//------------------------------// // 12: The Court of Public Opinion 2 // Story: Sabbatical, or the Study of Garden Gnome Anatomy in South Perjina // by Casca //------------------------------// And yet it was. "Tell me about your travels," said Twilight, and so Sunset did. It was easier than gouging out her frustrations and her trauma. It was easier than exposing her bleeding heart to the present company. Why did Spike have to be here? All it did was give her a cornerstone, a foundation to build a solid excuse on. Sure, maybe she could have a heart-to-heart with Twilight, but not in front of the kid, right? It was just so awkward. It was one of the best excuses Sunset had made for herself to not do something, and she hated it. "Well, there was this one time when we ended up in a desert, and I said, 'Isn't it amazing to just drink in the view?' And you wouldn't believe what Starlight did next..." It felt dirty. Talking to an eagerly listening Twilight, in person, at last, after so long, only to spend the moment on pointless recollections of events that were horribly mundane. It was like that time when Sunset had spent her first bits from her allowance on reference books for school. That was not how she had wanted to spend her special moment. She had wanted a double choc superwhipper with only green sprinkles. Her parents had made her use it on math. "You seem a bit pale," said Twilight. "I should have made the soup a bit thicker to nourish you better." "No, no," said Sunset, forcing her smile and not hiding it particularly well. The weariness might have been physical; Sunset was sure that it was mostly mental. More than anything, this kind of shallow catching up was such a human thing. Conversations of no real weight over cups of equal parts sugar and cream labelled as coffee, sold like sterling silver. They did it because they were humans and humans were, on the whole, more susceptible to being horrible than ponies, so honesty usually meant being a metaphorical slubbering mess. How did you become an alicorn? What's it like having wings? Did you hook up with the Flash Sentry from here?? Or maybe you decided you wanted a marefriend instead? Spill the damn beans, girl! And I missed you—dear Celestia, I missed you so much. How could you not return my letters, my journals? Even when I swallowed my pride, and all but begged you to respond, because I needed your advice— "...and there was this one time when Starlight thought that palpitations were called thrombosis..." Cracks were forming. Years of honing people skills, be it for good or bad, had made Sunset an expert conversationalist, and she could see the signs in Twilight's expression. Twitching at the edges of the lips, because it was getting hard to hold the smile. A sudden rigidity of the hooves because she had to keep them from wandering. Eyes that darted away whenever Sunset feigned looking away, gasping for relief from that sadistic convention: that you were supposed to meet one's eyes right on to show you were listening, even when you didn't want to. And Sunset didn't care. She didn't care about the stories. That was why Twilight was having a hard time doing the same. "Could you be a dear and take the dishes away, Spike?" asked Twilight after a soulless bout of Neapolitan ice cream. The sigh, the shrug, the little flick of his tail as he carried the stack away that showed he was actually glad to be free. Sunset grinned a little. She knew that being sore towards him just for being there was unfair. But satisfaction was satisfaction. Twilight got up and stepped to her side. "I get the feeling something's bothering you." Sunset met her gaze. "Aside from Starlight Glimmer's passing." Sunset's politeness faltered. "I think I know why." "Hm?" asked Sunset. The surprised act was so unconvincing that she could hear the closest performance artist hissing with hatred. "I... I've been caught up with things." Now Twilight looked away, and the air grew thicker. "First it was the Cutie Mark Crusaders and their cutie marks, then it was figuring out what to do with the bumper harvest, and the map was sending us to further and further away..." "All you had to write was 'I'm sorry, I'm busy'," whispered Sunset. "But Sunset—" Whatever had been pent up had been lit. Her ears started to burn. "I would have understood. Just one reply..." "I was afraid you'd hate me!" pleaded Twilight. "I was worried that you'd get mad and grow resentful of me, and think I wasn't your friend anymore!" "And you were right!" sniffed Sunset, shaking away the tears with sickly vehemence. "I would have been mad. I would have hated you. But at least I wouldn't have raised my hopes up!" She shot up and shoved Twilight hard, making her yelp. "If you had just told me that, then I'd have resigned to my fate! Then I could have moved on, and maybe I could have tried to accept it!" She stomped into the ground as the fur on her cheeks began to pad up. "Then I wouldn't have come back to Equestria at all!" Twilight blinked, frozen. "Wait. What are you talking about?" "My future, dammit!" Sunset shot a glare that barely scratched the churning surface of her emotions. "What I'm supposed to do, where I'm supposed to go when high school ends! Was I ever going to come back? Was I ever going to be a pony again? Or did I have to face life in Humania until I died?! Damn university applications, damn degrees, damn everything!" She screamed. "Damn money and damn getting a job and living out the rest of my life as if nothing had ever happened! As if I was just plain, normal, without the slightest trace of magic left!" "Twilight?" "Spike, not the time!" The slam of the kitchen door barely registered in Sunset's mind. There it was. She had gotten what she wanted after all. She had done it, Sunset style. She had gone for what she wanted. But it was all horribly, horribly wrong. It wasn't meant to be like this. For one, Twilight wasn't supposed to admit that she had been busy. Denial, the first stage of grief. Sunset thought that the human analysis of grief was fascinating and remarkably insightful. Ponies didn't study grief much on account of not being grieved often. Which also said something about the human condition that such a thing was being taught in schools to children who weren't even a fifth into their lifespans. She gagged a little as she choked on her tears. The words spluttered, toxic fumes from a worn exhaust without a muffler: "Well? Say something, Twilight!" Sunset could feel her horn crackling. It was a bad habit that she couldn't care less about now. She reveled in the feeling now, in the warmth and power of magic. She felt like she could root herself in the leylines, dive, let it envelop her, and double her emotions in the process. She didn't hate the hate. She enjoyed it. All she wanted was to feel, until she knew nothing but that feeling, until she became nothing but despair and fury. "Sunset, I'm sorry!" Twilight fell to her knees, and she was crying too. "I'm so, so sorry! Please, you have to understand!" "You never gave me the chance to!" Crystal. There was a disproportionate amount of it in the dining room. Sunset wondered if it could burn. "I know! And I realize it's all my fault!" Twilight's horn was flaring up now, and there was real panic in her expression. "But you have to calm down! This isn't the way to do things, and I thought we were over it!" "Just some closure. Was it too much to ask for?" Sunset swiped at her face, half-expecting black smudges from the mascara she had forgotten to put on. "And last time was me being wrong. But this time... this time you wronged me." She gasped sharply as a chill suddenly set in. Her skin suddenly felt dry, as if she had been dropped back into the barren wastelands of Otherside. That had not been a happy two months. Her knees were stinging now, as if the tendons had decided to give up on work altogether. She wobbled. The room was spinning. "Twilight?" stammered Sunset. "Oh, no," said Twilight, and she dashed over. With her wingspan in full flourish, casting a shade over her trembling body, she lowered her horn to meet Sunset's. There was a pop. "This is not good. Sunset, you need to lie down. Now!" "What's... what's going on?" wheezed Sunset. "It's rare, but there's been several cases of it in the past year," said Twilight, gritting her teeth. "Sunset... your magic is poisoning you. We need to treat you immediately." "You're going to knock me out again, aren't you?" Twilight laughed. It was the saddest laugh Sunset had heard. "Just... I'd like to keep my magic," continued Sunset. Twilight swallowed hard. Sunset watched a teardrop fall from her reddened eyes on to her muzzle, before a flash of violet stole her consciousness away. Getting real old, isn't it? The ratings dropped by a bit... It's fine. We still have the largest volume this side of the show times! Sunset woke up to something warm and something taut in her neck. As it turns out, that something was very close and very purple, and the second something was an inexpertly supported neck. Hers. "Ow," groaned Sunset. "Mmm," murmured Twilight, stirring and gently poking Sunset's eye in the process. "Ow!" groaned Sunset a little louder. "Sorry. Sorry!" Twilight scrambled back to stand beside the bed. Sunset was a quick riser. It came with the personality. And she could figure out that Twilight had been hugging her as she slept. Her eyes widened. It was creepy. But... it wasn't as if it wasn't nice. But it was still creepy! And then, as her brain caught up to speed, and her body warmed up to live out yet another day, it struck her. How inspiration worked was an unpopular subject among the philosophy club, which she had joined very briefly in Humania. It wasn't as popular as describing inspiration, which everybody liked doing so they could show off their superlatives, hyperlatives and ultralatives (which had the effect of laxatives), and because the average philosophy dabbler was not inspired often enough to make working observations on it. In Sunset's case, it was often coincidence, and this was one of them. "I think I know why you and Starlight fought," said Sunset slowly. It made sense based on what she knew of Twilight. It made sense based on what she knew of Starlight. Twilight bit her lip. "Sunset. Please. Now's not the time..." "You were too secretive around her, right? That's the reason, isn't it?" Sunset gripped the bedsheets. The plush was comforting, stirring up primal memories of simpler times long ago. "She probably wanted to know something. A spell, or some history, and for whatever reason you couldn't tell her. But you didn't communicate that right, and so she had enough and left. Isn't that right?" "I don't know," said Twilight, shaking her head. "What?" "I said I don't know!" shouted Twilight, and as she lifted her face into the light spilling from the full moon, she could see the eyebags and wrinkles around her face. Had those always been there? "I don't know why Starlight left!" "That's... no." "It's the truth, Sunset." "No. You—" Sunset leapt out of the bed and pointed a stern hoof at her. "You think you don't know. But I'm telling you that's what happened! And don't think I don't know what's going on. Twilight..." The hoof faltered. "Twilight, I know you're a princess now. I know that you think that sometimes, you're doing it for the good of everypony. But it doesn't have to be like this. Dammit, you can trust us, Twilight. Just open up and trust us." "You mean you," said Twilight, sniffling. Sunset lowered her head. "All right. Okay. I'll come clean," said Twilight, rubbing her eyes. "What do you want to know?" "I want to know..." Deep in her gut, something triggered. It dashed through her neural network, shooting up the spine, and cut in front of the queue for whatever thought had been lined up. "...what exactly is going on here." The words surprised even Sunset. True, something had felt a little off. For one, why hadn't Starlight teleported, or even better, used that silly "Grand Invocation: Supreme" she was so fond of? Surely they'd have found the body by now? Held a funeral? They were unicorns for goodness sake. If she wanted to, Twilight, Princess of freaking Magic (which friendship was) could level half the continent. But it wasn't just that, or Twilight's overfriendliness. Even if... even if it wasn't unwelcome, it all felt off. And it wasn't the shock, either. At least, Sunset felt it wasn't shock. Though it could be. But her gut was telling her it wasn't. "What's going on here?" asked Sunset again. Twilight wordlessly stepped forward and held Sunset's hoof. Both of them blushed. Twilight's hoof was so warm. Gently tugging, she led Sunset to the balcony, and sighed, looking up at the moon. Sunset did so too. And then a force whacked her from behind, shoving her off the rails.