One Moment

Months had flown by since Starlight founded the village and met Double Diamond and Party Favor, and since then, things had been going pleasant for her.

Since she wanted her town residents to have the same manestyle for stallions and mares, she cut Double Diamond and Party Favor's manes, and they now have a clean-cut style compared to the frizzy and rough ones that they had before.

She also came up with a rule that all villagers in her town should have a wide grin, no matter what they were feeling. To which Double Diamond and Party Favor both hesitated at first, thinking that it was a little creepy to put on a fake smile and have it for as long as they were in public. But they knew better than to question her. So, they did as they were told, and eventually, the two got the hang of it, or so Double Diamond did. Starlight can see that Party Favor is still struggling with it, but she would eventually mold him into the way that she wanted too.

But the best news was that other ponies started to enter her town, curious about what the deal was, and as to why three ponies had the same cutie mark. Starlight put on her usual fake persona and welcomed the ponies with kindness and calmness, hiding the fact that she was extremely excited for new followers.

And as she learned over the years due to being depressed and socially isolated most of her life, she was very good at manipulation. She was able to convince these ponies to remove their cutie marks, and whenever they felt nervous about their cutie mark, she would dive straight to the core without hesitation.

And because of those tactics, at least 18 ponies had joined her town, which even surprised Starlight herself. She never really expected the village to grow that quickly.

Thankfully some houses were built by the time they came. Starlight thought, relieved.

But unfortunately for her, due to more ponies joining quickly, she was starting to run out of room for the cutie mark jars. She could not store them into her space forever. Or else one of them would break and would return back to their owners.

Starlight, not wanting to deal with the confusion that would lie ahead, she decided that she needed to store them somewhere near the town, where everyone could see them but would not steal them.

"I'm going out for a bit." Starlight told Double Diamond, who was watching her leave. "You're in charge until I get back, but don't make drastic changes." she said with more edge in her tone.

While normally she disliked the idea of anyone else being in charge of her town, she could at least trust Double Diamond to at least run it while she was gone to do things. More than Party Favor anyway, who had been here for as long as Double Diamond did.

"Of course." Double Diamond dipped his head calmly, and watched her go with a wide, creepy smile.

Starlight had peeked through magic books at another dusty, old library, that wasn't really inhabited by anyone except elder ponies. She wanted the marks to be encased in something magical, so the chance of them being stolen by an earth pony or pegasus would be highly unlikely.

She scrolled through pages and pages of the magic books. She needed to find one that fitted her category. Somewhere where it could be found near her village, and where her villagers can easily go to in a breeze.

She immediately stopped when she found one thing that caught her attention and may have a trick that could work: rocks.

Starlight started reading more about them, suddenly becoming interested. She started flipping through pages about them, now learning that these rocks can be used to store magical things and somehow, can bear the magical properties of a magical object.

This has to be a joke. Starlight said, getting skeptical at first. There is no way that rocks can do that.

But something told her that she should at least give it a chance, but she had to play it safe, of course. She can't risk her entire town going wrong because of one stupid test attempt. And if she was going to do it, she needed to find which stone was the most magical stone. And are there magical stones near her area?

Pondering, she teleported out of the library, and headed back home.

Teleported to the outskirts of town, she walked to the village. But something caught her eye when she looked at her side and saw a pony investigating rocks.

Suspicion immediately rose inside her for a brief moment, until she saw that the pony was just investigating small rocks by cracking them open with her pickaxe. Plus, the pony was an earth pony. So Starlight doubted that this earth pony would want to try to fight with an unicorn. A talented one for that matter.

And she looks like a petrologist. Starlight thought in her mind. Maybe this gray mare would be of use to her after all. This pony could give her answers to if the rocks around this area were powerful or not. Its as if the timing was perfect!

But Starlight had to be careful. She did not want to try and be too suspicious to her. Even if she doesn't look like she would do any harm, she may do other things that may harm Starlight and the village if she knew the actual truth. But why would she have to worry? She wasn't hurting anyone in her village.

With her guard extremely high, she finally walked up to the pony, who just cracked open a rock, and was sorting through the pebbles.

Starlight nervously looked around, making sure that no ponies would hear their conversation that they were about to have.

"Psst." Starlight tried to get her attention. "Do you know a lot about rocks?" she asked nervously.

"Yes." The pony said with a monotone voice as she investigated a pebble that she picked up.

Starlight looked at her with a tiny bit of nervousness. She, and her town, may be in danger if she did this stupid mistake, but she might as well take the chance.

"Have you ever come across some kind of super powerful stone that could store the cutie mark magic of, I don't know." she said with a bit of humor at the end, but now gazed at her with intimidation and her voice had hardened. "An entire village?"

"Yup." The pony replied shortly after with the same monotone style. "In the big cave." she pointed her hoof at the mountain. Starlight turned to where her hoof was pointing at. She could see the mouth of the cave in the distance.

Almost at once, Starlight put on an evil smile and abandoned the mare by dashing off to her village. Thankfully, and surprisingly, the mare didn't mind.

She actually helped me! Starlight thought. She couldn't decide if she wanted to be thankful that she wasn't questioned, or snicker at the mare for letting out a magical secret that easily.

"Starlight!" Double Diamond greeted her, but she quickly ignored him.

She dashed into her house, grabbed some leftover glass windows, a chisel, and a handful of cutie mark jars.

The moment she stepped out of the house, Double Diamond and Party Favor looked at her in surprise.

"Starlight? What are you so excited for?" Party Favor asked her with concern.

"And what's with the tools?" Double Diamond added.

Starlight stopped herself. She had no idea why she was this confident, and instead acting like a foal. The mare could be lying, or there might not be enough room for these cutie marks to fit.

But she already envisioned at what the cutie mark cases looked like, in many shapes and forms. And if the mare was correct, the stone would somehow hold the magic that was inside these cutie marks. Plus, she was happy to get rid of the jars. They were making her perfect house too cluttered.

Starlight looked at the two confused stallions with a confident smirk. "We're building a vault, boys."

And with that, she walked out of the village, and followed the direction to where the gray earth pony had pointed the cave at. She was ready to get to work.