"What do you mean it's boring?"
Stormy Night always liked a book that started with the letter P. He peered over the edge of the gigantically typed construction into the great, dull gray page, the next letter of the opening word appearing as a tiny speck of black below. He could have done the same with an enormous T as well, but there was just something special about a P. That nice round hump under his hooves gave him so many options, like jumping in the metaphorical air--which he did, to a squeak of surprise from the mare beside him--and landing on his rear to slide down and off into the page beyond.
He kept his wings folded to his sides and tracked the oncoming spot of black until the last possible moment, where he twisted around and struck on his back. The curly little e gave way and recoiled, bouncing him up into the ethereal gray. “Come on! Your turn!”
Twilight Sparkle poked her head over the P’s side. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I am!” He landed again and bounced with less and less spring until he lay still on his back. “Done it a thousand times. Your turn!”
A burst of violet energy brought Twilight to his side, and he groaned. “That’s the easy way. I thought you wanted to have fun.”
She kicked at his crossed hind legs. “I didn’t think you’d leave me behind like that! And what if you ever missed that little stunt of yours? What if you tumble out of the book completely?”
Opening his mouth to respond, Stormy Night found no answer to her question. Was that even possible? He peered over the e to the next line of the page, and the one after that, and the one after that. Between each was a thin space of blankness. Thin, but more that enough to slip through.
“No you don’t,” Twilight snapped, anchoring his hoof to the spot with a tight ring of magic. “This is my first time inside this book, and you are not going to ruin it for me!”
Stormy kept still as glass until her power faded away. “Sorry.” He rubbed the indentation left around his ankle. “I didn’t know this was that important.’
Twilight flicked her eyes to what he was doing, and her glare softened when she saw the imprint. “I... Sorry.” She dug a hoof into the typeface ground. “This was one of my favorites when I was growing up. I just thought we could go through it together. You’ve been staying in it for a week now.”
He had wondered why Twilight hadn’t started reading it yet. In the months he had been hiding in her library, he never had to wait more than a few days before she would crack open his hidey hole and start reading. Once, he told her that the very pages would take on a violet hue when she truly lost herself in the contents--times that left him with a quite fiery taste in his mouth after siphoning off some of her love for himself. She hadn’t ever believed him. Still, those were the times he took a closer look at his new habitat.
Myths and stars and spells and histories, those were the ones that stoked her, and few more than the discovery of Haycartes spell to bring herself into a book with him. No longer settling for his struggled reasoning of changeling magic to explain his entry into the pages, she had popped into existence before him as a flat black-and-white thing that would vanish when she turned to look him in the eye.
He rolled over to push himself to his feet, but the motion also hid the wide grin that bared his fangs. She had come a long way with the technique since then, but he still admonished himself for thinking she would waste time experimenting on something unimportant. Stormy Night looked over the sentence and recited, “Perhaps it was the morning chill from the water’s edge, perhaps it was the fact her prize carnations hadn’t yet come into bloom, but Countess Cordial still felt the passing winter cling to her heart.” He climbed over to the next letter and turned to reach a hoof for Twilight. “Shall we get a move on? The beginning was boring anyway.”
Twilight finally looked at him again. Her gaze flicked to the offered hoof, to his eyes, and back again. She smiled and entwined hers with his, and she hopped over to join him. “What do you mean it’s boring?”
“I mean it’s boring. Perhaps nothing. What kind of a story starts with confusion like that?”
“There’s nothing confusing about it. The seasons are changing, and the Countess is feeling lonely. Spring is the season of new life, after all.” She squeezed his hoof before she let go. “Cordial doesn’t have anyone to share it with.”
He barked out a laugh. “And she doesn’t know why she’s lonely? She blames it on the wind and the flowers?”
Twilight sighed, but a little smile lingered on her face. “It’s not that easy. I never feel lonely when I’m alone studying. You can’t just pinpoint it like that.”
She trotted further along, head tilted to scan the words below, and Twilight swung her hind legs over the side to ease herself down to the next line of text. “See this part here?” She rapped a hoof. “The winter clinging to her heart? That can’t happen. It’s a poetic idea, not an actual fact, so there’s plenty of room for maybe and perhaps.”
Stormy made his way down. “Maybe.” He smirked as she tried to hide her giggles, and the two of them walked along Countess Cordial’s reflections of the long season, the first winter she had endured since her father’s passing. He had snorted at first, the changeling he was before he took the name Stormy Night, when he was nothing but an anonymous Brother of the Hive. Elders died, and the young replaced them. It was nothing to be mourned, only expected.
Now, in the silence between the mare and the changeling he had become, the words under his feet swirled with the words she had said. “You’ve never felt lonely like this?”
“Not exactly like Cordial, no. My dad is still alive. But--” She stopped in her tracks, turning back on what they had trod. A hoof fiddled with her mane. “I think I was eight when I first read this book? And every time I read it again, I remember thinking I wasn’t as lonely as Cordial because I didn’t have ponies that left me behind. Now that I have friends I wonder if I just didn’t understand what loneliness was back then.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. We never had to worry about all that at the Hive.”
Twilight looked to him. “You never talk about the Hive very much.”
“I’m not sure how to talk about it with you. I haven’t read anything to compare it to yet. Maybe--” He cast his eyes about. This was the start of the book. That meant there was supposed to be--there it was. Stormy leapt down a few paragraphs, Twilight close behind.
’You must be as stone,’ her father had often told her. Even as the illness took the strength of his voice, he had found those words. ‘The townsfolk may not be our subjects in this age, but our title still bears weight.’ The time for mourning him had long passed, but family needed to be put in order. When she left her homestead, Cordial was now on her own. The legacy of her family rested on her slender shoulders alone.
“See, this is what I mean. And the next chapter, when she won’t even smile at the shopgirl.” He shook his head. “Who does that? She’s not the queen. She knows she’s not the queen, but she’s not treating them like brothers or sisters either.” He narrowed his eyes. “And don’t get me started on making her pay for food. You need that to live!”
Twilight smiled and raised her hooves defensively. “I didn’t make that rule. That’s just how it is.”
Stormy turned away from the familiar refrain. Twilight had tried to guide him through pony society as best she could within the library, and reading through the books he lived in provided some context she couldn’t explicitly spell out, but he missed the closeness, the family, of the Hive. Money, walls and doors surrounding every pony in every town, sometimes he felt he would never understand how that cold distance they put between each other could breed the kind of love and friendship that attracted Chrysalis’ attention.
She put a hoof on his shoulder, a gentle light in her features. Her horn lit with a soft glow. They vanished in a flash, and reappeared deeper in the book.
“Hey... I remember this part!” He crouched down and scanned below. “Yeah, this is where the stranger shows up! Dust Lock. I liked him.”
“I thought you might.” She trailed her hoof down his leg. “He reminds me of you, in some ways. I’m glad you don’t find him too boring.”
He winced, snickering, and secure in the knowledge he wasn’t going to hear the end of that crack. “Well, at least Cordial isn’t moping anymore. She has to deal with something.” He cleared his throat. ”The voice took her by surprise, and she whirled about to see a shape approaching her from--”
“Hold that thought.”
Stormy turned to see Twilight concentrating more magic into her horn, eyes closed and serene. Before he could ask anything, the word under his feet took on the same pulsing violet aura. He scrambled away before it could swarm over him. A nearly futile effort, Twilight ensured, as the spell she prepared creeped out and covered the very fabric of the page around them.
“Almost.” Twilight bowed her head. “And then... yes... page thirty-seven. There we go.” She raised her head again, and the magic poured out of her horn, joining with the shimmering waves surrounding them.
Stormy threw a leg over his eyes, but was spared the brief lurch of his stomach that came with teleportation. Or any spell for that matter. He raised his leg inch by inch, peering under it to see the bright color of her magic fade away from a dark blur under his feet. A blur that stretched out far, far more than he had ever seen in a book. “What did--”
He blinked away the last vestiges of the brilliant flash. Grass. He was looking at grass. Short, and in a perfect uniform he had never seen before, but blades of grass all the same. And under his hooves there was stone, smooth, just as uniform in rectangular shape as the grass was short, and set wide enough for three ponies to walk side by side along their way.
Frowning, Stormy scraped a hoof along the path. He heard nothing, felt nothing. Not a scrape. Not a scratch. “Where are we?”
Twilight jerked her head to the side. “We’re in the garden.”
He looked over to follow her gesture. Another unicorn mare shared the path with him, motionless and shrinking away from them, strands of her tail lashed against her flank as if she had been frozen in the act of whirling around. His eyes landed on the carnation dangling from her mane, entwined with two locks of her red hair braided together. A morning routine that was a common scene in his reading. It gave the mare a quiet moment to study herself in the mirror and prepare herself for the day.
Countess Cordial herself. The ivory colored shawl draped over her shoulders, pulled tight around the unadorned gold necklace as she turned to the stranger behind her.
Dust Lock, the stranger himself, waited for Stormy, the coarse and dusty clothes hanging in tatters from his lurching shape. Indeed, he already appeared ready to collapse like he would in the time of a page or two.
He gawked at Twilight, who merely smiled and shrugged. Stormy Night returned the grin, and he bolted past the still-life Dust Lock. Two seas waited for him: the sea of stars raining diamonds from the sky, and the darkened sea of grasslands rising to meet them on the horizon. Shaking his head, he turned back to Twilight. “You’re incredible.”
She gave a meek bow. “We’re still in the book, just so you know. The illusion can only be so big.”
He focused on Dust Lock once more, lingering on the two bulges of his saddlebags under his long coat. A soft coo escaped him, and he pounced forward, hooves shooting out to lift the tattered coat away. His hooves passed through as if nothing was there.
Twilight laughed at him. “Well look who jumps to the ending! Sorry, I’m not that good.”
“Oh, come on! I’ve never seen a silver bar before.” He swiped a hoof through the stallion’s body completely, from chest to tail. His leg passed through like air. “Much less however many he’s got in there.”
“The author never says how much he has, only two saddlebags stuffed with silver.” She walked over to join him, and peered out to the endless plains. “It was frustrating, honestly. Dust Lock was the first earth stallion protagonist I read about that wasn’t a grand, mythical figure. I always wanted to know if it was possible to carry all that weight for so long a distance on foot. And I couldn’t even zero in how much weight it was!”
“Yeah, that’s what I like about him. I kinda wish the story was more about him. He took the silver from the bandits and hoofed it across open country for only the sky saw how long. That’s good stuff.” He pointed over to the timid creature shrinking away from them. “It’s only a love story after that.”
Twilight slapped a hoof across the bridge of her muzzle. “You are getting so far ahead of where we are. Couldn’t you just appreciate the mystery of what was in his bags if he kept claiming he had no money and no possessions for a hundred pages?” Her ears perked up, and she pulled the hoof away, looking at him with furrowed eyes. “Now that I think about it, what do you mean only a love story? Don’t you enjoy love?”
“Well... no, not really. We eat it. This was just on the page, so it’s not real love”
“No, but there’s still love.” She waved to their surrounding. “We’re still in the book after all. I pulled every detail you see from the author’s words. What about that love; the care put into it all. Can you sense that?”
Stormy rubbed the back of his neck. “Not really. If a changeling could do that, we’d be feeding off love just walking around a city. Or a farm. There’s a lot of care to go around.”
“Fair enough, but what about the ponies themselves? Can’t you sense if two ponies are falling in love together?”
“We don’t exactly have the luxury of studying the stuff. We just eat it. But no, if you’re going to ask, this doesn’t make much sense to me. This guy just wanders onto her land and he gets a room for the summer?”
“He’s half dead!” Twilight said, laughing and thrusting a hoof over to Dust Lock. “Cordial isn’t her father. She wasn’t thinking about pay, or wondering what he could do for her in return. She showed him some small mercy.”
“But look at her!” He pointed to Cordial in turn. “She’s terrified! The first thing she does is cover up her gold. This big, lumbering shadow pops up out of nowhere in the middle of the night, and she lets him into her Hive?”
Twilight shook her head, smile lingering. “No mare in her right mind would invite some dangerous stranger into her home.”
He flashed a grin. “Not everyone is as crazy as you.”
“Oh hush,” she snorted. “If you want to see the silver, I’ll show you the silver.”
Stormy bit back another comment at the sight of her horn flaring back to life. The violet haze returned to the world, and he took another look at the scene she had reconstructed for them. Only the size of a book his stubby tail. Chrysalis had always been stingy with the deeper secrets of magic, but he would trade his wings for a chance to touch this kind of control.
His eyes lingered on Dust Lock as the energy washed over the stallion. Was that how she had seen him when they first met--hungry, staggered, and desperate for refuge from the wilderness?
It had been in the wild, after all, almost a week after he landed in the Everfree Forest from the defeat in Canterlot. He had spent two days spying on the zebra, the only intelligent creature he had found in that time, to learn her patterns. And when she had left her hut to gather plants again, he had looted what food he could find from it. But then, when he opened the door to leave, she had been standing there. Twilight Sparkle coming for tea as she later told him, and instead finding a changeling stealing from her friend.
The shock had been mutual. The forest be damned, one pony standing there meant others had to be nearby, and he had bolted back inside to scramble out a window before they could surround him.
His eyes drifted over to her, calm and tranquil in the center of the growing maelstrom os swirling energy, save for her hoof tapping the ground, the same one that she had thrust towards him, begging him to stop before he leapt out into the trees. The same one, when he had paused, she had turned over, offering him help to climb down from the window sill.
The spell faded out and left them in a sparsely furnished room with only a narrow bed and chest of drawers. Looking about, Stormy Night found Twilight’s tail sticking into a wall behind them, and even his foreleg swallowed up by the mattress. The rest of the space was occupied by Cordial and Dust Lock, the latter sitting at the foot of the bed with his saddlebags flung open, and the former holding something in her hooves--a bar of shimmering silver.
He peered over Dust Lock’s shoulder to see piles of the metal stuffed in his bags. “The truth comes out. Do you think she suspected anything?”
“Not this, no. She thought he had family heirlooms, maybe. Something important to him that he had to drag all that way.” Twilight flicked her tail at him. “Give me some credit over Cordial, will you? At least I knew you were a changeling when I let you in, and not a runaway bandit that stole from his gang.”
It was a mare’s memory, he decided with suppressed laughter, that made her more dangerous than a bear in some ways. At least the rules were simple when dealing with a bear: you stayed out of their way and stayed away from their young. Confusing as pony society was to him, the scenario of a mare offended was easy to believe after serving under Chrysalis’ hoof. Thankfully, Twilight was paying back his teasing with only more teasing.
Cordial had even proven the point to him in an earlier chapter, the instigation for the scene before them. Three strange stallions--well informed by the townsfolk of her summertime guest--waited for Cordial inside her home and asked about their old friend Dust Lock. He recalled Cordial shouting the three of them down and forcing them out, telling them nothing.
What was the phrasing? The righteous fury of generations swelled within her, that her sanctuary would be so invaded. Bears indeed. Perhaps it would be best not to ask Twilight about that particular scene, no matter how humorous it might be to see a tiny thing like Cordial chase out three intruders.
Or to give voice to his analogy, he thought with a stolen glance to her.
She cocked her head. “What are you thinking about?”
“Just wondering why he stuck around so long,” he lied. “If silver’s so valuable he could have gotten pretty far.”
“Merchants take coins, not bars. If he wanted to spend all that he took, he would have needed to find someone who could turn the bars into coins, magically or otherwise.” She pursed her lips in thought for a moment. “Other than that, he would really need someone he trusted enough to not say anything about it. Probably both.”
Stormy Night could understand discretion. He eyed Cordial’s horn more closely. “Is that why you think he’s stuck around so long?”
Twilight puzzled over his question. “I think he stayed because he felt he owed her something. He ran away from the life where he just took what he wanted, and she showed him mercy, remember? He came over--”
“Over the endless fields to the west, yeah, that explains the first night.” He pointed to open door of his quarters, to the manor beyond it, and then to the garden out of the window, where Cordial would soon retreat to process the shock of the revelation under the summer sunset. “He’s been here months by now, and he even stays after this. After she finds out he’s a bandit runaway, she still lets him stay. Why did she let him stay?”
She gave him a sly smile. “It’s only a love story, Stormy. It’s not worth getting that worked up about.”
“Yeah, but it’s--” He vented a breath through his fangs, shaking his head. “I don’t get it. It’s crazy.”
“It’s not that crazy for one small gesture to grow into something stronger between two ponies.” Her expression warmed. “I think you should read the book again when we’re finished. You can always pick things up a little easier after you know how everything fits together. There’s nothing wrong with reflecting yourself on to the characters, either. See if you can come up with an answer.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Ponies have been doing that for centuries.”
He pondered the form of Dust Lock for a moment. “Worth a shot.” He transformed in a flash, and turned to Twilight. “Why’d a nice mare like you let a scoundrel like me into your house?”
Twilight burst into laughter. “That’s not what I meant!”
“Not what you meant, but we’re here all the same. Humor me.”
A long moment of silence passed between them, Twilight studying him until a light of understanding sparked in her eyes, and she walked to Cordial’s side. “I guess... we felt sorry for you two. Cordial, when Dust nearly collapsed from exhaustion, and me, when I saw you stealing to survive.” Twilight passed a hoof through the bar of silver in Cordial’s grasp. “Different circumstances of course. I didn’t see greed when I saw you stealing. I didn’t even see an enemy. But with all of Equestria for you to end up in, you stumbled into my slice of life. And you needed help.”
She turned back to him. “Your turn. Why did you decide to stay with me?”
He glanced over to Dust Lock before letting his form slip away. “I didn’t really have a better option. Changelings devote our lives to the Hive, and when our Queen bungles like that...” He shrugged. “It raised questions. I can’t answer them. Maybe, someday, I can.” He grinned. “With help.”
Twilight stepped over to take his hoof and lit her horn. “There’s one more thing I’m curious about.”
Stormy Night followed her lead this time and squeezed his eyes shut until he was sure the spell was over. Opening them again, he saw a towering waterfall cascading down to a river beside them, and flowing into the town beyond. Sunlight streamed through the darkened shades of leaves of the far side. “Wait, it’s autumn now? So this is--”
“The ending, yes.” Twilight pointed over to Cordial sitting next to them, her face bowed behind a single sheet of paper. “Her eyes danced across the page, each word harder to read than the last. The whispers of an unsure hoof were evident, but--”
“--but his voice rang as pure as the water running its course of the years.”
Twilight stared at him, mouth agape. “You memorized this part? I thought you would hate it!”
He let out a nervous laugh. “I read this part over a few times. Dust’s letter wasn’t even spelled out for us. I wanted to know what he said.”
“And that’s what I was curious about. What do you think he wrote?”
“I guess he’s okay? She wouldn’t be smiling if he was still getting hunted after going back.” He cocked his head to the side. “But he won’t be returning soon. He still had stolen silver with him. I don’t think that’s easy to explain away.” He bent down to peer up at the paper, but that cheat proved useless. The page was blank. “What do you think he said?”
“I think...” She sighed and looked over Cordial. “I hope he said everything he didn’t say before he left. When I was young, I always thought he was coming back to her. I hoped he would. I wanted that fairy tale ending for them.”
“He’s alive. And he got in touch with her. That’s something.”
She nodded. “I like coming back to this story every now and then. When I was a filly, I was disappointed that there wasn’t a happy ending. Now, I think Dust wanted to be a better stallion. Someone that she deserved. The wisdom of age, I suppose, helping me guess his goal.” She sighed, and sat at the riverbed. “But she’s still alone, just like she was at the start.”
He sat next to her. “There’s something we say in the Hive. ‘Make peace with today, and prepare for tomorrow.’ It’s something to get us through the tough times.” Waving a hoof around, he said, “She’s not going anywhere. This is her home. If he wants to be part of it again, he knows where to find her.”
Twilight regarded him, and turned back to Cordial for a moment. “At peace with the present and hopeful for the future. Huh.” She beamed up at him. “You know, I think I will call that a happy ending. Thank you.” Her smile glowed in the sunlight. “I’m glad we went through this together.”
He grinned back. “It was fun. We’ll have to do it again sometime.” He tilted his head to the skyline. “I still can’t believe you made all this.”
She flashed scarlet and merely rested her head on his shoulder. “I can’t exactly make a world. You’ve seen what mine is already.”
Stormy Night wrapped a leg around her shoulders. “And I’m happy to be here. Thanks for reaching out to me.”
