One Month After the Battle of Canterlot

“Ngggh...”

It’s that familiar moment again.

You know the one. You’re fast asleep, completely at rest, and then some thought or urge slowly creeps into your subconscious, pulling you from whatever pleasant dream or dreamless state you were in. And then, just like that, you’re awake, and you realize that your refusal to open your eyes is only a last, pitiful attempt to cling to sleep, and from that point forward there’s no turning back.

You sit up in bed and look to the nearby window. The dark of night is fading oh-so-slightly; the hallmark of the last hour before dawn. To think that only a month ago you would’ve been able to shut your eyes again and turn over in bed at the sight. After all, no one in their right mind should be up at this hour...

But you’ve learned since that fateful day that there’s no point in trying anymore, so instead you grumble and slide out of bed. Like a zombie, you stand on tired, unsteady legs and dress yourself in an old dirty pair of jeans and a warm, comfortable shirt found amid the pile of clothes spilling out from the open suitcase in the corner of the room.

A yawn escapes as the shirt goes over your head. Though the odds are high that you’ve managed to put it on backwards in the darkness, you just can’t bring yourself to care. Already your hand is reaching toward the door handle, your sock-covered feet adjusting to the cool hardwood beneath them.

Your time here has taught you which boards creak the loudest, and you make a conscious effort to avoid them as you move down the hallway and past the other bedrooms. You’re a guest here, and it wouldn’t be polite to wake any of your hosts. Even if some of them would claim otherwise, you’re certain that no creature in this world would willingly want to subject themselves to rising at this ungodly hour, with the possible exception of the eccentric and somewhat annoying Night Princess.

But as you make your way down the stairs, the gently dancing light of a firefly lamp shining from the kitchen reveals that you aren’t alone in your misery. You round the corner, your curiosity urging you to discover just who else in the house is suffering from insomnia, though you have a fairly strong hunch already. The sight that greets you causes you to chuckle under your breath and shake your head.

Man, you wish you had a camera right now. This is prime blackmail material!

A red stallion is slumped in his chair in the dining room, his head and one of his forelegs draped across the table. Surrounding him on all sides are open books— reference manuals, textbooks, training guides, and even some history volumes, all dealing with airship engineering and maintenance. Baritone snores drown out the silence as a small puddle of drool forms on the tablecloth underneath him.

Pausing for a bit to commit the funny sight to memory, you sneak past him to reach the counter where the coffee maker sits idle, as it’s time to get started on the most important part of your morning ritual.

Eventually, the sound of the magically-powered appliance stirs the sleeping stallion. He snorts once before opening his tired eyes. After a few blinks and a yawn, he shifts his gaze toward the source of the sound to find you leaning against the nearby counter as you stare out the kitchen window toward the distant orchards of the Acres.

“...What time is it?” he drawls.

The final groan of the coffee maker signals the end of its task, and you fill two cups from the pot before taking your own seat at the table and placing one in front of the weary pony.

“No idea. Somehow, I think if I did know, it’d probably feel worse to be up right now.”

This pulls a slight smile from him, and a subtle nod of agreement follows. Without another word, you both begin to down the first of what’ll no doubt be several necessary cups of coffee.

The minutes pass in silence. You stand to go for a refill and flash Mac a questioning glance. He responds by nudging his cup toward you with a hoof, and you take it over to the counter with you to fill it for him before returning to the table. While blowing on the still piping hot liquid to cool it, you turn your attention back to the window and what you can see of the horizon outside despite the flickering of the kitchen’s firefly lamp.

The silence lingers on as your mind wanders from fleeting thought to fleeting thought, and for a moment you’re suddenly struck with the realization of how much you’ve enjoyed these quiet mornings with Mac. This hasn’t been the first time you’ve caught him here in the stillness of the twilight hours, his nose buried in his books. Even then, the two of you would hardly speak to one another beyond what was necessary. It’s the kind of pleasant silence that only two guys can appreciate; a wordless bond of kindred spirits, where nothing is said but everything is shared.

Come to think of it, your life since being brought here for some inexplicable reason has been filled with the constant chatter of excited mares and fillies and the relentless antics of a few princesses in particular. You haven’t really made any male friends since your arrival, with the possible but fleeting exception of Pyre the constantly overeager pegasus guard, and it’s likely that you’ve grown to unconsciously miss that aspect of your old life. Mac, too, with his responsibilities on the farm and to his two precocious little sisters, doesn’t seem like the type to have a lot of close friends. Though you’ll never mention it to one another, you can tell that he enjoys these moments just as much as you do. And really, considering everything you went through together, how could you not call him a friend at this point? At the very least he’s a comrade-in-arms. Or is it hooves?

Eh, whatever. It’s a question to be pondered for another time. You can already see the band of light appearing outside and you can feel it pulling at you from somewhere within that you can’t quite place. You stand from your chair and let out one final yawn, breaking the silence once more.

“Headin’ out ta say good mornin’, Captain?”

You chuckle as you move to retrieve your coat from its hanger near the door.

“I’m not a captain anymore, Chief Engineer. I’m just a freeloader living off the kindness of others now.”

Mac sighs as he carefully inserts a series of bookmarks in the many open volumes spread across the table.

“And ah ain’t an engineer. Ah’m just a farmer, just like ah always was...” he glances down to neatly place the books within his saddlebags at the table’s edge before focusing back on you. Even in the darkness, you can see his emerald eyes shine with resolve. “But Anon, ah intend ta change that. What about you?”

You move toward the front door as you place your warm winter hat snugly upon your head and zip up your jacket.

“I guess we’ll have to see. But after everything that’s happened, for me to act like something’s impossible, well... it’d be kind of ridiculous, wouldn’t it?”

The stallion smiles. “Eeyup.”

He places the book-laden saddlebags across his back and begins a slow trot up the creaky stairs toward his room, while you open the front door and step into the chilly air of another winter morning.

The snow crunches underneath your boots as you trudge through the eastern orchards. The sky is light enough now that it’s easy to make out the shapes of the bare trees. They surround you on all sides, their many branches spread out like fingers reaching toward the sky as if they were trying to pluck the very stars from the heavens. It’s an ambitious goal to be sure, but you have a feeling that a certain alicorn would surely have something to say about it, and at an obscenely inappropriate volume to boot!

At last, you reach the orchard’s edge and ascend the hill there where the chair you placed is waiting. A brush of your hand clears the freshly fallen snow from the seat and you plop down with a sigh, your breath visible in the air for a moment before quickly wafting away in the dawn breeze. The feeling inside you is surging now, and you know it’s almost time.

Ever since that day... that morning you made together, this has been your ritual. Whatever her magic did to you as you both lifted the sun to once again shine upon Equestria during the final battle with Twilight has lingered, and now you can sense when it’s about to rise. It’s a feeling within you; a surge of emotion that pulls you from your sleep without fail and compels you to come here and witness it firsthand day after day.

You watch as the familiar band of light begins to stretch across the horizon, and you smile.

Yeah, it’s a pain to do this every day. You’re far from a morning person. But it’s yet one more thing that you share with her, and in that way it’s precious. The great celestial orb makes its appearance in the sky, the soft light of dawn painting the clouds overhead and the snow that stretches before you brilliant shades of orange and yellow, and your voice rises with it above the wind.

“Good morning, Cel.”

You don’t know if she can hear you. You’ve never really asked. But somehow, as the magic of dawn surges from deep within, you feel that she can. The strange stirring travels from your heart to your lips, and a warm sensation like a gentle kiss drives the lingering cold from them for just an instant before fading away.

You chuckle. She’s given you her answer, and at once you’re reminded yet again of the many reasons why you love her from the bottom of your heart.

You turn your gaze from the sun, which still fails to blind you even now, to the spires of Canterlot shining in the distance. There’s no denying that it’s been tough since then, and you’ve missed her dearly, but this was all expected. You spoke about it at great length in the aftermath of all that happened, and you both agreed it would be for the best.

You love that silly horse to death, and you’re certain that’ll never change. But right now, in this time since the whole ordeal, there’s one who needs her even more than you do.

As you stand from your chair to start the trek back to the farmhouse, you wonder how the little purple alicorn is doing. They say time heals all wounds, but it still must be hard for her to adjust to being without her magic...

You shake your head. You’re sure she’s doing fine if the letters you’ve received from Cel are any indication. She’s taken Twilight under her wing as a student yet again, this time to properly prepare her for the role she’ll one day come to inherit. You both decided, as you sat there together in the medical tent waiting for Twilight to regain consciousness, that your presence during these first critical few months of her adjustment would be detrimental to the process— an unnecessary distraction for them both— which is why you’re still here in Ponyville, bunking with the ever-gracious Apple Family.

And yeah, to be separated from her has been difficult, but you can bear it because you also recognize the importance of this time that they’re sharing together as teacher and student. Cel has wounds that need to heal too as she comes to terms with her own admitted failures in her role as Twilight’s teacher. You’re certain that this month they’ve had to talk, listen to, and learn from one another has done them both a world of good.

And still, despite the distance between you, she’s managed to find little ways to show that she cares, like the heartfelt letters she’s sent, or the little gifts that’ve appeared from time to time like some simple clothes from Canterlot tailored to your measurements to replace the ones you lost. And of course, the more direct signs like that kiss of sunlight just now...

...Or the far more obvious and somewhat embarrassing actual starscape she no doubt had Luna paint for her, which featured a conspicuously new constellation of a human and alicorn standing together in the night sky surrounded by hearts. In your case, it brought back memories of the little doodles the girls in your grade school classes would make in their notebooks as they’d fantasize about their latest crushes, and considering Cel it may have very well been an exact copy of something she absentmindedly doodled herself during one of her lessons with Twilight.

Your laughter pierces the silence of the early morning. Yeah, be it a grand tapestry in the sky, or the perfectly fitted hat currently keeping your head warm, all these little gestures make you anticipate the moment of your eventual reunion more and more. And each dawn brings that reunion another day closer...

The lights are on in the windows of the farmhouse as it comes into view, and your stomach starts to growl on instinct; a reminder that in many ways, spending your days out here instead of in the distant castle perched on the mountainside isn’t really that bad at all.