Starlight Chronicles

by WanderingPhysicist

Sunshine Apartments

Main Characters: Silver Spoon, Featherweight, Twist, Snails
Cameos: Read and see ^_^
Original Start Date: September 27, 2013

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Silver Spoon drags herself home after a long day at work. She drops her saddlebag on her couch on her way to the kitchen. She gets out items for a simple meal. She stops, looks around to make sure nopony is watching, then gets out a bottle of wine hidden at the back of her refrigerator. The young mare sighs as she pours herself a glass and starts cooking.

Silver wakes to a knock on her front door. When she notices the position she is in, she blushes, hoping she did not disturb her neighbors. She pulls her forelegs from under herself, rolls off her couch, adjusts her glasses and answers the door.

Twist smiles and waves at her neighbor. ‘Good morning, Silver Spoon!’

‘Hey, Twist. What’s up?’

‘Just wanted to stop by before heading to my shop. I hope you have a wonderful day!’

Silver smiles weakly. ‘You too, Twist.’

The other mare prances away. ‘Don’t forget: we have new neighbors moving in soon. Hope you’re ready for the welcome party!’

Silver keeps up her smile and waves. A door opens nearby accompanied by a yawn.

‘Hey, Featherweight,’ Silver greets. ‘Heading out to work on a story?’

The pegasus shakes his head while yawning. ‘Just getting back. Need some food and rest. Scootaloo kept me up all night.’

‘More ways than one too,’ the young mare grumbles, heading into her apartment.

Featherweight stares, slowly processing what he heard. ‘Huh?’

After a nap, shower and power lunch, Featherweight is ready to get to work and do some hard-hitting journalism. The pegasus sits at his laptop reading a site. He laughs and shuts down.

‘At least that explains where Pip gets his excuses from.’ Featherweight picks up his camera and goes to the door. He sighs ‘I hope Shady hasn’t beaten me to the good scoops. I hate having to get stories from him.’

The pegasus leaves his apartment. He looks around, stretches his wings and goes straight to his neighbor’s door. After knocking and waiting for a moment, he receives a text.

[[it is open]]

Featherweight rolls his eyes as a yellow aura pulls the door open. He looks around the apartment.

‘Snails? You in here?’

A magical yellow arrow points towards the back. Featherweight shakes his head as he trots through his friend’s apartment. He swipes and snacks on some candy Twist left out as he heads to the back and downstairs. The pegasus enters a large laboratory-like room. Most of the room is filled with cooking supplies and large kettles filled with liquid confection. Off to the side, an orange unicorn works in front of an array of monitors. A server rack hums beside him.

‘How goes the war against trolls?’ Featherweight asks, stepping up to the array.

‘Pretty good, eh,’ Snails replies. ‘Getting a lot of discussion on your trip to the Crystal Book Faire last week.’

‘Mostly doubting I really saw Princess Twilight, right?’

‘They’ll come around.’

‘Thanks.’ Featherweight looks at the other monitors. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask about your app design business.’

Back in high school, Snails and Scootaloo discovered they had a knack for working with computers in addition to their special talents. While Scootaloo mainly uses her hacking skills to aid Daring Do on her adventures, Snails went to web and app design. When Featherweight started his blog, Snails signed on as webmaster and site administrator. He moderates much of the content posted on Featherweight’s blog while still working on projects for other clients.

‘I already told you, eh,’ Snails begins, ‘you have a good mobile site with forum support. You don’t need an app, eh.’

‘N-no. Not that.’ Featherweight rubs the back of his head. ‘Would you like to sell your apps straight from our site? I mean, you do so much for us already.’

‘Direct sells? Awesome. We definitely have the capacity for that.’

‘Yeah, uh, also, uh, Shady, Pip and I have been talking about it, we wouldn’t mind having you write a tech article for the site. I mean, I know you are busy with other stuff, so if you don’t want to...’

‘Sweet. Can I write about anything?’

‘Uh, I guess. You understand that stuff more than we do.’

Snails laughs stupidly, but with a hint of craftiness.

Featherweight backs away nervously. ‘J-just don’t post anything that will mean we have to flee to Deerope...’

‘Your site is safe with me, eh.’

‘I hope so...’ Featherweight sighs and leaves Snails to work.

Featherweight returns to his apartment after being out all day talking with sources, following leads and getting stuck in a tree while investigating a mysterious happening at Sweet Apple Acres. His back is sore from the hard landing when Applejack bucked him free, but he cannot wait to dig into the fritters she was baking by the mountainful. The young stallion reaches his door right as Silver Spoon returns to hers, carrying a bag in her mouth.

‘Good evening, Featherweight,’ Silver greets.

‘Hey, Silver. How’s it going?’

‘Not too bad. Would you want to come over for dinner?’ she offers. ‘I got more than enough.’

‘I-I don’t know. What would Scootaloo..?’

‘Two thousand bits a night.’

‘What?’

‘That was her serious answer when I jokingly asked how much it would cost to rent you for a, er, “throwdown”, if I needed one.’

‘T-t-two thousand?’

‘I could afford it, but I am not interested in screwing up another couple’s relationship. This is merely a dinner invitation.’

‘I-I guess dinner is okay.’

‘Wonderful. I hope you don’t mind Equinese takeout.’

Silver leads her reluctant guest into her apartment.

Silver Spoon stretches out her back as she relaxes on her on her couch watching a cheesy mystery movie. She yawns and scratches her belly, bored since she solved the mystery already. A bright blue flash fills the room. The surprised mare leans up to see Starlight standing at the foot of the couch.

‘Starlight?’

The stallion climbs on the couch and stands over Silver. ‘I love you, Silver Spoon.’

‘I love you too, Starlight.’ Silver Spoon leans up and kisses the stallion. Starlight slowly lowers his body to hers.

Suddenly, there is a knock on the door. Silver screams and rolls off the couch, slamming one of her legs into the nearby coffee table. She swears to herself at she gets to her hooves.

‘Silver! Are you okay?’ Twist shouts from the other side of the door.

‘I’m coming!’ Silver yells back, followed by grumbling, ‘I wish...’

Silver uses some napkins left out after dinner to clean herself and her hooves. She adjusts her mane and glasses then answers the door. Twist smiles sheepishly at her neighbor.

‘Yes?’ Silver snaps.

Twist backs up a step. ‘Oh, um, I spoke to the landlady today. She said the new tenants will be moving in tomorrow. Since it is the weekend, I was hoping to get everypony out to welcome them and help them move in.’

Silver sighs. ‘Fine. I’ll be there.’

‘Sorry for disturbing you. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.’

The other mare blushes. ‘I was just getting ready to go to bed. I had a really long day. Um, bye.’

Silver closes the door and limps away to get an ice pack.

‘Yeah. Bye...’

Twist groans and heads back to her apartment. She climbs onto her couch and lets out another moan. Snails snuggles up beside her.

‘Interrupted her personal time again, eh?’

‘That seems to be about all her time when she is home these days.’

‘Maybe a large gift basket of chocolate will calm her down.’

‘That’s my solution to everything,’ Twist huffs.

Snails levitates his mobile and starts scrolling through apps.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking for when the next time Shady or your cousin is in town, eh. We can set her up with a good stallion.’

‘I don’t want to play matchmaker for my friend.’

Snails rolls his eyes and puts his mobile away. ‘Then things are going to get really out of hoof with the new arrivals tomorrow, eh.’

‘You can say that again,’ Twist moans.

The young mare takes a deep breath and cuddles with her coltfriend.

The members of the apartment complex gather in front of the building as they wait for their new neighbors. Silver Spoon sits in the back, looking at her tablet. Twist arranges a gift basket for the new arrivals. Snails sits by the building’s sign, staring into space. Featherweight flits about taking pictures. The pegasus spots approaching ponies and lands. The others gather around the sign. Silver opens her mouth to comment.

‘Trust me,’ Featherweight interrupts. ‘My readers will love a piece on our welcome party today.’

‘If you say so,’ Silver concedes.

Two ponies trot up to the building. One is pulling a cart.

‘Welcome to Sunshine Apartments!’ Twist shouts to the new arrivals.

‘This is wonderful!’ Dinky cheers. She tries jumping forward to greet her friends, but the reins from the cart hold her back. ‘Pip! You can drag this the rest of the way!’

Pipsqueak helps his fillyfriend up. ‘But I just got a hooficure. I don’t want my hooves to get chipped.’

Dinky growls at the young stallion. A yellow aura lifts the reins from the young mare.

‘I got it, eh,’ Snails offers. ‘Let’s get you moved in so we can have cake. Mmm… cake.’

‘Thank you, Snails. You’re a real gentlecolt,’ Pip compliments.

‘Irony, anypony?’ Dinky groans.

The two unicorns start levitating the cartload up to the new apartment.

‘You two are finally getting a place together?’ Silver wonders. ‘I thought you couldn’t afford it.’

‘I got a promotion so now we can finally be together all the time,’ Dinky explains.

‘Promotion doing what? You never really told us your job.’

‘Somethings are better left unanswered,’ Pip replies.

Silver rolls her eyes. ‘You don’t know either.’

‘That’s not..!’ -- he glances at his fillyfriend -- ‘entirely a misstatement.’

Dinky glares at Pip. ‘And you’re not helping us unpack, why?’

‘Um, well, uh...’

‘Okay! Everypony in front of the sign!’ Featherweight calls.

Dinky snorts as Pip hurries to continue avoiding work. Silver groans silently as she joins the others. Featherweight balances camera on the cart, aimed at the sign. The pegasus gallops to make it to the sign before the camera goes off, but he trips and falls into Pip. Pip lands at Twist’s hooves. The start of him falling causes her to drop the gift basket on the prone stallion. Silver smirks and laughs to herself at the display. Dinky facehoofs as her coltfriend tries untangling himself from his friend and the mass of chocolate on his head.

‘Fuzzy pickles!’ Snails declares as the camera takes the photo of the building and its tenants.

Author's Note:

Story Event: The title is based on the apartments in Hidamari Sketch, the Hidamari (or Sunshine) Apartments.

Featherweight's photo:

Comments

[Djerid]

um.... ive read this 3 times now and all i really got from it was featherweight doing journalism without any cool blog post sections of the chapter, and silver is having a lot of personal time.... so yeah, im not too sure on what I'm supposed to take away from this chapter. the worst part was, that ussually when im not sure on something that happened during the chapter, those little timeline notes are awesome.

[WanderingPhysicist]

3338791

This was just a simple look into the lives chapter. I wanted to provide more backstory for some of the characters and have some stuff set for later. Just one of those chapters where you can sit back and turn your brain off. Think of it like Mare-Do-Well or Cutie Pox. It is there, but don't worry about it

[Djerid]

Dinky got a promotion for a job that no-one knows about? i almost wanna call it and say its U.N.I.T. or Torchwood, if it were not for the fact this series does not do much Doctor Who related content that often.

[WanderingPhysicist]

3339903

See. I knew you would pick out something important in the chapter that was hidden in the fluff (Actually working on a sketch related to that right now.)

[Dunglord]

Don't think that I can't see that earthbound reference you just made.

Nerd. :P