It was a warm winter day befitting the spring time soon to come and everypony was trying their hardest to get the winter wrapped up not just on time but before any other town.The pegasi flew through the sky in graceful teams to tear down the snowy clouds and bring warm, clear skies for everypony to enjoy while the earth ponies cleared away the snow into pits where it would melt into large water supplies for the fields to come. Even Fluttershy had pulled her away from her rabbits to go help the others in waking up the much softer critters that ran about the land.
Starlight had never been a part of the winter wrap up before and while she had woken up early to help out she found most of the unicorn teams were in charge of supply lines, repairing tools and machines for the upcoming year or other such tasks. All of which were important jobs but not what she had expected unicorns to be doing, she had all kinds of experimental magic ready to go just for this week too.
Sitting in the middle of the already cleared town park Starlight tapped her hooves along the benches that had been left out for the springtime in thought. Winter wrap up normally lasted nearly a week and the entire time it was like a festival of cleaning and preparing for the new year but here she sat not doing anything. With the pace of Ponyville as well they would be done in barely a few days. For a moment she thought that maybe she could go down to the town square and enjoy the bonfires and hot drinks that Pinkie was helping to run, but on the other hoof, that would mean talking to Pinkie and Starlight already had too much of that recently.
Peering up at the sky she did notice that the pegasi team was being the slowest but that made sense, there was a lot of clouds and Twilight had ordered more snow than ever before for some technical reasons. Sitting up straight, she got off the bench and looked around the empty park before throwing her eyes upwards. Maybe they just needed a practical example of how much good some traditional magic could do for the holiday clean up… Flaring up her horn she poured vast energies into it before shooting a huge beam into the clouds above.
“That should do it.” Starlight spoke to herself as she watched the clouds start to swirl and thin out across the sky. The wind died down and a peaceful calm could be felt all over Ponyville before suddenly a crack of lightning danced across the sky and a massive gust of wind almost took Starlight off her hooves. A moment later a sheet of rain washed over the area and a cold snap after that, finally it started to hail down snowballs! Putting up a shield Starlight made a run for it.
The wind howled and wet ice flooded the streets as the unnatural storm rose ever more in intensity. Reaching the raging river Starlight could barely see two inches in front of her and even breathing was becoming hard as the temperatures started to drop ever lower. Not sure where she even was in the town anymore she stood on the interaction of the north bridge trying to get her baring when suddenly Twilight rushed past and nudged her to keep moving. Heading up north over the bridge they dashed inside the library for safety. Dry and much warmer than outside Twilight broke the ice off her tail as Starlight caught her breath.
“T-thanks for the assist Twilight.” Starlight said shivering.
“Don’t mention it. Hm, I don’t suppose you have any idea which uppity unicorn decided to ruin everything do you? I saw a light on the other side of town but could not get close enough.” She replied annoyed as she crushed a piece of ice between her hooves.
“N-no clue…” Starlight replied nervous but too cold to sweat. Trotting over to the fire she threw a few more pieces of wood onto it and sighed as the warmth soaked deep into her fur. Twilight hummed and took a look out of the window to find nothing but white as far as the eye could see.
Noticing that the lights were on and the fire had long since been lit Twilight left Starlight to wiggled herself in front of the fire. Going up the stairs to the bedrooms she tried the door but it was locked. Knocking loudly she put her ear to the door to hear at first the shuffling of ponies coming to a quick silence before a rush of movement, crashing and banging echoed out. After much whispering the door unlocked and an out of breath Rainbow poked her head out.
“Hey… Twilight…” She said.
“I was wondering where you had gone to, what part of everybody must help, did you not get?” Twilight replied at first with an annoyed glare before sighing and relaxing her expression. “At least you are safe from the storm.”
“Storm? Oh right yeah that storm, I was making sure all the windows up here were closed and stuff.” Rainbow said as she ran a hoof through her matted hair to straighten it again. Leaving the room she closed the door behind her and followed Twilight downstairs. Seeing Starlight already sitting by the fire and the windows were caked with ice she took a hard right. “Going to go to, ehm, the bathroom and stuff.” She called out before trotting quickly into a side room and slamming the door shut.
“Was that Rainbow?” Starlight asked as she glanced to the door.
“Yeah, she was supposed to be helping out but I swear that mare is much more sneaky than she looks.” Twilight replied as she sat down at the fire and put her hooves out towards the warmth.
“I know what you mean, I swear I have seen her at both ends of Ponyville at the same time before now.” Starlight added causing the both of them to chuckle warmly.
“Nice to see you two getting along.” Rainbow spoke up from behind them causing both to flinch out of the surprise. “And I have the perfect little idea for what three mares could do during a long and chilly blizzard.” She added before trotting to a bookshelf and pulling down a large brightly colored tome. “A sleepover!”
“Really? We should be organizing supplies in case it lasts for more than a day.” Twilight argued.
“I think it is a wonderful idea, I have never been to a sleepover before.” Starlight argued back.
“Fine, at least this way we can pass some time to see how the storm fairs.” Twilight sighed.
Since it was early into the day and sleep overs only really started until later in the evening they had plenty of time to kill before getting to the main events. Rainbow as well was being surprisingly organized and had read the guide to sleepovers several times over before getting to anything else. It worried Starlight and Twilight both to great amounts to see her so focused. Passing around some loose t-shirts for them to wear Rainbow got out an old classic between nerdy ponies who had little life outside of their room, Stallion Settlers. The best way to pass several hours and yet get nothing done, complete with various levels of historical accuracy and handsome guys on every card… Even the ones that did not have anything to do with settlers.
The rules were simple enough. Each pony race made up a different kind of specialization, like how the Earth Ponies focused on defences and slow growth to huge payoffs vs the Pegasi’s rapid growth but with risks dotted throughout. Each player would create a deck using these cards, magical relics, land cards and others and then enter into a long battle of grabbing land, finding items, and doing small wars with each other until the last player is left standing. Starlight made up a strong arcane deck made with many unicorns and magical effects, Twilight set up a balance of earth ponies and pegasi and Rainbow went with a land heavy deck and few settlers.
While Starlight and Twilight were newer to the game than Rainbow they still doubted what she was doing half the time. Ignoring her for the time being the other two focused on each other, as Twilight was putting some early game focus into building up her land and space at cost while Starlight was spreading out scouts all over to find relics. They were pushing on each other’s tiles at every turn but it wasn’t until they both wanted to claim a spot that the first fight happened. Twilight had the home advantage but Starlight’s unicorns were far too powerful and she ended up winning one of the six runes of unity.
“Should have gone unicorns Twilight.” Starlight said with a smirk.
“And you should have put more food tokens into the pool because you just ran out.” Twilight replied while pulling her tongue at her.
“What?! Ahem, I will offer you a trade of scrolls and crowns for some of your tokens.” Starlight offered. Twilight hummed to herself in thought, rolling her head around sarcastically in thought.
“Hmmmmmm no.”
“Fine! Rainbow about about you?” She asked.
“I will trade some of my cake for your scrolls of dirt summoning.” Rainbow replied.
An odd deal but Starlight accepted to avoid an early loss. Now keeping an eye on the rest of her supply tokens she continued to spread out to the far reaches of the board, her unicorn magic stacking coming in useful to overcome most challenges that she met along the way. Each time she did so she would give a smirk to Twilight but Twilight was playing it cool. With most of the board cleared away it was coming close to the war half of the game and Starlight felt confident. She had secured the runes of unity and many other powerful relics, surely nothing Twilight or Rainbow could do could counter them.
Striking first in a surprise attack she had high rolls and powerful damage but Twilight’s defences were strong and they ended up in a stalemate. It would have to break eventually.
“Give it up Twilight, magic is far too powerful and I have more spells that I know what to do with.” Starlight proudly stated.
“You do, but each takes time and the costs mean you can not use all of them anyway.” Twilight retorted.
“Oh I see you read the rule book, figures you would be good at that.” Starlight muttered.
“Well someone had to be the mature one and follow the rules while others were off adventuring with glowing rocks.” Twilight mocked.
“They are the runes of unity and they are going to let me win all of this!” Starlight replied in a huff.
“And you just told me that you have all of them, which means that I can use this eye of the storm to set up a ten turn barrier around my main castle.”
“That won’t help, I combine control clouds with high wind and triple lightning to turn your stormy barrier against itself!”
“Well I use Sir Beefcake’s catalysts of cloudy cake rain to turn the storm’s damage output into food tokens!”
“Oh so that is how it is going to be?!” Starlight shouted as they continued to argue back and forth fruitlessly. Cards were sent flying, tokens scattered all over the board as counter over counter over counter was used to no end. As voices were raised and hooves slammed onto the table Rainbow threw down three cards onto the board. Both stopped to look her way as they had forgot she was even playing.
“I use scrolls of summon dirt to move all the dirt under your castles to these spots near mine, that removes all defences and instantly destroys anything in an A3 area radius. With the earth pony relic of golem creation and the pegasi special relic of Stormheart I then turn the mountain of dirt into an army of giant lightning throwing clay soldiers. Which wipes you two out.” Rainbow explained causing the pair to sit slack jawed.
“Dang.” Twilight finally said. Breaking the silence they all began to laugh at how silly the situation had gotten.
“Want some cider? I got some left over.” Rainbow asked as stretched her legs.
“That would be lovely, thank you.” Starlight replied as she chuckled to herself. Leaving the board as it was they sat down next to the fire and took it easy. The game had run on for a few hours without them even noticing it and they still had the rest of the day to contend with on top. She sighed and for a moment even regretted her actions, just for a moment, and then she was already starting to think on a new spell to fix things.
“Here you girls go. Let me just go sort some… Things.” Rainbow said as she slid a tray of cupcakes and cider across the floor to the front of the fire. Surprised by the odd way of delivering them Starlight looked around only to catch a glimpse of Rainbow running upstairs.
“She really can be quick when she wants to…” Starlight said under her breath with a smirk.
With Rainbow stomping about upstairs Twilight sat down next to Starlight to get some hot cider. Gently lifting it up with her hooves she blew across the top and took a slow, savoring sip. She did not say a word to Starlight and in turn Starlight did not say a word back. Despite the laughter of before it still felt awkward between them and each noisy sip did not help the matter one bit.
“She is really making a mess up their.” Twilight eventually said.
“Yeah, I hate to think what she is making for us.” Starlight replied. Twilight gave a nod and continued to sit stone faced, her eyes looking past the fire, before taking another sip. Starlight sighed.
“Sorry about that, so who is up for some scary stories?” Rainbow asked trotting down the stairs out of breath and with her mane all messy.
“I am!” Starlight called out relieved to get away from Twilight’s cold aura.
“Excellent.” Rainbow purred before clicking her hooves together. The lights suddenly went out just as the wind picked up and the low rumble of thunder rolled across the town. With the light of the fire casting long and deep shadows across the room Rainbow let out an ominous laughter. She walked in front of the fire and look to the two mares, one already on edge, and the other amused. “This is the story of the shapeless mare, a mysterious figure seen all over Equestria yet nobody knows what she looks like. With fur as black as night and eyes like burning fires she stalks the shadows in endless search of her long lost love.” She paused for a moment to see the reactions of the two. “They say when the weather turns cold and ponies are all huddled up inside their homes she will come a knocking, asking for a place to stay. Her voice as sweet as honey, her form that of some very attractive mare indeed. But if you let her in… It begins…” Rainbow spoke causing the two to get worried. “You start to hear things around your home. Little things in the night. The Shapeless mare never sleeps you see and she loves to wander the halls but you must never go after her…” Starlight flinched as she was sure she heard the stairs creak behind her. “For if you do go after her, if you find her all alone in your living room in the dead of night… You will never be seen again!” Just as Rainbow called out something tapped both Starlight and Twilight on the back. They screamed. Twilight jumped 12ft into the air and Starlight teleported away in a shower of light sparks. With a click of her hooves the lights came on and Twilight saw it was Dewey.
“Great moonpies of above, you scared the living fuck out of me.” Twilight panted.
“Watch your language.” Dewey replied while sticking his tongue out at her.
“Sorry, ehm, where did Starlight go?” She asked.
Looking around they did not see her anywhere in the living room. Dewey checked the stairs and upper area to find nothing and Rainbow looked into the kitchen. With a rattle from the fridge they opened it to find her upside down and covered almost completely in mustard.
“Why do you have so much of this stuff?!” She moaned as she fell out and slid across the floor. “On second thoughts, don’t answer that. I am going to go take a shower.” With every hoofstep leaving a glorp noise she left the kitchen, ignored the snickers from Twilight, and headed up the stairs past Dewey into the bathroom. While she had only just started to warm up to some of the modern technology Twilight has brought to the town she did have to admit that on demand hot showers were a blessing. Looking over the two racks full of a wide range of hygienic products she picked one that sounded nice and began to wash the mustard from her coat. After two does though she could swear there was still a slight spicy after smell, eh good enough.
Rubbing herself down with a towel she left the bathroom but paused at the top of the stairs. Dewey was here the entire time, she thought to herself. Him and Dash were here the entire time, making all that noise, constantly going back upstairs. Glancing down the stairs to find nobody around she quietly stepped over to the door and opened it a crack when she heard hoofsteps trotting around down the stairs. Closing it she continued to dry herself casually before tossing the towel into the bathroom and heading downstairs herself.
“Come on Glimmy, the first round is about to begin.”
“The first round of what?” She asked while looking Rainbow up and down.
“A little something to pass the time since Twilight and you just love to rub horns.” Rainbow explained before pausing. “Is that the correct way to say argue or was I thinking the other thing?”
“It's close enough.” Starlight said with a shrug.
“The name of the game is simple… Well, the rules of the game are simple. I am still working out the name. Anywho, it is some games to see which one of you has the best skills and first up is snack making.”
“Better than sitting in silence for the night.” Twilight spoke up before taking a loud sip of cider.
Dash and Dewy worked together to a tray of ingredients together, marshmallows, chocolette, biscuits and little additions like caramel. All that Starlight and Twilight had to do was mix up whatever best snack they could in 10 minutes, and then they could all enjoy the result, with the best snack winning a point.
With the turn of an hourglass to count the time they began with haste. Starlight used her magic to snatch up a lot of chocolate and caramel while Twilight took up a bunch of biscuit, marshmallow and only a pinch of the sweets. Placing a pot over the fire she began to melt down the chocolate and caramel into a rich golden brown syrup while warming up the marshmallow nearby. Her idea was a classic take on smores, that did seem to be what Rainbow was hinting at after all. With the sweet, salty, goop starting to take shape she gave it a small taste and looked to the kitchen. With a moment of inspiration she trotted away to get an extra something.
Starlight meanwhile used her magic to break up the chocolette and bend the caramel into shape. With a fluffy marmashow core she then put them all back together to form a three layered ball, with a gooey center, a caramel inside, and a chocolate shell. With the first one looking great she began to repeat the action with the rest of the ingredients, one by one, until she had an entire bowl full of them.
“Looks like I win Twilight, you were just too slow.” Starlight smirked.
“Not quite!” Rainbow called out as she popped up suddenly. “The rule is best snack, not fast, but I will give you an extra point for easy they are.” She explained before taking one of the small balls and putting it in her mouth. It was sweet and the speed to make them was a bonus but chewing was impossible. No matter how hard she gnawed at the lump of confection it would not break apart.
“Seems you forgot that no heat and several layers makes them rock hard.” Twilight replied sounding disingenuously innocent. After throwing a pinch of her something from the kitchen into the pot she put a layer of the soft marshmallow fluff on either side of biscuit and poured a dollop of the thick, rich, syrup between.
“Slower but it smells… Mmm.” Rainbow drooled. Throwing on whole into her mouth, her face contorted into one of bliss. “Oh that is GOOD.” She murmured. “Points, all the points. Just keep making them, oh Celestia’s sweet suncakes that is nice.”
“They can not be that good, it's just warm chocolate, caramel… A basic smore.” Starlight scoffed but when she tried one herself she paused. It was rich, sweet with such a deeper flavor than her balls. “How?” She asked.
“Coffee. A pinch of it makes chocolate taste far better, with none of the bitter flavor that coffee normally has. Something I learned from the many festivals and bake sales the town puts on.” Twilight explained with a smirk. Starlight narrowed her eyes at her but could not stop herself from continuing to eat the smore.
“The balls are nice too, just gotta suck on them all gentle like.” Dewey added causing Dash to snicker.
“Ahem, I think Twilight wins this one. Slower but way worth the time.” Rainbow said.
With a pile of sweet snacks made up for everybody to enjoy, they began to clear away the central table and other things around the room for more space. From upstairs Dash and Dewey threw down dozens of pillows of different shapes and sizes, including one that seemed to have a full body picture of Rainbow across it, but Dewey made sure to return that one before the others saw. The name of the next game was a classic, pillow fight. Neither of them could go past a line made on the ground with tape and they would need to toss pillows back and forth to try and land hits. First to three to win.
With each of them starting out with a large pile of pillows the chance of getting an early point was low but the two still threw back one soft furnishings after another. Twilight had a hell of a strong buck and so even without magic she was able to knock other pillows off the fort, Starlight meanwhile had magic that let her pick up and throw more than one. The pillows rained down like mortar shells on both sides, some scattered and left in the no man's land between them. What had once been two organized pillow forts was now a chaotic pile that slowly but surely began to lose more and more padding.
Dewey and Dash sat chewing on Starlight’s balls as they watched the scene unfold. The two mares were silent but getting increasingly heated as the throws became harder. Starlight’s magic rain of fabric turned into a storm as she gave up even looking and just threw every pillow on her side over to Twilight. Taking cover Twilight hid in her pile as the others began to fall heavily all around her and with the pile being broken by a lucky shot, the first pillow hit her… On the ass. Dash called out the point and Starlight cheered, for a moment. She was sweating now, panting too, and had not realized she had thrown away nearly all of her pillows.
Twilight rose from the now massive pile of furnishings like a mighty, elegant, phoenix. Grinning, nay, laughing like a madmare she began to pelt the other side of the field like something possessed. Starlight ran, ducked, dived and tried her hardest to dodge the pillows as they fell all around her. Flump, flump, flump, her tail was knocked astray a few times but eventually her luck came to an end and a large white pillow smashed into her face so hard she was sent straight to the floor.
“Ohhh dang!” Dash and Dewey both cheered.
Pulling herself off the floor she glared at Twilight and flared up her horn. Every single pillow on her side rose up off the ground. It was too much for her to move but with the blizzard of soft padding she did not need to, just spinning them around herself was enough to protect her from any throw Twilight could try. Sensing her doom Twilight hunkered down just as the barrage started but Starlight learned from her mistakes and stopped once she had used up a chunk of her ammo. Standing proud and sure she must have landed at least one hit she did not see a pillow blindside her from a smaller pile that had formed on the other end of Twilight’s side. It landed with a thump but Starlight was ready and quickly through one straight back, leading to a draw.
Two vs two, the last hit would end it all. Dash and Dewey were watching enthralled by the fluffy warzone happening in front of them. Twilight had made sure to pull some more pillows to her side fort but it was in no shape to keep a defence for long. Starlight meanwhile put some of her ammo down to at least make some cover. With just her eyes peeking out from the pillows Twilight stared down Starlight, who in turn stared her down right back.
“You are better at magic than I thought.” Twilight called out.
“I didn’t become Celestia’s star pupil with just my impeccable calligraphy skills you know. Starlight replied sounding tired.
“Oh I am sure, I bet you could even do weather magic if you wanted to.”
“Any school of magic if I wanted to, they are all the same in concept.”
“Except that magic specific to earth ponies or pegasi are done with different arcane alignments, like how if a pegasi manipulates a cloud enough it’s magical properties are then changed enough that a unicorn’s spells may have side effects and hm while I am at it… What do you think would happen if said unicorn tried to effect every cloud, each with a different arcane alignment?” Twilight explained at length.
“Oh my, how did I forget…” Starlight muttered as she dropped some of the pillows. As soon as she did one gently flew through the air and tapped her on the side.
“There. Now if we are done with the exercise, do you think you can fix your mess before Ponyville is completely frozen?” Twilight asked as she stretched her legs.
“You knew. But why didn’t you say anything, you could have helped me fix it hours ago?”
“I wanted to see if you have learned anything about honesty or admitting your mistakes but at this point I figure you would let us be snowed in until you started to starve.”
“Only a day or two... “ Starlight admitted quietly. “Magical alignments… How am I supposed to calculate the right arcane angle in a storm when everything is scrambled?” Starlight then asked.
“Your magic already mixed together all the angles and the storm has given it time to settle. Since it originated from you, you should be able to feel it out and then cancel the spell as a whole.”
“Brilliant but how do you know all of this, I don’t think I have seen you even use any magic, let alone show any want to use it.”
“I used to be a prodigy just like you, was on the road to being Celestia’s star pupil but in the haste I took the exam a few years younger than most and the random testing committee ended up giving me one of the harder tests. I don’t think most full grown unicorns could have passed it but you know what did pass it? Science. Spike is the proof of that.” Twilight said as she and Starlight headed up the stairs and out onto the high balcony.
The wind was fierce but refreshing on Starlight’s sweaty body. She breathed in the cold air and fired up her horn. A small beam shot out into the clouds to test, and feel, the energies swirling above and then a moment later she braced herself and shot up a huge ball of magic along that beam. At first nothing happened. Then suddenly the wind stopped, the snow came to an end and the sky very suddenly dropped. All the snow above covering half the town in tons of soft, icy, pillows. It was a mess, a big mess at that, but the storm was over and the sunlight was comforting.
“Thanks for the help Twilight. I should trust you more.” Starlight admitted shyly.
“I should do the same, your magic is strong and valuable so I should at least try and find a way to use it safely.” Twilight admitted back. “Speaking of which, we need someone to try and get rid of the snow before it melts and floods the place. Do you think you could do something about that?”
“Hmm it is getting late, the sun will be down soon so we don’t have to worry about thaw until tomorrow… Want to go see what else Rainbow has on the sleepover list?” Starlight asked causing Twilight to snicker.
“Why not, but I would prefer something a bit easier than wargames.” Twilight said in jest as she went inside. Starlight let out a yawn and quickly followed but paused once more in front of Dash’s bedroom door. With curious thoughts coming back to her she opened the door at took a step inside to find the entire room spotless. Cleaner and fresher than she had ever seen it before, while does of bags and boxes no doubt held the trash from a long clean up. She sighed and chuckled to herself. Of course they were just doing some spring cleaning, what did she expect to find in here… Her mind wandered for a moment but she shook it away.
Closing the door gently she returned downstairs to enjoy the rest of the sleepover in peace.
