The Small Hours

by Estee

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Slice of Life, Princess Luna
Length: 7283

There are those who say that darkness makes the world close in. Spike, who once spent a sleepless night walking at Luna's side, knows the truth as something opposite.

He can't sleep. It was hard enough just getting Twilight back to bed and now that she's resting, all he can do is toss, turn, and completely fail to find a better placement for the basket. So as long as he's up anyway and trying to avoid disturbing his sister, there are worse things to do than take a quiet stroll around his sleeping town. Seeing what the world is like when he's the only one moving through it.

But there is one who knows that quiet world better than anypony, who isn't willing to let him travel without company.

And when two who share a secret meet under Moon, time becomes just one more thing to move through.

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.)

Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages.

Cover art by Foxy Noxy, used under open permission.

Published 2019-07-01 02:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-07-01 02:20:01 UTC

In The Cool Of The Night

He had taken care of her. He just couldn't seem to do the same for himself.

In some ways, it should have been easy. They were still dealing with the aftermath from the last mission, but most of what that currently meant was cataloging the books. The tree's basement had effectively turned into a new kind of branch library, one where most of the contents hadn't reached the main level because some of them were too rare, a few were simply too special, and far too many just weren't safe. It meant Twilight had been keeping odd hours, trying to get all of the cataloging done in between checking recently-installed security devices and going out to see friends, because Spike normally would have had to make it clear that spending too much time on the cataloging was a bad idea and -- this was the precious part -- she'd realized that on her own.

But it was still hours upon hours of labor, something which only a librarian who possessed a sometimes-unhealthy degree of bibliophilia could find true pleasure in. Something which should have tired her out. And she would end the day with the slim body worn down by her efforts, he'd have to nudge her up the ramp and sometimes had to shove at her hindquarters to make sure the majority of her form wound up on the bed --

-- but she would toss. Turn. (That, at least, probably wasn't just the mission: she'd been doing it for weeks, ever since she'd changed.) And then a mind which too often managed to overwork in its sleep would kick something to the waking level, her eyes would open just as his were finally beginning to close, and she would have considered one more implication of having that last volume around. Found a reason to check the print run count. A hardcover would need to be checked for magic: a softcover would suddenly require definition for the exact material that cover had been made from, and that book had subsequently been given a place to itself. (It had still been there after the siblings' desperate baths had mutually run out of hot water, and neither had been able to touch it.)

Twilight had any number of reasons for not sleeping: he was grateful for the recent majority having been relatively trivial, especially compared to what could have been waking her up. But her movement had alerted him, he'd exited his basket before she'd gotten all the way out of bed, and then it had been fifteen minutes of slowly-calming conversation before he'd risked pulling the covers back over her fur: autumn was pretty much upon them now, by schedule, and even fur needed a little extra insulation.

She was asleep again, although her hooves were indulging in tiny shifts and her back didn't seem to know what to do with itself. Still, in his well-trained opinion, she would remain asleep until Sun was raised. It was just that...

...Spike was still up.

He'd tried tossing and turning, both of which were cruelly restricted by the basket. Shuffling said basket's location hadn't produced any positive results: he could occasionally sneak in a nap under Twilight's desk during the relative lethargy of winter, and it now seemed as if the primary requirements for that rest were two ponies complaining about the Periodicals selection plus two hoof-heights of snow. He'd been desperate enough to try the guest bed. But his sister was still asleep, thankfully asleep and he couldn't join her. He'd been trying for --

-- he softly sighed, straightened up, and then climbed down from the top of the kitchen table. (It was solid, it was at least semi-circular, and the surface was large enough to accommodate him. It had been worth a try. Besides, he'd given up on the top of the Thaumic Fiction bookcase after the first minor shift in position had put him 51% within the grip of gravity, which had seized both opportunity and tail accordingly.) Walked out to the library floor, carefully shifting hinges and claws to minimize his sounds, and got within sight of a clock. Squinted slightly in the near-dark.

He was young. On the whole, he slept somewhat more than Twilight did, at least when the weather turned cold. But he had his own sources of stress -- the primary was now kicking a little in her sleep -- and there were times when it all caught up to him. He was, in a very real way, too weary to sleep, and that was a state which had just brought him to --

-- three in the morning, with the 'morning' portion as the poorest part of an exceptionally bad joke.

There was no help for it. He'd tried everything. Boring books, at least once he'd gotten them to a place where the reading light wouldn't disturb Twilight. He'd been through a whole session's worth of Night Court transcriptions without so much as a yawn. Counting imaginary gems, which had just made him hungry and when that gave him an idea...

It was ridiculous. Garnets always made him sleepy: a magically-enhanced specimen had once knocked him out for hours. But he'd consumed everything they'd had, and the most it had produced was a blink which lasted from 1:23 to 1:24.

Reading wasn't working. Gems had underproduced. Trying to tell his body how tired it was just led to arguments and so far, his body was winning. Any attempt to tire himself out through physical exertion usually meant 'play' and nopony was around to play with. He couldn't keep moving around the tree: it was hard enough to keep claws silent on wood, let alone muffle a tumble from the top of a bookcase, and Twilight needed her rest...

A cloud shifted just enough for Moon's light to shine through one of the windows. He looked at the gentle beam, slowly moved until it was playing across the scales of his extended right palm. A little time was spent in turning his hand, watching the tiny reflections change as they passed over scales and claws. But then the next cloud came in (probably still on schedule, as Rainbow usually didn't supervise the town's minimal, now-finished night crew), and that was lost.

He couldn't sleep. He'd tried. Nothing was working. And he was just tired of trying. Twilight was safe. Twilight would be all right until morning, because he'd done his job. But when it came to himself...

The little dragon thought about it for a while, standing quietly in the dark. And then he moved to the desk, wrote a quick note, and left it on his sister's pillow.

Every security spell had been told to create an exception for him. (He still had issues with some of the most recent hired casters. There had always been a number of ponies who had seen him that way, but it had been dropping during his time in Ponyville and now... well, the reasonable expectation was that if the Princess could have a phoenix as a pet, then Twilight could certainly choose a dragon. Nopony ever seemed to expect something so mundane as an owl.)

Spike went out.

Ponyville at three in the morning was many things. 'Sleeping' applied, and part of him envied that.

There were a few lights: enchanted streetlamps, devices in windows which somepony had forgotten to shut down before they went to bed. Working through residential areas occasionally meant it was possible to make out a shadow behind curtains: another sapient up far too late, or just about as early. But for the most part, it was stars and Moon. Nothing more and in a way, they were enough.

It was his town. He'd been living there for over three years now. He had seen it at its best, while the residents had seen him at his worst (and he still couldn't pass that one bridge without feeling his claws starting to shake), but... they had seen him at his worst, and it was still his town. That meant something.

Ponyville at three in the morning was almost completely silent. It was quiet enough to let him hear his own claws on the cobblestones, occasionally interrupted by the song of a nocturnal bird who'd been just a little bit surprised by a small dragon's passage. The cool wind (cooler than he liked, but it was autumn and it wasn't even strong enough to make him sleepy) had its own music, expressed as the faint rattling of shutters and a rustle of leaves which were days away from their scheduled plummet.

It didn't feel like there was any patience to the silence, not as if it represented a world which was waiting for sound. Rather, it seemed as if this too was something which happened on schedule. It was three in the morning, and so it was the time for quiet.

Moon played peek-a-boo with his scales as the cloud cover continued to disperse. There was enough light to see by most of the time and when there wasn't, the shadows provided a few tantalizing mysteries: it took a full minute before he managed to resolve what had initially come across as some sort of miniature train car into a misplaced shopping cart.

Store windows offered their displays to him alone, and his reflection gazed back out into possibilities. The wind sang for him. The streets, without a single other pony within sight or hearing, might have been offered as a gift.

Stars listening to but one source of wishes. (He was still young enough for that, and cast one of the more recent ones towards the sky, hoping it would be heard.) Moon which gazed upon a single traveler.

Ponyville at three in the morning was any number of things, and all of them felt as if they were his.

Why hadn't he ever done this before? Did anypony else understand what it was like, to have empty streets and gentle silence all to themselves? The peace of it? Alone with his thoughts, free to wander and dream...

He smiled a little, listened to the wind. Gazed up at Moon, and so was looking in just the right place when the shadow crossed it.

At first, he assumed solitude had been broken, and he was right about that. But he'd seen the shadow of wings (along with hearing their beats, in that beautiful near-silence), and hadn't quite had the right angle for the rest. It was also hard to gauge size at that height, and so all he felt was disappointment (added to a strange sense of violation) as what he believed to be a pegasus crossed the night sky.

Then the flyer's head looked down.

Then she slowed, and those powerful wings sounded the beat of a steady descent.

It took a few seconds before he spotted the other shadow, the one on the forehead. And then there was just wasn't enough time to get clear before a new source of stars twinkled under streetlights.

"Good evening, Spike Twinkle," declared the fellow traveler. And hovered, waiting for a response.

Technically, he just barely had a surname: the forms which required it usually found him filling in that of his House. Twilight's house, for the unicorn filly had been born into moderate nobility (not that she, or anypony else in the family, generally cared), but he'd been formally adopted and so legally, that allowed him to claim the House as his own. In fact, now that he thought about it, he was just about as technically a noble drag --

-- the resulting wince wasn't meant for the new arrival. It was simply the natural expression of somepony who'd not only gotten the joke five moons too late, but realized it was on him.

"So it is not a good evening?" she inquired, maintaining altitude and attitude with equal lack of visible effort. "Your stride was calm, so I assumed no emergencies. Yet to simply find you out and about at this hour, Spike Twinkle, without company or supervision, implies that something might be amiss. Explain what that is."

He barely had a surname, usually took a moment to reconcile that he was the one being referenced when somepony actually used it. But there was one entity who just about always used everypony's full names, every time, and the constellations in her tail shifted as she waited for his answer.

"I just couldn't sleep."

"Ah," she replied, and continued to hover.

At which point his brain, which was desperately searching for something to say, only succeeded on a technicality.

"What are you doing up?"

It took one horrible second for those words to fully reach him, followed by a single moment of wishing for lightning to strike him down on the spot: something which, given the party he'd just spoken to, seemed to have at least a reasonable chance of taking place. But she simply looked at him, and that was worse.

He facepalmed, right there in the empty street. And when he reluctantly pulled his hand away from his eyes, she was still there.

"Am I dreaming?" The last hope of the desperate.

"Rather than watch you conduct your own version of such tests," she evenly said, "let us proceed through a definitive 'No'."

Far too quickly, "I'm sorry --"

"-- could not sleep," she interrupted. "And so you went for a walk. Very well."

The words had been completely neutral. He couldn't tell how she was feeling. If she was angry.

"I'll go back to the --"

Her wings shifted, and the dark blue form glided across the final distance. Hooves heavily touched cobblestone, and a cool gaze looked down upon him. Very far down, although not as much as he was used to.

"Then let us walk," she said.

He stared at her.

"You've got things to do," he quickly tried. "I know you always --"

"-- the Night Court," she softly replied, "has concluded its session. My paperwork is in order. There are only so many dreamers I can visit in a single night. Some of my hours are my own, Spike Twinkle, and despite what my Guards would wish to believe, so is a portion of my time. On this night, I flew over a small part of my nation, for there have been, shall we say --" the very large left forehoof ground against the stone "-- disruptions, and I wished to see some portion of what we fight to maintain. That portion contains a young dragon, out and about on his own under the night sky. A citizen of that nation. And so I have decided that my 'thing to do' is accompanying you. Do you object?"

Part of him wanted to, for the night had been his and his alone, right up until the moment she'd arrived.

But it wasn't his. It was hers.

"...no."

She nodded, reoriented her body until she was on his right side, gestured a forehoof. And then there were two moving through the quiet night.

Princess Luna is walking with me.

And there she would stay.

He kept looking up.

He didn't mean to. It was just that -- there would be an unexpected twinkle of starlight, a little dragon who'd spent so much of his life copying out Twilight's astronomical observations would subconsciously recognize that twinkle wasn't supposed to be there, the instinctive check would be looking for a stray meteor, and it would just be her mane. It was always her mane and he kept getting caught anyway.

She was so tall... and he was used to taller still. He'd spent hours in lessons given by the largest pony known to exist. But with the elder, he was used to that height, in part because she always did her best to downplay it around him. Most of Spike's lessons had been provided by an alicorn whose barrel and belly were flat against the floor. The younger sibling was smaller, but -- she didn't try to conceal that height. Every impact of a hoofstep had her true mass behind it. Rather than look at least slightly down at all times, she held her gaze level. She loomed.

His attention was caught by false stars, and held by true power.

It didn't take long before she let him know she'd noticed.

"Does this indicate," the cool voice asked, "that you have a type?"

He blinked.

Almost desperate, "I don't know --"

"-- given the usual subject of your attraction," she cut him off, "I expect I would qualify, if but in a single aspect. Is that what you gaze at, Spike Twinkle? That which nopony else can see?"

He didn't understand. And then he lost that within the surge of horror.

The usual subject...

His voice actually squeaked somewhat on the upbeat. "You know about that?"

Another steady gaze, followed by a long pause. They both continued walking during the silence and for his part, it was because there was nowhere he could run.

"Twilight Sparkle," she finally said, "puts much into her letters. Perhaps too much, now and again. So yes: I am aware. And I do not judge. A first crush does not ask permission of the one experiencing it before choosing a subject."

Oh. Which wasn't exactly making him feel any better. "I... I still don't understand."

"A type," she repeated. "Tell me, Spike Twinkle: what do Rarity Belle and I have in common?" And dark eyes flashed with challenge.

Rarity was a unicorn. White. A designer. This was an alicorn. Dark blue. A Princess. They both had a certain fondness for modes of speech outside the norm, but Rarity tended to be flowery where Luna went towards formality and stayed here. They looked nothing like each other. Each had a certain capacity for illusions, but one was the most talented caster alive and the other required deep concentration and an enclosed area just to manage temporary backgrounds. They weren't anything alike --

-- oh.

He was young. But he wasn't stupid.

"...you had her necklace," he softly breathed, staring up at her patient expression. "-- no, it was a crown: he showed us the sketch. But you wore it, didn't you? That was your Element, in your group. You were Generosity..."

Her eyes briefly closed, opened again.

"With fair speed," she evenly replied as her wings twitched, feathers rustling. "Well done, Spike Twinkle."

He couldn't seem to stop staring.

"Why are you telling me?" The words had been unstoppable. "You probably haven't told anypony for --"

And then she was looking down at him, eyes locked while their legs continued to carry them along, with nopony else around to hear the falsely placid truths. "-- were you not there with them? Did you not go through all of it? You know. You know that there were six. Six and a protector. Should I pretend you were never there, Spike Twinkle? That you do not carry the knowledge? A mission which, from the debriefing I received, would have failed without you. Would have ended in deaths, at least Twilight Sparkle and the Lady Rarity dead. You know that there were six, and so you know more than just about anyone --" the briefest hesitation, followed by the usual honorific "-- anypony living. It leaves me free to say somewhat more in your presence."

She kept moving, as her legs accelerated into something more than a walk. He was scrambling to keep up, didn't understand why --

-- she noticed, and her pace dropped to something he could match.

"I have wondered if that was part of it," she calmly said. "Her Element, and draconian nature. But then I recognized that such was insulting towards you. Perhaps you simply see the giving side of her. A fire providing endless heat."

I won't ask I won't ask I won't ask...

Not about the 'insulting' part, not yet. But she was talking...

"Why are you walking with me?"

"You are under my sky," she softly said, "and so you are my charge. This is a settled zone, safer by far than the wild -- but it is also Ponyville, and so I choose to accompany you. To ensure you reach your home safely." Paused. "Did you leave a note?"

He managed a nod.

"Good. She would have concerns, should she wake early." Another pause, which was being visibly used for considering the nature of the reader. "She will still have concerns. They will simply be rather specific concerns."

"I can go back to the tree --"

She stopped moving, and little legs nearly stumbled as he tried to hold up in time. It still nearly left him crashing into the road, and his walking claws left scratches across stone.

"-- how did you feel regarding your time under Moon? Before I arrived?"

She was waiting for an answer.

She was waiting for the truth.

"...peaceful."

She nodded.

"Then the tree can wait," Luna stated. "And if we see any panicked flares of her field from that direction, I shall teleport you home. Onwards."

The wind was a little warmer now, and seemed to be getting warmer still. He wondered about that, because the first week home saw him frantically reacquainting himself with the weather schedule and it wasn't supposed to be like this. Besides, it was always a little cool around Luna, even in the heart of summer. To feel warm...

But then he saw her wings slowly, subtly shifting, and understood.

"What had woken you?" she asked as they neared the cinema. It served as a beacon in Ponyville's night, largely because the marquee was still lit and at this hour, that was in desperation.

"Twilight woke up. She's still processing those books. Some of it happens in her sleep, and she wakes up thinking about more of it, and..." He wanted to sigh and because it was Luna, he didn't. "I got her back to sleep. But she's still restless. She keeps moving around." More hastily, "And it's not from the mission. She's been moving for --"

"-- it is the wings," Luna quietly said. "It will be the wings for a long time."

She's talking...

The Princess had spoken to him. About lessons. About morals. About fitting into pony society. But never like this.

"Why?" Because he felt she would answer. That she wanted to.

She stopped again, near one of the public benches and this time, he was ready for her. It still took a second before he could plant his palms on the wood and push himself up onto the slats.

Luna nodded, reoriented and focused on him alone, her gaze somewhat more level.

"In sleep," she evenly told him, "in the nightscape, in the times when imagination, desire, and fear do not dictate form... we are who we know ourselves to be. And so in dream she is a unicorn still, will be a unicorn for nearly all of the nights she spends under Moon. And a unicorn has no idea how to position wings during sleep. She cannot truly reconcile their presence, and to listen to the whisper of another's instinct at night... it may take some time. Princess Celestia and I dealt with the same issue. I expect Cadance required her years to reconcile a horn as something other than forever-pulling weight."

To talk about anything...

And then she said more.

"Even now," she added (and he could feel how the casualness had been forced into her voice), "after so much time, I must make an effort when within the nightscape of another. A small effort, now, but -- required. To appear as expected. Otherwise, I am -- myself. The self I most remember, and still become when I sleep." Looking directly into green eyes, "And who will you be when you next dream, Spike Twinkle? In a decade? Five times that? Which self shall manifest in your nightscape, forever defining your core?"

Handling claws spontaneously dug shallow trenches into the bench's paint.

The dark blue head tilted, and the left side of the alicorn's mouth momentarily quirked up.

"Once again," she said, "would you wish me to pretend you were never there? Do you wish that you did not know?"

"...I did."

Her gaze leveled again.

"I think we all did," he quietly added. "For a while. But... it's better to know, isn't it?"

The warmth began to fade --

"For a few to know," she stated as degrees returned. "Not all."

She's talking.

He didn't know which self would forever appear in his nightscape. (He was all too familiar with the one which showed up in nightmare.) But somewhere within him, a much younger dragon stepped forward, and a thousand foal questions were reborn.

"How old are you?"

And she smiled.

"Are we counting time spent in abeyance?" Luna asked. "Or simply the number of years which have passed since my birth?" And before he could even try to answer, "I choose the latter, in order to avoid confusion in comparison. Twelve hundred and ninety-two, Spike Twinkle. Approximately. I do not know the exact date of my birth, for the most precise measurements of time in my youth were breaths and heartbeats. But for years... with years, we could initially guess. And that would make Princess Celestia twelve hundred and ninety-four."

Her head dipped.

"All of it experienced," she softly added. "All witnessed. Without reprieve. Twelve hundred and ninety-four years. Do not think about that for more than a moment, for even the thought has far too much weight."

It was as if he'd just eaten anthracite. Everything was trying to come up at once.

"Your protector..." finally choked itself out, just barely beating its way past a considerably more ridiculous 'Do you use that many candles?'

Another head tilt. Waiting.

"Who...?" It was all he had.

The dark eyes closed and this time, they remained so for the entire time in which her words dipped into whisper.

"When he found us, he had no name," she said. "Not that he would still accept. He had not chosen that name, you see -- well, it is few who can say they have: one of the exceptions recently came to live at the palace. But his parents were not allowed to name him. Not even that most basic of freedoms. He lost his name when he ran, and others lost their lives because he ran. Willingly, because someone had to run. But in time, once we understood him, and he us... he accepted a name, for he respected the one who had offered it. He would take another before he died, and --"

Closed lids failed to regard the street.

"-- then he would be forgotten, at least under any name. And yet they remember him, without knowing who he was. Call him what we did, Spike Twinkle. Name him as Render. Our protector. Our friend. Our equal --" and both sides of her mouth quirked "-- at least during those moments when the possession of hands did not have him as momentarily superior."

"...hands," he just barely managed. What...?

She nodded. "As might be expected from a minotaur. There were times when we might have benefited from fire, but -- strength sufficed." A tiny shrug, and then her eyes slowly opened again. "As might be deduced, given that we are both present to have this discussion."

Luna glanced at the cinema.

"Why is that still open?"

"Hope."

A long pause. "Clarify."

"It's a one-screen. The owner thought movies wouldn't last. But he has to show all the popular ones, so they're open all the time just to get every new release in. He's just hoping enough ponies are willing to see the night shows to let him pay for an expansion. Eventually."

"Ah," Luna thoughtfully considered. "Is that working out for him?"

"...slowly," Spike admitted. "But it's still a one-screen. For now."

"Yes. Well, true progress requires a degree of time. And so do walks." She inclined her head towards the road. "Shall we proceed?"

The policepony saw Spike first and began to step forward, lips already moving into an inquiry regarding what a child was doing awake at this hour. Then she spotted Luna, and all speech died as forelegs began to dip --

"Unnecessary," the dark mare said. "Continue your watch. I shall proceed with mine. Simply allow us renewed privacy."

The pegasus just barely got the nod off, and quickly flew away.

Luna glanced down at Spike.

"Were you aware of your expression when she appeared?" He shook his head, and she snorted. "The briefest flash of jealousy. That it had been your night, yours alone, and now somepony had intruded upon it. The illusion shattered. Not an unfamiliar view upon the features of any sapient who cherishes these hours."

He swallowed. "Did I look like that when..."

"I appeared?" It didn't trigger a smile. "No. Shock. I am quite familiar with draconic shock. I often brought it about, frequently through strategic use of lightning -- no, Spike Twinkle, do not pull back. You have met your kind. You have been attacked by them. I have known many dragons in my life, and the vast majority were attempting to kill me. You are not them. And even before you... you are the first dragon to be raised by ponies, but not the first to live among us, nor the first to be granted the honorific. Never more than a few in any generation, and decades might pass without one -- but always, another would renounce part of what did not have to remain their nature. There are dragons -- and there are dragons. Every species check box on the Immigration Department's forms exists for a reason, and in the case of your brethren... experience. And hope."

Looking directly at him again and this time, he could feel the years in that gaze. All of them.

"There will be those of your kind who try to kill you, and you already know that," she observed. "There may also be one, or more, who wishes to join you. Judge carefully, and grant the chance to those who deserve it."

He couldn't answer. And they walked on, with the candy shop now beginning to appear within the next streetlight's radiance.

"Why did you say that it was insulting towards me?" he finally ventured. "With Generosity --"

"-- which gives," she cut in, "while the cruel, all-too-often accurate stereotype of a dragon is of a being which does nothing but take." And before he could openly react, "But you do no more than bask in the heat of her fire, and accept what she offers without requesting more. Part of what lets you exist among us. Part of what shall ensure you stay."

I don't want to think about...

"We have that in common," she added, and three of the stars in her mane winked out.

"...what?"

"That we are each afraid of what we had once become," Luna softly said --

-- stopped. Spun, dropped, down against the stone in an instant, her face pressed against his forehead, absorbing the vibrations of his shaking.

"Stop."

It was an order, and he couldn't obey. The trembling simply accelerated, and the tears began to well as handling claws bit deep into the scales of his palms.

"Listen to me. My monster is dead, and you feel yours still lurks within. You feel it. You watch it. You stand guard against it. And so you are the Protector for as long as you live, because you will never know a worse threat than that which you have already beaten."

He pressed his face against cool fur on instinct, waited for that presence to pull back at the moment of contact. But she didn't move.

"Listen," she whispered. "Please --" and he felt powerful muscles tense, heard the effort "-- please, Spike: if you've ever truly listened to me, then you have to listen now. You won. She gave you the thing you needed most: a way home. So many would have rejected that, because power is all they care about, greed and power and forever having more. You saw her, you heard her, and you came home. You're their Protector because they need one. Because we needed one, and the world provided. You've been taking care of your sister for --"

He couldn't deal with it. The lost sleep, the quiet world, questions which birthed more of their kind in the answering, and a Princess using contractions while allowing him to huddle against her fur. It was too much, and so he simply wept.

"-- I'm not good at it," he sobbed. "She still... she forgets to eat when she's researching too much, she worries, she gets scared, she -- the Smarty Pants Incident --"

"-- is she still alive?" And he felt the smile. "Then in my opinion, your performance has been more than adequate."

"-- she hasn't been sleeping, it's more than the books, I just want it to be the books --"

"And neither have you," Luna quietly observed, with only Moon and stars to hear it. "Do you know what I have realized, on this night? That you and I have not spoken. Not truly, not beyond scant words exchanged during a few briefings prior to missions, or in the rare occasions when I appear at the library. You are not permitted to attend the seasonal card games, and the excuse is youth because you have an older sister who treats you as somepony who must be protected and in that, we might be said to have something else in common. It does not change the fact that you are their Protector -- or that there are times when you require your own shelter from the storms which rage within."

He huddled tightly against her, felt wings brush against his scales as they curled forward.

"We have not spoken." And this time, the agony which shook his body was hers. "I have never so much as entered your dreams to comfort you when your pain rose to its peak, when I have done so for all of the current Bearers -- and what does that say of me? We hardly know each other, and that is wrong. But secrets have emerged, Spike Twinkle, secrets which can never be taken back. You share in those secrets, for you are their equal. It provides a reason to speak, when we should have done so years ago. I cannot take back my failures, and every mistake haunts my own nightscape." She took a breath. "I cannot control that. Of all the dreams in the world, mine are those I have no power over." And after the briefest of pauses, "Please do not tell anypony. It is somewhat embarrassing."

Spike giggled. Froze in horror upon hearing the sound --

"-- and silly," Luna added. "All things considered." More softly, "Render... once he had become accustomed to us, when he had learned enough of ponies to recognize our moods on sight... hands bring their privileges. It has been a long time since my last bare-knuckle massage. He fought everything he could for us, and that included a constant war against our pain. It was what he felt he could do for us." With a sudden dryness, "Do not attempt to duplicate the feat. He was skilled before he reached us and at any rate, scales. But I remember not only his touch, but that he cared enough to try. And after years of mistreatment, years of dismissal, years of having Twilight Sparkle view you as nothing more than a laboratory assistant at best -- when she tried to come back, you did your best to show her a way home. And until then, you took care of her."

The dark mare softly sighed.

"In that," she quietly said, "you have something in common with another. You are not a Bearer, for the Elements have chosen. But perhaps there will always be a Protector. And the Protector is their equal." Feathers moved across his scales, even as a cool forehoof gently touched his chin. "I did not seek you on this night, Spike Twinkle, for you are young and so at this time of your life, you belong to another sky. But you are part of this. Their story, and the stories to come. The inheritor to the role held by one of the dearest friends of my life. And when it is somepony's job to watch the welfare of all, then somepony must in turn watch over them. Why are you not sleeping?"

"...because I'm scared."

"And what brings you fear?"

"That it's going to be too much," said the deepest part of his soul. "That even if the last mission didn't do it, eventually, it's going to be too much. That there's going to be something which happens, and I won't be able to bring her home..."

A simple question. A basic terror. "Death?"

"...we could die. She nearly died on that mission, and Rarity, and..." He could smell her fur, and she smelled like nothing else in the world. "...that's not the worst of it. She could lose herself. Go back to what she was, get worse. She could just... fall..."

"She will not." And that had been a statement.

There was another who had made most of his speeches as statements, and Spike had learned to loathe the confidence which declared the world to be something it was not.

But this was Luna.

"How do you know?"

Simply, "Because she is protected."

And she let him hold her until the tears stopped.

There were those who woke earlier than others: commuters who took the first train out, shop owners whose product needed more tending. It meant the lights in Sugarcube Corner were on when they passed over the bakery, and it also meant they passed over the bakery because Luna had decided taking to the air was the best way to ensure some degree of continued privacy.

"Did you ever have a student?" He'd been trying to avoid the most personal questions: there were still things he didn't feel he could ask at all, others which would have to be volunteered, and a few which he just wanted Twilight to witness, mostly so he could be the one to press her jaw shut. But other things could still be ventured, and so...

"Not in the way my sister regards the position," Luna replied, banking away from a startled mailmare before that party could reach hearing range.

"Oh."

"And now Discord has one." Disgruntled, "I am beginning to feel somewhat excluded."

A scaly palm let go of the back of her neck (because it was impossible to grasp the mane) and briefly covered the smile.

"You can really enter dragon dreams?"

"Yes. In some ways, all dreams of sapients are the same." Her trajectory began to dip. "Although yaks give me a headache."

"Really?"

"A species that staid generally uses their nightscape to reproduce the events of their waking hours. In exacting detail. Only with extra boredom."

"...oh."

The tree was starting to come into sight. There were no lights visible in the loft's window.

"A question for you," Luna said as she began to close in on the balcony. "If you are willing."

"It's okay." And braced himself.

"What would you ask of the thrones?"

Her hooves gently touched down. He, by contrast, nearly fell off her back, and only a last-second bracing from her quickly-raised left wing kept him seated.

"...what?"

She turned her head somewhat, coolly regarded him with the best angle available.

"Protectors, from my rather direct experience," she observed, "seldom request anything for themselves. This is apparently amplified in somepony who is still trying to permit himself the concept of want once again. What do you desire, Spike Twinkle? For you have served Equestria, and very little has been granted in return."

And for the last time that night, the words just slipped out. Another foal question, but one unique to him. The oldest question he had. Something he'd never been able to ask the Princess, something a Twilight who'd been beaten down by the Gifted School had never cared to learn: a more open one was afraid to say it because she had so much trouble asking royalty for anything at all. The words he'd never voiced, and the ones which had haunted him for a lifetime.

"I want to know where my egg came from."

Luna nodded.

"I shall make inquiries." Knelt, making it that much easier for him to climb down. "But I cannot be assured of answers. It is possible that my sister does not know, and should that fail..."

He nodded. It was enough that somepony would ask. "Are you coming inside?"

She looked through the windows, eyed the little sleeping body (which had just about finished kicking off its blankets again). "No. Not at this time. I believe you are aware of our recent arguments. I prefer to grant her additional nights before coming into her direct presence again."

"But it might help --"

"Let her rest, Spike Twinkle. Let her dream."

The alicorn straightened, glanced up, looking past the tree's browning (and reddening, and orangeing) canopy towards the lightening sky. Returned her attention to Spike.

"And you should rest as well," she added. "This is your first time within the small hours, at least for so many of them. Sleep when you can."

He'd just about reached the balcony doors, had been a second away from offering best wishes...

But there was always one more question.

"The small hours?"

She nodded. "A term of dismissal, in my opinion. A suggestion that so little happens, that time can be overlooked. But..." The dark mare turned, headed for the edge of the balcony, wings slowly unfolding as her gaze sought dimming stars. "...there is just as much taking place: simply with fewer to observe. And for those who venture out in the time when they can feel the world is theirs alone -- those hours can feel very large indeed."

And there was one last glance back.

"Be careful within those hours, Protector," she told him. "Venture out if you so desire, but for now, remain within Ponyville. For too many make that false claim, especially given abeyance in which to cement their beliefs. And some refuse to share custody."

Her wings flapped and before he could say anything, she was gone.

He had to take care of her. There was breakfast (because with so many books still to be cataloged, she would want to start with that and so he had to be sure she got breakfast), and he would stay awake for a while after that if he could. If nothing else, he had to stop yawning long enough to explain why he was tired, and that he needed to get some rest.

He had to take care of her, because gaining wings hadn't solved all of her problems: it had merely created new ones while putting others into sharp relief. But he also had to take care of himself because if he didn't, then...

There's always a Protector.

Luna saw him as their equal. It was a strange thought, something he would carry with him into many of the small hours to come.

But he was also a little brother, along with being the only one in the household who could cook. And so breakfast came first.