A Light in Dark Places

by Lucky Dreams

Stars

A minute later the bed flew so high, so very, impossibly high, that when Apple Bloom peered down, the world was a blue marble resting amongst a million stars, which themselves slept upon sheets and blankets of glowing nebulas: spreads of rosy red, brilliant blue and startling green, all draped over the darkness. Apple Bloom had always supposed that should she have ever found herself standing, by chance, in the vault of the night sky, then it would have been black and empty but for the moon and the stars. Now she was here, there were more lights and colours than she had ever dreamed possible.

Only one light mattered to her.

Only one light had travelled with her through the whole journey, from the deep of the cave to the depths of the sea and past the peak of the sky. Cradling Applejack’s lantern in her hooves, she sighed and said, “It’s kinda quiet here. I can’t see no monsters. I can’t hear the storm.”

And she couldn’t, not even when she strained her ears, not even when she looked sideways, upways, downways, forwardways, backways. Though when she did look back, something much more welcome awaited: it was the moon, round and white, and taking up nearly the whole of her vision.

Apple Bloom sat in silence for a moment.

The moon was silent.

(“You’re not scared, you’re brave, you’re fearless,” whispered the fireflies in their glistening voices).

Then Apple Bloom cleared her throat and spoke with the moon. “M-mind if I ask a question?” she said.

“Ask away,” the moon replied.

Apple Bloom paused, choosing her words as carefully as her older sister picking only the best and ripest apples from the family orchard. “You and the sun are sisters, right? You love each other, and tell each other everything?”

“We speak the language of sisterhood. This is true.”

“Then tell me: could the sun ever freeze over?”

It was the moon’s turn to mull over her words. She mulled and she mulled until Apple Bloom bit her hoof to keep from crying. Although the moon had no eyes, no mouth, no face, something in its infinite blankness made the little filly unbearably…

Sad?

Lonely?

No. Not lonely. Not sad. These weren’t the right words, because truthfully, she didn’t know how to describe exactly how she felt – the only thing she was sure of was that the only cure for this feeling was the moon’s answer. Yet more than that: she wanted her sister to hold her, she wanted Applejack to kiss her and cuddle her, she wanted Applejack to never let go, she wanted Applejack until it hurt.

Just as Apple Bloom opened her mouth to demand a response, finally, the moon said, “Could your sister’s heart ever stop shining?”

They spoke no more after that, but Apple Bloom gazed at the stars, her heart beating wildly. All was quiet again. It was silence so enormous that all of outer space was needed to house it; and from her bed, she stared down at the world searching for her little house in her little town, before remembering that the storm had swept it away.

“Could Applejack’s heart stop shining?” she said to herself. “Could she stop lovin’ me? Could it be true? Could it? Could it?”

Like a shooting star, the answer came to her at once. What a question! What a daft, ridiculous, ludicrous, writhing little worm of a question! Oh, she wanted to stamp on it, squish the question from existence. But it was worse than a worm: mud-sludge, grunge-pus, stink-slush, muck-mire. The thought of her older sister not loving her disgusted Apple Bloom to her bones, making her feel ill in ways she had never thought possible – ice under her skin, yet hot coals in her stomach. The longer she pictured a world without the light of Applejack’s love, the darker her vision seemed, the colder she felt, the more violent her shivers, the more frozen her tears.

What would it matter if the sun turned dark? Why would she care if the moon shattered into a thousand pieces? Apple Bloom knew now that there was another light in her life.

In brightness, it outshone all the others.

Its warmth would last past the end of the world.

She smiled weakly, for she knew at last what truly scared her. Wiping her eyes, she swivelled back around to answer the moon’s question – yet the moon was nowhere to be found, having sailed away upon rivers of night-time.

Apple Bloom talked to the lantern instead. “Okay, so I’ve been a little bit scared tonight. A teeny-tinsey bit.”

When the fireflies didn’t answer, Apple Bloom spoke a storm.

“Alright, alright already, I’m really scared, I’m super scared, I’m super-duper-zuper scared! But not of the sun goin’ out. That’s not the light I’m scared of losing.”

No answer, no answer! Apple Bloom delved ever deeper into her heart to uncover the whole of the truth, and what she found was this: “Maybe,” she whispered, “maybe sometimes it’s okay. to say you’re scared and speak to someone who loves you. Just ’cause it’s night and it’s scary, it doesn’t mean it has to be dark…”

Finally, oh finally, a response. The fireflies spoke with the language of sisters – the secret language shared between Apple Bloom and Applejack, but which only now did the smaller sister come to appreciate.

Apple Bloom beamed. Unbidden, but not unwelcome, tears came to her eyes and gushed down her face. It was the same feeling she had experienced when speaking with the moon, yet deeper, so much deeper than before. It was a longing. A yearning. There existed a golden thread tying herself and Applejack together, but her adventures had made the thread damaged and frayed and stretched: it ached to be mended.

Raising a hoof, she pointed at the world, and yelled, “Dive, dive!”

A last glimpse of the stars; a final nod to the empty space where the moon had been. Then the bed plummeted towards Equestria, forcing Apple Bloom to clutch onto the lamp to stop it tumbling from the sheets.

The bed blazed red. A trail of fire followed in its wake as it punched through the sky, and for a shimmering moment, it became a shooting star seen all over Equestria – for a moment, all ponies over Equestria knew the magic of sisterhood.

It shot through the storm clouds blanketing Ponyville, down below, down, down into the deep dark. There was the farm! There was the barn and the orchard, the fields, the stables, the treehouse, the farmhouse; the flood had receded, and the storm had washed everything back into place. The monster in the ocean had spat up her bedroom, which rested beside the front door, waiting for mares and stallions to fix it back into place.

No time to look, however. Applejack’s bedroom was coming up fast. Apple Bloom shut her eyes to brace for impact.

A roar of thunder shook the house. “Apple Bloom,” the storm spat, panic infecting its voice. When the storm had come to town, Apple Bloom had been small and trembling and easy to scare, a most perfect target for hideous monsters. Upon her return, the filly seemed taller: not in height, but in ways undefinable, yet undeniably real.

“What are you doing, Apple Bloom? Surely you don’t think that your sister’s love can save you from your fears?”

But Apple Bloom stood a little straighter, held herself a little prouder, and bellowed, “SHUT IT! You and the others: y’all are just nightmares, and nightmares live in the dark. Well, I’ve got somethin’ stronger than darkness. I’ve got my sister.”

The storm knew then that it was beaten, and Apple Bloom never heard its evil voice ever again.

All the same, her adventures had left her hurt. Her legs ached. Her chest was bruised from where she had crashed through the wall of Applejack’s bedroom, and, sobbing, she held the firefly lantern between her hooves.

Sisterhood is stronger than hurt, tougher than fear.

Sisterhood heals.

Applejack stirred, then cast a weary glance around the wreckage of her bedroom. Half the wall lay strewn over the floor. In the middle of the chaos stood a quavering Apple Bloom, her own bed smashed into a hundred pieces upon the rug. “That’s kind of a mess you’ve made there, sugar cube,” Applejack said.

But she said it with a smile, and with a yawn full of the language of sisters. You don’t need to explain anything, the yawn said. Just climb on up here and shut your eyes.

Even so, Apple Bloom stood by the bed and explained it anyway.

She felt that she needed to.

It felt important.

“I lied, Applejack. I am scared. I’m scared of so many things, and I should’ve said so right from the start when you tucked me into bed. I’m nothin’ more than a big baby.”

She sniffled as cold winds invaded the bedroom, as armies of raindrops pounded against the floor. Lightning flashed. The might and fury of the storm poured in through the gaping hole in the wall. Yet the storm couldn’t startle the smile from Apple Bloom’s face as her older sister placed a hoof on her back, and said, “Now listen up. You ain’t a baby, Apple Bloom, but the bravest filly I know, and it’s okay. to say when you’re scared… and hay. Wanna know a secret?”

She leaned in close and whispered in Apple Bloom’s ear. “Sometimes I get scared too.”

Never mind the lashing cold, the lightning, the thunder. Climbing into bed, Apple Bloom buried herself against Applejack’s chest and basked in the heaven of her warmth. She closed her eyes. Applejack shut her own. Together, they fell fast asleep in a hug so close that each could feel the other’s heartbeat, feel it like it was their own.

In the lantern, the fireflies shone brighter than ever.

They shone like the sun.