Sigil of Souls, Stream of Memories

by Piccolo Sky

Daybreak: Stirring the Embers

“Well now…take a look-see at what we ‘ave ‘ere.”

Sunset’s eyes weakly cracked open. She had fallen asleep in her makeshift bed of old packing straw and newspapers not too long ago, and it had been sleep she had desperately needed. Yet now that she was fully awake, it was only moments before her throat began to burn again. Before she could stop herself, she let out another deep fit of coughing. She winced each time; for each one felt like a rake on her already inflamed throat.

She struggled to focus on who had spoken but it was impossible. She had picked the alleyway to lay down in specifically because it was dark and obscured, albeit extremely filthy and not far from a rather dirty smokestack on one of the local factories. Even if it had been daylight, however, she would have seen nothing. She was too weak from days of eating scraps, drinking filthy water, and fighting a mostly-losing battle against keeping her numerous wounds clean long enough to heal. Even now her whole body was still tender, and that was before she had first gotten a fever three days ago.

It was all she could do to show the slightest hint of recognition that she was even aware someone was present.

They seemed not to notice because they kept talking as if she wasn’t able to hear them. “Ain’t she a pretty face? Fancy findin’ the likes o’ her in a place like this.”

“You know what that means, don’t ya’?”

“Indeed I do, chum. She must be on the lam. Ain’t no reason a face as tender as hers’d be out here otherwise.”

Sunset felt a twinge of anxiety inside her, but not nearly as much as she should have. Her senses were too muddled. Between the weakness, her soreness, and her poor health she could barely even comprehend the words being said—let alone be scared for them. It hardly mattered; she was too weak to even get up right now let alone run for it.

She tried to make a move nevertheless. All she got was a moan and one of her arms shifting. Even stretching a little outside of the newspapers made her cold all over again to the point of shivering.

She vaguely heard the voices closer than before. “Even need the chloroform for this’n? Looks half dead already.”

“Just ‘cause she can’t walk don’t mean she can’t scream, does it?”

“Fair point as usual, chum.”

Sunset became aware of shadows falling over her. In one last feeble attempt, she tried to raise her arms. She didn’t get them far before she easily found them pushed down again. After that, she got the vague sensation of a rag to her face and a curious odor, then nothing.

---

Sunset wasn’t sure she fully regained her senses or if she was having a delusion when she could remember things again. All she could make out was that she was being dragged between two powerful sets of arms. Her hair was hanging low and splayed out over her head, so when she opened her eyes all she could make out was the ground beneath her and two pairs of dirty, worn boots on either side of her.

She felt both hot and cold at the same time. Her forehead felt like it was on fire while the rest of her was freezing. Her teeth began to chatter, but neither of her captors noticed. She felt aches all over, but knew it wasn’t from fresh blows or injuries this time but rather her sickness. She was nauseated from the rough treatment, but it hardly mattered as she had nothing in her stomach to throw up and no strength to do so if she did. Her mouth was dry and she barely managed to move her tongue in it enough to moisten it to try to moan, let alone make any words.

“Ain’t no use callin’ for help, missy,” one of her captors retorted the moment she made a vague sound. “Ain’t no one gonna hear you ‘round these parts.”

A dark laugh that Sunset barely registered came from the other one. She stopped trying to make sounds, instead focusing on lifting her head up. It was so dark and her vision so blurry that it was almost impossible to see anything, but somehow she realized she was in some sort of structure that was being kept unlit. Unlit, that was, save for a couple of old, uncleaned oil lamps up ahead. Their fiery flickering provided the only illumination, and at first all Sunset could see was a vague blur.

Yet as she was drug onward, she gradually made out the wall on which the oil lamps were mounted. They were posted on either side of a rather broad pen with iron bars. It seemed like it had been used for livestock processing at some point, especially now that she was beginning to smell the remains of animal waste and see remnants of blood along the walls and floor. Now, however, it seemed to have been converted into a large cell.

Through her daze and sickness, she began to hear the sounds of whimpering and crying. After being drug a bit closer, she saw that the inside of the cell was filled with straw, and lying on top of it in various positions were four young women. One of them was huddled in fear. Another was sobbing for her mother. The other two shrank away from the bars as soon as the men carrying Sunset came near. Only when she reached it did she see a third man step out of the shadows and step in front of the three of them.

“What’d we got ‘ere?” he snorted. “Another sick one?”

“Yeah, but look how fresh her face is. Twice as good as the best of the rest.”

“And y’know Verko can’t afford to be choosy no more. Not with no more Light Eaters. Used ta’ be we’d have this place filled to the brim by now with runaways. Lucky we got these five. ‘Specially since Trottingham ain’t as motile as it used ta’ be, get my drift?”

“Hmph…can’t argue with that. Might as well hang onto ‘er fer a while. Might bounce back.”

With that, he turned to the bars. He must have had some sort of key along with some sort of weapon on him, or perhaps those imprisoned were too scared to resist, because the bars moved aside and none of them made a run for the exit. Seconds later, Sunset was shoved forward so violently that it caused her senses to muddle again. In moments, she was thrown through the entrance and landed face down in the straw.

The trip was so violent that it caused her senses to black out completely. The last she heard was the faint sound of a cell door locking again behind her.

---

Heat, cold, and darkness. Darkness, heat, and cold. Cold, darkness, and heat. That was her world and that was all she knew for the longest time. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed. She couldn’t tell if her world was heating up or cooling off. All she kept feeling were the temperature extremes. Her head was on fire; her body was on ice; all was blackness.

Minutes pass. Hours pass. Seconds pass. Days pass. Heartbeats pass. Weeks pass.

Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Am I still alive? Am I dead? Am I dying?

Darkness everywhere. Darkness in the day. Darkness at night. Darkness when my eyes are open. Darkness when they’re closed.

“She looks really bad…”

Am I hurting? Am I relieved? I don’t know what pain is anymore. I don’t know what relief is anymore. How long have I been lying here?

How much time has passed? Is it now? Is it then? Is it to be?

I can’t move. I can’t wake. I can’t do anything. I can’t see anything. I can’t hear anything.

“Don’t get near her. You don’t want to catch what she’s got…”

How did I get here? How long will I be here? Who brought me here? Does anyone know I’m here? Does anyone miss me?

When I’m gone, will anyone care?

Is this where I end? In the darkness? Alone?

“How long has…she been here?”

How long has she been there?

There?

Her.

She’s right there.

Sometime, in the countless inscrutable units of time that passed in the blackness, she became aware of her. Was she in the darkness all along? Did she only see her now? Was she watching her? Was she enjoying what she was seeing?

She could see her now. Not in the headmistress uniform. Not in her civilian clothes. Not in any of the outfits they had on their outings.

No…the way she was meant to be. Adorned like a goddess. Dazzling as the sun. Pristine and pure as fresh white snow. Radiant as all the colors of a rainbow.

The look on her face one of condemnation and judgment.

“Can’t you see she’s sick? Look at her!”

“Look at you.”

If Sunset had the strength to cringe or wither beneath that gaze, she realized she would have. She had no shield now. No pride. No smugness. She was naked and exposed. Even now, she could only think of herself as the helpless child on the swingset. No…lower than that.

“You were so full of pride. So arrogant. So cocky. You thought your rightful place was making this world your footstool. Now…now look at you. You’re what you always were. What everyone always said you were: nothing.”

P…Please…

“Please! Isn’t she worth more to you alive? What if she gets the rest of us infected?”

“Please? Why Sunset, I thought that word wasn’t in your vocabulary anymore. I thought you didn’t need to ask for anything. I thought you just took what you wanted. How many people asked ‘please’ of you? From the students you tormented to your own subordinates to those people you let die over Equestria? Now you have the gall left in you to say ‘please’…”

L…Leave me… I’m…I’m already…s…suffering…

“Oh, you’re suffering, are you? Is that what you want, Sunset? Do you want me to gently cool your head with a damp cloth and sing you to sleep? To let you rest in my own bed and make you soup that’s easy for you to swallow? Just like old times? Have me ease your suffering? Well, I can’t, Sunset. And you know why. All because of you.”

She stiffened and began to tremble. She felt something seize her and purse her lips, and then force something cold down her mouth. She nearly choked and gagged on it, for it felt like murder over her sore, dry, cracked throat. Pain through relief. Torture through deliverance. It was the cruelest thing she could think of.

“You’re nothing without your magic, Sunset. Nothing but a small, hateful coward. You know it. Deep down inside, you always knew it. Everyone and everything scared you. You were never brave or strong. You just had a stick you used to beat other people into submission. A stick I made for you. A stick I placed in your hand. You were worth nothing before you met me. Now you’re less than nothing.”

N…No…

“You owe everything that you are to me. That’s the funny part. You thought killing me would somehow free you to ascend higher than me. The truth is you aren’t anything at all without me, are you? The truth is the reason Twilight Sparkle was my true star student is she ascended without me. You ended up right here, in a filthy hovel, waiting to be raped or sold or die of disease or all three.”

“Come on. Work your mouth. Get it down…”

“And you know one more thing too, don’t you? The only memory anyone will ever have of you is to be glad to be rid of you. Be thankful, Sunset. At least people will remember you…if only to spit on your grave or to wish they could kill you themselves for what you did to them.”

With that final word, she vanished into the blackness again. Or was she ever even there? Sunset didn’t know, save for the fact that she was now trapped in the same infinite darkness again.

This time, there was no one to watch her, either to comfort or torment her, as she cringed and wept.

---

When the darkness came back, it was far “sharper” than before. She was still cold, and her head was pounding, but the two extremes weren’t nearly as strong. Her throat wasn’t as sore, her body wasn’t as achy, and she could actually feel a bit of poking and scratching on her back from the straw where she was lying.

She lay there only a few moments more before her face furrowed in the slightest confusion, realizing that she was on her back when, in her vague memories, she recalled landing on her face. She let out a stiffened grunt, and heard it clearly this time in spite of lingering weakness. She clenched her face, and realized that the reason for the darkness this time was her eyes were closed. She slowly cracked them open.

A blur and a headache greeted her, but her vision cleared rapidly to spot the oil lamps from earlier illuminating through a shadow of grating into her cell. She could hear rustling on the hay nearby, but she used the moment to gain her bearings before looking that way. She leaned her head up, a bit surprised she had the strength to do so, and saw that she was, in fact, between two blankets…one for the straw to convert it to bedding, and the other over her. Not only that, but she saw the remains of a wooden cup and plate nearby with bits of droplets and crumbs on them; indicating someone had been feeding her.

She blinked a few times and looked around but saw that outside the pen was empty. Even the guard from before wasn’t in visual range, assuming he was there at all. There was only one other person in the pen at the moment. It was another woman, a bit older than the previous denizens, tending to something.

She lay silent and motionless for a time, before she realized anyone in the same cell as her wasn’t any better off than she was and definitely had no other power over her.

“Hey…” she tried, her voice dry and croaking from disuse, but audible. “Hey…hey you…”

The person stopped what she was doing and looked up at her.

Their gazes met.

Sunset’s pupils shrank. Her pallor went pale all over again.

“…You!”

Twilight Sparkle stared back mutely; a grimace slowly forming on her face. She closed her eyes and sighed before she turned and revealed she was holding a “fresh” cup and plate. “Alright…I kind of expected that whenever you finally woke up.”

She began to approach.

Using what strength she had, which was, in all fairness, more than she expected, Sunset wriggled away from her, pathetically clinging for the top blanket as a shield while cringing in on herself. “Stay away from me! I m-m-mean it!” She grit her teeth in self-anger at how she couldn’t even manage that without a tremble of fear and weakness.

Twilight simply stopped long enough to sigh again. “Could you keep it down?” she said much more quietly.

“Shut up! Don’t come any closer! And why should I listen to you?”

Now she looked annoyed. “First thing: if you’re too loud, you’re going to get their attention. And I’d much rather spend as much time as I can alone in this cage with you without them around. Second thing: if you’re worried about me attacking you, then I’ve had plenty of chances to do that for days. I would have done something to you long ago instead of tending to you.”

Sunset nearly retorted but froze on hearing that last part.

“Wait…you were taking care of me?”

“And you’re still not fully over your fever, so I wouldn’t do anything to agitate it. Or any kicking around to knock over this cup over here. Do you know how much I had to beg them just to give me some clean water and day-old bread for you, let alone the two blankets?”

Sunset didn’t move. She only sat there stunned at what she was hearing. She had to take a moment to look over Twilight and see if who was probably the single most hated person she knew was really alive and right there with her and not doing anything to seize advantage of the situation. As she slowly began to realize that this wasn’t an illusion from sickness, it only left her more confused and unable to understand.

As a result Twilight finally started to move forward again. For the first time since realizing she didn’t have any magic, Sunset didn’t cringe or shy away. Ironically from the one person she expected to hate her the most. The truth of Twilight’s other words also settled in as she got closer and sat next to her; about how she had plenty of chances to kill her and hadn’t taken them.

The fact that she hadn’t began to make Sunset feel just a touch of something she hadn’t felt since awakening in Equestria: relief.

And that, in turn, began to allow a touch of her old self to come out.

Now next to her, Twilight quickly drank half of the cup and then held the rest to her. “We need to share this. Drink.”

Sunset was still mostly apoplectic. She stared at the cup silently for a moment, hesitant, but then opened her lips slightly. Almost mechanically. Twilight frowned but put the cup to her lips and tilted. She drank some. It was ice cold and bitter, and it irritated her still-raw throat, but not nearly as much as in her nightmare. And thirst eventually made her drain it. Once it was done, Twilight yanked it away before tearing the piece of bread in half and putting half in her lap. She began to greedily eat her own.

“They gave us two a day when you were still sick. Now that you’re awake it’ll probably be back to one. You should probably eat it before the roaches come out for it.”

Sunset didn’t answer. She looked down at the bread in her hand, stared at it, then back up to Twilight who was rapidly finishing her own.

Finally she frowned.

“Why?”

Twilight stopped in mid-bite, turning to her. “Excuse me?”

“Excuse yourself. Don’t play stupid. I asked you a question, and you know full well what I meant.”

Twilight frowned. “My, you sound rather grateful for someone I could have left to rot in the straw.”

“Exactly. Why didn’t you leave me to rot?”

She huffed. “Maybe some of us are just nice people who aren’t out to get all the power they can for themselves at the expense of others.”

This actually brought out more of Sunset’s attitude. Relaxing had caused her to realize more of what was going on in the situation, and in doing so she was able to think sharper and put more together.

“Really now? That’s what you’re going with?” She turned her head slightly before pointing. “I see you still have your Promethian Sigil, but for one reason or another you’re in this cage along with me, which we both know is held by some kind of human traffickers. Neither of us want to be here by choice, and yet you, with your own magic still intact, could have busted out of here long ago. Instead you stay here and decide to nurse me back to health when if I saw you burning up from a fever I wouldn’t piss on you to cool you off?”

Twilight grimaced at that, but not simply the crudeness.

Sunset took a bite of the bread, winced a bit at how hard it was, but chewed and swallowed as best as she could before crossing her arms. “So I’ll ask again. Why didn’t you leave me to rot?”

Twilight was silent for several moments but at long last her face broke. She sighed and lowered her head.

“Alright, I admit it. The truth is I’m stuck here.”

“Why don’t you just melt the bars or electrocute the guards?”

“Not in this pen…in Trottingham,” she continued nervously. “After…after everything that happened in Equestria, I woke up without Spike or the rest of my friends and crashed into a bunch of old boxes in a back alley in Trottingham’s main city. My mana was gone, I had no money, nobody to turn to…not even a set of clothes that wasn’t ruined. All I could do was hide and wait for my mana to recover. But I couldn’t move anywhere. Promethian Sigil bearers are all wanted enemies of the state here.”

Sunset grimaced a little, knowing that had been her doing.

“I thought I could make my way out of the country past the authorities, but then things got worse. The Regent was deposed and that ‘Storm King’ guy took over, and his new admiral is rounding up people with Promethian Sigils even faster than before. Not only that, she’s rounding up lots of other people too. Ones who don’t even have sigils. I couldn’t figure out why or how, but I tried to trace the pattern. While I was doing that-”

“Wait,” Sunset cut off. “You were on the run from the Trottingham authorities, trying to get out of the country, and you still tried to investigate what was going on with the government?”

Twilight paused, before she began to blush and look rather sheepish. “Well, it…seemed like it was something important… I couldn’t just ignore it so long as I was right here in the country able to see it best firsthand.”

Sunset rolled her eyes and groaned.

“Anyway,” Twilight went on, “I followed the wrong group and they ended up being those human traffickers, and they threw me in here.”

“Again, why didn’t you just blast your way through them? Don’t tell me you still can’t use magic after all this time.”

“Of course I can! I mean…at least I think I can. But I can’t go slinging around spells in the middle of Trottingham! Especially not with those new soldiers and their leader! She’s even worse than you were without your sigils!”

“Yeah…” Sunset muttered quietly. “I noticed…”

“There’s no way for me to bust out of here without alerting the authorities, and there’s no way for me to get past them without showing off more of my power, so I’m stuck here!”

“Alright, but what does that have to do with me?”

She hesitated before closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, and exhaling. “When I saw you in here, I knew this would probably be the last thing in the world you’d want to do, but I hoped that if nothing else we would be in a situation of quid-pro-quo…”

Sunset looked up again. “Are you trying to say that you wanted me to help you get out of Trottingham?”

“I’m pretty much that desperate… You’re a fugitive now. I learned that much. I was hoping that meant we were in the same boat enough to try and scratch each other’s backs.”

Sunset stared at her silently, almost blankly, for a few seconds.

After that, however, she simply burst into a smile and began to chuckle in a mixture of mockery and bitterness. It didn’t take long for Twilight to look confused, but she simply shook her head and turned away.

“You really are dense, aren’t you?”

“What? I don’t-”

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I somehow got amnesia and forgot the fact that the whole reason I was lying in a back alley alone, starving, dehydrated, sick with a fever, and without two pennies to rub together was because of you and your friends to begin with, and that you’re probably the last person in the world that I would help out with anything,” Sunset began tiredly. “Take a good look at me. What makes you think I can help you?”

Twilight blinked a few times. “Um…you’re the one who said she had connections, money, lands, authority-”

“Did you already forget the part where I’m a fugitive?” Sunset nearly snapped back, only to pull back on wincing in lingering pain. “Look at me… More importantly, look at this!”

She held up her blank hand and waved it in front of her face.

“See any Promethian Sigil here? No? Then that means I’ve got nothing! The only value I had to Trottingham was when I could do magic! That’s how I got my way around here! Without it, I have nothing! Not a single thing! I’ve got no ‘connections’ for you. I’ve got no money. No lands. No authority. Just hundreds of people who want me dead.”

Groaning at her own admission, her face sank. She wrapped her arms around herself and let her head fall. “Without my magic, I’m useless to everyone and good for nothing. I’m scared of everything and I’ve got no advantage over anyone. If I have to choose between spending the rest of my life hiding in gutters like a rat and ending it here, I’d rather let it just end.”

“But-”

“Just…just leave me alone,” she cut off with a quiet mutter. “Let me enjoy the last little bit of peace I’m going to get before the only value I end up having is someone’s nighttime ‘hobby’…”

Twilight began to lean in closer. “But that’s-”

She was cut off again, this time by a more distant sound. Sunset, reverting back into her previous mood, didn’t even react although she recognized it as the sound of a door unlocking. She simply leaned over and sank back against the straw.

Twilight, on the other hand, tensed up. “Oh no… They’re coming!”

“Sounds like it,” Sunset muttered detachedly.

“Every time they come they take away another of the women they have here! We’re the only two left! They must have saw you were getting better!”

“Then just teleport or blow them away.”

“I already told you I can’t do that! And that doesn’t help me get out of Trottingham!”

Sunset simply exhaled and lay there, picking a spot to stare at and saying no more.

The sound of a door shutting again distantly rang out before a bolt turned again. Twilight looked out anxiously into the darkness for a little longer before turning back to Sunset. After hesitating again, she took a deep breath and leaned in at her side.

“You’re right in that being stuck with you is probably the last place either of us want to be right now,” she whispered loudly, “but we have to try and help each other out if we want to get out of this, and I know for a fact that you’re the one between the two of us that can do that even without magic.”

Sunset didn’t react.

“It wasn’t just magic that let you get your way until now. You made that move on Manehattan to draw me out, and you knew that I’d make for the train. That wasn’t magic; that was street-smarts. You said it yourself. Both of us could do magic, but of the two of us only one of us managed to get that position in Trottingham while the other one was living on the street.”

Sunset’s eyes opened a bit wider on hearing that. Her apathetic look changed, instead forming a mild one of realization.

“You somehow managed to get five of Celestia’s Anima Viris too!” she went on as her whispering grew louder. “And you snuck around behind her back in order to learn about things even I didn’t know about! You’re more than just magic, Sunset! A lot more! That’s why I know you can get us out of this! Please!”

By this point, footsteps were becoming audible and Twilight could say no more. Swallowing, she leaned back and sat up; pretending to be dutifully tending to Sunset again. As for Sunset, she continued to lay there. However, the look on her face continued to change and improve. The earlier fear and anxiety didn’t return so strongly…

At last those incoming made it to the bars. In addition to the three unwashed, surly thugs that Sunset had seen before, there was now a squat little man with thick glasses, grubby, clutching fingers, and a look of avarice and lecherousness about him in a dirty tux. He came closest to the bars and gazed inside.

“Well, well, look who seems to be up and at ‘em!” he laughed aloud. “And here we almost gave you up for a loss, ‘Bacon Head’. Good thing this other broad was here to play nurse mate to you, wasn’t it?”

Twilight didn’t answer. She could only grimace and cringe. Sunset, her eyes still open, simply lay there and said nothing.

Her mind, however, had begun to move again.

“Too bad for her I think you can take it from here. Good thing too. You look like you got the kind of spunk that’s perfect for one of my repeat clients who likes to play rough. He can wait a few more days, though.” He grinned widely at Twilight, causing her to gulp. “You, on the other hand, are ready right now. Don’t you worry, mousy-face. This cat I’ll introduce you to likes to play with his food for a good long time.”

He stepped back and gestured forward.

“Get her out of there. Hope you boys had a light lunch, because after the price I get for her we’re having a night on the town!”

One of the thugs grinned back as he stepped in front of the door. His key came out and he began to go for the lock. Twilight trembled uneasily, but finally swallowed a lump in her throat. Her hand began to slowly trace a symbol…

“So you like money?”

Everyone froze, including Twilight, on hearing Sunset suddenly speak up. The hunched over man turned to her.

“Oh, you got a voice other than a moan? What did you just say, girlie?”

“I said… ‘So you like money’?” Sunset echoed, before turning in place to face him. “Because it sounds like you don’t from what you have in mind for the two of us.”

The thugs began to frown, but the small man merely grinned again and snickered. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, girlie. You’re worth quite a ton of money to me. More than any ransom anyone who’d want to pay for you would be willing to give.”

“I know I’m worth a ton of money. I know she,” she indicated to Twilight, much to her surprise, “is worth a ton of money. The only one who doesn’t seem to think we’re worth a ton of money around here is you and your buddies.”

The thugs frowned a bit more. “I liked this one better when she was too sick to talk…”

“I can shut her up if you want, Verko.”

He held up a claw-like hand to him to quiet him down. “Not sure you understand your situation, little lady. You see, I run a very lucrative ship around here. Property like you can get me anywhere from 15,000 to 50,000 a head. And I plan to get close to the higher end for the both of you. That not enough money for you?”

“Twilight,” Sunset called out, causing the woman to nearly jump in surprise, “what’s the principle four exports of Appleloosa?”

“Uh…um…” she stammered.

Sunset gave her a sharp glare. “Twilight?”

“Uh…that is…grain, corn, rye, and apples.”

“What’s 857 times 329?”

“Oh, er…281, 953.”

“How many miles across is Fillydelphia at its narrowest border-to-border crossing?”

“2.65.”

“What’s the standard profit margin on liquors?”

“80 to 85 percent on hard liquors, 80 perfect for bottled beers, 75 for beers on tap, and 60 to 70 percent on wines.”

“How many combinations of 7 can be made out of a set of 50?”

“99,884,400.”

Sunset actually got her old smug smirk back as she gestured to Twilight. The thugs looked baffled and confused. Verko didn’t seem much better.

“So what? She’s a trivia master and that’s supposed to mean something?”

“What it means is that she’s worth a lot more than some 15,000 at worst and 50,000 at best; the same with me. Haven’t you ever heard of Southern Equestria?”

Verko snorted. “Bah. Way too far in an oversaturated market. Never bothered with it.”

“That explains why you’re still running your operation out of this little hovel. Slavery is a real business over there. They need them for a lot more than just bringing some old, impotent rich guys pleasure. They use them for all sorts of tasks. Anywhere from cleaning to farming to mining to service industries to management of property and other slaves to scientific assistants to any other position you can think of you’d normally have to pay someone to do. And nicer slaves like us? Ones with educations who know our way around? We’re worth up to a fifth of a million for the right buyer.”

The eyes on the thugs nearly fell out of their heads. Verko’s glasses nearly dropped off. “A f-f-f-fith…a…?”

“You’re lying!” Verko said after a moment. “You’re just wanting a better deal for yourself!”

“Of course I want a better deal for myself,” Sunset retorted. “That doesn’t change the fact that people in Southern Equestria will pay me twice what you think I’m worth at least. We both get something out of this. The two of us end up in a much more relatively good position, and you end up with a much fatter wallet. Ask anyone about the slave trade in Southern Equestria and they’ll tell you the same. But…”

She shrugged.

“If you’d rather get your miniscule profit from just dumping us onto the first horny guy who’s willing to pay you a couple thousand extra, be my guest. It might be our loss, but it’s much more yours. Especially considering how hard it is nowadays to make money off of human trafficking, and how much harder it’s going to get under the Storm King.”

The four men paused. The thugs exchanged glances; no longer mean ones. Verko himself looked through the bars; his glasses lenses so thick it was almost impossible to see his eyes and what emotion they were betraying as he rubbed his chin. For a good long while, there was nothing but silence.

Finally he frowned and snapped his fingers. “Let’s go check out the word on the street. See if this broad is telling the truth. If she ain’t, she really is gonna have bacon for a scalp.”

With that, he snapped around and walked back the way he came. The other three thugs fell in with him, and within a minute they had vanished into the darkness. Twilight and Sunset continued to sit there quietly until they heard the door open and shut again. Only afterward did Sunset let out a loud exhale and slump, suddenly shaking all over again and a bit wide-eyed.

“I…I don’t believe it…” she half-exhaled to herself. “I got them to listen…”

“Listen?!” Twilight echoed back. “You just got us sold as slaves!”

Sunset, still stunned at her own behavior, absent-mindedly raised a hand and waved Twilight off. “Slaves is much better than what they had planned for us. They’ll find out I was telling the truth soon enough. Then they’ll try and find a way to get us to Southern Equestria.”

“How does that help anything?!”

“It’s not Trottingham, is it?”

Twilight opened her mouth but froze on hearing that. The realization soon made her shut it again.

Sunset blinked a few times, took in a deep breath, and then turned to her. She stared at her for a moment or two before frowning. “Alright, as much as I may not like it, I guess this makes us partners for right now. At least until you’ve paid me back for that.”

Twilight looked surprised. “Um, didn’t you just pay me back for bringing you back to health?”

“I’m not at a hundred percent yet, and I could have easily just answered those questions myself. I may not be as bookish as you but I was a good student. I tried to get you in on it because I still need your magic to get me free.”

Twilight crossed her arms. “I’ll admit that’s true, but now that we’ve both scratched each other’s backs, why should I help you do anything else?”

Sunset paused momentarily before getting a trace of her old sly smirk. She pretended to cup a hand to her mouth. “Oh Verko, there’s something important you should know about your ‘merchandise’. See that little thing on her hand? It’s a Promethian Sigil and it-”

“Okay, okay!” Twilight quickly cut off, nervously looking around her to make sure no other hidden guards were nearby to have heard that. “But that only means I’m willing to help you break out along with me! After that, you’re on your own!”

“I don’t think so. I may not have my magic anymore, but I realized there’s something I have that you want: the rest of the things I learned from Celestia and her libraries that you didn’t. In fact, now that Equestria is darkness-free, I’m betting I can get back to her secret libraries in Canterlot Palace. And I’m the one who knows how to get into them.”

Twilight paused again, realizing the point she was making. Sunset herself was showing more and more of her old confidence the longer she dealt with Twilight. She wasn’t sure why but she didn’t knock it. Even her dislike for Twilight was worth dealing with to feel more of it and less fear and anxiety.

“And…what do you get in return?”

“You swear you don’t hand me over to the Storm King, Tempest Shadow, or Trottingham, and when we get back to Manehattan you get me a full pardon in exchange for what I know to the government.”

“I can’t guarantee that! I’m on thin ice with Manehattan as it is!”

Sunset shrugged. “Suit yourself. A real pity, though. Even I never had a chance to read all those books. You wouldn’t believe some of the things that were inside them. Some must have never been read by anyone other than Celestia herself-”

“Alright! Deal!” Twilight hesitated a moment after blurting that, but then she thrust out her hand.

Sunset, a bit hesitant herself, reached out to take it. Right before grasping it, however, she paused. She could see Twilight’s emblem.

There were now two runes evident on it.

“You got one of mine?” In spite of everything else she had to worry about, her voice sounded almost angry.

Twilight pulled her hand back and looked at it. She sighed. “Yes, I did…but not one of the ones you used. This is the one that came from Nightmare Moon.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Look.” She extended the hand out to Sunset. She glanced at the rune and soon became puzzled. Unlike the other one, which was clearly readable as Starswirl the Bearded, this one was a total enigma. It didn’t match the symbology she learned, and seemed almost to be a sigil in itself rather than matching the patterns of a character.

“I can’t read it at all. That’s the main reason if you can get me to Celestia’s library, I want to go there and find out what this is. I’ve never heard of a sigil having a different character set from all the others. Celestia told me they were all supposed to be the same writing by default, no matter who it is. Needless to say, I still can’t call on anyone by Starswirl.”

Sunset was rather perplexed. A hint of intrigue, every bit as strong as Twilight’s own curiosity, lit up in her eyes for a moment.

In the end she waved it off. “Starswirl will be more than enough for the likes of these guys. We just have to wait for the right moment, and then we’ll finally both be done with this miserable country.”

Comments

[Adderbane]

I was a little worried that after the big fight, Sunset would be dead or dropped from the story. Glad to see that's not the case.

Keep up the good work!

[Piccolo Sky]

10143957
Oh no...this is an AU of Equestria Girls after all, and what's Equestria Girls without Sunset Shimmer? She's going to be in this story quite a while yet.

Posting might be a little infrequent, though. Back in school and that really cuts in on my free time, even if I'm attending online.