"Alright class, settle down."

The boisterous classroom of fifteen did a reasonable impersonation of "settling," but since the attending students were either seven or eight years of age, being still was a practice that they had not entirely mastered yet. Nevertheless, fifteen pairs of bright, wide eyes stared expectantly up at their teacher, a fairly young mare with a toffee-colored hide and a caramel mane, the latter of which had prompted her parents to name her "Caramel."

"Today, we are going to do some writing!" Ms. Caramel proclaimed happily, fully expecting the unabashed groans and moans that did indeed follow. The poor reaction did not dampen her spirits; after all it came with the territory of teaching young fillies and colts, so she briskly continued into her lesson plan. "Now, who can tell me why we bother writing at all? Why bother with the pens and ink when we can just talk to one another?" It was a lower-energy day and not exactly a subject which excited young students, so she was not surprised when her question did not provoke with a response.

"Because words stay."

Ms. Caramel looked up to the back and right of the classroom to the little black colt that sat there.

"What was that, Raven?" she asked, more because she was surprised that she got an answer than to verify that something was said.

"Words on paper stay," Raven said, his little voice starting strong, but as faces began to turn toward him, Ms. Caramel could see his large, yellow eyes, rather like those of an eagle, begin to quiver slightly as attentions were brought to bear. But she thought she could see her student getting at an important point, so she gently encouraged:

"Go on, Raven."

Raven gathered himself and spoke: "If you say words, someone has to hear them or they go away. If you write down a word, it will stay there." Ms. Caramel was, as seemed to happen often, surprised at what her young students could grasp.

"That is exactly right, Raven," and then she addressed the class collectively. "When we write something down, we give words permanence." Big word for seven year olds. "We make them last. If you write down an idea, then go and eat your lunch, when you come back, the idea is still right there.

"So, I have a homework assignment for you: I want you to think of your favorite bedtime story then write it down."

"Can we write with crayon?" a little white filly with a flowing purple mane asked expectantly. "Crayon is pretty!"

"You can write with anything you want, Rarity, but make sure that you write the story, rather than draw it," Ms. Caramel smiled. "Do your best with spelling, ask your parents or older siblings for help if you get stuck, and I will look forward to reading what you have written after the weekend."

Writing penned by young ponies was always a treasured experience for Ms. Caramel to read; it was, in fact, one of the cornerstone motivations for her as a teacher. To see little minds learn and grow, it was, to her mind, one of the greatest series of events a pony could witness. She would dare call it a miracle. And more specifically for such an assignment as this, seeing each personality put down on a page in pen, pencil, crayon, and even paint was an absolute joy.

"Let's see…" Ms. Caramel flipped through the papers she was grading to check what her students had written about. Two stories about how the alicorns first raised the sun, five about the first pegasi, two about the invention of the rainbow, three retellings of Hearth's Warming Eve, and… She frowned and read aloud:

"'Nightmare Moon and Being Sad.'" Ms. Caramel felt… She was uncertain what she should feel. Clearly, this was a rather depressing, and adult, subject for a seven year old to be writing about, but on the other hand, the title was far more thought-provoking than she would have anticipated. So she read:

"Once upon a time, Princess Nightmare Moon tried to make night last forever, which is really bad because trees and grass and flowers need sunlight to grow. But my mom told me that sometimes ponies act bad because they are sad and they want attention. I do not understand why somepony would want a lot of attention, but that is what my mom said and she is really smart. So Princess Nightmare Moon was sent away to the moon by Princess Celestia and both sisters were really sad. The end." She checked the paper again. "By Raven Carpenter."

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Carpenter," Ms. Caramel greeted the large, black stallion as he entered her office. "I know parent-teacher conferences are right around the corner, but I felt this could not wait. Is," she checked the door, "Mrs. Carpenter joining us?"

"Mrs. Carpenter is no longer with us," was the reply, given in a voice so low it was more like distant thunder.

"I am so sorry," Ms. Caramel said hesitantly, her mind reeling at this quite unforeseen information. "Your son wrote a story and he referred to his mother in the present tense…"

"He has been having difficulties," Mr. Carpenter admitted stoically. Then more softly, "I… cannot say I have been much help for him."

"Ah…" was all Ms. Caramel could think to say. "I had called you here because the story your son had written was, well, quite sad, but under the circumstances, that does not seem so unusual." She scraped her front hooves together nervously, trying to consider how she could adjust her teaching to better help her student. "I suppose I should still say that the paper he wrote, while sad, was still very good."

"I don't believe I read it," Mr. Carpenter noted.

"Really? I assumed you had because there were no spelling errors."

The large, black head shook slowly. "I'm not really what you would call a stallion of words," he shrugged. "The colt probably already has a better grasp of lettering than I do."

"Well, he is quite good," Ms. Caramel said with conviction, presenting the "A+" paper to Mr. Carpenter. "He even has concepts of how acting in anger can stem from a deeper hurt. And… If I may be so bold, it would seem your wife's influence will continue to have a strong hold on him." She watched the stallion's big, grey eyes move back and forth slowly across the page. There was a tensing of the jaw and a moistening of the eyes, but both were suppressed quite quickly, and Ms. Caramel wondered how much of that suppression instinct would trickle down to little Raven.

"He called her 'Princess' Nightmare Moon," Mr. Carpenter noticed, pushing the paper back toward Ms. Caramel. "I'll have to make sure he knows not to do that."

Raven sat out under one of the many trees that scattered the rolling hills around Ponyville. With a colt's frown of concentration, he muttered aloud over a slab of rock he was using as an impromptu writing desk.

"Night… N-i… g-h… um… g-h-t. Night… Mare. M-a… 'Y?'… No… r-e. Nightmare." He looked at the painstakingly spelled word on the paper, and then drew a haphazard crescent to the side. "Nightmare Moon was sad… She was sent away… My mommy went away. And she was sad that she went away, too. So maybe… Maybe my mommy and Nightmare Moon are friends." He put his pencil down on the tablet, then slowly pushed it back and forth with a hoof as he watched two birds flit through the tree branches above him, then as they continued on through the cloudless blue sky in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. "Maybe…"

At that moment, Raven's gaze was assaulted by a literal blast of color so bright that for a full second, he was convinced that he had been struck blind. Then, as his vision cleared, he saw a rainbow. But it was a rainbow unlike any he had ever seen. Instead of a stationary arc, it was a circle; an enormous, broad circle that raced outward like ripples made when a stone is dropped in a pond. All of this was accompanied by a sound like a magical thunderclap, powerful and shimmering as it streaked over hills and through valleys. He arched his head back, eyes wide and mouth wide open as the wash of color soared over his head, then he was hit by a gust of force so surprising that he was nearly knocked on his back. In an instant, there was only one conclusion his young mind could concoct:

"Mom!" And he threw his pencil and paper aside, racing for home as fast as his little legs could carry him. "Mom!" It had to be her! It was powerful magic and powerful magic meant that something powerful had happened and what was more powerful than his mom coming back from the moon? "Mom!"

"Dad!" he shouted as he raced into his father's carpentry workshop, darting around half completed tables and chairs. "Dad, where is mom?! I saw a magic boom, dad! She has to be back!"

"Son! Quiet!" Mr. Carpenter snapped, putting a sander back on his workbench. "What are you on about?"

"There was an explosion and a rainbow and it was magic!" Raven exclaimed in a rush, dancing around as his young legs refused to stand still. "It was big and loud and magic and mom loved rainbows so she has to be back!" Adult faces are hard to read, so Raven's first impression was that he wasn't explaining well enough because his father did not look happy. If anything he looked mad. But after a moment, his father sighed, and his eyes did the thing where they became flat and he looked back down at his son as the very image of dispassionate rationality.

"It is not your mother, son." It was said so gently and with such certainty that Raven immediately doubted the validity of what his two eyes had seen.

"But…" he tried, but his father's eyes did not flicker in the least. "But…" he changed tactics. After all, his dad had to listen to reason. "You must have heard it, dad! It was so loud."

"I was working, son," and he genuinely sounded apologetic. "You know how noisy it can get in here." And it was very true. Raven licked his lips, mind racing for a way to convince his father.

"Then come outside! Come outside and see!" And Raven raced back toward the doors of the workshop, checking every five steps to make sure his father was following.

When he got to the doors, Raven was confused for a moment because he could not see the moving rainbow, but then he remembered that it was moving awfully fast so he searched the horizon. There! There it was by the mountains! He opened his mouth to encourage his father to hurry, but the words caught in his throat as the cascade of color suddenly became indistinct, then passed over the mountains, disappearing from sight entirely. It was, of course, in that moment when his father emerged from the workshop.

"It… it was right there," Raven whispered as his elation from only moments before began to crack. He felt like a Pegasus who had just soared higher than any Pegasus before, only to suddenly have his wings disappear.

"No, son, look," his father encouraged, using a hoof to point in the opposite direction, behind them and over the workshop's roof. Raven looked. There was a rainbow. It was an ordinary rainbow, but still, his mother had loved them so.

"But I saw… There was a boom. A rainbow-boom."

"I believe you, son."

Raven was not convinced, but looked up at his father, whose sad, grey eyes were transfixed on the unscheduled rainbow, and he looked… happy. That was something Raven had not seen from him since… He looked back up at the rainbow and sighed.

"Mom's never coming home."

"No," his father said, his voice impossibly heavy with emotion. "But," his father amended, "perhaps she just got the chance to give you a proper good-bye."

"I saw a big rainbow-boom today. It was loud and pretty. I thought maybe my mom had come home, but my dad told me she was saying good-bye. That made me sad, but it also made me happy because I had not said good-bye and now I had said good-bye. I miss my mom and it makes me sad, but my dad told me today that it is ok to be sad sometimes."

There was a break in the writing, then it began again, only this time the words were written very boldly, as though the pen was pressed down with great force.

"I thought that was a good story so I wrote it down so the words would stay and then I got my cutie mark! It is a black feather in a blue inkwell! It is very nice and I like it lots! The End!"