//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: A Night In The Life 
// Story: The Legend of Midnight Hour 
// by Stratocaster 
//------------------------------//

The Legend of Midnight Hour
By Stratocaster


Chapter 1: A Night In The Life


“Hmm, that’s interesting.”

Midnight read quietly to himself as he sat on the roof at night. It was just like every other night; the town was quiet, most ponies were asleep, the lights were out, the stars were glimmering, and the moon was moving closer to where Midnight was waiting for it to be. The book he was reading was a mythic tale about the powerful being once known as Princess Luna. For as long as he could remember, he had a deep fascination with the power of the moon, especially since it was a crucial part of his job. After diving himself further and further into the book, Midnight forced himself to break away and look up at the sky.

“You got to be kidding me, it’s time already?!”

To his surprise, it was. The moon was just about directly over Midnight’s head as he closed the book and sprang to his hooves. He pulled out a sextant and intricately measured the angle of the moon; his calculations were correct, it was at 90 degrees.

“Perfect, alright, let’s do this.”

Midnight took short deep breaths to get him into focus. He faced the steeple that held the town clock of Fillydelphia. Gathering up all his concentration, he charged the magic inside the horn on his head. A white beam of light shined down from the moon and surrounded Midnight. Then, he bowed his head and fired the magic from his horn at the clock. Slowly but surely, he kept the magic flowing for several seconds until he heard the gears within the clock begin to make their constant ticking. Midnight stopped the magic and looked at the clock with a satisfied smile. Both hands were pointed at XII and the large bell inside the steeple gave off twelve chimes which resonated throughout the town. He gave one last sigh of relief.

“Another day, another apple.”

With that, he hopped off the roof and down the stack of boxes he had set up to get on top in the first place. The bell’s chimes stopped as Midnight walked down the empty street guided by the light from his horn; he yawned when he approached his house a few blocks down. Quietly he opened the door which usually squeaked and entered the front room closing it behind him. He stepped into the kitchen; on the table was a plate with a single slice of apple pie. Next to it was a note that read “Sorry I ate the rest, bro. –N” With a role of his eyes, Midnight wolfed down the pie slice and a glass of milk. After heading upstairs to brush his teeth, he finally climbed into his bed and buried his face in his pillow. Before instantly falling asleep, it then struck him: he forgot his book on the roof.

“Shoot! …Oh well, I’ll get it tomorrow.”

...

This was the life of Midnight Hour. He was just like every other average blue coated, black mane, purple eyed, young working class stallion unicorn pony; only his work wasn’t as average. He was known in Fillydelphia as the one who restarts the day. In his time, clock technology in Equestria was fairly modernized; however the only problem was that the clocks would immediately stop after 11:59 PM. Since clocks were powered by unicorn magic, it took unicorn magic to fix them. Midnight’s family had been in charge of that task for generations. Every night, the one who restarts the day would wait by the town’s clock for the moon to reach the center of the sky. Only then, they would channel the power from the moon and use it to magically restart the clock. The hands would strike twelve and the bell would sound out the respectful number of chimes which would alert everypony that the day had started anew. Also, this process made it so that the magic would spread from the town clock to any other clock in town making them restart as well. Midnight’s father, Dusk, was the previous owner of the job, and now he had become old enough to inherit it from him. Although, when Midnight was still a colt, Dusk’s life would be dominated by going to different towns, in different time zones, restarting the master clocks in every one. Because of this, Midnight had to learn everything else about life from his mother, Dawn. Now he only does the job in his hometown of Fillydelphia, where he spends an hour waiting for the moon, and the rest of the hours living like a normal pony; at least that was how it had been.