Never Setting Sun

by Brony Parasite

1. A Very (Un)Typical Day In The Life Of Sunset

Beep… Beep… Bee-

Sunset flicked her wrist, sending a small fire ball at her alarm clock, causing it to explode in a spray of fireworks.

Sunset smiled to herself. Everything was right with the world.

Shree!!!

Sunset jolted up to the sound of her smoke detector going off. She looked around rapidly before seeing that what was left of her alarm clock was ablaze. She instantly created a bubble around the fire, her magic’s reddish glow putting her at ease as the fire dimmed due to lack of oxygen.

Dispersing the bubble when she was certain the fire was out and taking a moment to compose herself, Sunset thanked whatever being was watching over her that her parents went to work early in the morning. She looked around her room, taking in the blue carpet, white painted walls without a poster to be seen, and a mess that anyone sane would call as hazardous as a stray lego made her concede to the thought that it looked like it belonged to a boy.

In that split second, Sunset ran towards her personal bathroom, which while small in size was directly connected to her room, and found herself at the toilet.

They weren’t her parents. They were her doppelganger's parents. There was a pain in her chest as Sunset vomited bile and whatever dinner hadn’t digested from the other night. She nearly sobbed at the pain, both physical and emotional.

This was what her mornings were like. Wake up, realize she was living a lie, and then do her best not to break down and cry due to the pain her arrival two and a half years ago caused…

After getting over herself, Sunset stood up and washed up. She cleaned herself up, but decided against taking a shower.

‘I took one yesterday… And who’s gonna notice?’ Sunset had thought. However, it’d been two days since she’d showered. In truth, she wanted her outward appearance to match how she saw herself, at least on the inside.

Soon after, Sunset made her way downstairs, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She nearly tripped halfway down the stairs, but caught herself on the wooden railing. Causing a hiss of discomfort to escape her lips as her entire weight was held by one arm that had been thoroughly exercised the previous night… Which had been the first time in weeks she’d used that arm as anything but a paperweight. Her arm that much sorer than even two minutes before, she continued as she made her way into the kitchen.

She looked in the fridge, before checking all the cupboards. Both of which were fully stocked on everything her parents usually got. ‘There’s nothing worth eating here… Guess I’ll grab something at school.’ She told herself, but knew deep down she wasn’t willing to eat, no matter what it was.

After her decision to forsake breakfast, Sunset decided what to wear. She was getting sick of wearing hoods all the time. She started being called things akin to ‘creepy hermit’ among others when her classmates thought she was out of earshot, which had done nothing positive for her confidence.

She found the clothes she had come to this world in. A violet t-shirt with her former Cutie Mark on it.

‘A mark of shame and of failure.’

An orange skirt with yellow and violet stripes to the left, side by side.

‘Showing weakness and that since every other girl is doing it, I might as well clamp down and do as they do.’

Black, low heeled hooker boots with purple marking at the front.

‘Terrible for gym class- wait, I have a change of shoes in my gym locker… Um… Very heavy and hurts to walk. Easy to trip in.’

And lastly, a black leather jacket.

‘Makes me look edgy… Guys like this crap, right?’ At that thought, Sunset shuddered. She decided to pack her hoodie in case she decided to change her mind. After getting everything ready, including donning her simple black backpack. It was a good five years old, Her double had bought it and Sunset couldn’t get rid of it.

With that, Sunset opened the door to her house… And immediately regretted it. Her eyes suffered the burning of the outside world’s sun. She toughed it out and exited her two story home in the suburbs a bit outside of Canterlot City. At the end of the driveway was a red bike. Shimmer walked over and unhooked it from the lamppost it was chained to, before hopping on…

And promptly fell on her side, scraping her knee badly enough to stain the sidewalk. Sunset hissed in pain, tears threatening to leak as the teenager kicked the bike off of her before getting up. She’d continuously tried riding her bike, but she’d never gotten to the point where it would move before she fell over. In the past, however, she always had jeans to lessen the blow.

She sighed, pulling out her water bottle and pouring a bit of it over her wound and rubbed at it. If she had to walk she’d rather do it without bits of cement lodged in her knee. With that in mind, Sunset began making her way to school. It wasn’t too far, but it was far enough to rather take a ride. Around four miles… And she had two hours before she was late. On the way, Sunset popped in earbuds from her MP3 Player and pressed the ‘Play’ button.

Needless to say, Sunset didn’t make it.

---

Missing school wasn’t a first for Sunset. It wasn’t overly uncommon, but it wasn’t constant enough to get her parents involved.

The bacon haired girl sighed as she walking into the school. No one was around, so that meant they were all in class. She’d just prepare to go to the next class and avoid the current one.

Sunset waited by the door to her classroom while fading in and out of consciousness. Sunset was then woken from one of her short naps by a ringing bell, and stood up. Just as she was on her feet, the door to her right opened and students poured out of the classroom. She acted like she had just come out, but it wasn’t like she was even noticed.

She found herself nearly falling asleep in math and language studies, her second and third periods, she had a bad feeling about her fourth period, geography, though she couldn’t for the life of her explain why.

Once she arrived, she noticed that she wasn’t the first to arrive. Inside the classroom was the school’s resident shy girl, Sunset wasn’t part of that competition, she wasn’t shy, she just didn’t like people. As it was, Sunset didn’t even know the girl’s name, and this was their only class together.

Though Sunset avoided human contact whenever possible, this afforded her the time to sharpen her observation skills.

‘She’s shy, but very feminine. She seems awkward, yet during lunch she’s graceful and perfectly fine talking to her friends. There must not be any of her friends in this class, or I’m over thinking a girl sitting alone in a classroom minutes before class actually begins.’

Sunset knew people.Often better than they knew themselves. Not needing to converse with others gave her a chance to study body language and simple human behavior. There wasn’t too much she needed to learn in school, so it was more to see how humans acted. Sunset had chosen a seat across the room from the notoriously shy girl, where she had a plain beige wall, the girl got a window seat. Sunset was fine with it, of course. It was still in the far back, but was safe from the teacher, as the less sunlight there was, the less likely she would be seen. And recently, there had been many more storms rolling in.

Though this wasn’t the only reason she chose the plain wall. Less eyes looked to the wall than the beautiful outside world. Even she, a shut in with no enjoyment for nature, liked looking at it from a distance.

Sunset made her way to her desk, before sitting down. But as she was about to face the teacher's desk, the other girl turned her head to Sunset…

And proceeded to gasp in shock at the scabbed over wound on Sunset’s leg. The same, untreated injury that Sunset had gotten because of her bike and poor choice in clothes.

The girl rushed to Sunset’s side, climbing over desks to get to her faster, however only proving to slow the poor pinkette in her determined dash. Sunset stared at her in complete and utter confusion.

“Oh my goodness! What happened!?” Fluttershy squeaked out. Sunset’s eyes widened. Outside of her family, this had been the first person to initiate a conversation. Let alone in such a… Caring manner.‘This… This can’t be happening. She’s the shyest girl in school! Why would she start a conversation with me!? Think Sunset, think!’

“Uh…” Sunset croaked out. Clearly something was wrong with her, she didn’t know why or how, but something was wrong because she found herself unable to speak. Unable to utter even a sentence. A word. Sunset resorted to gulping to try to clear her throat of the spider’s web in her mouth.

“Oh you poor dear! Here, let me take care of your leg.” Fluttershy pulled up her backpack and unloaded it onto Sunset’s desk. There were numerous medical supplies and textbooks, as well as homework assignments just tossed onto it. She grabbed a bottle of disinfectant, a tiny bag of cotton balls, and a roll of gauze. She dipped the cotton in the disinfectant, before applying it to Sunset’s wound. The bacon haired girl hissed out in pain, gritting her teeth as she squeezed her chair. “S-sorry…”

Sunset shook her head, indicating it was nothing. Once Fluttershy was done cleaning the wound, she blowed on it to dry the cleaning liquid, before applying the roll of tan gauze to her injured leg.

“There, all better.” She said. Sunset was shocked beyond words.

Until she finally wasn’t. “Th-thanks…”

“Don’t mention it. You’d do the same if I was the one that was hurt, right?” Sunset wanted to reply with a ‘no’, but thought against it.

“Sure… Though I don’t normally carry a first aid kit in my backpack” She half lied. If someone was hurt, Shimmer would ignore them. It wasn’t her problem. If she saw Fluttershy with a bloody leg, she wouldn’t bother the girl…

“Well, I’m Fluttershy… I don’t believe we’ve ever, umm… Met…” It seemed to slowly dawn on Fluttershy that she was talking to a stranger.

Even if Sunset knew every single student by name, which she couldn’t be bothered with anyway, that didn’t mean that everyone knew Fluttershy. “My name’s… Sunset Shimmer. I’m not a people person...”

“Oh, you’re Sunset? I heard that you were kidna-” Fluttershy stopped, her eyes widening in horror at what she’d said. “Oh… I-I’m so sorry for bringing it up!”

Sunset winced at the memory. “It’s fine… It happened years ago…” Sunset responded, trying to wave away the other girl’s concern

It didn’t seem to ease the shy girl. She looked like she felt guilty. “Um, d-do you think we could hang out sometime?”

That… Shocked Sunset even more than Fluttershy approaching her. “Oh, n-no thanks.”

“I- I wanna make it up to you… Please…?” Fluttershy begged, looking to the ground.

‘Honestly, you leaving me alone would be apology enough… I can’t say yes. She might want to make fun of me… People are all the same… But I can’t say no… Maybe I say yes, and say that we can meet up in two weeks, then ignore her until then, and hopefully she’ll forget… It’s a Tuesday, so if I say we can-’ Sunset’s thought process was cut short when Fluttershy spoke.

“Umm… A-are you okay? If you don’t mind me asking, that is…” At that, Sunset donned an unnatural grin.

“I’m fine. And sure, I’ll hang out with you.” At that, Fluttershy smiled.

“O-okay! We’ll meet at the Canterlot Mall this Saturday.” With that, Fluttershy donned an all too natural, excited grin, as well as a faint blush which struck Sunset as odd. The “shy” girl then pushed all of her stuff back into her bag with a swipe of her hand. After that, she ran back to her desk just as students began pouring in.

‘Dear Celestia, what did I just get myself into…?’

---

Fluttershy squealed to herself, the sound barely above a whisper as she walked out of fourth period and towards the lunch room. She was lighter than air. She sat with her friends as usual, Rainbow Dash and Rarity greeting her arrival.

“Ah said ‘no’, Pinkie! Ah’m not letting ya babysit Apple Bloom!” Applejack, the southern blond, and most hard working person Fluttershy knew seethed, glaring at the bubbly pink girl that was Pinkie.

Pinkamena Diane Pie sighed. “C’mon AJ! I need some practice if I’m going to babysit the twins when they’re born!” Fluttershy recalled the week Pinkie threw a party in honor of Mrs. Cake getting pregnant. Pinkie was, is, and most likely will be excited about the twins for the foreseeable future. They were due any day after all.

“Babysit Angel Bunny then, that’d give you a good test dummy.” Rainbow Dash, one of the most popular girls in CHS, and captain of almost every sports team on campus, said.

“I’d rather you not, actually.” Fluttershy spoke up, and instantly every eye turned to her. “Uh… D-did I say something b-bad? I’m sorry…”

“Oh heaven’s no darling!” Rarity, the fashionista of the group said. “It’s just that… You seem excited. And a smidge more bold.”

Fluttershy stared at Rarity until she registered what she was talking about. “Oh… I… Finally started a conversation with someone on my own.”

There was silence for a moment, and in that amount of time Fluttershy began to doubt herself, until Rainbow Dash vice gripped Fluttershy in a hug.

“Our little Fluttershy’s growing up!” Pinkie sobbed in an over exaggerated manner, leaping on the both of them to join their hug. Fluttershy wanted to point out that she was a year older than the party obsessed girl, but decided against it.

“It seems those weekly visits with Dr. Discord have really helped.” Rarity said, gushing as she watched her shy friend try to wiggle out of Pinkie’s grip, with little success.

“There’s… A bit more…” Fluttershy said, looking down. “The person I talked to was Sunset Shimmer...”

The group went quiet as the implications of that last sentence took form in their minds.

Author's Note:

Thanks to Mr. Grizzly and my new savior Kamachakta for proof reading, and to the latter editing my story.

Comments

[RainbowSparkle3]

Interesting, I can't wait to read more.

[kris664]

Nice

[skullgreymon1]

care to explain whatever happened to the other sunset?

aside from that it's a great story so far

[Brony Parasite]

8234087
Haven't you ever heard of dramatic reveal? But thank you.

[Snowdrifter]

“There’s… A bit more…” Fluttershy said, looking down. “The person I talked to was Sunset Shimmer...”

Dun duh duuuuun! (dramatic_eagle.wav)