> Sunset Shimmer - HiE > by CrossRedstone > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset groaned, as she was lying on the ground and her brain feeling like Pinkie Pie was hitting it repeatedly with her drumsticks. But then again, that was better than having several limbs broken. After how she lost control over her motorcycle, she could call herself lucky to be still okay. “Note to self.” Sunset groaned, as she put her hands on the ground. “Never EVER go over the speed limit ever again.” the normally being a unicorn vowed, as she slowly pushed herself up from the ground. Eventually she managed to get back on her feet and checked her clothes. Her black and purple leather outfit was surprisingly intact, despite driving over fifty miles per hour! Taking off the jacket, the girl found some bruises on her arms and even her stomach, but else there weren’t any obvious injuries. “Now that’s strange.” The girl mused putting her clothes back on. “Hopefully there’s no internal damage. Okay, now where did my helmet fly off to?” When Sunset started looking around the field she landed, the Equestrian noticed something strange. Or rather she noticed the lack of something. For starters, she couldn’t find the road she had been driving on. Instead of the road there was only a huge, seemingly endless field of grass with a few trees here and there and a mountain. Secondly her motorcycle and helmet were gone! The Equestrian girl looked around, thinking the two items might have flown a little further ahead. Another possibility was of course that she had been the one who flew away from the road and miraculously survived the whole ordeal. Unlikely, but what else of an explanation was there? Going with that train of thought, Sunset went into the direction she thought the road was. But since she couldn’t find it after five minutes of walking, she figured she went the wrong way. “Oh, duh!” she slapped her forehead. “The internet you silly pony. Looks like the tracking option is good for something.” With those words, Sunset searched for her phone in her pockets. But sadly it turned out that thing was busted. Not only was the display broken, but it was bent over, as if it was made of rubber. The hardware inside was probably broken. “Well crap, that thing was expensive. And the warranty expired just two days ago.” Letting out a sigh, Sunset put the damaged phone away and just went the opposite direction. She figured if she tried out every direction, she had to find the road eventually right? And thus, ignoring the pain various body parts were signaling her brain, the girl went onto her not so epic journey to find her motorcycle and her helmet, before the evil police forces stumbled upon the scene and took in her license. As she walked through the field, Sunset thought back to what occurred at the accident. Since it had been a Sunday morning, the road had been fairly empty, thus the reason she drove a little faster than was actually allowed. She did slow down, when she had to drive a turn, however, the accident happened on a straight line. From there on her memory was a blurred mess. Somehow she had lost control over her motorcycle and came off the road. She flew through the air, at least she thought she did and then...that was where everything went black. Must have hit my head pretty hard. Hopefully it’s not a concussion. She thought to herself. The former pony, actual pony in another dimension, was brought out of her own thoughts, when her boots made the all too familiar noise of hitting stone or asphalt. However, instead of finding a road, she stood on a cobblestone path, which led towards the mountain Sunset noticed earlier. “Strange, I don’t remember there being a mountain near the 66th. Whatever, if I follow this path, I might be able to find someone who has a functioning cell phone. Hopefully Big Mac can pick me up. … What’s with me and talking out loud today?” Shaking her head, Sunset followed the cobblestone path towards the mountain. Since someone clearly bothered keeping this path intact, the mountain may be some kind of tourist attraction, maybe leading to a path to wonder. On top of it was snow, so maybe skiing was a thing here. Although, considering how steep the top was, maybe you just had a nice overview from somewhere a little below the peak. Sunset wandered down the path for around ten minutes, until she found a little hut in the distance. Maybe they’ll allow me to use their phone. I just hope somepony...someone’s home. Hmm, old habits die hard. The closer she came, the more details she could make out. The hut was completely made of wood, with flowers planted around it, except for the doorstep. There was also an entrenched garden in which even more flowers bloomed, from roses to chrysanthemum. Everything appeared to be present, at least everything that grew in this climate. In a free corner of the garden, there was a swing set up, painted in blue and red. When she was only a few feet away, Sunset had to stop. Now that she was really close, the girl saw just how small the entire hut was. The door looked like a child might be able to get through and the door and the windows were pretty low, just reaching Sunset’s chest, when she stood in front of them. Flower curtains blocked her view into the room. The entire building appeared to be about a story and a half tall in total. “Okay…..maybe the people living here….are really small?” she suggested to herself, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation. That explanation was quickly thrown out of the window, when the door opened to her left side. Stepping out of the small hut was nothing more and nothing less than a white coated pony, wearing the signature royal guard garments, except for the helmet, which the pony carried in a yellowy magical field. The same field covered the pony’s horn. Sunset’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks upon identifying the pony as a unicorn. The pony in return...made some kind of noise, Sunset didn’t really bother listening, as only one thing went through her head. I think I lost it. And with that, Sunset fell to the side and hit her unprotected head against the wall. That was a weird dream. Sunset thought to herself. Well, not as weird as the one last week though. The girl stretched her arms and let out a hearty yawn. She tried to get out of the bed, only to hit her head against something hard. With a yelp, Sunset’s head hit the pillow underneath again. Groaning the girl rubbed her head, trying and failing to ease the pain. Opening her eyes, she saw what the problem was: the ceiling was unusually low today. Also her bed felt somewhat uncomfortable. Carefully the former Equestrian moved her legs out of the bed and got into sitting position. Looking around, she found out that she was not in her room, but in someone else’s. This is becoming a bad habit way too fast. She thought to herself. The room was fairly simple decorated. Curtains in front of the window, a green tapestry, a small dresser and a nightstand. Everything necessary for a guest room. The weird thing was, everything was so tiny. The bed was so small, that someone had gone out of their way to put three mattresses on it, so none of Sunset’s body parts would be dangling from anywhere. “Wait, so that wasn’t a dream?!” the girl exclaimed. As if to answer the question, the door to the room opened and a pegasus mare entered the room. She had a light lime colored coat, with a dark green mane and tail, the mane being tied up into a ponytail, purple-reddish eyes and a blooming rose as a cutie mark. Sunset needed to rub her eyes, in order to make sure she was not hallucinating. When she still saw the pony, she couldn’t help but say: “You’re a pony.” The mare titled her head, blinking a bit. However the mare quickly put on a smile and said...something. “Uh, excuse me?” The mare wore the same questionable expression as Sunset did. The pegasus said something again and yet again, Sunset didn’t understand word. It wasn’t that the pony was talking gibberish or anything. The girl could clearly make out words, even though she didn’t know the meaning of them. And that was it! It was as if the mare was speaking an entirely different language. “You’re not understanding me, are you? That’s weird.” Sunset put a hand under chin, thinking. “How can this be? I never had any trouble understanding the humans, when I...wait a second. I am in Equestria. I AM IN EQUESTRIA?!?!?!?!?” The exclamation startled the pegasus mare, who flew into the air, until her ears touched the ceiling. She looked down at the girl angrily, until she noticed that said girl had was staring into the air, the eyes shrunk to pinpricks. Confused the mare flew down, until she was on eye level with her strange guest. She waved her leg in front of Sunset’s face, but there was no reaction. Next she poked the girl, but it was the same result. What a strange creature. > Chapter 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset flinched, upon the pegasus gently slapping the girl with her wing. It didn’t hurt, it just came unexpected, but it brought the girl back into reality. The mare said something really fast, yet even if she had talked at a normal pace. “Sorry, but I can’t understand a word you’re saying. For that matter, you probably don’t understand me…” The girl realized. The pony also noticed that talking was getting them nowhere. The equine put a hoof under her chin, while flying in front of Sunset, who had trouble focusing actually on the pony, rather than just her wings. Finally the pegasus flew towards the open door and motioned for Sunset Shimmer to follow her with her hoof. “Oh.” Sunset realized what the mare wanted from her and stood up from her makeshift bed. Her boots echoed through the room, as they hit the wooden floor one after another. When she came in front of the pegasus, the pony flew out of the room and down a stairway, which was located right outside the room Sunset had been sleeping in. Going downstairs, Sunset noticed a few pictures hanging on the sidewall. They depicted the pegasus, the unicorn guard from earlier and a pegasus filly in various ways, like in one picture they were all smiling at the camera, in another the filly could be found on the sling, which Sunset had seen outside earlier. The filly had a lighter green coat colour, a short blonde mane, red eyes and was still lacking a cutie mark. At least she was in the pictures. Downstairs, the pegasus mare flew to the side and into another room. This room turned out to be the kitchen, where on the table there was a plate, a fork, a knife and a glass placed on it. On the far corner of the room was the stove located. A pot was placed on it and tiny flames could be seen escaping from underneath the steel pot. A pleasant smell entered Sunset’s nose, when the house owner opened the pot and checked the contents. Nodding satisfied, she turned off the stove, put on some oven cloths and then she took the pot towards the table. Sunset was still standing in the doorframe, watching the pony prepare what was obviously lunch for the surprise guest. Seeing said guest just standing around, the pegasus motioned for Sunset to take a seat. A little surprised by such a friendly gesture, Sunset complied and took a look inside the pot. It looked like the mare prepared some kind of vegetarian goulash, which was fine with Sunset. Despite most humans liking to eat meat, she never even tried a bite, knowing that in her home a lot of those creatures turned into food were sapient. “Thank you.” Sunset bowed her head to make sure the meaning of her words came over. The mare smiled, nodding in return. She then proceeded to fly to another door in the room, which, upon opening, revealed the backyard of the house and the pony flew outside. Shrugging, Sunset picked up the way too small fork and began eating. It tasted really good, but wasn’t anything special by any stretch. Sunset was just happy that there was no hay in this dish, since her body couldn’t digest it. As she was eating, Sunset could hear the mare from the open door. She was humming a tune, while watering her flowers, as she passed the windows or even the door from time to time. At one point there was no water left in the watering can. Instead of coming into the kitchen and filling it from the sink, the mare left the can on the ground and flew up into the sky. Five seconds later she was back, with a cloud in her hooves. She wrinkled a part of the cloud in the can and pressed the water out of the cloud. Something like this shouldn’t fascinate Sunset the way it did, but after being absent from Equestria for so long, she just couldn’t peel her eyes away, until the mare resumed her work. “I have been way too long away from home.” Sunset realized with a sad smile, while she resumed eating. The thing was, it took her quite some time to finish her dish, since she only managed to get tiny bites into her mouth, thanks to the small fork. By the time she was done, the house owner had not only watered her plants, but also made the dishes and read today’s newspaper. It was at that time that Sunset found out that she somehow forgot on how to read Equish too. She had a theory that the portal somehow was responsible for that and that she probably would need to go through it in order to fix this. That meant she somehow needed to get to Twilight’s home. Maybe there was a map in the house, which she could use. Ponyville was supposed to be close to Canterlot and she was already close to the capital itself. Who knows, maybe Ponyville wasn’t that far away. After finishing her dish, she planned on bringing the dishes to the sink, but the mare was quicker, swapping everything up and bringing it to the sink. “Er...alright?” Sunset blinked confused. The mare just smiled and said something that was probably: “It’s no bother.” or something along those lines. Before Sunset could figure out whether her hypothesis was right or wrong, both mare and girl could hear the door being opened and a high pitched voice shouting into the house. The mare shouted back, startling the guest a little, before flying into the hallway. Sunset took a second before following. She found the front door open and the mare hugging a little filly. Upon further inspection it turned out to be the filly from the pictures. Said filly noticed the intruder from the corner of her eye and looked curiously and a little scared up to the...thing. The mother noticed her daughter’s gaze upon the guest and introduced her to her. At least Sunset got the impression, since the larger pegasus pointed a hoof at her, while the second hoof remained on the filly’s back. Also, the mother said something, as she made those gestures. The filly’s expression didn’t change, but she did come out from under her mother’s wing and spoke slowly to the human. Said human however once again, did not understand a single word. The mother pegasus was quick to step in front of her daughter and most likely explain the little conundrum they were in. The filly asked a few questions every here and then. After the mother was done explaining, the filly looked up at Sunset, fear still present in her eyes. The human then reminded herself of a little trick Fluttershy taught her, when dealing with animals. You bent down to their eye level, in order to appear less menacing. Strangely enough, the same method worked, when dealing with children. As a result, Sunset slowly knelt down, the two ponies watching her every movement. She wasn’t on the height level of the child or the mother for that matter, but she figured it might do the trick. The ponies looked apprehensively, as she slowly stretched out a hand towards the filly, who didn’t hesitate to retreat back under her mother’s wing, saying something incomprehensible. The mother didn’t appear to be sure what her guest was up to. Maybe a friendly hoofshake? It certainly seemed that way. The pegasus was about to raise her right foreleg, when the shaved, clothes wearing ape adjusted its hand’s movements. Before the flower loving pony could react, Sunset’s fingers were scratching the pony behind her ears, as if she was a cat. Although surprised by the sudden contact, the tension almost immediately disappeared out of the mare’s body and was replaced by a feeling of pure relaxation. On instinct, the pegasus leaned more into the human’s hand for maximum efficiency. Sunset was surprised by the notion, but continued her scratching. She could see now why Fluttershy adored animals so much. Not that she personally saw ponies as animals, but scratching the mare almost relaxed Sunset as much as it did the mare, who at this point was sticking her tongue out a little. The filly, initially flabbergasted ran towards her mother and started yelling. Looking down, the pegasus and the human found the filly glaring angrily at Sunset and pointing an accusing hoof at the fiery haired girl. Not sure what exactly was going on, she watched as the mother pegasus walked to the filly and said some reassuring words, at least that’s what Sunset deduced from the tone of the mare’s voice. The filly in return shut her mouth, but still didn’t look convinced. The mother spoke to her child once more. This time it appeared to convince said child that whatever Sunset was doing was doing any harm on her mother. She slowly approached the houseguest, her eyes never leaving Sunset’s own. The girl in return tried to give the filly the kindest smile she could muster, even though the human wasn’t all that sure what was going on. Slowly she stretched out her hand, the two ponies watching her intently.  The filly took a tentative step towards Sunset, making it possible for her to pet the little pony. Like her mother, she tensed up, before Sunset started scratching. Later Sunset would swear she heard the filly purring like a cat.