//------------------------------// // Starlight and Evey // Story: The Sun Never Sets // by Mr Fislewait //------------------------------// Evey Age 3 "Okay, Evey, we're here," her mother sighed slipping out of the harness of the wagon. Inside the wagon Evey popped her head out of the window and looked around. They were on the outskirts of a small town from the looks of things and her mommy appeared tired from the walk. She was always pulling the wagon whenever they had to move. Evey was too small to make the long walks so she had to sit inside for most of the journey, she was much too little to help her mommy. Even though the town was pretty normal looking Evey couldn't help but stare in wonder at the building they had stopped in front of, a towering crystalline tree house structure the likes of which she had never seen before. "Where are we, mommy?" Evey gasped, staring in awe at the building. "This is Ponyville, Evey," Sunset replied with a smile, rubbing a hoof affectionately through her mane. "This is where you were born and it's where most of mommy's old friends live. The castle belongs to Princess Twilight Sparkle, you were too young to remember meeting her but she is very important to me." "Is she one of my godmommys?" Evey asked, remembering her mommy telling her that even though she didn't have much family she did have lots and lots of godmothers. "No, Evey," Sunset chuckled "she's actually a bit more important than that. If things go right today though I might be able to take you to visit your godmothers though, I'm sure they would love to meet you." Sunset hesitated slightly and looked up at the castle. "Now, Evey, me and Twilight haven't seen each other for three years, it's possible she is going to have a few choice words to share with me. Do you think you can be a good responsible little filly and guard the wagon while I speak to her?" Evey nodded her head up and down with enthusiasm. "There's a good girl. Now I want you to stay in the wagon at all times and not let anypony else in until I'm back. The ponies around here are nice but don't go trusting strangers," Sunset leaned over and gave Evey a peck on the cheek, "I'll be back soon." As Sunset wandered into the castle Evey began looking around from her perch at the window. It looked like a very pretty town but this early in the morning there weren't many ponies about. The castle though was very interesting, and so shiny! Evey had heard of a place called the Crystal Empire but she'd never got to visit it yet, apparently all of the buildings there looked like this. "Hey there, I don't think I've seen you around town before," Evey turned to see a pink unicorn with a purple mane looking up at her perch in the wagon with a smile on her face and concern in her eyes. "I'm not meant to talk to strangers," Evey replied and turned her head away from the unicorn. "That's very smart of you," the unicorn nodded. "If you can't talk to me though do you think I could talk to your parents? They haven't left you here on your own have they?" there was something in her voice that sounded comforting, like the way her mommy talked to her when Evey had hurt herself or was feeling upset. "No, my mommy would never leave me. She's just inside talking to Twiglet Sporkle." "Your mom's friends with Twilight is she? So am I, actually I work with her in the castle. Maybe she mentioned your mom to me some time-" the unicorn stopped as a look of recognition came into her eyes. "You... you wouldn't happen to be called Eventide Shimmer would you?" "Nu-uh!" Evey said blowing a raspberry at the unicorn. "I'm Evey, Evey Trailblazer, it's a completely different name!" "Well, Evey, I'm Starlight Glimmer." The unicorn winced, "your mother hasn't happened to mention me to you before has she?" Starlight whispered nervously. "Nope, never heard of you." As the two unicorns were speaking the doors to the castle swung open and out stepped Sunset and Twilight, engaged in a very friendly conversation. Twilight had one wing wrapped around Sunset and both mares appeared to have recently been crying. "...just glad that you want to meet with her again! I'm so happy you had a change of heart, she was very upset when you ran off Sunset, we all were. Oh and I just can't wait to meet your daughter!" The two stopped as they stepped outside and saw the scene in front of them. As both mares saw Starlight and Evey their faces lit up, Twilight's with joy and Sunset's with barely concealed rage. Starlight nervously swallowed the lump in her throat and carefully backed away from the wagon. -------------------------------------------------- Age 7 Evey nervously fidgeted about in her dress, she wasn't used to wearing clothes like this. The cloth seemed to bunch up in uncomfortable places and it was too tight around her neck. Not to mention all the times she had gotten pricked while Rarity had been making adjustments to its proportions. Rarity insisted that it had been made with Evey's measurements but it seemed at the same time much too large and much too tight. Her mother on the other hand looked perfectly at ease in her own dress as she sat waiting for the ceremony. Unlike all of her mommy's other clothes this dress showed off her wings as opposed to hiding them and it didn't have a hat either. The way the purple silk flowed across her mother's body it was as though she had been born to wear dresses like that, she seemed so comfortable in it as though this was something she had done a million times before. "Celestia and Luna will be down shortly, Sunset," Twilight said as she entered the room in a dress of her own, a crown perched atop her head. "This is pretty much your last chance if you want to change the ceremony into something a little less private." "No, Twi," her mother chuckled. "You and the girls are the only ponies in Equestria I'd want to share this with. I mean, let's be honest, this whole show is entirely for Celestia's sake anyway, right?" "She wants you to be happy, Sunset. If this isn't going to make you happy then-" "No, Twilight," Sunset cut her off. "We aren't cancelling this." She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Okay, maybe it isn't what I want anymore, but if it's only the few of us that know then nothing really changes. Celestia gets to call me Princess, I get to mend a bridge that I almost burnt down a second time and we all get to see my little Evey in an adorable dress." The two alicorns looked in her direction and chuckled as a blush spread across her face. "Lady Eventide." Twilight playfully corrected. "Lady?" "Yep, I was reading up on Equestrian titles to see how this would effect Evey. Apparently there's some long standing political tradition where while alicorns are granted the title of princess by their right as leaders among ponies their children aren't necessarily also royalty. There was a big argument centuries ago about any non alicorns the princesses might conceivably produce." Evey began to try and tune out the conversation but her mother looked genuinely interested. "Some big wigs in the unicorn nobility were still a little uppity about not having their own ruler anymore so they had Celestia sign some agreement where while all alicorns would be recognized as princesses or princes the only other ponies who would be granted the title would be direct descendants of Princess Platinum." "Like Blueblood." Sunset chimed in. "Exactly! So as a unicorn Evey is granted the title of Lady." "My little Lady Evey," Sunset cooed grabbing her daughter in a hug. "I hope we aren't interrupting anything?" Celestia laughed as she and Luna stepped into the room. Sunset and Twilight quickly straightened themselves up and turned to face their smiling mentor. "It is good to see you all." Celestia quickly crossed the room and hugged each alicorn in turn before turning and kneeling in front of Evey to get down to her eye level. "And this must be little Eventide. It is so good to finally meet you. I hope that the two of us will become firm friends," Celestia said smiling at the filly. "No," Evey replied tersely causing looks of surprise to form on the faces of all four alicorns. "You're a big meany and you make mummy sad and I don't want to be your friend ever!" tears streaming down her face Evey ran out of the room leaving the other ponies in stunned silence. "I...I honestly have no idea what that was about," Sunset muttered before taking off after her daughter. ---------------------------------------- Starlight was nervously pacing the halls of Canterlot castle. This particular wing of the castle had been abandoned by the guards and staff for the rest of the day for a private function, the secret coronation of Sunset Shimmer. As Twilight's student and one of the few ponies who knew about Sunset she had been invited to the event but had been carefully keeping out of Sunset's way until the actual coronation. She was expecting somepony to come looking for her any minute now to announce the start of the ceremony. As she paced though she heard a quiet sniffling from a broom closet. Carefully approaching Starlight opened the door and looked down to see Sunset's daughter hiding in the closet crying to herself. "Evey, what are you doing here?" she asked with concern. "I ruined everything, I shouted at Celestia and called her a meany and now she's going to banish me to the moon and I'll never see mommy again," Evey said between tears. "Oh, Celestia won't banish you for something like that Evey," Starlight reassured her. "Now how about we head to the main hall so you can say sorry?" "No... I don't wanna see her again," Evey muttered. "Why not? Why don't you like Princess Celestia?" "Cause she makes mommy unhappy," Evey mumbled. "Sometimes when mommy's asleep she talks about her, and it makes her upset. She's a big meany and she ruined mommy's life and now she's forcing mommy to do something she doesn't really want to." "Evey," Starlight knelt down and put a hoof on her shoulder. "Princess Twilight has told me a lot about your mother and one thing you should know is that Sunset doesn't hate Celestia. They've had a very rocky relationship and they've both hurt each other but your mother really wants to make amends with her." "But...but she hurt mommy," Evey whispered. "Evey, I know we don't really know each other but do you like me?" "Uh huh, you seem nice and you're always very friendly to me when I'm at Twilight's." "Well would it surprise you to know that once upon a time I did a very bad thing that hurt your mommy a great deal?" Evey blinked and looked up at the pink unicorn. "But you're always so good to everypony!" Evey objected. "That wasn't always the case though, Evey. The thing I did was... very bad. I did it for all the wrong reasons and in the end I wound up hurting Sunset a great deal, even though I'd never even met her before." Starlight sighed and helped Evey up off of the floor. "Now if you can accept that a nice mare like me was once very bad do you think you might be able to accept that maybe Celestia might deserve a second chance to be friends with your mom?" "Okay," Evey whispered. "Good, now let's get you cleaned up and back to the ceremony." --------------------------------------------- Age 18 "Eventide?" Starlight knocked on the door for the third time and there was still no answer. She had received an urgent letter that morning from Princess Flurry Heart via magic scroll. Apparently Eventide has meant to be visiting her yesterday in the Crystal Empire but had never showed up. Considering that Starlight lived just down the road from her it was easy enough for her to check up on the unicorn mare, even if the two of them hardly knew one another. "Eventide are you in?" Starlight hated to break in on another pony's privacy but this could potentially be an emergency. Casting a quick snooping spell she magically looked inside the house peering about at the inside of Eventide's living room. Starlight gasped and teleported inside. Lying splayed out on the floor was an unconscious Eventide, her lips dry and parched. Carefully checking Eventide for signs of life Starlight was relieved to feel a pulse and slow but steady breathing. From the looks of things she had probably passed out a day or two ago and been laying here since. From the looks of things she had probably suffered a major case of magical exhaustion and not had anypony around to help her get to a hospital. Lifting Eventide onto her back Starlight prepared to teleport the two of them to the closest hospital in Canterlot when she noticed an unusual fitting in the room, the mirror portal to CHS. She hadn't seen it since Twilight had given it to Sunset and it looked a lot scruffier than Starlight remembered it being. That did potentially explain the exhaustion though... If Eventide had been experimenting with unknown magics... Starlight sighed as she teleported across the city. Why had Twilight ever encouraged Eventide to explore such complex magics? ------------------------------------------------ Age 20 "I'm glad you agreed to come here, Eventide, I hope that within these sessions we might be able to help you cope with what happened over Nightmare Night," Starlight said from her seat as Eventide got settled on the couch. "Whatever," her patient muttered, "not like I had much choice." "Nopony is forcing you to be here, Eventide, if you don't feel comfortable with the therapy then you aren't obligated to see it through. However I would recommend you attend for at least a month before making that decision." Starlight got out her quill and stared at her patient, how was she even meant to go about fixing this? "Now, Evey, tell me how you feel about what ponies are saying about the blazing dusk?" Starlight was thrown backwards into her seat as Eventide slammed a hoof into her face. "I-I didn't mean to do that! I'm so sorry, Starlight," Eventide rushed to her side and helped her back up as Starlight rubbed the sore spot where she had been hit. "It's okay, Eventide, that's clearly going to be a sore spot for you so I should have approached it with a little more tact. This does however give us an excellent starting point to work off of. Do you think you would be comfortable talking about... that day by name?" Eventide sat in though for a few moments, her face still clearly distressed, then shook her head. "Right, in that case let's work on something else to call it by. Something a little less... painful to remember it by. Now we could pick a random word or something more descriptive like 'the incident', or 'the problem' or 'the unpleasantness'. Whatever makes you feel more comfortable about speaking about this." Starlight placed her hoof on Eventide's. "Eventide, you're not going to be alone in this, you have ponies that care about you and they are going to help you get through this." ------------------------------------------------- Age 25 "Flurry!" Starlight waved the Princess over the minute she stepped off of the train. "I'm so glad you're here, Evey's not at her house, I've checked the local bars, I checked the museums and I just don't know where she is!" "Breathe, Starlight," Flurry said noticing the distress in the therapists eyes. "I'm sorry but I'm just so afraid that she might be dying somewhere and not have anypony to help her! I checked the hospitals they haven't seen her-" "Dying? Why do you think she's dying?" Flurry asked, new concern in her tone. Starlight's letter hadn't mentioned anything like that. "About a year ago I got worried that Evey might hurt herself, she was going through a rough patch in her therapy and I was scared for her. I put a small tracking spell on her, nothing invasive, just a little charm that would inform me if she was...was..." Starlight's breathing became ragged and she could hardly go on. "It went off earlier today. I don't know where she is, she's clearly left her house and she's in trouble, Flurry! She might already be..." Starlight trailed off again. "She has her old family wagon hidden away in Whitetail Woods. Sometimes she goes there if she wants to be alone," Flurry pointed out. There weren't many places her friend went these days but that was one of them. "No," Starlight shook her head frantically. "It's a very simple spell, it was pretty much meant to let me know if she had an accident at home. It's not got a very long range, only within Canterlot really." "Don't worry, Starlight, we'll look around all of the places she used to go in Canterlot, we'll talk to her old acquaintances and ask the guard to be on the look out for her. We'll find her Starlight, don't worry everything will be fine." Flurry just wished she could believe her own words, her best friend was probably alone and injured and she had no idea where she could be.