//------------------------------//
// 414. Tail by Drynwhyl 
// Story: The Sun and the Stars: A Twilestia Prompt Collab 
// by Fuzzyfurvert 
//------------------------------//


by Drynwhyl


***



Sheriff Twilight Sparkle had never seen the great sprawl of the Ponyville desert without the heat of the sun rising off it, red as dragonfire, harsh as dragonscale and almost as inhospitable as Hell itself. They were two components of one whole, the former being entirely inconceivable without the other.  Yet the sun was gone, had been gone for almost half a day, and Lord knew if anyone would ever see it again unless she found it.

Pulling her hat down, she obscured her eyes from the glare of an absent sun. Force of habit was a hard thing to break. There wasn’t much light. That thing in the sky, the false sun, it shone like cold mockery and the world beneath it lay in silver-gilt and cold. Enough to see by, not much more.

She knelt down, her belly pressing down into the dust and chill that had begun to creep into the earth. The tracks were still there, seeming to continue forward unerringly along some straight divined right through the flatlands. Good, she thought. Twice was a coincidence but thrice was a trend, and even if the wind was trickster enough to steal away the path she still knew where to go. Nodding affirmation, she cast a spell on herself. The tug of it was gentle, insistent. She rose to her hooves and continued onward. And as she did so, she thought of the mare she was chasing.

She’d called herself Tia. She was beautiful and strange and had the mannerisms of a character torn from the pages of a foal’s fable. She spoke of a thousand year banishment by some terrible foe, some twisted amalgamation of every living thing in the world, and how the sun was hers, and how the world would die without night even if it took a dozen lifetimes more. They were the ravings of some nutty earth pony touched by heat and dehydration.

Sensibly, Twilight had called Dr. Stable. She’d thought it best to have the girl checked over; whilst Ponyville was wary of strangers, they were not known for their lack of hospitality. But the mare had reacted contrary to all expectations, instead pleading for confidence to be kept, and when Twilight had emphatically said no, Tia fled.

Not long after, the sun fell. Not long after that, Twilight swore to get it back.