Sunset Shimmer and the Last Trial of Daring Do

by ChudoJogurt

Epilogue

Cold. The next thing I remember was coldness, waves upon waves of it, and I was drowning in it. No pain, no fear, no anger. Just eternal, perfect cold and darkness.

And then the sun came up, and I saw my Princess. White walls of Canterlot General, the stark and tickly smell of chlorine and disinfectant, and a mild note of daffodils and sunflowers - Celestia’s scent.

“Hi.” Ignoring the beeping machinery, I waved her with my whole hoof and smiled weakly.

"How do you feel, my student?" she asked me gently.

I stretched a single sinuous motion, the tip of my horn to end of my hooves testing out my body underneath the sheets. It hurt — almost every little movement pinged back with the sharp pain of broken bones and torn muscles, muffled somewhat with pain-killing spells and medicines.

"I'm fine," I said, realizing slowly that it was — for the most part — true. The pain didn't bother me that much anymore, my limbs were all in place, my horn was uncracked, and the flesh would serve. The failure, still fresh in my mind, hurt more, but it was a thing of the past, and I knew to accept it and move on. I was fine.

...I was fine…

I was fine.

"They found you in the Everfree Forest," Celestia said, almost desperate for something to talk about. "The ponies of Ponyville. They said somepony told them you got in trouble there."

Green...

I smiled when I thought of her. She must've woken up first, with her earth pony resilience, and moved me away from Ahuizotl and his minions. Told somepony where to find me so that I don't bleed out too...I guess she really did like me, in her own strange way.

And then the question that hung in the room since the moment I opened my eyes was broached.

"How did that..." her eye slipped on my form, skipping over the wounds and the burns and the scars as if afraid to touch them with her gaze, even bandaged and covered as they were. "...happen?"

“I fell.” What else could I’ve told her? The bitter taste of failure constricted my throat, and anything else I could say would not leave my mouth. It was easier to lie.

"You fell," she repeated, incredulous. "You had a twisted foreleg, shattered hoof, a dozen fractured bones, a burned-off ear, at least three internal bleedings, and a ruptured spleen. That’s not counting blood loss, burns and wounds! All that — from a fall."

“Yes,” I said stubbornly, looking away. “It was a long fall.”

She didn’t press me for details anymore, but in her eyes there was something… distant. Even through the professional pain-killing spells that hurt.

I sighed. In that very moment, I wanted to tell her everything, to once again be that little filly who could tell her most wonderful teacher in the world anything at all…

Perhaps if I did, I’d be a different person. None of this would have happened, and I would be happier and better for it. But I remembered the coldness in her eyes, the distance at the mention of my other stories… and I found that I could not. I would rather lie and cheat, and bear the silence than have her look at me without seeing, to see her smile without warmth, to hear her say rote phrases without meaning.

She left after a while, and silence and failure stayed as my only companions in the emptiness of the white room.

Author's Note:

The list of stuff that I stole from (and remember doing so)
My Little Pony (including the EQG series),
The Chronicles of Narnia (as references to previous fic of the series)
Kim Possible
Indiana Jones (I think, never watched those)
Walsingham's Hymn by Alexander Pushkin
King Solomon's Mines
The Man with the Twisted Lip
Dorian Gray (ch. 16)
The Jungle Book, The Gate of Hundred Sorrows, Gunga Din, The Smuggler's Song and other assorted bits by Rudyard Kipling
The Starship Troopers
DC Comics (especially O'Neil's run of "The Question")
Spider-Man 90s cartoon
The Line of Illusions, Night Watch & Genome, as well as probably other works by Sergei Lukyanenko.
The Gleams of Aeterna by Vera Kamsha
"The Golden Oecumene" trilogy by John C. Wright
The Sandman graphic novel, Neverwhere and other works by Neil Gaiman
The Lord of the Rings (and some of the drafts by Tolkien that never became part of that book)
The Throne of the Crescent Moon
WITCH series (the cartoon, season 2)
The Lord of Light and the Amber series by Roger Zelazni
Miracleman graphic novel
The Authority graphic novel
My Brother's Sister by Anastasia Parphenova
The Coldfire Trilogy
Pokemon games
The Other Foot by Ray Bradbury
Soon I Will Be Invincible!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Dresden Files book series
Guardians of the Flame.
Malazan Book of the Fallen
Star Wars (the extended lore)
The Lion's Parasites by Fracncis Carsac
The Neon Court by Kate Griffin
"Ariel" by Alexander Belyaev
"A Sculptor Makes a Self-Portrait" by The Orgy of Righteous
"Firebird's Child" by Seannan McGuire
"An Apple for the Teacher" by Bing Crossby

Some of those are used in direct references and shout-outs, some as an inspiration for phrases, scenes and ideas, fully reworked into the fiction, some as copy-pasted bits of text, all of them - entirely crucial for my writing.
If I missed anything please do not hesitate to point those out.

I hope that the derivative nature of this work did not impede your enjoyment of it significantly.

Comments

[Feather Book]

It's criminal that this story has so few views.

It was a good story. An interesting adventure with twists and turns. But wow did it get dark at the end.

Still, I enjoyed it. Good work.

[FanOfMostEverything]

An exquisite nightmare of penance through abuse and attempted redemption, and of the plight of an uncapitalized mare in a world of Heroes, Villains, and other Powers. And, of course, Sunset learning the wrong lesson from her mistakes.

Incredible work all around. Thank you for it.

[PresentPerfect]

Good lord. And all I could think during the previous chapter was

"Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me you and Ahuizotl went through all that effort just so you could summon our vice principal? Now I know this story is crap!"

"For fuck's sake, Dash, it was another world, she was trapped on the moon for a thousand years, try to keep up."

An excellent end to this trilogy, if an end this be. :)

[Caliaponia]

Well, I suppose she did fall - metaphorically speaking. I just hope she gets better again, and not just superficially so.

[Soge]

Oh, this is so, so powerful. A striking evolution from the previous stories of the series. Would love to read more in this continuity =D.

[ChudoJogurt]

9572507
There is one coming up in few months.