//------------------------------//
// 15. Threshold 
// Story: And The Stars Shine Forth 
// by archonix 
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A chime tinkled high above Twilight's head as she pushed open the door to Rarity's boutique. She winced at the sound, to her sleep-deprived ears, less a gentle ringing than the cacophonous clanging of iron cookware, falling from a great height, and demanded, yet again, of her own mind to know why she had agreed to stay awake for the entire night.

"Just a moment, my dears," sang a voice from within. Rarity. Of course. They were at the boutique. Luna – Sable – had insisted that very morning, only a few hours after Twilight had finally stumbled into bed.

"I see that I should not have required your attendance," said the mare in question. She shuffled up at Twilight's side and nuzzled her cheek, before pushing past to nose open the door. "If you wish to return–"

"No." Twilight blinked and shook her head until she could think straight. "It's not the first time I've pulled an all nighter. Besides, it's nearly lunchtime. I can have a nice, long nap after that. Mom always said that's what the afternoon is for." She stretched and yawned, and stumbled after Luna into the welcome shade of the interior, where she fell gratefully into the soft embrace of an overstuffed couch. "I'm starting to understand why."

Luna seated herself on a stool close to the door. "T'is a wonder more ponies do not follow her example."

"Jealous?"

A smile was Luna's only reply.

The interior of Rarity's was always an adventure in surprise. Some days it would be spartan, white-walled and empty, save for a set of gaily clothed ponequins, frozen in the midst of a complicated dance that invited the visitor further into the room. On others, it would be a riotous carnival of colour, as bolts and rolls of fabric lay strewn and propped, and flew like flags from the ceiling beams, while Rarity herself pranced and pinioned around the skeletal form of her latest creation.

Today it was mundane. The displays were perfunctory, arranged to entice quick sales with little fanfare. A small stack of rolls propped up one corner of the room, while a ponequin lurked in another, draped in layers of discarded ends of all colours, and wearing a selection of wire hat forms atop its featureless face.

Between them, opposite Twilight and the door, Rarity huddled in quiet discussion with a customer, while the mare's young filly stood, rock-still, in a colourful cage of rough-cut linen and silk.

"I think you can see the shape of it, at least," said Rarity. She tipped her head to the mare by her side, a grey pegasus mailmare Twilight had encountered from time to time on her travels around the town. "Dinky has a rather unusual colouration, one that's rather difficult to match or contrast with the materials I normally use. Lucky for you, I found this rather fetching cerise silk lurking at the back of my store-room."

"It's pretty," said the mare. "Don't you think it's pretty, Dink?"

The filly grinned, but stayed still. Rarity let out a small sigh and began to untangle her work from Dinky's back.

"It looks like you're going to put on a growth spurt soon," she murmured, then waved her hoof across the filly's back. "I've left a little room across your withers and shoulder to let it out, if it comes to that. No extra charge," she added, with a wink to the mailmare. "No point in buying a dress and then not getting to wear it, is there?"

"Thanks!" the filly squeaked, wriggling free of the dress as it was lifted from her back. 

"You can come and pick it up in, oh, three days." Rarity set the dress on a nearby form, tugging at it with her magic until she was satisfied it wasn't about to fall off, and then turned to the pair. "If there's nothing else, miss Hooves, I'll see you then."

"Please, call me Derpy!" 

"Of course," Rarity replied as the two trotted to the door, chattering excitedly about some upcoming event. Rarity waited until they had left and then turned a broad smile toward Twilight. "I must say, Twilight, I'm surprised to see you up and about. After your excursion last night, I had assumed, even at this hour, you would still be in bed and fast asleep."

"I won't ask how you knew about that," Twilight replied. She settled further into her couch and closed her eyes, and tried to stifle a yawn without success. "I'm here now, anyway."

"Quite. I shall put on some coffee in a moment, but first, Sable, if you would be so kind?"

Rarity motioned to a raised platform by her side, in front of a trio of tall mirrors that Twilight could have sworn weren't there when they entered. Perhaps she just hadn't noticed.

By contrast, she couldn't help but notice the eager appraisal Rarity gave Luna as the latter stepped up the dais. Her measuring tapes were curling through the air before Luna even had her hooves settled, but then she paused, stepped back, and smiled.

"Forgive me, I should ask what sort of outfit you require before tying you up in knots, shouldn't I?" Rarity leaned in close to Luna and peered at her in the mirror, narrow-eyed and smiling. "I imagine it will be quite the challenge."

Luna, for her part, only stared at her reflection. She was frowning, twisting her head this way and that, as if she had never seen herself before. Perhaps it was the case. Twilight wasn't sure if she'd seen Luna looking at a mirror before today. It was difficult to imagine what it would be like to find your own body so altered.

Finally Luna spoke. "A hat."

At her side, Rarity froze. "Hat? Nothing else? Just a..." she raised her nose and closed her eyes a moment. "Hat?"

"Yes." Luna nodded slowly, turning sideways to look at herself in the mirror again. "Ah! And a suit! They are rather becoming, are they not?"

"Well..." Rarity took a long breath and held out her tapes again as she stepped back, as if warding against some terrible influence. "Well, we are certainly feeling quite the avant garde today, aren't we? A suit..."

Luna turned her gaze to Rarity in the mirror. "Twilight tells me that you are a seamstress of some great skill and creativity. Indeed, I have heard nickerings of your reputation even unto Canterlot herself, where it is said that your works are of great artifice and elegance. If my request offends–"

"Oh no! Nononono most certainly not, my dear, no!" 

The eagerness had returned, Rarity's whole posture sharpening with each pronouncement Luna had made, until her nose was barely a breath from Luna's side. With a sharp swing of her magic, she swathed a tape about Luna's neck, while a notebook and myriad pens and pencils gathered behind her.

"I simply hadn't considered such an unusual request. At the risk of sounding forward, I had already sketched out several designs that seemed suitable, but if it's a suit you want–"

"It is." Luna shuffled as another measuring taped slithered around her belly. "As I find myself, in this moment, I see little appeal in the thought of wearing such... such delicacies as high society finds fashionable. If I must be clothed, then I would have it be in something elegant, but also practical."

"Yes, you did strike me as quite the practical type," Rarity replied. She glanced at Twilight. "Didn't I say as much?"

"Athletic."

"Yes, of course. I think I have something that would work for this." Rarity turned to scribble a note. She slipped a pair of glasses onto her nose and peered at her notes, then at Luna over the rims. "Do you have any preference for colour? Such a dusky shade rather demands a contrast, I feel."

"I am unsure..." Luna peered toward the ceiling as another tape slithered around her neck. A low, distant growl of thunder rolled through the room, settling to nothing once she turned her attention to Rarity again. "Pale. As pale as the unblemished face of the moon. And a vest, it must have a vest. They are most handsome."

"Pale. Vest." Rarity peeked at her tapes, then at her notes, then toward the window as another sonorous rumble echoed through the town. "My, that sounds rather ominous, doesn't it? I was sure the storm wasn't due until the end of the week." She made a final note and looked up at Luna with a broad smile. "As for accompaniments, blouses aren't my speciality as such, but there is a lovely little place over by–"

Before Rarity could finish, Luna teleported out from the confines of her measurement. Twilight rose from her seat and moved to the window, where she had seen the bright flash of a teleport spell concluding. She found Luna outside, peering up at the sky. Fitful gusts of wind tugged at her mane, almost giving the lie to her disguise.

"Quite the eccentric, isn't she," said Rarity, at Twilight's side. She shuffled her notes and laid them on a short table by the door, before carefully stepping out. Twilight could only nod, mutely, as she followed.

Beyond the shelter of the Boutique, the air was muggy and chill enough to suck the warmth from Twilight's body, though the sun still shone brightly from the south. An icy gust set Twilight shivering. Or perhaps it was the sight of the towering, grey-green wall of cloud heaving itself over the horizon and already obscuring all but the tallest towers of distant Canterlot.

"Was it something I said, dear?" Rarity hustled up to Luna's side. Her voice sounded light and upbeat, but her taut stance and quivering ears gave the lie to her cheer. "I hadn't even got to the price!"

Luna didn't reply at first. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon. Then, with the next low growl of thunder, she twitched and shook her head, and turned to face Rarity.

"Oh, lady, forgive me, you have done nothing. T'is the storm." She tipped her head to the horizon again. "It is early."

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time the weather service have got their timing wrong."

"Yet we were assured–" Luna dug her hoof at the road and snorted. "There has not been enough time. I must go."

"Go?"

Rarity had taken a step back at Luna's outburst. She watched as Luna set off at a brisk trot across the green, then turned to Twilight, with her eyebrows raised. 

"To Applejack?"

"Where else?" Twilight shook her head and cantered after Luna. "Sable, wait!"

Luna did not slow at the cry, but she twisted her head to watch Twilight across her shoulder. "I cannot be convinced to desist, Twilight Sparkle. I apologise for breaking my promise in such a manner. I feel the weight of this storm's approach upon my back, and its power within my body." She slowed a fraction until Twilight had caught up to her side, then renewed her pace. "She– they are ill prepared for such as this."

"It's ok, Luna, I understand." Twilight huffed and shook her head. "I don't want to stop you. I want to help."

Luna's head jerked back at the thought. She turned a narrow gaze to Twilight, but it was accompanied by a taut smile. "We may have difficulty finding suitable work for you," she said. A fresh rumble of thunder drew her attention back to the coming storm. "We do not have much time."

"I can help that much, at least," said Twilight. 

Her pace slowed as she concentrated on forming the spellwork for a long-distance teleport; Luna slowed and circled with her, frowning at first until she recognised the growing magic with a quiet ah!

"Don't celebrate just yet," Twilight said. "I'm not used to teleporting so much mass over such a long distance. It's usually just me and Spike."

"I have no doubt in your abilities," Luna replied. 

With the spell complete, Twilight shuffled close to Luna's side and let it loose. A curtain of white rose about their hooves, racing in tight waves as the world slowed around them. Then it rose up in a ball, silencing the storm about them for a fractional moment. Twilight felt her hooves touching the earth there and here all at once, and then the skein of magic dissipated with a loud pop, followed by the crashing of thunder and the rush of wind through over-laden branches.

Luna turned about, glancing at trees here and there, until her gaze caught the distance silhouette of the farmhouse. She tapped Twilight's shoulder and pointed toward it.

"Attend to Granny at the homestead, she shall find work for you. I must seek Applejack yonder."

"How do you know where she is?" Twilight had to raise her voice above the rising wind. Luna shook her head and gave a grim smile.

"To explain would take time we do not have," she said, before turning to the south. Luna paused then, one hoof held aloft. She looked back at Twilight and nodded, before cantering away into the shadowy depths of the orchard, to be lost to Twilight's sight only moments later.

Abandoned again, she thought. But then lightning flashed across the base of the cloud bank, followed only seconds later by a roll of thunder and another fitful sprinkling of rain. Resentment could wait. Twilight turned and skittered toward the house, with the desperate hope that someone there could give her something useful to do.





The light was already fading as Luna plunged into the deep marches of the orchard, heading to the south. She had picked up enough in conversation with the other workers to know that the trees there were vulnerable to strong wind, and surely she would find Applejack there too, leading others by her example.

Rain fell in momentary bursts, carried from the approaching storm by gusts of icy wind that rattled and hissed amongst the treetops. Another rumble of thunder drove Luna to a swift canter, though she refrained from galloping, lest she catch a hoof in an unseen hole or twisted root.

A few paces more and she heard another report, loud and sharp overhead. No thunder was this, though; Luna looked aloft and saw a rapidly dispersing vapour trail, the sign of a pegasus flying full tilt in the moisture-laden air. A rainbow haze shimmered in the trail as it flew, arcing down in the same direction as Luna's travel. Now she galloped, racing the pegasus, regretting most keen, in that moment, the banishment of her wings to take this shape.

A gust of wind brought more pattering drops of rain against the heaving heads of the trees, and to the hard-beaten path ahead of Luna, where they fell with a series of quiet plaps before easing off again. The drum of thunder persisted in the distance, each rumble tailing into the start of another, until it seemed that a whole herd of horse galloped across the sky behind her.

This was not, if she were honest, quite the chase her deepest imagination had envisioned.

Ahead, a row of trees stood against a clearing, a boundary between orchards, filled by a rocky meadow. Luna burst through the trees with a loud haloo, certain that Applejack could not be far away now.

Her hope was soon rewarded. Across the field, just beyond the next line of trees, Luna saw Applejack amongst a knot of ponies, who stood surrounded by seemingly unending coils of rope and stacks of heavy, iron pegs.

She turned as Luna cantered toward them, frowning at first, until a bright smile lit up her face.

"Sable! Fancy seein' you all the way out here!"

"I could not but come to you," Luna replied, shuffling into the group at Applejack's side.

They made way without complaint, welcoming her to their midst as just another of their companions. Luna looked around at each of the ponies in turn, seeing the same shared, ragged exhaustion in their grime-streaked bodies.

"There's seventy trees hereabouts that have shallow roots," Applejack was saying, more for Luna's benefit than anyone else. "Been meaning to bolster them somehow all year, but time steals away, don't it?" She pushed her hat back and peered up at the closest tree. "We'll pair off. Sable with me, Cortland and Zestar south, Elstar and Broadshanks east."

"Do we got time, boss?" This from Zestar, whose ruddy coat was stained near grey with dirt and sweat. "That storm's awful big and awful close."

"We'll do what we can." Applejack's jaw tightened as she looked around at the group. "Don't overwork. If you can't keep up, head back to the farmhouse. I don't want to have a pony needin' a rescue party because she didn't know when to quit."

"There speaks the voice of experience," said another, though Luna didn't recall his name, and didn't feel it pertinent to ask.

She hung back as the others gathered up supplies, shrugging great coils of rope about their shoulders, or heaving sacks of fat, iron stakes onto their backs. Only when they had started to move away did she pick up a mallet and sack of stakes, and stumble after Applejack.

"She speaks more true than she may realise." Luna swung her mallet, testing its weight, as the two marched forward. "There is a nature to this storm that I have not encountered in many years. I fear it shall come upon us without warning."

"So now you're a weather pony, too?" Applejack cocked her ear and then looked over at Luna with an exhausted smile. "Don't you worry none, Sable, there's plenty of time before it reaches us yet" She paused and tipped her ear to the sky. "You hear that?"

Beyond the ever-present wind and the rolling thunder, Luna could hear a low, but growing roar. She looked up between the trees; overhead, the same pegasus trail she had seen earlier was again crossing the sky in a broad, erratic loop toward them, dragging an ephemeral, flickering cone of mist and colour.

"I believe a messenger seeks you," said Luna. She pointed toward the approaching pegasus, that she now recognised as the mare Rainbow Dash. "She appears quite distraught."

Applejack turned her attention to the rapidly approaching pegasus. "Rainbow? What in the sam hill–"

"AJ!" was all Rainbow could manage before her hooves skidded against the ground. Momentum carried her onward and she slid past Applejack and Luna, slowly turning, with her legs splayed wide as she tried to remain upright.

At the end of her landing, she faced them again, with a dull, angry glare burning at nothing in particular. Her eyes were red and rheumy, while salt and grime streaked her cheeks and the sides of her face.

"I screwed up," she moaned as she made her wobbly-legged way back to Applejack. "I screwed up the storm, AJ. It's my fault!"

"Rainbow–"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Rainbow collapsed in a heap around Applejack's neck, not caring how she tangled herself up in the yards of rope already there. At first, Applejack gingerly patted Rainbow's neck, but then she abruptly struggled out from Rainbow's grasp, dropping her rope at the same time.

"Rainbow Dash!" Applejack took a step back and pressed a hoof to her forehead. "Look, whatever you did, it ain't your fault. Even if it is, it ain't. Now why don't you sit yourself down and explain to me what exactly is goin' on."

"I screwed up!" Rainbow Dash dropped to her haunches and bowed her head.

"You said that part."

"Indeed," Luna added. She moved a step closer to Rainbow Dash and touched a hoof to her shoulder. "Pray tell, Rainbow Dash, what has befallen that this storm comes early, and bearing such wildling rains as it does?"

"Wildling..." A sigh became a bitter laugh. "I–I promised AJ I'd get her a couple of days breathing room. Head office signed off on it, but order must have gotten lost somewhere, because right after we started hauling it back, we collided with a front moving over from the coast."

Applejack touched the brim of her hat, then set her hoof down again. "And that means?"

"It's bad, ok? Really bad." Rainbow stood up again and paced away to the furrows she'd left in the ground. She stared at them, blank-eyed and motionless. "They turned in on each other and set up a cyclone that was way, way more powerful than we expected. We've been trying to break it down to component fronts, but it kept gathering them all up again, all but this one. It broke off and ran ahead of the storm under its own power. We were trying to tear it apart until an hour ago." She flapped her wings once, spraying a fine mist into the air. "It's too fast now, too big."

Slowly Applejack turned to look at the distant bank of the storm, as it sped across the plains. It came visibly closer even as they watched. "Is there anything else you can do about it, now?"

"I wouldn't be here if there was. " Rainbow Dash slumped to her haunches again, with her wings hanging limp at her sides, showing off a poor collection of ragged and broken feathers. "I'm such an idiot."

"T'was not your fault, Rainbow Dash," said Luna. She edged toward the pegasus, but halted in her tracks when Rainbow turned a puffy-eyed glare toward her. "If you insist to bear the burden of blame, then share it equally with all at fault, just as you would all share the glory of success in other, better days. No pony has the right to take such blame upon her back, alone."

"But–"

"She's right, Dash." Applejack moved to Luna's side as she spoke. "Get back to the farmhouse and rest up. We've got work to do out here."

"AJ, it's gonna be here any minute! It only took this long because we were holding it back."

"I fear our harbinger is correct, Applejack," Luna added. She stepped around Applejack and looked up toward the cloud bank. "This storm approaches with uncanny speed."

"But the trees–"

"We cannot save them, Applejack, not–" Luna paused, as a scattering of rain fell against the tree tops. "Not if we are to preserve ourselves, also."

Applejack stood silent, staring at Luna with hard, unblinking eyes. Only her mouth moved, twisting itself around unspoken thoughts, of which form Luna did not dare speculate. She briefly looked at Rainbow Dash, who shrugged and backed off, before turning on the path back to the house at a high, if shaky trot.

A drop of rain, fat and heavy, fell to the earth between the pair with a loud plap. More followed, as the rain began to fall in earnest, until the air was filled with a quiet roar and the rattle of beaten leaves. It was only thanks to the dense foliage overhead that the two were not immediately soaked to their skins.

"If you want to head back, too," Applejack said. She held herself stiff and apart from Luna as she spoke. "You know the way."

"I would not abandon you, Applejack, but please, see reason." Luna took a step forward, which Applejack mirrored with a step back of her own. "It is folly to remain here! I shall not pretend to understand the esteem in which you hold these trees, nor the familiar bond you share with them, but in the end, trees are all they are!"

"These ain't just trees! My grandpappy planted this orchard when he was a year out from dying and he knew, he knew he'd never get to eat a single damned apple from their branches!" Applejack waved her hoof across the scene, across the distant workers as they laboured in the chill rain to tie down another tree. "He planted them for us! For me, near as dammit! They're a legacy!"

"As you also are his legacy," Luna replied. "I do not believe he would require you to choose his trees over your own life, dear Applejack. To lose you now would be unbearable."

"That's my choice to make," Applejack shot back. She hefted the rope across her back and made to turn away, only to stop with a hoof raised in the air. She took a long breath and lowered her gaze.

"Please, Applejack, turn back from this folly."

Thunder cracked through the air, close and violent, followed soon after by sonorous, drawn-out echoes from distant hills. The sound seemed to shake Applejack from whatever stupor she had fallen to; she lifted her head again, her eyes tracing the shivering sheets of rain that were torn and tattered by the winds high above, while her ears and hindquarters slowly sagged under the weight of her exhaustion.

"You're right," she said. "I don't want you to be right." She tugged at the rope around her body and then lifted her hat and waved toward the nearest of the other ponies in the orchard. "Zestar! Pack it up! We're heading back!"

The command was acknowledged with a quick wave, and Zestar turned to chase her companions, trailing half-coiled rope behind her as she ran.

"Maybe the wind won't be so bad," Applejack said, almost too quiet to be heard over the rain. She flashed a wan smile to Luna, then, with her head low and rain sheeting from her hat, sloped away to the open meadow.

It should have been a relief, Luna thought, to see her friend accept the truth, but she couldn't shift the iron ball hanging in her gut at the sight. She looked up at the rain, then at the trees, and back to Applejack. "Wait."

Applejack raised her head at the word, then turned at the sound of Luna's magic as it seized the rope on her back. She turned to follow the rope as it flew back to Luna's side. "Sable?"

"I came to help, did I not?"

Not waiting for a reply, Luna uncoiled the rope, while her magic reached out to gather up the remainder from where it lay, on the ground or on the backs of departing ponies. She hesitated, sending a reassuring smile to Applejack, and then set the rope snaking through the air to the nearest row of trees, coiling two around each, in the manner she had seen the others tying down their charges minutes earlier. Pegs followed, clanking in pairs to the end of each rope, where open knots now waited for them. With a last flash of magic, she thrust each of the pegs into the earth by turns, until every tree she could easily make sight of was staked firmly to the earth.

She paused to take a breath. In her truncated form, it seemed she could not sustain the same power to which she was accustomed. It was surprising, how tired such exertion made her feel.

"I felt circumstances called for a little deviation from your traditional methods," she said, once she had caught her breath. Applejack's brow twisted; she shook her head, but she was smiling all the same.

"You could have led off with that," she replied, nudging Luna with her elbow. "Lets get inside, before one of us catches a lightning bolt."

Huddled together against the rain, the pair made their way back out to the meadow, and the long path back to the farm.