• 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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Howling at the Moon

Starlight Glimmer didn't make a habit of visiting her patients unannounced but this morning she had made an exception. Her next meeting with Eventide wasn't due for about a month but after she'd read her morning paper it seemed pertinent to check in on her.

Former archeologist, Eventide Trailblazer, caused an uproar in Manehattan last night when she interrupted the festivities in an attempt to further her own agenda. Taking to the stage uninvited, Ms Trailblazer spoke at length on her own opinions and relationship with regards to the figure Sunset Shimmer who was banished from Equestria five years ago by the Elements of Harmony. Listeners were appalled at the manner in which Ms Trailblazer seemed to be attempting to garner sympathy for the infamous monster. Relatives of Sunset Shimmer's victims were unavailable for interview, while Princess Naiad declined to give an official statement on the incident.

Starlight sighed as she scanned the rest of the article, it really only got worse from that point onward. She paused outside Eventide's door and was thankful that her patient's residence was not publicly known information. Those few journalists who had managed to track her down had been subject to gagging orders directly from Celestia herself; as the information began to circulate that the Princess wished for Eventide to be left alone the press quickly stopped trying. Starlight hesitated at the door, one hoof raised to knock but a feeling of impropriety keeping her from continuing. Eventide was a nice enough mare, she seemed to get on with Starlight and Eventide never judged her for her past actions. Unlike most of Starlight's friends she hadn't really known Eventide very well when she was just a little filly; Starlight had always been kept at a distance from the foal and hadn't really gotten to know her till she had begun attending therapy. That was the real problem though, Starlight could be the best friend in the world to Eventide but it still wouldn't change the fact that the young mare was broken, damaged goods. It was possible that Starlight being here would only make things worse, who was to say what her mental state would be like at the moment? It took the sound of breaking glass on the other side of the door to spur Starlight to action.

Mustering a small burst of magic Starlight teleported to the other side of the door and into Eventide's house. She hadn't visited her at home before and was a little surprised at how plain and humble the interior was. This surprise however was quickly overtaken by fear and shock at the state of the mare in front of her. Eventide was swaying back and forth in a chair attempting to uncork a bottle of wine with her teeth, scattered about the living room table were a number of empty bottles of varying spirits and on the floor was the broken remnants of a bottle of whisky, its fragments slick with liquor and blood. One of Eventide's back legs was resting on the floor in the midst of the bottle's remnants, shards of broken glass poking into the skin as rivulets of blood spread across their surface.

"Eventide!" Starlight screamed, yanking the bottle out of the other unicorn's hooves with her magic and placing it on the table, before turning her telekinesis to quickly scooping up the shards of glass off of the floor.

"Whadda you want?" Eventide growled, her voice slurring the words together and anger in her eyes.

"Evey, you're hurt! We need to get that leg cleaned and bandaged up," Starlight began pulling cloths and towels over from Eventide's kitchenette to start cleaning the mess but she had no idea where the unicorn might keep her medical supplies if she had any.

"Dozen hurt any moren what they had to say about me," Eventide grimaced pointing at a newspaper lying scrunched up on the table. It wasn't even midday yet Starlight mused hoping that the empty bottles hadn't been full when Eventide began drinking. "I godup an I said the trooth ta them, and nothin offensive. I didn shout or scream and I didn try to say that what she did was right, just tha she wasn't always like that. Jus that there was anudda side to her, that she was a pony like every pony else," Eventide slammed a hoof down on the table crushing the paper beneath it. "And they jus when ahead and spat in my face. Um done playing Twilight's games, Starlight. I lose when I'm honest, I lose when I tell the lies thad I'm supposed to tell, sho what now? I keep trying to come up with shome excuse to shtick around but every time it just blows up in my face. S'like the howl of Equestria wants me to be bad, wants me to do something wrong."

Starlight took Eventide between her forehooves and hugged her tight, whispering hushing noises in her ear. "You're not a bad mare, Evey, I can't say I'm proud of you for going to Manehattan when you probably knew things might get quite heated, and I'm certainly opposed to you obsessing over the moon," the writer of the article had tailed Eventide after her speech, by the end of the week her moon gazing would be common knowledge across all Equestria, "but I'm proud of you for trying to push past this and trying to be the better pony. I'm sure your mother would be proud too." Eventide whimpered quietly between Starlight's hooves and nodded. "Now, Evey, do you have some medical supplies in the house? I need to take a look at this leg."

"Upstairs, first door on the left ish the bathroom. Medical cabnets inside."

Starlight released Eventide from her grasp and made her way to the bathroom. As Eventide had promised the cabinet was inside and Starlight began collecting the necessary supplies. She picked up some cotton wool, tweezers, disinfectant and bandages as well as filling up a small tub with water. As she got what she needed her eyes paused on a pair of bottles in the cabinet, one was the new prescription for Eventide's medication but the other was unfamiliar to her. Pulling it closer with her magic Starlight examined the bottles label in confusion. Aetherozin- Take three pills with a glass of water every evening until symptoms have subsided. Prescribed by Dr Good Wishes to Eventide Trailblazer for Magical Exhaustion. Starlight blinked a couple of times and reread the label, while it wasn't unheard of for unicorns to suffer from magical exhaustion after casting particularly complicated spells the problem was only really present among mages and other frequent practitioners of magic. Eventide was somewhat lacking in magical talent, to Starlight's knowledge she was only really capable of telekinesis and minor acts of pyromancy. Given her special talent Twilight had once hypothesized that Evey would likely become an expert at long range teleportation but the spell had proven to be beyond the little filly's talents. So what could Eventide possibly have been doing that would have left her in a state of magical exhaustion?

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Starlight considered asking Eventide about the Aetherozin while she cleaned and treated her injury but decided against it, at the moment the mare was in no state to answer such prying questions.

"Why are you sho good to me, Starlight?" Eventide whispered as she finished up removing the last of the glass.

"You're a good friend, Evey, and I care about what happens to you. Even if I wasn't your therapist I'd still care about your well being, I don't want to see you getting hurt."

"But you hate me, Starlight," the unicorn froze at Evey's words. "I'm not blind. Every time I visit you ken baerly look at me. You run off an cry. Not blind Starlight. Not blind."

"I don't hate you, Evey... It just... it hurts to see you sometimes. I let you down, I hurt your mother and I just... It feels wrong to sit there and act like everything is okay Evey." Starlight turned to look Eventide in the eye expecting to see a familiar scorn, instead there was only confusion and sadness.

"Mum didn like you. But thawas her problem, I never held you to that. And you were pretty much tha only one who didn't let me down, Starlight... well, you an Fluddershy. You weren't there five-" Evey stopped and shook her head, "-shix years ago. You didn't stab me in the back."

"Evey," Starlight began, taking a deep breathe before continuing. She liked the little mare and hoped they could remain friends but at the same time feared that nothing would be the same after she had finished what she was going to say. "Evey, when you came back to Equestria six years ago... six years ago today, I was meant to be at the train station to pick you up. Twilight wanted me to be there to get you somewhere safe before anypony took advantage of you, we knew you wouldn't have heard the news yet and... and it seemed best that you had it broken to you by friends instead of strangers." Evey sat there and blinked a couple of times, her expression unreadable. "When I got to the station though, your boss noticed me... Mr Quill told me that your train had already come in and you'd headed back to your house. I ran off hoping to catch up to you before you got into any trouble and when your train actually came in I wasn't there to help you. Evey, it's my fault he had the opportunity for that interview with you, I'm sorry. If there's anything I can-"

"Shush" Eventide cut her off. "Quill's a bashterd. Sgot nothing ta do with you Starlight. He tricked you, an he tricked me an if I ever go off the deep end he's gonna be ina lotta trouble. Don't blame you, Starlight. Shit happens, wasn't your fault," Eventide squirmed a few times in her seat as Starlight finished bandaging her leg. "Im jusht glad you don't hate me, Starlight. Got too few friends left to go around losing them."

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By the time Starlight left it was already evening. The unicorn had deemed it necessary to remove all of Eventide's remaining alcohol from the house and though Eventide was thirsty for another drink she found it hard to blame her for the decision. She'd been a real mess when Starlight had come in, she hadn't even realized that she'd stepped in the glass until Starlight had pointed it out. She still felt a little tipsy but by the time Starlight left she had mostly returned to her senses (mostly).

As she lay on her couch nursing her injured leg and suffering from a growing headache, a buzzing sound filled the air, a magical thrumming originating from her bookcase. Wincing in pain at even the most minor of magic tricks she levitated the book across to where she was sitting and looked over the cover. It was a thick unlabelled tome with no real markings on it except for a few metallic clasps and the image of her cutie mark emblazoned on the cover. Flipping it open the book stopped humming and Eventide turned to the most recent page.

Hey, Blazer, just thought I'd let you know that the ritual is set up and ready to go. Was a little tricky getting the crystals to hold the magical charge but it should be nice and portable, just set it up when you want to use the spell.

Eventide smiled as she read over the words picking up a quill of her own and writing a line beneath the most recent entry.

Heeeey, Sapphire, how you doing?

There was a brief pause then the book hummed again, a new line appearing on the page.

Ummm you okay there, Blazer? Your writing was all over the place.

Nope I'm really really drunk right now. You know, I'm really not doing anything at the moment. Howsabout I come over to your place and we have some fun?

Blazer, what day is it over there? And I don't mean week day, I'm talking calendar day.

Night after Nightmare Night

In that case no. Look the stuffs ready you just need to come pick it up and I'd love to see you again anyway, but right now I think you should be getting some sleep. You're clearly not feeling like yourself right now and what with it being the anniversary of your mother's death, well I don't want you doing something stupid you're going to regret later on.

But I've done so many stupid things I regretted later on! At least this one would be fun!

Not today. But maybe when you next visit.

So hows the ritual work? I don't have the scroll yet but is there anything else I need?

Other than the magical catalyst? A pretty hefty magical source to power the whole thing, a suitable receptacle to receive the spell and then a pair of identifiers to track the target.

Got my power source, receptacles old hat. What are the identifiers?

Well in your case I think we can get away with two hair samples. One lock of hair from you and one from your mother. I get that the second one is tricky but I trust you have your ways?

Possibly. Does it have to be an exact match? If I were to say take a lock of hair from mom's identical twin would that work?

Should do. The important thing is that you have to use your own hair, no donors for that one. If it isn't an exact match you might just end up finding another doppelganger.

Good to know. Anyways, I think I'll call this a night.

Night, Blazer.

Eventide closed her journal and gently kissed the cover. Let the ponies of Equestria say whatever they damn well pleased. She didn't need them anymore. Soon she would have the final pieces of her spell and when it was complete everything would be right again. The hair sample might take a little bit of work but she had a plan for that, and once Sweetie Drops got back to her she could easily enough acquire the magical catalyst. It would be like taking candy from a foal. She laughed to herself; Twilight was worried that she had stolen the Alicorn Amulet to seek out some petty vengeance, silly Twilight, so short sighted and unimaginative. With that sort of power available to her why would she waste it on revenge? No...Twilight would never see this coming, not until it was too late to stop her.

Author's Note:

The term 'howling at the moon' is (among other things) a euphemism for being drunk.

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