The Sun Never Sets

by Mr Fislewait

Darkness and Honesty (Part Four)

The cell that I was thrown into was a dank and dingy little thing without any light. In one corner of the cell was a small pile of straw to sleep on and in the opposite corner a small metal grate was built into the floor to serve as a toilet. I was surrounded on all four sides by plain stone walls, the gaps in the stonework encrusted with moss and mold with the only differentiation between them being that one wall had a thick iron door, complete with viewing slot.

For the first day or so of my incarceration Dash left me alone in the cell without food or water. With a total lack of company or diversion I ended up talking to myself trying to figure out what to do if the worst came to the worst. So long as I kept my side of the bargain Rarity would hopefully remain safe but would Dash keep to the bargain if the portal made me disappear? Then there was the risk that I might face execution, if it came to that would I be able to fight my way out to freedom?

I don't mean to sound rude dear but ummm... talking to yourself? I understand that you were probably stressed but it isn't normally a healthy sign. Is everything all right now?

Don't worry, Rarity, everything's fine, I just needed to clear my thoughts and talking it over with myself seemed a good way to do it.

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Trapped in the cell with little to no hope of escape Sunset paced back and forth. It wasn't her Rainbow Dash, but maybe she could befriend this one just like she had with the other one. That one had hated her guts when they first met but had eventually come around when she proved herself a loyal friend, problem was that from where Sunset was there was unlikely to be any corrupted crytsal ponies to fend off this time.

"Why not simply fall back into our old habits and lie to the fool? Oh, she would just eat up any lies you fed her about Rarity being the leader of the plot, it would be so easy to shift the blame to her!" Sunset jumped as she heard the voice, it was her own but older, more mature. The voice of the alicorn. From out of the shadows it stepped with its red coat and leathery wings, leering down at the little unicorn as though she were nothing more than a bug.

"You're not real, you're just a figment of my imagination, or some delusion brought on by this weird world. You aren't like the thing upstairs living in Princess Luna, you're nothing, nothing." If she really was nothing though, why was Sunset shrinking backwards into the pile of straw?

"Oh perhaps, perhaps I am nothing after all. Though that hardly bodes well for our character does it? Look at us little one! Look at how we shake at our own shadow, look at how we conjure up phantoms to taunt and mock us when we are at our lowest! Why if I am not real then that means that we are quite mad," the alicorn chuckled to herself as she illuminated the room with her magic. Now able to see her properly Sunset choked at just how much the two looked alike.

"Leave me alone, I'm not a monster, not like you...."

"Deny it all you wish, little one, but we are quite the monster. Why, think back on our recent actions, how many innocent ponies have we killed?" the alicorn smirked and began counting numbers off with a rhythmic tapping of her hooves. "First of all we must have no illusions about the fact that we killed a fair few innocent ponies at the behest of this delightful Sombra fellow. Why, they may have only appeared to be shadows at the time but we can safely say each of those was somepony fighting on behalf of Celestia. Next we have the dearly departed Flash Freeze who it seems lost his life to try and see you safely returned to his Princess, not to mention those crystal ponies who you most likely buried beneath a great mountain of snow! What crime did they commit other than being possessed by the same curse that had controlled you?"

Sunset turned away but there was no escaping the alicorns words. "Then we have the changelings... vile little bugs that nopony would miss so perhaps we can be excused for them...but what of the other prisoners, Sunset? We were not so naive as to believe that we were the sole prisoner of the hive were we?"

"I...I wasn't thinking straight, I was mad, I was hurting, I was barely in control of my magic!" she cried, pleaded with the alicorn but couldn't deny the truth.

"Barely in control, but you still had some control did you not? Now we are here in the present! How many lives shall we snuff out here hmmmm? Rarity? Octavia? Perhaps even Rainbow Dash? Oh, yours may not be the hoof that cuts them down but be honest with yourself little one, when you escape this place, whether it be by your own hoof or through these unknown magics, do you truly believe that the wrath of Nightmare Moon shall not fall upon those who failed to see you executed? Why if we have any compassion in our heart we should kill ourselves now and save them from their fate!"

"No... no there has to be a way out, what if we give Rainbow what she wants? Tell her how we got here in the first place? It might keep us from being executed and give her something else to look into, if she's to busy chasing after magic time spells and portals then she might never even have a chance to tell Nightmare Moon we are here," a sense of resolve came over Sunset but her joy was short lived as the alicorn flashed her a toothy smile.

"I'm so proud of you, little one," she smirked.

"Why?"

"Why, because you seem to finally be accepting that there is no you or I, there is only we. It is fitting of one so deserving of royalty, one such as us."
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Sunset? Sunset, are you okay? You sort of spaced out a little there.

I'm fine, Twilight. Anyway, as I was saying Dash saw fit to leave me alone in the cell for sometime. When she did finally visit I had a vague plan and was relieved to see that she was alone, if she had any other ponies with her then I'd have been in a lot more trouble.

"So, Sunflank, first things first, I'm guessing 'Shadow' isn't your real name?" she slammed the door behind her as she entered the cell, in her hooves was a small magic lantern that just barely illuminated the cell.

"No. My real name's, Sunset Shimmer." Dash whistled to herself at that.

"Sunset? Wow and there I was thinking that your cutie mark was bad. No offense but your parents really dropped the ball there. Now then, Sunset, lets talk about time magic shall we?"

"Sure," I shrugged my shoulders at the suggestion, it had been my plan to tell her anyway. "I have no idea how it works, it's unstable and not something I can control. I can't tell you what spell was used to start it all and I can't tell you anything about the alicorn because I don't even know her name," I omitted the fact that I had a pretty solid guess as to who she was.

"So, in other words, you know nothing and are of no value to me other than as a prize to throw at the Princesses hooves to cheer her up? Really not doing yourself any favors here, Shimmer."

"Dash, I may not have the answers you were hoping for..." and here was the trump card "...but I can show you where the magical artifact is that brought me here."

"Please," Dash scoffed, "we already found the magic map thing that alicorn used to get here and it's broken. Whatever she did left it completely unusable." That was news to me, I hadn't ever heard of a magic map before in any books on obscure magical artifacts.

"I didn't use a map. My first encounter with 'time travel' was from stepping through a mirror portal. It wasn't meant to be used for time travel but at a guess I'd say somepony has done something weird to it and changed how it functions. Last time I saw it, it was in the Crystal Empire." Dash smiled at me, either I had said something really wrong or really right.

"No bucking way! Ever since she subjugated the Empire, the Princess has pretty much had all of their old magical artifacts locked up where she found them! Are you seriously saying that she has a magic time portal just sitting around locked up and nopony knows?"

"Maybe, I could show you the exact room I found it in if you took me there." While I hadn't really had a chance to observe my surroundings in Sombra's Equestria I could remember vaguely where the room was from when I stole your crown, Twilight. In retrospect it was probably a fools errand, after all in that timeline Celestia had been banished before the return of the Empire, hay, chances are the mirror was still sitting in Canterlot castle, abandoned and forgotten.

Rainbow Dash stepped outside for a moment then came straight back in. She tossed me a traveling cloak and fitted an inhibitor to my horn before gesturing for me to follow her. "Come on, Sunset, the two of us are going for a little flight."

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There were four of us in total, me and Dash riding on the chariot while a pair of batponies pulled. We cut through the air at an amazing pace flying straight out of the Everfree, over Canterlot and towards the frozen north.

"I hope you didn't tell Nightmare Moon about me," I whispered to her as I cast my gaze at the moon.

"I'm not stupid, I'm not promising her something till I know I can deliver. Why, you been lying to me, Sunset?" she jabbed a hoof into my chest pushing me to the floor of the chariot.

"No, but I can't say for certain if my theories are correct." As I spoke I felt a strange tingle in the air and a smile crossed my face. "More to the point I can't say if I'll make it to the Empire."

"You dying or something?" Dash asked, surprise flickering across her face. "What's your game, Sunset? You have no magic, no wings, no way of escape... Right now I have you exactly where I want you, so what am I missing huh? What's your plan?" the tingle travelled down my horn and across my back till it made my tail stand up.

"I told you earlier, the magic is unstable. I can't control it, Dash," she floored me again with the back of her leg.

"Inhibitors stop magic. Now get talking, what is this, a trap?"

"No, Rainbow Dash," I pulled myself up from the ground as the magic ran into my hooves. "This was never a trap, it was a way out. A way out for me, a way out for you and a way out for Rarity. Nightmare Moon doesn't need to know you lost a prisoner, just go back and if anypony asks, you killed me yourself. Everypony can get on with their lives." She struck me again, anger and confusion in her eyes.

"You're not escaping, Sunset, if I have to I will turn this chariot right around and throw you before Nightmare Moon herself," she gripped me by the neck and stared into my eyes. "Or you can cooperate and help me find my time portal!" Sparks leaped off of my coat and onto Dash causing her to jump backwards in surprise. Above me I could feel the magic culminating in another portal. If I'd known that the next one was coming so soon I probably wouldn't have even bothered leading Dash on a wild goose chase.

"I think I just found your time portal, Dash!" I yelled over the wind and the roar of magic. "If I were you I'd stick to that plan! It really is the best for everyone!" With a wave of my hoof I said goodbye just as the portal ripped me from the back of the chariot and up into its magical grasp, the surge of power overloading the inhibitor and blasting it to pieces.

Where it took me next, that was the world where Tirek had gone unopposed, the world where I met the stallion who I.... well. That's a story for another day, Twilight. Thanks for listening, Rarity, it helped having you here. Oh, and could the two of you maybe not tell Dash about this? I'd rather she didn't know how...how mean she was in that other world.

Author's Note:

I hope it came across in the narrative but the section of this chapter narrated in the 3rd person is not being told to Rarity and Twilight Sparkle. It is more like a memory of the events in the cell when Sunset was 'talking to herself.' Of the different timeline sections this one is probably the longest, with only the Discord and FlimFlam timelines potentially being of similar length.

Comments

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Poor Sunset....