Never Fade Away

by Bubblesniffer

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Sad, Drama, Original Character, Mystery, Princess Cadance, Suicide / Self Harm, Profanity, Princess Celestia, Sunset Shimmer
Length: 12069

Sunset didn't know a whole lot at the moment. She knew that she was in some sort of hospital, her name is Sunset Shimmer, and that the big white mare sitting beside her bed makes her feel like a bug one second away from getting crushed.

Sunset didn't know a lot at the moment.

She knew she was in some sort of hospital, since her memory seemed 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'd assumed she was in some sort of violent accident. Her limbs were covered in thin scars, and her head felt like something had 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 knew those were usually reliable (except when they're written by less than reliable ponies).

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

There's no mirror for Sunset to get obsessed with, and by extension run away into. Stuck with her spiraling mental health in a castle that hates her as much as she hates it, the pressure reaches a breaking point and Sunset does some things in the night she regrets but doesn't remember by dawn. All she knows is her name is Sunset Shimmer, she's in a hospital, and she doesn't know the giant white mare that smells like smoke.

Published 2024-09-14 16:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-09-27 03:19:03 UTC

Chapter 1

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.

Chapter 2

Flat Line smoked two more cigarettes before he finally gave up hoping that Sunset would follow Celestia's lead and pop out of his life before turning back towards her.

"Unfortunately Celestia is still working herself into needing the first ever alicorn heart transplant, so she gave me a list of things she didn't want me to 'worry you over'." Flat Line said while moving his hooves up in down. Sunset knew they were supposed to be air quotes but the only thing she could think of was a catpony doing a cutesy pose.

'Flat Line would be the saddest sopping wet catpony.' Sunset thought to herself through a mental haze as she zoned out for a few moments.

Flat Line continued to speak in spite of Sunset's inner thoughts. "Not that I was planning on saying anything. Most of it is just crap nopony within a hundred miles of Canterlot is going to be sui-stupid enough to say." Flat Line said to the lamp next to her head, momentarily stumbling over a word Sunset would prefer to ignore.

"A few of the things on the list are things you should probably know, and one or two of them might even be things you need to know." Flat Line shrugged, a pale imitation of her from a few minutes ago. "Normally I'd just take my lumps and ignore Celestia, but she's been a bit emotional lately and I value the little things in life like having a job so..." Flat Line trailed off before throwing imaginary confetti into the air.

"You're a terrible doctor." Sunset's head still felt so muffled and fuzzy that it took her several moments to realize that she was the one talking.

"Actually, I'm an amazing doctor. If I was a terrible one you'd be a member of the grateful dead, not the ungrateful living." Flat Line's slate gray horn lit up with a steel blue glow, and Sunset watched as he levitated a flower out of one of the many plastic vases surrounding her bed before bringing it over to himself.

"If you want to criticize me for something, then yell at me and throw a vase at my head for the mean shave I had to give you. I never was the best at shaving heads." As Flat Line talked the flower in his magic's grasp slowly transfigured itself into a cigarette.

Sunset absentmindedly dragged her hoof across her head, feeling the short choppy mane she was left with. The entire left side of her head was shaven, and what little remained of her mane looked like what a hobo's attempt at doing a punk style would have look like.

Sunset couldn't bring herself to care about a bad haircut at the moment.

Stopping to speak just long enough to light the cigarette with magic before putting it into his mouth, Flat Line leaned back against the open windows before continuing to speak. "In my defense I went to medical school, not barber school."

Sunset felt her mind briefly become less muffled when she looked at the cigarette still floating in his magical grip. Sunset didn't know a lot, but she knew every calculation that went into that transfiguration spell. "Is it safe to smoke a transfigured cigarette?"

Flat Line rolled his eyes and smirked at nothing after hearing her words. Sunset didn't know how she knew it was a smile, since it looked more like the world's calmest snarl. "Of course you'd still be a nerd that doesn't care about losing half her hair. Celestia will be happy to hear that at least."

Sunset opened her mouth again.

"And yeah, it's safe to smoke. None of the flowers are poisonous. You've got some weird ones sent your way though." Flat Line rubbed his chin and zoned off as well for a brief moment. "What the heck kinda bouquets are they sending you?"

Sunset slowly looked at the large table that was probably once covered in beautiful arrangements of flowers before Flat Line picked through them like a sheep with an eating disorder. "I wouldn't know."

Flat Line shrugged again. "I wasn't really sure if you were gonna wake up or not so I decided to take a few of the more wilted flowers and it kind of spiraled from there."

Sunset stared at him harder, squinting through the haze surrounding her emotions. She felt... annoyed? "Aren't doctors supposed to have bedside manners?" Sunset didn't know a whole lot at the moment, but even she knew that.

Flat Line looked at the burnt up cigarette he was smoking before levitating it between him and Sunset before dragging a new one towards it. "You caught me at the bad end of a horrible week. You know how many doctors that work here are registered to work on the royal family?"

Sunset shook her head.

"Two, and that's only because Celestia hired a second one for Cadance last year. Not to knock 'em but they're basically a glorified pediatrician." Lighting the new cigarette with the old one, Flat Line tossed the butt out the window before looking back at Sunset. "Wanna know how many doctors here are registered to perform surgery on the royal family?"

Sunset could take a reasonable guess.

"One. And Sunny?" Sunset watched as the cigarette floating between the two of them burst into flames. "I've been burning the candle at both ends for a week straight keeping your flame from dying out. I'm tired." Turning back around, Flat Line went back to the window on the far corner of the room.

Flat Line stared out the window at the city below them, cobblestone streets stretching out and down the mountain like veins escaping from their preassigned lanes. "It's a little past noon. It's another beautiful sunny Fall day, with not a cloud in the sky. There hasn't been a cloud in the sky for about a week now, and the weather report for the next week is about the same."

Sunset Shimmer felt the warm Fall breeze blow across her face, carrying a hint of burning tobacco with a flowery undertone along with it. "Isn't Fall supposed to be chilly?"

Flat Line took another drag of his cigarette. "Yeah, it is. Guess we've just been having a bit of a late heatwave."

Sunset frowned at the window. "I think... I would prefer it to be cooler." Sunset nodded. "I don't like warm falls."

Flat Line looked back at Sunset, staring at her with slightly more intensity than before. "You and me both, kid. In fact you should tell Celestia that the next time you see her."

Sunset stared at Flat Line until he started to chew on the butt of his old cigarette. "What? Maybe she likes talking about the weather. You don't know."

Lying back onto the bed Sunset felt the haze around her head shift slightly. That's right, she doesn't know. She doesn't know anything at the moment. She doesn't know where she lives or where she is or if she has any friends or what happened to her or what wou-

Flat Line interrupted her existential crisis with a loud clearing of his throat. "You know you should uh, probably stretch your legs for a bit. Looking around your home will probably help jog your memories."

Sunset quickly slid back into her earlier passivity after digesting his words for a moment. She couldn't think of anything wrong with what he said, so she decided she might as well stick to the professional's advice.

"Does every hospital discharge their patients the moment they wake up?" Sunset accidentally asked out loud.

Flat Line shook his head, his large ears flopping back and forth. "Nope. But this isn't a average hospital, you're one of the lucky few that have recovered on a royal medical bed, and I'm not an average doctor."

Following the direction his hoof was pointing Sunset could see small lines of text written on the baseboard of the bed. Not even noticing her own sudden interest in the world around her Sunset began to inspect the bed frame.

Sunset could see small lines of glowing text written on every single surface and edge of the bedpost and even a few on the mattress itself, crisscrossing like endless lines of traffic on a never-ending drive on an old familiar road. Sunset could see just how much talent went into every inch of the bed. It was a modern miracle.

Flat Line gave Sunset a few moments to nerd out over the magical hospital bed before drawing her attention back to him by trotting in place for a moment. "Yeah, it's a magic bed with enough bells and whistles to put an infomercial to shame."

Flat Line noticed Sunset's eyes begin to stray back to the bed frame before he trotted in place again.

"Anyways, you should get out of here. I wasn't joking about you needing to stretch your legs. It'll probably do you some good to explore and jog your memory, and I know you're healthy enough for it."

Sunset squinted at Flat Line for a bit until he rolled his eyes and let out another huff of smoke. "I also wouldn't mind taking a nap while you're out and about, and that's the only royal clinic bed we have activated at the moment."

Sunset didn't know a whole lot at the moment, so she supposed she should listen to her doctor and get up and get out.

"You can either return here tonight to sleep or return to your room. If you return to your room you'll need to make sure you stop by here so I can make sure nothing's changed over 24 hours. If you experience any negative or neutral symptoms return here immediately." Flat Line mechanically said to her, going through some routine only he seemed to know as he tossed the final cigarette out the window.

"I can't think of any medication that'd benefit you at the moment, and Celestia has all the papers with the exercises you should do." Flat Line stared off into space for a moment before looking into her eyes.

"Next time you visit you'll probably run into Furaha, she's the glorified physician I mentioned earlier. Do me a favor and don't act weird around her like the first time you met her." Sunset didn't really know what to say to that so she just nodded for what felt like a reasonable amount of time.

Flat Line looked like he was considering whether or not letting her outside the room was a good idea before his ears perked up for a moment. After concentrating on something Sunset wasn't even sure was real or not Flat Line's ears flopped back down to the sides of his head.

"Yeah, you're definitely good to go. Right now, in fact. If you're wondering where anything is then just ask the first pony you see for directions and it'll work out." Briskly trotting towards the door Sunset opened it and begin to step outside into the hall before Flat Line called out to her again.

"Oh and one more thing." Sunset looked back at Flat Line and saw him already climbing into the immediately discarded bed. "If you see Celestia tell her to keep at least two senses engaged to prevent mental fog. She'll know what I mean."

Sunset was glad that Celestia was supposed to understand that, because she sure as heck didn't. Nodding at Flat Line as he shuffled into bed Sunset turned back around and exited the door before almost immediately running into a dark pink pony with pale pink feathers standing on the other side of it holding a mishmashed vase of flowers.

"Sunny?" Sunset watched the plastic vase drop to the floor, almost disappointed when it didn't even bounce or spill over and instead just fell flat on the floor with a dull thud, not a single flower petal managing to get knocked loose.

Looking back up at the pink mare in front of her, Sunset's vision was almost entirely overtaken by eye-searing feathers as the stranger pulled her into an improvised choke hold.

"OhmygoshI'msohappytoseeyou'refinallyawake-" The pink pony paused to take several deep breaths before continuing to speak.

"Auntie said you would be fine but she wouldn't stop crying. I don't think anyone's ever seen her like that before. Dr. Line made some morbid joke at one point and auntie's hair- I don't even want to remember it!" The pink mare begin to sob into her shoulders, right above the spot that Celestia splattered earlier.

Sunset felt her hooves wrap around the crying teenager holding on to her for dear life, and before Sunset even realized what was happening she had a small torrent of tears running down her own cheeks.

Sunset might have found it hard to think at the moment, but difficult didn't mean impossible. And at the moment, Sunset was very sad and very scared, and she felt like she deserved to cry as much as much as anyone else in her existence had so far.

"I'm sorry if this is a big ask since I can't remember how well I knew you-" Sunset said, ignoring the winged pink mare choking on her own sobs as she buried her face into her shoulder even harder. "-But can you take me somewhere nice? I've only been awake for an hour and I'm already tired of feeling bad."

The pink pony immediately gripped her back as if she would disappear before letting out the loudest, wettest wail yet before letting out several sobs as if they were preemptively queued up.

Sunset didn't know exactly what skills she had locked in her head besides bed frame reading, and it seemed like talking to crying mares wasn't on her shortlist of life skills.

Chapter 3

Every pearlwood doorway Cadance and her passed through was singed black at the top, as if a ball of fire and self-hatred swept through it in a rush, too busy and greedy to give away its flames to anything it passed.

The amount of trailing hoof prints burned and melted into the masonry of the castle halls made Sunset think the fire knew as much about itself as she did.

The damage to every area she had walked through had no real consistency to it. Some hallways were pristine with not a single scratch on any of the furniture, while others were so blackened and warped the two of them had to keep walking until they found another winding path in the broken maze that now seemed to make up her life.

As Sunset contemplated the destruction that seemed to have hit every wing of the castle except for medical, she heard the repetitive small ringing of a hoofbell, the oddly deep timber ringing loudly, begging to be heard above the muffled haze that was the world around her. Looking down at the far end of the hall she and Cadance had just stepped into Sunset saw what was making the noise.

It was a small white ceramic orb, about as large as a pumpkin, branded with five layers of inky black runes overlaid on the top side of it in a slight spiral focused on a dark metal bell, the intricately carved bell continuing to loudly ring as it floated at eye level above the ball.

The white orb quickly rolled across the floor, seemingly morphing through whatever item dared to exist in the space it wanted to move through. Sunset watched it through hazy eyes as it quickly enveloped a plush couch that looked good enough to fall asleep and never wake up on, leaving the couch in better condition than it was before the ball trampled it like a rat that got dared to poke an elephant.

Sunset watched the orb roll towards her, only stepping aside for it at the last moment before it bowled her over and decided to see how she tasted—probably like snot and tears if the crusty feeling of her back was to be trusted.

As it passed Sunset by she looked over the spiraling runes spinning around the bell, every etched rune as dark as the bottom of the ocean and in a constant state of motion due to the ball's nonstop movement. Sunset watched the pattern swirl like the eye of a storm as it passed her by, it's rush to get to the end of the never-ending trail a walking inferno left behind the only thing it seemed to find purpose in.

Sunset stared on as the hoof prints got erased until nothing remained, the white orb disappearing around the corner to purify the rest of the castle. Sunset thought the pristine hallway still smelled like smoke and fire, even through her stuffy nose.

Cadance, who was apparently somepony Sunset used to know very well that wanted to get to know her all over again, walked up to her as she stood in the middle of the hallway and got lost staring at the endless red carpet rushing down the halls that stretched on and on, always merging with another doorway before leading off into their own hallways with their own endless red carpets.

"What, don't remember the cleaning borbs?" Sunset slowly looked over at Cadance, a look of slight confusion overtaking the tear-stained apathy that had been her expression since they left the hallway in front of medical.

"C-cleaning borbs?" Sunset asked, stumbling over her own words with a heavy cough that cleared the flem from her throat that had settled in it from all her earlier disgusting crying as well as a little more of the fog that had crept back into her head.

Cadance graciously pretended to not hear Sunset cough up a soggy lung as she nodded at her before suddenly flapping her wings to hover in the middle of the hallway so she could gesture with her upper limbs.

"Behold the after-effects of the cleaning borb!" Cadance said as she waved her hooves at the completely ordinary hallway they stood and hovered in the center of. Cadance stumbled over her words a few times and still looked like she was on the verge of tears, but Sunset could see some joy begin to peek through.

"Tired of having to wake up at three in the morning instead of two minutes before dawn because you needed to cast some repair spells after your oh so beloved student knocked some potassium in a glass of water while practicing alchemy?"

Sunset stared at the sad mare putting on a happy act with confusion. She was pretty sure the target demographic for this sales pitch wasn't anywhere near the hallway they were both standing in, but it was the first time in Sunset's very short memory Cadance looked happy so Sunset sat down and watched her.

Cadance continued her melancholic sales pitch, not put off at all by Sunset's lack of a reaction. "Introducing... the borb. Is it a ball? An orb?" Cadance shrugged. "I dunno, so why not a borb? Using a five-layer variety of public domain charms, enchantments, and runes, that bad baby is capable of cleaning and repairing over twelve hours of pure destruction! How does it work? Well, I'll tell you!" Cadance said with a slowly emerging grin before pausing for a few moments.

Cadance immediately slumped down like a worn-down puppet with a marionette tired of the thankless job pulling it's strings must have been before she rubbed the back of her head with a hoof and let out a tear-stained laugh, her sudden rush of enthusiasm quickly fizzling out. "Well, I would tell you if I remembered the rest of the pitch, but you always kind of lost me around that point. Too many technical terms..." Cadance let out one last tearful laugh as she looked for some sign of recognition in Sunset's face.

Sunset knew she wouldn't find what she was looking for; the only bells being rung at that moment were hovering above the white orbs chasing smoke and ashes.

"So did I...?" Sunset trailed off before gesturing towards Cadance's little performance.

"Create them? Y-yeah..." Cadance sniffled and made several noises Sunset would expect from a kitten that accidentally fell in its own water bowl before continuing to speak. "You made them for Celestia about four years before I showed up. And that was about a year and a half ago, so I guess you made the first one when you were around ten?"

Cadance smiled to herself as she told Sunset secondhand stories about her own life better than she could ever recall them. "I'm sure you can guess what inspired their creation. Apparently Celestia absolutely loved the entire thing, from the pitch to the invention itself."

Cadance shuffled her wings and continued telling Sunset about the little moments of her life she probably took for granted with a watery smile stitched over her face as they continued walking down the hall towards their destination.

"When I first asked Celestia about one she got this big grin on her face and immediately started doing the routine. She even split a table in half just to show me how one worked." Cadence said with a soft smile.

Sunset wondered if she had ever heard this story before. She probably would have appreciated hearing it.

The two of them continued walking for a few more moments before they passed by a row of tall windows facing the sheer side of the mountain, the previous window's view of tangled roads spilling out of the castle replaced by a deep blue river painted in a golden backdrop, dancing between mountains and escaping over the horizon and away from the warm glow of the setting sun.

Sunset didn't know how long she and Cadance had been crying in the hall for, but she knew it wasn't long enough to already have Sundown approaching.

Sunset tapped on the wide glass pane a few times, surprised at just how dry the heat from the outside world was; the glass pane in front of her was just barely able to keep it at bay.

"The forecast calls for Sunny Skies all week long..."Sunset muttered to herself as she stared at the mirage of heat dancing all across the windowpanes, sparkling against the bright orange sky on the other side of the clear wall. Sunset reached out and tapped the window a few more times just to see if it would budge. It did not.

Cadance's ears perked up before she swiveled her head towards Sunset. "I'm sorry, did you just say something?" Sunset looked at Cadance as she walked into the light of the window, her bright pink complexion now fighting a losing battle against the tired sun to be the brightest thing in her peripheral.

"Oh, nothing. I just remembered Flat Line telling me about how we're currently going through a bit of a heatwave." Sunset watched on as Cadance slumped forward slightly; whatever leftover energy she had from the sales pitch finally squeezed out of her bones.

"Yeah, it's been a pretty hot fall. If it wasn't for the early sunsets I would have probably melted into a puddle by now." Cadance frowned at the window before looking up at the cloudless sky painted in swirling amber and gold. "At least it's Sunny Skies all week long..." Cadance muttered to herself as well as they both continued walking down the now orange hallway, the white marble and stonework of the castle accepting the bright colors now draped across itself.

Cadance subconsciously started walking on the far left of the hallway, content to move through the few spots the sun couldn't reach from it's entrance via the tall arched windows. "I hope the staff are handling this heatwave a lot better than we are. It shouldn't be nearly this hot once you leave Canterlot."

Sunset thought about the staff, and the complete lack of them, as she walked on the far right side of the hallway and stared off into the neverending sunset. Besides Flat Line she had not seen a single staff member in any of the halls or rooms the two of them had wandered through on their way to a spot Cadance refused to tell her about.

"Where are all the staff? I haven't seen anyone besides Flat Line, and if he wasn't wearing a doctor's coat I would've thought he was a homeless stallion that snuck in." Watching Cadance's mouth twitch upwards made Sunset realize it was probably the first time she had made someone happy since she woke up, and the few embers of positivity she had managed to catch on the wind immediately snuffed themselves out.

"Oh, they're all on paid leave at the moment. I'm pretty sure Flat Line is one of the only staff members left in the building." Cadance puffed her cheeks up with air until they were as puffy as her eyes before she started to rub them in circles as she thought to herself, unaware that Sunset had somehow just discovered a way to hate herself for doing something positive.

"Let's see now... there's Flat Line, and I think Furaha left for a bit to pick up something for Flat Line?" Cadance asked herself while she continued to rub her puffy cheeks in thought, idly fluttering down the hallway.

Sunset nodded at her. "Flat Line talked about her for a bit before I was discharged. He said she's your pediatrician." Cadance slowly slapped her hooves over her face and let out a low moan of embarrassment.

"She's not a pediatrician, she's a doctor. I don't care what she is legally; I'm too old to still be going to a pediatrician!" Cadance whined childishly. Sunset let out a sudden bark of laughter at that, managing to startle the both of them, which made Cadance begin to pout.

"Any other staff in the castle besides those two, or is it just us and the cleaning borbs?" Sunset asked as two more cleaning borbs rolled by them on their way to an accident they were days late for.

"Gosh, give me a moment." Tsking to herself, Cadance went back to rubbing her cheeks as she flicked through a mental filing cabinet of all the ponies she knew. "There's also Raven Inkwell—call her Raven—she's Celestia's aide. There's also Kibitz; he's Celestia's scheduling advisor, which just sounds like an aide that does less work." Cadance let out a rush before moving on to the rest of her mental checklist.

"I can't forget about Gabriel; he's the butcher chef. And the meat chef. As well as the Poissonier. As well as the sous chef." Cadance nervously laughed to herself while bobbing in the air for a moment. "Don't ask him if he ever gets tired doing four jobs at once or else he'll just get angry and start berating you for thinking he's incapable of doing his job."

Cadance rubbed her chin in thought. "Well, he probably wouldn't berate you. He actually seems to like you for some reason." The moment Cadance realized what she said she immediately turned towards Sunset with a look of pure anxiety plastered across her mug.

"N-not that you're hard to like! I meant to say that Gabriel is the unlikable one!" Sunset watched and chortled to herself on as Cadance continued to dig a deeper hole. "Wait, I didn't mean that either! Don't let him know I said that, or he'll probably turn me into a horse d’oeuvre the next time the Griffin ambassadors visit!"

Sunset held her hoof out in front of her to stop Cadance's building hysterics. "It's alright, I understood what you were trying to say." Sunset watched on as Cadance stammered to herself for a few more moments before finally calming down again. Sunset shuffled in place for a moment before clearing her disgusting flemmy throat a second time. "So, uh, are there any other kitchen staff left, or are four ponies stuck with nothing but a meat chef for the time being?"

Cadance released a short breath to center herself again before looking at Sunset in confusion. "I would've thought you'd be happy we kept the meat chef out of all of them. I can remember a few patented Sunset lectures at dinner about how ponies are technically omnivores and how it's beneficial to eat meat." Cadance shrugged to herself.

"Oh well, at least you get to experience monkfish for the first time again. I'm sure Celestia will appreciate a second chance to take pictures." Cadance quietly murmured to herself, not minding if Sunset overheard her idle thoughts.

Cadance went back to rubbing her cheeks before Sunset could follow up on either of those statements. "I'm pretty sure Blueblood is out of the country at the moment. He's technically Celestia's nephew, but they're actually really distant so I wouldn't worry about that." Sunset didn't know why Cadance would be worried about him being close to Celestia.

Cadance continued with her cheek rubbing. "I think Dry Wall might still be in the castle. She's the royal architect. I haven't seen her since the meltdown, but I've been noticing some repairs that the borbs couldn't have gotten to, so it's either Dry Wall or it's... well, hopefully it's Dry Wall and they're just being skittish again."

Sunset thought about asking Cadance to elaborate on that ominous sentence before realizing she only had so many things she could tear her brain apart focusing on and that probably wasn't something worth adding to her worries.

"Anyways, that's probably everyone currently in the castle that I can mention. If you meet any new names on that list it's either somepony that came back early or someone not worth mentioning." Cadance hissed the word 'someone' out as if it wasn't a catch-all term directed at any staff members that weren't ponies but was instead directed at one sapient in particular.

Either Cadance didn't even want to mention them by name or wasn't allowed to by the powers that be. Either way, Sunset saw no reason to waste her time asking about them when she probably had more important things to get torn up over.

Sunset almost missed the overwhelming brain fog.

Eventually the two of them reached a large glass door that looked like it would be more at home on the entrance to a greenhouse than the middle of a castle hallway. Sunset squinted as she stepped through the doorway and her eyes adjusted at the sight of the bright orange glare of the setting sun as a wave of blistering heat blasted her in the face, the warm breeze from earlier nowhere to be found.

Sunset looked back at the doorway just to make sure she hadn't stepped on a warp sigil or a trap gate by mistake, but all she could see surrounding it were basic anti-animal and insect wards usually found at zoos and farms.

Looking back at the new area she found herself in she looked at the thick forest stretched out in front of her. After staring at the beautiful woods for a bit Sunset began to notice a lack of small imperfections, as if the entire forest were ordered out of the back of one of those old holiday catalogs that you could probably buy a house out of.

Cadance watched on from the doorway as Sunset slowly walked around the artificial forest and admired the old weathered statues peppered throughout it. "This isn't the place I wanted to bring you, in case you were wondering. I just thought it'd be nice to show you the royal gardens on the way to it."

"If I remember a time travel spell I'll send you a few minutes in the past so you can pat yourself on the back, because you were right, this is nice." Staring into the eyes of a dancing painter etched in marble Sunset felt herself begin to smile. "How big is this place anyway?" This castle feels as big as a city."

Cadance panted and wiped a wave of sweat off of her forehead as small tufts of steam and heat rose off of her body as she stood in the shade of a tree a few paces back from Sunset. "No clue! I know it's absurd even by royal castle standards though. Speaking of which, we should probably hurry back inside the big royal castle before we roast out here in this big royal hotpot of a forest."

Rolling her eyes at Cadance's theatrics Sunset hopped down from the pedestal she was balancing on before walking back to Cadance. "Come on, it's just a late heatwave. It isn't that hot out."

Cadance muttered a few words under her breath, the difference in temperature so sharp it caused the air in front of her mouth to mirage. "Says the pony with a cutie mark of the sun. Just wait until a pony with an igloo cutie mark tells you it isn't that cold out during a blizzard."

Sunset followed Cadance in a brisk trot through the never-ending forest towards Cadance's destination before she felt a cold breeze overtake her entire body. Slowing her movement until she reached a full stop, Sunset slowly looked to her right at a tilted pedestal sticking out of the ground.

There was absolutely nothing interesting about the pedestal. It was just a slightly mossy pillar that looked to be about as tall as she was, with a flared base surrounded by nothing but dirt that made it look like an upside-down bird bath with not even the most basic preservation runes or spells attached to it, as if whoever was in charge of up-keeping the garden exhibits hoped the statue would eventually just crumble to dust and blow away on a hot gust of wind.

'Wish granted'. Sunset thought as she stared at the empty spot. Whatever the pedestal used to display must've rested. Sunset almost wished she could have seen whatever once rested on it; a pillar that tall and thin would have only been used for a particularly old and esoteric piece of work.

There was nothing about the old pedestal worth sticking around for since it must have lost the only thing that made it worth looking at long before Sunset woke up. She turned around and began to walk back up the path to catch up to Cadance, the mossy old pedestal already getting pushed out of her mind in favor of better thoughts.

A freezing gale immediately blew past Sunset before she could take a single step. Sunset stood still as she felt the cold winter air pat her on the shoulder as it passed by, content to inspect every part of her except for her shaven head as it moved around and past her.

If Sunset was more clear-headed, she probably would have heard warm laughter being carried on the cold wind as it danced around her on its way to be out of place somewhere else.

Then the wind went as quickly as it came, and Sunset was left alone in a muggy forest on a hot fall day, with no relief from the burning grasp of the sun. Sunset looked at the trees surrounding her. Not a single leaf was moving. The wind had left them.

Sunset slowly looked back at the pedestal, unable to see anything different about it either. Just an old abandoned pedestal surrounded by bright blue flowers with no runes or enchantments of any kind etched onto it. Sunset looked at the pedestal again before looking down at the flowers surrounding it.

Sunset didn't know a lot about botany, but she was sure blue was one of the more rare colors for a flower to be, especially a blue as bright and beautiful as the azure flowers surrounding the pedestal's sinking base. Each flower had eight large petals that curled outward and upward, and each flower was slightly larger than a daisy.

Thinking back to the table of flowers Sunset had woken up next to, she couldn't recall seeing any of these flowers at it. Did that mean they were poisonous or just rare? Sunset looked at the flowers a little longer before she took a step closer towards them.

Walking up to the beautiful blue flowers Sunset stood a few paces in front of the pedestal yet again, this time not even bothering to give it the attention it didn't deserve, her focus resting entirely on the mesmerizing flowers waving at her from a cold breeze that made what little hair she had left flow through the air.

Sunset could hear somebody laughing on the wind again. Sunset couldn't help but feel a small drip of secondhand joy just from the thought that at least one person was enjoying their day.

Sunset took another step towards the pedestal before leaning down to get a closer look at the dark blue flowers still swaying and dancing in the wind to a song Sunset wished she could have heard.

"-nset! Sunset! Sunny, where are you?!" Sunset could hear Candace shouting from somewhere behind her; her voice so muffled the air between them might as well have been bedrock.

Sunset dragged her eyes away from the view to look over her shoulder at the direction Cadance had been yelling from. If Sunset squinted hard enough she could see small bits of her cheerful pink coat through the dark green pines and the bright orange glow the sun left behind on everything it looked at. "I'm over here, Cadance! I'm just looking at some blue flowers I found!"

Sunset could hear Cadance stop moving for a brief moment before she heard her break out into a full gallop on her way to meet back up with Sunset.

'Guess she must really enjoy flowers.' Sunset thought to herself as she turned around and looked back at the dark blue flowers before she involuntarily froze in place.

The dark blue flowers were still waving at her to try and get her attention, but now there was a bright white warning sign in front of them with a picture of a five-fingered appendage picking flowers, the center of it crossed out with a bright red circle and a blackslash through the center of it. The red borders at the top and bottom of the sign only had one message for her.

PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE FLOWERS.
POR FAVOR NO TOQUES LAS FLORES.

Sunset could only read half the message, but she understood it completely. Sunset wasn't sure how long she stood there staring at the sign, but it was long enough for Cadance to finally find her through a maze of pathways leading off to less interesting exhibits.

"Sunset, you haven't touched any of the flowers, have you?!" Cadance shouted at her as she skidded to a stop beside her before her mouth clicked shut when she too saw the small white sign that refused to let the sunlight touch it and paint it orange like the rest of the world.

Cadance let out a hiss of air from in-between her teeth, like a kettle that had finally reached a boil. "At least they finally put a sign down for them. You didn't ignore the sign, right?" Sunset just shook her head in response, which was all Cadance needed to see to let out a sigh of relief.

"Gosh, that's a relief. That's poison joke. It's like poison ivy, but instead of only giving you a rash it gives you anything except a rash." Cadance paused before continuing to speak in a lower tone. "And I do mean anything."

Cadance wiped some more sweat off her brow before staring at the beautiful flowers in abject disgust. "Lets get out of here; this heat is killing me." Sunset stared at her sweat as it got caught in the sun and evaporated with a smothered hiss before it could escape into the earth.

Sunset watched on from her spot by the sign as Cadance turned around and slowly walked back down the glowing amber pathway, looking as if she were chasing a river of melting light.

Taking one look back at the pedestal before she rejoined Cadance, Sunset saw the pedestal had found a new exhibit piece since she had last looked at it. Sitting on the cracked and mossy pedestal was a small Lapis Lazuli ring with small flakes of gold sprinkled throughout it. It's dark blue sheen somehow managed to reject every attempt the vesper sky made to paint it in a soft orange glow.

Beside the ring was a small envelope with a soft green wax seal on the front of it, depicting an eight-pointed star expanding outwards in a radial. Against all better judgement Sunset picked up the letter in her magic, popped open the soft green seal, and read the sun-bleached paper to herself.

Dear Lil' Sunbutt

You don't know me, but I know you. More importantly, I know that I owe you one or two or a dozen favors after you did me a teensy tiny MASSIVE solid a few days back. You didn't do it on purpose, and you weren't even the one that actually did it, but you started the delightful little Rube Goldberg chain of events that led to it. It's almost inspirational how much can change from a one bad day. At first I just settled for spicing up your floral arrangements (way too many lilies and carnations!) but then that doctor of yours smoked half of them, which made the entire gesture rather moot. So I quickly shuffled through someone else's belongings until I found a pretty enough gift for you. Now I know it doesn't match your coat or what remains of your mane, but it was the only thing I could find that was simultaneously shiny and non-lethal. Sunbutt Sr. should stick to her day job. She would make for a very poor magpie.

With appreciation, [Redacted]

Sunset looked down at the Lapis ring innocently sitting on the tilted pedestal in front of her. As far as Sunset could tell, there was nothing magical about either the letter or the ring. Sunset looked down at the blue flowers dancing in a still breeze. Sunset didn't feel anything magical about the flowers either.

Sunset calmly folded the letter back up, laid it down in it's spot beside the ring, and then turned around and slowly followed after Cadance. The ring remained untouched on the top of the pedestal, both it and the letter content to be ignored by the few gusts of wind that tried moving past them.

Chapter 4

Sunset didn’t know a lot at the moment, but she felt justified in her confusion over her asking Cadance to take her 'somewhere nice’ turning into a shared bath together. If it wasn’t for the fact that her entire back felt like a carapace of dried tears and snot before she entered the water, she wouldn’t have gone through with it.

On an objective level, Sunset knew she was most likely sitting in the most beautiful bathhouse in the entire city, if not the entire country, so she supposed it was ‘somewhere nice’ on an objective level.

Sunset hated it. She might have been able to handle the sweltering head out in the gardens, but she felt like she was melting every second she continued to sit in the water. Just stepping into the bathtub had made her break out into a violent shake, and even after she got over herself and carried on with the bath, she still couldn’t help but shiver every time she looked down at her reflection in the deathly still water.

Looking at her reflection in the water made Sunset hate her short mane for the first time since she woke up. It felt odd not seeing a river of scarlet flowing down her head whenever she looked down at the water. She would have to check the library ~~or ask Celestia~~ for spells that would grow out her hai-

“You know, it’s been a while since we’ve bathed together.” Cadance suddenly blurted out, interrupting Sunset's mental breakdown before continuing onward. “We should do it more often. Who knows, maybe the steam will help clear your head a little bit?”

“Yeah, the steam feels great.” Sunset currently felt like she was a hundred feet underwater with nothing but two cups and a string tied between them to convey Cadance’s voice to her, but Cadance didn’t need to know that.

Cadance sighed, her eyes still closed since she had first flopped down when they had both entered the bath. “I know, right? I can feel the stress just pouring out of me.” Sunset must have just been an anxiety sponge, because her skin continued to feel tighter and tighter the longer they sat in the bath together.

Instead of saying that, Sunset felt her mouth move into what she assumed was a smile as she stared at a random part of the wall directly ahead of her. “Yeah. It’s really relaxing. Really great for my... skin.”

The water was terrible for her skin. If she sat around in the pool for twelve hours like the living corpse she is, she’d begin to lose plasticity in her cells. After three days of exposure to the water, her skin would realize it had no reason to continue touching her and lea-

Sunset looked away from the wall and back towards Cadance, who now stood in the water directly in front of her, her graceful legs just barely keeping her body from being more than partially submerged. Looking down at her own front, Sunset saw a hoof pressed against her upper chest.

It took Sunset a moment to realize she was being rocked back and forth by the hoof, and with that realization came a flood of noise through her ears, the sounds smashing against one another so abruptly that it felt like every noise she had ignored for however long she had been zoned out had patiently waited in line for her to hear them scream at her for not loving them enough to listen.

The rush of noise was so abrupt that Sunset felt her whole world start to invert on itself, until it felt like she was an outside spectator watching her and Cadance interact from a thousand hills away with a pair of binoculars. And then, as quickly as it came, it disappeared, and Sunset could hear and feel Cadance’s growing panic as she tried to regain her attention, as if it were worth panicking over.

“-wasn't a good idea! This was such a terrible idea! I can't believe I dragged you all the way across the castle just for a dumb bath.” Cadance whispered loudly to herself as she began to quickly laugh at nothing while continuously shaking Sunset, her amusement coming out hard-fast and jagged-sharp, like a tree branch flowing down a rapids getting smashed in half between two rocks.

“Oh gosh, Auntie is going to be furious with me!" Cadance whined out before another wave of laughter broke out of her throat and spilled out across the room.

Sunset didn’t really know what was so funny. “Stop shaking me, please?” Cadance rocketed into the air with a shriek at her words before falling back into the bath with a splash that sent water racing towards the ceiling to get away from her.

Pulling herself up from the water, Cadance looked at her in shock before rushing forward to pull her into a hug.

“T-that better not have been on purpose!” Cadance breathed out as she tried to squeeze the last few drops of life out of Sunset like a used-up roll of toothpaste. “I swear if you pulled a nasty prank like that, then I’ll... I’ll...” That was all a frantically giggling Cadance could get out before she burst out into another helpless titter, her now throaty laughter beginning to echo off the walls.

Sunset cocked her head at Cadance in confusion. “What just happened that’s so funny?”

“Nothing! Absolutely nothing that just happened is funny!” Cadance said with a slightly manic grin as she began to rub her cheeks, her laughter slowly petering off until she was doing nothing except taking deep breaths.

Taking a breath so deep even Sunset could hear her chest rattle, Cadance slowly let out a drawn-out exhale before taking her hooves off of her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Sunset; I promise I wasn’t laughing at you!” Sunset knew she wasn't the one being laughed at; that'd require her to do something besides rot in the water.

“I was just laughing at, you know...” Cadance waved her hooves around. “...at the absurdity of it all! You know what I mean?” Sunset did not know. Cadance could probably write a book about the things Sunset didn’t know. Sunset bet that if she read the book, she’d retain so little that Cadance could write a second book about everything she didn’t know, and it’d just be the same exact book.

Cadance let another nervous laugh squeak by her steady breathing before she began to rub her cheeks a second time. “Gosh, I’m such a mess at the moment. Here I am freaking out and working myself up instead of taking you back to the medical wing.”

Sunset looked at Cadance in confusion. “Why would I need to go back to the medical wing?”

Cadance stared at her for a moment, her shock and confusion managing to stomp down her panicked laughter as she stared at Sunset. “Sunny, you stopped moving for at least ten minutes.”

She stared straight ahead at the wall, watching the red blotch she called a mane slowly spill across every reflective object it could draw the attention of. “Oh. I didn’t notice.” Sunset muttered with a shrug.

Apparently, admitting that you don’t even remember blacking out in a bath mid-conversation with somepony is enough to make them immediately drag you back to the medical wing. They probably would have gotten there sooner if Cadance didn’t need to stop and catch her breath whenever her nervous laughter began to crawl back up her throat.

“Welp, she seems fine to me.” Not even bothering to move towards a window, Flat Line lit another transfigured cigarette up before taking a drag. “If you want, I can take another brain scan, but unless her brain has started internally bleeding, there isn’t much I can do for her at the moment.”

Pausing for a moment as he chewed on his cigarette, Flat Line continued to speak at a slightly slower pace. “And I know it isn’t a brain hemorrhage, because she’s currently standing in the corner frowning at me for smoking in her bed and not suffering a horrific mix of what looks like carbon dioxide poisoning and a seizure.”

“I don’t care if you think she looks fine! She’s obviously not!” Cadance shouted out while stomping her two front hooves on the floor, taking a wide stance as she stared Flat Line down.

Flat Line let out a mirthless laugh, dark clouds puffing out of his mouth like a steam engine as he stared up at Cadance. “You sure about that? She’s currently able to walk and talk simultaneously. I’d say that looks pretty fine, compared to last week.”

Flat Line suddenly looked towards Sunset, who had done nothing but stand in place and frown; she and Cadance had entered the room. “Let’s ask the patient how they feel. Well, Sunset, are you fine?”

“No, not really.” Sunset answered without a moment’s hesitation.

Flat Line nodded solemnly before pulling a laminated card out of a drawer beside the bed. “I’m sorry to hear that. Tell me, What would you rate your pain on this scale?” Flat Line asked, passing the card over to Sunset so she could study the image that stretched across it.

Sunset stared down at the simplified chart, taking note of the colorful pictograms of simplified pony faces on the far right of the thermometer-styled chart, with the three named ratings being ‘No Pain’ being rated blue and zero and ‘Worst Possible Pain’ being rated maroon red at a ten.

Sunset stared at the dark orange frowny face, rated at ‘Moderate Pain’, before looking at the yellow face one tier below it. “I’m yellow.” Sunset said with a nod, passing the emotion cheat sheet back to Flat Line.

“You are? Wild…” Flat Line muttered with a grin as he slid the card back into the drawer, the both of them ignoring Cadance’s cry of outrage at neither of them seeming to take the current interaction very seriously.

“Any physical pain?” Sunset shook her head, and Flat Line nodded before rolling out of the bed and gesturing towards it while standing in front of Sunset. “Alright, I’ve seen enough to reach a conclusion.”

Cadance leaned forward, a bead of sweat rolling down the back of her head. “W-what is it, Dr. Line?” She asked in a rush, momentarily tripping over her own words as she leaned in towards him.

Flat Line shrugged. “She probably just needs a nap. She’s only been awake for what, not even eight hours yet?” Shrugging to himself, Flat Line quickly replaced the sheets for the hospital bed with mechanical efficiency before gesturing towards it at Sunset.

“It’s been a long day, and if I didn’t know either you, Celestia, or the wrecking ball would be shadowing her every move, I wouldn’t have ever let her out of the medical wing, despite the cardio being good for you.” Quickly tucking Sunset into bed, Flat Line walked across the room and leaned against the windowpane as he watched the sun sink into the horizon.

Cadance flapped her wings in irritation, huffing as she walked up to Flat Line to join him at the cracked window. “If we shouldn’t have brought her out of the wing, then you shouldn’t have said it would be safe for her to move around the moment she woke up.”

Staring out at the cobblestone road melting into the horizon, Flat Line began to transfigure a cigarette before sighing and dropping the flower onto the windowsill with a sigh. “You both asked me if it would be harmful to take her outside of the wing, not if it was a good idea.”

Cadance took another step towards him, ruffling up her wings to make herself appear bigger. "Well, maybe you should have sai-”

Sunset let out a low groan as she buried her head into the pillow in front of her, causing the two other ponies in the room to stop arguing and turn to stare at her. “Go argue out in the hallway. I want to sleep.”

Flat Line blinked at her in surprise before he began to laugh. “I can’t believe I was just arguing with a filly over my job. I can’t wait until Furaha comes back and can take over foalsitting for a day.”

Sunset glared at the pair from her spot in bed. “Out. Now.”

Continuing to chuckle at himself, Flat Line pushed off from the windowsill before walking towards the front doors of the clinic, Cadance trailing behind him despite still frowning at him. “I hear you. I hear you. I’ll be sure to check in on you throughout the night while you rest. See you tomorrow.” Flat Line said with a jaunty wave, rushing out the door before Sunset could even think about responding.

Cadance frowned after him before looking back at Sunset with a small smile. “I’m sorry today didn’t go very well, but maybe tomorrow we could do something simple, like catch lunch together?”

Sunset grunted at Cadance, her brain already half shut down even before she began to fall asleep in the bed. Realizing she was being a bit of a nuisance, Cadance quickly apologized before trotting after Flat Line and away from the medical wing.

Sunset couldn't find the energy to respond, and she was already deep asleep by the time the swinging doors shut a second time.

Author's Note

This chapter was somehow more difficult to write than the first one, and believe it or not this was the best take out of half a dozen tries. Hopefully the next chapter will be better.