1 - Through a Mirror, Sunny

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It didn’t seem to matter how many times she made the trip through the portal, how many precautions she took on her side of the Mirror, nor anything the Princesses did on their side in Equestria, Sunset Shimmer just could not stick the landing. By this point, she had just learned to roll with the bumpy ride.

Literally. She tucked her arms and legs… soon to be forelegs and hindlegs… in and her wings the same as soon as she felt them take shape on her soon-to-be Alicorn body. Even months after the… incident that transformed the once-failed student of Princess Celestia and Diarch of the Sun into an immortal alicorn, she still wasn’t used to the additional appendages. Not that she thought she’d ever feel comfortable with the new reality, but there wasn’t really any way around it.

Truth be told, ‘incident’ covered the event in the same way ‘snafu’ might be used to describe a nuclear war. Over a year before, Sunset and her friends had been caught up in a magical disaster involving the Lord of Chaos himself, and the only way for them to have the raw power necessary to fix things – and more importantly, prevent the destruction of the entire human dimension – was for Sunset to accept an ‘upgrade’ from the just-then-reformed Midnight Sparkle.

And, voila. Alicorn Sunset.

But that was in the past, and landing was in Sunset’s rapidly approaching future.

She hit the stack of pillows first, but momentum dictated that Sunset smash through those and careen into the bookshelf behind them. Repeated such crash-landings had, however, made her used to the impacts and the dizziness which followed, so she was able to drag herself into a sitting position easily enough.

But since that was a human sitting position, Sunset quickly toppled over again.

“Wow,” an infuriatingly familiar voice filled Sunset’s ears, “Glad I don’t have to do that anytime soon.”

Sunset slowly picked herself back up, and shook her whole body out, her wingtips and tail finishing off with a flourish.

“Trixie,” Sunset nodded to the azure unicorn who stood before her, “To what do I-I-I-ayAYAYAYAY!!!???”

The Great and Powerful Trixie, now the School of Friendship’s Greatest and Most Caringest [sic] of her Students’ Wellbeing, Counselor Trixie, appeared quite put out by Sunset’s scream. It was clear by her face that she also did not approve of how Sunset recoiled physically from her, nor how the Alicorn’s eyes seemed to bulge almost out of her skull.

Not… that she could reasonably blame Sunset for the reaction. But ‘reasonable’ was for ponies who weren’t showmares.

“It’s called being pregnant, Sunset,” she snarled lightly while placing a gentle hoof on her massive belly, “You are being exceptionally rude to Trixie right now. Especially after I went to the trouble to set up those pillows for you!”

Sunset shook her head again, and took a moment to rub both eyes with her wings.

“It’s…” she stammered, “It’s real? But how!?”

Trixie smirked, “Well, Sunbutt, when two ponies love each other… or cider… very, very much, they…”

“Shut up! That’s not what I meant!” Sunset started trotting quickly around the boisterous showpony, her eye taking in every detail of the, to put it bluntly, severely pregnant pony before her.

She paused after a full circuit, and tried shaking her head one more time.

Didn’t work. Still a pregnant Trixie in front of her.

“I was at your wedding! How did this happen in three months!?”

“Well, the boring answer is… it didn’t,” Trixie chuckled, and lit her horn. Her pink magical aura flowed down the length of her horn, and quickly surged down her face, her neck, and across her withers like it was flowing water.

Seconds later, there was no pregnant mare standing before Sunset, but rather the slim, even athletic, blue unicorn she’d seen the last few times she’d been over to this side of the Mirror.

Trixie struck one of her best showmare poses, one foreleg dramatically high in the air.

“Before you, stands one of the greatest illusory spells I, the Great and POWERFUL Trixie, ever devised!”

Sunset gingerly reached out a hoof, and after getting an approving nod from Trixie herself, she pushed it into the space where she’d seen the unicorn’s belly bulging from before. Her hoof instantly met resistance, though of the soft and pliable sort.

“Wow,” Sunset uttered, mind completely blanking as she took in the information, “That’s… so impressive! I mean, the power-draw must be ridiculous…!”

She paused, her eyes narrowing at Trixie’s shaking legs.

“Um…”

Trixie’s face was beet-red. Her eyes were straining, and sweat pooled down her face in rivers as the sheer effort to maintain the spell made itself plain.

“Uh, Trixie?”

The showmare gasped, and let the illusion fade. She nearly fell to the floor herself, before Sunset pressed up against her, and quickly wrapped a strong, yet comforting, wing across her body.

“Trixie!?”

“Sorry!” Trixie’s face shifted to a more sheepish, embarrassed shade of red, “I… forgot how much of my magic goes to the kid these days…”

Sunset held up her friend for a few more seconds, but it was clear that the moment of weakness had passed. Slowly, and with great care, she released Trixie to stand on her own four hooves.

Trixie coughed, and then gestured to herself, “I combined some basic illusion spells with part of the spell that lets non-pegasi walk on clouds. Just the weight-reduction part, specifically.”

“Huh,” Sunset looked over the mare before her with an inquisitive, academic eye. You could take the filly out of school, but the reverse was far more difficult a task. “That’s pretty clever. Probably helped you keep your old balance and walking gait.”

“Exactly!” Trixie nodded happily, especially for the explicit praise of her ability, “I wanted a white dress for my wedding, after all, because it went best with my coat…”

“And Starswirl was okay with… this?”

Trixie’s eyes sparkled at the name of her dearest husband. “Oh, it took some convincing. He wanted to shout it from the rooftops! Prove to everypony that he wasn’t that old!”

Both mares giggled at the thought of Starswirl the Bearded dancing on a rooftop.

“Speaking of Starswirl,” Sunset said, after bringing herself back down to reality, “Where is he? Or, anyone else, for that matter? I was sort of expecting Twilight to be here. She said she could help me introduce magic publicly to the Mirror world…”

“Anypony,” Trixie corrected, with an authoritative sniff, “You’re a pony, in case you’ve forgotten, living with those colorful monkeys for so long. As an Alicorn, you’re the apex of ponykind, so please… act like it.”

Sunset rolled her eyes and nodded, “Uh huh, okay. So? Where is everycreature?” She made certain to emphasize the technically correct, yet incorrect, terminology for her blue host.

Trixie smirked at the visiting pony, and began walking out of the room, the comfortingly familiar crystallized library of Twilight – now Starlight’s – Castle of Friendship. Sunset followed closely, though with Trixie’s newfound size and gait, she didn’t follow too closely.

“Discord grabbed Swirly and a few of ‘The Guys’, as he calls them,” she took a turn to roll her own eyes at this, “and hauled them off to some sort of Colt’s Night, since Swirly’s not going to have as much free time once the baby arrives. Or, something. You know how Discord just does things.”

“Yeah,” Sunset smiled, “He’s a character. And, just when is…?”

“Days,” Trixie growled as they reached the front doors to the castle, “Which means, I lost the bet.”

Sunset opened the door for Trixie, lighting up the doors with her golden aura – yet another change from her ascension she wasn’t quite used to yet – and followed her out into the bright, Ponyville day.

“Bet?” Sunset raised an eyebrow.

“It… was stupid,” Trixie shook her head, “Starlight and I found out we were both expecting around the same time. Actually, the same day.”

The two mares paused to let a crowd of foals rush across the road in front of them. Most were trapped in bubbles made out of tree sap, with the familiar Cutie Mark Crusaders chasing after the impromptu stampede of laughing, bouncing foals alongside a rather worried-looking Derpy Hooves.

Trixie didn’t even blink.

Only in Ponyville…

“But it would appear Starlight will defeat the otherwise Great and Pregnant Trixie,” Trixie said.

Sunset, dragging her eyes away from the misadventure in progress, asked, “Does that mean…?”

“Yes,” Trixie cut in, “Starlight’s having her foal right now.”

Sunset nearly tripped over her own hooves, “Already!?”

“She’s eleven months, Sunny,” Trixie looked back over her shoulder and frowned, “You should keep better track of the time.”

Trixie’s frown further deepened as she watched the visiting Alicorn trot through the air in a wide circle around her, a giddy, bubbly smile indicating just how over the moon this news had put her.

“Oh! I can’t believe it! Is that where you’re taking me?”

Trixie snorted, “Of course. Twilight had me wait behind just for you, you weirdo.”

Sunset’s exuberance subsided as she landed in front of Trixie, and carefully looked over the rotund mare.

“Uh, you sure you should be walking all the way to Ponyville General? You’re kind of…”

“With foal is the nicest way you can end that sentence,” Trixie snorted.

“Erm,” Sunset blushed, “Right, yes. Good call… so, do you want me to teleport us?”

Trixie pursed her lips, and then said, “Sunset? The hospital is, like, a block away. And I wouldn’t trust any spell of yours right now, considering you’ve only had your horn back for five minutes.”

Sunset chuckled at that.

“Alright then, lead the way, O Great and Powerful Trixie!”

Trixie let out a sigh through her nose.

“Trixie knows you’re mocking her… but I love hearing ponies say that name,” she smirked, “Follow me! Trixie shall lead us onward! To Victory!”

“Ponyville General.”

“Potato, topato, same diff.”

The little waiting area in Ponyville General’s Maternity Ward had seen bigger crowds, but never one quite so prestigious as the one currently occupying it. The small, floral-colored room featured enough seats for almost two-dozen ponies, but in this case half that sufficed.

Besides the six Bearers of Harmony, who huddled near the door where Starlight Glimmer had been dragged through an hour before, Princess Celestia herself made small talk with Starlight and Sunburst’s parents, Firelight and Stellar Flare, mostly out of politeness. As a rule, the retired Princess disliked long, boring conversations about traditions and histories that she’d already lived through once, as well as conversations about bulldozing said traditions and histories to build strip malls.

“I… understand where you are coming from,” Celestia’s millennia of political acumen held her tone to an even, neutral, “But I am afraid I am not the pony to talk to about… demolishing any part of Ponyville for a… gated community, you called it?”

Stellar Flare nodded enthusiastically, “With the influx of other creatures into Equestria, and especially into this part of the nation, you can’t put a price on catering to wealthy tourists and those who wish to set down roots with… let’s say, a bit more gold than sense.”

“I can put a price on it,” Firelight snorted, “Nothing! Ponyville is the finest example of Rustic Applewood construction in Equestria! Its architectural legacy is undeniable!”

While the two, theoretically adult, ponies returned to their traditional squabbling, Celestia snuck an envious glance over to her former protégé, Princess Twilight Sparkle, as she and her friends shared yet another laugh at some joke or other that Pinkie Pie had come up with.

“Well, it sure is nice ta see ya’ll outside of a Council meetin’,” Applejack chortled, and leaned into the rainbow-maned pegasus at her side. Nopony had missed the way Dash did not seem to mind the sudden proximity, but nopony was willing to spoil a good thing, either.

“It is,” Fluttershy sighed, contentedly, “I just wish Discord could be here. But you know… Guy’s Night.”

Pinkie Pie nodded, “Yeah, Maud would have been here too, but she and Mud Briar went on some sort of super-duper rock excavation thingamabomber for some reason, and they made me Pinkie Promise not to bother them until they got back. Which is pretty rude, even for them…”

“D-darling?” Rarity frowned, “You do realize a honeymoon is meant for just the newlyweds, yes?”

“I choose not to understand the question…”

Nearby, Silverstream and Ocellus, back in town to take up positions as teachers in the School of Friendship, and to deliver congratulations on behalf of the hippogriffs and changelings respectively, were also caught in an animated discussion with a representative of the Crystal Empire.

“Absolutely not,” Commander Tempest Shadow said with ironclad conviction, “I don’t especially approve of anycreature having offspring, much less myself.”

“Oh, but they’d be adorable!” Silverstream gripped her own beak with squee-ing glee, “Could you imagine what your purple would look like with a little blue and gold!?”

The Commander snorted, “If Flash Sentry tried anything, I’d break his legs. And he knows it.”

Here, Ocellus gave an unsettling, troll-grin, “Oh? Did we say we were thinking of Captain Sentry?”

While Tempest’s face held like stone, her prosthetic horn, a rose-colored crystal held in a copper frame, gave off a little static pop. The younger mares took this as a sign of victory, and silently claw/hoof-bumped.

The individual conversations carried on for a few more minutes, until they were all halted by a sudden burst of magical light and sound. Near the doorway to the rest of the hospital, a golden light faded as quickly as it’d appeared, leaving in its wake an amber-colored Alicorn, and a blue unicorn.

A blue unicorn, who sagged immediately into the nearest chair.

“Thank you, Sunset!” Trixie gasped in relief, “My fetlocks were so swollen, I couldn’t possibly have continued on!”

“I told you I could teleport us from the start,” Sunset smiled, ruefully, “You were the one who said she could make it here on her own.”

“Trixie was mist…” the showmare sank a little into a pout, and whispered, “… mistaken.”

“Yeah, well…” Sunset was about to toss in a quick, laughing barb, when her eyes flashed up and towards a small mob of approaching ponies.

She waved as both her former teachers approached her.

“Princesses! Nice to see you guys again!”

Celestia, naturally beaming as bright as the sun, went in for a quick, affectionate nuzzle, “As it is a joy to see you as well, Sunset. But, as you well know, I am technically no longer a Princess.”

“And titles aren’t necessary between us, either,” Twilight stepped in, and gave her transdimensional protégé a one-legged hug, “We’re past that sort of thing, right?”

Sunset pursed her lips, and narrowed her eyes once the hug had broken. "Do you remember what I agreed to when I got these?" she asked, briefly holding her wings out to the side.

Twilight’s smile faltered, for a moment, before she let out an exasperated sigh.

“Wings: yes. Crown: no…”

Sunset nodded, sagely, “I’m happy enough to be your official Friendship Ambassador, but a Princess? That’s… not really my style, you know?”

Celestia’s eyes twinkled, and a little smile cut across her muzzle.

“Oh? Ambassadors are usually drawn from the nobility, as I recall,” the smile creeped its way up her face, until it nearly touched both of the ancient Alicorn’s eyes, “Surely that alone deserves a Duchesshood, at the very least!”

Sunset’s breathing quickened, slightly, in a moment of panic. Not at Celestia’s smile, but at how Twilight’s smile matched hers perfectly.

“You are correct,” Twilight said without breaking eye contact with Sunset, “In fact, Prince Blueblood is still our acting head of the diplomatic corps…”

“Oh, would you look at that!” Sunset charged past the two royals, a slightly manic grin on her face now, “Pinkie? AJ? Dash? Rarity? Fluttershy? How are you girls!?”

Both Alicorns shared a chuckle, and looked on as Sunset began joyfully greeting the other ponies and creatures in attendance. Despite only meeting them a few times before, Sunset still considered the other Elements of Harmony her friends, if not her closest ones, and they in turn had never found a reason to not share in that familiarity and comradery, outside of their very first meeting. Tempest Shadow seemed happy enough to see Sunset again, and helped break the ice with Silverstream and Ocellus, who had never actually managed to meet the mysterious mare from across the Mirror.

Trixie took the opportunity to snooze on the hard, yet oddly comfortable, plastic chair.

But, if Sunset had hoped for a long, slow reunion with the ponies from this side of the Mirror, she would be sadly disappointed. For, within moments of finishing their greetings, and one bone-crushing hug from Pinkie Pie, the door to the rest of the Maternity Ward burst wide open.

A pink earth pony mare, with a pastel green mane tied back in a loose bun and a set of blue scrubs, nearly tumbled through the doorway. She quickly found her hoofing, however, and locked slightly manic eyes with the nearest Princess, Twilight Sparkle.

“Doctor Feel Good?” the Princess noted something eerily familiar in the way the mare’s hair was becoming undone. The term ‘Twilinanas’ came, unbidden, to the forefront of her mind as Dr. Good trotted up to her.

“Oh, Princess! Good!” she took a few deep, calming breaths, “I’m so glad you’re here. We have a bit of an emergency going on with the patient…”

Celestia herself stepped up besides Twilight, and arrested the Doctor’s attention instantly with her naturally commanding presence.

“Is something wrong?” her voice was utterly neutral, though edged ever so slightly in a way that demanded a prompt and complete answer, “Is something wrong with the foal?”

“N-no!” Feel Good shook her head, “Not at all! It’s just… well, the parents seem to be having an issue. And not one I’ve seen all that often.”

Both Princesses narrowed their eyes, and flattened their ears in a dangerous way, each calling upon an intrinsic grace that made each one worthy of their titles. Twilight’s mind, from the way she stood, was clearly absorbing every detail with remarkable precision and speed. Celestia’s aura practically exuded ‘crisis management’ as she stood stoically beside her successor.

Seeing this, the Doctor took another breath, and pressed on.

“Mothers are often affected in strange ways, once they’ve given birth,” she said, quickly, “Some are ecstatic, while others are depressed and morose. Some don’t seem to recognize their child for the first few days, which isn’t all that odd… but…

“Well,” she shrugged, helplessly, “This is the first time I’ve seen both parents share in a delusion.”

“Delusion?” Sunset frowned, concern for her friend outweighing any deference to the other Alicorns, “What sort of delusion?”

Doctor Feel Good looked to this third voice… and froze. Her pupils almost vanished entirely amidst the white of her eyes. Her jaw dangled from her head, and her throat made a sudden, quiet choking sound.

“Um… Doc?” Sunset glanced from the medical pony to Twilight and Celestia, whose faces were shifting to their own confused expressions. “Is… is there something on my face?”

The Doctor blinked, and let loose a long, ragged gasp, finally realizing she’d been holding her breath the whole time. Her eyes did not shift back to a normal dilation, but her mouth finally found out how to work itself, as she began licking her lips.

“Does…” she glanced about the room, “Does anypony happen to have some hard cider on them?”

Applejack, a wide smile on her face, was just about to reach up into her Stetson, when she caught a narrow glare from her mare… friend. Friend who was a mare. Deciding that an angry, cider-less Dashie was worse than a couple extra bits in the tin, she quietly lowered her hoof.

Doctor Feel Good turned back around, her shoulders heavy.

“Ah, well,” she sighed, “Guess I can see if Doctor House still has that malted…”

She seemed to note the presence of two… three? Three Princesses, and snapped her mouth shut. Then, as she focused back on the third Alicorn in the room, her right eye twitched.

“Oh, buck me,” she whispered, “You’re real!”

Sunset scrunched up her nose, and glanced over to the Princesses. “I’m… not some kind of state secret, am I?”

Both Alicorns shook their heads.

“You…” the Doctor slowly approached Sunset, like a little filly investigating their closet for the Boogiemare, “Are you… Sunset Shimmer?”

Sunset pulled back, just to keep some personal space to herself, “Uh, yeah? Do… do I know you?”

“Kind of,” Feel Good dropped back onto her haunches, her eyes drifting into the middle distance, “Your… uh, the patient… Starlight Glimmer said your name a couple of times after I…

“… after I delivered you,” the Doctor sighed as her eyes rolled back, and she fainted dead away.

At first, there was silence. Not one pony moved, or even breathed, in the moments following Feel Good’s pronouncement. Then, Firelight and Stellar Flare, quite forgotten up until this moment, collapsed right into one another and slumped to the ground, which signaled the start of grand pandemonium. Everypony was suddenly alternating between stuttering, chattering, and simply balking. Trixie was startled awake, Silverstream and Ocellus blanched, Tempest’s horn started sparking, and total and complete Chaos swept through the room.

Discord sneezed, quite suddenly. He idly pondered whether or not he should try and get involved with whatever had just happened, but ultimately declined. Chaos could handle itself for one day without him.

After all, it wouldn’t do to interrupt Guy’s Night.

“My turn, then?” he grinned at Spike, Big Mac, Starswirl, and a human Pinkie Pie, one after the next, before he picked up one of the miniatures that made up his delightfully chaotic army.

Bacon hair will probably fix things before too long, he reasoned.

“Gum for the Gum Gods,” he laughed as he rattled the dice in his talons, “Scones for the Scone Throne…!”

Every creature was still in a panic, except for three Alicorns. Celestia, Twilight, and Sunset spared one another nothing more than a glance, before they simultaneously bolted for the door to the wardrooms.

A door which, being made of wood, vanished in a flash of ash and smoke as the ex-Princess of the Sun roared through it in a headlong sprint. Sunset almost had the sense to stop her, or at least protest.

Almost.

Nearly.

But Sunset’s mind had also almost stopped functioning as she and the Princesses hurtled down the hall towards...

What exactly are we running towards?

“Uh…” she started to say as they raced past more doors, and more and more startled nurses, staff, and strangely, a Doctor dressed as a clown.

“No time!” Twilight hyperventilated in her general direction, “Time-Space… *gasp* … Continuum… *gasp* … imploding on… *gasp* … itself!”

Sunset nearly tripped.

“What!? Really!?”

“Oh, no, of course not!” Celestia said with far more breath control, probably a consequence of her ludicrous stride length, “But also yes. Most likely.”

Twilight suddenly slammed her hooves down, bringing their mad dash to a squealing conclusion as her horseshoes left a long gouge in the floor.

“I had Starlight whip up a Temporal Warning System after Trixie’s… adventure,” she said as she checked the door number, “I’ll add you to the list later, but right now, my horn is killing me!”

And with that, the Reigning Princess of Equestria wrapped the room door in her magical purple aura, and teleported it off its hinges, several feet to the left, and threw herself into the room.

Things were happening quickly, in real time. But, with her mind currently reeling and a bit off kilter, reality seemed to slow down for Sunset, until time itself was more like a syrupy ooze that sort of happened at its own pace.

The room was absolutely state of the art, as far as Equestria went. It was moderately sized, with one long window providing a clear view of the town under a stunning, midmorning sun. Each wall was crammed with shelves covered in supplies, and cabinets housing the sort of equipment that Sunset suspected was only half from Equestria, and half from some of those engineering books and magazines she sent through the Mirror regularly.

It was, as was becoming the norm, also in a state of pandemonium. There were two unicorn nurses, and three aides, two of which were outstandingly muscular earth ponies, and one minotaur.

All of whom were suspended in the air, trapped in a magical turquoise aura that practically pulsated with mystical fury.

Yup, Sunset sighed, She still has a temper.

Starlight Glimmer, the purple mare in question, snarled at the floating medical staff, veins near-to-bursting from her neck and forehead.

“Touch me again, and let’s see what happens!” she scowled and shouted, her forelegs tightening around a bundle of swaddling as she lay back into her sweaty bedsheets, “I’m telling you, something has happened to time!”

“D-dear, please,” Sunburst stuttered from where he stood, on the opposite side of the maternity bed from the magically imprisoned creatures, “We can be reasonable about this…”

“Somepony swapped out my baby!”

“… okay, that does sound bad,” Sunburst readjusted his glasses, “But once the Princess… oh! Twilight!”

The orange stallion’s face lit up as he noticed Twilight enter the room.

“A-and you brought Celestia? Oh, thank… um, Celestia, I guess? That’s…”

His eyes landed on Sunset, and his smile instantly fell.

Starlight hadn’t noticed, her attention focused solely on Twilight. “Where’d the Doc go?”

Sunset coughed, and said, “Um, Doctor Feel Good isn’t… ironically… feeling too good at the moment. Something about… delivering me?”

Now Starlight’s eyes were staring at Sunset as well. She and her husband’s pupils shrank to dots, and their jaws fell. This was becoming distressingly common.

“Please, put the staff down,” Celestia said with her usual stoic tone, “I have a feeling something has happened.”

“S-Sunset?” a meek, and tiny voice bubbled up out of Starlight’s throat, yet almost a choked whisper, “Is… is that you?”

“It’s me,” Sunset said, cautiously, “The… the Doctor said…”

Her throat began to tighten. Starlight had shifted, slightly, protectively. There was a bundle of swaddling in between her hooves, which began to stir.

All eyes drew to the foal.

Sunset took one step forward. And then another.

And another.

And before she knew it, she stood over the new mother. In Starlight’s hooves, there sat the littlest filly possible. Her coat was golden amber, and her mane, though nearly nonexistent yet, could not be mistaken for anything other than a wave of gold and red.

“Is…?”

Sunset’s voice caught again, as the filly’s eyes opened.

With the door to the room crowding with curious ponies, nosy staff, baffled Princesses, and now two utterly bewildered parents leaning in close, Sunset couldn’t help shake the strangest, most eerie sensation of déjà vu she’d ever felt in her life.

Sunset Shimmer looked into the eyes of… Sunset Shimmer, and for a moment, time seemed to stop.

Then, the elder Sunset groaned.

“Oh… horseapples…”

2 - My Past is my Tomorrow

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She was perfect. Absolutely, wonderfully, perfect. Her little ears were perfect, as was her little nose, and her perfect cyan eyes, and her amber coat, and the way her fine mane waved in gold and crimson whenever she stirred. There would never be a filly as perfect as her little Sunshine. It was impossible.

Except, she wasn’t. Maybe. Perhaps. Starlight’s beautiful, perfect little filly… wasn’t hers.

Maybe. Maddeningly maybe.

She held a baby in her hooves that she recognized all too well. She’d gone to sleepovers hosted by the foal she now held. She’d watched a movie in another world, where her baby was a full-grown person and background character. Starlight had fought against evil forces, on both sides of the mirror, alongside the very tiny, helpless, perfect little foal she held onto right now.

Or did she?

Starlight didn’t know. She hated not knowing. If this little filly was hers, then why did she look so much like Sunset Shimmer? And if they were one and the same… how!?

She sat in one of the thrones back at the Castle of Friendship, her baby still held tight in her hooves. Sunburst stood beside her, one foreleg wrapped warmly around her shoulders, the one source of constancy and strength left in Starlight’s world. It was that strength, plus an overabundance of adrenaline, panic, and a couple pints of Tim Hoofton’s coffee, that kept the purple mare awake at this point. It would take a lot more than giving birth to take down Starlight Glimmer.

In the room with them were the Princesses Twilight and Celestia… and her. The real… the older Sunset Shimmer. Sunset was pacing around the room all a-jitter, even her wings refusing to keep still as Twilight cast her temporal diagnostic spells on the Cutie Map Table. If any artifact at their disposal could pierce the veil of time and space, it was that table.

The events of the previous few hours replayed in Starlight’s mind. Twilight had thrown up a magic barrier between her baby and Sunset as soon as the two saw each other, to stop them touching if this was some sort of time-anomaly, and the general panic Doctor Feel Good had let loose ran roughshod throughout the hospital. Starlight’s dad and Sunburst’s mom were back there, under observation after fainting, as were the other Element Bearers, former students of the Friendship School, and Tempest Shadow, just to keep the peace and calm down the staff and other patients, who were convinced they were trapped in some sort of nightmarish timeloop scenario.

Things didn’t improve when Trixie suddenly went into labor. So, now it was just Starlight, her husband, her new child, two Princesses… and Sunset.

Little Sunshine babbled as she woke up, spit bubbles popping on her lips.

She was perfect.

In the pandemonium, the hospital staff were only too willing to let the Princesses take the mother and child home earlier than observation normally allowed, and so it had only been about an hour since the birth.

That seemed excessively quick, Starlight thought to herself, unable and unwilling to focus on Twilight’s spellcasting.

Starlight didn’t care, one way or the other. She had her Sunshine with her. That’s all that mattered. Every health-scanning spell imaginable had been used before they left – or rather, shoved – out of the hospital. There was nothing to worry about. No problems, no issues. At least, none that Celestia or Twilight thought would be a problem enough to point out.

She was… perfect.

And then, the little moment of stillness the Castle had fallen into, shattered.

“So…” Sunset winced, as though she’d just shouted in a church, instead of squeaked out the tiniest possible sound, “Do we have any theories? I mean, we’re not seriously considering that you’re my… my…”

Her voice gave out before it could finish, but it at least gave Sunburst an excuse to speak without starting what was proving to be a most distressing conversation.

“W-well there’s… there’s only t-two real theories that make sense,” he nervously worked the clasp on his cape while desperately trying not to make eye contact with the mare who was possibly his own daughter, “Occdam’s Razor would have us conclude that the simpler answer is the most likely… but either answer is patently absurd outside of some pretty wild theoretical magic, so…”

“I don’t even know where to begin,” Starlight sighed, and slumped down a little into Pinkie’s throne, “I mean… what am I supposed to think about this!?”

Sunburst cleared his throat, and said, “Well… perhaps Sunshine just… happens to look like Sunset? Crazier things have happened.”

As the deafening silence returned, partnered with the unamused glare of both Sunset and Starlight, the little filly herself let out a peal of laughter. And for a moment, that was enough to lift the pall of confusion and doubt settled into the very air within the Castle.

Starlight, idly brushing her daughter’s face and mane, looked up and across the table to where Celestia stood next to Spike’s honorary chair. Then, as her baby tried in vain to nip at her hoof, Starlight noticed something.

“Huh,” her eyes narrowed at the subject. And then, they widened, as an answer came to her. She turned her Sunshine over, and amid the foal’s happy babbling, she pointed out a spot at the base of her neck.

“Look!” she cried, “Look right there! Sunshine has a birthmark! It’s right at the back of her neck, and it looks like…”

“… a little pink heart?” Sunset’s eyes twitched as she finished her friend’s sentence, “Yeah, I… I always brushed my mane a certain way to hide that. Despite hearts being darn well ubiquitous in Equestria, compared to Earth, the playground bullies will still make fun of you for it.”

Starlight’s ears perked.

“You were bullied?”

“Uh, yeah… back at the orphanage…” Sunset began.

“Orphanage!?” Sunburst cut in suddenly, scraggly hairs jumping out of his, admittedly disheveled, mane and beard.

Sunset’s ears drooped, “Is… is that a problem?”

“N-no,” the orange stallion briefly turned red, his hooves tapping arrhythmically on the hard crystal floor, “There’s nothing wrong with it… per say. But I thought Celestia raised you?”

Sunset nodded, slowly, “She did, but I was at the Canterlot Orphanage until I was five.”

Starlight looked down at the babe in her hooves. Sunshine smiled back, and Starlight could feel her heart breaking apart. For a terrifying second, she could see her little girl, alone. Getting a sock full of candy for Hearth’s Warming, but no presents under the tree. Being made fun of on the playground. Seeing other children leave with new parents.

Parents who would love them forever, regardless of a connection of blood…

Blood.

Blood!

“I’ve got it!” she cried, a manic grin plastered onto Starlight’s face, and a joyful laugh in her baby’s eyes, “Blood! We can do a genetic test!”

“With a possible temporal anomaly?” Sunburst raised an eyebrow quizzically.

Sunset shared his skepticism. “If that is me, I’d rather not risk a feedback loop from there being two of us in the room when you cast something like that.”

Starlight knew there was a higher than was statistically safe chance of mana feedback if the subject of the spell was in more than one place at a time. That knowledge nearly put a dampener on Starlight’s mood, but she pushed through it. She had to.

“But what about genetics? I have Record’s Syndrome!”

Perfect! Starlight thought, Unicorns with Record’s have unusually high mana levels due to not being able to close their mana channels easily, but since it carries on the X-chromosome…

“Sunset does not have Record’s,” Celestia’s voice cut through Starlight’s briefly improving mood like a hot spoon through ice cream, “At least, she didn’t as a unicorn.”

Sunset quickly added, “It’s been years since I had an Equestrian physical, but while I didn’t have Record’s, I know for a fact I was a carrier.”

“And I don’t have it,” Sunburst said, his low tone reflecting how far Starlight had sunk into her seat, “So… Sunshine would also be a carrier.”

Starlight hadn’t heard most of what was said. As soon as she realized what they were saying, the information clicked in her mind, and she was onto the next hypothesis. The next possibility. The next reason that her perfect, beautiful little angel just could not be Sunset Shimmer.

She didn’t hate Sunset, of course. Nopony could hate her once they got to know her. But Sunset was not Sunshine. Because if Sunshine and Sunset were the same pony, then that meant… it meant…

The little filly’s smile hadn’t wavered once. And now, with her mother’s face so close, she reached out with a feeble, twitching hoof to grasp at the object of her sole, and absolute, affection.

Sunshine didn’t seem to understand what the tears, which splashed against her tiny hoof, meant. She was overjoyed at the contact alone.

“I promised,” Starlight whispered. She licked her lips, and tried again, “I promised I wouldn’t let it happen.”

Sunset took a few, ginger steps towards her.

Her own whisper was almost quieter. “You wouldn’t let what happen?”

Now Celestia had turned her attention fully to Starlight and her foal. Twilight sat serenely in her chair, lost in a trance and bathed in a corona of magical light.

Starlight felt her husband’s foreleg grip her shoulders again. At first, she couldn’t say anything. She waited for some of his quiet strength to bleed down into her, first.

Finally, with a ragged breath, she said, “I promised I wouldn’t let my child make the same mistakes I made. I promised… We promised,” her eyes never left her Sunshine, though one hoof rose up to take Sunburst’s, “that we would be there for her. That we wouldn’t let anything happen…”

Sunshine looked up at her mother with worry now. The little one did not know what was wrong, or what had caused her mother such pain. But she could feel what she needed to do, nopony in the room could doubt from the way her eyes, her soft, intelligent eyes, focused on the most important being in the universe.

The foal reached up with both hooves, and tried to nuzzle her mother, like she’d seen her do before. Starlight, almost entirely automatically, instinctually, leaned into her daughter’s embrace, and returned every ounce of affection and more. Mother and foal simply held one another without reservation.

Sunset stared at the display. Every inch of her twitched as she saw the moment of sheer bliss pass across the faces of Sunshine and Starlight. It was reflexive, an old, old hurt yearning to be healed. Even just taking in the twinkle in Sunburst’s eye as he leaned over his wife and child made her heart begin to pound louder and louder in her chest and in her ears.

There was something startlingly familiar about it all.

“Hmmm,” Celestia’s melodious voice fell into a thoughtful hum as she approached the other side of Starlight’s seat, “More and more, this mystery begins to feel as though the answer is as inevitable as it is… disturbing.”

Sunset’s ears flattened as she looked past her possible-mother, and towards her mother-figure, “Do… do you really think that Starlight and Sunburst are…?”

She didn’t want to finish. Finishing that sentence felt too much like a period, a final punctuation. And with it, would come so many terrible contemplations. Too many cruel possibilities for Sunset or Starlight to have thrust upon them.

Celestia, however, knew grim inevitability. It had been her companion for centuries. She weighed her words a moment, ears flicking atop her head as though she was listening to an internal debate.

“It would certainly clear up much of the mystery I found myself in when you were first brought to my attention.”

“Brought to your attention?” Sunset asked, her mind racing back to her hazy memories of foalhood.

Sunburst’s ears twitched, and his other foreleg came up protectively around his wife, “Mystery?”

The Princess leaned down, just enough to see little Sunshine clearly, but not so near as Sunset knew Celestia liked to be around foals. The elder Alicorn loved fillies and colts with all her heart, to the point where Sunset knew she would turn down cake for the chance to nuzzle a newborn foal for a few hours.

Sunshine cooed in wonder as she saw the magnificent, ethereal mane. It wasn’t as wonderful as mommy’s mane, but it was close.

“I first met you, Sunset,” she said, her eyes never breaking contact with those of the baby, “when you were days old.”

“… Days?”

Celestia’s eyes flicked up to meet her old student’s. Then, she raised her head up to the tree-root chandelier which dominated the room, and said, “It was Hearth’s Warming Eve...

It was Hearth’s Warming Eve. The holiday never really appealed to me, at least the… ‘family’ part. I was reasonably certain that being the reason my family hadn’t been whole in over a thousand years meant I wasn’t supposed to enjoy a holiday that celebrated the institution.

Though, more selfishly, I didn’t want to waste an evening getting chatted up by Blueblood’s father, no matter how cute his new foal was…

“Oh! Bluey!” Sunset grinned, eyes sparkling, “I completely forgot about him! How’s he doing?”

Celestia frowned, “Do you remember how you behaved when you were thirteen?”

Sunset’s ears flattened.

“Oh…”

“Indeed. Now, as I was saying…”

I had managed to duck Grigori for a few minutes in between dinner courses. I snuck off into one of the ballrooms, and had a few moments to collect myself.

Feel sorry for myself, more like. Despite having the Bluebloods around since Platinum passed, I was utterly alone in the world. And knowing that my sister would return in a few more decades time, for her revenge, I would say I was not in the most seasonally appropriate mood.

It just so happened, at that moment, a fire began to burn in the Lower Wards. A three-story apartment, empty due to renovations, and within direct line-of-sight to the ballroom I was in, caught ablaze.

Well, I took it as a sign, and went off to investigate and lend a hoof.

The weather was bitterly cold, that year. Canterlot went through a very warm summer that year, and the recommended correction by the Weather Committee had a sharp blizzard coming down on our heads. But the flames were hot, even as I came within a block of the fire. The whole street was orange as I landed amidst the deep snow.

The place was in chaos. There wasn’t anypony inside, at least that anypony knew about at the time. But the fire was close to spreading to the other houses. I aided the firefighters and helped keep the flames contained, but I needn’t have bothered.

The first thing about that night that confused me. The fire, despite how brilliantly it raged, was so easily doused. At first, I couldn’t help but think it was a deliberate fire…

But the building’s owner didn’t have fire insurance. And he was an outstanding stallion, a true pillar of the community. I started thinking I had been overindulging in romance novels and thrillers. My imagination, and a desire to stay far, far away from Blueblood, had me running after shadows.

The second mystery. There were two ponies in the building that night, a stallion and a mare. Yet, despite the doors being unlocked, and there being no sign of other injuries, both had succumbed to the fire…

“Two ponies?” Sunburst’s brows furrowed into canyons on his face, “D-do you… do you mean…?”

Celestia shook her head sharply. “No. Despite their burns being quite severe, I can remember both of them clearly, even now. Neither bore any resemblance to you or Starlight Glimmer. The mare was a deep, rosy red, and the stallion, sky blue.”

“Who were they!?” Sunset shouted, her hackles suddenly up, “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this before!? Were they my parents…!?”

Her voice bounced painfully off the crystalline walls, within moments bringing the little foal to tears as she felt her ears ring with Sunset’s wrath.

The amber Alicorn recoiled at the sound, the faintest echo of a shadow of a memory causing her own ears to turn down.

“I…” Celestia spoke softly, “I never told you about this because I was afraid this was what would happen. Back then, I knew you were too emotional to speak with about that night. And…

“… and I was selfish,” she sighed, “I didn’t wish to share you, even with your real parents. I would have, eventually, but…”

“It’s fine,” Sunset cut in, quickly, before she could cause her mentor more pain, “Just… please. Finish the story.”

We never identified the bodies. They weren’t in any record, and had no identification on them. It was quite curious, though not impossible. Many itinerants and ‘off-grid’ ponies exist, even in Equestria. Still, it was very rare to see this sort of tragedy unfold.

More than that… I couldn’t help but feel something was off about the bodies. Due to the damages done to the bodies, I couldn’t be entirely sure of it at the time, but… well, I would always suspect something was off about those ponies.

There was one more mystery to solve, as well. A small foal, barely a day old, had been left in the snow across the street from the fire. A little filly with an amber coat, and a mane of bright red and gold waves. A little filly with her name, Sunset Shimmer, stitched into the swaddling which covered her against the winter chill…

“… A filly,” Celestia’s eyes twinkled knowingly as she gazed down upon Sunset and Sunshine, “who already had her Cutie Mark!”

“WHAT!?”

The cry of shock and surprise came, as it often did at these times, in stereo. Celestia actually took a single step back, though not at the sound, which she expected out of Starlight and Sunset both. No, what made the Princess step backward was the near-identical face each mare made.

As it turned out, in a moment of stress, panic, or anger… mother and daughter were hauntingly similar.

“She already had a Cutie Mark!?” Starlight said as she spun her Sunshine about in her magic aura, looking at her little one’s flanks for the telltale mix-colored sun symbol. Sunshine giggled at the touch of her mother’s magic.

Sunset, with one hoof to her temple, similarly snorted, “Are you kidding!? I got it that long ago? No wonder I could never figure out what my talent was supposed to be…”

“How did you never know what your talent was?” Sunburst frowned, more surprised than concerned, “You were the Princess’s personal student!”

“I was a little busy at the time,” she shrugged, then blanched a little, “Being a Canterlot snob and trying to attain goddesshood was a pretty time-consuming hobby. I just really didn’t have time to… be happy…”

Sunset slowed down as she spoke, until she held her tongue entirely. She glanced down to her hooves, and seemed to take them in for the first time.

She looked back to Celestia, her eyes a little more guarded than they were before.

“You… you thought something was up, but you still sent me off to the orphanage?”

The Princess nodded slowly, “I had several undercover agents placed to watch over you, just in case something else strange happened. I hoped to find your real family by then… but after five years, I lost hope.

“And then,” she tilted her head in thought, “I started to think the bodies we’d pulled out of the fire weren’t bodies at all, but some sort of simulacrums. I could never prove whether or not that was the case. If so, then the illusion spells on them would have been the most advanced I’ve ever seen!”

None of the three possibly-related ponies spared more than a passing thought to a particular blue showmare with a talent for illusions. It wasn’t that it was obvious. It was more that none of them wanted to consider how they had all quickly abandoned her at the hospital as soon as she had gone into labor…

And, as the fourth doctor was felled by an azure hoof, the constantly screaming mare took a second breath, and roared.

“GET THIS THING OUT OF TRIXIE!!!”

“But they stubbornly refused to give up their secrets. And so, after five years…” Celestia closed her eyes, and seemed to be looking at something the others in the room couldn’t see, “… I decided I was done waiting for Destiny to reveal itself. I took Sunset in, and tried to give her the best life I could.”

Starlight had heard the whole story. And, as before, her mind was speeding away, filing information and comparing notes. Before, this would have been the basis of a new theory on how Sunshine was not Sunset, and that her future was nothing but happiness and joy.

Now, however, Starlight knew better. Sunshine would, at some point in the near future, be lost to her in the past. She would grow up under the care and tutelage of a Princess, but would let her anger and her ego take her down an all-too-familiar path. And though Sunset would become all the better for it, once Twilight Sparkle became involved, it would still be proof that Starlight’s sins and faults had doomed her child to the same sort of life she had sworn to protect Sunshine from.

She looked down to her little girl. Sunshine had drifted off, at some point. For a moment, Starlight actually envied her baby. The last good night she’d had was the night before Sunburst’s Cutie Mark had been revealed. Every night since had been troubled, in one way or another. Starlight had never slept as soundly as her daughter did now. Not even close.

And, when she looked up again, Starlight couldn’t help but feel her eyes drawn to the amber Alicorn in the room.

“S-Sun…” she started.

And stopped. Could she do it? Could she say it?

Saying it would make it real.

She licked her lips, eyes never leaving the most familiar… painfully familiar cyan eyes.

“Sunshine?”

Starlight glanced up, to where Sunburst had spoken. He held his glasses up in his aura, a cleaning wipe at the ready, though he seemed to hold it very close to his own eyes.

Sunset blinked. She swallowed a lump she hadn’t noticed before, and stole a glance back to the Princess.

Celestia said nothing. Not even through body language. In fact, the Princess was as still as a statue, merely a silent witness to the proceedings. Yet, despite that, Sunset could see what the ancient Alicorn hoped to hide.

Starlight saw it too. She knew that ache. She’d felt it every waking moment for the last few hours. There was an ache that went too deep to name, for fear of it spreading.

We’ve both lost our daughter, she realized, But the Princess is far, far better at hiding it.

At last, Sunset turned her eyes to meet those of Starlight and Sunburst. Both were familiar… painfully familiar. The deep blue in Starlight’s eyes tugged at her memory, like a dream half-forgotten. A dream of warm hooves, and an angelic smile.

And then she realized, at that moment, that she had her father’s eyes.

“Mom?” she croaked, “Dad?”

Starlight was up and out of her seat, her eyes misty, her breath held. She held her daughter close, but she found she couldn’t look away from… her daughter.

“Oh, my…” Sunburst said as he closed the distance with Sunset first, “I suppose we have our answer. Look at you…!”

The two came very nearly close to each other, questions and hurt plain on both their faces, and it was only then that Starlight could see the almost painful similarities between the two. It was more than a similarity of color. She could almost see Stellar Flare’s smile, hiding in Sunset’s eyes. The way the Alicorn’s eyebrow twitched in worry and curiosity could have been lifted right off the face Firelight made when he was losing at cards.

Even her mane looked like Starlight’s in its shape, just with Sunburst’s extra wave and twist thrown in.

“Sunshine…” she whispered, no going back.

Sunset’s face was a war of emotion, and a protracted one, at that. Starlight could almost read her like a book at the moment, as she finally saw the resemblances to herself and her family. The Alicorn stared at Sunburst first, confusion at being the same age as her father, give or take a month or so, was plain to see, though cut by the realization that she could make that comparison with him here. Her father was right in front of her, in the flesh.

But the look she gave Starlight just a moment later was different. There was a flash of recognition, and a dash of affection… but that was only a tiny mote, barely an accent to the greater emotion practically wafting off of her.

Sunset Shimmer’s eyes narrowed, and her pupils shrank. Her face visibly recoiled.

Starlight felt her heart sink.

My baby is… afraid of me. A sort of numbness crept into Starlight’s legs, and spread up into her core. If she hadn’t the presence of mind to tighten her grip on her Sunshine… her Sunset… she might have dropped the baby.

But Sunset’s eyes moved over her like water, their contact brief and passing. Starlight followed that gaze, turning to look back over her shoulder at the only other mare Sunset could have been looking at.

Celestia, Princess of the Sun, ruler of Equestria for over a millennium, a pillar of strength and bastion of stoic grace… wilted before her student. She was a flower lost in the dark, a mountain whose base was eroding before her eyes.

And… Starlight gulped, So is hers…

For a moment, nopony said a word.

And then…

“GAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”

The Royal Canterlot Voice, invoked since time immemorial by politicians and public speakers alike to reach even the furthest ends of any crowd, was not meant to be used indoors. Even with proper ventilation and structural soundness, such was a recipe for disaster and shattered bodies.

Twilight Sparkle, gripped by madness, terror, or indescribable pain, nopony could tell at a glance. Yet, as her trance collapsed and she shrieked upon reaching the waking world, whatever now possessed her let loose such a monstrous demonstration of the Voice’s power that it set the very roots of the castle to shake, and rattled every facet of its construction.

Starlight slammed her eyes and ears shut as a shockwave rippled across the face of the Cutie Map Table, and she instinctively spun around to shield Sunshine with her own body. It was as natural as breathing, for Starlight to move in such a way. Perhaps, with more sleep and less caffeine in her system, she might have cast any number of spells to stop the sonic blast from pulverizing her and her child, as well.

Luckily, she needn’t have bothered. She felt, more than heard, the Voice tear past her, like she was indoors during a thunderstorm. It simply rolled over her as a wave, muffled by – as she opened her eyes to see – a wall of white and gold feathers.

She only then noticed how tightly she was being held by a long set of alabaster forelegs, and a shorter set of amber, with the manes and faces of both Celestia and Sunset Shimmer pressed down on top of her. They held onto her for what felt like dear life, their eyes closed tight, and their horns ablaze with magic, sustaining the golden bubble that encased all of them, plus a startled Sunburst.

Sunshine took this opportunity to voice her own displeasure.

The sound of a crying foal caused both Alicorns to pop their eyes open, and attempt to recover. They stumbled apart, dropping their shield only after taking a moment to make sure the danger had passed. The whine of a baby made a valiant attempt at matching the thunderous boom of the Royal Canterlot Voice, and it drew much the same amount of attention to itself from those present.

Starlight quickly pulled her child to her heart, and tried to give what comfort she could, while Sunset, Sunburst, and Celestia could only glance away from one another with reddening faces.

Though, none was so red as Twilight Sparkle’s.

“Uh…” she scratched the back of her neck, “Oops?”

3 - Delayed Sentencing

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Celestia dutifully lowered the sun as it came time for evening to descend upon Equestria. She did so from the comfort of the Castle of Friendship’s throne room, entirely without sight of the heavenly orb that was once her charge. These days, she would only raise or lower the sun whenever Twilight was otherwise preoccupied or, like today, magically exhausted.

The lighting of the Castle did not change much between the close of day and the rising of the moon, something that Celestia quite liked about the mysterious structure. It said something, she thought, that no matter the circumstances, friendship would remain constant.

Oh, how she hoped that would be true of other relationships. How she wished it with all her heart and soul.

Sunshine – no matter what name she wore in the present, it was best to keep the two ponies separate – had been put down for a nap by her father, who was even now maintaining a magical Cone of Silence around her, just on the off chance that the evening’s discussions went about as well as the one before.

I wonder, she thought to herself, happy for the distraction, how often does time travel come up for these ponies? It seems to just about haunt poor Twilight.

Despite this somewhat humorous thought, others managed to creep past Celestia’s mental defenses. On any other day, she would have held firm. But today…?

Part of the mystery is solved. But how, and why this happened, still eludes us. Hopefully, Twilight has answers…

… Does Sunset blame me?

The sun jumped, imperceptibly, along its course to the horizon.

… Of course not! the Solar ex-Diarch tried to laugh off the errant thought, Sunset knows I never intended to keep her away from her parents.

Right?

She managed a quick, nonchalant, glance over her shoulder. There, sitting together in between Pinkie and Fluttershy’s throne, were mother and daughter. Sunset and Starlight had sat there, in silence, ever since Twilight had gone for tea. It was almost painful to watch them try and muster the will to talk, only to fall back into tense and unknowing stillness again.

The Princess sighed to herself.

They barely know each other beyond a fairly long-distance sort of friendship, she reasoned, I can’t expect them to… to what?

To what, indeed. Celestia had no idea. And that was a very strange thing to consider. Though recently retired, she would not, perhaps could not, lose the mental acuity that had allowed her to hold the apparatus of state together for over a millennium. The very fact that nothing came to mind now was wholly alien to her.

It’s not like I had expectations. This was all a blind hit-and-gallop, as far as I’m concerned.

And what else could she say? That she felt as though she had somehow foalnapped a child? Or that watching Sunset discover her true parentage wasn’t like having a dagger slammed repeatedly into her heart?

She sighed, internally. I’m awful. Here, my wonderful student has finally found the thing she knew she had lost, and what am I doing? Sulking.

It’s not like I’ll lose her, she snorted, again, internally, I mean, essentially, I raised her. And we both know how she feels towards me. And I her. She wouldn’t throw all that… she wouldn’t throw me aside…

Would she?

Celestia didn’t like this part of herself. The part that demanded love, attention, even worship. The part that shone like the sun… until all else faded away.

Blind fool! she castigated, Was one-thousand years alone not enough for you!? Sunset loves you! But Love can be shared! You know this. Cadance said as much, the last time you talked to her, and she’s the expert on Love...

The Princess realized she was talking to herself. That was one dangerous step away from talking about herself in the third pony, as her thoughts briefly turned back to a certain arrogant blue unicorn.

Arrogant… like I have room to talk.

The squeaky wheel of Twilight’s tea cart brought Celestia out of her own head, at last, as it entered the room. Tea of every flavor, hot and iced, sat stacked atop and below on the cart, with a few pastry dishes almost falling out of their trays. There was even a rolled-up banner bearing a ‘Congratulations’ tucked into the cart’s lower tray.

Twilight herself followed in the cart’s wake, pushing it along in her magic while she guzzled a whole pitcher of iced tea and hungrily threw back an entire plate of chocolate-glazed croissants. Maintaining temporal and chrono-observations spells, like the ones she’d been running for an hour before, worked up a mean hunger. Combine that with the, frankly ludicrous, Alicorn caloric requirements, and Celestia was not surprised in the least by her other student’s eating habits.

Cake was my chosen poison, she recalled a few happy memories out of the depths of time. I wonder if Young-Celestia would be horrified by her older self growing to love ‘the foulest device ev’r construed by Tartarus’s chefs’. She also hated tea, if I recall correctly…

She shook the thoughts free from her mind, before she started referring to herself as the Great and Powerful Celestia.

“Sorry about that, everypony,” Twilight sighed as she sat back down at her throne, a dozen pastries and two liters of tea settling down next to her in Spike’s chair, “I needed a drink after that spell.”

“We noticed,” Sunset and Starlight said as one. The echoing quality was quite unnerving, for both them and the Princesses.

Sunburst took the cue to walk out of the magical silence spell, reluctantly leaving his child behind to sleep. Celestia could tell he was already quite attached to little Sunshine, and made a mental note to teach either him or Starlight a monitoring spell…

Oh. Right.

She maintained her resolve, shutting down even an unconscious reaction to her private slight.

This isn’t about you, Celestia reminded herself, once again.

Sunburst had asked a question, though the Solar Princess had missed it.

“Yes, well…” Twilight answered, and took another sip of her tea, “From what I gather, you’ve already figured out that Sunset… is actually Sunshine.”

Sunset glanced towards Starlight, and Starlight to Sunset… before they both stole another glance back towards the sleeping Sunshine.

“We’re…” Sunset grasped for an answer that wouldn’t make her sound crazy.

“Adjusting,” Starlight offered, “I think that’s the best you can say right now.”

Sunburst took up a spot at Sunset’s side, flanking her with Starlight, “Being on one end of a closed time loop is… disconcerting, at the best of times, as we already know.”

Twilight’s lips drew into a very fine line, and her hooves set down on the Cutie Map with just a bit more energy than was strictly necessary. Nopony wanted to draw attention to the way her eye twitched, nor how her mane began to fray in places, by mentioning Trixie Lulamoon’s own time traveling adventure, carried out in this very room.

“Indeed,” she said, slow and deliberately, exhaling her stress with a sigh, “But I hope my analysis of the timeline will shed light on this whole conundrum.”

“With or without blowing someone up?” Sunset frowned and began flicking her ears with some agitation, “Seriously, you could have killed someone with that scream.”

Twilight’s own ears flattened, and she glanced away from her friend’s deservedly dour face. She smiled, chagrined, and came back with a weak, “Sorry about that? There was some feedback from the spell and I thought my horn was about to explode.”

“It is fine, Twilight,” Celestia nodded sagely to the purple Alicorn, “Please, continue. You said you found something?”

“I did,” Twilight said, and took a large bite out of a cupcake.

And froze. The sound she made was a strange one, somewhere between a maraca clack and a cereal crunch. Her pupils nearly vanished on each of her eyeballs, and her lips became a zigzag pattern across her face.

Slowly, Twilight spat out what appeared to be a rather large, green emerald onto the table.

“Spike…” she growled and rubbed her jaw where the offending gemstone had met her teeth. Then, with a snort, she slid the food away from herself, her bottomless appetite apparently quite spoiled.

“As I was saying,” she sighed, “Yes, I found something. Using the Eye of Doggermotto spell, plus a little memory-reinforcement through a Yearlingan Shadow Archetype with two Memetic Latices and four Marelard Deconstructors. All of which…”

“Eugh!” Sunset laid her head down onto the crystal table with a growl, “I know I haven’t kept up with modern Equestrian magic like I should, but come on! Nothing you said makes any sense!”

“I have to agree with Sunset on this, Twilight,” Celestia added as she approached the young mare to show her support, “While I, naturally, understood all of that, this isn’t an academic dissertation. Could you speak a little more… plainly? For Sunset’s benefit?”

Twilight’s eyes bulged out for a moment, before her look of shock was replaced by a gentle, understanding smile. “Oh… oh! Of course! How silly of me…”

Good, Celestia thought to herself, Now, at least, I’ll have some idea about what’s happened. Maybe I should have kept up with modern magic, as well? Maybe Sunset would like a study-buddy…?

“To put it simply,” Twilight collected herself with ease, this time, “What we have here is a marvelous bit of arcane work. Sunshine and Sunset are indeed the same pony, just from opposite ends of the cleanest time loop I’ve ever seen.

“I went over our local timeline,” her enthusiasm came through, though Twilight made certain to drop her beloved technical terms, “And there appears to be a knot of space-time running parallel to our relative… um… the time loop is pretty much perfect, is what I’m getting at.”

“Perfect!?” Sunburst’s glasses nearly dropped off his face as he leaned in, “W-what do you mean, perfect?”

“It’s perfect!” Twilight beamed, “It seems to be perfectly accounting for every Paradox in the book! Hoofstrap! Grandmare! New Comb! Even Zero’s!”

“Ponish, Twilight,” Sunset grumbled.

“Uh… right,” the purple Princess smiled with chagrin, “It’s… well, it’s perfect. It’s self-sustaining, so it can’t be undone without… unthinkable amounts of magical power and skill. I can’t think of a pony who could have done it. Even Starswirl isn’t that good.”

Starlight smirked, “Considering you and I have fixed or perfected some of his spells, is that really such a high bar anymore?”

Twilight shot a quick scowl towards her former student, but seemed to think better on opening up that can of worms.

“But then,” Sunset scratched her chin in thought, “That explains what this is. But still not why.”

Celestia nodded, “Indeed. Who would… or could… do such a thing? Not just in terms of the power and skill required, but in the desire to do so?”

The room lapsed into silence… until a low growl escaped from Starlight’s throat, and her hackles raised.

“Somepony,” she said, slowly, “is trying to take my baby. And when I find them…”

Sunset turned to her, and said, quickly, “Starlight, isn’t my being here proof that whatever happens… happens?”

“I…” Starlight swallowed, her anger simmering a moment at her daughter’s words, “I don’t care! I’m not going to just give up. I won’t give Sunshine up without a fight!”

Her loud declaration echoed through the halls, almost stunning everypony with the sheer volatility. Celestia had never seen Starlight angry before, not like this. Back when Starlight had snapped and swapped Celestia and her sister’s Cutie Marks, that had merely been frustration and stress boiling over.

Celestia held back a smile, “Well, at least the mystery of where your temper came from has been solved.”

Sunset flipped back around, a toothy snarl briefly splitting her face. Sunburst took a step back as he saw her, a flash of Starlight during one of her ‘moods’ crossing his memory like a warning flare.

But as she glared… Sunset’s eyes were already losing ground. Within seconds, her anger slipped away as a chuckle lifted her spirits.

“Heh, yeah,” she laughed, “You got me there.”

“This is funny?” Sunburst frowned.

“You think this is funny?” Starlight reached out a hoof, and roughly spun the amber Alicorn back around to face her, “Sunshine… Sunset. Somepony stole you from me! How are you laughing about this?”

The short-lived air of levity in the room fell like a led balloon. Celestia and Sunset each flattened their ears down at the scolding, with Sunset sheepishly lowering her head as well.

“I… Sorry. I’m sorry…” Sunset finally said, “It’s just… this already happened for me, even if I don’t remember it. I had a long, long time to think about who my parents were, and why they would just… leave me.

“I guess knowing that you didn’t,” Sunset’s smile slowly crept back into place, now accompanied by a mist in her eyes, as she met Starlight’s gaze, “It… it makes it okay, at least a little bit. Does that make sense?”

Starlight worked her jaw for a long moment. Celestia recognized that look, the contemplative stare of somepony internally debating with herself over something important. Sunset had that same look, whenever the Princess had given her a problem or question made to stump her.

The purple unicorn seemed to come to a decision quickly.

“What… if we didn’t?”

“Didn’t… what?” Sunset frowned.

“Give you up,” Starlight took another step towards her grown-filly, “Whatever is going… is supposed to happen. What if we stopped it? What if we kept you? Raised you ourselves!?”

Twilight, thus far remaining silent only so that her two dear friends could sort out their family dynamic in peace, frowned at this.

“That would be a bad idea, Starlight…”

Sunset winced as she saw the all-too-familiar flicker in Starlight’s eyes, “You can’t be serious.”

“Why can’t I be?” Starlight drew herself up, “All I’m doing is protecting my family!”

Sunburst stepped in between the two mares, and took a protective stance beside his daughter, “Starlight, she’s already a part of established events! You can’t just…”

“Why not!?”

The stern voice of the Princess of Friendship practically thrummed as it filled the room, “Because you have already done enough damage to Time, and I shall not clean up after you again!”

Starlight spun in place, and shot back with a snort, “Oh, so you’re bringing that up again? I thought we were past that!”

Twilight balked at the verbal assault. She held up a hoof, defensively, to her chest, and said, “That wasn’t me! I didn’t say that!”

The wind in Starlight’s sails faltered, for a moment. Then, as she opened her mouth to either continue her side of the battle or voice some other concern, the room itself began to glow.

A white light filled the throne room within seconds, and an electric buzz flowed freely through the seats, the walls, and even the Cutie Map itself. It felt as though an entire changeling hive had just swept through the Castle, or if one of the Rainbooms’ instruments were being amplified through the crystal-work itself.

Only Celestia, of all the ponies there, had the ability to see what happened next. One thousand years being tied to the very Sun gave her eyes the strength to peer directly into the brightest lights without flinching.

Ah, she thought, a cold, cloying feeling slowly working up from her stomach, I was wondering if something like this would happen. Now, we might get some answers…

For then, a set of hooves landed lightly on the surface of the table itself. The light began to fall away, leaving behind a startling sight; a sparkling purple Alicorn.

An Alicorn that appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be Twilight Sparkle, but who all those in attendance knew was not.

“It was I who created the closed time loop, that I might avert even greater calamity,” the Spirit of Harmony said, in a voice that echoed without the need for the throne room’s acoustics. She swept her eyes, ancient and majestic, across the faces around her.

“Magic,” she nodded respectfully towards Twilight, who simply sat in awe at the sight of her spiritual doppelganger.

“Sun…” another nod to Celestia, who returned the gesture, and noted the Spirit’s use of Twilight and her domain.

Harmony turned her eyes to Sunburst, and Sunset.

“Sunburst… Ouroboros.” The Spirit allowed a brief smile to cross its lips as it nodded to them as well.

Neither knew what to say, or what to do, as the being before them continued to turn, before settling, with a narrow scowl upon Starlight herself.

She said nothing to the other mare.

Harmony spoke again to all assembled, “Ask your questions. I know you will have many.”

The Spirit, upon its pronouncement, strode purposefully across the table, before… she alighted on her wings and drifted towards Rainbow Dash’s throne. There, she made herself to sit, and quickly set her shoulders straight and rigid.

She was prepared for an interrogation, it seemed.

“Uh, guys?” Sunset glanced between both her parents and the Princesses, clearly looking for what cue to follow, “Someone mind filling me in? Why is there a second Twilight!?”

“The Tree of Harmony can apparently manifest itself when it wishes to communicate,” Sunburst offered, though his eyes were clearly locked onto the fascinating magical anomaly that was sitting right in front of him, toying with his inner researcher like nothing else, “It did so to test some of our students before the Cozy Glow incident, and again when the tree was restored by the same students. I just wish it would let me study it…”

If the way the Spirit’s tail flicked itself at that moment was any indication, it was clearly displeased with the idea.

The Princess Twilight finally managed to close her jaw, which hung open as soon as the Spirit had appeared in full. She blinked a few times, and then said, incredulously, “Wait… did I never tell you about the Spirit of Harmony?”

Sunset sent a look laden with almost Rainbow levels of sarcasm towards her friend and pseudo-mentor. “I think I’d have remembered being told about yet another version of you wandering around…”

Her eyes crossed a moment, and her mouth twitched with the hint of a smile, “Uh, no one’s told Trixie about this… Spirit, right? Between you, my Twi, Midnight, and now this one, she probably thinks there’s a conspiracy of Twilights.”

“A group of Twilights would be a herd, not a conspiracy,” the Spirit intoned. Then, licking its questionably physical lips, it elected to add, “That was an attempt at levity.”

Another animalistic growl escaped from Starlight. She snorted, and slowly approached the Spirit, eyes narrowed to dangerous pinpricks. Celestia had only seen eyes like that a few times in her long life, and at no time had they presaged anything less than total and utter destruction.

Luna’s eyes were like that, the night before she…

“It fell a little flat,” she snarled, “Now… Spirit, tell me exactly what you meant just then. You created the time loop?”

The Spirit said, with little emotion, “Yes. I did.”

Starlight’s scowl somehow grew deeper as she neared the avatar, “Then… you’re the one who sent… who is going to try and steal my baby.”

Harmony stared at the approaching mare, impassively. If Celestia, who stood to the side of the spirit, could read the facial expressions of disembodied concepts, she could almost believe Harmony truly felt nothing. But she had worn that face before.

What emotion are you hiding behind that poker face? she wondered.

“I would not… did not… and shall not ‘steal’ your child, Anathema,” said Harmony. It didn’t take Celestia’s ages of reading ponies to see the slight wince as Harmony delivered the unfortunate title.

Starlight’s horn suddenly flashed with turquoise fire, causing both Sunset and Sunburst to take a step away from her.

“Then… explain,” her tone hardened, “before I decide to make you…”

“Starlight!” Twilight’s warning rang out over the room, “Don’t threaten the physical incarnation of Friendship!”

Starlight stood her ground, horn humming with magical malevolence.

“Hostility will not be necessary,” Harmony held out a placating hoof, “I promise, the choice to send your foal back into the past will be yours, and yours alone.”

“Yeah? And how do you figure that?” Starlight’s horn dimmed, but only by a degree.

Harmony took a slow, deep breath, which caused Celestia some small alarm, as the motion punctuated the fact that, up until that moment, the Spirit had not been breathing.

“Time,” said Harmony, careful to speak slowly, and match the enraged mother before her gaze for gaze, “has a physical substance to it. It is a woven tapestry, with innumerable strands all coming together to create a pattern far grander and more complex than any mortal… and few immortals could possibly grasp.”

Harmony held Starlight’s gaze for a moment… and then, to the shock of Princess Celestia, it was the spirit who broke eye contact first, turning to look upon Sunset next.

“Your mother once attempted to change that pattern,” she said to the amber Alicorn, “Albeit, in a manner akin to aiming a blowtorch at the tapestry…”

“I’ve heard,” Sunset said, managing, admirably, to not look at her mother. She’d been told the story, long ago, but the newfound familial connection made that dark tale… somewhat harder to consider, it would seem.

Starlight’s horn flared back to its previous intensity as she roared, “I’ve never tried to downplay what I did! Are… are you trying to say this is some sort of punishment for that?”

Tears formed in the unicorn’s eyes, “I tried… I’ve tried to make up for what I did for years! I never let myself forget. I had my whole worldview ripped apart in front of me. I had to face every mistake I’d ever made all over again! I… I made my own Tantabus…”

Celestia held back a wave of physical revulsion as Starlight said this, her mind reeling back to when Luna had first confided in her about the use of such a construct. The very thought of one of her little ponies falling back on such barbaric spellcraft sickened her almost as much as the thought that, given the opportunity, she might have used it herself.

Oh, Starlight… Only you would understand that the greatest… and most shameful, hatred is reserved for ourselves…

“So, is this just your way of getting back at me?” Starlight snarled, though her voice was cracking more and more as she tried to shout down the Spirit of Harmony, “How long do I have to pay for one mistake!?

“This isn’t even a fair punishment!” she cried and jabbed her hoof at the spirit, not even noticing the way Harmony’s wings twitched at every prod, “Sunshine didn’t do anything to deserve losing her family! How can you justify this!?”

As Starlight gulped down air, as much to speak again as she did to calm herself, Twilight chose that moment to speak up as well.

“I have to agree with Starlight, Harmony,” she said, with a level of authority the purple Princess often reserved for dealing with the Canterlot nobility, “Besides the fact that Starlight Glimmer has, on more than a few occasions, outright saved the world, if this is some sort of… divine punishment, you would be punishing the wrong pony!”

Sunset said nothing, as did Sunburst, instead allowing Harmony a moment to answer the charges thrown back at her. Though, Celestia did note, Sunburst inched closer to the Alicorn, taking up a protective stance… despite being an inch shorter than her.

The Spirit had stood, stoically, as Starlight raged against her. Yet, she held firm. Though, from much experience, Celestia could tell the weight of those words were having an effect on Harmony’s composure.

She really wasn’t sure whether or not that was a good sign.

Harmony’s wings fidgeted, and her eyes returned, slowly, and with great reluctance, to Starlight.

“This is not a punishment,” she said, her mechanical speaking voice strained somewhat, “This is a consequence… and not one that I could have diverted. When you altered time, you damaged the very fabric from which it was made.”

The Spirit breathed softly out of her nose, and turned towards Sunburst.

“You are the knowledgeable one,” she said, “What is the Second Law of Thaumodynamics?”

The sudden attention caught the stallion off-guard. He stuttered, for a moment, and readjusted his glasses once, before stating, “Oh, um… formulated by Prench Pegasus Lieutenant Selle Cargo… it states that no system of magic can be one-hundred percent efficient, and that all systems seek equilibrium. It’s related to the Plank Constant, whereby…”

“Yes, thank you,” Harmony cut in abruptly.

“Yeah, that’s great,” Sunset agreed, though under her breath, she added, “Where were you when I needed help in Arithmagic classes?”

Sunburst himself said nothing to this, though he did turn his attention back to his wife, who was still one wrong word away from attempting deicide. His gaze softened as he took in the way her legs shook, both from the stress of the day, as well as the raw, adrenaline-fueled magical surge keeping her up. If the birth itself hadn’t gone so well, all things considered, he really wondered if she’d even be conscious right now. Her eyes were watering, as much from rage as they were from not blinking, and her breath was coming on heavily.

Starlight’s composure, already frayed, was coming undone.

Gently, as if she would shatter on contact, Sunburst laid one foreleg over Starlight’s withers.

“Star,” he leaned his muzzle so that it was almost touching her ear, “You need to breathe. The kites are flying high tonight.”

“I don’t need…” Starlight began, but caught herself as another vein bulged out of her neck. Instead of screaming, as was clearly her first instinctive response, she slammed her eyes shut, and began breathing deeply through her nose.

The change was slow, at first. But, as the seconds ticked by, Starlight’s horn dimmed, and her muscles relaxed. Finally, her jaw seemed to unclench, and she looked back up to the Spirit.

“Right,” she said, at last, with a tone that was exasperated, and tense, but restrained in spite of it all, “So… I damaged time when I… when I made that mistake. And you’re quoting some law of magic at me. What’s the connection?”

Before Harmony could speak, however, Sunset’s eyes widened.

“The second law… we have something like that in the human world!” Sunset stood, stunned, a flood of both human and pony memories competing for prominence as she continued, “You can’t have a totally efficient… anything! There’s always some sort of energy loss in any process, unless the process itself is completely reversible.

“Magic… Time Magic,” she shook her head, and then looked back to Starlight, “Is time magic… reversible?”

Starlight met her… daughter’s eyes.

And then, she looked to the Spirit.

Harmony shook her head, “No, it is not. And… without the ability to completely reverse what you had done, there were losses. Compromises.”

Celestia took another step closer to the Spirit, and thought to ask, “What sort of compromises? It sounds as if…?”

“As if you couldn’t save everything,” Twilight finished, her face rapidly losing color, “You… you had to stitch Time back together, didn’t you?”

If Harmony could give an appraising look, it did so now.

“I did, yes. But it is not so simple a process as you might think, Magic.”

She seemed to think about her next words, and then said, “My relationship with Time is… complicated. I existed before, during, and after my creation. So, from a certain point of view, I had the task of fixing your damages from the moment Time began.”

“Fascinating…” Sunburst muttered, obviously making what mental notes as he could.

Celestia could see, from where she stood, that Starlight’s eyes were watching Harmony’s with incredible intensity. But they were fading. As the Spirit spoke, her words seemed to beat down what hope, and what defiance, the purple unicorn had left in her.

“Not just anything could be used, however,” Harmony… sighed, “Just like how fixing a wound through stitches requires that one knits the nearby flesh back together, so too does Time. But… Starlight Glimmer, and the Element of Magic, were at the epicenter of their battle across the multiverse.

“In order to fix what had been broken,” she gestured towards the Map, “I had to take something from them in order to hold the world together again. Else, all would unravel.”

“And you chose my baby?” a spark of ire relit in Starlight’s eyes, and she once more drew herself up.

“I could have removed you,” Harmony’s tone hardened, and her voice echoed eerily within the chamber, “It would have been cruel to, say, erase Shining Armor, or Pinkie Pie from the Weave. But you had been the cause of all this! It was your arrogance, and your pettiness, that almost destroyed Equestria!”

Harmony’s eyes flashed with fire, and for a moment it seemed like her whole form had become like lightning. White fire blazed across her wings, and her mane. Celestia and Twilight spread their wings wide in a natural display of readiness, while Sunset quickly stepped up in front of Sunburst.

Starlight stood her ground. She hadn’t flinched. Yet, tears streamed down her cheeks, undammed.

The Spirit slowly faded, until she appeared almost exactly like the Princess she resembled. But, where there had been fire one moment, and passive calculation the moment before, there was something else now. Something that truly caught Celestia, and everypony else, off-guard.

Harmony smiled, sadly.

“I could never do that, though,” her smile grew in size, but did not lose its melancholy, “I could see the depth and breadth of Time, as I worked. I knew the mare you would become. I knew the ponies and other creatures you would eventually help to learn the value and meaning of Friendship. I saw all the good you would do.

“I love you, Starlight,” Harmony’s voice cracked, almost imperceptively, “You… and your children… would make the world better. Your eldest would even spread that joy, that happiness to a whole other world!”

And then, her smile fell.

“But to get there… to repair the damage to Time, all I had to do was break your heart.”

She looked away, Celestia thought, in shame.

“Taking material from the source of the damage was the only way to fix the wound. If I had selected some other time, or some other place… it wouldn’t have worked. It would just spread the damage further and further out.

“I’m sorry,” the Spirit’s head lowered, and she lapsed into silence. Twilight let out a quivering breath as her spiritual other finished, while Celestia impassively ruffled her wings in contemplation.

Starlight remained standing where she had been, though not alone. Her husband was at her side, their bodies pressed together as he wrapped her in his foreleg once more. Sunburst laid his head alongside hers, willing to share in her pain, despite it being obvious by the way his own sides twitched that he was suffering himself.

And on her other side, Sunset’s face went to war. She leaned in, precarious inches separating the two mares, a flash of hesitation and fear struggling against her own heart’s need to help her friend… her family.

Eventually, it was the latter that won out. Starlight accepted the Alicorn’s presence, even the touch of their horns, as she settled into a mirror of Sunburst’s embrace.

And there it is, Celestia’s own heart faltered, The family. Complete, and healing. No need for a teacher, nor anything else…

The purple unicorn blinked through the tears welling up once more. Apprehension pulled at the corners of her face.

“What…” she swallowed, and began again, “What if I say no?”

“Come again!?” Twilight shouted, her hooving slipping slightly as she reared up over the Map in shock.

“Uh…” Sunburst stammered, he and Sunset taking a concerned step back.

Harmony was not so surprised. The avatar’s eyes were locked on Starlight’s, and her expression was not one of despair, or rage.

She looked so tired.

“You will not,” she said, simply.

“I said,” Starlight took a slow, measured step forward, “What if I say no?”

“You would rather capitulate to a threat, or an explanation,” the Spirit said, knowingly, “rather than mere implication.”

“Starlight…” Sunset raised one hoof, only to watch it swatted away with a turquoise flash. She yelped, and held it close as she watched her mother descend upon Harmony.

Starlight clenched her teeth, and stopped only a foot away from the Spirit.

“What. If I. Say. No…?”

The last word echoed in the crystalline hall. Even the thrones seemed to carry the sound, even if only a little. It was similar, Celestia thought, to how a windchime sounded on a fell breeze at midnight.

Luna had always loved the sound. It had always made the elder sister cry.

Harmony smiled, in such a way that it was not a smile at all, but rather a silent anguish in plain sight. She slowly nodded, as a single, spectral tear marred her cheek, and laid one hoof upon the Map.

“I will take Time from somewhere else,” she whispered, “But the circumstances that allowed your Sunshine to exist will be no more.”

Sunset’s eyes widened, as did Celestia’s.

The Spirit did not seem to notice. “To refuse… would be to lose her in another way. And more terribly…”

Princess Celestia’s mouth gaped as it happened. Suddenly, all the light in the castle shifted, but she could feel it shift. It was as though the sun itself had moved without her command. The castle’s calm, cool greens and purples became a dull, bloody red.

A similar panic gripped the other ponies in the room, their ears flattening with worry and fear. Their legs buckled as they sought to make themselves small before the very cosmos changing around them.

All except for Starlight, and Harmony, who stood staring at one another. The soft, distant din of battle, of clashing arms, began to build outside the autumnal windows. A sound that drew Celestia’s attention like a moth to a flame.

I still remember the battles we fought, she winced at the idea of returning to those dark days.

“Sunset’s existence creates variables,” said Harmony, raising and lowering her hoof once, “just as her in-existence would as well.”

Her hoof touched the Map, and a swell of hot, venomous green seeped into the walls, replacing the war-like reds and oranges with its own cloying coloration. The roar of battle faded into the low, haunting hum of a million insectoid wings.

“The Rainboom will be averted,” Harmony did not look away from her most cruelly chosen victim, “this time by the tiniest, and most unstoppable, of miniscule minutia.”

Just off, in the depths of the buzzing drone of changeling wings, Celestia could almost hear the insane laughter of the Hive’s former Queen. She spun in place, ears madly swiveling about in a vain attempt to find its source. It seemed to echo through the crystal walls themselves.

Harmony’s hoof tapped the table again.

And with a wave of midnight hues overtaking the castle, that mad laughter became something far, far more familiar. A laugh one-thousand years the subject of the Sun Princess’s nightmares bellowed out, pressing down upon every pony like a tidal wave.

Starlight’s eyes continued to stare, unblinking, at the holocaust of Time. She had seen these images play out a million times in her mind and in her dreams. This was no more than another reminder of the Starlight Glimmer left dead in the past, and the crimes she had committed. Crimes that had doomed her own child.

Harmony raised her hoof again, and said, “What is Equestria without Destiny? Without Friendship?”

Her hoof came down.

The Castle was gone. Instantly, and without flash or pomp.

Twilight Sparkle’s eyes despaired at the sight of a gray sky.

Sunburst quailed beneath the howl of the untempered dust storm.

Sunset nearly wept to see the world undone.

Even Celestia, ancient, and inured to such things, felt the sharp pain of utter dismay and sorrow bite hold of her heart. She had felt it before, one thousand years past, and now again.

“Dust, and death,” said Starlight Glimmer, unicorn, teacher, headmare, mage, criminal, mother.

Anathema.

And then, as Sunburst lost control of his concentration, the bubble of silence around little Sunshine fell apart.

The howl of a scared, helpless foal was the last thing Starlight heard as her body collapsed to the hard, crystal floor. Her soul, wracked with hurt that went as deep as pain could reach, shrieked within herself, and her mind from all her thoughts, and worries, and fears and loves shook free.

She fell into a deep dark, and knew no more.

4 - The Last Lullaby

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Sunshine hardly slept at all that night. It felt like, at every hour, on the hour, the baby unicorn was determined to cry with the full force of the Royal Canterlot Voice, untrained. Had anypony in the castle been in the sort of mood to joke about such things, they’d have commended the prodigy on her desire to get a head-start on her education.

Nopony was in such a mood, however. When Starlight collapsed, so too did Harmony leave. And in the silence that followed, none could find it in themselves to joke, even a little bit.

Which made Pinkie Pie’s sudden entrance, complete with “Welcome Home Sunshine Glimmer Sunset Shimmer” banner, and party cannons blazing, slightly tone deaf.

It was early morning, now. Sunburst had initially tucked his exhausted wife into bed, and made to stay with her and the baby, while the Princesses took care of their own business, whatever that was, and Sunset… well, Sunset elected to stare into the crystal walls while sleeping down in the library. Nopony wanted to argue.

It wasn’t quite midnight when Sunshine began to wail. Her father picked her up in his aura, and he spent several sleepy, mentally compromised moments to realize she didn’t need to be changed. Once the reason for his little filly’s crying was safely back into the realm of ‘unexplainable baby things’, he made his way downstairs to get her something to eat.

On the way, he’d passed Discord, who was carrying a sleeping Spike and Starswirl over his shoulder much in the same way Sunburst was carrying Sunshine. On a better night, Sunburst might have noticed this, or bothered to question why Discord’s tail was solid stone, or why the two sleeping ‘Guys’ smelled like rotten apples and were wearing tuxedos and top hats.

Sunburst made his way to the kitchen, where he fished out a magically chilled bottle for Sunshine. Then, finding nopony in the library, and not having wits about him amidst his daughter’s endless cries to wonder where… his daughter was at present, he decided that the large room, insulated against noise of all sorts, would make the perfect place to pacify Sunshine.

“I wonder…” he sighed, as she stopped crying long enough to feed, “… how long until I stop using the one name for the other…?”

The library, more than anywhere else in the Castle, had been the most transformed since Twilight left it in Starlight’s capable hooves. It was, after all, no longer a Royal residence, but something more like a secondary town hall. It was a government facility with a live-in staff, complete with public library, kitchens, room for administrative and ceremonial duties, a ball pit nopony other than Pinkie could find on a regular basis…

The point was, Sunburst was happy to note, that the library was just what he needed right now. The floor was covered in plush rugs, pillows, beanbags, and a few chairs and couches around the perimeter colored in alternating reds and golds, and greens and purples. The décor was complimented by small paintings, statues and busts (provided by Maud as a foal shower present), and one large, illusory fireplace along the far wall.

Trixie had installed that one, using the one spell of hers Sunburst could trust on a consistent basis. Probably because Starswirl helped her with it, so it wouldn’t burn the library down while warming the cool crystals pleasantly.

After giving Sunshine a little burping, and consequently having to toss his favorite cape in the laundry dimension (Twilight’s foal shower present), Sunburst settled down onto one of the couches Starlight had dragged over from the human world, and got comfortable with his slightly-quieter-than-before daughter.

She finally closed her eyes and seemed to sleep at that point.

“Heh, figures,” he almost laughed, “The human couch is the one that gets you to finally fall asleep. Then again, I keep finding Lyra asleep on this thing during the week…”

He sat in the quiet of the very early morning, sleep totally removed from his mind. All Sunburst could feel was the slow, even breaths of the foal in his forelegs. All he could hear was the steady tick-tick of a clock somewhere off in the castle that he could never find.

The world was entirely peaceful, entirely silent.

Except within Sunburst’s mind.

“I hate to say it,” he said in a low whisper, “But I’m not sure I’ll miss this sleep schedule. That doesn’t sound good, does it?”

Another minute passed, in silence.

Sunburst’s eyes traveled up and down the walls of books, eager to find something to take his mind off what he was thinking about just then.

“I had a schedule, you know? I had everything planned out months ago. Guess I needed a way to burn off all that… nervous new-dad energy. I drove your mother nuts, coming up with plans for where you would go to school, and what you would eat for lunch… which books we’d read together and which ones we’d let you do on your own…

“I basically became my mother,” he shivered, despite the magical warmth of the fireplace. “We were so excited to share… to share everything with you. The library, the town, our lives… everything.”

Sunburst sighed. He looked down at his foal, and carefully brushed a loose strand of mane out of her face… only to watch it stubbornly bounce back into place.

“Good to see my genes are so stubborn. Best thing my father ever left me.”

Looking down at Sunshine, he couldn’t help but notice his own flank, adorned with his bright and sunny Cutie Mark. He never really got a chance to look at it that often, what with the cape, and for good reason…

No, not a good reason, Sunburst thought bitterly. I’ve always tried to hide that thing. I was so ashamed at not being a good student at magic, that having a magic Cutie Mark felt like the world was taunting me…

He wondered, and not for the first time, about the ‘what ifs’. What if he’d kept up with Starlight? Would he have been as bitter about his mark as she was, once she realized hers was in magic as well… just not in time to go with him?

What if he had gone to be with her at Our Town? Would he have hated his mark enough to let Starlight take it away?

Could I have stopped it before it got out of hoof? Or would I have only reinforced the worst of her ideals?

Would there be an equal-sign flying above Equestria? Would they have ever…?

Something shifted, and jabbed Sunburst just hard enough to pull him out of his thoughts. Sunshine’s little forehoof had come loose, and in her sleep, she was wildly slapping at her father’s chest, though only managing to muss up a patch of coat hair like his mane or beard.

The sounds, the tiny squeaking sounds, that she made though. Sunburst wasn’t aware, before then, of anything that could have melted his heart quite so quickly or completely. He smiled, and carefully tucked the errant little leg back into the folds of the blanket she was wrapped in.

“You…” he cleared his throat, “… you’ve got a talent for that…”

“A talent for what?”

If he hadn’t been holding onto something as precious, and as fragile, as glass, Sunburst would have probably jumped ten feet in the air at the sound of a half-whispered voice right behind him, near the library door.

As it was, Sunburst froze solid, and slowly spun his stiffened neck about until he could see a bright and perky Sunset Shimmer waltzing in with a steaming ~~mug~~ pint of coffee.

“S-Sunshine… set!” he corrected, voice strained, but still quiet enough for the baby in his hooves, “Sunset! W-where did you go? I mean… where were you? I didn’t see you down here when I got up…”

“Already harping on me about curfew?” she smiled broadly, even if her eyes twitched just a bit to hold it up, “I can tell you’re one of those helicopter dads in the making.”

For a split second, Sunburst’s mind pictured that ridiculous pink contraption somepony flew around the town from time to time. As a silly gadget, it had always seemed fine, but the fact that his daughter knew about the thing from her world…

The second part of that term she used caught up to him. And, it clearly showed all over his face.

Sunset’s ears flattened, “Oh… um… sorry. I guess you’re not ready to joke about this?”

“You are!?” he hissed, pausing for breath a moment as little Sunshine stirred.

The amber Alicorn winced, and started scratching at the back of her head.

“S-sorry…” she looked back with a sheepish grin, “I’m trying the Pinkie Pie method of emotional coping. I… I guess it isn’t working so well…”

Sunburst adjusted his glasses, and shot Sunset a cool glance. “I suppose it’s better than the Rarity method of emotional coping. We don’t have all that much ice cream stocked, presently,” he added with a smirk.

Sunset’s eyes flashed, mischief in her gaze, “Did… did you just make a joke?”

“Haven’t gotten the Dad-jokes down yet,” he shrugged, “But I’m a quick study.”

The smirking, smug smile on their faces was just about as close to identical as one could ask for, as was the resulting giggle fit Sunset and Sunburst fell into, their laughs perfectly mirroring each other…

They paused, a moment of shared embarrassment and more, at the sudden reminder of their shared, and thoroughly messy, history.

They also did so because their ill-timed laughter had woken the baby.

“Oh, shoot!” Sunset hissed.

Sunburst rolled his eyes, “Of course…”

“Here,” said Sunset, coming around the couch, her pint of coffee landing quickly on a nearby table, “Pass her… uh, me… to… me?”

Sunburst, already hefting Sunshine up to bob her a little bit, leaned away from the proffered gold hoof. The wild panic in his eyes probably tipped off the owner of said hoof to what was going through his mind.

“Oh… right,” Sunset sighed, and took a seat on the far side of the couch, “I really don’t think the universe will explode if I touch her… me…

“We really need to sort out our Time-Pronouns,” she huffed, and folded her forelegs petulantly. Sunset lifted her coffee up and took a sip, then said, “But either way, you need to keep… Sunshine at least a little quiet. It’s barely five in the morning!”

“It’s what!?” Sunburst cried out, eyes darting this way and that, trying to catch a single window that could show him the sky, completely forgetting how light-neutral the Castle interior was. “How!? I can’t have been that grogged out!”

Sleep-deprived, with a screaming foal in his hooves, Sunburst began to panic. His head whipped back and forth, his mind somewhat fixated on proving the time, and his breathing quickened. The orange stallion became so panicky that he started hyperventilating, and if that had gone on much longer, Sunset would have stepped in to help him out…

But she didn’t. Because at that moment, something magical happened.

Sunburst’s eyes split, each picking a different position in the room and locking to them, while his tongue drooped out of his slackened jaw.

Sunset saw this, as did Sunshine. And then, both grown Alicorn mare and unicorn filly burst out into a round of giggling and cackling, respectively. Sunshine began to hiccup as her laughter shook her tiny body, and Sunset nearly fell backward, over the arm of the couch.

“Uh… what was that?” Sunburst glanced back and forth between his… daughter, once his eyes had readjusted.

“I…” Sunset gasped, and clutched at her belly, “I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard!”

Sunshine concurred, heartily, with added spit bubbles.

“Huh,” Sunburst raised an eyebrow… and then puffed his cheeks out while crossing his eyes.

And his daughter, the smaller one, started howling with laughter.

Sunset held herself to a few snickers before she took another healthy swig of coffee, and said, “How did you do that eye thing?”

“Oh, that’s not so hard,” Sunburst said, his face contorting into another strange look for his foal’s benefit, “About twelve-percent of Equestrians have a mild condition called Mimi’s Ocular Drift. The muscles and nerve-clusters around the eye are slightly overdeveloped, and a build-up of adrenaline and other chemicals can cause them to spasm in different directions.

“You wouldn’t know her,” he gave Sunshine a little toss with his magic, eliciting another squeal of delight, “But there’s a mare in town with an advanced case that’s made her wall-eyed. Only happens in point-oh-oh-five percent of cases, though…”

“Okay! Okay!” Sunset held up her hooves and wings in a placating gesture, “Geez, I didn’t expect a biology lecture today.”

As she took another long drag of her drink, Sunset didn’t fail to notice the way Sunburst was frowning across the couch at her. Little Sunshine was, of course, oblivious in her father’s magical grip, lightly pawing at the end of his beard.

Sunset coughed, “I know that sounded bad, but I actually did well in biology, so if you’re worried…”

“How much coffee do you drink?”

The question caused her a mental trip. Sunset blinked a few times, and stared at her pitcher.

“Uh…”

“You know there are some health risks when you consume that much caffeine in a single sitting,” Sunburst nodded to the large container, “I know Starlight’s a bit of a fiend, but I find tea… Where’d you even get something like that?”

“Pinkie Pie,” Sunset shrugged, “I get my coffee from her on both sides of the mirror.”

Sunburst’s gaze narrowed, suspiciously.

“Where, exactly, did you go so early in the morning?”

Sunset found herself fidgeting at the tone in his voice. Which, when she thought about it, had to be ridiculous. It wasn’t like he was her…

Right. He was. That was definitely awkward.

“Actually,” she took a breath, “I went out last night, after everyone else…”

“Everypony,” he adjusted his glasses, oblivious to Sunshine mimicking him while she drifted past in his aura.

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Everypony was asleep, and I wanted to walk things out. I’m not used to Luna’s dreamwalking stuff, and I never will be. Humans sometimes just have to make due with a midnight stroll.

“Plus, I had to see Trixie,” she added, sipping her coffee at an appropriately loud level, to make a point, “She’s the best illusionist we know, and I figured she would be the one to talk to about whipping up some simulacrum bodies.”

Sunburst’s eyes suddenly widened.

“B-bodies?”

“For when you go back and… and drop me off,” Sunset had to clear her throat, and look away briefly, “Celestia said there were bodies. Fake ones, I’m guessing now, but…”

“Yeah, makes sense. Trixie used to prank me with that spell when your mother and I started dating. I never did ask where she learned how to do that,” Sunburst scratched his chin absentmindedly, “I hope she didn’t work for the mob… Trixie!!!” he shot up to his hooves, the madly giggling foal bobbing up with his magic aura. The sudden reversal from terror to joy, and mirth to panic, was quite the sight for Sunset.

“Hey, hey! Don’t worry!” she shushed Sunburst quickly, just in case the baby noticed they weren’t playing a game any longer, “Trixie had her baby, and they’re both fine. Sort of.”

Sunburst blinked. “Sort of? How did you even get in to see them?”

“These things are like a free pass!” Sunset lifted her wings up high in a display that would make a peacock blush, “But, that’s not the important part…”

Trixie looked like death warmed over. Her blue coat was completely soaked through with sweat, as was her mane, and both her eyes featured heavy bags underneath. She sat, propped up, with piles of parchment all around her hospital bed, and a rather ragged Sunset scratching out magical notation beside her.

“Where…” she smacked her dry lips, “Where was Trixie?”

“The Recorder Fabricae,” Sunset sighed, wishing she’d waited to do this job in the actual morning, the one with the sun up, instead of barging in here so late/early.

“Right… how’s the baby? Trixie was sure she was here a minute ago…”

Sunset shivered, and tried not to glance over to the recently repaired wall to one side of the room.

“There’s a level five ward in the hospital basement,” she said, for the fifth time, “They’re monitoring her magic surges until she can be safely allowed in public. Now, the Recorder…”

“Atta girl,” Trixie smiled, weakly, and punched the air with a listless hoof, “That’s Starswirl’s kid. Blowing up hospitals when she’s a day old. Suck it, Twilight… I bet your babies will be lame nerds like you!”

“Trixie…” Sunset warned.

“You’re right!” Trixie’s voice quailed as tears pooled in her eyes, “Trixie’s other best friend is going to die alone because she’s going to be a purple gira-a-a-aaaffe!!!

“Trixie! Focus!” Sunset scowled, though some of her ire was drifting over to the copious amounts of IV bags the stagemare was hooked up to, “We need this spell or else the space-time continuum will be destroyed!”

“Eugh, fiiiiine!” Trixie whined, “Start up with Confutatis. Maledictis…”

“Confu… what?” Sunset’s eyes crossed as she tried to write down what was quickly becoming mad musings of a mare possessed.

“Trixie said, Confutatis! Do you have it!?”

Sunset glared at the paper in front of her.

“I need a drink after this. I wonder if Pinkie…?”

Trixie, however, kept talking, “Do you believe in it?”

“… What…?”

“The fire that never dies…?”

“I… what?” Sunburst’s confused, and utterly baffled expression elicited another giggle from his foal, still floating through the air.

“I know! She composes her magic using musical notation!” Sunset threw her hooves up in the air, “I think whoever taught her did it wrong on purpose! As a joke!”

“That’s actually not so crazy,” Sunburst mused, tugging at his beard, “Trixie and I both took classes at CSGU when Major Measure had just started teaching there. He was a pioneer of the Music-as-Magic Theory…”

Sunset winced. She took another sip of her coffee, and said, sheepishly, “Major Measure? Blue coat? White mane? Crazy eyebrows? Had a chord symbol for a Cutie Mark?”

Sunburst nodded, but said nothing.

“Huh,” Sunset looked away, and started rummaging through a saddlebag she’d brought in with her, “Major didn’t seem the teaching type. I had to help him with his conjuration classes back in junior year…”

“That would explain why Trixie loved that Amaredeus play so much,” Sunburst shrugged, blatantly not thinking about the more disturbing part of that conversation, “Though, it’s still weird that she kept rooting for Stallioneri…”

“That’s not all!” Sunset pulled out a sheaf of papers, clearly detailed with magical… and musical notation, “She’s actually really good at it! Like, I bet I could play some of this on my guitar!”

Her nose scrunched up in thought.

“Hm… best not. Don’t want to drop corpses… fake ones, anyway, on the audience. Then again, Fluttershy’s into metal, so maybe…?”

Sunburst shook his head ruefully, “You’re taking this too well, I think.”

“Eh,” Sunset took a turn to shrug, and then shot her younger self a bug-eyed look that left the filly squealing with delight, “You sort of get used to Trixie, being friends with her.”

“Guess you are your mother’s daughter,” Sunburst laughed, “But, horrible, scarring revelations aside, did you learn the spell?”

She sipped at her coffee. “That, or I can write an aria now.”

“So, you came back here…?”

Sunset shook her head, “Nah, I had to grab some coffee from Pinkie Pie. I’m so glad she sells her Good Stuff in this dimension.”

The Alicorn glanced suspiciously over her shoulder, “Unless that was my Pinkie…”

“The Good Stuff!?” Sunburst reflexively grabbed his child out of the air, and held her close to his chest, “Sunset, that thing eats varnish!”

Sunshine didn’t seem to notice the concern. She struggled, for a moment, in her father’s embrace, before she decided to just go with it, and nuzzle at his chest fluff.

To this, Sunset chuckled, and waved down her father’s concern.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got Alicorn physiology now!” she took another sip, “I’m basically immune or highly resistant to everything. Caffeine, sugar, alco— um, all kinds of stuff!

“Makes parties less fun,” she added quickly, trying hard not to meet Sunburst’s rapidly narrowing stare, “But between the girls, Flash, and all my other friends…”

“Parties,” Sunburst said, clucking his tongue, “You… go to parties.”

“Er, yeah?” Sunset coughed, “Me and my friends try to…”

“And you attend these parties with…” Sunburst snorted hot breath through his nose, mirrored by Sunshine blowing a little raspberry at her older self, “… Flash Sentry?”

“You, ah…” the fully grown, adult Alicorn squirmed in her seat, not really being used to her own eyes glaring down at her, “You know him?”

Sunburst voice came out like ice.

“A… boy?”

“O-kay!” Sunset surged to her hooves, and planted herself firmly before the orange stallion, “I am putting a stop to this, right now!”

Sunburst, eyes narrowing, half-turned away from the irate Alicorn.

“I have no idea what you mean…”

Sunset glared, and said, “You’re going full Overprotective Dad Mode on me!”

“I am not!” Sunburst whirled back around to face Sunset, “And frankly, I am insulted that you would think that of me! All I’m doing is looking out for your best interests. You can’t just party your life away, Sunset. You need to have a goal, a strategy, a plaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

Sunburst’s eyes were as wide as saucers, and his eyes became pinpricks as the disheveled stallion let out a soul-shattering cry of dismay. He fully collapsed onto the couch, his little foal staring quizzically at her father, but otherwise content to remain held.

“I… I am becoming my mother…!” Sunburst managed to get out with something between a dry heave, a sob, and a wail. “I’m so, so sorry!”

Sunset hid her smirk well, but still raised an eyebrow.

“I’m gonna take that to mean Grandma is a little… intense?”

“Overbearing!” Sunburst shifted back into his seat, and allowed Sunshine to settle against his flank, where she cooed and began to drift off again, “I think she took it as a personal offense that I didn’t let her script my wedding vows for me.”

Sunset snorted at that, remembering Stellar Flare’s rather… unique managing style when she’d attended her future parents’ wedding only a year ago…

Which was when a thought occurred. Sunburst noticed the way Sunset suddenly slumped down onto her side of the couch, and he couldn’t fail to note how her eyes were now somewhat distant.

“Sunset? Are…? Are you okay?”

“I have grandparents,” Sunset whispered, her voice almost hollow. Almost hopeful.

Sunburst, to his credit, caught the tone in her voice.

“Ah,” he said, not sure if he needed to give her a hug, or give her space, “I suppose having an extended family of any sort would be sort of weird for you.”

“I have my friends,” Sunset came back, defensively, “It’s just… outside of Celestia… and Cadance, I guess, I never had anything like a family. No mom or dad. No cousins. I guess knowing that you exist, it makes me feel less…”

Sunset stared off into the ether, eyes unfocused. Sunburst could practically feel the tension, the way the air almost hummed with whatever feelings were roaring beneath his daughter’s surface.

He leaned forward, just a little bit, and spoke softly. “How are you feeling? You’ve been through as much of a ringer as any of us, but you almost… you almost seem fine.”

Sunset turned to look at him, but only for a moment. Her whole face scrunched up in thought, and she folded her forelegs across her chest.

“I guess I am?” she said, surprising even herself.

Sunburst laid a hoof over his sleeping foal. “How?”

“Like I said before,” she shrugged, “I’ve… technically been through all this before. I mean, I’m right here! So, I know this all works out. And…”

Sunset’s eyes focused on the table in front of her. Something in the way she held herself told Sunburst she was moving something around in her head, looking at all the angles before she did anything.

“Do you know what every orphan dreams about? At least, at first?” she looked straight into his eyes.

Sunburst nodded, prompting Sunset to continue.

“When I was growing up, I would dream, once in a while, of meeting my parents. My real parents, not just getting adopted. They would show up one day, and tell me they were taking me home. They’d say… they’d tell me that they didn’t want to leave me behind, but that they had to. That they loved me…

“… and then, we’d go home,” her voice threatened to crack, “back home to a castle! And it would turn out I was a Princess all along, and we would never part again!”

Sunset shook her head, and wiped at her eye.

“When Celestia adopted me, I thought that dream had come true, in a way. I had somepony who loved me, and who would take me away to live in a castle, and make me a princess.”

As she spoke, she began to wrap herself in her own wings. It always comforted her, the feel of feathery wings at her side, though now they came from the other direction. Until the day after she betrayed Celestia, Sunset hadn’t realized how much she would miss that feeling.

“And then,” she sighed, “I threw it all away…”

A new sensation struck Sunset’s senses, shaking her calm as though one of Pinkie’s party cannons had gone off in her face.

Sunburst’s forelegs wrapped around her, and held tight. His chin rested atop her mane, though it took him partly standing up on the couch in order to perform that feat. Sunshine remained behind, nuzzling down deep into the warm cushion her papa had left behind.

Sunset froze, as he did this. She felt his warm breath atop her head, tickling the tips of her ears, and she could hear the light rumble in his chest as he breathed. The hug was different from the ones she’d gotten before. This wasn’t a friendly greeting, or a fond farewell.

This was so much more familiar than that. It felt so… safe.

“Looks to me,” he said, voice a hair above a whisper, “like that dream came true again. We do love you. And we wanted you, so… so badly!”

Sunset’s breath caught in her throat. They weren’t the exact words from her dreams… but they were close. She didn’t care about the wetness in her eyes, just that she could push her face right into her father’s chest like her younger self had done.

When Sunburst chuckled, Sunset felt it reverberate through her head, and in the hollow bones of her wings.

“We don’t really own the castle,” he whispered, “But you’ll always have a place here with us, Sunset.”

There were no words, after that. Sunset held her father, and he held her back. And in the stallion’s mind, the little filly snoozing in the warm spot on the couch he’d vacated started feeling a little less like Sunshine, and a little more like Sunset.

They held one another for what felt like minutes.

But, finally, Sunset pulled away, a smile on her face.

“Well… we’ve got things to do today, don’t we?”

Sunburst nodded, slowly, and said, “Yeah, I suppose we do. I should get your mother. She’ll…”

When he didn’t continue, Sunset decided to fill the silence.

“So,” she checked her coffee, and found it a bit low for her taste, “When are you going to… you know?”

Sunburst turned back towards… the younger Sunset. He worked his jaw a moment. His eyes never left the little foal, snuggled down into seat.

After a moment, he said, cautiously, “I suppose… assuming your mother doesn’t do anything crazy… soon.”

Sunset’s eyes widened.

“Um… crazy? How crazy we talking?”

Sunburst’s whole body shook, causing the amber Alicorn to panic further. She leapt from the couch, and quickly ran to see what was wrong… only to find her father biting his lip, face flushed, holding back what would probably have been a hardy enough guffaw to wake everypony in Ponyville twice over.

“Uh… Dad?” she whispered, the word lifted her mood somewhat out of the sarcastic depths that face threatened to send her to.

How crazy, she says!!!

After another moment, Sunburst was able to inhale breath once more, and began to perform a breathing exercise Princess Cadance had taught him while he’d lived in the Crystal Empire. Sunset watched him with a bemused expression, but allowed him to continue.

Finally, with control restored, Sunburst returned to his daughter, and said, “As you may be aware… Starlight doesn’t take things lying down.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Sunset hummed, then tilted her head, quizzically, “But… she can’t stop this, right? I mean, it’s a closed loop. I’m part of established events!”

Sunburst tilted his own head from side to side, weighing his next words.

“If anypony could fix it so that we could keep you, and keep time intact,” he met her eyes with as sincere and as calm a gaze as he could, “it would be Starlight Glimmer.

“Your mother,” he smiled a warm smile, like the smile Sunset sometimes spotted on… on Flash’s face when they were together… “She’s the most driven mare I’ve ever met. She never lets anything get in the way of what she wants.”

“Didn’t…?”

“Sure, she’s made some bad calls,” Sunburst cut her off, “But… once she moved past the dark times, and started seeing the world with a clear view again, she became the mare I wanted to spend my life with. And she would do anything to keep you, because she loves you.”

Sunset blushed, and looked away. She knew what he was saying was… well, it was completely batpony insane. She knew how reckless and destructive that course of action would be…

But it felt nice. It felt nice to be wanted. To be loved, in that way.

“I do love you, Sunshine,” a voice rang, softly, through the library, bringing both adult ponies up short, heads snapping towards the doors. Sunshine stirred, letting out a groggy, confused squeak.

Starlight Glimmer stood there, as if waiting for permission to enter. And, with Sunburst and Sunset’s eyes now on her, she began trotting in, a white blanket bundled up in her magic. Her mane was the worse for wear, but Sunset silently seethed at realizing how good it still looked compared to her usual bedhead.

But Starlight’s eyes were a different story. They were distant, dragged down, and tired. She might have slept right through the night, but she hadn’t rested a wink, it would seem. No amount of Luna’s ministrations could soothe the haunted gaze that looked out from that mare’s soul.

Starlight walked slowly past where her little filly lay, and carefully bundled her up in the blanket, a bit of gold thread catching the light. Sunburst wondered at the blanket with its gold thread, not having seen anything like it in the castle before.

Starlight caught the look in his eye, and wearily shrugged, “Rarity just came by when I got up. She didn’t want to stay long, just drop off ‘a little something, darling’, and leave us to deal with… this.”

Sunburst nodded, slowly, recalling how Sunset’s name had been woven into her swaddling, at least according to Celestia.

Sunshine cooed softly as she was held up in her mother’s aura. The little foal drifted up and over to her, as Starlight took a seat for herself over by one of the plush study chairs. There, mother and foal sat together, the very picture of adoration on Starlight’s face.

“I love you… Sunset,” she whispered, still looking at her baby.

And then, she turned her misty eyes to the Alicorn in the room with her.

“But I can’t keep you.”

Her voice cracked as she said it.

“Star…” Sunburst started, but stopped when he caught her eye.

Starlight’s gaze was locked onto Sunset. There wasn’t a look of anger, or love, within those eyes. Just a tired acceptance.

“I’m done fighting,” she said in a hollow voice, “I did something unforgiveable once. And I was rewarded for that crime with the love and friendship of those I hurt the most. It’s… it’s only right that I give that back.

“Now,” she sniffed, and held her child closer to her chest, “I’d like a few… hours. Yes. A few hours with my baby, before I have to give her to somepony else.” She returned her eyes to the bundle in her forelegs, and the smile she’d been forcing began to soften.

“Starlight?” Sunset said with evident worry, but the purple unicorn didn’t respond.

So, Sunset took a step towards her.

“Starlight… are you okay?”

“No,” Starlight’s eyes never left her sleeping foal, “But thanks for asking. I’ll be ready to go around dinnertime, alright?”

Sunset looked back to Sunburst, who slowly shook his head. He knew what this was, and he was in no way about to interrupt what he suspected was his wife’s last happy moment for a long, long while.

He would be there, later. But there was a time to mourn, before there was a time to heal.

Sunset seemed to understand that. By what road she’d come to that knowledge, Sunburst could only guess. But he was glad for it.

Father and daughter left the confines of the library together. There would be time, they knew, to heal what Time had wounded. It would come, later.

Right now… Sunset’s mother needed solitude, and silence, in which to compose her last lullaby.

5 - Ouroboros

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Canterlot, in winter, was like a work of art. Its sweeping, marble and gold design was overtaken, first with a gentle carpet of white snow, and then the icy blues and silvers of ice as the weather deepened its frigid grip. The weatherponies had apologized for the chill, but it had been a warm summer.

And now, on the very eve of Hearth’s Warming, a further layer of brilliant colors brought a strange sort of warmth to the city atop the Canterhorn. Everfree Green was everywhere, in wreaths and gallant ballroom gowns, matched by Apple Red and Sky-Blue glass orbs mixed amongst the ever-present tinsel.

Everywhere ponies looked, a winter wonderland had truly taken hold. Even amongst the lower wards, where there was less to go around every year, cheer and merriment was strewn about the street on this night, this night that represented everything that was best in ponies.

Except for one block of buildings. A set of apartments situated along Gusty Way, just a block south from the corner of Starshine Avenue, sat dark in the snow and the evening gloom. Nouveau Riche was in the process of having the buildings renovated, but with the seasonal change, the work crews getting the holiday off, and his cousin Stinkin holding a big, Rich family Hearth’s Warming down in that hick-town Ponyville… well, the building was good and sealed up until work could resume.

Sunset Shimmer, however, had seen tougher locks, and had cracked them all.

“Are we s-s-s-sure this is the right building?” a green-hooded Sunburst chattered in the freezing wind.

Sunset, wearing a red and gold hooded cloak, considered applying a ‘steam’ spell the Sparkle twins had come up with to Sunburst, just to warm him up and calm him down… but she decided that she couldn’t afford any delays right now, especially not ones that could potentially alert somepony to their presence.

“D-don’t worry, Da- Sunburst!” she said as she pulled out a manepin and began working at the lock, “C-C-Celestia t-told me she went over the r-records last night-t-t. It was this building… Lower Wards, Gusty Way, Number 412… and tonight. I s-spent my whole foalhood thinking Hearth’s Warming was my birthday…”

The lock popped off easily. Sunset, though smiling at the sight of her old habits benefiting her in the here and now, noted her father’s disapproving look.

“Hey, you g-get trapped in a m-magicless dimension, and let’s see you survive w-without a little B-and-E!”

“I already regretted this whole thing the moment you knew, unprompted, how we could commit arson without leaving evidence…”

“A little arson never hurt any… shut up!”

The third cloaked figure, who was busy holding a thick bundle with one foreleg, shushed her co-conspirators, and fixed them both with a glare far colder than the weather.

“We don’t have all night,” Starlight snarled, “and I could really do without the Haybbot and Costallion routine!”

The other two ponies flinched at her sharp condemnation, ears down in an identical show of submission.

“Sorry, dear…”

“Won’t happen again, M- I mean, Starlight.”

“It better not!” the purple pony said with a noticeable vein bulging out the side of her neck. Starlight breathed in, slowly, through her nose, and then blew out a small cloud of steam. Instantly, the heavy rush of red in her face vanished, except across her nose, where the harsh wind was rubbing the skin beneath her fur raw.

She looked up and down the street, eyes peeled for any danger. When she saw nothing, she whispered, “I’ll keep watch. You two plant the… bodies… and set the fire. Let’s go.”

With that, Starlight trotted across the street and took up a spot inside the mouth of the alleyway her spell had dumped the three of them minutes before. She settled down there, baby tightly wrapped in her forelegs, and head down away from the wind.

Sunset watched all this, hardly noticing the door to the apartments was open until Sunburst came back and prodded her to follow.

“Sorry about that,” she apologized as she shut the door behind them, “Got a little distracted.”

Sunburst said nothing, at least until he took a moment to shiver in the cold entryway. The vestibule was thin and long, doorways into the ground floor apartments laid open to either side as though Daring Do herself had already looted the structure for its treasures. At the far end of the hall, there was a simple staircase that led up to the other floors.

“I think it might have been warmer outside,” Sunburst complained, huffing and blowing hot air into his hooves.

“Least we got natural coats,” Sunset walked in place to keep the blood flowing, “My first winter across the Mirror, I lived in the back of a warehouse, and slept under a whole pallet of unsold carpet swatches to keep warm.”

Sunburst glanced, uncertainly, at his daughter. “Um… sorry?”

“Don’t be,” the Alicorn began making her way to the stairwell, “I brought it on myself. Plus, I stole some space heaters as soon as I knew what those were, so it wasn’t so terrible. Oh, and that was also how I figured out the arson thing…”

“Sunset…” her father groaned, having only a faint idea about what a space heater was, but having a very good idea how something like that could have factored into Sunset’s story.

This building doesn’t feel like a home, Sunset mused, as the two ponies wandered through the half-finished structure. There was open paneling and carpentry marks on everything, like some kid had been given markers and a spray can and told to go nuts. Stools and buckets lay strewn around the skeletal apartments, a few cans of oil and cleaners stacked in corners, awaiting their owners’ return.

I wonder, Sunset almost laughed, what would the opposite of tomb-robbing be, since this place isn’t even done yet? Bet Dash would know, being the biggest Daring fan amongst us…

“Is Starlight going to be alright?” she asked, though perhaps more to break the silence than anything else.

Sunburst glanced over his shoulder, as if he could see his wife through the closed door.

“I… don’t know,” he sighed, “She’s never been like this. I never thought she could be so… hollow. Defeated. Even at her lowest, at least that I saw, she always had a spark, a fighting spirit just behind her eyes. Now…?”

He left the rest unsaid, instead opting to continue onward.

Which left Sunset more than a little confused.

“You asked how I’m handling all this,” she said, softly, “But… how can you be so calm?”

“What do you mean?” he asked without turning around.

Sunset trotted up to Sunburst’s side, and made sure to place a wing in front of him, in case the stubborn stallion tried to press on.

“I mean, you seem super calm about losing your daughter to a time loop!” Sunset frowned deeply, and continued with a strained voice, “I know we talked a little about me, but what about you? What about… Mom?”

Sunburst’s ears drooped, and he closed his eyes. Sunset waited as he took a long moment to breathe and calm himself.

When he opened his eyes, they were crystal clear, and as sharp as the edge of a gemstone.

“Right now, your mother’s heart is broken,” he said, slowly. Then, he gently reached up with one hoof, and pushed Sunset’s wing aside, saying, “She’ll be… functional, eventually. But right now? I have a responsibility to hold it together for the both of us.

“We’ll be fine, Love,” he paused, and went to nuzzle Sunset’s cheek, which she happily reciprocated, “Just… let Starlight grieve. There will be plenty of time for us to catch up, and have parties… and make up for what we’ve lost.”

Sunset wasn’t sure what, exactly, calmed her more: Sunburst’s words, or his presence. She couldn’t help but wonder at the change. The last time she’d been through the Mirror, she hardly considered him at all, but now that she knew they were related…

Why would knowing he’s my dad make him feel… more dad-like?

She mentally facehoofed at the poor, poor use of grammar. She knew she was better than that. This whole situation was messing with her brain.

Sunset shook her head, clearing it of the intrusive thoughts. She’d have to chat with her friends about all this, once she went home. Fluttershy was practically a trained counselor, and Twilight and Midnight were used to headscratchers like this.

Getting back to the matter at hoof, Sunset carefully gathered a few cans of oil in her aura, and started looking around for any rags left behind. Arson was a lot easier with magic, but the spell she was planning on using still needed certain components.

“So,” Sunburst eyed his daughter’s firebug collection, “Where… er, what’s your place like? Not still… living in warehouses?”

The two ponies vanished in a flash of golden light as Sunset fired off a quick teleport.

Sunburst, it would seem, had gotten quite used to traveling via instantaneous magical transmission. He hardly looked frazzled as they rematerialized three stories up, where they planned on creating the fake bodies and setting the real fire. To his further credit, he seemed to keep his lunch down admirably, all the while only barely taking his eyes and attention off from Sunset.

Who was already looking into more rooms as she answered him.

“Oh, no. Not for a long time. Turns out, I’m a natural at faking paperwork…”

“This is an encouraging story, is it?” Sunburst scoffed.

The Alicorn smirked, before she knocked over a chair and pulled out a set of spare orange work clothes left behind.

“Anyway, with access to a public library computer and a few… examples I’d found in some unattended wallets, I whipped up a convincing ID, found work, and started making a little money while I kept plotting my revenge on Celestia,” Sunset’s smile faltered as she spoke, but she pressed on, cutting the grubby clothing into strips with her magic, “I live a few blocks from the school. You should come over sometime. It’s… small, but nice. We could hang out, get dinner, see a movie… you could meet my lizard, Ray…”

Sunburst was quiet as they kept moving through the building. Sunset could tell he wasn’t happy, but… well, so what?

It’s not like he has any say in the matter. He wasn’t there. He didn’t raise me…

She internally winced. Though, that’s not his fault. He… they both wanted me, after all.

“I…” he cleared his throat, bringing Sunset’s attention back to the unicorn, “I don’t suppose you still commit crimes in your everyday life?”

Sunset snorted, “Nothing too bad, I promise.”

He didn’t seem pleased by that answer.

“Uh, what I meant was, I don’t really do any of that stuff anymore,” Sunset said placatingly, “The worst thing I get up to nowadays is a little bit of ‘public art’. Which isn’t really illegal over there…”

Bit of a stretch there, but AJ’s the honest one…

Sunburst’s ears perked up as he listened to her.

“Wait, you… you’re an artist?”

Sunset stopped, and turned around to face her father, a slight blush working its way onto her face.

“W-well… I guess you could call me that,” she glanced away, allowing a bit of her mane to fall over eyes, “Really, it’s just a fun hobby. I mostly just draw, or work with spray-paint…”

“Still!” Sunburst beamed at his girl, clearly excited to hear about something a little more legal than her other activities, “That’s great! Can I see some of your work? Maybe when we come over to your place?”

“Sure! I’d love that! Hang on, I have some pics…” Sunset paused. One of her forehooves had reached, instinctively, to her side and found nothing but fur, “… oh, right. No pockets, no phone.”

From how she’d first experienced the devices, and how strange and difficult it’d been to subsequently teach Princess Twilight about them, phones were something that Equestrians had a very hard time understanding, at least at first.

Heck, Sunset thought, I had to go through that twice, once smartphones came out over there.

But, before she could bemoan not bringing her smartphone through the gate or giggle at how reliant she’d become to having human technology with her at all times, Sunset had a sudden flash of inspiration.

She looked around the area, and quickly spied a suitably blank section of wall off to one side. She led Sunburst over with an encouraging wave of her wings, the components for her next fiery feat floating beside them, and faced the wall directly. Then, she closed her eyes, and allowed her other senses to drift where she needed them.

“Just… watch the wall,” she intoned, “I think I can… recreate something from memory.”

She held her breath.

Then, the room became awash with color. Sunset’s horn lit up like a Hearth’s Warming tree. Brilliant reds, yellows, blues, and greens ran rampant through the air around her as her magic flared. Though Sunset couldn’t see it, she could feel the warmth of her magic flow, and she could feel it touching somewhere deep within her mind, even as it reached out to the wall before her.

Sunburst watched on, mouth and eyes wide in sheer awe at her prowess. He stood, rooted, as the rainbow of light began to lash out against the wall, leaving trails of color behind. Within the span of a minute, he could see shapes begin to form from the chaotic array of colors and light, and soon after that…

There it was. Her Cutie Mark. The spiraling red and gold sun, fire and life and balance. Sunburst hadn’t really bothered noting Sunset’s mark beyond mild curiosity the few times he’d met her before, but now that he knew of their true connection, it somehow left the orange stallion breathless.

The Cutie Mark sat amidst banks of grey clouds, surrounded and cut-through by lightning in every shade of the rainbow, all flying outward from the center of the wall to its edges. And with the painting’s conclusion, the light from Sunset faded away, leaving only herself behind.

Sunset exhaled, heavily, and wiped at her forehead.

“Phew! Wasn’t sure that would work,” she laughed, her breath coming a little harder for a moment or two, “What do you think?”

“I… I don’t know what to say,” Sunburst ran his eyes over every stroke, every line, his senses almost hungry for more.

He smiled, finally, and looked to the artist next to him.

“I love it. It’s… beautiful…” he said, though his eyes instantly clenched as another thought came to him, “It’s, ah… also evidence…”

Sunset’s eyes widened, to the point where her eyebrows nearly left her face. Then, she delivered a hard facehoof to herself, and groaned, “Oh… ponyfeathers.”

“Well…” Sunburst glanced around, appraisingly, “I suppose we found our Ground Zero.”

Sunset looked about as well, trying to force the building into a mental map. From what Celestia had said…

“Huh,” she chuckled, “Guess time loops just sort of work out, don’t they?

“Alright!” Sunset raised her head, and squared her shoulders as silver and gold light began to spiral around her horn, “Let’s make some bodies!”

Sunburst pursed his lips, possibly a mistake, what with the cold air nipping at him. “You sure that’s going to work?”

“Positive,” Sunset glanced up at the still-dark windows, “Day Harnesson’s Delayed Fireball is the perfect spell for causing a slow, controlled burn.”

Her father furrowed his brow, and looked over at Sunset.

“Um… fireball?”

Sunset shook her head, “Don’t worry! I threw in a Thaumic Choke, and made sure to ablate the pressure with Stallzel’s Valve.”

“Ah, I see!” Sunburst nodded exuberantly, “That’s quite a spell, then! I’m very impressed!”

Sunset blushed beneath the stallion’s praise. Being told by a professor, or even Celestia herself, that she’d done well at some bit of arcane construction had always been a favorite feeling for the Alicorn, but receiving it from her actual, literal, biological parent was something else entirely.

Definitely need to talk with someone about this back home.

The two ponies stood just outside the building they’d cased and set up to burn. The snow had gotten a little deeper, the wind a little colder.

And Starlight had yet to move an inch from where she was, at the mouth of that alleyway. Neither Sunburst nor Sunset wanted to force the issue. That would come when the flames began to consume the apartments. Why not let Starlight have her… last moments with her baby?

Still, they waited. Had to make sure the fire started. But, in the moments before the flames, two ponies, father and daughter, could allow themselves a quiet moment together, blissfully awaiting the beginning of their new lives.

Sunburst happily hummed to himself. Then, his ears twitched, as a thought occurred.

“So, how did you compensate for Kanter’s Antinomy?”

Sunset smiled, warmly.

Then, she licked her lips, and asked, “What’s that?”

There was a look in Sunburst’s eyes. It was a feral, worried, look. Quick and sharp as his mind was, it took only an instant for Sunburst’s mind to do some calculations, and realize that his daughter hadn’t read a modern, updated Equestrian Magical Journal, or treatise, or research paper, in about a decade.

And, just before he could clarify the issue, lecture his wayward daughter, or most likely, scream in animalistic panic, every single window on the block exploded as the pressure-cooker bomb that was her spell finally tore through its restraints, and nearly vaporized the building.

Princess Celestia, who had been staring at the moon this holiday evening, first noted how the sky seemed to become like day for a few moments. That was, to put it mildly, unusual. She hadn’t felt the sun rise, after all.

The windows of the Great Hall, also unusually, rattled in their frames. They were usually quite steady, as glass was wont to do.

Finally, an unusual amount of stucco and plaster dropped from the crumbling ceiling, and crashed down upon her royal head. Her ethereal pastel mane was slightly dusty now, which was a bit annoying.

As was the fireball slowly rising over the lower wards. Yes, that was quite unusual too.

“That can’t be good,” she said to herself.

Then again, talking to Grigori Blueblood was also quite annoying, due to him being a bit… unusual.

Checks out…

The guards on patrol that night would later swear they heard somepony shout, “Distraction!” just before they watched their Solar Sovereign sail over their heads, and into the icy gale that had enshrouded Canterlot that Hearth’s Warming Eve…

“I said I was sorry!” Sunset shouted over the cacophonic sounds of glass crashing, flames roaring, and an amber foal wailing in fright.

“You could have killed somepony!” Sunburst shouted back as they tucked into the alleyway where they’d entered this sordid mess from. He’d be red in the face, if not for all the ash soaking into his coat and muzzle.

“Nopony got hurt!” Sunset snapped back, “The fire is staying within the apartment we meant to torch!”

“Sure,” Sunburst rubbed the spot between his eyes with a hoof, “Nopony got burned. But did you even consider the pressure wave!?”

The distant sounds of sirens began to cut through the noise of the inferno, which seemed to snap Sunset back to reality. She glanced up and down the street, noting that nopony had appeared to inspect the explosion yet, and ducked back in to face her parents.

“Whatever, we did what we had to! Now, let’s leave little Me here, and get back to the future!”

“Great Trot!” Sunburst cried, and turned to run, “We got to get going! Quickly, down the alley!”

Sunset had only taken a few steps away from the conflagration when she noticed something. Her father was ahead of her, and she could hear his clattering hooves on the cobblestone well enough. But she couldn’t hear anything behind her.

And for good reason, it seemed.

“Starlight?”

The mare in question hadn’t moved. Backed by the burning building behind her, Starlight was a dark shadow, standing hoof-deep in the snow. She held her baby close to her chest, her eyes never once wavering from the crying infant.

Sunset would be touched, to see her mother so moved, so consumed by her child’s pain that she could not stand to part from her. However, the very real possibility of the time-space continuum collapsing on top of them all weighed heavily on her mind.

The Alicorn shot towards Starlight, coming up short by inches.

“Starlight, we have to go! You can’t keep her.”

“I know,” the unicorn croaked, “I know…”

Sunset watched, helpless, as tears poured out of her mother’s eyes. The baby that was and would be her reached out her hooves, the fear and panic in her own tiny eyes replaced by something else, something existentially terrifying.

“Uwaaa!” she cried, her little hooves clawing at the air, like she could tell what was about to happen.

Sunset swallowed, and mentally scanned the area. She could feel the sirens coming closer, and something else besides. There was a Power coming now. A light within the magical realm that burned every bit as hot at the sun.

They needed to be gone before the Princess arrived.

“Starlight…!”

“I can save her!” Starlight’s eyes, mad and lost, locked onto Sunset’s own, “I can save you! I just… I just need a moment, a few paradox-amplifier spells, and… and…”

Sunset shouted as loudly as she dared, “You can’t save me! There’s nothing to save!”

“No!” Starlight shook her head, and held her child closer, tighter, her eyes closed to the cold and the wind, and her tears, “I won’t leave Sunshine! I can fix this…!”

A fire wagon swung around the corner, a team of firefighter ponies frothing as they led the engine onward.

Time was running out.

Time was about to burn.

“Mom!” Sunset cried out, then reached for the baby.

Starlight’s eyes snapped back open.

She flinched, and the arc of Sunset’s hoof met that of another.

A tiny, amber hoof swiped out at the darkness that was stealing Sunshine’s mother, and briefly, for the span of an instant…

Sunset realized, just as it happened, that she had touched her foal-self’s hoof.

A white light flooded out from Sunset and Sunshine’s eyes…

She felt cold. That wasn’t good. Cold was bad. All she’d known up until that moment was Warm. Why did it have to be Cold?

She cried. What else could she do? Her Light was gone. Where was the One? She was so beautiful, and kind. Where was Other? He was funny, and fuzzy. And warm. Very warm.

Why was she cold? There was somepony else there, wasn’t there?

Eventually, somepony was there, and they started to warm her again.

She still cried. What else could she do?

She was Alone.

The other foals laughed at her when they went out to play. Nopony else had their Cutie Mark already, they said. You’ll never know what you’re supposed to do!

She loved the look of her mark. But she was starting to wonder if she should cover it up.

She missed showing off her little heart-birthmark. She thought it looked cool. Then Halter Twist called her names at recess. Now, she wore her mane different.

But she didn’t care. Because one day, someday, her mummy and daddy would come back. She knew it. They would come back, and they would take her away from this awful place, and these awful ponies. She even drew them, like she remembered.

She didn’t know if she remembered. But the colors looked right, so…

The Princess was coming tomorrow. She was very nice, and very pretty.

And she was a Princess. Maybe, if Sunset was very good, Celestia would make her a Princess too?

The Princess was so kind! Sunset had only been in the palace a month, and she already had a new room to explore!

Princess Celestia had given her a wonderful, big bedroom of her own, of course. It was colored just like her, all gold and white! But now, she also got to go to the new tower!

A tower of books! And telescopes!

And it was hers!

“I want you to be able to study here, whenever you feel like you need some solitude.”

“What’s stall-it-ood, Princess?”

The Princess laughed like sunlight, “It means, when you need to be alone to think, you can use this private library.”

“Oh…”

“Is there something wrong, my little pony?”

Sunset shrugged, “I… no.”

“Is that so?”

Sunset thought a moment.

“I don’t like to be alone. It… it scares me.”

The Princess wrapped her perfect wings around her, and laughed, “Well, you don’t have to be scared while you’re with me. I’ll always protect you, my little sunshine.”

“Sunshine?”

“… Do you not like it?”

“NO! I mean…” Sunset nuzzled into the hug, “I like it. I really like it. Thank you, Princess. But, it’s just…”

“Ah! That would be Kibitz. I’m sorry, Sunset. We’ll have to finish talking later. Oh! I should get you a magic journal!”

“A… magic journal?”

“So we can talk, even when I’m needed elsewhere,” the Princess explained.

“Oh… oh! That’s wonderful, Princess! Thank you!”

Sunset thought for a moment, and then, quietly, asked something that had been in the back of her mind for a while.

“Um… Princess? When you said you’ll always protect me…?”

“Yes?”

“What… what if my parents come for me? Can I… can I still stay here, and learn with you?”

“…”

“Princess?”

“I have to go, Sunset. But… I promise you, I will never send you away. Never.”

“… Thank you, Princess…”

She would draw her parents that night. And the next night. She wondered if she got the colors right.

It wouldn’t matter soon enough. There was only so long even a bright and hopeful filly could believe in fairy tales…

“My Sunshine! How wonderful!”

“I made it for you, Princess. Do… do you like it?”

“Why wouldn’t I love it? It was made by you, wasn’t it?”

“I just… since it’s Mare’s Day, I thought… maybe…”

“Sunset? Is something the matter?”

“…”

“Sunset, you can always ask me anything.”

“Princess?”

“Yes, my little pony?”

“Can… since I don’t… can I call you… Mom?”

“…”

“Is… is that okay?”

“Sunset… I think it would be for the best if we kept… a little distance. Please, call me Celestia, when we’re alone together.”

“Oh… alright… Princess…”

“Is… I’m sorry, Sunset. It’s just… I’m not a good…”

“No, I understand, Princess.”

“I… I’m glad. I care for you, deeply, you know? But there are some lines I cannot cross.”

“…”

“Sunset?”

“I understand… Princess.”

She stopped drawing. The dreams were too vague now, anyway.

Who cared if she got the color right? They weren’t here. They didn’t want her.

Nopony wanted her.

Even the Princess…

Even the Princess.

“Sunset?” the Princess called, “Sunset? Are you in here? You missed our tea time.”

Sunset was hovering in the middle of the tower’s library, books drifting around her in quick, tight orbits. She actively read two books at once, one on the Elements of Sorcery, the other on the Fundamentals of Politics, while at least four passively wove in and out of her attention.

“Sunset? Have… have you been reading all night?”

“Have I?” Sunset hardly realized the sun had come up, “Huh… new record, I guess.”

“Sunset, that’s not healthy for a growing pony.”

The amber unicorn shook her head, “Sorry! I just got distracted. There’s so much to learn!”

Princess Celestia laughed, “And a great deal of it can be found outside of your books, you know?”

“I… I guess…?”

Celestia tilted her head.

“Sunset? When was the last time you went outside?”

“I take walks…”

“Besides physical exercise,” the Princess glanced around, noting the empty takeout boxes strewn around, “I thought we talked about you going out… and maybe making some friends?”

“How, exactly, are friends supposed to help me with my goal?”

“… I’m not sure I understand,” the Princess frowned, “Any goal you’ve set for yourself can be achieved if you have the aid of good friends!”

“…”

“Don’t give me that look,” Celestia pouted.

“Sorry, but this look is for anypony with that much cheese in them.”

The Princess tut-tutted.

“Besides,” Sunset continued, “I don’t need friends to achieve my goal!”

“Oh? And what goal would that be?”

“…”

“Sunset,” Celestia smirked, “I can’t hear you.”

“… To become a…”

Celestia’s ears perked up.

“I’m sorry? I… couldn’t hear you.”

“I said…”

Princess Celestia came to watch the performance. She always came, even when she had other things to do.

Sunset smiled at that.

She was worth the attention.

With practiced ease, she casually tossed the flames about her, nearly scorching the spectating professors. None of them wanted to be there. They all knew Sunset Shimmer was the best student they’d ever had at the School for Gifted Unicorns. They all knew she would win top honors, and that her final project would wow everypony in Canterlot.

Everypony that mattered.

Which was, beside Sunset, the Princess.

And what a performance it was! A flaming Phoenix, rising from the earth! It splayed its multihued feathers, and lit up the sky with lightning!

Oh, but she wasn’t done.

This wasn’t just a show of force, or of control!

Well, it was control… but of a different sort.

The Phoenix danced. It flew! It changed silver into gold, and mud into fresh hay. She even had it sweep over a filly’s broken leg, and heal her up as good as new!

Sunset had nailed it. Her final exam at CSGU was almost over, and no matter how much the professors might despise her, she’d won.

Almost.

Celestia wasn’t smiling. She hadn’t done that in a while. Sunset could get a ‘nice job’ out of her most days, but the smiles had vanished since Cadance had shown up.

Little upstart.

Thief, more like it.

Trying to steal my crown? Sunset thought.

The finale approached, and Sunset’s phoenix spell rose up into the air. This would be the tricky part…

The Phoenix wrapped the sun in its wings, and…

“How… how dare you…!?”

“Sunset, please…”

“I had it right where I wanted it!”

“Had what? The SUN?”

“Yes!”

“… How…? How arrogant are you!? Have you even heard the Hearth’s Warming story? I thought we covered it…”

“Aced the paper, and I played Princess Platinum last year.”

“Not my point. Sunset! You could have died!”

“Says who?”

“Even Starswirl needed a team of unicorn mages to move the sun…”

“Yeah, well, I don’t. Maybe if he tried harder…”

“You can’t believe that.”

“Come off it, Celestia! We both know I’m the most powerful student you’ve ever had. And yeah, I’m counting that pink pinup model you hoofed a crown to…”

“Sunset…”

“Oh, she beat a witch! Big whoop, I was the one who trounced that failure Prismia out of here to begin with!”

“That’s not something to brag about…”

“Well, what else?”

“… What?”

“What more do you want from me? When are you going to make me a Princess?”

“…”

“Well!?”

“Sunset… there’s something I’d like to show you…”

"I deserve to stand beside you and be your equal... if not your better. Make me a princess!"

“No. Being a princess must be earned. I have been trying to teach you everything you need to know, but you've turned from it. Every time you say you ‘deserve’ to get something without the effort just proves to me that you are not ready.”

“This is the biggest mistake you'll make in your entire life.”

“One of many…”

"Believe me... I've got everything I need to know about you."

"Twilight Sparkle thinks she can win Fall Formal Princess over me? HA! I'm going to rule this school once I get that crown!"

"Sorry it had to be this way... Princess!"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry... I didn't know there was another way…"

The Fall Formal.

The Sirens, and the Battle of the Bands.

Princess Twilight.

Rarity and Applejack.

Pinkie Pie.

Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy.

Twilight Sparkle and her sister, Midnight.

Celestia.

Luna.

Time.

It all went back.

And forth.

She could see it all.

Feel it all.

Her whole life went past her at the speed of Time.

Sunset felt her soul being crushed as the Anon-a-Miss disaster swept by her again, every feeling and thought coming back as if it had just happened again.

There was Ray, and all the times she’d fed him, played with him, or just enjoyed the little lizard’s presence.

Flash Sentry.

One of Pinkie’s parties.

All of Pinkie’s parties.

The cruise ship.

That stupid rap video Dash swore she torched once they realized what they’d done.

Flash Sentry, again.

That second, better cruise ship.

Wallflower.

Juniper.

Dazzlings.

Disqord.

It was too much, too fast. Too slow. Too painful.

“Ouroboros,” she said to no one, to nothing, “The snake consuming its own tail…”

She was warm.

She was loved.

It was all a haze, except for the love. And the warmth.

But then… there was screaming.

What did the One want? Why was she mad? Sun…

Sun… She would do anything to stop her crying. She was everything to her.

Still warm.

Still loved.

She liked being loved.

Other was also warm. He had mane on his chin. He was funny like that.

There was still a lot of screaming. Ponies in white jumping around, and glowing. Was this a game? Were they playing a game!? She didn’t know if she liked games, but she wanted to try!

Oh… there was another pony. She felt so warm.

She was so beautiful! Not like One. No. Nothing could ever be so beautiful as One. She had a horn and wings though.

Maybe that counted for something?

There were lots of screaming. And crying. Why did One cry? Who made her cry? Didn’t they know she was the most beautiful, wonderful thing in the world?

Other is funny! He makes these faces! How wonderful!

He’s almost like the One. Maybe… maybe she would love him too?

Can she love more than One?

Huh…

Sunset awoke, and felt… warm. That was wrong. She shouldn’t have been warm.

Where’s the snow?

Groggily, she tried to open her eyes. But something held them shut. She was so tired. She hadn’t felt like this since…

There was… a song? Someone… somepony was singing? It came from above her. Somewhere up above. But who…?

“In the gloaming, oh my darling,
When the lights are soft and low,
And the quiet shadows, falling,
Softly come and softly go.”

It was beautiful. And so haunting. Sunset felt the song, less as a sound, and more like a pain in her heart.

Where have I heard that before?

She had to have heard it before. It was too familiar to just be a song!

Sunset opened her eyes.

She was pressed up to a mare’s chest. Soft, purple fur caressed her cheeks and tickled her nose. In a moment of utter bewilderment, Sunset could almost forget the fact that she was… was so tiny! This mare was holding her in her forelegs like she was a small loaf of bread!

No, what caught Sunset’s attention first, and foremost… was that she knew the mare.

Starlight Glimmer, eyes closed, continued to sing.

“When the trees are sobbing faintly,
With a gentle unknown woe,
Will you think of me and love me,
As you did once, long ago?”

“Starlight!” she called out, “Starlight! What’s going on!?”

Starlight’s ears twitched. She opened her own, tired eyes, and looked down at Sunset.

“Starlight?”

Her mother said nothing. The smile that stole over her face was so… calm. So peaceful. Even though she was tired, so clearly run down and exhausted, her smile was full of life.

As were her eyes full of tears.

“For my heart was tossed with longing,
What had been could never be,
It was best to leave you thus, dear,
Best for you, and best for me…”

“Starlight! Listen to me!”

Starlight leaned down, and it caused a shadow of fear to take hold of Sunset’s heart. Her friend… her mother was so huge! The whole ceiling looked like it bent around her!

But that fear dissolved as Starlight pressed her face into Sunset’s own, and kissed her little filly right on her cheek, and let their horns touch ever so softly.

She was warm.

She was loved.

Sunset’s thoughts raced. Where did that come from?

“I see you’re awake, my little Sunshine,” Starlight cooed down at Sunset, who could only bask in the radiance of that… that love.

It was overpowering. Like an aura of warmth, and light, and smell.

She couldn’t push it away.

Because I didn’t push it away, she started to think again, This… this is a memory. My empathy magic… why is it so hard to think…?

Deciding that… for better or worse, Sunset was now where she was at… she let herself float along in the moment, observing her own memory like she was watching a film.

What am I meant to see?

Starlight began to brush the wavy, ephemeral locks of her mane while she spoke.

“You’re so beautiful, do you know that?” she said, softly, “I don’t think I ever thought I’d say that about a baby. I… I never thought about having one, to be honest. The Great Work came first.”

She shook her head, a momentary flash of doubt, and guilt, marred her smile.

“But… your father wanted you. And… I wanted to make him happy. And now?”

She kissed Sunset’s horn, eliciting a giggle from the tiny foal.

“I couldn’t imagine a world without you.”

She looked away, and for a moment it was like the sun had vanished.

“But… I have to.”

She looked back, and there was the sun again.

“But…” Starlight licked her lips, and looked up. Her eyes watched the edges of the room, scanned them for any sign of movement.

Finding nothing, she returned to her baby, one hoof gently tracing Sunset’s face.

“But I could… I could stop it,” she said, her voice a whisper, “I didn’t really dream all that much last night. Luna came by… guess you’ll meet her eventually… and we talked. And we talked. And…

“I did a bad thing once,” Starlight’s tone shifted, slightly, “A bad thing I would never, never do again, because what I did was so bad… it was so terrible…”

She grit her teeth, and looked away again. Sunset’s heart trembled to see her like this, but so small, so helpless, she could do nothing.

“Please,” she said, “Don’t be sad. I’m here. I’m still here.”

“Sunshine,” Starlight’s voice, though a whisper, was deafening to Sunset, “My Sunshine… I spent my dreams planning on how I could save you. But every time I thought I had it… I lost you again. Time itself is my enemy. And that’s something I can’t do anything about.

“It will take you from me,” she snarled, “and would I… if I could, I would burn the very stars in the sky for you. I would shake the foundations of the earth, the very bones that the world rests upon…”

Tears flowed, in silence, from her eyes. Starlight took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I love you… Sunset,” she said, “I love you so… so much. But you’ll forget all about me…”

“No! Momma! I won’t forget you! I drew you! I know I did…!”

The lights had all gone out, and the warmth… the warmth was still there, but now a bitter cold nipped at her face. It didn’t matter how much Starlight pressed the little foal into her coat, the cold was still trying to claw its way in.

She cried. What else was she to do?

She was about to be Alone.

“Starlight…!” a strangely familiar voice called out, over the roar of flames.

“I can save her!” Starlight’s eyes, mad and lost, locked onto the other mare’s, “I can save you! I just… I just need a moment, a few paradox-amplifier spells, and… and…”

“Momma!” Sunset cried out, “Momma! I’m here! Don’t go! Please don’t go! Don’t leave me!”

“I can fix this…!”

An amber hoof reached out of the darkness. It was trying to take her mother away from Sunset. She… she needed to stop it…

“Mom!” Sunset cried, her heart shattering as she managed to pull a hoof free from her blanket, and made to push back…

“… Mom…” Sunset’s voice cracked as she recoiled from her younger self, their momentary touch…

Starlight had frozen, staring aghast as her… as her daughter was overtaken by the light. She’d heard, secondhoof, about Sunset’s visions, but to see it in action took the heart of her.

Her baby was in pain. There was nothing else, no explanation. Tears poured from Sunset’s eyes, eyes that had for a moment been like the sun itself in intensity. And Starlight knew, that pain was her fault.

Sunset’s eyes faded back to normal, as did… little Sunset’s. The baby fell away to sleep the instant that the glow went away, though to both mares’ eyes, it did not go completely. Though her eyes had cleared, the light flashed across the slumbering child, settling onto her flank.

Starlight, hesitantly, drew back the swaddling.

“Mom…”

There was the red and gold sun.

“Mom, please…”

Balance. Healing. Fire. Eternity.

“I can’t lose you again…”

Harmony.

In complete silence, Starlight Glimmer kissed her baby one last time, and set her atop a small bank of snow.

She turned around, and ran.

Starlight could never look back. Not when the sounds of sirens filled her ears, and the wail of her child assaulted her very soul.

She felt cold.

6 - Memories, Old and New

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If the tiny, crystal clock on her mantle was anything to go by, Starlight Glimmer had slept through most of the day. This was good. She liked sleep. She wanted to sleep. Sleep meant dreams. Dreams could be controlled, with the proper application of magic. And control meant that Starlight didn’t have to think about yesterday.

The day she lost her Sunshine.

She, Sunburst, and Sunset had all returned in… well, they didn’t look so hot, according to Spike’s expert, though unsolicited, opinion. Even accounting for the fact that they’d left for the past fairly late into the evening, their near-instant return to the present left very little time for anypony to cope with what had happened.

Sunset had basically barricaded herself in her room, and her parents had done likewise in theirs. If that wasn’t yet another sign of their relation…

She’d tried to sleep, Starlight. She wanted it more than anything else. But her dreams were no refuge, and she soon found herself and Sunburst up even before midnight had come. So, with a little Dream Magic, courtesy of a few lessons Princess Luna had graciously given her during her early reforming days, Starlight was able to soothe the next dreams of her and her husband.

Yet, sleep eluded her. She’d woken twice after that. Once before dawn, and once a little while after that, when Sunset and Sunburst asked if she wanted to head downstairs and talk with Twilight and her friends about Sunset’s other problem.

Starlight, though she’d been aware of her daughter’s attempts to make magic public in her own world… found it terribly dull and uninteresting next to the overwhelming urge to shut down, and tune out.

Her Sunset didn’t seem all that enthused either, but she and Sunburst seemed to prefer a distraction from their worries. They’d left Starlight alone since then.

I’m not sleeping anymore today, Starlight sighed outwardly as she thought, I need to do something to bore me back to sleep. All I gotta do is survive for a couple hours, then nod off again.

Starlight sat up, and took stock of her surroundings. Immediately though, she regretted that decision, as she spotted the white crib in the corner of the room.

“Of course,” she said, shaking her head.

The wardrobe and her cupboards were next. Totally plain, and uninteresting, outside of her Friendship Mirror and a couple of old knickknacks Sunburst had collected. Nothing there to remind her of her problems.

Except for the fossilized pacifier, in its own glass case. A rare find, Sunburst had said, when he brought it home six moons back.

Starlight grunted, briefly wondering if she could get away with vaporizing it. Deciding that she didn’t want to fight with the Castle’s new fire-suppression spells, she moved on.

“Well,” she almost got within spitting distance of a happy thought, “At least the kites are still on my side.”

One whole section of wall, framed by a pair of fabulous little Bit Trees, had been dedicated to Starlight’s second favorite hobby behind mastering the arcane secrets of the universe. Several grand demonstrations of her kiting prowess hung from the walls at jaunty angles, and in striking colors and patterns.

Her kites practically leaped out of the wall, the way she’d placed them, and they would have done a remarkable job of distracting Starlight from her problem. On any other day, at least.

Today, they failed to hide the Foal’s First Kite set, which Starlight had laid out near the base of one of the trees.

She’d been looking forward to that.

Now, however, all it did was cause the purple unicorn to charge one of her most destructive spells into her horn, bathing the bedroom in a crimson glare.

But, before she could engage in a round of demolitions, there was a light knock at the door.

The knocking soured Starlight’s foul mood. She hated being reminded that there was a happier world out there, just beyond her door. It just made her all the more aware of what had happened to her.

The knock came again, this time followed by a quiet voice.

“Starlight?” a demure, if melodious voice said, “Can I come in?”

That voice…

Starlight flapped her ears a few times, and gave each a quick rub. Had to be sure she didn’t have something stuck up in there. It had almost sounded…

“Starlight? Are… is this a good time?”

The unicorn paused, and considered having Sunburst check her hearing. Whoever was at her door, despite the low, almost shy, tone, sounded almost identical to Princess…

“… Celestia!” Starlight jumped up from the bed, and swiftly reached out with her magic to yank the door open.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t quite switched off that destruction spell when she did that. Fortunately, the spell itself had a very specific targeting vector built into it, so once the flash of unearthly turquoise light had subsided, only the door to the bedroom had been rendered unto elementary particles.

Which left Celestia, Princess of the Sun, standing in the archway to Starlight’s bedroom, a small object balanced on her withers, and a rather shocked expression on her face.

Eyes wide as saucers, Celestia nodded once, swallowed, and said, “I can see you want to be alone right now. I apologize for the disruption… I’ll just go…”

“Wait!” Starlight rushed out of her room, and blocked Celestia’s escape down the stairs, “Wait, sorry! That wasn’t…! I mean, I accidentally…”

She sighed, and lowered her head.

“What I meant was,” Starlight took a deep breath, “Please… come in.”

The Alicorn nodded slowly, her bright purple eyes never leaving Starlight as she let the smaller pony herd her into the room. While Starlight trot around to her bed, and tried to not look like she was trying to smooth down the unkempt covers, the Princess gave herself a moment to take in the room, much as its owner had only a minute ago.

If Starlight recognized the mask Celestia wore, the one she had spent centuries crafting to avoid breaking down at the sight of Luna’s stars and moon, she didn’t let on.

Starlight finished whatever she was doing that was certainly not fixing up her room for a royal visit, and turned back to her friend and former sovereign.

She smiled, which even she was surprised at. “So… what can I do for you?”

“Actually,” Celestia smiled back, “I came here, hoping to see how you were doing.”

There was a noticeable pause before Starlight answered, “Oh, I’m… fine.”

“Fine?” Celestia frowned, and tilted her head in a knowing way.

The unicorn shook her head, “Well… as fine as I can be. But, shouldn’t you be downstairs? What with the whole… meeting?”

Celestia’s smile returned, now a bit more genuine than before.

“Ah, the wonders of being retired! I don’t have to do anything if I don’t feel like it,” she laughed, a sparkle returning to her eyes, “And Sunset has enough advisors down there. Pinkie, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash think she should make a big, public campaign out of it, to show off how wonderful magic could be in the human world…”

Starlight snorted, also genuinely, “Which Pinkie, and did she say that? Or did she call for a big party?”

“The P-word might have been thrown around,” Celestia nodded, “And… I believe both Pinkies were in attendance.”

“We should put a bell on one of them,” Starlight chuckled.

“Indeed! But,” the Alicorn shrugged lightly with her wings, careful not to unbalance the package on her back, “I believe the others are suggesting a more… measured approach. I didn’t stick around too long, you understand.”

Starlight nodded, her smile still on her face. Her mood had certainly gone up at Celestia’s regaling.

“Well,” she sighed, “If that’s all, then thank you for coming to see me. I’ll be fine, I promise. I just need a little more time to…”

Celestia held one wing out, her large, white pinions covering Starlight’s lips, forestalling her from continuing. Once she had the unicorn’s attention, Celestia coughed, gently, her eyes stealing back to her mysterious package.

“Actually,” she said, her voice again dropping into that withdrawn tone, as though she were… afraid of Starlight, “I did come here for another reason…”

Celestia’s horn lit, and the box on her back lifted into the air, before coming down onto the bed. Then, a second flash of golden light neatly sliced open the tape holding the top of the cardboard container shut.

Starlight watched this with a curious fascination.

“What… what’s this?”

The Princess took a tentative step backward, and nodded towards the box.

“Something that belongs to you,” she said, quietly, “Something I… I don’t have the right to keep.”

“Celestia?” Starlight frowned, a sudden welling of concern cracking through her self-imposed indifference, “Is something wrong?”

Celestia shook her head, “No. Nothing at all is wrong. In fact, everything is as it should be. Please… open the box.”

Her curiosity, as well as a little of her paranoia, piqued, Starlight looked to the mysterious box. She leaned in, and carefully pulled both halves of the lid back.

And there, she froze. Starlight’s hackles rose up. Her ears lowered to the sides of her head. Her irises shrank to pinpricks.

The box contained several things, she could see. Yet, right at the top, there was a piece of white drawing paper, folded with an uneven crease, and edged with the colorful remnants of an arts and crafts project, no doubt covering the other side of the paper.

But what truly caught her heart in a vice, and squeezed… was the crooked, hoof-written name in one corner of that paper.

“Sunset Shimmer,” Starlight said, her voice a hoarse whisper, “Age seven…”

The vice instantly jumped up into her throat, causing the purple unicorn to swallow, though her mouth was quite oddly dry just then.

Possibly because, as she only then noted, her eyes were stealing all the moisture in her body.

Starlight looked back to the Princess, who merely stared back. Celestia motioned, with as little movement as possible, for Starlight to go on.

And so, she did. Carefully, she removed the first picture, and opened it. The picture was amateurish, naturally. A blue sky made up of too much paint, with a white castle in the foreground, touched up with golden glitter. And atop the highest tower, stood a little amber unicorn, in all her stick-shaped glory, standing next to a white Alicorn with her wings outspread.

The next painting wasn’t much better, but Starlight didn’t care in that moment. All she could see was beauty.

Sunset, aged six, had apparently managed to get Celestia’s majordomo, Kibitz, to stand still and take a portrait. He looked good with a black mane, even if it was all in crayon. Starlight, though she barely knew him, had also never seen such a smile drawn anywhere near the vicinity of the old stallion.

Another painting came out of the box, each of its predecessors making up a pile besides it. This one showed how, by age nine, Sunset had firmly grasped watercolors, and perspective. Starlight could almost feel the warm, sunny beach receding off into the horizon. There was something off about the reflection of the sun in the surf, but it showed promise…

All of them did. Each painting, picture, or portrait she pulled from the box represented another stage of a young artist growing into her own. The earliest, some from before Sunset had gone to live at the Palace, still showcased a certain innate understanding of composition, however. Sunset’s colors were breathtaking, even if the models were stick-figures, or the angles and dimensions weren’t quite right.

Starlight didn’t care. She loved everything she saw. Her smile, once forced, began to radiate out from her face. She could feel the smile begin to take up space in her eyes, forcing out the tears she’d been shedding in sorrow since this whole ordeal had started. The smile dripped down her throat, warming every muscle in her chest like she’d just poured hot tea right from the pot, though it did nothing for the tightness that still held her voice in check.

A sketch of ponies dressed up in the Hearth’s Warming Play costumes came up next, by a thirteen-year-old Sunset. It was done like an old woodcut, with little hashes and lines for shading, and was definitely a self-portrait, if the very Sunset-like Princess Platinum in the center was any indication.

The art teacher only gave it a B, thus earning Professor Cloptimentary Colors, whoever that was, Starlight’s undying enmity…

And on, and on they went. Paintings of Canterlot. Portraits of ponies Starlight had never met. Beautiful recreations of masterpieces. A completely black page, from Sunset’s ‘gothic’ phase, judging by how she was fourteen and signing her name as ‘Sunkill Dimmer’.

Though, that one got a curiously embarrassed laugh out of Starlight, who suddenly wondered what her dad had done with all the skulls in her room back home…

Finally, there were only two things left in the box. One was a simple, if quite badly aged, picture, again creased poorly and folded up. The other, a thick book. Starlight, not even slowing down her ravenous appetite for Sunset’s art, eagerly grabbed at the picture.

And, once again, froze.

Sunset Shimmer, age 4. She’d written the number, though it was a bit crooked. And her name only had about half of its letters in the right direction or orientation.

Sunset, for it was clearly Sunset Shimmer, stood in the center. A gold unicorn stick-figure, with the widest and happiest smile of any portrait or painting Starlight had seen thus far, beamed out at her from the page.

On one side stood an orange stick figure with a dark orange mane that was mostly just a few loops and squiggles, matched by a long, similarly orange squiggle under his muzzle. And on the other, a light purple mare, with a purple mane cut by a turquoise line.

If the two other ponies were smiling too, Starlight couldn’t tell. The tears had finally gotten hold of her, and she could no longer see clearly. She took one, haggard breath…

There was a shuddering sigh.

But it was not Starlight’s. She turned around with dreaded slowness, at once not believing, and not wanting to believe what she’d heard.

Princess Celestia tried to look away, but there was no hiding the tear tracks carving their way down her white cheeks, nor the way her withers quivered with barely-suppressed sorrow. Even her mane, ethereal, and glorious, hung limp atop her head, weighed down by her heavy heart.

“Princess…” Starlight gasped, raising one hoof towards the Alicorn. In one, horrifying second, her memories of the throne room returned. When the truth of Sunset’s parentage had finally come crashing down upon all of them, Starlight…

My daughter is afraid of me, was what she’d thought, before she knew who Sunset’s shocked gaze had settled on.

I’ve lost my daughter.

And so has she, she’d thought as Celestia learned the truth alongside them.

But, Celestia had come here with a goal, a quest to complete. She drew up with what little majesty remained to her, and she forced herself to look back at the box.

“There is one more… one more thing,” she swallowed several times, in succession, “One more thing for you that I took…”

Starlight’s gaze was drawn, unbidden, back to the box, and the strange book within. With a gingerly touch, her magic lifted the tome from its confines, and slowly opened up, to reveal its contents.

At first, she couldn’t understand what she was looking at. Then, she couldn’t believe it.

The first picture in the photo album was moving. A tiny Sunset Shimmer gazed up in starry-eyed fascination at the vaulted ceiling of Canterlot Palace, her laugh caught in her throat as she still couldn’t believe she was going to live here now!

“Princess?” Sunset asked, her eyes still locked onto one of the chandeliers.

“Hm? Yes, Sunset?” the white Alicorn smiled as she followed her newest charge through the hall.

Sunset looked back at the one who took her in, and smiled.

“How big will my bed be? And… and do I hafta share it with anypony?”

Celestia beamed, “Why… you’ll have the biggest bed in Canterlot, next to mine! And you—

Starlight turned a few pages, cutting the memory spell off. The next memory, trapped in a moving photograph, was of Sunset sitting, shamefaced, in a pool of mixing paints.

“Well,” Celestia sighed, “I’m sure Da Pinto would disagree…”

Sunset hunkered down even lower, her eyes trying not to look at the priceless wallpainting she’d covered over with her own hoofpainted Celestia eating cake. A little bit of blue paint plopped right on top of her muzzle from its place in her mane, reminding the little filly that in her eagerness to thank the Princess for taking her in, she’d overstepped an un-step-able boundary.

This, Celestia noticed.

“… But I like it!”

“I’m so sorry Princess! I didn’t… what?” Sunset was stunned, stupefied, even, “What did…?”

The Princess went down to nuzzle the confused filly, never minding the paint that—

Another page. Sunset at the Grand Galloping Gala with Prince Blueblood. Neither could have been more than ten years old…

… and they couldn’t be happier to be going!

“We’re going to the Ga~la!” they sang together, bouncing around one another in their foal-sized suit and dress, “We’re going to the Ga~la!!—

Starlight slammed the book shut. Her mouth was dry, and every silent, heaving breath ached in her chest.

“These are memories,” she said aloud, neither intending the words for herself nor the Princess.

Celestia, looming behind Starlight like an oncoming train, sighed quietly.

“I thought the gift you got for Twilight’s coronation was very nice,” she said, “And after this whole thing started, I realized that… well, that I had stolen them from you.”

Starlight spun around, but found the Alicorn had turned her head to stare out the nearby window.

“Princess…” she started to say, but stopped when a white wing twitched up, in a command for silence.

A few moments passed, in silence. Then, Celestia continued, “Sunset was… even if I wasn’t a good mother at times, she was like my own. I tried so hard to do what was right for her. But my cowardice… my inability to accept that somepony might love me back, cost me opportunities to help her become better.”

Starlight closed her eyes as the Princess spoke. Every word was a reminder of what she had lost, a prickly, stabbing pain in her heart. The memories she had already seen replayed behind the darkness of her sight, only enhancing what she felt.

“Her fall,” Celestia breathed in, slowly, voice shaking, “was entirely my fault.”

“No,” Starlight whispered, too quiet for the other pony to hear, “No… it was mine…”

Starlight knew it was her fault. She had been the one to let her pettiness get the better of her. She was the one who had destroyed what made ponies special. She was the one who broke Time itself, and lost the one thing that would have made it all worthwhile in the end.

Celestia’s breathing calmed, if only a little, in the silence.

Finally, she said, “These memories should belong to you. You should have been there with her the entire time. You were her real… her real mother.”

Starlight’s eyes snapped open. She grit her teeth, and snarled as her horn flared to magical life.

The Princess froze as her whole form became wreathed in Starlight’s aura. She yelped, surprised, but made no move to free herself as she was hauled into the air, and pulled inexorably towards the shaking, rage-shivering mare.

She was brought into a hover, just a few inches off the floor, right at Starlight’s eye level.

“Don’t…” Starlight snorted, and her eyes narrowed, “Don’t you… EVER! Say! That! Again!”

For a brief moment, from the look on Celestia’s face, it was clear she honestly thought Starlight was about to hit her.

Then, the look on her face turned into one of incredulous shock, as Starlight pulled the much larger mare into a tight, squeezing hug. Celestia reflexively started to return the embrace, but paused.

Starlight pressed her face into the crook of Celestia’s neck, and whispered, “You were just as much her mother as I am. Thank you… thank you for protecting her…”

The dam was broken. Both mares tightened their holds on one another, Celestia gaining a slight advantage from having wings to throw into the hug. Starlight regained control by rubbing the other mare’s back with her hooves. They each poured their hearts out into each other, letting the tears flow out, taking with them the pain and the fears they’d each been holding within.

Starlight, with the ache of a child lost, and Celestia with something almost the same.

Minutes passed, and the crying began to shift. Sorrow and grief slowly morphed into a sort of happy, sad, joyous thing that lacked description or definition.

Starlight laughed, surprising herself. And through her laughter, she said, “Besides… we both know it was my crazy genes that made her a tough kid to raise.”

Celestia barked out a laugh.

“You think your genes hold a monopony on crazy? Oh, have I got stories to tell you…!”

“Yeah, actually!” Starlight giggled, and started pushing away from the larger Alicorn, “You actually do!”

“I… what?” Celestia asked, gasping for air as she came down, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. She settled to her haunches down on the bed beside Starlight, smile still plastered over her muzzle.

“I mean,” said Starlight, now wiping away tears of a different sort, “that you do owe me some stories. About Sunset.”

At their daughter’s name, both mares finally got their laughter under control, and a degree of sobriety took hold again, though this time it was like a light blanket over a warm pool of good feelings. Starlight smiled, genuinely, up at Celestia, and Celestia smiled right back.

Both found themselves a little less lonely and lost, just then.

Then, Starlight poked the ancient Princess in her ribs.

“Now, you are going to go with me through every art piece, and every memory in that book. I want to know everything!”

A twinkle came back into Celestia’s eye, “Everything? Oh, surely not everything?”

A glint found its own way into Starlight’s.

“Everything…”

The meeting, having been going for a little less than an hour, finally ended with the sound of Twilight’s gavel striking the Cutie Map table. This was immediately followed by the panicked protest of a particular pink party planner pony.

“This is an outrage!”

“Yeah, you tell ‘em, Pinks!”

“I demand a recount!”

Each of the Elements of Harmony, as well as Sunburst and Sunset Shimmer, sighed wearily, facehoofed, or otherwise shook their heads in mild disapproval at Pinkie and Pinkie’s antics. The decision wasn’t just final, it wasn’t theirs to make.

Rainbow Dash growled, “Pinkie, just give it up. Uh, both of you,” before she hopped out of her seat, performed a perfect corkscrew maneuver, and flew out the door. She still had weather team work to handle, and the daylight was wasting away.

“Indeed, darling… er, darlings,” Rarity concurred, trotting out of the room with a small stack of paper orders floating along in her aura, “Sunset’s made her decision, and I’m sure it will all be for the best.”

Fluttershy and Applejack each waved farewell to their friends, before quickly exiting the vicinity of a Pinkie Pie meltdown. Both mares had plenty of work to do, without getting caught up in another adventure.

The other Pinkie, whom Sunset couldn’t definitively pick out as hers yet, placed a comforting hoof around her counterpart’s withers, and began leading her out as well.

“Ah, don’t worry about it! We’ll have our own ‘Reveal Magic to the World’ party! And it’ll have black licorice! And cookies!

“You know what?” she threw up one hoof, dramatically, as the two pink earth ponies exited the room, “Forget the licorice!”

The last three ponies in the throne room were Princess Twilight, Sunset Shimmer, and Sunburst, all of whom were trying not to laugh too hard as their pink friends finally left to do whatever it was that two Pinkies did when they were in the same universe.

It was either laugh, or worry. And all three had enough of that.

“You guys think the one on the left was mine?” Sunset smirked, though her raised eyebrow betrayed her uncertainty, “I mean, she does that kitty-smile thing like mine does.”

Twilight shook her head, “Can’t tell. My Pinkie started doing that too. Probably.”

“I could probably figure out a blood test of some sort, to determine dimensional origins,” Sunburst idly scratched at his beard with one hoof, “But I’m fairly certain all that would come out is sugar.”

Another round of chuckles filled the crystal chamber. Sunset, in particular, seemed lost in her moment of merriment, only pausing as she felt a feathered wingtip brush across her shoulder.

Twilight smiled, softly, and said, “I’m really proud of you, you know?”

“Oh? What for?” Sunset settled into Spike’s usual seat, leaving Sunburst to lean against Dash’s.

The Princess nodded towards her cross-dimensional protégé.

“From how you described your situation in the Journal,” Twilight smiled, “I expected you to want to upload a film to, ah, MyStable, or send out a telegram to all your… peeps? Are they peeps?”

Sunset tried very, very hard not to laugh at her friend’s baffling attempt at referencing human technology, but only ended up looking like she’d been sucking on lemons.

Twilight, to her credit, caught that look, which quickly caused her smile to falter a bit.

“I, ah…” her smile strained to keep itself alive, “I didn’t get any of that right, did I?”

Sunset snorted, and tried to give the Princess a comforting wink.

“Close enough, I guess,” she laughed, “And… yeah. I suppose before yesterday, I would have done that. Made a vlog, updated my gaming channel…”

“Show off,” Twilight mock-huffed at Sunset’s casual use of human techno-babble.

“… but then, well…” Sunset glanced over to Sunburst, apparently lost for words.

Sunburst, however, had a few to spare. “Yesterday happened.”

“Right!” Sunset pointed one wing at her father and made a little ‘pew-pew’ gesture… that she only then, with flushed cheeks, remembered they wouldn’t get. She then, awkwardly, ruffled her wings back into place.

“A-and let me tell you!” she went on, if only to cut her embarrassment short, “Yesterday really taught me the importance of giving things time… I know I still need some.”

If the prevailing vibe in the Castle of Friendship was one of happiness, joy, or positivity, Sunset realized that her last statement probably crushed all that. What was left was an almost silent tension, as though someone had plucked a flat guitar string.

Sunburst walked up to his little girl, yet refrained from placing a hoof on her foreleg or shoulder. Instead, he simply stood at her side, and seemed to trust in his presence being enough.

It worked, if the way Sunset’s shoulders lost some tension could be believed. The Princess of Friendship noted this, and leaned towards her friend.

“Do… do you wanna talk about it?” she whispered, one hoof reaching across the table like an offering.

Sunset took a long, slow breath in. When she exhaled it, also slowly, her face still held a line of worry.

“I don’t know. Kinda? Kinda not?” Sunset leaned back in the chair, sitting in a far more human pose than Twilight thought was necessarily comfortable, and sighed, “I guess I just… had this whole new thing dumped in my lap, and I still don’t know how to process it all.”

Sunburst cleared his throat quietly, trying not to disturb Sunset’s thoughts. Yet, even the tiny interruption caused her ears to twitch in his direction.

The jig being up, he took a moment to collect himself, and said, “But it’s not… a bad sort of thing, right?”

The amber Alicorn glanced up at her father… and managed a little smile.

“Not… entirely, no.”

Her smile faded, however, and in the next second, Sunset was leaning over the crystal table, her eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon.

“But… it’s such a big change. I mean,” she very noticeably did not look at Sunburst, “You and Starlight were my friends, and now you’re… you were actually my parents this whole time? How do I even begin to process that?

“And what is Celestia to me now!?” Sunset threw her forelegs up into the air, dramatically, “I guess she’s my… she adopted and raised me. We never said it out loud, but I always knew she saw me as more than just some orphan she took in. Seriously, who didn’t see the way she was choking up the whole time Harmony was here?”

Sunset grunted in exasperation, and then slammed her head right down on the table. Her horn made a hard clack as it hit first.

“Ow…” Sunset groaned.

Twilight and Sunburst both grimaced, and raised up a hoof each towards their own horns in sympathy.

Sunburst recovered first, gingerly rubbing Sunset’s back, and saying, “Well, it’s not like this is the first big change you’ve gone through. I mean, from pony to human… and then to an Alicorn!”

The stallion’s eyes flashed for a moment, and a crooked grin found its way onto his muzzle. “My little girl’s already an Alicorn…” he said with a faraway voice.

“Your Stellar Flare is showing,” Sunset grumbled, her voice carried surprisingly well by the crystal table.

While Sunburst was busy recoiling with disgust and horror, Sunset looked up again, a few new creases across her brow. Twilight tried to give her friend a big, infectious smile, but Sunset hardly noticed the Princess’ attempt.

“It’s not the same,” she sighed, fogging up the table, “Becoming an Alicorn didn’t change who I was! It was an addition… an unwanted one, but still. It didn’t make me have to look back over my whole life trying to figure out some sort of clues as to when it happened!

“It didn’t…” Sunset’s voice caught, for a second, before she looked back to her father, “I always thought of myself as Sunset Shimmer. Now… am I still Sunset? Or am I Sunshine?”

Sunset expected one of many things to happen when she finally said that. She expected Sunburst to look away, or to cry, or maybe even scream something back at her.

She never, not in a million years, expected him to smile. And it wasn’t a pained smile, either. The soft lighting inside the castle had somehow caught in his eyes, and Sunset was reminded so much of her Rarity’s diamonds, the way they sparkled.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he tilted his head to one side, though he clearly knew the answer to his own question.

Sunburst trotted back up to her chair, and reached out with a hoof. But, instead of settling it on her shoulder, or tussling her hair, he pointed straight down.

At her flank.

She and Twilight threw him a confused look.

“Your Cutie Mark, Sunset,” he chuckled.

Sunset shifted, and moved until she could look down at her flank. She managed to stick one hindleg out, just enough to show off the gold and red spiral sun. Even watching herself get the mark back in the past, she had no real idea what it meant.

“What do you see?” said Sunburst.

Sunset continued to shoot him a look… but there was something encouraging about the way he was smiling.

“A sun,” she said, simply.

“Made up of what two colors?”

She didn’t need to look, but Sunset was suddenly in a humoring mood.

“Red and gold.”

“Orange, too,” he said, then tapped his chin as though he were in thought, “Hmmm… now that you say that, it almost sounds like the colors of the sunset…”

“I see…” Twilight mused. That same curious smile crossed her face just now, though Sunset couldn’t place it. She glanced between her two assailants, trying to guess where it was they were going with this.

“But there’s also gold,” Sunburst said, his eyebrows raised, “Gold, such as…”

Sunset stared at her father. Then, she looked down to her mark. Slowly, an idea began to appear before her.

Like a new sunrise…

“Sunshine,” she whispered, her eyes widening, “Golden like sunshine…”

The moment we touched, I saw my life flash before my eyes, Sunset recalled. But they weren’t my memories. Or, they were… and her Cutie Mark appeared just then…

“You’re both,” Sunburst’s voice cut through the haze of her thoughts, “Our Sunshine, and our Sunset. You’re… you’re like a universal constant.”

“Or,” Twilight said, Sunset hardly noticing the warm smile on her friend’s face, “A perfectly symmetrical being. Balanced by yourself…”

Sunset’s mouth worked, but no sound came out.

Ouroboros, she thought.

She didn’t see it coming, as Sunburst’s forelegs wrapped around her shoulders, and began to drag her into a hug, but Sunset wasn’t about to let the opportunity go to waste. She nearly threw herself into it, almost toppling the poor stallion with her greater Alicorn strength.

And, once again, the chamber was filled with laughter. Sunset held onto her father with all her heart, a perfect moment of contentment, of family.

Twilight looked on, finally seeing Sunset and Sunburst take at least the very first step onto the road to recovery. But, as she watched, and listened, another sound began to mix with that of her friends’ laughter.

It almost sounded like…

“It…” Sunset had noticed too, whispering, “It can’t be, can it?”

Sunburst’s ears perked.

“Starlight?”

Another pair of voices were laughing, just beyond the throne room doors. In quick order, both Alicorns were up and racing into the hallway, Sunburst trailing behind them.

“It’s coming from the stairs?” Twilight frowned toward the main staircase in the castle’s front. Indeed, a chorus of laughter was wafting from that direction, as if carried on a breeze directed by the castle’s crystalline structure.

Filing away the thought of studying her old home’s harmonics, Princess Twilight led the charge down the dark purple hallways. Door after green, crystalline door flew past, and the banners flapped in the breeze generated by three ponies’ galloping for all they were worth.

But soon, they came into the entrance hall, and all three could see clearly the cause of the mirthful disturbance.

Trotting down the leftmost stair, practically hoof-in-hoof, came Starlight Glimmer and the Princess Celestia, giggling like schoolfillies who just overheard a naughty joke. They reached the bottom landing, and each beamed like they were a sun in miniature.

“Sunset!” they both cried out, before swamping the hapless amber Alicorn. She almost took flight, they fell on her so fast. But, it only took one long, white neck wrapping around her one way, and two shorter, purple hooves on the opposite, to hold Sunset down.

“Uh, hi?” she squeaked out as both mares tightened their grip, “I guess you’re feeling better…?”

The hugs continued another moment, leaving both the Princess of Friendship and Sunburst to step back and wonder at the strange turnaround.

“Didn’t you say she was depressed?” Twilight whispered, out the side of her mouth, “I’m not complaining, but I’ve also learned to worry whenever Starlight looks too happy about something.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Sunburst whispered back, though his pupils were suspiciously narrowing to fine points within his eyes, “But… just in case, you might want to grab the other Element Bearers…”

The nuzzling finally being over, Starlight released her deathgrip first, and took a few steps back.

“Sorry about that,” she said, smiling, though her eyes were clearly taking in the sight of Sunset, “Celestia came by and… we talked.”

“Talked?” Sunset’s nose scrunched up, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously, “Starlight, Celestia doesn’t just talk.”

She turned, and gave the alabaster pony a look that could shame Pinkie Pie out of candy.

“You weren’t… gossiping, by any chance?”

Celestia balked, raising a hoof to her chest, as though she were offended by the very notion.

“Why, Sunset! I never!” she proclaimed, dramatically, to where even Twilight was shocked at how her acting hadn’t improved in the slightest, “I am hurt you would even think we were gossiping.”

Sunset’s withering stare continued, unabating.

The Princess sniffed, and looked away.

“… I was just sharing some your artwork I kept on my fridge…”

“Aha! I knew it! You old gossip… uh…” Sunset’s vindictive jubilation fell away as her ears flattened against her skull. Suddenly, her mouth was quite dry, and the room had risen considerably in temperature.

Sunset glanced, nervously, over to Starlight.

“She… she showed you my art?”

Starlight nodded. “And… a couple memories.”

Sunset’s eyes twitched.

“Um… she didn’t show you anything too embarrassing, did she?”

Starlight flashed her a smile, “No, don’t worry about that! There wasn’t anything too bad.”

“Oh? Oh…” Sunset smiled, relief flooding through her body, “That’s good. That’s really…”

“Though,” Starlight’s eyes sparkled, “I have to say, I’m so glad you grew out of that Blueblood phase. Flash Sentry really is a nice boy…”

Sunset slowly lowered her head, and looked at her hooves.

“Oh… no…” she groaned.

“Yes,” Sunburst bristled, “A nice… boy…”

“A boy…!?” Celestia’s eyes became like large, shining pools, and a rictus grin completely overtook her face, “Oh! Oh my! I… I can’t believe it!”

Sunset’s eyes, devoid of hope, glanced up in Twilight’s direction.

“You can send me to the moon, right? That’s in your job description now?”

Twilight flinched back at the dour tone in her friend’s voice. The Princess quickly looked around, before her ear began to twitch.

“I, uh… oh? Oh! Sorry, Sunset…” she started charging her horn, “What was that? I’m needed right away? Don’t worry! I’m coming, Spike! Gotta run!”

And with a pop, she was gone, leaving Sunset alone with her family.

“Coward,” she hissed.

“Oh, don’t worry so much,” Starlight pressed herself up against Sunset’s side, and began nuzzling their cheeks together, “Your moms are allowed to tease you, after all.”

Sunset was all set for a good glower… until her ears suddenly registered what Starlight had said.

“Moms?” she asked with special emphasis on the last, and most important, letter.

Celestia leaned down to better meet Sunset at eye level, and said, “Why, yes. We found it to be a most agreeable compromise.”

Sunset… didn’t know what to say to that. She looked to Sunburst, but found him just as perplexed by the situation as she was. So, she turned back to her… her two mothers, and began wondering at what sort of dark pact had taken place.

Both were just smiling at her.

Smiling wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Not after the last two days.

“Starlight?” she looked to the mare in question, “Are… are you really feeling okay?”

Starlight stared back. And, for a moment, Sunset would have believed her if she’d said ‘yes’ to that question.

But Sunset could see her eyes. And those were not the eyes of someone, or anypony, who could honestly answer that question. The smile didn’t reach them.

“No,” Starlight said, after a moment’s hesitation, “I’m not okay, Sunset. And… And I don’t think I ever will be.”

Sunburst took a tentative step forward, but halted as Starlight held up one hoof to stall him. Sunset knew from just the way he moved that he was practically aching to hold Starlight. Sunburst was almost tapping out his frustration through his hooves as he stood ready.

He wasn’t some brave, heroic soul. Not like his wife, or his child, or his friends. But, he knew the one he loved needed him, and he would have done anything to be there, in that moment.

Reminds me of a blue-haired guitarist I know…

Starlight took her own step, towards Sunset. With such deliberate slowness, as if Sunset were a flame that could burn her with a touch… or snuff out in an instant, she leaned in, and pressed the sides of their necks together in a loose, but no less warm, hug.

Sunset felt the warmth there, even the parts that weren’t physical. She leaned into the hug, and felt the lightest drop of moisture touch her mane as Starlight pressed her face into it.

Starlight whispered, her voice hoarse and broken, “I might spend the next week in bed. Or, I could cry my eyes out while checking sums or looking over an announcement for next term. I could just… shut down, and stare out a window for hours.

“But,” she breathed in, and took a step back. Her eyes watered, but even still, Sunset could see the little inner light pushing back the dark, “As long as I have you, today, I think I can… I’ll get better. One day.”

The two broke apart, and a moment of silent calm fell back over the castle. Sunset simply smiled, in the soft, sad way that she could when she knew the most… beautiful and important being in the world was in pain, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

Sunburst, finally, took a step forward, and coughed.

“Ah… perhaps we can do… something together?” he offered, “I mean, we still have a whole day left before the week starts again. I know you have classes…”

“Right, yeah,” Sunset shook herself out of her funk, and tried to smile more genuinely, “Um, I’m actually a little ahead right now, so we could…”

Starlight’s eyes shone like diamonds.

“Ice cream?” she asked.

Sunburst frowned. “Ice cream?”

“Ice cream!” Celestia cheered, “Oh! I’ve always wanted to try human ice cream!”

The Princess frowned, and blushed.

“Ah, I don’t mean human-flavored ice cream, you understand…?”

Sunset’s eyes flew open wide again.

“What!? Oh, wait, no…!”

Sunburst stamped his approval, “Oh! In the human world? Well, that would be splendid! Then, you could show us where you live!”

Starlight glanced over to him, and asked, "You think your mom or my dad might want to go?"

As Sunburst was about to calmly, and agreeably, shout down such a ridiculous concept, Celestia herself stepped in, with a genuine laugh, and said, "The more the merrier! I'll send a letter, and they can meet us here!"

Sunset looked back at Sunburst, her brain suddenly struggling to keep up, “I… wait, you…?”

“Well, at least we can look at all the art you’ve done,” he went on, accepting the general trajectory of his day from then on, “You can show us your pet, Ray… and we can talk about your coursework at the college…”

“Oh… you don’t want to listen to my problems all day…” Sunset tried to subtly take a few steps back, enough to snap off an emergency teleport. If she hurried, she could kill Twilight Sparkle for abandoning her to this fate, and then flee through the mirror before any guards could catch her.

Tragically, a large, white wing stopped her plan dead in its tracks.

“Come along, Sunset!” Celestia crowed, and began herding the newest Alicorn towards the Mirror room, “I want to try every flavor! Do they have cake flavor over there too?”

“Oh… joy…” Sunset groaned… though, not without a little smile creeping its way onto her face.

Sunburst made to follow them, when something seemed to snag the edge of his cape. He stopped, and looked back, expecting a lost book, or perhaps a misplaced candelabra holding his cape down.

Instead, he saw his wife.

“Starlight?”

She looked at him in a way that he found impossible to describe. There was love in her eyes, true. But it was a love tinged with every color of the rainbow of life. Sorrow. Regret. Happiness. Anger. Boundless joy.

Yet, somehow… he knew what she was about to say, before she said it. It was just something about that smile.

“Not today,” she said, quietly, “Not tomorrow. But… soon. One day, soon…”

She stopped. His lips had found hers, and their lightest pressure sent her heart fluttering like it did when she first met him. She closed her eyes, and let the memory take her away for a moment.

When he was done, Sunburst pressed his forehead up against hers, to where the base of their horns could touch.

“Yes,” he said, sadly, “I’d like another one, too.”

The two ponies smiled.

Then, hoof in hoof, they followed their daughter back into the castle, pulled along by thoughts of memories, of love, and of ice cream.

This shadow, after all, would pass. Sunset knew this. Celestia knew this. Sunburst and Starlight knew this. It would take time. It would take new memories to replace those lost.

And, it would take a triple scoop of mint and chocolate ice cream.

With sprinkles.

Epilogue - Family

View Online

Trixie Lulamoon was supposed to let everypony know when she was within one-hundred feet of the Cutie Map Table. It was even a Royal Decree, signed into law mere days after Twilight’s latest coronation. It was a new record. Even Celestia and Luna had waited a month before they were fed up enough to temporarily ban Chancellor Puddinghead from Canterlot.

Even then, that was only so they could eat something without processed sugar for a change.

The Alarm spell, that was supposed to keep Trixie honest about her restraining order, had been bypassed, no doubt by a Great and Powerful magician, as she was now standing before the map itself, directly across from Twilight Sparkle’s throne.

And who, of all the beings of the multiverse, should be sitting in that throne just then, than the Spirit of Harmony herself?

The two beings stared at one another. Harmony, with a look that bordered on disdain. Trixie, with a proud bearing only marginally damaged by the sight of a day-old foal nomming on her mane while perched atop Trixie’s Great and Powerful withers.

Celeste Lulamoon completely missed the high-stakes staring contest going on around her. The gray unicorn filly was just happy to be with her momma.

Harmony, it would appear, broke first.

“I am… a little impressed, Interloper,” she said, “I’m not sure how you were able to summon me here.”

“A magician never reveals her secrets.” Trixie turned back to the foal on her back, and added, “Lesson one.”

Celeste looked up, a long strand of Trixie’s mane caught in her mouth as she happily chewed away.

“I see,” Harmony sighed, then glanced around the room, “I don’t suppose you’re here for any particular reason…?”

“Trixie has been busy the last day or so,” the self-named mare said, “And I’ve been left out of the loop. So… Trixie is told that you were the one who sent Sunshine back in time?”

“That’s not what happened,” Harmony shook her head, and slipped into an academic tone, “I merely allowed…”

“A likely story!” Trixie shouted, with Celeste mimicking her movements, pointed hoof and all, “And why, praytell, did you need to send a baby back in time!?”

The Spirit blinked a few times. Then, she frowned.

“If you would let me explain, the entire space-time…”

“Enough questions!” Trixie declared, cutting off Harmony yet again, “What’s done, is done!”

“Yes, that’s…” Harmony was having a hard time focusing for a moment, and briefly wondered why, “That’s how Time works, Trixie.”

“Excuse moi?” Trixie glared, though this was again undone somewhat by the baby nibbling on the end of her ear, “But who here has actually time-traveled?”

Harmony, despite not needed lungs, took a slow breath.

“Technically, I exist at all points of space and time, so…”

“Exactly!” Trixie shouted, standing now on her hindlegs in a grand, audience-pleasing gesture, “Me!”

The blue unicorn came back down to all fours, and took just a moment to look back, and make sure her baby was still atop her back. Finding the foal still giggling and holding tight, Trixie turned back towards the Spirit.

“But, that’s not what I’m here for tonight.”

Harmony could feel… something pressing down at her temples. She wasn’t aware she could get a migraine, but it would appear Trixie was pushing new grounds.

“… Yes?” she sighed.

“I have come here to ask you some questions,” Trixie declared, taking a seat in Applejack’s throne and settling little Celeste on her lap as she did so, “Pressing questions…”

The Spirit of Harmony groaned. It didn’t want to be here, suffering the indignity of dealing with Trixie. And she certainly didn’t like seeing somepony who lied as much as Trixie did, as a force of habit, and almost always to herself, sitting on Honesty’s throne.

I can feel it shivering from here, she thought, bitterly.

“Ask your questions.”

Trixie smirked, and Harmony could almost swear, the baby was too…

“Very well, Spirit of Harmony… if that is your real name…”

The pressure behind Harmony’s horn was building, and she didn’t like it.

Trixie clearly didn’t notice.

“… when were you born?”

Harmony’s ears twitched. The Spirit tilted her head to one side, and frowned.

“I… don’t understand the question. I was not born, but…”

“Bwha!” Celeste huffed in her mother’s lap, and scowled.

“Exactly,” Trixie leaned over and pecked Celeste on her brow, “You’re dodging the question.”

“… Are you taking counsel from a baby…?”

“That doesn’t sound like an answer,” Trixie said in a mocking, sing-song tone.

Harmony was surprised, and not pleasantly, to realize she had hackles. And they were standing up.

She rubbed her temple again, and said, “I… suppose the Tree of Harmony was planted over one-thousand years ago, by...”

“And who planted the original Tree of Harmony?” Trixie pointed an accusatory hoof at the Spirit.

Harmony could feel it’s eyes beginning to pulse with the pressure of having to deal with Trixie in such close proximity, and she was pretty sure she didn’t actually have eyes with which to even feel.

“The Pillars of Equestria planted aspects of their nature and their magic into the ground,” she said, though through clenched teeth, “And, following Twilight Sparkle’s ascension, I…”

“So!” Trixie stood up suddenly, Celeste bobbing in her magical aura, tiny hooves reaching for more mane to chew, “You admit it!”

“Admit… what? What!?” Harmony tried, again, to take in a deep, cleansing breath… only to have it rush out through her nose in a snort, “Trixie! How are you doing this!? I am the Serene Spirit of Harmony! How am I getting this angry!?”

Trixie smirked, and looked down.

Celeste… didn’t smirk back, but she did finally get ahold of a lock of Trixie’s mane, and so was contented anyway.

“Why,” Trixie placed a hoof over her heart, “Trixie did not mean to cause you any consternation. I was only trying to ascertain whether or not you knew who your father was.”

Harmony, still fuming, glared across the table.

“I… have three fathers, technically,” she said, slowly, so as not to melt the table.

Trixie nodded, and said, “So then, technically… Starswirl’s your father?”

“Yes, Trixie,” Harmony snarled, “Starswirl is…”

The Spirit’s eyes widened.

“Oh… oh, good Gods above and below… no…”

Trixie nuzzled her daughter, seemingly oblivious to the way Harmony suddenly went completely rigid.

“You hear that, Celeste?”

The baby cooed.

“That’s right!” Trixie hefted her child up, and turned her around to face what was becoming a shivering, sweating Harmony.

“You have a step-sister!”

Harmony’s lips drew into a tight line. Her right eye twitched. Her feathers… were falling out.

“But…” she licked her lips, and tried to speak, “But… if Starswirl is like my… and you married… and had a… then we… then… you…”

“Shhh!” Trixie shushed the Spirit, gently, “It’s alright. I know that this can be an emotional moment.”

Harmony looked up at the showpony. Her ethereal mane was starting to fray at the ends.

Trixie smiled.

“You can call me Mom. I don’t mind.”

By the way that Harmony’s face contorted in that moment, Trixie knew she’d hit something quite sensitive, and so took a few steps away from what was about to become an epicenter.

The Spirit threw back her head, and let loose a scream. A scream that bypassed the laws and nature of sound. A howling pain that could never be healed. It roared across time and space, and could be heard at both the beginning, and end of time.

And then, with a sound identical to an overstuffed paper bag exploding, she popped out of existence entirely, leaving behind little more than a crackle of dissipating light.

Trixie… did not smile. In fact, the look on her face suddenly fell away entirely, leaving behind the sort of expression ponies would give a pile of trash in the middle of the road.

“That’s for hurting my Bestie,” she hissed. Then, she picked up her baby and, setting Celeste on her withers, she started trotting out of the throne room.

Celeste, not used to ponies… exploding, tugged at her mother’s ears until Trixie tilted her head back. Then, the little filly gave her mother a curious, questioning look.

“Ah, don’t worry about it, kid!” she shrugged, and proudly high-stepped down the hall, “She’s not dead. Harmony’s just evaporated into the magical ether. She’ll be fine! And when she wakes up, maybe she’ll pick up some better manners before…”

Trixie stepped directly on the Alarm spell meant to maintain the magical restraining order on her, suddenly filling the whole castle… and Ponyville beyond with sirens and bells and enough flashing lights to shame a Manehattan dance-party.

Celeste, naturally, began cheering at the sight, and tried to join in on her wobbly foal-legs.

Trixie, on the other hoof, simply sighed, and started working on her alibi.

“The things I do for family…”

Sunset Glimmer

by Ninjadeadbeard

1 - Through a Mirror, Sunny

2 - My Past is my Tomorrow

3 - Delayed Sentencing

4 - The Last Lullaby

5 - Ouroboros

6 - Memories, Old and New

Epilogue - Family