Search Result #8.542: Sunset stalkers, the shimmering foxes. A short fantasy, set in the majestic world of Laok, where our hero...
Search Result #8.543: Artic Sunsets, when the sun shimmers at night. Expeditions to the far north, where our explorers found a...
Sunset.
Search Result #8.544: Jade's Shimmering Beach-Palace, where the sun never sets! Come, and discover how...
Search Result #8.545: Shimmernails, making your fingers look like the sunset itself! Buy now, and get a free discount for...
Sunset Shimmer?
Search Result #658.546: How the sun sets, an essay on the sun and its periods... besides that, one has to mention how the shimmering sometimes...
Search Result #658.5-
"Sunset Shimmer!" Someone suddenly shouted near Sunset's ear, and she felt a sudden pressure on her shoulder. She jumped from behind her computer, too absorbed in her work to notice that someone entered her room.
"What the... Twilight?" Sunset turned around to see her friend standing right behind her. "Don't yell at me like that! You almost gave me a heart attack..." Sunset said, feeling her heart thump in her chest.
"I've been calling you for five minutes now, didn't you hear me?" Twilight said, giving Sunset a concerned look. "Pinkie and Applejack will be ready with dinner in a few minutes, just wanted to let you know... you've been on your computer for a whole hour now, made any progress?"
Sunset looked tiredly at her laptop, silently sitting back down and slumping forwards a bit. "No, not really." She glanced at Twilight. "There are hundreds upon thousands of results all containing some form of 'Sunset' and 'Shimmer', but I have yet to find a single one with 'sunset shimmer' referring to a person. It's a pain that the exact search didn't bring up anything useful that isn't about... well, me, but I'm certain I'll come across something if I keep looking."
"Sunset, I know how much you want to find your counterpart, but... maybe you should start to consider that there just isn't one? I mean, we've already gone through all the local newspapers up until ten years ago, every single local register of the past thirty years, and you've been spending so many hours now on the net, and we still haven't found a single clue about your... supposed counterpart." Twilight said, placing a hand on Sunset's shoulder.
"It's not 'supposed', Twilight" Sunset corrected her. "I'm convinced she's somewhere out there, ever since I met you... I mean, while I first thought that since, while a big majority of everyone I knew back in Canterlot also lived in this town, still not everyone had a counterpart, so maybe there were exceptions like me and Princess Twilight. Now though, after discovering that, well... you, lived in a city just down the road, as well as several other people that I and Princess Twilight know in the ponyworld, I'm convinced that every single person has to have a counterpart in both worlds. She just has to be around here somewhere, I kno..." Sunset suddenly stopped, and Twilight could see a familiar sparkle in her eyes as she continued again.
"Unless, maybe she is actually not... Of course! She is not nearby, that's why we didn't find her before. Narrator's sake, why didn't I realize this before!" Sunset sat up, and began working on her laptop with a newfound vigor.
"Sunset, what are you talking about?" Twilight asked, confused by Sunset's sudden actions. "Come on Twi, think about it. I just said the obvious answer we both should have realized a month ago, a genius like you should figure it out as well." Sunset replied, searching online for... national databanks?
"Sunset, you only mentioned that you were convinced that you had a counterpart because of..." Twilight also stopped for a moment. "Me." Sunset could see the sparkle in Twilight's eyes as well, only to be replaced with a faint blush on her cheeks moments later. "Wait, wait... why didn't we think of this sooner? We should... we should know better, right?" Twilight asked, the blush darkening.
"It was too obvious. Honestly, you're blushing? I've been looking at the solution for two months now, and only now do I finally see it. You know, maybe that was just the problem, us thinking we would know better, thinking that my counterpart would rationally live nearby since I live here, and that we thus should only look around these parts." Sunset answered, swiveling her chair to look at Twilight, waiting for her to continue.
"But I didn't live here before, so I'm the proof that counterparts don't necessarily live in similar locations over both of our worlds. If I live just a town down the road, than maybe, and I have still have to underline the 'maybe' here, Sunset" Sunset rolled her eyes at this. "Maybe the Sunset of this world also simply lives somewhere that isn't this town... which is why you were searching for the national databanks before!"
Sunset turned to her laptop again. "Twi, this can be huge! We only focused on all the local news sources, but we have to go bigger! We should start with the normal registers first, and then we can go through th..." She was interrupted as Twilight suddenly put the laptop in sleep mode.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" Sunset angrily began, but stopped when she saw the look Twilight gave her.
"Do you remember why I came here in the first place?" Twilight asked.
"Ehrm... to participate in the friendship gam..." Twilight gave Sunset a harmless punch in the shoulder. At this, she suddenly noticed a faint but good smelling scent coming from the door. Sunset gave a sheepish grin, remembering what Twilight said after she made her jump before. "Pinkie and Aj have dinner ready... sorry Twi, guess I forgot through all the excitement, heh."
"Mmh, and we don't want to disappoint either Applejack of Pinkie, now do we?" Twilight responded with a raised brow. At the thought of disappointing Pinkie, more than Applejack, a lot of other, more scary thoughts joined in Sunset's mind. "Ehrm... no. Let's... not. Not is... good, yes, let's go." And with that, they both left Sunset's room to go to the dorm's dining room.
As Sunset heard the happy chatter from her friends coming from below while going down the stairs, she thought that... maybe, she shouldn't forget about her friends so often while searching for her counterpart. Sure, what she and Twilight just discovered is a major breakthrough in her search, but she should remember that, even if her search turns out to be fruitless (which she, as a devoted scientist herself naturally can't deject, but still loathes to do so), she still has people she can talk with, laugh with. Not only her six best friends, but a whole community of people now... although the latter took three ancient teenage-looking sirens and a gigantic unicorn in the sky firing a humongous laser which she didn't know what the actual hell that was all about even to this day...
Sunset was suddenly brought out of her thoughts as she entered the dining room, and was greeted by her friends already sitting at the table while Rainbow Dash was distributing the food, at which she gave a warm smile as she joined them.
Meanwhile, in a city thirty kilometers up the river, Morning Dew finally got home. A lot happened today at her work that required her attention, but she managed in the end, and is happy that she can finally rest a bit. Even if her job is tiring, which it usually is, she keeps going, knowing that a wonderful husband and two beautiful daughters are waiting for her to come home.
Come to think of it, she hopes that her husband didn't forget to bring those old newspapers with him, so that her little devils, though they can be angels, can finally begin on that creative assignment. Oh, where were the days when Dew herself had to, nay, could do these things when she was young? Searching the papers, finding and collecting pictures to make the funniest stories... Lost in thought, she was fumbling around for her keys. When she finally found the right key and opened the door, Morning already smiled at the noise coming from inside.
"Angels, I'm home!" She said loudly, making sure that everyone in the house could hear her. After being trampled by her little angels, she was relieved to see her husband. "Hey honey, how was work?" She asked, giving him a light peck on the lips.
"Oh, same old, same old. You?" Morning Shine responded, pulling her in for a tight hug.
"Ah, this feels nice... Mmh, was a bit busy. You wouldn't believe how many ways people can fudge their computers up. Say, did you bring those newpapers?" Dew continued, reluctantly letting go.
Shine turned around to walk in the living room, going straight to where their devils were busy working. "I sure did. I was kind of lucky to make it in time though, just another day and Will would have taken them to the thrash with the rest of his redundant paperwork."
Following her husband, she entered the room and sat down, happy that she is finally going to get some rest, while her husband continued.
"And such variety too. I mean, he had papers from Rainbow Falls, Cloudsdale, Manehatten, Ponyville... even as far as Appleloosa. I'm telling you, the kids are having a field day with so much variety."
"That's nice to hear, dear. Now how about you come over and give me one of those massages everyone seems to want to pay a fortune for?" She asked, looking lazily at her angels working. "Heh, could have seen that coming. Alright, you know the drill, just lay back and let me take all those worries away." Light responded, to which Dew simply smiled, laid on the sofa on her tummy, and closed her eyes.
After an hour of pure heaven, she slowly opened her eyes, wondering why the feather-like hands seems to have disappeared from her back. Then again, she supposed that she fell asleep, which isn't that uncommon if Shine gets his hands on you. As she got up, she could see her husband sitting at the table in between the kids, looking over some pages. He noticed Dew waking up, and waved her over.
"Hey there sunshine, had a good rest?" he asked, a small smirk on his face. "Why wouldn't I? Those hands of yours should be a crime." She said while walking to her family, thankful that her children were still young enough to not think about what she and Light said, at least not in a mature way. "Our angels already finished up their work, take a look at this. It's pretty good, to be honest." He said, making their children beam with glee.
He handed Dew the pages, narrating what they had told him. "On the first page, our brave hero (a monkey eating a banana, of course they would pick this) took his spacecraft (seems like the rocket of the recent launch to the moon) to a certain planet, far far away (Oh, I know this one, it's from that one special with the weirdest places on the planet.). He received a call from the mysterious Do... doch... eh, what was it again? Ah, yes, the mysterious Dogge (cute, a puppy with a top hat drawn on it). Apparently, around the eternal falls (a picture of Rainbow Falls, why not) an even more mysterious entity has showed up. (it's a... strawberry. Well, half of a strawberry, only the top. And an apple for the bottom.) Oh, how will our hero deal with this? Find out next time!" He finished, he and the kids waiting for her reaction.
At first, she only had a serious look on her face. Her youngest kid look a bit worried at this, until she saw Dew trying and failing to hold a straight face. Soon, she was beaming again when Dew began to earnestly laugh, the whole silliness of it finally coming out.
"Ha, I knew that would make you laugh. Now, for the other one, just take the second page. This story begins when a peculiar party of people meet (A picture of what seems to be high school students, all girls. Above them is a banner with 'Canterlot High, Friendship Games'. Huh, that's curious, the one in the middle looks familiar.) during a festival. They have never met before (wait... no, that can't be. Sigh, I'm still seeing ghosts from the past.), but a single woman brings them all together. Her name is Sunset Shimmer (...huh?), a secret superhero (......) who's task it was to... eh, honey, are you still listening?"
Dew was standing completely still when that name was mentioned. When she moved again, she asked where they got this picture from, and when they showed her the article going with it, she could only stare at that one name in the text. A name she never thought she would hear again, a name that had only brought grief, sadness, and tears. But yet, even while these thoughts filled her head, and tears started to well up in her eyes, making Light and her children to rush over to hold her and ask what was wrong, she also felt something... familiar.
Even as she fell down to the ground, starting to sob uncontrollably as she did so, which only made Light more confused and worried, Dew felt something she hadn't felt in over 12 years. A feeling that she had buried when she had finally come to terms with what had happened, after her life had broken down all around her in the tiniest pieces.
For the first time since so, so long... she felt it. She was sure of it.
She felt... hope.