The Sun Never Sets

by Mr Fislewait

Therapy

Starlight's house was pretty much everything Eventide expected of a dwelling in upper Canterlot. Posh furniture, swanky carpets and a few antiques. She didn't begrudge Starlight her success, but Eventide felt that house was depressingly representative of everything she hated about Canterlot. In fairness though she likely wouldn't even have cared enough to dwell on the decor had it not been for two notable facts, the first being that Starlight was absent, the second being the constant ticking of the damned grandfather clock. It was a hefty old antique that went remarkably well with the other furnishings. It was stylish yet functional, interesting without being an eyesore, distinctive but far from garish. It was easy to see why anypony would desire such a thing to adorn their home but it was incredibly easy to hear why somepony might secretly wish to burn the thing to an ashen crisp never to grace the world with it's presence again. The ticking kept a constant rhythm at an audible level, she could imagine a pony coming to tune it out if they lived with it all day every day but for Eventide it was a throbbing headache that accompanied every single therapy session.

The other problem she could sadly hear down the hall sobbing. Had Starlight always been like this with their little sessions and she simply hadn't noticed it? Or was it a recent development? This was the fifth session in a row that the unicorn had excused herself to cry in the bathroom during the first minute of the session. Those first few times had been a little awkward, now they were beginning to get distressing. To make matters worse she really had no idea what the problem was or how to resolve it, Miss Starlight was the therapist after all, not Eventide. Initially she had considered that maybe she was going through some personal issues of her own but her little episodes had such a startling regularity that she was lead to conclude that the problem had something to do with Eventide. The clicking of the bathroom door unlocking suggested that the fit had concluded, seven minutes this time Eventide noted as she checked the clock.

"Sorry about that, Eventide, had a little something in my eye," Starlight lied with a smile and red eyes. Was she really expecting her to believe that excuse or was it just a formality? "Now then, how have things been since our last meeting?" she continued taking a seat opposite Eventide.

"Okay for the most part, I had a few slip ups over the weekend but other than that I've been okay," Starlight didn't need to know about the poison pen letters, it wasn't like they were actually hurting anyone.

"What sort of slip ups?" there was no annoyance in her voice, she spoke in gentle soothing tones. At first Eventide had hated that, it had felt so forced and artificial, but in the past two years she had really come to appreciate Starlight's efforts. She may hate the room, she may hate the clock, but within this room nopony ever judged her or chastised her. Starlight's living room was a sanctuary from the outside world in which she could receive honest advice and support.

"Immolated a newspaper because I was upset by one of the articles, bucked a mare in the face because I thought she was taking the piss out of me, was a little terse with Cadance, went out and got far too drunk, blew up at Princess Flurry Hearts and then ended up in a hoof fight with a changeling," she sighed trying to let all of the bad feelings out of her. It really hadn't been a good weekend all things considered.

"I see," Starlight said as she scribbled notes into a small journal. "Anything else?" the quizzical look on her face seemed to indicate that she knew Eventide was holding back on her.

"I may have sort of....overdosed on my medication" she whispered in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry I didn't catch that last bit," Starlight said observing her with concern.

"I... I overdosed. Intentionally." In a matter of seconds Starlight was upon her wrapping her in a hug with her hooves. As a therapist Eventide was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to be this touchy feely but they had known one another since Eventide had been a little filly so it wasn't entirely inappropriate, just mostly inappropriate.

"Are you alright? Was anypony there to get you to hospital? How much did you take? What drove you to even contemplate...that!?" the questions rolled of her tongue one after the other but there was no rebuke behind them, only genuine concern, like a mother worried about her child a little voice stabbed at the back of Eventide's mind.

"I'm fine now, Starlight. Nopony actually realized anything was wrong but Flurry was around so if I had gone too far she probably could have gotten me there. Six, though not all at the same time, and I wasn't trying to kill myself I was just trying... trying to take some of the edge off of everything." Starlight released her from the hug and stared into her eyes, it had been awhile since Eventide had seen anypony look so worried about her. Cadance and Flurry couldn't hold a torch to the fear in her eyes right now.

"You could have killed yourself, Evey! What happened? In the five years you've been visiting me the only problem we have had with your medication was that you were forgetting to take it from time to time," she seemed to be calming slightly but then a fresh burst of concern overwhelmed her. "This is the first time this has happened isn't it Evey? Have you done this before and not mentioned it?"

"No no... this was the first time. It was the morning after my bender and the fight with the changeling and... well, and pretty much everything else as well. I'd ended up taking a brief stay in a jail cell for assaulting a mare on the train, Cadance called me out on not having been taking my medicine that week so the morning hadn't exactly left me in a great mood even before I was plastered. The next morning when I woke up I was still so... so angry! At the changelings, at the princesses and at the whole of Equestria!" she paused and looked to Starlight, the other mare had quietly returned to her seat and resumed her notes, she nodded for Eventide to continue.

"So I took my medication for the morning and then lay down to try and get a bit more shut eye. Except I still felt mad, so after about a minute I took another. That didn't help either so I ended up taking another and...well I guess you get the picture."

"How did you feel? After you stopped taking the pills that is."

"Honestly? Worse. Much worse." She grimaced in pain at the memory of walking around Flurry like nothing was wrong. "I was still mad at everything but I just couldn't really muster the energy to direct it all at anyone. I guess to anypony else it would have looked like I was a normal mare who was in need of some coffee. Really though it was like I was like I was watching somepony else walking around in my skin. I mean I was choosing what to say and where to go but it was all wrong. I wanted to shout, I wanted to scream, break something maybe even hurt somepony but... I couldn't. I'm really messed up aren't I?"

"Eventide, you haven't had things easy these last few years so I understand that you do have a lot of pent up anger. Working out safe ways of venting that anger has been a big part of this therapy," Starlight paused and tapped her quill against the inkwell. "This weekend is not indicative of your behavior during the rest of the treatment and it is by no means an indication that you have failed. From what you have told me it sounds as though you encountered a number of particularly negative stimuli on a day that you had neglected to take your medication. You then proceeded to take an unhealthy amount of medication whilst there was likely still a rather high amount of alcohol in your system. Anything you were feeling while under the effects of your medication was very likely a direct result of your overdose. Have you ever felt that angry before?"

"Sometimes, but normally in short bursts. Normally if I feel like that I end up doing something dumb right after and then calm down in time to realize just how dumb it was. Like bucking the mare on the train," she said wincing at the memory.

"While I'm upset that you resorted to violence twice over the weekend I'm proud that you were both willing to come clean about doing so and clearly regret your actions," Eventide couldn't bring herself to correct her, while she might have felt regret about hitting the pegasus she had no such remorse for getting in a fight with the changeling. If anything she felt something sickeningly akin to pride about that. "Now then, have you had any luck in finding new coping mechanisms that work for you?" the letters, but that had long ago been black listed.

"Not really, I haven't really been able to vent in a healthy way for some time. But I've found something that helps me calm down." That made Starlight perk her ears up.

"Oh?"

"I've been visiting our old cart. I never bothered moving it after mom left it in the whitetail woods and nopony else seems to have found it. It's parked up in this nice calm little spot and I just feel so safe inside it. Being there it feels like I'm a little foal again, that nothing's really changed and that mom's going to walk in at any moment to tell me that we are going to get moving again. I can curl up on my bed inside and feel like I'm a part of a family again," she sniffled, thinking about the wagon had a real way of making her sad inside, but perhaps being sad was preferable to being angry.

"Eventide, you have other family you know, have you thought about moving in with them? If being around family makes you feel happy then I know they'd take you in, you don't have to lock yourself away in your house all the time."

"If you're talking about Twilight Sparkle you can forget it. She lives in Ponyville, lots of bad memories of Ponyville."

"You could move past them, the healing process may take some time but it can only happen if you're willing to give it a try."

"Perhaps," Starlight had made this suggestion in the past but Eventide had always shot her down. She could cope with visiting that place for business reasons but that was all. "There's also the little problem of her being a princess though."

"Flurry Hearts is a princess," Starlight countered, "and you get along with her just fine."

"That's different though. She wasn't involved with the unpleasantness. She didn't know enough to lie about it all. I doubt they even told her what happened." Starlight seemed to falter slightly at the word 'unpleasantness' it had been her idea to call it that in the first place but for some time the word seemed to have started eliciting strange reactions out of the therapist. "I'll think about it okay? Just, at the moment I really can't even stand looking at Twilight, let alone speaking to her. Moving in with her is pretty much out of the question right now."

"Well we can maybe consider that idea again when we next meet." Starlight turned to a new page in her notebook and dipped her quill back into the ink. "Now then, anything else I should be concerned with? You haven't had any more trouble with Mr Quill have you?"

"I bought a telescope," Eventide blurted out. She hated lying to Starlight directly but from the expression of horror on the therapists face it seemed as though this new bombshell should take her through to the end of their session. The safest way to avoid having to lie about Quill was to not give Starlight the opportunity to ask too many questions about him. "It's funny you know," Eventide chuckled to herself, though Starlight seemed to share none of her amusement. "The word lunacy comes from some silly old belief ponies had that it was the Moon that drove them mad, funny how things work out isn't it?"