The stars in the night sky shone their distant light down upon the sleepy town of Ponyville. Wisps of smoke rose from several chimneys, and the crisp cool air was full of the chirpings of cicadas. Throughout the town, ponies were settling down for a long cosy evening in front of the fire.
All apart from three small fillies who sat upon a nearby hill, hunched over a rusting telescope.
“No no no! This isn’t right, it’s broken!” Scootaloo glared suspiciously through the telescope’s lens for a moment before peering at a tattered astrology book that lay open on the damp grass, one hoof angrily leafing through the tome until it stopped on a page that displayed an ornate diagram of a lion imposed over a cluster of stars. “I can’t see any of these constellations! There aren’t any lions or elephants or big dippers up there, just a load of stars!” She squinted her eyes at her friends. “This telescope of yours is broken, Sweetie Belle, we’ll never get our constellation cutie marks at this rate!”
Sweetie Belle scrunched her face up as she peered more carefully at the book for a moment. “I don’t think there’s literally supposed to be lions up there, Scootaloo…” she carefully replied. “It’s just that the stars look a bit like lions. Let me–”
Sweetie Belle reached for the telescope but Scootaloo stood firm, the little orange pegasus staring harder into the eyepiece as if the effort alone would make the stars burst into pretty pictures like in the books. “It would help if you kept still, Apple Bloom!”
The telescope shifted slightly, tied securely with a pink ribbon onto the rather disgruntled head of Apple Bloom, who sat slumped in the grass with a scowl on her face. “Ah get a go next! Sweetie Belle can be the tripod, seein’ as she forgot it!” she grumbled, forehooves folded.
Scootaloo was about to respond when she let out another annoyed sigh. “And now there’s a firefly on the lens! It’s getting in the way!” She leaned forwards to swipe her hooves at the end of the telescope, leaving the eyepiece unguarded for Sweetie Belle to peer in, against Apple Bloom’s helpless protestations.
“That’s not a firefly!” Sweetie Belle chirped excitedly as her eyes focussed on the tiny moving speck of flame that could be seen dimly through the telescope’s glass. “It’s a comet!”
“A comet?” Scootaloo skidded back into her previous place, knocking Sweetie Belle out of the way in order to take a good look at the heavenly object. “No way! I’ve discovered a comet! I’m gonna call it the ‘Scootaloo is Awesome!’”
“Hey, I discovered it!” Sweetie Belle snapped back, trying unsuccessfully to push Scootaloo away from the prized scientific equipment. “You thought it was a bug! I should get to name it!”
“It was mah turn to look!” came Apple Bloom’s voice from beneath the telescope, the apparatus wobbling on her head as she spoke, “so technically ah discovered it!”
“Well…” Scootaloo pondered, keeping a tight grip with one hoof on the telescope as if this gave her the final authority on the matter, staring again at the infinitesimally small speck that slowly made its way across the sky far above them. “…I guess we all discovered it, so we can call it–”
“THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADER COMET!” The three chorused out loud, their voices echoing across the silent night air. They clapped their hooves to their mouths as one, afraid of making a disturbance.
“Oh, oh!” Scootaloo squeaked out with a burst of realisation. “And it means I get to make a wish! I wish…” She squeezed her eyes tight in concentration. “I wish that I could learn to fly! Right away!” She slowly opened her eyes and flapped a wing experimentally. Nothing happened.
“You ain’t supposed to say wishes out loud!” Apple Bloom’s mouth hung open in shock. “Then they’ll never come true!”
“What?” Scootaloo clutched her hooves to her head in a sudden panic, feeling chilling waves of fear burst up through her chest. “Then I wish I could never fly,” she shouted out. “Never ever ever!” She then winked at her two friends. “Clever, eh? Now that won’t come true!”
Sweetie Belle looked up at the sky for a few moments and then back down to Scootaloo, creasing her brow. “You can’t wish on comets!” she finally said. “You wish on shooting stars. If you make a wish on a non-wish thing, it won’t come true.”
Scootaloo’s eyes glazed over slightly as she tried to process this new information. “But I… and then… do I…?” She shook her head in confusion, giving her little wings another experimental flap. “Which way do I need to wish?”
As her friend tried to work out important philosophical issues in the way that only a small filly could, Apple Bloom extracted the telescope from her ribbon, and balanced it on an unsuspecting Sweetie Belle’s head, peering into the night sky. “Hey!” she exclaimed with a hint of frustration. “It ain’t there! There ain’t no comet!”
The night sky was silent as the three friends stared up together momentarily. The stars twinkled in their patterns as they had done since the beginning of time. Of the comet, there was no sign.
***
News of the vanishing comet soon began to spread over Ponyville. What was at first laughed off as the overactive imaginations of a trio of silly little fillies was quickly confirmed as, the next night, several amateur astrologers pointed their own more advanced telescopes skyward to catch a glimpse of the unscheduled comet. Astonished as they were to discover that it was real despite not having been properly timetabled in the official Canterlot Stargazers’ Gazette, they were even more surprised to note that it completely vanished into thin air after a few seconds.
Puzzled letters to the Princess of the Moon regarding anomalies in the night sky were met with polite but dismissive responses. Princess Luna officially denied all knowledge of any comet. And yet there it was; for the brief moments that it slowly wound across the sky, at least.
The mysteries of the heavens and the fickle nature of princesses were well known though. After a few nights it just became another enigmatic feature of the night sky, the comet-that-was-not-a-comet blinking in and out of existence, tumbling its way through the ether on its distant and fiery journey. After a week, barely any pony with a telescope paid it special heed. If they had, they would have noticed that it was slowly getting brighter.
But they didn’t.
After all, the lives of ordinary ponies never intersected with that of the stars.
***
“Don’t do it! Get ba–”
The rest of the words were indecipherable, replaced by the sudden roaring of explosive decompression as the hatchway leading out of the small cabin burst open and the navigator leapt out, clutching her precious cargo to her chest.
Five hundred miles up in the sky, a pony fell into the world.
She tried to cry out but couldn’t; the shock of being torn from the safe, controlled environment of the ship and hurled out into the whirling maelstrom about her was far more violent than she had anticipated. The air around her was dizzying. Winds tore at her armour; she could feel the heat from the ship’s shell scorching her sides. Thankfully her full-body suit protected her from the worst excesses, as long as it stayed functional. As she spun, buffeted in the air, she risked a look back at the craft as it continued to shudder and shriek, cutting a path across the sky like a ball of fire until with a flash it was gone.
There was an explosion as the spherical craft vanished, a pounding wave of energy following in its wake that radiated outwards with the rumble of a miniature hurricane. The navigator was hit square in the chest as she continued to free-fall head over hooves, smashed away like a fly being lazily swatted on a hot summers day. The force of the ethereal blow was too much and with a cry of horror she found her grip on her cargo instantly gone as her hooves splayed out, sending the box she had been holding with all her might spinning into the blackness below.
Sharp rivulets of pain shot up her right forehoof as it broke from the shockwave; the display inside her helmet lit up with panicked warning messages. Her eyes strained to see where the box had fallen, her good forehoof stretched out towards it, but she found herself spinning as she fell, the ground below and the stars above whirling round in an impossibly fast kaleidoscope.
“No no no! Come on!” Gritting her teeth she swatted her broken hoof at her controls, trying desperately to activate her flight system. The neon strips which ran down the side of her black-suited limbs started to flicker and spark, slowly dimming. Inwardly she cursed – she hadn’t realised the explosion from the departing craft would have been so powerful; the thaumic battery which contained her suit’s magical energy must have been breached.
The ground beneath her was pitch black as she fell like a lead balloon, only her all-encompassing suit protecting her from the ravages of the wind. The glow from the suit continued to fade as the energy dissipated into the cool night sky like trailing fairy dust.
“Come on!” She could feel warm tears pricking at her cheeks as she mashed her broken hoof against the buttons without success. In a bitter moment of self-doubt she wondered whether this was divine punishment for her actions. The box was gone, snatched from her grasp to be dashed against the ground below, and soon she would join it. Perhaps it would be easier this way. She shook all such thoughts out of her head and gave one last jab at the broken control panel.
With a protesting hum her suit spluttered into life, strips of violet light encasing her black-clad hooves as the last of the suit’s rapidly diminishing energy was rerouted to the flight systems. Almost immediately the whistling of the wind around her quietened as her descent slowed and she could finally take in the scene below her.
Equestria was shrouded in darkness. In the distance she could see the bright lights of what could only be Canterlot; closer to her she saw scattered spots of light from a small town. With a great deal of pain, she pushed her hooves away from the lights below, the flight controls embedded in the tips of the suit’s legs directing her controlled fall to a more secluded spot. She couldn’t risk being discovered, not just yet.
As she was finally hoping that everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, her suit gave one last splutter and went completely black, the magical batteries finally spent. It was as if the floor had been whipped away from her, and with a sudden jerk she fell hard. The specks of light beneath her indicated that the ground was still a long way off; their gentle glow would be the last thing she ever saw before–
Any such musings were quickly cut short as the air was once more knocked from her lungs by the force of landing on something soft, almost like a stack of mattresses had been placed beneath her. She lay on her back for what seemed like an eternity, staring up at the stars as the painful throbbing from her battered and bruised body caught up with her. She had fallen so impossibly far and was still alive, but there was much to do.
Slowly and painfully, she twisted her head and gave a short, sharp laugh. She was surrounded by white fluff. Her good forehoof experimentally scraped up a chunk of it and she peered with an almost filly-like curiosity. It was cloud. She had fallen onto a cloud!
Hooves shaking from the pain, she slowly rose upright, clambering out of the indentation she had made in the cloud. Squinting into the darkness she could barely make out the shape of trees far below. Her suit was entirely out of magic, and without it she was unable to fly the distance to the ground. What would have been a minor task for a pegasus or skilled unicorn was almost insurmountable for her, trapped alone on a cloud high in the night sky.
Licking her lips, she made a decision and got straight to work, kicking off a chunk of the cloud. It rocked gently, before sinking a few inches. She knocked another lump of cloud away, causing her ride to bob down a bit further. Breaking down the cloud might take all night, but she knew she had to get down to the ground and find a hiding place before daybreak.
After all, she was the most dangerous pony in all Equestria.
***
The morning sunlight dappled down amongst the treetops as the quiet serenity of the woods was disrupted by a squeaking, grunting noise.
Sweetie Belle gasped out, pausing for a moment as she spat out the large tripod that had been gripped firmly in her mouth, the legs of the object scratched and caked in dirt from its undignified journey through the woods. Mopping her little forehead, Sweetie Belle narrowed her eyes in determination and latched onto the device again, yanking it further into the foliage leaving a deep furrow in the earth as she went.
She had finally discovered the telescope’s tripod being used as a hat stand by her big sister Rarity. After cleverly removing the hats and burying them in the garden to remove all evidence that they were ever there, she had decided to take the tripod to the clubhouse she and her friends shared in the woods. Despite not receiving any comet-related cutie mark, Scootaloo had been convinced that the three were on the right path with the stargazing project; perhaps once they had proper equipment to rest the telescope on rather than Apple Bloom’s head they would finally become accredited astronomers with the requisite cutie marks to match.
Stopping at the base of the large tree that supported the weight of the wooden clubhouse, Sweetie Belle stared up at the rickety wooden ladder, and then back at the large, ungainly telescope tripod. “Hrm,” she mumbled, rubbing her chin and inadvertently smearing mud over her face. The problem of getting the stand into the tree house hadn’t occurred to her before.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she scrunched up her face in concentration as she pointed her horn at the tripod. A tiny shimmer of light enveloped her horn, and the stand shifted slightly in the mud before slumping back down. Sweetie Belle sighed, and started to clamber up the wooden slats towards the tree house.
“Apple Bloom? Scootaloo? You there?” Sweetie Belle frowned as she reached the entrance of the clubhouse. The wooden door was cracked, hanging off only one hinge. She gently tapped it with a hoof and the door slowly creaked open to reveal muddy scuff-marks leading across the floor.
“Hello? I found the tripod but need help dragging it up. Girls?” She trotted into the little tree house with wide eyes, expecting any moment to see a muddy Scootaloo apologising for making a mess of the door.
She froze. From the corner of the room came a ragged hissing breathing noise. Mouth hanging open, and resisting the voice in her head that told her to run, she stepped forwards and slowly opened a curtain to let more light into the room.
Whatever it was, it was definitely not Scootaloo.
Sweetie Belle leaned outside the window and snapped off a nearby branch in her mouth, slowly approaching the creature in the corner. It looked like an adult pony but was covered from head to hoof in a strange thick black fabric that was inset with tubes and bits of metal cut into strange geometric shapes. Even the tail was completely covered – it was like an old suit of armour from the story books, but sleeker.
Plucking up her courage, she crept closer and gave it a gentle poke with the stick. The creature didn’t respond; it simply continued to breathe in growling fits, its side moving up and down as it lay against the wooden wall of the hut.
“Hello?” Sweetie half-whispered towards the creature as if unsure that she wanted it to actually hear her. “My name’s Sweetie Belle, are you a monster?”
She would have been convinced it was a pony recovering from one of Pinkie Pie’s fancy dress parties, if it wasn’t for the strange breathing noise. And of course, the creature’s head. It was wearing a large bulky black helmet the like of which she had never seen before. The sides were covered in pipes and a large grill from where the breathing noise was coming out. Instead of a face there was just a large, curved mirrored surface. Judging that the creature seemed to be asleep, Sweetie peered forwards at the mirror which reflected her face back in a strange distorted fish bowl effect. She shielded her eyes with a hoof and pressed her face up against the helmet, hoping to catch a glimpse through the mirror of whatever lay beneath – even if it was the face of a horrible monster.
Looking as hard as she could through the mirrored surface, Sweetie Belle could faintly make out a pair of closed eyelids.
They flashed open. Sweetie instantly launched across the room as the creature stirred into life. “Don’t eat me!” Sweetie squealed, throwing her hooves in front of her face. “I’m a master unicorn wizard, you’ll be sorry!” When the creature made no move to leap across the room and devour her, she slowly put her hooves down.
Its breath was still ragged. It was rocking back and forth as if to try to stand up but kept yelping as one of its front forehooves twitched when it touched the ground. Sweetie Belle peered out of the open doorway next to her. She could easily run away to freedom.
Instead she moved closer again.
“Are you okay?” She drew herself up to the hoof and examined it. It seemed bent at an odd angle, as if broken. “Is your hoof hurt or do all monsters hooves look like that?” she queried innocently, resisting the impulse to pick up her branch and give it a prod.
“Sweetie Belle.” The creature turned its visored face towards her with what sounded like a painful effort. It’s voice was unlike anything Sweetie had heard before, distorted and muffled, coming out of one of the grilles on its helmet like the scratchy interference from one of Rarity’s gramophone records. “You have to trust me Sweetie Belle. I’m not a monster; I’m a pony like you.”
“Oh.” Sweetie Belle’s mouth curled into a perfect ‘o’ shape. “Oh!” She ran towards the far corner of the room and returned momentarily with a soft cushion that she offered to the pony. It shouldn’t have mattered whether it was a monster or a pony, but she felt a bit safer knowing that it wasn’t about to eat her. The pony tried to protest but eventually relented and collapsed into the cushion.
Sweetie Belle stared at the front of the pony’s outfit. As it shifted its position, it revealed white words that were stencilled across it’s chest. “Is that your name?” she questioned, struggling to read the text. “Nav – navi–”
“Navigator.” The pony finished for her in its strange filtered voice. “Yes, yes, that’s my name. Navigator.” Navigator’s head turned directly towards Sweetie Belle, reflecting the little filly in its curved visor. “This is very important, Sweetie Belle. You can’t tell anyone I’m here, got it? Nopony at all. I need somewhere to hide and get better.”
Sweetie Belle clapped a scandalised hoof to her mouth. “I can’t tell lies!” she squeaked out. “And you need a doctor!”
“Trust me. You don’t need to tell lies, just… not tell the truth.” The black-clad pony gave a grunt as it swiped a hoof at the back of its suit without much obvious success. “There’s a small cylinder on the back of my suit. Can you unclip it for me?”
Nervously Sweetie Belle placed a hoof on the pony’s side and hoisted herself up. The back of the suit was made of the same strange material – fabric that felt like rubber, metal that felt warm to the touch. She absentmindedly thought that Rarity would love to have a look at it, but then remembered what Navigator had asked her. The only obvious cylinder seemed to be held in place by a large clip. She gripped her mouth around it, and with a hard yank it came free.
“What is it?” Sweetie Belle put the cylinder on the ground in front of her. It was made of the same black metal that covered the pony, with a silver cap on each end. She gave it an experimental prod. Nothing happened.
“It’s a thaumic battery. It stores the magic that powers the suit I wear, but it’s run out.” Navigator pushed the battery towards Sweetie Belle. “If it can be recharged then I can use it to make myself better.”
Sweetie Belle looked at the battery suspiciously, and then up at the pony. “But you’re not a unicorn!” she squeaked. There was no room for any horn to be hidden under the pony’s helmet. “How can you use magic?”
“I can’t. The suit does. It was damaged when I fell, but I think enough of it will still work.”
Sweetie slowly processed this information. “Did you fall out of a tree?” she spluttered. “Climbing trees is dangerous if you’re not a pegasus or don’t have a rope. My sister Rarity says tha–”
“No, I didn’t fall out of a tree.” Navigator’s head slowly turned towards the window, through which the morning sun was now streaming. “I fell from a far greater height, Sweetie Belle. I come from a place far, far away, and fell out of a ball of fire in the sky.”
“The comet!” Sweetie almost collapsed in giddy joy, dashing over to pick up the telescope that was lying discarded in the corner of the room. “We discovered the comet, are you from the comet?” She started to run around in circled. “Are you a star pony? I didn’t know ponies lived in the stars! What’s it like, is it hot? I can’t wait till I tell Apple Bloom and Scootaloo–”
“No!” Navigator tried to struggle upright but collapsed again with a groan. The pony’s helmeted face turned towards Sweetie Belle and she could swear that there was a slight tremor of panic in its voice. “You can’t tell anypony, Sweetie Belle. It’s too dangerous, I can’t risk being discovered. You’re a good pony, Sweetie Belle, you have to promise to hide me while I get better.”
Sweetie Belle twitched. She knew that lying and secrets were bad, but she felt special that out of every single pony in all of Equestria, the star pony had come to her for help. It seemed nice enough and hadn’t eaten her, which was a good start. She had always been told to help anypony who asked nicely. “I promise!” she finally blurted out. And then slightly quieter, she whispered. “C-can I see what a star pony looks like, under your helmet?”
Navigator’s head slowly shook. “No, Sweetie Belle, you can’t. You have to trust me.”
Sweetie Belle swallowed hard. Perhaps she had made a mistake. Perhaps under the helmet there was the face of a horrible monster. Who knew what star ponies looked like?
“Now,” Navigator’s voice was slow and steady as it grated out from beneath its helmet. “When I fell, I had something. A box. I dropped the box. It’s very important I get it back, Sweetie Belle, and until I can walk again, you need to search for it for me.”
“Okay,” Sweetie Belle found herself saying. “What’s in the box?”
Navigator paused for a moment.
“Everything.”
Scootaloo hummed a jaunty tune as she galloped through the trees as fast as she could, her little wings buzzing excitedly as she ran. She was sure that Sweetie Belle was wrong and that the wish from the comet would make her fly any day now. Raising her head, she stared at the flashes of blue sky that broke through the treetops, imagining herself not running across the ground but flying at supersonic speed in the air. “One day soon!” she muttered, biting her bottom lip in eager anticipation, lost in her thoughts.
It was due to this that she ran head-first into the discarded telescope tripod.
“What the?” Scootaloo rubbed her head as she prodded the strange contraption that had sunk slightly into the mud. At her touch, one of the legs cracked and gave way. She stared up at the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse, nestled in the tree above her. “Hey, Apple Bloom! Sweetie Belle! Why’s there a hat stand down here?”
There was no reply. Shrugging, she began to climb up towards the doorway.
Scootaloo had reached the top when Sweetie Belle’s head bobbed into view. “Hi Scootaloo!” Sweetie whispered, looking about conspiratorially. “You can’t come up here I’m afraid. I’m… redecorating!”
“Redecor-what?” Scootaloo pulled herself up onto the platform that surrounded the clubhouse, trying to peer around her friend. “Why does that mean I can’t come in, it’s all of our clubhouse! What if you get a redecorating cutie mark?”
Sweetie Belle moved to block Scootaloo’s view of the interior. “It’s really, really important redecorating!” she stressed. “I mean, if you were doing some painting, you wouldn’t want some pony to put their hooves over it, would you? This is exactly the same thing!”
Scootaloo thought about this for a moment. “I guess…” She frowned, though she couldn’t make the logic work quite right in her head. She was sure Sweetie Belle wouldn’t lie though. “In that case I’ll just have to practise my flying!” she exclaimed brightly.
Sweetie Belle’s mouth hung open in amazement. “You can fly?” she gasped. “Scootaloo, that’s amazing!”
Scootaloo shrugged, puffing at a curl of her mane that drifted down in front of her eyes. “Well, not yet, but I did make that wish over a week ago, so it’s bound to come true when I least expect it! That’s how wishes work!” With that, she spread her little wings and leapt backwards off the platform towards the ground.
Sweetie Belle’s eyes opened wide in panic, and she stared over the edge of the tree house. Half-expecting to see Scootaloo soar away into the clouds, instead she was met with a loud crashing noise, and the sight of a dazed Scootaloo lying sprawled below. “Are you okay?” she called down.
“Yeah!” Scootaloo called back. “I just need to work on missing the ground!”
When she was sure that Scootaloo had departed, Sweetie Belle slipped back into the clubhouse. Navigator was still lying in the same corner where Sweetie had found the strange pony an hour ago but now with a branch tied securely to a broken hoof, to help it mend.
“That was my best friend Scootaloo!” Sweetie whispered to Navigator. “I’ve known her all my life; we should tell her about you, she could help! She’s the best flier in all Equestria, or at least she’s gonna be! She can do anything!”
Navigator’s voice stuttered out from under the mask in its unnatural crackly tone. “N-no, Sweetie Belle. You promised me! The less ponies that know, the better, trust me! Now, can you see the battery?” Navigator pushed the battery towards her with one black-clad hoof.
Sweetie Belle stared at the battery for a moment. “I can get somepony to fill it up!” she chirped out. “Twilight Sparkle can do it, she’s the best unicorn in Equestria! And I can be super sneaky so she won’t know why I need it!”
Navigator’s head shook. “No, Sweetie Belle, they’ll ask questions and then they’ll find me, and I won’t be able to carry out my mission. It has to be you, do you understand?” Slowly and painfully, Navigator shuffled forwards. “I believe in you, Sweetie Belle. Just pour some magic into the battery, like pouring a glass of water.”
“But I can’t…” Sweetie Belle trembled slightly, looking towards the open door, and then back to the battery. She made a decision – she had promised to help after all. Scrunching up her face in utmost concentration she focused on the battery, her horn glowing with a soft light. She tried to visualise filling the battery up, using all her willpower to funnel the magic into it. Her head started to throb hard, beads of sweat pricking out on her forehead as a pounding headache filled her thoughts. “Come on, come on!” she cried, stomping her little hooves on the floor before finally collapsing and gasping for breath.
She saw the battery in front of her. There was a thin measuring gauge on the side, and a tiny speck of colour at the very bottom of the gauge to show the power level. “Oh,” she squeaked sadly. “I thought I’d done better than that.”
Navigator patted her gently on the mane. “It’s okay, Sweetie Belle,” the pony soothed. “You did great. We can try again later. Now, get some rest, I need you to find the box for me.”
***
“Stupid Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo crashed through the undergrowth, limping slightly from her fall. Something about her friend had seemed slightly off – perhaps she really was trying to get a redecorating cutie mark all by herself? But that wasn’t like Sweetie Belle, not at all.
She gave her little wings another flap. They buzzed uselessly at her sides. If only she could fly, then she could hurt her legs as much as she wanted and not have to limp all the way home. It wouldn’t be long now, she mused. Then she could really get to work in impressing everypony.
Scootaloo was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the ground suddenly turning into a deep slope, and yelped as she fell onto her injured hoof, rolling down the sharp incline until she stopped with a hard bump at the bottom of a small pit.
“What the hay…” She clambered back to her hooves and looked about. The earth was blackened and charred, as if a mighty hoof had punched the ground with a force huge enough to create a crater in the middle of the forest. The sides were not too steep, and Scootaloo was just about to clamber back out when her attention was drawn to the middle of the crater.
Lying embedded in the scorched ground was a small metal box. Scootaloo gingerly reached out to touch its charred surface and then withdrew quickly. It was warm.
Examining the box more closely she could smell the whiff of burning. It was as if the box had been set on fire, and the ornate-looking top was coated in soot and ashes. Spitting on her forehoof, Scootaloo started to scrub at the lid to reveal flashes of metal beneath the grime and what could only be a large red ruby inset in the middle.
Scootaloo popped her head out of the crater, looking about in case there was anypony about who might have owned the box, but the woods were quiet. She gazed underneath the ruby at traces of writing that had been written in what looked like silver. She rubbed harder at the box to reveal the words. Four simple letters that took her breath away:
“WISH”
It was a gift from the comet! It must be! An answer to her wish. “Thank you comet!” Scootaloo called up at the sky, as she got to work extracting the box.
***
Sweetie Belle collapsed the moment she reached home, panting for breath on the doormat. It had been an exhausting day searching the forest and surrounding farmland for the box Navigator spoke of. She had found two beehives, a nest of vipers and what she was convinced was a modern art sculpture (but probably a kettle that had been thrown away). The box however, remained undiscovered for the moment.
She had been slightly worried to report her failure to Navigator; she still wasn’t completely sure about the strange pony, but Navigator had just slouched down and told her that she might have more luck tomorrow.
Sweetie Belle thought the pony sounded sad.
“Oh, Sweetie Belle, look at the state you’re in! So uncouth!” Sweetie stopped lounging on the doormat to stare up at her big sister Rarity who for some reason was taking exception to the large amount of brambles that had accumulated in Sweetie Belle’s curly mane.
Sweetie Belle fluttered her big green eyes upwards as cutely as she could in the way that always seemed to melt the hearts of adult ponies. “I was only playing!” she chirped, “I can stay in tomorrow and help you about the house if you want!”
Rarity’s eye twitched and she gently shooed her messy little sister towards the kitchen. “No, I… I think it’s good you’re getting some fresh air!” she stuttered out firmly. “Now eat up before your dinner gets cold! And have you seen my hat stand? I’m sure it was here yesterday!”
Sweetie Belle hopped up onto a chair and stared down at the bowl in front of her. She was just about to start eating and sate her rumbling stomach when she realised that Navigator hadn’t eaten anything – if Sweetie Belle was hungry, how hungry would Navigator be? She quickly gulped down a few mouthfuls and looked across the table at Rarity. “Rarity, I’m gonna go stargazing again later with Scoots and Apple Bloom, can I take the rest of my dinner with me?” She fluttered her eyelashes again.
“Certainly not!” Rarity flung her nose up with a tut. “You eat your dinner at the dinner table, Sweetie Belle, that’s what polite little fillies do!”
Sweetie Belle grumbled as she screwed up her face and tried to think of a way to sneak the rest of her dinner out to give to Navigator without arousing suspicions. Through the kitchen window, she saw a birds nest perched up in a tree, the mother bird spitting out food for her young. In a flash of inspiration, Sweetie Belle gulped the rest of the meal down in one motion, holding it in her bulging cheeks, and then with an innocent smile, vaulted from the table and out the door.
Rarity shook her head and sighed. “Oh, to be young again!”
***
“Blaaaargh!” Sweetie Belle expelled the contents of her cheeks onto the floor in front of Navigator and then looked up, chest bursting with pride at how clever she had been.
Navigator stared at the meal for a moment. “That would have been a good idea,” the pony stated hesitantly, “if it wasn’t soup.” The cold soup started to slowly seep into the wooden floorboards of the clubhouse.
Sweetie Belle bowed her head at the mess she had made. “I’m sorry!” she mumbled. “I didn’t think it through.” She felt a hoof weakly patting her on the side.
“I know, Sweetie, I know. You’re a good friend.” Navigator’s head tilted slightly. “There’s some apple trees nearby, maybe you can get me some apples later. But first…” the visored helmet nodded towards the battery again. “Could you try to fill it up a bit more. For me?”
Sweetie Belle trembled a bit at the thought, memories of the painful magical headache coming back to her. She hadn’t felt that bad since the last time she’d eaten ice cream too fast. “I… I dunno. Is it important?”
Navigator nodded, staring out of the window. The stars had begun to emerge into the darkening sky, but there was one speck of light moving slowly across the heavens. The comet was brighter now, easily seen by the naked eye if only for brief moments every night. “If I can’t find the box, I need to be at full power,” Navigator turned back to Sweetie Belle, pushing the battery forwards. “We only have a few days before they come for me.”
***
Sweetie Belle tried to use those few days the best she could, and her exertions soon turned into a routine. Every morning she would trot down to the clubhouse to check that Navigator was still okay, before chasing away an inquisitive Scootaloo and Apple Bloom and spending the rest of the day searching further and further afield for any sign of the box.
There was no sign of it. Every day Navigator would get more and more agitated, but was strangely unwilling to reveal what was inside it apart from the fact that it was “the most important thing in the world”.
The star pony was reluctant to answer any questions about what it was like to live in the stars; instead every day their conversation became more and more feverish and slurred. Sweetie Belle suspected that the fall from the sky had broken more than just a hoof – Navigator’s breathing grew more haggard as the time wore on, and the pony was still unable to stand. To Sweetie Belle’s eyes, her friend was getting weaker and weaker.
Finally, one night Sweetie Belle came back to the tree house to find Navigator gone. The pile of sweets and apples that she had gathered for the pony to eat lay untouched on the floor and the only sound in the room was the door as it banged open and shut in the wind.
Sweetie looked out of the window up at the night sky. There was no sign of the comet now, but she had seen it when she was walking through the forest, even bigger and brighter than it had ever been, before flicking out of existence. Perhaps Navigator had gone back to the stars without saying goodbye?
Sweetie Belle then glanced down and saw that she was wrong. In the moonlight she could make out the body of a pony that lay sprawled across the ground, unmoving. The speed in which she bolted out of the tree house surprised even her.
Sweetie barely had time to skid to a halt as she barrelled into the body of Navigator. She shook the black-suited pony with all her might but there was no movement apart from the lowest, most ragged breathing Sweetie had ever heard. “What are you doing out here?” she squealed in the cold night air. “You should be inside getting better!” She started to quiver, all alone in the woods with the star pony. It had gone too far. She needed to get help. She had to get help.
She began to move in the direction of Ponyville, freezing as a thought crossed her mind. What if Navigator was so ill she died before she could return? She had to make sure Navigator would be okay until she could get specialist attention. There was a bottle of water in the clubhouse; Sweetie Belle quickly clambered back up and retrieved it, launching herself down the wooden steps and back to her friend.
Her friend. Sweetie Belle constantly thought of Navigator as a friend, but she didn’t know anything about the pony, apart from the constant pleas for help and requests for secrecy. That wasn’t something that friends did, was it? She hovered the water bottle over the pony’s helmet, looking for any sign of where she should pour the water, hesitating before deciding not to pour the water into the grille-like device inset into the front.
“Navigator, wake up!” Sweetie Belle shook the pony again, harder this time. She was met only by more ragged breathing. Gulping hard, her heart thumping away in her chest, she came to a decision. She fumbled her hooves around the bottom of the helmet, and gave a tug at what seemed to be some sort of catch. She leapt back in shock as a hiss of steam escaped from a valve, before deciding it was safe and forcing the other catches open.
“Navigator, I’m going to take off your helmet!” she whispered urgently. “I know you don’t want me to, but I need to give you water, then I’ll get help!” There was still no response. Grasping the edges of the helmet, Sweetie Belle pulled with all her strength and with a pop it came free, sending her flying backwards.
Sweetie Belle slowly extracted herself from the helmet and stared at the revealed face of the star pony which rested unconscious on the forest floor in front of her. It was a mare, who continued to breathe raggedly, though to Sweetie’s ears it sounded much more natural than it had through the helmet. That was not what concerned Sweetie at that moment however. Her throat dried up as she stepped forwards, scarcely believing what she was seeing. It was impossible.
Quickly she remembered her motivations, and pushed the water bottle up to the pony’s mouth, gently trickling the water in as to not choke her. She stared at the pony’s face for a moment longer, until Navigator began to stir, coughing gently. This spurred Sweetie into action, picking up the helmet and pressing it back into place until the catches clicked. Immediately the coughing took on a rougher, more static-filled sound as it filtered through the helmet.
“Sweetie Belle?” Navigator started to stir, trying to move before falling with a whimper. “There’s not much time!” she croaked. “I t-thought I was well enough to s-search for the box myself. I n-need to have it before they t-try to stop me. Y-you have to tru–”
“It’s okay.” Sweetie Belle smiled down at her friend from the stars, her expression tinged with concern. “I trust you, Navigator, I’ll do anything to help you, but what can I do?” She shook her head sadly. “You’re still hurt from falling and you won’t get better until you get some proper help!”
“The battery!” Navigator tried again to pull herself up, but her leg gave way and she crumpled back down. “T-there might be enough charge t-to fix the suit. T-that will heal me.”
Sweetie Belle turned to retrieve the battery from the tree house, but paused as the night sky above suddenly burst with light as a blazing ball as big as the sun exploded into view to roar across the heavens before vanishing as suddenly as it came. The sky was silent and dark again.
“It’s not a comet, is it?” she whispered.
“No,” Navigator replied weakly. “No, Sweetie Belle, it’s a ship. And it’s been crashing for two weeks. I’m out of time.”
Sweetie Belle ran as hard as she could to retrieve the battery and fill it with one last burst of magical energy.
This time, she gave it everything she had.
***
Scootaloo sat back in her crumpled bed sheets as she gave one final polish of the box with her rag, tilting it up to the moonlight to get a better view. She had spent the last few days diligently cleaning the mysterious box until the last speck of soot was gone from its surface.
The box almost shone in the moonlight. At first she had thought it was mostly wooden, but it seemed to be a mixture of brass and copper and silver and all sorts of other metals, all inscribed in complex patterns that ran over the surface. It was surprisingly light too, as if it was hollow, but when Scootaloo shook it, there didn’t seem to be anything rattling inside. There wasn’t even an obvious sign of any lid or way to open it. It was just… a box.
She gazed again at the ruby inset in the top. If Scootaloo didn’t know better, she would have thought that it was gently glowing of its own volition, illuminating the letters beneath it in an eerie red light. But of course, rubies didn’t do that. It was just the reflection of the moonlight.
Laying back in bed, Scootaloo hugged the box, staring out of the window as a bright flash of light exploded in the sky and then vanished again. It was as if the comet had returned for a brief instant just to applaud her for her progress so far.
“Thank you, comet!” she called to the already fading ball of light in the sky. “But… what do I do now? Are my wings in the box?” She shook the box again. It didn’t feel like there was anything there. The words ‘WISH’ inscribed on the top seemed to mock her slightly. “I wish…” she mumbled, furrowing her forehead. “I wish I could fly! I wish!” With determination, Scootaloo leapt off her bed, wings fluttering furiously and uselessly as she crashed to the ground with a crunch.
“Ow! What am I doing wrong?” Scootaloo picked herself up as quietly as possible and clambered back onto her mattress, concentrating hard on the complex patterns inscribed in the box’s surface. There were lines, grooves, patterns, circles. They reminded her of some of the star diagrams in Sweetie Belle’s book; completely indecipherable, but pretty.
She slowly traced her hooved around the largest circle, a gold cog-like pattern that surrounded the ruby. A sudden hissing noise caused her to snatch her hoof back as steam escaped from invisible cracks in the box’s surface. With the grinding of ancient clockwork wheels, the circle of metal started to turn. Scootaloo watched, mouth open as the ruby glowed brighter for a moment, the geometric shapes on all the sides of the box ticking round until they stopped and the box fell dark.
“Oh.” Scootaloo prodded the box. It didn’t light up again. “It’s a puzzle.” Her face fell.
“I’m no good at puzzles.”
***
Carrot Top gave a heavy sigh and dropped the plough into the hard earth. The field was still only half-furrowed and it was getting difficult to see, even by the light of the moon. She shivered in the cool night air as she looked up to the stars in the sky.
It was all Berry Punch’s fault, distracting her throughout the whole day with various illicit substances. Partying all day didn’t help to sow the carrot seeds though, and so now Carrot Top found herself working through the night to get her crops planted. Farming relied on very strict timetables, after all.
She shook her head in frustration, cursing Berry Punch’s name. It was too dark and too cold to work. Thinking for a moment, she closed her eyes and under her breath began to whisper: “Dear Princess Celestia. Please can you bring out the sun just for a little bit…”
She trailed off uncertainly. She needed the sun to do her work, but it was night-time – surely she should be praying to Luna, Princess of the Night. But Luna had a moon, she didn’t have a sun. Carrot Top didn’t think so, but didn’t want to pray to the wrong princess and risk getting smited. She wasn’t even sure if the princesses listened to prayers, but it was worth a shot.
Carrot Top cleared her throat, speaking up at the sky a bit more loudly this time. “Dear Princess Celestia. I really need some more time to furrow the soil, can you please put the sun back in the sky for a bit?” She stood awkwardly, waiting. Hopefully Princess Luna hadn’t been too upset at the petition to shorten the night.
The sky remained dark and cold. Carrot Top’s shoulders slumped as she started to feel even sillier for praying to Celestia. Placing a hoof on the plough she readied herself to get back to work, firming it up against the hard ground.
A bright flash of light exploded into the sky above her. Carrot Top dropped the plough as she skidded backwards into the earth, mouth hanging open while she shielded her eyes from the bright sphere in the sky. “Thank you, princess, thank you!” She squealed happily, clapping her hooves together.
The celebration did not last long. As Carrot Top watched, the ball of light grew larger and larger, and a roaring, whistling noise filled the night air. The sun was falling! “No! No, don’t smite me!” Carrot Top willed her fear-frozen limbs to move, galloping as hard as she could across the half-ploughed field as the flaming ball rocketed downwards, its motion through the air sending tremors across the ground.
Carrot Top leapt over a small mound of earth for protection as the sun smashed into her field like a skipping-stone across water, bouncing a fiery path as it roared past her until finally stopping, having carved out a deep muddy ditch for itself in the middle of the field.
Carrot Top swallowed hard, gingerly approaching the flaming ball which was now silent save for the crackling of the fire that surrounded it as it lay motionless in the field. “T-thank you p-princess!” she squealed upwards. “T-thank you for giving me the sun a-and ploughing my field!” She surveyed the carnage the sun had made of her field on its crash landing. Needless to say she wouldn’t be asking for Princess Celestia’s help in future.
The sun wasn’t as hot as she had imagined it to be. She could approach quite closely, and could see that rather than being a ball of pure fire like she had always read about, it was in fact a large metal sphere that was covered in dimming flames. She looked at it in concern. Was the sun going out? Was she supposed to look after it properly? Did Princess Celestia expect her to put it back in the sky?
As these problems circled around her head there came from within the sun a clanging noise, and a large door swung open in the side. Carrot Top watched with growing terror as two ponies dressed in strange black armour covered in glowing neon strips of light clambered out and onto the ground in front of her.
“H-hello?” Carrot Top surveyed the newcomers. If Princess Celestia had sent them, then they must be friendly. Perhaps they were here to help plant the carrot seeds? “Welcome to Equestria!” Carrot Top enunciated slowly and clearly. “I keep my carrot seeds in my house.”
The ponies looked at each other. At least, Carrot Top assumed they were ponies. Instead of faces they both had large featureless helmets which reflected the fields around them and gave no indication as to their identities. One of them had a slightly larger pointed helmet, as if room for a horn. The other seemed to be a pegasus, with black-clad wings at its side. The inside of the sun didn’t look big enough to fly about in to Carrot Top, but she didn’t like to judge others.
The pegasus took a step forward. “Hello!” it stated in a deep, grating static-filled voice. Carrot Top shrunk back slightly, looking around in case she needed to make a hasty escape. Perhaps the ponies weren’t supposed to be loose. Perhaps they were like the Mare in the Moon. Perhaps…
Carrot Top’s eyes opened wide. Perhaps it was the Stallion in the Sun!
She had only just made the ‘Stallion in the Sun’ up, but it sounded just about right. “Don’t eat me or turn me into stone! Or carrots!” she gabbled out uncontrollably, clamping her mouth shut before she could get herself into any more trouble.
The pegasus shook its visored head and ran a hoof around its neck. Hissing jets of steam escaped as catches unfastened, and the pony slowly removed the heavy metal helmet. Carrot Top wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. The pony’s mane tumbled across their face as they shook their head free.
There was something strangely familiar about the pony, but Carrot Top couldn’t put her hoof on it.
“Hello!” the pony said, and this time free of the helmet, their voice was normal: soothing yet with a confident quality. “I know this will sound crazy, but you have to listen to us and trust us completely. My sister and I have travelled a long way to get here. There’s great danger.” The pony smiled, offering a hoof to shake. “My name’s Pound Cake, and I’m from the future.”
Carrot Top’s mind started racing. It stopped before she did herself any damage. “So… you’re not here to plant my carrots?” she whispered back.
Then she fainted.
