The Stars
by Grey Capstan
For a Tuesday night, the Ponyville cantina was as empty as one would expect. Certainly no weekend crowd. Six ponies, counting the bartender, gathered in unwanted company. Candles spread across the room shone small auras of light through their glasses as they drank, scattering flecks of amber across all the surfaces.
The earth pony working the bar was barely managing to stay awake, looking ready to end his shift even though Luna had only just started hers. Two ponies were playing cards in the corner, next to the candle they thought was burning the brightest. Another pony sat by his ownsome in one of the booths that would normally be full of chatter, drinks and fried food on a Friday night. The other two ponies rested at the bar. Tonight, even their regular tones of voice were enough to fill the silent, cider-soaked air.
“Look, Rainbow Dash,” said Twilight Sparkle, swirling the golden swill around in her mug, “I know getting dumped hurts, but it’s really not that bad in the grand scheme of things.”
Rainbow Dash was slumped over the counter, chin resting on her crossed forelegs. “You don’t understand, Twilight. Soarin’ is the fastest, most-daringest guy in the Wonderbolts. If he doesn’t think we’re cut out for a relationship, then no one will!” She glanced over at the drink Twilight had ordered for her, which remained untouched. She never thought she’d ever be too depressed to drink. “You should’ve seen how pathetic I was, begging him that we could work it out.” She turned her head towards Twilight. “Am I really that desperate?”
Twilight frowned. “You were just trying to hold on to something that you cared for and felt was important to you. There’s nothing wrong with that. Unless you’re obsessively stalking him or something.” She took a quick swallow from her glass.
“Ha.” Rainbow’s monotone was muffled by her forelegs, where her head was now buried. Her frazzled, matted mane was all you could see of it. “Let’s face it: this whole love thing just isn’t for me. I thought love was supposed to be awesome. You get to be with somepony you really like, they get to be with you, and we stay by each other’s side forever and ever. Instead,” she lifts up her head and motions her left foreleg around the room, “I’m here in this… hole-in-the-wall feeling like the biggest loser in Ponyville and wasting my friend’s time. If I’m gonna feel like this every time I like somepony, then I’m just not gonna bother.” She put her head back down.
“Rainbow Dash…” Twilight’s tone softened. “I know that what you’re going through hurts. But you can’t let one bad experience turn you off from love forever. You’ll miss out on all the wonderful things it can provide.”
Rainbow sat up straight for the first time since they arrived and placed her left foreleg on her chest. “This pain I feel in my heart? It’s not wonderful, Twilight.” She quickly resumed her despondent drawl on the counter.
“Look, Rainbow. That heartache you feel is like…” Her eyes shifted to the side; she swam through the cider in her head looking for the right word. “Like the stars, at night.”
“Like the stars?” Rainbow asked, with a skepticism that could be mistaken for anger.
“Yeah. I’m sure you see the stars out in the sky every night. You just crane your neck a little and they’re there. They’re probably still there even when you’re not looking. You know what I mean?”
Not leaving her slouch, Rainbow gave an uninterested shrug. “I don’t catch your drift.”
“What I’m getting at,” Twilight paused and took another sip, “is that they probably don’t blow your mind every time you see them. Not that they aren’t a glorious display, but you’re used to knowing that they’re there.”
“I still don’t get how this is supposed to make me feel better.”
“Remember the first time you ever laid eyes on them? I bet you were pretty amazed. Everyone is the first time.” A smile of reminiscence rose from her glass. “I remember my first time. I was two years old. My parents, Shining Armor and I were heading home from a shopping trip. We had gone a little later than we normally did, so by the time we left it was late. I had never been outside at night before. Everything was dark, like it would be in my room before I went to bed, but we were outside, not in my room. I was confused, but no one seemed upset so I figured it must be normal.
“Suddenly, my mom tapped my shoulder and pointed up at the sky. ‘Look, sweetie. Those are stars. Aren’t they pretty?’I looked up and, well, I was scared at first. I thought someone spilled milk on the sky and ruined it, like some sort of astral tablecloth.” She let out a chuckle at her own joke. “Later I learned that that wasn’t the case, of course. After that night, it dawned on me that there was more to the world than what you can see at eye-level. You just have to look up.
“One night, I asked my parents if we could take a train to see the ‘stuff in the sky’. They told me that there were some things you couldn’t get to by train, and the ‘stuff in the sky’ was one of them. ‘Why?’ I asked them. My dad said, ‘Well… they’re just too far away.’ He said we could be on a train for years and years and we still wouldn’t be anywhere near it. I had a new sense of respect for the stars, the moon and the sun. They must have traveled really far to get where they were. There must be something really special up there in the sky for them to want to go such a distance.” She took another gulp of cider. “I had to know more. That’s how I became so interested in those things. It’s why I went to see Princess Celestia raise the sun at the Summer Sun Celebration so many years ago.” She placed her drink down with an audible clunk of glass meeting wood.
Rainbow’s chin was back to being cradled in her forelegs. She stared blankly at the bottles lined up along the shelves behind the bar. “Touching story. What does this have to do with me?”
“What I’m trying to say,” Twilight turned her stool to face Rainbow directly, “is that heartbreak is like the stars. The first time you discover it it’s overwhelming, but slowly you learn more about it. You put it in a physical perspective. It stops becoming a mystery land of beyond and you catalog it until it becomes just another part of your world.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Oh, gee, thanks. I feel so much better knowing that my nights are gonna be filled with rejection.”
“No, no, no, no,” Twilight placed her right forehoof on Rainbow’s left shoulder. “I mean that rejection’s not a big deal. You’ll get over it. Everyone goes through it, and they get over it. As daunting as looking for love seems, you just have to persevere. Those who are patient enough will be rewarded with true love in the end.”
Rainbow Dash lifted her head and turned it fully to Twilight. “You really think so?”
“I know so.” Twilight took her hoof off of Rainbow Dash’s shoulder and picked up her mug. With three more swallows the beverage was gone. “It might take a little longer than you’d like, but it can’t possibly take any longer than the stars.”
