’ve said it all might be considered kind of... just a little...”
“You’re not being very delicate about it, darling,” Rarity called over. “Although you’re not the only one.” She glared at Applejack, who was studiously ignoring her whilst she shoved a wall tapestry against the gap under a side door.
“Sunset?” Twilight asked. “You’ve been kind of quiet for a while.” She pursed her lips when Sunset didn’t reply. It wasn’t that Sunset didn’t want to speak, she just couldn’t summon the energy to do it. “I know that you’ve experienced... umm,” she glanced briefly to one side. “Well, something.”
Sunset looked at Twilight. She was holding the three plastic bags containing the shattered remains of the siren pendants. Aria had retrieved the pieces that had attacked them, distastefully dropping them into the bag and handing them to Twilight. The princess had sat for a long while simply examining the bags, not daring to open them, sifting them around through the plastic with her bandaged fingers.
Sunset supposed that under usual circumstances, she’d be just as curious, just as willing to dismiss a painful experience in pursuit of knowledge. Right now however, she wasn’t up to it. Her mind was entirely enveloped.
Adagio sat with Aria on some of the sofa cushions set up by the fire. Despite Sunset’s misgivings, the sirens seemed to have no problem with the fire, and huddled close to it. Sonata on the other hand, apparently still feeling traces of guilt, was sat over by Twilight, feigning interest in the shards of broken pendent too.
Sunset stared at Adagio, wondering what she was thinking. In spite of her newfound friendships, and the relationship that she’d had with Princess Celestia and her parents, Sunset had never really felt a great connection with anyone. She felt too dissimilar. In the case of her friends, she still felt feelings of taint, pangs of guilt for what she had been. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever lose those misgivings, or if she wanted to lose them. Perhaps it was only those feelings of regret that made her the person that she was now. Narcissism aside, she liked who she was now.
Adagio however, or at least this younger version, Sunset felt some kind of connection with. She too was different from what she had once been, with a checked past and new chance at life. And then there were the memories they now shared, for Sunset was sure that that was what they were. Memories of a distant land in a different time. And all Sunset could think about was what they had been, and what they signified.
The next day, they struck camp from inside the old mansion. Rainbow leapt up to a higher window above the door and landed deftly on the four or five feet of snow outside that was blocking the door. No sooner had she begun to dig the door out of the way however, then Applejack pulled the door open from the inside, giving Rainbow a patronising look.
“I would have exited through the window anyway,” Rainbow stated, her face burning. “I always start the morning with deft acrobatics.”
Applejack said nothing, but simply smiled widely all the way back to the area of town they were familiar with, walking easily through the ploughed road courtesy of the city. This highly uncharacteristic form of mental torture so threw Rainbow off that she could only mutter resentfully all the way back, unable to retaliate or retort to comments that did not come.
Twilight took the opportunity whilst everyone else was eagerly watching Rainbow collapse inwardly at the inability to argue with Applejack, to inquire as to whether Sunset was feeling any better.
“Yeah, kinda,” Sunset said, putting on a smile. “In truth, I didn’t really feel bad. Just... well, shocked, I guess.”
“I know that what happened was probably really scary,” Twilight said, putting a hand on Sunset’s shoulder. “It seemed to only burn the two of us, didn’t it?”
Sunset frowned, giving Twilight a probing look. “Didn’t you...?” she asked faintly.
“I’m sorry?” Twilight asked, leaning in.
Sunset blinked, recovering herself. “Didn’t you see the images?”
Twilight raised her eyebrows. “Images...?” she asked slowly.
“You didn’t see them,” Sunset surmised. “When Adagio touched the fragments, for an instance, I saw things. Memories; I’m sure that’s what they were.”
Twilight looked very serious all of a sudden. “We’ll talk more when we get inside.” She ran a hand over the outside of her coat pocket, no doubt feeling for the bags of shards. “If it’s alright, I’d like to hear all about this.”
“I’m not really sure how to begin,” Sunset said, setting down Twilight’s coffee on the kitchen counter.
“Anywhere you feel comfortable,” Twilight said delicately. She glanced down at her coffee, the look on her face made Sunset think that she was trying to steel herself to say something unpleasant. “Given what happened yesterday, I wouldn’t ask anything of you right now. You seemed... well, I only ask because it may well be important to understanding their condition.”
Both Twilight and Sunset looked sideways into the living room. The three in question were watching TV, Adagio and Aria on the couch, Sonata on the nearby chair. Adagio had reconstructed her veneer a lot faster than Sunset had been able to, but her unusual silence and unwillingness to scrap with Aria over every single little thing gave away that she was in an altered mood.
“I’ll tell you,” Sunset said, resting her head on her hand. “The only problem really is, I’m not sure what to make of some of it.”
“What do you mean?”
Sunset proceeded to explain the first memory, going into as much detail as she could remember. She described the way the people had appeared only as Adagio approached, and how they seemed to flicker between humans and ponies.
“You saw sheep as well?” Twilight asked, evidently intrigued.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Sunset said. “I thought the same. And given the way they dressed as well.”
“Between Saddle Arabia and the Roaman Republic,” Twilight agreed. “Fleece. Not a lot of contact between Equestria and the countries beyond the Griffon Kingdom. Saddle Arabia was really the first one since the Founding to meet with the Royal Pony Sisters.”
“And then Maretonia,” Sunset added.
“So, we have their place of birth and the remains of their pendants. To be honest it’s more than I hoped for. Researching their condition should be made easier with this information.”
“I actually had a thought on that,” Sunset said, swirling her coffee a little.
“What kind of thought?”
“It was when I guessed that they come from Fleece. I reminded me of a legend Princess Celestia told me.”
“There’s a lot of legends in Fleece,” Twilight said, evidently trying not to smile too much. “It’s kind of famous for its extensive mythology.”
“I know,” Sunset said, a little nettled. “It’s not something about the spirits or monsters though. It’s about the Lotus Society.”
Twilight suddenly stopped smiling.
“I’m guessing you’ve been taught about them too?” Sunset guessed.
“Sunset, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking... I mean, there’s evidence to suggest the existence of the group of course, plenty of it. It spread quite far. But there’s no evidence to support—“
“How would we ever know?” Sunset interrupted. “As far as I know, Fleece isn’t open to us to this very day. Too afraid of what Roam might do if they opened ties with Equestria.”
“That’s true,” Twilight conceded. “But that’s always meant that we know next to nothing about them except what’s come from discoveries in allied lands.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Sunset, twiddling her thumbs.
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
Sunset licked her lips, the familiar guilt rising in her guts. “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have been alive for a long time. Roam wasn’t always the power it is now. The forbidden sections of the library in Canterlot have some records dealing—“
“Wait a second,” Twilight said quickly, leaning excitedly across the table. “Are you saying that there are records of the Lotus Society in the forbidden... I’m totally allowed in there!” She let out a squee of excitement. “I can’t believe it! This is fantastic!” She stepped forward, a mad gleam in her eye. “Tell me, what do you—“ She paused, her smile dimming.
“It’s alright,” Sunset said, her mouth tightening. “You know my history with our teacher. I wasn’t supposed to be in the forbidden section, but since I have been, I’ll tell you what I know if you like whilst you’re here.”
In a more subdued tone, Twilight invited her to continue. “I know that the Lotus Society was a philosophical group devoted to pursuing immortality and enlightenment. That’s all in the standard histories. They began in the ancient east across the sea, and spread as far as the pre-founding tribes before disappearing sometime before the Founding,” Twilight summed up. She eyed Sunset warily. “But that doesn’t mean they actually found a way to become immortal.” She glanced into the lounge again. “No, it’s ridiculous,” she muttered. Sunset took a sip of coffee, noting Twilight’s sudden edginess.
“The main contemporary account we have about them are from Oldbark the Unseen.”
“I’ve read about him I think,” Twilight said interestedly, nodding. “I think Starswirl the Bearded wrote about him.”
“Oldbark was a hermet of sorts who lived in the forests dividing the old Unicorn Kingdom from the Earth Pony settlements. Clover the Clever details how Starswirl sought Oldbark out in his youth to gain knowledge from him.”
“So there are accounts written by Oldbark himself in the forbidden areas in Canterlot library?” Twilight asked excitedly.
“Of a sort,” Sunset replied vaguely. “He wrote very little instructions or records, but did write a great deal to correspondents, including with Starswirl. The letters he left behind about the Lotus Society are those shared with Flyvius, Enoch, and the Pegasus of the Cold Mountains, all of whom come from the lands we now call Roam.”
Sunset looked up at Twilight. Her eyes were full of the fascination of learning. It was clear that Twilight was drinking in this new information with an almost indecent amount of eagerness. Sunset smiled and continued.
“Enoch himself was supposed to be a member of the Lotus Society, whilst the other two simply lived in places where the Society was prominent. All three of them corresponded frequently with Oldbark, and several of their letters deal with the Lotus Society, especially those written by Enoch when he left the order.”
“Why did he leave?” Twilight asked, looking surprised.
Sunset breathed out heavily. “During his time at least, the object of the Lotus Society had become less intellectually centred than it had been before. The goal of immortality had led the group for centuries to try to discover things like the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life, the fountain of youth, that sort of thing.”
“Which don’t exist,” Twilight sighed. “The only confirmed immortals are sprits and alicorns, neither of whom can have their immortality siphoned, only their magical power.”
“Exactly. But Enoch’s letters indicate to us that the society believed one of their methods did work.” Sunset paused for a moment, knowing just how the answer was going to sound to Twilight. Twilight looked at her eagerly, waiting for the answer. Sunset sighed. “The method that they claimed to work was the Apotheostones.”
Twilight’s face instantly turned sceptical. “Ridiculous,” she scoffed. She stared at Sunset for a few moments, as though waiting for Sunset to cry “Ha! Gotcha!” or something. When Sunset merely continued to stare seriously at her, Twilight waved an impatient hand and continued. “The Apotheostones? Seriously? They’re just as much a myth as the rest. The Stones of Impression, the God’s Jewels—“
“The Alicorn Amulet,” Sunset said quietly.
Twilight stammered to a halt. Sunset smiled a little grimly. Twilight had told Sunset of her encounter with the unicorn Trixie, during their correspondence via the journal. In a fit of academic idleness, Sunset had pondered over this curious jewel in her mind, and considering the effects that it had had, as described by Twilight, Sunset had thought it likely, if not all but confirmed.
“How do you...” Twilight began weakly. She gave her head a little shake. “What makes you think that the amulet was an Apotheostone?” Twilight asked, sounding incredulous.
“I don’t,” Sunset admitted. “It’s a hunch at best. But given what you told me about it, and given Oldbark’s letters, I think it at least likely. Twilight, do you know what the stones are meant to be?”
Twilight exhaled, looking exceedingly troubled. “According to the myths,” she said, laying a heavy stress on the last word, “they’re supposed to be vessels for powerful, ancient creatures to preserve their life forces in. Anyone who wore them was supposed to eventually become whatever being had been impressed upon the stone.”
“Consider then what the amulet was, and what it did. It bestowed Trixie with incredible power, rivalling that of the Princesses, and slowly corrupted her nature.”
“It made her greedier, more inclined to show off, yes,” Twilight confirmed. “Not that you’d notice with her,” she continued with a roll of the eyes.
“Well, imagine if she wore it for several weeks, or months, or years. What do you think would happen?”
Twilight didn’t reply for a while, and then seemed to rally.
“Okay,” she began, raising her hands. “Okay, just suppose that the Alicorn Amulet was an Apotheostone, let’s just concede that that’s true. Are you saying that the siren’s pendants were also stones of impression too?”
“I don’t know that to be the case,” Sunset repeated, trying to keep her voice neutral. “But just consider for a moment if they were. If the girls somehow got a hold of stones like that, it’d explain why their powers were tied to the pendants instead of being natural abilities.”
Twilight interlocked her fingers, scowling at the table. “I don’t know, Sunset. I still don’t know whether to believe that these stones even exist, let alone that the siren’s pendants or the Alicorn Amulet were examples of them. Still, if it’s true, and their personalities were being corrupted, it might help make sense of their desire to conquer the world.”
Sunset blushed. “I don’t know about that,” she said quietly. “It could just have been that they had power. Power corrupts, and all that.”
They discussed the matter for a large portion of the day. The only things that Sunset didn’t mention to Twilight were details about the last memory. She said only that the memory had been of somewhere warm with moist air, and that Adagio had had her eyes closed throughout. Twilight was entirely mystified, and didn’t inquire much further, being much more interested in the significance of the second memory. She conjectured at great length about Adagio’s childhood, and bounced many of these ideas off Sunset whilst the latter mainly stood around trying to suppress her misgivings.
Twilight was not entirely convinced by Sunset’s theory that the siren pendants had been the mythical Apotheostones, and Sunset frankly couldn’t blame her. Whilst a lot of the events that had gone on could be explained if Sunset was right, there was no tangible evidence in favour of it other than the stones themselves. In truth, it was simply solving a mystery with another mystery, since almost nothing was known about the stones outside of myth and legend.
When their friends arrived in the early afternoon, Twilight announced that she was returning to Equestria. In front of the portal back, she announced the news to her somewhat disheartened friends.
“I need to study these stones more,” she said, holding up the bags. “I can do that better in Equestria, where I can use my magic and the library. Don’t worry,” she said, smiling sadly at their disconsolate expressions. Rainbow Dash’s expression was stony, but she had to hide a small sniffle under the guise of a cough. “If all goes well, I’ll be back in a few days. It shouldn’t take too long since Sunset gave me some research parameters.” She smiled more warmly at Sunset, who forced herself to return it, and then turned to depart.
“Wait a moment,” Sunset said at the last moment. “Hey Twilight, do you reckon I could hold onto Adagio’s pendant?”
Twilight turned back, looking surprised. “Oh. Sure, I guess. What for?” she asked, giving Sunset a worried look. “Remember what happened when Adagio touched them.”
“I do,” Sunset said quickly. “I’d just like to be able to look at them myself for a little. Maybe I can find out something and you something else.”
“Maybe,” Twilight said, perking up to the idea. “Why don’t you come back to Equestria with me? You can use your magic there to study them more easily.”
Sunset’s insides twisted. “N-No, thanks Twilight, I’ll just work from here.” When Twilight started to look concerned again, Sunset went on. “I have to look after the ki— I mean, the sirens after all. I’ll just study them at home.”
Sunset bit her lip, inwardly cursing her hesitancy. It was clear from the look on Twilight’s face that she could tell something was bothering Sunset regarding this matter. In fact, there were a few things, not least being the sirens themselves. Fortunately however, Twilight was a tactful person, and raised no more questions, and handed Sunset the bag without fuss.
When Twilight departed through the statue’s base, Sunset and her friends stood around a little awkwardly for a moment, before Pinkie suddenly erupted into her usual energetic spirits.
“A few days?” she exclaimed suddenly. “That’s barely enough time to organise a decent return-after-a-few-days party!”
“No way that’s actually a thing,” Applejack said, looking questioningly at everyone else. They all shrugged, except for Sunset. For the first time since before seeing those images, Sunset smiled. Indeed, if she hadn’t had her wits about her, she might have laughed out loud; trust Pinkie to bring her crashing back to earth. But she didn’t want to be questioned right now, and so citing the girls probably destroying her apartment in her absence, she hastily departed.
On her way home, she looked down at the shards in her hand.
She knew that she had to learn more about them, and more specifically, about Adagio. Something in her memories stored in these broken pieces might well vindicate her theory, and...
Sunset swallowed. Perhaps she could learn something about the sirens themselves. Who they really are. If she was to help them, she needed to know all that she could about them, and where better to start than in the beginning?
- To be Continued