Chapter 13
I sat next to the window of our hotel room, looking over the majestic harbor of Vanhoofer. To keep the air here pristine clean, the local weather team maintained an almost constant film of cool drizzle throughout the year, similar to the neighboring Seaddle.
Fortunately, tonight happened to be the rare night that the pegasi let up, allowing the gentle moonlight to shower down onto the calm waves. Unlike the nonstop clinging wetness and greyness when Starlight and I stopped by in Seaddle, this was quite liberating, not to mention breathtakingly beautiful.
My mood was the best since I’ve begun this outing. But then I gasped aloud as I realized something. I hadn’t sent any update to the other Spike yet! I sincerely hoped that he would not be freaking out already.
With hasty hooves, I quickly scrambled for papers and quills in my saddlebag. I almost panicked when I discovered that my rolls of paper had gone damp and moldy due to water damage, but then I let out a sigh of relief, after I saw the hotel had provided postcards and papers on the desk.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have been this stingy then. Thank goodness for Starlight to insist on this five-star hotel.” I helplessly grinned to myself. Starlight was not with me at the moment, since she wanted to roam the city center and ‘mingle with big city ponies’, in her own words.
“Dear Spike,”
My quill paused as soon as I began, and I shook my head slightly. The slight weirdness of addressing ‘myself’ in third person was not going to go away entirely, was it?
“… I am sorry to have waited for so long before sending you a letter. It must’ve been quite worrying not to hear from me at all for days. I don’t want to make excuses, but it has indeed been hectic. The sad thing is that I don’t really have any progress in terms of that line of research-”
I nodded imperceptibly after I made sure that the phrasing was subtle enough.
“- However, on my journey northward, I happened to come across a very talented unicorn named Starlight Glimmer. We have met in rather peculiar circumstances, but she has proved to be a very adept magical user and above all, a very valuable friend.”
“Hm…”
“There is no limit as you look up, they say. And how! Starlight Glimmer’s magic potential is easily one of the strongest I’ve encountered. I’m certain that she would grow to do great things in the future.”
“Aw…”
Did I hear something…? Nah, probably my imagination. I shrugged and simply continued. “She’s a very kind pony as well. She showed deep remorse for any mistake she made, and she offered to help my research when I told her that I was running into dead-ends. She even so graciously offered me bits to patch up the library. It still doesn’t sit right with me to accept them, but I figure that it’s much worse to force you to live in a leaky library.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Starlight Glimmer is a curious specimen of a unicorn indeed. I’d tell you more about her after you two are formally introduced to each other, but let’s just say she’s a sensitive pony, and her common sense, as seen from my interactions with her, is left slightly wanting, and I mean it with as little offense as I could. This is probably due to her secluded-”
“Grr…”
Okay, I definitely heard a grumble there, and I was sure that that was not me. I drew in a deep breath, and I sharply turned my head back.
Suddenly, I was snout to snout with a clearly rubber-necking Starlight, who had reacted with similar shock. We two gasped aloud and backed off from each other.
Narrowing my eyes, I quickly rolled up my letter and stuffed it into my saddlebag. She’d been peeping at me writing the letter, hadn’t she?
Displeasure flared up in my mind. Even though she had probably seen all, I still made the gesture so that she understood that I was not happy at all with her action.
Starlight clearly felt uneasy with my silent irritation, and she said. “T- Twilight.”
“… What is it, Starlight?”
She gulped difficultly. “I- uh, I just want to, uh… know more about you, that’s all, haha.”
“You could’ve asked instead of snooping on me writing a private letter to a loved one.” I grunted with disapproval.
“B- But-”
She sighed, seemingly realizing making more excuses would not help her case. She closed her eyes and quietly said. “I’m sorry, Twilight.”
Well, it’s not like that anything damaging had been done. “… Apology accepted.”
To shift the heavy atmosphere, I then said with a thin smile. “So, Starlight, what have you got in your little downtown excursion? Anything that you’ve bought? I heard that there’re some carved masks on sale, and if you don’t mind touristy souvenirs…”
For some reason, my query did not elicit the expected effect of calming her down. Instead, she looked absolutely on edge, as if there were ants in her horseshoes.
“I- I- It’s alright, I guess, hahaha.” She let out a string of stilted laughs.
I sighed internally. Her lying was even a level lower than the other Spike. In a sense, I was less annoyed about her dishonesty and more worried about her dearth of social skills.
Still, I decided not to open up an impromptu interrogation session. After all, everypony had their secrets. If she did not want to tell me, then fair play to her.
I shrugged and nodded, and then retreated to my bedside. As with the night before, I opened up my saddlebag. After I made sure that Starlight was looking away, I hurriedly reached into a secret compartment and checked.
Wait a second. Where was my parchment?
I suppressed another urge to overreact, and merely lit my horn. I’d placed a beacon spell on the parchment, so that even in the event that I’d lost it, it would be easily found.
There was still no reason for it to be stolen, since to untrained eyes it was merely a blank piece of parchment. But in any case, I had to retrieve it now.
I tracked the magical trace towards the other side of the room, and…
And I bumped straightly into Starlight’s back.
She gasped aloud again, and fearfully turned back. Without my input, she shoved the parchment into my face and yelped. “I- I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
I held my indignation down, and coolly asked. “Did you go through my belongings?”
“I- I-”
I showed her a pained expression. “Why did you do that? You should know by now that there’s nothing that we can’t lay in the open and discuss.”
Facing a reticent Starlight, I merely said. “… I’m disappointed, that’s all.”
My concise words seemed to have hit her the most. She looked down to the ground dejectedly. After a while, she said quietly. “I know what I’ve done is unconscionable. I’m really sorry about that.”
After a heavy pause, she said. “But ever since I’ve failed to remove your cutie mark using my impeccably designed spell, I’ve been rolling over on my bed every night. How could my perfect magic fail? I really can’t believe it!”
I frowned. “I understand the frustration of not being able to find out a solution for a magic problem. But infringing upon a friend’s privacy-”
“That’s not the reason!”
Starlight added nervously. “N- Not the entire reason, anyway.”
I gave her a silent stare, and she bit her lips. “I- I’m worried about you!”
I widened my eyes. Starlight then said sadly. “My spells should work on all normal, healthy ponies. So when it didn’t work, I did panic a bit about the veracity of the entire theoretical construct of my theory of magic.”
She sighed. “But as time went on, I realized that I also care for you as a pony… a friend as well. I was afraid that you’re suffering from some hidden health conditions, and you didn't tell me for whatever reason. Your propensity to faint was not entirely reassuring.”
Softened by her expressed concern, I bit back a sarcastic remark about the true reasons of my black-outs and said curtly. “I see.”
Encouraged by my warming reply, she nodded. “I noticed that you’ve been doing sneaky stuffs with your saddlebag last night. So… when you’ve gone to sleep yesterday, I reached to your bag and there you go, a clearly magically-encrypted parchment!”
My frown went deeper. “So… tell me, my magical prodigy, did you manage to decrypt it?”
Stung by my acerbic address, she looked visibly hurt. I briefly felt bad that I went off on her, but she carried on with an even smaller voice. “I- I did.”
I closed my eyes, and weakly leaned back onto the wall. “So, what now?”
Starlight immediately burst out in worry. “Why would you prepare for yourself to lose your memory at any time? Why are you reassuring yourself that everything’s 'alright' if that happens? How’s losing your memory alright in any sense or situation?”
I gritted my teeth, but I outwardly replied with a bland face. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But Twilight! Normal ponies just don’t lose weeks-worth of memories all of a sudden!”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it. Starlight, we might be friends, but sometimes there must remain an interpersonal boundary which should not be violated.”
I let out an impatient huff. “And you’ve been crossing that boundary again and again today.”
Starlight inhaled, dread was apparent in her eyes. “T- Twilight, please, I-”
Nervous tears wet her cheeks. “… Please don’t say you don’t want to be my friend anymore. I- I promise that I will no longer snoop around, just-”
Despite my dismay at her closing down on my secret, I still could not bear to see her looking so hurt and despondent. I cut her off and sighed. “... What, Starlight? Do I look like somepony who’s so unsparing? Am I the type of friend that abandon someone at the slightest-”
Starlight quickly hugged me tightly and interrupted my words. Looking at the whimpering wreck before me, I sadly smiled and shook my head.
“I… I guess I can tell you this much.”
Starlight’s head shot up with surprise. “Eh?”
“The thing that’s been troubling me might be related to your inability to strip my cutie mark. So if-”
Delight filled her voice as she cut me off again. “I’ll put it in my all to solve this problem! I’m so glad that my research might also help you!”
She then contorted with clear worry. “Twilight, I don’t want to lose you as my friend. I- It would be absolutely terrible for me to make you so mad that you leave, and it would even be more devastating if you… if you f- forget-”
I mutely pat her back to calm her down. She quieted down quickly as I gently stroke her mane, content to forgo any query and opt for the moment of friendly intimacy.
However, at the same time, a thousand conflicted thoughts ran through my troubled mind. Starlight, Starlight, what should I ever do with you?
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7605145
Yeah, but at least Twilight misses out on the crap Ditzy drops on her head this time. Insert joke using the word 'anvilicious' here.
c'mon spike, Starlight is well studied in mind magic, and your problem is clearly of the mind, so enlisting her help would come in handy
A solid, strong chapter.
Ah'm happy. :)
The story is fun again! Huzzah!