With my urge and help, Starlight dismantled the traps around her house. I couldn’t help but feel my heartbeat speeding up rapidly. The place was even more of a death maze than I thought. Some magical devices were cloaked so well, I failed to detect it even when it was pointed right in front of me.
If I were still a dragon and walked in, I was so going to be grilled lizard meat.
Still, this showed the magical prowess of Starlight Glimmer even more. Whether it was by fate or accident that I met her, I was glad that I had met her before she could fully turn to her Cutie Mark stripping business. She’s definitely no ordinary unicorn, and she would be a formidable opponent in a magic duel. Although this sounded overly purposeful, but it gave me another reason that I must befriend her, if also to keep the peace of the land.
As I was readying myself for a journey on hoof, I caught a glimpse of Starlight hurriedly scribbling something on a note, and then stuck it onto the door of the cottage with a reluctant face.
I didn’t get a good look of the note because I didn’t want to appear as nosy. However, I could already guess what was on it. It seemed that despite her harsh words and tough looks, there was still a part of her heart where she cared and thought for her parents.
We exited Sire's Hollow under the cover of the night. Right after we stepped onto the mud road outside the village, Starlight proposed to play an interesting but also quite exhausting game: a teleportation race.
Basically, we two had to teleport along a straight line towards Trottingham, which high clock tower was visibly on the horizon. Whoever first to arrive would be the winner, and would have to treat the other to the famous local dish – Bubble and Squeak – Fried mashed potato with cabbage mixed in.
Since she seemed to be really eager, I agreed to her request. It would also be a golden opportunity to gauge her precise level of magic.
And so it began, we both flashed our horn simultaneously and turned into bright blurs.
Our competition turned the long journey into a matter of minutes, but it also tired us out completely.
To my surprise, she was indeed on par with me in terms of raw magical potential. I couldn’t say for sure, but she might be slightly more magical than me. I felt a bit sad but not too sad, since, as I wryly thought, this was technically Twilight’s problem and not mine.
But in any case, I still won by half a snout. After all, Twilight was more precise in magical control due to years of formal training, and I benefited from her experience.
Starlight Glimmer was even more shocked to have lost to me. It was clear that she never saw anypony remotely close to her in terms of magical power since birth, and she admitted that she thought I would be an easy opponent.
We both laughed at our own disheveled looks at the end, as we sat under the old and half-crumbling city wall of Trottingham, awaiting sunrise. She seemed to be more tired than me, as she felt soundly asleep leaning on my hooves.
As the sun climbed up from the rolling hills, a lone griffon passed through the sky. I turned and gently said.
“Starlight, it’s morn.”
The dozing mare had been nodding off with a dreamy smile, and my voice apparently gave her a scare, since her head abruptly shot up and knocked me right in the jaw.
“Aw!”
By Celestia it hurt! Luckily my tongue wasn’t on my teeth!
“I- I’m sorry, Twilight! Are you hurt?”
I massaged my jaw with a wince. “Fortunately not too much.”
She sighed. “Another reason to treat you to a big bowl of bubble and squeak.”
“No, I can pay for my o-”
Starlight interrupted me immediately. “Come on now, Twilight. A promise is a promise. You won the race fair and square, and I have to make sure that the bowl of bubble and squeak arrived in front of you fairly and squarely and most importantly, without your money input.”
I gingerly grinned, and she added with a wry smirk. “And why would you insist to pay anyway? Aren’t you here to earn a few bits from my old stallion?”
I quickly frowned and retorted, but she again stopped me and chuckled. “Kidding, kidding! I’m not doubting your sincerity anymore.”
We both stood up and dusted off ourselves. As we walked towards the food stall, Starlight turned and asked me again. “I’m still curious.”
“What are you curious about?”
“You don’t look like the money-grubbing type, and you aren’t exactly desperate-looking. What do you need bits for exactly?”
“… Um… actually…”
I decided that it was no harm telling her the treehouse story. After I told her what happened, she looked at me with deep concern.
“Oh dear, you got hit in the head with a feet-wide log?! And you’re hospitalized for three whole days?!”
“I- I’ve recovered now, I think…”
She looked mournful. “You make me feel even guiltier for roughing you up in my home and then knocking you in the jaw.”
I smiled. “If being shocked a bit would lead to such a good friendship, then it’s certainly worth it. And it’s just an accident, no?”
She poked me with her hoof. “You’re such a doormat! Are you sure the log hasn’t given you brain damage and knocked your self-preservation instinct out as well?”
“Hardy har, Starlight. I don’t just randomly defer to anypony on the street. It’s because I know that you never meant to harm me, and you’re a truly good pony and an excellent friend.”
She blushed and turned away. “H- How can you say something like that with a straight face? It’s so embarrassing!”
“I didn’t say that because it’s embarrassing, but because it’s true. But I’m having second thoughts now.”
“… Huh?”
I cheekily grinned. “Your red face is simply too cute to watch.”
“You!”
Starlight Glimmer gritted her teeth angrily, as she reflexively knocked my forehead with her hoof.
Rather… force… fully. I could see stars in front of me already, and my sight dimming.
She muttered something in terror, as she scrambled to hold me in her hooves. By Celestia, I was right when I said this girl was a bit messed in the head, and now I knew clearly that said problem was a deeply unresolved anger issue with casual bouts of violence.
And that was my last thought before I went out completely.
************
I had been knocked out with an alarming frequency in recent days. I hoped that it really did not give me any sort of brain damage.
Well, I’ve been quite messed up already, being a strange amalgam of a dragon and a pony, a mental chimera if you will. I didn’t fancy being further messed up.
In the mist of half-consciousness, I again heard something… not quite Equestrian.
“…Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?”
“Le patient a été assommé par un coup sur le front.”
“Est-ce la première fois?”
“Apparemment non. Son ami nous a dit qu'elle avait un autre cas de traumatisme crânien, il y a pas longtemps.”
The two, one stallion and one mare, continued to chat in what appeared to the Northern Unicornian tongue, also known as Prench. I was ashamed to say, but I could only understand half of what they were talking about, which seemed to be my patient history.
I cautiously opened a bit of my eyes, and bright light from a white lamp caused me to close them again. But it was enough for the mare to take notice of me.
“Ou my.”
She said in a heavy accent. “It seems zhat our patient… uh, Miss Spahr-kle has al-hready woken up.”
“M- Merci.” I tried to dig up whatever I’ve learned about Prench in school. “O- où sh-s-suis-je?”
They smiled, apparently not at my efforts to speak Prench, but rather how badly I fumbled through it.
The stallion raised a hoof and said, this time with a pure Canterlot accent. “Miss Sparkle, you’re in Saint Platine Hospital, the best hospital in Ville de Platine.”
I widened my eyes. “Why am I here?”
“Your friends have brought you here from Trottingham, as there was not enough trained physician on the Griffish Isles to handle head trauma cases.”
I winced. It seemed like that the downturn on Griffish Isles was really bad. Even towns like Ponyville had enough doctors to treat me when I got hit with a log.
I suddenly realized that these were far from the most pressing questions that I should ask. “Wait, did you say ‘friends’?”
The nurse mare said. “Ou? You don’t know aboot zhat? There’re une purple unicorn mare and une braun pegasus stallion who brought you ‘ere.”
Brown pegagus? Who could that be? I didn’t think I know-
“Miss Sparkle! I’m delighted to see you awake!”
We all turned to see a brown pegasus dragging an unwilling unicorn into the patient ward. I blinked and gasped. The brown stallion was Night Tide! Starlight Glimmer followed behind him like a demure maiden, which was a novel sight for me.
“Est-ce qu'elle va bien, doc?” He said in perfectly fluent Prench.
“Ouais, je pense que oui. Il n'y a aucun signe de perte de la parole ou de la fonction motrice, et il n'y a des dommages sur la faculté mentale.”
The doctor replied, but then added uncertainly. “... Bien que je ne peux pas dire avec certitude qu'il n'y a pas de perte de mémoire.”
Night Tide widened his eyes, and then said to me. “Miss Sparkle, do you know who I am?”
“M- Mister Tide, of course I do. You’ve brought me here, right?”
“Ah.” The doctor smiled. “So her memory is fine as well. Then, excuse us, we have other patients to attend to.”
We nodded, and the doctor and nurse left the ward swiftly.
Night Tide turned back to me and said. “Well, as a matter of fact, we do.”
“Why- I mean, how?”
“My good cousin, Starlight Glimmer-”
My jaw dropped. “S- S- Starlight Glimmer is y- your cousin?!”
“… Thrice removed, but still is.” Starlight Glimmer said with a pout.
“It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
Night Tide gently smiled. “I saw Starlight in the Trottingham Central Station acting a bit nervous. She was carrying you over her back, and was scrambling for tickets to Ville de Platine. When she couldn’t get one immediately, she seemed to be… panicking a bit, and started placing gems around the floor.”
“What for?” I asked bemusedly.
“I- I want to simply warp directly to Ville de Platine.” She spluttered.
I yelped. “What? That’s dangerous! You need at least half-a-day’s preparation as well as extremely stable and large magical output for such a long distance teleportation! If anything went wrong, you would end up half-buried in rocks or miles high in the sky!”
Starlight Glimmer retorted. “I- I was desperate!”
Night Tide smiled helplessly. “I saw her look, and immediately offered to let her have my space in the service quarter. It was a bit tight, but it’s the only way anypony can have a seat in the morning rush hour.”
“I- I could have made it without your help!” Starlight Glimmer crossed her hooves and huffed indignantly. For some reason, she didn’t seem to appreciate Night Tide’s help.
The brown pegasus merely smiled again. But Starlight Glimmer seemed to be brooding herself, as she raised her voice. “Cut your dodo, Night Tide! When did you ever show consideration for me, huh?”
The brown pegasus winced, but he tried to keep his warm demeanor. “Starlight, I never meant to…”
“If you really cared for me, you wouldn’t have left for your stupid trains instead of staying with me!”
“Come on, Starlight. Serving on the North Sea Line has been my dream all along.”
“Yeah, because your darn Cutie Mark told you so, huh?”
Hmm… Could Night Tide be the ‘friend’ that Starlight Glimmer had lost? No wonder she felt so mad about Cutie Marks. But didn’t Firelight say that the ‘friend’ went to Canterlot? He also seemed a bit too old to be her peer. How come a pair of thrice-removed cousins look so close anyway?
Ugh, it was so confusing. I better stopped their argument first, it was giving me a headache.
“Excuse me about the volume… my head is feeling light again.”
Starlight gasped aloud, and immediately held me to her chest. She looked at me with an intensely worried, apologetic face as if I was her loving pet squirrel that she accidentally stepped on.
“I’m so, so sorry, Twilight!”
“Mhmrmmm-” I struggled to breathe in her tight embrace, and my hooves flailed in the air helplessly.
Hmm. What’s this? Her coat smelled sweet… like lingonberries. Huh, didn’t expect that. But it’s so surprisingly nice and soothing… What the Tartarus? That’s not the time or space or situation to think about this kind of things! A lack of oxygen in the brain surely did crazy things to the mind.
“… Um, cousin, you might want to…”
“What?” Starlight Glimmer turned and glared daggers at Night Tide.
“Miss Sparkle is looking not very well. Her face is turning more purple than usual.”
“Eeep!” She loosened her death grip and let me go, and I coughed a bit.
“*cough* *cough* I’m okay… now.”
I exhaled and took a deep breath. “But I rather want to know more about you two.”
“… Tsk.” Starlight Glimmer gave a withering gaze to Night Tide, as the stallion scratched his mane.
“Well, you see… Starlight was my little cousin back when I still lived in Sire's Hollow with her.”
The brown pegasus chuckled. “Her parents were big landholders near Trottingham, and export food to the mainland. Although this made them quite affluent, her parents had to frequently leave home to attend to their businesses. So they hired me to foalsit Starlight.”
Oh… So he’s her foalsitter. Kinda like Cadance to Twilight then.
Starlight looked away from us two. Her angry look was tinged somewhat by sadness.
Night Tide went on with a big grin, regardless. “It was a happy time. She was a very cute and lively filly back then.”
“A- Are you saying that I’m not cute anymore?! How dare you!” Starlight Glimmer turned back and protested loudly.
Coughing awkwardly, I then turned slowly to her and whispered. “… Uh, Starlight, do you realize what you’ve just said?”
The light purple unicorn sharply inhaled, embarrassment shot up in her face like a lit-up rocket.
With a blink of an eye, she bolted for the door yelling incoherent words and disappeared without a trace.
“Will she be okay?” I muttered.
“She’s like that since she’s very young, super sensitive and touchy. But don’t mind her, she would come back fine later!” Night Tide brightly smiled.
“O… kay.” Doubts beset me, but Night Tide seemed confident enough.
“You seem to know her pretty well, Night Tide.”
His cheery face fell. “… I’d like to think so too.”
“Hmm?”
“I always like Starlight. She’s my favorite cousin. Although I’m older than her by quite a lot, but we talk about everything, even those difficult magical theories that I didn’t really understand. Every day, I would take her and little Sunburst from their homes and took care of them until bedtime.”
“… But she said you… um, left her?”
Night Tide looked sad for a second, but smile crept up his face again when he recalled the old days. “A few years afterwards, I found that I was eligible for my dream job. I’ve always loved to ride on the North Sea Line, and I dreamed for a day when I could become a train staff. Since my eyesight is just so-so, I decided that I would be a cabin attendant since I was young. I read up on books about trains, service and manners, and took intern jobs at the train station, until the day I got my Cutie Mark.”
He smiled helplessly again. “It was late, but it came regardless. I immediately set out to contact the North Sea Line and tender my application. Starlight didn’t like the idea of me leaving though. She thought the days we spent together would’ve been forever, and she was quite mad at me. I promised to write her letters and visit her sometimes, but she rejected me angrily, and told me to never write her or see her again. She said she would be fine without me, as she still had Sunburst, who would be her one true friend. Therefore, despite that I cared and still care about her, we never really met and talked… Until this morning.”
I saw it now. No wonder Starlight went off the rails, pardon the pun. She was never one to take rejection well, and she’s been hurt before.
I still asked. “So, uh, who was… Sunburst?”
“Sunburst was a unicorn colt from next door. He’s the best friend of Starlight. See, even their names complement somewhat. He’s also really into magic, though he’s not quite as magical as Starlight, and he always had troubles casting spells. Not that it stopped their friendship though.”
He smiled longingly. “They were the best playmates. As much as I wanted to mingle with them, I still was a lot older, so they got on better with each other than with me, that’s for sure.”
“What happened to him?”
I of course knew the rough answer, but I wanted to hear more.
Night Tide winced and scratched his cheek. “I… don’t know for sure, actually. I’ve only heard about him leaving Sire's Hollow months after the fact. They said the colt got his Cutie Mark and left for Canterlot to study more advanced magic. He seemed to be glad that he would get better education about magical theories than he could get in this corner of the world.”
Huh? Really? I’ve never met anypony named Sunburst in Canterlot. But that could well happen, because there were so many unicorns studying magic in the capital.
Still, I sighed. “That must have been terrible for Starlight.”
Night Tide looked up to me and bit his lips.
I continued. “I literally knew Starlight for only a few days, but I’ve noticed that she had really, really serious attachment issues. It looks like that she had been a trustful filly when she’s young, but now she turns distrustful and cautious because she felt she was left alone not only once, but twice, by somepony she felt really close with.”
Night Tide looked guilty and sad, and he turned his head away.
“You know that at heart, right? She’s terribly lonely. And with such a great magical talent in her disposal but without a guiding hoof, she might go on a path that she would later regret.”
“W- What do you mean?”
I shook my head, and then told him the story of my initial meeting with Starlight.
He covered his mouth with his hoof. “No way… My sweet Starlight shocked and tied somepony up onto a plank?”
“And wanted to magick everypony’s Cutie Mark away, fortunately just for a brief moment.”
“… Just because she thought it was Cutie Mark’s fault that she lost her friends…”
“Exactly. Once I saw that, I couldn’t let it go on anymore. Despite a similar magical background, I turned out better because I had enough support. In turn, I mustn’t let Starlight falter and fall wayside.”
Night Tide gulped. After a moment of silence, he said. “It’s fortunate that Starlight has found you. I was an inadequate elder cousin. I should have done more, but I didn’t.”
“To be fair, you had your own dream too. It might be too much to make you forgo it and focus on doting on her. And in case it’s not obvious, she still likes you.”
My last sentence made Night Tide’s eye popped out in a comical manner. It was quite interesting to see such an over-the-top reaction from somepony so placid.
“No way… She said so many times that she hated me for leaving her alone!”
I rolled my eyes. “And yet she cares so much about whether you think she’s cute or not? No offense, Night Tide, you’re a bit too thick about mares.”
“H- Heh?”
“I’m pretty sure she had a bit of precocious crush on you back then. And she might still have some remaining feelings now.”
“What?!!”
I had to move myself slightly out of the way to prevent being showered by his shocked spread of saliva.
“At least, she looked up to you so very much. You’re pretty much the only figure in her foalhood that she felt safe to rely on. It’s only too common for intense love to turn into intense hate, especially as she was not old enough to learn to deal with separation maturely.”
He gulped. “What can I do?”
“The least that you can do is to confront the past with her squarely and openly, and make her understand that you still love her and care for her despite everything. It’s no time to tip-toe around this if you’re serious about her well-being. She’s become incredibly fragile, and she wouldn’t be able to handle another friend turning his or her back on her anymore.”
“I… I see.”
He stood up and looked me in the eyes. “Thank you, Miss Spark-”
“Still so formal, are we?”
He gulped and said. “T- Twilight, you’ve done so much for us, I must thank you deeply.”
“That’s okay.”
“Starlight told me on the train that you need bits, right?”
I showed him a helpless look.
“She made it sound like I would be broke if I didn’t get enough bits by the end of next month, didn’t she?”
“She told me the collapse at your treehouse, when she explained what happened to you. I could pay the repair cost for you, if only for reuniting Starlight and me.”
“Absolutely not! I didn’t do this for bits… not now, anyway, and I’ve made it very clear and repeatedly to Starlight. Moreover, you two carried me all over from Trottingham to here! How can I receive any more from any of you? I’m at least as magical as her, I can definitely find a good-paying stint out there, don’t you worry.”
“B- But-”
I sighed and smirked. “If you really want to pay me back, it doesn’t have to be with bits.”
I then said something into his ears, and his eyes widened with shock, but also interest.
“… Am I-”
“Yes. But you still have her, unlike-”
I tutted my tongue in slight frustration, this was not the time for self-pity. “… Anyway, it’s what she’s been waiting to hear all these years. Go for it.”
After a brief spell of hesitation, he firmly nodded, and I smiled in relief.