Sunrise, Sunset

Alder was in marvel. His dark eyes were captured by the small twinkling of the gossiping stars. I sighed inwardly as he followed the trek that they made across the sky every day. Although his kind used to be feared in Equestria, he seemed so peaceful and full of hope for a better day that I couldn't possibly imagine being scared of him. I imagine this had changed though. In Equestria, I assumed that no one cared what you were as long as you sided against Luna. Nightmare Moon, technically. Week after week, we lived our miserable lives in a somewhat companionable silence as Alder watched the stars and I brushed up on my fancy magic. Finally, I asked.

"Alder, why'd you get put on the sun and not in a jail?" Alder's buggy hooves traced incoherent lines in the muck.

"All of Equestria's jails were full." He said. This broke my heart. Luna seemed so lost. A sister that I once loved turned into a vicious monster, and I couldn't stop her. Alder stepped closer to me as tears trickled down my face.

"Now I'm sorry." He said with a frown.

"It's alright," I said with a forced smile. "Soon. Soon we'll return and all will be set right. "

"About that," Alder began, clearly happy to steer the subject away from war-torn Equestria. "How's your spell coming along."

"It's coming along I suppose," I said.

"Well, that's good. Right?"

"Yes," I said, with a far-off look of consideration on my face.

"Is something the matter with it?" Alder asked with genuine concern.

"Well, there is one problem," I said timidly. "There's a side effect." Alder's eyes widened as he took this in.

"What do you mean?"

"Depending on how far the add-on, me, travels, the add-on and the summoned will suffer a time jump."

"A what?" Alder asked, his face contorted with confusion and concern.

"A Time jump," I repeated. "So, if it works, we'll end up in Equestria about 400 so years later than planned."

"FOUR HUNDRED?!" Alder exclaimed with downright terror.

"Yes," I said in a meek, squeaky voice. With that, Alder scurried off into the rising wall of heat and scorn.

Solitude, after four months of being with someone who cared about me, being alone again struck a nerve. Alder had presumably taken some time to think. I understood. It was hard to imagine what he felt after I told him that four hundred years will have passed and he won't have lived a single second of them. I began to sniffle. My tears grew in size as my body heaved up fresh sobs. I cried for Equestria, my home lost to the blindness of a waring monster who once was my sister. I cried for Alder and for his cruel punishment of being exiled to this hellish scene only to be destroyed again by my false hope. I cried for my heart, so lost and torn in this insane asylum called the sun. I cried for my sister, a monster now. A mare who knew so much of the world and beyond, a beautiful and knowing soulmate who would give her life for me. She was a fighter, but not this kind of fighter. No the kind that destroys the hope inside of anyone and smacks them around until they live in fear of everything and are sent to places like this. Places with pits of lava, disgusting creatures of smoke and ash who burn your soul with their harsh remarks and scald your throats as you breathe in their sultry voices. I cry and I cry and I cry. I cry for anyone I ever knew, anyone who ever knew me and anyone who still remembers me. I cry for poor lost souls and hopes turned into devilish monsters and thrown away to rot forever.

The stars move across the sky and my eyes grow tired. Alder is still nowhere to be seen. I lift myself up on my browned hooves and begin to trot away from my spot. My limbs grow wearier as I take in the desolate place before me. I could go search for Alder, but I have a feeling he'll come back. Friends always do. Friends. My knees give out as that word crosses my mind. Here I was four months ago wishing to die and now I know someone who could be my friend. How quickly the tides turn. But not quickly enought for the minds of monsters.

My brain exhausts me and I fall asleep.