Unworthy of the Sun

Chapters

The Secret Joys of Summer
Six Years Ago, Upon A Harsh Solstice
Bright Skies Fade to Falling Colours
Life Struggles Beneath Encroaching Ice
Destruction
A Prayer For Spring

The Secret Joys of Summer

If there was one thing Sunset Shimmer prided herself on, it was her knowing how to pick ‘em. In this case, knowing how to pick the right mansion for a bit of late-night thieving.

Crouching low on the rooftop, she counted under her breath. So far, she’d disabled the tripwire spells, the alarm for the tripwire spells, and the alarm that went off in the event of the alarm for the tripwire spells being disabled. Now she was waiting for the sapper charm to spread through the eaves.

“Five,” she breathed. “Four… three… two… one…”

Only her sensitive ears heard the sizzle. Every enchanted sensor around the building had just been extinguished. Not that there’d been many to find. She skewed her lips doubtfully.

From behind came several loud pants. Her partner-in-crime was more used to shouting than to sneaking.

“Don’t you think…?” The panting broke through before the voice strained on. “Don’t you think this… skulduggery… is just the teensiest bit unnecessary?”

“Lord Blueblood won’t miss yet another ‘shiny’ from his collection.” Sunset eased the window open. Not even any decent locks: obviously, His Lordship was as arrogant about his magical protection as he was about his mane-style. “You were the one who said the thing was going to waste.”

“Burglary wasn’t what I had in mind.”

Sunset suppressed a sigh. I suppose I can’t really blame you. A showpony likes the spotlight, not the shadows. But you did promise. You complained a lot, true, but you did promise. And here you are.

“But Trix, isn’t it worth a little risk?” Sunset tested the window with one hoof. The pane swung inwards on oiled hinges. “How do you think I’d feel if I hoarded this all to myself, without you knowing? Besides, isn’t there something romantic about it all? The moonlit thief, the master of the secret arts, and all that?”

“Oh, I see. So that’s why you ask the street magician for help with burgling.”

“You’re an open-minded mare. I thought you’d understand.” Besides, I need someone who knows how to arrange a smokescreen in a hurry. And who’s good with locks.

“Well… yes, but I see things differently when I’m trying not to slip into the road. Here's the smokescreen powder. Just be quick, will you?”

“Aren’t I always?” Sunset threw her a wide grin and slid cat-like through the gap.

Pity. Trixie would’ve loved to get a look around this place. Creepy old timber floor, menacing family portraits, the real red carpet: a magician could set up a hall of mystery in here. And… oh dear.

Sunset peered through the doorways as she went past. Disappointment lit up under her glowing horn: one room with an organ; one with a swarm of silverware and golden clocks and bronze statuettes smothering the ebony dresser; and one containing a baroque four-poster bed. Snores issued from this last one.

Hardly any spells at all inside the Blueblood estate. She tutted.

Nevertheless, the thrill burned through her, dimmer than usual but painful as ever. She’d used spells that even Trixie's stage props – Sorry Trix, she thought guiltily – could have equalled, and here she was where no amount of stern-faced teachers or uptight classmates could get at her! Horror sparked within, but it merely gave the fire a delightful tinge of surprise. Even the imaginary newspapers of tomorrow made her grin all the more widely. She’d know something the rest of the city wouldn’t.

Sunset peered into the next room, and there it was. She held her breath.

A guest bedroom, occupied by a four-poster bed slightly less baroque in design than the last one. Shelves up to the ceiling; collections of thimbles and neat little sepia-tone photographs in ornamental frames. Yet against this unassuming background – unassuming by Blueblood’s standards, at any rate – was the pulse.

The magical pulse was a heartbeat drumming along her sensitive horn. She felt her own heart beat in unison. Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum…

Gotcha.

Planting each hoof down as if testing for concealed mines, Sunset eased across the room. In the dark, she shut her eyes – sight would only distract her other senses – and let the beat speak to her. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.

There!

Her eyes opened. Right next to the ghostly veil of the bed. She sniffed at the dusty air, which tickled her nose.

Oh, please… You can’t be this stupid, Blueblood…

Sunset reached under and felt the knock of a glass case. Both hooves guided the case across and away from the spot, and when she groped again, the beats ran up her leg. Badumbadumbadum!

Sunset didn’t look at her prize. She didn’t need to. As soon as she slipped it under the folds of her cloak, magic shivered like a cat snuggling up to her chest.

I still got the old touch, she thought proudly.

Once more, she slid into the shadows, glad that this time she hadn’t accidentally woken anyone up.

I suppose you think you’re clever, said the voice, stealing artefacts from rich ponies. Makes you feel better about yourself, does it?

Thief. Liar. Corruptor.

Yet the sun shone all the more brightly on Sunset’s face as on the stained glass windows and the rising shelves, and she merely had to beam to quieten that irritating little nag in her head. Besides, that nagging voice was a mere echo here.

This chamber had once been the Main Academy Library, but in spite of the books still nestled on the high shelves, desks and scorch marks were taking over. Tables and chairs piled up along the sides, leaving the floor in the centre clear. It was that kind of lesson, and she could barely stop herself dancing on the spot with anticipation.

Two others stood near her. Between them, they formed a triangle a leap wide. On her left, her fellow student might have been a carving from a sulphur block. The mare had tamed her mass of a mane by forcing it into a tight bun that actually pulled at the skin on her face. Her expression could have been drawn by slide rules.

Sunset ignored her. This was all about the mare on her right.

And on her right, Celestia nodded to her.

Sunset wore no cloak, no mane accessories, not even any horseshoes. She found it helped. Magic was not to be tamed, but freed. And Celestia was watching her.

Within her head, she pushed the magic out of the depths and sculpted the words of the incantation. Poetry sang itself to life, as graceful as a salmon leaping upstream, as swift as a falcon’s dive, as wild as a wolf pack chasing the scent and fighting the snow and all united in pursuit of a rich feast. She saw them all. Then she saw the colours condense around them, become a rainbow that encircled the images which now faded away, and finally the seven hues shot up and she opened her eyes to see –

In the centre of the triangle, the rainbow glowed from floor to ceiling. Motes of red, yellow, blue, and violet drifted like dust in a sunbeam.

To her left, her fellow student was unmoved. To her right, Celestia bowed her head once: an imperial nod. An actual imperial nod!

“A very impressive achievement, Miss Shimmer.” Thus spoke the voice of music, or rather the voice that music secretly wished it could be. “You’ve even mastered the subtle fade from one hue to another. Perhaps the world of art is missing its next great genius.”

“Oh, well,” Sunset began before she gave way to giggles. Part of her burned with the blushing so hot she could feel it on her cheeks, but Celestia could make even a silly giggle feel welcome.

“Hm,” hummed her fellow student; Sunset tugged herself back down to reality. “Advanced heptachromatic photokinesis with a complete, continuous plane. Opthalmos’ Technique, I think, though the cylindrical arrangement suggests… the Column of All-Hazes?”

“Well remembered, Moondancer!” Celestia’s broad smile closed her eyes for a moment. “Your encyclopaedic knowledge never ceases to amaze me.”

A flicker of jealousy rose in Sunset’s chest at that smile. Hastily, she stamped it down. Already, that nagging voice echoed as though coming towards her from within a dark cave.

Don’t be petty, Sunset, it murmured. For once, she agreed with it. Pettiness wasn’t going to solve her problems.

Like a robot, Moondancer nodded to them both; Sunset could almost hear the gears clunk and whirr with the effort. “Good demonstration. How long did you have to practise for?”

“Oh, a few days. I didn’t keep track,” Sunset lied.

In fact, using the artefact she’d stolen last night, the rubbed-in magic had let her master the spell within minutes. Even if she hadn’t roped the things in on the quiet, though, she had no intention of giving Moondancer any hints.

There was something… bristly about Moondancer. Every time they met, Sunset had the impression she’d done something unspeakably offensive in the mare’s eyes, but that Moondancer was far too professional to actually mention it.

When Sunset returned her gaze – all too readily – to Celestia, she blinked in surprise. For a mere second, she swore her tutor had narrowed her eyes and raised a sceptical brow, so imperceptibly that it could have been a flicker behind the rainbow.

No. Celestia can make rainbows dance and sunshine sing, but she can’t read minds. That’s just an urban legend. No one can read minds. It would be like moving the sun with magic.

Perhaps she’s read the morning papers, though.

Whatever had just happened, Celestia was now all serene smiles again. A flicker of gold along her horn made the rainbow column flare like lightning, and then Sunset’s work was gone with her fears.

She and Celestia turned to Moondancer, whose face was tighter than usual. For once, Sunset felt a rare urge to pat the mare on the shoulder.

Not that you deserve to pat anyone, said the nagging voice, but Sunset glared until it vanished.

“And now,” said Celestia kindly, “I’d like to see your demonstration please, Moondancer.”

After the lesson. Always after the lesson. It was getting harder to find time anymore.

Sunset didn’t want – couldn’t afford – anyone seeing her. She lurked in the shadows of the corridor until Moondancer had closed the double doors behind her, and then she tensed her ears until the hoofsteps on stone died away.

The lesson was over. The rest of the world was away. Sunset’s heart floated to the sky and sank to the floor all at once. She hesitated before she knocked on the double doors.

Knock… knock… knock… Each one had to be dragged out of her.

“Enter,” said Celestia from within.

Sunset swallowed and pushed her way through. The doors closed behind her.

Outside of her lessons, no matter how much her chest burned at her own outrageous liberty, she could gaze upon Celestia. Upon those limbs that stood boldly against the earth and the dust. Upon an equine figure that curved and slid like the strokes of a painter’s brush. Upon a mane that ebbed and flowed through a sheer divine power, such as that found in oceans and hurricanes. Upon a powerful jawline, a commanding stare, yet all in the service of a smile that had spoken of aeons and knew things she – mumbling, servile mortal that she was – could never think even in her most inspired dreams.

No matter how many times she’d seen Celestia already, and no matter how often Celestia insisted, Sunset still looked away. She always looked away. Not that her tutor would mind in the slightest, but Sunset could never present herself as someone who’d stare. She had to be better than that.

“Uh,” she said. “Celestia? I… have a confession to make…”

No! Don’t say that! she thought.

Too late, the nagging voice woke up and sniffed. Ha! You won’t go through with it. You don’t even deserve the dignity of a confession. If you hadn’t committed the crime in the first place –

Regardless of the nagging voice, Sunset forced the words to come. Celestia was a God. One of the Pantheon. And a friend, at least. Perhaps more, if she was willing…

Overhead, Celestia hummed; Sunset heard her step closer. “Plagued by demons again, Sunset?”

“Not… literally.” She found it hard to tell with Celestia sometimes; Gods seemingly did everything in the world.

The divine sigh warmed her fringe with its sweet breath. Sunset didn’t dare move.

“But never mind that,” she said brightly, and she dared to meet Celestia’s gaze again. “I can’t rely on you to solve all my problems, now can I?”

“Indeed,” said Celestia. It could have been curt. It could have been simply matter-of-fact.

“Don’t let me spoil the mood. Today’s another beautiful, sunny day. Why don’t we enjoy the flower gardens, or read some ancient chronicles? Or we could watch the ponies in the street? I never get tired of the view from Imperial Towers.”

Celestia’s mane continued to undulate, and not for the first time, Sunset found herself shuffling where she stood. She hated moments like this. Sometimes, Celestia gave the impression that she was treating conversation like a game of chess.

Finally, she spoke: “Sunset Shimmer. My devoted Sunset Shimmer. More than once, I’ve compared you to the brightest and liveliest of mythical flames” – her lips slid with relish over the words – “the Everlasting Hearth of Life. And that’s no mean comparison, I assure you. Yet sometimes, I wonder if the comparison is too apt. Flames change direction all the time. What enchants one moment can hurt in another.”

Sunset kept a blank face. “That’s from the Pyrotheriad, isn’t it? Book Twelve, lines… uh, two hundred and something.”

Celestia chuckled. “Come now, Sunset. You’re not Moondancer. But… perhaps one last lesson can’t hurt.”

“Oh, Your Godliness, no. I-I couldn’t –”

“Gods traditionally grant protections to their followers, do they not? Heaven knows you’ve earned one. Between your… fantastic progress in the art of magic-craft” – Sunset grinned apologetically – “and our many years together, I rather think it’s overdue. Besides, this last lesson may help you when you most need it. Come.”

And that was it, really. Radiant as she was, generous as she was, Celestia was still a God. When a God said “Come”, a mortal darn well came. Sunset followed her back to the centre of the room.

“You’re too kind, Your Godliness.” Sunset’s legs itched to flee, yet terrified curiosity leaned her forwards, almost salivating.

“Now,” said Celestia, turning to face her; at once both ponies stiffened. “Most magic is nothing to be afraid of. Normally, any spell we cast is a manifestation of nature’s power. Think of it as divinity, open to anyone who’s open of mind.”

Sunset nodded. During her youth, she’d wrinkled her brow over this, but now it was obvious. Nature, divinity, magic: all facets of the same jewel.

Celestia’s commanding gaze sharpened; her powerful jawline jutted like a shield. “What I’m about to show you involves another kind of force. The other kind. Do not ask.”

One raised hoof silenced Sunset.

“S-Sorry,” she mumbled, feeling like a foal.

“No need for apologies. Curiosity is not a crime. All the same, I have no intention of delving deeply into those particular waters. This lesson will merely be enough to save you, should you become vulnerable. No more, no less.”

Sunset frowned. “I don’t understand. What’s this got to do with being changeable?”

“I told you. Fire can brighten and warm the world, or it can consume it utterly. Now,” continued Celestia, and she spread her limbs as though to brace against an incoming tidal wave, “show me your stance. This may well save your life. No God can offer a greater gift than that.”

Oh, great. More teaching. This wasn’t what I’d have expected, if you’d asked me six years ago… Yet she said nothing.

Once more, Sunset swore she saw a flicker around those magenta eyes. Except this time, the God’s face was in pain.

Six Years Ago, Upon A Harsh Solstice

Under the blazing sun and the bleached sky, Sunset Shimmer ducked behind the rocks. Over the slopes and the ridges, she saw the distant spires of the city. Half of it was smoking today.

At least it’s better than yesterday, she thought.

Concern gave way to pragmatism. She’d never get involved in politics or religion. Her own city – with its own barely-there God to worry about – didn’t care about its neighbours. In fact, a mare of the street had enough problems of her own without thinking about the rest of the world.

Not that she ever thought of herself as badly off. There was still the almshouse, and the school, and the many not-so-fresh fruit and vegetable stands in the bazaar. Still, she looked at the mansions and the academies and the fat, well-dressed lords and ladies about the place, and she always itched to kick something.

She never looked down. Only upwards, sometimes to the sky.

Nonetheless, she had her own problems. And ways to solve them, since she knew a magician who knew a mare who could get in touch with a stallion who, at a very reasonable price, would gladly take off her hooves some valuable items. If she happened to find any. No questions asked, of course.

There’d been other things in her life. On the whole, however, Sunset could only imagine the slim volume her biography would be, were she in any way able or willing to commission one. Which, knowing the contents, she wouldn’t be. After all, who cared about the travails of a thief?

With practised ease, she crept across and amongst the boulders and trenches of the near-desert. What few trees existed out here were mere feathery tufts scattered on the barren grey.

She stopped. This was the place. How often had she seen that bubbly formation over there and the rod-like crumpled stones just here?

Taking great care, she gripped the flat boulder with both hooves and slid it across. Once the rumbling stopped, she peered into the crevice.

Dozens of jewels and gemstones glittered like stars.

“You beauty,” she whispered. From under her cloak, she levitated her latest prize: a trophy. Always nice to add to her collection.

She stopped. Her ear flicked.

Voices?

No… hoofsteps. Lots of hoofsteps. Sounds like an army stampeding through the gorge.

Frowning, Sunset forced the boulder back into place – wincing at the twinge in her strained forelimbs as she went – and crept up the slope to the lookout post. The clear valley below was a stage to her, and she the lone audience.

There was an army. They marched from the east, with the smoking city far behind. Every single one of them was dark. Eyes black as holes but dotted with bright, tiny pupils of colour: emeralds, golds, ruby-like reds. She watched shadows moving, like living ponies, and then she realized. They were ponies. All of them.

Even the large one at the front, who raised a hoof to halt them. The hoofsteps stopped.

“CELEZYON!” cried a voice overhead.

As one, the army looked up. The leader’s face broke into a grin. Fangs glinted.

“Back for more!?” she boomed, and a cackle ran through her tone. “And so soon after you’ve finally graced the mortal plane with your wonderful presence!?”

White drifted down opposite the leader, and in that instant Sunset’s mind almost fainted with shock.

She saw her first God.

Celestia! The Great God Celestia! She’s really there, in that gorge! She's so close… I could call out to her, she’s that close…

Yet as the dove-like presence descended, the shock faded away. Sharp thoughts, honed by years on the streets, jabbed at her brain.

Wait. What’s she doing here? It’s the summer solstice. She should be in her own city. Why's she down here?

Her gaze shifted to the leader, still grinning.

Who is that? She looks almost exactly like Celestia, but… dark. And her mane’s tied up neatly. She can’t really be a God from the Pantheon. Can she?

“How dare you… desecrate… my city?” Celestia gasped, landing with swanlike grace. Then she stumbled; Sunset spotted scuff marks all over her. One wing was bent far more sharply than the other, but neither folded itself up.

Scuff marks? On one of the Pantheon? But… how?

Celezyon’s grin widened. Her own dark wings remained tight across her flanks. She stood tall and proud, head held high, while below her Celestia struggled not to sway.

“Your city? You don’t deserve it any longer,” said Celezyon, and despite the grin there was steel in her words. “Small wonder. You only ever wanted their admiration. I wanted their love. These ponies behind me” – her head flicked towards the ponies on the right, then towards the ponies on the left – “would willingly die for me. That’s how strong our bond is.”

“You’ve… corrupted them…”

Celestia's yelp was drowned out by the screech of the blast. Sunset gasped and covered her mouth. While Celestia tumbled backwards, Celezyon extinguished the flames along her own horn.

“What’s love without a little corruption?” she said. “Why don’t you give in for once? Let your hair down.”

Gritting her teeth, Celestia forced her limbs to brace against the ground. Another blast: another of Celestia’s yelps was cut off.

No, thought Sunset. Suddenly, she wanted to evaporate on the spot. She hadn't asked for this. This wasn't supposed to happen.

“I draw strength from my followers. Now I have enough to replace you for a thousand years. Where are your followers, Celestia? Too busy writing poems that praise your pretty face? What a waste.”

“No…” Celestia tried to stand, but her smoking legs collapsed underneath her. “Not again…”

“You see,” said Celezyon, advancing with all the leisurely pace of a lioness, “I don’t assume I’m too perfect for this miserable world of dung and dirt. I learn from my mistakes. You don’t.”

“You’ll never… join… the Pantheon.” Celestia was almost wheezing now. “Don’t deserve… You’re… no true God…”

“Wrong. You don’t deserve to be part of the Pantheon. I deserved my chance long ago!”

Celezyon’s flames shot from her horn. In midair, they coalesced, lined up, curved and crackled, until a fiery bow of black hovered between them. One burning arrow grew from the string to the shaft.

Sunset held her breath as the tip aimed downwards. She’d break into any number of homes and take any number of jewels, but she would not… could not…should not watch anyone die. The certainty seized her. But what could she do?

“You…” Celestia hissed, “can’t… kill me.”

“Neither you me,” said the dark God. “But this time, I won’t be the one waiting a thousand years for another shot.”

Sunset threw as hard as she could. For a second, she barely realized what she’d done.

Too late, fear and shock gripped her, and by then the trophy was soaring through the air to clang on the dark God’s horn.

One of its handles looped perfectly over the tip. A thousand gazes watched in horror as it twirled around and around and then finally settled, dangling from the horn’s base, over Celezyon’s left eye.

Which spotted Sunset. The trophy melted and dribbled off the dark God’s face, revealing the fangs bared, the lips curled in hatred, the blazing golden pupil pinning Sunset down against the barren rocks.

“Uh…” Sunset began.

Celezyon's leap shot her straight up to the lookout in one blink.

Sunset scrabbled to flee, but then the dark horn loomed over her, her neck tightened in some eldritch kinetic grip, and the snarl scorched itself across her vision.

“You little guttersnipe!” Celezyon aimed the flaming arrow.

It went out.

The dark face exploded with alarm. Eyes widened – the pupils were mere motes of gold against blackened sclera. The mouth stretched in a scream too tortured to escape. Muscles and jaws twitched under some painful effort.

“Back,” said Celestia’s voice behind her. “Back to the darkness with you.”

By the time Celezyon finally managed a scream, its echoes were already lost among the shards as her body shattered. Shards shattered into ash, ash shattered into smoke, and smoke thinned and faded into the air along with the pained cries of the dark God.

Right behind the vanishing remains, Celestia stood almost perfectly upright. Her horn blazed with yellow light. A fiery arrow – golden, this time – hovered where Celezyon’s chest had just disintegrated. Beyond the God, Sunset heard the thin hiss of a thousand more bodies vanishing into nothing.

Then they were alone.

Sunset no longer felt anything inside. Nevertheless, she rushed forwards as soon as she saw the fiery arrow die and Celestia collapse, groaning.

“Oh my god,” said Sunset. “This can’t be real. This can’t be real.”

“Th… Thank you…” whispered a voice in her ear.

“Me!?” Sunset scanned the rocks; a colder, slightly unreal part of her mind possessed her. Perhaps that way would be best, it thought, directly to the city, or maybe the hermits have some medicinal herbs in the hills over this ridge…

Something told her a God didn’t want to be seen in this state by a lot of ponies. They’d find it hard to venerate a beloved figure when she was struggling to stay upright.

Sunset made for the hills. She knew those hermits. They didn’t care much for theft and punishment, except as topics to meditate upon. Sacred hospitality was a fine tradition to exploit.

When she glanced across, Celestia’s small smile went out. “Your courage… granted me strength.”

“But I didn’t… I mean, I’ve never… Not that I wouldn’t have done, but… Look, all I did was stop her killing you. That doesn’t make me a devotee. I was just in the right place at the right time.”

A small sigh. “It’s enough that… you were there.”

“That was luck. Besides, what else was I supposed to do? Let you die?”

Terror and excitement engulfed Sunset's mind. Already, she could feel her old life crumpling away like paper. She didn't know how she knew. It was just there. Whenever she opened her eyes, the world was just there too.

She felt alive.

“I won’t forget… this honour… She was right… I shouldn’t… forget…” After that, the weight pressed down hard on Sunset’s withers. Celestia didn’t say any more.

Under the blazing solstice sun, Sunset had to drag her new God through every mile of crag and crevice. Alone. She had plenty of time to think.

Bright Skies Fade to Falling Colours

She still had time to think, years later, when all around her the leaves showered the gardens of the Academy with hot hues: crackling oranges, dazzling reds, flashes of yellow. Celebrating around the descending sun, the skies faded to graceful streaks as though transforming into one vast rainbow.

Laughter burst out of her while Sunset kicked up the leaves and danced beneath the bare boughs. The odd two or three students sat at benches and gave her puzzled looks, but she barely cared.

Free, at last!

She levitated the Aeolian harp. A mere box with strings inside became, under the subtle winds she summoned, a humming choir. Another curl of the air, and she created the sounds of moaning baritones. Her complex spell shifted again, and thrumming strings, whimsical strains, booming tones –

“All right, all right,” muttered Trixie beside her. “We get it. You’re talented. You don’t have to show it off at the drop of a hat.”

Sunset stopped dancing at once. “Oh. H-Hello, Trixie. I-I didn’t see you there.”

You prancing buffoon, muttered the nagging voice coldly.

“I can’t help it.” Nonetheless, Sunset cut the spell and let the box rest on her saddle. “Six years, Trix! It’s been six years! I still feel like I’m young all over again! It’s as if I never really lived before then. Just… existed.”

Trixie grimaced at the box. When she adjusted her hat, three doves burst out of her cape and flapped away.

“Music lesson, was it?” she muttered. “Lucky you.”

Yes. It’s luck that got you here. Nothing more.

Shut up, Sunset thought, but she knew the nagging voice would speak up again before long.

“Prophecy today,” she said as brightly as she could. “Not that I’m much good at it. Now music, on the other hoof –”

“Oh yes? Fortune-telling, and all that?” Trixie licked her lips. “Of course, I was telling fortunes when I was a mere filly.”

Sunset wisely kept her counsel. Prophecy was to fortune-telling what an international swimming tournament was to a jump-about in a rain puddle.

“I feel like I could do anything.” Sunset glanced across and suddenly stopped. “Trix! What happened to your leg?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Trixie tried to raise the leg up to her cape, but a few stumbles later gave in to the inevitable. “Oh, all right. Someone threw a cabbage, but it’s only a little bruising. Nothing a strong magician couldn’t handle.”

“Oh, Trix. You should tell the City Guard about this. It’s not right.” Or tell me. She calls it “only a little bruising”, but I’ll bet she limped part of the way up here. Why does she do this?

Perhaps some ponies don’t want you treating them like second-class citizens, whispered the nagging voice. Especially since you never earned it. You stumbled into it.

Sighing, Trixie held still. A couple of billiard balls dropped down before she extended the leg for inspection.

“I know just the healing spell.” Sunset barely had to concentrate; compared with the fireworks of the heavy-duty spells, this was a sparkler that lasted two seconds. A flash was about as dramatic as it got, and then the bruise vanished.

Trixie stared sadly at the vanished blot. Sunset knew better than to call attention to this. The magician only got an audience because she’d stopped claiming to use real magic, which was technically true, but it had taken weeks of agonized speeches and arguments to get to that point, and Trixie had still sulked about it afterwards.

“My offer still stands,” said Sunset as gently as she could. She didn’t want to give the impression she was granting Trixie a favour; that suggested a superior reaching down to an inferior.

“Still grateful, but still not interested.” Trixie’s face softened. “You don’t need to be a worshipper to gain magical powers, you know. All the great conjurors of history got by on innate skill and talent. As with tradition, so with Trixie!”

And that’s why they throw things at you, thought Sunset, and she burned with outrage. She could never imagine it herself – wouldn’t even begin to imagine her own life outside of worship – but that would never give ponies an excuse to hurl cabbages at non-worshippers. But then, she held herself to a totally different account.

Yes, murmured the nagging voice, and you still fail even at that. No wonder Celestia has less and less to do with you. You think you’re so good, but deep down, you know it’s all wrong…

“I just wish I could do something… better,” she admitted.

“Why?” said Trixie sniffily. “I was under the impression you were rising quite rapidly.”

“Oh, I am, I am. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. It’s only that power isn’t enough. It’s great –” a grin broke out across her face “– but it can’t be all there is to it.”

“Odd way of looking at it,” said Trixie, back to staring at her own leg as though trying to summon another bruise. “Uh. Heal-Quick spell, was it?”

“Kind of.” Sunset kept her face carefully blank before the feeble imitation of Moondancer's name-dropping. “I meant that… I get this feeling Celestia’s holding something back. Something she’s not telling me.”

Beside her, Trixie took in the ivy-twined arches, the bubbling fountain, and the songbirds of all colours darting to and fro. Her groan was low and stretched, as of one who’s seen paradise and never gotten the ticket.

She was only able to visit in the first place because Sunset had insisted. Since the tutors of the Academy were aware of the special arrangement between Sunset and Celestia, she got what she wanted. Often at haste, with many tutors tripping over themselves and apologizing over and over. Sunset smirked at the thought.

But Trixie the travelling magician, who even now had cards slipping out from under her cape, was her one last remaining link to the streets. To a time when the bangs of the stage and the creak of the caravan’s wheels had been better than the Old City Clocktower.

You’re no different from her. The nagging voice burrowed further into her mind. But for a twist of fate, she’d be in your horseshoes. And you’d be in hers.

“I think she’s waiting for me to do something,” Sunset said. “I have to keep moving. There’s no rest for me. She deserves nothing less. I can’t settle for anything less.”

You know what they call ponies who settle for less. You don’t want to be exposed as one of them. It’s wrong to be idle. It’s wrong to leech off others, simply because you’re selfish and thoughtless and lazy and a fraud who got lucky. Isn’t it, Shimmer?

She sighed.

“You’re quite lucky in some ways, Trix.” The sky darkening overhead, Sunset raised the Aeolian harp for a few experimental twangs.

“If you say so.” Trixie glanced at the strings of the box, and every iota of her face wilted with the leaves.

Life Struggles Beneath Encroaching Ice

Leaves covered the paths and roads of the city, no longer crunching underfoot, but slithery and limp with decay. Overhead, the skies chilled with violet pools and a darkening rim, as though Arctic seas were seeping through. Sunset’s breath crystallized. Ponies shuffled in scarves and anoraks.

The Day of a Thousand Souls smothered the city.

Sunset turned the corner, and the Esculapian Temple loomed as a hulking shadow. An ancient temple it was, all columns and stone steps and carved figures looking down upon the entrants. Surrounded by the modern brick homes and gothic towers, the temple was a leftover of Time itself.

Why are you going? The nagging voice: ever present, never relenting. Until you can feel their pain in all honesty, you’d be a hypocrite to go.

Sunset realized she was pulling at her own mane absent-mindedly. She cut off the telekinetic spell.

A dozen or so ponies tramped up the steps. Several stones behind them, Moondancer walked. Her glower was carved into her face. Sunset realized the mare was in no mood for taking questions.

You coward. Any excuse to not ask her, eh Shimmer? piped up the nagging voice at once.

Hurrying, she crossed the plaza and fell into line beside Moondancer, who for all her faults was no speed-walker. Every step seemed carefully measured, as though she were kicking each flagstone into place.

“I need to talk to you,” Sunset whispered. “It’s important.”

Moondancer walked on as though she hadn’t heard.

“It’s about the lessons. I need to tell you –”

“Are we at the Academy?” Moondancer’s voice wedged into the speech like a knife.

“Well… no, but I thought you’d be interested in –”

“Then we’re not talking about any lessons whatsoever.”

“Please,” said Sunset, voice straining with desperation. “I need help. Your help.”

At the top of the steps, Moondancer stopped. Mechanically, her head ground on its axis to face her. One eyebrow broke ranks, suspicion rising up through the breach.

“You’re asking me at this time, at this place, for help? You?”

Of course she is. Shimmer’s not good enough to solve her own problems. Too much of a narcissist, too.

Sunset came this close to growling; instead, she held Moondancer’s gaze and nodded once. “It’s about Celestia. Don’t you think, in some way, she seems… well, less and less there? Like she’s… going somewhere distant?”

Moondancer’s look could have chilled a bonfire. “Nonsense. She’s always punctual. She’s always there.”

“Oh, her body is. But I get the impression her heart and soul – I mean, insofar as a God has a heart and soul, uh, philosophically speaking –”

“So this is about personal feelings?” Moondancer’s face twisted like cracking ice. Such was the set of her jaw that Sunset shrank where she stood.

“Uh…” Sunset didn’t dare answer. Neither “yes” nor “no” was going to help her case.

You can’t even claim honesty as a virtue.

“Kind of,” she said. “Look, I’ll be honest with you: Celestia and I –”

“Then it’s a personal matter. You shouldn’t discuss it. We don’t ask. We don’t tell. Fair is fair.”

Regular and stiff like a contraption, Moondancer walked through the square frame of the entrance as though she’d faced no interruptions at all. Sunset staggered into a brisk walk to follow her, but then hesitated. She’d never been inside the Esculapian Temple. No one had told her what was inside.

Too self-absorbed to learn about other ponies.

Sunset strode in. Not once did she let Moondancer’s tight bun out of her sight.

Columns opened out to the misty air around them. Nothing but a wide floor, and a long carpet, and, at the far wall, the towering colossus. Enchanted embers orbited the serene face – planets around a star. Sunset’s gaze drank up the proud legs, the archer’s quiver slung over the saddle, the robe billowing from the right shoulder as though thrown back, the smile staring at an unseen target some way to the left, to the west, and thus to the setting sun.

She’d recognize that marble statue anywhere. There were copies of it all over the city, but she’d never dared to see the real thing.

Celestia Callitheorein. “Celestia the Beautiful Sight.”

The gasp escaped her. Then she held her breath.

A crowd gathered at the podium beneath its feet. She forced herself to stride onwards and join them. Moondancer hung back from the main herd, but only by a few yards.

Sunset stood beside her. No comment.

Sunset breathed again.

She risked a sidelong glance. Moondancer stared at the podium. For once, her irritated glower softened to a mere blankness. No emotion.

Once more, Sunset wondered what could possibly attract someone like Moondancer to worship. The mare even read books and listened to lectures as though she were a spy, gathering intelligence but revealing nothing in case it got her cornered. No passion at all escaped her.

Sunset didn’t have to crane her neck; several ponies sat down or bowed low. Celestia stood before the podium. The entire crowd kept clear of her for several yards.

She was bearing a staff along her forelimb, a snake entwined around its shaft. Sunset’s flurrying mind focused on this detail. Past training turned up the name “Pythoness”, though it was tinged with doubt. Definitely a healing staff.

Now that she was closer, Sunset noticed the lists of words behind Celestia, all carved into the stone. Names, perhaps?

No one spoke. They all seemed to know why they were here. More than anything, the silence crept up on her like ice.

To her surprise, she heard someone whispering, like a faint scratching noise. Sunset swivelled her ear. It was coming from Moondancer.

“Celezyon,” whispered Moondancer. “Derived from ‘Celestollyon’: ‘She who utterly destroys the sky’. Celezyon. Derived from ‘Celestollyon’: ‘She who utterly destroys the sky’.”

It sounds like a mantra. Strange: no one else is saying it. Besides, it’s just an etymological fact.

Can you get comfort from a fact? Can Moondancer?

Ice crept onwards, turning her blood into biting slush that bit as it crawled under her skin. Celezyon. This is about – No. How can it be?

So Celestia must be acting as the Oracle… What is the Day of a Thousand Souls really about, then? The prophecy? Celezyon's victims. But Celezyon didn’t claim a thousand souls really, did she? In all that smoke?

Treacherously, her memory froze over just as the image of a thousand shadows rose out of the depths. An army of shadows, marching behind the dark God. All corrupted souls.

Guilt mingled with the ice that engulfed her mind. How could I have forgotten? Those were once normal ponies.

Of course you forgot. I told you: you’re self-absorbed.

She swore Celestia’s gaze met her face for a second, but then the crowd leaned forwards and Celestia seemed to be taking them all in. Or perhaps she was staring at something beyond this temple, perhaps beyond these four walls and this plane of existence.

“Love will consume her too.” Celestia’s voice echoed amongst the columns.

A prophecy. Right here, right now? And with that staff, not just any prophecy, but the Oracle’s official prophecy. The most important one of the year!

And she looked at me. She knows something. That must be me! So that’s why she’s been avoiding me. She knows I’m corrupted!

Love will consume her, she said. If that’s what happened to Celezyon, then… Oh no…

“Moondancer,” she whispered urgently. “They were corrupted. How were they corrupted?”

Sheer loathing cracked through Moondancer’s face. Her cheeks almost burst into flame. Her glower was a solar flare. Her teeth ground together sharper than flints creating sparks.

“Don’t you dare interrupt me,” she hissed.

“I have to know. Please.”

“Were you there? Where were you last year, and the year before?”

“I didn’t know! I swear! But…” Self-absorbed. “But I have to know now. I didn’t realize… I’m sorry…”

Moondancer’s face fought to smother the burning pain. She looked away.

“They chose passion,” she spat. “I stayed loyal to reason. Nothing more to it than that.”

“Who was it?” Sunset’s gaze, her voice, her heart sank to the cold marble of the floor. “Uh. I mean… You don’t have to answer. I understand. Forget I said anything.”

For a moment, it seemed Moondancer would lose the struggle and combust into pure fury. Then the flames died.

“My family,” she muttered to the floor. “And the few friends I made at school.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sunset regretted saying it at once. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Moondancer’s face twitch.

I told you. You’re too insincere, Shimmer. You don’t belong in this temple, among this grief. You’re insulting them just by being here.

At the front, Celestia bowed her head once. The list of words – Of names, Sunset corrected – glowed briefly under a spell.

“She’s sending our wishes to them,” said Moondancer. She spoke with what Sunset thought was deceptive calm.

A general air of relaxation swept over the congregation’s heads. Ponies shuffled about, murmured amongst themselves, and turned around to leave. By the time Sunset noticed this, she found the space next to her empty; Moondancer was already marching to the square entrance as though determined not to be caught last. Scurrying, Sunset caught up with her at the peak of the stone steps.

Moondancer stopped. She turned to Sunset, who almost skid past attempting to stop too.

“You wanted some help, you said?” Again, the deceptive calm.

All the same, hope sparked inside Sunset’s chest. She beamed at Moondancer through the thinning veneer of ice encasing her mind.

“Yes! Yes, please! Absolutely! Thank you!”

Moondancer was cold as the colossus they’d left behind them; only in her eyes did the fire burn. “Never get close to anyone. Not even your God. It’ll only hurt you in the end.”

And as though nothing had passed between them, Moondancer walked down to the mist, into the first few flakes of descending snow.

Destruction

You deserve this pain, you failure. Six years with a “special” relationship, and you’ve only achieved as much as an emotionless machine like Moondancer. You know why Celestia never sticks around anymore, why she’s never there when you go back in after class. Who could put up with your lowliness for long?

Moondancer… that had to be the key.

Sunset shuffled about her room. On the lowest shelves, she’d neatly stacked the books; a quick glance confirmed they were in alphabetical order. On the highest shelves was empty space; those books lay scattered or piled up on the floor. Her pillows and duvet were tucked neatly, but her study notes mixed with the pens and the compass and the slide rules on the desk in an utter mess. She knew her tower looked over the main street, but behind it there rose higher towers still. It was a privileged place, and a cursed reminder.

Both Sunset and Moondancer could conjure rainbows. Both could shift heat from one end of a room to the other. Magic was fine. Yet Moondancer could say “Law of Conservation of Energy” and mean it.

Sunset summoned more books. She was a rising star. She couldn’t fall behind. If she fell behind, she’d be eclipsed.

No… it can’t be that simple… That can’t explain why she’s avoiding me now. Celestia, if only you’d talk to me. Whenever we’re in lessons, I want to burst out screaming!

Aches and stings swarmed all over her mind. The nagging voice no longer felt like a mere echo.

You still don’t get it. Think for once, genius. You want nothing less than to be worthy, but you don’t actually know what it means to be worthy of a God.

Sunset let the book fall with a thump. She gripped her head between her hooves, trying to squeeze out the pain. Her mind snatched at random thoughts – perhaps a touch, a glance, a showering of gifts, declarations of love, a serenade under moonlight – but each sparked her interest and then hit her with the aftershock. What sounded romantically perfect suddenly seemed empty, shameful, dead.

I can be better than Moondancer, she thought, but then immediately added, Stupid idea.

Exactly. You can be best in your class, but that doesn’t make you perfect. It doesn’t make you worthy. You can be the smartest, the strongest, nicest, funniest, most beautiful, and most confident pony on the planet, but that doesn’t make you worthy either. Those are just mortal traits. Traits wither and die.

Outside her window, foals squealed with delight. Sunset’s ear shot up.

When she looked out onto the street, through the slicing white of the blizzard and before the all-consuming grey of the winter mist, she saw the familiar caravan on the corner. Right on time, Trixie yelled something bold and brash, sweeping her forelimb and scattering roses over her jumping and cheering audience. She even laughed boldly, as though daring the world to crush her spirit.

Look at that. Magic without magic.

Sunset rubbed her forelimbs together, caressing the chills that never went away.

“How can she be so happy?” she whispered. “Her best trick is 'teleporting' eggs behind her ears, and for what? To make a few foals giggle?”

Because she knows what she loves. She gets better just from passing out pleasures like chocolates. Little mortal street urchins are easily contented. Too bad you never set your sights lower than the sky, eh Shimmer?

Sunset turned away from the window, but faced the scattered books, the disordered desk, the round room she knew was lower than many others and wouldn’t reach the sky at all.

“She deserves better,” she said.

So does Celestia. Deep down, she knows you’re not trying hard enough.

“How dare you! I devote every hour of every day to her. I sacrificed my old life and my old city – my old God – to make her happy. I live life as fully and dutifully as I can.”

Then why is she avoiding you? You’ve obviously messed something up. You didn’t attend to the Day of a Thousand Souls until just last fall.

“I… I didn’t think I’d… earned… that right. That was for the victims.”

Celestia always attends. You don’t. What does that say about you? Oh, and by the way: “every hour”? “Every day”? Even when you’re sleeping? Eating? Going for a walk across the city? Taking any kind of time out to read and write for fun?

“That was… I was taking care of myself! It’s still ultimately for Celestia’s sake!”

Exactly. Because you’re mortal. You’re frail. You need to lie in a bed for eight hours to avoid crashing. Why on earth would a God want anything to do with a weak body like yours? With a weak mind like yours, that can’t even keep her bedroom ordered? You’re sick, Sunset. You’re diseased. If you compare yourself to a God, that’s the only reasonable conclusion.

For the first time, Sunset began to shiver. No matter how often she insisted the central heating was faulty, she’d never actually felt a chill like this before. Her body was trying to evict her. She could almost feel the cells trying to pull themselves apart, shaking with frustrated effort, biting each other out of hatred and scorn.

She watched the snowflakes fall against the mist.

To her surprise, she wasn’t bothered by the idea. Perhaps she was sick. Perhaps it was obvious all along. Something kept Celestia at bay, and hadn’t she always suspected there was something wrong? A mere thief, with no prospects, suddenly in a God’s favour? Suddenly finding her talents in the presence of a God’s love? A mare who’d stumbled over rocks and slipped down back alleys, now strolling through gardens and admiring the view from Imperial Towers?

You’re right, she thought.

Perhaps she’d been released too early. She’d felt better. She could walk and talk with a genuine smile instead of the old fox’s smirk or magpie’s grin. But she was still a contaminated beast, an animal of the gutter. It was only a matter of time before someone like Moondancer told her she’d been transferred too early. Perhaps Celestia had already seen it.

Sunset paced up and down, past the bed. She tugged at her own mane.

“What do I do now?” she said.

Huh. Pathetic.

She snapped to attention, right in the middle of the room. She was no longer shivering; flames whipped the cells of her body. Pain scorched her from the inside-out, and she laughed at it, daring it to burn more fiercely.

“Pathetic?” she said. “Oh, really? Well, I’m not just some common thief anymore. Celestia created a better life for me, and now I’ll prove I deserve it.”

Yet as she spoke, she heard the slight echoes of the nagging voice behind the words. Briefly she thought, Strange. Still, the thought vanished behind the fire. She swept some books aside and braced herself, as though expecting a tidal wave.

“No more self-pity,” she said. “I’m done with breaking myself down. Moondancer would say it was a waste of time. And if it’s the only way I can move on, then so be it. I’ll never stop trying to be the best I can be. That’s a start. What do you say to that?”

Disconcertingly, the nagging voice didn’t respond.

Sunset stopped bracing herself.

“Huh,” she murmured. “Well… OK then… if you’ve got nothing to say…”

From a summer long past, Celestia’s voice guided her mind. “Fire can brighten and warm the world, or it can consume it utterly. Now… show me your stance. This may well save your life. No God can offer a greater gift than that.”

“Don’t worry. I intend to honour it.”

She closed her eyes. And she focused.

Within her head, she pushed the magic forwards… and aside. Words half-formed, then melted like ice sculptures within a boiling cauldron. As precise as a planet encircling its star. As dark as the space between constellations. As patient as a swirling galaxy. She saw them all vanish into the void.

Then the darkness opened its eyes.

She cried out as invisible hooks struck and pulled at her skin. Her insides ground forwards against the pull of her skin. Her skull almost split with the pain. Her mouth, her nose, her ears, and her firmly shut eyes swelled with magical stings.

At last!”

When it faded away, the silence and the cold seized her. She staggered where she stood, hastily opening her eyes to see –

Herself.

The other Sunset stood over her while she swayed where she was.

“What!?” Sunset struggled to speak. Alarm shot through her; she felt suddenly empty. “But… the exorcism spell…”

“Gets rid of your demons. Your imperfect bugbears.” The other Sunset’s voice was that of the nagging voice, but stronger now that it existed outside of her head. “For which I thank you.”

From the back of her doppelganger, two yellow wings stretched. Sunset watched in horror.

“What!?” she breathed. “No! This isn’t how it’s supposed to work!”

“What a shock. You fluffed something again. Or have you, this time?”

“Who… Who are you?”

The other Sunset smirked. “I am everything you’ve always wanted to be. I am the true you. I… am Rising Shine.”

“N-No. I exorcised –”

“Wrong as usual! I exorcised you.”

“But you can’t have! I made the incantation.”

“Ha! You think a snivelling failure such as yourself was going to be left after exorcising the worst traits out of that body? You’ve been holding me back for too long, wasting time and getting in the way, and deep down you know it. You know you’d be worth nothing without me. I’ve been giving you a semblance of merit for as long as we’ve both existed! Since the beginning, I’ve craved the day when I could finally be rid of your corrupted imperfections! Agreeing to this exorcism was the only great accomplishment of your sorry existence, and you still needed my help to succeed!”

Rising Shine spun round and fired. The wall exploded. Screams echoed in the street below.

Beyond the jagged edges, Sunset saw the caravan. Trixie stared up at them, frozen in the act of reaching into a top hat. Wide-eyed foals surrounded her.

“We’re going to have one final demonstration to prove who’s the superior being.” Rising Shine spread her wings. “Try and keep up, Shimmer.”

She shot out into the greyness.

Sunset staggered down the stairs and bumped off Trixie coming the other way. Foals gathered in the lobby behind the magician.

“You!?” Trixie spluttered. “But – I saw you – flying – only with wings – and you – there’s two – What is going on?”

Sunset almost fell onto her side; Trixie's hooves caught her partway.

“Sunset!” Trixie’s voice edged towards hysterics. “You're so weak! What’s wrong? Have you been overdoing it again?”

“Get… me… up there… please.”

“What? Where? But my caravan – the foals –”

“Now! Please! I can’t do it by myself.”

Whether or not it was the quake in Sunset's voice that did it, Trixie obeyed, flinging Sunset over her withers. The cape slid under her stomach before the magician kicked off into a gallop. Sunset felt every jolt through her spine. She felt like a lead saddle. She heard a crowd murmuring behind her, but soon they fell away.

Sunset looked up in time to see the puzzled face of Moondancer flash past. A moment later, she heard galloping.

“I just saw you flying over.” Moondancer drew up alongside them. “What the – What have you done?”

“Don’t bother,” said Trixie before she gave in to the gasps. “She’s not at her best.”

“Where… is she?” Sunset said.

“'She'? Heading over to Delphi Hill. But what’s –?”

“Moondancer! Find Celestia! Now! Don’t argue!”

Outrage flashed over Moondancer’s eyes and lips, but she was no fool. She nodded once and fell back. Sunset heard her hoofsteps gallop away.

Trixie passed the city limits, hit the slope of the hill, went from a gallop to a canter to a trot to a complete stop, and grabbed Sunset’s front as the momentum slid her forwards. By now, Sunset barely had enough strength to raise her head.

Rising Shine stood at the peak, beaming down at them.

“So glad you could join us. And how fitting; even the faithless street theatre has an advantage over you.” Rising Shine nodded towards the city. “Quite a view, don’t you agree?”

“What did you call me!?” Trixie stepped forwards.

“Don’t,” hissed Sunset. “She’s not interested in you. Only in me.”

“That’s any better?” Trixie hissed back. “And why does she look like you? With wings?”

Rising Shine jumped up and hovered over the peak. “Magic is divinity is nature. You all repeat it so often. But you’ve never followed up on it. What’s the greatest source of power in the natural world? Every day, we’re warmed by it, our world is lit up by it, and yet because it’s so ordinary, we don’t even realize the sheer energy locked within. There’s enough energy hitting us from dawn till dusk to power the entire city for a year. Yet we’re satisfied with but a fraction of it! The Gods themselves haven’t figured out how to harness it, but I have.”

“What’s she talking about?” Trixie pushed Sunset into what she evidently thought was a more comfortable resting position.

“I'm talking about the sun! Behold!”

Rising Shine's horn burst into life.

The blizzard froze. Snowflakes evaporated in midair. Then the clouds parted. A circle of blue sky glared down at them. A glowing haze shimmered around the hovering Rising Shine like a shield. Steam rose up; Sunset looked down, and saw the snow melting on the grass.

“My god…” she breathed.

“Too easily impressed.” Rising Shine’s horn began to turn white. “This is just what reaches our mudball planet. Imagine what I could do once I extrapolate back to its source!”

Over the white tip of the horn, a ball of light swelled outwards.

“Given the distances, it’ll take eight minutes to reach the corona. All from harnessing mere light, while you were playing with rainbows! In eight minutes, I’ll surpass the Gods themselves!”

“Is that so?” said a voice.

A flash of white. Rising Shine blinked.

“You!?” she said.

Celestia landed on the hillside, Moondancer slowing to a skid and a stop behind her. Her horn pulsed; a sphere of red spread out, cut across the haze and under the growing white ball to wash past Rising Shine’s scrunched-up face. When it passed…

Trixie screamed.

Red fur burned along Rising Shine’s real body. Shorn of the illusion, the feathery wings became spiky and bat-like. Tail and mane curled and twisted, hacking the air with jagged edges like solid fire. Two black holes stared out of the face, dotted with embers of emerald flame.

“Behold,” said Celestia coldly. “The true demon within.”

Moondancer gasped. When she spoke, venom trembled in her voice.

“Those eyes! I know those eyes… but how can it be you!?”

And Sunset felt the memory seize her, as though she were on the rocky outpost once more: the dark horn, the strangling pain in her neck, the snarl aflame behind the dark arrow.

Rising Shine grinned; fangs glinted. “So what? This changes nothing.”

“You’re wrong, demon. And you're wrong about the sun. Gods have harnessed its power for billions of years. We know its true nature.”

“I beg your pardon –?”

“Be silent! It’s not a toy for you to play with! What you call a mere ball of fire plays host to eldritch and deadly forces. They can create the very elements of Nature itself, yet with powers too deadly for life to expose itself to them. If you draw those powers even from the surface, they will poison you and everyone for miles around. You’ll destroy the entire city!”

Rising Shine hesitated… and then the smirk returned. “Nice try. But for all your spiritual mumbo-jumbo, the truth is easy to deduce. No force can last for billions of years! Our sun could only be a fireball, and that would last tens of millions of years at most before its fuel ran out.”

“Listen to me, demon –”

“No! What do you know about it? You don’t learn! You’ve had the tools to achieve this power all along, and you’ve never even deduced the plain truth that I worked out in minutes! You’re an archaism, a static flat note, as out of place as that ridiculous temple and your so-called Godly wisdom! Well, we mere mortals have evolved, and now we’ve evolved to surpass you! You merely represent the sun. I control it.”

Overhead, the ball of white grew. By now, Rising Shine was balancing a blazing mountain. Snow melted around the city, replacing pale rooftops with dark flats. Insect-like crowds gathered at the base of the hill.

Celestia lowered her horn. “Then you leave me no choice –”

“Go ahead!”

Everyone froze.

Rising Shine spread her forelimbs wide. “Take your shot. Or have you actually figured it out yet?”

Celestia narrowed her eyes. She raised her horn again.

“I see,” she murmured.

“What!?” shrieked Trixie, who cowered below the lights of the growing sun. “Why don’t you stop her!?”

Celestia stared at Sunset. Pain squeezed her glistening eyes.

“Whatever happens, Rising Shine is bound to Sunset Shimmer, exorcism or no. That’s how Rising Shine can derive so much from Sunset: her looks, her style, her knowledge. They’re part of the same whole.”

“In plain speak?” said Trixie.

“In plain speak: if one dies, the other dies too.”

Sunset’s heart froze. She fought not to let her hopes fall into the abyss.

“Don’t worry about me,” she insisted. “You can still disarm her. Stop her casting the spell.”

“Yes!” snapped Trixie. “Don’t even think about finishing her off!”

“It’s no use,” yelled Rising Shine gleefully. “Once it’s begun, my spell over this concentrated sunlight becomes increasingly delicate and increasingly powerful. The slightest tampering, and everything within range will be scorched out of existence. Unlike you, I think of contingencies. So don’t try any ‘heroics’ if you’d rather stay the same temperature you are now.”

Sunset gaped, staring over Trixie’s shoulder and past Trixie’s face as it stretched with horror. There was Moondancer, sweating and shaking where she stood. There was the edge of the encircling crowd, cowering and gawking at the growing sun of the demon. There was Rising Shine – her creation – laughing at the sheer energy flowing through her white-hot horn to the mass of light overhead.

There was Celestia, looking back at Sunset. She felt that shimmering gaze slice right through her eyes and impale her heart. She’d never felt so small, a speck before the sun.

Sunset shut her eyes; she barely had enough strength to keep her head up this long. “I know,” she whispered.

I can’t do anything. I’ll never come back from this. Just finish her now.

Her clenched eyelids stung. Finish her now! I don’t care anymore. I’m not worth it.

Yes, said another voice. You are.

“What?” She opened her eyes in alarm.

Celestia’s horn glowed with pure gold. Although the God's eyes were closed and her mouth was still, in some strange way Sunset sensed that the gentle magenta gaze were focused on her, and that divine words were embracing her mind.

I can help you save yourself, said the voice again in Celestia’s calm tones. I will always be with you, no matter what happens. Your faith in me has never wavered. Even now, I see it burning inside you, brighter than any sun and stronger than any God.

Sunset tried to shrink away from the embrace, but her mind was frozen with shock.

You can find another worshipper, she thought.

I’ve found something infinitely more precious. I see that now. For six years, our lives have become intertwined and fused together. Beyond the event horizon, no love can be separated, not even by the worst that the universe can throw at it.

You… avoided me, thought Sunset. All this time, after all those lessons…

I know. But this is your darkest moment, and I am here now. Nothing will come between us. I can save you, but only if you want me to.

Celestia's calm rippled, disturbed by a rising, struggling desperation. Grant me permission. That’s all I ask. Whatever you choose, I’ll be right here beside you. I promise.

“Such power!” They heard Rising Shine laugh, more boldly even than Trixie. “With this much strength, I won’t even need followers!” Ponies gasped and yelled around them.

Sunset could feel the heat of the demon's growing sun sizzling on her skin. But how? She’s perfect.

Wrong. She is a perfectionist. There is a great difference. And she is a part of you.

A part of me? As in… connected? Both ways?

In a manner that had nothing to do with sight and nothing to do with imagination, she knew that Celestia was suddenly smiling.

She’s a part of me. So I’m actually above her? All this time, I thought she was above me. If we’re still connected, then that means… If I only concentrate on that part…

Painfully – stiffly – Sunset eased herself off Trixie’s back. Ignoring her friend’s protests, she forced herself to stand bracingly against the heat. Rising Shine was still laughing, but the laughs were weakening under a growing uncertainty.

Sunset found the opening. She focused.

For a moment, she saw –

Her wings beat frantically to stay up. She could see Celestia, Trixie, Moondancer, the crowd, and someone who looked very much like her, all just over there. Burning sliced through her horn. Numbers and complex counterspells bent and snapped into place while she worked out the logistics of several tons of compressed sunlight balanced inches over her skull on a zero-dimensional point.

Sunset blinked again, and both heard a yelp and gave it in one confused psychic moment.

“What!?” For the first time, Rising Shine’s voice cracked. “What did you just do!? You can’t control me!”

“Wrong,” said Sunset. “I always had that choice. And I still do!”

She saw –

Real fear. Utter confusion. Horror at the narrowed gaze of Sunset Shimmer, weak and strong at once. Overhead, the miniature sun quaked, shaking her down to her hooves in one moment that lasted an eternity.

“No! Are you crazy!? You’ll kill us both!”

Sunset saw – she saw – she tried to see – but this time an ache stabbed her between the eyes. She gasped.

“It’s weakening,” she murmured. “She's drawing too much energy, and I’m weakening. I can feel it. I can’t do it anymore!”

Rising Shine’s grin returned. “Ah. Reality reasserts itself.”

And then Sunset stood suddenly tall, against all her own frailties and failures, on her own four hooves. “Not on my own.”

She turned to Moondancer. “I can get through to her, but she’s too heavily defended on all sides. Can you weaken her magic?”

Moondancer nodded once, tight-lipped. “Could be difficult. It's not just power; it's precision too. If I combine Hawkmoth's Radiation spell with Clever Hans's Lightning-Lodestone Oscillation, I think I can reverse the flow.”

“Not alone: I'll provide the power,” said Celestia. “You focus on the precision. Sunset will know what to do once we weaken the magical shield.”

“What should I do?” said Trixie.

Celestia blinked in surprise for a moment, but soon the serene smile dawned anew. “Make sure Sunset stays standing. Everyone is ready?”

Moondancer nodded. Sunset nodded. Both horns flared.

The haze around Rising Shine froze. Sunset tried again, while Trixie placed a hoof on her shoulder and the demon gaped –

A flurry of panic. Shaking, as though trying to fight while someone pinned her limbs to her sides. But there was Moondancer, who wasn’t psychically connected. Logically, there was no reason to spare her.

Sunset snapped back. Without hesitation, she kicked Moondancer aside before the demon's lance of white hit the ground between them. The boom echoed in her ears. Clumps of dirt rained down around the pony-sized crater.

Another lance fired.

Celestia leaped between Moondancer and the whiteness. Where the lance hit, Celestia's red shield shimmered, briefly exposed as a bubble around them both. Moondancer flipped back onto all fours, mane askew, lips still tight, horn still aglow. A golden hue flared along Celestia's own.

The white sun… shrank.

“What are you doing!? Moondancer! Stop!” Another lance failed against the shield; Rising Shine’s pupils shrank to pinpricks. “You can’t channel it back! I was almost there! You’re just one pony!”

But it’s not just Moondancer. It's all four of us. A “perfect” being can surpass a lesser one. Can she surpass many united?

Rising Shine growled. “Fine. You want stability? Nothing’s more stable than oblivion!”

Sunset felt her try to throw the artificial sun, but she sensed the spiteful impulse as a mere itch. Her mind forced it down. Rising Shine grunted with the effort, and all the while Celestia’s horn burned brighter and Moondancer never let hers go out, and the sun was almost the size of a skull.

Sunset felt the warmth of a midsummer sun flow through her. Puzzled, she turned.

Celestia aimed at her. Along the God's horn, a snake entwined itself as though along a staff. Sunset’s pains, her shames, her aches, her weakness: all seeped away under the joy of summer.

Rising Shine screamed.

“NO! I’M THE CURE! NOT THE DISEASE!”

The sun shrank to a dot. The dot sank into the glowing horn. The glow vanished.

Around them, the crowd cooed with collective delight. Cheers broke out while Rising Shine sagged in midair, wings slowing, lungs panting.

Sunset prepared the words…

When she looked up, hatred stared back at her.

Rising Shine’s body drifted towards her, no longer even pretending to flap its wings. Motes of leftover magic flared briefly about her like shooting stars before vanishing at random.

“You think you’re a hero, Sunset Shimmer,” she spat. “You think you’ve saved the city and stopped the villain. Well, why don’t we let these good ponies know the truth about their beloved ‘hero’? Why don’t we let Celestia know?”

Sunset’s face remained set in stone. On her shoulder, she felt Trixie's hoof let go.

“What I did is what you did. What I am is what you are. I am, and have always been, and will always be, a part of you. I would never have existed if you hadn’t cast the spell of your own free will. Had I succeeded, your precious Celestia knows what would have happened. And now she will know who was ultimately responsible!”

Sunset was almost muzzle-to-muzzle with her now. Black holes stared her down, with two emerald fires straining to fill them.

“You are the cause of all this, Sunset! I hope you’re ready to face the consequences. Because I’ll be in your head, watching every thought and every word and every deed. Celestia will be watching too. You won’t be able to sleep for the nightmares!”

Finally, their noses touched for a second. Rising Shine shattered into shards into ash into smoke that faded as it flowed back into Sunset’s face.

Silence reigned.

Sunset didn’t dare meet anyone’s gaze, but the stares of a thousand souls clung to her all over. Hoofsteps approached, punctuating the silence, and two white hooves appeared on the ground before her.

She looked up into Celestia’s blank eyes.

“I’ll come quietly,” she whispered.

Celestia said nothing.

Screams broke out. Bursting through the gathering crowd, Moondancer pushed and kicked until nothing stood between her and Sunset.

“You did this to me!” Moondancer yelled. “It was you! Six years ago! I’ll never forget those eyes! Celezyon! You created her! I know you did!”

Trixie edged close enough to bump Sunset’s elbow. “A ridiculous accusation!”

Moondancer screeched and lunged forwards.

Celestia’s foreleg shot out and barred her way. Under the God’s grip, the mare struggled and flailed and gnashed her teeth. Trixie jumped before Sunset at once.

After a while, Moondancer’s screams and struggles died away. Tears streaked her face. Whatever she was shouting now was garbled and wheezing against the sobs. Celestia eased another forelimb round her, and her grip became an embrace.

Two guards stepped out of the crowds, flustered in the manner of ponies who’ve just woken up and remembered what their jobs were. Sunset strode away with them flanking her. When Trixie drew up alongside, one of them politely but firmly pushed her back by her chest. Sunset hung her head under the murmuring of the crowd and the distant sobbing.

Grey rolled over them; she could see the shadows of the clouds closing in. Snowflakes began to fall again. When she looked back, Celestia was staring after her, with Moondancer burying her own face into the pure white flanks.

A Prayer For Spring

Sunset sat alone – dwarfed – within the pure white expanses of nowhere. She felt nothing. She didn’t dare to feel anything. Only the ghost of Rising Shine hovered over her, and the image of a city reduced to ash.

What have I done? she thought.

The question floated in the bleached world, its meaning fizzing away like metal in acid. Gone.

Around her, the whiteness reminded her of what could have been. This was a prison Celestia reserved for only the severest of crimes. She thought of Moondancer, screaming and sobbing.

A tiny spark lit up inside her.

I have to confess, she thought. No more stealing. No more shortcuts. If I ever earn the right to walk among ponies again, then that’s the only course of action.

Rising Shine’s ghost faded away.

No, it isn’t, Sunset thought, without the demon’s influence. I won’t earn that right if I served the city for a hundred years.

The spark dwindled. She might have been surrounded by snow, buried in an avalanche, slowly suffocating…

Iron scraped against a steel frame. Sunset looked up.

Ahead of her, a square of blankness slid back, revealing a grey block of a door. Through the grille – the only feature beside the rivets – she saw an undulating mane.

Sunset looked down at once. She would not be caught staring. The door scraped aside. Hoofsteps approached.

Both Sunset and Celestia were silent.

Tell her.

“I’ve been stealing artefacts.” Despite the frantic beating of her heart, Sunset strangely felt no shame. “For years. I wanted to tell you for a long time.”

Behind Celestia, the door scraped back into place. A subtle sliding whoosh told her the whiteness had reclaimed its space. They were alone.

“I guess you worked it out already from the papers,” Sunset continued to the emptiness between them. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but it was the only thing that gave me a real joy – no, a thrill – well, before I met you.” A surge of shame carried a blue face forwards. “No one else was involved. It was just me, acting alone.”

Celestia sighed. She knows.

“Please. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll do community service, for the rest of my life if necessary. I’ll make it up to the city.”

I’ll make it up to you.

To her surprise, a glowing yellow floated before her gaze. Celestia levitated… it was hard to tell under the God’s aura, but it looked like the artefact she’d swiped from Blueblood.

When Celestia spoke, her voice was one sigh, painfully extended. “Please tell me why you did this.”

Sunset gritted her teeth, pressing so tightly that the pain almost drowned out the hot liquid rising up her throat.

“You’re a smart and talented mare,” continued the subtle poison of Celestia’s voice. “Why did you think you needed this?”

“I…” Sunset tried again, hoping she wouldn’t break. “I was good. I wasn’t – I used to think I wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be better.”

“To impress me?”

Sunset’s voice failed her. How could Celestia begin to understand? A scientist, bathed in years of study and theory and wide open forests and fields to tramp in and camp out in and connect together into fantastic webs of knowledge and contacts, might as well try and understand the mind of the meanest little ant.

No. No more self-pity.

Her words, when they came, waved as feebly as antennae, but were determined to catch the giant eye behind the magnifying glass eclipsing the sky. Maybe she had a chance yet of connection.

“You compared me once to a mythical fire. The Everlasting Hearth of Life. I wanted to live up to that. That’s all there was to it.”

Celestia hummed. It could have been thoughtful. It could have been doubtful. Sunset’s tiny ember flickered, growing slightly, testing for fuel. Guilt dropped a tighter face into her memory. All this time, and she hadn’t thought to ask…

“How is Moondancer?” she said as though the words were glass. “Is she holding up OK?”

“Yes.” What little poison had mixed into Celestia’s voice was slowly dissipating. Her tone was neutral. “But I fear she won’t speak with you for a long time. I wish to help her with the truth, but I didn’t want to tell her before seeing you.”

“Is there anything I can do to help her?” Sunset wondered why she was still staring at the blank floor. Surely, she thought better of Celestia than that?

Now the old smile brightened Celestia’s voice, cleansed it and sweetened its tones like sugar in water. “She’s a strong spirit, and though you might not agree, I think you two have much in common. If you two are willing, then I believe you’ll make the best of friends.”

If only I could believe that. “And Trixie?”

“Has more than earned that title, believe me. I understand she’s started a petition to have you released. Rest assured she has honourably taken a lot of thrown cabbages on your behalf.”

Despite herself, a chuckle escaped Sunset’s tightening lips. That burst of mirth was out; she was too late to take it back. Finally, her gaze eased up, past the lithe legs that made her tingle just seeing their brilliance again, past the powerful chest that could breathe enough air for a gallop across the entire planet, up the swanlike neck to…

Sunset might have tried staring at the sun. Pain and blindness forced her to avert her gaze.

Suddenly, Celestia breathed in, and her breath was ragged, pained, and straining.

“Sunset,” she whispered, and both the pain and the warmth shook her voice. “Look at me.”

And finally, not daring to disobey, Sunset did.

She saw half of Celestia’s face, gladdened with bright eye and delicate smile, her mane ebbing and flowing more smoothly than waves washing along a white beach. The other half –

Sunset scrabbled backwards.

Dark fur, punctured by a grin with fangs. Shadowy mane tied forcefully down like a restrained beast. And the black eye, with the burning flame of an iris lost within.

“You?” In her haste to put as much distance between herself and that eye, Sunset flopped onto her back.

Celestia and Celezyon closed one eye each. Celestia opened both her eyes again. The half-demon was gone.

“Yes,” said Celestia, her voice sinking under the misery. “Every thousand years, she grows strong enough to escape my control, at least until I can find her and bring her down with my divine arrow. I created her, long ago – fool that I was – and now I must suffer with her for all eternity. As I should, given all the pain and suffering that she’s caused. That I’ve caused.”

For once, Sunset’s face widened with horror, trying to grasp the sheer enormity of those words that vanished into the purity of her prison. The endless white seemed incapable of containing them. They were too astronomically vast.

“But… why?” she said. “You’re a God! You don’t need a nagging voice in your head.”

Celestia’s brow creased beneath the weight of her own thoughts; Sunset imagined she could see the images above her head, of planets colliding, of suns tearing each other apart with gravitational spirals of matter being ripped off each other’s surfaces.

“Sunset,” she said at last. “You remember six years ago, when you carried me to the hermits of the hills? We were in their cave for seven days, waiting for their herbs to heal my injuries. You wanted to stay by my side. You refused to leave me, starve though you almost did. I don’t think even you knew why you did it.”

“Is this about the all-loving lecture?” Sunset crept closer, never taking her eyes off the one half of Celestia’s face. Just in case…

“Ah. You do remember.” Celestia nodded once, the imperial nod, and for a moment they might have been back at the Academy. “Yes, the hermit zebra who took quite a shine to you. She asked you so many questions, and eventually you asked her questions in turn. You remember she told you that there were many kinds of love, but the greatest of all was the all-love? Love, radiating out in all directions.”

“Like the sun.” Relaxing, Sunset sat before Celestia again, ears cocked.

“That’s… one way of putting it.” A sigh… and then Celestia glowered. A cloud might have smothered a midsummer’s day. “Bland, generic, shallow love, the love that drains you of all life and passion and bleeds you until you feel like an empty husk –”

“Celestia!” Sunset covered her mouth with both hooves. “I-I mean, Your Godliness! How can you say that? It’s a wonderful feeling. Whenever I give to charity or do a kind deed, I feel good.”

“Yes. Once or twice, I imagine it’s a pleasure. Now imagine feeling it forever, every second of every day of every year of every millennium, with no real deep connection. With no variation at all.”

Sunset opened her mouth to argue.

But then, perhaps she was still overreaching. Celestia must have lived at least a thousand lifetimes before she – Sunset Shimmer – had ever been born. Perhaps it would feel draining, sooner or later. Even dropping coins in the temple’s donations box, part of her had dreaded the idea that it wasn’t enough, perhaps would never really be enough. And what of the love for victims she’d never met, love inescapably tainted with the pain of imagining, just for a moment, what their lives might be like…

An eternity of that could corrode even the purest gold.

“I can’t imagine it,” she said, shrugging helplessly.

For the first time, Celestia’s smile bloomed. “But then two exciting new things happened to me. Celezyon finally outsmarted me using a power of love that I’d never truly felt before. Then, using the same power, you saved me from her.”

“I didn’t use any love power!” Sunset blurted out. “I just couldn’t sit by and watch you suffer.”

Celestia regarded her. No further words passed her lips.

“For all I know, I was just being selfish.” Shaking at her own speech, Sunset nevertheless felt her deepest thoughts expand to fill the empty whiteness. “You rewarded me with so many favours! I couldn’t believe my luck! I couldn’t even imagine seeing a God up close before. I barely saw any ordinary ponies, except for street types like Trix.”

Celestia’s gaze never wavered. More silence demanded to be filled.

“But I swear it’s not like that now!” Sunset gulped. “I don’t care what the city thinks. I don’t care how or why it started anymore. All I know is… that… that I w-want to spend the rest of my life with you. You could… You could… You could hate me for the rest of my life, or cast me into the Underworld forever, and I won’t stop… I mean, I’ll never… I could never…”

She suddenly saw the faint glistening in Celestia’s eyes. Within her chest, the roaring fire dwindled.

“I’m sorry,” said Celestia thickly. She blinked the drops out of her eyes. “That’s exactly it. So many ponies have worshipped me – loved me – and I love them too. But it’s all-love. At worst, it’s so thin it feels more like a calculated trade. But your love is different. It’s wild. Untamed.”

For a moment, Celestia glanced up in thought.

“Possibly even insane. I barely realized mortals could reach such dizzying heights.” She sniffed, and forced a smile back upon her face. “Sometimes, I honestly have no idea if I should be frightened or thrilled to be singled out by you.”

Sunset reached forwards for a spontaneous embrace –

However, the instant Celestia raised a forelimb as if to back away, Sunset drew away at once.

I haven’t earned that right. Not yet. I know what she means. Sometimes, I frighten myself.

What am I doing? I might as well starve; at least there’s a chance starving would end sooner rather than later. It wouldn’t drag out. Oh, listen to me. I can’t really be this pathetic. Rising Shine was right about that, at least.

Celestia straightened up, as though waiting in the rank and file for orders. After a few seconds, she hissed and shook her muscles loose.

“No,” she said. This time, her voice trembled with menace. “I won’t continue this charade any longer. Sunset, I… I…”

Sunset watched those alabaster lips quiver with life. She didn’t dare move.

To her horror, Celestia’s face died. She hung her head.

“I… failed you. Please believe me; our bond these six years was genuine. What I told you on Delphi Hill was the heartfelt truth.”

Sunset gritted her teeth while her image of the perfect God sagged, groaned, and crumpled into dust. How could she say that? This isn’t what she’s supposed to be. This sounds more like Celezyon, or Rising Shine.

“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, You Godline – Celestia. You can’t come in here and tell me you’ve failed me. Rising Shine was my responsibility. I was stupid enough to think that spell wouldn’t fail if I did it alone.”

Celestia did not look up. When she shook her head, her mane briefly fell like a banner under a failing wind.

“I wanted to spare you the pain I had suffered. I knew you were falling under corruption, so I taught you that spell in the hopes that it would help you improve your mind. For a time, I suspected Celezyon was trying to get to me through you – somehow, with some trick I hadn’t foreseen. But I could only glean the vaguest hints from prophecy. I panicked. I wasn’t thinking of anything but the risk of losing you too.”

A sniff. A foreleg rose to wipe something away.

“I promise you,” she continued, “if I had dared to look, if I had understood how strong your self-hatred and doubt had become, I would never have handed over such terrible power.”

When she raised her head again, Celestia’s face was streaked on both sides, and her cheeks shimmered. “No, not just that. I was afraid of everything. I said your faith could rival the sun and the Gods themselves. Your love was worse. I… I didn’t want to encourage it. Something that strong had powered Celezyon once. I was frightened. I hoped distancing myself from you would grant it less fuel to burn, would save us both, but… but I was mistaken.”

Sunset reached forwards again, but again stopped herself before her legs ever touched Celestia. This time, not a muscle twitched.

“I didn’t know,” said Sunset quietly.

“It hasn’t been easy telling you this.” Celestia swallowed, and held her head high once more. “Gods aren’t supposed to be weak.”

“I don’t think you’re weak.” Honesty wrestled with tact in her head. “It’s a little crazy, maybe.”

“Ha.” A chuckle shook some life back into the God. “Just like the ancients always preached. Passionate love was the enemy of reason. They always said it made you crazy.”

Briefly, Moondancer’s sullen face and the cold marble floor of the temple rose up in Sunset’s mind. “Crazy. Yes.”

Around them, the purity of the prison no longer suffocated. She saw some beauty there, perhaps the kind found in desert dunes, or in a whiteout during a mountain blizzard.

“But Celezyon must be thousands of years old…” Sunset frowned at the floor. “So I’m not really the first.”

“I have long since banished their memories. They existed near the dawn of civilization. All I remember now is what Celezyon whispers in my ear.”

“I can imagine.” You’re not good enough. You’re a parasite. You’re incompetent. The usual clichés, I expect.

Celestia groaned. When Sunset looked up, the God’s eyes were tightly shut.

“Forgive me,” she whispered. “Sunset Shimmer. I did this to you. I let fear and doubt get the better of me, just as they did to you, but at least you’re a mortal. I should’ve known better. You would never have fallen prey to Rising Shine if I’d been half the God you deserve. I wish I could tell you to forget about me, but I know you never will. Even then, I wish with all my heart that you would.”

Sunset stared at her, the once-godlike form abandoned to the all-consuming meaninglessness of the white world. To most ponies, the Gods were like mountains on the horizon, or like the sun in the sky. Fantastically colossal, beautiful, dangerous in their own ways, but basically just there. An entire civilization could live its life around them, rise up on towering palaces, and then crumple and disintegrate into desert sands, and the Gods would still be there, waiting.

A God must be the loneliest soul in the world.

How stupid can I be? Sunset’s flame burst forth, refusing to die. I must be blind. Everyone must be. Why should they have to wait? Love doesn’t care about time, or space, or any of that stuff. No one can put a chain on it. You might as well chain an inferno.

And at last, she reached across for the third time and tightened her grip around Celestia.

Life poured in. She could hear the distant birdsong. In that instant, she saw herself from long ago, dancing between ivy-twined arches and caressing the air with the Aeolian harp floating beside her. Except this time, the carpet of green blazed with bluebells, red crocuses, yellow daffodils – flowers of every colour of the rainbow.

Celestia’s free foreleg wrapped around her shoulders.

“How does it feel?” Sunset whispered. Under Celestia’s warmth, her insides were blooming once more. The scent of spring flowers tickled her memories of seasons long past.

When she finally spoke, Celestia’s voice choked. “The same as it did… six years ago. I will never forget.”

Sunset tightened her grip, wishing she could never let go, wishing she could merge with the pure white body. “Neither will I.”

Long after they’d broken their embrace, long after Celestia had forced herself to leave, and long after the echoes of the slam had faded away, Sunset could still feel the warmth growing inside.