Twinkle Pinkle, My Little Star
Ponyville had little in the way of nightlife. The suburban-eqse village of professionals and artisans did most of their interacting in the full light of day. While the nightclub The Cellar existed, and got a share of locals as well as visitors who wanted to see the weekly show done by radio personalities, billed as “DJ P0n-3 vs Octavia”, it wasn’t as big a deal as it might have been in a place like Fillydelphia or Manehattan. By and large, the citizens managed their own evening entertainment.
Twilight Sparkle was even less involved in the activities of Ponyville, being both a scholarly introvert by nature, as well as being a native of Canterlot, and thus disconnected from her new adopted hometown. She still made efforts to try and be slightly involved in the activities of the place, and in the lives of her friends. But she really, truly did love to do things on her own, because she was familiar with such activities.
Spike was already tucked into his basket, snoring away loudly, occasionally mumbling something about Rarity. Owloicious was out, not needed for anything that night and free to flit about the local environs. Her other friends were doing their own things, so far as she was aware. She knew Applejack and Rainbow Dash were spending time being entertained and feted by Granny Smith, in order to make Rainbow Dash more eager to remain in the relationship. Rarity was working on a small order of dresses for Hoity Toity, with the assistance of Fluttershy; and also watching over the Cutie Mark Crusaders, likewise with the help of Fluttershy. And Pinkie Pie… Pinkie Pie was probably swimming in a vat of honey or tossing Gummy into the air a thousand times in a row or spinning in place for an hour. She loved the little pink goofball, but had no clue at all what she did when she wasn’t in sight.
As for Twilight herself, she was occupied in a hobby which had fascinated her for a long while. Astronomy. While she was, by nature, a graduate student of Thaumaturgy, she also liked to look up at the stars and make all the mathematical calculations required to make everything work out. It fed her extremely geeky nature.
The Ponyville library’s balcony was perfectly set for observations of the stars. The light in that area was very low, keeping the problem of light pollution to a minimum. The houses were set below the horizon from her perspective. And while the tree was at her back, the rest of the sky is open to her. She had quite a wide sweep as far as Right Ascension and Declination were concerned.
She always started with the Pole Star, lining it up as far as she could see, and to fine-tune the markers on her telescope by using a small centering reticle she could place over the open end of the tube. It was a very lovely telescope setup: a Nasmyth-focus with a 12-inch primary parabolic mirror, with the light ultimately sent from the tertiary mirror into a fine-ground achromat lens. The whole of it was set on a wrought-iron altazimuth mount whose legs ended in lovely decorative filigree. The actual telescope was made of brass, etched with astronomical figures, with silver highlighting the etchings.
Accompanying her telescope setup was a star chart on an easel, with the map of the sky beneath a rice paper overlay which had on it markers showing what portion of the celestial sphere would be available for viewing at any given period of time depending on what section the rice paper layer was rotated into. She also had an abacus, an astrolabe and a notebook, the big three pieces of equipment for the Equestrian stargazer of any seriousness.
Her next order of business, after centering the telescope’s altitude and azimuth markers, was to pick one of the stars she liked, and make some observations. She tended towards the larger ones, such as Rigel or Betelgeuse when Orion was available, or Deneb when that was difficult. Sirius was flashy and entertaining, but as it was impossible to optically resolve its dwarf companion there was little use in looking at it for too long. On occasion she would eagerly cast her eye on the smaller but active Proxima Centauri, in hopes of seeing and recording one of its rare and interesting flares.
She swept across the sky with her scope, looking back occasionally to the star chart she had set to the current season. Some promising clusters were in view. She could try to optically resolve a few of them. Or she could look in on the stellar nurseries to watch the new stars in their youth. Then again, there was a T Tauri star whose proplyd was angled just right to be brilliantly lit by the young star, giving some genuine visibility. There was also the ever-present but infinitesimal possibility she would see the moment when the T Tauri finally collapsed far enough to fuse hydrogen and burst into main sequence. It would be truly spectacular.
She focused her sight on the T Tauri, horn glowing as she took up a quill and began scratching notes on the notepad. “Proplyd still angled and visible in a significant fashion, showing its size to be approximately 30 Astronomical Units in size, with a significant margin of error. T Tauri star still showing no signs of fusion, remaining pre-main sequence from all indications.” She then paused to check on the Right Ascension and Declination on her mount, noting both after her observations on the star.
Her view moved across to the sky, twirling around the heavens at random to see what she could spot without a plan at all. She had been driven to do such things more and more often lately, by the influence of Pinkie Pie. Just leading with her gut and allowing her feelings to lead her eyes. Stars, constellations, galaxies passed along. Globular clusters seethed with stars, the spirals and ellipses of galaxies spun in the universal blackness, riding their gravity waves into brilliant arms of twisted luminescence, each made of millions of tiny points of light.
Her sweep of the stars halted when she found something not quite right. An irregular shape that broke her poetic appreciation. She cycled back to the object and adjusted the primary mirror and her eyepiece to get a better look at it. It was an amorphous blob of light and shade, composed of two differing types of such, the gas and stars and dust clearly of two different sources moving into one. She had to blink several times and look at her star chart after checking the mount. Nothing of note was reported.
Her quill flew fast, scattering ink as it desperately streaked across the paper. “Observed two galaxies in mid-collision. They appear to be two older spiral galaxies badly deformed by the contact and conflicting gravity. From appearances, both will consolidate stars and settle into one larger galaxy, and possibly not shed too many stars during the collision.”
What a coup for her, a pair of colliding galaxies. She’d probably be written up again in the Canterlot Astronomical Reports. With a photo spread in the newsletter. It was a wonderful night. She finished recording the time, date and precise coordinates and set the quill back down in the ink. The scholars in Canterlot with the bigger telescopes would be able to study it in greater detail. She had laid the groundwork. “Perfect…”
“Thanks! I think I did a good job on them, too!” Without warning, or noise, or any kind of indication, Pinkie Pie was behind Twilight, with a tray of cupcakes on her back.
“Pinkie!?” Twilight practically leaped out of her skin, hopping up and back, suddenly looking at Pinkie with supreme incredulity. “Where did you come from? How did you get up here without any noise?”
“Where do you think, silly? I was at Sugarcube Corner. Mr. and Mrs. Cake let me use some of the spare batter and frosting for myself. So I thought, “What’s the best way to use this?” and then I thought, “Oh yea! Cupcakes!” but then I was like, “Oh wait, I can’t eat all these cupcakes, I’ll get a tummy ache” but then I was like, “OH! Right! I can share with my marefriend!” so I came over and walked up and wanted to give Spike one but he was asleep so I came up here and watched you smiling and humming and then going crazy over something in the telescope.” After the verbal tsunami Pinkie settled down the tray on a low table and then sat down on her haunches, a giant smile on her face.
“Oh. Right. That explains it.” It didn’t explain why she didn’t smell the cupcakes on arrival or hear the hoofbeats on the floor. But that was Pinkie. The eternal mystery. “I guess I ought to take a break. I’ve earned it.” Twilight adopted a relaxed posture, stretching and holding out a hoof. “Pass me one of those cupcakes.”
“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie passed along one of the slightly-warm baked goods. They smelled of standard white cake mix, which was revealed to be semi-lavender in color. Of course. Personalized cupcakes. The frosting was a mixture of colors. Not a perfect rainbow, but a swirl of hues and emitting a swirl of scents.
“Oh. Got a little creative with the frosting flavoring, did you? And on the cupcake part too. What did you use for the flavoring and color?” Twilight didn’t hesitate, but merely started eating the treat as she had seen Pinkie Pie do on many occasions.
“I used pieces of Rainbow Dash that I cut up and put in all the treats.” The smile on Pinkie’s face never left, nor did it pull wider. Nothing indicated the statement was anything off. It just… was.
Twilight reacted by immediately spitting out the cupcake piece she was eating, spitting a few extra times just to be sure and wiping off her tongue as well as she could. “Wh-what do you mean? C-cut up Rainbow Dash? Put her in the treats? What are you talking about?”
Pinkie Pie suddenly burst into a tittering giggle fit, falling back onto her rump and wiggling around, holding her stomach as she laughed away. “Oh Twilight! You should have seen your face! You really thought I chopped up Dashie and put her in cupcakes? No, silly! I would never do that! She’s over at Applejack’s house having a big dinner with the family.”
Twilight stood there, dumbfounded, staring incredulously at Pinkie Pie. “Wait… This was all a joke? Pinkie! What kind of joke is that? That’s terrible! What made you think of that kind of a prank?” Twilight’s look changed from incredulous to angry, and slightly hurt, her eyes looking frightened behind the hard set.
Pinkie Pie was caught off guard a little bit. She stopped laughing immediately and looked very hurt. “I’m… I’m sorry. Somepony told me that it might be funny to say that.”
“’Somepony’? Even if somepony thought that it was funny, did you think it was funny? How is that even funny? It’s terrible! Rainbow Dash is your friend, it’s not funny to think about her cut up into cupcakes! I mean it’s really…” Twilight halted her own harangue, anger melting away when she saw Pinkie’s withered look, pouting lip and dewy eyes. She fell for it every time, because Pinkie was sensitive. She couldn’t go too far without hurting her. She had to moderate her tone. After a long, slow breath Twilight looked at Pinkie with a calm, even look. “I’m sorry. But it’s a very mean trick. It would make Dash sad to know you think it’s funny. And would you really want to do that?”
Pinkie continued to look down, lip still quivering. After a few silent moments Pinkie very quietly said, “N-no…”
Twilight couldn’t moderate herself any more than she had. She slowly approached Pinkie and embraced her tightly, pressing her nose up against the other mare’s neck. She kissed repeatedly, and stroked along her barrel. “It’s ok. It’s ok. I know you didn’t mean to hurt anypony. You thought it was funny. And I guess it is. It was unexpected. A surprise that sort of seems amusing. I’ll bet the look on my face was pretty funny when I spit out the cupcake. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it a little funny?”
Pinkie looked over at Twilight’s face, a wrinkled, uncomfortable smile resting on her muzzle. Pinkie put on a half-smile, and slowly nodded her head. “Yea! It was pretty funny. You spit the cupcake out all over the place. Hee.” Pinkie kissed the bridge of Twilight’s snout. “I’m sorry.”
Twilight sighed. Crisis averted. She kissed Pinkie a few more times, stroking her gently. “Hey, it’s alright. You’re still my snuggly little book. My little cookbook.” Twilight giggled lightly, burying her face in Pinkie Pie’s cotton candy hair, breathing in deeply. The sweet scent of candy and the subtle mingle of sweat from being in the kitchen with hot ovens.
Pinkie cuddled tightly against Twilight, closing her eyes in bliss as she squeezed the slight mare. Her eyes came open and she looked over at the astronomical area. “Oh! You’re looking at the stars again!”
“Oh, yes! In fact, I made an amazing discovery! Thanks to you, actually.” Twilight was reluctant to remove her face from Pinkie’s hair, but she did turn aside slightly, to look over at the telescope.
“Thanks to me? But I’m not in the sky, silly! How could I help you find stuff in space?”
“I took your advice to heart and started to scan the sky without a plan. I just wanted to look around, so see what I could. And I saw two galaxies colliding! It was amazing. I’ll submit the data and get written up again. And it’s because you taught me to loosen up.”
Pinkie smiled brightly, pushing Twilight slightly away from her so she could look into the other mare’s eyes. “I’m not mad at you. And I’m not sad anymore.”
“Oh, Pinkie… It’s true. I was going to tell you that anyway. I wanted you to know how much you mean to me.” A blush rose across the bridge of Twilight’s snout. “How good you are for me.”
Pinkie kissed Twilight on the forehead beneath the horn and giggled her usual Pinkie Pie giggle. “Oh you. I’m just a little rock farmer. I’m nothing special. Just a pony that throws loads of parties.”
“You’re the element of laughter. You’re joy, defined. You’re very special. And I don’t just mean to me. You’re really, really… Something.”
Pinkie looked closely at Twilight’s face. There was something not quite normal about it. As if she was holding something back. She knew about things. She was great about worming secrets out of ponies. “’Something’? What do you mean? Are you hiding something?”
Twilight looked to the side several times then sighed. She could never keep anything from Pinkie. Pinkie Sense. And she could read other ponies very well. “I just… Earlier in the night I was thinking about you. I was trying to imagine what it was you were doing while I was here with the telescope. And I just… I couldn’t imagine what you were doing. It could be anything. Anything at all.”
Pinkie tilted her head as she looked at Twilight. “Well, what do you think I might be doing?”
“Uhhh…” Twilight thought back to the absurdities she had imagined earlier. “I don’t really know.” She then thought to the poor joke of making cupcakes out of Rainbow Dash. “… Anything?”
“Anything? You mean like… Oh!” Pinkie shook her head and hugged Twilight tighter. “You mean like ANYTHING anything.”
“W-wait Pinkie! I didn’t mean it like that! I just imagined you swimming in honey or throwing Gummy into the air over an over. I didn’t even have thoughts like that until you made that joke. I’m just saying… I can never tell what to think. So I just get confused and feel really unsure.” Left unstated were the situations in which Pinkie Pie got hurt through her carelessness or random activity.
Pinkie could see right through her. “You’re afraid I’ll get hurt when you’re not looking, aren’t you?”
Twilight didn’t know why she even bothered trying to hide anything from Pinkie Pie. She sighed softly and hung her head. “I just… I’m so worried. You could be doing anything. And I’ve seen you do some dangerous things. I love you. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Pinkie tapped her hoof against her chin for a bit, and then walked around Twilight, over to the telescope. “This is a really pretty telescope. And it looks really big. I’ll bet you can see a lot of neat things with it.”
“Umm… Yea. It gives me a good field of vision and has some excellent resolution. I can get some amazing details.”
“So you can see lots and lots of stars?”
“Yes. Even some with high magnitudes, the types that can’t really be seen with the eye.”
“Wow! That’s really amazing! And can you see them all the time? Even during the day?”
“Well, no. The sunlight refracting through the atmosphere creates a scattering effect that cannot be seen through. So it’s pretty useless during the day.”
Pinkie was already by the star chart, pointing at it. “Then how does this work? If you don’t see them all the time how can you be so sure about them?”
“We track their progress in relation to yearly revolution and daily rotation. With a simple calculation of sidereal time we can know about the motions and positions of the stars and see them in their positions with a reasonable degree of cer… Oh.” Twilight blinked and looked to Pinkie, suddenly having a flash of realization.
Pinkie came over and brought her legs around Twilight’s shoulders, looking deeply into her eyes. “You can’t always be there to see me. But you can trust me. You can trust me, can’t you?”
Twilight looked deeply into Pinkie’s eyes, seeing the stars reflected in them. Pinkie and the stars moved on their own schedules in their time. But they moved in ways she could know. And she could trust their actions. “I’ve never stopped trusting you. I just need to trust my own instincts more. I’ll calculate your motions and know that, even when I can’t see a thing, I’ll always see you again.”
The End
