Starhoof Valley

"Mayhaps it is in our inability to understand the true nature of 'luxury' that we often find ourselves spending our entire lives searching for that which never existed in the first place."
-Soul Soother

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4th of Winter: Year Zero

Three Weeks Before Hearth's Warming

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'Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep be-'

'Click!'

"Nnnnnn.....no."

A simple collection of three unique sounds. Nothing more, nothing less. These were the sounds that started each and every single day for a boring, average, not-so-unique Pegasus mare named Crystalline Dancer. This Pegasus at the very moment was trying to roll over but found herself 'stuck' with her belly pressed firmly into the mattress, her wings stiff and erect on either side of her. She could have sworn that somewhere in some stale equestrian physiology book it said that only boys were supposed to be dealing with this sort of issue...though she may have been getting it mixed up with other particular parts of anatomy. She snorted, her face pressed in a mostly comfortable pillow stuffed with her own feathers, and by mostly comfortable she meant when the tips of those feathers didn't poke through the pillow case and jab her in the eyes. She always lacked a modicum of maturity when it came to things like sex, though she wasn't sure if that was due to her absolutely worthless amount of knowledge she had in the subject, or because she had barely any experience in the matter.

She settled on both.

She raised a hoof weakly above her to the right, counting down the seconds until the infernal machine started squawking at her again. She hated that stupid alarm clock, the little bastard always glaring at her with those evil looking neon-red numbers that always told her that she was either really late or that she was losing time. Even if she did manage to haul herself out of bed she still ran the twenty five to thirty percent chance of merely collapsing upon the floor and succumbing to her sleepy fate for another hour. That is, if it was a Saturday or Sunday morning...any other day and she'd be a dead mare.

Sure enough, fifteen seconds later and the mad honking of the alarm clock pierced the sensitive drums of her ears. Her hoof thwopped down upon the snooze button like a sugared-up filly playing whack-a-diamond-dog. A series of mewling whines and pouting grunts floated about the air as she struggled to push her face deeper into the pillow in attempts to flee from the rapidly approaching responsibilities she was about to be forced to take on. In doing so however, the quill of one of her feathers popped through the fabric and poked her right in the front of her left eyelid. "YEOWCH!" Came her shrill cry, the mare lifting her head up and huffing rapidly at the pain as she shut her eyelids even tighter. She slowly rose from her belly, leaning back to fall on her haunches as she gently pressed her hooves to her eyes, a low grown escaping her.

That was the fourth time this week. Stupid pillow. Stupid feathers!

Her ears suddenly perked at another series of beeps to her right, floating across the room as did the sudden smell of her best (and most delicious) friend in the whole wide world. Turning her head and cracking her good eye open, she spotted a light amount of steam wafting from the top of her tiny coffee machine. The midnight black liquid sat within its glass prison, practically screaming at her in a boiling hot message that read: 'Please come drink me. You'll die, explode, catch on fire, and die again if you don't'. Ah, coffee, the one thing that always told the truth no matter how bad it scalded.

Reaching over and pressing the 'off' switch on the alarm mode, Crystalline reached her front legs over her head, stretching with a light, chirping 'Mmrph' and following it up with a loud yawn as she stretched. Several pops could be heard from the mare's body, her wings twitching slightly though refusing to accept the mental command of 'at ease!'. That was fine though...not like she had anyone around to impress with her wingspan anyway...nor did she have much of an irregular wingspan to speak of in the first place. A loud yawn rumbled out of her throat, the mare smacking her gums together loudly and taking a few ginger steps down onto the floor of her carpeted studio apartment.

She looked around groggily, amazed that she had made it out of the percentile chance of falling on her floor and moving sluggishly towards her bathroom door. The apartment was tiny compared to most others, a 20'x10' floor plan that had barely enough room to most of the stock furniture it came with, let alone all her stuff. In fact, some of her belongings were still packed up in boxes, taking up all the space on her couch and a small bit of the floor before it. Between working full time and sleeping...there just wasn't enough time in the day to get it all unpacked. Not that she had anywhere to put it anyway, she already felt cramped up as it was. The apartment itself was a part of a new 'constructional ingenuity' trial, with the entire building itself having been built upon the cloud layer below the main city of Cloudsdale. The foundation had been perfectly leveled and magically fused to the fluffy white floor, which made some Pegasus a little nervous about the possibility of such magics failing. It was the only reason Crystalline could even really afford to live there, with the rent really cheap because of the liability risk. So far so good though...the floor hadn't dropped out beneath her hooves yet. She had her wings crossed though, being sure to pray extra hard to Celestia every day to ensure the myriad of spells laid down held true.

She went into the bathroom, another yawn billowing out of her as she stood in front of the mirror and 'assessed the damage.' She stared into the droopy eyes of her reflection, a very faded maroon color staring back at her. She flicked her eyes up to her disheveled mane: a blueberry colored mess that flowed over her back and had a slight 'poof' on the crown of her head with a single twirling strand falling forward over her forehead. Her mane looked much better straight according to her coworkers, though most of the time she had it crammed into a large, factory-regulation bun. Her fur was a toothpaste-colored white, though some small patches were stained a very dull 'rainbow' color due to the nature of her work. She hated Tuesdays and Thursdays for this reason, being required to work in the Rainbow Factory rather than her usual job at the Cloud-Packing Plant, or the 'CPP' for short.

She turned to the right a moment, then the left as the corner of her mouth turned downward in a slight grimace. She had packed on quite a few pounds in the recent year, at around 'two dress sizes larger than most other fillies in town' according to her 'good' pal Weather Vane. Not that there was anything wrong with being a tad bit bigger, with her rump looking quite voluptuous and showing off her cutie mark and her thighs looking very presentable from the rear. She just wished she could fit back into some of her older dresses, instead of having to pour bits into attire she was only going to wear maybe two times out of the year for work-required parties and seminars she had to attend and the occasional ultra rare occurrence of going out for a wild night on the town which consisted of a tame two-drink policy and a brisk walk home before the sun got too low.

She had told herself she was going to get fit over the summer and try to trim down...but sixty days of Hoofflix and booze later and she found herself making the usual promise to do it next summer instead. She turned her rear to once more get a look at her cutie mark: A thunderhead that had a lightning-accented, yellow colored musical note resting in front of it. Like most of her family, a talent for music ran in her blood. Specifically for her, the ability to make decent synthetic and electrical tunes from specially packed and formed clouds was her forte'...though she never got to practice much of that skill these days...or like, ever.

She sighed after a moment, her wings finally starting to calm themselves down and slowly fold towards her sides. She gave them a couple of flaps first to get the kinks out before neatly retracting them and letting them shake a bit to get her feathers ruffled up. She'd straighten them out after she got cleared to go to lunch, knowing that today was preening day...and you never skipped out on preening day.

After taking care of her mare-ly business, the Pegasus emerged with a satisfied huff and walked up to her coffee pot. A fresh mug was already placed nearby at the ready, as well as a tiny packet of creamer and two sugar cubes. Plucking the pot free of the machine with a careful grip in her teeth, she poured herself a piping-hot mug and added the extra components with a practiced flick of of her hooves. Plucking a spoon free of the drying rack next to her with a careful pinching of her wing feathers, she stirred up the heavenly mixture and dropped it back in the sink. She turned from the counter, the mug clenched tightly in her wing feathers as she stared back towards her alarm clock.

The time was currently '7:47', meaning she had about forty five or so minutes before she needed to be hightailing it towards the factory. The very thought of it put a very noticeable weight on her heart, the organ feeling as though it was about to sink down through her stomach and get stuck somewhere in her butt. Not even the heavenly taste of the creamy coffee was enough to shake the painful dread that was making its way through her core. She hated her job...hated everything about it and everything associated with it. Being a cloud-packer wasn't the most luxurious line of work, and there were much worse jobs of course...but just the dullness of it was enough to drive her mad. Even after a couple of cups of coffee there wasn't much she could do to prevent the dreary threat of sleep that tried to claim her constantly throughout her shift.

Still...there were bills that needed to get paid, and they weren't going to pay themselves. 'Maybe I should have gotten an exotic job like Vinyl's' was her thought, grumbling quietly as she casually sipped on her coffee. Vinyl's job as a DJ took her to a variety of fancy places, the Playmare Mansion and Luna's Lounge among them. She always had a talent for making cool and addictive music with a variety of beats and rhythms that got even her hooves jumping, but sadly that talent was hers and hers alone. There wasn't much of an industry for a talent that involved kicking clouds to make music.

With a weary sigh, Crystalline downed the last of her coffee and placed the empty mug in her sink next to the spoon, turning the knob with a hoof to fill it with water before moving towards her front door. The front coat hanger that held her partially coffee-stained leather purse greeted her like a silent doorman, offering her the small satchel which she plucked and strung around herself in a practiced twisting of her wings and head. There was a scarf and a thick saddle blanket on the other two hooks, but she was fairly confident she wouldn't need it today.

Taking a moment to flip her coffee machine off and get one last look at her apartment, she opened the door and bid her abode goodbye for the next ten or so hours. A gust of chilly air blew through the opening, passing between her legs and causing her to let out a light whinnie of protest. "OoooOOOOOOH!" She exclaimed, her wings folding tightly to her form and the fur on the back of her neck sticking up. She knew that the factory was going to start churning out the heavier winter weather, but didn't realize they were going to crank it down so soon! With a quick turn and swipe of her hoof, she plucked the violet and green patterned scarf from another hook on her coat hanger and whipped it around her neck. She grabbed the saddle blanket in turn, draping it over her back and securing it around her barrel before huffing and closing the door behind her. With a quick turn of a key and a trotting of her hooves, she was well on her way down the hall and towards yet another absolutely loathsome day and a mediocre amount of bits to boot.

But hey, things could've been worse she thought.

They could have been a lot worse....

No way it could get that way though...

Absolutely no way...

....right?