//------------------------------// // Ananke // Story: The Long Eventide // by SilverNotes //------------------------------// It turned out that “fake it until you make it” was not something that ever worked when it came to being a morning pony. Rarity held herself to schedule, because of the boutique. A business needed to be open during its posted hours, short of an absolute emergency–there were times when she’d started measuring the frequency of emergencies recently in lost business hours–lest she start to be seen as anything other than a reliable pony dedicated to giving her time and effort to helping her customers. After all, if she slept in and opened late, what if a pony who could have become a regular customer showed up, saw the windows dark and door locked, and then instead trotted away, never to return? Her business needed to conform to a schedule. Her mind and body had other ideas, and between inspiration striking in the dead of night to send her into a flurry of sketching when she should be sleeping, and the times when a mind racing with every fear and anxiety sent her well into moonlit hours before she was finally too exhausted to think at all, she could find herself low on beauty sleep with few options to make up the difference. Ponies often assumed that Ponyville’s master of napping was Rainbow Dash. Those ponies hadn’t seen Rarity’s penchant for midday stealth naps during the slow hours of her business, and because the key word there was stealth, they never would. However, on a day when she didn’t have to open the boutique, Rarity’s body would greedily take all the rest it was due. It was why, when she woke in the Umbral Society’s generously-provided guest bed, she wasn’t surprised to find that half of her friends had already left for the day. She also wasn’t shocked over who was still there, as Twilight had likely only fallen asleep a few hours ago and Rainbow’s idea of “waking up on time” was waking up at exactly the time her body desired to and not a minute earlier. She carefully extracted herself from the bed without waking her friends, hopped to the floor– A lady does not shriek over touching cold floors a lady does not shriek over touching cold floors a lady. –Gathered herself, and quietly made her way over to their collective belongings. Then she got to work. She had reluctantly accepted that taking all of her cosmetics would be impractical, so she simply kept to the basics. Mane, eyelashes, and foundation that helped her pearly coat properly shine, and her favourite blue eyeshadow, and then she was finally in a state that she could stand to be seen in public. She was going to be spending her time with a very important pony, after all. As humble as Secretary Song had been, it was clear that she would know best how the social lifeblood flowed in Eventide. After putting away her cosmetics again and donning her saddlebags, one of them heavy with her Element, Rarity glanced back at her friends. Then she casually fetched a bit of parchment and a quill–she was sure Twilight would forgive her–and scrawled out a few short words. She then tucked the note next to Rainbow and, with a nod of approval, turned to lock her gaze on the door. Time to do what she did best. There were days when Blackbird was able to just let her body sleep as long as it wanted, and they were glorious. She had collapsed into bed several hours earlier, and there she remained. She’d been told more than once by her cohorts that watching her sleep was uncomfortable, because if not for the steady rise and fall of her chest, the way she arranged herself usually brought to mind a corpse that had been unceremoniously dumped somewhere. Right now, her chin was resting on the pillow, legs and wings splayed out as she laid on her barrel, and the wild mess of her mane and tail was the sort of thing scary campfire stories were written about. Slowly, the comfortable warmth of sleep faded, Blackbird’s head unfogging at its own, leisurely pace. Awareness of her own limbs came afterward, and she went through a mental role call. Hind legs kicked at the sheets they were tangled in, front legs pulled in and tucked themselves beneath her body, and wings showed off their full span with a long stretch full of popping joints, before she gave them a shake to dislodge any feathers that may have moulted in the night. Then, all that accomplished, Blackbird pushed off the mattress, rolled to the edge of it, and oozed out of the bed like toothpaste from a tube. Only when all four hooves were on the floor did she have anything resembling proper pony posture, and she sauntered off to the mirror to have her daily fight to the death with her mane in preparation for the day. She had to look her best, after all, since the Umbral Society had very important guests. She’d enjoyed lunch a lot, even with the lingering sun-sickness weighing her down, and now that she’d slept off the worst of it, she was ready to really show these outsiders a good time. They’d get to see the city for its beauty, see that they weren’t so different from other ponies, and it would be the first step into a new age. Compassion and understanding was key. Things would be better soon. Much better. They just needed to have faith in the outsiders, that they’d do the right thing when the time came. It was Penny’s job to prepare for the worst-case scenario, but it was Blackbird’s job to keep the conviction alive and remind them all what they were fighting for. Confident that she looked presentable and saying a few kind words for her dutiful hairbrush, Blackbird headed for the door with her head held high, off to do some of the most important Society business of her life. Maybe soon there wouldn’t even need to be an Umbral Society at all. "Rarity! Just the mare I wanted to see!" The foreign unicorn stood out like a cracked hoof against the tower’s black stone, like a speck of bright light in a sea of darkness, and so Blackbird didn’t wait until she was close to confirm that the pearly white coat she’d spotted belonged to the right mare. She’d been looking up at one of the tapestries that hung in the larger halls when she found her, illuminated by the green torches; it was one of Blackbird’s favourites, depicting the first chancellor standing before a crowd of all kinds of creatures. The snowy white fur was a very Canterlot look, at least going by what she’d heard from Masquerade about Canterlot. The joke that often passed through private meetings was that the nobles there had been bleached so thoroughly by the sun that white coats had become hereditary. It had been accompanied by less kind jokes, ones she didn’t want to repeat, though both she and Penny were trying to curb that now and cultivate a better attitude. Besides, Blackbird knew the supposed homogeneity of Canterlot ponies was an exaggeration. Twilight Sparkle was from the capitol, after all, and she was a very pretty shade of purple. If she stuck around, then Blackbird was confident that she’d have potential suitors coming around before long, once they got past her being from elsewhere. “Oh?” Rarity said she turned, offering a dazzling smile. "The sentiment is mutual, darling. After our lovely chat I'd hoped we'd have the chance for another." The smile then faded into a look of gentle concern. "How are you feeling? You seemed a bit under the weather yesterday." Rarity would have been popular, too, and not just because she spoke in an accent surprisingly close to one of the local ones. She had a charisma that Blackbird had recognized instantly, a pony who knew how to work the room, but was also charming speaking one-on-one. Somepony who would freely give her time and seem to truly care about hearing what the other creature had to say. If she’d been born here, she would have risen to prominence very quickly with those talents. Blackbird liked Rarity, and that was good. The heroes of the story should be likeable. “Oh much better,” Blackbird assured, and she gave a flap of her wings for emphasis. “It’s uh… kind of a chronic condition. Flares up sometimes if I’m not careful about the triggers for it. But a night’s rest always helps me reset and get back to work.” She hated to lie to good ponies, even lies built out of carefully worded truth, but sometimes she knew that a white lie or careful spin was necessary to keep hope alive. And the Umbral Society had been choosing their truths and lies carefully for a very long time. “A good rest does do wonders for all sorts of things,” spoke a voice with the wistfulness of the often sleep-deprived. Blackbird recognized it instantly. "I hope I'm not interrupting your work, then...?" "Nahhh, like I said, you're just the pony I wanted to see." Blackbird casually waved off the concern with one of her wings. "Y'see, the celebration we're gonna be having is more for the bigwigs of the city, but the rest of the creatures here will be celebrating in their own way, and I thought, why not have one of the heroes who restored the princess walk about and get to know folks?" It was an important part of the process. While the others focused on getting the big gears turning, they couldn’t neglect the ordinary creatures they stood vigil over. Those creatures had to understand that the bearers of the Elements of Harmony were their friends, and had done a good thing for Princess Luna, despite their closeness to Celestia. Besides, Celestia couldn’t be all bad. She had done bad things, but the princess wouldn’t have agreed to rule together with her sister again if she were a bad pony. The sun, and its Avatar, didn’t need to be evil to have hurt anyone. Princess Luna had forgiven and, Blackbird believed, so should they. “Oh that would be lovely.” Rarity gave another of her smiles. "Eventide is such a beautiful city, and it would be a shame to come here and not see more of it." Blackbird grinned back. "Follow me, then." She nudged Rarity’s side as she walked past, and black and white fur briefly intermeshed. "I know the best place in town for a good breakfast.” "As nice as this is, I do wish you had warned me the location was so... vertical." The restaurant reminded her of more than one location in Manehattan, the stylish locales that she would see in photographs and make her long even more to go there. The seating was purely outdoors, and the tables, primarily a rich dark wood, had silvery flecks embedded in them that caught the light from the illusory moon above for a dazzling display. She’d asked about the tables immediately upon arriving, and Blackbird had told her that the flecks were part of the wood, which came from a tree that only grew in the forests surrounding Eventide. The menu was vast, and around them were other patrons enjoying stacks of pancakes, a dizzying variety of egg-based dishes, and a griffon devouring several waffles alongside a chunk of breaded meat that Blackbird had noticed her looking at and clarified was chicken, which was one of a few carnivore-friendly offerings. There… were quite a few griffons around right now, Rarity noted. Along with pegasi, including the serving staff. What there weren’t were any other unicorns, because self-levitation was an exceedingly rare talent and not everypony had a pegasus who had happily grabbed her in a pressure carry and soared straight up to reach the top of the building the restaurant rested upon. The view was spectacular, from a vantage point nearly as high as the Ebony Tower. The railing was made of the same sparkling wood, and the lights from the building below made it look like there were stars below and all around them as well as above. It also served as a constant reminder that there was no convenient way down again unless she wanted to relive the Best Young Fliers Competition in the worst possible way. Blackbird winced. "Sorry about that. If you're uncomfortable with heights, we can always go someplace else." “No no…” Rarity waved a front leg to swat the thought of leaving away. “There was an... incident of sorts in Cloudsdale, and since then I have been slightly jittery." She flashed her most winning smile. "But a good meal with lovely company seems like a perfect step in becoming comfortable again." “Cloudsdale?” Blackbird’s head tilted in curiosity as her ears perked. “Now there's a place I hear a lot about, but not usually from non-pegasi. What happened?" “Well, you see…” Rarity launched into tale of her first trip to the grandest cloud city in Equestria with gusto, describing the magnificent architecture, the wonders of the weather factory, and more to her eager audience. She lavished proper praise upon Twilight for her magical ingenuity in both mastering the wing spell and the cloudwalking one in such a short time, and of course praised Rainbow Dash on heroism. There was no need to give every detail of the events, however, and so Rarity sliced out a few of the worst portions, trimming away the actions that she looked back on with the most embarrassment and leaving behind what, she felt, was the most important portions to understand how she ended up plummeting through the clouds on the way to a potentially gruesome rendezvous with the ground.. By the time she finished, Blackbird had her face scrunched up in horrified sympathy. “Ouch.” "Yes well..." Rarity forced out a tension-relieving laugh. "Thankfully it didn't end as 'ouch' as it could have been, thanks to Rainbow. But you can see why that might give a lady a mild fear of heights." “Yeah, no kidding.” Blackbird gave her own cawing laugh. "Still... it must have looked amazing, the light shining through the wings..." There was a deep sigh, and Rarity saw the wistfulness gleaming in those light blue eyes as dark wings opened slowly, as if to catch a gust of wind that only existed in her imaginings. "So close to the sun..." “It was quite the light show, until, you know,” Rarity admitted with a small smile, but then her gaze went skyward. “Hmm…” It was morning. Late in the morning, even, on that border that meant that some restaurants may have stopped offering breakfast at all. Yet, her view of the sky didn’t reflect it. Pinkie Pie may have been onto something, on how difficult it would be to properly keep track of time here. The sky said that it was the midnight hour, and had, since they’d all arrived. No sunlight. Just the subtle beauty of moonglow. "What's up?" Blackbird seemed to have snapped out of her own musings first, enough to question. "I was just thinking that, here, I wouldn't have to worry so much," Rarity said, not taking her eyes off the moon. "The wings are still delicate, and I would still have to be careful, but...at least one hazard isn't a factor." When she looked back down, Blackbird was looking right at her, her wings once again folded at her sides. "You're right. You'd always be safe from the sun here." Blackbird was smiling, as she sat across from her, silvery light dancing through glossy black. And it was the single saddest smile that Rarity had ever seen.