Today was a good day.
The sun was high in the sky, a few wispy white clouds drifting lazily across the blue, and coming off the river there was a nice, cool breeze. All over town, ponies were taking advantage of the weather—a welcome change from this year’s especially rainy spring. They were walking down the streets, browsing the market stalls, sitting in cafes, taking a break in the park, laughing over jokes, sharing happy moments. For Stygian, it was all so familiar, and yet so… different.
“Something on your mind?”
Stygian blinked, snapped out of his brief reverie. “Ah! Um, I was… reminiscing.” He smiled, realising that he’d been staring off into nothingness.
“Well, a thousand years is certainly something to reminisce on.”
“It certainly is," Stygian replied with a warm smile, looking at his companion. Doing so was dangerous, because the longer he looked at that joyful, loving face, the more he started to feel like he was melting under the heat of the sun. Not that today was so hot, but because his coltfriend was. Hot. His coltfriend was hot.
Like the sun. Yes.
That was part of his name, after all. Sunburst. He was like the bright and cheery sunshine, breaking through the morning’s cloud cover after a long and rainy night.
“You’re blushing again, Gloomy.” Sunburst snorted, though to his credit he tried to hide his growing smile.
“What?!?” Stygian’s eyes went wide and he tried to cover his face with his hooves, but it only made his coltfriend think he was cuter, whose smile continued to grow. “No, I am certainly not blushing! It’s, uh… umm… a sunburn! Yes, ‘tis but a painful sunburn!”
“A sunburn? Would you like me to kiss it better?” Sunburst said, raising one eyebrow quizzically.
Stygian had somehow managed to forget that the two of them were currently sitting in the shade of a parasol. That only made Stygian blush harder. With an adorable squeak, he said “Y-yes, please do,” and presented his face, the redness growing by the second. Sunburst gave him a warm smile, leaning over the table to give him a quick, soft peck on the cheek. The feeling of his coltfriend’s lips on his face made Stygian absolutely giddy, and it was just… beautiful.
Everything about that darn stallion was beautiful.
He had a way of turning Stygian’s legs to mush with the tiniest things he did. The way he flicked his mane when it got in the way while reading, the happy smile on his face when they were together, the brush of fur on fur when they cuddled under a blanket, the rise and fall of his chest in his sleep, the way those rounded glasses perched on his muzzle, the tickle of his beard brushing against Stygian’s chin, that look in his eyes when he rambled on about something like the intricacies surrounding the mid-Celestial-era Centennial Revolt* — which, truth be told, was a surprisingly complex and interesting topic made even more interesting by the fact that Sunburst was quite passionate about both history and sharing knowledge with others.
(*a long story that involves griffon mercenaries, a hostage crisis, the assassinations of numerous influential nobles, a cult worshiping Nightmare Moon, all part of a plot to overthrow Celestia herself, but that’s a story better explained by Sunburst himself)
“You know, when you look at me like that, I always wonder what you’re thinking about. You just stare at me, big smile on your face, and your eyes glisten,” Sunburst commented, picking up his smoothie and briefly shutting his eyes while he sipped it through the straw. He gave a satisfied little “Ahhh!” as he set it back down, before offering it to Stygian. “Would you like a taste?”
Stygian nodded eagerly, “Indeed, indeed!” he said as he accepted it. Taking a quick sip, he identified the sweet taste of fresh cantaloupe, with an undercurrent of blackberry. He wasn’t sure what Sunburst had actually ordered, as he’d been a touch distracted while thinking of cute ways to describe his delicate darling while they were in line for the cafe. His honoured honey. His gorgeous guy. His charming coltfriend. His beautiful boy.
“You enjoying my smoothie?”
Where was he? Oh yes, for the — he did a quick mental count — third time in the span of as many hours, he’d drifted off and begun day-dreaming about his coltfriend. Who was, quite literally, sitting at the table directly across from him.
“Oh, indeed, the smoothie is excellent. Truly, the smoothie is one of the myriadic marvels of the modern world,” Stygian quickly said. It felt like his lips were made of rubber. Now on the other hoof, Sunburst’s lips had felt like soft butter…
“Heh, then go ahead and finish it, you already drank half of it.” Sunburst chuckled.
Stygian flushed red again. “I, uh, my apologies.”
“No no, the law of couples allows us to steal each other’s food and drinks. Just… let me have your iced tea and all will be forgiven.”
With a bashful smile, Stygian passed the drink over. For a few moments, the two were quiet, basking in the sun as they sipped their drinks. For those moments, they simply and quietly enjoyed each other's company.
“Is ‘myriadic’ even a real word?” Sunburst asked curiously, breaking the silence.
Stygian frowned. “Erm, perhaps? The common parlance changes so much over one thousand words — uh, rather, I mean years.”
“I mean, it’s conjugated correctly, I just don’t know if anypony uses it at all.”
“This is true, this is true. Unfortunately, I did not pack a dictionary for our date today, nor a thesaurus.” Stygian chuckled.
“Me neither,” Sunburst smiled. “Not that either of those are particularly, ahm, engrossing.”
With a loud slurp, Stygian finished the last of the lovingly stolen smoothie. It hadn’t quite been mixed fully, so he’d just drank the last of the liquid in it, and now all that was left was a layer of that flavourless slushed ice in the bottom of the cup. Of course, unflavoured slush wasn’t particularly appetising, so Stygian took the liberty of tossing the cup into the nearby trash barrel. “Now, I believe we had plans to procure some new reading material?” he asked.
“Yes, posthaste we shall peruse, and perhaps we shall purchase,” Sunburst said with a nod.
And so, the lovers got up from their table, put on their saddlebags, and went to settle their tab. 18 bits and a receipt later, they walked side by side out of the patio and down the street.
There’s a peculiar thing about love. It tends to overpower a lot of other emotions and feelings, especially anxiety and fear. Love often gives one the courage to show your affection in public, while in full view of others. The courage to look each other in the eyes while blushing, to nuzzle while sitting on the park bench, to whisper sweet nothings into each other's ears, to smile simply because of the other’s presence, to kiss each other full on the lips — and yes, that included the courage to hold hooves in public.
How scandalous!
It had been a long, long time since Stygian had ever had that kind of courage. Once, there had been a colt from his hometown… ah, but that had been well over a thousand years ago. That had been just before he left Hollow Shades to seek out the ponies who would become the Pillars. Unfortunately, traveling Equestria with the six greatest heroes of the era left a stallion like him with little time for coltfriends.
Stygian wasn’t bitter, though. Him and Lucent had parted on good terms, both understanding that fate was pulling them in different directions. Perhaps they could have had a happy life together, but the time for that was far, far past. This was in the here and now, and the wheel of fate had brought him together with somepony who was just as worthy of love as Lucent had been.
The few times they’d kissed, it had felt as natural as the morning dew. It felt that way with Sunburst, too, though it was a touch awkward. Why? Because he was almost too tall for a comfortable kiss.
Stygian himself was shorter than the average stallion, though he was still above the average height for a mare. He was certainly shorter than Sunburst, who was about two inches taller than the stallion average, even if you didn’t count his horn. Between their heights was — he did some quick mental math — just shy of five inches. That meant their lips wouldn’t quite line up without a bit of stretching and leaning.
While he was by no means short, the height difference did gave Stygian an unexpected bonus, one which he very much appreciated; all of Sunburst’s cloaks were extra-large on him, and when he wore them he looked like a puppy trying to stumble around underneath a big blanket. It made him feel very warm and cozy, and very loved.
In fact, he wanted to wear one of them right now.
The nearest one? Sunburst was currently wearing it. His usual blue cloak, emblazoned with cyan stars and secured at the neck with a turquoise brooch.
Excellent… all he needed was a distraction.
“Sunburst,” he began innocently. “What do you think of when you look up at the sky?
Sunburst gave him a quizzical look. “That’s an odd question, because I was just thinking about the sky. Specifically about the old earth pony myths regarding its connection to the ocean.”
“Ahhhh, I know the myths of which you speak. They say that our world is but a bubble beneath a vast source of water, and that the Pegasi guard the key to undamming its waters. “ Stygian nodded, giving emphasis with a sweeping gesture skyward. Even now, a rainbow blur streaked across the sky, shunting clouds into place.
“You know, Rainbow Dash never ceases to amaze.” Sunburst said in awe, giving a small smile.
“I thought she was a member of the Wonderbolts, not the Weather Patrol. Did something happen?” Stygian frowned.
His coltfriend dismissed it with a wave of his hoof. “She’s in both, but she’s just part-time on the Patrol these days. Nopony can do the job as fast as she does, so they’re more than willing to let her do her Wonderbolt business whenever she needs,” Sunburst then blinked and shook his head, trying to recover from their brief tangent. “Now, where were we, exactly?”
“The sky being a vast source of water, as part of the old myths.” Stygian reminded him.
“Ah, yes. It’s interesting, really, because anypony with practical, hooves-on experience with the weather knows that it’s not the blue sky itself, but the clouds which are the source of the water. In fact, the clouds are themselves made of water, in a similar fashion to how steam is made of heated water.” Sunburst explained.
“This was common knowledge in my time,” Stygian nodded, matter-of-factly. “Which makes the myths all the more interesting. How long did those beliefs persist? Where exactly did they originate?”
Now was his chance. Faking a cough, he did the polite thing, which was to turn his head away and cover his mouth with his foreleg. For but a moment, his horn glowed with his signature azure magic, teasing open the clasp on the brooch. He just had to keep Sunburst talking.
“Well, the popular running theory is that they originated in pre-Equestrian times, in the Three Tribes period. Having little casual interaction with Pegasi would definitely cause a cultural rift in regards to weather. It’s not as if the Pegasi of the time would have been particularly interested in sharing their knowledge with the Earth Ponies,” Sunburst rambled, his focus turning to the topic at hoof. “Then, after unification, the traditions were carried on in part throughout distant regions of Equestria.”
Stygian hummed thoughtfully. “Mmm, mmm that does make a lot of sense. Even for my time, it was a fringe belief. Scholars mostly regarded it as a mild curiosity at best.”
“Mild curiosities are the best curiosities! By examining the myths and legends developed by a given culture, you can infer a lot about how they viewed the world. That’s why the theory about that particular myth places it around that time period, with the whole cultural rift thing. Pegasi would likely have been regarded as distant, uncaring, perhaps even cruel…”
Slowly, slowly, Stygian tried to inconspicuously ease the cloak away from Sunburst’s body, but his heart sank when Sunburst looked at him with a single raised eyebrow.
“You can always just ask for it, you know.” Sunburst said with a sigh, shaking his head in mock disapproval.
“It’s more fun when I try to steal it without you noticing.” Stygian replied, giving a sly but slightly disappointed grin.
Sunburst rolled his eyes, but, he too couldn’t help but smile. His coltfriend was just too cute to resist. “I’m going to put it on you and you’re going to be happy about it, okay?” He threw his cloak onto Stygian’s back, fastening it around his neck. Immediately, Stygian flipped up the hood, knowing exactly how adorable and irresistible he looked with it. He struck a pose, and then the edge of the hood fell over his eyes. Sunburst wrapped Stygian in a loving embrace, the sweet sound of his nasally laughter filling Stygian’s ears. “Ahh, now you look like you got out of bed and took your sheets with you. You know, because the world is cold and hard and the bed is soft and warm.”
“I am the Bedroom Beast, born of the Sheets and the Covers, fear my wrath, lest you be frozen by my chill embrace!” Stygian said, putting on a bit of gravitas.
At that, Sunburst just laughed harder, and Stygian quickly joined in. Just around the corner was the used book store, which to purveyors of paper such as them was a true treasure trove.
Used books were, by definition, more interesting than fresh books. They told stories of their own, and not just with the words printed on the pages. The creases and rips and tears in the pages, all the marks and dents and scuffs on the cover, the cracks in the spine, the occasional notes penciled in the margins, dedications by family members as gifts on holidays or birthdays; every single book developed its own unique character.
They also told you a lot about what sort of past owners they may have had. For example, some readers preferred to use a bookmark, while others simply folded the corner of the page over. And, if by some miracle you found a forgotten bookmark, that too spoke volumes. What kind, what shape, where it came from, if it was ever intended to be a proper bookmark and not something that had been improvised… all sorts of questions could be answered by a simple bookmark.
Dreaming to themselves of what wonders they might yet find, the two nerds soon found themselves walking into that very bookstore, to be greeted by rows upon rows of bookshelves, packed with books of all shapes and sizes. Some were newer, some were older, but all were touted by the sign in the window to be at least 20% off.
“Hello, welcome to — oh, hey! It’s you two,” the mare behind the counter said cheerily. “I like you two, you buy lots of books.”
“Well, we do enjoy reading! Are you keeping well, Birchnut?” Sunburst replied with a smile.
“Oh, just sorting through the piles of books we have in the back. By hoof. The same piles we’ve had for, uh, three months!” she forced a smile and a chuckle, though it was soon dropped with a sigh.
“You know, we could give you a helping hoof.” Stygian offered.
Birchnut waved it off, saying “Honey, it’s called job security. Sure, somepony like you could sort through them all, categorise them, and slap a price tag on them in just an afternoon, thereby invalidating like... 99% of my purpose here, but it just goes to waste if there’s nowhere on the shelves to even put ‘em! That back room is for storage, not for shopping out of. Kind of a no-brainer.”
“Well, if you ever need it done quick, you know where to find us.” Sunburst nodded.
“Yeah… probably mashing your lips together again…” she muttered. “I’ll be up front here, just holler if you need a hoof with anything. Not that you will, but you might.”
Stygian gave a small, bashful smile and tugged on Sunburst’s shoulder, leading him off between the shelves. There was a surprising amount of them for what looked like a small building, though to be truthful it was not as small as it had seemed.
The store, called Mallow’s on Redwood, had been awkwardly built in a reclaimed side-street between two buildings. This had been a few years before zoning laws were solidified, which was before Sunburst had even been born. Before hosting the bookstore, it had been a multi-tiered cafe, but the business had moved locations so they could up-size. The main point to take away was that the storefront had been squished between two other storefronts, causing it to be much smaller. However, those storefronts had been up-sized for… some reason. Apparently it had once been fashionable to appear large and prosperous while being much less of either. Curious.
Whatever the case, that odd chain of circumstances had given the current day bookstore a very unique appearance and layout. Stygian and Sunburst came here relatively often, searching for books to add to their growing collection. There were the old textbooks, donated by students who’d long since graduated. There were also the encyclopedias, which while not quite up-to-date none-the-less contained verifiable and correct information.
Now, those were all fine and good, and admittedly Stygian liked to flip through them to see how style had evolved in the time he’d been away, but Sunburst already had the latest volumes. From a practical perspective, not a good purchase. Buuuuuut…
“Hey, Sundog?”
“Yes, Gloomy?”
“Do we have any encyclopedias that cover Coopering as a subset of Carpentry?”
Sunburst paused, setting down a treatise on the potential medical uses of the common Poison Joke that he’d been inspecting. “Well, not necessarily… Coopering has traditionally been it’s own trade, which while often associated with Carpentry, is— wait, when was it published again?”
“Umm, let’s see,” Stygian muttered, flipping through pages of the book. “Based on the date… it would have been at least contemporary to the founding of Ponyville. And, upon further inspection, it’s less about Carpentry and more of an overview on woodworking in general.”
“What? Let me see that…” Sunburst said, taking the book from Stygian’s magic grasp. With an intrigued frown, he flipped through it as well.
“I think it would be a good addition to my archive.” Stygian smiled innocently.
That comment earned him an unamused glance from Sunburst, who scoffed affectionately. “Your bold-faced manipulation of me has worked yet again.”
“What about that one you just had, may I see it?”
“Oh, yes, it’s about Poison Joke. Apparently it had flawed methodology, not to mention that the writer had actually been exposed to some which made him believe he was a world-renowned medical expert on the level of Mage Meadowbrook. He does realise this and addresses that in the conclusion, but decided to publish it anyway as a warning of the dangers of Poison Joke.” Sunburst shrugged as he floated it over to Stygian.
Stygian gave an amused snort. “I think she may find it somewhat interesting, if not outright funny. Besides, her birthday’s coming up, and we need a gift to bring for her.”
“Aren’t books a little on the nose for us?” Sunburst asked. “Just a little bit?”
“Maybe? I don’t know, I’m not exactly knowledgeable on social faux-pas, these days. On the plus side, neither is Meadowbrook,” Stygian pointed out.
“That’s true. Eh, suppose we’ll add it to the pile.”
The two of them continued to browse, soon leaving non-fiction and entering the fiction section. Here, it was quite the battle-royale in terms of content. Plucky heroes, stalwart warriors, lovestruck teens, gritty mercenaries, wise magisters, resolute sailors, and strangely displaced schoolchildren abounded. There were alternate histories, dramatic twists of fate, romantic affairs, thrilling adventures, amazing feats of might and magic, seafaring and airfaring voyages alike, to name but a few of the wonders contained in these pages.
See, the great part about fiction was how it wasn’t constrained to the bounds of reality. Well, that wasn’t wholly true. Fiction is often a vessel for exploring possibilities unknown. Tales and stories which didn’t need to be constrained by our physical world. And yet, to the characters inside the stories, that world was as real for them as the world was for ourselves. Which is why the reader needed to be able to connect in some way with those characters. They needed to see reflections of themselves or others they know for them to latch on and experience the different world for what it was.
Thusly, fiction is less a vessel in and of itself, and more of a vast ocean. The characters and their stories were the vessels upon which that sea was explored, and traveled. By experiencing their world alongside them, with a familiar face, you could see that world for what it was, no matter how different it may or may not be from the world you know.
Now, the trouble with fiction is that nothing you’ll ever come up with on your own will compare to the randomness that is reality. Everything has to be logical in some way, justified, and any important developments have to be properly foreshadowed and teased, otherwise the reader leaves feeling… cheated, in some way or another. Reality will sometimes force unexpected, unpredictable events that completely shake the foundation of anything previously established.
Such as an earthquake.
Coincidentally, an earthquake had featured heavily in the critically panned Daring Do novel, Daring Do and the Spell of Xatssyal, of which there were currently no less than 17 copies shoved haphazardly into a nearby bookshelf.
“Ponies really didn’t like this book, did they?” Sunburst commented, eyeing how they precariously leaned away from the shelf.
“Personally, I didn’t mind it. A little more zealous than Yearling’s usual work, and certainly not anything to be compared to her earliest adventures, but at least it didn’t pander to her more… well, I hesitate to say demanding fans, but that’s the truth of it I suppose,” Stygian began with a shrug.
Sunburst smiled at him. “You know it’s all real, right? Yeah, she embellishes here and there, and it’s inherently biased because all ponies are only able to fully experience their own viewpoint, but it’s what happened as she experienced it. And everything is biased in some way anyway.”
“She contacted me about the rights to a cross-over story, you know. Before we started dating proper,” Stygian said. Conveniently, he had also dodged the question.
“What? She’s the most popular author in all of Equestria, especially when you factor in the extended universe they managed to put together. That’s an opportunity most ponies would only dream of!”
“Well, it’s interesting to say the least. She presents her stories in layers. Her experiences, through the lens of being a fictional character. Sometimes, I notice that there’s a disconnect between the two of them, but other times it’s like they’re one and the same.”
“They are one and the same.” Sunburst pointed out.
With a raised eyebrow, Stygian simply replied “Are the Pony of Shadows and Stygian one and the same?”
“That is a loaded question,” Sunburst rolled his eyes, turning his attention to a more interesting novel. “And I refuse to answer it!” he snapped, glancing back towards Stygian for a moment.
Stygian’s smile faded, knowing not to press the issue further. It wasn’t anything important, but he was pushing an envelope that didn’t really need to be pushed that far. A momentary silence grew, but he soon broke it. “You know, it actually may be interesting to join Daring Do on an adventure. When she wrote her novel featuring Rainbow Dash and the others, it was quite entertaining to see how somepony else viewed them. Even as a real pony pretending to be a fake pony, pretending to be the fictional pony in the novels she wrote.”
“That’s true, sometimes you don’t understand how differently ponies look at others unless they say so. It’s a luxury that Daring Do was willing to include our friends, and I’m a little jealous that you have a chance for that, too.” Sunburst shrugged, letting out a little of his frustration.
“Well, I wouldn’t be going anywhere without my editor.”
His editor blinked. “Say what now?”
“My editor,” Stygian looked at him smugly. “I certainly can’t be going on any adventures without my trusty editor, can I? It’s a dangerous business, Sunburst, going out your door.”
Sunburst’s eyes went wide and he looked away, his mind racing. Adventures? Trusty editor? He’d been content to allow Stygian the chance to go alone, while he kept working, but for some reason he hadn’t yet considered that his coltfriend would want to take him along for the ride.
“I, uh, was able to assemble a team of heroes that weren’t surpassed for over a millennium. You know as well as I do that I’ve got an eye for talent, and… well, I’ve always envied your talent for magical studies,” Stygian admitted, looking away as a little bit of shame showed on his face.
“Are you kidding? I’m nowhere near as powerful as Starlight or as dedicated as Twilight. Not to mention, for a while there I was basically a no-life shut-in. You’re the more impressive one. Equestria would have suffered, maybe even been destroyed by strife if you hadn’t done what you did,” Sunburst pointed out.
“And that landed all seven of us in Limbo for a thousand years, because of my mistake. That was only undone by the efforts of yourself and a team more powerful than the Pillars ever were in their time,” Stygian countered, now fully reminded of what would forever be his greatest shame.
Sunburst stepped closer to Stygian, who was immediately aware of exactly how much distance was between them. Two feet, seven inches. Sunburst smirked, looming over him. “Interesting, that you bring them up again, because the very magical tree that gave them their power was created by the team you put together. Not to mention, your becoming the Pony of Shadows was due to a misunderstanding between yourself and the Pillars, which was eventually corrected. Granted, it was a thousand years later than it really should have been, but it was indeed corrected.”
“You are a humongous egghead, did you know that?” Stygian scoffed.
“I knew Rainbow Dash was a bad influence on you. Just accept my adoration already!” said Sunburst, suppressing another smile.
“You’re not giving up until I do, are you?”
“Nope!”
With a sigh, Stygian resigned himself to being loved and adored. Sunburst ruffled his mane with a careful hoof before resting his forehead on Stygian’s, their horns crossed. In a moment, it seemed like all their cares and worries melted away, becoming so small that they may as well not have existed at all. They shut their eyes, time stretching out like molasses on a string. Sunburst shut his eyes, but Stygian? His eyes were only half-shut, he was distracted by something. He was glancing around the little corner they’d found themselves in, far away from the cash register, quiet, stacks of books on all sides.
The perfect location for his favourite thing.
Not that he couldn’t do it in the view of others, it’s just that he was… self conscious about a few things. He was working on that, but in his time that kind of intimacy had been kept behind closed doors. But to be fair, that wasn’t the biggest hurdle he needed to overcome.
Namely, he was just a touch too short to do it comfortably. As he’d discovered previously, a few thick books could remedy that, assuming they were robust enough to hold his weight. Discreetly, he floated over some volumes that he thought would do nicely.
“Are you doing the thing again?” Sunburst asked, nuzzling Stygian, leaving his eyes closed.
The books set themselves down at Stygian’s hooves, and he stepped up onto them, forming a platform that brought their eyes to the same level. “Yes, yes I am. No objections?”
Sunburst shook his head wordlessly, just looking into Stygian’s eyes with that… unabashed feeling and expression of ‘Wow, how did I manage to end up with somepony so perfect?’ .
Disbelief. That was it.
Stygian swallowed nervously, glancing around one more time to make sure they were alone. Or maybe he was trying to work up his courage. He leaned forward hesitantly. Sunburst was so close, tantalisingly close…
He leaned closer. He could feel Sunburst’s breath on his face, warm, short and shallow, waiting in rapt anticipation.
And then Stygian felt them. They were soft. Like the softest pillows in the world.
They were glorious.
He pushed against them, cocking his head to the side. And Sunburst pushed back, a deep red blush spreading across his face. Slowly, sensually, Stygian opened and closed his mouth, feeling their lips brush against each other.
Every movement, every touch sent a mighty shiver through Stygian, and his heart was racing so fast it definitely could have given Rainbow Dash a very, very good run for her money.
Neither of them really noticed how long their kiss lasted. It didn’t matter, they didn’t care. Every moment it lasted was just that much longer in their own, personal heaven.
But, eventually, their lips parted, and they pulled away from each other, passion still in their eyes. All of their senses screamed for more, more, more, and so they kissed again. And again. and again. Each one was as careful and loving as the last, each one was a beautiful and perfect declaration of their love that needed no words.
When their appetite for kisses was sated, they simply looked at each other and smiled.
“I, uh, I’m… I feel like I’m vibrating.” Sunburst giggled.
“I think I, well, I think I read something on this… once,” Stygian said unconvincingly, his mind numbed with love. “The cure is to… you need a… oh, let’s just cuddle. I don’t care where we are anymore.”
Stepping off of his little book pedestal, Stygian joined his magic with Sunburst’s, adjusting the piles of books around them, making a cozy cubby in the corner they’d claimed for themselves. Sunburst laid down, and Stygian laid beside him, resting his head against Sunburst’s side. Then, with a gentle movement, Sunburst draped his lent out cloak over their shoulders like a blanket.
Now here, they were in their element. Together. Stacks of books on all sides, surrounded by knowledge for them to peruse at their leisure. Nopony else around, except for Birchnut, and she wasn’t exactly prowling around the store searching for couples that were using her workplace as a location for their date.
Not yet, anyway. she had to do the rounds before closing up, so nopony got accidentally locked in overnight and attempted to eat one or more books as sustenance. It had happened before. Not to these two, of course, but it was better to be vigilant than have to deal with another locked-in and panicked kid.
Ah, but she was a few hours away from doing her rounds, at least. And, if she spotted them, she’d wait to disturb them until pretty much everything else had been taken care of. She was considerate like that.
With a happy sigh, Stygian shut his eyes, spinning off a quick alarm spell in-case they fell asleep for too long. He shifted in place, settling in against his coltfriend, giving him a quick nuzzle before resting his head again. He liked being loved by somepony. He liked loving somepony back. He liked spending time with somepony who loved him the way he loved them.
Days where he had all of that? Those were the good days.
Every day he was able to spend with his glorious spot of sunshine — his Sunburst — was a good day.
Yes, today was a good day.
Author's Note
Remind me to write a more in-depth romance for them, following their relationship from the beginning.
I imagine it would begin with Starlight and Sunburst at the castle for tea, and Stygian comes to visit to peruse the library. Sunburst joins him, they start talking, and that’s how they start their path to KISSING.
(also, if you’re confused at “Gloomy” and “Sundog”, those are their nicknames for eachother, which I picked very intellectually by choosing what I liked the sound of the most)
