Sharing the Night: Chapter 6
✶ ✶ ✶
“You don’t measure ponies by the ton, Spike,” Twilight chided as she made her way to the front door of the library. “The most common collective noun is ‘herd,’ but there’s als—oh Celestia, that is a ton of ponies.”
The alicorn of the stars paled at the mass of ponies outside her library. What had she done now? The ponies of Ponyville had mostly seen fit to watch her from afar, save that one time when she’d made the mistake of engaging them. They certainly hadn’t dared come to her door en masse.
Frozen in place in the doorway, hesitant to leave her home, no room to invite them in, and too polite to slam the door and hide under her bed, she realized that these ponies weren’t from Ponyville. A moment later, she realized that their not being from Ponyville didn’t mean she didn’t know them. In fact, one of them in the middle of the crowd waved.
Twilight weakly waved back, attempting to feign a look of neutrality and failing completely.
“Ahem,” the foremost pony of the group coughed.
“Star Glister,” Twilight greeted the aged head of the Astronomers’ Guild of Equestria as politely as she was able. He had a clean white coat and a rich midnight blue mane despite his age, and was not exactly her favorite pony in the world. Bringing the whole guild to her doorstep wasn’t helping either.
“So, it really is you,” he stated with a hint of sourness and disbelief.
“Yeah. It’s me,” she confirmed neutrally.
He eyed her wings and mane. “Princess of the stars.”
“Alicorn. Just... alicorn of the stars,” she corrected with a mix of exasperation and acceptance. There really wasn’t a way she could say it that didn’t put her on a pedestal. Still, the title of princess was special to her and it felt wrong to take it for herself.
“Of course.” He stiffened. “I never thought when Princess Celestia had us install that telescope in your tower that it would lead us here.”
“Why are you here?” Twilight asked, pulling back and flattening her ears with guarded suspicion. She had a pretty good idea.
“The princess of the night—” he started to say, but a younger stallion at his side nudged him and he corrected himself. “The princess of the moon directed us here.”
“She’s still pissed, huh?” Twilight asked dryly. Of course she was.
The older unicorn looked unsure at the connection, but admitted, “Her demeanor was not pleasant, no.”
“Princess Luna...” She shook her head sadly. “What are we going to do?” she asked herself.
“Lady Sparkle—” the stallion began.
“Please don’t call me that. This isn’t Canterlot,” Twilight asserted. “I’m just the librarian here.”
Star Glister frowned. “Very well then—Librarian Sparkle,” he corrected unhappily. “My apologies for bothering you at your residence, but the mayor of this quaint little town didn’t seem to know where you would be holding your evening court. Disgraceful, I tell you.”
“My what?”
✶ ✶ ✶
“Court, Spike!” Twilight bemoaned. “They want me to go out there at dusk and hold court!” She was standing over a large book of Equestrian law—her own personal copy, of course. “–and they’re right! The authority to hold court, mediate disputes and render judgement is granted to alicorns for some hoofing reason. Look at the date on this.” She stamped on the page with her hoof. “It’s from before there even was a diarchy! How can they not have updated this in over a millenium and a half?” she shouted angrily at the book.
“Wait, so all the talk about not being a princess was pointless?” Spike asked, dubious of the possibility. The princess wasn’t known to give false assurances. Well, not to Twilight anyway, usually, when the world wasn’t in danger.
“Right!” Twilight shouted automatically with indignation, then sighed, looking back at the book. “Well, no, it does matter. There’s a bunch of other stuff I’d have to do if I really was a princess, and I think I’d actually need to own land to even qualify. You might think all the stars in the sky would count, but apparently not! Anyway, look at this. All the really really big stuff says alicorn.”
“I guess that’s what you get for having one on the throne the whole time,” Spike shrugged.
Twilight gaped at the baby dragon. “Spike! Are you suggesting the Equestrian government is racist?”
“What? No!” Spike shouted defensively.
“Oh.” Twilight was easily mollified, though it got her thinking. “Actually, you know, there don’t seem to be any provisions for cloud ownership.”
“Man, you think you know your government...” Spike shook his head.
“Yeah, well, Celestia can only do so much.” Twilight shrugged. “There just isn’t that much pegasus representation in the government.”
“Duh—because they aren’t landowners!” Spike pointed out.
“No!” Twilight barked, then reconsidered. “Well—maybe—but I meant that most pegasi value their freedom and get bored sitting around waiting for politics to happen.”
“Didn’t that one pegasus mailmare run for mayor, once?” Spike recalled.
“That doesn’t count, it was a joke write-in that got out of hoof,” Twilight dismissed. “She didn’t even know she almost won until ponies started asking about her stance on muffin taxes. Her campaign never recovered from the embezzlement allegations after she started talking about how much she’d like it if ponies paid their taxes in muffins,” she elaborated somberly.
Spike rolled his eyes. “How do you even remember all of that?”
“It was last Tuesday,” she reminded him.
“Oh, right.” Spike scratched the back of his neck, a little embarrassed. “Anyway, Twilight. I just meant that there hasn’t ever been a difference between alicorns and princesses before, has there? You’re the first alicorn that’s ever not been a princess.”
“That’s true,” she admitted. “Unless Celestia and Luna had a third sister they didn’t get along with.”
Spike screwed up his face in disgust. “Yeesh, Twilight. That’s pretty grim.”
“Grim? What do you—no! Ugh, Spike!” she shared his look of disgust. “I just meant that they didn’t want her ruling Equestria with them!”
“Right,” he said. “So they—”
“You do not accuse the diarchy of committing sororicide of their non-existent sister, Spike!” Twilight lectured indignantly. “Not even if they have a history of long-forgotten sisters and attempted coups. Not only is it rude, but it’s also only one data point. I’ve taught you statistics, Spike. You know this.”
“I guess.” He shrugged. “But wait, speaking of ‘multiple data points...’ what about all those other princes and princesses, like Blueblood?”
“Don’t be silly; they aren’t real royalty, Spike. They’re not even—” She stopped mid-sentence, as soon as her mind caught up with her mouth.
“–alicorns?” Spike finished sarcastically, knowing her all too well.
Twilight just stared blankly ahead for a good, long moment before dropping to the floor and burying her face in her book out of embarrassment like a literary ostrich trying to will the pages to accept her face. “Yeah, that,” she said, her voice muffled by the pages.
✶ ✶ ✶
Twilight was still reading her copy of Equestrian Law for the Politically Disinclined when there was an ominous knock at the door for the second time that day. For a moment, she panicked, thinking she’d lost track of time. She had lost track of time, actually, but lucky for her it wasn’t nearing dusk just yet. She still had some time before she needed to hold—she wilted just thinking about it—court.
As the door opened to reveal her mystery guest, though, she realized there were more immediate problems.
“Twilight Sparkle!” the pony at the door said disapprovingly.
“Hello to you too, Rarity.” Twilight shook her head and let the fashionista in so she could close the door before she attracted too much attention. “Why is it you’re never just happy to see me these days?” she grumbled.
Rarity had the decency to look contrite as she entered the library. “Well I’m sorry, Twilight, but how do you expect me to have something ready for you for tonight if I have to hear about it from the—”
“I don’t, Rarity,” Twilight interrupted. “I’m not wearing anything; Princess Celestia doesn’t.”
“You would think that, Twilight.” Rarity shook her head and tsked. “You know, the fact that she is never seen without it doesn’t make the royal regalia any less important.”
“Okay, fine.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “If you can come up with a full set of regalia, in my colors, within the hour, I’ll wear it.”
Rarity just grinned like the cat who caught the canary.
“...you didn’t,” Twilight balked, disbelieving.
“Days ago, darling.”
☾ ☾ ☾
Luna had listlessly lain in bed far into the late afternoon. It was true she hadn’t slept well ever since she’d lost the stars, but today in particular she’d been absolutely miserable. While in the end she’d only had to put up with the stars crying for a short while, the repercussions had bothered her for the rest of the night.
Well, bothered might not have been the right word.
She was conflicted. Of course she felt bad about ignoring a crying mare no matter how angry Luna was with her, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Worse was that after Twilight had cried herself out, she’d drifted off to sleep and the stars had once again clung to Luna until dawn. Apparently the lunar princess wasn’t going to get a choice in whether or not she had a part in consoling the element of magic.
Worse still, far from feeling taken advantage of, she was actually glad for it. She was glad to have the decision taken out of her hooves and she was glad to be a comfort to the faltering mare without actually having to face her. The empty place in her heart told her that she was still angry with the element of magic, but still...
It felt good to be needed. It filled the emptiness, if only just a little.
It was a lie though. The element of magic didn’t need her, she told herself. Twilight had five of the truest friends a pony could have. Even Celestia herself had run off at dawn, skipping their usual breakfast together. Luna scoffed; whatever had happened, she was sure the end result was a lesson learned and a heartfelt talk. If anything, it was Luna who would come up short in the matter. Surely a personal visit from Celestia meant there would be no letter for lonely, angry, bitter little Luna to read later.
It was dispiriting to think of herself as such. Honestly, she was sick and tired of being all those things. In the past she had been driven by them; she used to spend days on end with no sleep planning for the morning when she would stop Celestia from raising the sun. She suffered through countless lesser indignities just for the day she would see that self-righteous face falter.
What a joke. None of it meant anything to her any more. She didn’t know if the elements of harmony had taken those feelings out of her or if she’d just gotten old. A thousand years was a long time to hold onto hate, even for an alicorn like her. It was half her life. Was it any wonder she felt like a different pony these days? Was it any wonder that maybe, just maybe, she wanted to hope, for once?
She didn’t have a whole lot to hope for, though. The hope that she would get her stars back was dry and dying; it was nothing that would sustain her. The only thing she could come up with was a sad little bud that said maybe the element of magic would send a supplementary report on what had happened, and that she could read it.
Hope was rather depressing, she found.
✶ ✶ ✶
Moments before dusk, Twilight found herself shifting her weight from one hoof to the others outside of Town Hall where the Mayor sometimes held speeches and press releases. Public speaking was nothing new to her, though she’d had no time to prepare a speech on a stack of index cards like she sometimes did. She had no speech for that matter, which was sort of the problem.
The ponies of the Astronomers’ Guild of Equestria weren’t expecting a speech. They were here as petitioners. They wanted things from her. They wanted answers. Answers which—for all that she had discovered the night before—Twilight doubted she had.
“I present to you, the High Archlibrarian of the Stars, Twilight Sparkle,” came the announcement.
Twilight inwardly cringed as she stepped forth. “Libraries are not an autocracy,” she groaned to herself as shoes made of polished jet made dignified taps each time her hooves met wood. She prepared the traditional Ponyville Librarian Voice, expecting to have to quiet her audience as Celestia often did.
She didn’t. There was no need. These were astronomers, after all; they were scientists. They didn’t cheer. They just stared. She was okay with that, though. Staring was good. Staring meant she had their attention, and though she didn’t have any answers, she did have a bit of a plan.
Twilight’s ‘court’—she still couldn’t believe she was doing this—was scheduled for directly after dusk, but it wasn’t dusk yet, not quite. Her audience would expect to see her bring out the stars, and she wasn’t going to disappoint them.
It was a very strange plan for a pony in her position. It wasn’t very elaborate or complicated. The entirety of it could be summed up as ‘making a good impression,’ if you were so inclined. The strangeness came in that it required her to convince the crowd of something that she’d have argued adamantly against just yesterday, and she still wasn’t completely comfortable with.
They were here to question her, to complain, really. She knew because in her mind she was right there with them; they were her own concerns, her own complaints. They were polite and cordial on the surface, but she needed to convince them that she really was the alicorn of the stars. She needed to convince them that she had the right and authority to be here before them and tell them that what they wanted, they would never see in their lifetime.
As for what specifically she was going to do... Celestia had her own show for raising the sun. It was graceful, elegant and powerful; it was what had first set the fire in Twilight’s heart burning for magic. Twilight had ended up with a special talent for magic, the stars or both, but that was inconsequential. This—to stand before a crowd and show them something wondrous, like Celestia had shown her all those years ago—was what she had wanted to do with it. She wasn’t steady enough on her wings to do graceful or elegant, but after last night... she felt maybe she had it in herself to do powerful.
She stepped up behind the podium, but didn’t get up on it. Instead, she levitated it aside so she was in full view of the crowd. She felt exposed without the podium, index cards or other props, but she wanted them to see this.
She closed her eyes and lit her horn—using Celestia’s spell to calm herself until she could feel the stars around her—then snapped them open again. She couldn’t see the crowd any more, but she knew what they saw: eyes black as night, filled with stars. A few gasps of surprise egged her on only to be repeated again as the black from Twilight’s eyes seemed to spread over her body until she stood before them as she’d shown Rainbow Dash just earlier that day, stars from horn to hooves.
The jeweled collar and tiara she wore clattered to the ground; she lifted one hoof in surprise only for it to come out of its shoe. Somewhere behind her, Rarity made a sound like a strangled mouse. Twilight forced herself to go on.
Resplendent in all her glory—and none of Rarity’s—she reared up, spread her starry wings wide for effect, and slammed her forehooves down with a great resounding thump. Just at that moment, the stars exploded out into the sky above her, churning out great whorls in the process.
The deed done, she released herself from the sky and her starry form at the same moment and looked down at the crowd, expecting faces lit up with astonishment and awe.
The crowd looked back at her unimpressed. At first she wondered if she’d gone too far and scared them, but on closer inspection they looked disquieted—angry, even.
Twilight coughed into her hoof uncomfortably as she levitated her collar, tiara and shoes back on. The sound echoed over the crowd and they all looked up to her. “The—err—Stellar Court will now accept its first petitioner,” she announced, bemused and a little worried.
Star Glister stepped forward from the crowd with a dour look on his face. “The Astronomers’ Guild of Equestria would like to formally request to know when the stars will be returned to their proper locations so we may continue our work.”
Twilight stiffened and put on her best Princess Celestia face. “I am working to return the stars to their previous configuration, but I must do so star by star.”
There was a rumbling of dissent which was echoed in Star Glister’s steady face. Nopony knew better than them just how many stars there were in the night sky. “–and how long do you expect this to take?” was the obvious question they all had on their tongues.
Twilight swallowed hard, her throat dry. “By my calculations, it will take me a thousand years,” she stated plainly, doing her best to make it sound matter-of-fact. The rumbling of the crowd turned into a thunderous outcry as the obvious conclusion was finally confirmed.
Apparently, it actually was possible to get astronomers riled up, Twilight reflected with bitterness. All you had to do was crush their hopes and dreams and invalidate their entire lives’ work. “I’m... sorry, everypony,” she added weakly as she dropped her head. The traditional Ponyville Librarian Voice made the tremor in her voice clear as day, which only drove the crowd louder still. From zero to riot in twenty seconds, she mused. For some reason she’d imagined it taking longer, but what else was there to say?
Star Glister raised one hoof to quiet them. He wasn’t done, apparently. “–and can you do it?” he asked coldly.
Twilight furrowed her brow, confused. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
“Forgive me, but you say you are working on restoring the stars. I don’t see it,” he challenged.
That was true, she had to admit. She’d had so much on her mind that beginning a thousand year project of shuffling stars about hadn’t exactly made it to the top of her list. “Well I—” she started to explain, but Star Glister had more to say.
“How do you expect to restore them when they never stop moving?” the aged astronomer aggressively snapped.
“They what?” she asked automatically.
“You swirl the stars about like it’s a show when you bring them out, and they drift in eddies and currents until you put them away in the morning,” Star Glister fumed angrily. “How do you expect us to maintain any kind of charts when stars can cross the sky in a single night, and drift away from our telescopes no sooner than we get them in sight in the first place? How do you expect to restore them—be it in one thousand or ten thousand years—when you can’t keep them still for one single night?”
Twilight blinked dazedly, blindsided completely. She’d seen the long swirls the stars had formed into, but she hadn’t had time to observe them for long. She certainly had been too busy to get her telescope out. “I... I didn’t know,” she admitted, her lower lip quivering.
“You didn’t even know?” the older pony asked incredulously, shaking with anger.
“I haven’t had time to—” Twilight tried to explain.
“–you didn’t have time?” Star Glister balked, all pretense of civility—let alone propriety—finally stripped from him. “You didn’t have time? You are the alicorn of the stars! What could possibly be more important to you than the bloody stars?!” he shouted in a rage.
Twilight cringed at the outburst and took a step back. Her heart was beating hard and she could feel the blood thrumming in her ears over the pregnant silence that came in the wake of Star Glister’s anger. A small part of her told her she was being ridiculous. It was just a pony yelling at her, but she swore that she could feel the hate boiling off of him. She felt like she had the night before, looking down the jaws of an ursa major—like she had two days ago when Luna had pointed out just how Twilight had hurt her. Most of all, though, she felt lost and confused as her head swam with a mixture of emotions she couldn’t rightly identify.
Before she knew anything was wrong, Twilight found herself surrounded by ponies. She felt another wave of anxiety building up before she realized it was just her friends. At some point she’d stumbled back onto her rump and she was just sitting there with one hoof over her rapidly beating heart like she was trying to hold it in. They were concerned about her, asking if she was alright, but their words all blended together in her muddled head and she couldn’t find her voice to answer.
It really was ridiculous, she told herself. She’d let the stress get to her to the point that she was worrying her friends and making a fool of herself in public because she couldn’t handle a single angry pony. As much as she didn’t want to disappoint Celestia, enough was enough. Magic filled Twilight’s horn and she used the calming spell Celestia had taught her for finding her connection to the stars.
It was like being suddenly dunked in ice water. Her heart seemed to stop between one beat and the next, but eventually it beat once, then again. Each consecutive beat came at its normal pace, as if she hadn’t been inexplicably scared for her life just moments ago. Her breathing followed suit, and she pushed the spell further until everything went dark and the whole of her great tangled mess of emotions unraveled out in the sky.
She didn’t let herself get distracted, though. She tried to put a comforting smile on for her friends as she motioned them back, but it disappeared as she got up. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were facing Star Glister and the crowd, so she had to push past them to do what she was going to do. She felt strange and detached walking with only her starsight for reference, but that was the point. Only when she was like this did she really feel the scope of what she was. Only like this did she really feel whole.
Having to get in front of Rainbow Dash and Applejack put Twilight on the steps leading down away from Town Hall, so she kept walking on down to the crowd. As she did, she turned her body to stars again. Her collar and tiara thudded to the ground once more, but it wasn’t funny this time. As she approached Star Glister, it struck her how small she looked from above, so she pulled a little extra from the sky until her starry form had the stature of a fully grown alicorn. It was kind of mean, but she was beyond being polite.
In fact, just that moment, she had the urge to find out what happened to a pony when you dropped a star on them. Luckily for Star Glister, she’d seen last night what the stars could do to solid rock, and that was enough to stay her hoof.
She looked blindly down at the aged astronomer, then past him to the rest of the guild who had all backed up to form a bubble of space around him. “The Stellar Court is now over,” was all she said.
Star Glister was livid. “My hoof it is! You screw up the stars and you don’t even know what’s going on with them? –and now this—this posturing? What in Equestria is wrong with you?”
Twilight leveled her empty gaze back down at the aged unicorn in front of her. “Star Glister, you are the head of your guild, so act like it. If the stars move, either chart their currents or find a job farming rocks. I am done here.”
As if to prove a point, Twilight didn’t move a hoof. It only took a moment of awkward silence before ponies began to excuse themselves to... anywhere but in front of the alicorn of the stars.
Star Glister was the last to leave, but in the end he did so without another word.
☾ ☾ ☾
“We are done here,” Luna announced with a dejected sigh. The Night Court—nay, the Lunar Court, she corrected sourly—had been a complete waste of time tonight. It was a waste of time every night, but tonight in particular she had honestly considered striking up a game of cards with her guards. In the end though, she had told herself she didn’t want to have to look at the aces and so stuck it out until she caught one of her moon guard actually yawning, after which she decided to call it a night.
Also, she fired the guard.
With nothing else scheduled for the night, she made her way back to her chambers. She hesitated just inside the large double doors, however. The thought of another night spent wallowing around these gilded rooms turned her stomach, and the sight of books on tax law piled on her nightstand triggered a derisive snort. The fact that Celestia had thought her actually interested in ancient tax law proved that her sister had missed the point entirely.
Ever since she’d returned from the moon, she’d felt lost. She’d felt so empty and out of place in this new castle, with its new culture and new complications. The castle had been remodeled so she would have her own space, but you couldn’t remodel ponies and it was too late for her to go back and watch them change into what they were now.
The tax laws on the other hoof were something she could go back and understand from a thousand years ago to now. She didn’t care about them and she didn’t like them. They were a substitute. They filled the time and made her feel like she had some connection to the way things were. They were a dry, bland consolation, and one she didn’t have the stomach for tonight—a sentiment that extended to everything else in her chambers.
Her eyes drifted longingly to the window; she knew what she really felt like doing. She wanted to fly. She hadn’t done any flying since she’d lost the stars, though; they were connected. How could she bring herself to fly when it would be out there with those foreign stars all around her? Was it any wonder she was so miserable, she thought bitterly. The stars and flying were two things that hadn’t changed in the thousand years she’d been gone. Trapped in this castle, they’d been her only escape for a year. Now, having lost one, she’d lost the other and she really was trapped.
It was pathetic, she told herself. The fact that she—who once ruled the night—would not so much as go out into it was beyond sad. There were many things she had no control over in this new age; she could not make ponies speak or act like they had a thousand years ago, she couldn’t make them forget the horrible things she’d done and the stars would never be hers again. This, though, was not one of those things. This was a cage of her own devise—one she could ill afford.
Steeling herself, the princess of the moon took a slow, methodical step up to the window and took a deep breath. The cold winter night smelled the same as it always had. She opened her eyes, and the night landscape looked... well, not quite like it always had, but close enough. Finally, she raised her eyes to the sparkling night sky.
It wasn’t that bad, actually. They still represented the greatest loss of her immortal life, but if she imagined she were on some parallel version of Equestria, she could maybe admit that they looked... quite nice.
Somehow she’d expected more, but the worst part of it—the feeling of somepony else in her sky, blanketing the whole world with her magic—she hadn’t been able to escape in the first place. She was still a long ways from being used to it or accepting it, she told herself, but this... this wasn’t anything she wasn’t dealing with anyway. This was just looking at the stars.
She suddenly felt very foolish. In an effort to forget the feeling, she stepped up, launched herself into the night sky and flew.
☾ ☾ ☾
Some time later, after she’d shaken much of the anxiety she’d built up after several days of self-inflicted house arrest, she spread herself out on a wispy white cloud and stretched. Feeling much better, she had just settled down on the cloud to watch the terrain drift below her when a thought pierced the haze of her relief.
“...where is the old castle?”
✶ ✶ ✶
Twilight was watching Canterlot castle from the stars when she started hearing voices.
“Do ya reckon something’s wrong?” Applejack asked someone. “She ain’t moved a hair fer half an hour.”
“Well, after that debacle, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d fainted on her feet,” Rarity chipped in. “I suppose even alicorns can have panic attacks; Celestia knows she’s been taking this whole thing badly.”
“Yeah, well, if she knows, where is she then?” Applejack huffed. “Ya’ll know ah’d sell my hind legs ta help that gal, but I jes don’t feel like ah am. Seems t’me the princesses should be helping her with it all more’n they are.”
“I’m not so sure,” Rarity said uncertainly. “You know how she gets around Princess Celestia.”
“Yeah, ah know.” Applejack sighed. “Ah reckon Princess Luna’d be able to set her straight—return the favor fer Nightmare Night and all—but the way Twi talks about her, they’re really at odds over this whole thing.”
“You would think someone her age would be a little more mature,” Rarity sniffed, but relented. “I suppose it’s hardly fair to blame her. I can’t fathom what it’s even like to have that sort of connection with something, let alone to lose it. The way I hear it, her mane has gone all white with the moon in it—she’ll have to replace her entire wardrobe!”
“Ah don’t think she has a wardrobe, Rarity,” Applejack said in her distinctive sarcastic drawl.
“You and Twilight—honestly! They’ll need to find something white for all her regalia, at least. It can’t be too iridescent, either, or it’ll make her mane look dull. I just wish I knew how they make them; I nearly died when the set I made for Twilight just fell right off not once, but twice!”
“Well I doubt ya’ll will make that mistake again. Ah’m more worried about the mare herself. Any ideas, Shy?” Applejack asked.
Fluttershy squeaked quietly, responding with uncertainty. “I—I’m not sure,” she admitted. “She was sort of like this yesterday. She wasn’t all starry, but her eyes were and she wouldn’t respond to anything. She said it was, um, a normal alicorn thing.”
“No kidding!” added Rainbow Dash, who was apparently also present. “She’s stiffer than those stuffed-shirt guards when she’s like this. I tried to pry Fluttershy out of bed with her and it was like she was made of Applejack.”
“Now what in tarnation do ya’ll mean by that?” Applejack demanded, not sure if she should be offended or not.
“Well, darling,” Rarity tried to mollify her. “You are rather... solid. It’s not a bad thing!”
“A’course ah’m solid,” Applejack answered matter-of-factly. “Ah’m an earth pony.”
“Yes, well, so is Pinkie Pie,” Rarity pointed out for sake of argument. “You can’t crack walnuts with her face.”
“Ah trip one time and ya’ll never let me hear the end of it!” Applejack objected. “Pinkie Pie is made of cotton candy anyway—she doesn’t count,” she grumbled.
Rarity rolled her eyes. “I doubt she is actually made of candy, Applejack.”
“She might be if she got going fast enough,” Rainbow Dash pitched in excitedly. “I’ve got this theory going that the closer you get to the speed of light, the more you turn into, like, your cutie mark.”
“Pinkie Pie’s cutie mark is balloons, not cotton candy,” Applejack pointed out simply.
“It’s not perfect!” Rainbow Dash countered defensively. “I’m not done with it yet! –and I mean, like, what your cutie mark represents, you know? Like, as Rarity approached the speed of light she would probably turn into pure elemental priss—not diamonds—so she should probably avoid it.”
“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity balked, offended. “Honestly, I’m glad our little bookworm is rubbing off on you, but that is just rude!”
“It’s also sort of a self-serving hypothesis coming from, um, you,” Fluttershy meekly added her two bits.
“Hey—as the fastest pony alive, I’m the only one who can test it! You study what you know!” Dash reasoned.
Okay, that was enough. It had taken Twilight a moment of listening to her friends talking about her to remember she was still standing out in front of Town Hall, and after she’d remembered she hadn’t found a good time to interrupt, but now this was just going nowhere.
“I can hear you guys just fine, you kno—WAH.” Twilight yelped in surprise the moment she released her connection to the sky and found her entire field of view filled with Pinkie Pie, who was standing on a chair and making silly faces inches from Twilight’s nose. She stumbled back on her alicorn-sized starry legs and tripped over a stump.
No wait, that was Applejack.
“Oof,” Twilight grunted as she hit the ground, though it was less of an impact and more of an ethereal splash of stars and magic. For the first time, she looked down at the larger starry body she’d made from its own perspective. It was... peculiar. She didn’t really have time to think about it though, as Applejack was already standing over her, looking like she wanted to help Twilight up but couldn’t quite figure out how.
Twilight solved the issue for her by letting herself become a pony again. She was mildly disappointed when she found herself her usual, only slightly taller than normal self as the extra starry mass blew off in the early evening wind. She supposed she’d either have to grow up to Celestia’s stature the old fashioned way, or else find some dark power to—no, she couldn’t even joke about that right now, it was too close to the thoughts she’d had about dropping a star on Star Glister.
Once more made of pony stuff for the most part, she took Applejack’s hoof and pulled herself upright.
“You okay, hon?” Applejack asked.
“Yeah,” Twilight said automatically, then actually looked down at herself. “Um, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Pinkie Pie has good timing.”
All five other ponies just looked at her.
“What?” She turned and looked herself over again, but everything was where it was supposed to be. “Was it something I said?”
“Twi.” Applejack looked her in the eyes. “Pinkie there’s been making faces at you fer at least twenty minutes.”
“Oh.” Twilight looked away with embarrassment. To her relief, there wasn’t another pony in sight except for her five friends.
“Now are ya really, really okay? Ah cain’t pretend t’understand everything ya’ll are going through, but ah know mah friends and yer worrying me.”
Twilight sat down on the steps in front of Town Hall and sighed. “Yeah, I know. I worry me sometimes too. I’m sorry for going all... weird on you. I promised myself I wouldn’t use that spell for that.”
“Spell?” Rarity asked. Everypony looked at Twilight oddly.
“Hon,” Applejack took over. “Ah’m more worried that you looked like you nearly had a heart attack here when that old fool started yelling than all the exact details of how ya shut him up.” Everypony else nodded in agreement. “Way ah see it, ya said exactly what ya should have and ah won’t let it get t’me just because ya had t’turn up the creepy t’make him get it.”
Twilight looked up at Applejack and her friends with an expression of helplessness. Right. The whole collapsing thing. “I know, and I’m sorry. I know this isn’t like me. It feels like I’m falling apart, sometimes. I thought it was just with Princess Luna, and it made sense because I care what she thinks. I care about all those ponies I let down today to an extent too. Star Glister, though? He never approved of me and I made peace with that years ago.”
As she talked, her voice got more and more unsteady. Fluttershy sat down next to her and tried to comfort her as she continued. “I thought after last night that I was past this, but it’s like I fold from the slightest thing from anypony and I don’t know why. The worst thing is, you’re right; I said exactly what I should have. I’m a more functional pony as a ‘goddess’ than I am when I’m an actual pony, and I hate that.”
Twilight lowered her head and cradled it with her hooves. “I hate that it works, too; it always works! Every time I act like I’m better than somepony else it works wonderfully; it always has, even when I was just Princess Celestia’s student! Now ponies just fall over their hooves to do anything I want unless it’s to just treat me normally—and if I don’t tell them what I want they get all these crazy ideas in their heads. They bow to me, ask me the stupidest questions imaginable and make me sign library books whose stories only bear a superficial resemblance to my life!”
Everypony was speechless; even Fluttershy had paused in the middle of gently stroking Twilight’s starry mane.
“It’s a real concern!” Twilight asserted defensively. “The worst part is... I’m doing it right now and I know it!”
Applejack blinked. “Uh, care to run that one by us again?”
“Look around!” Twilight declared hotly.
“There’s no one here, Twilight,” Fluttershy informed her, trying to sound comforting rather than concerned.
“Exactly!” Twilight said triumphantly. “We’re sitting in the middle of Ponyville shouting—”
“–you’re the only one who’s shouting,” Fluttershy mumbled under her breath.
“–and nopony will so much as step out their door while I’m here!” Twilight finished. She was breathing heavily, but seemed to calm down after she’d said her piece.
“Twilight, I really don’t think–” Rarity started dismissively, but was interrupted by Twilight.
“No—you know what? It’s okay. It’s their problem. I have too much on my plate right now to also deal with trying to protect ponies from themselves. If they don’t want to come outdoors until morning, then fine.”
Everypony looked uncomfortable. “...you’re not gonna stay out here all night, are you?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking a little ashamed for doing so.
Twilight looked up at the awkward pegasus and sighed, feeling guilty about being such a burden on her friends. “No, Dash. I think I’m just going to go...” Twilight paused as she searched for the right words. “I think I’m going to go be myself for a while,” she finally said.
Applejack offered her a hoof and a smile to help her up again. “Come on, we’ll all walk ya back to the library.”
Twilight didn’t take the hoof she was offered, instead shaking her head slowly. “No, it’s fine,” she said, suddenly starting to dissolve into stardust before their eyes. “Tell Spike not to worry, okay? I’ll be... around.”
Ѽ Ѽ Ѽ
It was a long time until anypony broke the silence—long after the last mote of Twilight had drifted off in the wind. Applejack’s voice was grim, but determined.
“Somepony get me a quill.”
☾ ☾ ☾
Luna had circled the site of the old castle of the royal pony sisters a few times before landing with a crunch in the freshly fallen snow. There was no mistaking it though; the old castle was simply missing as if it had never been there at all. One more piece of her past was gone forever. As she looked out over the fresh white snow, however, somehow she was not quite so devastated as she thought she should be.
Having landed on the edge of the gradually steepening slope that made up the hole where she’d once lived, Luna begun to walk around the perimeter, examining the site and her feelings in turn.
The most glaring thing about the hole was that she had no idea what had made it. It wasn’t a crater; no falling star or explosion had carved it out. It was just as if the castle had vanished overnight like the Crystal Empire—and it had taken her feelings with it.
The crunching of her hooves though untouched snow stopped for a moment. That wasn’t entirely true. As she searched her heart, she realized she did still have feelings about the old castle, though not the ones she expected.
Looking over the blank slate where she’d once lived in the silence of the night, though, she understood that deep down inside, it was not a place that she had actually wanted to remember. Whether they were from a thousand years ago or just one, the old castle represented so many memories that were tainted by jealousy and hatred.
Luna had never actually asked Celestia why she had abandoned their old home. She had never really given it much thought, beyond bemoaning it as another source of unnecessary change. It was easy to forget that those events troubled her sister as much as they did her.
That wasn’t the point, however. She forced herself to keep walking and keep examining her lack of reaction. No matter what her real feelings towards the castle, the Luna she knew would be frothing mad right now. She was used to every insult, every prick or barb to her pride cutting her to the quick. It had long been a truism about the princess of the moon that she was nothing, if not emotional. Lunacy, they called it—moon madness if you were being crude. Whatever it was, it was like that whole side of her was gone.
A whining, unstable, insufferable side of her, but a side nonetheless.
She had bemoaned feeling listless countless times since returning from the moon, but this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back—or the castle that failed to do so, rather. The princess sat down in the snow and looked up at her moon. She was beginning to think that there really was something wrong with her.
✶ ✶ ✶
Twilight was by now no stranger to the experience of actually being the stars in the sky, but neither had she made a point of spending very long as such. It was a good feeling, for the most part. She felt whole and secure in her immeasurable vastness, stretching all across Equestria.
Now that she had a clear head—which is to say, no head at all—she sort of regretted the dramatic way she’d left the girls on the steps of Town Hall. She really did somehow feel much more herself when she was up in the sky than she had as a pony these last few days. Being the stars didn’t seem an exercise in being immense and powerful so much as she just felt normal while everything else took on a certain toy-like size and quality.
It wasn’t entirely sparkles and rainbows, though. Now that it had been pointed out to her, she could feel parts of herself drifting gently across the sky in different directions. It was quite possibly the strangest part of her new condition yet, which was saying quite a bit. The drifting was slow enough that she didn’t consciously notice it and yet fast enough that she was constantly surprised of the shapes she was in from one hour to the next.
She would have said it made her skin crawl, but she didn’t have skin and was pretty sure the sensation in question was the movement of the stars themselves. Actually, when she just stopped and let herself drift, it was less of a crawl and more a gentle flow. She could imagine she was lying on her back in the ocean with her eyes closed, just letting the current take her where it would—except in this case she was the ocean and she was the current. It was really not a bad feeling at all.
In fact, it was so oddly hypnotizing that with no other pressing matters, she let herself just drift for hours. When the time came for dawn she was so lost in herself that she just rolled over in her half-sleep like she had the last two mornings, setting the stars and making way for a new day.
A new day without a Twilight Sparkle anywhere in Equestria.
☾ ☾ ☾
The urge to set the moon had awoken Luna, which was odd for her. She almost never fell asleep before dawn, though she’d been getting such poor sleep lately, she supposed it was inevitable. She got up and stretched in the fresh rosy dawn, the crunch of snow beneath her hooves reminding her that she had somehow fallen asleep at the site of the old castle.
The lunar princess let herself fall back down into the fresh, soft powder and rolled lazily over onto her back in it. Somehow, the whole area still felt like the night to her. The cold was reminiscent of the time she spent in the sky, of course, but that wasn’t it. Even though the night had gone, it was still here in the rock and snow—in the very air. She curled up on her side and breathed it in.
“Twilight,” she sighed.
Wait, what? Luna blinked, suddenly wide awake with her heart in her throat. It wasn’t the night she felt—well it was, but—it was Twilight. It was her magic that filled this place, the same magic that filled the night sky and constantly reminded her of what she’d lost.
When did that become a thing she sighed wistfully about when she was half asleep?
✶ ✶ ✶
Twilight slept rather later in the day than she would have normally expected, though one could certainly say that there were extenuating circumstances what with her being sealed away in a silent realm that held nothing but the night and therefore there being no day for her to sleep late into. Wake she eventually did, though, all the while through the process reflecting that it was rather difficult to eke out just five more minutes in bed when one had no covers to wrap tightly about oneself, no eyelids to squint shut and indeed no bed to stay in in the first place.
Having awoken to the sight of nothing but empty black space, Twilight rolled over in place and looked elsewhere several times, locating some stars, some more stars and the moon before coming to the conclusion that indeed, Equestria seemed to be missing. Eventually, after a while longer spent waking up, she recognized her particular predicament for real.
This, then, must be the umbra.
Neither the word umbra nor the place itself was as new to Twilight as one might think, though indeed the application of one to the other was a thing of mere days, dating back to her nightmarish foray into the Canterlot archives’ collection of reprehensible books on celestial mechanics. The word itself, though, was common enough for a student as dedicated to the sciences as Twilight was, and the place she found herself in was the first way she’d experienced her new existence that day in the bath. This place was where the night went when it wasn’t night and it was the place she had to reach into to bring it back.
Umbra itself was an often misunderstood term, even before you started throwing it at celestial mechanics. Many ponies came across it first in fiction and simply thought of it as meaning ‘shadow,’ which it sort of did in old Equestrian and that was good enough for them. However, Umbra as it was used today had a much richer meaning.
Specifically, while a shadow was in most cases thought of as a flat shape projected on a surface, an umbra was specifically the three-dimensional space within which light from a particular source was obstructed completely. There were also the penumbra and the antumbra, but Twilight was pretty sure they didn’t apply here. In the case of an umbra though, it was the space itself which was in umbra, and the light never needed to touch anything or form any shadows for it to exist. It should be clear, then, why one would expect this seems like a perfectly sensible name for the place Twilight found herself in now.
One would then be wrong, but that seldom mattered with nomenclature.
Saying that the place Twilight found herself in was in umbra would of course lead to the question, ‘in umbra of what?’ Certainly, during the day it could be considered to be in umbra of the sun, but then at night the sun came to this place, so that didn’t work. If there was anything the place was actually in umbra of, it would have to be Equestria itself, except for the little detail that Equestria as a whole wasn’t actually a source of light and there was technically, no mass obstructing it from view, either.
The requisite mental gymnastics required to make literal sense of the word aside, it was really rather remarkable that nopony had come up with a more accurate one. Normally ponies couldn’t name things fast enough, but the idea of a place defined purely by the fact that it couldn’t be seen from Equestria quite literally proved the proverb ‘out of sight, out of mind.’
Twilight on the other hoof had much more use for a name for it, considering it could very well end up on a checklist with ‘pack sandwiches’ under it in red.
You’d think that the question of where the sun goes at night would be one of those awkward questions that young fillies and colts asked their parents or teachers, and you wouldn’t be wrong. The fact of the matter is just that very few children are still paying attention by the time their parents get finished making something up because they got bored when they were their age, and so on and so forth ad nauseam. As for those who ask their teachers, well, it’s pretty much the same, except the teachers actually know what they’re talking about.
If you ask the children, it’s not an improvement.
As it is, when first introduced to the idea that the world of Equestria is round, many children are wont to presume logically that it is always day on one side of the world and night on the other. This is of course, not the case. They are quickly taught that the sky and world are separate things and obey separate rules. The world is viscerally physical, while the sky is ephemerally magical. Earth and water below contrasted with fire and air above in some philosophies.
While the various basic elemental views are comforting, however, they fail to fully describe the complexities of the albeit limited pony understanding of the sky. One outlook young students are provided is to think of the sky as a layer of magic which wraps around the world like a blanket, and that from within the blanket, the sky looks the same from any point on the world according to the angle of observation. The day and night are then each one such blanket, existing in a space where they are able to trade places without intersecting one another.
This is generally where the class automatically divides itself into two halves: the half which finds this fascinating, and the half which will go on to do meaningful things with their lives. The Twilight Sparkles and the Applejacks, if you will. Sometimes there are also Pinkie Pies, but one does not normally talk about those in polite company.
Fortunately for the Applejacks, none of this is actually important but for the simple understanding that when the day or night seems to pass over the horizon, they pass into a place the same as any other, save that you cannot see the world from it. This, then, is the Umbra: a cold black expanse where nothing exists but night when it is day, or day when it is night.
Unfortunately for all of the Twilight Sparkles of the world—and specifically the Twilight Sparkle who was, at the moment, not of the world—this all took relatively less time for her to review than it did for the day to pass into night again so she could actually leave it. The umbra was—for all of its fancy metaphysical implications—quite boring to actually visit, as it turned out.
✶ ✶ ✶
As the late afternoon in Ponyville slowly turned into night in what was probably her most gentle dusk yet, Twilight let herself flow lazily down into the library to appear with a yawn and a great big stretch. She felt like she’d slept in all day, and had no plans to do anything at all stressful.
“Twilight!” she heard, moments before a small baby dragon wrapped its arms around her neck.
Twilight returned the hug. “Hey, Spike.” After a few moments, she tried to extricate herself from the hug, but the baby wouldn’t let go. “Spike?”
“Don’t tell me you can die and then just disappear for a whole day,” he said seriously.
Twilight blinked. A day? Well actually, her ‘court’ had been held at dusk yesterday, so... wow, it had been a whole day. “I... I’m sorry, Spike. I didn’t mean to be gone that long.”
The baby dragon finally let her go. “Did something happen again?” he asked with worry.
Twilight sat down and looked away guiltily. “Not exactly; that is—um—no. Nothing like the night before last.”
Spike just looked expectantly at her, mildly confused.
Twilight sighed. “I was asleep when I put away the stars, and I kind of... went with them. I didn’t exactly plan to, but it’s my fault I did so—I’m sorry for being gone all day,” she explained reluctantly, a touch indignant but mostly just embarrassed.
Spike looked like he was actively trying to wrap his head around that. “So... You locked yourself in some celestial closet all day and couldn’t get out until the sun set?”
“That’s...” Twilight hesitated. It wasn’t really worth lecturing him on the details. “Yes, Spike, that is exactly it,” she finally said flatly.
“So, pretty much the same as my day then,” Spike concluded.
Twilight cocked her head to the side. “You locked yourself in the closet?” she asked dubiously.
“I might as well have,” Spike explained. “I could have gotten some sleep if I had. Without you around, this place is dead quiet. I never thought I’d miss the sound of pages turning while you mutter under your breath about quadra-whatsits and whatever-nomials.”
Twilight was glad to hear it. “Quiet is good. I am sorry I left you alone, but at least all of those astronomers will be long gone back to Canterlot by now.”
“Um...” Spike hesitated, scratching the back of his neck out of awkwardness.
Twilight was not amused. “Spike, tell me the astronomers have all gone,” she insisted seriously.
Spike opened his mouth to speak, stopped to think, then declared with confidence, “the astronomers have all gone—”
Twilight sighed in relief.
“–to anypony who will rent them space while they’re waiting for the construction,” Spike finished hurriedly, as if maybe he could say it fast enough that she wouldn’t notice.
“Construction,” Twilight deadpanned. “What construction.”
“Um—you know—maybe I misheard Rarity,” Spike backpedaled. “I don’t think there’s any construction after all.”
“As if you would ever pay anything less than full attention to the sound of Rarity’s voice.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “What did you hear?” she enunciated insistently.
“They might be adding a guild branch here in Ponyville,” Spike explained.
Twilight cringed reflexively, but she’d already prepared herself for the obvious. “Well, that isn’t so bad. At least Star Glister won’t—”
“–more of a headquarters, actually,” Spike corrected quickly.
Twilight groaned. “The whole guild is moving to Ponyville?” she asked with a pained expression.
“According to Rarity...” Spike began to check off items on his claws. “The whole guild, their families, their servants, their business partners, ponies ‘in the know,’ whatever that means,” He had to switch to his other hand to keep counting. “–ponies not in the know who are smart enough to follow those who are, opportunistic nobility who’ll try to get you to naively sign off on things, all of their families, servants and business partners...”
Twilight’s eyes got a little wider and her jaw dropped a little more with each item Spike listed until the young dragon found himself blinking in confusion on account of being out of claws on his hands to count with. After a moment’s pause, he began to point to the claws on his feet, but the look on Twilight’s face indicated that she had got the idea, so he moved on.
“Anyway, apparently real estate prices skyrocketed today and Rarity said something about Ponyville becoming the new Canterlot. She was—umm—cackling like a madpony.” Spike looked around shiftily. “Don’t tell her I called it that,” he added.
“Wh—but I—how?” was all Twilight could say. “How do they get ‘we should stick around and build a monument to her glory’ out of what happened yesterday?”
“I don’t know anything about a monument,” Spike mentioned uncertainly. “–but Mayor Mare did say she had something important to talk to you about.”
Twilight’s head thudded into the floor in front of her with another groan. “Well, at least that’ll have to wait for tomorrow. The mayor’s office is closed by now.”
Spike hesitated to say anything at first, but he failed to keep quiet. “They adjusted their hours, actually.”
“What.” Twilight had clearly misheard him.
“They adjusted their hours,” Spike said again. “They’re open until midnight,” he clarified.
“Spike, that’s impossible,” Twilight dismissed with a hint of nervousness.
Spike looked confused. “–but the mayor said—”
“No, you don’t understand, Spike.” Twilight lectured, motioning with her hooves. “This is the government we’re talking about. No government office in the history of ponydom has ever been open past five.”
“Is there a record, or something?” Spike had to ask.
Twilight turned to look at her front door with dread. “Suddenly I get the feeling that this is getting too big for me to handle,” she bemoaned.
“You didn’t at the phrase ‘new Canterlot?’”
✶ ✶ ✶
Twilight felt no compunction over using the stars to make her way to Town Hall without being seen; she held no illusions that such a trip would be as relaxing as her trip through the Everfree forest had been—which was a weird thing to admit without sarcasm, but no less true for being so.
Manifesting on the steps outside of Town Hall, she did her best to forget the events that had taken place there the night before, let alone the idea that there would apparently be many more such occurrences in the days to come.
Days? More like years—decades—centuries. It made her few petty days of resistance feel futile.
Twilight shook her head and distracted herself by confirming that yes, the mayor had even had Town Hall’s posted hours changed already; it was eerie, like something out of a horror story. Nonetheless, she steeled herself and opened the door.
Like most government buildings, there was no receptionist. You simply had to either know where you were going or check the posted floor map for the right office. Twilight’s case was of course the former. She’d been to the mayor’s office many times about this or that event, and the library was government funded, so she and the mayor saw each other often. They weren’t exactly friends, but they were comfortable with each other.
At least, that was what Twilight had thought before she’d walked into the mayor’s office only to have the government official get up and display exactly why one didn’t typically bow from behind a fancy desk. “Your—ow—majesty.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, and started to refuse the title, but paused. After what she’d read about the governing rights of alicorns, she wasn’t sure if ‘majesty’ wasn’t actually applicable after all. She settled for a sigh. “Come on, mayor. It’s just me. Spike said you had something to talk to me about?”
“Ahem, yes.” The mayor straightened up and regained her air of dignity. “It won’t take very long at all, I just have some papers for you to sign.”
Twilight furrowed her brow. “Papers?” she asked suspiciously. Her mind immediately went to Spike’s mention of ponies trying to take advantage of her relative political naïveté.
“It’s just a couple of things,” the mayor insisted as she fished some papers out of her desk. “The first is really just a formality,” she explained.
Twilight took the papers in her magic and looked them over. “Confirmation of alicorn residence...?” Twilight read across the top. “There’s a form for this?” she asked incredulously, wondering if this was some sort of joke.
“There is a form for everything,” the mayor explained seriously, for a moment giving the impression of a bedraggled office worker rather than the leader of their fair town. The impression was brief, however, and she continued. “This one mostly just confirms that you—an alicorn with all rights and privileges of such—make Ponyville your residence. Having a residing alicorn will have several benefits for Ponyville, not the least of which are several different tax exemptions, and the rights and status of being a crown city.”
“I don’t even have a crown,” Twilight grumbled, then proceeded to read through the papers as the mayor summarized them. She was glad she did, because the mayor helpfully left out one little detail. “This gives me authority over... you. This is a position.”
“It is not—strictly speaking—an actual position,” Mayor Mare corrected uncomfortably. “There’s no additional title involved. It was drafted with Princess Celestia in mind, should she ever choose to leave Canterlot. There are provisions there for residence and access to the city treasury, however.”
Twilight frowned. “I don’t need all that. I’m happy just being the librarian here.”
The mayor closed her eyes, took a breath, then opened them again. “That is the other thing I need to talk to you about,” she said as neutrally as possible as she slid another single sheet of paper over to Twilight with her hoof.
Twilight didn’t even have to pick it up. She could read the form header from where she sat. The large block letters read ‘notification of termination.’
“You’re... firing me?” was all she could say.
Mayor Mare looked like she wanted to word it differently, but eventually she gave up and just sighed. “Yes. Yes, Twilight, I am firing you.”
“–but... why?” she asked weakly, then stiffened up. “Are you trying to pressure me into signing—”
“No,” the mayor interrupted as sincerely as she could. “No, if anything I’m pushing that through because of this.”
Twilight was at a loss for words. It wasn’t like her irrational fear the day before—she was completely in control of herself—it was just... she had never been fired before. Princess Celestia herself had arranged for Twilight’s position at the library. She didn’t even know what to think.
She hunched over and moved the paper closer to herself with her hoof so she could read one line in particular. “Reason for termination: No longer suitable for position?” she squeaked softly.
“There have been complaints, Twilight,” the mayor explained. “–and I confirmed with Spike today; nopony but you and your friends so much as go near the library now. I know it’s been your home, but a library is a place of learning for the public, not just you. We can’t have a library that ponies are afraid to go to, Twilight.”
Twilight dropped her head and closed her eyes. That was it, then. She couldn’t argue against that. “I... understand,” she said hollowly, finally taking the paper in her hoof, as if in acceptance.
“Now, I know it has only been a few days. It’s going to take a while for things to get sorted out around here, and I don’t expect this to happen immediately,” the mayor explained. “I’d like you to keep it in mind, though.”
Keep it in mind. Right. “I get it. I assume you already have someone lined up?”
Mayor Mare nodded solemnly. “Dusty Scrolls has agreed to come out of retirement.”
Twilight nodded back, and made to stand. She suddenly didn’t feel like sticking around to chat. “I’ll... let you know when you can have your library back, I guess,” she said mechanically, then took the other stack of papers in her magic as well. “–and about your offer too. I’ll have to think about it.”
Mayor Mare kept her face neutral. “Of course.”
Twilight went to put the papers away, but of course she didn’t have any saddlebags on since she’d arrived via starlight, and she couldn’t go back the same way with the papers. Wonderful. She rolled the papers up in her magic and stuck them under the crook of her wing instead. At least they were useful for something.
With a silent nod of farewell to the mayor, she made her way out of the building on unsteady hooves.
✶ ✶ ✶
Twilight slowly made her way home in something of a daze. As usual, nopony interrupted her, though she couldn’t say whether it was because it was her or just the time of day. She stopped a distance away from the library just to look at it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to think of it as anything but her home; it was the only home she’d ever known in Ponyville.
The library door opened quietly in deference to Twilight’s mood and Spike was busy in the kitchen, so she was able to make her way upstairs without a word. She would have to say something to him sooner or later, but she really didn’t feel up to it right now.
As soon as she made it to her room, she dumped all her paperwork on the desk, collapsed face-first on the bed and just lay for a while. She wasn’t sad or angry—not yet, at least—mostly she was just... shocked. She’d been so busy dealing with all of her other things that she’d forgotten she’d had a life before wings had suddenly appeared on her back.
Her room, she noted as she rolled over onto her back, was as neat and tidy as always, reminding her that she hadn’t actually slept here for two days. She resolved to fix that tonight no matter how tempted she was to just disappear into the sky again. She had to stop neglecting Spike, or he’d be as lost to her as the library was to be.
It was a bit of a wake up call, she realized. Figuring out the past was all well and good, but she really had to start thinking about what she would do with her future. Her mind went to the papers on her desk and she wondered if it was already too late. Ponies were already trying to make those decisions for her. All they needed was her signature, and they’d build her a palace. If she didn’t do something to stop them, ponies would be arriving from all over Equestria just to look at her in her cage.
Who was she kidding, though? She already had a cage of her own devising. She stayed in the library all day or disappeared into the sky all night. She had avoided everypony she could since this whole thing had started; was it any wonder ponies were too scared to come to the library?
An official position, public appearances, a friendly face; that was how Celestia did it. Wasn’t that what she had said she wanted? Immortality, duty and responsibility? To be everything Celestia was? She had thought so, but faced with the prospect, the idea just seemed so hollow and lonely to her.
Maybe she should just move back to Canterlot, she thought at first. The idea was immediately rejected. The whole point was to get ponies used to her again so she could walk down to the Carousel Boutique or Sugar Cube Corner without causing a major incident. Hiding away in Canterlot wouldn’t help her.
Was that it, then? Was she really going to do this? Things were moving so fast, and she felt like she was all alone in the world when it came to things like this. She curled up on top of the covers and remembered the feeling of waking up under Celestia’s wing, or with Fluttershy in her arms. She kind of wished she had someone to hold right now. Not Celestia; she was too big... but maybe Luna. As she began to drift off to sleep, she vaguely remembered holding a small white moon in her arms.
Luna would be nice.
Just as she was on the edge of sleep, a knock at the door startled her awake. “Twilight?” came a trepidatious voice that sounded an awful lot like a baby dragon who wasn’t sure if she even existed.
Twilight rolled over onto her back and sighed. “Yeah, Spike?”
The door clacked open and Spike popped his head into the room. “I—um—made dinner. Hayfries and roast dandelion?”
Twilight swung her legs off the side of the bed and rolled up to a sitting position. She rubbed her face with her hooves as images of the moon faded from her mind. “Yeah, okay,” she responded as she rolled off the rest of the way out of bed and onto her hooves.
☾ ☾ ☾
“I missed you at breakfast,” Celestia mentioned offhandedly as Luna walked into their shared dining room for dinner.
Luna grumbled something unintelligible as she set down a plate of mushrooms and moonflower salad, which she didn’t particularly like but ate out of a sense of stubborn pride for nocturnal flora. Her choice of meals was not the source of her disgruntledness, however. She’d spent most of the day back in her chambers, pretending to be asleep after her unplanned ‘nap’ the night before. The memory of mumbling Twilight’s name in her half-sleep still haunted her.
“So, it seems Twilight has been roped into holding court down in Ponyville,” Celestia remarked out of the blue.
Luna nearly choked on a mushroom, giving a series of coughs as she cleared her throat and tried to regain her composure. “O—oh?” she asked, feigning innocence. She had actually completely forgotten about that particular little act of spite.
“Yes, it seems the Astronomers’ Guild tracked her down faster than I expected,” Celestia explained dourly.
It was then that Luna noticed a scroll sitting on the table next to Celestia’s plate. It looked exactly like the scrolls Twilight sent her friendship reports on. “I wonder how that happened,” she said, pointedly not looking covetously at the rolled parchment.
“Indeed.” Celestia took a sip of her tea. “It does present a bit of a problem, however,” she noted.
The word ‘problem’ immediately drew Luna’s eyes back to the scroll on the table. She subsequently lowered them back to her plate and resumed eating in an effort to distract herself. “W—what sort of problem?”
“I’ve received a number of letters concerned with the implications of a ‘filly’ passing judgement out from under the watchful eye of Canterlot, let alone the scheduling issues of having two separate courts for the night in different cities.”
Luna deflated; the scroll wasn’t a friendship report? She channeled her disappointment into indignation and puffed out her cheeks. “I had noticed a decline in supplicants as of late,” she admitted, remembering the previous night. If tonight was the same, she would have to have a pack of cards at hoof, aces or no aces.
“We’re agreed it’s clear what needs to happen, then.” Celestia set down her tea cup without a sound and looked at her sister seriously.
Luna nodded, her eyes still on her salad and not really paying attention. Politics this, and politics that. She rolled her eyes and gave a vague response, “She certainly cannot be allowed to go unchecked.”
“Good.” Celestia smiled. “The seneschal has already packed your things.”
“That shall be—wait, what?”