Sunset woke with her head still cradled in Twilight's lap, and a sticky spot of drool connecting her cheek to Twilight's skirt. The living room was dark, and the TV's screen snowy; its pale glow threw long shadows across the cramped space.

She yawned, and slid to the floor.

"Twi," said Sunset groggily, rubbing her eyes. "You up?"

Twi was not up – her head was lolled onto one side, her cheek snuggled against the couch's armrest. A thin trail of saliva leaked from the corner of her mouth, pooling on the couch's upholstery.

"Oh, so you're allowed to drool, huh?" Sunset snorted. "Better not give me any grief about your skirt, then."

She pulled off her jacket and draped it over Twilight, who smacked her lips and stirred slightly before nuzzling deeper into the armrest.

Sunset smiled to herself and headed for the kitchen, flicking the light switch on and reveling in the emptiness that greeted her. The microwave clock read 5:38 – she'd been out for nearly twelve hours. And Twilight had just let her sleep. On her own lap.

Guess she really feels guilty about the Starlight Glimmer thing.

She shrugged it off and headed for her broken coffee maker, more out of habit than anything else. It wasn't until she reached it that she recalled the thrice-damned thing was—

"...Huh," she said with genuine shock. "Hello there, big ol' pot of coffee."

The pot was filled to the brim with steaming brown liquid. Sunset pulled it free, flipped open the lid, and sniffed. The heady aroma of hazelnut filled her senses, and she compulsively released a slow, shuddering sigh. Not convinced that she wasn't dreaming – or hallucinating – Sunset poured a cup for herself, and took a tentative sip.

Her eyes widened. She swirled the coffee around with her tongue and moaned, relishing in its rich, bold flavor.

This is the greatest thing I have ever had in my mouth, she thought, gulping it down with a smile.

But a glance at the pot sent needles of paranoia up her spine – the amount of coffee inside hadn't decreased in the slightest. It was still filled to the brim.

Sunset bit her thumb and mulled this sudden turn of events, trying to string together some kind of logical explanation. Once, she'd had a coffee maker. It had stopped working. Then, one day, a floating eye from another dimension occupied her kitchen, and when it left, her coffee pot was literally bottomless.

Sunset glanced quickly at the pot's underside.

Figuratively bottomless, she corrected.

The Eyeball had done something before it left, Sunset remembered. It looked at her, deliberately; it formed a shape with its pupil. A U. Or so she'd assumed. In hindsight, it was more likely...

"A smile."

Sunset downed a swig of coffee and poured a refill – yet again, the volume of coffee did not decrease. She set her mug down and stared pensively at it, gnawing harder at her thumb. Could this have been a show of gratitude from the Eyeball? A token of farewell after she'd spoken to it and shown it kindness? A parting gift, because they developed a weird, mostly burrito-based friendship, against all odds and in defiance of communication barriers?

She had no way to be sure, really. But, she mused as she picked up her mug again, it would probably be a good thing to discuss with Twilight when she woke up.

Whenever that'll be.

Sunset took a long sip, smiling all the while.

Then she slammed her mug on the counter as a sudden realization took hold of her.

"Son of a bitch. I never got my phone back."

The Eyeball bobbed freely in the tides of a world without friction, awash in the nothing-that-was-everything, as she made her journey home. A nightmarish symphony played everywhere and nowhere – screams and laughter and childish weeping, crashing thunder and shrieking metal, underscored by the distant beating of insect wings. Swarming flies, phantasmal subjects to a degenerate Lord, raged impotently against the walls of a world forever beyond their grasp.

She had no sympathy to spare – for the Lord, for his subjects, or his plight. His world, all worlds, were better off without him.

A current of rainbows caught her, and swept her away. Home was yet beyond.

Borne by the tide, the Eyeball spun about, and stared into the infinite. Translucent orbs, like glass baubles, rippled and burst as realities formed and died by the thousands, the fleeting realms of mortals who existed within the constraints of dimensional space. In one, she glimpsed a house, built upon a rock in a sea of black and purple – the dwelling of her friend, the Old Chaos. His home, a quaint and paradoxically mortal construction, was a constant in all but the dreariest of realities, a fact which would no doubt vex him if he knew. Constancy is anathema to chaos, after all.

Through its window, the Eyeball glimpsed him – Discord, yet not Discord, alike and dissimilar from the one she knew. Standing apart from him was Sunset Shimmer, who saw the Eyeball, and waved.

The Eyeball had no sentiment to spare for this girl, for though she was Sunset Shimmer, she was not Sunset Shimmer as well – merely a different iteration from a different reality. Curious, then, that Sunset-Shimmer-Yet-Not recognized and greeted the Eyeball. The Eyeball sensed another's hand in this, and wanted no part at all.

She allowed the current to carry her away. Home was yet beyond.

The world shattered like ice, falling away into a stark land of white space – a backdrop, upon which mortal dwellings were drawn in two dimensions, colored in a spectrum visible even to the humdrum denizens of dimensional space. A being wandered about this backdrop, a hollow thing of neck and head and toothless mouth. Wide, glassy, lidless eyes glimpsed the Eyeball; he opened his mouth, and sang a song of shining darkness and four-sided triangles.

The Eyeball forsook the current. She toppled heedlessly into the mouth of her Spouse, for she knew she had come home.

The Spouse closed his mouth lovingly around the Eyeball. In their union, their thoughts swirled and bled together – the Spouse's fear at the Eyeball's disappearance, his certainty that he would never again cradle her in the warm embrace of his soft, felt mouth. And the Eyeball shared with her Spouse the memory of her time in the human purgatory, when her luminous existence was constrained by the chains of corporeality. A miserable, anxious, time – yet time well spent.

The Eyeball was not always a luminous being. She was born a meager thing of flesh and blood, of a kind with Sunset Shimmer. But that was ages past; she had outgrown such mortal conventions as ages, and forgotten the profundity of mortal life. Sunset reminded her that there is beauty, and meaning, to the fleeting lives of the lesser beings. They think, and they feel; they rejoice and despair. They love, and they lose; they grieve for what slips away. And though they are small-minded and short-lived, though they are as children to ones such as the Eyeball and her Spouse, they are not so dissimilar.

For in the moment where Sunset's thoughts were as one with the Eyeball's, they saw in one another the same want: To be loved and understood by another, utterly and wholly. If nothing else, they were alike in that.

The Eyeball sank into her Spouse's embrace, and hoped that Sunset would someday find the same.

Special thanks to:

-The Writeoff Association, for all their help in workshopping the original version, and for bestowing upon it the coveted "an attempt was made" silver medal

-Danny "Editor Man" Jidya, for his invaluable assistance over the course of revision

-Oroboro, for referencing this story in his own work, thus inspiring me to get my ass in gear and finish it up for FiMfic

-Soufriere, for helping to inspire the more character-centric tone and direction that the story took in its final draft (and for writing a damn fine series of Sadset Shimmer stories)

And to everybody who read and/or commented, for helping to make this story a (relative) success. I'll probably post a retrospective on my blog, going over my writing process for this story, as is my wont. Stay tuned for that if you're interested. Otherwise, thank you again for reading.

The Eyeball will return in The Eye That Floats, Silent and Unblinking, in Petunia Paleo's Sandbox