Follows A Little Spark 02

>Looking at alien stars is a surreal experience. You weren’t an astronomer, but you’d learned to navigate by the night sky in Scouts, half a lifetime ago. Celestial navigation was just a bunch of memorization and math to reverse-engineer your position from known constants.
>”Anon?”
>There was nothing to recognize in this collection of tiny sparks. Your mind kept trying to draw lines, build familiar constellations, but all attempts failed. Formations were indistinct, and connections fleeting.
>”Anon, please...”
>Have ponies named all their stars and constellations? Could you take up astronomy as a hobby here, and do it yourself? Maybe name them all after mythologies from your home, as yours were, that’d be an interesting-
>”Anon, must thou?!”
>Your eyes snapped from Princess Luna’s mane to her face, where you found ample consternation.
“Sorry. I got lost.”
>”Lost? We know human dreams hath strange tides and currents that no pony’s laboreth under, but surely thou meanst not lost. Thou hast not left.”
>You lean back in the tall chair you’re sitting in, looking back to your drawing board. The open twilit space around you is surrounded by a dense featureless fog; leaving surely would lead to getting lost. Imaginary, all of it, but with Luna around, sleep time can also be work time.
>You consider for a moment that you’re now not only spending every waking moment but every dozing moment working too. This may not be conducive to continued good health.
>Fuck it, you have science to do.
>Beside you, the royal pain in your ass stamps a hoof and clears her throat. “Anon, we will not be ignored.”
“Oh. No, thou… beest…? Uh-”
>Luna rears back, astonishment plastered across her face as if you’d just slapped her with it. Fury quickly chased it away. “Thou shalt say ‘you’ when speaking to us, as befitting our station!” She stomps again. “Before our banishment, stallions were bolder, but even they knew proper respect for royal persons. Thou shalt know we are more amenable than most to thy atrocious breaches of etiquette, but thou canst push even us to ire. We have elected to grant thee this extraordinary time to pursue thy plans; gratitude, not impertinence, is the appropriate response.”
>She talks like Henry VIII would have mounted her head on his wall. Your mind reels. Regicide is not the best line of thinking right now; for all you know she could read your mind in here.
“Sorry, Your- uh- Majesty.”
>Thankfully, her ire passes quickly. Her temper is quick to flare and quick to fade. You fear her sister may, instead, be slow to anger but result in devastating eruptions. So far you remain blessedly ignorant.
>”We accept thy apology, Anon.” She turns to your drawing table and squints. “But what, pray tell, art thou designing?”
>You look back to the drawing board, turning your tall swivel chair side to side minute amounts. The drawing was a bit hazy – Luna said this seemed normal for humans as far as she could tell, but not ponies – and half of it was erased.
“It’s a transmission. Well, part of one. Or it’s supposed to be. It doesn’t work.”
>”We expect not; it is merely paper.”
“Even if I had it in my hand, it wouldn’t. I know theoretically one could design a magnetic variable transmission, but I can’t figure it out. You know what? This is going to be a test article anyway. Once I figure out the proper gear ratios, I could make a fixed one.”
>You wipe a hand across the drawing. Only blank canvas is left behind.
“I can’t deny using dreams for this is convenient. Thanks, Princess.”
>Luna smiles, but is still squinting. The sun’s definitely brighter, now that all the fog’s burned away.
>Wait, when did the sun appear?
>Dreams are bullshit.
“Think you can turn the sun down?”
>”Thou art the ruler of this space, Anon. Thy request is best answered by thyself.”
“You’re very hard to understand.”
>“And thou speakest as a simpleton, like so many others we have had the misfortune to converse with since our return.”
“Then why not speak like they do?”
>She blinked a couple times as she tried to formulate an answer. “Because… we wish to… maintain our regal air. Others seeth it as dignified and attractive.”
>Attractive? Was that admission intentional? You let it hang in the air, where it’s sweetened by the scent of all the flowers blooming on the hill your drawing table is set atop. You move your work lamp aside, and note that it no longer casts a shadow. The sun has disappeared, but ambient light remains, and the sky is still a clear blue. Clouds smudge the horizon, until they don’t. In some places, the horizon is smudged without their help.
“So what are you, chivalrous?”
>Luna brightens at the prospect. “Thy world hath similar doctrines?”
“Had. Usually the word ‘chivalry’ is followed by two more; ‘is dead.’
>Her expression falls. “We understand.”
>Seeing that hurt you more than you’d care to admit.
“I’m sure it’s more appreciated around here, even if few show it.”
>You pick up you pen/cil/marker/stick and perform an arcane yet intuitive motion to ready it that even you cannot describe. You try to swivel your chair again, but it was never able to swivel at all. Instead, it rolls across the hard, flat surface of the tall grass, which tickles your knees as you glide over/through it. You end up rolling away from your table, so you grab it and drag yourself back.
>Your next drawing is already partially completed on the canvas. It makes more sense than you’d expect.
“Oh yeah, that’d work, wouldn’t it?”
>You draw the other half of the simple design.
>You redraw the first half, upon finding it had vanished. It was probably never there in the first place.
>Luna is still squinting at the drawing, even though the fog’s return means it’s not so bright out.
>Why does the fog smell like flowers?
>”Forgive us, for we know little of the technological developments that preceded our return. What doeth this contraption?”
“It turns force into different force.”
>This bland statement somehow conveys far more meaning than the sum of its parts. Luna nods enthusiastically.
>You point at a part of it and start explaining further anyway.
“The shaft connected to this concave cone is already spinning. These rounded wheels between it and a similar cone on the other side transfer force across the gap. If the wheels are angled, one cone will spin faster and the other slower. Usually you’d use a belt, I think, or some sort of planetary gearing, but this would be easier to make.”
>You look over some notes that appeared on the page. They’re completely illegible.
“I’ll use it to figure out an ideal balance of speed and torque Twilight’s spells can produce, then make a fixed transmission with magnets off the required ratios, for reduced maintenance. For the test we can just use flywheels as loads. Oh, I’ll need to design a way to control this.”
>Luna watches you start working on a manual control extension. “Thou workest with our sister’s student?”
“Yeah, we’re trying to combine magic and mechanics. I think she’s into it, and she might be nice to work with. Most ponies scoff at this stuff. Or at me. One or the other, depends on who.”
>”She maketh a good compatriot in such endeavors,” Luna squints at the sheet again, and cocks her head, “for she understandeth such matters better than most.”
>Hearing something in her tone, you stop drawing and look over at her.
>After at moment, she looks back, with something approximating a sheepish expression. Her wings are slightly lifted off her back and angled downward, giving you an impression of slumped shoulders.
“We all have our talents.”
>You give her your warmest smile.
>She smiles as well and chuckles, her wings returning to her back. “Indeed. Thou speakest true.”
>As you return to your work, she clears her throat. “We would warn thou against spending too much time with her on this, however. Though could stirrest our sister’s displeasure.”
“Twilight did kinda freak out last night about that. Why should she worry? Celestia doesn’t stop me from doing this nonsense, and she doesn’t stop me from talking to whoever I want around the palace.”
>Luna hesitates, then starts pacing around your drawing table, the sound of her hooffalls against what sounded like stone resonating strangely against the fog. “These follies thou pursuest… she believes humoring them is her prerogative alone. She seeth it as a way to ingratiate thyself to her, to- well. She wisheth thou associate her grace with such activities of thine.”
“So why are you here?”
>”We disagree with her desires to this point,” she says, passing behind you. “We wished to share thy company for a time, and these means are unique to us alone.”
>You suddenly feel a bit like prey.
“I see. What do you think of me so far, then?”
>She stops her pacing, back at your side near where she’d began. “Thou hast a single-minded focus on thy goals," she says, tone flat.
>What’s that supposed to mean?
>”We have seen thy dreams before. Wondrous places. Interesting… activities. We had hoped thou would showest us the ways of thy kind, if we made an appearance. Instead thou hast engaged in activities thou could performest awake.”
“Well I guess I’ve been a little preoccupied,” you mumble.
>Luna smiles at this, and suddenly her tone is much warmer. “Of course. We have learned thy thoughts runneth over with unique creativity. Though not the pleasure we had hoped, thy company hath nevertheless been a pleasure.”
>You thought on this for a time. The drawing suddenly feels less important. You’ve got it figured out in your head by now anyway, disregarding the fact this environment itself was in your head.
“You’re saying you could put me back home, in here?”
>Her smile falters, but quickly finds its place again, calm and gentle. “Only thou art ruler here, as we have said. Human dreams are less stable than ponies, we have found, and our control over them is not as firm. But we may be able to nudge thy sleeping mind in certain directions, and then appear to thou once underway.”
>You sat in silence, slouching.
>You could actually see home again, however briefly, and you’d never known until now.
>Is this something you wanted to indulge in? You’ve been treated well here, and a taste of home would tempt further homesickness, not that you had much to be homesick for.
>Well, the food. You definitely missed the food.
>And you could, at least, show Luna around. For her benefit if not yours.
“You know what? That might not be a bad idea.”
>Luna stepped back, looking proud. “We are very pleased. Tonight will not work; we have already asserted ourselves within this space to stabilize this working area of thine. In the future, though, we will endeavor to try.”
>You sighed.
“That’ll be a breath of fresh air.”
>Your sigh was also a breath of fresh air; the flower smell was back.
>”Thou art fortunate, for thy world thou hadst left behind was pleasant. Even past, thou at least hast sweet memories of it.”
>Her tone was a lot sadder. You look over at her. All her pride had fled.
“You, uh, you wanna talk about something?”
>”Yes, but no. Perhaps another night. Thou hast spent much time here, for we needed to alter the rate of time; thy dreams flow quick, but at that speed are uncontrollable. Thou hast work to complete, so we shall allow thou it, and interrupt no further.”
>You looked back at your canvas. Even as Luna resumed her place at your side to watch, dozens of little notes resolved across it. They were still illegible, but somehow you knew what they said.
>You sigh and start writing them out properly, so you’d have them committed to memory come morning.