The Sun Never Sets

by Mr Fislewait

Industry and Generosity (Part Two)

03100429

That was the number assigned to me by Thrifty Mill. He had already left the room by the time I had finished thrashing about in pain and cursing at nopony in particular. The two pegasi helped me get back onto my hooves and removed the inhibitor, apparently it had only been put on me to stop me from panic casting a spell during the branding process. They handed me a small bag of bits to tide me over till I was receiving my contracted allowance. I was given an address at the palace to go to for my work and instructions on what to do when I got there. Thrifty wouldn't be arranging any form of accommodation for me (I was apparently expected to pay for that out of my own pockets) but I was informed that unicorns working at the palace were apparently offered a bed for the night to recover from the casting process. When I was finally able to stand again I was handed a cloak to cover myself up with and then shown the door.

With most of the day to kill before I was needed at the palace I wandered the city streets without purpose. High above me the sun shone in the sky but the rays of light barely seemed to pierce the thick clouds of smog and snow that hung in the air above me, making the entire city appear to be trapped in a perpetual state of twilight. Street vendors peddled cheap and disgusting looking food to passersby and everypony I passed seemed to move with a dull monotonous step. I now watched them with fresh interest though, curious as to just how many of them might have brands beneath their clothes. The entire concept sickened me, cutie marks were meant to be an indication of a pony's special talent, the thing that set them apart from others but here ponies were defacing them with horribly uniform markings that indicated a living condition that felt suspiciously like slavery.

As I wandered the city streets I felt a pricking on the back of my neck. I was being followed. I continued walking but made sure to occasionally turn around to check behind me. Sure enough whenever I turned there was a small commotion in the crowd behind me as my pursuer ducked into cover. After five or so minutes of this I decided that enough was enough and that I should confront whoever it was that was tailing me. Instead of continuing straight down the street I turned off into an alleyway and crouched into the shadows behind some bins, using a touch of magic to help conceal myself. I waited there hidden in the dark for a few moments and sure enough my stalker quickly entered the alley to see where I had gone.

I had been expecting somepony sent by Thrifty or perhaps an agent of whatever evil had overtaken this Equestria had come to investigate my sudden magical appearance, so it came as a great surprise to me when the three fillies from the factory came walking down the alley.

"Where did she go?" whispered the orange filly to the others as they walked straight past my hiding spot. "I swear she came in here!" her two friends shrugged and nervously followed her. When all three had moved past me I stepped out behind them, cutting off their route back into the street.

"Looking for me?" I asked, catching their attention. I tried to keep my voice level and calm, not wanting to scare them too bad but it was clear they were startled as yellow and grey ran to hide behind orange.

"What if we are?" orange shouted, puffing out her chest and staring me down in an attempt to look brave. "You gonna make something of it?"

"No," I sat down on my haunches to the side of the alley, giving the trio are clear avenue of escape if they wanted to take it, "I was just curious why you were following me." There was something familiar about the orange filly's voice, looking over the three of them I began to consider the possibility that I had met them before on the other side of the portal.

"Is it true?" yellow asked, with a slight country twinge to her voice. "Did y'all pay off our contracts?"

"Sort of," I awkwardly rubbed the sore spot on my flank. "I opened a contract of my own with Thrifty in exchange for him forgetting about your debts. You're welcome by the way," I tried not to sound hostile, I was in a bad mood from what had happened but I didn't want to take it out on them.

"Why would ya do a thing like that? Ah don't know you. Also you're a unicorn, why would you ever go startin' a contract?" The trio seemed to be staring at me with a mixture of awe, gratitude and disbelief.

"Seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Kids like you should be in school, not working in some death trap of a factory."

"Hyeah, maybe if we were unicorns," grey muttered, kicking up some dirt.

"Okay look, could we maybe get some introductions done? I swear I've seen the three of you before but I just can't place you," I extended a hoof and gave each of the fillies a quick hoof shake in turn. "My name is Sunset Shimmer."

"Scootaloo," orange said, holding my hoof with suspicion.

"Applebloom," said yellow, confirming my suspicions about her familiar accent.

"Silver Spoon," muttered grey. She seemed a lot more shy than the other two and squinted whenever she was trying to look at anything. It was odd seeing the three of them together as in the other world they never seemed to get on, but it did raise some other questions. What were they doing in The Crystal Empire and why was Sweetie Belle not with them?

"You okay, Miss? You aint looking so good," Applebloom asked. Where before the three had seemed to be cautious of me Applebloom had suddenly become worried. To be fair I was a bit of a wreck after everything I had been through.

"I'm not great. But I imagine I'll survive," I sighed, "look girls, is there maybe somewhere else we could go to talk? It's freezing out here." The three of them nodded and began to walk, leading me through the streets towards their home.

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Their home was not a vast improvement over the chill of outside but it did offer us some shelter from the weather. It was little more than a rickety shack that would long ago have been condemned in any reasonable society, small piles of dirty blankets scattered about the floor to serve as beds and a few half eaten scraps of food laying about the room, quite probably attracting rats into the dwelling. The trio seemed keen to get me comfortable and gave me what appeared to be the bulk of the blankets to sit beneath. While they had initially been a little frosty around me they were quickly warming up to my presence, grateful for what I had done for them.

"So you really have no idea what happened to Equestria?" Scootaloo asked me incredulously. The topic had come up on the way there after I had begun pressing the three of them with questions about the Empire, Ponyville and why the Princesses were effectively allowing slavery to occur within the borders of Equestria.

"Not a clue. Like I said I've been away for some time," the kids had pretty much bought my usual set of half truths, that I'd been far away from Equestria and had only recently returned. "So how about somepony fills me in on the details. Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek... the whole lot." Scootaloo nodded, she was the most vocal of the three earth ponies and the others seemed to look up to her like a big sister. Applebloom for the most part stared at me with admiration and bemusement while Silver Spoon seemed to be stuck in a perpetual funk. I'd realized that the Silver Spoon on the other side of the portal wore glasses but judging from the state the fillies were living in I doubted this one could afford such luxuries, no wonder she was constantly bumping into things.

"A year and a bit ago Nightmare Moon returned to Equestria but was stopped by Lemon Hearts and the other Elements of Harmony, transforming her back into Princess Luna," Scootaloo explained as I nodded along, same story different unicorn. "Not long after that though Discord escaped his prison, the Elements sealed him right back up but..." Scootaloo paused in her explanation and cast a nervous look over to Applebloom, "...one of them died in the process. After that the rest of the Elements were useless, apparently you can't use them if one is missing," from the downcast look on Applebloom's face I could guess which Element Bearer had died. "Not long after that changelings attacked Canterlot, they were defeated by Princess Cadance but she was badly injured escaping some prison she had been thrown in and passed away shortly after. Celestia had barely recovered from the loss of her niece when the Empire showed up so Princess Luna came to fight this evil unicorn called Sombra on her own. She couldn't beat him alone though so instead she sealed the two of them away in a prison of ice far to the north."

"How did Celestia take that?"

"Poorly," all three fillies stared at the floor in solemn silence. "Then after all that this monster called Tirek showed up. The Princess went to fight him and with the help of some...some dark magics she killed him. The fight destroyed Ponyville though and Celestia died moments after she had killed Tirek."

"So the three of you are..."

"Orphans and refugees from Ponyville. Pretty much had to move to whatever city had the room to take us in."

"That still doesn't explain all this though," I pointed out gesturing at the smoggy sky and horrible living conditions. "Who made Equestria into this?"

"Nopony made it like this," Scootaloo shrugged, "it just sort of happened. Ever since the Elements broke up little things started going wrong. The pegasi couldn't control as much of the weather anymore, there were some dud harvests and a lot of ponies started going hungry. So a few rich and business savvy ponies got together and started introducing some 'reforms'. Magic and machinery started pushing earth ponies out of business and Celestia was too busy to see what was going on," Scootaloo grumbled, a touch of resentment underlying her voice. "Then when she died everything got real bad, nopony was left to move the Sun and the Moon," I gasped at the notion, I hadn't even considered that possibility.

"If it wasn't for Lemon Hearts there wouldn't even be an Equestria left. She found this old spell deep in the Canterlot archives that lets a big group of unicorns get together and move the sun and moon just like they used to do. Apparently it's really bad for their health though so they get paid loads for doing it... which put even more bits in the unicorns' pouches."

"And left the earth ponies and the pegasi to pick up the jobs that they didn't want to do," I finished for her. Scootaloo nodded grimly. I made a horrible sort of sense. With harmony broken and the Princesses gone Equestria was ripe for abuse by the rich and unscrupulous. The power had wound up entirely in the hooves of the unicorns and the Country lacked a strong leader to stop them from taking advantage of it. I thought back on my time here and realized that a lot of what I had assumed to have been looks of indifference from the locals were more likely looks of disdain. No wonder the fillies had been so cautious of me. I could also now make a pretty safe guess at what Thrifty was planning for me, he was no doubt going to have me help raise the sun and from the sounds of things would be making a considerable profit from taking my wages.

"I'm sorry girls, sounds like you've had things pretty rough," the three of them nodded in unison. "I hope maybe now that you don't have to work at that factory you can maybe make something of your lives but I'm afraid I wont be able to help you more than I already have."

"You're kidding right?" Applebloom chortled. "After what you gone done I don't think any of us could ask for more."

"Thanks, kiddo," I smiled, rubbing her playfully on the head. "Now I have some work to go do, so I guess this is where we part ways." I stood up and was halfway out the door before Scootaloo stopped me.

"Wait! If you want you can always come back here after work if you need a place to crash," the other two nodded in agreement.

"Thanks, Scootaloo, that sounds nice." I turned and left the shack, making my way across the city towards the palace where I would be helping to lower the sun for the night.