I didn’t wake up until a bit after noon, and only because of the sound of my doorbell chiming with cheerful urgency. I crawled out of bed, noting with bleary consciousness that Twilight’s side of the bed was empty – she was probably in the bathroom or something.
The bell went off once more and I hurried downstairs to open the door, picking up the pace so I wouldn’t have to hear the noise again. My hearing’s always really sensitive first thing when I wake up, and every ring-ring was like a knife in my ears. At least I wasn’t hungover.
Luna was waiting at the door, bright-eyed and chipper, a huge smile on her face as she proudly lifted a big pink cardboard box and the brown paper bags she was holding. The bags bore a corporate logo that my brain immediately associated with burgers, even if it was too sleep-addled to read the words.
And here I hadn’t even considered the possibility that Luna could get any sexier than she already was.
“Morning!” she chirped happily. “You didn’t just get out of… out of bed did…?”
Luna’s voice trailed off as she looked down, her eyes widening slightly as her gaze swept over my bare legs.
In my haste to answer the door I’d forgotten to put pants on.
I cleared my throat, feeling a little embarrassed by her embarrassment – if that makes any sense – but a part of me smiling as I realized I’d finally gotten one up on her. She looked up, her fair skin already pinkening at the tips of her ears with a blush that was slowly crawling down onto her face.
“Eyes up here,” I said with a snigger. I reached into the box of donuts and grabbed a glazed. “Come on in. Let me get dressed and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
I left her at the door and headed back upstairs, putting a little more body English into my hips with each step than I normally would, giving the pretty girl at the door a good show. I even casually pretended to adjust my panties, pulling the nearly-sheer black garment taut and letting it snap audibly against my butt.
I could practically hear Luna swallowing.
Should I have been teasing her? Probably not, especially after the talk we’d had the night before, but if I’d proven anything to myself, it was that sometimes I just couldn’t help acting bad.
It took me a little time to dig through my still unwashed clothes to find something to wear. I still ended up only changing my shirt and socks, and just grabbing the pants I’d worn the day before. I didn’t stink, so it was good enough.
I came back downstairs to find that Twilight was already at the table. She’d been lured out of her hiding place – the basement study, judging from the book she had her nose buried in – by the twin temptations of meat and fried dough. She was already mostly through a kid’s meal, the cheap little toy set aside and already forgotten as she focused on her reading.
“I got you coffee!” Luna blurted out as soon as I stepped into the kitchen. The outburst was so sudden and loud that Twilight even looked up from her book to quirk her eyebrow curiously.
“Thanks,” I said, trying not to laugh or gloat at how I’d unwittingly turned the tables on this battle of the flirts.
“It’s just black,” Luna said, fidgeting with her hair in her nervous, flustered way. “I didn’t know how you liked it.”
“Sugar?”
Luna nodded and handed me a white paper bag full of creamers and a variety of little sugar packets. The coffee was some of that overpriced stuff that went through more machinery and filters and injectors than the gas in my car, and even black it had a vaguely sweet, pumpkin and cinnamon-ish scent – some kind of spiced macchiato half-knot windsor or whatever. I rarely have coffee, but when I do I almost always add a couple of fingers of whiskey to it. I ignored the urge to adultify the drink and emptied all five of the sugar packets, plus an artificial sweetener, into the cup.
“You, um, like it sweet, huh?” Luna asked as she watched me stir the slush with one of those skinny straws.
“I like it Irish,” I replied, “but sweet does the job, too.”
“That’s not good for you,” Twilight commented as she flipped a page.
“Magical metabolism.” I gulped down the coffee.
Twilight looked up from the book. “That’s not real, is it?”
I gave her a smile as an answer and started digging in the bag that Luna had pushed towards me. Twilight just pouted and went back to reading, squinting at the small lettering of the paperback.
"So what do you have planned for today?" Luna asked.
"Pretty much nothing," I grumbled as I dipped a fry into my coffee experimentally. I grimaced at the foul taste. The coffee was sufficiently sweet, but it wasn't even close to being as good as dipping fries in a milkshake. "Just going to hang out around the house and wait on a phone call. I'll probably end up spending most of the day in the study tinkering around."
Twilight made a quiet little noise of discomfort, and she rubbed irritably at her her eyes, blinking, before returning to squinting at the book she was reading. I frowned at that.
“Hey, kid, we gotta do something about your eyes, you’re going to get a headache squinting like that,” I said, tapping a finger on the table to get her attention.
“I had two pairs, but they were both on my night stand,” Twilight said. She rubbed at her eyes again. “I guess my eyes do kind of hurt…”
“What about those little reading glasses you get from pharmacies?” Luna suggested. “The ones with magnifying lenses.”
“Those might be fine for when she’s reading,” I said, “but she’s going to need regular glasses eventually. It’s going to have to be later, though. I can’t really take her to an optometrist or anything right now.”
“There’s a pair in my dad’s office,” Twilight said, marking her page with the crinkled paper from her straw and closing her book. “One time I broke them in P.E. and the nurse called my mom to bring me an extra pair, but my dad came instead. He said he always kept a pair in his desk.”
“Well that’s lucky,” I said. I turned to Luna. “Think you could watch the kid for me while I go see if I can pick those up?”
“I can do that,” Luna said with a nod and a smile. “How are you going to get in, though?”
“How do you think?” I held up my hand and waggled my greasy fingers like a cartoon swamy putting a spell on someone.
“Okay then, Ganondalf,” she said, laughing. “Is there anything you need done around the house while you’re gone?”
I chose not to call Luna on her malapropic reference. It was actually kind of cute.
I was this close to telling her I needed my laundry done, but then I realized she’d have to see how messy my bedroom was. I mean, I was kind of hoping she’d get to see that part of the house eventually, but in my head I’d envisioned that I’d have had the time to clean up a little bit. Sure, Twilight had seen what a slob I was, but she was a kid and kids don’t notice that kind of thing.
“Uh, maybe you could feed my chickens?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know anything about feeding chickens, but how hard could it be?” Luna said, laughing again. God, did she have a pretty laugh. “I can do that for you.”
“I like chickens,” Twilight chimed in, giving a nervous smile. “Their scientific name is fun to say – Gallus Gallus Domesticus.”
I repeated the term, letting the words roll off the tip of my tongue. “Yeah, that is fun.”
“Can… can I help feed them?”
I sighed, reaching for my coffee and deciding to take a long sip as I mulled the question over.
It’s not that I didn’t understand Twilight’s want to leave the house. Just because she was the indoorsy type didn’t mean she didn’t like going outside from time to time. I was the same way, and I’d been on lockdown before – meditative seclusion, you called it when you were a wizard – and in those situations the simple knowledge that you weren’t even allowed to leave was what made the cabin fever unbearable.
If I was being really honest, the wards protecting my property extended to a decently wide circle around my house. Twilight would probably have to cross the street before she was visible to any kind of long-distance scrying or spirit-tracking. I wasn’t about to tell her that, though. She was a well-mannered and respectful kid, but she was still a kid. It was better to tell her that her leash was shorter than it was than to give her enough slack to get herself in trouble.
I’d already promised to myself that I wasn’t going to take any chances, and letting her put even a toe across my threshold was more risk than I was comfortable with.
“Sorry, kid,” I said. “I’m afraid that’s a no go for right now. You gotta stay in the house.”
Twilight’s face fell, her hopeful smile crushed by my verdict. “Okay…” she said sadly.
“What about if she stood in the doorway and watched me?” Luna quickly proposed.
I was about to say no, but they were both giving me the puppy dog eyes, and I felt my resolve crumble.
“I guess that’d be fine,” I conceded, frowning, “but she can’t step out of the house.”
“I promise!” Twilight said eagerly.
I chuckled at the sight of Twilight so eager to just stand in an open doorway. There was something adorably sad about it... or maybe sadly adorable? Either way, she seemed satisfied by the very slight compromise I’d made and I was glad she was happy to have that much.
Luna tapped my shoulder, trying to get my attention.
“Tell her what you got her,” she said in a stage whisper.
“Ah, right. I picked you up some stuff last night.” I thumbed in the direction of the living room. “The clothes should fit, but I had to guess about the shoes. Why don’t you go see if anything doesn’t fit before I leave?”
Twilight’s grin widened just a touch as she pushed herself away from the table. “Thank you.”
Luna waited until Twilight was out of earshot before she spoke up. “She can’t even go in the yard?” she asked, lowering her voice so she wouldn't be heard over the sound of Twilight rummaging through bags in the other room.
“I’m not risking it,” I said, shaking my head. “I still don’t know enough about the other guy’s magic to be comfortable with anything. I’ve got some theories, but I’m going to have to wait until sundown to see how close I am. Until then, though, I’m going to err on the side of caution.”
“‘Kay…” she said. She didn’t seem fully satisfied with my answer, but she bit back whatever else she wanted to say and used a napkin to grab a donut. “If you’re sure that’s the right thing to do.”
“I am,” I said, nodding.
“That’s good, then,” Luna said as she munched daintily at her donut. “How’d she do last night after I left? Did she sleep the whole night?”
“She had a nightmare. Crawled into my bed. I woke up early this morning with her curled up next to me.”
“Oh no, is she okay?” Luna asked worriedly.
“Yeah, she’s good. She was already awake when I got up and we had a little heart-to-heart.”
“What about?”
“Just some stuff,” I said. I liked Luna, but I was still feeling her out, so I really didn’t want to get into the whole ‘orphan club’ thing Twilight and I had talked about. Not yet, anyway. “A lot of it just boiled down to her being worried that I’m in a hurry to kick her out, which I’m not.”
“Are you going to keep her after all?” Luna asked, surprise clear in her voice.
“For a while,” I explained. “Dunno how I’ll swing it, but she can stay here until I find somewhere better for her.”
I sighed. My stomach suddenly felt full, so I wadded up the last few bites with the trash and threw it into the open trash can.
“I’m glad that she’s comfortable with opening up to you,” Luna said, distractedly tearing little pieces off her donut and popping them into her mouth. “I didn’t really get to see much of it last night, but just sitting here eating, I can tell that she’s more comfortable with you around. It’s like there’s a tension in her that leaves when you’re in the room. It’s a pretty significant difference.”
“She’s just scared,” I said, sounding more dismissive than I’d meant to be. “I get rid of the bad guy and she’ll be over it. She won’t need me watching over her and I can put her with a nice family with a picket fence and a dog. They can take her to soccer practice and force her to take oboe or some other stupid thing that looks good on college applications. I’ll get her somewhere that someone can take real good care of her.”
Luna frowned as she tossed the half-eaten baked good back into the box. She sucked her fingertips clean, chewing on them in apparent apprehension as she tried to squeeze out the nerve to say something. I could already guess what it was, so I didn’t make her dangle at the end of the line.
“You’re wondering why that can’t be here,” I said, expressing the thought for her. I knew I’d hit the mark when she nodded shyly. “I ain’t no good for a kid, for a lot of reasons. Some of them are obvious, a lot of them aren’t. For right now, just believe me when I say it’s a bad idea for her to hang around me any longer than she has to.”
“Okay,” Luna said, her voice small with what I could only assume was worry that she might have overstepped her bounds. “Sorry… if I’m, um… being… I dunno.”
“It’s okay. I know you’re just worried about her. She’s going to be fine, though. She’s a smart kid, and kids are stronger than adults give them credit for. She’s in mourning, but she’s not letting it pull her down. I’m actually pretty proud of how she’s processing this whole thing.”
Luna gave me a curious look. “Is that how you’re seeing it?”
I blinked, stunned at the question. Before I could ask what Luna meant by that, my attention was pulled away by Twilight running into the kitchen and calling my name.
“Sunset, are these stickers and crayons for me?” she asked, holding up an opened packet of glittery stickers.
“No,” I replied immediately, “they’re mine. Don’t play with them.”
“Oh,” Twilight said, deflating at my response.
I chuckled. “Kid, I’m joking. They’re for you.”
Twilight’s face lit up with a grin and she started thumbing through the stickers immediately. “There’s unicorn stickers in here,” she said excitedly. “I love unicorns!”
* * *
The plan had been to go straight to the college, break into Night’s office, snag the glasses and then head back. That changed the second I pulled out of my driveway – carefully avoiding the dark blue VW bug that I’d guessed had to be Luna’s car – and onto the road. Left would have taken me into the city, right went towards the back roads, further into the countryside.
I felt a little tug in my chest, pulling the steering wheel in my hands to the right, so I gave in to that feeling and went for a drive. I hadn’t even realized how cluttered my head was until I was behind the wheel, on my way to the easiest errand I’d set for myself in almost a week.
Driving always clears my head. There’s something about the rumble of an engine that I find soothing, like listening to the heartbeat of some enormous animal.
What had Luna meant earlier, about how Twilight had been behaving? I consider myself pretty insightful, but Luna knew the kid better than I did, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was seeing something that I wasn’t. I’d wanted to ask Luna about it, but by the time I was ready to leave she and Twilight were still going through the clothes I'd bought her and arranging them into outfits – at Luna's insistence. I didn’t want to disturb their fun, so I just said my goodbyes and left.
I let the drive push the thought aside, just like I let it blow away the concerns that were starting to creep up whenever I thought about my bank account and how hard it would get hit feeding and clothing Twilight until I could find her another home. And then there was the tiny voice in the back of my head, telling me that even a short amount of time with someone like me – shitty role model that I am – could damage the poor kid more than she already was.
I rolled down the window and let the window rushing by carry away all the worries that had piled up in my head. Sorcerers have power, and that power requires control. Control requires focus, and all the worries, big and small, were distractions that I couldn’t afford.
I spent an hour just driving through the backwood, down country roads that passed quaint little farmhouses. I love rural roads. The relatively unspoiled nature was closer to what most of Equestria was than anything else you could get this close to the city. My homeland was rotten with beautiful natural scenery, but a city-brat like me had never taken the time to enjoy it. Even now, I really only liked it when it was whizzing past me through an open car window.
I was feeling better, more clear-headed, by the time I finally pulled back onto the main road leading back into town. I was feeling so good that I didn’t even feel the need for a cigarette – but I had one anyway.
It had only been a few days since I’d last been to Canterlot U, but the campus was still on Spring Break, so even in the middle of the day there was hardly anyone around. What few people were milling about the campus seemed to be students coming back from the break to return to their dorms, and joggers who were taking advantage of the long stretches of sidewalk and well-manicured scenery for their daily run.
I got out of the car and pulled my jacket off before tying my hair back into a loose ponytail. It was a little warm out for leather, but more than that, I didn’t really want to stand out too much. I was going to be breaking into the office of one of the faculty just days after his death, and if someone saw me poking around I wanted to look as little like myself as possible without relying on magic. I knew a few glamours and disillusionments that could help me keep a low profile, but if anyone with magic was around there was a distinct possibility that they’d notice that I was doing something – not what I was doing, but definitely that I was doing something.
I hunched down to check myself in the sideview and frowned. After a moment or two of thought I remembered the pair of sunglasses I had in the glove box. They weren’t expensive, just some gas station sunblockers with cheaply tinted lenses, but they were big and covered enough of my face to count as an admittedly poor disguise.
I locked up the car and made my way towards the middle of the campus, to the building that Night Light had taken me to the night that this whole mess had begun. I followed the same path as we’d taken that night, cutting through the lawn and curling around the edges of the pond.
I stopped at the edge of the water, curiosity taking hold of me.
The ducks and geese that had been scared off by the construct I’d fought had returned, but they seemed content to just swim to the far end of the pond or otherwise waddle away to lounge on the grass. I didn’t know if human world waterfowl were smart enough to remember seeing magic, or were even smart enough to understand the concept of magic, but these ones at least knew well enough to not start honking at me just for getting close.
They were ignoring me, so I returned the favor as I looked around to see if anyone was watching. The largest group of joggers had moved on already and probably wouldn’t loop back around for a while longer, so I squatted down at the edge of the pond and squinted into the murk. The water was nasty, shit-brown and slime-green with algae and duck-gunk. It was an actual pond, as opposed to one of those artificial deals that was more like a fountain or a small swimming pool – all cement and circulation pumps. Reeds and lilypads grew in the water, and the whole thing had a vaguely earthy stink from the recent rains churning up the silt.
I held an open palm towards the water – discreetly, just in case someone did look my way – and started to grope around with my magic.
With a little concentration I could feel my magic dragging across the floor of the pond, tugging at the mud and kicking it up in little clouds of sediment. The pond was surprisingly deep. The surface of the water bulged and waved as I searched for the chunks of rotting meat I’d thrown in the water the other night. It wasn’t anything violent, not any more so than waves caused by a good hard breeze, so nobody would notice anything weird if they happened to look my direction from a distance. The few birds still in the pond noticed, though. They flapped their wings angrily and swam to shore to waddle onto the grass, honking and quacking at the indignity.
I frowned as I came up empty-handed. There was nothing at the bottom of the water except loose mud and decomposing algae. That was odd, considering I could see still the divots I’d made in the lawn while I was slapping around that flesh doll the other night. The groundskeepers probably hadn’t gotten around to cleaning up my mess yet. The most likely scenario was that someone, or something, else had come along and collected the leftovers. I probably should have expected it.
That was too bad. If I could’ve gotten a little of that meat I might’ve been able to find out some more about the other guy’s magic. I don’t know much about necromancy, but I still had a couple of reliable non-changeling resources in my back pocket that I could’ve tapped. I would’ve figured out something.
I left the pond and continued on my way. Most everyone I crossed paths with ignored me, but a few of the joggers nodded at me in passing. It was actually a fairly nice day, now that I took a moment to appreciate it. The bright sun had already dried the ground, and the only clue that we’d had a storm the night before was the smell of wet earth and the humidity.
Night Light’s office was in the tallest building at the center of campus, which was a five story tall art exhibit made of glass and steel. It was the kind of building that architects designed to show off how clever they were, and rich people built to show off how much money they could burn. It was fairly new looking, and I would bet everything I had in the bank that the school’s board of trustees had probably made a big deal out of how fancy and modern the building was when it had gone up.
I was glad for the sunglasses. The glare of the summer sun reflecting off the polished monstrosity was damnably bright, and I could feel the air temperature rising at the foot of the shadowless thing. You could probably get a pretty awesome tan by laying under it.
I stepped into the air conditioned lobby and walked straight past the stairs to get to the elevator. I knew taking the stairs was healthier, but I liked elevators. Not for any special reason. I was just lazy.
The students and administration may have had the Spring off, but the faculty still had work to do, so I saw more than a few professorial types wandering around the lobby as I waited. A woman with a sharp nose and a glare that could peel paint walked down the stairs, an armful of yellow folders clutched against her chest. She stood at the base of the stairs and tapped her foot impatiently as she shot a withering look back up the stairs. A portly man with thick sideburns was slowly ambling his way down after her, a briefcase in one hand and a kerchief in the other to dab lightly at his forehead. They argued briefly, their voices a soft sort of echo ringing off the walls without detail. The chubby man said something that the woman must have found funny, because she laughed and held the door for him as they left the building.
In another life, that might’ve been me.
Celestia had been raising me as her student, but to what end I never knew. Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if I’d stuck it out, not been such a little bitch to the only person – pony or otherwise – who’d ever really wanted to do right by me. Maybe she would have had me be a professor for her Gifted Unicorn program, or set me up as dean of Canterlot Academy. Maybe I’d have been a diplomat, or her personal assistant.
Shit, maybe I could’ve even been made a princess like Cadance – like I’d stupidly demanded.
I could still see them walking away through the glass doors, still laughing, and with a sigh I forced myself to look the other way. The last few days had me all screwed up. In a normal week I’d think about Equestria maybe four, five times, tops. Ever since Night Light and his troubles had stumbled into my life, however, it seemed like I was seeing little reminders of home everywhere I looked.
That kind of melancholy is bad for the soul, bad for magic. I needed to get it under control.
The elevator doors opened with a ding and I got in. I pressed the button to close the door and left my self-reflection in the lobby.
Night’s office was on the fourth floor, which was thankfully a lot less busy than the lobby was. It wasn’t the top floor, where the really big shots were, but the last time I’d been up here Night had explained that the various heads of the different departments and some of the oldest tenured professors had their offices on his floor.
Night Light had taken me up to his office to have a look around before, but at the time I hadn’t been paying much attention to the details of where he’d led me. It took a few minutes of checking down each hallway before I found the door to his office.
I almost didn’t recognize it. Some of his students must have dropped by since the news had been let out about his passing, leaving their final goodbyes behind in the form of a makeshift memorial. I stood in front of the door for a while, taking in the scene.
There were a lot of poems, which made sense considering the guy was a literature professor. He’d probably taught a ton of aspiring poets and wannabe writers. What caught my attention, though, were the pictures. They were mostly little wallet-sized graduation photos, where NIght Light was beaming proudly at the camera as he wrapped an arm around one of his students. There were also a lot of printed-out selfies of girls posing as he snuck in and photobombed them with a silly face, or candid shots of the poor guy struggling to carry too many books.
I scratched the back of my hand uncomfortably. A sense of voyeuristic shame was shimmying its way up my spine as I looked over the little offerings that Night’s students had left him. It was probably my conscience's way of reminding me that the whole reason the guy had died was because of my screw up.
I didn’t have time, or the inclination, to beat myself up over it, though. I only had a few hours of daylight left, and I wanted to be back home before it got dark, so I shook myself off and tried the door handle.
Locked. Because why wouldn’t it be?
Not that a locked door was much of a deterrent to me. I had more than a few tricks that could get me through a locked door without any warding on it. Some of them would even leave the door standing.
I gathered a little bit of power in my hand, just enough to shift around the pegs and turn the tumbler in the lock, and checked the hallway to make sure that no one was looking.
I was doing something I shouldn’t have been doing, so of course someone was looking.
She was standing at the end of the hall that led back towards the elevator, her head tilted curiously as she stared at me. She was dressed in a bright yellow sun dress, tied at the waist with a long white sash that accentuated her figure – and it was a damn nice figure. Her hair was loose, billowing freely and without the need for wind, as though without substance, as though it were made of light and the majesty of power itself.
It was her, the woman from the picture Luna had shown me – her sister, Celestia. Even in another body, another world, her eyes were the same, albeit a lot younger, less heavy with the weight of millennia of joys and hardships.
My control relaxed for just a second and the very small amount of power I’d called up slipped free of my spell. The backlash nipped at my fingertips with a muted pop, like an electric shock. My hand flinched away from the handle and I loudly, out of reflex, accused the door handle of having inappropriate sexual relations with its own mother.
“Oh, wow, that looked like it hurt,” Princess Celestia said as she hurried over. “I think I actually saw the static discharge.”
I stuck my fingers in my mouth, the sharp throb pushing back my surprise at seeing Princess Celestia suddenly popping out from around a corner.
No, not princess, just Celestia, I had to remind myself. I blinked and her flowing mane had mass again. It was full and bushy, colorful as an aurora over the polar skies, but it was a decidedly human head of hair.
“Are you alright, there?” Celestia asked.
I nodded dumbly. I realized with a start that I was still sucking my fingers and quickly pulled them away, hurriedly wiping the spittle off on my pant leg. “It’s fine,” I said. “Believe it or not, I’ve been shocked worse.”
“So… were you looking for Doctor Night Light?” Celestia awkwardly asked.
I’m pretty good at reading body language, thanks to my job, but even if I wasn’t I’d be able to tell how nervous Celestia was just by looking at her. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she was slowly grinding the tip of one of her tennis shoes into the carpet.
I took off the sunglasses that I suddenly realized I’d forgotten to remove downstairs and folded them closed. I stuck one of the arms into my pocket, letting the big shades hang from my hip.
“I already know about him… passing,” I explained, to her very visible relief.
“Ah, okay,” she said with a sympathetic smile. She held out a hand for me to shake. “My name’s Celestia, by the way.”
I stared at Celestia’s outstretched hand like it was a flaming cobra, half expecting it to bite me. I must’ve stared just long enough for it to seem rude, because Celestia started to pull back. I grabbed her hand, shook it, and my mind drew a blank.
Should I give a fake name?
No, no that would be stupid. I was kinda-sorta seeing her little sister. I was going to end up meeting her eventually, I knew that.
I just hadn’t considered that it might be so soon.
If there was any saving grace to this situation, it was that, at this point in time, there was no reason to let on that I knew who she was or that I had any connection to her sister. As long as I didn’t get nervous and shout out “I felt up your sister!” then maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
Besides, I always had trouble lying to my Celestia, and my Liar Senses were tingling and telling me it would be a bad idea here, too. I’d have to settle for half-truths.
“My name’s Sunset Shimmer,” I said. “I was a friend of Night Light’s. I wanted to come by and pay my respects.”
Celestia’s smile brightened, and for just a second I could see the shade of my teacher in that smile.
“I take it you’re not one of his students,” Celestia said as she took back her hand.
“What makes you say that?”
“I’ve been here for a while,” she explained. “I know pretty much everyone in the department, and you don’t look much older than me, so you’re probably not an alum from an older class.”
I rubbed nervously at the back of my neck. A couple thousand years younger or not, this Celestia was just as sharp as the one I knew.
“Yeah, not a student,” I said. “Night and I met a while back. I’m an expert on… I guess you could say mythology. He consulted with me on some stuff and we hit it off.”
Celestia’s lips pursed and she made a curious little hum. “Huh, really? I thought I knew all the people he collaborated with. What sort of mythology?”
“General stuff,” I said, trying to dig upwards out of the hole I was now standing in. “I’m mostly an expert on… yanno, folklore and depictions of the supernatural in various cultures… it was a personal project of his, so I wouldn’t have turned up in his research papers or nothing.”
“Ah, okay, one of those projects,” she said with a laugh. “He was always following rabbits down holes. He’d get a bee in his bonnet about some random thing he read about and spend a week getting sidetracked researching something that had nothing to do with what he’d started on. Half my job as his assistant was making sure he stayed on task.”
That definitely seemed like something the bookish guy I’d met would do.
“Hah, I get the same way,” I said with a laugh, nervous relief flooding through me. The mood lightened, and I took the chance to change the subject off myself. “Did you come by to pay your respects, too?”
She shook her head and sighed as she ran her fingers through her hair. “Sadly, no.”
She reached down into a small purse at her hip that I hadn’t noticed before and started digging around. I didn’t know a lot about fashion these days – it had been a while since I’d had the kind of unlimited disposable income to piss away on that kind of luxury – but I recognized a designer clutch when I saw one. That little bit of Italian leather and brass buckles probably cost more than the performance tires on my muscle car.
The clutch was dangling from a thin silver chain that ran from one shoulder down to the opposite hip, folding the material of her dress down between her breasts. The primitive part of my brain that can’t help itself started comparing Celestia’s full bosom to her sister’s more modest, but perkier, bust, and I mentally slit the throat of that image before it could get any more vivid.
It was just too… Freudian.
“The whole department knows that I was Professor Night Light’s research assistant,” she said as she pulled out a ring of keys. “The dean’s secretary called earlier this morning and asked me to come by and go through the materials in his office – pack things up, sort out what’s his and what isn’t. Most of his research is owned by the university and they want to pass it off to someone else to finish.”
That didn’t sit well with me. The guy’s ashes were barely cold and they were already divvying up his work, like an old workhorse that died in the field being shoved aside so they could hitch another one up to his yolk.
“It’s kind of soon for that, isn’t it?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It’s not as callous as you’re probably thinking,” she explained. “They said I didn’t have to hurry. They gave me a month to get it done before they sent in a janitor to clean everything out for whoever’s going to get his office now... but it’s not like I had anything else to do…”
Celestia held the keys in her open palm, staring at them sadly. She let out a single tired, lonely laugh and held them up for me. She gave them a jingle, putting on a smile that I could tell was forced. “You wanted to go inside, right?” she asked. “Please say yes. I really wasn’t looking forward to being in there alone.”
It looked like for once the universe was going to throw me a bone. Celestia was supposed to be here, so I wouldn’t even have to commit a felony today… maybe. The day was still young, after all.
I nodded and stepped aside to let Celestia get to the door. She picked the key out of the ring and let us in.
Last time I’d been in Night’s office I hadn’t hadn’t done more than peek my head inside and give it a quick look-through. I’d been looking for tears in space itself, or objects radiating magical significance. It was something very specific, and so the trees had gotten lost in the forest, so to speak. Now, though, I was really taking in the office.
It was pretty big for a professor’s digs, or at least it seemed that way to my limited recollection. It had been a while since I'd been in a school myself, but I’d seen a lot of teacher’s offices back when I was schoolfilly at a fancy boarding school, and I’d seen tons of academic offices in movies. Those movies usually had titles like ‘Boner Academy’ and ‘Topless Co-Ed Massacre’, but I was willing to count them as valid reference points.
The office was big enough that it fit a couple of bookshelves, a desk, some chairs, and a few filing cabinets, with enough room left over that Celestia and I could have brought two or three more people in before we started feeling crowded. Still, the place was a disorganized mess, and Celestia had to skirt her way around a couple stacks of books that came up to her knees with a practiced grace that made me think the office always looked this way.
Celestia stood behind the desk for a minute, frowning at the mess of papers and opened notebooks. She took a deep breath and turned to grab a couple of brown cardboard file boxes off the top of a cabinet. “This is going to take a while,” she muttered as she opened lid of one of the boxes and checked if it was empty.
“He was kind of messy, huh?”
“Only compared to normal people,” she said. “Somehow he knew where everything was... I’m used to it by now.”
“Need some help?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, but thanks. I just want to get this done and I know more or less what I need to pack away for the department and what’s coming home with me. Feel free to look around.”
I nodded and did just that.
The bookworm part of my brain had honed right in on the bookshelves, so I went to take a look at some of what Night Light had to read. His selection was about as organized and scattershot as what I had in my study. He had literary classics with worn spines sandwiched between dogeared kids' chapter books, three different editions of the same textbook, some DVDs of Shakespearean performances sitting atop a stack of old cowboy pulp novels, and so on. A lot of his tastes were actually pretty in line with my own, and a brief stab of regret cut into me at the thought that, had he not died, we actually maybe could have been real good friends.
My curiosity satisfied, I started running my fingers over the spines and covers, trying to play it off like I was still browsing as I shot surreptitious little glances at Celestia, who was sorting through the mess Night Light had left behind. I had to remember that I was here to get Twilight’s glasses, so I needed to figure out how to get them from under her nose. First I had to find them, though, and Celestia didn’t look like she was going to be getting up from the desk any time soon.
If I was lucky she’d find them for me, put them in a box and look away long enough for me to do a little sleight of hand. She probably wouldn’t even notice they were gone.
“So what do you do when you’re not consulting?” Celestia asked over the sound of shuffling paperwork as she tried to sort out Night Light’s mess.
“I, uh… I’m a fortune teller.”
The sound of rustling paper stopped and I could almost feel Celestia’s eyes on my back.
“A fortune teller?” she repeated.
“Yeah, you know, tarot cards and junk,” I said, half-embarrassed and defensive.
I’ve never been ashamed of what I do. It’s not something glamorous like being a starlet, or highfalutin like being a doctor, but I’m damn good at my hustle. Still, something about telling Celestia about what I did was… uncomfortable, I guess. Like I was telling my mom that I was stripping my way through junior college.
I know I shouldn’t feel that way, especially since this wasn’t my Celestia, but I did. It was a complicated feeling, so I decided to rationalize it to myself by saying that I still wanted to impress her, because I was pretty sure I’d be getting into her sister’s pants eventually.
“That’s pretty neat,” she said without sarcasm. I let out a sigh of relief that I didn’t know I’d been holding at the lack of judgement in her voice. “I have a friend who worked as a telephone psychic to pay for her undergrad. She took a weekend course in, um… oh, what the devil did she call it…? That thing where you ask questions.”
“Cold reading?”
Celestia snapped her fingers. “That’s it. Cold reading.”
“I do that,” I said. “I do it live, though. I’m more of a performer than anything. Depending on the gig I can make a couple of grand a night.”
“Wow, seriously?” Celestia asked, impressed. “You must be pretty good.”
I flashed her a grin over my shoulder, my ego swelling from the compliment. “I’m the best in town.”
“Maybe one day you can tell me my fortune,” she said. “You can read my life-line and tell me how long I’m going to live.”
I laughed nervously. “Y-yeah, that’d be fun.”
The tinny sound of a some old showtune filled the room and Celestia muttered something under her breath as she put down a ream of papers she’d been flipping through. She opened her clutch and pulled out her phone to check the message she’d just gotten.
“It’s my sister,” she said, frowning.
A moment of illogical worry swept through me that something might’ve happened while Luna was watching Twilight, so I pulled out my own phone and thumbed it on to see if maybe I’d missed a text.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“She’s just saying that she’s going to be home late again,” Celestia explained as she typed out a response. She glared at the screen for a few moments, as though contemplating adding something else to whatever she’d written, before hitting the send button and putting the phone away. “I’m starting to worry about that girl...”
“Why worry?” I asked as I went back to looking over the books. Considering who we were talking about, I wasn’t quite ready for eye contact just yet, so I decided to feign interest in a Harlequin paperback with a burly farmhand groping a half-undressed, half-his-age debutant on the cover.
“Because I don’t know what she’s been doing the last couple of days,” Celestia said as she ran her fingers roughly through her hair. “This whole thing has been rough for me, and maybe it’s selfish of me to say, but it would have been nice to have my sister around. Instead, yesterday she left the house dressed up like she was going out, she kept my car and stayed out really late, and this morning she was flouncing around the house like she was walking on air…”
I put the book in my hands back on the shelf as another pound of guilt settled itself into my heart. Luna had said that Celestia was taking the news about Night and his family hard. It made sense that she’d want her little sister there for emotional support. Instead, Luna had been coming to my place to watch Twilight and make flirty eyes at me.
“I can’t really be mad, though…” Celestia said after a long moment of silence. “Everyone processes grief differently. She was very fond of Twilight, so she’s probably taking this hard, too, in her own way. I just hope she’s making good decisions, whatever she’s doing…”
I heaved a heavy sigh and took one of the empty seats next to the desk. “You guys were really close, huh?” I asked, rhetorically. “You and Night, I mean.”
She nodded, a sad smile playing across her lips. “Back when I was in undergrad, he used to run this lit discussion group that met at the coffee shop that used to be down the street, before it got turned into a Portuguese bakery. I got dragged there by a friend that was in one of his classes, and I had so much fun I kept going back. He was funny and smart and he never made you feel like you had to impress him.”
“Sounds kind of like you had a crush on the guy,” I said, one eyebrow quirked suggestively.
“Ah, maybe at first,” Celestia said, looking away as she rubbed sheepishly at the back of her neck. “It was a kid’s crush. I got over it. I was just happy that I ended up with him as my advisor for my major. He helped me a lot, and I did what I could to help him here and there with grading papers and organizing his notes. Eventually he just asked me to be his formal research assistant.” She waved a hand over the pile of loose papers on the desk, still only half sorted. “As you can see he needed all the organizational help he could get.”
“It’s good to have a mentor,” I said with a smile. “I was... home schooled. Had a lot of tutors. More bad than good, but the one really good one that I had, she taught me things as a kid that I’m only just now starting to wrap my head around as an adult.”
Celestia returned my smile with one of her own.
“You know, Doctor Night Light was the reason I decided to apply for the Education Administration program.” She clenched her fist and held it proudly against her chest. “He said I had the soul of an educator and the anal retentiveness of an accountant. Said it was the perfect mix to be an administrator. I learned so much from him… I’m going to miss him a lot.”
Celestia pushed aside some papers and found a box of tissues tucked away in a corner of the desk next to a cookie jar, which was shaped like a brain and was missing the lid. She’d been getting misty-eyed, so she pulled a couple of the tissues out and dabbed at her eyes.
“Look at me, getting all weepy.” She laughed. “You want to see something?”
“Sure.”
Celestia spun around in the chair and pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk. “He used to have a big corkboard up on the wall next to the door,” she said as she wrestled with something in the drawer. I knew the sound of a junk drawer when I heard one. “He had a bunch of pictures on it, but it kept falling off because he’d forget it was there and open the door too hard. He kept hanging it back up, but the silly man never thought to just move it. When I finished my undergrad, I wanted to get him a present to thank him for helping me out so much, so I got him a photo album that he could put all those pictures in.”
The album in question was hefted onto the desk, the bric a brac in the drawer tumbling noisily to fill in the space left behind by its absence. Celestia opened the album and waved me closer.
The album had a lot of the same stuff that people had taped to his door – pictures of Night Light teaching classes, posing with graduating students in their gown and mortar board. There were also a lot of pictures of Night in various costumes, standing on stages with cheaply-designed sets. The guy must have done some plays with the theater department.
What was really eye-catching, though, were all the pictures of Night Light and his family. Them at the lake, at the beach, on picnics. One picture in particular, though, really seemed to have caught Celestia’s attention.
It was a picture of Twilight standing on a chair, looming over a huge cake that bore birthday wishes in colorful frosted lettering. She didn’t look more than five or six, and her hair was tied into cute little pigtails. Her dad was behind her, his arm around her waist so she didn’t pitch face-first into the cake, and her mother was on her left. On her right was her brother. They all had their tongues out as they mugged funny faces at the camera.
The cake had big white unicorn on it, funny enough. It looked like the kid hadn’t been kidding when she said she liked unicorns. Something about that seemed like another one of those big cosmic jokes on me, specifically.
“That was Twilight’s birthday, two years ago,” Celestia said, tiredly. She sniffled like she was just barely holding back tears.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just nodded.
“He used to invite me and my sister over for dinner sometimes, but that was the first time he said I should come to a family celebration,” she said. “Miss Velvet was always so nice to me. She asked me to join her book club once, but I told her I did enough reading at school... And Shining Armor, he used to have a crush on me. He told me so last summer.” Celestia laughed into her hand, despite the tears that had finally broken free. “Poor boy actually made a move on me. I turned him down, of course, but I definitely had to give him points for bravery. It takes a bold young man to make a pass on a woman ten years his senior.”
“Twilight looks happy in this picture,” I commented, to myself as much as to Celestia.
The smile on Twilight’s face was even bigger than the one she’d worn in the picture that was now hanging on the wall in her room back at my house. It was the pure, unspoiled smile of a child on her birthday, surrounded by people that she loved and loved her, celebrating the occasion with presents and the eating of cake until she puked.
Luna had said that Twilight was notably more relaxed around me, but I’d never known her before the night she’d had everything taken away from her. Our experiences change us – sometimes for the better, but most times not – and I knew for certain that the Twilight back at my house eating donuts and ruining my furniture with glittery stickers wasn’t the same little girl as the one in these pictures. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever get to see her smile like that in person – if she was even still capable of it after having experienced what she had.
“I’ve never thought about having children of my own,” Celestia whispered, her voice quavering with emotion, “but if I did, I’d want a daughter like Twilight…”
Something inside Celestia seemed to break, and all at once the leaking dam of composure she’d been holding back her grief with tumbled down. Her beautiful face darkened, withering with grief.
“I’m sorry, excuse me a minute,” she muttered in a strangled whisper. She pushed away from the desk, got up, and walked quickly out of the room. A stack of books in the middle of the room that she’d skillfully avoided earlier toppled noisily to the ground as she brushed past it. She’d left in such a hurry that she hadn’t even taken her purse with her.
I sat, stunned for a moment as I realized that I’d just seen more emotion from the human Celestia in five minutes than I’d seen in the alicorn Celestia in years of having known her. If you’d have told seven-year-old me that I’d get to see Princess Celestia cry, I’d have laughed in your face.
I shook off my surprise and got out of my seat and into the one she’d just vacated. I was finally alone in the office. I didn’t know how long Celestia would take to put herself back together, but this was my chance to get a quick look around.
Luckily, I’d found the thing I’d come here for easily enough. In the junk drawer that the photo album had come out of were a couple of little plastic cases.
One of them was flat and wide, like the kind of container you kept dentures in. I opened it and found a retainer that was definitely too big to fit a kid’s mouth, so it was probably Twilight’s brother’s.
The other case was a longer purple one with the initials ‘TS’ written in fat black marker. Inside was a small pair of glasses with black plastic frames, just big enough that they’d fit Twilight’s head.
“You were a good dad, Night,” I said to the empty room as I slipped the case into my pocket.
Since I was here anyway, I decided to do a little more snooping. Nothing was standing out that could have linked Night Light to the supernatural, but you’d be surprised how often invading a dead man’s privacy paid off.
I started thumbing through the stacks of papers that Celestia had been going over on the desk. It was mostly just midterm papers and exams – some graded, many not – from Night’s students. Some of these kids had atrocious spelling. The filing cabinets had more of the same, plus some gradebooks and student records he was keeping. The grades were surprisingly well organized compared to the rest of his filing system, probably because that kind of thing had to be submitted to the department for recording. The books on the shelf had come up clean, and a quick glance under the desk failed to turn up anything like a hidden drawer or a letter taped to the underside.
All in all, Night Light seemed to be every bit the choir boy I’d pegged him to be from the start.
I tapped my finger on the desk thoughtfully, turning things over in my mind. I scuffed the industrial-grade carpet with the tip of my boot, briefly considering pulling it up to see if maybe there might be a sigil or something painted underneath it.
No, no, that would be silly… but maybe in the air vent...
Just as I was checking behind the framed pictures and degrees hanging on the wall, I heard the soft, muffled sound of sneakers scuffing against the rough carpet in the hallway. I leaned back in the chair and pretended that I hadn’t just been snooping. With a flick of my fingers the tower of books Celestia had knocked over righted itself, and I flipped the page of the album, continuing to browse the pictures to help the illusion.
“Sorry about that,” Celestia said as she stepped back into the office. Her eyes were puffy and red, and there were smears of black in the corners of her eyes. She bent down to grab her purse and pulled out a small compact. She clucked her tongue at her reflection in the tiny mirror and got another tissue, dabbed it on her tongue, and scrubbed at the smudges. “Stupid makeup…” she muttered.
“You don’t gotta apologize, I get it,” I said.
Celestia put away the compact and tossed the dirty tissue in the bin next to the desk. “It’s just hard to believe they’re gone,” she said, sighing as she sat back down, her eyes fixed on the album. “At least I still have lots of pictures, right?”
The hurt in Celestia’s voice was so thick that I almost spilled the beans right there about Twilight still being alive… but I couldn’t do it. It was bad enough that Luna was hanging around, but I didn’t want Celestia in the middle of this business. When it was all over, Luna and I could take Twilight to see her.
Celestia was probably going to keep all these pictures, too, so Twilight would get to see them eventually. It’d be nice for her to have more pictures.
I turned the page on the album, and as my eyes swept over one of the photographs, I saw something that made my heart skip a beat.
“Hold on,” I said, pulling the album closer so I could squint at a wrinkled polaroid snapshot.
In the picture, Night Light was standing in a bar, his prim little haircut a mess and his tie hanging loosely around his neck. He had a beer in his hand, and the other arm was being held in the air triumphantly by another man, like Night had just won some kind of contest. Judging from the sleepy look in his eyes, it was probably a drinking contest.
The other man had a tumbler of something dark in his hand and looked equally inebriated. He was swarthy, with a full head of black hair that I could tell, even with the poorly lit picture, was dulling with streaks of gray. The man had removed his shirt, which had probably seemed like a good idea to his alcohol-pickled brain, and his upper body was clad in only a white tank top that was stained with sweat and spilled drinks.
I jabbed a finger at the picture, indicating the man that was posing and laughing with Night Light. “Do you know this guy?” I asked.
“That’s Doctor Caballeron,” Celestia said. “He and Doctor Night Light used to be good friends. Maybe even best friends.”
“Used to be?”
“Well, yeah, years ago,” Celestia said, her brow knitting thoughtfully. “Doctor Caballeron was a professor here in the Anthropology department up until… I want to say five years ago?”
“He quit?”
“Fired, actually. The university found out that he was under investigation for using his connections and school resources to smuggle cultural antiquities. I don’t think the criminal charges stuck, but the school threw him out on his ear, blacklisted him from academia.” She shook her head sadly. “There’s no coming back from that. Nobody had heard from him for the longest time.”
“Any idea what happened to him after he left?”
Celestia frowned. “I don’t know what he’s been doing since then, but I do know he was on campus a couple of weeks ago.”
My hand clenched into a fist at my side as I beat down the urge to shout out. “You saw him?” I asked with forced calm.
“Not me,” she answered with a shrug. “I have a friend in the PhD. program, Autumn Grace, whose boyfriend has a sister who works in the university secretarial pool. Autumn told me that her boyfriend said that his sister said that Doctor Caballeron was wandering around campus and ran into the dean. The dean called security and had him escorted off the grounds. A lot of the younger kids don’t remember what happened, but it was big gossip for us older students and the faculty once it got around.”
“What was he doing on campus?” I asked. “Was he coming to see Night?”
“That’s what I figured. I asked Doctor Night Light about it, but he said he hadn’t seen him.”
I looked back at the picture, at the happy, drunken grins they wore. “Think he was telling the truth? They look pretty chummy to me.”
“Like I said, Doctor Caballeron was probably his best friend,” Celestia said, frowning. “But, I do know that they had a pretty harsh falling out over the whole smuggling scandal. Doctor Night Light was a man of integrity. If he cut ties with Doctor Caballeron, then the rumors probably had some truth to them.”
“Okay, then,” I said, nodding slowly. I lifted up the plastic cover on the album page and pulled out the picture of Night and this Caballeron guy. “I’m taking this.”
Celestia blinked at me. “What? Why?”
I tried to think of an excuse that wouldn’t sound weird, but nothing came to mind. Celestia was sharp enough that she probably wasn’t going to let it go, considering I’d taken so much interest in it.
And so, without thinking, out of pure habit, I did what I always did when I ran into a problem. I used magic.
I gathered my power in my chest, the magic surging its way up my throat, burning, as I commanded her to, “Forget it.”
Celestia’s eyes went all glassy, oblivious to anything except the words I’d just spoken.
I slipped the wrinkled snapshot into my back pocket and added, “There was no picture. We weren’t just discussing Doctor Caballeron.”
I flipped the album to the next page so she wouldn’t see the blank spot in the album. I slid it across the desk to Celestia, and the look of drugged befuddlement on Celestia’s face melted away as she looked down at the new page.
“Ah,” she said, gasping. She jabbed a finger at one of the pictures, a sad smile playing across her lips. “I remember that. That was at the inter-department softball tournament. The Math department trounced everyone, because one of the professors used to play minor-league baseball.”
I was just about to make an excuse to leave when my phone tweeted at me, alerting me to a text message. It was from Luna.
“How get chicken back 2 coop???”
I blinked, my mouth agape as I read and reread the message. Did… did they let my chickens out?
I was about to reply when the phone vibrated in my hands and tweeted again.
“nvrmnd!” the message said. She’d added a winky emoji with little animated hearts floating out of it.
“I think I have to go,” I said slowly, rising to my feet.
“Is everything okay?” Celestia asked, polite concern touching her voice.
“Yeah, yeah, I just… gotta get home,” I said. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Hold on.” Celestia opened a drawer and pulled out a pen and an index card, which she quickly scribbled on. “This is my phone number,” she said, her words muffled and whistling through the pen cap she held in her teeth.
“Oh, um, thank you,” I said as I accepted the stiff slip of paper. I folded it in half and tucked it into my pocket with the picture I’d just swiped.
“Give me a call in a day or two,” Celestia said warmly. “I want to put together a little wake for Doctor Night and his family, and I’d love it if you could make it to that.”
“I can do that,” I said, forcing a smile.
“It was really nice to meet you, too, Sunset Shimmer.” Her cheeks pinkened. “And thanks for sitting and talking with me.”
“Of course,” I said, stiffly.
I slipped on the big ugly shades, gave a final goodbye, and raised a hand to wave as I left. Celestia returned the wave with one of her own and an extra reminder to call her later.
For once I took the stairs, rather than wait for the elevator. I didn’t want to stop moving for fear that the shame of what I’d just done might catch up to me.
I’d used magic on Celestia.
I’d used his magic on Celestia.
I don’t like using magic to force people to do things. It’s a power over other mortals that I flat out don’t trust myself with. Using it in a fight, or against someone that I know has it coming, is one thing, but it was quite another to use it just as a matter of convenience. It's a slippery slope.
I can spin a yarn like nobody’s business, and if I’d put my mind to it, I know I could’ve worked out a story that wouldn’t have left Celestia confused as to why I wanted the picture. It wouldn't have been easy, but I know I could've pulled it off if I really put my mind to it. But instead of relying on my social skills, I’d fallen back on my old habits, because it was easier – because it was in my nature to be lazy and spoiled by the power I had.
My feet didn’t stop until I was safely back in the parking lot, leaning against the trunk of my car, my hands laced behind my head as I stared up at the steadily blushing sky. I'd wasted more of the day than I'd thought. The sun would be setting before too long.
I sucked in a lungful of air and let it out with a huff. “Be better than that,” I murmured reproachfully to myself.
At least it hadn’t been for nothing.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I brought up my contacts list, dialed the number I needed, and waited. My first attempt went straight to voicemail, and rather than leave a message, I hung up and immediately redialed.
This time, Cilia picked up on the third ring.
“Yes?” she said, tersely.
There was a languid quality underlying the annoyance in her small, childish voice. I’d probably caught her in the middle of a nap. With her changelings on lockdown there wasn’t anyone out in the street hustling for the love they needed to live. Her entire brood was probably hunkered down and sleeping to preserve their energy. Old as she was, Cilia needed to be more careful than the rest with how much energy she used.
“Hey, sorry to wake you,” I said, genuinely apologetic. “I need a favor.”
There was a brief pause, followed by a half-sighed groan. “What is it?”
“I know you’ve got the wagons circled, but I’m willing to bet you have a couple of eyes still on the street.”
“And if I do?”
I tugged the photo out of my pocket, frowning at the man next to Night Light in the picture. “I’ve got a picture of somebody I need found.”
I narrowed my eyes at the blurry circle of black ink tattooed on the man's chest. The strap of his tank-top undershirt concealed half of it, but I could make out enough to recognize the sigil. I’d seen it before, or at least ones like it, inked into the skin of low-rent sorcerers. It was a very minor protection charm that worked a little like a personal ward, offering some defense against minor hexes and mildly malicious spirits. Even a few of the heavy-hitter sorcerers I’d met still bore that sort of reminder of their earliest attempts at sorcery – the hedge magic that almost everyone dabbled in before they got their grubby little hands on real power.
From what I’d found so far, Caballeron was the only thing that linked Night Light and his family to anything even remotely supernatural. Coupled with the fact that he’d disappeared for several years after a falling out, only to turn up just as Night started getting the otherworldly heebie-jeebies, I’d put dollars to donuts that it was more than a coincidence.
Maybe this Caballeron guy still had a grudge over something that was said. I wouldn’t put it past a necro to be unhinged enough to be after revenge for something as minor as a tiff with an ex-friend. I’d heard worse justifications for murder.
“I’m pretty sure I might’ve found a clue as to what happened to my friend.”
There was another moment of pause that stretched on so long that I felt a twinge of fear that she might say no. The fear died as I heard the sound of rusty, creaking bedsprings and a muffled shout. A second or two later I could hear Cilia saying something that I couldn’t make out to whomever she’d just called for.
“Nightriver Park,” Cilia said curtly into the receiver. “One of my nephews will wait for you under the monkey bars.”
“Thanks, Cilia,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I really appreciate it.”
There was a tired grunt from the other end of the call, and the shrill cry of bedsprings told me Cilia had laid back down. “No promises, Sunset Shimmer, but we will do what we can.”
And with a yawn, she hung up.
* * *
I was feeling good as I stepped on to my porch steps. I’d gotten the glasses for Twilight, survived my brush with this world’s Celestia, and to top it off, I was finally making headway into finding out who killed Night Light. The hand off with the picture had gone well, and if I was lucky, within a couple of days I’d have a lead on where to find Caballeron. Things were finally starting to look up.
So imagine my surprise when I walked through my front door to find Luna at the end of the darkened hallway, sitting at the bottom of the steps leading to the second floor, hugging her knees against her chest. Her phone was in her hand, like she was waiting for a call.
“Luna?” I asked as I flipped on the light in the hall. “What are you doing in the dark? Where’s Twilight?”
With the light on I could see that Luna had a tired look about her, like she wanted to cry, but couldn’t summon the energy for it.
“She’s upstairs,” Luna said wearily. “I’m sorry, she, um… We fed the chickens and we were going to watch TV. We were having fun, but then she just… I don’t know. She got up and said she had to go to the bathroom. When she didn’t come back down I went looking for her. She’s in her room and she refuses to come out, said she wanted to be left alone.”
I threw my jacket and keys on the table next to the door. This was certainly throwing cold water on my optimism. If it wasn’t one thing it was another.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said as I headed upstairs. I put a hand on Luna’s shoulder as I passed, and I stopped as she put her own hand atop it.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I didn’t want you to worry so I was debating if I should call you or not. I thought I could handle it, but she wouldn’t stop shouting at me until I left the room.”
I gave Luna’s shoulder an extra squeeze as I flashed her a smile that I hoped was reassuring. “It’s okay. I got this.”
We let go of each other and I climbed the steps up to the second floor. The door to Twilight’s room was closed, and was now marked by a rainbow sticker in the dead center of the door. I reached for the knob, but stopped short of turning it. I gave it a second thought and knocked with my other hand.
“Hey, kid, it’s Sunset,” I said, raising my voice so she could hear me through the door. “I’m going to come in, okay?”
There was no answer, but I took the lack of a rejection as permission and went in.
The room that Twilight had claimed as her own still didn’t have a lot in it. A few of the things I’d bought her the night before were still in the bags, sitting on the writing desk. The quilted blanket from the bed was laying on the floor against the wall, like she’d balled it up and thrown it in a fit. The brand new clothes I’d gotten her were also scattered carelessly around the room.
Twilight wasn’t in here, and I was about to walk out and check the rest of the upstairs when I heard a muffled sob from the closet.
“Kid?” I asked as I gently rapped on the closet door. “You in there?”
Twilight didn’t reply, except for the sound of hurried sniffles.
I opened the door and found Twilight sitting in the corner, curled into a ball, her face pressed against her knees. I stepped into the closet and closed the door behind me, cutting us off from the light in the bedroom. I sat down next to Twilight, careful not to touch her, and just pressed my head against the back wall, listening to the sound of Twilight breathing heavily in the darkness.
“What happened?” I asked.
I couldn’t see Twilight, but I heard her moving in the darkness, scooting further into the corner of the closet and further into herself.
“Nothing,” she said, her voice slightly raspy from whatever shouting she’d done at Luna earlier. “I just wanted to be left alone.”
“You want me to go, then?”
I could feel movement in the darkness, and her little hand shot out, groping at the air until her fingers brushed against my arm. She grabbed me by the elbow, her fingers shaking as they dug into my arm.
“Okay,” I said.
“I wasn’t crying,” she said defiantly.
“It’s okay if you were.”
There was a pause, and then Twilight asked, “Is it…?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? I’ve already seen you cry,” I said.
The hand holding me tensed as Twilight flinched.
I sighed, realizing all at once what Luna had been talking about earlier. I thought back to the times I’d seen Twilight crying over the last few days, and there were fewer than I would have guessed. I knew she’d been mourning in private, the puffy, bloodshot eyes she walked around with were proof of that, but she didn’t really let me see it if she could help it.
I pulled my arm free from Twilight’s grasp and tugged her wrist, drawing her closer. Twilight didn’t resist, and slowly scooted closer, until she was pressed against my side. I put an arm around her and stroked her hair.
“You know, when I was in the orphanage,” I began, “sometimes a new kid would come in and be… sad. Sounds silly to say it like that, because why wouldn’t they be, right? Well sometimes they’d be extra sad. They’d cry for weeks straight, refuse to play or talk to anyone else, kept the rest of the kids in their bunk up at night... but they never did it in front of the adults. If a grown up was looking, they didn’t shed a tear – especially if it was a grown up that was looking to adopt a kid.
“On adoption days those kids smiled the widest, laughed the loudest, and had the best manners. I asked one once why he put on the act for the adults. He said ‘grown ups don’t want kids that are always sad’.”
My hand found its way to Twilight’s ear. I played with her earlobe, noting idly that it wasn’t pierced. Maybe when this was all done we could do that. Me, her, Luna, even Celestia if she wanted. We could get the kid her first earrings, buy her some lip gloss – make a girl’s day out of it.
“Is that why you didn’t want Luna to see you crying?” I asked. “Are you afraid we won’t want you around?”
“Maybe,” she said as she buried her face into my side.
“It’s okay to be sad, kid,” I told her. “We understand. We’re not going to suddenly think you’re too annoying to have around.”
“I don’t want to be sad though,” she said, her voice tight with frustration. “I hate this. I miss my mommy, and my daddy, and my big brother. Sometimes I feel alright, so I try to be happy because you’ve been really nice to me, but other times I…” She gripped the front of her shirt, twisting up the fabric angrily in her first. Her voice cracked as she told me, “It just hurts so much.”
“It’s going to be like that for a while, kid,” I said as went back to stroking her hair. “You’re going to feel fine, and then out of nowhere you’ll start missing them, and all that sadness is going to come up and start chewing on your heart. That’s what it means to be sad – really, truly, profoundly sad. You just have to ride it out, and every day the periods where you’re fine will get a little longer, and when the sadness comes it’ll fade a little quicker.”
“That sounds too much like forgetting them,” she said in a frightened whisper.
“You’ll never forget.” A memory flashed through my mind’s eye – a pair of bright, icy-blue eyes above a smile filled with warmth. I pushed it back, choosing instead to focus on the feeling of Twilight’s hair slipping between my fingers. “Right now it seems like your memories of them and the hurt are the same, but they’re not. Letting go of the pain doesn’t mean letting go of the memories. It won’t happen all at once, but it’ll happen. Don’t force trying to be happy for my sake, or Luna’s, or even for yours. If you want to smile, smile, if you don’t, then don’t. It's okay to cry as much as you need to.”
Grief is a pretty complex thing. It’s usually all tangled up with other things, like guilt, regret, loneliness. A screw up like me? I understood better than most that some pain just haunts you, follows you around your whole life like a specter. It’s not easy to move past it, and it never fully goes away, but it does get easier to live with if you’ve got the guts to dig down deep and keep trying to live your life. I could only hope that Twilight was as strong a kid as I thought she was – for her own sake.
My words seemed to reach her. Slowly but surely uncoiling the tension in her small body as I held her, like a pillbug uncurling from itself.
“I’ll try,” Twilight said hoarsely. “I promise.”
I gave Twilight and extra squeeze and dug around in my pocket until I found some change. I held the coins loosely in my fist and cast a quick spell. Light spilled from between my fingers, filling the closet with a dim glow. I held the coins out for Twilight to see, and they glowed with a soft light, like little glowbugs.
“It was too dark in here,” I said as I dropped them on the floor.
Twilight picked up a nickel and brought it close to her face, examining it like it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. She was squinting uncomfortably, probably as much from the light as from her bad eyes.
I rolled my eyes and pulled out the spare glasses. I handed her the case and she gave me a watery smile as she put them on. The thick black plastic frames weren’t very chic, but she pulled the look off pretty good.
“I think I need to say sorry to Luna,” Twilight said quietly, shamefully. She gathered up the coins in her hand in a single swipe like tiddlywinks, shaking them in her hand loosely, as though checking to see if the spell had changed the way the coins sounded. “I said really mean things to her… I told her that she didn’t care, that the only reason she was here was because she likes you.”
I sucked air through my teeth exaggeratedly. “Yeah,” I said, really drawing the word out. “That’s not good. You do know that’s not true, right?”
“Yeah, I know,” Twilight muttered. “I was mad because she wouldn’t leave me alone. She kept trying to hug me and ask me to talk to her, no matter how much I told her I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want her to see me crying in the first place, and when she did I got so angry that I… I just yelled and said whatever I thought would make her go away.”
“I’ll talk to her to about it, and you can come down and apologize as soon as you’re up for it, okay?” I said. I pushed myself up off the ground, grimacing as one of my knees popped from sitting in the tiny closet. “When you’re done with that we’ll figure out dinner and then we’ll watch Caddyshack. That always makes me feel better.”
Twilight looked up at me, tilting her head curiously. “What’s Caddyshack?”
“Oh, kid,” I said with a chuckle, “what do they teach you in those public schools?”
“I go to private school,” she said, blinking at me in confusion.
I rolled my eyes again. “Go ahead and take your time,” I said as I shut the door. “We’ll be waiting downstairs.”
I went back down and found Luna waiting for me in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table, wringing a dish towel between her hands like she was trying to get information out of it. It took her a moment to realize I’d walked in, and as soon as she did she shot to her feet, dropping the towel on the floor.
“Is she okay?”
I nodded. “Kind of shook up, but fine,” I said as I walked to the back door to look out the window. “She’ll be down in a little bit.”
Luna hopped up on the counter next to me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
She laughed humorlessly, rubbing her hands against her jeans hard enough that I could hear the denim scraping against her palms. “I’m so stupid. After you left, things were going so well. Twilight was having fun and I was having fun, and for a minute there I thought to myself that... maybe I could take Twilight… That maybe I could be… maybe not her mom, but maybe like a big sister? Or an aunt? That I could be the one to look out for her.”
“You’d do a better job than I would,” I said, folding my arms and feeling inadequate as an adult. “Hell, I didn’t even notice that she was still hurting this bad. Or maybe I did notice, but I just didn’t recognize it for what it was.”
“I definitely wouldn’t do a better job than you,” Luna insisted. “I may have noticed that she was bottling things up, but that's just because I've known her for longer than you have. You? She listens to you.”
"We have common ground." I shrugged. “I know what it’s like to be all alone at her age, is all.”
I knew I’d said too much when Luna’s head whipped around. In her wide eyes I could see her putting together the significance in my words, and the surprise faded, becoming pity. She opened her mouth to speak, but I turned my head away, cutting off whatever question was on her lips.
Out the corner of my eye, I could see the hurt written clearly on her reflection in the window. I scratched the back of my neck nervously, feeling guilt for something I shouldn’t have had to justify.
I sighed.
“It’s weird talking to Twilight about that stuff,” I said, deciding that I could offer her something. Not the whole story, not just yet, but at least some of it. “It’s hard for me to fully grasp what she’s going through. I know what it’s like to be in her situation, but I don’t know what it’s like to be her. I never really got to be a little girl, and frankly, I wasn’t really interested in it. All I can think about is how it was for me and I’ve never been exactly normal.”
I leaned my hip against the counter, my eyes sweeping the yard and scanning the sky for signs of rain. The sun was down, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky to block the pale blue glow of the moonlight. It was looking more and more like clear skies for the night.
“Because of the magic?” Luna asked.
“Because of a lot of reasons,” I said, “but mostly the magic, yeah.”
I could tell she wanted to ask more, but thankfully she accepted the small bit of what I’d decided to share, and leaned against the wall to join me in looking out the window.
“What are you looking at?”
“Looking to see if it’s going to rain,” I said. “Remember this morning I said I had some theories? The other guy is using a rain god’s power for his craft. I’ve been mulling over way the rain’s been coming down the last couple of days, and it’s got me thinking that he can’t get it up two nights in a row.”
“So he can only use magic every other day?”
“It’s looking like that might be the case,” I said.
Luna stuck out her lower lip, pouting thoughtfully. “Does that help us?” she asked.
“It might,” I said with a shrug. “If he can't cast two days in a row it probably means he's a weak vessel. When you make a deal with something you become a conduit for its power. If your deal is with something strong, like a god, then you're talking about real gas. Having a lot of power is great, but using heavyweight magic is a pretty big strain on the spirit and can even affect the physical body. If he's got a weak soul or a frail body that needs a whole day of rest after a major working, then that makes him a little more predictable.”
“Wow, you’re like a real detective now,” she said, smirking.
I grunted. “Speaking of that…” I said hesitantly. “You don’t happen to know someone named Doctor Caballeron, do you? Maybe heard his name around campus or something?”
Luna scratched her chin and one corner of her mouth twisted up in concentration. “I feel like maybe I have?” she said after a few moments of thought. “Nothing’s coming to mind, though. Who is he?”
“He used to be a professor at your school,” I said. “He got fired about five or so years ago.”
“Definitely before my time, then,” Luna said with a shake of her head. “I was still in high school five years ago.”
I frowned at that thought. The little age gap Luna and I had wasn’t big, but she probably was barely old enough to remember VHS tapes. I liked her, and I definitely wasn’t going to let that stop me, but still...
At least she was old enough to drink. I was choosing to count that as the deciding factor in my moral victory.
“Is he important?” Luna asked, oblivious to my minor internal debate about what degree of cradle-robbery I was guilty of.
“He might be,” I said. “I saw a picture of him in Night Light’s office. Guy had a warding tattoo – low-level magic stuff. Your sister said they used to be really good friends, so I figured—”
“Wait wait wait,” Luna said, holding up her hands. “Celestia said? You saw my sister?”
I cleared my throat. “Ah, yeah,” I muttered. “The university asked her to come back and clean out Night’s office.”
Luna’s habit of playing with her hair resurfaced. “How’d… how’d that go? I know you got kind of freaked out about...” Her voice trailed off as she gestured vaguely with the hand that wasn’t currently twirling her hair.
“The names are the same but she’s not the same person,” I said truthfully. “The only really weird part was pretending I didn’t know you when she started talking about you.”
“She was talking about me?” Luna asked, sitting up straight and frowning.
“We were talking when you sent her that text that you were going to be home late,” I explained. “It just came up in the conversation.”
“Oh,” Luna said, her hackles lowering. “What’d she say?”
“She’s worried about you because she doesn’t really know where you’ve been going the last two days.” I shot her a sideways glance. “You should spend some time with her tomorrow. She’s really broken up.”
“I know I should,” Luna said quietly, “but I want to be here for Twilight. Besides, it’s uncomfortable seeing Celestia crying all the time and not being able to tell her that Twilight’s still alive.” She looked at me, her eyes soft, pleading. “Are you sure I can’t tell her?”
I shook my head stubbornly, though even my resolve was a bit shaken by having seen the look in Luna’s eyes, and the way Celestia had run out of the room in tears earlier.
“It’s for the best,” I said. “She’s safer if she’s not involved.”
“Okay... I’m still trusting you know what’s best,” Luna said.
I went around and hopped up on the counter next to Luna. “I really do think you should spend the day with her tomorrow,” I suggested. “Twilight and I will be okay by ourselves for a day. I was just going to do some stuff around the house, so I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”
“I dunno…”
“Hey, she seemed like she could really use the support,” I said, nudging her with my shoulder. “It’s kind of hard to believe how close she and Night were.”
“I’ll say,” Luna said, chuckling lightly. “People used to think they were sleeping together, but it wasn’t like that at all.”
“She did kind of admit she had a schoolgirl crush on him,” I said.
Luna snerked loudly, covering her mouth, aghast at the noise she’d just made.
“She totally did,” Luna said, clearing her throat. “She got over it, though. I think what she wanted was just someone older that she could look up to. A rolemodel.”
“A mentor,” I supplied.
She nodded. “Yeah, like a mentor.”
Luna pursed her lips, leaning back back on her hands and holding her legs out straight in a pose that did a lot of very wonderful things to her figure. In very real danger of getting lost in her curves, I shifted my eyes down and focused on the whorling patterns in the hardwood slats of my kitchen floor.
“Our parents were kind of… distant is the nice way to say it, I guess. We had money growing up, and our parents thought that made them practically royalty. They were too busy seeing the world and looking in on their investments to really pay attention to what we were doing.”
I’d already resigned myself to the “try not to think about it too hard” approach to navigating the human world-pony world analog conundrum, especially when it came to Celestia. Everything I’d learned about the woman in the past two days made my head hurt too much if I tried to apply it to the alicorn Celestia, so I was doing my best to compartmentalize the two entities as wholly different things.
But still... wow… parents...
I mean, it made sense that the Celestia in my world had been born from somewhere, but I’d always figured it was one of those birthed-from-the-universe deals. It was crazy to imagine the possibility that my Celestia might have been a kid herself – that she used to be somebody’s little girl. It was kind of like being a kid and realizing for the first time that your grandparents were actually your parents’ parents.
Luna let out a small chuckle as she kicked playfully at the air. “Celestia doesn’t think I know, but I heard things from people that knew her years ago about how she used to be kind of rebellious. From what I hear she spent the first few years of college caring more about parties than about books.”
My jaw hit the floor. “Celestia? The woman I met today, your sister, that Celestia, was a party chick?”
Luna laughed. “I know, right? You’d never guess it from meeting her now, but she finished her freshman year on academic probation for her grades. Doctor Night Light gave her focus, though. Helped her make some good decisions with her academic career. After she got her undergrad they were on a more equal footing, and I think that’s when they started to become real friends.”
“What about you?” I asked, pushing the conversation forward and past the topic of parents. “How’d you feel about Night Light?”
“I liked him,” Luna said with a shrug, “but it wasn’t the same for me. I didn’t need someone like Doctor Night Light looking out for me, because – annoying as she is – I had Celestia.”
A teacher for even one day, a father for all my life.
It was an old Chinese idiom I’d picked up somewhere, and it came to mind as appropriate for what I was learning about Celestia and Night’s relationship. It was definitely a sentiment I could understand.
I’ve said it before, but my Celestia was almost like a mother to me. Officially I was just her student, but the way she treated me, the way she made me feel when we were together… I could never forget that. For someone who didn’t have parents around, I knew the appeal of wanting to latch on to the first authority figure that showed a real interest.
I also couldn’t forget the other teachers I had, and it was a little weird to think that they might be father figures to me. I had to hold back the cold chill shuddering up my spine at that though.
I gave a start as I felt Luna’s hand on my knee. She leaned closer, hesitation in those big, beautiful eyes. For a second I thought she might be trying to kiss me again and my heart started beating faster.
“You mentioned earlier that you weren’t sure how you’d be able to ‘swing’ keeping Twilight here, and I kind of took that to mean ‘financially’,” she said cautiously, immediately deflating my sudden surge of excitement. “I didn’t know how to bring it up earlier but… I want you to know that if you need help you can ask me any time.” She quickly added, “For Twilight, I mean.”
I frowned at the offer. It was generous, and potentially useful, but it stung my pride a little to hear it. I hated begging. I loathed the way it made me feel. Luna was offering help, freely and unsolicited, but I still didn’t like the idea of asking for it. The fact that I can feed myself and keep gas in the car with nothing but my own hustle and a nice smile was a point of pride for me.
I also knew that the decision wouldn’t just affect me. If I did end up needing the help and still turned it down, Twilight would be struggling right alongside me. If it came to that, I’d probably put my pride aside. I owed the kid, and her father, to put her needs ahead of mine if I really had to.
But that didn’t mean I liked the idea of it, or that I wouldn’t fight tooth and nail to make sure I didn’t end up in that predicament.
“I’ll let you know,” I said curtly.
“Please don’t hesitate,” she said. “I know Celestia would back me up. Money’s not a problem for us and we’d do anything for Twilight.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said, more calmly.
Further discussion was ended by the sound of groaning stairs. The soft plod of child-feet announced Twilight’s approach, and a few seconds later she was standing in the kitchen doorway.
“H-hi,” she said shakily, her head down, averting her eyes guiltily. The hem of her shirt was stretched loose as she tugged at it abashedly. “Um, Luna… I’m sorry… I’m sorry I yelled. I know you’re here because you’re worried about me and—”
Twilight’s apology was curtailed as Luna slipped off the counter and strode across the kitchen to kneel in front of her. The older girl wrapped her arms around the younger and hugged her tightly.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Luna said in a soothing whisper. “You don’t have to apologize. I know you didn’t mean it.”
Twilight hugged her back, sobbing in childish relief that Luna wasn’t angry, that she still cared about her. They stayed like that for a while, and at some point Luna had started crying too.
Women, I swear.
When they were finished hugging it out, Twilight stepped back and lifted the now baggy hem of her shirt to wipe her nose. She looked up at me and asked, “Can we watch that movie now?”
“We gotta figure out dinner first,” I said. I pulled my phone out and waved it at them. “And then I’d like an explanation about this text message I got. Something about getting the chickens back in the coop?”
The pair of them looked at one another, looked at me, and shrugged, identical wide, nervous grins plastered on their faces.
* * *