“So, you want to know why I have this tattoo?”
Sunset ran her fingers lightly across the left shoulder, where under her jacket, a thin black line of calligraphy was trailed on her skin and started to talk with a well-set voice of a storyteller.
“It’s a story I do not tell lightly, so listen well, for I will not soon be in the mood to repeat it.”
Sunset toyed with her drink a bit, looking at the reflection of the sun off the glass as she travelled far to her memories of a sun so much hotter and brighter than this.
"It was in Saddle Arabia, in a different world and life, almost seven years ago.
I was there with Equestrian Embassy - Princess Celestia wanted me to learn about trade agreements and diplomacy - and make some friends, something she was always going on about.
I met her at one of the banquets. She was tall, with a snow-white coat and light blue mane, svelte and delicate and strong like only Saddle Arabians are, and she had the most beautiful little wrinkles in the corners of her eyes from forty years watching the desert sun. Mirzya Nada bint Sabah Almatar she was called, Mistress of Seven Oases.
It may have been my Oedipal complex, I won't deny that. Or maybe it was true love... it didn't matter. Not then and not now.
We filled our days with gentle touches and veiled looks hidden in the din of hunts and negotiations - the universal language of secret lovers. In the evening I would sneak out of the embassy and into her palace. There we would swim in the cold oasis waters and feed each other dates and grapes as we read the musty scrolls of her library. She would teach me how to name the desert winds and read the shifting sands and how to drink the Saddle Arabian date wine - thick and sweet like honey.
And at nights she taught me something sweeter still.
I was sixteen back then like I am now, but so much younger. So much more innocent and so much more happy.
And then, all too soon, the month was over. The trade agreements were signed, the oaths of eternal friendship and alliance exchanged and it was time for us to go home.
I wanted to stay with her. To be with her - for a year or for the rest of my life, I don't think I knew back then. So I wrote a letter to Celestia to tell her I was not coming back. Something about the Saddle Arabian lore and retracing Starswirl’s research on the Amniomorphic spell, and like the love-struck filly I was I ran off to tell my sweetheart.
I found the gates closed and barred. Black doors looked like they were dripping blood in the setting sun, but I paid it no heed.
When I knocked the Captain of her guard came out - a raven-black stallion, so muscled and thick, he could have been an earth pony if not for his great height.
“You are no longer welcome here,” he said. “Mistress has ordered the doors closed, and but a single message relayed.”
And her message read thus: "كُـل شـمـس يـجب أن تـغيـب.”
Anger and pain tuned Sunset's voice raw.
”She broke up with me through a guard. She broke my heart, and she did not even have the decency to do it to my face!
I was never hurt like that before, and not even the desert sun would thaw away the ice that filled my insides at these words.
“It must have been a mistake”, I thought. Surely the mare of my dreams would not be so cruel, and once she knew I would stay with her, she’d welcome me with open hooves.
I demanded to be let in and he denied me. I pleaded with him to relay the message, but that he would not do as well. And that’s when my pain turned to anger and my anger turned to fire.
Horses of Saddle Arabia have the magic of their own. Calling upon the right Name, they can become as quick as pegasi and as strong as earth ponies, if for a time, and Nada trained her guards well. But against me, they might as well have been toy soldiers. I broke the Captain like a twig, hurtling him burned and crippled clean through the heavy doors and I blazed all the way to her room.
Sand turned to glass where I walked, and guards who tried to stop me blistered and burned, and neither barred doors not stone walls would stop me.
I found her by the fountain in the patio she so very liked. The same patio where we splashed each other with water and where I told her that I loved her for the first time as she smiled and gave me my first kiss.
She was not afraid. Whether she was brave or knew that I would never hurt her, I do not know to this day, but all she said to me were the same five words.
"كُـل شـمـس يـجب أن تـغيـب.", she said, calm and a little bit sad. "Every sun must set. It was good while it lasted, my little sun, but it is over now. Go home." And with that, she turned and left and all I could do was look as she trotted away.
I wanted to try to stop her. I wanted to cry and to beg for her to change her mind, to tell her that I loved her and that I would love her forever and ever. Instead, I just stood there like a foal while whatever was left of my pride battled my desperation until the evening turned into the night.
And as the evening ended and the night has covered the palace, I had to admit that she was right. Every sun must set, and everything will pass.”
Sunset ran her fingers lightly across her left shoulder, tracing the intricate calligraphy on her skin under the sleeve again.
“That’s what I carry on my shoulder. Words of pain and wisdom from a country and life far away, to remind me that all the things come to an end and nothing is forever.”