Left Behind

by The Psychopath

Unearned Shame

"I have to see her!" the mayor bellowed.

The guards and Sunny standing at the entrance of the castle leaned to the side. This old stallion somehow managed to drag a super heavy pony draped in thick armor the whole way. The pony seemed to have been hanging on for dear life since he let go the moment the mayor stopped and dropped his head with a loud groan.

"I'm sorry, but we don't have any authority on that," the guard said.

"What?!" the mayor shouted. He stomped forward, fury in his eyes. "She came back, didn't she?" He caught sight of Sunny and pointed menacingly at him. "You! You're meant to be watching her. Let me see her!"

Sunny's mouth opened and closed several times. He couldn't muster anything. His brain was currently overloaded.

"Sunny?"

The guard stepped in front of the mayor. "Sir, this young stallion has had a long trip. I suggest you let him rest for the time being.," the pony suggested.

"But...She's--!" the mayor gestured to the keep.

"When she's ready, sir." The guard looked at the keep then pulled the stallion in by the loose skin of his neck. "Don't start anything with her!" the guard reprimanded angrily through clenched teeth. "I do not want to deal with whatever is wrong with those two!"

The mayor raised a brow at Sunny when the stallion absent-mindedly passed him by to go back to the city. "Interesting," he thought. "Her simply being here is good enough for me. The guards will be in a panic anyways. At least I'll get some amusement out of this, provided this strangeness doesn't last too long."

---

It had been several weeks since Moon had returned from her trip, but both she and Sunny had become despondent. Moon rarely left her castle, leaving guidance to its reconstruction loose and undirected. The ponies collectively shrugged and rebuilt everything as it used to be but didn't do anything further. The populace had breathed a sigh of relief after realizing that Nightmare Moon wasn't going to conscript and send them all to war or whatever other dark idea came by their minds. One even posited that she was going to eat all their firstborn children. Why else would she have such sharp and long fangs and teeth?

Rumors were churned out nearly hourly from the rumor mill, but they were never close to reaching the level of the actual thing. While the citizens of Snowfege knew she was there, the travelers that came by the city started believing it to be nothing more than hearsay and 'local superstition'. An oddity considering Moon's activity. An oddity that didn't escape the mayor nor the twins.

"Somepony is poking and prodding at our favored -and somewhat depressed- guest," the mayor noted. He tapped the top of his desk with a hoof and furrowed his brow evermore. "She's quite literally gone about the tattered remains of ol' Equestria, and the thestrals are all worked up about it."

"Yes, but they have always been a bit...nutty when it came to the alicorns," Candy Cane lamented. His nervous chuckle ended in a sigh. "Their stories and joyful demeanor have always been something of a contentious subject with the other tribes, let alone non-ponies."

The ponies sat in fatigued silence, listening to the ponies below getting ready for spring to come.

"I'm honestly at a loss. I'm not sure what could be the cause of this. It's obvious somepony is messing about, but how?" the mayor wondered.

"It...it could be that there's groups with a large amount of power doing it?" Candied Cane supposed. "With enough power they could be falsifying testimonies, spreading lies and rumors, and generally muddying everything up to make everything even more confusing."

The mayor's eyes widened, then he slapped his forehead with a hoof. "Of course. That makes perfect sense!"

"And the creatures that were here during the festival believed Nightmare Moon to be a new attraction of sorts. That might have added to the problems," Candy Cane added worryingly.

The mayor nodded. "Whoever is causing all the issues took her traveling into account, and because Equestria is fractured and nopony really likes each other, that leaves room for easy manipulation of information." A sly grin formed on the mayor's face. "Fantastic. Now we have an evil secret society in the background manipulating things," he said gleefully. He was getting so excited that it seemed difficult for the elder stallion to keep himself from hiccupping with delight. "Do you think they wear mysterious black cloaks? What if they know some long-forgotten magic that warps the world, or it's some artifact from a long-lost civilization of the past come to haunt us. OoOoOo!"

The two assistants stared at the mayor, frowning.

Candied Cane pointed at the mayor. "You've been reading too many mystery novels."

Candy cane leaned against the wall. "It doesn't change that Sunny and the alicorn both came back in the strangest states, but I suppose that's for the best. No more chaos brought about by the alicorn's existence." He frowned suddenly. "Wait, how would the face on the moon disappearing be covered up?"

He was met with a scoff and hoof wave from the mayor. "Not important. We need to get those two back to normal. You two will go to the alicorn and try and figure out if there's anything you can do. I'll go to Sunny's home and try and bring him back to our world."

The twins looked at each other then back to the mayor, their eyes wide and pupils shrunken. "And what if we refuse?" they asked in unison.

"Then find a job elsewhere." He smiled mischievously as he watched the two squirm. The old stallion knew those two adored this job despite constant protests against his decisions. "Well?"

Candy dragged his legs across his mane and down his face. "Fine!" he groaned reluctantly. "But you better give us a bonus after this!"

The elder frowned. "We'll see from the results. I might give you more than you expect if I'm happy with the successful results." He stood up gave the twins a stern look. "We must figure out what is wrong with those two and get them back to speed at all costs. I don't know if your theories are correct or if the world is just a mess in general, but I believe we need them to push forward. We've stagnated for too long."

"Stag...nated?" Candied repeated.

The mayor was already leaving by the time the twins were about to ask him to explain himself.

He was a tired old soul, the mayor. He had been in the world for so many decades and had been so bored for most of it. For beings that had, at most, eighty years of life with diseases -and a miserly life it was-, how did the alicorns manage to push on for millennia at a time? How could he, who lived mere decades, compare to the misery of existence of an immortal? And yet, he saw the future in the past. Every day he repeated these same questions and realizations in his mind ever since he first cast his eyes upon that black, ghostly coat and the blood of the galaxy serving as her mane and tail. The magnificence she held was overshadowed merely by the possibilities she brought with her. He felt himself getting weaker trying to surmise the potential outcomes before him. Or maybe it was just because he was getting older.

The stallion arrived at the university dorms, ignoring the students wandering around. He entered the lobby, passing by the many plants held in pots lining the walls. One of the security guards at the entry desk confronted the mayor, but once told of what the mayor was going to do, the guard informed him of where Sunny was residing. The Mayor punched himself mentally. He was so intent on his goal that he forgot to check the room number. Looking around, he realized just how opulent the dorms were. In fact, the lobby wasn't just a small area, it was the entire first floor! Several sofas and couches were set about in groups of two or three next to small tables with a single lantern on them. All of this was sitting on a blackish-brown carpet of surprising cleanliness. Each floor wasn't even properly separated! Every floor was a hollow square with just enough room that two ponies could squeeze next to each other, and walls with guard rails that arrived just at the top of a pony's head to prevent them from falling. Pegasi and other flying creatures were able to come and go as they pleased. The lower half of the walls seemed to be covered in some form of brown-colored velvet, and the upper half in white wallpaper with some random, repeating patterns.

Along the walls were many lamps with a light crystal in them, and all were sitting beneath a large, metal pipe through which hot water flowed. It wasn't perfect but the ambient heat warmed up the surrounding air. It would have been better to just put that in the rooms themselves rather than waste them outside where the heat disappeared into this gigantic hole of a building, the mayor thought.

Regrets were being had as well, however. Sunny lived on the eighth floor. The mayor would have to climb all those steps to get there. When he finally arrived, he crawled away from the edge and took a few minutes to gasp for air and let old muscles rest. He certainly gained ten extra years of life just with that. At least the carpeting was soft.

"Where...is he...?"

It took some looking, but Sunny's door was finally found: number eight-one-zero.

The mayor eyed the number and became flustered for reasons beyond his own understanding. "Hrm..." He tapped the door several times before calling out to Sunny. "Sunny. It's the mayor! Open the door!" There was no answer. "Open the door or I'll bust it open! I have the money to pay for the repairs! Don't think I won't flaunt my assets!"

His anger subsided partially when he heard the familiar clicking of locks letting themselves go. The mayor took in a deep breath, ready to withstand the buffeting of foul odors and garbage piled about a room slathered in darkness. When he opened his eyes, he was dumbfounded. Everything that he could see was spick and span, and the curtains to the window were left open.

"Mayor?" a weak voice called out. "Why did you come here?"

The stallion shoved the door open and inspected the small room. There was a neat shelf past the entrance in what the mayor could only assume to be the primary room. It was lined with many different historical books. There were several more piled next to it and on a simple wooden table directly beneath the only window of the room.

"I was honestly expecting...worse," the mayor noted.

"I...don't have much in food or drinks or anything so I can't really...offer you anything," Sunny lamented.

Despite keeping his room clean and illuminated, Sunny was a mess. The color faded from his mane and tail which both dangled limply. Bags were underneath his eyes that seemed to have lost all light within them, he held a permanent, miserable frown and seemed to have lost weight.

"I didn't come here to mooch off your meager rations, colt," the mayor replied sternly.

"Then why are you here?"

The mayor took in another deep breath. There was no sign of any foul odors either. "I thought you were depressed or something," he said while looking around. "You look like you've kept everything in perfect order, though."

"I'm not depressed." The young stallion gave his visitor a weak smile. "I'm studying for school. Could you please leave? I haven't slept in a long time and I'm way behind my studies."

The elder viewed Sunny with suspicion. "Oh, sure. I can leave." The mayor raised a foreleg then spun around towards the table. "Oh, but wait. I forgot." He sat down and glared at Sunny. "What happened to you two? Neither you nor the alicorn have left their respective homes in a long while, and that's concerning."

Sunny coughed into his hoof and avoided his visitor's gaze. "Oh, well, I don't know about her majesty, but I stopped because the trip was exhausting and I wanted to catch up with my studies!" He briefly met the mayor's eyes then immediately looked down to his hooves. "Being with her has expanded my knowledge of Canterlot Ponyish significantly, and I'm going to use that knowledge to further my position at my university and, with luck, graduate earlier."

All these fake smiles were annoying the mayor who gave Sunny a derisive look in return. "Uh-huh..." he yawned. "And you discovering something that bothered the two of you a lot has nothing to do with it."

"Um..." Sunny started thinking. "Not...anything significant, I don't think."

"He really thinks I'm an idiot," the mayor thought angrily. "Come clean, colt. She said that you were going to discover Canterlot." The mayor noticed Sunny twitch almost unnoticeably at the name of that fabled city. "And knowing her personality, she wouldn't have returned before that."

"It's fine, really!"

The mayor grunted then heaved a sigh. "Sunny Dimples, your experiences have obviously deeply affected the both of you, but you need to know that alicorns are immortal. You aren't." He adjusted himself to look straighter. "I'm not asking you to simply reject whatever ails you, but to also tell me what happened, as you aren't the only pony in distress at present, and without knowing what happened, neither of you can be helped." He leaned forward and spoke more softly. "Especially the alicorn, who will likely be that way the rest of her life, which is forever."

Sunny started fidgeting nervously in place, unsure of what to do and worrying his visitor. "You can't help!" the young stallion finally cried out. "I learned things I never wanted to, and she learned things worse off for her!" he cried out.

"What did you learn?" the mayor asked as calmly as he could.

"I'm related to her! To Nightmare Moon!" Sunny shouted. The Mayor was taken aback. "But indirectly...or directly. I don't know how siblings work!"

The mayor gave pause. "She has a sibling?"

"Yes. A sister. I'm apparently related to her." Sunny looked away.

"This is amazing news! He's a literal, true descendant of an alicorn! And I thought all those nobles were the source of hot air for the airships! Calm! I need to stay calm or he'll shut himself out." The mayor collected his thoughts and continued. "And you're bothered by this? How come? Even the nobles would die to know of a true descendant of an alicorn."

Sunny took in a deep breath then looked past the mayor towards the angry sun blotted out by the clouds. "She was the Solar Tyrant." The Mayor stared silently at Sunny. "She caused untold suffering, and she's why the sun is the way it is..."

"...Who?" the mayor asked. "I don't know who that is, Sunny."

The young unicorn chuckled to himself after facehoofing. "Oh. That's right. It's something the thestrals shared. She was an alicorn that was supposedly caring and loved her subjects, then one day went mad and started destroying everything." Sunny looked to the side. "I know it sounds stupid like that, but that's what I recall, more-or-less. Her majesty probably knows more. She apparently fought some kind of apparition of her sister in the ruins of Canterlot underground." The unicorn ignored the mayor repeating 'underground', seemingly shocked. "I thought that meant there was another living alicorn, but she explained afterwards."

"And so, you're related to her," the mayor prodded. Sunny nodded. "Okay. And?"

The unicorn was taken aback? "Wh-what do you mean and?! She's my ancestor! I have the blood of a world-destroying monster flowing through my veins!"

The mayor nodded. "Yes, and again I ask you: And? What do her actions have to do with you?"

"I--! I...ah..." The stallion's rage almost instantly made way for confusion. "But she is part of my family."

The mayor shrugged. "And? I have a mass murderer in my gene pool and it doesn't affect me," he blurted out casually.

"You what?!"

He shrugged again. "Oh yeah. Crime syndicate stuff, you know. Pshaw," he waved it off dismissively. "The important thing is that they are their own beings. The actions of the parent are not the responsibility of the child. You are your own being, and if her blood flows through your veins then it means you've potentially inherited some of her power, if even a smidgen, a modicum of it." The stallion walked towards the defeated unicorn and gave him a smile. "But they're not her powers. They're yours. Be proud that you have a lineage that no pony else can lay claim to nowadays without having to throw millions of bits to add weight to that claim." the mayor chuckled. "Plus, it means you're also related to Nightmare Moon, making her your great great...great..." The stallion snorted. "I'm not doing that bit," he mumbled. "Your many-times-factorial aunt, and she's alive and..." He rubbed his chin and groaned. "Mostly well, I imagine." He walked towards the door. "I'm not asking you to immediately make peace with what you are. You know more about that subject than I do...mostly because you didn't share it, but I ask that you not let weigh on your mind the actions of one who lived before even your grandparents' grandparents existed. They are not your responsibility and were fully aware of their actions. Okay? I hope to see you out of your room at some point. I'll be at the castle, seeing to my assistants if you feel like coming out today."

He waved Sunny goodbye then closed the door, a grin of satisfaction on his face, then he went pale. "Wait, can she even communicate with them yet without Sunny?!" he realized.

Author's Note:

I got a chapter out! Finally! Shame!

Comments

[The Psychopath]

11149235
Boom, new chapter!

[Pogmin]

Very nice to another chapter, thanks!

[Zero_Signature]

Nice!!!

[Pensive]

Hey you, you're finally awake. You were trying to smuggle chapters across the border right?

[Lex_Drago]

I'm calling it now - the mayor is reincarnation of Discord. Heh, it's so Discord to separate his powers and his personality into two new vessels.
Let new Champion of Chaos to shake things up somewhere else, while at the same time let the mayor to make whole devided Equestria unified under one banner again.

[TartarusFire]

Your many-times-factorial aunt

Assuming the pony generation span is on average 25 years, then that is 400 generations for 10000 years. That comes out to 5!10/3, which is five factorial times 10/3. Or in base factorial: 2!2 + 3!2 + 4!1 + 5!3 = 400

[The Psychopath]

11150282
No! Not math! anything but math!

[TartarusFire]

11150348
All the math!

_{I hold no responsibility for any flashbacks of horrible word problems on exams taken.}

[Heretics Everywhere]

11150348
but math is fun

[The Psychopath]

11150149
...maybe

[stag the story teller]

Why is the mayor so fun?

[MarxistElite]

Yes, been waiting a while for a chapter and it was well worth it. Your writing is top notch as usual and you are keeping the characters varied and interesting. Still cant get a read on the mayor, but he is fun to follow

[The Psychopath]

11151187
Yeah. Sorry for the immense delay. Like usual I haven't been having much fun irl.

[Doctor_Den]

11151424
Do not need to apologizes. You still release new chapters faster than most of the other authors on this site. Why do I thank you for this.

[The Psychopath]

11151572
You must be exaggerating, surely.

[Doctor_Den]

Sunny lives on the eighth floor, but you have to walk up the stairs to get there. Wasn't there a livt in the show itself? Has technological progress not moved at all or even regressed?

[The Psychopath]

11151577
I thought of adding a lift but couldn't remember if the show had any or not. Author's mistake in this case, but we can pass it off as it being an old building if we want to go that route.

[PiMan]

11151581
Buildings that tall were extremely rare IRL before the invention of the elevator in the mid 19th century and it's proliferation over the next decades. It was simply too expensive and impractical, relative to the few advantages.
But maybe the existence of magic, including flight, would make things different for your world.

[The Psychopath]

11152252
Huh. I thought there were at least some buildings that were ten stories tall; Didn't know that. Thanks.

[PiMan]

11152441
There were buildings that tall in the mid-late 19th century, but I can't find data on most of them as to whether they had elevators. Admittedly, I only looked briefly.

[GlitchyFox]

i wonder if after this revelation on sunnys part he will either try or be contacted in some way by the sun? or celestia? Could be interesting

[Slavenger Karl]

Math IS fun! Playing tabletop fallout equestria and making an overpowered pegasus to dunk on mudhorses is a one-of-a-kind experience!

[Wild-pegasus]

that last bit of philosophy was nice. you're defined by who YOU are, not your ancestors. seems a trend in royalty

[Mr Swanky Hat]

The mayor seems... quite chaotic...

[Vigriff]

11269253
Yes, he enjoys sowing...discord.

[Black--Soul]

The mayor raised a brow at Sunny when the stallion absent-mindedly passed him by to go back to the city. "Interesting," he thought. "Her simply being her is good enough for me. The guards will be in a panic anyways. At least I'll get some amusement out of this, provided this strangeness doesn't last too long."

here

That old mayor stallion is quite wise.

What is Nightmare Moon up to?

[tsaukpaetra]

Took them a MONTH to check up on them?!? 😱