After I Looked Up, The Stars Had Gone Away

by Seer


Finalem: What Have You Let In?

Twilight pulled her duvet over herself, it didn't matter how pathetic she must have seemed. She had faced down old gods and worse as an element of harmony. Tonight was the first time in so, so long that she was feeling true fear. She had almost forgotten what was like.

Once she had managed to get her legs to carry her upstairs into her bedroom, the librarian had finally had a little time to think. Of course it was just some mistake or new experiment on Luna's part that had led to the sky being so terrifyingly bare. Of course everyone else in the town was just asleep now. Sure it wasn't very likely that Twilight was literally the only pony awake, but it certainly not impossible. Of course the way the weather seemed to contort around her, windy and battering when she was in the library and unnaturally still the moment she stepped outside was because of the temperamentality of night weather.

The scream... it was unlikely that even happened, wasn't it? A trick of sound or something imagined or dreamed and so, so quiet, almost as to have never even occurred at all. But even if it did, even if someone out in Ponyville really screamed tonight, for every sinister reason there were a million benign ones. Spike and the crusaders were having a sleepover tonight anyway! It was probably one of them, playing some childish game. That would certainly explain the unsettling twist of glee she could detect in it.

Twilight knew, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt there was nothing going on beyond that. A weird night and an overtired little unicorn, her usually sharp mind blunted by exhaustion and playing tricks on her. Downstairs, there was a clacking noise. It was even quieter now she was a further storey up, but it was there. The noise was erratic and without pattern, just like a loose window being blown open and shut by temperamental, erratic night weather, which was without pattern itself.

Twilight whimpered and hugged the duvet closer.

"Dear Princess Celestia," she began, "I can't wait for you to read all the things I've found about macromolecular catalysts."

Fetching the parchment and quill had almost been unconscious. Hearing herself talking out loud helped to soothe some of her shot nerves. As long as it was something other than that clacking, or the ever-present ringing, so, so much closer now. As long as it wasn't the blood thundering through her ears, or god-forbid that awful smiling scream, the one that couldn't have really happened.

"It's been a weird night here! Tell Luna that I wouldn't recommend she make the night starless every night. Her nights are usually so beautiful Not that the effect isn't beautiful in its own right, but I love the stars so much Princess. I've really missed them tonight. It's such a weird feeling, to wish more than anything that you could see the stars again. But I know that you know that feeling better than anyone.

"I need you I'm just so excited about the research that I'm sending this now, in the middle of the night. I know it'll wake you up, and I know that as much as you tell me that I can always contact you, it'll secretly bother you a little. I know that you value your sleep, it's your time off. I also know that Luna comes to visit you in your dreams and that it's been the high point of every single day of your life since she came back.

"I suppose, even knowing all of that, if feels that when it really comes to it you'll always be there for me. Not when I get over-worried about an assignment or have some middling tiff with a friend. But when I really need it. The truth is princess, I'm so terrified

"It's been so long since you came to visit, and this research is so incredible! You should come, please come

"I'm scared, please come help me because

"Why did Princess Luna take the stars away?

"More than I miss the stars, I miss the sun.

Downstairs, the clacking sound had become rhythmic, regular, sure as Twilight's hammering pulse. Twilight listened, and looked out of her window into the still, still night. The leaves on the trees barely moved. She made a noise between a sigh and a sob.

"The truth is princess, I'm really scared. I don't want to say it, not to myself and certainly not to you. But something's happening here and I'm terrified Princess. I don't know if I've ever been this scared. When I was scared of being sent back to magic kindergarten, I knew I could avoid it if I just worked hard enough. I know it was ridiculous but that is what I felt. When I was scared that the dragon on the mountain was going to kill us, I knew that if I dodged and hid well enough, I could escape.

"When my friends and I faced Discord and Nightmare Moon, I knew that there was some puzzle piece I could find that would fix my problems. All my life, I've always known how to fix my fear. More than that, I always knew why I was afraid, I always knew why everything was happening.

"Only now, something's happening that I don't understand Princess. It all feels so wrong, it's like when you walk into a room full of ponies you don't know and they all stare at you. I'd vomit as I am writing but I already did that earlier. I can deal with sudden feelings of fear, I can deal with weird noises. This would all be just merely uncomfortable if it weren't for that sky Princess. Because why would Luna take the stars away? All my life I've known that it all stopped with you, because you're so wise, so kind and so completely magical. What could compare with all that? But now it seems like something might have.

"All the stars have gone away Princess, and I feel like everyone else has gone with them, and left me behind with... something else.

"Please come help me."

With a flash of her horn, the tear-stained parchment dissolved into smoke which faded into the aether. Twilight waited, huddled in her bedclothes. Princess Luna had made a mistake, or this was an experiment. The steady, rhythmic clacking was some unseen wind. The scream didn't exist, there was nothing out there... Oh god.

Seconds became minutes, minutes stretched eternally. Twilight knew how to send personal correspondence to Celestia, she let Spike do it because it had always been his job and she knew how proud he was. But tonight she didn't have the luxury of waiting for Spike. She also didn't need Spike to ensure that when this letter materialised, it would do so with a flash and a deep boom of magical energy release. It was rude and was bound to upset Celestia, but it would get her noticed. She did all of that in spite of knowing that the Princess would wake up when the letter found her regardless. She always did.

So where was she? What was the explanation this time? Of course there were many. Celestia was the diarch of their entire nation. She could be in the middle of difficult negotiations and not have the time to read a midnight letter from her student. Maybe she was with Luna in the dreamscape, both so engrossed in their one true time to bond that Celestia couldn't be stirred by some paltry firework display from Twilight's correspondence. Maybe Luna was too so preoccupied that she hadn't even noticed that all above them, the moon sat alone.

Maybe Celestia was tired and didn't want to talk to anyone. Twilight was certainly a talented unicorn, but her magic was a moth's wingbeat compared to a solar wind here. It wouldn't have been hard for the Princess to set up a spell to prevent mage-letters coming through. But not Twilight's letters... never Twilight's letters.

She peered out of the window into the night. How was it that black so deep could ever exist? The moon was a perfect white disc in the hungry infinity. It looked like a portal to another world and Twilight wished so much she could go there now. Maybe that's where everyone else was.

"Where are you?" she muttered into the duvet. She pulled it over her eyes and began to cry again. Night's apparent only sentinel was sat in her guard tower, crying and wishing so much for Celestia, for her friends, for her mum and dad. The clacking downstairs stopped. Twilight's ear flicked, only now had she become aware of the lack of the sound. The wind must have stopped. She forced herself to think that over and over as she almost wished the noise would come back.

There was a single thump, so much louder than anything that came before, that silenced the entire world. Even the ringing in her ears stopped, and, aside for her breathing, Twilight Sparkle heard nothing more. Of course, it could only be that a final gust of wind, much stronger than those before it, had slammed her window shut, never mind how difficult the clasp was to work from the outside. It was probably just that strong a gust of wind.

The librarian peered out of the window once more, hoping more than anything that she could see the trees being battered around by the truly formidable winds that must have been silently raging outside. Twilight saw no such vision, but only because she could no longer see the trees. The sky seemed to have stolen the light from everything, save for the moon sneering down on her. She fell from her bed and heaved again, her carpet spared by the fact that her stomach was long since empty.

Something had shut her window. And now something was creaking downstairs.

In an old oak tree such as hers, even a mouse scampering around could set off a series of creaks as the old wood protested. It was a fact of living here and something Twilight had gotten used to a long time ago. That was what she forced herself to remember, that and all her brilliant ideas about Luna and the wind and that scream that couldn't have happened while she repeated under her breath that the creak she had just heard could not have been the sound of a door opening.

Of course not, because Spike kept the door hinges well oiled. That creak was so small and so insignificant, perhaps it didn't even happen at all. It couldn't have, because if it did, it meant that there was something down there now, on the second storey of her home. Teleportation was scarcely even an afterthought at this point, she needed so much more focus than she could possibly muster.

Celestia wasn't coming, that much was clear. The unicorn wondered whether she had even gotten the letter. Maybe, in the state she was in, she had sent it to someone else. She thought of Rarity squealing in fear as the letter appeared with a flash of light and sound, the fashionista would frantically paw at her sleeping mask as she tried to shake off the last remnants of drowsiness and work out what the hell had just woken her up.

It didn't matter who it reached, if she knew them they'd read it and see it all. They'd see just how terrified she was and march right over to the library, stars or no. They'd come up the stairs and tell her how silly she was being, and in a week this would all be a silly little memory.

Another little creak, maybe that was them now? The thought made her want to laugh, but most of all it made her want to cry.

Owlowiscious was supposed to be nocturnal. Since he started living with Twilight she had found that he had adapted to a more equine schedule. But this didn't mean he wasn't still an owl, it could very well be him down there, landing on tables and shelves, all creaking. All so likely, certainly more likely than any alternative.

Maybe it was tiredness, mental, physical or simply tiredness of being scared, that compelled Twilight to cautiously trot over to her bedroom door. The old tree's floor's complained as she moved. When she stopped in front of the door the wood took a moment to become silent. Then, from somewhere else, there was another imperceptible creak.

Twilight forced herself not to shake as she pressed her ear against it. She waited, even her heartbeat was muted now. Everything was silent save for her breath, steadier than it had been a couple of moments ago. She pressed her hoof gently against the wood and waited. She didn't know when the feeling started, but she knew when she worked out what it meant.

Twilight pushed herself away. Her hindlegs were brittle, unusable, so she fell the ground and pulled herself across the room, hyperventilating. Something had been out there, something had been on the other side of that door. She tried to rationalise it, tried to tell herself that it was ridiculous.

It was ridiculous after all. Surely something coming up the stairs would have caused much greater creaks than the few tiny ones she had heard. It didn't even matter really what she felt. She hadn't seen or heard or felt this supposed presence. There was no such thing as gut feeling, Twilight knew this. Her feelings had no basis, it didn't matter how real they seemed. It didn't matter how it had felt like she could feel something tracing her hoof on the other side of the door. How she could almost feel its heat penetrate the cold, oiled wood.

She pressed her hooves against her head as she tried to banish the terror, because it was all so baseless when you thought about it. The next creak was on the stairs just outside the door. Twilight wept again, she probably hadn't even stopped before. She managed to get to her hooves to tiptoe over to the window on three legs. Her right forehoof was busy being jammed in her teeth. She gave it a harsh bite everytime her hoofsteps creaked to stop herself from sobbing. There was nothing out there, but she didn't want the nothing to know she was in here. By the time she reached the window her tongue picked a coppery tang.

She pushed open the window and leaned her head out. She could barely make out anything in the black. Of course it was just because her eyes needed to adjust, she knew this. She gave it a couple of moments and they didn't.

Twilight wanted to scream and cry out for someone to come help her. This was a decent town, it was her town. There wasn't a pony here who wouldn't come if she needed it. A cursory glance at the sky showed the moon to be even brighter now, or was everything around it just getting darker? It didn't matter, it had the same effect. Twilight scanned it again, not knowing exactly what she was hoping to see. It all was still the same.

All the stars had gone away.

"Help." The voice that left her was teary and pathetic, and she heaved the second she spoke. Something about speaking into this unnatural stillness mortified her to her core. The feeling of trespassing returned stronger than before. She only gave the night a split second to respond before she plugged both ears with her forehooves. The idea of hearing that scream again sending her into full-blown hysteria. She dove onto her bed again and sobbed while frantically trying to summon enough telekinetic focus to shut the window.

Once it was closed, Twilight cocooned herself in her duvet and forced herself to even her breathing. The surging panic attack fell from its zenith and she managed to reclaim some semblance of rational thought. She was too tired and frazzled to teleport, and even then the idea of going out into that night seemed like the worst idea in the world. If she stayed like this, she genuinely thought she might have a heart attack. It was too much. That left one option.

She looked over at the door.

There was nothing in the night that could hurt her. A starless sky was the foolish idea of the younger princess, a distant clacking the fault of the pegasi not taking the night's winds into account. A scream in the night might not have even existed at all. Twilight knew all of this, because she didn't believe in gut feelings. Nor did she believe in misguided supernatural claptrap. Occam's razor was absolute and not subject to one overtired filly's fears.

She wished to everything that all her knowledge stymied the waves of nausea crashing on her as she once again rose to unsteady hooves. She was tired of being scared, all she wanted was the night to be over. It would be worth it.

Twilight had always known the answers. Pinkie could keep everyone's spirits up, Fluttershy could tend to wounds, Rainbow, Applejack and (to Twilight's enduring shock) Rarity were pretty capable when it came to kicking some flank. Twilight couldn't really do any of those things. What did have was knowledge, she could direct her friends, act as the strategist. Without that the librarian didn't know what she amounted to.

She pushed herself towards the door again. There were no creaks this time. None is this room and none far away, she couldn't recall that ever happening before. Every step was a battle, but she knew there was no such thing as gut feeling, so she persevered. This was nothing but a series of coincidences and paranoia, she knew it. Of course she knew it.

Twilight reached the door and lightly pressed a hoof to it again. For a second, it was like her heartbeat connected with something out there. She withdrew it like it had been burned, but this time Twilight didn't retreat to the pseudo-safety of her bedclothes. She stayed put because she knew that the way her gut was screaming at her to get away, to be anywhere else but here, didn't amount to anything in reality.

She couldn't fight, she couldn't heal, but Twilight could do this. Her knowledge was a library. She couldn't allow it to be dulled by baseless fear, because she knew there couldn't be anything to be afraid of out there. She had to trust that knowledge like she had done so many times before. Twilight stared at the door, and ignored the feeling that it was only the wood preventing something from staring back. She turned her head and looked out of the window, beyond the ever-brightening moon and ever-darkening, starless sky. For just a second, she thought she could see Canterlot.

"I wish you would have come," she muttered before turning back to the door. Twilight knew there was no such thing as gut feeling, this was what forced her against every instinct to place her hoof on the door handle.

She really hoped she'd get to see the stars again sometime soon.

Twilight pulled open the door.