The Nightbook

by Sunset-Chan

VI. The Crane Dance

Twilight would have loved to avoid looking into the mirror every morning. Sure enough, she only managed to do so once and it had made her feel horrible. There was a line between being a perfectionist and having a real problem. Somewhere in the past, Twilight had crossed that line, and she had been fully aware of it for a long time. Thing was, nothing she said or did made it better. Instead, it just felt like she had first jumped from the two meter board into the water and then decided to take the fiver and, for funsies, decided to go again. In this scenario, Twilight also imagined the water as freezing cold, filled with sharks and herself being unable to swim.

By this point, Twilight didn’t even really care anymore. All she did now was carry on with her schedule. The order gave her a sense of tranquility, like everything was right in the world. One morning or another she would suddenly wake up and start crying, telling herself that she needed to be strong, that she needed to fix this. By now, these were only phases, the intervals were getting shorter, much like the days.

The winter solstice was approaching and Spike was hardly in the house anymore. He had wondered about Twilight putting the diapers and the other stuff away, but relented. His mind had been somewhere else, with Rarity and with that cut of his. For some strange reason one day he came back with a different bandage that covered even more of his hand and then a few days later a casket around his arm. She never asked, she had been busy with something else.

She had always been busy with something else and like that, the days came and went with so little happening in between but herself sometimes finding a face staring back at her from the mirror, a face she didn’t even know. There were dark lines beneath eyes that stared emptily back at her. Did those eyes really belong to her? Were they really the eyes of Twilight Sparkle? She didn’t know and that was probably the worst thing.

She didn’t know what to do anymore, entangled in a web of duties. It was of her own making, to be sure, but she hated it nonetheless and with each passing day she felt weaker and weaker and soon she had forgotten how to bring her mouth to smile. That, she realized one night, where sleep didn’t come to her and the wind was blowing faintly against the falling snow.

It was during that night that she decided to forsake her night’s rest and for first time since her fall-out with Fluttershy just did something on a whim, stepping into her boots, wrapping the scarf around her neck and putting the hat over her ears, she went outside. Her hope was that Ponyville might re-ignite whatever fire was left in her and thus took to wandering the streets.

It was past midnight and everypony was asleep. There were nopony on the bridge or the plaza, there was nopony near Sugarcube Corner and Carousel Boutique seemed so lonely, pressing against the darkness that surrounded the town. She trotted through the snow, trying to keep her thoughts going, but every step was a new worry and she wanted nothing more but go home and resume her rest. Her life needed to be orderly, because otherwise she couldn’t expect herself to think clearly.

It was during that moment that moment a voice called out to her: “Miss Sparkle?”

Twilight lifted her head and saw the most unusual sight. She hadn’t paid much attention to where she was going, but she hadn’t expected to end up here, behind all the houses. A place where light was still burning and a pony wearing a cloak of green, held together with a needle, adorned with a ruby shaped like a rose. She also wore a hat, green it was with flower-like embroidery. The pony stood in front of her glass garden, a worried expression on her face.

Twilight nodded in her direction, answering in a tired manner: “A fine night, isn’t it, Roseluck?”

The pony stared at her for a second longer, before she started twitching and her mouth started moving. She’s fiddling for words, Twilight noted. Roseluck had never been a social pony, even a greeting like this was something she would normally avoid. It’d better I left, Twilight thought and made herself walk on.

“Uhm,” she heard from Roseluck, “how about you come in? I’ve got something warm to drink. It… It would probably help you sleep, too.”

There was probably something better to do. Think of the schedule. She needed to remind herself of that, any distractions were unnecessary. Still, she looked into the eyes of that red-maned pony and some part deep within her urged her to stay. She could walk on, ignore this ever happened and find a way out of her dilemma tomorrow, or she could try to interact with another pony and fear that it would end up just like Fluttershy.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I should.”

“It’s no trouble,” Roseluck said. “I hardly ever meet anypony up and about this late. It would be a pleasure, too.”

Twilight had to fight with herself, but suddenly, Roseluck touched her shoulder. The smile on her face almost made Twilight forget herself. “You look like you had a hard time. Believe you me, I think I can conjure something nice up for you.”

A garden encased in glass was what she was then led into. A small house made out of nothing but windows with all sorts of plants and flowers inside it. From what Twilight knew, the garden was Roseluck’s most precious possession. Most of the money she earned went into it as well as the bulk of her free time. She was only ever happy if she could work in her garden, Lily would often tell in the library. Twilight had never quite understood, until now. The garden wasn’t huge, but it was effectively the biggest part of the Flower Trio’s backyard and not only that, even in the dishevelled state the unicorn was in, she could see poison joke and over rare and magical flowers in the corners of her eye. She didn’t know all that much about flowers, but from what she knew, she could tell that this was an impressive collection.

In the middle of the garden was a small table surrounded by cushions, where they sat down. On the table stood two pots, a few cups and biscuits. Twilight couldn’t help but wonder.

“This seems like you were expecting somepony to drop by?”

Roseluck looked over what she had prepared. “Oh, the cups? Well, it’s just. . . I guess sometimes somepony comes around and I just like being prepared.”

“There are other ponies wandering through the night like this?” Twilight asked, staring at the ceiling, where sun crystals hung and illuminated the place.

“Not many, truth be spoken and hardly anypony does it more than once in a long while. Cherrilee always takes a long midnight-stroll the day before she has her kids write a test, the mayor takes every first day of every-other month to walk around the town at night and see what could be polished up a bit. Once I even saw Big Mac take a stroll, just because he wanted to see the stars,” Roseluck said, softly and slow. She wasn’t quite gushing but there was this smile on her face.

Roseluck had the sweetest of smiles, Twilight noticed. A tiny thing, almost too shy to appear in full, but at the same time so hopeful. It made her almost forget that Roseluck had just spoken more than a hurried sentence. She had come out on a weird night, it appeared. Still, she had to ask, “So, everypony has their reasons for being up and about, and you?”

The pale mare took one of the pots and started to pour two cups. “There’s a long story for everything, but, I guess the short version is that I adore the night.”

“And the long one?”

Roseluck gave her a look and handed one cup of her. “You may drink it, and don’t worry about falling asleep.”

Twilight nodded, “Thanks.” She took the cup and examined the liquid within, it was plain hot cocoa. Perfect for a cold winter night.

After she took a sip Roseluck seemed to wait a bit, but then began. “The long one is that once I got so tired of being unable to talk to everypony that I built a castle for myself and my flowers, or my loyal retainers as I called them back then. I still hated it whenever other ponies would notice my castle and so I stopped using it. I didn’t want to be seen in it, if that makes any sense. So I started going out whenever everypony else went to sleep. I quietly worked the flowers until one day, a pony came by and asked if she could watch me.

“I don’t know why, but I said yes. She watched me then, just digging and watering, plucking some leaves from my Griffon’s Wings. Not an actual wing, I mean, more a really rare flower from the lands to the west. Anyway, then suddenly we started engaging in a conversation. It was the first time I talked with another pony without any problem, we joked, we laughed and we both walked away from it happy. Some other night came another pony, and another, still. At one point, I heard their stories and I saw how entwined they were, like the roots of the plants in this garden. I noticed how ponies lived together and I thought of beautiful. I guess, you can see Ponyville’s face under the moon. If there is one. The snow’s only getting heavier these days.”

“Is it so easy, seeing somepony’s real face? Just talking to them at a certain time?” Twilight blurted out.

There was a pause.

“A pony once told me that life’s like the crane’s dance. A complicated, yet wonderful to behold spectacle that is both hard and yet ingrained in our very being. Nothing’s ever easy, miss Sparkle, but nothing’s as hard as we make it out to be either.”

Twilight stared at the stranger before her. That was all Roseluck was, wasn’t it. A stranger without any connection to her. “What do you know about how hard anypony’s life is?” She asked.

“I know that everypony likes to think themselves alone in times of trouble, especially once they felt betrayed, but no matter what happens, everypony here one day sees something else, too. This town’s real face, as I said. There’s an old word for what the ponies of this place are. A word much older than even ‘tribe’. The first word appropriated to ponykind. No matter what happens, we’re still a herd and we look out for each other.”

“Why? Why would you look out for somepony like me? I haven’t been here for a long time. I’ve only interacted with a few ponies and I’m not. . . I’ve dealt with everything in my life on my own. Accepting help from strangers isn’t something I want to do, because it feels like it would just be the same as,” she hesitated. “Giving up. . . It would just be like that.”

Roseluck nodded. “I don’t know how things were before, but you have friends here and if you think they can’t help, there’s still the rest of Ponyville. I just want you to know that, because if there is one thing I’m sure off after all these years, it’s that this town holds together no matter what. That goes for everypony in it.”

Twilight didn’t quite know what to say after that, so she let the quiet remain and sipped her cup empty, before she stood up and made to leave. She found some words by then. “Thank you, Roseluck.”

At this point, she couldn’t find any advise in what had been said and so decided to simply walk out to the streets of Ponyville again, the wind moving through her mane and the snow touching against her coat. She only walked for a few meters and then she met the second pony. Green eyes, blonde mane, orange coat, she looked at Twilight, first surprised and then with a serious expression.

“This is surprisin’, but fair enough, I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

---

The water beneath the bridge was frozen and covered in snow. “Looks like this winter’s big storm’s soon comin’,” Applejack said, looking down on the white below them. She looked haggard, Twilight noticed in the light of the lanterns and without her mane in a braid and head covered by her stetson, she hardly looked like AJ at all. She seemed so tired, too.

“Last talk we had was before the running of the leaves, right? Weird how quiet can get in winter, isn’t it.”

No answer came.

“I heard from Fluttershy that something happened between the two of you, but she also told me she didn’t want to go into the details.”

For some reason, Twilight picked up on that hint. It might’ve just been the time, her all around mood or something else, because the word ‘herd’ just went through her head right then. For some reason she told Applejack, despite her openness having been her downfall with Fluttershy. Maybe it was because she had decided on still not giving up. Though she knew that wasn’t true, by this point it more felt like she had finally given up, for good.

Applejack just stayed quiet, leaning on the railing of the bridge and letting the snow fall on her. Twilight noticed how little energy the orange pony seemed to have and some part of her wondered if this was right, if she should rather not worry about Applejack. The orange pony merely stood there throughout Twilight’s story, not moving an inch but only at the end. Then, she looked up to the sky.

“Normally I’d say Rainbow’s givin’ you weird ideas, but there ain’t no chance that you’d be so desperate as to try something like that out as quickly as that. Twilight, believe if I tell you I kinda know how you feel. The thing is, I love workin’ on the farm and there’s no place on this whole world I’d rather be. My family’s gone off to Manehatten but I wanted to stay behind. One of our barn’s needed a roof fixed and there’s been a few trees who needed to be chopped down. I’d rather work than go on a vacation. It’s just the pony I am. Thing is, the barn was fixed before the first snows had stopped falling, the trees were fewer than I had expected them to be and I just rotted away over these past few weeks, not really knowing where to go. To me, Tartarus isn’t a burnin’ fire, it’s a cold winter without bloomin’ trees and with a farm that works on its own. That’s how much I despise it.”

“I don’t think that’s quite the same, actually,” Twilight said.

Applejack burst out in a short laughter. “Yeah, I noticed that, too. That’s what you get for tryin’ to sound deep when you’ve been awake for too long. The thing is, I don’t have a solution for Fluttershy and you, only that you probably should talk it out when you’re ready. Judging from how you look and what you told me, you ain’t ready for something like that, neither am I. Sorry, I’m still trying to figure out how to get out of my winter depression.”

Twilight gave her friend a smile and put an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t worry. Everypony’s got their own problems and if the best we can do to support each other is having talks like this, then that’s enough. You’ll figure your way out of this and I’ll find mine,” she said, a smile forming on her face while tears started streaming from her eyes. Twilight knew that she wouldn’t find a way out, she knew that her Tartarus was carved from her own desire for perfection, it was always too hot and too cold, the trees always stood at the wrong angle and all the ponies didn’t walk in just the right way. It had taken her this long to accept it, hadn’t it? For some problems, there just aren’t any solutions. All she could do was write a letter to Celestia on the morrow, though she did not know what to put into it.

“Well, ladies, I might have a solution for your problems,” a voice suddenly said from behind them, making Applejack jump high enough to land on the railing and Twilight turned around quickly, her eyes widening and her heart beating rapidly.

Pinkie stared at them for a moment. “What? Is there something behind me?” She asked and turned around. “There’s nothing there, you silly fillies.”

“Pinkie,” Applejack said loudly, “don’t sneak up on ponies. You almost gave me a heartattack.”

“Ooooh, you were scared of me? How scary would you say I am on a scale from 1 to 10?”

“Wha-”

“Yeah, the scariness factor is really important considering everything, especially on a cold winter night. I wonder if the original Nightmare Night had a snowstorm? Everything is twice as scary with a normal storm, so a snowstorm has to make things, like, thrice as scary. Although you can’t-”

“Pinkie,” Applejack stopped her, putting her hoof in the other earth ponies mouth. “Stop.”

The pink party pandemonium saluted and Applejack slowly took her hoof from her mouth. “So, what did you mean with having a solution for our problems?” She gazed over to Twilight for a moment, before Pinkie giggled like some cartoon villain before explaining his evil scheme.

“Simplicissimus,” she said, pulling her friends in a hug, “with me being the brain of operations, Applejack hammering stuff, Rarity doing some fashionistic work, Fluttershy helping her and Twilight being adorable, we can end WORLD HUNGER!”

“First: The world’s hungry? Second: What?” Applejack asked.

“Third: How?” Twilight threw in.

Pinkie laughed out loud. “You ponies probably think that everypony spends their winter moping around. To the Pinkie Cave! I have plans to show you!” She gestured towards Sugarcube Corner and for whatever reason, the feeling of hopelessness left Twilight. She didn’t know why exactly but then again, Pinkie Pie just worked that way.

Comments

[Cold Spike]

I want ice cweam 3220128

[Cold Spike]

Great chapter, especially the end hehe

[FleetlordAvatar]

Ah Pinkie Pie is ever the answer to life's troubles.

[spacecardswell]

3220128 you know if things will get fixed, your the one writing it.
(by the way when is the next chapter coming out?)

[spacecardswell]

great next chapter, and pinkie

[Caper]

Pinkie can help em smile. PINKIE POWER.

[SuperPinkBrony12]

I suppose at this point someone like Pinkie Pie is the only one who can help two ponies who are so driven by their work and their way of life that they can't live without it.

I think I know how Pinkie Pie could help Twilight but I'm not really sure what she could say or do to help Applejack.

[iamli3]

>A place where light was still burning and a pony wearing a cloak of green
>She watched me then, just digging and watering, plucking some feathers from my Griffon’s Wings,
>She only walked for a few meters and then she met the second pony.

so what is she a pony or a griffin?.....

[Marioland1]

It’d better I left, Twilight thought and made herself walk on.

It'd better I left? Maybe you meant something like "it's better if I left"?

Weird how quiet can get in winter, isn’t it.

"how quiet it can get" perhaps?

[read read read some moar]

3220128just sayin. Also, fluttershy is now designated as YouTube commenter