Never Fade Away

Sunset didn't know a lot at the moment.

She knew she was in some sort of hospital, since her memory seems like it's only missing the useful information that follows the more basic facts (like where the hospital is located).

When she first woke up she assumed she was in some sort of violent accident since her limbs were covered in thin scars and her head felt like she just got something drilled through the side of it, but the more she listened to what the few ponies around her said the less sure she was about that.

At least she knew her name was Sunset Shimmer, but that was only because she read the clipboard at the foot of the hospital bed, and she knows those are usually reliable (except when they're written by less than reliable ponies).

She would probably know more than she did at the moment if she listened to the doctor talking to a giant white mare sitting beside her bed that reeked of smoke and fire, but she started to zone out after he began to talk to the big bonfire mare about "preventive measures" and how she needed a support network and a bunch of other things that sounded like they would've been better said to her by a loved one (did she even have any of those?) and not said to the stranger sitting beside her that hasn't looked in her direction since entering the room.

She tried to pay attention but there's only so many ways she can hear them refer to her without saying her name as if she didn't understand them so she zoned out, let the doctor do doctor business, and started looking around for anything else in the room making noise she could focus on.

For some reason she wished the big white mare would make some noise instead of sitting there in the chair two sizes too small for herself. She wished she would do something besides stare at Flat Line (the doctor's name, one of the few things he said before he started talking as if there were only two ponies and a CPR doll in the room) with a face so blank and pale she looked like she was wearing a silicone mask of herself.

She couldn't help but feel like she was the reason the alabaster mare was upset. Thinking about that only made the scars on her legs start to itch.

Sunset stopped thinking about the white mare and just pretended there was a blank white spot next to her, as if whoever was painting the world around her forgot a spot.

She eventually found a large housefly on the far side of the room to focus on, incessantly bouncing off of the window in front of itself instead of just flying to the right and out the wide open exit instead.

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thumpthumpthumpthump-

"-mer. Sunset Shimmer, are you still with us right now?" It took Sunset a moment to realize Flat Line was talking in a new tone of voice and was probably finally talking to her and not about her.

Looking away from the fly still smashing itself into oblivion against the glass prison that's existed longer than it ever could, Sunset found Flat Line's eyes locked onto hers.

"I'm sorry, I didn't really catch most of that. I think whatever I'm on is making it hard to focus at the moment." Sunset knew she wasn't on anything, the clipboard just had a bunch of fancy words for mundane things that probably didn't melt her brain.

Sunset didn't know a lot at the moment so if the doctor said some slurry of saline and dextrose mixed up in a plastic bag being funneled straight into her veins made her stupid she'd take his word for it.

It was only decades of experience working in Canterlot Castle's Royal Infirmary that let Flat Line keep a straight face. "Unfortunately we do not currently have you on any medication that would cause short term memory loss or declining focus. That would be the brain injury."

Sunset didn't know what to say to that, so she just turned back to look at the fly to see if it had learned its lesson yet.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump-

Nope. Still doing the same thing, still expecting a different outcome. Or maybe it expected nothing and was only smashing itself to death because it's the only thing it's ever known.

Sunset got up from her bed, silencing Flat Line and causing the ivory abyss in the corner to both stop what they were doing to stare at her.

Sunset walked across the room (dragging the pole her IV bag was attached to along the way), walked up to the fly still bouncing against the window, and sent out a pulse from her horn aimed at the general area the fly was bouncing against.

The window cracked from the force of the magical pulse, the fly's mangled corpse permanently fused into the glass web, impossible to spot unless you already knew it was there.

Sunset walked back to her bed, lightly pushed the IV bag back into its original spot, and laid back down in her bed. "Sorry about the window."

Flat Line stared at the window before moving his eyes back to her. "Why didn't you just move the fly towards the open one?"

She felt herself shrug. "I don't know. I felt like the fly would just come back inside and keep trying to smash through the window instead of accepting the open window right beside it."

"And why is that?"

Sunset felt herself shrug again, this time without any words to accompany it.

Flat Line sighed before turning towards the big white mare still sitting motionless beside her bed, decades of experience finally failing him at keeping his expression blank. "Just for the record I am completely against removing her from the hospital wing, but you do have final say as her guardian."

Sunset's eyes bounced between the two ponies standing in her (now former) hospital room as Flat Line's words caught up to her and her gaze settled on the silent mare beside her.

"You're my guardian?" Sunset didn't know why that fact made her feel a dozen things she lost the words for ever since she woke up. "What happened to my parents?"

Sunset wasn't expecting the mare to actually turn towards her and begin to speak, which is the only reason why she jolted so hard the IV cord almost made a whip crack from the force of her movement.

"Unknown. I know you tried to use an ancestry test on yourself a few years ago on your birthday to try and find them, but... it never went anywhere." The big mare still refusing to look directly at her bluntly told her, saying it with the same cadence one would talk about the year a flavor of soda got discontinued.

Sunset didn't even have time yet to think about her family and she's already found out that she didn't even have one. What was she even supposed to think?

The big mare continued to speak as if she didn't just drop all of that onto her. "I am your guardian because I took you in as a private tutor after your performance at a charity sponsorship. You weren't supposed to be there, but nopony could bring themselves to kick you out after you snuck in through the staff entrance in the back."

The big mare took a short breath and continued to speak, and Sunset couldn't stop paying attention to her no matter how many layers of clay her head felt like it was encased in.

"You were seven years old when I took you on as an apprentice, and it's been a little over eight years since then." The white mare said, still refusing to look in her direction.

"If I've been living with you for over eight years, then why are you still just my guardian?" Sunset immediately regretted that question as she watched the alabaster mare open and close her mouth several times, no words managed to find their way out of her throat.

"What's your name? I don't think I caught it when you and Flat Line entered the room." Sunset said after watching the pale mare fail to say a single word several more times.

Sunset made the mistake of looking at the white mare's eyes for a moment before quickly looking at the foot of her bed when she noticed tears rapidly begin to form around them.

"My name's Celestia, Sunset. It's been quite some time since I've had to introduce myself to somepony." Celestia let out a quiet and wet chuckle at that, her laughter sounding like a soap bubble popping before it could even exit her throat.

Sunset continued to stare at the foot of the bed. "Just Celestia?"

Celestia let out another wet chuckle and Sunset watched her paw at her own face out of the corner of her eye, watching the black mascara trail down her face and ruin her fur. "Yes, Sunset, just Celestia. You don't need to call me anything else."

Feeling like it was her turn to forget how to speak Sunset just opened and closed her mouth several times before nodding at the blankets covering her legs.

Sunset had a feeling that the mare three times larger than any a pony should be was more than "Just Celestia" but she didn't voice that thought. If her guardian wanted to be "Just Celestia" then she's just Celestia.

Neither of them spoke for the next few minutes, the air between them heavy and thick with awkwardness and shame Sunset didn't know the source of or the fuel for. Sunset listened to the dying gasps of the few strands of wind strong enough to blow through the cracks in the window.

Sunset had a hundred questions on the tip of her tongue and couldn't find the strength to say a single word. Before she could find the strength to ask any of them Celestia began to speak again.

"There's no good reason." Celestia suddenly said to her. Sunset couldn't help but stare at Celestia in confusion. "For why I'm still just your guardian. There's no good reason. I had a hundred reasons for why I never adopted you, but none of them feel good now."

Celestia made a disgusting noise with her nose that Sunset wished she could imitate on command to get out of awful no good conversations like this one before she continued to speak. "I loved you like a daughter but every time I considered adopting you I would drop a hundred obstacles in my own path and tell myself it was for the best that we stayed student and teacher."

Celestia lost another pound in water weight from the tears she was spilling and made another disgusting noise with her nose that made Sunset think about trumpets made of meat and sinew before continuing to speak to her.

"I was a fool. I should have told you how much I loved you ,and that you were always good enough for me. I should've tried being good enough for you." Celestia let out several more noises that made Sunset's skin feel several sizes too small.

Celestia suddenly leaned towards her and pulled her into a hug, and despite not knowing much Sunset still knew she'd be better off just letting Celestia handle her limp body like a rag doll as she covered her back in the least two disgusting fluids that can come out of a pony's body.

"I love you, Sunset. I love you and I want the whole world to know it so you'll know it as well. I want to make it one of the facts of life. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and I love my daughter Sunset Shimmer." Sunset felt her body lightly shake as Celestia held her in a death grip and she couldn't tell which of them was making it jitter so hard in Celestia's grip.

"Please Sunset, let me adopt you. Please give me another chance." Celestia said quietly as she held Sunset close. Sunset could feel her slightly sticky mascara begin to mat in her fur.

Sunset stared straight ahead and continued to violently shake in Celestia' grip as she tried scraping the dusty rust off of the corners of her mind to find the words that could finally make everything all right.

After a minute or so of Celestia sobbing and probably Sunset shaking, she opened her mouth and immediately regretted the sentence that she actually said instead of the one she wanted to say.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I can make that choice at the moment." Sunset focused on the sound of the curtains billowing in the warm wind that felt like an arctic gale when compared to the heat Celestia was putting off.

Sunset focused on the thermometer beside the door. She watched it start to climb by the second, sprinting past 75 and well on it's way to 80.

Sunset focused on anything besides Celestia's absolute lack of noise since she began to speak. Sunset didn't want to speak anymore, but she knew she had to finish her sentence.

"I can't make that choice at the moment. I don't really know you."

Sunset knew that sentence was nothing but the truth, and that's probably why it hurt so much to say despite her head feeling like it was covered in five layers of cold lead.

If Sunset felt like her head was covered in cold lead then Celestia must've felt like her fur was covered in molten lead with how quickly she let go of her.

"I'm- my apologies. I'm sorry to dump all of that onto you so soon. I should have... I should've... I could have..." Celestia trailed off as she looked down at the cuts all along Sunset's legs.

Before Sunset could move or speak or do anything besides lie there like a doll Celestia wrenched her eyes closed, let out a noise from deep within her chest that you'd only expect to hear out of a dying animal in the bottom of a bloody well, and then teleported out of the room in a flash of gold, taking the smell of fire and ash and the stifling heat of a desert wind along with her.

Sunset felt like she had just survived a wolf attack or a rock slide just from watching Celestia cry. Sunset wasn't sure if she which option out of the three she would've preferred.

For one moment, through the cracks in whatever invisible clay was keeping her mind together, she thought about what would happen when Celestia calmed down and the only thought she had was that Celestia would realize she was broken and not her beloved daughter-student-ward she had a week ago.

Sunset rolled this thought over in her head for one brief moment, decided it wasn't good for her health, and then buried it in the back of her head and made herself forget she ever thought it.

The only sounds left in the room were the flapping of the curtains from the wind blowing in through the open window, the low hiss of the few gusts of wind brave enough to skirt in through the cracked glass, Sunset's bed frame rattling hard enough that if she was aware of the world around her she'd be afraid of it losing a screw or several from the vibrations, and the sound of Flat Line taking a drag off of a cigarette Sunset was sure he wasn't supposed to be smoking in here.

"What a buckin' mess." Flat Line said to his reflection in the window before blowing the smoke out the window in between bursts of wind so it wouldn't fly back into the room.

Sunset didn't know a lot at the moment, but she knew enough to agree with Flat Line.