Sweetie turned around for the twentieth time in half as many minutes. She just couldn’t sleep!
The bed was nice enough, even if it wasn’t the same as the one at home, so that wasn’t the problem. Neither was the room - what little she could see of it in the dark, anyway.
It was her mind that kept her up. Today had been exciting, sure, but Sweetie couldn’t stop thinking about the one thing it had lacked: the appearance of her cutie mark.
She, Scootaloo and Applebloom had formed the Cutie Mark Crusaders a week before the holidays began, but they hadn’t been able to do a lot with it because of the holidays. Sweetie had tried some things she otherwise probably wouldn’t have otherwise, like kayaking and taking care of bees, but so far nothing had yielded anything other than one of the things that often appeared whenever results were not achieved: disappointment.
Sweetie parted the curtains a little to look through, seeing the beautiful stars outside. Ever since Princess Luna had returned, the night sky had been more entrancing than ever before.
A stargazing cutie mark wouldn’t be so bad, she decided. With that done, she slipped out of the bed. Perhaps a walk on the beach would help with her sleeplessness, even if she didn’t gain her cutie mark from it.
Getting out of the cottage wasn’t hard. Her parents had left the key on the dinner table, and with it held in her magic Sweetie stepped outside.
It wasn’t that cold, even though it was late, but the wind made it colder than the night had any right to be. She left the key in the door, then walked over the path of stone towards the beach.
The stars were so bright tonight, with the moon only half-there. She didn’t even need to light her horn to see what was in front of her. The waves lapped softly against the shore, and there-
Was someone on the beach?
Sweetie strained her eyes, but in the darkness she couldn’t see much. Still, there was definitely something there. It was tall and thin. It certainly wasn’t a pony. Beyond that, it was too dark to see anything.
Sweetie’s first instinct was to turn around and sneak back into the cottage, but something kept her from doing so. Curiosity, she realized after a moment.
What was this creature? Was it friendly? What was it doing here?
Only one way to find out.
Now determined, Sweetie cautiously approached the creature. It stood near the water, and as Sweetie got closer she saw there was a raffled and torn cape hanging from it’s back.
Just a few meters away from it, the creature suddenly spun around. Sweetie yelped and stopped walking immediately, then stared at the creature.
It’s skin appeared to be glowing slightly, like a very, very dim lamp. It wore clothes that were just as damaged as the cape on it’s back, with the faded symbol of a star in the center of it’s upper body. Where it’s legs turned into it’s body, there hung a massive sword. Sweetie looked further up, straining her neck, and saw what appeared to be the creature’s face. It was looking at her with no visible emotions at all.
‘’What are you doing here, cintaroccohína? Should you not be in bed?’’
Sweetie took a step back from the creature. ‘’You can talk?’’ she asked before she could help herself.
The creature raised what appeared to be an eyebrow, as it watched her with eyes that had some sort of strange light shining inside of them. ‘’I can speak, yes. Tell me, what are you doing here? It is late.’’
Sweetie decided to be friendly. ‘’I couldn’t sleep,’’ she admitted. ‘’I had a very exciting day today.’’
‘’Is that so?’’
‘’Yeah,’’ Sweetie nodded, before remembering she hadn’t introduced herself. ‘’Oh, and I’m Sweetie Belle! It’s nice to meet you!’’
The creature smiled - at least, it looked like that - and did what seemed to be a bow, bending it’s upper body forward. ‘’It is good to meet you too, my lady.’’
Sweetie couldn’t help but blush a little. People never called her a lady! Rarity, sure, but not her! ‘’T-thanks,’’ she said. ‘’Do you have a name, mister?’’
The creature’s smile dimmed a little. ‘’I do,’’ he confirmed, ‘’but no one has used it in a long time. I doubt anyone still remembers it.’’
‘’Oh.’’ Sweetie looked down at the sand. ‘’You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.’’ She didn’t want to be pushy or rude.
‘’It’s alright,’’ the creature said. ‘’I am called Maglor.’’
‘’That’s a nice name,’’ Sweetie said. She hadn’t ever heard of somepony being called that before, but that just made it unique. Something Rarity had said once came to mind: Better to make something unique but disliked than the same old thing over and over again.
She had been talking about clothes (obviously), but it probably applied to names as well. Plus, Sweetie didn’t want to be mean. If no one remembered Maglor’s name, that meant he was probably all alone. That couldn’t be nice.
‘’You want to ask me a question,’’ Maglor suddenly broke the silence. ‘’Go ahead. I won’t mind.’’
Sweetie swallowed, and looked back up at him. ‘’You said there was no one that knows your name. Why’s that?’’
What remained of Maglor’s smile vanished, and he sighed. ‘’I have been in these lands for a long, long time,’’ he said. ‘’When I arrived here, I came with my father, six brothers and a great host of my people. Now, I am all that remains. Anyone else has gone back to the West, one way or the other.’’
The West? ‘’I thought there was nothing but ocean in the west.’’
‘’Now there isn’t. There used to be, in times even my people would consider to be long ago now. But it was moved beyond the circles of this world, and over time, the lands themselves changed. Now you would not recognize the lands we entered then.’’
Sweetie didn’t understand. Beyond the circles of the world? What did that mean? ‘’Where are you from, then?’’
Maglor sighed again. ‘’My homeland is Aman, the land of the Valar. In that age the world was young, and the light of the Two Trees still shone in this world. But I left it long ago, and I have not had a home for millenia.’’
‘’You don’t have a home?’’ That didn’t sound very nice.
‘’Not anymore,’’ Maglor said regretfully. ‘’And my family is all gone. They are in Aman, I know not where. Perhaps they are still in the Halls of Mandos, perhaps they have been released. But since the War of Wrath I have remained on these shores, and the road to Valinor was closed long ago.’’
‘’So you’re never going to see your family again?’’ Sweetie asked in a whisper, horrified. The idea that she would never see her parents or Rarity again was so scary. She’d be so… so sad.
‘’Unless I die, I will not.’’ The way Maglor said it sounded so defeated, like he had just accepted this would be his fate.
‘’That’s sad.’’ Sweetie paused, hesitated. ‘’Do you need a hug?’’
‘’I…’’
Sweetie took that as a yes. She reached out with her forelegs and wrapped them around one of Maglor’s long legs. The fabric that covered them was rough, but she didn’t mind.
Maglor stared down at her, and then said something she didn’t understand. ‘’... thank you,’’ he said after a few seconds of silence, before reaching down with his hoof-thing and patting her head.
‘’No problem, Mr Maglor,’’ Sweetie replied. ‘’You deserve a hug.’’
And the headpats were nice too.
Then, Maglor began to sing. Sweetie wasn’t sure what he was saying, and couldn’t even really make out the words, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
It all appeared before her. Great armies of people looking just like Maglor, wearing shining armours. They fought and died, sang and ran, laughed and grieved. It was beautiful, and it was ancient, a time before even the Princesses.
When Maglor was finished singing, the stars seemed to shine even brighter than before. Sweetie looked up at Maglor. ‘’Can you tell me about your life?’’
‘’It is not a tale for children,’’ Maglor replied.
‘’I wanna hear it anyway,’’ Sweetie said stubbornly. ‘’And I think… I think you need to tell it to someone. You need a friend.’’
Maglor smiled that sad smile again. ‘’Mayhaps I do,’’ he said. ‘’Very well then. But I warn you, my story is long and not happy.’’
Sweetie let go of him, and laid down on the soft sand at his feet, looking up with an expression of unrestrained curiosity.
Maglor chuckled. ‘’It all began with my father, Feänor…’’