La Sombra de Abuela

I checked my calendar to make sure today was the right day. The weather outside felt about right, but I still wanted to make sure. The calendar showed March 18; today was the day.

I put my usual traveling gear into my saddlebags: a sleeping bag, lawn blanket, thermos of hot chocolate, a few sandwiches, and three bottles of water. As I doubled checked everything, the urge to do a quick triple check crept up on me. I’ve been spending too much time with Twilight.

I left my house, locking it behind me, and started along the route along the edge of town that I normally use for these trips. Outside from a few waving hellos as I passed by and a few colts running around doing colt things, two barely missing me as they ran from their friends, playfully screaming at the top of their lungs, it was a pretty uneventful walk. As I reached the last of the houses, I took a small, worn down path that most would have missed if they weren’t looking.

After a few minutes of peaceful wilderness walking, I reached my destination: a hill with a big, old looking oak tree (the shade could easily cover half of the hill).

I gently touched the old bark and listened to the swaying of the leaves and branches. “Buenas tardes, Abuela,” I whispered to it. The tree groaned a little, trying to reply to me but unable to say the words. “Esta bien. No necesitas decir nada. Yo lo se.”

A few rays of light seeped through its mighty limbs, as if wrapping me in its warm embrace, if only for a few fleeting moments.

I stepped two hooves away from the bark and set down my bags, spreading my gear out along the grass. I got to spreading my lawn blanket when a voice from behind asked, “Greyscale, is that you?”

I turned around and saw the current ‘puller of my heart strings,’ though I’d never admit that to anypony – Twilight Sparkle.

“Hey Twilight, what brings you out here?”

“I could ask you the same things. Why are you so far out of town?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” I told her as I event out some bumps along the blanket. “Star gazing.”

“Grey, you can’t see the stars in the mid afternoon.”

“Of course not; I’m not crazy Twilight. I just take a nap here until night.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to come out at night?”

“Path is too small to see at night,” I told her as I finally got the blanket just right. “Besides, I want to sleep en la sombra de mi Abuela.”

“’Abuela?’ That’s Aztecan for ‘grandmother,’ right? Is she here?”

“Good to see somepony’s been brushing up on her Aztecan,” I said, giving her an earnest smile before spreading out my sleeping bag. “To answer your question, kind of.”

“Kind of? How can a pony kind of be here?”

“Because she’s not actually here, but at the same time is.”

“Grey, you aren’t making sense.”

“Twilight,” I said as I turned my sleeping bag into a good sized pillow, “I want to introduce you to the tree, Abuela.”

She gave me a look as if I was going crazy.

I sighed. “Let me explain. You remember how I said I was born in Ponyville yet moved at like seven?” – she nodded – “Well, whenever uno de mis abuelas, one of my grandmothers, came to visit us, she’d take my siblings and me way out here, to this tree. Think I asked why once, but can’t remember the answer. Anyway, we’d come out here, away from the town and everypony, and it would feel like we were in our own world. Most of the time, my older brother and me would either play tag or try to see who’d climb the highest without getting scared and my older sister would be scribbling or writing things down in a notebook, all the while mi abuela would be against the tree, watching us as she rocked my little brother to sleep.”

I chuckled a little. “There was this one afternoon where my brother and I were continuously bugging my sister to play with us while mi abuela just sat and laughed.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to get at is that las dos de mis abuelas, both of my grandmothers, would bring us out here. After we moved and when both of them passed, I found a picture of us here at this tree. I try to come here twice a year to take in all the memories that this place has. I call this tree Abuela because it reminds me of them, both of them still looking out for me while I’m here even if they are gone.”

I heard a sniff and saw that Twilight was crying a little. “Grey, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.

All I wanted to do was to brush away her tears, but I knew I couldn’t. “Hey, it’s okay. There’s no need to cry, okay.”

She wiped away the tears with a hoof and took a second to collect herself. “Guess I should leave you alone with your Abuela. I’ll see you la—“

“Actually, since you are here, there’s something that I would like to share with you. Well, two things I suppose.”

“Oh?’

“First, I want you to sit down,” I said as I patted down next to me on the blanket, which she did. “Now, I want you to close your eyes and try to take in the sounds around us.” She closed her eyes and I saw her relax a little. “Listen to the birds chirping, the slight buzzing of the cicadas, the lull of the breeze against the grass and leaves, the soft movements of the branches; take it all in.”

I saw her relax some more, evidently doing what I asked her to do. I decided to lie down on my back, believing her to be in good hooves, and soon found myself lost to the sounds around me, surrendering myself to it. It wasn’t long before I fell asleep.

The sounds of crickets woke me up. It took a few blinks before it registered that my eyes were open and it was night out.

I tried to fully stretch out, to wake up my possibly still sleeping body, but my right hoof didn’t seem to listen. Turned out that Twilight was using it as a pillow.

A million thoughts went through my mind, most some variation of ‘we are sleeping together,’ so it took a while for my brain and heart to stop racing.

As much as I wanted to keep the beautiful visage in front of me asleep, I knew that I had to wake her up to show her what I wanted to share.

After thinking of a few ways to wake her up, the strong urge of doing that whole fairy tale ‘wake her up with a kiss’ coming back more often than I’d like, I decided on doing the most logical, tactful thing in the world: I booped her snout. Sadly, nothing happened, so I booped her two more times and got a cute little yawn out of her.

“Welcome back to the land of the conscious, Twilight.”

“What time is it?” she yawned as she slowly sat up.

“Night.”

“Huh? That can’t be; I wasn’t even tired.”

“That’s the magic of this place; all you have to do is close your eyes for a bit before you eventually go to sleep. Helps with stress and stuff. Besides, now it’s time to share one of the things I mentioned,” I told her, using a hoof to point ahead of me.

It looked like she had some words to say to me, but she went slack jawed as soon as she saw what I was pointing at.

The nighttime sky was a dazzling array of lights: the constellations filling the empty dark blue sky with their light, the few hanging clouds swirls of various shades of blues, purple, and grey, the moon hanging in the sky, a bright orb of soft light, easily rivaling Princess Celestia’s sun.

“It, it looks like...”

“’The Starry Night,’” I finished for her, “or at least a really defined version of it.”

“I didn’t know the night sky could be so...awe inspiring.”

“Luna has been trying to make up for her ‘absence’ by making the night sky like this all throughout Equestria, though most don’t notice it since they are pretty much asleep. Guess that’s what makes it more breathtaking since only a few ponies get to actually see it.”

“Thank you for sharing this with me, Grey.”

I smiled at her. “It’s not done yet,” I said, pointing a ways ahead. “Look at that pond over there.”

“The reflection off of the pond? Is that what you wanted to share?”

“Just wait and see. Honestly surprised that they aren’t out already.”

“’They?’” Twilight asked me, but all she got was a quiet smile.

We waited in silence for a minute or two before it happened – the pond’s edges started to flicker with small lights that went out almost as soon as they turned on. Gradually, more lights appeared, casting the pond’s water with soft flickering yellow, the lights dancing away in the night sky.

“Wow...” Twilight said.

“It’s something I randomly encountered the first time I napped the afternoon away, the first equinox when I moved back.”

“It’s amazing...”

I turned to face her, to say something smooth yet cheesy, and noticed that her head was on my shoulder and one of her hooves was wrapped around one of mine. The sudden realization that we were having a romantic moment sent my heart into overdrive. The night sky, the dancing lights, me and her just by ourselves; it felt like a scene from a romance story or movie, and, yet, it was happening right now. In fear of invoking some otherworldly romantic force or deity, I went back to looking at the dancing lights.

Apparently said deity had other plans for me because, at that moment, a cold breeze swept the area, causing Twilight to shiver a bit and grab onto me some more.

Play it cool. Play it cool. She’s just cold. It doesn’t mean anything. “Y-you know, you could u-use the sleeping bag if you’re cold.”

That might have made her realize what she was doing since she quickly let go of me and scooted a bit away.

“What about you? Won’t you get cold?”

“It’s okay. I mostly use it as a pillow anyway. You use it.”

“No, you use it. I’ll just go back into town.”

“You can’t see the path to town at night and you could end up going the opposite direction if you aren’t careful. You use it.”

“Why are you so set on me using it?”

“Why are you against you using it?”

“Because I don’t want you to get sick!”

“Me either!”

The sleeping bag sat between us, both of us too stubborn to back down.

After what felt like minutes, Twilight sighed. “Grey, this isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“Really isn’t,” I sighed.

“Why, why don’t we share the bag instead?”

A few thoughts popped into my mind, none of which I was going to share with anypony. “It’s a single pony bag. Don’t think we’d both fit in it.”

The big levitated, a lavender aura surrounding it, as the bag completely unzipped itself before stretching straight out.

“...right, forget it could do that,” I said.

Twilight folded the length into fourths before perfectly setting it at the bottom of the lawn blanket.

The words “Ready to go to bed?” left my mouth before I could stop myself from saying them, the faintest of squeaks my only reply from her.

We both lay down on opposite sides of the blanket, each facing away from one another, as Twilight lifted the new ‘blanket’ over us, an awkward silence soon enveloping us.

After what felt like an awkward eternity, I decided to say something stupid.

“Twilight...”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever heard the story of how the constellation Orion ended up holding a snake?”

“...I thought he was holding a bow.”

“That’s what everypony thinks. You see, long ago, there lived this young colt...”

And so I told her that stupid story my friend Beat told me once, exactly the way he told me: Orion’s ‘tragic’ backstory, why he used a bow and arrow instead of a sword, how he won the favor of everypony in his country after years of trying, and how he was sent to the stars for trying to scare Princess Celestia with a snake.

I finished the story, no clue how she’d react. Apparently she enjoyed it since I got a small snort out of her.

“S-sorry. It’s just that that was funnier than it should have been.”

I steeled myself not to mention the snort, for fear of judgement. “Weird, huh. You go any stories about the stars that fall under that category?”

“Well, there is this one I heard about how Princess Cascade fell into a lake and wound up in love with the celestial spirit of the constellation Virgo.”

“...okay, I really want to hear that one.”

We went back and forth, telling pretty bad star-based stories, each getting a laugh or two out of the other.

By the time I got done with telling the story of how the Big Dipper was jealous of Leo for taking away its lover, Pisces, the night sky started to get some strands of orange.

“Huh,” I yawned, “looks like it’s morning already.”

I heard some light snoring and saw that Twilight was asleep.

“When did she...” I smiled and made sure she was covered well. “Buenos dias, Twilight.”

I closed my eyes and let the sounds around Abuela take me away again.

Author's Note:

This is just a little present I decided to gift to anyone who would like to read it. I wrote this quite some time ago and never really reached the point of publishing it with my series. Felt like it was about time to unleash it to the world, so that's what I did. Any and all thoughts you lot had will reading this story please feel free to share in the comments below.

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