Jay stared down at his second dogtag.
Sparks
Toby H.
“Sparky”
O+
51st squad
Toby’s tags were all Jay had left of him in this wonderland. Jay could remember when his brother died, when 51st died.
Sparks
Jay M.
“Phoenix”
A+
51st squad
First was Johnny, then Riley, Kyro, Tim, Yuri, Axe… And Toby Sparks. Jay reattached his tags around his neck and looked down at his feet.
“Are you okay?” A familiar voice asked him.
“Yeah” He looked up at Luna. “Just uh, a little tired.”
She knew he was lying, but decided not to pester him about it.
“I’m about to raise the moon, would you like to come see?” Luna asked.
Jay wanted to see this, Luna was talking about how she raises the moon. Jay couldn’t believe a single word of it. He stood up and walked with Luna to the balcony of the tree house. The sun was dipping over the horizon in between the rounded mountains. A blue glow emanated from Luna’s horn and almost as if time sped up, the sun fell completely out of sight, and a giant, beautiful white moon replaced it.
Jay was at a loss for words; about a million thoughts went through his head at a time. First off, that moon was the biggest he’d ever seen. But what Luna just did wasn’t possible, or was it? It apparently was here.
Luna looked back to see Jay’s reaction, his mouth was wide open along with his eyes. His facial expression made Luna giggle a bit.
“W-what?” Jay said still in awe.
“Do you like it?” Luna asked.
“Like it? That’s an understatement! This moon is beautiful!”
Luna giggled again “I know.”
“I don’t know how someone could want to go to bed at the sight of this.” Jay said, finally tearing his gaze from the moon.
“Well, actually I recently added a magical element on the moon so that its beams will make one sleep better. And it will decrease the amount of nightmares” Luna explained.
“Wow, I might actually sleep outside tonight.” Jay said, now trying to decide whether to just stare at the moon all night or sleep tonight now that she mentioned that. Jay’s trauma included having insomnia, and when he did sleep, he had nightmares. “Absorb a lot of that light”
Luna had read his mind, alicorns could read minds without using their horns magic. After seeing his memories she figured that Jay would most likely have trouble sleeping, but she could never know for sure. “I might even join you, I haven’t gotten that much sleep lately. Been working on my public appeal.” And she had been, after the events of Nightmare moon, Luna fought hard for her subjects to actually like her.
“Public appeal?” Jay asked curiously.
“Yes, a very long time ago I was possessed by a being called Nightmare moon and I was banished for a thousand years on the moon. Now that I’m back, well, its quite the challenge to get the ponies to not tremble in fear when they see me.” Luna explained.
At first, Jay thought she was joking. But she had never joked to him before, especially to this extent.
“You don’t believe me do you?” Luna said, reading his mind again.
“Luna, I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit in my lifetime, but I just watched you raise the moon with magic, so I think its possible what you just told me is true.” Jay replied, patting Luna’s neck. “But that must be hard, I wont lie and tell you I know how you feel. I mean, I have the luxury of not caring about what people think about me, and you’re a princess so you must be under a lot of pressure.”
Luna smiled at the thought that someone finally understands. “Thank you Jay”
“No problem”
The two just sat there for a while, enjoying the view, when Will broke the silence.
“Hey Jayyy!” He said in a joking manner.
“Yeah?”
Jay could hear Will’s feet thump up the stairs.
“Mommy says you can’t stay up past 10:00!”
Jay gave a tiny laugh and a smile.
“Aw, can’t I have ten more minutes?” Jay said, imitating a child.
“No but seriously, find a place to sleep. Cause it just got dark outsi…” Will saw the moon as he stepped out into the balcony, “Whoa” He stared agape at its light, and Jay could see how ridiculous he looked when he saw it himself.
“That’s a pretty cool moon dude” Was all he could say.
“Fun fact, Luna raises the moon and Celestia raises the sun here, there is no such thing as orbit around the sun.” Jay told Will to confuse him.
“What?” he asked in confusion.
“Yeah, Equis doesn’t orbit around its sun, and the moon doesn’t orbit around Equis. Celestia and Luna are in charge of raising the sun and moon with their magic” Jay said.
Will just looked at Jay as if he was on drugs. “What is this fuckery? Making the sun and moon appear with magic.”
Luna just started laughing at him. “You’ll see in the morning, I’ll tell Tia to wake you up early so you can watch her raise the sun.”
Again, Will just stared at them questioning their sanity and/or soberness. “I think you two are full of it”
Jay laughed again, “You wanna bet?”
“Yeah I’ll bet you, not like our currency is worth anything here” He said shaking hands with Jay.
“It’s worth however much the ponies decide it is worth.” Jay said back.
“Whatever” Will said, turning back to the stairs, “But make sure you get some sleep, we’re most likely going to have a big day tomorrow."
Wills footsteps descended down the stairs, but another set of hooves were coming back up.
“Wonder who that is” Jay said as he laid back against the wall and Shining armor emerged from around the corner.
“Hello… Jay is it?” He asked
“Yeah, and you are… Shining armor, right?” Jay asked back.
“Yes that’s me.” Pause, “I came up to apologize for what I said earlier, I didn’t know the circumstances.” He said, obviously showing signs of sorrow.
“Its okay, that’s your job.” Jay said. “I’m sorry for what I said too”
Shining was a little stunned that he took it so well. But he was curious as to what he meant. “My job?”
“Yeah, youre the captain of the royal guard, normally your job would be to oppress people like me.” Jay said. He was right too, and Shining knew it. The word ‘rebel’ usually meant bad news.
“Well just know that I would be happy to lead troops into your planet and see what we can do to help.” Shining said in a reassuring voice. “And thank you for handling this so well, I know you’ve got the right to hate me.”
“Oh no, I don’t hate you man we just got off on the wrong foot” He held out his hand for a hand-hoof shake. “The rebels could use some magic if there’s plenty to go round” He said as they shook.
Jay still didn’t fully trust him, but it was a start.
~~
Twilight now had a finished sketch of a human from head to toe. She now understood that they could stand upright because the joints in the hind legs were inverted to those of a pony. She had checked off the list of everything she could find out about this race. Rainbow dash was interested in this ‘Olympics’ humans had. She wanted to get involved in the kind of thing. Applejack liked the ‘country music’ they had, especially Johnny Cash. She also was impressed that humans climb trees to get their apples if it is too high. Rarity didn’t really like anything about this race, she had not seen any art other than the tattoo on Wills arm. Pinkie pie offered to have a picnic with Will and he gladly accepted which made her go crazy, she had to get everything ready. Fluttershy didn’t talk too much, but she liked the creatures explained to her as ‘fish’ even though she might not be able to help them all that much, but then Will told her about SCUBA gear, which further exited her.
“So Jay and Luna were talking to me about you raising the sun?” Will asked Celestia.
“Yes I am responsible for raising the sun and Luna is responsible for the moon hence our names.” Celestia explained.
Will thought if he had a bullshit detector, it would be going through the off the charts right now.
Celestia read his mind and just laughed. “I will wake you early so you can see.”
“Yeah okay” He said.
“Will while you’ve been her you’ve seen magic, unicorns, pegasi and Jesus knows what’ll happen next.” Jay said coming down the stairs.
“Well praise Jesus if it’s teleportation to earth” Will said back.
Jay unclipped his sleeping bag and opened took his medkit out of his backpack before starting back up the stairs.
“Hey Twi, I’m back” An unknown voice said.
Spike walked in to the behemoth creature that stood in the library. And his brain sent a million messages at once. After seeing Twilight and princess Celestia, he just panicked and tried to pounce on him, Will just stuck his hand out and caught his head in mid flight.
“Ugh, let go of me!” Spike complained, thrashing about.
“You done?” Will asked.
Spike stopped thrashing and relaxed his muscles.
“Good” Will said dropping him.
~~
Jay opened his medkit and sat down on his sleepingbag. He rummaged through the mess of bandages and painkillers and found the small black box, he opened it and found a long needle with a blue liquid inside.
“If you don’t like needles, you might want cover your eyes" he said, turning to Luna.
Luna turned away, but kept one eye peeking at him.
Jay barley pierced the skin on his neck before shoving the needle deep, making Luna cringe, Jay pressed down, forcing the blue liquid into his bloodstream.
“What you just did would’ve made Rarity pass out.” Luna said.
“I know, I’m impressed you stayed overall intact after watching that.” Jay said.
“So what was that needle for anyway?” Luna asked.
“It was a complex brain neuron growth formula. It stimulates my brain to work faster and more efficient, so in short, I have rapid reaction time and I can process complex situations faster.” Jay told her.
“Wow, I would take some of that if it didn’t involve shoving a three inch needle in my neck” Luna said, laughing.
“Yeah, you only have to take it every three months, and it hurts.” Jay said.
Jay took another look at the moon and lay back into his sleeping bag, just staring up at the moon. Luna felt his pure exhaustion and lay a spell for him to sleep soundly. After a few deep breaths told her that he was asleep, she lay beside him, emanating her own version of a blanket for warmth.
~~
Celestia shook Will lightly to wake him. He gave a grunting noise before fluttering his eyes open.
“Huh?” He croaked
“Do you want to see me raise the sun Will?” Celestia asked him.
Will snapped awake “Do I? Lets go” He slowly got up off the floor cushioned by blankets. And the two began up the stairs quietly. Twilight, spike and some others were sleeping upstairs, so they took care not to wake them. They reached the balcony where Luna and Jay were asleep.
“Aww how cute” Will joked.
Celestia ignored him and began to raise the sun. The golden glow emanated from her horn and a light began to show at the edge of the horizon glowing brighter and redder until the sun rose up, lighting up the world.
“Well I’d be damned”
Jay and Luna slowly woke from the light. Jay felt the most rested he had been his whole life. “Man, I feel like I could run a marathon”
“Did you take a CNG last night Jay?” Will asked noticing the used needle next to his medkit.
“Yeah”
“Well you all wake the others and get settled, I will go make the arrangements for the public showing and discussion.” Celestia said as she turned around and began to walk off.