The Glass Paperweight
By: Alexander
It was the afternoon of one midsummer’s day and outside and it was steadily raining. The pegasi crew had spent all of their morning out preparing the clouds and grouping them together. Twilight had been making her way home from Rarity's boutique when the rain had begun to lightly fall. She had looked up to the sky and observed the lightly overhanging clouds dark and grey above her head. She was now resting in her loft above the main floor of the library. The rain was rapping against the glass pane of the window.
She sat on the corner of her bed and absentmindedly dried herself with a warm towel. She let out a soothe coo as the warmth of it ran across the cool damp of her coat. She ran the towel across again and lightly shook her head at the warmth. She laid down on her bed and tightly wrapped herself in the towel, savoring the feel of its cotton against her coat. She turned her head to the window and stared out at the loud falling rain. Thunder rumbled somewhere off in the distance. Twilight turned her head away from the glass and gazed dreamily at her book on the bedside table. She extended a hoof and hesitated; she retracted it. She could always read it later. She went back to listening to the rain.
She unwrapped herself from the now cool towel and tossed it into the bin by the stairs. She rose from bed and crossed to the bath where she gazed into the mirror. Still the same as she always was. Her purple mane streaked with lines of pink was damp and wet from the sudden rain and her lavender coat was matted down on all sides from being pressed with the towel. She bought her brush from its holder and progressed then to thoroughly comb herself until all mats and knots had gone.
She left and returned to the corner of her bed. When she sat, she heard a loud thud and a roll of something heavy underneath her mattress. She got up from bed again and looked under it for whatever could have been knocked over. She retracted a large glass paperweight. She held it lightly in her hooves and gave it a long stare before placing it in the window sill. Twilight laid down on her bed again and wrapped herself tightly this time in her comforters. The rain was still pouring and ratting against the window. She felt sleepy.
She magicked over the glass paperweight and held it in her hooves. How long had it been since she had seen it? She did not know. She held it close to her face. It was still as clear as crystal and as sheen as wet ice as it had been for all the years. Its engraved design featured a dragon in mid-flight. She stared at it and ran her hoof against the cool glass of it, remembering how she had always loved it. Thunder rumbled again. She sighed and brought the paperweight close to her chest. It was larger than average but she loved it for that; it was unique. With another sigh, she placed the weight back onto the window sill. Thunder rumbled somewhere far in the distance again.
She turned the light hanging from the ceiling off with a flick of her horn and she was bathed in only the natural light from outside. It was the same dark, damp, grey as the clouds and she laid her head on the pillow again. She listened. She was not entirely sure why she enjoyed listening to the steady platter of rain against the window; she just knew that she always had. Perhaps it was just the simple sound of it. Perhaps it was just that simple plat-plat-plat that drew her in close. Perhaps it was just that simple sound that closed her eyes and sent her off to sleep. Twilight stared on at it through the window and finally closed her weary eyes. It was just the rain. Thunder crackled overhead.
******
She awoke from her doze later that evening. The rain was still pouring heavily out from her window. She turned over and watched as a streak of brilliant white lightning cut through the night sky. Thunder soon rumbled through and roused her from the last tendrils of sleep. She wiped her eyes with her hooves but never rose. She turned her gaze again to the glass paperweight that sat silent in the window sill. She magicked it over to her grasp and held it in her hooves again.
She pressed its cool surface to her cheek and cooed at its touch. She removed it and held it close again to her chest. She rolled over away from the window and smiled. There was another flash of dazzling light that for an instant flooded the room in light. A crack of thunder soon followed and Twilight reluctantly rose from bed. She carried the paperweight with her as she crossed the room to her desk and set it down. She lit a candle, sat down and took her quill and a sheet of parchment.
She struggled with her thoughts for a while before letting the quill fall to the surface of the table with a soft clatter. She gazed intently at the blank surface of the paper and furrowed her brow. She gave up on trying to write about finding her paperweight and opted then to just sit and listen to the rain that pounded against the roof. She turned around in her seat to look at the window and rose. She crossed over to it and bought her chair along with her; with a soft thud of the chair legs against the wood floor, she set the chair down and sat.
Twilight did not know the time but she guessed that it was well past midnight. She would love to know what time it really was, but she didn’t want to get up from her spot by the window. She rested her head across the glass and listened as the hard rain plopped and poured just an inch away. She gently closed her eyes and let the sound of the rain wash her over. She really wasn’t quite sure why she liked the sound of the rain so much as she did.
She opened her eyes to the sudden clap of thunder that shook her from her position. Grumbling, she re-situated herself in her chair and turned an eye to her desk again. Even in the faint light of the small white candle that was so close to burning out, she could still firmly see the dragon engraving. She could still see the clear shine and transparency. She could see all of it; even a single crack that coursed nearly all around its circumference.
With a light of her horn, she bought it back to where she was and held it in her hooves. She furrowed her brow and scolded herself for her constant moving and removing of the weight. Even so, she held it in her hooves and smiled at it. She could still remember the day that she had gotten it all those years ago. She had been just a little filly then.
******
She remembered how it had been a bright, hot, sunny afternoon in the middle of summer. She remembered the deep blue of the unhindered sky. She remembered the songs and the cries of the summer birds. She could even remember the name of the street: Corner Lane. She remembered how she had been just a little filly following close to her mother as they made their ways through the Canterlot Market Place. She remembered how everypony had been so busy that afternoon. She remembered how the wind had been so stiff and hot. She remembered all the little shops and all the little court areas. She could even remember the smell of the air that day: lilies and roses.
“Mommy,” she had said all those years ago as the pair had passed by a particularly peculiar looking shop. Its shelves high and low were lined to their brims with little trinkets and various hand-me-downs. Some were small; some were quite large. Some were clean and free from dirt while others were dirty and coated in a thin layer of tarnish. But what drew Twilight’s attention was what looked to her like a large clear stone amongst a pile of very dirty, crude items too old to be sold. This pile was stacked high in an old bin that was beginning to lightly rust.
“What is it, Twilight?” her mother had asked, stopping in her tracks suddenly only to be bumped into. “Oh I’m sorry,” she had apologized as she helped her daughter regain her footing.
“It’s okay Mommy.”
Twilight’s mother wiped away a streak of dust from Twilight’s brow with a smile. “So what is it, Twilight?” she had later asked, remembering that her daughter had wanted something from her.
“What is that?”
“What is what?”
“That!” Twilight had exclaimed, pointing and trotting over to that lone glimmer amongst the muck of everything else. Everything else that was too old and too dirty to be given a care for. “What’s this shiny thing?”
“Oh, Twilight, don’t go near that dirty bin,” her mother had replied as she grimaced at the pile. “Get away from it; come on, let’s go. Your father’s probably getting worried because we aren’t home yet. I told him we’d be home about twenty minutes ago yet here we are.”
“But I really wanna know what this shiny thing is,” Twilight had protested then, reaching closer to the pile. She gingerly grabbed the ball in her hoof and held it up higher for her mother to see. “What is this thing, Mommy?” she asked again as she weighed the cool glass and gave it a long stare. She hadn’t seen anything like it; it was heavy to her but it was so pretty. The clear glass looked as clean to her as the fountain water did higher up near the castle. She ran a hoof along the engraving of it and marveled at how meticulously etched and scored the dragon was. She smiled in delight at her beautiful find.
Twilight’s mother lifted the glass from her grasp and raised it up higher to her own eye-level so that she could examine it for herself. After a tense moment, she lowered the glass closer to Twilight and dropped it into her hooves. “That’s a paperweight,” she had simply said as she watched her daughter smile at it.
“What’s a paperweight?” Twilight remembered asking, giving the weight a curious stare.
“A paperweight is something that is used to keep rolls of parchment from rolling back into a scroll while you’re trying to write,” her mother had explained. “You’ve used some of them before. You know those little sticks you use whenever you write? Those are paperweights.”
“Oh . . . but then why is this one so shiny?” Twilight had asked in response to her mother’s explanation.
“Because it’s special.”
“How’s it special?”
“Well, it’s a bit like this: it’s formed glass and somepony obviously spent a lot of time working on it. It’s not everyday somepony just up and decides to do something like this. See that engraving of the dragon? That kind of thing takes a long time to get right. It’s not something that somepony just makes for the sheer fun of it; it’s something that they do because they want to make somepony happy.”
“Is that why it’s special?”
“That is exactly why it’s special. Making somepony happy is a very special thing and it’s a very good thing to do.”
Twilight turned her eyes away from her mother and looked at the paperweight. She bobbed it lightly in her hooves before smiling again. “Can I keep it?” she had asked with the largest smile she had ever adorned.
“Now why would you want it? You picked it from a bin of garbage. That’s all it is,” Twilight’s mother had said.
“But you said that somepony made it to make somepony else happy.”
“I did.”
“Well I’m happy with it. Isn’t that enough?”
Twilight’s mother looked her down deep into her eyes and heavily sighed. Disappointing her little filly was too much of an ordeal for her to want. “Fine; do you even know how much it costs?”
Twilight shook her head in response. She turned around in her spot and gazed back to the front counter of the stand. She slowly made her way to it and gingerly placed the weight among the other relics that lie scattered about. She looked up to the large stallion that had his head lazily propped up in his hooves as he leaned against the counter. He absentmindedly stared out at the passing crowd and bitterly scoffed as the passerby would take a look to his facility before continuing on. Twilight raised her head closer to the top of the counter and pushed a few little trinkets out her way. “Hello,” she said as she stood up on her back legs to get higher up; she placed her forelegs up on the counter to steady herself.
The large stallion stared down to the little filly that had propped herself up on the counter. “Well hello,” he simply said. “What can I do for you today?”
“How much is this?” Twilight had asked as she nearly lost her balance. Her mother caught her in the side and helped her regain footing.
“How much is what?” the stallion asked as he looked down at his messy countertop. “One of those old antique cups and goblets are four bits and that brass locket over there is six bits. That pocket watch there is also six bits.”
“Oh no, sir,” she had been quick to say. “How much is this paperweight?”
“What paper – oh that paperweight . . . it’s free.”
“Why is it free?”
“Because it’s old and look there see? – It’s got a crack in it. It’s near worthless now as it is.”
“But I still think it’s pretty.”
“Do you now?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then it’s yours. I have no place for it here. I’m finding that I hardly have room for anything anymore. Ponies keep donating their stuff and then nopony ever stops more than a second or two to look before they walk away. Then I’ve got all this stuff that just sits out and then I’ve got no choice but to throw it all away.”
Twilight looked around at the random chaos before sinking back to all hour of her legs. She reached up and awkwardly took the paperweight down from its spot. She looked at in her hooves before turning a wide smile up to the owner. “Thank you so much,” she had said as she beamed. She turned and also gave her mother a happy grin.
“You’re welcome then,” the large stallion said monotonously yet with a bit of an awkward smile.
After several moments of polite farewells, Twilight and her mother left the stand and made their way back down the crowded street. The mother levitated the glass paperweight before her daughter as they made their ways so that she could always see it. Twilight looked over it and through it and at it and looked intently at its dragon engraving and counted the grooves along its spine. Forty-two she counted then. She paid attention to nothing but her mother and her new very own glass paperweight.
******
A sudden loud clap of thunder shook Twilight forcibly from her doze and she heard the loud bang of something heavy falling onto wood. She raised her head from the cold glass panel of her window and stared out at the pitch black of night. The heavy rain was still pummeling against the window. She shook her head free from the grip of exhaustion and focused again on her desk.
Twilight stood from her chair and leaned down close to the floor to pick up the fallen paperweight. With it, she crossed to her desk, set it down, and magicked over her chair. She set it down as a bright white flash filled the room and a roll of thunder shook her in her place. When all had passed, she sat down in the chair and reignited the small candle that had burned itself out. She unrolled her scroll that had rolled back into shape during her doze and placed the weight at the top of it.
Grabbing her quill with a faint light of her horn, she lifted it above the parchment and stopped. She lowered her gaze down to her paperweight and smiled. She knew what she was going to write. She lowered the quill and with that familiar scratching sound of quill-tip against paper, she quickly scribbled a few words before stopping again. She read what she had wrote and with a satisfied nod, she set the quill down again.
She removed the weight and with another faint light of her horn, she rolled the parchment back to shape. She quickly blew out the candle and without a care, tossed herself into bed, tightly wrapping herself in her comforters. She slowly rolled onto her side and listened to the steady plat-plat-plat of rain against glass. With another smile, she went to sleep again. It was just the rain and on her desk sat the glass paperweight.