Falling For Our Stars

by bobdat

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

There were no disciplinary consequences for our leaving the museum, so Rarity and I considered ourselves out of the woods for the time being. The teachers seemed none the wiser, unless they were saving up some kind of special punishment, which was unlikely. Instead, we just continued as usual, enjoying the evening once we were all towelled off. After tea, there was an educational video downstairs for anypony who wanted to go, but it seemed to only be for ponies who didn’t like their roommates, so we stayed in the room and played cards again, despite Miri and Fly’s dominance.

“I wish I’d managed to escape with you two,” Miri complained as she won her third game in a row. (Fly was reading her book and not paying full attention.)
Rarity and I exchanged a look and smiled.
“The museum was pretty boring once you’d seen everything,” the earth pony added, shuffling the cards with strange efficiency.
Fly snorted a little. “Well, if you hadn’t just rushed around trying to be the first pony finished.”
“I wasn’t the first pony. Everypony else got fed up way before I did.”
“Did you enjoy it?” I asked Fly, looking over at her. I could tell she was a little bit irritated at me for skipping the museum, but it didn’t bother me. She’d be fine the next morning.
“It was good, I thought. They had a lot of interesting collections,” she told me in clipped tones, before going straight back to her book.

Miri predictably won the next game, and Fly came last, without even trying. Miri was starting to exploit Fly’s lack of interest, so I persuaded her to stop reading and join in. After that, it became a bit more even, and I sometimes managed to win when Fly and Miri cancelled each other out.
Unfortunately for my general concentration, Rarity was sat exactly opposite me and kept looking over at me whenever it was my turn. Resisting the temptation to blush and giggle inexplicably, I stared too hard at my cards and made mistakes, trying all the time to keep my head and pretend that my tummy wasn’t churning the way it was. It was the worst possible timing, just before Hearts & Hooves Day, and especially with my exams and a concert coming up. Life was just too complicated.

We went to sleep when the dorm matron (who had managed to get on the trip with the rest of us) came around and told us to turn the lights out. It had been a long day so we didn’t try and stay up any longer, even though it seemed like we should probably do something fun in the dark. We agreed to save it for the next night and just catch up on the sleep we lost that morning.
“Goodnight everypony,” I said, pulling my blanket up to my chin and lying on my side, avoiding a hard patch of the camp bed. Everypony else replied sleepily, already drifting off, and I tried to ignore the weird feelings I was having and just sleep, but it suddenly seemed much more difficult. I could see the indeterminate lump under the blanket on the bed next to me which was Rarity, her mane rising and falling as she breathed.

I must have fallen asleep, but when Miri went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and stood on me, it jerked me awake.
“Sorry!” she whispered, almost tripping as she skirted around to get to the door. I rubbed my leg and hoped it wouldn’t bruise, because bruises showed up quite strongly against my white coat and it would be an unseemly hoof-shaped one. Once Miri had disappeared, I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but it proved difficult. The bed felt much more uncomfortable and my leg still ached, no matter what position I lay in.

To make matters worse, one of Rarity’s hooves was poking out from under her blanket, the glow from the streetlight outside the window making it look orange. I just stared at it, feeling like a bit of a creep, but the way it moved slowly as the unicorn breathed was keeping me from looking away. When Miri returned, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep, but it didn’t take long for her to fall asleep and for me to be back to my thoughts. I’d been too close to Rarity that afternoon, that was all. It was just a short-term thing because she was so beautiful and glamorous, and it was intoxicating. I’d nearly made a fool of myself and I needed to snap out of it before I ruined our friendship forever. With that stern rebuke, I rolled over to face away from her and kept my eyes tightly shut, ignoring the throbbing in my leg and stubbornly refusing to move until I fell asleep.

Instead of getting up for breakfast, Miri and I slept in and decided to get something from a bakery when we went out. I had a leisurely shower and got myself nice and clean while Miri slept on, her blanket wrapped tightly around her so nopony could drag her out of bed. The shower was nice enough with plenty of room, so I luxuriated as best as I could and took advantage of the fact that with everypony at breakfast, I was unlikely to be disturbed. It was good to wash my hair properly and stop it from being so frizzy, although it wasn’t exactly much better when it was back to its limp and annoying state. I vowed to get a severe manecut when I got back to Buckingham, but I knew I’d forget long before then.

Unfortunately, my mane aside, my thoughts were still dominated by Rarity. I wanted to agree with my theory that it was just a one-day thing, but I still felt the same about her and I was glad she wasn’t around to make it worse. Hopefully it was a holiday thing and would wear off when the reality of Buckingham returned, but it didn’t seem all that likely. Once I was dry, I returned to the room, hoping that it wasn’t going to ruin our friendship and wondering if there was something I could do to take my mind off it.
Fly and Rarity were waiting when I got back.
“Looks like the plan for today is a morning trip to an art gallery,” Fly began, and I sighed, expecting the worst.
“But,” Rarity interjected, “We have the afternoon to sightsee and buy souvenirs.”

That was a better prospect, so I wasn’t too bothered by the idea of enduring an art gallery in the morning. Miri and I stopped off for pastries and juice on the way out, eating them out of paper bags and avoiding the gaze of the various teachers as we walked the route to the gallery.
“This is pretty good,” Miri said as she scarfed down hers. “Plus it’s really cheap.”
“Really? I just hand over what they ask for,” I replied, finishing the last morsel of mine. It was something with chocolate in it, which was perfect.
“They’re probably ripping off some gullible tourists,” Fly joked, hovering just above the ground instead of walking.

The art gallery was, as predicted, boring. Fly and Rarity were really interested in it, and disappeared off on a guided tour, while Miri and I did our best to drink fruit juice without attracting the attention of some burly security ponies in uniform. There just seemed to be a lot of ponies standing around staring at artwork and murmuring to each other about ‘tone’ and ‘form’, neither of which really meant anything to Miri and I. We just wandered around commenting on how boring a row of yellow stripes on a blue background was and getting glares from the teachers. There wasn’t even a gift shop, although if you had thousands of bits, you could buy some of the paintings.
“Don’t know why you’d want to,” Miri said, looking at a picture made up of blobs of paint. “This wouldn’t exactly look nice on a wall.”

Miri had managed to bring the pack of cards, so we found a secluded bench in a quiet wing of the gallery and had a few one-on-one games, all of which Miri won. I wasn’t really very concerned because it was filling the time.
“Maybe we’ll go to a concert tonight,” I said, more in hope than expectation. “There are always some on in Mareis.”
“What kind of concert? I think a classical one would bore me to death,” Miri replied without looking up.
I just shrugged. “I don’t exactly see school sending us to a pop concert.”
Miri nodded and we went back to playing, that idea shot down.

Once the art gallery was finished, we emerged back into the fresh air and wondered what was next. It was lunchtime so we went to a nearby park and the teachers handed around paper bags which contained a packed lunch. Mine contained a sandwich, some juice, an apple and a biscuit.
“Anyone want a cheese sandwich?” I asked, holding it up.
“I’ll give you my orange for it,” Rarity offered, and we swapped without another thought. I tucked into the apple first.
“So, what are we doing this afternoon?” Miri asked, her mouth full of bread.
Fly had the guidebook and consulted it while she ate. “Well, there are a few attractions we could visit…”

I piped up. “Somewhere that we can walk around. Miri and I have just been sat down all morning.”
Miri nodded her agreement, but Fly was unimpressed with our lack of enthusiasm for the gallery.
“Well, there’s always the Hoofful tower,” Fly said, pointing with a wing to the tower we could see over the surrounding buildings. “We could go there.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rarity added, still working her way through my cheese sandwich.
“Are there stairs?” Miri said with a pained look, and I giggled.
“I seriously doubt it,” Fly replied, frowning at the guidebook. “There are probably lifts.”

Once lunch was finished, we drifted away from the other ponies. We had to be back at the hotel for tea, but it left us the entire afternoon and Fly led us to the metro station which would take us to the Hoofful Tower, or at least near the bottom of it. Since it was the middle of the day, the train wasn’t very crowded.
“I don’t know how much the tower costs,” Fly told us, her guidebook still open. “If it’s expensive we can always just go for a walk through the park.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Rarity reassured her. “Let’s just see when we get there.”
“The view should be great,” I said, stating the obvious. Nopony else responded so I went back to reading the adverts on the carriage walls.

The Hoofful Tower looked very tall when you were looking at it from the base. The very tip seemed to disappear, and in order to get a good look you almost had to topple over backwards.
“Fly, why don’t you just flap your wings and go to the top? Then you don’t have to pay!” Miri suggested, but Fly just glared at her. We joined the queue to get in, which snaked all the way around the ticket office but seemed to be moving pretty quickly. Everypony with tickets went straight to the lifts that disappeared upwards every minute or so, returning full of other ponies who were busy chatting to each other.
“Ugh, the waiting is killing me!” Miri complained, but we weren’t far from getting tickets.
“Just be quiet and get out your money,” Rarity told her, “Then it’ll be even faster.”

We paid as a group to get in faster, and once the tickets were divided, we joined the next lift and found ourselves flying upwards, ears popping. Fly looked a bit uncomfortable in the cramped lift, so I found her hoof and gave it a squeeze. She seemed grateful, and thankfully the lift slowed to a halt before very long and the doors slid open, letting everypony exit.
“Oh, wow,” Rarity said as we stepped out, taking in the panorama in front of us. There were views stretching out across the city in every direction, the grey skies broken occasionally by a pegasus flying past at high altitude. I approached the glass and looked down at ponies walking by, little more than dots. I wondered if I could see anypony from Buckingham, and I waved a little.

There was a display area that told you a little bit about the history of the Hoofful Tower and showed what you could see in the distance. Fly went off to read it, and Miri had disappeared, so I took in the view with Rarity.
“Magnificent…” she whispered, her breath condensing on the glass in front of her muzzle.
I stopped looking at her and went back to looking out over Mareis, following the snaking river as it passed through the centre of the city and then disappeared, heading for the sea.
“You can see where we were yesterday,” Rarity said, pointing towards the bend in the river.
By squinting a little, I could just make it out. I recognised the bridge that we’d galloped past, and I could just make out the tiny forms of ponies crossing it, some of them strolling along the riverside in pairs and threes.

I glanced across as Rarity to see what she was thinking, and I caught her looking at me. We both blushed and went back to surveying the city.
“Look, if you come around on the other side you can see the railway station,” Miri told us, grabbing both of us and dragging us over. She told the truth; you could make out tiny trains entering and leaving the giant structure, although you could only see them between the gaps in the taller buildings that lay between the station and the tower. It was still pretty impressive.
“Do you think you can see our hotel?” Rarity asked, trying to find the right area of the city, but Fly cut in.
“No, it’s too far away. You probably could with binoculars,” she informed us, pointing in the general direction of the hotel with her wingtip.

The afternoon wore on and none of us really tired of the view, although Miri seemed to be spending her time watching the trains. I wanted to have another conversation with Rarity, but Fly was hanging around with us and I couldn’t really talk the way I wanted with her around, as much as I liked her. She kept telling us about landmarks we could see, which was actually quite interesting, but I wished she would get distracted by something and wander off. She enjoyed telling us too much, though, so there was no chance of that.
“Do we have any plans for when we go back down?” Rarity asked, peering down at the ponies on the ground. “We’ve still got a couple of hours.”

Fly and I just shrugged.
“I’m just dying to go to one of those quaint little cafés,” Rarity told us. “Have some coffee and a cupcake?”
“Fine by me,” I replied, watching a pegasus flying slowly past.
“There should be quite a few in the market district, which is only a few metro stops away,” Fly said, her guidebook appearing again.
I told Miri about our plans and she seemed happy enough to go along with it, so we took our last few looks at the city and then headed for the lifts, passing the new groups of ponies who were gasping at the view.

A café to Rarity’s liking didn’t prove very hard to find, since we were surrounded by them as soon as we got out of the metro station. She squee’d and rushed ahead, looking at the menus and the outdoor tables and eventually settling on one with white tablecloths and an advert for fresh coffee. I noted, to my relief, that it didn’t seem to be very expensive, so we all sat down at one of the outdoor tables and placed our orders with the waitress, who was very prompt and returned with coffee for everypony in less than a minute. I was facing the street, so I just watched everypony going by, noticing the difference between the locals who always seemed to be in a hurry and the tourists moving at a more pedestrian pace.

When I wasn’t looking at the other ponies, I kept sneaking glances at Rarity. She seemed super-happy to be drinking coffee at an authentic Mareis café, and I felt the warm feeling coming back as I took in her smile and the way her eyes seemed to shine even though the sky was overcast. Occasionally she looked over towards me and I went back to admiring the local scenery, looking up at the Hoofful Tower and marvelling at how high up we’d been. I waved at everypony at the top, but it wasn’t very likely that they could see me. I wasn’t a huge fan of the bitter-tasting coffee, but I wasn’t going to say anything, and I drank it without complaint.

After we’d finished, Miri needed to go to the toilet, so she and Rarity departed to look for the public conveniences. Fly and I just sat at the table and drank the remains of the coffee, not saying anything and enjoying the tranquility. At least, I was.
“Cat?”
“Yes Fly?”
“Do you like Rarity?”
The inflection in her voice made it perfectly obvious what she meant.
“Um…”
“I knew it!”

I sighed. “Look, I don’t really know what I think. You can’t tell her or Miri or anyone else.”
“Of course I won’t.” She gave me a knowing smile.
“How did you know, anyway? Or was it a lucky guess?”
The pegasus giggled. “I can see the looks you keep giving her. It’s not very subtle.”
I turned red. “Do you think she knows?”
“Who, Rarity? I don’t know.”
“Miri?”
“Oh, I think Miri has probably guessed.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. There was no way Miri would be able to keep her mouth shut, and with Hearts & Hooves Day coming up, it was guaranteed that it would be on her mind.
“I don’t really know what to do, Fly,” I confessed. “It’s totally the wrong time for this, and if Miri knows it won’t be long until everypony at school knows, but I just can’t stop thinking about her.”
“If you really like her, you should tell her how you feel. She can only say no.”
“But what if it makes our friendship really awkward? We’ve only got a few months left and then she goes back to Equestria. I don’t want to ruin that.”
Fly looked thoughtful. “Well, if you think that you can keep your mind off her until she leaves, then maybe it’ll just be out of sight, out of mind.”

The idea of not seeing Rarity hurt more than anything else, so I stopped talking. I just gave Fly a look which I hoped would convey all of my emotional turmoil.
“Do you need to go to the toilet as well?” she asked in response, and I sighed. To my benefit, Miri and Rarity reappeared and I did my best to look nonchalant.
“We should probably be heading back,” Fly said, getting to her hooves. “It’s only half an hour until tea and we’ll get in trouble for being late.”
“Lead the way,” Rarity said graciously, looking around for signs to the metro station. I forced myself to stare at the ground and follow Fly without looking at her, resolved to do better.

It was futile, and by the time we’d eaten tea I was feeling more lovesick than ever. Rarity kept tossing her hair and blushing slightly whenever anypony spoke to her, and it was driving me insane. Fly gave me a few meaningful looks, but it was hopeless.
“I need to do something,” I complained when I managed to get five minutes alone with Fly after the meal. “I can’t concentrate on anything else.”
“Then you need to tell her,” Fly said sagely. “Otherwise you’ll just suffer.”
“I can’t! I just can’t ruin our friendship. It would be too awkward to speak to her afterwards.” I stamped my hooves in frustration.

“Maybe you could get her a Hearts & Hooves card? Then it’s anonymous and you can get your feelings off your chest,” Fly suggested after a moment’s thought. “We can sneak out and get one tonight sometime.”
My eyes lit up. “Fly! You’re a genius!”
It was her turn to blush. “It’s nothing.”
“Do you think we could go now? If we buy food at the same time, nopony will think anything of it.”
“We need food for snacks anyway. I’ll go and ask the others if they want anything specific.”

Fly returned soon with a list of snack items (all for Miri), and we set off, heading for a local supermarket that I remembered being near one of the bakeries. It was open late and we got nearly everything that Miri asked for, except for some things which we didn’t even think you could buy at home, let alone in Mareis.
“Who would want… olive paste?” I asked, consulting the list. “Is it some kind of snack?”
“I think it comes in a jar,” Fly said absently, looking for crisps. “Do you think she’ll be happy with cheese and onion since they don’t have cheese and chive?”
“She’ll probably never notice.”

Fly helped me pick out a Hearts & Hooves Day card. There was a big display of them since it was only a day away, but most of them were in French and I had find the other ones. There were a few labelled ‘to my fillyfriend’ but they all featured a colt on the front, which was a bit of a put-off. It was Fly who found the best one, a blue card which just had a heart on the front and no other designs.
“It’s simple but it’s better than the others,” she said, so I paid for it and we headed back to the hotel.
“I’ll write it sometime tomorrow when I’ve got free time,” I explained, really planning to write it sometime in the middle of the night by absconding to the bathroom.

Instead of going to bed straight away like the previous night, we decided to stay up even after the Dorm Matron told us to go to sleep. Miri was loaded up on snacks and spent most of her time alternating between talking and munching, while the rest of us just ate the occasional crisp or biscuit.
“So, do you know what’s happening tomorrow?” I asked, glad that in the darkness I wasn’t tempted to stare at Rarity.
“I overheard one of the teachers talking about another art gallery, one of the big ones this time,” Miri explained. “There’ll probably be loads to do there so it’ll be an entire day, most likely, including lunch.”

I sighed. “Ugh, more art. Why can’t we do something fun?”
Miri giggled, ignoring the sighs of the other two. “Yeah, I’m sure there are some cinemas or something that we could go to.”
“But then the films would need to be subtitled,” Fly pointed out.
Disappointed, Miri went back to her crisps.
“As long as it’s not an early start,” Rarity said, levitating some of Miri’s crisps over to her bed. “I’d like a lie-in after a busy day today.”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I announced, extracting myself from my blanket and heading for the door, Rarity’s card and a pencil secreted under my mane. For once I was glad that it hung in a featureless sheet. The light in the corridor was on, so I hurried to the bathroom and locked myself into a shower cubicle, writing on the back of the door. I had to be quick, otherwise the others would wonder where I’d gone, but it was hard to work out what I wanted to say in such a short time.

Rarity,
I began, but the rest of it was difficult. I rehearsed a few lines in my head, but none of them came off right. For a few moments I wondered about just writing Happy Hearts & Hooves Day and leaving it at that, but it wouldn’t have really satisfied me. In the end I just took the plunge and started writing.
I really admire you and wanted you to know that I think about you a lot. I hope you have a wonderful Hearts & Hooves Day.
Love from ?
xxxxx

It wasn’t much but I didn’t think I could add any more without ruining it. I quickly put it back into the envelope and sealed it with my magic, then tucked it back into my mane and headed for the room again. I was planning to sneak back to the room during another planned toilet trip the following morning, and put it into Rarity’s suitcase somewhere. Then she’d find it and assume that some other pony put it there. Even if she caught me, I’d just say I was putting it there for a friend. It was a foolproof plan, so long as Miri didn’t catch wind of it and spoil everything. It would be just like her to put her hoof in it and say something.

When I got back, Miri was holding forth about the Hoofful Tower, so I managed to hide the card amongst my belongings without any difficulty. I briefly considered giving my plan a name, like Operation Greetings Card, but I couldn’t come up with a name that didn’t sound obvious, so I just called it the Rarity Plan. Miri and Fly were having a discussion about something I didn’t understand, so I laid down on my bed and worried about the plan, wondering if I should do something about Miri. Maybe if I said something… but then she might get the wrong idea… perhaps I could ask Fly to distract her…
It didn’t take long before I was asleep.

The plan worked smoothly the next morning. It actually went better than intended; on the way to breakfast, Fly suggested that she be the one to put the card in Rarity’s suitcase, so there was no danger of me being suspected. Her ideas always amazed me, (I wasn’t sure how one pony could have so many good ones), and this one worked perfectly. She reappeared at breakfast and poked me under the table, a secret sign that she’d done what was required. I felt a fresh wave of butterflies in my tummy because there was no going back. If Rarity realised it was from me… but maybe that would be a good thing… only if she was happy that it was from me… it was all too complicated. I focused on eating.

I had been expecting to have the whole day to worry about the card while we were out, (Miri was right about the all-day art gallery thing), but Rarity decided to dash back and pick up a scarf because there was a cold wind. I hoped she wouldn’t notice the card.
“Cat? I tucked the card into the scarf…” Fly told me guiltily. “Sorry.”
So much for that. “Come on, let’s get going. If we get a head start, she can’t interrogate us.” We joined the front of the line snaking out of the hotel, eager for once to be on our way. My nerves were getting worse.

“Don’t worry about it, Cat. I’m sure there’s no way that she’ll be able to tell it’s from you,” Fly reassured me. “Just relax.”
I did my best, but it didn’t seem to do much good. I could feel my hooves shaking as we arrived at the gallery, not daring to look behind.
“They’re on their way,” Fly whispered in warning, and I did my best to look normal.
“Hey, you two left without telling me!” Miri complained when she and Rarity reached us.
“Sorry, we were getting cold waiting,” Fly lied, covering for me well.
Rarity smiled. “I’m awfully sorry for making you all wait.”

Nopony said anything about a card, and there was no gleeful excitement in Miri’s body language that suggested she was party to some salacious gossip, i.e. that Rarity had received a Hearts & Hooves Day card from an unknown pony.
“Doesn’t look like Rarity told Miri,” Fly said to me once we were safely inside the gallery. I was sticking close to her for support, which meant that I had to linger in front of every painting while my pegasus friend took it in.
“Yeah, you’re right. I wonder why not,” I mused. Fly didn’t say anything, but continued staring at a painting of two pegasi lying in a field. I wondered why they didn’t just take a photograph and save themselves the effort.

Fly eventually got fed up of my constant questioning and wild theories, which eventually went to the extremes of ‘what if somepony else gave her a card, saw mine, stole it and then decided not to give her their card?’ After that we just walked around in silence, Fly admiring the paintings while I kept a sharp lookout in case we were ambushed by Miri or Rarity. Thankfully, neither of them appeared before lunch.
“Can we sit away from them?” I asked Fly.
“No. That would look suspicious,” she replied, walking straight over to the table that Rarity and Miri had reserved for us. I did my best to seem normal.

Rarity didn’t help matters by looking especially good in her scarf. The pale blue of the scarf complemented her mane and matched her cutie mark, and she seemed to be acting especially polite and graciously today. On more than one occasion over lunch I did something clumsy and blushed a deep red, inwardly cursing myself for being so obvious. Rarity never commented or even seemed to notice, which was almost as bad as if she’d said something. Fly nudged me with her wing whenever I was staring for a bit too long, which helped me avoid further embarrassment.
“Your plan didn’t work,” I complained to Fly when we were tidying up. “I feel worse now than I did yesterday.”
Fly just giggled and walked off, leaving me to my contemplation.