There's More to Life than Books and Clevernessby Quill ScratchChaptersAn Arrival in PonyvilleMorningInside the LibraryDay's EndReading NightSugarcube Corner, pt. 1Sugarcube Corner, pt. 2Welcome to PonyvilleAn Arrival in PonyvilleThe roof was thatched, just like the other houses around it. There were wooden beams in the walls, standing out of the pristine white surface like veins under some wild animal’s skin, jutting off from one another and branching, inorganically symmetric. And below one of the windows, there was a basket: flowers flowed out of it, cascading over the edges like molten petals, vines of green spiked with deep, pointed leaves twisting and turning around the soft, wicker case. The house was, in other words, just like any other in this town: built in the style of the early 500s, a classic architectural scheme that mixed practicality with aesthetics in a way that the magical constructions of Canterlot could never match. Yet the strangest thing about it all was this this town was not nearly old enough for these to be originals: no, these were a recent fabrication, a modern recreation of an ages-old style. At least, that’s what it said in Equestrian Architecture: The Designs and Styles of the Sixth Century. And the author of that book had written their dissertation on the uses of thatch to support aesthetic charm in the central Equestrian towns, so clearly they knew what they were talking about. Moondancer sighed and knocked on the door, her hoof clashing against the metal panel that sat just below a heart-shaped peephole in the light pink wood. There would be time to admire the local architecture later—for now, Moondancer was more concerned about finding a place to stay for the night. Losing your home in the city you had grown up in, even if only for a few nights as the district was rebuilt after yet another disaster from the unfortunately-released Spirit of Chaos, was never an easy thing. Fortunately for Moondancer, she had contacts in other, local towns. Ponies she had grown up with had settled all around Canterlot and the nearby suburbs, but with the Canterlot Library closed for the very same maintenance that was keeping her from her bed, Moondancer needed to go somewhere a little further afield. “Just coming!” Oh, that voice. How long had it been now? It must have been a good two, maybe even three years since she had last saw the mare who was even now trotting to the door to let her in. Lyra Heartstrings, her name was—Moondancer had double-checked an old journal for the name, just to make sure she avoided any embarrassing mistakes while she was here. Apparently, Lyra had once been quite close to her, or as close as anypony ever had been. She had even been one of the ponies that she had invited to her party, all those years ago… Moondancer snorted. Parties. What a dumb idea. The door opened with a creak as a pale turquoise mare peeked out of the gap. For a second, she frowned, as if not quite sure of what she was seeing, but after not very long a wide smile graced her face and she threw open the door with glee. “Moondancer?!” she cried, and it was both a question and a statement. Moondancer had always struggled with that idea—surely it could be either one or the other?—but upon discovering the interrobang in The Art of Modern Equish Punctuation had grown more and more fond of the concept. To see it now, in real, actual conversation, was almost enough to bring a smile to her face. Control yourself, Moondancer. You’re not here to have fun. You’re here to find a place to stay for a few nights: nothing more, nothing less. “Hello Lyra,” she replied politely, inclining her head in a gesture of recognition. “It’s been a while.” “You can say that again!” A stupid phrase. She could say it again? Of course she could, but it wouldn’t affect the validity of the statement. It had been a while: that was a fact. Unless, of course, one measured time on a geological timescale—why, then it had been but a blink of an eye (or whatever passed for an eye in a geological analogy. That was hardly the point.) Perhaps Lyra was merely asking her to confirm that she was looking at a similar timescale? “How have you been?” Or not. “I’ve been very well, thank you,” Moondancer said, keeping her voice calm and collected. Politeness, she had decided some time ago, was the best way to get what you wanted out of ponies. “Unfortunately, the recent troubles with plunder vines have rendered me without a place to sleep for a few days. Would you, perhaps, know of somewhere I could stay?” Lyra chuckled to herself. “Moondancer, you’ve hardly changed at all,” she managed at last, when her laughter had subsided. “You’re always so keep to get to the point as quickly as you can. Why don’t you come on in, and tell me about what you’ve been up to?” “I’m afraid I need to find a place to stay,” Moondancer replied. “Until I have, I don’t have the time to waste on unnecessary catchups.” Lyra shook her head, and reached out a hoof to grab Moondancer’s shoulders. Moondancer was surprised by the mare’s strength—within just a few moments, she was being pulled into the house, her legs instinctively walking forwards to stop herself from tripping over. The door slammed shut behind her with a tinkle of magic, and Moondancer took a few moments to reacquaint herself with her surroundings. The interior of the house was in many ways more modern than the exterior. Tasteful wallpaper, in a minimalist pattern of sky-blue, covered most of the walls that she could see. Beneath her hooves, a polished wooden floor shined, a sign of recent cleaning. Her eyes scanned around the hallway—ah, there, just by the staircase, sat a duster and a can of polish. If she breathed in, she could still smell the polish hanging in the air, a sharp scent that almost smelled like home, if it weren’t so clinical. To her left there was a small chest of drawers, and for a moment Moondancer found herself staring at each one of the little objects that lined the top. There were a few trinkets, and other items of assorted bric-a-brac, nothing that would sell for very much at even the most expensive of second-hand auctions, as well as the expected door keys and valuables. But in the middle of the surface, sat atop a white, lace sheet, was a picture frame, shaped like a heart. In it, there was a photograph of Lyra, smiling widely at the camera, her foreleg wrapped around the shoulders of a short, cream-coloured mare. “Well?” Lyra’s voice was impatient, the sound of a mare who was uncomfortable with the behaviour of a guest. Moondancer stiffened, twisting her neck to look up at her old friend, and grimaced in what she hoped was apology: Lyra sighed, but smiled, so she hoped she had gotten it right. “Come on through.” Moondancer followed Lyra into a comfortable, if a little bit smaller than expected, living room. A sofa—very modern, made of faux-leather, black, and styled to have almost rectangular edges, with rounded legrests and a few scattered cushions in red, knitted cases—was pushed up against one wall, a glass coffee table floating in front of it. Beneath the table, a small, brass box was embedded in the floorboards, whirring quietly and glowing with a light yellow aura. Thaumic Engineering in the Home said that the use of magical storage devices to cast near-permanent spells on furniture for purposes of space-saving had become more and more common among the upper-middle class of Equestria, but Moondancer had never had a chance to see such a device with her own eyes. A part of her wanted to grab hold of it at once: to pick it up and to examine it from every angle; to take it apart and study it, piece by piece, until she could comprehend its working; to find her way to the famous Golden Oaks Library just to research the mechanisms that kept such a device from failing. But a small part of Moondancer told her that this would be a bad idea, especially in polite company, and that perhaps the research could wait until more pressing matters had been seen to. “Have a seat,” Lyra said, gesturing at the sofa as her horn lit and she pulled a small cushion in from the adjacent room, laying it neatly upon for floor and curling up atop it. “Go on, the sofa won’t bite.” Ah. She’d heard of that expression before—something to do with an object being harmless, or at the very least safe to touch, or approach. But this was a foolish thing to assume. After all, an object could be very dangerous—fatal, even—without ever once needing to bite a pony. She herself had encountered plenty of exceedingly dangerous items whilst researching a paper on the use and misuse of magical amulets a few years before, and had come across more than enough that could have killed her. Not a single one of them even had teeth. Still, it was only a figure of speech. Tentatively, she stepped up onto the couch and, tucking her legs beneath her, curled up into a sitting position. “So…” Lyra began, her voice lingering on the vowel and trailing off into almost silence. “How have you been? Done anything exciting these past two years?” “I’ve been researching,” Moondancer replied. She smiled at her old friend, no longer quite sure what she had so dreaded about conversations. She was doing perfectly fine now, wasn’t she? “Uh-huh…” Lyra seemed almost uncertain, her voice not quite questioning but certainly bordering on it. “And what sorts of things have you been researching?” “Oh,” Moondancer took a deep breath, biting her lip as she tried to recall the various subjects she had read about in the last two years. She knew there were a lot of them, and while she had a fairly good memory for books she wasn’t entirely certain her memory for chronology was up to scratch—she certainly didn’t want to tell Lyra about something she had been researching before they drifted apart. In her defence, Moondancer hadn’t been expecting a pop quiz mere moments after seeing her friend again. But pop quizzes were something she had always prided herself on her skill at quizzes, and even when she didn’t know the full answer she always had a strategy: right now, for instance, she could simply start by recalling the most recent things she had researched and work backwards from there until she saw some sign of recognition on Lyra’s face. Yes. That should work nicely. “Well, I’ve been reading about all the different flora and fauna of the Everfree Forest,” she began. “There are a few ancient horticulture journals, from before Luna’s banishment, that described some strange, magical plant life that no recent records have shown. I’ve been trying to find out whether those plants have gone extinct, or have simply been renamed. Or, perhaps stranger still, there’s a hypothesis that some of the plants in the Everfree undergo magically-stimulated, rapid evolution, and while sufficient evidence has yet to be found in support of it, I like to think that it would be easy enough to prove with just a few years and a grant from the…” Moondancer’s voice trailed off, as she noticed the glassy-eyed stare of her companion. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” “Huh?” Lyra shook her head, as if trying to shake away drowsiness. “No, uh, I was listening. I just… well, you get quite technical sometimes, Moondancer. It’s easy to get lost quite quickly when you get talking about something you’re researching.” “Oh,” Moondancer said. She paused for a moment, not quite sure how to react. Was that an insult? It could certainly be construed as one. At the very least, it was an acknowledgement that Lyra found her conversation dull and uninteresting, which was certainly not what she had intended. After some thought, she added, “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be,” Lyra said, giggling a little. “It’s good to know that some things never change. Gosh, do you remember all those times when we were fillies and you’d go on and on about chemistry, or some strange psychological—” “You thought I was boring?” Forget it, Moondancer. Just forget it. This is why friendship isn’t worthwhile: it’s always just a fake, and it will always just hurt you. The only way you can avoid the pain is to avoid friendship entirely. “No!” She had to give credit where credit was due: Lyra certainly sounded sincere in her surprise. It almost sounded as if she were horrified that she could possibly have made such a mistake. Almost. But Moondancer knew better than to get her hopes up. “No, Moondancer, that’s not it at all. You’re a fascinating pony: I’ve heard you give the most amazing talks on fields I hadn’t even known existed! “It’s just that, sometimes, you get a bit carried away in day-to-day conversation, you know? Like, it’s fine for a lecture or some place where we need your help knowing about something, but when it’s just the two of us—or even back then, all six of us—you don’t need to go into that sort of detail.” Lyra had an apologetic mask on her face, her mouth twisted into a grimace of awkward admission. Moondancer was certain, positively certain, that she couldn’t trust that face to be true, but a small part of her still wanted it. “You understand that, right?” She thought, for a moment. Did she really go into too much detail? What was “too much detail”, anyway? She always told exactly the level of detail that conveyed a good summary of the knowledge she had gleaned from her research without itself requiring the hours of research she had put in to understand. By definition, she considered, that must be the right level of detail, for it was exactly what she intended it to be… But Lyra was saying that she was hard to follow, and that she went into too much details. So maybe, just maybe, she might have been wrong. Was it really so hard to consider that she might have misjudged an entry-level explanation? It had, after all, been some years since she had spoken to anyone about her research, save for the odd university professor and a couple of research graduates, all of whom were probably more knowledgeable about the field than she was. Yes, that she could have misjudged the level of explanation she needed was not just believable: given the evidence, it seemed almost a certainty. “Yes,” she said, slowly. “I think I do. I’m sorry, I’ll try to keep the detail to a minimum in future.” And, just like that, Lyra’s grimace of concern became a smile of relief, her lips and cheeks relaxing. It was a subtle change, but ponies had always been able to discern even the slightest changes in each other’s facial expressions—this ability, after all, was ingrained in a pony’s very psychology, their entire way of thinking built up around… This was the point Lyra was making, wasn’t it? She’d always been fond of tangential thoughts, following them through whatever knowledge she could recall and down whatever path they might lead. But those paths went deeper: too deep. Perhaps it was her entire way of thinking that was hampering her ability to converse naturally? “Is something wrong?” Lyra’s voice broke through her thoughts. She shook her head, briefly, bringing her focus back to the real world through the sensation of the air brushing against her cheeks. “Sorry, I zoned out,” she admitted, sheepishly. “Was something wrong?” And at that, Lyra laughed: it was a hearty laugh, her chest visibly contracting with each wheezing breath, and it filled the room with noise. For a moment, Moondancer simply sat there in shock, her brain not thinking fast enough to keep up with the sudden change in what her senses were telling her. Then, when she had at last realised what was going on, and that it wasn’t merely her mind playing tricks on her, she frowned. “What is it?” she asked, as Lyra began to rock back and forth on her cushion, her hooves held tight against her sides. “Did I say something wrong?” Lyra wiped a hoof at her eye, her breathing slowly coming to a more natural pace, the heavy guffaws that had been spasming through her chest coming to a gentle standstill, like a ball rolling across a field and slowly being brought to a halt by the grass. “Never change, Moondancer,” Lyra said, smiling and slightly out of breath. “Promise me you’ll never change.” Her first reaction was to tell Lyra that change was always necessary, that is was an obvious implication of the way that they experienced chronology and, indeed, a necessary conclusion of the laws of thermodynamics. She would certainly never be in true thermal equilibrium… And then she caught herself, because that sort of thing was exactly what Lyra was talking about, and she had to make a better impression on her host than that. After all, it had been a good few years since they had seen each other, and if Moondancer was going to try and convince Lyra to let her stay the night (although now she was here she was starting to wonder if the small house had any spare room for her to sleep in at all, given the small living room) she would need to make a better impression than that. “I’ll try?” she promised, weakly. After a moment’s pause, she nodded sharply: “Yes. I’ll try.” Lyra smiled again at that, warm and relaxed. “It’s good to see you again, Moondancer.” “You too,” Moondancer replied, without thinking. Is that true? Is seeing Lyra again really a good thing? You’re getting weaker, Moondancer—since you arrived, you’ve already worried about the pain she could cause you once, and that’s not a worry that you’ve had in over a year… But it was true. Even though everything she could think of told Moondancer that she shouldn’t be happy to see Lyra beyond her gratefulness to the universe for a potential solution to the somewhat compromising situation she had found herself in regarding sleeping arrangements, Moondancer really, truly was happy to see her old friend. And the worst part was that she had absolutely no idea why. Friendship, Moondancer was slowly coming to realise, was a lot more complicated than she had always thought. It wasn’t just a matter of two ponies spending time together, and sharing with each other things that they would normally keep private to create a safe haven where they could find help and comfort when they needed it. It was something that bound ponies together—even when she had spent a year in isolation in Canterlot, leaving her house only to trek to the library or the market, Moondancer’s first thought when she fell into trouble had always been “Maybe Minuette could help?” or “Twinkleshine would know what to do in this situation” or “If I asked Twili—” No. Not Twilight. She wasn’t her friend. Not, of course, that she had really been a good friend to any of the others, and it certainly wasn’t as if they’d been any closer to her than Twilight had been, but at least they hadn’t abandoned her. Besides, the Princess of Friendship would hardly stoop to associate with somepony who hadn’t even got a place to call their own anymore. Lyra coughed, dragging her once more out from her thoughts. Not for the first time, Moondancer wondered if it was healthy to get lost in thought quite so often. “You were saying something about a place to sleep?” “Oh, yes,” she responded, pushing all thoughts of Twilight from her mind. This was the reason she had travelled to Ponyville in the first place: This was important. “My house was among one of the many in Canterlot that suffered serious damage from the incident with the plunder vines, and although Discord was able to reverse some damage he seems to have left some parts of Canterlot… less fixed than others. “Long story short, I haven’t got anywhere to sleep for at least a week, while they repair the damage to the district.” “That’s terrible!” Lyra cried, standing up from her cushion and trotting over to sit beside her. Moondancer tried not to flinch as Lyra’s fur gently rubbed against her own—it had been a very long time since she had been even nearly this close to another pony. Yet Lyra proceeded to wrap a foreleg around her shoulders, and pulled her into a tight embrace. “Oh, you poor thing. You simply have to stay here with us!” “Are you sure?” Moondancer said, trying to sound more comfortable than she was. Despite her efforts, her voice came out stiff and a little forced. “I don’t want to impose.” This was a lie, and both mares knew that—of course Moondancer wanted to stay the night, regardless of any inconvenience to Lyra, because if she didn’t then she would literally be sleeping on the streets in the middle of winter, and no sane pony would possibly volunteer for that. Ignoring, of course, the many ponies who did just that on camping trips and the like, particularly that one author who would always write cheap paperbacks about her trips to the wild, the sort that one would pick up in a train station for a hoofful of bits and finish before the train had even gotten halfway to one’s destination. But those ponies were adventure-seekers, and neither Lyra nor Moondancer could in any way be counted among that number. “It won’t be a problem,” Lyra said, fondly. “Bon Bon will have no problem with it, I’m sure, and there’s a small guest bedroom that you’re more than welcome to use. I don’t think Bon Bon has any guests coming to stay this week… she does occasionally have friends over to stay at short notice, but I’m sure she’d have mentioned by now.” Lyra sighed, shaking her head. “Look at me: rambling like an old mare. And how long ago was I telling you that you went on at length about things?” Even Moondancer had to smile at that thought. She even managed a light chuckle. “Is Bon Bon the mare in the photograph?” she asked, when the laughter had settled and the air became so thick with quiet that she could once again hear the whir of the engine that kept the table floating. “The one in the hallway, I mean?” “Yeah,” Lyra said, a wry smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and her eyes shining. “That’s Bon Bon. She’s… well, she’s something. She should be home in an hour or so; I’ll introduce the two of you.” “That sounds nice,” Moondancer said. There was a moment of quiet between them, and this time it looked as it were Lyra who was lost in thought. But after half a minute or so, she smiled and turned to face Moondancer. “You have anypony special back in Canterlot?” Special? As in… a special somepony? Well, that certainly explains the shape of the photo frame… “You really think somepony like me would have that?” Moondancer asked, trying to raise one eyebrow. It was meant to be an expression of almost sarcastic curiosity, but she couldn’t quite keep the other eyebrow in place—it would always tug up alongside the other one, no matter how hard she focused on moving only the muscles on one side of her face. The end result felt more like a forced look of surprise to Moondancer, but Lyra seemed to get what she was going for. “Of course I do, silly,” she said, squeezing Moondancer’s shoulders once more, a light pressure of comfort. “If I can find somepony—and you know what I used to be like at school!—then I have no doubt that you can, too.” Moondancer wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. Romance had never really been at the forefront of her mind (though, of course, she had spent a good four or five weeks researching the evolution of monogamous behaviour in various species, and comparing the behaviour of animals such as swans with those of ponies. Perhaps the most fascinating part of her research was in discovering that swans truly did mate for life: it wasn’t some kind of abstract ideal that they aimed for, but an actuality that they lived.) Besides, she’d never met anypony who she could even want to spend hours alone with, just snuggled up warm by the fire reading books, comfortable in mutual silence… She’d never wanted that, anyway. Why would she? It would only further distract her from her research, and Celestia knew that these days she was distracted enough, what with the almost unbelievable things that kept interrupting her day-to-day life. Frankly, the changeling invasion of Canterlot the year before should have been a final straw: enough for Moondancer to decide that, really, Canterlot was probably not the best place for her to be living. But something kept drawing her back. And that something, of course, was the vast library. No other city in all of Equestria had a library quite like it—not even the fabled library of the Crystal Empire had turned out to match the Canterlot City Library for sheer operability. Moondancer could look up a book in the catalogue, and it would be on her desk within five minutes in Canterlot—and she wouldn’t even have to look for it herself. The complicated series of magical devices that lined the rooms effortlessly found and provided research materials with only the lightest of commands from a librarian. It was efficient, it was modern, and most importantly of all it was the kind of system that one almost didn’t notice going on, even when it was right under one’s nose. The Crystal Library, by comparison, was staffed by a few aging ponies who still weren’t entirely sure which archiving system was being used, and was sorely lacking in materials from this millennium—and while that made it a historian’s favourite place, Moondancer had always been somewhat more interested in the sciences, and the idea of books that were a thousand years out of date simply horrified her. What was the point in collecting knowledge if the knowledge itself was flawed? Moondancer was sure, of course, that many of the things she had learned over the course of her life were probably false, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t worth learning. They were, after all, nothing more than the modern consensus, things that ponies were certainly confident might not be wrong. A textbook that was a thousand years old would be missing a thousand years of scientific advances. It was definitely wrong—the things Moondancer researched, on the other hoof, were only possibly wrong. Many of her old friends had struggled to understand why this difference was so important. But then again, many of her old friends had struggled with the idea that the things that they were learning might, in fact, not be true at all. It was strange that they would struggle with that, of all things: to Moondancer, accepting that she might be wrong lay at the heart of all her research. If anything, it was one of the things that drove her the most. … Romance. That was what Lyra had been talking about, wasn’t it. She’d said something about how Moondancer should be able to find somepony… but what Lyra didn’t realise was that Moondancer simply didn’t want that kind of distraction. She opened her mouth, taking in a deep breath as she did so to prepare herself for the response she needed to give, before turning to properly face Lyra and finding that the mare’s eyes were closed, and the gentle rhythm of snoring rose and fell from her throat. Moondancer smiled at the sight of the sleeping mare, before the weight of Lyra’s foreleg on her shoulders registered once more in her mind. She was stuck. Ever so gently, Moondancer reached out with her magic and felt around her neck for the weight that was pressing down upon her. She wrapped the leg carefully in her aura, careful not to disturb Lyra’s sleep, and lifted as gently as she could, until there was just enough of a gap for her to squeeze out from underneath Lyra’s leg and step off the sofa. Standing tall and stretching, arching her back almost like a cat, Moondancer looked around the room for a blanket or something similar, and her eyes settled on a small, woven rug on the far side of the coffee table. Hoisting it up in her magic, she pulled it across the room and draped it around the shoulders of the sleeping mare. For a minute or two, Moondancer simply stood and watched Lyra as she rolled her shoulders, pulling the rug around her tighter and whinnying in her sleep. A small smile played with the corners of her lips as, for a moment, she allowed herself to get lost in memories she had spent two years avoiding—a childhood of memories, and of friendships she had been little more than an observer of. All the stupid little things that they had gotten up to as fillies… and above all, she thought of the time that Lyra had fallen asleep in class, and of how peaceful she had looked, and of how even the teacher could not bring herself to be mad at the filly when she looked so calm. And, just for that minute, Moondancer let herself pretend that maybe, just maybe, she could have those friendships back. If anything, it made for a nice daydream. MorningThe sunlight streamed in through the window, barely catching on the flimsy curtain that waved in the breeze. The light fell upon Moondancer’s eyes and for a moment she didn’t quite realise what was happening, the brightness overwhelming her and leaving her incapable of movement. And then, suddenly, she realised what was happening, and scrunched her eyes up as tight as she could, rolling onto her side to keep the light at bay. Moondancer did not like mornings. Sure, she might rise early on most days, but that was out of necessity: Moondancer needed to reach the library at opening time, or she’d miss out on valuable minutes of access to research materials. It certainly didn’t mean that she liked rising with the sun, and Moondancer would probably be the first among the ponies of Canterlot to complain about the noise of the morning commuters, were she not forcing herself to be one of them. But this morning Moondancer was not in Canterlot, nor was she a forty minute commute from the library, and for once in her life that meant she didn’t need to be awake. Sighing, Moondancer threw the duvet off the bed, letting it fall to the floor with all the softness of a piece of paper that had been dropped from a desk, lightly crumpling as it landed. She rolled herself onto her hooves, letting her weight pull her over the edge of the bed and onto all fours as she picked up the duvet in her magic and threw it haphazardly across the bed. It was then that Moondancer remembered that she was a guest in somepony else’s house, and that she really ought to make the bed with a little more respect for that position. She tried to tuck the duvet neatly around the mattress and, after a few moments of struggling, let it fall back in its organic, unaligned place. She was no good at this. She let her hooves pull her out of the room, being dragged through the door like a dog on a leash, and quietly made her way downstairs (for she had no clue what time Lyra and Bon Bon rose, but if the noise they had been making the night before was any indication then it would certainly not be for a few hours) in search of coffee. Finding the kitchen, of course, was the first step. It didn’t help that Moondancer had literally seen only two rooms of the house: she had no idea where any of the doors in the hallway lead, and one of them looked almost like it was out of use, surrounded with various bits of paraphernalia—she was pretty sure she had seen two sets of wellington boots, lined up neatly along the base of the doorway, with an umbrella propped up against the frame. There wasn’t actually a door in the archway—not in the traditional sense of the a bit of wood on hinges, with a handle—but rather a few strings hanging down from the top of the archway, large, wooden beads hung on them. On the other side, darkness: Moondancer decided that perhaps the other doors were a better first guess. She knew where the living room was, and although she wasn’t entirely sure where the second door out of it lead to she was pretty certain that it wasn’t a kitchen, if the cushion that Lyra had pulled out the day before had been any suggestion. She pushed lightly at the other door, a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach that maybe she shouldn’t be here, and that maybe this was a bad idea, and tried to look through the gap. The room on the other side was dark and seemed to be much larger than the living room,. The walls were lined with cupboards, though, and stacks upon stacks of boxes covered the floor; it was so crowded inside that the large space looked small and cramped. Moondancer shut the door, quickly. She had no idea what was in that room, but for once in her life she had no desire to find out. Well, at least not until she had gotten some coffee. Coffee would probably make things better. Retracing her steps, Moondancer wandered into the living room, carefully making sure that she didn’t make too much noise. She felt as if every step was booming, as if every breath was a hurricane. Every few seconds, she would find herself stopping still in the middle of the floor, and she would stand as quietly as she could, breath held in anticipation, as she listened for movement elsewhere in the house. And, inevitably, there wasn’t any. Slowly but surely, Moondancer made her way through the door into what seemed to be a dining room. And there, with no door to separate them, was the kitchen—the other side of the long, glass table, sitting just below wide, open windows, there stood a freezer, an oven and a sink… but most importantly of all, cupboards, hung on the walls, filled with the possibility of coffee. It took all of Moondancer’s strength not to gallop across the room. Instead, she walked calmly across and reached out with her magic. She could systematically check each cupboard for coffee, and while that would probably be the sensible thing to do it was certainly not the fastest. And right not, Moondancer needed coffee as fast as she could get it: she grabbed ahold of all of the cupboard doors at once, and pulled towards her. At once, the room was alive with noise, and Moondancer winced at the sound of four cupboards creaking open all at once. Why did ponies never keep their hinges oiled? It wasn’t as if she could talk—she hadn’t done anything that remotely resembled housekeeping since she had moved into her little, broken home—but it annoyed her nonetheless. A brief glance around showed her that the coffee was in the cupboard on the far left—which was, incidentally, the cupboard she would have opened last had she systematically checked them all. Smiling to herself, and knowing that despite all the noise her plan had worked out for the best, Moondancer trotted towards the coffee and pulled it down to the worktop with her magic, already feeling just that little bit more awake. The next part of her plan was probably the hardest to manage whilst remaining quiet: boiling a kettle. But the noise was hardly Moondancer’s biggest concern anymore—after the doors had slammed open, she had finally allowed herself to relax after every breath, and to not see it all as a potential noise that would wake up Lyra and Bon Bon. Even the boiling of a kettle, and the shrill, whistling sound that Lyra’s old model made, would be just another noise to her, now. But sweet mother of Celestia, was that whistling annoying. Mugs. Where did they keep the mugs in this house? She glanced around frantically, looking over every inch of every cupboard. But all she could see was empty shelves, and the occasional packet of dried food packets, or spices and herbs. This kitchen was surprisingly bare, even by her standards. Now that she thought about it, crockery seemed to be completely absent. There was no hint of a plate or bowl anywhere, that she could see, let alone something as simple as a mug. She tried pulling at the lower cupboards, searching beneath the workstation only to find plumbing and cleaning supplies, and pulling out the drawers to be greeted by cutlery and other tools (a particularly rusty pair of scissors caught her attention in one drawer. They were almost large enough to be shears, the kind of thing one might expect to find in a haberdashers’, but the layer of deep, orange rust that grew almost organically across the blade fascinated her. She ran her aura over the surface, just once, feeling each little bump and crease in the surface, and revelling in the texture of it all, before remembering the boiling water that was in desperate need of a mug). It took her the longest time to realise that there was a strange little set of hooks, made of a light, smooth wood, set into the wall above the sink. From each of the hooks hung a mug, their weight strangely distributed so that they hung at an angle Moondancer would never quite have expected. It looked too steep to be deliberate, yet too shallow to really be due to gravity. This was a question for another time. The question of the hour was, of course, how soon could she make herself a coffee—and the answer was: “immediately”. “Good morning, Moondancer.” The words were stretched out, almost a yawn in and of themselves, and if they weren’t immediately followed by one Moondancer might have thought that they were. She smiled at the cream-coloured mare who was dragging herself into the kitchen. “Good morning, Bon Bon,” she said, politely. “It’s good to properly meet you.” “Pah,” Bon Bon spat. “‘Properly.’ Lemme get some coffee first, then we’ll meet ‘properly’.” Moondancer tried and failed to hide the smirk at Bon Bon’s sentiment, although she was well aware that only a few hours before she would have been much the same. Thankfully, the other mare was sleepily navigating her way around the chairs to the kitchen, and didn’t see her expression change. She doubted Bon Bon would mind even if she had seen, as she seemed as if she weren’t even awake enough to notice. Lyra was only a few minutes behind her marefriend, stepping into the kitchen with the kind of boundless morning energy that made Moondancer thoroughly upset and only the tiniest bit jealous. How could anypony be so excited this early? And, what was far more important, why couldn’t she? “Morning Moondancer,” Lyra called cheerily, smiling as she almost bounced over to Bon Bon and wrapped her forelegs around the grumpy mare’s neck. Planting a quick kiss on her cheek, Lyra whispered something quickly in her ear—Moondancer watched, trying once more to raise her eyebrows, as even in her tired, unresponsive state Bon Bon managed a small smile. “Any plans for the day, Moondancer?” Moondancer stopped and considered this for a moment. She knew what she wanted to do that day, which was the same thing she did every weekday: visit the library and research something new. But she wasn’t in Canterlot anymore, and while the Golden Oaks library of Ponyville was world-renowned for its unique architecture, it certainly wasn’t particularly well-known for organisation. Or, for that matter, having a particularly wide stock. But was that the question Lyra was really asking? Did Lyra want her to go the library that day, or was this question nothing more than a gauge to see if she would be up for some activity her old friend had planned? Moondancer wasn’t certain. “I don’t know,” she said, slowly, feeling out her answer as she gave it. Worst came to worst, she could always pretend that she suddenly decided to make a detour to the library. Lyra knew how much she loved libraries. “Did you have anything in mind?” “Nah,” Lyra said, dismissively. “I just figured you’d be off to the library. I’ve never known you to last more than a day in a new town without stopping by to see one, even on school trips.” Moondancer raised her eyebrows in surprise, before pulling her emotions back into control. Of course Lyra would be able to guess that much—they had known each other since they were little fillies, and even though she might never have been particularly close to her friends at school she had always been close enough for them to know and recognise her hobbies. There should be absolutely zero surprise in Lyra’s ability to read her like this. “Heh,” she said, weakly. “You got me.” Lyra grinned and shot her a brief wink. “Of course I did. Do you know the way, or do you want me to show you? Once this silly filly has gotten her caffeine dose, that is?” Lyra gestured sideways with a slight nod of her head at Bon Bon, who made a small noise that sounded almost like “i heard that, you know” but came out more as a grunt. Moondancer nodded. “That would be wonderful,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to see Golden Oaks for myself. Is it particularly small?” “Small?” Lyra scoffed. “That place is no Canterlot Library, but it’s pretty big for a small town like Ponyville. Heck, it’s got a bedroom in there somewhere—apparently, it’s been a tradition since the library opened for the librarian to live in the building, and to keep it open whenever they could. Trust me, that place is not ‘small’.” Moondancer’s eyes widened, not in surprise but in excitement. It had been too many years since she had gotten to visit a new library that could truly keep her interest, and although the incident in the Crystal Empire had made her wary of becoming too excited for any new libraries, Moondancer was always hopeful that one day something would come along that would at least match Canterlot Library on either scale or grandeur. Even though she could hardly contain her excitement, Moondancer waited patiently for Bon Bon to finish her coffee and to allow the effect of the caffeine to settle in. She watched as Lyra and Bon Bon exchanged quick jokes at each other's expense, each trying to make their guest feel at home whilst at the same time having a bit of fun with each other. In some ways, Moondancer felt, it looked like the kind of thing that would be a lot of fun: spending time with somepony and getting to know them so well that you can afford to make quick jokes and jibes at them, and know that they know you don’t mean it. But another part of Moondancer was feeling as if she was slipping back into old habits. And she didn’t mean starting to think of other ponies as friends—she was certainly not at that stage yet with either Lyra or Bon Bon, for although the two mares had been nothing but kind to her since she arrived she knew that they were little more than guest and hosts at this stage. She had barely known Bon Bon a few hours, after all, and Lyra herself had lived so far away for so long that Moondancer had almost forgotten what she was like. While she might not have changed, Lyra certainly had moved on in her life. What worried Moondancer was her tendency to observe. She was comfortable sitting here, watching the couple exchange their silly little jokes, and in some ways it made her happy to be there on the sidelines. But she didn’t have any desire to join in: and not just because she felt that it would be too soon, or not her place. Even when she was talking with Lyra the day before, she would have much rather just listened to the other mare talk than say anything herself, because inevitably the moment she said anything she would undoubtedly mess it all up. It was an old habit, one she had formed in relatively early childhood. She’d never had much of a chance to take center stage, or to even share in conversation as equals with anypony her own age—she always had her muzzle in a book, or was too busy thinking about what she might want to read next. But perhaps this wasn’t such a bad thing. Perhaps she could simply enjoy being there with ponies (after all, she certainly enjoyed it often enough when small groups of ponies were whispering amongst themselves in the library, for she could always just sit and listen to their conversation and lose herself trying to figure out who was who in their little gossip. There was one group in particular, came in every Thursday at around 2pm, and chatted about a few mares whom she’d gathered were in the year above them in university—it took Moondancer about a month to realise this was the very same group who came in every Tuesday morning and gossiped about the stallions in the year below!) After what seemed like an age, despite her patience, Moondancer finally stood to follow Lyra out of the door. Even though they’d waited for Bon Bon to finish her coffee, the other mare had decided that she would rather stay in and read the newspaper. It took Moondancer a second to quell her anger—did Bon Bon not realise that they had been waiting for her so that they could leave? But then she realised that maybe Lyra just wanted to wait so that she could have a few more minutes with her marefriend in the morning, and she had to admit that that probably wasn’t so bad—even if it did delay her trip to a brand new library. She’d forgotten how bright the sun was. As she stepped out into the cobbled streets of Ponyville, Moondancer found herself turning her head down to the street and half-squinting to keep the bright light out of her eyes. How could it be this bright? It was only a few degrees above freezing, and the very middle of Winter—the sun certainly had no business being this bright when the streets around were covered in snow. In fact, the snow was probably making matters worse. Moondancer found herself staring intently at her own shadow, as sunlight glanced off the snow that surrounded her, each crystal shining almost as brightly as the sun itself, like a tiny little star in the bright white sky. At least in here shadow, the stars weren’t going to blind her, but it did rather mean she couldn’t see where she was going—and sometimes, when they took a turn in a particularly awkward direction, Moondancer couldn’t even look at Lyra’s shadow, and had to try to find some snow-less surface to look at instead. The trek to the library, though nowhere near as much of a hassle as her daily commute in Canterlot (despite the snow making the journey twice as arduous as it needed to be), was longer than she had anticipated, and by the time they reached the edge of the town square and Lyra was stopping to give her further directions, Moondancer was ashamed to find herself shivering with the cold. “I have to head off to Sugarcube Corner,” Lyra was saying, though Moondancer could barely hear her above the chattering of her own teeth. The noise was loud and painful, coming as it did from inside her head, and every now and then her teeth wouldn’t quite align and she would feel the sickening scrape of enamel on enamel. “Bon Bon needs me to pick up some stuff. You’re okay finding your own way from here? It’s just down that road… Moondancer?” Her breath was hanging before her like a cloud. Moondancer had never really appreciated that imagery before: breath in cold air usually dissipated, and blew away on a breeze. It didn’t tend to form anything that looked much like a cloud at all, but rather like her own, private little piece of fog. But here, her breath really was forming a cloud—the little pieces of moisture sticking together and clumping up in the air, making a single whole that didn’t blow apart but rather drifted slowly away from her muzzle. For a moment, Moondancer simply watched it as it flew away. Then, before she knew what was happening, there was a pressure on her shoulders and something was tickling the underside of her chin. It was scratchy and itchy, and just pushing at the one place that made her feel like it was inside her throat, clawing at the underside of her skin. But of course, it wasn’t, and when Moondancer looked down she saw that Lyra had wrapped a scarf around her neck. It was strange, but she couldn’t quite feel it all the way around. Maybe it was loose? “You need to warm up,” Lyra said, all hints of lightness and friendliness in her voice gone, and for a moment Moondancer worried that maybe she’d done something wrong before she came to the conclusion that Lyra was simply being serious. It was strange, but in all the years she’d known the mare, Lyra had never once taken anything particularly seriously. Maybe that was Bon Bon’s influence? It was too early to tell. Moondancer resolved to find out, one way or another, before she moved back to Canterlot. Not quite hearing Lyra’s directions, she nodded anyway, sure that the way couldn’t be too hard and certain that she could figure it out from the simple hoof gestures that Lyra had made in the air. It was just down this path, then take a left and a right in quick succession, and then one final right, that much she knew—just exactly which lefts and rights she couldn’t quite tell. Still, she knew roughly where she was going, and she was sure that if she just kept walking for long enough… A-ha! There, just above the thatch roofs, Moondancer could just make out the green leaves of the library poking out from beneath a blanket of snow. Lyra’s directions promptly forgotten, Moondancer willed her legs to work for just a few more minutes, and pushed herself into a light jog in the hopes that she could get a little bit of blood circulating. But the back streets of Ponyville were twisting and wild, and with every house looking just the same—thatch roof, wooden beams, white walls that blended into the snow and were just as blinding—Moondance soon found that heading straight for the tree was not, ironically, the most direct approach. If anything, it seemed to lead her more and more astray, taking her into alleyways and dead ends thet didn’t quite make any sense to her. But then, with all the snow on the ground, she couldn’t easily make out where most of the roads were. She was lost. Somehow, even though she could see her destination through the gaps in the houses around her, Moondancer had no idea how she could possibly get there. She had tried every angle—it felt like she had circled the library at least twice now, though she knew that couldn’t be right. She remembered, clearly, how the library was always on the very edge of the town, in every photograph she’d seen, just sitting up snugly on the path from the Everfree. Soon enough, Moondancer stopped looking for the library: she no longer cared where she found herself, so long as she came across somewhere she recognised. The streets were starting to feel like some sort of twisted house of mirrors: no matter which way she looked, everything looked almost the same, and it was becoming difficult to tell which paths were streets and which were actually somepony’s garden, hidden beneath the snow. Then came the wind. It was light at first, a mere breeze that nipped at her nose and toyed with the tassels of her scarf as if a child playing with a dangling mobile that was just within their reach. But soon enough it grew, and the nips became bites, and the bites became nothing more or less than a raging, howling wind that filled her ears and smothered her skin. And the air was full of snow, and whether it was falling from the sky or being picked up by the sheer force of the gale Moondancer could never tell, but it filled her eyes and trapped itself between strands of her mane, slipping down to her roots and chilling her scalp. And somehow, despite the storm and the snow and the cold, Moondancer stumbled face first into a dark, rough bark. For a moment she wondered if she had perhaps made her way to the Everfree, and found herself rooted to the spot. But then, right above her head, she saw a window, and the bright, warm light the glowed from it told her exactly where she had found herself. Inside the LibraryThe first thing Moondancer noticed about the Golden Oaks library was the warmth: it flooded her, filling every inch of her body in a matter of seconds, her skin tingling with the wave of heat that rolled across her back and burrowed into her shoulders. She hadn’t realised quite how numb she had become out int he cold, but within just a few moments the prickling sensation of blood rushing beneath her skin was almost overwhelming. The warmth was, of course, due to the fire that blazed in the far corner of the main room. It flickered and licked at the air, almost like a tongue that was lapping up the cold, and filled the room with warmth in much the same way that one might fill a beaker with a chemical. The second thing that Moondancer noticed about the library was that, instead of having books on the shelves, the library floor appeared to be piled with stacks upon stacks of books, climbing up towards the ceiling in haphazard towers. Moondancer was no expert (although, with the amount of time that she had spent in libraries, she might as well have been) but she was pretty sure that this wasn’t how a library was meant to work. As the door shut behind her, she heard the faint but unmistakeable sound of a small bell ringing, and looked up to see one hanging from the doorframe. it was strange: she hadn’t noticed it on her way in. “Hello? Sorry, the library is closed for business today.” The voice sounded… familiar. Almost as if Moondancer had heard it recently, though she couldn’t imagine where she might have come across the Ponyville librarian. Instead, she shrugged, and simply called back: “Do you mind if I stay here for a while? There’s a terrible storm out, and I’m afraid I’ll get lost.” “No problem!” The voice was cheerful, and somewhere in the room with her, although with the stacks of books all around Moondancer couldn’t possibly see where it might have been coming from. “Hold on, I’ll be with you in just a tick. I just have to find—” There was a loud thud. It wasn’t a single noise: it was made of a whole number of tiny little thuds, each one crashing out throughout the empty tree, echoing off rounded walls and adding to the cacophony; it was the unmistakeable sound of a tower of books falling over. But in amid that sound was another—the lightest of yelps, and the softest of whimpers. The voice went quiet. Moondancer waited for a moment. The voice didn’t return. “Hello?” She stepped forward, tentatively feeling her way through the room, almost afraid that another stack of books might fall, and maybe this time one might fall on her. “Are you alright?” “I- I’m okay,” came the reply, muted and muffled, and Moondancer turned immediately and walked towards the source of the noise, some small distance to her left. She weaved in and out of the towers, until at last she came upon a stack of books in a clearing, out from which a single, lavender wing protruded. It was a bad thing, Moondancer decided, that her first thought was: Pegasi aren’t usually librarians. It was worse when she corrected herself: Librarians aren’t usually pegasi, for although she had at least avoided one potential fallacy she did unfortunately realise that her observation could be construed as racist. So she very quickly distracted herself from that train of thought, and instead thought: I wonder if she needs any help? Wrapping her magic around the pile of fallen books, Moondancer felt the brush of a second aura against her own. She was so surprised that she nearly lost her grip, but managed to hold on just in time to stop them from crashing to the floor. The pile was heavy—much heavier than she’d anticipated, and she was worried that perhaps she had taken on more than she could chew. She was, after all, one of the most powerful unicorns she knew, and she was starting to struggle so much that she wasn’t convinced that even a unicorn who could match her for power would be able to lift it with her. And yet, the books moved. Slowly but surely, the pile rose, wrapped in a shroud of light pink and lavender auras, and Moondancer could feel that she wasn’t pulling her own weight in this endeavour. In fact, she would be willing to bet that whoever this other unicorn was, they would be more than capable of lifting this pile without her help, although she certainly didn’t want to do the pegasus trapped below any harm by testing that hypothesis then and there. Except, the mare under the books wasn’t a pegasus. And when Moondancer saw those dark, purple eyes staring up at her, she very nearly dropped the entire pile on purpose, just to see if little miss Princess even needed her help in the first place. She didn’t, though. Instead, she simply finished helping Twilight move the books, before turning sharply towards the door and walking determinedly towards it… “Where are you going?” “Anywhere but here,” Moondancer answered, the words coming out of her mouth so quickly that her tongue nearly tripped over them. She rounded one last tower, and gripped the door in her aura, ready to leave. “But what about the sto—” Wind battered her face; snow catching on her skin and sticking like small pellets of ice and pure cold. She felt a familiar magic pull the door from her grasp, and slam it shut: the wave of heat rolled over her again, and she just stood in the doorway for a moment, blinking. “Stay,” said the voice, now just behind her. “I’ll make us both some hot cocoa, if you’d like? I’m pretty sure I have a few marshmallows left over…” “None for me, please,” Moondancer replied, quietly. “Just the cocoa. I’m not too fond of marshmallows. They’re too sweet and sticky.” There wasn’t a response, though she could have sworn she heard the mare behind her nodding, just slightly, the rustle of a mane bouncing up and down with a bobbing head, followed by the soft tap of hooves on polished oak floor. She turned, as if to say something, but by the time she had turned her head all that was left of Twilight was a tail swishing its way through a kitchen door. Moondancer’s first thought was to follow, but she quickly dismissed it. This was her first opportunity to have a look around the Golden Oaks Library, and she wasn’t going to waste it. Quickly breaking into a quiet trot, she zig-zagged through the stacks of books until she found her way to the edge of the room. The bookshelf was almost empty, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t wonder about their style. They certainly weren’t the pristine shelves she was used to in a library—instead, they were these strange, rounded hollows in walls, almost organically shaped (which made sense for a library that was, quite literally, a living tree.) But still, the shape threw her: she didn’t quite like the idea of the space at the ends being wasted, even if it did make the whole thing look rather nice. Keeping the shelves on her right, Moondancer trotted around the edge of the room. It was a rough oval, much like the trunk of the tree outside it, but something about it felt almost too large. It was as if this kind of space wasn’t quite small enough to fit inside a tree, even one of this size, and the fact that she could see staircases branching off of it made her question the very nature of the building she was standing in. She had always read that it was centuries old, and the kind of magic needed to do something like this was certainly a relatively recent discovery—much more recent, at least, than this tree. She wasn’t entirely sure how they had done it. Twilight might know. But then, did she really want to hear the answer from Twilight? “Moondancer?” “Cocoa’s ready,” Twilight said, her voice cracking a little but still sounding mostly perky. It seemed as if she wasn’t all too pleased that Moondancer was here, either. “When you are, I mean.” Moondancer nodded (to herself, more than anything) and turned back the way she’d come until she came across the door to the kitchen. Ducking through it, she found Twilight sitting at a table with two mugs of warm, steaming liquid before her. Tentatively, she sat down opposite the mare she had once called friend, and picked up her mug (as requested, no marshmallows), raising it to her lips. “So…” Twilight’s voice filled the heavy silence between them, but did nothing to make it any lighter. “What brings you to Ponyville?” “Plunder vines destroyed my house,” Moondancer replied simply. “Came to stay with Lyra for a few days, until it’s fixed.” Twilight looked surprised. She set her mug down on the table, and rested her elbows, propping her chin up on her hooves. “Nopony ever told me that those vines had spread as far as Canterlot,” Twilight replied. “I mean, it should be obvious in hindsight if they somehow managed to take Celestia and Luna, but I guess I just didn’t give much thought to it…” “Well not all of us can just up and move to Ponyville,” Moondancer said, before covering her mouth with a hoof: that had come out much angrier than she had anticipated. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that.” Was she angry? Stupid question: of course she was angry. This was the mare who had single-hoofedly crushed her dreams of friendship just a few years ago, and who had then gone on to be crowned Princess of Friendship. How was that fair? How was it fair that Twilight Sparkle could just abandon her friends and move to a whole new town, only then to spite them all with her brand, shiny new title. “No, it’s okay,” Twilight replied. “I understand. I didn’t even tell you girls that I was leaving.” “Did we really mean that little to you, Twilight?” Where did those words come from? Pull it together, Moondancer—you’re not some sappy foal, and you certainly shouldn’t care. Friendship isn’t for you, remember? You don’t need her. Twilight was brushing her hooves against the floor, staring awkwardly down as if to avoid looking right back at her. There was a nervousness in her eyes, jittering and jumping as they were from place to place. She let out the lightest of laughs, but it was anxious and almost choked up. “I guess I, uh, wasn’t the best friend I could have been to you all…” she said, quietly. “It’s just… when I was a filly, I never really let myself make true friends. You girls were there for me, sure, but I wasn’t a friend to you. I cared more about the books and learning than I did about you. “Since then, I’ve learned so much. I mean, look at me.” Somewhat self-consciously, Twilight shuffled her wings a little, rolling her shoulders as she did so. “I’m the Princess of Friendship, now. How do I deserve that, when I treated my first friends the way I did?” Twilight stood, turning away abruptly, and Moondancer couldn’t help but wonder if she was trying to hide her face. “And the worst part is, I probably wouldn’t have even remembered about it if you hadn’t been here today. I’ve been a terrible friend to you, Moondancer.” Not quite sure what to do, Moondancer took a long sip of hot cocoa from her mug, letting the sugar roll around on her tongue once, twice, three times. And as she drank, she thought: she thought about her fillyhood, and the role Twilight Sparkle had played in it; she thought about her old friends, and the ways she had cast them aside after Twilight left for Ponyville; and she thought about her anger towards the mare opposite her, and whether or not it was really anger that she should have felt. “You can say it,” Twilight added. “I won’t mind. It’s no more than I deserve.” “I wasn’t thinking that,” Moondancer said. “I haven’t been the best friend to the others, either. Even when we were fillies, I was always more interested in…” She let her voice trail off. Interested in what, precisely? Was it the books? In some ways it was, of course, but there was a part of her she very rarely acknowledged, a part that told her the reason for her obsession with books and knowledge. And that part said that all she really wanted was to impress Twilight Sparkle. Nonsense, of course—at least, it was nonsense now. Now she learned for the sake of learning, to fill her life with some sort of purpose and, frankly, because she enjoyed it. But when she was a filly, she had always been shy and nervous, and have never quite been sure how best to make friends. And then she found Twilight… “… Books, I guess,” she finished, lamely, after only the briefest of pauses. Twilight might barely even have noticed that she had deliberated at all over her words; if she was lucky, the princess would think that she had merely lost track of her thoughts for a moment. Twilight snorted, and her breath seemed to almost catch the air on its way out and return it as a chuckle. “Tell me about it,” Twilight said. “Neither of us ever really cared for much else, did we?” And Moondancer was so very tempted to tell the princess that that wasn’t quite true, that she had cared about her when they had been younger, but the same small part of her brain that had kept that thought hidden all these years told her that this was probably not a good idea. She wasn’t even sure why, but she listened. “It’s good to know that one of us has found something else in her life,” Moondance said, not quite bitterly. “I haven’t done all that much besides studying since you left. Even when the changelings attacked last year, they caught me in the middle of a book. Good one, too—shame it got covered in slime.” “What book was it?” Twilight turned, a frown on her face. “I might have a copy, somewhere…” “Principia Mathematica,” Moondancer replied, almost automatically. “The Russell one, not Neighton.” Twilight stopped in her tracks, her eyes widening, and a manic grins started to spread across her face. Moondancer couldn’t help but smile back at her—the mare’s enthusiasm was contagious, even if it was for things most ponies wouldn’t think twice about. “Oh my gosh, I’ve always wanted to read that,” Twilight said, her voice beginning to gush. “Did you get to the proof of 1+1…” “Yes!” Moondancer cried. “That was probably the strangest moment of any mathematics textbooks I’ve ever read. The very idea that one could lay out a proof of that, from fundamental axioms…” “Okay, we have to get a copy in here,” Twilight said, her enthusiasm all of a sudden turning business-like. “I’ll go add it to the order form for this month. Won’t take a moment!” The princess popper her head around the door and, without even leaving the room, simply stood staring into the main room of the library, he horn lit as she wrote in some ledger that only she could see. Now it was Moondancer’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise. “You can write from a distance? Without seeing the parchment?” Twilight turned and, blushing, walked back to the table. “I, uh, figured it would be a useful thing to practice,” she said, sheepishly, her blush deepening as she glanced up at Moondancer’s wide eyes. “Oh, stop it. You know that was something I always wanted to be able to do.” “Yes, but I never thought you’d actually do it!” Moondancer grinned. “Twilight, I know you probably get told this a million times a day, especially now you’re a princess and all, but you’re brilliant. You know that, right?” Twilight’s eyes dropped to the floor again, and she seemed to almost be trying to curl up in a ball on her chair. “You don’t have to say that, Moondancer. You were the only one at school who could even begin to keep me on my toes—I’m sure you’ve learned some pretty incredible tricks over the years.” “Not anything like that,” Moondancer said with a shrug. “I managed to learn a few tips and tricks for disabling spells a few months back, but I honestly never have much of a chance to use them.” For a moment, Twilight seemed to be lost in thought. Moondancer said nothing—she knew what it was like. And besides, she was sure Twilight would say something eventually. “Are you free tomorrow night, Moondancer?” Twilight asked, quietly. Moondancer frowned, but nodded: it wasn’t as if she had any plans beyond her usualy days in the library while she ws here in Ponyville, and she was sure that whatever Twilight was suggesting would be something she would be interested in. “My friend and I have a weekly reading session,” Twilight explained. “We just grab some cushions and some snacks and curl up by the fire with a few good books. I thought you might like to join us…” And once again, for the second time since she arrived, the image of curling up by a fire with somepony special popped into her head and wouldn’t quite go away. Moondancer wanted it—she wanted to feel the rise and fall of another pony’s chest as the pressed their side up against hers, and to enjoy the comfortable silence in the knowledge that there was somepony there with her, that she wasn’t just reading alone on another Friday night… And then, she imagined, that pony would stretch out their wings, and drape them across her back, pulling her into the lightest, softest hug. … huh. She’d never thought of that before. She wasn’t quite sure why, but she’d never really considered a pegasus for a partner. Although, in her defence, considering anypony for a partner was something she would never normally do—the idea was little more than an amorphous pony in her head. They could be anyone, except now, it seemed, they had wings. How very peculiar. “Yes,” she said, without really thinking about it. She frowned, quickly, and then decided that of course she did want to go. “Yes, that sounds wonderful.” Twilight smiled, a wide, genuine smile. “I’m glad. I’ll let Rainbow Dash know that you’re coming, and I’ll make sure we have enough snacks for the three of us. Rainbow usually eats more than her fair share, so make sure you get in on the food as quickly as you can.” Moondancer nodded, smiling. “You know, Twilight? I never thought it would be this easy to get back into the swing of hanging out with you. It’s… nice.” “Yeah,” Twilight agreed. “It is, isn’t it?” Moondancer drained the last of her cocoa and placed the mug down on the table with a sigh. “I guess this must be why you’re the princess of friendship, Twilight,” she said with a wry smile. “You’re just so easy to get along with.” “I don’t think so,” Twilight said. “I can be pretty unbearable at times. I think we just get on easily, that’s all.” “Yeah,” Moondancer said, not quite thinking about it. She did rather get on easily with the princess, even when, in the pit of her stomach, she resented the mare for everything she had done to her. And yet, when she was in the room, Moondancer couldn’t quite remember to be angry with her. Maybe it was their shared interests, or the ease with which they conversed. Maybe it was that she finally had somepony she could talk with enthusiastically about the things she had researched, without them dozing off the way Lyra and so many others had before. And maybe, just maybe, it was all those years of fillyhood spent trying to impress Twilight—all those years that made her hyper aware of all the mare’s likes, her dislikes, her hobbies and interests. And maybe, just maybe, it was the way the princess smiled—that bashful little grin that drew her eyes like sunflowers tracking the sun. It was an infectious smile: Moondancer just wanted to grin like a foal whenever she saw it, knowing that Twilight would be happier still to have somepony engaging in her interests, the same way Moondancer was glad to have Twilight share in her own. And it was still only a tiny possibility, but it might have been the way that she found herself wanting to curl up next to the princess, books held in their auras before them, and to have her wings wrapped over her shoulders… Yes, of course. It was merely that they had spent so much time together as foals. That was all. Day's EndThe day at the library had, in the end, been much more productive than she had suspected in her first hour there. Twilight had allowed her access to some of the rarer books the Golden Oaks had out of display, and she spent several hours reading up on the latest developments in magical leyline theory (including a paper by none other than Twilight herself, which was quite humbling to read. Twilight wrote like a professional scientist, her words carefully chosen to perfectly convey the message without any need to over- or under-simplify anything she was saying. Moondancer wished that she had the ability to write like that—or even to speak like that. It seemed that Twilight was proving to be more and more of an enigma every day. Every new thing that moondancer learned about the princess was a revelation, something she never would have expected of the mare she had known all those years ago. She taught, now, it seemed: three fillies had arrived in the library after school hours, mere minutes after Twilight had finally gotten around to tidying up the stacks of books that were strewn throughout the room, and Moondancer was pleased to see the three completely and utterly focused on their learning, even when they were all learning different things. They had called the session “Twilight Time”, and Moondancer had let her eyes stray from her book far too often to glance up at Twilight and simply watch her as she paced between the fillies, demonstrating all the different aspects of what they knew. Moondancer liked to think of herself as a jack of all trades, at least when it came to research. She had learned more things in more subjects than she had ever even knew existed as a foal, and yet looking at Twilight able to switch fluidly from mechanics to potion-making in the blink of an eye… Moondancer was coming to realise that she still had an awful lot to learn about before she could be a master of any of her skills. After about half an hour, Twilight has spoken up and asked her if she’d mind helping out—the little filly who was making potions, Apple Bloom, was struggling with a bit of the chemistry behind what she was doing, and Twilight had insisted that moondancer was definitely more qualified than her in that field. Though the thought of being better than Twilight at anything brought a blush to Moondancer’s cheeks, she had put her book down gently and trotter over to help out. By the end of the session, she had found herself absorbed in the fillies’ world, helping them learn for the sake of learning but also in what they called their “crusade” for cutie marks. It was all rather adorable, really. Moondancer had never considered teaching. She had always thought that she would be more interested in learning new things herself than in passing on her knowledge to other ponies, for after all those ponies could always come and dop as she did, and learn it for themselves. But as she was leaving the library that evening, after helping Twilight tidy up in a comfortable silence, Moondancer was starting to think more and more that maybe teaching could be fun. After all, if the fillies and colts she had were anywhere near as well-behaved and excited to learn as those three, it couldn’t be all that difficult. But maybe private tutoring was more her thing. She’d definitely enjoyed the one-on-one aspect of “Twilight Time” far more than she would have enjoyed it if she were lecturing the whole group of them on some aspect of chemistry. perhaps because she knew that Scootaloo (was that her name?) would probably have drifted off to sleep. The storm had died down by the evening, and though the air outside still chilled her to her bones, Moondancer wasn’t completely frozen in the way that she had been that morning. Still, just to be on the safe side, Moondancer had kept her pace to a brisk job, trying to make sure that she didn’t freeze and kept her blood flowing. It was at times like this that Moondancer got seriously upset with the cruelty of the world. Her house had to be destroyed on the one day she left her favourite sweater at home, didn’t it? Grunting in annoyance, not really bringing herself to think about it any harder (for the force of her hooves stamping into the ground each second was more than enough to ensure that she lost her train of thought every few seconds), Moondancer jogged onwards towards Lyra’s home. It was only as she reached the front door that Moondancer realised she didn’t have a key, and that she had no idea if either Lyra or Bon Bon was actually in. Stopping at the door, feeling the cold of the air wash over her as her body cooled off, she reached up and knocked anyway—there was little else she could do. If neither of the mares were in, she couldn’t do anything about it… Or could she? Five minutes of standing in the cold was enough to make anypony think outside the box, and a unicorn had more options for that than most. Moondancer stopped and thought about how she might try to open the door, without breaking anything. After about a minute, Moondancer’s thoughts began to drift. She was never as good at this kind of problem-solving as Twilight had been, and she doubted that she would be able to find a solution all that easily. Twilight would have gotten into the house in a matter of minutes, that was the worst part. For all Twilight said about her being better at chemistry, the fact of the matter was that Twilight had been the one to figure out how to control her aura so well that she could write at a distance, without even seeing the… Oh. That might work. In fact, that might be the only thing that could work. Moondancer leaned up, stretching her legs, and looked through the peep-hole in the door into the hallway. She could see a pen and a notepad among the items scattered on the desk. Good. Those would allow her to test her idea. She reached out with her aura, trying to find the pen and pick it up. Her control had never been that great—her approach to most problems involving magic had always been “throw more force at it and it’ll either fix itself or break beyond repair, hopefully the former”—but Moondancer soon found that she could hold the pen comfortably still. Moving it to the paper, Moondancer attempted to write familiar shapes onto the page, closing her eyes carefully as she did so to make sure that she didn’t cheat by looking. Sure enough, when she opened her eyes, her name had been scribbled across the page—messy, yes, but still clearly legible. Good. Now came the tricky part. Moondancer set the pen down on the desk and, closing her eyes once more, gave it a quick nudge. She felt it roll across the desk, but now that she had let go she couldn’t quite tell where it had ended up. Keeping her eyes closed, she tried to move the hornglow methodically over the desk, searching for the pen… A-ha! There it was! Grasping it once more in her magic, Moondancer tried to lift it up, but found herself struggling to remember where the pad of paper had gone. With her eyes close she couldn’t quite see. Frowning, and scrunching up her eyes in concentration, Moondancer cent out another wave of magic to scour the desk. It was the strangest feeling, and one she would never quite get used to—like having a hoof be in more than one place at once. Yet, eventually, Moondancer found the pad, and brought the pen over to meet it. Once more, she fumbled her way through the familiar shapes, before peeking out of one, squinted eye. Success! Moondancer smiled and sighed in relief, letting out a breath she hadn’t ever realised she had been holding, and put the pen down once more on the desk. If she could do that, she knew, the door would only take a matter of minutes. She sent felt out with her magic, feeling the back of the door for a latch or handle, anything that she might be able to use to tug the door open. But Moondancer wasn’t used to using magic blindly, and she found it difficult to keep her aura pressed up against the door—it was almost as if her magic wanted her to see it, drifting into view the moment she let her concentration even slip slightly. But Moondancer knew that she would be more than capable of doing this if she could just think clearly for one Celestia-damned There! She grinned, pulling at the latch and hearing a satisfying clunk of metal moving within the doorframe. Moondancer pushed against the door gently with her hoof, not quite daring to believe that her crazy idea might have worked, but she soon discovered that she had, in fact, succeeded. The door swung open with a gentle motion, only slightly creaking as she pushed at it. And, just like that, she was inside the house. She quickly pushed the door shut behind her, making sure not to do up the latch as she did so, for even though she was sure that Lyra and Bon Bon would be surprised to find their door unlocked they would probably be even more shocked to discover that she was still inside their house when it had been locked. Once she was inside, Moondancer didn’t quite know what to do. Her first thought, awakened by the slight sensation of pins and needles pricking her back, was that she needed to warm up—and, almost on impulse, she found herself dragged to the kitchen by her hooves and the kettle held beneath the sink in her aura. Mug of coffee held before her, Moondancer retreated to the living room and all but collapsed on the sofa. She hadn’t realised quite how tiring the afternoon with the Crusaders had been: sure, she had enjoyed it a lot, but now she was alone and had the opportunity to relax Moondancer found herself almost entirely drained of energy. The coffee, she decided, was a doubly good idea in such an instance. She threw her hind legs up behind her, sprawling out on the sofa and stretching her back, which had started to ache with discomfort of constantly bending down to a filly’s height. She sighed in relief, letting the tension and stress from the day just melt into the sofa below her, and allowed herself to close her eyes just for a moment… “Moondancer?” “Huh? Whassup?” Moondancer pushed herself up from the sofa with one foreleg, the other hoof wiping at her bleary, tired eyes. She turned her head—slowly, because her neck was feeling more than a little stiff—and looked around for the pony who had called out her name. Bon Bon was standing by the sofa, a frown on her face and a glass of water held in her hoof. “You have a long day at the library?” Bon Bon asked, a slightly cheeky light in her eyes and a small smirk tugging at her lips. Moondancer smiled bashfully and nodded, inclining her head towards the other mare in a gesture that simply said: Yeah, I guess. Bon Bon made to sit down on one end of the sofa, and Moondancer quickly pulled herself up so that she wasn't sprawled the whole length of the seat, giving Bon Bon the room to sit down. The earth pony smiled at her in thanks, taking a long gulp of water from her glass before setting it down on the table and letting out a long, loud sigh. “So, you’ve met Princess Twilight then?” Moondancer snorted. She had half a mind to tell Bon BOn about how close she and the princess had been all those years ago, but something held her tongue. It was strange, but since she had arrived in Ponyville she was starting to watch what she was saying more and more. SHe wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. “We go back a way,” Moondancer admitted, when Bon Bon raised an eyebrow questioningly at her. How does she do that? I’ve spent hours in front of a mirror trying to get that to work… “We haven’t seen each other in a few years, though.” “I imagine she’s changed a bit since you last saw her?” Bon Bon said, smirking. When she caught sight of Moondancer’s frown, she rolled her eyes and motioned with her forelegs, flapping them behind her back. “Oh, yeah, the wings thing…” Moondancer said, pushing the thought of Twilight’s wing curled around her body to the back of her mind. “Yeah, that was a bit of a shock at first, but despite everything she’s still the same old Twilight. She loves to learn, she loves to share what she’s learned. Only difference is the fancy title and slightly more outgoing attitude.” Moondancer took a quick swig of her coffee, her expression turning sour as she discovered that it had cooled while she was asleep. “Oh, and I guess she’ a little more friendly now, too. Cares a bit more about ponies than she used to.” “I’ll say,” Bon Bon added, nodding in acknowledgement. “I remember all the stories Lyra used to tell me about her from when they were fillies in Canterlot. Apparently she was so caught up in her reading that she once completely failed to notice a stallion who was trying to ask her to prom.” “I remember that!” Moondancer said, grimacing a little in embarrassment for her friend. “I was sitting next to her, reading, when this colt comes over. He’s this pegasus, and looks like the athletic type, y’know? The kind of stallion you’d never expect to go for Twilight. “Anyway,” Moondancer continued, smiling fondly at the memory, “next thing I know, the poor kid is trying to start up a conversation with her, and she just keeps nodding and humming in response. She probably never even heard a word he said, poor kid, and he went away thinking that she’d agreed to go with him!” At that, both mares almost doubled over with laughter, letting the spasming breaths just for a moment control their whole bodies, rocking them back and forth. The noise filled the air, and Moondancer was surprised to find a small patch of dampness on her cheek, just below her eyes. Am I… crying? “Yeah, that sounds like Twilight alright,” Bon Bon said, grinning, “Even now she’s pretty oblivious to romance. Have you met Rainbow Dash?” Moondancer shook her head. “No, but Twilight’s invited me to a reading session with the two of them tomorrow night. Why?” Bon Bon simply stared at her, almost as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing, her eyes wide and had mouth slowly slipping open. “Y-you’re kidding, right?” Bon Bon asked. “Twilight invited you to one of her reading nights with Rainbow? Dear Celestia, that mare is completely impossible.” “Why?” Moondancer frowned. She was looking forward to reading with Twilight, and that had nothing to do with the images that flooded her mind of the two of them snuggling up close, a book held by each of their muzzles… No. Nothing to do with that at all. Bon Bon took a deep breath in, and bit her lip. For a moment, she frowned, as if not quite sure where to start. “Everypony in town knows that Rainbow Dash has a huge crush on Twilight,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth quickly and almost pooling the the air around Moondancer, it seemed: she had to spend a moment trying to gather her thoughts to respond to them. But before she could properly think, Bon Bon was already saying more, the words overflowing like a sink with the tap left on for too long. “She’s tried to hide it, of course. She thinks it isn’t ‘awesome’ to like somepony that way, but everypony in town thinks it’s really sweet how she always crashes into the library after her afternoon practices and stays and helps Twilight tidy up, even though it’s clear that she’s doing it on purpose. And I heard Cheerilee say that Lotus ahd told her that Rarity had mentioned that Rainbow Dash secretly thinks of those evenigns reading as dates, even though she knows Twilight is completely oblivious, and I don’t know how kindly she’ll take to you coming along to join them for one of those.” The words tumbled on and on, and Moondancer struggled to keep up. What was most impressive was that Bon Bon had managed the entire spiel without once stopping for breath, and the moment she had reached her conclusion the mare was gasping for air, gulping it down like a fish returned to the water, or an adventurer returning home from a desert, and finding herself in the town bar… “Let me get this straight,” Moondancer said. “Rainbow Dash has a crush on Twilight. Everypony other than Twilight knows. Rainbow pretends that she’s going on dates with Twilight when the two of them meet to read every week. And I’ve just been invited along to join them?” Bon Bon nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” she said, her eyes drifitng over towards the window. “Hold on,” she added, “let me just grab the door.” Not a second later, the thud of a knock resounded through the house, and Bon Bon stood with a smirk. She trotted lightly out into the hallway, and Moondancer could hear the door creak open, and Bon Bon greeting her marefriend home. Soon enough, the two mares had joined her in the front room—Moondancer had insisted that she take the cushion, and that her hosts be allowed to share the sofa, but it had taken until she purposefully rose and strode over to the cushion, setting herself dow on it with a deliberate flump, that the two mares agreed to it. “So, how was your day?” Lyra asked, smiling. Moondancer raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips as if to say not bad. “Oh, you know. The usual. Ran into Twilight…” She watched as Lyra’s eyes went wide and the colour drained from her face. “Oh my gosh, Moondancer, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I completely forgot about what happened…” “No!” Moondancer said, cheerfully but rather more forcefully than she had hoped. “I mean, no”, she added, more softly, “I don’t mind. It was nice to catch up, once I’d gotten over the initial shock of seeing her again.” Lyra chuckled. “It was quite strange to see her here in Ponyville, I’ll give her that. Are you sure you’re okay, though? I know she wasn’t the kindest to you…” “It was a mistake,” Moondancer said, bluntly. “That was all. She’s apologised. I think I’ve forgiven her. That’s all that matters. “Besides,” she added, slyly, “she’s invited me on one of her romantic dates with Rainbow Dash, so things can’t be going all that badly.” Lyra’s expression mirrored Bon Bon’s from mere minutes before. “I don’t believe it,” Lyra said. “That mare… she’s completely impossible. How in the hay did she manage to make ‘Princess of Friendship’ when she can’t even notice her friend trying to ask her out?” “I’m more worried about her sister-in-law,” Bon Bon said. “How is she managing to be Princess of Love if she can’t even help her own family see the bleeding obvious?” “I’m sure Cadence is doing her best,” Moondancer piped up. “Besides, she’s the ruler of a sovereign kingdom. I can hardly imagine she has time to keep an eye on the love lives of her extended family.” “Have you met Cadence?” Lyra asked. “The mare’s so close to Twilight that Twi literally walks on air for a week before she comes to visit, and plans everything down to even more detail than she usually would just to make sure, and I quote, ‘that Princess Cadence is treated to the best hospitality Ponyville can afford.’” Snorting, Lyra added, “I’m genuinely surprised she didn’t ask Cadence to marry her before Shining did.” It wasn’t long before the conversation fell comfortably back into discussions of their days. Soon enough, Lyra and Bon Bon were sharing little bits and pieces of gossip from their work, and Moondancer found herself laughing along with their stories. It was a pleasant feeling, and it was certainly a relaxed atmosphere, but a part of Moondancer already missed the feeling of being a part of the discussion. She might have been uncomfortable—Celestia knew she would rather be a spectator than a participant in any sort of discussion—but still the thought plagues her mind. Why would I want to be a part of this discussion? What could I add? And then, without warning, Bon Bon yawned, her jaw stretching wide and her forelegs streched out before her. Lyra smiled slyly at her marefriend. “Tired?” she asked, to which Bon Bon merely nodded. Lyra glanced at the clock, her eyes widening as she saw how late it had gotten. “We should probably head to bed. I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.” “Oh,” Moondancer said, a little hint of sadness dripping into her tone. “Okay. Well, uhm. Goodnight?” “Sleep well, Moondancer,” Bon Bon said, stretching her back before stepping off of the sofa. “I’ll see you in the morning. And if you want some help getting ready for your date…” Moondancer couldn’t help but blush, and she cringed at the feeling of warmth rushing to her cheeks. Bon Bon and Lyra both laughed, not unkindly, and with brisk nods made their way out into the hallway, and up the stairs. After a few moments of sitting in thought, Moondancer followed suit, and within just a few short minutes of her head touching the pillow, she was asleep. Reading NightThe snow was starting to melt, which was, all things considered, for the best. It wasn’t the last snow of winter—no, it was far too early for the ponies of Ponyville to begin their annual wrap-up—but it would at least be a good few days until Moondancer had to deal with the wretched, damp stuff again. She was glad to see it gone, but more glad that she could actually see where she was going this morning, and it wasn’t long before she found her way to the library. Today, Moondancer decided, she was not going to be distracted—she had research to do, after all, and unless those adorable filies showed up again for another session of Twilight Time, nothing was going to keep her from Oh sweet mother of the Sisters, she’s gorgeous. Moondancer blinked, twice, her hoof still leaning against the half-open door as her eyes fell on Twilight, sitting at a desk, her quill held aloft in lavender aura as she bit her lip in thought. For a moment, she found herself unable to move, but as soon as she could Moondancer stepped forwards into the library and pushed the door closed behind her, shutting it with the gentles of thuds. Twilight looked up and smiled, dropping her quill to the desk. “Good morning, Moondancer,” she said, standing up and stretching before trotting across the room to greet her old friend. Moondancer opened her mouth to say something in response, but was struggling to find any words at all. Twilight’s mane was a mess—she had clearly woken up not that long ago, and tiredness still lined her features. Haris splayed all over her brow, the usually meticulous stipe of pink now twisted in amongst the darker purple. And something about the way her mane fell about her face… today it wasn’t quite straight, but seemed more rounded, and Moondancer couldn’t quite put her finger on why any of this made her old friend beautiful but to be perfectly honest she couldn’t really care less. Twilight Sparkle was beautiful, and Moondancer was staring. She knew she wasn’t meant to, that it was impolite and rude and wrong, but Moondancer found her eyes drawn to Twilight and stuck there without any thought of her own directing them. She had no choice—she bjust stared, and hoped that Twilight would move and stop being so impossibly gorgeous before she made a total fool of herself. “You alright?” Twilight asked, chuckling nervously to herself. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” “More like an angel” is the cheesiest thing you could possibly say, Moondancer, and if you dare try to speak those words out loud I swear to Celestia I will never let you live this down. “Y-yeah,” she said, forcing herself to blink, holding her eyes closed just long enough that she could turn her head away. “I’m good. Just got distracted, that’s all.” “Okay…” Twilight said, her suspicion clear in her voice. She shook her head, and smiled once more. “I was hoping you’d come in today. I had some research I needed a helping hoof with, and I couldn't think of anypony else who would be able to help me out.” “Flattered” was a word that could adequately describe Moondancer’s feelings, if it weren’t for the butterflies in her stomach that were making her feel too self-conscious, as if she needed to curl up in a ball and just let the world completely ignore her in order to feel safe and comfortable again. But she was still flattered, that much she was sure of. “What are you researching?” she asked, trying to avoid eye contact with the princess. Twilight smiled, and with a flick of her tail, turned around, walking towards the stairs in the far corner of the tree. “Come take a look yourself,” she said, beckoning with a nod of her head for Moondancer to follow. Moondancer swallowed, and took a few brave steps forward, before the sway of Twilight’s hips dragged her down the stairs like a snake charmed by a flautist. The stairs twisted and turned, and soon opened out into a basement—a wide expanse of what looked like storage space that had been reconfigured into a DIY lab. Twilight had laid out some desks and various machnies buzzed and bleeped around her. Moondancer stepped forwards, trying to get a closer look at some of the outputs and readings. “You’re studying leylines?” she asked, incredulous. “But you’re one of the leading experts on leyline theory! What more could you learn from a setup as small as this?” Twilight smiled, a devilish grin that Moondancer almost recoiled from, before she recognised in the shine of her friend’s eyes the enthusiasm with which she was approaching this task. There was no doubt that Twilight Sparkle was planning something big. “What if I were to tell you that leylines were changing?” Moondancer frowned. Then she blinked. Then she nodded. Then: “Wait, what?!” Twilight smiled, clearly enjoying herself a little too much. “That’s what I thought at first. But I’m convinced—the leylines of Equestria aren’t static, but they’re moving. And what is more, their strength is changing constantly, fluctuating and flittering around a median value.” “It’s just natural interference…” “But it’s not,” Twilight interrupted, ripping off some graph paper from a readout and hovering it over to Moondancer for closer inspection. “It’s not interference—there’s a clear pattern in that data. All the leylines have different patterns, each one fluctuating in different ways, but all around the same average. Remind you of anything?” Moondancer was stunned. She checked the graph again, and, just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, walked over to the machine Twilight had taken the readout from and read off the next strip of graph paper herself. There was a pattern. There had always been a pattern. “This is a spell matrix,” Moondancer said, not quite believeing the words that were the only logical conclusion to what she was seeing. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. And yet… there it was. “They’re not natural sources of energy—something is channeling energy through them.” “Bingo.” Twilight dropped down into a chair, and started to mess with a few dials on one of the devices, not one that Moondancer recognised. And if the impression of Twilight’s cutie mark on the side of the tower were anything to go by, it was quite possible that this machine was custom-built for this experiment… Being a Princess must have had serious perks when it came to getting research grants, Moondancer realised. You could quite literally design and order your own equipment, probably without even needing to worry about the cost. But then, Twilight Sparkle had never needed to think about budgets for her work—Princess Celestia had always seen to that, ever since she was a student. It would have made Moondancer jealous, if she hadn’t been able to ask Twilight to order equipment for her when they were studying together. “So,” Moondancer said, not quite sure where to begin. “What do you need me for?” “I need somepony to help me figure out what this spell is doing,” Twilight said. “You were always pretty good at that, weren’t you?” Moondancer raised a hoof to her head, and rubbed at her scalp. She took a long, deep breath in, and let it out slowly and carefully. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I guess I can do my best. But I’ll need data from more than just the one leyline. It’s impossible to tell what this spell might be without all the parts of it…” “I’m trying to gather the data,” Twilight replied, “from research stations around the world. But there’s not much I can do about the San Palomino line: nopony has dared try to set any sort of monitoring equipment up on it in years, and I don’t blame them.” “But that’s the more powerful line, isn’t it?” Moondancer asked. “Surely, if anything, that’s the one that should tell us about the spell…” “Damn it all to Tartarus!” Twilight’s voice echoed through the basement, a dulled and muted thud reverberating after it. It was the sound of a mare driven to frustration by a problem that simply refused to be solved, and the sound of a clipboard thrown flat against a soft, wood wall, in that order. “I’m sorry, Twilight,” Moondancer said, wiping at her eyes and trying to stifle a yawn deep in her throat. “I’ve tried everything I can think of, but it’s just not coming out right. Without the San Palomino line, there’s nothing we can do.” “I know,” Twilight said, quietly. “I know. I just thought…” “Yeah,” Moondancer said. “I did, too. I really thought that between the two of us we might be able to find something.” “It’s no use,” Twilight said. “Maybe we’re just seeing patterns where no patterns exist? Ponies do that far too often. “Look, I think we should call it a night.” Twilight glanced across the room at the clock that hung on the wall, its large hands mocking them for their lack of progress in such a long time. “Rainbow will be here soon, anyway. You still want to join us tonight?” Moondancer bit her lip, and thought: If I say yes, then I could very well be upsetting Rainbow Dash, and I’d hardly want to make that sort of first impressions. But if I say no, Twilight will probably be disappointed in me, and I don’t want to let her down. Oh, what do I do? “Are… are you sure you don’t mind?” she asked, settling on the compromise—or rather, the coward’s way out—of simply asking Twilight to make the decision for her. “I’d have thought that you’d have enjoyed some time alone with your friend.” “Yes,” Twilight said, simply, “but it’s not every week that an old friend comes to call in Ponyville. I haven’t seen you in two years, Moondancer—it’d be nice to make the most out of the time that you’re here. If that means waiting another week until I get to just spend time with Rainbow Dash, then I’m happy to do that.” Moondancer wasn’t sure if she was meant to be happy that Twilight was willing to let her new friends take second priority to her, but it made her chest feel warm and she felt as if she were being hugged. She resisted the sudden urge to wrap her own forehooves around her barrel and squeeze, instead settling comfortably in the position of having her elbows pushed up against her ribs, a light pressure on her sides. “Okay,” she said, simply and quietly, nodding her head in a soft, bobbing motion. “I’ll join you. Sounds like fun.” Twilight beamed, and all but pranced across the room to wrap her own forelegs around Moondancer’s neck—and she melted into the hug, and allowed the princess to completely surround her, until she was lost in a sea of lavender embrace and the entire world was Twili The thud of a knock at the door. With a slight cough, Twilight disentangled herself from Moondancer and, with an apologetic grimace, ran up the stairs to greet her guest. Moondancer sat still for a moment, stunned. Her heart was beating at a thousand beats per minute, each contraction a shudder that sent a light flutter through her chest. If she looked down, now, she could just see it—there, in the middle of her ribcage, right under her sternum, the gentle twitching of her skin in butterfly-wingbeats to the rhythm of her heart. She took a deep breath in, and focused on the flow of air through her throat, the sensation of the cool gas flowing almost like water into her lungs, filling them up, She didn’t think about the lingering tingle of Twilight’s touch, of the ghost of pressure that still pressed against her shoulders. And, slowly, her heartbeat calmed, and the twitching of her chest became lost amid the slow rise and fall of her breaths. When at last her heart had calmed down, and every inch of her body has stopped tingling with the lost sensation of Twilight’s embrace, Moondancer rose and wandered slowly over to the stairs. Above her, she could hear voices playfully arguing: Twilight’s voice was relaxed and comfortable, and the mare she was speaking to sounded almost… proud? There wasn’t really a better word for it, Moondancer was sure. She took a step upwards, and the conversation grew that little bit louder. Slowly, as she climbed the steps, the muffled voices became more and more distinct, and the words she was hearing became more and more clear until at last they were no longer just a murmur of noise but actual, clear phrases and sounds that she could understand. And, soon enough… “Twilight, this is our time. Together.” “I know, Rainbow, but it’s been years since I’ve seen her and I thought it would be nice…” “Nice? I haven’t even met the mare, and you’re asking her to come and read with us? Do you know what that feels like, Twi?” “No, Rainbow, I don’t. All I know is that I thought you’d understand me wanting to see an old friend for the few days she was in town.” “I… I just… I thought this was something I could share with you, Twi. Just you.” Moondancer froze at the top of the stairs, just around the corner from the main room of the library. She felt her breaths become shallow, and tried to make everything she did as quiet as possible—she didn’t want to intrude. “Twi, I… I need to ask you something.” “Okay. Go ahead.” She could hear the mares breathing, the breaths deep and ragged and Moondancer wasn’t entirely sure that either of them were fully comfortable with their situation. But of course, she couldn’t do anything. Rainbow Dash was in this on her own. “Uhh… gee, Twi, I have no idea what I’m doing. Okay. I can do this. I- I can do this.” HEr breaths were too shallow—Moondancer was starting to feel light headed, and the world was starting to swim a little before her eyes. She forced out a breath in the quietest sigh she could, emptying her lungs until they ached for air, and then slowly, ever so slowly, breathed in until they were full. The world stopped swimming; her head was once again grasped by gravity. “I think you’re really pretty and awesome and I wanted to know if you would go out with me?” There was a moment of quiet. Not silence: silence would be the complete absence of sound, but if she stopped to listen Moondancer could hear sounds all around her. The machines downstairs, still turned on, were beeping and buzzing. There was a bird in the branches of the tree—an owl—calling out with a loud, whistling call. In the kitchen, she could hear the twisting and falling of the water in a dishwasher, cascading through the machine over and over again. But what was most important was the sound of the deep, ragged breaths of Rainbow Dash, the gasping for air that she had lost in her effort to ask her question as quickly and painlessly as possible. No, that wasn't the most important thing. The most important thing was the sound that she could not hear: Twilight’s breaths. For a moment, Moondancer began to worry that her friend had fainted from shock, until she heard the quietest voice speak up: “How long?” “Long enough.” And there were Twilight’s breaths again, moving in rhythm with Rainbow’s—both shaky, both light and erratic, both nervous. After another moment of not-silence, Rainbow Dash spoke up. “I, uh… I can go. I-if you’d rather I left. I’d understand.” Twilight didn’t say a word, but a few moments later Moondancer heard the heavy thud of hooves on wooden floor, the slam of a door opening and closing again in quick succession, and what she was certain was a sob. It wasn’t until after that that Moondancer felt she could look around the corner, and when she did she saw Twilight Sparkle sat inthe middle of the floor, curled up on her hind legs, staring at the front door of the library in shock and horror. Her body was deflated, almost as if she was slumping down to the ground in a sign of defeat, and she was beginning to tear up in the very corners of her eyes. Moondancer couldn’t help it—she all but ran across the room, and wrapped her forelegs around Twilight, pulling her into a tight embrace. The princess turned towards her, reaching up, wrapping her own legs around Moondancer in return and dropping her head into the crook of Moondancer’s shoulder; and she could feel the light dampness forming against her fur, and she simply held Twilight as she cried. It was some time before Twilight was ready to sit herself up, but when she did so, she did so with a remarkable dignity. Moondancer had never quite been convinced that Twilight was acting particularly like a princess —she lived in a library, not a palace, and treated her spare time as an excuse to perform crazy experiments on ancient foundations of Equestrian magic, but when Twilight Sparkle needed to be dignified, the by the sisters could she manage it. Twilight wiped at her eyes, drying the tears and swallowing before she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said. That was all. “You don’t have to be,” Moondancer replied. “You have nothing to apologise for.” “I just sent one of my best friends away,” Twilight said, her voice flat. “I think I have a lot to apologise for.” For a moment, the two mares just sat in silence, neither of them even breathing. The atmosphere was tense—too tense, and Moondancer wasn’t wholly sure she felt comfortable, or safe. “I’m sorry, Moondancer, I can’t do this,” Twilight said, rising and turning to the stairs. “I’ll see you around, but right now… I need to be alone.” And in that instant, all the thoughts of Twilight snuggled up with her, reading—all the guilty little thoughts that she might have Twilight to herself tonight now that Rainbow Dash was out of the picture—dried up and vanished, and Moondancer’s priorities shifted. In that instant, she knew, her duty was to her princess… no, to her friend. She needed to make sure that Twilight was well, and that she was happy and safe. And so she did the only thing she could: “Are you sure?” she asked, her voice almost cracking. “I-is there anything I can get you?” Twilight snorted. “Unless you can get Rainbow Dash back here, I don’t think so. And I doubt even you could catch that mare when she didn’t want to be caught.” She shook her head, walking up the stairs to her room. “I’m sorry, Moondancer. I really am. Another time, maybe?” And with that, Twilight vanished around the twist in the stair, and her calm hoofsteps became a fast-paced flurry of hooves on stairs, running, clambering up to her bedroom. And Moondancer simply sat in the middle of the floor, curled up on her haunches, and stared at the stairway that her friend had disappeared into. “Okay.” Sugarcube Corner, pt. 1“Hey.” The greeting wasn’t harsh or angry, but Moondance still cringed at the sound of Lyra’s voice. After a moment, she collected herself, and looked up at her old friend, smiling in greeting herself. “You seem down today, Moony,” Lyra said, taking a seat opposite her. “I wouldn’t advise you did that here.” Moondancer frowned. “Why would my location have anything to do with whether or not I should seem down? It seems like that kind of thing would hardly be influenced by whether I was moping in your house, or moping in some baked-goods cafe.” Lyra chuckled, and nodded her head towards the counter. A mare that Moondancer could only describe as “pink” was standing on her hind legs behind it, calling out orders to the patrons and serving out food faster than she thought possible, with a wide grin and a wink. “You haven’t met Pinkie, have you?” Of course her name is Pinkie. What else could one possibly call her?” “No,” Moondancer said. “Is this important?” “That depends. How keen are you to be going to your own, last-minute welcome party toni—” “Gooood Moooooooooorniiiiiiiiiiiing!” The shrill voice was not something that Moondancer had been prepared for, not before she’d had her second coffee of the morning. She desperately wanted to clasp her hooves over her ears and just wait for the mare to go away, but she figured this would probably be poor manners in a cafe like this. So, instead, she turned to face the excitable pink mare, who was standing with her face hardly half a foot away from her own. “Uh,” she began, somewhat startled by the sudden proximity. “Good morning?” “Yes, it is a good morning, because you’re new in town! I’ve never seen you before, and if I’ve never seen you before that means you’re a new pony I’ve yet to make friends with, and that means that I get to throw you your very own “Welcome to Ponyville” party. I’m Pinkie Pie, by the way, and I’m Ponyville’s Permiere Party Pony—see? I have business cards. Go on, you can take a couple dozen, they’re really cool. I managed to get them made with a hologram, so you can see the balloons from aaaaall these different angles which is so cool I just want to scream! But I won’t because I’m right next to you and that would probably hurt. Anyway, what’s your name? Do you have any business cards? I’ve started collecting business cards, they make for a really good game…” “Pinkie Pie, this is Moondancer,” Lyra said, interrupting the torrent of words that seemed to be flowing out of Pinkie’s mouth like some kind of enchanted fountain with no need for a source (or, for that matter, breath. The mare hadn’t seemed to take one since before she started talking.) “Moondancer, this is Pinkie Pie. She’ll be throwing you a party tonight. You don’t get a choice in that.” Moondancer stared, wide-eyed at Lyra, who whispered “Sorry” under her breath while Pinkie Pie was distracted. Moondancer grimaced back, before mouthing “Don’t worry” back at her. “I don’t know where I’m going to hold it, though…” Pinkie said, grasping her chin with a hoof. “Sugarcube Corner is a no-go, it’s all booked out for the next week of evenings. And I’d usually try to use the town hall, but that’s still all damaged and destroyed from the last Big Bad Evil Thing that we totally managed to defeat with the power of Friendship Lasers. Or, I guess, we managed to defeat it by giving up our friendship lasers, which was a shame. I always thought that the best parts were when we could just zap anything that threatened Equestria with big, magical boomy friendship powers, and BAM! Big Bad Evil Thing no longer a problem! Life was so much easier back then…” Moondancer frowned as Pinkie Pie sighed, her eyes glazing over as she seemed to drift off into memory. But before she could turn to Lyra and ask what in tartarus was going on, Pinkie took a deep breath in and plastered a grin straight back onto her face. “OH! I know, we can ask Twilight if we could use the library! That’s where I threw her Welcome to Ponyville party, and it went down a treat. And it would be really narratively satisfying, because in a lot of ways you’re meant to be a foil to Twilight demonstrating how she could have turned out if she didn’t discover the awesome power of friendship lasers, and how this entire story is really meant to be a parallel of her journey to self-acceptance through your character. Well, it was meant to be that, but Quill decided to try to write the whole thing in just 24 hours, which is just the silliest idea I mean who does that?” And suddenly, Moondancer was less sure that she was wholly comfortable with this idea. But she stayed quiet, because she had gotten the overall impression that Pinkie Pie might actually be an unstoppable force of nature. But the position of “Literal Embodiment of the Force of Chaos” was already taken, and Moondancer wasn’t quite sure what that left Pinkie with. Maybe she was just some kind of magical construct created by Discord to dow madness wherever she went? Given his latest behaviour, Moondancer wouldn’t be at all surprised by that. There was, of course, the worrying feeling in the pit of Moondancer’s stomach that she was going to have to go to this party, regardless of the fact that she didn’t want parties and she most certainly didn’t want to make friends. Having to still be friendly with Lyra and Bon Bon was enough trouble for her—and without access to the library to keep her distracted through the day, especially with the lack of research that she could possibly do (Lyra and Bon Bon rather stubbornly had only the one book in their house, and Moondancer wasn’t entirely certain that she wanted to study the relative literary merit of Fifty Shades of Neigh.) She was bored. For the first time in her life, Moondancer had no research to distract herself with, no books she could be reading, no problems she could solve and no knowledge she could seek. Was this why other ponies made friends? To while away the hours when one had no way to learn new things? That couldn’t be right: other ponies seemed to avoid learning where they could, from what she had seen. Lyra and Bon Bon’s literary situation was merely further evidence of that. “I’m not sure Twilight is going to be happy to host a party, Pinkie Pie.” Lyra to the rescue—always knowing exactly what words to say, even to somepony as intimidating as Pinkie. “She’s been a bit down since yesterday evening.” “Oh no,” Pinkie said, and all of a sudden her voice became grave and serious, dark as the night and deep as… who was that stallion she had met at the station on the way in? The tall, red guy. Pointed her towards the town hall, didn’t say much. About as deep as his voice. “Dashie didn’t tell her about her crush, did she?” Lyra glanced around the cafe, as if to make sure that nopony was listening in, before nodding softly. Pinkie’s eyes widened, and some of the bounce in her mane seemed to fade, as if she herself was physically reflecting the emotions of the world around her. But that made no sense: Twilight had been down since last night, why should Pinkie’s mane only react now? It couldn’t be Pinkie Pie who was sad, Moondancer reasoned. The very idea of Pinkie Pie even being remotely sad seemed almost alien to her, and though she had known the mare for only a few minutes she had already gotten the impression that she would go to the moon and back if it would stop somepony being sad. “Okay, Moondancer—we’re delaying your party by a few days. This is important.” Pinkie’s eyes were narrowed in steely determination, and she nodded to Lyra. “Operation: Cheer Up Dashie and Twilight and Save Their Friendship is go!” And with that, the pink menace simply ducked under the table, and vanished. For a moment, Moondancer sat in shock, before peering under the table to look for any trace of the fluffy pink mane and tail, that should by all rights be poking out of the table somewhere, but Pinkie Pie was literally nowhere to be seen. It was more than just impossible: it was unthinkable. “Where did she—?” “That’s just Pinkie Pie,” Lyra said with a shrug, leaning back in her chair. “She does that.” “She does that,” Moondancer repeated, not quite believing what she was hearing. “She does that. How is that a valid explanation for anything?” “Do you always need an explanation for everything you see?” Lyra countered. “Sure, explanations can be nice, but some things just don’t make sense, and almost all of them have something to do with Pinkie Pie. I suggest you just let her be who she is and don’t press it.” Her brow furrowed, and she let out a light chuckle. “What is it?” Moondancer asked. “What’s so funny?” “She was right,” Lyra said. “You really are just like Twilight when she first came here. She spent so long trying to figure out what made Pinkie Pie work, and it almost killed her—she was in a cast for a week, almost her whole body. Poor dear… but it’s true what they say: Pinkie Pie is Pinkie Pie, and you can’t do anything about it.” Moondancer wanted to refute that, to say that surely everything could be explained if the right models and the right underlying equations could be found, and that with enough time and effort, and a strong team of diligent, dedicated researchers, the mystery of Pinkie Pie could be cracked in weeks, or maybe months. But she stopped herself, because she was sure that this was exactly what Twilight had thought, too, and that if Twilight had thought it Twilight had probably tried it. And if Twilight had gone on to accept that “Pinkie Pie just being Pinkie Pie” was a valid explanation for something, then it was probably right (as much as she hated to admit it.) Lyra leaned forwards, taking a quick chug of her milkshake before letting out a loud sigh of contentment. “You know, Moondancer? This is all I want from life. A nice, tall glass of something cold and sweet, and a marefriend back home who knows how to work a dishwasher.” “You still haven’t figured that one out?” Moondancer raised her eyebrows, surprised. It had been years since the last time she’d seen Lyra try to use a dishwasher, but the memory was still clear as day—dark, soap-sudded water overflowing and oozing out of all kinds of nooks and crannies in the machine, the wooden floor damaged beyond repair. Lemon Hearts had stood on a kitchen counter, crying out for help while Lyra and Minuette had taken the initiative to try to bail the water out of an open window. Twinkleshine, the only one of the four with any common sense, had simply pulled the power cord on the machine, and let the whole thing simply turn itself off. “Hey, give me a break,” Lyra said, smiling wryly. “That day gave me a morbid fear of technology and kitchens. Some mornings I struggle to turn on the kettle without worrying that it’s going to overflow and burn me.” Lyra winked at her as she said it, and Moondancer chuckled appropriately. “So what do you do when you don’t have the cold drink?” she asked, smirking. “Does your life suddenly feel less complete?” “Nah,” Lyra replied. “I just come straight to Sugarcube Corner and get myself a milkshake. It’s a good life like that.” The two mares looked at each other for a second, letting the image of Lyra just running at full gallop to Sugarcube Corner in the middle of her work day because she was all out of milkshake sink in. And then, in perfect synchronisation, they bust out laughing; Moondancer snorted on her own milkshake, and the resulting mess sent the two into another fit of giggles. Maybe this was the reason ponies had friends? Somepony to make you laugh, to share good times with. She certainly wouldn’t have been able to enjoy this conversation had she and Lyra not been friends, of a sort, and she wouldn’t have had the shared memory of the Dishwasher Disaster to laugh at, either. Was that all friendship was? Just an opportunity to share in the good times with somepony else, and in doing so make those good times better? It was more than that, Moondancer knew, but she certainly felt as if she was on the right track. “So,” Lyra said, the ghost of a laugh still hiding in the shallowness of her breaths, and the corners of her lips. “I was wondering… You know how you said you didn’t think anypony would want to be with you? Like a special somepony, I mean.” Moondancer nodded. Brief images of Twilight’s embrace flashed through her mind, and it took all her self control not to hold herself tightly in a cheap imitation. “I’m not going to try to tell you that somepony would, because you know my stance on this and I don’t think I’ll be able to change your mind if I tried. But—” Lyra frowned and leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper “—have you ever had anypony you’ve wanted to be with?” Moondancer blushed, lightly, but still shot Lyra her best unimpressed face. “Lyra, we’re not children anymore. You don’t have to treat crushes like they’re some kind of all-important, secret conspiracy. They’re just passing infatuations, nothing more.” “But if you can’t treat crushes like some kind of top-secret information, what can you treat like that?” Lyra scoffed. “It’s not like anypony we know has anything that actually needs to be kept under that level of secrecy. That’s half the fun of pretending!” Moondancer nodded, and decided to embrace the childish silliness of her friend. What harm could it do? If anything, she could have a bit of fun with it. She leaned forward and whispered back: “Yes!” Part of her wanted to giggle at that, taking the moment to relish in their childish attitude and her own breach of decorum, but another part of her mind told Moondancer that this wasn’t the right time for giggling. This was actually, in some ways, rather serious—Twilight had just damaged one of her own friendships because of a crush, and that was one of the strongest friendships in all of Equestria, one that had saved the nation time and time again. No, the very idea of risking her own friendship with Twilight overt something as silly as a passing crush was nothing more than whimsical stupidity, and she wasn’t going to even consider it. Lyra, though, grinned wide, wider even than Pinkie Pie, and quickly shot glances to their left and right. “Who?” she whispered. “I don’t want to say,” Moondancer said. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt her.” Lyra frowned, just as Moondancer realised she’d probably said too much. Though given her life of isolation, and the very few number of ponies she interacted with, saying anything at all would probably give the game away—it couldn’t be too hard to deduce that she was crushing on Twilight, not when she hardly saw anypony else these days. She watched, biting her lip, as the penny dropped for Lyra. “Oh,” she said, simply, before adding, “Sorry.” “It’s okay,” Moondancer said, letting her voice drift back to normal volume. “It’s not like it’s your fault at all. I just have to live with it, that’s all.” “At this point I’d usually say, ‘Why not just ask her?’” Lyra chuckled awkwardly beneath her breath. “But I think you’ve got a pretty good reason not to, so I’ll leave you be on that one.” “Thanks.” Moondancer smiled at Lyra, taking another sip of milkshake. “I appreciate it.” “Still,” Lray said, stretching back and rolling her shoulders, “I’m glad you have somepony you like. Even if, y’know, she’s probably the one pony in Equestria right now who you couldn’t make a move on. It shows you’ve not given up hope.” “I don’t think so,” Moondancer said, quietly. “I think it just means that I’m yet another foolish pony who is ruled by the chemistry that controls her brain, but that’s just me.” Lyra smiled, and shook her head. “No, I think it’s more than that. I think you genuinely think that there’s a chance Twilight might like you the way you like her—and I think you’ve been thinking about this for a lot longer than this last week.” Don’t be silly. Just because I think she’s pretty, and because I want to curl up with her and read books all evening, doesn’t mean that I have always thought that way about her! When we were fillies— You always wanted to impress her. And you wanted to be her friend, even though you didn’t really understand what “being a friend” meant or how to go about it. And you were the one to pay attention to that stallion asking her to prom, because you were afraid that she might say yes… Oh, Celestia-dammit. “I… How has it taken me so long to realise?” Lyra frowned at her, inclining her head in a gesture for her to continue, so she did. “All my life I’ve felt this way about her: even when we were just fillies all I wanted was to impress her and for her to notice me and to say ‘Well done, Moondancer’, or ‘Thanks, Moondancer, you did a great job there.’ And I wanted to be her friend, I knew that, always, but I never even knew what being a friend was. “And she’s beautiful, Lyra! She’s smart and funny, and kind and caring, and she’s absolutely, a hundred percent gorgeous. She’s the most talented mare I’ve ever met and I’ve spent my whole life just wanting to have her by my side and it’s taken my till now to realise it!” Lyra was just smiling up at her, looking almost proud, as if she had been waiting for this moment for years. And, to her credit, she probably had been. “How obvious was I?” Moondancer asked, quietly. “Be honest: how long have you known?” “Moondancer, you were so obvious that I don’t think I’ve ever not known,” Lyra said, smiling softly at her friend. “Even when we were fillies, and none of us really knew anything about what relationships and love were all about, I remember coming home from the first week of school and telling Mom about the two friends I’d made, and how they were going to be married when they grew up.” Moondancer sat in her seat, simply blinking at Lyra. All this time… years of her life, never quite being able to realise what it truly was that made her act the way she did. “So… when Twilight didn’t show up to the party…?” “Did you not even realise then?” Lyra’s eyes were wide, and she seemed to be doing her best not to smirk. “Wow, Moondancer, I knew you were pretty naïve about it all, but I’d assumed that that, at least, would have clued you in. You were distraught because one friend couldn’t make your party—but the rest of us still came! Did you really think she was just another friend like the rest of us?” “Well, no,” Moondancer said. “I’d always seen her as a best friend, you know? While the four of you would go off gallivanting on your strange little Dishwasher-filled adventures, I would always find myself just curled up on the sidelines, sitting next to Twilight and reading a book. It was nice. I liked it. “And then, one day, she wasn’t there anymore. And it wasn’t just the party—no, well before that. She’d started to shut herself away in her room, or in libraries, and I’d never get to see her, Lyra, not once and I just wanted her to be there with me, there and not halfway across the bloody city cooped up in some wing of an ancient library that I couldn’t access and she wasn’t, Lyra, she wasn’t and it wasn’t fair!” Her voice had risen to a shout, now, and Moondancer could see in her peripheral vision all of the customers of the shop just staring at her, some even pausing mid-bite of ice cream to turn towards the commotion. But despite the lack of decorum, Moondancer felt good, like a release valve had finally been turned on a boiler that had been building up pressure for too long, and now everything was simply flooding out. “I loved her, Lyra!” she shouted. “I loved her and I had no idea, and now I’ve finally realised what the hell has been going on in my head for my entire bloody life I can’t do anything about it! “I can’t even tell her,” she added, her voice quieter now, but still too loud. “I’m in love with Princess Twilight Sparkle, and I can’t tell her or I’ll never see her again.” And, of course, that was precisely the moment that Pinkie Pie chose to drag Princess Twilight Sparkle into Sugarcube Corner for a pick-me-up sundae. Sugarcube Corner, pt. 2In the moment that their eyes met, a thousand and one thoughts flew through Moondancer’s head. The first was a thought of beauty, of how utterly perfect those eyes were. They were like gems, shining as they did, deep and dark and beautiful. And then Moondancer thought of gemstones, of how quartz could be found in so many different colours but of all of them her favourite was violet, and how amethyst’s name was derived from the antonym of the Ancient Greek word for “intoxicated”, and how the ponies of those archaic times had always believed that amethyst could prevent a pony from becoming drunk—but merely looking into those violet eyes was enough to make Moondancer feel intoxicated, as if Twilight’s eyes were liquor to her that she gladly lapped up with every sideways glance. Her third thought was that maybe this wasn’t the best time or place for her to be right now, and this got her thinking, briefly, about the interconnected nature of space and time, and of how events that occurred simultaneously in one reference frame could occur entire hours apart in another, so if she moved fast enough, and in the right direction, she could probably manage to make it so that Twilight hadn’t been in Sugarcube Corner at the precise moment that she announced her feelings to the wide world. Time and space were strangely flexible—not that it was strange that they were flexible, for there was no good reason to assume otherwise, but rather that the way in which they flexed was strange. But then, trying to imagine a space folding and stretching and slackening in its own number of dimensions was always a strange prospect to her: it always seemed as if you needed another dimension, just for the space to fold into. And that, Moondancer thought, was why analogies were a waste of time. Rather like the analogy of Twilight’s eyes as liquor. Because, of course, she did feel intoxicated when she looked into them, and she did feel as if she was losing her inhibitions around the princess, but certain key differences rather made the entire analogy moot. She didn’t get a hangover from Twilight the way she would get a hangover after a night out, as she had discovered much to Minuette’s entertainment some years before. And she certainly wasn’t becoming addicted to those eyes, no matter how beautiful they were and no matter how much she wanted to stare into them for all eternity. Those were her thoughts: and they mixed and they twisted, and they grew and they shrank, and soon enough they were all relatively indistinguishable. She was thinking a thousand and one thoughts, but they were all the same, and they were all: She is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. And then, once that thought had settled and had its turn, Twilight coughed, and Moondancer looked away, because she had been staring for a good few minutes now and both of them seemed frozen by embarrassment. Twilight, surprisingly, seemed to take the whole thing rather well. She turned away, and started chatting to Pinkie Pie, and though her expression was calm Moondancer could tell that it was tense with worry and nervous tension. But Twilight was right: the best thing to do, surely, was to forget that this ever happened, and act as if the world was okay and her entire life wasn’t falling apart, because that was the only way to make progress. “Well,” Lyra said, grimacing. “That could have gone better.” Moondancer groaned and buried her head in her forelegs, resting her brow against the table. She considered replying properly, but wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to dignify Lyra’s comment with a response, so she tried groaning again, this time at a different pitch. “It could have gone worse, though,” Lyra added, helpfully. Moondancer felt a particularly unhelpful prod on her head, and looked up to see her friend lightly poking her with a coffee stirrer. She shot her a quick unimpressed look, and dropped her head back down to the table with a thud. This was why friendships were pointless—because it didn’t matter how much you made each other happy, or how well you could comfort each other when things went wrong, eventually everything fell apart and one of you would hurt the other beyond repair. She’d been there—for the longest time, she’d thought that Twilight had hurt her too much to ever be forgiven, and now, just as she was coming to terms with the fact that she had been so very, very wrong, she found herself hurting Twilight even more. And that wasn’t fair. “Can I try that bit again?” she asked, only half joking. Lyra chuckled. “No can do, Moondancer,” she said. And then, “Sorry.” “S’not your fault.” Could she make it better? Was there some way that she could make amends, repair her bond with Twilight and make things right again? Moondancer couldn’t think of an answer—and, right now, she couldn’t think at all. Every time she tried she ended up replaying that moment in her head, that Celestia-forsaken shout and that deep, painful moment that she saw Twilight standing in the doorway, just seconds too late. She couldn’t think. It was like she was trying to read a book, but her mind was too distracted and her thoughts were too jumbled up, and every now and again her eyes would slip back up the the start of the very same line she’d just read. And there she’d sit, re-reading sentence after sentence, because her mind was too distracted and her thoughts were too jumbled up, and every now and again her eyes would slip back up to the start of the very same line she’d just read. She couldn’t think. Every time she tried she ended up replaying that moment in her head, that very same line she’d just read. And there she’d sit, re-reading sentence after sentence, because her mind was just too thoughts and her distracted jumbled up and re-reading book thing jumbled very same trying re-reading re-reading re-reading jumbled She couldn’t think “Moondancer?” And then… she could. “What?” she asked, now too bitter and tired to even try to make her tone polite. She felt bad for it, but right at that moment she wasn’t sure she had the energy to try. “You were breathing… weirdly. It was like panting. Almost like you were frightened.” Lyra bit her lip and looked down. “I didn’t know what to do, so… I called your name a few times. Looks like it worked. “Are you okay?” That was genuine: a sincere and true fear echoed in Lyra’s voice, worry and concern colouring her words. And Moondancer smiled, because she was just relieved to be able to think again. “I’m okay now,” she clarified. “I was just losing track of my thoughts, that’s all. It, uh… it wasn’t pretty.” Lyra sighed in relief. “I’m glad you’re okay now,” she said, pushing her chair back from the desk and stretching as she stood. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.” There was a small part of Moondancer’s mind that was somewhat frightened of the idea of leaving, because it was afraid that if she left the room and left Twilight behind she might never get a chance to see the alicorn again. And if she could never see Twilight again, then there was no chance of her ever repairing their friendship—and that simply wouldn’t do. Whether she liked it or not, her friendship with Twilight was one of the most precious things in her life. It worried her that she had taken quite so long to realise that. But the rest of her knew that this was not a good idea—that by sticking around she might only make things worse for herself, and for Twilight. Perhaps what they really needed was some time apart to cool and reflect on what had happened, and then maybe when they had things would be able to be okay again? But she needed to leave first for that to happen, no matter how afraid of it she was. “Alright.” Moondancer nodded, rising and stretching herself. With a small smile of encouragement from Lyra, she started to walk slowly towards the door, and, just as she was passing, briefly caught Twilight’s eye. In that moment, she knew, she had only the briefest of seconds to do something, anything, to put them on the right path for a reconciliation. But in her panic, all she could manage was to lightly mutter “sorry” under her breath, and to dart her eyes to the floor as she walked shamefully out of Sugarcube Corner. The walk home was quiet and, in the morning cold, Moondancer found it easy to let her thoughts wander. Even though the snow had melted, the air was still bitingly cold, and it nipped at her skin with an insistent, continuous chill. And so she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of thermodynamics, and how cold wasn’t really a thing in and of itself but rather the absence of heat, and though it felt like the cold was entering her body in reality it was the heat that was leaving, and she remembered how when she was a filly Twilight had taught her all about heat engines— And so she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of weather, and of how pegasi had learned to control even the most subtle things, like how they could regulate temperature to within half a degree unless some natural, magical storm had flared up, and how they could now even dissipate most of those storms within an hour of their formation by detecting the subtlest change in wind speeds. And she thought of how the most common place for magical storms to occur was the Everfree Forest on the outskirts of Ponyville, and how she had yet to go to visit it even though she was now staying so close by, and how the path to the Everfree ran past the Golden Oaks Library where Twilight lived— And so she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of the Everfree Forest, and all the unique flora and fauna that grew within it, particularly the infamous Poison Joke, and how it had been influenced by the latent magic of the forest and had evolved at a greatly-accelerated rate. And she thought of how the magic of the forest had originally come from the leyline that ran right through the middle of it, nicknamed the Everfree Line by scholars even though only a small percentage of it passed through the forest, and how that leyline’s magical signature would flutter and alternate in much the same way as a spell matrix, and how Twilight had been so close to finding out what the spell was meant to— And so, at last, she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of Twilight Sparkle, because if every road leads to Rome she might as well just go there directly. Twilight Sparkle was beautiful. Twilight Sparkle was clever. Twilight Sparkle was kind and funny, and charming, and beautiful, and the kind of mare that Moondancer wanted to spend the rest of her life with—no, Twilight was the mare she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She’d known it since she was a filly, and Lyra had known it too. Twilight Sparkle was the one mare in the whole wide world of Equestria whom she never, ever wanted to lose, not again; and yet she had done just that, throwing away their friendship in a blind moment of accidental stupidity and foolishness. Why couldn’t she have just kept her big mouth shut? Why did it have to feel so good to spill your secrets out in the plain sight of the world, so long as the person who could never know them wasn’t there? Why couldn’t she have just looked to see if Twilight was anywhere nearby before she destroyed everything she had ever wanted? She could always go back to her isolation, to the home in Canterlot that was damaged but not wholly unliveable, and retreat into the world of books and academia and libraries once more. She could even forget that any of this trip had ever happened—forget what little she had learned about friendship, and recall that all the companionship she needed in life she could simply get from paper and ink; forget what little she had learned about not blinding ponies with knowledge, and recall that the most valuable trait to have in life was cleverness. But she wouldn’t be right. And if there was one thing that Moondancer hated, it was knowing that she was holding on to knowledge that was out-of-date. She couldn’t just stand by and subscribe to a school of thought that she had learned to be so very, very wrong, even if she found the alternative frightening and, frankly, the kind of thinking that could very well break her. If the choice was between being comfortable but wrong, or being terrified but possibly right, Moondancer knew exactly what she would choose. “Lyra?” she called out, the breeze that was starting to pick up making it harder to make herself heard. Despite that, she saw Lyra turn her head, and acknowledge that she had heard with a single, sharp nod. “Do you think you could teach me about friendship?” Lyra stopped in her tracks, and Moondancer very nearly walked right into her. She turned around, her expression shocked and more than a little impressed. “You’re asking me to teach you about friendship?” she asked, incredulously. “Has the world gone mad?!” “Probably,” Moondancer said with a smile, “but if it has then I sure as hell want go mad with it.” “What does that even mean?!” Lyra almost shouted, partly in frustration but mostly because the wind was growing stronger by the second, and it was becoming harder and harder for them to hear each other of the roar. “Nevermind,” Moondancer said, rolling her eyes. “Come on, let’s get home and out of this wind.” She pushed forward, passing a dumbstruck Lyra whom she could have sworn she heard mutter something that sounded suspiciously like “now you’re making sense.” Moondancer chuckled under her breath, and tilted her head down, walking into the blisteringly cold wind with a steely-eyed determination. This time, she wasn’t going to let herself make the mistake of running away and hiding from her fears. She was going to face this entire thing head-on, and she was going to reclaim her friendship with Twilight. But to do that, Moondancer knew, she had a lot that she needed to learn. Not too long after they had settled on the sofa, and Bon Bon had brought each of them a hot mug of cocoa (Moondancer, in her frozen state, had forgotten to ask in Bon Bon would insist on putting marshmallows in hers, and was disappointed to find that she had), there was a cheery knock on the door, beating out a cheerful rhythm. Frowning at each other, and wondering who could possibly be out in this kind of wind, Lyra and Bon Bon both stood to answer it—but Lyra quickly sat back down again after a warning stare from her marefriend, letting her know that she was to warm up or else. Mere moments after Bon Bon had opened the door, an excitable ball of pink fur bounced into the living room and loudly proclaimed: “HEAR YE, HEAR YE!” “Pinkie,” Bon Bon said with dripping sarcasm, walking into the room, “it’s okay. We can hear you.” “Oh, good. I was wondering about that for a moment.” Pinkie Pie seemed completely oblivious to the eye-rolling and exchanged glances of general bemusement. “Anywho, I just wanted to let you know that your party’s still on, Moondancer, and best of all I managed to get it planned for tonight! Isn’t that amazing?” Clearing her throat, Moondancer nodded. “Yeah, that sounds wonderful, Pinkie. Where is it going to be?” “Golden Oaks Library, of course. I told you Twilight would say yes, didn’t I? She’s said we could have the whole town over, and the best part is I’m going to make sure Dashie comes along too and then I can complete Operation: Cheer Up Dashie and Twilight and Save Their Friendship at the same time as holding your Welcome to Ponyville party and then maybe Quill can come up with some way to produce a narratively satisfying ending within the next three hours? Who knows! It’s going to be loads of fun, and there’ll be cakes, and games, and balloons, and there miiiight even be a pinata if I can swing one, and I’m hoping that if we’re really lucky there’ll even be punch. That’s a bit of foreshadowing, by the way. Or at least I hope it will be: we might not even be able to get punch at this late notice! Anyway, seven pm by the library. Gotta dash!” And with that, Pinkie zipped out of the room, a trail of sparkling pink behind her that slowly faded. Just as everypony was coming to their senses, she quickly popped her head around the doorframe. “And I mean Rainbow!” she added, grinning, before disappearing again—this time, hopefully, for good. “Well then,” Lyra said, after a moment of silence had passed, “I guess we’d better get on with those friendship lessons if you want to make that party tonight.” Welcome to PonyvilleThe first thing Moondancer noticed about the Golden Oaks library was the warmth: but this time, it wasn’t because the cold outside had gotten to her. No, this was a different type of warmth: the kind that came with good company, gentle music, and a friendly atmosphere. Moondancer had never noticed how that sort of thing could make a room feel comfortable in quite that kind of way, but then Moondancer had never really been to a proper party before—the one she had thrown in Canterlot had hardly counted, with so few guests and, of course, with it being over before it had really started. Here, there were so many guests, ponies of all shapes and ages and sizes—she was pretty sure that she saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders running about between the legs of the adults, laughing and playing among themselves. She smiled. This was how a party should be. “Surprise!” Four ponies stepped out into her path, just as she was making her way over to Bon Bon (the only pony her age in the room she had recognised). It took a moment, but soon enough Moondancer found herself recognising the faces in front of her. “Oh my gosh! Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Minuette! What are you three doing here?” She turned to Lyra, who was standing sheepishly on the end of the line. “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?” “Maybe,” she said, shrugging nonchalantly. “Or maybe it was just Pinkie Pie.” “Mmm,” Moondancer replied, smirking with mirth, “I’ve heard she’s like that.” She spent a good few minutes getting reacquainted with her old friends—especially Lemon Hearts, who had dropped out of her life even more completely than the others. She had, at least, seen Minuette and Twinkleshine in passing: at major events, or on her way to the library. It turned out that Lemon Hearts had been offered a huge career opportunity in the peak districts of Canterlot, working in the flavoured water business—not something Moondancer had ever cared much for, but she found Lemon Hearts’ enthusiasm for her work charmingly captivating. It was only when she had finished catching up with her friends’ lives that Moondancer realised something was missing, again. “Is, uhm…” she began, before lowering her voice and leaning to one side to mutter into Lyra’s ear. “Is Twilight around?” Lyra had clearly seen the worry on her face, and let out a small chuckle. “Don’t worry, lovergirl,” she teased, “Twilight’s just upstairs. I think she and Rainbow Dash are talking through some things, but she said she’d be down as soon as she could be.” Moondancer smiled at that. Maybe things wouldn’t be quite so awkward as she had feared—after all, if Twilight was making peace with Rainbow Dash, then surely she could make peace with somepony who had hardly seen her in two years. “Hey everypony!” The entire crowd turned as one to face Pinkie Pie, who was standing on a small stage at one end of the library, a microphone in her hoof and speakers at her back. “I just wanted to say a great, warm welcome to you all! I know it’s not often we gather together as a town like this… maybe every other week or so—” even Moondancer had to chuckle along with the crowd at that one. Pinkie Pie’s determination to party away all her friends’ problems was a wonderfully predictable trait in a mare who could be so, well, unpredictable “—and I know that it’s not every week that we get a brand new friend staying in town! Now, she might only be here for a few days while her house is rebuilt up in Canterlot, but Moondancer has already become an important part of Ponyville life: Sweetie Belle tells me that she might even be a better tutor than Twilight, but don’t let the Princess hear me say that! “This party is a Welcome to Ponyville party, and I throw enough of those for you all to know that they’re fairly standard business. But Moondancer isn’t just anypony—she’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends. And anypony who can be a bestest friend to Twilight Sparkle can, I’m sure, be a besterest friend to all of us. “Moondancer, I know you’re not too fond of being centre stage, so I’m not going to ask you to come up and make a speech.” Moondancer laughed openly at that, and soon enough the whole town was laughing along with her. “But I’m going to say this: you are welcome here in Ponyville whenever you want to visit, and I know that there will always be a place here for you to stay whenever your normal house gets blown up, burnt down, or destroyed by a horde of giant fire ants. Welcome to Ponyville, Moondancer!” As one, the crowd erupted into cheers, and though she wasn’t anywhere near the stage Moondancer could feel all the attention of the room on her—but it wasn’t a bad kind of attention. It was that same warmth she’d felt when she entered the library, the kind of warmth that made her feel welcome, and at home. And most importantly, it was the kind of warmth that rose to her cheeks and brought a small, quiet smile to her face—or was that her blush? Soon enough, the crowd’s attention dispersed, and everypony went back to the conversations and games that they had been enjoying before Pinkie’s impromptu speech. But Moondancer couldn’t quite let herself get lost again in the conversation with her old friends—something Pinkie had said was looping over and over in her head, like a stuck record. She’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends. Sure, she’d known Twilight for most of her life, and certainly she’d been one of the first ponies to call herself Twilight’s friend, but would Twilight really see it that way? When they were younger, Moondancer was sure that she had been nothing but an annoyance to her, pestering her with facts and figures in any attempt to prove that she was good enough, that Twilight could be her friend. And that wasn’t “bestest friend” behaviour. She’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends. Her friendship with Twilight wasn’t a force of magical power that had saved the nation time after time. Her friendship with Twilight wasn’t the kind of friendship that could withstand anything, face any trial, weather any storm… she had proven that, by walking out on Twilight, on all of her friends, over one simple mistake. And that wasn’t “bestest friend” behaviour. She’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends. Heck, Moondancer hadn’t even known what friendship really was until a few days ago, and even now she was still struggling to really understand it properly. She could hardly be considered one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends if she hadn’t even known how to be a friend in the first place. She had thought that friendship was formed from one-upmanship and displays of cleverness… and that wasn’t “bestest friend” behaviour. Psst. Moondancer turned around, only to find an image of Pinkie Pie reflected in the bowl of punch behind her. Her brow furrowed, and she opened her mouth to ask a question, but before she could say anything the image-Pinkie spoke again in a hoarse whisper: Twilight told me that herself. I wasn’t just making it up. Trust me! And with that, Pinkie ducked out of the punch bowl and Moondancer was left wondering whether she was seeing things. She glanced around the room, her eyes scanning the crowds for a sign of the excitable party pony, and was surprised to find her standing halfway across the library, a blindfold tied around her eyes and a bat clamped between her teeth, swinging joyfully at a bright pinata that hung from the ceiling. Moondancer had no idea how Pinkie had done that, and started to wonder if maybe “Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie” really was a valid explanation for these things. That such a thought was starting to make sense to her was… worrying, to say the least. It was then that Moondancer’s eyes fell upon a pony who could only be Rainbow Dash. A bright, striped mane in all the colours of the rainbow, disheveled and unruly, falling around her neck untidily; a sky blue coat and magenta eyes that were turned down to the ground, her lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. Rainbow Dash walked through the crowd with a melancholy expression, the ponies around parting to let her through. It wasn’t until Pinkie had spotted her, and dashed across the room to try to cheer her up, the Rainbow Dash showed any sign of noticing her surroundings—and ti was then that she lashed out at Pinkie, shoving her out of her path with a huff. The crowd stiffened, but nopony said anything. It was the bystander effect, Moondancer realised. Every pony in the crowd was standing there hoping that somepony else would be the first to act, that even though they were upset and offended by Rainbow’s actions that they still thought it was none of their business to interfere. Moondancer remembered reading about how this effect had been exploited in the South Zebrican courtrooms as few as forty years ago to create… No. She wasn’t going to let the research she had done distract her. This time, it was time to act. “Hey, you.” She sounded a lot more confident than she was—Rainbow looked like quite an athletic mare, and she certainly didn’t think anypony would put bets on her to win in a fight. She hoped with every inch of her being that this wouldn’t come to violence. “Oi, Rainbow Dash.” “What do you want?” She hadn’t even realised that she was walking over to the rainbow-maned mare until she found herself mere inches from her face—she had been so focused on staying calm she hadn’t even realised that she was putting herself in danger. But that was okay. Nobody shoved Pinkie Pie. “I want you to be more considerate, that’s all.” Moondancer nodded towards Pinkie. “You nearly knocked Pinkie Pie over!” Rainbow’s face seemed to scrunch up: her lips began to quiver and her eyes were shut tight, small dimples forming on her cheeks. She nodded, and muttered “sorry”, before pushing her way past Moondancer to the door. Only, as Moondancer turned to watch her go, Rainbow practically kicked herself around with all the speed she could manage and swung a forehoof at Moondancer, her teeth clenched and her eyes red with tears and anger. And Moondancer ducked. Cursing, Rainbow Dash spread her wings, and turned from a punch into a launch—tightly curving in the air, she streaked out the door leaving a trail of multi-coloured cloud behind her that slowly evaporated, like hot breath in cold air.Moondancer frowned, shut the door behind her, and carefully turned around to face the crowd. Everypony was staring. Silence had rolled over the room—even the Cutie Mark Crusaders were still. Moondancer bit her lip nervously, waiting for somepony to say something, but the silence continued. Nopony seemed quite sure how to react. And then, Pinkie Pie whooped into the air, cheering out as loudly as she could, and the crowd collapsed into applause. Hooves stomped on floorboards, ponies were cheering, somepony—she suspected Lyra—whistled. And none of the noise or the cheering mattered, because Moondancer’s eyes had found Twilight Sparkle, standing at the far end of the room, smiling wryly at her. In that moment, Moondancer wanted to grin wider than she had ever grinned before, and she wanted to run across the room in a gallop and throw herself into Twilight’s embrace and to press her lips firmly on Twilight’s… But instead, she simply smiled, and nodded, and walked calmly through the crowd, who were slowly beginning to disperse once more back into their smaller groups. “Hey you,” Twilight said, her eyes shining with amusement. “Hi,” Moondancer said, breathlessly. She took a moment to calm herself, willing the blood not to rush to her cheeks as she found herself once more caught up in Twilight’s beauty. “I, uh, take it your talk with Rainbow Dash didn’t go that well?” Twilight shrugged. “She, uh… yeah. She didn’t take what I had to say all that well. I’m sorry you had to meet her like this—she really is a great friend, most of the time.” “I’m sure she is,” Moondancer said, strangely finding herself believing it. But maybe it wasn’t so strange after all—it would be quite improper for the Princess of Friendship to have such a poor friend so close to her. “But nopony shoves Pinkie Pie like that.” Twilight smiled then, properly, not the kind of small smile that had previously been playing with the edges of her lips, but a real, proper, full smile that lit up her face like a sunrise lighting the sky. But it didn’t quite reach her eyes—in her eyes, there was the slightest shine of fear. Broaching the silence once more, Moondancer said, “I suppose we need to have a talk, too?” She bit her lip, anxiously awaiting Twilight’s response. The princess nodded, and gestured towards the staircase with a bob of her head. Swallowing, Moondancer trudged towards the stairs and began to climb, hearing Twilight's hoofsteps following close behind her. She was in no rush to reach the top. And still the top came: the stairwell opened out into a surprisingly large room, bookshelves lining the walls, a roaring fire in the fireplace and a large, clear window that looked up to the sky, the bright moonlight shining down through it. It left a small oval pool of white light on the floor, just next to a seat, which Moondancer trotted to and promptly sat down on. Then she stood up—she was too nervous to sit, or to stay still. As Twilight stepped out from the stairwell, Moondancer found herself pacing back and forth through the puddle of moonlight. “So…” “… yeah,” Moondancer finished, not quite content to let the silence hang between them. She was too nervous for silence—she just wanted to hear whatever it was Twilight had to say, and then maybe go back to Canterlot. A few nights away would be good for her, surely. “Back in Sugarcube Corner… did you mean that?” Moondancer wasn’t quite sure what to say, so she said: “Yes.” And then, just like that, the words came to her, and she let them tumble straight from her mouth. “I’m in love with you, Twilight. I have been for years and I didn’t even realise it until today, but I love you. You’re smart and funny and pretty and I just want to lie beside you and read, or talk, or hold you tight and every time you walk into the room I can’t take my eyes off you…” “I turned Rainbow Dash down,” Twilight said, absently. “She asked me if I wanted to go out with her and I said ‘no.’ And I told her why.” Moondancer swallowed. “And why was that?” “I said there was somepony else,” Twilight said, simply. “I told her that there was a mare in the room downstairs who I wanted to share my future with. And it’s funny, because a month ago I wouldn’t have known that I could want to be with somepony else—I’d always thought that when Rainbow Dash finally made her move, I’d just say yes, and that would be it. “But then you came into the library,” Twilight’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Then I saw you again and I remembered. I remembered every day of my fillyhood, at school, just knowing that you’d be there without me even having to think about it. You were always there for me, Moondancer, even if I didn’t realise it at the time. And I just left you behind.” Twilight's face contorted in disgust, her lips twisting into a mocking grimace. “Some Princess of Friendship I am.” “Twilight—” “Please, Moondancer, I’m nearly done,” Twilight said, her voice soft and placating. “The fact is, this last week, I’ve come to see you as a close friend in just a matter of days, and I’m already struggling to imagine what life in Ponyville will be like when you leave. And sometimes, when I’m lying in bed at night, staring up at the sky through my window because I can’t sleep… sometimes I think how nice it would be to have you there. Just, there, beside me, and dammit, Moondancer, could you just shut up and kiss me already before I start rambling?” “… you want me to kiss you?!” Moondancer asked, breathlessly. Twilight, biting her lip, nodded. “Hey girls! Just wanted to make sure you knew that we were starting Pin the Tail on the Po—” Twilight and Moondancer snapped their heads to see Pinkie’s head poking around the stairwell, her eyes wide and her mouth forming a round ‘O’ of surprise.After a moment, she chuckled awkwardly to herself. “I’ll, uh, just leave you two to it…” she said, backing away slowly and disappearing down the stairwell. For a moment, Moondancer and Twilight sat, frozen, before turning to face one another. Moondancer couldn’t help it—she burst out laughing, and soon enough she was curled up against Twilight and the two of them were just laughing into each other, shaking and rocking and laughing and holding each other close. “... I love you, Twilight,” Moondancer said softly, as the laughter subsided and the two mares simply lay, sprawled on the floor, curled up in each other’s legs. For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing, and the soft, slow thud-thud of their hearts against each other’s chests. And then: “I love you, too.” And as Moondancer closed her eyes, a small smile resting peacefully on her lips, she felt the lightest of touches brushing against her back, and the warm feeling of a wing pulling her tightly into Twilight’s embrace.The End Author's Note Not very much to say here as concluding remarks. This was, after all, a fic I wrote in just 24 hours for charity. No doubt within a day I'll have a blog post up detailing lessons I've learned from this insane exercise in speed-writing and apologising for the horrific typos I have unleashed upon the internet. I really just want to take a moment at the end of the fic here to thank you, dear reader, for making it this far, and sticking with me through this fic. I didn't plan any of it, really—I had some vague outlines in my head (scenes and ideas I wanted to use, and the ship of TwiDancer was a must) but nothing beyond that, so that I even managed to write a half-coherent story this long is something I'm rather proud of! I hope you've enjoyed it, for all its flaws. One last time, I'm going to point you in the direction of my donations page. This fic was written to raise money for a wonderful charity, BBC Children in Need, who do amazing work. The fundraiser's still open (Also, I'll probably talk more about this in a blog post, but I really wanted to apologise for the treatment of Rainbow Dash in this final chapter. It was rushed and lazy, and I ran out of time to redeem her in the epilogue I'd hoped I'd write. I felt that was a really important one to mention, because it's the sort of thing people might get upset about! After all, I do kinda ship TwiDash. I can understand your concerns )
An Arrival in PonyvilleThe roof was thatched, just like the other houses around it. There were wooden beams in the walls, standing out of the pristine white surface like veins under some wild animal’s skin, jutting off from one another and branching, inorganically symmetric. And below one of the windows, there was a basket: flowers flowed out of it, cascading over the edges like molten petals, vines of green spiked with deep, pointed leaves twisting and turning around the soft, wicker case. The house was, in other words, just like any other in this town: built in the style of the early 500s, a classic architectural scheme that mixed practicality with aesthetics in a way that the magical constructions of Canterlot could never match. Yet the strangest thing about it all was this this town was not nearly old enough for these to be originals: no, these were a recent fabrication, a modern recreation of an ages-old style. At least, that’s what it said in Equestrian Architecture: The Designs and Styles of the Sixth Century. And the author of that book had written their dissertation on the uses of thatch to support aesthetic charm in the central Equestrian towns, so clearly they knew what they were talking about. Moondancer sighed and knocked on the door, her hoof clashing against the metal panel that sat just below a heart-shaped peephole in the light pink wood. There would be time to admire the local architecture later—for now, Moondancer was more concerned about finding a place to stay for the night. Losing your home in the city you had grown up in, even if only for a few nights as the district was rebuilt after yet another disaster from the unfortunately-released Spirit of Chaos, was never an easy thing. Fortunately for Moondancer, she had contacts in other, local towns. Ponies she had grown up with had settled all around Canterlot and the nearby suburbs, but with the Canterlot Library closed for the very same maintenance that was keeping her from her bed, Moondancer needed to go somewhere a little further afield. “Just coming!” Oh, that voice. How long had it been now? It must have been a good two, maybe even three years since she had last saw the mare who was even now trotting to the door to let her in. Lyra Heartstrings, her name was—Moondancer had double-checked an old journal for the name, just to make sure she avoided any embarrassing mistakes while she was here. Apparently, Lyra had once been quite close to her, or as close as anypony ever had been. She had even been one of the ponies that she had invited to her party, all those years ago… Moondancer snorted. Parties. What a dumb idea. The door opened with a creak as a pale turquoise mare peeked out of the gap. For a second, she frowned, as if not quite sure of what she was seeing, but after not very long a wide smile graced her face and she threw open the door with glee. “Moondancer?!” she cried, and it was both a question and a statement. Moondancer had always struggled with that idea—surely it could be either one or the other?—but upon discovering the interrobang in The Art of Modern Equish Punctuation had grown more and more fond of the concept. To see it now, in real, actual conversation, was almost enough to bring a smile to her face. Control yourself, Moondancer. You’re not here to have fun. You’re here to find a place to stay for a few nights: nothing more, nothing less. “Hello Lyra,” she replied politely, inclining her head in a gesture of recognition. “It’s been a while.” “You can say that again!” A stupid phrase. She could say it again? Of course she could, but it wouldn’t affect the validity of the statement. It had been a while: that was a fact. Unless, of course, one measured time on a geological timescale—why, then it had been but a blink of an eye (or whatever passed for an eye in a geological analogy. That was hardly the point.) Perhaps Lyra was merely asking her to confirm that she was looking at a similar timescale? “How have you been?” Or not. “I’ve been very well, thank you,” Moondancer said, keeping her voice calm and collected. Politeness, she had decided some time ago, was the best way to get what you wanted out of ponies. “Unfortunately, the recent troubles with plunder vines have rendered me without a place to sleep for a few days. Would you, perhaps, know of somewhere I could stay?” Lyra chuckled to herself. “Moondancer, you’ve hardly changed at all,” she managed at last, when her laughter had subsided. “You’re always so keep to get to the point as quickly as you can. Why don’t you come on in, and tell me about what you’ve been up to?” “I’m afraid I need to find a place to stay,” Moondancer replied. “Until I have, I don’t have the time to waste on unnecessary catchups.” Lyra shook her head, and reached out a hoof to grab Moondancer’s shoulders. Moondancer was surprised by the mare’s strength—within just a few moments, she was being pulled into the house, her legs instinctively walking forwards to stop herself from tripping over. The door slammed shut behind her with a tinkle of magic, and Moondancer took a few moments to reacquaint herself with her surroundings. The interior of the house was in many ways more modern than the exterior. Tasteful wallpaper, in a minimalist pattern of sky-blue, covered most of the walls that she could see. Beneath her hooves, a polished wooden floor shined, a sign of recent cleaning. Her eyes scanned around the hallway—ah, there, just by the staircase, sat a duster and a can of polish. If she breathed in, she could still smell the polish hanging in the air, a sharp scent that almost smelled like home, if it weren’t so clinical. To her left there was a small chest of drawers, and for a moment Moondancer found herself staring at each one of the little objects that lined the top. There were a few trinkets, and other items of assorted bric-a-brac, nothing that would sell for very much at even the most expensive of second-hand auctions, as well as the expected door keys and valuables. But in the middle of the surface, sat atop a white, lace sheet, was a picture frame, shaped like a heart. In it, there was a photograph of Lyra, smiling widely at the camera, her foreleg wrapped around the shoulders of a short, cream-coloured mare. “Well?” Lyra’s voice was impatient, the sound of a mare who was uncomfortable with the behaviour of a guest. Moondancer stiffened, twisting her neck to look up at her old friend, and grimaced in what she hoped was apology: Lyra sighed, but smiled, so she hoped she had gotten it right. “Come on through.” Moondancer followed Lyra into a comfortable, if a little bit smaller than expected, living room. A sofa—very modern, made of faux-leather, black, and styled to have almost rectangular edges, with rounded legrests and a few scattered cushions in red, knitted cases—was pushed up against one wall, a glass coffee table floating in front of it. Beneath the table, a small, brass box was embedded in the floorboards, whirring quietly and glowing with a light yellow aura. Thaumic Engineering in the Home said that the use of magical storage devices to cast near-permanent spells on furniture for purposes of space-saving had become more and more common among the upper-middle class of Equestria, but Moondancer had never had a chance to see such a device with her own eyes. A part of her wanted to grab hold of it at once: to pick it up and to examine it from every angle; to take it apart and study it, piece by piece, until she could comprehend its working; to find her way to the famous Golden Oaks Library just to research the mechanisms that kept such a device from failing. But a small part of Moondancer told her that this would be a bad idea, especially in polite company, and that perhaps the research could wait until more pressing matters had been seen to. “Have a seat,” Lyra said, gesturing at the sofa as her horn lit and she pulled a small cushion in from the adjacent room, laying it neatly upon for floor and curling up atop it. “Go on, the sofa won’t bite.” Ah. She’d heard of that expression before—something to do with an object being harmless, or at the very least safe to touch, or approach. But this was a foolish thing to assume. After all, an object could be very dangerous—fatal, even—without ever once needing to bite a pony. She herself had encountered plenty of exceedingly dangerous items whilst researching a paper on the use and misuse of magical amulets a few years before, and had come across more than enough that could have killed her. Not a single one of them even had teeth. Still, it was only a figure of speech. Tentatively, she stepped up onto the couch and, tucking her legs beneath her, curled up into a sitting position. “So…” Lyra began, her voice lingering on the vowel and trailing off into almost silence. “How have you been? Done anything exciting these past two years?” “I’ve been researching,” Moondancer replied. She smiled at her old friend, no longer quite sure what she had so dreaded about conversations. She was doing perfectly fine now, wasn’t she? “Uh-huh…” Lyra seemed almost uncertain, her voice not quite questioning but certainly bordering on it. “And what sorts of things have you been researching?” “Oh,” Moondancer took a deep breath, biting her lip as she tried to recall the various subjects she had read about in the last two years. She knew there were a lot of them, and while she had a fairly good memory for books she wasn’t entirely certain her memory for chronology was up to scratch—she certainly didn’t want to tell Lyra about something she had been researching before they drifted apart. In her defence, Moondancer hadn’t been expecting a pop quiz mere moments after seeing her friend again. But pop quizzes were something she had always prided herself on her skill at quizzes, and even when she didn’t know the full answer she always had a strategy: right now, for instance, she could simply start by recalling the most recent things she had researched and work backwards from there until she saw some sign of recognition on Lyra’s face. Yes. That should work nicely. “Well, I’ve been reading about all the different flora and fauna of the Everfree Forest,” she began. “There are a few ancient horticulture journals, from before Luna’s banishment, that described some strange, magical plant life that no recent records have shown. I’ve been trying to find out whether those plants have gone extinct, or have simply been renamed. Or, perhaps stranger still, there’s a hypothesis that some of the plants in the Everfree undergo magically-stimulated, rapid evolution, and while sufficient evidence has yet to be found in support of it, I like to think that it would be easy enough to prove with just a few years and a grant from the…” Moondancer’s voice trailed off, as she noticed the glassy-eyed stare of her companion. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” “Huh?” Lyra shook her head, as if trying to shake away drowsiness. “No, uh, I was listening. I just… well, you get quite technical sometimes, Moondancer. It’s easy to get lost quite quickly when you get talking about something you’re researching.” “Oh,” Moondancer said. She paused for a moment, not quite sure how to react. Was that an insult? It could certainly be construed as one. At the very least, it was an acknowledgement that Lyra found her conversation dull and uninteresting, which was certainly not what she had intended. After some thought, she added, “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be,” Lyra said, giggling a little. “It’s good to know that some things never change. Gosh, do you remember all those times when we were fillies and you’d go on and on about chemistry, or some strange psychological—” “You thought I was boring?” Forget it, Moondancer. Just forget it. This is why friendship isn’t worthwhile: it’s always just a fake, and it will always just hurt you. The only way you can avoid the pain is to avoid friendship entirely. “No!” She had to give credit where credit was due: Lyra certainly sounded sincere in her surprise. It almost sounded as if she were horrified that she could possibly have made such a mistake. Almost. But Moondancer knew better than to get her hopes up. “No, Moondancer, that’s not it at all. You’re a fascinating pony: I’ve heard you give the most amazing talks on fields I hadn’t even known existed! “It’s just that, sometimes, you get a bit carried away in day-to-day conversation, you know? Like, it’s fine for a lecture or some place where we need your help knowing about something, but when it’s just the two of us—or even back then, all six of us—you don’t need to go into that sort of detail.” Lyra had an apologetic mask on her face, her mouth twisted into a grimace of awkward admission. Moondancer was certain, positively certain, that she couldn’t trust that face to be true, but a small part of her still wanted it. “You understand that, right?” She thought, for a moment. Did she really go into too much detail? What was “too much detail”, anyway? She always told exactly the level of detail that conveyed a good summary of the knowledge she had gleaned from her research without itself requiring the hours of research she had put in to understand. By definition, she considered, that must be the right level of detail, for it was exactly what she intended it to be… But Lyra was saying that she was hard to follow, and that she went into too much details. So maybe, just maybe, she might have been wrong. Was it really so hard to consider that she might have misjudged an entry-level explanation? It had, after all, been some years since she had spoken to anyone about her research, save for the odd university professor and a couple of research graduates, all of whom were probably more knowledgeable about the field than she was. Yes, that she could have misjudged the level of explanation she needed was not just believable: given the evidence, it seemed almost a certainty. “Yes,” she said, slowly. “I think I do. I’m sorry, I’ll try to keep the detail to a minimum in future.” And, just like that, Lyra’s grimace of concern became a smile of relief, her lips and cheeks relaxing. It was a subtle change, but ponies had always been able to discern even the slightest changes in each other’s facial expressions—this ability, after all, was ingrained in a pony’s very psychology, their entire way of thinking built up around… This was the point Lyra was making, wasn’t it? She’d always been fond of tangential thoughts, following them through whatever knowledge she could recall and down whatever path they might lead. But those paths went deeper: too deep. Perhaps it was her entire way of thinking that was hampering her ability to converse naturally? “Is something wrong?” Lyra’s voice broke through her thoughts. She shook her head, briefly, bringing her focus back to the real world through the sensation of the air brushing against her cheeks. “Sorry, I zoned out,” she admitted, sheepishly. “Was something wrong?” And at that, Lyra laughed: it was a hearty laugh, her chest visibly contracting with each wheezing breath, and it filled the room with noise. For a moment, Moondancer simply sat there in shock, her brain not thinking fast enough to keep up with the sudden change in what her senses were telling her. Then, when she had at last realised what was going on, and that it wasn’t merely her mind playing tricks on her, she frowned. “What is it?” she asked, as Lyra began to rock back and forth on her cushion, her hooves held tight against her sides. “Did I say something wrong?” Lyra wiped a hoof at her eye, her breathing slowly coming to a more natural pace, the heavy guffaws that had been spasming through her chest coming to a gentle standstill, like a ball rolling across a field and slowly being brought to a halt by the grass. “Never change, Moondancer,” Lyra said, smiling and slightly out of breath. “Promise me you’ll never change.” Her first reaction was to tell Lyra that change was always necessary, that is was an obvious implication of the way that they experienced chronology and, indeed, a necessary conclusion of the laws of thermodynamics. She would certainly never be in true thermal equilibrium… And then she caught herself, because that sort of thing was exactly what Lyra was talking about, and she had to make a better impression on her host than that. After all, it had been a good few years since they had seen each other, and if Moondancer was going to try and convince Lyra to let her stay the night (although now she was here she was starting to wonder if the small house had any spare room for her to sleep in at all, given the small living room) she would need to make a better impression than that. “I’ll try?” she promised, weakly. After a moment’s pause, she nodded sharply: “Yes. I’ll try.” Lyra smiled again at that, warm and relaxed. “It’s good to see you again, Moondancer.” “You too,” Moondancer replied, without thinking. Is that true? Is seeing Lyra again really a good thing? You’re getting weaker, Moondancer—since you arrived, you’ve already worried about the pain she could cause you once, and that’s not a worry that you’ve had in over a year… But it was true. Even though everything she could think of told Moondancer that she shouldn’t be happy to see Lyra beyond her gratefulness to the universe for a potential solution to the somewhat compromising situation she had found herself in regarding sleeping arrangements, Moondancer really, truly was happy to see her old friend. And the worst part was that she had absolutely no idea why. Friendship, Moondancer was slowly coming to realise, was a lot more complicated than she had always thought. It wasn’t just a matter of two ponies spending time together, and sharing with each other things that they would normally keep private to create a safe haven where they could find help and comfort when they needed it. It was something that bound ponies together—even when she had spent a year in isolation in Canterlot, leaving her house only to trek to the library or the market, Moondancer’s first thought when she fell into trouble had always been “Maybe Minuette could help?” or “Twinkleshine would know what to do in this situation” or “If I asked Twili—” No. Not Twilight. She wasn’t her friend. Not, of course, that she had really been a good friend to any of the others, and it certainly wasn’t as if they’d been any closer to her than Twilight had been, but at least they hadn’t abandoned her. Besides, the Princess of Friendship would hardly stoop to associate with somepony who hadn’t even got a place to call their own anymore. Lyra coughed, dragging her once more out from her thoughts. Not for the first time, Moondancer wondered if it was healthy to get lost in thought quite so often. “You were saying something about a place to sleep?” “Oh, yes,” she responded, pushing all thoughts of Twilight from her mind. This was the reason she had travelled to Ponyville in the first place: This was important. “My house was among one of the many in Canterlot that suffered serious damage from the incident with the plunder vines, and although Discord was able to reverse some damage he seems to have left some parts of Canterlot… less fixed than others. “Long story short, I haven’t got anywhere to sleep for at least a week, while they repair the damage to the district.” “That’s terrible!” Lyra cried, standing up from her cushion and trotting over to sit beside her. Moondancer tried not to flinch as Lyra’s fur gently rubbed against her own—it had been a very long time since she had been even nearly this close to another pony. Yet Lyra proceeded to wrap a foreleg around her shoulders, and pulled her into a tight embrace. “Oh, you poor thing. You simply have to stay here with us!” “Are you sure?” Moondancer said, trying to sound more comfortable than she was. Despite her efforts, her voice came out stiff and a little forced. “I don’t want to impose.” This was a lie, and both mares knew that—of course Moondancer wanted to stay the night, regardless of any inconvenience to Lyra, because if she didn’t then she would literally be sleeping on the streets in the middle of winter, and no sane pony would possibly volunteer for that. Ignoring, of course, the many ponies who did just that on camping trips and the like, particularly that one author who would always write cheap paperbacks about her trips to the wild, the sort that one would pick up in a train station for a hoofful of bits and finish before the train had even gotten halfway to one’s destination. But those ponies were adventure-seekers, and neither Lyra nor Moondancer could in any way be counted among that number. “It won’t be a problem,” Lyra said, fondly. “Bon Bon will have no problem with it, I’m sure, and there’s a small guest bedroom that you’re more than welcome to use. I don’t think Bon Bon has any guests coming to stay this week… she does occasionally have friends over to stay at short notice, but I’m sure she’d have mentioned by now.” Lyra sighed, shaking her head. “Look at me: rambling like an old mare. And how long ago was I telling you that you went on at length about things?” Even Moondancer had to smile at that thought. She even managed a light chuckle. “Is Bon Bon the mare in the photograph?” she asked, when the laughter had settled and the air became so thick with quiet that she could once again hear the whir of the engine that kept the table floating. “The one in the hallway, I mean?” “Yeah,” Lyra said, a wry smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and her eyes shining. “That’s Bon Bon. She’s… well, she’s something. She should be home in an hour or so; I’ll introduce the two of you.” “That sounds nice,” Moondancer said. There was a moment of quiet between them, and this time it looked as it were Lyra who was lost in thought. But after half a minute or so, she smiled and turned to face Moondancer. “You have anypony special back in Canterlot?” Special? As in… a special somepony? Well, that certainly explains the shape of the photo frame… “You really think somepony like me would have that?” Moondancer asked, trying to raise one eyebrow. It was meant to be an expression of almost sarcastic curiosity, but she couldn’t quite keep the other eyebrow in place—it would always tug up alongside the other one, no matter how hard she focused on moving only the muscles on one side of her face. The end result felt more like a forced look of surprise to Moondancer, but Lyra seemed to get what she was going for. “Of course I do, silly,” she said, squeezing Moondancer’s shoulders once more, a light pressure of comfort. “If I can find somepony—and you know what I used to be like at school!—then I have no doubt that you can, too.” Moondancer wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. Romance had never really been at the forefront of her mind (though, of course, she had spent a good four or five weeks researching the evolution of monogamous behaviour in various species, and comparing the behaviour of animals such as swans with those of ponies. Perhaps the most fascinating part of her research was in discovering that swans truly did mate for life: it wasn’t some kind of abstract ideal that they aimed for, but an actuality that they lived.) Besides, she’d never met anypony who she could even want to spend hours alone with, just snuggled up warm by the fire reading books, comfortable in mutual silence… She’d never wanted that, anyway. Why would she? It would only further distract her from her research, and Celestia knew that these days she was distracted enough, what with the almost unbelievable things that kept interrupting her day-to-day life. Frankly, the changeling invasion of Canterlot the year before should have been a final straw: enough for Moondancer to decide that, really, Canterlot was probably not the best place for her to be living. But something kept drawing her back. And that something, of course, was the vast library. No other city in all of Equestria had a library quite like it—not even the fabled library of the Crystal Empire had turned out to match the Canterlot City Library for sheer operability. Moondancer could look up a book in the catalogue, and it would be on her desk within five minutes in Canterlot—and she wouldn’t even have to look for it herself. The complicated series of magical devices that lined the rooms effortlessly found and provided research materials with only the lightest of commands from a librarian. It was efficient, it was modern, and most importantly of all it was the kind of system that one almost didn’t notice going on, even when it was right under one’s nose. The Crystal Library, by comparison, was staffed by a few aging ponies who still weren’t entirely sure which archiving system was being used, and was sorely lacking in materials from this millennium—and while that made it a historian’s favourite place, Moondancer had always been somewhat more interested in the sciences, and the idea of books that were a thousand years out of date simply horrified her. What was the point in collecting knowledge if the knowledge itself was flawed? Moondancer was sure, of course, that many of the things she had learned over the course of her life were probably false, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t worth learning. They were, after all, nothing more than the modern consensus, things that ponies were certainly confident might not be wrong. A textbook that was a thousand years old would be missing a thousand years of scientific advances. It was definitely wrong—the things Moondancer researched, on the other hoof, were only possibly wrong. Many of her old friends had struggled to understand why this difference was so important. But then again, many of her old friends had struggled with the idea that the things that they were learning might, in fact, not be true at all. It was strange that they would struggle with that, of all things: to Moondancer, accepting that she might be wrong lay at the heart of all her research. If anything, it was one of the things that drove her the most. … Romance. That was what Lyra had been talking about, wasn’t it. She’d said something about how Moondancer should be able to find somepony… but what Lyra didn’t realise was that Moondancer simply didn’t want that kind of distraction. She opened her mouth, taking in a deep breath as she did so to prepare herself for the response she needed to give, before turning to properly face Lyra and finding that the mare’s eyes were closed, and the gentle rhythm of snoring rose and fell from her throat. Moondancer smiled at the sight of the sleeping mare, before the weight of Lyra’s foreleg on her shoulders registered once more in her mind. She was stuck. Ever so gently, Moondancer reached out with her magic and felt around her neck for the weight that was pressing down upon her. She wrapped the leg carefully in her aura, careful not to disturb Lyra’s sleep, and lifted as gently as she could, until there was just enough of a gap for her to squeeze out from underneath Lyra’s leg and step off the sofa. Standing tall and stretching, arching her back almost like a cat, Moondancer looked around the room for a blanket or something similar, and her eyes settled on a small, woven rug on the far side of the coffee table. Hoisting it up in her magic, she pulled it across the room and draped it around the shoulders of the sleeping mare. For a minute or two, Moondancer simply stood and watched Lyra as she rolled her shoulders, pulling the rug around her tighter and whinnying in her sleep. A small smile played with the corners of her lips as, for a moment, she allowed herself to get lost in memories she had spent two years avoiding—a childhood of memories, and of friendships she had been little more than an observer of. All the stupid little things that they had gotten up to as fillies… and above all, she thought of the time that Lyra had fallen asleep in class, and of how peaceful she had looked, and of how even the teacher could not bring herself to be mad at the filly when she looked so calm. And, just for that minute, Moondancer let herself pretend that maybe, just maybe, she could have those friendships back. If anything, it made for a nice daydream.
MorningThe sunlight streamed in through the window, barely catching on the flimsy curtain that waved in the breeze. The light fell upon Moondancer’s eyes and for a moment she didn’t quite realise what was happening, the brightness overwhelming her and leaving her incapable of movement. And then, suddenly, she realised what was happening, and scrunched her eyes up as tight as she could, rolling onto her side to keep the light at bay. Moondancer did not like mornings. Sure, she might rise early on most days, but that was out of necessity: Moondancer needed to reach the library at opening time, or she’d miss out on valuable minutes of access to research materials. It certainly didn’t mean that she liked rising with the sun, and Moondancer would probably be the first among the ponies of Canterlot to complain about the noise of the morning commuters, were she not forcing herself to be one of them. But this morning Moondancer was not in Canterlot, nor was she a forty minute commute from the library, and for once in her life that meant she didn’t need to be awake. Sighing, Moondancer threw the duvet off the bed, letting it fall to the floor with all the softness of a piece of paper that had been dropped from a desk, lightly crumpling as it landed. She rolled herself onto her hooves, letting her weight pull her over the edge of the bed and onto all fours as she picked up the duvet in her magic and threw it haphazardly across the bed. It was then that Moondancer remembered that she was a guest in somepony else’s house, and that she really ought to make the bed with a little more respect for that position. She tried to tuck the duvet neatly around the mattress and, after a few moments of struggling, let it fall back in its organic, unaligned place. She was no good at this. She let her hooves pull her out of the room, being dragged through the door like a dog on a leash, and quietly made her way downstairs (for she had no clue what time Lyra and Bon Bon rose, but if the noise they had been making the night before was any indication then it would certainly not be for a few hours) in search of coffee. Finding the kitchen, of course, was the first step. It didn’t help that Moondancer had literally seen only two rooms of the house: she had no idea where any of the doors in the hallway lead, and one of them looked almost like it was out of use, surrounded with various bits of paraphernalia—she was pretty sure she had seen two sets of wellington boots, lined up neatly along the base of the doorway, with an umbrella propped up against the frame. There wasn’t actually a door in the archway—not in the traditional sense of the a bit of wood on hinges, with a handle—but rather a few strings hanging down from the top of the archway, large, wooden beads hung on them. On the other side, darkness: Moondancer decided that perhaps the other doors were a better first guess. She knew where the living room was, and although she wasn’t entirely sure where the second door out of it lead to she was pretty certain that it wasn’t a kitchen, if the cushion that Lyra had pulled out the day before had been any suggestion. She pushed lightly at the other door, a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach that maybe she shouldn’t be here, and that maybe this was a bad idea, and tried to look through the gap. The room on the other side was dark and seemed to be much larger than the living room,. The walls were lined with cupboards, though, and stacks upon stacks of boxes covered the floor; it was so crowded inside that the large space looked small and cramped. Moondancer shut the door, quickly. She had no idea what was in that room, but for once in her life she had no desire to find out. Well, at least not until she had gotten some coffee. Coffee would probably make things better. Retracing her steps, Moondancer wandered into the living room, carefully making sure that she didn’t make too much noise. She felt as if every step was booming, as if every breath was a hurricane. Every few seconds, she would find herself stopping still in the middle of the floor, and she would stand as quietly as she could, breath held in anticipation, as she listened for movement elsewhere in the house. And, inevitably, there wasn’t any. Slowly but surely, Moondancer made her way through the door into what seemed to be a dining room. And there, with no door to separate them, was the kitchen—the other side of the long, glass table, sitting just below wide, open windows, there stood a freezer, an oven and a sink… but most importantly of all, cupboards, hung on the walls, filled with the possibility of coffee. It took all of Moondancer’s strength not to gallop across the room. Instead, she walked calmly across and reached out with her magic. She could systematically check each cupboard for coffee, and while that would probably be the sensible thing to do it was certainly not the fastest. And right not, Moondancer needed coffee as fast as she could get it: she grabbed ahold of all of the cupboard doors at once, and pulled towards her. At once, the room was alive with noise, and Moondancer winced at the sound of four cupboards creaking open all at once. Why did ponies never keep their hinges oiled? It wasn’t as if she could talk—she hadn’t done anything that remotely resembled housekeeping since she had moved into her little, broken home—but it annoyed her nonetheless. A brief glance around showed her that the coffee was in the cupboard on the far left—which was, incidentally, the cupboard she would have opened last had she systematically checked them all. Smiling to herself, and knowing that despite all the noise her plan had worked out for the best, Moondancer trotted towards the coffee and pulled it down to the worktop with her magic, already feeling just that little bit more awake. The next part of her plan was probably the hardest to manage whilst remaining quiet: boiling a kettle. But the noise was hardly Moondancer’s biggest concern anymore—after the doors had slammed open, she had finally allowed herself to relax after every breath, and to not see it all as a potential noise that would wake up Lyra and Bon Bon. Even the boiling of a kettle, and the shrill, whistling sound that Lyra’s old model made, would be just another noise to her, now. But sweet mother of Celestia, was that whistling annoying. Mugs. Where did they keep the mugs in this house? She glanced around frantically, looking over every inch of every cupboard. But all she could see was empty shelves, and the occasional packet of dried food packets, or spices and herbs. This kitchen was surprisingly bare, even by her standards. Now that she thought about it, crockery seemed to be completely absent. There was no hint of a plate or bowl anywhere, that she could see, let alone something as simple as a mug. She tried pulling at the lower cupboards, searching beneath the workstation only to find plumbing and cleaning supplies, and pulling out the drawers to be greeted by cutlery and other tools (a particularly rusty pair of scissors caught her attention in one drawer. They were almost large enough to be shears, the kind of thing one might expect to find in a haberdashers’, but the layer of deep, orange rust that grew almost organically across the blade fascinated her. She ran her aura over the surface, just once, feeling each little bump and crease in the surface, and revelling in the texture of it all, before remembering the boiling water that was in desperate need of a mug). It took her the longest time to realise that there was a strange little set of hooks, made of a light, smooth wood, set into the wall above the sink. From each of the hooks hung a mug, their weight strangely distributed so that they hung at an angle Moondancer would never quite have expected. It looked too steep to be deliberate, yet too shallow to really be due to gravity. This was a question for another time. The question of the hour was, of course, how soon could she make herself a coffee—and the answer was: “immediately”. “Good morning, Moondancer.” The words were stretched out, almost a yawn in and of themselves, and if they weren’t immediately followed by one Moondancer might have thought that they were. She smiled at the cream-coloured mare who was dragging herself into the kitchen. “Good morning, Bon Bon,” she said, politely. “It’s good to properly meet you.” “Pah,” Bon Bon spat. “‘Properly.’ Lemme get some coffee first, then we’ll meet ‘properly’.” Moondancer tried and failed to hide the smirk at Bon Bon’s sentiment, although she was well aware that only a few hours before she would have been much the same. Thankfully, the other mare was sleepily navigating her way around the chairs to the kitchen, and didn’t see her expression change. She doubted Bon Bon would mind even if she had seen, as she seemed as if she weren’t even awake enough to notice. Lyra was only a few minutes behind her marefriend, stepping into the kitchen with the kind of boundless morning energy that made Moondancer thoroughly upset and only the tiniest bit jealous. How could anypony be so excited this early? And, what was far more important, why couldn’t she? “Morning Moondancer,” Lyra called cheerily, smiling as she almost bounced over to Bon Bon and wrapped her forelegs around the grumpy mare’s neck. Planting a quick kiss on her cheek, Lyra whispered something quickly in her ear—Moondancer watched, trying once more to raise her eyebrows, as even in her tired, unresponsive state Bon Bon managed a small smile. “Any plans for the day, Moondancer?” Moondancer stopped and considered this for a moment. She knew what she wanted to do that day, which was the same thing she did every weekday: visit the library and research something new. But she wasn’t in Canterlot anymore, and while the Golden Oaks library of Ponyville was world-renowned for its unique architecture, it certainly wasn’t particularly well-known for organisation. Or, for that matter, having a particularly wide stock. But was that the question Lyra was really asking? Did Lyra want her to go the library that day, or was this question nothing more than a gauge to see if she would be up for some activity her old friend had planned? Moondancer wasn’t certain. “I don’t know,” she said, slowly, feeling out her answer as she gave it. Worst came to worst, she could always pretend that she suddenly decided to make a detour to the library. Lyra knew how much she loved libraries. “Did you have anything in mind?” “Nah,” Lyra said, dismissively. “I just figured you’d be off to the library. I’ve never known you to last more than a day in a new town without stopping by to see one, even on school trips.” Moondancer raised her eyebrows in surprise, before pulling her emotions back into control. Of course Lyra would be able to guess that much—they had known each other since they were little fillies, and even though she might never have been particularly close to her friends at school she had always been close enough for them to know and recognise her hobbies. There should be absolutely zero surprise in Lyra’s ability to read her like this. “Heh,” she said, weakly. “You got me.” Lyra grinned and shot her a brief wink. “Of course I did. Do you know the way, or do you want me to show you? Once this silly filly has gotten her caffeine dose, that is?” Lyra gestured sideways with a slight nod of her head at Bon Bon, who made a small noise that sounded almost like “i heard that, you know” but came out more as a grunt. Moondancer nodded. “That would be wonderful,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to see Golden Oaks for myself. Is it particularly small?” “Small?” Lyra scoffed. “That place is no Canterlot Library, but it’s pretty big for a small town like Ponyville. Heck, it’s got a bedroom in there somewhere—apparently, it’s been a tradition since the library opened for the librarian to live in the building, and to keep it open whenever they could. Trust me, that place is not ‘small’.” Moondancer’s eyes widened, not in surprise but in excitement. It had been too many years since she had gotten to visit a new library that could truly keep her interest, and although the incident in the Crystal Empire had made her wary of becoming too excited for any new libraries, Moondancer was always hopeful that one day something would come along that would at least match Canterlot Library on either scale or grandeur. Even though she could hardly contain her excitement, Moondancer waited patiently for Bon Bon to finish her coffee and to allow the effect of the caffeine to settle in. She watched as Lyra and Bon Bon exchanged quick jokes at each other's expense, each trying to make their guest feel at home whilst at the same time having a bit of fun with each other. In some ways, Moondancer felt, it looked like the kind of thing that would be a lot of fun: spending time with somepony and getting to know them so well that you can afford to make quick jokes and jibes at them, and know that they know you don’t mean it. But another part of Moondancer was feeling as if she was slipping back into old habits. And she didn’t mean starting to think of other ponies as friends—she was certainly not at that stage yet with either Lyra or Bon Bon, for although the two mares had been nothing but kind to her since she arrived she knew that they were little more than guest and hosts at this stage. She had barely known Bon Bon a few hours, after all, and Lyra herself had lived so far away for so long that Moondancer had almost forgotten what she was like. While she might not have changed, Lyra certainly had moved on in her life. What worried Moondancer was her tendency to observe. She was comfortable sitting here, watching the couple exchange their silly little jokes, and in some ways it made her happy to be there on the sidelines. But she didn’t have any desire to join in: and not just because she felt that it would be too soon, or not her place. Even when she was talking with Lyra the day before, she would have much rather just listened to the other mare talk than say anything herself, because inevitably the moment she said anything she would undoubtedly mess it all up. It was an old habit, one she had formed in relatively early childhood. She’d never had much of a chance to take center stage, or to even share in conversation as equals with anypony her own age—she always had her muzzle in a book, or was too busy thinking about what she might want to read next. But perhaps this wasn’t such a bad thing. Perhaps she could simply enjoy being there with ponies (after all, she certainly enjoyed it often enough when small groups of ponies were whispering amongst themselves in the library, for she could always just sit and listen to their conversation and lose herself trying to figure out who was who in their little gossip. There was one group in particular, came in every Thursday at around 2pm, and chatted about a few mares whom she’d gathered were in the year above them in university—it took Moondancer about a month to realise this was the very same group who came in every Tuesday morning and gossiped about the stallions in the year below!) After what seemed like an age, despite her patience, Moondancer finally stood to follow Lyra out of the door. Even though they’d waited for Bon Bon to finish her coffee, the other mare had decided that she would rather stay in and read the newspaper. It took Moondancer a second to quell her anger—did Bon Bon not realise that they had been waiting for her so that they could leave? But then she realised that maybe Lyra just wanted to wait so that she could have a few more minutes with her marefriend in the morning, and she had to admit that that probably wasn’t so bad—even if it did delay her trip to a brand new library. She’d forgotten how bright the sun was. As she stepped out into the cobbled streets of Ponyville, Moondancer found herself turning her head down to the street and half-squinting to keep the bright light out of her eyes. How could it be this bright? It was only a few degrees above freezing, and the very middle of Winter—the sun certainly had no business being this bright when the streets around were covered in snow. In fact, the snow was probably making matters worse. Moondancer found herself staring intently at her own shadow, as sunlight glanced off the snow that surrounded her, each crystal shining almost as brightly as the sun itself, like a tiny little star in the bright white sky. At least in here shadow, the stars weren’t going to blind her, but it did rather mean she couldn’t see where she was going—and sometimes, when they took a turn in a particularly awkward direction, Moondancer couldn’t even look at Lyra’s shadow, and had to try to find some snow-less surface to look at instead. The trek to the library, though nowhere near as much of a hassle as her daily commute in Canterlot (despite the snow making the journey twice as arduous as it needed to be), was longer than she had anticipated, and by the time they reached the edge of the town square and Lyra was stopping to give her further directions, Moondancer was ashamed to find herself shivering with the cold. “I have to head off to Sugarcube Corner,” Lyra was saying, though Moondancer could barely hear her above the chattering of her own teeth. The noise was loud and painful, coming as it did from inside her head, and every now and then her teeth wouldn’t quite align and she would feel the sickening scrape of enamel on enamel. “Bon Bon needs me to pick up some stuff. You’re okay finding your own way from here? It’s just down that road… Moondancer?” Her breath was hanging before her like a cloud. Moondancer had never really appreciated that imagery before: breath in cold air usually dissipated, and blew away on a breeze. It didn’t tend to form anything that looked much like a cloud at all, but rather like her own, private little piece of fog. But here, her breath really was forming a cloud—the little pieces of moisture sticking together and clumping up in the air, making a single whole that didn’t blow apart but rather drifted slowly away from her muzzle. For a moment, Moondancer simply watched it as it flew away. Then, before she knew what was happening, there was a pressure on her shoulders and something was tickling the underside of her chin. It was scratchy and itchy, and just pushing at the one place that made her feel like it was inside her throat, clawing at the underside of her skin. But of course, it wasn’t, and when Moondancer looked down she saw that Lyra had wrapped a scarf around her neck. It was strange, but she couldn’t quite feel it all the way around. Maybe it was loose? “You need to warm up,” Lyra said, all hints of lightness and friendliness in her voice gone, and for a moment Moondancer worried that maybe she’d done something wrong before she came to the conclusion that Lyra was simply being serious. It was strange, but in all the years she’d known the mare, Lyra had never once taken anything particularly seriously. Maybe that was Bon Bon’s influence? It was too early to tell. Moondancer resolved to find out, one way or another, before she moved back to Canterlot. Not quite hearing Lyra’s directions, she nodded anyway, sure that the way couldn’t be too hard and certain that she could figure it out from the simple hoof gestures that Lyra had made in the air. It was just down this path, then take a left and a right in quick succession, and then one final right, that much she knew—just exactly which lefts and rights she couldn’t quite tell. Still, she knew roughly where she was going, and she was sure that if she just kept walking for long enough… A-ha! There, just above the thatch roofs, Moondancer could just make out the green leaves of the library poking out from beneath a blanket of snow. Lyra’s directions promptly forgotten, Moondancer willed her legs to work for just a few more minutes, and pushed herself into a light jog in the hopes that she could get a little bit of blood circulating. But the back streets of Ponyville were twisting and wild, and with every house looking just the same—thatch roof, wooden beams, white walls that blended into the snow and were just as blinding—Moondance soon found that heading straight for the tree was not, ironically, the most direct approach. If anything, it seemed to lead her more and more astray, taking her into alleyways and dead ends thet didn’t quite make any sense to her. But then, with all the snow on the ground, she couldn’t easily make out where most of the roads were. She was lost. Somehow, even though she could see her destination through the gaps in the houses around her, Moondancer had no idea how she could possibly get there. She had tried every angle—it felt like she had circled the library at least twice now, though she knew that couldn’t be right. She remembered, clearly, how the library was always on the very edge of the town, in every photograph she’d seen, just sitting up snugly on the path from the Everfree. Soon enough, Moondancer stopped looking for the library: she no longer cared where she found herself, so long as she came across somewhere she recognised. The streets were starting to feel like some sort of twisted house of mirrors: no matter which way she looked, everything looked almost the same, and it was becoming difficult to tell which paths were streets and which were actually somepony’s garden, hidden beneath the snow. Then came the wind. It was light at first, a mere breeze that nipped at her nose and toyed with the tassels of her scarf as if a child playing with a dangling mobile that was just within their reach. But soon enough it grew, and the nips became bites, and the bites became nothing more or less than a raging, howling wind that filled her ears and smothered her skin. And the air was full of snow, and whether it was falling from the sky or being picked up by the sheer force of the gale Moondancer could never tell, but it filled her eyes and trapped itself between strands of her mane, slipping down to her roots and chilling her scalp. And somehow, despite the storm and the snow and the cold, Moondancer stumbled face first into a dark, rough bark. For a moment she wondered if she had perhaps made her way to the Everfree, and found herself rooted to the spot. But then, right above her head, she saw a window, and the bright, warm light the glowed from it told her exactly where she had found herself.
Inside the LibraryThe first thing Moondancer noticed about the Golden Oaks library was the warmth: it flooded her, filling every inch of her body in a matter of seconds, her skin tingling with the wave of heat that rolled across her back and burrowed into her shoulders. She hadn’t realised quite how numb she had become out int he cold, but within just a few moments the prickling sensation of blood rushing beneath her skin was almost overwhelming. The warmth was, of course, due to the fire that blazed in the far corner of the main room. It flickered and licked at the air, almost like a tongue that was lapping up the cold, and filled the room with warmth in much the same way that one might fill a beaker with a chemical. The second thing that Moondancer noticed about the library was that, instead of having books on the shelves, the library floor appeared to be piled with stacks upon stacks of books, climbing up towards the ceiling in haphazard towers. Moondancer was no expert (although, with the amount of time that she had spent in libraries, she might as well have been) but she was pretty sure that this wasn’t how a library was meant to work. As the door shut behind her, she heard the faint but unmistakeable sound of a small bell ringing, and looked up to see one hanging from the doorframe. it was strange: she hadn’t noticed it on her way in. “Hello? Sorry, the library is closed for business today.” The voice sounded… familiar. Almost as if Moondancer had heard it recently, though she couldn’t imagine where she might have come across the Ponyville librarian. Instead, she shrugged, and simply called back: “Do you mind if I stay here for a while? There’s a terrible storm out, and I’m afraid I’ll get lost.” “No problem!” The voice was cheerful, and somewhere in the room with her, although with the stacks of books all around Moondancer couldn’t possibly see where it might have been coming from. “Hold on, I’ll be with you in just a tick. I just have to find—” There was a loud thud. It wasn’t a single noise: it was made of a whole number of tiny little thuds, each one crashing out throughout the empty tree, echoing off rounded walls and adding to the cacophony; it was the unmistakeable sound of a tower of books falling over. But in amid that sound was another—the lightest of yelps, and the softest of whimpers. The voice went quiet. Moondancer waited for a moment. The voice didn’t return. “Hello?” She stepped forward, tentatively feeling her way through the room, almost afraid that another stack of books might fall, and maybe this time one might fall on her. “Are you alright?” “I- I’m okay,” came the reply, muted and muffled, and Moondancer turned immediately and walked towards the source of the noise, some small distance to her left. She weaved in and out of the towers, until at last she came upon a stack of books in a clearing, out from which a single, lavender wing protruded. It was a bad thing, Moondancer decided, that her first thought was: Pegasi aren’t usually librarians. It was worse when she corrected herself: Librarians aren’t usually pegasi, for although she had at least avoided one potential fallacy she did unfortunately realise that her observation could be construed as racist. So she very quickly distracted herself from that train of thought, and instead thought: I wonder if she needs any help? Wrapping her magic around the pile of fallen books, Moondancer felt the brush of a second aura against her own. She was so surprised that she nearly lost her grip, but managed to hold on just in time to stop them from crashing to the floor. The pile was heavy—much heavier than she’d anticipated, and she was worried that perhaps she had taken on more than she could chew. She was, after all, one of the most powerful unicorns she knew, and she was starting to struggle so much that she wasn’t convinced that even a unicorn who could match her for power would be able to lift it with her. And yet, the books moved. Slowly but surely, the pile rose, wrapped in a shroud of light pink and lavender auras, and Moondancer could feel that she wasn’t pulling her own weight in this endeavour. In fact, she would be willing to bet that whoever this other unicorn was, they would be more than capable of lifting this pile without her help, although she certainly didn’t want to do the pegasus trapped below any harm by testing that hypothesis then and there. Except, the mare under the books wasn’t a pegasus. And when Moondancer saw those dark, purple eyes staring up at her, she very nearly dropped the entire pile on purpose, just to see if little miss Princess even needed her help in the first place. She didn’t, though. Instead, she simply finished helping Twilight move the books, before turning sharply towards the door and walking determinedly towards it… “Where are you going?” “Anywhere but here,” Moondancer answered, the words coming out of her mouth so quickly that her tongue nearly tripped over them. She rounded one last tower, and gripped the door in her aura, ready to leave. “But what about the sto—” Wind battered her face; snow catching on her skin and sticking like small pellets of ice and pure cold. She felt a familiar magic pull the door from her grasp, and slam it shut: the wave of heat rolled over her again, and she just stood in the doorway for a moment, blinking. “Stay,” said the voice, now just behind her. “I’ll make us both some hot cocoa, if you’d like? I’m pretty sure I have a few marshmallows left over…” “None for me, please,” Moondancer replied, quietly. “Just the cocoa. I’m not too fond of marshmallows. They’re too sweet and sticky.” There wasn’t a response, though she could have sworn she heard the mare behind her nodding, just slightly, the rustle of a mane bouncing up and down with a bobbing head, followed by the soft tap of hooves on polished oak floor. She turned, as if to say something, but by the time she had turned her head all that was left of Twilight was a tail swishing its way through a kitchen door. Moondancer’s first thought was to follow, but she quickly dismissed it. This was her first opportunity to have a look around the Golden Oaks Library, and she wasn’t going to waste it. Quickly breaking into a quiet trot, she zig-zagged through the stacks of books until she found her way to the edge of the room. The bookshelf was almost empty, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t wonder about their style. They certainly weren’t the pristine shelves she was used to in a library—instead, they were these strange, rounded hollows in walls, almost organically shaped (which made sense for a library that was, quite literally, a living tree.) But still, the shape threw her: she didn’t quite like the idea of the space at the ends being wasted, even if it did make the whole thing look rather nice. Keeping the shelves on her right, Moondancer trotted around the edge of the room. It was a rough oval, much like the trunk of the tree outside it, but something about it felt almost too large. It was as if this kind of space wasn’t quite small enough to fit inside a tree, even one of this size, and the fact that she could see staircases branching off of it made her question the very nature of the building she was standing in. She had always read that it was centuries old, and the kind of magic needed to do something like this was certainly a relatively recent discovery—much more recent, at least, than this tree. She wasn’t entirely sure how they had done it. Twilight might know. But then, did she really want to hear the answer from Twilight? “Moondancer?” “Cocoa’s ready,” Twilight said, her voice cracking a little but still sounding mostly perky. It seemed as if she wasn’t all too pleased that Moondancer was here, either. “When you are, I mean.” Moondancer nodded (to herself, more than anything) and turned back the way she’d come until she came across the door to the kitchen. Ducking through it, she found Twilight sitting at a table with two mugs of warm, steaming liquid before her. Tentatively, she sat down opposite the mare she had once called friend, and picked up her mug (as requested, no marshmallows), raising it to her lips. “So…” Twilight’s voice filled the heavy silence between them, but did nothing to make it any lighter. “What brings you to Ponyville?” “Plunder vines destroyed my house,” Moondancer replied simply. “Came to stay with Lyra for a few days, until it’s fixed.” Twilight looked surprised. She set her mug down on the table, and rested her elbows, propping her chin up on her hooves. “Nopony ever told me that those vines had spread as far as Canterlot,” Twilight replied. “I mean, it should be obvious in hindsight if they somehow managed to take Celestia and Luna, but I guess I just didn’t give much thought to it…” “Well not all of us can just up and move to Ponyville,” Moondancer said, before covering her mouth with a hoof: that had come out much angrier than she had anticipated. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that.” Was she angry? Stupid question: of course she was angry. This was the mare who had single-hoofedly crushed her dreams of friendship just a few years ago, and who had then gone on to be crowned Princess of Friendship. How was that fair? How was it fair that Twilight Sparkle could just abandon her friends and move to a whole new town, only then to spite them all with her brand, shiny new title. “No, it’s okay,” Twilight replied. “I understand. I didn’t even tell you girls that I was leaving.” “Did we really mean that little to you, Twilight?” Where did those words come from? Pull it together, Moondancer—you’re not some sappy foal, and you certainly shouldn’t care. Friendship isn’t for you, remember? You don’t need her. Twilight was brushing her hooves against the floor, staring awkwardly down as if to avoid looking right back at her. There was a nervousness in her eyes, jittering and jumping as they were from place to place. She let out the lightest of laughs, but it was anxious and almost choked up. “I guess I, uh, wasn’t the best friend I could have been to you all…” she said, quietly. “It’s just… when I was a filly, I never really let myself make true friends. You girls were there for me, sure, but I wasn’t a friend to you. I cared more about the books and learning than I did about you. “Since then, I’ve learned so much. I mean, look at me.” Somewhat self-consciously, Twilight shuffled her wings a little, rolling her shoulders as she did so. “I’m the Princess of Friendship, now. How do I deserve that, when I treated my first friends the way I did?” Twilight stood, turning away abruptly, and Moondancer couldn’t help but wonder if she was trying to hide her face. “And the worst part is, I probably wouldn’t have even remembered about it if you hadn’t been here today. I’ve been a terrible friend to you, Moondancer.” Not quite sure what to do, Moondancer took a long sip of hot cocoa from her mug, letting the sugar roll around on her tongue once, twice, three times. And as she drank, she thought: she thought about her fillyhood, and the role Twilight Sparkle had played in it; she thought about her old friends, and the ways she had cast them aside after Twilight left for Ponyville; and she thought about her anger towards the mare opposite her, and whether or not it was really anger that she should have felt. “You can say it,” Twilight added. “I won’t mind. It’s no more than I deserve.” “I wasn’t thinking that,” Moondancer said. “I haven’t been the best friend to the others, either. Even when we were fillies, I was always more interested in…” She let her voice trail off. Interested in what, precisely? Was it the books? In some ways it was, of course, but there was a part of her she very rarely acknowledged, a part that told her the reason for her obsession with books and knowledge. And that part said that all she really wanted was to impress Twilight Sparkle. Nonsense, of course—at least, it was nonsense now. Now she learned for the sake of learning, to fill her life with some sort of purpose and, frankly, because she enjoyed it. But when she was a filly, she had always been shy and nervous, and have never quite been sure how best to make friends. And then she found Twilight… “… Books, I guess,” she finished, lamely, after only the briefest of pauses. Twilight might barely even have noticed that she had deliberated at all over her words; if she was lucky, the princess would think that she had merely lost track of her thoughts for a moment. Twilight snorted, and her breath seemed to almost catch the air on its way out and return it as a chuckle. “Tell me about it,” Twilight said. “Neither of us ever really cared for much else, did we?” And Moondancer was so very tempted to tell the princess that that wasn’t quite true, that she had cared about her when they had been younger, but the same small part of her brain that had kept that thought hidden all these years told her that this was probably not a good idea. She wasn’t even sure why, but she listened. “It’s good to know that one of us has found something else in her life,” Moondance said, not quite bitterly. “I haven’t done all that much besides studying since you left. Even when the changelings attacked last year, they caught me in the middle of a book. Good one, too—shame it got covered in slime.” “What book was it?” Twilight turned, a frown on her face. “I might have a copy, somewhere…” “Principia Mathematica,” Moondancer replied, almost automatically. “The Russell one, not Neighton.” Twilight stopped in her tracks, her eyes widening, and a manic grins started to spread across her face. Moondancer couldn’t help but smile back at her—the mare’s enthusiasm was contagious, even if it was for things most ponies wouldn’t think twice about. “Oh my gosh, I’ve always wanted to read that,” Twilight said, her voice beginning to gush. “Did you get to the proof of 1+1…” “Yes!” Moondancer cried. “That was probably the strangest moment of any mathematics textbooks I’ve ever read. The very idea that one could lay out a proof of that, from fundamental axioms…” “Okay, we have to get a copy in here,” Twilight said, her enthusiasm all of a sudden turning business-like. “I’ll go add it to the order form for this month. Won’t take a moment!” The princess popper her head around the door and, without even leaving the room, simply stood staring into the main room of the library, he horn lit as she wrote in some ledger that only she could see. Now it was Moondancer’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise. “You can write from a distance? Without seeing the parchment?” Twilight turned and, blushing, walked back to the table. “I, uh, figured it would be a useful thing to practice,” she said, sheepishly, her blush deepening as she glanced up at Moondancer’s wide eyes. “Oh, stop it. You know that was something I always wanted to be able to do.” “Yes, but I never thought you’d actually do it!” Moondancer grinned. “Twilight, I know you probably get told this a million times a day, especially now you’re a princess and all, but you’re brilliant. You know that, right?” Twilight’s eyes dropped to the floor again, and she seemed to almost be trying to curl up in a ball on her chair. “You don’t have to say that, Moondancer. You were the only one at school who could even begin to keep me on my toes—I’m sure you’ve learned some pretty incredible tricks over the years.” “Not anything like that,” Moondancer said with a shrug. “I managed to learn a few tips and tricks for disabling spells a few months back, but I honestly never have much of a chance to use them.” For a moment, Twilight seemed to be lost in thought. Moondancer said nothing—she knew what it was like. And besides, she was sure Twilight would say something eventually. “Are you free tomorrow night, Moondancer?” Twilight asked, quietly. Moondancer frowned, but nodded: it wasn’t as if she had any plans beyond her usualy days in the library while she ws here in Ponyville, and she was sure that whatever Twilight was suggesting would be something she would be interested in. “My friend and I have a weekly reading session,” Twilight explained. “We just grab some cushions and some snacks and curl up by the fire with a few good books. I thought you might like to join us…” And once again, for the second time since she arrived, the image of curling up by a fire with somepony special popped into her head and wouldn’t quite go away. Moondancer wanted it—she wanted to feel the rise and fall of another pony’s chest as the pressed their side up against hers, and to enjoy the comfortable silence in the knowledge that there was somepony there with her, that she wasn’t just reading alone on another Friday night… And then, she imagined, that pony would stretch out their wings, and drape them across her back, pulling her into the lightest, softest hug. … huh. She’d never thought of that before. She wasn’t quite sure why, but she’d never really considered a pegasus for a partner. Although, in her defence, considering anypony for a partner was something she would never normally do—the idea was little more than an amorphous pony in her head. They could be anyone, except now, it seemed, they had wings. How very peculiar. “Yes,” she said, without really thinking about it. She frowned, quickly, and then decided that of course she did want to go. “Yes, that sounds wonderful.” Twilight smiled, a wide, genuine smile. “I’m glad. I’ll let Rainbow Dash know that you’re coming, and I’ll make sure we have enough snacks for the three of us. Rainbow usually eats more than her fair share, so make sure you get in on the food as quickly as you can.” Moondancer nodded, smiling. “You know, Twilight? I never thought it would be this easy to get back into the swing of hanging out with you. It’s… nice.” “Yeah,” Twilight agreed. “It is, isn’t it?” Moondancer drained the last of her cocoa and placed the mug down on the table with a sigh. “I guess this must be why you’re the princess of friendship, Twilight,” she said with a wry smile. “You’re just so easy to get along with.” “I don’t think so,” Twilight said. “I can be pretty unbearable at times. I think we just get on easily, that’s all.” “Yeah,” Moondancer said, not quite thinking about it. She did rather get on easily with the princess, even when, in the pit of her stomach, she resented the mare for everything she had done to her. And yet, when she was in the room, Moondancer couldn’t quite remember to be angry with her. Maybe it was their shared interests, or the ease with which they conversed. Maybe it was that she finally had somepony she could talk with enthusiastically about the things she had researched, without them dozing off the way Lyra and so many others had before. And maybe, just maybe, it was all those years of fillyhood spent trying to impress Twilight—all those years that made her hyper aware of all the mare’s likes, her dislikes, her hobbies and interests. And maybe, just maybe, it was the way the princess smiled—that bashful little grin that drew her eyes like sunflowers tracking the sun. It was an infectious smile: Moondancer just wanted to grin like a foal whenever she saw it, knowing that Twilight would be happier still to have somepony engaging in her interests, the same way Moondancer was glad to have Twilight share in her own. And it was still only a tiny possibility, but it might have been the way that she found herself wanting to curl up next to the princess, books held in their auras before them, and to have her wings wrapped over her shoulders… Yes, of course. It was merely that they had spent so much time together as foals. That was all.
Day's EndThe day at the library had, in the end, been much more productive than she had suspected in her first hour there. Twilight had allowed her access to some of the rarer books the Golden Oaks had out of display, and she spent several hours reading up on the latest developments in magical leyline theory (including a paper by none other than Twilight herself, which was quite humbling to read. Twilight wrote like a professional scientist, her words carefully chosen to perfectly convey the message without any need to over- or under-simplify anything she was saying. Moondancer wished that she had the ability to write like that—or even to speak like that. It seemed that Twilight was proving to be more and more of an enigma every day. Every new thing that moondancer learned about the princess was a revelation, something she never would have expected of the mare she had known all those years ago. She taught, now, it seemed: three fillies had arrived in the library after school hours, mere minutes after Twilight had finally gotten around to tidying up the stacks of books that were strewn throughout the room, and Moondancer was pleased to see the three completely and utterly focused on their learning, even when they were all learning different things. They had called the session “Twilight Time”, and Moondancer had let her eyes stray from her book far too often to glance up at Twilight and simply watch her as she paced between the fillies, demonstrating all the different aspects of what they knew. Moondancer liked to think of herself as a jack of all trades, at least when it came to research. She had learned more things in more subjects than she had ever even knew existed as a foal, and yet looking at Twilight able to switch fluidly from mechanics to potion-making in the blink of an eye… Moondancer was coming to realise that she still had an awful lot to learn about before she could be a master of any of her skills. After about half an hour, Twilight has spoken up and asked her if she’d mind helping out—the little filly who was making potions, Apple Bloom, was struggling with a bit of the chemistry behind what she was doing, and Twilight had insisted that moondancer was definitely more qualified than her in that field. Though the thought of being better than Twilight at anything brought a blush to Moondancer’s cheeks, she had put her book down gently and trotter over to help out. By the end of the session, she had found herself absorbed in the fillies’ world, helping them learn for the sake of learning but also in what they called their “crusade” for cutie marks. It was all rather adorable, really. Moondancer had never considered teaching. She had always thought that she would be more interested in learning new things herself than in passing on her knowledge to other ponies, for after all those ponies could always come and dop as she did, and learn it for themselves. But as she was leaving the library that evening, after helping Twilight tidy up in a comfortable silence, Moondancer was starting to think more and more that maybe teaching could be fun. After all, if the fillies and colts she had were anywhere near as well-behaved and excited to learn as those three, it couldn’t be all that difficult. But maybe private tutoring was more her thing. She’d definitely enjoyed the one-on-one aspect of “Twilight Time” far more than she would have enjoyed it if she were lecturing the whole group of them on some aspect of chemistry. perhaps because she knew that Scootaloo (was that her name?) would probably have drifted off to sleep. The storm had died down by the evening, and though the air outside still chilled her to her bones, Moondancer wasn’t completely frozen in the way that she had been that morning. Still, just to be on the safe side, Moondancer had kept her pace to a brisk job, trying to make sure that she didn’t freeze and kept her blood flowing. It was at times like this that Moondancer got seriously upset with the cruelty of the world. Her house had to be destroyed on the one day she left her favourite sweater at home, didn’t it? Grunting in annoyance, not really bringing herself to think about it any harder (for the force of her hooves stamping into the ground each second was more than enough to ensure that she lost her train of thought every few seconds), Moondancer jogged onwards towards Lyra’s home. It was only as she reached the front door that Moondancer realised she didn’t have a key, and that she had no idea if either Lyra or Bon Bon was actually in. Stopping at the door, feeling the cold of the air wash over her as her body cooled off, she reached up and knocked anyway—there was little else she could do. If neither of the mares were in, she couldn’t do anything about it… Or could she? Five minutes of standing in the cold was enough to make anypony think outside the box, and a unicorn had more options for that than most. Moondancer stopped and thought about how she might try to open the door, without breaking anything. After about a minute, Moondancer’s thoughts began to drift. She was never as good at this kind of problem-solving as Twilight had been, and she doubted that she would be able to find a solution all that easily. Twilight would have gotten into the house in a matter of minutes, that was the worst part. For all Twilight said about her being better at chemistry, the fact of the matter was that Twilight had been the one to figure out how to control her aura so well that she could write at a distance, without even seeing the… Oh. That might work. In fact, that might be the only thing that could work. Moondancer leaned up, stretching her legs, and looked through the peep-hole in the door into the hallway. She could see a pen and a notepad among the items scattered on the desk. Good. Those would allow her to test her idea. She reached out with her aura, trying to find the pen and pick it up. Her control had never been that great—her approach to most problems involving magic had always been “throw more force at it and it’ll either fix itself or break beyond repair, hopefully the former”—but Moondancer soon found that she could hold the pen comfortably still. Moving it to the paper, Moondancer attempted to write familiar shapes onto the page, closing her eyes carefully as she did so to make sure that she didn’t cheat by looking. Sure enough, when she opened her eyes, her name had been scribbled across the page—messy, yes, but still clearly legible. Good. Now came the tricky part. Moondancer set the pen down on the desk and, closing her eyes once more, gave it a quick nudge. She felt it roll across the desk, but now that she had let go she couldn’t quite tell where it had ended up. Keeping her eyes closed, she tried to move the hornglow methodically over the desk, searching for the pen… A-ha! There it was! Grasping it once more in her magic, Moondancer tried to lift it up, but found herself struggling to remember where the pad of paper had gone. With her eyes close she couldn’t quite see. Frowning, and scrunching up her eyes in concentration, Moondancer cent out another wave of magic to scour the desk. It was the strangest feeling, and one she would never quite get used to—like having a hoof be in more than one place at once. Yet, eventually, Moondancer found the pad, and brought the pen over to meet it. Once more, she fumbled her way through the familiar shapes, before peeking out of one, squinted eye. Success! Moondancer smiled and sighed in relief, letting out a breath she hadn’t ever realised she had been holding, and put the pen down once more on the desk. If she could do that, she knew, the door would only take a matter of minutes. She sent felt out with her magic, feeling the back of the door for a latch or handle, anything that she might be able to use to tug the door open. But Moondancer wasn’t used to using magic blindly, and she found it difficult to keep her aura pressed up against the door—it was almost as if her magic wanted her to see it, drifting into view the moment she let her concentration even slip slightly. But Moondancer knew that she would be more than capable of doing this if she could just think clearly for one Celestia-damned There! She grinned, pulling at the latch and hearing a satisfying clunk of metal moving within the doorframe. Moondancer pushed against the door gently with her hoof, not quite daring to believe that her crazy idea might have worked, but she soon discovered that she had, in fact, succeeded. The door swung open with a gentle motion, only slightly creaking as she pushed at it. And, just like that, she was inside the house. She quickly pushed the door shut behind her, making sure not to do up the latch as she did so, for even though she was sure that Lyra and Bon Bon would be surprised to find their door unlocked they would probably be even more shocked to discover that she was still inside their house when it had been locked. Once she was inside, Moondancer didn’t quite know what to do. Her first thought, awakened by the slight sensation of pins and needles pricking her back, was that she needed to warm up—and, almost on impulse, she found herself dragged to the kitchen by her hooves and the kettle held beneath the sink in her aura. Mug of coffee held before her, Moondancer retreated to the living room and all but collapsed on the sofa. She hadn’t realised quite how tiring the afternoon with the Crusaders had been: sure, she had enjoyed it a lot, but now she was alone and had the opportunity to relax Moondancer found herself almost entirely drained of energy. The coffee, she decided, was a doubly good idea in such an instance. She threw her hind legs up behind her, sprawling out on the sofa and stretching her back, which had started to ache with discomfort of constantly bending down to a filly’s height. She sighed in relief, letting the tension and stress from the day just melt into the sofa below her, and allowed herself to close her eyes just for a moment… “Moondancer?” “Huh? Whassup?” Moondancer pushed herself up from the sofa with one foreleg, the other hoof wiping at her bleary, tired eyes. She turned her head—slowly, because her neck was feeling more than a little stiff—and looked around for the pony who had called out her name. Bon Bon was standing by the sofa, a frown on her face and a glass of water held in her hoof. “You have a long day at the library?” Bon Bon asked, a slightly cheeky light in her eyes and a small smirk tugging at her lips. Moondancer smiled bashfully and nodded, inclining her head towards the other mare in a gesture that simply said: Yeah, I guess. Bon Bon made to sit down on one end of the sofa, and Moondancer quickly pulled herself up so that she wasn't sprawled the whole length of the seat, giving Bon Bon the room to sit down. The earth pony smiled at her in thanks, taking a long gulp of water from her glass before setting it down on the table and letting out a long, loud sigh. “So, you’ve met Princess Twilight then?” Moondancer snorted. She had half a mind to tell Bon BOn about how close she and the princess had been all those years ago, but something held her tongue. It was strange, but since she had arrived in Ponyville she was starting to watch what she was saying more and more. SHe wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. “We go back a way,” Moondancer admitted, when Bon Bon raised an eyebrow questioningly at her. How does she do that? I’ve spent hours in front of a mirror trying to get that to work… “We haven’t seen each other in a few years, though.” “I imagine she’s changed a bit since you last saw her?” Bon Bon said, smirking. When she caught sight of Moondancer’s frown, she rolled her eyes and motioned with her forelegs, flapping them behind her back. “Oh, yeah, the wings thing…” Moondancer said, pushing the thought of Twilight’s wing curled around her body to the back of her mind. “Yeah, that was a bit of a shock at first, but despite everything she’s still the same old Twilight. She loves to learn, she loves to share what she’s learned. Only difference is the fancy title and slightly more outgoing attitude.” Moondancer took a quick swig of her coffee, her expression turning sour as she discovered that it had cooled while she was asleep. “Oh, and I guess she’ a little more friendly now, too. Cares a bit more about ponies than she used to.” “I’ll say,” Bon Bon added, nodding in acknowledgement. “I remember all the stories Lyra used to tell me about her from when they were fillies in Canterlot. Apparently she was so caught up in her reading that she once completely failed to notice a stallion who was trying to ask her to prom.” “I remember that!” Moondancer said, grimacing a little in embarrassment for her friend. “I was sitting next to her, reading, when this colt comes over. He’s this pegasus, and looks like the athletic type, y’know? The kind of stallion you’d never expect to go for Twilight. “Anyway,” Moondancer continued, smiling fondly at the memory, “next thing I know, the poor kid is trying to start up a conversation with her, and she just keeps nodding and humming in response. She probably never even heard a word he said, poor kid, and he went away thinking that she’d agreed to go with him!” At that, both mares almost doubled over with laughter, letting the spasming breaths just for a moment control their whole bodies, rocking them back and forth. The noise filled the air, and Moondancer was surprised to find a small patch of dampness on her cheek, just below her eyes. Am I… crying? “Yeah, that sounds like Twilight alright,” Bon Bon said, grinning, “Even now she’s pretty oblivious to romance. Have you met Rainbow Dash?” Moondancer shook her head. “No, but Twilight’s invited me to a reading session with the two of them tomorrow night. Why?” Bon Bon simply stared at her, almost as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing, her eyes wide and had mouth slowly slipping open. “Y-you’re kidding, right?” Bon Bon asked. “Twilight invited you to one of her reading nights with Rainbow? Dear Celestia, that mare is completely impossible.” “Why?” Moondancer frowned. She was looking forward to reading with Twilight, and that had nothing to do with the images that flooded her mind of the two of them snuggling up close, a book held by each of their muzzles… No. Nothing to do with that at all. Bon Bon took a deep breath in, and bit her lip. For a moment, she frowned, as if not quite sure where to start. “Everypony in town knows that Rainbow Dash has a huge crush on Twilight,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth quickly and almost pooling the the air around Moondancer, it seemed: she had to spend a moment trying to gather her thoughts to respond to them. But before she could properly think, Bon Bon was already saying more, the words overflowing like a sink with the tap left on for too long. “She’s tried to hide it, of course. She thinks it isn’t ‘awesome’ to like somepony that way, but everypony in town thinks it’s really sweet how she always crashes into the library after her afternoon practices and stays and helps Twilight tidy up, even though it’s clear that she’s doing it on purpose. And I heard Cheerilee say that Lotus ahd told her that Rarity had mentioned that Rainbow Dash secretly thinks of those evenigns reading as dates, even though she knows Twilight is completely oblivious, and I don’t know how kindly she’ll take to you coming along to join them for one of those.” The words tumbled on and on, and Moondancer struggled to keep up. What was most impressive was that Bon Bon had managed the entire spiel without once stopping for breath, and the moment she had reached her conclusion the mare was gasping for air, gulping it down like a fish returned to the water, or an adventurer returning home from a desert, and finding herself in the town bar… “Let me get this straight,” Moondancer said. “Rainbow Dash has a crush on Twilight. Everypony other than Twilight knows. Rainbow pretends that she’s going on dates with Twilight when the two of them meet to read every week. And I’ve just been invited along to join them?” Bon Bon nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” she said, her eyes drifitng over towards the window. “Hold on,” she added, “let me just grab the door.” Not a second later, the thud of a knock resounded through the house, and Bon Bon stood with a smirk. She trotted lightly out into the hallway, and Moondancer could hear the door creak open, and Bon Bon greeting her marefriend home. Soon enough, the two mares had joined her in the front room—Moondancer had insisted that she take the cushion, and that her hosts be allowed to share the sofa, but it had taken until she purposefully rose and strode over to the cushion, setting herself dow on it with a deliberate flump, that the two mares agreed to it. “So, how was your day?” Lyra asked, smiling. Moondancer raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips as if to say not bad. “Oh, you know. The usual. Ran into Twilight…” She watched as Lyra’s eyes went wide and the colour drained from her face. “Oh my gosh, Moondancer, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I completely forgot about what happened…” “No!” Moondancer said, cheerfully but rather more forcefully than she had hoped. “I mean, no”, she added, more softly, “I don’t mind. It was nice to catch up, once I’d gotten over the initial shock of seeing her again.” Lyra chuckled. “It was quite strange to see her here in Ponyville, I’ll give her that. Are you sure you’re okay, though? I know she wasn’t the kindest to you…” “It was a mistake,” Moondancer said, bluntly. “That was all. She’s apologised. I think I’ve forgiven her. That’s all that matters. “Besides,” she added, slyly, “she’s invited me on one of her romantic dates with Rainbow Dash, so things can’t be going all that badly.” Lyra’s expression mirrored Bon Bon’s from mere minutes before. “I don’t believe it,” Lyra said. “That mare… she’s completely impossible. How in the hay did she manage to make ‘Princess of Friendship’ when she can’t even notice her friend trying to ask her out?” “I’m more worried about her sister-in-law,” Bon Bon said. “How is she managing to be Princess of Love if she can’t even help her own family see the bleeding obvious?” “I’m sure Cadence is doing her best,” Moondancer piped up. “Besides, she’s the ruler of a sovereign kingdom. I can hardly imagine she has time to keep an eye on the love lives of her extended family.” “Have you met Cadence?” Lyra asked. “The mare’s so close to Twilight that Twi literally walks on air for a week before she comes to visit, and plans everything down to even more detail than she usually would just to make sure, and I quote, ‘that Princess Cadence is treated to the best hospitality Ponyville can afford.’” Snorting, Lyra added, “I’m genuinely surprised she didn’t ask Cadence to marry her before Shining did.” It wasn’t long before the conversation fell comfortably back into discussions of their days. Soon enough, Lyra and Bon Bon were sharing little bits and pieces of gossip from their work, and Moondancer found herself laughing along with their stories. It was a pleasant feeling, and it was certainly a relaxed atmosphere, but a part of Moondancer already missed the feeling of being a part of the discussion. She might have been uncomfortable—Celestia knew she would rather be a spectator than a participant in any sort of discussion—but still the thought plagues her mind. Why would I want to be a part of this discussion? What could I add? And then, without warning, Bon Bon yawned, her jaw stretching wide and her forelegs streched out before her. Lyra smiled slyly at her marefriend. “Tired?” she asked, to which Bon Bon merely nodded. Lyra glanced at the clock, her eyes widening as she saw how late it had gotten. “We should probably head to bed. I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.” “Oh,” Moondancer said, a little hint of sadness dripping into her tone. “Okay. Well, uhm. Goodnight?” “Sleep well, Moondancer,” Bon Bon said, stretching her back before stepping off of the sofa. “I’ll see you in the morning. And if you want some help getting ready for your date…” Moondancer couldn’t help but blush, and she cringed at the feeling of warmth rushing to her cheeks. Bon Bon and Lyra both laughed, not unkindly, and with brisk nods made their way out into the hallway, and up the stairs. After a few moments of sitting in thought, Moondancer followed suit, and within just a few short minutes of her head touching the pillow, she was asleep.
Reading NightThe snow was starting to melt, which was, all things considered, for the best. It wasn’t the last snow of winter—no, it was far too early for the ponies of Ponyville to begin their annual wrap-up—but it would at least be a good few days until Moondancer had to deal with the wretched, damp stuff again. She was glad to see it gone, but more glad that she could actually see where she was going this morning, and it wasn’t long before she found her way to the library. Today, Moondancer decided, she was not going to be distracted—she had research to do, after all, and unless those adorable filies showed up again for another session of Twilight Time, nothing was going to keep her from Oh sweet mother of the Sisters, she’s gorgeous. Moondancer blinked, twice, her hoof still leaning against the half-open door as her eyes fell on Twilight, sitting at a desk, her quill held aloft in lavender aura as she bit her lip in thought. For a moment, she found herself unable to move, but as soon as she could Moondancer stepped forwards into the library and pushed the door closed behind her, shutting it with the gentles of thuds. Twilight looked up and smiled, dropping her quill to the desk. “Good morning, Moondancer,” she said, standing up and stretching before trotting across the room to greet her old friend. Moondancer opened her mouth to say something in response, but was struggling to find any words at all. Twilight’s mane was a mess—she had clearly woken up not that long ago, and tiredness still lined her features. Haris splayed all over her brow, the usually meticulous stipe of pink now twisted in amongst the darker purple. And something about the way her mane fell about her face… today it wasn’t quite straight, but seemed more rounded, and Moondancer couldn’t quite put her finger on why any of this made her old friend beautiful but to be perfectly honest she couldn’t really care less. Twilight Sparkle was beautiful, and Moondancer was staring. She knew she wasn’t meant to, that it was impolite and rude and wrong, but Moondancer found her eyes drawn to Twilight and stuck there without any thought of her own directing them. She had no choice—she bjust stared, and hoped that Twilight would move and stop being so impossibly gorgeous before she made a total fool of herself. “You alright?” Twilight asked, chuckling nervously to herself. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” “More like an angel” is the cheesiest thing you could possibly say, Moondancer, and if you dare try to speak those words out loud I swear to Celestia I will never let you live this down. “Y-yeah,” she said, forcing herself to blink, holding her eyes closed just long enough that she could turn her head away. “I’m good. Just got distracted, that’s all.” “Okay…” Twilight said, her suspicion clear in her voice. She shook her head, and smiled once more. “I was hoping you’d come in today. I had some research I needed a helping hoof with, and I couldn't think of anypony else who would be able to help me out.” “Flattered” was a word that could adequately describe Moondancer’s feelings, if it weren’t for the butterflies in her stomach that were making her feel too self-conscious, as if she needed to curl up in a ball and just let the world completely ignore her in order to feel safe and comfortable again. But she was still flattered, that much she was sure of. “What are you researching?” she asked, trying to avoid eye contact with the princess. Twilight smiled, and with a flick of her tail, turned around, walking towards the stairs in the far corner of the tree. “Come take a look yourself,” she said, beckoning with a nod of her head for Moondancer to follow. Moondancer swallowed, and took a few brave steps forward, before the sway of Twilight’s hips dragged her down the stairs like a snake charmed by a flautist. The stairs twisted and turned, and soon opened out into a basement—a wide expanse of what looked like storage space that had been reconfigured into a DIY lab. Twilight had laid out some desks and various machnies buzzed and bleeped around her. Moondancer stepped forwards, trying to get a closer look at some of the outputs and readings. “You’re studying leylines?” she asked, incredulous. “But you’re one of the leading experts on leyline theory! What more could you learn from a setup as small as this?” Twilight smiled, a devilish grin that Moondancer almost recoiled from, before she recognised in the shine of her friend’s eyes the enthusiasm with which she was approaching this task. There was no doubt that Twilight Sparkle was planning something big. “What if I were to tell you that leylines were changing?” Moondancer frowned. Then she blinked. Then she nodded. Then: “Wait, what?!” Twilight smiled, clearly enjoying herself a little too much. “That’s what I thought at first. But I’m convinced—the leylines of Equestria aren’t static, but they’re moving. And what is more, their strength is changing constantly, fluctuating and flittering around a median value.” “It’s just natural interference…” “But it’s not,” Twilight interrupted, ripping off some graph paper from a readout and hovering it over to Moondancer for closer inspection. “It’s not interference—there’s a clear pattern in that data. All the leylines have different patterns, each one fluctuating in different ways, but all around the same average. Remind you of anything?” Moondancer was stunned. She checked the graph again, and, just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, walked over to the machine Twilight had taken the readout from and read off the next strip of graph paper herself. There was a pattern. There had always been a pattern. “This is a spell matrix,” Moondancer said, not quite believeing the words that were the only logical conclusion to what she was seeing. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. And yet… there it was. “They’re not natural sources of energy—something is channeling energy through them.” “Bingo.” Twilight dropped down into a chair, and started to mess with a few dials on one of the devices, not one that Moondancer recognised. And if the impression of Twilight’s cutie mark on the side of the tower were anything to go by, it was quite possible that this machine was custom-built for this experiment… Being a Princess must have had serious perks when it came to getting research grants, Moondancer realised. You could quite literally design and order your own equipment, probably without even needing to worry about the cost. But then, Twilight Sparkle had never needed to think about budgets for her work—Princess Celestia had always seen to that, ever since she was a student. It would have made Moondancer jealous, if she hadn’t been able to ask Twilight to order equipment for her when they were studying together. “So,” Moondancer said, not quite sure where to begin. “What do you need me for?” “I need somepony to help me figure out what this spell is doing,” Twilight said. “You were always pretty good at that, weren’t you?” Moondancer raised a hoof to her head, and rubbed at her scalp. She took a long, deep breath in, and let it out slowly and carefully. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I guess I can do my best. But I’ll need data from more than just the one leyline. It’s impossible to tell what this spell might be without all the parts of it…” “I’m trying to gather the data,” Twilight replied, “from research stations around the world. But there’s not much I can do about the San Palomino line: nopony has dared try to set any sort of monitoring equipment up on it in years, and I don’t blame them.” “But that’s the more powerful line, isn’t it?” Moondancer asked. “Surely, if anything, that’s the one that should tell us about the spell…” “Damn it all to Tartarus!” Twilight’s voice echoed through the basement, a dulled and muted thud reverberating after it. It was the sound of a mare driven to frustration by a problem that simply refused to be solved, and the sound of a clipboard thrown flat against a soft, wood wall, in that order. “I’m sorry, Twilight,” Moondancer said, wiping at her eyes and trying to stifle a yawn deep in her throat. “I’ve tried everything I can think of, but it’s just not coming out right. Without the San Palomino line, there’s nothing we can do.” “I know,” Twilight said, quietly. “I know. I just thought…” “Yeah,” Moondancer said. “I did, too. I really thought that between the two of us we might be able to find something.” “It’s no use,” Twilight said. “Maybe we’re just seeing patterns where no patterns exist? Ponies do that far too often. “Look, I think we should call it a night.” Twilight glanced across the room at the clock that hung on the wall, its large hands mocking them for their lack of progress in such a long time. “Rainbow will be here soon, anyway. You still want to join us tonight?” Moondancer bit her lip, and thought: If I say yes, then I could very well be upsetting Rainbow Dash, and I’d hardly want to make that sort of first impressions. But if I say no, Twilight will probably be disappointed in me, and I don’t want to let her down. Oh, what do I do? “Are… are you sure you don’t mind?” she asked, settling on the compromise—or rather, the coward’s way out—of simply asking Twilight to make the decision for her. “I’d have thought that you’d have enjoyed some time alone with your friend.” “Yes,” Twilight said, simply, “but it’s not every week that an old friend comes to call in Ponyville. I haven’t seen you in two years, Moondancer—it’d be nice to make the most out of the time that you’re here. If that means waiting another week until I get to just spend time with Rainbow Dash, then I’m happy to do that.” Moondancer wasn’t sure if she was meant to be happy that Twilight was willing to let her new friends take second priority to her, but it made her chest feel warm and she felt as if she were being hugged. She resisted the sudden urge to wrap her own forehooves around her barrel and squeeze, instead settling comfortably in the position of having her elbows pushed up against her ribs, a light pressure on her sides. “Okay,” she said, simply and quietly, nodding her head in a soft, bobbing motion. “I’ll join you. Sounds like fun.” Twilight beamed, and all but pranced across the room to wrap her own forelegs around Moondancer’s neck—and she melted into the hug, and allowed the princess to completely surround her, until she was lost in a sea of lavender embrace and the entire world was Twili The thud of a knock at the door. With a slight cough, Twilight disentangled herself from Moondancer and, with an apologetic grimace, ran up the stairs to greet her guest. Moondancer sat still for a moment, stunned. Her heart was beating at a thousand beats per minute, each contraction a shudder that sent a light flutter through her chest. If she looked down, now, she could just see it—there, in the middle of her ribcage, right under her sternum, the gentle twitching of her skin in butterfly-wingbeats to the rhythm of her heart. She took a deep breath in, and focused on the flow of air through her throat, the sensation of the cool gas flowing almost like water into her lungs, filling them up, She didn’t think about the lingering tingle of Twilight’s touch, of the ghost of pressure that still pressed against her shoulders. And, slowly, her heartbeat calmed, and the twitching of her chest became lost amid the slow rise and fall of her breaths. When at last her heart had calmed down, and every inch of her body has stopped tingling with the lost sensation of Twilight’s embrace, Moondancer rose and wandered slowly over to the stairs. Above her, she could hear voices playfully arguing: Twilight’s voice was relaxed and comfortable, and the mare she was speaking to sounded almost… proud? There wasn’t really a better word for it, Moondancer was sure. She took a step upwards, and the conversation grew that little bit louder. Slowly, as she climbed the steps, the muffled voices became more and more distinct, and the words she was hearing became more and more clear until at last they were no longer just a murmur of noise but actual, clear phrases and sounds that she could understand. And, soon enough… “Twilight, this is our time. Together.” “I know, Rainbow, but it’s been years since I’ve seen her and I thought it would be nice…” “Nice? I haven’t even met the mare, and you’re asking her to come and read with us? Do you know what that feels like, Twi?” “No, Rainbow, I don’t. All I know is that I thought you’d understand me wanting to see an old friend for the few days she was in town.” “I… I just… I thought this was something I could share with you, Twi. Just you.” Moondancer froze at the top of the stairs, just around the corner from the main room of the library. She felt her breaths become shallow, and tried to make everything she did as quiet as possible—she didn’t want to intrude. “Twi, I… I need to ask you something.” “Okay. Go ahead.” She could hear the mares breathing, the breaths deep and ragged and Moondancer wasn’t entirely sure that either of them were fully comfortable with their situation. But of course, she couldn’t do anything. Rainbow Dash was in this on her own. “Uhh… gee, Twi, I have no idea what I’m doing. Okay. I can do this. I- I can do this.” HEr breaths were too shallow—Moondancer was starting to feel light headed, and the world was starting to swim a little before her eyes. She forced out a breath in the quietest sigh she could, emptying her lungs until they ached for air, and then slowly, ever so slowly, breathed in until they were full. The world stopped swimming; her head was once again grasped by gravity. “I think you’re really pretty and awesome and I wanted to know if you would go out with me?” There was a moment of quiet. Not silence: silence would be the complete absence of sound, but if she stopped to listen Moondancer could hear sounds all around her. The machines downstairs, still turned on, were beeping and buzzing. There was a bird in the branches of the tree—an owl—calling out with a loud, whistling call. In the kitchen, she could hear the twisting and falling of the water in a dishwasher, cascading through the machine over and over again. But what was most important was the sound of the deep, ragged breaths of Rainbow Dash, the gasping for air that she had lost in her effort to ask her question as quickly and painlessly as possible. No, that wasn't the most important thing. The most important thing was the sound that she could not hear: Twilight’s breaths. For a moment, Moondancer began to worry that her friend had fainted from shock, until she heard the quietest voice speak up: “How long?” “Long enough.” And there were Twilight’s breaths again, moving in rhythm with Rainbow’s—both shaky, both light and erratic, both nervous. After another moment of not-silence, Rainbow Dash spoke up. “I, uh… I can go. I-if you’d rather I left. I’d understand.” Twilight didn’t say a word, but a few moments later Moondancer heard the heavy thud of hooves on wooden floor, the slam of a door opening and closing again in quick succession, and what she was certain was a sob. It wasn’t until after that that Moondancer felt she could look around the corner, and when she did she saw Twilight Sparkle sat inthe middle of the floor, curled up on her hind legs, staring at the front door of the library in shock and horror. Her body was deflated, almost as if she was slumping down to the ground in a sign of defeat, and she was beginning to tear up in the very corners of her eyes. Moondancer couldn’t help it—she all but ran across the room, and wrapped her forelegs around Twilight, pulling her into a tight embrace. The princess turned towards her, reaching up, wrapping her own legs around Moondancer in return and dropping her head into the crook of Moondancer’s shoulder; and she could feel the light dampness forming against her fur, and she simply held Twilight as she cried. It was some time before Twilight was ready to sit herself up, but when she did so, she did so with a remarkable dignity. Moondancer had never quite been convinced that Twilight was acting particularly like a princess —she lived in a library, not a palace, and treated her spare time as an excuse to perform crazy experiments on ancient foundations of Equestrian magic, but when Twilight Sparkle needed to be dignified, the by the sisters could she manage it. Twilight wiped at her eyes, drying the tears and swallowing before she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said. That was all. “You don’t have to be,” Moondancer replied. “You have nothing to apologise for.” “I just sent one of my best friends away,” Twilight said, her voice flat. “I think I have a lot to apologise for.” For a moment, the two mares just sat in silence, neither of them even breathing. The atmosphere was tense—too tense, and Moondancer wasn’t wholly sure she felt comfortable, or safe. “I’m sorry, Moondancer, I can’t do this,” Twilight said, rising and turning to the stairs. “I’ll see you around, but right now… I need to be alone.” And in that instant, all the thoughts of Twilight snuggled up with her, reading—all the guilty little thoughts that she might have Twilight to herself tonight now that Rainbow Dash was out of the picture—dried up and vanished, and Moondancer’s priorities shifted. In that instant, she knew, her duty was to her princess… no, to her friend. She needed to make sure that Twilight was well, and that she was happy and safe. And so she did the only thing she could: “Are you sure?” she asked, her voice almost cracking. “I-is there anything I can get you?” Twilight snorted. “Unless you can get Rainbow Dash back here, I don’t think so. And I doubt even you could catch that mare when she didn’t want to be caught.” She shook her head, walking up the stairs to her room. “I’m sorry, Moondancer. I really am. Another time, maybe?” And with that, Twilight vanished around the twist in the stair, and her calm hoofsteps became a fast-paced flurry of hooves on stairs, running, clambering up to her bedroom. And Moondancer simply sat in the middle of the floor, curled up on her haunches, and stared at the stairway that her friend had disappeared into. “Okay.”
Sugarcube Corner, pt. 1“Hey.” The greeting wasn’t harsh or angry, but Moondance still cringed at the sound of Lyra’s voice. After a moment, she collected herself, and looked up at her old friend, smiling in greeting herself. “You seem down today, Moony,” Lyra said, taking a seat opposite her. “I wouldn’t advise you did that here.” Moondancer frowned. “Why would my location have anything to do with whether or not I should seem down? It seems like that kind of thing would hardly be influenced by whether I was moping in your house, or moping in some baked-goods cafe.” Lyra chuckled, and nodded her head towards the counter. A mare that Moondancer could only describe as “pink” was standing on her hind legs behind it, calling out orders to the patrons and serving out food faster than she thought possible, with a wide grin and a wink. “You haven’t met Pinkie, have you?” Of course her name is Pinkie. What else could one possibly call her?” “No,” Moondancer said. “Is this important?” “That depends. How keen are you to be going to your own, last-minute welcome party toni—” “Gooood Moooooooooorniiiiiiiiiiiing!” The shrill voice was not something that Moondancer had been prepared for, not before she’d had her second coffee of the morning. She desperately wanted to clasp her hooves over her ears and just wait for the mare to go away, but she figured this would probably be poor manners in a cafe like this. So, instead, she turned to face the excitable pink mare, who was standing with her face hardly half a foot away from her own. “Uh,” she began, somewhat startled by the sudden proximity. “Good morning?” “Yes, it is a good morning, because you’re new in town! I’ve never seen you before, and if I’ve never seen you before that means you’re a new pony I’ve yet to make friends with, and that means that I get to throw you your very own “Welcome to Ponyville” party. I’m Pinkie Pie, by the way, and I’m Ponyville’s Permiere Party Pony—see? I have business cards. Go on, you can take a couple dozen, they’re really cool. I managed to get them made with a hologram, so you can see the balloons from aaaaall these different angles which is so cool I just want to scream! But I won’t because I’m right next to you and that would probably hurt. Anyway, what’s your name? Do you have any business cards? I’ve started collecting business cards, they make for a really good game…” “Pinkie Pie, this is Moondancer,” Lyra said, interrupting the torrent of words that seemed to be flowing out of Pinkie’s mouth like some kind of enchanted fountain with no need for a source (or, for that matter, breath. The mare hadn’t seemed to take one since before she started talking.) “Moondancer, this is Pinkie Pie. She’ll be throwing you a party tonight. You don’t get a choice in that.” Moondancer stared, wide-eyed at Lyra, who whispered “Sorry” under her breath while Pinkie Pie was distracted. Moondancer grimaced back, before mouthing “Don’t worry” back at her. “I don’t know where I’m going to hold it, though…” Pinkie said, grasping her chin with a hoof. “Sugarcube Corner is a no-go, it’s all booked out for the next week of evenings. And I’d usually try to use the town hall, but that’s still all damaged and destroyed from the last Big Bad Evil Thing that we totally managed to defeat with the power of Friendship Lasers. Or, I guess, we managed to defeat it by giving up our friendship lasers, which was a shame. I always thought that the best parts were when we could just zap anything that threatened Equestria with big, magical boomy friendship powers, and BAM! Big Bad Evil Thing no longer a problem! Life was so much easier back then…” Moondancer frowned as Pinkie Pie sighed, her eyes glazing over as she seemed to drift off into memory. But before she could turn to Lyra and ask what in tartarus was going on, Pinkie took a deep breath in and plastered a grin straight back onto her face. “OH! I know, we can ask Twilight if we could use the library! That’s where I threw her Welcome to Ponyville party, and it went down a treat. And it would be really narratively satisfying, because in a lot of ways you’re meant to be a foil to Twilight demonstrating how she could have turned out if she didn’t discover the awesome power of friendship lasers, and how this entire story is really meant to be a parallel of her journey to self-acceptance through your character. Well, it was meant to be that, but Quill decided to try to write the whole thing in just 24 hours, which is just the silliest idea I mean who does that?” And suddenly, Moondancer was less sure that she was wholly comfortable with this idea. But she stayed quiet, because she had gotten the overall impression that Pinkie Pie might actually be an unstoppable force of nature. But the position of “Literal Embodiment of the Force of Chaos” was already taken, and Moondancer wasn’t quite sure what that left Pinkie with. Maybe she was just some kind of magical construct created by Discord to dow madness wherever she went? Given his latest behaviour, Moondancer wouldn’t be at all surprised by that. There was, of course, the worrying feeling in the pit of Moondancer’s stomach that she was going to have to go to this party, regardless of the fact that she didn’t want parties and she most certainly didn’t want to make friends. Having to still be friendly with Lyra and Bon Bon was enough trouble for her—and without access to the library to keep her distracted through the day, especially with the lack of research that she could possibly do (Lyra and Bon Bon rather stubbornly had only the one book in their house, and Moondancer wasn’t entirely certain that she wanted to study the relative literary merit of Fifty Shades of Neigh.) She was bored. For the first time in her life, Moondancer had no research to distract herself with, no books she could be reading, no problems she could solve and no knowledge she could seek. Was this why other ponies made friends? To while away the hours when one had no way to learn new things? That couldn’t be right: other ponies seemed to avoid learning where they could, from what she had seen. Lyra and Bon Bon’s literary situation was merely further evidence of that. “I’m not sure Twilight is going to be happy to host a party, Pinkie Pie.” Lyra to the rescue—always knowing exactly what words to say, even to somepony as intimidating as Pinkie. “She’s been a bit down since yesterday evening.” “Oh no,” Pinkie said, and all of a sudden her voice became grave and serious, dark as the night and deep as… who was that stallion she had met at the station on the way in? The tall, red guy. Pointed her towards the town hall, didn’t say much. About as deep as his voice. “Dashie didn’t tell her about her crush, did she?” Lyra glanced around the cafe, as if to make sure that nopony was listening in, before nodding softly. Pinkie’s eyes widened, and some of the bounce in her mane seemed to fade, as if she herself was physically reflecting the emotions of the world around her. But that made no sense: Twilight had been down since last night, why should Pinkie’s mane only react now? It couldn’t be Pinkie Pie who was sad, Moondancer reasoned. The very idea of Pinkie Pie even being remotely sad seemed almost alien to her, and though she had known the mare for only a few minutes she had already gotten the impression that she would go to the moon and back if it would stop somepony being sad. “Okay, Moondancer—we’re delaying your party by a few days. This is important.” Pinkie’s eyes were narrowed in steely determination, and she nodded to Lyra. “Operation: Cheer Up Dashie and Twilight and Save Their Friendship is go!” And with that, the pink menace simply ducked under the table, and vanished. For a moment, Moondancer sat in shock, before peering under the table to look for any trace of the fluffy pink mane and tail, that should by all rights be poking out of the table somewhere, but Pinkie Pie was literally nowhere to be seen. It was more than just impossible: it was unthinkable. “Where did she—?” “That’s just Pinkie Pie,” Lyra said with a shrug, leaning back in her chair. “She does that.” “She does that,” Moondancer repeated, not quite believing what she was hearing. “She does that. How is that a valid explanation for anything?” “Do you always need an explanation for everything you see?” Lyra countered. “Sure, explanations can be nice, but some things just don’t make sense, and almost all of them have something to do with Pinkie Pie. I suggest you just let her be who she is and don’t press it.” Her brow furrowed, and she let out a light chuckle. “What is it?” Moondancer asked. “What’s so funny?” “She was right,” Lyra said. “You really are just like Twilight when she first came here. She spent so long trying to figure out what made Pinkie Pie work, and it almost killed her—she was in a cast for a week, almost her whole body. Poor dear… but it’s true what they say: Pinkie Pie is Pinkie Pie, and you can’t do anything about it.” Moondancer wanted to refute that, to say that surely everything could be explained if the right models and the right underlying equations could be found, and that with enough time and effort, and a strong team of diligent, dedicated researchers, the mystery of Pinkie Pie could be cracked in weeks, or maybe months. But she stopped herself, because she was sure that this was exactly what Twilight had thought, too, and that if Twilight had thought it Twilight had probably tried it. And if Twilight had gone on to accept that “Pinkie Pie just being Pinkie Pie” was a valid explanation for something, then it was probably right (as much as she hated to admit it.) Lyra leaned forwards, taking a quick chug of her milkshake before letting out a loud sigh of contentment. “You know, Moondancer? This is all I want from life. A nice, tall glass of something cold and sweet, and a marefriend back home who knows how to work a dishwasher.” “You still haven’t figured that one out?” Moondancer raised her eyebrows, surprised. It had been years since the last time she’d seen Lyra try to use a dishwasher, but the memory was still clear as day—dark, soap-sudded water overflowing and oozing out of all kinds of nooks and crannies in the machine, the wooden floor damaged beyond repair. Lemon Hearts had stood on a kitchen counter, crying out for help while Lyra and Minuette had taken the initiative to try to bail the water out of an open window. Twinkleshine, the only one of the four with any common sense, had simply pulled the power cord on the machine, and let the whole thing simply turn itself off. “Hey, give me a break,” Lyra said, smiling wryly. “That day gave me a morbid fear of technology and kitchens. Some mornings I struggle to turn on the kettle without worrying that it’s going to overflow and burn me.” Lyra winked at her as she said it, and Moondancer chuckled appropriately. “So what do you do when you don’t have the cold drink?” she asked, smirking. “Does your life suddenly feel less complete?” “Nah,” Lyra replied. “I just come straight to Sugarcube Corner and get myself a milkshake. It’s a good life like that.” The two mares looked at each other for a second, letting the image of Lyra just running at full gallop to Sugarcube Corner in the middle of her work day because she was all out of milkshake sink in. And then, in perfect synchronisation, they bust out laughing; Moondancer snorted on her own milkshake, and the resulting mess sent the two into another fit of giggles. Maybe this was the reason ponies had friends? Somepony to make you laugh, to share good times with. She certainly wouldn’t have been able to enjoy this conversation had she and Lyra not been friends, of a sort, and she wouldn’t have had the shared memory of the Dishwasher Disaster to laugh at, either. Was that all friendship was? Just an opportunity to share in the good times with somepony else, and in doing so make those good times better? It was more than that, Moondancer knew, but she certainly felt as if she was on the right track. “So,” Lyra said, the ghost of a laugh still hiding in the shallowness of her breaths, and the corners of her lips. “I was wondering… You know how you said you didn’t think anypony would want to be with you? Like a special somepony, I mean.” Moondancer nodded. Brief images of Twilight’s embrace flashed through her mind, and it took all her self control not to hold herself tightly in a cheap imitation. “I’m not going to try to tell you that somepony would, because you know my stance on this and I don’t think I’ll be able to change your mind if I tried. But—” Lyra frowned and leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper “—have you ever had anypony you’ve wanted to be with?” Moondancer blushed, lightly, but still shot Lyra her best unimpressed face. “Lyra, we’re not children anymore. You don’t have to treat crushes like they’re some kind of all-important, secret conspiracy. They’re just passing infatuations, nothing more.” “But if you can’t treat crushes like some kind of top-secret information, what can you treat like that?” Lyra scoffed. “It’s not like anypony we know has anything that actually needs to be kept under that level of secrecy. That’s half the fun of pretending!” Moondancer nodded, and decided to embrace the childish silliness of her friend. What harm could it do? If anything, she could have a bit of fun with it. She leaned forward and whispered back: “Yes!” Part of her wanted to giggle at that, taking the moment to relish in their childish attitude and her own breach of decorum, but another part of her mind told Moondancer that this wasn’t the right time for giggling. This was actually, in some ways, rather serious—Twilight had just damaged one of her own friendships because of a crush, and that was one of the strongest friendships in all of Equestria, one that had saved the nation time and time again. No, the very idea of risking her own friendship with Twilight overt something as silly as a passing crush was nothing more than whimsical stupidity, and she wasn’t going to even consider it. Lyra, though, grinned wide, wider even than Pinkie Pie, and quickly shot glances to their left and right. “Who?” she whispered. “I don’t want to say,” Moondancer said. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt her.” Lyra frowned, just as Moondancer realised she’d probably said too much. Though given her life of isolation, and the very few number of ponies she interacted with, saying anything at all would probably give the game away—it couldn’t be too hard to deduce that she was crushing on Twilight, not when she hardly saw anypony else these days. She watched, biting her lip, as the penny dropped for Lyra. “Oh,” she said, simply, before adding, “Sorry.” “It’s okay,” Moondancer said, letting her voice drift back to normal volume. “It’s not like it’s your fault at all. I just have to live with it, that’s all.” “At this point I’d usually say, ‘Why not just ask her?’” Lyra chuckled awkwardly beneath her breath. “But I think you’ve got a pretty good reason not to, so I’ll leave you be on that one.” “Thanks.” Moondancer smiled at Lyra, taking another sip of milkshake. “I appreciate it.” “Still,” Lray said, stretching back and rolling her shoulders, “I’m glad you have somepony you like. Even if, y’know, she’s probably the one pony in Equestria right now who you couldn’t make a move on. It shows you’ve not given up hope.” “I don’t think so,” Moondancer said, quietly. “I think it just means that I’m yet another foolish pony who is ruled by the chemistry that controls her brain, but that’s just me.” Lyra smiled, and shook her head. “No, I think it’s more than that. I think you genuinely think that there’s a chance Twilight might like you the way you like her—and I think you’ve been thinking about this for a lot longer than this last week.” Don’t be silly. Just because I think she’s pretty, and because I want to curl up with her and read books all evening, doesn’t mean that I have always thought that way about her! When we were fillies— You always wanted to impress her. And you wanted to be her friend, even though you didn’t really understand what “being a friend” meant or how to go about it. And you were the one to pay attention to that stallion asking her to prom, because you were afraid that she might say yes… Oh, Celestia-dammit. “I… How has it taken me so long to realise?” Lyra frowned at her, inclining her head in a gesture for her to continue, so she did. “All my life I’ve felt this way about her: even when we were just fillies all I wanted was to impress her and for her to notice me and to say ‘Well done, Moondancer’, or ‘Thanks, Moondancer, you did a great job there.’ And I wanted to be her friend, I knew that, always, but I never even knew what being a friend was. “And she’s beautiful, Lyra! She’s smart and funny, and kind and caring, and she’s absolutely, a hundred percent gorgeous. She’s the most talented mare I’ve ever met and I’ve spent my whole life just wanting to have her by my side and it’s taken my till now to realise it!” Lyra was just smiling up at her, looking almost proud, as if she had been waiting for this moment for years. And, to her credit, she probably had been. “How obvious was I?” Moondancer asked, quietly. “Be honest: how long have you known?” “Moondancer, you were so obvious that I don’t think I’ve ever not known,” Lyra said, smiling softly at her friend. “Even when we were fillies, and none of us really knew anything about what relationships and love were all about, I remember coming home from the first week of school and telling Mom about the two friends I’d made, and how they were going to be married when they grew up.” Moondancer sat in her seat, simply blinking at Lyra. All this time… years of her life, never quite being able to realise what it truly was that made her act the way she did. “So… when Twilight didn’t show up to the party…?” “Did you not even realise then?” Lyra’s eyes were wide, and she seemed to be doing her best not to smirk. “Wow, Moondancer, I knew you were pretty naïve about it all, but I’d assumed that that, at least, would have clued you in. You were distraught because one friend couldn’t make your party—but the rest of us still came! Did you really think she was just another friend like the rest of us?” “Well, no,” Moondancer said. “I’d always seen her as a best friend, you know? While the four of you would go off gallivanting on your strange little Dishwasher-filled adventures, I would always find myself just curled up on the sidelines, sitting next to Twilight and reading a book. It was nice. I liked it. “And then, one day, she wasn’t there anymore. And it wasn’t just the party—no, well before that. She’d started to shut herself away in her room, or in libraries, and I’d never get to see her, Lyra, not once and I just wanted her to be there with me, there and not halfway across the bloody city cooped up in some wing of an ancient library that I couldn’t access and she wasn’t, Lyra, she wasn’t and it wasn’t fair!” Her voice had risen to a shout, now, and Moondancer could see in her peripheral vision all of the customers of the shop just staring at her, some even pausing mid-bite of ice cream to turn towards the commotion. But despite the lack of decorum, Moondancer felt good, like a release valve had finally been turned on a boiler that had been building up pressure for too long, and now everything was simply flooding out. “I loved her, Lyra!” she shouted. “I loved her and I had no idea, and now I’ve finally realised what the hell has been going on in my head for my entire bloody life I can’t do anything about it! “I can’t even tell her,” she added, her voice quieter now, but still too loud. “I’m in love with Princess Twilight Sparkle, and I can’t tell her or I’ll never see her again.” And, of course, that was precisely the moment that Pinkie Pie chose to drag Princess Twilight Sparkle into Sugarcube Corner for a pick-me-up sundae.
Sugarcube Corner, pt. 2In the moment that their eyes met, a thousand and one thoughts flew through Moondancer’s head. The first was a thought of beauty, of how utterly perfect those eyes were. They were like gems, shining as they did, deep and dark and beautiful. And then Moondancer thought of gemstones, of how quartz could be found in so many different colours but of all of them her favourite was violet, and how amethyst’s name was derived from the antonym of the Ancient Greek word for “intoxicated”, and how the ponies of those archaic times had always believed that amethyst could prevent a pony from becoming drunk—but merely looking into those violet eyes was enough to make Moondancer feel intoxicated, as if Twilight’s eyes were liquor to her that she gladly lapped up with every sideways glance. Her third thought was that maybe this wasn’t the best time or place for her to be right now, and this got her thinking, briefly, about the interconnected nature of space and time, and of how events that occurred simultaneously in one reference frame could occur entire hours apart in another, so if she moved fast enough, and in the right direction, she could probably manage to make it so that Twilight hadn’t been in Sugarcube Corner at the precise moment that she announced her feelings to the wide world. Time and space were strangely flexible—not that it was strange that they were flexible, for there was no good reason to assume otherwise, but rather that the way in which they flexed was strange. But then, trying to imagine a space folding and stretching and slackening in its own number of dimensions was always a strange prospect to her: it always seemed as if you needed another dimension, just for the space to fold into. And that, Moondancer thought, was why analogies were a waste of time. Rather like the analogy of Twilight’s eyes as liquor. Because, of course, she did feel intoxicated when she looked into them, and she did feel as if she was losing her inhibitions around the princess, but certain key differences rather made the entire analogy moot. She didn’t get a hangover from Twilight the way she would get a hangover after a night out, as she had discovered much to Minuette’s entertainment some years before. And she certainly wasn’t becoming addicted to those eyes, no matter how beautiful they were and no matter how much she wanted to stare into them for all eternity. Those were her thoughts: and they mixed and they twisted, and they grew and they shrank, and soon enough they were all relatively indistinguishable. She was thinking a thousand and one thoughts, but they were all the same, and they were all: She is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. And then, once that thought had settled and had its turn, Twilight coughed, and Moondancer looked away, because she had been staring for a good few minutes now and both of them seemed frozen by embarrassment. Twilight, surprisingly, seemed to take the whole thing rather well. She turned away, and started chatting to Pinkie Pie, and though her expression was calm Moondancer could tell that it was tense with worry and nervous tension. But Twilight was right: the best thing to do, surely, was to forget that this ever happened, and act as if the world was okay and her entire life wasn’t falling apart, because that was the only way to make progress. “Well,” Lyra said, grimacing. “That could have gone better.” Moondancer groaned and buried her head in her forelegs, resting her brow against the table. She considered replying properly, but wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to dignify Lyra’s comment with a response, so she tried groaning again, this time at a different pitch. “It could have gone worse, though,” Lyra added, helpfully. Moondancer felt a particularly unhelpful prod on her head, and looked up to see her friend lightly poking her with a coffee stirrer. She shot her a quick unimpressed look, and dropped her head back down to the table with a thud. This was why friendships were pointless—because it didn’t matter how much you made each other happy, or how well you could comfort each other when things went wrong, eventually everything fell apart and one of you would hurt the other beyond repair. She’d been there—for the longest time, she’d thought that Twilight had hurt her too much to ever be forgiven, and now, just as she was coming to terms with the fact that she had been so very, very wrong, she found herself hurting Twilight even more. And that wasn’t fair. “Can I try that bit again?” she asked, only half joking. Lyra chuckled. “No can do, Moondancer,” she said. And then, “Sorry.” “S’not your fault.” Could she make it better? Was there some way that she could make amends, repair her bond with Twilight and make things right again? Moondancer couldn’t think of an answer—and, right now, she couldn’t think at all. Every time she tried she ended up replaying that moment in her head, that Celestia-forsaken shout and that deep, painful moment that she saw Twilight standing in the doorway, just seconds too late. She couldn’t think. It was like she was trying to read a book, but her mind was too distracted and her thoughts were too jumbled up, and every now and again her eyes would slip back up the the start of the very same line she’d just read. And there she’d sit, re-reading sentence after sentence, because her mind was too distracted and her thoughts were too jumbled up, and every now and again her eyes would slip back up to the start of the very same line she’d just read. She couldn’t think. Every time she tried she ended up replaying that moment in her head, that very same line she’d just read. And there she’d sit, re-reading sentence after sentence, because her mind was just too thoughts and her distracted jumbled up and re-reading book thing jumbled very same trying re-reading re-reading re-reading jumbled She couldn’t think “Moondancer?” And then… she could. “What?” she asked, now too bitter and tired to even try to make her tone polite. She felt bad for it, but right at that moment she wasn’t sure she had the energy to try. “You were breathing… weirdly. It was like panting. Almost like you were frightened.” Lyra bit her lip and looked down. “I didn’t know what to do, so… I called your name a few times. Looks like it worked. “Are you okay?” That was genuine: a sincere and true fear echoed in Lyra’s voice, worry and concern colouring her words. And Moondancer smiled, because she was just relieved to be able to think again. “I’m okay now,” she clarified. “I was just losing track of my thoughts, that’s all. It, uh… it wasn’t pretty.” Lyra sighed in relief. “I’m glad you’re okay now,” she said, pushing her chair back from the desk and stretching as she stood. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.” There was a small part of Moondancer’s mind that was somewhat frightened of the idea of leaving, because it was afraid that if she left the room and left Twilight behind she might never get a chance to see the alicorn again. And if she could never see Twilight again, then there was no chance of her ever repairing their friendship—and that simply wouldn’t do. Whether she liked it or not, her friendship with Twilight was one of the most precious things in her life. It worried her that she had taken quite so long to realise that. But the rest of her knew that this was not a good idea—that by sticking around she might only make things worse for herself, and for Twilight. Perhaps what they really needed was some time apart to cool and reflect on what had happened, and then maybe when they had things would be able to be okay again? But she needed to leave first for that to happen, no matter how afraid of it she was. “Alright.” Moondancer nodded, rising and stretching herself. With a small smile of encouragement from Lyra, she started to walk slowly towards the door, and, just as she was passing, briefly caught Twilight’s eye. In that moment, she knew, she had only the briefest of seconds to do something, anything, to put them on the right path for a reconciliation. But in her panic, all she could manage was to lightly mutter “sorry” under her breath, and to dart her eyes to the floor as she walked shamefully out of Sugarcube Corner. The walk home was quiet and, in the morning cold, Moondancer found it easy to let her thoughts wander. Even though the snow had melted, the air was still bitingly cold, and it nipped at her skin with an insistent, continuous chill. And so she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of thermodynamics, and how cold wasn’t really a thing in and of itself but rather the absence of heat, and though it felt like the cold was entering her body in reality it was the heat that was leaving, and she remembered how when she was a filly Twilight had taught her all about heat engines— And so she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of weather, and of how pegasi had learned to control even the most subtle things, like how they could regulate temperature to within half a degree unless some natural, magical storm had flared up, and how they could now even dissipate most of those storms within an hour of their formation by detecting the subtlest change in wind speeds. And she thought of how the most common place for magical storms to occur was the Everfree Forest on the outskirts of Ponyville, and how she had yet to go to visit it even though she was now staying so close by, and how the path to the Everfree ran past the Golden Oaks Library where Twilight lived— And so she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of the Everfree Forest, and all the unique flora and fauna that grew within it, particularly the infamous Poison Joke, and how it had been influenced by the latent magic of the forest and had evolved at a greatly-accelerated rate. And she thought of how the magic of the forest had originally come from the leyline that ran right through the middle of it, nicknamed the Everfree Line by scholars even though only a small percentage of it passed through the forest, and how that leyline’s magical signature would flutter and alternate in much the same way as a spell matrix, and how Twilight had been so close to finding out what the spell was meant to— And so, at last, she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of Twilight Sparkle, because if every road leads to Rome she might as well just go there directly. Twilight Sparkle was beautiful. Twilight Sparkle was clever. Twilight Sparkle was kind and funny, and charming, and beautiful, and the kind of mare that Moondancer wanted to spend the rest of her life with—no, Twilight was the mare she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She’d known it since she was a filly, and Lyra had known it too. Twilight Sparkle was the one mare in the whole wide world of Equestria whom she never, ever wanted to lose, not again; and yet she had done just that, throwing away their friendship in a blind moment of accidental stupidity and foolishness. Why couldn’t she have just kept her big mouth shut? Why did it have to feel so good to spill your secrets out in the plain sight of the world, so long as the person who could never know them wasn’t there? Why couldn’t she have just looked to see if Twilight was anywhere nearby before she destroyed everything she had ever wanted? She could always go back to her isolation, to the home in Canterlot that was damaged but not wholly unliveable, and retreat into the world of books and academia and libraries once more. She could even forget that any of this trip had ever happened—forget what little she had learned about friendship, and recall that all the companionship she needed in life she could simply get from paper and ink; forget what little she had learned about not blinding ponies with knowledge, and recall that the most valuable trait to have in life was cleverness. But she wouldn’t be right. And if there was one thing that Moondancer hated, it was knowing that she was holding on to knowledge that was out-of-date. She couldn’t just stand by and subscribe to a school of thought that she had learned to be so very, very wrong, even if she found the alternative frightening and, frankly, the kind of thinking that could very well break her. If the choice was between being comfortable but wrong, or being terrified but possibly right, Moondancer knew exactly what she would choose. “Lyra?” she called out, the breeze that was starting to pick up making it harder to make herself heard. Despite that, she saw Lyra turn her head, and acknowledge that she had heard with a single, sharp nod. “Do you think you could teach me about friendship?” Lyra stopped in her tracks, and Moondancer very nearly walked right into her. She turned around, her expression shocked and more than a little impressed. “You’re asking me to teach you about friendship?” she asked, incredulously. “Has the world gone mad?!” “Probably,” Moondancer said with a smile, “but if it has then I sure as hell want go mad with it.” “What does that even mean?!” Lyra almost shouted, partly in frustration but mostly because the wind was growing stronger by the second, and it was becoming harder and harder for them to hear each other of the roar. “Nevermind,” Moondancer said, rolling her eyes. “Come on, let’s get home and out of this wind.” She pushed forward, passing a dumbstruck Lyra whom she could have sworn she heard mutter something that sounded suspiciously like “now you’re making sense.” Moondancer chuckled under her breath, and tilted her head down, walking into the blisteringly cold wind with a steely-eyed determination. This time, she wasn’t going to let herself make the mistake of running away and hiding from her fears. She was going to face this entire thing head-on, and she was going to reclaim her friendship with Twilight. But to do that, Moondancer knew, she had a lot that she needed to learn. Not too long after they had settled on the sofa, and Bon Bon had brought each of them a hot mug of cocoa (Moondancer, in her frozen state, had forgotten to ask in Bon Bon would insist on putting marshmallows in hers, and was disappointed to find that she had), there was a cheery knock on the door, beating out a cheerful rhythm. Frowning at each other, and wondering who could possibly be out in this kind of wind, Lyra and Bon Bon both stood to answer it—but Lyra quickly sat back down again after a warning stare from her marefriend, letting her know that she was to warm up or else. Mere moments after Bon Bon had opened the door, an excitable ball of pink fur bounced into the living room and loudly proclaimed: “HEAR YE, HEAR YE!” “Pinkie,” Bon Bon said with dripping sarcasm, walking into the room, “it’s okay. We can hear you.” “Oh, good. I was wondering about that for a moment.” Pinkie Pie seemed completely oblivious to the eye-rolling and exchanged glances of general bemusement. “Anywho, I just wanted to let you know that your party’s still on, Moondancer, and best of all I managed to get it planned for tonight! Isn’t that amazing?” Clearing her throat, Moondancer nodded. “Yeah, that sounds wonderful, Pinkie. Where is it going to be?” “Golden Oaks Library, of course. I told you Twilight would say yes, didn’t I? She’s said we could have the whole town over, and the best part is I’m going to make sure Dashie comes along too and then I can complete Operation: Cheer Up Dashie and Twilight and Save Their Friendship at the same time as holding your Welcome to Ponyville party and then maybe Quill can come up with some way to produce a narratively satisfying ending within the next three hours? Who knows! It’s going to be loads of fun, and there’ll be cakes, and games, and balloons, and there miiiight even be a pinata if I can swing one, and I’m hoping that if we’re really lucky there’ll even be punch. That’s a bit of foreshadowing, by the way. Or at least I hope it will be: we might not even be able to get punch at this late notice! Anyway, seven pm by the library. Gotta dash!” And with that, Pinkie zipped out of the room, a trail of sparkling pink behind her that slowly faded. Just as everypony was coming to their senses, she quickly popped her head around the doorframe. “And I mean Rainbow!” she added, grinning, before disappearing again—this time, hopefully, for good. “Well then,” Lyra said, after a moment of silence had passed, “I guess we’d better get on with those friendship lessons if you want to make that party tonight.”
Welcome to PonyvilleThe first thing Moondancer noticed about the Golden Oaks library was the warmth: but this time, it wasn’t because the cold outside had gotten to her. No, this was a different type of warmth: the kind that came with good company, gentle music, and a friendly atmosphere. Moondancer had never noticed how that sort of thing could make a room feel comfortable in quite that kind of way, but then Moondancer had never really been to a proper party before—the one she had thrown in Canterlot had hardly counted, with so few guests and, of course, with it being over before it had really started. Here, there were so many guests, ponies of all shapes and ages and sizes—she was pretty sure that she saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders running about between the legs of the adults, laughing and playing among themselves. She smiled. This was how a party should be. “Surprise!” Four ponies stepped out into her path, just as she was making her way over to Bon Bon (the only pony her age in the room she had recognised). It took a moment, but soon enough Moondancer found herself recognising the faces in front of her. “Oh my gosh! Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Minuette! What are you three doing here?” She turned to Lyra, who was standing sheepishly on the end of the line. “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?” “Maybe,” she said, shrugging nonchalantly. “Or maybe it was just Pinkie Pie.” “Mmm,” Moondancer replied, smirking with mirth, “I’ve heard she’s like that.” She spent a good few minutes getting reacquainted with her old friends—especially Lemon Hearts, who had dropped out of her life even more completely than the others. She had, at least, seen Minuette and Twinkleshine in passing: at major events, or on her way to the library. It turned out that Lemon Hearts had been offered a huge career opportunity in the peak districts of Canterlot, working in the flavoured water business—not something Moondancer had ever cared much for, but she found Lemon Hearts’ enthusiasm for her work charmingly captivating. It was only when she had finished catching up with her friends’ lives that Moondancer realised something was missing, again. “Is, uhm…” she began, before lowering her voice and leaning to one side to mutter into Lyra’s ear. “Is Twilight around?” Lyra had clearly seen the worry on her face, and let out a small chuckle. “Don’t worry, lovergirl,” she teased, “Twilight’s just upstairs. I think she and Rainbow Dash are talking through some things, but she said she’d be down as soon as she could be.” Moondancer smiled at that. Maybe things wouldn’t be quite so awkward as she had feared—after all, if Twilight was making peace with Rainbow Dash, then surely she could make peace with somepony who had hardly seen her in two years. “Hey everypony!” The entire crowd turned as one to face Pinkie Pie, who was standing on a small stage at one end of the library, a microphone in her hoof and speakers at her back. “I just wanted to say a great, warm welcome to you all! I know it’s not often we gather together as a town like this… maybe every other week or so—” even Moondancer had to chuckle along with the crowd at that one. Pinkie Pie’s determination to party away all her friends’ problems was a wonderfully predictable trait in a mare who could be so, well, unpredictable “—and I know that it’s not every week that we get a brand new friend staying in town! Now, she might only be here for a few days while her house is rebuilt up in Canterlot, but Moondancer has already become an important part of Ponyville life: Sweetie Belle tells me that she might even be a better tutor than Twilight, but don’t let the Princess hear me say that! “This party is a Welcome to Ponyville party, and I throw enough of those for you all to know that they’re fairly standard business. But Moondancer isn’t just anypony—she’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends. And anypony who can be a bestest friend to Twilight Sparkle can, I’m sure, be a besterest friend to all of us. “Moondancer, I know you’re not too fond of being centre stage, so I’m not going to ask you to come up and make a speech.” Moondancer laughed openly at that, and soon enough the whole town was laughing along with her. “But I’m going to say this: you are welcome here in Ponyville whenever you want to visit, and I know that there will always be a place here for you to stay whenever your normal house gets blown up, burnt down, or destroyed by a horde of giant fire ants. Welcome to Ponyville, Moondancer!” As one, the crowd erupted into cheers, and though she wasn’t anywhere near the stage Moondancer could feel all the attention of the room on her—but it wasn’t a bad kind of attention. It was that same warmth she’d felt when she entered the library, the kind of warmth that made her feel welcome, and at home. And most importantly, it was the kind of warmth that rose to her cheeks and brought a small, quiet smile to her face—or was that her blush? Soon enough, the crowd’s attention dispersed, and everypony went back to the conversations and games that they had been enjoying before Pinkie’s impromptu speech. But Moondancer couldn’t quite let herself get lost again in the conversation with her old friends—something Pinkie had said was looping over and over in her head, like a stuck record. She’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends. Sure, she’d known Twilight for most of her life, and certainly she’d been one of the first ponies to call herself Twilight’s friend, but would Twilight really see it that way? When they were younger, Moondancer was sure that she had been nothing but an annoyance to her, pestering her with facts and figures in any attempt to prove that she was good enough, that Twilight could be her friend. And that wasn’t “bestest friend” behaviour. She’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends. Her friendship with Twilight wasn’t a force of magical power that had saved the nation time after time. Her friendship with Twilight wasn’t the kind of friendship that could withstand anything, face any trial, weather any storm… she had proven that, by walking out on Twilight, on all of her friends, over one simple mistake. And that wasn’t “bestest friend” behaviour. She’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends. Heck, Moondancer hadn’t even known what friendship really was until a few days ago, and even now she was still struggling to really understand it properly. She could hardly be considered one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends if she hadn’t even known how to be a friend in the first place. She had thought that friendship was formed from one-upmanship and displays of cleverness… and that wasn’t “bestest friend” behaviour. Psst. Moondancer turned around, only to find an image of Pinkie Pie reflected in the bowl of punch behind her. Her brow furrowed, and she opened her mouth to ask a question, but before she could say anything the image-Pinkie spoke again in a hoarse whisper: Twilight told me that herself. I wasn’t just making it up. Trust me! And with that, Pinkie ducked out of the punch bowl and Moondancer was left wondering whether she was seeing things. She glanced around the room, her eyes scanning the crowds for a sign of the excitable party pony, and was surprised to find her standing halfway across the library, a blindfold tied around her eyes and a bat clamped between her teeth, swinging joyfully at a bright pinata that hung from the ceiling. Moondancer had no idea how Pinkie had done that, and started to wonder if maybe “Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie” really was a valid explanation for these things. That such a thought was starting to make sense to her was… worrying, to say the least. It was then that Moondancer’s eyes fell upon a pony who could only be Rainbow Dash. A bright, striped mane in all the colours of the rainbow, disheveled and unruly, falling around her neck untidily; a sky blue coat and magenta eyes that were turned down to the ground, her lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. Rainbow Dash walked through the crowd with a melancholy expression, the ponies around parting to let her through. It wasn’t until Pinkie had spotted her, and dashed across the room to try to cheer her up, the Rainbow Dash showed any sign of noticing her surroundings—and ti was then that she lashed out at Pinkie, shoving her out of her path with a huff. The crowd stiffened, but nopony said anything. It was the bystander effect, Moondancer realised. Every pony in the crowd was standing there hoping that somepony else would be the first to act, that even though they were upset and offended by Rainbow’s actions that they still thought it was none of their business to interfere. Moondancer remembered reading about how this effect had been exploited in the South Zebrican courtrooms as few as forty years ago to create… No. She wasn’t going to let the research she had done distract her. This time, it was time to act. “Hey, you.” She sounded a lot more confident than she was—Rainbow looked like quite an athletic mare, and she certainly didn’t think anypony would put bets on her to win in a fight. She hoped with every inch of her being that this wouldn’t come to violence. “Oi, Rainbow Dash.” “What do you want?” She hadn’t even realised that she was walking over to the rainbow-maned mare until she found herself mere inches from her face—she had been so focused on staying calm she hadn’t even realised that she was putting herself in danger. But that was okay. Nobody shoved Pinkie Pie. “I want you to be more considerate, that’s all.” Moondancer nodded towards Pinkie. “You nearly knocked Pinkie Pie over!” Rainbow’s face seemed to scrunch up: her lips began to quiver and her eyes were shut tight, small dimples forming on her cheeks. She nodded, and muttered “sorry”, before pushing her way past Moondancer to the door. Only, as Moondancer turned to watch her go, Rainbow practically kicked herself around with all the speed she could manage and swung a forehoof at Moondancer, her teeth clenched and her eyes red with tears and anger. And Moondancer ducked. Cursing, Rainbow Dash spread her wings, and turned from a punch into a launch—tightly curving in the air, she streaked out the door leaving a trail of multi-coloured cloud behind her that slowly evaporated, like hot breath in cold air.Moondancer frowned, shut the door behind her, and carefully turned around to face the crowd. Everypony was staring. Silence had rolled over the room—even the Cutie Mark Crusaders were still. Moondancer bit her lip nervously, waiting for somepony to say something, but the silence continued. Nopony seemed quite sure how to react. And then, Pinkie Pie whooped into the air, cheering out as loudly as she could, and the crowd collapsed into applause. Hooves stomped on floorboards, ponies were cheering, somepony—she suspected Lyra—whistled. And none of the noise or the cheering mattered, because Moondancer’s eyes had found Twilight Sparkle, standing at the far end of the room, smiling wryly at her. In that moment, Moondancer wanted to grin wider than she had ever grinned before, and she wanted to run across the room in a gallop and throw herself into Twilight’s embrace and to press her lips firmly on Twilight’s… But instead, she simply smiled, and nodded, and walked calmly through the crowd, who were slowly beginning to disperse once more back into their smaller groups. “Hey you,” Twilight said, her eyes shining with amusement. “Hi,” Moondancer said, breathlessly. She took a moment to calm herself, willing the blood not to rush to her cheeks as she found herself once more caught up in Twilight’s beauty. “I, uh, take it your talk with Rainbow Dash didn’t go that well?” Twilight shrugged. “She, uh… yeah. She didn’t take what I had to say all that well. I’m sorry you had to meet her like this—she really is a great friend, most of the time.” “I’m sure she is,” Moondancer said, strangely finding herself believing it. But maybe it wasn’t so strange after all—it would be quite improper for the Princess of Friendship to have such a poor friend so close to her. “But nopony shoves Pinkie Pie like that.” Twilight smiled then, properly, not the kind of small smile that had previously been playing with the edges of her lips, but a real, proper, full smile that lit up her face like a sunrise lighting the sky. But it didn’t quite reach her eyes—in her eyes, there was the slightest shine of fear. Broaching the silence once more, Moondancer said, “I suppose we need to have a talk, too?” She bit her lip, anxiously awaiting Twilight’s response. The princess nodded, and gestured towards the staircase with a bob of her head. Swallowing, Moondancer trudged towards the stairs and began to climb, hearing Twilight's hoofsteps following close behind her. She was in no rush to reach the top. And still the top came: the stairwell opened out into a surprisingly large room, bookshelves lining the walls, a roaring fire in the fireplace and a large, clear window that looked up to the sky, the bright moonlight shining down through it. It left a small oval pool of white light on the floor, just next to a seat, which Moondancer trotted to and promptly sat down on. Then she stood up—she was too nervous to sit, or to stay still. As Twilight stepped out from the stairwell, Moondancer found herself pacing back and forth through the puddle of moonlight. “So…” “… yeah,” Moondancer finished, not quite content to let the silence hang between them. She was too nervous for silence—she just wanted to hear whatever it was Twilight had to say, and then maybe go back to Canterlot. A few nights away would be good for her, surely. “Back in Sugarcube Corner… did you mean that?” Moondancer wasn’t quite sure what to say, so she said: “Yes.” And then, just like that, the words came to her, and she let them tumble straight from her mouth. “I’m in love with you, Twilight. I have been for years and I didn’t even realise it until today, but I love you. You’re smart and funny and pretty and I just want to lie beside you and read, or talk, or hold you tight and every time you walk into the room I can’t take my eyes off you…” “I turned Rainbow Dash down,” Twilight said, absently. “She asked me if I wanted to go out with her and I said ‘no.’ And I told her why.” Moondancer swallowed. “And why was that?” “I said there was somepony else,” Twilight said, simply. “I told her that there was a mare in the room downstairs who I wanted to share my future with. And it’s funny, because a month ago I wouldn’t have known that I could want to be with somepony else—I’d always thought that when Rainbow Dash finally made her move, I’d just say yes, and that would be it. “But then you came into the library,” Twilight’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Then I saw you again and I remembered. I remembered every day of my fillyhood, at school, just knowing that you’d be there without me even having to think about it. You were always there for me, Moondancer, even if I didn’t realise it at the time. And I just left you behind.” Twilight's face contorted in disgust, her lips twisting into a mocking grimace. “Some Princess of Friendship I am.” “Twilight—” “Please, Moondancer, I’m nearly done,” Twilight said, her voice soft and placating. “The fact is, this last week, I’ve come to see you as a close friend in just a matter of days, and I’m already struggling to imagine what life in Ponyville will be like when you leave. And sometimes, when I’m lying in bed at night, staring up at the sky through my window because I can’t sleep… sometimes I think how nice it would be to have you there. Just, there, beside me, and dammit, Moondancer, could you just shut up and kiss me already before I start rambling?” “… you want me to kiss you?!” Moondancer asked, breathlessly. Twilight, biting her lip, nodded. “Hey girls! Just wanted to make sure you knew that we were starting Pin the Tail on the Po—” Twilight and Moondancer snapped their heads to see Pinkie’s head poking around the stairwell, her eyes wide and her mouth forming a round ‘O’ of surprise.After a moment, she chuckled awkwardly to herself. “I’ll, uh, just leave you two to it…” she said, backing away slowly and disappearing down the stairwell. For a moment, Moondancer and Twilight sat, frozen, before turning to face one another. Moondancer couldn’t help it—she burst out laughing, and soon enough she was curled up against Twilight and the two of them were just laughing into each other, shaking and rocking and laughing and holding each other close. “... I love you, Twilight,” Moondancer said softly, as the laughter subsided and the two mares simply lay, sprawled on the floor, curled up in each other’s legs. For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing, and the soft, slow thud-thud of their hearts against each other’s chests. And then: “I love you, too.” And as Moondancer closed her eyes, a small smile resting peacefully on her lips, she felt the lightest of touches brushing against her back, and the warm feeling of a wing pulling her tightly into Twilight’s embrace.The End Author's Note Not very much to say here as concluding remarks. This was, after all, a fic I wrote in just 24 hours for charity. No doubt within a day I'll have a blog post up detailing lessons I've learned from this insane exercise in speed-writing and apologising for the horrific typos I have unleashed upon the internet. I really just want to take a moment at the end of the fic here to thank you, dear reader, for making it this far, and sticking with me through this fic. I didn't plan any of it, really—I had some vague outlines in my head (scenes and ideas I wanted to use, and the ship of TwiDancer was a must) but nothing beyond that, so that I even managed to write a half-coherent story this long is something I'm rather proud of! I hope you've enjoyed it, for all its flaws. One last time, I'm going to point you in the direction of my donations page. This fic was written to raise money for a wonderful charity, BBC Children in Need, who do amazing work. The fundraiser's still open (Also, I'll probably talk more about this in a blog post, but I really wanted to apologise for the treatment of Rainbow Dash in this final chapter. It was rushed and lazy, and I ran out of time to redeem her in the epilogue I'd hoped I'd write. I felt that was a really important one to mention, because it's the sort of thing people might get upset about! After all, I do kinda ship TwiDash. I can understand your concerns )
