Dawn's Fury

by Scipio Smith

Shattered Hopes and Broken Dreams

Dawn's Fury

Scipio Smith

Chapter 1

Shattered Hopes and Broken Dreams

"Princess Celestia, where's Sunset? Isn't she coming?"

Dawn Starfall stood in the centre of the carpet like a lost puppy, looking up at Princess Celestia, who stood with her back to Dawn, looking out over the night-shrouded city of Canterlot.

"Sunset won't be joining us," Celestia said, her voice clipped, her tone solemn.

"Is she sick?" Dawn asked. "Is that why I haven't seen her all day?"

Celestia hesitated. "No, Dawn. Sunset is not ill. Or at least, not in the way that you mean. She has...gone away."

"When's she coming back?" Dawn asked.

Celestia bowed her head. "I fear that she will not return from where she has gone."

Dawn blinked for a moment, thinking of how empty the dorm she shared with Princess Celestia's other student would be now that she had it all to herself. Who would push her to get better, without Sunset's infuriating example to drive her? Who would make fun of her when she made mistakes, and so encourage her to make fewer mistakes in future? Whose mockery would prickle, whose example would guide her, who would understand when she talked about what her day had been like. Who would she fight with every day until she couldn't fight any more? Who would she best, in the end, in the contest for greatness?

Who would be her rival now?

"She didn't even say goodbye," Dawn murmured. "I don't understand."

Celestia sighed. "I pray you never will."

---

Sunrise Square was packed with every kind of pony imaginable. Upper class unicorns, of the kind who would normally not have been seen dead in the company of such riff-raff as now rubbed shoulders with them, made no snide remarks nor harsh demands, and if any noses were in the air it was only because they were looking up at the palace balcony. Earth ponies, rough-hoofed labourers of the kind who would normally had to have paid rent to share the same air as the rarefied gentlecolts around them stood side-by-side with those who could afford to buy them out ten times over, each alike locked in rapt attention at the scene above. Pegasi filled the skies above, hovering overhead like crows over a battlefield.

Crows come to pick clean the corpse of my ambitions, Dawn Starfall though sourly. She felt like the only pony in this entire crowd who didn't look like they were about to jump out of their coat in ecstasy. Right in front of her was one particular lime-green unicorn who wouldn't stop jumping up and down to get a better view. It was all Dawn could do not to smack her down with magic.

It was all she could not to turn her magic against a lot of the ponies in this joyous crowd, to be honest. Dawn felt such a rage coiling, squirming inside her, eager to get out. She wanted to cast a spell at someone. She wanted to start a fire. She wanted to teleport up onto that balcony wreathed in flames and have a breakdown like a comic-book supervillain, declaring her contempt for everypony and everything while she challenged the hero to a fight.

No, for Celestia's sake, you can't let yourself think that way. If you think that way she's won. You're the hero, you! She's the villain, she's the thief, you can't let yourself think any other way or you really will go crazy.

Not that thinking of herself as the hero did a lot to calm her anger. It just became the rage of a thwarted hero rather than the rage of a bad guy. She still wanted to hit someone.

Fortunately, no one noticed the way that her hooves twitched with desire to kick. No one noticed the increasingly sour look on her face. Because nopony was looking at her at all. Their eyes were all upon the palace balcony, where Equestria's newest princess was being unveiled to the crowd.

Princess Celestia was up there, as beautiful as ever, her white coat shining with a brilliant brightness that outdid the sun burning in the sky above. She did not see Dawn Starfall in the crowd. Notice me! Dawn thought. See me! Smile, curse, order me arrested, just so long as you remember I exist! But she did not see, it was as if Dawn wasn't there.

Celestia had stepped back from the balcony edge, standing half in the archway back into the building with her newly returned sister, Princess Luna. On the balcony edge, and the true focus of attention, was the new princess, Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Five other ponies - two earth ponies, two pegasi and a unicorn - stood around her as she gave an insipid speech about how she had gotten this far, and how little work she had done to get there.

It was all Dawn could do not to throw up in her mouth.

It was at that moment that somepony jostled her in the crowd.

Dawn rounded on the culprit with teeth bared like a dog. "Watch it!" she snarled. "Are you blind or something? I was right here!"

The guilty party was a middle aged earth pony, his muscle turning to flab and his dark mane turning to grey. "I beg your pardon."

"My pardon?" Dawn demanded. "My pardon? I'll pardon you once you get out of my face you clumsy oaf!"

"Hey, it was just an accident, lady, what's your problem?" some pegasus with a Manehattan accent demanded.

"Butt out, pal, before I make that face of yours a little less pretty?" Dawn snarled.

"You're threatening me now? What is wrong with you?"

"Hey! Hey!" another pegasus, a mare with a dark grey coat in the glimmering armour of the Royal Guard, swooped down out of the skies to land beside Dawn. "Okay, everypony, break it up. That's right. Be on your way."

"You're telling me to leave?" the pegasus demanded incredulously. "She was the one hassling me."

"I don't care, just beat it," the guard snapped.

The pegasus flew off, grumbling. The earth pony also beat a hasty retreat into the crowd.

The guard took off her helmet, revealing a silver-grey mane underneath. She sighed, looking down reproachfully at Dawn with one dark eye from where she hovered a few feet overhead. "Any other guard would have run you in for that, Dawny. You should count yourself lucky."

"Lucky?" Dawn asked incredulously, raising her eyebrows as she gestured with her head towards the balcony. "Seriously, Razor, I'm lucky?"

Razor Wind, Dawn's friend in the guard and one of the only two friends Dawn still had, frowned. "Well, I guess...what are you doing here, Dawny, you don't want to see this."

"No, I don't," Dawn muttered, turning her head so that she could see Twilight Sparkle again. "But I had to. I had to see it for myself, know that it was real and not rumour. And not some nightmare of mine that I could wake up from."

Razor was silent for a moment. "I understand, but...it's best if you go, Dawn. I can't let you get away with anything else today. Not here anyway."

Dawn didn't respond. She just stared at Princess Twilight, standing where she should have stood, receiving the honours and ovations she should have received, possessed of all the love that Dawn had lost.

Sunset, wherever you are, I bet you're glad you don't have to see this. Or would you laugh at me for the fact that I couldn't win the race even after you pulled out? You'd probably think I'm pathetic, wouldn't you? Probably because I am.

"Dawny," Razor said. "You ought to go."

Dawn looked at her, bowing her head a little. "Yeah, I'll go."

"You gonna go home?" Razor asked.

"No, I think I'll go and see Sunflower," Dawn said.

Razor nodded. "But then you'll go home, right?"

"Eventually," Dawn said. "I might not feel like it right away. And besides, I have to fight tonight, so I might as well stay out until that's done."

"I wish you wouldn't, Dawny," Razor said. "Cherry worries sick about you every time, and it's illegal."

"Yeah, but how else am I going to make rent?" Dawn asked. "I keep getting fired from honest jobs."

"Cherry and I make enough to get by," Razor said.

"I'm not a burden," Dawn said, her voice rising. "On you or Cherry or anypony else. I keep my end up and I pay my way." She grinned. "Tell Cherry not to worry so much, don't I always win?"

"So far," Razor muttered darkly.

Dawn shook her head. "I'll see you tonight."

"I hope so," Razor said.

Dawn pushed her way through the crowd, forcing other ponies to make way for her through sheer dogged refusal to stop, until at last she had escaped the cloying press of the happy square and its joyous celebrations and gained the comparatively empty streets beyond. With so many crowded into Sunrise Square, the only ponies in the streets were those who couldn't fit in there, a few earth ponies or unicorns trying to get a glimpse of the new princess, a few pegasi sitting on the roofs up above.

Dawn ignored them. She couldn't understand it. She just didn't get it at all. All of these ponies had gathered to celebrate another pony being raised up to greatness and exalted above them. Why were they all so happy about it? Did not one of them resent some pony who had, until recently, been no better than they, now being showered with praises, honours, glories?

Dawn smirked; of course, she had fully expected that they would have this reaction to her when she was lifted high, so why shouldn't they react like this to Twilight Sparkle. They didn't know her, after all, any more than they knew Dawn herself, so they would just celebrate anyway and assume that Princess Celestia knew best.

She and Sunset had talked about this a few times: why so many ponies were content to live small lives, with small ambitions, why ponies like them who sought to be more, to stand astride the world and put all the rest in their shadow, were the exception not the norm. Sunset's theory - that most would choose a safe and comfortable life rather than risk the dire consequences of trying to climb high and falling before you reached the top - had given ponies rather more credit that Dawn's view that they were just too sheep-like to know any better.

She cut through a back-alley - somepony had graffitied the words Raven Queen Lives! on the wall, whatever that meant - and began to make her way towards Sunny Skies.

---

It was her party, but there were times when Twilight felt as though everypony was having fun except her.

Over there, Rarity was dancing. Rainbow Dash was deep in conversation with Spitfire. Pinkie Pie was swallowing cupcakes a plate at a time, to the amazement of onlookers, while Applejack looked on in what looked like bemused fascination. Fluttershy was trying to make friends with Philomena.

Twilight herself, on the other hoof, was stuck accepting the congratulations of every single pony in the room. It was worse than the Grand Galloping Gala, because at least then nopony had really cared about the pony standing at Princess Celestia's side. Today she was all they cared about, and some of them would even try to engage her in conversation, in spite of the fact that everypony could see that there was a line forming behind them to offer the new princess their good wishes.

I wonder how Princess Celestia does this so often? Twilight thought, and felt a momentary sting of bitterness that her mentor did not feel inclined to do anything to rescue her from her predicament. But that was unfair of her: this was, for better or worse, a part of Twilight's job, and Celestia would probably expect her to bear up under it as she expected Twilight to succeed in all the tasks she gave her.

"Your Highness, I bring you greetings from the Seers of Dodona."

Twilight noticed that a new pony had reached the head of the procession, a pegasus hooded and cloaked, with her face hidden and her voice a soft purr.

"Dodona?" Twilight said. "You've come a long way." Dodona, in Maretonia, claimed to be the sight of the oldest oracle in Equestria, or beyond, a source of prophecy and pilgrimage for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. It's influence was less now, in an age of industry, steel and steam when so many rational ponies scorned the very idea of prophecy, but the oracle still possessed a great store of ancient wealth, and every year a few hopeful or desperate souls would make their way to the shrine to plead for wisdom and the answers to their questions. Still, Twilight had never heard of any of the Seers making a long journey like this before. Perhaps they were desperate for royal patronage? If so, they might be disappointed. Twilight knew there was some truth in prophecy - the return of Nightmare Moon being a case in point - but at the same time she was not sure she wanted to live her life according to the delphic utterances dispensed by a group of cloistered ponies living in a cave. "May I ask why you have done me this honour?"

The seer leaned in, and Twilight caught a glimpse of two sightless eyes boring into her from out of the shadows of the hood before the seer whispered in her ear. "They are coming for you, princess: the rising and the setting sun, the dragonslayer and the black flame, the raven and the glimmering star. I have seen them in the fires and in the smoke. I have seen them in my dreams, and darker things besides. They come for you, and seek your fall."

Twilight looked at her out of the sides of her eyes. "The rising and the setting sun? The flames didn't give you any names then?"

"Do not mock the sight!" the seer hissed. "They are coming, and you must prepare yourself. Keep your friends close, princess, for I fear your enemies are already closer."

The seer turned away, her cloak billowing behind her as she swept off with a firm stride.

Twilight frowned after her as she went, then shook her head. "This is why most ponies don't believe you any more," she muttered to herself.

"You shouldn't put too much trust in prophecies," somepony said from behind her. "Try and avoid them, try and fulfil them, either way it will come back and bite you every time. Destiny is wicked like that."

Twilight turned around. In spite of the fact that there was a drop of at least a hundred feet, there was a pony sitting in the windowsill, a unicorn - her horn was about the only part of her that Twilight could see clearly - hiding her face behind a crimson mask, her coat and cutie-mark beneath a cape of scarlet and gold, patterned like flames, and her mane beneath a veil of black. Her voice was soft, pleasant, though not without the sense that it could become harsh if it had to.

Twilight's brow furrowed. "If you want to wish me well, you should probably get to the back of the line."

The masked pony laughed. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not a wait-in-line kind of girl. But you're right, I am here to say congratulations on your elevation...princess."

"Thank you," Twilight murmured. "Do I know you?"

"Nope," Mask said, and she did not take the cue to introduce herself. "But I know you, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and that's what really matters."

"Not for me it doesn't," Twilight said. "I'd like your name, if its all the same to you."

"It isn't," Mask replied briskly. "Anyway, I have to go. Places to go, friends I have to keep out of trouble. They're new in town, you see." She paused. "Everything is going to change for you, princess. Everything. You might want to prepare yourself. Good talk, gotta go."

She teleported away in a green flash, disappearing from the windowsill the breeze blew through the open window to ruffle Twilight's bangs.

Twilight blinked twice. "What in Celestia's name was that about?"

---

Dawn walked through the corridors of Sunny Skies Hospice & Care Home, finding them nearly empty. Probably everypony was at Princess Twilight's celebration, or just celebrating the arrival of a new princess. There would be street parties, private parties, pegasi would drape the landmarks of Canterlot in pink, all the trimmings. It wasn't that Dawn begrudged the festivities, she would have just rather that they were in somepony else's honour.

Even the nurse at the reception desk seemed to have gone, but Dawn knew where she was going so she signed the visitors book and made her way through the sterile corridors, her hoofs thudding into the linoleum floor, as she passed by wards of silent and slumbering old ponies.

Most of the rooms were communal, except for the ponies who were soon to depart from the world, but Sunflower had a private room, paid for by a stipend from Princess Celestia, although as far as Dawn she never visited. The act of charity was not for Sunflower's sake, after all, but in Sunset's memory, though Dawn had never found out exactly what that memory was. She had gotten the impression that Sunset was dead, and wherever she had initially gone it had been so long without word that death was the most likely possibility, but Celestia had never confirmed it for certain. Of course, Dawn hadn't been on speaking terms with Celestia for a long time herself.

Dawn's overall impression of Sunny Skies was that it was a warehouse for storing unwanted ponies until they did the decent thing and departed, and for the most part the decor supported that interpretation, but Sunflower's room was one of the more decent ones. It had a carpet, albeit in a rather ghastly shade of pink, and a window that opened and thick red curtains that would keep out the sun in the summer when the days were long. The bedside table was walnut, and littered with curios from Sunflower's home: a wedding photo, another picture of Sunset in her formal academic robes, grinning out of the frame with delighted satisfaction, a china dog, a vase with a blue willow pattern. Dawn brought fresh flowers every week, when she could afford them. The current lot were looking a little bit wilted, she would have to change them soon. Once she won tonight's fight she would have the bits to spend.

Sunflower herself had a golden coat, a brighter shade than her daughter's had been, though it was a little wrinkled now with age. Her name had gone grey, and there was a rheumy, milky quality to her blue eyes that obscured whatever brightness they might once have had. She was staring vacantly at the wall, and didn't appear to notice when Dawn came in and sat down beside her.

"Hey, Mrs S," Dawn murmured. "How are you feeling?"

Sunflower looked at her, and started a little. "Dawn! I wasn't expecting you to visit me today."

Dawn smiled. "A pleasant surprise, I hope."

Sunflower nodded. "You really don't need to do this, you know, I'm not your mother, after all."

"No, but I don't want to leave you all alone in this place," Dawn replied. "How are they treating you? Are you eating okay?"

"I'm fine, or as fine as I can be," Sunflower said. "It's very kind of you to keep coming here. Will you still visit when Sunset comes back?"

Dawn hesitated. "I...yeah. Sure I will, if you still want me to."

Sunflower nodded again. "She will come back, you know. She will. I know my little girl. She'll be back."

"I know," Dawn lied.

"She used to talk about you all the time, you know. Dawn this, and Dawn that. Sometimes I thought she hated your guts, and sometimes I thought you were her best friend."

Dawn chuckled. "Yeah, that...that kinda cut both ways, I think."

"She'll come back," Sunflower repeated. "I know my little girl." She blinked, and looked at Dawn in surprise. "Dawn! I wasn't expecting you to visit me today."

Dawn's smile was strained. "No. I hope you don't mind."

Dawn spent a little longer with Sunset's mom, long enough to make sure that she was eating properly and that the staff were taking care of her, but sooner or later it always came back to Sunset. It always comes back to Sunset. My life didn't end when Twilight Sparkle took my place, it ended the day you left. If you'd stuck around I wouldn't have spun out the way I did; I would have beaten you, and Twilight Sparkle too.

Where did you go?

Dawn made her goodbyes and took her leave of Sunflower - soon she might well forget Dawn had been there at all - and got out of the room while she could still leave without running away. She stood outside the door, breathing heavily, trying to overcome the draining sensation that always overcame after witnessing what illness had done to Sunflower.

"Losing your mind...it really sucks, doesn't it? After all, our minds are what make us who we are. Personally, I'd rather get stabbed through the heart, wouldn't you? It would be faster, and less painful in the long run."

Dawn looked up to see a unicorn standing across the corridor from her. Her forelegs were crossed as she leaned against the wall, matching the light insouciant tone of her voice. her legs about all that Dawn could see, since she had covered the rest of herself up with cape, veil and mask.

"Who are you?" Dawn demanded, a scowl crossing her face.

"To talk," Mask said. "Why else would I be making words come out of my mouth, huh, Dawny?"

"Only my friends get to call me that," Dawn snapped. "Are we friends?"

"I don't know, you tell me."

"How can I do that when I don't know who you are?"

"Touche. I guess we aren't friends after all." Mask chuckled. "What are you doing here, Dawn Starfall? She's not your mother, after all."

"No," Dawn admitted. "But her own daughter...can't be here. So I look in on her instead. It's the least I can do."

"Oh. Were you and the daughter close?"

"No," Dawn said. "Yes. Sort of. It's complicated. Look, why the hay do you care anyway, who are you?"

"I'm just trying to understand you, Dawn. Perhaps I'll look in on the old dear myself, see what she has to say about you."

Dawn snarled as she lunged across the corridor, grabbing the masked mare by the scruff of the neck and slamming her into the wall. "You stay away from her, you got it. You go away near that old mare and you'll answer to me." It was the least that she could do for Sunset.

Mask laughed. "Don't worry, I get the picture...Dawny." She teleported away, leaving Dawn to collapse in a heap on the floor.

"That's right, you better run," Dawn murmured.

---

Sunset Shimmer teleported into a currently disused part of the care home, the lights turned out to save power, and with the shadows to shield her she took off her mask and took a deep breath.

"Well that was fun," she said. "Surprisingly instructive too."

"Instructive? I think it was just sad," another Dawn Starfall stepped out of the shadows on her left. She was physically identical to the Dawn that Sunset had left behind, except Starfall had died some of the ends of her red-and-white mane black, and tied them up in pigtails. She wore a spiked collar around her neck, and studded black bracelets around her forelegs. Sunset thought it made her look ridiculous, but she guessed there was no accounting for taste. "I mean, that's me? That's weird. I mean really weird. Like, even after I met the two of you I wouldn't have believed it weird. Weirder than the fact that I'm a horse. And sad too. I mean look at how pathetic I was. That's me? Other Me sucks."

"It isn't just other you that sucks, honey, trust me," a second Sunset Shimmer, physically identical in all respects but wearing tinted sunglasses even in the darkness, stepped out of the dark to stand on Sunset's right.

Starfall scowled. "I haven't come to a whole new world just so I can get talked down to the same way as in the old one."

"No," Sunset agreed. "You came to a whole new world because you wanted the kind of possibilities the other world couldn't offer you."

"Possibilities I haven't seen much sign of yet," Starfall remarked. "I mean I'm a magic horse and I'm still stuck sneaking around a hospital? Where are the dragons? Where are the quests? When do I get to be the hero?"

"When I say so," Sunset said sharply. "Or you can go back home whenever you like. I'm sure you foster parents are really worried about where you've gone. Or, you know, not."

Starfall glowered, but said nothing.

"And as for you," Sunset rounded upon Shimmer. "Try and remember we're supposed to be a team."

Shimmer shrugged. "Whatever you say. I gotta to agree with little miss gothic over there, I'm kinda itching for some action."

"And you'll get it," Sunset said. "But you'll get it when I say, and you'll do what I say. I brought you here, so what I say goes, understand."

Shimmer smirked. "Sure thing, boss. What you say, goes."

Author's Note:

So basically, when talking about the Dawn and Sunset from the pony world, they will be referred to in the narration as Dawn and Sunset. Their human duplicates will be referred to as Starfall and Shimmer, respectively, to prevent confusion. Again, this is only in the narration, characters may refer to them differently.