It felt like one of those dreams where you become aware that you were dreaming and you feel like you've woken up. You get to make choices, talk, do things but realize you can't move and you have no control, and that you've woken up in another dream.
Here I was, looking down on various weedy herbs strewn over a fine white linen kerchief with rose embroidery. The smell was sharp, mediciney, and noisomely saccharine. And I was saying, "It lets you concentrate because the things you worry most about cease to interfere with your thoughts. And you feel good."
Sunset Shimmer said, "And the price is good." Her voice came directly to my right ear. Her moist breath warmed my ear just before she nuzzled my cheek. The mare inhaled. I felt her ribs against mine. She was snugged against my right side from flank to forequarters. The heat of her body warmed me.
That instant I realized that what I thought was a weird dream, wasn't. It was real.
I leapt away, stumbled into a nightstand, upset a lamp swarming with fireflies that hit a wall freeing the swarm, and fell sliding across a parquet floor. I felt glass bite into my shoulder as Sunset Shimmer burst into laughter.
When I looked, she was hooves in the air, gasping and chortling.
As I sat up, a trickle of blood lazed down from my shoulder. The sting felt real. My body cooled at the realization of blood loss.
It was real. This was very real. And like a dream, all that had come before faded into memories that flew away like startled birds. Untouchable. Intangible. I had been speaking with Running Mead and—
—and suddenly I was here.
In addition to Sunset Shimmer, who was now snorting instead of laughing—tears streaming from her eyes—and of course her bed, here consisted of a perfectly circular round room with archways leading out to a balcony, eyelid windows at least five times my height, and interior arched buttresses that held up another open floor connected by a flying stairway of circles that spiraled upward like a spray of drops in a pond. Gilt loops and hearts decorated the columns and vertical surfaces. The immediate wall held bookshelves, which despite being ten levels high with an integrated ladder, held a smattering of books and scrolls, a dead bonsai tree, a brass astrolabe, a pile of clothes, and a few blinking fireflies. Many of the surfaces were a deep blue color—some sort of marble. The columns and arches were pure Canterlot white, maybe also marble but hard to tell in the wane light. The balcony's windowed doors were thrown open to the night with the first presentiment of dawn glowing to the east. A breeze blew in, causing hanging crystal potion lamps to sway and tinkle to hidden rhythms. Likewise, gently moving lacy ferns and rustling tea palms grew along the edge of the stairs and floors as if to remind an unwary pony that leaning on non-existent banisters might prove problematic.
It was the interior of a Canterlot castle tower. Outside, magic globes of light floated on tethers around the castle grounds, lighting a view toward the airships at the Canterlot docks and what looked like a black lake but was the shear drop to the Ponyville plain. This had to be one the dozen standalone ivory towers, a couple of which I could see in spindly shadowy detail, each complete with a gilt onion dome and a stair spiraling around the outside to the mid-level entrance.
Right. Sunset Shimmer's adopted father was the princess' physician. I looked at the brocade gold and ivory bedspread, heaped on the floor with an empty wine bottle on top. Gold satin sheets, too. Rumpled.
I nodded.
Nice room, though back home, my library had plenty more books. Which brought back a memory of a Jenga game with stacked books I never wanted to remember, but couldn't forget.
I stood and used my magic to flick a piece of glass from my hide and apply pressure to the wound. Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer had rolled over and was working to control her breathing. She kept glancing at me, then looking away, trying not to break out laughing again.
Spread across the bed, green specks of what resembled chopped parsley lay spilt from the kerchief. It looked like one of Running Mead's products I'd heard referred to as nettle-ewe. Rare. It magically enhanced the speed of thought. Some ponies would do anything to get more. When that included forgetting to work, not earning bits, and not paying debts, Running Mead sent me to remind ponies that his herbal supplements weren't free.
I had brought product?
"Celestia on rollerskates!" I swore as I trotted in front of the bed, agitating fireflies in my wake. I levitated the weed into a green sphere and exited to the balcony, shaking my head.
"No!" Sunset Shimmer jumped from the bed, judging by the clatter of hooves, and was to my side by the instant I cast a force spell into the levitated ball, lighting it on fire. I juggled the two spells, and caught the burning leaves in a renewed levitation spell.
"No! I'm sorry I laughed. No!"
Aware of the intoxicating white smoke that plumed out, I expanded the sphere and levitated it up as high as I could before letting go. It flashed. The breeze tore the resultant cloud to shreds against the backdrop of stars.
She turned and kicked me.
I reflexively jumped back, but her rear hooves still connected lightly with my shoulder and my wound started to bleed again. Ticked, I picked her up in my magic and hurled her toward the bed, stopping her fall at the very last second. She bounded up as I yelled, "What's going on here?"
"I should ask you that!" Her mane of fiery hair seemed to poof out in her rage. "First you're all lubby-dubby and cuddly fun, strutting around town, leaning into me though I kept righting you, and apologizing for being so rude earlier." She jumped off the bed and came nose to nose. "You don't remember, do you?"
When I didn't respond, she began pacing in a circle around me. "You promised me a present. You bought dinner. Then insisted that I take you home and when I said no, you began crying until I conceded."
"I don't cry." Not since the day Sunburst got his cutie mark. What was the point?
"You created truly epic waterworks, trust me on that one." She stopped, looked at me. "Obviously, you were high on something."
"I— I don't— Never!"
She shrugged. "I thought it best to watch over you, considering what had happened to you this afternoon."
What had happened to you this afternoon resonated in my head as she continued about us talking about school, magic, and books. "Then you started getting playful. Quite insistent and unwilling to take a no for an answer." Her laugh came out of her nose as a snort. "S'all the same to me." She shrugged.
"I prefer stallions," I said, practically whispering as I thought about the lost hours between talking to Running Mead and now.
My spell had backfired.
She continued, "Were a stallion ever to get the courage to ask me out—" When the only other solar cutie mark in Equestria graced its monarch's butt, it was undoubtedly difficult, even discounting her abrasive personality. "—I'm sure I would prefer them, too. Take what you can get. Fun's fun, right?"
I scoffed, dark memories flooding back. "Except for magic, I'd have foaled three times over—" I saw her startled shock, then heard my own words. With a gasp, I trotted out onto the balcony to the railing, hyperventilating.
I had remade myself into street trash that had somehow connived her way into an ivory tower reserved for the very aristocrats I'd turned my back upon. It was becoming clear. The backfire wasn't as well healed as I had deluded myself into thinking. Had I not been in a hurry to leave, the doctor would probably have checked me into a hospital. I had blacked out. No, I had probably been sleepwalking, finding a way to live the dream of a life that a part of me believed I ought to live as the daughter of proclaimed "Heroes of Equestria." Meeting Sunset Shimmer had planted the idea in my subconscious. Had I bought the nettle-ewe from Running Mead to seduce her? It made twisted sense. The boss was probably tickled pink. I banged my forehead on the banister.
"Don't do that," a gentle voice said.
I shook myself. "The nettle-ewe wasn't a gift." I looked at her, into her green eyes. "I can't remember probably because I blacked out because of the backfire. Some wicked backroom gremlin in my mind decided to use it to seduce you into— I have no idea what."
Sunset Shimmer grinned and looked coyly at me. "It kinda worked."
"Right. Thanks."
"No, really. And, please don't feel bad about the weed. I've been trying to get a hold of a sample for awhile now. Pretty hard when you're me. I'm not offended at all."
"You should be." I hissed. "You don't want to go there, trust me. I've dealt with the result."
"You have?"
Best not to clarify. "Your father guessed my history, and hinted at yours."
Her eyes narrowed. "I see."
"I've lived on the streets half the last three years. And a mare sometimes has to do what a mare has to do." I looked around myself slowly as I said, "You've reformed yourself. I still live and breathe the street, and am no-way no-how in your class."
"Whatever crazy pony foaled me, she abandoned me on the street. Never knew a home before the princess. You, on the other hand, started in a home. Your patrician accent is obvious. Your education is a clue. And your refined comportment seals the case."
"I'm going to have to work on that."
She puffed up. "Three stallions—!"
"More than that."
"—at your age, and all because one selfish spoiled egotistical colt got his cutie mark and left you?"
My soulmate. Cutie Marks were the root of all pony evil. I wanted to hate Sunburst, but couldn't. It wasn't his fault. It was the cutie mark! Cutie marks. Cutie marks! Cutie Marks!
My blood pressure spiked and for a moment I thought my head would explode, or my rage would tear me apart or make me hurt the red and yellow goody-good in front of me. Then it all just popped. Like a deflated balloon, I settled to the cold terrazzo tiles of the balcony, becoming a pile of rags.
Still, no tears.
Only ice.
I felt myself levitated back to the bed as I relived the moments when Sunburst got his cutie mark. There'd been a strobe of rainbow light. I'd jerked a book from the tower of books, causing it to fall on me. None hit me because Sunburst discovered he could levitate hundreds of separate items independently at the same time, and self-levitate, both impossible magic. Then he'd just walked out of my life. My soulmate, gone.
Because of a stinking cutie mark. He got his cutie mark and I didn't.
I hoped I remained a blank flank until I died. And considering the life expectancy in my profession, that might just happen.
In my sudden apathy, I hadn't even noticed that Sunset Shimmer had lain next to me, snugged up to my right side. What ponies called leaning. Instinctual. It was usually done standing. Providing support for the wounded.
I'm damaged goods; never said I wasn't. "I told you about Sunburst?"
"In excruciating detail. Apparently you didn't know him as well as you thought."
"You think? Give the pony a prize."
"I can see why you swore off ever having friends."
I sighed. "Did I tell you why I left home?"
"You told me nothing about being on the street, or whatever you did to survive, until just now."
Well, that was a relief. I guess a sleepwalker wasn't entirely stupid.
"You do remember telling me that, right?"
"I do. As for why I left home, I went to find Sunburst. That's what I told myself, anyway. Had to wait until I stopped growing so I wouldn't be dismissed as a foal, or taken as a truant. Why I ended up in other cities, learning to survive, until I came to Canterlot before the beginning of the semester, I really don't know. Lack of courage? Didn't want to learn the truth why he never spoke to me again? By the time I got here it was too late."
"Too late for what? He got married?"
"At eleven? I used the application process to sneak access to school records. Turns out he was in Celestia's school only for a few years; somewhat of a brain. I figure a Saddle Arabian diplomat learned about him. A mercantile league in their confederation probably offered him employment. I'm guessing he and his big sister now live half a world away in the Great Sandy Desert. If you can wield a hundred spears independently at one time, you're a one-pony army who can guarantee the safety of mega-caravans. Why wouldn't he go? Let's face it, he was out of reach before I even thought of leaving home."
"Pathetic."
"Aren't I just?" I stared outside and the sky was a light shade of blue. To the east, the sky had reddened.
I spent all night… Playing?
"And you're taking it out on yourself?"
"I am."
"Pathetic." A firefly had taken to orbiting above her like a halo.
"A mare has to do what she has to do. And, unfortunately, I'm terrifically good at it."
"And at magic, too. I can teach you to cancel, and maybe you can teach me how you spell cast so quickly."
I sighed and nodded. But first, I had to do something about the blackout-sleepwalking thing. And I didn't want to know what I did that she considered "playful." Sheepishly, I asked, "Maybe we could go downstairs and talk to your father about what happened. The blackout, I mean."
She craned her head around to look me in the eye. "Downstairs? Seriously? I'm Celestia's protégé, her first protégé in a century; she gave me the tower. She gave the purple runt one, too, but hers is in Kind Hart Park, in the low rent district beyond the bailey wall. I wouldn't bring a playful mare, or stallion, home if my father were living there. Eeew."