Paint the Night with Stars
All it took was one mistake and everything was ruined.
Sweetie Belle ran through the darkening city, her body too small for the hurricane of emotions raging in her chest. Guilt gnawed at her stomach, and she wanted to scream out at the top of her lungs and for everypony to feel her pain; however, she contained herself. Offloading her worries onto innocent bystanders would have been one more thing to feel awful about.
The street lights were starting to turn on. Sweetie Belle ran faster, and when she reached the gates of Canterlot, it was a relief to find them open. Unlike the city’s narrow lanes which were lined with delicate looking buildings and crowded with posh ponies enjoying the summer evening, beyond the gates, everything felt wild and huge. While there wasn’t enough space in the city to express how she felt, out there, in the forests, the meadows and the mountains, was all the space she would ever need.
“You have ruined my birthday, little sister. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”
The memory of Rarity’s bitter voice rang in Sweetie’s head as she charged through the gates. She had no idea where she was running to. All she knew was that she had to get away from everypony and find a place to cry, somewhere where it would be impossible to mess things up.
“I’m, I’m sorry! I didn’t me—”
“Just leave me be, Sweetie Belle. Get out of my sight!”
Sweetie dashed up a dirt trail into some woods—judging from the ill-kept state of it, not many ponies travelled this way. She wondered how she could have messed up so badly, but the only answer she could think of was that she always messed up. It didn’t matter how much she thought things through or how much care she took. She was dumb, slow Sweetie Belle. She had butterhooves, and she could never do anything right.
Her legs began to tire. Her breathing started to deepen. When at last the path ended at the top of a cliff, her exhaustion got the better of her and she collapsed next to a tree, her forehead sweating, and her hooves feeling as though they were bathed in fire.
It felt remarkably peaceful up here, a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the city below. A bird was singing. The air was cool, and as the evening gave way to night, the moon cast its pale otherworldly glow over Equestria. Sweetie despised how calm it felt. If she’d had it her way, then the weather team would’ve whipped up a storm the likes of which Canterlot had never experienced. There would have been lightning licking the ground hungrily. There would have been torrential rain, and booming thunder to shake houses to their foundations.
“I’m useless,” she whispered. Unable to halt the terrible sinking sensation in her belly, she began to cry, acutely aware of how alone she was on the side of the mountain.
... Almost alone.
“It is unwise to venture up here by yourself, young filly. We are most concerned for your safety.”
Sweetie jerked her head up. The mysterious voice was regal and full of power—something about it reminded her of her sister’s voice—and it belonged to a large, slender unicorn with a horn to rival Princess Celestia’s. The unicorn had a navy blue coat. She had bright blue eyes, majestic wings, and her cutie mark was of a crescent moon placed in a patch of darkness. The unicorn’s mane and tail seemed to be cut from the night itself.
Princess Luna.
Ignoring the pain in her legs, Sweetie forced herself to stand. “W-we?”
“I mean I,” sighed the princess. “I am most concerned for your safety. What are you doing in so lonely a place and in the death of the day?”
Sweetie Belle patted the grass nervously. How long had Luna been standing there? Surely a princess of Equestria had better things to do than waste time talking to a worthless little filly.
“I’m running away,” Sweetie whispered, trembling. It wasn’t Luna’s height that put Sweetie on edge, intimidating though it was. It wasn’t even Luna’s voice. Rather, it was her eyes. Those startling, bright blue eyes pierced right through her to a place that the young filly, until that moment, hadn’t even realised existed. It was personal, private. Though she couldn’t give this strange new part of herself a name, she had a suspicion that were she to ask Rarity about it, the older unicorn might have said that Luna was peering into her very soul...
Luna blinked and frowned. “Pray tell,” the princess asked. “What reason have you to vanish into the night?”
Sweetie gulped. “I... I kind of ruined my sister’s birthday party. She...” Her voice broke. “She hates me.”
A fresh wave of tears trickled down Sweetie’s cheeks and her ears drooped. To her surprise, however, Luna let out a short, sharp laugh and said, “Hah! Thou must be the filly who blew up her sister’s cake! An unfortunate though commendable achievement. You must be greatly learned in the magical arts to perform such a feat.”
“Hay, it was an accident,” Sweetie said, stamping a hoof. “I just lost control for a second!”
And everything came rushing back to Sweetie Belle. There had been a cake, a cake consisting of three tiers that were covered in lashings of icing, and a little sugar statue of Rarity rested atop the masterpiece. Rarity’s friends had gone all out this year to surprise her, this, after all, being her eighteenth; not only had they made this cake, but they had also arranged a trip to Canterlot as well as a room in the castle for her to stay in.
Sweetie Belle tried to cut her sister a slice of the cake using magic, because although she was still a little shaky, this was a perfect chance to show Rarity how much she had progressed in the two months since Twilight Sparkle had started teaching her the basics. Levitating a knife, she sunk it into the icing, and—
Somepony bumped into her. She gasped loudly, and without thinking poured all of her shock into her magic; the resulting surge of energy made the cake blow up spectacularly. It splattered over the walls and the guests. A startled Sweetie Belle was struck by the sugar statue of Rarity. Meanwhile, the real Rarity stood before her, stunned into silence as she stared horror-struck at her new dress, a birthday present to herself which had taken two weeks of hard work. It was a testament to how powerful the explosion had been that even Sweetie Belle, who knew little about clothing, could tell that these weren’t stains that could be easily removed.
And then Rarity’s eyes started to water.
“Then she said to get out of her sight,” whispered Sweetie Belle, bowing her head as she finished telling her story. She sat on her hindquarters and shivered at how poorly Luna must have thought of her, but Luna, for her part, didn’t react the way Sweetie had expected her too. Instead, the princess sat down on the grass and smiled warmly.
“What is thy name, filly?”
“Sw-Sweetie Belle.”
“And why do you continue to cry, Sweetie Belle?”
Sweetie wiped the tears from her face, giving the princess a confused look. Had Luna heard her alright? Didn’t she understand how furious and upset Rarity was?
A new fear wrapped its shadowy tendrils around the filly, for enough time had passed that the party guests would've realised she was missing. Sweetie could see it in her head. When her room was found to be empty, they would search the castle to make sure she wasn’t hiding. Then, once all the obvious places had been searched, that’s when the real panic would start...
“I’m crying ‘cos I’m an awful pony, alright?” said Sweetie, more harshly than she meant to. “I’m not good for anything.”
“Everypony is good for something. Sweetie Belle, you have every right to be upset, but we would rather we didn’t see thou cry. It makes us feel... uncomfortable...”
Sweetie Belle was too lost in her tears to notice the unease on Luna’s face as she said these words. “My sister only gets one eighteenth,” Sweetie replied. “It doesn’t matter if I was trying to help or not, it’s the same difference. I still ruined it.”
“Thy sister shall forgive you.”
“No she won’t! She won’t, she won’t!”
“She will,” said Luna, “because thy love is pure. Thy sister will forgive your mistakes.”
“You don’t know my sister,” Sweetie said, her voice rising. Oh, it was so easy for Luna to sit there and tell her that this wasn’t important. Rarity would hold a grudge. Sweetie was sure of it.
But Luna’s response to this caught her entirely off-guard. “You forget who you talk to,” said the princess, a touch of menace sneaking into her voice.
Sweetie blinked, trying to figure out what Luna meant by this; then it struck her, and her irritation was drowned by both guilt and understanding. She cowered, the night air suddenly feeling a whole lot chillier than before, for the weight of a thousand years rested on each word that Luna spoke. This was a unicorn who had twice tried to shroud the land in eternal darkness, an act which would’ve killed every pony in existence, destroyed all the hope and the happiness in the world. The princess had been driven by jealously, bitterness, hatred. It was a despicable, horrendous thought, and it was hard to believe that the same unicorn now sat before her, trying to comfort her. What had changed? What had brought Luna back from the darkness, and what prevented her from slipping back out of the light?
... Celestia had forgiven her.
Sweetie lowered her head, because Luna’s words had hit her so hard that she almost felt she’d had the breath knocked out of her. “S-sorry,” she said at last in a tiny voice. Luna smiled weakly.
“We do not seek to diminish the depth of your suffering,” she said to Sweetie, “for we can see your distress is a result of how much you love your sister. Filly, repeat it to thyself: time passes. You are allowed to make mistakes. A year from now nopony shall even think of this unless it is to tell it as an amusing story, and so we say it again: your sister loves you. All shall be forgiven.”
Sweetie’s smile started off small, like a ray of sunshine poking through cloud cover, uncertain that it was allowed to be there. She mulled Luna’s words in her head, and cast her mind back to the day when she had shrunk Rarity’s favourite jumper, wrecked her work studio and wasted all her jewels to make a collage; for as dreadful as she had felt afterwards, the feelings hadn’t lasted, and as she and Rarity had striven to make things up, their relationship had become stronger than ever. Bad times didn’t last. Like the night giving way to daytime, they always passed.
Sweetie stood up tall, and after taking a deep breath finally had a good, long look at their surroundings. The sky had become inky black and was littered with stars. Almost directly below them, down the cliff, Canterlot shined like a beacon, the glow of a thousand lights illuminating the mountainside. Down there, thousands of ponies lived their lives, all with troubles of their own, some tiny, some severe; and past Canterlot was Ponyville, and then further than that were the great cities of Manehatten and Trottingham, and now Sweetie’s head had become stuffed with nameless, faceless ponies in the same way that the sky had filled with stars. Wrapped up in her own little world with its own particular worries, it was easy to forget that for as bad as she felt, her mistake was one amongst thousands which happened all over Equestria every single day of every week of every year...
“I don’t care if she hates me,” Sweetie said, a certain toughness entering her voice. “I’m gonna make things up. I gonna do it tonight.”
“How do you intend to do so?”
“I dunno. I’ll think of something.”
As she was still marvelling at Canterlot, Sweetie didn’t notice the strange smile on Luna’s face. When they’d first met, the filly had been so lost in despair that she’d barely been able to stand up properly, instead preferring to lie next to a tree in a pool of her own self-pity; now, cautious optimism graced her face.
“Spoken like a true knight of the old realm,” said Luna with a grin. Sweetie looked at her, confused.
“A knight? But, but I’m a filly!”
“And one who wishes to better the lives of other ponies and to fix her mistakes! We wish we could meet more ponies such as you.”
Sweetie Belle stared at Luna curiously, for the princess was shuffling her hooves and biting her lower lip, clearly arguing with herself whether or not to add a little more to what she had said. Yet what could a ruler of Equestria have to say to a random filly that would make her nervous?
“We... we feel that as long as we have the power to help you, then it is our royal duty," Luna said eventually, slowly, carefully. Sweetie could see a whole crowd of emotions on the princess' face, all locked in a complicated dance: Luna rubbed her forehead, apparently still unsure that whatever she was about to say was a wise idea; yet she was smiling as well. "To make things up with your sister... would... would thou desire to wield control over the power of the night?”
It was the last thing Sweetie had been expecting. Her jaw dropped. “You mean—”
“For tonight only, we shall allow you to draw a picture in the sky as a gift for thy sister. Her name in stars! We usually reserve this as a birthday gift for our own sister, Celestia.” Luna winked. “We promise you, any ill she harbours towards you shall vanish. This has never failed to impress.”
Sweetie Belle was in such a daze that she had to sit down again. She remembered the jewels she had used to make her collage for Rarity; when compared with the chance to use real life stars, they were nothing at all, and the difference was like comparing cheap glitter from the Ponyville Art and Craft Centre to freshly cut diamonds ready to be transformed into jewellery.
She must have been hearing this wrong, or she was misunderstanding something. Why would Luna waste her powers like this? There were so many other unicorns she could give this gift to, all of whom were older, wiser, and therefore much more important. Why her? Why now? “I don’t get it,” Sweetie said, struggling to make sense of it and weak at the knees. “What’s special about me?”
For the first time, Luna didn’t look like an immortal ruler of an ancient kingdom, but instead like a foal, vulnerable and exposed. Sweetie had never imagined that a princess could look this way, like anything other than firmly in charge of any and every situation.
“Thou never questioned why I was here in the first place,” said Luna. “The truth is, we... I.” Luna took a deep breath. “I had an argument with my sister. I come here when I want to think to myself, but tonight I found thou—you. You might not believe it, but tonight, you’ve helped me as much as I’ve helped you, Sweetie Belle. We—I mean I—think you deserve to be rewarded for your help.”
Sweetie knew better than to ask why the princess was suddenly making such an effort to change the way she talked—could her argument have had something to do with her outdated speech patterns? Either way, the effect it had was immediate. It made her seem more vulnerable than ever, but in a good way, as though she was knocking down any barriers that remained between them. It suddenly dawned on Sweetie Belle how bizarre it was that she had managed to make friends with the princess; however, when she thought about it even more, it wasn't so weird. Being a princess didn't mean that Luna never worried about anything. Luna had a sister. Young as she was, Sweetie knew that having a sister wasn't always easy.
“Ready?” said the Princess as her horn began to glow again. A wave of anticipation crashed over Sweetie Belle. Her mind raced as she wondered what was about to happen.
“Wh-what do I do?” she whispered, trembling with excitement.
“Just kneel,” Luna said. Sweetie obeyed instantly, and Luna lowered her head to touch the tip of her horn against the young unicorn’s.
Sweetie gasped! It was the strangest, most thrilling sensation, like she was standing underneath a freezing waterfall which filled her with energy, making her want to run forever; yet at the exact same time, she felt serene, peaceful. As the power of the night flowed into Sweetie Belle, she imaged that she was the moon rising up through the night; she was a pegasus soaring through the sky above the highest, most beautiful clouds; and then she was an earth pony galloping across an endless snowy plain. For the second time that night, her body felt too small for all the feelings gathering in her chest, the difference that this time she wanted to hold onto this sensation forever and ever. Her mistake at the party felt like a far distant memory. She closed her eyes, and thought of lonely winter glades with the northern lights blazing in the sky above.
Luna’s immense store of magic continued to pour into her but not once did Sweetie feel like she would lose control of it, for at the back of her mind, she could feel something... unexplainable, something enormous and powerful holding her hoof and keeping watch over her. Could it have been Luna? Whatever it was, it was a lovely feeling, as though her older sister was in her head, looking after her, keeping her out of harm’s way.
Luna removed her horn. When Sweetie looked up, the night didn’t look like the night anymore; everything was vivid, every hair on Luna’s body, every leaf on every tree, every star. All of it seemed to glow with gentle, joyous energy, and for a moment, Sweetie had to sit down and shut her eyes again as tightly as possible. For as brilliant and awake as she felt—more awake than she’d ever been in her entire life—all this magic was also making her giddy and nauseous.
“Focus, Sweetie Belle. Think about where you want to place a star, and hold out your hoof towards that point.”
With difficulty, Sweetie nodded and opened her eyes. Concentrating as hard as she could, she pointed out a hoof like Luna had said to, and just like that a new star twinkled into existence. She pointed out her hoof again and another one appeared. Then another. Then another and another. She laughed joyfully, almost crying with happiness as she painted her picture for Rarity.
... This won’t fix Rarity’s dress, a tiny voice in Sweetie’s mind reminded her. You still messed up. Everypony’s still made at you, and Rarity will never get her eighteenth birthday back...
The voice was cool and collected, the voice of all the dark thoughts she had had that night. Whatever it was, it was what had made her run away from the party, up the mountainside and to the top of this cliff. The feeling was what had made her snap at the princess, and made her doubt herself on every conceivable level. And the voice spoke the truth: Rarity would only turn eighteen once, and so this ought to have been a perfect night for her. Rarity deserved the best. Rarity deserved a sister who didn't ruin things.
Sweetie Belle painted more stars, and Rarity’s face smiled down from the sky.
It doesn’t matter, Sweetie replied at last to the voice in her head, equally calmly, because for all the power those bad feelings had possessed, they were gone now. She had banished them. Everypony messes up. What matters is that I’m sorry, and that I’m trying to make things right...
Suddenly, Sweetie Belle felt sleepier than ever before in her life. The tiredness came from nowhere, a bolt from the blue; one second she was fine, the next, she wanted to curl up in the grass and sleep right there and then—only the thought of Rarity gave her the strength to add the last few stars to the picture. She was only a filly, after all, and much too small for so much raw, powerful magic...
Just before Sweetie collapsed, she felt Luna's horn against her own again, and the magic was sucked out of her. Luna’s worried face loomed over her. “Art thou alright?” she asked. “We are sorry! Sometimes we forget our magic is too much for other ponies to handle, not to mention one so young."
Sweetie's smile was enough to let Luna know that she was fine. In fact, she was more than fine. Aside from how astonishingly sleepy she was, this was the best she had ever felt.
And it would never have happened were it not for her mistake.
Sweetie’s mane danced in the cold, night breeze, and she imagined that if she held out her hoof, she could touch the stars. What would they feel like? Like fire, like ice? Up here, clinging to Luna’s back as the winged unicorn soared above Canterlot, the filly’s vision was uninterrupted by mountains or buildings or forests, and there were more stars than she could count. It was tricky to believe that was anything else in the world other than these magical sparks of light.
But Sweetie sighed happily, for thank Celestia, there was more to the world than stars and magic. There was Ponyville. There was her family and her friends, and all the ponies she cared for, and she loved them all.
And there was Rarity.
The ruined dress was placed on Rarity's bed, but the fashionista paid it no notice. She franticly paced on the lush carpet, wondering whether to join the others as they searched through the streets of Canterlot—the thought that Sweetie Belle might return on her own prevented her from doing so. But then again, what if her poor, scared little Sweetie was lost in the city? What kind of older sister would she be if she wasn’t out there looking for her?
For the first time in a long, long time, Rarity's eyes watered, and she cried. “Oh Sweetie Belle,” she whispered to herself. “Come back. I am so sorry, please come back.”
Just at that moment, somepony knocked on her door softly, like the pony was already apologising for being a disturbance; a knock like that could only have belonged to Fluttershy. After wiping her eyes and regaining her composure, Rarity opened the door for her.
Except it wasn’t Fluttershy. It wasn’t even any of the others.
It was Sweetie Belle.
“I’m sorr—” Sweetie started, but Rarity didn’t give her a chance to finish. The filly gagged as her older sister drew her into such a tight embrace that it was a marvel that it didn’t last forever; not that Sweetie Belle would’ve minded that. Closing her eyes, she rested her face against Rarity’s coat, beaming and sighing happily. Rarity had forgiven her. That was all that mattered. Rarity loved her. Rarity loved her.
“Don’t you ever—I repeat, ever—scare me like that again,” said Rarity after a while, breaking off the hug. Sweetie looked at the floor sheepishly.
“Sis, I’m really sorry about your dress. I—”
Rarity waved her quiet. “Say no more. I know all too well what it is like when you first start to learn magic.”
"I’ve got something to show you,” Sweetie said, Rarity’s words granting her permission to give in to her tiredness. She only had to stay awake for a few moments more, enough time to see the wonder on her older sister's face as she saw her present shining in the sky.
Sweetie led her sister out onto the balcony. In the sky shined the outline of two unicorns, one an adult, one a foal, and below the foal twinkled the message: FOR RARITY, LOVE SWEETIE BELLE.
For the second time that night, Rarity was stunned, and her jaw hung open and her eyes were wide; she was flabbergasted. “I... Sweetie, how in Equestria did you—”
But she stopped talking, because when she managed to tare her gaze away from the stars, Sweetie Belle was yawning heavily. Her eyelids were drooping. Her legs were wobbling. She looked just about ready to pass out from tiredness.
“I think it is time for bed now, wouldn’t you agree?” Rarity asked, her voice soft and full of love. Sweetie Belle nodded happily.
Rarity shut the door behind her.
Above them, the stars blazed with life.
