The Sun Never Sets

by Mr Fislewait

Happy Birthday

Twilight sat at the end of the hospital bed, watching Sunset intently. The unicorn hadn't stirred since she had been brought in twenty minutes ago. She had told Spike to send a message to Princess Celestia but hadn't stuck around to dictate the details to him, he was a clever dragon, he could probably work out what to write on his own. With the Princess having already been planning to visit today anyway Twilight imagined that she would likely be at the hospital sometime in the next half an hour.

"Heeeey, Twi," at the head of the bed, Sunset's eyes had begun to open and she was staring at the alicorn with a look of amusement on her face. Sunset looked exhausted but quickly began giggling to herself. "Why you looking soooo grumpy, you grump you," Sunset said through another fit of giggles.

"Oh thank Celestia," Twilight said hugging her friend. "When you collapsed in the castle I was so worried!"

"Collapsed in the what now?" Sunset didn't sound particularly worried, more curious. Though judging from her general behaviour that might just have been on account of all the medicine she had been given since being brought in.

"You passed out in the castle, Sunset. I brought you into Ponyville Hospital, Dr Horse says your body was ready to go into labor but there were complications," a dopey look of confusion passed over Sunset's face that Twilight considered might almost pass for worry. "Everything's fine, the foal's fine, you're fine. You didn't actually go into labor but Horse wants you to stay in the hospital in case you do," Sunset began giggling to herself and mumbling the word 'horse' repeatedly. "Also they thought you might be in a lot of pain when you woke up so they gave you some painkillers," Twilight eyed up her giggling friend and then corrected herself "a lot of painkillers."

"Am I gonna die, Twilight?" Sunset managed to get out between giggles.

"No, Sunset, no of course not!" Twilight would have probably sounded more convincing if the same thought hadn't been playing through her mind for the last thirty minutes. "You're going to have a nice healthy filly and you're going to get better and then the two of you will live in Ponyville and be very happy together."

"Eventide..." Sunset mumbled.

"What?"

"It's the name I want her to have. Eventide. Thought I'd tell you now in case I'm not able to later, can't have you calling her 'filly' forever can we? Eventide Shimmer... It's a nice name."

"It's a lovely name," albeit a little unconventional, Twilight silently noted. It was rare but not unheard of for a pony to pass on one of their names to a child though, she herself was proof that it did happen.

"I didn't know, Twilight," Sunset groggily muttered. "Back when I slept with him I didn't know who he was."

"Nopony is judging you for sleeping with some stallion, Sunset," Twilight said with a sigh. "You were lonely and cold and in a bad place, we don't think anything less of you for what you did."

"Thanks, cause it was really awkward when I found out who he was. I mean neither of you ever mentioned the other by name so how was I even supposed to know?"

"Sunset, what are you saying?" Twilight wasn't sure when it had happened but it seemed like Sunset was having an entirely different conversation to the one she was in. In her drug addled state who could say for certain what the other unicorn was talking about?

"If I'd known he was your brother I wouldn't have slept with him, Twi. Friends don't sleep with each other's brothers, I'm pretty sure that's a thing right? Anyways I'm sorry, If I'd known who he I was I wouldn't have-"

"Shining Armor!" Twilight exclaimed, stumbling over her words. "You-but-why-how-the... You slept with the Shining from the other world?" Sunset nodded with a big goofy smile on her face. "And he's the father of-" another nod. "So I'm her Aunt?"

"Yeah I guess so. Technically anyway," Sunset paused and thoughtfully tapped one hoof against her chin, "and Flurry Hearts is technically her half sister. And I'm technically a big ol' homewrecker who slept with a happily married stallion who also happens to be co-ruler of an entire Empire. See why I didn't want to tell the father, Twilight?"

"Sunset, this is a very big deal! Why didn't you tell me sooner? What are we going to do about this? How do I tell Shining, or Cadance..." she stopped and gasped "or my parents Sunset!? How are they going to react to finding that they suddenly have another grandfoal?" Twilight wasn't angry, she was panicked, terrified and perhaps a tiny bit upset but she definitely wasn't angry.

"Which is why we don't tell them Twilight! And we don't tell Twilight either, cause she won't be able to keep the secret from-" Sunset paused and seemed to gain some fresh insight into her situation, "oops." She began waving one leg back and forth in front of her face, "you weren't kidding about the drugs were you? How much am I on right- ow."

"Right 'ow'?" Twilight repeated.

"No. 'Ow'. As in 'ow my stomach hurts'. Ow!" Sunset almost doubled over, her forehooves moving to clutch her bump.

Realization flashed across Twilight's face and she shouted at the top of her lungs, "Nurse!"

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"Twilight! I got here as fast as I could," Celestia called as she entered the room. Sunset was lying on her side on the bed, breathing heavily but otherwise looking as though she was drifting off to sleep, the hooves of the foal were just about visible protruding from beneath her tail. With her in the room were a pair of nurses, Doctor Horse and an extremely frazzled looking Twilight Sparkle. "How is she doing, doctor?"

"Progress has been a little slow," Horse muttered. "Miss Shimmer never truly recovered from the injuries she had sustained when she was first brought in, she is very weak right now and we've been doing most of the work." Horse turned away from the Sun Princess and back to his patient, "if you can hear me, Sunset, try to push," Sunset gave an unintelligible mumbling in response.

"She's going to be alright isn't she, doctor?" Horse didn't even respond, instead moving his hooves to the breaching foal and trying to help ease it out. Celestia took a place by the head of the bed and placed a reassuring wing over the back of Sunset's head, looking down at her with a sad yet comforting smile as Twilight continued to pace back and forth at the end of the room.

Twilight couldn't watch, she could barely think. Everything had been complicated before, what with Sunset's poor health and lack of family. Now though! With Sunset's accidental revelation to her about the foals father... things were... Twilight couldn't even think of a suitable synonym for complicated that did justice to the matter! This was her BBBFF she was talking about! Twilight had flipped out when she thought Shining was getting married to somepony she had never heard of, how would he react to the news that he had somehow wound up having a filly with a mare he had briefly met one time? How did you even go about having a conversation like that? 'Hey, Shining, you remember Sunset right? You met her one time when she turned up half dead in the middle of your palace, well she has a filly now and you're the father! Congratulations!' Not like that, that wouldn't be a good way to start the conversation.

Before she could dwell on the matter any further Twilight's thoughts were interrupted by a high pitched bawling. Turning back to Sunset she saw that one of the nurses was cradling a tiny daisy colored unicorn in her hooves, a dinky little horn on her head and a fuzzy red and blue mane draped over her face. The nurse ferried the crying filly to the front of the bed and placed her next to Sunset's head.

"She's beautiful, Sunset," Celestia smiled, looking down at the pair. For her own part Twilight could only stare at them mutely. The little filly was so tiny, so delicate looking. "Sunset?" Celestia looked down at the unicorn with concern, her barrel was still rising and falling with every breath but she hadn't made any response to her newborn filly. Out of the corner of her eye Twilight caught Horse and the nurses exchanging worried glances culminating with horse making a noticeable gesture to one of them. The nurse who had brought the foal to Sunset carefully picked the filly back up and began licking her clean, removing some of the gunk from her body and helping her blood circulation. "What's wrong?" Celestia asked, her concern evident in the tone of her voice.

"Twilight," Horse said, ignoring Celestia for the time being. "Could you take the filly outside for a little while? We'll have a nurse come by shortly to check up on her but at the moment we just need the two of you out of the room."

"What-" before Twilight could finish speaking she found the filly bundled up in a blanket and placed in her hooves as the nurses quickly lead her out of the room. The moment the door closed she heard the muffled sounds of panicked shouts and hurried action coming from within the room.

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Twilight sat alone in a waiting room just down the hall from Sunset's room. Alone that was except for a wide eyed little filly that was wriggling about in her blankets.

"Hey, you," Twilight said with a forced smile, looking down at the wriggling newborn. "Don't worry, they said a nurse would be along shortly," the filly... Eventide just stared at her and wrinkled her nose. Rolling about in the blanket she finally managed to disentangle herself and began trying to nervously crawl about on her hooves. Twilight just looked down and smiled at her...her niece. Eventide began nuzzling Twilight, bumping her head against the alicorn in an adorable fashion as she crawled back and forth across her body. "What are you doing, little-ow!" Eventide had crawled towards Twilight's back legs and nipped her on the teat. Frowning a little she carefully levitated the filly off of her and placed her gently back into the blanket, "sorry, Eventide, nothing to drink there."

"Well, sounds like I got here just in time," an unfamiliar nurse had just entered the room and approached the pair with a bottle of milk. "Ideally she should be drinking from her mother but we have to keep some other milk at hand just in case." She delicately lowered the teat of the bottle to Eventide's mouth, the little filly eying it with suspicion at first but quickly latching on and suckling at the milk.

"Is Sunset okay?" Twilight whispered, still cradling the little filly.

"The mother? I'm sorry I don't know, Nurse Redheart was rather flustered when she told me to come here and then she ran off again right after. If you don't mind we need to take the little one to get weighed and have a quick check up, after we're done you'll be able to visit her in the nursery, okay?" Twilight nodded and passed Eventide over to the nurse. "Thank you."

As the nurse trotted off with Eventide in her hooves Twilight slumped backwards into the seat. Having Eventide to look after had been a great distraction from the darker thoughts that had been lurking in the back of her mind. Something was wrong with Sunset, what had happened to her? To her surprise it seemed Twilight wouldn't have to wait long to find out.

A dejected looking Dr Horse came stumbling down the hallway and into the room, a look of regret on his face and three pieces of paper in his hooves.

"Dr Horse! Is Sunset-"

"I'm sorry, Twilight," he said curtly. "We did everything we could for her but... you must understand that her recovery had not been going as well as we had hoped, even before the recent developments."

"No..." Twilight mumbled, tears beginning to run down her cheeks.

"I know this isn't something you want to be having to deal with right but I will be needing your help with some paperwork, I'd have asked Celestia but as per Sunset's last wishes you are technically her next of kin, her daughter aside that is." Horse carefully placed the three papers in front of her on the table. Sunset's living will, a barely completed birth certificate and a death certificate with the name 'Sunset Shimmer' at the top. "I apologize if this may come across as insensitive but given the lack of information about her I was going to have a hard time filling it out without the assistance of you or Celestia."

"Where is the Princess," Twilight whispered between her tears.

"With Sunset," Horse sighed. "She wouldn't leave the body, she practically forced us all out of the room. Normally I'd call security but... well normal procedure doesn't really cover how to deal with a grieving Sun Goddess. If you need some time alone I can leave, we don't have to fill these out just yet." Twilight nodded in agreement but stopped Horse before he could leave.

"How's Eventide?" she asked to Horse's confusion. "The filly, Sunset wanted her to be called Eventide before she..." Twilight broke down into a fresh wave of tears

"I've not checked in on her myself yet but from what I saw... I do have some concerns." Horse sighed and took a seat by Twilight. "Now, Twilight, if you do agree to be her legal guardian as per Sunset's last wishes there are a few things you should know. First of all, even though she wasn't born prematurely she is still much smaller than she should be for a newborn. There are a few possible causes and we will hopefully know if it is a major cause for concern by the end of the day. Secondly, her horn appeared a little malformed, I didn't get a good look at it but it should have been significantly better developed than what I saw. It shouldn't hinder her too much as a filly, if anything it should limit any magical outbursts she might have, but growing up she might struggle with her magic." Horse sighed and placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "If you need any help, Twilight, we are here to support you, I'm very sorry for your loss."

Comments

[Da Fennec]

HUH Sunset Simmer is dead and yet later is banished to the moon? All I can assume it will be explained later or at least hope so.

[badninja]

So that is why she was raised with Flurry Heart. I get the feeling that the banished Sunset was from another of the visited universes and she was not reformed. They do not want to explain it to the populace so unfortunately Sunset gets stuck with crimes she never committed because the general public needs to be kept ignorant of the truth. Damn it Twilight you could have blamed an imposter or a changeling I bet, your friend never deserved this.

[Mr Fislewait]

7380421

The relationship has had a few little pieces of foreshadowing. Back in chapter 9 Evey had written 'Flurry Hearts BSBFF' on the wall of her wagon. The letter from her aunt in chapter 1 has never directly been referred to as being from Twilight but that was a minor hint. More recently in Stealing Harmony Sunset briefly mistakes Vinyl for a unicorn stallion she knows. Also her color scheme, but pony color genetics have never made sense. It was all subtle hints and I'm curious if anyone had picked up on it prior to Stealing Harmony Part 3. Also there is the little fact that there is a significant lack of male characters in the series so unless I was using an OC the list of possible candidates was actually really small.

[badninja]

7380451

Until it was mentioned in this chapter I had not connected the dots and was going with an OC. Still I feel very sorry for what has happened to poor Eventide in this story. Hopefully she gets the help she desperately needs before she crosses the point of no return.

[Wysteria]

Wow...just...wow. *AND QUE THE FLOOD GATES(aka tear ducts)*

Even though I don't like Starlight, I can't help but feel a little bad for her when she realizes she got Sunset killed.

But now Twilight's got to contact the human world and inform them of the tragedy.

[dah884]

7380451
actually during the tirek verse where they met i had it down to two ponies with him the most likely. technically, Blueblood made the list for all of three seconds but that was because of writer irony, but his cowardice quickly overruled that. the only reason there was two was Sunset never mentioned him mentioning a sister.

the foreshadowing and pacing of this story is wonderful, thank you.