Twilight was sitting in the dirt with her legs folded neatly under her, mountains and cliffs and crags surrounding her basically anywhere she looked. She closed her eyes and breathed softly in and out, trying to connect with her soul and the magic within it.

But nothing doing.

It’d been this way since she’d woken up in the Underworld, but it was still a hard thing to accept that her magic was just gone, especially since she still showed no signs of becoming a monster.

So Twilight would keep trying, at least for a little bit longer.

“How’s it goin’, hot stuff?” Sunset Shimmer asked, interrupting Twilight’s meditation not only with her obnoxious question but also by putting her hand on Twilight’s head and ruffling her neatly kempt mane.

“Do you mind?” Twilight hissed, slapping Sunset’s hands away and straightening her hair and glasses. “I’m trying to meditate and see if I can connect with my magic.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sunset sat in front of Twilight, legs crossed, the bulge in her shorts immediately gathering Twilight’s attention before the purple mare’s cheeks blushed and her eyes quickly darted away from it, her hands pressing down onto her tightly closed thighs to make sure she wouldn’t have her own bulge to deal with.

It was something that drove Twilight up the wall in the brief time she had known Sunset; for all the demon’s numerous character flaws and obnoxious personality traits, Twilight really couldn’t deny— no matter how desperately she tried to— that Sunset was hot.

“It’s never gonna happen, of course,” Sunset griped. “Even you’ve gotta realize that by now.”

“I won’t know unless I try,” Twilight said, trying to ignore Sunset and closing her eyes.

“You’ve been trying,” Sunset said flatly, “for the last two days.”

“Well unless you have any better ideas—”

“I do actually!”

“—that don’t involve stealing magic from other monsters.”

“Uhh, hm,” Sunset tapped her lips, and Twilight just rolled her eyes and groaned, evoking an obnoxious laugh from Sunset. “Come on, Twilight, that’s just how things are down here. We gain magic by destroying other monsters and taking it from them.

“And hey, if you’re a soft marshmallow who’s uncomfortable with the ‘destroying’ part, you don’t have to. You just gotta beat ‘em into submission until they’re too weak to resist, and then you just suck it outta them. Like drinking soda from a straw.

“Honestly, that’s how most monsters do it. Lotta folks down here see a living monster as more valuable than a dead one, since you can keep draining magic from a hostage, but not a corpse. So if you have the resources to keep a captive—”

“I refuse,” Twilight said sternly. This wasn’t something that was up for debate with her. “And I don’t want you killing anyone either.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sunset dismissively waved Twilight off. “I already said I wouldn’t.”

Sunset didn’t like to disclose much about herself, not really a surprise considering the thick wall of irony she built between herself and everything she interacted with. She refused to share details of her mysterious quest with Twilight, only promising that it was nothing that a Paladin would object to.

Twilight, naturally, didn’t trust a word that came out of her mouth. But Sunset did promise she wouldn’t kill on Twilight’s watch, and as long as she stuck to that promise, Twilight decided that she would trust her, at least somewhat.

“Honestly,” Sunset scoffed, “if you’re not willing to kill monsters, you’re not a very good Paladin, are you?”

Twilight didn’t respond.

How many times had she heard that before? How many times did she need to be reminded that monsters’ lack of souls meant they weren’t people anymore, and they needed to be killed ‘for their own good’?

How many of Twilight’s colleagues looked down on her and believed she only got her spot as Celestia’s star pupil because of nepotism? How many times had Twilight wondered if that really was true?

Too many.

But now wasn’t the time for such thoughts, so Twilight stood to her hooves, but a stone chipped underneath her hoof and caused her to lose her balance, but Sunset bolted up like a shot and grabbed Twilight’s hand, helping her keep her footing.

“You need me to carry you, princess?” Sunset snarked.

“I need you to not act like such a neg,” Twilight spat back, Sunset reacting with seemingly genuine surprise at the harshness of Twilight’s response.

“Well, okay, uh, anyway,” Sunset cleared her throat. “These cliffs are craggy as shit and they suck, let’s head back down and cover some more ground, huh?”

“You alright there, Sunset?” Twilight asked teasingly; she was surprised that her comment actually seemed to crack through that dense shell of irony Twilight was talking about earlier.

“Yeah, sure,” Sunset looked back at Twilight and stuck out her tongue. “It’s just if I have to keep sitting here with nothing to do but stare at your sexy thighs while you meditate, I’m gonna go feral.”

“Can you think of anything other than sex?” Twilight groaned.

“I wasn’t thinking about sex,” Sunset laughed, “I was thinking about your thighs!”

As Twilight slunk through the murky water of a narrow river path— cliffs, shrubbery, and gravestones suffocating her on either side— she was beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t take up Sunset’s offer to carry her. The water definitely didn’t feel good on her hooves, that much was for sure.

“Y’know, I told you a lie before,” Sunset said, not looking back at Twilight as she led her through the river path. “Well, not a lie exactly, but I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

“Oh? Do tell,” Twilight said cautiously; she supposed Sunset at least got some credit for coming clean now.

“I told you the only way to get magic was by taking it from other monsters,” Sunset explained. “That’s not entirely true, but I’m not sure the whole truth will actually help you at all. But I’ll tell you anyway, cuz I’m cool like that.” Sunset turned around and flashed a bright smile, giving Twilight a wink for good measure.

“I’m all ears,” Twilight said flatly; curious about Sunset’s information, but annoyed as always by the way she chose to deliver it. “Any information is good information, if you ask me.”

“There’s magic in the land itself,” Sunset said, stopping to turn around and give Twilight her full attention. “The Underworld is ruled by its Empress. Even on the surface you know that, right?”

“That’s right,” Twilight nodded. “Empress Nightmare Moon. She’s the reason why ponies’ souls are stolen during the night and they become monsters.”

“Right,” Sunset sighed and leaned against the craggy wall beside her. “And that much is true enough, but what’s important here is that the magic of all those stolen souls? Souls that have been amassing for a thousand years? That’s an awful lot of magic. Too much for even the Empress to handle.

“It seeps out into the earth, in every speck of dust and stone, even as far out from the Empress’ domain as the First Circle. Obviously it’s pretty slim pickings out here, but you get the idea.”

“So why can’t I just take magic from the land?” Twilight asked. “Why would I need to take from others? Why does anyone?”

“Cuz, you can’t just take it straight from the land,” Sunset explained, pointing two fingers at Twilight, who decided to sit down for the moment on top of a coffin next to Sunset Shimmer. “Try picking up a rock and absorbing the magic out of it, you can’t. What you can do is craft spells that will absorb the magic for you.

“Well, you can’t, cuz you don’t have magic in the first place, which is why I figured this info wouldn’t help you.”

“Hmm,” Twilight pondered, the gears in her head turning. “So monsters craft spells to absorb magic, but those spells cost magic, so it’s a puzzle to figure out the optimal amount of magic you can gather for the lowest cost.”

Twilight let herself have a little laugh; a puzzle like this couldn’t have been more up her alley.

“Thank you, Sunset Shimmer,” Twilight smiled at Sunset, who responded by darting her eyes away and scratching her cheek. “I think this information will actually be quite invaluable.”

Twilight still had a small saddlebag full of tools that she could call upon, just like with her lance and shield; as long as the enchantment was on the item itself and didn’t require Twilight to use any magic of her own, she was still in luck, and she was fairly certain she could craft a few makeshift spells using whatever was in her bag if she had the proper time.

In fact, she was fairly certain she could make the proper time even during their little trek. There was a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of time to do it in…

“See? I can be nice sometimes,” Sunset chuckled proudly, tugging at her jacket.

“You can,” Twilight stood up and looked Sunset in the eye for a sec, before looking away cuz ew eye contact. “I wish you would be nice more often. We don’t need to have this dynamic where you say something obnoxious and I give you a hard time for it, y’know?”

“Hey, if you wanna give me a hard time, the—”

“You see, this is the exact thing I’m talking about,” Twilight groaned in disgust, shoving Sunset away.

“Look, we just have a working relationship,” Sunset shrugged. “It’s not like we’re friends or anything, and quite frankly I don’t want to be friends. All I need is your soul, and that’s that. So all of your whining about my awful personality is falling on deaf ears.”

“Mm,” Twilight muttered, uninterested in hearing yet another of Sunset’s irony poisoned defense mechanisms. “Then let’s get a move on.”

Twilight stepped over a gnarled tree root to find herself at the peak of a cliff, looking down over… a whole lot of not much, quite frankly. Everything in the First Circle looked the same to her; stone ruins, massive cliffs towering over white abysses that led to stars knew where, and dirt. A whole lot of dirt.

Every time Sunset led them up a cliff, Twilight hoped that this would be the time that something different was on the horizon, but no. More dirt. Again. forever.

“You see that?” Sunset pointed to something on the horizon, and Twilight just sighed.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“The structure in the distance, the one built into the cliff across that stone bridge,” Sunset explained, and sure enough Twilight saw what she was describing. “That’s our destination. That structure will take us to Paradise.”

“You still haven’t explained what ‘Paradise’ means,” Twilight said, as the two made their slow descent down the cliff face, Twilight taking extra care to avoid the hideous tree roots that coiled themselves around every inch of the cliff. If she tripped again she’d have to endure more of Sunset’s sass and she’d had quite enough for one day.

“It is what it is,” Sunset said unhelpfully. “You’ll see it when we get there.”

Ominous.

Twilight kept going down the cliff, and because her eyes were on her hooves to make sure she didn’t trip, she didn’t see Sunset’s hand sticking out until she bumped right into it, Twilight looking to see that Sunset had a steely glare on her face.

Sunset pointed to something on the horizon, and before Twilight could inform her that she couldn’t see whatever Sunset was pointing at, a red glow shone from Sunset’s horn and suddenly Twilight found her eyes laser focused on Sunset’s target.

It was a band of six monsters; werewolves specifically.

“Here’s a chance for you to get some magic, Twilight Sparkle,” Sunset said. “Take it or leave it?”

“Leave it,” Twilight replied immediately. “I told you, I’m not interested in taking magic from monsters, and I’d prefer to avoid unnecessary conflict.”

“Alright,” Sunset shrugged, with an oddly smug smile on her face. “Have it your way, princess.”

And so, Twilight followed Sunset down the cliff in relative silence. Which was just as well, as far as Twilight was concerned. It was impossible for her to tell the time of day just by looking at the dreary grey ‘sky’ above, but Twilight had an inkling that the lights would be going out in just a couple hours, and Twilight’s patience for Sunset’s acerbic personality tended to thin the longer the day went on.

Sunset stopped, just short of crossing the threshold onto the stone bridge that led to the structure they were headed for. Both the bridge and the size of the cliff the structure was built into were much, much larger than Twilight had expected, seeing them from above, and she was getting tired just looking at them now.

“Why are we stopping?” Twilight had half a mind to just leave Sunset behind, but if there was one thing Twilight did trust Sunset for, it was to keep them out of danger, so if she was stopping there must have been a reason.

“Sorry, princess,” Sunset put her hands on her hips and chuckled, “but I’m not about to let this opportunity pass us by.”

“What are you—”

Sunset turned around and pointed her fingers toward a series of stone arches behind the pair, and as she did so, six werewolves came out of hiding, baring their fangs and snarling.

While all of the wolves looked tough, the one that gave Twilight pause was one that lingered in the back; she was massive, even compared to the other wolves’ already impressive size, with blood red fur and a messy mane of golden hair.

“Sunset,” Twilight growled, “did you plan this?”

“How long did you know we were watching?” a female werewolf asked; she had green fur and messy red hair tied loosely into pigtails.

“Saw you from way up there,” Sunset pointed up to the cliffs, and then turned to Twilight. “And yes, princess. Yes I did.”

i'm only a casual fan of equestria girls, so i'd never rly considered sunset shimmer before writing this story, but she sure became my favorite character in the entire show in a real hurry lmao (alongside rarity ofc; tie for first place)

also i didn't think to mention last chapter for the ppl who don't read azure edge, but sunlight updates six days a week and not on sunday. sorry if anyone was surprised by the lack of update yesterday

If you enjoyed this chapter, please let me know by leaving a comment! I absolutely adore reading them!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!