//------------------------------//
// Lunch 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

A knock sounded at the door to the room Starlight, Fir and Alder were holed up in, and Willow's voice drifted in. "Kids? We're going to eat now!"

Fir and Alder groaned, but Starlight sighed with relief. She'd spent the last several minutes trying to appease their demand for stories, a difficult task to accomplish without reminding herself how much she used to like reading. There were only so many ways to make a tale sound convincing while also having a bad time telling it, but the last thing Starlight wanted was a cutie mark involving books.

The siblings released their light, relenting to their mother's call. Starlight left the blanket fort first, sliding through the door that Willow held open. "Did you have a good time?" the mare asked, her freshly-dried fur still spiky in places where it had clumped together.

"Mhm." Starlight nodded briefly, not waiting for the others on her way down.





It took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust to the bright, yellow-orange lighting of the ground floor, during which she blinked a lot and stood off to the side. Eventually, Amber noticed and sidled over to her, a bowl balanced on her back. "Hey there. Looking a little overwhelmed?"

"Yeah." Starlight nodded quietly.

"Well, hey. Those kids are a hooffull. Don't worry about it. Fruit?" Amber reached behind herself and held out a pre-peeled banana, waving it temptingly in front of Starlight's face.

"Thanks."

As Amber returned to the table where the others seemed to be gathered, Starlight munched and cleared her head, taking stock of the room. There were cupboards... counters... but no visible sign of a pantry. They were arranged in a mostly circular pattern along the walls of the house, maximizing storage area while minimizing dead wallspace and how much they got in the way. Starlight figured a household like Willow's probably had to keep a lot of spare food on hand.

The lights were inset into the wooden ceiling, and looked like some sort of enchanted crystals. Part of her wanted to ask about them, but the other half knew the answer was likely Arambai. She snorted at the thought. Everyone seemed to have such a high opinion of the stallion, and she hadn't even met him.

With a start, she noticed that there were only five bodies present at the table: the three who had found her, and Willow's kids. Was Faron still upstairs? Starlight frowned harder. It was as if all the stallions in Riverfall were actually determined to avoid her... Alder notwithstanding.

Apparently, Amber noticed her pout. "Starlight!" She waved. "We're saving you a seat!"

"Okay. I'm coming." Starlight did come, but she took her time, leisurely trundling across the wooden floor. Her spot was between Amber and Maple, and she took it without complaint.

"So," she mumbled around a pear, "What happened to Ironridge?"

"Hmm?" Maple turned to her, also munching.

"You know." Starlight swallowed. "The thing that stallion warned you of. That made all the boats disappear. You were going to tell me, but then you decided to come back here instead."

"Oh!" Willow folded her ears. "Right. I was going to do that, wasn't I?"

Amber rolled her eyes and popped a pear into her mouth. "It's not that hard to guess. Sailors get worried, then stop coming? Obviously, somepony found a better way to get to Ironridge and put all the Sosans out of work. Give 'em a year to hear about it, then another to get worried and one more for the producers to all switch over. Boom, fits what happened perfectly."

Politely, Alder raised a hoof. "Personally, I like the theory that a plague of zombies came down from the mountains and ate them all up."

Fir scoffed. "Zombies? More like they got taken over by Yakyakistan and now have to pay all their food in taxes, so they can't send it through us! We've just got to wait until another hero shows up and kicks their rears, and everything'll go right back to normal!"

"Another?" Starlight's ears flapped. "What happened?"

The siblings looked at her like she had just committed heresy. Alder pointed a hoof. "You mean to say you don't know the story of Yakyakistan and Blazing Rain?"

Starlight looked cluelessly at Maple, then Willow. The silver mare smiled at her, and responded, "A bedtime story I used to tell these two about a pegasus who once stopped a civil war in Yakyakistan."

"A magical pegasus," Fir forcefully corrected. "Who could fire laser beams and make explosions and beat a hundred yaks with one wing tied behind her back!"

Willow smiled forlornly. "It's based on a bit of gossip I heard during my dock days. Between my own memory, a little embellishment and the fact that the original narrator was completely drunk and trying to impress me, I wouldn't trust it too much."

"Hey," Amber belched. "I've heard of that too, and not from you. Blazing Rain, that is. Dunno about lasers, though. In the one I heard, she could freeze stuff solid."

Alder pointed accusingly at her. "You mean you knew another of her secret powers and never told us?" He glared at her for a second, before being distracted when Amber tossed him a mango.

Starlight zoned out again as an argument started over whether or not Blazing Rain was real, and if so what powers she possessed. Ancient legends were all well and good, but who cared what ponies had done thousands of years ago? Not her. Well, not since Sunburst had left.

If she was honest with herself, she used to love old legends. Ones surrounding the Mare in the Moon had been her favorite, but she'd liked them all. They were just another thing that had been taken from her when her friend had gained his cutie mark.

Taken from her... Once again, when being honest, she had taken them from herself. At first, it had been because she used to love sharing them with Sunburst, studying and reading ancient history and the folklore that surrounded it. She had tried looking at them again, in the days that followed, only to find the memories still too raw to touch. Later, during the start of her personal crusade against getting a cutie mark, she had prevented herself from doing anything enjoyable, for fear that it might earn her her mark, too.

Now, she might have been past that. There was a mirror image of Sunburst sitting across from her, and she was functioning normally. She'd slipped up and enjoyed something enough times by now to realize it wasn't quite the instant trap she had imagined, though she still treated joy with caution. But more than anything... now she was scared to discover that she could enjoy them again, and all that shunning of the other things she loved would turn out to have been for nothing.

Maple poked her, snapping her back into reality. "Starlight?" She briefly nuzzled her ear. "Getting full?"

"Huh? No." Starlight looked down; the pile of fruit on the table was rapidly diminishing. "I'm still hungry." To prove her point, she leaned in as far as she could, taking a mango in her teeth.

"Hey, river filly..." Alder looked curiously at her, wincing as Fir kicked him. "How come you don't use magic to grab your food? It's much easier than reaching..."

Starlight swallowed her bite, and mumbled, "I hurt my horn making it here."

Maple's eyes widened, and she gasped. "You should've told me! There might be something we could do, or..." She blinked several times, thinking, and eventually scooted the basket of fruit closer to Starlight. "At least you shouldn't have to reach across the table!"

"It's nothing," Starlight grumbled. "I just overtaxed it. It'll be alright in a few days."

"A few days?" Amber raised an eyebrow. "It's, uh, afternoon now... and you were sleeping all of yesterday, and we found you the evening of the day before, and you didn't look like you'd been able to do that much that day either. Just how many days does it take to recharge a horn?"

Willow frowned worriedly. "The worst Alder and Fir have ever had it, it took them all night to recover. Having your horn broken for several days can't be normal..."

Starlight shrank, suddenly apprehensive. Getting special treatment she didn't deserve was one thing, but the last thing she wanted was ponies thinking there was something wrong with her. "Hey!" she protested, coat fluffing in defense. "I almost died a bunch of times out there. It was use it too much when it was tired, or don't make it at all. And I'm here now, aren't I?"

"You are," Maple said, hugging her with one hoof, "and I'm proud of you for making it."

They went back to eating, though Willow occasionally stole glances at her, clearly concerned. Some time passed, during which there wasn't much conversation. Starlight almost wished there was, now. She could use something to distract herself from the possibility that her horn was defective.

Amber granted her wish with a tremendous belch, earning herself a scowl from Willow. "Welp!" she announced, thumping her petite chest, "Think that's it for me. Thanks for lunch, grandma!"

As she got up to leave, Starlight looked curiously at Willow. "Why does she call you that?"

Willow sighed and rolled her eyes. "It's a looong story..."

"One I don't even remember," Maple added. "Any chance you want to retell it... grandma?"

"Not you too," Willow snorted. "Come on, kids. Help me get lunch put away." She turned back to Maple and Starlight apologetically. "You two are done, right?"

"I am," Maple nodded. Starlight added her own nod in confirmation.

"I'll see you tonight, then." With that, Willow turned away, leaving Starlight and Maple to march for the door. Maple grabbed the poncho from Sycamore on the way out, though it didn't appear to presently be raining.

"Tonight?" Starlight asked, easily matching Maple's leisurely pace. "What are we doing then?"

"She said something about you wanting to talk more with her," Maple answered casually, strolling between two houses and into a wider section of road. "So I invited her over. Really, though, the three of us are welcome to come and go at each other's houses whenever we please."

"Huh." Starlight shrugged and fell into step, splashing her way through the still-draining rainwater as she followed Maple through the city.