Littering
By
Teal
Starlight Glimmer had to admit, Spike’s story of saving the Crystal Empire was really exciting and fascinating. Munching on some popcorn and laying on a comfortable sun lounge she had quickly found, she quietly listened to the young dragon’s words as he told his epic adventure to the small crowd.
Carefully following the story, Starlight was first intrigued and then amazed at the accomplishments he managed to do. It was no wonder why these crystal ponies admired him so much. Although she did find it hard to believe that a baby dragon like him was able to accomplish such feats, he still somehow managed to do it and because of that the crystal ponies adored and praised him, always treating him like a hero, which in their eyes he was.
But as she continued to listen to the story, she soon realized that it was drawing to a close, and as it did, she felt a sense of dismay overcome her. The only reason she made him tell the entire story of his heroism was because she wanted to delay her meeting with Sunburst. She had hoped that with such a long story, they would have spent most of the day sitting there and listening tom him, giving no more time for a meeting with her former friend, Sunburst.
Sadly, the story the dragon told didn’t seem long enough to take an entire day and, as Spike concluded his tale, Starlight knew that they would soon continue on the journey to where Sunburst lived.
In hindsight, I should have gave him the slip while he was too busy telling his story. She thought to herself, regretting the decision to stay and listen.
Cheers from the foals and thankful smiles from older ponies met Spike, as he finally wrapped up his story, finally finishing the epic adventure. “-and that’s how we found the Crystal Heart, defeated King Sombra, and saved the Empire.” Spike, who was seated in the middle of his adoring fans, concluded as he raised he hands in victory.
Inside, Starlight knew that it was time to get up and get ready to move. And I didn’t even get to finish my popcorn… She thought, still munching on a mouthful of it.
The ponies cheered in praise, as they got to her the story of Spike’s heroism from the dragon himself. Excitedly, the ponies there applauded him and demanded for more, wanting to hear the other story, in which he saved hundreds of ponies from disaster.
“Tell the one about the Equestria games!” Cried a filly, as the young ponies gave him a hopeful look, wishing that he would go on again with the story telling. Starlight also gave him a hopeful look, hoping that he would continue and delay the trip once more.
To her dismay, Spike did not relent to this request, as he held out the scroll given to him by Twilight.
“Well, as much as I love relieving my heroic deeds, Starlight and I have an important lesson to do, by the order of the Princess of Friendship.”
The crowd was obviously disappointed by this, as a collective sound of sadness echoed in the open plaza. Hoping to real him in once more into telling the story, Starlight quickly swallowed her popcorn and gave him a nervous look.
“Aw, come on Spike, I want to hear the games too.” She said, before biting her lip, hoping that a little nudge would convince him to tell the story and further delay the journey.
Looking at the dragon, she watched as he did a final autograph to a young fan before swiveling around to face her.
“I know you’re nervous about seeing Sunburst-” He said, as he let the scroll open and roll down. “-but it says that in step three to, ah, deal with your fears by facing them. Not by putting it off.”
Giving him an annoyed stare, Starlight gave an inward curse to Twilight’s list, with its solutions and advice. Then again, she did go to her to study the magic of friendship and complaining and contradicting her teachers lessons would just be anti-productive.
“Uh, let’s just get this over with…” Starlight said, tossing away the box of popcorn and stepping off of the sun lounge.
As much as he hated the plan of seeing Sunburst, she knew that as the student of the Princess of Friendship, she must accomplish her lesson and get through with it. If she wasn’t able to do such a simple task like this, then her tutelage under her would just be pointless. So whether she liked it or not, they were off to see Sunburst.
That was, until a loud whistle attracted their attention and stopped them in their tracks.
“Hey you there, pink unicorn, what do you think you’re doing!” A voice called out, making Starlight turn her head and face it.
There, staring at her was one of the Crystal Empire’s policponies and by the look on his face, Starlight could tell that he wasn’t happy. Standing there and glaring at her, the pony waited for her to reply, as Starlight began thinking what she could have possibly done to agitated him.
“Uhh…walking?” Starlight replied with a confused look, unsure what this pony was talking about.
Frustrated at the reply, the pony gave her a stern glance before shaking his head. “Not that…” He said. “…that.” Pointing his hoof on the ground, Starlight followed the direction it was aimed at and saw that he was gesturing at the discarded box of popcorn she had thrown away only moment ago. “I saw what you did-“ The pony said. “-improper disposal of litter.”
“Listen I’m sorry about that…” Starlight apologized. “…let me just-“
She suddenly stopped when a small spark in her heard started to light up. Switching glances from the fallen box of popcorn and to the policpony, Starlight couldn’t help but conjure up some thoughts from it.
Then it hit her, a brilliant idea which might have a chance of working. Still not wanting to confront Sunburst and still hoping for a plan to prevent their meet up, Starlight managed to think of a simple plan to once more derail this Friendship lesson.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to do a Friendship lesson, nor did she not want to learn anything about Friendship. She just really, really didn’t want to meet with Sunburst right now. She felt unprepared, as if the entire event was suddenly forced down on her. They haven’t met in years, and it felt awkward to just reunite and catch up as if it was conjured up out of nowhere. So she needed more time and the only way to do that was to cancel the lesson, for now at least.
This was her last attempt on stopping her meeting with Sunburst and she hoped that this one would work.
“Actually, I’m not sorry…in fact…” She said, her voice getting sinister with each word.
A flash of bright magic suddenly engulfed the area and as it dissipated, a dozen or so boxes of popcorn could be seen levitating above Starlight.
“You think that’s littering, wait till you see this!” She said, laughing manically as she began tossing the boxes everywhere, before spawning more boxes of popcorn and tossing them again.
Landing all over the place, the area was soon covered by bits of popcorn and their boxes as Starlight continued on with her bombardment.
“Mam, I’ll have to ask you to cease and desist!” The policepony shouted, as he tried to duck and soge the flying popcorn boxes. But the only response he got from that order was a carefully aimed box of popcorn that spewed the tiny treat onto his face.
“Muhahaha…nopony can stop me. Not with my unlimited supply of popcorn!” Starlight called out, spawning more and more boxes and tossing them all in the air.
“-and that’s how I ended up here.” Starlight said bowing her head in shame, as she stood behind bars.
Standing on the other side, Twilight stared at her student in disbelief, unable to contemplate the story she just heard.
“So wait, you resented the idea of meeting Sunburst so much that you decided to throw popcorn around and get arrested on the count of…littering?” Twilight questioned.
“Well…uhh…pretty much.” Starlight said, looking up. “Also, the popcorn wasn’t really unlimited. Right now, I’m being charged by the local popcorn factory for stealing two hundred boxes of popcorn…”
Sighing, Twilight shook her head. She had a lot of problems right now and she made a mental curse on why they all had to happen at the same day. First it was her new niece, now it was Starlight. Was I really this much of a problem when I was studying under Celestia? She
wondered.
“So that was just it, you created mass panic, via popcorn, just because you didn’t want to see Sunburst?”
“Well, pretty much.” Starlight admitted.
“Listen, Starlight, if you didn’t want to be rush in reuniting with Sunburst then you could have just told me, I would have understood.”
“Yeah…I’m sorry I didn’t do that in the first place.” Starlight said, scratching the back of her head. “You just looked so excited about finally giving me a lesson that I thought you would be disappointed if I tell you that.”
“Well, don’t worry about it; I’m not angry at you. Besides, now you know that you shouldn’t be holding back things like that from me.” Twilight said, giving a sympathetic smile.
“Thanks, Twilight. I promise that I won’t be doing it again.” Starlight said, forming a smile.
“Good.” Twilight said, returning the smile. “It’s also good to know that you weren’t trying to take over the Crystal Empire with popcorn, like Spike told me.” She said, chuckling as she turned away and trotted out of the jail room.
“Hey, wait, Twilight! Aren’t you going to bail me out?” Starlight called, as she watched her mentor exit.
“Twilight? Twilight!”
Author's Note
Now, I have to admit, this story is just ridiculous. That is all.
