//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: Life after Death 
// by Short-tale 
//------------------------------//

The sunlight from dawn caused my eyes to open. They slowly slid into focus and I realized that Starlight was no longer next to me—she was on top of me. She nuzzled into my chest as a strange sense of relief washed over me. I must have released my own pent-up steam.

“Mmm? Maud?” Starlight woke instantly as I shifted. “Morning, you beautiful pony.”

She kissed me and I returned it. It was so surreal. Starlight had been one of my closest friends for so long but I had never seen her like this. I never felt her like that. But, in that moment, life made more sense than it had in a long time. 

“I had an idea,” she said as she stretched while still remaining on my chest. “Why don’t we take a trip? Get out of the castle, go to the ocean. Celebrate our togetherness.” She giggled like a foal and slid out of bed. “Wow, I never thought I would say that to you.”

I felt the same elation, but my chuckles tended to unnerve ponies. But I found my smile as I followed her. 

The two of us shared a nice breakfast with smiles and very suggestive eyes. Starlight really didn’t know this side of me. Once I figured out my bearings, I knew she wouldn’t last long. But that would be discovered in time. 

“Well, this time I will make you some tea.” Starlight swayed her hips, which seemed to suggest that it would be more than tea. 

It was.


***

The train ride was a welcome change. We cuddled the entire way. I felt so warm. 

Mud Briar was never this affectionate in public. He wasn’t really that affectionate at all. I thought it was nice to know that another pony could care as much as I did without having to show it through touch all the time. 

This was different, though. Starlight liked to be held. She liked to nuzzle in. It was exactly what I had been missing: those lips, that touch, that warmth. It filled my body with more than just mere lust. It was soul-fulfilling. Like our damaged souls each filled the empty parts of the other.

“So, Maud... if you wanted to be with me, why did you stop me the other night?” 

It was a simple question, but one that had plagued me.

“I thought it might be too soon.”

“For me?”

“For both of us.”

“I see.” She leaned her head into the nape of my neck. “What made you change your mind? Was it my dress?”

“Pinkie.”

“Your… sister… changed your mind about us?”

“She told me that the heart doesn’t listen to time. It just wants when it’s ready to want.” 

“So it’s like when you’re hungry.” Her breath tickled my ear. She caught on very quickly to how intense I am with physical affection. She was teasing me right now—she would understand much more when we got home. “You don’t listen to your watch, just your body.” 

“Yes.”

“I like it when you listen to your body.” I could hear the grin on her face without looking. 

“So do I.”

It was at that moment the train stopped. Our desires were put on the backburner. It was better that way. Ponies didn’t like seeing other couples on trains.

The sea roared in our ears as the green-grey water curled and slammed into the shore. I stopped to admire the deposits of quartz tumbled by the sea, while Starlight made right for the waves. 

“C’mon, Maud! The water looks perfect.” The unicorn dived in like a madmare, then popped out of the brine sputtering and coughing. “So cold!”

I casually walked in. Though she was right, I found the cold to be calming. My muscles relaxed with a good cold soak. Anything swollen shrank in the frigid water. Muscle groups I wasn’t used to using thanked me as I gracefully plunged into the waves. Thankfully, my swimming cap kept the salt out of my mane.

“Why do you look like you’re enjoying yourself more?” cried the shaking mare. “This water is like ice.”

“It’s autumn. Temperatures drop, especially around bodies of water. You lose your heat twenty-five times faster when you are wet.” I was also cold, but my body had acclimated to much colder temperatures in my rock hunting travels. 

“How do you stay so warm?”

“You have to keep moving.” I demonstrated this by practicing my back stroke. 

“What about borrowing another pony’s body heat?” Starlight moved further into the water. She stood in the large rolling waves and waded in my direction. “That helps right?”

“Sharing another’s heat raises the core temperatures of both ponies and can stave off hypothermia.” I had been brushing up on my medical knowledge since Mud Briar’s aneurysm. It made me feel more informed and prepared. 

“I want to test that theory.” She caught me as I swam past and wrapped her hooves around me. I could feel the temperature between us rise dramatically. She kissed me again, and I helped increase her circulation as well.

“Starlight?” It was a quiet call from the shore. My heart froze. It wasn’t because of the cold water. 

Starlight turned from our embrace. We both saw the telltale hat and cape of her ex-wife. The little unicorn peered at us from the shore.

“And Maud?!” 

“Trixie? What are you doing here?” Starlight’s voice was tight with equal parts anger and sadness. 
I just felt sick. 

“So, Trixie was right! You two were trying to get together!” The silhouette slowly came into focus as we broke through the wave caps. 

“No! No! You left!” Starlight cried. “Packed up all your things and left me! I tried talking and suggesting all sorts of things, but you just gave up. Again.”

“Trixie couldn’t take the glances you gave each other,” the magician countered as she spun on Starlight. “Trixie saw them. You would glance at her. She would glance at you. Trixie wanted to be glanced at like that. She didn’t like your wandering eyes.”

“Trixie, it wasn’t like that. This isn’t the first time you got jealous. First it was Sunburst and the way he stroked his beard. Then it was Octavia; I still don’t get that one. Then it was Derpy because of all the packages she’d deliver.”

“You smiled every time she came around,” Trixie whined. 

“Because I ordered a nice set of tea pots and they were coming one at a time. It was a collection.”

“Oh.”

“But you never give me a chance to explain.”

“Trixie can work on that,” the unicorn said. 

I felt weak. It always happened like this: Trixie would disappear, then she would promise to do one small change and they would try again. The change would last for maybe a month, and then the honeymoon was over again. 

“No,” I said flatly.

“What?!” Trixie looked at me with a suspicious eye.

“Not this time.”

“Umm, Starlight and I are talking, Maud. Don’t interrupt two wives talking things out.”

I looked at Starlight and wondered if I was about to be dumped. It had only been a day, and they’d had years together. I could feel a fire inside me begin to grow. 

“No! Maud has every right to be here!” Starlight shouted at her.  “She and I are together. You left! She stayed! And, well, I like her.”

“So you’re just going to throw away years of marriage for a two month fight?!” Trixie cried. Tears were forming in her eyes. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Trixie,” I began in my normal tone. “You are a good friend. You both are. You are great friends to each other. But you are an awful couple.” They both stared at me like I had smacked them. I quickly tried to follow up with facts.

“You fight constantly. Trixie, you get jealous of everypony. Starlight, you can’t stand Trixie’s constant need for attention.”

“Hey! Trixie doesn’t need constant attention.” Trixie’s shrill voice cut through my mind and distracted me for a second. I stared at her. “Not all the time…”she grumbled.

I continued, hoping I didn't sound like a jealous lover, but a concerned friend. “You have broken up more times than I can count. Including three weeks before your wedding. I say this as your friend: This relationship is hurting you both.”

“You… you… you have no idea what you’re talking about!” Trixie’s face was inches from mine. Her eye was twitching and that hateful look glinted in her eye. “You’re wrong, we made a great couple. You just want Starlight for yourself.”

“She’s not that wrong Trix,” Starlight sighed. “We have broken up a lot. And this time just felt so… final. I did miss you. But at the same time, I was kind of glad you were gone. You hurt me. A lot. I lost myself trying to bend over backwards for you. And now I want to see what happens with this relationship.”

“Relationship?! With her?! Wait, what have you two been doing while I was gone?!” 

“It’s none of your business, Trix,” Starlight said flatly. “Ex-wives don’t have a say in it. But we’re through, Trix. For good this time.”

Trixie’s eyes filled with tears and fear. It was haunting. The raw pain was too much to bear. I wanted to hug her, tell her how sorry I was. But I had meant what I said: They were better off as friends than as a couple.

After a few minutes of shock she whirled on me. Her face was contorted in agony and anger. “I hope you’re happy now, Maud! You took my wife and home from me! So congratulations, you won. I bet Mud Briar would be real proud!”

It hit like a boulder of granite. Mud Briar’s spirit had just watched me split up my best friends. He saw it all: the yearning, the sex. The dirty lust I have in me. 

It was too much. It hurt too deep. I was at a loss for words—no, there were no words for this. 

I ran. I ran from the pain I had caused. The grief I had made. I had taken my misery and loneliness and placed it on somepony else. I’d just ripped apart a relationship because I lost my own. 

How could I ever look at either of them again? I didn’t deserve Starlight. Neither did Trixie, but she didn’t deserve to be hurt like this. Because of me. 

I barely heard Starlight shouting my name. I could hear some sort of argument behind me but then I could only hear the smashing of waves. The waves and gulls. The sand kicked up from my hooves as the wind blew salt into my face. 

There had to be someplace to hide. Someplace where I couldn’t hurt anypony. 

The white sand beach gave way to a cave made of basalt. It was strong; it was safe. There in my tomb of solitude I could finally stop. My hooves scraped across the basalt floor. They echoed in the shallow cave I found. Tidal pools lined the entranceway and a collection of small crabs scurried away in surprise. 

I collapsed and wept. 

I had thought the pain was healing. I thought it would get better. I thought that moving on would point me in the right direction, and help me see what hope remained. But perhaps there was no longer a place for me here. 

If I had left this world with Mud Briar, would my friends still be together? Would Starlight have finally freed herself on her own? Maybe she would have ended up with Night Flyer. 

I placed my head on the cold, moist floor of the cavern. My legs burned. My chest heaved. My heart felt like it had been broken in two again. 

One of the tiny crabs made a display of dominance towards my snout. I didn’t react. After a while, it gave up and declared victory to its peers. The others cautiously returned after the brave hero vanquished the unmoving monster—only to scatter again when another set of hoofsteps rang out through the cavern.

A unicorn’s silhouette was backlit by the ocean and waves beyond. I knew who it was. I didn’t react. 

“Look, Maud, I’m… I’m sorry,” sighed Trixie. “I didn’t mean to bring Mud Briar into this. I was mad. I’m still mad. I love Starlight, and I thought she would always be there to forgive me if I messed up. But this time, I just thought some time apart would be best. I didn’t think she would find anypony else. And I really didn't think it would be you. But she is a great pony. I guess I forgot that.”

Trixie sat down stiffly next to me. She took a deep, steadying breath. “But if anypony deserves her, it’s you. You’ve always been there for her, and I’m the one that messed up. Just… take care of her, okay?”

I could hear her begin to break down. It was an awful sound. Trixie sniffed and shook. I knew her pain. She had just lost one of the most precious things to her. And there was no dialing back time. If I gave up and tried to get them back together, Starlight would just suffer more pain when they inevitably fell apart again.

“Trixie,” I said. My voice was hoarse. I pressed on anyway. “I’m sorry.”

“Just… just make her happy. I’ll see if there is a better pony for me. You know… when I watched you and Mud Briar, I could tell how happy you were together. I wanted that. I wanted that with Starlight. But it felt like the more I tried to find that, the more we fought. The more we fought, the more scared I got. I got desperate to put that feeling into my relationship, but it didn’t work. Maybe you can help her feel that. Please help her feel that.”

All I could do was nod. This was a Trixie I had never seen. She knew what happened, and knew it was too late to fix it. She just didn’t want it to end. I couldn’t blame her. 

“Maud, don’t worry about me. I know what I’m looking for is out there. I will find it someday. But you and her have a chance at it right now. Don’t let me keep her from it anymore.”

Trixie stood up and stared back. Her eyes were still wet with tears and the wind from the surf blew her cape back. It took me a moment to realize she was using the wind to deliberately pose. I must have been really upset; normally I notice that right away. 

“The road Trixie has to travel is long,” she continued letting the wind take her mane. “It’s dangerous, and full of… um… danger. But she will face it all. All in the name of love. She will overcome it. She is the Great and Powerful Trixie, after all. Right Maud?”

“Yes.”

She looked back at me and beamed, then winked. She tried to stride out of the cave valiantly, but lost her footing on the uneven crags. She rolled out of the cave and plopped into the soft sand. “Trixie is okay.”

I wished that made me feel better, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of getting in their way. Nor the fear that Mud Briar was disappointed with me. How could I have thought I could ever feel happy without him? 

“Maud?” Starlight’s voice called in from outside. “Maud, please come out. The tide is coming in, and that cave is going to fill with water.”

I slowly got up and made my way towards the exit. I saw the first laps of the water as it flowed into the cave mouth. I had to wade my way out. 

That is, until the next wave forcefully threw me back inside. I tried to swim against it but another push knocked me into the hard wall. I could feel my mind starting to slip. It took all my concentration to hold the air in my lungs. 

“Maud!”

I tried to shout. Tried to tell her I was in trouble. But my mouth filled with brackish sea water. Salt filled my nose. I couldn’t shout. I couldn’t breathe . The water clogged my ears and I couldn’t hear. It was just white wash and bubbles. The cave wouldn’t let me go. Mud Briar wanted me to stay with him. 

I couldn’t swim anymore. I couldn’t breathe. I was done. I wouldn’t leave the cave after all. At least with Trixie there, Starlight still had somepony. I was just glad that I could make her happy, however briefly. Soon I would be back with Mud Briar.