Senescey's door swung open without ceremony, the room inside made of stone like everything else in Stormhoof but dressed up carefully to conceal it as much as possible. A dark, patterned rug covered all but the edges of the floor, and most of the walls were adorned with paintings: lots of batponies, and a few landscapes Starlight didn't recognize.
"I'm hoo-ooome!" Senescey sang, holding the door so Starlight and her friends could enter. "Anyone about?"
"Hey," a disinterested mare's voice echoed from somewhere above. The ceiling was low, with the next level's floorboards and supports directly exposed, and Starlight guessed whoever was greeting was directly on top of them.
There were doors on either side of the room, and Maple and Valey clanked around, looking for an invitation on where to go as Senescey kicked off her boots. Starlight busied herself studying the paintings instead: the far wall was the most striking, covered in a grayscale mural of a mountain range, the lower reaches filled with dense conifers and the higher ones occasionally breaking into stretches of jagged rock. A dirt road wound through the scene next to a river in a valley's base, and the middles of the mountains between the peaks and the foremost valley were lost in a blanket of low-hanging clouds. The misty mountains, she guessed. Maybe Senescey was from there.
There was a painting of Izvaldi, too, she realized, depicting the hill with Percival's manor. It was several years old, though; the hospital was clearly under construction and the commerce building existed as a set of tents spanning half the hillside. It was also given a far less-glorious spot on the wall... The last landscape that got her attention depicted a city in a plain that looked like it was beginning to feel the signs of desertification. At least, she thought it did. It was hard to tell, since the painting had been slashed.
"That's Everlaste," Senescey chimed in, spotting Starlight's curiosity. "They don't like sarosians. So we don't like them."
"Who's 'we'?" Valey asked, following her through a door into a small, neat kitchen that had learned the art of fitting cabinets in every possible place. "Batponies in general? Or you share this place with friends?"
Senescey shrugged, stepping through the kitchen and into a dim sitting room with another rug, a poofy reclining chair sitting in front of a magical, smokeless fire. "Both? I live here with my sisters. Hey, Sis!"
The recliner rotated, revealing a large mare who reminded Starlight of Willow in proportions sitting lazily with a newspaper folded in her lap. Her coat was the same shade as Senescey's, and she had a long, lush, loosely-curly red mane that clearly received almost as much care as Jamjars'. She blinked her lined eyes, smiled, and threw her paper carelessly aside, spreading her forelegs wide. "Senescey! Oh, darling, you brought company? How exquisite!"
The new mare lifted herself from the recliner with practiced ease, gliding across the carpet and stopping to tousle her sister's mane. "Who do I have the pleasure of meeting? Are you...?" She blinked in recognition. "The ones who were in the news a month ago for that dreadful business with Ironridge? I never forget a face! You are, aren't you!?" She beamed with excitement. "Felicity, elder sister of the house. Such a pleasure to make your acquaintances. Senescey? Introductions?"
Senescey blushed hotly under the attention. "T-That's Valey, and then Maple, and the filly is Starlight. I told you I met her before she made the news."
"Yo." Valey extended a hoof, eyeing Felicity appreciatively.
"Hmmhmm." Felicity bumped it generously. "Welcome to our home, then, darlings. It looks like someone knows how to walk in the right circles." She gave Senescey one last hug, then patted her and let her go. "Go on and fetch our other sister. Leave all the hospitalities to me, now!"
Badly embarrassed, Senescey ducked into the shadows, stealthily making her escape. Felicity watched her fondly until she was gone, then turned back to Starlight and her friends. "She really is a dear, isn't she? Couch or chairs, darlings?" She gestured with a wing to the furniture around the room, including a giant bean bag chair. "Please, make yourselves at home. Our house has only a few rules, and by being here you've already passed them all with flying colors! Do you like tea?"
"Rules?" Maple tilted her head. "Is there anything we should know?"
Felicity smiled at Valey, moving toward the entrance to the kitchen. "Please, darlings. This is Stormhoof. You must be acquainted with the pressures my kind face here. But if your friend group includes sarosians and non-sarosians alike, you're exactly the kind of person we appreciate here. We just don't want... you know..." Her eyes shadowed briefly. "This is a safe space, and we wouldn't allow it to become otherwise."
"Oh." Valey blinked, and her face fell. "Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Don't worry. It seems pretty safe to me, and we're actively looking to avoid trouble."
"I told you we'd get along." Felicity gave her a knowing wink, then disappeared into the kitchen.
For the minute she was gone, Starlight stayed standing, having sat all the way through her meal and not wanting to cramp after so much running around right before. The walls had been patterned with smooth brick, fully illuminated by dancing firelight. Felicity's hearth was a small affair, a single gemstone set inside creating warmth and illusory flames with its stored enchantment and bank of mana. Wasn't magical energy expensive in Stormhoof? Starlight gave it a second look, then frowned. Senescey's job as a waitress couldn't pay that well. She wondered what Felicity and the other sister did for a living.
"Here you are!" Felicity sang, bustling back out of the kitchen with a kettle held carefully in one wing and a box of teabags in the other. She passed the box to Valey and put the kettle on a table, leaving them to choose their flavor. "Are they still not back yet...?" She glanced toward a door to a nearby staircase.
"No, we're here!" Senescey slipped down the staircase, landing skillfully on her hooves and shaking her mane one last time. "We're here."
She was followed by a third sister, slightly small and very lithe with a dark blue mane that covered one eye. "Hi," she said, moving to the bean bag chair and taking it without ceremony. "Just so you know, I don't talk much. It isn't my thing."
Felicity pursed her lips at her. "And this grumpy dear who always stays up too late and never has energy for anything is Larceny. Please don't take her narcolepsy personally. Sometimes, I think that should be her name instead... Senescey and I will do just fabulous at carrying on the conversation ourselves, won't we, darling?"
Senescey grinned uncertainly, clearly feeling that Felicity could do that just as well all by herself.
"Well... that's snazzy." Valey blinked, settling onto the sofa on her side. "So, uh, we're hanging out? Sounds like you already know who we are, right?"
"Tell us about yourselves?" Maple asked as Felicity and Senescey nodded. "If it's not too much to ask."
"Oh, why, I'd love to," Felicity purred, taking up her recliner and looking like this was a common courtesy. "We're sisters, you see, and we have a long and storied tale..."