Sigil of Souls, Stream of Memories

by Piccolo Sky

Daybreak: Epilogue - Day Breaks

For the longest time, Sunset lay there listening to her heart pound and her lungs gasp.

She saw the night sky above her and a thick canopy of trees, but she didn’t process it or even care. Everything she had seen and heard was still dancing through her mind even now with ever greater vivacity. All of the fears and terrors she had as a child were back—manifested into flesh and larger than life.

Time slowly passed. In truth, most of the night had already waned but she remained lying there until just before dawn. Her heartbeat and breathing eased, but she remained very tired and in pain. Her injuries burned—both the ones on her face and hand as well as her old ones. Yet she ignored them too and kept thinking. Gradually, her thoughts turned away from only what she had seen and turned to the six women. She found herself thinking a lot of what they had been like in the few short weeks they had been together.

And most often, she thought of Twilight.

Even knowing the bond they now shared and the unique connection, she couldn’t help but think of the previous identity of the Angra Mainyu. The one who had been erased in a heartbeat by two little words.

And as she thought longer and harder about it, she realized she felt a tightening in her throat. A cold feeling in her heart. And, at long last, tears in her eyes.

She didn’t believe herself at first, but eventually she realized she was weeping for her. She was probably the first person in her life she had ever wept for besides herself.

What did that mean? Anything? Everything?

It was about that time she sniffled and stopped. She lay there a moment longer. It was autumn now, but even so no birds were calling. She knew what that meant. Then, at last, with much pain and effort, she rolled herself up into a seated position and then stood. After that, she took a few breaths to steady herself and to keep her head from swimming, and started walking.

She had hardly managed to start making a plan to find her bearings when the woods in front of her cleared. She looked further and recognized the unmistakable sign of a train track. She hobbled over to it and soon found something even more promising. A run-down shack on the side of the tracks…not from age but abandonment. Equestrian architecture. That confirmed it. She was back in Equestria.

What more, she recognized it from previous train trips.

Taking only a moment to remove her outer shirt and wrap her burned hand in it, she began to stumble along the tracks heading north.

---

By the time the sun was up, Sunset felt both of her freshest injuries throb. She was probably sporting an infection. Her hunger and exhaustion began to weigh upon her. Each step began to grow a little heavier, but she forced herself on regardless. The distance was, quite naturally, much farther than she expected now that she was on foot rather than a train. She was rather dizzy by the time she started to see the surrounding canopy looking similar to where she knew the transition junction was.

After a grand total of four hours of walking, she finally turned the crucial corner. She took a few more steps—expecting her world to fall away to reveal the restored train station.

Instead, she walked right off the end of the tracks and onto a blockade of old logs and rocks.

She was so tired by now that it took her sluggish brain a moment to comprehend it. She swallowed to moisten her dry throat and stepped forward again, but that only caused her to walk right into the blockade. Nothing changed.

“Hey. Hey!”

No answer. Distantly, a bird chirped and the wind blew through the trees. Nothing else.

“Hey! I’m out here! I can’t get in!”

Still nothing.

“I know someone can hear me over there! Get Luna to let me in! I’m hurt!”

The bird chirped again. Nothing else.

“Hello over there! I’m bleeding and burned! Things have gone to hell out here and I’ve got a lot to tell Luna! Could someone-”

She cut herself off and stepped back in alarm as, seemingly out of nowhere, Luna in all of her regalia suddenly stepped in front of her. She looked her dead in the eye the second she appeared—a cold, unfriendly look on her face. So sharp that Sunset nearly stumbled.

“I know.”

Silence afterward. Sunset blinked a few times, watching Luna continue to look coldly back at her. She swallowed again, but even in her injured state her mind studied her expression. Not curious, not worried, not concerned…knowing.

She soon realized the truth.

“…You knew she was the Angra Mainyu all along.”

“I knew you both were,” Luna answered. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, softening just a little. “I suspected it the moment I saw you. Your face I remembered.”

Her fists clenched.

“I hated looking at it. I hated living in the same city as you, let alone knowing you were attending that school. It reminded me of my sister’s folly every time. And I could see your greed and vanity get worse every time I looked at you.”

Sunset couldn’t help but grimace to hear the loathing on those words.

“But I didn’t see your face clearly back in Trottingham. I saw…its. And after that night under the Western Keep I never wanted to see that face again. I’ve seen Angra Mainyus before but never one still in the flesh and that young. Such a horrible bastardization of youth and innocence… Every time I looked at Twilight Sparkle I could still remember Midnight Sparkle’s sickening grin…”

Sunset spoke again, more quietly and hesitantly. “Then…why didn’t you let that metal warrior kill us on the train?”

“I knew it was one of you…and if the wrong one was killed, for all I knew it would set off the other to awaken. But yes, Sunset Shimmer…ever since the start I intended to eventually kill you both. To rectify the mistake my sister had made the day she brought you here. However, I could not let the Celestial Mech Cavalier destroy you at that time because I still needed you both to get me to Canterlot with the rest of the Prometheans.”

“What…‘Celestial Mech Cavalier’? You know what those things were called? You…”

She hesitated, eyes widening as she realized what Luna had just said. The woman looked coldly back and said nothing.

“You’re the one who sent those things to the summit. You sent them to kill me. That’s why they were saying my name…”

“I have no power to send them, Sunset Shimmer. I have been blacklisted for assisting my sister Celestia as much as I already have, along with her. However, I did realize on the train they had been sent here to destroy the Angra Mainyu before it could reach maturity. Which is why they were looking for the sigil that bore the name ‘Midnight Sparkle’.”

That stunned her even more. “What do you mean ‘sent here’? By who?”

Luna closed her eyes and let out a tired sigh. “That no longer matters. Nothing matters. Celestia should simply be grateful they’re on their way. I know this wasn’t what she wished, but it will have to be a compromise. She alone might have the power to defy destiny since she took part in writing it. I, on the other hand, am no better than my sister. My own attempt to kill Twilight Sparkle failed miserably.”

Before Sunset could react any further, Luna suddenly snapped her arm up and tossed something to her. Instinctively, she caught it with both hands, but was surprised to see it was the same pendant as before.

“I gave that to Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the vessels of darkness so that they could use my train to ride north. They thought they were going to destroy Sombra—what was supposed to happen was that they were to ride to their deaths when they plunged into a ravine. Yet she survived, which was only natural. Trying to kill Twilight Sparkle was like trying to prevent Midnight Sparkle from emerging—futile. All of this was preordained by destiny, and I was a fool for thinking I could subvert it. Now all that I have done is made is everything worse.”

She looked back at Sunset. “You may keep that worthless trinket if you like. It has no value anymore.”

Sunset paused.

“Well…what now then?”

“What now? Now I fulfill the role I was assigned to and prepare those gathered in Canterlot for the inevitable. As we speak, both Midnight Sparkle and the vessels of darkness are roaming this continent—bent on nurturing their hate and rage. The lives they take and the ways in which they horribly send them to their deaths will fill this world with even more tormented souls that will cause them all to ‘mature’. And once fully mature, Midnight Sparkle will devour the souls of the five vessels and unite them with its own to become this world’s destructor.”

Sunset looked at her incredulously. “And…your answer to that is to just sit here in hiding?”

“You understand nothing, Sunset Shimmer,” Luna snapped back so loud it made her recoil. “After all that has happened you haven’t learned a thing. I warned both you and Twilight Sparkle time and time again to accept what would happen, but you wouldn’t listen. And in not doing so you brought the Angra Mainyu into existence even sooner than it should have. There have been far more worlds destroyed by Angra Mainyus than you can imagine. Not one of them was ever able to defy their destiny, and this world won’t be the first…nor the last.”

She inhaled.

“Now then, if that is all, I will ask you to be on your way.”

Sunset was dumbstruck. “What…be on my way? I’m hurt, I’m starving, and I haven’t had water in two days…”

“That is no concern of mine. You aren’t actually foolhardy enough to believe you’re welcome here, are you?”

The younger woman was struck silent. A moment later, Luna began to advance on her—glowering down with increasing coldness.

“Because of you, my sister…the only one who stood a true chance of saving this world from the Angra Mainyu…lost her Anima Viris. She was powerless. And as a result, she’s now dead. My sister wasted everything on you. She treated you like she was your second mother. You repaid her by betraying her. You killed dozens of Promethean Sigil bearers in your selfish lust for power, and you tipped off the rest of the world to their existence leading to even more being slaughtered. Now the numbers are tipped so much against us that our chances of defeating the Angra Mainyu are slim to non-existent. And, let us not forget, that you quite literally stabbed me in the back. What makes you think I want you living in Canterlot? For that matter, what makes you think I don’t hate you more than any other creature in this world?”

Sunset was speechless. She was now subconsciously cringing under Luna’s wrathful gaze, but she could say nothing. Once again, her previous sins had come back on her head.

“You were born to be a creature of hate and loathing, Sunset Shimmer…and it appears that for all my sister’s efforts you ended up personifying that quite well of your own accord. I would love nothing more at this moment than to never see you again and forget I ever met you. I wish you a quick death with the rest of humanity and that it comes for you quite soon.”

The woman still couldn’t answer, but Luna didn’t wait for any further reply. Backing away, she turned her back to her and walked toward the barrier again. In a moment, she vanished inside.

Sunset was left dumbstruck standing there. Her hands trembled a little, and she felt a coldness and hollowness inside herself all over again. After several moments, she tried to straighten herself.

At that instant, however, Luna reappeared. Her arms were holding something, and before Sunset could react she shoved them into her arms.

“Your ‘effects’. I don’t even want to live under the same roof as those.”

She spun around and vanished once again. This time she stayed gone.

It took several minutes of Sunset standing there, hearing nothing but silence and looking at the empty space which should have been filled with Equestria, before she finally realized that was the end of that. Only then did she finally look down to her arms.

They held Flash Sentry’s helmet, and within it her one change of clothes and a lighter. Nothing more.

She stared at those objects for five more minutes, her quivering ceasing and her face turning dark and grim. Without looking back to the opening again, she slowly tucked it under her arm, turned, and began to limp away from not only the blockade but the tracks as well and into the forest.

---

Sunset lost track of time and place alike as she walked into the forest. The fear that once gripped her of the outside world and her defenselessness against it was gone. She wasn’t sure if she cared whether or not there was a stray Nighttouched that Sombra missed waiting to rip her throat out. She just continued to wander aimlessly further and further away and into the woods. She only knew that the sun remained up and so it had to be all on the same day. A few more birds called, but their time was over. The trees were turning now. It was cool again.

She grew tired as she went on. Her injuries throbbed more—feeling hot in spite of the cooler air. Her steps continued to get harder and heavier.

At last, her foot stepped somewhere wrong and twisted her ankle. Not bad, but enough to make her stumble. Nevertheless, she didn’t even cry out when she fell to the ground. Luckily it wasn’t a hard impact, but even then she panted after she sprawled out. And as she lay there, unmoving for several minutes, she realized she no longer had the will to stand again.

Instead she pushed herself into a seated position, purely because it was more comfortable. She let the items in her hands topple out of them. Then…she stopped, staring at the ground, and did not move. The wind blew and occasionally a bird called, but that was all.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there thinking. She was still hungry, still thirsty, and still in pain…but all of that mattered less as time went on. There was only one thing on her mind—why should she get up from where she was seated ever again? No one was waiting for her. No one was expecting her. And nothing would change for anyone or anything in the world.

Maybe it was better just to stay there.

It was the dog whine that finally distracted her.

She didn’t jump or recoil like she used to. In fact, she almost absent-mindedly turned her head in the direction of it. She heard another whine, but it was several more seconds before she finally saw a shape come limping along through the trees and come alongside her.

Only then did she finally fully snap out of it.

“Spike…”

It was indeed Spike. She didn’t know how he got there, but considering the fact she didn’t know how she had gotten there that was irrelevant. He looked like he had a rough time, especially on one leg. He turned to her, letting out another whine.

It shook her out enough to at least lean up and hold her arms out. “Come here. Let me see that leg.”

The dog obliged by slowly limping over to her and sitting down. Even then, he remained half-slumped over with his head down as she raised his leg and looked at it. Fortunately, it didn’t seem too bad. He had a nasty sharp rock stuck in the bottom of one paw. She proceeded to pull it out, but that made it bleed a little. Sighing, she reached for her spare clothes in the helmet and pressed her shirt against it.

“I hope that’s better. I wish I could do more, but…can’t really do much for myself right now.” She snorted. “Some turnaround I made. First time I went to go rescue someone, and I even left you behind.”

Spike’s only response, once his paw was tended to, was to slump further. He slowly lay down and rested his head on one of Sunset’s seated legs. She could tell by the dog’s quiet and reserved demeanor how he felt, but even then…she couldn’t deny she felt just a tiny bit better having him there with her.

It didn’t take long for her to reach out and start petting his head.

“You miss her, don’t you?” She snorted again. “Stupid question…of course you do. You two were inseparable. Now I don’t even know what you’re thinking. If you still saw ‘Twilight’ in that…that thing…or if you know she’s really gone. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’d be sad either way.”

Spike didn’t react. She continued to pet him. Her head slowly bowed to the ground again.

“Who I am kidding? I am sad. It’s so weird, but…I think she was my only friend. And that’s…that’s just pathetic, isn’t it? I mean, she came from me. She was just everything ‘bad’ that I was supposed to be with Celestia slapping a past on it. Right?”

Spike didn’t answer. He continued to look out with that same sad look. Sunset stared at him for a few moments—her own face falling more. Slowly, she shook her head.

“No…she was more than that. I don’t even need to look at you to know that was true. She always wanted to help. She wanted to step in when everyone else said it was too hard. She always tried to think of the answers for everyone. She was so persnickety and overthinking and downright nerdy sometimes… Even that way she always fussed over books and shut the world out… And…”

She paused.

“And she still believed in all of them. Even after everything Grogar showed us. I know she did. That couldn’t have been the Angra Mainyu. That was…a person. A good person. She even forgave me. And that’s something I never would have done.”

She stopped petting.

“And it was going to be me. I should have been the one who lost her mind and became that thing. Would I have really done it? I mean…I remember how much I wanted power and all of those Anima Viris, but…the whole world? Would I really have wanted to see this whole world burn?”

Spike, of course, said nothing. Sunset sat there for several seconds. Then her eyes slowly closed and she pulled her hand off the dog, placing it in her lap.

“…I would have. I was too scared. Too scared of everyone and everything. Too afraid that there was anyone out there that could make me feel small and helpless. If I couldn’t grind them under my foot, then…then I hated them. I hated that there were people out there who might one day be stronger than me. And…I wanted them gone. By any means. I never wanted to be a god—I wanted a world where I knew I had all the power so that no one could ever threaten me. Even if it meant a world where I was a queen of ashes.”

She sighed in resignation.

“Grogar was right. I’m no better. Twilight…Twilight was the only one who stopped me.”

She held up her burnt hand, turning it over to where her Promethean Sigil used to be.

“By taking this away. She made me see that I was a coward.”

A pause.

“No…more than that. She made me realize that I didn’t need that power to survive. I just needed to realize that not everyone was like that. That there were people out there who’d care for me…and that I could care about too. So…I guess it really was Celestia all along. She made her. And so that means I still owe her. I owe her more than I can ever repay. And all I could do was betray her and steal from her.”

She hesitated before frowning.

“Although I don’t get it. Everyone…Grogar, Discord, Luna…they all talked about her as if she was dead. But…if she’s dead, then…then who was that…?”

She exhaled and shook her head.

“Maybe I was just seeing things… Maybe I wanted to imagine it was her or…or something…”

She was quiet again for a time. She swallowed. Her eyes closed again and she turned her head to the sky.

“Headmistress…I don’t know where you are right now…and even if I did I doubt you’d care to hear this now, but…”

She let out her longest sigh yet.

“I’m sorry. I’m honestly…truly…sorry.”

As expected, nothing but the wind in the trees and the occasional sound of a bird. Sunset opened her eyes, surprisingly realizing she felt a hint of disappointment, before she looked down at her lap again.

She snickered. “Guess I can’t give up just yet… I may not be able to do anything else, but…I can look after you. We’re all we got now, aren’t we, Spike?”

The dog raised his head slightly, turning to her.

“Sorry…didn’t mean to make that sound so depressing. I’ve been off the cigarettes for a week now so I’m pretty bad at even trying to be encouraging… Maybe I can find some food for you, though.” She exhaled as she began to put her hands behind her. “Just hope you don’t mind having me for an owner when I should have been the Angra Mainyu.”

Sunset froze after that, because the moment that last phrase escaped her lips, a chime came from the tag on Spike’s collar. She looked down at it, only to see that a small light had lit up on the seemingly metal object. A moment later, it echoed her own phrase right back to her.

“I should have been the Angra Mainyu.”

Spike himself seemed alarmed at that, and got up and moved back as Sunset rose to her feet in surprise. However, as the tag began to hum, Spike sat down again. Moments later, light projected from the tag and began to etch through the air—rather like how the summoning of an Anima Viri would do. This one seemed a different sort. It generated color with it, and a full body rather than an outline at life size.

It took Sunset only moments to recognize the form. It became even clearer when the old headmistress uniform was added to her body, and without any doubt when her iridescent hair was added. By the time her face appeared, Sunset was totally transfixed on the semi-translucent image now before her.

“Headmistress Celestia…”

The image raised her own head. From her perspective, it looked as if she was looking straight at Sunset—even though she realized that was just coincidence in short order.

“Hello, Sunset Shimmer. At the time you see me recording this, I am just about to go on my school’s home visiting tour. I do not know what to expect—only that I have a very, strong premonition that I will not be returning to Canterlot ever again, and that this will be the last time I ever speak to you. So if you’re watching this…” The image’s face fell slightly. “Then the worst has happened. I am now dead…and you now know the truth.”

Sunset stiffened, tightening her good hand.

“I wanted to tell you everything many times but, as you have to know by now, I couldn’t risk it. Likewise, I wish I could have been at your side when you found out. There were many things I wanted to say at that moment, and even now there are many other things I wish to share with you. But…I do not know what state this message will find you. And so I will only say the most important things. First and foremost…”

She raised her head again, once more seeming to meet Sunset eye-to-eye.

“To both you and Twilight Sparkle…I’m sorry I failed you.”

The fiery-headed woman couldn’t help but be surprised to hear that.

“Only now, near what I fear is the end of my own part of this story, do I realize how foolish I was. Always I looked only to your future and how I could possibly alter the present to keep it from coming to pass. When I came to you, I did not offer you hope or choice but a different outcome I envisioned. In doing so, I was as guilty as the ones I condemned for thinking there was nothing to the world but fate and destiny…thinking that everyone in the end is nothing more than a series of knobs and switches to get a desired result.

“I should have seen you for who you were…not a growing Angra Mainyu but Sunset Shimmer. I should have helped you realize that this world was not something to be hated and feared but was full of beauty and goodness even at the worst of times. That there are people out there who you can depend upon and rely on. That there is more that can change this world than magic and dominion.

“It wasn’t until the moment that I helped ‘make’ Twilight Sparkle that I realized how foolish I had been. In the end, I treated you both as machines to manipulate. I tried so hard to avoid repeating the mistake with Twilight…but I could never forget my mistakes with you.”

She smiled slightly.

“It’s strange, but…as much as I feared and dreaded what would happen, not just to the world but to you, Sunset…the day you stole my Anima Viris, I couldn’t help but be just a little happy. You never got the sigil for Midnight Sparkle or any of the others. You had changed your destiny, and you had done it without me.”

Sunset felt her breath catch in her throat. Never before had she expected to hear those words from Celestia.

“As I said, I have no idea what state this finds you in. I don’t know if you resolved to be an unwanted god for this world in the end. I don’t know if you lived up to all of the dreams I had for you. I don’t know if you found peace at last and realized you could at last lead a quiet, happy life. But whatever happens, and whatever you may have learned, and whatever you may have been told…please remember this. You…me…all of us…are more than just cogs in a wheel doing what we were placed there to do. We always have a choice. Some of those may be more difficult to make than others, but none of them are preordained. I believe that, and I still believe that.

“There are many who will say that I was a fool and I ended my life in failure. That I died pursuing a hopeless dream. No matter what fate awaits me, however, I know that is not true. You, Sunset, are my consolation for that. My pride…my joy…my knowledge that if nothing else I set you on your own path. Whether that path is for good or evil, in the end it is completely yours. You have no destiny now…none save that which you choose for yourself. And if one was to give me the chance to do it all over again…to save my own Anima Viris…to destroy the Angra Mainyu when I had the chance…even to spare my own life…” She smiled. “I would have you as my student again without hesitation.”

Sunset felt a tightness in her chest once again.

“A soul, Sunset, is a very precious and wonderful thing. There’s no one who has the right to cheat it by saying it was made for greatness, condemnation, or any other destiny. It’s far too beautiful and valuable for that…and far stronger than the will of any man or creature, no matter how much power they claim to have or knowledge they profess to possess. I will hold to that value to the end. I will go to my grave knowing I will see both you and Twilight again.

“Lastly, and most importantly, Sunset…”

She smiled more softly.

“I forgive you.”

Sunset couldn’t help it—she let out a small gasp.

“I want your soul to be free to become whatever you want it to be. I hope it’s something good and beautiful. I want you to know it can be. I still believe it will be, even after everything that happened. An Anima Viri isn’t the measure of one’s existence, Sunset. A glorious, noble spirit…lies in all of us. In the end, it’s when we decide to start living like one.”

With one final smile, the lights died. Celestia’s visage faded into sparks of light and were gone.

Sunset again lost track of what was going on around her. She stood there and replayed the message in her mind—not moving or looking aside. Finally, she started to breathe again, but not normally. It was stilted. Stiff. Soon, it became clear it was sobbing. Her eyes welled and not long after tears began to roll down her cheeks. She clasped her hands to her nose and mouth and shut her eyelids, but they kept flowing.

She had needed to hear that. She didn’t know she did, but now that she had she realized just how important it was.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there crying. It felt bitter and wrenching, but also somehow liberating. Again, she was shaken out of it when she heard Spike—this time barking.

Sniffling and wiping at her eyes and nose, she looked at him. He was standing again but now further away. He had his body pointed ahead but was calling to her. A moment later, he turned in that direction and moved.

“Spike?”

She hobbled after him. He hadn’t gone far. Just a little deeper into the woods. As soon as she saw him again, he barked and moved once more—leading her on a bit farther yet. This continued about five or six more times, eventually culminating with him reaching a clearing. Before she reached it, however, she already could see what it was and it made her gape.

“Impossible…”

Finding new strength, she pushed herself the rest of the way into the clearing and beheld it in all of its glory—Celestia’s airship.

She didn’t know if it was some manipulation of Discord or some unknown device like what had been in Spike’s collar, but somehow it was here. It had landed in a hover right there in the field with the side hatch open—practically inviting whoever wanted it to come on board and take control.

She blinked a few times, as if to make sure it was real, but it remained there. And while Canterlot wasn’t too far away, she knew she had to have at least walked far enough where they couldn’t see it land. The ship was hers for the taking. Yet even after realizing it, she stared longer at it—once more going into thought.

After a time she finally looked down to Spike. The dog looked back up to her.

She exhaled. “Well Spike…I guess it’s just the two of us now. No magic. No backup. No prospects. Not even any cigarettes. Nothing but Celestia’s old wooden airship that could get taken down by a single artillery round and we’re both beat up and starving.”

The dog looked back expectantly at her.

For the first time in a good, long while, she flashed a smirk.

“Let’s go save them. All of them. Then let’s save the world.”

With more energy than she knew she possessed, she began to limp toward the hatch. Spike let out an energetic bark and followed behind.

---

It took some time for the three metal warriors to regain their bearings. They did, of course, return to Mount Aris as quickly as they could, but by then it was all over. Not only was their assailant gone but so was their quarry. They began to launch a search, and with three of them working together they managed to cover a wide area in a short period of time. Enough to pick up on the airship and start heading in her direction.

Then came the new signal.

The big one.

Now they were many thousands of miles away…not just from Canterlot and the airship but from Greater Everfree all together. After journeying for a few days they had arrived on a rocky atoll on a gray sea. Waves pounded against it; slowly battering it to mud and dust as it had to the rest of the landform it had once been a part of. It would have been hard for any normal man or woman to even set foot on it let alone stand, but they each touched down easily and stood firm.

All around them was rolling waters and pounding surf. But to the south, a landmass spread. Wide, broad, and expansive from its cliff coastline. Even though summer was nearing for this half of the world, it was still covered with snow and ice as it had been for generations.

The three paid it no mind. As soon as they had landed, they turned to face one another. Although they were each at slightly different elevations given the terrain, they met each other’s glowing gazes. Not long after, the headpieces split enough to expose another glowing light. These each shot out a beam at one another, meeting in the center.

Similar to the sight that Sunset Shimmer had witnessed more than half a world away, they etched a new image of a person. This one, however, was neither pure image nor memory nor recording nor anything else. It was a representation of a very real person, although what features she bore were completely concealed behind her elaborate cape, pauldrons, helmet, and clothing. While the style was different and definitely not of the world, she would have appeared to anyone from that world to be an official. Some sort of page or emissary.

She opened her mouth and addressed them in a language unintelligible to almost all.

“State your resolution.”

A woman’s voice from the helmet of one of the metal warriors answered in the same language.

“Primary objective has failed. Unable to neutralize the Angra Mainyu prior to her awakening.”

“False information was submitted by Vice Executor Luna,” a different female’s voice came from another helmet. “Encountered an unexpected assailant with unidentifiable powers both in nature and magnitude.”

“Submitting full recording of encounter now,” a third female’s voice spoke from the final helmet, albeit one with what seemed like a mechanical “accent” over it. “Analysis indicates that assailant was previously-declared-deceased Executor Celestia with 83.7 percent certainty.”

The figure on the image inhaled and exhaled.

“Most peculiar. It no longer matters, however. We are already entering the planet’s atmosphere as we speak. We can handle any difficulty from here. You are on stand by until needed. From this point on, this world and all living creatures on it belong to Imperium Crystal.”

The beams turned off, and with it came the image.

Only a few seconds later, far in the skies above, a great gleaming light appeared in the heavens and began to descend—heading straight for the frozen wastes at the bottom of the world.

Author's Note:

And so ends the "Daybreak" portion of "Sigil of Souls".

I wonder if it's obvious who the metal warriors are now.

I thought of saving the interaction between Sunset and Spike until the first chapter of the next section, but I eventually decided I wanted to end this otherwise dire cliffhanger on a note of hope rather than depression. Although...that wasn't the only reason.

This story is going on hiatus for a while. Originally, I just wanted a break and to give readers a chance to catch up. But now I'm kind of wondering whether or not I want to keep at it at all.

I'm at the point of my life where I write for pure enjoyment. I caught lightning in a bottle with "The Sweet Spot" and "Two Words". Since then I've accepted that I'm never going to be anything more than a mediocre writer and I shouldn't expect to write anything as popular as those two ever again. But, in the same breath, even when writing for pure self enjoyment, there comes a point where you have a lot of other ideas you'd enjoy writing or more valuable uses of your time, and if you find yourself constantly working on something that, honestly, almost nobody cares about, that kind of makes you want to move on to more worthwhile uses of one's energy.

I'll see where I'm at in a few weeks. In the meantime, thank you everyone who has stuck with this story this long. I know it's probably been a dull slog by now.

Comments

[BlackOpsElf]

I don’t think it has been dull at all! It has definitely taken a while to get to this point, but now I’m pretty invested in this version of Sunset’s journey. Thank you for the story so far.

[csquid]

Feel free to take your time and write whatever it is that inspires you. I've only read a few chapters of this story so far, but the quality has been quite good. I assume whatever else you write will have the same quality. its a shame that interest can be so hard to come by, but you've done well to make what you have so far.

[dannny43]

No matter what happens, I'll be here, ready and eagerly waiting for more, take a break if you must, we aren't going anywhere.