Darkest Before Dawn

by Sessalisk

Chapter 5

As exams drew closer Twilight grew more and more frantic.

During her weekend lessons she would practice weightlifting and manipulating finicky grains of rice rather than trying to manage her own magic surges, trying to cram a semester’s worth of progress into a few short weekends. The Princess told her that all this was unnecessary, but Twilight assumed that, as a mentor, Princess Celestia was just trying to be reassuring.

She had lined up along with everypony else to get into the individual assessment room, and when it was her turn, she was told to leave. The one thing that everypony had neglected to tell her was that being unable to use magic actually exempted her from the tests she was dreading the most.

As she packed some things for the trip home, she wondered absently how Rune had fared. She’d come up with the theory that Rune must have had to repeat a year or something, which was why she was so much bigger than everypony else. Princess Celestia, was always unhelpfully nonspecific whenever the subject of classmates came up, and wouldn’t tell her a thing.

Twilight’s parents showed up on the day before winter vacation started.

“Mom!” she yelled. “Dad!”

Since Twilight’s magic was still bound, the principal, who Twilight had seen almost nothing of during the school year, helped carry her luggage down outside. Nopony else received similar treatment, which made Twilight feel a little guilty, if only for a moment.

“Who’s this tall filly in front of us?” Dad said, craning his neck high and low, left and right, looking around Twilight but not at her. “Have you seen my daughter? She looks a little like you, but is much, much shorter.”

“Oh shush, silly,” said Twilight, remembering their earlier visit. “I saw you three weeks ago!”

Twilight’s mother laughed and nuzzled her. “To me it seemed like three years,” she said as she picked up her daughter’s lone suitcase with her magic. “Did you learn anything interesting over the last few months?”

“Sooooo much!” Twilight launched into a long, breathless description of everything that had happened during the school year that she didn’t have time or room to write about in the letters she’d sent back home.

Maybe she was in better shape, or maybe it was just that it was a lot colder, but the trek home wasn’t nearly as arduous as it had been during the summer. Twilight and her parents only had to stop once to let her rest.

“... and then we learned how to find out how far something’s gonna fall from how long it was falling!” Twilight said as they reached the front door of their home.

She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it again as she saw the inside of the house. It was all different.

It was all... fancy.

The old staticky radio, the one that broke at least once a year and that Mom had to keep fixing, had been replaced with a sleeker black model. There were more bookshelves, lots and lots of bookshelves. Books that used to be stacked double on the shelves and piled up on top of each other now sat in single neat rows.

“What happened to the old couch?”

There was a brand new brown sofa where there used to be worn grey one. They’d had it since before Twilight was born and she’d learned about stars and math and words while sitting on it or near it. To her it smelled the way learning should, and like home.

“We donated it,” Mom said. “It was getting pretty ratty.”

There was nothing wrong with the old one, Twilight thought. The new sofa probably isn’t even as comfy. “Why?”

“Over time objects wear out through repeated use from things like friction and-”

Twilight’s father cleared his throat. “I think she means why now.”

“Oh.” Her mother looked around at all the new things they’d bought while Twilight had been away at school. “While you were away your father picked up extra hours at the observatory and we could afford to replace a lot of the odds and ends around the house.”

Dad nodded. “Mhm. We also built another study.”

Twilight entered the house feeling a little apprehensive about what other unpleasant changes waited for her.

        Twilight and her parents sat on the new sofa as she told them more about her classes.

        “So let me get this straight,” said Dad, after a long and colourful description of Ms. Marie’s classes. “Your gym teacher-”

        Twilight shook her head. “Physical and Mental Education.”

        “Okay, your Physical and Mental Education teacher chases you around with a giant rock, shouts death threats and verbally abuses you for two hours straight every other day?”

        Twilight nodded. “That’s the gist of it.”

        “Wow,” he said. “When you wrote that she was mean, I thought you meant that she just gave a lot of detentions or something.”

        “How is this allowed to continue?” her mother asked. “Haven’t there been complaints from parents?”

        “I honestly don’t know,” Twilight said. She rubbed her nose with a hoof. “Maybe she threatens them too?”

        Mom looked scary. “Have you told the Princess?” she asked. “What does she think?”

        “I don’t know either.” Twilight looked down at the floor. “I sorta... assumed she already knew and I didn’t... want to sound like a whiner...”

        “That wouldn’t make you a whiner, Twi,” Dad said. “That’s pretty serious if it’s true.”

        “Of course it’s true. Why would I make something like that up?”

        “Oh I dunno.” Her father shrugged. “Getting almost smashed by a teacher makes for a good story.”

        Twilight sputtered indignantly.

“Relax,” he said with a wink. “I believe you.”

Her mother had left the room at some point and was now wearing a dark jacket and boots. She looked like she was about to leave.

“Where are you going?” Twilight asked.

“To the palace,” said her mother. “I need to see the Princess about what’s going on at your school.”

“Dear,” Twilight’s father said in a very level voice, “it’s dark out, there’s a blizzard planned for tonight and the palace is over an hour away.”

“And?”

There was a pause.

“Well at least give me some time to put something on too.”

Twilight trotted to the closet to grab something warm to wear, but her mother stopped her. “Twilight, you need to stay here,” she said. “If the snow gets deep you won’t be able to walk through it at all.”

“But I want to come too.” Twilight pouted. “What if you guys get snowed in at the palace? What if I’m trapped inside for a whole week by myself?”

The urgency left her mother’s actions. She had a look on her face that could only be comparable to somepony who’d spent all her days with a duck on her head, never noticing it until one day in her adult life, somepony had simply pointed out to her that she had a bit of a waterfowl problem. “One of us should stay...”

“We can bring the toboggan,” Dad said, decisively.

Twilight’s face lit up with glee. “We have a toboggan?!”

Her mother glared at him. “That was supposed to be a surprise!”

“Oops.”

        Tiny flakes of snow started to fall as the three of them trekked to the palace. The brand new toboggan was strapped to Dad’s back and he struggled under its weight.

        “I love you and all, Twi,” her father said after a while, “but if you’d told us about this before we’d gotten home then I wouldn’t be considering selling you to the circus right now.”
        
        Mom snorted. “Pass that over to me then, you big baby.” She didn’t wait for a response as she undid the ropes with her magic and hefted the toboggan to herself.

        Twilight knew her father was joking, but she still felt bad that she couldn’t help at all with carrying the little wooden sled. If only she’d been a little bigger, or if the snow was a little higher, or if she could use her magic... it was such a waste.

Somehow she’d imagined that the winter that she could finally use magic would be different from all the other winters where she couldn’t.

        By the time they were halfway down the hill there was a very thin dusting of snow on the ground. Twilight longed to climb on the toboggan and slide down the rest of the way, but from the looks of it, she’d only scrape up the bottom.

        Once the palace was in sight, Twilight looked up at the sky, watching as fat snowflakes fell. She blinked furiously as one of them fell right into her eye.

        The pegasus guards at the gate stopped them as they drew near.

        “Halt,” the one on the left said, holding out a wing. “What business have you at the palace?”

        Despite the glamour on his barding concealing his actual coat and cutie mark, Twilight recognized the night guard’s voice. “Gus,” she said. “This is my Mom and Dad. They just want to talk to the Princess.” Come to think of it, Twilight thought, I don’t know what he looks like without his armour on anyway.

        “Carry on then, Ms. Sparkle.” He folded his wing.

        Twilight looked up at both of the guards. “Do either of you know where the Princess is right now?”

        They didn’t.

        The guard to the right (Honoured Journey, most likely) whispered, “thanks for the cupcakes, sir,” as they passed, much to Twilight’s father’s confusion.

        They shook off the snow, wiped their hooves on the mat and looked around.

        What Twilight gathered from her lessons and time spent at the palace was that Princess Celestia had her last meeting before sunset (which in the wintertime, was quite early) and afterwards, was free to do as she pleased. Still, she had no idea where the Princess was supposed to be on an ordinary night like this, how to find her or even if she was in the palace at all tonight. It was past dinnertime so she wouldn’t be in the dining hall, and despite her frequent visits, Twilight had never seen where Princess Celestia’s bedchamber was supposed to be.

        Neither her mother or father seemed to have a clue either.

        “Isn’t there a reception desk or something?” Twilight’s father said eventually, his voice echoing in the large room.

        Twilight lead her parents from the antechamber to the throne room, to the dining hall, up and down the hallways and to every place she could think of. The palace was mostly empty at this time of day, and flickering candles lit each room and corridor. They’d been allowed to leave the toboggan near the front door and they weren’t stuck carting it around the castle with them, but Twilight suspected that her mother and father’s hooves ached at least as much as hers did.

        There was still no sign of the Princess.

        “It’s not that big of a deal,” Twilight said as they trotted down an empty hallway. “I mean, nopony’s ever gotten hit by that big boulder of hers yet. She’s probably missing us on purpose.”

        Her mother grit her teeth. “Princess Celestia!”

        Twilight winced and her father flattened his ears.

        Her mother galloped down the hallway, hollering at the top of her lungs.

        After a while, a white form appeared around the corner, flanked by several guards. “Greetings,” said the Princess. “I’m honoured that you decided to visit, but it may behoove you to lower your voice. As early as it is, some have already gone to sleep.”

        “I didn’t mean to wake you,” said Mom, bowing as she spoke, “but there are things going on at your school that you really should know about.”

        “You needn’t worry about me,” Princess Celestia said with a wink. “My guards, on the other hoof...”

        Twilight looked at the four white pegasi around the Princess. They looked cranky.

        “Sorry,” her mother said.

        “You and your husband should come with me,” said the Princess. “We have much to discuss.”

        “What am I supposed to do, then?” Twilight said, noticing that Princess Celestia hadn’t included “your daughter” in that statement.

        “I believe it’s best if you stay here for the time being.”

        Dad cocked his head. “I think Twilight could tell you better than us what’s been going on at that school of yours.”

        “Be that as it may, some of these issues may be sensitive. I have an inkling of what you wish to discuss, and perhaps this problem has an answer that is for parents, rather than children.” With that, Princess Celestia whisked Twilight’s parents away. All four guards trailed after her sleepily.

        Twilight sat on the carpet, sulking. The Princess had basically shut her out and said that this was grownup business. I hate it when they do that.

        After ten minutes, she began to wonder why they couldn’t have left her in the palace library or something instead. After half an hour she fell asleep.

        Something was nudging Twilight’s shoulder. “Five more minutes...” she muttered.

“C’mon, Twi,” Dad’s voice said, “time to go home.”

“Huh...”

Twilight felt something raise her gently to her hooves.

“Wake up, sweetie,” said Mom, her horn glowing.

She followed her parents out of the palace, zombie-like. An icy blast of air from outside shocked her into full consciousness. The wind had started to pick up.

“So what did she say?” Twilight asked as she climbed on the toboggan; Mom wrapped a blanket around her to shield her from the worst of the cold, and the drifting snow.

“Princess Celestia just explained a few things to us,” Mom said. “Everything’s been sorted out.”

Both parents tied its ropes to themselves and tugged. The little sled pulled through the snow in jerky little skips, but after a point began to slide forward more smoothly

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Her father replied next, “Just that we talked to her, she told us about everything that’s going on and that we figured that, for the time being, you should be fine.

“But then what did she say?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” he said.

“Is this about birds and bees again? Because I read all about them.” Twilight took a deep breath as she recalled what she’d learned. “Birds, class Aves, warm-blooded vertebrates that lay eggs and have feathers. Bees, order hymenoptera, eusocial two-winged insects that produce honey and may or may not have stingers depending on species.” She glared at them. “I’m not a naïve kid anymore!”

Her mother stopped pulling for a moment and stood there until the front of the toboggan clipped at her heels. She opened her mouth.

“Yes,” Twilight’s father said, before her mother could reply. “That’s it exactly.”

“Fine then. Be that way.” Twilight huffed. “...Grownups.”

She wanted to sink into a sullen silence for the rest of the ride home.

 But for some reason, she couldn’t.

        The blizzard played out till morning, just as scheduled, and when Twilight woke up, the snow was eye level. She saw that her mother was already up, fixing coffee, and Twilight bounded outside, not bothering to put on a jacket.

Deprived of her ability to walk, she leapt from snowdrift to snowdrift. She stood in a compressed patch of snow, rearing up to peek her head over the edges. “Look at how deep it is, Mom!” She giggled as she stood back on all fours. “I can’t even see you!”

Her mother, who was sipping coffee by the front door, just smiled and reached down to gather some snow with both forehooves.

Splat! Twilight was smacked in the side with a shimmering snowball.

“Hey!” she said. “Not fair! You’re not allowed to use magic!”

Twilight’s mother smirked playfully. “Are you going to try to stop me?”

Twilight formed a clumsy snowball with her hooves and tossed it back. The snowball went wide.

“I’ve seen more accurate trajectories on bottle rockets!” Mom said. “You can do better than that!”

“Autonomy, civil rights, sisterhood or death!” Twilight cried, as she charged towards her mother with undignified little hops.

She pounced on her mother, covered in snow, and they fell to the ground laughing.

Twilight walked around the house with Smarty Pants, looking for things that had changed while she was gone. Three months was a long time, but more had been replaced while she was away than in the last three years. Every time she walked past the new study she got a strange chill, like somehow the architecture was changing around her - a room where there used to be a wall. The fact that somepony had actually gone in and built the room assuaged her very little. Celestia help her if she started to doodle all-black drawings of her house with footnotes and little minotaurs in the margins.

Mostly, she saw, it was new bookshelves. Here and there, old clocks had been replaced; some things had been given a fresh coat of paint, and it took a while before she thought to peek in the drawers, but she saw all the cutlery in the kitchen now matched too.

She prodded the new couch with a hoof. It smelled of freshly cured wood and new fabrics, nothing like the old sofa at all. Now that she wasn’t around all the time, her parents could afford so many new things... They’d even bought her a toboggan and if they hadn’t, who knows what else they could’ve gotten.

Hm...

She knew that her parents had done the week’s grocery shopping the day before the blizzard hit, and fished the receipt out of the trash with a hoof.

Two hundred bits! Jeeze...

A few years ago Twilight had spent the whole summer scrimping and saving to buy a telescope and all of that was less than what her parents spent a week on food. She did the math in her head. Adjusting for size that means I eat around fifty bits a week... I’m costing them thousands of bits a year! Just in food! She saw a lot of zeroes in her mind as she did the calculations for how much she must have cost them during the course of her entire life.

That was a lot of telescopes.

No wonder they could never afford to buy new stuff until she was away at school. And now that she was back... There must be some way that she could keep herself from costing them so much money. Maybe she could eat rehydrated noodles? Those were pretty cheap, but then that hinged upon her parents being okay with buying nothing but dry noodles for her to eat. Hm... There was one food that was even cheaper (and even more traditional) than pasta. Getting it this time of year, though, presented somewhat of a problem.

Twilight went outside and dug in the snow where her mother had cleared a walkway earlier that morning. There would be grass underneath. It would be frozen and would most likely brown, but it would cost absolutely nothing to eat.

Her digging was rewarded with a few scraggly blades peeking out from the snow. She reached down to chew.

Blech.

In the spring, when it smelled fresh and appetizing, she’d once tried eating raw grass. It was... okay. Bland, tasting like it needed salt, or salad dressing or something, but then again what could she expect? Even in comparison, this stuff was awful. It tasted like soggy hay that had gone a little off.

Not very tasty, but it was free.

Twilight spent over an hour, digging up grass to munch on. Breakfast hadn’t been all that long ago, and she wasn’t even hungry; no matter how much she seemed to eat, though, the grass felt more like it was taking up space than actually being filling.

“Twilight!” her mother shouted from the front door. “Your father’s made l- Are you eating the lawn?”

Twilight looked up sheepishly with a mouth half-full of yellowish grass. “Uh.” She tried to hide her distaste as she swallowed. “It tastes really good?”

Her mother raised an eyebrow. “There are sandwiches inside, and I’m not going to lie and say that your father slaved hours on them, but you know better than to spoil your appetite before a meal.”

“Grass is the healthiest food in the world,” Twilight said, trying to salvage the situation. “It’s home-grown and natural and you get to... see every... step of it being made.” Her mind raced frantically, searching for the right words. “All the processed and cooked foods we’re eating, like hay...” Thinkthinkthink what else do modern ponies eat? “and sandwiches, are terrible for you because they’re nothing like the diets of our... wild plains ancestors.” Oh Celestia save me. “And from now on I’m only going to eat raw grass like we were born to do!” She tried to look proud and fierce.

“What are they doing to you at that school.”

        Over the course of that day, Twilight’s parents tried to coax her into eating regular food, but she refused. It was hardest around dinnertime, when they forced her to sit at the table even though she wasn’t eating anything.

“Mmm... this mushroom casserole’s so good,” her father said, eating in slow, luxurious bites. “Mmmmmm...!”

Twilight could smell how rich and creamy it was, not grassy at all. Her mouth watered.

“Why yes,” said her mother. “And these potatoes are so buttery and fluffy. They melt right in your mouth.”

She knew her parents were doing it on purpose. She also knew that if she told her parents what she was doing, they’d tell her she was being silly and would do stuff like make a portion of food for her anyway and then throw it away when she didn’t eat it. Parents were weird like that.

“Well this casserole tastes like an angel died and instead of decaying, it ascended to an even higher plane of existence... in flavour!”

No, she had to stick this out to convince them she really was adamant on this all-grass diet. Her stomach told her that it had half a mind to punch her in the face, leap out of her mouth and crawl around on the table devouring everything, but she had to do this. It was for the best.

“May I be excused?” Twilight said, for the third time that meal. An all-grass diet had a lot of fibre.

 Her mother, being the cruel torturer that she was, said, “Yes, but you have to come back for dessert.”

When Dad brought out the freshly-baked apple pie, smelling deliciously tart and cinnamony, Twilight wanted to break down and cry.

She lay on her bed that night, thinking of more ways to save money. Her parents must be spending bits on her in other ways too. It was expensive to... heat the house, but then they would do that even if she wasn’t there... The things they bought her had certainly cost money, clothes and toys and books. She looked at Smarty Pants and her bookshelf. Nopony would buy a used doll like me, Smarty Pants said, removing me from the situation would accomplish nothing. That was reasonable enough.

Her books, on the other hoof, could be sold at a used bookstore for a fraction of the original price. Selling all these things that had been gifts, though... something about it didn’t feel right (and not just the fact that she desperately didn’t want to sell any of her book collection).

Usually when she had trouble figuring things out, a long, hot soak in a bubblebath would help her find her best ideas. Although the room at her school was nice, it had a shower rather than a bathtub and she missed bubblebaths dearly. She trotted into the washroom to start running the water and then it hit her. She was costing them money by using water too! Hot water!

Ugh, Twilight thought. I’m going to have to spend the next three weeks being smelly at this rate... Unless... 

It wasn’t too late to go out yet. With a bucket in tow, Twilight made her way outside to make the most efficient and cost-effective use of all the house’s ambient heat.

After half an hour, she looked back at her work, feeling pleased. She went back into her room to await the fruits of her labour.

“Twilight Sparkle!” yelled her father later that night. “Why is the bathtub filled with snow!?”

Dad had accused the school of turning Twilight into a flankster.

“One of those stallions that hang out in groups and wear baggy clothes and flashy jewelry and call mares... rakes?” Hm... that’s not right... “Oh! No wait, they call them h-”

“That’s gangsters, Twilight,” Dad said, cutting her off. “And I don’t want to hear you using that word unless you’re talking about gardening.”  

“Okay,” Twilight said. “What’s a flankster then?”

“A young flankie,” he said, with a shake his head. “You’re on a raw grass diet, you don’t want to shower and I’ll bet that pretty soon you’re going to start attending classes at the local university, and a community garden that grows medicinal herbs.”

That last thing wasn’t a bad idea. Then they wouldn’t have to visit the doctor anymore, and she could sell anything they didn’t use. This would have to wait until spring, though.

Twilight’s father was also on to something when he mentioned local university. University students knew how to live cheaply and she’d heard stories of them living for years off virtually no money. Canterlot University was nearby, and even though classes were out for the winter, there would be bound to be a few students who were still hanging around. Twilight could ask them how they saved their money, and then she’d be able to do it too! The only thing she needed to do was figure out a way to make the university students take her seriously.

In her head she hatched a plan. Her name was Eventide Glitter, Eve for short; she had achondroplastic dwarfism (Twilight had to look that one up to get the pronunciation and the details right); and she was majoring in thaumaturgic sciences (i.e. magic), despite having a dwarfism-related disability that prevented her from actually being able to cast spells. Before bed, Twilight practiced looking very serious and grown-up in the mirror until she could pass as prematurely old, and she recited her backstory until it became as ingrained in her head as all the prime numbers below a thousand.

Tomorrow would be a big day, but first... another trip to the bathroom.

Stupid grass...

Twilight told her parents that she was going to visit the university library to check out some rare books they had. It wasn’t technically a lie, since Canterlot University had an unrivaled collection of magic books and there was no way she would pass up an opportunity to at least look. When she told them, though, she saw Dad give Mom a look that Twilight could only interpret as the visual equivalent of, “I told you so.”

The roads had been cleared the day before, so the way to the university was quick and easy.

“Hello,” Twilight said to a passing mare. “My name is Eventide Glitter and I was wondering if you could tell me what the lower income students do here to save money.”

“Is this a census?”

“Yes,” Twilight lied. “Also, I have achondroplastic dwarfism.”

“Uh... what?”

Twilight knew that grownups found it unsettling when kids spoke in big words, so she racked her brain for a needlessly verbose way to phrase what she’d say next. “My diminutive stature commonly incites conjecture from others about my relative maturity. I am merely aspiring to clarify the most immediately pressing catechism that must be weighing on your... cerebrum.” She finished this with her “grown up” look. Phew. That was a mouthful.

“Um, okay... What was the question again?”

“How do you save money? Other than eating grass and not taking showers.”

The mare looked offended.

Huh? Oh. “I wasn’t trying to say that you don’t shower. I meant that... other than... those methods,” Twilight finished lamely.

“Well if you have to know,” the mare said in clipped tones, “restaurants and supermarkets throw out a lot of their food at the end of the day, and most of it is still good. Some of us also do composting and our own gardening. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere to be.”

That last tip wasn’t too helpful since it was too cold to do any planting. Neither did the idea of going through other ponies’ trash for discarded food appeal to her very much. Still, after a while on nothing but grass, maybe even garbage would start to look tasty.

After a quick browse of the library (most of the magic books were still too advanced for her), Twilight went through the university, asking anypony she could think of about their money-saving methods: double paned windows, sharing textbooks, seeing dental students rather than actual dentists... Not too many of them were very useful.

The best idea only hit her when she walked past an advertisement on a bulletin board: I am a mare looking to split 2 bdrm suite at 4108 maplehoof tower, no pets or pyromancy, rent is 300 bits a month - please send letter with return address so we can set up meeting time.

Roommates! It was so simple! No wonder nopony had mentioned it. It should have already been blindingly obvious. All Twilight had to do to bring some more money into the household was to rent out her room!

If she put up an ad and went the mail route, she might be back at school by the time anypony responded. No, she’d have to take matters into her own hooves. Twilight spent hours standing near the bulletin board, flagging down everypony she saw, asking if they, or anypony they knew, were looking for affordable housing near the university. It took twenty-seven tries, but finally she found a taker.

“I can offer you a room for much cheaper than anything on that board,” Twilight said to the unicorn colt (or perhaps he was old enough to call a stallion) she’d seen checking out the bulletin. He was mint-green and had, for some odd reason, a turkey cutie mark.

“How much?” he asked, after Twilight had explained how she really had achondroplastic dwarfism to him.

“Five bits a day,” she said, “or one hundred and fifty a month.” She figured that at half the price the other pony was offering, nopony would be able to refuse.

“And it’s a single room?”

“Yeah, but curfew is between 6 at night and 9 in the morning,” she said, thinking of her parents. “And you’re not allowed to leave the room during that time. At all. Not even to go to the bathroom.”

“That’s weird... Why?”

“Because of my condition I need lots and lots of sleep. If you wake me up I get... heart murmurs.” There was a moment of silence. “The other tenants are very cranky too.”

“I guess I can invest in a bucket, then.”

Ew. “Any other questions?”

“Just one. I have a girlfriend and we’re just starting to get serious. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Why would it be?” Twilight asked, genuinely perplexed, but trying to make the question sound rhetorical.

He wanted to see the room before he bought it, so Twilight lead him to her house and showed him. It was lucky that her parents had gone out on a Sunday.

“The books need to stay here, but I’ll move out the dolls and clothing before you move in,” she told him. She quickly thought up a lie to explain their presence. “They belonged to my daughter...” Oh poop. Now I need to explain why she’s not here. “It was such a... um... tragic accident.”

“I’m so very sorry.”

Oh no... she thought, realising what she’d implied and then how unconvincing she was being. Twilight buried her face in her hooves and made sobbing sounds. She really wished she knew how to cry on the spot, but if she squeezed her eyes hard enough, they sometimes started to tear up.

“There, there,” he said awkwardly.

“It’s alright,” Twilight said, remembering some lines from a book. “I have to move on. This is something I must do.”

“You’re not one of those ponies who cry all night, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Oh good.”

“Is this arrangement to your liking?” Twilight said, remembering that she had to talk like a grownup.

“A pretty swanky setup, if you ignore all the stuff for little girls. Plus, you can’t beat the price. I’ll take it.”

“Great. You can move in tomorrow at 10 am. It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

Woohoo! Twilight thought to herself as he walked out the front door. I’m renting stuff out! Just like a grownup pony!

Wait... Where am I supposed to sleep now?

Twilight looked around the house for a good place to set up camp. Her parents would notice her sleeping on the couch every night, so she had to pick somewhere a little more discreet. There was a broom closet under the stairs, but she’d have to be a wizard to fit in there, with all the other stuff that was inside as well. If she shifted everything around, though, she could probably squeeze in all the things she would have to move out of her room.

There was a lot of room in the cabinet underneath the sink. She had to push all the bottles to the sides and move certain things to other cabinets and cupboards, but there was eventually enough room in there to fit a pillow, a blanket, Smarty Pants and herself. This would do for now until she got back to school.

The next morning after her parents had gone to work, Twilight helped the new boarder bring in all his things. She had to explain how she had problems with her magic as she lugged a suitcase up the stairs with her teeth. She was thankful that he didn’t have very much in the way of earthly possessions.

After that was done, she spent the rest of the morning digging for grass. It was easiest to get the stuff on the sides of the road that the snow plower ponies had cleared, but grass was so hard to get full with. She’d already eaten a quarter of the roadside on her street, and in four days, the entire stretch of road would be exhausted. Her neighbours definitely weren’t too happy either, when she started eating their front lawns.

Twilight had resorted to trying to clear out a big enough patch of grass to eat on her own lawn, which was hindered by the fact that the snow was higher than she was tall. No wonder ancient ponies invented other kinds of food, Twilight thought as she chewed a hard-earned mouthful of turf. This stinks.

“Neat,” said the colt, as he sidled up next to her. “I didn’t know you were into the whole raw grass thing.”

“It’s very healthy,” Twilight said, not sure who she was trying to convince.

“Hm...”

Twilight watched in envy as the colt easily moved aside a large patch of snow with his magic and exposed a stretch of grass.

He bent down to nibble on a frozen tuft and made a face as he swallowed. “Yup. Garbage is still better.”

        Don’t tempt me.
        
        “I’m going dumpster-diving with my girlfriend later,” he said. “Would you like to come?”

        Not having anything better to do, Twilight agreed. Besides, the snow was starting to get crusty and hard to dig in.

        That afternoon she, the colt, and the unicorn filly who was his girlfriend, went to the back of a large fresh produce market to look for any discarded vegetables. Twilight was told that the pickings were better at night; the garbage level would be much higher and you could just reach in and grab what you wanted. Since they were working around a curfew, though, they wouldn’t be able to be choosy.

Neither of them were small enough to fit through the lid of the large dumpster themselves, nor were they skilled enough at magic to rummage through the trash easily from such a distance.

        Twilight’s size was what won out in the end.

        “Okay,” said the colt, “the compactor at this store comes on every twenty minutes during the day. I just heard it go off five minutes ago so if we get you in and out in ten minutes we should be peachy.”

        This seemed dangerous, but for some reason, Twilight wanted to impress these ponies. “Uh huh,” she said, trying her best to sound unaffected. Eventide Glitter wouldn’t be afraid. “I’ve been in worse.”

        She climbed into the basket they’d brought and the colt and his girlfriend carefully lowered her into the compactor with their magic.

The air was surprisingly warm in the dumpster, heat from the rotting vegetation, Twilight guessed. It didn’t smell as bad as she had expected it to, mouldy, damp, and maybe a little funky, but not putrid. It grew dimmer as they lowered her in, and even after her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could barely even see her own hooves. Twilight lost sense of her own body, seeing nothing but blackness and feeling only the humid, blood-warm air and the basket around her sides. She felt her weight shift and heard a squelching sound as she touched down on the ground. Please just let that be soggy cardboard... She stepped over the sides of the basket, wishing dearly that she could cast any sort light spell. A beam, a flare, a glow... I would trade my tail just for a spark.

Twilight squinted up at halo of light around the opening. “It’s dark down here...” she said quietly to nopony in particular, “and this is questionably legal.”

She nearly tripped over some long, tapering sort of root vegetable, either parsnips or carrots. Into the basket they went. Twilight groped around blindly with her hooves and felt a bag of either cauliflower or broccoli to her right. To her left, there was a burlap sack filled with heavy, roundish objects. Everything went into the basket. It was too dim to get an accurate measure of space and Twilight kept imagining that she heard the compactor starting up and the walls silently closing in around her. Oh goodness... Please don’t forget about me in here...

Everything suddenly got darker as the filly-mare poked her head over the entrance. “Time’s up, Eve,” she said. “If you didn’t get much, we can try again after the compactor does another sweep.”

Twilight felt herself being lifted out of the compactor, followed closely by the basket of vegetables. Once she was safely outside again, she vowed silently to never to go back down.

“Potatoes! Nice.” The colt looked through the basket approvingly. “Next time leave the scree, though,” he said, pointing at the carrots.

“You don’t like carrots?” Twilight asked.

“Nah, I like them just fine. Scree’s the stuff that’s not in bags. It touches all the other garbage and that’s kinda gross.”

That seemed like an oddly specific distinction to make about what was and wasn’t gross when it came to eating garbage, but all Twilight said was, “Ah.”

The colt’s girlfriend inspected the produce. “I was gonna suggest another trip, but you scored big with the potatoes. That was a great job. You’re pretty cool, Eve.”

Twilight smiled. Maybe she could get used to being Eventide Glitter - as long as she didn’t have to keep eating grass and getting put inside dumpsters.

After trimming off the green bits and the sprouts, the potatoes made a passable soup with the broccoli. There were leftovers being kept cold in a bag hanging outside the window, but Twilight hadn’t touched them or mentioned them. She had to explain the well-stocked larder to her new boarder by saying that all the food in the house belonged to a pair of mysterious and cranky tenants with sharing issues. She had to concede the salt and pepper, though. Twilight ate as much as she could (it wasn’t grass!) and told the colt and his girlfriend to take the rest away with them or to his room. When her parents came home, having to account for the leftovers would complicate things even more.

“Why?” he asked.
 
“The other tenants will eat anything lying around,” Twilight said, thinking quickly. “And since they won’t share any of their things, that’s not very fair, is it?”

“Wow, things can get pretty passive-aggressive here, can’t they?” said the colt’s girlfriend.

Twilight didn’t know how to respond to that. “Uh... Yes?”

The colt shrugged. “At least the toilets flush and the walls don’t have holes in them.”

Twilight was used to her mother being at work until six every day, but it was strange seeing snow outside and not the familiar form of her father. She couldn’t remember a single winter holiday where he hadn’t been home all day baking festive cookies or making homemade candy canes. Still, Twilight could only be thankful for the fact that he was working more; she would have gotten caught long ago otherwise.

After the colt had retired to his room for the evening, Twilight made sure to clean up anything that might have given away the presence of another pony in the house. She had to climb a series of chairs, but all the pots and pans went back into the cupboards where she’d found them, and she hid the colt’s jacket and boots in a seldom-used hall closet. She’d just finished cleaning when she heard her parents opening the door.

“Hey Mom! Hey Dad! How was work?” she said as innocently as possible.

“A lot of number crunching as usual,” said her father. “Your mom’s got the biggest news, though.”

Her mother started describing the research her team was doing on the Horsehead Nebula. Twilight was engrossed. She forgot about blinking; she forgot about the colt upstairs; she was so attentive that it took her a good five minutes to notice that her father was tapping a hoof impatiently, almost as if he was waiting for her mother to get to the point.

“... hidden protostars near the base! When we were running the tests we went for coffee and after I got my double espresso and offered a position on Phoebus we went back and -” Twilight’s mother paused for dramatic effect. “It turns out that the glow is because of - get this: Ionized. Hydrogen. We think the ionization has something to do with the nebula’s relative position to Orion! It’s still too early to tell, but-”

“Ooo! How did you find out that it was hydrogen?” Twilight asked, having only held back the questions until now through sheer willpower. “What kind of test did you run?”

“Dear,” Twilight’s father said to her mother, “as fascinating as the Horsehead Nebula is, I think you glossed over the most important part.”

“I was just getting to the part about the magnetic field entrainment. Just be patient.”

“No,” he said. “Your promotion.”

“Oh, that.” Twilight’s mother spoke less animatedly than she had before. “There’s been a new project, the Phoebus program, that the heads of the department still have to clear with the Princess. If it goes through I have a ten-year contract on it, which includes a pay raise and other benefits.”

“Does this mean that we’ll have enough money so that Dad doesn’t have to work every day anymore?”

“I’m actually going back to my old schedule in a few days, no matter how that goes. Zebra sunrises happen every day, but I only get three weeks to spend with my one and only daughter.”

        Twilight was suddenly glad that the colt had paid a week in advance.

        Twilight’s mother diced onions from the far end of the kitchen. “Your father and I have discussed it, and we apologise for not being supportive of your new diet earlier.” Standing far away, she scraped them into a frying pan where they sizzled and smelled delicious.

        “Yeah,” said Dad, as he emptied a packet of spaghetti into some boiling water. “We’re not going to make you sit at the table and watch us eat anymore. That was a jerk move and we’re sorry.”

        A straight up apology from her father - if her mother hadn’t also apologised, Twilight would have been suspicious. Perhaps they would catch her, sit on her, force-feed her cake.

        Mom nodded. “We think it’s great that you’re trying to get healthy and in shape.”

        Oh.

        After her mother was done with the onions, she cleared the entire backyard of snow. Twilight watched as she compressed large drifts of snow into surprisingly small ice bricks, stacking them neatly on top of each other. “Like basic levitation,” her mother said “For a brick shape, apply even force in six directions at right angles to each other, all towards a fixed point; use equal pressure on opposite faces; alter the amount of pressure for the desired dimensions.”

In very little time, the entire frosty yard was laid bare. Twilight looked at it, still feeling full from the soup. Her mother was watching. She took a bite of grass and smiled as convincingly as she could. “Thanks, Mom!”

Twilight stood outside for hours, pretending to eat while her parents cooked and had dinner inside. It was possible that this was actually worse than watching them eat.

That night she waited until both had gone to their room and crawled into her little nest under the sink. There had to be a way to keep Dad from finding out about the colt living in her room. Maybe she could persuade him to keep working? She couldn’t really change the agreement with the colt to say that he could never ever leave the room, could she? In the end she gave up. Maybe she would have a better idea tomorrow.

        “So, because of the construction that’ll be going on in the hallway, you’ll have to leave your room by a ladder on the outside of your window,” she told the colt. “There are gonna be ponies working on the house and stuff, so you can only go through the rest of the house between midnight and six in the morning. On the plus side, the curfew no longer applies!”

Twilight had spent the better part of a day gluing bent pieces of coat-hanger onto a rusty old ladder she’d found in the dump so that it would, somehow, be less obviously a ladder. Getting it back home had been a nightmare. She’d propped it up outside her window and told her parents that it was going to be a trellis for plants in the spring.

        “Weird, but okay.”

        Twilight looked at his turkey cutie mark. All of a sudden, it made a lot more sense.

        The colt lowered himself out the window. “Seeya later.”

        Phew.

        Later on Twilight explained that because of the construction, most of the house was off-limits until late at night.

        This was getting to be a lot more trouble than it was worth.

        Her father was home all day every day for the rest of that week, and he was baking like the apocakelypse had been foretold. The baked goods were endless, and Twilight wasn’t sure how she should feel about the fact that she was enabling him. Every afternoon she would help him make cookies: buttery shortbread that had to be left in the snow before you could slice the dough, spicy gingerbread with tons of molasses and fragrant lavender cookies cut into shapes. She would never get to eat any of these cookies, but they were fun to make anyway.

        Over the course of the school year, Twilight had found herself becoming increasingly nocturnal. On weeknights (most frequently Mondays), she had often lain in bed for hours before giving up and finding a book to read. At home it was just as difficult, perhaps even more so, with the pipes so close; every toilet flush or running tap became a roar right in her ears. Each night after her parents had gone to bed, Twilight lay curled up under the sink with her head on her pillow, listening to the sounds of the house settling and the self-conscious shuffling of the colt’s hoofsteps. She would lie there in the darkness, wondering if anypony suspected anything until her worries became dreams.

With both her mother and father home on the weekend, it seemed twice as likely that she’d be caught, twice as risky. Late Saturday night, Twilight heard two sets of hoofsteps rather than one and panicked. She thought that the colt and one of her parents were down in the house at the same time. She only settled back down once she heard the whisper; it was female, but it wasn’t her mother.

Safe.
        
        On the Wednesday night of the next week, Twilight stole out of her cupboard to take what was her fifth trip to the bathroom that night and bumped into her dad on the way.

“You go first,” he said, and Twilight was happy to oblige.

It was only after she went inside that she realised that logically the best thing would have been to let him go first. The last pony to use the bathroom would spend the most time standing in the hallway, thus having the highest chance of bumping into the colt. It was too late now, though. Dad would suspect that something was up if... wait!

Twilight flushed the toilet, turned the tap on and off quickly and left the bathroom. “All yours,” she said and started to make her way back to the kitchen.

“Wait a minute,” Dad said. “Why are you going downstairs?”

“Uh... I wanted to get a snack.”

“But don’t you only eat grass now?”

Twilight thought quickly. “Yeah, an outside snack.” She glanced at her hooves. “I have to eat more food and more often if I’m only eating grass.” Technically that wasn’t a lie.

“I don’t think going out this late is such a good idea,” he said, “even if it’s just into the backyard.”

        She briefly considered asking him to come with her to lend credibility to her story, but then that would just lead to more questions when she didn’t go back to her room after that too. “I think maybe I’ll just get a drink for now then,” she said as she turned to go down the stairs.

        Her father raised an eyebrow. “There’s a faucet right here, Twilight.”
        “Yeah,” she said. “but then I don’t want to hog the bathroom since you need to use it.”

        “Are you trying to sneak out of the house?”

        Twilight recalled some things the Princess had said - To hide a large misdeed, ponies often shift the focus to a lesser misdemeanor. Sometimes claims can be so fantastic that one has no choice but to believe them.  “You caught me!” she said. “I was going break into the neighbours’ house so I could practice turning them into sheep,” she said. “Ha-ha ha. Ha...” He’s not buying it.
        
        “What’s going on, Twilight?”

        “Uhh...”

        A creaking noise came from Twilight’s room.

        Her father turned towards the sound immediately. “What was that?”

        “Probably just the house settling,” said Twilight. “I hear it all the time at night.” Also, technically not a lie.

        There was another creaking noise.

Dad walked towards the door, horn glowing. “You’re hiding something in there, aren’t you?”

Twilight darted in front of him, barring his path. “No, really. I’m not. I just really don’t like it when you guys go into my room without permission.” She continued to talk as her father picked her up and put her down on the ground behind him. “This is a violation of privacy!”

Aw man...

Her hooves felt glued to the ground and she couldn’t make a move to stop him anymore. She couldn’t even see her door. The only thing she saw was Dad turning a corner and barging right into her room. All of a sudden, her hooves unstuck themselves and she staggered forward. She peeked her head around the corner, fearing what would come next.

There were several screams all at once: a high pitched mare’s scream, and Dad’s. Twilight saw the colt’s girlfriend running down the stairs and out the door.

        Dad was yelling now and Twilight could only make out some of the words (“shameless reprobate”, “cheap motel”, “in our house”).

        There was a loud crack as her father tore off the leg of a hall table and raised overhead.

“Who are you and what the heck is going on?” Dad waved his makeshift club.

The colt looked like a moose who was about to be hit by a train, stunned and unable to act.

Twilight’s mother stepped out into the hallway. She walked past Twilight, looking at her only long enough to make sure she was unharmed. She marched with purpose towards Twilight’s bedroom, looking intensely annoyed. She picked up the rest of the table, the heavy broken furniture rising to the ceiling in an unspoken threat.

“Now,” said Mom, “could you please explain why you are in my daughter’s room?”

“I- I rented this room from Eve.” He looked around frantically and pointed a hoof right at Twilight.

Uh oh. “Uh... I can explain?”

Her parents stared at her blankly.

The colt used the distraction to dart back into the room. “I don’t really care how cheap the rent is anymore, Eve. You’re right about these guys being crazy!” There was a flash of magic and he galloped out the front door with all his possessions.

“Um...”

It all came out then, all her concerns about money, and how she was costing them more than they could afford. She confessed to everything she’d done, hoping that total honesty would buy her mercy. “I made seventy-five bits, though,” she added at the end. She went into the cabinet under the sink to retrieve it.

“Twilight,” her mother said, not even looking at the money. “You should never let strangers into the house without our permission. You didn’t know that colt. He could have been a criminal! We could have been robbed, or worse.” She shook her head.

“I just figured...” Twilight said, “I know I cost you guys a lot. I thought that it was important to save us money no matter what. ”

“We don’t have financial issues, Twi,” said Dad. “None of that was necessary, but just think about what would have happened if your ‘boarder’ had stolen from us. We’d have to replace all the things he took. We’d have to start paying more for insurance. We would’ve been out of a lot more money than you’d’ve made by letting him stay here. You really gotta think these things through before you do them. Maybe consult us first.”

Twilight’s eyes began to sting. “I... I didn’t think any of that would happen. I just thought that if I told you, then you would have said that everything was okay no matter what, and I thought...” She wiped her nose with the back of her hoof. “I thought that it’s just not fair that you have to give things up because of me and pretend everything’s okay because you don’t want to make me upset...”

Mom sighed. “Bits are just pieces of metal with an arbitrary value that you can use to exchange for goods or services. Nothing more. It’s true that money can give security and peace of mind, and yes, we spend more money than households without fillies and colts of their own.” She paused. “Still, I would rather have one Twilight Sparkle than a thousand new bookshelves.”

Twilight sniffled.

“I know you had the best intentions,” her mother said. “Regardless, you shouldn’t have done something like that behind our backs, and you should never ever have allowed a stranger to come and live in our home without our permission.”

“Yeah,” said Dad, looking tired. “We’ll discuss your punishment in the morning and I’ll take that money, thank you very much.” The coins drifted towards him. “This is going towards buying you a new bed.”

“Is the old bed broken?” asked her mother.

Dad looked Mom in the eye for a moment, the two seeming to have some sort of conversation without actually talking.

“Oh,” said Twilight’s mother after a while. “Your punishment for tonight, young lady, is that you have to sleep on the couch.”

“Couldn’t you just ground me or something?” Groundings, to Twilight, were the equivalent of disciplining any other young pony by forbidding him or her from helping with chores.

“We will,” said her mother. “Oh, we will.”

        The next morning Twilight’s parents told her that she had to find the colt who she’d rented out her room to, apologise for the deception and return five of the seven days of rent that he’d paid in advance. Twilight was surprised when she realised that she’d never learned his name; the three of them had to go down to the university and ask for a pony that matched his description.

        “We apologise for the whole incident,” said Twilight’s mother, after they’d found him. “It’s just that when our daughter gets an idea in her head, she really makes sure to follow through.”

“For the record, I’m sorry about lying to you about everything,” Twilight said as she gave the colt his money back.  

“It’s cool. I’m just glad I got my deposit back.” He tucked the money away into his saddlebags. “I’d paid for a month at the last place I was at, and after my room got eaten I didn’t get back a single bit.”

“Alright, stay fresh,” Twilight said, repeating something she’d heard him say once.

“Peace, Eve... Twilight... Thingy...” The colt turned and walked away.

“Let’s pick you out a nice new bed,” Dad said. “Then after, you’re grounded until school starts up again.”

“Yay!”

Her mother gave her a disapproving look. “Extra chores will follow.”

“Aw...”

(Once again, a big thank you goes to feotakahari, plen-omie, and Mystic, who have been helping me edit.)

AN: In Japan a homeless woman lived an entire year in a man’s cupboard without being found out. I am disappoint, Twilight.  

Also, lavender cookies are a real thing and they are delicious (If you use the recipe in the link, make sure to use dried lavender, double the egg, ¾ a cup of butter, and add an extra quarter cup of sugar.).

Happy Dies Natalis Solis Invicti!

This document was initially posted on Google Docs. There are a couple of formatting issues due to FIMFiction's font size restrictions and stuff. The original story can be viewed here:

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/11/story-darkest-before-dawn.html