• Published 27th May 2015
  • 1,692 Views, 126 Comments

Lessons in the Moonlight - Harmony Split



After being rescued from the grasp of Starlight Glimmer, Night Glider finds herself lost and without purpose. She seeks out the Princess of Friendship in hopes that she might learn what friendship actually means.

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Waiting Time

Author's Note:

“This is taking so long!” the pegasus exclaimed, scratching the side of her head, “I can’t think of anything for this chapter!”

Leaning back and taking a sip of her recently refilled coffee, the bat pony across from her swallowed and shook her head, “Don’t rush this sort of thing. Pace it out, make it work. We can’t work something from nothing,” she said, giving an encouraging smile.

The pegasus scoffed out a mild laugh, “Well, you could help by writing more than a few lines at a time.”

Chuckling, the bat pony gestured to her, “Hey, you’re the one with the story idea. I just connect things and then run with it. I don’t wanna set your story off balance by writing in stuff you don’t like.”

Setting down her pen and pushing the small stack of unsoiled paper across the table towards her companion, she let out a good natured sigh, “Just get to writing, verdammt. I have an idea for the overall thing, and I’ve run fresh out of ideas for connections. So, feel free to run with it,” she said before leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes.

Working her jaw back and forth a few times in contemplation, the bat pony leaned forward and picked up the pen in her mouth and turned the half complete page around to look at it. Reading what was already written down of the current chapter, she leaned in and picked up where her companion had left off.

Chapter Two: Waiting Time

Minutes went by, but Twilight still stood in the same position. From time to time, her eyelid twitched, and I quickly became worried. But the small dragon at her side actually seemed humored by it.

Then, in one swift movement, Twilight turned and ran into the castle, leaving us behind. I looked at the small dragon questioningly, but he just shrugged.

“Give her some time, she’ll be fine. I’m Spike, who are you?”

“I’m Night Glider, I’m from the…”

“...small town that Twilight and the others visited,” he continued.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Well, you better come in. Knowing Twilight, this might take a while,” Spike motioned for me to follow him.

I entered the castle and the large doors closed shut behind us. He led me through a long hall and through an entrance on the right, into what seemed to be a massive kitchen.

“Do you want something to drink? We have tea, or maybe some apple cider,” Spike spoke as he scrambled around in some crystal cabinets.

“Apple cider, if it’s no problem. Uh, no offense, but is she always like that?” I asked, trying to sound as polite as that line of questioning could be.

“No, not really. Just give her some time, you kind of caught her pretty off guard with that.”

“Y-you heard it?” I asked, ears flattening against my head in embarrassment.

“You weren’t exactly being quiet,” he replied, rolling his eyes as he retrieved a bottle of cider from the cabinets.

A deep blush crossed my cheeks as I scuffed a hoof against the floor, avoiding eye contact with the dragon as he brought the drink over. Embarrassed beyond belief, I took the offered drink in the grip of one of my wings with a meek, “T-thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem,” the dragon said before plodding off to another cabinet that he began digging through.

“Do you think she hates me now?” I asked weakly.

“What? No, she doesn’t hate you. She’s probably only confused and a bit overwhelmed. Give her time until she’s wrapped her head around it. That could take a while if she asks Celestia for advice,” Spike chuckled with a shake of his head, then his eyes went wide after a moment, “Wait, that means she will need…”

Suddenly, Spike was enveloped in a purple aura before disappearing. I looked around to see where he could have headed, but I found nothing. Just an open cabinet, a small stool to help him search through it, but no dragon.

Just as I wanted to give up and leave, he reappeared. Right in the air above me. Crashing down onto my back, we both yelped in surprise.

“Ugh, her aiming is off,” Spike complained, rubbing the back of his neck in discomfort.

“What the hay, Spike?!” I exclaimed, untangling myself from my own hooves before standing up again, shaking off the disorientation that came with being clobbered over the head with a baby dragon.

Spike was quick to put up his claws in a show of surrender, “Sorry, sorry! Twilight’s great with magic, but even she can’t teleport things somewhere she can’t see,” he explained before dropping his claws and sighing, “Last time I wound up upside down in the tub.”

I rolled my eyes at the mental image of that, “So, what did she want?”

“Well, she needed to send a letter to her former mentor. Or, well, a whole roll of twenty inch paper?” he chuckled softly.

“How much can she even write? She’s barely been up there for half an hour!” I exclaimed, eyes wide.

“You would wonder,” Spike muttered before heading back to his task he had to leave thanks to the certain teleportation, “Where are they? Aha!” he shouted out, nearly losing his balance as he pulled a box out, “She keeps hiding them from me, but I find them every time!”

Stepping down from the stool and setting the box on top of it, he stuck a claw in and proudly removed what appeared to be a royal blue gem. Making a subtle noise of approval, he tossed the gem into his mouth and crunched down on the crystal, filling the room with an unsavory crack of gems breaking.

“What are you doing?!” I asked in shock, expecting to see his teeth crack at any moment. The very sound made my teeth itch and my jaw ache, I couldn’t imagine why he would put his own mouth through such a thing.

Spike raised a brow at me quizzically as he munched away at the gem in his mouth. After a few moments of painful crushing, he swallowed and then replied, “Eating. Why?” he asked as he reached for another gem out of the box.

Pointing at him wildly, my wings ruffled in displeasure, “But those are gems! How the hay do you eat gems without your teeth breaking?!” I exclaimed, my eyes wide as plates and ears flat against my head.

Spike blinked a few times before letting out a hearty laugh, clutching his stomach as he tried to contain himself. The baby dragon fell victim to full body guffaws, filling the kitchen with the sounds of his laughter. This went on for a solid minute, the poor dragon looked like he might pass out from how hard he was laughing. However, as soon as it began, it ended in gasps and wheezes before he stood back up and shook his head and wiped a tear from the corner of one of his eyes.

“What’s so funny?” I snapped accusatory, frowning at the dragon who so happened to find my discomfort laughable.

Sighing the last of his laughs away, he held up a gem in his claws, “I’m a dragon, gems are just what we eat. My teeth are meant to cut through gems, that’s why my teeth don’t break,” he replied with an innocent grin before tossing the gem back into his mouth and crunching away at it.

The sound of the gems breaking in his mouth still made me cringe and my ears to fold back against my skull, but at least it made sense. That didn’t change the fact that my jaw still felt bad when I imagined what it was like to eat gems. Not to mention the fact that gems couldn’t possibly taste good, but I wasn’t about to launch into another laugh-inducing line of questioning.

Looking at the bottle in my wing, I brought it over and cracked the cap off, releasing a satisfying hiss of carbonated air. Bringing it up to my lips, I gave a halfhearted chuckle, “Right, dragon. I’ll keep that in mind,” I said before taking a sip of the delicious bottled beverage.

We passed into relative silence for a few minutes, broken only by the shiver-inducing crunch of gems, and the near silent sound of my apple cider sloshing around in the bottle as I tipped it back. I spent the time in thought, wondering about what Twilight could possibly be discussing with Celestia. It was no doubt about me, but I had no idea what Celestia could possibly think about her past student taking on a student of her own. Would she support the idea, or utterly reject it?

A small voice at the back of my head urged me to get up and just leave; go back to the town and live out the rest of my days in mediocrity. Of course, that voice was strangled by the larger voice that was practically shouting at me to hide under the counter and wait for Twilight to come down and blast her. And that particularly illogical voice was silenced by the calming voice of reason that was telling me to just sit and wait for Twilight to say yes.

I could hardly understand most of the argument in my head, I kept switching between thoughts as if one of them may have held the answer that Twilight herself was seeking, but of course it was hopeless. The best I could do would be to wait there and drink the rest of my apple cider, and focus on not passing out or falling over. At least, not in the presence of this irritatingly childlike dragon.

Sudden noises from behind me made my ears perk up. Twilight was entering the kitchen, her left eye twitching slightly.

“I’m sorry, Night Glider, but this might take longer than I expected. How about you look around the town a bit?” Twilight seemed pretty stressed, I had no doubt about that.

“Is everything alright with-” I started, but she interrupted me.

“Yes, yes! Everything is fine! How about you come by later?” with that, Twilight was gone again, this time in the purple aura I had seen on Spike earlier.

I looked at Spike who just shrugged his shoulders, “Let her calm down. Finish your drink and then take your time, explore Ponyville. We’re pretty small, but there’s a lot going on if you look close enough. Maybe you should head to Sugarcube Corner and visit Pinkie?”

“NO!” I yelled before coughing awkwardly, “I mean, no. I think I’ll just explore the town a bit without heading somewhere certain.”

“Well, suit yourself,” he said before continuing with his gems.

I finished my drink and made my leave, promising to come again later or tomorrow. It was already growing dark, as far as I could tell from the light through those crystal windows at least. Walking out of the kitchen and the castle, my suspicions were confirmed.

The sun was setting slowly in the distance, and a faint chill was invading the air. Grinning, I looked up. It was the perfect time for some flying. And after being on the ground for some time now, I definitely needed it.

Spreading my wings after a moment, I took off into the air and climbed until I was high enough to see all of Ponyville stretching below me. It wasn’t exactly as small as I imagined it. Various houses were spread through some smaller paths in various directions, some with the woven roof I noticed upon arriving, some a mixture of bright colours, probably shops or something similar.

In the far distance, barely noticeable save for the lights in the windows, there appeared to be scattered cottages and farms, one of the bigger ones of which was most certainly where I would be spending the night. There were a few cloud houses far above me, the construction of which I recognized despite never actually having been inside one.

One of the cloud houses seemed to be far bigger than the others, and caught my attention. From what I could see, it was multi-floored, and had various waterfalls of liquid rainbow running around it. It was, for lack of a better word, beautiful.

Turning my attention back to the ground, my eyes were drawn by the sight of a still lake in the distance, the colors of the sunset reflecting delicately off of the surface of the water. The effect turned the black water into a deep orange with subtle ripples through its surface, bending the light and making it seem as if the lake was a living creature.

The sight drew me in, for some reason or another, and I soon found myself landing on a grassy hill above the lake. Taking a seat once I landed, I turned my attention to the slowly setting sun on the other side of the lake and let out a content sigh, watching the magnificent ball of color disappearing behind the horizon.

I sat there, watching the sun set in the distance and the dying light play tricks over the surface of the water below me until the sun was out of sight. Soon enough, Equestria was cast into darkness and graced by the presence of the full moon overhead, along with an abundance of stars.

I had to admit, Luna had outdone herself that night. The sky was beautiful, a black canvas with white speckles of wonder, and the moon itself was bright and vibrant. I always loved the night sky, even when I had my cutie mark removed, I enjoyed watching the stars.

With my neck craned backwards, I could see the constellations that I had memorized at some point in time. The Cradle, the Hydra, the Mare, the Sea Pony, the Minotaur, the Warrior, the Tower, the Candle. It was always so fascinating to point out constellations and then recounting the stories of why it was named as such.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure when I had acquired such a knowledge for the history of constellations. I had always just assumed that when I was a foal that my parents had some love of the stars, and saw fit to read me bedtime stories about them. I wasn’t honestly sure, I couldn’t remember much of anything about my childhood, or even my parents for that matter. It was a fuzzy period that felt like it happened over the course of one year, as opposed to about twelve.

For as little as I could remember about my childhood, though, I still remembered the stories. How the Warrior was on a timeless quest to rescue his lover, who had been cursed by a witch, and the witch had told him that for him to find his lover he would have to be sent to the skies. His wife, the Mare, was still lost in the night skies, forever searching for signs of her husband. Or stories about the magister’s Tower, which was empty save for a single Candle, both of which disappeared from Equestria when the Candle was lit.

I found myself fall over onto my back as I gazed at the stars, recalling stories about them and thinking about my past. In my new position, I could watch the stars without hurting my neck, and was quite comfortable in the position. The cool ground was welcoming and gentle on my back.

Resting my front hooves behind my head as a sort of pillow, a grin broke across my muzzle at the sight of a pair of shooting stars sailing across the night sky, gone as quickly as they had arrived. It was poetic, in a way. They reminded me of ponies; we’re thrown into life, we rush through it, and then we leave as quickly as we had arrived, but during the time that we’re there, we burn as bright as any star in the night sky.

***

I lost track of time as I watched the stars swirling above me, counting off stars in constellations and the number of dark spots I could see on the moon from there. It was peaceful, the only sounds being that of tree frogs and the delicate lapping of the river against the banks in the almost nonexistent breeze. I could have laid there all night, watching and listening, thinking to myself about the most inconsequential of things until the sun rose.

However, as the moon made its journey across the sky, it occurred to me that I still had a princess who wanted to see me.

I could have always just returned to the farm and came back the next morning, but my nerves didn’t agree with that. I wanted to have an answer sooner than later, and if I waited a whole night, I was sure I was going to be crawling up the walls too much to be able to go to sleep.

Rolling over to my hooves and giving a long stretch, I sighed contently as the feeling returned to my back and hooves. Bouncing in place a few times to get the blood flowing again, I spread my wings and took off into the air, the grin refusing to leave my face as I took in the cold night air whipping past my face.

It felt great to be alive.

Flying at a leisurely pace back to the castle in Ponyville, I took the time to fly up into one of the scarce low-flying clouds to give myself a quick mist cleaning, making sure that I had no grass or dirt stuck to my back after my little stargazing session. The water stored in the cloud was cold, but refreshing all the same. There wasn’t enough to really make me soaked, but the misting that washed over me as the cloud exploded was more than enough to make sure that I was clean and smelt of morning dew.

Not slowing down in my journey, I angled myself from the cloud towards the castle and was soon at the front steps yet again, landing on all four hooves with my attention at the door. It seemed that my journey had brought me back to these steps, but after having faced the dragon, so to speak, I didn’t feel frozen in fear any more. I was just anxious to get started.

Trotting up the steps, I stopped on the landing and knocked three times on the door, waiting patiently.

I didn’t have long to wait, the doors were soon enveloped in the faint lavender aura that I was growing accustomed to and swung open. As expected, there stood Princess Twilight Sparkle. However, she actually didn’t look as frazzled as she had… however earlier it had been since I was last there.

She looked clean, with none of her hairs out of place and none of her feathers ruffled. That, and she wasn’t twitching anymore, which was a good sign if any.

Her eyes found me and she gave a polite smile, “Oh, Night Glider! I was starting to think that you might not come tonight.”

I chuckled lightly, scratching the back of my neck with a hoof awkwardly, “Yeah, sorry about that, princess. I lost track of time stargazing, and I kinda didn’t know how long you’d be locked up in your room for anyways,” I admitted sheepishly, avoiding eye contact with the alicorn.

The princess gave an embarrassed chuckle, a blush crossing her cheeks, “I’m sorry about that, you kind of surprised me,” she said, shifting her weight from one side to the other as if she was suppressing the urge to run away again.

I nodded my understanding, “Don’t worry about it, I get it. But...uhhh… Did you think about what I said?” I asked, letting my hoof drop back to the ground and my eyes find her again.

Twilight bit her lip for a moment before giving a quick, single nod, “Yes, I have. And I believe I’ve come to a decision,” she said, despite the fact that she sounded quite unsure about whatever decision she had reached.

I raised an eyebrow at her, my ears perking up in curiosity, “And what did you decide?” I asked, a fresh wave of anxiety rushing through my system.

A few moments of silence passed as Twilight took steady breaths, looking as if she were fighting a battle with herself. However, I didn’t interrupt her, and after she seemed to regain her figurative hoofing, she gave a small, unsure smile, “After speaking with Celestia about this matter, I’ve decided that I will accept your request to become your mentor in the ways of friendship. You can come here tomorrow morning so we can begin, and if you still need help whenever you leave, you can start writing to me about what you’ve learned about friendship yourself,” she said, exhaling the rest of her breath as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

I couldn’t suppress the grin that reformed itself on my muzzle at the news, “R-really? You mean it?” my wings popped open and propelled me about three hooves into the air, where I proceeded to pump a hoof into the air in excitement, “Woohoo!! Awwh, yeah! This is going to be awesome!” I heard myself exclaim with fervor.

Twilight seemed to be caught off guard by the display as she recoiled, eyes going wide in surprise. However, despite the surprise, a small grin crossed her features as she witnessed my excitement. Of course, that was about the moment I realized I was currently cheering in front of my new mentor.

Clearing my throat and quickly dropping back to my hooves, I blushed fiercely and gave an awkward smile, “Err, I mean… Thanks, princess. I really appreciate it,” I said, making sure to keep my tone of voice more respectful.

After a moment of adjustment, Twilight returned to a normal stance and gave a genuine smile that made me feel surprisingly warm inside. Shaking her head delicately, she replied, “You don’t have to thank me, I think this will be a learning experience for us both.”

I nodded my agreement with my mentor, “Mhm. So, I guess I’ll see you in the morning?” I asked, my wings perking up again in barely contained excitement.

Giving a small laugh, she nodded at me, “Yes, I’ll see you in the morning. Good night, Night Glider,” she said, giving a nod in my direction.

Grinning ear to ear, I bowed my head towards her, “Goodnight, princess,” I replied before turning and taking off into the sky. I didn’t make it more than a few hooves before Twilight’s voice stopped me dead in my tracks.

“And Night Glider?” She called out, causing me to look over my shoulder in mid-hover. The smile she gave me could have thawed out Stalliongrad, “Call me Twilight.”