//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: From Prying Eyes 
// Story: The Winter Breeze 
// by Terranaut 
//------------------------------//

	Rainbow Dash knocked three times on the door to the library and waited patiently. The door opened to reveal a lavender unicorn.
"Hey, Rainbow. Here to check out another Daring Do book? Looks like you're finally to the fifth book in the series! It's my personal favorite. That's the one where she returns to the-"
Rainbow interrupted her. "No Twilight. For once that's not what I came to do. And, anyway, you were about to spoil the story!"
"Sorry..." Twilight said quietly with her ears folded back.
"But like I said, that's not what I came for. I wanted to give you this." Rainbow opened her saddlebag and pulled out a small, folded of piece of notebook paper. Twilight watched curiously as Rainbow unfolded the paper on a coffee table.
"Look, it's covered with all these numbers. I have no idea what they mean! I was hoping you could take a look at them and see if you can figure out what they mean," Rainbow explained. "My first guess was that it's some kind of secret code."
Twilight scowled at the cryptic note. "Hmm... Well, it appears to be some kind of data, and it's clearly not a shopping list. Where did you get this, Rainbow?"
Rainbow Dash, not wanting to appear completely insane to her friend, decided not to give her the whole story just yet. "There was an accident while I was on weather duty this morning and I had to go into a cave to get out of the storm. It was sticking out from under a rock. That's where I found it. Normally, I wouldn't care about something like this... I mean it's just a piece of paper with numbers on it. If you know anything about me, you'd know I stay away from numbers... but I thought it was an odd place to find something like that, so I brought it to you."
Twilight listened to Rainbow's whole story without once looking at her. She thought for a moment, then nodded. "It is an odd place to keep something like this. Look, Rainbow. You notice how these numbers are grouped in sets of two?"
Rainbow examined the numbers once more. "Yeah, that was the first thing I noticed!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Well, that fact leads me to believe they're astronomical coordinates."
"Astracto... what?" Rainbow replied with a vacant stare.
"Astronomical coordinates. You know, positions of stars and planets and whatnot."
"Ohhhh, so you mean this is somepony's study papers or something?"
"Well, maybe. The part that gets me is... why is it so bare? There's no writing on it. Just these numbers, and this little doodle." Twilight noticed the three letters next to the planet. "DML? Is that somepony's initials?"
"That's what I was thinking. Maybe we should try to find whoever this belonged to!" Rainbow was about to speed out the window without thinking, as usual.
"Hold up, Rainbow," Twilight said, grabbing the speedster's tail with her magic. Rainbow fell to the floor with a thud. "This could belong to anypony! After all, anypony could have a telescope, but that's not the worst of it. Judging by where you found this paper, its owner could very well be from some other town! There's just too many ponies!"
Rainbow lowered her head. "Aww... you mean we can't find the paper's owner?"
"Don't worry, Rainbow. I'm not giving up yet. If the paper won't lead us to its owner, maybe its owner will lead us to them!" Twilight said, in the middle of a eureka moment.
Rainbow didn't follow. "What? How?"
"Don't worry about it Rainbow! Meet me here tonight, okay?"
"Okay... I guess I should go back to my friends on the weather team to let them know I'm alright, but why do you have to wait until night to figure this out?"
"Because that's when the stars come out."





The sun slowly slipped below the horizon. There was not a cloud in the sky, and only a sliver of the moon was visible. The sky shone off its brilliant collection of stars for all to see. Rainbow invited herself into the library.
"There you are! It's about time you showed up," Twilight said peering through a large telescope perched in a window.
"Sorry, traffic," Rainbow explained.
"Rainbow, think about what you just said for a minute."
Rainbow frowned. "Okay, I forgot, BUT, I did show up didn't I?"
"Yeah. Hey, could you grab that book lying next to the lamp on the nightstand over there?" She pointed a hoof towards a table on the second floor.
"Sure thing." Rainbow trotted up the stairs and retrieved the book. "So, any super-awesome discoveries yet?"
"No," Twilight said simply.
"Just... no?"
"No. I've tried every one of these coordinates four times each, but they all point towards random gaps between stars and... Well, if these really are star coordinates, then they should have all been taken at roughly the same time of day. Good astronomers always make sure to take their measurements at the same time every day to keep them organized and consistent." Rainbow struggled to pay attention. "The problem is, I don't know what time they were taken. It could be any time within the 12 hours of night! I could just keep trying coordinates at different times and see if anything lines up, but... I counted the coordinates on this paper, Rainbow. There are 386 stars. The chances of picking the right time are extremely slim..."
"Thanks for trying, Twilight."
"Sorry I couldn't help," Twilight looked defeated. She really wanted to know what the paper meant.
"No, it's fine... It's just a piece of paper. I really don't care that much," Rainbow lied.
Twilight decided to give the paper one last look before they call it quits. Then her eyes widened. "Of course!" Twilight shouted, facehoofing. "That little 'doodle' at the bottom of the page isn't a doodle at all! It's a drawing of the only planet in our solar system with rings; Marecury!"
Rainbow flapped her wings excitedly. "Really? But... what does that have to do with the numbers?"
Twilight let out an indignant huff. "How could you possibly not know? Marecury aligns with our orbit in an hour!"
"Oh, sorry. Guess I'm not in the loop..." Rainbow said rolling her eyes. "So it's... like an eclipse?"
"Yep, more or less."
"...So?"
Twilight raised her eyebrows defensively. "What do you mean 'so'?!"
"So, it's a drawing of a planet, and it just so happens that there's going to be an eclipse soon. So, what? Does that even mean anything?"
Twilight frowned. "Hmm... well, one thing's for sure. There's no way whoever wrote this paper recorded those star positions when the last alignment happened."
"Why not?" Rainbow asked, half humoring her.
"Because the last time Marecury aligned with our orbit was 137 years ago, so unless this pony is 150 years old, they couldn't have witnessed the most recent alignment."
"What if one of the princesses wrote it? They are over a thousand years old!" Rainbow pointed out.
"Wrong again. Neither of their initials are 'DMT'. Whoever wrote this must have known the alignment was coming. They must have been planning for somepony to find this note in time to see the alignment, which leads me to believe this has to be some sort of secret message. There's no other explanation!"
Rainbow's eyebrows raised. "Wow, Twilight! That was... intense. Did you figure that that out just now? Nice work!"
Twilight beamed like a schoolfilly who had just counted to ten for the first time in their life. "Thanks, Rainbow."
They waited until the alignment was only minutes away. Twilight returned to her telescope, glanced at the piece of paper for a moment, then panned the telescope across the night sky. "Yes!!!" The star had lined up in the dead-center of the eyepiece. Twilight looked around the room anxiously for a moment, before picking up a dry-erase marker and a ruler with her magic. She went to the window, looking back and forth between the telescope and the window. She placed a small black dot on the window with the marker. She repeated the process until she had gone through every star on the paper, placing a black dot on the window for each one. When she finished plotting all the points, she stepped back and admired her work.
On the window was a clear message, composed of black dots: "SOS 48.2ºN 67.3ºW"