OHM’s LAW

DEMOCRACY

"We voted." Applejack grumbled. "Ayes had it. You're our friend now."

She didn't need to ask -- it was no challenge to dissect the uneasy silence into an answer as
obvious as the day: Fluttershy's eyes hid behind a veil of pink hair. Pinkie's annoying smile.
Rarity's nigh-imperceptible nod, Rainbow Dash rolling her eyes before being distracted by
something shiny somewhere... They were all so obvious.

"Don’t I get a vote?"

"No."

KISSING THE RING

“S-since, the princess--” Aqua Blossom started

“T-t-t-wilight,” Suri quickly interjected.

“--isn’t coming back…” Aqua trailed off.

“W-we thought th-that,” Coco swallowed. “With the new Student Body President elections
coming up...”

“You’d want something nice. To wear. Er.. not that your clothes aren’t already nice.” Suri added,
tones of panic creeping in.

“Yes, very nice. Great even.”

“Perfect!”

Cowards. Already the whatever magic the little princess cast over them was fading, and they
came running to prostrate themselves before the only power they knew.

She felt too weak to even hurt them. She wanted though. Badly. Not physically, just with words -
she knew exactly what to say to make it hurt worse than any blow, but it didn’t come -- just
dizziness, making her head spin, and the sour taste of bile in her mouth.

“Thank you girls.” This much she could do by rote -- a warm tone of voice that would make her
seem grateful and unthreatening, a touch to the forearm as she took the gift, a little nod to let
them know that they did the right thing, “The fashion clique can always count on the Student
Body President’s support.”

Those smiles… half-fakery, half-relief. It just made it so, so much worse.

I did that.

She did it. She took real, living humans, and reduced them to this. Sniveling, spineless…things,
who only kneel because she hamstrung them.

And it was glorious.

HER-ARCHY

“The hyenas wait while the lions feed,” Sunset noted with satisfaction. “For all that the Princess
did, human nature does not change.”

"They're just being cordial, darling. Not everything has to be so... beastly. Besides, it's not like
the cafeteria is going to run out of their mystery tofu any time soon."

"It's not about food or the waiting time -- it's about the hierarchy. A base person, a loser by his
nature, he thinks 'There' s enough for everyone. I'm not going to start a fight, get in trouble for a
few minutes. Let those idiots fight over scraps like wild animals.' and thus the powerful take that
they want, the weak get stuck at the end of the queue, and each knows who the other is."

"Ah notice yer sitting here with us, sugarcube, waiting for your turn."

Sunset shrugged. "I play a different game.”

"Hey, Sunset! Why are you hanging out with these weirdos?" a pink and silver freshmen girls
dropped at the table, pushing Fluttershy down the bench unceremoniously to make space for
themselves.”Here's your tofuburger and salad.”

Applejack glared at the kids and adjusted her seating slightly to give everyone space.

"I need them for the plans," Sunset explained, "as we discussed."

"Whfat pfan?" Rainbow perked up from her fries.

"To get Sunset back in charge," Diamond gleefully reported. Silver spoon nodded along,
producing a pack of papers.

"What on earth for?" Rarity demanded "To make things as they were? I'm afraid we wouldn't
help you with that, darling, even as your friends. Especially as your friends."
"Yeah. Everyone was super-mean and kinda sad before Twilight came to our school!"

"I.. I didn't like it as it was before. It was scary."

"Relax," Sunset waved her hand away. "I have no intention of rebuilding something that was
destroyed with twenty minutes’ conversation and one song-and-dance number. We're doing
everything better now. And that's why I need you."

"Well, I suppose--"

"Today's problem is budgeting.."

CHAPTER 5 - BUDGETfINGS
"All right, Silver read them in."

"Sunset, are you sure? They're... " Silver scandalized by a mere prospect of someone reading
her precious paperwork, tried to object.

"I need their opinion. Besides, we are changing things anyway, so this is outdated. Read them
in. Please."

Silver looked to Diamond for support but finding none gave up. Giving a last glance to the tables
in front of her, she began explaining from memory.

"The basic scheme is very simple. Each year we get a big fixed sum on all club and society
expenses. It is Student Council, and Student body president privilege to distribute them as they
see fit, provided Celestia and Luna don't get too many complaints. The funds are then used by
the respective clubs according to pre-submitted budgets for events, activities, equipment,
uniforms - whatever. This”, Silver waved a paper in her right hand, “is the sort of thing we report
to Celestia. Something that shows a reasonable balance of interest and academic clubs, with
academics getting at least one and a half times more funds since this is a school.”

“In reality” she pointed at another accounting sheet “the picture is entirely different. The techies
don't get the money, because they get - ahem - appropriated by Spot and his gang, in lieu of not
bullying individual students for lunch money. Punks and Comedy get almost nothing, because
they never read the budgets or complain to Principal anyway, and that money goes to buy off
Drama and Fashion, while Rockers and Athletes do get their fair share"

"Hey, wait a second!" Pinkie's eyes went wide with realization "So it was you who cut all the
funds my "Days that start with a "D" party" idea? You really [i]were[/i] evil back then!"

"....then Athletes take up the Fashion and Ecos for half of the surplus so that they don't get
beaten up in sports too hard..."
"We never did that! I would never..." Rainbow tried to object.

"Yeah, [i]you[/i] didn't. Gilda and Lightning Dust did, though. You just never noticed... or cared."
Diamond gave her one of her mother's best poisonous smiles.

"..as I was saying. The school paper gets half of what it should, and gets resupplied by using
equipment to forge permission slips and medical notes, sell fake ids, running auctions on
slander and some of the less choice material between the club presidents, as well as straight-up
blackmail. Fashion keeps overspending, so we had an agreement that Drama buys their props
and costumes off them which recoups the difference, while the tech clubs sell homework and
test answers to scramble at least something for their clubs, and we actually have a timesha.
Five percent off each deal and the overall budget gets kicked up to us, as a guarantee of deal
compliance and to make paperwork look legit for Principals, as well as fifteen percent off Spot
for cleaning money out of club budget into cash. Some of it goes to our expenses and bribes,
most goes to Sunset."

"What? I've got to eat." Sunset hid behind her drink, trying to fend off the accusing stares, "and I
[i]was[/i] evil"

"Big G got paid through Athlete and Spot's channels separately, and me and Silver took our cut
out of school paper" - Diamond expanded.

"Why in tarnation would you even do that? Yer already rich off your daddys’ allowance."

Diamond shrugged "It's the principle of the thing, really. First rule of life -- if you’re good at
something, never do it for free."

Sunset pushed down the smile of approval before anyone but her student could notice. That
was past-Sunset line of thought...even if she still thought that was true, she could appreciate
how it would be frowned upon to say those things out loud in this particular case. She cleared
her throat and tried to get back to the agenda at hand.

"So you see, if we try to straighten it up, either Spot and Dogs start hunting students for extra
cash and sport or we gotta explain to Celestia how the Crocheting Club and the Society for the
History of Golf Studies get triple budgets. School paper will go bankrupt inside a month, marks
will go down by half a grade across all of the school when students stop cheating and Fashion
will somehow have to live on about a quarter of what they do now."

"Wait, I dun get it." Applejack traced her finger through the accounting sheets. "How come you
get to mix all the budgets around, then get something out, and still get more financing for most
clubs than Celestia puts in?"
"That's the point", Sunset explained lining up the payables and receivables against each other
on the table, "We take stuff out from the club funds and then they recoup that through selling
stuff to individual students for their personal money. That way money is still there, so the
Principals don't see anything suspicious, and we bag the profits without the inefficiency of
having to shake down every separate student."

"And keeps everyone in constant need to squeeze their funding out of their neighbors.", Tiara
added, "Which keeps the cliques separated and weak."

"Grasshopper's right," Sunset confirmed, "every time they try to cook something up to get rid of
me and my cut, you just make one of the sides think that other will get better off than them and
the thing just falls apart faster than you can say ‘greedy morons’."

"I understand one's passion towards their creation as much as the next girl," Rarity gently
interjected, taking a dainty sip of tea. "But I think you are a little too enthusiastic over it than is
really healthy, darling, given the subject at hand."

If Sunset still had pony ears they would have wilted. "...Sorry. Old habits. The point is, that this
system shakes down the least powerful, favors the more influential cliques and is almost
impossible to bring down without causing a bloody revolution. Hence this war council"

“But how d’ya make people pay for stuff? It’s their personal money, and they can just choose
not to join clubs?”

“Greed, fear and provision of genuine services,” Sunset shrugged “Take the Academic
Excellence Club, as an example. Rainbow Dash here,” she pointed at the athlete, “pays her
membership fees, to essentially get her homework done for her. On paper, the club is free, so
we then redistribute the money as much as we want, either to hide theft from other clubs or I
just pocket it. The nerds then do her homework either because they’re afraid of Spot and his
brothers paying him a visit or because if they don’t - they get kicked out of the club, and club
gives them a nice line in the university application as well as access to past papers and answer
sheets for math competitions, university entrance exams and all sorts of stuff. Finally, I get to
report to Mr. Time Turner and Mr. Doodle that through my club students raise their grade
average by quarter of a point, which makes me in their eyes a model student and gets me all
sorts of leeway I can use. Everybody wins.”

“Except it’s cheatin’!” Applejack’s eyes nailed the cyan girl “Rainbow Dash, you should be
ashamed of yourself.”

“Oh come on.” RD rolled her eyes “It was mid-playoffs, I did not have time for some dumb
geography homework. And I thought the eggheads liked doing homework. I didn’t know they
were made to do it.”
BITS AND PIECES

Tiara’s abandonment issues with her father, that she projected now on Sunset. She needed to
know that her idol and mentor was still worth her pedestal, that she still was the faithful student
to the queen of the school.

[i]Build her up. Assure the kid that she’s still my number one assistant, a vital part of the team...
[/i]

Silver’s self-esteem problems of a nerd and second-generation minion - made her defensive,
her ego hypersensitive to any slight.

[i]Tell her she is valued, apologize for Snips and Snails,[color=#be4343]but just enough that the
little toadie knows her place.[/color][/i]

Gilda’s killer instinct that would prompt her to attack at any sign of weakness.
[color=#be4343][i]Now they’ve opened up, so tear them down, hard. Make them hurt for daring
to oppose you, show them your power to hurt them…[/color][/i]

She stumbled mid-sentence, as the last thought somehow seemed...wrong. Her every instinct
screamed at her to hurt the girls. That was the tactically correct decision - an abject lesson for
getting too uppity for the kids, a demonstration of strength for Gilda, a welcome outlet for the
frustrations of the day. But even as the perfect words formed in her mind, something has held
her back.

“You shoulda brought me in when crap hit the fan.” - Gilda’s dismissive tone smashed the
perfect rhythm of Sunset’s speech to bits “Instead of spouting excuses, like you do now. We
coulda dealt with that Sporkle same way we did with Derpy”

And just like that the momentum was lost, and the magic she has almost managed to weave
started to fall apart.

“Why would you keep a secret from me? Don’t you trust us?” Diamond spoke over her friend
“You don’t have to treat us like babies!”

***

“And did Twilight also tell you it’s ok to hurt other students, I wonder?” Stark and clear, Rarity’s
voice easily cut over whatever Sunset wanted to reply, as she came up to Raindrops. “Because
then, I believe I missed that part of her speech.”

***

“Oh no, I scored. Twice” Sunset smirked.

“That’s because she cheated” Rainbow explained, causing absolutely no objections from
Sunset’s side. “Even if she’d won I’d never have supported her”

“See, Sunset?” Twilight chimed excitedly “You can never truly win by cheating!”
Sunset scoffed.

“I won either way. If I’d scored the third time, then RD woulda have to go back on her word, her
credibility suffering and driving a further wedge between her and Apples - AJ, and, more
important at the time Mac.

“As it was -- I happened to lose. So I went back to the student council and told them that
Rainbow Dash is a brain-dead jock who only cares about football. That I tried my best, despite
her clearly dumb and unreasonable demands we could not even talk and that we should be
dealing with Lightning Dust instead.” She gave Rainbow a sideways glance, “Erm, no offence.”

“You just have all the angles covered, don’t you?” Rainbow Dash grumbled.

“That’s the first rule: ‘Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go
to war and only then seek to win’.” She shrugged, “I won before I stepped onto the field, one
way or the other.”

FIRST RULES

“What is the first rule, Grasshopper”

“Determine goals, formulate a plan, act.” Diamond reported back instantly.

“Atta girl.”

***

“The First Rule, Grasshopper is to draw wisdom from many sources. If you take it from only one
place it becomes rigid and stale. Besides you cannot trust any one person, because willingly or
not, everyone lies. So go out, learn all you can and become better. Got it?”

***

“What’s the first rule, padawan?”

“Err… when you don’t know what to do -- move forward?” Diamond ventured a guess.

“Good try, but no. First rule is “know when to cut your losses,” Sunset raised her finger for
emphasis, “and that is exactly what we’re going to do.”

***

“What’s the rule, kid?”

Diamond shrugged, entirely at a loss “Never fight a land war in Assia?”

“Hah!”

***
“I thought that the first rule is to be prepared?”

“Tiara?” Sunset let her student take this one

“The numbering of the rules depends on the context!” the pink girl reported gleefully.

“That’s so inconsistent! How do you even make a list… just… ugh.” Twilight growled, rubbing
her temples.

“Life’s messy, little princess”, Sunset said, suddenly wistful. “Can’t always fit it in a neat list.”

***

“Alright ladies, we are now operating under the mayhem rules” Sunset cut off all the questions
with a decidedly Adagioesque wave of her hand.

“What does that even mean?” Celestia asked, lost.

“The first rule of Project Mayhem is you do not ask questions!” both girls said with perfect
synchronicity before bursting into a fit of giggles.

“Very good. Nice synchronous speaking too.” She turned back to the Principal, “Synchronicity -
very important in good minions”
MOMMA’S BOY

"And maybe I go visit your Momma. Maybe I tell Ma Bark that her boys been chasing outsider
girls and shitting where they live with petty thefts again. And don't you bloody think I didn't notice
you swiping Carrot's phone yesterday. "

Spot paled and gulped nervously. "Now, c'mon there, Shimmer, ain't no need for the nukular
option. I'm just sayin', we and the boys here, we concerned, right? We thinkin’, maybe..."

"Don't think Spot, you’ll just strain something. Thinking’s my job. You'll get your money. And Sun
above, just give the girl her damned phone back. Don’t be such a cheap bastard."

LESSONS

"All right, let's hear them. Diamond, you go first."

Sunset clapped her hands in anticipation, as the girls fidgeted in their seats, preparing for their
weekly lesson.

"OK, sure." Tiara frowned in concentration.

"Chil kiddo, just close your eyes and remember. Ten words, easy-peasy, right?"

Diamond closed her eyes and relaxed. She breathed slowly, and a few seconds later she
started to recite from memory: "Ladder, gown, knife, flag, forest, anchor, book, guitar… abacus
and, and… and a lighter"

"Got it in one, good job. Silver, you're up, you got fifteen."

That one did not go as well - grey girl did remember thirteenth, and fourteenth with some
prompting, but completely lost the "carpet" in the end.

"Well, not bad, either way. Remember girls, good memory is not a talent, it's a skill. It requires
training and exercise. Diamond, ready to try with fifteen? Might catch up to Silver this time."

A nod teetered the tiara on Diamond's head, and Sunset started the exercise, this time doing it
herself as well.

She closed her eyes and opened the doors that were always present in her mind, to enter the
Canterlot Castle.

She trotted again along its marble floors, her hooves clicking again the cold stone and breathed
the clean and sweet mountain air. The bittersweet memories of her adolescence assaulted her
from every corner, but she ignored them. She wasn’t here to reminisce, but for a specific
purpose - she simply wanted to keep something she did not want lost.
By the door she imagined a bow-pony, aiming a longbow at those who would enter, and
ignoring his frozen figure, she proceeded down the corridor.
A pack of Timberwolves eyed her hungrily, as she walked, and she threw them a big white
bone. In the throne room, a fire was burning, while the noble guests were frozen in mid-
pirouette. Zig-zagging between them, she made her way to the throne, leaving smudges of
black paint on the white marble floor. On the throne, she placed a White Queen made of ivory
and gold, which was probably cheating a bit.

She kept going on through the rooms, scattering thirty random items - fifteen per each student,
adding them to other items, facts and figures scattered across the castle that she remembered
better than the back of her hoof until each took place in their allotted corned of the memory
palace. The same way she knew Diamond has put hers in the corners of the imaginary Rich
Mansion and Silver - in the classes of the school.

Except unlike the girl’s memory locations, hers was vast and complex, enfilades and halls,
whole libraries worth of knowledge she has accumulated and chosen to save, some of it locked
even from herself until she had the need of it. Theirs were a few rooms large, if that, and vague,
barely enough mental space to store a few items… but they were getting better.

"…amber, glow stick, storm. Got it, or do you want me to go again?"

Silver repeated the last ones silently and shook her head.

"I'll remember"

"Attagirl. No writing it down, and I expect the both of you to remember all fifteen next week."

The girls did not say anything, but the eager anticipation hung in the air so thick you could cut it
with the knife, forcing Sunset to reaffirm her old promise.

“Once you get to fifty, I’ll teach you the card counting tricks, and then we can go test it out in Las
Pegasus.”

How she would be able to swing it with her rapidly dwindling funds, she had no earthly idea, but
she did promise, so there was no way out of it. She’d just have to figure something out.

She sighed and added another point to her quickly growing list of things that needed fixing.

“Now, there’s a certain matter of Maths homework I believe you owe me?”

That put a crimp in their smiles. Tiara’s mostly -- Silver seemed to enjoy her academics much
more. Now somewhat less enthusiastic, both have passed their notepads to Sunset, who
started going through the sets, checking their answers.

Something caught her eyes almost immediately into the advanced set she gave the girls.

“Diamond,” she turned to the pink girl and looked at her strictly, “did Silver help you with the
second set?”

“No, I did them all by myself.” She did not pause in her answer, and her tone was as level as
always as she continued to swing her legs carelessly without missing a beat.
“Well, at least you’ve been practicing your lying.” Sunset sighed. “Grasshopper, what did I tell
you about mathematics?”

“Mathematics is the foundation of all knowledge.” Tiara droned obediently “You cannot build
anything without a solid foundation.” She leaned back in her chair . “But it’s so boring! And
besides, how did you know I was lying?”

“I’ll tell you when you finish doing your set” Sunset gave Tiara back her textbook. “Ti, I want you
to run the Showcase raffle, and that means you need to know your basic probabilities. Do the
sets again.”

SIGNS AND PORTENTS

The new girl was trouble, Sunset decided.

It wasn't just the nascent headache and irritation at the early wake-up talking -- it was the little
things.

How she looked at other kids while Rarity introduced her to her fashion-clique. How she
dressed. How she talked about herself, dazzling the children with her stories and
experiences.The hangers-on, the sycophants, the newsmongers that all joined her entourage,
falling into step as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She looked at her phone, checking the school MyStable groups as they grew abuzz with
speculations and rumors. She'd have to do something about all that... If she weren't feeling so
sick all of a sudden.

LIES WE TELL OURSELVES

“Figures you’d like that girl. I, for one, do not ‘preciate her fanciful stories. That girl is a braggart
and a liar.”

“I don’t think she actually lies.” Sunset shrugged “More like… she is trying to become
something.”

“Huh?”

“Perception defines reality. They say it about quantum physics, but it’s really true for people.
Habit and repetition create character. Keep telling everyone how amazing and awesome you
are, and people will look at you in a different light, keep telling yourself you’re a monster -- and
one day that’s exactly what you’ll see in the mirror. ”

HARUSPICY
Anger exploded from within her like a volcano, and she let the red-hot thoughts spill from the
hidden, locked place in her mind, and peek at the world through her eyes, studying Fleur like
entomologist would study an insect.

Her gaze slid over the fear, hidden deep on the bottom of her eyes; over the almost invisible
shiver when someone accidentally touched her; homing onto the tiniest flaws of her pristine-
white, almost bleached skin, the microscopic cracks and dry cells like chinks in the otherwise
invincible armor of physical perfection.

The type of cracks that are usually caused when you use too much hard soap.

When day after day you scrub yourself over and over and over again, trying to clean away the
filth, the impurity that is now seeped deep into your very soul, poisonous and disgusting, making
you feel sticky, degraded. Feel used and discarded, just like when he petted your pretty little
head and your beautiful - dirty - pink hair, and told you that she you're a good girl, that you'd be
a star now.

“...such tiny little flaws on otherwise impeccable white skin. Such a small, small price for fame,
isn’t it?” she finished softly.

Fleur said nothing, her skin deathly pale, lips pressed into a needle thin line so hard they almost
disappeared. But the look in her eyes, burning with cold hatred was all the confirmation Sunset
needed.

STRIPPER NAME

“What’s up, Sunny?” Pinkie jumped out of somewhere to greet Sunset, and joined the group
leaving the school, “Heey, we should totally call you Sunny D! Cause you’re… well, you’re not
really a delight, but if we call you Sunny, maybe you’ll smile some more!”

Pinkie provided her an example of her own bright smile.

“Don’t call me that.” The level look Sunset gave Pinkie could murder smaller mammals, but did
not even dent party-girl’s three-hundred-megawatt grin.

“Aww, why not?”

“‘Because that’s my stripper name.”

Applejack walked into a wall.

“Pardon me, darling, your what?” Rarity was so blushed you could fry eggs on her face.

That got Sunset to smile.

“My stripper name. You know, people who work in such establishments and do not want others
to recognize them outside of their job, they, on occasion, employ aliases in order to
compartmentalize their life and work environments.”

“I know what a ‘stripper name’ is, thank you very much.” Rarity waved in annoyance “I was just
wondering why you would need one.”

“Yeah, did you work as a stripper or something?” Rainbow paused her laughing just long
enough to dodge a whack from AJ. “Hey, don’t hit!”

“Well…” Sunset let the silence drag for a bit, enjoying the rapt attention of her audience, “No.”

Whether others were disappointed or relieved was a toss-up.

“Not that I didn’t consider it, mind. Easy work, pay under the table, night hours - it’d be perfect”

Pinkie threw her hands up her hands in exasperation “I know, right!?”

Everybody froze while their minds reeled at the comment, but no one dared to ask any
questions.

Sunset cleared her throat.

“...but it’s just not possible if you're underage. No one wants to take on that heat, and those who
do I would not touch with a ten-foot pole.”

“So why the stripper name?” Applejack asked suspiciously. “It’s just another tall tale, ain’t it?”

“No, I did work for a stripper bar - as accountant. It was one of Flim-Flam harebrained schemes,
so I was there cooking books for a few nights per month. Met some interesting people.”

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

The silence stretched like chewing gum, as Sunset eyed the striped counselor warily and sipped
her tea. It was kinda like detention, except that she was alone here, and doing her homework
would have been rude.

The Zebrician masks looked at her judgmentally from the walls of the school counselor's walls,
as inscrutable and silent as the counsellor herself

[i]Is that the best you got?[/i]

Zecora silently nudged the sugar bowl towards her, and Sunset nodded in gratitude.

It was a game of dominance - who would give up under the weight of the oppressive silence that
filled the room, and start talking if only to break it.

Counsellor smiled and relaxed in her chair. Her hands lay on the armrests palms up, a slight
turn of her head inviting Sunset to talk.
She responded by crossing her legs and slowly mixing sugar in her tea. Crossed legs, closed
hands - position of negation, . Direct eye contact underlined the challenge to the counsellor.

[i]I can do this all day.[/i]

Zecora’s smile grew wider.

Her long finger with a grey-coloured fingernail started tick-tocking against the wooden armrest.

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

The sound echoed across the silent room in toon with the ticking of the clock, making Sunset
acutely aware of each improbably long second until she could escape this room, each click like
a drop of water in a qilinese torture.

Sunset raised her eyebrow, and concentrated on her lesson plan with Diamond later this day,
zoning out the annoying sound by an effort of mental discipline.

Click.

Another minute ticked by.

Clack.

And then another.

Zecora’s gaze swept around the room, tricking Sunset into looking at various conversation
pieces scattered around the room. She was sure that, were she to ask about the story behind
the purple porcupine in a pink tutu that adorned the mantelpiece, Zecora would gladly tell a
most fascinating tale.

She didn’t ask. Instead, she only smiled and nodded a bit, pouring herself a second cup of tea,
and gestured to refill Zecora’s

Another handful of seconds was swallowed by the deafening silence, broken only by the soft
murmur of water pouring into the cup.

Zecora’s smile became a little bit strained.

Sunset’s grew wider.

Finally, the counsellor gave up. Her rich, low laughter broke the silence into a million little
pieces.

“You’re good, Ms Shimmer, there’s no dissent. To thee I yield my free consent.”

Her voice was deep, with a sing-song Zebrahi accent that made everything she said seem
almost like poetry.

Sunset bared her teeth in a vicious smile. Her voice caught the first time she tried to talk - her
throat dry of the prolonged forced silence, despite all the tea she drank.
“You make amazing tea, Ms Zecora. ” She illustrated the point by taking another sip.
A quick look at the clock confirmed her suspicion. It was exactly fifteen minutes into the
meeting, which meant that Zecora did not just give up their little game, merely moved to part
two.

[i]’I yield to thee’ my cutie-markless butt. Celestia sure knows how to pick them.[/i]

And now, apparently, they would be an exchange of meaningless pleasantries. Another form of
silence, just disguised as a conversation, aimed to keep the other party talking until one of them
inadvertently let something slip.

She almost frowned, before she managed to stop herself and return to the blank half-smile she
maintained.

Those were some very specific negotiation tactics, not something one would pick up from a
book or a university course. Perhaps it would be better for her to have pretended that she was
one of the stock of troubled little girls that acted out because their rich mommies didn’t get them
a new toy or something, instead of tipping her hand as she did.
Pride does come before the fall, apparently.

The grip of her fingers on the teacup strengthened imperceptibly, instead of her fingers running
across her shoulder. This, perhaps, was no longer a game, it was now a battle.

“Thank you. It’s an old Zebrician brew. But you’re not here for tea, are you?”

“I don’t know”. Sunset reinforced her words with a little shrug, and decided to push the situation
forward. “Why [i]am[/i] I here?”

She touched one of the pieces on the chessboard to her side, half-turned away from the
counsellor. It was cold and heavy -- a tell-tale sign of real ivory, with yellowish tint betraying its
age.

“Another thing from back home?” She ventured a guess

“Yes, it is, among some other things. Do you play this game of kings?”

“I know the rules,” Sunset placed the King’s pawn carefully in the centre of the board.

“Perhaps you wish to give this game a try? Move my King’s pawn to E-five.”

Sunset placed the black pawn towards her own and moved her knight to attack it. The game
was on.

Silence reigned in the room again, only to be broken by the clacking of the figures across the
board and the commands, and the occasional comment from Zecora.

“You’re not afraid to make a sacrifice. You know that to success there is a price”, Zecora’s pawn
ignored the seemingly vulnerable knight that Sunset pushed forward.
“You are direct, even when using guile.” Her pawns started their march forward, depriving
Sunset of place to manoeuvre. “That makes your position quite fragile.”

Sunset gritted her teeth and made a play for the centre, her figures focusing a single square on
the board.

“But you overextend yourself and forget about the flanks.” Zecora’s knight took a pawn in the
back, and suddenly the previously impervious chain of white pawns became a crowd of easy
pickings, only standing in the way of her other forces. A small growl of frustration at this setback
escaped Sunset’s throat. “That’s where you’re open for attacks.”

Sunset glowered at the counselor and upped her attack plans.

“You react to fear with more hate. That, in a child’s a rare trait.”

Clashes in the center became more aggressive, as Sunset tried to milk her position for all she
could before it fell apart. Pawns and figures captured each other in a frenzy of pretend-
slaughter.

“But anger leads to your mistakes. You know it even as you raise the stakes.” Her chain of
defenders in tatters, Sunset’s last forces rallied around the king in a desperate attempt to stop
the black pawn from reaching the final row.

“Because attacking that which you can beat, does not always lead to enemy’s defeat.”

A traitorous black knight slipped past her defenders and Sunset found her pinned king under
attack, with nowhere to go.

She sighed and tipped the figure over, signalling her surrender.

“You’re good at this.” That much she had to admit. She was silent during most of the match, and
motionless save when she moved the figurines, so to take her apart so thoroughly on the board
and outside of it...the zebrican had some skill. “And Celestia trusts you, doesn’t she?”

She had to, if she sent Sunset here. Zecora merely nodded, waiting for the girl to finish her train
of thought.

Sunset leaned back in her armchair. “I am a ma… a woman enough to admit that I may
have...some issues. And I could probably use some help with them.” She gave Zecora a
suspicious glare. “But there will be things of which I will absolutely not speak of. And nothing
said here leaves this room.”

“Your condition is expected. With no reservations I accept it.”

ENDING IT ALL

“So what are you going to do now, darling? I mean, now that’s ‘ruling the world with evil magic’
is off the table.”
Sunset shrugged helplessly. “Not sure actually. I was so into the whole “steal the magic crown”
plan, I hardly thought of Plan B. You know, I actually thought of just ending it all.” She waved
her hand around to indicate the “it all” she meant.

Rarity gasped silently. “Surely you would do no such thing!”

“Oh, that’s… that’s some bad word choice there.” Sunset smiled sheepishly, “I meant the
school. Finish my exams early, get legally emancipated, get a job for the rest of the year, then
go to uni next autumn.”

She slammed the locker shut, double-checking the locks, while Rarity waited patiently for her.

“You know, forget Equestria, and all that. Get my feet on the ground, get my life on its track.”

“And then?” Rarity prompted her gently.

“Dunno. Probably go work for Barnyard Bargains. With my skills, the work I already did there,
and being tight with Di, I guess I could make it to the Division Head by thirty. Not quite ‘Tyrant
Queen of two worlds’, but a sweet gig nonetheless, all things considered”.

“You wouldn’t want to go...back? From what Twilight said, I’m sure...”

“No.”

“But..”

“I. Am. [i]Not[/i]. Going. Back. To [i]Her[/i].” Sunset said, looking Rarity straight in her eyes, her
voice low and hard. “If this world burns and earth turns to fire under my feet, if all food be poison
and all water - acid, if every breath would be filled with razors and broken glass it would still be
better than going back.” She picked up her bag, and patted her pockets for her pens. “And I
would appreciate if we never talk of this again”.

INTERMISSION - LETTERS

“My faithful student, wherever you are now…”

It hurt.

“Sunset, please come back...”

It hurt so bad.

“Sunset it’s been a year now. Please answer me…”

She’d rather cut off her arm and rip her eyes out than read this flowing copperplate script.
“...just want to know that you’re alive...”

Anything not to feel that clawing pain in her chest.

“...your mother keeps asking for you…”

Dozens of pages, row upon row of perfect calligraphy.

“...I still hope that you will one day read this…”

Pages blurred together, and something stung her eyes.

And then it went blank. Somehow it was even worse than all of the rest combined, and Sunset
thought that for a second her heart stopped beating with a final full stop of the writing.

She touched her left shoulder.

‫ ُكـل شـمـس يـجب أن تـغـيـب‬. Everything ends.

But it was important to end things properly. She owed Celestia much more than just that.

A quill she prepared tickled her palm, and she tried to shake off the big drop of ink at its end. It’s
been a long time since she wrote with proper instruments...

[quote]
Dear Princess Celestia,

I am sorry. For the lies. For the secrets. For letting you down as your student, and for straying
off the path you chose for me as I did. I am sorry for the things I’ve done that hurt you, for the
things I’ve said that I shouldn’t have and the things I have not said when I should have.

I don’t ask for your forgiveness - I do not deserve it. I do want to say that I will forever be
grateful for the things you taught the little filly you once took as a student, and that all I ever truly
wanted was to make you proud. Even if a way I chose to do it was wrong, and only made me
hurt you more.

I see some of my error, but I have strayed too far from home and the way you have taught me to
return to you or to Equestria. I am my own mare now, and I can’t be your student any longer
even if you have not discharged me already. Any obligation or duty you may still feel towards
me I have long since rendered void by my own actions.

Please let my mother and my father know that I am alive and that I am doing fine, but that I will
not be coming back to them, probably ever again.
No longer your student
Sunset Shimmer
[/quote]

She set aside the crude quill she had to make herself, and considered her writing. How and
when did she become so confused, that even when trying to express her real feelings, for the
first time in so many years, she still used the same manipulative lines? Reminding the person of
the bond you shared to gain their empathy. Discharging herself before she would surely be
disavowed anyways to maintain her pointless dignity, using the momentum to ask for a favor
that she has never deserved… simple, efficient tricks - an instrument she became so used to
she could no longer set it aside even when she wanted to.

Nothing could really be done now - the journal had no “Edit” button, and even if she were to rip
out the page, it would still be preserved in the other journal.

The second letter was easier than the first one. The dry, formulaic language of the Court left
little place for feelings and manipulations. Merely facts and statements and an occasional rote
line that was demanded by the protocol. It mattered little that the facts and the statements were
-- quite literally -- signing her own sentence without even knowing what the verdict may be.

[quote]
To Her Majesty Celestia, by Victory over Chaos, forever the Princess of Equestria and her other
Realms and Territories, Duchess of Canterlot, Marchessa of Ponyville, Baroness of Winsome
Falls, Protector of the Everfree Forest, Lady of the Sun.

While it sorrows me beyond words, I believe it my duty to fully relinquish and release every post,
title and privilege you have in your magnanimity have chosen to gift to your student, void any
bond or obligation you may feel towards me and ask for your leave.

Moreover, for all accounts of my crimes, namely: High Treason, Attempted Murder, Use of Black
Magic in the Highest Degree, numerous counts of Deadly Assault with Magic, Theft and
Desertion, I fully admit my guilt and offer no extenuating circumstances that may alleviate it.

To whatever punishment or court Your Majesty may wish to impose for those and prior crimes I
have committed, I will submit myself freely and without coercion or protest as soon as the portal
allows me to arrive to Equestria upon reception of Your summons.

Your subject
Sunset Shimmer
[/quote]

Perhaps she won’t read it. It could happen, right? She did not write in the journal for so long…
she even forgot the thing existed, for some time. Surely Celestia did the same. Just threw it out
with yesterday’s trash just like her other things when she ordered some maid to clean out
Sunset’s room and make place for Twilight Sparkle.
She didn’t really want to believe it though, and dozens of pages of her writing in the diary were
the evidence to the contrary.

Either way, she did her duty. She stretched, tip of head to ends of her toes, and closed the
diary.

For now she still had at least one more war to win.

GETTING A LEAD

"Next stage is destruction," Sunset said to no one in particular, slowly swirling her spoon in the
coffee. "Quilineze have once said: 'shā yī jǐng bǎi': ‘to admonish one is to warn a hundred’.
There will be a demonstration of strength, a show of power and thus, just as silver has been
shown, the lead will now be revealed."

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

"Those shoes..." Rarity said. "She’s wearing the wrong shoes."

All of them stared at the shoes. Whatever was wrong with them it must have been really subtle,
because to the laygirls’ eyes they looked -- as everything that Fleur wore -- immaculate. The
high heel that made her seem taller and even more slender, the straps that hugged her ankle in
a way that made any man in the room wish they could do the same, the blinding shine of white
faux-leather that was the pinnacle of luxury with just a pinch of showing their owner as
thoughtful and caring.

"Way too frou-frou." Rainbow Dash declared, but even her voice betrayed at least a bit of envy.
"I thought you liked that stuff?"

"Why, that's just it -- they’re too good. This is not a pair a lady wears for herself or to catch
someone’s eye. This is something you'd wear to show off, to destroy any other women... in ...
the... room..." Rarity trailed off, embarrassed by what she said.

Sunset regarded Rarity carefully as if seeing her for the first time. "You and I," she finally said
with grave resolve, "we have to go shopping together some time."

THE (S)EX

She bashed against the door, once, and twice, and again, until her shoulder blazed with pain,
but it only provoked more laughter from inside. A first ring of the bell ripped her out of her fugue,
and she looked around trying to get her breathing back under control, covering herself
instinctively.
Students would be out any minute now. And they’d see her, in nothing but her panties and a
broken bra.

She forced herself to drop her hands and breathe.They wanted her humiliated, panicked. She
would not give them the satisfaction.

The classroom doors opened, and the first students walked out of their classrooms filling out the
halls. Last moments of her invisibility were fading into nothing, and any moment now someone
would shout and point and then they would be upon her.

She preempted the inevitable. She took a breath, dropping her hands and letting the broken
brasserie fall on the ground, and stepped out into the hallway, not even trying to cover up.

Heads turned, and the busyness of the school corridor turned into an abrupt, shocked silence.
She could feel the sticky gazes of every guy in the hall - curious, lusty, sleazy, scared even.
Girls too - less sleazy, more confused.

Let them watch. She owned their attention, as she walked towards her ex, making a point of not
looking hasty, adding an occasional swing of the hips. Confident and unashamed, calm and
collected.

“Oi, Flash!” she shouted casually, spotting the familiar mop of overcoiffed blue hair further down
the corridor. “I need a hand.”

He stared. At her face, not her… everything else, his brain trying to process the situation.

“I seem to have been locked out of the changing room. Mind lending me your coat?”

It was almost painful to watch thoughts trying to make it through his head. Still, without the aid of
any higher mental faculties, for which he was clearly incapable at the moment, he dropped his
leather jacket off his back and covered her up.

It was not very comfy -- the leather chafed and felt cold against the naked skin, but it was big
enough to cover her from shoulders to almost mid-thigh.

“Walk with me?” She asked, grabbing him by the elbow. “I think there are some spare outfits in
the Carousel Club.”

...

“I hope this is not some stupid way to get us back together, to boost your popularity or
something,” Flash muttered sourly, as they pushed their way through the buzzing crowd. “I am
not getting used like this. Not again.”
“It’s not.” She sighed. “Look, about last time -- I was in a bad place. Angry. Jealous. All-around
nasty. But I’m getting better now. I think I want to do better. So no more pullings strings for me -
not on you at least. Promise.”

"I wish I could believe that"

"I swear to you Flash Sentry," she grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face her "by all that I
once held dear - I will never lie to you ever again."

Slowly, he nodded.

“You broke my heart, you know.”

“I’m sorry...” she sighed at the helplessness of her voice, “Not for breaking up, but for the way it
happened - and for leading you on so long. You’re a really nice guy, it’s just that I don’t do
“nice”.

He grinned - a sad sort of grin, that didn’t touch his eyes.

“Or ‘guys’, am I right?”

“What?” she snapped up, surprised. “You think that just because I broke up with you I must be
into girls?”

“Come on, Sunset, I’ve seen you check out Paisley. And Coco. And that fashion girl you spend
your time with these days. I may be not as sharp as you, but I’m not really stupid. I don’t know
why you did what you did, and what you were trying to prove, but I know you didn’t love me.”

“I am so totally into guys!”, she insisted out of sheer contrariness, “I mean, yes, I prefer girls, but
I meant what I said when I made that offer before we broke up. I don’t love you - you’re not my
type; but you’re cute, and a girl has her needs.”

***

“Nope, nope, nope…” they were all so... frilly. She wanted something a bit more practical, not
something that would attract more attention. For a moment, she considered a tomboyish small
jeans-and shirt number, and decided against it with another “nope”.

The boy snuck a look at her, and blushed instantly, she noticed with the corner of her eye. Silly
boy .

She turned and looked at him openly, taking him in again. Without the protection of his coat, he
looked smaller. Not muscled - a slender, asthenic build, with narrow shoulders and thin arms,
enhanced by the awkward coltishness of a teenager not quite finished with his growth spurt, but
still wiry and sinewy - more of a swimmer’s physique, a good shape not born of hard work, but
simple metabolism of youth and a lucky draw in the genetic lottery.

Not her usual style, she affirmed, but still decidedly cute.

“I do regret saying no, sometimes.” He looked away as he admitted it.

“My offer still stands,” she said simply, letting Flash’s coat slip off, and dropping her hands,
“even if the other things I said that night were not really true”

He wanted it. Badly. She could see his knuckles grow white, his nails digging into the palm of
his hand as he so very desperately tried not to look.

“I don’t want your pity,” he tried to say. “Or whatever weird idea of gratitude…”

Silly, silly boy. Making it so complicated when there was no need for it. She moved closer,
almost close enough for her skin to touch his, and tried to make it easier for him.

“It’s not that. You don’t give yourself credit, Flash Sentry. You’re handsome, brave and, on
occasion, funny. I offer freely, for no reason except that I want it too”

She waited for his answer, watching the storm of emotions evident on the boy’s face with
fascination.

Fear. Lust -- the screaming, hot desire, so bright and pure she could almost feel its heat with her
skin. Then the social conditioning piled on top of the primitive reptile part of the brain: things he
thought of himself, and what he wanted others to think of him, what others told him to think of
himself and what he’d tell others to make them think something of him, a chaotic symphony of
wants and don’ts, self-perceptions and self-deceptions, tangled and contradictory waging a
battle within him. And finally, there came the resolve, washing over all of it like a wave, and in a
fierce, last-ditch fight against himself, he had finally won - or maybe lost.

“No.” he said coming to a decision, his jaw tense and set. “You said it yourself - you don’t love
me. And I don’t want it to be… like this. Laugh at me again if you want.”

She shook her head slowly. “I won’t. The things I said to you back then - I never thought that. I
was just angry.” She shrugged sheepishly, “Apparently I don’t handle rejection well.”

“Who would have thunk it.”

Sunset ignored the sarcasm and another shadow of a grin. She was trying to apologize.
“Either way - to choose dream over desire is an act worthy of respect. I can appreciate that.
Friends?”

“Friends”

She stood up on her tiptoes and brushed Flash’s cheek with her lips - a short, chaste peck and
a sisterly hug… well, except for one thing.

“That’s not a roll of quarters in your pocket, is it?” she snickered, causing Flash to blush so hard
it made her wonder how he had blood enough for it.

“Erm…”

She released him from the embrace. “I should probably get dressed”

“That would be good” he nodded, turning away.

“Sunset,” he called out to her as she was about to leave, “I don’t remember much of Fall Formal,
but I remember seeing you. You’re not human, are you?”

“I… of course I am! That’s a silly…” she stopped, door half-open. “Ice and Nightmares, I
promised not to lie to you didn’t I?” she chewed her lip for a moment, “No. I’m not. Not really.”

“I thought so,” he nodded. "It doesn't make any real difference to me, but I thought it might to
you -- you know, to know that someone knows you are different and doesn't care."

[i]Silly boy[/i]

“Thank you, Flash.”

INTERMISSION II: ORANGE

The orange sky beat down on the orange sand mercilessly, covering the desert and the oasis in
a wavering haze of immense heat. An orange little filly climbed out of the pool, slipping over the
copper-gilded rim, and shook violently, spraying droplets of water in every direction, making the
older mare snort and cover her muzzle with her wide white wings.

"The storm is coming, my little sun." She said, looking at the horizon, where orange-tinted
clouds covered the horizon in whirlwinds of sand and dust. The corners of her eyes under the
nebulous rainbow-colored mane wrinkled in the most delightful way, when she tried to gauge
the distance to the storm. "It'll be here soon."
"We should get inside." She grabbed the towel the older mare levitated and dried herself up.

She pulled playfully on the older mare's tail, trying to drag her larger frame towards the house.
Instead the mare twisted round, and snatched the little filly, squealing with the unexpected
traitorous attack, and brought her into the hug of her feathery wings, holding her close to her
body.

"You can stop the storm, my little sun. You know the words"

"But I'm tired! And I want more wine!" She mock-whined.

***

"But what of those who have no cover from the storm and no magic to disperse it?"

***

She concentrated on the center of her head, the point just behind the horn where her magic
resided, and moved her neck, guiding her magic through precise, sharp cuts, leaving a trail of
green script hanging in the air, as her lips moved, summoning the secret name, and the wind
around her rose, screaming with power

She woke.

WHAT TRIXIE WANTS

“And they say that Sunset Shimmer hates to be in someone’s debt,” Trixie almost purred with
smug anticipation.

“That’s true.” Sunset grumbled.

“And you owe Trixie a favor now,” Trixie continued

Sunset nodded.

“A big favor.”

Another reluctant nod

“A very, very big favor.”

Sunset ground her teeth. An expression becoming all too common in these frustration-filled
days. She needed a better dental plan - the one she used to have did not cover this world.

“Don’t push it, Trixie”.

“Well, Trixie wants something from you now”. Sunset’s retort did not even slow the girl down, as
she stalked around, like a shark circling the prey. “Something that is very precious to you.
Something that you’ve worked very hard to conceal. Something when gone, you will never be
able to regain. Something that would shatter your social position if anyone ever knew…”

“What is it, Trixie?” Sunset who was quickly losing her patience with the drama, cut off the
gloating magician.

“Trixie will tell in due time,” she giggled smugly, “And for now Trixie will hold on to this book.”
with a flick of her wrist and a giant puff of smoke she disappeared.

“Oh my goodness! She’s GONE!” Pinkie Pie gasped dramatically, appearing out of nowhere.
“Oh, wait, there she is.” she pointed at scowling Trixie almost hidden behind the classroom
door. “Nevermind.”

CONFESSING IN TONGUES
“You took the notes I keep, I know it’s true. Though I cannot quite prove that it was you.

Sunset spread her arms, both admitting and denying nothing.

“Still, I write my notes in Zebrahi code. There’s no use in stealing them from my abode.”

Sunset sighed and gave counsellor a guilty look.

“You read Zebrahi? Consider my curiosity peaked.” somehow Zecora did not look too surprised
“How many other languages can you also speak?”

“Not many.” Sunset shrugged. “I know a few academic languages - Minotoan Linear, old
Roaman, enough of wenyakwen to get by. I studied Zebrahi ambassadorial and secret script,
but I would not be able to speak them confidently. Then - some bits of pieces you just sort of
tend to pick up: I speak passable Arabian and Griffinspanian, I know some Hind dialects, I
rocker Roarmany. And then I can fake my way around Prench, plus I know about a dozen ways
to insult your mother, three poems, and one really good drinking toast in Urusian.

IGNITION

Poppies on the nightstand. She didn’t want to open her eyes, but she could smell the
saccharine-sweet smell of them. Black poppies and red mandrake, a thought floated up her
mind - a spell, a potion, a ritual from a world and lifetime ago...

"Concentrate, little princess." The green mare hit her across the face: a thunderous slap that
made the black-and-purple shadows boil up in her vision. “This is not a toy for the children or
the restless," she continued calmly, watching her stand back up. “This is a secret thing, taught
only to the driven. The focus of your life is the focus of the spell. Do it again."
…

Black poppies and red mandrake, the sweet smell of it carried her away, to recall pain, to
remember fear.

"You know what to do pumpkin. You have the means, you have the power, you know the
method. Why do you fight yourself?"

There was tired patience in her voice when the mare coiled round Sunset, cradling her like a
foal. Tired patience was good. It was safe. She never showed emotion when she was about to
start the beatings again.

"It didn't..." She tried to wet her lips with the tongue, and her throat dry-spasmed trying to gulp.
"It didn't work. I need to do better. Be better."

“There are rules to the world little princess. Old as the earth and true as the sky. No matter what
you do.”

“I’m so confused. I don’t know anything anymore.”

"Drink." She set a cup in front of her, heavy gold and heavy bronze. "It'll make you feel better.
It’ll make you remember."

There was no water in the cup. It was flames, red and thick like blood, smelling of sulfur and
brimstone. She hesitated, fear and alien, princessy thoughts stopping her hoof.

"Drink!" she reached for the cup...

"Sunset," a warm hand -- not hoof -- pulled on her shoulder, ripping her out of the nightmare.
Flash Sentry looked at her with gentle concern. "Do you want a drink? Nurse said you need
water."

“What? I don’t want to..”

“Drink!” who said that - the green mare with a raven black mane? A silly boy by her side? She
had to decide.

She grabbed it - the golden goblet full of crimson flame, and drank, forcing herself to swallow
the liquid.

She threw up before she got to the middle of the glass. A spasm rolled through her body like a
wave, threatening to twist her stomach inside out, and even after she was sure she had nothing
in her, she was still sick, dry heaving with body-wracking convulsions, sickly green stuff with
ugly, prismatic, kerosine-like sheen spilling all over the floor.
THE FIX

“Dislocated,” Gilda concluded after a short inspection “Want me to pop it in?”

Sunset glared daggers at her. “No, I want to wait for the bloody paramedics.” Sarcasm was
nearly dripping from every word. “I need my arm back.”

“Gonna hurt,” Gilda warned. “On three.”

She grabbed Sunset by the forearm and the wrist.

“One. Two--” She pulled and pushed in a single slow-but-steady motion. Something twisted and
rolled underneath the orange skin, and Sunset swallowed her scream.

“...Three.”

“Ice and Nightmares, Gilda, you total git, I knew you’d do that.”

“Sure you did, Shimmer. Sure you did.”

Sunset stood up unsteadily to her feet, testing out the joint.

“Sun above, it’s been a bloody while since I had to do that. Now!” her hand snaked somewhere
in between the dresses and fabrics and produced a camera, ejecting a USB stick from it. She
promptly threw it to Gilda. “Get it to the kids. They know what to do”

The bigger girl nodded and disappeared. The room grew silent, only Rarity’s quiet, sobbing
breaths breaking the silence. Sunset waited for a while, before broaching quietly.

“Rarity, I need make up. I’ll have to make an appearance, and I need to look normal.”

Rarity stood up, her eyes still unfocused, and fumbled for her make up.

“You knew,” she said, “you knew it would happen. That’s why you had a camera here.”

Sunset shrugged. “I tried to warn you.”

The familiar box popped open and Rarity tried to grip a pencil. Her hand trembled and shook too
much, and Sunset covered her pale hand with hers.

“You used me as bait.” Rarity said, still avoiding Sunset’s eyes.

“Didn’t I tell you, Rarity?” She asked, quiet but forceful. “I am a monster. But I am also on your
side.”

Somehow that calmed her down. Her fingers, long and slender, finally found their dexterity and
the pencil danced in her hand.

It was time to put the game face on.

ENTERTAIN US

Silence was short lived, cut into thin slices by the slow, distinct clapping in the back of the room.

Clap.

Heads turned towards the back of the scene.

Clap.

Sunset smiled, and her smile made the closest children step back.

Clap.

“Are you not entertained? Wasn’t that fun?” her voice carried easily over the small school hall.
“You pathetic little sheep. The moment you think you get freedom, you run towards another
shephard, another strong hand that will lead you merrily to the slaughter. A friggin Princess
comes from up on high to save you, and that is the best you can muster? You revolt me, you
disgusting little pieces of slime.“

“I resign and I forfeit the vote - whatever. I wouldn’t rule over this herd if you begged me to.”

EPILOGUE: RETURNING TO (SIXTH) FORM

“What was the point of that sordid spectacle, if I must ask?”

Sunset shrugged, deflecting the question. Rarity’s disapproving gaze made her uncomfortable.

“You keep telling me how I should be honest, and have fun. That was me being honest. And
having fun.”

“But ye’r still out of Student Body President. Ain’t no way no how, you’d get elected now.”

“Oh I’ll win.” Sunset occupied herself with food, “As I said, I need to run things to fix this school.
At least for a while longer.”

“How’d’ja reckon?”

“Gilda calls it falling to form, I think. If a fighter trains wrong, or has a bad habit, once he gets
tired or groggy from the punch and doesn’t have any strength left to control himself consciously,
he returns to what his reflexes tell him to do - even if it’s a mistake.
“Fleur and I systematically eliminated and discredited anyone else who was willing and capable
of filling our positions. So now that I punched them in the face and made them reel, without any
other real options they will turn to what is familiar. Which is me.”

***

“Hah! Roseluck was elected. Seems your strategizin’ was a bit too clever by half.”

Sunset sighed and pushed the red king, dropping it. The game, even she had to admit, was
hopelessly lost. Her tone, however, was far from defeated. “Wait for it.”

She ate her apple in silence, crunching carrying over the table as they waited for whatever “it”
was.

Roseluck came up to the table, and coughed softly, attracting attention.

“Uhm, Sunset, can I talk to you, please?”

“What is it, Rosey?” Sunset seemed awfully interested in her apple, even going as far as to bite
it with another deliberate loud crunch. Somehow that made her look even more smug and self-
centered.

“Well uhm, I know you said those things, and that you don’t want to do any more administration
stuff, but… I wondered, if, erm, as a previous Student Body President, you could, erm, help me
out?”

“Hmm.” Sunset pondered the question carefully, ignoring the burning gazes of the other five
girls at the table. “I don’t know, Rose, with the midterms coming up, I don’t really have the
time…”

“Please?”

Another bite of the apple, and concentrated chewing prolonged the silence.

“Sunset!” Applejack scowled.

[small]”spoilsport”[/small], Sunset mumbled, rolling her eyes. “Sure, Rose, I’ll do my best to help
you out. How about we start tomorrow after classes?”

***

“Sometimes, I’m plum ashamed of my species.”

“Don’t think it’s a species thing, if that helps.”

***

“Oh, and Applejack?” Sunset could not resist calling out the still sulking girl.

“What?”

“When I play with Miss Zecora -- I play white.”

INTERMISSION: MAKING MONSTERS

“I heard of the thing that you recently did. I would want you to talk of what ties you to those
kids.”

“Grasshoppers?” Sunset mulled the question over, “I don’t know, really. At first it was some
misplaced pity, but then the whole teaching thing kinda grew on me. There’s a unique sort of
rush to have your own views imprinted on someone else. To have them repeated back to you
with all the added passion of youth and power of utter belief, to mold and shape them like clay.”

“A mirror and echo, is that all you pursue? I’d think your bond does go deeper. Don’t you?”

“No, I like the kids, I really do. Tiara’s smart as a whip and ambitious, and I think she could be
better than me with some guidance. Both of them, really. Gonna teach them all I know, and let
them loose upon the world. That’s at least gonna be worth some laughs.”

There was a pointed silence.

"Besides, power must serve a purpose, as my…” Sunset hesitated. “As someone I knew told me
some time ago. Perhaps that could be mine. Pays well, that's for sure."

***

“Look, when I found her the kid was hurting. I can’t talk about this - it’s her business. But she
had some problems in her family, and she needed help - that’s the misplaced pity part. I fixed it
up, not without ulterior motive, mind you, but I kinda feel responsible for her now. And as I said,
the little tyke - the both of them - have totally grown on me. Like non-annoying little sisters.”

“So it’s all about healing? From you that’s a peculiar feeling.”

“Healing?” Sunset shrugged, “I don’t think I would know how to do that. I teach them how not to
get hurt any more. Not let anyone ever hurt them.”

INTERMISSION: TRUST ISSUES

“She doesn’t trust me!” Sunset gripped the teacup, struggling with the desire to hurl it at the
nearest wall.

“That…. Patronizing, sanctimonious, mightier-than-thou lion’s ballsack of a Princess!”

Zecora said nothing.

“After all this time! I apologized! I made the blasted amends, changed my ways, did my time
even! I thought we patched things up somewhat, and she does this! She sends that baby-faced
Sparkle to sort my problems for me! Like I am an incompetent child. Me! After all I’ve done for
her!”

She paused mid-rant to catch her breath, trying to regain some semblance of control.

“Look, all I’ve asked were some books, right? Just a reference from a Canterlot library. Personal
favor, no big. How does that translate to “move sky and earth to get to this stupid place and
send your student whom, by the way, I hate with a fiery bloody passion, to do my job for me?”
Huh? Is she trying to rub my failures in my bloody face on purpose?”

“Perhaps if I knew the facts, I could suggest how to resolve it with some tact?” Zecora
suggested.

“No.” Sunset stopped and pointed the finger at Zecora “No. I am going to rant, and I am going to
vent, and I absolutely refuse to explain anything or make any sense whatsoever, and you won’t
ask or use your Zebrican face-reading thing, because we agreed on that when I started this…
therapy.”

Zecora sighed and sipped some tea, waving for her visitor to go on with the raving.
MAKING A RAINBOOM

POWER OF FRIENDSHIP
“You… monster!”

"Oh that's rich, coming from you,'' Sunset laughed. "Tell them, little princess, what are you a
Princess of?"

"Well, officially I'm the Princess of Friendship, but..."

"Exactly. Now think about it, all of you. You barely know each other. You have spent three years
despising each other. Some of you have literally nothing in common - take Rarity and Pinkie for
example. And yet, in about an hour’s worth of talking with a stranger you never before have
seen in your life, you're all perfect friends?"

Rainbow Dash raised her hand to say something and lowered it back, never opening her mouth,
as everybody round the table grew pensive.

"Maybe I know jack all about friendship, but I know a Power when I see it. And this--" her finger
lowered to point accusingly at flabbergasted Twilight, like a barrel of a gun, "this is as sure as
any Power that I've ever seen."

She didn't want to say it, but she could not stop herself. Red once released has sensed the
weakness, and demanded to strike right there, where she felt the chink in the armor of the
Princess' soul. She had to sting it and release her poison, as sure as scorpion had to sting the
frog.

"I wonder how many other friendships have you made just by wishing to be friends? How many
of them actually are anything but mannequins, pulled by your power seeping into someone's
mind and twisting it without you even thinking about it? You don't get to call me a monster, little
princess - if anything I'm more of a pony or a human than you can ever be now."

OF PENGUINS AND APPLES

"Sunset's computer-thingie has a different crest than the ones in school." Twilight noted. "That
one was the four-colored banner, and this one is..." she squinted, trying to figure out what it
was, "A smiling sideways skyscraper?"

"Different operating system. This Tails: it is a secure -nix based..."

"Just means that Sunset here is a massive egghead," Rainbow interrupted.

LESSON IN FRIENDSHIP

[center][i]
Show me how you lie
 You're getting better all the time
And turning all against the one
Is an art that's hard to teach
Another clever word
Sets off an unsuspecting herd
And as you step back into line
A mob jumps to their feet
[/center][/i]

The music was drilling into her brain making her head throb with pulsing pain. She hated every
second of it, but at least it would give her some protection against the sirens. And it was not
quite as hard to get out of her ears as beeswax.

Finally Tiara came in, and checking for the Dazzlings - and not finding any - Sunset dropped her
headphones, and enjoyed the few moments of blissful silence. Her fingers found the buttons of
the torturous device.

Stop.
Breathe.

“I need you to make friends with the Crusaders,” she said without preamble.

“What?! Those three? The cripple, the redneck-girl and that…”, Diamond struggled to find a
properly denigrating epithet, “...other one?”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Yes. The cripple, the apple-girl and the other one. Did I stutter?” Her
heavy look discouraged any other arguments from her faithful student.

“But why?!” Diamond stomped her foot in frustration.

“Think of it as a test,” Sunset tried to encourage the girl. “I need a closer look at them either
way, and I need to know that you can talk to kids your age from an equal position.”

“Ugh. Those three...” Diamond sighed giving up “What would I even talk to them about? They
don’t do anything interesting. It’s all club activities and mootube videos with them or something”.

“Exactly, my young padawan. That’s what I want you to figure out.”, Sunset ticked off the last
question and put her homework back in her bag. “Now what’s your entrance strategy?”

Drumming her fingers on a table Tiara thought for a second. “A wounded gazelle gambit?” she
suggested tenuously. “I mean they kinda still think you’re a monster straight from Tartarus and
I’m your little toadie, so…”

Sunset nodded. That was sound reasoning.

“And, it also lets me build the child-to-parent relationship to begin with. Like that Burns guy
writes in that book. If they think they’re helping me, it’s easier to get their trust.”
“Smart. You really make me proud, grasshopper. When you want to start?”

Diamond twiddled her thumbs for a second, counting something in her hand. “Monday? I can
have them eating out of my hands by Friday latest.”

“Atta girl.”

Alone again Sunset chewed on her lip, thinking, while she watched the kid skip merrily away.

Breathe.

Start.

She sighed, and once again the headphones were on, and the music once again began clawing
at her eardrums.

[center][i]
With a thousand lies
And a good disguise
Hit 'em right between the eyes
Hit 'em right between the eyes
When you walk away
Nothing more to say
See the lightning in your eyes
See 'em running for their lives
[/center][/i]

BREAKING PEEVED

“Ice and Nightmares,” Sunset swore under her breath. “They’ve already gotten the Principals!”

Twilight blushed. “Sunset!” her voice caught at the crassness of the words “Language!”

Sunset took a breath, and started speaking. She did not stop until she was out of breath - a
cavalcade of body parts, sexual positions, complex multi-species ancestry of a certain lavender
pony Princess and a few things probably only physically possible with direct intervention by
Discord joined together to paint a picture of what exactly Twilight could do with her remarks, and
by the time she stopped, Twilight’s face was deep red and the Princess pursed her lips at the
sheer obscenity and inventiveness of the short speech.

“Wow” Spike whistled softly from within the bag “I mean… wow.”

“Sunset Shimmer!” Celestia called from behind the doors “Week’s detention for swearing”.

THANOPOROASIS (SHADOW OF DEATH)

"Twilight," Sunset called out, "can I ask you something weird?"

"Sure. Not like I'm asleep or anything."

"Will you die?"

"What?"

"I'm not… Look, I’m not trying to start anything. I'm just asking, since you're an alicorn and all
that -- are you immortal now? How does that make you feel?"

"Oh."

There was silence for a while.

"Twilight?"

"I don't know," She finally admitted. "It's scary, thinking about it, but I guess yes, I will die
eventually, but not for a while. And not of old age."

"You'll get to live long enough to see all your friends die. "

"Yeah..."

They went silent again, only barely-heard breathing in the room indicating that neither was really
asleep.

"That's not why you asked."

"Huh?"

"You knew about the alicorns and eternal youth before. Why did you ask me?"

"I.. I had a theory I wanted to test. But I guess it's bust now."

"What theory?"

"Ask Celestia."

"Ask her what?"

"The same question I asked you. Then you'll know."

"Sunset!"

"Ask her."
ARIA (ALL MINE)

They looked at each other and blushed, instantly turning away.

“MINE!”

Anger, red-hot and green blazed within Sunset like a megaton explosion, drowning rational
thought and crashing against the last vestiges of her self control. She felt the hot, almost
unbearable desire run throughout her body - to pounce and crumple the girl’s tiny body, to sink
the teeth in her flesh, and to rip and shred and to taste her blood, for daring to even think of
touching something that belonged to her, however little had she cared for the silly boy.

And then, it waned just as quickly as it appeared, leaving her tired and annoyed and still angry -
at herself for the irrational jealousy, at that stupid horse of a Sparkle for encroaching on her
territory, at Celestia and at the Dazzlings and everything at once and nothing in particular.

Aria Blaze winked to her from across the hall, and her gem-studded choker glinted with a
piercing green light.

GIRL TALK
"Look, mate, she's Sunset Shimmer. She could have any guy she wants. Most of the girls too."

"She ain't that hot, dude. She's, like, a six tops."

"Yeah, too tomboy."

"Not even cute-like. Now that Dash girl..."

Flash cut them off with an angry grunt. "Look, guys, I've seen her moves, so trust me. Any guy,
any time, she can have ‘em. And she still chooses me. Lets me buy her dinners, take her to
dates. Like, keeps to my pace, you know? She says she doesn't love me, but at least it gotta
mean something, right?"

FLASH FIRE

'Sup guys?

The rocker's room met her with the icy silence.

"Hey, Shimmer", Flash finally greeted her weakly. The silence grew tenser. “We’re trying to
figure out what to play for the Battle…”

"Well, I have an idea. It's a piece about one of my friends", Ringo interrupted, "show her boys."
He ran his fingers across his guitar, as other rockers took their instruments.

"You see, Shimmer,

My boy got a girlfriend and I hate that witch,

I tell him eeevery day...
I say he's gotta ditch that chick
In a worst kinda way.

***

"And what do we say to that, guys?"

worst kinda
Others chimed in with the chorus

Say no way, say no way, say no wa-a-a-ay

Tell that bitch to get a jog--

Flash, growing grimmer with every line, spat out "You done?"

Ringo stretched his hand towards him.

"Come on, man. Don't tell me you gonna choose that cu..."

Flash hit him. An awkward, badly aimed punch, it barely grazed the boy across the cheekbone,
making him step back and drop on his backsitde, more with the surprise than actual pain.

"Shit, Ringo, I'm..." Flash stared at his hand unable to believe what he did.

"Screw you, man.", Ringo spit out a bit of blood from the bitten lip, "Screw you, if that's how you
gonna be. Come on boys. At least we tried."

***

“C’mon, do you want me to get them expelled? Or I could kill them. Or sing them a very classy
rendition of ‘I got your friend in me’ to that Disneigh tune.

He snorted.

***

“...would you really kill them?

"Well, I didn’t really expect you to ask," Sunset admitted, "but if it would make you feel better --
sure."

"Err.. I thought you liked them. I mean, before this whole thing."

"I did." Sunset stretched lazily. "They're nice kids, all things considered. I just have my priorities.
And now that they left..." She moved closer.
"Sunset. " Flash kept her away for a moment. "Please don't kill my friends. And anyone else in
school."

“Why?”

“You’d go to prison.”

“Pft,” she waved her hand. “Please. I’m a master alchemist. They’d never find me.”

“Either way. Please?”

“Sure,” she shrugged. “Not without good reason at least. But there would be conditions…” her
hand sneaked lower and for a while they did not talk.

THREE-PIPE PROBLEM

"My thinking tube. Ethylene, benzedrex, Salvia Divinorum, deadly nightshade, few other
ingredients -- some from Equestria to keep it from melting my brain, lungs and everything else in
between... Perfectly legal, but will pretty much make you puke your guts out unless you have
built up a tolerance. Something to keep them neurons firing when I need a think."

"There's nothing special about the brain, Twi. Ask them--" the vague wave of gold and red hair
flourished towards the window, where behind the veil of the night all of humanity was. "--They've
almost figured it out. No higher reason, no magical spark to imbue gross biology with sense,
and reason and intellect. Just the messy, convoluted pattern recognition, some overfitted
feedback routines filtering nonsense into sense. Overcharge the neurons, get more patterns..."
She took a drag off her pipe. "Skip the boring logic and trivialities of math, let your intuition do
the trick. Like pulling a trigger of a gun.

“That’s how the Oracle of Delfilly worked. Intuition, pattern recognition and a whole lot of current
political information. That, and getting high as a kite on ethylene.”

ACADEMICS

"Got it!" A Sunset declared on the screen. "1.241, give or take a thousands of a herz."

"I..." Twilight jotted down the last few lines. "One second..." few more scribbles. "Yes! Thats
what I got. Its [goldenrario], which comes down to 1.241 and three recurring. "

"How did you...?" Sunset looked over her shoulder. “Let me see.”
“A turning symmetry..." She muttered, following the dry shorthand. "Generalised elliptic curve,"
she furrowed her brow.

"Once you represent the waveform as a projection from a higher-dimensional regular object, it
gets really easy," Twilight said, "see? You get a hypersphere intersection, then cut it again with
this plane, and the rest the rest is basic geometry."

"Yeah, in six dimensions. Damn."

"How did you solve it?" Twilight asked. “I don’t think there’s a simpler solution.”

"I did some basic space reduction heuristics and then used the gradient descent to get the
numerical solution. Couple thousand iterations and it’s there."

"But it's approximate!" Twilights eyes widened. "You can't get a closed form solution this way."
She looked at the computer dubiously. "Can you?"

"Yeah, you can't." Sunset agreed. "Well, you can, but not in fifteen minutes, and not quite like
that. But since none of us has anything calibrated to a precision of 1 microherz, and the
solution space is reasonably smooth, that's academic."

Twilight shook her head, not satisfied, and double- checked her solution. "Magic is precise
science. You can't just approximate your way to something like Caramel Comets Gravity
Inversion."

"Magic is a thing you do so that three sirens don't turn your brain into mush, make this school
implode and take over the world." Sunset countered. "And yes you can. I was there when
Caramel invented first prototype for it. We were both tipsy off the salt and cider, and she just did
like half the thing off her horn. "

"No!"

"Uh-huh. It was seven months of theoretical research, and then it all came together in one
drunken fit of magic. And then took half a year to get it to publishing."

WHITE FANG
“What her mother did to her,” Sunset drew out the word. “Her [i]mother[/i].” she looked at the
cup, swirling the spoon slowly.

"Imagine a dog, " she started, "an adorable little puppy with wide eyes and floppy ears. Imagine
putting him in a room and never letting him out, all alone, all the time. And imagine coming into
the room every once in a while and kicking the shit out of him."

Fluttershy whimpered.
"Just straight out, heavy boots and baseball bats going to the fucking town over the pooch, like
he’s a pinata with the last candy left in Equestria. You know what happens?"

"A dead dog?"

“Rainbow Dash! Don’t be crass.”

"Dogs, much like humans or ponies, are social animals. They crave contact. Sooner, rather than
later, the dog starts to love those beatings. Look forward to them. Beg for the stick and the
boot."

THE LESSONS OF LIFE

“It’s easy for you to say,” Sunset peered into Applejack’s eyes - a heavy unblinking gaze, that
seemed to take even the headstrong farmer-girl aback a bit “Hatred comes naturally to you.”

“What’s that supposed to even mean?”

“Nopony hates in Equestria. Not like humans can. It’s been bred out of pony nature for centuries
- we have greed, and envy and jealousy, but hatred, the sort of that burns like fire, the sort of
boils your blood and drives you to do anything to quench it’s terrible thirst - that’s not for ponies.

“I had to learn my hatred, like a child learning to walk, like blind-born learning to read again. It
came at a heavy price, and I will not let it go so easily.”

DEMOLITION WORKS

"Now, Silver, I am sure their show will be great"

The Crusader trio leaned in, listening.

"They worked so hard after all, building the whole number around Scootaloo's... problem. Why,
you can barely notice the limp"

"Well..." Silver pretended to ponder the thought, rubbing her chin "I guess. The costumes would
be good at least. The other day I overheard the apple-girl talking to Rarity to do something
instead of those garish things they have now"

"And with the money they scrounged up for the effects, I am sure they're bound to do well in the
Battle," Diamond concluded "Hope Apple Bloom's family won't have to live on turnips for weeks,
the poor thing."

"Featherweight!" She snapped her fingers at her retinue, summoning the tiny boy with a
camera. "You're on the cameras with the showcase, so make sure you capture [i]Every. Little.
Detail[/i]. The whole school will want to see that.

[ACTION & DESCRIPTION].

Adagio’s hands touched in an imitation-applause.

"Now that was just cold. Exploiting weaknesses to sow discord and break a friendship just
before a crucial moment. Wonder who taught her that," Adagio smiled, showing her just-a-bit -
too-sharp-for-a-human teeth. "Perhaps the student will soon exceed the master."

Sunset frowned.

"Perhaps. I am a great teacher after all," she said levelly, "But not today. What do you want,
Adagio?"

Adagio cringed slightly at the word “teacher”, her pale orange lips twisting into an spasm-length
grimace.

“I can smell what you are, Sunset Shimmer,” she said. “His hunger in your blood. We want you
to join us.”

“You’re joking.”

[SOMETHING]

"Shouldn't we be bugging the purple one instead, Dagi? This one is powerless anyways. She
has no magic."

This was as obvious an attempt to get to her as the first one. The difference was, this one
[i]worked[/i]. Sunset beat her anger down, trying to keep her expression neutral.

“Ah, but we can change that, can’t we girls?”

AND THEREIN LIES A PROBLEM

“You have not changed at all!” Twilight shouted, “I hoped that after the Elements of Harmony
you’d be a better pony, but you’re the exact same Sunset Shimmer I’ve first met - you’re mean,
and you’re horrible to everypony around you, and even after we’ve shown you how horrible what
you did is, you still think you deserve to run this school. You even try to poison others to your
ideas, some poor little girls, who probably will never have any friends now.”

“Oh stuff it, Princess” Sunset was getting just as angry as Twilight, “What, you think you blast
me in the face with a friendship laser and I get all nice, like a shiny little doll? Well screw you. I
am not a nice pony, I am not a student of Canterlot High, I am not a friend. I am that I made
myself into, and I will be until the day I die.”
DON’T HIT
She dodged Applejack's smack, grabbing the wrist and the elbow, and made a round, circular
motion, stepping behind her, and suddenly AJ was standing on her tippy-toes, back arching
uncomfortably, her hand twisted out to the back to the point of pain.

"Punch me again”, Rainbow Dash snarled, “and I will bloody well punch you back. Got it?"

She jerked AJ’s hand sharply up, causing the girl to grunt with pain, and suddenly released it.

WISHES AND SEAHORSES

"Heh." Aria chuckled, turning away to the sink. Water ran over her immaculate skin, as she
lathered her perfectly manicured hands. "Maybe I'll take your boy-toy for a spi--"

There was a wave, red and green, like never before, like a battering ram of viscous fire hitting
the inside her head, and Aria never finished her sentence. A flick of a wrist and with a click-
crack the extended steel baton cut her across the ribs.

"Sto--"

Another strike hit her across the jaw. There was a crunch and her scream turned to a gurgling
hiss. The baton flew up again, like a director's wand, froze there for a second, and then fell
down. And again. And again. A quiet symphony of wet, squelching strikes and sharp cracks of
broken bones. The fingers of outstretched hand, angled awkwardly and ripped out of their joints.
Ribs cracked with a damp "thump" of air forced from the pierced lung. A soft sound of
collarbone giving under the weight of a heavy boot.

Sunset remained dispassionate, cold, working the downed siren with the baton and steel-tipped
boots, until whatever was left looked more like an unfinished biology experiment than a human
being...

She opened her eyes and unclenched her jaws slowly, forcing herself to breathe, pushing out
whatever the siren tried to say and forcing herself to ignore the taunt. This was not the time or
the place. Her fingers ran over the cold steel of the concealed weapon in her sleeve. The little
princess decreed that they had to be nice, but a girl could dream.

Aria laughed, uneasy, forced chuckle.

"Woof," she said. "Good doggie. Even your dreams are put on the leash."

That had the opposite effect. Suddenly Sunset was calm, almost easy. "I am her Highness dog
at Kew," Sunset agreed. smiling amicably, "but we both know whose bitch are you."
THE HONEST TALK
Sunset stood up abruptly.

“This is dumb. We should not be wasting time on stupid sh-”

“Sit down, sugarcube”. Applejack said simply from underneath her cowgirl hat, not even a shred
of doubt in her voice “Or I’ll sit you down for ya.”

Sunset sat down.

ARSONEE’S LULLABY (DEVIL’S OWN FIRE)

Your love's a fire that cannot be tamed

Your love is not a thing tame
Ours is a deadly game
It burns me like Acheron's flame

Waiting for evening in empty longing

Happy by sunset, hollow by morning
Feelings so fleeting -- yet somehow eternal.
You say that’s what love is, you say its normal,
You call it awkward and so very mortal
For me it is fire, terrible, burning
Fire that's burning me whole

I’m addicted to you, to the things that you do

Darkness and flames, exalted and profane.
And then you want to do it again
From the first rays of sunrise to sunset.

I’ll be with you forever more

Desperate fear and love.
But you’re bringing more and more flame
When I am already burning!

SURPRISE!

Twilight looked away. It took her a second to look back at Sunset.

"Sunset... I..."

She couldn't say it. Instead she just passed her pad to the orange girl.
Sunset looked at the first page. She frowned. Flipped page, then another, her frown getting
deeper every second.

"I...wait.. This makes no sense. It's total gibberish! There's nothing here!"

"Ehheh. Yes... You see... I couldn't figure it out too." Twilight smiled sheepishly.

….

"Well screw me like a virgin goat," Sunset finally admitted, "I did not see that coming"

INTERMISSION - PEACE TALKS

Sirens entered through the other door and made their way towards Rainbooms.

Adagio went first, with Trixie almost hanging off her. Despite the warm weather outside the
magician girl wore at least three layers of sweaters, looking more like a human clothes rack than
her usual self.

Aria and Sonata followed not far behind.

"We come in peace". Aria droned towards Rainbow Dash, waving in her face an improvised
white flag of a hankie "take me to your leader".

"Hilarious." Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Besides, Twilight is not here, so count your sorry selves
lucky.”

Everyone was seated, Trixie still clinging to Adagio like a baby-sloth to its mother.

"Are you quite all right, darling?" Trixie's condition did not escape Rarity's keen eye. "You
look..."

"You look like crap". Rainbow Dash did not wait for her friend to find a suitable euphemism, and
got straight to the point. Trixie lacking the strength to respond, merely gave the jock of the group
an angry glare, before retreating her face back into the folds of Adagio's coat.

"Rainbow Dash! I was going to say ‘a bit under the weather’, thank you very much. I take it,it is
not a common cold?"

"It's one of the reasons I called this parley," Adagio explained on Trixie's behalf. "And a direct
consequence and cause of things happened while you were...indisposed in the Battle of the
Bands"

"Yeah, because of her!" Rainbow's cyan finger pointed accusingly at Trixie, forcing another
silent angry glare from the sickly girl.

"Aww, you're not still sore about that, are you?" Aria was as sarcastic as ever.
"Hey! We woulda totally whooped your butt in the finals. You were lucky this little...witch decided
to go all supervillain-y on us"

"Nuh-uh. You, like, totally sucked in the semi's. Especially with the bacon-girl fly-tackling you
mid-song," Sonata snorted, "that was, like, classic".

"Only because you put a magical thingamawhatever on us!" even Sunset could not stay on the
sidelines.

Trixie's gem started pulsing, and the girl stirred silently in Adagio's grip, causing her intervene.
A single wave of her hand nipped off Aria's response in the bud

"However much I do enjoy a good snack, this is not why we are here, is it?"

"And why is it that you're here?"

"Because we're done, bacon-hair". Aria took the bull by the horns, and went straight to
business. "Battle of the Bands is over. The Dazzlings are over. The whole stupid "conquering
this dumb world" thing is on indefinite hiatus, ok? We just want to make sure we're cool with
you. Last thing we need is getting friendship-laser sniped because you guys get trigger happy."

"Cool?! Cool?!" Rainbow was anything but "You stole our magic! You tried to take over the
world! You made my band miss the finals of the Battle! We are definitely not cool."

Eyebrow raised, Adagio merely looked at Sunset pointedly, until Rainbow had to look away.
"That's... that's an entirely different thing!"

"Look, you have no magic. We have almost no magic. We had a single chance to turn this dump
of a world into something barely passable, and Dagi here blew it just to get a piece of moon pie.
There's just no point in fighting any more."

"What in tarnation does that even mean?"

“Did I stutter or something?” Aria gave AJ a glare “All the magic we got out of you when we
made you fight like sissy little girls, all the stuff we hooked out of the students - all of it went right
into her.” She pointed accusingly at Trixie “Because Adagio could never stop playing with her
food, could you, o fearless leader?”

“Oh shut up, ‘Ria,” Adagio scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Not like you are any better”.

She resumed where her minion left off.

“Anyway, now my little star is a Siren, just like us. But she’s a little baby siren in this screwed-up
no-magic world.”

Trixie’s protests at being called a baby quickly drowned in the tenderness of Adagio’s embrace,
and she snuggled back into the orange hands, content.

“So all the magic I can scrounge up I cannot waste on side-projects like conquering the world, or
making little girls fight each other to their deaths, however hilarious that would be. It all goes to
my baby here, because without it she will [i]die.[/i]”
“And since you don’t have any Equestrian magic left anyway, there’s just no point in us fighting.
Neither of us has anything the other side wants, and we don’t even have anything to fight with.
So unless you want to enter a slapping match with ‘Ria here and both go to this world’s idiotic
juvenile correctional facilities for assault -- we’re done.”

No one wanted to answer that, as the girls looked at each other in confusion. That somehow
seemed to be an…. anti-climactic end to the Battle of the Bands.

“So what do you propose?” Rarity prompted the leader of the sirens, given the lack of any
suggestions on the Rainboom side.

“Hostages.”

“Ambassadors.” Aria grinded her teeth as she corrected Adagio. “We talked about this, Adagio.”

“Right, right, sure.” Adagio waved her hand at the uppity minion, “Same thing, really. Me and my
little star leave the Canterlot High, and will attend the Crystal Prep instead, as my girl recovers
her strength and learns to live in this cold wasteland of a universe. ‘Ria and ‘Nata will stay here,
so that you can watch them and see if they’re up to no good...which, honestly, they probably will
be at some point, for the lack of brains if not malicious will.”

Aria’s punched Adagio in the shoulder.

“Shut up Dagi. Just shut up, or the next one will be to your damn smug face.”

She turned back to the others.

“Yeah, we get to be away from that harpy, and her “little piece of moon cake” or whatever. And
you’d see if we’re trying to conquer the world again or something and we get to be the coal mine
canaries in case you are going to shank us in the bathroom. Plus without at least three of us, we
can’t do serious magic even if we had the juice for it. Sounds fair?”

“...seems reasonable” Sunset probed carefully, as she frantically tried to find any traps in the
sirens’ suggestion. It seemed, on the face of it quite fair. She looked around her group for
support, but found only equally confused or pensive expressions. “We’ll have some questions,
and additional conditions, though.”

***

"So what did you do to Mrs Lulamoon?"

"Just a little spell to convince her that my darling got an apprenticeship with those Mane and
Tailer guys in Rio."

"Why on green and verdant earth would ya do such a thing?"

"Because she would hardly allow me to live in her house and sleep with her daughter, now
would she?"

If Applejack did not just finish her drink, it would’ve been a glorious spit-take.
"Oh do get your mind out of the gutter, cowgirl. As much as I would like, we barely have energy
to spare on such diversions these days. I merely have to be with her at all times in case she
gets exhausted again. “

"All right... but why Crystal Prep?"

"Have you been to Crystal Prep?". Aria raised her eyebrow at the obviousness of the question
"Everyone hates everyone there. It's like a free energy smorgasbord, especially compared to
the sleepy hollow you turned this school into".

"Yeah, all those peppy go-getters, always high on caffeine and self-importance, always looking
to one-up each other", Sonata's expression turned dreamy as she imagined the atmosphere of
CP, "it's just so totally delish."

"Dagi," Trixie spoke in a barely audible coarse whisper, tugging on Adagio’s dress lightly for
attention, "Dagi, I'm getting cold again".

"Can you hold out just a little longer honey? We finish up here, and then we'll go straight to the
school"

Pulling herself up by her hands Trixie protested

"Don't patronize me, Adagio! Trixie can endure this easily. It's just that you asked Trixie to tell
you when... she... feels ... it."

Strength born of her indignation quickly exhausted Trixie fell back into Adagio's embrace, trying
to catch her breath with feverish, shallow gasps.

"Shh, honey. I know. You're my brave little star. I'm just a little concerned for you"
Adagio's lips pressed into Trixie's forehead in a chaste, almost motherly kiss. A pulse of her
gem changed slowly to match Trixie's breath"

"Come on baby, just take a little bit. I need you to feel better, ok?"

"Trixie doesn't need this...", her tone was petulant, like a child refusing to eat her vegetables, but
even as she protested a color was returning to her cheeks, her breath becoming deeper and
more even by the second.

Snuggling closer to her siren Trixie smiled a little bit. "Thank you Dagi. I love you".

"Are we quite done here?" Adagio looked up to others, the look of wolfish hunger in her eyes.

"[i]We[/i]are". The ex-minions both stood up, Aria dragging Sonata away.

Others slowly followed suit, putting on clothes and fishing money out of the wallets.

At the door, Rarity held up to wait for Adagio and Trixie.

"Adagio" Rarity's tone left no place for any levity. She was now deadly serious.
"Do you truly love her?"
"No."

That caught Trixie by surprise, forcing a little whine out of her at the casual betrayal, but Adagio
went on.

"It is so much more than that. She has my soul, as I have hers. We are intertwined on a level
infinitely deeper than mere attraction - it is not a love you feel towards your lover, your sister or
your daughter. She is unto me as I am to my own self, more precious than anything in this world
or any other, and I could no more bear being removed away from her than I would ripping my
own heart out. To say that I merely "love" my little star is to belittle what we are so much as to
say almost nothing".

Rarity was taken aback by the fierceness of Adagio's tone.

"I... I am not sure whether to be envious of you or mortified at this... relationship".

"Then you're smarter than you look"

***

“It’s not love, you know.” Aria was the first to talk after several blocks walked in total silence.
“Just feedback.”

***

“We did it in sixty-seventh… eighteen sixty-seventh, I think….

“Nah, ‘Ri, it was nineteens. Three years after that crazy Scoltsman, ‘member?”

“Huh?”

“The one with the machine gun, and the bagpipes, and the Neighpanese guy with the sword.
You know?”

“Oh, right, right. ” Aria waved her hand dismissively. “I mean, really, what was that about?

“Anyway, me and ‘Nata - we got separated from ‘Dagi, and we were running out of magic. It
helped to not be so afraid all the time, to share the Hunger.”

Capital “H” in the “hunger” emphasised by the synchronous shudders of the sirens.

“I miss the way you used to wash my hair…” Sonata added wistfully.

“...whatever. It aired out in about a year though.”

DAYS OF OUR ONE LIFE TO FILL

EMERGENCY

She ripped open the bug-out bag, checking the items quickly. Cash, first-aid kit, burner phone,
the little red notebook - all there. She’d need Gilda, a car...

“Apple Bloom kissed me!” Tiara finally blurted out.

Relief spilled out of Sunset in an entirely inappropriate burst of laughter.

“That is not funny, Sunset!” she could almost see Tiara stomping her foot in frustration “she
kissed me! Like on the lips! What do I do?!”

“Fine, I’m, eheh, I see how it is serious.” She wiped off her tears, and suppressed the last of the
giggles “Now breathe deep, grasshopper, and remember the first rule.”

“Right, right.” Diamond relaxed a little bit “But Sunset, what should I do?”

“Well what do you want to do?” Sunset put the bug-out-bag back into the drawer, and plopped
back on her bed. “She likes you, clearly, do you like her back?”

“No! Yes! Kinda? I thought I liked Rumble, but I don’t know…”

“Is she a good kisser?”

“...[small]yes[/small]...”

“And you like hanging out with her and the Crusaders, right?”

“Yes, but...”

“So go out with her, take things slow, figure out if you like her. Then figure out the next step.”

“Right. Want, take, have. Decide, plan, act.” she giggled, “and mom would be so [i]totally[/i]
peeved when she finds out!”

Sunset sighed.

“Grasshopper, don’t tell me you are considering dating Bloom just to tick off your mom”

“No, no. That’s a bonus. Honest!”

“You’d better not”, Sunset said sternly, “in these sort of things, when the feelings are so volatile,
you have to know what you’re doing if you want to play this game. So at least give me heads up,
ok?”
“... I am not leading Bloom on! ...I’m not sure If I’m gonna date her even. I’ll tell you if I will,
promise”.

“Atta girl. Go have fun now, and don’t forget to use protection.”

Even when turning the phone off she could hear embarrassed shout “Sunset!”

TENDER DREAMS OF MIDNIGHT

She lay across the cheap bean-bag, eyes closed, as the projector changed pictures in the
kaleidoscope of mish-mashed channels switching every couple of seconds, and the radio blared
some noise as if it were music.

A pipe tangled in her fingers still smoked, and her half-lidded eyes stared unseeingly at the
ceiling, a long line of lime-green string of drool hanging down from the corner of her mouth.

"How do you live like that?" Her eyes shot wide open she gripped his arm with a deadman's
grip. "How do you live here?"

"Wh--"

"This world is so small, so tiny, so flat. There's no color, no magic, barely any laws of physics to
speak of... everything here is dead, Flash, dead, powerless, pointless, mechanical, useless
precision, a clockwork with no one to wind it up, everyone the same, same species, same
bodies, same minds, same, same, same, I can't.." She fell back. "I need another pipe. A tiny
little breather. Please? A little bit of colour. Just a tiny little bit..."

"Sunset, I think you had enou--"

***

She washed up, careful, measured motions, breathing slowly as she did, and he could see a
tiny wave roll along her body, from head down to the heels, as some sort of inner tension left --
was chased away -- out of her.

"I lived, Sentry.” her voice was hoarse and unsteady, and she didn’t quite turn to talk to him yet.
“Back in Equestria, back before I was just a girl, I lived, deeply and true. I drank precious soma,
for which gold is paid in thrice its weight, and listened to the music played by immortals. I
danced with the witches on the River Doon in makeshift stone halls, lighted by the smoking
torches, to the badly tuned bagpipes and drums played by the beasts enchanted on a whim. I
trekked through the deserts, rationing the last sip of water between today and tomorrow, and
wishing I still had the last half-cracker I finished three days ago.
“This world... this huge empty, pointless world, it's too small for me"

SNOWBALLIN’

"Rarity? What are you doing here?"

Rarity kissed her, sudden and hard. Her lips were hot and sweet, and full, and everything
Sunset imagined they would be

....

Her hands moved down, seeking under the shirt and the dress, and she had to grab on to the
white girl just not to fall over, pressing harder into her curves, smelling the tart gooseberries and
sharp sweetness of lilacs in her hair.

....

“Rarity!” She tried to say, barely catching her breath before the girl’s lips found her again and
the tangled mess of their bodies slammed through the doors of the narrow corridor, bumping
into the side wall.

"Please. I don't want to be alone." She asked, pushing Sunset further back

....

She turned on the water, and Rarity shrieked from sudden cold, ice water soaking her clothes
through, while Sunset held her hard under the streaming shower.

"You're drunk, Rarity." She said, pushing the struggling girl down.

"I am most certainly not! Release me at once!"

"Your pupils are dilated, your skin is feverish, your heart rate is through the roof and you are so
wet I will have to wipe the friggin floor. I'm hot, but I am not that hot. Besides, I can bloody well
taste the powder on your gums. How long have you been using?"

“Why didn’t you,” she made a vague half-shrugging gesture, “...take it? Am I that ugly?”

"I'm not into being a rebound." She set the tea before the cold and miserable girl who tried to
snuggle deeper into her blanket. "Sex is kinda like fighting -- it's only fun if both parties are into
it, unless you're seriously psycho. When you get better, if you’ll want to drop something
interesting and have some fun, I'm not going to say no. But I am over the self-abuse fucking,
regardless of the side."

Rarity shivered and took the teacup, grasping it with both hands. “But aren’t you with Flash?”
"I've rogued and I've ranged in my time," Sunset said, "and the more you have known of the
others, the less will you settle to one. We talked with the boy, and he's fine with me window-
shopping around and having my fun where I find it. I offered the same to him, but he's never
interested, silly as he is."

I HAD A DREAM

“Dr. Zecora OUT” the tablet on the door read. “Dr. Id (c.o.s) substituting”

Sunset froze with her hand on the familiar door handle. She would probably not feel as
comfortable talking to someone other than Zecora, and surely Celestia could appreciate the
need to move the session once…

“Do come in!” a sing-song baritone called out from behind the door.

How did he…

Her hand pushed the door open, almost without her wanting to, and she entered the room.

It looked different somehow. The masks that used to be on the walls, disappeared. Dice and
cards with meaningless Rorschach ink-blots on them lay strewn on the table instead of chess,
and a gaunt, twisty man sat in a gaudy chair that seemed entirely out of plaсe, drinking an
acidic-green drink from a plastic bottle. The pugnant, suffocatingly-sweet smell of cheap
incense, so unlike the scents of tea that usually came with the place made her head spin.

“So--” he peered at her with his yellow eyes that for a second almost made her remember
something - something important, about the horns and the worlds and the lions, “--you’re Miss
Zecora’s mysterious regular visitor. Pleased to meetcha.

“Dr Id.” he shook her hand vigorously. “Community Outreach Substitute.”

She found her seat by rote.

“Like this place. A pretty tight squeeze for someone like me, but it’s kinda cozy if you get used to
it. Not very magical though.”

***
“Sunset Shimmer,” he produced a file from somewhere, flipping through. “"Quite a delinquent,
I'm told" he smiled his toothy grin. "No worries. I've been known to pull a prank or two in
my day. Not all of them well received. And some of them I’m trying to fix."

“I’m not a delinquent.” Sunset said evenly. The man annoyed her, and there was
something weird about him that set her nerves on edge.
“We’ll see.” He grabbed the cards off the table. “Pick a card, any card.” he fanned them
out towards her..

SHE TAKES THE CARD

“Excellent. Now say the first word that comes to your mind. Sunset shrugged. That was safe
enough.

"School"
"Homework"

"Square"
"Peg"

"Friendship."
"...Twilight."

"Running."
"Away." Through the magic portal, where she would not be there, to look at with fear - not of her
student, but of what she had become.

The associations came faster now, not spilling out before she could stop herself

"Love."
"Weakness." a lie and a contradiction, your heart stolen by a thief in the night.

"Wine."
"Poison." Slipped quietly to someone you love.
"Memory."
"Darkness" under water, where it will be preserved even when stars fall from heavens. The
myriad magic lights extinguished as she trotted away. She closed her eyes, trying to will away
the unwanted thoughts, but the doctor continued, each word like a flash of fire lighting up the
memories she didn’t want to…

"Fire."
"Pain." Green and thick and hungry, smelling of the burnt flesh. She tried to breathe, just right,
despite the pain in her chest, but the air was thick and viscous, and the walls pushed down on
her, head spin.

"Horn"
"Arrow" stuck in his throat, red stains on white skin. She couldn’t breathe, her chest hurt with
burning stab, maelstrom of nightmares that was dragging her down into the past--
"Desert."
“Enough!” She clenched her fists shut, and froze in place, trying to catch her breath. “Enough.
I’m done with that game!” slowly, she exhaled. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Slowly, ever so
very slowly, she finally found her way out of the memories she did not want - did not need right
now, and locked them back down.

"Aha." Dr. I'd, undaunted by her outburst, looked at her atop his thick horn-rimmed glasses she
could've sworn he did not have a second ago. "I see. Well, that is a simple case. Quite
treatable, yes."

"What?"

"You have hunger in your blood. His hunger, I'm afraid." Sunset blinked. She knew that phrase,
from somewhere, she could not quite put her thumb on where. “Quite advanced case, I must
confess. Not many take to it so quickly.”

***
"Whose hunger?" She asked dumbly.

"His.” Doctor Id repeated. “The monster-maker. The foal-napper, the mage. His mark is upon
you. But," he leaned forward, and whispered conspiratorially, "I can take it away.”

“The question is, are you content, Sunset Shimmer?”

“What?” the transition was so sudden, she could not help but to be flabbergasted by the
question.

“Are you content to be what you are?

She thought about it. Her life was getting on track, definitely. She had her own little nakama, a
boyfriend, monetary troubles were mostly sorted and in a bit more than a year she’d be a legal
adult, so her life would get so much easier. But was she content?

SHE SAYS SHE’S NOT. TOO MUCH STUFF GOING ON. TOO MANY CONTRADICTIONS

“Do you want to be?”

***
"Just close your eyes, and imagine it." His voice became almost soft, deep. "Think about what
your future would be like if everything were... simpler. No grand destiny. No duty. No hunger in
your blood."

She closed her eyes.

"That's it. Think about it."

She could - see it now. As plain as if it were her life. Earning back the trust of the school. Being
a student, one of many, part of the herd. Forging friendship - real friendship, with the girls, one
that would last a lifetime. There was more luig ahead. Battles to be fought, side by side with
them. Fantastical journeys, new friends and new challenges. Then - graduation, job, family - she
could not guess with whom, a job, simple and fun, something she could leave behind and clock
out, when she went back.

She could come home. She could come home and She would look at her, and forgive her...

"No." It was hard to say it. The word stuck like a razor in her throat.

"Oh?" The counselor sounded surprised. Or maybe amused.

"I refuse." She pushed away the vision, and forced herself to open her eyes.

***

“You have seen things…things others wouldn’t believe.” his crooked figure became tragic
somehow, a shadow falling across his face, “You’ve seen Power rise and bleed on a bank of a
river in a different world. Heavens rent apart by magic and fire stolen from the dragons. All those
memories, like diamonds in the darkness, lit by the fire. To lose them, like leaves to the wind,
like sparks in the night.. “

The small old TV in the corner of the room suddenly came alive. A man was crying in the rain on
the screen.

[note]
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched
C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like
tears...in...rain
[/note]

“But you are a child, Sunset.” All the mad cheer gone somehow,And then there was silence and
yellow eyes looking into hers, suddenly alert and piercing, and there was nothing funny about
the gaunt man anymore. “You did not want those things to happen to you. And I can take them
away. Make them disappear, like leaves to the wind, like sparks in the night. Let you be just a
child again. “

***

“No...” She answered automatically, “Wait--” but he did not listen.

“Is this your final stop on your road? Playing with these children like with equals? Rollerblading
with Rainbow Dash, shopping with Rarity, quaint little queen of a tiny little school, forever and
ever and ever and ever...

He kept talking. Sunset wanted to say something, anything, just to make him stop, but she
couldn’t. She grew into her seat, becoming one with it, drowning slowly in its cheap dermatin
folds, and she could feel her mind being consumed by the heavy lethargic heat of the room.

Anger came to her aid, as it did more and more in these last days, and she twisted and
wretched herself out of the cursed things’ drowning embrace, ripping apart the cheap leather
and her own skin alike.

“SHUT UP!”

She screamed, and he stopped talking,smiling at her instead with an entirely inhuman smile.
She didn’t care

“JUST SHUT UP!”

He flicked her nose, and her fire was gone, dancing as a spark on the top of the finger. "Better?"

"I"...

….

"Eh," Dr Id dismissed the notion with a wave of his crooked hand. "Truth." He shrugged. "Deeds
of renown without peer aren't quite your speed any more, anyways right? Might as well take the
simple pleasure."

"Sunset, Sunset," he chuckled. "Sunset, Sunset, Sunset."

Something clicked inside him, and he hitched, like a clockwork that missed a gear, and repeated
"Sunset."

"Sunset." A spring broke from within his face, and he started to fall apart, plastic skin cracking,
his eye popping out on a spring, as he repeated and repeated and repeated her name....

"Sunset!"

"Gah!" She woke with a start, gasping for air.

"You can't sleep here. It's detention."

"What?" She wiped the drool of her chin with a sleeve and looked around. The purple teacher
was right. It was detention.

CHEERILEE TELLS HER SHE’S NOT GOING TO ZECORAS TODAY.

“Huh.”

HUMAN SACRIFICE
“Silver, what do you say we show our friend how we have fun around here?”

Silver smiled, and nodded, taking out her permanent notepad.

Diamond stood up, cleaning up her dress from some invisible dust, and knocked on one of the
nearby doors, peeking in.

“Mister Discreet Service?”

The portly man in the suit inside the office raised his head from the computer, rubbing his eyes
tiredly.

“Oh, hi, Tiara. Did you want something?”

“Daddy said he needs documents on that project for the next meeting, Could you come up to his
office, please? He’ll want to discuss your progress as soon as he’s done with his current work.”

“Erm… oh. Yes, sure thing.” Discreet scuttled away, ransacking his desk for printouts. “Did he,
erm, mention what he wanted to talk about?”

“Nope. But he was doing his hand-knocking thing, y’know the one”. Tiara imitated the drumroll
of her father’s fingers running over the desk in a staccato pattern that Filthy Rich did when he
was impatient or annoyed

“Oh crabapples,” Dscreet redoubled his efforts, printouts and post-its flying everywhere, before
he almost ran out of the door.

“Ti, what are you doing? This is boooring.” Pacifica voiced her doubts in the girls’ definition of
‘fun’. “This is, like, work stuff!”

“A human sacrifice,” Tiara answered vaguely, as she wasted no time, positioning herself in the
abandoned chair and running through the notes and photographs strewn around the table in the
disarray left behind by the spooked office rat. “You’ll see.”
“Married. Kids - two, daughter and son, preschool. Bad organisational skills, locks the computer
and the drawer, easily spooked, has not done professional requals for three years, keeps paper
notes…” Silver was furiously writing down Tiara’s conclusions, as she was rattling them off.

“Nothing so far. Now for the fun part”

Her fingers flew over the keyboard, trying out office passwords, but the machine turned out to
be resistant to her attempts - neither names, not random post-its notes did not seem to be the
password to the account.

“Darn”.

“Can we go now?”

“Not yet.”

Taking off the desk phone off the hook, Tiara dialed a short number.

“Hi, is this IT?” her voice slightly lowered imitating an adult, “This is workstation 8579, and I
seem to have locked myself out of the system. Can you guys please drop the password?”

She scribbled something on a post-it note

“Thanks. I know, just stupid Caps Lock thingie. My fault, totally owe you one.”

She slammed the phone down and her fingers returned to the keyboard, forcing the computer to
bring out its contents.

“Let’s see… mail… downloads… recycle bin… woah, this is some nasty stuff.”

Pacifica craned her neck towards the screen.

“Silver, did you know that mister Discreet likes to watch himself some very interesting videos in
his workplace?”

The silver girl grinned “Why no, Tiara, I had no idea!”

“That does paint his plane tickets to Tail Land in his mailbox in a very interesting light though.
Wonder what else mister Indiscreet here likes to do on company money.”

“A dating site in Browsing History looks fun”

“And he keeps his password remembered. My, my.”

For a few seconds all three girls were reading furiously, until...

“Eww!”

“Why would he even describe that?”

“Do adults really do that? It’s, like, disgusting!”

“Ahhaha!”

“Allright, enough ladies, we got what we came here. Positions now, please!”

***

Discreet Service was furious. He would not show it of course, but the stupid prank had made
him look like a complete mule. He’d have to give the little girl a stern talking-to. Not too stern, of
course, she was still Filthy Rich’s daughter, but he had to explain that acting out like this was
completely unacceptable. He was the vice-assistant to the second director of operations, after
all, not some lowly cubicle slave!

When he entered the office, however, not only was the little brat sitting in his chair, she had her
legs across the desk, a perfect Prida shoes casually trampling his family portrait. He’d give her a
piece of his mind!

“Mister Discreet. Please sit down” she pointed to the visitor’s chair.

“Tiara, this is completely unacceptable, you can’t just…”

“I do apologize for the little deception.” She interrupted him, and something in her voice made
him stop talking “But your correspondence with the “HeMan179” was just sooo interesting, I
couldn’t help myself.”

He could feel now the perspiration on his brow, as the cold feeling of dread encroached on him,
words he had rehearsed in his head disappearing like morning mists.

“I mean, the more graphic materials you did not thoroughly delete were educational, but the way
you describe your… romantic endeavors was a riveting read. A truly inspired piece of work,
even though an hourly hotel is hardly a great setting.”

He sat down. Visitors chair or not, his legs refused to keep him standing, and tried to think. It did
not go so well.

“You really should publish.” Tiara advised. “But then again, your wife would find out. And your
kids. And their friends….”
“D-diamond!”

“Miss Tiara” the silver girl corrected him sternly.

“What do you want?”

“Your employee ID.”

“Wh-what?”

“Give me your employee ID.” she repeated with exaggerated patience, waving the usbs-stick in
the air “Or the next time you try to run a presentation, all everyone will be thinking about, is how
you “want to give a chocolate bath to his mighty spear in your tight little bunny burrow.”

He ripped his ID off his neck and threw it on the table.

Silver picked it up with two fingers, and hid it in her pad, making a show of wiping her fingers on
a Kleenex afterwards, just as Diamond hopped off a chair, to leave the room.

“I have your number, mister vice-assistant. And one day, I might just ask you to do something
for me. And you’re gonna do it.”

“Yes, Miss Tiara.” there was nothing but resignation in his tone, as he watched the girls leave
his office.

***

“Silver what’s the tally?”

“Twelve, ‘Miss Tiara’” Silver reported gleefully, adding another ID to her wallet. “Even dozen”

“Ok, that was fun. Weird, but fun,” Pacifica admitted. “Are all of them such total pervs?”

HOW THE PRICE IS PAID

Sunset tested out the knife and licked the blood off the finger. The thing was sharp.
She looked at her students carefully, checking for any sign of fear. There were plenty, but both
girls tried their very best not to show.

Good.

“Last chance, grasshoppers. Walk away, and I won't think any worse of you. This is entirely and
absolutely non-compulsory.”

They said nothing.

She scratched behind the ear of the pig. It oinked happily, leaning into the scratch.

“There are three tolls for the road of life. To live a life you must pay in blood, in sweat and in
tears.”

A knife slipped under the piglet’s throat, and its snorts turned into gurgles, as its neck split in a
gushing wound. It tired to move, legs jerking limply above the ground, but the harness held it
fast, life and strength flowing out of its body by the second.

“If you’re strong, if you’re lucky, the others will be paying for what you want. But the price is
always there and it’s always the same. Always hiding beneath the thin veil of civilization, like a
razor blade inside an apple.”

The convulsions of the animal were growing slower by the second, and the blood pooled in a
puddle, covering Sunset’s boots.

“Never forget that, grasshoppers. Never let it slip your minds, that when you eat your meal is
paid by murder and the sweat of somebody’s brow. That when you wear fur, something died for
your comfort and someone worked to make it into clothes. Diamonds and silver, luxury and
necessity all you have, and all you ever will have will be paid for by blood, and sweat and tears,
whether yours or taken from someone else.”

She cleaned up the knife with a cloth slowly, as her students stood mesmerised by the vision of
death. The first thing they ever seen to die in front of their eyes.

“Now who wants to go first?”

***

Sunset caught her hand. "Wait!"

A second's relief blinked in the girl's eyes.

"Away from your side out," Sunset changed the positioning of the knife against the piglet's throat
"That way the blood does not spill on you."
THIS SCHOOL OF OURS

MONSTERS
"Look." Trixie made a grand gesture around, "Do you want to know what Trixie sees?"

She pointed at a couple talking "Food."

She pointed at the running kids, accidentally dropping someone's Coke. "Food."
She pointed at Sunset at her side. "Food.”

"That's all Trixie can think of."

"And you're think you're alone?" Sunset shrugged. "Do you think I’m any different? There’s a
thing in my brain, a thing I made out of myself, that looks through my eyes, and I constantly see
it.

“The way I could break up that couple and turn their infatuation to hatred in five words,
whispered at the right time.

“The way I could just give a little shove, and like dominoes falling, a chain of events would lead
to kid breaking her neck instead of dropping someone's drink, or how to turn an accident
everyone will forget in five minutes into a joke that would destroy her life for the next two years.

“I look at you, and the first thing I think of is 'when my friend turns against me, what is the most
efficient way to destroy her'.

"We're monsters, Trix. That's what we are. The question is -- what do we do with it."

OLD FRIENDS

“Adagio has been so wonderful. She has been taking care of Trixie so much, and teaching
Trixie a lot - about the siren magic, about presentation and stagecraft, about...other stuff”.
Trixie’s cheeks flushed pink at the last part. “But… Trixie misses the school, and her friends,
and her mother a lot.” She sniffled, “And Fuchi and Lavi still don’t answer Trixie’s messages.

“Trixie will get better though. We can stay apart for more than a day now, even.”

She clasped her hands in fists, trying to summon her resolve.

“Trixie will master that stupid magic, and when she isn’t so hungry all the time, she will come
back to her family and her school, Greater and more Powerful than ever!”. Her shoulders
slumped and voice dropped, “It’s just that Trixie does feel a little bit lonely, now and again.”

“My offer still stands, you know. We need The Magnificent Magenta back in our party.”
“You’ve seen it yourself, Sunset.” Trixie’s tone turned bitter, resigned, “It’s too dangerous for
Trixie to be with other people. Especially you, or your friends, with your emotions and your
magic. Trixie could hurt someone.”

“If you say that I’m like your personal brand of heroin, I [i]will[/i] punch you”, Sunset said sourly.
“You need friends, Trix. You can’t just be permanently cooped up with Adagio and other sirens,
or be by yourself, you’ll go nuts.”

“You’re willing to risk yourself?” Trixie asked, surprised. “For Trixie?”

“That’s what friends are for.” Sunset smiled a bit, “And the taser I’m getting after today.”

“Ooh, kinky. I didn’t know you were into this stuff”

Something in Trixie’s pose shifted slightly, and suddenly her Crystal Prep uniform became much
less... uniform, stretching thin across her body and accentuating her curves in a way no dress
could. The black, red gem-studded choker turned a modest schoolgirl shirt into something kinky
beyond description.

“We could go all the way you know”, she purred, “get an electric collar, so you could punish
Trixie when she is being naughty” Trixie leaned in close, her blue lips almost touching Sunset’s
ear, and whispered “And Trixie can be a naughty, naughty girl”

Sunset gulped, and tried to scooch back. Somehow her dry throat failed to produce anything but
helpless babble. It may not have been siren magic, but somehow that made it even worse.

[i]Stupid teenage hormones. Stupid, sexy Trixie.[/i]

Trixie giggled and flicked Sunset’s nose, breaking the spell.

“Don’t worry, fire-head, Trixie only has eyes for one girl. And it’s not you….oh.” Trixie cut herself
off, her eyes widening in surprise, “Oh my goodness, you’re in love too!” she giggled.

“What?!”, flustered Sunset tried to deny the obvious, “No, I’m not! That’s.. I’m just not!”

“Oh yes you are! I can feel it all around you”. Trixie’s gem pulsed, once, and again, a steady
rhythm like a beating heart on her throat. “It’s like a little hot sun in your chest, tiny but so warm”
her hand touched Sunset's chest “And Trixie has been so very cold for so long…”

She leaned even closer, now so close to Sunset, she was almost kissing her neck, taking a
long, long sniff. “Mmm...and so sweet. Like honey.”

“Trixie, get off me!” Sunset tried to push the baby-siren away, but her grip turned out to be
surprisingly strong.

“Trixie just needs a teeny-tiny little nibble. You would not deny your friend just a little bit of all
that magnificent warmth, would you?” Trixie’s rambling turned into a soft quiet humming, almost
a purr, as she nearly rubbed her face over her friend, like a cat smelling catnip.
Her purring changed in pitch and tone, like a quiet, murmuring lullaby and Sunset suddenly felt
weak. Thoughts went all fuzzy in her head, and her push lost all its power as she tried to hold on
to Trixie instead, not having enough strength to even keep standing. Siren’s lips touched on her
neck, and underneath all that softness and warmth that seemed to cover all of her body like a
thick blanket, she could almost feel the gentle tease of her breath on her ear…

Her eyes closed, and she leaned into Trixie’s warm embrace. It was getting hard to think and
harder still to remember why this wonderful feeling of siren’s embrace and a lullaby that seemed
to just rock her to sleep like a baby is a bad thing.

“I hope you brought enough to share with the class”. Suddenly appearing Adagio made no move
to separate the two. “Been awhile since I had a good threesome. Might even let the bacon-hair
here survive the experience, if only to spread the tale”.

That, however, was enough to distract Trixie, and her perfect lullaby stopped for a second.

“I said, get off me!”, Sudden wave of the now-familiar red anger flashed through her, burning
away the warmth and fuzziness in an all-consuming flare, and Trixie recoiled away.
She brought her hand to her lips, blisters forming quickly where she touched Sunset’s skin.

***

“Dagi!” Trixie jumped to her lover, hiding her burned face in Siren’s embrace. “Trixie missed you
so much! And Trixie has told you numerous times that Trixie is not sharing you with anyone.”

“It’s more of sharing someone with me.” Adagio may have been joking, but a hungry glint in her
eyes was very real. Sunset shuddered inside, trying not to show her fear, and carefully eyed the
nearest exit, while Adagio whispered something that made Trixie blush profusely.

***

“Trixie would not have killed you. Trixie’s not hungry enough to do it, even if she wanted
to! ...But you would have a horrible headache next morning. Maybe for a few mornings. Not
more than a month, surely.” Trixie fiddled her thumbs, her eyes still lowered “But the Great and
Very Apologetic Trixie is still very sorry for what she did.”

***

“That is a good proposition” Adagio said, tapping her finger on her chin. “You do need to get out
more, now that we can be apart.”

“But Trixie could be dangerous…”, Trixie’s protests were cut off by a simple wave of Adagio’s
hand.

“Nonsense, my little star. We’ll get you well-fed in advance, and I have all the confidence you
can handle yourself well enough.”

“Do you want to send me away so much?” Trixie pouted. “What, does Trixie bore you?”

A little kiss on the lips silenced the blue girl again, as she melted in the siren’s embrace.
Embarrassed, Sunset turned away from the impromptu makeout session.

“I will always need you, you silly girl. But I don’t want to be all that you need”.

“But Dagi!...”

“Hush now, honey, we did agree that this week I am in charge, did we not?”

That was the last straw. “Yes, Mi… my sun”. For some reason Trixie blushed even more, a hint
of a dreamy smile in her expression even as she conceded.

Adagio prompted Trixie with a smack on the bottom, causing an embarrassed squeak from her
lover. “Now go and tell the nice bacon-hair girl, that you’ll be happy to join their little group of
friends.”

***

“Tomorrow, when you get a headache don’t take Tylenol”

“Adagio, I am not some clueless muggle. I know how to treat energy drain.” Sunset snapped.

“I find that in absence of mandrake root, ginseng is the best substitute”. The elder siren ignored
Sunset’s outburst entirely. “Three teaspoons to a kettle. And if you hurt my little girl in any way, I
will murder you and every one of your friends.” Her tone stayed the same, calm and level, a tight
smile on her lips.

“You’d just break something trying.” Sunset smiled back, the same cold smile. She knew it
wasn’t a threat, not even a warning. Just a bit of predatory etiquette.

PANTS OFF

"Sentry!" She yanked him into the classroom, locking the door behind them.

"Sunset, what--?"

Why was he talking? She didn't need him to talk.

"Pants." she demanded, fishing in her backpack feverishly.

"What?"

Again with the talking. Silly boy, she did not need him for his conversational skills.

"Pants. Now!" she growled, ripping the wrapper, with enough force to make the rubber inside fly
off.

He finally shut up, and it was glorious.

FRIENDSHIP AND GAMES

PEP-TALK

Sunset stepped forward, and inspected her ranks.

“All right, guys. I want you all to know that if you don’t give up, support each other, and believe
in yourself… you will completely and utterly suck.” She cleared her throat in the shocked silence
before continuing, “And the Crystal Prep will step all over you, and then point and laugh in
humiliation all the way back to their little nerd Academy. Do you want to know why?”

Nobody volunteered to answer.

“Because they work hard, every single bloody day. And that is what we are going to do. If
anyone thinks this is gonna be about that nabmy-pamby friendship crap, if you are not willing to
train hard and work hard, if you can’t take the heat - get right out of my kitchen, because as of
this moment this is war.”

GIRL FROM MARS

“Pathetic” gymnastes sighed. “A kitten could’ve hit me harder”

SOMETHING.

“Everyone, stop!” Students froze, and turned to the teacher. “Sit down, and look. You may learn
something. Miss Shimmer, come over here”

Everyone was seated, and Sunset, still panting wet mess - and not the fun kind too - trotted to
the center of the class and stood opposite the teacher, once again “forgetting” to bow.

“Punch me”

She raised an eyebrow in silent question, and tried to assume the stance.

“Not a demonstration punch. I want you to punch me like-”

She punched him in the face before he finished talking. Well, at least she tried to - a short,
awkward punch without warning or wind-up. She didn’t even see him move, but something
jerked her in a direction she could not even describe, and then the mats of the classroom hit her
in the face. Snickers rang around the class

Groaning she turned over, to see the teacher’s face hanging over her, and stood up.

“Good. Again.”
Another attempt ended the same way as a previous one - Bronze Belt’s hand moved her punch
to the side, and sweepped her leg from under her, making her lose balance and fall like a sack
of grass, with a dull thud against the mats. Snickers turned to giggles.

“Quiet!” He stood her up again, and turned to other students “Now who can tell me -”

She kicked him in the nuts from behind - a vicious, underhanded hit. His knees closed instantly,
blocking the kick and capturing her leg, and he twisted and rolled, dropping her to the floor, and
sat on top of her. His hands pulled on her captured foot, and her growl of frustration turned to
pained yelp.

Giggles turned to open laughter, but Belt did not laugh.

“I said: Quiet!”

“Miss Shimmer came to this class a week ago, starting from a blank slate. She’s also half your
size, weighs fifty pounds soaking wet, and can’t do a pull-up. But if she’d have to fight any of the
juniors here in a real fight, she’d destroy them. Do you know why?”

Nobody ventured a guess.

“Because you’re all cowards”

Class murmured with dissent, nonplussed with the unflattering description.

“In every move that Mister Gauntlet demonstrated, all you can see is fear. When he attacks,
he’s afraid to hurt his opponent. When he blocks, he’s afraid to get hurt. Even when he
demonstrates a movement he’s afraid of getting it wrong.”

DISCLAIMERS
Face, meet palm. Palm, meet face.

Teenagers.

Someone had to hurry things along, or those two would be blushing at each other until
graduation day. Quietly she pinkiepied to the teens, too busy trying not to look at each other,
and put her hands on both of their shoulders.

“Flash, this is Twilight Sparkle. Twilight Sparkle from the Crystal Prep. Twilight, this is Flash
Sentry. He’s a nice guy, plays guitar, wants to ask you out and if you ever hurt him I will beat
you to death with a shovel.”

They stared.

“Vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend. Have fun!”

STRICTLY COME DANCING

“Sunset, this is silly”, Flash semi-whined for the hundredth time. “I don’t see...”

“Shush,” Sunset shushed him. “Look, it’s no big deal. The girl clearly is crushing, and I saw you
checking her out.”

“I’m married, not dead,” Flash said defensively, his cheeks getting rosy. “But--”

“Just take her to the dance, talk a bit, see how it goes. And gimme that--” she stole the tie off his
hands.

“But what about you?”

“I am a big girl now, Flash, I can share my toys”

He gave her a look, questioning her choice of words. She chose to ignore it, throwing the noose
of the tie over his head.

“Two things, Sentry. First--” she finished the knot, and ran her fingers over it, straightening it up,
“use protection.”

“Sunset!”

“And second - Do. Not. Lie.” The noose of the tie tightened almost to the point of discomfort
“Take your time, make your choice, but do not lie, Flash Sentry, to me or to her, or I will bury
you.”

She sealed his mouth with a kiss and a gentle nibble to the lip, and, before he could catch her,
moved away.

“Go. Have fun.”

GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS

"You have everything given to you! Everything! I know what you've done. What you've been
doing. And you still have friends, you have a boyfriend, a career, the perfect grades. You have
real magic for goodness sake. Everyone likes you. Why don't they like ME?!"

She wiped tears and snot off her face.

"I've never done anything bad in my life. I never hurt anyone. Why don't they like me?"

“Flash liked you.”

She glared.

"It was cruel. The pity date, the hand-me-down. It would have hurt less if he was like everyone
else, if he called me names, if he ignored me. But no. He was perfectly nice. He listened, he
didn't make me feel awkward, we had fun. And then he said he was sorry. That it won't work
out. And he went back to you as if it was nothing. As If I was nothing.Because of course I was -
compared to the perfect Sunset Shimmer.

“He made me feel normal. He made me feel liked.

“And you took it all from me, and you didn’t even have to try."

"Nobody owes you love, little princess. It can't be stolen, can't be earned, can't be deserved. It's
a gift."

THE POWER ON THE DARK SIDE

It was dark. So dark, and so cold, even her anger, her best weapon and companion, has long
since stopped being enough to keep her warm. Her throat would’ve felt sore for all the
screaming she did in the silence, but she just felt numb, huddled in the limbo of the perfect
darkness and silence, and as she felt the last of her heat… the last of her self, be consumed by
the hungry blackness of the place, she could not even summon the strength to be afraid.

“Fear not this night”

A sound. Barely a whisper - it must’ve been an illusion. A last attempt of whatever was left of
her to do something.

“It will not go astray.”

But why then did her last dying illusion sound very much like a certain cerulean magician-
turned-siren?

“Though shadows fall

Still the stars find their way.”

It couldn’t be. Yet three other voices joined the song, and it grew louder. No longer a whisper in
the darkness - now the darkness was only an illusion against the green magic of the song.

“Awaken from a quiet sleep

Hear the whispering of the wind
Awaken as the silence grows
In the solitude of the night”

She could feel the air on her skin now - her real skin, in her real world, a sensation so wonderful
it almost made her laugh.The darkness stirred and twisted, trying - and failing - to contain the
song.

Nightmares come when shadows grow

Eyes close and heartbeats slow

Fear not this night

You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
Still the stars find their way

And you can always be strong

Lift your voice with the first light of dawn

She could see the light now - blurry images of reality. She blinked. She blinked!

Distant sounds of melodies

Darting through the night to your heart
Auroras, mists, and echoes dance
In the solitude of our life

Pleading, sighing arias

Gently grieving in captive misery

The darkness flowed and stirred, and the song grew distant again. It wasn’t enough, there had
to be something, anything! She threw herself against it with abandon, and...

Darkness sings a forlorn song

Yet our hope can still rise up

Nightmares come when shadows grow

Lift your voice, lift your hope

She could feel the others. Like stars they lit up in the darkness. Blue, brown, yellow. Pink and
silver…. Not a full song, not controlled, refined power of the siren-spell, but something deeper,
more primal, more pure.

Her friends were with her, lifting their voices, their hopes and their strength against the
darkness. And no darkness could stand against that light, however far and faint. The song
climbed, rising to a piercing crescendo, its newfound power threading the darkness like the
nothingness it really was.
Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
Still the stars find their way

And though the night sky's filled with blackness

Fear not, rise up, call out and take my hand

She threw her everything towards the song, and she could feel the warmth of Trixie’s hand in
her own, as she stepped outside of the dark, now powerless to stop her.

Fear not this night

You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
Still the stars find their way

And you can always be strong

Lift your voice with the first light of dawn

Dawn's just a heartbeat away

Hope's just a sunrise away

She stood up, the power beating in tune with her own heart, and just like that there was no more
darkness, no more Midnight. She was herself again. And she was in the basement of the
school, sirens leaning against the walls.

“We could get you out,” Adagio said, dabbing away her nosebleed with an orange handkerchief.
“Only you, I’m afraid. Now you figure it out.”

“But why me?” Sunset asked dumbly “I don’t have any magic.”

Adagio tried to glare at her. It did not work so well when the Dazzling could barely stand upright.

“I am Sunset Shimmer” she quoted. “The Celestia’s Monster. I beat up real monsters and made
them cry.” She had to catch her breath before she could continue “Well, now, there’s a monster
for you. Go, kick this ugly thing’s butt, rip its throat out, do whatever it is you brutes do, and
solve this problem for us.”

Sunset nodded slowly, as the heat returned to her limbs. She did once say that. And thinking
back, to the darkness peppered by the stars of every color she knew what to do.

BEATDOWN
"Nobody will be mean to me again." the abomination of a Sparkle pulsed with the stolen magic,
and in the eyes of every student something flickered back in the same rytm - a green glint of
magic. "Nobody will ever be mean to anyone else!"

"You know what your problem is, Sparkle?" a Sunset said calmly, ignoring the magical
maelstrom. She lit a cigarette, and stepped off the porch, moving towards the magical monster-
girl.

"You! How?"

Sunset ignored the sputtering uber-nerd, as she kept moving.

"You despise everyone and you envy them at the same time. You think that you're better than
them, while desperately begging for their approval, and when they don't hurry to fall on their
knees and hail the great genius Twilight Sparkle you hate them for it. That's all there is to it. Just
a temper-tantrum by a spoiled, privileged little girl"

"HOW DARE YOU!" The classic of bad villainy only caused Sunset to smirk, despite the
window-shattering volume of Sparkle's voice. "I want to end the pain! The misunderstanding, the
bullying, the hating. I want everyone to be friends! Why don't you see it?"

"You have no idea what friendship even means, you little twit." Sunset threw away her half-
smoked cigarette and threw her hands to the sides, summoning her friends."

"Friends are the ones who tease and make fun of you, because they know you can take it"
She could feel the tiny pulse of Trixie’s magic within her chest, like a tickling little feather.

"Friends are the ones who respect your decisions and know their boundaries,"
Diamond nodded, looking at Apple Bloom wistfully.

"Friends will smack you round and give you a good one to the ribs when they know you need it".
Silver Spoon glared at Diamond who shrugged apologetically

"Friends will tell you the painful truth, even if you won't hear it"
"You suck, Shimmer!" Gilda shouted over the noise of the awakening crowd. "But you suck less
now!"

"Friends will hurt you without mercy to spur you to be better."

Rarity blushed a bit "I do apologize darling, but I did what was necessary."

With every word, Sunset's frame glowed with angry, red power, drawing in the magic from those
that she named, until with a final invocation the gathered energy exploded in every direction and
a demon-girl stood in the courtyard, ready to match Sparkle's magic blow for blow.

"I got my friends and my enemies with me." She clenched her fists, and dark, heavy fire
enveloped them. "You ain't got crap, Sparkle. Let's go"

***
Midnight Sparkle pulsed, filled with the brim with the stolen magic. She had power to rip the
space and time like paper, power to blot out the sun, to control the world…. She did not stand a
chance.

“Life is pain, little princess” Midnight’s flare of energy got tangled and lost in the thin lattice of
Sunset’s spellwork.

“Life is conflict” a fire-covered fist smacked right into Twilight’s midsection, forcing her to double-
up coughing purple-stained blood.

“Life is war” a spell turned Sparkle’s wings into a ragged mess with a million burning splinters,
and she fell to the ground.

[MIDNIGHT TRIES TO COUNTER BUT GETS HOPELESSLY OUTMATCHED]

“It is in argument truth is established” a shield blocked Midnight’s attack “In conflict boundaries
are made and acknowledged” a clap of Sunset’s clawed hands closed the opening portals “In
the contest strength grows and bonds are made”.

“Those who love you for who you are, who always support and agree with you, who never
challenge or argue with you are not your friends, they are your shadows. A crappy reflection
parroting back to you things you already know.”

Midnight Sparkle screamed her inhuman rage, throwing herself at the demon, and Sunset
grabbed her by the hand, pivoting and twisting, just like Gilda taught her, and with a heavy thud
the girl crashed into the ground as Sunset rolled over her, all spiked knees and elbows, pinning
her to the ground.

“Without friends and enemies, even with all the power in the world you will always be weak”

Sunset’s palm touched Midnight’s breastbone and a pulse of magic turned into a flash and
thunder to shatter and burn. And when those around could see once again, only two girls
remained, all their magic expended.

Sunset stood up, her clothes smoking and made few wobbling steps, before Gilda caught her.
“Thus endeth the lesson.” she murmured and then she was out like a light.

MONSTERS WE LOVE

“I’ve seen you again.” Rarity said “When you woke us from the spell, when our strength joined
with yours to defeat that dreadful thing, we all saw the real you.”

Sunset grew cold. Whatever Rarity saw, it could not be good. There was nothing good about the
real Sunset Shimmer.

“That’s all I see now, when I look at you. The fire. The anger. The hatred. Burning in every
shade of red and yellow, struggling to devour and destroy itself and whatever is around.”

Sunset closed her eyes.

“You’re a monster, Sunset Shimmer, pure and simple. A horrid thing of magic and destruction”

Something soft and warm touched her lips. A kiss?

“I had some very rotten luck with people lately. I think, perhaps we, monsters should stick
together.”
QUEENS AND MONSTERS

HACKING
“But Twilight said that she’d lock the portal after the whole Sirens debacle.” Flash noted.

“Pfft”, Sunset scoffed the protest away, “Twilight is smart. Like, scary-smart”, Sunset grinned
smugly, and produced a strange contraption of wires and shining gemstones connected to her
diary “But I am a witch, a hacker and a thief. I’ve tricks up my sleeve that the little pony Princess
could never even think of.”

Connecting the clamps and suction cups to the statue she whistled a humming little tune, and
sing-sang in a hushed voice

Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I.
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun

Magic hummed back from within the crystals in tune with the rhyme, the little device whirling and
sparkling and the portal came alive with shimmering light.

“Hah!” Sunset smirked in triumph “There is not a magician born who can stand against the might
of the Professor’s verse.”

“Well, that and siren magic,” she added, as she packed the device, “I owe Trixie one for this.”

MAGICIAN
Sunset stretched, and her horn caught alight. Turquoise glow surrounded them, swirling, taking
shapes and dissipating at unicorn's command. It separated - one stream, then three, then five,
going all the way up to eleven different shapes and sigils, before collapsing into a tangled green
mess of unformed magical glow.

“Ugh” Sunset muttered, wiping sweat off her brow, “I used to be able to do seventeen.”

***

“There is no better feeling for a magician. Preparing a spell, like opening the most complex
puzzle box in the world, energy folding into itself like an origami. Playing the ebb and tide of the
elements like a violin, surfing on the edge of the wave of power that can crush an army.
Crumpling reality like so much soft wax with nothing but pure will: It is the rush of tightrope-
walking, the intellectual challenge of mathematics and power trip all rolled into one.” Sunset
sighed. “I used to love it so much.”

“What happened then?”

“I grew up.”

CHANGELINGING

She closed her eyes and concentrated on specific points within her body, feeling her bones
grow and stretch, her muscles elongating and her center of gravity shifting. Her coat tickled,
turning lighter, almost fluttershy-yellow.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not really." she said, testing out her longer limbs "Just feels really weird. Unless you do it too
quickly and rip or stretch something."

FIRE WATER FOR ABORIGINES

Flash whistled when he noticed the price tag. "That bottle is worth half what my parents make in
a month. Why would anyone pay that much for fancy booze? And how can you even afford it."

"To show that they can, mostly. And I can’t afford it. Well, I can but I don’t want to, so I stole it."

"Sunset!"

"It’s ok, don't worry about it." Sunset waved her hoof, wobbling unsteadily as she did. "It's from
Barnyard Bargains Hearths Warming Gala, I get to organize catering. In catering budget there’s
always 2% set aside in the budget for storage and transportation losses for all food and drink
items. And I have a way of making everyone very, very careful about their storage and
transportation, so when a fancy bottle or two disappear, well, nobody is going to look very
closely. Or mind too much."

GENTLEMARES

She opened her eyes wearily, suddenly aware of the lack of warmth by her side. “Flash?” she
asked the stallion peering through the window. “It’s not even morning yet. What’s up?”

“There’s some weird commotion down there. I heard some knocks and footsteps, and there are
peop… ponies, and some crates, and stuff. Any idea what they could be doing in this hour of
the night?”
She frowned. “Them that asks no question isn’t told a lie.” It was almost a nursery rhyme for
those who lived in the Baltimare docks, and she learned hers as a filly. “Go to bed, beloved, let
the gentlemares go by.”

MINE (REPRISE)
Sunset moved aside, letting her parents see Flash Sentry still standing there awkwardly.

“Mommy, Daddy, this is my boyf… my coltf…”, she choked, suddenly embarrassed. “He’s with
me.”

HOMES AND HOUSES

“You’re lucky. Daddy makes the world’s best fried everything-you-can-find-in-the-fridge, but
when Mom cooks it’s like High Sorcery. Only tastier.

Flash smiled, looking around the place.

“It’s all so… normal. More like Scoots’ family, or mine. Not at all what I imagined.”

“What you expected a horrible little hovel, where little Sunset Shimmer was beaten brutally so
she’d grow up so evil and twisted? An orphanage? Evil elitist parents who demand perfection in
everything and demean you every day?”, Sunset shrugged, “I love my parents, and they love
me -- there’s no feudian excuse for me here. All the things I did, I did because that was what I
chose to do and for no other reason.”

PROGRESS

“It’s Celestia’s fault, really.”

“But how can one person control that much? Wouldn’t there be a revolution or something?”

“She is the centerpoint of Equestria. It’s an ingenious system really, hardly requires her to do
anything. What Celestia does not approve, the nobility finds distasteful. What nobility does not
like becomes unfashionable, so industrialists avoid it. Once industry avoids it and fashion shuns
it, there is neither demand nor supply, and with no black market to support it otherwise, soon
whatever it is fades into obscurity and becomes a niche thing for a hoof-ful of enthusiasts.

“That’s what happened with hard liquor, with conveyer belts and industrial houses, with
computers and telephones. We could have all that, but that would mean an industrial revolution,
which in turn means that a lot of ponies would lose their jobs and instead sign up for menial
repetitive factory stuff and the quality of life would drop significantly, if for a short period. And
Celestia does not really want that, so instead we have a much slower, much more cautioned
progress.”

WARNING
“First, there’s something I wanted to try, ever since I read that book…” Sunset concentrated,
and green mist streamed from her horn, folding into itself and two crested birds the size of a
raven, one yellow, one red, stood on before her and moved to her shoulders, looking at her.
Their eyes were emerald-green and like emerald they were motionless and dead, with no pupil
or iris.

“Yellow bird of my love, find the one I wish to protect, and give them my message: “I am coming
for you. Hope.”

With a flapping of wings and a rustle of feathers the yellow bird was gone.

“Red bird of my ire, find the one I wish to destroy, and give them my message: “I am coming for
you. Run.”

With a flapping of wings and a rustle of feathers the red bird was gone.

EPIC TALE
“Aww, why don’t I get a horn? Or at least wings?” Diamond Tiara regarded herself critically,
“Why do I get to be a boring regular horse?”

“You’re lucky kid, you get to be an earth pony.” Sunset said dismissively, even though she was
somewhat disappointed. She almost looked forward to teaching the kid unicorn magic, seeing
her own student cast her very first spell. And there were more practical issues - the earth pony
magic, potent as it was, was fickle, and took time to develop. The time they did not have.

“Really? What’s so great about being a normal horse in the magical land?” Tiara asked
suspiciously, interrupting Sunset’s planning.

She sighed and gave her student a look.

"Sit down grasshoppers and let me tell you a story"

"Hey, we're not kids! We don't need bedtime stories, you know!" Diamond Tiara objected, even
as she was sitting down, shifting her hoovsies in anticipation.

"It's an old story, the one my daddy told me, and his father told him before that, and his father
before that. A story as old as the earth and as true as the sky.

"There once was a mighty pegasus warrior, powerful and arrogant. Some say it was
Commander Hurricane himself, returning from his triumph in Cloudsdale. Others say it was
Steel Wind or Blazing Trail - but it matters little. She was a powerful warrior, cunning in the ways
of the sky and flight. Her wings could cleave hurricanes apart and her thunderforged steel-shod
hooves would buck even the most rain-heavy cloud to bits with a single kick.
And so this warrior has stopped on her way, to take a nap on a passing cloud - as most pegasi
love to do - and under that cloud she saw an earth pony farmer, going about her daily chores,
plowing the field, and paying no heed to the pegasus above.

And the pegasus, being not just a mighty warrior, but also an arrogant one - as most pegasi are
- has mocked the simple earth pony farmer. She'd make fun of earth pony simple life, and her
life spent without even once stepping outside of her farm, and her simple robes that were
nothing like the pegasus’ shiny armor, forged in lighting and tempered by the first winter snow,
and her unseemly work, knee-deep in the mud.

The earth pony said nothing, but smiled to herself and went on with her work, her silence only
pushing the pegasus to mock her harder, with ever more vitriolic jaunts and stinging words. And
so the day went by, with pegasus mocking the earth pony, and the earth pony saying nothing.

And then the sun was lowered, and it came the time for evening, and the earth pony left for her
home and her family - still a smile on her muzzle, still saying nothing to the pegasus.

It was then that the pegasus noted that she had left her saddlebags under the tree. And since
she was not just arrogant but also honest - as most pegasi are - she sought to catch the earth
pony and give her the saddlebags back.

So from her perch on the cloud she dropped down to the earth, and tried to pick the bags up -
and found that she could not. No matter how much the warrior would huff, and would puff, and
would strain her back, and her neck, and her wings, the bags were just too heavy to move even
a feather's width from where the earth pony has left them.

The pegasus was not only honest, but also stubborn - as most pegasi are - and so she spent
the whole night trying to lift the bags to no avail, until with the crack of dawn, the earth pony
came back to her work. Still saying nothing, the pony grabbed her saddlebags, and put them on
and returned to her field, to do her chores until the sun would set down.

And since that day, no pegasus would ever mock an earth pony, because save for the dragons,
the earth ponies have the most powerful magic of all the creatures in Equestria"

The girls considered the tale told, until Silver finally asked:

"But what was in the earth-pony’s bags?"

“Her spare horseshoes.”

ASSASSIN'S CREED
“And you dragged other children into this? Sunset, I cannot in my right mind…”
Sunset’s horn flared with green flame, and she threw Celestia into the nearest wall, as the
assassin's blade split the air scant inches away from Princesses white neck.

“Death to the freaks!” the raven-black stallion cried, jumping after the dazed Princess, when a
giant golden throne crashed into his side, breaking his leap mid-air.

Sunset hit him again before he recovered and the heavy oaken chair cracked from the sheer
force of the blow, golden ornaments flying in a fountain of scraps. Another strike finally knocked
the assailant out, the throne now no more than a bunch of twisted metal and firewood, whipped
up in a small tornado, as Sunset looked around for threats.

ORANGE SUNSET

“Don’t, ” Count suggested wearily. “You don’t have a chance, boy”

The younger stallion ignored him, settling down in a classic duel position, hooves planted firmly
on the marble, horn angled at Sunset.

“I challenge you to a duel, here and now, mare. Answer or forfeit and be banished forever!”

Sunset smirked, and moved widdershins around her opponent.

The stallion started first. His magic shone azure blue, and apples floated from the nearest vase
towards Sunset, rotating in the air as they turned to oranges. She flicked them away impatiently,
not bothering where they land.

“You intend to fight an army with apples and oranges?” She stopped, and stomped her front
hoof against the marble, summoning a wall of translucent green force with her magic. “No. If
we’re to duel, we do it my way.”

The wall moved, slow and unyielding like a glacier.

The stallion took a step back, but then stopped himself. His own magic met Sunset’s in the
middle between them, and its progression slowed, even though there still was panic in the
stallion’s eyes.

Walls of green and blue crashed against each other, grinding and pushing, magic against
magic, will versus will. But that was not what Rarity was looking at, not what would decide the
fight. It would be a tiny little drop of red she could barely spot forming under Sunset’s nose.

Blood. She was pushed to the limit, and even if she did not show it walking confidently towards
the place where the wall of magic had divided the opponents, if that little droplet would fall,
leaving a thin trace - so easily seen across the yellow coat - and the stallion would be able to
see it… it could very well give him back the confidence needed to power through.

“Heh. Not bad.” A bored, almost annoyed tone. It’d take a good ear to hear the wheezing
undertone and the slightest waver in it. “Remember that time I tried to see if your blood is really
blue?” she smiled an unsettling, vicious smile “Maybe this time we’ll find that out”
There was now fear in his eyes. He tried to step back, and realised that he could not - Sunset’s
magic seeped into the marble floor, making it hold all four of his hooves with a grip of stone.

“You can’t run from me, little boy blue. Come on. You challenged me, now stand and fight!”

Sparks showered from the stallion’s horn, as he pushed the last of his strength against Sunset’s
magic, and he whimpered when that was not enough to even slow it down.

The magic fell on him and pushed him down. To his knees, then to his belly, and now it was
Sunset who was moving forward, her horn like a sword of emerald flames.

“I yield!” he wheezed, “I surrender.”

She ignored him, and pushed harder. Marble cracked, something gurgled in the stallion’s throat
as his barrel stained and squashed under the immense pressure of the magic.

“Sunset.” The Count raised his voice again. “...Please”

The last flicker of emerald magic threw the panting stallion back into the crowd.

Sunset turned to the crowd, flames of her power dancing in her eyes. None dared meet her
gaze.

“I am Sunset Shimmer,” she declared, and the crowd grew silent. “Once Baroness of Winsome
Falls.”

She stepped forward again. None dared stand in her way.

“Once Celestia’s Monster.”

Another step.

“Flame before Her Throne, now restored.”

Crowd parted letting her through.

“The Fire of the Seven Oases. The Red Witch. Griffonbane. Sun-Runner, Night-huntress, Wind-
caller. Flame-thief. The Queen of Canterlot High.”

She set herself at the throne of the crystal castle under the rainbow lightning. None dared to
object.

“I claim these names and you know that they are true. Anyone else wants to tell me I cannot be
in charge of this war?”

ROB

The thin line of blood from her nose was making its way down her muzzle.

“Are you alright?” The Count passed her the handkerchief under the table.
Sunset ignored the item, and chose to wipe the blood with her forehoof. She smirked

“I don’t shiv. I nasty.”

“Well, there’s the brain damage, clearly. Anything else I should be worried about?”

MINE (NOT YOURS)

"Lord Fancy, please meet my students: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon"

The Count looked at the girls with suspicion. "They are not... mine, are they?"

"What?!"

"Well, I mean, we were... close before you left. And not always as careful as we should've
been."

"They're just students Fancy. Not my daughters. Relax."

"Oh. Well. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintances, ladies. "

THE NAHULANKA

"The Law whereby my lady moves

Was never Law to me,
But 'tis enough that she approves
Whatever Law it be."

The Count murmured softly.

“For in that Law, and by that Law,

My constant course I’ll steer;
Not that I heed or deem it dread,
But that she holds it dear.”

Sunset answered. “Were doing it Her way, Fancy. At least we’re going to try.”

“That mercenary of yours did say you’ve gone soft…”

“Maybe I have, but know this:” she said quietly, without raising her head from her work, “If need
be, I will tear the stars from heaven to hurl them in their face. I will burn ponies by the citiy, I will
cut down lives like gardeners cut grass without count or care, I will go all the way, even if earth
burns under my feet and every step will be as naked blade, and I will have my Princesses
returned to me.” She shrugged. “But first we will try it Her way.”
IF YOU BUILD IT
“I have sent out my summons. To four winds and seven directions, to fire and water, to air and
darkness. They shall come, Fancy. For old oaths and old flames, for love of Celestia, for
friendship with Twilight, or for fear of me -- we shall have our army.”

ULTIMATUM

“We need not be at war, Lady Shimmer.” He said “You are like us. You’ve no patience for the
weak, nor will you be recognized as what you are by them. They shall fear you, and mock you
and hate you even as you save their worthless little lives. Join us, take your rightful place by my
side according to your strength and talents.”

“I have no need for what you can offer,” Sunset shrugged “I’ve a world and a life of my own.
This land is not mine to rule, nor would I want to.”

“So why fight, then?”

“I owe the Princesses a debt.” Sunset said “To one, a debt of gratitude. To the other two - a debt
of guilt, and to the last one both. So we are at war, oh Prince, and there can be no peace
between us lest you release them unto me unharmed.”

“So be it. Know then, Lady Shimmer, whilst I find your ire understandable, henceforth, once you
retreat from the shield of truce, we shall be at war, and no quarter will be given”

“And none will be asked for.”

***

“We took your freaks to heel, Lady Shimmer. We destroyed your army, we conquered your
lands. What makes you think you have a chance?”

“You defeated… or rather slightly inconvenienced the Princesses and for that I commend you,
but you miss the point.”

“And the point would be..?” Platinum raised her elegant eyebrow.

“From Cadence to Celestia, each of them may have more power in the tip of their horn than I
will ever have in my entire being. But deep down, they are nice ponies... and deep down I’m
really not.”

PREPARE TO DIE

Sunset kept on her feet only through sheer stubbornness. The exhaustion of the day and the
energy loss made her vision swim and legs shake, but even though it has been quite some time
since even Rarity gave up and went to sleep, she kept working.

[i]Just one more set. Then I can sleep[/i]

This was not the first time she promised that to herself, but the comforting lies made it easier to
chase away the creeping terror that any respite inevitably brought. She didn’t want to think
about it, not now, not when she was alone.

The stained-glass window of the lab blew out in a thousand sharp pieces, scattering the glass
all over the room, and pain exploded in Sunset’s head when a deft kick of the intruder’s hoof
sent her sprawling on the floor.

“My name is Daring Do”. The pegasus said, adjusting her hat, her wings flared in anger “You
killed my mother. Prepare to die.”

STRINGS ATTACHED
"This is the Dog magic. Old magic, forbidden magic. This is my mark. Wear it, like a sign upon
your hand and like a seal upon your heart. For my love is as strong as death, as unyielding as
the grave. It burns like a fire, like a mighty blaze.”

"All that can see will see it. And they will know, that any harm to you will be seventy-seven times
avenged"

WITH MY OWN FOUR HOOVES

"The last few months... it has been weird, Sunset. The politicking, the magic - not much I could
do, or hay, not much I even understood. I had to just hold on and hope that somehow it would
work out. That somehow [i]you[/i] would work it out. But this - this is something I can help with.
Even if I'm not leading armies, or devising strategies, I still can at least do my part. And I am
going to."

***

"Flash, you don't have to..."

"I kinda do." He said gently.

She floated a spear and a shield towards him.

"My mother’s weapons. Take care of them, and they'll take care of you."

She kissed him on the cheek, and stepped back.

"I'll be waiting for you to come back either with this shield or on it. Else do not come back at all."

UNLOCKING
"Flying is not just skill, it's magic." Sunset thought for a second, looking at the various results
"Pegasi gain their magic not like unicorns or earth ponies - though learning or exercise, even
though both are important. Like most things in their lives, it happens in bursts and sprints.
“They have some when they are born, some they get when they reach a certain age, more -
when they gain their cutie-mark. Apparently you skipped a few, because you have about as
much magic in you as an average pegasus baby."

"So..."

"We could wait," she suggested "your magic is bound to catch up with your biological age, and I
think it's gonna happen sooner, rather than later. Or..."

"Or what?" he asked, impatiently.”

“Flash Alexander Sentry.” she said with pomp and a bow “will you marry me?”

“What.”

***

“So? How does marriage come into this?”

“I’m going to share my magic with you. Like jump-starting an engine. My magic will be yours and
yours will be mine, joined together… well, pretty much forever.”

***

She gave him a vial of green liquid, and took one for herself.

“This is old magic. Before the Princesses, before Starswirl, before Discord. It draws on user’s
very life. If something goes wrong,” Sunset pulled out her tongue with a hoof, and injected the
liquid in the base of her tongue, wincing as she did “well, it fould be preffy baf for the boff of us”.

***

“So if I will need more magic than you have?”

“You did well in Algebra, Sentry, so you tell me - what’s one minus one?”

“...Oh.”

***

“Will you, Flash Alexander Sentry, son of Earth and the Forest, mix your blood and soul with
mine, to lend me your strength and take my weakness?

“Yes.” He wavered, hoarse words barely making it past his throat.

“So do I, Sunset Shimmer, daughter of Fire and Magic, mix my blood and soul with yours, to
lend you my strength and to take your weakness.

***

“Close your eyes.” She put her hoof on his chest and her horn touched his forehead. “And don’t
move.

“For it through this union we achieve immortality. Through this we become more than we could
ever be, to safeguard those that come after us. Bound together as one, I give you my magic to
stand with yours, from now until the last star falls from the the sky”

With every word the soft green light of her magic spread all over Flash Sentry, and he shone in
reply - a soft dull orange glow of his own.

***

She fell on her knees, taking in a wheezing, rasping breath, trying to catch some air. And then,
seeing a brown-yellow contrail cut across the sky, she smiled.

TESTING
"It ain't that kind of test, son." There was something wrong with the Sarge - the old pony stood
too far, watching him warily, and kept the table awkwardly between them. "It's a psychological
test. I'll let the pencil pusher explain it."

Pencil Pusher, his name on the lab coat, stepped up. He probably was thinking he was brave,
though Flash couldn't for the life of him figure out why.

"It's a sociopathy test." He explains. "We're looking for someone, who, under the right sort of
condition could kill someone."

"Um." Flash looked at him curiously. "We're soldiers. Isn't this the whole idea?" He himself never
killed anything bigger than a spider, but he was pretty sure that the military was supposed to
fight the other guys.

"No!" Pencil Pusher recoiled. "I mean yes, but... maybe? We don't know. We haven't, um, well, it
never happened before. The war. It's not in our nature, for one pony to... um, harm another.
It's... nobody has done it for hundreds of years. We don't know _how_ any more."

"Stick them with the pointy end?" Flash suggested helpfully.

The lab assistant blanched. "Yes, I suppose that would be the gist of it. But it takes a special
pony to fight like that. Someone abnormal. Atavistic even."

"Like me."

"And some others. But you have the highest score of all. Natural born predator in form of a
pony." He sighed. "This is highly immoral. I should be directing you to counselling, maybe even
asking you to consider a voluntary commitment to a proper institution. You're a danger to
yourself and others with this sort of thing. But we need you - and ponies like you."
PREDATOR, NOT DRONE

"They're saying I'm some sort of monster!"

"The M-force?"

"Yes, them." Flash finally got a lungful of air. "They're saying that I'm 'natural born predator or
somethin--"

Sunset laughed. She felt pretty bad about it, looking at the boys exasperation, but she couldn't
help it -- every time she looked at his earnest face, the confusion-filled expression, another bout
of giggles erupted from within.

“Sunset!”

"Phew," she finally breathed. "No, Flash, you're not," she stifled another burst of giggles. "'A
predator', natural or otherwise. I know you, and you have a normal proclivity for violence of a
human boy your age. Which is to say not much."

He relaxed, a bit. "So they made a mistake? I'm normal?"

"Well,' she sighed, "No. And yes. You're perfectly normal for a human boy. For a pony you're
probably rated as borderline sociopathic -- perfect fit form the M."

"Wait, you're saying all humans are..."

"Pretty much." Sunset nodded. "Remember that movie we watched, with the girls?"

"When you were babysitting Tiara? And Mr Rich let us use that home cinema of his?"

"The one. With the guy crawling in the vents and killing bad guys."

"Yeah. It was pretty awesome, for a Hearthswarming movie."

"It's not a Hearthswaeming movie! just because it has the tree and some candy canes
doesn't--!" she caught herself. "The point is, in that whole Legion down there," she pointed a
hoof at the plaza."there's maybe two dozen ponies who can watch it without needing five
months of therapy from the sheer horror and violence. Tiara and Silver are normal human girls,
and they giggled and ate popcorn as they watched. And then they went to braid each others hair
and gossip about boys without a second thought. And we--" she smirked, "well, we didn't think
about that movie too much either."
He blushed, and she enjoyed it very much. "I will remove you from the M task force. You don't
have the tolerances for it, human or not."

"Do I fit in?"

"What?"

"Can I make it?" He asked. "Am I as good a fit as any other candidate for M?"

"Better." Sunset looked away. "You have high sociopath score, with no behavioural problems,
no substance abuse, no trauma, no impulse control issues. Outside of finding an actual
functioning sociopath, you're what they are looking for. What I told them to look for."

He nodded. She could see the decision made.

[I]silly boy[/i]

I COULDN’T LOVE YOU HALF AS MUCH

"You could have lied to him. Heck you can still do it - just pull some strings and," he waved his
hoof in the air. "The boy would never know."

Sunset shook her head."I promised not to lie to him. Besides..."

"Ah." The Count took out his snuffbox. "You wouldn't love him half as much had you not loved
your honor more." He chewed his lip. "Or perhaps it is the other way around."

"You still have that flair for the verse

"Clever verse," the Count corrected her smugly.

"Too clever by half," she countered. “Enough chatter. Let’s get to work.”

MANDRAKE AND POPPY

“I have become small, Flash. Small and petty and childish, playing with the kids in school,
scrambling to survive like a rat. I need to be the monster I once was. I need to remember being
Sunset Shimmer.”

***
“I’ll be with you.”
***

“I smell the smoke of red mandrake and I recall pain. I smell the smoke of the black poppy and I
recall fear. I smell the smoke…” she repeated the same two phrases over and over, rocking on
her haunches and staring into the wall with blank eyes. Her fetlocks and eyes bled - slow
droplets falling off her face and legs in a steady pitter-patter of dull, rusty orange.

***

He looked across a featureless white plain, snow, red like blood, under the rays of the dawn.
Sword and sorcery clashed over the fate of the world, and golden cat’s eyes, bigger than the
sky itself watched indifferent from afar.

A roar shook the world and the spell crashed into the tall, feminine man with a sickening crunch,
and an arrow found his throat. He bled - red and white. The sharp pang of loss echoed through
the both of them, staying in the heart like a shard of ice.

[center]***[/center]

There was a scream, and sobbing pleas as an orange mare twisted and struggled, her spine
nearly snapping while her skin was getting burned. Sickly-sweet smell of burning coat and meat,
the reverberating, shrill cry of pain. Fear seeped into the mare’s bones.

[center]***[/center]

The dull ache of the muscles tired beyond what was thought possible nipped at the edges of her
mind, annoying like an incessant static on the radio. There was fire in her goblet instead of wine,
and as she took it to her lips, there was a moment of fear - for the last time. And then the white-
hot explosion of energy inside took the very roots of her soul aflame.

[center]***[/center]

Red and black, world consumed in fire and fire running in her veins. Power and anger, and
stolen magic like a neverending high. A monster, now unbound, stood in the quad of the
Canterlot High, summoning the flames to burn a bunch of annoying little girls.

[center]***[/center]

They surfaced back, Sunset’s expression relaxing, and her eyes finding focus again.
“I breathe the smoke of red mandrake and I accept my pain.” her voice was hoarse but it did not
waiver. “I breathe the smoke of black poppy, and I conquer my fear.”

She grabbed the cup on the table, with her hooves and fumbled to take a drink of red liquid
inside. “I drink the blood of the she-wolf, and I am complete”

GOING GREEN

"I need you to protect my generals." She opened the door to her student's room. "Diamond,
Silver, this is your new bodyguard."

"They're kids." she giggled, "Your generals are babies! "

"Green..."

"Teeny-weeny little foals! Do they even have cutie-marks yet?"

"Green."

"Are they even weaned yet? Will I have to change diapers?"

"Green!"

“That’s why she’s called.” Tiara half-turned to Silver. “Old hag’s just green with envy. What with
her best years behind.”

The mare snorted, but, finally, grew serious. She walked round them, and gave Tiara and Silver
a critical look. "Yours?"

"Why does everyone keep assuming--" Sunset took a deep breath. "No, Green, they're not
mine. But they might as well be for how you're going to protect them."

"I see," she finished her inspection of the fillies, "Feisty. You teach them well, little princess.
They have the same fire. Same hunger in their blood. Might want to give them some pointers
myself."

GREEN GLOW’S PERSUASION TECHNIQUE

“What?”

“She’s just a little filly.”

“We won’t….”

“..not even a pegasus.”

“Wouldn’t it be better…”

“With all due respect, ma’am…”

Murmurs of protest rolled across the rank at Diamond’s designation. Sunset frowned, but kept
her silence, holding Gilda back with faint effort of her magic. Kid would have to prove herself,
otherwise she’d just be a figurehead.

And Sunset could not afford a figurehead in place of her general.

[i]Come on grasshopper. You got this. You can do it.[/i]

Diamond seemed unperturbed by the pegasi protest, strolling casually to the most vocal of
protesters without a care in the world.
“So, mister pegasus, you think I’m too young to lead this unit?” She dragged her forehoof across
the earth shyly, barely looking the large stallion in the eyes.

“Uhm, miss, with all due respect, but, erm, I do not doubt your abilities, but surely, someone
more familiar with our tactics...”

“Oh.” she lowered her eyes even more, “Well, mister pegasus, do you want me to tell you why I
can do this job?” she put her forehoof on his neck, dragging him down to whisper something in
his ear.

She talked quietly, and every neck was stretched towards their little discussion, everypony
struggling to hear what was being said. Silence was deafening, and Sunset, knowing what
would happen next closed her eyes.

The blue pegasus lowered his head towards Diamond, to hear what she had to say when with
no provocation the little pink filly smashed her forehead into his face with all the force of an
earth pony. His snout broke with a crunch, blood spewing from the gushing wound. The
wounded pegasus screamed, and tried to recoil, but Tiara held his neck fast in her forehoof.
She headbutted him in the broken nose again, adding the strength of her forehoof to the power
of her neck, and threw the dazed pegasus on the ground.

She stepped on his head with a crack that rolled across the yard like a thunder, and turned her
blood-splattered face to the rest.

“BECAUSE IF YOU FUCKERS DO NOT DO WHAT I SAY, I WILL RIP YOUR FUCKING
WINGS OFF AND SHOVE THEM SO FAR UP YOUR ASSSES, YOU’LL BE COUGHING
FEATHERS. IS THAT CLEAR?!”

Stunned silence was her only answer. Someone threw up. Another two fainted.

Diamond pushed her hoof into the pegasus’ neck, causing him to scream in pain, the sharp part
of her hoof slicing through his coat and skin.

“I ASKED YOU A BLOODY QUESTION!”

“Ma’am yes ma’am!” rolled across the ranks.

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU”

She raised her hoof and struck again, pinning the soldier to the ground by the wing, as he tried
to crawl away.

“MA’AM YES MA’AM” soldiers cried out.

“THIRTY LAPS AROUND THE WOODS. NOW, YOU MAGGOTS, NOW!”

She threw her prey towards the direction of the circuit, and he scrambled to fly away, and after
another “Yes ma’am” everyone else followed.
 Only when they left their sight, Tiara finally dropped to her haunches, her fear and anxiety
taking over, all the power she seemed to radiate just few seconds ago utterly gone, leaving just
a terrified little girl way in over her head.

“Gilda, please take care of those who fainted? They should… no, [i]I want[/i] them running with
the others”.

“Heh. Yes ma’am, straight away ma’am”. Gilda may have been smirking all the way, but Sunset
could feel the griffones’s respect for Tiara.

Bucket of water and few instructing baton smacks later, the three of them were alone in the
yard.

EVENING TALKS

It was long after sundown that Sunset slipped into Diamond’s rooms.

In the faint glow of her magic, she could see the pink filly сurled in the centre of her giant bed,
books and scrolls strewn around. Always-loyal Silver Spoon was asleep on the giant armchair
nearby, drooling on the velvet in her sleep.

Levitating the silver filly carefully, Sunset tucked both of them in as gently as she could.

Diamond Tiara stirred, and her eyes opened, still a little bit red from her tears.

“Does it ever get easier?”

It has been some time since Sunset wanted to lie so badly. Just a little comforting lie to get the
girl a bit of sleep… but Tiara proved today that she was an adult, and that she deserved
respect. She deserved the truth.

“It gets worse. When you send them out, knowing that some of them will not come back, when
you smile and lie about the glory and the victory. Even worse when you see them coming back
broken and battered . When you’ll be talking to their families, and their mothers and children…”.

Tiara closed her eyes, forcing away the rising tears, and nodded.

“I thought that was my dream come true. Me, as a Princess, living in a castle, ruling from up
high. Loved, respected, feared… like you.” She sighed. “I don’t want it. Not anymore.”

“And you’d do anything to give it back”

Another nod.

“You could, you know. The portal is still open. You can go through tomorrow morning. Go back
home, have a nice summer with your friends. Pool parties, girlfriend, your shiny new car. Sweet
fifteen coming up and not a care in the world.”
“But you said you need me!”

“I could manage”, Sunset lied, failing to convince even herself. “Few hours less sleep for me, a
few more hours of work for others. Maybe I’ll even manage to find somebody who is both
competent and trustworthy to put in your place. Maybe not.”

“And then maybe somepony is going to die. Because I ran away”, DIamond said.

There was no replying to that.

“There are other ways.” Sunset said wistfully instead, “There are the kind, the brave, the
honorable. They blaze the trail, they lead by example, they don’t have to make the deals with
their conscience.” Sunset sighed. “It is not something I could teach you. We come when
everyone else fails, we do what has to be done, and then we fade away, back into the shadows.
As a man much better than me told me once -- they get the spotlight, and all we ever get is
regrets.”

She put her hoof on Tiara’s shoulder.

“Go to sleep, grasshopper. Tomorrow will be harder than today.”

SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS

“Miss Shimmer, time to wake up,” The Count declared, as her magic stretched towards the
blanket, before a turquoise wall suddenly cut it off.

Sunset stepped out of the bathroom, stretching out her neck.

“Don’t touch.” she grumbled, rubbing her eyes, “booby trapped”

“What? Why on earth… where did you even sleep?”

Sunset snatched the coffee pot off the tray and took a long drink straight from the nozzle.

“Bathroom floor.” she took another gulp, before caffeine seemed to wake her enough to actually
form complete sentences. “Here’s too dangerous. And I couldn’t have slept on the darn thing
anyways - it’s too soft… makes me feel like I’m drowning.”

IREM
"And how they shall get there?" Count asked, without pausing his writing. "The Baltimare port is still
blocked, and all the south is still taken by the Platinum's army."

"They are to go to Irem."

Writing stopped.

"Irem is forbidden," Count said. "The passage is closed."

"Keep writing Fancy. They are to pass to the Irem of the Pillars, and there I shall guide them through
the Dream ways of Lang."

UNWELL

Diamond took a long, hard look at the general.

"Green."

The mercenary put down her file and raised an eyebrow.

"I think the Prince is not feeling well."

The mercenary raised an eyebrow.

"He needs to lie down. Could you help him to his bunk please?"

"I-- how dare you!" He began to step back as the green mare approached. "Don't approach me!
Do you know who I am--"

They disappeared behind the tent flap, and there was a short, sharp crunch.

"Gentlemen, your attention please." Tiara knocked on the map with her hoof.

Everyone stared.

Green, appeared from behind the veil. She cleaned her hooves on the carpet, and looked up.

Everyone stared.

She settled down at Tiaras side and coughed delicately.

The attention was given.

HOW THE STEEL IS TEMPERED

"You did well. But not well enough. You will go out tomorrow again." Sunset said evenly. "To the
west field. I want it taken."

"I can't," Tiara sobbed, "Please."

"You." Sunset leaned in, staring her student in the eyes. "Will. Go. Out. Tomorrow." she didn't
shout or raise her voice, but there was intensity there that made each word feel like it was
burrowing into the filly's head. "And you [i]will[/i] bring me victory."

....

"Was that truly necessary?" the Count asked softly. "We do have other generals."

"Kindness can be the cruelest thing sometimes, my lord," Sunset said, suddenly tired. "If I let
her give up it will break her. This way she may yet be hardened".

NO QUARTER
"No quarter!" Diamond shouted, and everyone followed

"No quarter!"

She looked aside at Silver. "They damned well earned they fate."

***
They struggled in the mists, quiet -- there was barely any breath to shout, only snarls of effort,
and flashes of magic. In close quarters, here, she was stronger -- she managed to push him
down, on the cloud, and stomped on him. It wasn’t hard -- there wasn’t enough ground to resist,
so he cursed, and gasped, kept trying to stand up, or hex her, as he drowned deeper and
deeper into down-like substance of the cloud.

He realised too late what her plan was, and she saw in the mist of the floor his eyes widen with
fear.

"Help!" Diamond looked down. There, through the cloud stretched thin by the stomps of hundred
ponies a unicorn was hanging on by a single leg, shining with some sort of magic. "Mercy!
Please!"

She reared up. And then she stomped down – it didn't matter that the blow wouldn't reach the
hoof, deep in the cloud.

He jerked, trying to tug his leg out of the way of that crushing heel – a spontaneous, instinctive,
irrational reaction.

The flesh gave way. Or maybe it was a spell.

For a moment a stain of red bloomed, swirling within, it quickly dissolved, leaving only the vague
outline of the unicorn’s body, getting smaller and smaller, tumbling over and over in the
turbulent slipstream of the ravine.
"No quarter." She watched him fall.

"No quarter." The others echoed. There was no mercy in their eyes either.

GIFTS AND DAGGERS

“A ring? Isn’t it a little too quick?” Rarity giggled.

“It’s not a proposal” Sunset grumbled “Besides, I am already married. Twice.”

***

“it’s a weapon. I need you to be able to protect yourself.”

***

“In Hind they do not use magic the same way as they do in Equestria. They don’t exercise their
power, don’t learn complex spells and formulae, they barely even use their cutie-mark talents.
To be a wizard in Hind is to hoard your magic, like a beggar hoards his pittance, never using it,
fanning it’s flame with diet and potions, exercise and abstinence, for years and years and years
on end. All for a single spell in their lifetime, a single moment of perfect nigh-omnipotence, for
the power to rival Princesses themselves.

“That’s what the ring and bracelets are for. They will help you store your magic, keep it for an
emergency, just in case… something happens when I’m not around. “

MAGIC THAT COULD NOT FAIL

***
“Eenie,” Sunset pointed at seemingly random ponies out of the huddle, as she counted out.
“Meenie, Minie,” she turned again, and her hoof stopped pointing at the mint-green unicorn
hugging an earth-pony. “Mo. I choose you.” she declared.

"Agent Drops." the silly trick - coloring the slingshot-bullets into candy did not fool her.
"Equestria demands your sacrifice again."

"Me? No! I'm retired! Why me?!"

"Because windigoes are coming for us -- you can hear them howl across the snow. Someone
has to stop them, so Eenie-Meenie-Minie-Mo make you it. I'm sorry."

…
She looked at the blizzard, and the thin veil of the shield, shimmering and caving under the
might of the storm. They still had time.

"Long ago..." She started.

"When the wendigoes came with the breeze,

And three pony tribes began to freeze,
They needed ambassadors, staunch and stark
To steady them in the gathering dark.
But the frost was fierce, and the flesh was frail,
So they launched a magic that could not fail."

"The Friendship Fire."

"Yes."

“And where do we come into all this?”

“I’ll need to take something from you.” Sunset said, not daring to look at them. “Something
precious beyond any value. Something that you may never in your life ever regain. I need to
take away your friendship.”

“Our friendship?” Lyra’s lip trembled, as she looked at her companion. “Why?”

“Friendship freely given will power the spell, and the fire of friendship will chase away the
Windigos. It’s not quite like in the legend, but it’s the best that I can do.”

Sweetie’s hoof found Lyra’s as their eyes met. They both nodded.

“Will we… will we hate each other?”

“No.” Sunset’s horn glowed with light as she prepared her magic. “You will simply lose all that
binds you. The memories will be there, but void of meaning, as if watching photographs of
somepony else’s life. Given right circumstances you may forge it anew… but I don’t think it
likely”

“Can we have some time? To say our final goodbyes”

"The games that colts and fillies play were deadly earnest when this spell was made." she
finished the drawing with a few carefully placed lines. "There was almost nothing left of this spell
-- a child's rhyme, a few bits of gibberish tagged to a tune. But it was my job once, to know the
things that ponies did not wish to remember."
ROLL CALL

"What about Juniper Flower?" Count asked, checking his list.

"Who?"

"Jasmine’s granddaughter. The mantle has passed again."

"Ah." Sunset swished her tail in contemplation, still barrel-deep into the chest "No, her work is
too important. Besides, she can't leave Sun Prancisco anyways."

“Pillars of Equestria?” she asked reluctantly

“In Quilin. And with Dragon Lands in Fire Season….”

“No way they get news and get here in time. Just as well, I suppose. They are too old.”

“The Glow team?” Count suggested.

“Useless without Green. And we have no time to babysit the bumbling idiots…Is Jasmine fine?”
she asked, suddenly emerging from her chest.

“Huh? Oh, yes, quite.” the Count nodded. “Enjoying her retirement.”

“Good.” Sunset grumbled. “The old hag made great tea.”

***
“Iron Warlock?”

“Gallowsglass? His first child was about to be due. Neither he, nor Ironsides are anywhere to to
be found.”

“You know, with the benefit of the hindsight, I’m starting to feel he’s not actually a warlock.”

“Not you too! He keeps saying that, but he arrived on a falling star. He fought a banshee! His
companion is a cold iron golem! He has to be.”

“In retrospect, I think it’s some sort of technology… but it’s moot if we can’t actually find him.
Besides his Griffon witch would probably not help me anyway.” She sighed. "What about Silver
Rose?"

"Disappeared from a hospital under very strange circumstances, not to be seen again."

"Hospital? I thought he was immortal."

"He can still be hurt. There was an accident - something with a cart collision."

***
“You seem to be under the wrong impression. I know my magic. I trained for it long and hard. I
cast every spell until my horn burned and my eyes bled, I studied lore that would break your tiny
mind just imagining it and paid price that would give you nightmares to even contemplate. I am
Sunset Shimmer, and while I am in this world, under this sun I need no strength save my own!”

***

“Princess plays chess.” Sunset looked away from the map. “I played a fair bit recently, and I can
see she is better than me at it. We can’t beat her like that.”

Officers waited for her to continue - they knew better than to say anything at this point.

“Grasshopper!” Sunset called Tiara, and the exhausted filly who almost dozed off snapped to
attention. “What’s the first rule when you can’t win?”

“Change the rules of the game.” she rubbed her eyes tiredly.

“Exactly.” Sunset took the little rake and started rearranging the figurines of the map. “My game
is not chess. My game is Three-Card Monte…”

***

Sunset shook her hoof. Nothing happened, and she stared at it blankly.

“Oh come on!” Her horn shone and a giant translucent green hand materialized, snapping its
fingers loudly. “Magic is nifty and all, but I really miss opposable thumbs”.

She gave the endless aisles of Canterlot library a sour look

“And the Internet.”

WISHES AND HORSES

“I wish I was like Apple Bloom sometimes” Diamond said, quietly

“How so?”

“She’s so… simple. Not like stupid, or anything, but…. Like if I do something, anything, it’s
always angles, and the first rules and the backups and contingencies and what-ifs. Like you
taught me.”

“And Apple Bloom?” Sunset prompted her student carefully

“She just decides what needs to be done, and then she goes and does it. It’s not always in the
most efficient way, or smart way, or even in the right direction at all, but she still, y’know, keeps
moving forward, never lets anything stop her. That’s a pretty cool thing”

WARRIOR SPIRIT
“You have a plan, right?” Silver looked at Sunset from behind her notepad.

“Yeah! Sunset’s gonna win.” Diamond’s voice had not even a shadow of doubt.

Sunset winced. “I,” she said slowly, have not weaved a spell of any complexity in over four
years. I'm pretty useless now and in a fair fight he will flatten me."

“Since when do we even care about fair?” Gilda shrugged. “Give him one to the crown jewels,
go for the eye-gouge while the ref looks the other way and call it a day.”

“I can’t.” Sunset would have thrown her hands up in exasperation, if she still had them. “I swore
by Flame and Magic -- it is not an oath that can be unsaid or broken. I’ll have to fight a proper
duel.”

“Why did you agree to it then?” Celestia asked gently.

Because I am monumentally stupid.

Because I probably have a deep-seated death-wish.
Because I cannot say “No” to my Princess.
Or to her reasonable facsimile, apparently.

Probably the first one.

Sunset shrugged helplessly. No use asking this question now.

“So what can you do?” Diamond finally asked. “Can’t fight fair… can’t cheat… so what’s left?”

“Grasshopper…” Sunset started, a shadow of an idea forming in her head, nebulous and frail,
like mists condensing into dewdrops. “What do we say about rules?”

Diamond rubbed her chin, as she tried to recall, before she finally remembered it: “She who
breaks the rules loses, for she is found and punished. She who follows the rules loses, for the
house always has the advantage. Know the thin line between the two and follow it.”

***

“There was a story, from a country that existed well before what we now know as Neighpan.

A seamster has inadvertently insulted a warrior, and thus he was challenged to a duel.

He knew not any combat-spells, no shields and counter-shields, no defences against

transfiguration and no protection against even the simplest magical blasts. So, he practiced
what he knew, the only spell suited for battle - the simple little spell he would use to cut the
cloths and the silks he has made the garments with.

Again and again he would practice it, cutting and cutting and cutting until his horn grew sore.
And then still he trained some more, because he knew not what else to do before the day of the
duel, and training drowned away his fears.

And so on that fateful day they met. A warrior, clad in armor, forged in battle, ready to kill. And a
humble seamster, armed with only his one little spell and ready to die.
The signal has sounded. The duel has begun. And then the duel was over - for the warrior’s
head had been severed from his body before he had decided which of the hundred spells he
knew to employ.

So the lesson has been learned - fear not the warrior who cast a hundred spells, ten times each.
Fear the warrior who has cast one spell a thousand times.

***

“And you know it?” Flash asked, finally hopeful.

“No.” she sighed. “But preparing to cast a single spell is a much better option than re-learning
the entirety of Ars Bellum in one evening. That is, at least, a chance.”

***

She sat down on her haunches, her eyes closed.

Breathe

She remembered her lessons. Her stories, ones she told the girls back home. Things she lived
and things she read.

The way of the warrior is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick
choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance.

She breathed. Deep breaths, in and out, feeling the phantom hoof, steady warmth guiding her
breath down into the abdomen and back up.

"In One Timing" means, when you have closed with the enemy, to hit him as quickly and directly
as possible, without moving your body or settling your spirit, while you see that he is still
undecided. The timing of hitting before the enemy decides to withdraw, break or hit, this is "In
One Timing".

One by one they floated up in her mind and faded away, revealing the formless, shapeless void
beneath, out of which the artless art without a name grows.

Time. she felt it trickle away with every hair of her coat. It mattered not. Past no longer existed.
In future there was just endless light and she was now a part of its flow.

Breathe

She stood up, the silken cover slipping off her back and she was ready.

They stood, hoof to hoof, neck to neck, beat of his blood on her skin, his breath on her mane.

They were one, closer than brother and sister, more intimate than lovers.

A turn and three steps each.

Breathe

A turn. A shout. A slash.

The stallion stood there. So did she. The move had been made. There was nothing else to add
or take away.

The deafening silence. A wheezing, quiet choke escaping his muzzle.

Every second ticked by as long as an hour and yet so fleeting it could not be even called to
have passed in the first place.

And then his head slid off his neck, hanging by a single thread of the skin.

She won.

PEACE BE UPON YE

"Salaam, little sun", the svelte white mare said.

"Alaykum assalaam to you too, Nada. Though I am not little any more, and the peace is scarce
in this land and day."

"I can see that, Sunset. You've grown."

"These are my students, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon." The fillies bowed politely.

"You two!” Mirzaya stomped her hoof on the marble like an earthquake, her voice angry and
loud like thunder. “Bring us wine to celebrate this meeting! Make it good - I will burn you if it's
bad. Look happy - I shall trample you if you're sad."

Wordlessly both fillies disappeared in the doors.

"You have good students." Nada settled in her chair and looked at Sunset intently. “How have
you been, little sun?”

“I'm still standing.” she shrugged, feeling for a moment like a little kid. “It’s been quite some
time.”

***

“Hah. Had Hafiz been born a mouse, he'd be courting elephants."

***

"Widow's tears," she noted, tasting the salt.

"We have an abundance of this vintage here in Canterlot. And more to come soon."

She set the glass aside. "Very subtle, little sun. But I take your meaning."
***

"They're talking with the Princess and the nobles. But same as you, I came to talk to the one
who makes decisions, not the one on the throne"

***

"They are afraid of you. The viziers and the wind-watchers have heard of your deeds, and know
of your names, and in their whispers, they have dubbed you Dhul-Quarnaina. A name not
uttered..."

"Since the great old fart himself."

“When you disappeared, some were relieved. Others grew even more afraid.”

“They should be. I am more powerful now than I have ever been before.”

***

“It is good that we have enemies, little one. How else would we show love for our friends, but by
destroying their foes?”

***

"Sunset, what does...", Tiaras face scrunched up, trying to wrap her tongue around the
unfamiliar letters, "...Zulkarnaina mean?"

"It's ‘‫’القرنين‬, Sunset corrected off-handedly, still subsumed by her thoughts. "Dhul-Quarnaina.
The two-horned one. That's what they call unicorns of great power, back in Saddle Arabia."

BY THE NINETY NINE

"By the Name of Al-Hafiz the Keeper, who witnessed all deeds and oaths--" the stallion struck
his hoof on the marble floor like thunder, and without a lightning responded, soundless and pale.

"By the Name of Al-Khabeer the Watchful, who loved the truth and not the lies," he struck again,
and a second lightning cleaved the sky,

"By the Name of Al-Muntaqim the Avenger, who punished those who transgress," thrice he
struck and the third lighting witnessed his oath. “To alliance we swear.”

Celestia inclined her head slowly. The words were said and witnessed and could not be unsaid
any more.
WALK OF SHAME

"Oh my goodness, what did you do?!"

"Sunset, I'm just.. err, looking for the kitchen..."

"Oh no you aren’t." she pointed accusing hoof at the Principal. "Matted mane, damp coat, stupid
grin -- I know a walk of shame when I see one. What did you do?!"

"Well," Celestia blushed in stages, from the tufts of her ears down, coloring her cheeks until it
reached her lower jaw. "That colt, the one that was reading poetry..."

"You slept with him!"

"He was very nice!"

"You [i]slept[/i] with him!"

"Sunset..."

"[i]You[/i] slept with [i]him![/i]"

"Enough!" Celestia stomped her hoof in frustration. "That will be quite enough of that, young
lady. I am a grown woman, and he was a grown stallion--"

"He was eighteen, if even that!"

"He was a very grown stallion," she repeated vindictively, "And what we did in private is none of
your business."

FOCUS-POCUS

"I have fifteen reports," Celestia said in her ‘you're in serious trouble young lady’ voice. "Fifteen!"
She read out from the scroll rolled out in front of her. "'...a wrestling exercise lead to three
soldiers incapacitated with multiple twists and lacerations.'" she caught her breath. "One of them
might lose an eye, Gilda! Why did you need to do that?"

“Silver told me to,” The griffoness eyed her lazily, not making a motion. "They were
whatchamacallit, a hocus-pocus something. And I didn't kill no one. They'll walk it off."

"A what?"

"A focus group." Silver answered dutifully. "A center of crystallization within the larger collective,
catalyzing certain attitudes or actions. While not necessarily doing anything, by their presence
and attitude they foster negative discourse - in this case, of disobedience and lack of fighting
spirit-- and thus necessitating their removal, for the rest of the group to get in line--"

"You do that too, Princess." Sunset declared entering the room, before a short, curt bow. "When
you needed a class to fall in order - you take down the ruffians and the hecklers. The same
principle applies to the army. Good job, grasshopper, A+"

JEALOUSY

"Goodness, Sunset, did you sleep with everybody in this world?!" Flash blurted out, before
thinking.

"Well, I don’t know, Flash," Sunset gave him a look. "After that West Hoof graduation orgy, I'm
really not sure. Would that be a problem if I did?"

"No!" he said. "Yes! I don't know!" he shook his head. "It's just that all those ponies, they know
you so much better than I do, and they're all those Counts, and Princesses, and wizards and
great warriors, and I'm just a guy, mooching on your magic just to fly. I can't not be worried."

She ruffled his mane with her hoof.

"Flash, I'm not with you because you hold the great powers and huge influence of an
upperclassman, or your great martial skills and proportional strength of an average human boy.
I'm with you because of who you are. You know that, right?"

"I do..."

"And who you are is not going to change just because there's some other ponies who have
noble titles, or magic powers."

"I know that." He smiled gingerly. "I'm sorry. I'm being silly."

"Don't say that, Sentry. First rule of life -- your feelings do matter. Even if they aren't rational, it's
still important. And if it’s important for you, it’s important for me."

"Miss Zecora's wisdom?"

Sunset's cheeks grew pink with embarrassment. She nodded. "I told you I loved you. If that
changes -- I will tell you, but don't worry because of this. This is no longer my world, and the sun
for those loves had long since set."

"...so... West Hoof graduation orgy?"

"Way overrated," Sunset waved her hoof. "There was that crazy sexy pegasus mare, she invited
me as her plus one, and I was kinda curious. Trust me, it's mostly awkward: you spend more
time figuring out logistics and geometry, and who's into what, than actually having fun. And then
that mare never showed up herself."

LISTLESS
She was listless. That was the word he heard Sunset use once, and whatever that list was, the
girl, draped across the other’s back like a tarp, most certainly lacked it.

***

“Hello there, little soldier,” she looked at him with strange intensity, her unsettling slitted lights
almost shining in the pale moonlight.

Flash shivered. There were stories - rumors. Special teams of the second legion. The Night
Witches. They came in the night, unseen, unheard, and disappeared with the morning mists,
leaving nothing but pale corpses with no sign of struggle behind.

"You've got a little something," he pointed at the speck on her lower lip. Something he really,
really hoped was just a bit of ochre. "Just there."

The mare smiled, languid, slow smile, and her tongue snaked out of her thin impossibly-red lips,
licking it up. And then she stepped past him.

***

"The night is so cold, oh soldier, and we are so lonely. Would you not invite us to your campfire?
Would you not share your heat with us?"

He looked at them for a second, considering. Finally he made a motion, inviting them. “Have my
wine, and my bread.” He passed them the flask and one of his hay brickets. “It’s just rations
though.”

He watched them as the eldest of the sister wet her lips on the wine, and nibbled on the pressed
bracket of hay.

"Not hungry?"

"We always are," one said. "But ours is a different fare, soldier," the other one added. The third,
the listless one, merely looked at him, and roused, in a single slithering motion, and the three of
them slipped towards him, swift and soundless like shadows.
A kiss - a touch of her cold lips above the collarbone, burned him with sudden cold.

"Such a brave soldier. Will you not lie with us? Keep us warm." The other one purred, leaning
towards his neck for another ice-cold hickey.

"N-no." He murmured, suddenly slow, as the numbness spread from their cold lips, making him
feel weak and dizzy. The cold fire spread from beneath to meet it, making him tense, and flush
paradoxically hot with the sudden pull of desire.

“We would be so very, very grateful,” the right one, as her sister's forelegs dipped lower, where
his flesh was already throbbing. “You would like our gratitude, oh soldier.”

Wait," he protested feebly. "N-no." The tongue felt leaden in his mouth, and his limbs didn't
move as he wanted, "I'm.." he still tried. "..married."

They stopped, sharing a look, as if not quite believing what they heard, or perhaps just amused.

"Then just a nibble." The eldest one decided, her cold lips finding a vein on his neck again.
"A touch," another one kissed him on the chest, near the shoulder.
"A bit of warmth," a third one whispered, but his body was already numb, and he didn't feel her
lips, as the darkness around him became woolen and heavy and smothering, and he was falling
down, and down.

[center]***[/center]

“Ugh.”

His limbs felt cold and weak, and his head hummed with the heavy hangover.
He didn’t drink that much last evening, did he?

Memory returned slowly, as he stood up, looking at the unsteady light of dawn…no, he was
looking to the west. It was dusk -- it was evening now. He must’ve slept through the day. Sarge
would have his head.

“Hello, brave soldier.” The eldest sister was still there, somehow. She looked at him like Sunset
used to sometimes -- as if checking if all his constituting parts were still... constituting. Though
Sunset used to do this when he did something she thought was exceptionally silly, and he was
pretty sure he did nothing for the last twenty-four hours, seeing as he was asleep.

"I want you to know, little soldier, that nothing happened." She kissed him on the cheek with her
ice cold lips. "We would not take anything not freely given."

"Not from defenders of Equestria." The other added. What she lacked in list last day, she more
than made up in pep in this twilight hour.
"Not from one marked by the Red Witch." The third one chimed in. "We seek no quarrel with the
Monster of Canterlot."

MERCY
"Will your princess agree to it? The real one, not... Whatever this is. We captured her,
conquered her lands..."

"You don't understand..." Sunsets expression became unreadable. "You cannot conceive, and
neither can I, the appalling strangeness of my Princess' mercy."

LOOKING A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH

Her pale magic lifted his upper lip, checking the teeth, slipped round the horn and the sides. She
then went around him, checking the flanks and pulling on the tail.

Blueblood took it rather stoically, only whimpering slightly when the princess reached down
south with her check-up.

“Duos habet,” she said with some satisfaction, “et bene pendentes.”

The unicorn crowd behind her snickered.

“He’ll do,” she allowed, turning back to Sunset. “Let’s deal.”

LIGHTNING, TREASON AND PLOT

“Sunset!”

Diamond saw him move first. Perhaps a fraction of a second before Sunset, and the kid -- the little
girl who was too often allowed to stay up late and watch the old movies -- did as she saw the heroes
do on the big screen. She jumped, pushing Sunset away, and the lighting arc thrown by the pegasus
hit her instead.

“Treason!”The unicorns screamed, casting bindings and shields, capturing the pegasus who has
broken his glamour, but Sunset didn’t move. She looked at her student, wounded.

Lighting. Pegasus magic -- powerful, but not dangerous. Not to her. Even if it found the target, her
own flesh would reknit with water dead, her bones, inscribed in spellwork would not break and her
blood... Well she scarcely had any left anyways. But Diamond had no such protection, and the filly
got hurt. The filly, already wrapped in the Count’s healing and staunching magics bled.
Slowly, Sunset turned, feeling some dark wave gather within her, and under her gaze the unicorns
scattered.

GLOVES ARE COMING OFF

“I tried to be nice.” she moved towards the stallion, who somehow seemed to lose his luster,
pushing someone out of her way - Princess Platinum in all likelihood. “I tried to do things Her
way. But you hurt my student and my charge, and I will kill you so bad it will haunt my own
fucking nightmares.”

***

The Count avoided looking at her all the way back.

“Sunset…” It took the remainder of her flask to get him even that far, “...what you did was
[i]wrong[/i].”

“Stuff it Fancy. He deserved every bit of it.” Sunset did not take her eyes off a filly she was
levitating in the strongest protective and healing spells she could summon.

“Still. With you bare hooves… and the thing with the fire… and all that blood.” He shivered and
looked wistfully at the empty flask as if to coax a few more drops out of it. “I am even more
afraid of you now, I think. So’s the Princess. I wouldn’t think she’d agree to so little otherwise.”

LITANY AGAINST PAIN

“Sunset, it hurts” Diamond croaked “It hurts so bad…”

“Grasshopper.” Sunset gripped the filly’s hoof, “Diamond, listen to me. Breathe. Slow, deep
breaths. Control, grasshopper.”

The pink filly bit her lip, fighting the blinding pain in her broken leg, and with a sob she let out
few first ragged breaths, getting deeper with every exhale.

“That’s right.” Sunset’s voice grew slow and deliberate, pushing every word into her little student
with burning intent “You’re hurt. You can’t fight it. You cannot escape it. Accept the pain. Let it
in. Acknowledge it and make it a part of you. Pain is. You are”.

Diamond closed her eyes, still fighting for every breath, to keep it slow and steady.

“And I will let it wash over me and through me” Tiara quoted back, opening her eyes. There was
pain there in the filly’s green eyes, but there was also acceptance of it. “And when I turn to see
it, there will be nothing. Only I will remain”

Sunset smiled weakly. “Atta girl. Now hold steady, the doctor will come in in a few minutes. We’ll
have you walking in a day, trust me. And meanwhile I will murder every bastard who had
anything to do with it.”
SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE FOR YOU

“We will need someone who has infiltration and tracking experience. Someone trustworthy and
disposable…” Sunset bit her lip, looking over her meagre forces exercising outside the window
“I have a way… even though I do not like it”.

***

Daring Do pounced from the lying position, swift as brown lighting, hitting against the bars with
metal-bending strength, and her hoof almost reached Sunset’s throat, as she snarled and
cursed.

***

“Well that was disappointing but rather predictable darling.” Rarity put her hoof on Sunset’s
barrel “The chances were awfully slim”

“I know. I did not count on it”

***

She held the stallion fast, until he stopped struggling and was quiet on the hard floor of the
castle. Silence still held - no alarms and no noise save for her breath and the slithering of the
steel as she pulled the sword out of the guard’s sheath.

She frowned. Something was...off about the sword. It should’ve been a standard-issue guard
thing, but the weight was all [i]wrong[/i] and the reflections seemed to be somehow not quite
right.

o0O0o

A turquoise wave rolled over the reality, smoothing things over, and the mare moaned and
turned over in her hay cot, twitching her hind legs, slowly relaxing and returning to her sleep.

o0O0o

Another alcove, and another patrol that went past her, as she pressed into the wall and held her
breath.

***

“My name is Daring Do. You killed my mother. Prepare to die,” she said, resolved, short sword
drawing a drop of blood from her enemy’s throat. One more push and…

She hesitated. She was about to kill someone. To murder them in cold blood. That was not
something Daring Do stood for, that was not what she stood for.

“That’s what you bring here? A toy sword and a weak heart?” Flicking away the blade like one
would swat away an annoying fly, the mare stepped forward, forcing Daring Do back with sheer
intensity of her emerald eyes. “Yes, I killed your mother, because she was weak like you. She
begged us for a clean death before she...”

At those words Daring Do stopped her retreat. Something tightened within her and the sword
finally settled into her grip, and moved as if by its own volition. The blade flashed in the dull light
of the torches, as it sped towards the mare’s neck. It was a death blow. An execution. Her
revenge.

It cut through the mares throat with almost no resistance, and the pungent, irony smell of fresh
blood hit her like a wave. The crimson spilled from the wound, first in bursts, then -- slowly, in
small flushes as the beat of the heart slowed and grew silent.

The weapon clanged on the stone floors of the room, and Daring Do ran away, flapping her
wings with all her strength, the corridor of the castle stretching to infinity in front of her.

"You killed me."

The mare said from the alcove in the wall. The gash in her throat made her voice odd and
reverberating, blood coloring her orange coat in every shade of crimson. Daring turned and
pivoted, changing direction, running faster, and faster to get somewhere, anywhere far from this
nightmare.

"Did you not know..."

Wherever she would run, the same voice, the same blood-stained orange coat, the same
piercing emerald eyes followed her, accusing, demanding the answer...

"..that to kill another..."

It was not a corridor any longer, but a thin, long shadow in the walls of turquoise light that filled
all the space, and all she could do was to run faster and faster.

"...is to make the world weep?"

She came to a stop in the dark hall, so vast its walls were lost to the darkness. There, the dead
mare stood, staring at her with her green eyes that shone with black magic.

"Ace Keaton Yearling..."

Her true name bound her to the floor with a thousand chains and her guilt pushed her to the
ground with the weight of a mountain.

"...your pain that pushes you to do something you cannot forgive yourself for is the chink in the
armor of your soul, and all I need to make you mine!"

And then there was darkness.

***

“I want you to witness and to understand: This is not mind control or hypnosis. This is a magic
far deeper and much more sinister. She has betrayed all that she believed she was, and all it
took was a little push to empty her of it.”

She kicked the lying pony in the ribs, forcing an exhale and a sob, but the pony’s expression did
not change.

“Who are you?” Sunset asked.

“Nothing.” There was no inflection when she spoke. Just a statement of fact that the thing that
was there in front of them, was not a pony. It was precisely that - nothing. An empty shell.

“That’s all she is now. And I get to fill her with anything I want - with all her skills, with all her
strength, with all her new soul she will be what I decree her to be. Such is the price of betrayal -
not of others, but of yourself. Such is the power of the black.”

CRIMSON TIDE RISING

“Will she be fine, Doctor?”

“Minor concussion, a broken rib, a subdural hematoma and blood loss. The burn from the
lightning is the worst of them all, but the filly is strong. She’s an earth pony, so I promise full
recovery, with maybe some scarring.”

“Thank you.” She stepped away from the filly, finally getting professional pain-killing spells and
potions from the nurses. “Take care of her, Doctor. She’s very important to me.”

***

“Minor concussion.” The thought of the filly’s small body rolling across the hard stone, made her
grit her teeth in anger. “Broken rib.” she trotted across the room. “Blood loss.” her magic
stretched towards the statue of Hippo Kratos, gripping it tight in her magic. “May. Be. Some.
Scarring!!”

She screamed, and launched the statue through the closest wall like a cannonball, breaking the
stone and mortar and stepped through the rubble. She struck again, her magic wild and burning
lashed out like a battering ram, breaking the next wall, and then another, as she stepped
through the halls and rooms, a screaming hurricane of wanton destruction, dashing stone,
breaking wood and porcelain, ignoring the scared ponies scattering away.

At the last room, empty and locked, she stopped, panting. Then her magic stretched and
twisted, controlled and precise, breaking the seals and the runes that protected the entrance to
the charred burned-out remains.

This used to be her room. This used to be her lab, before she burned when she left this world.
Now it was just ruins -- molten slag covered in ash. Nothing of value, nothing to be found.

As if it could have been destroyed quite so easily. As if her tools and her implements, her little
treasures and secrets could be turned to nothing by something so mundane as mere flames,
kept away from her by distance in time or in space.
“I call my power unto me…”

she drew in a breath, feeling the soot and the ash on her tongue, feeling her anger burn out and
turn focused and cold.

“From Earth and Fire and Sky and Sea,”

She reached deep within, to the parts of her memory she closed and forbade to herself, the
things she thought she’d never wish to use, breaking every seal, unlocking every door every
cellar of her memory palace.

”From ancient evils I’ve awoken,

From creatures slain and monsters broken.”

Her coat grew darker, turning brown-crimson of venous blood, her mane inverted colors, and
her magic, black and green, infused the room.

In darkest night I gird my soul

And crush my heart to burning coal
I summon now my darkest powers,

Ashes pulled to ashes, soot joined to soot, coals rumbled and time unwound itself, releasing
things too old, and dark and hungry to ever truly yield to the flames.

And I will see my foes devoured!

WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD MEN GONE

She entered the road before the gates in fullness of her power. Her hair done in a high mane-
cut, intricate with knots and held together by an engraved comb. Two fans tucked into her sash
next to the ivory horn, her four-slitted eye uncovered by the glamoгus, a black gem at her throat.
There was an air of power around her, buzzing, dark and angry.

“Sunset, where are you going?” Flash tried to stand in her way.

“I aim to have words with the Legion.”

“Sunset, you don’t have to do that.” Flash Sentry dug his hooves in the stone floor and held his
place. “I know you. You’re a good person. Whatever you have in mind, please, just set it aside.
Please. This isn’t you”

She sighed, and the pulsing black and green aura around her doused.

“Flash…”

She nuzzled him gently, her nose finding the crook of his neck. He smelled of sweat and hot
metal and wet fur, and he was warm as he hugged her.
“You’re a good person, Flash Sentry...”

He never saw a spark of emerald jump from her horn, and he never had a chance to do
anything, before his eyes closed and his legs went limp.

She caught the sleeping stallion gently and laid him on the floor. Her lips stopped for a second
on his forehead, and then she turned back to the castle gate. “...the thing is - I am really not.”

STORYTELLING TO THE PRINCE

“I was the Commander of the Garrison on the Misty Hill, loyal and strong. My life was taken by
the Red Witch, and my head severed from my body to send a warning. This is my tale. Heed it!”

She came to us in the night, in the middle of the storm. A single unicorn mare, her reddish coat
concealed by the gray cape. No sentry noticed her, no patrol stopped her until she knocked at
our door.

The eldest brother stepped forth, his spear pointing at the strange mare, and without breaking
her step, she released a spell. A cantrip so simple even pegasus can recognize it - a candle-
spell, used for lighting the wicks of the candle. Backed by her fury and the flame of the dragon
burning in her eyes it set him on fire instead, burrowing under his skin and setting fat aflame like
tallow.

He screamed until he no longer had a throat.

It didn’t last long.

"Run," she said.

They were my brothers. We grew up together and we fought together, saving each others' lives
more times than you could count. That night they ran, dropping their weapons and losing their
shields, and I can only hope they ran far enough before she decided to follow.

She asked me for the names then, and when my knowledge has run dry, she severed my head
from my body and sent it as a lesson and a warning.

“I was the Commander of the Garrison on Misty Hill, loyal and strong. My life was taken by the
Red Witch, and my head severed from my body to send a warning. This was my tale. Heed it!”

The green flame disappeared from its eyes, and the head grew still.

“I am coming.” The red bird in the cage suddenly grew agitated, cawing its warning again. “I am
coming for you.”
***

“I was the lord-by-conquest, in what was the town of Grey Mane, loyal and kind. My life was
taken by the Monster of Canterlot, and my head severed from my body to send a warning. This
is my tale. Heed it!”

“She came to us with eastern winds, that brought the smell of summer and daffodil wine, and we
did not know her until it was too late.

I sent a sentry. One of my loyal, one of the best, swift of wing and sure in flight.

They dragged him back, and they beat him to death. Like beasts, snarling and spitting and
growling, they beat on him until he stopped moving and then they beat him up some more. For
daring to take their dreams, for daring to take their perfect little worlds they were ready to kill
their brothers. That’s when I knew we have lost.

This world, this beautiful world, each sunset, each rainbow, each gust of warm wind bringing in
more smells of sarsaparilla and dandelion wine, it was devouring us, digesting us whole, and
there was nothing I could do.

...

She walked through the town unaccosted. Rare stallions, still strong enough to move, still too
cowardly to die, crawled to her through the dust, begging her quietly for the mercy of eternal
slumber, and she granted it without breaking her step. Crimson colored the clouds where she
walked like rose petals, corpses littering the street like flowers of her triumph, and I was too
numb and despaired to even care.

...

“I was the lord-by-conquest, in what was the town of Grey Mane, loyal and kind. My life was
taken by the Monster of Canterlot, and my head severed from my body to send a warning. This
is my tale. Heed it!”

“Run,” the bird cawed again in mare’s voice. It sounded very smug. “Run.”

***

“I was the Master of Assasins, cunning and quick. My life was taken by the Mare in Red, and my
head severed from my body to send a warning. This was my tale. Heed it!”

***
“I was the Master of Assasins, cunning and quick. My life was taken by the Mare in Red, and my
head severed from my body to send a warning. This was my tale. Heed it!”

“Run. Run-run-run-run-ru---” a knife stuck in the bird’s chest, stopping it’s warning, and the
creature burned into green flames. It spoke, calm and suddenly clear, even as its magical flesh
dissolved into fire. “Too late now. I am here.”

The Prince, Reigning-In-The-Sky closed his wing back and looked at the figure that entered the
tent.

I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY THAT

“For the sake of my betrothed, I’ve come to offer you a surrender.”

The pegasi coterie laughed, as if it were a joke, but their chuckles died under her gaze.

“I would have just murdered all of you, but a man much better than me has asked on your
behalf. So give up now, and no more harm will come to any of you -- except for him.” Sunset
pointed at the Prince. “Give me his life, and you go free to leave this land. Keep fighting and I
will break you. No matter what happens фаеук, no matter how goes the war, no matter the toll,
this army will not see the next dawn. That I swear, by the Flame and Magic.”

***

"This is a horn from another world." Sunset put an ivory horn, filigreed with silver and gold on
the table. "There is none equal to it. When called it will summon help to arrive just in time, no
matter the distance. It has a boon attached to it, from four Kings and Queens and a Power that
equals any in this world. This is my peace-offering, a weregild for all the blood between us and a
guarantee of peace. Take it and leave Equestria, and there will be no more war between us.

"Or don't," She kicked back in her chair. "Then you die. Both work for me."

***

“Do you really think I would come into your camp unarmed and unaided if there was even the
slightest chance you could stop me? I called the horn thirty-five minutes ago.” Sunset chuckled
suddenly, “You know, I’ve always wanted to say that.”

AIR SUPERIORITY

“No killing, right?” The red alicorn asked, concerned. “Might make it tricky”.

“Fuck that.”, Sunset said fiercely, “They hurt my girls. They refused to surrender when offered.
Break them.”
The newcomers nodded, accepting their task with no argument. Death and war was something
they were not unfamiliar with.

***

“When I first met her, they called her The Gentle Queen”. Sunset said to no one in particular, as
she watched the carnage. Up in the sky the only mercy was death, magic and arrows raining
denser than raindrops and reaping a rich harvest of lives with every salvo. “Sad thing, it’s still
probably true.” She took a drink, and watched the destruction in the sky for a while, silent and
somber.

She threw the flask away, and stood up, looking warily at the battlefield below.

“Tell the midget I’ll need her in the forest, please.”

***

She groaned with the effort but her protective spells held.

“You done with the warm up? I was thinking there'd be a fight!” she shouted towards the skies.

Another thunder split the sky in reply, shattering Sunset’s shield. The remainder of the power
made the hairs of her coat stand up on edges, turning her mane into spiked punk-cut.

“That all you got? I’ve seen filles make better thunder!” she panted, dodging the next one.

“What is this? The Young fliers’ competition? ‘Coz if it were, you’d lose!”

***

Another lightning split the sky and thunder made the earth shake, as she scampered in between
the burning trees, throat sore from the smoke and shouting.

“Your mother is a cow-milker and your father lays with sheep!”

Hail hit the place where she stood, thousand of sharp ice-needles piercing clean through the
undergrowth.

This was silly… but then if she learned anything in four years of living amongst the children, it
was that most basic insults worked better. You cannot argue against something that makes no
sense - refined and targeted insults can be deflected or ignored, but you cannot really do
anything against something to the gist of “you suck, because you suck, and your momma sucks
too”. It’s just annoying, and it makes one angry.

And angry makes you stupid.

The howl of the annoyed pegasus twinned with the roar of the storm that he summoned, as he
descended upon her, faster than the lightnings he had summoned, azure flash of his contrail
pulling the vortex of the black clouds behind him in his wake, as if ripping the heavens
themselves to crash into the earth.
There was no blocking this, no time to even think of a dodge. Air exploded around the pegasus
in a lightning-boom, as he plowed clean through Sunset’s best shield, planting all four of his
hooves against her. It took all of her magic just to hold onto life, protecting her head, horn and
spine as he made a hundred-foot ditch in the earth with her barrel, when he broke his dive with
her body.

“I will kill you with my own hooves now. Slowly.” the Prince of Air moved at his leisure towards
his fallen enemy, arclets of energy buzzing along his coat and feathers.

“Heh” She grinned with her half-torn muzzle, blood foam on her lips, “No you won’t”.

“I am the Prince of Air, Reigning in the Sky. And you’re just one burned-up unicorn, for all your
taunts and insults”.

“Heh. ehe hhehe.” Sunset laughed, pushing herself up. “But this is not the sky, oh Prince. It’s a
forest. And in this forest, monsters roam.”

“Wha--” he started, and did not finish, because a yellow lightning slipped from behind a tree,
soundless and deadly. There was a slash of claws, a flash of teeth, a flutter of wings, and then a
lioness held him firmly by the neck in her maw.

“No, no, no….” he twisted, and reached back with his hooves to try to stop the inevitable, but the
lioness shook her head once, and then again and something cracked, and the pegasus’ body
went rigid for a second, and then fell limply to the ground, neck broken.

“Red Witch,” lioness acknowledged her with a nod, her wide tongue licking up the specks of
blood from her muzzle.

“Your Majesty” Sunset, who barely managed to stay upright, bowed back politely. She wobbled,
almost falling back down, but the lioness has already disappeared in the undergrowth, single
lean motion, only shaking of the leaves tracing her path.

***
She took a step, and her leg gave under her weight twisting unnaturally to the side, and she fell
on the ground again. Pain echoed through her body, making her see world in red. A pain-filled
eternity later she tried again, pushing herself up on torn muscles and broken bones.

Every second she stayed down, murder would keep going on. She could have stopped it, with
the Prince of Air fallen… if only she could stand up. If her body would listen, if the flesh would
follow the will. If she could make a step, and then another.

She fell again. Pain braced her against the oblivion that almost swept her.

***
“Hi, Reep. Help me stand up?” she mumbled, only half sure she was not seeing things. “You got
old” she noted surprised.

“Oh I believe we can do more than that, Red Witch.” he chuckled to himself, raising a small
thimble to her ripped snout, and letting a drop of precious sparkling liquid fall on her burned up
muzzle.
 ***

“ENOUGH” the magically amplified voice covered both the thunder of the battlefield and the
howl of the winds, making the battle-hardened warriors stop in their tracks, and even the air and
darkness seemed to grow still, rather than compete with the booming sound.

PEVENSIE FAMILY REUNION

“Oh how I wish He would see me now!” the lioness pranced on the spot in a childish excitement
alien to the frame of the predator she wore. “Do you think He’d like me?”

“He did always say you were almost a lioness.”

“Who’s the boy?” The bat-pony stallion asked suspiciously. “I don’t remember having dragons in
the kingdom.”

“Oh yeah.” The lioness rolled her eyes. “This is our cousin, from back home. He is stupid, and
whiny, and smells, and he got himself cursed into a dragon.”

The dragon huffed black-smoked flames at the introduction, but stretched his claw awkwardly
towards the ponies.

“So, you fancy him?” the black pegasus asked the lion-cub.

“Eww! Not the Scrub. You’re gross. '' She smiled, nuzzling him affectionately. “And you’re old”
she looked at the alicorn. “You’re as old as Mum, now.”

The alicorn smiled a bit. “Suppose I am, little sis. It’s been quite some time more for me than for
you two.” She leaned in towards the lioness conspiratorially, “I even have kids of my own, so
you’re an aunt now,” leaving the lioness wordless with surprise.

“I named my oldest after you, big brother”. The red alicorn added, laughter welling in her eyes
“he’s six now, and already trying your old sword for size”.

The stallion smiled with a dopey grin, and started to say something before Sunset coughed
politely.

“Sunset! It is good to see you. Even given the circumstances.” He moved to hug Sunset
carefully.

“It truly is”, his sister confirmed, her voice much different than Sunset remembered. “It has been
quite some time for us.”

“As it was for me,'' Sunset admitted, returning the hugs, “Thank you for your help. Will you
stay?”

The four of them looked at each other, wincing.

“Sorry.” The red alicorn said, sadly. “I have a war of my own”

“We have a quest,” two others said.

“And a duty”, the black bat-pony stallion concluded.

“I figured as much. But thanks for the save anyways.” Sunset sighed, “I believe this is yours,
then.” she pulled a horn from her saddlebags with her magic.

“Yes, I suppose it is.” The alicorn grabbed it in the magics of her own, putting it away in her
dress “I hope we will yet meet.”

She turned to the smaller colt “Give us a lift, lil’bro?”

CLOSURE

Surrounded by turquoise glow, the battered, soiled remains of the pegasus flopped on the
pristine white floor of Castle healing chambers, and Sunset, still covered in grime and blood,
followed.

“This is my student whom you hurt,” she explained. “She is the one to decide your fate. I
strongly suggest you beg and grovel.”

Tiara and Silver Spoon stared at the creature.

“The ones that hurt you, I already murdered.” Sunset said levelly. “This is the one that gave the
order. His fate is yours to decide, grasshopper.“

Tiara sat silent, mute. Her tiny pink body trembled as the look of the bloodied creature reminded
her of the terror and pain she experienced so recently, and it took away her ability to think. Filly
wanted nothing more than to run away, to forget, but that would just make the problem worse.

“You need closure, Tiara. One way or the other.” Sunset prompted her gently.

Nothing.

Silver took it up instead. She leaned over the prostrate pegasus, and her hoof moved quickly,
but without haste along his throat, a glint of scalpel slitting it in a clean, wide cut, out and away,
so that she wouldn’t get bled upon.

His insults turned to gurgles and the Prince of Air, Reigning in the Sky shuddered one last time
and grew still.

They looked at the body in silence, watching the blood puddle on the floor.
“Thank you, Silvie.” Though her skin was pale under the pink coat, Tiara’s voice was quiet,
mundane. It wasn’t any different than when she thanked Silver for any other small favor, from
passing a note to bringing her tea.

“Always, Di.”

“You alright?” Sunset asked her second pupil gently.

“I’m fine.” Silver Spoon shrugged. “Just like with that piglet. Not much difference, really.'' But her
eyes betrayed her.

“Silver.”

The filly sat down on her haunches, shivering. Still, her tone was stubborn, defiant.

“It’s part of the job, isn’t it? To do things Di can’t or won’t - that’s what I do. That’s what I’m for.”

"It doesn’t have to be.” Sunset put her hoof on her student’s shoulder. “You know that, right?"

"I.."

"It's the most important lesson ever... One, I think, I have never learned. They are brilliant Silver.
They shine so bright we can't do anything but reflect that light back, and it carries us, like
flotsam is carried by the stream. But you are important. You're you, the only you you've got.
Don't ever forget that."

"That’s nothing," the girls said sullen and bitter. "I'm a nobody. Just a quiet little nerd, there to
help her. It's always like that -- she's the leader, she's the number one student, she does all
those things that she does, and all I can do is help her. That's all I'm good for."

“Silver… Tiara’s shiny, brilliant, and she takes all the attention. She leads people and ponies,
but that’s not why I spend more time on her than you. I pay more attention to Tiara because she
needs my help more. You’ve always been the better student - just in your own fashion.” Sunset
moved her hoof to her student’s shoulder, in a gentle semi-hug, and tried to find the right words.
“And grasshopper... My student. Silver. I want you to know: what you did there - it was beautiful.
I could not be more proud of you.”

“Really?”

Sunset nodded. “Yes. To give your whole self to someone else with nothing held back, without
remorse or hesitation - it is the greatest gift that could be given”
“She’s worth it.” Silver Spoon wiped away the last of her tears with her forehoof. “She is.”

“That’s for you to decide, grasshopper, always only up to you and no one else. Remember that.”

FOR THE SOUL

"Sivko!" She shouted. "Oi, you thief and son of a thief, come, stand you before me like a leaf
before the tree"

"Solnyshko," the stallion said, stepping into the room as if he was only waiting for the invitation.
"No need to shout, da?" He looked at the scene. "Why do you summon me?"

"Kid’s hurting. Do you have it?"

"Ai, solnyshko, that is such a hurtful stereotype." He grabbed at his chest theatrically. "Hurtful,
da. Tribist even. If I am from Motherland, that does not mean--"

"Oh don't be a dunce, Sivko. Do you have it?"

"Da." He shrugged, and taking off his funny furred hat, produced a bottle of clear liquid. "But
only because I knew you would ask."

"What is that?" Silver asked.

"Did you ever drink?" Sivko asked, as he twisted off the cap, and sat himself down.

"We tasted wine," she answered, somewhat defensively. "With Sunset. And cider, when it's the
season."

"That's good." The stallion poured a couple of shots. "Wine is good for taste, and cider is good
for a young summer’s day. But vodka," He raised a hoof. "It is for the soul, da? When it hurts
real bad."

AND THE LADY OF DEATH

She entered the throne room almost steady on her hooves. Her every nerve was still raw, her
every sense almost painfully aware. Aware of...

the glances turned aside.

the scared whispers of the terrified ponies.
the shivers of fear on their barrel when they saw her
the way their necks stiffened trying not to look, trying to please, oh goodness, please not to
attract the attention of the monster leaving the bloody hoofprints on the marble floors.

"Dhul-Qarnaina."
"Celestia's Monster."
"Lady of Death."
“Red Witch”
"Killed them all, all by herself."
“Without a single scratch”
"..spread her winds on a blast..."
"...ten thousand ponies..."
"...hundred thousand..."
“Made her foals drink his blood…”
"...sorceries blacker than Nightmare…”
“...Colder than eternal ice…”
“…True heiress of the Mage..."

The Count bowed to her, his horn touching to the ground.

She closed her eyes, and her horn grew aflame, and in a flash of emerald fire she twisted and
bent the space around her disappearing away from those ponies.

***

"OUT!"

She blasted the doors of the pegasi prison off its hinges with a single spell.

The generals of what once was a legion of pegasi looked at each other with fear, shuffling their
chained legs to scuttle away.

"GET OUT! ALL OF YOU!" she screamed, blasting and burning their shackles. "You're free.
Acquitted. Out on a bail, just piss the fuck off, now!"

They stared at her, unsure what she meant.

****

She stayed in the dark dungeon alone for some time. As far as dungeons got, it was pretty
cozy, really. She could stay here for a long, long time. A year maybe? A century would be good.
Until she would not have to see those ponies look at her like she was a monster... and enjoy it
quite so much.
“STAND YOUR GROUND” DOCTRINE

The rusty door screeched, when somepony opened it, casting an uneven torchlight on her.

"Get out, Sentry."

He moved closer instead, his wing touching her shoulder in an awkward gesture of comfort.

"You need to get out there, Sunset. They are waiting for you."

"They don't need me anymore," she said bitterly, "We won anyways. With the pegasi legion out
of the picture, Cloudsdale and the whole of the west will rise. They can finish it off by itself. I'll
just... stay here. Where I belong. "

“No.”

She looked at him surprised

“You don’t get to run away this time, not like you always do.”

“I don’t--”

“Yes, Sunset, you do. From us, from the school body president, from Equestria even - you keep
leaving things when you think you screwed up. And you’re not doing it this time. I’m not letting
you.”

She chuckled unhappily. The determination in his eyes, him thinking that he could make her do
anything she didn’t want to - it was endearing. But perhaps, not exactly wrong.

“But what about…?” she trailed off.

“We will talk later,” Flash half-promised, half-threatened, before looking away.

Sunset let out tiny sigh of relief. The threat, for all the unpleasant talk it promised, implied that
there would be talking. That she was still worth talking to. That was a start. That was, at least, a
chance.

THE BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS

Sunset bowed,curtsy turning into full-on proskynesis, her horn touching the ground.

“I give you Princess Mi Amora Cadenza, brilliant as the sun, blooming like the moon, she who
sits on the Crystal Throne and is as beautiful as most precious gemstone.”
Her tone was as sarcastic as her bowing.

PIECE OF MIND
“I get that you were angry, but--”

"No." she interrupted him, her voice hard. "I promised you, I would not lie to you Flash Sentry,
and I won't. I was angry, but I did not do it on a whim. I have considered and weighted my
decision. They hurt what was dear to me. They would die. There was nothing more or less to it,
calm or angry, I would make that same decision -- those who touch what is mine will burn."

"Why'd you make the girls do it, Sunset? I get why you wanted revenge, why you wanted to go
after all those pegasi, but why bring the Prince here, why force little girls to murder him?"

She exhaled a long puff of smoke, and stubbed out the cigarette. And then she looked directly
at her boyfriend and her husband. "That I do not regret. That was the right thing to do."

“Why?!”

"Diamond needed closure-"

"So that she'd turn out like you?!"

She could see him regret his words as soon as they left his muzzle, but it still hurt.

"No. So that she wouldn't," she said coldly. "I have seen it, Sentry, the fear, the helplessness
that turned ponies cruel and vicious. It's the sort of thing that turns good men into monsters"

“They’re just little girls. You can’t expect them to--”

"What if it were someone you love, Sentry? if it were your student that would wake up
screaming in the night at the nightmares of the creatures that came to hurt her? If it was your
little sister afraid of every shadow and every stranger? If it was your daughter having panic
attacks any time her broken leg aches to the rain?"

He did not say anything.

"They’re mine, Flash Sentry, fruit of my toil and soul of my soul. I am responsible for them, and if
any of them comes to harm, I will murder anyone and anything that dared touch them. There is
no force in this world or any other that would stop me."

“Not even me?”

“Not even you,” she said. “I’m sorry. But...”

“You have your priorities.”

She shrugged again. “Sorry.”

THE OTHER LAW

"One second she's there, making childish jokes and teasing, teaching her students or jamming
with the guys, and the other it's this. This thing that kills armies, that breaks peo... ponies
without second thought or hesitation. How can I deal with that? What do I do?"

Count took a sniffle of his snuff box, and put his hoof on the boy's shoulder.

"There are many things that we consider. Justice. Kindness. Mercy. Those are the laws that
govern stallions and that the Princesses decree and uphold. But Sunset Shimmer cares not for
these things. For all that she tried to do things Celestia’s way, she's the Other Law we live by,
she's that Law and nothing else. Be her strength boy, because within her are all the Furies of
Tartarus screaming to get out."

RAKSI
She leaned low towards the earth, horn aflame with her power, almost growling: "Nikasha!"

Green flames rolled across the mare’s form, turning it black and chitinous, releasing translucent
wings and twisted horn. "Night-huntress!"

They snarled at each other, two beasts ready to rip each other apart.

"Did you think I would not feel you? I ate your blood, creature. I ate your name! You cannot fool
me."

***

Again her form twisted, in streaks of red and yellow, and green magic met green magic, a shield
against the spell.

"You cannot win against yourself, child."

"I know who I am, monster-mother. And you are not me." Sunset's magic shattered the shield
and made the changeling step back.

Her yellow became dull brown and red disappeared, and the horn gave place to wings. Flash
Sentry smiled. "Come on, Sunset. I know you. You're a good perso-"
Tendrils of green cut him off, choking until green ichor bled through skin and feathers.

"No, vermin-queen, I am not.” The coils of dust and sand cut his skin and forced the pegasus to
his knees. “Your last seconds have come. Give it your best shot Kaikesi, or die with dignity - it’s
all the same to me. Either way you will not rise again."

Last time her form shifted, her frame expanding, black giving way to the milky-white coat the
color of morning cloud.

"You wouldn't hurt me, would you, Sunset? You never could."

For the first time Sunset has hesitated, her magic faltering and her grip getting loose.

"Princess..."

“Yes.” The thing that looked like the princess looked in Sunset’s eyes, both of their magics
becoming one and disappearing into her form. “It’s me, Sunset. Come back to me, my little
student.”

“But…” Sunset choked, holding back a sob “I am a monster.”

“And still you love me.”

“I do. But Princess, you see…” Sunset’s eyes suddenly lost their pale green sheen and looked
sharp and alert. The white mare tried to move away and summon her magic, but the unicorn
was too close, her change - too sudden, and before anyone could even blink her magic spiked
and burst through the mare’s chest out of the old Queen’s back, pinning her in the air, like a
butterfly in entomologist's collection. “We, monsters, always hurt those we love.”

She twisted her magic in the wound and ripped it out in a fountain of foul green ichor. The
creature fell on the floor, once again turning back to her true chitinous form.

“That’s what makes us monsters.”

She regarded the bleeding form of a monstress coldly, and then her magic rose, flattening out
and extending, turning into a wide, long blade. Not a weapon of war - a tool of an executioner.

“Final will be your death,” she promised. “You won’t escape this time.”

NOT FRIENDSHIP GAMES

It was a great armor. Dozens of Earth-pony masters poured all their skill and magic into it,
making it impervious to spell and steel, hoof and fire.
Against centuries of entirely different technological progress it might as well be tissue paper.
Thousands upon thousands hours of men thinking of a better, easier way to kill their fellow
humans, everything known to anyone who has ever lived about ballistics, chemistry and
metallurgy condensed in a single bullet pierced the armor like it was nothing but rice paper,
hitting the stallion square in the chest.

Shots rolled across the cave like thunder one by one, but even riddled with bullets he was still
too big, too strong, too stubborn to fall. He hit the unicorn like a freight train, crushing her into
the earth. His hooves pushed on her throat, strangling Sunset with inequine strength.

***

“You cheated!” the stallion croaked, still struggling to stand up.

“Meh. “Sunset shrugged - a motion that made her wince in pain. “This isn’t exactly the
Friendship Games.”

She tucked the gun back into her belt, and then sat down, really wishing she still had a cigarette
left.

The war was almost over.

SUN UNBOUND
Platinum cast her spell - a complex weave of blue and purple that enveloped Celestia’s body,
and the princess stirred...and went still again.

“Well?” Sunset’s tone was not kind. “What’s wrong?”

“I warned you this may happen!” Platinum put her hoof placatingly up. “This is not a spell we
ever intended to break. I undid the magic, but the Princess, she feeds the spell herself”.

“What?”

“Simply put, Lady, she does not wish to wake up. And so she does not, and she will not, and
nothing I can do can change that.”

***

“Though waking is not Our domain, Dreaming is.” Luna said, “I can send thee to her, little pony.
Into Our sister’s dream. Thee would be subjected to the same dream, but if thee can persuade
her to wake up, the spell may yet be broken.”

***
“Sunset!” Celestia smiled, and took off her mitts to hug the flabbergasted unicorn “you’re home!
And just in time for dinner”

***

She wanted to say something, something important. Like a flash of red blood and sharp iron,
something that would make Celestia hurt… but the smell of fresh cookies and milk distracted
her and she forgot.

“Can I have two, Mommy?”

The filly Twilight looked adorable with the cookie crumbs all over her muzzle, as she tried to
balance the milk glass in her tiny little hoovsies.

***

“I am coming,” the raven croaked in an almost equine voice, coarse cawing like sandpaper
against her mind. “I am coming for you.”

***

Sunset put her hoof on the crystal, and she could almost feel the impossible heat that the gold
chains and locks contained within the transparent cube. A miniature sun, every bit as hot and
powerful as the one in the sky, bound by the simple golden band of royal crown.

“She locked it away…” she could barely believe it, “she locked her fire away, didn’t she?”

“We shouldn’t be here,” the filly Twilight muttered, trying to pull Sunset away by the her tail.
“Mum will be very sad if she sees us here.”

***

“We could… we could steal the key.” Twilight gulped, “she keeps it under the pillow…”

***

Her hoof has only found emptiness of the pristine white bedsheets under the pillow.

No. Nononono.

She almost panicked, jerking her hoof around, hoping against all hope that she just missed it,
but there just wasn’t anything there. Definitely no key.

***

“Hope.” the raven cawed. “I am coming for you. Hope.”

“I remember now.” The filly Twilight bit her lip. “I didn’t want to remember, but I did. She gave it
to me.” She spread the fur on her chest, and there it was, the golden bow of the key sticking out
of her flesh, the blade biting deep into her body. “She gave it to me. I don’t want it, I hate it. It’s
heavy and it hurts, but she gave it to me and it’s mine now, and I have to carry it, always,
always with me.”

“And if I take it out, you die.” Sunset remembered it, touching her own chest, and feeling blood
slowly seeping from the wound she knew she did not have. Not on her body, anyways. “Fine.”
she jerked her hoof away from her coat and wiped it on the ground. “Fine. She will just have to
break it herself. If the Princess doesn’t want to wake up from her nice little dream, then I will turn
it into a bleeding nightmare. And I know just a way to do it”.

***

Doors like mirrors where she walked, but she had been here before, and she knew not to look
back.

***

She took the chalk in her teeth, drawing a simple circle in the paving stone of the road, and
stood firm, planting her hooves into the ground.

“I summon you…

The dream-world shuddered when she spake, the thunders rumbling turning into a drumroll,
insidious and syncopated.

“...by the knife from under the hill, by the claw of the rat and the wing of the bat..”

The malleable flesh of the dreamworld rose readily to her call as she called them out, one by
one.

“...by the coin of stone, by the feather of light and the blood that was life...”

Twilight hid behind the tree, shivering.

“I summon you by the name, the name that’s been cursed…”

Heavy storm clouds covered the sky, rumbling with the rending power that the litany of anchors
and items of power no longer existing in the real world had summoned. Somnus somnium
invocat, a dream calling to a dream, the fabric of the fake world rippling and groaning under the
pressure of non-magic, everything held in balance for the last word, whispered to the darkness.

“...Nightmare”.

***
It was intoxicating. Being a Power once again. No need for spells, or magics, or energies - her
will flowed out of her like a river of flame, melting and contorting the soft wax of the dream-
world, resonating in her very voice.

“BEHOLD ME, CELESTIA. I HAVE RETURNED TO BRING YOU THE GIFT YOU FEAR
MOST.”

***

“No. Silent Night is in Zebrica! She’s a doctor!”

“Oh I’m a doctor, my Princess, I’m a doctor alright. I stopped the Black Death. And as I was
coughing up my lungs in the basements of Canterlot Hospital, the last victim of the plague, my
portraits were taken off the walls, my things thrown out of my rooms, so that you would not have
to remember.”

“You said you’d be my mommy when you took me out of that orphanage.” The colt, once tall
and lanky, now - half bone, half rotten flesh, pierced through with bindings and chains, spoke.
“But when they bound me for Tartarus you didn’t even come. You sentenced me to eternal
prison, and you wouldn’t even look at me when you did!”

“You forgot…”
“..abandoned…”
“...betrayed…”
“...didn’t care…”

“You never noticed me.” the yellow filly with flaming-red mane said. “Even as I turned into a
monster for you, you never noticed me. Because I was filthy with the things you did not want to
know.”

“I--”

“GO AWAY!” filly Twilight jumped in front of them, raising her purple shield, the click-whirring.
“You can’t have my Mommy! She’s mine!”

“Oh we’re not here for her, little princess.” Sunset laughed, and her laughter was like broken
blades and jagged glass. “We’re here for you!”

“For the perfect one…”

“The little princes…”
“..last student…”
“...who would never abandon…”
“...never die…”
“...never leave…”
“...never betray…”
“No!” Celestia begged. “Not her, please, don’t take her from me!”

“She is ours!”
“She’s one of us!”
“She will be taken…”
“...locked forever…”
“...die for you…”
“...stay with us…”

“By the right of blood!

By our sacrifice!
By all that we suffered and were forgotten for!”

“You’re just a teacher, Celestia. Just a school marm with no powers, no responsibilities except
to your little students.” Sunset’s teeth flashed, sharp and predatory. “And even those you failed,
apparently. What can you do? We will take the little princess, and you will watch, and then you
will forget her. Like you forgot all of us.”

“No!”

***

"I am coming for you." The bird cawed.

"Run." Sunsets grin flashed, all sharp canines and angled fangs."

***

Celestia, bloodied and ragged, threw her whole weight against the glass, smashing it with her
horn, and finally it broke, exploding with a flash of light.

Brightness flooded the world.

Everything disappeared.

The ghosts.

The house.

Little Twilight.

The fake power that clung to Sunset like a shroud evaporated like mist under the high noon sun.

Everything disappeared.

Only two mares remained in the white, empty void.

Princess Celestia looked at Sunset.

“You’ve grown, once student mine,” she said, surprised and a little sad. “And you’ve grown
cruel. I understand now why they called you a monster - the perfect happiness, the perfect
dream have you stolen away from me, and broke it with your black magic and dark mind.
Do you even understand what you have done? What you have taken from me?”

“I woke you up.” Sunset met her gaze without flinching.

“Why?! Why could you not leave me be?”

“Everything ends, my Princess. And your ponies need you.”

Celestia nodded. And then the world grew bright and white and then they woke up.

***

“You!”

Sunset’s breath caught. That was the true Celestia. Daughter of the Sky, Lady of Light, The
Excellent One. She hath made the light, brighter than any fire, shining the foes and enmities
away and to meet her glance was to be bowed.

Platinum backed away, the shields and the wards and the dozen unicorn-guards suddenly
failing to provide any reassurances.

“Princess, perhaps we could talk…we’ve already surrendered?” She stammered “...capitulated

even. We could revisit the terms if you...”

“BURN.”

Shields shattered and ponies screamed when their horns cracked from feedback. Nothing could
live in the nova that was a product not of magic, but simply Princess’ wakened ire. Even though
not aimed at Sunset, she could feel its terrible heat with all of her body and the afterimage of the
Sun’s flame would forever be burned into her retinas.

The fierce, burning pride surged from within. She was at her place, serving the rightful Princess,
clad once again in corona of her power.

“PONIES!” The last of her dreamed-up Nightmare escaped with her voice, turning it to a true
Royal Canterlot Address. “KNEEL BEFORE THE DAWN!”

***

“Ruler of Light, guard of Law Eternal, Radiant One, increasing in thine own abode. Be to us
easy of approach, even as a dam is to her foals.” Sunset chanted slowly and at those ancient
words Celestia raised her head, coming back from her rage.

“What… no. No!” her horrid glow abated, slowly, as Celestia struggled to rip herself out of the
burning corona of her power “No, I am not that pony, not any more.”

***
Celestia… just Celestia, her fire hidden again, cried on her sister’s shoulder.

MOCK

"Ow!" Green smacked her upside the head, faster than her pupil had time to even see it coming.
"What was that for?"

"Have you learned nothing, little princess? This-- this is where you mock."

"Wait what?"

GREEN SAYS SOMETHING FUNNY ABOUT CELESTIA

"That's," she tried to keep the smile away from her face. "It's not--" but it was impossible. A
giggle escaped, then a full blown laughter, the nervous energy, the tiredness, the last feeling of
the heavy nightmare and pomp of the situation escaping with every little laugh.

ADAMAS

"Second Legion, -- Legio Noctis!"

They passed like shadows in the darkness. The sun itself turned away where they flew on silent
leathery wings, carrying the banner of the Night Eternal.

***

They moved by, one by one.

Legio Six, Ferrata. They walked without pomp, with no aura of power, old, simple weapons and
blued steel. She saw Flash walking in their ranks and her heart skipped a beat.

Legio Ten, Scoltian. The allies from Urussia,lent by the tsar or coming by themselves. The dour
stalliongradi, the thick-furred, horse-like mustangolians, the small przhevalskis smelling faintly of
dynamite.

Legio Twelve, Fulminata, clad in thunder and lightnings, the air smelling of ozone in their wake.

***

"And the famed Thirteenth Legion.... the announcer dragged the pause, letting the drums reach
crescendo Legio Adamas!" Sunset's eyes widened in surprised. That was not their name -- not
the one given to them, at least. But it was fitting.
Legio Adamas - The Diamond Legion, and their new banner had a diamond studded horseshoe.
It looked - if you had just a tiny bit of imagination - not unlike a tiara.

MYSTERIES OF THE SUN

The bull charged and bucked in the confines of the small arena-stage, huge, powerful, angry.

The pegasus had to dodge, and jump, avoiding his horns, and wait, finding a moment to strike.
His spear was blunt, with a wide, heavy spearhead that could not penetrate the thick skin, only
leaving the marks, perhaps half an inch deep -- thin, shallow and bleeding.

It took patience and endurance and speed to pass the mystery of the bull. He jumped again,
stabbing at the nearest leg, but his attack went wide.

He stood, shaking. No wings to aid him, nor could he use his horn if he had one. Just like she
did, back then, before the first true sunrise.

A dodge, a stab, spearhead clinging against the bronze forget of the mask. Good. He felt relief
washing over him. A stab like that, to the throat could kill a pony even with a blunt spear and his
job was not to kill, just to outlast.

The bull was already growing slow and weak, his sides covered in red foam from the many
wounds.

He just needed to score one more good hit. One more, right there to the ribs. He can see it now,
with an almost tunnel vision, going up and down with each step, obvious like a mark on the
training dummy.

His leaden legs make the step, his body twists letting the bull to the side, pulling the spear
behind, and releasing it forward.

He feels the soft connection, resistance of the yielding flesh. For a moment they are connected,
and he can feel the push of his opponent’s breath in the crook of his leg where he holds his
spear, and then it's over.

There is a crash, a groan. The bull tries to stand up, but he is woozy, his legs slipping to the
sides, as if he is in a skate rink.

The mater -- a white pony in a deep cowl. A stallion, despite his title, he puts a cup to the side of
the pony, collecting the blood.

"We remember the sunrise." He says, stallion's voice a thin note against the thumping of the
blood in his temples. The blood mixes with wine and the honey in the cup. Haoma, drink of the
faithful.

"We remember the sunrise," mater repeats, passing the cup to him. He drinks, deep and
greedy, slaking his thirst, barely feeling the salt of the blood and the sweetness of honey and
the tang of the grape. "And we remember the blood of the bull."
The crowd speaks again with him, and he is relieved from the cup, as it passes through the
crowd, each pony taking a drink.

"You passed the trial," the pony tells him, "You have slain the bull--"

He throws a worried glance at the bull in question, but he is not dead -- he is already relieved of
his heavy mask, and the medics are kvetching around him, applying the pain-killing charms and
stitching his wounds.

"You are now miles, a soldier. One of us, to stand guard against the darkness, and make sure
that the sun will rise again."

They surround him -- a veritable sea of ponies. Clapping his back, patting his shoulder,
congratulating and complimenting.

"It's OK," someone whispers. "It's all over now. "

He smiles.
It's over. He passed.
Means it's OK to fall down now.
Down, and down, and down, and into the darkness.

SILLY BOY

"You're a very silly boy, you know that?" She asked as she brought him more water.

"That's why you love me."

"True." She checked the IVs, adjusting the flow of saline. "but you took on yourself an obligation
today, one as big as when we... married." He loved the faint blush when she said the word. "the
words that were said cannot be now unsaid."

"I know. But..."

"The Princess is worth dying for."

He nodded. And then he slept again.

RITE OF THETIS

The fillies slept, clutching at each other in their sleep. She could see their chests rising and
falling in the darkness, matted fur and damp coat where they cried. Anger, tight and hot, peaked
within her.

Never again. The thought that beat against her temples from inside like a waxing tide, each tiny
wave pushing her anger higher. Never again.
She whispered a spell like a lullaby, infusing it with a wisp of Luna's power, and fillies breathing
grew deeper and even. They would now sleep a heavy, dreamless slumber, and would not
wake until the dawn.

From her saddlebags she levitated her supplies. Poisons and potions, subtle and deadly to the
untrained, the water dead from the firestone, the salamander venom and the phoenix feather,
the fat of fish she caught with the eye of a bird-prince, and the blood of a unicorn.

The Princess of the Sun did not cast a simple light spell -- the whole of her body shone instead
with the soft rays of the rising sun, revealing her sitting in the corner.

"Why are you here, Sunset?" She asked gently.

"They got hurt." Sunset answered, without looking away from her implements, as she arranged
them preparing for her spellwork. "Because of me. It will not happen again."

“You cannot do this to the fillies, Sunset. I cannot allow it.”

"All-powerful is the Princess of the Sun, Lady of the Dawn," Sunset recited, "as gentle as dam to
her foals, bringing wealth abundant and set in every shape. She makes the light, brighter than
any fire, to shine the foes and enmities away.

"All that her light touches is her domain, every pony is her subject…”

There was sadness in Celestia's eyes now. She knew that verse, that ancient law

"In all the affairs of the kingdom her word is the law; except for three: 'twixt mother and her child,
'twixt wife and her husband, ‘twixt master and her student."

Her implements ready, Sunset finally raised her eyes to meet Celestia's gaze.

"You may order me anything you wish my Princess -- I will kill and die at your word. But what
happens between me and my apprentices is not yours to command. Go away."

"That is an old law, Sunset," Celestia said. "It was repealed a very long time ago.Even I have
nearly forgotten it. These days we have boards on education, and foals rights and laws on
marriage. The state can--"

"The state!" Sunset interrupted her with a deriding snort. "I am not beholden to 'the state'. I don't
even live here. Sue me if you want, fight me if you dare, step aside otherwise."

"I could wake them up."

"You could try," Sunset agreed. "And even if you did, what do you think would happen? They'd
choose you over me? You aren’t half arrogant enough to believe that."

Celestia grew quiet, and for a time they sat in silence, interrupted only by the deep breathing of
the fillies, and Sunset’s rustling around the room as she inscribed the runes and mixed the
ingredients in preparation for her sorcery.
“You love them, don’t you?” Celestia asked, still motionless in her corner.

Sunset shrugged. “Love” was a silly word.

“Why would you then do that to them… turn them into…”

“Into what?” she interrupted bitterly. “Into freaks? Into monsters? Into something like me? Is that
what you meant, my Princess?”

Celestia kept her silence, but her once student did not wait for the reply anyways.

“I am not a Power, my Princess. I am just a unicorn. But I can give them my blessing, after a
fashion. A poison fruit born of bitter knowledge, but that is all I have.”

She gestured towards the ingredients and implements she arranged, touching each in turn.

“The flame I tricked away from a dragon’s-son, bound by salamander and phoenix, and never
will they fear heat or cold.

“The water of Tartarus, I once crossed on the ship of dead mare’s hooves, and never the steel
shall pierce their skin.

“The dust of diamonds I ripped from the womb of the earth, and never will their bones break.

“The blood of the changeling-queen, I took with fire and spellcraft. As quick as the vipers will it
make them, more graceful than does.”

“Are they not great treasures, my Princess?” Sunset asked her Princess, almost begging. “Are
they not a gift worth giving?”

Celestia moved closer, looking over her shoulder at the potions and poisons and sharp
implements laid out.

“Flame from the dragon, to seep into their heart, to wake the greed and the anger. Never will
they be content, and never will be their ambitions sated.” she touched the phoenix-feather with
her hoof.

“Water of Tartarus, to make their skin cold, and never will they feel the tender touch of another.

“The forbidden flesh of the magic fish, to give them sight without and within, but never will they
be able to close their eyes.

“What others will do to them, you know better than I, Sunset. Why do you persist?”

“I know what I’m doing.” Sunset shrugged the wing of her shoulder, her expression turning hard
again. “The side-effects will be minimal. And I promised them they will never get hurt again.”

....
"Fine, then," Sunset turned to Celestia, "You do it then. All of you. And yes, you can come in
now, I know you were listening,” she repeated, and finally Luna and Cadence and Twilight
stumbled into the room, looking mildly guilty.

...

"I give you my blessing, little ponies." Celestia hath made the light, brighter than any fire. "Shine
bright, little Diamond, let others see your light. See the light little Silver, for even in the total
darkness there is a place for a ray of hope."

"I give thee my blessing, little ponies." Luna's light filled the room to its depths and its heights,
and her black radiance drove out the dark. "Know your dreams little Diamond. Let your wishes
be your strength, your desires -- your guiding star, that you may never be lost in the world.
Know your dreams, little Silver, and know what they are not, that you may never be lost
between the two."

"I, err, I bless you little ponies." Cadence stood between her aunts, suddenly starkly beautiful,
as resplendent as the sun and as blooming as the moon, as shining as most precious
gemstone. "Know when you are loved, Diamond. Know that you are loved, Silver. Always."

RATRI

Sunset bowed, almost prostrating herself on the floor before the Princess of the Night “Guard
us from the beast and the timberwolf, and guard us from the thief, oh Night, and so be good for
us to pass”.

Luna nodded back in a faint bow, blushing slightly.

“I remember you, my little pony, and thank you. But it is just Princess Luna now.”

“Lulamoons are still loyal to the Night over the Day. They remember and honor the old ways”.
Sunset looked at Celestia as she spoke. “So do many more”.

Instead of hurting Celestia, Sunset’s comment merely made her smile and hug the Princess of
the Night with her wing. “I told you Lulu, ponies have always loved you. And still do.”

PONDERING

“Sunset… what about you? Would you want to stay?” Celestia asked gently.

Sunset stood stock still, as if she just stepped on the landmine. Her muscles locked up, while
she considered the thought as she would a poisonous snake. And then the decision was made.

The only decision that could really be made.

“Your Majesty, you are forever my Princess. I would kill and die at your command… but that is
not what you want, is it?”
“It never was.” she smiled sadly. “Still, this is your home and you are always welcome here.”

“No, it isn’t Your Majesty. And I am not.”

SAYING SOOTH

She felt it then -- her brief flirtation with the Power, the old enchantments and spells awakened
in her blood making her feel the alignment of the world with every hair of her coat.

A perfect moment, fertile for the right words to seed the future.

"I will come back, my Princess." She said in sudden silence, in a voice not quite her own, "When
blood is spilled in Equestria and there is a need of me, I will come. No matter the world, no
matter the danger, whether you want it or not. Always."

WE RE NOT SLAVES. WE CAN LEAVE.

"I am not a slave."

"Sunset! You never were--"

"I am not a slave." she repeated stubbornly. "I can leave. I..." she took a breath. "I want to leave.
I want my own life, and my own world."

...

"That's why we take students - to..." she shrugged, "well, I suppose you'll figure it out soon
enough. You have students of your own now, after all."

...

"So what were you going to say? Why did you take students?"

"We take students so that we have someone to learn from."

Diamond stood there, looking at the swirling portal, thinking, her face all scrunched up. "That,"
she finally concluded, "makes no sense."

CHOICE (AND) REWARDS

“Sunset, where are we going?" The Principal-Celestial asked, trotting after her student.

"Royal treasury. My cunning Princess in her infinite wisdom has declared you a Regent, and of
three Kingdoms no less. So other than making your actions legal, and not an usurpation of the
throne and menace to the crown, it also means that you are due a salary - a rather generous
one. In quadruplicate. So we're going to collect." Sunset turned to the Principal, "I am taking ten
percent finder's cut, and I charge another ten for money laundering by the way."

Celesia gave another resigned sigh. "I don't want to know, do I?"

"No, not really," Sunset agreed, "Trust me, it's not illegal... Well, except in the most technical
sense."

"What would've happened if I was not declared a regent?" Celestia asked.

"Probably banishment. Or imprisonment. I mean," Sunset rubbed her neck sheepishly,

"technically, by the law you'd be hung by your neck until you die for usurpation of the throne. But
that was [I]really[/I] unlikely."

Celestia stared at her student for a while.

"That's not very nice, Sunset."

"Look, Prin-- Principal. Celestia. I like you, I really do. And I even owe you -- a lot. And I'm really
trying not to do things that go against my better judgement, or something that would get the boy
more cross with me. So I'd get you back even at the cost of my life, even in defiance of my
Princess' orders.

"But since I am trying to be good, and since I do owe you, I think you deserve to know: if it had
ever come to choosing between you and [I]her[/I], I'd have cut your throat as easy as I breathe."

“...” The principal stayed behind, not sure what to say. “I… Thank you for telling me?”

“I know it’s not something you’d want to hear. But I have my priorities.”
INTERMISSION - FREEDOM

"I'll never be free.".

Sunset slumped in her chair, hiding from Zecora's eyes.

"I will always belong to her. Mind, body and spirit."

She sipped the tea, wishing it was something stronger, her fingers gripping the cup so hard they
turned white.

"I've done things... you cannot even imagine what I did, just so that she would hate me, and all it
did was made me hate myself. I did all I could, I ran away as far as I could imagine to be free,
and I might as well have tried to run away from my own heart. I fought it, I tried to drink it away, I
became a different… person, and still - the moment, the second she called, I came galloping
back to save her, to help, ready to kill and to die for just a minute of her approval, just to have
her look at me like she did before."

"And it scares you." Zecora did not so much ask, as state the fact. “From how you look it’s easy
to construe.”

"It terrifies me." Sunset whispered. "When she smiles, when she looks at you like a proud
mother, there is no better drug in the world. I love it, and I hate myself for loving it at the same
time."

There was nothing to be said, while Sunset refilled her teacup.

Zecora raised her eyebrow.

“Would you please roll up your sleeve? There's something underneath it, I believe.”

Tea spilled on the table - Sunset’s hand shaken by the sudden question.

Biting her lip, Sunset gave the therapist a look - a mix of defiance and shame and submitted to
her demand. Under the long sleeves of her jacket, short lines of knife marks, still raw enough to
not be scars could be seen.

“Does it help?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s...” Sunset struggled to find the words.

“A way of control”. Zecora stated, “For your feelings, on your body you take out the toll. When
feel yourself losing control of your thoughts, your actions, your self - and this is just a way for
you to reestablish it. Makes you feel like you can make choices for yourself”.
STORIES OF FUTURE PAST

BITS AND PIECES

"Why was this book under "E"?" I shouted at the librarian, who tried to hide from my wrath
behind the counter, ears drooped. It may have been a bit of overreaction, but I had to spend an
hour looking for the book, and with a shattered hoof, no less, so I was not in a good mood.

"There are rules for this place! A system! DDC, do you even know it?"

"Dewey decimal? Do we ever!" He chuckled lamely

I threw him out the window.

I mean, really, what else was I supposed to do after that?

Even though the stupid winged moron did remember that he was a pegasus and that he could
actually fly before he reached the rocks at the bottom of the mountain, the little act of wanton
defenestration did improve my moofd considerably.

PILLOW TALK
“Maybe I do love you Flash Sentry” she admitted finally. It was a surrender, capitulation. But
somehow she did not feel defeated.

“Didn’t you say that love is a lie?” he teased gently.

She stirred on the bedsheets, seeking for the warmth of his body, nuzzling into the crook of his
neck. “So lie to me.”

“Didn’t you say that love is a weakness?”

She tasted his skin with her lips, crawling slowly up to give his earlobe a little nip, “You swore to
take my weakness, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t you say that love is a contradiction?”.

She sighed and rose a bit, catching his eyes.

“So it is. Sentry, I am not saying that I will love you for ever and ever. Those who would promise
this are fools or liars, and I promised I won’t ever lie to you. I love you today, and I will love you
tomorrow, and if one day I don’t anymore - I’ll tell you. That’s the best I can give“

He nodded, tracing his fingers along her spine, feather-light touches pulling her back to him.
“I guess I’ll take that for now.” Despite the words, his eyes were shining and he looked like a
kitten who just stole the largest jar of cream. “I can wait”.

WORLD TOUR
“I did not want to go to this world - I did not even know of it.” Sunset sighed. “I wanted to get as
far away from Equestria as I could. Perhaps to the world of the great Lion: There’s always a war
there, for He is a vengeful Lord: He comes to the smell of blood and the smoke of burnt flesh is
pleasant to Him.

“But whether it was a spell I messed up in my flight, or fate had that decreed otherwise, or
perhaps some last-moment interference of my Princess, I ended up here -- alone in a different
world, in alien body, bereft of my magic, knowing nothing and no one on the planet. And for
some short time I was happy.”

“Happy?”

“Yeah. Looking back at that time -- I was happy those days, when I just came to this world. It
was a war, for me -- a war without fighting, but a war nonetheless, doing just the thing I have
remade myself to do: Survive. Adapt. Overcome. Incessant work, always at the fear of failure…
but then in a few years it was done.

“I had a place to call my own. I went to school again, one of my choice, fitting to maintain my
new life as a child and to observe the portal. I had money - legal and not, minions and allies and
students and a standing in the world. I even visited Equestria for a bit, when the portal was open
last fall.

“That’s when I started thinking, and that’s when I realized..”

JOKE ON ME

“It’s all a huge joke.” Sunset hit the pack over the table, striking a cigarette out. She lit it with a
match, and took a drag. “I turned myself into monster to protect Equestria, and it really didn’t
need it. All my magic, all my sacrifices are nothing compared to the Magic of Friendship of the
six clueless little girls. And that ain’t even the funny part.” she breathed a long puff of smoke,
forcing Flash to grimace at the smell. “Nah, the funny part, is if I knew all that, I’d still do it all
over again.”

“Why then?” he asked, prompting Sunset to continue -- as he always did.

“It’s like an addiction. The roller-coaster of pain and pleasure, power and desire… but it’s also
more than that.” she twiddled the cigarette in her fingers, searching for the words, careful not to
breathe the smoke on the boy. “You must understand -- we, ponies are creatures of destiny. We
bear its mark upon our skin, and it’s not just a pretty picture. It’s the destiny that defines us, that
guides us, that gives us the meaning and fulfillment. But every once in a while it’s not enough.
“It’s like an itch that drives you insane until you scratch it, like a dull ache of something missing
in your soul, an insatiable, burning desire to be more. To grow beyond yourself, to break the
chains of predestination, to spit in the face of fate. Drugs or magic, training or fucking - to be
debased or exalted matters little, but I cannot be content to just be myself.”

TOYS AND ...TOYS

"Viviane" he called me, "his little Neighmue" and claimed in bitter jest that I stole his heart
forever. But even as he chased after me, half in pretence of love, half in desperate desire of a
moth for a flame, I did not love him back.

I loved to toy with him, though, letting him closer and pushing him back on a passing whim,
always unpredictable, ever unattainable except for a moment before I'd slip out of his embrace
come the morning. Or to draw on his finance for some pin money or an extravagant gift I did not
want to trouble the Princess with, be it a curio that caught my eye or a thing with a purpose
more specific and sinister.

TWICE BURNED

"For weeks now, I've drunk no water and ate no food, the only thing keeping me alive and
trotting - the regular injections of salamander venom. My skin itched, crawled and stung with
thin branding of intricate pattern burned on it with a phoenix feather. And a very big, very irate
dragon was getting ready to let loose his fire upon me.

I was delirious with thirst and blood loss I’ve suffered and the hallucinogenic properties of the
venom were probably getting to me, making world around blur and swirl with colors, but I still
remember smiling, and thinking:"Exactly as I planned"

"Well." Rarity cleared her throat "That definitely blows my "strangest situation I've ever been in"
anecdote out of the water.”

"Now I want to hear that story," Rainbow added. "Seeing how you're not horse-meat barbecue."

DOG OF THE MILITARY

It was clear to me now that Celestia did not wish to know. She was too… clean, too pure for the
dirt she sent me to deal with, the things that made my forehooves drip with blood every time I’d
come home. With the monsters and the terrors and the traitors. And to me, the wish of my
Princess and my mentor was more than the law, however unspoken it was.

I dealt with those things, with darkness and fire. Subtle and quick, I was the flame before the
white throne, burning any who would threaten Equestria or my Princess. Where before the
nobility of Canterlot would call me Celestia’s Mongrel in whispers behind my back, for my low
birth and mixed blood, they would now dub me Celestia’s Monster, and none dared to say it
where I might have heard it.

But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the victory - any means, and way, any place. For
me there was no other way - only the victory would allow me the honor of coming back to my
Princess.

LIE-SMITH, TRUTH-BREAKER
When a towering brute of clay, invincible to magic and hoof was harassing the ponies of Chelm,
I whispered the sweetest lies to its Diamond-Dog maker, until he was no longer worthy of the
truth that powered his creation, rendering the thing inert. Then I scattered the Diamond Dogs
that have used it to scare ponies away from “their” ramshod hovels and caves.

I took the construct’s heart for myself, another broken gray bauble to add to my collection.

I used the two gems I had to break open the riddle of the lock and descended into the bowels of
mount Ratnagari, I hunted the Shapeless Queen through its sarcophagus for two weeks, and
the mountain shook with my spellwork when we battled. I bested it - of course - and took its
blood as my trophy; potions made from the ichor of the creature making my bones supple and
pliable, its shifting magic covering the signs of scars and mutations that otherwise would have
been evident on my skin.

Its amulet, from which it fed in its slumber turned to grey bauble as I took the creature’s magic
for my own.

I’ve tracked down the lost city of Kitezh in the wastes of the Frozen North after I defeated the
umbrood. There, I’ve traded the eye of a needle for a piece of firestone that made the water
dead. I never managed to find the water living to complete the set, but it still served me well
enough once I managed to inure my body to its healing poison.

I was growing in power and ken, and soon, soon I would become invincible.

JURISDICTION
Celestia is the Princess of the Sun and ruler of all ponies. Some less than others - there were
ponies under the claw of King Guto renouncing their Equestrian birthright, under Quilin’s Yellow
Empress and even among the Buffalo tribes. In Equestria too, there are few cities far enough
from the crown that they are allowed the pretence of independence, and even the budding
perversion of democracy in Manehattan. However, nopony in Equestria is less beholden to the
White Throne of Canterlot than the ponies of Bharat, where the line of Stewards of Amora rule
in her name, preserving.
CADENCE
“Cadance..” despite being a princess, Cadance always insistent everyone call her by the first
name. I wasn’t really comfortable with that, but she was a princess and I was not, so first names
it was.

DARK ETERNITY ON THE MOON

Soma is a subtle drink. It’s a drug, one the secret of making which is unknown in this world.

We sat on the pillows in the Pavillion of Delights, drinking soma, smoking hash, and listening to
Prince Dasagriva play his veena. The long, oscillating notes waned and waxed through the
room, thick and sweet like our drink.

Soma is a subtle drink, and a deceptively potent one. Every taste is like half-holiday, every sip
like a weekend, every glass -- a dark eternity on the other side of the moon. The smoke from
our pipes weaved and turned into flying phoenixes and dragons, as we drifted in the haze of the
exquisite kaif, and I was content to lie there and observe the twist and turns of the smoke for
every little moment prolonged into eternity by the soma.

DRAGONS
“Dragons do not come from the Old World, nor are they the creatures of Equestria. Nopony can
even imagine a world that would give birth to such creatures -- immortal, almost invulnerable,
with raw magic that could almost equal a power, and as intelligent as any pony. In all of history,
there were but seven ponies to ever best an adult dragon in single combat, and all seven are
remembered to this day..." Sunset's expression darkened. "And me, though my fight was not fair
and my name is already forgotten."

"We do not know what they ran from, or what were they seeking in coming to this world, but it
must've been a mistake. Every generation of dragons is growing dimmer. They're growing small
and stupid and lazy, for there is nothing they'd apply their strength to here. A mare can live in a
world of cardboard, but the species cannot."

POISON AND WORDS

“So you’d marry her?” Cadence asked timidly.

“It’s…” I searched for the word “...convenient, I guess.”

“But what about love?” she asked softly.

“Love is a lie” I said, washing the blood of my forehooves. It would not come off. “It promises
happiness, yet always ends in tragedy.“

I gave up and put the forehooves down on the ground, leaving bloody hoofprints on the path.
“Love is a weakness. Those you love will be used against you.” Cadence shook and trembled,
as my words struck to her very essence.

“Love is a contradiction. For True Love would outlast the Universe itself, yet nothing can and
nothing ever will. And love that can end is no love at all.”

“That’s what you are, Cadence, that’s what your power is.” I looked her in the eyes, as I pushed
every word into her tiny little mind like a needle soaked in poison and vitriol. “A lie, a weakness
and a contradiction. ”

“You… you can’t really believe that Sunset. You can’t!”

“Think about it, little princess” I scoffed, “In less than a century your little boy-toy will die. He will
wither before your very eyes, bones turning brittle, skin becoming wrinkled, his magic losing
strength and finally his very mind will rot inside his skull. In the end he’d be nothing but a old
dessicated carcass filled with the shadow of what he once was. And he will love you with every
breath he takes for the rest of his life, because how can he not?”

I smiled, pure poison in my smile, and I loomed above the Princess like a shadow of death itself,
“And even if you will still love him then, a living tomb and a reminder of everything he no longer
will be - even then, eventually he will die, and then you will grieve - or perhaps feel relieved -
and then you will eventually forget him. But in every case, all your “true love” ever can be is just
a little fling of an immortal.”

I turned away from her “Don’t talk to me of love Cadance. I have none and I have no need for it.”

TACTICS OF THE SUNRISE

“Would you look at that!” Shining’s whinny distracted me from my preparations.

“Yeah, I know.” I shielded my eyes with my hoof as I watched eastwards, where over the twin
mountains of Nieghmalayas you could see Celestia raise the Sun, the pristine-white snow of
twin peaks, untouched by hooves of ponykind breaking the red light into every colour of the
rainbow. “If someone waits for us ahead, we’d be at a disadvantage standing against the light.
But we gotta hurry.”

He stared at me, like I suddenly grew a second head. “I meant that the sunrise is really beautiful
from this far.”

I shrugged and returned to packing my things. We could sightsee once the work was done.

A PEAK AT A SNEAK
I took a second to admire the way the harness slid over her muscled rear legs, as she fitted it
on, raising her tail ever so slightly...

“You peeked” she accused, but there was little anger in her tone.

“And I liked what I saw.” I had no reason to deny the obvious.

THE WAY

"It would be this one's honor to test your strength" he said, assuming position.

The gong sounded, and he bowed, lowering his head in a ritual greeting.

I moved the second he averted his eyes, sand exploding into his eyes. He reared up, blinded
and confused, and before he could even breathe, a single needle-like edge of my magic pierced
his exposed neck. An instant stretched, while he still tried to do something, to summon his
magic… I twisted the blade in the wound and ripped it out.

The other three stood there, and we watched him wheeze, scratch the earth, and try to grasp
the air with what once was his throat for a few seconds until he grew still.

"You fight without honor!" the orange stallion spat out. "You do not follow the Way."

"I fight to win. That is the only Way I need," I answered coldly." Who's next?"

NIGHT-MARES

Translucent pony-figures danced around us in the air, and a wave of terror rose within me,
sudden and chilling like an ice-cold snow in the jungle. Marae. The nightmare-ponies, the terror-
drinkers. Things from the Dreaming animated by the Nightmare Moon and released into the
world as a scourge to those who would oppose her. Summoned again by Ahuizotl, when I
delivered the power of Nightmare to him, so long ago.

They would scare us and drive us with fear and despair of visions, draining our life and magic,
until we could run no more, and then they would descend upon us to drink the still-warm blood
off our corpses, leaving nothing but empty carcasses behind.

***

“I can’t”, she panted and wheezed. “No more. Leave me here”. She dropped to her haunches,
willing to resign herself to her fate.

I grit my teeth, fear and anger indistinguishable in my soul, one turning into the other like colors
of my cutie-mark. I’d let the stupid bitch die right there and then, but marae, fed on her blood,
would become stronger and then even I would not be able to contain them. All of us would
perish in these Nightmare-riddled woods.

Anger flared within me like a forest fire, as I thought back to when I was exhausted to the limit of
my body. When I too would have preferred the sweet release of death to another movement of
the leaden limbs and aching muscles. But unlike her I never gave up. I never sat down and took
what was coming, because unlike her I had the will to survive.

And then I thought of the way I was once spurred to move when I thought I reached my limit. Of
how my other teacher knew to motivate me to move even when I thought that there was nothing
in me to keep going, and my anger finally found its release.

I let loose my magic in a pale-green lighting that hit her in the chest, slipping into her nerves and
lighting them on fire. An agony-lashing, pain like one that little pony has never felt before,
magnified hundredfold, and she squealed, jumping up and away, for all her self-professed
tiredness.

If pride or duty could not force her to move, there was always the pain.

“Yes, you can.” I hit her again, driving her to run in the right direction. “You will. Or I’ll kill you
myself, hundred times worse than they ever would! “ She squealed and ran, snot and tears on
her muzzle, trying to wheeze out some sobbing or begging. I cared not - instead I hit her again,
spurring her to go faster.

We galloped for another hour, and I had to hit her with the spell at least another dozen times,
before we have finally lost the marae in the woods behind, and could collapse safely. She
couldn’t speak and she could hardly breathe by the time we made it, but she ran all the way,
and we were all alive.

If she had a brain, she’d thank me once we returned. They all would.

[center] ***[/center]

Sunset sighed.

“She never did thank me - for making her gallop, that is, for saving all of us from the marae. Not
because she was an ingrate, but because she couldn’t.

“The last time I brought her some flowers, she was living at the Quiet Pastures and the doctors
still were trying to make her talk again. I don’t even think she recognized me. I tried to talk to her
then, but there was nothing in her eyes, as she sat on the floor, perpetually rocking on her
haunches like a broken little toy horse. Too weak for the world, she has found a way to escape
it.

“She’d never be strong, but she won herself safe, in a fashion.”

 [center]***[/center]

We left her in the care of the villagers and moved on.

Others have fallen in line after that. My presence seemed to loom over our small unit like a
heavy shade. There was less talk, less laughter - and less talking back when I spoke. Shining
Armor was still the leader, of course, but every time he gave his orders or asked for something I
could see the muscles in his neck strain just a little bit when he very carefully tried not to look
my way for approval.

It suited me just fine.

MERELY QUICK

"Lacedaemon rules"

I nodded. Spartan rules, or, that is to say, no rules at all, fitted me just fine

***
She let go a kick for my kneecap. No wind up. Flat-footed and not tense. Only my kneecap
wasn’t there—I wasn’t a naive little filly any more.

***

“I always win,” I said without boast. “For me, there is no other way. But you’re pretty good
yourself.”

“I’m merely quick,'' she shrugged.

“And merely strong”, I agreed. It was good that at least one of our expedition was a true
pegasus.

***

“Surrender your weapons, ponies!”

“Mολὼν λαβέ!” she said, cocky and defiant in the face of the enemy, and I almost loved her in
that moment. And then they charged and there was no more time for thought.

In the end I have prevailed, because for me there was no other way. She - she was merely
quick.

I summoned a lightning to burn her body as befit a pegasus warrior, and moved on.

ACCIDENTS
I picked up a nice, hefty rock, about the size of a good ripe orange, weighing it in my magic.

"Well, just the two of us now," Shining Armor tried to sound brave. He was not very good at it.

"No." I corrected him. "It's just me."

“I am not as powerful as you,” his chuckle was somewhat forced, “but don’t just discount me like
that.”

"I’m not.” I shrugged, “You just didn’t make it to the forest, because you broke your hoof against
a branch." I explained amicably, and before the meaning of my words dawned at him, a stone
fell on his leg with a loud resounding ‘crack’.

First rule of life: No matter how subtle the wizard, a broken leg will seriously crimp his style. He
dropped like a sack of bricks, his magic fizzling out.

"A darn shame, really." I said, ignoring his muffled scream of pain.

"Sunset,” he tried to stand up on three legs, but fell back down before I considered breaking
another. “You can't..."

"Don't worry, Shiney-Hiney, I'll bring back your princess. And you'll get to keep your little
hoovsies clean. Everyone wins."

CURSES

I growled at the trees that barred my path, my anger flaring again. No matter how much I cut
and burned, another root would trip me up, another branch would bar my way or patch of grass
would try to entangle me.

Finally I stopped, and listened to the quiet laughter of the tree spirit.

It would be the last time it laughed, because from the depth of my mind a perfect spell rose up.
A spell that I’ve not learned but the one that taught itself to me on my way through the death-
halls of the Southern Jungle and on a snow-covered bank of a river where I’ve killed my friend
once. The magic of blood and bloodlines, magic of Rights and Entitlements. Ancient, dark and
evil, it boiled within me, demanding release. And I was too annoyed and angry to resist.

The power I summoned shone, green and black fire enveloping my horn, dripping down into the
earth, and where the sparks touched the grass it burned with putrid green flames.

“I am Sunset Shimmer,” I declared, my magic forcing the very world to acknowledge my

demand, “I am my mother’s daughter, and her mother’s before that. By the blood of the pegasi
that flows in my veins I curse the air of this place. No bird will fly here, no rain shall nourish it, no
snow will give it cover.”
Blood spilled from every cut on my barrel, like a crimson foam on my sides, and I felt the
numbness of the blood loss spread through my body.

“I am Sunset Shimmer,” I repeated, as the laughter of dryad died, replaced by her fear. “I am my
father’s daughter, and his father’s before that. By the bond of the earth ponies that I claim as my
birthright, I curse the earth of this place. No living thing will grow here - tree and grass, oak, ash,
and thorn - all shall wither and die!”

Where my hooves touched ground, death had set in, expanding in the rippling circle around me.
Grass turned brittle, and forest groaned and whimpered as it felt the cold grip of my curse seep
into its very roots.

“I am Sunset Shimmer...” I repeated for the third time, fighting for every syllable against the
exhaustion of the spell, pushing the power into my horn until it burned with the blackness of the
magic I gathered. “I am my teacher’s student, and her teacher’s before that. By the magic of the
unicorns that I’ve learned, I curse the fire of this place. No flame shall heat it, not sunshine shall
fall upon it and none shall find warmth or cover within it.”

“Until unicorns lose their magic, until pegasi fall from the sky, until the earth pony strength fails,
BY MY NAME AND MY WILL, SO SHALL IT BE!”

With the last of my shout my magic exploded in every direction, lighting the evening with the
pale green light. The earth was dead, plants withering with every second. The air was stale and
stank of rot and the deadly chill and shadow came over the forest, turning it dark and menacing.

Dryad fell to her knees out of the nearby tree. A pallid, pathetic thing, twisted with sudden age
and barely alive. She stretched her dessicated forehoof towards me, begging

“Take it back. Please, powerful one, please take it back! I will die without my forest”.

I threw the begging creature aside with a flick of my power and trotted away, as the trees
around me fell. The repeating, echoing sobs and pleas of the dryad followed me with every step.

My stubbornness and will carried me for less than half a mile before I collapsed with exhaustion
and blood loss, and the last thing I remember of that day is fumbling for my syringes, and a
gentle touch of the needle before succumbing to heavy, dark dreams of the night.

TEN MILLION SUNS

It exhaled, and I felt a smell of sulfur, rotten eggs and bitter acid for a second before the flames
washed over me.

FIRE!

I felt warm...
The searing agony of being burned alive, the impossible ecstasy of pure power filling me to the
brim.

...warmer than I've ever felt before...

My skin would've melted off my bones if not for the spells woven into it by the phoenix-feather.

...Hot...

My blood would've boiled if not for the salamander venom I took.

...I burned from inside out...

My body would've turned to ash, if not for the shapeless ichor in my bones, the water dead in
my organs, the spells and the alchemy that held my flesh together, if my will were not forged in
the fire-river of Tartarus.

...Hotter than the fires in the middle of the sun!

With the smell of sulphur and brimstone, with salty taste of blood from my bitten lips, with the
sickly-sweet smell of smoldering flesh, ripping and burning through my body, the power washed
over me and into me, captured like a trapped beast. And when I opened my eyes, green fire,
now mine, danced in them.

"Your flames belong to me now, dragon. And without your magic, you're just a lizard"

My magic flashed, bolstered by the stolen flames, and the dragon fell to the ground.

NIGRIMANCY
If there is not enough among the living, then the dead shall serve.

I stretched my magic over the battlefield, and even with my eyes closed I could feel the faint
thumping of their hearts growing slower, growing weaker as they lost their blood. Their
coughing, wheezing breaths as theIr bodies still fought the losing battle to keep them alive.

"Cadence," I asked without opening my eyes, "Do we have to win?"

It was an empty question. I could accept death, but not defeat: for me, there was no other way.
But Cadence was different. Perhaps... perhaps she could still stop me. Or perhaps I was just
dragging out the inevitable.

”Yes, Sunset, please. We have to save Shiny!"

I nodded. She was a Princess, and a Princess’ word is the law. I had my command and
permission to do what had to be done -- and when have I ever needed more?
My magic surged in green and black spirals round my horn, and memory -- a servant long since
whipped into submission -- readily served up the formulae and sigils of power, once whispered
to me by Coltec pictograms in a place reeking with magic old and dark.

"By your blood on my hooves." I said, in a voice not my own, in a language black and long
forgotten. "By the right of the victor over the vanquished..."

I drew in the air and it tasted like ashes.

"RISE"

My magic pierced their skin, pinning their spirits to their bodies, not letting the fragile little fires of
life be extinguished. I could hear the neurons firing in their heads, smell the stench of their pain
and fear, feel them stuck perpetually on the brink of that last breath, suffocating endlessly and
unable to suffocate. Held on the very edge beyond which there would be no pain by my will and
my magic.

They stood up on broken limbs, the work of their torn muscles visible through the gashes on
their skin, and opened their bloodshot, dry eyes. Without any need for my command, they
charged, crashing into the rest of the assailants from the flank, with no mercy or compassion to
their once comrades.

It was simple and it was beyond cruel. The living can resist any spell and any abuse, they can
work through the pain, push it back. Even if that fails, the abused and the broken, if they live,
can heal with time.

The dying share no such privilege.

Defenseless against my magic, they would live another handful of moments for nothing other
than to suffer and be hurt, for no reason other than a Princess's command.

THE BEAUTY OF THE BEAST

I was so beautiful that day, so graceful. More than the gross flesh can ever express. My magic
danced and tangled with theirs, turning their spells against them, slipping around their feeble
shields, striking with the power of a hurricane and precision of a needle.

Suck between the dead and the death, they fell one by one, the dying rising again to fight their
comrades.

IT TAKES A MONSTER
“They’re all dead, Cadance! Loyalty, Honesty, Generosity, Kindness... even Laughter. You can’t
just extinguish them, not with magic or spells, it takes a black heart, it takes a [I]monster[/I]”

FAMILY SPAT

“It’s an intervention Sunset. We all love you, and we want to tell you that you have to stop…”
In retrospect, I don’t think she meant to enchant or subdue me. She was a Princess, young and
inexperienced, and her power merely rose to her call without her conscious control.

Still, the end result was the same. I felt my mind grow soft, love enveloping it like a pink mist.
Calm and serenity spread through my body and I could feel it cling to my mind like a spider’s
web, and in that moment I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was loved and accepted.

No matter what I did, no matter what I was, they would all understand me. Love me. Help me.

Love is a lie.

The shapeless blood in my veins boiled in response to the touch of her power, awakening the
protective spells, and a feeling, dark and heavy lurched in my soul. A feeling I could now give a
name: Hatred. For the first time I truly felt the real, burning hatred, and it was the sweetest
feeling in the world.

“I hate you,” I said, and the truth of the words surprised even myself. Eyes widening, she
recoiled as if I’ve slapped her in the face

I never hated before - I was angry at my first love, back then, when I learned the first sting of
betrayal. I pitied my first friend who too had turned into a monster. I was afraid of my other
teacher, who taught me the ways of the earth. I envied, I wanted to destroy, I despised, I
tormented, but never before have I ever felt a feeling so pure and personal towards anypony.

There was a movement - Shining Armor craned his neck, perhaps to see, perhaps as a first
move to cast a shield around his love, but that was enough to send my mind into the battle-
mode, burning away the remainder of whatever hold the pink princess had on me, the clockwork
whirr-ticking of tactical thought pushing any other consideration aside.

Two opponents are always weaker than one unless they have been trained to act together.

I feinted towards him, and instinctively he raised a shield to bar my way. Predictable and
pointless - I’ve already turned on Cadence instead, my magic released towards her like a
needle. It was pegasus first instinct to block with her wings, and my spell thread right through
them, piercing feather, skin and bone alike, stitching both her wings together into a feathery
mess. She squealed with pain, and her attempt to take flight turned into a graceless fall.

Love is a weakness.

“Cadance!” his concentration lost, I hit him in one timing, within a span of a single breath. My
spell slipped through the shield, weaving around his protective magics in the frequencies of
dream-magic too obscure and high for him to detect or deflect. It thread his shield and his flesh
in equal measure and grabbed for his heart through his chest, squeezing and pulling.

His legs gave underneath him and his magic flickered and died as he suddenly gasped for air,
his whole body thrown into a fit. Another twist of my magic threw him away from me and into a
nearby wall - a bit of injury to add to the insult of dispatching him so easily.

“Never stop. Hesitate and you will die. Retreat and you will lose. Keep moving forward”
Behind me, I could almost feel Cadence finally remembering that the dumb bimbo actually had a
horn and reaching for her magic in a slow, inefficient build-up. So sloppy. So wasteful. At the
moment she would finally cast her spell, I have already turned to her, and a tiniest bit of my
power extended to the tip of her horn, blocking her magic inside just as it was ready to be
released.

Her own strength trapped in her horn exploded, like a sneeze that had nowhere to go, and she
screamed with agony. A perfect, infinitely satisfying sound, as her magic bounced through her
body, ripping her muscles and charring her skin in smoking eruptions all over her barrel.

One does not kick fallen enemies. One destroys them so that they will never rise again.

I jumped, aiding my leap with a spell and landed straight on her, hooves and spells first, and
landed heavy. Her ribs crunched under my weight, turning her squealing scream into a gurgling
sob.

Crush them straight away, with no concern for their presence and without allowing them space
for breath. It is essential to crush them completely.

I grabbed her head in my magic and smashed it into the floor to knock her out. And then again,
just for a good measure. Horn and stones cracked and broke.

Awareness and control. All threats must be accounted for.

My power erupted out of me like a flare, grabbing every guard in the room with a garrote of
steel-sharp magic by their necks, their weapons shattered and their paltry half-cast spells
undone and unmade.

Not even three seconds passed and the battle was over. Everyone who would oppose me was
destroyed or controlled for… everyone but Celestia.

“Sunset…” There was a tiny spot of blood marring the whiteness of her coat, where a splinter of
some spell almost hit her, a mark of the violence around that has failed to touch her before. She
saw me now, and tried to talk to me, at least. “My little pony…”

“I am not little anymore”, I said stubbornly, “Ice and Nightmares, my Princess, I am hardly a
pony.” I laughed - a hysterical laughter of a mare with nothing left to lose.

A droplet of blood fell from her side, scattering against the marble floor.

"Sunset... why?" Celestia begged me. "What happened to that filly that was curious and
friendly? Who made friends with everycreature, who wanted to know everyone and everything?
What have you done with her?"

"I killed her, my Princess. Squeezed her out, like rot out of the wound, drop by drop, until only
that which was necessary remained. I bleed orange and rust now instead of red, did you know
that? Too many spells in my blood, too much alchemy. Not enough Sunset Shimmer.”

"Why, Sunset? Why would you do that?"

“For you!” I screamed, jerking the guards up by their necks as my anger spiked through my
magic “I turned myself into a monster for you! I would kill or die at your word, always...”

That reached her. She turned pale - not her usual white of milk and morning cloud, but truly
pale, and for the first time in forever, her magenta eyes looked at me. And what I saw in her
eyes was fear - not of me, but of what I have become.

I could have fought her. And in that moment when our eyes met, I knew that if I did, I would win.

Love is a contradiction.

I ran instead.

***

I spoke the Third Secret Word of Fire, and my lab turned to flames, my failsafes burning
everything to slag. Dragonsflame and thermite, fires so hot and bright they gave even the Sun
Princess pause.

With one last step I let the familiar tug of another world claim me.

GREEN FOREST
She could almost feel the magic of this place. A forest is a forest is a forest, on this or any other
world, all part of one vast green canopy.

It seemed as if she could turn past that tree, duck under that branch and come out near the
ancient castle in the other Everfree forest, at the pyramid in the Southern Jungle, at the bend of
the Beruna-river, its sands still red with--

"Sunset!" Timber's voice broke the illusion. “You gotta stay with the group. We don’t want
anyone to get lost.”

TAKING FLIGHT

“I said: Sit down!” a loud, commanding voice - the same one that just recently sent platoons to
combat and made the Royal Guard of Canterlot shiver in their armors - allowed for no argument
from a mere camp counselor, and Daisy found herself seated even before she processed the
words.

***

Diamond gave the counselor a look. “So you want to do the fun stuff, not do anything boring and
get paid for it?

“Hear that?” She put her hand to her ear and listened to the stark, reigning silence for a
second. “It’s the world’s tiniest violin playing for you.”
She turned away from the flabbergasted woman and snapped her fingers.

“Silver, put your big girl glasses on. We’re doing accounting!”

“Sunset, darling, are you crying?” Rarity passed her a handkerchief

Sunset wiped away the tear, and smiled

“It’s just they grow up so fast.”

Filthy Rich took the hankie off her and wiped his own tears away “I can’t believe it… just
recently I was taking her for her first day of school, and now my little gemstone is already doing
her first hostile takeover.”

Flash Sentry sighed and rolled his eyes. “You people are all deeply dysfunctional.”

EAT YOUR HEART OUT

She looked at the creature wistfully. "You know, there are a few pretty cool things you could do
with the heart of the forest..."

"Sunset." Flash said softly.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. We don't rip out the still-beating hearts of sapient creatures to make dark-
magic-fuelled accessories." She sighed. "But a girl can dream."

AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL
“Oh, my goodness! It’s her!” Sunset suddenly bolted, dodging through the crowd and pushing
ponies aside with her magic, until she chased up a pale green mare with a salt-and-pepper
mane just as she was about to enter a dark alley.

“Teacher, it’s you!”

“Pumpkin?” The mare recognized her one-time pupil too.

Without breaking pace or any warning, Sunset suddenly threw a spell at her face, making the air
between them ripple and scream with deadly intent.

The mare dodged, rolling on her side, and pounced towards the unicorn, dodging further spells
with feinting side-leaps, until she batted into Sunset with almost bone-crushing force. Both
ponies devolved into a chaos of spellwork and flames, until Sunset was safely pinned under the
bigger earth-pony, and a hoof-full of flame was in full swing to turn her head into red mush on
the pavement… only to miss, leaving a smoking crater in the pavement instead.
Both fighters laughed, and Sunset nuzzled the older mare affectionately.

“Nice to see you, Green. “

“You're getting sloppy again, princess. I taught you better than that.”

Sunset’s ears drooped. “I had to leave off magic for some time. No chance to practice. But I’m
getting back into shape”

“At least your attitude’s right.” She mused. “I have some time on my hooves. I could take you
back to school” her black lips reached towards Sunset, but the she was stopped by the green
glow of magic grabbing her muzzle.

“I think my coltfriend might object to what you had in mind.”

For the first time the green mare actually paid attention to the colt that stared at both of them
without the slightest idea what was going on.

“I could always kill him. Or invite him to join”

She could hear Flash’s choked coughing.

In a flash of a teleport she escaped the mare’s grip.

“Sorry.”

***

"I still can't believe I said no," she grumbled. "The things I do for love..."

"Sunset!" Flash barely contained his shock, "She's like... fifty years old."

"More like hundred and fifty," Sunset corrected him, "earth pony years are longer than yours or
mine. And seriously, Sentry, did you not see her move? The speed, the grace, the control...",
she sighed. "I'd kill to move like that. I have, in fact, killed to move like that, and I have not even
gotten close."

STEEL TO THE CORE

"You've gone softer, pumpkin. "

"No, I've not! Just because I'm out of practice--"

"It's not that, pumpkin. And it’s not a bad thing. Look here-- " the older made pulled a short
sword off the wall. "Hard steel. Easy to sharpen, keeps a good edge. But make the whole sword
out of it, and it turns brittle. Easy to break, easy to shatter." She bent the metal in her hooves,
and unbent it again, ripping the steel apart like soft plastic, and demonstrated the cross-section.
"You need a softer core. Something that bends, but doesn't break. It's good that you found
yours."

She ruffled Sunset’s mane.

“Just don’t turn all mushy, little princess. I taught you better than this.”

CUDDLEBUDDIES

Every shelf of the room was stocked with adorable plushies, each a mixture of two or three
animals.

She swayed suddenly, grabbing the door frame to stay on her feet.

"Are those...CuddleBuddies?" She asked, gulping nervously.

"Yepperoni!" Pinkie hugged a panda-kangaroo hybrid possessively, "I have the second biggest
collection in the city"

"That's nice." Sunset found a place to sit where she would see the least amount of the cuddly
plushies.

"Are you alright, darling? You looked positively green at the gills since you entered the room."

"What, is the big bad Sunset Shimmer afraid of a widdle... what is it, elephant-duck hybrid?"
Rainbow Dash teased, throwing a Elephanduck at her.

"I'm not afraid!" Sunset glared at the athlete, "I used to have a Flamingoat when I was a filly. A
valencienneigh one, with a tiny velvet hood."

“Ooh, those are super-rare!”, Pinkie cooed excitedly.

“Yeah. It was a present.”

"So what's with the drama then?"

"Come on, spill!" Rainbow Dash prodded.

"You always do feel better afterwards. That's what we're here for - to listen.”
She threw a guilty look towards Fluttershy.

"Well it started with a warlock earth pony who called herself DNAmbly and liked her
CuddleBuddies a little too much...

"I locked the doors on them and burned it. Sun above, I burned it all to the ground, not sparing
any magic or dragonsflame, until nothing remained in the charred ruins. I could've survived her
screaming and the screeching of the creatures she created burning alive, but those horrors,
those hybrid abominations of black magic and twisted flesh, they cried like lost little foals as
their artificial skin melted and leaked off their frames..."

…
…
...

"Well". Pinkie's chipper voice cut the horrified silence of the room, "That's “truth or dare” off the
list of today's sleepover games. How about a nice game of chess instead?"

RIDDLES

Drawing blanks, I stalled for time.

“Err.. what’s in my pocket?” I suggested a question sheepishly.

The sphinx sighed.

“First of all, you don’t have any pockets, pony. Secondly, it’s not even a riddle, it’s a question.
And finally, do you really think I do not read classics? We are not barbarians here, you know”

I assumed the riddle about the raven and the writing desk was equally out of question.

Again I found myself riddleless, and decided to once again rely on my inner geekdom.

“What’s red and green and goes round and round and round?”

That cracked him up, guwaffing, heavy chuckles expelling the swaths of stone dusts from his
giant lips.

“A frog in a blender.”
Well, at least when I died, it’d be at the hand of someone who really knew his fiction. Perhaps it
is a testament to my state of mind at the time, that for some reason I found this thought
reassuring.

ARCHAEOLOGY (PYRAMIDS, HOW DO THEY WORK?)

“In the deserts of Saddle Arabia, flat and immense, where the heat is so intense it melts the
sand into glass, there still can be found the ancient pyramids of Kemel, the empire of the
camels.

Built before the era of Discord, they still stand to this day, the millennia-old masonry held by the
blood instead of mortar, thousands of deaths of those who built it keeping them against even the
inexorable march of time.

“And if you dare enter it, if you answer the guardian’s riddles and sneak past the sentinels and
push past the dark magics that protect it, in the writings in the innermost chambers you can find
the lore that has not seen the light of day since it was etched into the stone, for the fear it would
make the Sun itself turn away from the world that produced it.

“Some of it is Kemeti, some belongs to the Diamond Dog slaves that built it. And there, among
the latter you can find a name for abominations such as this, daughters of the Powers wed to
mere mortals, mingling of flesh and that which has transcended it.

“And even the dogs of Kem, born in slavery and doomed to die in suffering, speak of those
creatures with nothing but fear and loathing.”

She looked at the baby that batted happily away at soap bubbles with her tiny little hooves, with
pure disgust.

“Nothing good may come of this union, believe you me.”

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE
I reached deep within, for the spark of fire burning in my soul, and released a tiny fraction of its
heat, setting the building aflame. It blazed hot, stones burning like dry timber.

Dragonsflame made no distinction between the living and the dead. Why should I?

APPLEJACKS BARBECUE

"Oh my! Thank you for reminding me, Rainbow, I've almost forgotten!" Sunset got out of the
table to get her bags,
"Oh you are not escaping that easy!" Rainbow Dash shouted, dodging Applejack’s smack “Hey,
don’t hit!”.

"Wasn't planning to." Sunset plopped right back to her seat, and pushed a small tupperware
bowl towards the athlete. "Quite the opposite, really, I wanted to thank you"

"Thank me," Rainbow asked deadpan, feeling that she has stepped into a trap, as she opened
the plastic container "What is this?"

The jelly-like brownish-red cubes wobbled softly in the container and offered no response to the
cautious fork-probing.

"This--" Sunset was now beaming her best proud smile "--is the traditional Griffinstonian mouse-
blood pudding!"

"Eww!" The chorus of revulsion rolled around the table, but Sunset was on the roll. "Took me the
whole evening to make - darn little critters just kept squiggling out of my grip before I could
properly bleed them, so sorry, not enough for everyone."

Both Fluttershy and Rainbow both were now slowly but steadily turning green at the mental
image.

***

“That was positively evil of you darling” Rarity giggled in her ear, “Was it really mouse blood?”

“No, not really” Sunset admitted “That’d be pretty hard to get. Duck. From that Quilineze shop
few blocks from the school. It’s an acquired taste, but it’s not really that bad”.

“You’ve tried it yourself?” Rarity asked, surprised.

"Unfortunately. They served it to me once at the court of King Grover in Griffinstone"

"What did you do?"

"Well, I ate it all. Commended the chef and asked for seconds. And then threw up as soon as I
got to my room.

LUCK OF THE DRAW

"I actually ate horse-meat before I came to this world," Sunset said, quietly, as she flipped
another burger, listening on the sizzle of the fat on the coals.

"We had to cross a desert once. No pegasi, no earth ponies -- half a dozen unicorns, and we
couldn't use our magic. The Clugel-town had a few Arabian sand-watchers and wind-listeners:
to use a simplest spell would have been like painting a giant neon-sign pointing at us, and
secrecy was paramount. And then the sand-beast attack destroyed half our water supplies and
all our food."
She poked the tofu with her fork, inspecting it.

"We drew straws -- a fair lottery. I lucked out. Lemon Squeeze did not."

The tofu-burger was deftly flipped on a plate.

"There was nothing much to it. Though I could not bear to see the Sun above me for weeks
after that. It felt as if she knew."

DRY SPELL

“Why are you so hung up on Flash?” Rainbow asked. “You like him don’t you?”

“Sunset and Sentry, sitting in a tree,” Pinkie sing-sung, rocking on her chair jovially, “K-I-S-S…”

“We’ve been on a date a few times. Now getting under the date is a bit trickier apparently. The
silly boy is just so… touchy.”

"Why Flash?"

“Well, there are few other options ...Rarity, want to go out? A show, a dinner at a restaurant, a
breakfast in bed?”

Rarity’s spit-take was glorious. She sputtered, she choked and coughed for a good five minutes,
to Rainbow’s great amusement.

“I, um, Sunset, darling, I am horribly, horribly flattered by your offer, but I’m afraid I am simply
not...er, not quite interested in this sort of relationship?”

“See?” Sunset pouted. “Hard.”

“Would you… would you really?” Fluttershy asked in a tiny voice from behind the veil of her pink
hair.

“Sure.” Sunset nodded.

“Why?”

“Why wouldn’t I? ” Sunset caught Rarity’s hand, running her fingers over the arm to show her
point. “Skin like porcelain, eyes like amethysts. The impeccably groomed hair and perfect dress-
irrefutable, undeniable beauty, fit for a Princess - and trust me I’ve met a few.”

“But hers is the beauty that runs more than skin deep. The poise and grace, the self-control of a
born unicorn. Confidence of a self-made lady, ambition and desire to master her craft - she’d be
a perfect companion for an evening in private or in company, able to keep up, to challenge and
be challenged in turn. It would be a most beautiful ludus, a love made to a game, exciting and
exhilarating, in talk, in action or in bed.”

Rarity blushed, taking her hand away.

“As I said darling, I am simply not interested.”

“Yeah, I got you the first time, Rares,” Sunset kicked back, saluting the flustered girl with her
glass. “Just answering the question. I can take ‘no’ for an answer.”

SMUT

[quote]
A bad situation for Sunset turns into a chance to reconcile with her one-time boyfriend, Flash
Sentry. Make-up sex ensues.

Fetish warning: Bad puns, searching for condoms, early ejaculation, uncomfortable positions
and some really awkward dirty talk.
[/quote]

“I do regret saying no, sometimes” he looked away as he admitted it.

“My offer still stands” she said simply, letting Flash’s coat slip off, and dropping her hands “even
if other things I said were not really true.”

He wanted it. Badly. She could see his knuckles grow white, his nails digging into the palm of
his hands as he so very desperately tried not to look.

“I don’t want your pity” he tried to say. “Or whatever weird idea of gratitude…”

Silly boy. Making it so complicated when there was no need for it. She moved closer, almost
close enough for her skin to touch his, putting her palm on his chest and tried to make it easier
for him.

“It’s not that. You don’t give yourself credit, Flash Sentry. You’re handsome, brave and, on
occasion, funny - if not the most scintillating conversationalist I’ve known. I offer freely, for no
reason except that I want it too.”

She waited for his answer, watching the storm of emotions evident on the boy’s face with
amused fascination.

Fear and confusion. Then - lust, the screaming, hot desire, so bright and pure she could almost
feel the heat of it with her skin. Then - the social conditioning piled on top of the primitive ape
part of the brain - things he thought of himself, and what he wanted others to think of him, what
others told him to think of himself and what he’d tell others to make them think of him, a chaotic
symphony of wants and dont’s, self-perceptions and self-deceptions all tangled and
contradictory waging a battle within him.

And finally, there came the resolve washing over all of it like a wave and in a fierce, last-ditch
fight against himself, he had finally lost - or maybe won.

“Yes.” his voice was hoarse, throat shut with overwhelming emotion. His fingers touched her
shoulder and recoiled as if burned - and then came back, tracing along her collarbone to her
neck, pulling her towards him into a kiss.

He was not a great kisser - lack of practice. But the sheer, burning need and hunger left her
giddy with excitement and wanting more, and as he parted for air she gave chase with a kiss of
her own, savage and primal, nicked lip adding salt to the taste, tongue searching and invading.

His shirt evaporated - neither knew which of them ripped it off, merely that was now only a
memory and few rags on the floor, and now he struggled with the belt buckle, hands trembling
while she tested out the skin of his chest with her mouth, kissing and biting gently, going lower
and lower even as the belts and zippers got untangled with growing urgency.

And it wasn’t just the urgency that was growing.

“I knew I saw something in you Sentry,” she grinned appreciatively, kneeling towards the organ
now released from the prison of jeans and trousers, “Now I want to see it in me”

He groaned at the bad pun. And then moaned again, when she swallowed his dick in one fluid
motion, running her tongue along it as she did.

“Sunset!”

“Fwat?” she asked mischievously, after diving up for air. Her tongue snaked out and darted up
his shaft, a single slick motion running from the base of the cock to the tip and staying there to
nick the sensitive head.

His eyes rolled, and whatever he wanted to say was lost in a mumble.

“Hehe. You’ve a sweet little moan”. She jerked down his trousers and boxers and tried again,
aiming for some higher-pitched noises, teasing and tickling with lips and tongue, before moving
back in and swallowing him whole, in quick rhythmic movements.

“Oh shit. Please don’t stop. Don’t...” his hands ran through her hair, gentle touches. Even lost in
throes of new sensation he wouldn’t grab her or pull her, just caress and feel, light and teasing,
as if afraid she’d disappear, like morning gossamer.
“Shush” she bobbed up and blew on the object of her affections gently, letting the air cool both
his heads. “Safety first...” she froze, her eyes widening in sudden realization. “Oh crap. It’s in my
bag. Do you have one?”

“Hurk?” there was apparently not enough blood left in his head to engage the higher mental
faculties “Hwat?”

“Condom, you dunderhead.” Sunset rose to her feet, her hand still pumping his dick
absentmindedly. “I don’t exactly have my things with me”.

Now it was his turn to panic - even as Sunset’s slow motions kept him squirming and distracted
enough. “Oh man… oh... I mean... darn, what do we do now?!”

“We could get one from the nurse’s office…”, he trailed off. The perspective of running, still
painfully erect to the nurse to get condom, though half the school and try to explain the urgency
to Miss Redheart was not appealing to either of them in the slightest.

She ran her fingers against him again, smearing his shaft with his pre and her saliva, teasing
him closer to the edge.

“Sunset…”, he made a tiny, needy squirms towards the teasing hand that just kept slipping
away ”Sunset, would you cut it out!” he pushed her away - a feat of no mean willpower. “We
need to concentrate.”

They fumbled together in the darkness, searching the ramshacked club haphazardly, until finally
Sunset jumped up with a cry of triumph.

“Aha! I knew Rarity would have one. In the matters of romance, that girl is more prepared than a
platoon of boy scouts”

[center]***[/center]

It took a few tries to get it on and coax him back to size - her lack of experience doing it with
fingers, his eagerness and impatience delaying the inevitable, but then, finally she was splayed
on the table, sewing machines, silk and ribbons thrown off the it in a single sweep now rattling
and crunching under his legs.

His fingers touched her ribs and stopped there, caressing lightly against her skin. Afraid to move
forward and unable to move back, he froze.

“Go on, now, don’t be shy,'' she teased him, guiding his hand up, to her breasts and holding
them down against the pliant flesh. “Am I not beautiful?”
“You are…” his voice was coarse, almost a whisper.

She moved their hands down, tickling her ribs, sliding across her belly and diving under the
rubber band of her panties. “Do you not want me?”

“I do…” He said, mesmerized, not so much by the sight as by the expectation.

A teasing sinuous motion, a wiggle and her panties disappeared away with flick of her foot. She
parted her legs slowly, allowing him full access. “Show me.”

He did not wait long, moving closer and then moaned when he entered her for the first time, and
then again, and again, before in three or four awkward pumps he exploded inside.

“Oh come on!”

“Oh stars above, Sunset, I’m sorry. It’s… I mean…” he was red now, and not just from the
exercise, trying to move away.

“It’s fine.” she rolled her eyes and rose on her shoulders, locking her ankles behind him to keep
him inside. “We’ll get there.”

Few seconds of awkward silence stretched out, and the haze of lust finally retreating after his
release, he started thinking. An entirely unnecessary thing, given the circumstances.

“Sunset, what we’re doing - it’s... it’s not normal is it?”

She stretched and shifted trying to find a more comfortable position on the hard table, a
movement that caused him to throb inside, the trapped flesh still sensitive after the first orgasm.

“Judging by the sex ed and previous experience, it’s pretty normal. Don’t sweat it, you’ll get your
endurance with some practice.”

He blushed, orange skin turning beet-red again.

“Relax, Sentry, I was not expecting great things off the bat. It ain't my first rodeo… my first cock
fight?”, She made a face, “Darn, I’m sure Applejack would have some charming, rustic
countryism for this…”

“Sunset!” he whinnied, embarrassed. “Not that - the whole situation. You, suggesting sex out of
the blue. Doing it in the school, on the desk… that’s not what’s supposed to happen, is it?”

“What, you don’t like it?” she mock-pouted, knowing the answer full-well. “Or you don’t like me?”
He mumbled and sputtered, scouring his hormone-addled brains for words, making her giggle -
delightful little vibrations travelling down her stomach into him.

“But…”

“Shut up, Sentry, and pick me up. It’s time for round two.”

She grabbed his shoulders, pulling herself up into the kiss. Her lips trailed down, past his chin,
latching on to his neck. It proved a bit too much for him, and he stumbled, hobbled by his jeans
and fell against the couch behind him, falling onto it, grabbing onto blinds for balance and
dragging the whole thing along with him, ripped clean off the window. Her hips rolled slightly,
making his breath catch in his throat, and his shaft finally get to full mast.

A roll of hips, and then another - she was milking and riding him now, his hands gripping on to
her hips for dear life, hard enough to bruise, but the pain only made her want it more.

“Oh yes, take it. Take my cock you… erm… dirty girl?“

She stopped and stared at him, before bursting into laughter, giggling so hard she nearly fell off
her perch.

He stopped too. “What?”

“Sentry, you are horrible at dirty talk.”

“Well at least I try!” he sounded defencive “Forgive me if it’s my first time.”

“Shut up, Sentry. There are better uses for your mouth right now.”

He found one without further prompting, and they moved again, joyfully rubbing and frotting, wet
sounds and a rare moan of bubbling pleasure echoing through the room, until the couch, a
dainty thing of filigree and velvet meant for short fainting spells, not vigorous fucking gave
underneath them, cracking almost in half.

“Shit! Sunset, I think I broke something. There’s something stabbing into my back!”

She did not care, did not - could not - stop. Too close, too good, too full to stop the movements,
hard grip on her hips and throbbing fullness inside pushing her past good sense towards the
blissful oblivion of the little death.

“Shut up Sentry”, she growled, “I’m too close”

***
She gave a long, shuddering breath as she finally slowed down. “Oh, fuck yes.” Her movements
became slower, more regular and deep, riding out and prolonging the sensation but she did not
stop until Flash came again.

[center]***[/center]

She was sitting behind him on the floor, and pulled the next couch-splinter out of his back with
tweezers she borrowed from Rarity’s desk.

“Did I do good? Did you like it?” he shot her an almost pleading look over his shoulder.

Those puppy-dog eyes. Adorable

“I’m not complaining” Sunset leaned in and kissed the now wood-free prickled skin better
“Practice makes perfect.”

And perhaps the next time won’t be quite as… haphazard.

“I think I’m falling in love with you again,” he mused.

Sigh.

“It’s just sex, Flash, don’t get any ideas.” she twisted the last bit of wood out with a vengeance,
making him yip with pain. “Now shut up and kiss me.”

[center]***[/center]

A loud crash ripped them out of the post-coital bliss and on the threshold of the Boutique club
they could see Rarity, her bag dropped and a mirror slowly rolling out of it with a long,
screeching sound that seemed even more loud and annoying in the heavy, shock-laden silence
of the room. She gave her club-room an incredulous look, her left eye twitching.

It looked like a warzone. Costumes thrown around and ransacked in search of a condom, table
cleared of materials and instruments now scattered around the floor, panties hanging off the
lamp, the couch destroyed in their last vigorous bout, and on its remains - two very naked, very
sweaty bodies only barely covered by the ripped piece of the drapes.

Flash tried to force a smile. “Errr… hey Rarity. It’s… it’s actually…”

Sunset bit his earlobe lazily and added, “Kinda exactly what it looks like”

…
“Sunset” he said suddenly, before she left. “I know you don’t love me. But I can wait. For you - I
will.”

CURRICULUM EROS

“Well, come on, share with the class. Did he have a big co…”, Rainbow dodged another smack
from AJ. “Hey, don’t hit!”

Suner grinned. She was in too good a mood to be annoyed at Rarity spilling the beans.

“Oh he’s good. Eager, goal oriented, but not selfish or hasty. Able to multitask, shows initiative
but is receptive to critique and looking to improve…”

“You’re reading it like it’s a CV.” Rainbow snickered.

“Well, these are transferable skills,'' Sunset shrugged. “Needs some practice though.” Her eyes
glazed over, as she licked her lips, “Loads and loads of practice.”

“Can we talk ‘bout something else please?” Applejacks was almost as red as the apple she was
eating. “Anything else.”

“Hey, for almost five years now, I had not had anything in me that did not run on batteries. I am
making up for lost time, if my name isn’t Sunset Shimmer”

PAVLOVIAN
“Shut up, Sentry” she rolled her eyes.

“Dammit, Sunset, I pop a stiffy every time you say that now.”

She leaned to him suddenly, and her hand sneaked down across his body.

“So what are you going to do about it, silly boy?”

PDA

"Shut up, Sentry." She jerked his head down, and into a kiss.

...

"What was that about?!"

"Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable, and people who are uncomfortable
don't pay attention. Also," she licked her lips, "I wanted to."

PACING
"If you are willing to go by someone else's pace it shows how much you really care."

"That's mighty insightful of you, sugarcube." AJ smirked.

"Yeah. I learned it from sex."

NEW TOYS
“Sunset’s got a spankin’ new boyfriend now.”

“Oh yes,” Sunset agreed, raising her voice slightly, so that it could be heard at the next table.
“We’ve enjoyed spanking.”

A loud crash and choked coughing from the rockers table made her smile.

COMPARISON
“Well hello-o my not-so-little new best friend!” Sunset leered, seeing his state. “We’re gonna
have so much fun with you.”

"And now I'm gonna compare myself to that every time," he deadpanned, "thanks a lot,
Shimmer."

Sunset snorted. “Size ain’t everything, Sentry. It’s the skill that counts. Besides, this is not what
you should be comparing to”.

Sentry tilted his head, expecting elaboration.

"I mean, yeah, ponies are...bigger. Both in absolute size and proportionately, but when I'm
human too, the interlocking parts interlock fine, and it all works out. No, the big thing is tongues.”

"Tongues?"

"Yeah. With no fingers, ponies - especially the non-unicorns, have to do a lot of things with their
mouths. So when an earth pony goes down on you, that is a transcendental experience."

COMPARISON II REDUX

"You know that's one thing I can never get used to."
"Hmm?"

"It’s colder when we cuddle. Ponies are fuzzy, so it's way warmer when you hug, but with all this
skin I feel naked."

"Sunset... you [i]are[/i] naked." He mulled the situation over. "Completely, entirely naked under
that blanket"

She giggled when he moved closer, reaching, touching, tickling, and then she didn't feel cold
anymore.

PLACE OF TRUTH

"Sunset?" still drowsy, he didn't feel surprised somehow. "How? Where?"

"This is a dream," she said. "This is a place of truth," she explained. "I need you to see what I
am, Flash Sentry, before you take your vows."

"I know what you are..."

"What you know is a lie!" her tone grew harsh, raw as she cut him off fiercely. Before he could
say anything else, she dropped the shroud and naked she looked at him with the desperate
pride of the damned. "Look, Sentry. Really look."

He looked her in the eyes, and as he did, he saw. The left eye had four irises, while the right
one had none, milky-white and dead.

"I partook the forbidden flesh of the magic fish, to give me sight beyond that of mortals. The
other eye I lost some time before that. I stole some of Celestia's healing cordial, but it's still not
quite right."

He stepped forward, and touched her shoulder, where deep grooves of scarred tissue formed a
complicated pattern, from the collarbone across the neck and down all over her back.

"Le Societe Scientifique in Prance." She said. "They wanted the secrets of the Coltec
nigrimancy, and they drew the sigils of the truth-spell in paint-stripper on my skin to force it out."

His finger traced over her collarbone. It gave with a soft crunch under his soft touch, making her
posture lopsided and her right hand hang limp.

"I broke my collarbone once. In the Deadlands I did not have time to heal or set it. Hasty bone-
growth charm didn't work quite right, and it's a bit skewed now unless I fix it."
Trailing down her breasts, covered in angry crimson marks, he lingered, where one of her
nipples was short, areola ending with an ugly flat scar.

"I traded myself for a hostage when Diamond Dogs captured some ponies. They took claws and
bolt-cutters to my teats. I had to wait until they all gathered to look, otherwise one of them might
have hurt somepony."

Her skin grew in cancerous patches of scale and chitin and rough stony outgrowths.

"Magics I took -- they changed me. Mutated me. If not for the changeling magic I'd look like a
freak."

Burns and scars ran in intervals along her ribs, not so much seen as felt by the coarseness of
the skin under his fingers. Her solar plexus bore a mark - a hoof-print of deep scarred tissue,
crimson burn-marks radiating from it in every direction.

“Burned hoof teaches best. Or burning hoof, I suppose. I still keep the mark of her lesson under
the glamers and the healing-charms. It is far deeper than skin.”

Her belly and her hands were dull red instead of orange, in flowing, spiraling patterns and
crimson blotches.

"A scrap with teenage dragons -- they thought that burning cornfields was fun. I dissuaded
them... but the dragon's flame is hard to defend against. I lost some skin... it regrew, but if not
for my sorcery it would've regrown like this."

He kneeled still looking at every inch of her. The inside of her thigh was pearly-white and pale,
like the flesh of the corpse.

"Lost a chunk of it in the Flame Geyser Swamp. There was an outbreak of monsters from
Tartarus. I was hunting them for almost a week. No sleep, no rest. I lost my edge and a hydra
managed to take a bite out of my hindleg. I had to cauterize the wound. It's lifeless flesh now,
regrown with water dead - it won't rot, but it won't ever feel anything."

"I am a freak, Flash Sentry. Damaged and misshapen. You should kno--"

You're beautiful." He said, without a doubt, interrupting her. "You are beautiful, and all the scars
make you is you."

TIES THAT BIND

"Come on, city boy," she laughed, dragging him off the path, "embrace the wild side".

...
"Darn city boys". Sunset scratched her forearms with irritation. "Rarity, can I borrow your
cream?"

"Of course, darling. I must say, it looks positively dreadful. What happened?"

"Darn city boys," she repeated, dropping her skirt and T-shirt with no regard for any witnesses,
and slathering herself in the cream liberally around neck, waist, and arms. "Don't know the
difference between a creeper vine and poison ivy."

"Huh?"

"One--" Sunset finally ran out of cream, "makes an excellent rope for tying damsels in distress.
The other--" she pointed at her angry-red skin, "--itches. A lot."

PRIORITIES

There is a dark room that exists only in a sense that you can visit it.

It is not a part of any world. It has no walls or ceiling, it has no length or width or height.

A place of gathering, slightly more than imaginary.

What it does have, however is a table - a round thing of white material, smooth and
indeterminate underneath diffuse sourceless light.

And nachos. It has crunchy, delicious cheese-soaked nachos in a bowl, dead center of the
ominous table.

The woman at the head of the table was first to stretch her orange hand towards it, grabbing a
chip and break the sombre silence with a loud crunch.

“‘Sup?”

“All good,” the pink young girl replied, reaching for the nacho of her own. “Though I’m still a bit
hungover. Who knew Dad had saved a bottle of the good stuff just for my first hundred-billion-
dollar deal?”

“And you did not share? I am hurt.” her vis-a-vis snickered.

Another person appeared in the darkness, another hand snatching from non-diminishing supply
of tacos.

“Hey, Spoon. How are you?”

“Fine, fine. I’m not late, am I?”

“No, we’re still waiting for Glims and the big D. How’s family?”

“I'm right here” stern voice added from the shadows. “Hello, everyone, Hows...”

“I’m here!” the fourth and final person joined their little congregation, appearing in a whisp of
smoke and flash of light. He did not go for the nachos, opting instead to chug down something
green and acidic from a tacky sports-drink bottle.

“Good. Everyone ready? Today is an important one”

“Yeah.”
“Yup”
“Uh-huh”

“Is Silver Lining not joining us, Silver?”

“No, he’s with the kids. They have a championship, and...”

“Wait, what? And you’re not there?”

Silver woman grew defensive “Well, this meeting is important and I thought…”

“No-no-no, that will not do at all. They’re your kids, Silver, you can’t miss their events! Especially
the first one. The world will wait.”

“I’m with Shimmer”, the pink girl agreed, “We can conquer the world a few hours later.”

“Cord, can we do something?”

The gaunt, twisty man snapped his fingers, and a keyboard and a screen materialized in front of
him, his crooked fingers running across the keyboard in a blur.

“Well, let’s see. Silver Lightning, judo, junior green belt competition... Canterlot High PE hall, it
hasn’t started yet… two hundred people watching… two dozen streaming from their phones…
twenty of them have Barnyard Bargains proprietary software or technology… and presto-
chango, abracadabra, and through the magic of technology and right on… to...your screens, my
ladies!

Above the nachos, the three-D hologram appeared - tatami-covered floor, a better half of a
hundred kids in kimonos with belts of every colors, referees trying to herd the rambunctious lot
into some semblance of order.
“Popcorn anyone?”

[center] *** [/center]

“Come on!”

“Go, Silver, go!”

“Give him a left”

“Sunset, it’s judo, you’re not allowed to punch in judo.”

“I knew that!”

“Ippon!” the judge declared, and the crowd roared. “Clear victory”.

The effect in the black room was just as loud as on the screen.

“Woo!”

“He won, he won!”

“Hay yeah! That’s our boy!”

“Silver, call him, call him. You gotta!”

“Hey darling. Yeah, it’s me. I know, I saw. Oh yes, I did. Sorry I could not be there in person, but
I watched online. Beautiful throw, I am so proud. Say “hi” to daddy for me. Love you!”

“All right. That was great”

“Gals, Cordy, I wanted to say, that was really great of you… I mean…”

“It’s fine Silv. We know it’s important.”

“Here here!”

“But now we really should get back to the Plan.”

AT THE TOP
"Equestria", Sunset said after some deliberation "Is the pinnacle of sapient civilization of the
world."
She put a cherry on top of her upturned glass.

"It is not perfect, and it still has ways to go, but it is the best I've seen. But as with everything
that is on top, all it takes is a little push..." with a little nudge the cherry rolled, falling of the
glass, and bounced off the table.

"And while the ponies prance around on the edge of the abyss, there were all too many willing
to give it the singular nudge that would break the proverbial camel's back. Ahuizotl, still looking
for the power he never truly had and fighting eternally his ever-new Daring Do. The old
kingdoms and old monsters looking to rise the second you turn your back towards them. The
new up-and-comers, sharpening claws and spells in wait of a chance."

ROOM FOR ME

The first thing about Sunset's room was - it was cluttered. There wasn't that much furniture in
the apartment - not even a bed, with a pile of blankets and pillows strewn about in the corner of
the room instead, but there was...stuff. Half-disassembled centrifuge, a hookah in the corner,
pipe thrown across a ratty Pershian slipper filled with pungent-smelling herbs. Piles of neatly
folded laundry, right next to a half-stuffed bag of dirty clothes, with more thrown haphazardly
around the room.

A scratched, banged-up projector came to life the moment Sunset closed the door, filling the
room with a low, menacing hum. It lighted the blank bed sheet-covered wall with a picture of
cartoony faces screaming in silent terror and scowling their single-line brows in anger, all linked
together by multiple colored lines and indecipherable annotations.

What was ostensibly the kitchen seemed blackened by an old fire, furniture melted, cracked and
unusable, with the sole exception of a jury-rigged Bunsen burner, smelling faintly of kerosene.

The room, barely lit by the single light of the projector, looked like something out of the stories of
apocalyptic futures and mad scientists.

"Sunset," Twilight asked, trying very hard not to be alarmed, "why is there blood in your fridge?"

"Don't worry. It's mostly mine," Sunset said absentmindedly throwing her book bag into the
corner with practiced precision. "Make yourself at home."

BEDSHARE

“A hole in a guest's tipi is fixed with the hide of the bad host,” Sunset quoted. “You’re taking the
bed, Princess, I’m sleeping on the floor.”
BEAUTY
I am not beautiful. I've never possessed the delicate features and svelte build of Prench or
Arabians, the thin legs and long horn. I've rarely bothered with the immaculate grooming of the
Canterlot nobility, carrying my mane and tail short, and fit for fighting and my coat long to cover
my scars. I was barely average, much less hold any comparison to ideal beauty that Cadance
radiated so effortlessly.

But what I had was power, and the unshakeable confidence that came with it -- the best
aphrodisiac for mares or stallions.

CUTTING TIES
"I'll do what it takes," Sunset promised. "If you don't want it, I will find a way to release you from
this."

“Didn’t you say it was forever?”

"There is a way. There’s always a way -- the Answering Sword, for one, the one that belonged
to Hundred Battles: It was said to be so sharp it could cleave the truth from the lies on the edge
of its blade, and sharp enough to cut even the bonding of an oath.

Say a word, husband mine, and I will find it, even if I have to churn the ocean and dry all the
seven seas to find it."

TRUE LOVE (DEVIL’S OWN HEAT)

“When we were together, when I was in her embrace, with her strength she could snap my neck
or break my spine, with but a twitch of her hooves. Do you have any idea how hot that is?

She'd move up to me, silent, like a snake, her hooves coiling and slithering around me, holding
me tight, squeezing just hard enough to remind me who is in charge.

Her ministrations would start always gentle, lust entering my body like a poison, until I would
burn beyond any words, panting and begging.

Her love was not a quiet game. All it took was a single spark - a kiss, a comment, a breathless
need expressed in moans and whispers that defy and precede any language, and she'd blaze
with passion like her sorcerous flame.

I would not call it love - that was a word too awkward and mundane for what she made me feel.
With whispers echoing from the stone walls, with her teeth on my jugular almost drawing blood,
the ecstasy of the evenings and the pain of the mornings in the eternal twilight of the Tartarus it
was a flame like no other, and I would gladly burn with her, until nothing but burned-out cinders
remained, so long as I could get heated by that fire.
I can never be with anyone again save like this, love turned to war, sacred and hidden made
profane and vulgar and turned back exalted again, every barrier broken, everything taken
without asking and given without reservation, fear, loathing and desire rolled into one.”

TRUST
“You don’t trust anyone, Shimmer.”+

“That’s not true. I trust my poison to be swift, the sun to always set, and you.”

“I… “ Flash tried to find the words. “...thanks, I guess?”

IN YOUR HEAD
Sunset smacked her.

"Hey!"

"Oooh it’s not me, it’s the eevil Midnight doing the horrible things" she mocked, "It's the big, bad
Starlight making me do things with baaad magics!" She fake-swooned with pretend-horror.

"That's not really fair..."

"Stop blaming your imaginary friends.” She stabbed at Twilight with her finger. “It was you who
did those things, of your own free will. Own your fucking shite, little princess. You did it. It's
yours. Be proud of it, be ashamed of it, be responsible for it -- whatever. But it's yours. Not
mine, not Starlights, not Midnights, not anyone else's. It's all on you."

“Don’t you think you were a little bit too harsh there, darling?”

"What? I turned into flaming she-daemon from Tartarus and tried to kill all of you and take over
the world, as you not-so-subtly keep reminding me, and you don't see me making excuses that
Discord made me do it."

DOODLES

SON OF A THIEVING DAM

"Sivko!" Sunset jumped up, greeting the newcomer. "You thief and son of a thief, come, stand
you before me like a leaf before the tree!"
The stallion entered, ambling awkwardly on his unequal legs. They hugged, kissing each other
thrice on the cheeks in the urusian manner.

"Ladies, this here is the craftiest, the most cunning, the most ingenious son of a thieving dam
this side of the mirror." She shuffled away from the door, ushering him in. "Come in, come in.
Eat my bread, drink my wine -- I got some excellent cider too."

“So, how are you?” she asked as he sat down, and reached for the cider bottle. “Still serving
that dullard?"

"Da," he took off his hat, throwing it on the table. "And he's a tsarevich now."

"Thanks to you."

"Alas," The stallion shrugged, his lopsided shoulders twisting so much they almost crossed
over. "Such is the way it is. Got a principality of my own out of it, at least."

"Sivko, stop being a dunce, and talk normally please. We both know you've gift of gab"

"Bah," the stallion waved his hoof, "Give me my little indulgences, solnyshko. It does not befit
the subject to be smarter than his lord, da?”

"Besides, solnyshko, Witch is here already."

"WHAT?"

"Oh yes, I've seen her mortar in the yard."

"Shit!"

WHICH WITCH IS WITCHIER

She fell into the chair, when the tension flown out of her all at once, and reached for the flask.

"Whew. That was close. I will kill that bastard Sivko for not telling me earlier."

"Close?"
"Yeah. If you offended her, or someone said something stupid, we might as well just go find a
nice cemetery."

"Who? The nice granny we talked with?"

"Nice?" Sunset stared at him, beyond words. "Granny?" She took a long pull from her flask,
"That was the most powerful witch in all the ages of Equestria. She alone killed more ponies
than all the plagues combined, and that was before she developed taste for equine meat. All of
the Urussia were her domain, her hunting ground, her plaything, in Old times. After the fall of
Discord, it took the Mage and both Princesses in fullness of her power to bind to peace." She
drank again, and took a breather. "Nice granny my sweet cutie-marked flanks."

FRIENDS

"You have many friends here." Flash noted.

"Friends? Sivko's not a friend. I hate the slimy little bastard -- his word ain't worth the spit behind
it, and he'd probably gut me the moment he could get two bits for my corpse."

"But..."

"And I'm pretty sure the only thing that keeps him from double-crossing me, is that he believes
that I am insane maniac who, given slightest opportunity, would murder him just to see what
color his insides are, and just crafty enough to survive whatever he throws my way."

"Well..."

“But his gift of gab will come in very handy in these negotiations. I have to use him -- I have to
use every tool I know if we’re to win this.”

...

"Who's Gab?"

"Not who. It's a gift of speech -- he can talk to any creature or beast, understand them and be
understood in turn. And be damned persuasive while he's about it."

"Sounds useful."

"The old ratfuck is full of tricks. He's a shapeshifter, a soothsayer, he's damn strong, and he can
walk the earth pony ways easily as well -- but that's not what makes him dangerous. He's wise,
cunning with that base Urusian ken, he’s smart and bloody vicious when he needs to be. Don't
cross him, and don't give him offence, not ever. I'd rather go hoof-to-hoof with Svetogor than try
to cheat Sivko."
WORDS AND PROMISES

“Do you speak for your lord?”

“Alas,” he sighed. “I always do.”

“We both know your word ain’t worth the spit behind it. I want your prince’s order, with the stamp
and everything, and I want you to swear.”

“You wound me, solnyshko.” he grabbed at his chest, but seeing how it made no effect,
shrugged. “Fine. I swear, by the Earth and the Forest and the Hunger Eternal. And you’ll get
your scroll tomorrow. Helpful if you run out of toilet paper.”

KNOWLEDGE
"I know things. Secret things, important things. Fifteen words to make you lose your best friend
forever. Way to kill a man so that he doesn't know he's dying until he’s gone. How to say
goodbye and never look back. How to hurt and how to be hurt. How to find the secret heart of
someone’s world and rip it out, destroying it forever.

BURNT OFFERING

The battlefield was covered in snow, red and white made golden by the rays of dawn. Her
hooves sunk into the ground flowing with rivulets of blood, so much that the earth could not
drink no more.

The girl stood by the monster's side, braiding his fiery mane.

"This is not murder," the little girl explained with grave seriousness, alien to her tiny frame. "It’s a
burned offering -- an aroma pleasing to my Lord."

DRESDEN VS FILLIES

"The people can be divided into two broad groups -- the predators and the prey. "

"And this is where you tell me that we're the predators, right?" He smirked. "That I should be
joining you and taking advantage of the sheeple. Well I..."

"Quite the contrary, Harry. In this analogy, we are the prey, and you're the predator."
"Aren't you the one who burned my building? Who attacked me? Don't you wield your magic --
the power of creation, the second greatest tool available to you, humans, to make fire and
destroy things?"

"That's..."

"Oh, you have your reasons, perhaps even good ones. Perhaps you even imagine yourself as a
dog, not a wolf. Something like your pet perhaps? A vicious sheperd-dog to protect the
innocents, a wolfhound to hunt the bad wolves... but you're still one of them, the predators --
that is your nature.

"We are the prey... well, the herd animals. Pretty pastel ponies, if you wish. We build. We
arrange into herds, not packs. We grow things. And we protect them from brutes like you, who
only know how to destroy. That is the fundamental difference between us."

...

The girl's hand disappeared into her clutch, and produced a heavy, square-looking gun. It
seemed too big for her hand, but her moves were practiced and smooth, unhindered by the
weight and the recoil. Before he had a chance to move, she shot. Three rapid reports, like
thunderclaps, and Molly fell out of her veil, clutching to her bleeding stomach.

...

"Sit down, Harry." she ordered, and there was steel in her eyes. "The rounds are steel-jacketed
and if I blow your Lady’s brains out, it will hurt."

"The second condition is that I shall put a spell on you. A mind-spell. It will not cause you to do
anything you do not want to do, it won't alter your memories or your emotions. Your Queen shall
be my witness. And then I am going to say six words to you. And that will be all. "

“Mab.” She said “Mab.” The name rang like a frozen bell. “Mab. Thrice I call your name.”

“And once I appear.” she stepped into the room. “Invoke me at your peril, mortal.”

...

Mab pursed her lips and nodded.

...

She looked him in the eyes, and said the six words, deliberate and slow.

"It is not your fault, Harry." the piece of his True Name rang with the power it contained, making
the symbol on his forehead buzz with magic.

...

She lowered herself, crouching in front of him.

"Do you want me to take away the spell, Mister Dresden?" she looked him in the eyes. "It is
midnight, and the time is up. I can do it, or, if you don't trust me -- your Queen could do it just as
well."

"I.." he croaked, lifting his hand to almost-touch the ashen pattern on his forehead.

"Think about it. I can give you back the surety of purpose you loved so much. You can be the
hero of your own story. Killing evils, righting wrongs, a shining knight saving the helpless."

That terrible, soul-wrenching longing in his eyes -- she knew it well, that desire for the sweet
poison of submission. It doesn't matter if it's to an idea or person, it is still the same perfect
torture, sweeter by far than any bliss, the self-damnantion only truly righteous can condemn
themselves to: To be a tool, a Righteous Hand of God, a Knight of the One True Princess, a
fighter for a Cause that’s greater than your life..

But like her, he was a strong man, and he knew how to outgrow himself. He set his jaw, and
forced himself to say the word, like spitting a swallowed razor. "No."

They looked together at the hurt boy crying, feeling, for the first time, the pain of growing up.

"I forget sometimes how terribly efficient you can be," Tiara said, turning off the camera. The
man deserved his privacy. "How horribly cruel."

"We all have to wake up sometime, Tiara. For some it's just harder than for others."

SUBMISSION
"Hundreds or million. Math says they die."

"We need to find another way!"

"This is not a movie, Flash. If you fail, they all die. Will you tell their mothers that their children
died because you wanted to keep your hooves clean?"

"But if we win...."

...

"I can't!" he struggled against her spells "I can't make that choice!"

"I can." She released him and stepped back. "I have."

“How?”

"Murder is a poison most subtle. You need to let your mind get acclimated to it: Hurt an enemy
in battle, wound an innocent in your way, kill your friend in a fight... step by step, until you can
watch a life extinguished in someone's eyes and feel nothing more than when you blow out a
candle. And sometimes, to make those decisions that is exactly what you need."

...

“Sunset." Flash kneeled at her feet. "I can't make those decisions. I can only trust you. So I want
to give another oath."

She pursed her lips in distaste. "You were talking to the Count, weren't you? It was his idea."

"His advice, yeah. But it's what I want."

"Are you sure, Sentry? These are not the words you say on a whim."

"I am.”

She sighed. Why not? Such, after all, was the way of the world. “Say it then, Sentry.”

"By Wind and by Storm," he started, his voice growing stronger as he stumbled through the
formula "By the Sun that is above us, I swear to Sunset Shimmer be faithful. To love all which
she loves, to shun all which she shuns…” the oath, Old as the earth and true as the sky was
said, and it was witnessed. And it could not be now unsaid any more.

"So be it.” She nodded, accepting his fealty. “Rise, Flash Sentry, vassal."

MAN-CUBS

"They raise their foals on blood, d'you know that?"

"What?"

"Adults don't eat meat, or almost don't, much like ponies. But they're omnivores by nature; and
sometimes a child needs meat to grow up healthy. So they feed it dead things. Very poetic, if
you ask me."

NEW CURRICULUM

"Magic! Pfft, no, I taught them important things. How to move, and how to breathe and how to
look. How to remember and to learn. How to think before acting and act without thinking. As
long as they know that, they can pick up any magic in an afternoon".