Chapter 8: Insecurity Singularity
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
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AN: Enabled and beta-read by @ensou. There's been some speculation thinking that Voice has been mind-controlling/"adjusting" Sunset. Beyond Voice's "I barely exist" trick, the answer to that is no.
Sunset Shimmer
My dark satisfaction dwindled as I was left alone with my thoughts. I slowly realized that my subconscious might've been mad at me and secreting guilt not necessarily because I was mean to Cadance, but because I had willfully done the exact opposite of what Voice had asked me to do. Cadance wasn't supposed to matter. Voice did, and I had agreed to try to mend bridges.
Judging by how I hadn't been reduced to a puddle of viscous goo or a parasprite, Voice wasn't too angry with me. But I couldn't register Her in my room, and my thoughts kept trying to skip past Her existence in order to dwell on the likely consequences of tearing into Cadance. In a very real sense, I was at Cadance's mercy; if she went crying to Celestia, the Princess would definitely be very displeased with me. I wasn't sure what consequences she would inflict, but I was sure that I wouldn't like them. Perhaps hooves-on community service without magic allowed — or, no, she knew by now that I would disobey such a dumb restriction. Possibly something for which magic was impractical, then, even if I couldn't think of any such task off the top of my head.
When I tried to avoid thinking about the possibility of impending consequences that I couldn't escape, my mind kept drifting back to the last few moments before her retreat. I'd been satisfied back when she looked small, weak, and unhappy, but the moment I actually heard her misery, my brain suddenly decided that I had done something wrong. Why? Sound shouldn't have been any different than sight.
I huffed, rolled onto my belly, and opted to simply go back to reading — now with the aid of items Cadance had brought. Staring at them just made me wonder at something I'd somehow overlooked, though: why had she been the one to bring them? A normal messenger would have done just fine. Oh, I was well aware that ponies would visit friends and family in the hospital, but I wasn't either of those to her. Before I'd told her to sit down, she'd even planned to simply complete her delivery and promptly leave.
Was it an extension of her refusal to ask subordinates to complete tasks like a real princess? It was probably that, wasn't it? Or perhaps a combination of 'not wanting to ask them to do their jobs,' and simple habits. She had never brought any friends back to the castle, yet it would surprise me if that meant she didn't have any. She was a princess, after all, and that meant ponies trying to have her use her position for their benefit. Even when they weren't trying to leech off Cadance's status as a princess, friends would necessitate wasting time on mandatory social obligations, like visiting them when they did something reckless and got hurt.
"Write: 'Ask Cadance why she bothered visiting.' End," I instructed my new quill, and willfully pushed Cadance from my mind in order to continue my study of especially energetic explosive spells.
I expected the worst when my door unceremoniously opened perhaps two hours later, the pony on the other side not even bothering to knock. It wasn't a disapproving Princess Celestia who stood in the doorway, though. Instead, Cadance pushed her way inside, eyes visibly bloodshot from recent tears, and kicked the door shut behind her. The poor thing rattled in its frame, but remained intact.
Definitely going in tomorrow's tabloids.
Even if Cadance managed to hold herself together until she was somewhere private, the physical and psychological aftereffects were pretty obvious. Cadance hadn't slammed doors since the first few months where she adapted to her new post-ascension strength, and even if my room remained private, the rest of the floor very much wasn't. At least one member of the hospital's staff would have seen or heard it, and I would be shocked if they didn't subsequently gossip with great enthusiasm.
"Here to yell right back at me?" I halfheartedly accused.
"No," Cadance said flatly, and trotted toward me. "I can't believe we've been screaming past each other this whole time."
She unceremoniously dropped atop the cushion beside my bed and stuck out a hoof as though expecting me to give it a friendly bump.
"Let's start over. Hi. I'm Cadance, a former abandoned pegasus from a cozy little village who happens to agree with you when it comes to being ascended when other ponies weren't."
Excuse me?
I could have gaped at her, but was too busy trying to make sense of her actions. She—what? Since when? And if she agreed, why hadn't she done anything about it?
"Everypony expects me to know what I'm doing already," she continued, "and I don't. I really, really don't. I've been spending my time helping normal ponies so that I don't muck up responsibilities I am not even remotely prepared for, and largely just hope that everypony will forget that I'm supposed to be a princess if I keep a low enough profile. It seems to be working so far. I'm sure that you would consider most of what I've been doing to be a waste of time, but I did meet the sweetest little unicorn filly whom I still foalsit. I think even you would like her."
I might have rolled my eyes if I wasn't still frozen. Just because I wasn't going to be cruel to foals did not mean I liked them. Oh, I didn't dislike them either, but I didn't understand how parents could bear to sink so much time and attention into raising them. The idea of no longer having the time to pursue my own Special Talent for magic was a horrifying one.
"I do doubt that," I said, affecting a flat tone to avoid giving away any of my confusion. "Furthermore, you are sorely mistaken if you think confessing your willful incompetence is supposed to win you favor with me."
Cadance slumped and hung her head, withdrawing her hoof.
"Bear with me, please," she begged.
I rolled my eyes, but obliged. I had plenty of practice with acting irreverent regardless of how I might feel on the inside.
"Hi, Cadance," I drawled. "I'm Sunset Shimmer, alleged personal student of Princess Celestia whom she barely had time for before some random ex-pegasus mare showed up, and effectively threw aside altogether when said alicorn did appear. I qualify as an archwizard despite being younger than almost everypony else to ever hold the title. I find it very frustrating that the Princess has, until literally this week, held me against the impossible imaginary standard of a mare who, as I suspected, hasn't even been trying. I'm still not sure if I've finally met Princess Celestia's standards or if she's acting weird for other reasons.
"I recently gave up on Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns altogether when they complained about my method of passing my midterms, and the resulting damage to the school. I subsequently tried to challenge the faculty for an early graduation. Celestia vetoed this even though the rule is — or was — still on the books, plus nearly all of the professors surrendered on the spot. I could have easily passed whatever paltry challenges the rest tried to pose — although they seemed to think it was a combat challenge? I'm honestly amazed they jumped to that conclusion, the Princess would never have allowed any such rule. Idiots.
"Officially, the latter half of my recent spring semester was occupied with 'personalized instruction' under Princess Celestia, and she originally insisted that I would need to go back in the fall even though it would be a total waste of time. I'm not sure if her stance on that has changed now that my successful summoning of Voice has proven just how far ahead of the curriculum I am.
"Thanks to Princess Celestia's stonewalling, I misunderstood how alicorns are made and summoned a Visitor from Outside, but that still seems to be working out pretty well for me. I was the uncontested most powerful unicorn of my generation even before summoning Voice, and now I'm definitely the strongest unicorn alive. With Voice's help completing the remaining ascension requirements, which she apparently can't tell me about without sabotaging the process, I expect to trade up from that title within the next decade.
"I think this reintroduction business is stupid as we can't simply discard our preexisting emotional impressions, especially when you just admitted that you would rather hide and be content in mediocrity instead of actually even trying to earn anything you've been given."
The accusation didn't earn even flattened ears like it normally would. Instead, Cadance was tapping her forehooves together thoughtfully.
"I mean, you say it's stupid, but I certainly learned a lot," Cadance disagreed without heat.
"And none of it matters," I coldly told her. "You already knew of my expertise with magic. All else is irrelevant for the purposes of tutoring you."
"What if I just want to get to know you as a pony?" Cadance somehow managed to ask with a straight face.
"Tough. I am trying very hard to be civil, but I still hate you," I hissed. "Get to the point where you aren't a complete embarrassment to your station. Then we'll talk."
Cadance rolled her eyes and started lifting her saddlebags off her back, apparently intending to settle down for lessons after all. I was a little irked that she simply presumed that we would be starting right now, but not annoyed enough to actually stop her. She was right: focusing on somepony else would be preferable to reading through a magic book while unable to use magic.
"You know what? I think I will."
It was a pretty sentiment, but I strongly doubted she would actually want to put the work in. Very few ponies did.
Words are cheap. Follow up or shut up.
Cadance set the bags down on the floor beside her, and started to reach to open them.
"Stop," I said firmly, and Cadance teetered precariously for a moment before regaining her balance. "You can use your wings for writing for the first two weeks, but after that I'm making you do it entirely with levitation. Starting immediately, though, you're using levitation for everything else that you would normally use your wings, hooves, or mouth for."
Cadance's alarm and surprise faded in favor of incomprehension and irritation.
"Why? My hornwriting is almost unreadable, and no matter what unicorn supremacist–"
"I'm not one of them," I snapped. "Even if you were an absolute master of using your wings — I actually met one such pegasus recently and she was inspirational–"
Cadance's eyebrows shot up, keen interest dominating her expression as she stared at me speculatively. I chose not to mention the part where that 'pegasus' was actually a transformed Celestia. Knowing Cadance, she would waste time being nosy and trying to search for a pegasus that only half existed.
"–I would still make you use your horn," I finished. "It's something that teachers and tutors sometimes do for unicorns with pegasi or earth pony parents, and is similar to what pegasi do for ground-bound pegasus foals. Force full immersion and you'll be very incentivized to improve your levitation abilities in a hurry. Also, it gives me a far larger sample size for knowing where and when you're doing something wrong, and by extension, how you can improve."
The last traces of indignation fled from Cadance's features as my explanation continued.
"You're taking this considerably more seriously than I expected," she admitted.
I snorted and rolled my eyes.
"I'm not you."
"Uncalled for," Cadance objected, but she seemed more resigned than indignant.
"I'm also not Princess Celestia," I added, just to make a point. "I sincerely hope you weren't just thinking that we would practice for an hour or so a few times a week. You fled your other tutors, and Celestia is as busy as always, so congratulations: we have plenty of time for you to practice until even an alicorn's magic is exhausted."
Also, the sooner I fulfill the relevant teaching criteria, the sooner I can start learning and using spells from the Chain of Knowledge.
"I do have other obligations," Cadance halfheartedly protested.
"Like, what, foalsitting?" I scoffed. "That won't interfere. You're at a foal's level of magic proficiency, so I can just teach both you and this unicorn you like at the same time. Maybe a foal doing better than you will encourage you to actually get off your flank and study properly."
Cadance winced with flattening ears.
"Okay, that one actually hurt a little."
"Good."
"Especially because I genuinely would not be surprised if she did better than me–"
"You should be. That's just pathetic."
This time, interrupting her did finally manage to earn some measure of annoyance.
"I meant because I think she might be on your level of 'terrifyingly brilliant.'"
I waved one hoof dismissively despite a flicker of internal enjoyment at the compliment. At least she noticed even if Celestia doesn't care.
"If she's at the age where she still needs a foalsitter, that's much too early to tell no matter what some overly proud parents might claim to inflame their own egos. Frankly, I'll just be happy if she doesn't waste multiple months of her life learning levitation when she could do so in a fraction of the time. Some teachers in magic kindergarten went there because anypony older would call them out for teaching wrong."
Cadance sighed, wrinkled her muzzle, and suppressed whatever objections she obviously had. After a few seconds of hesitation, her horn sputtered out a weak glow and she started painstakingly opening her saddlebags using levitation alone.
It was good that I didn't have to remind her not to use her wings, but aside from that, she truly was a disgrace; she kept trying to pick up entire saddlebags altogether rather than simply manipulating the flaps, which said a great deal about her methodology. There was a reason that I so often preferred to call a unicorn's telekinetic levitation simply 'telekinesis' instead; the two parts of the name might be interchangeable in public discourse, but too many ponies got the wrong idea when using the more popular 'levitation.' Admittedly, I had fallen into old habits and used the wrong term multiple times so far.
Even with all her fumbling, though, it still took her less than two minutes to retrieve a notepad, pencils, multiple colors of crayon, quills, ink, and a small pile of rocks and weights. I would begrudgingly admit that she came prepared. Really, if she kept that up, I might be the unprepared one and that would simply be unacceptable.
"First of all," I started, and felt strangely gratified to see her actually paying attention. "You need to stop trying to treat whatever you're trying to lift as though they're absolute units. Your magic is as fine a manipulator as your wings, and while targeting entire objects can be a useful shortcut, you're currently using it as a crutch. If you have a book you don't or shouldn't care about, we'll start by having you turn pages individually; otherwise, a stack of parchment will do for today..."
Apparently, I wasn't the only pony who performed well when fueled by sheer spite. Cadance's performance still belonged back in magic kindergarten, but she was indeed making progress. Some progress. She might not have verbally disagreed with me, but she did seem to have trouble following instructions. I soon resorted to making her levitate two items at once just to get her to accept that she was doing it wrong. The two hapless volunteer rocks dipped and bobbed in her grip, and occasionally, lurched toward the ceiling as though they wished to throw off the shackles of gravity and join the Moon in the skies above.
"You're still treating your magic like it's a ball at the end of a string. Stop it," I ordered. "Your magic is a part of you, and just because it's separated from your body doesn't mean that changes. You don't need the 'string,' and keeping it increases the difficulty of what you're doing by an entire order of magnitude. You are essentially trying to not only levitate the rocks, but also maintain an unnecessary signaling pathway while you're at it."
The glow around the two stones flickered. A moment later, it died altogether and left them to clatter loudly to the ground. Cadance gave an unhappy huff, but at least restrained herself from glaring at me, only the rocks in question.
"You say it's still a part of me, but I can't feel it after I cut it off like that."
I narrowly kept myself from snapping out, 'so, what, you want to give up already?' It was easy to push away my hatred when we were busy, but every time she started to flounder, I had to resist the urge to just let her self-destruct and stay as incompetent as she always was. If I actively sabotaged her like that, though, then what would that say about me? That I could only catch up to her if I wasn't playing fair? Cadance was the one who was given everything she hadn't earned; I, however, would do it properly if it was the last thing I did.
I took a deep breath, forced my anger back down, and focused on helping rather than hatred.
"That's because you're thinking of it as being cut away," I explained behind a fake mask of calm. "You don't need to maintain a material connection in order for that connection to exist. Unearned or not, it's your magic now. Much of how Princess Celestia managed to successfully suppress the knowledge of magic-draining spells is that, if such theft is done clumsily, you can still feel your own magic days later. It's as much a part of you as your own blood — and indeed, I used the inherent connection to even separated blood while summoning Voice."
The sputtering glow around Cadance's horn winked out, and the alicorn jerked to stare at me with wide eyes.
"This ritual of yours was blood magic?" she asked, using the same tone of voice that she might if I'd said it involved eating meat.
"Only by technicality, and all the blood was my own," I dismissed. "Blood was not required, but you know how powerful Voice is. Think of Her arrival as dropping a boulder in the middle of a pond. The ripples could wash away diffuse magic, but my blood acted as a shoreline for the waves to leave relatively unscathed. There were other benefits, too, but they are beyond the scope of what you will understand if I explain before you are much more advanced in magic."
"…I'm going to choose to ignore that for the sake of my own sanity," Cadance decided, and turned her attention back to the rocks before I could retort. "So—it's like the love between ponies. Their bonds usually don't possess physical substance, but those bonds still exist even when they're at opposite sides of Equestria."
"If that helps you understand it, certainly," I agreed.
Cadance nodded, features hardening, and glared at the two stones before her. Cyan glows uncomfortably similar to the color of my own magic overtook both. Within seconds, they started to rise upward at a glacial pace — and then shot straight up into the ceiling, cascades of light rippling out from the twin points where they slammed against defensive warding and broke into a hail of smaller rock shards that I had to close my eyes to avoid. I didn't expect either to have especially depleted the charge of said wards, but I still scribbled a discreet note to recharge them later. They would likely be significantly more depleted if Cadance kept accidentally attacking them.
Fortunately, my room had a built-in exception to magical discharges from the inside. It would be exceedingly annoying if I set off an assault alarm every time an experiment proved more energetic than anticipated.
By the time I judged it safe to open my eyes again and look at Cadance, it was to find the alicorn half-hunched and looking away, clearly expecting condemnation.
"Oops?" Cadance said meekly.
I made a mental note to compile more comparisons between magic and interpersonal relationships. It made perfect sense that those would be what worked for her; her Special Talent was something akin to "love," and was that which she best understood and adored. Frame magic in the right way, and the similarity to her preexisting expertise and interests would make visualization and progress multiple orders of magnitude easier.
"As much as I would love to let your ineptitude encourage you, that was actually better than your previous attempts," I informed her. "Try again, but without keeping all the power that you had previously dedicated to your signaling pathway."
Cadance gradually relaxed, nodded, and retrieved a new pair of stones from her pile. A few seconds later, and her horn lit as she exerted her will once more. At first, they just rolled across the floor rather than properly lifting, but they lurched into the air before too long.
They didn't stay there. Within seconds, Cadance lost her grip on one of them while the other lurched up to compensate. Still, any progress at this stage was good. Or at least, it would be if she actually kept at it. Instead, she carefully set the other rock down and turned to face me, frowning. I braced myself for infuriating whining about how hard it was.
"Would you be willing to help if I asked Aunt Celestia to open an investigation into your old tutors?"
It took a moment for the meaning of Cadance's words to register in my brain. At that point, I didn't even try to stop myself from gaping at her. I'd known Cadance made for a crummy princess, but really? Even I knew better, and I disagreed with Celestia on most aspects of how she wielded her authority. You wielded personal power to get back at ponies who slighted you, not the power of the state.
"Cadance, you can't just — abuse your title to prosecute ponies that you don't like," I told her, utterly flabbergasted and amazed that I had to tell her this. "Not that blatantly, at least. I don't know if you're using me as an excuse to get back at your own tutors, but either way, it isn't illegal to be mean to other ponies."
"In this case, it very specifically is," Cadance disagreed, expression darker than I'd ever seen on her. "They used their positions of authority to insult and belittle at least one of their young charges, and I'm willing to bet plenty more. That's foal abuse, Sunset."
I wasn't outstandingly familiar with the term, but from what I could remember from the odd newspaper article–
"They never laid a hoof on me, Cadance," I told her irritably. "One etiquette tutor did like snapping a ruler near my hooves, but she was careful to avoid contact. Besides, even if they were terrible at teaching, they did induce me to excel and prove them wrong out of sheer spite. That means they have an excuse for their actions, and on top of that, I'm already aware of how other ponies view me. Any 'help' I provide to your 'investigation,' ponies will just view as me trying to get petty revenge and think even worse of me."
Really, why in Equestria did I have to be the one to tell her this? Stupid lessons on what we weren't allowed to do to ponies were some of Celestia's favorite subjects!
"You're — only half wrong," Cadance reluctantly admitted, and sighed. "Okay. We'll keep you out of it, don't worry."
Implying that she was still going to ask Princess Celestia to lean on them. At least she was back to selectively ignoring parts of what I'd said; given how well her lesson had been going, I was beginning to worry.
…You know what? If she wanted to be the one to argue with Celestia for a change, I wasn't going to stop her. Maybe Celestia would be a bit more willing to overlook my perceived flaws if she started noticing similar traits in her precious Cadance.
"At least broach the subject with Princess Celestia when other ponies aren't around, please," I requested. "I don't want anypony to know what inspired you to—why are you looking at me like that?"
Cadance blinked and promptly looked away, coloring with embarrassment.
"Nothing, sorry. I was the one being weird."
"It's because I said 'please,' isn't it?" I accused. "I told Voice that being more polite would be a waste–"
"No, no!" Cadance yelped, jerking her gaze back to me and frantically waving her hooves. "It was a welcome surprise, not a bad one! You, um—you want ponies to realize you're acting differently, don't you? I noticed! In a good way!"
I continued squinting suspiciously for several seconds, but was ultimately forced to admit that she was probably telling the truth. If ponies acted surprised when I started acting differently, that just meant that they were noticing instead of taking it for granted. That had to be a good thing, right? It would force them to reevaluate and help me overcome whatever preexisting ideas of me they harbored in their thick skulls.
"Whatever," I grumbled. "Get back to work. You're a much better student than I expected when you aren't getting distracted."
Left unsaid was this had been due to rather catastrophically low standards. That wasn't the way Cadance interpreted my words, which aligned with my expectations. Her overall reaction, though? That exceeded them by a large margin. The pegasus lit up and gave me a smile that I could feel the warmth of, the alicorn's joy mingling with her overflowing magic until she was acting as a living radiator.
I once again had to fight to keep from gaping. Why did my opinion matter to her? We hated each other — or rather, I hated her and she said that she disliked me. Either way, she shouldn't have anywhere near this strong of a reaction to what I thought!
"Thank you!" Cadance chirped. "You're a pretty good teacher when you aren't sniping at everypony, too."
I'm still sniping at yo—wait.
I narrowed my eyes at the seemingly-oblivious alicorn, who had promptly returned her attention to levitation practice as soon as her compliment was delivered. Maybe a positive reputation was good for something after all: I genuinely couldn't tell if her words were backhoofed or sincere.
I'm watching you, 'Princess of Love.'
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