//------------------------------// // Madness and Loyalty (Part Three) // Story: The Sun Never Sets // by Mr Fislewait //------------------------------// The campsite was nothing more than a converted library that had been repurposed to hold beds, furniture and food stores. It was clearly a temporary set up and even if I hadn't interrupted them it seemed like they hadn't been planning on spending much time here. Over the next few days I helped their group scour the Empire for the elements or at least information on where they might be. Really it was no different than what I had been doing the previous days but this time with company. We searched through houses and civic buildings, tore the palace apart to make sure we hadn't missed anything and emptied the library searching for any useful information. It was an ultimately futile search but it felt good to be helping them. Throughout our hunt I barely saw Soarin as he was generally searching from the air. Joe and Marble were poor conversationalists but for different reasons (Joe seemed uneasy around me while Marble was just naturally quiet) and Minuette refused to interact with me unless absolutely necessary. AJ and Rara were good to me though, the pair were fillyhood friends apparently and had been reunited during Discord's reign of chaos. They made for good conversation while we searched so I spent most of my time accompanying the two of them. AJ wasn't entirely comfortable around me and I couldn't blame her (she didn't bring up the fact that I seemed to know her but it clearly bugged her) but they did their best to be hospitable and kept their conversation on pleasant topics instead of the state of Equestria. So yeah with the exception of Minuette the ice queen, everything was pretty good. Wow I just got it! Minuette was acting like you! Terse, threatening, generally unpleasant towards other ponies, unwilling to forgive and disappointingly confident. It must have been like looking into a mirror. Minuette had every right to be suspicious of me, Twilight, she knew about my past, knew what a rotten student I'd been. Funny thing that. See I've been listening to all of your stories and I've noticed a little recurring trend, even with me out of the picture every single student Celestia picked up was a unicorn. It was a magic school Twilight. Maybe, or maybe Celestia is a bit of a tribalist. Good thing you never picked that up off of her huh? Or did you? Do you look down on ponies like AJ and Rara for being inferior to you? No, Twilight, no I never thought that. Never. Right? Did I? -------------------------------------------- That week passed all too quickly, the last day quickly came and Minuette made it clear that the group should be moving on. Their search had turned up nothing useful and it was time for them to leave. "Hurry up, ponies, we have places to be and Elements to find!" she was a lot more genial when the others were around. A part of me worried that if it was all just a facade then her quest would be futile, did she see the others as her friends or just as a means to an end? "It was lovely meeting you, Sunset, it was nice having a fresh face to keep us company in the search," Rara said as she gave me a goodbye hug. "Are you sure we can't persuade you to come with you?" I cast a quick glance to Minuette who shot me a glare in return. "No, I have places to be. I'll be heading my own way soon enough and I'd like to spend a little more time here before I have to get going." "Well, Sugarcube, if ya have a change of heart our next stop's Yakyakistan, Discord apparently paid them a short visit at the start of his reign so we have mighty high hopes for this one," Applejack gave me a hug of her own but I found it hard to return her enthusiasm. I couldn't really offer her any honest words of encouragement as their entire quest had a feeling of futility to it. In the week I had known them I had come to realize that they were pretty much stumbling blindly across the face of Equestria hoping to eventually bump into a clue as to where the Elements had been hidden. The others gave their own goodbyes until only Minuette was left. "Go on your way and forget you ever saw us," she hissed in my ear. "Try to follow us and it will be at your own peril." Her words spoken she gave me a meaningless hug, more for the benefit of her friends than the two of us, then turned and marched down the yellow brick road, gesturing for the others to follow her. --------------------------------------- With little time left before I would be taken away I tucked into a light meal and lay down on a bed to get some rest. The break from constant danger had done me some good and now my ribs were only barely visible beneath my coat. I'd managed to get in a few baths with the abandoned amenities of the Empire and had cleaned up relatively well, doing so had however had the unintended consequence of showing me how badly I had been beaten up over my journey. Until I sat down and had a long soak in the tub I hadn't even noticed all the small scars and bruises that littered the skin beneath my coat. Thank you for covering the worst of that up, Sunset. Ponyville owes you one for not forcing us to put up with looking at your body whenever we see you. With... with some food in my belly and a decent rest I stepped back into the streets and waited on a park bench outside, at a rough estimate I had at most an hour until I left. I planned to spend the rest of the time sitting there waiting but then I noticed something strange in the sky. I squinted trying to make out what it was and to my disbelief I saw a small biplane flying through the air, an honest to Celestia biplane like the ones they used to fly on the other side of the portal. Trailing behind it was a great banner bearing the words 'Storm of Chaos Coming Soon to You' and a great smiling Discord face. "Oh, go on, have a nice long stare, but if you want to truly appreciate the beauty that is moi, then look no further," I tripped backwards off of the bench as the voice of an older stallion laughed in my ear. I stumbled away, quickly getting back up onto my hooves and looking back at the bench. Sitting right next to where I had been seated was the figure of Discord himself, just as I had remembered from the statue garden except dressed up in a creme suit and blue shirt, eating chocolates from a box on his lap. "Discord," I growled. "Oh come now, Sunset! Must we really be so antagonistic towards one another? We don't need to be antagonistic antagonists my dear, why I really just want a nice friendly chat! A little heart to heart, if you will," his face seemed perpetually curled up in a smug smirk and one arm pulled me back onto the bench beside him. "What do you want and how do you know who I am?" "Ah, Sunset, I know who all of my little ponies are. It just so happens that of them all you are of interest to me today. You're like a little miniature scion of chaos, Sunset! Hopping through time and space sowing Discord across timelines! Why if you weren't leaving so soon I'd offer you a job! Sunset Shimmer, personal protegee to Princess Discord! Has a nice ring to it don't you think?" He elbowed me jokingly in the ribs but I kept my silence refusing to rise to the bait. "Anyway, Sunset, I come to you today with a little offer, you see while it pains me to admit that I am not entirely omniscient as the ruling deity of this little Equestria, I do know a great deal about its little goings on. I did a little research," his suit transformed into a lab coat and he peered down at me through a pair of spectacles "and it seems that you are lost, my dear. I'm here to offer you a bargain of sorts, something I want in exchange for me sending you on to your home instead of leaving you to the whims of the magical timey wimey portal in the sky." "What sort of offer," I hazarded to ask, I didn't like him but Discord had just straight up offered me the solution to all my problems, I'd be mad not to at least listen to the details. "Ah, you see a little band of merry rebels are trying to spoil the wonders of my chaos Equestria and a little bird told me that you might have met them. It's a simple trade, you tell me where they are going and in exchange you get to go back home to Kansas!" "Kansas?" "A figure of speech, it means I send you home to the Equestria you came from. So what do you say, Sunset, old buddy old friend old pal? Care to shake my paw?" he stretched out his lion's paw in my direction but I shrunk backwards away from it. "No, I'm not going to sell them out on some false promise, if you want them then go look for them but I'm not going to help you, do what you will but I'm not betraying them." "Oh, Sunset, you of little faith!" Discord said lightly patting me on the head. "I'd never hurt you! I may be many things but I don't make it a habit of hurting foals." "What's that supposed to mean?" "Hmmm how do I put this. You're eating for two, you have a bun in the oven, harboring a fugitive, knocked up..." he pulled a lever that had materialized in front of him and party poppers exploded about us covering me in confetti as a banner unfurled behind him reading 'Congratulations It's A Filly!!!'. "Now, Sunset, while you many not be so selfish as to turn those other ponies in for your own sake, perhaps you'd do it for hers," he said pointing a single digit at my stomach. "I hardly think 'lost in time and space' is really a suitable environment for raising a foal, do you?" I silently mouthed meaningless words as I stared at the banner, trying to get my head around what Discord had said. "No...no you're lying, I'm not pregnant. I can't be... I mean... how would you even know? Even if I was pregnant it'd be too early to check, most medical spells wouldn't be able to tell for another few weeks," the words spluttered out of my mouth as I tried avoiding choking up between each word. "Again, Sunset, God of Chaos. I'm a cut above most magic. Why I'm the creme de la creme not just another Jane Doe," he casually began filing his nails while humming an unfamiliar upbeat tune to himself. "Well the answer's still no, Discord, I'm not going to sell other ponies out like that, that isn't who I am anymore." I tried to put on a brave face as he glared down at me, his eyes filled with fire, his teeth grinding against each other and a great vein throbbing on his forehead. He clapped his hands together and party poppers went off. "Congratulations, Sunset!" He beamed with a sudden smile on his face. As the second wave of confetti fell around us he passed me a balloon with the words 'Honorary Back up Element of Loyalty' scrawled across it. "You passed the test!" "Test?" "I had a little wager with somepony else about whether you would sell out a friend for personal benefit and I am a creature of my word, oh it stings a little to lose but it amuses me to see your reaction. You see, Sunset, I already know where your friends are going and I was powerless to send you back home in the first place! You actually made the objectively correct choice, Sunset! Kudos." I blinked over and over again. This was what Discord did for sport? Traveling across Equestria raising ponies' hopes only to dash them on the rocks. "So what? This was all just an elaborate joke at my expense? There's no way home, nothing I could do to protect AJ and the others? I bet I'm not even pregnant!" I snarled at him with new found energy. "Oh no, Sunset, you're still pregnant. Don't feel so bad though! It was all just a prank! A harmless jape! Oh, you should have seen the look on your face! Serious talk before I go though, if you ever do get back to your home might I recommend teaming up with your version of little old me? Why I dare say there is a fire in your heart that could bring all of Equestria to it's knees! It would be a shame to see that go to waste." "If I ever get home..." I said holding back tears, "and if I ever have the misfortune to meet a version of you as unpleasant as this, then I will kill you. You're a monster, Discord, there's no logic to what you're doing! You're just hurting others because it amuses you, I've met a lot of monsters, Discord, but at least they had motives, you... you're doing it for laughs." "Well you really are a mood killer aren't you? Quite the ray of sunshine," grumbling to himself Discord snapped his claws together changing his clothes into a black dress and hat with a scarf, traveling bag and umbrella. "Well if you have a change of heart feel free to come and find me, it's clear that your not in any mood for fun right now so I suppose I will be bidding you adieu." He tipped his hat to me then unfurled his umbrella, a sudden gust of wind sending him rocketing into the sky and out of my life. You asked me once why I was taking the news about the foal so well, Twilight? Well the answer is that I didn't. For the rest of the hour that I was waiting for the portal to arrive I was a wreck. I wasn't ready to have a kid, especially not if my life was going to continue on like that forever, hopping from one disaster to another. I was never going to see the father again, I didn't have a job, I didn't have any parents to show me what to do or set an example for me to follow. I was a wreck Twilight, collapsed in the park crying my eyes out. Oh boo hoo. 'My life's so hard because I made a lot of stupid mistakes then refused to accept the consequences' that's what you sound like right now, Sunset. Seriously, it hurts to listen to you. Twilight, what are you... What I'm trying to say, Sunset, is you're nothing. Seriously, you help save the world one time and you get it into your head that you're a hero. No, Sunset, you're like our Discord, a washed up has been of a villain who is just hanging onto the coattails of better ponies and looking for a little recognition. At the end of the day every achievement you have was just gained from leeching off of others. Without others to lean on and steal credit from you're nothing, Sunset, you're- ---------------------------------------------- A loud knocking on the door broke Sunset's concentration. "Sunset? Are you alright in there? I was just down in the library and couldn't find you," Twilight called to her from the other side of the bathroom door. Sunset twitched a little trying to make some sense of her surroundings. She was in the castle bathroom standing in front of the bathroom mirror. How had she gotten there? Thinking back over what had happened she tried to connect the dots together but there seemed to be gaps no matter how she looked at it. She'd needed to wash up after spilling some ink on her hooves and then Twilight had asked her to continue her story. The two of them had sat down in her study and she had filled Twilight in on the next part of the tale. Sunset looked down at her still ink stained hooves. Why hadn't she bothered to clean them? Why was she back in the bathroom? Why did her legs hurt so much? She'd been sitting down on a comfy cushion when she was talking to Twilight but it felt more like she'd been on her legs all day. "I'm fine, Twilight," Sunset called through the door, "just cleaning myself up." There was a brief pause before Twilight replied. "Well if you're sure. It just felt like you'd been in there awhile. When you're done how about we close up the library for lunch and go get something to eat at Sugarcube Corner?" Twilight sounded concerned, unduly so. Sunset hadn't been in the bathroom that long so why was she seeming so needy all of a sudden? "That sounds great,Twilight," she called back through the door as she began washing the ink stains from her hooves. "that sounds just great."