Sunset Town

by Art Inspired

Sunset Town

With the time on everyone's watches showing it to be a quarter away from five, the waters along Golden Harbor, the farthest part of the municipality bounced off the wooden planks. Like all towns, this one had just gone through the usual day's work, and her inhabitants needed a rest. Sleepy, golden maned and lightly brown tailed ponies trotted along, greeting one another while they walked on by each other. Yes, even their coats were golden; so magnificent, it'd take a while to recognize which pony was who. Some might be wondering why this is...

Well, the answer is actually quite obvious. Take a look at where they all live, first of all. Near the beginning point of town, it's pitch black in the later mornings, and the sunsets always come earlier than normal towns like Manehatten, and Ponyville. It's called "Twilight Village" for a reason. Celestia's to blame, mostly. To understand Sunset Ponies, one has to comprehend the placing of the sun. It comes nearest to the orb it circles at a particular time. Because of this, her highness's magic reaches down and gifts the ending day's wanderers with blossoming, yellow colors. It just so happens, Sunset Town gets hit the hardest.

Of course, the daytime alicorn's magic is vast and potent, and leaves no stone left unturned. Every inch, not just the ponies themselves are painted a solid, bright hue, just from the lighting itself. Even after hours of the sun going down in the far off harbor, they say one can still see miniature shimmers dancing in the darkened streets, and sometimes on the glass walls towering over the residential homes, too. Everything about this town is said to be blessed with light, the kinds of which can only be found within Canterlot.

One reason for Celestia's desire to live atop the mountain like this, so far away from Sunset Town is to overlook her world, and marvel at the beauty she can quite easily create. Of course, one would wonder why she doesn't reside in Sunset Town instead. The reasoning behind this is easy to deduce. It's to be closer to her sun, and as to seem like she's not choosing favorites amongst the territories. Sunset Town is far off in the West, naturally, while Canterlot is more in the middle of the Equestrian map, making it more of a desired location, too.

It's a bit complicated, but to sum things up, Sunset Ponies are sensitive to particular colors, and enjoy being left alone within their orange, red and pink region, away from blue, green and other unsightly colored mares and stallions. It's not that they disliked them, but after being used to a specific sort for such a very long time, nothing else could possibly ever seem right to the Sunset Ponies. So, Celestia took it upon herself to live quite the ways away from her furtively loved bay, so that most would forget about the legendary borough.

In return, for years she received thousands of thank you letters mailed to her every single day, all of which were from Sunset Town. May it forever be left alone, and kept away from outside influences. Besides, they're a peaceful sort. Sure, every once in a blue moon, a differently coated filly or colt will come waltzing into town, a tourist no less, seeking nothing but thrills, and will often only finding a good number of citizens wanting nothing but solitude. Luckily for everypony, with time, they almost always disappear, often returning to the town they lived in before this, or moving someplace else.

On this fine day, however, Twilight's new roll as a fellow princess sets her up for various accomplishments well beyond any normal student's reach. She would simply have to attend the town in search of their attention for one reason or another sooner or later. With this in mind, Celestia looked out at the far off sun which got smaller and smaller the more she stared it down. She could see it withering farther and farther away with every ticking second, right from her balcony. If her former pupil was to see the town for herself someday, then there was no reason for her highness to investigate the quaint metropolis once more, just for researching purposes.

In little time at all, she set herself up to be ready to head out. The guards had all been informed of her leave, and her sister had already begun lifting the moon to replace her sibling's flare. Considering the amount of time she had left to spare, Celestia quickly took off, but slowed herself once amongst the winds and majestically followed a subtle pace as always. She resisted the temptation of fast flight throughout the evening glide, and just watched her star seemingly cower away from its pursuer. By at least two hours in, she'd finally start to see signs of yellowish lands streaching far and wide beneath her, each containing a house or two, almost each and every single one of them sun-kissed as well.

Finally, like jumping from the past and into the future, she saw the town's signature twin skyscrapers beaming passed the clouds in front, the very same ones that were unfortunately still under construction on the sad day she had to leave so many years ago. Beyond that, one could easily make out the Amber Seas, and all the fog that usually goes with it. She examined Town Hall located in the centermost section of the city, and even got to spy on a few passersby that entered and exited all the simple shops and corner stores. "Nothing's changed," she said to herself while landing on a high-up enough building. "I guess Twilight shouldn't have much trouble getting along with everyone around here..."

Far below, she heard caravans and walkers talking, and a rushing taxi or two galloping to their next destinations. It was all too reminiscent to her, but Celestia stuck with her self-assigned mission, if only to collect the information she thought Twilight might someday require. Her eyes hovered over the entertaining streets found just over her left shoulder, and took note of all the kids playing in the road, too. Mostly everyone seemed fine so log as nothing interrupted their business, though Celestia had no reason to test anything at this point. She knew good and well what everypony's reaction would be like, so she kept far away from wary eyes that day.

With that basically over and done with, Princess Celestia flew off, away from the pretty little city, heading back home to the castle she now understood was hardly a fitting home for the princess of the sun. Still, her objectives were complete. So what if she had this unsettling feeling in her stomach. What was she to do? Move Back? Maybe someday later down the road... but for today, she had a general report to write up, and a former student to talk with about council conferences, as well as how to appropriately deal with sitting through them.

What she left behind, though, would for hours remind her of the summer days she'd spent there as a youth, before the world got so crowded the way it is now. Nothing had changed much, either. There was just a few new buildings here and there, all of which kept spread well away from one another like always, and of course, the two tall skyscrapers overlooking the lands, but everything around the flourishing location remained golden, just as Princess Celestia remembered.

Author's Note:

If you'd like expansions on Sunset Town, let me know in the comments. How do you think I should go about explaining the various parts of the sunset bay area? If you've got suggestions, I'm listening.

Comments

[azednew]

Swell/10

[NorrisThePony]

Sometimes the best stories are ones like these, where they seem almost rooted in the shows canon, even when they are entirely original. Stories that expand on the world of Equestria, so much so that in a few months to come I'll have to remind myself that I read about 'Sunset Town' in a fanfic, and not any of the official show material. Overall, magnificent job with this story.

[Bronydragon]

Really nice little slice of life story there.
Maybe you can go a bit more into the structure of the city and showing off the general layout. You could get Celli back to the town on short notice because the ponies there just finished a big ship, the biggest one to ponykind yet and say that they want to have her officially name it. And on the go the major could give her a tour and show her that the city changed a good chunk on the way, but was able to keep its rustic charm.
Just an idea though.

Dragon

[Arcanist Ascendant]

Seeing the skyline in the picture hurt. I used to be able to see that late afternoon shine off of those buildings out of my bedroom window. Not anymore.

Great story.

[NobleValor]

Good writing style. However, I'm of the opinion that you could expand on this a great deal (namely why the Sunset ponies don't like outsiders and what Celestia's connection to Twilight Village in more specified terms). Looking forward to more (I say hopefully ).

[LightningDashes]

i love the concept and i'll be keeping an eye out for more

[Themaskedferret]

Very sweet and I think more could be very enjoyable.