//------------------------------// // I - Camponotus leonardi // Story: Here Comes the Rain Again // by A Hoof-ful of Dust //------------------------------// Darkness. Night in the Everfree Forest. The Forest had withstood pony domination for centuries. Its plants were unique in Equestria, mutants that refused to be cultivated. The creatures that called it home lived wild and free, yet it was no true home to any of them. It was a refuge for outcasts, a breeding ground for strange beasts of origins unknown. During its long history the Everfree Forest had birthed countless oddities that crawled and slithered and clawed their way into being, never having been seen before and never being spotted beyond its borders. And this night, among the vines and bushes, something stirred. Fluttershy hummed to herself as she poured out seeds for her bird friends, quieter than normal since the sun was still below the horizon. The notes became deliberate and pronounced while she concentrated on not overflowing any of the dishes, but as there was only so much room among the branches of the trees and the sack was rather heavy, the occasional spray of birdseed tumbling to the grass was inevitable. The sun was beginning to show when Fluttershy placed the sack of seeds with the rest of the feed. She began trotting along the path that led from her cottage into town, still humming. Marching across Fluttershy’s yard was a column of ants, streaming from the Everfree Forest. They passed by fallen seeds and grains, never deviating from their intended course. Fluttershy never noticed them. The path took her by Sweet Apple Acres, the red apples in the trees catching the morning light. As she rounded a turn she could see Applejack and her brother Big Macintosh were working this side of the orchard, the former up a ladder plucking leaves. “Good morning, Applejack,” Fluttershy said with a smile. “Good morning, Big Mac.” Big Mac mumbled his way through, “Morning, miss Fluttershy.” Applejack spat out a mouthful of leaves. “Mornin’, Fluttershy. You’re goin’ into town mighty early.” “Well, I need to buy some radishes for Angel, and I thought I might see something Twilight might like, but I don’t like to do a lot of shopping when there’s other ponies around, so…” “Right, Twilight’s goin'-away shindig’s tonight,” Applejack said. She glanced down and shouted, “Comin’ down, Mac!” before sliding down the ladder. “You’ll be there, won’t you?” Fluttershy asked. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, sugarcube.” “That’s good.” She smiled again. “See you there!” “See you there,” echoed Applejack. Fluttershy continued up the path to Ponyville, the line of ants flowing beside her. Rarity stirred her morning coffee as she looked out the window. The street outside was still half-asleep, still draped in the long shadows of the morning sun. She turned her gaze to the swirling inky liquid in her mug, as if the element to break her creative stupor could be found there, but it turned out to no more be in her coffee than it was prancing up and down the main street. She floated a grapefruit over from the counter and twisted it in half in mid-air, musing that perhaps it might be for the best that inspiration for a dress for Twilight could not be found in either of those places. “Is that all you’re having?” “Hm?” Rarity paused, strips of shed grapefruit skin stacked in a neat pile in front of her. “For breakfast,” Sweetie Belle clarified. “Just a grapefruit?” Rarity nudged the untouched half over to her sister’s side of the table with her magic. “It could be half a grapefruit, if you want some.” Sweetie Belle took an tentative lick, then made a face. “This is horrible!” she exclaimed. “Why would you call something this horrible a fruit?” “It’s not that bad…” Sweetie Belle shoved it back to Rarity’s side of the table. “Why are you eating that?” “Grapefruit is excellent for preserving shine in one’s coat,” Rarity said, “and it’s good for preventing colds.” A perplexed look crossed Sweetie Belle’s face. “But it’s summer.” “What do you want for breakfast?” Rarity asked, trying to shift the subject. “Toast!” “Then make yourself some toast.” “You banned me from the toaster…” Trying very hard not to sigh, Rarity floated her coin purse into the kitchen and fished a couple of bits from it, placing them on the table. “You know, I have changed my mind. I think I feel like a croissant for breakfast. A fresh, warm, fluffy croissant, straight from Sugarcube Corner.” “That does sound pretty good…” Sweetie Belle agreed. “Could you be a most wonderful sister and run down to the bakery and get me one? You get whatever you like.” Sweetie Belle snatched up the bits. “I’m on it!” she squeaked, and dashed out the front door, leaving Rarity to her grapefruit and coffee. In her rush, the strange ants crawling into cracks and shadows went unobserved. As Sweetie Belle burst through the door of Sugarcube Corner, she nearly collided with a short purple dragon. “Whoa!” Spike said, spinning to take the tray of pastries he was holding out of Sweetie Belle’s path. “Valuable cargo on board.” “Sorry, Spike.” Sweetie Belle grinned sheepishly. “No harm done,” he said, backing out of the bakery, the little bell over the door tinkling. A violently colorful blur sprang up from behind the counter. “Mmmorning!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed with typical gusto. “Hi Pinkie,” Sweetie Belle said, approaching the counter. She put her bits down as she scanned the display. “Can I get a croissant, and a…” She trailed off, finally having looked at Pinkie properly and noticing something atypical. “Yes?” “…Did you know there is a muffin on your nose?” “Of course! I couldn’t keep it in my mouth, because I want to eat it later and you put things in your mouth when you want to eat them, so that would be a silly place to keep it, and I couldn’t put it on my head because then it might get messed up in my mane and my mane does not taste good even with frosting on, and I couldn’t put the muffin on my back because I couldn’t keep an eye on it because do you know how hard it is to cook with your head looking backwards? So I put it on my nose and now I can keep both eyes on the muffin and not have to turn my head the wrong way!” “Well, I guess that makes sense…” “Croissant?” Pinkie asked, as if it wasn’t out of the ordinary to have to explain why there was baked goods perched on the end of her muzzle. “Oh. Yeah! It has to be warm.” “Warm croissant it is!” “And fresh, and fluffy.” “Warm and fresh and fluffy, got it.” “And, um… could you make it two croissants?” Pinkie dropped a second croissant into the bag and passed it over the counter to Sweetie Belle, then flipped the muffin off the end of her nose and devoured it in a single bite. “There you go! Anything else?” Rainbow Dash was still fast asleep in her bed when the ants passed beneath her cloud house. One broke off from the column and waited, its antenna poised to receive further instructions. Twilight stood in front of the mirror, examining her reflection. The pony that stood before her felt like a stranger. The tiara on that pony’s head just didn’t want to sit right, no matter how often she shifted it here and there with her magic. She gave the tiara an experimental nudge with the tip of one of her wings, but it just looked more out of place than ever. Frustrated, she tossed the tiara onto her bed. It was then she noticed the ant crawling along the interior of the window. It was a species she didn’t recognize at all, and she was quite sure she would have remembered reading about one with a large orange growth on its thorax. It almost looked like a type of mold sprouting from the back section of the ant, but it was so smooth and round that she wasn’t sure if it wasn’t just a natural part of its body. Maybe there would be some information in one of the thorough reference tomes: Flora & Fauna of Equestria, vol. II: Fauna, perhaps, or Codex Hexapoda: A Guide to Insects and Other Things with Six Legs. No. That would be a distraction, just like trying to make the tiara comfortable to wear was a distraction. Twilight pushed the strange ant out of her mind and went back to the task of filling the two open and unpacked suitcases for her stay in Canterlot. Downstairs, she heard her door open and close, and Spike's humming. Well... packing could wait until after having a danish, she supposed. The sun hung low in the sky. The cake was all but gone; the last piece was slowly being worn down by Gummy, who had somehow found his way up on to the table. A couple of balloons had descended from their place crowding in the high ceiling of the library, milling about the lower bookshelves. Although a cup of tea sat as Princess Celestia’s place, the tea was cold. The banner that read WE WILL MISS YOU TWILIGHT!!! in violent pink letters had come unstuck at one corner, falling over itself to cover the part of Twilight’s name. Every pony in the library could sense it; Twilight’s going-away party was coming to a close, which meant it would soon be time for Twilight to go away. “Write every day,” Pinkie told Twilight, “write magic letters to Spike, and if you’ve studied too much magic then write a normal letter and mail it, and if there’s no mailponies flying that day then send me a carrier pigeon, and if you don’t know how to tell a carrier pigeon to find my house then I’ll leave birdseed out the front on the grass, so there’s no excuses for not writing.” “Pinkie,” Twilight said with a smile, “I’ll be back coming back here all the time. It’s not even that far away!” She turned to the rest of her friends. “You’ll barely know I’m gone.” “That’s simply not true,” Rarity said, “you know we are all going to miss you terribly, darling.” “Be safe,” said Fluttershy. “Have fun,” said Rainbow Dash. “Work hard,” said Applejack. Twilight hugged them all in turn. She then turned to Spike, who had been standing beside Applejack trying to catch Twilight’s attention while maintaining the right level of cool for a young dragon. Twilight hugged him hardest of all. “Take good care of the library while I’m gone, okay?” she said to him. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “the library is safe in my very dependable, very responsible claws.” “Well,” said Princess Celestia, rising from her place, “shall we be going?” “Yes,” said Twilight, “I’m ready.” The two hefty suitcases containing everything Twilight would need—books, chemistry set, telescope, scrolls, quills—floated down from the top floor of the library, then vanished in a flash of light. Celestia turned to address Twilight’s friends. “Remember that you are all very welcome to visit Twilight while she is under my tutelage.” She gave Twilight a meaningful look. “I will make sure she has just as much time for her friends as she does for learning to be a princess.” “We will, Princess,” Applejack said. Twilight gave one last wave to her friends, then, hoof still in the air, disappeared to Canterlot alongside Princess Celestia. Twilight lay in bed watching the ceiling, the moonlight streaming through the high window and falling across her face. She had lain in this bed unable to fall asleep many times before, giddy at the prospect of Princess Celestia teaching her a new spell in the morning. So why did it feel so different now? Why, instead of excitement, did she feel like she was about to step out on to thin ice? Her wings were making it impossible to get comfortable. If she turned to either side, one would be trapped between her and the bed. Twilight sprang to her hooves, abandoning the idea of getting an early night’s sleep before her big first day of learning to be an Equestrian princess. No wonder pegasi sleep on clouds. She trotted to the window and looked up at the stars in the clear night sky. When she first moved to Ponyville, she had set up her telescope poking through one of the large knotholes in the library, and whenever she was struck by a burst of insomnia she would chart the stars, comparing her observations against the historical astrological record some time during the following day. It was a quiet, solitary activity that demanded a calm mindset to engage in it properly; life’s problems seemed very small when thinking at the speed of drifting stars. Unfortunately, the patch of sky Twilight had been observing was blocked by a stone wall. She would have to hang halfway out the window to even catch a glimpse of it from inside her room. Of course, there was nothing stopping her from going out to one of the open sections of Canterlot Castle and setting up her telescope there, just for tonight. It would take a little bit of working to calculate for the difference in position between here and the library—but it would be a lot more productive than lying in bed willing herself to fall asleep. Twilight’s telescope case and star journal followed behind her in a magical bubble as she left to find a quiet platform on the upper level of the castle. “Just need to lower the declination a little… there, that’s better…” Twilight turned away from the eyeglass to check her notes and nearly collided with somepony. She had become so engrossed in adjusting her telescope that she hadn’t realized she was no longer alone. “Princess Luna!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing, Twilight Sparkle?” Luna asked. She seemed more curious than accusatory. “It is late.” “Well, I couldn’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep I look at the stars, but the window in my room isn’t facing the right way, so I came out here, and… oh no! I’m not in the way, am I?” “You are not.” Luna regarded the telescope with tilted head. “I was merely curious about the… nature of your device. It aids you in tracking stars, you said?” “Well, it doesn’t do just that. A telescope is used for observing objects in the sky. There’s a series of lenses inside that magnify the image, so the stars are more detailed than just looking at them.” “Interesting.” Luna continued to evaluate the telescope with her impassive gaze. Twilight scanned the sky, searching for the star the telescope was focused on. “I've been tracking the area around that one there,” she said, pointing. “It’s—” “Canis Major,” Luna said without hesitation, “the Dog Star.” “You know it?” Twilight asked. “I know some things about the night sky, yes,” Luna said. The shadow of a wry smile crossed her face. “Right,” Twilight said, glancing over at her notes. “Do you observe the stars often?” Luna asked after a moment of silence. “Just when I have trouble sleeping.” “So you said. Is this common?” “I don’t know…” She thought about the times she watched the sky in the dark. It briefly occurred to her to ask her how Luna had felt when she was inexperienced at being a princess, but something in her watchful eyes made Twilight hold her tongue. “Maybe,” she concluded. “Must you stay awake through the night for your observations?” Luna put a hoof on one of the legs of the telescope. “Your… telescope cannot see the stars by day?” Her use of the new word came with awkward stresses in the wrong places. “It can’t, but I don’t mind. I like doing things at night. It’s peaceful, a pony can be alone with her thoughts. You know?” “Hm,” was the only response Luna gave. She turned her attention to a part of the sky slightly off to the west of Canis Major. “Look there,” she said in a low voice, and pointed. “I don’t see—” Twilight began to say, but then she did: a bright streak arced across the sky, followed by half a dozen more. Each falling star blazed through a rapid spectrum of colors before burning out and vanishing. “Oh, wow!” Twilight said when the last meteor had disappeared. “A meteor shower! That was so cool! I didn’t expect to— How did you know that was going to happen?” She looked up at Princess Luna, who just gave a cryptic smile. “Some things one simply knows.” She stepped away from Twilight and the telescope and said, “I will allow you to continue your observations uninterrupted. Have a pleasant night, Twilight Sparkle.” “You too, Princess.” Twilight watched Luna walk away, then checked the telescope and jotted down her observations on the Dog Star. As she wrote her notes, the ants marched on. Later, when Twilight lay down in the bed in her old room in Canterlot Castle, she found what Princess Luna had said to her—some things one simply knows—galloping through her mind. Was that what being a princess was like? Not to study and observe and memorize, but to simply know? That phrase was still in her thoughts as she sank into sleep. When she woke, the world remained in darkness.