2. Eyesolation
Sunset's day began, as it always did, with the alarm clock's shriek wrenching her from sleep. Usually, the clock was a minor irritant at worst, and nothing a good thwack wouldn't fix, but yesterday, she'd been hoping – and, let's face it, fully expecting – to wake up beside a naked Flash Sentry. Reality had other plans, of course, and the clock seemed to revel in the unseating of her forbidden teenage love fantasy.
Or perhaps she was just projecting her frustration onto it. Regardless, Sunset wasn't currently entangled with a sexy guitarist, so her day was already starting on a lousy note.
Sunset drew the covers over her head and curled her body into a tight ball, creating a toasty cocoon from which she refused to emerge. She wanted to believe that the clock had no sense of object permanence – that if it couldn't see her, it'd assume she didn't exist, and would stop trying to wake her up. But the longer she hid, the more the clock blared, and the more she came to realize the futility of cowering in snuggly blankets when there was a whole day that needed facing.
So, reluctantly, Sunset tossed the covers off her head and blindly thwacked the clock into silence. However, she was unprepared for the assault of the outside world's frigid air, and she immediately plunged back under the covers with a sigh of relief. She lingered for as long as she dared, until the air beneath her blankets grew too hot and too thick to breathe comfortably, and she poked her head out of the covers to breathe and open her eyes.
What she saw, mere inches away from her nose, was the rounded tip of a black, rubbery surfaced object.
"Bwah!"
Sunset scrabbled backward as far as she could go – which wasn't very far, with the headboard to consider. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief, blinking rapidly to clear away the last traces of blurry, crusty, slightly drooly sleep. Her first cogent thought regarding her visitor, after dismissing the obvious, was "tentacle." It had a long, serpentine body, which snaked down the length of her mattress and curled past the footboard and through her door – through her closed, locked, and very much impermeable door.
Her second cogent thought was that it was far too early to deal with this sort of thing, and her third was "What the shit?!"
"Out," Sunset snapped, scowling and pointing at the door. "Out, out out!"
Concurrent with the final "out," the tentacle withdrew, slurping down her bed and through her door with an actual slurping sound.
Sunset flung the covers off her body and rushed to her door. She threw it open in time to witness the tentacle descend the stairs, its tip thumping loudly against each step. She traced the length of the tentacle back to her kitchen door, from which it protruded, until it wiggled and waggled and flailed back through it like a strand of wet spaghetti.
Sunset hopped down the stairs and rushed into the kitchen. The Eyeball floated, positioned and oriented exactly as it was when she'd peeked in on it before heading off to bed – with one notable difference. Its pupil had stretched out from the rest of its body, and now hung, limp and floppy, over the floor.
With one last wet, noisy schlorp, the pupil was sucked back into the Eyeball. It stared in silence at Sunset.
This is easily the third most awkward morning I've ever experienced, Sunset thought bitterly.
"Okay, we're gonna set some ground rules, right now." Sunset folded her arms and cocked her hip, shifting seamlessly from Beleaguered Roommate to Sassy Queen Bee. "You see this room? This room you're floating in, all unwelcome and taking-up-space-like? This is the only place in my apartment where I want you to be. And I don't even really want you to be in here – you're an intruder with whom I'm cohabiting under strict protest, after all – but as long as you're in here, I don't have to see or acknowledge you, unless I get really, really hungry.
"Which means that I don't want to catch head nor hide of you – so to speak – outside of the kitchen. This extends to certain prehensile parts of your anatomy, too. If I wake up with you all up in my face a second time, then you and I are gonna need to revisit this subject. And I am not gonna be anywhere near this patient about it."
The Eyeball observed Sunset in silence, giving no reply. Slowly, without even a whisper of displaced air to mark its motion, it floated to the side, and rotated until its pupil faced Sunset's broken coffee maker.
Sunset let her arms fall to her side, though she braced her knuckles against her still-cocked hip to maintain proper Queen Bee posture. "Are you listening to me? Hey—"
The empty coffee pot suddenly began to fill with some sort of clear fluid from the bottom up, rising in height and volume until it reached the brim.
Sunset's arm and jaw dropped with perfect synchronicity.
Giving the Eyeball as much of a berth as she reasonably could, Sunset stepped over to her coffee pot and pulled it free from the machine. She flipped open the lid and bent her neck to sniff, but paused – for all she knew, inhaling the fumes of this mystery fluid could kill her. She instead set the pot down on the counter and took a slow, deep breath, wafting the air into her nose with her hand.
From the trace of scent that she caught, it smelled the way morning breath tasted – and, presumably, the way it smelled. She wouldn't know; she hadn't been in a position to smell morning breath for quite some time. She had the Eyeball to thank for that as well. Satisfied that it wouldn't kill her with its fumes, yet annoyed at the reminder of what she'd missed out on, she pulled a fork from her silverware drawer, and poised it over the coffee pot. Before dipping it in, she gave the Eyeball a wary look
This isn't gonna corrode, or cause a chemical reaction that demolishes the entire building, is it?
She gulped – nothing ventured, nothing gained. In the name of science, Sunset dipped the fork into the pot, soaking it halfway up the prongs, before pulling it free and holding it up for inspection. Frowning thoughtfully, she rubbed her fingertip lightly against a prong, gathering a tiny sample and mushing it against her thumb.
"Faintly warm... viscosity is somewhere between water and maple syrup..." Sunset pulled her thumb and fingertip apart, squinting at the thin strands of fluid connecting her two digits. "Factoring in the odor, and in the absence of lab equipment, the closest comparison I could draw would be...."
She slowly turned her head to stare at the Eyeball.
"Why did you fill my coffee pot with human saliva?"
The Eyeball said and did nothing.
Sunset pursed her lips and quietly backed out of the kitchen, shuddering all the while. She paused in the doorway, finger raised, mouth open, ready to raise hell.
"...Oh, what would even be the point..."
The Eyeball swiveled away from the pot to watch her leave, the middle of its pupil twinkling faintly.
School came and went, the classes and hours passing in a blur. Sunset went through the motions, taking dutiful notes and paying attention, yet remaining silent and seldom bothering to contribute. Academia didn't get her all hot and bothered the same way that it did Twilight, but she was a diligent student, and always had been. Today, though, she was there without really being there. She drifted from class to class, tossed about the building by the tide of bells, until she washed up in the music room with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash at the end of the day.
The two talked about this or that while Sunset sat on the piano with her legs dangling over the edge. She had a notebook in her lap, and a pen in her hand, and she scribbled away at a page full of eyeballs – round, bloodshot, disembodied eyeballs – in the waning light of the afternoon sun.
Until blue fingers snapped, twice, in front of her face. Sunset blinked and looked up from her notebook, thumbing the button at the end of her pen to retract it.
"You in there, Sunset?" Rainbow Dash's fists were planted on her hips, and she leaned down to peek over the top of Sunset's notebook.
Sunset pulled it against her chest. "No rehearsal this Friday because you're playing soccer with Scootaloo. Or you're buying Scootaloo socks. Something about Scootaloo."
Rainbow folded her arms in silence, her lips curling in a skeptical half-frown.
"What?" said Sunset. "I was listening."
"Uh-huh." Rainbow snorted. "That was only part of it, you know. I'm trying out this new training regimen with Scootaloo – we're seeing how she keeps up with pony magic. Wanted to know if you're in."
"Can't. Sorry. Prior commitment."
Sunset lowered her notebook and clicked her pen, but Rainbow planted a finger at the top of her page before she could return to drawing. She pulled it down to gaze at Sunset's sketches, arching an eyebrow.
"I think it'll keep for one afternoon, Sunset. Besides, maybe the three of you will have everything wrapped up by then. A lot can change by the day after tomorrow."
"You should listen to Rainbow," Fluttershy added. She hovered over Sunset's left shoulder, her hands planted on the piano's surface to support her weight. "It certainly couldn't hurt to make plans in advance, just in case things work out early, could it? You know... plan for the best, right?"
"I think you mean 'hope for the best.' You plan for the worst." Sunset tugged her notebook away from Rainbow Dash and scooted away, turning her back to her friends. "Which means that my answer's still no. But, hey, I'm not even sure I'm the right fit for this training regimen of yours. Mind-reading isn't really good for much in an athletic competition."
"You try and reach out, and this is what you get," Rainbow muttered, picking up her backpack. "Whatever; I gotta run. We're meeting up at Pinkie's to study and see how much whipped cream she can fit in her mouth at once. You coming? Guaranteed to be a good time."
Sunset made a non-committal noise.
"Yeah, I figured." Rainbow sighed and stepped out of the room. "Flutters?"
"In a moment."
Fluttershy waited until Rainbow Dash had shut the door behind her to speak up again. "You're a very talented artist, Sunset. I never actually knew that about you before."
Sunset smiled. "Yeah, well. I'd be even better if I still had magic. Hands are great, but they lack the precision of levitation."
"I suppose I'll have to take your word for it." Sunset felt Fluttershy's hair brush against her shoulder as she leaned in closer to inspect the page. "But, um... that one, right there. That's an interesting departure from your eye motif. Could you, perhaps, explain it to me?"
She pointed to a sketch of an alicorn, bound in ropes, being dangled over a vat of bubbling liquid.
"That," Sunset murmured, "is one Starlight Glimmer, moments before being subsumed by boiling, grape-flavored cough syrup. Grape for the purple coloring, you understand."
"Oh." Fluttershy shrank away. "How... imaginative."
"Mm-hm." Sunset tapped the pen idly against the page. "Of course, since I've never seen Starlight Glimmer, and I have no idea what she looks like, I based her appearance on that of the fallen Equestrian princess, Nightmare Moon. I took a few creative liberties, though – reinterpreted her design for a more modern context. See the helmet, and the mane? The starfield coming out the back of her head?"
Fluttershy frowned. "Why is the helmet is shaped like a—"
"Like a butt?"
"Like a— yeah, like a butt."
"Artistic license." Sunset idly colored in a blank spot on the page. "I like that it makes her mane look like a fart. That wasn't intentional; it just kind of worked out that way."
Fluttershy rounded the piano to kneel in front of Sunset, biting her lip in hesitation.
"Do you find that cathartic?"
Sunset's eyelid twitched. "Catharsis implies that I have emotions that need releasing in the first place. Which I do not."
"Are you sure about that?"
Sunset glanced up from the page to narrow her eyes at Fluttershy. "I get what you're doing here, Fluttershy, but there's nothing that I need to get off my chest."
"Isn't there?"
"Must you respond to everything I say with questions?" Sunset shut the notebook with an exasperated growl and tossed it to the floor. "Cripes, you even got me doing it. I hope you're happy."
"Sunset, I know that Princess Twilight's student bothers you. I'd know that without having to look at your... um... artwork." She glanced, quickly and furtively, at the notebook. "I know that recent events have brought that to the forefront, and with everything else that's going on – I'm just worried about the toll it's taking on you. We all are."
Sunset shut her eyes and exhaled slowly. When she opened them, she forced herself to grin. "Thanks. But I'm fine, Fluttershy. Really. There's nothing that I need to—"
"Please don't say there's nothing you need to talk about again," Fluttershy said gently.
The grin fell, and Sunset looked away. She gathered her legs onto the piano, and turned her body around to stare out the window at the fading light of the afternoon.
"...There's nothing I can talk about, then." Clouds gathered in the distance, creeping up on the sun – only a few hours of clear skies left, it seemed. "I appreciate your concern, but I can't get into it with you."
"You don't need to feel like you're alone in this, Sunset. We're here for you."
"That's exactly why I can't talk about it, Fluttershy. You're too close to it – to me, and to Twilight. I don't want to force our drama on the rest of you, and make you guys pick sides between the two of us, which is what will happen if I open up about it. Trust me on that."
Sunset pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin between them.
"I ruined your friendships with one another once already; I don't want to do it again by accident. It's just better for everybody if Twilight and I resolve things ourselves, so, please – just let this one go, for all our sakes."
"...If that's really how you feel, I won't press you," said Fluttershy at length. "But you know, if you ever need to talk about it – or about anything, really – I'm always here for you."
She patted Sunset on the shoulder, and Sunset looked down at Fluttershy's hand with a grateful smile.
"Thank you. And, you know what, when this is all over, and Twilight finally emerges from whatever tower she's sequestered herself in, then she and I can talk it out. But for now—"
The door to the music room opened suddenly, interrupting Sunset. She twisted her body to look behind herself at the newcomer, and her face blanked in undisguised shock.
"Flash." Sunset swallowed. "H-Hi."
Without saying a word, Flash shut the door and vanished, tearing off down the hall and out of sight.
Sunset gathered her things and went after him, leaving Fluttershy with a hurried apology. "Flash! Hey, wait up!"
Flash came to a stop beside a row of lockers, turning to face Sunset. He briefly met her gaze before looking away, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor.
"Hey... Sunset." Flash gripped his backpack's strap with knuckle-whitening force. "What's up?"
"I wanted to talk." Sunset noted the slight cringe in Flash's face at her use of the personal pronoun. "You know, about yesterday? Because we never really got a chance to, with all the, uh... all the..."
"Yeah, all the... the stuff. The crazy stuff." Flash's head bobbed as he inspected Sunset's shoes.
"Right. That. So..." Sunset toyed with the strap of her backpack. "Do you wanna... talk? Maybe?"
"I—" Flash's eyes shut, and he cringed. "That is, uh, Flash... me... me-Flash doesn't really want to talk about it. Everything is fi— okay. Everything's okay."
"Are you sure?" Sunset cocked her head. "Because you're sounding kind of—"
"Flash-me has no ide— no clue what you're talking about." Flash began to back away. "I— me have to go now. Go away. Far away."
He turned and bolted again.
Sunset pressed her palm against her forehead and sighed, listening to his footfalls as they grew fainter.
"Goodness. He certainly can run, can't he?"
Sunset straightened – she hadn't even heard Fluttershy steal up behind her. "Kid's got stamina to match, believe me."
Not that it'll do me any good ever again.
"You, um... you left this behind when you ran out the door." Sunset turned to see the notebook held between Fluttershy's hands, and she accepted it with a nod of thanks. Fluttershy cleared her throat. "Maybe there's no point in asking, but... will I see you at Pinkie's this evening?"
"...I think I'm just gonna go straight home." Sunset's voice was haggard; she leaned against the lockers tiredly. "Tell the others I'm sorry for skipping out on them."
"The door will be open if you change your mind."
"I know. Thanks."
Sunset killed the engine to her bike and looked up at the facade of her apartment building. As expected, the clouds had crept in as she made her way home; the overcast sky was a shade lighter than the slate-gray paint of the building.
As she nudged the kickstand down and dismounted, she noticed someone sitting on her bottom step – a girl in an oversized black hoodie and ripped black jeans. Vivid orange hair, striped with goldenrod, contrasted sharply with the ensemble and the pallor of her skin. Between two fingers she held a cigarette, the smoke curling up between her vacuous amber eyes, as she drank in the sight of Sunset on her motorcycle.
Sunset tugged off her helmet, and shook her head, tossing her thick hair about her shoulders. She glared at the girl on the front steps.
"No loitering."
In response, the girl leaned back against the stairs, and spread her arms across the step behind her, splaying her legs. She smirked at Sunset and waggled her eyebrows.
Sunset scowled and took a step toward her, fishing in her jacket pocket for her keys.
From behind came a snapping sound, followed by a crash as her motorcycle toppled to the asphalt. Heart seizing, Sunset dropped her helmet and ran back to the bike. She bent, hooked her fingers around the seat, and raised it high enough to see the broken kickstand, snapped off a few inches from its base. Leaning farther, she could see scuff marks on the bike's surface where it had scraped against the pavement.
"Son of a diamond dog..."
The girl on the stairs wolf-whistled. "Hey, I ain't complaining – the view from back here is excellent." She cackled at her own remark.
Sunset's fingers tightened.
She gently lowered the bike back to the ground before stomping toward the still-chuckling girl and smacking the cigarette from her hand. The girl started to protest, but Sunset grabbed her by the collar, and yanked her to her feet.
Her eyes widened. "The hell is your problem, you crazy—"
"I said. No. Loitering."
Sunset threw the girl down the stairs, and she fell to her hands and knees on the pavement below. She stared at Sunset, cowed but unharmed, before turning and fleeing up the street, her hood flapping behind her like the shrunken cape of a stunted superhero.
With a disdainful snort, Sunset ground out the still-burning cigarette, retrieved her helmet, and entered her apartment. She kicked off her shoes, tossed her things onto the couch, grabbed a throw pillow, and screamed into it until her throat scratched and her lungs burned for air. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she wondered if it was the same one Twilight had used yesterday. Either way, the girl had the right idea. Screaming always helped.
Dizzy and oxygen-deprived, Sunset threw her scream receptacle back onto the couch and leaned against the armrest. She took slow, deep breaths to steady herself, and mentally ran through her options.
As far as the issues she had on her plate were concerned, the motorcycle was far from the biggest, or even the hardest to fix. A word in the right ear, and she could secure herself enough time in the school's auto shop to weld her kickstand back on. It wouldn't be an especially elegant solution, and it was far from a professional repair job, but she couldn't afford much more than that. The damage to her bike itself would need more attention, but it was a lesser priority – it was, after all, only cosmetic.
I mean, hey, she thought, looking around her apartment with a self-deprecating chuckle. What do I honestly care about appearances at this point?
Her eyes landed on the space underneath her kitchen door – through the gap, she could see a strange pattern of shifting lights and shadows. Sunset frowned at it.
"Now, what in the world...?"
She pushed off the couch and stepped into the kitchen, and almost went back to the pillow for a second round of frenzied screaming.
The door to her refrigerator was flung open. The Eyeball floated in front of it, and Sunset's food floated around the Eyeball, along with the contents of every other cabinet and drawer in the kitchen. Her perishables and kitchenware formed a three-tiered facsimile of planetary rings, with the Eyeball itself fulfilling the role of Saturn. Bottles of ketchup and mustard, jars of mayonnaise and relish, a carton of milk and two six-packs of peach yogurt, formed an inner ring of foodstuffs. Encircling that was an outer ring of bowls and plates, and spoons and forks, and two unwashed, long-stemmed wine glasses. Beyond that was another ring of moldy bread, peanut butter, napkins, and cutlery.
The Eyeball slowly swiveled to face Sunset, and the two innermost rings changed their rotation, forming a gyroscope that flopped and spun around the Eyeball. The outermost ring maintained its orbit, slow and steady, in time with the other two. Sunset's eyes trailed after the bottle of wine as it floated past her face, followed closely by a coffee pot now mercifully devoid of human saliva.
Seeing the bottle, she realized that a screaming pillow would not be sufficient to deal with this new situation. There was only one logical and reasonable way to react.
Sunset pulled the wine from orbit. She uncorked it with her teeth, stuck it in her mouth, and tossed her head back. Sweet relief, rich and tangy, flooded into her mouth and down her throat in long, desperate gulps. She was no sommelier, but she knew that chugging wine – even cheap liquor store Merlot – like it was some watered-down piss-lager was the wrong way to drink wine. She just didn't care. She needed it, as she needed few other things in her life.
Sunset finished her pull with a gasp and wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist, leaving a dull red splotch against her skin.
"Alright," she said, swaying slightly on suddenly unsteady feet. She brought up a belch that brought with it a sweeping wave of nausea, which she battled down with some effort. "You see this? All of this, uh... whatever?"
Sunset pointed vaguely at the gyroscoping rings encircling the Eyeball.
"I need it to stop. I need it to stop, right now, and for you to cut me just a thin, slender little sliver of slack." She held her thumb and index finger apart a centimeter to illustrate. "Like, I know I deserve a lifetime's worth of ironic punishment, after all the bad I've done, but does it have to happen all at once? Can't it get portioned out a little more evenly?"
The rings began to slow their rotation as Sunset's diatribe continued.
"Silence, huh? Figures. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," Sunset drawled, thrusting her bottle accusingly and spilling a few droplets of wine. "You showed up on the same day that I just happened to try and reconnect with my well-toned and as-yet-single ex-boyfriend. And not only did you scare him away, you big, cock-blocking lug, you broke his brain and made him terrified of a simple vowel sound. And of me. Besides being bad for his well-being, it sorta makes my prospects of ever hooking up with him again look not so great, so thanks a bunch for that!
"This ordeal, of course, led to me contacting my B.P.P.P.F.F. – that's 'Best Purple Pony Princess Friend Forever' – in a moment of blind, slightly tipsy panic, and all that did is force me to confront the reality that she has a close, personal friendship with Starlight the Synonymous Sunset Substitute. Which opens up a whole 'nother can of worms because, hey, getting replaced by someone you care about? Not good for the ol' self-esteem! All of which brings me back to my original point, which is this."
She took one last drink, re-corked the bottle, hammered it in with the palm of her hand, and tossed it back into orbit around the Eyeball.
"I get it. Okay? The message has been received. I have had my full measure. Whatever god of karmic punishment is watching me right now, cackling like an asshole, can rest easy, knowing that I have been sufficiently spanked for the time being."
The rings finally slowed to a complete stop. The room was still as the Eyeball stared at Sunset, its pupil visible between a jar of mayonnaise and Sunset's moldy loaf of bread.
Sunset snorted and turned around, folding her arms.
"You know what? Maybe I don't even have any right to complain." She laughed – an ugly sound, ill-humored and thick with wine. "Maybe I'm thinking about this all wrong; maybe it's only fair that all of this is happening at once. So much good has happened to me these last few months – finding my friends, making things right with the rest of the school, helping Twilight almost get laid at Camp Everfree. Hell, the mere possibility of reconciling with Flash was unthinkable up until recently. Maybe things going to shit was inevitable. What goes up must come back down, and the higher up you go..."
She dipped her head, dropping her arms and letting them slap limply against her sides.
"The harder you hit the ground." Sunset sighed. "Maybe that's all this is. Just the universe balancing my account."
The sounds of squeaky hinges and clattering cutlery began to fill the kitchen. Sunset turned to see the Eyeball's gyroscope disassembling, its components returning to the drawers and cabinets from whence they came. Silverware, plates and bowls clanked against one another as they were re-stacked. Food and drink floated back into the fridge, the wine glasses settled again in the sink, and the coffee pot slid into place in the broken machine.
Finally, the Eyeball floated alone in an otherwise empty, mostly organized kitchen, staring down at Sunset.
Sunset's lips quirked up in a half-smile.
"That's... a start, I suppose."
The Eyeball's pupil vanished, leaving behind a blank white space inside its iris, which pulsed with a sudden glow. Sunset tried to say something, but a second pulse cut her off, and she fell silent to watch out of curiosity. Two more pulses, in rapid succession. A pause, and another three. In time with the pulses, a black line uncurled in the center of the blank space where the pupil had been, forming a spiral that grew longer, and wider, the farther from its origin that it went..
Those are Fillybonacci numbers. The spiral, too – that's part of it. But why...?
Sunset chewed the end of her thumb thoughtfully. She hadn't been able to assign any meaning or motivation to any of the weird, unquantifiable actions the Eyeball had thus far taken. Best guess, it was studying her, and the world she inhabited, analyzing everything in an attempt to understand her – perhaps even to communicate with her. It seemed to understand that Sunset didn't appreciate having her kitchen turned into a complex aerial ballet, and it reacted with empathy – that was surprising. But establishing actual dialogue with Sunset seemed as much beyond its capabilities as it was beyond Sunset's.
Yet it guessed, correctly, that Sunset knew her mathematics well enough to detect a basic pattern of numbers. Given time – given enormous amounts of time that she really didn't have – she might have been able to build a dialogue with the Eyeball based on that alone. If only there was another way, though. Something faster, something more... immediate...
...Wait. Duh.
Sunset stepped toward the Eyeball, swaying a little from the wine, and tentatively stretched her arm toward it. She stopped with her fingers inches away from its shiny surface.
"Listen... I'm gonna try something, alright? Something that I think'll help us to understand one another. Don't freak out, okay?"
The Eyeball's Fillybonacci spiral congealed back into a pupil. It hovered, silent and immobile.
Why am I bothering? It's not like it can understand what I'm saying.
Sunset's fingertips brushed against the Eyeball's skin – it was surprisingly warm and rubbery, and vibrated softly beneath her touch. She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and concentrated.
What she saw in the Eyeball's mind made Pinkie Pie's sugar-infused, marshmallow wonderland look sensical and well-organized.
Her vision swam with swirls of colors she had no name for, images and polygons that stretched and warped inside her mind's eye, changing shape and shifting form a thousand times a millisecond. She tried to force them to hold still long enough for her to comprehend them, but the mere effort made her mind turn inside-out and implode. Sunset struggled to parse what she saw, to maintain some semblance of thought and self, desperate to grab on to anything familiar.
She caught something, and clung to it – a feeling, or the ghost thereof. Powerful, yet diluted, as though she were experiencing it through a filter. An overwhelming sensation of isolation. Of loneliness.
Sunset tried to call out to the Eyeball, and watched as her words swaggered from her mouth, becoming shapes which became colors which became songs. They unfurled formlessly in the vacuum, and Sunset laughed to behold them. In the distance, an unseen swarm of insects buzzed, the whine of their wings drawing closer, growing louder. Sunset flung open arms that did not exist in greeting.
Someone shoved – hard – against her chest.
Sunset stumbled backward, into a world of solid matter, and fell to the dirt-streaked linoleum floor, panting for breath. She sniffed – something wet was trickling from her nose, and she wiped it on her knuckle. Opening her eyes, she saw a smudge of red smeared against her skin, brighter than the wine-stain on her wrist.
...I probably shouldn't have tried that.
Then her insides clenched; she doubled over, and vomited.
I probably shouldn't have chugged half a bottle of wine, either.
Sunset lay for hours in companionable silence with her unwanted guest, as the sky darkened outside and shadows claimed the kitchen. She kept her head against the floor, the cool tiles soothing the pounding between her ears. Gradually, the pain ebbed away, and the memories of those alien geometries and unseeable blends of colors faded from her mind. She wanted them to stay – wanted to contemplate them, to understand on some small level what the Eyeball was and where it came from and what it wanted.
Maybe it was better that she didn't know. Maybe she wasn't meant to.
So many maybes. Only one thing I know for certain.
"...You didn't ask for this either."
Sunset's cheek had adhered to the tile as she lay there, and it stretched and smacked as it pulled free. Fighting against gravity, and the still-potent throbbing in her skull, she settled onto her haunches and looked up at the Eyeball. Its iris painted the room in cool blue tones.
"I hadn't really thought about how all this must seem from your perspective. How you'd feel about being here. Maybe I've been too self-involved to put much thought into it, I dunno. But you didn't ask for this either, and I get that now. You're all alone – the only one of your kind – in a world where you're unwanted."
She stood up, still unsteady, and stepped back to lean against the wall.
"Guess that's something we have in common."
The Eyeball's glow brightened, as the last traces of daylight vanished.
Sunset stuck her hands in her pockets.
"...You want me to run out and get us some burritos, or something?"
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I ship it.
8127869 I was thinking the same thing. I used to play DnD, the beholder is the most terrifying thing I met. A friend of mine went to kill Tarrasque.
So it's a Beholder?
I wonder how the science is going in purple place. Cuz this was awesome and I wanna know.
Oh hey! Great to see this making the leap to FIMFic.
Wow.
8130910
I've been making so many eye puns lately that I can't tell what is and isn't supposed to be wordplay...
8131018
Keep in mind that I'm a fan of vitreous humor. If I make a deliberate pun, it'll be a lot more cornea.
Everything DannyJ touches is gold.
Seriously. What the heck!
I might as well make a "Edited by DannyJ" favorites library!
8129712 ah.
Please title one of the chapters "Me, Myself, and Eye"
I've seen enough hentai to... oh it's rated teen.
But Sunset is right, Starlight is FiM's version of herself. Poor filly always rejected and replaced by those she lets get close to her.
Oh God, the Eye puns.
ALL the Eye puns!
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I've been trying to make an eye pun as good as this all day, and I can't
Please make me your pupil.
8132651
Alright, alright. Calm down there buddy.
Let me get you some eye tea to relax.
First you made me laugh, then you broke my heart. I'm not sure where this story is headed next, but I'm eagerly looking forward to finding out.
8133216 As I write this, I am experiencing mysterious heart-fluttery symptoms, and the hypochondriac in me is convinced that I'm about to die of heart plague. You are not helping, FanOfMostEyevrything.
8133291 COMPLETELY different. MY eyeball is BLUE.
8133551 Well, at least your eyeball doesn't follow people around.
Poor Flash, he's going to have a hard time trying to go through life without any Is.
Posh, you are a true Visionary
OK, I'll stop with the cornea puns now
Wait, this was supposed to be funny, not depressing. Damn it, Posh.
I think I'll keep an eye on this one.
My only comment is that pupils are holes and thus cannot stretch.
Dang, Sunset keeps her alarm on on Sundays? That is messed up.
Or too sum up Sunset's, and the fandom's at the same time, problem with Starlight?
8133849
you think the next time he tries to get some action with another girl, he'll have a PTSD attack?
9539931 Flash's trauma is related to eyes, not sex.
So, only if they do it while the lights are on.