A Child Behind a Telescope
Twinkleshine had barely started kindergarten when she first met the universe. Like most first meetings, it had been awkward, not under the best of circumstances, and a single instant that ignited a lifelong passion, which would inevitably end with late nights and concerned parents.
But that hadn’t happened yet. In fact, they were the ones who’d coaxed her gently out of the house, into a garden that was dark, cold, and miserable. She’d cried because she was supposed to be comfy in bed. She hadn’t understood why they’d gone on and on about stars and things, or why they’d waved binoculars about and stared upwards.
True, she liked the night sky. It wasn’t bright or hot like the sun. It was kinder on the eyes, and in later years did wonders for her skin, or at least she believed it did, which presumably was just as good.
They’d given her the binoculars and pointed. Moaning, she’d put them on and looked.
And she saw her first planet.
What had been yet another dot in the sky – one star among stars – became a face. One storm-spot stared back at her like the eye of a creature caught going about its natural business by a wildlife watcher. Bands of colour crossed the face and tinier dots hovered nearby. Moons, she learned later: at the time she’d thought they were babies.
Her parents had gone on and on, but she was no longer listening. She saw a new world, and the new world saw her. She barely noticed the cold, though she caught a cold the next morning.
So it began.
When she was old enough to learn her ABC’s, she got a book from her parents’ shelves. Sadly, they only had the one space encyclopaedia, and she couldn’t understand half the words, but here, she was sure, was a code, behind which hid the secret to a wonderland high in the sky.
She learned that telescopes were better than binoculars, and pestered her parents for one. She wanted to set it up right there and then, on the night after her birthday, but she fumbled with the stand and had to get Mom and Dad to do it for her. Finding something to look at took far too long. So long that it hurt.
For the first time in her life, Twinkleshine jutted her jaw. A tiny jaw, not used to jutting, and against a big world, so used to jutting jaws it probably kept catalogues.
The struggle began, night after night, but she could command the telescope now and the struggle ended when the planets became her friends. Jovia. Mercuria. Saturnalia with her cute “hat”, later revealed to be planetary rings. The book became her third parent, telling her of stranger things beyond, just out of reach of her simple telescope. Come the next night, she tried looking at a random star. It just looked like a smudge no matter how much she focused.
Was the book lying?
No. Never.
Next day, the book’s following page revealed the answer. She pestered her parents for a telescope with greater magnificent-cation, and got one once she’d figured out how to pronounce "magnification".
So she'd tried it, and what had she found? One star became many stars, all clustered together: seven sisters!
The idea and the sight made her giggle, as she stood out on yet another night and ignored her parents calling her in. Eventually, they picked her telescope up and brought it in, forcing her to follow. They chuckled. They weren’t bad ponies. Just concerned, was all.
But there were more secrets in the book. They had a refractor telescope, it said. Too many colours were distorting the images she was seeing. Indeed, she had noticed a strange tinge around the images. Blue on one side, yellow on the other.
Why?
She turned the page, and of course the book had the answer: light beams, crisscrossing through the focusing lens. Because it was hard to align them perfectly.
Perfectly.
Ha! Twinkleshine demanded perfection.
She pestered her parents, but by then she was well into the preliminary studies of unicornhood, and they were shaking their heads sadly. So she saved the allowance money they gave her, forgoing chocolates and dresses and, for one strange year when they became popular, pogs.
When she was old enough to read classics, she bought more astronomy books to keep her company, and they invaded her bookshelf. Then one day, she walked into a special shop she found in the high street of Canterlot and, facing a confused shopkeeper, slapped the money on the counter and pointed at what she wanted. She hadn’t gotten the hang of talking to strangers yet.
The reflector telescope met her that night. She set the lot up and focused the mirrors inside with the tuning knobs outside. Sure enough, the blue and the yellow were gone, though she wasn’t quite used to looking down a scope sticking out of the side.
Next day, some weird unicorn said hello to her in class.
Now, Twinkleshine didn’t know how to deal with suddenly being helloed, but she dreaded the thought of being rude, so she waved back as though hoping not to get helloed again. For her troubles, she ended up with the filly sitting next to her in the canteen and talking non-stop about nothing interesting. Twinkleshine couldn’t stop her, not that she wanted to risk her reputation by trying.
Somehow in all that, her so-called new friend came home with her. Somehow, this so-called new friend found the telescope and talked even more about that. And somehow, horrifyingly, that night when Twinkleshine set up, she had to cut her stargazing in half and let her so-called new friend have a look too. That shut her up for a bit.
It was quite nice.
But Twinkleshine didn’t invite her again. Night time was her time alone.
When she was old enough to apply for Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, Twinkleshine learned about altazimuth mounting – what she had now – and the much slower but more refined equatorial mounting system. The book said it was better. Ergo, she bought one from the shop.
It was heavier. It had weights on it. It moved weirdly, as though not happy with the straight lines she tried to force on it. And it took ages to set up right; she had to keep finding the north star as a reference. But once she set it up that night… What a difference! Lines were replaced with smooth, curving angles – her new friends ascension and declination, or Sideways and Upsy, as she called them in her head.
Upsy was pretty straightforward – she just used degrees of angle – but Sideways was really weird. She could use degrees, of course, but she preferred to use arcseconds, arcminutes, archours; Twinkleshine started thinking of that dimension of space as time coming the other way. Made her feel like she was standing on a clock.
Within her chest, happiness bloomed in an unfamiliar garden.
And then was trampled on. Later, that weird unicorn kept asking after her telescope in class. Yet Twinkleshine's efforts to turn away or shut her out, if anything, made Twinkleshine feel ground into the dirt. That weird unicorn didn't even seem to notice.
Yes, she was annoying. On the other hoof –
No one else asked after her telescope. No one, not even her parents, who were starting to give her funny looks whenever they caught her reading the books or cleaning the lenses.
The flower grew back. Maybe it would help?
So, out of the blue, she invited her friend over. It was just a one-off, and so was the next night, and so was the next night, and so was the next night…
And she told her unicorn friend about her oldest friend the night sky, via her friendly challenger the ever-changing telescope.
From that moment on, the nights spent outside grew longer and longer. She wasn’t sure, after a few months, why or when this had happened exactly. Her weird unicorn friend always joined her.
Odder still, her parents no longer pestered her about staying up late. Oddest of all. Perhaps they’d just given up. She had stood her ground one of the nights when they began circling around the point, and nothing more was said from thereon out.
Her unicorn friend – Minute, or something – was someone to talk to.
And who talked back, Twinkleshine added hurriedly. Minute became a second Twinkleshine, and Twinkleshine saw on her friend’s beaming smile and wide eyes the moment of discovery: reborn, but this time seen from the outside.
They spent more and more nights out, for longer and longer. Even through Celestia's School, they invented and learned names for the stars. Twinkleshine wanted to tell Minute everything and didn’t dare try until, suddenly, she did. In that instant, Minute – Minuette, now – learned about Sideways and Upsy. The laughter had been gentle. Twinkleshine breathed again.
Both of them found the constellations, tracked the planets, saw the stars, and were dazzled by their first meteor shower: blazing rain. Minuette had tried taking a picture. Every night.
Sooner or later, both of them had to consider the upcoming exams. Afterwards, they'd have to pick specialist subjects. Minuette wanted to study a double course: History and Applied Chronology. Twinkleshine only had eyes for Astrophysics, the closest she could get to pure astronomy.
Her telescope gained greater aperture; she went to her shop and found the right Nag-ler eyepiece, wider and able to swallow more light. That changed everything; for the first time, the sky was well and truly lit up with stars hitherto undiscovered by her eye. She licked her lips and had to blink every time she peered into the eyepiece.
The haunting ghost of the exams claimed them. Papers, textbooks, dummy exams, lecture scribblings: Twinkleshine was ambushed and ambushed and ambushed over and over and over again. She was losing the night to her bedroom full of revision notes.
Each night, Minuette tried to see more and more. Each night, Twinkleshine took longer and longer before granting her a turn. She did schoolwork during her stargazing. She hunted stars – blue ones, red ones, yellow ones, giant ones, supergiants, dwarfs, twins, clusters, masses, maybe even whole galaxies, all with names, histories, spectral types, luminosities… as though looking for one to help her. Or save her.
Minuette tried to look, and got a bit pushy. She knocked the telescope over.
Twinkleshine snapped.
She said things. How her friend talked too much. How she got in the way. How she'd just knocked the telescope, and it'd take ages to set up, and anyway shouldn't she be studying for her subjects instead of going out socializing with all the other unicorns in their class? They couldn't smile their way through it or take pictures or talk as though that'd solve anything. No: proper, serious revision. That was important!
Silence for the rest of the night. Minuette went home early. Unusually, not smiling.
The next night, Minuette didn’t show up at all.
That night, her parents cheered up and talked to her more heartily at dinner. But she found her mind focusing less on stars and galaxies, masses and candelas, and more and more, however painfully, on Minuette.
In the end, Twinkleshine stopped going outside too. Besides, it was too cold, and too dark, and too miserable.
No, she belonged where it was safe.
It didn't last long. She was desperate.
One night before the final exams of the year, Twinkleshine got too hot and blinded by white paper, and went out into the night with her telescope. If she set it up in exactly the same way and looked for the exact same things as that night, then maybe, just maybe, she could do it again. Properly this time.
She couldn’t focus on much, though. Just the ever-familiar planets and a couple of bright white giants.
Under the red glow of her filtered torch – red light was essential to stop her burning her eyes in the dark with anything else – she pored over her star charts.
Found nothing.
Alas, the universe didn’t talk. She wished it would talk. Say something to keep her calm and steady, so she didn’t stammer so much trying to tell it she existed. There were no obligations. There was just… there-ness. The universe had grander plans than the cares of one silly little filly with a tube full of mirrors.
She went in early. For once, her parents didn’t smile or say anything over dinner. Small mercies.
Trying to distract herself, she ferreted through some old Hearth's Warming lists. One of the things listed was a laser.
Of course: she'd wanted a laser to point at the sky. A proper finder's laser, not just the finder’s scope she’d used when the telescope itself was too focused and narrow to navigate with. But lasers were expensive. Her weekly allowances were over by now. Not that her parents had said anything. It was what they didn’t say that told her all she needed to know. And what clothes they couldn’t afford. And how they looked against the backdrop of Canterlot.
Vaguely, she wondered what Minuette's parents were like. She'd never met them. She'd never gone round.
She didn't sleep that night. She didn't deserve to, and her filly heart knew it.
Exam day.
The revenge of the tutors.
The day when those who didn’t know were tortured by those who didn’t care.
Her mane was frazzled. Her mind fell to pieces. She pressed the pencil down so hard she left grooves on the desk, and the lead snapped and she had to put her hoof up for a replacement.
No one had talked to her after the test, not even those few unicorns she knew from the other departments. Lyra, or whatever her name was. Lemon… something or other… and the other one, what’s-her-face…
She managed to shuffle her way home, and had locked herself in her room, which suddenly wasn’t warm enough, or bright enough, to burn away the misery.
She wanted to go out that night, but knew she'd get no comfort. Perhaps it was the laser she wanted; at least that was what she tried telling herself. Or perhaps what she really wanted, most of all, was a magic telescope. One of those ones that found the stars for her. That even took pictures for her.
Pictures…
Sighing, she got up and traipsed out of the house. No point denying anything. What had she got to lose by now?
Minuette’s house was smaller than hers. Twinkleshine didn't knock for a good few minutes. Instead, she gawped at how Minuette had never mentioned anything like this to her in all the time they'd spent together.
But knock she did. Once. Rehearsing her apology over and over.
When Minuette opened the front door, it turned out to be dusty beyond the threshold. There were even cobwebs in the corners of the hall.
This was nothing compared to Minuette herself, though. Her mane was a mass of spikes. Her face had bags under the eyes – no, a pair of camper’s backpacks.
Minuette invited her in before Twinkleshine could even say "sorry". A phantom smile briefly faded across her muzzle. No one else was home. They simply let her get on with it.
Papers carpeted the floor, and Twinkleshine had to tiptoe through the lot.
They had orange juice. In silence.
For several minutes. Not looking at each other.
Eventually, they talked. Slowly at first. Like strangers.
Then for longer. Like strangers who’d found a history to talk about.
Then they met each other all over again; Twinkleshine talked of space, Minuette of time.
Finally, without any explicit signs or sayings, the last few months hadn’t happened. Sorrow and forgiveness weren't there one moment, and then had always been there the next. What had looked like two stars drifting apart was, in fact, a true binary system, merely curling along their natural orbits back towards each other. It was just a matter of where the telescope was pointing. A matter of perspective.
That night, Twinkleshine introduced Minuette to the planet with the babies. Minuette, as usual, tried taking a picture.
They reconnected with Sideways and Upsy – ascension and declination, Twinkleshine insisted, but Minuette called them Sideways and Upsy anyway.
What Minuette said stuck with her for the rest of her life. Or at least Twinkleshine felt it should do. In between adjusting the telescope along smooth curves, Twinkleshine said that the universe wasn’t kind, or gentle, or warm. She’d learned that now.
What Minuette said...
Well, Minuette pointed out that they, technically, were part of the universe. So logically, bits of the universe were kind, and gentle, and warm. It was just a matter of perspective.
Then she took a picture of the moon, because it was there and she had a camera and what was the question again?
Twinkleshine reflected that the night sky – cold, dark, and mostly empty though it seemed – was full of wonders. She’d always known. It was just nice to remember there were wonders closer to earth, in the warm and the light, where she could talk and laugh and hear someone talk and laugh back.
That night, after Twinkleshine added some more members to her star catalogue, Minuette introduced her to the history of science. They talked for ages, and in the end suggested going to a party together for Lyra, or someone-or-other. As Minuette said, there were always more friends to meet.
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Beautifully done, very sweet.
And to think, I just made her a celebrity gossip columnist.
Beautiful stuff, and entirely believable coming from a "friend" of Twilight Sparkle. Thank you for it.
8739375
Thank you. 'Twas a pleasure to write this one, so I'm very happy you enjoyed reading it.
8739389
8739446
Truth be told, I've had this character idea hanging around in my head for years (since 2013, to be precise). If all goes well, this won't be the last time we see Twinkleshine the Astronomer.
Ha, hadn't even thought of it from that angle. What I assumed was that Minuette and the others were meant to represent normal unicorns, especially compared with Twilight and Moondancer. That said, perhaps students at Celestia's School do tend towards the unsociable.
This is by far one of the greatest things I’ve ever read. There is no amount of applause and complements that can even come close to what this masterpiece deserves.
I shall leave it at that, for anything positive I say will be a massive understatement.
Lovely! Although my obsession with canon issues is spoiling it a bit for me by whispering in my ear: "Well, the night sky in Equestria is more of a cover lid that Luna slides into place each night, or possible a solid firmament painted black, and the stars are tiny and not much further than the Moon (which is in turn smaller and closer than our Moon)"
(It's at times like this I tell myself I can believe in any canon I wish, and yes too Twinkleshine can have a solar system and cosmos just as awe-inspiring as ours
)
As a hopeless astronomy nerd, this pushed all my buttons. Including a few I didn't know I had! Very much looking forwards to any new "Twinkleshine the Astronomer" stories!
8739701
High praise indeed! I'm honoured, and very pleased you found it so good. Thanks for giving me such a wonderful comment.
8739763
Yes, I know what you mean. Canonically, I don't think it's clear exactly what kind of universe the MLP:FiM cast are living in, and the idea that it's mostly a tight sphere with tiny stars on it makes a kind of sense, given how the world seems to be largely managed by ponydom.
Ultimately, though, I much prefer the idea that their universe is more like ours, and not only because I can just look up the details in an astronomy book!
8739766
Well, I've got a few ideas for Twinkleshine on my to-do list, though this is sadly quite a long enough list as it is, so my advice is to bring a book to read while you wait. Also, glad to hear it! An author likes to know they're pushing the audience's buttons (hopefully the right ones, of course).
I like it.
I feel like it's an important moral about obsession. How it can create and destroy.
This was a very nice story and I love your idea about Twinkleshine! I wonder if the other ideas you have about Tinkleshine the astronomer tell us something about her magic skills.
8740214
No amount of praise can come close to,what this work of art deserves.
8740214
I’m pretty sure Luna doesn’t actually manage the stars, only the moon, to my knowledge, it’s only the comics that have suggest she controls the stars (and the comics are completely non-canon at this point)
Plus, MLP does have astronauts and rockets, space related stuff, we’ve seen proof on screen... There have been globes, and drawings of rockets... And Rainbow Dash dressed as an astronaut in that one nightmare night episode...
So I’d say canon is actually on your side in this one.
(Comes back. Looks at the featured box).
(Does a double-take).
Oh. My. Gosh...
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time I've stayed so long in the featured box. This is the first time I've ended up at the top of the featured box. And stayed there. At the top of the featured box.
I am a writer, and I am at a loss for words.
Oh, what the heck. I'll say it anyway: WOOHOO! Thank you thank you thank you all for making this happen! I am so not worthy, but I'm so gonna enjoy this moment anyway! HahaHA! WOOOO!
8740289
That fits neatly into the framework I was using, but I think of it more as learning how to manage passions; it's not wrong that Twinkleshine loves the night sky so much, just that she has to learn how it relates and how she relates to other ponies like Minuette. I guess we're saying the same thing, though: it can indeed be constructive or destructive.
8740345
I did have a discussion once with Loganberry (on an unrelated thread) about how powerful unicorns are in Equestria. Twinkleshine certainly has to have some talent to end up in Celestia's School, but I generally suspect her power would mostly skew towards astronomy-related spells and be unremarkable in other respects. But yeah, I never really thought about it too deeply until you asked, so it's an open question.
8740607
Wow, I must admit I love this enthusiasm. It's not often I see someone express it - and I'm always welcome to constructive critical feedback, of course, as an aspiring writer - but it's simply delightful when someone like you finds so much joy in my work. Thanks again!
8741107
I was thinking mainly of the bit where "the stars will aid in her escape", though there isn't really any canonical proof that Luna was controlling them (heck, they're never really explained). I wonder - and this is more a devil's advocate sort of thing - if the space-themed material we've seen might be, in the pony world, more speculative than it is in ours? That said, we have seen blackboards with physics concepts, and other evidence of advanced astronomy, so I can't pretend mine is a strong counterargument. Point cheerfully taken!
Floored.
This was truly magnificent.
~Skeeter The Lurker
8741389
What a lovely comment! Thank you, and I'm pleased you enjoyed the fic so much.
This was fantastic and I'm truly happy I got to experience it.
Wonderful. This had a very nice feel to it.
8741311
Honestly, I didn't know that fanfiction could get this good. Infinite applause.
I’m impressed that this conveyed so much without any traditional dialogue. Surely someone will say that you’re breaking the “show, don’t tell” rule and making it work, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I think you’re still showing us Twinkleshine’s mind in a way that a conventional narrative format wouldn’t. This prose style—poetic yet impersonal—is uniquely fitting for a pony of Twinkleshine’s obsessions: deeply in love with the majesty of the universe, yet finding it difficult to connect with others.
Great stuff.
It's almost like you get to understand the hunger of a cutie mark, and what it really implies.
8741311
i enjoy Nfire's take in "Legacy", the story featuring Crusader the Mark 45 Bolo Tank, that Luna controls the night sky, specifically, she 'paints the sky' by magically altering the thaumophysical properties of Equus atmosphere and magnetosphere to filter and frequency shift and magnify and redirect incoming light from desired point sources to block or display stars and nebulae and planets and meteors and plasma ribbons into the visible spectrum and large enough to be seen by the naked eye into an arrangement of her choosing, essentially turning the planet's atmosphere and magnetosphere into a series of Clarke's Law tier telescopes.
story link
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/238582/legacy
8742452
35 you mean?
A friendship developed without a single word of dialogue. Beautiful.
8742333
I did wonder if it was a bit too telly at times, but you make a good point: the theme of impersonal poetry is apt, given Twinkleshine's interests. Although I admit this particular interpretation wasn't at the forefront of my mind when writing the fic, I do acknowledge how different aspects of writing can draw out or subtly illustrate a particular idea or theme. To use an analogy, it's how different lighting techniques or camera angles or ways of speaking can affect how we interpret the same scene in a movie. Sometimes reinforcing a point, sometimes subverting it.
8742410
Fair point in the broader context of Equestria's world (how obsessive does one have to be to get a cutie mark, and are there "stronger" cutie marks than others?), but I generally just regard cutie marks as badges ponies put on themselves. Intriguing in their own way, but secondary to more interesting psychological aspects.
That said, the cutie mark was a factor for this idea in the first place; I looked at Twinkleshine's and wondered what the three stars represented. Of all the ideas I had, the astronomy one came along early and struck a chord with me.
8742452
8742487
This concept of a Luna-controlled telescopic atmosphere is intriguing. I may have to steal it...
Nah, I kid, I kid. Seriously, though: That's an idea I haven't heard before, and I must admit it sounds creatively wonderful. You kind of get the best of both worlds that way; Luna's still an architect of the night, but you also get the grandeur of real-world cosmology if you want it. Not forgetting how it raises questions about Celestia's management in Luna's absence, if other unicorns are capable of the same distortion feats, and so on.
8741855
8742174
8742284
8742729
Sigh: I know I'll inevitably drift out of the featured box sooner or later. But with comments like these, I can say it was tremendously gratifying while it lasted. Thank you so much.
I put this off expecting a crackfic.
What a fool I was.
8743583
Is that in a good way, or a bad way?
8743658
It was a good fic, I enjoyed it so I'd say good.
That really cheered me up. Thank you.
Be careful, Twinkleshine. Never trust a galaxy younger than three billion years old.
8743944
8743995
You're both very welcome. Glad to hear from you.
8744601
8744835 It's those long galactic arms. They're like an octopus if you give them any encouragement. At least globular clusters keep mostly to themselves with the occasional pulsar strobing through the ether showing that the parties never stop there.
8744839
Eh, I think quite a few older galaxies tend to have spiral arms as well. What's wrong with the younger ones is that they're usually irregulars surrounded by lots of gas, which is just gross. And they haven't joined with a nice galaxy of their own and settled down into a local group yet. You can't trust any galaxy that committed to anarchy.
What a lovely piece.
Glad to have read it, and that you got a well-deserved spell in the Featured Box for it.
8744884
Thank you very much! It's been an absolute thrill to get featured; when I sent this on its merry way, I was barely expecting the story to receive even a tenth of the attention it ended up receiving.
As someone who's loved Astronomy since I was really little, I really like this story.
Astronomer Twinkleshine is good. I approve!
:)
8745181
Thanks!
Like I said before, I'm hoping we get to see more of stargazing Twinkleshine in the future. Not any time soon, sadly, but... well, we'll see.
>Seven Sisters
Woooo Pleiades!
8746993
Eeyup.
It's probably bad of me to hew too closely to real-world astronomy in details, but I couldn't and wouldn't resist.
Wow, this story is constantly popular on the homepage of this site, and I now see why since I read it. Amazing. 🙂
8749151
Glad you liked it, and thanks for the comment. The responses have been wonderful; I was surprised and delighted when the fic received so many. It's been great.
Now to go back into hibernation...
z z z z z z
8749498
Well, you deserve all the love on this story cause we all love it. And of course, seeing young Minuette on the cover picture, Minuette is one of my favorite MLP characters, so that makes me love this story as well. 😊
And haha yeah 😆
...space... and time? A pink and blue pony. Is this a Pokemon reference? Hmm... guess I’ll have to read and find out.
8749834
I don't know if she's my favourite exactly (limitations of being a background pony and whatnot), but after Amending Fences, Minuette certainly became a strong contender for that position. She's just so endearing and cheerful.
That's very sweet of you to say so. Thanks again!
8751527
Eenope, sorry. It's "space" and "time" in the more conventional sense, and the colours are just coincidental. Of course, I hope you enjoy the story either way.
8751830
Well, the main reason I like Minuette, is because she's a very unique character in many ways, and she has become even more unique in the community. But yeah, Minuette's great. 😊
And you're welcome. 😁
And that picture of the Moon was one of the last taken before its face was changed...
8770392
Should be worth something by now, then.
You know this already, but still. Fuller review here, but in brief: a satisfying and sweet tale, full of the wonder of the universe. An easy fave.
8901668
Freaking pogs! XD
This was marvelous. Hopefully this dumb review blog will let me read a few more of your stories before I'm whisked off to other things. :B
9167680
Pogs: gone but not forgotten.
Although I am curious what's going on with your "dumb review blog"? But thanks for the comment either way. 
9172817
Just more random character tags I went and grabbed stories for. :B All the stuff of yours I've read this year has come from doing just that.