//------------------------------//
// Chapter Twenty 
// Story: Falling For Our Stars 
// by bobdat 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Twenty

“Come onnnnn Cat, if you don’t get up then we’ll be late and we’ll get the worst seats,” Fly complained, throwing pillows at me to try and get me out of bed. “It’s only fifteen minutes until we’re supposed to be ready.”
It was still dark, so I turned over and used one of the pillows to cover my ears. “I’ll just use the bathroom when everypony else has.”
“But Miri has to use it yet!”
I threw the pillow off and shot Miri a dark look. Her eyes met mine, and I have never leapt out of bed faster. She was quicker off the mark because she was already on her feet, but I was nearer to the bathroom door. Unfortunately for me, my mad dash was in vain because she slipped past and slammed the door in my face before I could react and grab her.

“Get out of there Miri! You’re going to take ages!” I raged, pounding on the door with my forehooves. 
“I was here first,” she answered, muffled by the door and my hooves. 
With a gasp of exasperation, I hit the door extra hard and then walked off, muttering rude names for Miri under my breath and looking for my manebrush. 
“Do you need to pack anything else?” Fly asked, heaving her suitcase over to the door in readiness. 
“Just my manebrush and stuff from the bathroom,” I replied, glaring at the door. 
“Maybe you can brush your teeth if you dash back up at the end of breakfast?” Rarity suggested. “You can pack the essentials when we carry our suitcases down to the carriages.”

If Miri had been a bit more considerate, I wouldn’t have had to worry, but Rarity’s suggestion was the only option. Once my mane was brushed back into line (it still hung over my face limply and I channeled some of my anger at Miri towards it), I accompanied Fly down to breakfast, levitating my suitcase as we went. Fly had to drag hers, and I felt a bit sorry for her. Rarity and Miri were joining us later.
“Are you excited?” Fly asked me between breaths.
“Yeah. I think I’ll be more excited once I’ve had a nap on the way there,” I replied, setting my suitcase down amongst the large pile by the main doors to the school.

I did manage to dash back to the room and clean my teeth after a quick breakfast, which was nice, and I made sure to give Miri a few scowls before softening up. She was annoying but she was also fun, and she would liven up the trip to Prance quite a bit.
“Okay everypony, into the carriages,” the head mare said, seeming a bit strained. “We’re behind schedule.”
It was finally getting towards dawn outside. We had to have an extra-early start to make the right trains, which was why I wanted to get back to sleep. I hoped that the other ponies wouldn’t be too noisy while I was napping. It was an hour’s carriage ride to the railway station we needed to go to, and I managed to sleep the entire way, mainly helped by the fact that Rarity fell asleep almost as she sat down. Without her gossip partner, Miri was quiet for a change, which gave me the peace and quiet I needed.

We were woken for the transfer to the train, and I felt much more refreshed. I didn’t even mind levitating my suitcase across to the train, because it was kinda fun watching the earth ponies and pegasi struggling with theirs. Rarity and I hurried onto the train and bagged four seats with a table between them, stowing our luggage in the overhead racks and smiling smugly at everypony else who went past, coveting the table.
“Good job,” Miri said excitedly when she saw the seats we’d secured. “I was afraid you’d get beaten to it.”
“I must say, darling, that after going back and forth between here and Equestria so often, I am something of an expert on travelling,” Rarity replied, opening a magazine. “How long is the train ride?”

Fly consulted a guidebook she’d bought. “About four hours from here. We have to go through the tunnel and stop at the borders, so that’ll take a little while.”
“I hope we have plenty of free time in Mareis,” Rarity added, adjusting her mane. “There are so many things I want to see… go for a nice walk along the river, maybe stop at a cafe for coffee…”
“Sounds nice,” I replied, imagining it. “I can’t wait to get there.”
“Well, we’re moving,” Fly replied, looking out of the window. She had a map in front of her which showed where we were going. I thought it was a bit pointless, since the train could only really go in one direction, but she seemed to like looking at it when she wasn’t reading her book.

Rarity was absorbed in her magazine, and Fly in her book, so I ended up playing cards with Miri. She was too good at it, and managed to beat me at nearly everything. I suspected it might have something to do with the professional way she managed to deal the cards, quickly and without any mistakes, but even when I clumsily dealt them, Miri just kept winning. Annoyed, I gave up and read a magazine for a bit, watching Miri play herself at patience and win more often than she lost. She was really infuriating when she wanted to be.
“I bet you’re wondering how I do it?” she eventually said after I’d watched her for about ten minutes. “It’s simple.”
“Cheat?” I asked, and Fly giggled a little.
“No, no cheating. Here, look.”

For five minutes she showed me the trick. It had something to do with remembering which cards hadn’t come up yet, but I found it hard to do. Rarity had a go for a bit but couldn’t get her head around it either. We both gave up and nudged Fly until she put her book down and played cards with us for a bit, beating Miri over and over again. Rarity and I just played off for third place, which was surprisingly an even contest. Fly didn’t betray any emotion, but Miri didn’t really like coming second all of the time.
“You should let her win for once,” I told Fly when Miri had gone to the toilet. 
“I’ve been trying to let her win, but she keeps throwing it away at the last minute,” Fly said, unable to keep a hint of laughter out of her voice. 

Following Miri’s comeuppance, the train arrived at the tunnel. We all had to be checked off the school’s list of ponies by the border inspectors, who seemed pretty unfriendly. It took a while, but eventually the train got moving again and we disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, the watery sunlight of our surroundings being replaced by artificial orange light.
“Well, it’s still light enough to read,” Fly informed us before going back to her book.
“I wonder what we’ll be able to do on Hearts & Hooves Day,” Rarity asked. “Do you think they’ll let us have it off?”
“I’m hoping that a dashing colt comes to sweep me off my feet,” Miri replied, showing that some of her old self was still left. “We’ll spend the day together in a whirlwind romance and then write passionate letters to each other when we’re apart.”

“I can’t see that happening,” I replied, the voice of reason. “Even if you manage to find a colt, you won’t be able to speak to each other.”
“Ah, but we don’t need to speak.” Miri’s eyes had misted over. “Whenever we’re together we’ll just be able to tell what the other is thinking.”
Rarity and I had to suppress a laugh, but mine escaped in an undignified snort and Miri gave me a look.
“It is a bit far-fetched, Miri,” I told her. “Maybe you shouldn’t get your hopes up and should just aim to enjoy the day?”
“Fine. Anyway, I wouldn’t have time to get him a card, so it would be a wasted day,” Miri said, shrugging.

“What are you planning to do about your card for your coltfriend, Fly?” I asked, poking her in the shoulder to get her to stop reading. She put a bookmark in her book and sighed, annoyed to be continually disturbed.
“He’s already sent me a card. It’s in my suitcase, and I’ll open it on the day. I sent his a week ago so he can do the same,” she explained, picking up her book again. 
Miri sighed. “I wish I had a colt who would do such romantic things with me. But all of the colts at home seem to be the opposite of romantic.”
“I think your standards are too high,” I said, hoping that Rarity would agree with me, but the other unicorn was still thinking happily about Fly’s story.
“A card on Hearts & Hooves day is just so fabulous… I simply love it,” she said, throwing her hoof forwards so she could lean on it. “One day a prince will sweep me off my feet and shower me with cards.”

Clearly both Miri and Rarity were lost causes. I wanted to talk to Fly, but the look on her face suggested that the next pony to poke her shoulder was going to get a punch in the face, so I didn’t say anything and I just leafed through my magazine, the models all looking orange in the strange light. Miri went back to playing patience and Rarity continued with her magazine. The unicorn caught my eye when she adjusted her mane, and when I looked up she was looking at me out of the corner of her eye. She smiled and I smiled back, but when the moment came for me to go back to my magazine, I missed it, kept staring, and ended up blushing and staring intently at an advert for perfume.

The train burst back into the light as we left the tunnel, and it stopped again for another round of identification. 
“Only an hour to Mareis from here,” Fly informed us, tapping her guidebook. “I’ve already found a few fun activities for us to do in the city that shouldn’t be too far to go. They have an underground train network that we’ll take.”
“That’s if the teachers let us have any time off,” Rarity added. “We might be stuck doing whatever they want us to do all the time.”
I shrugged. “They must let us have some time to go and buy souvenirs.”
“Unless they supervise us while we do that, too.”

I was starting to get quite hungry by the time we alighted the train to Mareis, carrying our suitcases and grumbling about how far we had to go to get to the hotel.
“Do you think I can sneak off and get a sandwich?” I asked Fly as we walked down the street, following a teacher who didn’t really seem to know where she was going.
“Maybe if you’re quick,” Fly replied cautiously, but that was all I needed, so I dropped my suitcase on her back and dashed into a nearby bakery, hoping that nopony had seen me. There was a queue, so I selected a sandwich and waited nervously, watching the line of ponies file past the windows with Fly looking exasperated. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to reach the front of the queue and put my sandwich on the counter.

Then I realised I had forgotten everything I could remember about the language. Stricken, I just stared at the shop assistant, who looked a bit bewildered, and then passed over some Prance bits. With utmost care, he passed most of them back, took two and put them in the till. Then I dashed for the exit, moving as quickly as I could without seeming like a shoplifter. It seemed like everypony in the shop was staring.
“What happened?” Fly asked, peering through the window at everypony. 
“I forgot how to speak,” I giggled, levitating my suitcase and seeing the funny side. “Ended up giving him about five times the value of the sandwich.”
“We’d better hurry,” Fly said between laughs. “They’re miles ahead now.”

We must have missed a turn that they made, because before long we were completely lost. It should have been difficult to lose a giant convoy of ponies all heading in the same direction, but we’d managed it.
“Where do you think they’ve gone?” I asked Fly pointlessly as she consulted a street map. “I’m sure they can’t be far.”
“I’ve no idea, Cat. They must have made a turning way back and we didn’t realise.”
“If I hold the suitcases, can you fly up and look for them?” I asked, looking up at the occasional pegasus flitting past.
“I’ll try, but these buildings are too tall to make it easy,” she said, leaving her suitcase in my care and taking off, disappearing behind the nearest building and leaving me to my thoughts.

To pass the time, I stared at the big map we’d stopped next to. It was very confusing, with lots of winding streets, and since I didn’t know where anything was except me, I couldn’t work out what I was looking for. So instead, I just sat on Fly’s suitcase and tried not to catch the eye of the passersby who probably thought I was waiting for a carriage. Hopefully Fly would find the others and return soon. If not, I’d have to make my way back to the railway station and wait for someone to notice I was missing and send somepony back. I ate my sandwich in the meantime.
“Cat?” Fly’s voice said as she landed, and I turned around. “I’ve spotted them and let one of the teachers know we’re behind.”
“Did you tell them why?” I asked nervously. I didn’t want to get into trouble on the first day of the trip.
“I just said we’d fallen behind and taken a wrong turn.”

We set off to find the others, and I was relieved that Fly had said nothing. The teacher who had to wait for us wasn’t very happy, and we passed the rest of the walk in silence, taking in the surroundings. By arriving late at the hotel, I suspected that we’d end up with the worst room in the whole place, probably one adjacent to the teachers’ room.
“Try not to wander off again,” the teacher said sternly when we arrived. “Always stay with someone responsible.”
I had got rid of the evidence of my sandwich so I didn’t really take much from the rebuke. “Come on Fly, let’s find a room.”

Miri was waiting for us at the foot of the stairs. “Hi, took you a while!”
“We got lost,” I explained. “I stopped for a sandwich and then we lost everypony.”
“A sandwich? You could have told me, I’m starving!” Miri said, a pained expression on her face. “Anyway, it’s four to a room so we’ve saved you two a space.”
“Did you get a good room?” I asked as we ascended the stairs, me levitating my case while Fly struggled behind us.
“Yeah, right on the top floor. It’s got a great view and plenty of space, plus it’s the only one with a washbasin,” Miri said. “You know there’s a lift if you wanted to bring your case up?”
Fly just scowled at her.

The room was as advertised. There were only two single beds, but two camp beds had been set up on the floor between them. I noticed that Rarity and Miri had secured the good beds, but then they did deserve it for arriving first. I dropped my case onto the camp bed nearest Rarity’s; I didn’t think I would manage sleeping too near Miri.
“Where have you been?” Rarity asked, putting down her magazine. “I sent Miri to look for you ages ago.”
“We got lost after Cat stopped for a sandwich,” Fly explained.
“Thought we would never find you,” I laughed, unpacking as best I could in the limited space.
Rarity smiled. “You ponies simply must take a look at the view. It’s magnificent!”

She was right. The top floor was high enough to see over most of the other buildings in the neighbourhood, so we had an unobstructed view looking down as far as the river and the bridges spanning it. They disappeared as the river turned, but we could see the Hoofful Tower from far-off, dominating the skyline and pointing straight up into the slate-grey sky, which seemed to be threatening rain at some point.
“This is really fantastic,” Fly said, mainly to herself.
“Better than the other side of the building. They just have a brick wall,” Miri added, lying on her bed with her hooves clasped over her tummy. “Can we please go and find something to eat?”

I didn’t fancy another trip to a bakery without permission, but Miri and Rarity disappeared to find a bakery that Miri claimed was just round the corner. They had to sneak out, and Fly and I waved at them from our top floor perch as they dashed along the street, hoping that none of the teachers had noticed them.
“I bet you that we’ll have dinner in a few minutes once everyone is settled,” Fly said with a smile as she continued unpacking. I just admired the view and chuckled a little when the first spots of rain came down. 
“I hope they don’t get too wet. I can’t find any towels,” Fly added. 

We were in Mareis for two full days to come, plus whatever remained of today, then we’d be getting another early train home. Hearts & Hooves day was the day after tomorrow, and while I surveyed the city from above, I wondered what we would do for the day. Probably something boring that the teachers had planned, like a museum with nothing that I could understand in it. Well, hopefully if I got to go round with Miri we could just mess around instead of listening, since I expected Rarity to behave herself as usual and Fly would probably be really interested in all the old historical boring stuff. Seemed a shame to waste such a fun day which was usually a riot back at Buckingham.

Miri and Rarity managed to slip through the teachers’ net on the way back and were back with us unscathed, if a little damp.
“There are towels in the bathroom down the corridor,” Rarity informed us when they came back, towels wrapped around their manes. “Not that it does me any good, I will have to totally restyle my mane because it’s gone all frizzy.”
“You’ll probably have time this evening,” I reassured her. 
“I’m going to go downstairs and see if I can find out what the plans are for this afternoon,” Fly told us, getting up from her bed and heading for the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

I tested out my bed, wondering if it was going to be comfortable. It was hard to judge with so many of my clothes and my case covering half of it, but it seemed acceptable. Worst came to the worst, I’d just sleep on the blanket.
“Wonder where that colt I’m going to meet is?” Miri said, gazing out of the window. She looked like a scene out of a cheesy romance novel, with the skyline in front of her and her wistful gaze.
“No idea. Probably back at Buckingham, looking for you,” I replied, earning a pillow thrown at me. 
“I think the idea of a romance in Mareis is just divine,” Rarity said, joining Miri by the window. “Just imagine, we might have met somepony while we were at that bakery.”
“Because buying a sandwich to silence your tummy rumbles is just so romantic,” I giggled, this time getting a smile from Rarity. 

It turned out that once we’d all been to buy lunch from the bakery around the corner, we were going to spend the afternoon at - you guessed it - a museum. Apparently it specialised in mechanical items, which sounded like a total snoozefest to me.
“I can’t go, they might recognise me,” Miri said as we left for the bakery. “Bring me back something.”
I decided to get her a sample of the local cuisine, something that looked strangely green and slimy, and put it in a sandwich for when we got back. It would serve her right for sneaking off, although I had done the same earlier. But it was a different bakery and that’s what was important.
Miri didn’t enjoy the sandwich very much, but Fly ate all of it.

The afternoon museum trip started once the sky had cleared a bit, since nopony knew what to do with a wet umbrella in a museum. 
“Ugh, this is just so not what I had imagined what we’d be doing in Mareis,” Rarity complained to me as we stood around looking at old machines. “Do you think they have any old sewing machines?”
“I suppose,” I said, my muzzle in the official leaflet. “There’s a collection of Mare’s Machines on the floor above. They’ll probably be there.”
We headed for it, abandoning Miri and Fly who were reading everything in sight, Fly for enjoyment and Miri just because she wanted to test herself. 

There were some old sewing machines which interested Rarity for all of two minutes, and then we just sat on a nearby bench and wondered when our torture would be over.
“Excuse me, how long do we have here?” Rarity asked a teacher, wording it tactfully.
“About another two hours,” the teacher said, checking an old clock on the wall before walking off, attracted by the sound of giggling.
“Two hours?!?” I said, then sighed. “There’s nothing to look at.”
“There’s a display of tractor engines somewhere,” Rarity added, pointing to the map. “Magically driven.”
“Not by my magic,” I said unhappily. “I wish there was something else to do.”

We managed to waste fifteen minutes in the gift shop, translating the little cards that said what everything was, and we noticed quite a few other ponies from school hanging around, more in hope than expectation.
“Want to buy anything?” I asked, waving some oven mitts with a plough on them.
“No,” Rarity replied, giggling. “I think I’ll save my bits.”
There was really nothing to do, and I couldn’t face going back into the museum with all of its boring little card with information on. “Rarity?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you think we should just sneak off?”

“We’ve got two hours to kill and as long as we’re back in an hour and a half, we’ll probably never be missed.”
“Anything is better than here,” Rarity told me, and with a few furtive glances at the door to make sure no teachers were hanging around, we made our escape through the exit door, bursting into pouring rain on the street.
“Oh, horseapples,” Rarity said, and I giggled at her language. She gave me a swat and we trotted under a canopy for shelter.
“Where to? We’ve got ninety minutes and the whole of Mareis to explore!” I said, sounding more enthusiastic than I really was as I stared at the pouring rain.

“Come on. Let’s go down to the river,” Rarity said, taking hold of me by the hoof. “We probably won’t get another chance to walk there if the teachers keep making us do this. There are hundreds of art galleries in Mareis.”
I just nodded, not trusting my voice to work with Rarity clasping my hoof between hers. She smiled and I blushed a little, but my damp mane did a good job of hiding it.
“Do you know which way it is to the river?” she asked. 
“Not really. I suppose it’s downhill.” Both directions were perfectly flat. “Maybe we should ask somepony.”
“Do you know how to ask it?”
“I think so.”

She let go of my hoof and she entwined her tail in mine so we didn’t get separated, and then we set off at a canter, giggling as the rain started to soak us. We just ran down the street away from the museum, and I made a note of which street it was so we could get back. There wasn’t anypony around in the rain, but we kept cantering, and eventually spotted a stallion hurrying along, his head under a newspaper.
“Excuse me, sir, which way is the river?” I asked, doing my best to put on a good accent.
He paused for a moment and pointed through an alleyway. “Two minutes.”
“Thank you!”
He watched us canter away, shaking his head.

We both laughed and skirted around puddles as we dashed down the alley and followed the next one, crossing the empty streets without needing to stop. I was soaked to the skin and I could feel the weight of the water in my coat and hair, but we kept moving, Rarity’s usually-perfect mane hanging in limp purple threads around her face when it wasn’t streaming behind her. The river was less than two minutes and we suddenly came out beside it, the surface pebbled with thousands of raindrops drumming down on it. I was out of breath and took a few moments to breathe before I tried to say anything.

“So much better than a museum,” Rarity told me, and I followed her as we walked up the river towards the nearest bridge. The buildings either side were tall enough to block out most of the view.
“We’re going to be totally caught when we go back to the museum sopping wet,” I said, holding back a laugh. “No way of hiding this.”
“It’s okay, we’ll live,” Rarity replied, her tail still wrapped around mine. “I just wanted to do something wild for a change.”
When we passed the bridge and followed a bend in the wide river, we had a fantastic view of the Hoofful Tower, obscured only by the steadily falling rain. There was avenue leading to it, and I hoped that we could visit later in the week.

“Come on, let’s keep going,” Rarity said, following the wide walkway beside the river. “Maybe there’s a cafe.”
“Not much chance of them letting us in if we’re in this state,” I told her, nudging her accidentally with my shoulder. She nudged me back and I grinned, flicking my wet mane in her face. She gasped, eyes wide, and then used her magic to rub her mane in my face, causing water to run down my cheek.
“Okay, okay, stop it,” I giggled, trying to wipe my face with a hoof but only getting wetter. Rarity gave me a satisfied smile.

The rain didn’t seem likely to subside, and we occasionally saw ponies making a mad dash for the next bit of shelter, or trotting along under an umbrella, but we must have looked a real sight. 
“You know, if you imagine, we could almost be here by ourselves,” Rarity said, her mouth close to my ear to be heard over the rain. “On a nice holiday.”
“I wish,” I said, thinking glumly of the time that we’d have to turn back and get back to the museum. “This isn’t as fun as I thought it would be.”
“I’m having fun now,” Rarity said, a raindrop hanging on one of her eyelashes. I flicked it away.
“I am too, but I was hoping that we could have been a bit drier.”
Rarity laughed and nudged me again, but I didn’t retaliate for fear of more wet mane on my face. 

Once our time was up we turned around and headed for the museum, threading our way through some other alleys to take a shortcut. I wasn’t sure it was the right way but Rarity was convinced, and her sense of direction won because we came out opposite the museum, which looked as drab and boring as it had always done.
“Let’s wait here for a minute,” Rarity told me, pulling me back before I left the alley. “We can see it from here if they decide to leave early, but I bet they’re waiting until the rain stops.”
“I suppose.” We stood next to each other, peering out across the road at the museum and wondering if any of the ponies inside could see us.

“This was fun,” Rarity told me, her neck rubbing against mine. “I’m glad we got to do it, even in the rain.”
I just nodded, and looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She was still staring across the road, but she looked over at me and met my gaze. I felt a sudden rush of butterflies in my tummy, but I didn’t look away and neither did she. I kept looking into those blue eyes, her eyelashes shimmering with the rain that had hit them, and I tried to keep my tummy under control. It felt like I was about to give a solo performance in front of a thousand ponies, all waiting expectantly for me, mixed with another feeling that I thought I recognised but didn’t want to admit. There was a raindrop exactly on the top of her muzzle, and I thought briefly about trying to flick it away. Her mouth was so close to mine and it just seemed like the perfect moment, so my eyes slowly closed, and-

“Oh Celestia’s bells, they’re leaving,” Rarity said suddenly, her eyes flicking back to the museum. I practically fell over as she stepped forwards, her tail letting go of mine. “Come on Cat, we’ve got to try and blend in when the teachers aren’t looking.”
Feeling a mixture of disappointment and relief, I followed her, galloping across the road in the rain while the teachers were looking elsewhere. Our general dampness didn’t matter because everypony else was soaking wet within a few minutes anyway. I lost Rarity in the crowd as we searched for Fly and Miri, hoping that our absence wouldn’t have been noticed.

“Fly!” I said, relieved, when I spotted my green pegasus friend. “Did they realise we were gone?”
“You were gone?” she asked, frowning. “I thought you’d just waited in the gift shop and left straight away.”
“Where’s Miri? And have you seen Rarity?” I asked, blending into the crowd once more and walking alongside Fly. 
“No, haven’t seen either of them. I thought Miri was with you.”
I spotted Rarity in the crowd ahead, but something stopped me from rushing over. It felt like I’d embarrassed myself somehow, even though Rarity hadn’t noticed anything of my stupidity. I knew what I was feeling and I pressed the feelings into a little ball in my tummy, ignoring them.