The New Problem

A few days had passed since Moonlight Gleam had arrived in Equestria, she was still weakened by being hypothermic a few days ago, but the Kirin family she had been allowed to stay with was very nice to her. She was still a little weakened and hadn't been on her hooves since then, but she was restless now. It was night and the air outside was warmer than it was on that day. She climbed out of bed and lifted the window with her hooves. A look behind her told her that no one was entering her room to check up on her. She climbed up and out of the house and into Ponyville.

She knew how to be quiet with feet, but unfortunately her hooves kept making a clop clop noise on the ground. This annoyed her deeply, but it was something she had to deal with. The streets were barren and everything was quiet. The moon was still full which was odd considering how the moon went through phases where she came from. The mare walked through the streets as quietly as she could, though full control still eluded her, so long as she took things slow, she was able to keep her balance. Her destination was simple, or so she thought.

A light blue mare walked towards her with a purple mare and the dark blue mare wondered to herself if she'd be able to hide. Her heart started to race in her chest, but she chose to try to walk past them.

"Trixie, it is wonderful that you've settled down in the last twenty years and became a great guidance counselor," the purple mare said as she and her friend walked.

"Trixie is glad that she can be a great and powerful guidance counselor and a great and powerful friend," the blue one replied.

The three mares passed by each other on the road. The exchange between the two parties was a simple nod, leaving Moonlight to continue along the path she had chosen to walk. She couldn't shake the feeling she was being followed though, so she turned her head to scan the area with her dark blue eyes. Unfortunately for her, by looking away from where she was going, she ran into a cart.

This caused an excessive amount of noise and woke the ponies in the nearby house up. Moonlight however wasted no time and tried to gallop away. However in her lack of experience, the moment all four of her hooves left the ground, she realized she didn't know how to trot yet, let alone gallop. She hit the ground again and rolled onto her side. She might have been an investigator, but she was a woman first and a woman with some sense of dignity and pride that had just been fractured.

Luster Dawn had been awoken by a commotion near her place and she slowly walked out of her house to investigate what had happened. When she looked to her right upon exiting the door, she noticed a cart that had been knocked over. Fruits and crates had been scattered everywhere and it looked like someone had tried to steal some fruits but was clumsy. She trotted over to the cart to see that it had been smashed when the owner of the cart galloped over to her, "Miss, did you happen to see what happened here?", the stallion asked in a hurry.

The pink unicorn shook her head, "I just left my home to see what happened out here. I heard a loud noise. It scared me a bit, do you think that there are any troublemakers out here?"

A groan caught both of their attention and then turned to see a dark blue unicorn mare on the ground trying to get back up on all fours. The mare looked very annoyed at the crowd that had gathered around her and a sudden yell woke up the rest of the sleepy town, "WHAT ARE ALL OF YOU LOOKING AT!?"

Luster quickly ran to the unicorn's side and helped her up, looking a bit nervous at the outburst, "Heh heh, come on Moonlight, we need to get you back home before you alert the whole town. We'll figure out what happened in the morning. Besides, you need your rest, the doctors said so," she said nervously.

"I broke the cart..." the investigator replied quietly.

"I can't hear you," the student of Twilight replied back. She really couldn't hear her companion over the murmuring of the whole town.

"I said that I broke the blasted cart," the dark blue mare said louder.

"You broke it?", the pink mare asked quietly

Moonlight tried to break from the grip, but Luster was having none of it. She turned around and trotted the both of them back to the owner of the cart. "My teacher taught me that Applejack taught her to always be honest, now tell him what you did," she said in an attempt to convince the other mare to both be polite and honest.

"I broke your cart, I wasn't watching where I was going and I ran into it," the investigator said flatly.

The stallion's concerned expression suddenly became jovial, "Oh, it was an honest mistake, miss. Don't worry about it in the slightest," he said.

Luster immediately could feel that her companion was make uneasy about this and unlike the previous time, did make a successful attempt at escaping.

Moonlight ran awkwardly, but as fast as her legs could take her. Everyone in this world was so nice to her, it was discomforting and awkward. To her, it felt fake, as if they wanted something. No one she ever interacted with was ever that genuinely nice. She could hear the voices of other ponies, but she didn't stop. She ran for what seemed like miles before stopping.

Before her was a lake and she slowly walked over to it and looked into it. Her face looked back at her, but then it morphed into her human face. But before she could even gasp, the face changed further, becoming younger. She felt angry at this and punched at the water with her hoof, but this caused her to lose her balance and fall into the water.

To her surprise, it was deeper than she had expected and she started to sink. She wasn't good at swimming as a human and her body was more dense as a pony's. She bent her knees to get ready to kick off from the bottom of the lake. Her eyes narrowed in the inky blackness of the water. She hit the bottom of the lake and pushed up, only to stand with her nose above the water. Though confused, she was grateful, but she still sneezed.

A yellow pegasus landed next to the lake and animals started to swarm the unicorn, carrying her out of the water and wrapping her in a towel. "My, you poor dear, you fell into the lake," the Pegasus quietly said.

"What do you want from me?" Moonlight asked.

"What do you mean?", the Pegasus replied, obviously confused.

"Nevermind," the unicorn muttered.

The investigator left the pegasus with her animals, dropping the towel behind her. She felt weighed down by her wet fur, and a cool breeze blew through the trees. The breeze chilled her to her bone, but she persisted. She had to get away from all of this. But something in her ached, something she couldn't put her hoof on. The moonlight shined in a clearing where she stopped and she looked up to the skies. The stars looked so different and the moon was so much better than it was where she came from.

She remembered what it was like to look up to the night sky and be filled with hope. How long had it been since she had been active during the day, how long had been since she had joined the Special Investigators? These were questions that she no longer had the answer to. The last few years of her live blurred together. Every night she'd work, every day she'd rest. It was to protect the people of her city, but it was a lonely job.

She heard a leaf crunch and turned around to see somepony standing there. There was a silence between the two of them, neither of them daring to say anything. The other pony was a pegasus stallion of a black fur color, on the flank was the mark of a constellation. The stallion was the one to break the silence. "Miss, not many people are awake at this hour, much less wander out of Ponyville. Mayhaps you are the one everyone else is looking for?" he said in a soothing voice.

That voice sounded extremely familiar to Moonlight, but it couldn't be. She inched a step closer to the stallion, "What is your name?" she asked, her voice being absent of the bitterness she had showed time and time again upon arriving to this place.

"My name? Why it's Starshine, young lady. What is your name, perhaps?", the stallion said a hoof on his chin.

"Moonlight Gleam, you don't happen to teach astronomy, do you?", the mare replied.

"Why yes, I do. It's not as important as Miss Starlight's job at the School of Friendship, but it is nice for us to know the constellations in the night sky that Princess Luna had given us." The black furred stallion said with a smile.

"At least some things are the same," the unicorn mare muttered.

The Pegasus tilted his head, curious as to what the other pony was saying, but the investigator just shrugged. "It's nothing," she lied.

The two of them sat in silence as they looked up to the skies, Moonlight wouldn't admit it, but having someone familiar made her feel a little bit better. Starshine pulled out some charts and started drawing on them, making sure to take detailed notes that he could reference later on. The silence between the two lasted half an hour, but the mare suddenly sat up and started to walk in a direction she felt was familiar.

"Excuse me miss, but where are you going?" the astronomer asked, concerned.

"Ponyville. Everyone's probably worried about me," she replied flatly.

"Ponyville is the other way," the astronomer replied.

The unicorn nodded and traveled in the direction she had been told to go.

Luster Dawn and her Kirin friend had been searching all around Ponyville for the missing unicorn mare. They were used to the fact that she was rude, but the last time she had stormed off like she did, she ended up hurt and sick. Neither of them wanted a possible new friend to be in danger like that. Not only that, but Moonlight wasn't familiar with the world and this meant that she could easily walk into danger that she didn't know about. Luster's heart raced at the thought of the possibility that the other unicorn had wandered into the Everfree Forest. Twilight had never allowed her to go in there, but she had heard tales of the dangers within.

Floral Blossom placed a hoof on her shoulder and shook her head in order to try to calm the pink unicorn down, but it was to no avail. Just like her teacher, the student was prone to freaking out if the circumstances were right. She started to hyperventilate when her friend tapped her on the shoulder. Luster looked up to see a dark blue mare wander into the city and she breathed a sigh of relief. The mare walked past them without a word as was expected, but she noticed something different. Moonlight was walking better than she had been before and on top of that, she seemed more relaxed than she ever had been before.

"Moonlight, glad to see that you're feeling better," the pink unicorn said cheerfully.

The investigator didn't look back, she just continued towards the house of Floral Blossom. The Kirin smiled sheepishly at her unicorn friend, "I have a feeling she'll talk to us when she's ready, but for now, I think we should both get some sleep," she said.

Luster nodded and the two friends parted ways to go to their homes in order to go to sleep. Before the pink unicorn drifted off though, she made a note to ask Princess Twilight about the world on the other side of the mirror. Perhaps if she knew more about it, she would be able to make the other unicorn mare feel more relaxed and at home.