The air split with the force of a sonic rainboom as Rainbow Dash powered forward. She held her wings tightly against her body and went into a powerful spin through the holographic rings, each one blinking violet as she passed through the smallest of them flawlessly.

As she burst through the last of them, she pushed open her wings, feeling the golden feathers catch the flow of the supersonic air. Her wing joints strained as she pulled upward, powering into a vertical ascent through the lift tube, blowing past several cyborgs whose bodies were too heavy to rise effectively.

Reaching the top, she turned in the air, feeling bursting through the clouds and feeling the light of the sun against her body. Then she turned over slowly and plunged back toward the earth below, rushing downward with explosive force.

Her internal HUD flashed on the inside of her goggles, tracking her course and counting down her location on the course. She was approaching the last mile of the last lap, and according to the data, there was only one pony ahead of her.

Below her was a set of variably sized openings in the surface of the ground. She looked at each of them, and her HUD picked out the best target. She ignored it, preffering to trust her instincts, and dove into the darkness below.

The turn was sharp, and she leveled quickly, passing through the extensive tunnel carved into the soil. With the walls of the abandoned mine so close to her, she felt as though her speed had suddenly increased by a factor of ten. She laughed at the sudden sensation of speed, but then forced herself to focus. She brought forced her wings to beat faster, and she felt herself accelerate even faster.

Below her, the artificial lights passed so quickly that they blurred into a single line of pale yellow light. Then, ahead, she saw it: the brightly lit opening- -and in it the silhouette of her last serious opponent.

She burst out of the cavern and blew past the stands below. Thousands of ponies on the ground stands and atop clouds cheered, many of them waving rainbow-colored flags- -but just as many carrying banners inscribed with a black lightning bolt, the cutie mark of the pony ahead of her.

Rainbow Dash decided to give them a show, cutting the final corner to the last straightaway as close as she could. Below her, she caught a glimpse of the premier skybox below. Down there, she spotted Overseer Toxic Shock beside several diplomats and leaders from numerous independent states- -the most important of them sitting directly to his right: a large-winged, red-eyed yellow Pegasus who was cheering embarrassingly loudly.

The sight almost caused Rainbow Dash to laugh- -but as the land below her suddenly vanished into the sea, she knew that it was time for her big finish.

She summoned all her strength and accelerated again, driving into her fifth sequential sonic rainboom- -this one leaving tails not only of her characteristic rainbow, but also a wide and glorious plume of gold. The sudden acceleration tore at her uniform, and even with the advanced material, she could feel her body starting to heat up. She ignored the discomfort, though, because she could see her opponent rapidly coming into view.

The two of them met in mid-air, and they began to spiral chest-to-chest, each feeding off the air-wake of the other. Rainbow Dash looked down at Race Ahead, the fastest pony ever to live. His immense body of steel and aluminum, powered forward by graviton engines and four metallic wings, circled beneath her as they spun faster and faster, each trying to pull ahead from the other but neither finding themselves able to do so. Rainbow Dash could feel his lower optic scanners staring at her, and she felt the pony beneath all that steel and composite material watching her back.

The finish line suddenly came into sight, a wide holographic sensory net strung between two clouds. The race was neck and neck, but Rainbow Dash knew that she had a chance.

Then came the roaring sound of Race Ahead’s afterburners firing. His wings locked backward into delta position, and he pulled ahead slowly, trailing a massive plume of green fire behind him. Rainbow Dash knew that getting caught in that exhaust would be dangerous, if not lethal. The smart thing to do would be to pull back- -but instead, she held tight to her place, and although he pulled ahead, she saw his robotic body straining with everything he had to do so.

The finishline passed at supersonic speed, and Rainbow Dash spread her wings, slowing her speed precipitously, feeling her blood rush forward into her eyes and brain from the g-forces. As Race Ahead moved away from her, she exited the course to the side at her designated pit-zone. The preliminary results had already been displayed on her HUD: she had finished the course in record time by over a minute, but she had also come in second place.

“Horse feathers,” she swore.

After several rounds of the cooldown track, Rainbow Dash slowly descended onto the grassy land below. The land pit area was busy with ponies. Mechanics and assistants were surrounding the other racers as they hummed to the ground. Some of them immediately went into impromptu surgery, with plating and components moved from their largely artificial bodies as engineers and doctors began to stabilize their condition.

Rainbow Dash’s “pit” was far away from the others, a simple mobile setup. She picked removed her helmet and set it on the stand beside her and picked up one of the canteens. She drained most of it, and then poured the rest over her long rainbow mane. She was, quite literally, sweating like a racehorse.

She looked up at the racecourse above her, and summoned a hologram from her robotic foreleg to continue to check the stats of race. Everypony had finished now, and Rainbow Dash checked the statistics carefully, noting how each and every racer’s skills had changed, seeing who had had an off-day and who could have done better. Even if she had come in second- -which really did annoy her, even if the pony who had come in first was said to be the fastest who had ever lived- -her personal time was excellent. She supposed she was satisfied for now.

What she really would have liked was for Fluttershy- -or, as she was known across Equestria now, Vale- -would come down to see her. No doubt she would be stuck in boring diplomatic meetings with the Overseer and the others for several hours. As the leader of the largest nation-state of Equestria and de-facto goddess of a large number of hippie-types, Fluttershy-Vale had become quite busy in the six years since they had been reunited. Rainbow Dash did not worry too much about it, though. They had planned a mares night at over the weekend, and Rainbow Dash was looking forward to it- -and knew that Fluttershy was too.

As Rainbow Dash refilled her canteen, she heard the sound of something heavy and metallic landing beside her. She turned to find Race Ahead standing next to her pit area, his body still steaming as he vented engine coolant. His wings twisted forward and folded neatly against his aerodynamic metal body, and he stepped toward her on his almost ridiculously tiny robotic legs.

“Great race,” said Rainbow Dash, sipping from the canteen and wiping her mouth with her organic hoof.

The front end of Race Ahead’s body shifted, the central cleft opening to reveal his head underneath. The head transplant was non-orthotropic, and the white-maned head ingrained by tubes and wires into the body stared at her from an inverted position.

“You almost had me in that last stretch,” he said, his voice projected electronically. He had no lower jaw, and no real means to speak on his own. “I haven’t had to push myself that hard in decades.”

“Glad I could give you a good run,” said Rainbow Dash, dusting off the front of her helmet.

“You don’t seem very happy,” noted Race Ahead, his large but mostly blind eyes flicking toward her. “I personally enjoy this track- -and the competition was excellent this year.”

“I know, I know,” sighed Rainbow Dash. “And you won fair and square. I just…well, coming in second is still taking me a bit of getting used to.”

“Second?!” cried Race Ahead, surprised. “You’re gloomy because you came in second?!”

“Hey, if it hadn’t been for that burst of speed you pulled in the last quarter-mile, you’d be the gloomy one!”

“No, no. That’s not what I mean.” He turned sideways- -something awkward and nearly comical to watch- -and pointed with one stick-like leg at the other competitors. “You’re almost completely unenhanced, and you’re racing in the 90% and up category! And winning! I mean, that’s completely unheard of! I mean, look at me!” he pointed to his entirely robotic body. “I’m all machine! Most of us are! And all you have is a pair of equivalency model legs! It would be like…it would be like an earth pony racing against automobiles. It borders on the absurd, Ms. Dash.”

“Come one,” she said, tapping him on the metal shoulder. “Rainbow Dash is fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

He seemed to smile, or do whatever the cyborg equivalent was. “You know, to be honest, Rainbow Dash, I have been looking forward to this race for months.”

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash, looking up at the track. “This track is pretty legendary.”

“No. Not because of the track. Because of you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I mean, to race alongside Rainbow Dash- -the Rainbow Dash- -it is a tremendous honor. I grew up hearing stories about you. You’re why I got into racing, and it’s those stories that inspired me to pick myself up after the accident and get back into the clouds. You’re my colthood hero.”

“Well,” said Rainbow Dash, smiling. “I am pretty awesome.”

“I haven’t actually had a pony come close to beating me in thirty years. And…wow, I never thought I would be the one asking this…do you think I could have an autograph?”

“Don’t bother,” said another voice. Both of them turned as a large male griffon dressed entirely in black armor approached them. His wings- -one dark brown but the other red and slightly asymmetrical- -fluttered and folded down as he took off his helmet. “No sense in getting it from the second best.”

“Gelton,” groaned Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow Dash,” he said, glaring at her with his beady yellow yes.

“What place did you come in, Gelton?” Rainbow Dash checked the hologram.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “Third to last.”

“Gelton,” said Race Ahead, sighing. “I know that you’re a good racer. I really mean that…but your mismatching yourself. Badly. And your suffering for it. Rainbow Dash is an exception, but you really should be competing in an unenhanced category.”

“No,” snapped the griffon. He unfolded his red wing. “You see this transplant? She took my real wing. And any race that she’s in, I’m going to be in- -until I win!”

“Fine,” said Race Ahead, and Rainbow Dash felt like the two of them had spoken about this many times before, all to the same conclusion.

“Even beating two isn’t bad,” said Rainbow Dash.

“One collapsed from power cell failure,” said Gelton darkly. “But I don’t care. It’s only you that I want.”

“Actually,” said Race Ahead, blushing slightly and turning back toward Rainbow Dash. “Speaking of that…I was wondering if you wouldn’t want to, you know, go for a drink sometime.”

“You can’t even drink fluids anymore,” snapped Gelton.

“Quiet, you!”

“Oh. Wow,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’m flattered, really, but…” She decided it would be better just to show him. She carefully extended her left wing, making sure that the bladed golden feathers did not touch anything, and displayed a red band pained around the base of her wing.

“Oh,” said Race Ahead, blushing even more severely- -which was quite a feat considering that his blood was entirely artificial. “I didn’t know you were married.” His eyes turned back to the band. “Actually, I’m rather surprised you paint the band when you’re racing. I didn’t expect you to be such a traditionalist.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. Indeed, most Pegasi did not stick to the old tradition. Normally, a married Pegasus mare would wear a red band around her left wing. Rainbow Dash had one. It was actually a rather stunning version made from white gold and inlaid with tiny, brilliant rubies which had been made, of all ponies, by Rarity herself over four hundred years ago. Apparently- -or so Fluttershy described it- -Rarity had designed it in a fit of inspiration and intended it to be a surprise for Rainbow Dash, should she ever decide to get married. Rainbow Dash had, of course, “died” before Rarity had the chance to give it to her. Fluttershy had stored it for her ever since, never expecting it would actually ever be used.

As beautiful as it was- -if, Rainbow Dash always thought, a bit overstated- -it made no sense to wear it during flight. Even a single gram could cost her time. So, in accordance with ancient battle-derived traditions, she pained one on in red ink when she was competing.

The band itself, of course, was itself a bit of a white lie. Rainbow Dash considered herself to be married, and Fluttershy-Vale had even performed ceremony- -at which Shining Armor, despite still being undead, had cried- -but no court in all of New Equestria would legally recognize a marriage between a thirty-year-old mare and a six-year-old stallion.

“I could go for a drink,” said Gelton, setting his helmet on the ground.

“Thanks, but you’re not exactly my- -”

“Mommy!” cried a tiny voice. Rainbow Dash was suddenly hit from the side by a tiny Brown filly who wrapped her forelegs around her mother’s neck.

“Loft, careful! The suit’s still hot!”
“Oh, wow, you were awesome!” cried Rainbow Loft in excitement, ignoring her mother’s warning, her brown wings fluttering rapidly and almost uncontrollably. She separated back from Rainbow Dash and floated slowly and awkwardly in the air, swooping in parodies of the aerial manuvers that Rainbow Dash had performed during the race. “I mean, when you went through the first ascent and Silent Thunder’s breakaway flap broke off and I thought you were out of the race but then you caught up in the third lap with that epic barrel roll, and then the sonic rainboom when you pulled ahead of all the others and the final straightaway where you were neck and neck with Race Ahead- -”

“Rainbow Loft,” said Rainbow Dash. “Breathe?”

The brown, rainbow-maned filly took a deep breath. With her oxygen restored, she lifted off ground again. Only then did she realized who Rainbow Dash was standing with.

“Oh my gersh!” she cried. “You’re- -you’re Race Ahead! And Gelton the Griffon! Eeeeee! You two are my favorite racers ever! Well, except for mommy, because she’s my mom and the best flyer nt eh history of everything, but…eeeee!” The excitement caused her to drop to the grouond, out of breath. “Oh…mommy, I feel dizzy.”

Rainbow Dash laughed and put her hoof on her daughter’s mane, ruffling it. “Got to work on your staminal, Loft.”

“I will, mommy! So that when I’m a big pony I can fly like you do!”

Rainbow Dash smiled. She looked up and saw her other children approaching across the field toward them. Leading them was Rainbow Loft’s twin brother, Fluffnaught. He was moving hurriedly, as if being separated from his sister for even a moment made him nervous. In appearance and personality, the two of them could not be any more different. Rainbow Loft was a small, stocky brown Pegasus. Fluffnaught, meanwhile, was a very fluffy colt. He had inherited his mother’s color, right down to the tiny swirl of rainbow mane that sprouted from the center of his forehead, but his father’s coat length. He also, weirdly, actually did have a pair of wings- -they were just tiny and vestigial, hidden beneath his thick fur.

Fluffnaught shuffled forward hurriedly, and once he was in adequate proximity to his sister, he sat down on the ground, his legs disappearing into his thick fluff, and he remained there in silence.

Behind him came two other ponies, who although they were equal in age to Rainbow Loft and Fluffnaught were much larger. One of them was Horus, who even at the age of six already looked like a full-grown stallion and was drawing the attention of many of the passing mares. Although he had been born at the same time as his brother and sister, he had come out much smaller. He was what the doctors called a “runt”. He had been tiny, even compared to little Fluffnaught, and he had been unable to open his eyes. The doctors said that he would not survive, but Brown had refused to listen. He had stayed at his son’s side for weeks strain, taking care of him until Horus’s tiny heart finally gave out and his brain activity stopped. Even then, Brown refused to let him go.

That was when the mutation began. Even with no heart or brain or any visible organ function, Horus had continued to live- -and then he started to grow. Living metal began to cover his body, coating it and expanding into unfathomable organs and tissues. According to the doctors, he was still a tiny, barely living foal, but that organic core had been completely subsumed by a body of pure gold.

Horus looked up at his mother, smiling. One of his eyes was golden, as hers was, but the other was jewel-like violet. Although the hallucinations had passed with his birth, Rainbow Dash still remembered the images of the golden pony that had spoken to her six years earlier- -and now understood what he had meant.

“Mother,” said Horus, bowing theatrically. “An excellent performance, as usual.”

“How much did you lose this time?”

“Lose? Are you insinuating that I was betting? But I’m just a child!”

“Six thousand bits,” said Fluffnaught.

“Please don’t snitch, Fluffnaught,” sighed Horus. “It really is rude.” He turned back to Rainbow Dash and smiled nervously. “But I can recoup it. I always do! And I simply couldn’t bet against my own mother! Losing the money is worth it on principle alone!”

Rainbow Dash did not know how to feel about that statement.

Standing slightly to the side of Horus was the final member of the group, who had remained silent and ambivalent, although she could feel Race Ahead and Gelton both gawking at her, Gelton with a bit of a smirk on his face. Rainbow Dash knew what they were thinking. It was what all ponies seemed to think when they saw that particular filly. She could not count how many times she had heard ponies whisper phrases to the tune of “well, you know what they say about Pegasi and those ears!” and “well, she is a Blue.”

The final pony in the group of four, like Horus, was larger than she should have been. Her body had grown far faster than a normal pony child’s should have, but even more terrifying was the fact that she had been born with a complete and fully functional mind- -complete with all her mother’s memories.

“Six,” said Rainbow Dash to the small, teenage-ish bat filly.

“Mrs. Dash,” said Six, looking up at her with her large blue eyes- -eyes that looked disturbingly familiar.

Six had been born several months before the others. Rainbow Dash had not initially known what to do with her, but, for various reasons, had taken her in and raised her herself. Six aged quickly, and she was an invaluable asset. Her mind was mostly that of an adult, and she was able to help greatly with the others, taking care of them tirelessly when Rainbow Dash or Brown had to attend to other matters. At the moment, for example, Brown was off on his solemn, yearly pilgrimage to a abandoned, empty hyperborean forests to add yet more stones to the marker outside the remnants of a long-since razed reindeer village. Six had been watching over the other children in the interim, allowing Rainbow Dash to participate in the race.

In recent years, it also seemed that Six and Horus had grown to become close. Their personalities complimented each other nicely: whereas Horus was reckless, impulsive, and despite his prodigious flying talent annoyingly lazy, Six was levelheaded to the point of emotional coldness- -just as her mother had been. That, and they aged at a similar accelerated rate.

“Wait…these are all your kids?” asked Race Ahead.

“Thinking you dodged a bullet there, Ahead?” joked Rainbow Dash.

“N- -no. It’s just…you’re completing in the 90% tier and you’ve given birth to four children? I mean…wow. Well, what do I expect from the premier pony of the Equestrian Space Program?”

Rainbow Dash felt quite proud- -for her accomplishments, and for her children. Something was nagging at her, though. Something that had been for some time.

“Hey, Six?” she said. “Can I talk to you for a bit? ”

“Yes.”

“Just you, I mean.”
Six looked up at her, then down at the other three. “I would rather not leave them alone,” she said. “You may recall what occurred when Horus was left in charge.”

“Hey!” said Horus, “I managed to put the fires out, didn’t I?”

“I do not believe it counts when fires are extinguished via an accidental detonation.”

“Good point,” said Rainbow Dash. She looked around. “You, Gelton! Watch these kids for me!”

“Me?” he said, pointing at himself, stuttering in surprise. “But- -I’ve sworn vengeance on you!”

“Yeah, but you’re also the descendent of one of my best friends. I mean, come on. I even made out with her once!”

Gelton looked horrified- -and the expression on his face looked almost exactly like Gelda’s had every time Rainbow Dash had mentioned that night at the Junior Speedsters Flight Camp, even if it had only been one long kiss that did not even have tongue. The expression was priceless.

“Six, come on,” said Rainbow Dash, grabbing her saddlebags. Six nodded obediently and joined Rainbow Dash.

As they took off into the air, Rainbow Dash saw Horus lean close to Gelton. “Hey, griffon…you’re an athlete, right? What would you say your hemocrit count is?”

Rainbow Dash brought Six out far beyond the edge of the racetrack, past the noise and bustle of the ponies leaving the race. She eventually landed on the grassy, rocky edge of one of the many cliffs that overlooked the ocean.

Far out in the distance, the sun was starting to set, and the horizon was colored bright orange. Rainbow Dash knew that the bright ball of light that ponies called the “sun” was not actually the real sun at all. Instead, it was a massive fusion reactor that Thebe had imbedded into the firmament. The light it produced lit all of Equestria, and provided power to the firmament colony that had sprung up around it- -a colony that manifested at a distance as a number of bright geometric lines that surrounded the glowing orb like the aerial view of a tremendous city.

Behind them, the sky was starting to once again fade into darkness. In the sky, the stars were starting to come out. Unlike the “sun”, the stars were one of Equestria’s greatest mysteries. Thebe had not constructed them, nor were they truly bonded to the firmament. They were unknown technology, hovering as if suspended by magic, born from a force that was completely unknown to all of ponykind. Not that anypony truly cared where they came from; they were almost as stunning as Luna’s night sky from ancient times.

Rainbow Dash set down her saddlebags and began to remove her flightsuit, folding it neatly and setting it aside. Seeing the new sun- -which would soon rise again in its low power setting as the “moon”- -reminded her of Thebe. The effects of the Elements of Harmony on Twilight had been incomplete at best. Although she now remembered the meaning of Friendship and understood what she had done to Equestria, the intervening centuries had changed her in ways that were not so easy to reverse. Even with the advent of New Equestria, Thebe still ruled form the shadows, her toxic magical energy contained within her permeant exosuit and her Pyramid. She still insisted on being called “Thebe”.

Rainbow Dash did not care, though. It did not matter to her what her friend called herself- -Twilight was still her friend, and Fluttershy’s too, and always would be. Thebe now understood that, and during the race, Rainbow Dash had caught a glimpse of a phoenix watching her from the highest antenna of the stands, her eyes reflecting with the vision of an Incurse.

From one of the saddlebags, Rainbow Dash removed a black, hard envelope. She tucked it under her wing, and gestured for Six to sit down at the edge of the cliff. Six obliged, and Rainbow Dash sat down beside her. For a long moment, they both looked out at the sunset and the city it contained.

“Here,” said Rainbow Dash, handing the black envelope to Six.

Six took it and looked at the address. “Spiny Violation?” She looked somewhat confused. “Why am I getting a letter from Gell’s father?”

“It’s a summons,” said Rainbow Dash. “I got mine already.”

“A summons? To Tartarus? Why?”

Rainbow Dash smiled. She had been waiting to give Six the news for some time. “Because tomorrow, I’m going to take you to see Gell.”

Six’s eyes widened slightly. “But Gell is dead. I saw…or I recall seeing…her die.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Demons don’t work that way,” she said. “They’re not like us. They don’t have souls. If one dies, whatever she has instead just goes back to Satin. And Satin can remake them if she wants to.”

“So…am I to assume that she chose to remake Gell?”

Rainbow Dash nodded. What she did not say was that Satin Veil apparently had a sick sense of humor. Rainbow Dash had already met Gell, and upon seeing her, had laughed for almost forty five minutes straight. Gell had indeed been reincarnated, complete with the same memories, personality, and oversized libido- -in the body of a demon filly.

Gell had seemed to take Rainbow Dash’s response in stride, though. She just seemed happy to have hair again- -even if her body was barely the size of Six’s.

Six smiled. “That’s good. I’ve missed her. Quite a bit.”

She looked out at the sun, and Rainbow Dash looked at it reflecting in her large blue eyes. Although she had been waiting to tell Six about Gell’s return, that was not what she had brought Six to this isolated cliff to talk about.

“So,” said Rainbow Dash, looking down at the waves breaking below. “I never really asked you…but it’s all there?”

“The memories, you mean?” asked Six.

“Yeah.”

Six pointed at her flank, where the stain that was Blackest Night surrounded her crystal-shaped cutie mark. “They are,” she said. “All of them. From Two to my mother.”

“But…you’re not the same pony.”

Six sighed, and momentarily looked far older than she really was. “That’s not an easy question to answer. I think, on some level, all the Anhelii are the same pony…but we aren’t, at the same time. I remember her, and I understand why she did what she did. She and I share memories, and a personality, and even a body, and this,” she pushed her short blue mane aside, revealing the Order horns implanted in her skull. “I’ve simply come to different conclusions.”

“Conclusions?”

Six nodded. “I’ve thought about what you said. Back then, when you and my mother were trapped in that refinery. What you said to me. Do you remember?”

Rainbow Dash nodded.

“You said that I…that she…should have lived her life, and taken it for what it was instead of trying to escape her destiny. I have a new mind, and I gave that idea great thought. I have concluded that you were correct.”

Rainbow Dash smiled. “So you really aren’t like your mother.”

Six shook her head. “Honestly…I don’t even think of her as my mother. More like…a different version of myself.” She looked up at Rainbow Dash. “Really, I have always considered you to be more of my mother than she was.”

“Really?” said Rainbow Dash, somewhat surprised.

Six nodded and looked out at the sun, which now seemed to be sitting half-submerged in the distant ocean. “When she died and I came into existence, I was confused and alone. I had their memories, their understanding- -but I was still so new, so afraid. But you were there. You were kind to me, you and your family. Even Brown, after what my mother did to him. I was not alone.”

Rainbow Dash leaned back on the grass. She allowed for a long pause, and then finally spoke. “I wanted to talk to you because I wanted your opinion on something.”

“What?”

“What do you think of Glaciem Nebule?” said Rainbow Dash, looking out over the water.

Six blinked, not understanding, looking at Rainbow Dash. “It’s demonic for ice fog. A weather formation that consists of microscopic suspended crystalline fragments. Why? Is the Space Program having an engineering issue?”

“No,” laughed Rainbow Dash. “I mean what do you think of it as a name?”

Six’s eyes widened far wider than Rainbow Dash had ever seen them widen. “You- -you mean- -my name? A real name?”

“Well, if you’re going to be my daughter, don’t I get to name you something?”

Six wrapped Rainbow Dash in a sudden hug. Rainbow Dash could feel tiny tears running from Six’s eyes as she smiled. “I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much…”

Rainbow Dash put her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. “No problem, Glaciem.”

Eventually, Glaciem was able to wipe the tears away from her eyes, but she kept holding onto her mother. The two of them looked out at the sea, watching as the sun- -so different from what it had been before, and yet, so similar- -completed its journey toward the horizon and set, waiting for the time when it would once again burn brightly and a new day would begin.