Speak Not Of The End Of The World

by Shaslan

Balling

When Strawberry Sunrise was 19, she made a choice that would change her life.

“Ugh. Thermodynamics are just so… boring!” The slamming of a book made her flinch. “I mean, I get it’s probably important for… something, but it’s just so dry!’

That high-pitched, slightly nasally voice never failed to bring a smile to her face. Strawberry flipped over to her stomach, staring down at the mare sitting on the floor below her. “Told you you’re just a massive nerd.”

“I’m not a nerd!”

“Yeah, you’re just ‘born in the wrong body,’ or something. The tragic tale of Cherry Berry, the pegasus without wings,” Strawberry said, using her wings for air quotes.

Cherry stuck out her tongue in Strawberry’s direction. “I’d do so much more with your wings if I had them. Not like you’re using them!”

“Without wings, how could I do things like this,” Strawberry asked, using both appendages to make an obscene gesture in her direction.

Cherry responded by reaching over, seizing Strawberry’s rear legs, and yanking her off of the bed.

“Gah!”

Strawberry tumbled onto the floor, landing right on top of Cherry who deftly flipped her onto her backside.

“Yeah?! You wanna make that again?” Cherry leaned in with a smirk, muzzle almost touching Strawberry’s.

Strawberry rolled her eyes, pretending like she was unfazed. “I would but your fat hooves are on my wings, dumb-dumb.”

“Fat?!”

Strawberry sensed an opportunity and shoved Cherry off of her. The pink earth pony tumbled to the ground, letting out a surprised shout as she fell. “Jerk!”

“That’s why you love me.”

“Ugh! I don’t believe you.” Cherry sighed, laying flat on her back. “So… You really did it?”

Strawberry grunted. “Yeah.”

“What’d your mom say?”

“Nothing. As usual. She didn’t have to, I know she’s disappointed in me.” Strawberry sighed, leaning back to rest her head on the wooden floorboards. “Doesn’t matter. There’s no point in staying in school.”

Cherry was quiet for a second. “I just… I don’t see how you can be so sure of that.”

Strawberry let her eyes drift up to the ceiling. The blinds were drawn shut, but specks of sunlight found their way through the curtains, leaving traces of light to wander across her walls. “It’s… I dunno. It’s hard to explain. It just, like, doesn’t matter at the end I guess. I mean, who cares if I did or didn’t go to high school? We still don’t know why the sun dipped on us that one time. For all we know it could blow up tomorrow. Kaboom, we’re all dead.” She used her wings to emphasize the explosion.

“That’s… Kind of sad,” Cherry admitted. “I mean. Even for you.”

Strawberry considered that. “It’s not like I want to be like this! But like, what’s the point?”

“I dunno, Strawbs.” Cherry sat up, reaching for her textbook again. “But some of us still think things are going to work out, and that means we still have to study and stuff.”

“Because you’re all nerds.”

“I’m not! Have you even seen who we hang out with? Redheart is a nerd, Cheerilee is an advanced nerd, and Blossomforth’s kind of a nerd,” Cherry countered.

“Nerd adjacent?”

“I’m surprised you know what that word means!”

Strawberry gave Cherry a light slap with her wing.

“Geez, so hostile! I thought you loved me!” Cherry whined as she rose to her hooves. “Be right back, I gotta go pee.”

“Mm-hm. Good luck.” Strawberry watched as Cherry crossed the room, pulling the bathroom door shut. “Hey, don’t go pulling a Derpy in there!”

“Oh noooooo! I just don’t know what went wrong!” came a muffled reply.

“If you make a mess you better clean it up,” Strawberry muttered, standing up and stretching out her wings. She went over to her desk, where a copy of the day’s newspaper was sitting. Sunset Shimmers: Scientists Baffled as Sun Continues Erratic Behavior, read the headline.

It turns out that she hadn’t been crazy all those years ago: the sun truly had vanished for a second. A blink, they called it. It sent a wave of shock and frenzy through society, but after that there was nothing. Years passed and the anomaly sat unexplained, fading into a joke and bonding point (“Where were you on the day the sun blinked?”)

But lately… Lately things were getting worse. Equestria had just launched some brand new space device to explore the world above them, and the universe didn’t seem to appreciate that. The sun blinked again. But that second time… It was longer. Nearly thirty seconds, where the sun was just absent from the sky. Nothing else seemed to change: not the wind, not the light, not the water. It was like someone had just forgotten to paint the sun into the picture.

The scientists were ready this time. So they thought. But everything they did seemed to just make the blinks faster and worse. Something was wrong. And that thought rapidly wormed its way into everyone’s mind.

Things were wild for a few months: widespread panics, riots, ponies locking themselves in their homes out of fear. But lately things had tapered off. Less hysteria, and more mundane. Strawberry wondered how long it would last.

Her ear flicked as there was a creak on the floorboards behind her. The spots of sunlight dancing across her wall felt strange now, like limbs of some alien creature lurking in the background.

Strawberry carefully crossed the room, glancing at the bathroom door to make sure it was still shut. There was a low and distant humming, a noise that Strawberry determined was coming from her closet. Carefully, she drew closer to it.

The doors were slightly ajar. Through the cracks she could see a flash of color: a strange orange material. Something thick and black, showing her own reflection. “You again.”

The-figure-who-must-have-been-adult-Strawberry was silent. A familiar sensation took over the room. Faces turned to places, names turned to dust. Too fast to understand.

“What do you want?”

Nothing.

“Why are you here?”

A strange sound, like a hum or a growl.

Strawberry took a deep breath, but before she could speak, the helmeted figure raised a hoof. She followed the direction, going over to where Cherry’s book was sitting on the floor. “This?”

The figure didn’t reply.

Strawberry picked up the textbook. Post-it notes were stuck at various intervals throughout the pages. She opened it to a random one: a chapter about the laws of heat exchange. Strawberry was never good at physics, so she understood none of it. “I don’t…” She looked up at the closet but couldn’t figure out if the figure was still there or not. Looking at the post-its again, she noticed that all were pink except for one green one. She flipped it to that page. It was completely blank, save for one word: Laotyn.

“Laotyn.”

The lights on Strawberry’s walls flickered. There was shouting from outside.

“Strawberry?”

Strawberry set the book down and ran to the window, yanking the curtains open.

There was a flush followed by the sound of running water. On the street below, a crowd was gathering, pointing up at the sky and muttering. The bathroom door opened and Cherry joined her. “What’s going on?”

“The sun’s gone again.” Strawberry felt the words leave her mouth, but her eyes were stuck on the street below. While everyone else was looking up, she found her eyes fixed on the ground.

“It’ll come back,” Cherry said uncertainly.

Strawberry didn’t reply.

After ten seconds, the crowd dissipated.

After a minute, it began to reform.

After two minutes, Cherry pressed herself into Strawberry’s side.

After three minutes a pegasus fell out of the sky. They began yelling that their wings weren’t working anymore. A unicorn tried to pick up a rock and found themselves unable to control their magic.

After five minutes, a police officer arrived and was bombarded with frantic questions and concerns. The sun had never been gone for this long before.

After ten minutes Cherry started to cry.

After thirty minutes the streets were empty. Everyone was hiding, for whatever good it’d do them.

After forty minutes the sun was still gone.

Comments

[Bicyclette]

“Yeah, you’re just ‘born in the wrong body,’ or something. The tragic tale of Cherry Berry, the pegasus without wings,” Strawberry said, using her wings for air quotes.

dang, using her wings for that is extra rude! which is exactly what one would expect from Strawbs

“Without wings, how could I do things like this,” Strawberry asked, using both appendages to make an obscene gesture in her direction.

extremely Strawbs

“Mm-hm. Good luck.” Strawberry watched as Cherry crossed the room, pulling the bathroom door shut. “Hey, don’t go pulling a Derpy in there!”

“Oh noooooo! I just don’t know what went wrong!” came a muffled reply.

aww, they’re so mean! just straight-up bullies!

Sunset Shimmers: Scientists Baffled as Sun Continues Erratic Behavior, read the headline.

oh hey Sunset’s in this

But lately… Lately things were getting worse. Equestria had just launched some brand new space device to explore the world above them, and the universe didn’t seem to appreciate that.

and, oof… i wonder if this is something like the very magical-thinking way that Equestria’s sun works is tied to the ponies not actually knowing how astrophysics works. so the more they try to find out…

The doors were slightly ajar. Through the cracks she could see a flash of color: a strange orange material. Something thick and black, showing her own reflection. “You again.”

The-figure-who-must-have-been-adult-Strawberry was silent. A familiar sensation took over the room. Faces turned to places, names turned to dust. Too fast to understand.

oh hey, Interstellar! though i like this version better

After three minutes a pegasus fell out of the sky. They began yelling that their wings weren’t working anymore. A unicorn tried to pick up a rock and found themselves unable to control their magic.

oof… this certainly does sound like the secular laws of physics reasserting itself over the ponies…