Wash Me In The Water
Sunset Flash
Wash Me In The Water
Rest is very important for the recovery process of overstressed individuals.
—Merk’s Guide to Trauma Care
Sunlight filtered through the trees in the garden as Sunset Shimmer took a brisk walk to clear her mind before returning to Celestia’s school for her entrance exam. There were dozens of young colts and little fillies ahead of her in line, and spending that much time in close quarters with so many overstressed little ponies had been nerve wracking enough she had to get some distance before there would be trouble. Her foster parents were nowhere to be seen, of course, having vanished off into their boring jobs as boring ponies after dropping little Sunset off at the exam, much as they never seemed to be home when she returned after school. The one good thing about going into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns was that she would finally be able to ditch the losers. Just a few minutes to show her brilliance to the teachers and she’d be in, buttering up the right ponies to slide on through school like she had cruised through every difficulty in her life since being abandoned at the orphanage.
The sound of crying broke through Sunset’s youthful thoughts of scholastic conquest, and she hesitated momentarily at the spot where the path split. Flowers lined the trail in both directions, but the heartfelt sobs piqued her curiosity, and she tiphooved in their direction. After walking down the back path for a short distance and rounding a bush, she stumbled backwards as an immense wall of white filled her entire vision.
“P-Princess Celestia?” she stammered. “What are you… I’m sorry! I’ll just—”
The huge white alicorn that Sunset had only seen in the distance before turned away from her with a wet sniffle and a cough to clear her throat. “That’s all right, child,” she rasped in a voice rough from crying.
Although Sunset Shimmer had turned to leave Princess Celestia alone with whatever was causing her such grief, she hesitated, turning around again with considerable trepidation and asking, “Can I help you, Princess?”
“No.” Celestia remained with her back to Sunset Shimmer, her head bowed low and the soft pastel colors of her mane faded to faint blotches of dull pinks and blues.
“Are you sure?” Something about the ancient alicorn’s posture made Sunset walk up to her side and look at the small patch of ashes that had been damped by her tears. “Did something catch on fire here?”
“Philomena,” said Celestia. “She’s a phoenix, older even than I am, and the only friend that I have since—” She choked up and shuddered, as huge as a overhanging snowdrift to the little filly by her side but still warm as the sun.
“A Phoenix?” said Sunset Shimmer. “I thought they live forever unless they’re killed by a predator. Whenever they get old, they are consumed in fire and are reborn from the ashes. But you already knew that,” Sunset added in haste.
Celestia nodded. “She’s grown old and been reborn so many times. I thought she would never die, but this time…” One gold-clad hoof nudged the small pile of ashes and more tears rained down.
“Maybe she just doesn’t have enough fire,” suggested Sunset, putting her nose almost onto the cold pile of ashes as she examined them in detail. “She’s old, so maybe she needs a little boost.”
Golden magic began to wash over the little filly’s horn as she concentrated, small motes of light floating around her in a halo that cast shadows across the nearby bushes and plants. The sunlight grew in brightness around the pile of ashes, concentrated and focused by the determined little unicorn until the grass charred into coils of smoke and a wave of fire exploded out from the ground.
Coughing and gasping for air, Sunset Shimmer stumbled backwards as a bolt of yellow and orange erupted in front of her nose and darted over her head. The brilliant phoenix fairly shimmered with power in the concentrated sunlight, dancing and spinning in ecstasy as it circled Sunset Shimmer and eventually landed on her head.
“Princess Celestia! Princess Celestia! I did it!” Sunset Shimmer looked up at the Princess of the Sun, who glowed with joy as she beamed down at the little unicorn.
“And that’s not all you did, Sunset Shimmer,” said Celestia, pointing at Sunset’s flank.
“My cutie mark,” she squealed. “I got my cutie mark! Philomena, look!” Sunset Shimmer danced around in the brilliant sunlight with the phoenix while Princess Celestia looked on with a sly smile and the subtle shake of her head.
“You have a very special gift, Sunset Shimmer,” said Princess Celestia, once the little unicorn had calmed down enough to talk. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen another unicorn with as much raw power as you, but you need to learn how to control these abilities through focused study. How would you like to become my own personal protege here at the school?”
~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~
Over the sound of birdsong and the gusts of the morning breeze, the sun rose rather slowly to spill its light across a wide spread of jumbled trees, the end result of last night’s flash flood in the Everfree. Water dripped from every tattered branch and splintered trunk, making sparkles of light chase among the brilliant morning sunbeams. Small creatures scurried around the waterlogged wood, scrounging for food or shelter in the maze of fallen branches as the warmth of morning replaced the bitter chill of the icy floodwaters. In this sea of browns and tattered green, a small fleck of yellow and orange fluttered, hopping from branch to branch as if it was seeking something it had lost. It paused on occasion with head cocked to one side and wet feathers fluffed to catch the morning rays of sunshine, then gave a raspy cry as it hopped over a fallen branch to brush up against a small fragment of yellow and orange that matched its own feathery coat.
The bird chirped once, then again as it received no response from the first call. It scratched briefly at whatever it had found buried in the matted branches, then lowered its beak and bit down firmly.
“Ow! What the… Philomena! Let go of my ear!”
Branches shifted, tumbling to one side or another as a soggy and very groggy unicorn staggered up out of the mess with a phoenix still hanging onto her ear by the beak.
“Philomena!” Sunset staggered and flopped down on a brushy cushion of damp branches, holding her head to one side to prevent the loss of one ear. The phoenix finally released her painful hold with a raspy chirp and hopped up on a nearby branch to regard Sunset Shimmer with avian disdain.
“Stupid bird,” muttered Sunset, rubbing her bloody ear. “You’re dumber than… Flash!” A rapid look around did not reveal the pegasus, but a low groan under a nearby set of branches turned out to be the battered guard. Still staggering on her hooves, Sunset yanked off the branches while cursing. “Flash! Say something, stupid! At least say something stupid so I know you’re alive.”
“Ow.” Flash Sentry winced as Sunset pulled a particularly large branch off his head. “Hurts too much.” His muttered complaints turned into a piercing shriek of pain as Sunset pulled off one branch that jabbed him in the matted mass of feathers that had been his bandaged wing, and it took several minutes of concentrated effort until his breathing settled down into a low rasping and Sunset’s heart quit hammering in terror.
“Need a pill,” he whimpered, repeating the phrase several times as Sunset dug him out of his branch-covered resting place. Sometime during their pell-mell ride down the river, he had managed to lose every piece of heavy armor except for the sideplate, which had been unable to slip over the sodden mass of bandages and straps that still stuck to his wounded wing. Thankful that the painkiller pill bottle was still intact, Sunset scowled as only one small white pill emerged onto her shaking hoof.
“I thought we had two of these left,” she muttered.
“Took one before we left to the ants,” whimpered Flash. “Hurt too much. Please?”
“Don’t chew it,” she admonished, holding the tiny white pill to his lips and trying not to feel resentful as he gulped it down as if it were candy. The hammering pain in her head far eclipsed any of the many cuts and bruises that covered the rest of her body, but as much as that pill would have made her feel better, Flash needed it far more than she did right now.
“Thanks. Sunny.” Flash just lay there and gasped for a moment before attempting to get up, with little to no effect. “We should. Get. Going,” he added between short coughs.
“You’re burning up, stupid.” After a short glance at the mass of matted feathers and dirty twine that covered his broken wing, Sunset took her hoof off of his head and looked towards Canterlot perched on the distant mountain. It seemed worlds away, as if she could walk for the rest of her life and it still would look just as distant.
“Go on,” said Flash. “Get help. I’ll wait.”
“No way.” Sunset heaved herself to her hooves and stretched. “Even if I find somepony out there to help, there’s no way we could find you again until the buzzards start circling.” She took long drink of water from the nearby muddy stream and returned to the groggy pegasus. “Is the pill working, Flash?”
“Uh. Yeah, I think. What’re you doing, Sun?”
Sunset Shimmer grunted as she shouldered the hot pegasus, trying not to pay any attention to the way his coat felt all slimy against her own muddy back. It took a few tries to get him situated across her bent spine so he would not fall off after a few paces, but as she started walking towards the distant castle, he slumped against her neck with a comforting and sleepy nuzzle.
“Tha’ks Sun. Yer best friend ever.”
“Shut up, stupid.” Sunset plodded along as a flutter of wings ruffled the tangled hair of her mane and Philomena resumed her comfortable perch. “You too,” she added, maintaining her constant plod towards the distant city. A sharp peck to the top of her head was the only response Philomena made, although she did rearrange her claws into a slightly less painful grip on the top of Sunset’s head.
* * *
The world had shrunk to the few short paces of dirt and grass in front of her hooves as Sunset stumbled along, trying to look up every few hundred paces to ensure she was still traveling towards the distant image of Canterlot that was shimmering in the sunlight like a heavenly cloud so far away it could have been some sort of mirage. Every time her concentration wavered and she was about to stumble, a sharp blow from a beak brought her back to reality.
“Stupid bird,” she muttered as Philomena rearranged herself somewhere above her horn and behind her line of sight. “You just wanna see me fail. ‘m not gonna. I didn’t fail when we first met, did I?”
A sharp chirp delivered directly into her throbbing ear was Philomena’s response.
“Yeah, right. You’re not stupid. You’re too smart for your own good. What were you thinkin’ by going into the stupid forest after us? You die and Princess Celestia won’t have anypony. Well, ‘cept Luna.” She trudged onwards, trying to keep her balance as Flash shifted in his sleep.
“Princess Luna. Seems weird. Nev’r saw her. All I can see is Vice Principal Luna in those high-heeled shoes she wears to try’n look taller around her sister. You can hear her coming down the halls for miles in those shoes. The sound of doom. Click, click, click. Scares the bejeebers out of the other kids.” Sunset walked onwards and tried not to talk, but eventually added, “The human Celestia has a parrot.”
At the interrogatory chirp from Philomena, Sunset added, “A dumb parrot. It’s not smart like you. It doesn’t do pranks. Or play dead to make little fillies think they’ve managed to save her life.”
Philomena chirped a defiant response.
“Bull,” said Sunset. “That was a setup. Princess Celestia knew my name.”
There was no response from the phoenix.
“She manipulated me from the time I first met her,” said Sunset Shimmer between pants for breath as the path she was following turned uphill. “I’mean Twi told me about her and the Elements. Celestia never told her about Luna in ten years. Never told me either.” Sunset trudged onwards for a while, trying to stay in the middle of the twisting path. “That’s only reason why she wanted us. Save her sister.”
The annoying bird purred somewhere deep in her throat before letting out a raucous cry.
“Figured you’d take her side.” She trudged in silence for a long while, eventually growling, “She manipulates everypony. Says it’s for their own good. Bull. Who was she to use me that way?”
This time Philomena braced herself on her muddy perch and stuck her head out far enough to look Sunset Shimmer in the eyes.
“Yeah, I know,” muttered Sunset. “She’s the Princess. All I wanted to do was be like her, but all I could see was the power and the manipulation. When I tried to be that way…”
She trudged along for a while until Philomena gave her a sharp peck to the forehead again.
“I’ve changed, alright? I have friends now. Yes, friends,” added Sunset at the disbelieving chirp that sounded from her smaller passenger. “More friends than I thought I had, I suppose. Even a stupid one from Equestria.”
That earned her two sharp pecks on the head, and after a long pause, two more.
“Two friends?”
Philomena rubbed her head against Sunset Shimmer’s throbbing ear and chirped loudly into it.
“I ‘spose.” She walked in silence for a long time with no more thoughts other than putting one hoof in front of another. What little strength she had seemed to trickle away with each step, and the fever-stricken pegasus on her back began to feel less hot as her own temperature began to rise.
“Gonna need a doctor,” she muttered. “Flash, we’re gonna get you to the doc. Fix you up. Maybe fix you. Always thought you’d be better gelding than colt. Better to guard Twilight.”
“Princess?” mumbled Flash, twisting around a little on her back before allowing his head to lol against her neck. “D’on wanna see her like this.”
“Shuddup, stupid.” Her plodding progress had slowed to a weak shuffle as the sun had risen high in the sky, but as long as she could push through the bushes, putting one hoof in front of another…
She froze with her nose still pointing towards the ground.
It was a hoofprint.
For one long moment, she was terrified that it was one of her own, and that she had been walking in circles, but when she moved her hoof next to it, she could feel a tiny spark of hope flare in time with her heartbeat.
It was a different hoofprint. Unshod. Different than any pony hoof she had ever seen.
A Zebra hoofprint on a rarely-trod path.
“Can’t be ‘n Zebrica,” muttered Sunset, straining to lift her head and look up through the blur of her watering eyes. “Spell could’a, but there’s Canterlot. I think. Gotta move. Celestia’s wait’n. Come on.”
She willed her hoof to raise, only for gravity to pull her down, ever so slowly until she was resting on her chest over the obliterated hoofprint. “Can’t sleep,” she muttered. “Never gonna bring me down. Never gonna… Gonna…”
The ground under her chest was thumping in time with her heartbeat somehow, a deep and rhythmic thud that made her acutely aware of every cut and splinter through her tattered hide. It vibrated her ribs, made her back itch, and one hoof twitched in response. Heaving the hoof forward, she strained to rise up despite the heavy pegasus on her back who seemed to weigh more than Mount Canter.
“Never gonna bring me down,” she muttered, wobbling uncertainly on all four hooves as her surroundings faded in and out of sight. “Not fame. Not pop’larity. Not…”
One hoof lurched forward.
Then another.
There was a rhythm to the ground beneath her that she strained to match, her original shuffle changing to a slow walk over time, and then an agonizing trot that she maintained with her eyes closed, using the thick bushes to either side of the path as her only guide as the hammering in her head and the raspy pant of her breathing seemed to merge with the thumping of the noise and drive her onwards. The pain was still there, just as strong as ever, but there was something else that overrode her fatigued body and filled it with energy. Even Flash seemed to recognize her struggle and shifted to a more stable position as she came up over a low hill.
Something seemed to strike her head and knock her off her pace, leaving a cold spot on the top of her head where Philomena had been sitting. She staggered on the narrow path while squinting in the bright sunlight, the rainbow smears of color through watering eyes dancing in front of her unsteady steps. Without the bushes to either side, there was no obvious direction for her to stagger, but she still managed a shuffling trot down the path while blinking away tears from the unexpected brightness. The thumping was louder now, resonating in her chest as her vision cleared up somewhat and revealed a sight that took long moments for her overstressed mind to comprehend.
“It’z a glass castle, Flash,” muttered Sunset Shimmer as she staggered a few steps on inertia before stopping. “She’z got a castle with a giant cutie mark over it.” The distant streak of orange and yellow that plummeted down out of the sky and into a window of the giant castle seemed funny for some reason and she burst into laughter as she swayed in place. “It’z a huge butt,” she gasped. “Twi’z mooning Ponyville. Ponyville?”
The outskirts of the small town with the occasional resident flying through the air or trotting down one of the small paths between buildings were scattered around the base of the huge crystal castle like pebbles around a monument. The peaceful streets seemed alien to her disbelieving eyes after fighting the Everfree Forest. Sounds of birds drifted through the air, mixed with the thready notes of a familiar tune that caused Sunset Shimmer’s slow swaying in place to stop as she recognized it. The song had been echoing through the back of her head ever since she had dug herself out of the wet pile of branches this morning, and now that she could hear it for real, a brilliant fire burned in her heart as everything else in the world came into sharp focus.
My friends.
With a clash of notes, the music abruptly cut off and all of the energy that had held her up drained away in a rush. The castle faded in front of her eyes as she began to collapse, barely able to tell that the two streaks of light that burst out of the top of the giant structure were a rainbow contrail mixed with a familiar violet, both headed in her direction as fast as they could fly.
It brought a smile to her face as Sunset Shimmer pitched forward unconscious onto the streets of Ponyville.
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One more chapter. Write georg write.
Glad to see this is coming along. Can't wait to see how you finish it, Georg.
Why do I suspect in the end there will be a dialogue between Celestia and Philomena, where it will be revealed Celly knew all along where was Sunset and all of this was another settup test?
5760077
no. They almost died, and Celestia isn't evil.
5760077
Remember, in canon Celestia used Philomena to test Fluttershy. It would make sense that she also used her to test Sunset.
Ahh, so Sunset's cutie mark story, and Celestia's second cutie mark in transparent setups.
You could do worse for another friend than a phoenix.
Dang, that march along to Sunset's Rainbow Rocks solo was just the perfect thing to come along while I was text-to-speech listening to this during my run this morning. Especially since I occasionally listen to that song during my runs if I'm not streaming a chapter.
Hah!
Ahh, Ponyville, marginally less chaotic than the Everfree. At the very least, the bears probably won't eat you unless you really cheese Fluttershy off. And with Rainbow (and Twilight) on the job, emergency medical attention is likely to be a short and vaguely safe flight away.
Wow. Celestia told Sunset the same thing she told Twilight, verbatim. That... that actually kind of stings. How many times has she told a pony that? Out of those, how many times has she actually meant it?
As for Sunset now... Well, she might not have gotten the words out, but the climax song of Rainbow Rocks is certainly appropriate. She endures, steady as the sun. When she falls, it is only because she's already gotten where she's going. Definitely looking forward to the conclusion.
Man, Celly is a manipulative jerk face.
5760467
How was that a test?
5761554
IMO Celestia set up the situation with Fluttershy and Philomena to see how Fluttershy would react given a scenario where she thought an animal was being poorly tended-to but action would require either verbally-confronting authority or doing something even more risky. And in this story, I think Celestia was testing Sunset's powers. just as in canon she tests Twilight's with Spike's egg.
Not sure which I love more, Celestia and Philomena running the ol' "Find Your Destiny" con on a young Sunset, or Sunset chanting her personal song to keep up the strength to make it out of the Everfree.
5760353
Maybe a setup gone horribly wrong, then, when Sunset didn't react as predicted.
How much longer till next chapter?
5779208 Remember, Flash Fridays. I'm still not really perfectly happy with the ending, but sometimes you just need to go with it.
Said overstressed individuals tend to live with stressors, so it is de facto impossible to not rest, as stressors tend to be adventurers.
Never gonna give you up,
Never gonna run around and
desert you.