"Yesss..." Starlight feebly cheered, flexing a muscle in what was probably supposed to be a hoof pump, curled deep into the cushions of the couch Twilight had dragged into the kitchen. "I made it to the end of Ironridge..."
"Yes, you did," Twilight agreed, agitated. "You also said we could finish last night and you wouldn't blow out your voice, but you ended on a giant dramatic cliffhanger and I'm never going to get to sleep even though it's dawn!"
"Tha's not cliffhanger," Starlight mumbled, face already tucked beneath her hooves.
Twilight flared her wings in exasperation. "Well, whatever you want to call it! You got vandalized, or chased out of town, or... I thought you were going to live there a while and grow up, and... and..." She rubbed her stinging, sleep-deprived eyes, shock and adrenaline preventing them from closing even an inch. "Hemlock... your magic, and... Did you ever find out what really happened? Did he actually fight you, or why did you hallucinate, or... Starlight!"
It was too late. Starlight was snoring cutely, and refused to budge.
"Ohhhhhhhh..." Twilight gave a whine of despair, covered her own head with her wings, and sank back into the couch in front of the ashes of a long-dead fire, wondering if she would ever get to sleep.
...She didn't. Seconds ticked into minutes, and after resisting the urge to check five entire times, Twilight looked up and saw that the clock's hands hadn't visibly changed. She flipped over, planting herself face-down against the back of the couch, hind legs dangling to the floor and wings spread limply.
Every instance of 'just a little further', she had told herself, beginning when Starlight sailed away from Ironridge the first time, again in Riverfall and again back to Ironridge and again and again had built up an expectation of an ending worth waiting for, some peaceful transition in which time could finally speed up, like Starlight's life was getting fifteen years of important things out of the way so it could skip and let her live without event for the next however long and create a natural breakpoint in the story because of course there was one, but no, it never ended and she almost wished Starlight had passed out earlier so she could have had the Tree of Harmony fresh in her mind, because it talked and she needed to remember to ask about that before she forgot, but her thoughts were a mess and a runaway train and if only she could focus and come to some important realization she was working toward but what she needed was sleep and how could anypony sleep like this and-
"Whoops! Looks like I was a little too early. Heh heh..." a raspy voice whispered to itself behind her, causing her ears to twitch.
"Rainbow?" Twilight muttered, her previous train of thought vanishing like mist from her overexcited and sleep-deprived brain.
"Oh! You're awake. Didn't mean to wake you." Rainbow Dash kept her voice down, and Twilight rolled her head over to see the pegasus watching them, silhouetted in the dawn light. "So, uh, lookin' like you could use a little more? Because I can totally come back later." She raised an eyebrow. "How late did you even stay up? Just fell asleep talking, or something?"
Twilight hugged the couch, sticking to her pose that wasn't as comfortable as it felt like it should be. "Five minutes ago."
Rainbow pursed her lips. "Oh. Uhh... so, are we still on for this morning, then? I'm guessing not, huh?"
"Sorry, Rainbow," Twilight apologized, burying her face once again. "I don't know how late Starlight will be up, and I'm pretty sure her voice is in no condition to narrate."
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Hey, no problem. I thought of something else to do today anyway. Maybe I'll take a long nap and try to be up tonight, or something. By the way, if you're just going to sleep, that position is probably bad for your back."
With a titanic effort, Twilight righted herself. "I'm actually not sure I am," she corrected. "The story didn't exactly end on the best note to sleep on, and my brain won't turn itself off. Might be a few hours, still..." She yawned, fanning her mouth with a hoof.
"Oh!" Rainbow perked up. "Well, I was gonna go for a lazy fly, if you want to come with. Fresh air might help?"
"I've got nothing better to do..." Twilight stretched, arching her back, and climbed off the couch, tonguing the inside of her mouth and suddenly thinking thoughts of breakfast.
"Where are we going?" a still-half-asleep Twilight asked, following Rainbow on a carefree course through the sky up and away from Ponyville.
"Oh, you'll find out!" Rainbow called back over her shoulder, flipping and looping pointlessly to help Twilight keep up. With a faint note of concern, she added, "You're not getting tired, are you?"
"There's a difference between being sleepy and able to sleep," Twilight responded, though she was hardly to the point of dragging herself through the brisk winter air. "And physically exhausted. I'm good."
Rainbow Dash nodded, soaring ahead.
"We're not going to Cloudsdale, are we? Because I forgot to brush my mane..." Twilight voiced the thought as soon as it sprang to mind. The floating mass of white was along their general trajectory, after all...
"Yeah, sorta." Rainbow spun back around so she was facing Twilight and shrugged. "My parents' place, actually. Why?"
"Your parents?" Twilight frowned, a snowbound conversation the previous day surfacing in her memory. "Hold on, didn't Starlight say they might spoil the story if you asked them the wrong thing, in case they had heard parts of it?"
Rainbow did a flip. "Oh, I know. I wasn't thinking we'd talk to them. There's just something I want to see if I can borrow. Starlight might think it's cool."
"If you're sure..." Twilight replied warily, the chill forcing her to yawn again.
Now that she was out and moving around again, her brain didn't feel nearly so crowded. Maybe she could actually think harder about some of the things in Starlight's story. It started when the flame, which was supposedly an Element of Harmony, reconstituted her after disappearing, which was fascinating in and of itself. That didn't make Starlight an Element, did it? Without any offense intended, Twilight dismissed that concept as absurd. She and her friends were the elements already. It had to have something to do with the regional differences between pony physiology Starlight had noted separating herself from the northern ponies. But was that an Equestrian thing, or was there something unique about Starlight? They could easily test, of course, if they could somehow get the schematics for Arambai's machines...
And then the tree had talked to her. Actually talked! There were so many ways to interpret that, but the fact that the tree hadn't sounded omniscient was the most interesting part. It implied there were limits to what the Elements could do, and while Twilight knew that on a factual level, it was never something she had been able to test before. But there was also the unusual vision Starlight had had at the very start of the story, with creatures... she was ninety-nine percent sure were changelings. What had happened to the changelings after Shining Armor's wedding, anyway? Twilight made a mental note to ask Celestia how much she knew about them later.
If Starlight was seeing magical visions of changelings and hearing magical voices from harmony flames, though, and especially if using unknown magic had somehow altered her perceptions when facing Hemlock, was there a pattern there? Starlight being unusually sensitive to some sort of magical sensory-altering feedback, perhaps? That was another thing that would be testable, though she'd first need to find some sort of concrete baseline to figure out exactly what Starlight could do. What if this could somehow be adapted into a new form of communication, or a new media!? Or...?
Twilight drifted too far into a happy, sciency oblivion to hear Rainbow repeatedly calling her name.
Twilight awoke to a warm, mechanical rumbling. Her first thought was that she was in a bed, which was nice. Her second thought... She bolted up in alarm. Hadn't she just been flying?
Jumping was the wrong thing to do, as her head collided with something far closer above her than any bed had a right to have. Growling, she rubbed her head, opened her eyes, and looked up.
The room she was in was gray, metal and incredibly compact, though someone had gone to great effort to make it look nice regardless by installing real wood trim everywhere it would fit. Everything about the decoration was economical, from shelves and drawers that fit in impossibly small places to fold-out hooks embedded in the ceiling for hanging things. It was lit by her horn, though she could see a dim circle set into the roof that was probably an unpowered mana light. She had taken several introductory courses on mana technology at Celestia's school, but her area of focus had always been more theoretical than practical applications. Hearing Starlight talk about Ironridge, she was probably missing out...
And, she quickly realized, whatever it was was moving.
Suddenly getting a very good idea of where she was, Twilight sat up, much more carefully this time. The thing she had collided with was a bunk bed: big enough that a larger stallion could curl up comfortably, but only just. If she wanted to stretch her legs, she'd have to get creative; like everything else in the room, it had been designed with space and not luxury in mind. She yawned one more time, let her hooves hit the faintly-vibrating floor, and found the exit.
A late-afternoon sky showered light all around her as she climbed out onto a deck and confirmed her suspicions: she was on an airship. It was a small one, with the controls housed at the rear, and against an ornate rudder wheel lounged a familiar pegasus with a shock of rainbow hair.
"Oh hey, Twilight." Rainbow Dash looked up, nodding in appreciation as she piloted the craft away from Cloudsdale. "Looks like you're up. What do you think? Pretty sweet, huh?"
Twilight rubbed the side of her head, still shaking off drowsiness. "I fell asleep while flying, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you kinda did," Rainbow apologized, shrugging helplessly. "Sleep-flying, basically. Stopped flapping and kinda started to drift away with this dreamy smile on your face. Were you thinking about nerd stuff, or something?"
"Maybe...?" Twilight reddened, trying to remember exactly where her thoughts had taken her.
"Anyway, I caught you and lugged you the rest of the way, so no biggie." Rainbow shrugged again, turning back to the wheel. "So basically, I went and told my parents I'd found a fellow airship enthusiast in Ponyville, and asked if I could borrow their old one to show it off. They thought it was a great idea. Actually, that's not saying much 'cause they think everything I do is a great idea, but you know. So, think Starlight will be impressed?"
Twilight truthfully had no idea how to answer. "Well, I... probably? I mean, it looks like a nice ship."
"Yeah." Rainbow patted the rudder wheel, lounging in the shade of the ship's giant zeppelin. "It's an old one, for sure, and not that big or fancy, but my dad takes really good care of it so it's still in great condition." She blinked. "Starlight does like airships, right? I mean, I figured since if she traveled a bunch and was able to go crazy places, she probably had one of her own?"
"Well, I'd assume so," Twilight said hopefully. "She did just get one in the story. We're going back to Ponyville now, right?"
Rainbow Dash leaned over the edge, checking their forward course. "That's the plan. Figure it shouldn't be too hard to dock this at your castle. Figured if she's too beat to keep talking we could nerd out about this together or even cruise the countryside just for fun. Could even get on with telling it here, if she likes. I mean, where better to talk about an adventure than in the sky?" Grinning, she sat back, her head against the railing as she controlled the rudder with one hind leg. "Sure do have a lot of memories of this boat."
"Anyway, I might as well catch you up on the story while we fly back," Twilight decided, taking a seat on a bench at the edge of the ship. "And we'll see if Starlight is awake and feels like talking, and if not... well, we'll see."
Twilight waved a large tray of still-warm hayburgers under the still-sleeping Starlight's nose, Rainbow Dash grinning at her side. "Oh, Staaarliiight," she sang, levitating the food. "We got take-out on our way back! Are you awake now?"
"To be honest, she's pretty cute when she sleeps," Rainbow remarked, pointing a hoof at the way Starlight curled, a hoof still wrapped over her barely-open muzzle. "We could just take pictures and let her carry on..."
Starlight snuffled, finally attracted by the smell of hot food, and moved her hoof over her eyes. "What time is it...?" she mumbled, not quite rolling over.
"Three in the afternoon," Rainbow greeted, plopping down on the couch next to her with such force that Starlight bounced, landing in an undignified heap. "You're welcome."
"Ughhh..." Starlight croaked, her voice sounding every bit as unfortunate as Twilight expected it to. "Could I get some water...?"
Twilight obliged, floating a glass over, made easier by the fact that Starlight had slept in the kitchen. "Welcome back to the waking world," she greeted, half frowning and half smiling. "I told you not to go on for so long, you know. That was not an ending I wanted to try to get to sleep on."
"Ugh, sorry," Starlight repeated once the entire glass had been drained. "I really didn't think that part was going to be nearly as long as it was. My throat hurts..."
Twilight rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Wow, really? I wonder why. Rainbow Dash, please do me a favor and no matter how carried away Starlight gets today with storytelling, if she starts at all, whack her with a newspaper if she goes over two hours?"
Rainbow shrugged. "Yeah, we'll see. Twilight briefed me on some of the stuff you said the other day, and I'm honestly, like..." She blinked. "The only reason I believe it's real is because if I didn't believe in stuff that's too awesome to be true, I wouldn't believe I exist, either." Her face cracked in a grin. "What I'm saying is, who cares if it's real? This story sounds awesome! But I gotta hear it from you, Starlight."
"Well, I don't think I'm up for seeing if the start of the Griffon Empire is the same length I remember it just yet," Starlight replied with a cough. "Mind if I take just a short break first? I've been talking far too much lately..."
"That was another reason I didn't want you to push yourself last night," Twilight sighed. "But it's fine. We have hayburgers, and something of Rainbow's parents' you might be interested in."
Starlight grinned, lighting her horn and taking a sandwich. "Oh, really? Let's take a look, then."
"You like her?" Rainbow Dash beamed, flapping smugly alongside the ship that was moored in the air above Twilight's castle. Twilight hovered beside her, and Starlight floated in her own magic, an expression of intense remembrance on her face.
"...This is a good ship," Starlight eventually said, finishing her appraisal. "Someone's taken very good care of her."
Twilight giggled. "That's actually exactly what Rainbow said on the way back here..."
"Yeah, it's my parents' ship from their days as adventurers." Rainbow nodded, landing on the deck, Twilight and Starlight following her. "Doesn't get used much any more, but my dad keeps it running nice and easy. Figured you might think it's cool, since we're talking about adventures and stuff, right?"
Starlight nodded back. "So we have this for a day trip, or something?"
"Well..." Rainbow shuffled her hooves. "Technically, I just said I'd bring it back when I was done, and they probably wouldn't mind if I hung onto it for a while. But yeah, I dunno what I actually thought we'd do with it. Cruise the countryside, or something? I just thought it would be cool."
"It certainly brings back memories," Starlight sighed. "I recognize this model. It's an old one, from several years before I left Equestria for the north."
"You studied other airships besides Shinespark's?" Twilight raised an eyebrow.
"I was around them for a fair bit," Starlight answered. "And the idea of using me to make breakthroughs for new technology didn't die with Sosa, so I was involved with the technology and ponies who knew about it, too. By the way, did you have any questions from last night? I sort of nodded off..."
"Yeah, you did," Twilight said, slightly chagrined. "Did you ever figure out what truly happened with Hemlock, on the river? Whether you...?"
Starlight sighed. "I was afraid that would be what you asked. It's complicated, and is one of those things you should really let the story answer for you. The one thing to keep in mind is that even though I'm telling things to the best of my ability, my memories are colored by my own feelings, so the version I told might have been just a little more... violent than what actually happened. Or maybe it was exactly what I perceived it as. You'll find out."
Twilight swallowed and nodded. "Right. No spoilers."
"Oh! Question from me!" Rainbow frantically waved a hoof. "Did Valey and Amber ever get hitched? Twilight spent a preeetty long time on them when summarizing this to me."
Twilight blushed furiously. "I did not!"
"Oh, they saw each other again. Anyway..." Starlight yawned, instinctively settling into a cozy corner of the deck. "You have this for as long as you want? Why don't we just fly around a bit, and if I'm feeling up to it later, I'll try to tell another section... and actually keep it short this time?"
Rainbow gripped the wheel with an eager grin. "That's a terrible answer, but sure, whatever. Destination: nowhere. Deadline: nothing. Mission: have a lazy evening in the sky. Sure, why not?"