...and the next one, and the one afterward.
It was a starry night. With what little light shone in the city leaving the sky unpolluted, the many planets and galaxies showed their full glory to those who’d so much as gaze up. A comet or a shooting star streaked by every so often, providing the occasional stargazer with a single wish. But few saw it. Fewer yet wished, and only a hoofful would see their wish granted.
It was a draughty night, too. Wind tiptoed through the halls, sneaking into rooms through the gaps in the doors and windows. It whispered quietly to the sleepers, sometimes making them shiver, sometimes drawing them farther into dreamland. And through the halls it whistled melodies that reminded the sleepers of the songs their mothers used to sing to them in the evening. Songs inspired by the unimaginable things it saw. But nopony questioned why the wind was whistling. And nopony wondered why it drove them into deeper sleep, instead of waking them up.
The whistling was accompanied by rhythmic sweeps that lined up with the melody. It was a very quiet sound – soft hairs of the broom grinding against the tiles of the hallway, sweeping what little dust and sand there was into the corners. Yet, despite its quietness, two ponies heard it, not one.
“Might you stop for a while?”
“Whistling or sweeping?”
“Sweeping.”
It was the other filly, who now shifted on her spot on the floor, looking with her big eyes through an even bigger window, at the biggest thing she could look at: the sky. She kept staring at it quietly for hours, time flying by faster than she cared to realise. It’s as if she undertook the task of counting all the stars and never quite finished.
She looked behind her. A stallion with an apparition that could remind a more inattentive observer of a donkey stood there. There was a spark in his eyes that indicated some sort of mystery, though, and it ruined the image.
“You may continue whistling, however. I must confess, it is most enjoyable to me." She had the diction of a filly who’d taken her language lessons a tad too seriously.
“One or another. Can’t whistle without sweeping. Need a rhythm.”
“Very well then. Continue sweeping.”
Once again the soft brooms of the broom gave a cadence to the whistles that lulled ponies to sleep. Far off, guards swayed or yawned at their posts. Whistling drowned out the dull thud when one found out a slippery round pillar wasn’t the best of supports for a limp, snoring body.
The other filly cleared her throat. “Quite unusual that your whistling carries in an echo, while our voices here don’t, don’t you think?”
His sharp incisors glinted in the dim light of the moon. “Got my ways.”
The other filly turned back to the world outside. She lay her head on the windowsill and closed her eyes, feeling the cold glow of the moon behind her closed eyelids. It was comforting, especially along with the rhythmic sweeps and the soft whistling. She almost felt like falling asleep right then and there, but she knew better. She’d done that before, and always woke up with a terribly stiff back.
She sighed, and the sigh turned into a frustrated growl.
“Something bothering you, miss?”
“Same thing,” she said, her voice slipping from her usual stiffness and poshness, “as yesterday, and the day before. What else could it be?”
“I dunno. I’m just sweeping.” He swept a bit more forcefully, as if to punctuate.
The other filly kept quiet for a moment, swinging her tail in tandem with the broom, until her own sweeps drowned out those of the broom. “I would like to…” she cleared her throat. “Um, I wanna be more like sis. Have ponies adore me and listen to me. Go to parties—er, events, perhaps.”
“Go to parties?”
“Maybe not that. I mean, having more friends would be far better already. Just that’d be fun… I mean, it’d suffice. She always has so many friends around her all the time, asking her for advice on all sorts of things.” She turned toward the janitor, watching him idly sweep the floor.
“Now you don’t have any?” he asked.
“Well, you’re here, but everypony else is asleep. Even the guards! Which reminds me, she could even make them smile sometimes. To me they’re all like—” She twisted her face into a huge scowl and furrowed her brows, looking far off into the distance. Then she quickly giggled and grinned. “It reminds me, why would you be up at this hour?”
“Got the night shift.” She could hear him speak through a grin. “Somepony’s got to do the night shift. Somepony always does.”
“Oh. I suppose I have the ‘night shift’ too. We could be night shift buddies!” She gave a huge smile, complete with a hopeful glint in her eyes.
But the stallion just kept sweeping, only glanced at her briefly before returning to his work. She never learnt what hid behind those weird eyes of his. He never wanted to tell. “Of course,” he muttered. “Of course.”
She bet his eyes turned into those catlike slits when she wasn’t looking. That’s what happens to ponies when they work the night shift for too long. She’d seen guards like that, after all. “Perhaps I ought to try to become more inclined to the tasks she does. You know, try to learn physics and maths and all that. Nopony likes to talk about history, for reasons I can’t really fathom. They all seem to think it’s just tedious. But there are so many inspiring ponies in there. Like Commander Hurricane, or Clover the Clever!”
All she heard in response to her rant was dull sweeping. The janitor wasn’t even looking at her. She gave him a snort. She was talking more to herself, after all. “But no, they all just have to be all ‘maths this, physics that’. It’s not my fault I’m not as inclined toward sciences!” She groaned and sighed heavily, laying her head back at the window sill, not sparing any glances at the janitor.
“You know,” she muttered quietly, eyes moist, looking at the moon and speaking to it more than anypony in particular. “I should learn how to be more like sis. I could take some of the work off of her shoulders, and she’d have more free time. And then we could play together. And go on adventures. The way we used to.” She blinked the tears away. Looking behind her just to make sure there was nopony around proved her wrong. The janitor was sitting quietly by the wall on the other side of the corridor, leaning on it, his faithful broom by his side.
“I… I suppose I could tell you something. But I need a promise from you not to tell anypony,” she half-whispered, her voice wavering.
He slowly lifted his eyes from his broom by the floor to gaze at her again. She looked into them, and it made her feel strange. As if she wanted to run away, but was rooted into the ground at the same time. It was probably her being tired though. “I promise.” He grinned very briefly, teeth glinting in the moonlight.
The other filly theatrically looked back and forth to make sure nopony was listening. “I’m kind of afraid of crowds, you know. That is the reason I never attend the events. With crowds, you never know what each pony might be capable of. You’d be focused on one pony, while the other could be doing something completely different. And you wouldn’t know, as you’d have your focus on the first pony. It’s scary.”
“Have you ever thought they might be scared of you more than you are of them?” Unkempt mane fell over his eyes when he picked up his broom again.
“Scared of me? But they’re all bigger than me!”
“Perhaps. But with who you are, size doesn’t matter. You could send them all far, far away with just the gesture of your hoof.”
The other filly swished with her hoof a few times, looking at it intently. “But perhaps it could work in a twofold way. I could have them spend time with me. Maybe we could be friends! And go on adventures together...” She stared off into the distance with a dreamy look in her eyes.
“You could make them spend their time with you, yes, and then what? They’d be afraid to do something you wouldn’t want. They’d simply wait until you told them to do something, all tense and frightened.”
“Then I’ll tell them to enjoy themselves while they’re spending their time with me.”
“And afterward? How will you know they want to go home, when they’d be too afraid to ask you?”
“I’ll simply ask them.” She was growing visibly restless, fidgeting on her hooves in anticipation.
“Once, twice, thrice, perhaps. At some point, you’d forget. Better yet, none can be the master of ponies’ minds. You can’t simply tell a pony to enjoy themselves and expect them to.” He stopped sweeping again to look at her. The shade of the corridor made his face look strange, almost as if he hadn’t slept in a really, really long time, and had dark spots around his eyes because of that.
The other filly looked at the janitor for a longer while, not quite sure whether she should ask the question. He just stood there, eyes half-closed in the light of the moon until he shifted away from the window. Seemed that even the dimness of the moon gave off too much light for him. “What should I do, then?”
He pointed at his flank. “What is it?”
“Um, a broom?” She gave him a quizzical look.
“Yes, a broom. And what do you see me doing most of the time?”
“Sweeping?”
He nodded. “Exactly. Everypony’s got their thing, their place. Trying to fit somewhere else, to be somepony you’re not, will just make you miserable. Do your thing, focus on it. Filter other things out. They tend to be just... noise.”
The other filly was already looking at her flank, lost in thought. Then she gazed back at him. “So, I shouldn’t desperately search for friends, but instead focus on what I’m meant to do.”
“Indeed,” he muttered, having gone back to sweeping.
“Thanks!” The other filly grinned. “I think I know what to do. I think I’ll sleep more easily now. Night!” She trotted, or perhaps bounced off somewhere along the corridor.
As her steps disappeared in the distance, the hallways yet again echoed with whistling that brought whoever had woken up at that hour, back into dreamland. They couldn’t hear the sweeps of the broom that gave the melody a rhythm, now heard only by one pony.
Elsewhere in the castle this chilly, draughty night, another filly was wide awake.
Despite the soothing melody that echoed and tumbled through the corridors with the wind, she couldn’t sleep. The heavy doors of her chamber were laden with mattresses from within to muffle all the sounds, and simple spells kept it all the more an oasis of peace and silence. Only from without, the faint sounds of the night birds and wind untouched by whistling crept in, so as to not drive the inhabitant insane. Few would dare stand more than a few moments in total silence.
It was the umpteenth time she spent the night restless. At the end of it she might just get a few moments, but now it didn’t really seem so. Her intuition was already telling her the sun was about to be raised, and she still lay in the middle of the bed. Half of the sheets were on the ground, while the other half remained where her legs didn’t reach. Her mane lay in a messy aureole around her head, the bags under her eyes she planned to cover up with a spell.
A thousand thoughts raced through her head, one worse than the last. While the night was spent tossing and turning, she now lay on her back, motionlessly staring at the ceiling. She used to mutter to herself at times, at times scream in annoyance, her voice muffled by the spells on the walls. These days, though, it didn’t feel like either helped. She simply couldn’t sleep.
She was briefly aware of the guards posted right before the door, briefly wondering whether they could be asleep now. Perhaps they’d heard her back when she used to shout, or kick things when she was frustrated. What would they think now, when all they heard was silence?
She dragged herself out of the bed, knocking the rest of the sheets to the ground, and walked up to the door, or at least attempted to. Though her eyes were quite adjusted to the brief light of the moon, her hooves weren’t as compliant after a few nights without sleep. Having tumbled out of the bed, she carefully untangled herself from the sheets. She remembered the first time she’d had a sleepless night, trying to get out of bed ended up with her snout greeting the floor, so just tumbling a bit was progress.
She lay her ear on the door out of habit; she used to eavesdrop a lot when she was younger. Sometimes she’d hear a haunting melody carried through the halls by the wind that put her to sleep easily. Perhaps she could find where in the castle it was easiest to hear, and move her room there. That could cure her insomnia in no time. Now, though, due to the spells on the door, she heard nothing.
As a somewhat drowsy, split-second decision, she reached out for the handle with her magic, and carefully turned it. The door opened almost seamlessly, without a sound. The moment a crack formed between it and the doorframe, her ears were flooded by the faint melody. She wouldn’t have guessed it was so easy to hear even here. She promised herself to leave the door enchantments off the next evening for the sound to flood her chamber.
She opened the door slightly wider, thankful the enchantments could muffle the creaking, and peeked out. In the corridor, two guards slept. One lay neatly with his head on his hooves and eyes closed, the other was sprawled on the floor next to a pillar, his mouth open, and with drool dripping from it. The filly giggled. They surely were enjoying themselves. She oughtn’t blame them, though. The melody that drifted through the corridors didn’t make it easy to keep herself on her hooves either.
The filly slipped through the door and closed it behind her. At first she tiptoed, so as to not wake the guards, but the moment she put some ground between herself and them, she launched into a careful trot. When she finally passed a few turns through the halls, she sat down, confident that the guards wouldn’t realise she’d gone out. Her heart was beating fast, not so much due to the exercise, as to the adrenaline of doing something forbidden, and the fear of punishment.
Her hooves had carried her unconsciously toward the source of the sounds. She could hear the melody echoing loud and clear now, and it seemed as if it came from all around her. Even if she wanted to find where exactly it originated from, she’d have no way to. Instead, she sat down and breathed deeply, counting the seconds as she exhaled, attempting to calm down.
The light of the moon reflected off the floating dust, outlining the rays and giving the halls a somewhat haunting look. It was just the heavy stone of the walls, the chilling touch of the floor’s tiles, and the colourless light from the enormous windows, open to the sky and the world beyond, and her, standing alone amidst it all.
Though the light was drained of colour, it was all but unwelcoming. There was something enticing about the moon. The filly sat down in front of the window, looking at it and the stars that framed it. While perhaps not yet old, or wise enough to comprehend the sky’s vastness and the insignificance of such a small creature in the agelessness of the universe, she felt drawn to entertain the notion. Perhaps there was another world out there, just like this one, where fillies didn’t have to wake up at four, after another near-sleepless night.
Were all those endless possibilities out there what drew her sister to stay up at night? Why she always had bags under her eyes during the morning lessons? Perhaps she was still up right now, sitting somewhere around these halls and looking up at the moon as the filly herself now was. She really ought to spend more time with her, but if only finding it had been as easy...
Suddenly, she heard clops of hooves on the floor, followed by rhythmical sweeping. It also seemed as though the sweeps sounded in tandem with the omnipresent whistling, which seemed to be getting louder by the minute.
She stopped breathing and her heart skipped a beat. She was going to get discovered. She searched for a place to dash into, but the other end of the corridor was far off, and there was only a window before it. She looked at it, then at the corner from where the sounds came, then back at the window. Bad idea.
Instead, she simply sat down to face the threat head on, looking at the corner with a determined expression. After a moment, the whistling stopped. Not abruptly, but simply faded out, and it seemed like it was still there, playing in her mind. It took a moment to register it was gone.
A stallion emerged from behind the corner. He reminded her somewhat of a donkey, with movements telling of a farmer’s strength, but lacking either the grace of an artist, or the discipline of a soldier. He swept the floor somewhat carelessly, as if he didn’t really believe anypony would ever see the results of his work. It was as if he treated the work as a pastime activity, rather than his actual job.
It took him a moment to register there was somepony else in the room before he lifted his eyes at her, his unkempt, unwashed mane obscuring his features until he brushed it aside. Instead of greeting her, he nodded respectfully and went back to sweeping.
The filly fished her memory for a name. “Sweepy Broom, yes?”
“That’s my name.” The stallion glanced at her briefly. His eyes were, well, unreadable to say the least. She’d seen him, though, and talked to him more than once. He seemed fairly harmless to her.
“Say, what do you do around here, Sweepy Broom? Besides, well, sweeping.”
“Nothin’ much.”
She felt awkward trying to start a conversation with him. He’d never been much of a talker. But perhaps a better listener. She felt a pang of guilt at remembering her conversations with the staff happening more often than her conversations with her own sister.
Sister...
She sat down, feeling her eyes water, and turned herself away from the stallion, toward the window. She squeezed her eyes shut and winced. Guilt about leaving her sister to fend for herself for so long, along with the weight of the world she had to carry through politics, bore down on her. She breathed deeply and swallowed back the tears.
The corridor had grown silent. The filly glanced back for a moment, intent on making sure nopony was present. Instead, she saw the stallion in the middle of the corridor holding his broom and looking at her with anticipation. “You haven’t left yet?” she asked.
The stallion shook his head.
“You want to know what’s bothering me.” It was more a statement than a question. “Why I’m up at this hour. Yes?”
He flinched, taken aback by the question. Eventually, he nodded.
The filly turned back to the window and lay her forehead on the stone windowsill. Its cold touch alleviated some of the headache and weariness from her eyes.
She hesitated for a moment. It wasn’t the first time she’d told a random servant of her problems. It was therapeutic, in a way, and she needn’t bother her sister with her problems. She mustn't, not her sister. Anypony but her. And the list of subjects she could share with her sister dwindled, so far apart their worlds were.
“I sometimes...” She paused, took a deep breath. “I sometimes wish I could be like my sister. Before I learnt of politics, and how ponies can twist the words as to make somepony bad appear good, and somepony good seem to be the worst of villains.” She looked at the moon again. “I still recall sis asking on a morning lesson how could a pony with a roof over their head and food on their plate ever do something bad.”
“But don’t you need to know all those things among the nobles, in politics?”
The filly briefly glanced at the stallion, who had his back turned to her, sweeping. “I do. But it doesn’t lessen the weight of knowing them. Ponies who don’t know that you can use evil to achieve your goals are necessary, too. They won’t even think about it then. That way we could inch closer toward a world where it’s not obvious to lie, or to step over others to achieve something.” She snorted like a bull in determination. “I’ll build it. For my sister and myself both. And all the ponies in Equestria.”
She took a brief glance back. The stallion was standing a dozen or so feet away from her, supporting himself on his broom, looking at her thoughtfully. “And until then?”
“Until then, I’ll... I’ll work on myself.” She paused for a moment, turned her eyes back to the moon. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened them back again. “I’m jealous. Of my sister mostly, but of other ponies, too. They’ve got their families together, and after a long day of work they meet and eat dinner, recounting everything that happened that day. I sometimes wish I had that.
“But I suppose the most selfish desire I hold to this day, is to be in my sister’s place. To not face the daily dose of ponies trying to lie to me, pretending they respect me, or thinking I’ll tell them where to go with their lives, when I’m not quite sure where I even am myself.”
“Perhaps take some time off?” the stallion offered.
“I’ve tried. The state of the world requires constant attention, however. I can only assume the damage done if I were to take even more breaks.” The filly shook her head. Her tired expression and spark of maturity in her eyes made her look old beyond her years. “I sometimes wish I had a few hours more in each day, perhaps well into the night, where I could take a breath from all the ponies, be they well or ill wishing.”
“Maybe your sister...”
“My sister,” she whispered. “I’d sooner take a knife to my heart, than condemn her to this fate. To all those fake smiles, to those vultures, to those...” She took a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have lashed out like that. I don’t want her to face all that, however, especially not at this age. Not now. I want to preserve her innocence for as long as I can. So she never has to find herself where I am now.”
She heard the stallion shift behind her. “A noble thing to do, if you ask me.” The sound of rhythmic brushing not far from her returned.
She turned toward him. “Noble? But I can hardly spare the time for her. I don’t even know how she spends all those nights she stays up late. She always comes to the morning lessons with bags under her eyes.”
“You sacrificed your own time and freedom to give your sister something you didn’t have. That’s a noble path to take, if you ask me,” he reiterated with a calm, but somewhat impatient voice.
“But I don’t even know if she’s...” The filly stopped for a moment, took a deep breath. “I think you’re right. I shouldn’t do that just for her to be thankful to me. It’s vain. I’ll follow this path for her, not for myself.” With a nod to herself and to the moon, she trotted off back to her room, giving a quick wave to the stallion.
It’s quite an absurd thought, how distant two ponies can grow, though they live in the same home. How pain can breed anger, and anger cause actions that breed more and more pain. And finally, how bad advice, if heard and taken to heart, can lead one down a path much worse than what it could’ve been.
The two fillies grew apart. Oftentimes the night would find them two corridors apart, staring at the same moon, not once meeting. They’d at times exchange laconic greetings in the morning, only to plunge back into their own thoughts in the evening. And as it at times happens, nopony was there to stop their thoughts and emotions from spiralling downward.
The janitor was never to be found again. For all of his apparent wisdom and experience, he’d done nothing to help put an end to their rift. Why, though, the legend doesn’t tell.
Author's Note
A fairytale for children, quite unusual for me. I was sort of following the theme of my To Guard the Light, creating a spiritual successor to it (if perhaps not a side story). There's a twofold moral in it, in a way. I wonder if you catch it.
