On the heels of lively May comes the transcendental stillness of June. It seems that, as the world heats up, all anything or anyone can do is sprawl their sweaty bodies out in the shade and breathe. It is the slow remembering of the heat of the summer that causes everything to grind to a halt.
In much the same way, the exciting newness of Night Glider's lookout routine had settled into a sort of malaise. She woke each day to Clear Sky's jaunty pre-dawn singing, took a small tour of the surrounding area on hoof while munching on morning rations, and returned to her lookout tower just as the sunlight was turning from gentle yellow to stark white. Here she would spend most of the day split between testing her knowledge of the scientific instruments in her tower and cleaning up after the previous lookout's blizzard of papers. Another tour of the area before dinner, this time checking for campsites which might be violating fire safety guidelines, and she'd be home in time for dinner and a bit of reading.
In the past month, of course, Night Glider had not seen another pony in the flesh. As much time as she spent looking for ponies to scold for improper trail behavior, it was only ever Clear Sky on the radio—mostly loud and clear, occasionally distant and garbled—who accompanied her.
And that was fine.
She was fine with being alone.
That was the point, after all.
Each of Clear Sky's kindhearted check-ins was met with a civil disinterest. Frustratingly, this did not seem to diminish Clear Sky's dedication in befriending Night in the least. She still called in with a frequency that was just slightly too high, always eager to offer advice (both helpful and not), anecdotes (both interesting and not), and jokes (both funny and not).
This morning, though, Night Glider had politely and insistently informed Clear Sky to leave her be.
"What's on the docket today, Night?"
Night sighed. "I think it's about time I tried to actually get rid of some of this junk,” she said. “All I’ve done so far is move it around and, shocker, it’s still a lot of junk.”
"I'm guessing by 'this junk' you mean Star Hunter's notes? And uh… whatever else?"
"Yep."
"And… I'm guessing you'd like me to leave you alone so you can concentrate?"
Night's hoof hovered over the button. "Uh. Yep."
Night Glider squinted at yet another messily-torn notebook page scrawled on in smudged hoofwriting, barely catching more than a few words. What words she could make out were all very… mushy? Lovey-dovey stuff. Poetry stuff.
She tossed this sheet on the pile to go and started in on the next one.
Before she could make out even a single word, the radio beside her crackled softly.
Night deflated in an instant. Her ears pinned against her head as she mentally prepared for yet another deluge of Clear Sky's disconnected musings.
Clear Sky did not speak, however. Not a word. The radio hummed, gentle but insistent, and only a light and bubbly sound, almost musical, came through the other side.
A giggle.
The sort a mare puts on when she knows she's being watched—just slightly too rehearsed, with a perfectly ladylike snort thrown in for good measure.
When she had finished, the radio clicked off.
Night frowned. For a long moment, all she could do was stare at the radio beside her, wondering what in Equestria might possess Clear Sky to transmit this bout of staged laughter to her.
She tried to push down the curiosity.
The curiosity bubbled back up.
Night's hoof released the paper she had been holding and snuck over to the radio, lifting it to her face but not yet daring to press the button.
The cicadas buzzed endlessly on the other side of the open window. A heat you could hear.
Before she knew it, Night Glider had pressed the button and lifted the radio to her lips. "Uh… Clear Sky?"
There was a long pause.
"Yes?"
"Did you just… giggle girlishly at me?"
Night Glider rethought her approach the moment the words left her mouth.
“I mean. I heard a giggle,” Night corrected, darkly serious. “Did you giggle?”
Another pause. “Did I giggle?”
“I heard a giggle!” Night defended vehemently. “Like a little—a giggle!”
“You think I turned on my radio just to giggle at you?”
“I dunno!” Night scoffed. “I-I don’t know you! Maybe you’re a giggler!”
Clear Sky broke into raucous, barely-controlled laughter, not bothering to turn off her radio. She snorted profusely. Not a match for the giggle Night had thought she’d heard. Of course, Night could hardly focus on disproving her theory with the embarrassed heat rising in her cheeks.
“Wow.” Clear Sky sighed, her voice still thick with the echoes of her laughter. “Only a month and you’re hearing—what were your exact words? Girlish giggling?”
“Y’know, I have a lot more of this crazy guy’s notes to get through, how about—”
“You’re the one who radioed me,” Clear Sky cut in. “You sure the isolation isn’t getting to you?”
“I’m sure.”
“Are you hearing any giggling now?” Clear Sky asked snidely.
“No,” Night corrected firmly. “It came through the radio.”
Clear Sky paused to think. “Maybe you’re catching someone else’s frequency,” she said. “It’s unlikely, but not impossible.”
Night Glider looked down at her radio, turning it over in her hoof, as if just staring at it might reveal the answer. “Maybe,” she agreed. “Yeah. Must be.”
“If that’s the case, we should switch over to another channel,” Clear Sky said. “These lines are supposed to be secure. Though, honestly, I can’t imagine what a hiker would want with our conversations. Let’s tune to channel three and hope no one else giggles at you, okay?”
Night let out a tense sigh. “Great.”
The radio hiccuped as Night Glider adjusted the frequency, but seemed to settle in on the same gentle white noise as always.
“Can you hear me?” Clear Sky asked.
“Loud and clear,” Night replied.
“Perfect. Just let me know if it happens again and we’ll switch to a new channel,” Clear Sky explained matter-of-factly. “We can stay one step ahead of whoever’s listening into our gossip sessions.”
Night fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Right. Thanks.”
"No problemo."
Night placed the radio beside her once again and squinted back down at the next page of notes. This one was similarly unreadable, with only a few words—’love’, ‘always’, ‘protect’, ‘safe’, and so on—actually standing the test of time. Another attempt at an unsent love note, maybe? Hard to tell. Certainly not important.
Toss.
A few more pages went by in this way. Many of them had scraggly edges after being torn from spiral-bound notebooks, while others seem to have served as coasters and napkins (what else could possibly smudge them up so badly?). Some had a small vertical tear near the top, which Night Glider eventually matched to that of a pushpin.
He had tacked these to the wall?
Weird, but perhaps not any weirder than the existence of these piles and piles of failed love letters in the first place. If you’re gonna sink yourself into becoming some sort of gushy poet in isolation, you might as well go all the way, right? Start tying things together with string and staring at your work as you drift off to sleep.
Toss, toss. A lot of rambly garbage, very little of it interesting even from a snooping perspective.
Just as the ‘toss it’ pile was reaching the height of Night’s seat, she spotted something colorful poking out of the center of her sorting stack. Slowly, cautiously, she gave it a small tug. The stack shifted with it, and Night had to scramble to keep it from toppling over. While the stack mostly held itself together, a few papers came tumbling off the top, and scattered themselves across her workspace.
Night heaved a sigh, gave the stack a shove into a more stable position, and looked over the papers that had spilled in front of her.
Most were the same as the others—notebook pages covered in smudged pen—but one stood out to Night as familiar: the pamphlet she had been given by her superior when she’d first learned about the job.
Night frowned and picked it up.
It was a colorful thing. Lots of picturesque images of the area (as if you could take a bad picture of this place), all of them as desolate as Night had come to know them. The pamphlet listed out the barest minimum of a lookout’s duties, as well as all the great opportunities one would have to ‘be one with nature’ and ‘learn about the environment’.
It wasn’t her specific pamphlet. Night wouldn’t have even thought to bring it with her, to be honest. No, while it was exactly the same print, this must have been brought by Star Hunter, the previous lookout.
Night Glider folded the pamphlet back up and went to throw it on the toss pile, but another scribbled note on the back caught her eye.
This one was a little more certain. Night couldn’t be sure why, exactly, this note was easier to decipher than the others, but she could read nearly every word:
May 14
M: It’s beautiful out here.
S: I told you. This will be perfect for us.
M: Are you sure?
S: Sure I’m sure. It’s just like a fairytale.
Night furrowed her brows. She read the note over again. Then a third time. She noticed that the date was written in a different colored pen—blue as opposed to the black of the text itself. She read it a fourth time, as if this revelation might help her understand the note a little better, but came up empty.
A… playwright?
Pretty crappy play.
It sounded sort of familiar to Night Glider, but not in any way she could confidently pin down. Just generic enough to be from any book, film, or theater production under the sun. He possibly even overheard some campers and creepily committed it to paper.
Like a weirdo.
Night read the note over again. Could have been a play. Could have been notes on the hikers.
As little as it actually mattered, what with this guy being gone and all, Night couldn't help but feel that little nagging sense of investigative duty. Maybe it was residual from search-and-rescue, possibly from Our Town, very likely a bit of both—but Night Glider couldn't bring herself to even leave the possibility of creepiness alone.
She was the lookout, after all.
Night reached for the radio and clicked it on. For a moment, she just listened to the device hum in her hoof, unsure of what to say.
"H-hey, Clear Sky?" she squeaked out, only half-formed. "You there?"
A pause. A pop of static. "How many times have I told you to call me Sky, now?" she reminded Night. "What's up?"
Night cleared her throat. "Uh… remember when you mentioned the previous lookout?" she prompted.
Another pause. This one a bit tense. "Mhm."
"You said he was a bit… something or other," Night recalled. "Was he, like, a writer?"
Clear Sky scoffed. "He may have been," she said, more contemptuous than Night had anticipated.
Night didn't reply, only looked down at the radio in confusion.
"I honestly couldn't tell you—he really kept to himself. To an absurd degree." The radio clicked off. Then, after a moment, it clicked on again. "I don't think he was the 'working on the next great Equestrian novel' kind of weird. More of an obsessive weird. I remember always having to repeat myself two and three times because he wanted verbatim notes on every little thing."
Night Glider looked back down at the pamphlet and read the notes over again. "Hm."
"Did you find something creepy?" Clear Sky asked. "I wouldn't be surprised if you did. If I were you, I'd just get rid of it. It's not doing anyone any good."
"N-not creepy, exactly." Night reviewed the pamphlet. "I dunno. Maybe."
Clear Sky did not reply.
"I guess it doesn't matter," Night agreed. "I'll get rid of it."
"As long as it's legal, I think that's for the best."
"Alright. Thanks."
Night set the radio down and tossed the pamphlet in with the rest of the trash. For a long moment, all she could do was stare down at it, wondering what obsession it had resulted from.
"While I have you—" Clear Sky's sudden intrusion on Night's thoughts caused her to jump. "—any chance you could run out west and check something out for me? There's been some complaints of a missing trailmarker on Beetleback. I know it's not technically your job, but you seem to have your head screwed on right. Or… at least righter than the average hiker, I guess."
Night glanced out her window, watching the sun climb higher in the sky. "As long as I can be back in time for lunch," she said.
"It'll be quick! Just bring a can of spray paint," Clear Sky instructed. "Beetleback is the orange trail. Most hikers seem to be getting lost at around the half-mile mark, so just head out and hit a big tree or rock or something with an arrow."
"Aye-aye, captain."
Night Glider stood, stretched, and went looking for her saddlebag. Now that she had familiarized herself with the lookout tower, getting packed up for a quick hike was a practically mindless activity. Luckily, she had only just uncovered the spray paint a few days ago, and so easily located the orange and popped it in her bag.
Radio at her hip, Night Glider kicked open the screen door and began the long trot down the spiraling stairs.
It was times like these that tempted her to flight again. Not only would it have been so much easier to glide down to the forest floor, but the sudden burst of fresh air and direct sunlight that met her at the door was intoxicating in a way that almost caused her to forget her last attempt and flying.
Almost.
The fear which bubbled up in her chest made her clench her wings down all the more tightly. It felt even more unnatural than simply flying. The rubbing of her wing joints against her sides was a reminder with every step.
Night's hooves met the cool, wet earth with heavy thuds, and she took off towards the trailhead on her right.
Beetleback trail was one of the easier hikes around in the area. While many of the other trails required a bit of rock-climbing (or, at the very least, some nerve-wracking boulder-crossing), this one took wide detours around the rockier areas. The worst thing to face on Beetleback was a moderate dirt incline, or perhaps an aggressive and vocal bluejay. As such, it was the amateur's trail of choice… meaning it wasn't exactly a surprise that they couldn't figure their way out of a missing trailmarker.
Night Glider kept a brisk pace as she cantered through the woods. A quick trip. Back in time for lunch.
The orange flashes on trees and stones flickered in Night's periphery. She kept track of them by the beat of her stride:
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A flash.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Another.
The deeper into the woods she went, the more the heat of the June sun retreated. Even now, nearly noon, there was an unexpected freshness in the air. A near-breeze, only present so long as she ran between the trees, which curled over her cheeks and through her mane.
Before she knew it, the spell was broken.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
No flash.
Night skidded to a halt, kicking up a cloud of powdery earth. Nothing but the sound of her own deep panting filled the space around her.
The cause of the missing trailmarker wasn't immediately obvious. On some level, Night had expected to see evidence of some kind of damage—perhaps even something malicious and purposeful.
It wasn't all that. Night found the shadow of the last mark, faded by heat and rain as it had sat in a sunny spotlight.
Just chance and time. There was something poetic about that, she thought.
Night stepped back from the old mark, surveyed her surroundings, and painted a bright arrow on a nearby stone. This one was shaded by the boughs of a very full, stunningly green pine. Perhaps a little more permanent.
The can clinked against her thermos as Night dropped it back into her saddlebag. She stood a moment longer, partly to catch her breath and partly to consider completing the trail.
As if on cue, her radio fizzled to life.
Night rolled her eyes and unclipped it from her hip. She fell against a nearby tree as she held it to her ear, awaiting Clear Sky's latest commentary.
The radio was quiet. For a long time. Long enough that Night gave it a small shake, wondering if something had come loose.
"You wrote this for me?"
A soft voice. Masculine in texture, but with an unmistakable and surprising gentleness.
"I wrote it… about you," came the reply. Gruff, but feminine.
Night froze. Her breath still came heavy, and she struggled to quiet it—it easily overpowered the voices on her radio.
"I love you, I love you, I love you," the stallion read.
"Ah, c'mon," the mare cut in. It sounded like she may have approached him; the subtle crunching of detritus underhoof barely burbled through the radio. "Don't—"
"I wish I didn't. It would be easier for you," the stallion read on. "But I cannot tell a lie."
He paused.
For a long time.
"I love you, I love you, I love you," the stallion finished.
The radio clicked off.
In the ensuing silence, Night Glider found herself still struggling to catch her breath. Her heart was still hammering in her chest, but differently now; realization washed slowly over her as she recalled the page she'd trampled that very first night. The unfinished love note—or so she had thought.
She stared at her radio.
She could see it: Star Hunter scribbling like mad, trying to take down this poetry illicitly overheard in the woods.
She could see him walking the trails. Pen and sheafs of paper in hoof. Overstuffed spiral bound notebooks.
A record of the voices.
She clicked on the radio.
"Clear Sky?" she squeaked.
"How many times have I asked you to call me—"
"Sky," Night replied. "What was it you said about the radios catching other frequencies?"
"Ugh, is it happening again already?" Sky groaned. "We can switch channels. Maybe I should look into—"
"No, that's not what I—" Night paused, took a breath, and gathered herself. "This is gonna sound stupid, but… the frequencies have to be happening now… right?"
Sky was silent a long moment. "Um. Someone could be playing a recording, I guess."
"How likely is that?"
"Not very," Sky admitted with a casual laugh. "What, do you think you're being pranked or something?"
Night stared down at her radio again, as if peering through the grills might reveal the answer. As if the voices might speak to her again with enough wishful thinking.
"I dunno," Night said.
"Care to give me anything less cryptic than that to work with?" Sky asked, perhaps a bit sly. "I am here to help, after all."
Night sighed. "I-it's really hard to explain."
And Sky said, "Try me."
“But where do you think it’s coming from?” Sky asked, whispered in the cadence of a sleepover secret.
Night sighed and rolled onto her back. Her cot groaned under the motion. “I dunno.”
“I mean—it has to be coming from somewhere, right?” Sky nickered softly to herself. “A recording? A staged prank? Ooh! Maybe an audiobook?”
“I-I don’t think so, Sky,” Night said with a light chuckle. “Seems like a weird joke to play when you aren’t even sure if ponies are listening.”
“An accident, then,” Sky decided. “A busted walkie talkie that’s just… sitting at the bottom of someone’s bag?”
“If it’s busted, how did they manage to switch channels right when we did?”
Sky clicked her tongue. “Shoot. You’re right.”
Night held the radio over her head a moment longer, waiting for Sky to continue her thought. When she did not, Night dropped the radio to her chest, nestling it into her fur and waiting patiently for her companion to continue.
A long, low rush of wind washed over the forest. The sound of it—like a wave at the beach—snuck in through the window and spilled over the sill onto Night, accompanied by a spot of yellow sunlight.
“Well,” Sky said at last, her voice muffled further by the dense fur on Night’s chest, “we have to do something about it.”
Night furrowed her brows. “Um. How do you figure?”
“We can’t have random voices cutting into our airwaves! Can you imagine how dangerous that could be in an emergency?”
Night couldn’t, but she didn’t say so.
“It’s purely pragmatic,” Sky continued. “Entirely sensible and completely within our job descriptions to investigate the voices of forgotten lovers on your radio.”
That was what she said, at least. The words she said. Night Glider couldn’t help but sense an undertone, however—one of pure, unmitigated glee.
Night snorted. “You’re excited about this, aren’t you?”
Sky snorted back. “Night. C’mon,” she said. “You’ve got a haunted radio. Of course I’m excited.”
Night felt something tug at the corner of her mouth. “You’re kind of a nerd, aren’t you?”
There was a long silence. “Honestly, I’m really glad you can’t see the stack of mystery novels I packed for company,” she whispered, as if she had anyone to hide it from. “Wouldn’t exactly be helping my case.”
Night laughed. For the first time in a long time, it felt genuine.
“What’s the harm in a little investigation?” Sky mused. “Star Hunter certainly helped himself. Why can’t we?”
Night sighed. “Don’t we have to… I dunno, report this?” she asked carefully. “Isn’t that the job?”
“Trust me. The folks running this place have bigger fish to fry than this,” Sky pointed out. “It’s our job to filter the disasters for them. Plus… won’t it be kind of fun to keep it a secret?”
Night hesitated.
Secrets.
Secrets were a loaded concept.
She had kept them before. Secrets within secrets. It made her stomach churn just thinking about it.
And yet…
Well, there was a strange lift, too. A shedding. Like the sweat-it-out lightness of a hot summer morning. A first good secret after so many gone wrong. A first strong flight after—
Night swallowed hard. “Yeah,” she agreed, her voice thick. “Yeah. I think I could use the distraction, anyway.”
Sky pressed the button on her radio, but the words seemed to get stuck on the tip of her tongue. Night could almost hear her holding back the ‘from what?’, a natural response to the world’s easiest set-up. She braced herself for the inevitable awkward refusal to answer,
“It’ll be a good one, for sure,” Sky said. Softly.
Silence.
Night clutched the radio closer to her chest. She focused on the way the light warmed her hoof, the way the warmth traveled as the sun moved slowly across the sky. An ever-moving line of heat that worked its way over her.
A distraction. Like a jigsaw puzzle, or a good book, or a shopping trip. A hike in the woods. A summer as a lookout.
A distraction.
That was what she needed.
"Hey." Night Glider cleared her throat. "Can you see the sky from where you are?"
"No, I typically do my weather forecasting from a steel bunker a few stories underground."
Night rolled her eyes, but found herself breathing an involuntary sigh of relief. "Hilarious."
Sky chuckled,light and airy and not the least but superior. "I'm looking out a window just like yours right now," she said. "It's a clear night, isn't it?"
Night didn't say anything. She merely nodded, even though she knew Sky couldn't see her.
"There's a joke in there somewhere about the two of us," Sky said. "I'm not going to make one, but do me a solid and imagine I did."
For some reason, Night felt her cheeks flush at that.
"What am I supposed to be looking for?" Sky asked. "I don't know one thing about stars. They're pretty and all, but… that's all I've got."
"Well, lucky for you, I'm a bit of an astronomy nerd. Which probably cancels out your crime nerdery," she commented dryly.
"Oh, I think astronomy is way nerdier," Sky said without skipping a beat.
Night, once again, found herself speechless—not so much as a result of her tongue as it was a skipped beat in her brain.
"What am I supposed to be seeing, then, master astronomer?" Sky asked.
"Hm." Night rolled her head over, pressing her cheek against the exterior wall of the tower. The forest thrummed back at her like the ocean through a conch shell. "Well… that huge purple-green smear is one of the arms of our galaxy. It's called the Great Ripple."
Sky snorted. "Why?"
"Because it looks like a ripple?" Night said. "From the inside. Like we're the pebble "
There was a silence as Sky thought about that.
"What color is 'purple-green'?" she asked.
Night closed her eyes and sighed. "That's two colors."
"And 'smear'? Really?" Sky clicked her tongue. "You can do better."
"You knew exactly what I was talking about!"
"Ugh, but it's space!" Sky replied. "It's so mysterious and beautiful and… and you make it sound like a culture in a petri dish!"
Night opened her mouth to reply, but Sky clicked on the radio before she could make a sound.
"I thought you said you were a space nerd."
"I am," Night insisted. "I'm just not… I dunno, a poet? Is that what you want?"
"Why don't you try?"
"Why don't you try?"
Sky sniffed lightly, as if tossing her mane over her shoulder in disdain. "Fine. I will," she said.
A long pause.
Night did her best to suppress a smile as she drew the radio in towards her chest.
"A broad band of, um… mauve," she began. "That's right, isn't it? Don't answer that."
Night snickered softly.
"And mint. Mint green," she added, with a bit more certainty. "Like a big… brush stroke. Like it was painted there. With a bit of panache, too."
Night looked up at the sky again.
It was a little minty.
"You want me to use the word 'panache' when I'm talking to you about the stars?"
"I'm just saying, would it kill you to add a little flair?" Sky asked, her voice dripping with faux frustration. "I'm not asking for the moon, here. Just the stars."
It wasn't that funny, but it made Night laugh. A stupid, hiccuping laugh that she did her best to push back down, even though it made her cheeks hurt to do it.
"Has anyone ever told you you're—"
"Just fill in the blank, and you'll probably be right."
Night smirked. "You don't wanna hear it?"
"Save it for later," Sky said. "It's only June, after all."
Only June.
"Deal," Night murmured back.
She held the radio up a moment longer, waiting for those next words to come, but it ended there. As it should have, really. A natural end to a conversation between new friends.
Still, Night waited patiently to hear more.
She curled into herself, hugging the radio to her chest.
Mere moments passed before the radio fizzed softly into her fur.
“Forget about them, okay?”
Not Sky.
It was the stallion.
His voice low, gentle as he could manage.
Night Glider’s body tensed as she held her breath, straining to hear above the sounds of the woods outside her window.
“All that matters right now is you and me,” the stallion said. Though his voice was soft and gentle, there was an unmistakable force behind it. Almost an order. “We’re strong. Leave them behind.”
There was a rustling sound. Shifting, like limbs against grass.
Then a long sigh. A relaxed sigh. A safe sigh.
The fizzing petered out.
Night drew in a sharp breath, then scrambled to press the button on her radio.
“Sky!” she hissed. “I-I heard them again!”
Sky clicked on the radio. For a moment, all she could do was breathe, and the soft sound of her breath on the microphone made Night’s scalp tingle.
“Me too.”