//------------------------------//
// Gearing Up 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

"You did what?" White Chocolate sat up, blinking in alarm.

"She shaved your filly," Starlight informed her, Valey standing awkwardly in the background and trying to hide her mane. "Jamjars. But she had it coming."

"And where is she now?" White Chocolate asked, voice tense.

"Upstairs," Amber said, fanning her new manecut in the enclosed, steamy bathyard air. "She's... upset. I'm not entirely sure what happened between her and Valey, but I get the feeling she wasn't being smart and pressed Valey's buttons when she shouldn't have."

White Chocolate sighed. "She does that to her siblings a lot. I never know what to do with her to keep her in line. If it works, I'm not sure I'm a qualified enough parent to say you should have done something different..."

Maple shrugged, getting up from where she reclined, drying off by the edge of a pool. "I don't think I've met Jamjars very much, but you were overworked and had no support, especially for the last two years, White Chocolate. Ponies are rough around the edges."

"Should you go see her?" Willow asked, frowning. "I have towels here, if you need to dry off."

White Chocolate gave a sad smile and went back to soaking, floating barely above the surface of the water. "Knowing how she thinks of me, I don't think that would help."

As the three mares continued their conversation, Valey glanced to Amber and blinked. "Huh. They're taking this a lot more coolly than I expected."

Amber stuck out her tongue. "I told you your mane isn't that bad."

"No, I..." Valey flinched. "You know what? Never mind. This feels like a minefield, but maybe my idea of being civilized is totally different from the reality here. Wanna, like, go bug Sparky before someone knocks their head and realizes I was totally just mean to a filly?"

Amber shrugged, glancing back at the pool. "Okay. Hey girls, we'll be at the ship!"

"Okay!" Maple waved back, Willow waving alongside her. White Chocolate looked like she wanted to make the effort, but didn't quite feel up to it.

Starlight scurried alongside them. "You know, in Ironridge you were begging us for permission to beat up a room full of foals," she remarked, looking up at Valey. "Now you're feeling bad for ruining the ego of one who really, really deserved it. You changed."

Valey winced as the trio strode into the wooden lobby, rain pouring down outside. "You know, I kind of figured that," she growled, voice unusually hostile. Swallowing, she softened it and added, "It's freaking me out, okay? I'm trying my best to figure out what... uhh, who I am and stay that way, because the last thing I want is an identity crisis that turns me into a whiny, angsty mess, but it's still stressing me out. So if you could, like, try not to poke me about it..." She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. "Just for right now, that would be great. I'll get it together. 'Kay?"

Well, that touched a nerve. Starlight hung her head as Valey put on galoshes, then helped Amber with hers, the yellow mare still not capable of standing without a shoulder to lean on. She needed something to distract herself... Idly, she lit her horn and concentrated, remembering Valey's idea to use crystals to protect herself from the rain.

It took seven tries, but she was finally able to find a way to crystal one hoof that still left the bottom fairly flat. Fortunately, the spell's horn taxation was entirely in the process of maintaining crystals when absorbing shock rather than summoning them, and was also directly tied to their size, so the repeated attempts did little to tire her. Splitting her focus between keeping out that gem and making another, she tried for her other forehoof, and found it much easier to get than the first.

She almost beamed. Was she getting the hang of this? She curled, lifting her hind leg and craning her neck around so she could point her horn at it. If only there was a way to crystal things without a direct beam from her horn... That hoof took more tries than even the first, thanks to the awkward angle, and at one point she dropped the spell on her forehooves by accident and had to start all over. Getting those two back still went easier than before.

Starlight finally got one hind hoof, and actually did beam... and then noticed Valey and Amber watching her with bemused expressions, an extra-large rain poncho draped over both of their backs so that Amber wouldn't collapse under its weight. "Oh." She folded her ears apologetically. "You're waiting for me, aren't you?"

"Watching, actually," Amber said warmly. "Are you trying to make boots out of crystal? That's creative."

"Yeah, we did a bit of brainstorming this morning," Valey replied, stealing the spotlight for herself. "Cool to see you actually using it, kiddo. You think you can actually walk on those? Not too many hundreds of steps more from there to a whole suit of magic crystal armor, right?"

Starlight narrowed her eyes at her, still trying for the fourth hoof. Her horn was already beginning to feel the effects of keeping three crystals in existence at once while casting magic, and though she knew she could hold several more of that size before it became taxing, Valey's idea was still completely unfeasible. She grunted, zapped, and finally decided her fourth hoof was good enough.

"Does anyone have any coats my size?" she asked, standing up and wobbling, suddenly finding herself on legs that were an inch taller. The bottoms of her hooves rocked slightly, and sat at angles just uneven enough to make her joints hurt when she put too much weight down too stiffly.

"Uhhh..." Valey glanced around the room as Starlight loosened her legs, finding a more comfortable way to stand that almost amounted to a half-crouch. It was like she was standing on a field of loose stones that could shift beneath her and take on all different angles, really. She could manage that.

"That looks like a filly coat?" Amber suggested, pointing to a smaller one under the towel rack.

Purposefully, Starlight walked over to it, lifting one hoof at a time. The lumpy crystal boots had enough of a pattern to them that she might be able to get used to it and go faster, she realized. Just as long as she didn't push herself and trip... Concentrating, she levitated the coat out of the mess and held it up, suddenly feeling a significant strain as she lifted the heavy rubber while keeping the four crystals out. With a gasp of exertion, she dropped it on her back, careful not to let the boots disappear as she panted and relaxed her magic. For a spell like this to be useful, she might have to not use her magic with it out for anything, at all.

The coat was sized for a mare, not a filly, she realized as it dragged along the ground behind her. Frowning, she kicked the front open, allowing her hooves to walk out in front of it so she wouldn't trip. The oversized hood caught on her horn, and that was the only thing saving her vision from being blocked by it. Still, she recalled the bathhouse as being near the north edge of town, so Shinespark's airship shouldn't be too long a walk, and she wanted to see if this spell would actually get her anywhere.

"Let's go," she said, again trying not to trip, standing back and letting Valey and Amber push open the swinging door for her.