It was her first time in the planetarium.
Twilight's astronomy teachers had believed in practical methods. Books were used, and the majority of the staff had been skilled enough with illusion to cast images of the sky upon curved classroom ceiling at need -- but for the most part, the true stars had been studied in the open, under Moon and gentle night. There was even a special week-long meeting during the summer holidays just to make sure that particular set of observations wouldn't be missed. And so Twilight had never needed to visit the planetarium, for at those times when the real things weren't waiting for her, books and teachers and devices waiting to trigger a series of review-worthy illusions were.
She didn't feel there was anything particularly wrong with the planetarium, other than -- well...
...there had been no friends at school. No friends at all until the day and extra-long night when she'd first been sent to Ponyville. But there had been classmates, or at least those of her own age sharing a room with her, at least one of whom was always something much less than welcome to be even that close. And teachers. And Spike, waiting in their room for her classes to finish. To that degree, there had always been some level of company, and when the isolation and distance between herself and adopted little brother seemed too overwhelming... there were always the stars.
But here... the illusion was perfect. That category of magic had never been Twilight's strength, was in fact one of her major weaknesses when it came to anything other than replicating something she'd previously seen. But she knew the night sky by heart, and could find no flaw in the imaginary version slowly turning against this particular curved ceiling. There was even a feeling of depth to it, and just the slightest hint of unimaginable distance...
...but the curator had nodded politely to her, activated the projecting device, and left.
She was alone.
She was trying to remember the last time she had felt quite so alone, and years' worth of memories were waiting their turn in the internal line.
Maybe she was bluffing. It was possible. The mare hadn't exactly had a high opinion of Twilight's intelligence. Scare me off, just like she scares everypony else off, because imaginary lawyers can always win an imaginary case. All I have to do is actually get her into court...
But the words...
She'd reread the brochure again. Six times, and twice under false starlight.
...they don't promise. Nothing beyond what the Registry does. Would a court go after them because a pony infers or interprets?
Have they really won before?
Every time?
Wouldn't they have to? Wouldn't one loss shut the whole thing down? So they must not have gone at all... right?
Trial transcripts, just like everything else written under Sun and Moon, were kept in the Archives. It would be easy enough to visit, and she was going to, there was more than enough time left under Sun before the Lunar shift would take over, and still more than that before she had to worry about missing the last train out --
-- but she'd come to the planetarium.
The stars were being made to lie. Twilight had desperately needed a reminder that some version of truth still existed, and simply waiting for Moon-raising had felt impossible. And so she had come to the planetarium, to try and take temporary comfort in perfect illusion.
So far, even that was failing.
Twilight didn't have Rainbow's bits back. All she'd done was "win" a higher class of artistic lie and a meteorite frame, which was probably just tool-pocked iron. And she'd been called stupid -- in a situation where it was so easy to feel that the accuser had been right.
She was talking about generations of customers. She made it sound like they'd been in business for centuries...
How many tricked? How many had simply slowly trotted away following confrontation, as she had done? Was the security spell so weak because it had been forced to confront pony after pony without recharge, over and over and --
-- what am I going to do?
What can I do?
She stared at the false sky, and let the sorrow rise.
And then there were hoofsteps coming into the dome.
Twilight glanced backwards, just for a moment, and found a kind-faced dove-grey pegasus stallion in late middle age, his features marked by the lines of fast-approaching senior years and -- something else, an aspect she couldn't quite pin down. Instead, her eyes automatically sought out the mark and, upon seeing the mortarboard, her forelegs automatically bent as she dipped into the light curtsey which she felt was due to any teacher. The move triggered the smallest of smiles from the honored stallion, and she returned her attention to the illusion.
Probably planning a general class trip: there wasn't anything in his mark suggesting an astronomy specialty. There's no reason to bother him. I shouldn't stay too much longer anyway. I have to get into the Archives, and -- well, it's been too long, I don't know who has which shifts any more, but they can't all be mad at me. Still. I think. I...
More staring. The Commander was prominent in this illusion, just as it was so easy to make out in the sky. If she tried, she could even see the clumsy imposition of Rainbow's mark...
"Who are you looking for?"
Twilight blinked, turned. The stallion had come up on her right, and she'd never tracked those hoofsteps at all. He might have flown the distance, or she simply could have been that lost in her thoughts.
"...sorry, sir? I don't..."
"You had the look," he said. The same tone in his voice: soft, gentle, controlled... and controlled at all costs. "I... see it a lot, in here. You were searching the sky, and..." The kindest of smiles. "...it's a little obvious, miss. What's on your mind."
She sighed. "I think, sir, you've mistaken me for --"
And in perfect, compassionate understanding, "-- which constellation?"
She turned a little more. Stared at him.
"This one," he softly said, "is mine."
His wings spread, and he flew up towards the ceiling, hovered as close to the southern apex of the sky as it was possible to do without cracking his skull on the roof. His right forehoof gently touched the illusion of a pale tangerine star, and it shimmered at the contact. Then the hoof moved right, then down...
She could so easily imagine the lines being drawn. Each move brought the construct so much closer to completion, and by the fifth shift, she knew it was no constellation any true astronomer had ever marked in the sky.
Two partially-melded hearts.
He slowly flew down, landed next to her. Stared up in a certain way.
"My spouse," he gently told her.
And she had no words.
But there were thoughts, and she wanted them to stop. A rushing wave of concepts unleashed coming towards her, words from the office beginning to echo and connect...
"It helps to talk about it," the stallion said, tone offering nothing but the promise of comfort. "You don't have to, just yet. Because... I'm here a lot. I see this a lot. And I know... that sometimes, somepony else has to talk first."
The silence of horror was taken as permission.
"It was two years ago last winter," he told her, eyes on the false mark he'd drawn into the stars. "We hadn't been married long. It was the holiday break, and... she was pregnant. Very far along. But there wouldn't be time for any vacations once our filly came. So we traveled, and -- there was a breach of the air path..."
Her eyes briefly squeezed shut. "Sir... I'm sorry. I..."
The lightest of touches, a mist of feathers against her side. "You weren't there. You're not responsible. It... happened. And that's all."
No words. No words ever could have been good enough.
"The monster... I never even got a good look at it," he quietly went on. "It knocked me out of the path. It saw her as better prey and wanted to get me out of the way. When I flew back... she'd fought it off, but she'd been wounded, too much, too hard, and... she died two days later. But not before giving birth to my daughter..."
Twilight found the smallest of smiles.
Softly, "And she nearly made it to ten days."
Which collapsed.
The stallion's eyes were closed now. "I... I tried for everything there was, to save her. My sister works in the palace, and... well, there's no point to telling you that part. Not yet, anyway. All you need to know is that a fool of a stallion tried to take his own life, and was stopped because the one who knew best in this world and the next had made sure he would be stopped. That he had to live, and make his pain... do something. He just didn't understand what. For moons and moons, he didn't understand anything, and he just wandered through Canterlot, living with his sister, not teaching, not talking, barely eating and breathing, because somepony had told him he wasn't supposed to die and left him to figure out why. And he -- I didn't understand. Anything at all."
"...sir... I..."
"I found the brochure somewhere," he said, eyes slowly opening again. "I don't even remember... and they were cremated. I don't know if you've ever seen western pegasi funeral customs... some believe, after going to the shadowlands, that their bodies should find some way back to the sky. Carried on the heat. I honored that. But it wasn't enough. So I had her mark placed there, and I said it was for both of them, because if my daughter had lived, she would have had that same love. I came here so I could look at it during the day, whenever I wanted to. And during one of those trips... I found another stallion, staring up at the sky."
The forehoof gestured, slowly drawing a courier's saddlebag.
"I knew what he was looking for," the stallion gently went on. "But not who. So we talked -- eventually. It took a few trips, but we talked. And then we each looked for others who were -- staring at the sky. We knew what kind of stare to look for, and... we found so many ponies..."
He looked directly at her then, and she felt her knees bend under the weight of his grief.
"That's why she saved me," the stallion said. "Because... she knew I needed to help others. We meet once a week, or more if there's somepony new, and we just -- talk. I'll understand if you don't want to meet the rest of us yet, or don't even want to admit the need, or the pain... but we're here. I'm here every day. And any time you need us... I promise, we'll be there."
The first tears were starting to come now, and they were not his.
He looked away, just slightly, and only to give her privacy until she openly granted him the right to comfort. And then went back to the first of the false marks.
"It helps, doesn't it?" he asked. "To see them in the sky like that. To know that until we meet again in the shadowlands... that the stars will always remember? Sometimes, I can almost feel them watching me..."
She broke.
She rushed for the exit at full gallop, heart pounding, eyes streaming tears, unable to look at anypony or anything except the way out, and that was nothing more than the most recent lie of the day.
Behind her, the stallion watched her go, and the beating of her hooves against the floor was not enough to block out his last words.
"When you're ready," he gently said. "I'm always here."
Some of the senior Archivists had a bad habit: they might catalog the history of the realm, but it didn't mean they were always in tune with relatively current events.
"Oh, no..." the stallion groaned. "Not you! It's been quiet for so long... I thought we'd seen the last of the Purple Rearrangement Menace! Back, Ms. Sparkle! Get back to the Ancient History department where you belong! You will not work your misguided evil on my department today! Or any other day, or night, ever! Get out --!"
She had to shout. It was the only way to get the words through the improvised fortress he'd made out of books. "I don't work here any more!"
Slowly, the very tip of the violet horn peeked out.
"...really?"
"I haven't worked in the Archives for nearly three years!"
"...it has been rather quiet..." The tension fell back in. "So why would you come back? I can't imagine you'd leave on your own unless you had some fiefdom of your own to terrorize. Unless they finally kicked you out of that!"
"It's for a friend..."
Suspiciously, "Since when do you have friends?"
She managed to keep most of the pain out of her voice. "Sir... Mr. Biblioteca... you know where nearly everything is."
"Nearly? Only if you've been at your so-called work again would it be nearly!"
"And -- I need to find two things. I didn't want to dig through the Stacks or search the most recent catalog entries. I need to be taken directly there. And sir... you're everypony's best hope for that, we all know it, so I came... straight to you, and... sir, please, I need the Equestrian Cutie Mark Constellation Registry star chart collections. And any trial transcripts, if they've ever been sued. It's important..."
Slowly, more of the horn peeked out from the gap between dictionaries. Eyes eventually followed, and then the drooping mustache.
Starkly, "The Registry."
"Yes, sir."
"You really do have a friend."
"Yes, sir."
"Because you would never have fallen for this, and your friend did."
She couldn't answer.
He sighed. Books levitated left and right, each one ending up perfectly shelved, at least to his standards.
"You really don't work here any more?"
"I don't."
"Where are you doing your terrorizing these days?"
"...Ponyville."
"Really?" He frowned. "Why would you ever go there?"
"It's... a long story."
"Then I'll wait until somepony decides it's interesting enough to write down. Follow me. And if I see your field moving any book I don't directly bring you, I'm going to backlash you into next week."
Rainbow's chart was on the final page of the very last book in the stacks.
Luster had not been using the nickname.
The Archivist had brought her volume after volume. And then pile after pile, cart after cart, until he'd worked his way back to the original entry.
The earliest copyright...
She stared at it for a while. Automatically turned away so her tears wouldn't stain the page. Then decided she didn't care about this particular page and furiously spun back.
There were so many books. They surrounded her. The columns threatened to collapse inwards and crush her. And she took them down one tome at a time, let her field flip the pages. She'd quickly learned to look to the lower right corner, and the same words appeared again and again.
In Memoriam.
In Memoriam.
In Memoriam.
In Memoriam.
In Memoriam...
Some pay from ego. To believe that their marks will shine down on the world long after the bearer passes into the shadowlands. Thinking that generation after generation of stargazers will be forced to gaze up at them and think about who they were.
But most... pay from sorrow.
Because the bearer of the mark went into the shadowlands first, and they can't follow. So they place the mark of the lost in the sky so they can look at it and remember. Having generations of stargazers ask who was being honored is just a bonus, and one most of them probably never think about too much, until the very end. It's enough that they can look, and occasionally show somepony else just where their loved one is in the sky...
Superimposed on top of everypony else's loved ones.
Marks repeated. A very few were unique to the current generation, while a tiny number had appeared only once during the era of the Princess. But for the most part, the same icons could be found on many flanks, especially when viewed across the breadth of the centuries. And so those who drew the charts had seen no need to give everypony a separate portion of sky. There was one courier bag, and it was sent out to a thousand mourners. Those who sat at the drawing boards in the office mostly copied master designs, and sometimes threw in a different color of ink, probably for their own amusement.
And when somepony catches on...
The other piles were trial transcripts. And they all ended with the same words.
Plaintiff: lost.
This is... monstrous. This has been going on for so long, and it'll go on forever with more and more ponies getting hurt, the courts can't do anything, I can't do anything, who could even try to --
And the thought came.
On the very rare occasions when the thought came at all, it was generally pushed back, at speed. Twilight had, to a large degree, trained herself not to think of it, even in the middle of the most desperate crisis. Not when she was at risk of any kind or degree, not when her friends and family were involved (although it shoved much harder at her then), not for anything. Because the relationship was student and teacher, and at the near-top of the checklist for Twilight's many terrors was that the best way to break that connection once and for all would be by turning it into wielder and weapon.
Not for herself: she wasn't enough. Not for brothers or parents, although that hurt more when she stomped the idea back into the dark. Not even for friends, and both conditions had sometimes left her with the deepest of agonies as she questioned herself to what suddenly seemed to be a very flawed core, one which wasn't worthy of having any of the above.
But now... now, thin body huddled in the shadow of columns created by the agony of thousands, with all of it pressing in on her, bales upon bale-tons of invisible, impossible weight...
...now, for the first time, the inner wall cracked.
You have lawyers. You have transcripts which say over and over again that you're right and there's nothing anypony can do about it.
But me? I can't take you to court. I can't destroy your offices without being arrested myself. All I can do is one thing, Ms. Asterismo.
I can go right over your mane.