The second unusual event of the night was finding Rainbow already waiting at the top of the hill.
Twilight's field was towing quite a few objects behind the slightly-built unicorn, the majority of which the weather coordinator had requested for what promised to be a highly unusual meeting -- but the librarian had added a few on her own. Namely, the picnic blanket, the lantern, two bottles of ink, fifteen scrolls, and seven published research texts which she was almost ready to begin rebuking. Altogether, it had seemed like just enough potential material to consume the gap between the time Rainbow had promised to arrive and whenever the pegasus, delayed by meal-mooching, naps, the occasional fight (picked and non), or just a very short-term, oft-relapsed case of amnesia which completely removed any ability to remember what the word "appointment" meant, actually showed up.
But Rainbow was already there, feathers vibrating with poorly-repressed excitement as she watched Twilight crest the rise. A first time for everything and in this case, a first on-time.
"Right on time!" Rainbow half-crowed, mantle and scapulars now humming along at different rates as every part of her remained completely unaware of the irony. "Fantastic! -- so how long does it take to set all this stuff up?" She briefly glanced down at the grass, and Twilight saw what seemed to be the edge of something flat pressing part of it down: finer details were impossible to make out under waning spring Moon. "Because I think there might be a little bit of a deadline here..." The next glance went up. "We're okay for clouds. And I mean that we wouldn't have been, except I took care of everything before you got here, and I rerouted the prevailing current a little to not bring anything fresh in, so we've really got to get this done before anypony else on the weather team notices because -- I didn't exactly file that in advance." And a quick look past Twilight's narrow back. "What's up with all the books?"
"I... um..." The field bubble pinched inwards, divided itself into four smaller semi-spheres, and Twilight sent the extra reading material behind the nearest tree -- which still took far too much time: this particular hill crest was covered in nothing more than gently-waving grass and the occasional pressed-down section where ponies had used the location as a meeting place for something other than -- well, Rainbow had made it very clear just why they were meeting here (which had been the first shock of the young night), and naturally that other reason wasn't it. But with this hill, the treeline started about eight body lengths below them, and Twilight lost a degree of aim as that particular bubble drifted out of sight, wincing as she felt the field's border impact bark just a little faster than she would have liked. "...nothing."
"Extra references?" Rainbow glanced down again. "Don't need 'em. Just set up, Twilight, best viewing time is supposed to be in a few minutes..."
The relieved unicorn nodded and the field got to work, with Rainbow watching every adjustment with a mix of open impatience and interest. The impatience was completely normal. The other part...
Twilight had to ask. (There had been no initial opportunity: the request to meet had been shouted in from the balcony, and all confused responses beyond the initial "...yes?" had been shouted in the general direction of a fading prismatic contrail.) "Rainbow, you know I don't mind doing this --"
"-- of course you don't," the pegasus grinned. "That's why you're the perfect pony to do this with. The first one I'm letting in on this. And once I've got you hooked, we'll plan out the rest together." Thoughtfully, "I almost hate saying this, Twilight, especially because it's kind of your department more than mine... for now. But this? Might be the coolest idea I've ever had. And when you think about all the stuff I'm comparing that to..."
Twilight smiled. It was more than a little -- well, cool. For Rainbow to have taken any interest in reading had been fantastic enough (although her shelf range was still incredibly limited and non-fiction, until this incredible night, had remained the realm of "the eggheads"), but to have the pegasus making a tentative venture into another part of Twilight's territory... "So what did you want to look at? And Rainbow -- why couldn't we just do this at the library? The light contamination from Ponyville isn't that bad, and there's a filter spell on the main lens which stops most of it."
"Interruptions," the nearly-wriggling pegasus instantly replied. "I didn't want to take a chance on anypony else dropping by. Tomorrow would have been too busy, with Founder's Day and all." The anniversary of Ponyville's recognition as a formalized, successful settled zone. "There would have been ponies all over the hill, and the fireworks would have messed up the view. Plus I want this secret for now."
The same way she'd initially tried to hide her newfound interest in adventure fiction: once again at all costs, but this time, with a little less in the way of damages. "Got it," Twilight smiled again. "You've got the name, right?"
"Better than that." Rainbow glanced down at the flat thing in the rustling grass again. "Ready?"
Twilight, who'd figured she would be running the initial alignment, nodded. "Ready." Although she still wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to be ready for.
Rainbow's head darted to the right, clenched the lantern's grip and set it down closer to what now seemed to be some kind of metal frame. And much to Twilight's great surprise and delight, called out "Declination: twenty-nine minutes, twelve seconds. Azimuth: thirty-two degrees west."
Twilight blinked. Glanced back over her right shoulder at Rainbow, saw the lantern's glow placing unexpected highlights in the prismatic mane. Felt the surprise deepen, along with the happy warmth spreading through her thin frame. And the smile strengthened. "Got it!"
She double-checked the telescope's mounting on the tripod, lined up on the Nightsun (the brightest star, the core for her favorite of the Ancients and the steering post for just about anypony navigating by celestial sign) for her centering, placed her left eye up to the viewing lens, and began to make her way across the sky. For the numbers had been recognized instantly, and she was about to introduce one friend to some of the oldest companions she had.
The Commander. This smile was internal, and all the stronger for it. Starting on the lower right, but well within the overall configuration. That's the bright blue variable, isn't it? Yes, here it comes...
She could hear Rainbow's feathers vibrating faster now.
"Got it yet?"
The final microadjustment was made. "Yes. Ready to look?"
"No, you're looking. Ascent fourteen seconds."
The blink smudged eyelashes against glass: Twilight instinctively pulled back a little, then levitated one of the six polishing cloths and gave the lens a fast rubdown. Okay... An unusual way to proceed, but Rainbow was new at this, and the order took her to a fainter blue.
"East. Half a degree."
Which would take them outside the Commander. "Rainbow, what am I supposed to be...?"
"Just do it, Twilight! We're getting there!" She could hear the excitement, the sudden, almost desperate need to teach... "It's all going to come together. Not even you're gonna solve the whole puzzle with just three pieces out! Listen to me, and you'll see it in the end! Trust me!"
She just barely got off the nod. But... they were leaving the Commander. Going outside The Barding Of The Ancients. Heading into the unrecognized...
"Are you sure you've got --"
"East!"
By just half a degree.
And they moved along, Twilight's confusion increasing with every new direction. Blues. Yellows. Reds. Brilliant whites. A small portion of the celestial map, but a rather crowded one. And in the end, she heard Rainbow approach from behind her, picked up the echo from sleek hindquarters plopping into the grass on her right, and felt the pegasus beaming with the purest joy Twilight ever hadn't quite seen.
"That," Rainbow half-whispered, volume weighed down by sincerity and adoration, "is the coolest thing ever."
And there was only one thing to say.
"What is?"
A wing nudged Twilight's right flank, perhaps a little harder than it should have. "...what do you mean, 'what is'? You can't see that?"
"Umm... we started in the Barding, but then you --"
The pegasus felt things deeply: Twilight had learned that the hard way. She had also discovered just how quickly those strong emotions could shift. And so the change into exasperation was still abrupt, but it was also something much less than a surprise. "Oh, come on!" The volume was increasing in concert with the frustration, and that same wing nudged her again. "Of all the ponies not to see... fine, we'll take it from the top. Reset. Declination -- declination -- hang on, I've gotta check this thing again..."
Rainbow started to get up. Twilight finally took her focus off the eyepiece. "Rainbow... I'm sorry, but I don't get it. I'm glad you're taking an interest in astronomy and you know I'm more than happy to help you out with any books or lessons, plus I remember more than a few lectures from school and I'm pretty sure I could replicate them exactly if you just let me get my notes from behind the trees, but you just went totally off-course! Everypony knows -- well... um... maybe not quite everypony, but most ponies... who have some -- experience? -- know you have to steer towards..."
The pegasus ignored all of it. Hard hoofsteps pressed into the grass, accompanied by a low-level mutter of "Typical, totally typical, showed her every last piece but it can't be an official solution until somepony holds up the picture on the box..." Her head went down -- an action which wound up being repeated several times as she tried to figure out how to mutually carry lantern and frame without having them slam into each other, with the muttering taking on increasing levels of invective as the former kept sliding off the edge of her left wing. "...oh, just get over here, willya? I guess I just have to show you."
Twilight, completely confused, slowly trotted over. Rainbow pointed a forehoof at the frame lying in the grass, and Twilight looked.
The metal -- silver, and not a particularly high grade, with multiple imperfections and outright warps around the edges, completely unsuitable for anything but use as a frame, and barely even that -- was surrounding a rather partial star chart. A shoddy one, something so imperfect as to make Twilight instinctively pull back a quarter-hoofstep in disgust. The labeling had been done in the wrong font, some of the lettering overlapped major stars, magnitudes were wrong, colors were off, there was one major brand-new stellar configuration on the cheap paper which had no matching companion in the sky, perhaps because it had been painted in wake-up juice stains... and there wasn't a single recognized constellation drawn anywhere within the limited view, when not sketching and naming the Commander would have been a first-year astronomy student's sin, or at least automatic, embarrassing, magic-kindergarten-mandating failure.
But there was a labeled constellation dead-center in the chart. It just wasn't a real one. And the puzzle pieces, matched against the picture on the box, did in fact make everything all right again.
"It's your mark," Twilight smiled, and the relief was echoed in her voice. "Oh, that's fine, just about everypony does that when they start out, at least if they don't want to respect the official ones --" hastily "-- but you didn't take the classes, so you don't know the protocol, don't worry about it. Rainbow, did you draw this out?" It was shoddy, cheap, amateurish, and if she had to be honest about it, downright pitiful -- if it had been coming from a professional. However, for Rainbow to have produced this level of chart on a first attempt...
"Yeah, it's my mark!" The exasperation was fading now, as quickly as it had come. "Cool, right? And no -- the chart was part of the package. That raised the price a little -- okay, more than a little -- but I think it's important, especially once we all match."
The -- price? "...match?"
Which got her an enthusiastic nod as the wings began to vibrate again, that perpetual sense of flight just barely postponed which so often came with a ground-set Rainbow beginning to exert itself. "Yeah! I wanted to do mine first, because somepony had to do a test run and see how it came out! And... well... because I... kind of wanted to be first. Officially. And..." grinning hugely "...I am! First in the books, Miss Egghead, beat you to a published paper! Or chart. But now that we know what kind of work they do, the next step is to get everypony else in on it -- at the unveiling party. Once the whole group is done."
Twilight stared at her. It seemed to be all she was currently capable of. "...published? Rainbow, what are you --"
Which was ignored. "And I didn't even want to let you in on it at first, I wanted to surprise everypony with it, but I thought the most important part was getting me up there because I was probably going to be the hardest to do. But now that my part's done -- I thought you could scout for me! And we could send them orders. Once you locate where we all should be around me -- keeping me on top, of course -- then we just mail them the new charts, they make them official, and we're all up there --"
"-- official?!?"
It had not been a scream. Screams were generally quieter than that.
Rainbow blinked.
"...Twilight?"
Whose right forehoof was frantically gesturing as if trying to toss away a boulder, the narrow rib cage moving in and out far too quickly. "Rainbow... you... you're taking part of the Commander! You can't do that! It would be bad enough if you'd co-opted any of the constellations, but one of the Ancients..."
And, completely confused, "The what?"
The frantically gesturing forehoof stopped moving. Slammed into the grass.
Slowly, "It can't be official. Because you're not an astronomer. Because you took part of an existing constellation and used it for your own. I guess that's fine when you're just imagining something if you make sure you never draw it, or that if you did, your teachers never see it --" she shuddered "-- but it's not real, Rainbow, and -- a price? What do you mean, a price? You found the stars you needed for your mark and paid somepony to make the chart? Because if this was made by a professional, then you --"
Open relief. "Twilight, that's it exactly!"
Temporarily derailed. "...what is?"
"It's official! I'm not an astronomer! I know that! So I paid somepony who is! And they made an official constellation for me! One everypony in the realm will have to recognize! And once it's all seven of us up there together -- I've gotta tell you, that's one of the other reasons I wanted you in on this: I don't know what to do about Spike. There's no way we're gonna leave him out, but he doesn't have a mark and that means we need something which can represent him up there, and it has to be close to the rest of us. As close as we are to each other. So if you could sketch something out on paper, any ideas you might have for that sort of stuff, and then we could kind of just -- transfer it..."
Twilight's ears had locked up at the twelfth word.
"You... paid somepony."
"...yeah."
Too softly, "Who?"
Rainbow's left forehoof carefully flipped the frame over, and Twilight read the words on the back of the chart by both lantern-light and a Moon which suddenly seemed as if it should have been considerably more clouded.
"'The Equestrian Cutie Mark Constellation Registry,'" she slowly said. "Rainbow, I've never heard of them."
Which got her a blink. "Seriously? How is that even possible? Since when do you of all ponies skip a page in a book? You always go through publisher, printing, and those dumb blank pages they stick in sometimes for no reason --"
"-- they're in case of autographs --"
"-- whatever -- every time! I've seen you do it! And star charts are the one thing where you skip?" She groaned. "I guess you're just in a hurry to see the updates or something..."
And confused beyond measure, "Updates? Rainbow, what...?"
Magenta eyes stared at her.
"I. Have to teach you. About astronomy."
Twilight very temporarily forced her breathing to slow down.
"Rainbow... tell me how this is supposed to work."
"You've really never heard --"
"-- no." Just a little bit frantic, "Please?"
And now there was the faintest touch of worry in the weather coordinator's voice, a cold tip of doubt indicating the presence of a much larger iceberg drifting into the main shipping lane. "Well... you take a picture of your mark. Then you send it to them. They find the stars which sketch it out and make a chart. And then they register the new constellation. You know... the official way."
She had her breathing under control. None of that seemed to be doing anything for her lashing tail. "And what's the 'official way'?"
"The brochure said they register the new chart with the Canterlot Copyright Office by recording it in book form within the Archives. And then I guess every so often, they send copies of the updated books out to all the astronomers and stuff -- or do you have to pay for those? I never thought about --"
This time, the stop point had coincided with the first period.
"The Canterlot Copyright Office."
"...right..."
"Book form. In the Archives."
"You're doing that repeating stuff thing again."
She wondered if the end of her tail was about to fly off.
"Rainbow, do you know what the Canterlot Copyright Office is?"
The pegasus frowned with careful thought, or at least approximated guesswork. "The... office in charge of making sure the chart was copied correctly? But it's a government office, Twilight! That makes it official! Seriously, how could you have never heard of this stuff? You worked in the Archives!"
And then she understood.
The purple eyes squeezed shut, and the small body sank into the grass.
The sleek cyan one immediately dropped down in front of her, keeping worried company under Moon. Softly, "Twilight? Did --" hesitant, the pause required for the hated words to be forced past the barrier of ego "-- did I screw up?"
A rare sentence. An almost extinct species of admission, fragile life requiring the gentlest of treatment to prevent ego-death. And Twilight didn't know how to tell her without making everything worse.
"I'll fix it," she whispered. "I'm going to fix this..."
"Fix -- what? Twilight, you've gotta talk to me. If I... messed this up..."
Twilight sighed, deep and long -- more than enough time for Rainbow to shift in the grass.
The unicorn felt the wing stretch over her back, and it gave her strength.
Sadly, trying not to lose the feel of the feathers with every forced syllable, "Rainbow... the Copyright Office just registers who owns the creation rights to a book. Or pictures, for illustrated texts. They'll register anything. If it's written or drawn, then it has an owner. That's the only thing they track, in case somepony tries to duplicate the work without permission. And the Archives... they try to keep a copy of everything ever published, in Equestria and beyond. They always get something if they can: it's why they keep asking for more storage space. And if this Registry sends them an officially copyrighted book of star charts with false constellations in them, they would accept and file it -- under Fiction."
She briefly wondered exactly which subcategory of Fiction the book was under -- then felt the wing trembling a little and knew better than to acknowledge it, for the bearer would never admit it had happened at all. "I... I guess you'd know how the library part works. But... Twilight, how do you know it's not official? You've never seen an update volume?"
Heavily, "Never."
Reaching now, "Maybe you're just on the wrong mailing list or something. Or you've never gotten around to the fresh stuff. You've probably been subscribed to it for years and just forgot and never got the chance to crack a volume, I don't even understand how you keep up with half the stuff you do read..."
"I've never seen an update," Twilight sadly said, "because there aren't any. You don't just -- make up a constellation, Rainbow. You can't. There have to be rules." She wasn't sure what those rules were: she'd been told early in her classes that nopony could just create a constellation at will, which meant that rules had to exist for the creation to be considered official -- and at the time, that had been enough. Somehow, it had just -- never come up again. "If anypony could just create one, then they would, and the sky would be so crowded..." Besides, there was proof that the rules existed, and it came in lack of text. "I've never seen anypony get an update volume. Not even my teachers, Rainbow, and they would have if anypony did. Rainbow, I think..."
The hardest words now, and they took as much strength as she had to give.
"...I think you got conned."
She listened to the tiny inhale.
"Horse apples," Rainbow sadly said. "Twilight -- this was supposed to be for all of us. I wanted to -- well, I was thinking about the ruins, and --"
She didn't want to hear any more of Rainbow's future plans. The present portion hurt too much already. "-- how much did you pay?"
Half a whisper. "The base price was fifty-five bits..."
Twilight sharply inhaled.
"...but I wanted the frame, for when we'd all have a matching set. So... two hundred."
And kept right on inhaling until her lungs and ribs began to ache.
"Two hundred bits."
"Yeah. On a prepaid voucher."
"Did you take it directly to somepony, or did you mail it?"
"Mailed. To Canterlot."
So it's close by. And tomorrow was only a local holiday. The library would be closed, along with so many other Ponyville buildings -- but the capital would be fully open for business. "Do you still have the address?"
"At home, yeah. It's in the sales brochure. Twilight -- what are you going to do?"
Twilight stood up slowly, shifting her body carefully so as not to push the wing away too quickly.
"Get your money back."
And maybe a little more than that.