My Dearest Dusk

by CrackedInkWell

Prologue

“Philharmonic!” the Sun Prince shouted as the phoenix flew out of his room with a scroll in his beak. “You come back here!”

The bird, on the other hoof, ignored his master as he flew down the hallways with the alicorn in pursuit. Looking behind, the fire avian saw Solaris also taking flight, but since his master just woke up and had barely lifted the sun, he hadn’t had much time to get ready for the day.

“Duck!” he heard one of the servants shout as they zipped by. As they rounded the corner, Philharmonic saw some of the palace staff trying to get out of their way.

“Give me back that letter!”

Ignoring the voice, Philharmonic kept flapping his wings as fast as he could. After all, to the bird, what he was doing was justice for his master being a little too inconsiderate this morning. Solaris knew perfectly well that he hated being woken up with sunlight mercilessly illuminating his cage, and that he should have put the cover on before he went to bed! But no! He had to wake him at the crack of dawn so that he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep.

“Come back!”

Besides, that letter was out in the open since last night, the one of many that his Master had taken up in these past several years. Whatever was written on this scroll must be either important or embarrassing. Hopefully, the latter, considering where he was going.

“Philharmonic!” The bird felt something pulling on his tail feathers and knew what it was; Solaris was trying to slow him down. Using his wings to try to flap faster, he clenched his jaw as he felt some of the feathers being pulled. The pain grew until a few of them ripped off, sending him hurtling down the hall and into the Castle’s library.

“Oh no!” the white stallion quickly flew into the library, briefly scanning where his pet had gone to. He heard a “click,” and turned to the tapestry of the wise Star Swirled the Sorcerous. To his horror, the fabric moved.

Illuminating his horn, he moved the tapestry aside to find the door to the vault open, and the firebird descending the dark, stone steps.

“Phili! Stop!” Solaris cried out as he galloped down the stars, now having a good idea where his pet was headed towards. “What are you doing!?”

By the time he got to the bottom of the steps, he heard something heavy fall to the floor. He quickly located the source of the noise. A heavy padlock, once attached to the door, lay melted on the ground beside the glowing orange-and-red phoenix that seemed to make the room hotter. With the lockout of the way, the phoenix burst through the door and into one of the special vaults.

Quickly making his way into the chamber, the Prince of the Sun found his pet in the heart of the room. This particular vault housed hundreds of scrolls; each shelved by month and organized by year. Solaris’s pet hovered in the center with his wings aglow, he quickly realized what the Phoenix was about to do.

“Philharmonic, listen to me,” the Prince said with caution. “Whatever reason you’re doing this, I’m begging you, don’t do it. Don’t send any of these. Dusk isn’t ready to read any of them yet. I… I know you’re a bit grumpy from waking up this morning, but is that any reason to do any of this?”

“Squawk!” his pet replied in an annoyed tone.

“Look, I am sorry about not putting that cover on last night,” Solaris said as he took a few steps forward. “I promise that it won’t happen again.”

“Bo-awlk!”

“That was only one time, how was I supposed to know that you ate too much ghost peppers all those years ago?”

His pet shook his head in anger, and let out a series of high pitched squawks and chirps in rapid succession.

“Calm down Phili. You can be angry at me all you want, just not in here.”

Reaching the boiling point of the firebird’s rage, his wings were ablaze and flew around the room, causing the scrolls to suddenly caught fire.

“NO!” Solaris screamed as he saw the scrolls quickly combusted and the smoke turned green, heading up the stairs and straight to Ponyvillie. He tried to save as many scrolls as he could before they too were sent, but the fire was spreading rapidly, and his Phoenix set fire to even more scrolls to be sent through a certain dragoness.

It became evident for the Prince that he was fighting against a losing battle against the Firebird. All those letters were suddenly flying away to the one pony in the world that he didn’t want him to read.

Panicking, the first thing that came to his mind was to fly to Ponyville as quickly as possible. Galloping up the tight staircase and bursting through the priceless tapestry, Solaris dashed out of the nearest window and headed his way towards the town near the Everfree Forest.

_*_

“There we go,” the little dragoness sighed as the last of the crepes were put on a plate. Spines looked out of the open window at the sunrise that was now soaking the kitchen in its light. Waking up to the late spring sun was her favorite time of the year. It was just warm enough to where she could open the window, looking out at the sun while the grass and trees still had their morning dew.

Even as she put the crepes on a tray along with the jams, peanut butter, a small bowl of powder sugar, and a glass of cranberry juice, she still took a moment in the morning stillness to appreciate it before tackling whatever the day had planned for her and Dusk.

“Okay,” she told herself, “out the door, go left, and down four doors. Enter the fifth, up the stairs to go right, keep walking until you get past the living room, and across from it is Dusk’s room.”

While wishing that this new home wasn’t so complicated, she made her way through the crystallized palace. Her steps echoed in a nearly empty home – that was until she got as far as the staircase that she burped out a letter. Putting down the tray, she was about to go after the scroll that was falling down the stairs until she felt her stomach ache.

Clenching her scaly belly, feeling as if she just got kicked in the stomach, she could quickly guess that something big was coming. The spines tried to relax as she let out whatever was coming out of her.

The next thing she knew, she gave the loudest burp she’d ever had. All she could see was her green fire and what seemed like hundreds of scrolls falling down the stairs. Letters came out in waves until she was able to catch her breath before coughing.

“Spines,” she heard Dusk’s voice called out to her. “Are you alright?”

The dragoness was about to say something, only to cough again. She could hear hoofsteps coming towards her.

“What the…” she turned to find the lilac alicorn coming down the stairs. “You okay there?”

“Give me a sec,” Spines said in a hoarse voice. “Solaris that was way too much.”

Dusk Shine looked at the scrolls that had fallen and piled up at the bottom of the stairs. “What in the hay is all this?”

“How should I know? I’ve never had this many letters come through in one go before.”

The alicorn took one of the letters one of the scrolls and opened it up, “It looks like one of Solaris’s letters. But why would he send all of these?”

“I wish he’d warned me first,” Spines commented. “That really took a lot out of me.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Dusk asked, turning to his faithful assistant.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, picking up the tray. “I was gonna bring ya this.”

“Oh, thanks Spines,” he told her as he sat down on the steps, putting the tray between them. “Crepes this morning?”

“Well, why not?” Spines shrugged, “I wanted to do something different and I found the recipe from Elusive. Turns out, making these things was much easier than I thought.” She, like Dusk, started to grab their plates and a few of the crepes to put in the fillings they had wanted. “So, what’s the plan today?”

Dusk looked back to the mess of messages on the floor, “For one thing, I don’t think I’ll get through reading all of this now. I promised Butterscotch that I would be over for brunch today.”

“Wait,” the dragoness suddenly realized something, “Are you sure it was brunch?”

“Huh?”

“O-Oh… That’s right I… I think I forgot,” she said, her cheeks turning pink.

“Forgot what?”

“Today’s a Thursday, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, and?”

“Oh crud, now I remember! You’re supposed to be over for breakfast, not brunch!”

“What?!” Dusk exclaimed, “What time is it?”

“It’s still early,” Spines pointed out, “If you go now, you’ll be over on time.”

“Thanks, Spines,” he said as he started to fly out the front door, but not without taking a few crepes with him.

“So what do I do with all this?” she called to him.

“Organize them in the library, I’ll read them later tonight.” And with that, Prince Dusk Shine opened and closed the door behind him, leaving the dragoness behind.

“Figures,” Spines sighed, taking a rolled up crepe in one claw and a letter in another. She unrolled the letter and started to read. “Guess I should take a look what Solaris wants this time.” But as she kept reading, she dropped her breakfast. “What the…”

_*_

Meanwhile, Solaris was still flying solo as fast as his large wings could carry him. In his mind, the Prince was still in a panic. ‘Maybe he hasn’t read any of them. Perhaps Spines wasn’t in the same room when all those letters were sent. The poor girl, she probably received some stomach pains after that.

‘Maybe Dusk isn’t at his castle at all; he’s probably sleeping at one of his friends’ homes. If that were the case, I could get Spines and have her hoof over the letters. And if she’s read any, I’ll just swear her into secrecy.’

Solaris flew under a cloud when another thought struck him. ‘But what if Dusk has read them already? What if he’s horrified? Would he think I’ve just betrayed his trust in me? Come on Solaris, keep it together! This is Dusk Shine for crying out loud! You’ve sent him on dangerous missions without question before. Besides, he and his friends had to deal with Eris, so this may not be the first weird thing he’s had to deal with.’

Feeling exhausted for a moment, he let his wings glide through the air, ‘Okay, all you need to do is to get close enough range to teleport to his castle. After all, you still need some of your magic today. Just a few more miles until then, and hope that Dusk hasn’t read them yet… I certainly hope he hasn’t read them now.’

_*_

“Wow, that much?” Butterscotch asked in concern.

Gulping some of the orange juice, Dusk nodded, “Uh-huh. It happened on the staircase. I found her clenching her stomach with all those scrolls tumbling down the stairs.”

“Has that ever happened before?” the yellow Pegasus asked, adding, “If you don’t mind of me asking that is.”

“Actually, the only time that Solaris had sent multiple letters was when Eris got out the first time. But I think he did that by sending one letter at a time. Here, however, it was hundreds at once! What would he send all of that for?”

“You mean you haven’t taken a look at what they were?”

Dusk shook his head, “I was about to until Spines reminded what day it was and I scheduled to have breakfast with you.”

“Oh,” Butterscotch took a bite of his toast, “Do you think all of those letters might be important?”

“Probably, but the quantity has really boggled me. How does he expect me to read all of that anyway?”

“Maybe you should have Spines send him a letter,” Dusk’s friend suggested. “After all, perhaps there must have been a mistake. And if it isn’t, well, maybe ask him when he expects you to read all of them.”

“Yeah, I should do that by the time I get home,” the Prince of Friendship agreed while scooping up the last remaining eggs on his plate. “A change in subject, how’s it been going with you this morning?”

“Oh, fine as usual,” Butterscotch said, finishing his piece of toast. “I’ve made sure everyone was fed before you arrived. Angela is still asleep, probably didn’t go to bed when I told her to. Sometimes I wonder what that bunny is doing when my back is turned.

“Other than that, I made a bit of an appointment with the raccoons after breakfast. I promised to help them sort out a dispute between them and the woodpeckers.”

“I see,” Dusk said, after swallowing his eggs.

“Out of curiosity,” his friend spoke up, “Did you by chance finish reading my copy of the history of Yakyakistan I’ve given you?”

“Oh! I forgot,” the alicorn facehoofed, “Don’t worry, I’m near to the end of it anyway. I’ll tell you what, after breakfast, I’ll go home to finish reading it, and once I’m done I’ll send it back to you.”

“Okay,” the Pegasus said softly, “You can always take your time; I don’t need it at the moment.”

Comments

[Lord Solaris]

i liked it it was good