//------------------------------// // Five: Nightfall // Story: Tidally Locked // by cleverpun //------------------------------// The path out of Eclipston remained dusty and barren for a long time. Only the sky changed, slowly progressing from dusky orange to nightly purple, before settling on a cloudless almost-black. Rarity looked at every part of the path, every pebble and divot. The suggestion of path stretched on, and the desert looked a lot like Corona’s various border areas. But her gaze kept wandering up to the sky, the moon in particular. “How did you sleep?” Dash asked. “Fine, thank you. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, given the locale.” Rarity waited for an off-color taunt or snarky remark. Dash remained uncharacteristically quiet. “The next time we stop to sleep, it’ll be at nightplace.” “And?” “You keep looking at the sky. Keep trying to ignore it, and looking anyway.” “…” “Y’know, during training—not basic, either—there’s a section on the Nightscape. The first part is mostly reading and lectures. But then they do, whatsit called… “Nocturnal Immersion Therapy.” They take you to this big complex out in the boonies: a big building that mimics nightplace. You have to spend a week there, and any panic attacks or breakdowns , and they pull you out, give you an F, and send you along.” “Do ponies fail it often?” “Not really. But most don’t take it, even though you go up in pay.” “Have you taken this training?” “Yea.” “And did you pass it?” “Yea.” “Then I am afraid I don’t see your point.” Rainbow Dash scratched the back of her neck. “Alright, let me put it this way. Did you ever read Nightfall?” “No.” “It’s about this far-off planet. They have six suns, so they never experience night.” “Sounds rather familiar.” “Right. Except these ponies never had night at all. They can’t walk a bit and find it. And they're all really afraid of the dark and super-claustrophobic. They build their houses so there’s no shadows, even.” “I am afraid I still don’t—” “I’m getting to that. In the middle of the book, after this crackpot, or not-crackpot… Well, they have an eclipse. The moon covers up the sun so it looks like night.” “I am aware of what an eclipse is. I’ve read about them.” “Yeah, but see, the ponies in the story don’t. They all go crazy, feral even. Mobs and cults and that kind of thing. And their records from survivors show that every few millenniums, their cities all burn up, probably because of other eclipses. Civilization collapses because they don’t know how to handle it, and it keeps happening over and over.” Dash nudged her head toward the moon, without looking at it. “It happens to everypony, when they cross over the first time. Sometimes it’s big, like panic attacks. Mostly it’s just small stuff, like how you keep looking up but trying not to.” “If it’s mostly minor, what’s the issue?” Rarity asked. “Because in Nightfall, it happens to everypony, all at once. It multiplies, gets everypony at the same time, whether they were expecting it or not.” Rarity paused. “What happened to you, the first time?” Dash stopped walking, scanned the horizon and either end of the path. “I got…quiet,” she said. “I got bored. I spent a lot of time thinking. Or more like, I spent a lot of time alone with my thoughts. I spent a lot of time being…melancholic.” Dash continued walking, and Rarity scurried to catch up. They walked in silence for a while. “So then, this book—Nightfall—how does it end?” Rainbow Dash smirked. “It doesn’t seem like your kind of book.” “Probably not.” “Well, the original ends just like I told you. The scientists tell everyone about the eclipse, but nopony listens and civilization collapses.” Dash looked back at Rarity, and quickly added, “But, they wrote a longer version that has a new beginning and ending.” “So how does that one end, then?” “Well, I don’t really do spoilers,” Dash said. “I think it might be better if you read it for yourself.” The next town Rarity and Rainbow Dash arrived at boasted a larger size and population than Eclipseton. Only in the most technical sense, perhaps a square yard more area and one more household worth of ponies. But bigger was still bigger. The road had finally shifted from desert and pockmarks of shrubbery to bits of gnarled tree and clumps of crabgrass. The closer they got to the capital city, the more budget for public works showed itself. This town was just close enough to have government earth ponies stop in, perhaps as often as once a month. It was just like Corona, that way. Princess Celestia certainly tried to get every town and village and hamlet the help they needed, but the miles of desert they had crossed through on the way here showed the infeasibility of that task. The town looked like Eclipston in other ways, although even sparse foliage made everything seem much newer and well-kempt. “Finally,” Dash muttered. “Let’s find an inn and get some food.” “I’m assuming this is still the sort of town where choice of inn is out of the question.” “Yep. I guess you could walk around to the other side of the inn, that door might be another entrance.” “Doubtful.” They had entered the nightscape now, and so the landscape had been robbed of brighter colors. The innkeeper was a bat-pegasus. She sported the tufted ears and distinct pupils of all nightscapists, among other unattractive qualities. The bright pink of the last innkeeper had been replaced with a muted, dingy yellow, and the blue eyes had been swapped for a dusky purple. “Can I help you?” The innkeeper asked. “A room and some food,” Rainbow Dash said. The innkeeper looked Rainbow Dash up and down. “Just the one bed?” “Two, if you have em.” Rainbow leaned in. “And, I’m sure I don’t need to say, we’d prefer some privacy.” The innkeeper nodded. Rarity could sense some disdain, some sort of disgust in the innkeeper’s actions and expression. Perhaps she felt like Rarity did, and the bright colors of these foreigners hurt her eyes. Perhaps the implied cover of being a couple had backfired, and it made the two of them look like degenerates. The innkeeper pulled a key off the wall. “How long will you be staying?” “Just a cycle. Got plenty more sightseein’ to do, ya know?” The innkeeper leered at the money too. Freshly minted Nightscape crescents that Rarity had needed to requisition from a clandestine section of the government. The innkeeper took out a small scale and weighed them before finally handing the key to Dash. The food had been fine. Simple, but tasty, like the food in Eclipston. Rarity lay in her bed, staring at the room. Moonlight streamed in from the window. The moon had set, ticked along to the horizon just like the sun did in Corona. And just like in Corona, the difference between morning, highsun, and lowsun only had subtle differences. But the times of da—night had to have different names here. The moonlight spilled into the room, and it had such a bright, white quality that it almost reminded her of the sun. Or of a perversion of it. A digital clock sat on the nightstand next to her, glaring eerily with its red numbers and dots. ‘2227,’ it declared. She should be exhausted right now; it had been a long day, and it was past her normal rest hours. She closed her eyes. Like most Coronans, she wore a sleepmask to bed. She had not packed it, it had seemed so superfluous. But the moonlight poked her eyes just enough to open them again. She got up, walked to the window, closed the blinds. The room sunk into pitch-blackness immediately. She stumbled back to her bed, narrowly avoided Dash’s bed only because of the loud snores coming from it. She nestled back into her covers, closed her eyes again. That innkeeper had leered at her and Dash the entire dinner. Leered at them as they made their way up to this room. If other patrons had been there, would they have leered too? Leered with their ugly slitted pupils and tufted ears and leathery wings? Rarity opened her eyes, though she still saw only blackness. Do they feel the same way? Do they look at my immaculate, pristine coat, my round pupils, my untufted ears and think the same thing? Do I look disgusting to them? Rarity turned to Rainbow Dash’s bed, and the blue of her coat peeked through the darkness, ever so slightly. Was this all a mistake? If...when I succeed at repairing everything, it’ll be like this all the time. Nightscapists and Coronans living together, staring at each other every day. Leering at each other, judging each other... “I’m not xenophobic.” Rarity whispered. The room stayed silent. Rainbow’s snores hitched slightly and continued on. It’s not my fault. It’s all just a cultural construct. I don’t mean to be xenophobic. I don’t mean to be... But that innkeeper did it to me, too. Is she to blame? It’s all just her culture, as well. I can’t blame her for it. Everypony else is going to feel the same way. When I deliver the letter, and the princesses finally make amends, will anypony be happy? Will they want the changes that happen? Was this whole mission a mistake? “Rainbow Dash.” “What?” “Was this whole thing...is it a mistake?” Rainbow Dash sighed. “You know, that’s really not the sort of question that you should ask in the middle of the night.” “But was it?” Rainbow Dash rolled around in bed, looked at Rarity. The whites of her eyes just barely poked through the darkness. “It happens to everyone, the first time. I told you it would.” “What?” “Darkness, nighttime, silence, moonlight. You’re taking it better than I thought. Better than most ponies. But don’t let all the ideas and thoughts in your head right now... Don’t take them too seriously. Don’t hang on to them. They’re not important, they won't stay there.” “But the way that innkeeper was looking at us... The way I was looking at her!” Rarity bit her lip, felt tears forming at the edges of her eyes. “You were right. Sweetie Belle was right. Everypony was right. I’m just a racist pretending to be accepting, trying to make change to make myself important. I’m not—” “Stop right there. Whatever that thought is, don’t finish it. You’re not yourself, the first time you experience nighttime. It gets in your head, makes you think things that you would never think otherwise. Don’t think about any of that stuff. Just go to sleep, get some rest.” Rarity sat up. “No, you’re just saying that. And even if it is the nighttime, then so what? Is this what I’m doing? Trying to make everypony experience this?” She turned to the clock. ‘2249,’ it declared. She had started to cry now. “I wasn’t thinking about the welfare or the helping or the good of all ponykind. I didn’t want to make my mentor feel better. I just wanted it for myself, to seem...” Rainbow Dash had climbed on top of Rarity’s bed without her noticing. “Specialist, I’m a petty, selfish failure.” Rainbow reached into her pocket, pulled out a small, single-dose pill packet. Rainbow sighed. “They warned me a civvie might not be able to handle it. Not without any preparation. Eat this.” “Why...?” “It’ll help you sleep. It won’t make you forget all the stuff going through your head right now, but maybe that’s better than forgetting it all.” Rarity swallowed the pill without resistance. Dash pulled a water bottle from another pocket. Rarity drank from that without protest. “Specialist, am I going to die?” “Well, not from standard-issue sleep aids, I hope.” Rarity leaned back. Her eyes had already started to droop. Which was worse? The darkness or the perverse moonlight? Like any red-blooded Coronan, she owned a sundial, and that ugly digital clock made her eyes hurt. Or had her tears made things blurry? Rainbow Dash waited, on top of Rarity, until Rarity’s eyes closed and her breathing slowed, became rhythmic and regular. Dash returned to her bed, sat down, and watched Rarity sleep. Her eyes turned to the clock. She chuckled to herself. “You did better than some of the recruits, if it makes you feel any better.” She patted her pocket. “Don’t worry. I brought enough for a week’s worth of sleep cycles.” Rainbow got into bed, covered herself up. The placebos had done their job, Rarity seemed to be sleeping soundly. She pointed herself at Rarity’s bed as she fell asleep, just in case.