A quick note: this is a sequel to A Rose is a Rose, and though you needn't have read it to fully understand, I highly suggest you do if you want to know everything.  Thanks!

Nova

From the Sky (Last One Out, Shut the Door)

In the heavens, the stars burn.

Bathed in the light of the moon, Equestria is still but for the nocturnal creatures of the Everfree Forest and the odd Ponyvillian stumbling home after a night out.  Neither the nocturnal creatures nor the stumbling civilians bother to glance to the sky.

The stars burn on.

To the north, Cloudsdale is silent—though weather duties will begin well before sunrise, for now the pegasi sleep, wings fluttering every now and again while they dream.

South now, past Ponyville, to the farms and fields and barns.  No sound from the Carrot residence.  A low mooo rumbles through the silence at the Apple farm, and then all is quiet once more.

The stars burn yet.

Going north, across a field of green and over several streams, to a quaint cottage at the edge of the woods.  All is still here, too.  The soft bubbling of a nearby brook somehow makes the silence around it ring louder.

The stars burn on.

North and east, to the great towers of Canterlot.  West, over plains and fields.  South, to Appleoosa and beyond.  Equestria sleeps under the cool blanket of night, waiting for the sunrise.

And still the stars burn—one brighter than the rest.

In Ponyville, something breaks the silence: a dull crash followed by a muffled curse.  Its source is a tree, but not one like those in the forest; no, this is a very large tree, a beautiful great oak.  It is also a home, and the commotion is caused by its inhabitant, who is now clumsily bending down to gather her fallen instruments.

A tired and disgruntled voice asks if the pony really needs to be doing measurements at this hour, because a young dragon needs his sleep.

If the pony hears, she does not answer, and continues erecting her machinery and instruments, glancing up to the stars every so often to make a calibration.

Back, back now, down Ponyville’s Main Street, past the town hall, beyond the storefronts, which blur by.  Back across streams and cottages, trees and shrubs.  Over bridges and crests, towns and lakes.  Far across Equestria until Ponyville is but a dim light upon the horizon.  Slowing, now.  Stopping.  A slight breeze carries the scent of dew and, faintly, petals.

The field is in no way different than the other fields of Equestria—its grass is just as green, its hills just as smooth.  It is just as quiet as the others, just as serene and peaceful, until—

Overhead, the stars burn still, one brighter than the rest.  One larger than the rest.  And, though stars are not normally loud beings (at least not at this distance), one louder than the rest.  It begins as a low mmmmmmmm that sounds almost like a rumbling snore, then grows to a powerful roar not unlike a waterfall.

mmmmmMMMMMMM

The star grows louder because it grows larger, and it grows larger because it grows nearer.  The sight of a star as it grows nearer is a very beautiful thing, and a sight to behold indeed.  Of course, it can also be blindingly bright, so it is very fortunate that on this night the only observers are one surprised pony and one disgruntled dragon, the first with a protective lens and the second with eyes half-shut from fatigue.

Like a meteorite the star plows through the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen and all the other gasses combusting around it, creating an intense streak of light that slices through the night sky—an ember slit, like a knifewound.  The moon is eclipsed by a luminosity that rivals even the sun, and for a moment the once-peaceful field is alight like high noon in spring.  The sky itself seems to burn and quake, forced aside by the apex of the falling star’s descent.

MMMMMMMMMMMMRRRRR

It is terribly loud, it is terribly bright, and then, after it reaches the climax of its ear-wrenching scream, it is terribly small.

Gone is the comet’s tail that lit the night like a second sun.  Gone, too, is the earth-rattling noise.  The night is peaceful once more.

It would take a very astute observer to notice what has become of the star that so recently burned through the night sky.  Now it falls slowly, like a body underwater, giving off tiny glowing particles that trail behind it as it descends.  It still glows, but with a gentle pulse of dull yellow light, as if its surface is translucent and inside it is an intense brightness that can only dimly escape.

It is pony sized.  It is pony shaped.

Lower and lower it falls as it continues drifting down toward the ground.  Nothing else moves.  It is as if this moment in time is reserved for one purpose only, and that purpose continues its patient descent from the heavens.

Like a spark from a fire, it pushes through the thick air, until, with a silent greeting of sky and ground, it stops.

Motionless, the star lies there, illuminating the grassy ground around it with its dull yellow pulse of inner light.  The particles that have trailed behind it now rest around it on the ground, little red dying embers.

Some time passes, and as the sun begins to peer over the horizon to the east, the star emits one last pulse of yellow.

Then, with an almost inaudible groan, its leg twitches.

***

Twilight Sparkle had been watching the sky ever since she received her first telescope on her fourth birthday.  Nothing intrigued her more than the unknown, the unsolved.  And while there was plenty of unknown and unsolved all around her in Equestria, there was still infinitely more in that great expanse of night sky, that unending infinite blackness which contained all things.

In the night sky, perspective deteriorated, the large became very very small, infinitesimally small, and sometimes she would get dizzy when she looked through her telescope and saw a faint dot that she knew was not a star, not a solar system, but an entire other galaxy, one containing  billions of bodies so large that light itself bent around them.  And she knew she was staring not just into the distance but also into the past, for those bodies could be millions of light years away, meaning she was actually seeing them as they were millions of years ago.  In the expanses of space, she was just a small dot on a small dot within another small dot called the solar system.  And it intrigued her more than anything.

And so on that night, when she witnessed an incredible celestial event unlike anything she had ever seen or read of before, she could do little more than stand and stare as the sky above her melted and flared as though a sparkler the size of a mountain were slowly descending, and then continue to stare as everything suddenly returned to normal.

“Spike, did you see that?  I can’t believe it!  That was incredible!”  She was nearly prancing up and down.

“I saw it, all right,” Spike replied, holding his arms in front of him and wandering blindly.  “And now I can’t see anything else.  Why didn’t you warn me that was gonna happen?”

“Because I didn’t know that was going to happen!  Oh my gosh, what do you think that was?  I should ask the Princess!  I haven’t read of anything like that in any astronomy book.  Spike, help me find—”

She paused suddenly.  She had seen something.  Something in the night sky where only moments ago there had been some sort of unimaginable cosmic display of fire and sparks.  With a squint, she thought she could make something out.

“Spike, hold that thought.  What was the telescope set to just now?  When that whatever-it-was was happening?  I accidentally moved it when I fell back.”

The little dragon moaned dejectedly.  “Twilight, I still can’t see anything.  And what does it matter?  It’s over, right?  Can’t you just make a log of it and let me go back to sleep?”

“Spike, what was it set to?  Thirty four degrees, nineteen minutes, and what?  Tell me!”  She spun around to face him, and though his vision was only slightly restored, Spike could imagine the look on her face.  He decided it would be best to just deal with her and hope that whatever she found was so exciting that she forgot about him.

“Thirty four degrees, nineteen minutes, and forty two seconds.”

As quickly as she could, Twilight dialed the numbers into her telescope, mumbling hypotheses and postulates.  Spike, deciding this would be the perfect time to make his getaway, sought a pillow and blanket.

“There!”  With the correct positioning dialed into the telescope, Twilight removed the protective light filter and eagerly peered through the sight, notepad and pen hovering nearby.

At first she couldn’t see anything except for a yellow blur that obscured the entire field of vision.  Then she carefully adjusted the focus, watching as the blur became defined, as smears became lines and points and details... until finally...

She gasped, and her jaw failed to shut itself afterward, leaving her mouth hanging open in absolute surprise.  “Dear Celestia,” she whispered,  “that’s a pony!”

As she watched through the sight, the limp yellow body fell slowly and gently through the air, until it passed behind a patch of trees and out of her vision.

“Spike!  Spike, come quick!  That thing, that thing in the sky... it was a pony!”  She turned, half of her mind wondering where Spike had gone to, the other half calculating trajectory and searching for memories and information that might help her figure out exactly what she had just witnessed.  The first half of her mind fumed that Spike had run off, and the second half roared in frustration because not a single filing cabinet in her brain contained anything about falling sky-ponies.  The combined anger of the two halves was overwhelming; Twilight Sparkle might have kicked something if she were more simple-minded, and if everything around her weren’t so expensive and delicate.

Instead, she converted her anger into that familiar old passion to figure things out.  And though she preferred to take measurements alone, for some reason she thought most clearly when surrounded by her friends.  Even the shenanigans of Pinkie could trigger a brain spark that became a thought that evolved into an idea that grew into a realization.  Maybe the level-headedness of AJ or the brashness of Dash could come in handy now, too, as they so often did.

With that, Twilight conjured up five pieces of parchment, scribbling the same quick message on all of them:

Sorry to wake you.  Meet me at my place soon.  This time, it’s actually important.  I promise.

~T.S.

“Spike, send these to—ugh!  You lazy...”  She couldn’t continue.  Even from the observation balcony she could see his figure sleeping inside, and it was pretty cute.  I’ll yell at him later, she decided, and one by one the five letters popped quietly into nothingness, transported via mind and magic to their recipients.

***

Knock... … … … … … knock knock... … … … knock...

Twilight absent-mindedly pulled the door open with a glow of her horn, even while her face remained crammed into one of a dozen books that lay open upon the library floor.

A yellow pegasus peeked in from the outside.  “I... I didn’t want to knock too loudly... I know Spike is probably sleeping.  I came as quickly as I—”

“UGH!  Nothing!  Nothing about sky-ponies!”  Twilight pulled her head out of the book as it soared across the room at a devilish speed, finally landing upon a pile of similarly rejected textbooks and essays.

Fluttershy instantly recognized that Twilight was having one of her episodes, and suddenly she was nervous about crossing through the door and into the room.  It wasn’t that she was afraid of Twilight, or even mad at her—why would she be mad?—she just knew that Twilight could become very touchy when she thought she was onto something.  Nevertheless, she stepped inside, gently closing the door behind her.

“Twilight, what exactly was it that you—”

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCKKNOCKKNOCK

Fluttershy jumped, but before she could even open the door, the pony on the other side forcefully let herself in, slamming the door open so hard that Fluttershy could hear the wood splintering.

“C’mon, Twilight!  It’s... what?  Three A.M.?  I thought we agreed: no more important discoveries at three A.M.!”  The blue pony’s voice was raspy from sleep, her mane frizzled at crazy angles and her wingfeathers bent and scrunched slightly out of place.  “Oh.  Hi, Fluttershy.”  She yawned.

Twilight never even looked up from her current book.

Fluttershy grinned the way mothers grin when they say “Colts will be colts!”  Dash took it to mean that “Twilight Sparkle will be Twilight Sparkle,” and couldn’t help but grin back.  Yes, if one thing’s for sure, it’s that Twilight will always be Twilight, and the occasional three A.M. wake-up call was just part of being her friend.

“Hello, Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy said, yawning as well.

“What is it this time?”  Dash asked, glancing first to the purple figure hunched over a book, then to the growing pile of books in the corner.

“Oh, probably some new particle, or maybe she figured out how Pinkie Pie’s mane works.”

Dash guffawed and turned to Fluttershy in surprise.  “That was pretty funny.  I didn’t know you could be so—”

“HIYA!”

Dash had left the door open, leaving no barrier against Pinkie Pie’s entrance.  She quite literally popped through into the room, stopping in front of Dash and Fluttershy, who rolled their eyes with a grin.  She continued to bounce slightly, as though the floor were made of rubber.

“Ah see Pinkie found her way over here—” the newcomer yawned mightily, “—with no trouble at all.”  

The three ponies turned to the doorway where Applejack stood, hat askew upon her head and eyes puffy from sleep.  “What’s goin’ on?” she asked as she stepped into the library.

“I don’t know,” Pinkie said.  “Maybe Rarity knows!  Hi, Rarity!  Cool costume!”

There appeared to be an entire wardrobe standing in the doorway.  “Hello, everypony,” the wardrobe said in a muffled, cottony voice.  “Sorry I’m late.”

Dash nearly burst out laughing for the second time that night, while Applejack pulled a hoof down her face, shaking her head in disapproval.

“Rarity,”  Applejack said, exasperated, “is that, uh, outfit of yours really necessary?”

The wardrobe ambled into the room.  “Of course it is.  Do you know how many hours of sleep I have received tonight?  Less than eight.  Far less.  Because somepony’s note burst through my door and started jumping on my face at three in the morning!” The wardrobe shot a ferocious glance toward Twilight, who was buried in yet another book.

Dash floated up above Rarity, trying to see if she could find her friend beneath five layers of cloth.  “So what happened, Rarity?  Did your closet attack you?”

“No!  And stop messing with the fabric!  I can’t be seen like this!  I haven’t had time to—”

“Oh, good, you’re all here!”  Twilight exclaimed as she ran to greet her friends, throwing the final  book into the pile.  “Is... is that Rarity?”  With a glow of her horn, Rarity’s entire ensemble of sweaters and dresses flew off, forming their own pile next to the books.

“Thank you, Twilight,” Rarity said behind her teeth.  At least she looked better than Applejack, who was leaning against the wall, fast asleep.

“What is it, Twilight?”  Fluttershy solemnly asked.  “What’s going on?”

“Well,” Twilight said.  Her four friends (Applejack still asleep) shared a knowing glance—Twilight had just used her lecturing voice.

“At precisely oh-two-hundred-and-thirty-four hours,” she continued, “I was preparing my telescope for my bi-monthly observations, when I saw... something.”

Rarity waved a hoof impatiently.  “Something?”

“Well, yes,” Twilight said.  “Something.  It was really—Applejack, wake up, this is important!”

Applejack jumped up, looking around in confusion.  “Huh?  What happened?”

“Twilight saw... something,” Rainbow Dash informed her.

“Oh,” Applejack said, unimpressed.  “Again?”

“Yes!  Listen: I was setting up my telescope, when I saw some kind of explosion in the sky.  Like a supernova, only bigger and closer... and louder.  You guys didn’t hear that?”

Four of her friends shook their heads to convey the negative.  One of them shook her head to clear it of sleep.

“Well, it was sort of far away.  I have a feeling that wherever that thing hit, it was a lot louder there.”

“Wait a second,” Dash said, gliding over to Twilight.  “Hit?  Like, hit the ground?”

“Yeah.  It began as an enormous light in the sky, but not directly overhead—I’m still doing calculations, but I think it was at least five miles west.”

“Five miles west there are hills and fields,” Fluttershy added.

“Oh, I’ve been there!”  Pinkie said, no longer hopping.  “Those fields are so pretty.”

“Keep going, Twilight,” Rarity said.  “If I’m going to be here at three in the morning, I’d at least like to hear the whole story.”

“If you’ll all give me a minute, I can explain.”  Twilight began pacing slightly, like a sergeant about to give orders.  “It started with a star.  I remember wondering why one star was larger than it should have been.  It didn’t make sense.  So I aimed my telescope toward it, and realized it was actually growing.  Not because it was getting bigger, but because it was getting closer.  Soon I realized that the star was falling from the sky—well, that’s what it looked like, but it can’t be true; stars are massive, and really far away.  They can’t just fall.”

Applejack, now wide awake, glanced to Twilight, bemused.  “So did it fall or didn’t it?  Ah’m not certain Ah follow you, Twi’.”

“Well...”  Twilight looked to the ground in uncertainty.  She hated not knowing things.  “I still don’t know.  I’m just telling you what I saw.  It looked like it fell from the sky.  But that’s not even the strangest part.”

Dash nodded and motioned with her hoof, a gesture that said “We’re listening, please continue.”

“It was enormous.  It seemed to fill up half the sky.  But then it was gone, like nothing had happened.  Except... except when I looked through the telescope again, I saw something falling.  Well, somepony, actually.”

Fluttershy gasped.  “Twilight, you saw a pony falling from the sky?  Was it a pegasus?  Please tell me it could fly!”

“I couldn’t get a good enough view to see what kind of pony it was,” Twilight said, her voice reassuring, “but it wasn’t falling very fast.  Far slower than the acceleration of gravity would suggest.  It should be fine.”

“Let me get this straight,” Dash said, dropping elegantly to the ground.  “You saw a star grow larger in the sky—”

Twilight nodded.

“ —and then the star seemed to disappear—”

Twilight nodded again.

“—and then you saw a pony falling from where the star had been.”

“That’s what happened, Dash.”

The room was silent for a moment.  Then Dash spoke, her voice uncharacteristically sheepish, even embarrassed: “Did it create an intense streak of light that sliced through the night sky, a big red gash, like a knifewound?”

Her friends all turned to her in surprise.

Twilight’s eyebrows rose.  “Actually, yes.  It did.  Rainbow Dash, how did you know that?”

Pinkie gasped, eyes wide.  “Dash... were you pony that fell from the sky?”

“Ugh!”  Dash turned to face her friend in frustration.  “Pinkie, how does that even make sense!   Do I look like a supernova to you?  Supernovas are big... and probably yellow, or something.”

“Heh,” Applejack chuckled, “you were yellow at the Best Young Flyers competition.”

“Hey!” Rarity exclaimed, stepping between Dash and Applejack.  “That’s not funny.  Don’t forget that she saved my life at that competition!”

“Ah’m only teasin’.  Right, RD?”

“I got it.  Not like I don’t make fun of you too, cowgirl.”

Twilight scraped a hoof across the ground in annoyance.  She invited her friends over because they usually helped her to think more clearly, but with the drawback that discussions such as this one get completely and hopelessly off topic.

“Everypony,” she said, raising her voice above the din, “please just listen to me!  This could be important.”

Once her friends were staring quietly and expectantly, she continued.  “Rainbow Dash, how did you know the pony was yellow?”

“I... guessed.”

“That was a really good guess!” Pinkie giggled.  “Guess what color I am!”

“Oh, come on, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said.  “Just tell us how you knew!”

Her face burned red, easily visible against her blue cheeks.  “I... read about it.”

Twilight nearly tackled her friend, grabbing her and holding her by the shoulders, staring solemnly into her eyes.  “Dash, I just went through every astronomy book in the library,” she nodded toward the enormous pile of books in the corner, “and I couldn’t find anything!  Where’d you read about this?  And why are you so embarrassed?”

“Well,” Dash grumbled, “that’s sorta why I’m embarrassed.  I read about it in a storybook.  Magic and Myths, or something like that.  It’s a bunch of short stories.  Not my favorite book, but it was pretty cool.  A little outdated.”

“Aw, Dash,” Fluttershy said, grinning at her fellow pegasus.  “Why are you embarrassed?  We already know you like to read.”

“Well, yeah,” Dash said, looking away.  “But isn’t it silly to bring up a storybook when we’re talking about something that actually happened?  It’s not like the the pony you saw has anything to do with an old storybook, right?”

But Twilight was already on the other side of the library, scouring the shelves.

“Dash, what was the name of the book?” she called out over her shoulder.

“Magic and Myths, I think.”  This was becoming a very strange night indeed.  Rainbow took a moment to glance at each of her friends.  Rarity was watching Twilight with interest.  Applejack was rubbing her chin in thought, as was Pinkie.  Fluttershy was hopping from hoof to hoof, an agitated expression covering her face.

“Fluttershy, what’s wrong?” Rainbow asked.

“It’s that pony,” Fluttershy responded, desperately turning to Dash.  “I hope it’s okay.  What if it’s hurt?”

Rainbow Dash grinned reassuringly.  “I’m sure it’s fine.  You heard Twilight—it wasn’t falling very fast.  Besides, if this really does have anything to do with—”

“Rainbow!”  Twilight yelled from the “M” section.  “The book isn’t here!”

“Oh... right... that’s because it’s at my house.  I sorta... borrowed it... from your library.”

Pinkie stepped forward.  “Dashie, can’t you just tell us the story?  Maybe it really does have something to do with Twilight’s crazy magical falling star-pony.”

Just then, Fluttershy burst out with a gasp, as if she had been holding her breath but could contain it no longer.  “We have to go find that poor pony!  It could be hurt!  Or something could be wrong with it!”

Applejack nodded.  “Fluttershy’s right.  Ah don’t know much ’bout storybooks and star-ponies, but if that creature needs help, we’re responsible for seein’ that he...she... that it gets it.”

“Twilight,” Rarity said, “can you teleport us to where it is?  Five miles isn’t very far for that, right?”

“Well,” Twilight closed her eyes, considering.  “I’m afraid I can’t.  I’ve never been there before, and that makes it a lot more difficult to concentrate on arriving.  Also, there’s no way I could bring you all along.  I’ve been practicing, but... that’s a pretty big task even for a powerful unicorn.”

“We’ll have to hoof it,” Dash said, floating above her friends and clapping her hooves together in determination.  “While we walk, I’ll tell the story.  It’s just a silly fairy-tale and might have nothing to do with this... but you never know.”

“It’s a plan, then,” Twilight said.

“Oh, I really hope this doesn’t turn into another adventure,” Rarity groaned in partly-genuine distaste.  “I’m still recovering after that last one.”

“An adventure, huh?” Applejack grinned.  “Don’t know if it can top Fluttershy and her Rose, but sure, Ah’m up for one.”

“Oh, this will be fun!”  Pinkie giggled, bouncing a little.

“As long as we can help that poor thing,” Fluttershy said, her worry upsetting her normally-soft features.

“Last one out, shut the door,” Applejack grinned, and with that she headed outside, followed by her five friends.

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