The Sun Never Sets

by Mr Fislewait

Tin Foil and Hurricane

Safe within the confines of her little safe house Eventide dropped her belongings and began sorting through the notes in her desk. She had a week's worth of food, all her necessary toiletries, enough medicine to last her for the foreseeable future... she shouldn't have to leave the house until she had everything in place. Eventide levitated the bottle of pills across and quickly popped one down hoping to slow her furiously beating heart. She needed to focus, to concentrate; no more distractions. Her eye twitched ever so slightly as she realized that she hadn't brought any liquor with her. It wasn't like she actually needed the alcohol... but it would be hard going dry for a full week, maybe longer.

Dumping another stack of papers onto the floor she finally found what she had been looking for, the journal. This wasn't a magical journal like the one she had for talking to Sapphire but to an extent it was even more important. Eventide flicked it open to the center of the book, past all of her detailed notes and scientific analysis and moving straight towards the list, her eyes scanning the pages looking for suitable candidates.

#001 Mice
#002 Dead
#003 Barren
#004 ??? Exodus ???
#005 Donkeys
#006 Minotaurs
#007 Constituional government. Low magic. Deceased.

Eventide sighed and began scanning to some of her later entries, most of her early attempts had been duds.

#016 Theocracy. High magic (unstable) Banished

Closer but still not ideal.

#029 Civil War. Standard magic (minimal divergence) Exiled

Promising. She scribbled down number twenty nine onto a piece of paper. From what little she remembered about it she should be able to infiltrate it easily enough. The point of entry was even quite favorable. In theory twenty nine could cover both her requirements but one of them would be significantly trickier to find.

#041 Highly standard. Entry located in alt CHS. Sectioned.

That had been a relatively recent one, she remembered it well. Eventide noted down forty one on the paper and nodded to herself in satisfaction. Two suitable sources for completing the ritual, both relatively low risk and both having the component close at hand. This would be a piece of cake-

Downstairs there was a knocking at the door.

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After a brief panic Eventide had managed to pull herself together and make her way to the door, where her visitor was still politely knocking outside. Nopony knew about this address, not even Twilight. Chances are it was just some door to door canvasser, or a curious neighbor. The chance of it actually being a spy from the ERS, or the Princesses or even the MIB was laughable. She couldn't have been found out, she had been to cautious, she had covered her tracks perfectly. Any notions of the pony knocking at her door actually knowing who lived here was just the paranoia speaking. Eventide took a deep breath, cast aside the panic on her face and opened the door.

"Ah, Miss Trailblazer! Just the mare I was looking for!" It took a great deal of restraint on her part not to slam the door into the stallion's face. Standing in front of her was a lanky green earth pony with a silver mane and a camera for a cutie mark. "My name is Tin Foil, I was rather hoping I could get an interview with you, Miss Trailblazer."

"I don't do interviews anymore," she deadpanned looking the journalist over. He had a hefty pair of saddlebags no doubt full with the tools of his trade, he certainly didn't look like a spy. "Plus I'm pretty sure that word had gotten around that Celestia didn't like you guys making house calls to me. You looking to get fired?"

"First of all I'm freelance, secondly she objected to us visiting your Upper Canterlot residence not your secret lair."

"Freelance? Sorry to break the news to you buddy but there's no bits in stories about me anymore. Nopony will publish whatever it is you want to say," her initial desire to simply dismiss the reporter had been replaced with a growing curiosity. What was Tin Foil hoping to achieve here and how had he tracked her down?

"I gathered that much when I was fired from the Fillydelphia Tribune, also this isn't about the money, this is about the truth." The stallion spoke with a sense of fervor and purpose that reminded Eventide of her own passion back when the unpleasantness had been considered current events.

"How about you come inside? I think I can spare some time for a quick interview." Tin Foil nodded in thanks and stepped across the threshold into the dusty old room. Behind him the door clicked shut and Eventide led him over to the desiccated remains of the sitting room. "Sorry for the mess. I'm not used to entertaining guests. Now before we get started I have two questions, if you refuse to answer either of them then you're gone, no interview. How did you find this address and what are you planning to do with the information you gain here?" Eventide glared at him, staring the earth pony down and practically daring him to lie to her.

"I found it by accident," Tin Foil began with a casual shrug. "I'd been looking into information on Sunset Shimmer for an exposé I was writing, the one that got me fired actually, and I noticed that somepony had bought up her old house at auction. I was curious who, so I staked out the address for a few weeks and eventually you showed up. You never thought about fixing the place up after she burned it down?" Tin had been looking about the scorched walls of the burned out husk of a house. She had fixed it into a usable state but Eventide had never had any great desire to renovate it into its old self.

"I don't live here, I just didn't want somepony else buying it up and converting it into some sideshow attraction. 'Come visit the house where she lived', it would have been disgraceful," that had been a part of the reason behind her buying it up. The large basement space had been the other.

"As for the information, I'm hoping to publish it myself. Print the story in free pamphlets and get them distributed to the masses. 'Sunset Shimmer the true story behind the Blazing Dusk'-" Eventide slugged Tin across the jaw with one hoof sending him crashing backwards off of his chair and onto the floor in a shower of dust. He raised one hoof to his mouth and began rubbing his cheek while staring at the shaking form of Eventide. Curiously though she appeared to be shaking more in fear than in anger.

"I'm... I'm sorry," Eventide quivered, helping Tin back up off of the floor. "I... I have an adverse reaction to that phrase. Really sets me off. If you need to talk about it around me just call it 'the unpleasantness', my therapist found that it makes it easier to talk about." Still shaking, Eventide sat back down in her seat and managed to force a smile.

"Right," Tin frowned and straightened himself out. "I have most of the notes ready to print, it was a little tricky to sort through all the lies and half truths that were printed about her but I think I have a pretty decent picture to make a full and unbiased account of the years that led up to the Blaz- the unpleasantness. I really just wanted to straighten some of them out with you, see if I can clarify a few theories."

"I can't promise anything, but go ahead. Let's hear what you have to say," having managed to collect herself Eventide found the situation almost comical. What ludicrous theories had Tin managed to construct? It would be amusing to listen to his wild suppositions, maybe he had concluded that Sunset was the daughter of Discord come to claim her birthright, perhaps she was Sombra's consort seeking revenge. Eventide had heard them all before, nothing Tin could say could possibly surprise her now.

"First of all I'd like to address your relationship to her," a pretty standard start Eventide mused. "She was your biological mother correct?" Eventide had been wrong, apparently there was room for her to be surprised after all.

"What?" She could feign ignorance, deny details perhaps even outright lie. First though she needed to find out what Tin knew, or at least thought that he knew.

"I looked into you, Eventide, and one thing I always found curious was that I could never find a birth certificate. There are a few early reports of a young filly matching your description making visits to Ponyville and the Crystal Empire but the first time you really appear in proper records is at the age of fourteen. Princess Twilight Sparkle was directing a large search effort for a young mare who might answer to the name 'Evey' who had apparently run away from home to parts unknown. A few months later you turned up on a ship returning from the dragon lands in the company of the explorer Ford Stallionson, who hailed you as a 'promising up and coming young explorer who will likely be making a name of her own'. After that your career took off and the rest as they say is history."

"I was a traveler, Tin," Eventide answered with a frown as the stallion began making notes. "Technically not a gypsy but that didn't stop ponies calling me one when I was little. It shouldn't come as a surprise that you couldn't find much about my upbringing, I spent it on the road. Now get back to the point, Sunset was my mother? Where did you come up with that?"

"I looked into some records, newspaper clippings, stories from other ponies that sort of thing, trying to work out what connection you had to Twilight. Then I came upon an interesting little story about a mare named Sunset Shimmer who lived in Ponyville for about a year."

"Sunset Shimmer never lived in Ponyville," Eventide corrected. "She was Celestia's apprentice before Twilight, she ran away to parts unknown and returned many years later after using dark magics to... to become stronger," she fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat, the words tasting sickly in her mouth. "Everypony knows that."

"Except," Tin cut in, "for the part where there are records of a mare going by that name living in Ponyville twenty five years ago. I get that Celestia's official story is what most ponies know, but I for one don't believe it, there's too many gaps and inconsistencies." He tapped his quill against the notepad and looked Eventide in the eye. "Now, the Sunset who lived in Ponyville, she doesn't fit the exact description of the other mare, she had a different mane color and records of her cutie mark are a little hazy, but she was real and she did live with Twilight Sparkle. Also she was pregnant," Eventide said nothing, keeping her face stony and devoid of emotion. "I couldn't get any proper information about her and most of the ponies I interviewed seemed cagey about the whole thing, a few of them expressed some regret about something they had done. What I did find though was that while nopony seemed to know who she was or where she came from there was a small file on her at the local hospital."

"That so?" Eventide asked trying to put on an air of indifference.

"Yes. She had a death certificate. Apparently she died during child birth, there's a little gravestone for her in the Ponyville cemetery."

"So she was a completely different mare who has no bearing on your little publication then?" Eventide sighed hoping to throw him off of whatever scent he had leaped onto..

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. See I sneaked into the hospital records and had a look over other paperwork for the day she died and I found it to be somewhat lacking, there was a document missing. If Sunset died giving birth then there should have been a record for the birth certificate of a young foal."

"Maybe it died at birth, maybe it was stillborn."

"Maybe," Tin conceded, "but I'd be willing to bet all the bits in Equestria that it was you. The age fits, your frequent visits to Ponyville would make a great deal more sense. It even explains why Princess Twilight Sparkle would take such an interest into a runaway unicorn. That Sunset was your birth mother, when you grew up you came across the other Sunset, you befriended her and became obsessed with her, you wanted her to be the mother you never had. Sound about right?"

"Not even close," Eventide snorted. "For one thing I had a mother, she loved me very much."

"A pegaus right?" Tin probed.

"How did you..." Eventide had said a great deal over the years but she couldn't remember ever saying that in an interview.

"There aren't many of them but I made sure to interview every pony who seemed sympathetic towards either Sunset Shimmer or yourself before I came here. Hurricane Wings mentioned it. He also mentioned that any of the stories about you and Sunset having a sexual relationship were entirely wrong, he declined to say how he knew that but he insisted that it was true." Eventide smiled to herself at that, she hadn't kept many friends after the unpleasantness and it was nice to know Hurricane still had her back...

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Seven years ago

After the award ceremony Evey and Hurricane had returned to his hotel room. The Purple wonderbolt was standing over her on the bed, slowly working his way up her neck towards her mouth in a rain of soft and tender kisses. Her dress had long since been discarded on the floor of the room and she knew precisely what was going to be coming next. The ceremony had been nice, the meal they had shared had been nice, Hurricane had been nice... everything was nice and now the end of their night together was going to be...nice.

"Are you alright?" Evey snapped to attention and looked up to where Hurricane was standing. At some point he had stopped kissing her and now was just standing there looking confused. "This is what you want right?"

"Huh? Yeah sure, why wouldn't it be?" Evey tried her best to put on a seductive smile and gestured for Hurricane to come closer but at some point while she hadn't been paying attention the mood had been killed, Hurricane rolled over and laid down in the bed beside her looking concerned.

"Look I like you, Evey, but something is seriously wrong here. I was trying my hardest but you just looked... well you looked a little disgusted. Is it me?" there was a look of hurt in Hurricane's eyes.

"No... no it isn't you! You were great, just great! Everything was... everything was nice!"

"Nice?"

"Nice."

"Nice." Hurricane sighed. "It shouldn't be nice, Evey, it should be more than that. Look I know a big part of this was just publicity, let's not beat around the bush, my agent and your boss pretty much threw us together to help us make the papers... But I kinda like you, and I sort of thought you felt the same way." He sighed and rubbed a hoof against the side of his head. "Look, I read about you spending a lot of time with this mare called Berry something, If you're gay or something just come out with it. I don't mind, this was always a publicity thing and I was an idiot to hope it might be something more."

"I'm not a fillyfooler," Evey snapped just a little to quickly. It was clear that sex was now off of the menu for the night and to her surprise Evey was relieved. It had been her idea for the two of them to come here in the first place and... everything was so complicated. "Look, you're nice and I do like you but... I guess I was hoping that things might work out this time. I guess I was thinking that things might be different with a pegasus." Things hadn't worked out with Pear Pudding and they hadn't worked out with Radiant Moon, why would Hurricane have been any different?

"Is this something to do with the whole magic thing?" Hurricane stopped and then slapped himself on the forehead. "Buck!"

"Buck?"

"Sorry... Before we met up for the first time, my agent gave me a list of subjects to never bring up around you, uh your magic was one of them." Rather than get mad at him Evey instead gave him a playful hoof bump. Maybe she wouldn't be sleeping with Hurricane tonight but she still liked the stallion. Maybe they could have some other fun.

"Don't leave me hanging, Hurricane! Let's hear the details, what were you to never ever mention around me? I promise I won't get mad." Hurricane eyed her up for a moment then sighed.

"Fine. She told me to never talk to you about your family, never draw attention to your 'stocky build', her words not mine. Under no circumstances compare you to being more like an earth pony than a unicorn, as if I'd do that. And also not to mention your 'sub par magical talents' again, her words not mine," he paused expecting Evey to cut in but she just sat there smiling at him and gesturing for him to continue. "Apparently you're pretty sensitive about the whole magic thing. Want to talk about it?"

"Not much to talk about," Evey shrugged. "You know all those warnings about how you shouldn't drink, or do drugs or other things like that when you're pregnant?" Hurricane nodded. "Unicorns have another one to add to the list, don't cast to the point of magical exhaustion. If the foal's a unicorn you can really mess up their horn that way," Evey sighed and looked forlornly at the ceiling. "I mean I don't blame mum, but it still sort of sucks."

"So you only agreed to date me because I was a pegasus?" Hurricane hazarded in an attempt to move the conversation to something less depressing.

"Sort of... I mean you seemed nice anyway and we got on well, I just sort of hoped that I might be able to be more...intimate with you. I've always liked pegasi, wished I was one myself. Some of my favorite memories were flying with mom," Evey gave a contend sigh as the nostalgia hit her.

"I thought you said your mom was a unicorn?"

"It's complicated," Evey muttered. "Important thing is I love flying and I like pegasi and I thought that maybe, just maybe that would be enough for me to have a proper relationship for once! But no! Apparently little Evey just isn't attracted to Ponies at all!" She clamped her hooves over her mouth, she hadn't meant to say that.

"So, you've never been attracted to a stallion or a mare, in a uhhhh sexual way?" Hurricane didn't seemed to be disgusted with her, or judging her, just surprised.

"Never. I've tried I've really tried! That was the whole point of tonight! I liked you, you liked me... I thought maybe if the mood was right and I had a little bit of alcohol in me... but nope, nothing," she gave a hollow little laugh. "I'm really messed up aren't I?"

"Hey, secret's safe with me. Just promise me you won't do something like this again? Seriously, forcing yourself into doing something like that cause you think it's what everypony expects of you? I'm not even going to try and count all the reasons that's a bad idea."

"Sure thing, we still friends, Hurricane?"

"Still friends."

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"Hurricane was correct about me not sleeping with Sunset," Eventide answered as Tin pored over his notes. "As for the rest of your ideas? Well you hit the bulls eye on a few of them but the others you were way off of the mark on."

"Care to elaborate?" Tin asked with a hungry look in his eyes.

"Nope. You want answers? I have a whole unpublished book of answers upstairs, the biography of Sunset Shimmer, entirely unabridged, written by Eventide Trailblazer the mare who knew her best," Tin's mouth dropped and his eyes became as large as dinner plates. "But if you want a copy I'm going to need to hear everything you know, I want to hear just how wrong you got things."

Comments

[badninja]

Why do I suddenly get the feeling that Twilight did a lot of tampering with the records and Sunset Shimmer did not die giving birth. It makes me wonder why she fell then.

[Son of Sanguinius]

'Twould seem we've arrived at Plot Twist Junction. Time to fasten our seat-belts, as it were.
Good chapter. Lot's of information, lot's of wondering how it will all tie together.

[Mr Fislewait]

7366314

This chapter was a little exposition heavy so I'm glad you liked it. Originally I had been hoping to have Tin Foil's meeting be covered by a single chapter but for pacing reasons it ended up getting split. Next chapter will be the last of Sunset's flashback stories and should cover everything up to her return to the main timeline.

[diablo4000]

7366290

Because Twilight learn fromthe best. Celestia herself on how to totally FUBAR you're dearest freinds or family.