The moon waltzed silently into its spot in the sky, and for once Ponyville found itself in a moment of peace. The crickets had stopped chirping what seemed like years ago – the animals that would usually fill moments of stillness with “chirp-chirree”s and low, playful growls now slept peacefully in Fluttershy’s cottage. The Timberwolves dreamt in their dens, beds and wolves alike dim and quiet as midnight. Zecora’s hut this night did not glow with the making of potions that other ponies did not know – and likewise, Sugarcube Corner had somehow found itself innocent of both pastry- and merry-making. In the distance, the Apple family farm’s weather vane hinted gently towards the west. Its red beacon seemed sleepy and gentle amid the soft night that brushed it, sleepy and gentle as the downy clouds that dotted the sapphire sky. The noiseless wisp that was the Princess of the Night soared in the distance above the Canterlot Castle, untouchable in her lurid bailiwick. The myriad of stars in the sky above breathed out every color of the rainbow in a warm embrace to the night.
Shadows encircled each other, rocking back and forth with the steady heaving beat of the night’s silent symphony. Here two entwined, taking one another in their arms for a spin – if only for a moment. Now the moon’s motherly light took her dark and gangly son in hand, twirling him around, away from his lover as her father did the same. Then it began again, with the rising on the falling of each pony’s flank in bed: the ballet unsung, the dance all imagined but nonetheless magical, utterly magical.
Against the deep blue midnight sky, a magenta star stood against the rest on a dark purple background. Wings opened hesitantly, to be gingerly examined with reluctant, royal amaranthine eyes.
She had been up all night, studying the rarer plants found on the very edges of Equestria and their applications to practical (and not-so-practical) magic. Her studies had enveloped her, as they always did, and yet… Somehow, a deep feeling not unlike that of sleepiness had overwhelmed her, and dragged her out onto the roof of the library. There were no stairs that led to the roof; however, that didn’t matter anymore. The air bowed to aid her unsteady hooves.
She’d meant to engross herself in preparation for what was to be her next “test,” not wallow about in Lunarshade and Celestial Morning Blossoms, and how they could potentially be added to the memory spell she’d perfected just a day ago to ease psychological wounds. She’d meant to read up on Canterlot etiquette – it had been so long since she’d last curtsied to the royals, after all, and now that she had been graciously chosen to be one of those royals she needed to be educated on how to return said curtsies – or on when the appropriate time to offer suggestions to commoners would be, among other extremely important issues she knew she would have problems accustoming her common librarian self to… Yet she found herself among the “B” section of Allie Allium’s Advanced Guide to the Active Use of Herbs in Augury, having opened the book to page one-thousand fifty-seven. A plant with leaves like wings and such small, round berries had greeted her, and in the lamp-light that she read by she couldn’t help but think that the color of the berries matched the color of the streaks in her hair: bittersweet. And in that moment, she couldn’t help but think to herself that perhaps some air would do her good, and that she could only logically be nervous for her move to Canterlot. For a few minutes – a few hours? – as she stood on the library roof and stared longingly at the castle’s far off spires, scraping the skies from their perch on the mountain, she believed herself.
But now, staring at Luna’s moon reflecting Celestia’s overwhelmingly bright sun, she knew she had woven a fantasy to sink into, like she’d done time after time. The truth – this time it was too hard to face. The stars: they couldn’t shine alone, could they? The books she usually relied on remained silent this night, offering only the cold fact that the stars that seemed so close, so intertwined in the sky, were actually hundreds of lightyears, even thousands of lightyears apart. Even with her ears flattened to her head, she heard the echoes of a song she sung only a short time ago. She wasn’t prepared for this. Of all of the tricks she could learn, and for all of the pain and fear that had stabbed at her in her time in Ponyville, this alone could mute her glow, and fade her colors to a somber gray. With a glance at the dull magenta star on her flank, she cried out silently: I don’t want to be alone! Even just after first meeting, her friends had shined with the force of a thousand – a million – stars and banished the tyrannical night! They gave her light, the light that made that myriad of stars before her beautiful and not just the distant destruction of millions of hydrogen atoms. Her eyes struck out into the halcyon dark before her, thinking to herself that tonight the tyrant choked the stars from their beds. Somber darkness had left all that was once beautiful devoid of luster; the stained sweetness of her own coronation enveloped and sickened her.
Nonetheless, she couldn’t help but notice it was a beautiful night. Her friends would be sleeping soundly, and with this sort of nurturing quiet there wouldn’t be a nightmare in town for at least a week. Pinkie Pie’s dreams would be laden with the parties she’d hold for years to come – vivid rose-colored detonations of confetti and laughter. Rarity would be wrapped in velvet and silk, parading about luscious gowns of gold and silver that shone just as brightly as the fillies’ eyes would when they found them on their doorstep on Hearth’s Warming Eve. Fluttershy of course would be snuggling up to a poor abandoned baby dragon, taking it up to her bedroom to sleep, and raising it as her own. Applejack’s dreams would be just like she lived: filled with the sweet scent of apple blossoms, then the warm aroma of apple cider (autumn itself, in her mind), all wrapped up in the pleasure of an honest day’s work. Streaks in the sky would fall behind Rainbow Dash in her sleep, as she’d maneuver through a daring dip, straight into the depths of the world’s deepest dungeon.
…And Spike? He would be peeping out of the window, emerald eyes taking on a worried tone, whispering quietly towards the roof that she’d left her book on top of him, and asking her why she was on the roof, and if she was waiting for some weird flying “Bittersweet” plant that would only come out at midnight. And Twilight Sparkle would smile, tears running down her face, as she realized that it was indeed a very beautiful night, a very beautiful, magical night.
She would miss nights like these.
