The Life and Times of Everypony

by Leafdoggy

Walk Into The Moonlight, Part 1 (Starlight, Trixie)

Heavy rainfall splattered against the windows of Twilight’s castle, broken up every few minutes by distant thunder. It was early morning, the sun was up, but Ponyville stayed dark, and it would be for the rest of the day. Gloomy thunderstorms were scheduled to blanket the town until well after nightfall.

Starlight sighed as she leaned on the dining room table, absentmindedly clinking a spoon against the bottom of an empty bowl. She had lights on, but they were dim, and every time lightning struck outside it bathed the room in a bright white. She yawned as she stared blankly at the wall across from her.

Her impromptu meditation was interrupted when hooves clicked down the hall towards her, and a moment later Twilight came into the room with a cup of tea. She smiled warmly and took a seat beside Starlight.

“Well, good morning, Starlight,” Twilight said. “How are you?”

“Eh,” Starlight grumbled.

“Yeah, I guess it is that kind of day.” Twilight chuckled. “Do you have any plans?”

“Not really,” Starlight said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Twilight said. “I’d offer to spend some time with you, but I put off a lot of paperwork to do today, and I really can’t let it go any longer.”

“It’s fine,” Starlight said. “You are a princess, after all.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend time with my friends,” Twilight said. “I feel bad that we haven’t been spending much time together.”

“Really, Twilight, it’s fine.”

“I just don’t want you to feel like I chose Chrysalis over you,” Twilight told her. “You’re important to me.”

Starlight sighed and met Twilight’s eye. “I know. Trust me, Twilight, you’ve been a perfect friend to me.”

“I’m glad to hear that. If you ever feel like I’m being too distant, with Chrysalis and my princess duties and everything, I want you to let me know, okay?”

“Of course.”

Twilight reached over and rested her hoof on one of Starlight’s. “Are you doing alright? You seem a little down.”

“It’s probably just the weather,” Starlight told her. “And boredom.”

“I noticed you haven’t been out of the castle much lately,” Twilight said.

Starlight shrugged. “I mean, Trixie’s on tour, Maud has to work, we finished the friendship lessons… Geez, my life is kind of boring, huh?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Twilight said. “You’re just… At a crossroads, is all. You’ll find whatever is next for you soon enough.”

“Thanks, Twilight. I really—”

Starlight was cut off by a loud pop as smoke appeared out of nowhere and began to fill the room. A blue glow shone through it, and as soon as Twilight realized what was happening, she rolled her eyes. Soon, the smoke cleared, and standing there was a very proud, very wet Trixie.

“Ta-da!” she announced. “Right where I wanted to be, and it only took two tries! And you said teleporting is hard.”

Starlight laughed, and her face lit up in a grin. “Hi, Trixie,” she said. “You’re back early!”

Trixie trotted over and gave Starlight a kiss on the cheek, although when she went in for a hug, Starlight grabbed her and floated her away, not wanting to get soaked.

“Yes, well, there was a cancellation. Apparently, kids are starting to like clowns more than magicians.” She scoffed. “Philistines. Hello, by the way, Twilight.” She leaned around Starlight and smirked in Twilight’s direction.

“Hi, Trixie,” Twilight said dryly. “Sorry about the cancellation. I guess they must not have met you yet, otherwise they’d know they already had a clown booked.”

“Hah, hah,” Trixie said. “At least I make kids laugh instead of cry.”

“Trixie,” Starlight warned.

“She started it!” Trixie argued.

“I’m not in the mood to mediate your weird hate-friendship,” Starlight told her.

Trixie groaned. “Fine, I’ll leave it. For now.”

Twilight patted Starlight on the shoulder, then got up and walked to the door. “I should go get started on my work,” she said. “You two have fun.” Then she left them, although a moment later she popped her head back in and said “and make her dry off before she tracks water through my castle!”

“See you, Twilight,” Starlight said. Once they were alone, she got up and walked over to Trixie to give her a kiss. “You really do need to dry off,” she said afterwards.

“Yes, yes,” Trixie said, ignoring her. Instead, she hopped into one of the dining room chairs and propped her hind legs up in another. “So, how has Ponyville fared without Trixie around to keep spirits high?”

Starlight sighed, but couldn’t help but smile as she sat down as well. “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve actually gotten around to leaving the castle since you left.”

“Really?” Trixie asked. “Starlight, I know I’m wonderful, but you can’t base your entire life around me!”

“I wasn’t,” Starlight told her. “At least, not directly. I just haven’t had anything to do.”

“It’s Ponyville!” Trixie gestured grandly around her. “Go to the spa, see a movie, I don’t know, go get a burger. Anything besides moping around here all day.”

“I wasn’t moping.”

“Uh-huh,” Trixie said, “sure. Well, whatever you call it, it isn’t good. I can’t just stand by while my sweet and beautiful girlfriend is letting her greatness go to waste!”

“You really need to find better ways to say you’re worried about me,” Starlight said.

Trixie waved a hoof dismissively. “I’m working on it. The point is that we have to do something.”

“Like what? It’s a downpour outside.”

“So?” Trixie replied. “Since when have you let a little water stop you?”

“Since this morning,” Starlight said, “when I decided I wanted to stay dry.”

“Good, it’s not too late to change your mind. Come on, let’s go!”

“Trixie, wait—”

Trixie didn’t wait. She lit up her horn, and a moment later the two of them were standing beside Trixie’s wagon. Starlight had just barely managed to get a magic shield up above them to stop the rain, but there was nothing she could do about the mud under their hooves, and their legs were caked with grime in an instant.

Trixie looked up at the magic stopping the rain and huffed. “Scaredy-cat.”

Starlight tilted her head back and groaned loudly. “Why do I like you?”

“Because you can see how Great and Powerful Trixie is,” Trixie suggested. “Now, where should we go first?”

“You don’t even have a plan?” Starlight asked.

“Pfft, what kind of a charlatan waits until they have a plan?”

“I am not pulling the wagon.”

“Fine.” Trixie sighed and lifted the harness up onto her back. “I get to choose where we go first, then.”

“Stop by somepony’s house so I can tell them I’ll be out for a few days.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I left a note.”

Back in the castle, several hours later, Spike tilted his head in confusion when he found an autographed photo of Trixie next to a small puddle of water.

---

About an hour into the journey, they had made it out of sight of Ponyville, but the rain still wasn’t letting up. Great, grassy plains stretched out on either side of the humble dirt road they made their way slowly down. Luckily, since is was the only path to Ponyville from this direction, the dirt was well packed and didn’t easily turn to mud. It didn’t save their hooves from getting ever dirtier, but it at least kept the wagon from getting stuck.

“So what, exactly, is our goal here?” Starlight asked.

“Well, I don’t know,” Trixie told her. “I figured we’d figure that out once we were on the road.”

“Well, we’re on the road,” Starlight said. “We should probably decide on someplace to actually go.”

“You’re the one that’s in a funk,” Trixie said. “I’m not spending weeks without going outside.”

“Your point?”

“My point is we have to find out what’s wrong before we can decide how to fix it,” Trixie said.

“Nothing is wrong,” Starlight insisted. “Why does everypony think something is wrong with me?”

“Then what would you call it?”

“I don’t know,” Starlight said. “Boredom?”

“Why don’t you go do stuff?”

“I just don’t feel like it,” Starlight said. “I’ve already done it all.”

“You can do things more than once,” Trixie told her. “The spa is still nice no matter how many times you’ve been there.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

Silence fell over them for a few minutes. Their hooves sloshed rhythmically in the mud below them, and the rolling tires filled the air with a low rumble. A bolt of lightning flashed in the distance, hitting a tree and lighting it up brilliantly against the dark clouds. A few seconds later, the quiet, distant thunder washed over them.

“When’s the last time you went home?” Trixie asked. “You know, to the village.”

“I guess it’s been a while,” Starlight said. “It’s a long walk, though.”

“I’m fine with a walk if you are,” Trixie said.

“Sure. I can’t think of anything better.”

“To the village, then!” Trixie pointed boldly ahead, and thunder boomed in the distance. It would have made for a good effect, but Trixie yelped in shock and nearly fell into the mud, so Starlight wound up just laughing.

When they finally managed to break away from the storm, it didn’t get much brighter. The clouds parted, but they revealed a setting sun, only minutes from vanishing altogether. It painted the few remaining clouds a dark orange, setting the sky ablaze in its final push against the dark.

The magic shield popped and fizzled away above them. The drops of rain which had managed to stick to it rained down on the ponies, but they managed to stay relatively dry. With all the walking, Trixie had even dried off from her earlier drenching, and soon the only reminder of the relentless storm was the rapidly drying mud that covered their legs.

On they walked, and around them the world grew dark. The moon rose high and proud into the sky, shining down on them and showing them the way forward. Constellations twinkled above, and a chilly breeze urged the two of them closer, until they were leaning on each other as they walked.

Trixie quietly floated a blanket out of the wagon and draped it over them. Starlight hummed happily, closing her eyes for a moment and nuzzling Trixie as well as she could without tripping them up.

Starlight sighed and looked up to the sky. “Do you travel at night a lot?”

“From time to time,” Trixie said. “Sometimes I have to push myself to make good time, and if I’m in the wrong places come summertime it’s just not reasonable to walk during the day. I mean, I’m not one to complain, but even I can’t handle that much heat.”

“Strange that you can handle me, then,” Starlight said, “considering how hot I am.”

Trixie laughed. “You give me enough icy stares to more than balance that out.”

“Do you ever walk at night just for the sake of it, though?”

“Not really,” Trixie said. “I’ve taken all these roads so many times, I sort of stopped looking at the scenery.”

“Well, I haven’t seen it all,” Starlight said, “and I think it would be fun to see it at night.”

“Yeah, okay,” Trixie said. “I’m willing to keep walking.”

And so they walked some more. Slowly, the landscape around them started to change, first with rolling hills and dotted trees, and then with craggy rock walls and patches of forest. The moonlight cast eerie shadows from the trees and rocks, putting on shows for them in the shadows they passed. White stone glinted blue in the night, and around it the grass grew thick and dark.

Then the trees started closing in. The forests grew, both in size and density, and there was less and less space for the road to travel in the open. Eventually, it had no choice but to cut through the woods. The path was well maintained, so they had no troubles with the wagon, but as the tall walls of foliage swallowed them, they blocked out the meager light from the moon and left the ponies stranded in darkness.

Starlight lit up her horn, casting rays of light that couldn’t get far in any direction. There were just too many trees. “Well this got creepy fast,” she said.

“Do you want to go back a bit and bunker down for the night?” Trixie asked her.

“Nah, I’m not actually scared,” Starlight said. “I mean, what, is a monster gonna eat me? I’m pretty sure I’m stronger than anything that lives up here.”

“Hey, I’m supposed to be the boastful one.”

Starlight laughed. “Still,” she continued, “this is way darker than I expected. No wonder ponies get so scared in the woods.”

“Yeah, well, the moon can only do so much,” Trixie said. “Personally, I find it very peaceful. Up in a place like this, you know nopony is going to bug you.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking with the village in the first place. Find a place where nopony would stumble across us and interfere with our…” Starlight held her tongue. “Well, you know.”

“It’s okay if you still think of them like family, Starlight,” Trixie said.

“Is it, though? I mean, it was basically a cult.”

“Yeah, and that sucked,” Trixie said. “They welcomed you back, though. You didn’t push your way back into their lives. I think sometimes good things just come from bad places.”

“I don’t know. It just feels wrong.”

Trixie shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I’m not exactly the Princess of Friendship over here.”

Starlight sighed and rested her head on Trixie’s shoulder. They walked like that for a bit, neither speaking, until Trixie suddenly stopped and her ears perked up.

“Hey, do you hear that?” She asked.

Starlight looked around and strained her ears. She could hear leaves swaying in the wind, animals chittering to each other, and a stream bubbling nearby, but nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, so she shook her head.

“The water,” Trixie said. “We’re near a stream.”

“So?”

“So,” Trixie said, “there’s only one stream on this path, and that means I know where we are! And, it means I can show you something special.”

Trixie pulled the wagon off to the side of the path and took off the harness, putting it and the blanket aside. Then, without explaining further, she walked into the woods, beckoning Starlight along with her.

“Where are we going?” Starlight asked as they weaved their way around trees and bushes. The light from her horn warped in strange ways in this tighter passageway, making the world seem restless around them.

“You’ll see,” Trixie said.

Around them, the sound of the water steadily grew. The trees around them made it impossible to keep track of where they were, but it was obvious they were getting close to the stream. Neither of them spoke any more, and the sounds of their hoofsteps as they broke twigs and crinkled leaves filled the air around them.

Then the trees started thinning. Starlight’s light started showing more and more of the forest around them, and then it started battling with another light. The trees started letting up enough for the moon to light up the woods, and soon after that they broke into a clearing.

They had made it to the brook. Not just that, though, they had made it to the mouth of the water. On one side of the clearing, a tall wall of stones quietly cascaded water down into a wide, still pool. The moon was reflected brilliantly on the still water. At the other end, the pool funneled into the stream they had been hearing.

“Oh, wow,” Starlight said. “This is beautiful.”

“Sure is,” Trixie agreed. “I’ve never actually seen it in the moonlight. I think it’s even better like this.”

“You come here a lot?”

“Pretty much every time I pass through these woods,” Trixie said. “I mean, I have to wash up somewhere, right? Might as well do it someplace nice.”

“Oh, yeah.” Starlight looked down at her mud-caked legs and laughed. “I had actually forgotten about that.”

“That’s understandable,” Trixie said. “I know my good looks can be distracting.”

“Yeah, sure, let’s go with that.”

“Anyway, let’s get in!” Without waiting for a reply, Trixie lit up her horn and zapped the two of them into the air above the middle of the pool. Trixie splashed into the water, but Starlight reacted fast and caught herself with her magic.

“Ha!” Starlight said. “You’re not getting me with that trick twice. I’m not—”

Trixie cut her off by splashing water up and hitting Starlight in the face.

Starlight gasped, and stared daggers at Trixie. Concentrating, she made the water in the pool surge, rippling out, then flooding back as a wave that came crashing down on Trixie.

Just as she got hit, though, Trixie managed to grab one of Starlight’s legs and pull her down into the water, making them both get crushed by the wave.

They made another splash as they both popped their heads above the surface of the water again. Starlight tried to glare at Trixie, but she couldn’t hold it long, and soon she started cracking up. That made Trixie laugh, too, and soon they were both laughing madly and splashing each other back and forth.

Their splash fight lasted a while, but eventually they ran out of energy. Panting and chuckling, they called a truce and swam together. They wrapped their legs around each other in a tight embrace, and there, bathed in moonlight, soggy manes plastered to their faces, they shared an incredible kiss, followed by another, and more, stretching on into a long, beautiful night.

Comments

[ForSpite]

Cute.

[Razzy]

And then an Ursa ate them. :o

[Banana Prince]

So Trixie goes to the stream at the end of a waterfall to shower?
Starting to look more like a Great and Powerful hobo.