The visitor
Whisper silently snuck out of her bedroom and headed for the back door of her house. It was far beyond her bedtime, but she regularly stayed up long after her parents had drifted asleep. She would usually sit in her bed for hours at a time, reveling in the peaceful whispers of the night. The chirping crickets that would usually lull somepony to sleep kept her pleasantly awake. Every other night she would listen to the sounds from her room, but tonight she had decided to venture out into the darkness.
It was especially disorienting when she first stepped into the darkness of the night. The dim candles that had illuminated her house were ten times more powerful than the soft silvery light shed by the moon. Slowly her vision adapted to the glow, and ushered a world that was almost completely foreign to her. All of the surroundings were the same, but the whole atmosphere was different. The typical shouts of the children at play in the schoolyard had been replaced by the sounds of frogs and crickets and the ever so faint call of an owl or dove from its perch in a distant tree. The world around her was dotted with lights from candles that still flickered in the windows of the houses whose occupants were still up in the wee hours of the morning. The cool night breeze would send gentle chills of cold down her back, reminding her of the moons gaze, gentle and unoppressive, unlike the sun or her peers.
Whisper liked the quiet calmness of the night because it was non judgemental. During the day she felt as if everything existed to give her funny expressions and condescending glances. What made it worse was that she was exceptionally shy. One day, when Scootaloo had offered her a spot in their envied Cutie Mark Crusaders club, she could not find the words to accept.
The night, however, did not judge her, but instead welcomed her into its cool and calming embrace to take a moment to relax, its gentle embrace beckoning her to imagine the impossible. After her parents had gone to bed, and the night had settled over the land, her mind would run wild with dreams of all flavors. She would conjure up grandiose stories that would span millennia detailing the adventures of a protagonist named Whisper and her pet turtle named Crawler. She would fight legendary beasts with swords and shields for hours on end, aided occasionally by a strong knight or powerful wizard who would conveniently arrive right in the nick of time. The good guys always won, the bad guys always lost, it was perfect every time.
One thing, however, always intrigued her the most. When the day had been particularly rough, and the ponies particularly mean, she would always go to the one place she loved the most, the sky. Being an earth pony she never had the first hoof experience to take to the sky and soar among the birds, but that did not dissuade her from dreaming about soaring above the clouds on her own pair of wings.
She laid herself back onto the grass and stared up at the sparkling heavens above her. A few clouds drifted lazily across the sky, covering patches of stars with a dull grey mask. The moon still shone through the clouds that passed over it, continually covering the world in its radiant silvery glow. Through the slight cool breeze Whisper could hear the sound of hoofsteps approaching. In fright she jumped to her hooves. It was most assuredly her mother worried sick over the disappearance of her little filly from her room. “Oh I'm so sorry mommy!” she whispered as loud as her underdeveloped vocal cords would allow. “I didn't mean to worry you. I'll go to bed right away.”
“Fret not my child.” A calm voice said. It was not her mother's, yet it carried a motherly tone. “Why art thou awake at such a time as this?”
“Who are you?” Whispered asked to the shadowy figure in the darkness.
“I am Luna, my child. Are you enjoying my night?”
“Yes ma'am,” she responded, her body frozen in place. She had never dreamed of meeting Luna, let alone talk to her face to face.
“You seem troubled.”
“I... I...” Whisper stammered.
“You never thought you would see a princess before, did you?” Whisper could only nod in agreement. The sight of Luna standing before here was so magnificent she could barely keep herself from falling over as her knees knocked together. Luna knelt down and placed her wing over Whisper's trembling body. “There, there little one. I am not to be feared,” she said, quelling the filly's shock. “Tell me, Whisper, what brings you out into the darkness?”
“How do you know my name?” Whisper asked.
“I would know the name of a pony who relishes my night that much. You love it, but I do not understand why.”
“The night is the only place where ponies won't make fun of me.”
“Why would anypony make fun of you?”
“Because of my voice,” Whisper wheezed. “Hardly anypony can hear me to begin with, but I'm sure they wouldn't want to hear me anyway.”
“I have seen your dreams, young one. You are one of the most creative fillies I have ever seen,” Luna said. “But I do know that you still wish to do one thing. One thing your mind cannot conjure up.”
Whisper nodded. “All of my life, I have wanted to fly,” she said with a deep breath. “But I could never imagine what it would be like.”
“Would you like to try?”
“What?” Whisper asked, not understanding the implication of the princess's question.
“Would you like to fly on my back?”
Whisper's eyes lit up, her excitement holding back her words as she clambered onto Luna's back.
“Hold on little one,” Luna said as she extended her wings. “Hold on and keep on dreaming.”