//------------------------------// // The Stars in an eggshell // Story: A Circus At Cliffside // by Ardent Wing //------------------------------// Cloudy Night followed her friend up the stairs to apparently receive a tour of the house. Yet for some strange reason she doubted that there would be a tour, mostly because Cloud Charmer only stopped on the second floor for a moment to tell her that her parent’s room was on this floor, and then immediately took off up the winding stairs to what Cloudy had believed to be the top floor. Perhaps Cloud Charmer now wished to have that conversation she had been aching for earlier. If that was the case, Cloudy would finally get to learn how Cloud Charmer knew these things that she had before assumed only she knew. That prospect in her mind did lead Cloudy to quickly follow her friend to the next, and what she assumed was the top, floor of the tree house. As it turned out Cloudy had been wrong, for on this floor there were actually stairs to what would appear to be some sort of attic. She inferred this when she realized that the stairs at the end of the, very short, hallway were not only smaller, but that they must have been near the top of the tree, meaning any floor up from here had to be narrowed down to only one room. It was this room that Cloudy would call the attic, since it resembled the attic in her own home. Cloudy only happened to notice the short hallway first by chance, and now her eyes did a quick scan of the room she was in. The hallway itself was formed by the close proximity of the curving tree-wood walls that formed two other rooms on the floor, apart from the main room which she and Cloud were standing in now. There was a very small balcony on one side of the room, separated from the rest of the house by two glass doors and some curtains; which were drawn back to reveal the last glimmer of light behind the immense curve of the mountain the house was sitting on. The view confirmed that the two ponies were indeed near the very top of the tree, a little high above what looked from her like the green ocean of the other trees in the woods. One of the oddest things about this tree was that despite its size a pony couldn’t really see it from the town, it was hidden by the crests of the hills; which themselves were covered with their own trees. This thought came to Cloudy as she continued to examine the contents of the room. The room was well lit, with lanterns along the walls just as on the other two floors. There was some light coming from the attic, which was odd, but it was muted and dimmer. One of the rooms doors sat open, revealing that it two was lit, though Cloudy Could not actually see what was in the room from here. The other room’s door was closed, and there was no hint of light coming from underneath the crack in the door. All along the walls there were a few paintings, ranging in size, and most depicting the portraits of various ponies that Cloudy Night thought of as members of her friend’s family. There was also some relaxation furniture and some bookshelves placed near the stairway of the room the two ponies were just entering, but this was obviously of no interest to Cloud Charmer, who immediately led her friend towards the paintings on the wall. She did, however, cite what was on this floor to her friend. “Okay, so this floor has some books on it… the open room has a mirror and wash basin for cleaning… upstairs is my room-“ “Upstairs?” Cloudy asked. “Yes, I like being in the highest place in the house, plus you can even see the stars through the branches sometimes.” “Seriously, why would there be a room that lets you see the branches of the actual tree from.” “I don’t know WHY the room exists, but I know that it’s cool! And I already told you Cloudy: the house is magic, the temperature, or the weather could only come through an open window… or balcony of the house. I could sleep in the branches in a rainstorm and I wouldn’t even get wet.” Cloud Charmer explained… again. “Okay, fine. If you don’t know WHY then I won’t bother to ask why. In that case, continue the tour.” “Tour? Oh yeah! - So the closed room is storage, because my room is too small to be used for that… Um… that’s really it for the tour, but that’s not what I wanted to do anyway. The reason I brought you up here is to have that talk with you that I mentioned earlier.” Great! Things were going in exactly the direction that Cloudy wanted them to go in. “Okay, what did you want to talk about?” Cloud Charmer paused for a moment and looked at her friend, and smiled a bit shyly. What was with the sudden change of character? It was like she didn’t want to talk now that Cloudy had given her the chance to. “Well… when we first met on that cloud you told me the story about how you could walk on clouds… and that was really cool! But after that we didn’t really talk again about our pasts, and that was, y’know… less cool. So I thought that since you asked me how I knew that quote from Long Beak that I would tell you my story today. The story about how I ended up here.” Cloud Charmer said, still a bit sheepishly, like she was embarrassed to talk about these things. “Oh…” This was certainly new for Cloud Charmer, who never really talked about the past. However, it also made her certainly right, and perhaps they needed a talk like this. Plus it was a bit unfair, with Cloudy Night having told her story but Cloud Charmer unable to her. Cloudy owed her a good listening. “… Okay.” Cloud Charmer looked up, surprised. Did she think Cloudy would say no? “Really?” “Yes, of course! Tell me your story.” “Cool. I will. But I think that before you know my story, you need to know my dad’s story.” Cloud Charmer pointed her hoof to an old painting of Stormflight. He looked much younger in the portrait; he lacked the silver strips in his hair that Cloudy had seen just minutes ago at the table. “My dad was born and raised in an estate in the south, just like me-“ Cloud Charmer began. “Wait! You’re from the south? How far?” Cloudy asked. “Pretty far, when we started out move here we had to come through this desert place. There were endless fields of dusty ground as far as I could see. I hadn’t even seen mountains before I moved here.” Cloud Charmer responded. “That is really far south. So… uh… why don’t you have an… accent?” “Accent? Do ponies from the south have accents?” “You mean you don’t know if ponies where you’re from have accents?” “Well, I lived in the south but I didn’t exactly LIVE in the south. When I say I grew up on an estate I meant it. A large private estate, it wasn’t mountainous but there were hills all around the place and some forests, none of the dust like in that desert we passed through. I never left the estate; was surrounded by high walls and woods, and even when I could see over the wall to look at what was beyond I could see nothing but hills and the occasional tree.” “Oh, that doesn’t seem like a very fun place to grow up.” Cloudy Said. In fact, it seemed like this story was rather tragic to her. “Don’t get me wrong! It was a HUGE estate, large enough to have a woods inside of the walls.” “Not possible! How rich is your family, Cloud Charmer?” Cloud Charmer actually winced when she heard that, she hadn’t really known that her family was supremely rich for most of her life. She had thought that everypony lived like that! It was only near the end of her time at the estate that she realized her family did have a lot of money. “Well, my extended family, who owned the estate, runs the major operations for that new weather pony program that was organizing in the south. They started the business just after the defeat of Discord and it kinda blew up from there.” “YOUR family is the one organizing the weather pony operations in the south. I had heard that they were creating an official program, and that they were discussing moving north with the princesses. But I had no idea…” Cloudy Trailed off, kind of daunted by the sudden status gain of her friend. “Well then, you know more about that than me. I just hope to never see that place again.” Cloud answered a bit despondently. “Why?” Cloud Charmer looked into her friends eyes for a moment. Held her gaze for a moment, and then moved on, skipping Cloudy’s question. “So, my dad grew up on the estate as well, alongside his brother, Far Flung. Far Flung… my uncle was an adventurer; he always wanted to go out and see the world, and one day he did. Dad said he just… flew away. My dad wasn’t so lucky; he got out a different way.” “My dad didn’t get to fly away like my uncle. He stayed there until he was a young stallion, just waiting for his chance.” “Then how did he get out, Cloud?” “How else? The war. When the griffons attacked the pegasi the second time, beginning the second griffon/pegasi civil war, many young ponies ran away to join the legions and fight. My dad was one of those. He snuck off of the estate, flew as fast as he could to the nearest legion recruiting station and signed up. He was gone for almost a year, the full term of the war. When the war ended, he retired from the military and came back to the estate. The family would have been overjoyed, but dad told me that they were appalled when he came home with my mom, who was already pregnant with me at the time.” “Why would they be appalled?” Cloudy asked, just a little bit confused by the family’s reaction. “Get this. Dad said that the family was mad because they only liked Pegasus in the family. He marrying my mom was like poisoning the ‘pure blood’ that my family had up to that point.” “That’s absurd! Worse, it’s stupid! How could they think like that?” “I don’t know. Dad said their reaction would have destroyed him if Far Flung hadn’t welcomed my mom so kindly to the family. He said that my uncle saved him that day, and every day since.” Cloudy was glad to hear that. The bigotry of that family almost made her want to puke, but to hear of Cloud’s uncle saving her father gave her a little bit of hope. There was something else, though… Cloudy felt like she was missing something important in what Cloud Charmer had said so far. She needed to think a bit more about it, but she knew she would get it… she always did. “Go on.” “Well, after that the rest of the family did start to come around, I’m told. My dad said that many of the young ponies in the family fell in love with my mom just like he did. It got better for them, and apparently it only increased when I was born. Dad said that my birth charmed the whole family, which is why they named me Cloud Charmer. Cheesy right?” “Anyways, there I was! Cloud Charmer finally born into the world. I had no idea what anything was. But one of my earliest memories is meeting my tutor for the first time. First of many tutors, I should say. You see, the family always trained its children in all of the most advanced subjects. From the time I could write I was writing papers about history, magic, even music! They taught me everything! Though I think only half of the stuff actually stuck with me. I learned a lot about military history though, and a lot of the quotes of these old generals just kept rattling around in my head, so I used them. That’s why I knew about Long Beak before, I was taught him by a tutor. That’s also why I didn’t pick up an accent; because I was taught to speak ‘properly’.” Wait… there it was! And pretty fast too! Cloudy Night had just realized what it was that her friend had said that she had missed at first. “Cloud, you said that when your dad came home, just AFTER the war, that he brought Oak Leaf with him.” “Yes, I did say that.” “You also said that your mom was pregnant with you already…” Cloud Charmer bowed her head a bit, and stomped one hoof on the wooden floor weakly. She looked back up at Cloudy, knowing full well that she had figured out her secret. “Yes.” She said weakly. “The second griffon pegasi war was about FIFTEEN years ago, so that would make you-“ “Fourteen years old, Cloudy. I’m fourteen, not twelve.” Cloud Charmer said this in the most ashamed tone, completely destroyed by her own words. Cloudy looked at her friend, her BEST friend. She had made it seem like she was younger than she really was… why? What did she gain from that? It was with a start that Cloudy realized why her friend was so ashamed, and she immediately put her hooves around her in a hug when she figured it out. “I’m so sorry… Fourteen years old… fourteen and you still can’t fly.” Cloud Charmer hugged her back for a long moment before she spoke again. “I don’t get it. Everypony else in my family has been able to fly since they were seven or eight years old, and here I am. Fourteen and I can’t even get off the ground! It’s depressing. It’s enraging! It’s not fair!” Cloud Charmer said, not sobbing or crying, but half angry and half empty. How can you muster up much emotion when you ask the same questions… give the same answers as you have a million times before to yourself? There wasn’t much left in Cloud Charmer to remain extremely angry, or depressed at her seeming deformity. “Maybe you’re just a late bloomer.” Cloudy night said as she came out of the hug. She needed to cheer her friend up from her predicament. Still… she had to wonder. How would SHE have felt if she could not use her magic, possibly never? Was there really anything she could say that could make the situation better? Did it matter? Yes! Even if there was no way to fix her friend’s problem, she could still try. “Sure… maybe…”Cloud Charmer said, still sounding empty. She stood there for a minute, not saying anything, and Cloudy became concerned. The only way to take her friends mind off of her wings was to make her continue her story. “So, how was life on the estate?” Cloudy Night asked. “Well, apart from the tutors and I suppose that it was normal. I sometimes got to play with the some of my cousins when they came to visit the old folks. I mean, they were cool and all, but they treated me weird; like I was different from them.” “That doesn’t sound right.” “I didn’t care; I just liked having the company. It was really lonely. Despite all the ponies living there it was, well… empty. I didn’t know how that was possible! Can you imagine living surrounded by other ponies, and none of them talk to you, or even acknowledge your existence. It was infuriating!” Cloud Charmer spoke angrily, her mood shifting wildly with her memories. Cloudy Night stared at her friend for a long moment after that. How could this be? How could they have been so similar? Cloudy didn’t need to imagine being alone that way because a little over a month ago she was living like that. She was living like that… Cloudy looked up, only to jump back in surprise seeing that Cloud Charmer was only a hoofstep away from her, looking concerned. “Is something wrong?” she asked. “Um… no. Continue your story. Were you really all alone?” “Not always, there was mom and dad, but they were mostly talking with other family members. They always had to leave the estate for some business, and I was never allowed to come with them. Most of the time they seemed angry anyways, though I don’t know what about. All I know is that they weren’t around me a lot, and when they were it always started some argument with the older family members. The only pony I could always hang out with was uncle Far Flung.” She pointed with her hoof to a portrait on the wall by the window. The painting depicted a pony who looked much like Cloud Charmer. He was thicker, his coat was cream coloured, and his mane was bright orange/brown, though done in a hairstyle much neater than Cloud Charmer’s. He also had a small beard growing at the end of his muzzle, the beginnings of what could be some truly memorable facial hair.The thing that made him and his niece so similar was the look in their eyes, a look of poise, like he was ready to pounce at any moment. That, and the gigantic grin on his face. Cloudy Night looked back to Cloud Charmer to continue her story, and was able to catch her staring at it herself. She seemed lost in memory, and she had a look on her face of utter admiration. That pony on the wall was more than her friend… he was her idol. She could see the adoring look on her friends face. It was… contagious. Just seeing her friend so happy at just the memory of her uncle made Cloudy Night so happy that she wasn’t even jealous. Just a picture on a wall, and already the room seemed brighter. What was this pony like in person? Either way, Cloudy decided right there that she needed to know more about him. “I take it you spent a lot of time with your uncle?” “Try all the time! When my uncle was at the estate, I spent all of my time with him. Of course, I had to mix that in with dad’s training and my tutors, but I still used all of my free time for uncle Far Flung. He is amazing! He knows so much about Equestria, mostly because he’s flow to its every corner! And we’d always make challenges for each other to complete. I’d tell him when he left to go get something for me, and he’d give me riddles or puzzles to solve. You know, I once bet him he couldn’t get the feather of a griffon for me. And do you know what he said?” Cloud Charmer asked excitedly. “What did he say?” “He said, ‘Cloud Charmer, I swear that I will bring you back the feather of the king of all the griffons!’” “And did he bring it back?” Cloudy Night asked, a bit unbelieving that Far Flung could have actually accomplished such a feat. “Ahh… no. I didn’t see my uncle again for months! But when he returned he did have a griffon feather. He said that he had helped the king’s son find his sister’s favourite tiara for him. In return, the prince of all the griffons gave my uncle one of his feathers.” “No way! That simply isn’t possible!” Cloudy Night was flabbergasted. How could anypony get near the prince of the griffons, let alone help him with personal matters? There was no feasible way Far Flung could have done it! “It happened Cloudy. I don’t have the feather anymore, but I know it happened. I can feel it.” And she could. Deep in her bones Cloud Charmer knew that her uncle always told the truth to her. She loved the time she had spent with him, and knew that wherever he was, he was adventuring. He simply couldn’t do anything else! One day, Cloud Charmer knew she would be following in her uncle’s hoofsteps. “So what happened next?” Cloudy asked. Cloud Charmer started yet again from her friend’s questions. She was glad to have them though. Cloudy Night was keeping her on track, telling her story just right, and right now, that was what Cloud Charmer needed. “Nothing really, for a while it was just that, playing, learning, and hanging out with my uncle. I didn’t really need anything else, I was happy then.” “Why did you come here?” There it was. Cloud Charmer had known that her friend would ask this question, she had just hoped she would have taken longer to do so. Painful memories rose to the surface as she told her friend what had led to her new home in Cliffside. “We were sort of forced here.” “How can that be?” “Well… it was the inner members of the family; the ones who had been mad at my dad for marrying my mom. They started threatening us, told us to leave forever.” “How can ponies be so cruel!?” Cloudy Night said furiously. Cloud’s friend did not know the half of it. She wanted to tell her more, but the memories were painful. How could you tell your best friend about how the cousins you had so often played with suddenly treated you like a freak? How your older family members went out of the way to avoid you? It had suddenly felt like she was their enemy. Worse! That it had felt like she was inferior to them! The forests that had seemed so bright days before were suddenly dim and angry, and it was the only place she could hide. Cloud Charmer had never been happier than when she left that place, to seek her new home, and get away from those ponies who she was forced to call her family. “Don’t ask me, I didn’t see it coming at all.” “So you left. What is all this than?” Cloudy Night said, motioning to the room around the two ponies. She meant the whole house, and that was exactly what Cloud Charmer knew she would ask about next. “This was all Far Flung. My parents and I would have been destroyed if he hadn’t swooped in to save the day. He sent us a letter, telling us to come to Cliffside at once. He said that he had a home for us and that we would be safe and set here without trouble from the family.” For her it had been a dream come true. It was her escape, finally! “He really did all of this?” Cloudy asked. The more that she heard about Cloud Charmer’s uncle, the more that she liked him. If there was ever a diamond amongst coal, Far Flung was that diamond. “Yep. He sent us tons of letters explaining how everything would be alright once we got here. He even sent me my own letters, telling me about how cool this place was. He said that there was a cliff on the side of the mountain that you could see the castle of the two sisters from!” “You came here for him…” “We did, but…” “But what?” Cloudy Night asked with some concern. “We came. And I was hoping to get to see my uncle, to tell him about my trip here. He wasn’t here at first, but I didn’t care about that. That was the day that I met you, and after that we started hanging out, but my uncle never showed up. I wanted him to be here, and he was already gone somewhere! It felt like he had just disappeared off of the face of Equestria. I miss him…” Cloud Charmer trailed off. She really did wonder where her uncle was, and just why he had not been here to greet her. What had gone wrong? Though her friend had trailed off, Cloudy didn’t try to continue the conversation. It was practically over anyway, and she had her own thoughts to consider. Far Flung was the light of Cloud’s life, her hero… and then he just disappeared. Cloud Charmer must feel awful about it, and if there was one thing Cloudy would not allow, it was that. She had to figure out a way to make this feel better for her friend; she only needed to figure out how to do that… Before her thoughts could continue any further, Cloudy was interrupted by a sudden question from Cloud Charmer: “Hey! Do you wanna see something my uncle gave me from one of his adventures?” “Sure.” “Come on then! It’s up in my room!” Cloud Charmer bolted down the curving indent towards the stairs to her room, full of excitement to show her friend her treasure. Cloudy Night followed behind, still thinking about how to make her friend feel better. One short trot up the steps later, Cloudy found herself in Cloud Charmer’s dimly lit bedroom. It was small; it looked more like a closet than an actual room, but that was not nearly the most interesting thing about it. Cloud Charmer had told the truth, the room had no roof! Instead, the wall ended at a ferociously thick ceiling of branches and leaves, some of which dipped down into the actual room. It was really interesting, and it made the room look much more like the natural part of a tree than anything else. Along the wall behind Cloudy was one small bookshelf, above which was mounted one of the three small lanterns that gave the room its soft lighting. The shelf was stocked to the brim with books, and there was even a mall tower of them leaning next to the shelf. Cloudy was certainly glad to see that, it was good to read, and there may be a few books here that even Cloudy’s mom had never read. The only other furnishings in the room were a small table on the side wall; which had a small bag sitting atop of it, another shelf full of various knick-knack looking objects, and Cloud Charmer’s bed. The only odd thing Cloudy noticed among her friend’s mostly chaotic room was the sheer lack of chaos. Sure, it looked messy, and yet everything also looked as though it was all in its proper place. Organized chaos as it was, even the bed was made perfectly, with not a wrinkle to be seen. Perhaps Cloudy’s friend was much more orderly than she had originally thought. Cloud Charmer herself was rifling through one of the drawers of her table, searching for this object that her uncle had given her. Had most of the objects that Cloudy saw around the room come from him? It must be so; the objects were far too exotic to have come from Cloud’s estate. One in particular stood out: a bird, or the likeness of one, set upon a base of wood. The side panel of the base was missing, and there were various oddly shaped pieces of wood crowded the space inside. It looked broken, though there were small signs that somepony had been trying to fix it; little pegs that assumedly held the side panel onto the base sat next to the object, and they seemed to be placed there deliberately, like someone leaving the stuff there to return to the work later. Cloudy Night would have continued her observations from there, but she was interrupted by the sound of victory from Cloud Charmer, who was just pulling a small cloth bag hanging on a cord from the bottom of the cluttered drawer. She looked at Cloudy, the excitement of showing the object to her sparkling in her friend’s eyes. “Do you know what this is?” Cloud Charmer asked. “No. You haven’t shown it to me yet!” “Well, yeah, but I wanted you to guess.” “How can I guess at something I haven’t seen yet.” “Fine! Just look.” Cloud Charmer opened the top of the sack, and tipped out its contents. Only one object fell out, a small black stone, which distorted the reflection of the lights along its oily looking surface. Cloud Charmer looked down at the stone with her friend, noticing the absolute smoothness of it. It was egg shaped, and though it was smooth it also possessed some strange markings around its surface; none large enough to be writing, but not small enough to be scratches. The whole thing was one big ‘strange’, and hopefully Cloud’s friend would help her solve its mystery tonight. “What in the world…” Cloudy trailed off, absolutely enthralled by the oily stone. “This was one of the last gifts that my uncle gave me. I have no idea what it does, but he said it was amazing.” Cloud Charmer said this with a small sigh, really wishing he had told her what it did. “So it does something? If he knew then why wouldn’t he tell you?” Cloudy asked, stepping closer to look at the rock. There was something about it that she was not noticing, partly from the fact that she was distracted by the invisible beat of the tree. She didn’t know what to think about it, but it sounded like the beat was louder in here than it had been anywhere else in the house, if that was actually possible. Cloudy knew too little about the noises that only she and her friend could hear to question how exactly the beats worked. Perhaps one day she would know, but not today. “He never told me. It was another one of the little puzzles that he left for me to figure out. I never could figure out anything about it… until I started to hear the beats.” Cloud said. “What do the beats have to do with this rock?” “Listen.” Cloud Charmer encouraged her friend. “I am.” “No you aren’t, listen.” Cloud Charmer already knew the sound she was looking for; she just hoped her friend could find it too. Should be no problem; Cloudy Night often heard felt the beats long before she did; there was no way she would miss this one. Sure enough, after a few seconds Cloudy looked back up at Cloud Charmer, a slightly stunned look on her face. “It has a beat.” Cloudy said. “I know, cool right?” The beat itself was almost impossible to hear, and feel, over the incessantly loud drumming that the tree itself gave off, but once you caught it you had it, and Cloud could always pick it out from the other beats around her. “What could it be? How did your uncle get it?” Cloudy asked. “He said that he was just given it by a stranger he met on the road. The pony said that it had served his use and he didn’t need it anymore, so he gave it away.” Cloud Charmer answered. “What? Why would there be some wandering pony handing out shiny magic rocks, which is what it has to be, since it has a beat.” “I have no idea.” “Well, have you figured anything else out about the rock?” “Yes, just one thing. I think it has to do something with light.” Cloud Charmer said. “What gives you that idea?” Cloudy asked. “Check this out.” Cloud Charmer picked up the smooth stone with her hoof. She then climbed atop her desk and held the stone close to the lamp. As the stone got close to the small flame the beat it gave off became louder and faster, as if the rock were getting excited. “Have you tried putting it in the fire?” Cloudy Night asked. “Yep, it does absolutely nothing. I think you have to do something with the rock itself.” “Can I have a closer look at it?” Cloudy asked. “Of course.” Cloud Charmer came down from her desk and hoofed Cloudy the stone. She watched as Cloudy closely observed the details of the stone. For a short time they sat there in silence, Cloud Charmer watching her friend work, and Cloudy Night desperately straining to notice something different about the rock. Cloud Charmer was actually about to give up hope when Cloudy gave a tiny yelp of victory. “I got it!” She said. “What?” Cloud Charmer asked. “There’s another beat coming from the stone. Just a tiny one near the crest of the egg shape, Can you hear it?” Cloud did try. She strained her senses, trying to find the pulse her friend was mentioning. She found nothing, however. “I can’t hear anything!” Cloud Charmer huffed. “Really, did you try listening really hard?” Cloudy asked. “No, I tried listening not hard at all.” “Really?” “No, dummy! I just can’t hear it!” Cloud Charmer answered. “Oh… I’m not very good at detecting sarcasm.” Cloudy replied. “Oh, really? I never noticed.” “That- that was more sarcasm, right?” “Yes.” “Good, got that one.” After she said that Cloudy just looked at the stone for a while, staring at the source of the apparent beat. After yet another short pause, she looked back up at Cloud Charmer. “Do you have a quill or something?” “Yeah, one second.” Cloud Charmer returned to her desk and reached her hoof into the bag. After some shoving aside of useless junk, she arrived at her goal, and quickly pulled her quill and ink from the bag. She took the quill and hoofed it to Cloudy, still slightly confused about what her friend actually intended to use it for. Cloudy continued to investigate the egg shaped stone, staring at it while holding the quill with her magic. After a moment she poked the end of the quill into the place where she had said the beat was coming from, and for the briefest of moments the rock looked like it flashed light from inside. Cloud Charmer immediately jumped on her hooves when she saw this. “Woah! What was that?” Cloudy looked back up at her friend, “I don’t know, but I think that we have to turn off the lights.” “Why?” “You said yourself that it has something to do with lights, and I think I might know what it is.” “Really?” Cloud asked, slightly amazed by her friends reveal of her knowledge. “Yes, put out the candles.” “Okay!” Cloud Charmer leaped onto her desk and blew out the small flame giving the lantern its light. The room instantly dimmed, but there were still a few lanterns left. She immediately began moving to the other lamps, her wings fluttering just a bit from the excitement, when Cloudy Night held her hoof out, motioning Cloud to stop. “What is it?” “I’ll take care of the rest of the lights.” Cloudy said. “And just how are you going to do that sitting th-“ Cloud Charmer immediately paused as she saw Cloudy close her eyes. ‘So that’s how she’d do it’ Cloud thought to herself. Sure enough, a moment after Cloudy’s eyes closed her horn glowed. It felt as though a breeze suddenly entered the room, and in an instant all of the lights went out. Cloud Charmer was almost giddy with excitement to see this, and through the now pitch black room she called to her friend. “That was awesome! How’d you do it? Wasn’t it a bit hard?” “No… uh, it wasn’t hard at all… actually.” Cloudy answered. “But how can that be? Putting out lights HAS to be tougher than making a book just float around.” Cloud Charmer said. “I don’t know… it just wasn’t. Before, when I used the come to life spell on the book, it felt awful. It felt like it took every fibre of my being, every ounce of my focus to pull it off. But this… I just imagined the lights going out, and they did.” “Is that really how you did it?” “Honestly, it was just like that. Magic is like… focus and control. Some spells you have to weave, some require a lot of focus. But something like this, for me, feels like just wishing the lights off, or the cloud to move. Things like that are easy.” “Huh, well that’s strange. But at least it’s another spell to add to your list, right?” Cloud Charmer chimed. “I guess. So… do you want to turn this thing on?” “Did you even have to ask? Go, Cloudy, go!” Once again Cloud Charmer saw Cloudy’s horn glow as she moved the quill just above the oily stone. For a moment nothing happened, and then there was a sudden flash of light, fitting to blind the two ponies. Cloud Charmer closed her eyes for a moment, and then reopened them… revealing one of the most beautifully unexpected scenes ever. There were lights, little points of them everywhere! On every surface of the room glowed a million tiny points of light, all different sizes and arrangements. From Cloud’s view, the walls no longer existed; she was sitting in a vast abyss of black, filled with little stars. She looked over at Cloudy, whom she could see clearly in the new light. Her friend was also staring around in wonder, her mane sliding back beside her face to reveal both her eyes. “What is this?” Cloud Wondered aloud. “It’s… it’s a star map. This is a magical stone designed to show a map of the celestial universe!” At that moment both ponies looked down at the oily stone, which floated a couple of inches above the floor. The stone was glowing, like a piece of shaded glass with a really bright fire inside. The lines that ran around the rock were also glowing brightly, giving the whole stone the appearance of a small egg with cracks breaking around its perimeter. The universe… pouring out of a little broken egg. “These, these things are rare. Rarer than the rarest thing you can think of! You said that your uncle was given this by a traveller on the side of the road!?” Cloudy Night exclaimed. “Yeah, some old guy. Uncle said that he just trotted up to him, handed him the stone, and trotted along. I have no idea why anypony would give this away.” “That… well that’s just…” Cloudy Night looked back up at the lights, and stared. Cloud Charmer followed her lead, and made her own great observation of the scene. It was amazing! In an instant her room had turned into space itself. She was floating among the stars, just like she had felt that night… In that instant she felt it again. That feeling that Cloud Charmer had gotten back on that cloud had returned. Before her sat… everything. An entire lake of stars, coming from a rock, and the world turned from, well, the world… into the stars. And she was sitting still. Why was it that Cloudy always brought Cloud Charmer this feeling? This was the second time it had happened! All her life Cloud Charmer had been seeking adventure, and yet the little blue unicorn had made these moments where nothing at all happened, and it was better! It was like, just being. It was moving from hearing the beats all around her, to synchronising with them, and for a moment, it was like being part of the universe. The two ponies stared like that for a long time, just feeling, in absolute silence for a long time. Until Cloudy Saw her friend staring oddly at one of the walls. “What’s wrong, Cloud?” Cloudy Night asked. “It’s just, that one star doesn’t look like a star.” “What does that mean? They all look like stars!” “Just look.” Cloudy did look, and she saw nothing, all of the lights looked the same. Of course, that one there was larger, and that one was too small… Wait! There definitely was something off about the sky before her. She couldn’t pinpoint it, but it was true. One of the stars in the projection didn’t look like a star. “What is that?” Cloudy asked. “I don’t… I don’t know, it just seems… odd. It’s like-“ “Cloud Charmer! I have the bedding for your friend here, it’s time for sleep.” Stormflight called this from the end of the room below, startling the friends. They jumped violently from his sudden intrusion, Cloud Charmer probably the most. When they looked back to see what it was that had been off in the map, they found the anomaly missing. “Uh, could you turn this thing off Cloudy? When dad says it’s time for bed, he means it.” “Of course, but what was-“ “Probably nothing. I’ll go get a candle and the bedding, and you figure out where you’re going to sleep.” Cloud Charmer said this as she scrambled down the short stairway to receive the bedding from her father. Cloudy Turned off the stone, and looked around the room; thinking. Today had been, unexpected… but not unpleasant. Sure there were new and strange ponies in town, but they would find out just how sinister they were tomorrow. Maybe Cloud Charmer was right in saying there was nothing to worry about. Oak Leaf seemed to trust Mirage as well, and that had to count for something. Cloud Charmer… never in her life had Cloudy thought she would actually get a friend, and she had never suspected just how amazing it would be. She didn’t like being dragged around everywhere, though, and she might have to do something about that in the future. For now… she could live with it… if it meant having a friend It was at this point that Cloud Charmer returned with the bedding and light, somehow managing to carry both despite the awkwardness of her size. They arranged the beddings and put out the light, both getting into place in their respective beds. Cloudy could hear the heartbeat of the house pretty well in the silence, and though it was a bit distracting, it was also soothing. Just before she resolved to close her eyes, her friend spoke one more time. “Good night, Cloudy Night.” “Good night, Cloud Charmer… friend” she whispered just at the end. Cloudy closed her eyes and lay there. Letting the heartbeat of the tree seep into her, she would have noticed yet another pulse enter the room; this one slower and quieter, had she not been so close to sleep already. Darkness fell over her as she entered the realm of sleep, along with a quiet little beat, playing itself into her head. Such is the making of strange dreams. And there is no greater receptor of strange, than Cloudy Night.