She didn’t need to look up to know it was about to rain. The Manehattan air was even heavier than usual, and the moonlight was blocked from view. She sighed as a few raindrops landed on her nose, and Applejack knew she wouldn’t make it back to the castle before the clouds opened up.
As she focused on weaving through the crowded sidewalk, she grumbled to herself that she was here in the first place. She always felt out of place in cities. She belonged in open orchards, not condensed streets. She grumbled that Apple Fritter had kept her there for far too long.
She wasn’t truly complaining, as in she didn’t regret coming up this weekend. Uncle Orange had been in a carriage when it suddenly flipped. He was fine, other than a lot of broken bones, but every branch of the family sent at least one pony up to check in. Normally Big Mac would have gone, but Pink Lady got sick, and Applejack couldn’t let him leave his daughter back home. So while he and Applebloom watched over the farm, she hopped on the next train up.
Through her own pushing and the other ponies’ pushing, she realized she had been shoved into an alleyway. She paused, waiting for a gap to jump back into the craziness. What she thought was a gap was actually a foal tumbling into the same alleyway.
It was a small Pegasus filly, maybe five years old. Her coat was grayish, and her mane a light brown with pink and purple streaks. She was currently rubbing a scrape on her foreleg, and Applejack could see a few more.
She wouldn’t have paid much more attention to the filly except for the fact that she stayed in the alley. She expected the filly to freak out and try to run back to her parents, or for somepony to walk in after her, but no one came.
“Are you lost?” she asked her. The filly jumped at the sound of her voice. Fear filled her turquoise eyes, and Applejack saw the fur around them had fresh tear streaks. The filly tried to shake her head ‘no’.
“It’s okay, sugarcube,” she assured her, softening her voice. The filly shook her head in a ‘yes’ this time. “Where were you going?”
“I don’t know,” the filly squeaked out. Her voice was light and free from Manehattan’s dialect. ‘They don’t tell me. They’re afraid I’ll screw it up.’
“What about where you’re staying?” she asked, processing that last sentence.
“I don’t remember,” the filly looked down at her hooves. ‘It was a big hotel. It has seashell patterns everywhere. I’m sorry.”
Applejack didn’t know what to do about that. If there had been a place name she could have asked for directions or hailed a cab. She didn’t want to leave this filly alone, and the rain was really starting now.
“Tell you what,” she began. “I saw a police station a block back. How about we go back there and they can look for your parents?”
“Not there!” she exclaimed. “Papa said to never go to the police for anything! I’m in enough trouble already!”
“Now why would he tell you something like that?” Applejack asked. “Police are supposed to help ponies. Come on, I’ll take you down there and they’ll have you back with them before morning!”
“O-okay,” the filly said hesitantly. “May-maybe I heard him wrong when he said that. I’m always misunderstanding him.” Applejack couldn’t help but be suspicious at that statement.
As the rain fell harder they made their way back through the crowd. She kept a close eye on the filly, feeling like she’d walk off at her first chance. It was slow going, as the filly couldn’t push through, but they were making it.
“I never did ask your name,” she said to the filly.
“St-Starlight,” she answered.
“I’m Applejack,” she replied.
“That name sounds familiar,” Starlight whispered.
Applejack said nothing as she turned up the stairs of the police station. In the lights of the station lobby, she got a better look at the filly. Starlight’s coat was white, not gray like she first thought. He mane was incredibly shiny, almost like a Crystal Pony’s. The scrape on her foreleg was more prominent, as were a few more scrapes and bruises, some looking a few weeks old. She was trembling, both from the cold rain and some underlying fear of police stations.
“Excuse me, sir?” Applejack asked the burgundy stallion behind the desk. He looked up from his paperwork, annoyed. However, he changed his attitude when he saw who he was talking to.
“Hey, ‘Nigma! Get over here!” he shouted over his shoulder. “This is Enigma, she’ll help you with whatever you need.”
“Thanks,” Applejack grinned begrudgingly.
She didn’t want special treatment. She was actually surprised the stallion recognized her at all. Sure, she’d helped save the world a few times, but it’s not like she was well known. If it were any of her friends that would have made sense; Twilight was a Princess, which is hard to miss, Rarity is a top designer now, and Rainbow earned a spot as a Wonderbolt. Pinkie Pie got famous, or rather infamous, when she teamed up with Discord and Cheese Sandwich to make literally the biggest and wildest party anypony’s ever known. Even Fluttershy still has ponies recognizing her from her short time as a model. But Applejack was just a farmer.
She snapped out of her annoyance when the Unicorn mare came up to her. She was an apple blossom color, with a mane matching Applejack’s own coat, and rectangular glasses in front of big brown eyes. She led them to a room off to the side room.
“I’m Detective Enigma,” the mare introduced herself after she closed the door. "You can call me Enigma, if you please."
“I’m Applejack,” she replied.
“I noticed!” Enigma bounced. “We might not see you if we passed on the street, but anypony can tell when they’re talking to one of the Elements of Harmony!” Applejack decided not to reply that the actual Elements were currently in a tree.
“Sorry to bother you, but I’m here about this one,” she brought the conversation back and nudged Starlight forward.
“What’s your name?” Enigma asked her, lowering herself to the filly’s height.
“She’s Starlight,” Applejack answered for her when Starlight shied away. “And she’s a bit lost. I found her about a block northward, and she says they’re at a hotel with seashells.”
“That’s simple enough!” she grinned. “I’m pretty sure that’s my cousin Sea Swirl’s hotel, ‘the Dolphin’. It’s right by the museum.”
“That’s it!” Starlight suddenly burst out. “They love staying by museums and art galleries and fancy places!”
Her voice slid to a halt, and she sat down and stared at the floor again. She mumbled something about speaking out of turn. Applejack and Enigma looked at one another with a questioning glance before continuing.
“Starlight, it’s alright,” Enigma told her. “We can find your parents. I will need their names and descriptions though. Is that okay?”
“Okay,” she nodded, barely looking up. “My Papa is named Locksmith. He’s a blue Crystal Pony. Mama is a gray Unicorn named Lighthoof..”
“Great!” Enigma exclaimed. “We’ll have you back with them soon! And Starlight, your leg is a little scratched. I’ll get you a first aid kid so Miss Applejack can patch you up. Be right back.”
She was lying. Applejack wasn’t sure how, but she always knew when sompony lied to her. Maybe it was part of being the Element of Honesty. She didn’t pester her about it when she came back with the med kit.
Starlight looked tired. It made sense once Applejack checked the clock. She was going through the kit and inspecting the damage on Starlight when the filly began crying.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I-I did the wrong thing,” she whispered. “Papa said not to tell ponies about them, but I just want to go back to them. I didn’t want to get in more trouble.”
“It’ll be fine,” she assured her, beginning work on the scrape from earlier. “Did you get all these scrapes and bruises walking around?”
“No,” she answered. Applejack knew it wasn’t from today, some bruises were old. “I’m a bit stupid, so I mess up a lot.”
“How do you mess up?” She knew what answer to expect. She found really old and newer rope burns around her legs and wing joints. It’s surprising how hidden these were if you didn’t look close.
“I forget things,” Starlight said. “Or I mishear instructions. We travel a lot and I sometimes leave things in the hotel room when we check out. One time I got really sick and we had to spend more time in the same city instead of moving away.”
“Where do y’all live?” she continued, applying a little bit of an ointment to the burns.
“Nowhere,” she answered.
“What about school?”
“Mama teaches me what I need to know. I can read and do some math. And we go to a lot of museums so I learn history and stuff. We saw this really pretty garden in Canterlot last month and the caretaker told me about how flowers grow. And before that we went to an art gallery in Baltimare and-“ She stopped and looked down again.
“And what?” Applejack asked.
“You wanted me to continue?” Starlight asked. “You frowned. When Mama does that while I talk she’s a sentence away from telling me to shut up.”
“I was frowning at this,” she gently ran her hoof over a scar on her ear. “I’d love to hear what you’ve done.”
“You don’t find me annoying?”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Really?” As tired as she looked, the filly’s eyes lit up as she began speaking at a million miles an hour. “Because we were in Phillydelphia before that, and I saw this couple in the park and the stallion proposed to this really pretty mare and she was crying and smiling and everypony in the park clapped for them! It’s my second favorite day!”
“What’s your favorite day?” she asked.
“It was a couple years ago so I don’t remember exactly what happened,” she said, “but I remember it was a really bad day after a week of really bad days, and then everything was suddenly super happy and bright! I didn’t stop smiling until we left the city!”
“Miss Applejack?” Enigma had stuck her head in the door. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“I’ll be right back,” she assured the filly as she stepped out.
“You sure?” Starlight wondered
“I promise,” she grinned.
“It’ll only be a couple minutes!” Enigma agreed.
“I need to talk to you too,” Applejack said once the door was closed. “Why were you lying?”
“What do you mean?” Enigma didn’t have that good of a pokerface.
“When you said you’d get her back tonight you lied,” Applejack held back the feeling of wanting to interrogate the mare. “What’s going on?”
“This is, well, you can’t tell anyone,” she began. “The names Locksmith and Brighthoof have been in police records for over one thousand years.”
“Run that by me again?”
“More specifically, they were in the records from the Crystal Empire. They were thieves for years and hadn’t been caught, but the last couple years they’ve been back again. We’ve been working on the assumption that they got trapped in the Empire when it disappeared. Truthfully, it’s been a pain in my flank working on this; we have records of interviews and some evidence, ‘but everypony who knows anything is long dead and buried.
“It could be a coincidence, but the idea that they’re here has the station worked into a frenzy wondering what they’ll take. I mean last month they took a rare wildflower, and before that it was a painting.”
“Was the wildflower in a garden in Canterlot?” Applejack wondered. “And the painting in Baltimare?”
“Yeah, actually,” Enigma answered, going over the case in her head.
“And before that was Phillydelphia? What was there?”
“It was the third largest fire ruby,” she replied. “Why?”
“Because Starlight said they were in a Canterlot garden last month,” she explained. “And an art gallery in Baltimare, and she had started telling me about her time in Phillydelphia when you came back. I’m pretty sure you have your thieves.”
“Now we just wait.” Enigma sighed. “Poor Starlight though.”
“Well it might be good in a way,” she said carefully. “You noticed some of those scrapes and bruises? I found more, along with a scar from a ripped ear and rope burns on her legs and wing joints. And they way she talks about how she’ll get in trouble, well, even if you weren’t arresting them I’d suggest something.”
“I’m looking into it, but that’s another battle entirely,” she sighed.
“What’ll happen to her?” Applejack wondered.
“Normally I’d look for a next of kin to take her,” she sighed again, “but the three of them were in the Crystal Empire, so any immediate relatives are dead, and I can’t really drop her with a cousin that’s thirty six times removed or something. She’ll probably end up in a foster care system.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
Enigma offered to bring her dinner and alert the guards to why she wouldn’t come back to the castle soon. Applejack walked back into the room to see Starlight fast asleep. She looked so tiny curled up on the chair like that.
Applejack couldn’t stop thinking about her, and about the fostercare. Back when her own parents died and Granny Smith was still going to be in the hospital for a few weeks, the authorities put her and her siblings in a foster home until another family member could come pick them up. Even though they were only there for a few days, it was terrible.
She shuddered when she remembered the, for lack of a better word, horror stories from Scootaloo’s time in the foster care system. She bounced from place to place for years before Redheart adopted her, but most were the same. There is a reason that girl didn’t fly until she was an adult.
“Are they here yet?” Starlight mumbled, trying to open her eyes.
“Not yet,” Applejack told her. She’d tell her about what would happen when morning came. “You can go back to sleep.”
“I’m wide awake,” she yawned. “We were talking about my best day, remember?”
“I remember,” she chuckled.
“I just,” she tried to say, “I remember it was bright and colorful and happy. I remember the feeling all around me. You know, Miss Applejack? You kind of remind me of it. Don’t know why but you do.”
She mumbled something about wiggling rainbows while she drifted off again. Applejack realized she was yawning too. She tried to think this all through logically, but the most illogical decision kept coming back.
She got up and went out to find Enigma. She had a bag of sandwiches in her magic in one spell and was putting on her arresting gear with another. As Applejack watched her clip the hoofcuffs onto the belt, she finally had to ask.
“How many hoops do you think I’d have to go through to adopt her?”
The train ride from Manehattan to wherever they were going had been a long one. The whole week had been long. It wasn’t every day that your parents get arrested and you get adopted by a pony you barely know. The busy cities she was used to seeing had been replaced with dense forests and mountains, and were now open fields. They used the express train, so instead of arriving the next morning they would be in town this late afternoon.
“You’re sure there’s nopony?” Starlight asked. “Nopny at all?”
“I’m sorry sugarcbe,” the mare across from her replied. “It’s been a thousand years, and all the names you gave were criminals too so-“
“It’s alright,” she sighed. “I knew what they were doing, so it’s to be expected. And it bothers me every time I think about something they taught me about that life.”
“At least you’re talking more,” the mare grinned.
“I know you’re not going to do anything if I disagree or go on too long,” she rubbed the scar on her ear; It still hurt sometimes. She looked up to see the mare’s grin had dropped. “I’m sorry Miss Applejack. I’m just, I guess bitter is the word. As terrible as Mama and Papa are, everything they had told me was true. Except for the one thing I could have used to save myself. I had to wait for a bunch of coincidences. I keep wondering what would have happened if you didn’t show up that day, or if they had decided a different target, or if I hadn’t gotten lost. And I keep wondering about if I had realized that one lie.”
“I can’t tell you, but what happened happened, and we get to make the most of it.”
“I’m just… it’s like… I can’t even think of a word!”
“Nervicited?”
“I don’t know how, but that makes sense.”
“Well we’re coming up on the town now, so you might want to start grabbing your stuff.”
Starlight paid no mind to the idea of cleaning up, there was only a book out of the bag anyway. She put her hooves on the window sill and her face to the glass. The town was small. On one side she could see a field and another had what looked like endless trees. Most buildings were similar, but there were a few tall buildings. There was large a farm off in the distance, probably the one Miss Applejack owned.
The two things she took note of was outside of the town. She could see Canterlot from here, and she expected she could see it from anywhere in the town. The other thing was a building that was completely out of place. It was huge, and the way the sun gleamed off it led her to believe the building was made of crystal. She bet there was a lot of expensive stuff in there.
She frowned at that. It was her parent’s way of thinking. She was not going to let herself follow their hoofsteps.
As the train came to the stop, she grabbed her bag and followed Applejack onto the platform. A fair amount of ponies were getting off while even more got on. Even then, it was nowhere near as crowded the other stations she’d been to.
“So now are you going to tell me why you spent extra time up there?” asked a voice.
Starlight looked up past Applejack to the mare who spoke. Her accent wasn’t as strong as Applejack’s was, but it was still strongly southern. The mare’s red mane was braided over her shoulder, held in place with pink ribbons. Somehow, the colors went well with her yellow coat. She was smaller than Applejack, but looked just as muscular.
“Well, you see, I uh…” Applejack was stammering.
“You didn’t tell her about me, did you?” Starlight asked, coming up to her side.
The other mare stared at the two of them while Applejack continued trying to explain. It didn’t seem to be helping. In the end, the yellow mare just sat back and brought her hoof up to her face.
“Mac’s going to have a field day with this,” she groaned. “How do you leave for the weekend, then come back a week later with a foal?”
“I’m sorry, Miss,” Starlight began. Her voice began wavering. “I’d go somewhere else, but there really isn’t anywhere else.”
Starlight stared down, not meeting the mare’s eyes anymore. She wasn’t sure about much anymore, but now she was sure she shouldn’t be here. Applejack was still trying to explain.
“Come on,” the mare sighed. “We should get home before dark. My name’s Applebloom, by the way.”
“I-I’m Starlight,” she replied.
The three of them walked down the road around town. She expected it led to the farm she saw from the train. She remembered when her mama took her to the park in Manehattan; she thought that it was the biggest amount of plants and open space she would see, yet as they reached the top of a smaller hill, she just stopped.
The trees seemed to go on and on, she saw no end to them. The closest were normal forests, denser and wilder than those that they passed on the train. Further on the trees were more spaced out, and they were different than the those of the forest.
As they got closer to these new trees, she saw they had flowers on them. They were white and a bit familiar. It only took a turn of her head to remember where she saw them.
“These are Apple trees, right?” Starlight asked.
“You catch on quick,” Applejack chuckled. “You’re going to get to see all these trees fill up with apples over the summer.”
“There wasn’t much to ‘catch on’ to,” she admitted. “Part of Miss Applebloom’s Cutie Mark is the flower up there. What’s the hammer for though?”
“Didn’t you start asking stuff like that at her age?” Applejack teased the other mare.
“I was a bit older,” Applebloom retorted. “And the hammer is because I’m a creator, a builder. It comes in handy with how often things need rebuilt around here.”
“Things need rebuilt that often?” Starlight asked.
“For a small town we’re pretty busy,” she smirked. “We’ve learned to reinforce them a bit more now that we get creatures with powerful magic coming through every couple of days.”
Starlight spent the rest of the walk to the farmhouse wondering exactly what kind of town she was in.
The house itself was large and red like the barn, which was a little bit away. It had an upstairs and a downstairs, and some parts looked newer. She knew there would be more ponies inside. She gulped at the thought of what they’d think of her.
Before they could get to the door a large dog ran up to them. She looked older, but was still energetic enough to bounce around and lick Applejack. Once she was done, she sniffed Starlight too and decided she was worthy of a lick as well.
“Winona hush,” Applejack ordered as she opened the door. “We’re home!”
The room inside wasn’t painted, but the walls had a lot of pictures. There were two, no three ponies sitting on the couch. The mare was a mulberry color, smaller and a lot less muscle-defined than Applejack and Applebloom. She was holding a foal whose coat was a little lighter, probably only about two years old.
The stallion, on the other hoof, was red and enormous. Starlight had never seen anypony as big as he was. He looked like, if he wanted, he could pick her up and toss her all the way back the train!
“Welcome home!” the mulberry mare grinned. She tilted her head when she saw Starlight. “And who are you?”
The sentence didn’t come out as nice as she intended. Starlight shrank back behind Applejack instead of answering the new mare. She wasn’t sure what to do.
“We need to have a talk,” Applebloom said, walking into the next room. “AJ, do what you need to and come back in five minutes.”
The new ponies followed her into what looked to be a kitchen. Applejack led Starlight through the house and up a set of stairs. She was walked to a room with green walls; a bed and a night stand were the only furniture, but there was a small closet.
“This is my room,” Applejack told her. “I’ll sleep on the couch for tonight and let you use it, there’s a bathroom across the hall if you need it. Tomorrow we can get you your own bed; We’ll introduce you to the rest of the town while we’re at it.”
“The rest of the town?” Starlight questioned. “Is that normal?”
“Well this is a pretty small town,” she chuckled. “Pretty much everypony knows everypony to an extent. Plus we have Pinkie, who’s probably already setting up for your ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party. I’m surprised she didn’t jump out at us when we got off the train.”
“I never really liked parties that much, but maybe they’re different here.”
“I’ll bet they are.”
Starlight stayed quiet for a moment. This place was strange to her, stranger than any place she’d been before. She wasn’t completely sure what was going on, but she was sure that it wouldn’t end well.
“What….” She began, words catching in her throat, “What are you going to do if your family doesn’t want me here?”
The question surprised Applejack. She paced for a minute, figuring out the exact words to say. All it did was make Starlight more nervous.
“You’ll have to trust me on this,” she stated. “They ain’t going to have anything against you. They’ll be mad at me for dropping you on them without a warning, but they’re going to let you stay and be sincerely nice and friendly to you as possible. They’ll forgive me for it after a while too. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought they’d do any different.”
“Okay,” Starlight murmured. She didn’t really believe it.
“I’m going down to talk to them,’ she grinned. “You should get some sleep.”
Starlight watched her leave. She wanted to sleep, but she knew the bundle of nerves sitting in her stomach wouldn’t let her. She waited and listened until she heard them start talking before leaving the room.
She went down the hall before stopping at the top of the stairs. She remembered the way they creaked when they walked up. She fluttered her wings, wondering if they’d be strong enough to carry her down, and wondering if she would be heard.
It took her a couple of flaps to get off the ground, but after that it was just pushing forward. She forgot that she wouldn’t stay that six inches off the stairs, she’d be off the second floor. She nearly dropped straight to the bottom as she saw how high she was. Sure, she’d been at the top of Manehattan’s skyscrapers, but here she was held up only by herself.
She let herself drift down to the first floor. The decent went a little faster than she wished. As noiselessly as she could she set her hooves back on the wood and tucked in her wings.
Lifting her hooves slowly, she made each step count. At least those thieving lessons were useful for something else. She made her way back to the first room and stood outside the kitchen, listening to their argument.
“I still don’t get why you couldn’t have at least sent a letter,” Applebloom was scolding.
“I found her Saturday,” Applejack explained. “I couldn’t have sent one until Monday, and then it would have only gotten here today, maybe tomorrow if the post office had a bad day.”
“Hey, we’ve done worse,” said who she assumed was the mulberry mare. It was free from the accent the other mares had. “Mac and I didn’t even tell you we were seeing each other until it was time to get married and move in together. And we’d barely gotten used to that before Lady surprised us.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Applebloom said. “At least Lady was a predictable surprise.”
“Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t give y’all a warning,” Applejack apologized. “But I couldn’t just leave her there. Her actual parents were terrible enough, and that foster care system wouldn’t be much better. Mac, we were there for a couple days; you have to remember how terrible it was.’
“AJ, our parents had just died,” said a new voice. His voice was deep, and the accent stronger than Applejack’s. “Anywhere we went would have been terrible.”
“They kept the fridge under lock and key!” she insisted. “And Applebloom, you remember the stuff Scootaloo told you. Heck, I could see she was downplaying a lot of the stuff. She barely hovered by the time most Pegasai would have passed flight camp.”
“We get it,” Applebloom sighed. “I get why you did it, and I’m sure we would’ve taken her in too, I just wish you’d have discussed it before you got back.”
“I know, and I’m sorry for that,” Applejack said. “But other than that, you’re all going to be okay with her being here? Okay, I know you are, but I want to hear it.”
“From what you said, she sounds like a good kid,” the mulberry mare said. “At the very least I can say it’ll be interesting.”
“Granny would’ve gone nuts about this,” Applebloom huffed. “But I see why you did it, and it’ll all be fine and normal within a week.”
“Eeyup,” agreed the large stallion.
Starlight couldn’t believe it. They were okay with this? She couldn’t help but grin widely at the thought. Soon she found herself jumping for joy around the room.
“Did you know she could do that?” Applebloom asked, pulling Starlight out of her giddiness. She’d made enough noise that they’d come to look.
“Nope,” the stallion said.
“Well I had guessed,” Applejack admitted.
Starlight looked down to make sure she hadn’t begun flying around again. She was still on the ground, but her hooves were translucent. Her coat sparkled like that diamond from Trottingham. She began jumping with joy once more.
“I’m doing it again!” she exclaimed. “I haven’t seen this in years!”
“Years?” the mulberry mare whispered. “How long exactly?”
“I think I was like two?” Starlight answered, still jumping around. "I'm not sure, that whole year was kinda blurry."
She was oblivious to how worried the three of them looked. Once she had tired herself out jumping, she let Applejack lead her up to the bed once more. She was so tired that she didn’t even make a comment about them not punishing her for eavesdropping.
Starlight actually found herself looking forward to the next day. This place was strange, and this place was wonderful. She couldn’t wait to see more of it.
