Sunset drove in the darkness of early morning. The radio was off, heater - off, the only sound was that of the engine. It was hypnotic, the sound, the lights on the road, the darkness that surrounded them; it all led to an erasure of emotion and thought. She was empty mentally and emotionally she which is what she had wanted.

To think, to feel, would make her think about Apple Bloom. It would make her feel sadness, anger, hatred. It would open up thoughts she wasn't comfortable thinking (at least not since her transformation). Thoughts of revenge, blood, fire, death. She thought she couldn't kill: now she thought she could, easily.

She couldn't allow herself to go there. She also wasn't prepared to face the pain of loss. She wasn't really close to Apple Bloom. They only met a handful of times and those were all in passing; but she did know her. She also thought about how young she was. How she must have died in so much fear. She thought about how Apple Jack must feel. Her heart broke.

So she drove, in silence, through the darkness; allowing all thought and feeling to be lulled to sleep, to feel numb, to feel nothing.

Adagio sat beside her lost in her thoughts. She looked back on everything that had happened and realized they had been played from the start. Chrysalis might have intended Adagio to do the main damage, but she had moved other pieces in place in case Adagio had failed. Adagio thought she should have seen it, expected it. Adagio had employed many a complex scheme over the years. She had outwitted many a foe and should have known Chrysalis had back up plan after back up plan.

She looked over at Sunset who's face was mostly blank with a shadow of boiling anger just beneath it. She wanted to say something to her. She wanted to reach out, take her hand, comfort her, take her pain away; but she couldn't. She knew Sunset was in a dark place and needed time to process it and come through it on her own. Any attempt to help would be met with resistance if not open hostility.

Adagio turned and looked out her window and watched the ever receding woods give way to open grassland and the lights of the town just beyond. She turned her eyes up to the sky to watch the stars. She remembered how they used to rule the night. Countless points of light in a sea of black. Now they faced competition from every direction as streetlights, headlights, lights from house windows and factories all fought with the celestial lights for dominion over the night and the gaze of man; and for now, the man made lights had won.

That was only temporary though. Those stars were patient. They had seen countless numbers of their brethren blink into existence and fade away. Those lights, those stars, crowded out for now; would still be there long after the species of man and his artificial lights had passed away and once again they would rule the night sky unopposed.

But then, all those stars were only temporary as well. Slowly, all of them would dim and die. Only the eternal darkness would remain. At the end of all things, would the darkness laugh at all those foolish stars and the life they had helped create for evening daring to try to oppose him? Maybe it would cry, knowing it had won the war but now had no reason to exist? She knew it would do neither as the darkness wasn't a thing; at least not a thing with thought and emotion but a state, an absence; an absence of light and life. It was a state whose sole definition was contingent on that which it opposed. When the last life had passed away, death would be die as well. When the last light was extinguished, darkness too would be extinguished as well having nothing to prove itself against.

So then what? What of all of this? She had existed outside of time for so long she had never contemplated these questions. Now thrust back under the rule of time, she found herself consumed by those very questions. If all this was for naught; then what was the point to anything? All the struggles, the victories, losses, happiness and sorrows of existence were nothing more than a cruel joke. A way to pass the time in between states of oblivion. Everything became so trivial, so empty, so meaningless.

Scientist estimate the universe is 13.8 billion years old. But what was even that in the grand scheme of eternity? Even if the universe continued for another trillion years, what was that to infinity? A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second?
But there were other universes too; other dimensions. An infinite number of universes with an infinite number of dimensions. Did they count? Life would cease to be here but in the other realms, would it continue? Would the multiverse continue to create new universes and therefore life; forever? And if not, would eventually everything cease to be? Would there be a final end to all things? Was everything doomed to utter destruction?

Adagio looked back to Sunset. Without hesitation she reached out and took her hand.

"What?" Sunset asked in a distant, somewhat annoyed voice.

"I'll kill Aria." Adagio's voice wasn't one of determined vengeance. It was sad, sympathetic. Like a parent saying they'll put down the sick and dying family pet to a child.

"I took her to Apple Jack's place," Sunset said bluntly. "I'm the reason they're dead. I'll do it."

"No," once again; Adagio's voice was soft and sympathetic. "No matter where Aria would have ended up, she would have killed. Rainbow's parents, Rarity's, Pinkie's sister, Aria was a ticking time bomb that Chrysalis had been waiting to use."

"True enough," Sunset responded flatly. "So do you want to be the one who does it and not me?"

"Because you're better than that."

"You said yourself I would have to kill. Aria, Chrysalis, what does it matter?"

"It's the intent that matters. You're going to have to kill Chrysalis; it's the only way you'll stop her. Aria, she has no magic. The human authorities could take care of her. You could even take her back and throw her in one of the prisons in Equestria. If yo kill her, you would be doing so out of revenge. That is not you."

"Oh yes it is. It's the most me thing there is," Sunset said, shaking her head, a tears running down her cheeks.

"No, it's not. Not now. If you go through with it, you would be corrupting yourself which is what Chrysalis wanted in the first place. I see that now."

"And if I let you do it? How is that any different? Your hand, but you'd still be acting on my will. You'd be killing her to appease me."

"Then I won't. I'll chain her up, turn her in, whatever I have to but I'm not letting you lose yourself." Adagio then lifted Sunset's hand and kissed it. Maybe there wasn't a big, over reaching narrative or meaning to existence. Maybe these futile and fleeting moments and emotions were all that were. Maybe that was all that was needed. A meal only nourishes the body for so long before you have to eat again; and no matter how much you eat; you'll eventually die anyway. Still, does any of that fore knowledge lessen the experience of eating? Does it make a great meal less or a terrible mean more? No. The meal at the moment is either savored or loathed based on what it is. So to life is savored or loathed for what it is in the moment regardless of knowing the eventual outcome is non-existence.

"I'm going to tell Val I can't see him anymore on Monday," Sunset simply said.

"Why?" Adagio asked in disbelief.

"I won't have time to pursue a relationship with him and I don't want to put him in danger. The others joined the fight before it was even started. He didn't. I can't, I won't risk his life."

"Sunset, are you sure. After everything you told me about him?"

"It's precisely because of everything I told you about him that I'm doing this. I care too much about him to risk him becoming a target."

"My heart breaks for you then," Adagio said on the verge of tears.

"It seems wrong to say thank you for that. Especially since . . ." Sunset paused and squeezed Adagio's hand, " since I . . . I've decided to be with someone else."

Adagio's mouth dropped open, stunned. "Who? Who else is there?"

Sunset turned briefly to Adagio then back to the road. "You," she just said.

"What? But you're straight?"

"I know. And I don't know how this will work or for how long. I just know that, after tonight; there's no one who could love me more or better than you. And frankly, I feel things for you I've never felt for another woman before. I told you, at least I think I told you, that I can't imagine my life without you. If you're fine with not having sex, then I want to be with you. Like, be with you, be with you."

Adagio looked at Sunset for a while in stunned silence. Then she laid her head on her shoulder and smiled. "As long as I get to see you before I fall asleep and see you when I wake up, if sleeping is all we do in bed, I'm fine with that."

Sunset just nodded with a blank expression still on her face. "So," she said, "when do we meet my Earth self again?"

Author's Notes:

Next chapter, the Sunsets meet and we go back to Equestria where Adagio learns something new about herself.