"Spike? Why is Starie not moving?"
"That's what I was about to ask you, Eric. Is she even breathing?"
"Well, she's still standing and her chest is contracting and expanding, so she's breathing. Something just made her freeze in place."
Hey, Eric "Buggie" Reed here, and Spike and I had returned to Princess Twilight Sparkle's castle; I had tea with Fluttershy, and Spike assisted Rarity with her dresses. But, when we walked in the castle’s dining hall, we found Starlight Glimmer standing motionless. Someday, I’ll ask Twilight to hang a banner of yours truly on a wall of the dining hall like she did for Starlight.
As for “Starie” herself, she stood frozen in place near the dining table. She was biting her lip, and the pupil in one of her eyes had shrunk to half its normal size. Her ears were drooped and her face screamed one of pure shock. Even when we poked her sides to snap her out of the state she’s in, Starlight stayed silent. Something big happened to her, and Spike and I needed to figure out what.
"So, you have any ideas on what happened?" Spike asked.
I shook my head. "Nope, and Starie’s never frozen like this before. Twilight has, like when she froze two weeks ago after losing her checklist of what’s needed to make two checklists for the five checklists of stuff she needed to have done by the end of the day.”
Yeah, if your eyes aren't spinning, try repeating that mouthful five times fast, I dare you. I don’t understand Twilight Sparkle sometimes, and I once asked Twi why the buck she needs that checklist for a checklist for checklists...or whatever. But her “answer” for the “checklist-ception” only resulted in me wishing I kept my big mouth shut. Just like the first time I questioned Pinkie Pie.
Spike responded, “Oh, don’t remind me of that mess, Eric! To snap Twilight out of it, you, me, and the gang had to search half of Ponyville to find it.”
“Sorry. But maybe Starie lost something?”
“She might have, but what could she lose to cause this to happen?”
I put a hand on my chin to help think of what's capable of affecting Starlight so bad that she’d enter such a frozen state. “Well, she takes losing friends hard, but she’s not crying and her eyes aren’t watery. Maybe she lost something else?”
Spike rested a hand on his chin and matched how I did it, and we both pondered what happened. Two seconds later, we both pointed a finger at each other and exclaimed, “Kites!”
With that, Spike and I sped to Starlight’s bedroom. We counted the kites by her bed, dresser, and walls, but no kite was missing, so we ruled out that she lost one. We left Starlight’s room and walked back to the dining hall and hoped Starlight “unfroze” on her own.
Nope, she remained a Unicorn statue.
“Okay, it’s not about kites, so what else could it be?” I asked.
“Uh...maybe one of her spells backfired?”
A spell going wrong as the reason was definitely a possibility! Yet, as I looked at Starlight more closely, doubts filled my head. “Hmm...I don’t know, Spike. Even if she’s frozen because of an effect from her own spell, her horn would be glowing. Wait, let me check something.” I walked right in front of Starlight and placed a hand on her horn to check for warmth.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking Starie’s horn for heat. Once, when we were solving jigsaw puzzles, she told me her horn heats up and stays warm for a while when she performs powerful spells, or spells in rapid succession.”
“That so? She never told me that.”
“Probably because you never asked her or Twilight about stuff like that.” No matter how much I focused for it, I couldn’t detect any kind of unusual warmth from Starlight’s horn, so I removed my hand from it. “But her horn’s temperature feels normal, so this isn’t because of one of her spells.”
“Great. So, what else could freeze Starlight like this?"
With a hand on my chin again, I said, “Uh...wait, hold on.”
Spike asked, “Hold what?”
“Isn't this one of the two days of the month that you and I mop and sweep the castle?"
"Now that you mention it, Eric, it is, and parts of the castle are dirty. Still, I think it’s a stretch that the two of us not cleaning the castle could make Starlight react like this."
To be honest, I thought so too, but Spike and I had no other leads. I explained, “Maybe, but don’t forget how Starie’s even more prone to overreacting than Twilight. Maybe whatever OCD Starie’s gained from Twi didn't make her want to clean the castle herself, like it would do to the Princess of Perfection.”
“And it instead froze her?” Spike questioned. “I guess that makes sense, and we have nothing else to go on.”
“But man, I hoped we could have gotten out of our turn of cleaning the castle, because I really don't feel like doing it this time. Well…*sigh*...I’ll grab the mops and brooms, and you grab the buckets of water."
For the next four hours, Spike and I mopped and swept the floors of the castle. First, we did the dining hall, then moved to the castle’s hallways, library, kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom, etc. Perhaps because they were born with magic, but Twilight and Starlight don’t know how good they have it. When it's their turn to do it, they're able to mop and sweep the castle a lot faster than Spike or me, thanks to their magic.
Then again, the same could be said for Spike and me having it good: we live in a castle!
After we finally finished cleaning, we headed back to the dining room to check on Starlight. As we were nearing the dining hall I said, "Okay, it wasn't fun, but the floors of the castle's clean.”
“And Starlight should’ve heard us cleaning the rest of the castle, so she should be back to normal."
However, once we spotted Starlight, she was still frozen in place!
"Oh, come on!" Spike yelled and stomped his right foot.
I facepalmed. "Okay, this is getting old. We cleaned the whole castle, so what more does she want?!"
“I don’t know, Eric! Maybe she’s messing with us or something.”
Stomping in front of Starlight I ordered, "Okay, Starlight, if this is a joke, it’s not funny. So cut it out and ‘unfreeze’ already!"
Of course, Starlight.exe refused to work and stayed motionless and quiet. The only reasons I didn't smack her to try to break her out of it was because of our bond and she's a mare. And because Starlight Glimmer could literally tear me apart with her magic if she wanted to, though she once promised to never hurt me.
I groaned and admitted, "I’m running out of ideas, Spike. I’m starting to get worried, and I struggle with paranoia as it is."
"Don’t worry, Eric, and something tells me this isn’t serious. But maybe she'll snap out of it if we clean the walls and windows?"
"Well, we have nothing to lose. But if this fails, for my paranoia’s sake, we’ll track down Twilight for help."
“And if we can’t find her, we’ll look for Trixie to see if she could do something,” Spike added.
Spike and I grabbed a couple of rags and some fresh buckets of water and proceeded to clean the castle's walls and windows, starting with the dining hall. Hopefully, this would finally unfreeze Starlight, and if not, we’d run to Twilight or Trixie.
While Eric Reed and Spike cleaned the hallways of Twilight's castle, Rarity trotted into the dining hall and saw the still-unmoving Starlight Glimmer.
“Starlight? What’s wrong?"
As Rarity started to walk to her friend, a feather that was floating in the air landed on Starlight’s back. Starlight relaxed her facial expression, sighed, but remained where she was.
Rarity gasped and asked, “Wait, were you ‘frozen’ in place or something, and did that feather really break you out of whatever happened to you?”
With a smirk, Starlight turned her head to Rarity and explained, "Of course not, Rarity. I was never ‘frozen’ in the first place.”
“Then, what are you doing?"
"About to win a bet.”
“Huh?”
“I bet both Twilight and Trixie fifty bits that I could get Eric and Spike to clean the castle without asking them or using spells. And right now they're cleaning the castle to 'unfreeze' me."
"But how long were you pretending to be frozen in place?"
“The last four hours and when they were looking at me, but it was so hard to not move or laugh. Glad I didn’t use any spells in a while, or they would have thought I froze because of a spell backfiring.”
Rarity giggled and admitted, “Wow, Starlight. I forgot how sneaky you can be.”
Starlight chuckled in return. "Yep, and those two have no clue I'm faking it! I can't wait to buy that kite I wanted and couldn’t make myself, and needed another seventy bits for it."