//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Late Night Studying // Story: Twilight Sparkle and the Cake Thief // by Noble Thought //------------------------------// Twilight’s hooves echoed in the long hallway on her way to the kitchens. She splashed through wide pools of light drifting across the marble floor, throwing her shadow up high against the opposite wall while the black and white tiles sent a chill creeping up her legs as surely as any of the icy patches outside. As she passed each window, the Mare in the Moon, accompanied by a twinkling halo of stars in a cloudless night sky, watched her, intruding like a sour note into the hum of magic ringing like a silver bell just outside her hearing. She’s not watching me! She hopped a step and swiped a hoof at the base of her horn. The hum popped like a soap bubble, letting in the stillness of the night. Most everypony else had already gone to bed, and this far from the castle’s heart, very few wandered around at night. She stomped down the hallway just a little louder. Spike and his silly notions of a mare actually living in the moon. She snorted, and hopped a few steps ahead as even that echoed back to her as laughter. They were craters. That was all. And the hallway was a perfect acoustic chamber. A ghost of her hooves’ echoes far down the corridor came back just in time to silence the niggling voice in the very back of her mind. The one that contradicted everything else. There wasn’t anything to worry about, she assured herself. Another two turns, a flight of stairs, and she came to the ground floor. There, the wide bay windows, frequent favorite spots for her to read during the summer, gave way to the massive floor to ceiling picture windows that looked out on the courtyard. There, the cold glow of the moon spread out like a vast, implacable sea, drowning color and shadow alike. The Mare in the Moon floated in stolid pre-eminence over all the argent landscape both without and within, surveying her domain with a steady, fierce gaze. Twilight steeled herself and tromped down the hallway, denying the myth’s power with every step. But, there on the lower floor, her hooves found carpet instead of stone, and her tromping defiance was swallowed up whole, the muted echoes dying before they came back. But, before long, the warm golden light flowing out from under the swinging door to the main kitchen, far down the hallway, reinforced her earlier assurance. The picture windows turned again to high-set transoms, diminishing the moon’s domain. She let out a small breath, cast one last glance at the still visible moon, and shook her head to settle her mane and her thoughts. The Mare in the Moon was only a myth. A legend.  She took another breath, checked her saddlebags again for the books she’d meant to pack, and set her shoulder to the solid panel of the door. Stepping past the kitchen’s threshold was like stepping into the portal to another world. The cold that had crept up from beneath the richly carpeted floor vanished as her hooves touched the roughened stone. Heat rushed over her from the half-dozen fireplaces and ovens still blazing even so late at night, driving the shivers, not entirely induced by the cold, from her. The clatter and bustle of the kitchen swept over her, further quieting the nag. “Whoa, whoa,” said a rough male voice, and she looked around to find a stallion stepping away from a mixing bowl to frown at her. A streak of pink frosting slashed across the bridge of his muzzle, bisecting the white star between his eyes. “Little fillies can’t—” “Leave off, Crunchy. That’s Twilight Sparkle, you goof.” Honey Cake’s sonorous voice broke over his voice like a rolling wave, easily washing over the minor din of the nightly preparations for the next day. “I have Celestia’s own word that she’s okay to be here,” she added in a minutely softer voice, though it still reminded Twilight of the distant thundering of a storm at night. Honey Cake flowed nimbly through the kitchen from the ovens, and it seemed that she stopped at every station to sample or offer brief critique on her way to where Twilight stood, waiting. Her burnished gold coat was so dusted with flour so that Twilight could barely tell she didn’t come from a branch of old Paints, but the trio of gleaming honeycombs on her hip stood out, even under the flour. Twilight ducked her head in greeting. “I’m sorry if I caused a fuss.” “Nonsense. Just a moment, and you’ll have my attention.” She brushed Twilight’s apology away and shot a look at the still hovering Crunchy. “Get that table cleared off. You’ve got to learn how to use as small a space as you need.” With a toss of her head, Honey indicated a smaller table to the side. When the stallion was well on his way, silently, to relocating, Honey turned her considerable attention back to Twilight. “How are you, dearie? Another late night study session?” “Yes, Mrs. Cake. I couldn’t sleep.” Spike and his fables. “Oh, call me Honey. Or Honey Cake, if you must.” Twilight blushed, turning aside from the smiling mare and her oft-repeated demand. “Um. Can I sit at a table?” She indicated the recently vacated one. “I have some Thaumaturgical Theory and Practice reading.” Honey Cake blinked, mouthing the words, and smiled. “Of course, dearie.” She nodded to the table, lighting her horn to lift off some few scattered dollops of icing and dusted it with a dry rag. “Don’t mind Crunchy Crust. He’s new, but he’s got a good eye for cake decorating.” The stallion setting up on the table next to hers beamed for just a moment, and swallowed when Honey leveled her attention at him. “But that doesn’t mean he can assume control of the kitchen.” “Y-yes ma’am.” Head lowered, he sighed and kept up the stirring motion on what smelled like a buttercream frosting with a hint of— She snatched her thoughts away from the thought of cake and frosting and started unloading her books. Surreptitiously, she wiped at her muzzle, surprised to find she hadn’t actually been drooling. “Best be careful, Crunchy! Might be one of your slices the Mare in the Moon steals next,” an older mare said as she wandered by. Her wings were stacked with muffin trays. She cackled at his grimace, followed by snickers drifting around the kitchen. Crunchy bore down on the whisk, a red streak edging up the pale star on his muzzle. Twilight thought he looked a few years older than her, his skinny frame more lank than trim, and a contrast to the rounded heft of Honey Cake and some few other mares and stallions who enjoyed their cooking, and had been at it longer. “He should,” another mare called out, her voice almost a laugh. “She took two pieces of mine last year!” “But she’s just an old pony tale!” Twilight stopped putting out her books to stare at the young, gray mare, her mane a sunny gold.  She carried a stack of muffin trays perched between her ears, and stood next to the older mare, both of them so similar in color they had to be related. The elder was working a long wooden paddle in the oven before setting it aside. “Is she now?” The old mare cackled as she slid one tray down from the younger’s stack with a wing, across her back and down the other to slide into the open oven fast enough to not even ruffle her flight feathers. “Oh, the things you younger ponies take for granted. Why—” Honey tsked loudly as she swatted at the mare’s backside with the butt end of a ladle and smiled at Twilight. “Don’t you mind Silver Dish, Twilight, or her granddaughter. They poke their noses into everything. Why, when she was younger, Muffins was underfoot almost more than my two boys! How she managed that feat, I’ll never understand.” Muffins blushed as she shifted about, following her elder to another oven, her wings ruffling as she cast a glance at Twilight, the tray stack staying perfectly level the entire time. “Just settle to you your studying, Twilight,” Silver Dish called out, “and never mind us. Kitchen ponies chatter.” She nodded to her granddaughter, staring cross-eyed at the stack of trays perched between her ears. “Another tray, please, Muffins.” The two engaged in a ballet, almost, drifting from oven to oven, chattering as they went, and their talk wandered away to the blizzard scheduled for the next week, and the festivities planned afterwards. Twilight tried to focus on her open books, but the talk about the Mare in the Moon continued, although quieter and drifting from table to table as Honey Cake made another round of spoon checks and discussion of this or that dish. She couldn’t help but notice that the stallion’s blush faded as they went on, giving way to furtive glances at a large stack of cast-iron cake forms resting one atop the other on the largest trestle in the room. She caught only tidbits here and there, about The Mare in the Moon and the stolen slices of cake. The study of Star Swirl’s theories on Thaumaturgy and their practical applications kept slipping away from her, and Spike’s worrying crept back in on slippered hooves to ghost around the figures and formulas. It wasn’t until she stared down at the last bit of a sentence she’d just written that she realized she was too distracted to study. ‘In the guidance and use of a joint effort spell, the Mare in the Moon must be taken into account when aligning the magical flows.’ That sentence was supposed to read: ‘…the confluence of the sun and moon must be taken into account…’  She tore out the page and balled it up, frowning, but halted just as she was about to throw it in the waste bin. The words on the paper still scampered around in her thoughts like mice in the pantry. She smoothed the paper back out and laid it flat. “Mrs. Cake? I-I mean Honey.” “Yes, dearie?” Honey said, her horn glowing a warm orange as she turned. Behind her, a monstrous cake mold continued to float, a stick of butter making turn after turn over the interior. “E-everypony, and Spike, keeps saying that the Mare in the Moon is real. But, she’s just…” Twilight twitched an ear as the hum of the moon swelled against her horn. She shivered. “She’s just a myth, isn’t she?” A soft smile tugged at the mare’s lips. “Oh, I think so.” Twilight sagged against the table, and gave Honey a small smile. “But…” The stick of butter stopped and the mold froze in place. “Most myths are just a glaze of honey over a muffin. Just a little bit of truth covering a whole tasty treat to tease little fillies with.” “Like the Winter Solstice cake thief!” Another mare said, just a few years older than Twilight. “Crunchy’s the new decorator for the Hearth’s Warming cake this year, and every year, so the legend says, two slices of cake decorated by that year’s apprentice decorator go missing!” Snickers and not quite laughter came from almost everywhere in the kitchen, dying down as Honey pulled up a stool across from Twilight. Crunchy had almost buried his face into his bowl, ears folded back. “Some myths, though, are more like the honeydrop treats my grand-daughter makes. A little paper wrapped around the larger truth.” “Which one is The Mare in the Moon? Or the cake thief?” “Even if I knew, why would I spoil the fun? Half of it is in the talk and telling of the tale over and over. Why, last year, it was said that three slices went missing. We still can’t decide why!” Honey’s smile grew as she surveyed the pile of books scattered over the large, flour-covered and knife-notched surface. “The other half is arguing over which tales are true and which not.” Honey reached out to touch one pile, shifting the topmost one aside to reveal a dark paperback book showing a mare, her coat dark as night, her cutie mark a silver horseshoe wrapped around a magnifying glass, and she wore a wide-brimmed, white hat pulled low so that only a twinkling corner of an eye showed above a sly grin. Her white trench coat, flapping in a breeze, held the title: ‘Sable Sleuth in: The Noir Nadir.’  “Mm. My daughter loves these.” Honey flipped through the first few pages quietly, smiling. “I had been thinking about seeing if she would loan one to you.” Twilight blushed, pulling her forelock over her eyes with a hoof, and tucked her muzzle close in to her chest. “Oh, come now. What’s wrong with loving a good work of fiction? There’s a lot you can get from reading them, you know, and a lot of fun to be had. Especially for a little mystery lover like you.” “I know I should only study,” she said into the curl of her mane, “but I like them so much.” “Nonsense! Only study—pah! I’ll wager the Princess has never heard that from you, and if she hasn’t, I’ll tell her myself. Only study…” Honey shook the book at her, frowning. “There’s more to life than facts in books, Twilight.” Twilight shuffled her hooves against the stool’s rim, plucking the edge of one shoe against the wood. “I know, but I shouldn’t right now. There’s so much to do to keep up.” “Keep up? The way I hear it from around the castle is you do more than keep up, dear. Maybe it’s time you slowed down.” “But I can’t!” Honey sighed, shaking her head. “What if I offered you a deal? Put away your studies for tonight, and I’ll tell you any story you want.” “Any story?” Twilight shot a glance aside at Crunchy just in time to see him duck back down and focus on his bowl of frosting. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Muffins as the young mare winked at her grandmother. “Any story.” Honey turned aside and tipped her horn at a row of lockers beside the door. One of them opened, and a book drifted out: Daring Do and the Sinister Sanctuary. “I’ll bet you like Daring Do.” “Oh! Yes, yes! I love that one! Especially when Daring Do—” “Whoa there,” Honey broke in with a light tap of the book on her forehead. “I haven’t read all of it yet.” “You read Daring Do?” Twilight almost danced right off the stool, only barely restraining herself to clapping her hooves. “I am so excited for next month! Daring Do number eleven comes out! Did you know she’s written one every year since I was born? I’m as old as Daring Do!” “Well, I don’t know about that,” Honey said with a chuckle. “But let me tell you a story. If it’s not Daring Do… and that’s really the only book I have right now...” Muffins came up and dropped off a tray of freshly baked muffins, their tops still glistening wetly with honey, and returned to her grandmother, taking a path behind Crunchy. Crunchy spoke up when she passed by. “Honey knows all kinds of stories.” “I do! There’s not much to do aside from our baking in here, so I tell a tale or two through the day, or Silver Dish does, or one of the others.” Honey gave the stallion a smile. “Now back to your whipping, Crunchy. I don’t want to find a single lump later.” He nodded, smiling, and bent to his task. “I would like to hear about the Mare in the Moon and the cake thief.” She swallowed, forcing her hooves to still on the edge of the stool. “Please.” Honey smiled broadly, and tucked the Daring Do book under her folded forelegs as the kitchen seemed to quiet all around them. “That tale’s been around a long time. Where to start…”