It was past midnight. The clock on the town hall chimed, and Moonshadow realized he didn't want to sleep at all.
Few foals want to sleep right when their parents put them to bed. For such cases Moon kept a book and a couple of light crystals under his mattress; usually a few pages were enough to plunge him into the realm of dreams. But today either the story was too exciting, or the stolen cake was too much, but the colt felt quite wakeful.
He threw the blanket back from his head, stared up at the ceiling scattered with twinkling stars, and tried to count them. But he ended up seeing dirty words instead of constellations, like the ones he saw on the walls of the school bathroom. With a quiet, annoyed neighing Moon rolled over on his side, on the other side, on his stomach, and tried to wrap his wings around the pillow and burrow deep into it, but it was in vain.
With a sigh the colt sat up on the edge of the bed, dangling his hind legs over the side and looking around. He could see well in the dark both the toy chest and the bookcase, but he wasn't up to any of these. It was obvious that he would be sleepy tomorrow even though Moon had already promised his friends a walk together.
Anyway, he had to fall asleep somehow.
After a few moments of thinking, Moon decided to visit his parents. Of course, Mom would scold him, but she won't dismiss him. And if he would be lucky, maybe he could talk to his Dad for a while.
He jumped off his bed, peered cautiously out and moved down the deserted hallway toward his parents' bedroom. By palace standards, it was quite close by, but now, in the gloom and silence of the night, it seemed a long way off. Moon crept along trembling and looking around incessantly; though he knew there were no monsters in the dark and the guards walked nearby, still the high vaulted ceilings and the occasional wind that hummed beneath them, lamps that glowed through one scared the hell out of him. It was as if the entire palace had become one big labyrinth which lures lonely travelers.
The colt literally skipped the last steps to the right doors, almost squeaking with horror. He sighed in relief only in his parents' quarters when he flew in and locked the doors. At the same time, he pressed his ears back for a coming catch-up.
“Mom," he whispered, turning to the bed. “I'm…”
His parents were sound asleep and the blanket over their figures rose and fell in time with their breathing. Moon stared for a second, unable to believe his luck, and then carefully lit the faint light at the tip of his horn. The thick carpet allowed him to walk unnoticed all the way to the bed. He had the idea of trying to crawl in between parents without waking them up, but he had to give it up. He was no longer small enough to successfully repeat such a trick.
“Mom," he called again, touching the nearest figure with his hoof. “Mother...”
The snoring changed to quiet grunts and fumbling. The blanket moved, and a blue glow spread over the pillow.
“Moony?” his mother's voice was a hoarse whisper. “What are you doing here?”
“I can't sleep," the colt was suddenly embarrassed. “May I, well… lie down with you?”
A sigh was heard, and a disheveled head lifted from the other pillow.
“Huh? What are you doing?”
“Your son asks if he can lie down with us," the mare said, and in the meantime she shifted aside to make room for Moon. “Will you let him?”
“Before sunrise he is your son,” with a quiet snort the stallion lay back down and shifted slightly too.
Trying not to squeal excitedly, the foal climbed onto the bed and snaked between the two big warm bodies. His father's heavy hoof hugged him, and his mother's muzzle touched his head to dim the sparkle on horn.
“Are you scared of something?” she asked softly, spreading her wing and covering her son with it.
“No, I just can't sle...” Moon yawned widely before he finished. Even though he had grown up, he still felt completely safe here and now. The whole world may disappear, but the parent's embrace won’t go anywhere.
“You’re just like your mother,” the stallion said with a smirk. “I barely weaned her off wandering around the palace at night.”
“Oh, shut up!” the mother's wing trembled.
“Will you tell me it's not like that?”
“I used to have a lot of things to do at night!”
“Bed should be the only thing to do at night.”
“Hush!” the mother hissed. She pressed her wing tighter against Moon's head, though he could still hear everything and wondered what his parents were discussing. “Not in front of him!”
“He's going to get his own fillies soon, so let him learn.”
“We'll see about that yet!”
“What do you mean by “the bed thing”?” asked Moon since parents were talking about him.
But strangely enough, they stopped talking and Dad's sides quivered with strange stifled noises.
Then his mother spoke uncertainly:
“We meant sleep, of course, what else...”
“You'll have to lie better than that," the stallion leaned over and poked his broad muzzle close to Moon's ear. “You see, sometimes in bed a mare and a stallion think about having a foal. And if they already have one, they talk about a brother or sister for him or her.”
“Аh,” Moon muttered, remembering what his friends had told him at school. It was confusing, though, and he didn’t really understand anything much about what they were saying, except for a few words. “So, you mean that you and mom are…” he repeated carefully one of those words, trying not to make a mistake.
There was a momentary silence. The colt was worried that he was wrong when the mother touched his muzzle neatly with her hoof and lifted it up to look at her.
“Where did you hear that from?” she asked sternly. Immediately Moon squirmed and flattened his ears fearfully, trying to realize what he'd done wrong.
“A… at school!" he peeped with a shiver. After a second, his father hoofed him tighter again and pushed back under the covers.
“Come on, we'll deal with it tomorrow.”
“I’ll go to the school tomorrow and talk to the principal,” Mom said in a voice that didn't bode well, which made Moon shiver even more. What had he done?
“Calm down, you scared your son,” his father sounded firm. The mare snorted and fidgeted, but didn't go on. “You’d better asked him how he was doing at school.”
“Good!” Moon blurted out, afraid of making things worse. “My friends and I wanted to go out tomorrow.”
“Are you going to wear your vest again?”
“Well…”
“Moon… When are you going to stop being shy?”
“I'm not shy! It's just… well… it's easier for me this way with the guys.”
There was an unclear sigh. Then his mother said in a normal voice:
“All right, let's go to sleep. Really, we'll figure it out in the morning.”
“Good night," the colt squeaked as mom and dad pulled him close and cradled gently between them. It got warm and cozy, and the recent conversation was slowly being forgotten like a dream.
“Sleep, our little star.”
His parents kissed the top of his head and before they even moved away, Moon was already sound asleep.
* * *
“Wow, did you see that?!” Ground Grade shoved him with such force that Moon, startled, dropped the book from his telekinesis. “Seriously, what are they doing here?!”
“Just come with the usual stuff, maybe.” the dark gray and blue-haired colt grimaced and picked up the dropped book. “It's not our business.”
He threw the saddlebag to his side, careful not to pin the wings hidden beneath the clothes, and turned to his friend, who was glaring at the door to the principal's office. He frowned, and then grabbed foal’s tail with magic, trying to drag him down the school hallway.
“Look, let's go, the others are waiting for us!”
“Yeah," the earth pony reluctantly turned away, and trotted after the unicorn.
* * *
The principal's self-control was ironclad. But even she was trembling now as Princess Luna and King Sombra were sitting across from her. Though the stallion was merely glancing around at the bookshelves, the nocturnal alicorn was doing her best for the two.
“Miss," she looked down at her sternly. “I'd like to talk about the necessity for polite literature classes in your institution.”