When Stars Come Out to Play

by Chicago Ted

Prologue - A New Book?

“Are there any further questions?”

The class silently looked towards one another, almost daring each other to raise a hoof. Several hind hooves were twitching, a few about to lunge to the door. Many horns were lit up, anticipating a spell. Surely nopony wanted to get let out later than right this minute.

“Very well!” Professor Top Marks set his chalk down. “Class is dismissed for the summer.”

One had seldom ever seen so many teleportation spells being cast at once – in the blink of an eye, half the class vanished in flashes of color, and the other half simply squeezed past each other out the door. Well, one violet unicorn waited patiently, calmly packing up her supplies, and by the time she was done her peers had disappeared down the hall.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

She turned back to face Top Marks. “Yes, Professor?”

The normally stoic professor smiled, faintly yet warmly, at her. “I would like to congratulate you on another excellent semester. Perfect marks across the board. If you ask me, you, more than anypony else, have earned this break. Have a grand summer.”

“Thanks, Professor!” In high spirits, she pranced out the door. Top Marks simply turned back to the board and started erasing it – for the last time for a few months. Surely, he thought, Twilight would impress me next semester.

For most students, summer meant freedom – spending a night on the town, heading to the beach, anything but academics. Plus, tomorrow was the Summer Sun Celebration – not only that, but it would be the one thousandth such Celebration, and a small town in the Everfree Basin named Ponyville would have the honor of receiving Princess Celestia this year.

Twilight, however, was not most students. She cared nothing for outings with friends, instead preferring to stick with her studies – but with the freedom of choosing what she studied, as Princess Celestia’s protégé. For her, that was enough. She would, however, be attending the Summer Sun Celebration – she’d be a fool not to. Besides, she thought, that would be the worst way to let down my mentor.

Spike was waiting outside the school doors, watching other ponies disappear down the road. He spotted Twilight just leaving the building. “Final grade?”

“A+, as usual!” Twilight was beaming with pride, even though for her this was routine.

“Nice job. . . .” Then to himself, “Nothing an all-nighter can’t solve, right?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “C’mon – we’ll head to the bookstore. I’m thinking about treating myself.”

Spike groaned. “Really? Fresh out of school and you’re still thinking about studying?”

“Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean I can slack off,” Twilight responded. “You know that by now.”

“C’mon, Twilight, just try! It wouldn’t kill you to – huh?” Spike spotted something shiny on the ground. He stopped to look closer. It was a fragment of some geometric solid he couldn’t remember the name of, seemingly carved from stone. Something about it compelled him to pick it up, so he did – and as he stood back up, he almost bumped into Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts chatting with one another on their way to parts unknown. “’Scuse me.”

They just giggled and let him by. “Moondancer said she’s throwing a party in the courtyard for her class to attend tomorrow,” Lemon Hearts said. “You down?”

“Oh, totally. It’s about time she learned to unplug from her books. . . .”

Hmm, he thought. That’s a first. Maybe I should get her something, convince Twilight to attend – some socialization would do both of them some good. . . .

“You were saying, Spike?” Twilight turned her head just as Spike caught up.

“Hey Twilight, mind if we split up?” he asked. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to get.”

“Spike, please.” Twilight pulled him closer with a bit of magic. “Canterlot’s a big city, certainly no place for a baby dragon like you. Now come on, maybe you’ll find something you’d like at the bookstore.”

“Ugh, fine.” It would have to wait until tomorrow. It’d be a bit close, but he was confident he could pull it off. It’d take quite a bit of planning beforehand, perhaps a bit of sneaking.

Twilight, on the other hoof, kept thinking about what to read up on as she stayed the course to the bookstore. She long lost count on what subjects she studied, both assigned and of her volition, but surely there was something she missed that they had – this of course depended on what they had in stock.

☆

The nonfiction section was freshly stocked when she arrived. Just in time for summer! she thought. She decided to peruse and choose from the first shelf. Perfection: The Impossible Pursuit? Nah, already checked out from the library. History of Equestria: Twelfth Edition? They’d put out a new edition just for one sentence. Not worth it. Then she spotted The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide. Hmm. . . . Twilight pondered if she should grab this specific book. It had all the hallmarks of a high fantasy work, but it was shelved here in nonfiction. Curious. . . .

In any case, it wasn’t something she had ever seen before – so why not? She grabbed it and went to the counter to pay. “Find anything?” she asked Spike.

“Nah.” He shook his head. “Same drivel, new binding.”

Twilight held up The Elements of Harmony. “I bet you otherwise.”

Spike rolled his eyes, but shut his mouth. Perhaps she was right.

“Good afternoon, Twilight,” the clerk greeted. “Found something that caught your eye, did you?”

Twilight nervously chuckled. “Well, it’s the end of the semester. Thought I’d grab a little summer reading.”

“Ever the scholar!” He rang up Twilight’s purchase. “That’ll be ten bits.”

For a book that thick, it was a fair bargain. She counted them out and set them on the counter.

“Have a nice day!” The clerk waved her goodbye.

“Thank you, I will!” Twilight trotted away, slipping her newly-bought book into her saddlebags, and out the shop.

“Twilight Sparkle, studying even during summer,” the clerk said to himself. “Some things never change.”

It was when she stepped out of the shop that Twilight noticed that the sky had clouded over considerably while she was browsing. “Uh, Spike?” she asked. “Do you remember what the weather schedule said for this week?”

“Yeah, it’s supposed to rain this afternoon. Why?”

Twilight groaned. “Of course it would. Let’s just hurry back to the dorm before it comes down.” Naturally, after cramming for a fortnight, she had forgotten her plan to start her summer after the last day of school. Oh well, she thought, I could kill the rest of the day with a good book. “We’d better hurry back to our dorm,” she told Spike. “Let’s go!”

The bookstore was not far from the dorm, and Twilight and Spike managed to snake up the spiral staircase and make it to the door of their room right as the first drops of rain started falling on her head. Once they had gotten inside, she checked her saddlebags to see if any water had seeped in. No water damage. Good. “Phew!”

“Not one for the rain are you?” Spike quipped. After she shot a glare back, he followed up with “Right, right, new book and all that. Why don’t you cozy up on the couch or something, while I get us some lunch?” On his way into the kitchen, he tossed the object he found onto a table.

Twilight looked at it. “What’s that for, Spike?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Found it on the way to the bookstore. You can have it, I don’t care.”

Her horn lit up, and she brought the piece to her eye. It was dark-gray, flat, and carved into a pentagonal shape. One side was blank, the other had an equine head engraved into it. Other than that, it was fairly unremarkable – it certainly didn’t look like any bit she’d ever seen.

“Thanks,” she told Spike. She went up to her bedroom, laid down on her bed, set the object and flipped her new book open to the table of contents.

It was a curious collection of both fairy tales and more encyclopedic entries. She found “A Treatise on Cockatrices” sandwiched between “Star-Swirl the Bearded and the Everfree Garden” and “When the First Words Were Stamped in Mud.” What mad pony would collect these specific things into one book? she wondered. And why? What makes these so significant?

Then in the middle of the table, she noted something called “Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls.” Twilight racked her brains. Between her exhaustive academic research since her youth and the literature that Princess Celestia “forced” her to read, she couldn’t recall anything even faintly resembling something like this. “Milky Way” implied a more serious discussion of the cosmos, but Twilight’s gut told her that this was more of that frilly frou-frou nonsense masquerading as high-class fiction. Eh, why not? Nothing else on the table caught her eye, so she flipped to page 313 – and was surprised to see it barren, save for just a simple poëm. Reflexively, she started reading it aloud:

A flurry of stars, assembling here
For when the daily night draws near:
Eleven girls, each one a peer
To one another, soon appear.
One brave, adventurous with cheer,
One boasting bright, one often blear,
One swift, one prim, one without fear,
One with her pets, one’s beat they hear,
One well-read, one not so austere,
And one composing song in drear.

“Hmm. . . .” Twilight looked at it more closely; surely she was missing something. But what? Does the poëm simply end here? Or is this a misprint? And who are these eleven girls? Why do they come out only at night? I have so many questions. . . . Then she looked up from the page, seeking answers to these and more questions – and what she saw made her stop.

Time had apparently stopped when Twilight spoke those words. Carefully she got out of her bed, breathing short, and looked around. No motions to speak of. No sounds to speak of. She peeked downstairs in the kitchen – Spike was frozen in place as he was about to finish making a daisy sandwich for her.

She trotted up behind him and waved a hoof in front of her eyes. Then she tapped his shoulder. No reaction in either case. “Curiouser and curiouser,” she said aloud. Spike apparently didn’t hear her.

Then Twilight realized something. Did it just get darker in here? She checked out the kitchen window – and her jaw dropped. Not only was it not raining, night had fallen in the space of a minute. Is Princess Celestia playing tricks on me?

In a panic, she rushed back upstairs to her book, scouring the page and the previous and next twenty, looking for answers, solutions, warnings, anything. Nothing.

She picked up the object from her bedside table, giving it another, more careful once-over. Still nothing remarkable about it, but now she thought perhaps there were others like it. Would make sense. . . who in their right mind would make only one of these?

In her ears, she heard a gentle hiss surrounding her, as though something was dissolving. She looked up just in time to watch as the color started draining from her surroundings. Then the grays. Then white.

In the intervening darkness, Twilight felt herself blink. Once. Twice. Her heart was beating in her ears. She felt nothing surrounding her. She tried to scream, but no sound came out.

And then she felt herself falling. . . .