His voice rolled through his vocal cords in groggy waves, producing only a mess of incoherent words and sounds. One foreleg was draped over the edge of the couch, a notebook laying close to it, its paper edge just brushing the tip of his horseshoe, while his other hoof loosely clutched several papers. Thick textbooks laid out on the coffee table, all still open, bearing their information for the world to see. Of course, now the little black letters on their yellowed pages sat ignored, meaningless without a reader.
At least he was on the couch this time, Starlight thought, and not on the floor.
Sunburst’s chest rose and fell rhythmically. His lips lay parted slightly, if only to let out any words that still lay trapped in his throat, desperate to escape and unable to wait for him to wake up. They were supposed to be on paper, though. They were supposed to be part of his essay. Most of them, anyway. Some were unimportant to his work and were only coherent in his dreams.
He had been writing, with his mouth specifically. The feather quill dangled from his lips like a farmer chewing straw after a long day of work. There were ink blotches on his lips, staining them black and blue, that would have to wait until morning to be washed away. Sometimes, when he was really inspired, he would be writing two essays at once, sometimes three if he was particularly restless. One with his horn, the other with his mouth. He was thankful he was ambidextrous. His work would be hell if he wasn’t. Ideas come and go through his head like speeding trains, and he’s always running to catch them. It was how the world worked. Or perhaps, how his did.
The essay had been almost done, as it always was by the time he’d fall asleep. It took him too long to get it perfect far too often. His typewriter sat up in his room, waiting. He doesn’t hand anything he writes with his mouth if he could help it. His cursive is atrocious in his opinion. He hated that it leaned to the left, he wished it was more upright, centered, but he could only do that if forced himself, wasting precious time.
Starlight listened to the little snippets of his mind as they trickled out through his lips, if only momentarily. She supposed she should move him, put him to bed, but she didn’t want to wake him. After all, he might not fall asleep again for another two hours afterward. Then his alarm would go off at six and he’d only have gotten an hour and a half of sleep.
She should’ve gone to bed herself a while ago, she supposed. She had been working on her own reports as well, but she’d finished long ago or simply given up. She’d gotten used to staying up late, though. Her sleeping schedule was nonexistent, as was her best friend’s.
As the grandfather clock in the corner ticked the seconds away, Starlight wondered if she should attempt to move him. He slept like the dead and he was not sleeping on the floor, the couch was far better, even if it was the least comfortable one in the castle. At least Sunburst was laying down on something soft and warm. She reached over the top edge of the couch and pulled the papers gently from his hooves, plucking the quill from his lips with a whisper of her magic. His hooves twitched for a moment before they stilled.
Starlight walked around the couch and placed them on the coffee table. She felt slightly inadequate when she saw that he’d written six pages already when she’d only written one and a half. His writing much smaller and tighter than hers as well.
She wondered if she should get him a blanket. He’d done so for her, she remembered, several nights ago when she’d collapsed on the couch after a rather tiring day. It hadn’t been this couch, with its red leather and high, arching back and wooden armrests. Though it was beautiful with its Victorian essence, it wasn’t particularly comfortable, maybe that was why there were so many pillows on it, but she didn’t think they helped.
The other couch was in the living room, the one with the movie projector in it. It was her favorite even though Sunburst thought it was hideous. A simple brown recliner couch she bought when Twilight used to live here. There was nothing wrong with it, he simply found it unappealing. This was why it was in the living room, because he rarely went in there.
She moved softly out of the room and into the hall, deciding to return the favor after all. It had surprised her when he’d done so, too. She slept much less soundly than he did, a side effect of living on the run for so long. She’d stirred, she remembered, but had not gotten up. She hadn’t had the energy. He told her softly to go back to sleep and she did.
Her bare hooves were cold on the crystal floor in the hall. She trod as quietly as she could, it felt wrong to make any sound under the cover of the night, knowing exactly where she needed to go. The door to the closet clicked open and she winced at the noise. When she first moved here, she hadn’t even known where the bathroom was. It had taken her a long time to adjust to the grandeur. The places she used to live in were smaller, sometimes questionable, and there was no quiet to be found in those spaces. When she first moved here, Starlight had a hard time sleeping with the oppressive quiet ringing in her ears.
Starlight slid a blanket off the shelf and tossed it over her withers. She walked quietly back into the living room, glad for the warmth of the rug on her hooves, even if it was just a small rug. She remembered one time she’d invited Maud and Trixie over to spend the night, all three of them giddy at the thought of a sleepover, and Sunburst had surprised with the new rug. And it was new, not something he bought second hand, he got it just because he saw her eyeing it at the store the other day and figured out that she liked it.
She unfolded the blanket, still listening to his incessant mumbling. He said the oddest things in his sleep. She sometimes wondered what on earth he could be dreaming of, especially when he whispered, “…you can’t eat friendship…” practically through his nose. She just shook her head and spread the blanket with her magic. When she lay it over him, his eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t stir. She did, though, vaguely thought she heard him thank her.
Maybe it was just late.
She pressed her hoof over the lamp’s base and pressed the switch. It clicked and the warm light he’d read by was gone, replaced instead with the pale blue light of the moon. It turned his golden fur into silver and the blazes on his muzzle and hooves to porcelain.
She looked at him, in all of his peace, in such a rare state. Sunburst didn’t normally relax. He did not normally look so wonderfully calm. The easiness in the way he breathed and the way his legs were draped so naturally was great to her. She stared at his mouth as his lips moved just slightly with each muffled word. The only part of him that was not relaxed.
She brushed a strand of purple hair from her face as she bent down toward him over the wooden armrest. She looked at him, upside down in her eyes, for just a moment longer, before she silenced his rambling with a kiss. She held for several seconds before pulling away. His eyes fluttered again, this time opening fully. The moonlight glinted off them, blue like the sea on a starry night. He looked surprised.
“Just go back to sleep,” Starlight told him, voice gentle like a dream.
His eyes shut again without another word as he rolled over onto his stomach. He noticed the blanket and pulled it closer around himself. As she walked silently out of the room, she was sure that she heard him say thank you.