Sunset in the gods

by red-sun

Act I – Slaves – Chapter 5

A LONG TIME AGO

In the garden of a great castle, an alicorn and her little apprentice were having tea and cake to relax a bit.

“Sunset, I heard that you've been rude to a teacher again, you don't do anything, neither homework nor study. I understand that you are excellent with the basic spells but”. Celestia sighs. "Has something happened to you my little sun?"

"I don't see the need to learn complicated maths, potions or social sciences, all I need is my gut and my strength."

Celestia levitates a cup of tea. “He cooled you down, could you warm him up a bit please?”

Sunset smiles and fires a small beam at the cup of tea but the cup breaks. "that?!" she is surprised.

Celestia feigns surprise. "I spilled a little on the table, could you please dry it?"

Sunset casts a heat spell on the table but the table ends up burning but Celestia casts a spell and everything is fixed. “If you had calculated the amount of magic correctly, you would not have broken the cup, instead of using a heat spell, an evaporation spell on the water would have been better and you would not have burned the table... Sunset, what do you want to do in the future?"

"I want to go back to griffonstone and rebuild the Griffon Kingdom." Says the little filly as she looks at the ground.

"Listen to me Sunset, you can continue like this, you may not be a good magician but you are powerful despite having an average magic source, by living in a harsh environment you managed to strengthen your body well which gives you resistance to use more powerful magic, you could go back to griffonstone and show your strength and they will fear you but... you will never go further. You'll never get to rebuild that country... because what the griffons need is a leader to bring order, and you won't be because they can never trust you... not because you're a pony. They will not trust you because you will not know what you are doing, you have to know how to organize, keep accounts, delegate, and most importantly, you have to know them so they can see you as a leader they can trust... because by not having knowledge you will not know what to do and they will not be able to trust you”.

"But you told me I'm a natural leader."

Celestia gently embraces Sunset with her wings “a natural leader only has a knack for following him and nothing else... but someone who prepares to be a leader can achieve great things. You have a great future, my little sun, but I need you to make an effort so that you can shape it.”

---

Now Sunset was in charge of one hundred and eighty and three slaves. They all suffered from how Old Brother treated them when he was foreman. Now that Sunset was in charge and he would make sure things ran smoothly.

Sunset made sure that the food was distributed equally, she also created a rotation system so that the slaves had a little rest so that the work remained stable, but in reality she was planning something else.

"Applejack, is there any progress?"

"We have thirty people willing to help, while Flash made subtle hints I could tell who was willing to risk the escape plan and who was not, do you think that will be enough people?"

Sunset sighs. "It will be enough for the moment but the further we go we will need more people... we will also have to make more tunnels".

"You are crazy! What do you mean by more tunnels?!” Limestone yells at Sunset but Pinkie covers her sister's mouth.

"It's a secret." She whispers in his ear.

"What do you want to say with more tunnels?" Shining asked.

"I want to try to free as many slaves as I can."

“But how do you think we can do that? We can barely handle a single tunnel, do you already have another plan for that?”

“I still have to refine the details”.

At that moment a very old slave appears, no slave lives so long in the mines unless you are a foreman and the old man who approaches Sunset was the chief foreman. "Hey Sun I see you're resting."

Sunset's group stands up and splits up. "Sorry about that, boss, they'll go back to work right away." He tells her with a fake smile.

"Don't worry, girl, after all, your group is the one that works the best, even though you've only been a foreman for two weeks."

"I do what I can boss..." Before the boss foreman leaves, Sunset asks him. "Boss, what happened to the Diamond Dog that I and the others fought with?"

“They have him locked up in the dungeons, they told me it was a gift from the crystal empire, they recently conquered Diamondia and now they want to use the diamond dogs as beasts of burden. However, now the beast is useless due to the wound you gave it.”

"Did you see the fight too?"

“No, but there is talk all over the mine about combat. But as I was saying, the diamond dog has not eaten anything, it is only expected to die once and for all”.

---

That same night, instead of going to work in the escape tunnel, Sunset heads to the dungeons.

"How's my defeated opponent doing?" He tells Diamond Dog that he is locked up. "I didn't come here to bother you." Sunset pulls out a small bag still holding some of the red raisins Discord gave her and feeds one to the injured beast. "I hope you recover, after all you are a slave just like me...

You know, I found out that they were going to use you as a beast of burden but... if you're like the Diamond Dogs that I know then they don't know the true value in you... I hope you recover from your injuries."

---

Ever since Sunset got more help, the digging of the tunnel has accelerated but...

"What's wrong Pinkie? Why are you stopping?" Twilight asks.

"My leg is shaking."

“What's your sugar cube? Why does Pinkie stop?”

"He says her leg is shaking."

Applejack makes a worried face. "The left or the right?"

“I think the right? why?"

“Everyone get out!! The tunnel is going to collapse!!”

Everyone who was digging quickly exits the tunnel in time as the tunnel is starting to look unstable.

"What happened?" Sunset asks worriedly.

“Pinkie predicted that the tunnel would collapse, but how? Most diviners are gods, and human diviners are almost nonexistent." Twilight answers.

“It's something she's always had, I wouldn't call her fortune-telling, I could say it's more of her feeling, I remember we always asked her for help to find out how the harvest would be. Better not think too much about it, it will only cause you problems.” Applejack tells him.

"Speaking of problems, I just found help to finish the tunnel." At that moment three diamond dogs appear and all the slaves are put on guard. "Calm down everyone, they will help us dig their names are Rover, Fido and Spot... Rover is the one we fight Applejack."

“But how could you convince these animals to help?” Twilight asked curiously.

"The diamong dogs are more intelligent than they seem, besides they are also slaves and they also want to leave the mines, it cost a little to bring them here without the guards seeing them but it will be worth it". Fido then approaches the unstable tunnel and begins to put pressure on the walls and stabilize the tunnel. “Believe it or not, the diamong dogs are the best diggers I have ever seen... while they are digging we will move the earth and the excavated minerals and thus speed up the work... Pinkie, since you have these 'feelings' for sure you'll have to go with them so you can alert them to possible cave-ins”.

"Yes!!" Pinkie gets emotional and jumps on one of the dogs to hug it. “You are my new best friend!”

"I hope we can bring more diamond dogs for the other tunnels." Said Twilight

"In a few weeks there will be about two hundred diamong dogs recently captured, as they have been enslaved recently they will be easy to convince... Applejack will need your help." Sunset said.

"what do you need?"

"I'm going to see if we can convince other foremen to get more help and I'll need to know if they would betray us or not."

"I'll help you in whatever I can sugarcube."

And so Sunset's grand escape plan began. Although many foremen who showed that they wanted to escape joined the excavation effort. But there were some who proved to be satisfied with their slavery, so they made sure to keep them out of it all.

It was a long way to go. Night after night of hard work, as the weeks and months passed, Sunset gained the trust of other foremen who helped make her head foreman in half a year, and with that authority, Sunset was able to organize the jobs at her convenience.

And when Sunset served a year of slavery.

---

"Incredible that now we can work in the tunnels also during the day." Night Light said while seeing how much carnelian had accumulated.

"And thanks to Maud we can make the tunnels where there are minerals so that they don't raise suspicions." Shining responded to her father. "Twilight, how's the food storage going?"

"It's still not enough, we need to increase the amount of rice a little more if we want it to last when we escape."

"Don't worry too much, it will be some time before we can carry out the escape plan also...". Sunset was interrupted.

“Where are you where are you where are you?!!” A very excited Pinkie ran through the mine.

"What's wrong Pinkie?" Sunset asked concerned.

“There it is! come!". Pinkie grabs Sunset and leads her into one of the tunnels they are digging. When they reach the end of the dead end tunnel, Pinkie hands Sunset a shovel.

"What was all that for and why are you giving me a shovel?"

"Because I think you have the right to do this."

"Do what Pinkie?"

Pinkie points up the tunnel and Sunset looks at the ceiling and immediately understands that she is passing and starts digging, and after digging for a while some dirt falls out and Sunset feels the fresh air. "We made it... we made it!!" Sunset hugs Pinkie happily. “Finally the first tunnel is ready!!”.

---

TWO YEARS LATER

A few kilometers from the mines an elegant chariot was approaching escorted by a dozen well-equipped guards.

"Are you sure he could train me godmother?" asks a teenage girl with pink, purple and yellow streaked hair.

"It will have to be that way, after all, I can't teach you what you want to learn and there are few aura masters left... Sometimes I think the purge was unnecessary." Says a woman with grayish black skin and long bluish green hair, she was wearing a black light metal armor. "Cadance sleeps, there's still a bit to go to get to the mines."

"Then I'll rest for a while godmother."