To Wake the Stars at Twilight

by LA Knight

When It Rains

ŦS

Twilight tried to shake off the strange unease that continued to prickle along her lavender coat as she and Spike reshelved some of the books borrowed by the local ponyfolk. Rain still drummed on the library roof as the gloom outside the shuttered windows deepened into the true darkness of coming night. Lightning forked the sky in lashes of brilliant opalescence before leaving the midnight clouds dark once more.

The strange stallion she'd sensed, whoever he was, was still out there somewhere. Further away now, she was fairly sure, but how far off he'd gone, the unicorn didn't know, and the thought of that mysteriously familiar entity being anywhere in Ponyville sent nervousness twisting like icy snakes in her stomach.

"Maybe you should write to the princess about it," Spike suggested. The baby dragon balanced precariously on top of the ladder leaning against the packed shelf. Owlowsius plucked the leather-bound tome from the dragonet's claws and shoved it into place a few shelves above Spike's head with his razor-sharp talons. The owl hooted and flew back to his perch next to Twilight's desk. He hooted again, this time at the mare. "I think Owlowsius agrees with me," Spike added.
Frowning, Twilight scuffed one hoof against the polished wood of the library floor. If there was a strange and potentially dangerous pony in town, her mentor needed to know. Still… if she was going to write to Princess Celestia, Twilight knew she needed to write the letter herself, instead of dictating it to her assistant. The odd sense of familiarity she'd felt from the hidden stallion had her off-balance. She needed to figure out who the visitor could be, and whether they meant any harm. Maybe Shining Armor knew of anypony coming to the area. Twilight knew her brother, as captain of the Royal Equestrian Guard, had more duties than just acting as leader to the royal family's guards and being a husband to Princess Cadance. He was also Celestia's Spy Master, and his agents kept their ears to the ground for unusual activity in the kingdom - especially concerning Canterlot and Ponyville.

Closing her eyes, the young mare unspooled a bit of her magic and set a piece of parchment on her desk. Dipping a newly sharpened owl-feather quill into her inkwell, she began a letter to her mentor. The scritch-scritch of the pen on the smooth parchment soothed some of Twilight's unease. The familiar aroma of rich leather, the sweet scent of paper, and the sharp smell of fresh ink helped, as well. She could ignore the heaviness in the air from the pounding rain outside; ignore the darkness waiting just outside like some living thing waiting for her to step out so it could attack.

Surprised at herself, she frowned. Where had that paranoid thought come from? She was being ridiculous. There was nothing to fear out there in the dark. Hadn't she, Twilight Sparkle, defeated Nightmare Moon - Queen of the Night, Mistress of Dreams - with the help of her friends and the Elements of Harmony? And then gone on to fight off the dark shadow of King Sombra as well? The night held nothing to fear.

She finished her letter to Celestia reporting what she'd sensed. After completing the letter to Shining Armor asking if he knew of anything relevant, and having Spike send both, the young mare sighed and decided it was time for her to get ready for bed so she could stop worrying and get some sleep.

Giving her mane and tail a quick brush - she'd save a full-body brushing for tomorrow, when the air wasn't so muggy - and cleaning her teeth, she lit a candle and climbed into bed. The new patchwork quilt on her bed had come all the way from Canterlot, a gift from Cadance as a thank-you for being best mare at the princess's wedding. Each patch sported a different picture, but the patches at each of the four corners had images from the secret hoofshake she and Cadance had come up with when Twilight was just a foal.

"Sunshine, sunshine; ladybugs awake," the unicorn murmured, running a gentle hoof over the patch with ladybugs done in little circles of red and black velvet. Ever since the quilt's arrival a week prior, Twilight had discovered that sleep came that much easier to her. Cadance had probably used her magic on it to infuse it with the same feelings Twilight felt when she was with Cadance and Shining Armor.

"Hey, Twilight?" Spike called from his basket-bed on the floor at the foot of Twilight's bed. "Um… just wondering… since it's raining and all…"

Lightning flashed white as a sunburst against the blackness of the night outside. A crack of thunder rattled the glass in the windows. Spike yelped. Twilight heard a rustling of blankets, a clicking scrabble of claws against wood, and then the dragonet zoomed across her bedroom floor in a streak of pale purple and green. He catapulted off the floor and bounced into her bed, trembling against her flank.

"Yes, Spike?" Twilight asked, putting her foreleg around him. He snuggled against her warmth, and she was reminded that he was still just a baby dragon. And being a creature of air and fire, he didn't really deal well with the enemy element of water invading one of the realms of one of his elements, air, in the form of rain. He didn't handle the noise from thunderstorms well, either. "Since it's raining?"

The baby dragon scrunched up into a tight ball of scales and spines when another boom of thunder shook the library windows. "C-could you… maybe… read to me?"

Twilight smiled. Whenever rain had struck while they'd been in Canterlot, she'd often curled up beneath the bedcovers and read to herself to pass the time and help take her mind off the usually hideous downpours. Once Spike had been old enough to do more than eat, sleep, burp, and slurp happily on the end of his tail, she'd taken to reading aloud to him, as well. The sound of her voice had seemed to help him deal with the tumultuous noise of crashing thunder, which had always frightened him.

"Any special requests?"

Spike slowly relaxed, some of the tension fading from his body, as no fresh thunder shook their home. "Um... how 'bout Peter Pony and the Lost Colts?"

"Sure thing." Using a bit of magic to bring the book to her so she wouldn't have to leave the still-nervous dragonet, Twilight cracked open the green leather-bound book and started at Spike's favorite part. She'd read the book so many times to him, they could've started anywhere, but the baby dragon's favorite part started during the first duel between Peter Pony and the nefarious, bloodthirsty leader of a band of pirates, Captain Jas Hookhoof.

"Peter's sword flashed silver under the moonlight as he fended off Hookhoof's strike. All around him, the Lost Colts battled the pirates with swords and wings and magic. Pegasi colts zipped into the air, twisting and dodging. Unicorn colts caught sword blades' with their spiraling horns before sending blasts of magical power at their enemies. Toodles, the leader of Peter's earth pony colts, lashed out with his immensely strong hind legs and knocked a zebra pirate off the ship's deck and into the shark-infested waters below.

"The sounds and smells of battle filled the air, but all Peter saw in front of him was the shadowy form of the changeling mare who was his archenemy, Captain Hookhoof. Peter had cut off the changeling's left front hoof years ago when he'd still been a young colt, and Hookhoof had sworn she would one day have her revenge - if not on Peter himself, then on the ponies who meant the most to him…"

ΡĐς

A slow shiver whispered along "Peter's" spine as he ducked beneath the rain-streaked sign that he knew read "Sweet Apple Acres," even if he couldn't actually see the letters. Somewhere around the sprawling apple farm, a teacup flutterpony was waiting to lead him to where he was supposed to meet an old friend. In the dank gloom of the rainy dusk, how Citron was supposed to find Peter, the unicorn stallion had no idea. He didn't need to worry about it, either. Somehow, the flutterpony could always sense where the stallion happened to be.

That wasn't always a good thing, but in this instance, when the familiar, chirping little voice called, "Peter! Peter!" he was more than happy to see the tiny splotch of iridescent yellow that was his flutterpony companion as Citron zipped between raindrops to land on Peter's nose. "I found him, I found him!" Citron chirruped. The teacup flutterpony - so called because his breed could literally fit inside a teacup - bounced along one of the scars marring Peter's nose. "He's in the barn!"
"Take me to him, then," Peter murmured.

The little flutterpony hopped off his nose, flew like a drunken bumblebee around the stallion's head, then took off in the direction of the Apple family's barn. Because Amaranthine hadn't been sure about the princesses' involvement, the trio of alicorns looking out for Peter and his mission hadn't been certain they could get a message to their contact in Ponyville in time for Peter's arrival. Citron had made it in the nick of time, but Peter knew the little winged colt would end up paying for it once his exhaustion caught up to him. Already the unicorn could see the way the gossamer wings drooped a little with tiredness, and the usually-perky bounces, while still enthusiastic, had lost their pizzazz.

Looming ahead like a maw of gaping shadows was the back doors of the Apple family barn. Stallion and colt heaved sighs of relief when they stepped through the doors and out of the icy rain. Citron immediately dove into a loose pile of dry, sweet-smelling hay and began to burrow inside of it, drying his coat and wings and slowly warming himself. Peter shook out his mane, and then gave his entire body a good shake to get rid of most of the water clinging to the short, white hair. He shrugged his shoulders to dislodge the packs slung across his back; they hit the straw-sprinkled barn floor with dual thuds.

"Long time, no see, Pete," said a deep voice from the barn.

Peter smiled and lifted a brow at the stallion that stepped out of the shadows. "Hey, there, Big Macintosh… or should I say, Toodles?"

ŦS

"…never fallin' back down;
And around this time I should say to you
That you should follow the lifestyle of Daring Do!"

Twilight jerked awake to the sound of her alarm clock, a complicated contrivance of copper wires, glass tubing, ensorcelled aether, and iron gears that she'd put together as a filly and fueled with her magic as a class project. Most radios ran on some kind of magic - or in places where unicorns were uncommon, electricity and standard aether - but hers was special. She'd come up with the idea for it after Cadance had read her the old ponytale of "The Sleeping Filly" while foalsitting the young unicorn. Shining Armor had helped Twilight get books together from the library at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns so she could put the spinning-wheel-shaped magical alarm clock together. Shining Armor had finally sent it to her from Canterlot a few days ago.

One lilac hoof flailed around in an attempt to hit the rose-stamped copper button that would shut off the song blaring from the intricately-wired speakers. She had to take care, though - Spike had knocked the clock off her dresser once when he'd been a hatchling, and one of the copper rose vines twining around the glass-tube spokes and spindle of the "spinning wheel" had snapped off, leaving a sharp point that could draw blood if the unwary slammed a hoof down on it without thinking. Twilight still hadn't gotten around to fixing it after all these years. Sometimes she wondered if she ever would.

Unable to locate the button to shut down the clock, which now sang "Life can seem like it's a little bit rough, but the tough ponies never, ever give up," Twilight finally tossed a flick of magic at the contraption. The clock slid off the desk and flipped end over end before thankfully landing in Spike's bed, which was sans Spike at the moment. The baby dragon snored gently beside the mare, snuggled beneath thick blankets.

Stumbling out of bed while Spike somehow droned on in sleep, Twilight trudged to the bathroom. She had a full day ahead of her - studying up on caladrius migratory patterns from Trottingham to Canterlot (and thus through or at least near Ponyville), patrolling through the town to make sure nothing weird was brewing in the near future, and then visiting her friends. Zap-apple season was almost approaching, and this year Twilight was determined to learn the recipe for zap-apple jam from Granny Smith if it killed her. The three previous years, Twilight had been out of the country on assignment with the other Elements of Harmony. The year before that, Granny Smith had broken her hip and Applejack had broken a leg in a barn accident, and there hadn't been any jam-making. Before that, the girls had had to deal with King Sombra, and before that, Twilight hadn't even known what zap-apple jam was.

But this was her year to finally learn!

It took longer than normal to get ready, since she had to shower and give herself a full-coat brushing. Finally done, gulping down a quick breakfast of daffodil smoothie - courtesy of Owlowsius - and a couple pieces of Prench barley toast drizzled with golden syrup from Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight pinned a note for Spike to her desk where the dragonet would see it and left the library.

Though the skies were still thick with white and gray clouds, the rain had stopped sometime in the night. Picking her way through the streets to avoid the standing puddles of muddy water, the unicorn mare cantered toward Applejack's family farm. Since the farm was on the very furthest outskirts of Ponyville, she could get patrolling out of the way at the same time. And she had her double-satchel slung across her back. Inside were Hoofster's Magical Avian Dictionary (with Pictures) and The Encyclopedia Encantica Avianica. Twilight would hit the books during any breaks in jam-making for a quick brush-up on the magical snowbirds known as caladrius before fully diving into her studies when she got home again.

It was a brisk, twenty-minute trot to Sweet Apple Acres. By the end of it, the sun had finally peeked out from behind puffy dove-gray clouds, bathing her long violet and fuchsia mane in amber light. The warmth of the sun's rays felt delicious on her face and back. Twilight found herself humming a cheery tune as she passed beneath the sign proclaiming the farm's name.

"Applejack?" Twilight called. "I'm here!"

A cheerful whoop caught the unicorn's attention. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a sleek dun coat and golden hair dappled by sunlight through apple tree leaves as one of her best friends galloped beneath the orchard boughs toward Twilight Sparkle. Applejack grinned when she drew abreast of her friend.

"Boy-howdy, ain't it nice ta finally have a zap-apple season t'ourselves? Ya'll finally get ta learn how ta make zap-apple jam. Are ya excited?"

"You bet! And it'll be fun, spending time together, just you and me for a bit."

Usually the Elements of Harmony, when not on circuit patrols of their town, training in their roles as the bearers of the Elements, or running missions for Princess Celestia, spent a great deal of their free time together, but in large groups of three or four, minimum. Rarely did any pair of them get to spend quality time strengthening individual friendships. Not that they needed to, per se. It was only that… well, it was nice for Twilight to spend time with just one of her friends sometimes: baking cupcakes or lemon bars with Pinkie Pie; exploring the safer parts of the wood with Fluttershy and learning about the local wildlife; working out at the only gym in Ponyville with Rainbow, who was making her way through her final year of Wonderbolt Academy; lounging on the farm or helping out Applejack or just talking about stuff; doing the filly-thing with Rarity every once in awhile - manicures and pedicures for the hooves and everything else that went into a full day at the spa. Even shopping for music with Vinyl or getting drinks with Berry Punch or working on her rather poor gitern skills with Lyra - some of her less-intimate acquaintances - would've been nice.

Applejack frowned. "Erm… yeah, well… 'bout that."

Twilight felt herself deflate like one of Pinkie's party balloons. Trying to throttle back on what she was sure to be disappointment but was as yet only the earliest seeds of trepidation, the unicorn asked, "What? What's wrong? Did something happen to Granny Smith or-"

"No, no. Nothin' like that," the earth pony hastened to assure her. "It's just… Ah know this was s'posed ta be time just fer us mares an' all, but we got ourselves a visitor."

"A visitor?"

Now Applejack hesitated, biting her lip. "See, thing is… an old friend o' Big Mac's is in Ponyville fer a visit an' he didn' have no place ta stay, so we offered him a spot in our barn. He's an old favorite o' Granny Smith's - he did some big favor fer mah brother a long time back when Ah was jus' a li'l filly an' Granny jus' dotes on him - so since he's here an' all, he's probably gonna be 'round the house while we're workin', is all. Ah didn' want ya ta get flustered or nothin' about him, havin' some stranger around. Ah know yer still not used ta folks as you don' know."

The other mare shrugged. "No worries," she said. "Any friend of my friends is my friend, too."

"'Cept Gilda," Applejack replied.

"Yeah," Twilight muttered, thinking of the griffon who'd once been a good friend of Rainbow Dash, who'd also intentionally reduced Fluttershy to tears in less than five minutes. "Except her."

That settled, the mares made their way toward the house, chattering about everything and nothing. Twilight also told Applejack about the weird feeling she'd gotten the day before in the rain and how, though she'd written to the princess and Shining Armor, she hadn't had time to receive a reply from either one; and while she'd gotten the weird feeling, there hadn't been anything strange to see on her patrol earlier. The farmfilly chewed over everything her friend said as they went inside.

"Hmmm," Applejack said at last. "Ah dunno what to tell ya, Twi. Magic's always been yer thing, not mine. Maybe Rarity can help ya."

Twilight opened her mouth to say that just maybe, Rarity could help, when that bizarre familiarity washed over her again, stronger than ever before. She tripped over the threshold to the Apple family kitchen and hit the polished green, cerise, and buttercup-colored tile floor. The only things that kept her from smacking nose-first into the hard tiles were a magical field surrounding her in a cloud of soft blue that made her skin itch, and a pair of scarred white legs reaching for her. Scuffed slate-gray hooves caught and righted her easily.

When she looked up into a pair of sapphire eyes, the familiarity nearly staggered her again. She gasped out, "You!"

A slow smile gave her extreme déjà vu. The rich timbre of the voice, also familiar, had her backing up as her impromptu rescuer murmured, "Hello, Twilight Sparkle. It's been a long time."

Author's Note:

Reviews are love! Pwease leave me some con-crit. And also, the song that plays on Twilight's radio is "Never Back Down" by Aviators, d.notive, and Yelling At Cats.

Comments

[Ghostfire]

This pleases me...continue.

[Ornby]

This looks promising.