Late Bloomer

by Jay Bear

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Original Character, Apple Bloom, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 6494

Being last in your class to get a cutie mark runs deep in the Apple family...

Apple Bloom goes, reluctantly, to a book-signing event at the Ponyville library, and soon finds herself talking to the new author. When the conversation turns to getting a cutie mark, she learns a lot more than she expected about the stars, her ancestors, and the value of patience.

Published 2011-11-09 15:33:33 UTC
Last updated 2011-11-08 03:28:20 UTC

Late Bloomer

Late Bloomer
by Jay Bear

“Am I gonna hafta read it?”

“Of course you’re gonna read it,” Applejack said to the filly trotting besides her. “Books are made for readin’, not for sitting pretty on a shelf.”

“Aw, phooey,” Apple Bloom said with a huff.

“Now, what’s gotten into you? Twilight said the pony who wrote this book is a real famous astronomer. Don’t you want to meet her?”

“Yeah, but…” Apple Bloom said hesitantly, “Pinkie Pie was gonna show us all how to make ice cream today.”

Applejack raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Didn’t I show y’all how to make ice cream last week?”

“And… then we were gonna eat it.”

Applejack chuckled. “Aw, I’m sorry to keep you from Cutie Mark Crusader Ice Cream-Eating, but I’m sure Pinkie will show y’all another day,” she said as she patted Apple Bloom on the back. “Twilight said this astronomer is gonna have to fly back to Canterlot tonight, so today’s the only day to get an autograph from her. Sounds fun, don’t it?”

“Going to a library to get a book signed?” Apple Bloom said. “Not exactly.”

“Now, don’t think about it that way. Maybe reading her book will give you some ideas about how to get your cutie mark.”

Apple Bloom shot her sister an incredulous look. “Do you really think my special talent is something like astronomerizing?”

“It’s called astronomy, but sure, why not? There’s been plenty of famous scientists in the Apple family.”

“Really?!” Apple Bloom’s eyes sprang open and a grin appeared on her face.

“Absolutely! If you take a gander at the Apple family tree, you’ll see the names of plenty of agronomists, geoculturists, culinary chemists, irrigation engineers…”

“Oh.” Apple Bloom glowered at the ground, kicking a pebble as she walked. “I already tried all those things.”

“Well, then this is something new to try. That’s the thing with special talents, you never know what it’s gonna be, so you gotta keep trying new things.”

“Okay,” Apple Bloom intoned. She was quiet for a moment, then took a mischievous glace at Applejack. “Will you get me some ice cream if I promise to read her book?”

“I’ll get you some ice cream after you read it.”

“Phooey.”

The two earth ponies continued down the road towards the town’s library, passing by brightly decorated shops and ponies of all sorts going about their business. Earlier that week, Twilight Sparkle had invited Applejack to a book-signing event at the library. Moondancer, a Canterlot astronomer who had just written Comprehending the Cosmos: A Complete Catalogue of Comets, Constellations, and Other Celestial Bodies, would be in Ponyville for one day to promote her book. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to expose Apple Bloom to a more academic setting than she’d get on the farm. However, Applejack hadn’t expected her sister’s petulance to the whole enterprise.

“Are we there yet?” Apple Bloom whined.

“You know darn well we’re almost there. You can see the library, can’t ya?” Applejack nudged her sister towards the library door. “Now, c’mon, A.B., you don’t want to make her late for her flight back to Canterlot, do ya?”

Apple Bloom stopped for a moment, seeming to consider the idea, before turning to Applejack. “If she’s left already, can we get ice cream?”

“Quit horsing around,” Applejack commanded, ushering her sister through the door before following inside.

The library appeared as it normally did, though busier than usual with five other ponies milling about the main floor. A table stood near the front door, stacked high with blue-bound books, behind which sat Twilight Sparkle and an unfamiliar unicorn mare. Her coat was white with a slight tinge of blue, and an unkempt red mane with a purple streak hung over her violet eyes.

“Applejack, you made it!” Twilight called out as she waved a hoof at them. “I’m glad we had enough space for both of you, since the library is so crowded today.” She glanced around the room. “Seven patrons! At once! That’s got to be a new record.”

The other unicorn followed Twilight’s gaze with a bemused expression. “It’s, uh, certainly not like any of the Canterlot book-signings I’ve had.”

“Ooh, right, I should do introductions,” Twilight said. “Applejack, Apple Bloom, this is Moondancer, senior astronomer at the Equestria Society of Natural Sciences. Moondancer, this is my friend Applejack and her sister, Apple Bloom. They run the apple farm I was telling you about.”

“It’s a pleasure t’ make your acquaintance, ma’am,” Applejack said as she extended a hoof.

“Nice to meet you.” Moondancer leaned across the table to shake the earth pony’s hoof. “Either of you two big star-gazers?”

“Well, not exactly, but we’re hoping to see if it might be this one’s special talent,” Applejack said as she flung a hoof under Apple Bloom and lifted the surprised filly to eye level with Moondancer.

“Err, hi?” Apple Bloom said.

“Hello, Apple Bloom, glad to hear you’re taking an interest in astronomy.” Moondancer smiled as one of the books on the table levitated and drifted towards her. The cover flipped open, and a quill floated over an unmarked page.

“There really aren’t enough earth ponies getting into the hard sciences anymore. It’s a shame, too, because some of the greatest scientists of the classical era were earth ponies, like Gallopleo, Tycho Brayhe, and Johannes Klopler.” The quill dipped into a pot of ink, and then began to scratch against the page.

“In fact, Prancipia Mathematica, the foundation of classical mechanics, was written on an apple farm…” Moondancer stopped. The book and quill she had been levitating quivered in the air as a look of realization shot across her face.

Applejack glanced at Twilight, saw her puzzled expression, and then turned back to Moondancer. “Something the matter, ma’am?”

“Oh, no.” Moondancer shook herself out of her reverie. “It’s just…” She looked up to meet Applejack’s eyes. “Okay, this might sound totally crazy, but is there any chance you two are related to a pony named Falling Apple?”

“We sure are!” Applejack said, a wide smile emerging across her muzzle. “He was our great, great, great… about a half-dozen other greats in there, great granduncle on Granny Smith’s side of the family.”

Moondancer’s eyes grew wide as her jaw dropped. “Oh my gosh, this is amazing! Living relatives of Falling Apple! Could I shake your hoof again?”

“Well, sure, glad to… still be living… and related to him?” Applejack blushed as Moondancer grabbed her hoof with both forelegs and shook it hard enough to make the earth pony’s tail flog the air. For a reason she couldn’t quite place, Applejack was reminded of the first time she met Twilight.

Apple Bloom looked at the two with a quizzical expression. “Who’s Falling Apple?”

Moondancer froze at the filly’s question, and Applejack took the opportunity to free herself of the unicorn’s remarkable grasp.

“He was one of the Apple family scientists, like I was telling you about,” Applejack said, grimacing at the sight of her now swelling hoof.

“Ooh, Applejack, he wasn’t just any scientist, he was one of the greatest ever to live!” Twilight said. “He discovered the laws of motion and universal gravitation, made huge advances in calculus, invented the reflecting telescope, developed a generalized binomial theorem…”

“And, I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m gushing too much,” Moondancer said as she clutched a hoof to her chest, “but he was a real inspiration to me when I was growing up. I had a lot of trouble getting my cutie mark, but knowing a brilliant pony like him went through the same thing kept me going some days.”

Apple Bloom’s ears perked up at the mention of cutie marks. “He did? How old was he? How’d he get it?”

“Now, let me think here.” Applejack scratched her chin as she thought. “Well, if I remember correctly, the story goes that he got his cutie mark when he was nearly a stallion. One of the latest ever. He was out in his family’s orchard one evening, sitting under an apple tree and watching the moon start to rise. Suddenly, an apple fell on his head, and he realized the same gravity that was pulling the apple down was also holding the moon in place. After that, he wrote a book, did a lot of other science, and became a professor at the University of Canterlot.”

She glanced down at Apple Bloom, who regarded her with a skeptical expression.

“So he just… got hit in the head… with an apple?” the filly asked. “Then he discovered his special talent, got his cutie mark, and moved to Canterlot?”

“That’s about it,” Applejack said with a nod.

Apple Bloom turned towards Moondancer with an uncertain look. “Is that what happened to you? He gave you the ‘inspiration’ to hit yourself in the head with an apple?”

“Apple Bloom!” Applejack said, jamming a hoof into the filly’s muzzle. “I’m awful sorry for my little sister, ma’am.”

“No, it’s all right.” Moondancer waved a hoof to reassure them. “Truth be told, I tried that once. One summer, I made my dad take me out to an apple farm so I could sit under the trees and wait for one of the apples to bonk me in the head. Of course, it wasn’t apple season, so I spent the whole day just sitting there and getting more and more frustrated.”

Moondancer chuckled to herself. “But that’s not exactly what I meant. See, everyone in my class got their cutie marks before me, and sometimes I’d get really jealous of them. Whenever I did, though, I’d think about how Falling Apple got his really late, and then went on to be this amazingly revolutionary scientist.”

“You were last in your class too?” Apple Bloom flung her hooves onto the table’s edge. “Well, how’d you get yours?”

Moondancer looked at Applejack with an expression that seemed to be asking permission. Applejack quickly got the hint.

“Would you mind telling my sister how you got your cutie mark?” Applejack said. “Being the last in your class sort of runs in the family, so I’m sure she’d appreciate any help you can give her.”

“It’d be my pleasure,” Moondancer said with a quick smile. “I guess the first thing is, I wasn’t really looking for my cutie mark when I discovered it. See, I was slow to develop in a lot of ways.”

Moondancer slid back in her seat before continuing. “As a foal, I started to speak months late, I couldn’t read until mid-way through first grade, and during grade school I had to take summer classes to keep up with other students in math. My parents kept saying I was just a late bloomer, and I couldn’t let that keep me down.”

She stopped for a moment, and her smile faded. “A couple of years later, though, that started to feel like a really cruel joke. I hadn’t gotten my growth spurt when everyone else in my class was towering over me, and sometimes it felt like I was going to be a blank-flanked little filly forever. I knew there wasn’t anything I could do to grow faster or get my cutie mark before it was time, but I thought I could at least find out as soon as I started to get my growth spurt. So, I asked my mom to measure my height twice a day, once in the morning and once in evening.”

“Two times a day, every single day?” Applejack said, her eyes bulging. “Your mother was a saint if she did that for you.”

“Well, she is a saint, but even saints have limits...”

* * * * * *

“WHY THE HAY WON’T YOU DO IT?!”

“Young lady, I do not appreciate you using that kind of language!” Sunbeam said, a stunned look on her face. “And I’ve told you before, it’s not healthy to obsess over your growth spurt like this. Really, having me check your height twice a day? These things come naturally, Moondancer. Worrying over them like this is nothing but trouble.”

“But everyone else is way taller than me, and they’ve all got their cutie marks! The other unicorns can do magic, too!”

The sea-foam green unicorn sighed. “I know it’s frustrating, dear, but you just can’t force these things.” Sunbeam nuzzled her daughter.

“But…”

“No more buts. It’s time to get washed up for dinner.” She gave the filly a nudge towards the bathroom. “I’ve got split pea soup on the stove. It should be ready in about twenty minutes.”

Moondancer huffed before stomping into the bathroom and kicking the door shut. As it hit the doorframe, she could hear glasses and plates clink together in the kitchen, and could smell the soup simmering. The apartment she shared with her mother in Canterlot was tiny, a single room and balcony with both their kitchen and beds visible from the front door. Sheet Bend, her father who still lived in Neighport to run his import/export business, had helped them set up bookcases in the middle of the room to divide the eating and sleeping areas, but it was never enough privacy. Some days, it felt like the bathroom was the only place in their apartment that she could be alone with her thoughts.

Moondancer nosed the faucet open and rubbed her front hooves against a bar of soap. As she washed, she glanced towards the bathroom doorframe, noting the pencil mark Sunbeam had made that morning. Moondancer would have done it herself, of course, if she had been able to levitate a pencil, but magic was just another way her classmates left her behind.

She turned off the faucet and walked towards the doorframe, her eyes focused on the pencil mark. If mom’s already marked my height once, she thought as she stopped in front of it, do I really need to mark my height again?

Moondancer studied her mother’s thin pencil line. Sunbeam had marked her at the shoulder, the most reliable way to measure a pony’s height. Moondancer had wanted to record her height day by day, but as she thought more about it, she realized she didn’t care about how much she grew each day. She was only interested in when she started growing, and that was something she’d find out as soon as she saw her shoulder rise above that mark.

With a hop, she pressed her side against the doorframe. Shimmying around to perfect her positioning, she craned her head back to check her alignment, but quickly realized a new problem. Bending her neck back as far as it could go, and even blowing her mane out of her eyes, she couldn’t see the mark on the doorframe. She just could not turn her head back far enough.

Moondancer shoved away from the doorframe to regard the mark again. With an indignant grunt, she reared back and threw her forelegs against the door, enjoying a momentary satisfaction as she saw them reach high above the pencil mark.

Maybe one day I’ll be this big, she thought as she looked at her front hooves. She imagined growing as tall as her mother, her squat little body becoming sleek, her foalish head changing into something more elegant, and her legs growing long and slender.

Once that happens, if I try this again, my hooves will be even higher above that pencil mark. Insight struck, and she grinned: I can measure my height by seeing how high my front hooves reach up the door!

“YESSSSS…!” Reveling in her success, she pushed off from the door and pranced in a small circle around the bathroom. She leapt towards the door and threw her hooves on it again, but stopped her cheer when she saw where they landed – almost on top of the pencil mark.

Did I… shrink? She shook the idea out of her head. No – it’s got to be something else. Like… She looked at her back hooves. Like I’m standing farther away from the door.

This wouldn’t be an insurmountable problem, she realized as she noticed the tiles on the floor. She walked herself forward, looking for a line of tiles to align her back hooves against, and finally settled on the tenth row from the door. As she turned her attention back to the door, though, she discovered a new problem. She could push her front hooves up or down by the way she pushed her haunch or bent her back, so she had to do more than just make sure her back hooves were in the same place every time.

Ok, so my haunch, belly, and back hooves have to be in the same place every time. Maybe I can use these tiles like a ruler…

All at once, she felt like smacking herself. If I can use the tiles like a ruler, I don’t have to worry about any of this! Just lie down, and see how far my hooves reach.

She pushed away from the door and slumped to her side, pressing her back against the wall. As she looked down her legs, she saw her hooves were reaching different rows of tiles – her left hoof seemed to be a little farther than her right, but she couldn’t tell exactly how much of a difference there was. Raising her head, she got a good view of her hooves, but also saw that her hooves moved from tile to tile as she craned her neck or stretched her legs. She fidgeted for a minute more before she realized there was no reliable way for her to keep track of her height this way.

With a dejected sigh, she shoved open the bathroom door and paced to the balcony, brushing past the dining table where Sunbeam was crouched over some papers. The mare looked up as her daughter passed by.

“Honey, do you want to see this land dispute I’m working on?” Sunbeam asked as Moondancer walked to the balcony. “It’s actually pretty interesting. One pony has the water rights to the land, and another has mineral rights. However, one of them found flakes of gold in a stream, so they’re both trying to claim that.”

Moondancer didn’t respond, instead continuing outside and perching her head on the railing. Sunbeam was quiet a moment, and then turned back to her work, leaving Moondancer alone with her thoughts.

The air was chilly on this last day of winter, and the ponies on the street herded into the remaining warm sunlight, seeking shelter from the freezing shadows cast by the city’s tall spires. Those sunny spots were fleeting, though, and they disappeared altogether as the sun drifted below the horizon. The few ponies still trotting down the street instinctively huddled together, giving no thought to the closeness of strangers as they preserved the heat between them. Moondancer was beginning to shiver by the time Sunbeam laid out bowls for their soup and called her inside.

As Moondancer sat at the table, nosing her napkin and silverware out of boredom, she began to think about the shadows she had seen around the city. Her first realization was that taller buildings cast longer shadows than shorter buildings. That was, if one building was taller than another, you could tell by seeing which one had the longer shadow. Her second realization was that shadows changed throughout the day, but were consistent at any particular moment during each day. So, while shadows where long during the morning or evening, they would be the same length from morning to morning, or evening to evening.

In those two facts, she realized she had found a solution to the problem of measuring her height: she could stand by her school’s flagpole and tell exactly how far her shadow reached once the bell for first class rang. That way, as soon as she started to grow, she’d see the results played out in black and white on her school grounds.

“Why don’t you try levitating the soupspoon tonight, sweetie?” Sunbeam asked, interrupting Moondancer’s thoughts.

Moondancer turned her attention to the spoon beside her bowl. She imagined it rising into the air, surrounded by a purple glow that would match the glow of her own horn, dipping into the soup, and bringing its edge to her muzzle. Moondancer focused on that chain of images and poured her energy into them, squeezing shut her eyes to visualize them better. Her pulse began to beat in her eardrums as she concentrated, her teeth ground against each other, and her breathing became deeper and more forceful as she imagined yet again the spoon approaching her mouth.

Something touched her lips.

I did it! I did it! I DID IT! Her eyes shot open, and she looked down her snout... to see her mother’s glowing napkin catching a few beads of sweat running down her face. Moondancer’s soupspoon and napkin lay motionless on the table.

“It’s okay, dear,” Sunbeam said, magically pulling the napkin away as she suppressed a concerned look. “You’ll get it soon enough.”

The next day, Moondancer galloped all the way to school, arriving early and out of breath, but eager to measure her height with her shadow. Her school was a simple brick building with a bell tower and concrete steps leading to a heavy wooden door. It, and the green campus it was built on, seemed out of place amongst the alabaster spires that vanished into the sky. In front of the schoolhouse was a flagpole adorned with pennants bearing the Royal Crest of Princess Celestia of Equestria. When the sun rose in the morning, the flagpole cast a shadow down the middle of the concrete steps; it was not uncommon for her classmates to line up on either side as a kind of game. That morning, though, Moondancer stood next to the flagpole and held still as the minutes passed. She waited and watched as her shadow crept down the steps until, just as the shadow of her shoulder touched the edge of the third step from the bottom, the school bell rang.

It was perfect, an exact point of her shadow meeting an exact point on the school steps. She could check every day, and as soon as her shadow was past that point when the school bell rang in the morning, she would know that she was growing. There was no risk of imprecision, or somehow messing up the results by standing the wrong way.

For the rest of the day she was too excited to pay much attention to her classes. Her teachers talked about it being the first day of spring, and how the summer birds would come back to the city parks, and how the days would get longer, and how it would get warmer throughout the summer, and how all the snow had melted and would be replaced by rain showers. Moondancer feigned attention to them, but her thoughts remained focused on her plan for tomorrow: galloping to school again and seeing if that was the day she would start to grow.

The next morning, Sunbeam made them blueberry pancakes, Moondancer’s favorite. It was the last day of the school week, and that weekend, like nearly every weekend before it, she and Sunbeam would take a train to Neighport to visit her father, Sheet Bend. His import/export business usually required him to stay in Neighport all week, so he could rarely see them in Canterlot. Sunbeam and Moondancer stayed in Canterlot during the school week so that Moondancer could attend one of the city’s prestigious royal schools. This voluntary separation was the sacrifice her parents made for her future, a sacrifice they assured her they never regretted.

While she ate her pancakes, slurping the pre-cut pieces off her plate, Sunbeam asked what she wanted to do for the weekend. Moondancer was too intent on getting to school early to see if her growth spurt had begun, and managed only to say “I dunno” a few times between enormous gulps of pancake and syrup. As soon as she finished, she said an abrupt goodbye and hurried to school, reaching the flagpole and taking her position only seconds before the bell rang for first class. She looked at the school steps, and saw her shadow had moved since yesterday – just below the edge of the third step from the bottom. If it was below the edge, then it meant her shadow was shorter than yesterday. If her shadow was smaller than it was yesterday, then it meant she was smaller than she was yesterday.

Moondancer wasn’t growing. She was shrinking.

In class that day she cowered behind her desk, terrified that something freakish was happening to her. Late in the afternoon, as she grew paranoid speculating what the other ponies in her class would think, her science teacher called on her.

“Moondancer, I don’t believe we’ve heard from you today. Can you tell the class whether we get longer days or shorter days now that it’s spring?”

She pushed the fear out of her mind and recalled all that had been said the day before about the change in the seasons. There would be spring showers; the snow was all melted; it would get warmer as it got closer to summer; the birds would return to the city parks; and the days were getting longer, which meant the sun would rise earlier, which meant it was higher in the sky when the school bell rung for first class, which made her shadow look shorter than it really was. That meant her newfound test to check for her growth spurt was just as worthless as all the others she had tried.

“Moondancer?” her teacher prodded, rousing the filly from her reverie.

“Longer,” she wailed, letting her head hit the desk with a loud thud.

After Moondancer’s last class, Sunbeam picked her up and took her to the train station for their trip to Neighport. After they boarded the train, Moondancer slumped into her seat and buried her muzzle into a book about pirates and griffins that she had read before.

“How was your day, dear?” Sunbeam asked.

Moondancer stayed quiet, focusing her attention on the story of the dreaded pirate Grizzelda Goldbeak.

“Did you learn anything new? I’m sure there was a lot about the change in the seasons.”

She glared at Sunbeam.

Her mother sighed. “Well, if you don’t feel like talking today, how about I tell you a story. Would you like that?”

Moondancer's gaze drifted back down to her book.

“Have I ever told you the story of how your father and I came up with your name?” Sunbeam asked. “It was from a dream, a wonderful dream that I had the day before you were born. In my dream, it was night, and the sky was so clear that when you looked up you could see every single star. The moon was bright and enormous, but its light was focused onto one little filly in front of me.”

Moondancer flipped to the next page of her book. This was one of her favorite chapters: in the next few pages, Anchor Chain would trick Captain Jib Cut into revealing the location of the buried treasure.

“She was looking up to the moon with this enormous smile on her face,” Sunbeam said. “She kept gazing up at the sky, completely lost in her own little world. Then, all of a sudden, she closed her eyes, stood up on her back legs, and began to dance. She spun and pranced, her every swing and dive filled with overflowing joy. I watched her, and I knew she was dancing because she had discovered an incredible secret, something that seemed locked away from everypony forever. She had found that secret all on her own, though, and she danced the whole night because it was hers alone.”

“Where did she go, Moondancer?” Sunbeam begged, her eyes soft and her voice urgent. “What happened to my sweet little filly dancing with the moon?”

Moondancer was quiet for a second. “It was just a dream, mom.” She flipped to another page of her book. “She was never real.”

An hour later, they arrived in Neighport. As she and Sunbeam disembarked their train, they saw Sheet Bend’s purple mane and gray coat on a mezzanine overlooking the station platforms. He was watching the herd filing out of the Canterlot train, his eyes flitting from pony to pony until he caught sight of them. He waved a foreleg to them before disappearing down a flight of stairs, and emerged a few seconds later on their platform.

“It’s so great to see you guys,” he said as he nuzzled them. “So, what’s the plan for the weekend?”

Sunbeam glanced at Moondancer with a worried look. “Well…” she said, turning back to Sheet Bend, “I guess we’ll play it by ear.”

The three unicorns took a chariot to a park near their house for dinner. Sheet Bend had prepared a picnic for them with a garden salad, flower sandwiches, apple juice, and store-bought chocolate chip cookies. When they arrived, they settled down on a blanket on a hill, set out their meals, and wound up the record player. As Sunbeam and Sheet Bend told each other about their weeks, Moondancer watched the sun set, barely touching her food. Her parents asked her a few times how she was doing, or if she had any ideas about what she wanted to do that weekend, but her terse responses eventually dissuaded them from asking her more.

The stars emerged one by one from the inky heavens, and soon were joined by the moon, with the Mare in the Moon casting her ominous gaze over the world. Part of the moon was dark, but most of it was bright, a phase that Moondancer’s teachers called “gibbous.” The phases made it look like the moon was changing shape, each night chipping away at its perfect circle until there was nothing left.

Moondancer knew that wasn’t what was really happening. It was just the fact that the sun only illuminated half of the moon. Out there, in the great black void, the moon circled the world, and the part that was both lit and visible to ponykind changed every night.

The sun makes the moon look smaller than it is, she thought as the memory of her failed test by the schoolyard flagpole returned. Just like me.

She wondered then what it would be like to live on the moon, and imagined standing alone in a flat, gray field. To one side would be darker rock, which formed the foreboding visage of the Mare in the Moon. Beyond that dark rock would be the part of the moon bereft of the sun’s warm light.

Except that it wasn’t the sun’s neglect that left half the moon dark. The moon itself stood in the sun’s way, blocking its rays from reaching the moon’s other half. Like her shadow on the schoolyard, the moon was simply casting a shadow upon itself, which created its phases.

“Well, I guess we better pack up,” Sheet Bend announced, breaking Moondancer’s concentration. “Tomorrow’s another busy day.”

Moondancer held still. “Um, dad? Can we stay a few more minutes?” She turned her head to look at him and Sunbeam.

“It’s pretty late, kiddo…” He stopped suddenly and glanced down at his foreleg to see Sunbeam’s hoof pressed against him. He and Sunbeam shared a look, and then he turned back to Moondancer. “Sure, we can stay a while longer. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Moondancer said as her attention drifted back to the stars above. “Does the moon have a sky?”

“Huh?”

Moondancer’s thoughts returned to the moon. In her mind’s eye, she looked up and imagined how the sky above would appear. She wondered if it would be blue, like during the day of her world, or star-filled, like the night. It was easier to imagine the night on the moon, when the sky would be filled with stars, than wondering if the sky was blue on the moon. The night, of course, would be the parts of the moon that weren’t lit by the sun. Therefore, if she were to look up from the moon’s night, she would see the world, and see part of it was also in night. Therefore, the world had phases, just like the moon.

And I’m sitting in the dark side of the world. She realized that because the phases of the moon and the world were caused by where the sun lay, they were related, and predictable: if the moon appeared gibbous to the world, then the world must appear crescent to the moon. Connecting the phases of the moon to the light of the sun to day and night to shadows, she understood they were all the same thing.

The pieces of an idea came together, each part connecting to the next like dominos toppling over. Soon she could imagine summer and winter on the moon, driven by the length of the day, and what it meant for seasons on the world. The source of all these things, from the lunar phases to hot summer days, from her shadow to the Mare in the Moon, were driven by the dance of the sun, the moon, the world… and her. At that moment, she could see exactly how their swings and dives created the patterns of all she saw in the night and day. With the secrets of the universe laid before her, she stood, reared back, and with a ridiculous grin on her face, began to spin.

“Honey, whatcha up to over there?” Sheet Bend asked with an amused look on his face.

“What does it look like?” she sang in the midst of her pirouette. “I’m dancing with the moon!”

* * * * * *

“I kept prancing around like that for as long as my legs could carry me,” Moondancer said as her gaze returned to Apple Bloom. “All of a sudden, my parents started calling to me, but I was so happy to have discovered something big for myself that I couldn’t stop. Finally, I got so tired that I fell down and went to sleep right away.

“The next morning, I woke up in my bed – my parents brought me back to the house after I fell asleep – and found a baggie of leftover chocolate chip cookies with this card.” From some saddlebags beneath the table, she levitated a yellowed piece of paper folded into quarters, and carefully unfolded it for Apple Bloom. The words, “Congrats! We got your back!” were written in a black calligraphic script, below which a violet crescent moon surrounded by three crimson stars had been drawn in marker.

“My dad wrote the ‘congrats’ line, and my mom drew the picture. I instantly figured out my dad’s joke, threw off my bed sheets, and saw that my cutie mark had appeared.” Moondancer stood on her back hooves and turned, exposing her cutie mark to Apple Bloom. It perfectly matched the drawing on the card. “My mom was always pretty good with markers, but I bet she never cared about a drawing as much as this one. Seeing that card, and my new cutie mark, was the best moment of my life. I found out who I was, and realized that I was someone who was really, really loved.”

“Wow,” Apple Bloom gasped, her nose nearly pressed against the card.

“Of course, after I found out astronomy was my special talent, every present my parents gave me was a telescope or star almanac. That kind of ruined the surprise on my birthdays.” Moondancer chuckled and pulled the card away from Apple Bloom’s nose. As she folded it back up, her expression became more thoughtful. “The other thing was, it wasn’t all uphill from there. Astronomy can be a really frustrating subject to study, and sometimes it got to the point where I wanted to quit. Luckily, my professors talked me out of it, and I kept with it. That’s a whole other story, though,” she said with a shrug.

“Wow,” Apple Bloom said again as her glistening eyes drifted up to meet Moondancer’s.

Applejack glanced around the library floor, noting that the ponies from before had left already. “I figure it’s about time we get back to the farm,” she said as she nudged Apple Bloom. “Best get your book signed before we head out.”

“Oh, right, I owe you guys an autograph, huh?” Moondancer’s quill glowed again as she wrote in the front cover of a copy of Comprehending the Cosmos, and then levitated the book towards Apple Bloom. The filly snatched the floating tome out of the air and quickly nosed it open to read the inscription:

To Apple Bloom,

Keep searching for who you are! It’s never too late to bloom!

Moondancer

“Wow,” Apple Bloom said a third time.

“Actually, Apple Bloom,” Twilight said, “if you want to give astronomy a try, this is a perfect night to start. Tonight, the asteroid Firefly is going to pass in front of the star Regulus, which should be visible from Ponyville and Canterlot.”

“That’s the reason I’m heading back to Canterlot tonight,” Moondancer said. “When an asteroid passes in front of a star, it’s called an occultation, and it’s a great way to learn more about the asteroid. We know what kind of light comes from Regulus normally, but when Firefly passes in front of it, it’ll block some of the star’s light. How much it blocks, and when, will tell us about Firefly’s size and shape. Also, if Firefly has any kind of atmosphere, we’ll be able to tell what’s in it by how the color of the light passing through changes. It’s sort of like figuring out what kind of juice is in a glass by holding it up to the light.”

“To get a better idea of Firefly’s cross-section, Spike and I are also going to be observing it from Ponyville,” Twilight added. “We’ll send our notes to Moondancer, and she’ll use them in doing the final calculations, so it’ll be a chance to help with important scientific work. If it’s okay with Applejack, would you like to help Spike and me tonight?”

Apple Bloom turned to her sister with eyes as big as dinner plates. “A.J., can I?” she begged.

“Well, I reckon you oughta,” Applejack said with a wink to Twilight. “Maybe you should bring the other Crusaders along too.”

“You got it!” Apple Bloom cheered as she began to hop around the three mares. She suddenly stopped in front of Twilight and met the unicorn’s eyes.

“And there’s gonna be ice cream too, right?”

Thanks to Vanner, Kurbz, and Dracoliat for their feedback on Ponychan!
Title picture by Kate - check out her artwork at: http://himawari-chan.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4aft3b