Phoenix

“So, how long are you going to be out?” Mother Charity rested against the door frame as she watched Sunset mess around with the turtleneck she had just pulled on.

“Dunno, probably an hour or two.” Sunset responded as she spun around, observing her work. “Gotta make sure the disguise works after all.”

“Right… And why are you trying to disguise yourself? I thought you were going to let your friends know you were alive?” the woman scolded Sunset gently, the teen pausing momentarily.

“...I can’t do it yet. Not until I know who I am…” Sunset’s head jerked around as she tried to both look at Mother Charity and avert her gaze. “It wouldn’t be fair to any of them…”

“Haaa…” Mother Charity raked a hand through her hair as slumped over slightly, her sigh seeming to steal her body of its rigidity. “You know the longer you take the worse the reaction will be, right?”

“You think I haven’t spent every free moment of my time here thinking about it!?” Sunset hissed, spinning around on the woman and glaring angrily, only to falter and deflate in a manner similar to to Mother Charity. “Sorry, Mother… It’s just… Who am I to them? Who am I to myself?”

***

Sunset smiled slightly as she flipped her hood up over her head, her hair tied back and sitting between the hoodie and turtleneck, whilst her toque sat comfortably over the top of her head. The midday light was comfortably filtered by her large sunglasses, the lens pushing slightly into her cheeks as they picked up in time with her smile.

“See you all in a little bit.” she called back, giving a small wave with the back of her glove encased hand before starting out onto the street. She stood there for a moment, taking in the noise and the smells. The times she had gone out for dates were generally fast paced, so she never really got the chance to just stand around and enjoy Canterlot. Sure, the Charity House was close to a rougher part of town, but during the day everything seemed normal.

People were bustling too and fro, entering and exiting the various business complexes that lined the streets, hailing cabs or waiting to cross the street. It felt strange to Sunset to just stand and people watch, a small chuckle coming to her face as she watched all the Humans rush around in a mad frenzy. Back in Equestria it was extremely rare to see anypony in a rush, yet here it seemed to be a way of life.

She paused and smacked her lips, realizing she felt a little parched. She started to walk down the street, wondering where she could go for a quick bite to eat. Her mind instantly wondering to Sugarcube Corner, causing her to violently shake her head. She may as well walk in there nude if she was stupid enough to go there. No, she needed some in the local area, something off the radar, a little bit away from the beaten path.

She paused as she waited for the street lights to change, her head looking down the different ways she could go. There was one nearby that she remembered visiting a few times in the past. They had a killer rose tea and were maybe a fifteen to twenty minute walk, assuming traffic wasn’t super congested.

She smirked as she crossed the street, nodding slightly as she came to her decision. Her hands shifted around slightly in the fur lined pockets of her hoodie, the leather leather gloves she wore sliding around easily. She made quick progress towards the cafe, bobbing and weaving her way through the crowd as she got ever closer. All in all it had taken her about seventeen minutes to get there.

“Hi there, welcome to Pepper’s!” the girl greeted Sunset warmly, a smile on her face as she looked up at the taller girl. “Table for one today?”

“Yup. Is that table over there by the window open?” Sunset pointed over towards the middle of the cafe, a prime spot to watch the people passing by.

“Certainly!” the girl positively beamed as she bounced in spot. “Right this way please!”

“Ah, I won’t need a menu,” Sunset paused the girl as she reached under her standee. “I already know what I’d like.”

“Alrighty!”

The pair made their way through the somewhat busy cafe, couples, coworkers, and comrades all sitting and talking, their drinks adding a homely aroma to the cafe.

“Here you are! Your server will be right with you!” Sunset thanked the girl before she took her seat at the table, the window to her left. She sat and watched as people made their way through the throngs of their fellow city members, a sea of vibrantly different people, their unique colours creating a rainbow sea of individuals.

“Hi there! I was told you knew what you having already.” Sunset blinked a few times as her surroundings returned to her, turning to address the young man in a rather striking tuxedo.

“Ah, yes! It has been a while since I was last here unfortunately,” Sunset smiled warmly to her waiter as she turned around to face him. “but I was hoping that you still served that amazing rose tea here.”

“We still do, yes. Is that what you would like?” the young man pulled a small pad and pen out of his breast pocket.

“Yes, please.” Sunset nodded, watching as the man scribbled away at his pad.

“And anything else?” he asked smiling back at her as he looked up from his pad.

“Not for now, thank you.” the man nodded as he turned away and started walking over to another table, leaving Sunset alone with her thoughts once more.

She had spent so much of her time going over the pros and cons of revealing that she was alive to her friends. No matter how much she desperately wanted to go back to them, she was worried about how badly they would react. She was dead to them after all, so how would they react if she just showed up during one of their dinner dates of some great importance to let them know she was alive? They hate her, probably come to blows when they realized she had tricked all of them, playing them for fools once again!

She couldn’t live with the fact that they might hate her for her actions…

“Here’s your tea.” Sunset barely noticed the waiter as he deposited her tea onto the table, as well as a small tray holding a small container of cream and some sugar packets. She nodded her head absentmindedly, obviously enough to placate the young man as he departed.

She absentmindedly reached over to the cup, grasping it in a gloved hand as she brought it slowly to her mouth, the instantly familiar scent bring a large, dopey smile to her face as it wafted lazily through the air.

Her sense erupted into euphoria as she brought the small cup up to her lips, taking a slow, measure sip of the steaming liquid. The boiling liquid spread throughout her mouth, the floral taste spreading over every single taste bud along her tongue, elating every fiber in her body.

She was unsure how long she sat there at the table, her vision blurring as every sense other than taste and pleasure became ever increasingly muffled. People swam across her blank, glassy eyes, the waiter stopped by a few times to check on her, Sunset sending him away with a lazy nod and mumbled word. Every single worry seemed to melt away in the face of the heated bliss that resided in her teacup. The door chime rang out multiple times while Sunset was in her stupor, but nothing was able to shake her from her stupor.

“Look, I wish she was still around as much as you!” Sunset barely repressed her spluttering as a voice cut cleaning through her bubbly state, the squeaking and scratching of three chairs being moved around behind her adding to the mounting din. “But she’s gone, Adagio! You were there, we all saw the body!”

“Would it kill you to lower your voice for once in your life, Aria!?” came Adagio’s rather rough sounding voice, the Siren leaders voice still demanding respect regardless of its haggard sounding state as Adagio shifted to Equestrian. “And I don’t care what you think, she is still alive!”

“Oh? And how do you know that? Did a birdie tell you or something!?”

Sunset did her best to not draw any attention to herself as she took another sip of her tea, trying her best to ignore the heated bickering of the two Sirens. She only heard Adagio and Aria going back and forth in Equestrian, but Sunset knew she had overheard the three of them enter. She was forced to out her tea cup down due to the uncontrollable shaking that had taken over her body.

What were they doing here!? Had they found her!? How had they found her!? What was she going to do!? She had to get out of here! But how!? They were between her and the door!? Through the window!? No, too obvious and dangerous, you cloudbrained idiot!

“Fine, so say that Sunset or Fireside or whatever we want to call her,” Aria said loudly in an extremely aggravated tone, her Equestrian rough compared to her leader. “How do we find her then?”

Sunset somehow heard Adagio mutter something, yet was unable to discern what the Siren was trying to say. Much like Aria, it seemed, as the Siren was quick to speak up again.

“Come again?”

“I said,” Adagio’s voice paused for a moment, before uttering words that Sunset would have never expected to be heard from the ancient beings mouth. “I don’t know, Aria. I just know that she is out there, and I intend to find her.”

“And what do we do when we find her…?”

Sunset Shimmer had dealt with her fair share of sorrow in her life. Living on the streets, the realization of her actions as she crawled from a crater in the school grounds of Canterlot High School, she even hired people to kill her because she was feeling abandoned by everyone in her life.

But the… void… the emptiness in the voice of Sonata Dusk… she felt tears start to build at the corner of her eyes.

Sunset ignored what the three were saying as she shakily removed the glove from her amber hand before it started to crawl into pocket of her hoodie. She retrieved a crisp red fifty dollar bill from the wallet she had grabbed from the pocket, placing it on the table as she returned the small leather satchel to her pocket. Her whole body was trembling as she forced her hand back into the empty glove, raising the hand and alerting the waiter to her.

“K-Keep the change and give my compliments to the house…”

The door chimed pleasantly behind her as she left the cafe…

***

Sunset had worried Mother Charity, to put it kindly, upon her return to the Charity House, the Equestrian bursting through the doors with tears streaming down her face as she tore up the stairs. She had slammed her door behind her with such force that the hinges had threatened to fall off, the sounds of the lock being slid shut following closely after. The girl had tossed herself onto her bed, attempting to muffle herself with her pillow, but to no avail. Sunset’s heart wrenching sobs cut through the house, at times they seemed to threaten to tear the very foundations of the Charity House apart.

Sunset never left her room that week. Mother Charity had been forced to unlock the room with her master key, but the meeting that had occurred between the two was kept silenced. Sunsets client were informed that she would be unavailable until further notice, and their money refunded if they so desired. Mother Charity was also responsible for bringing Sunset her meals, though they were often returned barely a third eaten.

Sunset herself was even worse for wear than she sounded. Mother Charity often just found the young woman lying motionless on her bed, her clothes growing rank in her newly sedentary lifestyle. Her crimson arm and and otherworldly eye sat unobscured, free to be gazed upon by any who saw the girl. More than once had Mother Charity rushed to the teen’s side, worried by Sunset’s lack of movement that she may have done something drastic.

This became the status quo for the entirety of the third week, and it wasn’t until the start of the fourth week that the cycle was broken…

***

“Come on, dear.” Mother Charity said as she sat down beside Sunset, the girl in the same pose as every single other innumerable time that the woman had come to check on her. “You need a shower…”

Sunset’s response was to have her eyes blink in a sloppy, uncoordinated fashion as she continued to stare up at the dark ceiling.

“Am I going to have to carry you, Sunset?”

A barely noticeable breath, a minutely shallow rise of the paling girl’s chest.

“Okay, I’m going to sit you up.” Mother Charity sat there for a few seconds, waiting to see if the girl would respond. When no response came the woman gave a soft sigh before getting off of Sunset’s bar stool. She gently wormed her arm under the girl, finagling her way around Sunset’s back before stopping and steadying her hold of the girl.

“Time to get up.” she said as she slowly started to lift Sunset up. Extremely slowly. “You gotta help me here, Sunset. You’re heavier than you look!”

It took Mother Charity a whole fifty seven seconds to get Sunset’s limp, corpse like body up into a sitting position, the girl now blankly staring at the far wall, though her expression remained unchanged.

“Okay…” the woman huffed from the exertion she had just gone through. “Time to turn you around…”

Another ninety four seconds.

“Sunset, am I going to have to call an ambulance for you?” Mother Charity asked as she finished swinging Sunset around, her amber feet landing on the floor with a dead thud.

“No…” came the barely whispered response from Sunset, the girl’s body not even moving as she answered.

“Than are you going to stand on your own and walk with me to the showers?” the woman stood and watched as Sunset slowly closed her aquamarine eyes, before shuddering slightly.

“How long this time…?” she asked in a slightly more coherent manner, looking over slowly at Mother Charity as she opened her eyes.

“Two days and…” the woman’s emerald orbs shot down to the watch hanging on her wrist. “Seven hours.”

“Haaa…” Sunset raked her hands through her hair as she stood up, glancing back at the matriarch of the house. “You’re gonna need to take me out of town this weekend…”

“I think I can arrange that.” there was a solemn nod to go with the grim look on the woman’s features. “I won’t pretend that I know what’s going on, but if it could lead to issues with your health, then I’m more than willing to take care of it.”

“The headaches have been getting worse…” Sunset mumbled into her hand as she started to stumble towards the door. “That encounter with… them… I… My emotions have been all out of whack, and it’s affecting my magic…”

“Will you need a hand with the shower?”

“Nah, I’ll manage… Just, uh… Find somewhere rural…” Sunset paused as she stood in the doorway,her eyes glancing back at Mother Charity as a sheepish smirk spread across her face. “Somewhere near a lot of water…”

***

“So how long will we be out here?” Mother Charity asked as the generic white van rumbled down along the dirt road, small rocks flicking out behind the spinning tyres.

“Well considering I don’t want to burn you, the van, and the entire surrounding forest down, probably…” Sunset gave a pained smirk, rubbing the side of her head with her clawed hand as she looked over at the driver of the vehicle. “Ten minutes? To be safe?”

“Your fine if I watch?”

“Sure, why not.” Sunset shrugged, returning her gaze to the road. “I can finally prove to you that everything I’ve said is truth. Besides, when I’m done I’ll need your help to get back to the van.”

It only took another few, quick minutes for the van and its passengers to reach their destination, the pair exiting and following a small path through the woods. The air around them was surprisingly cool given how warm it had been back in town, the sound of birds calling or flapping away alerting the pair to the fact that they weren’t alone. It took them a few minutes to get through the small copse and into the clearing, a large, shimmering lake sitting there to greet them.

“Alright… Um… hold my hoodie for me? I don’t know how this is gonna react.” Sunset slowly shed the bulky piece of clothing, leaving her to shiver slightly in her t shirt. “You should also stay back there, don’t want to hurt you or anything.”

Sunset didn’t listen to see if Mother Charity had responded, instead focusing on making her way towards the lake. She stopped about a foot away from it, studying her reflection in the glass like water in front of her. She took a deep breath, followed by a second, and then a third, closing her eyes as she held her hand in front of her, focusing on the near bursting magic reserves held within her.

Every Pony in Equestria had magic, be it the Earth Pony’s strength or ability to communicate with the earth and nature, or the Pegasus’ ability to fly and walk on clouds. Even Unicorns accessed and used their magics in different ways or for different things. She had heard of great musicians who could play the strings of their instruments with such precision, yet when they were asked to move something they struggled to even lift a light object. Other Unicorns were able to delicately manipulate a countless number of small objects, but were unable to create a steady source of light with their magic. Unicorns also had different elements that they preferred, such as ice, or in Sunset’s case, fire.

Sunset slowly raised her daemonic hand in front of herself, the air shimmering and starting to crackle lightly. She could feel the embers of her magic start to flicker and jump to life, a joyous smile building on her face as the air around her clawed hand became like molten steel, the air hissing violently. Her eyes suddenly shot open, an arcane glint flickering in them as a cry of joy and exertion exploded from Sunset, as well as a massive gout of roiling flame.

“Holy shit!” Sunset faintly heard Mother Charity cry out in shock as a pillar of flame erupted out of Sunset’s otherworldly hand, raising up into the air against the rules of physics, becoming a massive inferno. While she could feel the heat radiating around her, and saw the air distorting around the outstretched limb of her charge.

Sunset couldn’t help but laugh gaily as the magic flowed freely through her, the sensation of power and liberation uplifting her. Literally, as Sunset could feel her feet starting to levitate off the ground, her body slowly rising up through the air. She felt small disturbances around her body, looking around her as she saw a pair of wings, made of pure magic made manifest, sprout from her, one angelic and feathery the other daemonic and bat like. She felt the focus of her magic shift, focusing on the luminescent horn that appeared from her forehead.

She slowly settled down, though the exuberant smile on her face refused to leave as her feet stopped at almost touching solid ground. She laughed as she turned around to look at Mother Charity, her elation erupting in volume and mirth as she took in the state of the older woman.

“Hey? What’s with the reaction there, Charity?” Sunset chuckled as she floated over to the woman. “I’ve never seen you look like this before.”

“I could say the same to you, Sunset…” the woman responded as she obviously tried to compose herself. “Are you sure you didn’t drug me at some point? Because all of this is really weird. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!”

“Oh, you think this is crazy?” Sunset’s smirk quickly shifted from bemusement to self confident and proud. “Let me show you why I was the personal prodigy of a literal goddess.”

***

“Okay… I am never going that all out ever again…” Sunset groaned as the pair sat in a drive through.

“Well at this point, I think you could tell me the sky is red and I’d believe you, Sunset.” Mother Charity responded as she returned her wallet to her purse, driving ahead to the next window to receive their food.

“Heh, that only happens when Celestia finds out you go to the restricted section without her approval…”

“I take it you have some experience with that then?” the woman smiled as she looked over at the positively gaunt form of the girl from another world.

“I didn’t know feathers could hit that hard… I couldn’t sit for a week…”

“Hi there!” the two turned and looked at the overly peppy girl holding out a small tray holding two plastic containers. “One vanilla sundae and one marshmallow sundae!”

“Thank you very much.” Mother Charity nodded as she retrieved the tray, handing it towards Sunset. “Have a good rest of the day.”

“Awww, thank you!’ the girl cooed, looking positively ecstatic at the compliment. “You two as well!”

“By Celestia’s beard!” Sunset groaned as she tore the top off of the container of her sundae, messily devouring the cold treat without restraint. “This is sooo gooooood…!”

“May I ask why you got… marshmallows on your sundae?” the older woman looked over at the sloppy face of Sunset with a little concern and a lot of confusion.

“This is better than all the orgasms you will ever have. EVER. HAVE.” Sunset informed as she returned to stuffing her face into the ice cream.