In the coming days, Starry continued working. Edgy continued doing whatever it was that he was doing. He had made some other trip but came back to Ponyville soon after. Starry wished he wasn’t so secretive, but she still didn’t want to ask.
At one point, Cass came barreling in through the window as always. Her feathery wings just barely clipping on the wooden slats. One feather falling gently onto the floor.
“Hey, guess what?”
Starry didn’t want to look at her. She was in the middle of trying to draw out something and she wasn’t going to be interrupted. Circles need absolute precision and control.
“...And it’s all because of that new school!”
Starry only half listened. It didn’t sound like something worth taking her concentration off her notebook for. Most things weren’t, if she said how she really felt at the moment.
Cass droned on and on about the students and some drama going on because of it.
Starry didn’t care to get involved.
Cass looked at her friend working and sighed. Starry’s always a workaholic. She took one wing and rubbed at the necklace around her neck. She almost didn’t feel its weight anymore. Even though Starry was always doing stuff for other ponies, Cass couldn’t remember the last gift Starry had given to her, or to their other friends, other than helping out with this locket.
Starry noticed Cass had stopped talking and looked up. It wasn’t like Cass to be thoughtful about things, but here she was, looking like she was contemplating the universe. Starry only caught it for a brief second.
“Just, take care of yourself out there,” Cass said. And with that, she flew off, leaving Starry a bit stunned.
About a week later, Starry didn’t want to hop out of bed. She had started feeling so lethargic. She could just picture all the new projects she had to do and decided she felt like doing none of them. It was like a wall of water crashing toward her and rather than trying to take it on a bucket at a time she was going to curl up and let it wash over her.
But she didn’t want to be ungrateful for her friends’ help.
Nope nope nope, I need to get myself busy, I have a lot of work to do.
She had just put the finishing touches on two of her projects and wanted to get them delivered soon. She planned to have Edgy help her deliver them. If she started with the furthest ones first, she would have an easier time convincing him to help.
It was always her deepest fear he would one day disappear as suddenly as he had appeared.
She had come up with a statue that was a miniature of the one in the town of Somnambula. It would hold tiny glowpaz crystals and shine a light through them, creating a shadow play of images of that legend with the help of even tinier figures inside.
It wasn’t too hard to make when she could snap the metal figures just so with a few illustrations to guide her. The rotating inside was also simple. But she was so proud she would help spread the tale of one of her favorite legends.
She was ready to get Edgy and go when she heard a knock on her door.
“Edgy?”
But it was a tall, brown pony instead of the expected grey.
“Hey Em!” Postage Stamp beamed and he trotted up to her. Starry wasn’t sure why she was so disappointed, but she tried to ignore the feeling and greeted her friend.
“I heard you were going on a long journey and figured you would want someone to watch over things while you were gone.”
“Oh, thanks so much!” Starry said and bounced into the air once.
“Also!” he said, a bit less excitedly. “I already told Edgy that you were heading out to, what was the place called again?”
“Somnambula!”
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Thankfully there were trains that came close to where the town was. Starry spent the whole way there telling Edgy how cool Somnambula and the other old legends were. He seemed to find it interesting. It may have been the first time she had seen Edgy really getting into something she talked about.
They hopped off the train station and made their way to the address one of the ponies had left behind for her.
The young mare greeted them at the door, but when Starry went to hand her the shadow box, the young mare shook her head.
“Oh, it isn’t for me. It’s for my adoptive aunt...” here she looked a bit nervous.
She explained to them that, a few miles outside of town, there was a sandy cave with a sorceress in it, and the item was meant for her. Starry was a little excited to hear about it, but she was also terrified. What if the sorceress was the sort to get angry easily? One wrong move and she and Edgy were done for, and she figured with Edgy’s attitude or her bounciness they would be doomed.
“I’ll pay you for it and my two little brothers will help you guys there, but we can’t go near the place anymore.”
“Why not?” Starry asked.
“...family issues?” the pony shrugged and left them at the hooves of her brothers.
The two guides had taken them within eyesight of the place, an oasis in the middle of the desert, before they bolted away themselves.
After a solid afternoon of panting and grueling through by themselves, they made it.
The place was covered in vines and leaves and was almost unrecognizable but for an awkwardly placed welcome mat in front of it. Edgy saw Starry’s hesitation, and, while scared himself, put on a brave face.
“Somepony’s a scaredy pony all of a sudden now. I guess this is why you need me to come along or you’d probably have gone home crying by now.”
Starry wrinkled her nose. She was not in the mood to be teased.
Edgy finally moved aside to let Starry through.
She really would have rather stayed away...
Starry shook her head to clear it.
It’s an adventure! Starry thought to herself, and trotted in with so much more confidence than before that it shocked Edgy.
Looking to the sides of the cave as she did so, she slowly increased the brightness in her horn. A simple light spell to act as their guide through the oddly damp darkness. A few slimy roots stuck out from the ceiling and trailed on their faces and would have made them both jump.
She almost convinced herself they were in the wrong place, when they could see the darkness slowly creeping away. A soft note could be heard up ahead, as shrill and small as a mosquito whine but growing into a beautiful melody as they continued on.
“Aaaahhhh aaahhh, ah aaaahhhh
when the moon runs cold
and the river runs dry
and time runs not at all...”
They both stopped. Starry didn’t want to interrupt whatever was going on. Edgy didn’t have the same worry.
I’ve heard that somewhere before...
“Don’t stand at the doorway when adventure calls, children. Come in!”
A withered old... neither of them could really tell what it was, actually. It looked ponylike, but for some reason the proportions and size were all wrong. The snout was bulkier and the hooves weren’t as round, and the tail was all scraggly.
“If I didn’t have such a pretty face, maybe more of my neighbors would feel like visiting, eh?”
They kept staring for another second but Edgy couldn’t help but say, “they probably got worried they’d catch whatever you have.”
Starry just barely stopped herself from stomping a hoof. It was no time for Edgy to pick a fight.
“I brought you the shadow box your niece ordered, uh...” Starry squinted at the name the niece had written out for her.
“That’s fine. Don’t have to try saying it,” she winked, “I think the name is cursed. My own mother could never pronounce it the same way twice. Oh, and tell her I said thank you next time you see her, dears.”
Starry was a bit taken aback but thought the creature was friendly enough. She decided to take up her cheery attitude again and bounced, with a careful, firm grip on her package, to the creature to hand it over.
The creature looked at it but wouldn’t take it.
“Sugar, you aren’t planning on just dropping it off and leaving are you?”
“Actually, we didn’t even plan on coming at all.”
Starry almost really did stomp a hoof at Edgy that time, and would have if the creature hadn’t interrupted.
“If you all stay a bit, I’ll read your fortunes!”
Both Edgy and Starry wanted to leave then.
“You both look scared. Come on! It’ll be fun!”
“Hey, Star, isn’t that what you and Doodle Top thought...” Edgy began to whisper wickedly.
“His name wasn’t Doodle Top, Edgy. Shush,” she whispered back toward Edgy, while she turned back to the creature and added, “I really have to get back home. There’s a lot of other stuff I have to do.”
The creature waved a...paw? hoof? hand? dismissively and then used it to grab a hair off Starry’s head.
With one flick, it was in a pot and the contents of four potion bottles were dumped in after it. In another movement, the creature was peering into the liquid and muttering.
“Well, dear, you have a few more things you have to deal with than that. I see angry ponies and deaths in your future. But you have many friends beside you and true love to help you through it. Next.”
Before Starry could even react to what she heard, the creature had dumped the pot and it fizzled out all over the floor and their hooves. Starry jumped from fear that the liquids would be hot but splashed back down into what felt more like frigid ice. Edgy had let it wash over him, lifting a hoof when it first hit him. He didn’t have quite the desire to jump at everything.
The creature all of a sudden appeared behind him and plucked a strand of his tail that made him nearly neigh out loud. Thankfully for him, Starry was staring his direction and he bit his lips.
“Hmmm, even more angry ponies and more pain.”
The creature looked up at the two of them.
“Well, it’s not all that bad. It never is, in the end.”
And with that, she dumped the pot once again and the two let the frigid water run by them.
The two had nothing to say. It had all happened very suddenly and unexpectedly and when the creature saw them just standing there bewildered, she looked a little upset with herself again.
“Oh, I see,” she rubbed one...claw? with the other, and looked off, “I see I’ve scared my guests again. I really want to give ponies a good time, but it seems I haven’t.”
Starry looked up at the creature and almost wished she could just agree and run off, but the creature seemed sincerely hurt.
“It is very nice that you have...” she searched for the right words, “special talents. I think ponies would prefer it if you were just a little less sudden and surprising.”
The creature stopped rubbing her hand and looked back at the two with a smile.
“Yes, I guess you’re right, dear.”
“A nice hello would have also been nice too before you told us we are surrounded by gloom,” Edgy mumbled.
“I suppose I could have been more inviting,” the creature seemed to consider it, raising a limb toward where its chin would have been.
“Well, next time then,” the creature clapped.
“Now, both of you run along back! Thanks again for the gift!”
And they were both escorted back into the tunnel.
“You don’t believe what she said, do you?” Starry whispered to Edgy once they were outside the oasis.
“I think she’s lost her marbles somewhere in the sandbox, Star.”
Starry felt a bit comforted. The creature had seemed a little strange, but what she did seemed real. Looking at Edgy trudging on in front of her, though, she figured she’d take his outlook on it.
That creature was crazy. Nothing more.
Still, she felt bad for her. After all, Starry herself could relate to being alone in her workshop most of the time.
“It’s not all bad. It never is, in the end,” the sorceress’s words echoed back to her.
I hope she was right on that part.