"Twilight? Oh, Twilight ,where are you?"
Sunset crept through the dark streets of a lifeless Canterlot. It seemed even the ponies were stricken with grief like the princess. The reddish night sky loomed over the still city without remorse. The Princess of the Night was no more and thus the beauty of night was gone as well. Equestria seemed only half there. It was deprived of hope or care.
Sunset's worried eyes darted back and forth. The street signs were the same, everything was as she had left it. It seemed that everything beyond what was established before her departing was fumbled about in a nonsensical mess. Something went astray and brought all this misery to Equestria. What could have happened to change everything?
Sunset looked down at the ground. "All I wanted to do was ask Twilight for some advice. I guess this is the sort of stuff that makes girls angry when you don't answer texts. Maybe they mean it when they say it'll end the world."
The unicorn could not help her own distress. The small amount of humor she could find in all of this was too small to cheer her up in the slightest. So she continued to wander.
"Come on! There must be a place to start. This is four years in the past. Where would Twilight be if she never became Celestia's student? Her home. Where was her home? Remember! She told me once before. It...It was by...It was by the southern gardens!" she clapped her hooves in sudden excitement.
With a burst of speed, Sunset raced towards the only landmark that could help her. She had to keep her mind utterly focused on the streets and turns. She had planted Canterlot's ancient street design in her mind so that she would never be lost in the capital. However, that was years ago and she strained every mental muscle to keep herself on track. She read every sign, marked every spire, and read all the shop signs. Instead of gaining all of her faded memories, she was left with a strange déjà vu feeling. It was all so familiar, yet so obscure.
Lonely stallions and depressed mares could only watch her run by. Not a single pony was left unaffected by the princess's tragedy. Sunset had to force herself not to look in their hopeless eyes. She just wanted out.
"Twilight!"
The southern gardens were in view. Alright, one of the houses here is hers. They were all similar, but each one had a unique dome roof or gliding stairs that wrapped themselves around the cylindrical houses. Some houses had moons or stars atop their pointed domes, others had suns or hearts.
"Guess I'll just check them all."
Sunset teleported to a window of the closest house. She peered inside, but could not see much. It was useless, she thought. I'll have to go inside to make sure. However, she could not bring herself to break in. She was good at it, as Twilight's crown was not the first thing she tried to steal, but that was no longer who she was. So she sighed and teleported to another home.
She levitated herself to see through the high windows. There was nothing in there to suggest that a studious unicorn would live there. With a curse, Sunset gave up on the house. I'm wasting time! She floated back to the ground and sighed in frustration. There were several homes left. Twilight could be in any of them, or none.
Suddenly, Sunset heard the faint shouting of a familiar voice. Twilight? The sound came from down the road. Without hesitation, Sunset charged at the sound. If it was indeed Twilight, she was no doubt furious.
Sunset's hooves chipped the stone beneath as she pressed on. The voice was still coming from the same spot, and still mad as ever. The house which it sounded behind was one of the taller homes with a great blue moon and star painted on its dome. All these once vibrant colors were tainted by the reddish night sky.
"How long will we be doing this?" the voice shouted.
"It's hopeless! It's so hopeless!" another screeched.
"We can live in the dark, can't we?"
One was panting loudly. "The redness....the redness..."
Sunset turned to corner to see, not Twilight, but a group of ponies around a fire. It was a extremely small fire, so small that it was about to die as it only contained a few sticks and no other fuel to feed it. The ponies around it stared at the dying fire with twitching eyes and shivering hooves. It was not a cold night, so Sunset knew they weren't cold, but terribly afraid. As the shadows drew in around them, suffocating the last rays of light from the pathetic flames, the ponies drew their heads closer and closer just to catch the last glimpse of fiery hope.
"It's gone!" one short stallion said as quiet as a breath.
"Our light..." a purple pegasus mare cried. "The dark is back."
"I say we embrace it!" one unicorn stallion suggested with crazed expressions. "Why fight it?"
One white mare with green eyes simply stared at the heavens. "The redness...the redness...."
"Um, hello?" Sunset broke their insane concentration.
"Wha' you want?" The short stallion asked so softly that Sunset only barely heard it.
"Do you know of a pony named Twilight?" Sunset asked nervously.
"The redness...the redness..." was the reply from the white mare.
"Nopony knows nopony no more," the pegasus mare snarled. "It's all darkness! Go away!"
"Who needs the sun anyway?" the unicorn stallion said absently.
"I guess you guys won't be any help," Sunset sighed. "Um, see ya?"
"Wait!" the short stallion said just a tiny bit louder than usual, "you have a cutie mark like that! Perhaps you are good with fire? Please, we need light. Light that is not the redness!"
"The redness....the redness..."
Sunset hesitated. The ponies were clearly not right in the head. This was shown not only by their words, but by their wide, unblinking eyes. However, they did appear in need. To Sunset, making fire with magic was as simple as riding a bike. Once she learned it, it came back to her easily. Keeping her eyes on them, her horn lit up and a fire burst on top of the small wooden fire. The insane ponies gasped in delight, but said nothing to her as they admired the flames. It was already dying without fuel, but they made no effort to grab any wood.
As they stared at the fire, Sunset turned and left them with a shake of her head. The ponies were insane and would return to their problematic situation. To Sunset, they were helpless.
Her traveling took her to the southern tip of Canterlot, where the city's gate was located. Perhaps Twilight was in Ponyville, she thought. This alternate world was not following the rules she expected. She looked back on the city. This city held so many wonderful memories, but in this world, they all seemed to have never existed.
She felt like crying. What will crying do for me? She breathed loudly through her flared nostrils. Settling for this world will not do, she thought. Something was wrong and by Tartarus, she was going to solve it. She turned and walked through the city gates. It was a long ways to Ponyville on hoof alone. It would give her time to think and maybe even relax. She heavily doubted the latter would ever happen though.
"Twilight, wherever you are, I'm gonna find you. And when I do, we're gonna have a long, long talk..."
~
I get the feeling that Sunset is going to be peeved when she finds out what has happened. Great to see this story going again!
7530407 Spent many a headache trying to figure this story out.
But why suffer headaches when ya can take a few swigs and smash on the keyboard?
Starlight is gonna get more than a boot to the head once she and Twilight meet up with Sunset.
7530421 Yeah, she probably isn't going to get the show treatment in this...
7530994 Shouldn't the spike be at the right end of the graph?
Somethin' doesn't add up...
7531028 Ya could fit any windows in that punchline.
But never punch a window.
7530426 I sure hope not. Sunset and Discord had to work for their sins, so, why not Starlight?
Oh wow. And I thought Sunset was a pathetic wreck in chapter 1...
7531597 Yeah, because going out on your own and seeking answers is pathetic, right?
7531897
That's a funny way of describing crying and wandering about at random until chancing on the right district... and then deciding the best way to look for somebody is obviously check every house in the area and generally acting like a lost little girl without Twily to hold her little hands.
Because obviously her job and competence starts and stops at 'find Princess Twilight' and that will magically solve everything.
I might buy it if it was pre-Rainbow Rocks Sunset (but then again that Sunset probably won't have shouted at Celestia...) with a large dose of salt, but here? I am sorry, she showed all the awareness and initiative of a damp rag and the emotional stability of a hamster who's been bullied all her life and told never to approach the wheel again.
I like the concept, I really do. It"s just that in execution It's a trifle wanting.
7531930 So......she is in a world where nothing is right, Celestia killed Luna and is a complete wreck, sees that everything Princess Twilight has done has been overridden and nothing, absolutely nothing makes sense from where she stands.
De hell? She never visited Twilight before and why in Equestria would she know exactly where Twilight lived? Why? She knew the area she lived in and went straight there. What did you read? Sunset was like "oh yeah! I know where she lived!" and went straight there to find the insane ponies.
So it will be realistic for her to be instantly like "I got this?"
She even still expresses humor to try and make herself feel better and she refuses to cry at the end, despite her feelings. Instead, she actually becomes more angry.
If that was the case, why would I ever include Sunset in this story? You can't criticize my story for an assumption you have created from thin air.
Put yourself in her situation. It totally took her by surprise. You have to remember she was not intending to head straight into the fire. She was simply going to ask Twilight for advice. I mean, it's the same as going to your friend's house to play video games when you learned he's missing and his house is ransacked. The police don't care about the event and you're on your damn own. Are you going to take all that in perfect stride? Hell no.
Sunset has already overcome the initial shock of it all. Any assumption that she'll stay a pathetic wreck is just an assumption without any evidence.
7531990
That's what you think you wrote.
This is what you actually wrote.
By the time she realise that she isn't regaining her faded memory, at it were, she really ought to stop and take her bearings.
She found her way there anyway, which the way you wrote it seems as much a matter of luck as anything.
No, it'd be realistic if she stops and ask for directions when she realise that she finds the streets (your words) 'obscure'.
I can only judge by what I've seen so far, and so far, she's wandering about trying to find Twilight.
As opposed to, you know, stop, get her bearings, try to get some information about the world she finds herself in, or double back to the mirror (it's not like she's never sneaked into palaces before), or any number of things.
Twilight, from what she at that moment is aware of, is not Celestia's student, almost definitely not an alicorn princess, and certainly not her friend. How would finding her solve anything?
Instead, we have Sunset going:
It may or may not be your intention to write her like a child calling for her lost mother, but that's certainly the impression you conveyed.
Sure, I'd probably be quite disoriented and confused, and scared, but then I didn't get transported to an alien universe with an alien dominant intelligent race, with no papers, no money, no identity, and in short, nothing either. She really should have started calming down and thinking things through by the times the guards started taking her to Celestia... but no, she's extremely slow on the uptake. But since everything happened so quickly, I gave it a past (no comment on the last chapter!)... but then she stayed being pretty much useless this chapter, hence my comment.
Anyway, who assumed that she'll stay a pathetic wreck? What I said was:
Which explicitly refers to her in these two chapters. I was referring to her not getting any better but indeed, accounting for the shock wearing off, actually getting worse. Somebody is making assumptions alright, but it wasn't me.
If she starts pulling her weight and behaving in a sensible manner the next chapter, I'll be sure to leave a comment commending on her finally getting her act together. But I can't comment on what she'll be like in future chapters.
7532025
Well, this story went through about 60 different ideas in the course of 11 months. I still think you are misinterpreting my words and coming to assumptions, but I'll just say that it will get better from here since I have a focused goal once again.
8119741 Thank you for the comment. I love this kind of stuff from my readers. It shows me that they are willing to put energy in their feedback and not be a simple "yeah I like this" or worse, an unreasonable sycophant.
I'm working hard on this story. I started it at the worst time I could, so because of that, it all fell apart. However, do not think a chapter is coming up soon as well, I want to finish out my semester before going at it really hard. I am also working on a story with my girlfriend, but I am doing much better with it because unlike this story, I had a plan of action.
Like I told Granite, this story has been trouble in that I worry about every turn I take, thus I have tens of revisions.
But from your comment, I feel more assured of the direction I'll take. I consider myself a better writer now than when I published this tale.
And um.... Celestia never killed herself. The sky is red due to Luna's death. I plan for explanation as I was really (and overly trying as I see now from rereading it) trying to express chaotic emotion within Sunset. Panic, bewilderment, etc. If I could rewrite it (which I may touch up here and there) I'll keep Sunset more like herself, being a tough minded individual.
Thank again. This sleeper story of mine deserves more additions. I consider it a large mistake of mine to allow inspiration to take control and write instead of planning it out and releasing it when it would suit the readers and me the best. In October of 2015, I was...well...much less focused.