Splitting aMid the Night

Death... Is... Close. You are already dead.

The voice in her head was deeper than usual. Midnight tried to pinpoint it to a specific pony.

Your courage will fail. Your friends will abandon you.

She wasn't exactly fully conscious, but somehow, those words made perfect sense to her.

You will betray your friends. Your heart will explode.

This was the only truth!

You will die.

Midnight knew what she had to do. First, she had to get Noon back into discipline. Then, she had to rise from her bed and prepare for her appointment later with Sparkle. Motes of dust danced in the sunlight coming into her room, ceasing to be visible just in front of her bed.

Buongiorno demone. You know... How come I and especially you can talk in a language I've never learned?

Suppose we did sometime. Or it's just bits you heard somewhere. I can promise one thing, if we're wrong, you won't notice.

Clock mode. Do you have any idea of what time it is?

Judging by atmospheric pressure, temperature, sleep cycle in relation to time of starting, sun level... calculating...

There are simpler ways to say that I don't know.

But less fun, too. How about you do the practical way and turn over to our alarm clock? Oh, so late already. Just how did you spend all that time? Were you murdering innocent people again?

I was merciful tonight. Should I not have been?

So you were murdering again.

I wish I had.

Thought equals crime, sweet. At least it does in an environment where action equals thought and vice versa. My environment. Unless you'd let me out, of course...

What, let you take control? Not a chance in this world. We are me to begin with, but you are less than me.

Watch your words when you don't know what they mean. I am more than you could ever dream.

Yet you are just that. A dream. An illusion, created by my own mind as a result of trying to cope with events that would otherwise tear me straight into insanity.

Am I? Are you not already mad, and just always talking to yourself?

I hope not. That'd be unpleasant.

So hot. This could not possibly be normal. Midnight was almost sweating. Which was somewhat odd, given it was mid-january. Wearing no protection like she was, she should be freezing to death now, but somewhere, she managed to get even excess heat. It didn't seem to be just her, though. Nopony around her seemed to feel very cold. Maybe it was simply that warm. At least the sun was beneficial to her date in the park. The warmth was still almost unbearable, all things considered. She could block out Noon to reduce her suffering. But Midnight didn't want to. Her inner demon would only take that as the affront it was.

That darn heat. She couldn't stand it. Apparently, there was something about it that made her younger friend go incredibly sleepy. For the third time now, Sparkle had obviously not been mentally present enough to hear Midnight. She wondered why. Surely, that unicorn's body wanted her to rest, but why? Was it just the comfortable heat they were both in? Or had she missed plenty of sleep? Why would she?

"Repeating, to create a force field around a given object, one must know... Are you listening?"

Sparkle shook her head violently and blinked once. "Uh, sure I am... one must know... the radius, which to square and multiply by twelve point six in order to calculate the orb's surface and thus the amount of magic to be poured into the spell."

"Correct. At last. Um, how about we do a short break? Want something to drink? On me?"

"If that's no inconvenience for you..."

"Sparkle, you're a fine pony, but you gotta work on your self-confidence. I offer you a drink, you TAKE IT! Okay, I'll be right back."

Arriving at the vending stand, Midnight noticed something. It wasn't the fact that the stand was there at all, deep in the middle of what was supposed to be winter. She blamed that on the unnatural heat everypony was in. As a consequence of that, not only was there the light brown vendor pony, but also three others, all unicorns, in front of Midnight. More like it was that she had forgotten to ask Sparkle what she wanted.

Use my power or die.

Overexaggerating as always. What do you want? Speak quickly, before I'm supposed to.

What if your crush is allergic to what you're about to get her? What if I could help avoid that?

How? You mean, Pegasus Eye would do that for me?

Smart filly guessed it already. We are mildly impressed. Say please.

Do I really have to ask MYSELF?

Ask yourself how you got so stubborn. Oh, I know. From never truly accepting the truth about her. From constantly denying any help they'd give you. Although I'd have to thank you for that. It gave birth to me.

I have a mental bottle of holy water.

Oh, how delicious of you. Fine, I'll do it.

Once again, everything around Midnight blended into the same blue that signaled it was not of interest to her. One line on the menu was glowing brightly.

Simple lemonade. Wouldn't have expected that of her.

Midnight returned to the tree both of them had been sitting under, two bottles floating besides her. Her friend was apparently entirely disinterested in them as she was lying flat on her back, breathing slowly through her little mouth. It was the heat. She had temporarily drifted off into a better world. A world entirely for herself, made of her own needs, desires, feelings and all that sappy romantic stuff Midnight neither understood nor cared about. Most of her didn't, at least.

Midnight sat down next to her. What a well-shaped filly she was. Every single one of her curves... that wasn't right. Not at all. Midnight didn't have such thoughts. She didn't want to. Still, sitting there and watching her breathing... something feral awakened in Midnight. She needed to know what that place of respiration Sparkle was currently using would feel like, what it would taste like. She couldn't think straight. For some reason, there was nopony anywhere close to within range of seeing what she was doing.

Slowly, quietly, Midnight lowered her head down to Sparkle's, listening to her every breath, always on alert for any one breaking the pattern. Mere inches parted them. One inch. Then, in half a second, Midnight's dreams were shattered. In half a second, those beautiful eyes opened. In half a second, she had managed somehow to turn her head and push a hoof on Sparkle's foreleg. She looked down onto her friend, trying to minimise the damage she had just caused, even though her head was still close enough for her to see the blood vessels in Sparkle's eyes.

"Uh, oh no, did I wake you? I'm sorry! I was just, mh, measuring your vital functions. You know, to be sure you're just napping. Nothing more. Out of fun, more. For practice."

This answer seemed to satisfy Sparkle. "Oh, I'm the one to be sorry, I just dozed off on our date... You have to forgive me, I had to go... there and... do stuff and... you know. Took half last night."

"'t's okay, Sparkle. Look, I got you something to cool down. Does your friend Trainbow Ash have something to do with that? I heard you call her lazy quite a few times now."

"Thanks. Rainbow has been working extra hard to create that kind of weather, you know? I miss her... But when I think about going back to the girls, I, for some reason, have to think about you and that I'm leaving you behind in Canterlot and..."

Midnight exploited her still literally superior position to gently silence her friend with a hoof. "We all have to let go, but when you think someone gone entirely, you'll find out they're closer to you than ever."

"That doesn't make sense. Ugh, it's apparently starting to rain again. That much for Rainbow and working. We should pack up, dea... Midnight." Sparkle turned away quickly to pack up their books before they got wet. She spent a rather long time picking them all up.

"Right. We can go back to my place and finish there."

"There, all done... Radius, square, twelve point six..." Sparkle casually conjured a field around her, extending a bit more than a normal mare's width from her. "Ugh, I must've miscalculated. Still wide enough, luckily..."

"Wide enough for what? You know I don't care about a little rain."

"Don't be silly, come under here! Don't want you catching whatever bug comes across you." Sparkle pulled Midnight to her side. She could only barely avoid brushing their sides against each other while remaining in the dry field.

Midnight could hear her breathing at this distance. Sometimes, she'd misstep and feel their flanks or shoulders colliding. The heat intensified tenfold for her. "Sparkle, I... You..." What had she just said? One second stretched out to an eternity for Midnight. She had just that one second to figure out what was going wrong and fix the damage.

OUT!

With Noon's influence severely reduced, it was easy to have a clear thought and figure out what she had to say. "I'm impressed. Well, with that display, I think we can skip practicing force fields for you, eh?"

Crisis averted.

Or caused.