Starlight and her friends left the airship with little fanfare, pacing under a sky that was overcast but not yet threatening to rain. The area around the gangplank was free of mares, for once; every one that usually congregated there was laughing and eating on board. White Chocolate clung near Willow, occasionally giving Maple guilty looks as if she had abandoned her in getting a new favorite pony to follow. Shinespark hung to the side, frequently sniffling, and Valey led the way with Amber pointing directions from her back, looking vaguely self-conscious. Why was she carrying her? Willow was bigger, likely stronger and better friends with Amber, and the yellow mare was animated enough that she might not even need to be carried. Ponies were strange.
She found herself walking alongside Maple, who had somehow been persuaded to wear Valey's ridiculous sunglasses. "Hi," she said, figuring that someone needed to break the silence.
"Starlight," Maple hummed, nosing her. "I haven't seen you a lot today and yesterday."
Starlight folded her ears. "Sorry. I don't want to sit at home all day, so I've been going around looking for things to do."
"I know how you feel." Did Maple sound jealous? "Having any luck having fun?"
"Sort of," Starlight answered. "You can come too, you know."
She omitted mentioning that both times, she had left before Maple could even ask to join her, but her adoptive mother didn't seem to mind. "You're lucky to be recovering so quickly," Maple murmured. "From Ironridge. I'm still trying to convince myself this is really home, sometimes. I'll probably be having nightmares for months." She thought, and added, "How are you sleeping?"
"Fine," Starlight said. Actually, her sleep had been great. In Equestria, and in the mountains, she had always slept alone, and having friends nearby was something she had never known she needed. It could get warm at times, being hugged while she slept, but that was vastly better than chill dawn air. She couldn't remember anything beyond an early-enough point in her foalhood, but felt that if she had ever had this before, it stopped far too early. Not that she'd admit to any of that, of course.
...Maple was getting to her, she realized. Soon, she'd be just as cuddly as she was. With a slightly-hidden flush of embarrassment, Starlight put an extra pace between them, trying not to ponder just what she was embarrassed about.
"Halt!" a cranky stallion's voice suddenly bellowed from above. "This here's my... err, Arambai's residence! You slack-jawed idiots think you can waltz up to a stallion's home while he's on vacation and rob him..." Hemlock trailed off, his own jaw going slack as he realized who it was. "Oh. It's you."
Amber glared up at him, smirking dutifully. "One word about my tail, and we will find Gerardo and have him run you through with a magic sword."
"This is Arambai's house?" Shinespark stepped forward, frowning up at him. "Who are you?"
"Looks like a loon," Valey remarked. "Want me to knock his block off?"
"I'm a respected town elder!" Hemlock crowed, somehow keeping confidence and leering down from his rooftop rocking chair at the massive array of equine firepower pointed right at him. "And you all are trespassing on property I've been sent to guard! I once built a crane to lift boats up a waterfall. This ain't a stallion you brats want to mess with, hear?" He raised an eyebrow dangerously.
Starlight looked back at him, then glanced to everyone else. "Didn't Arambai say we were supposed to guard the house from him?"
"Yeah, I got this," Valey said, gently depositing Amber against Willow and flexing her wings. "Hey, Sparky, bet you can't-"
Flash! Shinespark was on the roof next to Hemlock in a burst of teleportation. Furiously, she sucked in a breath, threw back her head... and splattered him with a massive, dripping sneeze. And again. And again. Hemlock was too stunned to even try to shield himself as Shinespark peppered him with a total of seven gooey blasts, finally wetly clearing her throat and wiping her mouth and nose off with a hoof. "Bleh," she grunted, sounding like her nose was still completely blocked. "I needed that."
Valey finally peeked out from behind the wing shielding her face, still on the ground. "Wow. Wrecked," she commented. "Hope he deserved that. So hey, now that he's a biohazard, how do we get rid of him?"
Hemlock was still sputtering, trying unsuccessfully to wipe himself down, when a bolt of magic struck him and he was encased in a giant block of crystal. "Does that help?" Starlight asked, feeling a vicarious thrill left over from the time she had risked public fame to save Gerardo's boat from Hemlock's blunder... Oh, and the time he had found out and told the town she was from Equestria. Maybe that hadn't been enough. Quickly, she let him go, grabbed him from a distance with her telekinesis, flipped him upside-down, and re-crystalled him.
Amber sighed sadly, watching from where Willow held her upright. "You know that's pointless, right? All you're going to give him is a grudge or a crush, and trust me, the latter is painful. The only thing that gets through to him is public humiliation."
"A crush?" Shinespark looked herself over, suddenly looking unsettled. She glanced back at Hemlock. "Even if he wasn't trespassing on Arambai's property, he looks thrice my age and really isn't my type..."
"Tell me about it," Amber muttered, rolling her eyes.
Suddenly, Starlight became aware of a familiar, vaguely-unwelcome presence beside her. "This is a nice conga line," Jamjars remarked, leaning against a house while chewing something and smirking. "What's the occasion?"
Starlight blanched, not caught quite as far off guard this time. "You again?"
Jamjars pouted in self-defense as the others turned to look at the disturbance, White Chocolate looking worried and Valey disappearing in a ripple of shadow. "What? I left you alone all day yesterday! I figured you wanted some time with your friends. So what's this chump's deal?" She appraised the crystalled Hemlock again. "I watched him for a while earlier. Seems fun to mess with, but not the whole 'cackling supervillain' type. Though I guess he might be... but I also didn't think exploiting socially inept ponies was your thing. I'm proud of you!"
Hemlock reddened beneath the crystal. Starlight shifted her weight from hoof to hoof, unsure whether to answer or let Amber do it for her... before White Chocolate abruptly changed the subject.
"Jamjars!" She lumbered hurriedly over, and the filly reluctantly allowed herself to be locked into a tight hug, reddening slightly herself. "I haven't seen you since before we landed! Where have you been!? I've had so much to worry and think about already, and you..."
"Would have given you even more if I'd been insulting you and picking on Snow, Mom," Jamjars deadpanned. "You're still fat. See? I'm a pest. Now let me go. Ponies are looking."
Actually, Starlight was looking at Hemlock, barely noting Willow blanch at Jamjars' treatment of her mother. The stallion was still frozen in place, covered in residue from Shinespark's sneezing and looking very unhappy. As much as he deserved it for being a stubborn, malicious coot and repeat offender of property violations, and as much as Arambai would have probably done the same, something niggled at her like they weren't treating him like a pony. But if she let him go, he'd just run off and... no, that would be fine. Or he might stay there, or... The worst he could do would be to dig up dirt on her friends and spread that around. Or her, again. But he had already hit her with the worst he could, right?
"Hey," she said, quickly teleporting up to the roof, unhappily remembering the staircase the moment she landed. She would go through all her magic long before the day was over at this rate... "If I let you go right now, what will you do?"
Hemlock stared wordlessly at her through the crystal. Of course, it prevented him from talking.
Concentrating, Starlight changed her magic, shrinking and melting parts of it away. Modifying the crystals once they were out wasn't something she had practiced, but she had enough control to free his head while still keeping him immobilized. "Okay," she repeated, "if I-"
"Varmint!" Hemlock roared, flinging spittle she was fortunately out of range of. "Haven't you and your shenaniganry done enough to my reputation already? If you don't unhoof me and get me a towel and some medicine, hoo boy, you'll be in for-"
A telekinetic glow swatted his muzzle as Jamjars peered above the top of the stairs, the rest of the ponies in tow. "Hi," she said coyly. "You look fun to mess with, and a lot of ponies just told me that would be a very good thing. Stinks to be you, I guess. Now be smart and hide once Starlight lets you go so I can have the fun of hunting you down. It'll be terrible for both of us if I get bored."
Hemlock's eyes narrowed. "Who are you, punk?"
Starlight quickly re-froze him before anyone could answer. "Let's go in and see if he's still there when we return," she advised. Being around the stallion was making her more and more nervous.
"If you're sure," Jamjars sighed, strolling in through Arambai's second-story door. Willow and Amber followed, the latter giving him a reproachful glare, and Maple also stared balefully at him as she passed.
"If it weren't for you," she hissed, low enough that only Starlight could hear, "me and Starlight might not have rushed off to Ironridge and almost gotten ourselves killed. That's worse than making comments about someone's tail. I do not like you."
Valey followed too, and Shinespark and White Chocolate, and it was finally up to Starlight to close the door, freeing Hemlock only once she had double-checked it was locked.