“So where are we going first?” Nightshine asked, looking up at Lily with an excited grin.
“Well, on our way into the town, I spotted a cute little shop meant for just us girls. If I remember correctly...” They walked around a corner, the shop falling into sight a few buildings down on the left side of the road. “Aha! There it is!”
“Prissy Products?” Nightshine giggled. “That’s a funny name for a store!”
“Hehe, I agree, but they have a lot of good stuff! There’s one up in Canterlot that I go to at least once a week to replenish my supplies, and it’s a very nice place with lots of smart salesponies.” Lily trotted up to the door and opened it for Nightshine. “So whatcha waiting for? Let’s buy you some product!”
“Okay!” Nightshine walked inside the store, her nose immediately assaulted by several strong perfumes. Her nose crinkled up as she paused. “Smells kinda funny in here...” she muttered.
“It always does, but that’s to keep the boys out!”
Nightshine giggled as they walked into the store. “But what if the boys wanna buy us some nice stuff from here?” she asked, nudging the side of Lily’s leg with her shoulder.
“Then... huh.” Lily paused and rubbed her chin with a hoof as her eyebrows furrowed. “Good point. So, uh... wanna start with mane products first?” She gabbed a basket with a hoof.
“Sure!” Nightshine chirped. She glanced around, seeing nothing but shelves of various perfumes.
“They’re in the back, sweetie,” Lily said, trotting deeper into the store with Nightshine following right behind her. “Ah, here we are!” Her eyes ran over the assortment of bottles before her. “Here we go!” She pulled a big, dark green bottle off the shelf and showed it to Nightshine. “Smell this one; it’s my go-to shampoo, and the cool thing is that I can also use it on my coat!” She screwed off the cap, then let Nightshine smell it.
Nightshine looked at the label before she smelled it. “Woah... tea tree shampoo? I don’t smell any tea, but I do smell mints! They’re one of my favorite candies.” She looked at the price tag, her eyes going wide as her shoulders drooped. “But it’s fourteen bits... That’s too expensive for me!” Nightshine looked at the bottles on the shelves for several seconds, then pointed at the cheapest one. “What about this one? It’s only six bits.” She lifted a hoof to grab it, but Lily’s wing blocked her from touching it.
“Hey now, no cheap stuff for you!” Lily screwed the cap back on the nice bottle of shampoo, then tossed it in her basket.
“Heh, thanks,” Nightshine said with a sheepish smile. “So... what next?” she asked, her voice full of unbridled excitement.
“Well, since we got a mane and coat shampoo... next is some conditioner!” Lily turned and trotted further down the aisle, then stopped as she peered at the bottles in front of her. “There it is! Same brand, same scent... perfect!” She grabbed a bottle, this one slightly larger than the last, and tossed it into her basket. Lily sat down and cocked her head to the side. “Hm... there anything else a young mare like you needs to look pretty?”
Nightshine shook her head, a happy grin nearly splitting her face in half.
Lily smirked. “Come on now, don’t be so humble! What about... a mane brushing kit? Do you have one of those by any chance?”
Nightshine chuckled. “Yeah, a brush would be a nice thing to have! The orphanage only had like, maybe five brushes? The colts never used them, so us girls got to use them a lot, but... they were super old by the time I left.” Nightshine’s tail swished back and forth. “Having my own would be so cool!”
Orphanage? Oh, right... “Glad to hear it, little one.” She lifted a wing and pointed down the aisle. “I think I saw the brushes near the entrance.”
“Okay!” This time, Nightshine took the lead, finding a ton of brushes in all shapes and sizes. “What would you pick, Ms. Lily?”
“Please, Lily is just fine, but you can call me Ms. Lily when I’m on duty.” She picked up a couple of different kits, comparing the contents in each one. “Hm... any preference? The brands are about the same in quality, so it really just depends on what you want.”
“Uh... which would you pick?”
“This one for sure!” Lily tossed the kit in her left hoof back on the shelf. “It has curlers, a blow dryer, a brush for your coat, and a brush for your mane and tail. The other one has the same stuff, but the bristles are kinda rough on the brushes, and we can’t have your pretty little mane looking like somepony dragged nails through it.” She tossed the kit into her basket, then fished out her bag of bits. “Looks like we have the basics, right?”
Nightshine nodded, a wide grin on her face.
“Sweet. Let’s check out the perfumes real quick; I wanna get something for myself while we’re here.” She stood up to walk over to the perfumes, but then she heard a small grumble from behind her. “Was that you?” she asked with a light smile, watching as Nightshine’s ears flicked back. “Heh, wanna go get lunch after this? I’m getting a little hungry myself.”
Nightshine’s ears perked up at that. “Sure! There a bakery nearby or something? I feel like snacking on something sweet!”
If I know Princess Luna, and I do... She’d be at that shop that Pinkie Pie works at... We’d be lucky if there was anything left! “Yeah, there’s one so awesome that even Princess Luna and Princess Celestia know about it, and it’s right here in Ponyville! Somewhere...” She paid for the stuff and led Nightshine outside. Making sure the strap on her saddlebag was tight, she opened her wings and shot a glance at Nightshine. “Let’s see how fast you are!” she said, an excited grin on her face.
“I... I don’t want to,” Nightshine said, unable to look Lily in the eyes as she sat down, rubbing her left foreleg with a hoof.
Lily pursed her lips, folding her wings back in. “How come? Your wings are big enough, at least, mine were about that size when I was your age.”
“It’s because, well...” Nightshine beckoned her in with a hoof and waited until she lowered her head. “The pony running the orphanage never let pegasi or me fly because she was afraid that we would hurt ourselves or fly away, and she would send us to bed without dinner if she ever caught us trying to fly,” she whispered into Lily’s ear.
“Hehe, she didn’t catch you, right?” Lily asked with a smirk.
“No, because I didn’t want to break her rules. We never really got enough food as it was.” Nightshine looked up at her as Lily sat down, then glanced around to make sure that nopony was within earshot. “When Jason adopted me about a week ago, our first stop was at a bakery on the way to the train station,” she said, her voice gaining a little bit of its usual confidence back. “He bought us a ton of sweets.”
“Aww, that was really sweet of him,” Lily said with an obnoxious wink, making Nightshine giggle at her cheap joke. “So only about a week, huh? How do you like living with him?”
“He’s really nice, and he’s done more for me than I could have ever dreamed!”
“Oh? Like what?”
“Well... when he first came to the orphanage to see if he could find somepony to adopt and I saw him, I felt all these butterflies appear in my stomach. He was different, and I was different.” She stood up and started walking down the street. “When he left without picking anypony, I was... I...” Nightshine stopped to quickly wipe her eyes with a hoof. “I thought that he was gonna pick somepony else...” Her ears flicked back as she cleared her throat. “When he came back the next day, I was hanging out in a tree. He wasn’t looking at anypony else but me. Believe it or not, but it felt like my heart stopped for a few seconds then! I didn’t want to hope that he was there to adopt me and take me away from the orphanage because then I’d feel let down again.”
“How’d you feel when he said he wanted to take you home?” Lily asked softly, wondering if Nightshine needed a hug.
“I, well...” Nightshine stopped walking and sat down. “I cried. All of those bad memories of me getting ignored or passed over just disappeared, and I couldn’t believe that he wanted to adopt me. I almost thought it was a dream...”
“Aww... Well like you said, you were both different, so it was only natural for him to pick you, and I’m sure your pretty looks just sealed the deal!” Lily said. “So you don’t know how to fly, huh?” Nightshine shook her head. “Has Jason done anything to help you in that regard?”
“Sorta! He started teaching me how to fly by helping me climb a tree, and I’d just glide down into his arms. That was a lot of fun, but... I want to fly.”
“We’ll just have to fix that, won’t we?” Lily shot her a comforting smile.
“You’ll teach me how to fly? Really?” Nightshine asked with wide eyes.
“Of course! After all, us thestrals absolutely need to be in the sky!”
“What about Jason? He can’t fly at all!” Nightshine licked her lips. “Can you teach us both to fly?” she asked with bated breath. "It’d be awesome if he and I can fly together!”
Hold up, Jason doesn't know how to fly? And she wants me to teach them both how to fly? Oh boy, that’s gonna be a tough one... She cleared her throat, and with a confident shake of her head, she said, “I promise I’ll do my best!”