Friends With The Night

Ditzy fluttered over to the palace post boxes and began sorting through her mail, depositing mail in the boxes accordingly, she needed to do this quickly, as her little adventure with starry had set her back about an hour and her family would be expecting her home soon. After ditzy finished sorting her mail and depositing it in the boxes she turned towards the palace exit and beat her wings hard, her hooves leaving then ground then dashing through the air out of the palace and into the skies over Canterlot. Ditzy flew to the edges of the city, where the stonework stops and the dirt and grass begins, landing in front of a wooden house surrounded by trees the mailmare smiled happily and trotted up to the door, bracing herself as she pulled it open.

“mommy!” ditzy was promptly tackled to the ground as a light purple filly whizzed through the door and into her mother’s arms, a pink pony with a purple mane and three diamonds for cutie marks, roughly Starry’s age following her younger sister out.

“hello muffin,” ditzy said happily as she picked herself up and placed dinky on her back, then giving a warm nuzzle to sparkler before the three went back into the house.

“So what took you so long to get here,” sparkler asked pulling her mother’s mailbag off of her and hanging it up on the rack next to the door.

“Oh you guys will never believe it,” the mare said happily, then looked around for a second.” Where is the doctor,” ditzy asked.

“He left a while ago, something about tartar sauce,” dinky announced happily from her mother’s back.

“Hehe, it’s a tardis honey, and he better be back soon because we have somewhere to go.” Moments later the door to the house opened to a brown earth pony with an hourglass for a cutie mark. ”there you are doctor; okay now let me tell you all what happened today.”  Ditzy smiled and sat on the couch, grabbing dinky and setting her down on the couch also.

“Okay, so there I was doing my normal mail route, it was my last stop and I was flying above the palace when suddenly I see a Pegasus practicing dive bombing above the palace. Now you know this isn’t allowed, so I went to warn him that he could get in trouble with the guards I noticed he wasn’t a Pegasus, but a unicorn!” sparkler and the doctor had walked up and were sitting on a rug in front of the couch.” So I tried to catch him and pull him up, but we were moving too fast, so I just redirected us so we would land in a lake. After I pulled him out I walked him to the palace medical wing, because he had broken a rib and leg on impact with the water, and you’ll never guess who he was!” Dinky scooted closer and looked at her mother with big eyes.

“Who was he,” she asked impatiently.

“He was Princess Luna’s new student! I saved the princess’s new student!” dinky and the doctor gasped while sparkler just sat there with a smile. Ditzy was expecting dinky to gasp but the doctor reacting in such a surprised way was rare.

“You know something dear,” ditzy asked looking at the doctor teasingly.

“Erhhm, spoilers,” he replied simply with a knowing smile. Ditzy stuck her tongue out at him

“You’re no fun. Anyway the princess was so grateful she invited all of us to the palace tonight for dinner.” This time sparkler gasped and her eyes shined with anticipation.

“w-we get to go to the palace,” sparkler asked, her eyes wide.

“Yep! Now you girls need to go get ready, sparkler help dinky,” ditzy said happy that she was getting to take her family out somewhere.  After a few minutes dinky came down, her mane and tail brushed to perfection, and a small saddle bag with seven bubbles as a clip for it strapped to her back. Sparkler came down next, her mane and tail brushed as well, a necklace with many colorful gems around her neck.

“Everypony ready,” the doctor asked opening up the door for his girls, to be greeted by eager nods.

“Well allons-y!” the doctor raced out the door after his family.

Starry was in his room poking at his cast with his other hoof.

“you shouldn’t do that,” twilight said sitting next to him, a pile of books sat between the two unicorns. Starry breaking his leg and getting an enchanted brace was the perfect chance to study the medical magic that was currently working on his leg.  Across the bed Luna sat a pile of books her own as she had decided to join in on this study session.

“she’s right, you will only make it worse,” Luna said setting her book down and looking at her student, rubbing the cast with his right hoof.

“it itches,” starry complained.

“come on, it comes off tomorrow can’t you just go one day with it,” twilight asked, joining Luna in staring at starry. Starry huffed slightly and pulled his hoof away from the cast, both mares smiled at him and went back to reading their books, starry pulling his own up and reading something about the intrinsic healing properties of silver when a knock came at the door. Starry got up and pulled the door open to see a guard standing there.

“excuse me, but your guests have arrived, should we escort them to the dining hall,” the guard asked to be answered by a nod from starry, then a confirmation nod from the guard who turned and walked off to the palace entrance, starry turned to the other two ponies in the room.

“so it looks like ditzy and her family are here, lets meet them in the dining hall,” starry said and began trotting out of his room and down to the dining hall after the other two had taken lead.

Ditzy and her family walked into the royal dining hall and marveled at the beautiful marble columns reaching up to the top of the tall room and the fine rug encompassing most of the floor they stood on, a long oak table sitting in the middle of the room, with two chairs at one end, clearly one was for Luna and the other Celestia. Sparkler immediately dashed off to look at the jewels that were made into artwork on the walls, her special talent being a jeweler made her very curious about these things.

Ditzy looked over to see four ponies walking into the room, Luna, her student starry, Celestia and twilight.  The doctor, ditzy and sparkler all bowed. Looking around dinky saw her family all bowing to the princesses and quickly bowed herself, making Celestia smile softly.

“welcome my little ponies,” Celestia began, sitting down, her celestial hair flowing in the solar winds. “I must personally thank you for saving my sister’s student today,” Celestia said, the praise from her princess making the mailmare beam happily. “even though he has only been here for three days we have all grown rather attached to him, and it just wouldn’t be the same to not have him at the palace.” Ditzy noticed that last point make starry blush, and smiled happily at him.  “well shall we eat,” Celestia asked, taking her seat at the head of the table, Luna sitting next to her, followed by starry sitting on the side of the table Luna was nearest, and twilight doing the same for her teacher. Ditzy saw the doctor and sparkler sit next to starry, so she took dinky and sat next to twilight.

“so starry, how did you manage to become Luna’s student,” the doctor asked, in his Trottingham accent. Starry looked at the table in front of him for a second, his eyes glazing over before Luna sat a hoof on his shoulder and gave him an encouraging smile, which actually surprised her, she had never actually encouraged somepony before, then she realized she had done a lot of things with starry she had never done before. The other day in the dream after starry had relived him losing his home Luna had comforted him, something which she had only been on the receiving end of for so long, and it felt good, it felt really good Luna realized as she looked at starry who was already looking better than when he had shown up a couple of days ago. Not only was starry looking physically better (aside from the currently broken leg and rib) but his smiles were less forced, he could actually talk to ponies, which on their first day presented a significant problem as the only two he would talk to were golden light and herself. Starry sat up and looked at the doctor.

“well I botched a teleportation spell and pulled something from another plane through, it chased me all the way into Luna’s room before it cornered me and I lost control of my magic.” By now the entire rest of the table was listening as starry talked, since Luna hadn’t actually told anypony what happened that first day yet?

“what do you mean by lost control,” twilight asked from the other side of the table. Causing starry to look up surprised as he noticed other ponies were listening. Luna decided to take this question, based on what she had heard of twilight from Celestia.

“like you did when you were trying to hatch spike, except a lot more violent, less channeled magic into spells and more into raw arcs of power.”  Luna answered for starry

“it happens when I get really nervous, scared or stressed,” starry said as everypony looked at him. twilight nodded knowingly. “then, well I don’t really know what happened after that but when I got back up there was scorch marks over the floor and the creature was gone.”

The palace chef’s came in with daisy sandwiches and hay fries. Without another word all the ponies dug in, after a few minutes Luna was leaning over to starry to tell him the way to properly eat a sandwich when in a fancy setting such as this, while ditzy was doing the same to dinky across the table. Twilight and Celestia shared a glance, attempting not to laugh and just settled on a slight smile.

After everyone had finished their meal all the ponies had engaged in polite conversation, the doctor inquiring many things of starry about who he was and how he came to this point in his life. Ditzy was explaining postal code to twilight and sparkler was talking to the princesses. Finally it came the time for everypony to part ways; sparkler came bounding up to her mother, her body practically trembling with excitement as the family said their goodbyes to the princesses and their students.

“what has you so excited,” ditzy asked to sparkler as they exited the palace.

“I was talking with the princesses and Celestia asked about my necklace and when I told her I made it, you’ll never guess what! She asked if she could stop by one day and look at my stock,” sparkler said quickly without stopping or taking a breath, she took her younger sister and placed her on her back. ”isn’t that great dinks,” sparkler asked dinky as the little filly giggled and held onto her sister’s mane.

“yes! Sparkler you are the best jeweler in Equestria,” dinky announced happily. Ditzy smiled and looked to the doctor, who seemed to be lost in thought.

“well doctor you seemed to be rather interested in Luna’s student,” ditzy asked, the doctor snapping out of his thought.

“sorry dearest, can’t say much on the matter. He is just, important.” Ditzy smiled and draped her wing over the doctor’s back. As the family walked home.

Luna was walking with starry, twilight had decided to spend some time with Celestia for a while and write a letter back home to spike to make sure he was handling things all right.

“I should fall out of the sky more often,” starry joked as he and Luna walked to the royal gaming room at a rather slow pace, just enjoying each other’s company in the near empty halls.

“yes I agree, ditzy and her family were quite charming and a pleasure to be around,” Luna said.” But I wouldn’t recommend fall-“Luna was cut off by the surprised exclamation of a familiar voice.

“oh dear sweet Celestia, Starry is that you?!” Luna and starry both turned around to see a light blue pony with only a little older than starry with dark blue and white hair and an hourglass for her cutie mark rushing over to them, Luna noticed Starry’s eyes light up and he started to run towards the filly.

“Colgate,” starry exclaimed happily as the pony wrapped her hooves around his neck and he returned the hug happily.

“oh where have you been? I thought something horrible happened that day in the market,” Colgate said pulling out of the hug and smiling at starry.

“I had to run, I was framed for stealing carrots and the guards came, as they closed in on me I lost control. When I regained my mind all I could do was run as fast as I could out of town.

“wow, that’s awful, we were so worried about you, after we heard what happened we thought you must have been taken away or killed, from the damage in the market we mostly assumed the ladder.” By now Luna had walked up, immediately causing Colgate to bow as Luna recognized her as the royal dental hygienist.

“starry, I believe I am missing something here,” Luna stated simply, attempting to make sense of this latest development.

“oh I’m sorry, where are my manners? Luna this is Colgate, she was the first pony to treat me well, her and her mom even offered to take me in, she also gave me a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste, and taught me what grass to eat to prevent tooth decay,” starry said, exceptionally happy at being able to meet an old friend.

“yeah I did didn’t i? open up,” Colgate announced and starry sat down, and open his mouth for the unicorn to peer into. “very nice starry! I have regulars that can’t keep their mouth in as good condition, what happened to you,” Colgate asked, now that the shock of seeing starry had mostly worn away she noticed the bandages on his midsection and his cast.

“I fell out of a cloud.” Starry said still smiling and standing back up to stand near Luna. “also I’m Luna’s student now.”

“no way, I’m the royal oral hygienist,” Colgate announced then looked at a clock on a nearby wall.” Oh I’d love to catch up some more but I have an appointment, we should hang out some time,” Colgate said quickly running down the hallway and disappearing around the corner. Leaving a very happy student and a still surprised princess of the night standing there.

“I’ll tell you about how I met her later tonight, until then want to play some pony fortress,” starry asked happily, resuming his original path to the gaming room.

“yes I like the sound of that.”

Luna and starry played for a few hours before starry eventually fell asleep at his controller, the night princess picking him up and levitating him to his room before walking to her own room, taking care of a few small nightmares then pushing into Starry’s dream, smiling at the familiar scene of his mental study.

“hello Luna,” starry announced happily, putting a book back on his shelf. “did I fall asleep in the game room?”

“yes but I got you back to your room,” Luna replied with a smile before sitting on the couch next to her friend. “so, how did you meet Colgate,” Luna asked, her curiosity making her lose any tact she might have had.

“ah, yes well it was probably my third year on my own when I came across a quiet little town.” as starry talked the room shimmered away and was replaced with young starry walking along a dirt path into the market section of town, his hooves were dragging slightly and his face was bent into a slight look of pain.

“what’s wrong with you,” Luna asked starry as the memory starry sat down and rubbed his cheek.

“I had a toothache,” starry said as a young pony in the crowd seemed to notice Starry’s uncomfortability and trotted over.

“hey are you okay,” the filly Colgate asked, taking starry by surprise, who immediately began looking around for an easy escape route.

“now you need to understand, prior to this I had been to around five towns and all of them shunned me and acted like I wasn’t there, so I didn’t understand her intentions were positive.”

“my name is Minuette! But everyone calls me Colgate,” the filly announced happily then placed her hooves on Starry’s muzzle and pulled it open, taking a peek inside. Starry too shocked to really react. “oh that looks bad, I have just the thing!”

Colgate grabbed Starry’s hoof and began dragging the surprised colt out of the market and to a nearby house next to a clean looking stream. “stay here I’ll be right back. “ Colgate promptly dashed off into her house, coming back after a few minutes with some tweezers and a bowl of something in her telekinetic hold. “Open up,” she announced happily and placed a hoof on Starry’s jaw to pull it open then carefully insert the tweezers. There was the light sound of clicking as Colgate poked around in Starry’s mouth, finding her target after a few seconds and gripping it, slowly pulling it free of Starry’s gums.  Starry’s eyes widened with pain for a few seconds as the filly pulled a short piece of hay out of his mouth, the tip slightly pink. Before starry could react Colgate dropped the hay and lifted her bowl, using a small spoon she took some light green tinted goop and pushed it into his mouth, rubbing it on the spot she had just pulled the hay from. “there better,” Colgate asked happily.  Starry was finally able to close his mouth and looked at the pony in front of him; cautiously he reached a hoof up and rubbed his cheek, to find no pain at all.

“y-yes thank you,” starry stuttered out shyly.

“you need to be more careful when eating wild hay, its stronger and more brittle than the stuff you can buy at the markets,” Colgate said, picking up her tweezers and placing them into the bowl.

“Minuette dear what are you doing,” a pony called walking up to the two and looking down at them, her face grimacing at seeing the near starved young colt in front of her. “Colgate who is your friend,” the pony asked giving starry a good look over, noting his torn up saddle bag and unkempt mane and tail.

“this is- uh…   I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.” Colgate said blushing slightly as she forgot to even ask this pony his name before dragging him to her house.

“oh uh my name is uh,” starry looked back between the two ponies weighing rather or not he should run, in the end he decided not to. “my name is starry skies,” he said, remembering his manners and offering a hoof to shake with Colgate’s mother.

“very nice to meet you starry, my name is Minty Fresh and would you like to have dinner with us? I was just about to make some for Minty and I, but we would be happy to have you,” Minty offered politely.  Against his better judgment starry nodded enthusiastically as his hunger overpowered any logic he might have been considering. “well all right then, Colgate can you go up to your room for a second, I would like to talk to your friend,” Minty said opening the door to her house as her daughter nodded and scampered up the stairs. Minty walked to the kitchen and began pulling out various vegetables. “can you use your telekinesis yet,” Minty asked to which starry nodded and Minty slid over a knife to starry and a couple of carrots. “cut these up for me please,” Minty said as she started to boil water on the stove. “so, starry do you live around here, or are you and your family just passing through,” Minty asked, as she began a broth, wondering what kind of family would let their foal look this malnourished.

“I’m just passing through,” starry said quietly as he held the knife in his telekinetic grip, cutting the carrots to pieces, trying to keep them evenly sized.

“so what do your parents do for money, are they traveling merchants,” Minty asked, knowing merchants often couldn’t feed themselves let alone a young colt.

“I don’t have parents anymore,” starry said, his voice losing any tone as his eyes glazed over emotionless. Minty stopped what she was doing and looked at the colt.

“was there an accident? Were you separated, I could help you find them,” Minty offered and stared at the unicorn who had begun cutting the carrots into little slivers.

“my dad kicked me out after I tried to make him stop hitting my mom…” Minty could practically feel her heart breaking as Starry’s small body began trembling slightly, his horn sparking a little as he chopped faster and faster, turning the carrot he was working on into much. Minty stared at starry for a few moments, then he blinked and a single tear rolled down his cheek, a soft inhale of air as he tried to suppress a sob. Minty couldn’t take it anymore and dropped her forehooves from the counter, quickly pulling the colt into a hug, his walls finally breaking as he launched into full blown sobs against the mare. Minty held starry close and stroked down his mane, shushing calmly as he cried into her coat.

“how long ago did he kick you out,” Minty asked, still wanting to know the whole story.

“a- about three years a-ago,” starry forced out between sobs as he shook in Minty’s hooves. Minty looked down at the unicorn with a look of surprise, being able to keep himself alive this long as young as he is. Slowly Starry’s sobs subsided and he was left standing there with emotionless again, his shaking having stopped and breathing becoming even again. Minty stepped away to add the good carrots starry had cut into her soup and adding the ingredients she had cut, grabbing a big spoon and stirring the pot.  Minty looked back at starry who was still standing there, having buried his feelings behind the wall of his icy cold emotionless stare.

“starry the food is almost ready, could you go get Colgate? I’d like to talk to you more after dinner and she has gone to bed,” Minty asked and starry nodded, his gaze becoming somewhat more there as he was distracted from his situation. Starry trotted upstairs and knocked on the only door up there, Colgate soon answering.

“your mom says dinner is ready,” he stated simply and turned to walk down the stairs when a hoof wrapped around his neck to stop him.

“what are you doing,” Colgate gasped and dragged the unicorn to her bathroom. “you can’t eat without washing your hooves first! Like this,” Colgate gestured to the bottle of hoof soap on the counter.  She started the water and squirted some soap on her hooves and began rubbing them together, producing a thick white foam. “lather,” Colgate said happily and then ran her hooves under the water till they were clean of white foam. “rinse.” Colgate smiled and squirted more soap on her hooves, then began working it back into thick white foam. “repeat,” she announced loudly before rinsing her hooves off. “now your turn.”

Minty had finished preparing the meal and had set three bowls up on the table.  After a few minutes of waiting and the foals not showing up she decided to go see what was holding them up. Ascending the stairs she could hear rushing water and the sound of giggling coming from her daughter’s room, slowly Minty pushed the door open to look in, she was not expecting to see what she did. Starry had a large beard of foam on his face and Colgate was flinging bit of foam at him, after a second  starry ran to the bathroom, coming back his hooves were coated in a thick spread of soap, which he then launched to Colgate. “ahm,” Minty said with a smile on her face as she pushed the door fully open, both ponies in the room going wide eyed as they realized how silly they must look.

After dinner Minty had sent Colgate to bed and sat starry on the couch, sitting next to him.

“so why did you get kicked out again,” Minty asked, trying to ask it as softly as she could, Starry’s eyes began to glaze over and his expression faded into a look of neutrality. After a few minutes of silence starry started explaining to Minty what happened on that day, she listened intently.

“that’s just not right,” Minty said as starry ended his story and began to worry that he wasn’t crying or even shaking, he just had this faraway look, as if he wasn’t really all there. “you know, starry you can stay here,” Minty said after a few moments, this brought Starry’s gaze up to her.

“w-what,” starry asked staring at Minty.

“I said you can stay here, really I insist that you do. You are a good kid and can’t imagine even entertaining the idea of asking you to leave.” Starry stared at Minty for a bit before a smile managed to break its way across his face and he threw his hooves around Minty’s neck.  Minty smiled and wrapped her hooves around starry.

Luna watched as the following week was condensed by starry into a kind of slide show, showing various things such as: waking up on a bit of folded blankets next to Colgate’s bed, Colgate showing him how to brush correctly and singing the “brushie song”, helping Minty in her garden, getting paid a few bits for the help, nice dinners, board games with Colgate and Minty. Luna couldn’t help but smile at the warm scenes. Then starry resumed the normal speed of a memory that started with starry walking along a dirt path towards the market, his bits jingling softly in his saddle bag.

Starry walked up to one of the vendors in the market and smiled happily at him, placing his bits on the counter.

“three carrots please,” starry said and watched as the vendor smiled at him, sweeping his bits into a bit shelf on his side of the counter, then getting a bag and pulling the carrots into it and hoofing it over to starry. “thanks!”

“my pleasure,” the vendor said with a smile, but as starry turned away he could swear he saw the smile turn to something else. Starry wasn’t five steps away before the vendor yelled. “help thief! That colt stole my carrots!” starry went wide eyed as everypony in the market was suddenly looking at him.

“n-no I paid for them I swear!” everypony stared at him, noticing his near starved body type and immediately decided not to believe him. starry felt a hoof on his shoulder and turned his head to his horror to see a guard.

“come on kid, let’s go,” he said, another guard coming over to snatch up his bag of carrots and return it to the vendor.

“b-no I paid for them,” starry yelled, backing up from the guards as they advanced on him. two pegasi guards bristled their wings in anger and stepped closer to him. in fear starry threw the only defensive spell he knew, a concussive blast shot through the air and knocked the pegasi away. Suddenly no less than twelve guards had formed a circle around him and were slowly closing him in. starry was starting to hyperventilate and his mane started to frizz, the way twilight’s did when she got in one of her moods. “st-stay back!” starry yelled as the guards advanced on him. starry jumped as a guard attempted to grab him from behind, suddenly the whole scene went white. Luna was confused for a few seconds before she realized starry wouldn’t remember something that happened when he lost control.

After a few seconds the scene faded back and starry was left standing in the middle of a shallow crater, many of the stands around him were shattered to splinters, guards were laying across other ponies to protect them seemingly from whatever starry had done, starry started backing up slowly at some of the guards were pulling themselves up on unsteady hooves and glaring at him angrily. In a moment of fear starry turned and began galloping down the dirt path out of town.

Luna watched as the scene faded back to Starry’s study.

“that was awful,” she said simply, remembering the grin that the vendor was wearing right before he accused starry.

“yeah” starry said as the dream began to waiver softly, starting to lose his hold on it. “see you tomorrow Luna.”