Friends With The Night

“So wait, who we are waiting for again,” Starry asked as he and Luna sat on a bench in the train station.

“We are waiting for twilight sparkle, my sister’s student and bearer of the element of magic of the elements of harmony.”

“Which is what again,” Starry asked looking down the track, seeing the smoke of a train far off in the distance.

“It’s the weapon that was used to defeat Nightmare Moon a thousand years ago, free me from her influence, and defeat discord.” Luna stood got off the bench and approached the platform as the train came rolling in.

“Oh okay,” Starry said, still not fully grasping what Luna was talking about.

The train came to a halt in the station, the brakes hissing slightly. The doors on the cars started to open as various ponies trotted out. Then one car opened its doors and a mountain of books slid out onto the train platform.

“Ah that must be her,” Luna said approaching the train car.

“Twilight is a bunch of books?” Starry looked at the volumes trying to catch their names. Luna stopped and looked at her friend for a second.

“That’s a surprisingly accurate statement,” Luna said as the books began to levitate out of the car and onto a nearby baggage cart, followed by a purple unicorn. The joke was lost on Starry as the unicorn trotted up to them, pulling her cart of books behind her.

“Hello princess,” twilight said happily while bowing.

“Hello twilight, thank you for coming, this is my new student Starry Skies you will be helping me teach.” Luna stepped aside and pointed her hoof to Starry.

“Hello! Nice to meet you, I’m twilight Sparkle,” twilight said ecstatically holding her hoof out to shake, which Starry slowly reached out and accepted. “So shall we make our way to the palace,” twilight asked while walking to the exit of the train station, Starry and Luna following behind.

“okay let’s see what you can do Starry, pick this up,” Twilight said as she levitated a large rock over from an assortment of objects that were stacked near the corner. The trio had gone back to the palace and was now standing in one of the guard training halls. Starry leaned his head down and pointed his horn at the rock, his horn giving a soft blue glow as the rock lifted up easier than he thought it would. Starry winced as blue ribbons of light started weaving off his horn and brushing his head and mane, marking his coat with little burn marks.

“okay hold that there,” twilight said and walked over, using her hoof she touched Starry’s horn and gasped pulling it back quickly and shaking it.

“that’s some really bad backlash you have,” twilight said while motioning for Starry to drop the rock. Starry dropped the boulder and reached up to rub his head. Twilight walked over to her large cart of books and pulled one with a yellow cover out and levitated it to Starry.

“I want you to read this after we are done.” Twilight pulled out another book and put it in front of Starry as he stowed the yellow book in his saddlebag.

“okay now I want you to cast this spell,” twilight said as she flipped through the pages and stopped on one.

“I’ll give you a few minutes to study it.”

“Oh! I already know this one,” Starry said and closed his eyes, beginning to collect power in his horn. After gathering up enough power he shaped it into the proper shape for the spell, then released it.

Starry’s horn suddenly flared with power, deep blue tendrils of light erupting outward and wrapping around his body, till he was no longer visible under the swirling mass of energy. After a few seconds the ribbons of light flew away and left Starry on the ground, two big butterfly wings protruding from his back.

“that’s very good,” twilight said and walked up to Starry, giving his wings a slight touch to see if they would hold together.

“Well  you can perform spells very well, which is impressive since you weren’t taught much else than levitation at a school.

“The only thing I can think of right now is for you to learn how to control the power you are actively using, so you won’t have that backlash anymore, then I would suggest starting you on lessons in advanced magic’s.” Starry looked down with a shy smile and kicked the ground with his hoof some.

“so are we done for today then,” Luna asked while walking over from where she had been watching.

“yes princess, I know we didn’t do much, but I don’t want to go much further until Starry can control his backlash.” Luna nodded and walked over to Starry and nodded.

“then why don’t we all go get some lunch,” Luna suggested, greeted with two eager nods.

Starry was sitting in his room, Luna and twilight had left him to start on a lesson plan. Starry looked over the book in front of him, it was explaining that you need to taper the flow of your energy when channeling it, and exactly how to do it. Starry read through the various magical equations on how to taper the flow to be what you need then sat the book down and looked at it. after a second Starry’s horn glowed softly, then the book glowed and lifted off the ground, Starry crossed his eyes and looked up to his horn, little ribbons were still flittering around it but when they brushed his head they had no affect at all. Starry gasped happily and lifted his saddle bag along with the book, then the mirror on the wall, then the dresser, then the bookshelves in his room, then the bed. Starry looked around happily as expending this much energy beforehand would have been excruciatingly painful, all the objects hovered high in the air surrounded by a blue glow with little ribbons of light flittering around them.

“wow,” Starry stared wide eyed at the objects.

“that’s really impressive,” a voice interrupted Starry’s concentration and he dropped all the objects, only for them to be enveloped by a soft purple glow and lightly sat down as twilight walked over to Starry.

“sorry I didn’t mean to startle you,” twilight said as she lightly sat the yellow book on Starry’s bed.

“n-no that’s fine, uh thanks,” Starry said, looking behind twilight to see if Luna was there.

“can you pick something else up though,” twilight asked gesturing to the book, Starry nodded and picked up the book with his kinesis.

“these ribbons are very interesting, are you doing them with a glamour?” twilight waved a hoof through the little ribbons, watching as they dodged and attempted to get away from it. Starry shook his head as twilight examined the ribbons.

“that’s very curious,” twilight said making a mental note to research it later.

“anyway I was coming here to tell you tomorrow we start on advanced magic’s, specifically teleportation,” twilight said for the first time noticing how thin the other unicorn was, then looked up at his face.

“Starry, are you okay? You are looking a little pale,” twilight asked, a worried look coming across her face.

“T-teleportation,” Starry asked looking forward at a point in space twilight couldn’t seem to pinpoint.

“yeah, that’s okay isn’t it,” twilight said with a quizzical look to twilight.

“oh, yeah that’s okay,” Starry said not sounding very convinced, but twilight didn’t want to press, then she remembered the other part of Celestia’s letter.

“hey Starry, do you want to go for a walk,” twilight asked, with a smile. Starry stared at twilight for a few seconds, looking for any sign of malice or ulterior motive, he found none, just a genuine smile.

“sure,” he said and  turned to follow as twilight led him out of the room.

The two walked out of the palace and into the streets of Canterlot, it was only a matter of minutes before Luna would raise the moon. Twilight was grasping for anything to talk to Starry about but she didn’t know anything about him and thought back to when she made friends with the other five elements. She couldn’t come up with anything, the others had made friends with her first, but now she was the one trying to make friends with somepony else.

“so.. uh.. do you like to do anything,” twilight asked trying to get a conversational topic.

“well, I like to play games, build things. I love to do magic, I like to fly, and I like to read.”

“you like to read,” twilight asked, her eyes widening slightly.

“oh yeah I love to read, you can get so much information from books and, why wouldn’t you want to know more,”  Starry said happily.

“I know! None of my friends want to read and I just can’t convince them to.” Twilight stopped and turned to face Starry.

“I have an all access pass to the royal Canterlot library, we can go right now,” twilight said looking at Starry intensely.

“let’s go,” Starry said simply and the two began galloping down the streets to the Canterlot library.

Twilight and Starry emerged into the wonder that is the royal Canterlot library, five floors and a countless number of books. Twilight couldn’t be happier, she finally had a study buddy, but what to study?

“so, what should we study,” twilight asked, looking over to Starry who was marveling at the library he was seeing for the first time.  Starry thought for a second and flittered his gossamer wings.

“flight mechanics,” Starry asked, and was answered by a nod from twilight.

“meet back at that table with books?” Starry gestured to a table near the middle of the atrium of the library, a vertical column of nothing that reached up through all five floors, ending at the ceiling with a domed window. Twilight nodded and dashed off to one of the sections of books.

Starry flapped his enchanted wings and took off to the second floor, searching through the books , finding one on griffon flight physics, the magic of pegasi, dragon wing shapes, various feather compositions, and a whole host of other books.  When Starry came back to the table, twilight was there with her own big pile of books; he sat his next to hers and gave her a smile.

The next hour or two, or three, or four, or five were spent with the two ponies reading through the books and sharing relevant information with each other, trading books and learning an absurd amount of information about flight mechanics. During the first hour of studying Starry’s wings had run out of power and dissolved and they couldn’t test anything easily, so the two just kept studying.

Starry was starting to feel a little sleepy as he turned the page in the book and found it blank.

“huh?” Starry flipped through more of the book and found every page after the one he had just read blank, then he realized he didn’t feel sleepy in the slightest. Starry sat up and looked over for twilight, but found that he wasn’t even in the library, he was in a nicely furnished room, with bookshelves lining the walls and floating blue lights.

“oh, I must have passed out.” Then suddenly something knocked at the door to his room. Starry stared at it for a few minutes, the door was really just an aesthetic piece for the room, because rooms without doors look very odd, anything past the door should just have been unstructured dreamspace. A knock came again and Starry curiously trotted up to the door and opened it.

“oh Luna!” Starry said happily, stepping aside for the alicorn to enter.

“I was wondering when you would fall asleep, its three am Starry what have you been doing,” Luna asked with a smile as she sat on Starry’s dream couch.

“oh me and twilight were studying at the Canterlot library,” Starry said as he walked up to the bookshelf, looking and finding the information he had gathered the day and putting up the book he was holding in his kinesis.

“oh, how was the library? Did you have fun while you were there,” Luna asked wondering if twilight and Starry were getting along, so her two friends would be friends.

“well, actually, I’m still there. Me and twilight must have passed out while reading,” Starry said walking over to the couch and sitting next to Luna.

“oh,” Luna said before suddenly blinking out of existence, leaving Starry on the couch for about five minutes before she blipped right back to where she had been.

“what was that,” Starry asked to Luna who had reappeared next to him.

“I went and told some guards to fetch you two and bring you back to the palace.”

“oh, thanks” Starry said, looking at Luna. “so, are there many nightmares tonight?”

“not one,” Luna answered staring at the  bookshelf, noting a calendar on the wall next to it, and a photo album sitting on the top shelf.

“huh, so what do we do then,” Starry asked looking back to Luna, who was looking over his bookshelf.

“well, what you usually do when you are sleeping,” Luna asked

“well I usually either study books I have read or go over my memories,” Starry replied, and for the next few minutes both ponies stared blankly at the dream wall in front of them. “I don’t think I have ever been this bored,” Starry said getting off the couch and walking around in circles for a bit before sitting back down, just to do something.  Suddenly the whole dream became translucent and cracks started to streak down the walls of the room.

Starry opened his eyes to a guard looking at him, with a sly grin.

“What’s up with that,” Starry thought to himself and attempted to get up, finding a weight on him. Starry turned his head, a deep blush immediately spreading across his face. During his sleep he had slid down and leaned against twilight, and in her sleep she had wrapped her hoof around him. twilight was wearing the same expression Starry was. After a few seconds of awkward silence the two pulled away from each other at the exact same time and avoided eye contact as the guards led them out of the library and back to the palace.

“uh, erm… goodnight twilight,” Starry said as he turned down the hallway to go back to his room.

“yeah, uh goodnight Starry,” twilight said and quickly made her way to her room. After the two unicorns left their escort guards were free to burst out laughing.

Starry laid in his bed wide awake. Try as he might, toss and turn, rotate his pillow, the unicorn could not find his way to sleep. Fears of twilight played in his head. “what if she doesn’t want to be friends with me anymore,” Starry asked himself, rolling to the side of the bed once again, his tossing wrinkling the bedspread.

Several hours passed before the first rays of Celestia’s sun started to stream in through the window.  Starry slipped out of the bed as soon as he was sure the sun was above the horizon. After brushing his mane and tail Starry walked out of his room and into the hallways of the palace, blinking slightly and starting on a path to the kitchens. Food, that’s what would make him feel better.

Starry arrived at the royal kitchens, his legs just barely holding him up. After a quick chat with one of the chefs he was walking to a table, a muffin in his telekinetic hold.

Starry became aware of a hoof on his shoulder, opening his eyes he saw his face was in the wrapper of an eaten muffin, pulling his head up he saw Luna staring at him.

“Starry are you okay,” the princess asked, her face plastered with a look of worry.

“I’m fine Lufa,” Starry replied as Luna used her hoof to pull him up to his legs.

“are you sure? You never went back to sleep,” Luna said following Starry to the trash can to throw away the muffin wrapper.

“I was distracted,” Starry replied and slipped to the side a bit, catching himself slightly.

“distracted about what,” Luna asked while rushing to Starry’s side so he wouldn’t fall down.

“I might have ruined my friendship with twilight.” Starry looked down at the ground.

“how would you have done that?” Luna followed Starry as he walked to the guard training hall where he was supposed to meet with twilight for today’s lesson.

“I fell aslalp last night and must haf leaned against her, she must  have laid her hoof across me when she was asleep.”

“is that all,” Luna asked letting a relieved smile play across her face.  Starry looked up at her confused.

“is that all,” he repeated as if he couldn’t believe Luna had just asked it.

“yeah, twilight is a better pony than that, sure it may have embarrassed her and you, but she is a very forgiving pony and I’m sure it didn’t ruin your friendship, and if you are still feeling bad you can always apologize,” Luna said. Starry nodded and walked into the training hall, giving a quick look around for twilight he saw her standing near what appeared to be stacks of pillows, Starry trotted up to her.

“hey twili-“ Starry was cut off by twilight.

“listen Starry, I’m really sorry about last night, hope it doesn’t change anything between us, and if you are willing to I would like to study with you again later,” twilight said to a shocked looking Starry, Luna was a few feet away and trying her best not to start giggling.

“its fine twilight,” Starry said happily with a smile then gestured to the pillows with a hoof and blinked trying to keep his eyes open.

“so, what’s all this,” Starry asked.

“oh, yeah we are going over teleportation today and its best to have somewhere soft to land your first few times, the other pad is in the garden.” Starry nodded and twilight began explaining all the intracies of teleporting, ending with a summary of a summary of how it works.

“ so really you just have to picture in your head where you want to be when you cast it, then you will be there. So I need you to picture the garden, a little to the left of the statue of discord.” Starry yawned a little and nodded as twilight walked out of the room and down to the garden. Luna looked at Starry.

“ are you sure you can do this right now,” she asked. “ you look really sleepy.

“yeas I got this,” Starry said and began charging for the spell, his horn letting off a soft glow as he readied himself to cast the spell. Luna watched Starry get ready to cast the spell , his head slowly sinking lower as if he was falling asleep.

“Starry,” Luna asked.

”man, a pillow would be really good right now.”  Starry’s mind started to wander slightly as he charged for the spell.  “or maybe a cloud would be nice, I can just see it now, all white and fluffy, and sof-“ Starry’s thoughts were abruptly cut off as the spell released.

Twilight was standing in the garden, next to a pile of pillows when she felt a burst of power from within the palace, turning to look at the pillows she expected to see a flash of light, but there was none.  Seconds turned into minutes and twilight was getting worried when she saw Luna flying over in the distance and landed in front of her.

“did Starry ever show up,” the night princess asked looking around the garden.

“no, he hasn’t,” twilight replied.

“I think he may have passed out right as he cast the spell,” Luna said and looked to twilight.

“he passed out,” the unicorn asked looking back to Luna.

“yeah, he didn’t sleep last night because he was afraid he messed up your friendship.”

“oh,” twilight replied with a rather blank expression.

“we should go look for him, he must have changed his destination just before he cast it, let’s check his room first, he may have thought about his bed.” The two mares ran off towards the palace.

Ditzy was having a fairly good day, she only had to drop mail off at the palace then she would be free to go back home and spend time with dinky and sparkler. The grey Pegasus smiled and flapped her wings harder at the thought of getting off work early and going to spend the day with her daughters, then later Doctor Whooves was supposed to come back and spend time with them. Ditzy was entertaining thoughts of spending time with her family when she saw something very peculiar. On the top of a nearby cloud there was a flash of blue light, followed by a light blue Pegasus practicing his dive bombing above the palace.

“that’s odd,” Ditzy said aloud. “ponies aren’t allowed to practice stunts above the palace usually, I should go warn him before he gets in trouble.” Ditzy smiled to herself and altered course to meet up with him in the air, then she started to notice some odd things, for one any sane Pegasus would have pulled up from a dive by now, two there appeared to be something stuck in his forehead, and three, which was most bothersome, was that this Pegasus had no wings, which was rather odd for a Pegasus. Ditzy gasped as she realized it wasn’t a Pegasus practicing tricks, it was a unicorn falling through the air. Pumping her wings as hard as she could Ditzy sped up and grabbed the colt around his midsection with her forehooves, and beat her wings down hard to slow their descent.  Luckily for them both Ditzy was a mailmare and lifting heavy things for a living had given her very powerful wings, also this pony was unbelievably light. Ditzy beat her wings hard as she held on to the other pony and strained hard to save them from the ground that was very quickly rushing up to meet them.

Ditzy realized the colt had been too close to the ground when she grabbed him and had been moving too fast for her to slow their descent in time and knew there was no way for her to slow them down enough to prevent injury so she began looking for other options. Ditzy gasped happily as she saw that not too far off was a small lake in the middle of the royal garden, beating her wings hard she began to alter their direction, suddenly the two ponies impacted the lake with a massive splash,  Starry’s eyes shot open and he looked up, seeing himself moving further away from what appeared to be the surface of a lake, Starry began thrashing his limbs around in an attempt to get back to the surface. Above him he could see a grey mare with a blond mane and tail swimming down to him, after a second she hooked her fetlock with his and began beating her wings hard as if she were flying, pulling them both to the surface of the water, then pulling them to the shore of the lake.

“w-what happened,” Starry asked, coughing out lake water and pulling himself the rest of the way out of said lake.

“you fell out of a cloud,” Ditzy announced as she laid back  against the beach and picked up her mail bag with her forehooves. She pulled back the flap and looked in the bag, finding all the letters to be dry and heaved a sigh of relief, she would really have to think sparkler for enchanting her bag when she got home. “what were you doing up there anyway,” the mailmare asked looking at Starry, who immediately looked down in shame.

“I think I fell asleep in the middle of casting a teleport spell,” he said not taking his eyes off the ground, then jumped slightly as he felt hooves prodding his sides and legs. Ditzy was a mother of two and as such her motherly instincts had kicked in. ”what are you doing,” Starry asked as the mare inspected him.

“I’m checking you for cuts or bruises or broken bones or something, you hit the lake first and water can sometimes be as hard as concrete on impact, do you feel okay,” Ditzy asked while checking him over.

“yeah aside from being wet I feel fi-“ Starry interrupted himself as Ditzy touched a rib on his left side and he inhaled sharply, his legs threatening to give out under him.

“yeah, that’s not good, you may have broken a rib, and possibly this leg,” Ditzy gestured to Starry’s front left leg, which until just now he was unaware he had been holding off the ground. Starry cautiously pressed his hoof against the ground and immediately winced in pain and pulled it back up. “come on, let’s get you inside, I’m sure the palace has a doctor, and they wouldn’t expect us to walk you all the way to the Canterlot hospital,” Ditzy said, walking to Starry’s left side, then taking a wing and laying it over his back to steady him as he leaned against her and the two began walking into the palace. “so, what’s your name,” Ditzy asked as they limped through the garden.

“my name is Starry skies,” he said, forcing a friendly smile.

“Ditzy stared at him for a moment, his name seemed familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite place it, so she left it for the moment.

“that’s a nice name, mine is  Ditzy Whooves,” Ditzy announced proudly, as the two walked through the door to the palace, the guards parting as soon as they saw Starry.

“hey Starry, why did the guards lets us in without asking any questions,” Ditzy asked, throwing a look back at the guards as Starry motioned which hallway to go down,  he still wasn’t familiar with the whole palace, but he remembered where Luna had taken him before.

“oh, I suppose that’s because I’m Luna’s personal student.” He replied, trying to not make it seem like a big deal, even though every time he got to say it made him want to jump, which would probably be a bad idea in the present situation.

Ditzy stopped and looked at Starry for a few moments, well looked isn’t exactly the correct word. The mare’s shining amber eyes didn’t seem to work together at first, looking off in separate directions before actually focusing on the pony in front of them.

“I didn’t know Luna had a student,” ditsy said as she resumed walking at a slow pace so Starry could limp and lean on her.

“well it kind of just happened, as in two days ago, I don’t suspect news has gotten out yet,” Starry said as they walked into the royal medical wing, a pair of nurses quickly running over and separating the two as they were taken to different rooms.

When finally both had finished Starry had a cast on his left leg and a metal ring clipped to it that was enchanted with royal level healing spells, that should have his bone mended by morning, and his midsection was wrapped with medical tape, and a little metal pin was pinned to his left side to mend his fractured rib. Ditzy walked out with nothing, she was just fine, years of working as a mailmare had really toughened her up and strengthened her bones, while inversely years of poor diet had rendered Starry’s bones relatively weak in comparison. As the Starry walked back into the lobby Ditzy twilight and Luna were all waiting for him, Luna quickly rushed over to give Starry a light hug, while twilight felt the urge to do the same the memory from the night previous just inclined her to give a warm and relieved smile.

“sorry twilight, and Luna, I may have passed out during the lesson,”

Starry said looking down embarrassed as Luna pulled away from the hug.

“that’s okay, though next time I suggest you don’t stay up the whole night worrying about such silly things,” twilight said with a smile. “we are friends and one embarrassing incident won’t change that.” Starry smiled happily at his friend , then Luna turned to Ditzy.

“I really can’t thank you enough Mrs. Whooves,” Luna said with a smile.

“oh it was nothing, I was just doing what any pony would do in my situation,” the mare said happily.

“oh but you still deserve some kind of reward,” Luna said pulling out a bag of bits.

“oh I couldn’t accept princess, getting a gift for doing the right thing isn’t proper, and kindness is its own reward.” Luna smiled at Ditzy.

“you are indeed a wise mare Mrs. Whooves, then perhaps I could repay you with dinner? Tonight you and your family are invited to the palace for dinner, I insist,” Luna looked to Ditzy.

“well who am I to say no to a princess,” Ditzy smiled happily and took a few steps to the door. “what time will it be,” Ditzy asked looking back to the other three ponies.

“show up whenever you want, the food will be served at 7:30,” Luna stated happily.

“Okay, ill finish this delivery, get my daughters ready and be over soon,” Ditzy said as she rushed out of the room to finish her mail route.

“she seems nice,” twilight said walking up to stand next to Starry and Luna.