It is Hearth's Warming Eve.
Everypony is ready to prepare for their joyous night, whether it's hay with cider, cocktail with pizza, whatever you name it. It's all for the fun of it!
Fillies and colts are told comforting and mind soothing stories, opening up presents, making presents, wrapping up presents, staying up all night to watch the ancestral spirits flashing back to life again, and again, and again.
Ponies are huddled together in families, and friends. Well, all but one mare that is.
"Alright, we'll see you tomorrow, Starlight!" Minuette called back as she walked down the street along with Lemon Hearts. Two goodies in a gift bag.
Starlight Glimmer waved back and began trotting back to her temporary residence, the old library and home, where her mentor Princess Twilight Sparkle used to reside in.
"That Twilight Sparkle." Starlight chuckled to herself as she entered the large structure. By the windows she can get a nice peek of the glorious Canterlot night. She couldn't help but smile along with the happiness along with the city's flaming nights. She threw her purple scarf that had a bit of nature green added onto it, onto the brand new sofa that replaced Twilight's old one. This library has been mostly replenished by the Royal architects, sent out by Princess Celestia to give Starlight a shelter to stay in until she's fully ready to go out into this new world, all on her own.
'Funny too, how the snow hasn't arrived yet.' The mauve purple unicorn repeatedly thought of this in her head, just demanding those bright flakes drifting through the stark cold. She then sighed and snatched a book from the library shelf, which most of them of course, were borrowed from her mentor, Twilight Sparkles.
Just like pinning the tail of a pony, the book Starlight took out was titled, "How to Keep Your Fire Burning (A Hearth's Warming fireplace special edition)", written by an anonymous pony. Starlight rolled her eyes, thinking as if this was a filly's game. Probably made for fillies too.
Awkwardly though, she looked to her left and right, sighing with relief, and jumped onto the green cozy couch with that book she was mocking at first place. She opened to the first pages and began leafing it one by one. How ironic of her.
The truth is, that book isn't written for fillies nor colts at all, it served as a figurative language vanguard, to introduce on what is actually inside the book. It read,
"Have you ever felt empty and hopeless? Because you lost too much or took too much? Well here's a fantastic idea just for you-"
"No thanks I'm not buying it." Starlight closed the book and returned it back to the shelf, rolling her eyes and sighed, the book seriously had her prefer to stare dead into the ceiling.
Just, images of her past kept on blinking onto the ceiling, Starlight tried to shake her head to let it all go, but it remained there, solid as an ancient statue. Giving up, Starlight let the haunted memories seize her, and she kept on thinking about it. The climax was when her best friend, Sunburst, received his cutie mark when he was only a colt through saving Starlight from a avalanche of thick books, he also reorganized them back their original spots, and abandoned Starlight in her house. Sooner on, he gained fame for his powers of keeping order and of course, blazing his shine like the sun.
Frown formed on Starlight's mouth, she couldn't bear the fact that she lost her one and only friend until now. She did make some new friends, but they weren't close enough to truly become her friends yet. It makes Starlight wonder when will she ever have a true friend, a pony who would always be there for her, a pony who would always give her presents and receive from her on this very special Eve. A pony who would always write letters to her no matter how far...
"I guess my heart does feel empty and hopeless at times." Starlight drooped her head low and is now staring at the redwood floor, how beautiful but disturbingly mesmerizing. A lot of ponies she met or introduced by Twilight weren't her best choices of being "close", they share nothing in taste, emotions, feelings, principles or moralities, morals, sense of the world they live in, the list can go on and on and on.
Sunburst was the closest guess to being her favorite friend, but he ditched her in the endless well, didn't he?
"If I can only put back all the pieces together, even if they cannot be the same exact shape," Starlight said, her eyes were about to burst, as she rubbed them gently with her hooves. "I need somepony right now to be with me."
Although they haven't been together for a very long time, Starlight knew where Sunburst lived since his fame had released his residence awhile ago. All she had to do now, is set up a paper and execute it, send it to his address, with her name on it, and pray for the best. So she did, as she walked up to her desk in her bedroom, sat down on her wooden chair, lit a bulb with her magic, grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from the cup, and now she's seemly ready.
'I don't even know if I can write this... Oh my lord...' Starlight slowly shook her head with her pen in her magic grasp, trembling with extreme nervosity, her paper is being saddened by her incoming tears. Distressed and exhausted by her worries, Starlight nevertheless clasped her hooves together, and began writing,
Dear Sunburst,
"UGH!" Starlight fumed and released the pen onto the table, her head and hooves onto the desk, she was aware that she would struggle having to deal with this mess. She felt corrupted and disrupted, didn't want to suddenly come out of nowhere and talk to somepony whose relationship with her has been ceased many moons ago.
To forgive or to forget? This question comes up into her mind instantly when she thinks of Sunburst, which is ridiculously crazy. Obviously, Starlight attempted to convince herself that there is no fault between them two, but it still hurts just thinking about how naturally this path had been set up for her, all Sunburst had to do is to curve it and not reunite with her anymore.
But she had to do it, she vowed to herself that she must fix everything and make her dirt path straight and solid as possible. The former villainous mare took a gulp that nearly choked her, and slowly breathed out from her nose. She continued on with her letter,
How are you? It's been quite awhile since we talked, you must've been through a lot since you found your self interest. Living in Manehattan with all the fame and wealth must've had you pretty sweet, didn't it? Well, I had quite an experience myself with all the ponies around me, they made me who I am today. Even though the road was hard.
Ever since you were gone, I had to struggle all on my own. I didn't think I would need another friend ever, only because they are not the same kind I am, they share nothing with me, so why would we even like one another if we do not have anything alike? That is what happened with you and I: You earned your cutie mark, and thus you carried on, while I'm trapped here in this pitfall of mush and graves. Your talent and mines are different, you lived differently from me, I had nothing to keep up with you. I believed that was the same with everypony, which sums up to the silly conclusion I made about not being able to make bonds with others. I had thought: If we were all to be equal, then I can make friends, then I can feel noticed, because nopony is above the other.
And so I did, I have been working on this project of equalizing everypony into this place I made called "Our Town", with a powerful spell mastered by nopony up to this date since it was created. Years and years I have been practicing it, just to strip the talents off other ponies, so that we all can be forever equal and the same as one. I thought everything I done and worked so hard for was all worth the price.
Until, that is, a princess you and I both are very aware of, Twilight Sparkle (now my personal mentor too!), arrived to Our Town with the five of her (very best) friends. If it weren't for them, who knew where Equestria would've been heading to, a unity of similarity among every single pony, Our Town would've been Equestria herself. I still wonder even after abandoning that insane belief: whether equality makes everypony truly happy. I mean, it kind of worked until that Fluttershy (I think that's how you spell it?), revealed my secret: I wasn't part of the pact. In order to keep my magic to force everypony under my cult, I had to make a fake equal mark to show everypony that I'm along with them.
I still feel as if, Twilight and those who still were unique in their own ways before confronting me, are only against my ideal simply because of the way they saw the equalized ponies under my control. If they were fully convinced after being equalized, I'm sure they would be pretty satisfied with being equal as well. They were just too afraid to change who they originally were, that's all. Welp, I guess it did not work out after all once everypony knew that I was an irrational hypocrite.
I was lost and detached even more after I fell from power, it's just... That I'm tired of being different from others, and that difference is what seperates me from them. I am much envy of them. How do ponies get along with each other so well while on extreme different cases, yet this concept works against me like karma. I guess the majority who has the power to change and keep the cycle of life always wins, mindless if what that majority stands for. Thank goodfully, the majority I once stood against weren't really evil, being special and unique to oneself isn't a thing to be critical of, why should ponies fight among one another to stop making each other feel as if they had a place in life? Furthermore, if Twilight weren't there to stop me, I would've been a loner without friends, even if everypony were to be equal. Deep down I would feel different and an unnecessary outlier, because I still kept my own magic and talents, while everypony else are the same. It's not the physical around us that matters, but the emotions and personas we emit out from our spirits.
It wasn't fair that I had to go through all this to receive this "friendship", a gift that was given to everyone, but the real deal was to either take it for the enjoyment, or to abuse it for one turn, and that's it for friends. No love, no joy, no satisfaction, no rest...
She stopped writing, gasping for air, trying to struggle not on her thoughtful message, but rather for survival. She put her hoof in front of her face as she bent back onto her chair. The lightbulb flashed, it wasn't totally diminished, but it's slowly ticking and dying on the inside. The feelings she communicated out of her twisted mind had pulsated her heart, throbbing efficaciously like a dying elderly. Or a weak colt searching for food in the trash bin. Changing her mood elsewhere, she went back to the library and viewed the skies.
Stars burned out like wishful candles in a rumbling storm. There were only clouds filled with more clouds, they look pretty dark too, Starlight worried that some bad fortune is going to come out. She then reflected on what she wrote, they were all so negative and yellow, as if she was lamenting a complaint to a stranger. Yes, Sunburst is a stranger for now.
Suddenly, she knew it, she felt it, a sense of euphoria swooped into the hollow of her bones. She ran up to the gigantic windows and put her face to it.
It is snowing.
How splendid those angelic white flakes look.
Starlight had experienced wintertime, when it was blistering cold with heart freezes, or a weekly headache that can limit a filly so much to the point where she cannot even twitch. To her, winter was a curse that has been tolerated only because it was the rule that she had to play along with, which she did not enjoy much. However, when Starlight first found out what snow was when she was only a filly, she had been excited for winter ever since. Even when there was no snow every year she patiently waited. Starlight was defeated clear, on why she could never earn that privilege of having such reward given from the skies.
But now there is snow, such beauty that has blanketed across all of Canterlot. The condition gave her new thoughts, new interpretations, new feelings, she wanted to list them all on the paper for Sunburst. She cried, and sobbed. It finally came to her, that the one thing she desired to enjoy has finally came to her eyes, she wanted to tell the world, she wanted to love everything, like an innocent filly trying to spread happiness to strangers. Starlight Glimmer finally earned the reward of purity.
Walking back to her bedroom, Starlight picked up her pen, but even before that, she had to get handkerchiefs to keep herself from being conquered by her emotions. After that's all over, she continued,
But nevermind that, it's snowing here! I never got to enjoy snow for my whole life! The first time I was deeply amazed by such wonder, the spectacle of visualizing such masterpiece of the night! It's a new light of white clairvoyance that beamed my hopes high and strong. It reminds me of...
Well, you, of course! Remember when we read those magic books that contained powerful spells only high leveled unicorns can perform? Well, we tried that, and you turned yourself into a duck! I was on the ground laughing so hard when you kept on quacking, before I knew what you actually meant!
... That. Was, the last piece of memory before you discovered who you actually were. A shining sun that had the power to help Equestria become a stable place, while that also helped you with your reputation among many ponies. I wish I was like that. No. I wished I was like you, so that we can stay together, always. Then again, friends come and go, that was one of my first lessons that my mentor Twilight taught me. One can never have a friend forever, and it will be lost to any circumstances. Which is why, we must hold the friendships strong and make them unbreakable. Why must I feel bad for being different? Why must I have to give up everything I have just to get what I want? I have been wasting my whole life trying to take control of what I have no influence over, that I have missed the most important factor:
My identity.
Who am I? What am I made of? What is so special about this "I"? I am something worthful, I may not be you, that stallion who's always bursting with pride and glory, nor that annoying disk jockey who can make such talented (but annoying) music whenever I take my hoof into Ponyville soil, but I can walk like you, talk like you, think like you, respond to the natural events like you, even form relationships like you. I am just tired of the way that I had to live and strive through the pain of individual stratification, while everypony else enjoys such advantage. I didn't know any better, so I set my hooves off to something that had the power to change the world into something completely different from today. I am still much traumatized by that. I really am white as snow don't you think?
Everything had gone wrong since you left me, I could not forgive myself what I had done, it is just god darn wretching. I was a dictator, I was the true mastermind, trying to bring misery among others just for the heck of it. It's not even about being selfish and doing it for myself, but I wanted to change ponies into something they feel is upsetting and wrong. That's what I call being "evil": hurting others just so to inflict pain on them, and nothing else. Now, even after being reformed, I am guilty of my crimes, it's depressing. One day I have no energy to move on, but I just couldn't stop either, there is that mysterious force preventing me from my death. Life drags me down into further down the seas, but there is no end to that punishment. I constantly wonder what is in store for me tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that... When will it ever stop? I need help from others, but it's hard to describe to them what is it that's thorning in my mind. Not only that... I just can't get close to any of them, not even Twilight who has been guiding me since our conflict's over. I guess it's just natural for some disciples not to be close with their teachers.
But you, Sunburst, are my last resort, a ray that outshines all darkness, brighter than any other lights, glimmering with hope, bursting with faith. I missed you, Sunburst, I missed you so bad... Wherever you are, just know that I still care for your well being. You thought after all the notorious schemes I have made changed who I was and forgot all about you. Well, you're wrong if you thought so, I did not. I'm still me, I still feel depleted and destroyed after my times being a villain. I was fully aware that I will not gain back what I have lost if I continued to live that way. Now that I have changed, and... and... obtained my true cutie mark, I am refreshed, I am reformed like how a good girl should. I am still crying about it both on the inside and the outside, even now. We mares can... Cry as much as we want, because... Because we have the right to carry out the message through so. I cry, not only to let out my grief and emotions, but to let you understand: that no matter how far apart we stand, I'm always there for you...
And I... Expect the same for you too.
Yours most truly
~Starlight Glimmer
She sighed, but with relief this time. Happy that she got all her words out, instead of coffining them like she always did. She is prepared for tomorrow's outcome, even if she cannot expect a single clip of it. Starlight then went out to grab the same book that she gave on earlier and returned to her desk. The book was an oracle of her writing, "To write a note for yourself and share it with another being close to you, and you shall feel complete".
"And it was just what I needed, thank you," Starlight said to the book and left it on the desk. She took out an envelope, and put the letter in it. The mauve mare walked back into the library, she smiled at the beautiful image being depicted outside in the open. She licked the envelope that was white as snow, and sealed it tight like the enclosed silence in her heart.
Starlight opened her front door. She was just about to step outside and get a real slice of the crunchy flakes and put her letter into the mailbox, when she saw a familiar pony, standing in front of her by the staircases, looking up at her. Starlight looked down at the figure back. It must've been a busy day for her, because she can't be delusioned. Snowflakes melted away as they flowed across the flame coated stallion. He spoke first with a question,
"You... you knew I was coming?"
"You... knew I was here?" Starlight asked back, she couldn't budge an inch. Who would've thought the heavens favored her side for once?
"I... Look Starlight, I know what you're thinking right now since we haven't seen each oth-"
Starlight raised a hoof to stop the stallion from speaking, the two spoke silence as they listened closely to the blistering howls of the northern winds, like hungry wolves viciously clawing on the ground back and forth for prey. Fortunately they were sheltered from it thanks to the well built structure of Starlight's residence. The snow still glided slowly onto the two ponies despite the wind. Starlight took a few steps closer to nuzzle on Sunburst's chest, and gently wrapped her hooves onto his neck.
"I know, you didn't have to say anything. Just hush now and quietly enjoy the serene breeze breathing onto our skins," she whispered onto Sunburst's neck, tinging him into warmth. Starlight then let go and gave him the letter she just finished writing, Sunburst was baffled at first as he received it, but then remembered those fine times when they were playing together, white as the snow falling on them right now.
"Happy Hearth's Warming Eve," Starlight said as she nudged her best friend on the nose, "considering I have no bits to get you anything; take this for my gift instead."
Sunburst was dying to want to read the letter she gave him, but one part of his soul told him "no", so he stuffed the letter into his stylish mane, neatly and carefully. He smiled and responded,
"Thank you. Thank you so much, you know how much this meant to me, Starlight. I haven't met nor found much friends myself ever since I have made my way into Manehattan. I regretted that day when I abandoned you in the rot."
”You haven't?" Starlight was quite shocked at the hearthbreaking news. "But how can somepony like you not make any friends?"
"Heh, don't judge a book by its cover. You don't understand the struggle of being pulled by everypony who adored me so, they only use me for my popularity. They just want to be noticed."
"Noticed... That's one reason I went offroad myself as well..." Starlight dropped her head, disappointed with herself again for her past mistakes. "Then again, you did mention another thing, I judged this book I found by it's cover, and it's first sentence. I lost interest and tossed it aside, until I truly understood what it expected me to do as I wrote that letter for you."
"A book?" Sunburst's mood shifted greatly. "What's it called?"
"Ehh, it's not that much of a big deal. Something going with ""How to Keep Your Fire Burning" whatever-"
"Wait, isn't that the book I made that failed miserably on the market? Nearly ruined my stocks too!"
"Wait, you wrote that?!"
The two stared at one another in awkward silence, both blushed for a few seconds and moved only their pupils to look elsewhere, before actually admitting their feelings for each other,
"Oh Sunburst, if it weren't for you and your book. I wouldn't be able to motivate myself... Just... I couldn't..." Starlight began to cry. This time it was Sunburst who walked up to her and wrapped his hooves around her body,
"No Starlight, I'm the one who needs to thank you. You were the only pony who truly connected with my book's message. I want to use the themes of forgiveness and happiness, to unite everypony as one and the same." The orange burning stallion sighed, and continued, "It failed miserably of course, nopony bothered to understand the secret behind my published work, they think I'm only trying to make money off other hobbies. They don't understand at all what I'm really aiming for. You knew, you understood what I meant, even if you omitted nearly all of the pages.”
Starlight chuckled, her tears now dried out completely. The blizzard stopped, fillies and colts are playing outside, making snow figures of whatever their imagination took them to. They threw snowballs at one another, eating the chunked up flakes, the crunchiness has been felt through their tiny teeth and tongues. Canterlot's dangled golden bells across all the houses are ringing in melodic glory. Lights flashed across the city with every single color no pony can ever imagine. Sunburst then took out a small red giftbag and levitated it onto Starlight, who lifted her hoof to receive it. Starlight opened it, and shook her head.
'What a featherbrain...' She thought inside her head and went to hug Sunburst once more. He knew what Starlight was thinking, and hugged back, saying,
"Anything for you, my Glimmering Star. Anything for you."
~Fin
