"Lookit that one lookit that one!" shouted Pinkie, leaning so far out of the hot air balloon that Rarity wondered if she should pull her back.
Rarity looked. It was difficult to follow the line of Pinkie's hoof in the dark, but she was likely pointing at the empty space where the falling star had been.
"You missed it," Pinkie pouted.
"I did not. It was lovely, dear. I was only worried you would fall out of the balloon."
Pinkie waved a dismissive hoof. "The grass in my aunt and uncle's meadow is super bouncy. I'd be fine. Hey, where do falling stars come from? I know where meteors and oids and ites come from, so don't tell me about all that, but what about falling stars? Is it when planets hatch? I think it's when planets hatch. Boy, I hope Equuis doesn't hatch. Ooh, I haven't seen the house in years!" She bounced in place. "It's got neat knick-knacks and furniture and lovely big windows with nice curtains, and the ceilings have wallpaper or I guess ceilingpaper, and you can see your face in every dish."
"That sounds beautiful," said Rarity. "Has anypony been looking after it since... well, you know." Rarity coughed. "Does the house have a caretaker?"
"No, I mean yes, but it was supposed to be me taking care of it, so no." Rarity could almost hear the blush. "It's just hard to come back after the last time. Last time was sad, not fun, and it hurt, and I'm glad you're here to help catch up on cleaning and keep me company."
Rarity wrapped a foreleg over Pinkie's shoulders. "Pinkie Pie, I love you and I'm here for you no matter what, but if that house has filled up with vegetation and wild animals in your absence, I'm going to take you back up in this balloon just to throw you off the edge into the bouncy grass."
Pinkie giggled. "No you won't."
"I'd think about it," said Rarity.
"No you wouldn't," Pinkie laughed, and hugged Rarity back.
***
Rarity swatted Pinkie with the dustpan.
"Ah!"
"This is your fault!"
The possum scurried up a curtain, stood on its hind legs on the top of a bookshelf, and hissed. Rarity hissed back.
"Okay, little buddy," said Pinkie, approaching the possum with her broom held out like a halberd. "I get where you're coming from, but this is private property and it's a nice house and you have to go."
Rarity hissed again. Pinkie glanced at Rarity and began hissing as well, a sustained kettle-whistle sibilant that sent the animal scrabbling down the shelves and out of the bedroom door.
"I didn't know you could do that," said Rarity.
"Do what?"
"Never mind. We give chase!" Rarity held her dustpan high and pursued the possum. It had left tracks in the dust along the left wall, scratching a series of grooves into the crown moulding. Pinkie trotted after Rarity, whistling.
They followed the tracks into a luncheon alcove. "Vagabond!" shouted Rarity upon seeing the possum under the table. It stared at her for a moment with little black eyes and then moved deeper into the crisscrossed network of chairlegs and table supports. Rarity made as if to throw the dustpan at it, but caught herself in time. It wouldn't do any good, it might damage the table, and she didn't want to be unarmed.
Pinkie squeezed under the table after the possum. It hissed again, darted at her, then fell back.
"Out! Get!" shouted Pinkie. Her eyes narrowed. She turned her broom around and poked the possum in the butt with the other end. It didn't react. She poked it again. It passed out.
"Oh," said Pinkie. "Well."
Rarity exchanged glances with her and moved in to help. She pulled out the chair the possum was laying under, then jumped backward just in case. It lay in place, though it was beginning to smell.
"Oh, it smells terrible. We didn't REALLY kill it, did we? I'd feel awful."
"I think it's doing its little possum thing," said Pinkie. She took Rarity's dustpan and gently swept the possum into it. "You know, playing possum. But shush, he's sleeping."
Rarity watched her creep out of the room with the possum-laiden dustpan on her back. When she heard the front door open and close, she breathed out and went into the hall.
It was a good home. Two stories, three bedrooms, a basement and attic. Grand furnishings, with a lush summer motif in shades of oak, cream and ivy. Then of course there were the rooms Pinkie had spent the most time in for the little while she'd lived here, decorated such that Pinkie Pie's fur would have functioned as perfect camouflage. Pinkie's spaces also smelled like sugar wafers, which Rarity privately believed was the reason the possum had broken in.
Rarity paced down the hall. There were family photographs on the walls, some with Pinkie and some without. Her aunt and uncle's names were Chalcedony and Tektite, respectively, and they looked like absolute sweethearts. Pinkie hadn't changed, though Rarity liked to think she smiled even wider these days.
And, under a sheet in the back corner of the drawing room, Rarity found a gramophone. It sat on a repurposed antique sewing machine stand accompanied by a box of records. One record already sat on the table with the needle standing at ready above the first groove. "Nocturnes," read the sticker.
Rarity looked over her shoulder, set the needle on the record, and gently turned the crank. A scratchy piano recording played. Rarity closed her eyes and nodded to the melody, a calm and warbling thing, but subtly complex. She realized she loved it, and when the second movement ended, she set the needle back to the beginning and started again.
There was a thump in the hall.
"What's that?" said Rarity, startled. She stopped the record and went out to check. There was Pinkie on the hall floor, sprawled out, face-down.
"Pinkie!" Rarity shook her awake. "Pinkie, it's not even that late. At least get to bed."
"Gng," said Pinkie, and opened one eye. She looked around and hopped up. "Wow, I must be tired. Or—" She looked over Rarity's back at the open drawing room door. "Rarity! Did you put that record on?"
"The one on the turntable? Yes, it's lovely. I didn't see the sleeve—"
Pinkie seized Rarity's shoulders. "Rarity, I know you love boring music, but my mom always said we all have to pursue our interests within sensible limits."
"It's not boring! It's exquisite."
"It's so boring!! It's so boring I fell asleep, Rarity. I barely know how the tune goes because I’m out cold whenever I hear it. Every time, instantly. Here, watch this." She sat back, hummed the first two notes, and lost consciousness.
Rarity caught her. "Watch your head!"
"What happ—oh. See?!" Pinkie got up again. "Rarity. My aunt and uncle used to put this on when I wanted to play past my bedtime. I don't even know if there's lyrics. Please, if you like the songs so much, just take the album with you and I hope you're happy together, and I'll just go and listen to music that isn't boring."
Rarity raised her eyebrows. "I... am trying not to feel insulted on the record's behalf, but if you really feel that way, I'd be happy to take it with me. Thank you for the lovely gift."
"And the gift you're giving me is making it go away. I want to remember the good times I had here, not the going-to-bed-early times. Hey, since you're looking around, you should check out the closets!" She hopped down the hall. "Are there lyrics on that album by the way? No, don't tell me, it doesn't matter. Are there?"
"Nothing but the purest piano," said Rarity, hugging the record.
"Boring!!!"
***
Rarity worked to maintain a contemporary approach to style. She tried to stay on the cutting edge, to be the vanguard of the fashion revolution. But she knew there were other ways, and as an artist she couldn't help but respect them. For instance, there was a sincerity, a weathered sort of glamor unique to cheap jewelry. Wood and tin beads, furry greatcoats thick as bed comforters, bifocals on chains, strategically out-of-style fascinators... someday she herself would have the wrinkles to dignify that particular look, and she looked forward to exploring the new creative space. There were whole new realms of fabulosity in which Rarity had yet to set hoof. And Chalcedony's hat collection had been out of style since before Rarity stopped chewing on her toys, yet she'd had it on display with admirable self-assurance. Her walk-in closet was a reliquary of old mare chic. La grande dam!
Pinkie nudged Rarity. "Eh? Eh? I thought you'd like it."
Rarity stood in the center of the closet and twirled. "Yes, yes! A mare of culture and refinement." She picked up an enormous lace flower headband. "Ooh, oh precious, I think she made this herself. There, look, you can see where the dye wasn't mixed as thoroughly when she dipped the band. Pinkie, your aunt was a wonderful person."
Pinkie smiled, a little sadly. "I knew you'd appreciate her."
"If there's anyone who wouldn't appreciate her, I don't want to know them." Rarity set the hat respectfully where she'd found it. At this point in her career, millinery was a serious matter with little room for error, but someday she would allow herself to wear silly hats in public.
And what else was here? Rarity looked pleadingly at Pinkie, who nodded encouragingly. Rarity dived straight to the back of the closet. Her everyday wear was on proud display, but what had Pinkie's auntie kept on the rear hangers for special occasions? What had she worn once and decided against?
A thump interrupted Rarity's train of thought. She turned to see Pinkie on the floor of that closet. Rarity realized she'd been humming the first few bars of the second nocturne. Ashamed of herself, she rushed to Pinkie's side.
Rarity reached to shake her friend back to consciousness, but froze in place. Something lay splayed on the carpet outside, just under Tektite's old lounge chair. It looked like the head of a string mop, or like a gray spider with far too many long, limp legs. It had no apparent head; there was nothing but that mess of tentacular limbs. Violent revulsion filled Rarity's chest. She felt herself cringe away from the creature, willing it to disappear somehow, to reveal itself to be a trick of the light.
It twitched. Rarity screamed.
Pinkie hopped up. "AAAAH me too! What? What are we screaming at???"
"I—what is—" The creature had gone away in the moment Pinkie had blocked Rarity's view. "Did you see that?!" Rarity's heart jackhammered.
"That lace hat you liked? Yeah!" She arched an eyebrow. "Wait. My face feels like carpet. Was that record playing again?"
"No, I'm sorry, I was humming. Pinkie, there was some sort of little gray monster!" She took a step toward the lounge chair. "Under there!"
Pinkie Pie followed Rarity's gaze to the lounge chair, then looked back at Rarity, then back again to where Rarity was staring, then to Rarity again. "Um. Really?"
"Yes!"
Pinkie sighed. "I thought I shooed it off before, but I guess he got in again. I'll get the broom. Did you see where he went?"
Rarity gasped. "You know what it is? Have you fought this beast before? There aren't more of them, are there?!"
"Uh, yeah, a little while ago? You were helping? Big ol' possum?" She turned her head upside-down for emphasis, and to examine Rarity from another angle.
"What? No! An enormous, hairy spider. No, something worse! We must escape before it comes back." She approached the closet door, then scampered back to Pinkie's side and hid under her hooves. "Oh, but what if it's out there still? I can't look."
Rarity heard Pinkie walk out of the closet, shift around a bit, and come back in. "I don't really know what's going on, but there aren't any spiders out there, if that helps. I mean, maybe the little kinds that live in the walls?"
"It wasn't really a spider, and it certainly wasn't little," said Rarity, peeking over a hoof.
"Uh, well, I didn't see anything like that, but I can look again."
Rarity shuddered and got up. "I'm being silly, of course." She shook herself and tried to think. What was that thing? What could it possibly have been? Few living things incited that sort of disgust in her.
"Well... I could make dinner," said Pinkie, almost plaintively. "The monsters are gone now."
'Just the one monster," said Rarity.
"Right, the one monster. Do you want lasagna? I brought lasagna stuffs. Let me make you a lasagna."
"I'll help," said Rarity, distantly. Intentionally or not, perhaps Pinkie Pie had a point. Maybe Rarity was seeing things. She'd been working particularly hard on a massive order of custom bustles over the past week, and she prided herself on her active imagination. The eyes of a tired and impressionable pony might turn a shadow into a ghost every once in a while. Rarity followed Pinkie downstairs.
***
Sitting down to a nice plate of lasagna helped, and so did the glass of sherry.
"The problem," pronounced Rarity, "is the psychological tension caused by my appreciation for your aunt's personal style, in conflict with the aggressively avante-garde environment I've always immersed myself in. I hope I didn't alarm you earlier, dear."
"As long as you feel better!" smiled Pinkie. She tossed a cookie in the air, caught it on the tip of her nose, flipped it back into the air, and caught it again in her mouth. Rarity applauded.
***
Rarity wanted to stay up a bit longer and enjoy the luxury of the house.
"You can explore all you like, and help herself to the pantry and icebox. I think there's some cookies in there if you're okay with dust on them. Wait, I ate those! Never mind." Pinkie adjusted her nightcap and left for bed.
Rarity went straight for the drawing room. She could respect Pinkie Pie's wishes and not play the album in her earshot, but now Pinkie was gone. Anyway, if it turned out she could hear the album from the other end of the house, surely it wouldn't make much difference now that she was in bed?
Rarity curled up on the couch and let the scratchy old piano wash over her, and decided to fetch a blanket and pillow from one of the beds to sleep here. She also wanted to get up and investigate the series of little thumps she'd heard. They hadn't come from the record player, and it didn't sound like a Pinkie noise, or a possum noise either.
Without bothering to turn off the music—she’d be back in a minute or two—Rarity went into the hall and frowned at the attic ladder in the hall, which hadn’t been lowered earlier. The thumps had come from somewhere above the drawing room, come to think of it. Was it worth going up into the attic and risking the dust for the sake of curiosity?
It was. It also looked like Pinkie was up there, because Rarity could see the flicker of candlelight. She clambered up the stairs.
"Darling, is everything all right?"
The sight of the attic closed Rarity's throat.
The attic floor and walls were a mass of gray and pink.
It looked like the underside of a rock on some terrible planet, like the bottom of the deepest sea, like a swimming pool of rotten spaghetti. They were real. They were packed tight, limp and still for the moment but positioned as if caught in the middle of some incomprehensible task. This was where the spider-things lived, writhing together in the attic of an empty house. Obscenely, at the bottom of the ladder, the music still played its wandering tune.
And there were costumes. Empty pink suits with hollow eyes hung from the walls in rows like the dresses in Chalcedony's closet. A great wad of curly hair, larger than Rarity, dangled from a rope that stretched from rafter to rafter. And in the corner of the room, she could see a tower of spools of pink thread. Where had it come from? Could thread be made so thin and still be useful? Well, spiders had uses for thin thread...
Rarity noticed she was retching, and then she noticed she was falling. The nocturne reached a gentle crescendo.
She blinked on the way down, and just before the attic floor rushed up above her and out of view, she caught a glimpse of an empty attic. There were no spiders and not a trace of pink, just boxes and undisturbed dust.
Warm forelegs caught her on the way down. Rarity looked up at Pinkie's terrified face.
"Rarity!!!! Please please please tell me you aren’t hurt."
"I'm—I don't know. You caught me before I hit anything. Thank you."
Pinkie helped Rarity to her hooves and went over her with a feather duster. Rarity stood there in a daze.
"What did I see?" Rarity croaked.
"I... don't know," Pinkie mumbled. "You tell me. And whatever you tell me, it's okay."
"Them. I saw the same thing I saw before, but there were so many." Rarity leaned against the wall beneath a picture of Pinkie Pie in joyous mid-bounce with a last place plaque from a school science fair. "And..." Rarity gulped. "I don't know. I saw costumes. Pink cloth. Pinkie Pie, help me. Just tell me what to believe." Then, quietly, "What are they?"
Pinkie didn't answer. She led Rarity back to the drawing room. Rarity didn't resist.
"Please," Rarity whispered. "I'll believe anything you say to me. Lie to me if you have to. I trust you."
Pinkie Pie stared at Rarity, eyes shot through with fear and sadness. Then her pupils twitched in a way pony eyes didn't. There was the sound of threads snapping. A seam appeared down the center of Pinkie's face, then broke open, and a thousand-thousand gray legs boiled out. The creatures spewed up into the air, landed on cushions and carpet, undulated over the furniture.
Rarity fainted.
***
She woke up under a blanket with a pillow under her head, but didn't open her eyes. She was tired of seeing things she didn't want to see. But she couldn't sleep. She didn't want to sleep, and she didn't want to be awake, and nothing was okay. What had happened? Something had happened.
There was a warm body next to her. With deep misgivings, Rarity opened her eyes to see Pinkie laying against her on the couch with her back turned. Nothing was out of place and everything was as Rarity had left it before she'd gotten up to look at the attic.
"I have a story," said Pinkie Pie. There wasn't enough room for her to turn and face Rarity properly on the couch without her getting up, so she hadn't. But she glanced over her shoulder. There was nothing untoward about her face, no visible seams at all.
Rarity swallowed.
Pinkie looked away again. "This is a made-up story that isn't real and didn't happen, and it's about things hatching from stars."
"What things?" Rarity asked.
"It doesn't matter. It's not real. Maybe little birdies. Do you like birds? I think you like birds."
"Yes," said Rarity. Everypony liked birds. Most birds.
"Okay, so little birds. Just imagine little baby birds, little chickies. Tons and tons and tons of them falling out of the sky from stars that hatched like eggs."
"Birds."
"Birds," Pinkie Pie said firmly.
"Birds," agreed Rarity.
"The little chicks didn't know anything about where they were. They knew about working together and making strong strings together, but everything else was new for them. They walked over the sand together in the dark—I don't know, maybe the birds couldn't fly, maybe they were space penguins—and found a building. There were ponies in it. I did say this is all made up, right?"
"Yes," said Rarity.
"The ponies talked to each other just like the birds talked to each other. They used noises the birds didn't understand and the birds wanted to know what they were saying. So they hid, and listened. They hid behind doors and in the ceiling and between the walls with their quiet little bodies and nopony ever saw them, and they learned all about how ponies talk. And they learned all about farms and rocks and the ponies that lived there and the things that they cared about, even though some parts were hard, because space penguins aren't like ponies. And—listen, this part's weird, but it's how the story is."
"Okay," said Rarity.
"They knew the words but they didn't know all the rules, because ponies are—I said ponies don't make sense to space birds. So in this made-up story that isn't real and I'm just making this up and don't worry, the birds smelled a little pony that had been sleeping under the ground for the past few years. This was what they would use, the birds thought, because each bird is also every other bird in the flock and it's okay when one bird goes away forever because it's just like losing a baby tooth. Or a feather. So they brought out the pony that had gone away and they got inside it. They didn't know."
Just listen to her, Rarity told herself. This is the time to listen. "Who was the pony?"
Pinkie curled into herself. "A foal. The birds thought this was the best way to talk to ponies, because you can't talk to ponies with bird beaks, but the foal had all the parts to talk like a pony."
"This sounds like a sad story," said Rarity.
Pinkie nodded. "It was, for a little while. It turned out ponies don't work like that. But they can be surprising, too. Did you know you're allowed to be weird? Ponies can forgive penguins sometimes, even really weird ones. You can make up for things, especially if they know you didn't understand. You can put foals back where you found them. You can even make your own little foal outfits for yourself, if you change the color and don't pretend you're the other pony."
"It sounds like a ‘flock’ is a bit like one person," said Rarity.
"Yeah. And it makes sense to them and it's not weird to them, and they like it that way, and they know not everycreature is like that and they're okay with that too. The made-up birds, I mean."
"Yes."
"A flock can make friends that way," said Pinkie Pie. "They can make families."
Neither spoke for a while. Rarity laid a hoof on Pinkie's back. It was just like any back, no matter how closely you looked.
She's like a bag, really, Rarity reflected. The pinkest, most peculiar bag in the world, full of hundreds of the most exotic birds. Ha—Pinkie Pie forgot things sometimes, didn't she? Hadn't there been times when it slipped her mind that ponies couldn't be in two places at once, or that a pony could only run so fast?
"And why do the Nocturnes affect them in that way?" Rarity wondered aloud.
"Because the Nocturnes are so, so, SO boring," said Pinkie.
Rarity shoved Pinkie Pie off the couch. "They're not boring!"
"Hey!!" Pinkie spat a wriggling gray shape at Rarity. Rarity ducked, but it hit her anyway, and scurried away.
"Polka is uncouth!" Rarity shouted.
"Excuse you?! I'm going to the attic to make a Rarity suit so I can do dumb dances in it," Pinkie snapped.
"Fine! And I'd really like a bobbin of your thread!"
"Fine! Is 1.5 weight good enough?!"
"That's the finest thread I've ever heard of and I would have no idea how to sew with it but thank you anyway!"
"Yeah, you have to know how! Your music is terrible and I love you!" Pinkie slammed the door.
"Hmph." Rarity went back to the couch. Now that she thought of it, there were some interesting pink homemade appliques on a few of Chalcedony's hats. That was another thing Pinkie Pie's aunt could do that Rarity couldn't. She stepped over the empty Pinkie suit with the split face and got back under the covers.
“Real birds have better taste in music,” Rarity muttered, and closed her eyes.
