Sunset Shimmer Goes to Hell

by scifipony

"We're Friends, Right?"

Crinkle Paper shivered, trying to hide in the grass. As I got within pony-lengths, I saw her violet magic aura pulsing, sparkling around her horn and bright around her right ear.

Where her right ear had been.

Blood wet the side of her face and spattered her mane. Platinum hair half-covered her face as she lifted her head. Streaming tears, her violet eyes focused on me as she cried, "White Stockings!" She lay there shaking and shuddering.

I landed beside her, pressing against her despite the heat of the day, giving what comfort I could. With the ring in place on my horn, I could not help her staunch the bleeding.

"Is whoever did this near by?"

"No," she said. "I should have let you try to trade assignments." She hid her face under her front legs. "Why didn't I do that?"

I lifted her face with a hoof. "Because we can't see the future." Well, a bit of the lie, but, "I'm a flank for not taking a hint."

She chuckled. Her shaking diminished. "You are incredibly dense."

"You wouldn't have wanted to go west, either. I ran into Dharg and the Brothers Moo."

"Sugar Cubes!"

"You can't stay here, you know."

"I know. I know. I'm not so shaky I can't stand, but, Sugar Cubes, it was horrible. I thought Cerberus frightened me, but he's basically an ally. This, this thing— I've never seen something more horrifying. A rampaging timberwolf! I thought my heart would stop. When I tried to warn it away, it attacked me. It bit my ear off!"

I waited quietly, remembering her all but calling herself hideous when she arrived in Tartarus. She'd suffer nightmares from this attack for months. When she took a deep breath, I said gently, "It'll grow back."

"I know," she whispered. She then nuzzled me. "Tartarus has been good for me."

I kissed her head beside the wound and nuzzled her back.

My heart tightened with unexpected sadness. Why would Crinkle Paper accompany me on my escape to Equestria? In Equestria, her ear wouldn't grow back and she'd grow old. My heart wanted to think that Tartarus had been good for her because of me, but I'd heard enough of her history to know she'd been happy way before Celestia sent me here.

"Let me look at it."

She let me tilt her head and I felt a tickling sensation as my face impinged on her aura. The little popping sparkles felt effervescent. Despite the smell of blood, which I suppose as herbivores we are evolved to notice, she smelled very nice. The timber wolf had shorn off my little filly-friend's ear like a badly torn piece of paper. The thickness of a horseshoe remained above her head. A crust of scabs matted into her bright mane and filled her ear.

"You don't need to apply pressure anymore."

She let go. It didn't bleed as the same fresh wound would have back in Equestria. I helped her clear the crud from the inner part of her ear, and off her mane, functioning as a talking mirror for her magic since this was something one couldn't do with the frog of a hoof. She stopped shivering.

I stood and she followed as I said, "Don't use your magic around the warden."

She leaned into me and I supported her. "I wouldn't. Why so adamant?"

"You noticed the rainbow crows didn't mob you; of course you did. Something badly broke Tartarus and frightened the rainbow crows away. Princess Celestia will assure it's fixed, however it's to our advantage that Lavender Lather doesn't realize she has no power over us. First of all, she could assure you're mobbed after the fact or she could send you to a restraint zone. Second, until the crisis is over, we can act to prevent her from doing something, um, counter to our interests without her knowing our full strength."

Crinkle Paper nodded.

"I'd still go to Bone Saw and get that bandaged."

"So the warden doesn't ask how I stopped the bleeding? Right."

I looked at the line of forest and the gathering clouds that made the Cerberus Gate almost perpetually overcast. "I'm going south."

"Uh—"

"I know that timberwolf. We also need to warn the outpost ponies at the gate, which is on the other side of the aquatic restriction zones from Central. And do what we said we'd do for the colt. If his father—"

"You said the landing zones are in the west—"

"Those are only the most typical ones. Bones, Planking, and Salt Spume all landed south. I even landed southwest—"

"Near the timberwolf."

"I'll be back as soon as I warn Ice Arrow and the others. Don't tell the warden."

"It's too dangerous."

"Don't tell the warden. She's under too much stress—will be anyway. Last thing we need is her firing me."

Crinkle Paper compressed her lips and began shaking her head before she faced north. "You be careful," she said and trotted to the road. She added, "I love you."

My throat constricted. I felt the warmth from her leaning into me dissipate despite the afternoon heat. Even when she had retreated beyond earshot, I didn't reply. Today had been the day I imagined years ago, that first night Crinkle Paper and I had started sharing our lives. Triumph and victory.

Why did I have a feeling of foreboding?

I galloped south to the forest and continued along the wood path, crossing bridges as streams gathered into a slow moving river burbling beside the road. I went as fast as I could on the dried mud surface, a growing certainty that I would do the right thing until I sent Sunset Shimmer on her path to shame. I didn't want to hurt her. Not doing so would change my life immensely, sure, but even with knowledge of her future in my past, the fighting hellion I'd watched this morning would be broken by my actions or inactions. I felt as if I had no say in the matter.

Nor responsibility.

That thought made me feel like I was losing my mind until this next thought passed through my head: if I try to kill myself, even jumping off a cliff, I'll fail to do so.

Whatever I would do I had already done. I would not kill myself. Of course, I wouldn't. Stupid thought.

I galloped on, nevertheless feeling invulnerable.

Tempting fate.

I made it to the end of the forest where the kibble trees thinned and became a sand and pebble berm along a shoreline. I knelt to fill my canteen from the sweet water of the river and rest long enough to catch my breath. Across the water, Geyser Mountain erupted mildly, preparing to produce the storms that would rain on greater Tartarus tomorrow. The clouds were mostly fluffy white with nimbus thunderheads just pushing up like seedlings. The bottoms were merely gray.

I looked over Little Sea, the oceanic lake that stretched east and west for a few miles and just a half mile to the opposite shore. Fourteen inmates lived under these waves, all dangerous.

The kraken was the least of them. Basically an chartreuse underwater dragon with multiple wings evolved to wrap around prey. She sung haunting melodies to attract ships and if none of the sailor ponies aboard could sing as well in return, she sunk the ship to take any gems onboard. Casandra would tell her story to anypony willing to listen to her soprano compositions, then sing for her. I couldn't sing. Melody, who had kidnapped many opera singers so she could fill in as their understudy, had done so at my request and regularly visited.

The worst was Chthony (k'tho-nee). Not his name, but he answered to it. I named the species a Chthon, from chthonic, because he lived in the deepest darkest restriction zone, in an abysal cavern lit by what I gathered was bioluminous or magic seaweed where he played with his "toys." He had the mentality of a child. He might well be stuck at his age by Tartarus' magic; I didn't want to imagine him growing into an adult. Saying he was stunted in his development was wrong in too many ways. Chthony looked like a hornless antelope with obsidian cloven hooves, but when he stood dripping on the pebbly shore, he stood taller than a two story house. His head looked like somepony had melted an octopus over his antelope features, leaving only his eyes, the ridge of his muzzle, and black nose normal. A squishy gray octopus dome rose back from his brow while a mass of tentacles and elephant noses hung down to the ground. I'd once asked him and he lifted the writhing mass. He had an antelope jaw filled the yellow chef-knife teeth.

I did not want to meet either of them free.

Nevertheless, I turned right, to the west, intending to circle counterclockwise around the sea where Chthony lived in the zone furthest west. Submarine movement roiled the black surface of half-mile deep lake, causing blue reflections to circle out until they lapped on the rocky beach. I thought I caught sight of the cyan and pink crests of seaponies, but the exiled evil king and queen were rarely interested by me as a commoner. My hooves crunched upon silver and gold pyrite pebbles. Too noisy. I moved to the sandy berm, feeling exposed regardless of any invulnerability I might assert I had.

Tempting fate.

Going considerably slower than a gallop slogging through the sand, I got all the way around without anypony greeting me, and continued north on the shortest route to Cerberus Gate (there was a road on either side of the geyser). I wasn't sure whether or not to feel relieved. Otter and seal-like inmates were amphibious. From what I could piece together from his childish stories, Chthony could travel across an isthmus, and had done so forcing Princess Celestia to act on his second appearance to protect wagons, livestock, and ponies from becoming his drowned toys.

As I climbed the foothills to the west of Geyser Mountain, the sky became overcast. The terrain of jagged rock gave way to dark soil, Equestrian trees, oaks at the lower levels, and some sort of pine or fir at greater elevations. Scattered trees became pockets of thick woodland. Everything looked green. Like Equestria, not Tartarus.

A loud resounding wooden crack ahead of me got me to jump and whinny. Bits of splintered tree shot out; I skidded to a halt and shied backwards.

From woods at a bend in the road, a storm wrack surrounded by a green miasma in the form of a wolf crept ominously out of the shadow. Her failing restriction zones had freed Princess Forest Green and she stalked like a wolf would, head lowered and spine stretched, coming directly at me.

This death was not for me. I knew my destiny.

My body wasn't so confident, though. A sweat broke around my neck and flank. Trying for composure and failing, I held my ground until she was a couple pony-lengths away and could smell the rancid compost smell of her gusty breath. I gulped twice, trying not to breathe through my nose before saying, "And what are you going to do, Princess? Bite my ear off, too?"

She coughed. No, I misinterpreted. She chuckled, then began laughing.

"You are brave for a pony," she said, sitting before me with the cracking sounds of trees crashing in a dense forest. She laughed some more. Her tongue might have lolled out like a dog had her skeletal tree body had such an appendage. I didn't point it out. She added, "I wasn't trying to bite off any appendage, but the mare was throwing big rocks at me. Her magic's strong; the moment she saw me she threw rocks, a tree trunk, dirt—anything she could grab, screaming. Why couldn't she just run? I don't have ears, but the noises she made were so shrill they hurt!"

"That's my filly." I thought about Sunset hitting me in the head with a pickle jar. "Throwing stuff must be a mare thing."

"So that was Crinkle Paper? I had to stop her; her aim was too good and it hurt. And I did not 'bite her ear off.' Her ear got caught in a twig when I tried to swat her away. Had I tried, I'd have bitten off more than a ear."

I told her about seeing the Dharg and the Brothers Moo. I suspected that Chthony and other dangerous creatures, including some restrained evil unicorns, might be out for a bit of revenge. I finished by saying, "I'm glad you're not rampaging."

"I do not do rampaging."

"Tell Princess Celestia that."

"I tried!" She banged the ground with a wooden paw. "I fought a war, one that I will remind you that she started by encouraging stupid ponies to plunder our nurseries."

"I know, I know."

She muttered to herself about hoof-centric immoral ponies, then sighed loudly and disconsolately. How she could sigh—let alone have bad breath—without lungs…?

"So, if you're not into rampaging, can I make a suggestion?"

"Hide in the woods until whatever went wrong here fixes itself?"

"That, maybe, or perhaps you could go to Central City—"

She sat straighter and gyrated her head like a foal might having gotten one over her parents. "—and rampage?"

I rolled my eyes. "I'd suggest not. But, this could present an opportunity. I don't know if it will work, but... What if you went to Central City and protected the city and the ponies from the Dharg or anything else that might rampage? Maybe, just maybe, Princess Celestia might view that favorably. You've read what I wrote about you in Denizens. She will undoubtedly read that after all this is over."

The princess stood. Strangely, she managed to do so soundlessly, which made her even more scary. She said, "Sir Stockings, your heart is not as cold as you often profess. I will do this thing, even if I suffer the consequences."

"Because it is something to do?" I grinned. Boredom was the worst punishment in Tartarus.

"It might be fun."

I held out my hoof and she tapped it with a paw before padding by me, headed north.

I sat. I took out my canteen but found it hard to drink for a sudden fit of shakes. I might be invulnerable, but that didn't mean I couldn't be frightened.

The top clattered as I snapped it on and heard the princess' praise repeat in my head. I didn't have a cold heart? What did she know? I couldn't say "I love you" back at Crinkle Paper when she suddenly offered something she'd never offered before. It was I who would doom Sunset Shimmer to a horrible destiny. Princess Forest Green had no conception of what was in my heart at all.

I strapped the canteen back on and continued toward the Cerberus gate. I was lost in thought, and that much was stupid. I missed the first huge hoof print in the dirt. The second one had been in nearly hardened mud and I tripped over it.

I keeled over, slid onto the wet grass, and, with the smell of a mowed lawn to remind my stomach that I had missed lunch, struggled upright. I looked and saw two crescents the size of a really big dinner plate pushed into the mud almost as deep as a pail. I could have broken a leg. Beyond that was another pair of crescents. And another.

They were the tracks of an enormous ungulate.

A suckered tentacle wrapped around my rear leg so suddenly, I jumped. More tentacles slapped themselves around my waist and I found myself hoisted into the air, whirled about and supported by an elephant trunk that connected to Chthony's monstrous baby face. He had stood silently in the trees beside me.

Great. He was stealthy, too. Boys did like to play soldiers, didn't they? Where he'd slapped me, it stung but didn't hurt. He wasn't squeezing, yet. Thankfully.

I looked into his magenta eyes. I could see the pulse of blood in a vein on the right side of his octopus skull. My thudding heart and his seemed in sync, mine beating thrice for each of his. "Um... Chthony. Put me down."

"My little pony."

Tempting fate.

Invincible. Invulnerable.

Keep telling yourself that White Stockings.

"Put me down," I said slowly, tamping down as hard as I could on the quaver creeping into my voice.

Chthony shook his head and said, "Nah uh, no." He began to walk north toward what he referred to as "the pond." You'd think that something so huge as a Chthon would be ungainly and ponderous, but the grace of his antelope form, long legs, and very slow but incredibly long stride made him glide like a cloud despite the bang of his hoof falls on the path.

"We're friends, right?"

"Uh huh."

"I'm not a toy." When he didn't immediately answer, causing me to breathe faster, I added, "Right?"

"Uh huh, Brownie," he said. Brownie is what he called me as he could not or refused to remember my name. I didn't like that it made me sound like dessert.

"Ok, then. Put me down and we can talk."

He swayed exuberantly. He giggled. It sounded like like the exhalation from a haunted cave. "We are talking, Brownie!"

"I'd talk better on the ground."

"I hear you good, Brow—"

"Son, put me down, now."

"No," he said angrily and spat. Liquid spattered me and I blinked just in time. Most hit my neck. I looked and saw purple-black oily goop seep down my back all the way to my flank. Disgusting. I'd been slimed.

It would never come out of my khaki shirt. It would ruin Celestia's scroll which I always kept in the pocket.

Great! The unwholesome brat! Calm, I told myself. Slow breathing. Slow breathing. No panic. I could deal with this. I had a special talent and if the rainbow crows chose to mob me now, I'd worship them forever.

We were touching.

"Chthony?"

"Yes, Brownie?"

"I know what you want."

"Ooooooo." It sounded like a foghorn. "What?"

"There are other better toys out there than this old raggedy stallion. You want to go out and wait for them to visit you at the pond."

"But I like Brownie."

I pressed harder to convince him. "Why, just today, I saw a golden brown colt with a red mane with gold shot through it. And he's not the only one, Chthony. They'll visit you. You're more comfortable there, aren't you? Not like this yucky dry air."

"I like my pond muchly, Brownie."

"And you'll like your new friends."

His eyes got that far away look that ponies always got when my talent worked. Yes! My talent worked on non-ponies, thank Celestia! I guess the poor guy really wanted friends. I'd feel more for him if he were in the pond and stuck in his restriction zone behind a magical barrier that would repel ink spat at his guests. But, I would take what I got.

"You want to put me down first."

"Thank you, Brownie," he said.

Putting down was a relative term. He unrolled the tentacles without thought and tossed me. Stupid me for not being specific. I landed, rolling, in a grassy meadow. He'd been moving at the speed of a gallop. I rolled about five times, slid awhile, and fetched up at the base of a pine at the meadow's edge.

I scrambled upright. Bruised more from slapping than the landing, I stood panting. Yes, and shaking, as I watched the abyssal antelope disappear as the road turned though the woods. I could see his head over the first trees, then other than what sounded like distant syncopated thunder, he was gone.

"Ha!" I laughed, fueled by the suppressed fear for almost a minute. Finally, I took a deep breath and said, "Invulnerable. Invincible. Tempting fate." I grinned.

I saw a nice patch of juicy dandelion with big green leaves that showed purple edges, full of yellow flowers. Suddenly hungry, but likely craving the reassurance of comfort food, I craned my neck down to graze.

Delicious. Tangy. Mildly sweet. I closed my eyes. A little slice of heaven!

"How did you do that?"

I whinnied and jumped a pony-length from the voice which sounded old. I looked up and saw a cowled figure in a cassock fringed with dewy beads of water from a recent drizzle. In his vestments (his word), he might look at first glance like a long-necked pony, or a goat if you saw his hooves. He was neither. He was a centaur.

"Lord Tirek," I said, and bowed my head slightly.

Comments

[NIchtraucher]

... and we finally went full circle. Love this story so far. Not just because I'm a sucker for this timey-whimey stuff but also because it's a really fun read. I'll recommend it to people.