Children, Raising Children
When Sunset was nineteen, nothing else in the world mattered more than her studies, and the special warm look that Celestia would favor her with whenever she would figure something complicated out. Then her life had changed, and a purple filly had been the culprit. She watched the pegasi circling out the train window, and twitched an ear when the seat beside her depressed slightly. She smiled inwardly and tossed her mane, shifting her legs underneath herself.
“Hey Bug.”
Spike snickered to himself as he sprawled himself across the seat, nestling in against her side. He shifted and prodded at her saddlebags a few times before settling back in. She glanced down at him with a slowly widening smile, before reaching to ruffle his crest.
“What?”
Sunset shook her head. The train rocked, and she waved to Twilight as it released its brakes and began to move.
“Nothing. Just thinking about stuff.” She smiled and nudged him gently. “Excited to visit Phil?”
The dragon scoffed. “That dumb bird is always playing pranks on me.”
Sunset snickered quietly and reached to drape a forearm over the little dragon. Soon the train was chuffing away at full speed. The sleepy town that had become Sunset’s entire world fell away behind them to be replaced with racing countryside.
She frowned a little bit and gently squeezed him. “I can’t say it with Twilight around, but… I’m very grateful that you saved my life. I didn’t think I was going to pop back after the Soulflare.”
Spike swallowed and leveled a reptilian gaze at her for a few moments, before turning his attention back to the comic book spread across his legs. “I’ve always just… been there. In the background, not really doing anything or helping much. I wanted to help.”
Sunset nodded a little bit. “I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to you about it until now because… I don’t want Twilight to know how close it came. I know you’re made of a little tougher stuff than she is.”
Spike closed his eyes, and traced the shape of something not-quite-gemstone in front of him. “Twilight was the one who did the most. The Soulflare destroyed everything, and she walked right into the middle of where everything was all melted. There was a little spark inside, and it was calling out to the fire. It needed more…”
Sunset nodded. “As far as I’ve told Twilight, when that happens to me I just… pop back up. But I’m aware of it. I was trapped inside myself, in that magical center and… everything was so cold. It was getting dark. And then there was a rush of life around me, and a sending, and I rode the magic where it would take me— to…”
“Twilight.” Spike chewed a claw, doing his best to appear nonchalant. Sunset thought he was mature enough to discuss it, so he had to be. “You needed to be there with her.”
Sunset smiled and squeezed him gently. “You miss her already, don’t you. It’s the first time you’ve been away from her, I can understand feeling a little off.”
Now that it was out on the table, there was no point in denying it or acting tough. Spike’s shoulders sagged a bit. “There’s a part of me in her, and a part of her in me. Why wouldn’t I miss her? She’s my…”
“Mom. The word you’re looking for is Mom, Spike.”
“Besides… what if she has one of her moments? You know how neurotic she is. She needs us. She’s going to go insane trapped in that big house all alone.”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “Twilight’s a big mare, Spike. Besides. After the whole thing with Trixie, you know what I found in the library?”
Spike glanced up from his comic book, confused by where the conversation had gone but trying to keep up.
“There were dirty dishes in the sink.”
Spike’s snout scrunched up, and he blinked. “So? What’s that got to do with the price of apples?”
Sunset snrked once, before letting out a short stream of giggles. “You hang out with Applejack too much. Twilight left dishes. There was some other things, but that was the biggest one. Pinkie got her to stop cleaning and go have fun for an afternoon.”
Spike straightened a little bit. “Isn’t Pinkie dating Rainbow Dash?”
Sunset nodded a little bit, and chewed her lower lip. Well, he was getting to be old enough to understand… “It’s like us and Twilight and the rest of our friends, Spike. Before Ponyville it was just the three of us. Like middle pieces in a puzzle. And then we clicked in right where we belonged. Cadance would probably explain it better, something along the lines of “love shared is love multiplied” or something gushy like that but, I’m sure Dash is well aware of Pinkie and Twilight spending time together.”
This seemed to satisfy Spike, and he shrugged. So like Twilight, every question asked and answered spawned ten or more. “Do you ever think Twilight will… not need us anymore?”
Sunset shook her head. She thought of Twilight panicking at Spike’s first cough, of the shared joy in the Sparkle household over the dragon’s first steps. She thought of how these two kids had dropped into her lap, and how the three had done their best to raise one another.
“Never, Spike.”
The train ride took most of the day, leaving them arriving at the Canterlot station in the later afternoon. There were a fair number of ponies disembarking, and the pair held back to let the crowd disperse. Eventually there was only one other pony on the platform, a white unicorn with a black mane.
They paused for a moment, and Sunset stared at her for a moment before taking a deep breath.
“Miss Inkwell.”
“Miss Shimmer. I trust the journey was uneventful?”
Sunset nodded. “The line between Canterlot and Ponyville is well-warded. Nothing ever goes wrong.”
The mare pushed her glasses up on her snout, before clearing her throat. She turned to follow them off the platform. As always her diction was clipped but impeccable, and her accent smooth but stuffily Canterlotian.
“Princess Celestia wishes an audience with Mister Spike. As for you, Princess Luna has left a calling card.”
As Raven Inkwell lead Spike off towards the castle, Sunset flipped over the ornate envelope she’d been passed. The reverse side was sealed with a crescent moon insignia, and the paper itself was thick navy-blue stock. She slit it open and slid the card out, reading over the text a few times.
In neatly-squared Ancient Unicornian runes, Luna had managed to fit the entirety of Sunset’s name and title, her guideparentage of Twilight Sparkle and Spike Irontail, and all manner of etcetera before managing to get to the point; formally asking Sunset to the Night Wing of the palace. The rest she couldn’t make sense of, aside from a time she judged to be around three in the afternoon.
She glanced around before finally noticing a public clock over a fountain, cursing under her breath and dashing off in the direction of her tower. She owned a few items for formal events, the question was whether she could make herself presentable within the hour and make it to the appointment on time.
With only a few minutes to spare, Sunset sat before the biggest Nocturne she’d ever seen. Baleful yellow eyes met her own turquoise ones, casting an appreciative glance down her sides. She’d managed to arrange her mane into something a little more formal than her usual side-sweep. From the back of her closet she’d retrieved from a locked and warded glass case her finest brocade coat and field jacket of genuine hydra leather. A sword slung the length of her body completed the picture of a composed monster-hunting mare; an Archmage unparalleled.
The guard still seemed unimpressed.
At exactly the stroke of three o clock, the door to the chamber pulled open just a touch and Sunset’s heart stopped at the musical voice that echoed out.
“Sunset Shimmer, prithee doth cometh in.”
It took her brain several seconds to catch up with her legs, which had gotten up and wandered in the direction of the voice without so much as a by-your-leave. She paused appropriately before entering the room beyond and snapping the door shut behind her.
A bedroom suite not unlike the one directly opposite, merely reflected. Where Celestia’s study bore a depiction of the noonday sky across its ceiling, this one was painted in dusky colors with a spattering of stars and high moon with a conspicuously absent Mare.
Princess Luna sat perfectly poised with her back to her, before the low audience table. She was even finer than Sunset remembered— longer in the legs and more slender. Her pale blue mane was beginning to wisp around the edges, her coat darker while retaining the splotches. The black across her haunches had spread, leaving her looking rather like she’d recently sat in paint and then drawn her cutie mark back on.
She nodded when Sunset sat down, and reached out with a sharply defined field to pour tea. She chewed her lip for a moment, showing prominent canines, before speaking.
“I trust thy… travel up the mountain was uneventful?”
Sunset snickered softly and allowed herself to be served. “I’ve gotten used to it. Ponyville is the closest town so that train line is constantly patrolled. How have your lessons been going? Are you settling in?”
Luna’s eyes glimmered, and she nodded. “I am… still learning. Everything is so different. I did wend out one evening after Sister had raised the moon and I saw a stallion unaccompanied. Certes, I asked to whom he did belong, and imagine my shock when he replied nopony! Fie did I dwell on form and accompany him for the eve. He took me to a lodging that he called a “club”, whither I had a drink that he called “whiskey”, and there was most wondrous music called “jazz”.”
Sunset chuckled to herself at the honest exuberance of the Princess. “So? How was it?”
Luna’s wings flitted slightly, her eyes closing as she relived the experience. “Save thy reverence and think me not unmannerly, but I did drain many cups with the stallion. But things have not been entirely pleasant. Tia had a chiurgeon visit who did not even have the decency to arrive masked, who said a great deal of things I did not understand, and then stabbed me repeatedly!”
Sunset set her teacup down, suddenly horrified. Luna hadn’t done anything, right? “Princess, I promise you that he didn’t mean any harm.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “I am one hundred and sixteen years old, Sunset Shimmer. I can withstand a bleeding. As you yourself know.”
Sunset thought. How did you explain modern medicine to a mare who probably believed diseases were caused by miasma or unbalanced humors? “In the last hundred years or so, we’ve figured out how sicknesses work and how to keep ponies from getting them. Basically… we make ponies a little sick, and then they can’t get that sickness anymore.”
Luna’s nose scrunched slightly, and her wings folded tightly. “Tia had the decency to attend, at least. She tried to explain it to me, but there are a great many things about this modern world that I just do not understand.”
Sunset reached out and folded one of her hooves into Luna’s, smiling softly and chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Well. I’ll help. I know Twilight will too. You’re not alone anymore, Luna.”
Luna blushed faintly and swallowed a bit, tipping her chin up with an imperious air. “I suppose that I can allow your familiarity, as you very nearly defeated me in single combat.”
The sudden sharp recollection of bodily slamming the mare before her around like a ragdoll surfaced in Sunset’s mind, and she took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I had to hurt you like that.”
Luna rubbed her shoulder self-consciously. “In my madness, I would have killed them all. I would have brought about Nox Aeterna. You didn’t do any… lasting harm to anything beyond my pride, and you bought time for Twilight to use the Omniomorphic Spell.”
Sunset frowned faintly, toying with the teacup before her between idle hooves. “I wasn’t sure how to bring that up. How much do you… remember?”
Luna rose and paced a few steps, eyes closed and moving as if referencing some tome hidden behind those lids. Sunset recognized the behavior as something Twilight did frequently when trying to piece together the best way to word a sentence, or calling up the required memories.
“Nightmare. The word was descriptive, once.” She gestured to the frieze, then to herself. “One by sun, one by moon. Night. Mare. Before she became a tyrant, Tia communed with the sun through the unrelenting force of her rage. You’d be surprised, now that she’s cooled, but when we were foals she was always so angry. Mother was sickly. We were… on the edge, not truly accepted among others. It was always cold, so cold your hooves would bleed from working the earth… and then bleed again when the Unicorns took their tithe and the Pegasi their tribute. When we ascended, she gifted a little of that fury, that fire to fight and survive.”
She gazed off into the middle distance, eyes glazed over slightly as she continued speaking. “I remember the first Dream. Mother’s last night before returning to Earth. I reached out and… eased her pain. Over time my power grew, I went from creating dreams to simply watching them. In the time of Discord, fancies could become… dangerous. I created something evil. I tormented a tyrant king for weeks during our campaign against him with my new invention, something I thought was a tool I could summon and banish at my leisure, unwitting of it becoming a part of the Dream and turning on my ponies, a shadow stalker of my own apostasy.”
Sunset glanced up at the ceiling. “But… Dream-magic is just an old myth, like reading tea leaves or astrology.”
Luna shook her head. “The Dream is my gift. Sister inspires ponies, I give them something to aspire to. A dream, not of who they are, but of who they could be- who they want to be. Besides… Where do you think you are, Sunset Shimmer?”
Sunset opened her mouth to respond and—
— and jerked awake as the train blew its whistle, rolling into Canterlot Station.
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Welp, time to re-read.
10201336
sorry please don't hate me life sucks and is crazy aaa
Wow.
Gonna have to reread this so I know what's going on. :P
10201341
I'M SORRY
i had a bad year
writing has been
difficult
Well that was interesting. I wonder how the actual conversation will go when Sunset actually meets Luna face to face.
10201340
I had already flagged the story under "Favourites"; I'm sure re-reading won't be a chore.
10201361
shshshsh don't spoil it i'm super proud of it
10201362
I like re-reading it too. It reminds me of when I wasn't awful.
10201355
Whoa! I didn't mean anything bad by it. If anything, I'm looking forward to it because I remember how much I enjoy it!
10201369
Umm...
You sound like you need some emotional support.
<calls out> Anyone? Can anyone give them emotional support? <whispers> I'm not good at this.
Now that's just asking for something to go wrong
9759962
10201396
HMMMM
Inception much Luna?
That twist!
This is the first story in a long time that pulled off a proper twist for me. The kind where in retrospect it seems obvious but I did not actually recognize the tell tail signs beforehand.
10201478
"Dream. Not of who you are, of who you want to be."
-The Lotus
That would make things a bit concerning to any who were concerned with wether or not they were in the real.
Excellent twist
Good to have you back!
I’m not gonna lie, I forgot the story existed because I have no idea what was going on
10201369
I was right. It was worth rereading.
10201770
What
10202079
SO sorry....so much time has past since I read this story and now when you updated, i mistakenly checked previous chapter and not the 1st chapter. was going to refresh my memory about the plot in this story....so I confused chapter 24 as 1st chapter...that was my mistake.....I am most likely going to erase that comment XD
9756348
im alive again
Well this is a great way to wake me up for work....hope you are doing ok ...life is too crazy right now. (I am just glad I still have a job)
Ah, I remember this story.
10203427
Um ok? What a useless comment
10203439
Yes. Yes, it is. But, I enjoy this story.
I remember when the first chapter came out all by itself, I remember waiting for a new chapter over, and over, and over again. I remember laughing, and crying, and wanting to beat Celestia over the head with the biggest book possible. I remember a rollercoaster of emotion.
Like I said, I remember this story, Fluttershy.
10203457
Celestia is a good bean
She's just
Depressed
10203477
But she-! And! And, and... and now I feel bad.
Well played, Fluttershy. Well played.
10203538
It's alluded to pretty frequently that Tia is preoccupied with running a country, emotionally broken, and has trouble with either genuinely showing emotion or separating the real from the mask.
I like this fic here!^_^
It's really good, and great!^_^
Keep it up and update soon please.^_^
Please don't tempt fate, Sunset.
The Luna scene was fantastic. An excellent blend of her struggle to bridge the millennial gap and her role as the enigmatic dreamweaver. And Spike's moment was great as well, just lower-key greatness. But there's no shame in losing to Luna when it comes to drama.
Wonderful to see more of this. Thank you for it.
Hey dude, great to see you back after all this time with a new chapter.
I loved it alot as always. : )
I wish Luna's speech would slowly become more and more fanciful unil its just verious thee, ly, and whomstdve sounds.
10208968
The issue(s) with that is;
1: I've never liked assigning Shakespearean English to Luna in the first place. Nobody even in his time even spoke like that.
2: "thee" is the archaic (but not Old English) informal form of address. "You" was formal, "Thou" was informal, and the King James bible was rendered as such to create/highlight an informal and personal relationship with God.
3: Actual Elizabethan English is hard to write, as few resources that aren't extremely parodic "translators" exist.
4: Pinkie briefly speaks Middle English (~1300-1400) in Now You See Me, which is extremely toned down for actual readability. That's far younger than what Luna would actually speak.
5: Old English, which is what would be contemporary to Luna, appears in Shadow Play as read by Starlight Glimmer. "Hearg sylfum se Ponhenge".
Long comment short, no. Luna will be stiff and formal in tone, but will speak contemporary Ponish.
10209034
I know, I know. I understand completely, just a funny idea thats all
10234871
Pinkie sees the future.
10235019
I know. I was just trying to be silly. Sorry for the confusion...
well.... damn... trippy as shit up in this chapter. credit for the elaborate dream tho...
Oh wow this is amazing!
10275655
I will politely disagree. It had a fun story, though sad at times, and lots of world lore.
Also Sunset/Luna is a new ship for me. Interested to see where it goes.
I hope this continues being this good a story.
10239898
Agreed.
this is one of two tales that tell a similar story, my question to all of you is, as both seem popular enough to warent it which should i read first, the untrotted path, or sunset reset? or should i just maybe flip a coin?
(asking this on both stories so i can see if i can get a broader picture of the answer)
10422932
Sunset Reset is trash
10423752
Your the author of this story, I think you might be biased...but noted just the same
10423752
no nevermind, your right, its garbage.
10423752
I read Sunset reset, yeah on alot of the story it was kinda trash ngl, I loved alot of it but one for the love of all things in existence why did the author decide "yeah lets have Sunset, Cadance and Shining in a relationship cause yeah" and the reason in the story for it existing was pretty flimsy at best.
10201526
So when do we find out who inherited carpentry skills from old pa? Or is this implying that Celestia’s actually a hologram? Can any of the ponies in the show correctly pronounce “Ropalolyst”?
10599047
I can't pronounce Ropalolyst
10423752
at least it's finished lmao
I am just loving this!!