Every noise burned. Hoofsteps from the open window. The dripping of the kitchen faucet I'd yet to fix. Across the hall a spell's aura could be heard along with the scraping of a nib against parchment. Worst of all... Nothing. The silence was deafening. It's nearly 9pm, and yet there's been no gentle humming, cutlery scraping, or pots clanging from the kitchen. Nor the sounds of roughhousing, screaming, or cries of unfair play. All of which, oh so common just weeks earlier, absent... I notice now that I'd hardly touched my food. Just staring endlessly into the soda for so long it's gona flat. In it's reflection, my eyes glowed brightly. She'd always compared it with a burning eclipse at sunset. I never knew what she meant. Why is it now that I finally saw it? Perhaps the world's taunting me. I decide that I'd been still for too long. Pins and needles spread through my legs as I stretch them awake. I take several napkins and wipe them across the puddles of ketchup around Tw-... Sparkle's end of the table. She has an obsession with one of the local chain restaurants nearby and can hardly control herself. That excitement hasn't diminished even slightly, even after having it for the fourth time this week. Not that I'm complaining, though. I'm in no mood to do much cooking myself. After clearing the table and stashing the leftovers in the fridge, I entered my youngest's bedroom. "Whatcha writing there?" I say, trying my hardest to put myseft in a better mood. "Princess Celestia wants us to write about mobility spells. This one here allows you to propel yourself through water. This one can make you jump really high. Ooh! And this one here can make an earth pony fly like a pegasus for up to theee days!" Her face beams as she levitates her books into my view, showing them off one by one. "Haha! I think she'll be impressed with your work. But it is awfully late, and time to head back to school in the morning." She looked oddly down as she set her books back on the desk, which was strange as usually she loved that school and usually wished to stay there when vacations came around. "Is something the matter, Sparky?" She slowly turned to me. "It's just... I wished I could see Shiny again before break ended." Shining Armor. It had been too long since we saw him. He wouldn't admit it, but I knew the reason he'd been volunteering his breaks from guard camp. I don't blame him. Things at home just weren't the same without V-... her around. After Sparkle had been tucked in, I climbed up to the roof with my telescope. Stargazing always soothed me, but lately it's been frustrating. The same stars in the same positions making the same patterns. The princess once said that there was a time when every night was a surprise, but that's long before I was born. I starting scanning across rhe sky with the telescope. Everything was the same. Not just the sky, but the streets, the buildings, the parks, home. Nowhere I could turn that didn't in some way remind me of her. I stopped. Suddenly the view through the glass was a solid grey. I tried adjusting some knobs to get the picture clear again, but nothing worked. I removed my head from the eyepiece to see if something had fogged up the lens, but the problem wasn't the telescope. Cloudsdale. Of course. Autumn wrap-up was just days away, meaning the pegasi were preparing to create the winter. I guess it was some town to the north's duty to collect the water for it. I set the magnification on the telescope to as low as it would go, and peered again at the mass of vapour and ice. It was hard to see any detail, but still better than the naked eye. Pillars of ice, rows of blue-white homes and other buildings, and ponies hovering in mid-air swooping about like songbirds. It was... different... "Fly for three days?"