//------------------------------//
// Drawn In Memory 
// Story: Twilight Sparkle Vs. The Equestrian Cutie Mark Constellation Registry 
// by Estee 
//------------------------------//

            It was an hour after sunset on the following night, and they were back on the hilltop.  Twilight had brought the picnic blanket and spread it out on the grass.  She hadn't bothered with the telescope.

"I'm sorry."  They were the only words she had, and they weren't enough.

Rainbow lay alongside, on her streamlined back, stretched out.  She had been oddly silent while Twilight related the events, and seemed determined to stay that way for some time.

"Rainbow?"

"Just...  thinking."  The magenta eyes would not meet hers.  "I think sometimes."

"I tried..."

Calmly, "I know you did.  I'm not mad at you, Twilight.  The only pony I'm mad at is...  no, that's gonna be a lie.  I hate that Ms. Asterismo, and I don't think I'm going to head into Canterlot for a while, just in case I find myself flying through the Tangle without really meaning to.  But I'm mostly mad at me.  Because I didn't think about what I was reading.  Because I fell for it.  Because I'm..." and the drop into whisper, the final word too soft to make out.  The sleek body flopped to one side, facing away from Twilight, with the resulting wing compression ignored.

"Rainbow, talk to me...  please..."

And in a burst of outwards-facing rage, "...stupid, all right?  I'm stupid.  I'm the dumbest pony in the group.  You know it, I'm just barely smart enough to know it, everypony knows --"

This shout was of protest.  "You're not!"

"Prove it!"

"All the stuff you've picked up so fast since we started?  All the things you can think about in midair, the adjustments?  How quickly you adapt during a fight?  You're not stupid, Rainbow!  You're just a different kind of smart!"

Her friend wouldn't look at her.

"You figure out things which I never could," Twilight softly told her.  "Stuff none of us can get a mouth grip on.  Lots of ponies have fallen for this con over the centuries, Rainbow.  Some of them...  needed to.  Being tricked doesn't make you stupid.  It just makes you...  real."

The trim neck twisted towards her.  "Real?"

"...maybe that was a bad word..."

But Rainbow was grinning.  "Real?  And what was the other option?"

"Blueblood?"

The single burst of laughter emerged as a fierce, grass-shifting snort.  "Yeah.  Okay, I'll take real..."  And onto her back again.

They stared at the night sky for a while.  Rainbow had cleared out the clouds again, and they were both waiting to get caught.

"Sorry you missed Founder's Day."

"Me too."

"You always miss Founder's Day."

"I know."

"What do you think Luna's going to do?"

Twilight sighed.  "I don't know.  I know she's...  thinking.  I know she'll talk to the Princess.  But...  they don't have an answer for everything, Rainbow.  I always thought they would be the last resort for anything, but then there was the fight against Chrysalis and..."

she was down and the world was broken

"...last night."

Rainbow slowly nodded.  "Yeah."

Back to looking at the sky.

"I was thinking about the ruins," the weather coordinator said.  "Before I did it."

"Sent the voucher off?"

Rainbow nodded.  Wouldn't look at her.  "I was thinking about how they're just -- there.  And nopony really remembers why, or how they got that way in the first place.  Somepony may have called it the Castle Of The Two Sisters...  but nopony's ever said those sisters were the Princesses.  Nopony asks them about it.  And...  nopony remembers..."

Twilight, whose subconscious had been very careful in instructing her how not to ask certain questions, was silent.

"We've got the windows in the Hall Of Legends," Rainbow went on.  "But...  windows break, even rock crystal ones.  I check the bookstore all the time now, and...  nopony's telling our stories.  Nothing's been written down.  Sometimes I even think --" and a total midair braking to avoid collision with a forbidden secret.

"What?"

"Nothing.  Maybe later."  

And it was all Twilight was going to get out of her.   "So you were thinking about the ruins."

She could hear how hard the words were for Rainbow to say, how every one had to be forced out with a push equivalent to a dozen Sonic Rainbooms.  "And how...  anything can get ruined.  Books go out of print.  Castles fall.  Ponies...  forget.  Everything we did together, all the adventures, all the missions, even the silly stuff...  it could get...  lost.  Like the castle.  But the stars, Twilight...  they're forever.  So I paid for me, to see what kind of work they did...  and then, after you helped me pick everypony else's places out...  I was gonna save up.  And have all of us up there together in time for Hearth's Warming Eve.  Because..."

Eventually, Twilight realized Rainbow was waiting for her to finish it.  "Because the stars remember."

"Yeah."  A bitter laugh.  "Except they don't.  Anything.  Ever."

"Maybe they do," Twilight said, and was surprised by the words.

"Prove it."

"I can't.  Maybe...  I just want to believe it."

They lay side by side in silence for a while.  The grass rustled around them.

"Rainbow?"

"What?"

"It really was a great idea for a gift."

"Whatever.  It's not real."

"Maybe it's as real as it has to be.  We can pick out the stars, and I can draw the charts up.  We can even get somepony to frame them, for a lot less than two hundred bits each."

"So?"

Half-prompting, half-teasing.  "I see a cluster over there which could be the red edge of your bolt."

"And?"

"They're brighter stars than everypony else is going to get."

Rainbow looked.  "Oh...  yeah!  And there's some yellows right next to them, and a few blues!  Hooves sketched against the sky.  "Yeah, that could totally work!  So who's next?"

"Me."  Twilight looked.  "Okay, I see one there which--"

"-- ah, you're cheating."  It wasn't unkind.

Twilight took mock offense.  "And how am I cheating?"

"Your whole mark is stars.  Everywhere you look, there you are..."

Twilight giggled, and they went to work.  Sparklers for Rarity.  Variables for Pinkie.  It took forever to pick out Fluttershy's cluster, as those stars seemed to be hiding from them.  Spike was comparably easy:  Twilight knew a few which were noted for flares.  The steadiest shines made up Applejack...

...or almost did.  

"We can't use that last one.  Shift left."

"Why?  It's just about perfect."

"You're back in the Commander again."

"Oh.  Yeah.  That one's my favorite."

"You only learned about it two nights ago."

"So it's been my favorite for two nights.  I learned to steer by stars when I had to in school, but nopony ever bothered with group names...  at least, not that I can remember...  So what's your favorite?"

"The Magician."  Twilight gestured along the Barding, going to the leftmost edge before demonstrating the sketch.  "I've always liked it."

"You would."  A long pause.  "Twilight?"

"What?"

Hope and despair in equal measure.  "Do you really think anypony will remember us?"

Twilight's eyes moved right again, still fixed on the sky.  

"The Princesses will."

And Rainbow smiled.

"Yeah, they will.  Okay.  New position for Applejack..."

Twilight listened, made suggestions, most of which were ignored.  But she had been reminded, and so only half her attention was on the current sky.  The rest had returned to the previous night.  To being on all four knees in the gardens, getting her head up under the freshest of waning Moon-light and seeing...

...Luna.  

Still on the bench.  

Facing the exact position where the Commander was starting to phase into the new night sky. Staring at that place in a certain way.

And the single tear falling away from her left eye.