“Is that all?”
Beady little eyes pierced through the ever-dropping veil of tensed eyebrows, a small pout punctuating her exasperation. She followed the fluttering pages of the storybook as, one by one, they fell onto each other and closed within the firm leather binding. A whine barely escaped her throat. She was grumbling, twisting the bright pink bed sheets with tiny hooves, wriggling in place as the unicorn beside her chuckled. Gentle pats of her hoof touched the child’s cheek, gently comforting the unrelenting grimace.
“My darling treasure, it’s already so late.”
“But you have soooo many stories. Can’t we just read one, tiny one? Please?”
“Morning Glory, ‘no’ means ‘no’. You have school tomorrow.”
“But mama!” Tiny hooves flailed above her head, landing limply at her sides as she let out a huff, her pale azure mane stretching across the pillow. “Daddy would tell me stories all night. He doesn’t care about sleep.”
Her mother giggled as she crossed the distance towards her defeated daughter. “Daddy is hardly an example of a proper sleep schedule. You, however, are a growing filly who needs her rest.”
“Guh, fine.” Morning Glory unleashed a rumbling sigh, lethargically pulling the covers over her with both hooves and flickering sparks of her magic, content to make a show of her disappointment as her mother looked on with a smirk. Dramatic seconds passed, and the frustrated filly was finally tucked into the hoarded clump of blankets she called a bed, sinking into the mattress as her cheek came under assault by pure affection.
“Goodnight, Glory. I love you.”
A gentle puff of air extinguished the lamp beside her. Morning Glory peered over her shoulder to watch the shadowed figure of her mother rise from the bed and step into the doorframe, but something seemed to tug at her voice. With a squeak, she spoke.
“Mama? Will there be more stories?”
She gave a soft sigh, but met Glory with a smile. “We’ll read another one tomorrow, but be-”
“No, I mean… what happens when there aren’t any more to tell?”
Her mother froze. The gentle, ice-blue eyes peering up at her carefully watched as she gathered herself and returned to the bed, a hoof placed against her daughter’s cheek.
“Then there won’t be any more, but that won’t mean he’s gone. Even if someday he does go away, and the Ghost is gone for good, the stories will stay. He’ll live on in all who read about him.”
“Even in me?” Her tiny voice summoned a warm smile from her mother.
“Especially in you.”
Just as she reached down to kiss Glory’s forehead, their ears detected the slightest flutter from beyond the window. Glory’s eyes shot open, her face dominated by a wide grin, as the nearly imperceptible patter of hoofsteps traced across the roof above them, trailing off along the outer wall and just beyond the room next to hers, where she knew her parents slept. At this point, she was practically giddy. When faced with the bright, expecting eyes before her, her mother sighed, relenting one final time and watching the filly scurry out from under her mountain of warmth and out into the dimly lit hallway.
Glory’s ears swiveled on her tiny head. Every sound, every sensation of the world around her fed into her senses to pinpoint the exact location of the house’s familiar intruder, and with careful steps she crept along the wall towards the room all children are forbidden from entering, her mother’s smirking silence permission enough. She already knew the best ways to enter unheard, but this time the occupant was wide awake.
No creak came from the door as she squeezed through the slightest opening and stepped onto the plush carpeting of her parent’s bedroom. There, before her, stood an obelisk of shadow. She knew not what rummaged beneath it’s umbral skin, and she didn’t care, staying low to the ground and creeping one step at a time, eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness around her until she was within range. The shadow removed its hide to reveal familiar features, confirming the target of her impending assault. She leapt.
In a swipe of shade she was snagged from the air by quick hooves. Tumbling around, lost in the darkness of the room as her orientation fled her, Glory was adrift in a sea of blackness as her victim-turned-captor swung her around with ease and a deep laugh. With every ounce of her strength she fought. It wasn’t until the light from the hallway spilled into the room did her mother bear witness to the sight. With a spark of her magic, the room’s lamps ignited, revealing not the terrible battle to the death Glory envisioned, but another crushing defeat by her eternal nemesis.
“Daddy! I’m supposed to get you! I’ve been waiting hours to do that.”
“You almost did, but you need just a little more practice,” he chuckled, slinging the filly over his shoulders as the mare across from him approached. “She keeping you up late again?”
“More like you are. She’s dying to hear more stories.”
“Mama won’t let me stay up late! I told her you don’t sleep, so it’s okay!”
“Sweetie, I am not a good example of a proper sleep schedule. You need to sleep.”
The loud, indignant groan brought both parents to laughter as they walked from one bedroom to the other, depositing the filly back into her cocoon of comfort. Try as she might, the oppressive wave of kisses and goodnight wishes forced her into a state of coziness she could never hope to escape from, giving the adults the chance they needed to quietly exit. They returned to their bedroom, where the remains of his garb were slowly pulled from his frame and deposited onto the floor.
“No new wounds, even without the armor. It seems you finally learned.”
“‘Learned’ is a strong word, Rarity. The damage is internal, I assure you.”
“Oh, you,” Rarity chuckled, gently tracing her hoof across his abdomen. “You’re back so soon. You only left a few hours ago, and I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow morning. How is everyone?”
“Good. They want to come out to visit. I told them you had a show to prepare this weekend, and Gilda’s offered to watch Glory while we’re out.” His statement was met with silence, forcing him to place a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “She’ll behave, I promise.”
“It’s not Gilda I’m worried about. Those two will spell doom for all of Ponyville, if left unsupervised.”
He laughed, placing a kiss on her forehead before pulling her to him. There they swayed. Gentle silence filled the room, fueled by the nighttime beyond their sanctuary, and Rarity found herself dozing off in his embrace. He pulled a hoof through her mane and the sparse gray hairs lining it as her own rested against the back of his neck, playing with a long-faded scar as she craned her neck up to look at him.
“Read to me, Silver. Read me our story.”
Silver smiled. Guiding the lazy Rarity to their bed, he left her to wash the traces of battle from his body, before returning and following her into the warm embrace of covers. A tome glided to them. Rarity pushed her cheek against his chest as her eyes began to droop, listening to the pages flip to the bookmark and feeling the rumble of his soft, warm voice as the first words left his lips like whispers in her mind.
“The air was a stiff mixture of salt and wind, with the sound of creaking boards and sloshing water along the hull. Even in the dead of night, the waters of the Celestial Sea churned with the same vigor one would expect the ocean border to have, as if knowingly protecting Equestria…”