Post by Bardigan on Feb 4, 2013 12:00:36 GMT -5
Bardigan and Fluttershy share a quiet talk in the Lunarium.
The Lunarium
(Part gothic cathedral and part ironclad fortress, the Royal Lunarium somehow manages to fuse intimidating and elegant into a sweeping nautilus-shell of riveted plates, bronze struts, and copper-edged buttresses. Porthole-shaped windows taller than a pony ring the upper surfaces, most facing the sky and all tightly sealed with clockwork iris-apertures, open to the stars only upon the blackest nights of the new moon. Ornaments of a dark, slender alicorn, Luna herself, glimmer in bronze relief from the spandrels of the arches and flare their wings, sphinxlike, astride the entry hatchway.
No matter the time, it is always cool, silver-hazed night within. Not merely dark, but a magical zone of deepest night which no lesser power can dispel. A jungle flourishes in this inky midnight, given only faint starlight once a month-- for these are the very flora of the Cave of Night, specimens lovingly transplanted to this greenhouse and nurtured for all Equestria. Thick leaves form a silhouetted canopy overhead, with luminous smears of ghostly fungi like masks in the void. Fronds rustle; the air is heady with swooning scents and a-flutter with pale, translucent butterflies. While most of the foliage is confined to terraces and planters, the interior still seems much like a natural cave, right down to the icicle-drop-drip from false stalactites above.
Every so often, one of the uncanny plants is given a place of prominence for display, and right now it appears to be a cluster of strange, slightly burry mushrooms that the eye cannot quite focus on. They give off a sweet, sleepy fragrance that slightly numbs the back of the tongue.)
The night is silent. Enter into the deep dark Everfree Forest, wrapped in its blanket of deepest greens and browns and midnight blues; a place where no pony would go, save one, and those who seek her. Normally there are sounds of animals scurrying or timberwolves creaking or the wind, but tonight, none of those things can be heard...and the one little yellow mare making her way along the newly-beaten path is guided only by a little magic lantern. Glancing around to watch her back, she opens the Lunarium and lets herself inside.
The night doesn't seem to mind the little mare's trespass onto its glass-thin serenity, so easily broken by the sounds of monsters lurking in the woods. But the Lunarium is a place of peace and her demure entrance does nothing to break that calm atmosphere. The inside is as smothered with gentle nightly noise as out. But her passage, however light-hoofed, is enough to apparently guide another presence along behind, as a shadow slips its way inside the door soon after her. It's a pegasus just like the first, but a stallion treading as softly as her, seemingly following the light of her lantern.
The little mare - barely old enough to be called such, really - steps inside and lets the door close behind her, taking a few more soft steps as quiet as can be so as not to awake the few creatures who call the Lunarium home. "Hello there," she whispers, and as she raises her head and lets her cloak's hood fall back, it becomes apparently that she's speaking up into the open air (although what answers her is the soft, familiar chittering of a Garthim).
The stallion behind her doesn't hear the whisper except as more background noise amidst the rest of the wispy, rustling sounds that permeate the Lunarium. He lost sight of the lantern light and the mare that held it soon after she went inside, his eyes going up to the ceiling more of a canopy really - and its murky magical duskiness. His ears are perked up, not because of any anxiety but because he wants to take in as much of this place as he can. The bobbing of a lantern's light draws his gaze again, and he follows it quickly and quietly, slinking over the cool stone and fallen leaves, wings half-open as if to catch more of the cool air.
Fluttershy keeps looking up into the cool air, as the air here is always cool, and breathes in deeply through her nose. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting," she whispers. "I-it was just so busy, with so many new animals. I'm sure you all understand." There's more soft chittering off in the plants somewhere, but it's the night itself she's speaking to.
( "Who?" the stallion asks, having heard the gentle whisper then. Something about the air changed, and it was just so quiet here. The noises were all around, to be sure, but they seemed to belong to the place itself, mingling only with each other and no other sounds, and any noises a pony made were magnified, stood out from the night. He peeks around a tree, eyes widening as he recognizes the mare in the lantern light - how long has it been since they last talked? - and seems stunned to actually see another pony here, in spite of the fact that he had been following her for some time as if in a dream. That's broken now, for the moment. "Fluttershy?" he wonders, not calling out to her, just expressing his surprise. )
( "Oh!" she exclaims, more a squeak than a word, and whips her head around, causing the cloak to flutter around and slide off her back. "W-who...oh, Bardigan. I, um, I'm sorry. I didn't expect to see anypony else here tonight." )
"... Neither did I," Bardigan half-lies. He'd followed her for so long, never caring to deduce her destination until she went into the very door. He comes out from behind the tree, barely managing a not very convincing smile that quickly falls away again to uncertain solemnity. "Forgive me," he whispers, loath to suppress the sounds of the night too much with his own voice, "but I would expect to see *you* here less than most. But then, this is only my second visit." His gaze and his wings sag to the ground, like a schoolcolt admitting he cheated on a test.
"It's all right," says Fluttershy, smiling as she pulls her cloak back on (the winter night is chilly, after all). "I-I don't mind. I was just talking a walk out to the Lunarium. I, um...have you been here before?" Nearby, there's a rustling, and the head of what looks like a giant ladybug peeks out of the brush.
"Once," Bardigan says, gazing thoughtfully around. He feels like an intruder in the second degree: Fluttershy came here to be cloaked in the night, penetrating its solitude, and *he* is breaking *her* tranquility. "I should have come more. I should have been more attentive. I should have..." He closes his eyes, composing himself before looking back to the little mare, tilting his head just so. "You speak as if you've come here many times."
Fluttershy blinks, turning her head away just slightly to regard Bardigan around her forelock. "I, um...I'm sorry," she says, although she isn't quite sure what for; there's just the sense that Bardigan has something to be quite sorry for. "But yes, I have. I, um, I come over here sometimes. I-it's the one part of the Everfree Forest that isn't scary." Fluttershy giggles nervously.
"Isn't?" Bardigan wonders at that, eyes widening. He walks in a curve around her a few paces, wary of the private bubble that seems to naturally surround them while they're in this place. "Some might call this place dark. Intimidating, maybe. Perhaps even... threatening?" Eyes gently narrowed, he moves a few paces closer, breaching that compact of exclusivity that held him back. "Some might say it's hardly a place to find peace." His tone is firm and obstinate, as if he's not making up the conversation as he goes along, but deliberately leading it somewhere.
Fluttershy draws back just a bit, wheeling to one side with hooves tapping softly against the grass. "I, um - well - what do you mean?" she asks, voice and eyes cautious. She has to remind herself that Bardigan is an actor. That's all it is, right? "Just because something is dark doesn't mean it's scary..."
Bardigan continues to watch Fluttershy with deep, inscrutable intent. He's studying her in some way, watching how she reacts, what she says. "I didn't say scary," he says, the intimidating scrutiny suddenly deflating as he looks at the ground again. "There's a difference," he adds, stubbornly clinging to something he's telling himself more than Fluttershy. His gaze goes up again, following a gossamer-winged butterfly as it flits by, as fragile as a spider web and nearly as invisible in this half light. "What is it that *does* frighten you, if not the dark?" he whispers.
"Well..." Fluttershy tilts her head softly the other way and joins the poet in looking up once again into the soft, velvety night. "I-I guess what *really* scares me about the dark is being alone. But...that's why I like to come here sometimes, because it reminds me that, when you're connected to nature, you're never *really* alone. You always have friends nearby..."
Bardigan is silent a few minutes afterward, basking in the night's embrace, apparently trying to put that lesson into practice. But the pony silence filled by the nightly noise is broken again soon: "I came here to try and remember that," Bardigan whispers. "What I often enjoyed about the night is that I *was* alone. But... perhaps that is - has always been - a little bit selfish." He sags once more, looking defeated. "Could you show me?"
"Of course," coos Fluttershy, voice arching up into that slight, joyful squeak. "Here. Listen..." Fluttershy sets her haunches down and takes a deep breath...and then whistles softly. All around Bardigan and Fluttershy, thousands of tiny stars begin to twinkle in and out and - move? The stars come closer, slowly drifting down from the ceiling, twirling together and apart again as uncountable fireflies fill the chamber of the night. And on the ground, the great, giant Garthim that tend Luna's garden raise their head and let out a soft, droning purr.
Bardigan is almost instantly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of lights that come when Fluttershy calls. He draws back a step, not frightened, but out of professional courtesy: this isn't his show. His jaw drops and his eyes fill with the swirling lights. He removes his hat and drops it, ears twitching along with the purr of the Garthim. For once in his life the master of words stunned into silence. Surrounded by the blinding yet still gentle glow of the fireflies, he can do little but watch what unfolds.
Soon, Fluttershy is surrounded by a sheet of tiny lights, drawing in toward her like a gentle breath. She opens her eyes and smiles, holding out a hoof so that some of the fireflies can perch on it. "Hello there," she coos. "How've you been? I hope everything is going well here. Are you keeping the Night Child company?" A bat even swoops down and around Bardigan, and by some miracle, even here in the Everfree, the animals are resisting the urge to eat one another.
( The playwright extends his neck to the bat that flits around him, circling his head before diving off again into the firefly menagerie. He takes a cautious step forward, cut off by a tide of fireflies that zooms down and around him like a visible air current. He can feel and hear the whisper of so many tiny wings, his heart racing. He feels sad, wistful, even *jealous* of the little mare sitting in the middle of this natural spotlight. He has to pry beauty and poetry from every sentence... but it just *comes* to Fluttershy? He stays at the outskirts, watching her carefully. )
"See?" says Fluttershy, the little creatures making her mane and tail glistening like they've been dusted with the Milky Way. "Now I'm surrounded by all of my animal friends, and I'm not alone any more. There's just as much nature around you at night as there is during the day. O-of course, I love all my pony friends, too..."
Bardigan begins to sneak into the whorl of fireflies. "It's beautiful," he whispers with a melancholy at the sight of star-dusted Fluttershy, "but it's easy to say this is beautiful..." He sighs and watches a few adventuresome fireflies find their way to his mane and snout, investigating the newcomer. "Nature can be harsh too," he feels obligated to point out. "Excessively so."
Fluttershy's smile slips a bit, and her ears lower to match. "Yes, it...it can. No matter how much you try." She twists a forehoof into the ground in her discomfort. "Um...why do you say that, though?"
Bardigan seems uncomfortable with *Fluttershy's* discomfort, and he glances away, ignoring the snake silthering between his hooves. This is Kindness itself and here he is trying to *argue* with her. No wonder he's been having such a bad couple of weeks. "I've been... trying to look into the true nature of some things. Things I believed I really cared about. But I am a silly, sensitive pony who shied away from the thorns on my favorite rose, to use a tired metaphor."
( "Oh..." Flutters' hoof twists even more awkwardly, if such a thing were even possible, threatening to wear a divot into the path. "I'm really sorry, Bardigan. M-maybe if you listen to nature here, it'll help you feel a little better. Um..." Her eyes rove around. "Do you wanna...t-talk about it." )
Bardigan shakes his head. "This is your moment, Fluttershy. Your place... I should be thanking you for sharing it, not going on about my troubles." He waves a hoof at the fireflies circling overhead, and the eyes of a curious Garthim purring in the nearby bushes. And he manages a small, timid smile. "This is where what I love most resides. If I can't be at ease here then talking will never help."
Fluttershy gives Bardigan a blank stare...and then she blinks and realization lights up her eyes. "Oh. O-oh. I...think I understand, sort of." Her words are slow and careful; she reaches out to pet the Garthim while she speaks. "In that case, I guess it's a good thing you came...if I can help you, that is." She points up with a hoof, sending another cloud of fireflies whilrling. "Um...I don't really understand it, but I think this entire place is alive. It stays night here even when it's daytime outside."
"As it should." Bardigan trots closer, sharing the glow surrounding Fluttershy now and trying to smile consistently. "Why shouldn't it be alive? It's the night. Just look into the sky and you see worlds beyond counting." He takes a deep breath and sways back and forth to some unheard beat. "The night needs you to look a little harder than usual. It needs you to really explore to *know,* and even then you can only see so far ahead."
"I guess that's true." Fluttershy leans away, just a little, but there's no trepidation in her eyes this time; she's just giving Bardigan some room to think. "S-so, um...what do *you* see?"
Bardigan raises an eyebrow. "Right now? A Fluttershy covered in fireflies." He gestures at the Garthim, which scuttles forward timidly, looking for more gentle pats. "A creature that used to terrify ready to roll over." He lifts his hoof and chuckles at the way a troop of fireflies takes the opportunity to rest on it. "At night you see things you never expected to during the day." His smile drops again. "Never expected to," he says again. "Expectations can be so... damaging."
"I, um - Bardigan? Are you sure you're okay?" Fluttershy reaches out and pats the Garthim again, but the poor thing isn't getting her full attention now, not that it seems to mind as long as it's getting her affection. "I, um, I didn't want to say anything, but those things you keep saying are a little...strange."
"They are, aren't they?" Bardigan agrees with a nod of his head. "Fluttershy, I don't know if you can sympathize, but I don't know any ponies I can talk to about this without feeling strange or silly. And I find it hard to believe they'll understand, or even listen." He turns to his fellow pegasus and fixes her with a distant, strange look. "You know about me and Luna, yes?"
"You and Luna? N-no, I don't." Fluttershy at least *sounds* sincere, although who really knows what the animals might have told her? It'd be a whole grapevine of squirrels and bunnies (but not grapes, that's more Nettie's thing). "Do you mean you and Luna are, um...?" She touches her two longest pinions together.
Bardigan throws back his head and laughs. "Oh, no! No, no, no. Hardly. She has told me twice that she will never return my affections." That was a little blunt even for Bardigan, but he's been keeping these feelings in check for so long it's hard not to let them just spill. "But she hoped that I would never stop trying, and I have not. Except, I have disappointed her. I wish to love her, but I do not truly understand her. I had thought that was why I love her, but..." He looks down again, digging a divot in the dirt that a pillbug crawls from, waving its antennae. "But it is why I fail her, instead."
Fluttershy looks away again. "I-I've only met Princess Luna a few times, but...I do know that I was here when she opened the Lunarium, because I helped her do it. A-and I saw her put a piece of her own magic - I don't really understand it - into the air here. M-maybe there's a reason you felt like coming here."
Bardigan raises his eyes to the ceiling once again, admiring the little tent of fireflies they have for themselves. "I should've come earlier." He shakes his head. "Should've done many things. I think the only thing I've ever really done right is Diamond Dancer. And even then I question it every day... but she's there. She's doing what she loves. As am I... most of the time."
Fluttershy's smile finally returns. "Diamond Dancer is a good pony. I-I mean, it's been a while since I"ve been able to talk to her, but I remember she's a really nice little filly. I'm glad you're taking care of her, Bardigan."
"It's not her I worry about. I know she can take care of herself." The playwright shrugs with his wings. "I worry whether I can care for her. I certainly cannot care for Luna in the way I should. It's why I came here... to see if I could see what you did. And even then it took you showing it to me." He rests his chin on his hooves, watching a ladybug crawl along. "In a way, what Luna did was good for me. I maintain no more illusions about my own capabilities. I am *incapable,* and now I know I must improve. I just need to know how."
"I, um...I don't know about that, Bardigan," whispers Fluttershy. "I think that sometimes, all you really need to do to understand is to open up your ears and listen. There are so many wonders down here on the ground, even in a dark, scary place like the Everfree Forest, a-and, I mean, just like the forest creatures, I'm sure that all the Princess really wants is to be understood. I mean...that's what everypony really wants, isn't it?"
Bardigan purses his lips, humbled a bit. He glances up and around once more. He raises his head and perks his ears. For many minutes he sits and ponders. "Then do you mind if I sit and listen with you a while?" he wonders after a while. "Maybe I'll finally hear what I need."
"Of course." Fluttershy scoots over instinctively, although it's not like she has to make room considering what an open space they're in; at least she's careful not to crush any plants. She lets the little bugs land all over her body again, and the bat, and a few night birds, and just lets her ears twitch back and forth.
Bardigan's lids slide halfway shut. The gentle lights of the fireflies turn everything into a hazy, almost monochrome silhouette. The shadows of the little animals hopping and jumping around Fluttershy are lengthened to ghastly proportions by the firelies' lights and faded to near invisiblity, making for a strange, ghostly dance along the ground. He listens to the breaths of their wings, the sounds of the birds calling through the jungle trees, the shuffling of the Garthim, and the gentle steps of *something* just out of sight. Any one of those sounds is beautiful, surprising, worrying, and in all cases bracing. Bardigan isn't sure what he's listening for, or even if he's supposed to be hearing any one specific thing. But the night is not a lonely place anymore, and so there is plenty to simply *listen* to.
And Fluttershy doesn't interrupt him for a long time; after all, sitting quietly and just *listening* is always a fine idea to her. She takes in deep breaths of the cool night air, almost like she's meditating.
Many long minutes pass. Perhaps even hours. The night is unchanging here. It's long enough for a tortoise to wander over, wondering what all the fuss is about. It settles in front of Bardigan. The playwright seems confused at first, and then lays his hoves down on the tortoise's shell, giving it a pat. Then another, and another. His head begins to bob, in time to the beat he's tapping out. The patting becomes a gentle drumming into a jaunty tune that the tortoise takes in stride. By the look on his wrinkled face, this has happened before. Bardigan begins to hum, droning a bass line to underscore the music.
Fluttershy raises her head and turns it toward Bardigan. She has to suppress a giggle once she realizes that the bard isn't entirely sure what he's doing. Fluttershy, in spite of her timid nature, begins to hum along; if it's to help somepony near her, shyness hardly means anything at all.
Bardigan's tap tapping tune, or perhaps the fact that Fluttershy is joining in, seems to affect the very mood of the forest. The fireflies bob back and forth in time, the mice form a ragged quadrille, and even the Garthim nearby begins to try and mimic the beat, thumping one of its heavy limbs. Bardigan's voice soon joins in, singing very quietly, riding the wave of the night's noise. The words? They aren't important. What is important is that he's listening more to what's around him than how his voice fits into the whole.
The yellow mare beside him plays Harmony's role, dropping her voice a little to serve as a counterpoint. She follows the bugs and bats and birds back and forth with her eyes, not directing, just letting them do what comes naturally, and soon she's bobbing back and forth in time as well.
The two ponies are soon in the midst of a blooming dance party, not quite lost in the swirling lights and hopping shadows, but content to do their small part. The music goes on into the everlasting night. There is no particular purpose to it. It is there to be heard.
The Lunarium
(Part gothic cathedral and part ironclad fortress, the Royal Lunarium somehow manages to fuse intimidating and elegant into a sweeping nautilus-shell of riveted plates, bronze struts, and copper-edged buttresses. Porthole-shaped windows taller than a pony ring the upper surfaces, most facing the sky and all tightly sealed with clockwork iris-apertures, open to the stars only upon the blackest nights of the new moon. Ornaments of a dark, slender alicorn, Luna herself, glimmer in bronze relief from the spandrels of the arches and flare their wings, sphinxlike, astride the entry hatchway.
No matter the time, it is always cool, silver-hazed night within. Not merely dark, but a magical zone of deepest night which no lesser power can dispel. A jungle flourishes in this inky midnight, given only faint starlight once a month-- for these are the very flora of the Cave of Night, specimens lovingly transplanted to this greenhouse and nurtured for all Equestria. Thick leaves form a silhouetted canopy overhead, with luminous smears of ghostly fungi like masks in the void. Fronds rustle; the air is heady with swooning scents and a-flutter with pale, translucent butterflies. While most of the foliage is confined to terraces and planters, the interior still seems much like a natural cave, right down to the icicle-drop-drip from false stalactites above.
Every so often, one of the uncanny plants is given a place of prominence for display, and right now it appears to be a cluster of strange, slightly burry mushrooms that the eye cannot quite focus on. They give off a sweet, sleepy fragrance that slightly numbs the back of the tongue.)
The night is silent. Enter into the deep dark Everfree Forest, wrapped in its blanket of deepest greens and browns and midnight blues; a place where no pony would go, save one, and those who seek her. Normally there are sounds of animals scurrying or timberwolves creaking or the wind, but tonight, none of those things can be heard...and the one little yellow mare making her way along the newly-beaten path is guided only by a little magic lantern. Glancing around to watch her back, she opens the Lunarium and lets herself inside.
The night doesn't seem to mind the little mare's trespass onto its glass-thin serenity, so easily broken by the sounds of monsters lurking in the woods. But the Lunarium is a place of peace and her demure entrance does nothing to break that calm atmosphere. The inside is as smothered with gentle nightly noise as out. But her passage, however light-hoofed, is enough to apparently guide another presence along behind, as a shadow slips its way inside the door soon after her. It's a pegasus just like the first, but a stallion treading as softly as her, seemingly following the light of her lantern.
The little mare - barely old enough to be called such, really - steps inside and lets the door close behind her, taking a few more soft steps as quiet as can be so as not to awake the few creatures who call the Lunarium home. "Hello there," she whispers, and as she raises her head and lets her cloak's hood fall back, it becomes apparently that she's speaking up into the open air (although what answers her is the soft, familiar chittering of a Garthim).
The stallion behind her doesn't hear the whisper except as more background noise amidst the rest of the wispy, rustling sounds that permeate the Lunarium. He lost sight of the lantern light and the mare that held it soon after she went inside, his eyes going up to the ceiling more of a canopy really - and its murky magical duskiness. His ears are perked up, not because of any anxiety but because he wants to take in as much of this place as he can. The bobbing of a lantern's light draws his gaze again, and he follows it quickly and quietly, slinking over the cool stone and fallen leaves, wings half-open as if to catch more of the cool air.
Fluttershy keeps looking up into the cool air, as the air here is always cool, and breathes in deeply through her nose. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting," she whispers. "I-it was just so busy, with so many new animals. I'm sure you all understand." There's more soft chittering off in the plants somewhere, but it's the night itself she's speaking to.
( "Who?" the stallion asks, having heard the gentle whisper then. Something about the air changed, and it was just so quiet here. The noises were all around, to be sure, but they seemed to belong to the place itself, mingling only with each other and no other sounds, and any noises a pony made were magnified, stood out from the night. He peeks around a tree, eyes widening as he recognizes the mare in the lantern light - how long has it been since they last talked? - and seems stunned to actually see another pony here, in spite of the fact that he had been following her for some time as if in a dream. That's broken now, for the moment. "Fluttershy?" he wonders, not calling out to her, just expressing his surprise. )
( "Oh!" she exclaims, more a squeak than a word, and whips her head around, causing the cloak to flutter around and slide off her back. "W-who...oh, Bardigan. I, um, I'm sorry. I didn't expect to see anypony else here tonight." )
"... Neither did I," Bardigan half-lies. He'd followed her for so long, never caring to deduce her destination until she went into the very door. He comes out from behind the tree, barely managing a not very convincing smile that quickly falls away again to uncertain solemnity. "Forgive me," he whispers, loath to suppress the sounds of the night too much with his own voice, "but I would expect to see *you* here less than most. But then, this is only my second visit." His gaze and his wings sag to the ground, like a schoolcolt admitting he cheated on a test.
"It's all right," says Fluttershy, smiling as she pulls her cloak back on (the winter night is chilly, after all). "I-I don't mind. I was just talking a walk out to the Lunarium. I, um...have you been here before?" Nearby, there's a rustling, and the head of what looks like a giant ladybug peeks out of the brush.
"Once," Bardigan says, gazing thoughtfully around. He feels like an intruder in the second degree: Fluttershy came here to be cloaked in the night, penetrating its solitude, and *he* is breaking *her* tranquility. "I should have come more. I should have been more attentive. I should have..." He closes his eyes, composing himself before looking back to the little mare, tilting his head just so. "You speak as if you've come here many times."
Fluttershy blinks, turning her head away just slightly to regard Bardigan around her forelock. "I, um...I'm sorry," she says, although she isn't quite sure what for; there's just the sense that Bardigan has something to be quite sorry for. "But yes, I have. I, um, I come over here sometimes. I-it's the one part of the Everfree Forest that isn't scary." Fluttershy giggles nervously.
"Isn't?" Bardigan wonders at that, eyes widening. He walks in a curve around her a few paces, wary of the private bubble that seems to naturally surround them while they're in this place. "Some might call this place dark. Intimidating, maybe. Perhaps even... threatening?" Eyes gently narrowed, he moves a few paces closer, breaching that compact of exclusivity that held him back. "Some might say it's hardly a place to find peace." His tone is firm and obstinate, as if he's not making up the conversation as he goes along, but deliberately leading it somewhere.
Fluttershy draws back just a bit, wheeling to one side with hooves tapping softly against the grass. "I, um - well - what do you mean?" she asks, voice and eyes cautious. She has to remind herself that Bardigan is an actor. That's all it is, right? "Just because something is dark doesn't mean it's scary..."
Bardigan continues to watch Fluttershy with deep, inscrutable intent. He's studying her in some way, watching how she reacts, what she says. "I didn't say scary," he says, the intimidating scrutiny suddenly deflating as he looks at the ground again. "There's a difference," he adds, stubbornly clinging to something he's telling himself more than Fluttershy. His gaze goes up again, following a gossamer-winged butterfly as it flits by, as fragile as a spider web and nearly as invisible in this half light. "What is it that *does* frighten you, if not the dark?" he whispers.
"Well..." Fluttershy tilts her head softly the other way and joins the poet in looking up once again into the soft, velvety night. "I-I guess what *really* scares me about the dark is being alone. But...that's why I like to come here sometimes, because it reminds me that, when you're connected to nature, you're never *really* alone. You always have friends nearby..."
Bardigan is silent a few minutes afterward, basking in the night's embrace, apparently trying to put that lesson into practice. But the pony silence filled by the nightly noise is broken again soon: "I came here to try and remember that," Bardigan whispers. "What I often enjoyed about the night is that I *was* alone. But... perhaps that is - has always been - a little bit selfish." He sags once more, looking defeated. "Could you show me?"
"Of course," coos Fluttershy, voice arching up into that slight, joyful squeak. "Here. Listen..." Fluttershy sets her haunches down and takes a deep breath...and then whistles softly. All around Bardigan and Fluttershy, thousands of tiny stars begin to twinkle in and out and - move? The stars come closer, slowly drifting down from the ceiling, twirling together and apart again as uncountable fireflies fill the chamber of the night. And on the ground, the great, giant Garthim that tend Luna's garden raise their head and let out a soft, droning purr.
Bardigan is almost instantly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of lights that come when Fluttershy calls. He draws back a step, not frightened, but out of professional courtesy: this isn't his show. His jaw drops and his eyes fill with the swirling lights. He removes his hat and drops it, ears twitching along with the purr of the Garthim. For once in his life the master of words stunned into silence. Surrounded by the blinding yet still gentle glow of the fireflies, he can do little but watch what unfolds.
Soon, Fluttershy is surrounded by a sheet of tiny lights, drawing in toward her like a gentle breath. She opens her eyes and smiles, holding out a hoof so that some of the fireflies can perch on it. "Hello there," she coos. "How've you been? I hope everything is going well here. Are you keeping the Night Child company?" A bat even swoops down and around Bardigan, and by some miracle, even here in the Everfree, the animals are resisting the urge to eat one another.
( The playwright extends his neck to the bat that flits around him, circling his head before diving off again into the firefly menagerie. He takes a cautious step forward, cut off by a tide of fireflies that zooms down and around him like a visible air current. He can feel and hear the whisper of so many tiny wings, his heart racing. He feels sad, wistful, even *jealous* of the little mare sitting in the middle of this natural spotlight. He has to pry beauty and poetry from every sentence... but it just *comes* to Fluttershy? He stays at the outskirts, watching her carefully. )
"See?" says Fluttershy, the little creatures making her mane and tail glistening like they've been dusted with the Milky Way. "Now I'm surrounded by all of my animal friends, and I'm not alone any more. There's just as much nature around you at night as there is during the day. O-of course, I love all my pony friends, too..."
Bardigan begins to sneak into the whorl of fireflies. "It's beautiful," he whispers with a melancholy at the sight of star-dusted Fluttershy, "but it's easy to say this is beautiful..." He sighs and watches a few adventuresome fireflies find their way to his mane and snout, investigating the newcomer. "Nature can be harsh too," he feels obligated to point out. "Excessively so."
Fluttershy's smile slips a bit, and her ears lower to match. "Yes, it...it can. No matter how much you try." She twists a forehoof into the ground in her discomfort. "Um...why do you say that, though?"
Bardigan seems uncomfortable with *Fluttershy's* discomfort, and he glances away, ignoring the snake silthering between his hooves. This is Kindness itself and here he is trying to *argue* with her. No wonder he's been having such a bad couple of weeks. "I've been... trying to look into the true nature of some things. Things I believed I really cared about. But I am a silly, sensitive pony who shied away from the thorns on my favorite rose, to use a tired metaphor."
( "Oh..." Flutters' hoof twists even more awkwardly, if such a thing were even possible, threatening to wear a divot into the path. "I'm really sorry, Bardigan. M-maybe if you listen to nature here, it'll help you feel a little better. Um..." Her eyes rove around. "Do you wanna...t-talk about it." )
Bardigan shakes his head. "This is your moment, Fluttershy. Your place... I should be thanking you for sharing it, not going on about my troubles." He waves a hoof at the fireflies circling overhead, and the eyes of a curious Garthim purring in the nearby bushes. And he manages a small, timid smile. "This is where what I love most resides. If I can't be at ease here then talking will never help."
Fluttershy gives Bardigan a blank stare...and then she blinks and realization lights up her eyes. "Oh. O-oh. I...think I understand, sort of." Her words are slow and careful; she reaches out to pet the Garthim while she speaks. "In that case, I guess it's a good thing you came...if I can help you, that is." She points up with a hoof, sending another cloud of fireflies whilrling. "Um...I don't really understand it, but I think this entire place is alive. It stays night here even when it's daytime outside."
"As it should." Bardigan trots closer, sharing the glow surrounding Fluttershy now and trying to smile consistently. "Why shouldn't it be alive? It's the night. Just look into the sky and you see worlds beyond counting." He takes a deep breath and sways back and forth to some unheard beat. "The night needs you to look a little harder than usual. It needs you to really explore to *know,* and even then you can only see so far ahead."
"I guess that's true." Fluttershy leans away, just a little, but there's no trepidation in her eyes this time; she's just giving Bardigan some room to think. "S-so, um...what do *you* see?"
Bardigan raises an eyebrow. "Right now? A Fluttershy covered in fireflies." He gestures at the Garthim, which scuttles forward timidly, looking for more gentle pats. "A creature that used to terrify ready to roll over." He lifts his hoof and chuckles at the way a troop of fireflies takes the opportunity to rest on it. "At night you see things you never expected to during the day." His smile drops again. "Never expected to," he says again. "Expectations can be so... damaging."
"I, um - Bardigan? Are you sure you're okay?" Fluttershy reaches out and pats the Garthim again, but the poor thing isn't getting her full attention now, not that it seems to mind as long as it's getting her affection. "I, um, I didn't want to say anything, but those things you keep saying are a little...strange."
"They are, aren't they?" Bardigan agrees with a nod of his head. "Fluttershy, I don't know if you can sympathize, but I don't know any ponies I can talk to about this without feeling strange or silly. And I find it hard to believe they'll understand, or even listen." He turns to his fellow pegasus and fixes her with a distant, strange look. "You know about me and Luna, yes?"
"You and Luna? N-no, I don't." Fluttershy at least *sounds* sincere, although who really knows what the animals might have told her? It'd be a whole grapevine of squirrels and bunnies (but not grapes, that's more Nettie's thing). "Do you mean you and Luna are, um...?" She touches her two longest pinions together.
Bardigan throws back his head and laughs. "Oh, no! No, no, no. Hardly. She has told me twice that she will never return my affections." That was a little blunt even for Bardigan, but he's been keeping these feelings in check for so long it's hard not to let them just spill. "But she hoped that I would never stop trying, and I have not. Except, I have disappointed her. I wish to love her, but I do not truly understand her. I had thought that was why I love her, but..." He looks down again, digging a divot in the dirt that a pillbug crawls from, waving its antennae. "But it is why I fail her, instead."
Fluttershy looks away again. "I-I've only met Princess Luna a few times, but...I do know that I was here when she opened the Lunarium, because I helped her do it. A-and I saw her put a piece of her own magic - I don't really understand it - into the air here. M-maybe there's a reason you felt like coming here."
Bardigan raises his eyes to the ceiling once again, admiring the little tent of fireflies they have for themselves. "I should've come earlier." He shakes his head. "Should've done many things. I think the only thing I've ever really done right is Diamond Dancer. And even then I question it every day... but she's there. She's doing what she loves. As am I... most of the time."
Fluttershy's smile finally returns. "Diamond Dancer is a good pony. I-I mean, it's been a while since I"ve been able to talk to her, but I remember she's a really nice little filly. I'm glad you're taking care of her, Bardigan."
"It's not her I worry about. I know she can take care of herself." The playwright shrugs with his wings. "I worry whether I can care for her. I certainly cannot care for Luna in the way I should. It's why I came here... to see if I could see what you did. And even then it took you showing it to me." He rests his chin on his hooves, watching a ladybug crawl along. "In a way, what Luna did was good for me. I maintain no more illusions about my own capabilities. I am *incapable,* and now I know I must improve. I just need to know how."
"I, um...I don't know about that, Bardigan," whispers Fluttershy. "I think that sometimes, all you really need to do to understand is to open up your ears and listen. There are so many wonders down here on the ground, even in a dark, scary place like the Everfree Forest, a-and, I mean, just like the forest creatures, I'm sure that all the Princess really wants is to be understood. I mean...that's what everypony really wants, isn't it?"
Bardigan purses his lips, humbled a bit. He glances up and around once more. He raises his head and perks his ears. For many minutes he sits and ponders. "Then do you mind if I sit and listen with you a while?" he wonders after a while. "Maybe I'll finally hear what I need."
"Of course." Fluttershy scoots over instinctively, although it's not like she has to make room considering what an open space they're in; at least she's careful not to crush any plants. She lets the little bugs land all over her body again, and the bat, and a few night birds, and just lets her ears twitch back and forth.
Bardigan's lids slide halfway shut. The gentle lights of the fireflies turn everything into a hazy, almost monochrome silhouette. The shadows of the little animals hopping and jumping around Fluttershy are lengthened to ghastly proportions by the firelies' lights and faded to near invisiblity, making for a strange, ghostly dance along the ground. He listens to the breaths of their wings, the sounds of the birds calling through the jungle trees, the shuffling of the Garthim, and the gentle steps of *something* just out of sight. Any one of those sounds is beautiful, surprising, worrying, and in all cases bracing. Bardigan isn't sure what he's listening for, or even if he's supposed to be hearing any one specific thing. But the night is not a lonely place anymore, and so there is plenty to simply *listen* to.
And Fluttershy doesn't interrupt him for a long time; after all, sitting quietly and just *listening* is always a fine idea to her. She takes in deep breaths of the cool night air, almost like she's meditating.
Many long minutes pass. Perhaps even hours. The night is unchanging here. It's long enough for a tortoise to wander over, wondering what all the fuss is about. It settles in front of Bardigan. The playwright seems confused at first, and then lays his hoves down on the tortoise's shell, giving it a pat. Then another, and another. His head begins to bob, in time to the beat he's tapping out. The patting becomes a gentle drumming into a jaunty tune that the tortoise takes in stride. By the look on his wrinkled face, this has happened before. Bardigan begins to hum, droning a bass line to underscore the music.
Fluttershy raises her head and turns it toward Bardigan. She has to suppress a giggle once she realizes that the bard isn't entirely sure what he's doing. Fluttershy, in spite of her timid nature, begins to hum along; if it's to help somepony near her, shyness hardly means anything at all.
Bardigan's tap tapping tune, or perhaps the fact that Fluttershy is joining in, seems to affect the very mood of the forest. The fireflies bob back and forth in time, the mice form a ragged quadrille, and even the Garthim nearby begins to try and mimic the beat, thumping one of its heavy limbs. Bardigan's voice soon joins in, singing very quietly, riding the wave of the night's noise. The words? They aren't important. What is important is that he's listening more to what's around him than how his voice fits into the whole.
The yellow mare beside him plays Harmony's role, dropping her voice a little to serve as a counterpoint. She follows the bugs and bats and birds back and forth with her eyes, not directing, just letting them do what comes naturally, and soon she's bobbing back and forth in time as well.
The two ponies are soon in the midst of a blooming dance party, not quite lost in the swirling lights and hopping shadows, but content to do their small part. The music goes on into the everlasting night. There is no particular purpose to it. It is there to be heard.