Sunset Shimmer Goes to Hell

by scifipony

"That (So-and-So) (Thus-and-Such) Daughter of a (Whatever)."

Yes, joined the force; wore the hat. Yay!

No copper metal badge, though. We didn't need one since everypony knew everypony. Sharp Beak informed me that I would eventually patrol to ensure nopony got into fights, and to break them up when necessary. I would eventually be sent to the other settlements (more like camps for less gregarious ponies). He'd sent Crinkle Paper to the Cerberus outpost, apparently to check that nopony got into fights but I suspected he had other reasons. My first staff job, however, turned out to be less constabulary than janitorial.

The griffon passed me a broom in his talon, which I had to carry in my teeth as he led me to the back of the building. The records storeroom smelled like an old trash fire and was still smoky enough to make me wheeze. Fire had scorched the dirt brick walls. Wet charcoal littered the remains of the closely packed library stacks-type shelving. I blinked at bits of melted metal glittering amidst the soot. Right. Nails. Ponies had shoved new posts in place to shore up the ceiling around scorched beams. If you're an earth pony or a pegasus, you already know how hard it is to sweep.

I grew to hate black.

The warden undoubtedly thought, though he never accused me, that I had been responsible for the arson, perhaps Crinkle Paper, too, but I had been gone in the mountains and he couldn't pin anything on me. Technically, I wasn't totally innocent. I had explained my paper issues and Sharp Beak's. Jewel had spread the news. I had created a network of friends who liked to do things with me. Treated right, your network will look after you.

Apparently, mine had. So I paid the price happily.

After the cleanup, I proved not only incompetent with a hammer, but dangerous to my fellow carpenters. Yeah. A unicorn swinging a two-pound hammer using his teeth and neck. Good idea! I ended up hauling lumber then supervising the factory jail on the middle floors.

Tartarus paid for itself by manufacturing a crunchy meat substitute for the carnivores of Equestria made from the bark and leaves of native kibble trees. It took machinery run by ponies and powered by ponies on treadmills and pony-wheels. Scrappy idiots who fought ended up working here. Others volunteered; something to do, they told me.

I made sure nopony fought on the factory floor. The place smelled of oil, which I had to apply to the flywheels and camshafts now and again. Sometimes I pulled the wagons down the ramps. I checked the sleeping cells, and sometimes swept or mopped them.

Terribly cerebral stuff.

I kept my head down, did the work—even though Sharp Beak didn't pay me. I was on "probation." I did get access to apples, however. Fresh apples, apple cider, apple strudel, apple pie, apple butter, and apple sauce, even an occasional staff party appletini.

Frankly, apples were good but tiring after awhile. I avoided the beignets. Donuts by any other name… Wasn't going there.

Eventually Crinkle Paper returned from her patrol of the hinterlands and I advanced to probationary patrol officer. In our case, it meant that we got the graveyard shift, missing the communal dinner and too tired by breakfast, walking around town and patrolling the fields, maintaining order while struggling to maintain consciousness.

By the second week, I ceased to be an unpaid rookie and became an unpaid patrolpony. Sharp Beak gave us different rounds so we rarely encountered one another. Well, in theory. It was a small town. Late one night, my ears perked. I heard a scream.

Crinkle Paper.

I galloped toward the sound, around a corner and across the kitchen commons. I actually leaped a table. The few late ponies stood, having heard the scream. Though for them, calling it standing was generous. Fermented distilled potato juice, or sugar beet flavored with juniper, lubricated most midnight discussions in Central and none of the wobbly ponies seemed ready, let alone able, to help anypony.

I heard a crash as I skidded and turned right onto Central Avenue. A flaxen pony lay on the ground in the doorway of the rowhouse that a former king of highway-ponies, Rough Road, had converted into a club. In the street, a blue nightwing pegasus reared, peddling her hooves threateningly, bat wings flared, yelling invective in a language that wasn't Equestrian. Thanks to the years I associated with the late Carne Asada, I understood what the mare said, mostly. None of it was good.

Though winded, I said as calmly as I could, "Chiquitita!" My horrible accent sounded more Hooflyn than Caro-bean, and certainly not Equidoran.

It worked. Shocked, Pear Brandy turned her vertically slit amber eyes toward me and said, "¿Qué?"

I continued in broken Caro-questrian as best I could while I interposed myself between the mares, standing over Crinkle Paper as she scrambled, actually more like flopped, trying to get herself up. She'd been knocked down, I judged. To Pear Brandy, I (think I) said, "You are beautiful when you get angry."

Considering my size, she had no choice but to strike me with her hooves or step back. She stepped back. Compared to a pegasus mare, she was husky with long legs and a thick neck, but was nevertheless still light-boned as were all flying ponies and griffons. Compared to me, she knew herself outclassed and out-massed.

She returned to all fours, snorted and spat words at Crinkle Paper I won't translate here. Eyes still wide with anger, she added, "That (so-and-so) (thus-and-such) daughter of a (whatever) started it!" She began to hyperventilate and flap her wings.

I'd learned that she had blown-up a bridge and collapsed part of a stadium in Fillydelphia. It had been in revenge for a murder her people claimed that Princess Celestia had perpetrated a millennium ago when the princess conquered the lands around Canterlot. Pear Brandy claimed that she and her family of zealots were responsible for the deaths of dozens and hundreds of injuries (according to what the princess had told her; "nothing publicized"). Of course, thanks to a certain recent fire, nopony knew if anything she spouted was true. She looked down on non-nightwings as inferior creatures and specifically hated Equestrians. During our first interview, she'd boasted she'd spent a year in a restriction zone. To my thinking, she did control her overheated temper to the very edge; she didn't want to go back. Even so, I felt certain she'd kill if it suited her purposes.

And, oh yeah, she was the best chef in Tartarus. Nopony wanted to provoke her.

To Crinkle Paper I said, "She says you started it."

Her platinum mane covered her eyes. Red moistened it by her ear. She shook her head, as if to clear it, as she finally got out, "I did."

"What?"

She coughed, got her legs under her finally, and retreated beyond the door. "I started it. And I'm sorry."

The night-wing cursed again, spat, and folded her wings. In heavily accented Equestrian, she added, "Don't push me again, Estúpida!" She glared at me and I met her gaze, before she stalked off.

Limping with her right front leg.

My petite partner had gotten in one good hit.

I chuckled and turned to look in the storefront. Inside, one of two hurricane lanterns lay smashed on the ground beside the wreckage of two chairs next to an overturned table. Other tables showed abandoned mugs and scattered potato chips. Judging by the mugs, about five others had recently fled, unless Crinkle Paper had been one of the group.

She sat now on the hay-strewn dirt floor, on her haunches like a dog. I pushed aside her limp mane. She bled from ripped skin below her ear. She probably had a light concussion. I sniffed her muzzle.

She immediately said, "Sugar beet alfalfa malt beer—and Puma and Fortuitous Event offered it to me."

"And you accepted?"

She said, "I heard a fight, but somepony heard me coming. Rough Road waved a hoof when I noticed the broken lantern. They were nervous, so I'm sure he was just watching in case we came by."

"What happened next?"

"I'd rather not say."

I looked skyward and sighed.

"Help me up."

I got her upright. She wobbled slightly as she closed the shutters and shut the doors. No locking up. Nothing in Tartarus had locks.

As we walked away, she said, "Thank you."

I glanced at the side of her head which dripped red ever so slightly. "Let's get Bone Saw to bandage that," I said as I turned toward the Big House.

"No. To my place."

"I don't understand."

"Pear Brandy finds ways to make trouble. Nopony wants her in the Big House sabotaging the machines or stirring up trouble. Trust me on this."

"She could have killed you."

"But she didn't, and she won't."

"What happened?"

"Thank you for—"

"—saving your life? You're welcome. But you're changing the subject. What happened?"

"I... I don't want to say."

"Won't or can't?"

"Won't. Let's not make it worse than it is. Remember, we're in Tartarus. I won't bleed to death from this scratch; by morning it'll be healed. One of the few benefits of living in this bland world."

I sighed as we approached her place. Many deputies stayed in rooms in the Big House, but she lived in a tiny dormitory house that I realized housed only her when we walked in. She struck a match and I saw a manger bed, a little hearth, and a table with no chairs. She lit a wick in a cup of oil to provide a wane light that smelled of soot. An ivy plant grew in a corner from a mud-brick container of dirt. She, of course, had no bandages. Clothes weren't made in Tartarus because no common inmates needed them, so there weren't rags. Before I could do something chivalrous with my khaki uniform shirt (which might get me fired), she put some hay against her head.

"You did save my life, or at least prevented a real beating."

"This worries me."

"It is what it is, Sugar Cube." She drank heavily from a misshapen pail with tarred cracks filled with well water, then climbed shakily into her bed. Once settled, her violet eyes caught mine. She tapped the bed beside her. "I'm feeling tired."

"I understand that after getting hit in the head you shouldn't sleep for a while"

"You can help me with that."

"Someone should patrol."

"You really think anypony will notice?"

"No. But—"

She tapped again. "Come hold the hay against my head."

When I looked dubious, she said, "Please."

I climbed in beside her. Even beat up and dirty, despite the slightly sour fragrance of week-old hay, her pony scent smelled marvelous. She noticed that I noticed. Once again, her laughter reminded me of tinkling bells.