“So, it sounds like the train is finally going to start running again,” said a pegasus stallion to his unicorn marefriend as Sunset hoofed over a pair of franchise-standard units of coffee.
She refused to use their stupid names unless she absolutely had to, and the privacy of her own head remained her own.
Mostly.
The warmth of the Crystal Heart filling her did make working in customer service almost bearable.
“Just in time for the end of the summit, of course,” the mare said, rolling her eyes. “Doesn’t that seem a little fishy to you?”
“What, that the princesses would insist the train runs for them even if it means worse problems later?” the stallion asked rhetorically as the two of them retreated to a table. “Sounds like business as usual to me.”
Sunset hated jobs like this, but they were a necessity. Under normal circumstances, the opportunity to eavesdrop on ponies was only barely worth having to actually interact with them, but in her withdrawal from scrying Twilight every week, she’d needed something that would be able to hold her attention and keep her from just spending her nights feeding trash to a tiny sun in the abandoned house she was squatting in.
She still did that, of course, but the important part was that she only did it to relax after a long day at work. So long as it didn’t interfere with the rest of her life, nopony could say she had a problem.
“You really believe it’s just ‘mechanical problems’ like they say?” the mare asked, Sunset’s ear swiveling just enough to continue listening.
“Why wouldn't I?” the stallion asked, looking blankly at the mare as they sat down.
“It’s this mare they’re looking for,” she said. “It has to be. It’s too much of a coincidence.”
Unfortunately for the mare’s theory, all the stallion said was, “What mare?”
“Are you seriously telling me you haven’t been stopped in the past week and asked if you’ve seen a unicorn mare with red and gold hair and a two-tone sun cutie mark?”
“Yes?” the stallion stated as if it were obvious. “It can’t be important enough to stop the train over if I haven’t even heard of it. I mean, come on, how does that even make any sense?”
“W—well…” The mare was momentarily dumbstruck as she searched for an answer until finally she had an epiphany. “Obviously they’re trying to keep it quiet. Think about it; that description? She’s gotta be Princess Celestia’s illegitimate daughter—and she’s been foalnapped!”
The stallion nearly choked on his coffee. “W—what?!” he said, scrambling to contain spilled coffee with a hoofful of napkins. “How in Equestria did you get that out of it?!”
“It isn’t obvious?” the mare asked, looking honestly confused as she levitated a new napkin dispenser over from the next table.
“No!” the stallion insisted. “That sounds like the plot of some Pom Prancy novel.”
“A good one, though, right?” the mare asked, hopeful to at least have that.
“There are good ones?”
Sunset was cleaning up her own little accident with the milk foamer as the two went on to argue the comparative merits of several different authors.
Celestia’s illegitimate daughter? How could some random pony off the street come up with that? Sunset wasn’t any stranger to the inane things that people pulled from whole cloth inside their heads, but that was stretching believability.
Really, that ship had sailed a long time ago. If Celestia expected to have an emotional reunion with her where Sunset cried and called her ‘mom,’ it’d be proof that the princess was even more disconnected with reality now than when Sunset had still been her student.
The rest was very interesting, though. She needed to be on that train when it left, so right now she had to plan.
Baffled, Sunset sat quietly just a few seats down from Twilight and the rest of her group. All of her plans had been useless because she hadn’t needed them. She’d just bought her ticket, boarded the train and sat down as if it was just a normal trip.
Part of her was offended, part of her decided that this was to be expected, part of her was suspicious and part of her had a creeping feeling of unease that slowly grew as the train pulled away from the station and began its journey southwest out of the Crystal Empire.
Those last two were both vindicated when the train stopped a few hours into the trip and the princesses started thoroughly searching it, though the fact that both groups essentially skipped the car that they’d started in meant that the first two got their moment as well.
Still, for what might have been the first time since she had come back to Equestria, Sunset was properly nervous. She didn't normally do ‘nervous,’ but she also didn't normally have to sit still and do nothing, hoping that nopony would notice her. There was something else that she couldn’t put her hoof on bothering her, too—enough that when everypony came back disappointed and the train started running again, she didn’t feel nearly as relieved and triumphant as she should have.
Embarrassingly, it took her another few hours to pinpoint where that feeling was actually coming from.
It was her connection to the Crystal Heart, which she had purposefully forged to be wide and shallow and was now peeling away from her the further she got from the borders of the Crystal Empire.
She needed to get out.
She needed to get out right now.
She didn’t make it. Just as she was stepping out into the center path of the passenger car, the train crossed out of the Crystal Mountains and the last small scrap of magic supporting Sunset’s connection to the Crystal Heart vanished.
When that connection then ripped itself free from her heart, Sunset felt like she’d been gutted and a sense of overwhelming loss consumed her, leaving her cold and shaking on the carpeted floor. Through it all, Sunset tried to hold on to any scraps of the Crystal Heart’s magic that she could find, but it was a lost cause. The magic was simply gone and she could already feel her crystal form unraveling.
Not, a small part of her argued, that it mattered because she had already garnered the attention of everypony in the entire passenger car, including Celestia.
“…Sunset?”
Yep. She was boned. Images of magic suppressors and ‘very disappointed’ talks were running through her head when it finally happened—Sunset's crystal body began to crack, crumble and finally shatter with a blinding flash of light, all in the space of a second.
She saw her chance.
While everypony was blinded by the flash of her transformation back into a fleshy unicorn, she powered through the surge of feelings and sensations to follow it up with another flash—a flash of teleportation.
It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that the modern teleportation spell had been made as boring as possible. Sunset’s time in the human world had given her ideas about all the things you could do with conservation of momentum, but unfortunately it didn’t actually work like that. Moving or not, a teleporting pony was always matched to the context of their destination and the difference was added to the effort it took to power the spell.
This was fortunate for Sunset since it meant that all she had to do was teleport fifteen feet to her left and the train was gone in seconds.
It was also unfortunate for Sunset since she really didn’t have it in her to make up that surcharge and having the last of her magic drawn away on top of everything else left her feeling completely hollow. She wasn’t even shaking from the cold that losing her connection to the Crystal Heart had left her with anymore; she just didn’t have it in her to do even that much. If she could just lay there in the dirt beside the train tracks for a while, that would be great.
She couldn’t, though. It simply wasn’t an option. As soon as the princesses realized what she had done, they would stop the train and backtrack. Celestia wouldn’t even bother stopping the train.
Still, they would have a mile or so of track to search. If she could just hide, they probably wouldn't find her and would just assume that she had continued to teleport away.
…
As she struggled to look around, what was left of her heart sank.
There really wasn't much just beyond the hoofhills of the Crystal Empire where a brightly-colored pony could hide.
Somehow, curled up and nestled in the middle of a thin, sparse and thorny bush Sunset Shimmer had managed to escape discovery by the princesses and their ponies—or so she assumed by the time the sun began to set.
Even hours later, she was still feeling tender, brittle and lost in more than just the practical ways. She also felt oddly squishy. She’d never gotten entirely used to being made of crystal, but the sudden change back was just as jarring—far more than the changes she’d undergone from traveling through the mirror.
Of course, part of it was that she had nothing to do but lay there in a bush focusing on the gurgling of her stomach while trying to drown out all the other things she was feeling, because immersing herself in the warmth of the Crystal Heart for a week and then having it ripped away from her like that had left her feeling anything but whole.
“Thank god Celestia isn't here to see this,” she grumbled to herself as she wiped the crust out of her eyes with her hoof. “She might think I had regrets or something.”
No, her heart might be raw and oversensitive from injury and she was no doubt suffering from some form of magical withdrawal, but she would heal and get over it.
And then, once she was feeling like herself again, she would find her way south to the Everfree forest and claim what was hers.
Well, okay, no—she wasn’t actually that delusional. She knew perfectly well what she was doing.
She would find her way south to the Everfree forest and claim what was Twilight’s.
Okay, at first I thought the connection to the crystal heart disguised Sunset by amplifying her desire to hide with its emotion magic. But she got away in a fashion that a remotely competent systematic search should have found her after the connection was broken. Anybody notice any foreshadowing of what else could be hiding her?
Ouch.
... They seriously never checked the car they were sitting in?
They seriously never checked the conspicuous, pony-sized bush in the middle of the tundra?
At this point, there may be something to Sunset's "destiny's on my side" theory. The sheer incompetence of those looking for her is really straining disbelief... assuming anyone's looking. It's entirely possible that they decided to race to the finish line now that she's stranded herself. That sounds very ruthless given Celestia's demonstrated sentimentality, but it's possible she volunteered to look for Sunset while the others went on ahead to reassemble Twilight's power. We'll see where this goes from here.
10467006
From the sound of it lack of public interest for starters. Considering that at least one passenger didn't get asked about sunset, or else someone on the search team is helping sunset considering how poorly put together it was. If nothing more that to sabotage twilight.
tbh I'm rooting for Sunset, but I would not be remotely unhappy if she just ended up back in the Crystal Empire as a Sudo-Crystal Pony. Tbh it sounded like she was really enjoying being one so... possible maybe? Plus Cadence and Sunset interaction which is sure to amuse.
10467293
Is that a typo or a Linux joke?
Pseudo-: A prefix that implies that something is partial, false or fake.
Sudo: A Linux/Unix command for running a given command with administrator permissions
The quality only took a really sharp dive after he died, to be fair.
10466371
Make your inferences from the characters given characterization, not from assumptions you make about background characters. What we see far more strongly suggests that the majority of the unicorn population is ill-served by a school system that caters primarily to the wealthy and well-connected than it does that most unicorns are poor spellcasters. We also see that even that significant leg up (which Twilight got and most ponies don't) isn't insurmountable - Starlight and Star Swirl never had it, and both are by far Twilight's demonstrated superior. Imagine what luminaries are languishing wasted!
10467487
Except for Celestia explicitly stating she had never seen a unicorn with as much raw ability as Twilight during her CSGU entrance exam. Starlight's power level in the show was rammed through by Haber, there's no justification for it at all.
Aw, Sunset, you can't think that way. Twilight's living your life, anything that's nominally hers is rightfully yours.
10467505
Celestia's judgment is not to be trusted. Even if she wasn't straightforwardly lying to boost Twilight's ego, Celestia is not omniscient, nor is she infallible. She is wrong more often than she is right. And the existence of Sunset, Starlight, and Star Swirl (who a far more reliable source definitively rates above Twilight) unequivocally belies her statement.
10467516
Uh huh. So "make your inferences from the characters given characterization" doesn't actually apply to the ones that don't support your idea, got it.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
10467505
You just answered your own statement. Starlight never took that entrance exam and Celestia never met her before.
Celestia doesn't know every unicorn so her saying shes never seen anyone with Twilights raw power means nothing. Just because Celestia has never seen one, doesn't mean their are not any magic users stronger then Twilight.
Within the show itself, it was directly stated that Starswirl is more powerful then Twilight. If their is one, their is very likely others, hence Starlight,.
10467059
Okay. Them not expecting Sunset to look like a Crystal Pony is completely fair. But the rest is completely valid.
Hmmm wait a second I have theory on why Starlight Glimmer hasn’t shown up yet in the story namely that she has or rather her component parts have I believe it is possible that Sunset will succeed in taking the Pegasus and Earth pony magic and then merge/fuse with Twilight forming this story’s Starlight......I am very tired
10467452
I'd like to say I was smart enough to make that joke but no, it was a typo... BUT YES THAT.
10467760
Right, because she was so bad at magic as a foal that Sunburst, one of the canonically weakest casters, was selected ahead of her for the CSGU. And yes, I answered my own statement; Haber rammed it through, nothing more and nothing less. This is known history.
10467972
Or her family couldn't afford it. A prestigious school like Celestias school for magic likely isn't cheap. You could have all the talent in the world you want but if you don't have the bits to pay for it, you are not going to be allowed to learn there, even if you have an acceptance letter.
Not to mention we have seen how her father is. Another reason is that he couldn't possibly let his chipmunk cheeks go that far away, Where he couldn't protect her.
Your obviously just trying to find ways to downplay Starlights character despite the fact there are tons of reason she wouldn't have gone to that school.
10468122
Celestia's*. That's what scholarships are for.
You're*. Starlight's*. Because dismissing anything and everything Celestia, the thousand-plus-year-old ruling monarch, has to say about what she's seen and experienced is rational, including everything she's seen everywhere else in the world outside of the school. This is a pointless argument, and you're ignoring the truth that has been known for years: Starlight was rammed through in multiple ways by Haber that completely flew in the face of all established lore and canon for the show. It's that simple, and there's no point in continuing to point that out to someone who ignores it because they're trying to justify their favorite Mary Sue. You'll just have to be content to agree to disagree.
10468316
No, the geodes came through the crack that Midnight Sparkle made.
(non-native, may be language issues)
The argument of 'this is just author's will', or, as an option 'it's just the toy's merchandise'/'show for kids' is, by definition, unbeatable and therefore cheap. Anyone anytime could just fallback to them, and then any justifications against them would be void.
Starlight is an interesting issue rather than Mary Sue, and justifications of her story (which, of course, is weird as present and leaves much to be desired) are interesting mental exercises rather than just subject of 'she is created by Haber as his toy Mary Sue'.
This latter option just closes the story, which is only good if you hate it. Or her, specifically.
10467487
That's certainly one take on it... but not one I trust coming from you. You'll spin anything against Twilight.
10468431
Scholarships are amazingly difficult to maintain and anyone who says otherwise has never had to deal with them. I was offered scholarships to schools and I would have had to maintain an almost 4.0 GPA for 4 years without anything below a C in any classes. Assuming that is the same in this universe it would most certainly be nearly impossible for any not well off unicorn to essentially not get screwed over.
10467972
That just means later on during her childhood she got good at magic. Just because it doesn't show the exact point she got her cutie mark and became powerful(Which might I add must've taken years of practice by herself) doesn't mean it was just bullshit from Hasbro.
Earlier on in the story there was a passage that said something along the lines of Celestia was 'looking' at Sunset and she froze in fear for a second, before realizing that she was actually looking at Twilight, she then thought "Story of my life, really." Which, even though it is a short sentence, tells us almost everything we need to know about Sunset's time during her studies. We can accurately say that when Luna bashed Celestia for not thinking "Orphaned children need love", that is connected as well. As lets be real here, if it took her THIS long and not even of her own thought processes, it was Cadence's own opinions which even made her conceive of it, we can 100% say that Sunset was neglected as her student. I honestly don't care for any justifications, they could have at least looked into letting Sunset be adopted whilst she was a student. This is just incompetence on Celestia's end for letting that neglect fester for that long.
10605996
Wow. Anyone with any common sense would know that making an extremely broad statement like that is wrong by principle, even before it's wrong by fact. The only possible explanation would be someone using only their personal anecdotal evidence and trying to say that everyone must have the exact same experience as them.
Case in point. Here's the glaring flaw in your reasoning; if it was "nearly impossible for any not well off unicorn" to keep their scholarship, then what is the point of the scholarships in the first place? Scholarships by nature exist to give people with ability and motivation, but lacking the means, the opportunity to acquire a higher education and a degree. If every scholarship recipient kept losing their scholarship and was forced to drop out before graduating, then all of that money would have been wasted every single time because no one who received a scholarship was graduating. Like I said, wrong by principle. And of course, wrong by fact as well. I don't even need to go into my own anecdotal evidence.
10606010
No, you're partially right; that doesn't mean "it was just bullshit from" Haber, even though there's nothing to support your head-canon. Him directly saying so does, however.
And of course, this exchange with Haber as well.
And for clarity's sake, what is a latch-key kid? A kid who comes home to an empty house. Notable effects:
Now, if the story introduces her and gives an explanation for it, that of course takes priority for the setting; that's the nature of fan fiction. Absent that specific circumstance, we already have an explanation.