The Sun Never Sets

by Mr Fislewait

Monsters and Laughter

"You're sure you're up for this, because we can always delay your reunion with Starburst till a day that I can join you," Twilight asked for the fifth time that day as Starlight prepared to board the train with the rest of Twilight's friends. "You're welcome to stay here in Ponyville with me and Sunset, I bet she'd welcome another friendly face being around!"

"No no, this reunion is a long time coming and I can't go putting it off any longer! Besides, Spike has been looking forward to showing me around the Crystal Empire and I'd hate to disappoint him," Starlight said, blanching at the idea of having to spend an entire weekend with Sunset.

"I only wish I could join you guys! It's not every day you get to attend a crystalling you know! It just feels wrong running off to visit my family and leaving Sunset stuck in her hospital bed all alone. Also I sort of have to be here to make sure everything goes alright with the 'you know what'," she said with a smile.

The plan had taken a few days to work out and had almost been thrown into disarray with the news that Shining and Cadance's baby was arriving imminently. Twilight couldn't exactly be in two places at the same time (not without resorting to some exceedingly dangerous magic) so she had to compromise. Spike would cover for her in carrying out Starlight's friendship lesson, her friends would help out at the crystalling and she would stay at Ponyville to chaperone Sunset's special guests. As the train rolled out of the station with everyone else aboard Twilight teleported across town to her castle.

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The walk from the castle to Sunset's hospital room was awkward to put things lightly. With Applejack and Fluttershy in tow she attracted more than her fair share of confused glances. From the way she was walking Applejack seemed to be perpetually drunk and was clearly embarrassed by the fact, Fluttershy by contrast appeared to be gazing at her surroundings with a new found sense of wonder. A couple of ponies, hospital staff included, cautiously moved out of Fluttershy's way as she seemed prepared to pounce on and hug every passerby. The three walked in silence till they finally reached the room, Twilight entering first followed by her two friends.

"Hey, Twilight! Look at this!" Sunset called as they entered. Raising one of her forelimbs Sunset waved her hoof back and forth in an enthusiastic wave. "Proper movement in my limbs! Doc Horse says that in a week or two I can start getting out of bed for some physio, maybe even start walking around on three legs!" Though her smile was encouraging it was undermined somewhat by the sadness in her eyes, it pained Twilight a little to see her friend this way. "He even says I could be able to move out of the hospital by the end of the month."

"That's good to hear. Any news on your magic?"

"Horn's going to take awhile to heal. It should come back with time though," she sighed and seemed to deflate somewhat, any happiness at her recent victory lost in an instant.

"Well, let's not dwell on that now," Twilight pressed trying to move to a happier topic. "I brought some friends who I think you might appreciate being here!"

"Twilight, I know you mean well but this is still awkward for me. I know you want me to be friends with everyone but it's really creepy seeing all these ponies who look so similar to the people I know," Sunset averted her eyes from the group and stared down at her bed covers.

"Now ah take offense at that, Sunset!" Applejack laughed. "Ah'd like ta think we know each other enough that you wouldn't go mistakin me for somebody else." Sunset's ears perked up, her eyes snapping to the three ponies and looking at them in a new light.

"No way... Twilight are they who I think they are?"

"The very same. It would be a little awkward having two sets of my friends walking around but we managed to arrange for Fluttershy and AJ to come through for a visit. Of course that was before we knew everypony else would be out of town on business. We weren't even entirely certain anyone would be able to come so we decided to keep everything a secret in case we couldn't pull it off." Twilight took a seat while her CHS friends walked over to the side of the bed.

"I know you've talked about Equestria before, but I never realized everybody... oh sorry... everypony would be so adorable!" Fluttershy squeed. "Twilight told us all about your... um... injuries and everybody at CHS is wishing you a speedy recovery. What happened, Sunset? I don't want to sound mean but you look awful!"

"I've been through a lot. Let's just leave it at that for now. How did everything go with the friendship games though? I'd love to hear some news from home."

"Ah jeez, Sunset, I'm guessing you haven't heard then? Celestia and Luna cancelled the games. When you went missing me and the girls pretty much put everything on hold to get a search going. Nobody knew where you'd gone, we ended up getting the police involved... technically you're still a missin' person, Sunset. Anyways Luna checked the security footage of the grounds and even though we couldn't see whatever happened to ya we could see that something real magical happened on the school grounds. Long story short Principal Celestia decided not to risk getting Crystal Prep involved in some crazy magical business and called the whole thing off."

"Sorry I had you guys so worried. Hey uh... did Twilight tell you guys anything else about-"

"Bout you being ummm in the family way? Yeah she mighta mentioned that," Applejack rubbed the back of her head awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. "For the time being it's just the girls that know, we figured you wouldn't want the whole school knowing when you came back."

"Thanks, but I'm not coming back."

"What?" the other three ponies all shouted in unison, turning to see Sunset shrinking backwards into her bed.

"I'm not going back to CHS. Look I love you guys and you've really made it feel like home there, but there's no life for me over there, not anymore." Sunset let out an exhausted sigh and looked out the window. "The human world was pretty hard to live in without any proof of identity or proper income, and from what I gathered while I was there it's not exactly an easy place to be a single mom, even before accounting for things like me being a teen over there or the whole, total lack of any family, situation. That's before even getting onto the fact that we have no idea what effect traveling through the portal would have on the baby, or on my injuries."

"So uh, ah take it your planning on keeping the kid then?" Applejack mumbled.

"Well yeah, why wouldn't I?" Sunset glared at her friend, the mood turning cold.

"It's an honest mistake to make, Sunset," Twilight interjected trying to get between the two friends before something unpleasant was said. "I mean it isn't something you've discussed much with anypony so we didn't really know what your plans were. I suppose I had been expecting that eventually you'd want to go back to CHS and so I sort of guessed you might put the foal up for adoption." From the expression on Sunset's face Twilight gathered she had said entirely the wrong thing.

"No. No, I'm a lot of things Twilight but I'm not like that, I'm not just going to ditch my foal because it's inconvenient! I'm going to give it everything I didn't have when I was growing up, a home, a family. I've not worked out all the details yet but I'll get a job, make some bits, make sure the foal has a happy life."

"And we will be more than happy to help you," Twilight smiled laying a hoof on Sunset's shoulder. "I think I might have a few ideas, ponies that would be happy to hire a mare with your experiences."

"Thanks Twilight, that... that means a lot to me."

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They spent the next few hours catching up on 'old times', shared experiences from CHS, recent events from either side of the portal. It was nice, a pleasant distraction from the less pleasant topics that were perhaps better off left alone. Eventually though the calm came to an end when Twilight brought up a subject that she had been skirting around all morning.

"So, Sunset, think you could maybe tell us what happened to you while you were away?" Sunset froze at the suggestion.

"I uh... the next part of the story, continuing where I left off I mean... it isn't... it wasn't my proudest moment. Also I don't remember a lot of it. I understand if maybe AJ and Fluttershy might want to leave."

"Sunset, we are all worried about you, we want to know what happened so we can help you move past it," Fluttershy smiled at her but Sunset couldn't bring herself to return it.

"If you insist..."

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After the portal pulled me up I found myself lost in a swirling void of color and distortion. It didn't hurt but it was really uncomfortable. After a few passing moments I felt the pull of gravity return to normal and dropped out of the sky straight onto my bad leg. Around me everything looked pretty much the same as it was when I was grabbed. I was up in the mountains, alone with no signs of my new friends and no signs of the war that seemed to have engulfed Equestria. In my heart I knew it was all gone, I knew that whatever strange magic had changed Equestria into a warzone had once more ripped me from where I had been and thrust me into the unknown. Didn't stop me trying to deny it though.

The pain in my leg was blinding, I had no food, the blanket that Pinkie had given me was gone and the crutch had broken in two on impact. With no other prospects and little to no hope of survival I decided to follow my last chance at getting home. I would get to the place where Dash had said their base camp was and hope against hope that Celestia was there. At a guess I'd say I managed to crawl a mile, perhaps a mile and a half on a broken leg before I finally gave up. All the time I was scanning the horizon for the promised camp but couldn't find a single sign of it, couldn't find a single sign of civilization. So with my body weary, my will broken and my resolve shattered I collapsed in the snow and waited for the end to come.

When I awoke I thought I'd passed on to some other place. I think the only hing that clued me in to that not being the case was the thought that if I was dead I wouldn't be in so much pain. I was in a wagon of some kind being transported somewhere. From the temperature I gathered that my 'saviors' had left the cold climate of the north and made it to warmer climes. I could scarcely move, could barely feel my leg unless it flared up in violent spasms of pain. They tried to feed me from time to time and with a little effort I managed to make the food go down. You know I was so naive as to the nature of that world that I actually whispered thanks to my 'rescuers' whenever they visited me. I never questioned why I didn't seem to see the same pony twice, never questioned the fact that my bad leg was the only part of my body that didn't seem to be paralyzed by whatever anesthetic had been applied to me. I won't dwell on the details of my 'recovery' but know this, the only reason that I was cared for was that I was useful to them as... as food.

I think we made quick progress across Equestria, it was hard to say considering how often I phased in and out of consciousness. The one thing I could tell though was that every time I woke the world seemed hotter and drier. At first I thought it was a fever and tried to alert my companions of the symptoms but even if I had been able to communicate with them I doubt they would have listened. It was only when our journey ended that I found we had come to the badlands, and to a vast anthill like structure that the likes of which I had never seen before. A changeling hive.

I...I won't go into detail on what happened there. The important thing is I learned that the changelings had somehow conquered all of Equestria, they sought out any resistance and brought their captives back to the hives to be fed upon. I escaped just in time to be snatched up by the magic portal again and-

Wait escaped? How? What was it like in the hive? Who told you what had happened? What exactly did happen to you? I mean I've never heard of what a hive is even meant to look like let alone...

TWILIGHT! Please... just respect that this is something that I don't want to talk about. The changelings are monsters, the things they do are unspeakable and all of you are better off never having to know what went on in there.

But you escaped? I mean how did you do that?

Fine, Twilight. You really want to know? Magic. By the end of my week there I felt drained of energy, drained of... of love. But I had an abundance of two things, the first was anger, the second was magic. My talent is magic, same as yours, Twilight, but my specialty was always to do with the sun and by extension...fire. In the hive all the captives are held in place inside of cocoons but a determined prisoner like myself could break through the goo and be free. Not that it would do them much good though, by then the prisoner would be weak from imprisonment and surrounded by soldiers in the middle of a heavily fortified hive. I imagine the changelings are normally used to just walking up smacking the escapee around a little and throwing them straight back into a cell. They hadn't reckoned on me.

I was pissed, I was alone, I was full of magical potential that I hadn't really had a good chance to use for years and one of my last good memories was almost getting myself killed trying to save Maud, Pinkie and Dash from crystal ponies. So I smiled to myself, giggled like a maniac and decided that the plan worked out so well last time that it was worth giving it a second shot. I took all of my pent up magic and anger and channeled it into one great big pyre. You want to know something about changelings Twilight? You want to know about their nests and hives? Fine. They burn just as well as any other bug. The flames fed on that hive, it was like tinder. I can...I can still hear the little popping sounds Twilight as it engulfed them. I tried to drown out all the sounds, all the screams, all the fire. I tried to drown it out but I couldn't. I don't know how long I let it all burn but I was in control. When the flames died down everything was smoldering ashes around me, not a single burn on my body. That was when I heard the worst sound of them all. Laughter. Wild, untamed, manic laughter. I stood there among the dead and I laughed, I couldn't stop myself, I couldn't control it. I'd killed them all and the only thing I could bring myself to do was laugh.

You want to know why I didn't want to talk about my escape? There you have it. Now, could the three of you leave? Please? I want some time to myself to think about everything I've done.