The Saltwater Room

Chapters

Chapter 1, I suppose
Chapter 2, later than I wanted.
Chapter 3, now with a free apology
Chapter 4, Starlight is Unbreakable
Chapter 6, I really should have named this story Re:Re.
Chapter 7, Exposition is Magic
[Intermission]
Chapter 8, back to reality
Chapter 9, almost done
Chapter 10, I level with the audience
Chapter 11, I never expected it to get this long
Epilogue: Don't expect a sequel
Prologue
Chapter 5, making this surprisingly longer than I wanted.
[Intermission] - Letter 1
[Intermission] - Letter 2

Chapter 1, I suppose

Starlight Glimmer was always at least ten minutes early for any appointment she made. She felt that it would help equalize the time spent between her and whoever she was meeting and, on a regular basis, whoever was meeting her tended to be at least ten minutes late. One was late, the other was an equal amount early. To her, that equaled zero and helped her sleep at night. When she slept at all, that is.

Because of this, she was a bit put off when Sunburst entered Clydesdale Coffee at the exact moment every clock struck noon. He didn’t pause to look around as he entered, no, he just walked up to the counter to talk to the barista who seemed to know him very well. They had a conversation that lasted thirty-nine seconds, Starlight counted, and had nothing to do with coffee, tea, or even scones.

Starlight hated to admit it, but already she felt jealous, and maybe a bit of envy from this. Thankfully, she wasn’t allowed to dwell on it much before Sunburst broke free of his conversation with coffee in tow, and approached her table. She tried her best to compose herself in the small amount of time it took for him to pull out his chair and sit down.

“I hope that you haven’t been waiting for long,” he said with a smile, setting his tea on the table.

Starlight shook her head. “I only just sat down when you came in,” she lied, “I haven’t even had the chance to get anything to drink, really.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, not having anything to fiddle with.

Sunburst nodded. “Well you should certainly try the green tea. It is the only thing that I find myself drinking here.” He glanced at his cup for a second, “But I suppose that we aren’t here for me to recommend drinks, are we?”

“I guess not,” Starlight said with a sigh, “Though that would be much less awkward, I’d think.”

“Is this awkward?” He asked, his mood taking a quick turn to frantic, causing Starlight to jump a bit. “I apologize if it is so. I never intended to make everything so off-putting, but I was just kind of really happy to see you in my library and-”

“You’re fine, Sunny,” Starlight said, interrupting him before it got any worse, “It’s just that we haven’t seen each other in years. I’m not sure where to start, really.”

“Oh,” Sunburst’s heart rate quickly dropped back down to a normal level as he breathed a sigh. “I suppose we could just start with questions then?”

“That sounds like a start.” The two sat in silence, both awkwardly shuffling in their seats before Starlight spoke up once again. “Do you think you could start?”

Sunburst continued his nervous shuffling, trying his hardest to come up with some sort of question to ask. “Uh, what brings you to Canterlot?” Just as he said that, he mentally berated himself for such a stupid question.

And still, Starlight smiled slightly. He was definitely still adorable when he was flustered. “Oh, I’m just stopping by, I guess.” She lied once again, “A friend of mine is letting me borrow her house to use while I’m here.”

“Oh?” Sunburst asked, his eyebrows raising a bit, “And how long will you be staying?”

Starlight shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I have a few things to do, but there aren’t really any time constraints or anything.”

“Must be some friend then,” Sunburst said with a small, stifled chuckle, “Letting you borrow her home just for some errands. How long have you known her for?”

“That honestly depends on who you ask,” she said with a sigh. “It’s a very long story, but let’s just say that I’ve only really known her for a few days now.”

“That long?” Sunburst asked, dry wit practically dripping from his voice. “I’m surprised she didn’t just hand you the keys when you met her.”

Starlight blushed, immediately taking a slightly defensive stance. “It was a long couple of days. She really helped me through a lot.”

“Oh.” Sunburst’s face fell as he saw the effect of his unchecked wit. He really needed to get that thing fixed. “I apologize. I didn’t mean anything of my comment, I promise.”

“It’s fine,” Starlight said, holding a hoof up, “She and I just grew close due to really unexplainable circumstances.” She sighed once more. There were another few moments of understanding silence between the two of them before she spoke again. “So, what do you do around here?”

“Well,” he was back to smiling once again, this time followed by a gesture to himself, “I am the head librarian at Canterlot’s best public library. There is one better, but most ponies are disallowed from entering. I myself have only been once for a short period of time, and even then it was when I was still in school.” He shrugged. “I suppose that I am just lucky to have seen the place, but whatever.”

Starlight quickly put two and two together, though decided to lead him on just a tiny bit. “And where is this lost source of knowledge?”

“It’s in Princess Celestia’s palace.” Sunburst said, like this was common knowledge to everyone. “I am still allowed entry, as I am and will forever be a student of the crown, but even that is not enough to grant me access to the private library. Last I checked, only her favorite pupil was allowed entrance. Even if she doesn’t use it at all anymore.” He ended his sentence with a loud, dejected sigh.

“Well,” Starlight started, her horn immediately lighting up with a turquoise glow as she magically reached into a bag she had long ago set on the floor. “I might have some solution to that.” With that, she pulled out a fancy looking golden key, emblazoned with the cutie mark of Princess Celestia on the head.

In an uncharacteristic show of raw emotion, Sunburst’s jaw dropped. He knew instantly what the key was for and was figuratively floored by it. He looked back and forth from the key to Starlight’s slightly smug face, uttering only one word. “How?”

Starlight’s smile grew wider. “Like I said, my friend let me borrow her Canterlot home for a while.” She then shrugged. “If you’d like, I could take you there and let you poke around for a bit. Twilight has a bunch of rare tomes and studies that were gifted to her by Princess Celestia herself.”

“Say no more,” Sunburst said with more than a small bit of excitement in his voice. “What do you say we change plans and move our little rendezvous to the library, then?”

“That sounds like a great plan,” Starlight answered, “And maybe I can tell you how I met Twilight on our way there. If you’re interested.”

“I am very interested, Lighter.”

Starlight snickered a bit at that. “I forgot you called me ‘Lighter’.”

Sunburst shuffled a little. “I hope that won’t be too much of a problem.”

“No no,” she said, shaking her head. “I like it. Keep doing it, if you want.”

‘I’ll think about it,” Sunburst said with a smile, “But we should probably get out of here. I kind of really want to see those books.” He scratched the back of his neck for a second. “And hanging out with you again. That is most certainly a plus.”

“Just a plus?”

Sunburst grimaced, not quite knowing how to answer that. “I mean, I really like books. But you being there makes it better, I guess?”

Starlight smiled. It was a start. She stood up from her seat, pushing it in with magic, and strapped her bag on her back. “Shall we be off?”

“Oh, of course,” Sunburst hurriedly stood up, almost tripping over himself in the process, and nudged in his chair with his snoot. He looked up at Starlight bashfully. “Would you like to lead the way, or shall I?”

“Let’s just walk together. It’d be hard to tell a story to your tail, wouldn’t it?”

Sunburst’s tail flicked a bit as he chuckled. “I suppose that is right. Together it is, then.” He gestured a hoof towards the door. “Let us embark.”

The two left together, though Starlight had to leave first due to the coffee shop’s door not being wide enough for two horses.

“So, as for how I met Twilight,” Starlight started as they quickly started their journey to the royal castle, “It was about two or three months ago when I met her-”

“I thought you said you only knew her for a few days.” Sunburst quickly interrupted.

Starlight frowned at her friend. “I’m getting to that. Anyway, a few months ago. I, to be brutally honest, wasn’t a very nice pony.” A blush crossed her face as she remembered the atrocities she had committed not too long ago. “I thought I was doing something right by doing what I did, but Twilight and her friends showed me that I was wrong. But I didn’t really believe her at first, so I got angry.” Her ears folded back as she dipped her head lower.

“Well, what did you do in the first place?” Sunburst asked. “It can’t have been that bad, could it?”

“Well I-” Starlight started, only to be interrupted seconds later.

The interruption came in the form of a loud yell, completely unbefitting of Canterlot sensibilities, originating from behind the two. It was a short yell, but it was enough to make everyhorse on the street look at the stallion who was doing the yell.

Starlight didn’t quite hear it, but she saw that her companion had frozen in his tracks. He slowly turned, but not before the stallion behind them yelled once again, this time crystal clear.

“SUNBURST!” The brown coated stallion yelled. The street had essentially cleared, the Canterlot ponies having ducked into the closest stores possible, leaving the two friends staring at a stallion only one of them knew. He dashed towards them, making Starlight ready her magic just in case. He stopped a foot in front of them and smiled at Sunburst, completely ignoring Starlight for the moment. “Hey buddy.”

Sunburst grimaced slightly. “Hey Event. What’s up?”

Event hooved at the ground a bit, his green eyes flicking down to the ground. “I, uh, kinda need some help. The library is sort of bubbling and lavaish, and I really don’t know how to handle it.” He looked at Sunburst hopefully. “I hate to ask you on your day off, but can you do the fixing thing?”

Sunburst sighed. “Yeah. I will get right on that.” He looked over at Starlight quickly. “I am so very sorry, but it looks like something came up. Do you think we can reschedule this for tomorrow?”

“Yes of course.” Starlight said quickly, trying to hurry him off. “Just stop by whenever. Now go save the library.”

Sunburst smiled. “I’ll see you then, Lighter.” He looked over to the other stallion. “We are going to have a talk about this after I fix everything.”

With a sigh from Event, the two ran off. This left Starlight to return to her home alone.

But she was still making friends again. It was a good start.

Author's Note

An abrupt end, I know, but I promise you that it isn't just a cop-out. There's a method to my madness, and such.

Chapter 2, later than I wanted.

Sunburst was running late. There was nothing in life that he hated more than running late. Except maybe bigotry, by a small margin. It was a tough call. But bigotry just made him angry, while running late set him into a state of panic.

It started, as he noticed, with his hooves shaking as he set his coffee down on his Zebrican Mahogany table. Event Horizon, who sat across from him, didn’t notice this. He went on with his rambling about whatever it was he was talking about. Sunburst had gotten used to it. They were best friends, after all. They even shared an apartment to prove it.

He glanced at the clock, trying his hardest to follow along with Event’s monologue and add vague comments of understanding. He was twelve minutes later than he wanted to arrive at Starlight’s home. He’d set contingency plans in advance, but they all would require a certain brown coated stallion to not be chatting his ear off over coffee. He loved Event Horizon dearly, but he had to go.

“So anyway, Lava Plume started using the table as a surfboard, and somehow it didn’t burn,” the stallion said, his green eyes shining brightly as he continued on, “And that’s how I figured out the lava wasn’t as hot as lava, I guess. It was like a nice dip in a warm pool to be honest. Horrible for the books, yeah, but at least it felt nice. Sorry about that, by the way.” Event flashed a smile at Sunburst, who he thought was still paying attention. “Lava apparently didn’t read her spellbook right, I guess. And I’m definitely happy about that. Otherwise I’d be a bit too crispy right now.”

Sunburst nodded. He’d heard this before, of course, as Event had been over the event just about five times in his lengthy story. Of course, he wouldn’t tell his friend that he was repeating himself. Event enjoyed talking, and Sunburst usually enjoyed listening, but today was not a usual day.

He wiped his forehead with a foreleg, feeling all of the sweat that had built up over only a few minutes. Sunburst needed a way to get out quick, but without upsetting his friend.

“You alright?” Event asked just as Sunburst was fading back into the conversation.

Sunburst waited a few moments, just in case it was just a continuation of his story, before responding with a hurried shake of his head. “N-no,” he stammered, “I k-kind of forg-got that I had plans with a friend of m-mine. She was t-to show me Ms. Twilight Sp-parkle’s library, and I must have lost t-track of the time.”

“Aw heck,” Event said, turning to the clock behind him, “When were you supposed to meet her at?”

“I was supposed to leave twenty minutes ago if I was to pick up flowers, or ten if I was to pick up chocolates. Celestia forbid, if I was to do both.” With a sigh, Sunburst shook his head again. “And now I have time for neither, and I will be rudely showing up to her home with nothing to offer, while she has everything.” He looked back at his friend. “Do you see what I mean?”

“No.” Event said simply. “And what kind of ‘friend’ is this, exactly?”

“Just a friend,” he assured, “An old, old friend. Dates back to my childhood, really. You may have seen her yesterday. She was standing right next to me when you, uh,” he bit his lip, trying to find the least accusational phrase, “When you requested my help.”

“Oh,” Event’s ears folded back as he looked to the ground. “I’m sorry about that, I guess. I shoulda taken care of it myself.”

Sunburst shook his head once again. There was no point in having the both of them beating themselves up. “You did what you thought was right. It’s not your fault that I was trying to rekindle an ages old friendship.”

Event chuckled a bit, despite neither seeing a joke in this. “I guess I should let you go then.” He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “One of us has to get ready for work, anyway, and I’m betting it’s not the one who has to buy flowers for his girlfriend.”

“She is not my girlfriend.” Sunburst said quickly, though a bit more defensive than he’d like.

“And yet you’re planning on buying her flowers?” Event said with a slight frown. “Methinks that you have a bit of a thing for this mare. Who I still have yet to officially meet, I might add.”

“She came to town two days ago.” Sunburst said, scratching the back of his head, “I had no clue she would be showing up either. Maybe I can introduce you two tomorrow, but I really want to reconnect with her before that happens. Otherwise I feel it would be a bit weird.”

Event Horizon nodded, his frown fading only a small bit. “Just be careful, alright?”

Sunburst nodded, a smile growing on his face. “I will try my best.”

“You promise?” Event asked, a smile making its way onto his face as well.

Sunburst let out a small laugh. “You know me well, don’t you?” He pushed his chair out and stood up to walk to Event’s side of the table. “Now here is what I think I will do. I will take a shower, pick up some lunch for her and I, and then spend the rest of the day reading books with her and making up for fifteen years of lost time. Sound careful enough for you?”

“Now you’re just patronizing me.” Event said with the most forced frown he could manage on his face. “I’m just looking out for you, buddy.”

Sunburst snorted. “Just give me a hug so we can both get out of here, you nerd.” Event Horizon smiled up at him, and they embraced like the nice friends they were. No homo at all. Sunburst pulled back after a few moments, but Event lingered just a bit longer.

He scratched the back of his neck with a nervous smile. “Have fun with your stuff, I guess. I’ll have fun not burning down the library.”

“You better not,” Sunburst said, rolling his eyes. “I would rather this day not be interrupted if I can help it at all.”

Event put both forelegs up. “I’ll stay as far away as I can manage. Now, go and do your thing.”

“Fine,” Sunburst said with a sigh, sauntering to off to the bathroom, “Enjoy work.”

During his shower, Sunburst contemplated the day ahead. It seemed full of excitement and wonder at the time.

During his walk to the closest sandwich shop to the castle, he tried his hardest to remember what kind of sandwich Starlight would want. It was inconsequential information that a twelve year old wouldn’t really bother himself with remembering, but Sunburst still felt he should remember it.

And so, he stood outside the fancy sandwich shop, trying to remember if a small, twelve year old horse enjoyed Brie or Neufchatel better. Or if she even liked cheese at all. Or sandwiches, for that matter. With a stifled grunt of displeasure, he stormed off to the castle, sad and sandwichless. He’d just have to ask her.

At the castle, the guards in front just nodded and let him pass. He was by very often to seek audience with Princess Celestia, either just to seek advice or just chat and talk like normal ponies. It was fun for both, as Sunburst got to make his mentor smile, and Celestia got to talk to someone she could drop her act for, even if it was for a little while.

But that wasn’t the plan for the day. Instead of going into the castle, he made his way up a staircase circling up an ivory tower to the right of it. He did it slowly, but still was very winded at the top. He was a librarian, not a gymnast. He paused to catch his breath, then knocked on the door at the top of the staircase.

And he waited.

And waited.

Waiting.

Wait.

He heard stumbling, falling objects, and clopping hooves. He was worried, of course, but he didn’t move for fear of catching his friend in an awkward situation. It was a very common occurrence, sadly.

Moments later, the door opened to reveal Starlight Glimmer. A very tired, Starlight Glimmer. Her blue eyes were surrounded by dark circles, her multicolored mane was tangled and mussed up, and there was an unnoticed piece of paper stuck to her face. Sunburst, being a gentlecolt, didn’t say anything. He just smiled and waved slightly.

Starlight’s eyes widened slightly as she realized that she most likely looked awful in front of the one pony she wanted to impress the most. She stammered, contemplating shutting the door in his face to take a shower or putting on makeup. Heck, even a brush might have helped.

Sunburst just smiled wider and chuckled. “Are you going to invite me in, or…?”

Starlight blanched slightly. She was being rude. Canterlot sensibilities, she had to remember. Canterlot sensibilities were different from Sunnydale sensibilities. Or ‘Our Town’ ones, for that matter. She shuttered at the memory, but then turned swiftly on her right hindleg, the wind rushing by her cheek knocking off the piece of paper. She blushed, and both chose to ignore it. “Uh, please come in.”

Sunburst nodded, and entered without hesitation. He found himself in the main room of the library, walls taken over by shelves and shelves filled to the brim with books. He was immediately in love.

“Feel free to poke around,” Starlight said from behind him, “I have to go and take care of some ‘things’.”

Sunburst nodded again and left Starlight to her business. She ran off quickly, leaving him to fiddle about with the cool books that the library held. It was mostly spellbooks and things on magic theory, as Twilight Sparkle wasn’t one to bother herself with anything that wasn’t about school, but there were a few fiction books lying around. Some books on astrology, astronomy, prophecies, card reading. Things like that. And some more racy novels hidden behind the larger textbooks. Sunburst just ignored those and moved on.

He settled on an older Doctor Whooves novel, some novelization of a Fourth Doctor radio drama, and sat down at the first desk he could find. It was an okay read, engaging but a bit dry and boring at some points due to the Doctor, but it got the job done. He had made it a quarter through by the time Starlight reentered the room, this time slightly more presentable looking. Her eyes still had dark circles around them and her mane was still a slight bit frizzy.

“Doctor Whooves? Really?” She asked after taking one look at the book he was reading. “Isn’t that a children’s book?”

Sunburst shrugged, closing the book and setting it on the table. “Even if you were right, there are a few things in that book that should not be in the minds of foals.” He stood up and stretched a small bit. He looked at Starlight. “You look nice. Did you do something with your mane?”

“You’re too kind.” Starlight smiled with a blush, obviously flattered. “But still, I thought you would be reading something more magicky. Twilight has a lot of those cool magic theory books that I can’t stand.”

Sunburst scoffed, putting a hoof to his chest. “What do you have against magic theory?”

“Never did me any good, I guess.” Starlight shrugged, “I’ve found I work well without learning any of that boring stuff.” She waved a hoof in a dismissive fashion. “Anyway, it’s not what about what I read. I thought you wanted to come here to look at all the rare magic books.”

“I did,” He said, “But then I decided that we could probably do that sometime that is not now.” He moved to scritch his right foreleg with his left hoof, “Instead, do you think that we could maybe talk? Catch up or something like we were going to yesterday?”

“Oh,” Starlight said, slightly taken aback as she just expected a day full of reading and slight, but not awkward cuddling. She paused for a moment, then gestured to the table. “Sure, but we should probably get on that if you wanna get very far.”

Sunburst smiled. “Sure. I will try to speak quickly.” He then reclaimed his seat and waited for Starlight to take the one across from him.

And so she did. They sort of just looked at each other nervously, both trying to figure out where to begin. They had fifteen years of lost time to make up for, and yet had to get it stuffed into a small conversation.

“So, what have you been doing these past few years?” Sunburst asked nervously. It was an awful question to ask, but it was a start.

Even as awful as it was to ask, it was much worse for Starlight to answer. On one hoof, she didn’t want to lie, but on the other she didn’t want to get to the topic so quickly. “I haven’t been doing much, I guess,” she decided as her answer, “Just a bunch of boring stuff.”

Sunburst, of course, wasn’t really believing her. “You did something to meet Princess Twilight. I am sure that story is definitely interesting.”

“It’s not the best story to get into at the moment,” Starlight said with a frown, “I shouldn’t even have brought it up, but there I go with my big mouth.”

Sunburst nodded. “Whenever you feel comfortable with sharing, then.” The two spent the next few moments shuffling awkwardly, an act that had become second nature to them by this point.

“What about you?” Starlight asked finally. “What have you been doing?”

“Oh,” he started, leaning forward in his chair, “I have just been devoting most of my life to magic study in hopes that I can finally become an instructor at Princess Celestia’s academy.” He then let out a long, drawn out sigh. “And yet, I am trapped as a head librarian until Event is ready to take the position from me. That won’t be happening until at least next year.”

“Event?” Starlight asked simply.

“Oh right, you’ve hardly met him, haven’t you?” This made Sunburst crack a small smile, at least. “He was the stallion that set the library on fire, causing me to leave yesterday. He is also my coworker, roommate, and the best friend that I have had in years. He has carried me through times that, much like yours, are probably not the best to talk about at the moment.”

Starlight nodded in understanding. “He’s that special to you?”

Sunburst shrugged. “I suppose. He tends to be a bit of a pain sometimes, but he isn’t that bad of a friend. When he isn’t burning things down, that is.”

“Right.” Starlight responded. Then more silence.

Sunburst let out another sigh, laying his head on the table. “This is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.” He looked at Starlight. “Do you just want to get some sandwiches and start over later?”

Starlight thought it over. It was a very good idea, as neither looked like they would be sharing anything on an empty stomach. And maybe by then she could come up with a plan on how to talk around her mental break. So, she nodded. “That’s probably our best bet. Shall we?”

Sunburst gave a large smile. “Let’s.”

Author's Note

So, like, I lost track of time. And then I realized that I have no idea what I'm doing. So updates are probably going to be every other week. If I can manage that, even. But hey, this one was longer, at least. More means better, right?

Also, I now realize that the name of this story isn't what I want. But now it'd be confusing if I changed it. And I'd have to rename one of my older stories in order to swap the titles. Life is hard, man. Then again, switching the titles would actually make the stories make more sense.

So, what I'm saying is, what does the one person who reads the author's notes think? Keep 'The Saltwater Room', or switch to "Isn't The Rain"? It's a much more obscure song, but I like it more.

Oh, and I'll give something to whoever can name the Doctor Who book referenced.

And, you know, abrupt end. This time I'm not sorry. I just needed to get this out before tomorrow and exposition isn't that fun to write. But plot is starting to happen. I promise.

And with that, I'll see y'all next year. Hopefully.

Chapter 3, now with a free apology

About an hour later, Starlight and Sunburst returned to the library with sandwiches in stomach. It was a very uninteresting trip full of small horses making small conversation. Still, it served to ease them into whatever it was they were going to say next. Very important, big drama things, I’m sure.

“So,” Sunburst continued as he pushed open the door to the library, “My dorm room is absolutely destroyed and Event is sitting in the middle of a wreckage. There are holes in the wall, and the carpet has burn marks everywhere.” He stepped to the side, holding the door open for Starlight. “He looks up at me with an ashamed grin, and in the most pitiful voice I have ever heard someone muster, says ‘I thought I saw a mouse’.”

There was a short beat before the two broke down laughing. It was warm, friendly laughter that lasted until they reclaimed their table.

Starlight looked across to her friend, trying her hardest to stifle her chuckling enough to use words. “What’d you do in response?”

“I just,” Sunburst shook his head with a sigh, “I just went to bed. Long day at work and I did not want to deal with that.” He then let out another burst of giggles. “He- he just looked so sad though.”

“I can imagine.” Starlight said with a grin. “Your friend certainly seems like an interesting character. How long have you known him, again?”

Sunburst thought for a moment. “About fourteenish years now? I met him not too long after I moved to Canterlot. I set off fireworks in a classroom, he stole Celestia’s crown. We met up in detention and have been friends ever since.” He smirked. “Much to Celestia’s ire, in the beginning. So many pranks were had.”

Starlight had to forcefully keep her jaw from hitting the floor. “Why would you prank Princess Celestia? How would you prank Princess Celestia?”

Sunburst just leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “She always seemed to find it funny. Especially when the two of us sort of made a blizzard in her throne room.”

Starlight blinked a few times in disbelief. She then put a hoof to her mouth with a sigh. “And what did she do then?”

“She held audiences like nothing happened.” Sunburst said, gaining the biggest grin Starlight had seen yet. Then, in a beat, it faded into a joking grimace. “Though she did have Event and I accompany her for the entirety of the time. That would be how I learned that she resists cold fairly well. Two colts with no winter wear, on the other hoof, did not.”

“So you learned your lesson?”

His eyes lit up a small bit. That was the exact question he was hoping for. “Yeah,” he replied, holding back his chuckles, “The next time we superheated the place. Worked much better.”

And, once again, the two found themselves ensnared in friendliness chuckles. It was a dumb joke and the both of them knew it, but it was the kind of dumb joke that flowed with the conversation.

“You were such a rebel, weren’t you?” Starlight asked, still coming down from the giggle high. “I hate to say it, but what happened?”

Sunburst gave another grimace, this time minus the joke, and scratched the back of his neck with a sigh through slightly clenched teeth. “Well, as I have said, I would like to be a magical instructor in the future. To do that, I need to become a certified mage, and just to take the test I have to exhibit full control over my emotions. Just so I don’t screw up.” He groaned, covering his face with his hooves in defeat. “All I have ever wanted to do since I came to Canterlot was to teach under Celestia.”

“Well,” Starlight interjected, “From what I can see, you’re fairly good at doing that.”

“Tell that to the princess when you see her, then.” He frowned. “She has been the one reason keeping me from taking the test. I guess she knows something that you have yet to see.”

“I’m sure she means the best by that.”

“She does,” He admitted, “But I just want to impress her sometimes, and show her that I’m worth the chance she’d take.” He let out a sigh, then moments later shook his head. “That was probably not the best thing for me to bring up. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, Sunny. It’s more about yourself that I didn’t know before.” She gave a small smile. “Though now I should probably share something now as well.”

Sunburst nodded slightly. “That would be the natural thing to do, I suppose.”

“Right.” Yes, she absolutely shuffled nervously. There is nothing else these horses do when they’re nervous. I mean, there was a small bit of lip biting before she spoke again, but that’s a different story altogether. “The only real interesting thing I have done in years has been running a town. And that was a nightmare in thousands of ways.”

“What happened?” Sunburst asked, very obviously concerned.

“Well,” she thought for a moment about how to put it in the most delicate way possible. Then, she threw that out and accidently blurted the worst possible thing. “I had a huge mental break and started running a dictatorship centered around a skewed sense of equality that had me stripping ponies of what made them special.”

Now that that was out of the bag, all Sunburst could do was stare blankly in response. He regained composure a few seconds later, but the damage was still done. He let out a deep sigh and tried his best to keep a straight face. “Right. Well, I am sure that you had your reasons.” He glanced briefly at the entryway, but decided that leaving would make everything even more awkward.

Starlight shook her head. “Twilight and I have went over it a few thousand times. We have yet to see a direct cause.”

“You could just be remembering it wrong.” Sunburst suggested.

“No no,” she waved her hoof dismissively, “Twilight and I have literally watched past me formulate the plans and build the town. I had to fight myself figuratively to not fight myself literally, but,” she tried to look anywhere but at Sunburst, “We didn’t see any discernable cause.”

Really, she could have said anything for that second sentence. She could have admitted that it was Sunburst himself that indirectly drove her to insanity. Sunburst was too caught up in the first sentence to care. “You watched yourself? How did you accomplish that?”

Starlight shrugged. “It was a time travel spell I cooked up after reading over some of Starswirl’s notes. Not very interesting. Really just a hassle to cast.”

“How long ago was this, then? Two weeks?”

“The town building was a year ago, but Twilight and I found traces of the plan and practice in,” she paused for a second as a shiver ran down her spine, “What it is that I did to the ponies four or five years ago.”

Sunburst nodded. “And this...spell of yours. It sent you both back that far?”

“Yep.” Starlight said with an innocent smile.

He nodded again with a blank face, preferring to keep his screaming internal. “And you know that Starswirl’s spell was only able to send one pony back a week, right? And even that was only for a few minutes at a time.”

“I fixed it.”

“You fixed it.” He repeated. “How did you fix it?”

“Two spells and a spell scroll.” Starlight explained. “Starswirl’s spell and then a simple glue spell to fix your placement in the timeline, then the scroll just repeats that until you get where you’re going. It keeps you in the same place you cast it from normally, but there’s this magic map in Ponyville that you can sync the spell up with, and with that you can go anywhere and anywhen in Equestria.”

Sunburst was floored. His jaw had dropped a centimeter, as he wouldn’t allow it to fall any further, and he stared at his friend blankly. “You...know that’s impossible, right? It doesn’t follow magic theory at all, and I’m surprised you’re even here for me to say this to. How?”

“I dunno.” Starlight shrugged. “I just did it after learning the two spells. It sounded rational at the time. And it worked so,” she finished her sentence by sticking her tongue out.

“You’re something, Lighter. Definitely full of surprises.” He laid his head on the table and sighed. “I feel like I aged twenty years from just hearing that.”

“Twilight said the same thing.” Starlight replied. “Must be a Canterlot thing.”

“Yeah,” Sunburst rolled his eyes, “Must be.” He lifted his head and dusted himself off. “So, you did unspeakable things to a town of ponies for a year. But you faced repercussions, right?”

Starlight dared not to inform him that it wasn’t all she had done. Baby steps. “Twilight is ‘punishing’ me by having me live in Ponyville to see how equality truly works. I asked for more, but no dice.”

“Are you enjoying your newly found friends?”

“Yeah.” Starlight smiled, thinking of all of the friends she had finally made. “They’re all really different and weird, but Twilight told me that’s how friends usually are. Everyone there is so closely knit and loving in Ponyville. It kind of reminds me of Sunnydale, really.”

Sunburst chuckled, interrupting her. “I’d give anything to not be reminded of Sunnydale.”

Starlight was, of course, confused. All of her memories of Sunnydale were fond, if a bit distant. “What’s wrong with Sunnydale?”

Sunburst sat there and thought for a moment. “You know, sometimes I just say words without thinking them through. I actually have no clue how to explain my feelings about Sunnydale. Only that I will not be returning any time soon.”

“Did something happen, or…?” She let her invasive question trail off, letting him fill in the blank with his painful personal experiences in order to further conversation.

Sunburst gave a sigh in response. “I just haven’t heard anything from my parents since they shipped me off to Canterlot. Not a letter or smoke message sent my way, and fifteen years of that makes you think, you know?” He looked at Starlight and gave a small, unsure smile. “It’s nothing to worry about, I promise.”

“If you say so.” She said with a nod. “But maybe try sending a letter of your own, if you haven’t already.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Lighter.” He said, his smile growing a small bit. He glanced behind her for a split second, out the window, and saw that light was slowly growing dark. “Aw, is it that late already? How long have we even been talking?”

Starlight turned in her seat to see what he was, and responded with a frown. “I guess it was longer than we assumed.” She turned back to face him with a shrug. “Time flies when you’re having fun?”

“I guess, but I should probably be getting home soon.”

“Curfew?” Starlight jokingly assumed.

Sunburst rolled his eyes. “No, I have work tomorrow. I gotta go in to sort and categorize, because Event never does it the way that I want it. Through no fault of his own.”

“I could walk you home,” Starlight suggested, “If you’d like, that is.”

“I’d actually like that,” he decided, “And it would give us an excuse to talk more, though hopefully about less important things. I’d actually like to hear about your friends, if you don’t mind.”

Starlight gestured to the door. “Lead the way, and I’ll steer the conversation.”

And so they went on their way. Starlight shared anecdotes about her new friends and life in Ponyville, and Sunburst tried his best to follow along as she followed him to his home. There was no talking about their past. No one brought up their personal hardships beyond the anxiety of having everyone in town in the same room focusing on them, or Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie. Everything was nice.

But it wasn’t long before they happened upon Sunburst’s small apartment. He lived close to the midpoint between Canterlot’s public library and Princess Celestia’s castle to save on time and energy. Starlight was in the middle of a particularly interesting story about Twilight finding a mysterious steam valve when they happened upon the apartment, and Sunburst was tempted to just pass it just to hear the end of the story. But he decided against it, thinking that any moment spent listening to the story was a moment away from his bed.

“I hate to interrupt you,” he said, spouting the most true sentence of the day, “But we seem to have happened upon my home. Maybe we can finish this story next time we meet?”

“Of course,” Starlight said with a nod, “But when do you think next time might be?”

Sunburst groaned softly. “Well sadly I have to work open to close tomorrow, and I’ll be recovering for most of the next day. We could meet up that night, but I wouldn’t want to force you outside during the evening. We could go out for dinner, maybe?”

Starlight screwed her face up a tiny bit. “Every plan you’ve made with us both in mind revolves around food. I’m starting to think you’re trying to imply something about me.”

Sunburst’s eyes widened as he attempted to sputter out an excuse. “No, it’s not like that. It’s just that, you know, food is the easiest thing that comes to mind. First thing, I mean.” He bit his lip. “Maybe we should try something different.”

“We could go to a park.” She suggested. “They tend to be fun at night. I’m not sure how many stars will be out, considering the lighting issue,” she then gestured to the numerous street lamps that were littering the streets, “But maybe it’ll be fun to talk outdoors. And hopefully we’ll get some snow, or something. I haven’t felt it drop below 60 degrees the entire time I’ve been here.”

Sunburst shrugged. “We don’t really have much of a winter here. Canterlot ponies don’t want to be inconvenienced. As for lights, I’m sure Luna will make her stars bright, just like any night.”

Starlight considered it for a moment. “I guess it sounds like a plan. I’ll see you next time, then?”

“Yeah. Until next time. I'll try to be at your place by six or so.” Sunburst nodded. Just as Starlight turned around to leave, Sunburst stomped his hoof, trying to draw her attention once again. The sound echoed louder than he’d have liked, making him blush slightly. “I, uh, didn’t actually mean for that to be that loud. I just, you know, wanted to say that I’m sorry for everything. Whatever everything is. I just have the feeling that I should apologize.”

“If you don’t know what you’re apologizing for, then why apologize?”

Sunburst scratched the back of his neck with a hoof and tried to look anywhere but at Starlight. “I don’t know. I just get the feeling that I’m doing something wrong sometimes, so I apologize. Makes me feel a bit better.”

Starlight shook her head. “You haven’t been doing anything wrong, so stop blaming yourself for nothing.”

Sunburst let out a sigh. “I’ll try my hardest. Like I said, it was just a feeling.”

They stood there for a second, shuffling and moving about. Starlight was the first to break the silence. “We’re both going to stand here until someone initiates the goodbye hug, right?”

Sunburst nodded. “Looks like it.”

Starlight then sat down on the ground and opened her forelegs in offerance. “C’mere then.”

And he happily c’mered, sitting down in the middle of the street to embrace his friend. This hug was a slight bit more close than the previous. It wasn’t quite an “I love you” hug, it was more like, “You’re a good friend and I cherish you”. It was cute.

But all cute moments must come to an end at some point. Sunburst released his friend from the warmest of warm hugs, much to her unconscious ire. The two stood up, shook themselves off, and shared a small smile.

“I guess this is goodbye for now?” Starlight asked.

“It is, but we’ll see each other in two days.” Sunburst responded. “Be safe, keep out of trouble and such.”

“You too, Sunny.” And with that, Starlight made her way back to the library, and back to her sleeping desk.

Sunburst watched her leave for a short while, all the while with a dopey grin on his face. He was a very happy horse. But, when he realized what he was doing could be classified as creepy, he quickly rushed into his apartment. He rushed himself inside and shut the door nice and fastlike. He could deal with all of that the next day.

Author's Note

This notes section has been rewritten.
I'm sorry.

Chapter 4, Starlight is Unbreakable

Starlight was bored. Absolutely bored, with everything else to do already done twice over. Granted, there wasn’t that much to do and redo, just cleaning and a bit of notes that Twilight had her take. Still, it was all done and Starlight had nothing else. She could have visited Sunburst at the library, but she would just be getting in the way once again.

So, she just stayed indoors and did absolutely nothing. She just sat at a table and sighed, waiting for the day to pass quicker.

Then a green flare flashed in front of her, startling her and knocking her off of her seat. She hid under the table for a few seconds, covering her head with her hooves to prevent the growing fire from taking her completely.

After the few seconds, she realized that there was no growing fire. Confused, she carefully dragged herself out from under the desk to see a scroll sitting on it. No fire in sight.

Starlight groaned internally at her lack of practical magic knowledge. It looked like this spell, whatever it was, could be extremely useful in most any situation. The theatrics were a bit much, but she wasn’t going to complain.

As for the scroll, Starlight reclaimed her seat and took a looksee at it. It bore the still fairly new regal symbol of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark. ‘Of course it’s Twilight,’ Starlight thought, ‘Who else knows I’m here?’

So, of course, she opened the letter to read it. It was a fairly normally written letter. The writing was very very precisely written, characteristic of Twilight writing it herself, and it spoke of well wishes and happy thoughts for the first half. Twilight hoped that Starlight was enjoying Canterlot and was faring well after meeting Sunburst once again.

The second half, however, included Twilight saying she would be coming for a visit the next day, which was all well and good of course. Starlight thought to clean up beforehand, and maybe pick up some food for them to chat over. Then, getting to the end of the letter, she noticed a hurried scrawl of writing. It most certainly wasn’t Twilight’s, as it looked like it’d been written with hooves, which she was very much above. And it read:

Oh gosh.
So I kinda forgot to send out this letter before Twilight left and she left for her train a few hours now.
I’ll make it up to you somehow I swear. - Spike T. Dragon

Well there goes those plans. She could always just order a pizza and pretend Spike didn’t screw up majorly, saving him from his future death in the only way she knew how.

That is, she would have done that if comedic timing didn’t exist. Instead, as if on cue, there was a knock on the door. It was firm and precise, with only three knockings being needed. In response, Starlight jumped out of her seat. Once again, Twilight had indirectly caused chair related accidents, and she would pay. Maybe.

And so, Starlight stood back up and shook herself off, hurrying to the door so as to not make her second actual friend wait any longer. She stopped at the door, taking a breath to steel herself, and pulled it wide open.

And entering from stage right, Twilight Sparkle, who had already gone in for a hug upon seeing her friend. For a princess of friendship, she seemed to have less knowledge of personal space than Starlight, who hadn’t had a friend in years. Still, she wasn’t going to turn down a hug, so she embraced her friend warmly and happily.

Twilight pulled back slightly to look her friend in the eye. “It’s so nice to see you. How has Canterlot treated you? How has Sunburst treated you? Are you two friends already? More than friends?...” And it just continued like that.

Starlight grimaced as Twilight bombarded her with questions. This was a common occurrence for her now that they were friendos, but she still didn’t have a surefire way of quieting her down. As Twilight continued with her many questions, she thought through a complicated plan that would require a large amount of magic to perform perfectly.

Then she just magicked Twilight’s mouth shut for a second. It seemed like the easier plan, anyway. Rude, but effective.

Twilight glared at her friend for a moment before realizing herself. “Was I talking that much?”

Starlight shrugged slightly. “You were kind of asking a lot of questions.” She then gestured to the inside of the inside. “Maybe we should tackle some of them in the library.”

Twilight followed her inside, not seeing anything wrong with doing that. They reclaimed the table Starlight was previously moping at and began again. This time, much slower.

“So, how has Canterlot been treating you?” She asked.

“It’s been pretty perfect,” Starlight said with a shrug, “I don’t think I’ve seen a cloud once, and not one thing has gone wrong.”

Twilight nodded in agreement. “Yeah, Canterlot ponies are a lot more uptight when compared to Ponyville. They make sure absolutely everything is perfect.”

“I’m just waiting for some sort of monster to attack already.” She sighed. “Instead I just have relationship drama to deal with.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, trying to not seem too invested in what was probably the closest she was going to get to a real relationship for herself. “Did something happen with Sunburst?”

Starlight shook her head. “No, we made up perfectly, and we even have a ‘date’ tomorrow. I just think we’re moving too fast.”

If Twilight wasn’t confused before, she was confused now. “How do you mean ‘too fast’? Did he try anything with you?” She leaned forward, taking on a serious tone. “Do I have to throw someone in the dungeon?”

Starlight frowned playfully, forcefully fighting back her laughter at her friend’s expense. “Nothing like that, Twilight. If anything, he’s been pretty distant.” She let out another sigh. “I mean, we’ve hugged, but I still hardly know anything about him anymore. He keeps on changing the subject when we start to talk about him.”

“Have you tried being honest with him?” Twilight asked almost immediately. “Maybe if you tell him a bit about yourself, you would spur him to share a little about himself.”

“I’ve tried!” She exclaimed. She then blushed at her outburst, readjusting herself in hopes that Twilight would ignore what she’d just said. “I’ve tried to talk about my past. I even talked a bit about how you and I met, but he’s always seems nervous about talking about himself. The most I’ve got out of him yet is him talking about his friend.”

“The one who stole Celestia’s crown?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah.” Starlight said with a nod. It took her a second to put pieces together. “Wait, how did you know?”

Twilight gave a small grin. “It’s her favorite story to tell. She has probably told it to me a few hundred times, and it always ends with the two worst pranksters of the academy making friends.” She shrugged. “I assumed that your Sunburst is the same one that I glared at from behind the princess’ leg, and that brown colt is the one that always stuck around with him.”

“So you know them both?” Starlight asked, leaning forwards in interest of finally getting some information from someone.

Twilight noted her friend’s interest, then grimaced when she realized she couldn’t do anything to sate it. “I knew of them. I didn’t really talk to anypony back then, just family mostly, so there wasn’t any chance to actually get to know either of them. They were just ‘those colts who were mean to Celestia’ to me.”

Starlight groaned, leaning back in her chair. “You don’t have anything you can tell me about Sunburst?”

Twilight thought on it for a second, going through just about anything she could remember from what she’d seen and what Celestia told her. Upon finding something, she realized with a frown that it probably wasn’t the best to bring up. So, she simply smiled and lied through her teeth. “All I know is what you and the princesses have told me. Like I said, I was too busy with books and schoolwork for friends.”

Starlight turned away from the ceiling, looking back at Twilight after missing her varying facial expressions. She smiled, not knowing that her friend was lying to her face. “That’s fine. I can probably tear something out of him tomorrow. Maybe a bit of wine would help him open up.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I hope you aren’t actually considering that.”

“I can’t say that I’m not.” Starlight admitted with a sigh. “I’d try anything if it’d mean getting him to share a little.”

Twilight nodded sagely. “Just be patient. If he’s hiding something, there’s probably a reason for it.”

“I guess you’re right.” Starlight said, once again sighing loudly. She paused for a few moments, trying to think of something to move to. It wouldn’t be right for the entire conversation to be about her, of course. So, she went with the most obvious. “How has Ponyville been while I was gone?”

Twilight perked up at the sudden topic change. It helped quell her conscience for a tiny bit, and that felt amazing. “It’s pretty much the same. You haven’t missed a monster attack, or anything.” There was a moment of pause before Twilight’s eyes lit up. “Oh, right. There was a new arrival while you were gone. I think you might like him.”

“Are you trying to set me up with someone, Twilight?” Starlight asked curiously.

Twilight was taken aback, shaking her head wildly. “No, nothing like that,” she said quickly, obviously made very nervous by Starlight’s insinuations, “It’s just that he’s an interesting figure, is all. And I felt you should know, as you, he, and I will be living under the same roof.”

This time it was Starlight’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “So you’re introducing me to your boyfriend, then?”

Twilight’s face immediately developed a gigantic blush. Taking notice, she did hid her face with her hooves. “He’s not my boyfriend.” She exclaimed. “He’s just a stallion that I may or may not have coaxed to live with me and am now hosting in my basement.”

Starlight was about to respond, only taking in the first half of the statement. Then she processed the rest of it and decided to figuratively take a step back from the conversation to steady herself. She took a deep breath in, raising a hoof as if she was about to continue, but she instead covered her mouth with the hoof and contemplated with a sigh. Pursing her lips, she tried again as she raised both of her hooves, directing them towards Twilight. Alas, she still couldn’t figure a thing.

So, she attempted the generic route as she looked Twilight in the eye and simply asked: “What?”

Author's Note

ᛏᚻᛁᛊ ᚹᛖᚾᛏ ᚢᚾᛞᛖᚲᛟᛞᛖᛞ ᚠᛟᚱ ᚨ ᚹᛖᛖᚲ
ᚾᛟᚾᛖ ᛟᚠ ᚢ ᚷᛖᛏ ᛊᚻᛁᛏ

Chapter 6, I really should have named this story Re:Re.

The two stallions woke up the next morning on top of each other. Event Horizon was the first to wake, his muzzle pressed against Sunburst’s neck and forelegs pinned painfully against both of their chests. Sunburst, however, had his hooves wrapped around Event in a death grip, stopping the smaller stallion from moving around at all. Just a normal Saturday for the two of them, really.

But, unlike most Saturday mornings where Event would laze about around the house until something interesting happened, he had to work. And not only did he have to work, but he had to work in…

About twenty minutes before he woke up. Event looked at the clock above the TV, running the hours Sunburst scheduled him to through his mind once again. There was just no way that the times worked out. He was scheduled to go in at 8, and yet it was 8:25. He shrugged slightly, as much as he could given the situation, going back to nuzzling Sunburst’s neck. He probably just made a mistake while writing the schedule, he thought.

Or, the rational part of his brain suggested, maybe Event was just late.

But that was crazy talk. Event Horizon was never late to work, except for maybe every other month when he decides to drink a bit. Or if there’s a wrestling Pay-Per-View that ends up going late. Or if he trips and lightly bumps his nose on the ground, forcing him to drop everything and cry for only twenty minutes. Or, it seems, if he’s trapped in a vice-like grip by the pony that wrote the schedule in the first place.

Event struggled in vain against the cuddles he was given, despite thoroughly enjoying them and not wanting to go to work at all. Thankfully, all the movement managed to wake up a Sunburst, though one who didn’t enjoy being roused from his slumber.

He opened his eyes about halfway, glaring at the very pony that woke him up. Event halted his struggling immediately, trying his best to look bashful and apologetic without a hoof to scratch the back of his neck with. Sunburst always melted at that look.

At least, awake Sunburst would have. This Sunburst, however, just grumbled something under his breath. Something that even he didn’t hear.

“Uh,” Event started slowly and softly, so as to not spook Sunburst. Any sudden movements would probably have broken a rib at that pressure. “Do you think you can maybe let me go? You don’t want me to be late for work, do you?”

Sunburst continued to stare blankly at Event as the wheels in his head slowly started to turn, processing his friend’s request. A subsection of his mind was working on whatever answer, while the rest was wondering why his warm pillow was trying to leave. Still, the rational bit won over, as it usually does, and he released the gator grip.

Event quickly rolled out of the way before anything could be rethought. He then rushed to get ready for the day, starting with a quick sink bath.

Just as quickly, Sunburst rolled onto his side, propping his head up with his hooves, and went back to sleep.

Sunburst kept sleeping for a good number of hours, the number being ten which is objectively the goodest of numbers, only to be woken up by an alarm he set himself. The alarm’s very very loud beeping emanated from the side table that was right by the stallion’s hooves, startling him awake almost instantly.

His head shot up, looking for the fire or the dying horse or whatever it was that was causing that incessant beeping noise. Almost instantly, his eyes caught sight of the offending object and, just as quickly, he picked it up with his light yellow magic. The clock let out one last muffled beep before a sickening crunch as Sunburst mercilessly crushed it. He felt no remorse. He had about twenty more stashed away elsewhere.

With that done, Sunburst sat up and stretched, letting out a long and loud yawn. He took a second to just breathe deeply and just scratch himself in areas. Don’t judge, it’s his apartment and no one is watching. Let a man do what he wants.

After finishing that ‘task’ he stood up, cracked his neck, and set off to make some lunch. He’d set the alarm to one in the afternoon so that he had time to eat and relax, definitely not panic, before his ‘date’ at around six o’clock. And it was definitely more than enough time to plan what to say and do in order to get Starlight to trust him more. Maybe he’d share with her a story from his school days to win her over. Just, you know, his earlier ones.

He thought it over as he brewed his fancy coffee. It was fancy because it was expensive and no other reason. Once it was done, he sat at his table and drank to wake himself up, his magic getting to work on making him a sandwich. He stared out the window to his right, watching the sun as it rose and left the sky with in a breathtaking shade of orange.

He took a sip of his coffee. It ended up all over the table as it shot from his mouth in an almost Triple H-esque act of a spit take. He took another look out the window and saw the exact same thing. An orange sky at what he thought was noonish. Now, he wasn’t one to criticize Princess Celestia on how she did her job, but this most certainly wasn’t right. The sky was usually blue at times like this. Not counting the villain attacks and general magic mishaps, of course.

Still, ever the paranoid little scamp, Sunburst decided to double-check the time on the clock he had set on the side table in the livingroom. Then, remembering that it was still a smoking ball of metal and wires, he decided to check the other clock in the room. Same model and everything, just set farther away from the couch. And to go off at a different time.

He stumbled over, hoping the coffee would take effect soon, and stared very very closely at the time object. It read 6:06 p.m. on the display. Sunburst had to think that one through, looking between the working clock and the smoldering ball on the side table. Then he remembered why there were two clocks. One to wake him up at noon, and the other just in case he got sidetracked and forgot about his date.

The waking alarm was set pretty far from him so he wouldn’t just hit snooze and sleep until the other went off. Sunburst thought it was ingenious when he thought of the idea, but now he just thought he was an idiot. He never accounted for sleeping through the alarm due to slightly drunken wrestle watching.

After a deep breath, panic started to set in. He was late. Absolutely, indisputably late. He still had to take a shower and get dressed and prepare objects for the date. It wouldn’t take that long, but at this point he had negative six minutes to do them.

Negative seven minutes at this point.

With that in mind, the stallion rushed as quickly as he could to Event’s bedroom. He ignored the oddities of the room itself, he’d gotten used to seeing the framed portrait of himself years ago anyway, and just went to their shared closet. By shared, I mean that Sunburst put all of his fancy clothes in there and Event borrowed them when it was needed. He had a bowtie in there somewhere, but never wore it.

Normally Sunburst would have spent a good hour picking out clothes, but this wasn’t a normally kind of time. As such, he wildly threw clothes out of the closet as he tried to find something presentable, but not too flashy.

Pretty soon there were clothes all around him that included: cozy sweaters that it was much too warm for, suits that he’d worn to the Grand Galloping Gala during the years he was invited, a number of Nightmare Night costumes because Sunburst celebrated every year, and even a very interesting looking robe. He’d gotten the star covered eyesore as a gift years ago and since then he’d worn it to every Mage Exam because it looked pretty snazzy. It even had a clip at the front in the design of his cutie mark. He couldn’t hate it.

And yet, it wasn’t what he needed so it was thrown in the pile behind him. With that done, he was left with a relatively empty closet, not including the small odds and ends that he didn’t want to consider. Maybe, he thought, his efforts would be better spent on making the rest of him presentable.

He stood up, then stepped over all of the clothings that littered the floor to reach the one bathroom in the apartment. The first thing he did after turning on the lights was take a look in the mirror.

He definitely looked a right mess. His orange mane was disheveled, standing up in the messy mohawk state that he had to fiddle with for hours to get back to ‘Canterlot Normal’. This was a process that took at least an ounce of hair gel and almost twenty minutes. With a look over at the counter in front of him, he realized he had neither. Just an empty jar with hair gel residue on the sides.

He grimaced but decided to move on, opening the closest drawer to the door. He retrieved the contacts that he needed desperately to see with his magic and opened the case, his paranoia requiring him to see that they were still there before he set to his task.

Right when deciding everything was in order, there was a very loud knocking on the front door that startled him, causing his magic to fail him and his contacts to come to a brutal meeting with the ground.

Sunburst took a moment to rationalize what just happened. Just as he was done, there was another, louder knock on the front door which caused him to stomp his hoof in anger. On his contact case. He didn’t care to think it through after that, just storming to the door to give whoever it was a piece of his mind.

Not bothering to look through the peephole to maybe save face, he threw open the door and gave the pony on the other side his best glare.

Starlight Glimmer flinched as she saw the door open, only to see a miffed Sunburst on the other side. Thankfully, his face fell fairly quickly as he squinted at Starlight. He saw the purpleish blob and tried to figure who he knew that looked like that.

Starlight scratched the back of her neck. “Did I come at a bad time?”

“Oh uh,” Sunburst stammered as he realized who it was from the voice, “No, you’re fine. I just haven’t had the best morning.” His horn lit up slightly as he tried to put everything back together in the other other room without tipping Starlight off too much. He hoped his aim wasn’t horrible as he attempted to throw clothes back in a closet without the benefit of sight.

Starlight didn’t bother correcting him on the time of day, as it looked like he either wouldn’t care or was too distracted to anyway, so she just nodded. “Well, I just came by to check on you,” she said, “But I can come back later, if you’d like.”

“No, it’s just that I-” He was swiftly cut off by the loud sound of crashing coming from behind him. Sunburst canceled his magic, quickly clenching his teeth to stop himself from releasing a torrent of swears due to present company. Sighing, he started again. “I woke up late and am now finding trouble getting ready for our date.”

There was a small pause before the two decided to ignore that he’d called it a date. Sunburst let out another small sigh. “Listen, would you like to come in? I won’t be longer than a few minutes, so it’s probably best if you just stay.”

Starlight nodded, trying not to show too much excitement that she was finally welcomed into her friend’s home. Sunburst took a step to the side, holding the door open with his magic for Starlight to enter.

She hurried in, not wanting to keep Sunburst waiting for very long, and tried not to be too obvious in her judging absolutely everything he owned.

Sunburst followed closely behind, hoping dearly that she wasn’t judging him too harshly. He hadn’t had the chance to clean up, after all, and the night before was the wildest one he’d seen in years. “So, uh,” he said with a small blush, “Make yourself at home and I’ll be back in a jiffy.” He then slinked off to Event’s bedroom once again, gently closing the door behind him.

Starlight quickly took up residence on the couch, avoiding the small wet stain at the edge of the right cushion. Other than that, the place was almost absolutely spotless. There were signs of living, of course, in the stain, the small amount of crumbs on the floor, and the one can of beer on the ground. It was on a coaster, and only half drunk at that. Surely there was a very hardcore night that preceded it.

She decided to leave it alone, as she wasn’t Sunburst’s maid just yet. There’d be time for that later. Instead, she decided to judge his home furnishings as she could hear grunts and banging noises coming from the other room. He was probably fine.

Now, it’s not like his house was bad or anything. It just wasn’t really homey. There weren’t any pictures lying around, no messes that showed that there were two ponies that lived here daily, and not even a clothes to wear. Canterlot ponies normally wore clothes, right?

Before Starlight could get too sidetracked on the clothing etiquette practiced by the Canterlot elite, the door behind her swung open. From the other room came a slightly less frazzled Sunburst, still fiddling with ‘his’ bowtie using magic. He muttered to himself as he entered the room, hating that it was all he had to wear.

He looked up at Starlight, allowing her to see that he was wearing glasses. Big ol’ circular ones, sky blue in color. He blushed as he caught her eyes, embarrassed that he was seen wearing them. Starlight, on the other hand, absolutely loved them, thinking they made him look hecka cute..

Sunburst took a deep breath. “Sorry for keeping you waiting,” he said softly, rubbing a hoof behind his head and drawing attention to his now slightly combed mohawk, “But I’m ready now. That should count for something, right?”

Starlight continued to stare without a word. He looked dapper as heck, and adorable to boot. She couldn’t really formulate a response with something like that staring her in the face. So, she just stood up from the couch and continued her staring.

Sunburst was of course taken aback by this and didn’t know how to really respond, only scratching at his muzzle in embarrassment. “Is there something on my face?”

“No!” Starlight said quickly, shaking her head, “Well, yes, but I think it’s supposed to be there. The glasses, I mean.”

“Oh right, these.” He touched the edge of the aforementioned glasses, his blush getting ever so stronger. “Well, uh, normally I wear contacts, but it looks like today isn’t really going my way. It’s why my mane is like this too.”

Starlight scrunched up her face, looking Sunburst over in deep thought. She took steps closer, moving to really scan exactly how he looked. From the dapper bowtie to the fluffed up mane to even the white splotches on his hooves. She loved those. Leaning back up, she looked Sunburst deep in his cyan eyes. “I like it.” She said simply, “Though, now I do feel a bit underdressed.” She then gestured to his bowtie and collar.

“Sorry,” Sunburst said with a small grin, “Canterlot sensibilities, you know. Always gotta look my best if I’m to become a mage some day.” His smile faded for almost a second before he caught himself.

Another smile found itself on Starlight’s face, though much less practiced than Sunburst’s. She nodded along before looking over to the clock, as she wasn’t a nerd that needed glasses to see the time. They had been spending time together for about twenty minutes now. “We should probably get going. The night is only going to stay young for so long.”

“It’s barely night as it is,” Sunburst rebutted, “We have all the time we could need.”

Starlight grimaced slightly, shrugging. “Well I kinda have to leave for Ponyville pretty early tomorrow, so I should probably get to bed early too.”

Sunburst raised a quick eyebrow. “You’re leaving? Well, I mean, of course you’re leaving, but so soon?”

“Yeah,” Starlight said, scratching the back of her neck, “I meant to tell you earlier, but I couldn’t work it into conversation too well. Twilight wanted me back by tomorrow so that we could continue my ‘friendship training’.”

Sunburst was unsuccessful in hiding his frown, more of a pout really, as he heard the bad news. “I guess I shoulda seen this coming. You can’t stay in Canterlot forever, can you?” He sighed sadly then, after a moment, looked at Starlight seriously. “Can you?”

“As much as I’d love to…” She said, then neglected to finish the rest of her sentence. “I’m not sure that Canterlot is for me anyway. It’s a little too big.”

This got a shrug from Sunburst, though it was followed by a nod. “It can be a bit daunting, yeah. Though,” he paused, grabbing a saddlebag from a kitchen cabinet, in order to hide it from Event’s prying eyes you see, and strapped it around himself, “How’s about I show you my favorite non-book-filled part?”

Starlight eyed the saddlebag for a moment, but decided not to ask. It was probably supposed to be a surprise, and ruining it would probably make Sunburst even sadder. Instead, she just smiled politely and motioned forward. “Let’s do it. Before we get caught in another banter, that is.”

“But I like banter,” Sunburst whined very annoyingly, “It’s what keeps me sane, you know. I wouldn’t be half the stallion I am today without witty banter.”

“Nowhere in this conversation have I called anything witty.” Starlight rebutted.

Sunburst responded by pouting. Heavily exaggerated pouting. “I thought I was pretty witty.”

Ignoring Sunburst’s response, Starlight stomped her hoof. “Dang it, we did it again. We’re gonna be here forever at this rate.”

Sunburst nodded. Without saying another word, he lifted a hoof to his mouth and made a zipper motion, then gestured to the door. Just like that, they were on their way to the park on their date(?).

Author's Note

~~I'm kinda disappointed that no one looked at Author's Note #4 and thought, "Hey, I'mma solve that" so how about this.~~
~~Solve it, and I'll give you all a gift. You have about a week, I guess.~~
~~Do with that information what you will.~~
~~Edit: Post your answers in the comments of my most recent blog post, plox.~~

I'm even more disappointed now. :T

Chapter 7, Exposition is Magic

It didn’t take long for the two to reach the park, just about ten minutes of slow walking. It didn’t feel long either, what with the two of them chatting each other up and bantering all over the place. Still, they made it.

It was, as anything in Canterlot is, massive. It was cut into several sections by walking paths and roads for chariots and the odd automobile, but it was still one frighteningly large ‘park’.

Starlight, seeing how huge the park was and not seeing the main road on the other side, looked up at Sunburst. “I thought you said this was a park.”

“This is a park.” He responded as they stepped onto the grass. Sunburst didn’t bother to look around, knowing exactly where he was headed.

Starlight continued focusing attention on him as he sped up slightly. “How big is this place anyway?”

Stopping dead in his tracks, Sunburst thought for a moment. “Very.” He finally decided upon, then took up walking again.

Thankfully, the spot he had in mind wasn’t too far off. All the two had to do was walk around a fairly large pond that was almost circular, but was a bit concave on one side. Sunburst picked that exact concave to start setting up his area.

As Starlight took a step back to watch him work, he pulled out from his saddlebag a quilted blanket that was more than large enough for the both of them to fit on. Next, he pulled out a very fancy looking bottle of wine, though wine always looks fancy as heck, and two glasses that were previously wrapped in the blanket. He set the objects down in the middle of the blanket, laid down, and looked up at Starlight expectantly.

Starlight looked at the scene; the pondside view, the gentle moonlight that bathed the park, the secluded area where they were about to enjoy on their lonesome, the wine, and the Sunburst who was almost posing without trying. It was frighteningly romantic, to the point where it almost worried her.

She thought through her response to this everything that assaulted her senses, hoping that it wouldn’t offend him too much. “Are you trying to tell me something with this?” She then gestured to the aforementioned everything she was referring to.

Sunburst, bless his heart, tilted his head innocently. “What do you mean?”

“This!” Starlight repeated, gesturing more wildly. “It’s like you took this all straight from one of those dumb romance novels.”

“I still don’t know what you mean.” He said, slowly looking over everything he’d prepared. He definitely saw it as fine. Looking back up at Starlight, he responded with: “Event never seems to have a problem with us doing something like this. Is it the wine?” He picked up the bottle and inspected it. “I just thought it’d be a good way for us to open up. Me more than you, I guess.” He shot her a shy grin, hoping that was a fine explanation.

Starlight stared at him blankly, then laid down across from him without breaking her gaze. “Alright, start sharing then.”

There was a noticeable beat before Sunburst broke out into chuckles over her overt bluntness. He took the bottle of wine up in his magic, popped the cork, and poured two glasses full of very red wine. “I’m not sure where to start, if I’m being honest,” he said, setting down the bottle to separate the two of them, “Is there anything you’d like to know? Don’t be shy.”

Starlight blinked, not expecting to be in the hotseat so soon. She went in with the subconscious thought that she’d be down three or four glasses of wine before any focus was on her. She shuffled a bit, taking a small swig of her drink and sighing. “How about recent events?” She asked. “Is there anything interesting happening any time soon?”

“Oh uh,” Sunburst scrunched his face, thinking long and hard about just about anything he could talk about. In all honestly, his life wasn’t cool enough to have things happening constantly. All he had was book. But, there still was one thing. He remembered that one thing, scratching the back of his neck and trying to look casual. “I guess there’s the third part of the Mage Exams coming up soon. That’s, uh, something. I’ll probably be going a whole other year without getting my teaching license.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Starlight said, full of hope. Sunburst didn’t seem to share in her optimism, shaking his head. Not wanting her friend to have too much of a pity party, she decided to subtly change the subject. “So, how does the exam work anyway?”

Sunburst perked up a small bit, finally being able to look at it from an analytical point of view. He sat up and prepared his hooves to gesture wildly as he talked. And boy did they gesture wildly. “Well, it, uh, starts with a test on practical uses of magic, magic theory, other magic forms and stuff like that. It’s a few hundred questions, but most of ‘em are multiple choice so I never have a hard time. Usually there are around five hundred ponies from all around Equestria taking this test, but the number is generally halved by the time the second portion begins. I always pass that bit, so I wasn’t worried at all.

“Second,” he gestured both hooves straight ahead of him, indicating that he was on 2 of 3, “After Celestia grades all the tests, using unpaid labor from her students I might add, then comes the student teacher portion. Whoever passed the last test got to teach one of Celestia’s students a spell of their choosing and were graded on how well the student can perform the spell versus how difficult the spell is to perform. This one is a little hit or miss with me, ‘cause every now and then I get a little troublemaker who I can’t work with.”

“Just like you were back then?” Starlight interjected, seeing the perfect moment to add herself back to the conversation. She didn’t hate that Sunburst was leading everything, it was kind of entertaining, but she didn’t have much to do but listen.

Sunburst looked at his friend and smiled, giggling a little bit as he didn’t expect that kind of ‘shade to be thrown’, as the kids say. “I guess I was a bit rude to the few that came my way. Still, they always passed and, hey, I ‘passed’ too this year.” He added the air quotes to emphasize, causing Starlight to tilt her head. “This year my kid sort of disappeared for a while. After she learned an invisibility spell. Naturally, she was found in the guards’ locker room.” After a pause, he gave a small shrug. “Still, it was off the clock. The spell itself was still impressive enough to get me through. Even if I’m not allowed to teach that spell ever again.”

“Did the filly see anything?” Starlight asked, oddly interested.

“Nah, nothing she wouldn’t see if she had an older brother.” Sunburst shrugged, scratching the back of his neck. “Her mother certainly gave me an earful like she’d seen something though. But still I get to move onto....”

He gestured to the right with his hooves. “Part three. The one-on-one assessment.” He stopped for a second. “I’m going to fail it and have to do this all over again next year.” He let out a very small sigh and took a very large sip of his wine.

Starlight was taken aback at how pessimistic he was being. That was her job, gosh darn it. “You don’t think you’ll get it this time?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get it,” he responded before taking another large swig, then poured himself another glass “I just can’t beat Celestia. She’s too powerful. I have no clue how anyone passes, but I’ve basically given up.”

“So why are you still taking the exam?” Came Starlight’s confused response.

Sunburst tensed up. “I have my reasons.”

“Alright,” Starlight said, understanding that he didn’t want to talk about it at this time. Instead, she tried to change the subject. “Has Event passed the test yet?”

Only after saying that did Starlight realize how stupid the sentence probably was. This was furthered by the growing tenseness in Sunburst. Slowly, steadily, he sighed and closed his eyes. He rotated his shoulders, calming himself as much as possible. He opened his eyes after a moment, looking at Starlight and giving her a small, tired smile. “He’s uh… not able to take the test. He dropped out of the academy, so isn’t eligible.” He looked to the side, off into the distance, and frowned. “Not that staying would have helped matters much.”

Before Starlight could get slightly annoyed at how vague he was being, Sunburst continued his harrowing tale. “He can’t exactly use magic. He understands it well enough, but can’t do any. No aura left, I guess.”

“He was born without magic?” Starlight asked, jumping ahead a bit. “How did he get into the academy in the first place?”

Sunburst shook his head slowly. “No, he had magic. He got into the academy with magic, and almost graduated with magic. Then I went and hecked it up.” His voice quivered slightly, his hoof stomping as he did a swear.

Starlight herself was taken aback by his lurid swearing. Surely this meant this was a serious situation. “I’m sure it’s not all your fault.”

“But it is.” Sunburst said softly, voice still shaking. “He burnt his magic out because of me being an absolute idiot.” He set his jaw, then sighed. “Well, I don’t want to lie to you and the omission of truth is still lying, so I’ll just. Spell. It. Out for you.” Of course, he took a second to chuckle at his little joke.

Still, even after slightly lightening the mood, in his eyes at least, he hesitated to look Starlight in the eye. So, he just looked down. “I wasn’t the most healthy during those times, both physically and mentally. I was in study mode 24/7 and it got to the point where I wouldn’t leave my room for anything but classes. Event was the only reason I was eating semi-normally, really. Graduation year was probably the worst for me, especially during exams, and that was apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back.” He took a small, deep breath and shook his head, steeling himself. “I was studying, like always, and I just wasn’t getting it. It was ritual magic, I think, which has never been my favorite. Somewhere down the line, fifteenth time I read through my notes, something broke. Nothing felt right. I don’t know what happened next, but suddenly I’m looking down from the roof of the academy’s dorms.”

Starlight gasped slightly at the fairly obvious outcome. She scooted closer to Sunburst, trying in some way to comfort him.

And yet, Sunburst continued. “I must have blacked out during the walk. And then again, as next thing I know I’m crying into Event’s chest. I didn’t notice at the time, but his horn was pretty much smoking. He burnt his magic out on what I can only assume was a teleportation spell, taking him up to the top of a six story building. Just for me.”

Starlight stood up abruptly, without a word. Sunburst looked up slightly, expecting her to walk away after being thoroughly disgusted in him. Instead, she approached him, positioning herself beside him, and laying down. She nuzzled him in a very platonic way, trying to be as comforting as possible.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said softly, “You were just in a bad place at the time. Event probably doesn’t blame you either.”

“He won’t even talk to me about it.” Sunburst said with a grimace. “He treats it like I never had a mental breakdown that landed me in the hospital for a few weeks.”

“Maybe he just wants to keep it that way.” Starlight suggested.

“Maybe.” Sunburst repeated with a little nod, scooting a little closer to Starlight. There was silence for several moments as they enjoyed each other’s company.

Still Starlight, not quite wanting it to end on that, decided that it was time for more talking. Because that’s what everyone wants. “Seeing as you’ve divulged your darkest secrets, I feel like I should do the same.”

Sunburst looked down at Starlight with a raised eyebrow, as he was quite liking the silence. “You don’t really have to. I mean, you told me enough about your town already. Fair trade, I think.”

“I didn’t tell you everything.” Starlight admitted. “I think I cut about half of the story off in order to save face.”

“I don’t judge.”

“I essentially brainwashed ponies into complacency, stole their cutie marks, and ruled over them as some sort of tyrant of equality.” She let the statement sit there for a few moments before continuing. “You wouldn’t be the first to judge.”

Sunburst swallowed hard, processing everything. “I won’t judge too harshly.” He corrected, then he looked at Starlight in surprise. “You stole cutie marks?”

She said nothing and just nodded.

Sunburst let out a sharp sigh, shaking his head. “You’re a magical marvel, ain’t you? Time travel, talent removal, what’s next?” He chuckled softly to himself. “You’re something else, Starlight. Maybe I should ask Princess Twilight if she’ll teach me too.”

“She’s not really the one that taught me anything.” Starlight informed her friend. “To be honest, I learned everything I know from three places. Books, trial and error, and some colt I used to know in Sunnydale. He may have been pretty dumb, but he knew a thing or two about magic.”

Sunburst laughed at that. “And yet somehow you can do a whole bunch of things that I can’t. Maybe you shoulda been the one that went to an academy.”

“I think I like learning on my own more. I don’t have to care about the rules until I screw up.”

“But the rules are what makes magic.” Sunburst snapped quickly then, after realizing himself, looked off to the side a bit. Letting out a sigh, he stretched out his forelegs and laid his head down on the blanket between them. “I should probably take a page out of your book on this, I think. The academy didn’t do me much good either.”

“Would you go back and fix it?” Starlight asked before being shot an odd look by Sunburst. “I mean figuratively.”

He couldn’t help but smiling at the comment. “I’m not really sure. I mean, I wouldn’t be half of what I am right now without that school, for better or for worse.” He then shrugged. “But still, it’s what tore us apart, right?”

Starlight nodded before adding: “And it’s why I started the town in the first place.”

It took a moment for the two of them to realize what Starlight said. Now, Sunburst was willing to be the gentleman and let it slide, as they were, by his measurements, figuratively drowning in wine. Starlight had other ideas.

“I just really shoved my hoof in my mouth, didn’t I?” She asked rhetorically, drawing full attention to her statement.

“You sure did.” Sunburst said before taking a sip of his wine. “I’m honestly not sure how to respond. I mean, I kind of figured.”

“You what?” Starlight nearly shouted, her eyes wide as heck. “When?”

Sunburst gave a small shrug. “Not even five minutes ago, I guess. I kinda guessed that it was my fault anyway. My leaving had to have done something, right?”

“And you didn’t even say bye.” Starlight added sadly.

“Are you joking?” Sunburst asked, eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he side-eyed her. “I most certainly said goodbye. I even have the picture of that my dad took at the train station.”

And now it was Starlight’s turn to be confused. “I remember none of that. The last thing I remember is you getting your cutie mark.”

Sunburst pursed his lips slightly, choosing his words carefully. “So you didn’t, uh,” he couldn’t help but tense up a small bit, “You don’t remember what I said back then?”

“Pretty sure I don’t.” She responded, wondering where exactly this was going.

Sunburst gave a big sigh, as it was now his turn to regret his words. But there wasn’t any room to stop the feels train here. Might as well keep going. “I, uh, you know, made a promise that I ended up not keeping to.” He flexed his hooves, I won’t even explain that one, as he looked down at his pal of pals. She was hecka warm, which certainly helped during the ‘cold’ winter night. I say cold, but it wasn’t even snowing temperature. But it’s still cold to Sunburst, dammit.

While he silently mused on about the abject horror that never witnessing snow was for his life, Starlight had more pressing issues to deal with. Namely, jogging her memory for whatever it was Sunburst was talking about. She vaguely remembered the scenario, but it was still foggy.

She kind of remembered the meeting at the train station. She’d cried the night before, so her eyes were pretty red come the morning that Sunburst’s train was due to leave. Sunburst didn’t mind. He was just happy to see his best friend for the last time. They talked for a while, sitting close together on a train station bench. Much closer than they were now, almost leaning on each other with their hooves on top of each other.

No hetero, of course.

They talked and talked and talked until the train came. As it rolled into the station, Sunburst’s hoof gripped Starlight’s tightly. He looked over at her desperately, not wanting to leave her so soon, then suddenly dragged her into a tight hug. He started sobbing then, unable to hold back his feelings. Starlight embraced him loosely, rubbing his back for comfort.

Still, the moment could only last for so long before Sunburst pulled back, tears still streaming down his face. He said something. Something that ended with "...I promise,” but she just couldn't make it out.

She ran the memory back in her head, trying to figure it out before she was nudged in the side by a snooter.

“You alright?” Sunburst asked, “You kinda spaced out there for a few seconds.” He picked up the wine bottle and stared closely. The words were so small that, even with his glasses, he couldn’t really read any of it. “Maybe we should just stop drinking.”

“It’s not that.” Starlight said, shaking her head a bit. “I was just thinking. I remember the day you’re talking about, but I just can’t remember what you told me before hopping on the train.”

Sunburst resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief, as he’d have to share sooner or later. Instead he just raised a ‘People’s Eyebrow’ at Starlight, just like he’d practiced for hours on end in front of the mirror. “That’s a bit strange,” he muttered, “I could always remind you, of course.”

“I think it’d be helpful if you did.”

Sunburst nodded, staring off into the distance. He tapped a hoof on his chin, feigning deep thought. “Now, what was it that I said to you?” He hmmed and scrunched his face up, despite knowing exactly what it was he said. I mean, it’d be weird to just have it on the mind every day for the past fifteen years, right? Right?

So, the two of them were either thinking or ‘thinking’, which caused, as you might assume, a momentous occasion of silence.

Then suddenly, almost like a lightbulb appeared above her head, Starlight remembered exactly what it was that was said. And almost as if by pure chance, or a writer nearly giving up, this was when Sunburst decided to courage and fess up.

“At the train station, uh,” he took a deep breath, “What I, uh, said was…”

“I’ll write you when I get to Canterlot, I promise!” Starlight remembered the small, squeaky colt crying out before rushing to his train. The present Sunburst repeated those words, though with much less emotion than he had before.

“Well, I remember that now.” She said with a decisive not. “But why did you bring it up?”

Sunburst blanched, blinking slowly at Starlight. “I thought you’d, uh, care a bit more, honestly. I broke a pretty important promise and probably had a hand in everything that happened.”

Starlight lightly swatted him on his snoot, making him recoil. “Don’t you start with that. You broke your promise, but keeping it means we wouldn’t have done all this.” She gestured to the beautiful scenery that is totally beautiful guys. Trust me. “I think I prefer this over hearing all your dumb jokes over fifteen years.”

Sunburst shrugged. “And I guess you wouldn’t have been Princess Twilight’s student if you hadn’t had a stint as a tyrannical dictator.” He looked down at Starlight with a moderately sized grin. “I guess we turned out alright.”

“Definitely alright,” Starlight agreed, “Coulda been better.”

Sunburst sighed happily, his grin getting slightly wider. The two didn’t say much after that, just opting to take in the scenery and share small talk and a few jokes and jibes at the other. It was fine, and fun for the both of them as they took turns trying to re-cork the very nearly virgin wine. At this point, the moon was fairly high in the sky. It was getting pretty late and the both of them would need bed.

Sunburst turned to look at Starlight in order to say... something. It was forgotten in an instant as he really looked at her. He hadn’t noticed before, somehow, but she looked absolutely gorgeous, especially under the moonlight. He was stunned by how radiant she looked, and how stupid he was to have not noticed before.

Noticing a lull in the conversation, Starlight looked up at Sunburst to see him lovestruck. Unlike him, she didn’t see anything different about him in the moonlight. He was still the dumb, cute colt who tried his best to make everything right.

And that was really all she needed, she decided as she leaned her snoot in close to his. Now, the failure to describe what exactly the kiss was like is not on me, your humble narrator, as I am just wanting to spare you the gory details. These were two ponies who had never kissed the opposite gender, or anyone in Starlight’s case, and so, without any prior knowledge, you can probably tell that it wasn’t very pretty. It was frightfully awkward, even.

Still, the two made it out of it alive. They didn’t mind how their faces awkwardly smooshed together as they kind of tilted their heads in opposite directions to make it sort of work. It was still a kiss. They felt what most romance novels would describe as ‘The Spark’ which, in actuality, was kind of more like a tingle down their spine.

They looked at each other in awe, neither quite expecting what had just transpired. Then Sunburst, his pride at an absolute low point after not being the one to initiate first contact, nuzzled Starlight in a completely romantic fashion. “I’m gonna see you off tomorrow, alright?”

Starlight was surprised, not only by the act of affection but also by the completely off topic comment. Still, she couldn’t disagree with either. Nuzzling back, she made a sound of approval in her throat.

It was just kind of like this for the rest of the night. Nuzzle party plus a bunch of one-off comments from one or the other. It was kind of cute, but definitely just fluff to pad out word counts. Anyway, the ‘rest of the night’ really just amounted to thirty minutes before the two decided to pack up and part ways. Sunburst walked Starlight home, shared one last hug and nuzzle with her, and walked home alone, but with the knowledge that he’d done something right.

Author's Note

If you look closely, you can see the exact moment I just stopped caring about tone.
Well, now this can be officially classified as a novella. Congratulate me.
Congratulate me

[Intermission]

It was a slightly somber affair when Sunburst walked Starlight to the train station on the next day. They both were smiling, but it was mostly just each one wanting to put on a show for the other, not wanting them to feel bad about this. Mostly Sunburst not wanting Starlight to feel bad about leaving though.

They arrived at high noon, walking side by side as they stepped into the train station. Due to how mildly warm it was in Canterlot, and nowhere else, fans were turned onto their lowest setting and let run. Sunburst picked a seat right under one of said fans and moved over so that Starlight could sit beside him.

So they sat, basking a bit in the chill of the fan for a moment. Then, Sunburst turned to Starlight with a small frown. “So, this is it then?” He asked simply with a sigh. “I mean, not the end of us, but, you know…” He then trailed off with a small shrug.

“Yeah, I guess this is it. For now.” She turned to Sunburst, shooting him a reassuring grin as she did so. “Still, what is ‘us’?” The lavender mare asked, a small blush crossing over her face. “I mean, we did kiss and everything.” Without noticing, she slid a tiny bit closer to him.

“I’m not really sure.” Sunburst admitted, a shy grin overtaking his face along with a blush. He wasn’t really used to this, y’know? The most he’d ever done with a mare before that was talk to one over coffee and that was with Starlight too. Now, he’d done more with stallions, but that’s another story entirely.

Not too long after, Starlight shared a smile of her own, though it was a bit more confident as she wasn’t a wuss. “That was kinda my first kiss, so I don’t know what comes after.” She then moved to look ahead, staring at the train tracks instead of Sunburst. “I wonder if I’d have more experience if I hadn’t enslaved an entire town.”

“Eh, maybe?” Sunburst shrugged, then kicked his dangling legs a bit, sighing slightly. “I mean, if I’m being honest, I’m as confused as you are.” He did the :/ face that your humble narrator cannot figure out the name of. “I’ve only kissed one pony in my life, and that didn’t amount to much. It looks like we’re the same amount of in the dark here.”

Starlight let out a small sigh, drooping her head low at the news. Then, after a moment, she shrugged. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to decide ourselves.” She said as she looked up at Sunburst. “So, what do ya think? Are we friends, more than friends, less than friends?”

The orange stallion shuffled with nervosity, clenching and tapping his hooves as he thought. “Well, we’re definitely friends. I mean, we’ve spent the past couple days together, and I’ve been really enjoying myself. I just really don’t know about the more.” He huffed, thinking harder and harder as he twiddled his hooves. “I think I’d like to be more than friends with you.” He then admitted with a heavy blush. “You, uh, make me feel things. Not too sure what those things are, but they’re things.”

“You make me feel things too.” Starlight told him, looking into his blue eyes with a smile. “I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together these past few days. We probably could have done more, but what we had was fun.” She placed her hoof on top of Sunburst’s, holding it still. “I really really liked last night. Especially, y’know, the end.”

Sunburst let out a cheerful giggle, blushing and turning away from Starlight for a moment. “Yeah, that was great. I, um…” He looked back at Starlight, then down at the intertwined hooves between the two of them. “I’d kind of, you know, like to do it again, really.” He looked back up into Starlight’s eyes for just a moment before bashfully looking down again.

Without a word of response, Starlight placed her free hoof under Sunburst’s chin. She lifted his head to look her in the eye, shooting him a grin as she leaned in for a short kiss. It wasn’t much, really. Nothing like the kiss the two had shared the night before. Still, it was much less awkward now that the two weren’t full of non-alcoholic wine and extremely nervous.

Sunburst couldn’t help but fidget as she pressed her snooter against his. His breath caught in his throat, hooves scratching at the wooden bench as he felt her soft lips pressing against his own. Still, he pressed back with a small smile, still letting her take the lead. He could most certainly say that he wasn’t ‘the stallion’ in this relationship. Not that he minded. He loved this.

And yet this moment had to end soon after, Starlight pulling back to leave Sunburst there with a doofy smile. Of course, she was unable to stop herself from giggling as she stared at his dumb face. It just served to remind her why she loved him so much.

Likewise, Starlight’s cute giggling, combined with her adorable smile and the small blush that covered her face, among many many other things, served to remind Sunburst of exactly why he loved her. As such, he giggled along with her as he enjoyed the time they were spending together. For the first time in his life, he didn’t care much if anyone was staring at him. All he cared was that Starlight was happy, because she made him happy.

After moments, the giggling turned to silence as the two just decided to enjoy each other’s presence. Sunburst leaned over to nuzzle his something-or-other as they basked in the ambient sounds of the train station.

Much like anything, though, this had to end. Starlight wasn’t much of a fan of silence. Especially with the distracting sounds around her, making her a bit anxious. So, she turned to Sunburst, trying to hide her shuffling. “So, how’s the mage exam going? Are you still going to give up?”

There was nothing that managed to uplift Sunburst’s spirits quite like mentioning his greatest failure. Despite that, he couldn’t be mad at her. She was just interested in his life. That didn’t mean he couldn’t lie though. “Well…” he started, scratching the back of his neck, “I guess I’ll give it another shot. I don’t really have much to lose, do I?” He shot her an apprehensive grin, trying to fool her into believing he was fine.

She was about to see through his ruse, but was very much distracted by the sound of the train rolling into the station loudly. She looked up at the clock, tilting her head slightly. They’d been sitting there for about thirty minutes now, but it felt like much, much less.

Sunburst was the first to slide out of his seat, happy to be rid of the conversation topic. He extended a hoof, intending to help Starlight out of her seat. She used him, much like always, so that she was more comfortable.

They stood facing each other before Sunburst decided to, for once, take the initiative as he leaned in to nuzzle her gently. “Get there safe, you hear?” He whispered softly in her ear, wrapping a hoof around her in order to keep her in place. “I don’t want to lose my first girlfriend already. And, you know, I’d miss you too.”

“So I’m your girlfriend now, eh?” Starlight said with a grin as she dragged the dumb stallion into a hug, nuzzling him as well. “Do you suppose that means you’re my boyfriend then?”

Sunburst nodded softly, making a noise of approval as he hugged her as well. The pair continued their hug for a moment, sighing happily as they felt each other’s warmth under the coolness of the fan.

And yet, Sunburst pulled back with a small frown. He hated to break up the loving hug they were sharing, but he had something to say. “Listen,” he told her, hoping that she would, you know, listen to him, “I’ll write you as soon as I can, alright?”

Starlight nodded for a moment, then she realized. “Didn’t you say that last time we were at a train station together?” She then shot him a smile, letting him know she wasn’t angry.

Despite that, Sunburst blushed and turned away. “It’s different this time, you know?” He scratched a hindhoof on the ground as he thought. “I know your address this time, for one. It’s kinda hard to miss, isn’t it?” He forced out a chuckle, trying to be a bit jovial to hide his crippling nervousness.

It was Starlight’s turn to make the :/ face, staring at the stallion oddly. “Well, I guess that works. I’m gonna be really angry if you don’t write me soon though. Don’t wait fifteen years again. You nerd.” She then went back to hugging her boyfriend, nuzzling him and sighing softly.

“Hey, I’m a busy guy, you know.” He explained, whining softly. “I’ve got a whole library to run, an apartment to pay for, which is not cheap in Canterlot I might add, and a whole lot of romantic tension from Event to ignore. That’s a bunch of stuff on my plate.” He return nuzzled Starlight, sighing gently. “I’ll get to it soon though. I can promise you that.”

“You better.” Starlight warned. “Otherwise I’ll cry and you’ll have the Elements to deal with. And I’ll probably swat your muzzle too. You don’t want that, do you?”

Sunburst pouted, bringing a free hoof to his muzzle. “Not my snooter!” He said in faux distress. “I need that to smell things, and stuff.” He then went back to huggling her. “But yeah, I’ll write you within the end of the month. I promise. And this time, I really really mean it.”

Despite the fact that Starlight was about to respond, but yet another interruption reared its head in the form of the train conductor who was taping a hindhoof as he stared at his pocket watch. “All aboard!” The blue stallion loudly cried, as he tended to enjoy to.

Starlight finally pulled back from the hug, grimacing as she knew time was short. “Looks like I gotta go.” She told Sunburst, despite that being the most obvious thing at the moment. “Twilight’s waiting for me, you know?” She moved in to nuzzle him for a brief moment. “Take care of yourself. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.” Sunburst assured her, nuzzling her back. “Still, let me walk you to the train at least.”

Starlight gave a big, heaving sigh. “Fiiiiiiiiiiine.” She then gestured for him to walk.

And so he did, and she trailed not too far behind. It wasn’t far, as Canterlot ponies can’t be forced to walk more than a few feet without complaining to whoever was important. Still, they made the most of their time.

As they approached, the train conductor eyed them a bit strangely. Still, he said nothing. He was used to Canterlot ponies wasting time anyway. He enjoyed staring at them as they romanced, as it filled the void in his heart. Or he was just a very strange stallion.

Sunburst stood in front train door thing. There has to be a better word for that. Anyway, Sunburst, train door thing. He looked down at Starlight and smiled softly, reassuringly, before gently placing a hoof under her chin. He tilted her head up, gazing into her eyes for a short moment, then pressed his lips gently against hers, though pulling back after a few moments so as to not make the conductor wait any longer.

“I’ll see you soon, alright?” Sunburst said as he brushed some of her mane away from her face. “I may have to delegate a few things to Event, but I’ll make it when I can.”

“You better.” Starlight warned once again. “Anyway, I, uh…” She scratched at the wooden floor with a hoof, “I don’t really know what to say here, honestly. ‘I love you’, I guess?”

Sunburst recoiled jokingly, taking a step back with a huff. “You guess?” He exclaimed with a grin, “And here I thought those kisses meant something.” After a beat of silence, Starlight started to panic and retract her words. That lasted just a moment, Sunburst wanting to have a bit of fun, before the stallion chuckled softly. “I love you too, Lighter. Now off with you. We both have lives to live.”

Starlight pouted, huffing loudly as she stomped a hoof. “Well fine. Be like that.” She pursed her lips, then leaned up to nuzzle Sunburst. “See ya, you big meanie.” And, without another word, she sauntered onto the train after flashing her ticket at the conductor.

This left Sunburst alone as said conductor boarded the train behind Starlight. The orange stallion sighed, looking up at the windows of the train car in hopes that he’d see her one last time. Sadly, Starlight had thought that through and scored a seat on the other side, just so she could gush about how cute he was to herself while blushing all the while.

Sunburst couldn’t help but sigh as the train finally pulled out of the station, his sensitive ears ringing slightly as the loud train noises assaulted his ears. Already he felt a small emptiness in him that was slowly building up inside him. It was odd and felt strangely familiar, but painful still.

Then his tum rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten that morning and that wizard needs food badly. With a tired chuckle, he spun around to walk out of the train station alone, figuring that maybe Event would want to split a meal with him on his break.

Author's Note

Happy half-year anniversary to my longest running story. :twilightsmile:

Chapter 8, back to reality

Sunburst woke up on a train. This wasn’t a normal occurrence for him, of course, as he wasn’t one to leave Canterlot ever. So it was a little uncomfortable to feel his seat rumbling against his belly, leading to him becoming an awake horse.

As he awakened, his first thought was about how utterly cold it was. The dumb orange horse hadn’t prepared for the train ride into Ponyville to be as cold as it was. You know. With snow right outside. All he had was his thin coat to help him deal with it, as he was much to unequipped to deal with the horrid atrocities of Winter.

So he reached into his bag, rummaging around everything he had thoroughly organized and packed perfectly, to grab his equally dumb robe. He wrapped the bestared robe around himself and shivered as he stared out the window.

It was snowing, as I probably mentioned before, making the stallion somewhat miss the days when he would play in the snow with his foalhood friends. Well, friend. Starlight was really all he needed back then. And she made the best snowponies out of anyone else on the block. With his expert engineering, yes, but it was her doing all of the work.

It was sad, really, that he had to leave all of that behind for a magic school he didn’t want to go to. But still, it was nice to catch up with her again. And now he was dating her, or at least he thought he was. It was weird.

Instead of chasing that thought line, Sunburst just let out a small sigh and rested his head against the side of his solo roomishthing. It was better to just watch the snow fall than go over how he screwed up for the thousandth time.

Still, that didn’t last for very long as he wrapped his robe tighter around him and closed his eyes. He fell asleep to the soft rocking of the train and the sound of light conversation coming from the next room over.

The orange hoers was soon woken up after the train had pulled into station. Now, he wasn’t woken by the train stopping. He snoozed straight through the quick stop, slumping forwards in his seat but, thankfully, not falling forwards.

The knocking on his compartment’s door was what woke him though. It startled the already very nervous stallion, making him jump out of his seat and almost fall onto the floor. Almost.

Sunburst righted himself just as the second knock sounded on the door. He straightened his glasses, fiddled with his hair for a moment, then wrapped his wizardy robe around him and slowly opened the door.

“Uh, hello?” He asked before catching sight of the white classical-styled Unicorn in front of him. It was odd, as he only saw that kind of purebred Unicorn in Canterlot. A small amount of panic bloomed in his heart as he thought for the worst almost immediately. “Uh, did the train de-board yet?” He scratched the back of his head, blushing slightly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I slept through it, honestly.”

“Oh no, darling.” The regal looking mare was quick to respond, quelling Sunburst’s fears almost immediately. “As it happens, the train has just begun its ‘de-boarding’ process. I simply decided to let you know, as you seemed to be a bit too… preoccupied to notice.” She then gestured to the wall with a seemingly effortless grace, tossing her curled purple mane just the smallest bit. “I could hear you resting from the other side of that wall, you see, so I thought it would be rude if I were to let you sleep through Ponyville.”

Blushing more heavily at the fact that he’d rudely bothered this mare for the entire trip, he glanced down with nervousness. “I am horribly sorry, Ms, uh…”

She hadn’t dropped her name, had she? That was odd. Usually the first thing Canterlot ponies did was drop their name, title, who they were distantly related to, and how much they made in a year. And that got a bit long-winded when talking with someone like ‘Prince’ Blueblood, who was distantly related to just about every famous royal. Even the fictional ones.

The mare extended a delicate hoof, smiling softly at Sunburst. “My name is Rarity.” She said simply, without any of the extras that a noble like someone of her stature would seem to be.

This made Sunburst hesitate for a moment, but, after acknowledging that she wasn’t going to continue, gripped her hoof with an uneasy smile and shook. “I’m Sunburst. Anyway, I am terribly sorry for interrupting your trip, but thank you for making me aware of our stop.” His smile then grew a small bit bigger.

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all.” Rarity said in her slightly accented tone. It had the normal Canterlot lilt, but there was something different about it. Something almost forced. “I have to deal with much worse from a few of my friends. Though,” she removed her hoof from Sunburst’s grasp, moving to tap it on her chin instead, “I do believe I have heard your name somewhere before.” She looked the orange stallion up and down with a judging gaze. Especially at the oddly colored robe he was wearing. “Are you, maybe, a Canterlot noble?”

Sunburst couldn’t help but laugh softly, shaking his head. “Heh, no I’m nothing like that.” He answered with a grin. “I’m just a dumb librarian who just so happened to learn magic from Celestia, I guess.” With another, more awkward chuckle, Sunburst scratched the back of his neck. After a moment of thought, his eyes lit up with an idea. “Oh! Maybe you heard about me from my, uh, friend. Her name is Starlight.”

And now it was time for Rarity’s eyes to similarly light up. “Oh you’re that Sunburst. Do forgive me for not realizing it sooner.” She smiled ever so gracefully at him before gesturing out the door. “Come come. We should probably talk about this off the train. No use in holding things up, yes?”

Sunburst nodded without a moment of hesitation. Why would he? She seemed very trustworthy. And so the two of them sauntered off the train after Sunburst strapped the saddlebag full of his items onto his back, right under his robe.

He followed Rarity, hoping that she knew what she was doing as she stepped off the train. The mare stopped for a moment, allowing Sunburst to catch up, then picked up a slow pace so that the two could talk and walk comfortably at the same time.

“So, uh, you know Starlight then?” Sunburst asked as they walked, ignoring the wary glances from the residents of Ponyville. Usually when they saw a ‘well’-dressed stallion with Rarity, bad things were sure to follow.

“Oh, I’m one of her best friends!” Rarity responded with a small, reserved grin. “She has told the Elements and I a very large amount about you. Mostly the time the two of you spent in Canterlot.” She giggled softly, shaking her head slightly. “Now, she cut herself off every time the story seemed to be getting good, right at the picnic, but I can assume what went on afterwards.” She then shot Sunburst a knowing grin, implying much more than he actually had done that night.

A massive blush crossed his face as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his snooter. “W-well, we didn’t get up to much. I just, you know, kissed her and stuff.” Were Sunburst standing still, this would be the time that he covered his muzzle with a foreleg and looked away with a huge, goofy grin. Still, he had a good amount of walking left to do. So he just dug his hole deeper. “Then I walked her home and we met at the train station the next day.”

Rarity nodded. “Oh yes, she mentioned the train station. With a good amount of brevity, I might add.” She then pouted, almost as if she wanted to be a part of the drama that was sure to brew. “I’m almost offended that Starlight didn’t tell us that you two were an item. From what she told us about you, I was almost ready to snap you up myself.”

Somehow, Sunburst’s blush managed to get deeper and much more heavy. “I wouldn’t say we’re an item yet.” He responded bashfully, not even believing his words. “She and I didn’t really come to a decision before she had to go. And, uh,” He swallowed harshly, a small shiver running down his neck. “What’d you mean by ‘snap me up’, exactly?”

“Well, I am, and have always been, a mare with needs.” Rarity told him, rolling her eyes. She knew that he knew exactly what she meant, but she still wasn’t afraid to say it. “And yet, I have standards as well. From what I heard from Starlight, plus what I can see right now, you’re intelligent, sweet, and surprisingly adorable.” She then looked him up and down for a moment, almost as if looking over a piece of meat. Then she snapped her head forwards with a small smile. “I would say that all of the above is true, but I wouldn’t encroach on Starlight’s territory. I’ll just have to find a belle or beau on my own.”

Sunburst let out a small sigh. Were all of Starlight’s friends going to be this… odd? He grimaced a small bit. Still, they were her friends. He couldn’t judge because she enjoyed them a whole lot.

“Thank you for the compliments, I suppose.” Sunburst said warily, a bit awkwardly given the subject. He clenched and unclenched his jaw quickly for a few moments before continuing. “I hope you, uh, find someone? I guess?”

Rarity gave a grin, shaking her head slightly. “No need to worry, darling. I’m a mare who always finds what she needs.” She then stopped suddenly, looking over the building the two were now standing in front of.

It was an odd looking building that seemed to absolutely stand out apart from the samey buildings that Ponyville had. And yet, despite its oddity, it was absolutely stylish. It was cool, cooler, coolest. It was obviously the design of the stylish mare to Sunburst’s side.

“Thank you for walking me home, Sunburst.” Rarity told him as he still tried to figure how the two even got here. She just smiled at the confused stallion. “I hope that we will be seeing more of each other soon enough. And I assume we will, provided that you treat Starlight right.”

“Oh I, uh, will, I guess.” Sunburst said, still very confused at the current happenings. He then shook his head. “Wait, I thought we were headed over to Starlight.”

Rarity just giggled softly, covering her mouth with a hoof. “I have no idea where you got that idea, darling.” She told him a bit curtly, smiling at him. “I said nothing of the sort. I was heading home and you seemed to want to follow.”

Her smile grew a small bit wider as she saw Sunburst try his hardest to glare at her. It was not very effective. He was just too cute. Still, she had to throw him a bone somehow.

“If you do want to know,” She started, deciding to give up the ghost and stop teasing that poor, love-sick stallion, “Starlight can be found in Twilight’s castle.” She gestured over to the very large, eyesore of a structure that had sprouted along the edge of Ponyville, replacing Twilight’s old, much better, library.

Sunburst looked at the castle, easily visible from anywhere in Ponyville, and tilted his head in confusion, blinking a few times. “How’d I go and miss that?” He asked himself in disbelief, staring at the massive castle that he just up and looked over. “I mean, it’s right there. Probably the same size as Princess Celestia’s castle.”

“And bigger on the inside as well.” Rarity added, hoping to throw him for even more of a loop. “I would love to talk more about it, but I do have dresses to make.”

Sunburst opened his mouth to respond to her first statement, but he really didn’t want to keep her any longer than he had to. So he just dipped his head in respect and gave a small smile. “It was really nice to meet you, Ms. Rarity. I’m, uh,” He couldn’t help but scratch the back of his neck as he fully let his guard down. “I’m honestly pretty happy that you, you know, accepted me as Starlight’s boyfriend immediately. I just hope the rest of your friends do the same.”

“Oh, they will.” Rarity told him almost instantly, shooting him her largest smile yet. “You make her happy, Sunburst. That’s all that matters to us. So long as you don’t harm a hair on her head, we’ll all be fine. Unless she asks you to, of course.” She didn’t even wait for Sunburst to process that last bit before switching gears back to normal. “It was nice to meet you as well. I would certainly enjoy spending more time with you soon enough. As friends, of course.”

Sunburst smiled, chuckling breathily as he shook his head. “Definitely. You seem like a nice mare to be around. You seem to capture all the best of Canterlot, making me feel right at home here.”

Rarity grinned, giggling softly as she put a hoof to her muzzle. “I’m happy that I could do that for you.” She told him before she turned around. She looked back at him one last time. “Have a nice night, Sunburst.”

“You too, Ms. Rarity.” Sunburst said as she finally retreated to the warmth of her home. Breathing a sigh, Sunburst shook his robe off of snow and turned around to face the castle. It was finally time for him to see his marefriend again. And then he embarked.

The walk took a few minutes for him but, due to the majesty of time jumps, we don’t have to deal with that.

As Sunburst approached the castle, he had no idea if he was to knock or if he was just allowed to waltz in as if he owned the place. Princess Celestia’s castle allowed him to just go in and out at any given time, whether it was to talk with the princess herself, or to awkwardly think of flirting with one of the guards in hopes of having some sort of love life. He’d always chicken out at the last moment, but he kept going back like something would change the next time.

Anyway, he knocked on the door, deciding not to be rude, and waited for someone to answer him.

Didn’t take long, maybe a minute or two, before the door slowly swung open. Though, instead of his girlfriend, a very nerdy horse, or even dragon, a stallion stood in front of him.

The black stallion looked over Sunburst with his tired green eyes, seemingly glaring at him without even trying. The stallion let out a sigh soon after. “You aren’t Scootaloo.” He grumbled in a shockingly deep voice. He gave Sunburst another once-over and was about to shut the door in his face before another voice spoke up behind him.

“Who is it, Sombra?” The female voice asked. It was closer to, but not quite, Starlight. That just made Sunburst even more sad.

The stallion, Sombra, breathed another sigh. “Right yes. Manners.” He grimaced and unintentionally shot Sunburst another tired glare before clearing his throat. “Well, who are you then?” The frightening stallion demanded a bit too forcefully.

The mare behind him didn’t seem to enjoy that, as a lavender aura soon surrounded Sombra’s tail, pulling him back as he tried in vain to find purchase on the crystal flooring.

The source of the magic, a young mare that everyone knew as the Element of Magic, appeared in the doorway to replace the scary stallion. “Sorry about that.” Twilight told Sunburst with a small smile. “He’s new. Not too good with Equestrian customs just yet.” Brushing past that quickly so that Sunburst wouldn’t notice that the stallion was the same one that nearly destroyed the Crystal Empire less than two years before. She looked him over, though much more kindly than Sombra did. A small frown overtook her face before she could fight it. “You must be Sunburst.”

The orange stallion ignored the frown as he nodded, fiddling with his robe as he did so. “Yes, I’m Sunburst. And you must be Twilight.” He then let out a huffy sigh, mostly due to how disappointed in himself that he was. “No, you are Twilight. I most certainly recognize you. I mean, you were a bit smaller back then, but it was definitely you. And, uh…”

Before letting him finish, Twilight nodded towards the inside of the castle. “Come in before you finish that thought. I wouldn’t want you to get your knees covered in snow. And we’re letting all the warm air out.” She then disappeared inside the castle, leaving Sunburst to fend for himself.

He scampered inside, trying to shake himself clean of snow before he entered. With his magic, he closed the door behind him, then looked forward to see Princess Twilight sitting at her throne in front of the large map in the center of the main room.

He walked towards the map, passing between the Laughter and Kindness thrones as he did so. Behind Twilight’s throne, he could see that Sombra was sweeping up while grumbling softly to himself.

“So, uh,” Sunburst stammered as he approached the map, not daring to even consider to sit in one of the thrones that was presented to him, “Like I was going to say. I’m deeply sorry for whatever trouble Event and I caused you back in magic school. We were stupid little colts, but that probably doesn’t excuse it at all.”

Sunburst expected Twilight to do something in response to the few times that he and his friend targeted her for their little tricks. Tricks like enchanting her books to only give facts about one specific building in Trottingham.

And yet she just shrugged, giving a small smile. “Alright. That’s all I really wanted.” She hopped off of her throne and circled around the map to approach Sunburst. “Honestly, I’m pretty much over it now. It didn’t hurt me in the long run. And your little stunt did help me out in one of my classes.” Now standing in front of Sunburst, she extended a hoof. “It’s nice to finally actually meet you, Sunburst. All I could think when Starlight was telling me about you is the dumb colt that made me cry.”

Shaking Twilight’s hoof, Sunburst smiled bashfully as he tried his best not to cringe and run away as he tended to do when confronted with his past. “I truly am sorry, Twilight. I’ve definitely grown as a pony since those days. At least, I hope so.”

“I’ll say so. Your manners seem to have gotten better, at the very least.” She told him, then looked over his odd attire. She grimaced slightly. The mare who had worn a frumpy yellow dress to a party full of Canterlot socialites grimaced. “It seems that your fashion sense has only gotten worse.”

Sunburst scoffed, pressing a hoof to his chest. “You insult me, Twilight.” He joked before looking down at his robe. “It’s not really my choice, to be honest. It was the only warm looking thing I had in my closet. It’s my Mage robe of sorts.”

“A Mage’s robe?” Twilight asked, a bit surprised as she looked it over once again. Come to think of it, it did remind her somewhat of the ones of old. Starswirl the Bearded came to mind, as his was the most stylish of the time. Still, it was an outdated fashion style for Mages at best. She certainly didn’t wear one. Especially not as shoddy as the one Sunburst had on.

Chuckling softly, Sunburst scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah. Even if I’m not officially one yet. Event made it for me before my first exam. It’s just kind of a habit to wear it each year, you know?” He smiled softly, remembering all the emotional value that the tattered robe held for him. Then he focused on the tattered bit, seeing how frayed and beat up the robe really was. He let out a small sigh at that. Maybe Rarity could help him out next time he saw her.

“I mean, those went out of style centuries ago, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts.” Twilight gave another small shrug, then sighed. “Anyway, you’re here for Starlight, aren’t you? She did say that you were going to stop by for Hearth’s Warming.”

“Oh yes.” Sunburst nodded slightly, scratching at the crystal tile. “I hope it’s not too much to ask. I just, you know, wanted to spend the holidays with her.” He let out a breathy sigh, shaking his head. “It is a bit odd, isn’t it?”

Twilight thought for a short minute, then shook her head. “No, probably not. I mean, I’m always with my friends during Hearth’s Warming now. Though I suppose I could invite Moondancer and the girls over every now and again.”

Both Sunburst and Sombra stifled a chuckle at that. The fact that Twilight still thought that Sunburst and Starlight were just friends. I mean, neither said anything about it to her, but any normal pony would probably read between the lines just like Rarity had. But still, Twilight was the Princess of Friendship, not Love. It would be best to not shake her worldview so horribly by telling her.

So, Sunburst just changed the subject. “Oh, you know Moondancer?” He asked with a smile. “She frequents my library. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her with any friends though.”

Twilight groaned softly, rolling her eyes. “Ugh, she’s probably sneaking off to study again.” She tsked, tapping her hoof and frowning. “Do you see her often?”

“Every now and then.” Sunburst answered, trying to falsify the information in the most believable way. “Usually I see her once a week. And I tend to be there almost every day. Event needs help, after all.” He kicked a hoof slightly, just to make any form of movement to lessen the lingering nervousness. “Still, she seems happier than before. That’s good.”

Twilight nodded, making a sound of understanding. Then the two nerd horses were trap in the awkward feeling of having nothing to really talk about. They could talk about Canterlot, but it was plainly obvious that neither of them liked the city at all. They could talk about Celestia, but it would just lead to the two fighting.

Thankfully Starlight entered from stage left, interrupting the both of the nerds in their hurried thoughts. Sunburst was the first to notice, grinning widely the moment he saw her. He couldn’t help but rush forward, nearly knocking her down with a big hug. It was a new thing for him, really, the feeling of an emptiness finally filling back up the moment he hugged her.

To a lesser extent, Starlight could feel the same thing. She wrapped her hooves around the stallion, rubbing them along his robe with an :/ face. “It’s only been a few weeks, Sunny. Calm down.” And still, she buried her muzzle into what little neck that wasn’t covered by cloth, then breathed a sigh.

Sunburst let out a low chuckle. “You know you missed me too, Lighter.” Still, he calmed down his hug a little bit, letting one forehoof rest on the ground as he moved to hold her with one. He then bit his lip. “Hey, so, uh,” he started in a whisper, “Does Twilight know about, you know, us?”

Starlight thought for a moment, then moved her head so that she could stealthily look at Twilight without her noticing. The purple mare held a stopwatch in her magic, frantically taking notes as she stared at the hugging horses. Starlight just slid back down. “I’m not sure she knows. Or cares.”

“D’you wanna tell her?” He asked, not daring to look back to see what she saw. She looked shaken. “I’m fine either way, really. Public displays of affection aren’t really my style.”

“Says the pony who kissed me in a train station.” Starlight reminded.

Sunburst gave a small huff, pouting very exaggeratedly at Starlight. “Why’s everyone gotta be so mean to me today?” He whined softly. He then subtly nuzzled his girlfriend, pressing his lips against her cheek.

Despite wanting to continue with this display of love, Starlight felt it was time to stop. Otherwise Twilight would probably get suspicious. She stopped her huggu, pulling back with a sigh. “Well, it’s nice to see you again.” She told him, smiling widely. She regretted it almost immediately, feeling that the words she picked sounded stilted and like she was trying to hold him at a foreleg’s length.

Sunburst didn’t mind, of course, as he was just happy to see the mare he loved. He resisted the urge to smooch her cute snooter, as Starlight must have had a reason to not tell any of her friends that the two were sort of dating. Some reason. Somewhere.

Instead he just grinned and turned so that he could face the two mares in the room, turning his back to Sombra, of course. “Well, uh,” he breathed a sigh through his nose, drooping his head slightly, “Gosh, I’m still kinda intruding, aren’t I? I probably shoulda sent a letter before I came.”

Both Twilight and Starlight shrugged, but Twilight was the first to reassure. “It’s fine. I think that a little bit of normalcy would be great for the holidays.” She tapped a hoof to her chin, thinking for a moment. “Starlight, do you think you could show him to his room? Pick whichever one for him. It doesn’t matter.” She looked over to Sombra, who was almost done with sweeping the snow Sunburst had tracked into the castle. “I, on the other hoof, need to teach a certain somepony about manners. Again.”

Sombra froze, grimacing largely before trying to make a run for it. His rushing was in vain as his black tail was grabbed in Twilight’s magic before he could even make it a few feet.

Twilight grinned, walking to the hallway opposite the one Starlight arrived from, pulling Sombra along the way as he clawed at the crystal flooring once again.

“Save yourselves!” The gruff stallion cried out, “Tell your children tales of my heroic martyrdom!” And then he was silenced by Twilight. He would never be seen again. Or, well, he probably would. After getting a serious talking to. Or worse.

Sunburst just blinked at the scenario that had just unfolded before him. As Jontron would say, it just sort of happened to him. He didn’t even participate in that. He looked over to Starlight, but she just seemed bored. She’d seen this much too often in the weeks she’d been back, so she was most certainly used to it.

“Here, let’s find your room.” Starlight told Sunburst, turning around and walking slowly. There was no real point in addressing any of that. Even Starlight couldn’t explain it.

Taking one last glance at Twilight and Sombra, Sunburst couldn’t help but let out a sigh. He then started to follow Starlight, shaking his head slightly. “Yeah, I definitely could use a nap.”

Author's Note

I got less lazy. Huh.

Chapter 9, almost done

Sunburst woke up in the early afternoon of the next day. Once being lead to his room in the castle, one right across the hall from Starlight’s, he couldn’t help but collapse on the bed and take his very, very long nap right then and there. Starlight had to let herself out, but not before fawning over how cute Sunburst looked when he was asleep, unconsciously grabbing a pillow and cuddling it close to his chest. It was absolutely adorable when he started to murmur in his sleep, stilted phrases from his dreams about odd and somewhat meaningless subjects.

Then he rolled onto his side and started to snore, making Starlight feel that it was time to leave.

But still, that was asleep Sunburst. We’re dealing with slightly awake Sunburst now.

He woke up sprawled across the bed, one foreleg hooked around the pillow he was having an intimate evening with. Can’t blame him, really, as it was enchanted to be warm and smell pleasant to whoever interacted with it. Smelled like home to him. Not his apartment in Canterlot. Just home.

His eyes slid open only to see a fancy headboard sitting in front of him. Certainly not something he owned. Then again, he didn’t own a bed for himself as well, so that was also confusing. His foggy little mind tried to force the pieces together, but he was still much too tired to accomplish such a feat. So he just pressed his muzzle into the soft bed and tried to fall back asleep.

Keyword: tried. The heating spell he had put on his robe on the previous day had faded, leaving him freezing in his guestroom. He opened his eyes and huffed softly, seeing his breath in the air. This was most certainly not normal for Canterlot.

Because it wasn’t Canterlot, he remembered, as he was visiting Starlight in Ponyville. He smiled at that. The fact that he and Starlight were together again. Just the thought made him wrap his forelegs around the pillow he had, grinning like a dumb horse.

Then there was a knock at his door, making him jump with a squeak. He quickly rolled out of bed, approaching the door with his head drooped low, as if he was afraid of what could be waiting behind it. As he opened the door, he was hoping for Starlight.

Nope. Former King Sombra stood in front of him instead, looking just as menacing as always. The tall, black stallion looked down at Sunburst, giving him an unintentionally disinterested glare. He didn’t mean it. He’s just a naturally tired stallion, given the many nightmares he has on any given night, so he just constantly glared. His lack of social cues didn’t help as well.

Sombra sighed heavily as he looked down at the terrified stallion in front of him. “Princess Sparkle and Starlight would like you to join us for lunch.” He explained. His voice was notably lighter sounding today, almost as if Sombra was making a very large attempt to not spook Sunburst as they chatted.

It didn’t exactly help much, as Sombra had the kind of intimidating aura about him that made Sunburst quiver as he stood. Still, he managed to somewhat regain his composure. Enough to respond without embarrassing himself, at least.

“Well, uh,” Sunburst dipped his head low, still feeling the need to show the utmost respect for the stallion, “Thank you, uh, sir. Tell them that I’ll be there in a minute. If it isn’t too much trouble, that is.” He breathed a small sigh, shuddering as he tried to not cry under the oppressive personality that Sombra exuded constantly.

Sombra frowned, though on his scared face it looked more like a scowl. Twilight told him that he still had a sort of effect on ponies around him, but this was the first actual evidence that he saw of it. A, seemingly, well-adjusted stallion was made a sniveling mess just from a few words and attempts at welcoming expressing.

The ebony stallion breathed a heavy sigh, dipping his head slightly as he closed his eyes. “Well this is not good.” He said softly. He raised a hoof slowly as he tried his best to calm the small stallion down. “Listen, I am not exactly trying to scare you. I know that I may seem very…” He sighed through his nose, scrunching his face as he tried to come up with the term. “I may seem very frightening, but I promise you that it is not intentional.”

Of course, Sunburst didn’t seem to be convinced. All of the better villains in stories he’d read throughout the years were ones that convinced the protagonist that they were most certainly not evil. And this egotistical bastard seemed to think that it was him who was protagonisting. To be fair, he was, but that’s still just not an assumption you make.

Sunburst looked over Sombra carefully, slowly coming back from cowering in front of the big stallion. He watched for any sign of movement or magic being used. After realizing that the massive stallion in front of him truly meant no harm, for now, he smiled slightly. “Uh, sorry for all that. You’re just absolutely terrifying when you glare like that.”

Sombra was slightly taken aback by that. Was he glaring? This was just how his face seemed to fall when he was trying to be nice. He pursed his lips slightly, then lowered his head. “I apologize then. I certainly am not intending to come through as scary. I have no clue how to not be imposing, I suppose.”

Sunburst thought for a moment, tapping his chin as he considered how to make this very spooky stallion less spooky. “Maybe you could growl less? Smile more?” He suggested, hoping that Sombra wouldn’t eat him for it.

“Do I growl?” The stallion growled in the form of a question. Sunburst didn’t have the courage to nod, but Sombra knew that the answer was yes. He took a deep breath, shaking his head, then decided to make the attempt.

Sombra did his best to smile. For a stallion that had never smiled in his very, very long life, he did kind of well. He knew the mechanics behind smiling, at least, as he’d seen Twilight do it very often when they talked. So he emulated.

Now, the problem here was that Twilight tended to show teeth when she smiled. Sombra had teeth that were frighteningly sharp, seemingly only good for tearing meat from bone. That was really just a misconception due to his formerly umbrum physiology. He was really more of a fan of vegetables.

Anyway, enough about headcanons. Sombra smiled, showing all of his sharp teeth. Now, this would be terrifying to Sunburst if the smaller stallion hadn’t focused on Sombra’s eyes. The big lug was looking down expectantly at Sunburst while also trying his hardest to hold a smile for as long as possible.

It didn’t take that long for said smile to fall though. He looked down on Sunburst, the smaller stallion holding back giggles, and frowned. A much easier facial expression for him. “What?” He demanded a bit too loudly. “What is so funny?”

Sunburst immediately straightened up, clenching his teeth as he froze in a sort of statuesque position.

Sombra let out yet another sigh, waving a hoof loosely. “At ease.” He then shook his head, his frown deepening heavily. “It seems that smiling is not quite my speed. I should try something else.”

“Or just keep trying this.” Sunburst suggested. “Just, you know, in front of a mirror and not me.” He dipped his head slightly lower at that, fighting back a sigh. “Your teeth are scary.”

“My teeth?” Sombra asked before he ran his tongue across them, nearly cutting it in the process. That garnered a deep chuckle from the stallion. “I do suppose they are still a bit sharp. Maybe I should see one of those ‘dentists’ that Princess Twilight was informing me about.”

“That could be for the best, sir.” Sunburst told Sombra, blushing a bit at his unintended formality. Thankfully, neither had a chance to dwell on that for very long, as Sunburst’s tum did a rumble. As it so happens, he had forgotten to eat at all the previous day, nervousness threatening to expel anything he made an attempt to eat at all. So he was a bit hungry.

Sombra chuckled once again, his face somehow contorting itself to resemble a soft smile. Though it still did show a bit of teeth, solidifying his intimidating persona even when he was trying to be normal and not a big meanie.

He let out a soft sigh. “We should probably join Princess Sparkle and Starlight for lunch now. They must be worried about where we both have been off to.” He took a large step back, then gestured a hoof down the hall. The overly long hall that branched off a bunch of times. “Shall we embark?”

Sunburst nodded, stepping out of his room as he cast a heating spell on his robe once again.

The two then embarked on a long trip to find the dining room of the castle. A room Sombra had only been a few times.

It took them a good amount of time and a whole lot of walking. There was also many silences between the two of them, neither knowing how to hold a conversation with another stallion without either consciously or unconsciously flirting.

So it was just walking and silence. If you’ve ever watched Gerry, you would probably know how it went down. Just replace sand with crystal flooring and the melodious singing of Kyle Kallgren, we all know you didn’t watch the full thing, with rhythmic stepping. Alright, that was in Gerry as well, but whatever.

Anyway, the two, after several minutes, happened upon the dining room by mere chance. Both Sunburst and Sombra assumed that they would be walking another of Twilight’s smooching rooms, but, lo and behold, they instead bumped into a severely long table, both Twilight and Starlight sitting near the head.

Also sitting with them, across from Starlight and with Twilight to his right, was a small purple dragon who was currently chewing on a few rubies. Very very vaguely, Sunburst could remember a dragon of the same color scheme being carted around on Twilight’s back on the rare occasions he saw her. If he remembered correctly, he explicitly made it a rule with Event to never involve the baby dragon in any of his pranks.

They all turned to face the newly arrived pair, making Sunburst blush and dip his head a bit. “Sorry I’m late.” He told them all, hoping his voice would carry far enough. “I was pretty tired when I went to sleep. Still didn’t think I was gonna nap for that long.” With that, he scampered on over to Starlight’s side of the table, sitting next to her and resisting the urge to nuzzle her. Instead, he just smiled bashfully at her.

“How was that ‘nap’, Sunburst?” Starlight asked a bit teasingly as she smiled at her doofy, bleary eyed boyfriend.

Sunburst’s smile grew ever so much wider as his girlfriend smiled at him. He was going to attempt to playfully glare at her for a moment before answering, but he just couldn’t manage to do it. Instead he let out a small sigh and responded. “Good enough for me to sleep longer than I have in years.” He grinned even wider, chuckling a small bit. “Heck, more than I have in years at all, probably.”

As the two lovebirds flirted, Spike shot a glance to Sombra, sitting to his left, who shot a similar one to Twilight. Sombra had informed her of the other two’s romancing over their solo dinner. So, the mare cleared her throat, wanting to interrupt the two before anything escalated. “Sunburst,” she started with raised eyebrows, then gestured to Spike. “I don’t believe you’ve formally met Spike yet, have you?”

“Oh, uh,” Sunburst jerked his head to face forward once again, looking at the baby dragon who had stopped mid-chew to awkwardly look across the table. Sunburst scratched the back of his neck, grinning oddly as he just wanted this to end so he could eat. “I suppose that we haven’t. It’s nice to finally meet you, I guess. You may remember me as the colt that Twilight probably whined a whole lot about.”

Twilight was, of course, quick to rebut. “I didn’t whine. I complained.”

Sunburst just shrugged. “Oh, tomato, tomahto.” He chuckled a bit before looking over to Spike once again. “I hope I didn’t cause any harm, indirectly or otherwise.”

It was now Spike’s turn to shrug, very obviously wanting to go back to eating his lunch in silence, then go back to his nap. “I don’t remember anything about you, so I guess you didn’t do anything.” He was then about to start eating his gems once again, but then he remembered his manners. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you too, Sunburst.”

Twilight nodded. It was nice to see that Spike still could keep his manners up when he wasn’t talking to someone he knew well. She had sheltered him for much too long, so she could never be too sure. Then, looking over to Sombra, she wondered if she could train whatever he had wrong with him out.

She shrugged. It was probably better to worry about that after lunch. She looked down at her already partially eaten daisy sandwich. “I guess we should just dig in then.”

There were murmured noises of acknowledgement from the rest of the ponies at the table, Spike already taking the initiative to loudly chew everything on his plate. The rest followed suit shortly after.

They got to eat for a good few seconds before Spike was wracked with coughs. The company around him was fairly worried, thinking maybe he had swallowed a gem whole once again, but most had their fears quelled when the little dragon belched a mighty plume of green fire. The flames coiled in the air, compressing and forming themselves into the form of a small scroll with a regal seal holding it closed.

Spike grumbled softly, grabbing the scroll and flicking the seal open with his thumb claw. “Dear Spike, the next scroll is meant for Sunburst and I would like it if he’s the first one to read it.” Just as Spike was about to question the letter, he once again breathed a fire of scroll.

The little dragon harrumphed, crossing his arms as he pouted at the new scroll. He didn’t quite like scrolls he wasn’t allowed to read, being the nexus of royal gossip that he was. Now he wouldn’t have anything to tell Sweetie Belle when he visited the Carousel Boutique after lunch.

Ignoring the miffed dragon, Sunburst grabbed his scroll from the center of the table and turned it over in his hooves. It was certainly the kind of parchment that Celestia would write on. And, if that wasn’t enough to convince him, the sun shaped seal holding it shut was most certainly enough.

He swallowed what little fluid his mouth contained, fairly obviously nervous at whatever the message could say. Just the fact that Celesia knew where he was was a bit odd, but moreover was the fact that he had, well, no-showed an appointment of hers.

Still, he broke the seal. It was probably just well-wishes for the holiday that she had forwarded over to Ponyville due to his vacation. Yep. That was it.

Dear Sunburst,

Twilight’s dueling room.

Noon tomorrow.

You won’t be getting away that easily.

Your reckoning,

Princess Celestia.

Sunburst didn’t say anything as he rolled the letter back up, resealing the scroll with a heating spell on the wax. He just stared forwards, past Sombra, and nodded as he let out a massive sigh. Before anyone could ask him what the letter said, his horn lit up for a split second, then he and the scroll disappeared in a flash of yellow light.

From way, way, way down the hall, the four remaining could hear anguished screaming echoing from what they all assumed to be Sunburst’s room.

With a small sigh, Starlight nodded. She stood up from her chair, pushed her chair in, then looked at Twilight. “I should probably take care of him.” She dipped her head a small bit. “Thank you for the meal though, Twilight. What I ate of it, at least.”

Twilight nodded, smiling gently at her friend. “I can keep it in the fridge if you’d like.” She turned her head to face Sombra, who nodded and gripped her plate in his magic. He quickly sauntered off to the kitchen so that it didn’t spoil.

And then there were three. Starlight shot an odd look at Twilight. “I guess I’ll just go and check on Sunburst then.” She told her.

“Alright.” Twilight said with a nod. Then she scrunched her face the smallest bit, thinking back to what had happened moments earlier. “See if you can find out what the letter was about. It seems a bit suspicious that The Princess would send something that she didn’t want me to look over through Spike.”

What a weird request. Still, Twilight was Starlight’s friendship advisor, so she must know something. Though this may not have anything to do with friendship. Even still, Starlight nodded. “I’ll see if I can get that out of him. Only after I comfort him though.”

And with that she swooced right out, rushing down to Sunburst’s room before he did anything that would raise the maturity level of this story. We’ll save that for a spin-off fanfic, maybe. We’ll see.

Sunburst’s door was still partially open, the stallion not remembering to shut it after he ran away for what had to be the hundredth time at this point. He was much too busy packing what little he had laid out the previous night.

He didn’t bother organizing anything, just throwing them back in the bag as he held back barely restrained panic. His heart was still beating wildly, breathing ragged as he just absolutely needed to get out of there now. Before Celestia found him.

He briefly thought over leaving a note, but decided that it both would take much too much time and would also be too dramatic for him. Best to leave without a trace, he decided. So he attempted to do just that, strapping his saddlebag to his back and hurrying out of his room.

Sadly, instead of being able to run like the coward he was, he bumped snoot first into Starlight. Both the horses fell back onto their rumps, a bit shaken as they shook their heads. Sunburst recovered first, stood up, and offered a hoof to help Starlight up. She graciously accepted.

“I hate to do this, Starlight, but I really have to go.” Sunburst told her nervously, his eyes shifting back and forth as if looking to catch any movement. “I probably won’t be headed back to Canterlot for a while, so don’t look for me there. I think Trottingham is nice this year.” He added absentmindedly before stiffening up. “You didn’t hear me say that.” He told her a bit sternly before pushing past her, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.

Of course, Starlight wasn’t having any of that as she pulled a page from Twilight’s book and wrapped her magic around Sunburst’s tail. Sunburst kept walking for another moment before falling on his face.

The stallion grumbled softly as he picked himself, then looked back at Starlight to glare for just a brief second before his face fell once again. His head drooped low as he looked at her apologetically. “Listen, I’m sorry that I have to go. I’d love to spend more time with you so we can do, you know, things.” He hoofed at the crystal flooring, briefly considering staying and facing the music just so that he could have a cuddle with Starlight. He shook his head moments later though, thinking it wouldn’t be worth the embarrassment. “I just can’t stay.” He decided before attempting to walk away once again. He also fell once again.

“Sunburst,” Starlight started as she, too, got on the ground, but this was to wrap her hooves around a prone Sunburst, “I don’t care what that letter said, whether it be blackmail or threats. You’re either staying here or taking me with you.”

Sunburst shook his head wildly. He couldn’t imagine taking her on the run with him. They would be like a modern day horse Bonnie and Clyde, minus the deaths, or a horse Thelma and Louise, minus the deaths and most of the gay. Most. Were they to leave together, they could bet on meeting a traveling magician at some point.

But enough about better plot ideas.

“I just can’t do it, Starlight.” Sunburst admitted, though he made no attempt to shake off the mare who had her hooves wrapped around his waist. If anything, he leaned against her for comfort. “Princess Celestia is going to be here tomorrow to duel me for the Mage Exam. I just can’t fail again. So I’m going to run instead.”

Starlight wrapped her hooves tighter around Sunburst, resting her chin against his neck. “No running. I just finished unpacking my stuff and I don’t wanna have to do that all over again.” She nuzzled against his shoulder, kissing him softly. “I know you’re scared, but I can help you through it. Both me and Twilight can.”

Sunburst just shook his head again. “I don’t want to drag you down too. I already ruined Event. I don’t want to hurt you.” He balled his hooves in anger, clenching his eyes shut. “Me coming here was just a mistake. I should have known this would happen.” And yet, he still didn’t make a movement to leave. Instead he nuzzled his head back against Starlight, sighing softly.

“And yet you’re not leaving.” Starlight pointed out. “Something tells me that you don’t really wanna run.”

“I don’t.” The scared stallion admitted after a few moments of heavy thought. “I just have to. I can’t beat Princess Celestia. I don’t know how anyone can!”

“Shush.” Starlight said, putting a hoof to Sunburst’s muzzle. “We’ll figure it out. Together. You know how the duel has evolved over the years, Twilight passed the exam years ago, I have oddly creative ideas behind my magic, and Sombra…” Starlight scrunched her face, thinking. “Well, Sombra has something to bring to the table as well. Years of knowledge, I guess.”

Sunburst did a grumble in response to that, pouting a bit at the thought that he should accept any help with something he was oh so capable of performing alone.

Another boop to his snoot was enough to quiet his displeasure with the scenario. “We’re helping you, Sunburst. Your friends are going to help you through this.”

Sunburst didn’t respond. He just pushed Starlight back a small bit so that he could turn around. He couldn’t quite hug her back any other way, right? So, he wrapped his hooves around her, cradling her head as she nuzzled against his neck. His head sat above her own, chin resting on her horn. He held her tight, not bearing the chance of letting her go for even a moment.

Starlight giggled lightly as she tried her best to become comfortable in her new position. “So, I guess I’ll take that as a yes?”

“It’s a yes.” Sunburst told her softly, nuzzling his muzzle against her mane. Despite him thinking it was oddly creepy, the smell of her mane helped him calm down and feel safe as they held each other. “I guess I can give it one last try before I go into hiding. I probably couldn’t hold it up for long anyway. I’d miss you and Event a whole lot. Mostly you though.”

“Good thing you’ll pass this year and never have to leave me.” Starlight told him, shaking her head softly. “Never ever ever. Ever.”

Sunburst nodded in agreement. “I’ll stay. Even if I’m a failure of a stallion.” That garnered a swat from Starlight, followed by a nuzzle from Sunburst. “Fine. I’m gonna do great. I’ve got a Mage, a creative, and someone to intimidate the Princess if she doesn’t let me pass.”

Starlight couldn’t help but smile at that. “Now you’ve got it.” She closed her eyes, dipping deep into the cuddle and sighing softly. “So, how’s about we go and do one of those training montages? Spike and his girlfriend can do the music.”

Sunburst chuckled, muffled slightly as he pressed his muzzle against hers for just a moment. “Not a bad idea. But let’s do that later. I wanna keep this up for a little while longer.” And, with that, he went back to nuzzling her mane in an attempt to keep himself calm. Still, there was one last thing to say. “Thank you for this, Starlight. I probably woulda run all the way to the Griffon Lands if you didn’t stop me.”

“You’re my boyfriend, Sunny. I gotta keep you from disappearin’. Otherwise I’m a bad date, or something.” She gave a shrug, then buried her face into Sunburst’s neck scruff.

“I still feel like I gotta say it, you know?” He pouted a small bit, wishing then that he’d just stayed quiet about it all. Still, he was in the thick of it now. He needed to continue. “So, you know, about all that stupid stuff I was saying about leaving you behind and stuff.”

He sighed, giving a small, tired smile as he thought of what he could possibly say to fix what it is he had brought upon the two of them. He pulled her closer to his chest, constantly needing more and more comfort. “I’m sorry.”

Author's Note

I was going to have these last few chapters released in real time. Sadly, next chapter has yet to be wroiten.
Little under a week at best, depending on quality.
Or, you know, later than that.

Chapter 10, I level with the audience

Sunburst spent the rest of the day preparing mentally and physically for his duel the next day. Most of the day was spent being tutored by Twilight on the finer arts of dueling. What better a teacher than one who has first hand experience, no? Even still, she gave very formal, stilted explanations on the events to proceed. She also seemed very annoyed that Celestia hadn’t issued the duel in an official, sanctioned way. They had just skipped, like, five steps. There wasn’t even a chance to negotiate a peace.

That’s what frightened Sunburst. He could memorize every counterspell in history, and he was kind of being forced to by Twilight, but he had absolutely no idea how Celestia would be treating this. When he’d dueled her before, in a severely controlled environment, she was both playful and inventive with her spells, but not giving up a sense of command in doing that. How would she be when he had wronged her so much?

The very thought made him want to run, but then he looked over at Starlight as she rushed in between books while she tried to come up with something, anything, that could give Sunburst an advantage in the duel. He wanted to tell her to rest, especially after catching her nodding off in a pile of books on magic theory, but he knew she would just smoosh his face and tell him to shut up.

On the side, Sombra gave Sunburst tips on surviving an actual duel with Celestia. He had done so years and years back, after all, so he was probably someone to listen to. From what he told Sunburst, she was a particularly vicious duelist who would attack at any weak point she spotted. And she certainly spotted very many.

The one thing that seemed interesting in Sombra’s whole slideshow was that Celestia gravitated towards more harmless spells, intending to incapacitate instead of maim. This had the added benefit of catching whatever pony she was dueling off guard, seeing as not many had memorized how to unglue hooves from the ground. Sunburst quickly got to work on reliving his childhood and relearning all of those spells once again.

He spent many many hours in the library, just reading. Every now and then, Spike would come in to bring him food, or to keep him company and watch him work. Sunburst reminded him of Twilight in that right, as he was just pouring over the books and absorbing every little bit of knowledge he could in the time he was given.

Even still, the hours turned into many and everyone had to go to sleep in order to prepare for the big day. Every single one of them would be behind Sunburst. Even Twilight, who had signed on as Celestia’s number two.

Sunburst was starting to doze off, every now and then bumping snoots with his book and sleeping until his snoring woke him up. Starlight, the only one to stay with him after night had long ago fallen, noted this and approached him from behind, nuzzling at his back. She told that it was time to go to bed and he, noting the drool that had dripped upon his book, decided that she was right.

The two retreated to their rooms, though Sunburst, unable to walk for a few feet without stumbling and falling asleep on the floor, was forced to bunk with Starlight. He wasn’t complaining, of course, as he draped his hoofsies around Starlight and held her close. Much like he would with a pillow. He fell asleep almost instantly, leaving her to deal with the snores.

The both were woken fairly early in the morning, somewhere around nine, so that more preparations could be had. Starlight was woken first, though she could do nothing without the waking of Sunburst. She was trapped in a cuddle, which most certainly wasn’t the worst way to die. Still, she jabbed him in the ribs which seemed to wake him up almost instantly.

The orange horse let out a sound that resembled a mix between a groan and a snort. Even still, he gripped Starlight closer to him as he tried to figure out what just caused him so much pain. Then he looked down at Starlight and forgot all about any pain he was in.

“Heya Lighter.” He said, still a bit sleepy as he buried his muzzle into her mane. Not too long after did he close his eyes and start snoring once again.

Starlight sighed. She didn’t have time for this. She jabbed him in the ribs again and, while he was confused and had lost his grip, slipped out from between his forelegs. She went around to behind him and started to push him with her snooter. “It’s time to get up, Sunny. Princess Celestia is gonna be here in a couple hours.”

Sunburst let out a weak sigh at that, hiding his face with his hooves. As courageous as he was the previous day, he most certainly didn’t want to face the music today of all days.

This forced Starlight to take drastic measures as she harrumphed, laying her body over Sunburst’s and pouting. She nuzzled against his neck. “Sunburst, don’t throw away your shot on this. You’ve got all of us to help you and everything.”

Sunburst groaned softly. “Fiiiiiiiiiiine.” He whined before leaning back to sneak a kiss on Starlight’s cheek. He slowly slipped from the bed, standing up and stretching his back until there were crackling sounds that definitely didn’t sound healthy. He grimaced as he looked to the door, knowing that he would have to rise up to face everything at some point.

He looked back at Starlight, still laying on the bed, and grinned. “C’mon. Let’s go and practice some more. I need a plan to win, don’t I?”

Starlight nodded, and so they left together.

The next few hours were spent entirely on practicing counterspells, quick spells, and the art of the duel itself. Twilight and Sunburst went back and forth for an hour, just firing color change spells. Of course, everything was interrupted when both got tired and their magic ran low. They both had to eat a good meal after that, Sunburst’s being larger as he needed all the magic he could get.

All they got was two and a half hours though, as Princess Celestia arrived at precisely 11:30. Thirty minutes before the duel.

Her arrival was fairly low-key considering a mare of her regality. She just teleported into the main room of the castle, a large burst of light and a loud pop being the only things that signaled her appearance.

Sunburst, still in the library studying while he ate, almost immediately hid under the table and started shaking. Starlight, looking for more books, quickly soon after got under the table to comfort him.

“You can do this, Sunny.” She told him as she pulled him into a hug. Her hooves played against his back, trying to calm his shuddering breaths down to close to normal. “You’ve studied for this. She won’t know what she’s goin’ up against.”

“She’s ages old, Starlight.” Sunburst rebutted. And yet he still wrapped his hooves around her. She was most certainly helping. “She has tricks upon tricks hidden in her regalia. Whether figuratively or literally.” He let out a loud sigh, pressing himself closely to his girlfriend. “I just feel like I’ve run out of time. If I had more of it, then maybe it would have made a difference.”

“Would that be enough?” Starlight asked, a plan already blooming in her mind of how she could help. “I do know a spell that could help with that. For a while, at least.”

This garnered a small chuckle from Sunburst. “As hard as it is to say no to this offer, I don’t want to trouble you like that.” He undid Starlight’s hooves around him, sliding out from under the table with a sigh. “I’ll never be satisfied until I master every single spell and counterspell ever. And that’s gonna take a whole lot of time. More than I have.”

Starlight also unhid herself, standing right beside Sunburst. “Just you wait. You may find a way some day.”

Sunburst shrugged. “Yeah, some day.” Then, looking at the door, he put on a courageous smile and left the room with his girlfriend right beside him. Celestia would rue the day she fricked with the two of them.

Celestia awaited in the dining hall, sipping on tea as she waited for Sunburst in order to finalize the duel. She sat beside Twilight, making very awkward conversation as the two waited for Sunburst to finally arrive.

Sombra and Spike were also there, sharing glances but not saying much of anything. They just sat there and drank their tea.

Sunburst didn’t take too long though, only making them wait in agonous awkwardness for some minutes. He got lost. Don’t blame him. Anyway, he entered the room like he wasn’t well past even fashionably late. He did his best to avert his gaze from anything Celestia related, instead keeping his eyes on her second, Twilight.

She seemed oh so nervous. It was understandable, considering that this was the first time in her life that she wasn’t completely on The Princess’ side on something. It was a terrifying, yet intriguing prospect. Were this her story, she would be having an epiphany at the moment about how she is the one thing in life she can control, but that’s an if.

Sunburst sat down across from Celestia at the table, Starlight sitting to his left to mirror the other side’s placement. It was at this time that he was forced to look at his opponent. To look into her eyes and see her intentions and feelings on what was to go on. And yet he saw nothing different. The same mirth, regality, and general air of mysteriousness were still there. Though they were all hidden under the same mask she tended to put on constantly, so there was no telling what she was bringing to the table.

The Princess was the first to speak, pressing her hooves together as her elbows rested on the table. “I hope that you weren’t up all night studying because of me.” She smiled softly at Sunburst, almost as if she hadn’t issued a duel on the previous day. “I know firsthoof what kind of effects that can have on somepony’s magic.” She then looked down to Twilight who was trying her hardest not to explode under the pressure. “I remember back when both you and Twilight were learning under me. Her first, and only, duel with me ended with her collapsing due to studying without any sleep for it.”

Twilight blushed, turning her head away as she pouted. “Well I still passed.”

Celestia nodded, smiling at her student. “Of course you did. I said it was your only duel, did I not?” She turned to face Sunburst once again. He took this as an insult, as if she was saying Twilight was better because of it. She just enjoyed that two of her favorite students were spending time with each other.

“So, how are we going to do this?” Sunburst asked, cutting to the chase of all of this. He only had about ten minutes until he had to duel her. He might as well have spent that time getting some insight. “This obviously isn’t a normal duel between us, so I’d like us both to have equal knowledge of the happenings on this.”

There was an audible as the sun goddess looked between the ponies and dragon sitting around her as they all looked at her for an answer. She then furrowed her brow at the question, giving an oddly mortal response. “Not a normal duel? What, did you all decide upon something before I came here?” She sighed softly, pouting a little. “You all, of all people, should know I dislike surprises.”

More audible silence, though this time it was confusion that caused it. There were many varying answers that the others in the room expected, from trial by fire to actual murder, but that was most certainly not one of the options.

“Then what was that letter about?” Sunburst asked, then looking over everyone else who was with them. “The letter clearly stated…” He then stopped when he realized that they were all now looking at him in a confuzzled way. “What?”

“You’re the only one who actually read the letter.” Spike said, the first to speak up against the orange stallion. He then started to pout once again, crossing his arms. “I wanted to, but no. Apparently it was too important for me.”

The group couldn’t help but smile at the fact that, no matter how well spoken and adult the small dragon was, he was still a child. And this was probably his most childish act yet. For now.

“Spike,” Twilight chimed in, shaking her head, “How about you get the letter for us then? I think it’d be fairly important.” She looked over to Sunburst. “Where exactly would that be?”

“Oh, it’s probably still on my bed.” He told her, thinking back on it. “I left it there when I, uh, retreated.” He scratched the back of his neck, blushing just a little bit. “I didn’t go back to my room after that, so I doubt I moved it.”

“Then where did you sleep?” Sombra asked as he lay his head on the table, honestly wishing he could go back to bed as well. He’d spent all of his sleeping time training an idiot for a duel that wasn’t going to happen, dredging up bad memories as he did so. This made him annoyed. And tired.

This just caused Sunburst to just blush harder and harder as he thought it through. “Well, I kinda bunked with Starlight last night.” He gave a small shrug, trying to downplay it a bit. “I was too tired to care. And she offered.” He looked over to Starlight for any form of help.

She blushed and looked away. “Spike, could ya go and get the letter already?”

Spike, disgusted by the quick turn to the romance, and also sad that he wasn’t with his romance partner at the moment, slid out of his chair with a sigh. “I’m on it.” And then he scampered on off to do the thingie.

While he beeped off to Sunburst’s room, the rest were just ready to settle down. The atmosphere around them was calmer, at the very least. Everyone was still a bit high strung, understandable considering the previous few hours.

Celestia was the one leading the small talk, but it didn’t take long for everyone else to get caught in the fervor of her conversation. She was a very charismatic woman, of course, due to her years of social experience. Though some of it was natural as well.

They all spent a good amount of time chatting, and laughing, and having a good time while Spike was gone. And it was all gonna continue if Spike hadn’t entered with the scroll in his hand, grinning wildly and full of pride. “I got it!” He told them with a good amount of happiness. He then moved over to Celestia so that she could read the letter that she herself dictated.

She breezed right through it, of course, as the letter was barely twenty words long. Then she set it down on the table and breathed a sigh. “Well, this is probably the letter I dictated to Raven. I can’t actually remember it all that well. She may have said something about spicing it up a little.”

“So, I’ve been worrying about nothing?” Sunburst asked, a bit peeved that he wasn’t about to have the duel of his life. He was relieved, yes, but he had just spent the past few hours expecting that death would befall him. Or something even worse.

Princess Celestia just shook her head, chuckling a good bit. “Well, you’re more well prepared than you have ever been. Maybe you’ll be getting your certification just in time for Hearth’s Warming.”

“Ugh.” Sunburst laid his head on the table to join Sombra, grumbling in agreement, as he breathed a huge sigh. “I wanna go back to bed.”

With that, the town’s clock tower chimed loudly. It was finally high noon.

Celestia grinned at her orange student as he cringed heavily. “Well, I suppose it’s time to get to work.”

Celestia and Sunburst stood across from each other in Twilight’s dueling room. A room that she didn’t quite know was there until The Princess had pointed it out. It was right across from the smooching room, oddly enough. What great surprises that came from the beautiful castle they were in.

Sunburst was slinking close to the ground, terrified of the failure that he was sure was going to come from the ending of this duel. Still, he managed a smile at his teacher, hoping that she would be gentle with him.

She most certainly wouldn’t. But she smiled anyway, just in order to catch him off guard. She, like most ponies, enjoyed how flustered he got when he got messed with. Though, sadly, it didn’t seem that he would be doing much being flustered at the moment. Maybe later. Some day.

Being the only thing resembling a fair judge, Twilight stood between them. Sombra, Starlight and Spike stood off to the side sharing a bag of popcorn. This was probably going to get good. Or maybe not. It all depends on your humble author’s writing skills.

We’re screwed, I tell ya. I can only write romance and make references to better things. Like Hamilton. If you hadn’t yet noticed. Just you wait. It’ll happen more.

“I suppose I can trust the both of you to put up a fair fight.” Twilight said as she looked between the two battle-ready ponies.

Princess Celestia shrugged, her smile growing a bit wider. “I don’t know. I have been known to use ‘dirty tactics’ to win a few of my duels.” She looked over her competitor, then looked back at Twilight. “I suppose it all depends on how he decides to play it.”

That was not nice news. It only served to make Sunburst more terrified to face up against her. Still, he was going to go through with it. He had promised Starlight that much, and he’s already gone through enough breaking promises he’d made to her.

“I’m going to play it however way I want to.” Sunburst told her, then nodded at Twilight. “I’ll still be fair though. No reason to break any rules.”

“Oh calm down.” Celestia joked, waving a hoof gently. “I was only kidding. I’m going to keep this all very fair. Though I suppose I may goof about just a bit.” The mare pressed a hoof to her muzzle, giggling softly.

Twilight nodded, looking between the two ponies again. “I guess we can start then.”

“Uh,” Sunburst thought for a good second, then looked over to Starlight, “I need just one second.” He quickly walked over to his love, wasting no time as the wrapped his hooves around her and buried his muzzle into her neck, sighing softly as he did so. He waited for several more moments, nuzzling against her neck, before he looked up at her with a big grin. “I love you, Starlight.” He told her softly, just so that only she could hear.

Instead of reciprocating, Starlight simply swatted the stallion lightly on the snooter. “We can do this after you beat her, Sunburst.” Even still, she leaned down to smooch the dumb horse. He’d need it. As a reminder of what he was really fighting for.

And so Sunburst just scampered off back to where he was standing before. He was finally out of excuses to delay, so he would have to face forward and do the thing.

Twilight most certainly wasn’t going to allow any more distractions to happen. She was running on a schedule, and the running was already late. Silently, she set the two ponies facing away from each other. She made sure that their hindlegs were pressing against each other before taking a step back.

“Alright, start counting.” She commanded, sitting back to watch the sparks fly between the two opponents.

Both ponies nodded and, in perfect concurrence, started counting as they stepped in time. “Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf.” It was a bit of a habit for the both of them to do this during a duel. Sunburst picked up the habit years ago from his first duel, and Celestia picked it up a near millennia ago from some flamboyant Prench revolutionary. To the side, Twilight crossed her hooves and pouted. That was their thing, not his!

“Dix!” And with that, the two ponies swung around fully prepared. And then they…

Well, they had a duel.

Confession time, here’s what I got. Your humble narrator, the driving force behind this tale, has found difficulties in transcribing thoughts into words and, therefore, has decided to forego it almost entirely. Even still, they can give you the notes and ending. That’s the best that can be done, sadly.

Celestia, baring massive amounts of magic power, spent most of the duel sending volleys of spells at Sunburst, forcing the stallion to either dodge or counterspell and leaving no room for him to fire back at all. Her tactic is just to tire him out and make him forfeit. Like always.

Of course, those times were all in a neutral environment in Celestia’s castle. For reasons unbeknownst to anyone but the plot, a large mirror hung on the wall for Sunburst to steal and reflect a few spells back at Celestia with. This bought him enough time to look over to Starlight and blah blah blah that’s the power of love. Some revelation was supposed to happen revolving around how he needs to loosen up and be a bit more creative with his spells.

And so he does be more creative. More magic beams are shot from horns, this time an equal amount from each party dueling. It went back and forth for a good while, but then Sunburst started to tire out.

Obviously, now it was time for a finishing blow to Celestia. Even if she didn’t have half a health bar down. Something about not throwing away his shot would be fairly apt at the moment, but I don’t know an exact quote to use. I’m not going to wait for it.

So, Sunburst glued his hooves to the ground to stabilize himself for his next spell. Then, taking a page out of Starlight’s book, he glued a good amount of prank spells he’d personally used against Celestia years and years back, along with whatever spells he picked up from his hurried studying. And then he fired a massive beam of magic at Celestia, knocking her back and wasting the rest of the magic he was allowed without ruining himself.

And then he took a nap on the floor. That’s where we’ll pick up next time.

Author's Note

Pretend this was uploaded on the 24th.
Please direct all your hate comments to the comment section and/or my PMs, please.

Chapter 11, I never expected it to get this long

After that affair, Sunburst woke up in his room a few hours later. Unlike his slow, almost romantic awakening the previous day, this time he snapped awake the moment he felt a dark presence looming over him. As such, he jerked awake with a startled cry.

Sombra, looking Sunburst over while he slept to check his breathing, was slightly taken aback at Sunburst’s sudden screaming. Not enough to emote, but enough to pull back just the smallest bit. The large stallion sighed softly. “Well, at least I know that you are well enough to scream. A good sign, I would say.”

Sitting up in his bed, Sunburst slightly questioned why anyone would be worried about his vital signs. He also wished he could go back to bed. He was having a fantastic dream about napping with Starlight. And yet he was sure there was something he was missing.

After moments of thought, it hit him. Literally. Sombra threw a document in his face. A very important piece of paper got stuck to his face.

Ripping it off, Sunburst just figured it was yet another letter from Celestia saying that, while she would love to give him his certification and end this sham the two had been running for years, he had failed yet again. He almost wanted to tear the thing up.

Thankfully he didn’t. Otherwise asking Celestia to give him another certification because he ruined it would have been very awkward. Instead, he read it. And, in doing that, he learned that Celestia didn’t have anything against him passing his exam. He was just screwing up and making her do the thing. She didn’t wanna do it.

Sunburst smiled. Well, more grinned. Widely. Massively. With tears in his eyes. As he hugged the certification to his chest, crumpling it horribly. It would never look right in a frame now. Making his eyes tear up more as he pulled it back to look at it in horror. He nearly started to sob because he felt it was ruined.

Sombra just sighed and pushed over a framed plaque with the original placed in it. No worry. Celestia thought of everything. Like always. What a smart horse.

As such, Sunburst tossed the ugly copy away and took his real certificate. The first thing he decided to do, surely on a mission to ruin every copy, was to kiss the beautiful, framed display of how good he was at magic. Years after he was supposed to earn it. Literally years after he was intended to get it. What a loser.

And yet he was so ecstatic when he held it to his chest once again, squeeing loudly. And also forcefully. All he wanted to do was share his accomplishments with the world. Starting with one pony, obviously.

He couldn’t resist before dashing out of his bed, tangling himself in the sheets and slamming down on the floor with a thud. Not really caring about the pain, he stood back up, shook himself off, then escaped the room to find Starlight’s.

Sombra just sighed loudly and shook his head before moving to reset the sheets for later. “Merry Hearth’s Warming to you too.” He grumbled softly to himself.

Of course, Sunburst was too busy crossing the hall to even hear Sombra. Not that he cared. He was basically the help anyway. The attractive, yet very frightening maid. And yet nothing compared to his true love.

But enough about Event. That would make Starlight jealous.

Sunburst knocked on Starlight’s door, practically bouncing as he waited for her to open it. He couldn’t wait to tell her that he, for once, didn’t screw something up. And then they could hug and cuddle until the next day. Then he could give her the present he found for her. That’d be nice.

The grumbling heard from the other side of the door sort of ruined that plan for him. Through the door, Sunburst could hear grunting, fumbling, and a heavy amount of sighing. He was a bit worried, but he managed to not break down the door with his newly found Mageitude.

But then more plan ruining came from Starlight opening the door. She stared, almost glared, at Sunburst with very tired eyes. Letting out another sigh, she tried her best to smile at him. It didn’t go over that well. She stopped soon after. “Whaddya want, Sunny? It’s, like, later than I feel like measuring time in.”

Sunburst tilted his head for a moment, then, eyes tracing over to the window behind Starlight, noticed that it seemed like night had long fallen. “Wow,” he said in slight disbelief, “Did I sleep that long?”

“Well, you used up almost all your magic on that last attack, you know.” She informed, reaching up to softly swat his snooter. “Don’t be so dumb for your next duel, you dummy.”

The orange stallion shot her a grin that could only be fueled by a good night’s sleep. This annoyed her severely. “What makes you think I’d be dueling anyone again?”

Starlight reached up and booped his forehead with a hoof, right under his horn. “You’re gonna annoy some pony somewhere with that big brain of yours, and you won’t have enough smarts to apologize for anything.” Even as she insulted him, she leaned in for a kiss that he was all too willing to allow. It didn’t last for long, of course, Starlight pulling back to quip more. “At least I know you’d have enough sense to let me be your second.”

Sunburst shook his head. “I’m not gonna duel anyone. Unless they say something mean about you, that is.”

“I can fight my own battles.” She quipped back.

Sunburst just shrugged. “Never said you couldn’t. Fighting to defend your honor just kinda sounds like it’d be fun.” He grinned at her, hoping to indicate he was joking slightly. “Oh, I’d bleed and fight for you,” he sang in an absolutely off-key tune, “I’d make it right for you.”

Starlight stuck her tongue out, disgusted in his horrible singing skills that would surely disappear once a group song happened. Or something to push the plot along. “Stop it,” she whined playfully, pushing a hoof against his chest, “You’re ruining a song from a show I haven’t even seen yet.” She then frowned very largely.

Sunburst leaned down to nuzzle Starlight, then eyed the room she was in once again. “Do you think we could continue this inside? I feel like sitting down, really.”

“You just want an excuse to cuddle with me.” She responded, seeing right through the stallion.

“Absolutely.” Sunburst nodded. Nothing’s wrong with being honest about your needs. It’s not healthy to lie to your significant other.

This was all Starlight needed to hear as she backed up to allow him entrance. He smiled kindly and pushed into the room, nuzzling her as he passed. Quickly Sunburst took a position on the edge of her bed, making sure to leave enough room for her to sit down right next to him. She took her position with a small sigh, slightly wishing that he would prefer snoozing over chatting. Give it time.

But for now, Sunburst was happy enough to snuggle up against Starlight. He wrapped a hoof around her, pulling her close to him and nuzzling his snoot up against her neck. “I love you, Lighter.”

Starlight sighed, leaning against Sunburst to hold herself up. “As much as I’d like to entertain you for a while and tell you, maybe show you, exactly how much I love you,” she gave a small yawn, cutting off her entirely, but letting her finish moments later, “I just wanna go back to bed.”

“Can I, uh,” Sunburst started to blush for absolutely no reason. The two were dating for heck’s sake. Even still, he smooched her neck to calm himself. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

“Isn’t that what you came in here to do?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Oh. Yeah. Right.”

They then immediately moved to laying down on the bed, hooves wrapping around the other’s body as they faced each other. They held each other fairly close, muzzles either pressing into necks or buried in manes.

Sunburst looked down at Starlight with a big grin. “So d’ya hear how I did on the exam?” Obviously she could just read his face and see that he, for once, was happy to speak about the exam. And that would be the answer.

And yet she already knew the answer, of course. Twilight had told her after Sombra told Twilight which only happened after Sombra nagged Celestia for an answer. “You passed. You’re finally the wizard you always wanted to be. Yay. It’s time for bed.” With that, she pressed her muzzle into his neck with a ‘hmph’.

“At least be happy for me.” Sunburst whined with a very sad sniffle. “And here I thought you’d wanna party after hearing the news.”

Starlight grumbled softly. “I wanted to party when I first heard the news. At least twelve hours ago. Night time isn’t party time.”

“Depends on the type of party, really.” Sunburst retorted. This garnered a swat to his muzzle. An experience that was becoming much more common for him. He recoiled a little bit, but was back with a kiss soon after. “Fine. Let’s go to bed. Even if I did just have a really long nap not too long ago.” This is when Starlight nearly swatted his nose once again, but he dodged by hugging her closer.

Instead of following it further, Starlight just accepted that her boyfriend was a doof and attempted to fall asleep in his warm embrace. The key word here is attempted, of course. As it always is. While Sunburst did follow her lead soon after, he was bitten by the thought that he was missing something. Something important.

He attempted to think it through as he nuzzled her softly, trying his best to not wake her from her slumber. That, of course, stopped when he remembered exactly what he’d been missing in the first place. “Oh frick.” He muttered as he pulled back. “I forgot that I had something to give you, Lighter.”

Starlight groaned extremely loudly, fairly angry that she had to give up her precious sleeping time for this dumbo. What a nerd. How could he sleep at night? With Starlight cuddling him, o’course. “It can wait ‘til tomorrow, Sunburst.”

“It can’t.” Sunburst decided quickly, not even letting Starlight nestle against him once again. “It’s, uh, pretty really important, honestly. I dun wanna forget about it, or I might leave it in my bags when I go back to Canterlot.”

Starlight let out a very loud sigh, but lightened up on her holding of Sunburst, letting him leave. “Do it quick. Better not be anything loud or bright.”

“You’ll love it. I swear.” He assured with a grin. And, with that, he made a quick exit to cross the hall once again. He entered his room, dove across his bed, then dug through his saddlebags for a small framed picture that he absolutely knew Starlight would love. Well, it all depended on how she saw her past, at least. He was sure she would love it though. Mostly. Almost. Kind of.

Before that number could drop any further, Sunburst dove over the bed once again and sauntered off back to Starlight’s room. Hopefully before she fell asleep once again.

Entering, Sunburst saw Starlight splayed across the bed, breathing softly as she slept. Sunburst moved in quickly and nosed her playfully, shaking her awake in no time.

Her eyes slid open and she stared at Sunburst, daring him to do anything at all. Sunburst, the dimmest light bulb in the box, set the photo down on her chest with a very large smile. Starlight took a minute before picking it up, quickly going over in her mind the repercussions that could come from going back to bed right now.

Then she looked at Sunburst and decided that, no matter what came from it, it would be a mean thing to do. She couldn’t do that to him. Just look at his happy little face. As such, she picked the thing up and stared at the photo.

She didn’t regret it after that.

The photo was a winter shot of two very smol horses working their hardest to piece together an okay looking snowpony before the sun went down. I say working their hardest, but the small orange colt was just sitting on his rump with his hooves in the air, looking like he was directing the purple filly instead of helping her. Said purple filly, her mane tied up in twintails even in the dead of winter, seemed to be glaring at the colt as he ordered her around. All the while, she was rolling up a massive ball of snow for their snowhoers. Neither of them seemed to notice the pony that was taking their picture, whoever it might have been.

Starlight stared at the picture, trying her best to remember when it was that this picture was taken. She had a vague memory of Sunburst telling her what to do, but that was kind of a constant during their childhood. Even still, she didn’t need the memory. She gave a small smile while she looked up at Sunburst. “Where’d you find this?”

Sunburst scratched the back of his neck, fighting down the massive amount of pride that came from getting her a gift as awesome as that one. “I kinda stopped by Sunnydale a week or two back. Finally caught up with my mom and dad after, like, ten years.” He breathed a very small sigh. “I really shouldn’t have waited that long.”

“Well, you and I have the same issue.” Starlight said softly before looking back down at the picture. “I don’t even know where my parents are, honestly. They could have moved years ago for all I know.”

Sunburst moved to sit down next to his gril. “They’re still next door to my parents. We all had dinner together, actually. I even told them I’d bring you back one of these days.” He then shrugged and wrapped a hoof around her, checking out the photo as well. “They really miss you, Starlight.”

“I dunno.” Starlight told him, slumping a bit. “It’s been so many years. I don’t think I can catch up with anyone after that long.”

Sunburst thought of a multitude of things to say. So many jokes he could make about how wrong that sentence was, but instead he just nuzzled her with a soft smile. “I’d never force you to do anything, Lighter. Just keep it in mind. Maybe you could sleep on it.”

Just the mention of sleep made Starlight yawn loudly. She leaned over to snuggle against Sunburst just the smallest bit. “Yeah, sleeping on it sounds good.” With that, she grumbled softly while closing her eyes, only to open them a moment later. “Oh yeah, Twilight wants to take us to the Hearth’s Warming play in Canterlot. The one she’s taking part in.”

“I’ll sleep on it.” Sunburst decided fairly quickly. “I was never a fan of plays. Musicals are great, but plays are not.”

“It has music in it.” Starlight protested.

“Doesn’t count.” Sunburst told her as he grabbed the picture, setting it up on her nightstand as he argued with her. “ ‘Cookie’ is a musical. That dumb Hearth’s Warming play can’t even come close to compare.” And then he flopped down onto the bed, readying himself for the sleepings.

Starlight didn’t debate. She didn’t quip. She didn’t even have a second thought before laying down next to him and reclaiming her position from before. “Are you gonna go to sleep now?” She asked with many a hope in her heart.

“Eh, maybe.” He told her as he wrapped his hooves around her. “I can always talk more. Though that could help you sleep too.”

“Just get on with it.”

He was about to open his mouth, but he decided, upon seeing the large bags under Starlight’s eyes and how she could barely keep said eyes open, maybe it wasn’t the best of times to talk about his future living arrangements and job. Instead he shook his head. “Nevermind. We can talk about it in the morning.”

That was all Starlight needed to hear. Moments later, she had her head nestled against Sunburst’s chest and she was snoring up a storm. A small storm. Very soft snoring.

Sunburst just chuckled lightly, softly enough that it didn’t wake her up. “Nighty night, Lighty Light.” He then chuckled slightly louder at his dumb joke, swearing that he would use it when she was awake some day.

Author's Note

Pretend I uploaded this at, like, 2AM on the 25th.

Epilogue: Don't expect a sequel

Starlight knew this feeling well, she'd felt it oh so many times before and never before liked it. But it seemed like life was turning it around on her.

She waited on the bench at Ponyville Station, hooves gripping tightly at the edge due to her very understandable hatred of train stations. She was in wait of a very nice and sweet pony, so her anxiety was through the roof.

But that all ended soon, as the purple mare heard the whistle of the 2 o'clock train before it pulled into the station. Her heart leapt out of her chest as she leapt out of her seat. The ponies around her, mostly business ponies coming to Ponyville to close a deal, stared in somewhat annoyance. Not that Starlight cared at all.

The train fully pulled into station and Starlight waited with baited breath for the pony that would soon emerge.

And she waited, seeing the large groups of ponies disembarking.

She waited more as the smaller groups of stragglers stepped off, most stumbling and yawning after being woken from their naps.

Starlight was nearly disheartened, especially after seeing ponies around her stand up to bard the train. This feeling, however, didn't last for very long.

"You've just gotta flip it turnways," came a nerdy, but cute voice, trying its best to sound stern as it gave an order.

"I am turning it," came the reply, somewhat angry, but still forgiving, "You're the one twisting it wrong!"

Following the sound of the voices, Starlight saw an orange backside sticking out of one of the train's doors, said rear bearing a very familiar mark. The mare smiled and quickly ran over to see what all the trouble was about.

Of course, the two stallions were too busy fiddling with their luggage to notice Starlight approaching, then staring and making fun of them.

Sunburst continued to tug mercilessly on his very large and very full duffel bag, putting all of his weight into it as Event Horizon, still trapped in the train, leaned on it and pushed with all of the energy he cared about.

"I told you you shoulda packed light." The brown unicorn sighed, still pushing limply on the bag.

"This is light!" Sunburst protested, gritting his teeth in angry as he tugged and tugged on the luggage furiously. "I could have fit so much more inside of this thing, but-"

The orange stallion was cut off abruptly as the bag finally dislodged itself from the doorway, causing him to fall back with a yelp. Thankfully though, he didn't have much to fall. His luggage, however, landed squarely on his chest.

Starlight was quick to help him up, untrapping him from under his duffel bag and pulling him off of the ground.

Sunburst, while happy to see her, was very flustered that it was their first meeting in months and he was already making a fool of himself. Not that Starlight cared. He made a fool of himself a lot, and her not care was evidenced by the tight hug she gave him.

He emitted a sound that was a mixture between a scoff and a sigh, though it was a fairly happy sounding horse sounds, as he hugged back. "Uh, hey Lighter. I, um...hey." He smiled softly, a blush growing on his face.

"I missed you too, Sunny." Starlight told him while she smooched his snooter lightly. Letting go of him moments later, Starlight smiled and offered him back his bag, and he accepted it with yet another blushy smile and thank you while he fiddled with his glasses.

"Alright lovebirds, I'd love to let the two of you flirt all day, but I've gotta say goodbye to my best friend." With that, Event Horizon hopped out of the train car and approached the two right at the middle. First, he looked to Starlight. "Sorry, sweetheart, but I'm going to have to borrow your boy for a minute or two." He then shot Sunburst a glance with his green eyes. No words were needed.

Sunburst sighed, looking at Starlight. "I guess I gotta take this." He chuckled softly, scratching the back of his neck. "Think you could keep an eye on the bag a moment longer? It's got the keys and a bunch of stuff for the, um, place." He tried to shoot a reassuring grin.

With that, Event lead Sunburst a few feet away so they could chat semi-privately. And the brown stallion headed the private discussion by hugging the heck out of his best friend.

"I'm gonna miss the heck out of you, buddy," Event told his hugglebuddy, suddenly crying ever so slightly, "You just had to get yourself a non-Canterlot mare, didn't you?"

Sunburst hugged his friend back, also emitting some tears of half joy/half sadness. "It's not like I'm dying, Event, I'm just gonna go away for a while. You can still visit."

Event rolled his eyes, wiping a tear away with a hoof. "Gonna be hard to do that as a head librarian, but I can definitely try." Pulling back from the hug, he poked a hoof into the fluffy orange chest of Sunburst. "So long as you can remember to send me a letter every now and then, you freaking nerd."

Sunburst just sighed, shaking his head with a big grin. He gently batted the taller stallion on the chest. "I'll get to it!" He whined, blushing softly. He then cautiously turned his head to look at Starlight, who was casually looking away from their conversation so as to not intrude, then looked back to Event with a shy smile.

Stepping closer to him so that he could speak more candidly, he beckoned his friend of friends closer. "Listen, I, uh, I'm gonna see what I can do about talking to Starlight about, uh, us." He gestured between the two of them awkwardly before continuing. "I know we didn't really, you know, end on the best of terms but, if Starlight is interested in sharing, we could probably, uh..." He trailed off, not even knowing how to finish that sentence.

The awkward silence didn't last for more than a moment before Event took Sunburst into yet another hug, though it was seasoned with nuzzling that was a bit more than just friendly. "Sounds great, but I should probably go before the train leaves without me." He hugged for a few seconds more, then pulled back very hesitantly. Looking Sunburst in the eye, Event smiled and patted his good buddy on the shoulder. "We can talk it over whenever you send a dang letter, alright?"

Realizing that arguing would only waste time, Sunburst just bowed his head in defeat and smiled. "I'll get right on that tonight. I promise." The orange unicorn hesitated for a moment, then sneakily leaned in to kiss Event on the cheek. Pulling back quickly, he shot Event a grin and, not even giving him the chance to respond in turn, he gave a small wave and went back to join his girlfriend. Not because he wanted to be rude, but because he had absolutely no idea how to continue that.

Event Horizon, noting the fewer and fewer ponies boarding the train, knew his time in Ponyville was up for now. Pressing a hoof to his cheek and blushing heavily, he cherished the moment for as long as he felt he could. Then he stepped on the train to return to Canterlot, but only without his best friend joining him for the ride.

Sunburst, however, immediately went back to hugging Starlight. "Alright, so I've got a letter to send when we get settled. I think that's going to be fun."

"If you can remember to send it, at least." Starlight ribbed, smooching her boyfriend on the snooter. "But first I assume you can spare a few minutes with your darling marefriend, right?"

Sunburst chuckled softly, nuzzling the purple unicorn dearly for several moments, then pulling back to grab his luggage from her. "We'll just have to see, won't we? For now, however," the stallion hefted the heavy duffel bag with his magic, obviously struggling with even holding it up, "We should probably, uh, get home first."

Both ponies felt their hearts swell as Sunburst said 'home'. Just the sound made both of them feel happier than ever. This was all the two needed to embark on their journey to the cozy cottage Sunburst had purchased. Well, that and Starlight helping Sunburst carry most of the duffel bag.

"So, we're totally gonna cuddle when we get there?" Starlight asked, nudging the stallion that was walking right beside her.

Sunburst let out a mix between an exasperated sigh and a huge chuckling. "I think I have to swing by the library to talk to Twilight about a few things." He looked to the side to see Starlight pouting heavily. He nudged her back. "Then we can cuddle. You think I'd just do nerd things instead of spending time with you?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, fair enough."

Author's Note

Well, I'm disappointed I didn't get more rave responses to what was supposed to be an inverse April Fool's Joke, but heck it. I'm free.

Prologue

Starlight paced back and forth in front of the Canterlot Library. She’d been doing this for half an hour now, only stopping to look at a slip of paper for a brief moment, and ponies were already starting to stare at her oddly. A few had asked if she was lost, but they didn’t get much of a response. This was a mare on a mission. Even if she wasn’t very intent on completing it.

But this was still a mission put forth by a princess, though not really officially until Starlight all but demanded that it had to be, and the classic punishment for failing one of those was a nice one way trip to literally anywhere but Equestria. One way in that if you dare to come back, you won’t see much more than a wooden basket and hear much more than sharp metal.

Using this as incentive, Starlight finally made her way up the stairs, passing the two oddly creepy Unicorn statues, and entered before she could think of running again.

And suddenly she was hit with the lovely aura of learning. The sound of ponies turning pages and quietly chatting to their neighbors about how good they are for reading, unlike those nasty Pegasi.

They were then shushed by the head librarian as he sat at his desk, overlooking the main room of the library as he watched on with a kind eye. He didn’t care much for casual bigotry. Everypony was equal, despite their differences, and that’s what made them all special. Once the troublemaking horses quieted down, his blue eyes flicked back to his book and he continued reading once again.

This stallion caught Starlight’s eye instantly. She recognized the light orange coat, his muzzle splotched with a star and strip and the white socks on his hooves. His mane was a little different, combed to the sides as opposed to the mohawk she remembered, but this was most certainly her childhood friend, Sunburst.

But she couldn’t just approach him. What if he no longer remembered her? What if he just forgot about her when he disappeared off to Canterlot? What if he openly resented her for never attempting to make contact after that day?

With these worries in mind, Starlight slinked off to a far corner of the library where he couldn’t see her, but she could see him. She sat down at a table and just stared intently.

He certainly grew up. Where there was once a rambunctious little colt, there was now a fine Unicorn stallion with an obvious kind heart. The way his smile grew when he helped a little filly pick out her first book, or how he listened intently to how badly he was doing his job showed that in spades. Just like she remembered, he treated everypony like equals. She always admired that quality about him.

And still, she just sat there staring at him. The ponies that once sat around her had since moved, as that’s just creepy and they wanted no part in it. Starlight sighed and put her head on her desk. Her ‘mission’ was to befriend, not to stare at. She was, once again, a failure. All she had to her was a failed town experiment, multiple attempts on the lives of literally everyone in existence, and an unknown number of foal abuse charges to fall back on.

And a good amount of friends, she remembered moments later. Ones that loved her for who she was and not because of the power she threw around. She didn’t even have to bribe them, or force them to almost die. They just came to her and listened. Then again, it was mostly Princess Twilight who brought them to her, but it was a start. With that in mind, Starlight almost got up to talk to Sunburst. Almost.

When she attempted to, she looked up to see him staring at her from a few feet away. He was tailed by a fairly confused mare who obviously just wanted a book. He turned back to the mare and gestured down the aisle to his left. “It’s, uh, right down here, Ms. Dancer,” he said, his voice making Starlight jump. It was so different, and yet similar to how she remembered. “I’d show you where it was,” he continued, then looking over to Starlight, “But it seems something came up.”

The mare nodded and left, leaving the two childhood friends to awkwardly stare at each other. Sunburst quickly moved to take a seat across from Starlight in order to stare more comfortably.

There was another long moment of silence that passed between the two, only broken when Sunburst decided to open his mouth. “What are you doing here?” He said, though not in an accusatory fashion. It was just a question asked to someone he hoped was still a friend.

It was a good question. In that moment, Starlight completely forgot the speech she’d planned in order to win his friendship back after all these years. All she had were notecards, and that wouldn’t go over well. “I don’t know,” she said simply, “I just saw you when I came in and I didn’t know what to say, so I ran.”

Sunburst chuckled, a warm chuckle that had stayed the same after all these years. “I meant why you are here in Canterlot, not in this dark corner.” He smiled brightly, much like his name implied, “It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Fifteen years,” Starlight said almost instantly before a blush took over her face, “I think.”

Sunburst shrugged, “I stopped counting after five, to be honest.” He said, making Starlight frown a bit. He tapped his hoof on the table to draw her attention. “I am joking, Starlight, I promise. I am sure that I have missed you just the same as you have me.”

Starlight looked at him oddly. While he looked and smiled like the pony she remembered, his wording and mannerisms were completely different. She remembered a loud and brash pony, but all she saw was a stuffy old Unicorn. And still, she nodded. “I sure missed you a lot.”

“And I you.” Sunburst said with a nod. His ears twitched as he heard someone behind him call his name. Turning around, he saw that the checkout line had grown exponentially from when he last saw it, and ponies were now getting antsy. He cleared his throat, turning back to Starlight. “I would love to catch up now, but it seems that I have to do my job. But if you would like, there is a nice coffee shop near here and I am very free tomorrow. Would you like to meet me there?”

Starlight froze. She hadn’t expected him to want to do anything with her so soon. If she said yes, he might laugh at her, but if she said no he might think her rude. No, he will think she’s rude. She tried her best to smile at him. “I’d love to meet you there. I just need to know the name.”

“Oh,” he said, chuckling a little bit, “I believe the name is Clydesdale Coffee, but I could always be wrong.”

Starlight nodded, committing the name to memory. “I suppose you should be off then?”

“I suppose so as well.” Sunburst scratched the back of his neck. “Do you think I could get a hug before I go?”

All Starlight did in response was open her forelegs in preparation for the hug. Sunburst respectfully (read:prudishly) went to hug his new old friend. It wasn’t the closest of hugs, he kept her at a bit of a distance, but the warmth still shined through.

Sunburst pulled back moments later with a smile on his face. “It is really nice to see you again, but I guess I have to be off. What do you say we meet at the place at noon?”

“I’ll be there.” Starlight said. “And you better be there too.”

Sunburst smiled. “I will, I promise. But for now, I have to bid you adieu. Until tomorrow, at least.”

“I’ll see you then.”

With a small wave goodbye, Sunburst returned to his desk to tend to his patrons. This left Starlight to plan for tomorrow.

It was certainly a start.

Chapter 5, making this surprisingly longer than I wanted.

Sunburst stumbled into his home at around midnight, just after finishing his work day at ‘his’ library. It was dark inside, which would have made him question something if he hadn’t been beyond tired at that point. Instead he just blamed Event Horizon and moved on, turning on the lights as he dropped his saddlebags by the door.

After turning on the lights, he heard a soft groaning from the living room, otherwise known as Sunburst’s ‘bedroom’. Sighing, Sunburst walked the very small distance between the door and his ‘room’, only to find Event curled up on the pull-out sofa. Unfortunately, the sofa was still in its sofa stage, so Sunburst couldn’t just curl up beside his best friend as he’d had to many many times before.

Again, Sunburst let out a sigh as he gave a tired smirk. “Gosh darn it,” he mumbled to himself before approaching the sofa from the front. It almost hurt him to wake Event up, as he was kind of adorable as he slept.

He slept with his back to Sunburst, curled up around the pillow he had snuggled against his chest. His breathing was soft and calm, probably the only time in his life that something like that could be said about him. He even had a small smile on his face, which made Sunburst feel even worse about planting a hoof on his side and roughly shaking him awake.

Event was startled, of course, as he was so rudely awoken. That fear was quickly quelled the second he was picked up in his friend’s familiar bright yellow magic. It had a slight warmth to it, an odd trait for a Unicorn’s aura, and it made him want to go back to sleep. That and the fact that he was having a pretty nice dream about sleeping on the sofa. He was a stallion of low standards, you see.

Anyway, Sunburst set Event gently on the ground beside him and quickly reclaimed the sofa before anything else happened. He could bedify it after Event found his own.

Speaking of Event, he blankly stared at Sunburst for a few moments, not quite understanding what just happened due to his sleep addled state. “Why’re you home?” He asked. “It’s only, like, ten. You should be stacking books or somethin’.”

“I finished up with ten about two hours ago,” Sunburst said as he reclined in comfort, “You know it’s midnight, right?”

Event continued his blank staring, the information running very slowly through his mind. He could have sworn it was ten just a few seconds ago. Then he closed his eyes, and then Sunburst appeared. It was simple math. Of course, it was then that a very dim light bulb popped up above Event’s head. “Did I fall asleep?” He asked.

“Probably.” Sunburst responded. “Why were you on my bed though? Were you waiting for me?”

The lightbulb got brighter as Event remembered that was exactly what he was doing. “That’s exactly what I was gonna do.” He said as he scrambled back onto the couch, taking the little space that Sunburst left for him. He then pouted at Sunburst. “You never told me what happened yesterday. With you and the girl.”

Sunburst made a small, questioning sound. His escapades with Starlight were the furthest thing from his mind at that point, especially after pushing them away to focus on work. And yet here they came flooding back as he grimaced. “What about it?” He asked, not wanting to keep info from his best friend, but also not wanting to talk about it.

“Well, am I going to have to rent a suit yet?” Event teased. “I just wanna know what went down. Whether I should be buying something for a wedding or a baby shower first.” This is where Event was expecting Sunburst to chuckle or something. He knew that Sunny’s sense of humor wasn’t the best, but most of the time he at least laughed where he thought the joke was. Event pursed his lips slightly. “Things didn’t go that well, I take it?”

“Things went perfectly.” Sunburst said in the most neutral tone he could. “Starlight is opening up to me, and I think she really trusts me. And, if I’m being entirely truthful, I think I trust her as well. For the most part.”

“Why the most part?”

Sunburst let out a long sigh. “She’s an interesting one. Weird interesting, not the good kind. Well, maybe both, but... “ He didn’t finish that sentence, just biting his lip slightly. He looked over to his best friend. “Can I trust you to not say anything that I tell you?”

Event nodded. “Of course, dude. I don’t have much of anyone to tell anyway. Unless you’d like to hear your own secrets.”

Sunburst smiled a bit at that. “Okay well, Starlight is pretty freaking interesting in that she, uh,” he braced himself a small bit, “She ran her own town. One that had her, and I’ll quote her directly here, ‘stripping other ponies of their special qualities’, and I really have no clue of how to deal with that.”

There was a moment of silence before Event cleared his throat. “Well, that’s definitely interesting. Are there any details, or, like, is that all she said?”

Sunburst shrugged. “I honestly cannot remember. I was, uh, a bit sidetracked after that.” He sat up a bit in his seat, preparing to explain. “So, she and Princess Twilight managed to figure how to time travel years in the past and I couldn’t let that opportunity slip past me.”

“That’s very interesting,” Event said nodding in feigned understanding, “Did you two kiss or anything?”

“She hugged me.” Sunburst said simply. “I hugged her back.”

“Like, a romantic hug?”

“A friendship hug,” Sunburst corrected,” We’re just friends.”

“Friends.” Event repeated to himself with a nod. “Was it a good hug, at least?”

Sunburst shrugged. “It was a bit forced, but definitely still nice. I’d do it again, definitely.” He then sighed, stretching his back out a bit. “I guess I’m a bit thrown off by her…” He stopped, trying to find the correct word to use.

“Insanity?” Event suggested innocently.

“Hey!” Sunburst reprimanded suddenly, throwing off even himself, as he shot an angry glare at his friend. He quickly caught himself, though, and apologized. “Sorry, I just don’t want anyone to make fun of my friends. Not even my friends.”

Event waved it off, deciding that he wouldn’t fight his friend. Not yet. “Don’t worry. I understand perfectly. But maybe you shouldn’t hang out with her? She seems like a bad influence.”

“Hey, bad influences is how we met, isn’t it?” Sunburst reminded, thinking back to the antics they got down to when they were little colts.

“I didn’t enslave ponies, did I?” Event Horizon responded.

“You didn’t,” Sunburst said, trying his hardest to keep his cool, “But you didn’t live in a horrible town without any friends either.”

“You know that’s absolutely not true.” Event said, frowning, as he finally became the slightest bit serious.

“You’ve had me for the past fifteen years,” Sunburst reminded, “From what she’s told me, she didn’t have much of anyone.”

“So you left her behind, and it’s somehow your fault? She can’t make any friends?”

Sunburst grit his teeth, finally losing it. He had a choice to make here. Either side with his friend of fifteen years, or his friend from fifteen years ago. There were no real winners here. And still, he made his choice.

“Can you please just lay off her?” He asked with a stern glare at Event. “She’s been through enough as it is. She admitted to me that what she did was horrible, and she regrets every second of it, though those weren’t her exact words.” He took a deep breath, clearly needing it to finish his rant. “I can’t say that what she did wasn’t awful, but she’s clearly trying to repent in any way she can. She’s been making new friends in Ponyville and learning what true equality is under Princess Twilight’s watch. She’s trying in vain to get to know me better, but you and I both know how that’ll go.” He gave a small, humorless smile at that. “And, beyond anything, I trust her. Shouldn’t you?”

Event bit his lip, suddenly in the spotlight. He then shook his head slowly. “No, honestly.” But, before Sunburst could respond in anger, he raised a hoof. “But, I do trust you. So, if you want to do this, I won’t be stopping you. I’ll just, you know, be watching if anything goes wrong.”

Sunburst, sort of giving up on helping his friend through this, just shrugged. “Sure, that works.” He then opened his forelegs wide, offering a hug to his friend. “Now come here. I’m sorry for yelling at you, and all that.

Event jumped at the chance to hug his friend, trapping him in a warm embrace. It was a closer hug than any Starlight had given him. And more full of loving nuzzles. Still, this wasn’t any different from any other hug they’d shared before, therefore it wasn’t weird. Right?

Sunburst grinned widely. “I love you, buddy.”

Event Horizon grimaced slightly. “I, uh, love you too...bro.” A large blush grew on his face. “And I’m sorry for that. I know you get mad when I mention it.”

And just as soon as they came together, they separated. The rest of their conversation was on not-Starlight subjects and, therefore, isn’t very important. They just watched wrestling, falling asleep on top of each other during the second hour and ending up cuddling the next morning.

No homo.

Author's Note

I'm slowing down with these chapters, I know.
I can't promise it getting better either.
I'm sorry.

[Intermission] - Letter 1

Dear Starlight,

Well, hi. First off, I’m kind of sorry that this didn’t get to you sooner. Everything here in Canterlot has been so hectic recently, so I haven’t had much time to myself, I guess. Still, it hasn’t quite been fifteen years. That’s good, right?

Anyway, past the hecticness, life’s been pretty good. Kind of. It’s complicated. Recently, I’ve been subtly giving Event more and more duties at the library. He’s going to replace me as Head Librarian eventually, even if he doesn’t really want to. He got mad recently, actually, because you and I are ‘dating’. He kind of saw me first, so it’s understandable, but it all just faded when I told him he’s still my best friend. And, you know, the Mage Exam is happening, I guess. How’s Ponyville this time of year, by the way?

To be honest, I this letter has sort of an ulterior motive to it. See, I have a few weeks of vacation days that I have to use by the end of the year, lest my higher-ups get mad at me. Again. Really, Celestia just wants me to take a break. The problem here stems from my lack of anything to use it on. I tend to hate taking vacations because I have nothing to do. But, seeing as next week is Hearth’s Warming week, I was sort of wondering if you’d be willing to ‘host’ me during that time. Not, like, host host. I can get a hotel no problem. If Ponyville has any hotels, at least. Is it a tourist location at all? I know that the Elements live there and all, but I’ve never heard anyone wanting to go there. Could just be Canterlot ponies though.

And, before I ramble too much, I should probably finish this up. I hope to get a letter from you soon enough, but don’t rush because of me.

With much love and warmest regards,

Sunburst.

Author's Note

Yes I'm this lazy.
Fight me.

[Intermission] - Letter 2

Dear Sunburst,

Hey there. Glad to finally get a letter from you, Sunny. Took ya long enough, to be honest, but it was definitely worth the wait. Don’t be too hard on yourself about it, by the way. We were young. Now we aren’t.

As for how Ponyville is, well, that’s a long one. Firstly, Twilight’s been getting a bit lax on the friendship assignments due to our ‘guest’. She wasn’t kidding when she called him interesting, but you’ll get to know that once you meet him. He won’t bite, I promise. Secondly, the girls have been all over me with questions about you. It seems you’re a bit popular in Ponyville now, especially after what I’ve told them, so they really do want to meet you. Especially Pinkie. She’s dead set on throwing you a huge party the second you set hoof in Ponyville. Other than that, a few friendship lessons and a monster attack are all that’s happened. Pretty boring, really.

So, you should probably pack warm when you come down here. Unlike Canterlot, we like Winter. Which means snow boots, scarves, and coats galore. If you don’t really have anything, Rarity could probably make something for you real quick. Her treat, of course, with her being the embodiment of Generosity and all. As for hotels, we don’t have much in the way of those yet. Like you said, no one really wants to visit Ponyville. But I’ve talked it over with Twilight and she said there’s enough rooms in the castle for you to stay there as well. If you’re comfortable with that, at least. If not, we can think of something.

Now, I might need to wrap this up. I promised Spike that I’d take him out for ice cream and he’s getting a bit antsy. I hope that you travel safe, and please don’t overwork yourself before coming.

Love,

Starlight Glimmer.

Author's Note

Still this lazy, yes.