The Sun Shines No More

by CGPH

Chapter Twelve: The Leap

“And you’re sure you’re okay with me leaving you?”

Sunset turned back to her friend, who was already half way out of the door.

“I’ll be fine on my own. I’ve done this before and I know I can call you guys if I need to.”

Rarity huffed.

“Oh, but last night you were so… forgive me, darling, I know you hate it, but I just really don’t feel comfortable leaving you on your own after that,” she pouted. “And it’s our last week before the Christmas holidays, are you sure you don’t want to come in to see everyone?”

Sunset smiled and shook her head.

“I know what I need to do. This time I know what I need to get better.”

“And that’s what?”

Sunset shrugged and rubbed her arm.

“It’s… time for me to face my demons, I guess.”

Rarity gave a small smile.

“Dramatic… I like it.”

She and Sunset shared a chuckle.

Rarity stepped forward and pulled Sunset into a hug. Sunset returned it, noticing her friend was holding her tighter than usual.

“I’m really proud of you, Sunset. I’m so sorry about all of this.”

Sunset smiled.

“Thank you Rarity, you’ve really helped me recently.”

After a second longer the girl released her, retrieved her school bag off the floor and returned to her position at the front door.

“I’ll come check on you after school if you want?”

Sunset nodded, “I’d like that.”

With that, Rarity left, pulling the door too behind her and leaving Sunset alone in the flat.

She had elected against telling her the plan. She knew that she should have, and she would regret not doing so. But right now… Sunset was struggling to convince herself it was a good idea, never mind somebody as protective as Rarity. There was no chance she would have approved, much less let her do it on her own.

She glanced at the kitchen clock. 8:32 a.m.

That gave her roughly four hours to prepare.

Four hours.

She licked her lip nervously, eyes still on the clock.

‘Four hours.’

---

The first thing she’d done was tidy the place. Even though she’d mentally recovered from her depression, her apartment hadn’t been so lucky. Piles of books, unwashed dishes and dirty clothes had become commonplace. They were the first thing to go, and in their place were polished surfaces, freshly-vacuumed carpets and pine-scented air freshener.

The second thing was to get dressed. She didn’t want anything fancy, but thought pajamas would have been a little too casual. Which meant casual jeans and a dark purple top; nice and simple.

Third was to open as many curtains as possible. It was unusual her apartment being so brightly lit, it left no shadow with a place to hide, and, if anything, the snow outside helped reflect the brightness back inside. She wanted the room to represent her intentions… that, and she didn’t want to give anything the chance to sneak up on her.

As she tugged open the living room curtains, Sunset paused.

Déjà vu set in and a swelling of anxiety washed over her. Her eyes scanned the street below. Cars in traffic, tightly wrapped-up pensioners, the odd runaway newspaper. Nothing scary, yet, not a week ago, opening those same curtains had sent her spiraling into a panic attack.

‘Nothing scary,’ she repeated.

Sunset swallowed hard and continued her preparation.

The fourth thing she wanted ready was some snacks. First impressions were everything, after all, and she wanted her guest to feel welcome. She emptied out a bag of chips into a bowl and placed it in the center of her coffee table.

‘What if she doesn’t like chips?’ occurred to her.

‘Good point.’

Sunset put out a bowl of nuts as well, just to be sure.

‘What if she doesn’t like nuts?’ another voice spoke to her.

Sunset stopped and took a deep, slow breath.

She wasn’t going to let herself over-think it. She knew what over-thinking did to her.

She was okay. She was calm, cool and collected. She was perfectly in control.

The silence hung heavy in her apartment, she noticed. She’d debated putting some music on, but she wanted to keep her ears peeled for the door. Which left her with just her thoughts to keep her company.

Sunset sat down.

The living room was sparkling clean and a place had been set out for both herself and her guest to sit. The place was ready, and a glance at the clock told her she wouldn’t be waiting long before her company arrived either.

The butterflies in her stomach had not gone unnoticed, but she did her best to tame them. She didn’t need to feel nervous. She’s got this. She’d come a long way. Since waking up scared and alone with just Nurse Redheart to keep her company, to willingly inviting one of them into her apartment… At risk of blowing her own horn, Sunset was proud of herself.

This path she’d taken had been a rough one. She believed what she had said to the Dazzlings the night she’d appeared at their door: she did blame herself for not extending her hand to them the way Twilight and her friends had done for her. But it was time to make up for that. She wouldn't leave them alone again.

For so long recently Sunset had been focusing on her attack, reliving the moments again and again in her head, haunted by them. But she was past that now. Now was the time to look towards the future, and embrace the new world that awaited her. She didn’t know how this meeting was going to go, but she was ready to approach it with a smile on her face and the willingness to forgive, forget and grow.

‘Forgive, forget, grow… I like that.’

This revelation made her smile. But that smile only lasted a second, before slowly draining from her face.

‘Stop it.’

Sunset swallowed.

‘You’re doing it again.’

Sunset huffed.

‘You’re over-thinking. Don’t let yourself, you’ve got this.’

Despite her resistances, Sunset could feel her happy mood draining away. New thoughts began to cloud her head.

‘Absence of proof is not proof of absence.’

‘It’s not a trick.’

‘How do you know? What evidence do you have she’s telling the truth?’

‘If I don’t trust her I can’t move forward.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

Sunset jumped to her feet and began pacing.

‘It’s not a trick. She’s never harmed me before and I have no reason to suspect her now.’

‘You have no idea who she is, you have no reason to trust her.’

‘It’s too late now anyway, she will be here any minute.’

‘You can be prepared.’

‘How?’

Slowly Sunset’s gaze made its way to her corridor door.

Her doubts had a point. What if she was begin too optimistic? She was inviting a complete stranger into her house, one who had close ties to people who have done her a great deal of harm. There was nothing wrong with being hopeful, but there was a line between that and careless.

Gritting her teeth, Sunset quickly jogged into her bedroom. She returned a moment later, holding something tightly in her hands.

The baseball bat.

‘A precautionary, nothing more. Just in case,’ she told herself.

Sunset bent over to tuck the baseball bat down the side of her armchair.

KNOCK
KNOCK

Sunset froze mid action.

A whitewash drained over her. This was really happening. Too late to back out now.

Sunset shook her head. She placed the bat hidden away from view and made her way into the hallway. A quick check through the peep hole confirmed her visitor was not only who she thought it was, but that she was on her own.

As her hand inched up to the door handle, Sunset took one last look in the mirror.

Not two weeks ago she’d been looking in the same mirror, bloodied and bruised after her attack, about to let her two friends into her apartment. Now she stood fully healed, prepared to welcome one of those very attackers into her home. Her thoughts from earlier returned.

She really didn’t know the way this was going to go.

If things worked out? Fantastic, no doubt lives could be improved for everybody all around.

If they didn’t? Sunset had her last-minute back up plan, and she had had it up to here with being pushed around. She’d be able to handle it.

Whichever path it was going to take, she was ready to embrace it.

Taking a deep breath, Sunset turned the handle and gently opened the door...

Sonata stood on her doorstep, wearing a similar expression of uncertainty, but with an equally optimistic smile. But that wasn’t all, Sunset noticed. Her eyes were drawn down, where, wrapped tightly around Sonata’s hands she saw…

Sunset smiled.

Her purple scarf.

The End.

Author's Note:

For my final words and a QnA, read this fics blog post here.

Comments

[badninja]

Yea! Sonata is possibly turning good!

[HellBreaker]

Chapter Twelve: The Leap

nnononono, i just read chapter one. I feel like my heart just got wrenched from the inside.

[CSC]

Great work!

[HelgaButtercup]

What?!?! This is not a end !

[Sky Sunset shimmer]

Yay!Great story!
Can you please make an sequel?This just don't feel like it's the end.

[redandready45]

Interesting ending: Sunset couldn't turn all of the Dazzlings, but one was willing to sit down at the table.

I guess that could be considered a victory of sorts.

[forbloodysummer]

Congratulations on getting this done, my friend - eight months and 66,000 words - you did it!

Interesting ending. Definitely not what I expected. I will admit that my first reaction wasn't entirely positive, and so I was dreading having to write this comment , but, having had some time to come to terms with it...

You're right, it's Sunset's story, and it's passed its last major milestone, so that's a good place to end. What I had thought of as hanging threads aren't actually relevant to Sunset, because whatever happens she's put herself back on track. I had assumed at the time that things like Aria's confrontation with Adagio at the end of the last chapter, and the suggestion that their group might splinter, was setup for a grand resolution here, but now I see that it was more to suggest numerous possible outcomes, and allow readers to choose whichever hypothetical ending they liked most. There's no redemption at the end for the Dazzlings, because this isn't a Dazzling redemption story; it's Sunset's story, and it would be wrong to distract from that. It means you can suggest at the possibility of a happy ending, without having to write it and risk the fluffiness of it all being too great a contrast with the work's pragmatic opening, but also don't have to render Sunset's entire struggle pointless with a downer ending. Ultimately, the story starts when Sunset stops being herself, as we know her, and it stops when she starts again.

Looking at the comments (and not just the arguments, although they are the most fun ), I think there might actually be more discussion of the sirens than of Sunset, which is interesting given just how Sunset-centric the story is (I wonder what percentage of the word count has Sunset as the only character in the scene). Maybe readers tend to assume she'll be ok in the end, as she's a hero and the focus of the story? Or maybe just not mentioning the opposing forces meant more room to speculate about them. So, to comment directly on Sunset in this story:

I thought you did a great job with her. You put her in a completely new headspace, mangled her life up entirely, and yet to me it never failed to feel like the Sunset we'd recognise from the films. And it was a fantastically-detailed view into her head, watching her deal with the panic attacks and the insecurities. That scene in chapter 4 of her alone in her flat at night! And she approached the whole thing in a way that would have made Princess Twilight proud, and her decision to try to find and help her attackers - probably the most important character moment in the whole piece - was approached in a way that made it make sense to us at the time, and felt like exactly what Sunset would do in that situation. My one complaint there was that I wish it hadn't been stated in the original story description, as anyone who read that already knew what was coming. But that has, of course, been rectified now, so hopefully new readers will get to experience the full weight of it.

And to now cover the sirens: This is one of two stories I've read where they counter their magic loss by using their fists (this is the other, a much less brutal take on it - dare I say more fun? - which also contains one line of Best Ship). And then I think it happens the other way around once or twice in A Dazzling Sunset, which really threw me at first, having only read these two stories dealing with SunDagio violence, but it makes a lot of sense. I liked the approach that with a bit of resourcefulness, they could still be very dangerous, and that their real threat came not from their power but how willing they were to use it. I appreciated how unrepentant they were - they're villains, and you made them act like it And how they became nastier the further they fell from grace, rather than whining for help. I was concerned when it was Sonata approached on her own, as there's a deluge of she's-too-cute-to-be-evil stories out there, but if it was going to be one of the three, then realistically it couldn't be either of the other two (although, if Sunset had never gone back to the sirens' place and had the first exchange with Sonata, it would have been very interesting to see if the more practical and level-headed Aria we saw in the penultimate chapter would appear to Sunset further down the line, as their situation deteriorated further).

I honestly think it works better without giving them a comeuppance (and not just because I like them ). I think that kind of karmic retribution would do serious damage to the realism of the rest of the story. The Dazzlings as antagonists in Sunset's story seem representative of dire circumstances beyond our control. They enter your life without warning, change it irrevocably, and leave you to deal with the aftermath. I think the story is all the better for not trying to find a way around that, and just focusing on how Sunset picks up the pieces. Adagio is a hurricane - she exists outside of justice and morality, she is beyond your control, and the best you can do to counter her is hope you're not in her path - all you get to decide is how you react afterwards; whether the impact breaks you or whether you have the strength to rebuild and repair. The world is not fair, and Sunset learns that the hard way, but it's better to face it than not.

That's my amateur poetic metaphor for the day.

Oh dear, I just spent a lot longer talking about those three than I did about Sunset, didn't I?

Anyway, to sum up: Good job, well done, all finished now, take some well-earned time off, detailed and realistic Sunset, menacing and remorseless sirens, perfect-as-ever Nurse Redheart (although I need to go back and reread the first few chapters again, as I hardly remember her), frank and not-idealistic approach without being overly grim or gritty, visceral depictions of intense mental states, good author, the end.

[Spiral-bound]

Relating to your blog post, while a continuation of this story would be nice -- I am still interested in certain aspects, like what ultimately becomes of Adagio and Aria, for instance -- it certainly doesn't need it. As you said, Sunset's story is complete here, and this chapter serves as a nice little bow on top. For that, major kudos.

I will say, your idea of a piece focusing on the girl in the hospital has me intrigued. Will look forward to if anything comes out of that.

[CGPH]

8050889 I like to think that in a way, leaving the sirens the way we did almost was an ending for them. The last that we see of them, Sonata is playing traitor and Aria and Adagio are splintering apart. The fact they don’t get a happy ending and the story finishes without wrapping them up is almost a kind of justice in itself. They’re the only characters in the story who don’t get what they want in the end. The ending of John Carpeneter’s THE THING (which I believe to be the best movie ending of all time) played a part in it I think. Even though there’s a lot of loose ends, the story ends there because if you know what happens afterwards it takes away from the impact. The ending is a twist within itself.

You summed that up pretty well, I couldn’t keep the story what I wanted it to be while also carrying on the siren plot.

I have noticed there’s a lot more talk of the sirens than Sunset, and I believe it’s because of how little information is given about them. I like the irony of it actually, in Rainbow Rocks you never hear Aria’s name mentioned, and likewise in this Aria only actually speaks in two scenes and never interacts with Sunset after the first chapter. There’s such a big divide between Sunset and the sirens, and this story takes place largely from Sunset’s point of view, which means there’s a big divide between the readers and the sirens too. People love the Dazzlings anyway, the fact they are being constantly teased yet starved of them is gonna cause a lot of fan discussion

I’m really glad people are happy with Sunset. The more I think about it, the story fits rather well with her arc in the movies. This takes place after Friendship Games and is almost like an extension of that arc, let’s face it Sci-Twi was pressured into being Midnight Sparkle so nobody could really blamed her for it, which meant Sunset forgiving her and offering friendship wasn’t as hard hitting as it could have been. If they had done just straight up evil Twilight in the first place like everyone had wanted it would have been a different story but whatever. In this story Sunset has multiple reasons to hate The Dazzlings, and finds it within herself to not only forgive them and offer her friendship, but also apologizes for not doing it at the end of Rainbow Rocks (which I think a lot of us fans have been waiting for).

I wanted to tell a story that treated the characters as though they were real people that real things happened to. People getting jumped on the street and suffering through things like PTSD are common things that aren’t always wrapped up in a nice bow at the end like it was in this story. Sometimes people have to continue the rest of their life without ever getting the closure they need, and more often than not that’s what ends up happening. The idea of getting jumped and beaten up isn’t nearly as scary as something like drowning or axe-wielding murder chasing you, but it’s still a danger that is out there, and I like to believe this story has opened people’s eyes to that a bit more.

The sirens never struck me as the violent type but I imagine if they were pushed as much as they were in this they would to scoop to any low to get what they want. If there was one thing I wish I could improve about the story it’s exactly what you just said, Sonata being the approachable one is something that’s overdone in stories on here. But it makes the most sense plot wise, so I strived to make it as believable as possible, and the way I look at it it isn’t always about doing something new, it’s about the quality of which you redo what’s already done. Though I admit the idea of a weakened Aria breaking down and going to her for help does appeal to me

I really wanted to find some way of including Nurse Redheart again, she’s a really fun character to write for Thank you for your kind words man, all highly appreciated

[NeuroSparkle]

Oh shoot, I absolutely didn't expect this to be the end haha. I guess it makes sense though, and while some additional info would be neat, as some others pointed out, this story doesn't really need it. I think this ending is quite satisfying in its own way (:

I don't consider myself too qualified to actually critique anyone's writing, but I will say that I enjoyed this story a lot, and I'm glad I found it early so that I could look forward to each new chapter. Thanks for letting us enjoy the ride!

[Winter Quill]

Can't really add more other then to say this was a great story.

[lazyreader19]

8057465
^ what they said, surprised to reach the end here, but i really enjoyed the story :)

[Mist]

Okay! I finally finished reading this! Time for a review:

This story actually was pretty interesting. The characterization was done quite well, and while Sunset sooooort of came off on the naive side, it wasn't too bad. There is a lot of potential here for a follow up as some mysteries remained unsolved in the end. I immensely enjoyed it, and the ending was bittersweet. The best part of the ending is that it leaves you wanting more.

There were a few grammatical errors, but nothing terrible.

Ultimately, this is an excellent story and well worth a read. I sincerely hope there is a sequel at some point to explain more of what happens next and the ultimate fate of the other two sirens.

[OtakuPony]

awesome awesome awesome!!!!!! I was waiting and waiting until Sunset got her scarf back! Loved this fic! Best ever.

[Noctis Prism]

Seriously deep emotions and great detail here!

[Wolfblood17]

That was an excellent story. You did an amazing job writing this as I felt completely immersed in this story, and let me tell you, that was one hell of an emotional rollercoaster, and I enjoyed every minute of riding it. :)

[Maldarach]

Surely many told you what I'm gonna say, and I'm aware that I'm a random but satisfied reader among others about your story, but it never hurts to hear some praises right ^^?

Well I don't have too much to say.

Mostly because I have nothing to complain about, because I have nothing constructive to say (more like I don't want to bother, I'm not someone having or looking for constructivism ideas, rather making a short comment), unless that your story is great, holds something that put it in my favourites, and with how well constructed it is, it convinced me for looking your other stories and knowing you're talented enough here.

So keep going in the future ;).

[Luminous Light]

This is a great story. I felt Sunst's pain. Her fear. Her worries. You nailed this right and I cant wait to finish reading g this. Welcome to my favorites.

[fanreader999999]

Great.

Were it so easy.

[Csquared08]

Despite a pile of grammatical mistakes, this was fun to read. The development was pretty smooth throughout. You took your time and let the story flow naturally.

[jedi]

Will There Be Any More to this Story???

[Teraunce]

The End.

Bad author! That drops the score for this story by a point to 6/10 above average. I hope there's a sequel.

[Eternal Chaos Gurl]

I am so sad this wasn't continued
this is a rly good story
very sad but nice
and you're a great author 🙂