//------------------------------// // A Night (AppleDash) // Story: Fifteen by Five // by Cynical //------------------------------// The stars lined the heavens, filling the sky with their twinkling light. The moon shone brightest of all, casting a pearly white glow around the treetops and houses of Ponyville. On the highest hill, two ponies laid next to each other and talked quietly. “Always makes me feel a little small… all those lights and stars in the sky.” “Never took you for a star gazer, Dash. That sounds more like Twilight than anyone else.” Rainbow Dash shot a glare towards Applejack before looking upwards again. “Yeah, yeah… all I do is look at ‘em though, I think Twilight actually names ‘em and keeps track of them all, I’m nowhere near that bad.” She stretched her legs behind her head, laying her head back onto them. “Wait… you don’t know their names?” Applejack asked, turning her head towards her partner and raising an eyebrow. “Nope,” Rainbow said proudly before glancing towards Applejack and noticing the questioning gaze. “What?” “Just a little odd is all,” Applejack replied, shaking her head and looking skywards again. “Ah could teach you if ya wanted,” She asked as a cloud lazily drifted in front of the moon. “You know the stars?” Rainbow asked, flabbergasted. Applejack rolled her eyes. “Yes Rainbow, Ah know their names. I’m more surprised that you don’t really.” “Well why would I?” Rainbow protested. Applejack lifted a hoof to rub her temple. “Well it just seems like something they’d teach you, for if y’all got lost at night or something and ya had to follow the North Star.” “Huh?” Applejack pointed skywards, “Over there, y’all see the bright star there? The brightest? Didn’t you ever get told to follow it if y’all were lost?” “Oh…” Rainbow murmured from next to her. “Well… yeah, why didn’t you just say the brightest star?” Applejack rolled her eyes again. “Fine then, the brightest star… that’s the North Star, Polaris.” “Polaris? Are you sure you’re not just making these names up AJ?” Rainbow chuckled from next to her, shaking her head slightly. “The next thing you’ll be saying is that there’s a star called Ursa.” “Well… you’re looking right at it Rainbow.” Rainbow scoffed, “Come off it.” “I’m serious,” Applejack protested, pointing her hoof skywards again. “Look below the North Star; you see the thing that looks like a square?” “Yeah…” Rainbow stretched, unconvinced. “Well that an’ the North Star above it makes the Ursa Minor. Really… you don’t know any of this?” Rainbow mumbled something incoherently before coughing and speaking up, “I might have slept through that lesson…” Applejack saw Rainbow turn towards her. “How come you know them anyway?” “Y’all remember my cutie mark story?” Applejack prompted. She waited until she saw Rainbow’s silhouette nod before continuing, “Well how else did ya think I got back from Manehatten? Your rainboom only lasted for so long. Granny told me that if I ever got lost, I’d just have to follow the stars back home.” “But there are so many,” Rainbow protested, gesturing to the nightscape above them. “You can’t remember every single one of them!” Applejack laughed, “Alright then… try me.” Rainbow leant back again, scanning the sky for a moment before her hoof shot skywards. “That one there.” “That one?” Applejack confirmed before continuing, “That’s Scorpius, the scorpion. The story goes that when Orion, the hunter, stepped on him, he died.” “Alright, and where’s he?” Rainbow asked derisively. Applejack could almost hear her disbelief. “You won’t see him tonight. When Scorpius was sent into the heavens, Orion was separated from him, putting him on the other side of the nightscape so he could hunt freely without having to worry about the scorpion.” “You’re just making these up,” Rainbow accused before pointing skywards again, “So what’s that guy’s story?” “Sagittarius? He’s the archer of the stars.” She could almost picture Rainbow’s eyes rolling next to her. “He’s a centaur actually, half-horse and half-ape. Granny Smith said that he could shoot the apple off a head from miles away. “And that one?” Rainbow asked, barely giving Applejack time to recover before she pointed out another patch of stars. “That’s the Pegasus,” Applejack replied simply. “And…” Applejack chuckled softly into the darkness, “He’s a lot like you actually. They say he flew up to the highest mountain of Olympus, the kingdom of the gods, and Zeus made him his own personal messenger.” She thought she could see Rainbow’s chest rise slightly in the darkness as she puffed it out. “How many of them do you know?” Applejack could almost hear the awe in Rainbow’s voice. “Just what my Granny told me and what I learnt for myself,” Applejack replied humbly, smiling up at the stars she knew so well. “But there must be hundreds… thousands…” Rainbow whispered into the sky, waving her hoof around to emphasise her point. “Millions…” Applejack replied, “Billions. An’ I know a lot of them. From Perseus over there...” She gestured to one of constellations on the right. “To Lupus far, far over there.” This time she pointed far to the left of the two at a set of stars just visible above the horizon. She thought she could hear Rainbow let out a low whistle as she looked at the sky, looking for another star to test Applejacks knowledge. Soon enough, her hoof shot skywards once again, pointing far away. “Final one, what’s that.” “That’s Cygnus, sugarcube, the swan,” Applejack started softly, “Granny said that he loved so many, yet could never see them. She always told me that the swan would watch his love from afar.” She let out a happy sigh as the memories of her family sat around a small fire, naming the stars came back to her. “She always gave them stories; all of ‘em wonderful an’ adventurous.” “And you remember them all?” Rainbow enquired from next to her. Applejack nodded, still lost in her nostalgia as she kept looking at the sky. Applejack thought she could hear her partner clear her throat awkwardly, although she could probably guess what Rainbow wanted to ask. Somewhere in the darkness, Applejack smiled. “Would ya like me to teach you, sugarcube?”