Starlight slowly began to wake up as the morning light from the sun began to shine through her window.
After Twilight decided to stay with her for the rest of the night Starlight found it easier to get back to sleep then it would have been if she were by herself which meant she wouldn’t have to spend the day feeling tired.
As Starlight laid there thinking about how lucky she was to have someone like Twilight she felt the alicorn stir as she too began to wake up.
Twilight yawned as she woke up and then smiled upon noticing that Starlight was awake. “Good morning, Starlight.”
Starlight smiled back. “Good morning, Twilight.”
“So how did you sleep?” Twilight asked as she got out of bed and stretched.
“I slept great. Thanks for staying with me, it really helped. I hope my snoring didn’t bother you.” Starlight replied as she also got out of bed.
“Glad I was able to help. Though I wish you didn’t have to deal with these nightmares at all. And I’ve lived with you long enough to be used to your snoring.”
“That’s good to hear. And don’t worry, Twilight, I’m sure my nightmares will go away eventually.”
“I hope so. Hey I don’t have anything to do today so how about we go to the spa or something?”
“Sorry, but I promised Trixie I’d spend the day with her today.”
“Oh, okay. We’ll just do it some other time then.”
“Sure.”
After Starlight performed her morning routine and ate breakfast she left the castle to meet Trixie, who had her wagon sitting next to castle as usual. The two were currently walking through Ponyville, discussing what they were to do with their day.
“And then we can head back to my wagon and I’ll show you the new trick I’ve been working on.” Trixie said excitedly as she walked next to Starlight.
“Okay. Then we’ll go to the Ponyville cafe for some lunch.” Starlight replied as she made a mental list of the things they were going to do.
“Sounds good.” Trixie let out a content sigh. “I’m so glad that we’re spending the day together.”
“Well like you said, we haven’t really spent that much time with each other lately so I’m happy about it too.”
“Glad to hear it. Now let’s get going to—“ Just then, Trixie noticed something in the corner of her eye. She looked over at Starlight and saw something that she didn’t understand. “Uh, Starlight, what’s going on with your cutie mark?”
“Huh?” Starlight turned her head to look at her cutie mark and let out a small gasp. What she saw was her cutie mark glowing and pulsating outward. Starlight’s eyes were filled with excitement almost immediately. "Gotta go, see ya!" Before Trixie had a chance to reply, Starlight teleported away.
Starlight reappeared outside the double doors that lead to the castle's throne room where the map that had called her was located. She opened the doors and saw Twilight standing next to the map. The first thing that Starlight noticed was that Twilight’s own cutie mark was glowing just like hers.
“You’ve been called by the map too, Twilight?”
Twilight immediately turned around upon hearing the voice of her marefriend. “There you are, Starlight. Yep, looks like we get to solve a friendship problem together.”
“That’s great! I can’t wait to get started.” Finding out that she would get to solve another friendship problem was exciting enough for Starlight but finding out she would be solving it with Twilight was the best thing she could hope for.
“I’m just as excited as you are because you’ll finally get to find out how great it feels to solve a friendship problem! Especially since I ruined the experience for you last time.” Twilight’s ears folded against her head and her gaze fell to floor as she was once again overcome by guilt.
Starlight couldn’t help but feel sorry for Twilight as she stood there feeling guilty about her past actions, something Starlight herself had done on more than one occasion. “Twilight, please stop beating yourself up over that. Everything turned out okay in the end and I never held it against you.” Starlight laid a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.
“I can’t help it, Starlight. You were so excited about being called by the map and all I did was stress you out and put a ton of pressure on you. And then you had that nightmare and I lost the Starlight I love, all because I couldn’t stop worrying and let you handle things by yourself.”
Starlight placed her hoof under Twilight’s chin and lifted her head up so that Twilight was making eye contact with her. “You’re forgetting that you’re the one who brought me back to normal because you refused to let me be a pony who sits in her room all day and blames herself for everything bad that happens. And look at it this way, if it didn’t happen then I wouldn’t have my own throne here in the throne room and we wouldn’t be dating right now.” Twilight seemed to perk up a bit at that but still had a look of guilt on her face. “Do you remember what you told me the day I got my throne and we started dating? ‘Everypony makes mistakes and that’s okay, the important thing is that we learn from them’, those words helped me realize that the only mistake I made was switching Celestia and Luna’s cutie marks without permission, and now I want you to let them help you get over this.”
A smile appeared on Twilight’s face as she started to cheer up. “Okay, Starlight, I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask. So, where are we going on our friendship mission?”
“Right there.” Twilight pointed her hoof at a remote town on the western side of Equestria. “It’s a town called Daybreak Village.”
Starlight’s pupils shrank upon hearing the town’s name. “Daybreak?” Images of her nightmares and the pony who haunted them flashed through Starlight’s mind. As she remembered the horrible things she saw in her nightmares fear took over and Starlight began hyperventilating.
Realizing what was happening, Twilight immediately began working to calm Starlight down. “Starlight, it’s okay, just calm down.” She put a paper bag over Starlight’s muzzle so she could breathe into it and began running her hoof across the back of her mane to help her calm down.
After nearly a minute Starlight’s breathing returned to normal and she finally calmed down.
“Sorry about that, Twilight. It’s just that whenever I hear her name or that word I just panic. But I’m fine now.” Starlight explained as she sat down on her throne to recover from the lightheadedness that was caused by her rapid breathing.
“I know, Starlight, don’t worry about it.”
At that moment the throne room doors burst open and Trixie, who was clearly unhappy, came walking in.
“I finally found you. I’ve been looking all over Ponyville for you, Starlight, and I demand to know why you ran off like that.”
“Oh, Trixie. Yeah, sorry about doing that but I was called by the map and I had to come back here to see where it was sending me.”
“The map?”
“Yes, this map, remember?” Starlight asked as she pointed a hoof at the map table.
“Oh, you mean the one I accidentally teleported to-“ Before Trixie could finish her sentence, Starlight planted a hoof firmly over her mouth and hoped that Twilight didn’t catch what she said but it was too late.
“Wait, teleported? Starlight, what’s she talking about?”
Starlight shot a quick glare at Trixie before turning to Twilight to explain. “Remember when you and the girls went on that friendship retreat while a stayed here to teach Trixie magic a couple days after I graduated? Well Trixie convinced me to teach her how to teleport objects and she accidentally teleported the map instead of an apple like she was supposed to. We ended up spending the whole day searching for it because Trixie couldn’t remember where she teleported it to and we eventually found it at the Ponyville spa. We had just finished returning it when the six of you walked in.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about this?”
“Because I didn’t want you to be mad at me or think that you couldn’t trust me to be in the castle by myself.”
“It’s okay, Starlight, I’m not mad and it would take more than that to lose my trust.”
“Really?”
“Of course. It was just an accident right? You could’ve just told me what happened and I would’ve understood.”
“Well that’s good to know. Anyway we better go get ready so that we can get going before the next train leaves.”
“Wait, you’re leaving?” Trixie suddenly asked.
“Yes, Trixie, I have to go to where the map is calling me and Twilight so we can help somepony with their friendship problem.”
“Can’t you just tell it to wait until tomorrow when we aren’t spending the day together?”
“No, Trixie, I can’t. I’m sorry but we’re just going to have to do this some other time.”
“Ugh, fine.” And with that, Trixie left the throne room.
Twilight and Starlight were on the train heading to Daybreak Village. After Trixie had left the two of them had gone to prepare for their trip and were able to catch the train before it left. The town was a good distance away from Ponyville which meant Twilight and Starlight would likely have to spend the night there, so they made sure to pack everything they’d need for an overnight stay.
Upon arriving at the station and exiting the train, Twilight and Starlight got their first look of Daybreak Village. The town was filled with houses much like the ones in Ponyville with the main difference being that they had tiled roofs instead of straw roofs. As they entered they noticed that several shops were also located throughout the town and ranged from clothing stores to bakeries and everything in between.
The thing that stuck out the most, however, was the ponies. They all had the same unhappy expression on their faces and none of them seemed to be getting along with each other, a few of them were even fighting. This was immediately noticed by Twilight and Starlight and both of them were concerned by it.
“Uh, Twilight, this whole town seems to be one big friendship problem.” Starlight said as she watched two of the ponies continue to fight.
“This is insane. The last time I saw a friendship problem like this was when you and I first met and even that wasn’t this bad.”
“Who the heck are you?!” Somepony suddenly yelled.
Twilight and Starlight turned to source of the yelling and saw a yellow earth pony stallion with a light-blue mane giving them the same angry look everypony else in the town had.
“Oh, hello. I’m the Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle, and this is my marefriend, Starlight Glimmer. It’s nice to meet you.”
“And just what are you doing here?”
“Well Twilight and I are here to solve the friendship problem you guys seem to be having. I really think we can help you to—“
“We didn’t ask for your help and we don’t need it!” And with that the stallion stormed off.
“Well that was something. I guess we should just check around town and see if we can find somepony who’s a bit nicer.”
“Yeah, we should.” Twilight agreed.
And so Twilight and Starlight explored the town hoping to find somepony who would be willing to talk to them but they had no luck. Most of the ponies they tried to talk to either refused to talk to them or just ignored them completely. The few ponies who were willing to talk either reacted the same way the stallion did or said that they didn’t need friendship. Eventually enough time had passed that the sun had begun to set and night would soon begin. Twilight and Starlight decided that it would best if they checked into a hotel for the night and continued searching for somepony in the morning. Hopefully they would have more luck finding someone that would explain just what was going on the town so that the two of them could help fix it. With their plan made the two went off to find a hotel they could stay at.