“Ponyville! Next stop, Ponyville.” The conductor’s call jarred me from my half-doze. I blinked and sat up, glancing around. There was little to see outside; the glass beside me was more mirror than window on the dark night and the scattered few lights of a rural pre-electric countryside. The gently swaying clerestory car was sparsely populated this late, with at least a couple of the other passengers frankly sprawled across their benches, fast asleep.
I yawned and stretched as the train slowed. Had there been no tickets for Ponyville, the limited express wouldn’t have stopped at all, instead blowing past on its way elsewhere. That didn’t happen often these days, according to the conductor’s friendly banter over punching my ticket. The town was growing and had become something of a tourist spot—especially since Her Newest Highness had taken up residence in the strange crystalline tower that appeared several months ago. If urban growth followed the same pattern I’d seen before between a city and an outlying rustic getaway, in another century Ponyville likely would be a suburb of the greater Canterlot metropolitan area. Tactfully I did not mention this out loud.
With a hiss and a squeal the car lurched to a stop beside the small station platform from which I’d boarded so many hours before. Only then did I stand and retrieve my bags. The unwary pegasus whose impatience had betrayed him into standing prematurely cursed under his breath as he regained his feet and shook out his wings. I affected not to notice his discomfiture, instead departing by the door at the car’s other end.
I barely had stepped from the car’s platform to the station’s when I stopped in surprise. “Twilight—ah, Your Highness! I didn’t expect to see you at the station.” Indeed, there stood Princess Twilight Sparkle, clad in a scarf and an odd garment that seemed half vest and half saddle. Beside her slouched a sleepy-looking Spike.
Twilight giggled. “I know you didn’t! But when you didn’t show up any earlier, it wasn’t hard to figure out you’d probably be on the last train.” Spike muttered something about the lateness of the hour; Twilight spared him a glance of reproof.
They were so like a pair of siblings I restrained a grin. “You dragged poor Spike out for this—why not Starlight too?” I teased.
“I offered, but she said no. I don’t know why.”
Twilight’s genuine bafflement strained my poker face. “She probably just figured a little more beauty sleep was more important than meeting a stuffy old stallion at the train station.”
Twilight turned her look of reproach on me. “You’re thirty-one, Cook. Even I know that’s not old.”
“I notice you didn’t argue the ‘stuffy’ part,” I returned, deadpan.
The young princess rolled her eyes. For some reason, everybody—and everypony—I knew did that sooner or later. “Tsk. Well, stuffy or not, you still have a ways to go before you get home, so we probably should get moving.”
I let the obvious deflection pass and fell in with her as she turned to amble toward the end of the platform. Hardly had we stepped from planks to ground before she began peppering me with eager questions. I answered them willingly; Twilight on a tear was an engaging companion so long as her inquiries didn’t stray into awkward territory.
Her reactions were not dissimilar to Raven’s, including concern over the robbery in the morning, but like the other mare she reluctantly acquiesced to my desire that bygones be bygones. Even in this retelling, though, I held my silence regarding the changeling mother, not wanting to subject the self-conscious new royal to a crisis of conscience.
A summary of the day’s doings, and all the encounters with mutual acquaintances, filled the whole journey back to her tower. Spike said little, though he perked up at various points in my narrative, most notably the visit to Doughnut Joe’s. When at last we closed the grand front doors on the winter chill, he wasted no time excusing himself and scampered off, no doubt to bed. Twilight sighed as she watched him go.
I could see the apology forming on her lips and chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, Twilight. Right now, I pretty much want to do the same thing.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She shook her head, then led me back to the library and the magical mirror that awaited.
Our goodbyes were brief. It really was late, and it probably wouldn’t be all that long before we would see each other again. After a last quick hug I hopped through the portal and found myself on the deserted grounds of Canterlot High School, once more clad in parka, polo shirt, chinos, and ankle boots, with a high-end messenger bag over my shoulder.
“Hey,” a familiar throaty feminine voice greeted me.
I pivoted on a heel. “Sunset! For heaven’s sake why are you here so late?”
Sunset leaned a shoulder against the side of the plinth, fists stuffed in the pockets of her bomber jacket; distressed jeans and her usual outrageous strapped boots completed the visible ensemble. The look she gave me all but shouted don’t be an idiot. “Waiting for you, of course. Twi gave me a head’s-up you prob’ly were comin’ in on the last train, so—” She shrugged as she straightened from her casual lean.
My brow furrowed. “I thought you’d be with the girls, at a sleepover or something.”
“Not every night, Cook.” It was her turn to roll her eyes. Then she grinned. “But yeah, today was pretty busy.”
I laughed. “Okay, fine. Coffee at Sugar Cube Corner, then? We can trade stories.” It seemed my concern over possible homesickness was unfounded. Truth to tell, despite my tiredness, I found myself looking forward to the prospect of telling my tale—and hearing hers.
“It’s a deal,” she told me in a laughing tone. “C’mon. I know that car of yours has to be around here somewhere.”
“After you, madame.” I grinned back and, with a slight bow, swept an arm in the direction of my parked sedan. As she fell in beside me, I added in a more serious tone, “Oh, and Happy Hearth’s-Warming, Sunset.”
Her return smile was unusually pensive. “Happy Hearth’s-Warming, Cook.”
My assignment might be one of the strangest in the history of the Foreign Service, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.