Celestia Haunts the Narrative
It was the second week of August when they met for the first time.
June-hot days had just begun to fade into the sharpness of fall. The sun had lazed over the beginning of the month into a soggy second week. Drizzle and rain bracketed the week, squeezing every drop of water it could from August, forcing families to huddle closer indoors and dredge up funds for out-grown raincoats.
It was the kind of morning where fog just barely skirts above dew kissed grass, coming in short waves that just reach above your ankles.
It was the kind of morning where fathers, mothers, and parents of all kinds wake up in the still blue-black night for work, the soft fingers of morning just beginning to crack the rim of the sky.
The bugs whistled and chripped. Hordes of cicadas sawed their fiddle feet together, fireflies danced from tree to tree, far away from any sticky kid fingers to capture them. Deep green chrysalises hung low on leaves, only shaken by an occasional breeze or sparrow diving in and out on invisible sounds.
The beginnings of rain sprinkled down, hitting the tin bus roof with a tap, tap, tap. The overgrown vines that threaten to overtake the remaining free space silenced the rest of the megear downfall.
Twisted, gnarled trees, blacked by age and rain, drooped down with pollen-green canopies that howled and clawed with children’s nightmares, boogeymen, werewolves, demons, and the like seemingly at every corner.
Of course, Sunset had never believed in that, not even as a child. Especially now. For all anyone knew, she was the bump in the night to be afraid of. The bedtime story to frighten young ones back into bed after tip-toeing out for a glass of water. ‘Watch out or the Demon of Canterlot will get you!’ She could hear them say.
If nothing else had achieved at least one of her goals, to forever be cemented into history. And cemented she had become.
She stood under the bus stop, likely older than her by a few decades, armor still adorned, blood still wet from the rain.
The lean-on stool had broken ages ago, forcing her to stand, spine straight, shoulders back, head held high despite the nagging headache. It was this or sit in the mud the stop was built on, and her pride hadn’t dwindled that much.
The ticking and the tapping of the rain hitting helmet calmed her. It brought back memories of steaming hearths and visiting harvest festivals in her youth. She couldn’t recall the last time she had been to one.
Watching the sparrows dig into the sporadic rotten wood, feathers just beginning to puff with donwy winter coats, there came a moment where Sunset couldn’t tell when they flew instead of fell.
“This spot taken?” A voice called out from the rain. Cheery and upbeat despite the weather.
Sunset squinted trying to make out a form in the morning dark, but couldn’t find the voice’s owner. “… No, feel free.” She gestured beside her, figuring the stranger would leave once they saw her.
“Thanks.” Sunset nodded, going back to staring straight ahead into nothingness, waiting for the inevitable scream to ruin her quiet morning. But no such scream followed.
A quick look to her side had her stiffen. The question to the non-scream both answered and replaced within milliseconds.
Sunset tried to calm herself down. They were strangers. Passerby’s who just so happened to be sharing a quiet moment together. Something so mundane they would forget with time. A week, maybe two if they start a conversation.
The stranger hadn’t told Sunset her name, but she knew it all the same. Anyone would be a fool to not know it, biggest of all her.
Twilight Sparkle looked at her from the corner of her eyes, similar to how one would read a book over a shoulder, honeyed brown eyes flecked with yellow, like leaves on the surface of a pool.
The petrichor rich air carried an invisible rumble that zapped through the moaning wind. So delicate and fragile that only those with weak knees and knotted fingers could feel it’s touch, a mundane magic that comes with age. Something that gives you pause on a june-hot day, spying the winter freckle of the moon before nodding to yourself, assured of rain.
Twilight sharply turned to sneezed into her cotton clad elbow. Sunset automatically said “bless you", before suddenly looking stricken. Neither of them, blessedly, commented on it.
“A quarter?” Twilight smiled up at her.
“I’m… sorry?” Sunset arched an eyebrow back, dumbfounded.
“A quarter, for your fare.” Shaking out a big fat shiny quarter from her sleeve, Twilight took Sunset’s hand without hesitation and pushed it into her palm. “I promised I would help you with anything didn’t I?”
“I….” Sunset licked her lips nervously. Somehow she could feel the heat of Twilight's hand underneath her armor. “Thank you. Princess. That's very kind of you.” Sunset pushed their hands back. “But I won’t accept any more help than you’ve given.”
“It’s just a quarter Sunset. Consider it on the Crown’s charge.” Twilight pushed their hands back, a challenge.
“That really doesn’t help.”
“Then consider it a favor from a friend.”
That headache was getting worse, “Princess I’m not even sure a bus is coming.”
“Then why are you here?” Silence. “Why are you here, Sunset?”
Sunset did not respond. Instead, staring empty into the rain that had swallowed the forest whole. Twilight took the quarter back.
For a moment that could have been minutes, or hours, or maybe as long as time itself, they stood together, watching the rain in silence. Their only knowledge of each other’s presence radiating off in body heat.
Then, after heat death and subsequent rebirth of the universe, or perhaps only a few seconds, Twilight spoke up again.
“What did She mean to you?” Her voice took a somber tone, befitting the weather.
“I was Her…” Sword. Dagger. Both a fine tooth comb to precisely pick off political opponents and a warhammer plastered on every recruitment poster to drag unknowing children into a war none of them would ever live to see the end of. A monster. “Her student.” Beast. “I was Her student.” A street-mutt begging for scraps of conditional love.
Even her name wasn’t her own. Instead it was a testament to Her kindness and charity rather than any passing affection for the new tool within Her arsenal.
Twilight hummed as a reply. Watching the rain pitter patter against the mud puddles pooling outside of the overhang.
“Do you know how long it will rain for?” The question tumbled out of her before she could even consider to stop it. Sunset damn near moved to cut off her tongue for its stupidity before Twilight spoke up.
“Hm, I would say… at this rate?” Taking a hand, Twilight half-stepped forward and cupped a hand out into the rain, until a small pool collected in her palm. Once enough had been collected to her standards, she brought it up to her mouth and took a sip. “Definitely long rain,” she shook out her hand while speaking. “Going to be here all day long.”
Sunset, curious, with a childlike intrigue, tried to quickly copy what Twilight had done before quickly spitting out the droplets she had caught.
“I can’t believe you copied me!” Twilight exclaimed, barely containing her laughter.
Sunset blushed so bright, she may as well have been mimicking the sun. “I didn't copy you!”
“No you did- I- well…” Twilight stumbled over her words as they collided with Sunset’s.
“I-“ Sunset half started and stopped, her mouth flapping open.
“Well, not copy like you're a copycat, but…” Twilight looked up at Sunset, smiling gently. “I liked it.”
“Why are you…” As if in slow motion, Sunset watched as Twilight lightly guided her hand outside the awning, just far enough that forced her to step forward a little.
“Yeah you wanna like, cup your hand a little, let it flow in,” Twilight then took her hand and mimicked the same motion. “And see, you wanna go a bit further out ‘cause if you just do right outside you get the rain from the awning and that usually tastes pretty bad, you want the fresh rain.” Twilight spoke like an expert on the subject.
Sunset concentrated like she did during her lessons, folding and cupping her hand in the same way as Twilight.
“Yeah like that, like that!” Twilight nearly shouted with excitement, “thats right!”
Sunset smiled, a small, but true smile as Twilight’s joy leaked onto her face.
“And then you pull it back in,” Sunset did as she was told, holding the small silver pool of rainwater in her hands as if it was the most precious thing in the world. “Now give it a sip.”
She did. It was cold, bitingly cold, as if it had come fresh from a spring and simply sprouted into her hand. It was like magic, simple as that.
“Kinda warm right?” Twilight smiled, giggling.
Sunset nodded, the warmth she felt not at all coming from the rain.
