When Stars Come Out to Play

by Chicago Ted

Chapter 3 - Lunar Lyricist

In a dark corner of the cosmos – on the dark side of a satellite – there sat a girl, robed in all gray, writing a new poëm on a scroll of parchment. She furrowed her brow at one line. “No, that does not look quite right,” she said to herself. “But what if I. . . ?” She then scribbled out the offending line, and it magically disappeared from the parchment, as though it was never written in the first place. In its stead, she wrote another line, and then smiled and nodded satisfactorily. “Much improved.”

Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bright glimmer of someone – namely, the Sun – approaching her. But she wasn’t alone, not this time – another girl had joined her, one she hadn’t ever seen before, and with her, perched on her shoulder, was a small violet unicorn.

“Here comes the Sun,” she said to herself. As if she knew what was coming with her, she set the parchment down and turned to face them. “I must say, it mustn’t be alright if she is coming out to me.”

The Sun and Milky Way skidded to a halt. “Hey Moon,” the Sun greeted. “Got a second, sugar?”

The Moon sighed. “Knowing you, Sun, it would be much longer than a second. And I see that you’ve brought friends – it’s strange that I’ve not met them since.” She then looked at Milky Way and Twilight. “So who are you, if I may ask?” As she spoke, she maintained a steady metrical cadance – as though she was constantly speaking in verse.

Milky Way stepped forward. “My name’s Milky Way,” she said, “and this is Twilight.” Her voice remained calm, devoid of emotion, to avoid setting off the Moon. “I. . . uh, we’re on a quest to stop Black Hole from destroying the universe – me, her, and the Sun.” She pointed at each person as she spoke. “And now you, too – the Sun mentioned that you might have something that could help us.”

The Moon nodded, just slightly, then turned her attention to Twilight. “And you, the unicorn – I’ve not seen one like you before. Pray tell, why are you with her?”

“I’m. . . just with her, I guess,” Twilight said. “It’s kind of a long story. I don’t think I have time to tell.”

“Come now, Twilight.” The Moon pulled the unicorn from Milky Way’s shoulder and set her down on the surface of her satellite. “I have much time to listen. We are not in current peril, yes?”

“Actually, we are,” said Twilight. “And it is rather urgent. His name’s Black Hole, and he’s going to compress the entire universe down into a singularity.” She leapt from the satellite’s surface – rather easily – and back by Milky Way’s side. Huh, that was easy. “We really don’t know how long we have left, so we should assume we have no time at all.”

“Oh yes, Black Hole. I’ve heard his name before.” She pulled out another parchment scroll and looked over her poëtry. “These sonnets that I’ve written tell his tale – his triumphs and his detriments. He should be sealed away within a sphere of stone.” She looked at Milky Way. “You seem mischievous,” she deduced. “Did you free him from his place?”

Milky Way sighed. “Guilty as charged,” she admitted, “but it was an accident! I didn’t know about him, I swear!”

“I believe her,” the Sun testified. “If she meant to bust Black Hole loose, she wouldn’t have come to this system and pulled one fragment out of my sun. Well – ” she cleared her throat – “with my help, of course.”

“How admirable,” the Moon commented. “Yet my question stands – why did she hit his sphere with such strength as to break it up?”

“I did not!” Milky Way looked genuinely offended. “It was just a really light touch.”

“A light touch?” The Moon’s brow furrowed at Milky Way’s words. “Then it’s worse than I have feared – he cannot be contained again, unless we can reinforce it once more.” In one swift move, she made her parchment scroll vanish, and conjured another one – blank, this time. “I can help you there, when the time comes.”

Her coöperation did nothing to stem the tide of fear from her earlier comment. “Still, we’re looking for another fragment of his ‘sphere,’” Milky Way told the Moon, who nodded. “The Sun told me that you might have it here – is that right?”

“What accusation!” The Moon shrouded her face behind her hair, and retreated to the dark side of her satellite. There she remained, motionless, speechless.

“Nice,” Twilight snarked.

Milky Way turned to the Sun. “Was it something I said?” she asked.

“Don’t mind her none, girls,” the Sun reassured, in a lower voice. “She’s often blear like that – her mood swings like the tides, and all we can do is just grin and bear it.”

Is she bipolar? Twilight wondered.

“For what it’s worth,” the Sun continued, “her poëtry does make up for it. . . mostly. Y’all wanna hear something cool?” She gestured them to come closer. As they did so, the Sun whispered to them, “When she’s particularly inspired, her poëtry can actually make things come true.”

Twilight’s eyes widened at the prospect – if this is true, the Moon must be my ticket back to Canterlot! she thought. But another thing. . . . “Then why can’t she just. . . I dunno, write a poëm about Black Hole reimprisoning himself?” she asked. “Would be so much easier than to run around collecting fragments.”

“I thought so too, little pony,” the Sun told her, “but she said it don’t work that way. Wouldn’t be ‘in character,’ in her words. And believe me, I saw her try time and time again. We’ve got to do this the hard way, sugar.” She sighed, and looked down on the Moon. “Would be easier if she’d just get out of her funk.”

Hmm, what to do. . . ? After some thought, Twilight thought of a way to cheer up the Moon. She slipped from Milky Way’s shoulder and crept over to the Moon. “Hey Moon,” she told her, “you know, where I come from, we have some really good poëtry too. Would you like to hear?”

It was a tight gambit, but it paid off. The Moon lowered her façade of gloom and doom and smiled at Twilight. “Truly, yes,” she told her. “What works of verse do you have?”

After trying to settle on one specific poëm to recite, Twilight decided on a classic even the Moon would appreciate – “Ode to þe Mare in þe Moon” by Silver Tongue.

Come ev’ry Night, Ye grace us wiþ Your Guard
Who watcheþ over as we drift to Sleep –
Safeguarding Subjects from þe Horrors deep
And giving þem Reſpite from Days made hard.
O lunar Princeſs, hear me now, þis Bard,
Now kept aſhore by hazy Daylight’s Neap –
Bring me Your Comfort, and my Comp’ny keep,
And may Your ſtellar Magic be unmarr’d.

Your Spite is known, Dear, of þat fateful Day
Celeſtia exil’d You from Equeſtria hence
And left You trapt wiþin Your brilliant Moon.
Curſed a þouſand Winters þere to ſtay,
Ye yet conduct Your nightly Duties þence –
I pray to ſee Your Reſtoration ſoon.

The Moon found herself mesmerized by Silver Tongue’s words – and when Twilight finished, she proved to be much more willing to help them than before. “Surely,” she said, “though I know nought of your kingdom, little pony, your words speak unbridled beauty.” She conjured another scroll, unfurling it to a ludicrously long text. “Look – this scroll describes the surface of my world, continuously writing on itself in blank verse. Now, you said a fragment landed here, did you?”

Milky Way looked over the Moon’s satellite carefully. “I did, but I can’t find it in all this gray,” she complained.

“Not to worry, I can help there.” The Moon started scrolling back from the ending, her brow furrowing the longer she kept at it. “Though my verses stretch for longer than I thought. Could you be more specific?”

“Um. . . .” Milky Way kept thinking, presumably about where this fragment could have possibly landed on the satellite. Then she snapped her fingers – she had another idea. “While I don’t know where it landed, I can say when it landed – yesterday, in fact.”

The Moon nodded. “It will suffice.”

“Why did you wait until today to stop Black Hole?” Twilight whispered to Milky Way. “You could’ve saved us all a lot of trouble!”

“I didn’t,” Milky Way whispered back. “I’ve been looking for the right system this entire time – and only just found it today.”

How do days work out here? Twilight wondered. Eh, forget it. She waited until the Moon found a particular passage, which read:

. . . And from the black, another struck
Within the southern hemisphere
Embedding deeply in the ground
And hiding from the sight of Earth. . . .

“Were there any more?” Milky Way asked.

The Moon looked immediately before and after the passage, before shaking her head. “It was the only impact of that day,” she told them. “That must be it – and that specific crater. . . .” She pulled Milky Way’s hand and led her and the Sun to the southern hemisphere, on the side always facing away from its parent world. “. . . here it is.”

Milky Way looked closely. “I don’t see it,” she said. “Sun, can you shine a light?”

“Sure, honey.” The Sun’s hair started glowing, brighter and brighter, but not to such a degree that it hurt Twilight’s eyes. But even with the increased brightness, none of the three could see any fragment in the soil.

“Well. . . now what?” Twilight asked. “Unless the Moon doesn’t mind us getting our hooves – or hands – dirty, we’re stuck here.”

“Every crater on its surface tells a different story,” the Moon told Twilight. “Many of these stories I know well. So don’t become afraid of being part of this one.”

“Alright, let’s get serious.” Milky Way cracked her knuckles and got to work. Slowly and gingerly, she brushed away some of the surface regolith that had settled. “Luna?” she asked not long after. “Is it normally this warm?”

“If the impact is recent enough, the rock should still be molten,” Twilight told her. “I’d take a few precautions if that’s the case.”

“The unicorn does speak the truth,” Luna opined. “You should keep digging there regardless.”

“Got it!” With a newfound vigor, she leapt back into her task. She flung dirt and rocks this way and that, and found that Twilight’s concerns were ultimately unfounded. She felt herself getting ever closer to her goal –

“Not so rough!” The Moon retreated behind her hair again. “I realize that your task is paramount, but that is still no cause to leave a heavy mark upon my sphere!”

The Sun tried to comfort her. “Moon, sugar, she didn’t mean to.” She then looked at Milky Way. “You didn’t, right?”

Milky Way sighed. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Slowly, the Moon showed her face once again – if only just an eye. She sighed. “Do what you must,” she told Milky Way. “I care nothing for it anymore.”

Twilight looked at Milky Way’s handiwork. She lit up her horn to feel around the resulting hole – which caught the Moon’s attention.

“Little pony,” she said. “How do you do that?”

“Huh?” She looked up at her lit horn. “Oh, that! That’s just something we unicorns do when we use magic. Nothing extraordinary about it. Why?”

“I had never seen a thing like it before!” she exclaimed. “I need a moment.” With her moment, she conjured a blank scroll and started writing frantically.

Twilight let her horn fade out. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Not at all!” The Moon looked up and saw her now dimmed horn. “Now bring that back – at once!”

“Uh. . . okay?” For a unicorn, a lit horn was the simplest of spells, so while it did not trouble Twilight at all, it left her wondering about what the Moon had in mind.

After a minute or so of continuous writing, the Moon shut her scroll. “Perfection!” she announced. “This, my Twilight, is a charm for you – for strengthening whatever spell you have.”

Twilight was about to open the scroll to read it, but the Sun stopped her. “I’ve seen them work, little pony, but they’re a one-time-use kinda deal. I’d save that for something more important – like Black Hole, I reckon.”

She nodded. “Point taken.” She handed it back to the Moon. “Would you hang on to this for me?”

“I will.” With a snap of her fingers, it disappeared. “Just call upon me, and you shall receive it.”

“Got it,” said Twilight.

“Got it!” Milky Way repeated. Triumphantly, she held up her prize – another dark-gray fragment of rock, looking similar to the one she pulled from the Sun earlier – only this time, it had long since cooled.

“If I may?” The Moon leaned in close to Milky Way’s find. “I see no deformation, nor a missing piece.” She nodded. “The villain can be recontained.”

“That’s two down!” said Milky Way. “Actually, Moon, do you know how many more we have left?”

“Pray we haven’t many left” was the most Milky Way could get out of her.

She shrugged. “Fair enough, I guess. So what’s our next stop? Any ideas?”

“Hmm. . . .” The Sun started thinking about something. “Actually, Mercury might be back from training. What do you say, girls – should we pay her a visit?”

“Sounds good to me!” said Milky Way. “Be nice to get a little starshine after being back here in the dark. Twilight?”

The unicorn groaned. “Please tell me I won’t get blinded this time.”

“No worries, honey,” the Sun reassured – “Mercury isn’t that close to my star. Besides, you still have my shades from earlier, don’cha?”

“I guess that’s true,” she admitted.

The Moon looked down. “Very well – I shall journey with you into the light.” She seemed troubled.

“Is something wrong?” Twilight asked.

“The Moon just doesn’t like the light sometimes,” the Sun explained. Then to the Moon, “Reckon this is just one of those times, huh?”

“It is nought,” she replied. “Perhaps I could do with a bit of light myself.”

“That’s the spirit,” the Sun responded. “Y’all ready to go, girls?”

“I am!” said Milky Way. Twilight nodded in agreement.

“Then let’s haul out!”