//------------------------------// // 0 // Story: Monochrome // by A Man Called Horse //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle couldn’t have asked for a more perfect night for stargazing. Mostly because she already had. Being a princess wasn’t without its benefits. So, thanks to a few pulled strings at the Ponyville Weather Office, there wasn’t a cloud in sight, leaving the stars to shine with vivid clarity in the inky blackness overhead. The air was mild, without a breath of wind to disrupt the silence that blanketed the sleeping village—or worse: to compete with the giggles and conversations to come. This night is going to be perfect, she thought with a barely suppressed whinny. She lay on folded legs at the center of a checkered picnic blanket. From this vantage point, atop a small hill at the south edge of town, all of Ponyville lay spread out before her. Its streets were dark but for the occasional firefly streetlamp, far too faint for light pollution to be a concern. Her thoughts drifted back to her foalhood, to the frustration of all those nights in which the countless lights of Canterlot had thwarted her attempts to view the stars. She’d often envied the astronomers of ancient times, living before civilization, in its insatiable quest for more and better light, had driven the stars away. How ironic it had always been to her that their progress as a species should only serve to put them farther from the heavens. But now, Canterlot was little more than a shimmering smudge on its mountainside perch, powerless in its distance the obscure the tapestry above her. By contrast, the Everfree Forest, visible over her shoulder as a dark mass in the distance, seemed to swallow all available light like a cavernous maw in the earth’s surface. Perhaps an untenable alternative, she decided with an amused snort. I’m sure I’d have an amazing view of the stars just before I was eaten or mauled. And between the two: Ponyville. The golden mean in her astronomical dialectic. And, she supposed, the golden mean in her very existence. She only hoped that was still the case. As it happened, the lack of wind did nothing to compete with sighs, either. She caught herself, shaking that melancholic train of thought from her mind. Tonight was about putting those fears behind her, and reassuring herself that, whatever changes may come, some things could stay the same. Her wings gave an agitated twitch. To her relief, she was interrupted from her thoughts by the pitter-latter of tiny feet on the grass nearby, punctuated at intervals by a metallic squeak. She looked to her left, smiling at the sight of her number one assistant’s approach. She found the squeaking’s source in the little, tarp-covered red wagon Spike pulled behind him, which he drew to a stop at the blanket’s edge. “Gee,” he said flatly, gesturing to the otherwise unoccupied hilltop. “It’s a good thing you came early to save us a spot.” A cricket chose that moment to make its presence known. Twilight merely rolled her eyes. Yes, she had hoped that more of the townsponies would’ve taken an interest in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but in the end, there were only five other ponies—plus one dragon—she truly wanted to share the evening with. “There’s no need to be snarky, Spike,” she said primly. “The girls will be here soon, and we’ll all have a great time! I’d just assumed they’d… be here by now, I guess…” Spike pulled the tarp aside, revealing a veritable mountain of snacks and beverages prepared for the evening’s festivities, and busied himself with setting the foodstuffs on the blanket in a makeshift buffet. “When are they supposed to get here anyway?” he asked while he worked. “I told them nine o’clock.” She fished into her nearby saddlebag with her magic and retrieved her combination compass-watch-astrolabe. “And it’s… nine-seventeen. Huh.” She panned her gaze across the surrounding fields, searching for some sign of her friends but finding neither hide nor hair of them. “I hope they’re alright.” “I’m sure they’re fine,” Spike said, carrying the last platter to its place. “Something probably just slowed them down, is all. Something pink and frizzy, I bet.” With a chuckle, he set the platter down and stepped back to admire his work. “Well, that’s everything.” Twilight abandoned her search for a moment, looking over the spread. Her expression brightened into a warm smile. “Wow! Everything looks great, Spike!” “Eh, don’t mention it.” He grabbed a quarter of cucumber and watercress sandwich and devoured it in one bite, chewing noisily as he sat down by Twilight’s side. Twilight grabbed a sandwich of her own in her magic and took a dainty bite, resuming her lookout for her friends as she chewed. “They’d better hurry,” she said after swallowing. “They wouldn’t want to miss something like this. The Haizum-Shabdiz meteor shower only happens every five-hundred and eighty-five years.” She finished her sandwich and looked up to the stars, her gaze drawn to the spaces between them. “And, well… I’ve just really been looking forward to spending some time with them…” Spike flopped onto his back and folded his arms behind his head. “I know the meteor shower is super rare and all, but why is it so important to you that they be here? I mean, yeah, they’re our friends, but you see them all the time!” “Not lately, I don’t,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning downward. “Ever since the day of my coronation, it feels like I barely see them at all. And I don’t think the six of us have all been together even once since then.” “Twilight, that was just a few weeks ago. They’re probably busy with work and other responsibilities and stuff. Goodness knows you’ve had a lot going on. It doesn’t mean they’re not your friends anymore, if that’s what you’re worried about.” “Well, I know that, but still… I’d just like to see them, okay?” Her gaze drifted toward the peaceful village. “I hope I wasn’t too pushy when I invited them. I tried to make it seem like a casual thing. I didn’t want to seem like I was going around issuing orders or anything just because I’m a princess now.” “You’re overthinking things, Twi,” Spike yawned. Twilight gave a snort, but didn’t respond. With searching, vulnerable eyes, she continued her vigil, barely paying attention to the starscape above them. No matter how hard she tried, a single, nagging thought ate away at the back of her mind: What if they didn’t want to come? “Ooh, Twilight! Look!” Her ears perked up, face christened with a smile. “What? Do you see them?” she asked, turning to look at Spike, then stopping as she noticed he was pointing upwards. Following his claw, she looked to the sky, and felt both awe and disappointment wash over her. The sky over Ponyville came positively alive as point after point of light streaked across it like a volley of starlight arrows. If she listened closely, she could hear the faint hiss and sizzle of the meteorites burning away in the atmosphere. The spectacle temporarily distracted her from her niggling thoughts, and she watched with her mouth agape. It was nearly hypnotic. The world around her seemed to fade away as she stared into the starfall, and something deep in her mind, like a whisper at the edge of hearing, tugged at her consciousness. For an instant, she swore she saw something, a dark shape moving against the stars overhead, but when she blinked, it was gone. “Twilight? Are you okay?” She gave a start, looking aside to Spike, who returned her gaze with wide, worried eyes. She realized she was trembling, and that her horn was glowing and giving off tiny sparks, almost humming with magical resonance. “Y-yeah, I’m fine, Spike.” She gave him a reassuring smile, then looked upwards again. “It must be the meteor shower. I’ve read about this. Every time our planet passes through the Haizum-Shabdiz cloud, there’s a surge of ambient magic. Nopony knows for sure, because they’ve never been able to study one up close, but it seems that the meteors themselves have magical properties of some kind. The cloud is basically one vast mana conductor array. It’s nothing to worry about, though.” Seemingly satisfied with her explanation, Spike resumed his stargazing, though Twilight did catch him cutting his eyes in her direction from time to time as her horn gave off small pops like a bug zapper. Twilight took a moment to close her eyes and concentrate on the energy passing through her, careful to keep her wits about her lest she zone out again. Perhaps it was her extensive magical training, or perhaps it was some heightened sensitivity granted to her as an alicorn, but Twilight almost felt as though she could reach out and touch the magic, feel its texture, even taste it. There was something… foreign to it, a frequency utterly unfamiliar to her. Her mind reeled at the prospect of discovering new, extra-terrestrial magic. If ponies could learn to tap that energy, who knew what might be possible? Before she could stop herself, her mind recalled the first time she had come across new, unfamiliar magic. Instantly, the world reasserted its presence in the form of a weight in her chest. She opened her eyes and made another sweeping search for her friends. Nothing. Still. She felt a clawed hand rest on her shoulder. Meeting Spike’s eyes, she found them filled with understanding and sympathy. She nodded in response to his unspoken question and extended a wing, gently wrapping it around the tiny dragon, hugging him close to her side as stars fell from the sky. * * * * The shower blazed away for some two hours before finally going into a lull. During that time, Twilight had maintained her lookout for her friends, but her searches had become less frequent, more resigned. Spike had fallen asleep some time ago, the novelty of the shower long since worn off, leaving Twilight alone with her thoughts. Why didn’t they come? she asked herself, looking towards Ponyville. She remembered a night not so long ago, when another, slightly less impressive meteor shower had adorned the skies over Ponyville—the same night she had met Owlowiscious. All her friends, and some townsponies for that matter, had come then. Why would tonight be any different? A familiar, nagging possibility presented itself. She looked over her shoulder, at the feathery limbs folded tight to her sides. Except, things are different now, aren’t they? It wasn’t a thought she was proud of. Her friends had been incredibly supportive of her before, during, and after the coronation. But she had seen so little of them recently. She couldn’t stop the feeling, like a freefall, that all their lives were changing. Wasn’t that what life was about? Change? Her time in Ponyville had been the happiest of her life, but what if her future lay down a different path? What if they were all destined to drift apart with time? Would Rainbow Dash be able to stay in Ponyville if she realized her dream of becoming a full-time Wonderbolt? And what of Rarity’s fashion career? Ponyville was many things, but a trend center it was not. And Twilight? Well, she was a princess now. Celestia was still easing her into her new role, but sooner or later there would be responsibilities, like a fishhook in her mouth, pulling her away from this town and her friends and into the dry air of Bigger & Better Things. But at least she was willing to put up a fight, and do something to keep their bond alive. That’s what tonight had really been about, not some stupid falling rocks. And not a one of her pony friends had even shown up. So there she was, alone with Spike. As if she’d never left Canterlot at all. She slowly got to her hooves. Lifting Spike in her magic, she set him on her back between her wings, then levitated her saddlebag and the blanket and the mostly uneaten food. With a sigh, she silently made her way into town, following the siren song of her bed. Soon enough, the lights of the library went out, and Ponyville was left to the darkness. * * * * Twilight flapped her wings, soaring through a dark, empty space. Stars shone around her in every direction, but they seemed dead somehow—not twinkling, but bleeding their light into the hungry universe. She caught movement ahead of her, a round shadow moving through the void, blotting out the stars as it passed. She came to a stop, hovering, and squinted at the dark object Starting like a sub-bass hum beyond the range of hearing and rising to a fur-raising scream, a shrill note blasted from the object. Twilight’s body seized as a wave of coldness passed through her. Gripped by an animal terror, she turned and beat her wings in desperation. Try as she might, however, there was no escape. The object was pulling her in. With tear-filled eyes, she looked over her shoulder. The scream rose to a fever pitch, unbearable, until Twilight felt her body might tear apart. Then, without warning, the object tore apart instead, exploding in a massive flash, and Twilight was bombarded with its fiery debris. * * * * Twilight woke with a gasp and bolted upright in her bed, heart thundering in her chest and coat drenched in sweat. It took her a moment to realize where she was, but as she got her bearings, she gave a shaky sigh of relief. Massaging her aching head, she examined her bedroom. It was still night, the light of a crescent moon too faint to provide much illumination. However, something was amiss. “Spike?” she whispered. She was answered by a snore, and rolled her eyes. She sat there for a moment—listening, feeling—her cuckoo clock ticking away the seconds. Finally, with an uneasy shrug, she lay back down. It’s nothing, she thought as she closed her eyes. Just a dream. As she drifted off, she paid no mind to the faint, shrill whistle in the back of her mind.