A Star Pony Tale

by BlondeSky

The Moon's Sides

Chapter 20

The Moon's Sides

It didn't take long for life to settle into a routine for Astro. There were few new developments as the weeks passed, but she still enjoyed each day. She spent her time at school conversing with her two friends, her time at the base for the most part in the sorting room with division one, and her other spare time working with her drawings. She had taken her spare money and invested some of it into buying art supplies and was quickly excelling in the field. Her participation in the sorting room had been exceedingly minimal, but she had started to offer up a suggestion up from time to time. The first time that she had spoken out a slightly stunned silence had fallen, but she was lucky to have Sail come to her rescue. She offered up her own comments on the suggestion and the round robin discussion continued. It became less of an event the next few times she had proposed things. Then of course she had continued to grow ever closer to either of her friends if not branching out to make any new ones. The trio became almost inseparable as time went on.

As they grew closer however they did start to spend more and more time together. Due to what she was she had to decline ever offer for her to stay the night and leave early from every event that might last later than the sun's stay. This never caused any friction between the group, but it wasn't too long before her behavior became suspicious. She always had some excuse as to why she couldn't come to night time events. On her end she felt horrible having to lie to her friends about why she couldn't attend these things. She wanted to show them, but knew that it would never be allowed. Secrecy was a very high priority, probably the highest. Everything was arranged so that nopony would be caught out of the ordinary.

During the winter months this was the hardest to uphold as the moon was out for more and more of the 24 hour day. On the winter solstice she could barely stay out for the entirety of the school day. Afterwards she was immediately back inside the base with the rest of the staff. She had hardly been able to bid her friends farewell before Sail had rushed her off of the grounds and back to the buildings security. The same had been with that morning as she had arrived just in time for the bell to ring allowing for little conversation. She had been informed before of how that day had always been one of stress for The Wish Division due to the length for which the moon shone. Still, the amount of time for which she was cooped up inside bothered her. Through the whole of winter she begged for spring to come.

The constant restriction wouldn't have bothered her earlier in her life, but the world as she knew it had changed. It wasn't just her anxiety that grew during the cold season however, her friends' confusion developed further as well. It continued to become ever harder for her to say what she was told to when they asked why she couldn't be there for things. Despite the difficulty she found in it she did still continue to lie and alongside her heart continued to grow heavy. She knew that she had to bring her plight to somepony, but worried that it might simply be met with a shutdown of her thoughts. In the end she went on keeping the spiraling ball of emotion to herself, but it did go on growing.

Once spring graced the land it became easier for her. The days grew longer and her limitation grew lighter. While the restriction was still there the ever lengthening time of sun allowed her more freedom and a relief as she had to provide excuses less often. Her worry grew smaller, her need to tell somepony faded, and she continued to keep her thoughts to herself. She realized that the bliss of lengthening days would not last forever and soon enough they would again shorten under the moon's hold, but she did not allow the shadow of that thought to cross over her mind. The anxiety was gone for the most part with the near future looking upwards.

Summer was like heaven for her with nothing but time to spend with her two friends as the days still continued to lengthen. As school ended she found herself able to do what she wished with her friends instead of just talking when they shouldn't have been in class. Of course this was all done under adult supervision. That couldn't be avoided due to the group's young age. That didn't dampen her joy nor did it lessen her friends' excitement. They still had practically all the time in the world to spend with each other over those months. In celebration of the longest day of the year she planned to spend the whole of the day with them seeing as it was the most she would be allowed to be out for a singular day. On the summer solstice the trio spent as many hours as they could enjoying each other's presence. In her mind it was one of the best days of her life and possibly even the best. It was when she returned home that she realized that again the length of the days would be on the decline.

School began and she was in low spirits as the moon came out for longer each day. The coming winter loomed over her like a terrible beast. Her anxiety again began to grow, but it was worse that time as she had the memories of the previous year's events. It continued to grow through the fall and as she stood on winter's doorstep it started worsen further. She began to run out of excuses and found herself repeating several previous ones in the hopes that her friends would fail to notice. While they may have failed to recognize the explanations it wasn't hard for them to sense her stress. When asked about it she would simply reply that she was busy which fit quite well with the amount of excuses that she had to provide for various events.

When winter did begin however she found herself needing somepony to confide all of her bottled up emotions in. One night when she was stuck in the base she managed to pull Sail away from the sorting room discreetly and into her room. After they were inside with the door closed behind them a slightly tense silence came as Sail looked at Astro with concern. "W-Why do I have to keep lying to my friends? Can't I just tell them! They would understand!" she cried letting all of the stress pour out. "I shouldn't have to keep all of this from them! And having to stay restricted to this space for so long is driving me up the wall! I'm running out of excuses for why I can't be places! And I hate lying to them! I don't understand why they can't know! I don't want to tell the whole world! I-I just want to tell… to tell them." she shouted with her pent up tension running out as she finished. She wanted to cry, but refrained from doing so as she looked up at Sail.

Her mentor's expression was at first shocked, but changed to be dejected and sympathetic. "I understand your feelings, but you must understand the importance that they place on secrecy." she replied reaching a hoof down to lift her chin. Astro frowned slightly at her use of the word they. "I believe that your two friends would keep your secret from the world. I also believe that your telling them would only strengthen your already solid bond. This place's rules were never made to accommodate any form of a relationship with the surface world. While this place is on the surface any who would consider it to be a part of this world are naïve." she promised. Her words surprised Astro, but she listened in silence as Sail spoke. Her expression was serious and there was a certain steel behind her eyes as she spoke. She remembered how Sail had spoken ill of The Wish Division when they had only just met.

They held each other's gaze for a moment before Sail's hardened expression broke allowing a small smile to come to her face. "What if we were to slip out for just a minute until the sun sets? I do not believe anypony will notice two ponies' absence in this sizeable building. I can just go back and inform the others that I will be taking the night off. We do get to take breaks every now and again. As far as anypony else is concerned the two of us are in our rooms resting. I can't think of anypony who might decide to check on us. The night sky is quite a beautiful sight to behold. The two of us could sit out on some empty field somewhere and watch the sun set behind the horizon. You have never seen that have you? It is an amazing thing to behold. Just the two of us and the distant sky." she said smiling warmly as she held Astro's hooves in hers.

"Really?" she asked in awe of what she had just been told.

"Yes." she promised with a nod, "We can even go right now. I will inform them that I shall be taking leave and we can run for some far off plain to stay this night." As had become their custom Sail planted a kiss on the filly's forehead before heading from the room.

Astro could hardly contain her excitement at their unexpected field trip. The last time she had seen the night sky had been the very few days that she was on her own, but that hadn't been her focus then. She could hardly remember what the constellations looked like from below. Of course she could still recall every shape as part of her job had been to make sure that the shapes were made correctly. Still, she had never taken the time to see their beauty from the surface. Every second that she waited for Sail to return felt like it had been slowed to take the place of 20. It had been far too long when she came into the room.

"They are now aware that I have decided to rest for the duration of the day. I have been working awfully hard and simply wish to take a bit of a break today. Of course they all understand." Sail informed her with a sort of sly grin, "Now, we had best be going." She presented a small chip of astral stone to the others laid out on her hoof. "While our form of teleportation is only meant to take one pony this can be used to fix that." she informed Astro. "If more than one star pony puts their hoof to a piece of astral stone and only one teleports it will bring the rest along. It also, as you are aware, simply makes teleportation easier as it is used when teleporting to and from the Astral Plain." She simply nodded and reached her hoof up to touch it. Within moments the duo was gone from the blank little room.

When they landed they were in the middle of a simple field looking toward the westward skyline. There the sun lay as it dipped down just barely touching the distant horizon. It was chilly as it was the winter season, but she didn't particularly mind the cold temperature. The two sat looking on at the sun in a contended silence. As it dropped lower and its hues changed to golds, reds, oranges, and purples Astro found her own silence changing from content to one of pure awe. She watched and examined the way that the hues moved and blended from color to color as the burning sphere continued its descent. Such an event had never been witnessed by her eyes. As she drank in every detail she promised herself to remember it all. It was a beauty that she wasn't keen to forget, but what followed made her wonder even more.

The silver moon floated into the darkening midnight blue sky as Sail's coat along with her own started to glow faintly in its light. The constellations above came into view and her jaw dropped slightly in awe. She couldn't believe that she'd ever thought of the moon's glow as a bad thing. A different idea of the floating light came to mind as she saw its beauty displayed. Again her mind went to work analyzing the sky and recording the details in her mental database. The midnight blanket was littered with the small glowing dots all framed in the background by the silver sphere of the moon. Her eyes widened as again she gazed into the sky's depths wanting to engrave its beauty into her mind forever. A slight gasp escaped her lips as she saw small streaks start to shoot across its vastness. She looked over at her companion in question as to if those were what she believed them to be.

She found Sail had laid down on the ground and was looking up at the many constellations with a great look of pride in her eyes. An unconscious smile decorated her face as she gazed upward. It was a moment before she looked over to find Astro's questioning expression. Sensing the question that she wished to ask Sail offered a simple nod before again looking up at the midnight expanse. Astro as well again looked skyward and examined the bright streaks cutting through the night. The idea that ponies had decided to wish upon them confused her, but she didn't wish to question it. If they hadn't thought to do that then I couldn't have made a life here, she thought to herself. She counted herself lucky that they had.

She smiled happily as she drew out every constellation that she knew, which was all of them, and could see over her. Finding the little dipper she followed the handle down to the star shining brightly on its end. She laid down and leaned against Sail's side as smiled contentedly. She sighed and closed her eyes as she relaxed into her mentor's side. "I'm afraid that concerning your friends there is not much that I can do for the time being."

"For the time being?" she queried noticing her choice.

"Yes, there is nothing that I can think to do yet." Sail confirmed her smile growing. Astro looked up at her and could definitely see a small glint in her eyes.

"That's fine." she finished grinning herself and moving closer into her.

She looked once more up at the great network of constellations and at the North Star shining in the middle of it all. As she grew drowsy and her eyelids began to feel heavy she obeyed their wishes. She let her eyes fall closed, but just before they shut she could've sworn that she saw the North Star twinkle.