//------------------------------// // Meet the Dusk // Story: To Wake the Stars at Twilight // by LA Knight //------------------------------// ŦS "Hello, Twilight Sparkle. It's been a long time." Twilight stared up at the unicorn stallion that seemed to tower over her. A smile played at the corner of his mouth as he gazed down at her with eyes as blue and cold as sapphires. The unicorn found herself momentarily distracted by the grayish-pink scar that ran just beneath one of those azure eyes to the corner of his mouth. It would've hardly been visible against the white coat if the scar hadn't been so thick and ragged and, through bad luck, been as hairless as a rat's tail. Shining Armor had a few scars from his time in the Royal Guard and his earlier time in Basic Training, but his coat had grown over them, leaving slight discoloration and little else to show for the wounds he'd suffered. Not so with this stallion. The ends of a few other scars across his chest peeked out from the edges of a hunter-green vest of cockatrice leather. His emblem - only mares and fillies had cutie marks - stood out against the snowy whiteness of his coat, a golden four-point star backed by a skewed blue star to form a compass-rose. It was a common emblem and cutie mark - almost as common as the hourglass. In fact, a lot of heroes in books had the compass-rose as their mark - the intrepid Daring Do, heroine of over a hundred books; the discoverer and adventurer Allan Quartermane; the eternally young wild colt, Peter Pony; the rakish hippogriff pirate Buck Sparrow; Twilight's own foalhood favorites, Prancy Drew and the Hardy Colts (although the amateur filly-detective and her colt accomplices had borne compass-roses and magnifying glasses); even Rarity's favorite romance novel heroine, Scarlet O'Mara. But Twilight couldn't shake the feeling that she'd seen this stallion's emblem somewhere before. That didn't change the fact that she had no idea who this stallion was. "Ya'll two know each other?" Applejack asked, wide-eyed. Twilight shook her head so hard the bones in her neck popped. "I've never seen you before in my life!" She blurted, then bit back a grimace. While she was pretty sure she actually hadn't ever seen him before in her life, something deep inside her said otherwise. "Or at least… not that I can remember." The stallion chuckled. "We met when you were just a foal," he murmured. "You probably wouldn't remember me. I looked very different at the time." "Oh." Twilight processed that. Still wary, she said, "So… it really has been a long time, then." "Yes," the stallion said, and suddenly his eyes were no longer cold sapphires, but pools of sorrowful blue. A strange lump formed in the mare's throat at the abject sadness in those eyes. "Yes, it has, Twilight Sparkle." For some reason, Twilight was surprised when he didn't say, Too long a time. She wasn't sure why. Then the unicorn stallion inclined his head. "But since it has been so long, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Peter Duskshine. I'm a friend of Big Macintosh and… your father." She blinked. "My father?" He was? Really? He seemed awfully young, about Big Macintosh's age; more a contemporary of her brother, rather than her father. "Yes. He and I are old friends. It is for him, as much as for my own sake, that I've come to Ponyville. Ah, but I'm taking up your time with Miss Applejack. I'm sorry; you had something planned, Macintosh informed me. I'll leave you to it." Peter took Twilight's hoof and offered a short bow. She half-expected him to try to kiss her hoof like the stallions in Rarity's romance novels, but he didn't. Straightening from his bow and releasing her, his eyes once again cool as jewels, he murmured, "I look forward to seeing you again, Twilight Sparkle. Miss Applejack." With a nod, Peter stepped through the kitchen's back door to the sprawling farmland that served the Apple family as their backyard. Twilight watched Peter leave, that same unease once again tickling along her coat like the irritating touch of a fly that refused to stop biting and buzz off. When she'd said it had been a long time, why had Peter looked so sad? Or had she imagined that strange look of anguish on his face? It had only been there for a split second… And why had Peter called Applejack "Miss," but been informal with Twilight? Because he knew her family? That didn't seem like the reason. And his name - Duskshine. Her parents had once told her that that would've been her name, if she'd been a colt instead of a filly. If he really was an old friend of the family, was that where her parents had gotten the name? She shook her head; the whole situation just felt strange to her. "Was it jus' me, or did that feller seem a li'l off?" Applejack asked into the silence that had filled the kitchen after Peter's departure. "The way he looked at ya when ya firs' come in… Ah ain't never seen anythin' like it." "Huh?" Twilight shook her head to clear it of the thoughts circling like a pack of diamond dogs in her skull and focused on her friend. "What are you talking about? How was he looking at me?" The earth pony mare tilted her hat to the side and scratched behind her ear with one hoof. "Well, thing is… ya walked in an' it was like he'd seen a ghost or somethin'. Ah know ghosts ain't real," she added when Twilight opened her mouth, "it's jus' an expression. Anyways, he almos' went gray fer a second there. Then ya tripped an' he reacted quick as a snake, an' when he caught ya… it almos' looked like it hurt him ta do it." "I'm not that heavy," Twilight replied, more than a little defensively. "Ah know that, sugar cube," her friend said. "That's why it was so strange. He really looked like he was hurtin'. Ah've never seen Peter look like that a'fore. 'Course, Ah've only ever seen 'im three or four times mah whole life, but still… anyways, Ah was 'bout ta ask him if he was okay when he straightened up. By the time ya'd looked up, he was lookin' all normal again. Ah thought maybe Ah'd imagined it, but Ah don' think so." Frowning in thought, the unicorn mare used a bit of magic to float her satchel off her back and onto the kitchen table. Applejack had seen a look of pain on Peter's face when he'd touched Twilight, and Twilight herself had seen a look of sadness in his eyes when he'd mentioned how long it had been since he'd seen her. Both expressions had been fleeting, and both girls had considered the possibility of a trick of the imagination, but the unicorn didn't think so. "It's a mystery," Twilight muttered. And one she'd figure out, because she hated mysteries. Not knowing things irritated her almost as much as books being shelved in the wrong spot. The first thing she'd do was write to her father. If this Peter really did know Night Light, her father would tell her. But until then… "Well, howdy, mah li'l ponies!" At the top of the stairs stood Granny Smith, fresh from her afternoon nap. She leaned on her walker, but the twinkle in her eyes was still as bright and spritely as ever. "Ya'll ready to help me start makin' some zap-apple jam?" Smiling, putting thoughts of strange unicorns out of her mind, Twilight Sparkle saluted with one hoof and said, "Yes, ma'am!" βΜ Big Macintosh stayed out of sight - no mean feat for a stallion of his size - until Granny Smith had taken the two mares to where the small copses of zap-apple trees had been planted over three-hundred years ago. That was in the opposite direction Peter had fled in. Big Mac left the house and trudged to the small stand of trees closest to the barn. They were apple trees, but they weren't mature enough to bear harvestable fruit yet. The large red stallion had planted them himself, as a promise to his little sisters, when he'd come back from… well, it was a bad idea to think about where he'd been when he'd met Peter. Thinking about it made him want to go back there, and that was no good. Besides, he had to find Peter and make sure he was okay. In the circle of the young trees, white apple blossoms dropping every so often from the green boughs to the grass, Big Mac found his old friend. Peter stood with hunched shoulders against the trunk of one of the trees, shuddering. His head hung so far down that his nose nearly brushed the grass. His sides heaved every time he drew a ragged breath. The white stallion clenched his eyes shut as tightly as he could, as if trying to block out the sight of the warm summer day and Sweet Apple Acres and everything else. But Big Mac knew the moment Peter sensed him approaching. "Ya gonna be okay, Pete?" After a long moment of near-silence, punctuated only by the heavy sound of Peter's breathing, the unicorn stallion nodded. "Forgive me," he muttered. "I… I wasn't prepared. I'd thought… I saw her yesterday and it didn't affect me like this. I thought it would be… easier the second time." He finally lifted his head. His eyes were haunted. "It's been so long, Macintosh… a lifetime ago, it feels like sometimes, but… but it was also only yesterday… or now. Sometimes it seems like I haven't seen her in centuries. Sometimes it seems like seconds. I didn't realize… how much… how much I…" He closed his eyes again. "It's as if I'm being tossed about by a riptide, drowning in everything that has been and shouldn't be and could never happen. I see her and I wonder if my mission is impossible. Have you ever felt hopeless, Macintosh? Hopeless because the inevitable is looming ahead of you, a yawning brink gaping wide beneath your hooves, and darkness is all around you, and all you have to guide you through the dark is one brilliant star… and you know that no matter what happens, no matter if you defeat the enemy before you now, eventually the star will be snuffed out? And the darkness you've held at bay will finally consume you. I'm there now, Macintosh. I know what happens to Twilight after I accomplish this mission. It's already happened once and nothing I do can stop it unless… and it has been so long…" The earth stallion ambled over and gave Peter a gentle nudge in the shoulder with one hoof. Fillies and mares did the whole nuzzling thing, and hugs were common too, but stallions didn't normally do that. They had their own ways of doing things sometimes. So Big Mac didn't have to say, "Ah know. Ah know ya've missed her." Peter knew he knew, so Big Mac just stood with his old friend for a few minutes until Peter got his composure back. Once he was calm again, only then did Macintosh speak. "So this… Dark One. Tain't You-Know-Who, is it?" Peter nodded. "But it isn't just her. It's both of them. They're after Twilight and her magic. We can't let them get to her." He didn't add again, but Big Mac heard it. The big stallion nodded. "Yer plan's a good 'un. Makes sense. Ah'll help anyway Ah can. An' Princess Celestia an' Princess Luna…" "We've got Amaranthine, Mazzarine, and Malachite. They can keep us hidden long enough for my plan to work. They've already altered the necessary memories up in Canterlot." Peter glanced across the open ground in front of the barn toward the house. Applejack and Twilight listened attentively to Granny Smith from where they sat on the front porch steps. "Tell me, Macintosh - do you know somewhere in Ponyville a stallion can take a mare on a date?" Big Macintosh grinned. "Eeyup. Ah sure do." ŦS "Hey, Twilight?" Spike called from his basket bed. Twilight, who'd gone to bed early in anticipation of getting up around dawn tomorrow for more work at Sweet Apple Acres, grunted in response. If she didn't force herself to do too much in the way of things requiring higher brain function, she'd still be able to fall asleep instead of catching her second wind. She pulled the covers over her head to make sure no intrusive light managed to assault her eyelids. "Twilight, I think something's coming." The mare's ears twitched. "Waddya mean?" "I mean, I think I'm getting a… oh. Oh!" Then Spike made a sound halfway between a vomiting foal and a belch, and even through the thick blankets and her closed eyelids, Twilight could see the dual flashes of emerald light that meant her dragonet had received some incoming mail. Muffling a real - albeit tiny - burp, the baby dragon flopped out of bed and waddled sleepily over to the unicorn. "Want me to read 'em?" "Mmm… uh, sure," she mumbled. "This one's from your dad." Spike cleared his throat. Whenever he read letters from anyone important, he tried to make himself sound like a grown pony, instead of a baby dragon. Some of the other students at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns had teased him about it, but Twilight had always found it endearing. "My dearest Twilight, So you've finally met Lord Peter, have you? Your old stallion will be honest with you and say it makes me feel a touch easier knowing Peter's there in Ponyville with you. I know you can handle yourself - all that training as a filly and young mare saw to that, and then of course you're one of the Elements of Harmony, and that's pretty impressive - but a father worries. Peter's a good friend, but he's never been to a town like your Ponyville before. I want you to make him feel welcome, all right, Twily? I'd sure appreciate it. Hope your studies are going well. We're proud of you, my little pony. Be safe out there. We miss you. Love, Dad" Barely floating above the languid sea of sleep, Twilight had just enough presence of conscious-mind to think, Peter's a lord? He didn't mention that. Neither did Applejack. And for that matter, how did a common farmpony like Big Mac ever become good friends with a noblepony from Canterlot? And if he's not from Canterlot, that just makes it weirder that Big Mac and Peter are friends. Huh. "And this one," Spike said, oblivious to her half-delirious thoughts, "is from the princess." Twilight managed a muffled "mmm-hmm." Spike started to read the letter. It basically said the same thing as the letter from Night Light, with a few more details - that Peter was a friend of her family; that he was a noblepony bearing the name and title Lord Peter Duskshine of Second Star, an estate in the Equestrian countryside; that he and his vassal, Citron, were staying in Ponyville for health reasons; and would she please be nice and show him around town and make him feel welcome? The violet unicorn was unconscious and snoring before her draconic assistant reached the end of the letter.