“Where to start…” Honey Cake repeated. She settled in on the stool, making it creak, and rubbed a white streak of fine flour over her coarse blue apron.
Twilight covered her Sable Sleuth book again with a thick textbook she had intended to be reading by then. In fact, her scheduled study time should have had her already filling out questions from homework due right after the Hearth’s Warming break.
When she dragged the textbook away from its resting spot, the edge of her schedule scroll peeked out, accusing her of not following its tightly regimented schedule. Nowhere on it were the words “Listen to a story,” let alone “Ignore my schedule.”
Honey must have guessed her reason for staring at it. She pulled off her apron and set it down atop the scroll.
Twilight pulled her eyes back to Honey Cake, flicking her ears. “Sorry. I really should be studying.”
“Oh, who’s to say you won’t learn something from a story, hmm? Some of the best lessons come from stories.” Honey chuckled. “Now, where to… Ah, yes. Every year, a day before the hearths are cleaned, and two before we celebrate their warming, Princess Celestia comes to inspect the Hearth’s Warming cake, and sample the flavors that will be used for the outer frosting.
“That part’s true.” Honey nodded to the stallion, who had stopped stirring to listen. “And every year, the newest kitchen apprentices all decorate a piece of the cake on the lowest tier, so all can see their imagination and skill.”
Crunchy Crust ducked his head further, until Twilight was sure he had his nose in the frosting. The pale star on his forehead below his horn glowed pink.
“As the legend goes, on the longest night, when the Mare in the Moon watches over her ponies for the longest time out of any year, she comes to visit. Not for stealing candy or for stealing foals, no. She’s sated after her Nightmare Night repast, and only comes to mark those of interest for the next year. This is the time of the year when she is out longer than the sun, after all. She sees more of us, and she looks for those who look the tastiest, so she wanders the halls of the home she once craved, looking for the signs of somepony with the skill to feed her forever!”
A loud crash startled Twilight, and she almost fell off her stool. When she recovered her balance and darted a look around, she saw the stack of muffin trays had toppled over, and both Muffins and Crunchy Crust were cowering under the table.
“Pft. You two.” Honey Cake smiled and shook her head. “That part’s not true. At least… I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
“She’s just a myth,” Twilight said calmly. “Nopony ever goes missing on Nightmare Night.” She paused, considering. “Well, some ponies do, but they always show up again the next day. I suppose it’s more accurate to say they were reported missing.” She reached out to touch the edge of her saddlebag, and shrank back when Honey shook her head. “Um… my statistics book is in there.”
“Well… if statistics is what you’d like to hear instead of a story…”
Twilight drew her hoof back, and crossed them both on her stool. “N-no. I do want to hear a story. It’s just that, statistically speaking, it’s more likely to be struck by a meteorite than it is to be coltnapped by a… hmm. What classification of creature would you call The Mare in the Moon?”
“Twilight…”
She stared hard at her saddlebag. True, statistics was a chancy thing to go off of for anything close to reality. She reached for the bag again, shuffling through the books. Maybe Taxonomy and Mythology. The saddlebags slid away from her, enfolded in an auburn aura, and settled to the ground.
“Ahem. They’ll be fine.” Honey Cake clucked her tongue, and smiled at both of them. “Oh, very well. Set that aside, Crunchy. You and Muffins come over here and listen. I don’t want you spilling that icing all over everything. Or,” she added, flicking an ear at the gray pegasus, “muffins all over my floor.”
The story paused while Crunchy Crust covered his icing and relocated to sit, his chin perched on the edge of the table. He looked very young, sitting with only his eyes above the edge.
“Every year, she comes down to the kitchens on the only night they’re empty. Every cook and assistant gets sent to bed early.”
“But that’s because it’s a night for family time, right?”
“Oh yes. A family night it is, and everypony is off with theirs if they can, or in their beds thinking of families if they can’t. And every year, when we return to the kitchens, two slices are gone! That’s true, too. You’ll see. It’ll happen again this year.”
Twilight leaned in closer.
“On the darkest night, when the kitchens are closed, when Celestia herself puts the sun to rest early… That’s the night ponies say the old spirits wander. Windigoes, willow-the-wisps, wood sprites and snow faeries.” Honey’s voice dropped lower with each, softer. “The moon, it’s said, is brighter than ever that night, rivaling the sun for brilliance. Waking the oldest of them all. It’s said…”
“Zombie ponies rise up from their graves! Rawr!”
Twilight jerked upright, eyes wide, and Crunchy Crust let out a startled squeak.
Muffins giggled and shook her head. “Sorry! I couldn’t resist.”
“Scamp!” Honey cake reached out and swatted at the younger mare’s ear, chuckling. “Oh, shoot. Where was I?” She paused while Silver Dish laid out a plate with three fresh, steaming muffins, each freshly glazed with honey and sprinkled sugar.
“Thank you,” Twilight murmured along with Crunchy, bobbing her head as the old mare winked and ruffled Muffins’s mane with a wing. “The oldest spirit?”
“Yes, thank you. The oldest spirit of them all, the Mare in the Moon. She who watches over us, night after night, unceasing. It’s said, though you understand I’m long abed by the time it happens, that she leaves the moon to wander these very halls. You might look up and see, if you dare. If she winks at you, you might be the one she chooses.”
Twilight started to look up at the skylight, but dragged her eyes back down, and tried to catch Crunchy’s gaze. Only, he was underneath the table, shaking. His muffin was gone. Muffins was chewing contemplatively, half of her muffin already gone, and she was staring unabashedly up at the brilliant moonlight streaming in through the frosted glass.
“And every year,” Honey Cake continued, winking at Twilight, “Celestia gives up her piece to a special pony. That way everypony can have their fair share again. ”
“Wait. Wait.” Twilight tapped a hoof on the table. “That’s not right. Two go missing, but Celestia’s one makes it whole again? Does that mean they find one of them?”
“Oh, yes. One piece. Out in the Garden of the Moon. Perfectly preserved. Some say that the Mare in the Moon comes down and takes the pieces, and leaves one to taunt us. I’ve heard that Celestia feels guilty about letting her ponies down again, for letting Nightmare Moon slip free again, so she gives up that piece to another, very special pony, and has none for herself.”
“Was that why I got a piece my first year in the school?” Twilight cocked her head and studied the cook, a smile on her face and her stout forelegs folded across the edge of the table.
“Oh, that’s right! You did get a piece that year. I remember, now. But what happens to the other slice… nopony knows.”
“It isn’t Nightmare Moon,” Twilight insisted, tapping a hoof on the table. “She’s a myth.”
“That we celebrate every year.” Honey smiled broadly. “Nightmare Night, young Twilight, isn’t just a celebration of the harvest. Why do you think it’s called Nightmare Night?”
“Um… Shining Armor says it’s because it’s a fun holiday to scare your parents and give them nightmares!”
“Oh, true enough…” The motherly cook shook her head. “True enough. My colts gave me plenty of nightmares. And my filly even worse!” She squinted one eye across the table. “Have you given your mother nightmares?”
Magic surges powerful enough to uproot small trees, turning her parents into plants, accidentally rearranging the house in her sleep…
“Noooo…”
“You haven’t been trying hard enough, then. You’ll be a right nightmare when you grow up, I’ll wager! Wait until you bring home your first coltfriend. But… back to the matter at hoof… Who do you think the first Night Mare was, if not Nightmare Moon?”
“But…”
“Just think about it, Twilight. You can tell me tomorrow what you think is true. I’ll be here.” Honey Cake grinned. “Maybe you’ll surprise me!”
“Maybe it’s just a pony with a sweet tooth and a sticky hoof,” Muffins said quietly.
Twilight nodded along with her, then noticed Honey wagging her head. “Who do you think did it?”
“Oh, me?” Honey Cake stood again, brushed at her apron, to little effect, and slipped it back on, smiling. “I think it’s something somepony ought to decide for herself. What’s real, my little pony? My tale or something else? Little mystery for a mystery lover.”
Her textbook drifted aside to uncover Sable Sleuth, darting along an alley, her cloak flared about her.
I need a cloak like that.
Twilight pushed aside the thought and touched the cover of the book, tracing out the mare’s figure as she thought.
“If the Mare in the Moon is real…” She frowned, pushing the book away. “But she can’t be real.”
Honey turned her eyes up, and up. Twilight followed her gaze, up to the skylight, where a pane of crystalline glass perfectly framed the moon and the dark craters on its surface. In the golden glow of the ovens and lamps, the silver light of the moon could gain no purchase, and she’d managed to push aside its piercing gaze for a time.
“Okay, maybe she’s ‘real,’” Twilight muttered. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a pony! It’s just an old pony tale. And some craters on the moon. Shaped like a unicorn’s head.” She gulped and pushed away from the table. “I-I should get to bed. I-it’s late.”
“Sweet dreams, little Twily.” Honey Cake turned away and returned to buttering the unicorn shaped mold. Twilight shivered again. The mold looked exactly like the shape of the Mare in the Moon’s profile.
Nonsense. I look like the Mare in the Moon’s profile. Coincidence.
Twilight gathered her things as every eye in the kitchen watched her. Or seemed to. Whenever she looked up, everypony was about their own business and paying little mind to her. Talk started up again as she packed her saddlebags.
The Mare in the Moon’s name came up several times, quietly, as did the other spirits named in the story. The Windigoes were the closest thing Twilight was willing to accept as a real thing and not a fable, and even then most of what was known about them came from fables.
Conjecture. Nothing but conjecture and supposition. She glanced up as she left, but the Mare in the Moon’s visage was as implacable and still as it ever had been when she viewed it through her telescope.
Invisible eyes followed her down the long, empty hallway, and found her as she crept past the tall windows spilling argent light into the dimly lit passage. The cold stone floor rang with her hoofsteps before she stepped onto the thick rug running down its center. She paused again to look at the still courtyard, silver and white, without a hint of other colors.
Above, watching over it all, the Mare in the Moon shimmered and winked.
As a cloud passed in front of her eye.
That was it.
Just a cloud.
Her heart skipped a beat, and raced ahead of her. She stared at the moon. It was as implacable as ever. Still, stately, regal, and watching her with a brooding mien.
The night air was still, the stars brilliant pinpricks.
Just a cloud.
That had to be it.
The halo of stars twinkled with silent laughter as Twilight galloped the rest of the way back to her room.
By the time she had brushed her mane, brushed her teeth, and brushed her tail, her hooves had stopped shaking. Better, the pool of light below her window was as dim as the stars outside, and the thin spear of it faded away as she set a candle on her desk in its path.
She could still see the moon, if she crept to the edge of the window and pressed her cheek against the glass. The Mare was still there, and the craters as still and solid as any of the nights she had spent watching them through a telescope.
“Y-you think she’s real, too,” Spike said, clutching his tail and his blanket. He was curled up and peering over the edge of his small bed, and his voice sounded too small.
“I do not.”
“B-but the cake thief!”
“Is a mischievous pony. That’s all. A thief.”
There were literally hundreds of items to steal that were far easier to find than cake, and would last longer. Possibly thousands. So, as any good detective would, she was left to wonder: Why steal cake?
Spike’s fears and Honey Cake’s tale made as much sense as a thief breaking into the castle, bypassing all of the security, and her brother, to sneak into the one kitchen big enough to bake the cake, and steal only two slices. Or three. And, they somehow knew exactly which pieces of the vari-decorated cake had been decorated by that year’s newest artisans and stole only those.
If that few, and that specific, why not the entire top layer, or the entire cake for that matter.
Unless she couldn’t. Maybe… The Mare in the Moon could look directly into the kitchens from the skylight. Could the old pony tale be true?
All of the signs and portents trundled through her mind, one after the other. Silent laughter sprinkled in the heavens like argent stardust; the Mare in the Moon winking without a cloud in the sky; hoofsteps echoing like laughter.
Twilight took up the brush again and swept it through her bangs, already smooth and straight from earlier, but the stiff bristles on her brow always seemed to settle her mind and set her churning thoughts straight.
With one final swipe of the brush, Twilight shook her head. There was no mysterious Mare in the Moon. It was all a trick of the senses, or upper level atmospheric conditions caused by the blizzard the pegasi had scheduled for tomorrow night, or runaway hallway acoustics.
Spike wound himself tighter in his bed, curling up until nothing but his tail and the tip of his purple snout peeked out from under his blanket.
“Sleep well, Spike,” she whispered, stroking the quivering bundle gently. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.”
She settled into bed, drawing the covers over herself and facing the window. She set her jaw when her ears wanted to fold back of their own accord and pulled out the paperback, stroking a hoof over the well-worn cover before opening it up and finding her place.
Sable Sleuth lifted the edge of the mat on the director’s desk, revealing the dark ink stain soaked into the oaken desk. A perfect circle, save for two bumps at opposite ends. She studied it, even going so far as to use the precious crystal-cut magnifying glass her father had left her, she ignored the director as he went on about inconsequential details about the break in.
Satisfied after a moment’s study of the surprisingly intricate patterning left on the desk, Sable put her father’s magnifying glass away. No mere soaking, but a deliberate and delicate tracery that only appeared to be haphazard at a glance.
“No, Director Quill. The question is not who broke into your office. That, I am fairly certain, will come to light by following the clues. I will leave that to the San Franciscolt police. No, the question I would like answered is why steal only an inkpot when you have an entire museum of more valuable items sitting in the open.”
She carefully wet a paper with a drink and laid it down on the ink-spot, very, very lightly pressing before shifting a dry sheet underneath the wet one.
The blotch came free, clear as day, on the white paper. “And why this ink pot has the ancient symbol of the Noir Nadir in its base.”
Twilight stared at the passage. She knew why the inkpot had been stolen. She knew because she had read this book three times before. But, as she put herself in Sable’s shoes, she wondered if she had started down the same path as the storied detective, and if she would face the same perils. Vampire ponies, ancient secrets, and secret societies were just a few of the things Sable had faced in the fourteen books so far published.
Of course, those were fictional. This, stealing cake, was real.
Why steal cake?
As she fell into sleep, her hoof resting on the book, the question nipped at her with phantom teeth.