• Published 2nd Jun 2016
  • 2,198 Views, 212 Comments

The Sun Never Sets - Mr Fislewait



Sunset Shimmer finally returns to Equestria but when she arrives she is confused and sitting on death's door. Twenty five years later the mare Eventide Trailblazer is looking to continue the legacy of Sunset Shimmer for better... or for worse.

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Darkness and Honesty (Part Three)

The dress was really not my style. It was a large black and blue thing in a similar style to Rarity's own clothes but without quite so much ornamentation and with the promised bustle to cover my flanks. It was really uncomfortable and a little impractical, every time I tried to turn with it on I worried that I might knock something over, not to mention that the chest piece was uncomfortably close to being a corset. Once she had gotten me into the dress Rarity led me through the halls of the castle towards what I later found out was the servants' quarters, within which Rarity had her own small apartment.

As we made our way through the castle I realized a few things. First I had no idea what the time was, with all Equestria bathed in an eternal night how did ponies track of time? From what Octavia had said when we first met it seemed as though some ponies still acted as though there was a day night cycle with mornings and evenings, yet any notion of day seemed to be arbitrary. Secondly the guards in the castle looked a lot more menacing than those I had met so far. Each one was dressed in full armor and stood at attention, we were repeatedly stopped by guards and questioned, suspicious glances constantly being thrown my way. While Rarity explained to them that I was her new hoofmaid I tried my best to look meek and unassuming, for the most part I just thought about how Fluttershy behaved and tried to mimic her in my pony form.

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The castle was cold and unwelcoming, lit solely by magic flames its corridors were unnerving and shadows seemed to crawl across the walls. It reminded me of something I'd been seeing in my dreams, the dark Canterlot that Sombra's magic had shown me.

You mentioned that before. What exactly did you see, Sunset? It sounds similar to some dark magic that me and Spike encountered but that was made to show you your worst fear, not just some freaky alicorn monster.

Well that's what I saw, Twilight, it was... it's in the past now, it can't hurt me anymore.

Don't worry, if that nightmare ever returns we have Princess Luna in this world to chase it away, she watches over everypony's dreams, Sunset.

Yeah... everypony. Anyway, for all the repairs that had been made to it and even with Rarity's artistic touches the castle still felt like a shadow of Canterlot, it was a cold facsimile of the place I once called home, entirely devoid of any of its good cheer or contented citizens.

"For the time being you shall be staying here, we can take turns sleeping in the bed or on the couch, if possible I will try and arrange for a second bed to be moved here. I do apologize for not being able to allow you your own space but this seems the safest way of keeping your secret safe," Rarity unlocked the door to her apartment and led me inside, it was remarkably lavish considering it was located in what was ostensibly the servants' quarters. A part of me wondered if this was just on account of her being Rarity and she had simply decided to add a personal touch to an otherwise drab room, but given the size of the apartment it seemed more likely that my friend was of some importance to the princess. The apartment was made up of a small lounge kitchen with doors leading off to a bedroom and a bathroom, it wasn't a house but it was clearly superior to what one would expect of a servant's room. Lavish carpets and exotic decorations did little to brighten the rooms mood though as it shared its color scheme with the rest of the castle, blue walls, blue floors and blue decorations with black highlights.

"Thanks for putting yourself on the line like this Rarity. I mean I don't want to sound rude, or ungrateful, but why risk it? You don't know me."

"Miss Shadow, while I may at times come across as a little cold I am not heartless. I have no desire to see anypony suffer for no reason. Had you been brought here any other night I would probably have agreed with Octavia and had you hidden away in the dungeons, with the Princess out of sorts though... well she would probably have had your head." Rarity grimaced and collapsed down into a recliner.

"You mentioned something about that earlier. Is that why we got stopped by the guards?" Rarity rubbed her temples and nodded.

"Another alicorn turned up at the castle last night, one that the Princess had never seen before. With Celestia locked within the Moon and Cadance banished to the north Nightmare Moon should really be the only alicorn in Equestria. If that wasn't unsettling enough this alicorn made some wild claims about time travel and Elements of Harmony."

"What did she look like?"

"No. No, I have said too much already, I'm sorry, Miss Shadow, but the less you know of this matter the better," Rarity levitated a bottle of wine and glasses across the room and began pouring herself a drink.

"Please, Rarity, I...I think that whoever this alicorn was she could be connected to what happened to me! Rarity, this Equestria is wrong! Since I ran away from Celestia I've seen other worlds. The last few weeks I've been stuck visiting strange versions of Equestria where everything went wrong. In my Equestria a group of ponies banded together to unite the Elements and defeat Nightmare Moon. I don't know what happened but I need to find this alicorn, she might be able to help me fix things, she might be able to get me home!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Shadow, but it is too late for that. The alicorn disappeared shortly after she arrived, apparently she summoned some sort of magic portal in the forest and escaped. If it is any help I think you might be right, the alicorn made... similar comments about the state she found Equestria in. When things have died down perhaps you can try and find her but please for the sake of both us leave the matter alone for the time being, speaking about her around the castle could be deemed a treasonous offense." My heart broke a little at that moment, my first possible clue to working out what had happened to me had vanished while I was in the badlands and while I wanted nothing more than to press the matter I had to agree with Rarity, I couldn't risk her life to satisfy my own curiosity.

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My 'duties' it turned out consisted mainly of following Rarity around the castle and helping her with anything she asked of me, I had no formal set of tasks, simply whatever Rarity needed from me at the time. For the next two days (nights? I never did work out how they organized that) I led a relatively relaxed life with regular meals, a comfortable bed and a much needed opportunity to recover. By the second day my magic had mostly returned to me and I began helping Rarity with changing tapestries and cleaning the castle. A couple of times she had me wait on her and her guests, pouring drinks and fetching food for what I guessed was visiting nobles. What quickly became clear though was that she had no intention of bringing me before the princess, she quickly dismissed me to clean her quarters whenever she was required to go to the royal chambers.

It wasn't an enjoyable life, I quickly realized that if I was to be stuck in another world I would have much preferred the one where Equestria was still at war. There I could have helped other ponies out and assisted them with their war. Here the conflict had come and gone and now everypony seemed to be trying to move on with their lives, maybe there were rebels or some sort of resistance elsewhere in the world but where I was now it seemed like the ponies were content to fall into line to ensure their own safety.

While neither of us had proper medical training we did manage to finally treat my leg. Setting the bones was a painful experience and our attempt at medicine was a little crude, but it was a vast improvement over what it had been before. I've pretty much been walking with a limp ever since but if we hadn't managed to try and fix things back then I can only imagine how bad the leg would be right now.

Things would have probably gone well for me in that world if that had all been the end of it. I could have tackled my work there easily enough, gotten some proper food and good rest and then be spirited away to somewhere else by the end of the week letting Rarity get on with the rest of her life without having to worry about me. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. About three, maybe four days into being there me and Rarity were fixing some tapestries in the eastern wing when she was called away to wait upon the princess. As usual she left me to finish up the work and then return to her quarters. It was as I was leaving the east wing that everything went wrong.

"Hey you there, Dusk Shadow, right?" one of the guards called to me, Rainbow Dash to be specific. Yeah, from what I saw of that world both Rarity and Rainbow Dash were on the castle staff, up to that point I'd not really had any opportunity to speak to her and had decided to err on caution rather than seek her out, that world's Dash seemed as stern and humorless as all the rest of the castle guards so I was unwilling to risk her discovering my secret.

"Yes. I was just returning to Lady Rarity's quarters after finishing up in the east wing, is everything all right?" after my first day in the castle I hadn't been stopped once, I'd played my part well, following Rarity's instructions and not mouthing off.

"Yeah, everything's fine, just doing some mandatory security checks, extra security since the incident a few days back," she waved my question off dismissively but I recognized something in her face, something predatory.

"What sort of checks?"

"Oh normal things, make sure you haven't stolen anything from around the castle, make sure you are who you say you are..." she grinned and I felt a lump growing in my throat. "See, strange thing is, one of my friends on patrol duty asked me about this unicorn prisoner that was brought in a few days back, you know, about the time you showed up. Now I went down to the dungeons, asked if they had any new arrivals, weird thing is they hadn't," at this point there really didn't seem to be any reason to try and deny it.

"Okay, so maybe I'm the unicorn, Rarity has me working for her instead of sitting around doing nothing in the dungeons, is that a problem?"

"Depends," Dash stated circling me like a vulture. "Ever since our little incident this week the Princess has been having her best and brightest wizards searching for unusual magical traces. Now a few of these reports ended up on my desk and I noticed something interesting. See, some weird magical time energy apparently surged up in the badlands same time as this identical magical surge happened in the Everfree. Now I don't know much about all that magical mumbo jumbo but I'm not stupid, seems to me that whatever happened in the badlands probably had something to do with our alicorn guest, maybe an accomplice of hers."

"Cut to the chase, I have rooms to clean."

"Sure, sure. Well as I was saying this unicorn that got brought in, she apparently got brought in by Octavia and last I heard she was stuck on punishment detail," Dash paused for dramatic effect, "in the badlands. Times and locations all seem to match up when I look at it, Miss Shadow, but you've got nothing to worry about, see my friend told me the unicorn had this real distinctive sun cutie mark, good thing you don't have a cutie mark like that huh? Otherwise you'd been in real hot water right now." With my magic returned to me beating the ever loving crap out of Dash right then and there wasn't entirely out of the question, the two of us were alone with no witnesses. In the end though basic morals and a desire not see Rarity get hurt for my actions made me decide against it.

"Okay, Dash, bring me to the dungeons I'll come nice and quietly, just one condition. Leave Rarity out of this, only thing she's guilty of was not wanting to be responsible for somepony else dying. Me and her hoofmaid? Different ponies, none of the fallout for this comes down on her." Dash seemed to be considering my ultimatum carefully.

"What makes you think I need you to come quietly?"

"Not trying to brag, Dash, but I'm pretty powerful, it's not every unicorn that goes traveling through time," it was a bluff of sorts, true I was powerful but I hadn't got a clue about time travel.

"Fine. Deal's a deal but I'm the one that brought you in, I'm the one who gets the credit for capturing you. We clear?" she asked jabbing a hoof in my face.

"Crystal," with that I followed Dash deeper into the castle, to dark catacombs hidden beneath the main building, to a place that I had never ventured before.

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