Chapter 3 - The Setting of the Sun
Sunset sat at the foot of the empty Diurnal Throne, watching over a throne room just as desolate.
There was an attempt to argue that she should be sitting on the throne (to allow her to command the necessary attention and totally not because she wanted to play pretend Princess) but Shining insisted and Cadance requested she did not, so she begrudgingly held down the dais and monitored this sad excuse for a Day Court.
Almost all scheduled solicitors had cancelled their appointments. They insisted they needed a Princess to render her judgement, not some jumped-up Royal Student. What pedantic, self-absorbed fops, thinking they were too good for the future Princess of Flame. Once Sunset figured out how to get her wings, she’d make sure these prissy little whiners never even got the time of day from her, no matter how much they grovelled.
The worst part was, they’d settled for an earth pony plenty of times before. That aide with the nerdy glasses and out-of-style manedo, Raven Inkwell, was the usual emergency secretary for the times in which Princess Celestia was unable to hold court herself. The Princess had all those charity fundraisers to show up to and smile at, after all. On those occasons, the gentry might lodge their complaints with Raven only begrudgingly, but they respected her enough to leave them with her at all.
Sadly, Raven was currently buried under the mountain of paperwork that a legal transition of power brought with it.
Cadance was likewise unavailable, as majordomo Kibitz was briefing her on all of the duties and schedules she would be taking over, somewhere else in the Celestial Palace. This was expected to take all day at the least.
Naturally, Shining Armor was bodyguarding Cadance. Very naturally.
What a juicy bit of trivia that was! How long had Sunset been out of the loop? She really should have been paying more attention to the gossip circulating the servants’ quarters and bureaucrats’ water-coolers. She didn’t usually listen to that garbage – not that she was by any means above rumor-mongering; rather, most of it was useless to her: lies spread about completely irrelevant noponies to adjust the social status of other completely-irrelevant noponies. They didn’t have any good dirt on anypony that mattered.
Or if they did, it was on Sunset. That might have been the bigger reason she stayed away from the gossips.
Back to the point – until such a time as a current, flesh-and-blood alicorn Princess was able to hold a “real” court instead, the only pony vaguely qualified and available was Sunset Shimmer. She had been put in the throne room both to keep the scant few appointments that weren’t cancelled (not that she was allowed to do more than say “Sorry, bud; we can’t help you with that right now”) and to ensure that she had guards watching her at all times.
They still thought she might have done it.
Said guards’ eyes were, however, occupied with the rabble immediately outside of the throne room. Nobles and peasants alike pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, none of which had an appointment but each of which burned with a thousand questions about the future of their very lives and livelihoods. The clamor, bleeding through the heavy marble doors, was so obnoxious it kept Sunset from coming up with something to compare it to.
If she weren’t stuck here, Sunset might have spent the day on independent study, or done some investigations of her own into the Incident. How do you steal an alicorn? If a being that powerful doesn’t want to be stolen, then they won’t. They shouldn’t. And yet, one did.
How did they subdue Celestia? To what extent did they incapacitate her?
She glanced at her saddlebags, tossed to the side of the throne, where a brown buckram spine, banded with gold, peeked out from under the fastened flap. She had brought several books with her (getting dragged along to Day Court was always tedious, even when she wasn’t presiding over dust) but the one trying to spill out of the bag was different from the rest. Maybe she should–
A sudden jolt in the rainbowed light streaming through the stained glass windows commanded Sunset’s notice – and the crowd’s too, managing to hush them for a solid five seconds before they started up even louder.
With a groan, Sunset melted out of the regal pose she spent the whole day putting on and laid her head on the throne, one ear mashed into the cushion and the other smothered by the royal throne-pillow. She couldn’t bring herself to care that these articles were intimately acquainted with her mentor’s butt; it was that or develop a migraine.
Anyways, from the way the sun lurched fifteen degrees counterclockwise along the horizon, still as low as ever, it must have been time for Cadance to try grappling with the big ball of fire herself – and she definitely didn’t get it in one.
To facilitate this at all, there must have been an artifact or something involved, because it was as much Celestia’s marked destiny as it was her alicornic magical prowess that enabled her to command the sun’s obedience.
Whatever tool or spell Cadance was using to make up for the fact that her talent was, like, love or something, there was a solid seventy-five percent chance Star Swirl the Bearded was behind its invention. The crazy old wizard had his hooves in a lot of pies (though Sunset suspected at least a few of them had to be misattributed).
The twenty-five percent of uncertainty represented the picture Celestia herself painted of the stallion, based on knowing him personally: he was an undeniably brilliant man… with the foresight of a river salmon. If he invented an Alicorn Obsolescence Device, it was because he could, not because he knew the Princess of Night and Custodian of the Moon well enough to predict she would try to usurp her sister the way she ended up doing nine or so centuries after his presumed death, requiring Celestia to take up both orbits.
But hey, maybe the Sole-ar Remaining Princess had to scramble to figure out how to take care of the moon once she booted Luna into it. She had to have figured something out. The moon still rose and fell, didn’t it?
–The last couple days, notwithstanding.
Sunset supposed there was a possibility her solution was just “be a supremely-powerful alicorn”, but while yeah, she was one of those, she was also a meticulous planner – quite Star Swirl’s opposite, in that respect. Celestia had to have a contingency in place for her own absence. To go two-thousand years and not come up with something was just not her flavor of stupid.
Whatever the case, Cadance seemed to finally have it figured out. When the sun, after doing a merry jig throughout the sky and taunting everypony with a brief dip below the horizon, finally set and stayed set, the world’s relief was instantaneous and palpable, like the lid was taken off a boiling pot. A portion of the crowd split away on their own, and the rest followed suit when the exhausted guards at the door announced, “Night has fallen! The Court of Day is no longer in session!”
Oh, sweet silence. Thank Cele–
…Thank Cadance?
That was gonna take some getting used to.
In the meantime, Sunset just basked in the soft, dark quiet that surrounded her head.
Then Shining Armor cleared his throat as loudly as ponily possible.
Sunset sprang away from the throne like it was a cookie jar she’d been caught with her hoof in.
Cadance, by his side, bore an amused little smile. Shining, in full armor, did not.
She had to seize control of the conversation. “Oh, hey, guys!” Cadance seemed to shy from formal address, so Sunset kept it casual. “I see you’ve got the sun under control!”
Cadance gave the soft, exhausted chuckle of a champion after a duel viciously-fought and narrowly-won, trying not to lose consciousness once the adrenaline wore off. “I’m getting the hang of it.” She idly brushed her hoof against the new amulet around her neck, depicting an eclipse of sunstone and moonstone on jet. “The moon won’t budge, though, no matter how much force I put behind my horn. For the time being, Alaghistan is just going to have to put up with having the moon overhead at all times.”
“So we can expect an extra-ornery donkey ambassador.”
“More so than the usual,” Cadance drily confirmed, her smirk holding strong. She seemed to be in a good mood, all things considered. It was that taste of true power, wasn’t it, wrestling with the sky itself?
Which is why Sunset maybe felt a smidge bad that she was about to bring her back down to earth. “So… What’s the plan for, you know, finding Celestia? You’ve got one, right?”
As predicted, Cadance’s smile died on her lips, though Shining lost his frown. Did Sunset just win points with him?
“As a matter of fact,” he announced, “we do.”
“I’m all ears.”
But Shining just turned to look at his Princess, a brow raised.
At her gentle nod, he finally, grumblingly, began: “The unfortunate fact of the matter is that there is annoyingly little to tell us who is responsible or where they took the Princess. Currently, the Royal Guard is doing everything in its power to scour the Palace for clues without disrupting palatial security.”
“Cool. Have you figured out how they got out with an entire rutting magic mirror yet?”
“Yes.” His eyes narrowed. “That information is classified.”
Sunset threw her hooves up. “Oh, come on! You can tell me! I won’t blab!”
“That’s not what I’m worried about, Miss Takes-‘Forbidden’-as-a-Challenge.”
He flinched at the hoof thrust in his face. “Hah! So you’re saying they went through somewhere forbidden!”
“I… can neither confirm nor deny that claim.”
Flashing the smuggest grin, Sunset backed off with a shrug. “Yeah, well, it’s not like it narrows it down much. I’m forbidden from the palace greenhouse,” she spat. Before anypony could inquire as to why, Sunset asked, “So what else?”
“Well, we’re keeping an eye out for ransom notes. If that’s all this is about, then we’ll pay whatever they ask and increase security so it doesn’t happen again.” And if whoever was responsible was in earshot, they’d surely up the price.
But… “That’s not what this is, though, is it? Why bother with the mirror?”
The look on Shining’s face was… surprised. One of the bad kinds. Condescending surprise, fighting off a smile, like Sunset had just innocently said the stupidest thing he’d ever heard her say. He ventured to ask, “…How much of that book did you actually read?”
Cadance tilted her head. “Which book…?”
Sunset filled her in. “Celestia caught me with one of Star Swirl’s travelogues. Observations on the Parallels of Royalty Through the Looking Glasses, if you wanna check it out.”
“I’d like to say ‘pass’, but it sounds like it might contain relevant information…”
Sunset then turned to Shining Armor. “I read enough to know that if I didn’t rush the mirror that night, it was gonna close for another two and a half years. I wasn’t gonna let that opportunity slip me by.”
Shining’s voice took on an air of confident superiority. Ugh. “Would you have changed your mind if you’d read far enough to learn that magic does not exist on the other side of that mirror?”
The parallel train of thought that had been chugging in the background of Sunset’s mind ever since opening that book came to a crashing halt against a mountain that sprang out of complete nowhere. “Guh– Huh? What?!”
“There’s no magic.” He fizzled a cantrip on purpose, poofing smoke out of his horn, as if a demonstration would make such an absurd idea click.
“Bullscat! How does that work? Is it just, what, dead on the other side? Even exclusion zones like the Everfree need a bit of magic to keep life going.”
Shining just shrugged. “Only Star Swirl knew. He decided the best thing to do with that knowledge was use Looking Glass 9-1-13 as his own personal garbage disposal. Safer than letting magical runoff into the water table.”
So maybe he… threw some artifact away that had the power to create alicorns? …Was that how Celestia and Luna…? –Eh, she didn’t have enough info to entertain that blasphemy just yet.
Though… something else was bothering Sunset, too. “Wait, where are you even getting this from? Wouldn’t you know if you read his book?”
“I did. A heavily-redacted version, issued to myself upon achieving the rank of Captain of the Royal Guard, which I burned after reading, as instructed. Performing my duties requires an understanding of the dangers lurking within the Palace.” He took a deep breath. “Frankly, Princess Celestia would have some choice words with me for telling you anything I told you just now.”
“So why’d you tell me now?”
“The point has gone moot.”
Only for thirty moons. Or, for a more accurate translation of the old Ponish to contemporary Equestrian: thirty months. “I don’t think that’s it. How do I know you aren’t lying to discourage me from the truth?”
“I’m not lying.”
Woooooooow. So convincing. “Prove it, then. Why don’t we crack that bad boy back open and let me pick up where I left off?”
“That’s out of the questio–”
Cadance circled around to rest a wing on each of their withers. “Sunset, if it would help you trust us, I might be able to authorize a” – she turned to Shining – “supervised” – back to Sunset – “reading of the original text on the mirror portal. Would that be alright?”
“…Yeah. That would.” Though, if they were willing to break Celestia’s forbiddance to prove their honesty, maybe they weren’t lying about that particular detail.
“I suppose that would not be entirely out of the question,” Shining conceded. “Thank you, Your H–”
A pinion feather gently brushed his lips. “Please. She already knows.”
Shining Armor rolled his eyes. “…Thank you, dear.”
Sunset could make fun of their romance later; she still had objections to voice. “But if you’re not lying, then again: why tell me any of this?”
“Well,” Shining answered, “you already knew too much.” A… pensive quality lapsed into his voice. “Maybe if you had a more complete picture, you’d reconsider whatever you’re planning to do with Star Swirl’s old trash can.”
“Well, I am, so thanks.” It was valuable intel. If Sunset ever got another chance, she’d need some hired muscle to cover for her lack of magic, and she’d need to keep them in the dark about what their actual goal was so they didn’t try to take her ticket to alicornhood for themselves.
They’d gotten really sidetracked, though, hadn’t they? “Sooooooooo…”, Sunset drawled, “what does the other side of the mirror being… magicless… have to do…”
Suddenly, Sunset remembered where she found Star Swirl’s book. It wasn’t on a shelf. It was just sitting out on a cart, waiting to be returned.
Oh.
“They took Celestia through the mirror,” Sunset concluded, bereft the usual heat of her voice, “where her alicorn magic… wouldn’t mean scat.”
Oh, no.
“And… where… she’ll be stuck for the next two and a half years…”
Oh, rutt.
“– If we even find the mirror before then…”
Princess Cadance and Guard-Captain Shining Armor both dipped their heads.
“That’s the assumption we’re operating under,” Shining confirmed, raising his head again. “Which is why locating Looking Glass 9-1-13 will be the top priority of every national agency, going forward, once we get a handle on things here.”
Sunset burnt the distress of her realization into agitation. “…Why not now?”
Shining closed his eyes and took another steadying breath. “There have been about as many complications with Cadance assuming the role of Acting Princess as you might expect. Just because we saw them coming doesn’t mean we can solve them with a poof of the horn.”
“Bet I could.” Already, her horn was a-twinkle in turquoise.
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you know a spell that can bend the leadership of every national agency in Equestria to unconditionally accept the command of an uncoronated Princess?”
Sunset opened her mouth – and just as swiftly closed it, before opening it again. “…This feels like a trap.”
“Heh.”
“For your information, officer, I have never used a mind-control spell,” she lied, “because my academic studies on the subject were sanctioned by my mentor – you know, Princess Celestia – for the purposes of self-defense against it,” she half-truthed, “so I definitely don’t know anything on the level you’re asking for,” she finally truthed.
The thing about mind control was that it wasn’t actually that hard to learn how to zap somepony with an emotional charge and get them to feel what you’re feeling. Unfortunately for Sunset, that sympathetic charge was drawn from the caster’s own emotional state, so instead of making the guardspony stationed at the Royal Ice Cream Freezer pliable enough to step aside and let Sunset in, it just filled the big, armored, stiletto-headed stallion with quivering, petulant rage that found its outlet in the teenage filly in front of him.
She’d never run so fast in her life. Thankfully, he was so unfathomably mad that he forgot he could use magic.
Point is, developing her skills at mind control was kinda on the backburner for the time being.
“So you say.”
“I do say. So, what, you can’t get the ERS to hoof your taxes over?”
Shining shook his head. “More that Equestria’s various intelligence and law enforcement agencies take orders from neither the Captain of the Royal Guard nor, quote, ‘miscellaneous uncrowned alicorns’, unquote.” He ground his teeth. “They’re only going to listen to a fully-coronated Princess. At best, until we’ve thrown the proper ceremony – which we are currently researching the minimal requirements for so we can get it done as quickly as possible – we can only make recommendations as to how they should proceed with their individual investigative efforts, if they’ve even launched any to begin with.”
Sunset blinked. “…What do you mean, ‘if’? Who are these wastes of standing around that haven't even started looking? Do they not want to save the Princess?!” Some purges might be in order – if not now, then once she was in charge. Sunset would not abide a do-nothing government.
“Oh, it would be a feather in the cap for any organization. Unfortunately, the impact of Celestia’s absence has reached pretty far. There’s panic all over the Principality, wildlife agitated by the disruption of the day/night cycle, neighboring countries with a vested interest in Equestrian vulnerability, and…” – Shining Armor took a very deep sigh – “the noble estate.”
“The noble estate.” Of course.
“M-hm.”
“What’re they up to?” Probably some power play or other, but Sunset wanted specifics.
“Most of them? Not much. We did good by accepting the Royal responsibility as quickly as we did. Having Cadance as Acting Princess does a lot to plug and obscure what is, objectively, a pretty sizable vacuum of power. –Sorry, dear.”
Cadance giggled. “I’m not under any illusion that I’m a perfect substitute for Celestia, Shiny.”
“Of course not.” He put on a smirk that looked like it was supposed to be suave but mostly came off as dorky. “You’re one of a kind.”
And yet, somehow, it still made Cadance blush. If Sunset thought she was pink to begin with…
Sunset impatiently tapped a hoof on the marble tile. “Save it for later, lovebirds. I wanna hear about these problem ponies. I’m gonna guess some of them do see the vacuum for what it is?”
“You’d be right. Word from our ears in high society – who at least respect my authority over Palatial security enough to keep me informed – is that there’s a small contingent of nobleponies who see our swiftness to take control as incontrovertible evidence that…” – Sunset could just about make out steam puffing from his nostrils – “that we got rid of Celestia in our own bid for power, and so they’ve decided to rally around somepony they see as a ‘more legitimate’ claimant to the throne.”
“…Huh?” Squinting, Sunset looked at Cadance’s wings and horn for several seconds, double-checking that they hadn’t just walked off of her body while she wasn’t looking, then back to Shining. “Who on Equus could possibly be more legit than an alicorn who’s also Celestia’s niece?”
Something unexpected happened. Shining Armor not only smiled – but did so in an effort to hold in a laugh. “You haven’t seen the ‘Prince’ loitering around the Palace the last couple days, have you?”
“…Blueblood?” – Title-firstname-lastname ‘Duke Prince Blueblood’ in full. The less thought about him, the better. – “I avoid him like the plague, if I can help it. Why?”
A snort escaped the Guard-Captain’s lips, but otherwise, he just stared at her–
“Oh! No way! Oh, sweet Celestia, you’ve gotta be kidding!” Bafflement and irritation fought a war in her head, ultimately won by the insurgent third faction of hilarity. Sunset laughed, “That fop?!”
That was all it took to push Shining Armor over the edge. His hoof-stomping guffaw rattled his suit of armor like a carillon of pots and pans.
Then Cadance had to go and interject, “Come, now. If my dear ‘cousin’ wants to try his hoof at raising the sun, maybe we should let him,” with just the most serenely-Celestial poker face.
This, of course, was likely to burn out all the mere unicorn’s magic. Permanently.
Sunset doubled over, howling with laughter, thumping a hoof against the pauldron of the Guard-Captain rolling on the floor beside her, while Cadance giggled above.
A few minutes later, shaking the last dregs of mirth from her lungs, Sunset said to Cadance, “I didn’t know you had a mean side.” This was intended as a compliment of the highest order.
“Everypony does. I try not to let it out too often… but some ponies make it very difficult. –Anyways, what about the nobility we’re actually worried about?”
That almost sent everypony back to the floor, but thankfully, Shining held it together long enough to report, “Right, the actual threat right now is going to come from those laboring under the assumption that Princess Mi Amore Cadenza will be some clueless ingénue who can be flattered and groomed to favor whatever self-serving goal they’re after.”
All of a sudden, Sunset Shimmer got really nervous.
“Instead of a grown mare with years of political theory taught to her by Princess Celestia herself,” Cadance groaned.
Even more nervous! Sunset hoped her smile was convincingly innocent.
Cadance’s sure was. “Don’t worry, Sunset; I already know what you’re after, which makes you a lot safer to trust.”
Sunset took a step back, trying to hold in what was now a nervous giggle as her ears fell flat. “Do I make it that obvious?”
“Yes,” Shining flatly intoned. “If you wore clothes, you’d sew alicorn wings to your sleeves.”
That was just lame enough to diffuse the tension.
Grinding her teeth, Sunset admitted, “Okay, fine, yeah. I wanna be an alicorn and you’re my most viable route to that goal. What are you gonna do about it?”
Cadance hummed for a moment, feigning thought. “Well, I think I’ll keep you by my side as Royal Student and sometimes-advisor, where your own agenda, my sole ability to satisfy that agenda, and your misequinist disposition will lead you to spot and point out other schemers in my court that I and my trusting nature wouldn’t have noticed, in order to secure your chances at alicornhood.”
“…And you’re just going to tell me that.” Including that Sunset had a chance of getting wings under Cadance.
“Of course! I kinda prefer to be transparent with ponies. I am the heiress to the Crystal Empire, after all.”
Sunset’s ire at Cadance so confidently laying her out like that died in agony, then came back as a revenant of pun-induced anguish. Said anguish, however, left her incomprehensibly sputtering as she tried to drum up a comeback.
Cadance used the opportunity to continue. “For a more serious answer… Aunt Tia spoke at great length on the value of discretion and omission, but Honesty is a Harmonic virtue, and if I’m going to reign over the birth-empire of Harmonism one day, I should probably actually live up to the values of my little ponies. I could never quite reconcile these two styles of rule, so… I know I’m forgoing a tool that’s served my mentor well, but I have my reasons.”
That afforded Sunset some time to recover her senses. “If that means I won’t have to put up with half the dumb secrets-that-don’t-need-to-be-secrets with you as with Celestia? By all means, rule however you want.” Sunset would not hold herself to such a ridiculous standard, of course.
Cadance got down to Sunset’s level, resting her chin on her forepasterns. “So what are you going to do, Sunset Shimmer?”
“Well if you hit me with another pun that bad, I’m going to make a crystal wine glass out of your sk–” Wait, no, backtrack. Shining was giving Sunset a scary look. “I– I mean, I guess I’ll keep watching over Day Court until you’re ready to take over, and if you need somepony to do your lying for you – I can do that.”
Cadance’s smile brightened. “Well, actually, I have some good news on the Day Court front: you won’t be presiding, tomorrow.”
“I won’t?” Sunset wasn’t sure if she was disappointed to be relieved of a Princess-adjacent duty or relieved to be spared another day of utter boredom interspersed with forced displays of sympathy.
“Ms. Inkwell’s made a big enough dent in the paperwork that she’s free to watch the throne tomorrow – while we run some errands together.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “What kind of errands?”
“It’s kind of hard to explain. I’m trying to move forward with one of Celestia’s hanging projects, but I don’t really know where she left off.” Sunset must have let too much of a skeptical scowl slip through, because Cadance was quick to add, “Though I’m sure our trip will be worth both of our times.”
If she said so. “Alright, so – just to get this clear – I’m going to be tagging along with the two of you, while you figure out what you’re even doing?”
Cadance frowned. “Well, just me, actually, if that’s alright.”
“Fine by me!“ A bit of an understatement. “But why isn’t your ‘bodyguard’ coming along?”
Shining answered, grumbling: “Unfortunately, I’m stuck here tomorrow, coordinating some changes to palatial security procedures. You know, after you demonstrated several gaps in our routine.”
“You’re welcome.”
Captain Armor did not acknowledge her smugness beyond a snort. “Now, I say these plans can wait until I’m available, but my Princess insists it’s a matter of national security, so I’ve been overruled.”
“Hah! That’s royal fiat for you.”
He lowered his head to level with Sunset. “If my Princess comes back from your trip tomorrow with a hair out of place, you’d better have a very good explanation prepared as to why.”
He meant it. Sunset knew better than to show fear, but she also knew better than to deny to herself that she felt it. Shining Armor wasn’t exactly a slouch, as mages go.
“That’s enough, love,” Cadance chided. “Now, did anything worth noting come up during Day Court, Sunset?”
Not… really? It wasn’t like any of her petitioners had known any info worth passing on.
Though…
“Actually… If we’re going to be doing this ‘honesty’ thing… I should probably let you in on a secret that was between me and Celestia. I don’t really want to, but it might be helpful for the investigation.”
Two eyebrows raised in silence.
Levitating over her saddlebags, Sunset explained, “You said there’s no magic on the other side of the mirror, but if that’s the case, how did Star Swirl get back here to write about his journey?”
Shining didn’t have an answer for that. Just a shrug.
“So I’m thinking, some kinds of magic do still work there. They have to. And of any kind of magic, I’d expect enchantments to be the most, like, durable in a magic-free environment.”
“Why’s that?”, inquired Cadance.
“Any number of techniques, really. Internal recirculation, kelemagenic feedback harvesting, remote transmission, mechanically-focused design…”
Cadance just stared at her, expectantly.
Oh, right. Former pegasus. “…Enchantments that recycle an internal magic supply instead of taking it from ambient environmental magic; or power themselves off of the magic that the spell produced radiates; or receive a magic supply from another linked object; or use nonmagical functionality to minimize the power of enchantment the item needs to work.”
“Oh!” Her eyes lit up. “So whatever Star Swirl brought to the other side, he also brought supplies that could make sure he’d be able to travel back.”
“Yeah, something like that, but that isn’t quite what I was getting at.” At least she was quick on the uptake – that horn was not entirely wasted on her. Though, it was still abundantly clear that Sunset would be the teacher in their magic lessons, not the student as her title blatantly stated. She still wasn’t sure if that was to be a source of massive pride or irritation at the wasting of her time.
But she could worry about that another time. “See, one of these books is enchanted.”
Sunset undid the belt on her bag, then shrank down her aura to encapsulate only the thick brown book she was after. The rest of the tomes, still in her bags, hit the floor with a resounding whump.
She hesitated, staring into the perfect likeness of her own cutie mark emblazoned on the cover of her… personal journal. ‘Private’ was not an apt term.
Its heft was ever so familiar in her telekinetic grip.
The other two regarded her with silent curiosity.
“Celestia gave me this when I first started studying under her.” She held it up for them to see–
–But only the cover. They didn’t need to see what she’d written inside. What she’d been writing, about once an hour, since waking up the day before. She could not recover if they did.
As she parted the covers, the smells of decade-old, cinnamon-oil-scented paper tried, once again, to drag her back into the optimism of her preteen years. Lying awake in her new dorm in the palace for the first time, too ecstatic to sleep… that twelve-year-old filly really thought life could only get better, didn’t she?
Tentatively, her horn lit up in cyan, just to etch another word into the pages. |Hello?|
She permitted herself to be wracked by the terrible vertigo of hope, “It’s connected,” she began to explain, “to–”
And then Sunset Shimmer heard the most soul-crushing sound she’d ever heard.
The saddlebags over Shining’s armor buzzed, clank-clank-rattling the layered steel beneath.
With a sharp intake of breath, he levitated another book from the flap, almost identical to Sunset’s book, except for the mark on the front cover – Celestia’s brilliant, gentle sun. “That would…” he began, then struggled for words. “That would explain this, that we found. –Lying open, in her chambers, earlier today.”
Silence reigned.
Dry of mouth, out of breath, her heart retreating so far aft it might well fall out her backend, Sunset realized exactly what Shining Armor was implying.
That first inquiry if Princess Celestia was there; the second and third, too; the defeated theory that maybe this wasn’t reaching anypony, and the supposition that she was free to write whatever she wanted; then, every scrawled insult; every threat on the Royal life; every demand for an apology; every plea for forgiveness; every time she switched from grief to rage and back to grief; every attempt to sound calm and collected as she entertained the hope that maybe Celestia was just slow to respond, and every tear dripped onto the scented paper as she did so; every admission Sunset felt anything other than contempt for the mare who took her in–
It had been copied, by a linked enchantment, into that other book: an ink-drop slurry of motive and heartbreak.
Which had then been seen.
They had raked their eyes across the tenderest flesh of her heart. They had seen every ache she wouldn’t admit with a crossbow to her head.
They knew her.
It made her itch so bad.
Then her world went pink, and soft, and warm.
“I’m so sorry, Sunset,” Cadance confessed, through wings laced over the unicorn’s withers. “There wasn’t really any way to investigate without reading it. I’m so sorry.” That was all she said.
If the Princess of Love had tried to twist that knowledge into a statement about how it was clear Sunset really loved her mentor all along, Sunset would have incinerated Cadance and then herself.
But she didn’t.
She simply allowed Sunset to shudder and shiver in her embrace as the last rays of sunlight slunk behind the neighboring mountains. When the palace lamplighters came to the throne room, Captain Armor requested they keep out and return later.
When he came back from the door, he admitted, “I’m also sorry, Sunset,” and declared, “On my word as Guard-Captain, you’re cleared of any suspicion of perpetrating The Incident. I understand now that your involvement was purely coincidental; the motive is only there for a crime of passion, not something so clearly premeditated as The Incident. I… hope that helps you feel better.”
It really didn’t.
Could anything?
…
Sunset Shimmer woke up the next morning with no recollection of ever going to bed in the first place.
A note sat on her nightstand: |Sorry for entering your room without permission but I couldn’t just leave you on the floor! I hope you can forgive me just this once! -Cadance <3|. Every single |i| was dotted with hearts.
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Really great so far!
11830084
I'm aware is isn't actually that bad, one of my favorite series on this site actually centers around Shing Candence and sunset and their interaction.
I just don't like the fact the audience is usually expect to just accept "he is a good guard who totally earned his position". But then every instance we see of him is him doing either the bare minimum, or in fact just an outright bad job.
I'm actually hoping to see him portrayed as someone who actually is worthy of his position.
Yeah ok, I'm interested.
Let's see what you got in store.
~Skeeter The Lurker
11876799
Glad to have you! Seen your avatar around.
All right! This is quite interesting, and the interplay between Sunset, Cadance and Shining is good. And I like your magical terminology; good magibabble is always nice to see!
11886220
Aw, thank you! 'Reminds me the last chapter of Part 1 (which will be posted in ~2 weeks) has a bunch of that magibabble at the end.