Size Up Starlight

The alarming smell of fire entered Starlight's nostrils, waking her up. She opened her eyes, quickly taking in her surroundings. The library seemed fine, and so did she, but the cart in front of her had mostly disintegrated into a pile of burning ash which spewed thick smoke into the library. Jumping up on her four hooves she quickly ran out of the library, coughing as she headed for the kitchen. There, she quickly filled two buckets with water, ran back into the library, dousing the fire with water and quickly putting it out. She then opened some of the stained glass windows to ventilate the library properly. When the ordeal was over, she slumped into the corner, taking deep breaths.

"What... just happened?" Starlight said to herself between breaths. When she got her strength back, which seemed to take fairly quickly, she stood up and surveyed the damage to the cart. "Wow," she commented, as she looked at the black ashes and imprints of what once used to be flowers, "that must've been an intense blast, but..."

She looked towards the rest of the library, curious as to why everything else wasn't affected by the explosion. "A massive concentrated ball of energy coming apart would've torn this whole castle down... But it only affected the cart. How?"

Scratching her head with her hoof she stood there trying to make sense of it. "Hmm, maybe the ball of energy swooped back into the poison joke and caused it to explode. But there clearly wasn't an explosion, it just melted. Surely there was much more energy than that. Where did the rest of the magic go?" She took a good look around the library, to see if there was anything out of place, but to her surprise, everything was exactly how it was before the explosion, except for some dust that had settled from the cart's fire. "This is so strange, it's like something absorbed all the energy from the unstable ball of magic." She rubbed her hoof along the crystal floor thankfully. "Maybe this castle is better at absorbing unstable magic than I thought. Oh well. That's definitely enough experiments for me today. I can't let Spike or Twilight know this happened..."

With a flick of her horn, she threw a quick clean-up spell to get rid of the dust that had covered the library almost instantly, including the destroyed cart. "There. Good as new. Now, I really need to relax. Maybe now would be a good time to get back to my friendship lessons..."

She walked out of the library and then stopped in her tracks at the castle's main entrance. "Hanging out with friends. That's literally what this is." She shook her head. "Ugh. Whatever. I'll just go check and see if Trixie's arrived."

As she walked down the steps of the castle entrance, she remembered something. "Oh, right," she thought to herself. "I should probably tell Spike that I'll be out of the castle for the day. Trixie will be setting up by the Everfree forest clearance, so I'll just visit Spike and Rarity on the way there." She continued walking down the steps and into the main village of Ponyville.

The market was busy that day as Starlight passed through it, since it was a Saturday. Ponies blocked her way at every turn, and she kept apologizing half-heartedly as she pushed some ponies aside gently on her way. She suddenly failed to push a particular pony in her path, and crashed head-first into the big pony's cutie mark.

The cutie mark was a dumbbell.

"HEY, YOU SHOULD WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING..." The white, large and unnaturally bulky stallion said harshly as he spun around to look at her. Starlight, who had fallen on her rump, looked up and into the white stallion's blood-red pupils, expecting an argument or some other kind of conflict-

"...YOU COULD HAVE HURT YOURSELF, MISS. DO YOU NEED A HOOF? I AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO HELP ANOTHER PONY."

The big bulky stallion extended a hoof to Starlight, who accepted it and held his hoof to pull herself back on her feet. "Oh, thanks." She said, feeling a little calmer now as she dusted herself off. "I thought you were angry at me for a second there."

The white stallion looked appalled. "WHAT? ME? HA HA. NO, MISS. I'M STRONG, BUT I DON'T EASILY GET ANGRY AT PONIES. NAME'S BULK BICEPS. I UH... I TEACH OTHER PONIES HOW TO LIFT THINGS." He flexed his strong pecs unnecessarily, and picked up a cart nearby to demonstrate his strength. "SEE?" He gave Starlight a big smile, and Starlight tried to give a smile back. It became easier for her to smile once she realized that, attached to this big, bulky stallion, was a pair of tiny, useless wings. The stallion was a pegasus, and she found the irony kind of funny.

"Oh, yes." Starlight nodded, while looking at the suspended cart and back to Bulk Biceps. "Of course. Picking up things. That's just, erm, great. I'm Starlight Glimmer. Friend of erm, Twilight's. I should probably keep going on my way-"

Bulk Biceps let go of the cart to the ground gently, letting the pony who had been suspended from the cart's ropes to be free to walk away with it safely, a testament to the white pegasus' gentle nature. "THE PRINCESS? THAT'S PRETTY COOL. HEY, CAN I TRY LIFTING YOU UP?"

"Uh-" Starlight said, trying to process what he just said. "What?"

"PICK YOU UP. WITH MY HOOVES."

"Do you have to shout all the time?” Starlight rubbed her ears from Bulk’s lack of an indoor voice. “Okay, nevermind that. That was a little harsh. Okay. Fine. Pick me up and then let me go on my way, okay?" Starlight was getting visibly nervous. She really didn't want to be here, but hey, she's making new friends, and that's what Twilight wanted, right?

"DON'T WORRY," the big white stallion re-assured, "THIS WILL ONLY TAKE A MINUTE. OR FIVE SECONDS. ME NOT GOOD AT COUNTING."
He bent down, grasping Starlight's sides with his swollen strong front hooves, and he tried to pull her up. Starlight waited for the horrible moment where she'd find herself hoisted in the air - But she didn't lift off the ground. Bulk biceps looked equally confused, and was visibly straining to lift Starlight off the ground.

"WHY...IS...BRIGHT UNICORN...SO...HARD.. TO... PICK UP...?" He panted between breaths while appearing to tug to no avail. Starlight looked unamused.

"Is this your idea of a joke?" Starlight accused. "I mean, I don't really care about my looks, but you don't have to imply that I'm fat.'

Bulk Biceps kept tugging as strong as he could, trying to lift Starlight off the ground, his blood vessels popping out from his muscles. If he was pretending, he was doing really darn good at it. "N-NO, I DON'T LIE. I REALLY CAN'T PICK YOU UP!" He panted before letting go of Starlight and falling onto his rear. "I-... I DON'T UNDERSTAND. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE."

Starlight rolled her eyes. "Okay, seriously. Not funny, Mr Bulk. I'm leaving now." She walked past Bulk Biceps, who sat dazed and confused in the middle of Ponyville market square. Eventually, she had left Ponyville's main centre and began to reach the outskirts, approaching the familiar little boutique that belonged to Rarity. What Starlight didn't notice, however, was that her cutie mark had been unintentionally glowing during the whole interaction with Bulk Biceps, and it faded once she reached the boutique's door. With a knock knock knock using her hoof, she waited patiently until Rarity opened the door for her, causing the overhead bell attached to the door to jingle.

"Starlight, dear! We've just been talking about you." Rarity said, inviting Starlight inside. They left the door open, in case any customers wanted to come inside.

"We have-?" Spike blurted out, clearly trying to hide something.

"Oh shush, Spike. We have nothing to hide from our good friend." Rarity scolded as she lowered behind the reception desk. Spike stood next to the desk, looking up at Starlight and Rarity in a worried manner.

Starlight was curious, so she took a seat on a bench inside the boutique to ask about it. The bench creaked a little as she sat on it, it seemed smaller than usual. "Spike was talking about me?"

Rarity nodded. "Indeed, poor Spikey here has been feeling ever so sorry for making you upset today, he couldn't stop telling me about it. Isn't that right, Spike?" She looked over to Spike, who seemed more distressed than earlier. All he could do is nod. Starlight had almost forgotten that Spike had made fun of her earlier for a mistake she did in the past, and raised an eyebrow.

"To be honest, Spike," she said, "I almost forgot about all that. It's okay, Spike. I, like, really don't care about it." She smiled at Spike, and Spike smiled back and spoke to her.

"Thanks Starlight. I... I'll watch my mouth next time." He began to frown sadly again as he continued. "I didn't mean anything mean by it, you know?" He looked a little teary-eyed, and Starlight was honestly getting a little fed up with the petty melodrama at this point. She walked over to him and petted him a little harshly and quickly on the head.

"All is forgiven, yadda yadda. Can we get over this already?"

Spike winced in slight pain as Starlight's petting hooves felt a lot harsher than they appeared to move. He then nodded slowly and took a deep breath to reset his feelings. "Ow. Thanks. I needed that. Did you need something, Starlight?"

Starlight shook her head. "Not exactly, I just came here to tell you that I'm going to visit Trixie near Everfree, so that you won't freak out and look for me or something."

"Oh, okay." Spike nodded, getting comfortable next to Rarity behind the desk. "Thanks for letting me know. I'll probably be here for a little while. Lots of friendship business to attend to, you know?" He hugged Rarity's leg slowly as his focus fell on the white mare.

Starlight's eyes shifted between Rarity and Spike from over the counter, wondering how things could even work out between a pony and a dragon.

"Well, have a lovely day, darling." Rarity said, waving at Starlight. As Spike's eyes were almost literally becoming little hearts from looking at Rarity beside him, who was clueless to his advances, Starlight decided it was probably time to leave. She waved goodbye quickly and turned to the door, and as she left the doorway, she heard the door's bell jingle again overhead. She wasn't sure what caused the bell to jingle, but she didn't think much of it, and closed the door behind her, causing it to jingle again.

Rarity turned to Spike with a slight worried look. "Dear me, Spike. Is it just me, or did Starlight look a little different today?" Spike shrugged. His mind was far too lost in Rarity's eyes to pay attention to anything else at this point. "It's like she was wearing high heels or something, but I don't remember her wearing any. Oh well, I'm probably just imagining things. Where were we?" Rarity levitated a nearby dressing gown specifically made for dragons. "Ah yes, now I remember. Dress-up time, Spikey!"