Maladaptation is a seeping wound. I consider it fortunate that Sunset was resilient enough that she (seemingly) did not develop C-PTSD or other disorders caused by systematic neglect and abuse.
As it stands, this seems to "merely" be a habitual way of thinking: something she can change if she assimilates truth (that they (nobles, tutors, etc) don't want to hurt her so much as it is they feel threatened by her in someway (as likely Twilight's bullies feel threatened on some level by a peer that is surpassing them so badly) or that putting her down provides them with a perceived advantage and that whilst Celestia is her mother Celestia has responsibilities and commitments that were made long before Sunset was even an idea... thus Celestia spending time with her says a lot about how much Celestia does in fact love and value her)
Or Celestia/Candance realizes how deep it goes and conceives of a way to directly teach her otherwise.
I can't recall: can Sunset feel any emotion from Candance either?
If she can't, it maybe that it's a "Harmony" based sense: it works to identify emotions in those insufficiently touched by it. Those who do sufficiently feel its touch (Alicorns) instead are obfuscated by the Harmony.
Good for separating sussy changelings from the real deals at least.
This time, I didn't wake up when my combination blanket and pillow departed. It wasn't because she stayed, though. As I gradually dragged myself up from the depths of slumber, it was to the rather unpleasant realization that the pressure and warmth I now felt wasn't from her. Not directly, at least. I was certain that Celestia had personally enchanted the heated blanket now draped over me, and she had replaced her own presence with a pillow to minimize disturbances.
Even after realizing my nest was a lie, I did have a difficult time grasping for indignation. Letting me sleep in could be considered a kindness even if I would have preferred to accompany her. Plus, she'd done something to my necklace. Rather than merely being imbued with traces of warmth from its original creation, it now radiated power comparable to the gemstone fragment from yesterday. Whether she'd exerted herself almost as much as last night, or if she'd simply fused in a pre-prepared fragment, I didn't know. I certainly hoped it wasn't that first one; going through the day exhausted would only make her slower to finish tasks, and would mean less time for me overall.
I could immediately investigate whatever she'd enchanted my necklace with...
...But if she was trying to replace her presence with the necklace, it was working; I didn't particularly want to move. I had no real ongoing projects save ones throttled by further lessons from other ponies (and Voice), plus one appointment with a dressmaker at an unknown time. I was confident Celestia would arrange for my awakening before I needed to attend.
With all that in mind, I let myself drift back to sleep.
I was awoken by the quiet clattering of dishes rattling against each other, and reluctantly cracked one eye to see what had finally disturbed my sleeping in. The other eye shot open a moment later, my brain demanding confirmation of what my first eye claimed it saw.
Voice had once again changed Her form, this time to a unicorn mare of slightly indeterminate age — I would be hard pressed to say whether She was supposed to be my age or in Her late teens — that I strongly suspected might have been inspired by some of Cadance's magazines. Thankfully, it wasn't based on one of the models imitating Celestia; rather than long and slender limbs, Voice was now more compact and muscular, with a light red mane and an off-white coat thankfully just enough off to keep me from thinking of Celestia when I looked at her.
All that was fine; She was allowed to change Her form however She wanted, even if I would admit that I liked this one much more than the last attempt. The issue was that She seemed to have acted upon Her whim from yesterday, and was wearing a maid uniform. I thought my brain might be breaking a little by looking at Her. Or possibly a lot. The urge to dismiss anypony in that uniform warred with the certainty that dismissing Voice would be an incredible mistake.
"Why," I somehow managed.
Voice preened and bounced around like she was wearing the product of a major fashion line rather than just a Prance-inspired maid uniform that hadn't changed in over a century. Admittedly, She did look quite good in it, but I wasn't sure I should be encouraging this whim by telling Her that. I still couldn't believe that She actually wanted to act like a servant.
"Why not?" She asked, smiling. "I don't need food, but you do. It's not like it took me very long to retrieve your food once I talked my way past the kitchen staff; distances are something that happen to corporeals, remember?"
I blinked slowly, worked through her claim, and sighed. Breakfast in bed was a nice thought, but now it definitely wouldn't happen. I reluctantly levitated Celestia's blanket off of myself, dragged myself out of bed, and stumbled toward the entrance to Celestia's chambers. I almost tore one of her bedroom doors off its hinges while opening it, my magic still not having adequately acclimated after being strengthened by Voice. I would really need to do more control exercises.
One of the two guards standing outside turned his head to look at me, while the other kept her gaze fixed firmly forward.
"I strongly suspect that there might be a ponyhunt on for an 'unidentified intruder disguised as a maid,'" I informed the guard facing me. "Could somepony please inform them that it's a false alarm? The pony responsible is a friend of the Crown, just one who doesn't yet understand how things work around here."
The Royal Guard saluted.
"Of course, Lady Shimmer."
"Thank you," I acknowledged, and closed the door more carefully than I'd opened it.
I turned to face an Outsider who was staring at the curtains of Celestia's bed like they were the most interesting thing she'd ever seen. I wasn't fooled. With the exception of playing with her food last night, Voice had only ever been fascinated by things that were alive. Plus, the very fact that She was looking away at all was something She shouldn't be doing while in that role.
"This is Canterlot Castle, home of Princess Celestia," I stressed, and Voice mechanically looked toward me. "Every member of staff knows with whom they're supposed to be working, and ponies who manage to land a position here usually stay all the way until they retire. Even then, their grandfoals might fill any gaps they left; some families have been serving Celestia for a number of generations in the double digits."
Those were some of the worse ones, in my opinion. They prided themselves on being too professional to fling insults like my tutors had, but a number of them possessed all the arrogance of unicorn nobility; their disdain for me as a lineage-less orphan inevitably shone through no matter how far they buried it beneath politeness. If I had to interact with one of them again, my Voice-prompted attempt to be nicer to 'the help' would be sorely tested.
"Plenty of ponies think the same thing as you and try to disguise themselves as servants on a regular basis, and it never works. I expect the only reason you made it this far is that you skipped whatever squad was waiting somewhere secluded to detain you with a minimum of fuss."
Voice sat down and sheepishly tapped Her forehooves together. Both acts were yet more marks against this hoofmaiden idea.
"I apologize. I thought I would do something nice for you, but did not adequately consider the consequences of trying to infiltrate a group managed by a herd species. This sort of thing usually works."
"Oh, that's not because we're a 'herd species,'" I elaborated. "It's just Canterlot Castle. It likely would have worked in a number of noble estates. I also don't mind, especially since we're alone, but you've done more than three non-verbal actions that a maidservant isn't supposed to do in the last two minutes, completely excluding failures to perform actions that you should be doing."
Voice cocked Her head before going completely still, not even breathing. I watched and waited for some fifteen seconds before worry started to set in, and I wondered if I should be doing something. Just because I couldn't perceive what She was doing did not mean that nothing was happening, though, so I tried to stretch my senses to incorporate more than three dimensions. There were echoes of past actions as I went further, but actually finding anything proved much more difficult.
I was dragged out of the attempt when Voice started moving again, Her body language completely shifting in the process. Eyes went from staring directly at me to looking down, and she deliberately seemed smaller without actually changing her body at all. The subsequent servant-to-superior bow made me outright twitch.
"I apologize for my breach of decorum, Your Grace," Voice said deferentially, clearly borrowing from another pony to make the speech sound natural rather than mostly a monotone. "Do you wish for my replacement, or shall I resume my duties?"
I had to hold back a scream. The dissonance between words that reverberated with power and the docile content of those words was just completely wrong! Her weighty presence compared to Her body language only exacerbated the issue. This was a primordial entity that was supposed to command respect and could squash me like an ant! And here She was acting like I was the superior one! The comforting leftover of Celestia's warmth hanging around my neck was probably the only reason I didn't break then and there.
When I opened my mouth and tried to reply, I couldn't even muster words. Instead, a quiet keening escaped. Voice didn't even break character to laugh at me, although I could swear that I felt a momentary tingling that might have been amusement? I didn't know. Whatever the case, She wasn't moving on, and was still waiting for my answer. It took me well over half a minute to verify that I would not win a contest of patience with an Outsider, and longer still for me to regain the capacity to speak.
"A–Are you sure this is the career you want your pony identity to have?" I squeaked.
I didn't feel another brush of contact even though she was surely amused by my suffering. It might have just been my imagination, or a leftover from my attempts to sense whatever She had been doing.
"Why would I ever wish to stop serving you, Duchess Shimmer?" Voice said, obviously still borrowing from an unknown pony. "Would you like for me to begin serving breakfast? The food may help you recover from your recent hospitalization."
I shuddered at the unspoken threat and implication that she might continue acting like this for an indeterminate period of time. Not even the knowledge that She was technically mildly misbehaving by prematurely elevating my rank helped. If anything, that made it worse; She wouldn't be expected to act this deferential toward 'Lady Shimmer' rather than 'Duchess Shimmer.'
Asking for Her to please stop and go back to behaving normally would be an admission that I couldn't endure the current situation, though. I could even think of it as training if I squinted; I was sure I would be faced with much more disturbing things than an eldritch Trespasser deciding to act like a personal attendant. It was best to learn how to control my reactions now, rather than when I was faced with the alien ways of an ambassador from an unsettling species establishing diplomatic relations with Equestria. Voice would find my reactions amusing rather than offensive, I was sure.
"Please do?" I forced out.
"Of course, Your Grace," Voice promptly replied.
The Outsider began telekinetically removing lids from dishes and precisely arranging a tray for me, her body language still wrong wrong wrong! Despite my intentions to use this as practice for overcoming uncomfortable situations, I had to look away. I'd harbored doubts about this plan before, but the reality proved so much worse.
Oh, Harmony, She's going to be following me and acting like this the whole time, isn't She?
I quietly whimpered and stifled the irrational urge to flee. This was fine. It was just a little aberrant behavior, that's all. Certainly something I should be able to tolerate. I would not let ponies think I was terrified of my own 'hoofmaiden!'
Now now Shimmer, I know it's hard to grasp that the entity with power is acting submissive to you, since you think power should be plain about it and dominating with presence and deed instead of 'hiding behind a mask', but really, sometimes the most powerful position one can have is that of the submissive, just ask Cadance about it, I'm sure she'd be happy to explain.
Loving this, Sunset acting like a petulant child that found out their mom had to get up to go to work after they sneaked into the parent´s bed after a nightmare.
I mean Voice is a powerful entity, this kind of "servant play" is more or less for their amusement, it is not that hard to imagine. Voice must have been on the "POWERFUL ENTITY" side of the "play" a lot of times, playing the servant should be different enough to provide some amusement. It´s why we play RPGs honestly. I can see why she would be disturbed by it, but I think I understand why Voice would enjoy it. It´s not like it is really anything hard for Voice, pretty sure they do not even posses the concept of fatigue, keeping her anchor fed and happy via mundane means should be trivial.
Bwahahaha! Poor Sunset. And as to misunderstandings, if Voice continues true to form, she'll be a different pony every day - maybe to the extent of sometimes a unicorn and sometimes a pegasus, or maybe just subtly refining her appearance to determine Sunset's preferences (as seems to be the current case - though whether Voice truly understands all the implications of what she's doing, who knows).
So. Does Sunset have a hidden fan club, all of which somehow have extensive service training that she somehow sneaked into the castle? Or (gasp!) maybe the maid is a changeling. Does that mean the changeling has managed to fool Sunset and Cadance and Celestia, despite never being the same pony twice? Or that the changeling is somehow controlling them?! Or maybe it's just Princess Celestia being too nice and deciding that even changelings deserve a chance?
"Second changeling infiltrator" to give the first one desperately needed infiltration training when?
(Yes, I'm sure something completely different than this will happen. It's an amusing thought, regardless.)
Clearly, her so-called Special Somepony was really a magical construct created by Celestia to keep Sunset under control! Finally, Sunset had an explanation for all those little oddities that she had been willing to overlook initially, but no longer!
(They're actually a changeling who was wondering where it all went wrong, and whether Queen Chrysalis previously offended more goddesses than just the one; why aren't changelings ever allowed happiness?)
Changeling: *uses emotion sense to tune behavior for best reactions, and eats their own emotions too because free food*
Sunset: In the words of earthpony philosopher Marble Pie, "if your special someponey is too perfect, it's probably a magical construct made to get you to be a productive member of society!" I know that's you Celestia!
Changeling: *confused confusion/terror)
Second Changeling Infiltrator being element of kindness because inducing good feelz be how changelings roll
Second Changeling Infiltrator being utterly baffled by the interpersonal relations in the palace "What gives? I thought we were supposed to be the monsters in foal's closets!!!"
Hmm I'm trying to imagine the most out there way someone could misinterpret this situation. The first that comes to mind is if people notice Sunset's fear of her hoofmaiden alongside some general "improvement" in her behavior and jump to the conclusion that Voice is actually more of a governess in disguise hired to keep Sunset in line when her mother wasn't around to do it.
