“Mama?”
Cloudy Quartz awoke to the ethereal form of her second youngest daughter, floating above her bed. “What is it, Blinkamena?”
Turning upside down in the air, the ghostly filly stated the cause of her concern. “It’s Inkie, Mama. I think she’s having a nightmare.”
With a sigh, the elder pony slowly climbed out of her bed, careful not to make too much noise and risk waking her husband. She then followed her floating young one out into the hall.
The hall was always neat and tidy; she made sure of that. Despite the dirty work which her family performed on the farm, she was always very firm in her belief in a clean household, and took great pride in how organized and immaculate she was able to keep the place.
It was certainly no easy job, her four children made sure of that. Speaking of which…
“Blinkamena, you go on ahead. I want to take a quick peek in at your sisters.”
“Yes Mama.” The small purple filly obediently floated down to the end of the hall, gliding silently through the door to her and her sister’s room.
After a moment more, Cloudy Quartz slowly opened the door to the room of her two elder children, Pinkamena and Maud. The differences between the two were as night and day, and this was mirrored perfectly in their room.
Pinkamena’s half of the room had once been just the same as all the rest of the house, simple brown wood floors and walls. Recently, however, it had begun to acquire new traits, reflecting the changes in its owner. The walls had been painted a bright pink, the floor a slightly lighter shade of the same. The walls and bed were decorated with streamers and ribbons, and multicolored balloons rested upon the ceiling. Celestia knew where she got it all from, or when the change had even occurred. They had just found the room like this one morning.
Still, it was best not to ask questions where Pinkamena was concerned. She had once inquired as to how her daughter was able to do what she did, and the answers she had received left her more confused than before.
This pink madness ended abruptly however; it was as if an invisible wall had been erected down the middle of the room. On the other side of this wall was the domain of her eldest, Maud. No fancy ornaments or tacky decorations littered this area. Maud, like her mother, harbored a strong need for organization and cleanliness. The only exception to this rule was Maud’s desk.
The desk was littered with rocks and gemstones, of varying shapes and sizes. Maud loved rocks, almost to the point of obsession. She remembered a time when her husband had found a geode in the fields. He had a strange knack for these things, and was able to somehow sense the crystals lying dormant inside their unassuming shell. He had brought it back to the house, and shown it to Maud. Sharing some of the intuition of her father, she had immediately used her strength to break it open, splitting it clean down the middle with a single tap of her hoof. Her daughter had spent hours staring at the thing.
Checking on the two fillies and finding them sound asleep, Quartz returned to the hallway. Looking down the passage, she could see Blinkamena’s small head dart back through the door.
The mare continued down to her younger daughters’ room, slowly opening the door. Blinkamena’s translucent, ghostly form was floating about a foot off of the ground, waiting with a look of concern on her face.
“Now Blinkamena, you know you have to get up early tomorrow to help your father.”
“But Mama!”
“No buts, sweetheart. You need to get your sleep.”
With some reluctance, the ethereal filly drifted over to her sleeping body, and was reunited with it. The mare turned her attention to the sleeping form of her fourth child.
Inkamena was the youngest of the four sisters, having come into the world almost six minutes after her twin. While this fact did lead to some teasing from the other sisters, they all got along just fine. While Pinkie was an endless supply of energy, and Maud was the complete opposite, Inkamena and Blinkamena were the most normal of the bunch.
Not to say that she preferred them over their sisters; she loved them all equally. They just happened to be more similar to other ponies their age than the others.
Well, similar in most ways. She was certain that most ponies didn’t get woken up by floating, transparent projections of their daughters. Or have fillies that could literally move mountains. Or… whatever it was that Pinkamena did.
Inkamena was the only one of her children who hadn’t yet developed some form of ability, but that was likely to change any day now. None of them had been born with it, they just eventually appeared. Of course, this led to the others trying to guess what hers would be. Maud and Blinkamena’s suggestions had been simple, while Pinkamena's had been more... outlandish.
One of her ideas had been being able to create pirate ships out of thin air.
Shaking these thought from her head, Quartz finally focused on the current circumstances of her sleeping child. Sure enough, her grey coat was soaked with sweat, and her covers had been thrown off, violently from the looks of it. A pained expression adorned the filly’s brow, and she was ever so slightly shaking.
Quartz slowly took the child into her forehooves, careful not to wake her, and began cradling the child, gently rocking her back and forth until she calmed down. With an affection unique between a mother and her child, she laid the now peacefully sleeping filly down onto her bed, pulling up the covers and placing them over her. Kissing her child goodnight, Cloudy Quartz made her way out of the room, closing the door behind her as she went.