Starlight came to with a gradual stirring, then a yawn. A whole day had passed... a day in which no one was attacked, no one was foalnapped, no architecture exploded, and almost nothing had happened. After a lifetime of three days in Ironridge, just how many uneventful days would it take before her sense of time returned to normal?
Willow was next to her, as were Maple and Amber, all curled together in a completely different yet equally snuggly position from the previous morning, and she was the first to wake. Starlight smiled, Amber's breath trilling against her mane. White Chocolate's situation would probably get sorted out soon, and Willow would have to resume taking care of her foals, but she could get used to starting her mornings like this. Peaceful, constant, and not wanting for anything.
...Almost anything. Maple's dinner had been good, but definitely not big enough for her to skip out on breakfast. Starlight dragged herself from the bed as gently as she could, promising to herself to stick around the house a little longer instead of immediately running off again.
She edged the bedroom door closed with a silent clunk, and turned to be greeted by a lazy wave, Valey laying in a black heap in front of the long-cold stove. "Heya," Valey greeted. "Unngh... my back hurts. Hard floors are the worst. Think I dodged a cold, though. You up and about?"
Starlight stopped three steps away from her and shrugged. "Just getting breakfast. Did you sleep there the whole night?"
"Nahhh..." Valey stood up with a fanged yawn of her own, stretching heavily and wincing as something cracked in her back. "Ow! Ow... It stopped raining somewhere after three, so I went out and stole some fresh towels and a brush. Also picked up something for Ironflanks. Check these out."
Grinning, she whipped a pair of dark shades out from her fallen-off hat and slapped them over her eyes. "Well? Think she'll like them?"
Starlight frowned. "Did you steal those from Neon Nova?"
Scratching the back of her neck with a wing, Valey looked away. "Nope. Don't actually know what happened to his. They were probably nasty, though. Found a nightclub that was open and giving them away for free."
"A nightclub?" Starlight scrunched her face in confusion. "As in, inside? At night? In a city with so many trees it's not sunny in the daytime, and where it rains a bunch? Why do they even have those?"
"Hey." Valey patted her on the head, then slipped the shades over her own eyes, instantly reducing her vision to shadows and outlines. "Don't knock edgester fashion. Apparently it makes you look troubled and cool. Personally, I'm plenty cool already and would rather not advertise to the world that I have issues, but I figured Ironflanks could use them to hide her eyes since they'll raise a lot fewer questions than why her eyes are suddenly pink instead of red. Unless she wants questions like that, but that tree stuff would be a doozy to describe in casual conversation. You know?"
Starlight floated the shades away before she could crash into anything, setting them on the table. That was actually a good point, even if being blind wasn't a great price to pay. She could empathize with not wanting to talk about a complicated past. "Uh-huh," she agreed, starting for the stairs to the pantry. "Do you know how to cook things? Because I don't, and I'm hungry."
"Kiddo, the most complex recipe I learned in my life was 'remove fruit from tree, insert into mouth.' It's a good one, but probably not what you're looking for." She grinned with enough silliness that Starlight wondered if she was teasing, then continued, "Just kidding. I'm not bad on Sparky's level. Still, I've always been better at finding food than making it. Good nose for these things." She tapped her muzzle in emphasis. "Wanna go foraging?"
"Foraging?" Starlight asked, mentally locating a nearby pad of paper in case that involved leaving Maple a note.
Valey fluttered her wings and licked her lips. "Oh yeah."
Starlight blinked, suddenly realizing her bandages were gone. "Your wing's better? Already?"
"Eh..." Valey stiffly flexed the appendage, testing every joint. "Technically, it was never broken in the first place. Just... overtaxed a little, and sprained twice in the same place in one night. I had a rough crash, trusted that weird mercenary medicine a bit too much to fix me up, was flying around like a lunatic against Herman, got hit by a falling boulder..." She snapped it out to full length. "Probably good to give it some exercise just so it doesn't atrophy. Otherwise I'll never be able to tell if it's hurting from being injured or hurting from disuse. Besides, the bandages fell off on their own after that soaking, so seems like as good of a time to test it as any to me. Down for a flight?"
Starlight had flown before. She had fallen off a cliff in the southern mountains, tall enough to count as flying. She had also fallen off the Stone District, that time when Valey thought she could carry both her and Maple and Maple subsequently earned her very endearing nickname. Then she had taken a single successful flight or two with Gerardo... and then fallen off an exploding dam. All in all, it was technically possible for her track record to be worse.
"If you drop me, I will bite you," she threatened, briefly pondering how she could even consider not being afraid of heights.
"Pretty sure you're a little young for that," Valey remarked, scooping Starlight onto her back in one fluid motion. "Anyway, door's still out, so try not to get boggled when I go under. Away we go!"
"Hnnnnngg..." Valey clutched the outside of a third-story window frame, wings beating to keep her aloft as she pressed her frantically-twitching nose to the glass, staring helplessly through. "Buckwheat crepes with strawberry whipped cream and cinnamon applesauce..."
Drooling against the window, she watched up until her cutie mark gave the tiny spike indicative that someone was about to look, then jumped away, kicking off the wall and gliding easily to the next building unchecked, hovering from window to window until she found what she was looking for. "Rice in warm milk... Canned pears? Meh, fresh is better. Oooh, toast with raspberry jam! What kind of juice is that? Something with banana, maybe?"
"Valey!" Starlight shook her, forelegs clutched tightly around the batpony's neck to stay on as she hovered with her body nearly vertical. "Stop it! I'm hungry!"
Valey sunk below the window, swinging herself around so Starlight could actually sit on her back. "What?" she asked, shrugging innocently. "We're window shopping. I figured you'd get upset if we busted in there and stole anything."
"Valey..." Starlight moaned, breakfasty smells the windows couldn't quite block lingering in her nose. "I thought we were going to get food, not look at it! This is mean!"
"I can sneak through glass, remember," Valey advised. "If you see something you want and are that okay with stealing..."
"No!" Starlight ineffectually clubbed over over the head with a forelimb, which made Valey laugh and flutter away. "Take me home! I'll just wait for Maple to wake up and eat whatever she makes! She's a great cook!"
"You sure about that?" Valey puffed her cheeks and raised an eyebrow, one pointy tooth sticking out as she bit her lip. "...Nah. I've got a better idea. Follow me."
"Vaaaleeyyyyy!"
Starlight didn't have much of a choice but to follow as Valey zipped off, pressed against the agile batpony's back. Valey must have been showing off, or at least enjoying testing her wing, because she looped and spiraled like her life depended on it, circling a house here and there and taking the most roundabout way of getting anywhere Starlight could imagine. The sun was rising in the east, shining brightly through the trees with post-dawn colors, but Valey's antics made it impossible to tell which way she was going regardless. At least she perfectly banked her turns, removing most of the work required to hang on.
"Aaaaand zoop!" Valey burst out of the trees over the Yule, Shinespark's airship bobbing nearby. With a much gentler hover, she set them both down on the deck, stopping to straighten her wings and adjust her beret. "Hmm... yeah, I'd say that's about eighty percent healed. Would stink to whack it again, but I can do cool stuff with it now. Anyway! Still feeling like breakfast? Because this place has a great pantry, and I can totally challenge Sparky to a cook-off just to put my skills into perspective. Might not be as yummerly as all that good stuff we passed, but hey, I can try my best. What did you see that you want the most?"
"Bluhhh..." Starlight reeled, head still spinning after the frantically-looping flight.
Valey frowned. "Uhh... oh. I didn't overdo it, did I?"
Starlight shook her head, trying to clear it. "You tried to," she grunted, taking a minute to recover. It was a good thing she hadn't eaten before that... though really, for the amount of spinning involved, she wasn't that dizzy. Maybe she should have been born a pegasus. "You're really happy this morning."
Pacing past her, Valey grinned smugly. "Yeah, I had a good day yesterday. Being optimistic and all that... figured I'd try Ironflanks' shtick. Let me know if it gets too annoying so I can bring it back tomorrow. Now come on! Let's go trash this place's kitchen and get something to stuff our faces with."