“Do we have everything?” Flash asked as he picked up the full picnic basket from the dining room table and began moving towards the front door.
“I think so,” his brother replied as he raced down the stairs with a particularly stuffed backpack and an equally loaded duffel bag.
“Blankets?” Flash asked.
“Check.” Base rummaged through the bags and showed his brother the items in question.
“Mosquito repellant?”
“Check.”
“MP3 player and speakers?”
“Check.”
“Flashlights?”
“Check.”
“Batteries for the flashlights?”
“Duh!”
“Family?”
“Uh,” Base trailed off as he looked around the room, noticing that he and Flash were the only two people present.
“Mom! Grandma! Aunt Flare! We’re ready to go!”
“Coming!” three distinct feminine voices called from all over the house.
The next family member to arrive was a middle-aged woman. Her skin was the same color as Flash’s but slightly lighter, and she wore her dark red hair in what could accurately be described as a mom bun. She also had a pair of semi-rimless glasses over her warm brown eyes.
“Ready, Mom?” Flash greeted, giving her the biggest smile that he’s ever given anyone, the kind of smile that one only reserves for special people.
“Of course,” Flash’s mom replied, returning the smile. “Do we have everything?”
“All good on my end,” Base proudly declared as he repacked the supplies and zipped the bags closed.
Flash peeked into the picnic basket and answered, “Snacks and water are all taken care of.”
“Well, what are we waiting for then?” an older-sounding yet energetic, feminine voice called out. The mother and two sons turned around to see a petite, well-aged old woman canter down the stairs. Her skin was a wrinkled yet soft pink, and her hair though gray and wiry still had bits of brown showing through. Her eyes were the same color as her daughter’s, and like her daughter, she also wore glasses, but hers had wire rims. “Let’s get this show on the road!”
“Still waiting for Aunt Flare, Grandma,” Flash answered the older woman.
“Sis!” Flash’s mother called up the stairs. “You’re holding us up again. Just like in high school.” She added that last sentence with a hint of a chuckle in her voice.
“I just finished sanitizing my contacts, Lighty. I’ll be down in a second,” a commanding female voice called. Flash’s mother’s name is actually Lantern Heart, but everyone in the family called her Lighty.
Shortly after, the last member of their party arrived. She looked exactly like her sister except that she didn’t wear glasses and her hair, which she wore in a high ponytail, had brown highlights.
“Alright, let’s get going,” Aunt Flare lilted, with a dignified smirk. “Whose car are we taking?”
“Well, I’m driving, so mine,” Flash replied before giving his aunt a smug look. “By the way, Mom gets shotgun.”
Flare’s eyes widened as she sputtered. “Hey, you can’t just call shotgun for someone else.”
“He’s driving, and I’m his mother,” Lantern smirked at her sister as the family went out the door, “so he can.”
Flare just rolled her eyes and laughed.
“Does this mean I have to sit in the hump again?” First Base grumbled.
“You are the shortest one, so yes,” Flash replied.
“But I always get the hump.”
“Tell you what,” Grandma, whose real name is Free Bird but goes by Birdie, said to the younger boy, “when you’re finally taller than me, I’ll take the hump. How does that sound?”
“Great if it wasn’t taking forever.” That statement got a laugh out of everyone else present.
One lively car trip and one drive up a mountain road later, the family arrived at a high, flat yet well-wooded area. Flash parked his car near a large, carved wooden sign that read “Stardust Point,” and the family piled out and unloaded their bags. A short hike later, they arrived at a clearing by a cliff that was surrounded by a metal railing not unlike the kind found on highways.
On the way up, however, Flash found himself bumping into a familiar, pretty, bespectacled someone.
“How do we keep meeting?” she cried when she identified him.
“No idea,” Flash answered, getting over his initial bewilderment. “What are you even doing here if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Mom’s working on a book and needed the house to herself, so I suggested that my dad, my brother, and I come up here to do a little stargazing,” Twilight replied. Flash then noticed that she had a telescope in her hands and a backpack slung over her shoulders. He also looked up and saw two men standing behind her. One was a middle-aged man with blue skin and darker blue hair. The other man was taller yet younger and more muscular. He also had blue hair, but his skin was white.
“Here, let me introduce you,” Twilight continued. “This is my father Night Light,” Twilight said as Flash shook hands with the older man, “and this is my brother Shining Armor. Dad, Shining, this is Flash Sentry. He’s a friend from school.” Flash also shook hands with the younger man but could not help noticing that Shining Armor was giving him a weird, almost threatening look.
“You’re one of the kids who’s been helping my wife with the yard, aren’t you?” said Night Light.
“If by helping, you mean doing all the work while she’s in her office,” First Base retorted.
“Base, don’t be rude,” Lantern Heart scolded her youngest son.
“Oh, yeah, I’m out with my family too,” Flash explained before introducing his family. “This is my mom Lantern Heart, my brother First Base, my aunt Flare Burst, and my grandmother Free Bird. Everyone, this is Twilight Sparkle.”
“Please to meet you,” Lantern greeted Twilight and her family.
“Flash wanted to us to come out here to do some stargazing too before I drive Lighty to New York tomorrow,” added Aunt Flare.
“I didn’t know you were into stargazing,” Twilight exclaimed, turning to look at Flash with an impressed expression.
“I’m not super into it,” Flash clarified. “I just like looking at stars. I went on a field trip to the planetarium in first grade, and I just couldn’t get over how beautiful they were, the way they lit up the night sky, how the whole sky looks totally random but, at the same time, like each star is where it’s supposed to be.”
“When he turned 6, he begged us to celebrate his birthday here because the lady at the planetarium said that Stardust Point was the best place to watch the stars,” Lantern recounted with a laugh.
“He’s even got glow-in-the-dark stars painted on his ceiling,” said First Base.
“My late husband helped him paint them on,” Birdie added, smiling at the memory.
“Oh,” began Night Light as he looked at the family sympathetically.“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s been years,” replied Flash. Although he tried to hide it, Twilight could clearly hear a tinge of sadness in his voice.
“I’m sure you think about him every time you look at your ceiling.” Okay, that sounded way more comforting and sympathetic in her head.
“I do,” Flash replied as he smiled at Twilight, completely oblivious to her embarrassment.
A short yet awkward silence filled the air. Shining Armor was the first one to break it.
“So,” he began addressing Flare and Lantern, “if you don’t mind me asking, what are you two ladies going to be doing in New York?”
Upon hearing Shining Armor’s question, Flash jerked himself straight as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning before cutting between his mom and Shining Armor.
“Hey, why don’t you three stargaze with us?” Flash said, suddenly changing the subject. “We brought plenty of snacks, and we’d be more than happy to share. Let’s just hurry and get setup, okay?”
Flash grabbed one of the bags that Base was carrying and rushed to the clearing where he hurriedly began to unpack. His brother sheepishly followed suit.
Lantern sighed before turning her attention back to Shining Armor. “Personal reasons. We’ll tell you when Flash is ready.”
She, her sister, and their mother followed after the boys, leaving Twilight and her family members to look at each other in confusion.
While Flash, Base, and Birdie were spreading blankets on the floor, Flare turned to her sister and whispered, “You know, you can’t blame him for wanting to avoid talking about it. I know he’s trying to hide it, but the kid’s probably scared to death.”
“I know,” Lantern whispered back before she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. She let out another sigh and relaxed, reopening her eyes. “I just hope that they’ll both will be okay if worst comes to worst.”
“They will be,” Flare took Lantern by the hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze, “and I promise that I’ll be there for them no matter what happens.”
Lantern Heart smiled at her sister before the two of them rejoined the rest of the family. Base attached the speakers to the MP3 player which began to play “Fireflies” by Nocturnal Metropolis. Nearby, Twilight had set up her telescope while her father and brother took seats at a wooden picnic table.
“So, what does everyone want?” Flash asked everyone present as he looked through the picnic basket. “We’ve got sandwiches, fresh fruit, chips, pepperoni jerky—”
“Dibs on the jerky!” First Base shrieked as he grabbed the bag of jerky out of his brother’s hand. The suddenness of the action along with Flash’s utterly flabbergasted face in reaction to it cause Lantern Heart to laugh heartily as her youngest son ripped open the bag and began devouring its contents. Twilight started laughing too, and soon, everybody present was laughing.
“What kind of sandwiches do you have?” Twilight asked when the laughter had died down.
“Ham, PB and J, grilled cheese, turkey and peanut butter—,” Flash answered before he was once again interrupted.
“Hold it,” Shining Armor interrupted, looking at Flash incredulously. “Turkey and peanut butter?”
“It’s a Mom and Aunt Flare thing,” Base explained, his mouth still full of jerky. “We don’t get it either.”
After everybody made their snack choices known to him, Flash distributed the snacks accordingly. Twilight wanted peanut butter and jelly while her dad and brother shared a bag of chips. Grandma got the strawberries, and of course, his mom and his aunt wanted the turkey and peanut butter. His brother had already filled up on the pepperoni jerky, so after everybody else got their snacks, Flash himself tucked into a grilled cheese sandwich, which was still quite warm despite the time it had spent cooling off in the basket.
Everybody silently marveled at the beauty of the night sky as they ate. The sky was completely cloudless giving them a perfect view of all the stars. Their entire view was like a field of diamonds scattered over a smooth, dark cloth.
Flare Burst leaned close to her sister and said, “You better enjoy this view while you can, Sis. I doubt we’ll be able to see stars like these over in New York, not with all the artificial lights they have there.”
“Boy, do I wish I can take all this with me,” Lantern exclaimed before she pulled out her phone and held it up to the sky. She looked at her phone and frowned. “Too bad my phone can’t get a good picture.”
“Hold on. I’ve got just the thing,” Twilight removed and unzipped her backpack, taking out a rather technologically advanced camera which she attached to her telescope. “I built this so that I can take pictures with my telescope. I won’t be able to capture the whole sky, but I should be able to get a good picture of part of it.”
A snapping sound could be heard as Twilight clicked the shutter. She detached the camera from the telescope and began to mess with the touch screen on the back of the camera.
“Ms. Heart, could you please input your phone number?” Twilight requested, handing Lantern her camera with the touchscreen facing the older woman.
Lantern took the camera and did what she was asked. Twilight took the camera back and hit a button on the touchscreen.
Lantern’s phone lit up and pinged as a notification appeared on her messages. Lantern opened the message and gasped as an image filled her screen. If the sky looked amazing just from where she was sitting, it looked even more breath-taking from Twilight’s telescope.
“That is so nice of you,” Lantern said to the girl with a smile.“Thank you so much.”
Unbeknownst to either of them, Flash had been watching the exchange with the biggest grin on his face. As if Twilight Sparkle wasn’t attractive enough on a normal day, she had just gone ahead and made his mother smile, and although Twilight had no way of knowing it, she had made his mom smile during a time when he treasured every single one of those smiles more than ever.
“Shooting star!” cried First Base, causing the two older teens to look up. Sure enough, a brilliant light streaked across the sky before vanishing.
Flash gasped before quickly shutting his eyes and pressing his palms together. After maybe two seconds, Flash opened his eyes and relaxed his hands, setting them on his lap.
“So,” Twilight asked, taking a seat next to Flash.“What did you wish for?”
Flash smiled contentedly before he leaned all the way back so that he was lying flat on top of the blankets.
“I can’t tell you,” he said to Twilight.“It’s a secret.”