The remainder of the day passed without incident, as did the night and at least the first part of the following day. Carrot Top arrived with her cart early in the morning, before any of the Apple clan showed up, as did the other produce sellers of Ponyville that Trixie had, by hook and crook, been able to drag into her scheme. None of them seemed particularly confident, but Trixie managed to re-assure all of them in various ways – mostly, helped out by random ponies passing by, who seemed confused as to what was happening but, when Trixie explained her intentions, at least put on a show of being happy to have more than just apples to eat tonight.
The arrival of the Apple clan’s veritable armada of stalls, at around three o’clock, was where the problems began, although for the rest of her days Trixie would treasure her memory of the look on Applejack’s face.
“What in tarnatation am Ah lookin’ at here?” the orange earth pony demanded as she stomped up to Trixie’s home.
Trixie paused a moment as she chewed thoughtfully, looking to the ensemble she had in her telekinetic grasp. “Well,” she said, “first I started with a few carrots, which I diced up and mixed with butter, or I meant to anyway but I was out, but there was still some cheese, and what they hay, it’s all dairy anyway, right? So then – ”
If looks could have killed, then Applejack’s glare would have depopulated the entire region.
“Oh, you mean the food stalls,” Trixie interrupted herself, glancing behind her. “Well, I thought over our conversation from a few days ago, and I thought to myself, hey, I’ve known Princess Luna for a decade now, and I know what she likes to eat and what she doesn’t, and I know for a fact that if she doesn’t have anything but apples to look forward to, she’ll probably go crazy and let Discord loose or something.”
Applejack’s glare managed to grow deadly enough to wipe out all of Equestria and a good portion of the surrounding nations as well. “Ah thought we were on the same page here,” she intoned. “Ah thought y’all understood just how much mah family depends upon the sales from tonight.”
Trixie nodded. “Yeah, but then I thought how much they,” Trixie jerked a hook behind her, at the vendors who were trying their hardest to look any direction but towards Applejack, “need the bits as well.”
“But they weren’t expectin’ none!” Applejack exclaimed. “They get by just fine every year all the same! This ain’t nothin’ but tramplin’ all over centuries of Ponyville tradition – ”
Trixie pulled out one of her most unpleasant smirks. “Applejack,” she intoned, “are you worried that you can’t compete?”
The orange pony backed up several steps as though Trixie had struck her. “What?” she demanded. “Mah apples, mah family’s apples, are the best in Equestria! Mah family’s recipies are the best!”
“But do we really know that?” Trixie asked, as she tapped her two front hooves together. “Every year you get the three biggest holidays all to yourselves. Must be comfortable up on that throne you’ve built from apple cores. Must be a scary thought of having to actually fight for your business – ”
Applejack’s glare returned with a force that could have knocked the sun and moon from orbit. “Ah think you may want to stop talkin’ now,” she said – ordered – in a low voice. Trixie obeyed, but her grin was loquacious to a fault. After a few moments of regarding it, Applejack trotted up to Trixie, her face getting very, very close to the unicorn’s own. “Ah don’t know what y’all are playin’ at,” she said, then looked past Trixie, at the other farmers. “Any of y’all! But it looks like you want a fight. And Luna as my witness Ah’m willin’ to oblige.”
“Excellent,” Trixie responded, stepping back a few paces, but only so that she could wave her hooves in a shooing manner. “Now trot off, ‘cause I have a lot of – ”
“I am going to murder you!” an almost impossibly loud voice shouted from straight above, reaching and maybe even surpassing volumes that Trixie had previously thought only Princess Luna capable of. Trixie and Applejack both looked up to find a small, jet-black cloud hovering directly overhead, cackling with barely contained lightning. Standing atop it, panting heavily with wings spread wide in threat, was a jasmine-coated pegasus.
Raindrops leapt from her cloud, landing with a thud next to Applejack. She briefly turned to look at the earth pony. “Hi,” she said.
“Howdy,” Applejack returned, tipping her hat.
“You might want to stand back.”
Applejack glanced at the miniature thundercloud overhead. “Ah reckon Ah might do just that,” she said, cantering away and to her clan. She kept an eye over her shoulder, however – locked on Trixie. The mare had the distinct sense that Applejack was trying to preserve the look currently plastered on Trixie’s face so that she could treasure it for the rest of her days.
Raindrops’ attention was turned once more to Trixie, and she took a single step forward, though with enough force to actually crack one of the cobbled stones beneath her hooves. Trixie blinked at that. She had expecting Raindrops to be angry. She had not been expecting a pony who could break stone with her hooves – her bare hooves, as it seemed that Raindrops, like most pegasi, went without shoes.
“Weather-for-hire ponies.” Raindrops said, her voice now frighteningly calm. “I got up and brushed my mane and went to work this morning and I found a dozen of those reprobates swarming my weather patrol station!”
“It’s not really your – ”
“Don’t care!” Raindrops exclaimed, taking another step forward. “Now as it turns out I happened to recognize one of them. Oh yes. I recognized him – and he’s their leader, mind, of that group of…of…” words failed her for a moment before she could resume. “He was kicked out of flight school. Not flunked out. Not dropped out. Kicked out. Do you know why, Trixie? Ask me why he was.” Trixie didn’t. Raindrops once again stamped a hoof and broke stone beneath her. “Ask me why, Trixie!”
“Why?” the unicorn asked, in a small voice.
“It doesn’t matter why! Pegasi? We’re pretty rowdy as yearlings and in Cloudsdale that’s always taken into account so the kinds of things that would get somepony expelled from school down here would probably just get you a detention in Cloudsdale. So for him to do something so bad it got him kicked out? It’s a miracle he has any job at all, and it’s a sin that his job is leading a weather-for-hire team! So, Trixie, I’m going to murder you. Then I’m going to murder him. And I am going to enjoy it.”
“I didn’t know!” Trixie objected. She gathered a modicum of courage, stepping forward. “You’re the one who told me ‘no promises’ about that storm!”
Raindrops didn’t budge an inch. “So you don’t trust us to do our jobs? You think this is the first major storm to roll out of the Everfree? The first time we’ve had to deal with something like this? But no, you have to go and hire a bunch of flight school flunkies – ”
“He has the job,” Trixie interrupted, “he came highly recommended, so whatever happened in flight school it clearly didn’t have anything to do with his weather abilities, and I spent just about my entire monthly stipend on him and his team!” She leaned forward once more. “You’re the one who complained about missing your weather manager, I was just trying to help!”
Raindrops’ teeth ground together with such force that Trixie was surprised they didn’t crack. “One full day,” Trixie said, pressing what little ground she had gained. “Just one day and one night. That’s all they’re hired for. Just to keep the storm from rolling into Ponyville and ruining everything. After that they’re gone.”
The jasmine-coated pegasus leaned forward, right up to Trixie’s ear. “Sleep with an eye open,” she intoned, before beating her wings, ascending slowly to her thundercloud and carting it off. Trixie watched her go, then let out a huge sigh of relief. From somewhere near the town hall, she heard chuckling that somehow managed to be accented with a country drawl, but chose to ignore it as she turned back to her home. Carrot Top and the other ponies were staring at her.
“What?” she demanded, stomping down the path that lead from the street to her front door. “You have work to do! Get to it!” The last was punctuated by Trixie opening her door, stepping inside, and giving as hard a slam as she could manage.
---
Despite being the culmination of two straight days of standing on the surface of the sun, the beginning of the twilight, about two hours later, was almost a relief. By now, the stalls had been set up, and several unicorns were working in concert surrounding the town center to create a bubble of warm air for the multitude of ponies that were even now making their way there. More than a few were surprised by the additional stalls from Carrot Top and the rest – but more than a few were happy to have more than just apples to eat, though the Trust itself was cleaning up nicely regardless. As the sun began to approach the horizon, the pre-festival spirit was fairly high for most ponies. In addition to the food stalls, there were games of chance and skill, like hoof-throwing balls at a target or bobbing for apples (the latter, surprisingly, having been set up by somepony not related to the Apple clan); there were several open areas where vinyl records were playing music for dancing.
Trixie was paying attention to none of it. Earlier in the day, she had finally gotten around to seeing the mayor of Ponyville, formally introducing herself, presenting her credentials, engaging in light and friendly banter that served as a pleasant temporary escape from the last few days, but most importantly of all, rushing through approval for a last-minute performance to be added to the Longest Night’s retinue. Given that the music that was supposed to have been provided by Fluttershy was now largely absent and had to be provided by phonographs, it wasn’t hard to arrange an hour-and-a-half break from the sometimes dubious-quality records and instead put Trixie’s scheme into full motion.
That was for after Luna arrived, however. Right now, Trixie was standing in the crowd of hundreds of ponies inside the town hall – warmer than outside was, even with unicorn magic, albeit stuffier. Through a window, she could see a darkening sky, red and purple and not a cloud in the sky. Ringing the auditorium were Apple clan stands, but more than a few ponies were carrying foodstuffs acquired from outside, from Carrot Top and the others as well. The decorations, despite Lyra’s warnings, looked just fine – not as fine as before, but they had been adapted to take the arts-and-crafts projects of the school foals into account, Rarity apparently deciding to spread them around throughout the auditorium to turn the place into almost an art gallery. And Lyra was with her mare-friend BonBon, dressed in a fine white-and-gold gown and with lyre slung over her back, ready to play. Everything had worked out.
Trixie was alone.
This was a feat in and of itself, because she was, properly speaking, never more than six inches away from anypony. But it was as simple as that: she was alone, despite being in the middle of a crowd. She wasn’t talking to anypony, she wasn’t outside celebrating, she wasn’t doing anything more than just sitting near the middle of the auditorium, next to a dark blue pegasus mare who was chatting amicably with a gray-coated pegasus stallion – he looked like an off-duty royal guard – and doing little more than just counting down the minutes until Luna arrived and wondering how she had managed to, in a mere two days, get everything right and yet screw everything up at the same time.
Trixie let out a long sigh. Whatever. This was the course of her life now, and nothing would change it.
“Fillies and gentlecolts!” A voice exclaimed. Trixie’s reverie was interrupted at the sound, and she saw that the mayor – an older earth pony with a beige coat – had made her way to the center of the stage and was trying to get everypony’s attention. At great length, she mostly succeeded, though a few quiet conversations continued, including the unicorn and stallion sitting next to Trixie.
“Fillies and gentlecolts,” the mayor repeated, “I hope you’re all having a good time so far. I hope you slept in this morning as well, because all the fun and games have only barely begun! The shortest day of the year is drawing to a close, and it is now time to truly begin celebrating the Longest Night!”
There were cheers and hoof-stomps at that, but they were relatively subdued. Everypony knew, after all, what was coming next, and they wanted to get to it as quickly as possible. “Now then,” the mayor continued, turning slightly to face the curtains that obscured most of the stage. “As mayor of Ponyville, it is my greatest pleasure to officially introduce and welcome our guest of honor. Our ruler, our savior and our protector. The Shepherd of the Moon, the Caretaker of the Sun, the Mistress of the Star Beasts, the Sovereign of the Three Tribes, the Ruler of the Land of Equestria…Her Royal Majesty, Princess Luna Equestris!”
The curtains pulled back, revealing…nothing.
Technically untrue – there was some more stage, a wall, and another curtain that hid the backstage area. But as for the alicorn herself? Totally absent. Some ponies gasped in horror. Some ponies sputtered in confusion. Some ponies simply stood stock still, completely dumbstruck.
But the pegasus pony standing next to Trixie had continued her low conversation as if nothing was wrong – a surprising oversight on her part and one which utterly ruined her disguise. Trixie let out a long, low sigh, reached over, and poked the pony next to her. The pegasus turned in temporary confusion, before her eyes widened.
“Oh,” she said softly, beating her wings a few times and taking to the air, soaring over to the stage and landing there. She turned to the mayor. “My deepest apologies, mayor,” she said, then turned to the confused Ponyvillians, “and to you all. This festival is delightfully distracting. Give me just a moment to collect myself…”
There was a midnight-hued flash and a pop from somewhere in the crowd, and quite suddenly, standing next to the pegasus was her unicorn doppelgänger – identical in every way except for the lack of wings and the presence of the horn. Following that, an earth pony, once more identical to the other two ponies, simply leapt on stage from where she had been standing in the crowd – more than a dozen feet away. The earth pony landed evenly and smoothly despite the impossible distance of the dead-start jump, and as soon as the three were together, each began to glow with soft, blue light.
The pegasus and the unicorn moved first, turning to each other and simply stepping into one another, features becoming indistinct for several long moments before coming together once more, revealing that they had become as one, and also changed in appearance slightly – a longer snout, mane and tail length longer, though still light blue, and a somewhat more slender, delicate frame. The pony that had resulted had both wings and a horn.
She didn’t remain still for long, turning instead to the earth pony, who also stepped into the other pony. Once more, they faded from clarity for a moment – but the single resultant pony was markedly different, taller than most stallions, frame still slender but no longer delicate in appearance, instead more like that of a trained runner, with tight, well-worked muscles under her midnight blue coat. Her mane and tail were no longer hair at all, but rather a glowing, aura of midnight blue, studded with stars and rippling as though water catching a clear night sky. The pony’s flank glowed, and her star cutie mark was replaced by a nebulous black cloud, but one that was overlaid by the presence of a white, crescent moon. Following this, the pony’s hooves, chest, and the tip of her head behind her horn glowed momentarily, and in a moment she was clad in the royal regalia of blue shoes, a deep blue chest plate with a crescent moon emblazoned on its fore, and a black, three-pointed crown.
The Ponyvillians stared in awed silence. Trixie managed to suppress a loud groan of exasperation as the alicorn who stood on the stage spread her wings wide. “My little ponies,” she said, her voice soft, yet firm, perfectly regal yet still carrying a slight hint of embarrassment over her earlier distraction – albeit one that she had managed to turn into an impressive display of her magical power. “Your Princess of the Night has arrived.”
The applause was just shy of instantaneous. Princess Luna beamed at it, offering her best royal smile. After a moment, she raised a hoof for silence, tucking her wings against her body once more.
“This imminent night carries deep meaning,” she said. “It is a time of endings, and a time of beginnings. Since the height of summer, the days have been growing shorter and colder, the world withering as the leaves died and had to be taken from the trees. The last harvest was taken in as the pegasi began the three months of winter. The first snowfall sealed the fields from the light of the sun and moon, and the cold hardened the ground and turned the water into ice. The old year is dying, and tonight it shall finally pass on, consigned to the realm of memory.
“But take heart, my little ponies. Though this year passes, a new one is to begin tonight. The days shall grow longer and warmer, the snow shall melt, the ground will soften, and the earth shall once more become receptive to your care, stronger and better for having had the winter time to rest. Tonight the old year dies, but we do not grieve for it, for its passing makes way for the new year, and the endless possibilities that year contains.” She smiled. “I walked amongst you tonight, disguising myself as pegasus and as unicorn and as earth pony. I spoke with many of you, danced with a few of you, shared food and drink and laughter. And from all of this, my little ponies, from your character and your actions, I have reached a decision about this nascent, incoming new year: it shall be a good one.”
The collected ponies looked amongst each other, smiling. More than a few were blushing furiously, likely being ponies that Luna had interacted with while in disguise and even now mortified at the things they may have done or said – but happy, nonetheless, for Luna, the Princess, the Shepherd of the Moon and the Caretaker of the Sun, had just blessed the new year due to their actions.
Luna’s smile never faltered. “Now then,” she said, turning to look at a mint green unicorn, wearing a white-and-gold dress and who was holding a lyre in her magical grip, “I believe a little music is in order for what comes next.”
Lyra stared blankly for a moment, before realizing what Luna was asking. She nodded as professionally as she could, before settling down into a position that looked back-breakingly uncomfortable to most ponies, hooves at the ready. At a nod from Luna, she began to pluck her lyre, horn glowing to amplify the sound – and to provide backup music despite the lack of a band. To Trixie’s surprise, the sound that came out wasn’t the national anthem at all, but was instead something far simpler in arrangement.
Luna nodded approvingly, before turning back to the ponies. “Close your eyes,” she said, as her horn glowed and midnight energy washed from it like a wave over them. The ponies obeyed, and instantly they were no longer in the auditorium – they were outside, high above Ponyville, standing in the sky as Luna spread her wings wide. Behind her, to the west, the sun slipped down beyond the horizon, the last of its light disappearing, and for a brief moment everything was utterly black.
Then in the east, the first sliver of silver light appeared on the horizon. The sliver widened, becoming a beam, then a wide ray, before finally a silver, full sphere began to rise from the horizon, bathing the entire countryside in soft light. Everypony gasped at the sight, though any further reactions were cut short as Luna leapt, appearing atop the rising moon. Despite the distance, everypony could see her clearly as she stood there, utterly still as she guided the moon fully over the eastern horizon, before leaping again – but this time, not alone. From behind the moon, following her, came a million points of light, following her like a wave as her mane and tail flared with magic along with her horn. Luna began dancing amongst the sky – hopping, skipping, twirling and spinning, a deep, primal dance as the stars chased her across the sky. She would wave her hoof and string up dozens at a time, swing her mane and imprint them in the patterns of the familair constellations. The stars would move of their own accord as well, twirling around her body as though trying to embrace her, and sometimes she would let them, holding them all close before releasing them against the sky one more.
Nopony knew exactly how long they watched Luna dance. Eventually, the stars following her began to thin out, until finally only one was left. This one, she placed firmly above all the rest in the north, nuzzling it before drifting away, back to the awestruck ponies. As she landed, the ponies found the world fading back to normal – they were once again in the auditorium just as Lyra brought the musical accompaniment of Luna’s moonrise and star dance to a close.
Silence prevailed for several long moments, before Luna bowed, wings spread wide. That set off the Ponyvillians, and it was surprising that the entire town hall didn’t come crashing down from the force of their hoof-stomps. Luna smiled widely.
Trixie, meanwhile, let out that exasperated groan she’d been holding back, since it wouldn’t be heard over the sound of the ponies anyway.
“Great,” she said in a low voice as she turned around. “That’s the act I have to follow…”