Clear Skies and Troubled Minds
Darkness, darkness all around me. I can’t see light anywhere! Where are the stars? Where is the moon? Did something happen to Princess Luna? Oh no, they might be coming for me next. I’m too young to die!
Your eyes are still closed, idiot
Rainbow Dash’s eyes snapped open and she found that she was still lying in her bed. A small look outside the window showed that it was a night just like any other, dotted with stars and with one big moon slowly moving through the sky.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Rainbow reached for the other half of the bed, only to find it conspicuously empty. A magenta glow surrounded the lightbulb hanging at the ceiling in the middle of the room and with a small click it sprung to life.
Now with the room properly illuminated, Rainbow saw that she was currently all alone. Where is she?
Dash willed herself to rise from the bed and slowly trotted to the window. She looked at the trees surrounding the house, hoping to maybe spot the missing mare between them. Rainbow lazily stared out the window, looking from tree to tree when she suddenly heard a dull thump come from the roof.
She slowly opened the window and flew outside. She turned around and looked back at her house. Even without the light of the moon it would’ve been hard to miss that there was a pony silhouette on the roof.
Rainbow flew down and plopped down next to her. The first thing she noticed was that her hooves were covered in dirt and dust. A quick glance around and she found the ladder resting against the house.
“Really AJ, climbing up the roof with your hooves? Why didn’t you just fly up? Or conjure up some stairs even?”
Applejack didn’t respond and Rainbow figured that she was lost in watching the sky above. Only when she studied AJ’s face more closely did she notice the tears slowly moving down her cheeks to her chin, only to then drop on the roof where they sat on.
Rainbow Dash moved closer to AJ and gently draped her wing across her back. AJ’s wings tensed slightly but they settled back at her side. Rainbow nuzzled AJ’s neck as she said: “What’s wrong?”
Rainbow could feel how Applejack was quivering upon the asking of that question. She responded by grabbing her even tighter with her wing. Instead of focusing on her previous question, Rainbow looked up to the starry sky above her and said: “It sure is beautif-, uh, awesome out here at night, huh?”.
“Y-yeah,” came the silent reply from Applejack. She returned Rainbow’s nuzzle and her tail gently laid itself upon Rainbow’s.
“Makes you wonder how Princess Luna came up with all the positions for her stars, doesn’t it?”
Applejack lifted her gaze upwards without allowing her cheek to stop resting against Rainbow’s. “It sure is pretty, she did a mighty fine job.”
Rainbow straightened herself and her horn started glowing. “Look AJ, I’m gonna show you something that Twilight taught me but don’t tell Luna or she’ll freak out.”
Applejack casted a wary glance at Rainbow. “O-okay.”
Rainbow nudged AJ’s chin with her hoof so that she was looking back at the sky above as her horn started burning brightly. Rainbow was visibly straining and small beads of sweat were already appearing on her forehead.
Applejack stared at the stars in anticipation. At first, nothing seemed to happen but as time stretched on, some stars started to move outside of their normal patterns. More stars started moving until nearly all the visible stars were under Rainbow’s control.
Rainbow willed the large cluster of stars to move to where they had the best position to look. Once there, the stars started to build lines and shapes until Applejack recognized the picture that was now painted in the sky. A perfect replica of herself, wings and horn included.
Rainbow didn’t seem content to stop there however as she moved another group of stars over and she then sculpted a heart around the starry Döppelganger.
Applejack’s mouth was wide open as she gasped at what she saw. “Rainbow, i-it’s beautiful. Or, I guess, awesome,” she added with a small smile.
With one last flare of her horn, Rainbow destroyed the replica and spilled the stars all over the sky again, albeit not in their correct places.
Applejack frowned slightly in disappointment. “Aw, why did ya have to break it up already?”
Rainbow was smirking at Applejack. “Well, I don’t know how smart you think Princess Luna is but I’m pretty sure she’d know who stole her stars if she saw that,” she said. Then a few loud coughs escaped from her.
Applejack looked at Rainbow with worry. “Y’all okay there, hun’?”
Rainbow waved away AJ’s concerns. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. It just took a little more out of me than I thought.
Both mares looked back up to the sky, which seemed even more beautiful than before, despite not a single star probably making it back to their original spot.
“Ya know that Princess Luna and Twilight are gonna throw a fuss when they realise what happened, right?”
“Pssh, it was worth it. Seeing you smile is worth getting a lecture about ‘proper star placement’ or ‘we don’t mess with cosmic entities, Rainbow’.
Applejack gave her another smile and rested her head on Rainbow shoulder as they both continued watching the stars.
After a few minutes, Rainbow gently nudged Applejack and said: “Ready to tell me what’s bothering you yet?”
Applejack took a deep breath and she wrapped one of her wings around Rainbow. Rainbow was about to ask again when Applejack finally spoke up. “This night I woke up with my heart hurtin’ more than it ever had... that’s when I knew that it had happened.”
“Apple Bloom?” Rainbow asked, not missing a beat from what AJ was saying.
“Ee-y-yup,” Applejack responded as her eyes began to gloss over from impending tears again.
“You know she’s lived a good life.”
“Don’t make it any easier.” Applejack wiped away the moisture brimming at her eyes.
Rainbow Dash gently took AJ’s head between her hooves and turned her so they were looking at eachother. “What makes this different though? You barely cried when Granny Smith or Big Mcintosh passed away. Hay, I cried harder when they told me an immortal pony couldn’t stay captain of the Wonderbolts forever,” she said with a little smile.
Applejack couldn’t help but chuckle at the remembrance of that particular business with the Wonderbolts. It had taken her several days to convince her that wanting to be captain forever was unfair to the other ponies.
Applejack realised that Rainbow was waiting for her to respond so she focused back on the matter at hand. “It’s just… Apple Bloom was so much younger than me. Nopony expects to have to bury siblings who were born after you.” Applejack sighed.
“My whole life I’ve been preparin’ to deal with the loss of my family. When I… we got turned into alicorns, I had to add everyone of the family to that list. And it don’t stop there. Green Prism is almost sixty years now. I can’t stand the thought of havin’ to outlive our own children. Sunset's just a baby, and someday I know I'll lose her. And that thought terrifies me and hurts me more than everything ever has.”
“For the last ten years, I’ve tried to pull myself away from Apple Bloom to try and make the hurt easier to get over with, but all it did was made it hurt even more,” she said with a pained expression.
The night was silent again as Rainbow looked lovingly in Applejack’s eyes… and then smacked her on the head. “And they call me a featherbrain. Hah!”
“Ack, what in the hay was that good for?” Applejack asked while rubbing the back of her head.
“Because you’re going about it completely wrong,” Rainbow declared with an air of confidence.
Applejack waited for Rainbow to go on which she did. “Let me tell you a story: There once was a pegasus named Awesome Flash. At one point that pegasus got herself a turt-, uh tortoise. In the beginning they didn’t spend that much time together but as time went on, they became the bestest friends. Then, around sixty years later, while she miraculously doesn’t age, she began to realise that the tortoise, even though they can live for really long times, would eventually leave her. She tried to distance herself from the tortoise to avoid the heartache of losing a friend who would’ve spent more than a century by her side. In the end, she realised that all this did was make both sides feel bad.
Rainbow paused for dramatic effect, “And that’s when she realised the solution. She began to spend more time with her friend. She made sure to make Bomb feel appreciated. She wanted to have nothing but good memories left for when his time was up. Even though she was sad at the prospect of losing a close friend, she realised that the good of spending time together far outweighed the bad of losing each other.
Rainbow finished her story with a small quake in her voice and realised that her eyes were feeling wet.
Applejack was looking at Rainbow in amazement. “Sugarcube, I never thought you woulda been able to make as much sense as you just did.”
A cocky grin adorned Rainbow’s face. “I know, I’m awesome. Now, what do you say we head on back down, get a few more hours of sleep and tomorrow we make Sunset’s favourite breakfast?” she said with an outstretched hoof.
“That sounds like a terrific idea,” Applejack said as she took Rainbow’s hoof with her own.
As they slowly descended the roof to the edge where a conjured set of stairs wa standing, Applejack cast one last glance at the sky above. Most of the stars seemed to have moved back to their original positions except for a few. Applejack was about to look back down when she suddenly noticed a group of five falling stars moving across the sky.
“Rainbow, are ya workin’ your weird star magic again?” Applejack asked.
“No, why are you asking?” Rainbow said without actually looking up.
For the first time of the evening, a big sincere smile showed on her face. “Nothing sugarcube, absolutely nothing.”
Rainbow and Applejack descended the stairs and entered the farmhouse. The noise of a filly who was awake when she shouldn’t be was already ringing in their ears.