SunLight Sliders: Infinite

by Amber Spark

Chapter 20 - AllyKitty (Rose Quill)

The portal dumped Sunset and Twilight into a darkening world, the song of crickets and other life gently wafting on the air. Groaning, she pushed herself up and glanced around.. Tall grass and reeds surrounded them, the dim haze of a forest barely visible. Warm pinks and reds spanned the sky as the sun set and the stars began to come out.

Human here, she thought with a glance down at herself. She felt something around her neck and she pulled at it, revealing a long braided length of her fiery hair, wrapped around her neck like a scarf.

“Ok.” Sunset glanced at the Talisman to check the recharge indicator. “We’re safe for now, Sparky.”

No response. She turned and blinked at her companion.

Twilight shivered on the ground, almost as if she were freezing. Her skin was pale and her eyelids were fluttering. Sunset gawked at the short horn sprouting from the bookworm’s head, but concern overrode the notice.

“Sparky!” Sunset bent down and turned the delirious girl’s head. “Sparky, you ok?” The girl's skin was burning to the touch.

Twilight’s eyes fluttered open, and Sunset gasped. What had once been a vivid purple gaze now seemed muted or washed out, as though someone had taken an eraser to the color in her eyes, but hadn't finished.

“Don’t… call me… that,” Twilight rasped, her voice quiet. “Why is it… so cold?”

Sunset thought quickly. Twilight had been reeling from Discord ripping Midnight from her head, but in her panic she hadn’t considered side effects from having a hand shoved into one’s mind. She cursed for triggering a jump like she had. She still felt the fear of the world bending under Chaos Sparkle’s magic and the sight of two powerful beings clashing.

Sunset had been the one to suggest they flee, but Twilight had agreed!

“Hold on, Twilight,” she said softly, glancing around. “We’re safe for the moment. Just take it easy for right now.” She laid the jacket she had been given over the shivering woman before going to run her hand through her hair and was stopped when it connected with a horn of her own.

“Is she all right?” asked a soft voice said from behind her.

Sunset spun, her horn flaring with light. A robed figure with furled midnight wings stood behind her. Sunset took a step between her and the prostrate Twilight.

“What do you want?” she asked as she dropped into a low crouch. She could see the flickering light of her magic shifting between red and teal on the ground around her.

Sunset had already caused enough harm to Twilight, to more than just this one behind her.

She would be damned if she let it continue.

The figure took a step forward, hands raised. “I am merely curious. It is not often you find someone out here injured.” She paused and studied Twilight. “I am somewhat versed in the healing arts. May I take a look?”

Sunset hesitated briefly. She kept her horn lit as she moved to the side to let the hooded woman come over. Still, she didn’t take her eyes off the newcomer and stayed close enough to reach out if needed. “Help her if you can. Make a wrong move, and you’ll wish I had killed you instead.”

The stranger seemed unaffected as she placed a hand on Twilight’s forehead, a fingertip to either side of her horn.

“What is her name?” the woman asked.

“What’s yours?” Sunset fired back.

“A fair point,” the woman responded, lowering her hood to reveal a short silver hair framing a youthful face, horn almost hidden in her bangs. Despite the young face, she held a calm wisdom in her posture. Something about it was familiar, something about her wavy hair and turquoise eyes pricked at her mind. What the answer was, however, remained just out of reach.

“My name is Serena.”

Sunset frowned, trying to place the name or face. She felt like she should know this woman, though she couldn't figure out why.

“Twilight,” she said finally. “Her name is Twilight.”

Serena glanced at her, then looked closely at the shivering girl. She brushed a lock of hair from Twilight’s face in an almost maternal gesture. Then Serena replaced her hand, her eyes sliding shut as her horn lit with a raspberry light tinged with red and teal.

Her eyes flew open after a moment. “This is no physical ailment,” she said, her voice grave. “There is… a hole in her mind. Her psyche is in tatters, and her personality slips away.” She locked eyes with Sunset. “What has transpired?”

“We were... attacked,” Sunset said. “There was nothing I could have done.”

Inside, a tiny voice told her just how wrong that was.

Serena looked at her for a moment before rising. “My home is not far from here,” she said. “We should make our way there where I can better tend your friend, Sunset Shimmer.”

“I never told you my name,” Sunset said, rising from her crouch with her eyes narrowed.

Serena raised her hood again. “I have met sliders before,” she said. “Any further questions would be best left until we are indoors. The nightlife here is not what you would want to see too closely.”

Sunset peered around at the clearing. A thick fog was rolling in from the distant forest and with it, a strange, unnerving silence.

“Agreed,” she said, suddenly feeling like something was watching her.

Her head was pounding, and she could barely get her bearings. She was moving, but how? Was someone carrying her? No... she was walking, she could dimly feel her feet moving... but someone was helping her? Who…

She tilted her head, causing the world to swim for a moment. To her left, her vision dim despite her glasses being perched on her nose, was Sunset with an arm around her waist. She swallowed and tried to form words.

“Sunset?” she rasped.

Sunset looked down at her, the braid wrapped around her neck shifting down slightly. “Don’t try to talk, Sparky,” she whispered. “We’re going to get you some help. Hopefully.”

“Midnight,” Twilight rasped. “She’s gone. She’s…”

“I know, Sparky,” her companion whispered. “I know.”

A wave of heat flowed through her body and Twilight felt her legs giving out. A few more staggering steps and Sunset grunted as she tried to bear her weight.

“Where are we?” Twilight mumbled, blinking at the blurry darkness all around them. “It’s so cold here.”

Sunset held her a little closer.

“How much farther?” Sunset asked as the moon peeked over the horizon. They had been walking for thirty minutes and she had long since taken to carrying Twilight. Twilight kept mouthing words, her eyes wandering and focusing on nothing.

“Not far,” Serena spoke, picking her way across a shallow brook. A mesa split the plains. As they approached, Sunset saw a tiny cottage set inside a nook of the stony tower.

As Selena held the door open, Sunset carried the rapidly weakening Twilight to a small cot just inside. Serena lit several lanterns. Earthenware pottery rested on shelves built back into the stone of the single room cottage. A small blackened wood stove watched silently as a low fire crackled within. A few sparse bits of wicker furniture dotted the interior and a low workbench and table were the only two wooden accouterments of decor. She watched as Serena knelt down and laid a hand on the trembling girl’s forehead, closing her eyes again. After a moment, she looked at Sunset with hard eyes.

“Her mind was ripped into without thought to her safety.” The woman rose and walked over to a shelf where many leather-capped jars sat and pulled two down. “I can stabilize what remains for now, but I am unable to heal this wound. Her self leaks away like water through a split basin.”

Sunset looked at her friend, biting her lip. “What can I do?”

Serena pulled several leaves from one of the jars and dropped them into a clay mortar. “If you believe in Harmony,” she said as she started grinding with a pestle.. “I would consider praying.”

“Praying?” Sunset stuttered. “What do you mean, pray?”

The robed woman plucked several leaves from the other jar and dropped them into the mortar, a sweet smell wafting out as she worked. “If she cannot regain control of her mind,” the woman said as she poured some water into the clay vessel. “Then she will become nothing more than a shell. Living yet not, and lost in the depths of her own mind. As to what has been taken it will either return on its own or she will adapt.”

Sunset looked back at the shivering Twilight. Her emotions begin to war inside, guilt railing against her cynicism.

“Is there—” Sunset began but Twilight sat up, her eyes flying open and blazing with white light.

“High above sits the crown untold,” she whispered, her voice eerily sepulchral. “And the snake is eating its own tail…”

The light faded, and she began thrashing violently on the cot.

“Sparky!” Sunset cried, then hissed as the Talisman resting against her chest began to burn. She pulled it off and threw it to the ground, the power indicator blazing with light. “What in…”

“Hold her down!” Serena cried, rushing over with the clay vessel. “She is slipping!”

Sunset dove forward and struggled to grip Twilight’s shoulders, trying to hold the thrashing girl steady so Serena could administer the concoction in the mortar. A few drips touched Twilight’s tongue and the convulsing eased. Sunset began to relax her grip when Twilight grabbed her arm tightly, her eyes glowing again.

“You left me,” she whimpered, breathing ragged. “Y-you took me apart and spread me across the sand, blue and gold and black. I can hear them coming, too much screaming…” Tears streamed down her face, twitching between fear and anger.

Sunset flinched when Twilight’s horn started to glow with a raspberry hue. Trying to calm her companion, she reached out and cupped Twilight’s face, feeling the fevered skin beneath her own.

“I never left you, Sparky!” she said firmly, almost pleadingly. “I’m right here! I promised I’d get you home, you got that? I promised you. I won’t break that promise.”

Twilight’s eyes faded back to the muted purple, even paler than before. “Liar,” she whispered, horn dying as lucidity returned. She turned her head away and faced the wall. “You can’t. You said so.”

Sunset slid back, her heart aching like she had been punched there. Selena slowly poured the rest of the liquid into Twilight’s mouth, then looked up at Sunset with hard eyes.

“You took her sliding without her consent.” It wasn’t a question.

Sunset shook her head, eyes still locked on her companion. “It was an accident when we met,” she whispered. “I never meant to drag her along.”

A single word started echoing in her mind. Liar...

Vessel empty, Serena stood and walked back to her workbench. She set the mortar on the rough stone surface and sighed. Silver hair swayed as she shook her head. “I suspect you’ve had a great many such ‘accidents’ in your life,” she said. “Sunsets are often rash and quick to anger. You seem no different.”

“You’ve met other Sunsets?”

“One or two,” Serena said, returning and resting a hand on Twilight’s forehead, her horn lighting and a cloth floating over in her multi-hued aura. She laid it on the shaking girl’s forehead and glanced up.

“My mother once told me ‘It’s a dangerous business, stepping out your door,’ ” she said, facing the redhead. “‘You step onto the road and if you don’t keep your feet…’”

“There’s no telling where you might be swept off too,” Twilight whispered slowly. “I loved that story as a girl.” Her eyelids slid closed as her breathing steadied.

Serena smiled and patted the bespectacled girl’s shoulder. “Rest,” she intoned seriously. “The elixir I gave you should help the fever and stabilize you, but unless you conserve strength, I cannot say if you will be the same or not.”

Twilight nodded weakly as the healer draped a blanket over her.

Sunset’s eyes fell upon the Talisman and she gave the device a dirty glare. It’s warm white glow mocked her.

“I hate that thing,” she muttered.

A hand touched her shoulder. “I would not despair,” Serena said. “She is stronger than one may think to have made it this long.” She glanced at the unconscious girl. “There is nothing more we can do at this moment. You should rest as well. Guilt will not resolve itself, nor will staying up for days on end do much good for you. You will be safe inside these walls and you can stay for as long as you need to.” She noticed the singed portion of the redhead’s shirt and pulled a small jar from her shelf. “Here. This should ease the sting of that burn.”

Sunset looked up and took the jar and saw something under the robes the woman wore, a round pendant with a charred edge, several torn wires peeking out. She stared at the mystic, her mind still unable to place why she knew her.

“Who are you?” Sunset asked again. “How were you able to tell what was wrong with her?”

“You have not guessed?” Serena smirked, pulling a destroyed Talisman from underneath her robes and held it out to Sunset. Attached to it was an amber gemstone with a two-toned sun image within it.

“I am the daughter of a Twilight,” she said. “And a Sunset.”

Author's Note:

Chapter written by AllyKitty (Rose Quill)!