If anypony noticed Twilight’s continued lack of oneness with the magic of the Everfree, they didn’t mention it to her. In fact, the very next day after they’d come back from the Crystal Empire, it was as if they had never left. Applejack was selling apples at the market, Rarity was talking about her fall lineup and Rainbow Dash was bucking clouds in the middle of doing loop-de-loops in the sky. It wasn't as if she expected her friends not do those things—they were their jobs, after all, and it was likely that they had to make up for their absence when they were all in the Crystal Empire, but all the same, the sheer normality of everything going back to the status quo while she was still at a loss for what to do about her situation… well, it galled a bit.
Not that she was in any way immune to the lure of the routine. She genuinely had work to do in order to keep the library running, and while it was easy not to schedule the various maintenance tasks and delegate a reasonable amount to Spike in order to make time for what were, to her, more pressing issues, it was harder to just switch modes from one to the other at the drop of a hat. One would think that this would mean that she would be driven to distraction during her normal everyday work, and to an extent, she was, but the opposite was also true. As much as she enjoyed research, she wasn’t really getting anywhere with it and her library work at least felt productive.
Of course, part of that was her own fault.
“What’s wrong?” Spike asked, peeking at the blank sheet of parchment that Twilight had in front of her. “It’s just a letter to the princess. You’ve written hundreds of those. You want me to do it?”
Twilight dropped her quill back into the inkwell and leaned back in her chair, letting out an explosive sigh. “She lied to me, Spike. She’s supposed to be my teacher and she lied to me. This whole situation is because she left it until we were thousands of miles away in the frozen north with her crazy ex-student watching to admit that she knew what was going on the whole time, and now that everything has gotten complicated, she’s more concerned with pretending Sunset Shimmer is just going to trot back into her life than she is in actually helping resolve the issue!”
Spike considered Twilight for a moment, then asked, “Are you… jealous?”
Twilight gaped. “Jealous? I—what? Spike, I hardly call expecting my mentor—somepony I've trusted all my life—the ruler of Equestria—to support me against a criminal who wants to steal my magic jealousy!”
“Well, she’s not technically a criminal…” Spike pointed out.
“Which is part of the problem!” Twilight shouted, then forced herself to calm down. “So, you can see how it might be a little awkward to mail her saying, ‘Hey, it’s me, your maimed alicorn student trying to un-amputate the other half of her magic. Remember that research you promised to send me about that? I realize that you’re super busy pining after the daughter you never had who exiled herself to another dimension rather than remain your student, but I’d kind of like to not spend the rest of my possibly-immortal life as half an alicorn.’”
“Well, if you’re gonna say it like that,” Spike said with a shrug.
“I just…” Twilight struggled with a way to express how disappointed she was. “…I can’t believe that this is the same mare who taught me right from wrong and all but raised me. Raised us.”
“Hey, speak for yourself,” Spike said. “Maybe she taught you all that. I, on the other claw, learned how to sneak pastries from the kitchens.”
“I’m so glad you received an education that will send you far in your chosen field,” Twilight deadpanned.
“I know, right!” Spike beamed, little bits of sapphire in his teeth from breakfast. “But okay—if you don’t want to ask Princess Celestia, why not ask her sister?”
Twilight blinked. Ask Princess Luna?
Well, why not?
After penning the letter in question and getting Spike to send it after receiving several confirmations that it would go to Princess Luna and not her sister, Twilight watched the silvery smoke as it drifted up and out of the library window.
Well, that was one thing taken care of, at least.
Another day, another twenty-four hours of deceptive normalcy. Twilight wasn’t sure what that meant in regards to Sunset Shimmer. She doubted that the princess’ ex-student would waste any time in coming for her magic, so the continued lack of anything happening concerned her.
Either Sunset had been delayed and could even have been injured—they still didn’t really have any idea what had actually happened on the train—or worse, she might already be here, working on stealing the magic of the Everfree right out from under her nose.
Twilight frowned.
Was it callous to call that worse? She didn’t want Sunset to be hurt or anything. She had actually developed quite a bit of empathy for her since the revelations of that night—which was a little ridiculous, she did realize. She hadn’t even really actually met the mare, yet she seemed to have somehow decided that she could understand her.
Still, her likely incorrect assumptions aside, there had to be a limit, right? She felt that she was a fairly selfless pony, but it only made sense that she should value her own well being over that of a mare who was actively set on causing her harm. That was just how it was, and the fact that she didn’t like it was a good thing.
Twilight was spared her moral navelgazing when Rainbow Dash burst through the door of the library and shouted “Twilight!”
“ I'm right here, you don't have to shout,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes as she got up.
She apparently wasn’t moving fast enough for Rainbow Dash though, because halfway to her hooves Twilight was yanked the rest of the way up and then some and spent just as much time stumbling around as she would have otherwise taken if she’d just been left alone.
“There’s no time for that!” Rainbow Dash insisted, pushing Twilight to the door. “Rarity says that Fluttershy told her that she overheard Sunflower Blossom telling Skydancer and Raisin Surprise that Thunderlane saw a suspicious pony in a brown cloak coming into town from the Everfree!”
“Really?!” she asked, perking up. Suddenly, Twilight was heading towards the door under her own power, leaving Rainbow Dash to crash into the ground at her disappearance. Her instant enthusiasm was just as quickly tempered, though. Her hoof on the doorknob, she stopped to actually think.
“Wait,” Twilight said, scrunching up her face as she went over what Rainbow Dash had actually said. “Fluttershy overheard Sunflower Blossom saying that Thunderlane saw this…?” she asked, hoping that she'd gotten that right.
“Yes!” Rainbow Dash said with some exasperation as she resumed dragging Twilight out of the library. She once again found herself falling over, suddenly without a mare to push, when Twilight teleported out from under her hooves, this time backtracking.
“Hold on—Spike isn’t here, so just let me lock up the library,” Twilight said, but Rainbow Dash wasn’t waiting. Before she could grab the keys from inside, Rainbow Dash took to the air and swooped down on her. Twilight objected vehemently to being picked up like a misbehaving foal, but none of her twisting and turning did any good in the two and a half seconds that it took Rainbow Dash to fly her down the street to the Carousel boutique.
“C’mon, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said as she set her down.. “I thought you’d be chomping at the bit to catch this mare.”
“I am!” Twilight insisted, brushing her coat down after being marehandled like that. “I’m just not impressed with your sources. These are some of the same ponies who thought that Zecora was an evil enchantress; I’d rather not get my hopes up until I hear it from somepony with a little more credibility.”
“Wait, but we all thought that,” Rainbow Dash pointed out, clearly thinking that she must be missing something.
“You heard what I said,” Twilight deadpanned, heading inside the Carousel Boutique before Rainbow Dash could get her very vocal objection out.
She then walked straight back out of the Carousel Boutique because Everypony else had already been present, and Rarity’s shop was the one place they didn’t expect to find Sunset Shimmer.
As the group asked around, though, Twilight was expecting less and less to find Sunset Shimmer at all.
“A hideous dragon-pony, you say?” Twilight asked the mare, who nodded vigorously from behind the white picket fence around the house she shared with her sisters.
“Yes!” she hissed, glancing down the street with a nervous terror hardly befitting the peaceful, idyllic scene. “I was just coming out of my house to get the mail when I saw it! It had a hunch and was prowling around like something out of a nightmare! At first it was wearing something like a brown sheet to hide itself, but then those fillies came racing by in that devil wagon of theirs and knocked it over! That’s when I saw what it was hiding—great big dragon wings!”
“Which, presumably, this pony used to sinisterly prevent themselves from ending up in the mud like everypony else who falls victim to the crusaders,” Twilight supplied, to which the shaking mare nodded.
“Now hold on a second,” Applejack said, stepping closer and startling the mare. “What happened with the crusaders and this pony?”
“Happened?” the mare asked, stepping back. “They ran, of course!” she said, then proceeded to demonstrate, zipping back inside her house and slamming the door.
“Well, that was helpful,” Twilight said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Devil wagon?” Fluttershy muttered to herself, barely audible and visibly confused.
“Ah don’t like this,” Applejack said, unhappy.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I really don’t think this is anything to worry about.”
“Of course it’s something to worry about!” Applejack said, stomping her hoof. “Honestly! Not even helping somepony up after knocking them over? Ah thought Ah taught Apple Bloom better than that!”
“Er, right,” Twilight said, followed by several seconds of silence. “Moving on—this pony might not be Sunset Shimmer, but we should probably keep looking for them anyway. It sounds like they could really use a friendly face if this is how everypony is reacting.”
“Not Sunset Shimmer?” Rainbow Dash asked, giving Twilight a dubious look while hanging upside down in the air. “How do you figure?”
“Last I checked, Sunset Shimmer was a unicorn, not a—whatever that mare just described,” Twilight pointed out.
“Really?” Pinkie Pie asked. “I thought she was a crystal pony the last time we saw her.” Pinkie Pie gasped dramatically. “Have you been seeing her behind our backs?!”
Rainbow Dash just gestured at Pinkie Pie, indicating that the slightly loopy mare had been right on the mark this time.
Well, Rainbow Dash probably didn’t think that Twilight had been clandestinely dating her predecessor.
Probably. Ever since the excitable mare had started reading Daring Do books, she had started to get the strangest ideas about things.
Still. “I—err—”’ Twilight would have a response to that in just a second.
“They do have a point, dear,” Rarity chimed in with the rest on the side of seeing drama where there likely wasn’t any. “This may yet involve Sunset Shimmer! Why, who knows what ancient magics she may have enacted since we last saw her.”
“You do realize that nine times out of ten, ‘ancient magics’ are lost because they’re bad, right?” Twilight said. “It’s like digging up a toaster from thirty years ago.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Applejack said. “We’ve got a toaster back on the farm that’s nearly as old as granny and it’s better than any of that flimsy junk that Filthy Rich sells. Ah keep telling him, too, but he insists that nopony wants cast iron any more. It’s gotta be stainless steel, even if it’s so thin that Apple Bloom could put her hoof through it without even trying.”
“I’m not sure if ‘things that Apple Bloom can destroy without trying’ is exactly the best metric to go by,” Rarity opined, then hurried up to say, “But we are getting off track.”
“Look, I’ll be very happy if we catch up to this pony and it turns out to be Sunset… and very interested in learning how she made herself into some kind of frightening half-dragon hybrid,” she admitted. “But I think there’s a much simpler explanation for all this. Now, the last few sightings were back that way, so they should be headed… down that street.”
The rest of the group all looked where Twilight was pointing.
Rarity gasped. “But that’s…!”
It was the road leading to the Carousel Boutique. The six of them all shared a look, then began galloping down the street as a single unit, eager to see things proven one way or the other.
Sure enough, there was a pony in a brown cloak in front of Rarity’s business, looking up at the sign. As they approached, the pony turned and… it wasn’t even a mare, let alone one with as striking a palette as Sunset Shimmer.
“Ah!” the thestral stallion beamed, cheery despite his muted gray coloring. “Princess Twilight Sparkle! There you are! If you’ll just sign here, I have a package for you from Princess Luna.”
Twilight’s five friends all stood around stunned as she casually walked forward, took the clipboard that she was presented with, flipped over several pages, nodded and finally signed where indicated. Once she was done, the stallion bent over, reached underneath his heavy cloak and retrieved a small, locked chest the size of a loaf of bread and set it down in front of the Carousel Boutique. A moment later, he also produced a letter with an indigo seal that was conspicuously heavy and lopsided when he handed it directly over to her.
“…Really?” Rainbow Dash asked as the disguised night guard confirmed with Twilight that there was nothing else she needed him for and began to leave. “That’s it? We chased a mailstallion all over Ponyville when he was coming here anyway?”
Applejack scratched her chin in thought. “You know, now that you mention it… Hey, you!” she shouted, getting the stallion’s attention. “How’d you know to come here to deliver that, anyway? I’d’ve thought you’d’ve been told to take it to the library!”
As jovial as ever, the stallion nodded in confirmation. “Oh, I did!” he said. “It was the mare there who told me that Princess Twilight was out.”
“Mare…?” Twilight said, confused for a moment. Abruptly, she then turned to scowl at Rainbow Dash. “I told you you should have let me lock the library.”
“I wonder who it could be,” Fluttershy said.
“Well, let us look on the bright side,” Rarity said. “If it’s a mare, not a filly, then it isn’t the crusaders.”
Twilight shared a shudder with her friends at the idea of those three fillies in the library unsupervised. As the stallion was turning to leave again, though, Twilight had to ask. “This mare, who was it? I’d like to at least know who’s been in my library, if she isn’t there when I get back—which I should be doing.”
The stallion thought back, then shook his head. “She didn’t say what her name was, but you can’t miss her—not with that red and gold mane.”
One frantic gallop home later, Twilight burst through the library door, not sure what to expect. An empty library, ransacked, all her research gone and everything else destroyed?
Whatever she expected, it wasn’t to find Sunset Shimmer lying casually in the window alcove with a book in her lap and a smug smile on her face.
“Hey, Twilight. ’Sup?”
Twilight’s mind went completely blank at the sight of the mare that she’d been obsessing over just lounging around in her home without a care in the world.
“Twilight?” Sunset asked, cocking her head innocently to the side. “Is something wrong, Twilight? You look kind of tense.”
“I—what—you—” Twilight stammered, trying to get her thoughts in order.
“Me?” Sunset asked, looking down at herself. “Is there something wrong with little old me?”
It was just… what did she actually do in response to this? Jump on her and start beating her up? Of course not—but Sunset didn’t appear to be doing anything, which seemed to limit the number of things that she could do to stop her.
A moment of awkward silence later, Sunset’s attention shifted to something behind Twilight. “Girls? Is there something wrong with Twilight?”
Twilight turned to see that the rest of her friends had caught up to her at some point, but they seemed to be just as much at a loss as she had been. Finally, she realized what she should do. “Rainbow! Go find a guard—no, wait—go find Spike at the market and bring him here, then find a guard!”
Snapping out of her astonishment, Rainbow Dash saluted and said, “You got it!” before racing off.
“Spike?” Sunset continued to pretend this was all completely normal. “Do you need to mail something?” she asked, then perked up. “Oh! That reminds me!” Sunset quickly levitated a pair of saddlebags with her cutie-mark embroidered onto them over to herself, dug around in them for a moment, then produced an envelope of very similar style to the one that Twilight had just received, only with a golden seal instead.
Princess Celestia’s seal.
Oh no.
She didn’t.
Shellshocked, Twilight gingerly took the letter, confirmed that the seal was real, then opened and read the letter.
She did.
Twilight gaped at the mare sitting in her home as happy as could be. “I—you—you—”
“I apologized,” Sunset Shimmer confirmed. “Celestia and I have had our differences over the years, but I’m willing to try again if she is.”
“But you came here to steal my magic!” Twilight accused, then immediately winced, already knowing exactly how Sunset would respond.
“Steal your magic?” Sunset asked, putting on a very good bewildered face. “Is that even possible? I’m sure I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to do that.”
Twilight was grasping for straws when she remembered the one concrete thing they had on her. “You were trespassing in the Crystal Castle and stole the element of magic!”
“Technically, as artifacts with some semblance of inherent morality, the Elements of Harmony can’t actually be owned in the traditional sense, so it’s actually impossible to steal them,” Sunset said, finally letting through the slightest amount of vindictive triumph through her mein of innocence. “Also? I’m a minor.”
“How?!” Twilight shouted, incredulous.
“Funny thing!” Sunset Shimmer said, brightening up even further. Setting the book in her lap aside she turned to face Twilight directly in order to explain. On closer inspection, she did look rather young. Younger than Twilight, which shouldn’t have been at all possible, though she had already suspected as much on the train. “So, it turns out that time flows differently in different dimensions. The world that I ended up in is only one of several that the mirror connects to. It opens every thirty moons in each world, but from this side it goes through a cycle. This is actually the first time the portal on the other side has opened up since I went through, meaning—”
“It's only been two and a half years,” Twilight concluded for her.
“Yep,” Sunset Shimmer said with a toothy grin.
“Is there a problem here?” asked a rather irate pegasus of the Ponyville guard patrol that had just come in with Rainbow Dash, and it was only then that Twilight deduced that Spike had been present for a while.
After one long, trying glare at Sunset Shimmer, Twilight sighed and apologized to the guard. “Sorry, officer,” she said, not taking her eyes off of Sunset. “It seems that we’ve had a small misunderstanding. I apparently left the library unlocked while I was gone and this innocent little filly wandered in. Nothing sinister going on at all.
The guard seemed to take Twilight’s statement entirely at face value and nodded in understanding. “Please remember that your place of residence is also a public building,” he said and made a show of looking around the room. “If there’s nothing else?”
Twilight waved him off and waited until he was out of earshot to angrily snap out, “Spike! Take a letter!”
“Uh, sure thing, Twilight,” he said, pulling out a scroll and parchment.
Twilight nodded in satisfaction, took a deep breath and calmly recited the phrase she’d spoken many times before, “Dear Princess Celestia,
“Are you bucking serious?!
“Signed, your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.
“P.S. I always wondered why the distinction. I get it now.”
Spike finished transcribing and looked up at Twilight with uncertainty.
“Send it,” she instructed him.
He hesitated. “Umm… Are you sure, Twilight?”
“Send the letter, Spike,” she repeated, quite serious.
With great reluctance, he did.
Sunset Shimmer, for her part, seemed to be enjoying the situation far more than was healthy.
There was only a short wait until Spike received a reply. Unrolling the letter, he read: Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,
“Yes.
“Signed Princess Celestia.
All was silent for a moment before he clarified, “That’s all it says.”
“I don’t know what I expected,” Twilight admitted, rubbing her temples to stave off what she was sure was going to be an incredible headache. “Fine,” she growled out. “You’ve convinced Princess Celestia that you want to resume your studies. That’s… not as surprising as it really should be—but then why are you here?!”
Sunset Shimmer did that thing where she cocked her head to the side in innocent confusion again. “Isn’t it obvious?” she asked in the most sweetly saccharine way she could and followed it up with a beaming smile. “To study friendship, of course!”
“Well, if that filly ain’t faker than udders on a snake then Ah don’t know what is,” Applejack remarked as the group reconvened out in front of the library away from prying ears.
“Intentionally,” Rarity added. “She knows that she has the backing of the princess and is relying on it rather than any actual deception to prevent us from acting against her.”
“”I’ll send another letter to Princess Luna just to make sure she knows what’s going on, but her hooves will be as tied as ours,” Twilight said. “More, maybe. I doubt that she wants to be seen as openly acting against her sister, no matter what goes on in the privacy of the castle.”
“There’s gotta be something we can do!” Rainbow Dash instisted.
“Well, there are a couple of things,” Twilight said, gaining Rainbow Dash’s undivided attention. “Pinkie Pie had already gone off to get the party she's been planning since we got back started, and I think Fluttershy is making sure that Sunset Shimmer is okay after what happened on the train.”
“Wait, what?” Rainbow Dash shouted, looking back inside. “Fluttershy!”
“Are you alright, Twilight?” Rarity asked as Rainbow Dash loudly made clear her objections to Fluttershy getting close to ‘that two-faced-filly’ without her to make sure that she didn’t pull anything. “You seem awfully calm about all of this.”
Twilight sat down on the library’s welcome mat and let out a sigh. “I don't know, Rarity. I just don't know. I think I’ve reached the point where I’m actually angrier at Princess Celestia for doing this than I am at Sunset for taking advantage of it, but I don’t actually know how to be angry at the princess. Not really.”
“Well…” Rarity dithered. “I’m not sure if there’s anything I can say about that, but there is one bright side in all this.”
Twilight looked up with hope at her friend. “Is there?” she asked.
Applejack nodded along and said, “At least this way, you know where she is and can keep an eye on her.”
Twilight blinked, not quite understanding. Sunset was here at the moment; that much was true, but—“Wait, no no no no no, Sunset Shimmer isn’t staying here,” she said, balking at the very idea. “Not in the library.”
“She isn’t?” Rarity asked, sharing a dubious look with Applejack. “Are you certain? It seems the obvious choice to me. Where else would Princess Celestia send a student in need of friendship lessons than the princess of friendship?”
“Princess of friendship? Since when am I the princess of friendship?” Twilight asked, then immediately backtracked. “No, we’ll get to that later. Sunset Shimmer is not staying with me in the library. I will run off and become a hermit in the Everfree before I allow that, and that’s final.”
As it so happened, Sunset Shimmer was not going to be living in the library with Twilight.
Unfortunately, it didn’t make Twilight any happier to learn that the princess’ ex-student—reinstated student? It didn’t make her any happier to learn that Sunset Shimmer was living in the Everfree as a hermit.
Somehow, Twilight didn’t think that accusing Sunset of overhearing her and changing her plans just to be contrary would make her seem entirely mature—not when there were far more obvious and worrying reasons for Sunset to be spending time in the Everfree.
Unfortunately for Sunset, she had made that claim in front of exactly the wrong ponies.
“Oh my,” Fluttershy exclaimed.
Rarity followed it up with a much more vehement, “Absolutely not! We cannot have the princess’ student ‘roughing it’ out in the murder forest!”
“Err, what?” Sunset asked, not having anticipated this reaction. “The what?”
Fluttershy was nodding frantically. “Oh, yes. Lots of ponies have gone missing in there over the years. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that ponies who go in there almost never come out.”
“But the Zebra—” Sunset objected.
“Oh, Zecora can handle it,” Rarity assured her. Aside from being a master alchemist and shaman, she has many years of experience in defending herself. You, on the other hoof, are a filly—a minor. You said so yourself!”
“I’m almost seventeen!” Sunset argued, then immediately winced, realizing how she had just sounded.
“That’s nice, dear,” Rarity said and patted the ‘filly’ on her head. “Come, now. If the princess hasn’t provided you a place to stay, then I’m sure that we can arrange something with the mayor. If not, why, then I shall have to put you up myself! After all, Sweetie Belle only uses her room a few days a week, and I’m sure the two of you would get along marvelously!”
Twilight watched blankly as Rarity, backed up by Applejack, somehow herded Sunset Shimmer out of the library and off to find her a residence, with Fluttershy following along.
“Well, that just happened,” she remarked.
Rainbow Dash grunted in agreement. “She was kind of laying it on a bit thick at the end there, don’t you think? I mean, running with the filly thing, sure, but saying she’d get along well with Sweetie Belle is harsh.”
“A bit,” Twilight agreed. “Though, the crusaders do tend to get along with adults more than other fillies their age.”
Rainbow Dash snorted. “Only when they’re learning something that’s going to get them in trouble.”
Neither of them said anything for a few moments as that sunk in. “Oh damn,” Rainbow Dash cursed and disappeared after them.
It was another ten minutes before Twilight remembered the box from Princess Luna that had been left back at the Carousel Boutique.
Third week of spring, Year 52 After Chaos Era
The city outside the walls of the castle continues to grow in spite of my sister’s warnings, leaving me little choice but to prowl the nights in their defense. Thank the stars that the Tree of Harmony happened to be located in such a defensible location, or there would be no watching over it. Already, its power has waned and what was once a wide open glade miles across has receded to a size barely befitting of a small hamlet. I fear there may come a time when we must return the elements to the tree, though Celestia assures me that the tree is recovering and the two will soon balance out. She may be right, but it is clear to me that she covets the symbolic value of the elements as much as she does their use, else she would not object to the idea of sequestering them away instead of keeping them in that gaudy display, nor laugh at me for ‘suggesting that we might unpick an apple.’
There is little I can do about my sister’s questionable taste in artwork, however, so I must turn my attention instead to the other side of the equation. Without the magic of the forest encroaching on its power, the Tree of Harmony would no doubt recover in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take, faster even than if I could convince my sister to return the elements from whence they came.
It is unfortunate, then, that even with the magic of the forest closing in on us and providing ample opportunity to research it, no progress has been made in locating any locus or focus upon which it is concentrated. It is clearly there, and just as clearly not fading with time. If anything, it grows stronger, as seen in its ongoing struggle against the power of the Tree of Harmony. If this magic truly is of an alicorn as we suspect, then whatever did this must have been vile indeed to leave not a single horn or hoof or bone to which the power would be drawn to after all these years. If I was asked how I would accomplish this, I would arrest the questioner and throw them in the dungeons, of course, as such would be a sign of a very worrying mind, but purely theoretically…
First, one would have to kill the alicorn in question, which, while not impossible, certainly is not easy. Actually—no. First, one would need to capture an alicorn and drain them of their lifesblood, allowing them to recover between each letting until one has enough of the material to water a forest.
Then, one would do so.
I said it was vile, not complicated. Likely, the alicorn in question would have been cremated as well, possibly after having been drowned in the mixture. Cremating a pony so submerced would require a spell not unlike that which Celestia uses to practice controlling her sun, but it would be possible and the magical weight of a pony’s own blood is the only thing I can think of that might prevent the alicorn’s magic from escaping to wherever such things go.
Regardless, it is all a matter of semantics on a subject that does not bear speaking about in the first place.
Alas, such conjecture is not actually helpful. Unless we can find some source upon which the magic of the forest resonates, I can think of no other way to free the lingering magic of this once-alicorn than to uproot every tree, brush and sprout—and the soil and loam as well—and do… something with it. Burning would not likely work, as it is the element of life associated with alicorn magic to begin with, but simply isolating it and leaving it to rot might simulate a proper ‘death.’ Sadly, such a feat is beyond even Celestia and I, and even with a thousand thousand ponies to do the job, I fear the forest would not go quietly, nor do we know to what extent the roots of the Tree of Harmony extend. It is possible that in culling the dark, we might also destroy the light.
“Well, that was morbid,” commented Twilight as she gently closed the stiff, dry pages of the old journal and dropped her head back onto the pillow of her bed. The journals, of which Princess Luna had provided several, were the most interesting and enlightening part of the collection, though they were dwarfed by the sheer volume of notes in various forms on everything from timberwolves and other magical and malicious life of the Everfree to page after page of entirely subjective readings that were more like gut feelings about whichever part of the forest that the princess had visited each day.
Also included was a small, string-bound collection of observations on the Tree of Harmony before the elements were removed from it, ostensibly by the alicorn who Twilight was a reincarnation of. While informative in their own regard, these notes were also the most disappointing. Not only did they lack any real aspiration to any level of scientific rigor, but they were also almost entirely impersonal, telling little about the mare who had penned them other than the fact that she had evidently had much better hornwriting than Twilight and her illustrations of the local flora and fauna were on a level that few could ever aspire to.
It was a little embarrassing to feel so called out by a few scraps of parchment from before the founding of Equestria, but it just seemed to be another reminder of all the things this alicorn had that she didn't.
Like functioning wings and the ability to grow a tomato.
Then again, it also served to highlight just how different she was from this supposed previous life. Sure, she might feel a little bad that she’d had Spike do a solid eighty-percent of her writing since he’d become capable of holding a quill, but she also couldn’t actually imagine herself as the calm, elegant and serene lady who had left the Crystal Empire to sit in fields of flowers and draw ladybugs and daffodils.
What little information the notes did include involved reading between the lines like that, though there were a hoofful that were a little more direct, including one of the Crystal Castle with a tiny little dot with wings on the top, labelled ‘hornface.’
And that just represented the whole thing, didn’t it? All in all, the relevant information was exactly as Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had described, mostly useful as a list of things that had already been tried and done, and yet… actually reading the notes and journals for herself and seeing these illustrations was an entirely different experience than having them all summarized in a few sentences.
Twilight fell asleep that night thinking about flowers and blood.
It wasn't until Twilight was hanging her head over a bowl of cereal and grumbling about the lack of blueberries in the library when she realized that there was something else that had gone conspicuously missing.
No, not her research or anything that Sunset Shimmer might have taken while she’d been alone in the library; Twilight had made sure of that. It was actually just about the opposite.
“Hey, Spike,” she said, getting the attention of the young dragon who was seeing to a skillet of small rocks and gemstones the size of peas that were popping and cracking from the heat. “Why wasn’t there a Pinkie Pie party for Sunset last night? There should have been plenty of time for her to get one ready.”
Spike shrugged, taking a moment to focus on tossing his rocks, making a racket like a bucket full of nails falling down the stairs. “Something about turning it into a housewarming party after Rarity got the mayor to fork over the deed for the building where the old bakery was.”
“That mare…” Twilight said with a fond shake of her head. “There really is nothing she won’t do, is there?”
“Err, well,” Spike said, letting his rocks sit there popping as he scratched at the back of his neck. “She did say something about needing more firewood to throw a proper housewarming, but I think she was joking.”
A few bites of cereal later, Twilight asked, “So, when you say the old bakery, you mean—”
“Directly across the street, yes,” Spike confirmed.
“Thought so.”
Twilight wasted no time in finishing up her breakfast and heading across the street to check on Sunset Shimmer.
If Twilight had expected Sunset to be half asleep and moping around at being forced into this situation, she would have been disappointed. What she got instead was a happy, smiling mare with a handkerchief over her red and gold mane levitating a ratty old broom with less than half of its bristles remaining.
“Great,” Twilight mumbled under her breath as she stood in the door. “She’s a morning pony.” Twilight wasn’t exactly not a morning pony since you really couldn’t be one when you were the princess’ personal student or just wanted to keep a proper schedule, but it looked like Sunset Shimmer had entirely embraced it.
“Oh, hey there, Twilight!” Sunset Shimmer beamed like the absolute picture of open friendliness.
Twilight couldn’t help it, and said, “You seem happy,” as she looked around the room, taking it in. She may have seen it from the outside nearly every day since she’d moved to Ponyville, but she’d never so much as taken a peek in the window.
Her first impression was that it was… small. Compared to Sugarcube Corner, which was nearly twice the size, it was downright cosy, the space behind the counter dominated by two massive wood-fired ovens made entirely of stone.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Sunset Shimmer asked as she levitated a full dustpan up and emptied it… into one of the ovens?
A moment later, Sunset Shimmer lit her horn and Twilight was blinking spots out of her eyes in the same way as when Princess Celestia had destroyed the mirror back on that first night in the Crystal Empire.
Twilight gaped, rubbing the spots out of her eyes. “That—that wasn’t…?”
“Celestia’s sun spell?” Sunset Shimmer said with a knowing, prideful smirk. “It’s how I got my cutie mark, you know.”
No, Twilight hadn’t known that. Like with everything she’d read last night, there was so much that a few sentences of summary just didn’t tell you.
That wasn’t why her heart was beating at a gallop, though.
‘Cremating a pony so submerced would require a spell not unlike that which Celestia uses to create her sun,’ Luna had written, and that terrible image hadn’t left her all night.
So, of course Sunset Shimmer knew the spell.
“Is something wrong, Twilight?” Sunset Shimmer asked, seemingly full of earnest concern.
Twilight swallowed and shook her head. “N—no, it’s nothing. I was just… err… remembering how seeing the princess raise the sun at the Summer Sun Celebration is what got me interested in magic in the first place.”
Sunset gave Twilight a look of mild disbelief, then said, “Well, okay, then!” and turned back to her work.
Twilight watched Sunset work for a short while, her frown growing until she let out a sigh. “Give me that for a second,” she said, grabbing the broom from Sunset with her magic. Sunset let her take the broom, cocking her head in curiosity at what Twilight was going to do.
Twilight, for her part, scanned over the room, looking for something appropriate. What she found was perfect—an old broken chair with straw stuffing poking out the side. Retrieving a hoofful of the stuffing, she levitated the two together and hit them with a spell.
She handed the seemingly brand-new broom back to Sunset Shimmer, who took it and looked it over.
“Uhh, thanks?” she said. “What spell is that?”
“It’s one of Rarity’s, actually,” Twilight said. “I’m sure she’d teach it to you.”
Sunset went slightly pale. “No, no,” she insisted, glancing at the door as if to make sure that the fashionista in question wasn’t going to show up out of the blue. “A permanent repair spell like that? I can’t do something like that. I burn things—that’s all. Not all of us can have a cutie mark in magic as a whole.”
Twilight wasn’t so convinced. “Really?” She said, feigning her own innocence and not doing half as good a job at it. “I thought that turning yourself into a crystal pony like that would have required a lot of skill.” She hadn’t been planning on pressuring Sunset, but after such a statement, she couldn’t help it.
To Twilight’s surprise, Sunset openly scoffed, and it seemed genuine. “That? Hardly,” she said, waving the very idea off with her hoof as she continued sweeping. “That artifact is like an orphaned timberwolf puppy; it’ll follow just about anypony—then it gets its claws in you, gets attached and starts growing.”
“…I don’t think that’s how timberwolves work?” Twilight said, and somehow the two of them got into a debate on various magical creatures, none of which Sunset Shimmer had actually seen, having grown up in a big city on the top of a mountain.
All in all, it wasn’t a terrible way to spend a morning.
It was nearing lunchtime when Spike came looking for Twilight and was surprised to see them chatting amicably as the two of them cleaned up the old bakery, Twilight showing off various spells, always having something for the occasion.
This all stopped when she saw him.
“…Oh—uhh—hey, Spike,” Twilight said, self consciously setting a scrub brush down in a bucket of soapy water and glancing at Sunset.
Spike didn’t seem to know what to say, so it was a relief when Sunset suddenly perked up. “Hey, that’s right!” she said, suddenly seeing Spike in a new light. “Spike can send letters to the princesses, right?” she asked, directing the question at Twilight, who nodded. “Do you think he could send something to Princess Celestia for me? I have to tell her how things are going and where I’m staying.”
Twilight and Spike shared a look, and he shrugged. “I don’t see why not,” Twilight said, curious to know what she was going to say.
Sunset almost seemed too eager as she cleared her throat and said, “Spike, take a letter,” in an eerie mimicry of Twilight.
“Dear Princess Celestia,
“I have arrived in Ponyville and everything is going well. Things were tense with Twilight and her friends at first due to a misunderstanding, but once everything had been explained, they all opened up.
“Fluttershy says I’m fine, by the way. I told you that whole thing on the train was blown way out of proportion, didn’t I?
“Anyway, after a rough start, we all came to an understanding and Rarity took me to see the mayor right away to get me situated in the city post-haste. Unfortunately, they were all out of libraries, but Rarity did manage to find me an old bakery with two great, big ovens and a modest apartment upstairs. I’m not sure if a bakery is what I’ll actually use it for unless there’s a specialty market for sun-baked goods, but whatever I do, it’s likely to involve a lot of fire, so the ovens are a safe bet. With some work, I could even convert them into forges if I decided to go that route, so I have plenty of options! You know me—as long as I can burn things, I’m happy!
“Of course, I say that Rarity found this place for me, but as it so happens, it’s actually directly across from the library. Yes—Twilight’s library! What are the chances? She actually came over this morning and has been helping me clean this place up—and, of course, she’s even letting me use Spike to send you this letter; I’m grateful… and also a little bit envious, to be completely honest. We filled the time cleaning talking about all sorts of magical subjects, and it’s just amazing all the things she can do. I guess that’s what it means to have a cutie mark in magic, huh?
”Anyway, that just about covers everything that’s happened since my last letter, though this one should arrive a little faster and with a little less jam on it than my last couple. I can’t believe some of the ponies that are allowed to deliver mail. Is there something about the profession that attracts strange and unusual ponies? I swear that mare in Vanhoover was a basketcase. On account of all the baskets. Seriously; nopony needs that many baskets.
“Your student once again,
“Sunset Shimmer
“P.S. Oh! I almost forgot! Pinkie Pie said something about throwing me a combination welcome-to-Ponyville-I-hope-you’re-not-a-meanie-pants and house-warming party! How cool is that?
“Okay, I’m done,” Sunset decided after a short pause, but just as Spike was rolling up the letter to send it, she stopped him. “Wait! Hold on a sec. Lemme see that,” she said, walking around behind Spike to look over his shoulder.
Spike opened the letter back up and let Sunset read it, giving Twilight an uncertain look.
“Okay,” Sunset said, pointing with her hoof. “That’s a semicolon and that should be an em-dash. That too. Good, you got the ellipses. Oh, put hyphens between all those words.”
“Really?” Spike said, but made the corrections anyway.
“Don’t question it,” Sunset said. “Dropping semicolons and em-dashes everywhere might not be proper for an essay, but it’s how ponies talk. It’s how Twilight talks.”
Twilight blinked as Spike looked to her in question. “Err—I mean—I don’t do that, do I?”
Sunset Shimmer snickered, earning her confused looks from the other two.
“Forget it,” Sunset said and went back to scanning the page over to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Shortly, she nodded. “Okay, that should do it. Go ahead and send it.”
Shrugging, Spike rolled the letter back up and did as he was told.
“Thanks, Spike,” Sunset said, ruffling his dorsal spines with her hoof. Suddenly, she had a thought. “Hey, I don’t suppose you’d mind sending something to Princess Cadance?”
“Can you do that?” Twilight asked Spike.
“I think so?” he guessed.
“Cool,” Sunset Shimmer said with a grin. “Come to think of it, Princess Celestia has her own version of that spell in order to send letters back, doesn’t she? I bet I’d have no problem learning that, considering it involves burning things.”
“What is with you and burning things?” Spike asked. “Are you some kind of pyromaniac?”
“Spike!” Twilight said with a gasp. “That’s something I’d expect Rainbow Dash to say.”
“Well, she’s not here, so somebody had to say it,” Spike defended.
“Says the dragon,” Sunset said with some snark.
“Hey,” Spike said, acting offended. “I learned early on that fire is a sometimes thing.”
Suddenly, Sunset crushed Spike in a bear hug. “Oh, you poor, poor thing!” She looked to Twilight with naked hurt in her eyes. “Twilight! How could you?! Depriving a dragon of his chance to burn things! I mean, by the time I was his age, I’d burned down my wing of the castle three times! You’re like those people who try to feed their cats vegetarian diets—it’s cruelty!”
“…No, but seriously,” Spike wheezed out, stuck in Sunset’s grip. “What’s the deal?”
Suddenly, Sunset let him go, dusted herself off and cleared her throat. “It’s a gift,” she said, as if that explained everything.
Twilight raised an eyebrow at her.
“I mean that,” Sunset Shimmer said, turning to show her flank and her two-toned sun cutie mark. “It’s my gift. My special talent. You wouldn’t prevent somepony from expressing their talent, would you?”
“You know, that’s a good point,” Spike said, thoughtful. “I mean, what would you do if a pony had a cutie mark in—”
Twilight coughed, interrupting Spike. “I don’t know how you were going to finish that sentence, Spike, and for both of our sakes, so long as we move right on to Sunset’s second letter, I’m not going to ask.”
“Err—that’d probably be best, yeah,” he said, looking away.
Sunset looked briefly disappointed, but rallied quickly. “Right, then!” she said, clapping her hooves. “Spike—take a letter!”
“You know you don’t have to say it exactly like that every time, right?” Twilight asked.
Sunset flat out ignored her.
“Dear Princess Cadance,
“How are things in the frozen north? It’s hard to imagine anypony living in that kind of place, but from what I saw, you don’t have any problem staying warm at night, do you?
“You lucky mare.
“I know that we’ve had our differences, but, honestly, I regret that now. If I’d known that all it took to make you act like a real person was to get you sleep deprived, I’d have been your wingmare every night of the week.
“And maybe done what I could to get you drunk.
“You have no idea how good it felt to see you get Celestia to make that face. For that alone, I will forgive you for all of your… you-ness.
“Your Best Friend Forever,
“Sunset Shimmer.”
By the time Sunset was done dictating the short letter, Twilight’s face was red. “I—wha—you—!”
“Okay, Spike,” Sunset said. “Send the letter.”
“Sunset!” Twilight shouted, aghast. Quickly, she turned to Spike. “Spike, don’t—”
Spike sent the letter.
“Spike!”
“What?”
Twilight regretted it the moment she thought of it, but by then it was too late.
Having Sunset Shimmer around was like having gained a little sister; she was sarcastic, aggravating and dishonest to a fault—yet between all that, she was fun, knowledgeable and relatable.
She was also, above all, The Enemy, but that only strengthened the comparison.
After the situation with the letter—for which Sunset was unapologetic and Spike was just confused—Rarity and Pinkie Pie showed up to prepare for the house-warming party, followed soon after by Applejack and Fluttershy with food for everypony.
Twilight was grateful for the crowd, since it gave her a chance to drop back and take a breath—which, as always, brought her to Fluttershy.
“Are you alright?” Fluttershy quietly asked as Applejack was soliciting opinions from Sunset Shimmer on various apple-based goods.
Twilight sighed. “I don’t even know. I probably shouldn’t be, but after all the waiting, not knowing when or if she would show up and make her move, this is an improvement.
“It’s… weird. I know that every other word that comes out of her mouth is a lie, but I also know she knows I know, so it’s almost like she isn’t lying at all; just going along with it enough to have plausible deniability.
“And it wouldn’t even matter, except she’s really easy to get along with. She’s gone through a lot of the same things I have—she has a lot of the same experiences and frustrations—but she’s a very different pony. Already, there’s a whole list of things I want to ask her about, except she’s…”
“A manipulative, selfish witch who is only after your magic,” Fluttershy finished for her.
Twilight blinked. “Err, well, yes, but I don’t know if I would put it quite like that,” she said, looking at Fluttershy as if she’d just croaked like a frog—which, in hindsight, actually wouldn’t be all that unusual for her.
Fluttershy flushed at her ‘outburst.’ “I have a brother,” she cryptically explained. “He’s… He makes me so mad, sometimes.”
“How do you mean?” Twilight asked, curious, but still confused.
Fluttershy looked over to where Sunset was showing off her sun spell again while disposing of a stack of paper plates. “Zephyr Breeze… he’s the kind of pony who never does anything if there’s somepony else who will do it for him when they see him struggling. He’s not malicious or even a bad pony, but I… I have to remind myself that he’s my little brother, sometimes.”
Twilight tried to imagine a pony like that and shivered. “I guess I’m really lucky to have the brother I do,” she said, then immediately grimaced in distaste when she remembered Sunset commenting almost the same thing with a very different meaning in her letter to Cadance.
Fluttershy noticed Twilight’s grimace, but probably put it down to her picturing Shining Armor acting like Zephyr Breeze, which, now that she thought about it, really wasn’t a great image either.
“So, sort of a mirror image of Sunset, in a way?” Twilight suggested, but regretted it. She really shouldn’t try to analyze somepony she’d never met.
“Complete opposites,” Fluttershey agreed, then dropped her head so that her mane covered half of her face, and sheepishly added, “But the thing about opposites is that in the end they’re still the same type of thing.”
“That’s a harsh thing to say about your brother, isn’t it?” Twilight asked. “I mean, no matter how lazy and useless he is…”
Fluttershy sat and sighed, working herself up to responding. “With my brother… There comes a time when you have to judge a pony on their actions, not just their feelings. I love my brother… but I don’t trust him. Obviously, you can’t trust Sunset but that doesn’t mean you can’t still try to be friends with her.”
“Should I even want to, though?” Twilight asked.
“I don’t think that’s something you get to choose.”
By midafternoon, the downstairs of the old bakery had been all but restored to pristine condition. Between the magical efforts of Twilight and Rarity, even the worst of the damage looked like it had never happened and Applejack knew more than the average pony about polishing wood until it shined.
Coincidentally, it was just after Applejack and Pinkie Pie left to arrange for the actual party preparations part of the party preparations that Rainbow Dash showed up, announcing her presence with an appreciative whistle.
“Wow,” she said, standing in the doorway. “You girls sure did a number on this place.”
“Rainbow!” Rarity greeted cheerily. “Why, your timing is perfect. We were just going to get started on the upstairs.”
Rainbow failed to hide her wince.
Apparently the ‘never leave her friends hanging’ bit didn’t apply to helping Sunset Shimmer clean her house, which… was fair.
Rainbow Dash’s awkwardness was quickly replaced by confusion, though. “Wait, how does that work?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you have started upstairs? You know; where she’s actually going to live?”
“Pish posh,” Rarity said. “We had to have the downstairs ready for the party, of course. We still have plenty of time to make the upstairs livable while the others bring the supplies in and get things set up down here.”
“You know…” Sunset interjected. “This seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for one night. I mean, not to look a gift-party in the fire code, but this is not a large place. How many ponies can we even fit down here?
“Oh, not to worry,” Rarity insisted. “It isn’t at all unusual for Pinkie Parties to outgrow the space they’re in. As it is, you can only expect most ponies to show up for a short while to graze and see what’s going on. Now—let us see what we have to work with upstairs.”
Rainbow Dash made the same sort of whistle of appreciation that she had upon seeing the downstairs. That was where the similarities ended. “Wow,” she said, taking it all in. “This place is a dump.”
“Rainbow!” Twilight and Rarity hissed in stereo.
She had a point, though.
Looking the room over… It had been swept; that was about all that could be said about it. Broken fixtures and furniture aside, the downstairs had been downright habitable compared to this. The roof wasn’t thatch like a lot of Ponyville was—chimneys and thatch didn’t really work well together, especially on an industrial scale—but it had leaked anyway and the water damage was significant.
Rarity had poked her head into the bathroom and immediately looked ill. Twilight followed suit and sympathized; the window was broken, the sink looked like it had housed a bird’s nest until just recently, and the rest of it… Well, the bathroom had been used for its intended purpose, in a way.
Even Fluttershy let out a quiet “Oh my,” at the sight, and it was a problem that Twilight expected the animal caretaker had had extensive experience with.
“This… This is not acceptable!” Rarity declared, aghast.
“Yeeeeah,” Rainbow Dash said, flying a little lower than usual to avoid getting any closer to the moldy ceiling than she had to. “This is going to take more than a couple of hours to fix.”
“You didn’t know?” Twilight asked Rarity. “Don’t tell me you bought this place sight-unseen?”
“Ah—well—considering there was no actual buying involved, I can truthfully answer no,” Rarity dithered.
Twilight couldn’t help but roll her eyes at her friend’s naiveté. This wasn’t a public building like the library; even if the city owned it, they would no doubt be charging the crown a premium for it, especially on short notice.
“Wait,” Rainbow Dash said, looking around. “You didn’t actually sleep in all this last night, did you?”
Rarity apparently hadn’t thought of that, what color she had draining from her face since, the way Twilight had heard it, Sunset had indeed been essentially handed the keys and pointed in the right direction late yesterday.
“Eh,” Sunset said with a shrug as she wiped years of grime off the window. “I’ve lived in worse.”
That was, quite possibly, the absolute worst thing that Sunset could have said to Rarity in that moment. Even Twilight found it hard to believe.
“Please tell me that you’re joking!” Rarity pleaded. “You were the princess’ student! You are the princess’ student!”
And that was very much not the right thing for Rarity to say to Sunset Shimmer.
“And between those two things, I—” she said with a sudden ice… and then just as suddenly, it was gone, along with any actual explanation. “…wasn’t,” she finished lamely.
Twilight let out a breath that she’d been holding.
After a moment of awkward silence, Sunset expanded on her answer very slightly, “The world on the other side of the mirror was not a nice place for a filly with no no money, no identification, no family, no magic and no idea how the world works.”
“Yeah, well, nopony made you go through that mirror,” Rainbow Dash casually remarked.
As if that was just something you say to somepony.
Sunset didn’t respond at first, and Twilight wished that she could at least see Sunset’s face so she could judge her mood, but she was still standing at the window.
“It wasn’t the mirror that made me an orphan, Rainbow Dash.
“It was Celestia.”
There was a flash of teal light and Sunset was gone.