Amending (some seriously broken) Fences

They always go for the insults first."Hey Glimmer! Has uncle Dolf called from hell yet?" I listened as someone called from across the cafeteria as she opened the door and walked in. The insults where harsh ranging from comments on her actions as a person to her family being descended from a line of dictators. Followed by random flying debris of french fries and steamed vegetables. it hadn't been easy for her to come back to school in the week she...had done some things. Things we had something of a right to be angry about, but Personally? I never for a second felt we had any right to treat her this way. She tried and tried, time and time again, but the minds of the adolescent jury, are not so quick to listen. and even less easy to forgive.

I sit at the only table not trying to make her into a social pariah. It seemed all the more fitting given the company of myself and a few others excluded; The Dazzlings A.K.A the singing school Pariah's now just barley off the student bodies radar, and their boy toy John Sweetstuff, Sunset Shimmer A.K.A C.H.S's first social pariah, who tried every possible action to shake the label from her image, Trixie Lulamoon, smug show off humbled for it and none the worse for wear, and my girlfriends (yes i said plural) Gilda Griffin and Rainbow Dash. the former had been one mean girl when she moved here, but like all of us...Well most of us, she had changed and showed everyone that it's not who you are that matters, but who you can become, I guess it was only fitting that Starlight made her way over to our table at the very back of lunchroom, wiped the food off her hoodie and asked.

"Can I sit here?" She asked as she brushed some bits of Rose's green dandelion salad from her hair. we looked up at her, memories of the last time she spoke to...quite a few of us actually, and even then we weren't exactly on the best of terms.

"It doesn't matter to me." Gilda said as she popped the top of her Bento box. That's the thing about Gilda, She's as western as the rest of us but the girl was madly in love with Japanese culture. Beyond the stuff like an Otaku love of anime and manga. Gilda was fluent in the casual and formal dialect, she could write Kanji with a few well placed strokes, and knew every director of every genre from Kiyoshi Kurosawa of Sweet home fame, to the king of the Kaiju himself Eiji Tsuburaya. Oh, and she was there the night her father died.

"Thanks." Was all the shy little Starlight could say as she took a seat beside us, and took note of our choice in taste. I mentioned Gilda's bento box, today's chioce was two rice balls, a few slices of roast pork, a side of Miso soup and a nori and shrimp salad. the Dazzlings and their boy toy where splitting a grande pack from taco bell, (It was Tuesday after all and Sonata's turn to pick) Trixie kept things simple with tuna on rye and some Oreo cookies with a thermos of soy milk, and Sunset, being closer to her equestrian roots than the rest of us having been an equine once, preferred a veggie delight on oat and honey. I noticed that Star didn't even have a school tray with her when she sat down.

"Hey Starlight...You're not eating?" I asked helping my self to a few pieces of Colonel Sanders.

"I...I'm just not very hungry, that much." She said with a tiny tinny squeak in her voice, the girl was a dead ringer for Fluttershy in both speaking and mannerisms as she huddled up in her midnight blue hoodie nervously. We all looked at her and seemed to scoot closer at her saying this. It was Sunset who reached out and softly placed her hand on her shoulder and looked at her with a strong sense of both empathy and concern.

"Starlight please...take half my sandwich okay?" She placed half her veggie delight by her.

"And We've got plenty of taco's left." Sonata said with a hint of usual bubbly self before Aria added a quick,

"Even I have to admit they are pretty good." As she slid a cool ranch Doritos locos beside the sandwich.

"Hey that Fast food got nothing on our taste of the far east, right Dash?" Gilda said smugly as she placed her geppei, a Japanese version of the delicacy dessert the moon cake, and her only one mind you, on a napkin with the rest, while Rainbow dash gave her dessert of the bento box a sweet bean bun.

"Trixie didn't need the whole Sixteen cookies anyway." Trixie said siding eight to the offerings stash, they where the aptly flavored caramel apple one for Halloween, it wasn't just the taste but Trixie preferred them over the candy corn ones, though I did tell her not to let that one South Park joke worry her. Starlight look at the pile of offerings then to us, we all smiled at her reassuringly probably the first smile she'd had since...It happened.

"Thank you...I appreciate it I really do." Even with her mood slightly elevated, she took only a few restrained bites of the moon cake and I noticed she kept ever so slightly flinching and twitching to look over her shoulder every now and again. As if she was expecting someone to throw something at her or flick her ears.

"You okay Star?" I asked as I only then just realized I hadn't contributed, so I quickly placed an original (hey cut me a break I didn't even have extra crispy) drumstick on a napkin next to the other offerings.

"I'm okay...I am I just...I" She said in this strange almost, dazed tone, like a girl caught in a borderline stat of catatonia as she nibbled barley a flake of skin off the chicken. I looked into those big, almost sad looking eyes, and I could see what it was that she needed.

"Starlight...I'm sorry, I didn't mean for..." She only looked at me as her eyes began to tear up, her cheeks got flushed and softly, the girl began to cry. She leaned over and threw her arms around me. I could hear those tell tale sobs and whimpers of her agony. I was like being brought back from the dead, or being born again, but not that way. More like she was really born a brand new girl. The ties of all that anger, guilt, and sadness that was constantly haunting her was finally at ease. I let her go, noticing how she slightly resisted the release from my arms.

"Thank you." She said again, only this time she she sounded like she really meant it, because it wasn't just giving her a share in something to eat when she herself was too depressed by all that was surrounding her. The wily students, her emotional baggage and the isolation, but also the feeling that in spite of all that...There where some who cared out there, and there will always be friends who care about her out their.

"Her Star?" i asked her as I fed myself a hot steaming bit of succulent KFC chicken breast.

"Yeah?" She asked her mood miles above what it had been when she walked in.

"We're all gathering in..."The Sanctum Sanctorum," after class, hero meetings, training exercises, business to discuss, and MI6 style tech development, real superhero team stuff. Feel like joining the Young justice?..Okay to be honest we're not calling ourselves that and it's only the Sanctum Sanctorum temporarily."

"Hopefully." Adagio added with a sneer. "I was hoping you had at least one original, creative bone in your body." That girl; sexy voice, still has to give everyone else either attitude or lip, or both.

"Right...Anyway, you in Star?" The smile she gave me and the soft cute little blush was all I needed for her answer.