Once Upon a Midnight Clear · 6:50pm Dec 26th, 2016
Some nights I have trouble sleeping. Sometimes it’s because I ate too much for dinner. Sometimes it’s because work has me stressed. And sometimes it’s because there’s a pony sitting in a chair at the foot of my bed.
“Ahem.” she says.
I sit up and search the nightstand for my glasses. My fingers brush past my phone, wedding ring, keys, and plenty of other things that aren’t going to help resolve the pony-sized blur in the distance, barely visible in the nightlight’s dim glow. While I search, I hear the quiet tapping of what sounds like two wooden sticks. “What’re you doing?”
“Knitting a scarf for Morning Dew.”
I finally find my glasses and put them on. At last I see Rarity sitting there, eyes focused on a square of teal yarn stretched between two knitting needles suspended in her magic. The needles make soft clicks and taps as they slide past each other. “I meant what are you doing here? It’s probably one in the morning.”
Rarity furrows her eyebrows. “I’m knitting a scarf for one of the many ponies who command more of your attention than myself. Bon Bon’s new oven mitts are already in the mail, as is Scootaloo’s stocking cap. Tell me, what would Lyra, Apple Bloom, and Princess Luna like?”
“Maybe a midnight visit from a knit-happy fashionista? I hear those are a blast.”
Her eyes roll. “Perhaps I should write that one down, but then again isn’t that supposed to be your job?”
“Come on. You had a great cameo in Cleave, and I wrote you and Spike something right after it. Remember the comedy about massages and soft hand—”
She cringes, or maybe it’d be fairer to call it a minor convulsion. “Please don’t mention that… incident! I’ve lost quite enough sleep already, now that I’m forced to keep my diary under my pillow… lest some amateur ‘author,’ to use the term loosely, borrow from its pages again.”
“It’s not my fault you’ve got twenty pages of wedding decor fantas—”
“Moving on—” her knitting needles scrape against each other with additional force “—surely you can find time and inspiration for something new, something inventive that calls for me in a leading role.”
I can’t help smiling. “As a matter of fact…”
She gasps and looks up from her knitting, her eyes bright and expectant. “Yes?”
“I decided to enter a little contest: you and Spike are going on a mission to the dragon lands, starting today.”
The knitting drops to the floor, forgotten in a flurry of hoof-clapping and smiles. “Wonderful! And if Spikey is involved, I can only imagine we’ll have a delightful… wait…”
My glasses are back on the nightstand, and my head is on my pillow. “Yes?”
“This is just a delivery vehicle for emotional baggage, isn’t it? And all of it is addressed to me, isn’t it?”
“Not all of it.”
The chair scrapes against the floor as she gets up. “One of these days, so help me, I’ll twist a simple, genuine, ‘and they lived happily ever after’ out of the likes of you! No at-the-altar madness, no diary-pillaging massages, no true-meaning-of-gift-giving crimes against my favorite dragon! Mark my words!”
As long as one of those words is goodnight. “It’s a good one, Rarity. Romance… drama… knitting…”
“Hmpf. We’ll just see about that.”
In the midst of doing a favor for Ember in the dragon lands, Spike tells Rarity about his not-so-secret feelings. Rarity responds with a secret of her own, one that she's guarded for most of her life. They picked the wrong day, and the wrong kingdom, for a quiet heart-to-heart.
Mad props to everyone who helped me get this one out the door, especially on such short notice:
Artwork: Pia-sama
Cover Design: Novel Idea
Pre-reading: mrk
Muhahahahahaha.
Okay, Pinkie, stop letting just anypony steal your Fourth Wall Deconstructor! Seriously! IT CAUSES PROBLEMS!