Bomblets

by Carabas

Dawn

Author's Note:

Thursday 10th - National day / Home life

Under darkness, Rarity made her way up the hill, her saddlebags bulging and her horn casting a steady blue light to see by. It was still night, the velvety blackness brushed with whorls of stars and the moon crowning one horizon, and it would remain night for a few minutes yet.

Time enough to get things ready.

Reaching the grassy summit, Rarity took a moment to catch her breath before getting to work. Unclasping her saddlebags, she drew out their contents, one item at a time. A folded checkered blanket, which she spread out. Two carefully-wrapped china cups and a thermos, and the contents of the latter were poured into the former. Two stemmed glasses and a corked bottle. A spread of sandwiches (crusts removed, of course) and a generous slab of chocolate gateau. And, because there was no such thing as too much care going into presentation, a thin glass vase into which she inserted a nearby flower.

As she arranged everything in pleasing patterns across the blanket, there came a flash and a bang from the direction of Ponyville. Rarity didn’t have to look around to recognise the sound of another firework being let off ahead of schedule. When she’d left, the main street and square around the town hall had already been a riot of light and festivity. It’d be too much to hope that Sweetie Belle and her friends would be entirely well-behaved in the midst of it all, but the others would stop them from wreaking too much havoc with any luck.

Some years, no matter the opportunities it offered for her muse to inflict itself on any and all decorations required, she felt the Summer Sun Celebration could be more trouble than it was worth.

Not this year, though.

Her preparations done, Rarity settled down on the blanket to watch the eastern horizon. She waited there in the pre-dawn hush, Ponyville muffled and distant, the distant shape of Twilight’s castle made a glittering tower of reflected starlight.

She didn’t have to wait long. Over the lip of the horizon, there appeared a thin band of gold. It rippled upwards, suffusing the darkness with blue and orange in its wake. And up after it, there came the sunrise.

Up it came, pressing the darkness back and casting more brilliant light and colours across the sky. The moon drew back in tandem, falling below its own horizon in perfect synchrony with the sun, while the light of the stars was engulfed by the day. Rarity held her breath as the sun ascended, the motion of it controlled and steady, and only when it gradually began to slow, winding back down to a normal orbit’s pace, did she finally release that breath.

Between the sun’s new position and the horizon it had drifted up from, far in the direction of Canterlot, it was just about possible to make out a single purple point in the sky, their purple wings spread, their corona of magic fading as the sun’s motion slowed.

They hovered there for a moment. From Ponyville below, Rarity could hear cheers and whoops and more unsafe use of fireworks as the Summer Sun Celebration got stuck into earning the third word of its title. High above, the purple point lingered a moment longer, still and brilliant against the newly blue sky. And, in another flash of magic, they vanished.

And reappeared next to Rarity on the blanket. Rarity turned, beaming fit to burst at Twilight Sparkle. The alicorn’s legs wobbled, and she let herself collapse onto the blanket, panting raggedly as her horn smoked gently.

“I did it,” Twilight murmured.

“You did it wonderfully,” Rarity said, leaning in to kiss Twilight’s cheek. “They didn’t have the broadest list of candidates to delegate to, I concede, but Celestia and Luna couldn’t have chosen somepony better.”

Twilight blinked dazedly, let out a brief, giddy laugh, and unsteadily picked up one of the cups of tea in her magic. She drained it, set it down, and then cast beseeching eyes at the cake. She looked imploringly at Rarity, who smiled and nodded. Twilight needed little further urging, and attended to business for the next few minutes while Rarity admired her handiwork.

Eventually, Twilight’s head rose, with slightly more of a patina of chocolate than it had had previously. Her expression had grown pensive, and Rarity eyed her with concern. “Twilight?”

For a moment, she was silent. Then Twilight said, “I thought it might have wobbled at one point.”

“It did no such thing. You were smooth as clockwork.”

“Are you sure?”

“I saw it all, darling.”

Twilight settled for a moment. And then, “You’re absolutely sure it didn’t wobble—?”

“Twilight Sparkle, you terribly silly pony,” Rarity said gently, leaning in close to the alicorn’s neck, “heed me when I say you were perfect.”

Twilight’s pensiveness lost its edge, and she returned the lean. “Just checking,” she said. “When everypony’s watching, it’s hard not to think that sort of thing.” She glanced down at Ponyville below and took a steadying breath. “I’ll have to head down sometime soon. To show face.”

“Sometime soon,” Rarity said. She lifted up the glasses and bottle with her magic, and proferred the latter to Twilight. “But not now. Not yet.”

And, better than any sunrise in Rarity’s estimation, a gentle smile dawned on Twilight’s face. She reached out with her own magic, and with one twist, uncorked the bottle.

Fizz coursed up, caught the sunlight, and for a moment on that hilltop, cut a rainbow across the dawn.

Comments

[Lurks-no-More]

Aww! Lovely little moment.

[FanOfMostEverything]

And in countless capitals around the world...

"What do you mean 'They have a spare'!?"

[Zaten the Changeling]

8919173
Woot?