Endless Sky

by Algorhythm

Chapter 2

-2-

Rainbow Dash woke in a cold sweat on the floor of the library. The cool morning air filled the room, sending chills through her body. She knew she was still prone to nightmares, but… she never really knew when they would happen.

Her muscles were stiff and sore from sleeping on the floor all night. The dull pain shot through her legs as she pushed herself up against the wall. She used the wall to lift herself from the floor and when she was finally steady, she began the slow trudge into the kitchen.

It was earlier than usual. She looked at the clock hanging on the wall. A small sigh accompanied the number: 6:25. In a little while, the twins would be bouncing out of their bed to get ready for school. That was when she preferred to wake up, if she was lucky.

“You know you don’t have to push yourself so hard, Rainbow.”

Rainbow looked up to see Twilight sitting at the table. The hallucinations were early today.

“I know,” Rainbow responded. She opened the fridge with her front hoof, and chomped down on the end of a bottle of apple juice.

Twilight gave her a look of disbelief. Rainbow rolled her eyes, and kicked the door to the fridge closed. She trotted over to the table and sat down. The apple juice bottle touched down on the surface, and she let go of the top.

“You know that no one blames you for what happened. I don’t.”

“I should have been able to knock Luna out of the way.”

“Rainbow Dash!” She looked upset, “You know better than anyone that you could barely stand when she unlocked your chains.”

Rainbow frowned, and turned away from Twilight’s gaze. Regardless of Twilight being a figment of her imagination, she still knew how to make her upset. She hated this conversation.

“It’s not your fault. The more that you keep thinking it is, the farther apart everyone else will become.”

“It’s… complicated.”

“You’re just making it complicated.”

“Twilight.” Rainbow’s face hardened, “I left a lot of things unsaid. Things I needed to say, but never knew I wanted to say them.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, that might have been a little confusing…” She took a sip of the apple juice. It stung her throat a little as it went down, which made her cough to clear her throat, “There were things I didn’t realize until it was too late. I can’t tell anypony about them, either. Too many things happened.”

“You can always tell me. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Who are you talking to, Aunt Rainbow?” Dusk walked in groggily, making a wobbly trail to the fridge. Rainbow looked at her, and instinctively went over and opened the fridge for her. When she looked back at the table, Twilight was gone.

“No one, Dusk. What did you want for lunch?” Rainbow pushed the nozzle for the faucet, while squirting soap onto her hooves.

“ A daffodil and daisy sandwich please,” she replied. The filly sat down at the table with an apple hanging gingerly in her teeth.

“I want peanut butter and raspberry jelly!” Dawn ran into the room, sliding on the floor, until she came to a stop in front of the open refrigerator, “Do we have any carrots left?” Her head was shoved into the fridge, while she shuffled things around on the shelves with her front hooves.

Rainbow sighed, “Dawn, let me get it for you, so you don’t break anything.”

Dawn hopped back from the fridge, knocking a glass jar over on the way out. Dash zoomed in the short distance, saving it from smashing all over the floor. She immediately regretted it, as every muscle in her body lashed out in protest.

Dawn smiled sheepishly, “Heh, heh…”

Rainbow sighed. She put the jar back into its place, and grabbed some carrots by their leaves, placing them on the counter. Magic covered one of them, and it flew over to the table, straight into Dawn’s head. Dusk giggled at her sister’s lack of control.

“Be careful!” Rainbow frowned, “You don’t want to hurt yourself with a carrot, do you?”

Dawn shook her head, and chewed the carrot in her mouth, “I wuhn’t,” she said through a mouthful of carrot.

Rainbow smiled, laughing to herself. She went back to preparing food for the two twins, who ate in silence, occasionally giggling at some thought silently passed between them. Her hoof shot out behind her, pushing the refrigerator open once more, so she could return the left over food to its place.

“When you’re all done, go get your saddle bags. Make sure your homework is in the bag this time, Dawn. I can’t keep coming back to the house to bring it to school because you left it here.”

“Ugh, fine…” Dawn groaned as she went into the main part of the library. Dusk picked up the crumbs Dawn left behind onto her plate with the apple core. She dumped everything on the plate in the garbage and then set the plate on the counter next to Rainbow Dash.

“Thanks, Dusk.” Rainbow ruffled her hair. Dusk smiled wide and trotted off into the library.

“Thanks for looking after them. I wish that I could.”

Rainbow glanced back at the table. Twilight was sitting with a cup of tea hovering in front of her. Tears welled her eyes, as the cup settled back onto the table.

“Aunt Rainbow? I think I broke the strap,” called one of the twins.

Rainbow smiled at Twilight before scooping up their respective sandwiches and trotting out of the kitchen.

--*--

It wasn’t a long walk to the schoolhouse from the library, but their path went through the center of Ponyville’s market. During the fall and spring of each school year, Rainbow Dash and the twins made it a point to leave earlier so that they could stop by Applejack’s stand.

The cart was in much better shape than before the war thanks to Apple Bloom’s special talent. In the aftermath, the Apple family spent a lot of time rebuilding nearby towns destroyed by the fighting. It took some doing until she figured it out on her own, but Apple Bloom had a particular knack for building things. Her woodwork had been contracted several times for buildings in Canterlot, and even in Manehatten.

But when she wasn’t working for somepony else, she helped out on the farm. Shortly after the twins came to Ponyville for school, Granny Smith passed on. It was horrible for
Applejack and Apple Bloom, but it paled in comparison to what Big Mac had to go through. All of a sudden, everything was dumped onto the stallion. He had to be the strongest of the three of them while both harvesting the apples on the farm, and taking care of the expenses. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem, but with Sweet Apple Acres being practically the only food source for the other local towns, he couldn’t slow down his pace. He broke under the pressure, leaving Applejack in charge for a few weeks.

It was a rough time, but she remembered that something wonderful came out of it. In the midst of Mac’s grieving, Fluttershy had approached him to try and console him. But that eventually turned into more than friendship, and almost half a year later, they got hitched. It was good for business and the party was the biggest one in Ponyville history to boot. Shortly afterwards, Mac went back to work as an apple harvester, and Applejack took over Sweet Apple Acres.

This morning, Applejack was running the stand, setting out fresh apples in the front and opening up two barrels filled with bottles of fresh squeezed juice. Her skilled hooves went from her cart to her stand, filling it up with expert speed.

“Morning AJ,” Rainbow said, touching down in front of the stand. The twins swarmed around the stand to greet her.

“Hey Applejack!” Dusk hopped up onto the cart, smiling down at the farmer pony.

“Hey AJ! Anything new today? Huh?” Dawn bounced up and down, looking through everything on the stand, and peeking into the cart.

“Now, now, settle down, y’all.” Applejack offered to the girls, “You know I ain’t got no specialties this time o’ year.”

Rainbow chuckled at her predicament, “Come on AJ. They’re always excited to see you on the first day of school.”

“I know, I know,” she chuckled, “What can I do you for, Dash?”

Rainbow picked out two ice-cold bottles of juice and placed them on the ground. “Just these today. I only had one left in the fridge after breakfast this morning.” She reached into her saddlebags and placed a few bits on the stand.

Applejack scooped them up and placed them inside of the stand. “Ya need any more, I got plenty here today,” she said, turning her attention to the girls. “Now, I know it’s been a while since Apple Bloom graduated, but don’t you girls have school?”

They nodded, and went back to the other side of the stand, picking up the bottles Dash had just bought, sticking them in their saddlebags.

“If ya see Fluttershy, tell her Big Mac’s off early tonight.”

Rainbow nodded, prodding the twins down the street to the schoolhouse.

“Bye Applejack!” Dawn called back, walking backwards to wave. She turned around and ran back to Rainbow’s side.

--*--

In a few minutes, they reached the other side of Ponyville, as many other fillies and colts were being brought to their first day of school. Rainbow hugged them both.

“Now don’t cause any trouble this year. I don’t want a repeat of the ‘smoothie’ incident.”

The twins cringed, a mortified look on their faces.

“I know it was Pinkie Pie’s idea, and that it was an… accident, but I still have to say it.”

They nodded, slowly returning to their former excited mood.

“Alright. Now have a good first day at school, okay?”

They nodded and hopped off, waving to her as they met with the other students.

“Oh. Hello, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow looked behind her. Fluttershy walked up with a small pegasus filly in tow that Dash recognized has Fluttershy’s daughter. Unlike her mother, her coat was a dull sandy-yellow, accompanied by a deep red mane and tail. Freckles dotted her face, and her eyes were a beautiful deep forest green.

“Hey, Fluttershy.” Her filly came around her mother to sit in front of Rainbow Dash. “Hello to you too, Early Blaze.”

“Hi Dash,” she said. “Are Dawn and Dusk here?”

“They just went inside, wh-”

“Thanks!” Blaze jumped to her hooves, running towards the school.

“Wait! Be careful dear, please- oh…” Fluttershy was filled with concern, but she was having trouble voicing them, as usual.

“She’ll be fine. They’ll have a lot of fun together this year.” Rainbow smiled, starting to walk towards the center of town, “Lets go get something from Sugar Cube Corner. I’m sure Pinkie Pie wants to talk about the sleepover.”

“O-okay,” she managed, walking alongside Rainbow. Fluttershy glanced back at the schoolhouse, hesitating for a moment, before catching up to walk beside her.

--*--

The doors to the throne room closed shut, leaving Princess Celestia, her guards, and her sister alone inside. Celestia sat lazily on the throne, sighing as she adjusted her position to get comfortable. Hours of court always made her tired and sore, her flanks in particular. Sitting all day was never comfortable.

But that was only part of the problem today. The book that she had gotten from Spike the night previous held mountains of information that she needed - particularly in certain less-documented forms of magic. Without the books from the library in the City of the Alicorns, she was limited to the studies done by Unicorns in this city. She also knew better than to believe either unicorns or alicorns would have shared much expertise in the ways of this kind of magic.

Regardless of that fact, she had spent years in Canterlot’s archives scouring for anything that might be of any use. There were a few spells that she had experimented with, but they were all small-scale. None of them had helped her work, no matter how much magic she added to the spell, except for one thing. She kept that under lock and key, never to be opened by anyone other than herself, lest anypony ruin all of her work.

“Celly?” Luna waved her hoof in front of her. Celestia had been staring past her, deep in thought for a long while. “Is everything ok?”

Celestia nodded, “I’m sorry, Luna. I’ve been preoccupied with the archives. They still need quite a bit of preparation before we can bring in the books from home.”

Luna giggled, “Its fine. Though you’ve been working a lot harder lately to get the archives downstairs ready. Do you need some help?”

Celestia shook her head. “No, that’s quite alright. You still have a lot of history to catch up on to understand the way I’ve been organizing.” Her eye twitched momentarily, as she danced around the subject of her work. “Besides, there are books in there that are less than… ‘Appropriate’ for your young ones.”

Luna thought about it for a moment, blushing upon realizing what might be in the basement archives.

“Speaking of Dawn and Dusk,” she continued excitedly, “They just went back to school today, right? That means that the big sleepover is coming up.”

Luna nodded excitedly, “Yes! I’m looking forward to another one of Pinkie Pie’s incredible sleepovers!” Luna clopped her hooves together. “She always has tons of extra games that she never gets to use in her other spectacular parties. It’s wonderful to catch up with all of Twilight’s old friends.”

Celestia smiled. She knew that losing Twilight was still a bit touchy for Luna, but she had shown a lot of progress in overcoming such a loss. After a thousand years of students coming and going, Celestia was more apt to let her life continue. But… despite all of that, she couldn’t move on from losing her faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.

The frown that played on her lips was replaced by a smile, “I’m glad that you’re excited for it. Of course, after the sleepover, you have a few days off to spend time with those wonderful fillies. Will you give the twins a big hug for me when you see them?”

“Oh, of course!” Luna smiled, jumping into the air, “Just don’t overwork yourself. You can always ask me for help if you need it.”

Celestia kept her smile steady, “Of course, sister. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Luna took to the sky outside, leaving Celestia alone with her guards. Magic shimmered at the end of her horn, stretching her will far above her. She felt the warmth of the sun fill her body, the tickle of sunbeams ruffling her coat. Slowly, the sun descended below the horizon, until its glow faded into twilight.

The magic ended, and she felt the warmth turn to fire within her. Her determination flooded her with adrenaline as she rose from her perch. She walked to the doors, her guards leading the way. They opened the doors for her.

“Thank you, gentlecolts. You may have the rest of the night to yourselves.”

“Yes, your highness,” one responded.

She walked through the doors, watching as the two bodyguards took to the air, disappearing through the front doors of the castle. The smile faded from her face.

Within minutes she was at the end of one of the hallways, two doors before her. One was the door she passed through the night before which lead out into the garden. The other, was where she stored the book Spike had brought her. She looked down the hallway. It was completely empty.

Her horn lit with magic once more, sliding the complicated lock out of its protective position. Before opening the door, she glanced down the hallway once more. Satisfied that nopony was watching, she entered, locking the door behind her.

Complete darkness surrounded her. She took a few steps forward, remembering each step as it came beneath her hooves. Torches flared to life along the walls, coming alive as she passed them. Minutes went by, each step downwards becoming colder and darker. Each hoof step echoed up the stairs behind her, filling the staircase with hollow sound. Finally she reached the end: a small landing with a stone door, sealing the contents behind it from the rest of the castle.

Celestia glared at the door, forcing the stone locks to slide open. She turned her gaze up the staircase. A slight smile played on her lips. The torches in the hallway went out, letting the darkness swallow everything once more. In front of her, the stone door slid away.

There was work to be done.

Comments

[HeyCheerilee]

I think I like this!

[Midnight Loki]

716160 Me too but no ominous feelings from the door?