Starlight Glimmer trudged through the front doors of her castle. A yawn escaped her. For three hours, she sat slumped over the desk in her office, busying herself with administration and grading papers. While her patience and discipline were usually more than enough to carry her through her day, that was simply not the case for today. No, today the minutes dragged on and time crawled through her office. Every new document she plucked from her slowly shrinking stack chipped at her resolve, reminding her of what she could be doing and just who she wanted to do it with. Now that she finally made it home, she wanted nothing more than to snuggle up with her mare and catch up on the latest Shadow Spade book.
But first, she would have to find Trixie. Starlight looked around the antechamber and her hugbug was nowhere to be seen. “Trixie?” She called out, “I’m home!”
"Maybe she’s in the living room?" She ascended the staircase leading into the rest of the castle. As she did, her thoughts drifted to memories from the early days of their relationship, back when The Great and Powerful Trixie’s show was still a traveling act.
When Starlight eagerly met Trixie at her wagon. When her tours brought her to Ponyville. When they realized they wanted something other than friendship. When Trixie ambushed Starlight for a ‘private show’ one evening.
Starlight’s face burned at that particular memory. For a moment, she was able to forget the crystal castle’s coldness without the comfort of a roaring fire. Though, she’d rather not have Trixie find her glowing like a cherry tomato. Walking into the living room yielded one of Trixie’s many chests, but no Trixie. "Is she in her room?"
The clacking sound of hoof on crystal stalked Starlight and echoed around her as she walked down one of the many empty corridors to their rooms.
Starlight poked her head through the threshold of Trixie’s room, “Trixie? You in here?” The site of her half-made, half-messy bed and all the towering boxes, crates, and chests of magician props engulfed her view. The only part of the room she agreed to keep clear was the path to the door.
Honestly, Starlight couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t just pack that stuff in her closet, or anywhere else for that matter. What little outside light that wasn’t smothered by the towering precarious pillars of junk only kept the room dimly lit. The crack under the door allowed more light through than the oppressive stacks enveloping the bed and window. She thought that when her marefriend moved into the castle with her, she’d be relieved to have somewhere else to store her props, pyrotechnics, and personal effects. But Trixie (the great and powerful), once again defied her expectations by storing everything she owned and more in her new room.
All attempts to convince her to do something about the planet of junk orbiting her bed were either shut down because she 'Likes it better this way,' or resulted in something else being added to the room. Starlight gave up on changing her when Trixie put everything in her room in industrial shelving 'There! Trixie won’t get crushed during her beauty sleep. So now there’s no need to remove anything! Feel free to tell Trixie what a genius she is.'
A dopey smile pulled across her face but it didn’t last. She remembered what she came for and shook her head while backing into the hallway. She gnawed on a hoof and paced just outside the door.
“Where is she? Trixie is… Well she’s Trixie, but she wouldn’t leave without a note. Unless she forgot. Or maybe she didn’t forget, maybe she couldn’t leave a note!” Standing alone in the overwhelming quiet of the hallway, Starlight steadied her breathing. “No. I’m not going to start Twilighting over this. She’s just late, that doesn’t mean she’s missing.” She freed a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “She’s probably just in the bathroom or something. I can just get started without her.”
One hot chocolate and lit fire later, Starlight laid back on the living room couch with Shadow Spade and the Missing McGuffins lazily floating above her. She blew a raspberry, “She knows tonight’s book night right?”
It was then that the universe saw fit to answer her rhetorical question. “Of course Trixie knows, you're the one who didn't tell her you were starting. Also it’s getting a bit warm, can you cool the fire?”
Starlight jolted forward, her horn impaled the thick hardcover book as she flew off the couch and crashed onto the hard crystal floor. “Trixie?!” She cried, “What were you doing in the chest?”
Trixie, who was leaning out of the very chest Starlight looked at when she walked in, shrugged, “Trixie likes the chest. Why are you on the floor?”
“You’re asking me why after you scared me?! Was that supposed to be a prank?!”
Trixie scoffed at her marefriend’s anger, “I’m sorry that I scared you, but you knew I'd be waiting on you to start book night. Would you like a hug?” She held out her legs and made room in the chest.
Starlight pouted, “Yes... But I’m not jumping in that chest with you!”
“Fine...” She climbed out of the chest and onto the couch; Starlight joined her. The book on her head shimmered in Trixie’s magic and floated off her horn. “Thanks,” Starlight said.
Trixie kissed her nose, “You’re welcome.”
“You still didn’t give me a good answer, you know. Why were you in there? Unless you’re practicing a trick, those kinds of pranks aren’t really your style.” Starlight asked as she wrapped her forelegs around Trixie, the two softly lowering onto their sides.
Trixie laid with her back to the fire, blocking Starlight’s view of it. The light of the fire suffused her aquamarine mane with a luminescent glow. The soft glow was caught in her glimmering eyes. “I don’t know what else to say. That chest is one of the comfier ones.”
“Oh stars above, I’m gay. I'm gay. Why does she have to look so good?!” Starlight kept pouting, though it was a crumbling facade now that it had to contend with her marefriend’s beauty. She reminded herself of why she was upset in the first place and Trixie hadn’t given her a good reason still. “Wait… Comfier? She’s done this with other chests?”
“Actually, that reminds me. Have you been feeling alright lately? You’ve been acting a bit...” She waved a hoof in the air, searching for the right word to say, “strange, to say the least, since we moved in together, I mean.”
“What do you mean ‘strange’?”
Starlight frowned, "Playing dumb won't help you."
"Trixie does not play dumb!"
“Seriously? Okay, let me spell it out for you. First, you’ve been avoiding the main rooms of the castle constantly. Second, your room has transformed into a veritable warehouse filled with who knows what, and every time I bring it up, you either brush it off or do something crazy!”
“Those shelves weren’t cheap, you know.”
“That’s not the point! Oh, and then today I get home and think my marefriend is missing when in reality, she was cramming herself in a chest for who knows how long like a cat with a cardboard box addiction. That all checks out as strange, stranger, and strangest if you ask me!”
“Oh puh-lease, Starlight. Trixie has only been in that box for… Uh. What time is it now?” She asked, grinning sheepishly.
“You aren’t helping your case, you know. But I’ll bite, It’s five-thirty.”
“Oh, then I’ve been in that chest for like… Three and a half hours.” Trixie squeaked.
“Trixie!”
“What?! You’re acting like you’ve never seen a claustrophilic mare before.” Trixie snorted, pulled back just enough so she could boop Starlight’s snoot.
Boop.
“Claustrophilic? So being in that chest was arousing to you?”
Trixie snorted. “No, Starlight, it just means I have an affinity for small.” She wiggled closer, “Tight.” Nestling herself in Starlight’s legs, draping them over her and flipping around to face the fire. “Squeezing spaces.” She finished by pulling her marefriend’s legs tight across her barrel.
“A-are you sure you aren’t just afraid of large spaces?" Her face now the same shade as Big Mac's coat. "I-I mean it’s ok if you are! Maybe you’re overcompensating for your fear and that’s why-”
“Hah! Don’t be ridiculous, Starlight. How would the Great and Powerful Trixie even perform in the great outdoors if she was afraid of a little space? Did you forget all of my amazing performances are outside shows?” Trixie’s eyes widened, the corners of her lips curled upwards. “Oh, Starlight.” She cooed, “Are you telling me that you only just realized this? You know how tightly packed my wagon was, how many tricks of mine involved being trapped or stuck in small spaces, you’ve seen my room, and somehow you didn’t connect the dots until now?” Traces of laughter invaded her voice. "Oh! Let's not forget that little manticore trick you helped me pull off. Why, if it weren't for Trixie's assistant..." she let the word linger for a moment, "she would have been trapped in that monster's stomach."
Starlight buried her head in Trixie’s neck and uttered a muffled “Maybe.”
“Oh Starlight, Starlight, Starlight. What is Trixie going to do with you?” she said.
Starlight squeezed her mare tight. Trixie’s heart soared at the sudden leap in initiative.
“Well! Somepony’s finally being forward, does my scared little assistant need a teddy bear?” Trixie asked.
“Oh no, you misunderstand me, my little sardine,” Starlight squeezed her tighter. A teal ethereal feather shimmered in front of her. It was joined by another, and another, and another. A hundred feathers angrily floated before her, not unlike a school of piranhas.
“S-starlight?”
“Tonight, you will know true fear.”
“N-now I said I was sorry!” Trixie squirmed. A futile effort, nopony escapes Starlight Glimmer’s iron hooves. “Starlight!” The first eager feather lurking mere inches from her nose. “Don’t you dare!”
“The GreahaHAHAHA! STARLIGHT PLEAHAHA!”Trixie thrashed about, trying so desperately to escape her captor, all the while giggling and laughing wildly. Starlight for her own part, was also unable to contain her laughter at the fun they were sharing. She blew raspberries into her mare’s neck and added her hooves to the tickle-swarm. The two mares spent the rest of their evening waging an escalating tickle-cuddle war.
Author's Note
What do you call it when you blow air through your lips and they flap around and sound like a horse? The technical term is "Bilabial Voiceless Trill" but I couldn't really find a better word than "raspberry".
