Return to Equestria: The Rise of Roam
Sunset Shimmer
The effects of waking from a period of deep rest are, for most individuals, a somewhat taxing business. Most of us reserve the right to fully awaken at our own paces, rubbing the sleep from our eyes and trudging our way to the bathroom and crank our brains into the gruelling task of thinking about the coming day.
Sunset Shimmer had not been afforded this most basic of life’s usual courtesies, by virtue of the fact that her period of rest had stemmed from kidnap and temporary storage in a vile green cocoon, rather than settling down of her own free will. Perhaps she could be excused therefore for feeling a little disorientated when, rather suddenly, she found herself lying in the hooves of her marefriend, and covered in slime. Sunset had never been so unfortunate as to have eaten a slug, but spitting a thick globule of the green ooze from her mouth, she thought that she had a pretty good idea of what eating a slug might be like.
Being in this susceptible mood, she had found it even more distressing to find herself surrounded by daydreaming changelings, a dazed Loyal Stride, and to top it all off, Sonata undergoing some deep internal struggle. And then there was the crying. For some reason, everypony around her was crying.
Creepy, Sunset thought slowly.
Under usual circumstances, Sunset might well have taken one look around and removed herself as discreetly as she could. As things stood though, with her erstwhile kidnappers so close at hoof, she needed to get Sonata and Loyal Stride to move. It became apparent however that this was not going to be an easy task.
“I’m sorry,” Sonata whispered, over and over, like some bizarre chant, staring around at the changelings.
“Sonata?” Sunset asked, moving her face in front of Sonata’s eyes. “Sonata, come on, we have to go now, before they snap out of it.”
“But... but I’ve...” Sonata muttered, her eyes unfocused.
“Sonata, whatever is going on, can it please wait until later?” Sunset asked desperately, trying to shake off her torpor. “If they come around, we’re in real trouble!”
This seemed to have at least some small effect on Sonata. Her eyes darted from here to there, seemingly searching for something to focus on. “I... I hurt them.” She looked up at Loyal Stride. “I hurt him. I think Script heard me too.”
“Hurt them?” Sunset looked around, suddenly struck with a coldness in her heart. “What exactly did you—“ She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter right now; please, we can talk later, let’s just get out of here!” Sonata still seemed to be wrestling with what she had done, but gave a small nod. “Come on, help me with him.”
Loyal Stride was running a hoof over his nose, squeezing his eyes. “What... where is this? Where’s Pen Stroke?”
“Pen Stroke?” Sonata asked curiously.
“Never mind,” Sunset said urgently. “Let’s go, before they wake up as well?”
Fortunately, Loyal Stride put up no questions or objections. For once Sunset was glad of his austerity and pragmatic attitude, as he took one bleary look around, and instantly seemed to remember their predicament.
“Back up to the house,” he said, turning to the passageway to the trapdoor.
“Right behind you. Come on, Sonata.”
Sunset gave a tug on her shoulder. Sonata offered no resistance, but kept her glistening eyes fixed on the still-crying changelings. Alone in the shining chamber, they looked like sad, abandoned statues, worn dark by time’s slow march.
Pushing Sonata up ahead of her, Sunset was surprised to find Script standing in the kitchen, a damp cloth draped over his horn.
“Erm...”
“No questions,” Script interrupted in a delicate voice. “No comments. No quips. The asprin hasn’t kicked in yet.”
“Since when does Equestria have asprin?”
“No questions!” Script snapped, his voice rising in pitch rather than volume as he put a hoof to one temple. “I’m going to assume that the changelings are still trapped in a trance showing them their most painful nightmares. If so, we should leave.”
Sonata sniffled.
“I know this is a question,” Sunset said, frowning slightly at her marefriend. “But what makes you say that?”
“Because that’s what happened to me as well,” Loyal Stride said quietly, a steely glint in his deep blue eyes.
“I-I didn’t mean to,” Sonata whimpered. “I’m sorry. They wouldn’t stop, and... I just wanted them to back away, but—“
“Oh will you stop your pathetic moaning!” Script growled, clutching his head. “Nopony cares. Let’s just go.”
“Didn’t she affect you as well?” Loyal Stride asked, giving him a narrow look.
“No,” Script grumbled. “I didn’t see horrific scenes of Roam ablaze with black fire whilst a shadowy figure laughed insanely over the blood-soaked remains of those I love. You?”
Loyal Stride hm’d at this, but made no other reply but to return his expression to its studied impassivity; Sunset felt an ominous weight upon hearing Script’s words, and a corresponding curiosity to know more details what it was that Script had seen. It seemed like the kind of thing to clue her into what his motives were.
Whilst the two stallions trotted moodily from the kitchen, Sunset took stock of Sonata’s appearance. Whilst being covered in green goo might usually have been a cue for humour, Sunset couldn’t find a single legitimate avenue for jocularity here; it wasn’t the time or place. Sonata seemed to have been jolted out of her sobbing by Script’s harshness, and was standing limply with her head hanging. Sunset had rarely seen Sonata look so defeated before. Sunset knew that her marefriend was prone to wild changes in temperament, but it was generally a rare event to find Sonata so far dejected as this; it just wasn’t in her nature.
Sunset pondered this all the way back up the street to the inn, where the remaining occupants seemed to be confused about the innkeeper-less state of the bar. Bypassing the befuddled Nightlanders, they made their way surreptitiously upstairs and back to their rooms, where Sunset stopped dead.
“Oh dear!” the innkeeper exclaimed, startled. “Ack! Whatever you did, please don’t do it to me!”
“How long have you been like this?” Sunset asked, waving her horn and dispelling the invisible bindings.
“Oh, err,” the innkeeper said thoughtfully, dropping to the floor on all fours like a cat. “Whenever your companions went to getcha.”
“They left you hanging upside down all that time?” Sunset asked, aghast.
“Oh, don’t you be worryin’ about that,” the innkeeper said dismissively. “We don’t get the whole blood-rush-to-your-head problem you pony-folk do. Now seein’ as how the other’s plan obviously didn’t work, can I ask whatcha did wi’em?” He shuddered. “It doesn’t feel pleasant.”
“They’re down in some elaborate underground room,” Sunset explained quietly, noting Sonata’s rising colour at the mention of the subject. “They’re all in a trance for the moment. Make some loud noises and they should come around.”
“Trance?” the innkeeper asked, looking troubled. “I don’t know what counts as trances to you, madam,” he said seriously. “This feels like nightmares if anything.”
“You can feel what’s happening?” Sonata asked fearfully.
“Oh arr,” the innkeeper assented. He looked back as he reached the door frame, his electric blue eyes glittering with some unknowable emotion. “What they did to ye two was foolish; I advised ‘em against it. I don’t think you’ll be havin’ anymore trouble with the likes of us on the street. I will say this though. Us changelings have a reckoning of what goes on with each other, no matter how far away. The Queen will know what has happened, and she’ll now know your faces.”
With that, the innkeeper left the room. Sunset pondered these words for a moment or two, trying to see the danger in what had happened. As it stood, she and Sonata were likely to still be giving off a dinner-bell, but if the changelings were now scared of them because of what Sonata did, then all they had to do was avoid the Queen. Wrack her brains though she did, she couldn’t think of a single scenario where she or Sonata would have to seek an audience with a changeling queen.
The real problem, Sunset noted with a churn of the stomach, was the state Sonata was in. It seemed to Sunset at least that even her coat of dusky blue hair was paling to white.
“Sonata, come on,” Sunset said quietly. “We can’t stay here, we have to go.”
Sonata didn’t respond. She was holding her pendant between her hooves as though praying on it, but it occurred to Sunset after a moment or two that she wasn’t holding it, she was squeezing it. With a cry of mingled rage and anguish she pulled at it, yanking it jerkily as though determined to rip it off.
“Stop it!” Sunset cried, as the necklace tugged hard at Sonata’s throat. The chord looked deceptively thin and weak, but evidently was not going to be so easily moved. “That’s not going to help anything.”
“I. Want. It. Off!” Sonata’s hooves slipped off the stone, and she struck the wall in fury. “Blast it off!”
“W-What?” Sunset stammered.
Sonata thrust her chest out, staring Sunset directly in the eye. “Blast it. Get it off me!”
Sunset stared at her for a full three seconds, and then remembered that she had a voice. “Look, I know that you’re scared—“ Sonata let out an impatient exclamation and stamped her front hooves into the floor. “It was obviously an accident.”
“An accident?” Sonata repeated with a slightly hysterical laugh. “Let’s hope they see it that way.”
“To be honest, I’m not too fussed what the changelings think,” Sunset said, frowning slightly. The kidnapping was still fresh on her mind, and the smell of the gunk she’d been suspended in still fresh on her golden coat.
“I meant Script and Loyal Stride!” Sonata wailed. “They got caught up in it too, and I made them see—“ She choked up as her eyes filled with tears again.
“What exactly did you do?” Sunset asked, starting to become genuinely concerned given how much it seemed to be torturing Sonata.
“I-It was an accident,” Sonata sniffled. “I didn’t m-mean to.”
“I know, I know,” Sunset said gently, sidling up to Sonata to offer comfort in her proximity. “Come on, it can’t have been that bad; they were all still standing, weren’t they? And Loyal Stride came around quick enough.”
Sonata remained quiet for a few moments, seeming to wrestle with herself. Then eventually, after gulping a few times, and with many interruptions, she managed to explain the specifics of what she had done.
Sunset cleared her throat a little, as it had gone dry during the brief explanation.
“So you...” she cast around for as innocuous a sounding sum-up as she could. “You gave them nightmares. You scared them a little. When you said that you hurt them, I was kind of expecting you to say that you’d made their brains explode, or something.” She tried for a laugh, but it died as Sonata looked up at her. She cleared her throat again.
“You don’t get it,” Sonata rasped, swallowing. “I showed them their worst possible fears. Things they probably didn’t even know they feared. And it came so easily, I... I could have done it at any time, to anypony. I could still do it! What if I’d done it to you?”
Sunset blinked. “Is that what this is about?” she asked in surprise. “Sonata, believe me when I tell you that you don’t have to worry about that. I already know what my worst fear is, and no amount of spooky siren magic is going to make it any worse.”
“What’s that mean?” Sonata asked, wiping the moisture at the corners of her eyes.
Sunset pulled her into a hug. “The worst thing that could happen for me would be to see you lapse into hysterics over something you did accidentally. So if you could hold it in for a little while we leave town, I promise I’ll help you with it.”
“You’re not being serious,” Sonata said moodily. “If you hadn’t been in that goop, you would have been hit by the same thing.”
“Maybe, but I wasn’t, and—“
“And what if I actually had eaten you when I went giant serpent-mode?”
“But you didn’t, you spit us all up again. Which was gross, but appreciated given the circumstances.”
“But what if—“
“Enough what ifs,” Sunset said firmly, putting a hoof to Sonata’s mouth. “We’re going to Last Light, Princess Luna and Twilight can help us cure you. I know with their help they can do something. Even if they just make it go dormant again.”
Sunset had to admit that Sonata’s reaction to this was rather unexpected. Instead of cheering up, or even lapsing further into the dregs of sorrow, Sonata looked up with fresh hope in her face. She turned quickly and put both hooves on Sunset’s shoulders, a wild look in her eyes.
“Oh! Oh!” she cried. “Um! Thingy! Changeling said... err...”
Sunset stared. “Sonata, use your words.”
“When you left, a changeling came in. Put a spell on the room. Told me things!”
Sunset kept quite during this explanation. She knew from long experience with Sonata that interrupting her whilst she was in an excitable mood was about as wise as poking a wet finger into an electrical socket, even if the entire story she was relating made Sunset want to cry out in alarm, or ask her why, in the nine levels of Tartarus, had she not tried to escape.
“The Roamans are bringing Princess Celestia to Equestria?” Sunset repeated. When Sonata nodded eagerly, Sunset frowned. “I’m guessing that you think we should go see her?”
“Absolutely out of the question.”
Sunset looked around with half-lidded eyes to find, to her utter lack of surprise, Script standing in the doorway looking annoyed. For a change. Behind him stood Loyal Stride, still in full armour, but back to his usual stoic-looking self.
“Whatever madness infected your mind when you decided to show me that cavalcade of comedy horror, it stops right now before the asprin wears off.” He patted the floor.
He even manages to do that in a condescending way Sunset thought irritably.
“Now get over here.”
“Can’t we talk about this?” Sonata asked, sounding desperate and disheartened.
“We can talk about whatever you like when you’ve gotten your cursed, hippocampus butt over here.” He tapped the floor more insistently. “Tout de-frickin-suite!”
“I get that you want to get out of here quickly,” Sunset began. “But I don’t see—“
“You’re damn right I do,” Script interrupted as they all stood around him. “This town has annoyed me, not sold me what I want, insulted my larger-than-average intelligence, and pony-napped somepony I regard as—“ Sunset blinked about to feel an unanticipated warmth of regard for Script, “—somepony I’ve met.” Which died a cold death as the frosty wind of self-reproach drove it six feet under.
“I see,” Sunset said, monotonously. “So we’re going to march out of it like a can of sardines?”
“No, we—“ He paused. “What the hell is a can of sardines?” Before Sunset could sigh and then proceed to explain, he went on: “No, we’re going out, flying thunder-god style!”
His horn ignited. Blue light flooded the room. Having been an avid Star Trek fan in the human world, Sunset had a fleeting impression of being on a Federation transporter as she felt herself being sucked, as though through a colander, into the everything of magical transition.
Being no slouch at teleportation herself, Sunset was familiar with the sensation, like having multiple parts of her body being pushed through numerous holes in the fabric of space-time, and then being deposited somewhere else on the other side. What impressed her, when she took stock of their surroundings, was that they had all been moved at once, and how far they seemed to have travelled.
“It really annoys me how utterly competent you are,” she muttered so that Script wouldn’t hear her.
“Damn it, I missed,” Script huffed.
“Missed what?” Sonata asked.
“The abandoned cottage,” Script replied.
“That sounds like the sort of thing you should say in a spooky voice,” Sonata muttered musingly.
“Very well,” Script obliged, hunching his shoulders and making his eyes bulge as though about to have a seizure. “The abaaaandoned cottaaaaaage!”
“What cottage?” Sunset inquired.
Script turned around, and pointed. They were standing on a road, which had evidently seen better days. Along one side of the flattish earthen track stood a white fence turned grey on the border of seemingly endless farmland, and on the other side a rolling glade of trees with innumerable little hills and knolls like the quaint pictures of fairyland in a child’s book. Where Script was pointing, was a smallish looking white-stone dwelling. It was at least a mile away.
“Missed!?” Sunset exclaimed, looking over her shoulder and scowling at what she saw. “You barely moved us fifty feet from the town!”
Script cleared his throat as their companions looked back too, and found this to be so. “I had a headache at the time. Headaches interfere with my concentration.”
“Oh, give me a break,” Sunset scoffed in a disgruntled tone. “Come on, we’ve got a march to get started.”
Loyal Stride pursed his lips. “A mile is hardly a march,” he mumbled, as though unable to help himself.
“So anyway,” Sonata piped up. “Princess Celestia! She knows how to undo curses proper!”
“This again?” Script said disparagingly. “That was told to you by a changeling. Need I remind you of whom it was we just had to flee from?”
“Huh?” Sonata asked, confused.
“He has a point,” Sunset said grudgingly. “Nothing that I know or have since discovered about changelings leads me to think they’re the least bit trustworthy. They’ve attacked us twice in as many days.”
“Precisely,” Script said pedantically. “And on top of that, they’re naturally lascivious, mendacious, and generally have bad manners. I mean really, who ponynaps someone without a spoken announcement of intent?” He looked to Loyal Stride with a I know you get me look on his face. As usual, Loyal Stride’s face featured all of the expression of a rock sitting on a stone floor with a perfectly neutral light-source.
“But,” Sonata said with an air of desperation. “But the innkeeper was nice.”
“You get the odd weirdo in every group,” Script said blithely. Sunset narrowed her eyes at him, and then noticed that both Sonata and Loyal Stride were giving him similar looks. “That doesn’t mean that the rest of his filthy kind are decent.”
“You know, for a stallion who claims to be all indignant about the oppression of unicorns, you have a surprisingly dispassionate view of other oppressed groups.”
Script let out a sound of derision. “Oh please, it’s not like you Equestrians can talk. If anything, you’re worse than we Roamans.”
“Don’t you routinely slaughter changelings?” Sunset asked icily.
“Well, not me,” Script said quickly. “Strider’s lot do all that. National security and that sort of thing. But yes, we do. As opposed to you, who simply bar them into a savage and unsustainable wasteland where they slowly starve to death. Much more civilised.” He paused long enough to give an ironic slow-clap with his front hooves. “How noble of you to let nature take its course.”
Sunset reddened. “What do you expect us to do?” she snapped.
“Um, I don’t mean to interrupt,” Sonata put in. “But could we talk about Princess Celestia now?”
“We’re not going,” Script said sharply. “End of discussion. None of it makes any sense: The Princeps would not bring the leader of a country he was trying to conquer back to that country before said conquest was completed. If at all! Vespegasus is frankly too level-headed and practical to do something quite so brazen as that in the first place.”
“I hate to admit it, but he’s right,” Loyal Stride said thoughtfully. “Boasting and displaying one’s victories is a standard and expected part of military tradition, especially when trying to score points in the political arena. But no sane military commander would show off before winning any battles. It just makes one look a fool.”
“It makes sense,” Sunset said, thinking it over. “It would be kind of stupid to boast before you’ve actually done anything.”
“Although,” Script said slowly, as though reluctant to concede the point. “Vespegasus has kind of got something to prove, in a way.”
Sunset frowned as Script glanced at Loyal Stride. Catching the look on the latter’s face, Sunset nearly caught her breath. It was just about the coldest stare she’d ever seen. As a former student of Princess Celestia, Sunset had confidently expected that she’d seen the epitome of cold stares before now – it was hard to best the sub-zero stare of a disappointed mentor – but she had to admit Loyal Stride’s current expression was a strong contender.
Whether or not Script truly noticed this, or was ignoring it, Sunset didn’t know, but he went on. “Because of us and a few others, actually.” He nodded at Loyal Stride. “And Vespegasus’ eldest son, Trotus. My sister, a few of our colleagues—“
“Stop,” Loyal Stride interceded. The firmness in his voice was like the fall of a hammer stroke. A hammer of the godly kind. Sunset could see Script debating whether to go on or not to go on regardless.
“Fine, I’ll just sum it up like this: The thing that happened that I won’t go into, was something of a minor scandal in the imperial court. It hurt Vespegasus’ family reputation since his own son was involved.” He sketched quote marks in the air. “In truth, he was nowhere near and was completely ignorant of it, but he was present and officially in charge, and Loyal Stride here was his elected captain of the palace guard.”
“So the blame seeped upwards,” Sunset surmised.
“Yep,” Script said. “From Strider here to Trotus, and from him, to his father. And considering the Flyvian dynasty is a new ruling family, an early tarnish – no matter how small – is kind of a big deal in the imperial court. Especially considering what Vespegasus had to do to gain power.”
“Which was what?” Sunset asked.
“Oh, nothing really,” Script said with an air of unconcern. “Just settle a fifty-year civil war that flared up every time the previous Princeps was assassinated. Do you know how many Princeps we went through in those fifty years? Or how difficult it is not to be assassinated when ponies start a trend?”
“Fifty?” Sonata suggested.
“Well, forty seven actually,” Script muttered. “Time of the forty-seven kings, they’re calling it, I heard.”
“Funny,” Sunset commented, knowing she was wading into dangerous waters. “Forty seven kings. Dynasties. This all sounds like monarchy to me. Doesn’t sound much like a republic.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Script said scathingly.
Sunset tried not to smile here. When in the human world, her form of employment had mirrored that of her job in Equestria: Accounting. Unlike Equestria however, she had the internet in the human world, and had spent a great deal of her professional life in front of the screen. Consequently, she frequented videos sites, forums, and social media sites like everyone else had. And nothing quite made Sunset’s day than running into some crack-pot conspiracy theorist or other person with equally inane notions of reality going into sudden-death mode, trying desperately to defend their ideas with every sort of mental-gymnastics and sophistry they could muster. The signs were right there in Script’s face.
“There is a subtle, delicate, and very important difference between a king, and a princeps. Whereas a king is solitary, and held accountable by no pony save the spirits themselves, a princeps is accountable to the senate and the people. A king rules his country by right of birth, and none may challenge that authority. A princeps is there to provide a focal point for the republic’s many territories, which cannot be ruled solely by the slow and meandering debates of the senate when a crisis is at hand, and—“
And so it went. By the actual end of Script’s fallacious speechifying, they’d reached the little cottage, and Sunset was just drinking in all of the chaos she had wrought. It honestly gave her great pleasure to see Script squirm.
“You are such a hypocrite,” she sneered at him. “You claim to want to know truth so badly, but you’re willing to lie to yourself that badly.”
Script’s face underwent an extraordinary level of emotional turmoil. Sunset could tell he was dying to retort, but he didn’t seem able to find the words he wanted to hurl back.
“Guys!” Sonata shouted, making them all jump. “Please! Can’t we discuss this?”
“We are,” Script said, shaking his head.
“Not that government stuff!” Sonata barked, stomping a hoof. “No pony cares! I want to go find Celestia!”
“Oh do you?” Script cried back, matching her volume. He stood in front of her, glaring downwards into her hard magenta eyes. “Well I’ve got news for you: For the last time, we’re not going!”
“You don’t decide that!” Sonata snapped, glaring right back. “We haven’t even talked about it!”
“There’s nothing to talk about!” Script sneered. “It’s a stupid idea, from a stupid source. Just supposing,” he said quickly before Sonata could start. “Just suppose for a moment that it was true, and we went. Then what?”
“We find Celestia and get her to get this thing off me!” Sonata said, scowling.
Script nodded sanctimoniously, giving his slow clap again. “Wonderful plan. Masterful even. Agamemnon himself would tremble at your awe-inspiring level of strategy.”
“Shut up!” Sonata screamed. “You are the most sarcastic, mean-spirited, egotistical, selfish pony I’ve ever met! Stop treating me like an idiot and listen to what I’m saying!”
The area in front of the cottage fell utterly silent. The dim, shadowy landscape of Luna’s eternal twilight rested with a distinctly unsettling atmosphere upon the senses as soon as the silence had fallen. It was an unnatural quiet that was making the already uncomfortable argument all the more tense. Even the wind seemed to have paused at Sonata’s words.
Sunset was legitimately impressed. Dearly though she loved Sonata, Sunset was not of the opinion that she could be so insightful as that into somepony else’s character. Sonata’s power of discernment just didn’t lie in that direction. She supposed that Script’s obnoxious personality just permeated too far for even the oblivious to ignore.
Not that Sonata was oblivious, of course, Sunset chided herself.
Evidently Script was impressed to some degree as well. He gave Sonata a narrow look, and then drew in a long breath.
“Fine,” he said levelly. “Speak.”
Sonata glanced sideways at Sunset, and then at Loyal Stride before looking back to Script. Sunset watched her closely, feeling sympathy for her as she marshalled her thoughts. She could tell that Sonata felt very strongly about this, and so she for one was going to listen to what Sonata had to say.
“Look, I...” Sonata made an impatient noise. “I’m... I’m scared, okay?”
There was a pause.
“I’m assuming there’s more to what you want to say than that,” Script guessed.
“I don’t remember much about the first time I got this,” Sonata said, nudging her pendant. “I don’t know what I did back then, who I hurt or what I ruined. But this time...” she swallowed. “This time, I’ve done horrible things. I’ve hurt ponies. And I didn’t want to do any of it! It all just sort of happened. I’m not saying that it’s not my fault or anything, I’m just saying that I didn’t plan to do any of it. Turning big, or letting out that fear tune—“
“I think we all get the point,” Script said, not unkindly. “You’re afraid of what you’re going to do in the future. You’re afraid of how much the curse is beginning to influence you, what it might make you do as it grows stronger.”
“Yes!” Sonata cried, evidently pleased that Script had cottoned on.
“Sonata...” Sunset said quietly, wanting to say something comforting. Script beat her to it.
“This is why you should have let me kill you,” he said wistfully, shaking his head as though a wonderful opportunity had passed them by.
“You seem to forget,” Sunset said with a bite of anger in her voice. “There’s no cloud-ships out here with their anti-magic machines.”
“You’re point?” Script asked, superbly unconcerned with her aggressive tone.
“My point being that if you don’t want to find out what it feels like to have three separate teleportation spells sending you three different places at once, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
Script raised his eyebrows. “That’s inventive,” he said, as though genuinely impressed.
“You’re not listening to me!” Sonata spat. “Any of you! This thing is getting stronger, and I can’t stop it. It hits me when I’m scared or desperate, and—and it’s never gonna stop!” Perhaps out of habit, or a desperation for the one individual whom she believed would listen to her, Sonata looked directly into Sunset’s eyes. “Princess Celestia knows how to stop it. Please. We have to go.”
Sunset held Sonata’s gaze, but her certainty was far less steady. The intellectual in her could see the entire scenario riddled with holes like the wall of a New York policeman’s house after busting a mob boss. Sonata’s entire case rested on hearsay from a source that only she had contacted, and was even in the best circumstances unreliable. There was no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Princess Celestia knew anything, or that she was going to be where the changeling had said she would be.
“Before I came to the Land of Friendship,” Loyal Stride said slowly. “There was a missive from Roam about the Princeps coming to Magna Badtis.”
“Oh wonderful, the invasion commences,” Script said, clapping a hoof to his forehead.
“With an entourage,” Loyal Stride added.
“The army,” Script surmised. “You two might want to practise bending your legs,” he said to Sunset and Sonata. “You’ll need practise kneeling and grovelling.”
“It didn’t specify army,” Loyal Stride said sharply. “Entourage could mean—“
“Oh don’t tell me you’re throwing in with serpent-lips here,” Script snapped irritably.
“It’d be too dangerous to go to the army camp,” Loyal Stride added solemnly. “No matter how desperate the situation, none of you three can go there, and I’m not entirely sure that I can anymore. Even if Princess Celestia is there, it’s a moot point.”
Sonata looked utterly crestfallen at this, but quickly looked to Sunset for support. Sunset honestly, desperately wanted to give it. It pained her more than most anything to see Sonata so full of a hope that she would have to crush. But it had to be done; she couldn’t approve of such an excursion as the one Sonata was proposing. The idea was lunacy.
“I’m sorry, Sonata,” she said quietly.
Sunset couldn’t bear to look at her. The first moment or two of seeing the pain build in those deep magenta eyes had driven Sunset’s gaze away. It was cowardly, Sunset knew, but she couldn’t help it. Sonata made no noise; she didn’t cry, or even try to argue. There was just silence again, until Script cleared his throat.
“Well,” he began, unusually tentative. “That’s that decided then. We’ll sleep on the bottom floor, you two take the bedroom.”
Having never had a serious disagreement with Sonata before, Sunset felt herself on extremely uncertain ground. Sonata’s buoyant personality and general inability to let the world dictate her happiness to her usually meant that any and all disagreements were resolved through an amiable level of diplomacy, either she or Sunset making concessions out of a general guilt at coming out ahead of the other.
But this was far different than choosing what kind of wallpaper to have in the hallway, or deciding what to have for dinner that week. Sunset could tell that Sonata was nothing short of terrified of what her pendant could, and seemed set upon doing. It was understandable that she’d react to the promise of help, but Sunset couldn’t count herself as looking out for Sonata’s best interests if she let her go off on some fool-hardy quest based on what was essentially gossip.
“Sonata, if Princess Celestia knows a cure, then I’m sure Princess Luna does as well,” Sunset said, trying to be consoling.
“Luna was stuck in the moon for a thousand years,” Sonata grumbled thickly. “She probably doesn’t even know how to dress properly.”
“Sonata, don’t be rude about Princess Luna,” Sunset said reprovingly. “And that’s ridiculous anyway. Most ponies don’t even wear clothes.”
Sonata didn’t reply, but stared out of the window. The room they were in was large, taking up the entirety of the second floor but for the bathroom; Sunset felt sure that at some point in its life, it had been crammed full of furniture and superfluous objects to make up for its inherent emptiness. The floor was interlaced with lines of dust, some areas thicker, other areas lighter. For now, it contained nothing but an old and musty smelling bed, a broken wardrobe, and an old laundry basket, which seemed to have been used at some point as a makeshift waste-paper bin.
“Sonata, I’m sorry that we couldn’t agree on this, but I think it’s for the best if we—“
“Of course you do,” Sonata snorted. “It’s all just for the best.” Whether consciously or not, she touched the pendant at her neck, still refusing to look around at Sunset.
Sunset regarded Sonata unhappily for a few moments, trying to suppress the sudden dryness in her throat.
“We’ve never really had a fight before, have we?” she asked, her voice a little hoarse. “We always got along so well on most everything.”
Sonata lowered her head a little. “Why couldn’t you just support me in this?”
“I am supporting you,” Sunset said earnestly, putting a hoof on her shoulder. She took it as a good sign that Sonata didn’t shake it off. “Please believe me, I do support you, it’s just that this... this just feels wrong. Princess Celestia being brought to Equestria again, just when we appear, when she’s been captive in Roam for half a century? Doesn’t that sound odd to you?” When Sonata didn’t say anything, she went on. “Look, it’s not just Princess Luna. Twilight will help us, I’m sure of it; if anypony can find a solution to any problem, she can. She’s read just about every book ever written.”
“But what if this problem isn’t in a book?” Sonata demanded. “You heard Script. Curses can’t be broken. Even your friendship rainbow-thing only made it go dormant.”
“We’ll worry about that when we come to it,” Sunset said firmly.
“How can you say that?” Sonata sobbed, her eyes welling with tears. “I couldn’t live with myself if I did something to you! We’ve been lucky so far, but that’s all it’s been! Luck!”
“I don’t believe that,” Sunset stated. “I don’t believe that in the least. Every time your powers have awoken, you’ve never hurt me with them. You mean to tell me you accidentally spat me back up after swallowing me on that cliff?”
Sonata’s shaking lips pressed together. “Well, no. But—“
“And when you showed Loyal Stride what your singing could do,” Sunset interrupted. “Did that song affect me?”
“No, but I didn’t target Script either, and I—“
“And when you disoriented all those changelings—“ Sunset began.
“That was only because you were in the slime!” Sonata cried. “If you hadn’t been—“
“You just stunned them,” Sunset finished loudly, drowning Sonata out. She put her hooves on Sonata’s shoulders. “You could have destroyed those changelings. You could have done any number of horrible things to them. By what you told me, you didn’t even think about it. Doesn’t that tell you what kind of person you really are?”
“I made them see—“
“Things they fear,” Sunset agreed. “In a moment of unconscious panic, you chose to stun them. Are you saying you couldn’t have done something worse? A lot worse? Even if you turn right back into what you were before we met,” she said quickly, pre-empting Sonata’s next objection, “then what? You think I could love you any less? You’re a good person who wouldn’t hurt anypony on purpose, and that’s all that matters to me.”
Sonata stared at Sunset, her eyes wobbling in their sockets. It seemed to Sunset for a moment that Sonata was going to say something. Then her eyes filled with tears so fast that Sunset nearly jumped. In what Sunset could only describe as a blur of movement, Sonata’s face was suddenly much closer, her forelegs suddenly wrapping themselves around Sunset’s neck.
“Mmph!” Sunset exclaimed as her back hit the bed, Sonata’s pleasant weight holding her down. More surprised by the suddenness and timing than the action itself, Sunset made no move to oppose Sonata as the latter kissed her passionately. When Sonata broke the kiss and started on her neck however, and a deep rumble began in Sunset’s body, she felt the need to say something.
“S-Sonata...”
She made to say something else, but in the crucial moments where she needed to think of something to say, she felt Sonata’s grip on her tighten a crucial fraction, and... and several droplets of something hit the sensitive area of her neck. She let out a soft breath, and then craned her neck to peer quickly out of the window. To her relief she saw both Script and Loyal Stride in the little cleared area beyond the road, apparently talking or something. As long as they were out of the house...
Sunset had to admit that it felt kind of weird with her pony anatomy. She’d never had much inclination in her past life for this kind of intimacy. It had been something she’d learned about amongst a thousand things, and one of the less important things that in her view couldn’t get her power.
Dear Celestia, imagine what I might have done in college... she thought, as she returned Sonata’s kisses.
- To be Continued