//------------------------------//
// The Bat and the Believer (part 1) 
// Story: Love Letters Written on the Back of a Star Chart 
// by Dawn Stripes 
//------------------------------//

	Rainbow Dash pawed at the searing sand. As it tickled her nose, a frustrated snort unwittingly escaped her nostrils, and in that split second, she would have given anything to be somewhere else.
Five hundred feet above sea level, for instance. That would have been perfect. Under any other circumstances, she would have been there already. Rainbow Dash really wasn’t the sort of pony to let social niceties keep her from escaping an awkward situation.
The snort was joined by a fierce ear twitch. Rainbow ducked her head, as if hiding her cheeks would keep anyone from reading how embarrassed she was. Being a pegasus was usually awesome, but the way Dash saw it, Celestia must have decided the race needed a drawback to make up for all that awesomeness.
Wingboners really sucked.
Being teased by earth ponies for what looked like a wingboner was one thing. Dash could shrug that off with her aura of all-around radicalness. Ground-pounders made that mistake all the time; they just couldn’t tell the difference between the myriad forms of subtlety in the body language of wings. Wings popped open whenever a pegasus was hit with a rush of adrenaline, an adaption meant to help them take flight whenever a hydra popped out of the ground where they were browsing.
But female wing erection was another story. That day in ‘Health’ class had been one of those many when Rainbow Dash had put her head down, silently sure that she didn’t need to pay attention. This would be one of those things a cool pony like her would never need to worry about.
She regretted that just a little bit now. Her flight muscles were locking up, and she was trying to fight it so hard that it made her wingblades hurt. Her wings turned stiff, losing their graceful curve and flattening out like a board. She could feel every single feather separating from each other. So it felt like everyone for miles around must have noticed her wingboner.  Even though she squashed her eyes shut and tried to think about falling—everypony on the weather team said that helped—her wings just got flatter and harder.
With her beautiful wings so malformed, it was impossible to fly. The fact sank in as Dash tried a couple ungainly and extremely embarrassing flaps anyway. Her breath came short. Her hooves splayed. Her own body, her wings no less, had betrayed her. And she was trapped on the ground. There was no worse nightmare.
Of course, in a foul stroke of irony, that was the point. Pegasi were an extremely flighty race by nature, and as best as biologists could suppose, the adaption of wing erection had arisen to keep a pegasus mare from suddenly taking wing and disappearing in the middle of intercourse. Health class had probably thought that the knowledge would make fillies feel better, but it only gave Dash a target to rage at, her primordial ancestors for being total wimps.
It wasn’t her fault! Not really. This was supposed to be a day vacation. All she’d wanted was to have some fun as long as she was stuck on Earth for a month, being paraded around as the Element of Loyalty. When she’d asked her human friends what kinds of stuff they did for fun, an activity where she wouldn’t have to be stuck in a dress had sounded like a great idea.
But by the time they got to the beach, Rainbow Dash had done so many barrel rolls while following the van down I-71 that Tom said the FAA, whoever that was, had already called to say she couldn’t fly over the highway anymore. And what was worse, she had kinks in her wings. Kinks were still better than being enclosed in a tiny box like that car for an hour, but it didn’t put her in the best mood to join the others for a swim.
She’d been lying on her towel, preparing to just sort of nap it off like usual, when the most bizarre sensation gathered at the base of her withers. When her head snapped around, Luke was digging his fingers into the skin between her wings.
She would have gotten out of there quick. But Rainbow Dash could already feel the tension in her wing blades melting away like hot butter. So this was why Captain Spitfire was always telling her to get massages. And, yet another pleasant surprise, when it was a human touching her instead of a pony, she didn’t freak out as much. His fingers weren’t anything like hooves, and she could just sort of pretend it was a bunch of noodles circling her flight muscles.
Still, she’d made sure to tell him, “Dude, you don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”
Luke had just smirked. “This is an investment. I can’t have my fantasy stunt flying team go all to pieces on me.”
“Pretty sure that’s not…ah, right there…not a thing.”
This had been a nice discovery. For once she’d be able to join in when everypony else was giving out back rubs and nose pecks. It felt good to be chill about being touched, and Luke probably felt the same way about this, given how reserved he usually was. 	Luke was one of those friends of Tom’s who nopony knew very well. He looked friendly enough, with his face always clean, and his eyes bright. But he was an odd, quiet sort, keeping to himself even when he visited Equestria.
Dash didn’t think she’d ever seen him touch a pony before. And she was pleased to know he could be so relaxed with her. So she’d stretched out and given in to his administrations.
It had been pretty great until Lyra showed up and made a comment about how ‘comfortable’ Dash was getting. Stupid Lyra. Had to ruin the moment for both of them. Dash’s wings hadn’t been doing anything, not like she said. Dash was just unfolding them a bit so Luke could get at her back easier.
Of course Luke had stopped after that. And since Dash couldn’t un-hear what Lyra had said, she couldn’t keep from noticing certain things.
It still wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t told Luke to wear such tight green swim trunks to the beach. And she wouldn’t have cared if he did. She’d never even noticed a human guy’s arousal before, much less thought of them in connection to…that…stuff. Not that she’d been looking! It had been pure accident that she happened to notice. There were just so many bodies out here on the beach, and she’d never seen so many humans wearing so little before—hayseed! It’d just happened!
Rainbow Dash took surprisingly little comfort in the knowledge that almost no one in this sea of humans had even heard of a wingboner before. One was enough. Tom was wading in from the shallows as fast as his legs could churn, and Dash didn’t like the look on his face one bit.
“Luke!” he crowed, cupping his hands to his voice. As soon as he’d crossed the sand he poked Luke in the ribs, causing his friend to sit up sharply from his towel.
“Good work!” said Tom. “You got a girl looking at you!”
“What? Where?” Luke’s head spun in both directions. He sneakily drew his bony knees up to his chest.
There were a few people looking at him, but that was mostly because he was talking to a pony. They were speaking in Equus at the time, too. Most of Tom’s human friends were fluent in the language by now, which made things way easier for Rainbow.
Luke’s eyes scanned the crowd, passing right over Rainbow Dash.
Tom watched him try to find the girl. “Oh, come on now.” 
“What? I don’t see her.” Luke frowned and drew his knees tighter. He shared a suspicious glance with Rainbow. “Miss Dash? Do you know what Tom’s up to?”
Rainbow opened her mouth and let out a brief squeak reminiscent of a rusty barn door. Backpedaling across the sand without thinking, she nearly tripped over a lanky pair of sunbathing girls. She was awkward on the ground, with her wings hanging out like great counterweights; although she managed to spin hard enough to avoid planting her plot on anyone’s face, she felt something squishy underhoof and heard a yelp of pain. When she rolled away, one of the girls was wringing her hand. Dash backed off further, apologizing in a language they wouldn’t understand, and nearly bumped into the next pair of sunbathers down the beach.
If she could even hover, this would have been so much better. Bad things happened to her almost exclusively when she was on the ground.
“Oh, Dashie,” Tom called. “Do you have something you’d like to tell Luke?”
Rainbow looked away before Luke could meet her eyes. She heard him yell, “Tom!” followed by the sound of somebody getting slapped in the leg.
Tom was unfazed. He whistled towards the sea. A clump of green broke from the seawater, where it had been tossing a beach ball with a circle of kids, and dog-paddled towards the shore. Once the water was shallow enough, it pranced through the surf until it could gallop nimbly onto the beach.
Lyra’s hooves were bare to the hot sand, her horseshoes piled up on a beach towel. But she was more clothed than Rainbow. She was covered by a pale red swimsuit bottom, a taut triangle edged by fuzz where it pressed against her coat. Rainbow thought it looked beyond ridiculous, but Lyra was clearly enjoying herself, so she’d decided not to say anything.
“Lyra,” cried Tom with a wave. “Give me a hand.”
Lyra giggled helplessly. She always did when he said that.
“Lyra,” Tom went on, “we have before us a profound opportunity. Our mutual friend has endured a long and oppressive state of being single, but I believe we’ve found his true vocation. We were just looking to the wrong species. He gave a mare a wingie just by looking at her, and do you want to guess who?”
“Cut it out!” Dash squeaked, her voice cracking into the n-th register. She pawed at the sand as if in preparation for takeoff. The nanosecond she could flap…
“Yeah,” Luke groaned. His face was buried in his knees. “I don’t share your—pony fetish.”
Lyra clicked her tongue. “I’m deeply offended that you think of me as a fetish,” she crooned, though the effect of her words was ruined by the way she waggled her hips as she said it.
“Lyra!” Rainbow whined. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”
“You don’t have to pretend,” Tom said to Luke as he squeezed his shoulder. “You’re among friends here. She’s a fine girl! Go on, offer to take her on a date.”
Luke met Rainbow’s eyes to share a moment of sympathy, then ducked his head to his chest, not unlike Fluttershy trying to hide behind her hair. His thin lips tightened, but he didn’t speak.
Tom waved. “Hey, Dashie. My friend here’s a little shy. You’re going to have to make the first move.”
Up until now Dash had been standing apart on her own little circle of sand, trying to make her erection go away. It had started to soften, but she still couldn’t get her pinions to fold all the way back. Maybe she had to do something to take her mind off it.
And seeing as Luke was the enemy of her enemy today, she felt bad for him. Trotting in between Tom and Lyra’s synchronized grins, she sat on Luke’s lap, covering him with her wings—as best she could in their current condition—to shelter the boy from the pair who were teasing him. “Don’t make fun of him, guys. There’s nothing wrong with being shy.”
She also did this without thinking about how a human might interpret such an action. As Tom’s grin widened even more than possible, Rainbow’s face purpled again. She quickly slid a few inches down Luke’s legs, glancing down to check out which way his sea-green eyes were pointing. Ever a gentleman, he was looking off to the side, even if it was in a rather strained and determined way.
Rainbow kicked herself silently for having made things worse. Luke was trying to subtly lean away from her, his arms dug tense like guywires into the sand and his face more red and sweaty than hers. When he crossed his arms, his knuckles brushed the down on Dash’s upper chest. “I’m not shy,” he said tautly. “I just don’t like ponies in that way.”
“What a shame,” said Lyra airily. “Because we had a date all set up for you.”
“We did?” Tom blinked. “I mean—yeah, we did! A date to kill for! You would have loved her.”
“I have to doubt that,” Luke muttered, trying not to sneeze when Rainbow’s feathers tickled his face. “She most likely wouldn’t have found me interesting, anyway.”
Tom dropped to one knee, massaging Luke’s thin shoulder. “Don’t be like that, Luke. You’re a great guy!”
He swept his free hand across the horizon, as if painting a picture. “Now that the Gates are open, there’s a whole multiverse to explore. Who knows what brave new worlds await discovery? And you know what that means? Tall, nerdy and religious has to be someone’s type!  There’s a girl out there for you—or—a girl analogue. Or—you know what I mean.”
Luke frowned to one side. “What did you do? You went through the Gates to set me up?”
“Why not?” Tom spread his arms. “It’s basically a walk-on schedule right now! City’s so excited they said damn the power drain and they’re keeping the things open almost twenty-four seven. Opens every five minutes, anyway. Pretty much the same. Probably going to be broke soon, but in the meantime, Ponyville’s basically a thirty-minute walk from here.”
Rainbow peeked around her feathers. Luke seemed so pensive. Of course he always looked pensive, with such a drawn face capped by shining hair. If he was one of those humans who were alone all the time, maybe a date would be good for him. Rarity would have thought so. And she knew way more about this sort of thing.
So Rainbow acted like she knew all about it and batted Luke with a wing. “Oh, come on! What’s the worst that could happen? I’ll bet she thinks you’re really cool.”

Rainbow Dash struggled to fidget within the confines of her dress. It was her red dress. The one she hated more than death itself. Having to bring a wardrobe to Earth was one thing, but Rarity must have been out to get her to make a dress that Rainbow felt she had to pull down over her tail every five minutes.
Silver platters and uncomfortably polite laughter swirled around her like water, and broke on Luke like surf against a rock. He sat across from her in a worn suit, smiling so rigidly that she had to stifle her laughter into an awkward cough.
“In my defense,” she said, “I thought he had somepony else in mind.”
Luke didn’t answer. He had his gaze firmly fixed on the burgundy tablecloth between them. Dash didn’t blame him. The restaurant was carefully trimmed in pearly light. Besides feeling like a pegasus in a china shop, Rainbow Dash felt oppressed by the chandeliers, which seemed just a bit too romantic.
She craned her neck to look around, though. She was the only pony in the entire joint, and although that was hardly a surprise to her, ponies were still pretty hot news on Earth. Unlike everypony else, she loved the stares. She entertained herself indefinitely by sending air-hoof-bumps rapid fire at gaping diners.
Luke was remembered only when the drinks arrived, and Rainbows had to cross her eyes to bite her plastic straw out of its sleeve.
“Man,” she said around the paper, “This place is so fancy, I was worried they wouldn’t give me one. Still think glasses without handles are stupid. By the way, dude, people are looking.”
“Pray it isn’t anyone we know,” he muttered, and covered his face with a menu.
Silence sat between them. Dash tried to fidget some more, but it had been hard enough getting into her chair while wearing this dress. She was a little afraid that if she wanted to avoid knocking anything over, she’d have to ask Luke to help her down after dinner. There was an awkward thought.
Twirling a fork, Luke pushed out a few words. “So. How’s Equestria doing?” 
“Pretty radical. You’re looking at a second-year flyer at Wonderbolt Academy!” Rainbow Dash pressed a hoof to her chest, removing it only to complain. “Sucks that I had to take a month off. I mean, Celestia gave me ‘special permission’ and whatever so I don’t get kicked out, but I don’t want to fall behind.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Luke switched from a fork to the rim of his glass. “You were at the top of your class.”
“But I want to stay on top. Last year wasn’t up to my speed, but this year we’re getting to the cool stuff. Captain Spitfire’s even come out to teach us personally. She showed us this really cool trick with downdrafts—I know what you’re thinking. Downdrafts are just annoying, right? How could they possibly be cool? But bam! Think again! You come in at just the ride angle, you can do this…it’s almost like a ricochet. You have to see it before you hit it and come in at a little climb, and then do that thing where your wings flare but only a little bit…”
The clouds cleared from her vision a moment. Luke’s eyes were glazed over. Rainbow broke off, rubbing one foreleg. “Eheh…kind of tough to explain to someone without wings.” 
Luke cleared his throat. “No, that’s…interesting.”
The arrival of a waiter provided temporary respite. Rainbow Dash didn’t really want to order four small house salads again, so Luke helped her find another pony-safe item on the menu. Luke almost ordered a burger, but chickened out at the last second, to Rainbow’s quiet relief.
For a few minutes she buried herself in her second tall glass of Sprite. “So…how about you? Still in book school like all the other humans?”
“Sure am.”
“That must be lame.”
“No, actually it’s pretty great.”
Rainbow Dash leaned back as steaming plates of four-cheese ziti arrived. “If you say so. I barely survived my seven years of sitting still and listening to stories of other ponies that got to go outside.”
“I am doing cool stuff. I have an amazing theology class this semester. You see, it’s all about incarnation doctrine and the hypostatic union of Christ, and you’d think you wouldn’t be able to fill a whole class with that, but we haven’t even made it into the second millennium A.D. Right now we’re talking about the Monophysite heresy. It’s fascinating how many different ways people have understood the…Scripture…” He frowned. “Well, you don’t have to snore.”
Rainbow Dash’s head shot back up. “Sorry. It’s just…”
“Yeah. Hard to explain to someone without wings.”
Rainbow Dash let her head fall onto the table, and Luke, blushing, reached forward to lift her by the chin. He was signaling to her that table manners were in effect. She sighed. “I hope all dates aren’t like this.”
“Your first time too?”
“Yeah.” She looked at him dolefully through the bottom of her empty glass. “Maybe my last.”
Luke cracked his first genuine smile of the night. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure it will be a lot better when you’re with the right pony.”
Rainbow nodded. “Probably right. I’m going to be honest, man, I’m not much into you...” She crunched up her face and wiggled a hoof. “Shiny-ass monkeys. No offence.”
“Absolutely none taken.” Luke leaned back. “Good luck convincing Tom, though.”
“Or Lyra.”
“Those two.” Luke shook his head. “Say…Tom used to do this thing. By the way, I’m not supposed to tell anyone about it. But did Lyra ever dance around, singing about humans, when she thought no one could hear—” 
“Ohmigosh, don’t tell me he did too—”
“All the time.”
“Hah!” Rainbow slammed her glass down loudly enough to draw more stares, but she mistook them for curious gawping and waved back.
Tom sighed a bit and took a few bites of dinner. “Could we just—I don’t know—pretend this isn’t a date or something?” 
Rainbow’s eyes lit up. “Dude! I thought you’d never ask!”
She wriggled out of her chair, causing it to fall over in her rush. Rainbow held her head high despite the crash and walked through the maze of ornery human stares.
“Wait,” said Luke, jumping up to right her chair. “Where are you…”
He trailed off as she reached the front door. Rainbow Dash told the hostess she just needed to step outside for a breath of fresh air. She liked to imagine that Luke leaned in confusion towards the entrance, hearing nothing but ripping noises and a few high-pitched swears.
Rainbow trotted back into the building naked as the day she was born. And happy. She approached her empty chair, glared at it, and then seated herself on the partition between booths, with a single flap that sent two tablecloths and a dress spinning wild.
“Hey, Luke. S’up?”
Luke put his feet up on the empty chair. “Got something on your flank there, Dash.”
Dash blew a puff of air to dislodge a trace of satin clinging to her coat.
“So, how ’bout them Bolts?”
Rainbow leaned forward, excitedly gesturing with both forehooves. “Aw, man! You don’t even know. So, I went to see one of those Blue Angel shows you told me about? It was radical. And then I tell Fleetfoot about it, right? And a month later, guess what the Wonderbolts are announcing? They’re going to do a joint show with the Blue Angels!”
“Together?” Luke doubled over as if hit by a punchline, his face caught halfway between shock and glee. “But that’s—”
“Awesome!” Dash squealed unapologetically. 
“I was going to ask if it was possible.”
“If anypony can do it, Spitfire can. Someone even talked her into giving tickets to all the trainees. Not everypony’s going to go, so I’m going to try and bump some extras off the workoholics. I know you wouldn’t miss it…”
Luke gripped the tablecloth when she trailed off. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Dude, what is that beeping? Your pocket’s been going off all night.”
He pulled a phone from his pocket and started swiping at the screen. “Oh, that. Sorry. I can shut that up. I wonder what…oh.”
The look on his face begged curiosity. Rainbow tried to peek at the screen. “What?”
“Nothing…” Luke had the phone halfway to his pocket before he changed his mind. “On second thought—I’d better tell the world you don’t like humans before anyone else offers to plan our wedding. 

Tom thrust his staff into the puffy white cloud. Though his hands went right through the water vapor, the head of the plastic pole was covered in glowing hairs, akin to a giant pipe cleaner, and they rasped against the thick cloudstuff like steel wool on a brace of cotton candy. He worked up a sweat swirling the brush around, and it came out flecked with greasy, rainbow stains.
Lyra was already spattered with the stuff beside him. It stuck to her coat. She jostled for space in the hot air balloon, causing it to sway as she wrung out her brush in water. Prismatic spray from the falls overhead caused the sky all around them to glean, slowly staining both the balloon and their faces.
“So…” Tom leaned on his pole for a second. “Maybe he’s really not into ponies.”
“You sure he’s not gay?” Lyra muttered.
The minute they were both resting, a female voice cracked like a bolt from above. “Don’t forget the other side! The whole house has to be sparkling when I come back!”
Tom ripped off his safety goggles and yelled at the sky. “Just uninstall the stupid rainbow, Dash! This is too much work!”
A second later she appeared, upside-down and poking her head under the edge of the balloon. “No way. Deal’s a deal! Besides, how would I get into the Wonderbolts if I had to preen with that synthetic stuff? We’re talking pro-class flying. It’s liquid rainbow or nothing.”
With a heavy sigh, Tom plunged his brush back into the cloud. “You could always go natural.”
Dash stuck out her tongue. “Eww…maybe Luke’s right. You are kind of pervy.” With a swish of vapor, she vanished.
The pair that remained scrubbed in silence. Lyra’s horn glowed; she spun a small propeller clipped to the basket. And inch by inch, the balloon shifted to the next section of cloud. At least until Lyra accidentally maneuvered to close to the rainbow, and backed up in a hurry trying to spit out all the colors of the world.
Tom scrubbed busily at the cloud. “Anyway, about Luke.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “This is only a temporary setback.”
“Never give up! That’s the spirit!” Tom struck a pose with his brush held aloft. “We’re struggling for love. No matter how long it takes, we’ll find the right match.”
“But he’ll never go on another blind date after that,” Lyra noted. She turned the brush on herself to try and scrub a pasty bit of rainbow off her coat.
“Nah, I can talk him into it. I’ve known Luke forever. I know how he ticks.” Tom tapped his chin with the handle. “Let’s broaden our horizons though. I’m thinking we go big or go home. Find someone so striking he can’t resist. Does Dashie know any girls who aren’t ponies?”

Luke clutched the butt of his rifle and advanced, step by shaking step. He was surrounded by soft multicolored walls which confused his sense of direction, but he was certain that the last hint of movement had come from over here.
His instinct, then, was to run the other way. But by some miracle he’d survived this long—maybe she was saving him for last—and he’d learned that the enemy moved quickly. The best way to avoid running into her was to hide at her last known location.
The padded quiet was rent by a screech halfway between an earsplitting keen and a roar. It viscerally flattened Luke against the nearest wall, shaking his knees, for several minutes. He pointed his rifle skyward and tried to look in every direction at once. He was too paralyzed to go on. When he could twitch again he peeked around the corner, berating himself for the noise his earlobe made rustling against the wall. She could hear everything.
“Luke…” echoed a disembodied voice.
Luke crouched.
“I’m coming to get you!”
This time it was impossible to tell which direction the sound came from. Luke’s courage broken, he would have given up on his cautious logic and fled. But there no direction to flee.
He sprinted one way, then changed his mind and stumbled in the other. He didn’t get far before the maze echoed again. This time there was a shudder, and a sound like a heavy carpet beating the air.
“You can run, but you can’t hide!”
Luke gripped the rifle tighter. His lungs were sore. “If this is a date,” he cried out, “shouldn’t we be on the same team?”
“What sense does that make?” the voice screeched as he broke into another run.
The griffon appeared suddenly. Her body filled the corridor in front of him wall-to-wall, knocking him on his rear end in the middle of his sharpest sprint.
She was a magnificent tank, breathing alpine halitosis and covered in pie-crust gold. Feathers flipped against each other like rippling tank treads with the shifting of her shoulders. Luke was transfixed. For a moment he could think only that this was what it must feel like to stand down the avenging archangel. The only thing missing was a blazing sword alight with holy fire.
The griffon had a rifle instead. One end of the weapon was firmly braced in her beak, and her free set of talons was on the trigger. Luke should have been able to shoot first. But she was squinting by the time he could get his arm to move.
She wasn’t stingy with the paint, either.
Luke let Gilda lead him out of the maze. The waiting area was filled with disgruntled unicorns, most of whom had been waiting there for quite some time. Luke flopped onto a bench and joined the other players spattered with blood-red paint. Gilda stretched her neck, ruffling her pristine feathers in front of them all.
When she turned to Luke, however, she dropped the paintball gun like a rotten microphone. 
“Dweeb.”
A distance from the maze, Tom sat with Lyra, watching the griffon stalk off to leave Luke dripping and alone.
“Okay,” Lyra muttered. “You win. Maybe they weren’t getting to know each other.”
“I lose too.” Tom split a crocus sandwich on a pretzel roll between them. “Ten minutes—I thought for sure he got to first base in there.”
He chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “It’s my bad, really. I should have known their personalities were incompatible. We need to find someone nicer. Perhaps Rainbow Dash’s social circle isn’t the best place to look. Who does Fluttershy know?”
“Fluttershy doesn’t know anyone. Why don’t we ask Twilight?”

Luke’s next date came in the form of a cryptic college-ruled note telling him where to be at dusk next Friday night. It didn’t give any hint of who he would be meeting, but it gave some brief instructions on what to wear, and suggestions for a gift to bring, because apparently someone was traveling a long way to see him. 
Lovely. Mystery in the last place Luke wanted it. Tom’s usual handiwork.
At first, Luke thought Tom was just trying to pique his curiosity. He expected the note to lead him to a normal street corner, and maybe a mystery dinner theatre to go along with the cryptic theme. They were quite popular in the lower ring of Canterlot, and some were getting to be elaborate productions.
But he began to doubt himself when he was led straight out of Canterlot’s outer gate, and even off the footpath that ran beside the railroad. Train being the only way into the city, there was nothing out here but tracks and the mountain. Luke found himself counting off paces from where the peak of the Canterhorn appeared to pierce the Equestrian north star.
He ended up a clearing of mulberry and buckwheat on the trackless steeps of the mountain. It felt like a likely place to be attacked by a wild animal. Not much of a spot to meet a date—until, with a blinding twinkle, she appeared.
In the past, Luke had heard the story of the Ursa Minor in great detail from every gossip in Ponyville. And Twilight had once given a lecture about the variety of creatures which nested in Equestria’s exosphere. So he was fortunate enough not to faint on the spot. But he was a bit benumbed. The fox seemed to flash out of the sky, turning the black crag into a glowing blue hollow. Her body was nothing but stars and the halo of distant galaxies. 
Her luminous eyes found Luke standing in the corner of her glow. She hadn’t said ‘Do not be afraid’ so he didn’t move. He wasn’t sure if it would be rude to try and count her tails—they kept shifting through each other as they leisurely fanned the light—so he remained mute and pulled the carton of brown eggs from his coat. Without the least sound, she padded towards him, and lapped each egg right out of his hand. The sensation of her tongue on his palm was not entirely unlike being burnt on a boiling pan.
Luke had to look up to find her face. His introductions were still dead in his throat, but she, in a voice like a pond-ripple chorus, introduced herself as a Vulpeculae. She said that she went by the name of Glittering North among ponies, and that she was very pleased to make his acquaintance. And though he was still largely paralyzed, she even lifted one foreleg and dipped her head in a very elegant bow, causing the mantle of her mane to cascade around her. It rustled with a sound of chimes.
Luke hammered out something along the lines of, “How do you do?” 
These were poor manners on his part, since such a half-hearted courtesy didn’t really invite further conversation. He stood with his head craned back, peering at the bottom of her long, shapely muzzle, and there ensued the awkward pause which occurred in ever first interspecies date. Luke had grown familiar with it. It was the inevitable moment where neither party was quite sure what script they were supposed to be following.
It was she who broke the silence. With a warble and an unintelligible gesture, she plucked something in the fabric of the world, and the world shimmered. Luke looked for a casting aura, though she had no horn—but the stars seemed to be glowing in repose more than any part of her. The stellar blanket was thick and full over Canterlot. Even though the capital had as much light pollution as Baltimare, the Royal Pony Sisters who dwelt here had made a point of dismissing such paltry physics ever since Luna’s return.
The shimmer arranged itself into matter. Glitter had conjured something which looked like a great lilly pad, about the size of a carousel, formed from a ghostly bluish aura not unlike herself. Up from the rocks crawled a septet of star-creatures the size and shape of geese, who hitched themselves up to glimmering spider-light reins.
Glittering North padded to the center of the lilly pad and sat back. One of her tails floated outwards in a beckoning gesture. “Sit with me, Lucas Avignon.”
When a creature of such ethereal beauty made a request of him, he never thought to do anything but comply.
As soon as he’d crossed his legs, the little star-creatures took off. The lilly pad as it lurched felt almost frictionless, and as Luke had nothing to hold onto, he slid back until pressed up against the star-swirling belly fur of his date. He wasn’t inclined to blush or move away, either, not when he was quickly becoming airborne. He gripped what handfuls of fluff he could as they broke from the side of the mountain.
His loafers were dug in against the sculpted light, his breath was stuck in his lungs, he was holding on for dear life, and he was flying. Glitter’s craft was almost nothing between them and the sharp air; he could see right through the bottom to scrubby glades, plunging lower and lower beneath his shoes as the foothills of the Canterhorn fell away. The star-creatures pulled them soundlessly, like a ghost ship. A pegasus would have been bored to tears with the pace of their flight. But once Luke remembered to breathe, he smiled at the view. There was time to savor the countryside as seen under starlight. In just a minute, the first farmsteads outside the capital drifted close, with glinting rivulets and puzzle-cut stands of beech.
The city was well behind them now, only the largest star on the back horizon. The night didn’t seem very dark. Now that they were away from the trains and traffic, Luke could hear a faint sound of wingbeats, a noise like paddlewheels digging into a glassy river. The chilly air of also added a soft whistle. Luke shivered in his coat, and despite his better judgment found that he was snuggling closer to Glitter, whose half-intangible coat was very warm.
He craned his neck again. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this is a surprise.”
She smiled, and a brief blue-white halo seared her mane—every movement she made seemed to light up the tiny stars which composed her body. “You are a surprise to me as well, Luke. The friend of Twilight told me that ponykind had made yet another friend, but I didn’t realize how far afield they had been forced to search. You don’t smell of this world at all. Am I correct in assuming you hail from a planet with stagnant mana?”
“Ah—I guess.” 
After a bit of sailing, he convinced himself to indulge his curiosity in the name of making conversation. “Glittering North,” he said, “would it be alright if I asked what—that is—”
“My story?” She draped a tail over his shoulders. He arched his back under the weight of goosebumps.
“I’m a widow. My mate passed on to the next life about ten years ago. The pony you know as Twilight was aware that I was about ready to start over.”
“Oh. My condolences. How long were you, um…married?”
They were passing over a chestnut glade now, with the creatures on the reins rising to bring them above the tallest trees. If they continued at this pace, they would be in Ponyville before long. A direct route would take them directly over the lake, as opposed to the roundabout route taken by train.
He felt a warm breath drop from Glitter’s muzzle. “Three hundred years, but still too short a time. For such…” 
She clicked a long tongue. “Oh, I must sound selfish to you. Twilight has told me much about your kind. Here I am because I want someone to comfort me in my final decades, after having to myself more time than you can ask for.”
Luke creased his face in thought. “No, don’t—don’t apologize. There’s nothing wrong with that.” 
“And what brings you to Equestria, here in my little patch of the sky?”
Luke grinned self-consciously. “My friend is trying to tempt me to date outside my own species.”
Little shivers of light flew up to the tips of her tails. “A jovial pursuit,” she said. “There is so much in Equestria to explore. It must be very exciting if the whole of this world is new to your people.”
Luke bit his lip. Everyone seemed so sure of that these days, and it was starting to get to him. “Now, look just because it’s fun doesn’t…erhm, we’re not meant to…the college of cardinals came to the decision…”
He cut himself short. Glitter, he was acutely aware, had come down from the heavens themselves just to see him. The last thing he wanted was to say something she might find hurtful. And if he disagreed with Tom’s perversions, it was his fault for being a hypocrite weak enough to get talked into them. Would have been rather awkward anyway, to tell her he disagreed with what he was doing right now.
He never had the guts to say anything in front of the guys—he was certain he would be a minority of one, not that this was any excuse. Talking to Glitter was easier. But it didn’t matter whether he spread his gospel to her. The small portion of truth he held was of no use to a lady made of stardust. What grounds did he have to judge for a race of beings he knew nothing about? Horses took harems, wolves could only mate if they were heads of family, and ants gave themselves only to their queen. For all he knew, God had instructed the Vulpeculae to make love with whomever they wanted.
Luke turned to face the front of the lily pad. “…Yeah.”
Sweet Apple Acres was approaching below. Several of Glitter’s tails still brushed over Luke’s shoulder, their touch barely firm enough to feel. She was so warm. But she was acting distressingly generous with her touch. Maybe she thought he had the same physical reserve as a pony. Maybe Lyra had told her that on purpose.
Well, he was here. Might as well enjoy her company. “Can I ask what prompted you to take a blind date with a human?”
Glitter tilted her head to the stars. “The truth is, there are fewer of my kind remaining than there used to be. Ponies think of us as very mighty, I’m sure, but even we must come to ground to give birth. This world grows more full of steel than it used to be, and the constant light makes it difficult for us to reach the surface. The Night keeps open a little corridor for us over your mountain, but most of my generation passed on childless. My only friends now are these little ones, the Ansers.” She flicked a tail towards the star-geese that pulled their carriage through the night.
Since he had already given his condolences once, Luke thought he might come off as trite if he said he was sorry again. He was focusing on sitting upright without sliding, and not letting his hands wander on her belly, when suddenly her breath caught, and then her muzzle was right beside her ear.
“Look!” she whispered. A spoke of light emanated from her face, pointing out one bright star near the far end of the night.
“I see it.”
“There he is,” Glitter sighed contently, a butterfly-inducing breath swirling in Luke’s ears. “The Night told me that my mate shines brightest when sailors are lost. He always was a hopeless romantic.”
They flew over Ponyville with the same breathtaking calm as the rest of their flight, drawing a few stares from onlookers on the ground. Luke, to his own surprise, didn’t feel like trying to hide from them.
In fact, he was beginning to feel much better about coming. When he really thought about it, this wasn’t so bad. He didn’t think he was being drawn towards anything sinful here. Why, all he was doing was spending a little time with someone who happened to be an alien. That was all. No bestial lust had to be involved. He was even doing some good. Glitter seemed to get a lot of enjoyment from his company. Luke had to wonder if it was very lonely where she spent most of her days.
She was a nice person, really, and soft to lean against. So soft. It wasn’t wrong to enjoy leaning against her, just a little bit, was it? She was very beautiful, but Luke could admire that beauty the way a human was supposed to, the same way he would admire the beauty of a mountain or a waterfall. He did so unabashedly. What a piece of creation! What a monument to the artistry of God! It made him wonder what he’d done to deserve a close encounter with such a wonder.
Glitter had her construct land on the outskirts of Ponyville, where it wouldn’t cause a stir. She offered to fly Luke back the other way, which was a tempting choice, but he assured her that it would be easy for him to catch a night train to Canterlot.
Then that awkward silence happened again. Glitter was watching him step off the lillypad. Luke’s heart skipped. And he knew that, alien or not, he had a responsibility for her feelings. He shut his eyes and opened his mouth, not completely sure what would come out. 
It was more or less gibberish and stammering. He thought he managed to convey that while he’d had a wonderful time and wouldn’t mind being friends, there was no possibility of a romantic relationship between them.
She accepted his mumbled rush with the same consummate dignity and grace that he’d already come to associate with her. A bow of her head, a lift of one paw. “Very well,” she echoed. “But don’t forget to say hello if you’re in Equestria when I come to ground again. Look for the first shooting star of summer. I’ll dearly love to hear how the child fares after she comes to term.”
Luke’s head tilted like a fallen camcorder. “Child?”
Glitter’s brows pinched together, causing a brief shower of stardust. “Please don’t tell me you didn’t want an embryo planted on your aura. Twilight said we were going on a date; I thought this was what you wanted.”
Luke’s muscles drew taut like rubber bands. “What child?” he repeated insistently.
“Why…” Glitter flicked her tail.
Luke followed her gaze to a point directly above his head. There the little one hovered, a nascent blue orb with a frail, fetal cluster of sparkles and quasars swimming in amniotic light.

Tom and Lyra originally meant to wait for Luke in Canterlot. But after a few hours, they’d both become too eager to see how the date was going that they were waiting for him at the Ponyville train station when he arrived with Glitter.
Or, rather, when Glitter arrived. Luke could be seen in the background, running screaming through the streets. The west end of the train station was abutted by larger buildings, so that anypony standing on it was presented with only a narrow segment of the road. Every few moments, Luke would pass from one end of that segment to the other, producing a Doppler effect.
Lyra squinted after him. After a couple passes, she turned to Glitter, covering her open mouth. “Glittering North, is that…what I think it is?”
The Vulpeculae hunched in order to slide under the roof of the station platform. “He seems surprised,” she said as she took a seat between them. “I can’t help but feel I’ve done something wrong.”
Lyra doubled over. Tom jumped from his seat, appearing to think for a second that the pony was choking. But she waved him off with a hand conjured of illusory light. Tom backed off tepidly when her withers started to shake.
“It…it’ll be fine,” she gasped in between bouts of stifled laughter.
“I wish I could be so sure.” The Vulpeculae’s muzzle turned like a lighthouse beam to follow Luke, who was making another pass of the station with his arms held high. “You did make sure he understood what he was taking part in?”
Lyra’s head snapped back up for a second. “Uh—yup. I totally didn’t forget about that but hey! I made him a card to give you!” She held up a paper card, covered in pink streamers, which looked as if it had been made by a foal for Hearts and Hooves Day.
Tom crossed his arms. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Can we not?” said Lyra, slipping off the wooden post that had been propping her up and falling onto her side. “Can we not tell him that the gestation period is only five hours?”
Glitter let her light drift towards Tom. “Vulpeculae must find a creature of the earth to help bear our children when they are ready to hatch,” she said. “And most of us prefer not to pin our embryo on a stranger’s aura and dart back to the stars without knowing or loving who is bearing our children. For as long as I can remember, we’ve preferred to entrust ponies with this precious bond. But this human came with Twilight’s highest recommendation. She claimed he was—not excitable.”
Tom rolled his eyes. “I’m going to go get him.”
“Fine, fine.” Lyra recovered slowly, getting her hooves underneath her and letting out one final sigh of mirth. “Sorry it didn’t work out. I thought it was foolproof. He should have jumped at a chance with a star-creature. She’s so far out of his league it’s silly.”
Tom shook his head. One cheek rested on a finger, and he was focused intently on his friend running in the distance. After a moment, he straightened sharply. “I know what our problem is,” he said. “We’ve been focusing on the body. No offense, Glitter.”
The Vulpeculae shrugged, and as if in point, what astral glow passed for her body slowly faded from sight.
“Luke is a very smart guy,” Tom went on. “We need to find someone he can connect to intellectually. Stop thinking so much about looks. If we don’t worry about sticking to the expected matches for a mammal, we can throw our dating pool wide open.”
Lyra chewed the thought over. “Could be. I have been known to, er…” She glanced at Tom’s hands. “Focus in on that sort of thing a bit much.”

Luke hefted a heavy shuttered lantern. His arm trembling as he fought to extend its light deeper into the mothballed gloom. The piece was an antique even by pony standards, having been pulled from the Apple family shed, and lent only an acrid quality to the cool and sickly colors at the mouth of the cavern.
He peered to his right, and then to his left. Pale mist was gathering around him. In addition to the ominous hammering of his heart, and water trickling through the mountain, he could hear the mist, it seemed. It groaned with each blast of eerily warm air that swirled out from the precipice of the underground like breath after moist breath.
Teetering under the curled lips of boulders that marked an edge to the cave, Luke squinted. This was a good place to ask himself why he was planning to march into that unperturbed darkness. Nor was it the first time he’d wondered why he allowed himself to go on the insane adventures Tom labeled dates. It was an unavoidable question. Not even God meant for him to be here. He was sure of that. God didn’t mean for his friends to be projecting their sexual energies onto every form of life to smile their way—didn’t mean for Tom to be ‘on the market’, didn’t mean for Lyra to be fooling around with whoever she was fooling around with at the moment. For all sorts of reasons. Contrary to what the rest of the gang believed, there was a way humans were meant to live, and there were limits to what they could make of themselves—limits like this echoing throat between sun and shade. To try was to play with dangerous forces as though they were toys.
Why was he here? Only because there was nothing humans loved to do more than trifle with things they shouldn’t. Tom must know his weaknesses all too well. There was no justifiable reason for his bootprints across the Apple family land. But he was still going on blind dates because he hadn’t gotten to explore so many fantastic places since the portal to Equestria first opened. Nothing motivated Tom to move heaven and earth like the prospect of playing matchmaker.
Or, if he was less charitable with himself, it was flattering to pretend to go on dates with so many beautiful beings. But that was so self-centered Luke couldn’t stand to think about it.
Luke’s hair would get sopped if he stood here much longer. He shook his head, muttered a pox on Tom, and stepped forward into the Cave of Unimaginable Horrors. 
Past the reach of natural light, green fungi grew all over the walls in shelf formations. As Luke followed Pinkie Pie’s instructions—humming the ‘Spelunking Song’ in order to remember the way—he was led to slip through increasingly tiny passages which sloped further and further downward. He couldn’t always fathom the height of the passages with his lantern. But somehow they grew ever more claustrophobic. The fungi grew larger and larger, and obtained a faint phosphorescence which kept the pitch darkness from swallowing his light.
Eventually the sound of the river faded. There were gibbers from some far-off place, perhaps below if echoes didn’t lie; the first time Luke heard them he froze, nearly shuttering his wick until the shrieking passed.
After his narrowest passage, a sideways shimmy through a cleft that would have stymied the average lamppost, the passages began to open up a little more. A second species of fungi appeared. These were ovoid, a sort of middle grey, and Luke almost didn’t notice them at first because they emitted no light at all. They started out no larger than marbles, crunching under his feet, and they too grew as he proceeded. Another ten minute’s hiking and they were nearly as tall as he was.
He knew his final destination when he reached it. Looking up in vain for the chamber’s ceiling, Luke used one hand to shutter his lamp—he wanted to save candle wax. The vast room was just shy of being comfortably bright from the immeasurable mass of bright green fungi. They shingled the ceiling, while the floor was almost entirely coated with what Luke now realized were grey eggs.
For they were littered with the gunky strands of a web that sprawled the entire chamber.
Something shook in the deep, and Luke was afraid. He stumbled, without having taken a step, at the very moment his mind started making the connections. He turned to run, but it was too late. The rumbling rose like a sneeze through the rock. He knew what he would see just a moment before the vast shadow dragged itself into the chamber with him. It landed at the center of its web.
Shelob would have been called a house spider next to this monstrosity. Luke fell flat on his back from the sight of it. He tried to scramble backwards, reaching for a handhold to pull himself up, but found that he was barely able to summon a nerve. 
Not only could a comfortable suburban two-story have fit inside its thorax, but the spider-creature’s whole body was covered in eyes. There were round eyes and skinny eyes, eyes with no pupils, eyes of every size and color. Thumping glands on the creature’s sides belched odd bursts of noxious orange liquid. It pelted the eggs. Huge slimy scars ran the length of its abdomen, matching the cut of the six mammoth-tusk mandibles that swung effortlessly towards Luke. His frozen face met several hundred reflections in the beady compound clusters on its face.
By the grace of God, it didn’t twitch and strike him down in that first instant. He eventually managed to summon control of his limbs and found a rock to pull himself up on. The monster emitted a screech. Luke was about to sprint for the entrance when he realized that the noise was trying to shape itself into halting, high-pitched Equus. The voice echoed so powerfully off the cave walls that it was that much harder to discern the wrods.
After a hack and a chitter, she nailed it.
“Really? What are you supposed to be? I mean, I know Pinkie Pie said you’d be a surprise, but I was expecting someone…taller.”
Luke took a long, dark moment to process the implications of that sentence.
Slowly, and dripping cold sweat, he sat on the rock. His palm met his face with vigorous force.
His nerves still trembled with every move she made, but for the sake of politeness, he managed to gag back a scream. The spider-creature maneuvered its legs over the maze of eggs, clacity-clacking until her face hung over him. She continued to speak. Meanwhile, an unknown number of variously-sized limbs worked in the background, manipulating objects out of sight.
“I mean, what’s the point? Not that I’m surprised, mind you. After that pink pony showed up I knew things would never be the same down here. But she acts so unpredictable. Sometimes I’m just boggled, you know? Either she’s cracked, or she moves on higher dimensions than the rest of us.”
Her legs down a pony-sized garden table made of wrought iron, and even more impressively, furnished it with a full teaset and a tray of biscuits. Several of her limbs branched off repeatedly into smaller spindles nearly the size of human fingers. 
“The whole ‘date’ thing is still a little hard for me to wrap my head around. I’m sure it makes good sense up on the surface world, but that doesn’t count for much down here. I mean, what good are you? Can you fertilize my eggs?” 
Luke stiffened. His mouth worked open and closed a moment as he tried to figure out which eyes to look into. “Uh—I’d—rather not fertilize anything tonight if that’s alright with you.”
She held five little legs aloft in a hands-up gesture. “Say no more. Human sex sounds way too awkward. All sorts of bad experiences just waiting to happen. Makes for a good yarn, though. Thanks to that teal pony I got my mandibles on some Dostoyevsky. According to the foreword all the humans think he’s some hot shit. I think he’s alright. I mean, to be honest, once you factor out the characters, and they are very believable—but past that, what has he got going for him?”
“Uh…”
A high-pitched whistle echoed from some other part of the chamber. Her legs rustled again, and soon a single-hook claw brought over a porcelain teapot. She poured two tiny cups of steaming green tea, set them on opposite sides of the table, and then pushed them both towards Luke. 
He sipped and found it to be green tea. It was thick as pea soup, but Luke kept on sipping for a moment anyway, because he didn’t want to open his mouth and look like an idiot. What could he say?
“Anyway,” he said, “I’m impressed by your Equus.”
“Equus. Bah! That’s a language for singers. Now, English. There’s something you can talk in. I might still be enchanted by the novelty of a new tongue, but it’s done a lot for the boredom, I can tell you. These days I always raise a few dozen of my little ones to speak English, just so I have someone to play riddles with.”
Luke forced down another gulp of tea. He worried briefly that he was staring, but the fact of the matter was there weren’t many directions to look that weren’t covered by some part of her. 
A pair of mandibles clicked. Then another. “So,” she screeched. “This is home. A little dark, sorry about that. The kind of light you’re used to hurts my eyes.”
Luke shrugged as a way of saying he didn’t mind. He wouldn’t want to impose, although the dim was a little close to candlelit-dinner levels than his conscience liked. She was magnificent, in a way, thrilling him the way a perfect horror movie might. To imagine such nightmares was one thing, but to meet one in the flesh! Things beyond ken roamed below light. Luke could have sung hymns to the breadth of creation.
She made a sort of slithering, whistling noise. If Luke didn’t know better he might have thought it was something akin to an awkward cough.
“I see you haven’t screamed or tried to kill me yet,” she said in a quieter voice, not quite as deafening. “I appreciate that.”
Luke set his teacup down gently. “All God’s creatures deserve my respect. Even the ones I don’t understand.”
A sigh. “Like my best friend, for instance.”
She paused on that for a moment. Since Luke wasn’t making much progress through his first cup of tea, she picked up the pot and dumped it between her mandibles.
“They set you up too, huh?”
Luke nodded wearily.
“Yeah. That Lyra was a nice lass. Braver than most, too. Not many ponies can come down here. But I got the feeling she was the kind who has to be in everyone’s business. Like she just doesn’t know when to step back, you know?”
Luke settled himself against an egg and raised one pinky finger through the grip of his teacup. “I’ll drink to that.”