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Two days later, Sunset received yet another shock when her rival appeared on her doorstep. “Well, well, well,” she drawled, her teal eyes glinting. “Twilight Sparkle.”
“Sunset Shimmer,” the purple unicorn replied, her own lavender eyes dim. She was also sporting some spectacular dark circles; clearly her aborted ascension had given her nightmares aplenty. Sunset didn’t want to admit it, but she did feel very sorry for the pony standing before her, looking as if she were carrying the whole of Equestria on her shoulders.
“Come in,” she urged, stepping aside. As Twilight entered, she stumbled, and Sunset leant her a shoulder without thinking. “Easy there. I’m guessing you haven’t had much sleep,” she surmised.
Twilight shook her head once she was safely ensconced on a cushion. “Not a lot,” she admitted. She then cut directly to the chase. “So. Here we are.”
“You’re blunt,” Sunset remarked, lifting an eyebrow. She abandoned her tea-making efforts and sat on a cushion opposite her (former, she supposed now) rival. “I’m going to make the most obvious observation in all history and say that the lack of wings means you’ve had it up to the fetlock with Celestia’s scheming and planning.”
“I do care for her a lot,” Twilight said, her face scrunching with pain. “But I can’t believe she planned this from the moment I almost lifted the roof off her school!”
“She’s got a bad habit of keeping all her cards close to her chest.” Sunset’s mouth curled in disgust. “As I am all too familiar with.”
“Why did you leave?” Twilight asked.
Sunset sighed. “Might as well call a spade a spade. I wanted a crown. I wanted wings, adoration, the whole nine yards. But Celestia said I was too ambitious, that I cared only about a throne and not about my fellow ponies. Pah! Who needs friends?”
“I was just like you,” Twilight said in a low voice. “But Celestia wanted me to make friends, albeit as a disguise to get the Elements together so we could defeat Nightmare Moon. Either way, I learned a lot about friendship during the journey to the old castle, and I realised that I couldn’t give them up.” She gave Sunset a sad smile. “And yes, the power of friendship proved to be a lot more magical than any of us knew. But it had the most profound effect on my heart.”
“I’ve never been much interested in friends,” Sunset admitted. “I always thought they just dragged you down. But the light in your eyes suggests otherwise.”
“They mean the world to me,” Twilight said. “That’s why I’d rather ascend with them, or not at all.”
Sunset chuckled. “Well, you are stubborn, I’ll give you that. So what happened with Celestia after you turned her down?”
“We’re… talking,” Twilight said, her smile dying as tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away and continued. “But I’ve made it very clear that I won’t take any more cryptic hints from her. She’s upset – and rightly so, I suppose – but I think she’s more mad at herself than at me. Her latest correspondences haven’t exactly been… warm.”
“Ouch.” Sunset winced. “I didn’t even bother keeping in touch with her after I left. It was too painful. And I didn’t think she’d want much to do with me in any case.”
Twilight nodded. “So, like I said, here we are. We’ve both fallen out with Celestia for almost the exact same reason, and we’re both feeling a little out of sorts.”
“I never thought I’d agree with you, but you’re right.” Sunset stood and looked at the purple unicorn with new eyes. Her mouth quirked up in a smile. “Since you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful. I recently discovered a crateful of old books and scrolls on my travels, and it’s far too much work for just one unicorn. So I was wondering if you might …?”
She got no further as Twilight surged erect, her eyes wide. “Where?” she demanded, practically bouncing on the tips of her hooves.
Sunset laughed, suddenly feeling better for the first time in years. “Come with me.”
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The two unicorns sat companionably on two cushions as the sun sank below the horizon, bathing the entire landscape in golden light. “I still can’t believe you got your hooves on Yellow Sorbet’s Treatise on Pegasus feathers, and Their Varied Uses,” Twilight said, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Let’s just say I know a pony who knows somepony, who knows somepony else’s aunt’s cousin’s niece’s sister,” Sunset said, smirking.
Twilight lifted an eyebrow.
“It’s the truth,” the amber unicorn confirmed. “Solar Drop inherited his library, and she is in fact his aunt’s cousin’s niece’s sister. I had a whole stack of phoenix feather quills I didn’t need, and she was happy to exchange Yellow Sorbet’s collection over. And that’s just one box. I even managed to pick up… what the hay?”
For the sun had stopped, and, even more disturbing, the moon was in the sky nowand in their commingled light, the land no longer looked so appealing. To make matters worse, both Sunset and Twilight’s horns winked out, leaving them staring at each other in dismay. “Something’s gone wrong,” Twilight said, surging to her hooves.
Sunset also rose. “I’m coming with you,” she said firmly. With a grunt of effort, she managed to stuff a few books in her saddlebags. “I was going to say I also got my hooves on some books detailing the history of Equestria. I was going to leave them with you for some light reading, but it seems we might actually need them for more than a midnight binge.”
Twilight nodded. “It’ll be of some help,” she said. “But how the hay are we going to get back to Ponyville? I can’t teleport that far, and the train won’t be quick enough.”
“We’re just going to have to do our best,” Sunset said grimly. “Let’s go.”
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By the luckiest of margins, the unicorns managed to get the one-a-day express straight to Ponyville, where they discovered things had gone very, very badly wrong. Thick black brambles seemed intent on choking the life out of everything, and to make matters worse, all the unicorns in town had lost their magic. In the sky above, Rainbow was trying to corral ominous looking clouds, but they seemed to have a life of their own, taking an almost perverted delight in shocking the cyan pegasus, who finally gave up after taking one too many lightning bolts to the flank. To make matters even worse, not long after Twilight and Sunset arrived, Rainbow's flight gave out, much to Twilight's horror. Luckily Applejack had caught her cyan friend, but her strength seemed to have vanished as mysteriously as Rainbow's flight, and it was a struggle for her not to drop her friend. Twilight felt as if she'd been stunned witless at the sight of her friends' struggles.
“What in the name of Equestria is going on?” She demanded, stunned, as she stared at the carnage. Upon closer inspection, the vines were revealed to be coming from the Everfree Forest, and Twilight was even more shocked to see Zecora, with all her possessions in a wagon, huddling close to the fountain. The zebra shaman lit up at the sight of the purple unicorn, though her face remained sad.
“It is a great sorrow to see, the trouble with the Everfree,” she said sorrowfully. “These black vines have caused me strife, and have made me flee for my life.”
Sunset shook her head. “When did this happen?” she demanded.
“Earlier this evening,” Rainbow piped up, eyeing Sunset cautiously. She shrugged the oddity off. “These freaky clouds appeared and I can’t buck ‘em loose. And Rarity’s magic has stopped working, Fluttershy won’t come out of her cottage, and it seems both princesses have disappeared, if this crazy sky is any indication.” She gestured to her now-useless wings. "And it seems like my flight is on the blink. I can't say anything for anypony else, but if I've lost my flight, all the pegasi in Equestria have suffered the same."
Twilight shut her eyes in pain. “This is all my fault,” she murmured.
“It’s not,” Sunset insisted, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”
Rainbow nodded, feeling warmed at the praise of this strange unicorn. “Of course we will,” she said confidently, striking her usual proud pose.
“For the princesses to disappear is quite grave,” Zecora said. “It seems we have two lives to save.”
“And millions more,” Twilight agreed. “Rainbow, round the others up. Sunset, go find the wooden casket I keep on the topmost shelf of the library, next to the Starswirl section. Spike should be able to help you.” As the two ponies galloped off, Twilight turned to Zecora. “Do you have any idea what might’ve caused all this?” she asked in a low voice.
The zebra shaman shook her head. “These events are all new to me,” she said. “I cannot fathom from where they might be.”
“We’ll find out, one way or another,” Twilight promised, her voice grim. “And I know just the creature to ask.”207Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx7DJhgpOeV
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