Quartz
“It just occurred to me—what would have happened if you touched your sister or mother at midnight? Would they suddenly be able to experience the time loops alongside you?”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence from Maud, followed by a quiet sigh. “This is what I meant about not being good with pony-based solutions,” she finally explained. “The idea never occurred to me.” She reached out for the book. “Well, the story’s ruined now, so there’s no reason for you to read how I butcher your character.”
Starlight hugged the book to her barrel. “No way. I still want to read the rest of this, and I forgive you in advance for any ways that you get my character wrong.”
Maud huffed. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Maud was an earth pony who was confident in her physical abilities. That included the ability to leap across a yawning chasm given a running start. But that certainty didn’t change the fact that the gap she was crossing was an insanely high distance from the ground, and the insistent knowledge that the ground was where she belonged.
She could head for the campus of the academy rather easily. But she doubted that she would be able to tell any sort of tale, true or otherwise, that would get her out to where the race was taking place to find Starlight or Twilight. Having authority figures with her would surely cause the two magical combatants to hide. So that meant she had to move away from the safety of the campus, across a field of drifting clouds, each one smaller and farther away than the last. But not before availing herself of the services of a public restroom. She marveled at the fact that while made of cloud, it appeared to be as solid as concrete. Maybe there was something for a geologist to study in the sky after all.
Before too long she caught signs of the race. Unfortunately this didn’t help, as the race spread out over an enormous area above her. With an inaudible huff, Maud settled down on her cloud to watch. The next cloud over, she saw three pegasi stallions hunched down, watching the race through three pairs of binoculars. A rather large pile of bits lay on a tarp spread between them atop the cloud. Maud noticed that one of the stallions had a coat the color of seaweed, and a remarkably-stylish mane the color of sea foam.
Being unable to spot the two ponies she was looking for, Maud allowed her attention to be drawn to the race between the filly and two colts. Gradually the three racing pegasai slowed to a halt, watching in shock as a yellow pegasus (most likely “Fluttershy” based on Rainbow Dash’s account) sped by them. The way she was frozen in attitude, her wings locked tightly at her sides, led Maud to look around until she spotted a pinkish-purple unicorn standing on a nearby cloud, her eyes fixed on the yellow pegasus. (An argument broke out amongst the betting stallions about the outcome of the just-finished race, but Maud paid them no mind.)
From around another cloud emerged the purple pegasus Twilight, the villainous green reptile perched upon her back. “No!” she cried out, racing towards Starlight.
“Too late, Twilight,” Starlight taunted. “Too late.”
And then a hole opened in the sky that sucked both pegasus and lizard to their doom.
Starlight had herself a good laugh, until she noticed that all four little pegasi were staring at her. “Well, what are you looking at? Scram!” She then settled down on her cloud. “Twilight’s probably going to make this one another sleepover, leaving me with a ton of free time.” It occurred to Maud that if Starlight made a regular habit of banishing her opponent to various nether realms via gaping “doom holes”, only to have them return the next day…well that would probably lead to a lot of monologuing. “What to do, what to do…” she mused out loud. Her stomach grumbled. “Yeah, I guess I could get a bite to eat. Looks like I have to break into a restaurant again.” She sounded rather regretful over this plan. “Let’s see, where haven’t I tried yet…?” She got up and looked around.
And that’s when she spotted Maud.
Maud had tried to duck down when Starlight had suddenly stood, but there really was no way to hide.
In an instant, the unicorn was in her face. “Who are you?!” she demanded. “How did you get here? Did Twilight send you?” She wasn’t giving Maud any time to answer her questions, and she was becoming more and more enraged. “Have her friends figured out some way to send her help? How are you even standing on a cloud? Answer me!” She fired off a blast from her horn that put a hole in the public restroom that Maud had used.
“I have nothing to do with…that other pony,” Maud answered.
“Then why are you suddenly in this loop? Liar!” And the red-faced Starlight let off another blast which totally obliterated the restroom and a good part of the classroom behind it.
This quickly attracted the attention of the authorities.
“Oh no,” Starlight declared purposefully, “I’m not spending the night in Cloudsdale Detention again!”
With a bright flash and a loud “pop,” Maud found that Starlight had teleported them to a completely different neighborhood.
“Now you are going to give me some answers, before I get really mad!”
And that’s when it hit Maud: Starlight’s magic got more and more powerful the madder she got, and right now she was mad enough to level Cloudsdale…or any other city. She was the Saddle Rager of unicorns.
Starlight stopped reading. “You…you got that right. That’s exactly how my magic works. How did you know?”
“I didn’t know,” replied Maud. “It just seemed to me to be the greatest possible dramatic contrast with myself.”
“If you let me buy you lunch, I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” Maud replied. If she was any normal pony, she probably wouldn’t have even been able to utter the sentence without breaking down into terrified sobbing. Her “emotional muteness” had saved her once again.