What Cats Know

by Daedalus Aegle

Rating: everyone
Tags: Sweetie Belle, Opalescence, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sad, Mystery
Length: 8955

Sweetie Belle investigates a mystery of cats.

It's autumn in Ponyville, and Nightmare Night is approaching, when Sweetie Belle stumbles on a mystery.

Cats are adorable, and playful, and aloof, and they know more than ponies realize. Once they were revered as gods.

But have you ever tried to get a straight answer from a cat?

Cover art by iisaw.
Featured in the Everfree Northwest spotlight.
Reviewed by Estee.

"I loved this. It’s atmospheric from beginning to end... a delightful piece, capably written and smooth in its delivery" --PaulAsaran.

Published 2016-12-22 21:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-12-22 21:40:01 UTC

A Nightmare Night Tail

“What Cats Know” - A Nightmare Night Tail.

By Sweetie Belle.

When I was a little filly, we would spend every Hearth’s Warming with my grandparents, on the Northern coast. We would take the ferry to get there, which traveled up and down the coast every day. But the ferry left our hometown at 4 AM. So every year, for Hearth’s Warming, we would get chased out of bed in the middle of the pitch black winter night, and have to go down to the harbor and spend an hour checking in on the ferry, in a biting wind while the waves whipped against the pier.

Every year me and my older sister insisted that we wanted to just stay up until it was time to go, but dad wouldn’t hear of it, and insisted that we go to bed at the normal time to get at least some sleep. Maybe he was right, but getting pulled out of bed at 3 AM after at best half a night’s sleep makes you feel dead inside, flat, like paper.

But that was the price we paid for getting to start Hearth’s Warming at my grandparents’ place, or at least that’s how I saw it at the time. I didn’t know that we could have, say, taken the train instead just as easily.

My grandparents’ house on the coast was a big, beautiful house full of memories, and every Hearth’s Warming it was full of ponies and lots of good food for the holidays. There was always something to do, and there were always other ponies my own age there, distant cousins that I never got to see any other time of year, and the snow there was somehow cleaner, and fresher, than the snow at home.

By now some of you are probably wondering why I’m talking about Hearth’s Warming when this was supposed to be a Nightmare Night story. But bear with me a minute.

My granny had a cat. An old Norwhinnyan Forest Cat, who hadn’t been built for indoor life but who was a cat and therefore wasn’t going to accept that there was anything she couldn’t do. She had long, thick fur, and a mane almost like a lion’s mane in the same iron gray as the rest of her. And every year when we came to visit this cat would look fairly miffed that all these ponies were intruding in her space, but she endured us with feline grace, such as a long-suffering monarch of the forest might endure ponies hiking through her lands without even realizing whose home they were stomping across. She would lie on a table in the corner, watching us all with a cat’s professional disinterest.

She was an old cat, and she was a very big cat. There’s a photo, somewhere, of me when I was three years old, looking up at the cat on the table in something like dumbstruck awe, and the cat looking down at me with caution, as if she was trying to decide what to make of me, and the two of us were the same size.

She would only let my granny pet her, and hold her in her lap, which my granny did seemingly without knowing that this was unusual. Anypony else who tried it would feel her displeasure.

We talked to her like we talk to baby foals, and she talked to us like she talked to kittens. Ponies and cats are alike in that both of us think we’re smarter than the other, and that we allow the other to stay in our home. It was clear to my granny’s cat that this was her house, and she graciously permitted the ponies to stay with her.

When I was ten, my granny died. And so, one time when it wasn’t Hearth’s Warming, my whole family made the trip to my grandparents’ house for something that wasn’t a fun occasion.

And somewhere along the way I heard that somepony, maybe an aunt, maybe my parents, had decided to take my granny’s cat, who was old and set in her ways, and wouldn’t be happy having to move and live with somepony else, and was likely to die soon anyway, to the vet and had her put to sleep. Because you know, one death wasn’t enough, I suppose.

I was thinking about her as we drove a carriage through town towards my granny’s house, watching the mountains and the grassland turn to townhouses. I was sitting there slumped with my head on my arm, staring out the window, and as we drove through the town I noticed something.

At every corner, between every house, and under every tree, I saw cats. One by one at first, then in pairs and in threes, from out open windows and in every alley and jumping down from the rooftops, every cat in town had come out and were speaking together as we passed.

If anypony but me noticed, nopony said anything.

There weren’t a lot of cats in this town. Not that I had ever noticed before, at least. But on this day when my granny’s cat was gone every single one of them had come out to the street, and I wondered if they were there to pay their respects to the oldest, the smartest, and the toughest cat in town… or if they were there because now that my granny’s cat was gone that meant it was finally safe for the rest of them to come out.

What did they think of my granny’s cat? Was it the same as I thought about her, or about my granny? That here was someone who was older and wiser, distant, that I couldn’t really understand, who let me into her home and made me feel warm and welcome, in spite of her rough edges?

I’ve never been able to decide.

– – –

I pushed the paper aside, and turned to look out the window at Ponyville in autumn. Ponies were preparing their Nightmare Night decorations, and a few ponies had even decided to try their costumes on early. There was a mare in a witch’s dress, struggling to keep herself aloft steadily enough to hang a banner on the front of her house as her wings kept getting caught up in her costume.

Opalescence lay on the dresser behind me, an old cat who had been pompous enough as a kitten and had only grown more so with age. “Pompous” wasn’t really strong enough anymore – the cat had passed through pompous when she had her first litter of kittens, had become a regal matriarch presiding over her own dynasty, and had only grown in seniority since.

Now she was the center of her own universe, and half the cats of Ponyville were her children and grandchildren. But she still called Carousel Boutique her home, and they still came to visit her.

She still looked much as she had done when she was younger, but the center of her had shifted. Her fur was longer, her ponytail of fur tied back on top of her head had blossomed to something like a crown. Her thicker, heavier fur floofed downward, giving her an impression of gravitas and the wisdom that comes with age. Her body was thinner underneath, less able to support the weight of her sheer opulence, a sign of physical weakness that only made her look stronger since her attitude was otherwise unchanged.

She tolerated me now, having taken many years to grow familiar enough to do so, but we’ve never been as close as she was to my sister.

“Nightmare Night’s coming, Opal,” I said to her. “You like Nightmare Night, don’t you? It’s a cat’s holiday.”

Opal’s ears perked up and turned at the sound, but the rest of her remained as she was, idly licking the back of her paw. I could only sit there and watch her closely. “I wish I knew what you were thinking.”

Nightmare Night was a night for monsters, and included in that dubious category, alongside the zombies and vampires and assorted pony-eating horrors of the wilderness, were witches and cats. Of course, Princess Twilight assured every foal that witches didn’t actually exist. But cats were indisputably real, and around Nightmare Night they seemed to grow into their role as companions of the mysterious and forbidden.

“Cats have magic. Don’t you?”

Opal said nothing. But something was stuck in my mind. A lingering, nagging notion that I couldn’t shake, and couldn’t articulate.

I needed to find an answer.

– – –

The next morning I left my sister’s house, and locked the front door behind me.

It was a crisp day, just on the right side of frigid. I wore a thick fluffy scarf and ear muffs to ward off the chill, and set off in search of answers. My breath hung in the air, and the ponies nodded at me as I passed by, the work of preparing for Nightmare Night put on hold while ponies attended to the mundane work of the morning.

The sun hung just above the horizon, its light extra sharp in the dry air, landing right in my eyes as I walked. Red sunrise-light that looked summer-warm on the walls where it landed, reminding us that what we see and what’s real are often two very different things.

Twilight’s castle drew near as I walked, blinding in the light.

Even now, I still preferred Princess Twilight’s old library. I would never tell her that, but…

It was a spire of crystal rock in a town otherwise defined by pastoral wood and stone houses, with thatched rooftops and dirt roads, flower beds and fields of farmland.

Of course it would never actually fit in. But it might, some day, make Ponyville more like itself, more like Canterlot, or the Crystal Empire.

Those places are beautiful, of course. But Ponyville is Ponyville.

Still, even Twilight’s castle wasn’t immune to Nightmare Night. In the main hall ponies were hard at work putting up decorations in dark blue and orange, cobwebs and skeletons and pumpkins. The banners had been subtly altered, and now there were bats and Mares in the Moon peering out from the corners and the bindings at anypony who looked closely.

The castle was permanently drafty, and that at least felt right. But I was here for a reason.

I knocked on the door of the castle library, poked my head in the door. “Hello?”

“Hi Sweetie!” Spike said, likewise poking his head out from behind a stack of books. “What brings you here?”

“I was just wondering if Twilight is home. I wanted to ask her something.”

Spike had grown. He was twice as tall as a pony now. As always, he was wearing his one of a kind librarian outfit that my sister had made for him years ago. It was sharp, and comfortable, and always showed him at his best side.

“Can I help? Twilight is pretty busy preparing for the fair.”

“I was hoping to see her face to face,” I said. “I have a question about magic.”

That made Spike smile, and the dragon could smile very effectively.

With his blessing, I made my way to the throne hall, where Princess Twilight was hard at work. Her smile lit up the room when she saw me. She had grown too, over the years, and looked more like Celestia and Luna every year. “Hi, Sweetie Belle!” She said, in her same old jittery friendly voice she’s had since she first came to Ponyville, and swept me up in a tight hug. I hugged her back, although my forelegs are nowhere near as strong as hers. After a long time she set me down on the floor. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I just hardly ever get to see my friends lately, I’m so busy with the festival and dealing with the Monster Kingdom…”

“I know the feeling,” I said. “Well, not the politics, obviously. But I’ve been working on decorating Carousel Boutique all week.”

“I’m just glad I have Spike to cover for me,” she muttered. “Please, sit! Would you like a cup of tea and a pastry?”

The royal tea table rolled up behind me of its own volition and gently nudged me, just in case I hadn’t noticed it. It was enchanted so that its contents were always fresh. There was a chess board underneath it, ready to be brought up at a moment’s notice, the pieces already set.

“Oh… no thanks, I had a big breakfast.” I turned back to Twilight and cleared my throat. “I actually came to ask you a question. About cutie mark magic.”

“You’re asking me?” Twilight said with a soft laugh. “I mean, you’re the authority on cutie marks here, not me.”

My thoughts flew back to the night before, to whatever it was I thought I caught a glimpse of in Opalescence’s eyes.

“I’ve been thinking,” I began. “About cutie marks, and magic, and… Well, everything has magic, right? And it’s our magic that gives us our cutie marks. And yet, only ponies have cutie marks. Does that mean that other creatures have magic that’s different than ours?”

Twilight gazed at me curiously, wondering, I assume, where I was going with this. “You’re asking about the Weave?”

“Am I?” I asked. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

“That’s pretty advanced magical theory, Sweetie Belle.” She stood for a while, deep in thought. “Maybe it’s best if I show you.”

Twilight cast a spell and the map on her table came to life. But rather than show a map of Equestria, as it normally did, it showed a model of the entire planet, along with the sun and the moon. The entire throne hall became an astronomical observatory, with the earth, the sun and the moon in the center, and the stars in the distance.

“Magic,” Twilight began. “Magic touches everything. And yes, the magic that moves through ponies isn’t just in that pony. It moves in a great stream that touches everything in the cosmos, and flows through every living thing. And when a pony dies… her magic goes back into the stream.”

Great rivers of light moved across the surface of the world, and shot outwards to connect all the heavenly bodies.

“The ancients called it the Weave,” Twilight said softly. “The great flow of magic that all life comes from, and will eventually return to. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. Unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”

I thought I caught a glimpse of motion out the corner of my eye, the tip of a tail swaying as it turned a corner, and I whipped my head round to see but it was gone.

Twilight noticed. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, no, I just… thought I saw something. Is there a cat in here somewhere?”

“A cat?” Twilight asked. “Spike! Did you bring home a cat?”

“No!” Spike yelled back from the library.

Twilight’s horn sparked and a wave of her aura-light washed over the room. “Nope, there’s no cat here.”

“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head, and pulled my attention back to the projection. Its magic light flickered translucently over everything. “So this, this stream of magic, it flows through everything… Ponies and cats alike.” Twilight nodded. “So what’s the difference between us and everything else? Why do we have cutie marks, while nothing else does?”

“There are a lot of theories about that,” Twilight said. “The most commonly held explanation is that ponies are attuned to the magic of destiny in ways that other living things aren’t. All lifeforms have magic. But only ponies have a special purpose.” She chuckled a little self-consciously. “I mean, it’s not to brag. But we ponies are pretty much the center of the cosmos. We control the sun and the moon, the turning of the seasons, and even all the other sapient species depend on us.”

I watched the projection intently. “And it’s the same magic in everything? There’s nothing else?” I tried to keep my voice calm, to keep the hint of desperation out of it, but I’m not sure I succeeded.

If she noticed, Twilight gave no sign of it. She continued, in the same vein as before. “That’s right. That’s why griffons can use some of the same magic as pegasus ponies, and why Fluttershy can speak with animals that have no language of their own… Pony magic is more refined, so to speak. The other sapient species can use magic as well, but we have more control. Griffons can walk on clouds, but they can’t control the weather as well as pegasi.”

She continued, in her dry, chipper lecturing voice. “Pony researchers have measured it very precisely. With the exception of a handful of individual outliers like Discord, ponies are on top. The other sapient species are high up, but below ponies. Unintelligent animals have less magic still,” she said. “It’s that simple.”

I walked up to stare at the projected earth. It was covered in infinitely fine threads that moved of their own power, branching off and merging in an unending cycle.

It was beautiful. But was it true?

“There are so many mysteries in the world,” I whispered, staring at the light. “There are so many things we can’t explain. Could it really all boil down to just that one thing, that we already know how to measure and analyze? Isn’t there anything else out there, something that has a different kind of magic than ponies?”

Twilight shook her head. “Nothing. Even Discord’s magic comes from the same place as pony magic, and follows the same rules. He just interacts with it differently. Even Tirek’s magic was just pony magic he had chewed up and forced to follow his commands. If you study pony magic, you can learn everything there is to know. There isn’t anything else.”

With a flick of her horn, the observatory vanished and we were back in the throne room, in front of the map.

My shoulders sagged a bit. “I… I see.”

“I hope that answered your question,” the Princess of Friendship said. “You know you’re always welcome to stop by. If there’s anything you’re wondering, you can always come to me. You know that, right?”

“I know,” I said. “Thanks.”

And I left the castle again, deep in thought under the changing leaves. Outside the morning was still sharp and cold, and ponies were hanging up pictures of bones.

I wasn’t done.

I left, shivering slightly, and headed out towards the edge of town.

– – –

The day gradually warmed up as I walked, and blunted the edge of the morning. The crisp clarity of the light faded, and a mist rose up as I left the edge of Ponyville behind me. There were shadows under the trees, and maybe there were things hiding in those shadows.

When I was little, I imagined so many creatures that didn’t exist making their homes under those trees. Me and my friends spent so many hours in that wood, hunting creatures nopony before me had ever dreamed of in hopes of finding a mark that was equally elusive, but none of the creatures I imagined hiding there ever appeared.

I am still a little sad at that. Now they only exist in my memories, and they deserve better than that.

Time turns marvelous possibilities into banal realities and sorrow. Nothing gets away from it.

But Nightmare Night fights back.

For just one night, all the dreams and terrors of our past come back to us, and we learn how much we missed them.

I was lost in thought as I walked, going over my talk with Twilight, repeating her words in my mind.

Ponies have cutie marks, and other living things don’t. I know that. I have intimate experience with that.

And yes, that includes cats. But there’s a difference there.

Other living creatures don’t have cutie marks because they don’t have a pony’s connection to destiny? Okay. I guess. But that’s not why cats don’t have them. Cats, I think we can all agree, have destiny in spades.

There has to be some other reason.

Well, if there’s one pony in Ponyville who might know what it is…

Fluttershy’s cottage always looked like a painting, like the very image of idyllic, pastoral country living, a place where everyone was welcome regardless of their size and shape.

Under the shadow of Nightmare Night, though, every part of it seemed to follow the mood of its owner. In the shadows of autumn, the cottage on the edge of the wild forest turned into a haunted place. But Fluttershy is a friend, and I was not afraid. I knocked on the door, and Fluttershy answered it, and smiled when she saw me. I smiled back.

Fluttershy was wearing her gardening frock and boots, and a fisherpony’s hat over her gray mane, and when she smiled the skin around her eyes wrinkled up slightly. “Hi Fluttershy. Am I interrupting something?”

“Oh, no. I was just going out to do a little weeding. Hold on.” She turned and poked her head behind the door. “It’s just Sweetie Belle! I’ll be just a minute.”

I heard Discord’s voice answer from within: “All right! Just don’t let her talk you into a duet again, I was cleaning feathers out of the couch for a week after last time.”

Fluttershy giggled softly and turned back to me. “So, what brings you out here?”

“I wanted to ask you about animals,” I said. “Specifically cats.”

Her face lit up with a huge grin and her eyes seemed to shimmer. “Oh, cats are wonderful animals! But why do you ask? Is something wrong with Opal? You know you can bring her to me anytime you want, right?”

I shook my head, smiling at the sight of a pony talking about something they love. “Opal is fine. Surprisingly fine, really, considering her age. She doesn’t want to let it show, though.”

“Well, they say they have nine lives. I know she doesn’t like seeing the vet, but I’ve built up a rapport with Her Highness.” Fluttershy giggled, a gesture of unending warmth. “She graciously allows me to serve her when necessary.”

“Yeah – and I’m very thankful. She really won’t let anypony else treat her. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“No? Then what’s the matter?”

She looked at me funny, rather like Twilight had done. Was I just being childish? “Have you ever heard about cats having magic?”

“Magic cats?” Fluttershy asked curiously. She sat back on her haunch and rubbed her chin while she thought. “Well, there are a lot of magical animals that are part feline. Griffons are the most plentiful, of course, and they have some of the same magic as pegasus ponies. Manticores are part lion as well, and then there’s the legend of the Sphinx. Cats have always been surrounded by superstitions. Ponies are less likely to adopt black kittens because they think they’re ‘bad luck’.” At that her face flashed a rare moment of anger. “Can you imagine, denying a home to some poor innocent kitten just because of the color of their fur? Ponies can be so…” She gave a little cry of frustration. “Sorry. I just get so peeved at that kind of thing. And to cats, of all creatures. Did you know that cats were worshiped, in ancient times?”

My ears perked up. “Worshiped?”

Fluttershy nodded excitedly. “It’s true! Back before the Princesses, ancient ponies used to think that cats were messengers from their gods, and they treated them like kings.” She laughed. “Of course, the cats got used to it and they’ve been like that ever since.”

I nodded slightly, not knowing if any of this was significant.

“It’s easy to understand why, if you look at them closely,” Fluttershy continued happily. “Cats have the most remarkable sense of balance. They can walk on anything, and if they ever fall they always land on their paws. Some rather silly ponies have suggested that if you take a piece of buttered toast—”

“Oh, Fluttershy dear!” Discord’s voice called out from inside the cottage. “Will this take long?”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “I’m just speaking with Sweetie Belle, I’ll just be a minute!”

There were hoofsteps and Discord appeared in the doorway himself. “Fluttershy, dear, I seem to have misplaced my favorite mug. Would you be a sweetheart and find it for me?”

“Did you look in the dresser drawer?”

“That was the first place I checked. It wasn’t there.”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, Sweetie. This will just take a minute.” I nodded, and she was gone, leaving me alone with Discord.

Discord’s hair was thin, and combed back. He wore thick, black-rimmed glasses, and a beige waistcoat, and he had gained weight. “Sweetie Belle,” he said, his voice coffee with sugar and cream.

I didn’t react. “Hello, Discord.”

“You’re asking about cats.”

I tensed up involuntarily. “That’s right.”

“Cats are carnivores,” Discord said, apropos of nothing. “You knew that, of course. Fluttershy knows it too, but she doesn’t really know it. Not like you and I know it. It’s not always a pleasant world out there, Sweetie Belle. But Fluttershy sees the good in everything.”

“I was curious. I asked Fluttershy a question. That’s all.”

“Yes, yes. But what you know is who you are, and there are consequences to toying with that.”

The possibly-former Lord of Chaos looked down at me through those goofy but comfortable-looking glasses. “You want to know what the cats know,” he said. “Be careful.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Consider it a warning from a friend… I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

I felt uncertainty trickle into my bloodstream, but I stood my ground in front of him. I made a show of looking over him, up and down. “You’ve changed a lot for her, Discord. More than I believed you could.”

He smiled, and the smile was not reassuring at all. “What do we call things that don’t change, Sweetie Belle?”

“I found it!” Fluttershy hovered back into view holding a mug. “It was in the shower. Honestly, Discord, you should pay more attention to your things.”

“Oh, thank you my dear,” he said, all charm, taking the mug from her and cradling it in his paw. He glanced down at me one last time, and his voice was all consideration and earnest helpfulness. “It’s your choice of course. But if you want to know what’s on the other side… Look for someone who lives on the border. Well, you two girls have fun catching up! I’ll be in front of the teevee.”

He gave Fluttershy a kiss on the cheek and she smiled a smile of pure happiness. Then he was gone.

He looks nicer nowadays. But he’s still just as dangerous.

– – –

My alarm bell rang and tore me out of sleep in the middle of the night, as I had instructed it to do. Silently, and barely consciously, I washed up and ate breakfast to prepare for my journey. Opal watched me as I got dressed, and she was more awake than I.

I made sure her food and water bowls were full, and I set off into the dark.

Ponyville at 5 AM in autumn is a howling wind in darkness. The wind heralded the coming of winter in the worst way, whipping and biting at my face, sapping my heat, very different from the mild days of softly falling snow for foals to catch on their tongues.

This was a wind that warned, a wind of change and dismissal, that told us that everything we thought we knew about wind was laughably wrong, and every sensible pony should stay inside and hide from it. Pegasus ponies can bend the wind, but there are only so many ponies, and the wind is forever.

As I left Carousel Boutique that wind immediately took hold of me by the spine and shook me, and in my blurry, still-tired mind I began to doubt my decision immediately. But I pushed on.

I left Ponyville alone, having not seen another pony, and set out to find the border.

Slowly the total night began to falter, and I kept walking through the wilderness outside of the settled zone. It was cold, and quiet, and I had a lot of time to think.

I think it was while I was walking that I figured it out.

Cats don’t have cutie marks. And there is a very simple, very good reason for that: because cats, unlike ponies, never have any doubts about who and what they are.

They are cats, and therefore the world belongs to them. What’s there to be unsure about?

Cats are charming. Cats are cute. We invite cats into our home. Cats are also graceful predators, who generally survive just fine in the wild places on their own. They are comfortable in our homes, and outside of them, and that fascinates us.

Sometimes a pony prefers the company of cats to other ponies.

It was midday by the time I reached my destination, and the cats saw me arrive.

The house stood alone, in the middle of a forest. The nearest town was half an hour’s trot away, and it was a small town. The front of the house was strewn with garbage, and I made a mental note to visit Sweet Apple Acres and tell somepony in the morning.

I knocked on the front door, and heard the banging and the shuffling from inside.

A very old mare opened the door and peered out at me. “Hello? And who might you be?” Her voice was cracked, and weak, and uncertain.

I stood up straight and smiled at her, put my drama training to work trying to look as friendly and unimposing as I could. “Miss Goldie Delicious? My name is Sweetie Belle. I’m a friend of Apple Bloom, of the Ponyville Apples. I was hoping I could talk to you.”

“Is that so?” Goldie Delicious said, wary but not unfriendly, as she gave me the once-over. Her gaze lingered on my horn. “You’re not an Apple, I think? Don’t see many of those in the family.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not. I didn’t want to talk Apple family history with you.”

“No? Then what?”

“I wanted to talk to you about cats.”

She paused, and inside the house, for just a moment, even the cats fell silent.

“Well then,” Goldie Delicious said, “I guess you’d better come inside.”

The inside of the house was much as Apple Bloom described it way back then. Covered in stuff, dusty, and full of cats. Whatever furniture she might have owned was buried under stacks of books, knick-knacks, random things that had obviously lain untouched for years, dusted only by the constant motion of swishing tails.

The cats were everywhere, and they all looked at me as I came in. Big and small, professionally groomed and rugged, pedigreed breed cats and mixes, and, wait, was that one of Opal’s kits from Ponyville in the corner?

I thought for sure I saw one, but by the time I turned back it was gone.

“Well, I should offer you a cup of something,” Goldie said, drawing my attention back, “but that’s a mite difficult right now. I’m not sure where my mugs have gone...”

I followed behind her, treading a safe path through the stacks. “That’s alright, please don’t exert yourself on my account.”

Goldie Delicious retreated to a rocking chair and sat down, and immediately a cat jumped up and laid down across her lap. She petted it, and it purred softly.

“So,” said the old mare. “You want to know about the cats.” She looked at me with eyes that were neither dull nor piercing. They were open. They were deep.

There was something in those eyes that said ‘yes, I understand’.

“They’re lovely animals,” I said. “I have my sister’s cat, Opal. Or as she’s known to her friends, the Queen of Ponyville. She’s as old as I am, and a lot more confident.”

Goldie Delicious chuckled, and there was a lot of knowledge in that chuckle. “I can imagine.”

“How many of them do you have?”

She shook her head and laughed softly. “None,” she said cheerfully. “I don’t own any cats. I just keep the house for them. They come here on their own. It’s a meeting house, of sorts, and they come and go as they please.”

Another cat jumped up on the rocking chair armrest, effortlessly balancing on the narrow wood as it swayed back and forth. “It’s not like I put a sign out. They talk about it among themselves, I believe. Some of them come from a very long way away to visit.”

I looked around me at the ancient house. The place was an unrepentant mess, and it was a marvel that anypony could live in it for long. A half-eaten gingerbread house stood forgotten nearby, perched precariously on a wobbly pile of memorabilia, and surely it couldn’t be the same gingerbread house Apple Bloom had mentioned all those years ago?

But the cats were at home here.

And when I tried to see it from their point of view, I could see why. There were jagged peaks to climb. There were valleys to explore, nooks and crannies to hide and chase. And all of it was made from the memories of the ponies who cared for them.

A place where time had left behind the best parts of itself until it formed a rich flavor that most ponies didn’t know how to taste.

“It’s a good house,” I said at last, quietly, and I’m sure that somehow she heard everything I wanted to put into those simple words that the mere letters couldn’t express.

“Yup, it sure is,” she said, and the cat in her lap unceremoniously jumped away. She glanced down at another, who quickly responded by taking the now-vacant spot “There you go, Schnookums… The house grew into it. Pets… Pets and pet owners, you know. We take on the shapes of each other. Maybe by now there’s more cat in me than pony.”

I nodded, looking around me in the dark and cluttered living room. The cats did not mind the dark, or the clutter. “They’re smarter than we know, aren’t they?”

“They have their own ways of knowing things,” Goldie Delicious said. “Call it smarts if you like. They know different things than us ponies, and a lot of what they know is stuff ponies say isn’t so.” She shrugged. “The cats don’t mind. They just go on knowing it anyhow.”

I nodded slowly, taking in the signs around me. “How long have you cared for them?”

That gave her pause. “Now that you mention it, I can’t rightly recall,” she eventually said. “A long time. It had been a long time when your friend Apple Bloom first came to visit, and that was…”

The room fell silent. “This was my aunt’s house before it was mine,” she said. “I was barely any older than you are now when I first came here with a broken heart, a parched throat, and swollen hooves, and needed to get away from it all. It’s been a great many years.”

She sighed sadly, looking ahead to her own inevitability. “Someday I’ll be gone, and then who’ll keep the house, and care for the cats?”

“Don’t you have any children?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Here, look at this.” She reached out and took hold of the first thing she touched. It was a scrap book. She flipped it open to a sepia-toned photo showing an old stallion in overalls with an unkempt beard. “This is my great-grandpappy, Heartwood Apple. He was the kindest, sweetest old pony you could hope to meet every day of the year but one, and that one day he was the worst. There weren’t a pony around who wouldn’t run the other way to stay clear of old Heartwood when he was in a mood.”

Leaving the book on her lap she grabbed the next thing, a dusty old jacket. “This was my auntie’s favorite from back when she was your age. It was made in Trottingham, by a charming devil of a tailor who made her heart dance and who had fireworks in his eyes. They danced together for a few weeks, and then she was off, to sell her apples in the next town, but she kept the jacket to remember him by.”

She put down the jacket and nodded towards a silver locket that hung from a nail on the wall behind her. “That belonged to Apple Bloom’s uncle-cousin Distant Apple… He went to the big city, and got himself in hot water. He sent that locket in a letter one night, and that was the last anypony ever saw or heard of him. Inside it is a picture of his sweetheart. The letter was just a scribbled note saying to please keep it safe.”

I couldn’t look away as she spoke. With every story she told, I could see in her face that she was all but living them out, there, right in front of me.

“Family,” she said heavily. “Family is very important to the Apples. Can’t get away from that. But I know what ponies are like. For good, or ill. I know what ponies can do to each other.”

She closed the book shut, and it made a sharper sound than I was expecting. “I prefer cats, because after all is said and done… I understand ponies better than cats.”

She put the scrapbook gently down across the armrest, and the cat curled up on it. “I keep their memories,” she said softly. “I make sure nopony forgets, for as long as I can. They deserve to be remembered. That’s how I pay my bit. But I don’t have any foals of my own.”

“You keep their memories,” I whispered.

She nodded. “But my memories aint the question now, is it?” She turned her eyes on me again. “You didn’t come here to talk about my family. What’s bothering you, miss… Bell, was it?”

I could feel their eyes all around me, could hear the purrs and meows and knew that there was a conversation going on there, and it was about me. Discord’s words echoed in my mind. “I want to know what the cats know.”

We sat in shared silence. Even the cats made no sound. They were looking at me, and they were looking at Goldie Delicious.

“Hunh...” Goldie glanced around her house slowly, listening for something I couldn’t hear. “Y’really think so? …Alright then.”

I noticed I was holding my breath while I waited. I gently let it out, trying not to break the silence, and inhaled gently, drawing in the smell of the house.

“Cats are predators,” Goldie Delicious began, looking down at the cat in her lap. “Normally ponies don’t like predators, but we adore cats. It hardly even seems to occur to us to wonder why that is. Why we invited them into our homes, gave them a place in our society, a society that often distrusts and shuns anything that’s too different.”

I sat on the floor in front of her and listened in silence.

“Cats are wanderers,” Goldie Delicious said, petting the cat in her lap that showed no inclination to wander anywhere just then. “They cross the borders that we don’t. They prowl the wilderness and kill for food, and then they curl up by the fireplace and let little foals pamper and play with them. They are at home everywhere, from jungles, to deserts, to mountains, to sailing ships, and all our homes… They cross the divides that keep us firmly on one side, and they see the world as we can’t. I’m not sure what it is we see in them… but I know they see something in us.” She looked up and her eyes met mine. “Maybe they see it in you, same as they saw it in me.”

For a while the only sound came from the cats. I waited, while she collected her thoughts. She was good at hiding her thoughts, but I could see on her face that she was thinking hard, and deep, as if she had been waiting for this for a long time.

“Cats ruled this place before ponies,” she said quietly. “Not Equestria. The bigger place. The outside, the place that has Equestria in it. And they have magic of their own, and… they let us stay. This is their place, really. Not ours. They know that they own us, not the other way around.”

She closed her eyes. “Autumn’s coming. Nightmare Night is in the air. The night when the Veil is at its thinnest. When the barrier that keeps us apart is weakest… Sometimes, it lets us see what’s on the other side.” She looked at me again with those eyes that were neither sharp nor dull, but something else. “On that night, if you have it… you can find what you’re looking for, Sweetie Belle. I hope you do.”

I left Goldie Delicious’ house, having got what I needed.

I had plenty of time to think about it as I walked back home to Ponyville.

– – –

Nightmare Night in Ponyville.

At last the preparations were complete, and the celebrations were underway. Candy had been hoarded, decorations hung up, and everypony had adorned their masks and costumes to become something else. The sun set early, and all across Ponyville the shadows came out to play.

Outside, Pinkie Pie was leading the children from house to house, as she always did in the early evening, remembering what it means to be a foal, and teaching it to those who don’t yet know.

Up and down the streets monsters were laughing and playing their monster music. Tonight was the night the monsters walk among us as our friends, and everypony gets to look into the darkness and see themselves there, reflected as in a mirror.

I watched it all happening through the windows of my bedroom, where I sat waiting, in my sister’s house.

When the time was right I stood up and I turned off the lights.

I left my bedroom and walked downstairs to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the living room, from the living room to the fitting room and the show room, darkening each as I went. And as I walked in the dark, I remembered.

In each room, I relived the memories I had made here, from the day I first moved in with my sister as a foal. I remembered the amazement I had felt when I walked into the show room for the first time, filled with my sister’s beautiful creations. How astounded I was that any pony could create such wonders, much less that I could get to live among them.

I remembered how graceful she was, and how clumsy and awkward I was in comparison. I remembered how I discovered that every bit of her grace came from hard work, that beneath the surface she always felt that it was never good enough. How kind and loving, and vain, and petty she could be.

I let it all flow back into me as I walked from one room to the next. Every piece of schoolwork, every beautiful summer day, every playtime in the snow where she would let loose and make a snowpony with me.

All the memories I had made with her. The happy times, and the sad times. The long, empty days that seem so impossible now—how can anypony ever not have anything to do?—and the many days that just flew by so quickly I didn’t even notice them until they were past.

The days my sister and I played together. The days where she was so grown-up and I was so childish, the days where I was the grown-up and she was so childish, and you’d be surprised at how many of those there were, unless of course you knew my sister, in which case you knew that being childish was a skill she perfected at a young age and kept sharp her entire life.

The days where the two of us were more like twins, where you could see how alike we really were when we allowed ourselves to show it.

Ponies spend so much of their lives not showing things.

All those years where it was just the two of us.

Except it was never just the two of us, was it?

“Opalescence,” I said her full name.

She was there on her pillow in the corner, and when I turned and looked at her she was sitting up in her most queenly pose.

“After Rarity died.” I looked at Opal. “I wasn’t going to let them do to you the way they did my granny’s cat. I didn’t want them to put you to sleep as well just because my sister wasn’t here to take care of you. That would have been the last thing she wanted.”

I imagine Rarity on the bed in the hospital with a breathing tube in her muzzle, taking my hoof in hers and whispering to me with her last breath, “please take care of Opal”.

It’s not a memory, I know it’s not, but it acts like one. I can see it so clearly in my head, and that’s who my sister was.

“I moved into her house. I kept the shop open for as long as I could. But you… You’re all I have left to remember her by.” The lump in my throat threatened to choke me, and my tears began to flow freely. “Isn’t that dumb? Sometimes I think I don’t remember what she looked like anymore. Rarity! How could anypony forget Rarity? And I have all the pictures. But they’re just flat images. They couldn’t capture her. Not really. But then I look at you, Opal… And it’s just like it was before. When I look at you I can pretend she’s just in the other room, and everything is alright. And I could just walk in there, and see her… and I would get to say goodbye.”

But I was just a pony, alone in an almost-empty house, talking to a cat.

Opal remained sitting, listening to the silly pony talking about silly pony things while my tears dripped down to the floor. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I finally admitted. “I thought… some part of me thought that, maybe, tonight… I dunno.”

Opal shifted on her pillow, a slight ruffling movement that sent a ripple down her fur. The little symphony of sounds an idle cat normally makes was silent. And then she spoke.

“She was a very special pony,” Opal said. Her voice was smooth, knowing, and somehow heavy, burdened with the weight of all the years of memories that were contained in those few words.

“You can talk,” I said, or at least I think I said it. I may have forgotten to, or have been momentarily unable to form the words, but Opal clearly understood me anyway.

She looked at me, and her eyes glowed in the dark as cat eyes do. “When it’s really needed, yes.”

Opal jumped down from her pillow and nodded her head in a gesture that said, unmistakably, ‘walk with me’.

“Do you know when I found your sister?” Opal asked, and I shook my head. “It was when she was just a filly. You were just a newborn at the time. I was only a kitten myself, the first of my litter, and it was our time to find homes for ourselves. The ponies would come to us and present themselves, and we would pick and choose the ones we wanted to live with.”

There was a cat standing by the fitting room doorway who had not been there a minute before, and he nodded his head respectfully to Opal as we passed. She gave no indication that she had noticed. “There were many ponies who wanted me to be their cat, of course. A few of them were truly good ponies, and I would have been happy to stay with them. But I was waiting for somepony special.”

There was another cat by the window, waiting silently, and she bowed at us as we entered.

“It took a few days. But in the end she came,” Opal continued. “A little filly, coat as white as my own fur, eyes wide with excitement and hopeful uncertainty. She stumbled on the doorstep and almost fell over before your father took hold of her.”

I could see it so clearly in my mind, and I couldn’t help but smile, and I could see on her face that Opal did the same. “I watched her move, so slight and slender, but I could see that she had the makings of grace in her… But there was more than that. I saw how she treated the other children, all bustling and bumbling to see us up close. She was gentle. She was kind. She cared as much for others as she did for herself, and she cared for herself as much as she deserved, which was a great deal indeed.”

I listened while Opal told me about my sister, and the memories came flooding back. Years of them, things I didn’t know I had forgotten, about Rarity, who was the best sister anypony could possibly hope to have, full of wit and charm and infuriating and amazing.

“I came home with her,” Opal said, “and I looked after her ever since. It was a good way to pay a debt.”

We walked through Carousel Boutique, slowly passing through each room. One by one, more cats stepped quietly into view, and showed their respects. They waited, silently, around the edges of the room.

“A debt?”

Opalescence jumped up on a couch that served as a throne the moment she touched it. “A pony’s cat once helped me, when I needed it. A very special cat. She asked me for a favor in return, and I have been proud to carry it ever since.”

They were coming together now, all of Opal’s children and grandchildren and great-grand-children were silently passing through on padded paws and taking their places around their mother as she spoke.

“Madam Whiskers asked me to look after you,” Opal said. “She knew that she wasn’t going to be around herself. She always liked you two, you know.”

“Madam Whiskers…?”

“Your grandmother’s cat,” Opal said, as her own youngest grandchild, a fluffy little kitten whose gray fur stood out to all sides, sat down between her legs. Opal bowed her head down and nuzzled the little one, gave him a few licks on top of his head while he meowed furtively. “Though you might not have known that name. She saw you as family. You were as good as her own kittens to her… So, when her time was drawing short, she asked me to look after you both.”

She turned back to me and the emotions in her eyes were pony emotions. “I watched over you both from when you were fillies,” Opalescence said softly, “as much as I could. The good times, and the bad. For every birthday, and every Hearth’s Warming… And believe me, your sister didn’t make my job very easy. But a cat is an excellent ward to chase away unwelcome things.”

She fell silent with those words, and looked around her, at me, and at all her children. “Nightmare Night is a time for facing the unknown,” she said quietly. “She is gone now, and all of us have to learn to cope with that.” She sighed, and her cat eyes looked into mine. “Now I must ask you… Do you trust me, Sweetie Belle?”

A sudden, subtle shiver ran down my spine and ruffled my coat at this question. I hesitated, and nodded.

“Good.” She bent her head down to look the kitten in the face. “Mister Fluffynuff. I am on the last of my nine lives. But my job still isn’t done. When I’m gone, will you look after Sweetie Belle for me? She’s a good pony, and you’ll enjoy her company. What do you think?”

The kitten meowed softly.

“Fluffynuff says yes,” Opal said. The kitten stepped gingerly forward, out of his grandmother’s grasp, and looked up at me with wide eyes that were open to everything, and full of secrets he was only waiting to share. I reached out to him and held him close, and he meowed.

“It’s late,” Opal said, rising up shakily and stepping down from the crowd of her descendants. “I’m glad I got the chance to talk to you, Sweetie Belle… but, I must be going. I’ll deliver a message from you.”

“What?” I asked, but the cat was already ignoring me, as she often did. She walked through the door towards the brightly lit show room, where I thought for sure I had turned the light off.

She crossed the threshold. And for a moment, even if it was only in my head, I looked through the veil and I saw my sister, with Opal by her side, and she looked back at me and she smiled.

Author's Note

Story notes.