"Yeah." She trots forward. "Yeah."
I follow her through, and… Looks like she didn't clear away the conjured ropes she used to bind Twilight. Sunset's horn glows as she points it at the inscriptions trapping the Earth 16 end of the portal in place, a ripple of power washing over it.
"There. One to one. Circe will only be out by about a minute."
Much better. No need to worry about disappearing for days or months.
I pick up the remains of the bondage gear in a construct.
"What happened with this? And Twilight's tour?"
"Fifteen to one, remember?" She levitates it out of my construct and places in it a thaumically isolating crate. "I'd barely gotten her untied before we felt Luna's magic through the mirror. I guess I'll… Give Twilight a tour some other time."
At least she doesn't plan to cut all ties to Equestria.
"So.. you're… Alright with Twilight?"
"Yeaah..? It's not like I thought I was Celestia's only student ever or anything. And… If we're right about her planning on using me to help Luna and… She didn't tell Twilight more than she told me… None of this… Was Twilight's fault." She gives her head a small shake. "And I got what I wanted anyway…"
It doesn't feel like you expected it would, does it?
"Anger isn't really rational like that."
"No. No, it's-. She's fine." She snorts quietly. "And maybe I can help open her mind to… Things that Celestia won't teach her."
I nod. "Like bondage."
Well, I don't really think Twilight's into mares... And they only met a day or two ago.
She makes a small horse-splutter noise. "Not according to a rumour I heard-. That was you."
I grin and nod. "Not the bondage part specifically, but I told a few guards that alicornism was sexually transmitted."
Sunset looks at me for a moment, head tilted slightly to the right. "That's… A horribly you thing to say."
Well, he is an incorrigible troll. I doubt that rumour will go away anytime soon, no matter what any of the alicorns say. Just imagine the resurgence if Shining Armour gets upgraded...
"Thank you. And I hope you're not going to have a story about you creeping into Celestia's room with a-."
"No! No, Grayven, that's-. Gross. And… And disgusting and it wouldn't even have worked." She shudders. "Uugh. I feel like I need a shower."
Just on the 'half-plus-seven' scale alone, that's nasty.
"Slight problem with that."
She frowns, then looks down at herself. "I'll just.. use the g-troll shower. They.. have one, right?"
A cubicle design for beings that resemble ten-foot-cubed blocks of muscle? Spacious, certainly.
"Yes, but… Remember we're not actually that tall, just… Bigger than the other ponies."
"Speak for yourself. I think I'm as tall like this as I am as a human."
So, not that tall. Kind of average-sized, really.
We stand in her laboratory for a few moments.
"So… Celestia?"
Get comfy, this could take a while...
She waves her head from left to right.
"I don't.. know..? I don't know what I wanted, I don't know what I was expecting… I don't know."
You never really stopped to think about what came after your successful alicornhood. How..
teenager of you.
I nod, and lay down on the floor.
"Okay, so, what did the two of you talk about?"
"I, um. We.. started with… Just.. the first time I was in the garden. I didn't really remember it. Wasn't really paying any attention to anything that wasn't her."
She does tend to draw all the attention, doesn't she?
"How long ago..?"
"I don't know. A few weeks after I went to live in Canterlot? I grew up on the other side of the country and I was getting a bit overwhelmed with everything. We just.. chatted. Which was weird, because-. We don't exactly deify Celestia, but if you don't live close enough to Canterlot to actually see her, she's kind of…"
"A sort of living myth."
Since you never saw her mundane side. All those things people do when they're alone, or think they are...
Sunset nods. "And not like Superman, or.. you. We don't have TV or radio. We haven't even had colour photography for all that long. And suddenly she's there and talking to me."
"You left your friends behind." She looks at me with an interrogative frown. "When you moved."
I doubt any of them would have gotten into the same school. Not if Sunset was as big a prodigy as everything makes her out to be.
"Oh. Yeah. No one I was super close to, but… Yeah."
I nod. No local friends, not much in common…
Well, that's going into creepy places... I don't want to say 'grooming', but...
"Did the other foals at the school mostly come from Canterlot?"
"Mostly from Canterlot. Canterlot's a mostly-unicorn city, the centre of government and.. the.. second?" She thinks for a moment, then nods. "Second most populous city. It's not that surprising."
Manehattan being the first, of course?
But she was an outsider, and amongst the scions of powerful families she was selected for particular privilege. And she outperformed them all. Would that have discouraged ponies from befriending her, in the early days, before she got out of the habit? Don't know. And it's probably not relevant.
Oh, I suspect that estimation is very, very wrong... I can see resentment being a thing, maybe some social isolation...
"And then?"
"She… Said that she hadn't banished me, and that she just wanted me to get some more experience outside of the palace before I started studying again. And that she was looking for a student because of Luna but that wasn't why she picked me, or why we had the relationship that we did."
Unfortunately, Sunbutt, how was
Sunset supposed to know that? To her, all she saw was an upset mentor and the threat of being sent away from the place that had everything she
needed to achieve her dream...
"Do you believe her?"
"… Yeah. I mean, even if she didn't mean to when she started teaching me, I don't think-. She wouldn't have put up with me as long as she did if-. One it was pretty clear that I wasn't going to be using the Elements."
How can you be sure of that? How do you know she didn't come to care for you for yourself?
"And did hearing that make you feel any better?"
"I don't know-. No. No, it didn't. Because it means that I didn't need to run through the mirror. There are plent of other libraries in Equestria, especially in Canterlot. And I could-. Making friends wouldn't be that bad?"
But you were
upset, and upset teenagers do stupid things...
"Would you have made friends?"
"No." She doesn't hesitate. "I was convinced that Celestia was holding on out me, because she was. I'd have kept looking. And I told her that, and wanted to know why she lied to me. And she-. She said that it was because I wasn't ready. I was sitting there.. as an alicorn, and she was telling me I wasn't ready."
Dammit, Sunbutt... <slow facepalm>
"Huh?"
"Oh, she thinks I cheated. That I found some sort of.. nearly dark magic way around the 'natural'… Healthy way to become an alicorn. I think she wanted me to… I don't know, turn myself back, go back to Equestria and try learning what she was trying to teach me in the first place. And I wanted to know why she thought I'd want to, and she just-. She had no idea why I wouldn't. Like she literally couldn't understand what I was saying. And then I tried asking about all the stuff she obviously got wrong when she was teaching me, all the stuff she-. Should have done differently if she'd wanted me to end up like she said she wanted me to. I mean, if she wanted me to make friends so badly why didn't she say that instead of showing me the Mirror!"
Goddammit, both of you... Do we need Twilight to tie both of you down and make you actually
talk to each other? Because I can see it coming down to the Princess of Friendship taking a personal hand.. er, hoof.
And she's crying, snot running down her muzzle.
"Why-? And then she just-"
I raise my right wing.
"-couldn't understand why I thought she was part of the problem!"
Yep, Grayven is a good father... Or uncle, in this case...
She dives into my side, pressing herself up against me and sobbing into my barrel as I wrap my wing around her.
"Why doesn't she get it?!"
Might need to let her cry herself out, then once she's got herself under control again, start talking about it...
