//------------------------------// // Family is Everything // Story: The Sun Never Sets // by Mr Fislewait //------------------------------// Evey Age 9 Evey bounced around Twilight's castle like it was a trampoline. She was so excited to be visiting her godmothers again! She'd get to see Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and- Evey paused and fidgeted. Every time she visited she felt less and less comfortable around Applejack and Pinkie. Applejack was a farmer, not a farmpony, but there was so much in common between the two worlds was there any real difference? As for Pinkie... Pinkie wasn't her friend anymore. She didn't dislike Pinkie, but the woman didn't really behave the same around her anymore, she was always asking so many questions! Or talking about Evey's diary! A few of the questions had used words like 'abuse' or 'neglect' and they were always asked whenever it was just the two of them alone. It was almost as though Pinkie thought that Evey had a bad mommy! Then there were all the books and paperwork! Every visit Pinkie Pie would secretly give Evey things to take back to Equestria in her bag to pass on to Pinkie's Equestrian friend, when had she even met Miss Starlight before? And why couldn't she just give them to Twilight or Sunset? Books were heavy. "You alright there, Evey? You're looking a little lost in thought," her mommy said stepping up and rubbing her mane. "I'm fine, momma, I just don't get why we have to wait so long!" she pouted. "Twilight was talking to some of the girls a few weeks ago and she had to write in the journal to do so Evey. She left it somewhere in the castle so I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait for her to find where she left it." "But, momma! You and Twilight are alicorns! You're so magical! Why can't you just cast a spell and open the portal?" "It's a little more complicated than that Evey," Sunset chuckled. "Why though?" Evey groaned. "Why can't you just point your horn at the mirror, blast it with some magic and bang! open the portal?" Sunset smiled as her daughter mimed out the gestures. As Evey pointed her horn and a few paltry sparks of magic formed at the tip of her horn though, something went wrong. Normally this was the point where Evey tried to do something other than levitation and gave herself a headache, or tired herself out, this time was different. The light blue magic coalesced into a beam that shot from her horn and into the mirror, the force of the shot sending Evey flying backwards through the air and slamming into the bookshelves. "Evey!" Sunset ran to her daughter's side, helping her up off of the ground and checking her over for any injuries. "Evey what happened? Are you alright? Where does it hurt?" "Momma," Evey moaned. "Why's the mirror doing that?" Sunset turned and looked at the mirror, in her rush to help Evey she hadn't noticed anything different about it but with her attention now on it once more the change was immediately obvious. It was shining with a rapidly diminishing light, the surface rippling slightly like liquid. "Stay here, Evey," Sunset commanded as she approached the portal. Gingerly placing one hoof on the surface she found it passed right through, without the book and outside of the normal opening window. "Evey! When did you get your cutie mark?" Sunset spun about to see Twilight standing in the doorway with the journal held beneath one wing, staring at her daughter. Her daughter who now had a picture of a flaming compass rose on her flank. Any concern Sunset had over the portal instantly evaporated as she stared in pride at her daughter. Nopony who knew her would be surprised by the mark, it was an explorer's cutie mark if ever she had seen one. ----------------------------------------------- Age 22 Eventide swallowed her Aetherozin and winced. The pills were disgusting but necessary, if she didn't take them she'd pass out within minutes. For the time being she had been managing to convince the doctors that her magical exhaustion was simply a result of her malformed horn but sooner or later somepony was going to start asking questions about what she was doing to herself to so frequently deplete her energy. Still it was worth it, it was necessary. She examined her handiwork and smiled, it had been so much easier to keep making the mirrors since she had moved the operation to Sunset's old house. She no longer needed to worry about somepony like Starlight walking in to find her collapsed in front of a magical artifact that was believed to have been destroyed. She could stop at anytime of course but what would she do then? No, this was her life now, she would keep forging the mirrors until she found a world that she could be happy in. Equestria hated her but any number of alternate realities might welcome a talented young mare such as herself. The problem was finding the right one. She stepped through her latest piece of work and instantly found herself standing alone in a courtyard in Canterlot. Checking herself she confirmed she was indeed still a unicorn and that magic did work in this world. This time the portal had manifested in... in a memorial? A great statue stood behind her, the portal manifesting on one of its sides. In design it was similar to the CHS portal but here the great horse was an alicorn and instead of rearing up on its hind legs it was curled up peacefully in sleep. Her eyes darted to the alicorn's flank confirming it as being a statue of Celestia. Eventide checked her surroundings again, the courtyard was more like a garden really, but while many of the Canterlot gardens were public places this one was silent and empty. As quiet as the grave. It was more than a memorial, it was a graveyard, a graveyard with a singular tenant. "Sunset? Sunset, is that you?" Eventide froze at her mother's name and prepared herself to dart back through the portal. Somepony had found her intruding in the tomb of a princess and worse had mistaken her for Sunset. Her past experiences had taught her that as wonderful as her mother was it was very rare for the locals to have fond memories of her. "Wait don't go! I thought...sorry I thought you were somepony else, somepony I used to know." The voice was husky yet female and sounded simultaneously happy and sad. Eventide turned to face the speaker and saw an orange earth pony with a purple mane and horrible scars stretching across most of her back. "Wow, that is uncanny!" the mare exclaimed staring at her. "You know Sunset Shimmer?" Eventide asked. "I... well," the mare nervously rubbed the back of her head, "I did. I guess you don't recognize me huh? Have you never read it in the papers or at school?" Eventide stared at the mare, there was something familiar about her but she couldn't place it. "Sorry but I'm drawing a blank here. You uh... you knew Sunset though right? And you actually liked her?" the mare seemed startled by the accusation, clearly confused by something Eventide had said. "Well yeah! I mean hardly anyone knew her but she's practically a national hero. The Sunset Memorial Hospital wasn't named after her for nothing!" There was a sense of hurt in the mare's voice, apparently the implication that somepony might not like Sunset was foreign to her. "Sorry," Eventide shied away. "I'm... I'm not from around here. I don't really know much on current events but..." she paused and considered her next words carefully, "I'm Eventide Trailblazer, I knew Sunset pretty well but I had no idea she was some sort of hero." What had this world's Sunset done that was so drastically different to the others? "Well, hero might be pushing it a little. I'm Scootaloo by the way, you seriously never heard of me?" She had heard of a Scootaloo before, even met the mare a few times, but that Scootaloo was a- "Pegasus. You're a pegasus aren't you?" "Yeah, real nasty accident as a kid, you probably read about it at school." "No. I'm... I'm not from-" Eventide paused and looked around, staring up at the sky. Thin clouds of smoke seemed to drift through the air, Celestia was dead and buried, Scootaloo had no wings... "The Crystal Empire! You met Sunset in the Crystal Empire! She paid off some stallion who was making you work as a kid in his factory, you spent about a week living with her and two other fillies... Applebloom and... Silver Spoon? She had to raise the sun every morning and lower it every night and..." the memories came flooding back. Perhaps she was right, perhaps she was wrong but this could very well one of the worlds Sunset had told her about in her stories. This would be impossible though! Manipulation of time should have rendered this entire timeline nonexistent, it being here answered so many questions about her multiverse theories and the nature of time travel! "So you did read up on that at school then?" Scootaloo asked her quizzically. "No! She told me herself! I'm her daughter, at the end of the week she disappeared into a magical portal and was whisked away to another Equestria!" "She's alive!?" Scootaloo yelled. "That's amazing! I mean, sure it was only for a week or so but Sunset was like a second mother to me! She inspired Twilight Sparkle to take on the board of medicine about the condition of Equestria! She was the driving force behind Rarity going into politics! Hay, if it wasn't for her then Rarity's sister might never have decided to research Starswirl's unfinished spell and fix the problem with the sun! AB, Silver and me would probably be dead if it wasn't for-" "She's dead," Eventide cut her off. "Or at least as good as dead. I'm sorry," the mood dropped instantly. Before both mares had been exhilarated, Eventide with the thrill of discovery, Scootaloo with the possibility of meeting her hero again... now though reality returned, Sunset was gone and neither of them could change that. "Sorry for your loss. We all thought she'd exploded, vaporized by unstable magic. She didn't know many ponies but the few of us who had met her... well, never again. We vowed that never again would good ponies be abused and manipulated." Scootaloo sat down beside Eventide and put a leg across her back. "I don't know if it's any consolation but she really made a difference here, thing's have gotten a lot better since she came here. Sure there's still some problems, but foals have a lot more rights and with Princess Belle on the throne the three tribes are a lot more equal again. Hay, she's even trying to free Luna so she can get some help with moving the moon!" "Belle? Sweetie Belle? She's the princess of Equestria?" Eventide stared in disbelief as Scootaloo nodded then burst into laughter. The two of them spent hours talking before Eventide finally headed home. Scootaloo had talked about her job caring for the castle gardens, her memories of Sunset and the history behind Sweetie Belle's rise to power; Eventide in turn talked about her mother, the existence of alternate Equestrias and very carefully avoided touching on the exact nature of what had happened to Sunset. The mare clearly idolized her mother, it would break her heart to hear what had happened. "You're always welcome back here you know? It's the least we could do after everything that happened," Scootaloo said giving Eventide a hug goodbye. "I'll bear that in mind," as Eventide stepped through the portal though her mind wasn't even considering the possibility of taking up a permanent residence in that world though. Sure that had been the original plan but now... this world changed everything. If the worlds Sunset had visited were all out there somewhere in the multiverse then that meant somewhere her father, her real father, was alive. With Sunset gone he was the only family she really had left, and now she had a chance to potentially find him. ----------------------------------- Age 23 Eventide jumped up and down like an overexcited school filly. Scales! Beautiful yellow scales! And wings! She flexed them back and forth, admiring her reflection in the lake. She even had a horn protruding from her head which (with a few attempts at levitation to confirm) was capable of casting magic. Turning about on the spot she awkwardly examined her body, admiring her long elegant tail, her sharp yet flexible claws, her long forked tongue... Perfect! Everything about this form was perfect and...her eyes turned to face the cliff. The portal had brought her out on top of a mountain ledge, the portal itself being built into a large flat wall of stone in the mountainside. The pool of water she was using to admire herself in was formed by a series of trickling waterfalls that cascaded down the side of the cliffs and the wind blew across her body. Her eyes fixed on the edge of the cliff and she smiled, she had been given the unique opportunity to fulfill one of her greatest fantasies. Taking a running start she leaped off of the side of the mountain and flapped her wings. "Oh." Something didn't seem to be working, perhaps she needed to flap harder? Or with a different rhythm? These were the thoughts that briefly went through Eventide's head before being overtaken by a screaming voice telling her that she was falling. -------------------------------------- "About time you woke up," Eventide's eyes finally managed to pry themselves open. How long had she been out cold? The last thing she remembered was falling and screaming and then... then she hit something large and blue. The aforementioned large blue object appeared to be standing in front of her with an ice pack on his head. "Bwuh?" Eventide muttered with all the grace of the Canterlot elite as she tried to focus on the pony. "Yeah, good to see you too," he muttered. There was something off about his voice, something inequine. Eventide's eyes finally came into focus and she saw... a dragon, a brilliant blue dragon. With long blue spines running down his back and great billowing wings and... Eventide's wings lurched outwards pushing her up into a sitting position, why had they done that? "Well things got exceedingly awkward, exceedingly quickly," the dragon muttered, rubbing his temples with one claw. "Care to fill me in on what went wrong up there? It's pretty obvious your wings are in...umm working order, so I'm guessing that wasn't the problem." "Hey! Flying looks a lot easier than it is okay!" Eventide yelled as she came to her senses. She tried getting her wings under control, she wasn't sure why but she felt there was something incredibly embarrassing about their current extended position. The dragon stared at her in disbelief. "Seriously? You seriously expect me to believe that a young adult like you has never flown before?" "I've flown! Just... never with my own wings before," she mumbled fiddling with her claws. "Wow, you must be spoiled rich if you've never had to fly before. You from one of the noble houses or something, Miss..." "Eventide, Eventide Trailblazer," Eventide muttered shaking the dragon by the claw. "Molten Sapphire," he returned. "That is a... a very odd name. Bet you got teased a lot as a kid for it huh?" "No!" Eventide shot him a glare. "I got teased plenty but not about that, I mean what kind of name is Molten anyway?" "One that is exceedingly common among horned drakes," he sighed, "I prefer to go by Sapphire, or Saph. Mind if I call you Blazer? That at least sounds vaguely normal compared to.... to well any other part of your name." "Sure whatever," Eventide muttered. "Look trust me there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for my name, and my problems flying and...and anything else weird you might have noticed about me!" Eventide shot her wings a glare for their earlier betrayal. "It just so happens that said explanation is so strange and unorthodox that it would surely go over the head of somebody...ummm somedragon, like you." "Somedragon? Who says somedragon? I'll have you know I'm quite the mage, I doubt any explanation you could give would possibly surprise me. I mean it's not like your some kind of inter-dimensional traveler from an alternate reality." Eventide shuffled nervously in her seat, trying not to make eye contact with Sapphire. "Oh by the wyrms you are aren't you!" "No...?" Eventide whispered in a voice that would have failed to convince anyone. "You are! This is amazing! Extraordinary! How did the dragons in your world invent it? Why can't the dragons in your world fly? Are you the only traveler or are there others? I mean I made some spells for observing facets of the multiverse as part of my magical thesis but-" "Wait hold up," Eventide cut in. "You can observe the multiverse?" "Sort of, it's unreliable though and most of the worlds I've looked at don't even have have dragons as the dominant species, if they have them at all. I mean what are the chances of this happening? I mean it's not every day that a pretty young drake falls onto you from out of the sky, but one who also happens to be an inter-dimensional explorer!?" Sapphire was becoming increasingly animated as he spoke, walking around the room waving his arms as he spoke. "Okay so first things first, I'm not actually a dragon in my world. As far as I can tell the magic that lets me travel seems to change a... individual into whatever the dominant species is of the place they are visiting, that's why I didn't know how to fly. Secondly as far as I know I'm the only one who does this, and third I.... wait? You think I'm pretty?" Sapphire awkwardly turned away, rubbing the back of his head. "Okay forget that for the time being, you said you can observe other dimensions, is there anyway you could direct your observations? Perhaps track down a specific reality?" "Perhaps, I guess. I mean I've managed to reliably locate specific realities, I guess with some effort I could adapt the spell to look for certain qualities, you know, if I knew what I was looking for." "What about if you had access to a spell to open the gateway to the other worlds? Would you be able to find a way to make the gate open into one of your observed worlds?" Sapphire sat in deep thought for a moment then nodded. "It would be tricky, but yeah. I think that might be possible." Eventide grinned and looked down to where here cutie mark would be if she was a pony. "Sapphire, do you believe in destiny? Because where I come from we hold a lot of belief in signs and fate, and me meeting you right here? If that isn't a sign that we were meant to work together then I don't know what is."