Keen Arrow was nice and snug in her blankets, long white mane draped around her tiny alice-blue form. Princess Luna’s stars glimmered pleasantly in her window. Sitting at her side was lanky Uncle Fine. His figure was hard to make out in the shadows, blending as they did with his splotchy brown coat and black mane. He looked down on her with smiling rosewood red eyes as he quietly concluded, “And that is how Princess Luna used a water hose to scare off a bugbear, saving the prince and his kingdom.”

Keen giggled, the image of the mighty princess chasing a big, mean bugbear around in circles with a gardening tool still stuck in her head. “Did that really happen?”

Uncle Fine pressed a hoof over his heart in mock offense. “You doubt me? Little filly, your uncle is many things, including a liar, but he would never tell a lie.”

This only made her laugh some more. “That makes no sense! You’re being silly.”

“Why yes, yes I am,” he responded with a grin. “Now, I think it’s time for a little filly to go to sleep.”

Oh, that wasn’t a good idea. If Uncle Fine left, who would protect her from the monsters? She tensed, eyes darting to the vulnerable window, and tried to stop imagining the bug ponies. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I am aware, but—”

“Can I tell you a story?”

It had been spoken without any planning. She didn’t think it would work. Yet, to her surprise, Uncle Fine considered it. He smiled. “Do you have a story to tell?”

No. At least, no happy stories. She didn’t want to talk about the bad things, but those were all that came to mind. A heavy yawn reminded her that she had to come up with something before Uncle Fine made her go to bed. Nothing would come.

That wasn’t fair. Uncle Fine always had the neatest stories to tell. Surely she owed him just one of her own? But she couldn’t. Her mind was blank.

She looked up at her ‘uncle’ and said, “I don’t know how.”

He cocked his head. “How?”

“How to have a story,” she pressed. “I want to tell a story, but I have no stories. How do you get stories?”

“Oh, all sorts of ways.” He leaned close to her, set his hooves to the sides of his head, and then spread them out as if to demonstrate said head exploding. “My skull is just bursting with ideas! I get them from music, from other ponies’ stories, from just walking down the street. That’s why I have to tell you stories every few nights, if I don’t they’ll squish my brain to make room, squish squish.” He mimed pressing his head between his two hooves, crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out comically, earning him another giggle.

Sitting up straight once more and looking very pleased with himself, he continued, “I get stories from Lightning, from work, from my friends. I even get stories from you.” He patted her head just above her horn.

Stifling another yawn and shifting to get more comfortable, Keen fought the heft of her eyelids to look up at him. “But I don’t know how to get stories from… everything. How do you do it?”

“Hmm,” he hummed, tapping the knife that always dangled from around his neck. Its swaying was mesmerizing, especially when Keen was having trouble focusing like this. Stupid sleep. “It’s hard to explain. The ideas, they just come. But it pays to have a strong imagination.”

A strong imagination. Did she have one of those? She hoped so. Could she make it stronger? Like a muscle? “Do you think that someday I could be as good at stories as you are someday?”

He petted her mane, the strokes slow and gentle. “Little miss, you can be and do whatever you want. It may take time, but if you really want it, it will happen.”

She blinked. The effort to keep her eyes open afterwards was extreme. “You promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly,” he recited, going through the motions. “Stick a cupcake in my eye.” His ear flicked towards the closed door. “Gotta go. Sweet dreams, Keen.”

“Good night,” she mumbled. When she next forced her eyes to open, he was gone. Uncle Fine was very good at that. She never saw him enter the room either.

The bedroom door opened, revealing a weary-looking Lightning Dust. She took one step through the threshold and peered around at the empty room before catching Keen’s eye. “Hey, kid. Is Fine keeping you up again?”

Keen smiled up at her. “He told me a story.”

Lightning’s eyes widened a little. Maybe the sleepiness was making Keen see things, but she thought for a moment that Lightning might have looked guilty. The mare sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “That’s fine, I suppose. I’d appreciate it a lot more if he’d stop being so sneaky about it.”

“But Uncle Fine—” Another loud yawn interrupted. “Uncle Fine is always sneaky.”

“I know.” The pegasus let out one more sigh, then a yawn of her own for good measure. “Just… try to get some sleep, okay? Don’t want to be dead on your hooves when you go see Twilight tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. Good night, Lightning.”

“G’night, kid.”

The door closed, and Keen was all alone. She turned to the window, not bothering to fight the sleep anymore. She watched the stars twinkle and, fleetingly, thought of what her ‘uncle’ had told her.

“Some day,” she whispered just before sleep struck, “I’m gonna tell a story, and It’ll be the best story ever.”

And then the world was dark and, like so many things brought up just before slumber, the entire idea became naught but fragments to be half-remembered in the morning.

This chapter is set during the events of Lightning's Bolt but I have no idea when exactly. Certainly before the visit to Foal Mountain.

I get that anyone who hasn't read the No Heroes series has no idea why Lightning is shacked with a filly or who Verity Fine Crime is. So for your sakes and as non-spoilery as I can make it: Lightning and Keen went to the same orphanage, though not at the same time. Lightning took Keen in after said orphanage was burned down, and moved to Ponyville for work. The entire story of Lightning's Bolt is about Lightning and Keen learning how they fit together as mother and daughter.