It could be said that this is a tale about burning balls of gas held in bondage
The rising sun cast a pale yellow buttery glow upon the off-white ecru plaster walls, an illuminating invitation to rouse from slumber and to partake in the glorious day. Legs twitching, Stargazer (there were a great many Stargazers in the world, but this one was a delightful shade of midnight blue) allowed himself to be lured into wakefulness by the siren song of dawn. A moment later, he yawned wide, revealing a bright-orange tongue and a danglier-than-usual uvula. It was his most distinguishing feature—except for perhaps his unusual shade of blue—and it was seldom, if ever seen.
Today wasn’t just any day; no… today was the day and when Stargazer’s mind registered this fact, he immediately lept to wakefulness. He sat up, rubbed his sleep-gritty eyes with his fetlocks, yawned again, blinked until his eyes adjusted to the light, and then bounced-bounced-boinked out of bed. He pursed his lips, huffed and puffed to blow his pale sky-blue mane out of his eyes, and then gave up when his unruly mane refused to cooperate. This happened every morning without fail, but Stargazer never gave up the struggle to keep his mane away from his face.
A creature of routine in habit, he moved in a circle near his bed, and did this three times. His room was small (though most would charitably call it cramped) and he had very little room to stretch his legs, which were full to brimming with the urge to run. The floor was chilly, a reminder that it was late autumn, which meant the bathroom would be a real jolt to the senses. There were thin, glittering veins of frost on the window pane, but Stargazer failed to notice these because he was already on his way to go potty, for such was his morning routine.
Sunlight had not reached the living room, whose windows all faced westward, rather than the eastward view that Stargazer had. The room was dim save for the light of his mother’s horn. Her bed was in the middle of the living room; perhaps a strange place for a bed to be, but his mother’s condition warranted it. She was lame; her rear half paralysed and completely unable to move. How long had it been since that awful, fateful day? Stargazer, lost in thought, tried to do the mental math. So much had changed in one terrible, tragic day. He was lucky to have his mother, and his sister, a foal in the womb at the time. As for his father…
Extreme excitement warded off the dark clouds of morose mournfulness that threatened to darken his day. This day promised to be better. Today was the day everything changed and he would embrace his glorious future, whatever that might happen to be. Princess Twilight Sparkle was coming to Rainbow Falls, and there was a contest to be won. Stargazer was a shoo-in to win, because his cutie mark told him so. There was no way to lose.
Cautious, almost creeping, he approached his mother’s bed, fearful that he might disturb his sister. An odd creature, his sister. He was lucky to have her (just as he was lucky to have his mother) but he couldn’t even begin to understand her. There was something that was a little… off about his sister, but he loved her in spite of his fears. As he drew near, he saw his mother brushing his sister, and the little filly’s eyes were closed—though from bliss or sleepiness he could not tell.
“You were up late last night. I saw the light from beneath your door in the hallway.”
His ears, which were pricked since he lept out of bed, now fell. “I couldn’t sleep. Too excited. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt my schoolwork, I promise.”
His mother, mollified, smiled. “It never does. What were you reading, my little watcher of stars?”
Stargazer halted when his mother’s atrophied, withered hind legs came into view. Queasiness threatened to ruin his morning, just as it had done every morning since that fateful day. He licked his lips, wobbled a bit from side to side, and waited for the moment to pass. It would pass—it would always pass—but some mornings, it took longer than others.
“Princess Luna’s Terrific Tales to Tell at Midnight.” Even as he said these words, his mother sighed, and his muscles tensed.
“Alright”—her words were resigned and calm—“what story did you read last night?”
“It was about a colt who refused to sneeze,” he replied, uncertain of just how much he should say. “He just got it into his mind one day that he would not sneeze. Never again. Somehow, he held his sneezes in. One day, he has to sneeze real bad, so he presses both of his front hooves against his nostrils, corks himself up, and refuses to release the pent up monster sneeze, because he hadn’t sneezed for like a whole month—”
“Stargazer,” his mother sighed, and something about the way she said it made him imagine that she also rolled her eyes.
“—and the sneeze, the monster mother of all sneezes, has to escape his head somehow, and his eyes pop out, and his brains go shooting out of his ears like a volcano—and hey, Mom, when was it that I last sneezed? I’m kinda feeling sorta worried.”
“Stargazer,” she said again, this time as she shook her head from side to side.
Fretful about sneezing, he sat down upon the floor beside his mother’s bed, rested his chin on the edge, and watched as his sister was brushed. She was small, tiny by any standard, and mostly silent. His sister was a unicorn, like his mother, while he himself was an earth pony, like his father. But his father was gone—he was gone and so it fell upon Stargazer to be his little sister’s big brother protector.
“Ponies talk about you,” his mother said, her voice soft and kind. “They talk about how you stay up at night, and what you read, and they’re worried about how weird you are—”
“Aw, Mom… I can’t help how I am.”
“—but I’m not worried. I rather like you just the way you are, even if I myself do not understand you.” She laid down the brush, lifted up a steaming cup of tea, held it to her lips, and blew to cool it off. “Excited for school today?”
He nodded. There was no point in saying how excited he was, because he would be here all day and would miss school. He wanted to yawn, but he didn’t want his mother to worry that he hadn't had enough sleep, so he held it in, secure that his head wouldn’t explode, because yawns were mostly harmless. His sister opened her eyes, her head swiveled around to examine him, and she gave him an imperious, suspicious gaze.
“Are you going to say something today?” he asked his sister.
Her response was an almost unblinking stare, the same response she always gave.
“Mom, what if the doctor is wrong?”
“Stargazer, doctors don’t become doctors by being wrong.”
“But what if he is? Or worse, what if he lied?”
“Stargazer”—his mother’s tone was dangerously close to one of impatience—“why would the doctor lie?”
“She should be talking,” he said matter-of-factly, as if this proved his point. “I think the doctor is just trying to make you feel better after what happened. My sister didn’t cry when she was born, and that was weird. Foals cry. She doesn’t.”
The teacup trembled a bit, and his mother’s eyes narrowed. “She does talk. Just not often. And the fact that she doesn’t cry is a blessing. She’s just… well-behaved, that’s all.” His mother sipped her tea and when she did, he wondered how many times that particular teabag had been reused. “Stargazer, when your sister has something to say to you, she will. But you need to stop worrying. For my sake, if not your own. It’s upsetting when you bring this up.”
“We need a different doctor—”
“Stargazer, that’s enough.” His mother’s firm tone said more than her words did. “We live entirely upon the kindness of others now. We don’t have a right to complain, or to turn away help. How many times have I told you that we’re lucky to have what we still have?”
When he felt his mother’s magic wrap around his middle, he yelped and was lifted from the floor. She set him down upon the bed beside her, and he was careful not to move. Even bumping his mother’s bed could hurt her, and he was mindful of her tenderness. She sipped her tea and while she did so, she began to work on his unruly mane, the oftentimes futile and never-ending battle to make it behave.
He pulled his sister closer and he felt her resist for a moment. She always resisted when first touched, but most mornings, she relented, like now. While his mother brushed him, he bent his head down and kissed his sibling, who was now wooden and almost unmoving. Even if there was something wrong with her, he liked his sister. It was his job to like his sister, and to be a dutiful big brother. In life, there were right things, and wrong things; he wanted to do right and feared what doing wrong might do.
“We still have day-old bread and there’s still a scrape of jam in the jar,” his mother said to him while the brush attempted to tame his mane. “There’s also some leftover soup that Autumn Skies brought over.”
“Cream of spinach—”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, Stargazer.”
He sighed, tried not to think about the empty ache in his gut, and said, “I know.”
“I still remember fresh bread,” his mother said as her brush-strokes gave him tingles. “But I can’t recall the last time I had any. It’s been a while. The day old bread comes from the day old bread trader, and it’s the stuff too old to sell. We’re lucky to get it… but I do so miss fresh bread.”
“Things’ll get better,” he said. “Today is the day everything changes.” He wasn’t sure how things would change, only that they would change. When he won the contest (for surely he would) he would bring home a telescope and he would be well on his way to becoming a uranologist, or something else prestigious in the field of astronomy. His chance encounter with a telescope in the trader’s market left him marked for his destiny. Though, he would be the first to admit that he wasn’t sure how astronomers made money from looking at stars.
His sister was a warm, fuzzy, unmoving lump against him.
Every paper he turned in just so happened to be perfect. No fault could be found in his classroom behaviour. He was not a squirmer, or a fidgeter, and he didn’t pick his nose with his tongue, like that little pegasus filly who sat to his left. Assignments were all turned in early, his homework was typically done at school and rarely, if ever, brought home, and he never, ever, under any circumstances, sassed his teacher. Miss Evergreen brought him lunch—sometimes even with cookies or other treats—so good behaviour was his way of showing his appreciation.
“Mom… do you… do you miss being the town’s librarian?” he asked. “I mean, I ask because of cutie marks and such. Mine’s a telescope and it makes me want to look at the stars.” After a regret-filled pause, he added, “I didn’t mean to upset you, if I did.”
“Every day,” was his mother’s brittle reply, a voice on the verge of breaking. “It’s funny, my little night sky watcher… I can’t feel anything back there since my back was broken. But there are times when I swear I can still feel my mark. It’s like an itch, or warmth. I think about books, the smell of them, the heft of them, and the immense satisfaction to be had in sorting them out and putting them all away in their proper places.”
“I love books,” he said with the hopes of cheering his mother up.
“So did your father.” Her words were wistful and full of longing. “He was a reader of history. The more boring the better. When I was young, and just starting my career as a book-sorter, I’d find him in the basement… in the town’s archives. He loved to read the records of trade and old bills of sale.” The brush ceased its movements for a time and she continued, “I had a lot of suitors. I was pretty, and popular, and I was a prize to be had in a small town.
“I could’ve ended up with anypony… but it was your father… I had to be with him. He ignored me. Can you believe that? He just wanted to read and he didn’t want to be bothered. And that drove me crazy. I did everything I could to get his attention… I had to get his attention because he was the only one who ignored me. He didn’t seem to care that I was pretty and popular.” She laughed, but it was a sad laugh, and not a happy one.
“Not long after I finally got his attention, you came along, and we made a life together.”
Unlike books, where endings were always happy ones, real life had other plans. Stargazer endured a moment of bitter resentment, he squeezed his sister, thought about the beauty of stars, and waited for this unpleasant moment to pass. Life could (and did) change in an instant. One monster rampaging through the market could (and did) ruin happy endings. All it took was one bad day to leave mothers lame, cause fathers to pass, and leave sisters silent. While the whole of the town mourned this loss, this was just something that happened. It would happen again.
For such was the way of things.
“Have you some breakfast,” his mother said to him. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll fix it for you. There’s not much time left, and you have a long day ahead of you, Stargazer. You be on your best behaviour when you meet with Princess Twilight Sparkle. Don’t go telling her about the gross stories that Princess Luna writes.”
“Do you think Princess Luna tells Princess Twilight gross stories?”
“I should hope not,” his mother replied. “Princess Luna should keep those kinds of stories to herself. They’re awful.”
“If somepony writes those stories, then somepony has to read them.”
“You sound just like your father, Stargazer. He felt that somebody had to read old accounting records, otherwise, what was the point of committing them to paper?” She heaved a prolonged sigh. “He was a weird one, your father. Quiet. Unassuming. A bookish sort. Nopony was more surprised than I was when he stood against the manticore…” Her words trailed off into a long exhale.
Then, a moment later she asked, “What was he thinking? What did he hope to accomplish?”
Stargazer too, very much wanted to know what his father had been thinking, and what his final thoughts might have been…
Rainbow Falls was indeed a magical place, just as its namesake suggested, but young Stargazer mostly just found the ever-present rainbows rather boring. When rainbows were rare, they were special; but the never-ending lightshow caused by the fine mist from the waterfalls was really more of an eyesore. An annoyance. Ribbons of rainbows dazzled the eyes and obliterated the senses. Constant glare and brilliance left the eyes strained, and there were times when Stargazer closed his eyes and saw multihued bands of colour on the inside of his eyelids.
It was cold enough to see his breath and there was a fine sheen of glittery ice upon select surfaces, mostly windows and such. The days started cold, but grew warm—at least for now. As autumn transitioned into winter, the cold would persist and Rainbow Falls would ice over, which turned everything into a specular ice-glazed winter wonderland. During the coldest, bitterest parts of winter, even the waterfalls would freeze, and then with spring came terror as the ice shattered with the thaw. What awful sounds it made, the ice, what scarifying kabooms. It was like the loudest thunder, but somehow worse, and there was just no way that Stargazer could be brave. Perhaps this spring would be different, but he had his doubts.
“Why, ‘allo! Lad, I’ll be takin’ yer Mum a load of cabbages later!”
“Thank you, Mister Slaw.” The colt paused for a moment to wave, but did not linger.
“The light was on in yer room ‘alfway to midnight, Lad. ‘Ow are ye so chipper, colt?”
Stargazer wondered what Mister Slaw was doing up so late, but dared not say anything that might upset his neighbor. The farmer offered a final parting wave, and Stargazer progressed along the narrow, winding lane that led to the center of town—and to school as well. Salty Slaw was a family friend, and was a close friend to Stargazer’s father. They were foalhood friends, playmates, and both had loved to discuss and debate the Farmer’s Almanac.
Because of Salty Slaw, he, his mother, and his sister had not starved.
“Do good in school, Lad… do yer Da proud!”
“I will,” Stargazer called out, “I promise!”
The wreath of mourning still hung on Mrs. Beryl's door. It was wilted, the flowers and leaves were all dried and desiccated, but she hadn’t taken it down. One hungry manticore could change a community. Stargazer had lost his father, and Mrs. Beryl had lost her husband, the town’s sole constable—who still hadn’t been replaced. He paused in the middle of the lane, there was a lump in his throat that bothered him, and his eyes stung something fierce.
Sometimes, Mrs. Beryl came over and brought tea. Occasionally, Mrs. Beryl and his mother cried together, which he could not bear to hear. He had no choice but to leave the house, otherwise, he’d be crying too. He blinked, his vision bleary-blurry, and the intense autumn chill burned the moisture in his eyes. To cheer himself up, he thought of telescopes, and stars, and constellations, and how everything looked better in moonlight.
“Star! Do come over here! I have something for you!”
The sound of Praline Pie’s voice jolted him from his state of distraction. She was a young mare, about his mother’s age, kind, but also a busybody. If she started to gossip, and he couldn’t slip away, he would end up tardy, which would be the most awful, most terrible thing that could possibly happen today. Praline was a chatterbox, but also incredibly nice. Obediently, he went to her, beckoned as he was, and the vivacious unicorn produced a pair of apples, one red, one a verdant shade of green. She slipped these into his saddlebags, closed the flap, and then made a shooing gesture with her hoof.
“Don’t be late for school,” she said.
Relieved that he would not be regaled with colourful gossip, he said, “Thanks!”
“Try not to be too weird around Princess Twilight,” she called out. “It’s fine to be weird, it is, truly, but we want Princess Twilight to think well of us! Do good in school, Star!”
It was fine to be weird?
Who was he to argue that?
Coming into the town proper, the houses were all huddled together with very little space between them. Everything was busy—bustling one might say—and the market was already crowded even this early in the morning. A good colt, Stargazer avoided the temptations and distractions of the market, even though it cost him dearly. He would walk the long way around, just as he always did, being the creature of routine he was. Of course, he could always walk through the market, but doing so posed a risk; there was so much to see and his curious nature would get the best of him. So the long way it was, which somehow saved time and mysteriously allowed him to get to school before the bell rang.
Guava Pie (Praline Pie’s sister and also a notorious gossip) opened the shutters on her bakery, just as she did every morning at just about this time. While Praline Pie was perky and wide awake, Guava Pie was considerably less so; the poor mare never once appeared well-rested come morning, and Stargazer wondered why. It seemed that the baker was getting pudgy, considerably so, and her middle had grown quite rotund.
Tuba Tempo strolled by but paid Stargazer no mind.
Stargazer rounded the corner and that was when he saw her. His rival and occasional tormentor, Lime Tart. She was as green as he was blue, with hints of yellow and cream. They were, without a doubt, the two most distinctive ponies in town. Nopony else looked quite like they did. In a town full of soft, muted pastels, he and Lime Tart stood out. The very sight of her caused him to stop.
When there was a question to be answered in class, it was always a race to see who could raise their hoof the fastest. Sometimes, she won, other times, he did. She was hardly ever wrong about anything, and neither was he. Lime Tart was his only real competition in the smarts department, and he reveled in any opportunity that presented itself in which he could show her up. While he was a quiet, bookish sort like his father, she was a loud, boastful braggart, as well as an insufferable know-it-all. Even worse, she was a unicorn, and because of this, she could write faster than he, which meant that she could finish an assignment faster.
She had a shortcoming however; her script was as atrocious as it was illegible.
He watched as she hurried off to school, minus her gaggle of giggling filly friends. Why she was alone was unknown, but she was at her most unbearable when surrounded by her friends. She moved slowly, but with fierce determination, almost lurching, held back by the weight of her bookbag. Rainbow Falls was a small town, and having a rival put one in quite a predicament; it was impossible to avoid them. He stood there, still, almost unmoving, save for the fact that he chewed his bottom lip.
No doubt, Lime Tart would talk Princess Twilight’s ear right off, if given the chance.
The schoolhouse was in a state of palpable excitement. Thirty-two students (of varying ages) and three teachers all shared the same sense of eagerness. Today was also the day that Mister Fescue would retire, and Miss Evergreen would take over his position, for such was the way of things in a small town. Mister Fescue stuck around just long enough to ensure that the new teachers were settled, and that the transition would be smooth. The third teacher, Miss Bottle, was fresh out of school herself and was a new arrival in town, having come to town just before school began.
Miss Bottle wasn’t yet one of them, but one day would be.
Stargazer had never seen the classroom so clean; the blackboard was spotless, the floors had a fresh coat of polish, the windows were spotless, all of the books were shelved, and all of the accumulated clutter was gone from the cloakroom. It wasn’t that the school was ever really dirty (except on rainy days when mud was tracked inside) it was just that it was always somewhat cluttered. The focus was on learning, not cleaning. Precious time was spent to prepare them for whatever future awaited them in Rainbow Falls.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash will arrive at the tenth hour of morning,” Miss Evergreen said to the class. “We will spend the next hour in free study. Please, use this time to catch up on your assignments, your homework, or whatever might need to be done. If there is nothing else, you may read.”
Her head swiveled about; narrowed eyes transformed her face into a calamitous visage, and she turned her stern schoolmarm gaze upon a long-necked pegasus filly in the second row. “Except for you, Upside-Down Cake. You will continue and finish your lines. You left off at sixty-seven and have thirty-three more to go. Disrupting the class with aggressive flatulence is never funny.”
When several of the students snickered, Miss Evergreen peered around the room, she met each eye that dared look back in turn, and then she asked, “Would anypony else care to join Upside-Down Cake in writing lines? Hmm?”
Mister Fescue nodded his approval, seemed pleased with how everything was handled, and coughed. Upside-Down Cake was more than a little upset, but she said nothing. She was one of Lime Tart’s friends, and took perverse pleasure in tormenting poor Stargazer. The pegasus filly could seemingly break wind on a whim, and then lob the poofs of foul-smelling air with her wings. Her aim? Accurate. The smell? Deadly. But she was pretty, and popular, and rich, which meant she got away with anything and everything.
A telescope would change everything. Stargazer had no idea how it would change things, only that it would. His problems and concerns, his worries, all of his fretful thoughts about Lime Tart and her gang of ne'er-do-well fillies receded from his mind, and unbeknownst to him, his eyes went a bit vacant. He was born to peep through telescopes, and somehow doing what you were born to do made things better. He didn’t understand how, only that it did. Cutie marks gave you a future, though Stargazer failed to understand how they did so, only that they had that mystical, magical power. He needed a future, if not for himself, then for his mother and sister, so he could care for them.
When the school year started, a contest was announced, an incentive to get good grades and to work hard in school. Later, it was revealed that the prize was a telescope, and since Stargazer’s mark was a telescope, he saw it as destiny. Whatever destiny was, he wasn’t too clear on the concept. Destiny was like some obscure star that he couldn’t quite see, but a telescope would surely provide some understanding, and offer some much-needed clarity.
And so it was that he laboured with the intention of earning himself a telescope.
Today was the day that his hard work paid off. His assignments were always turned in early, his test scores were all perfect, when he studied, he took notes and turned those in as well for extra credit. When his fellow students played at recess, he studied. After his many hours of devotion, all of his hard work, he was ready for his reward. Today would be the day when everything changed, and his future—whatever that might be—would be secured.
Princess Twilight Sparkle would arrive, he would get his telescope, and life would change for the better. He would have a life of studying the stars and the motions of the heavenly bodies. A telescope was the means by which one discerned the secrets of the universe. More than that, there was magic in astrology, as the positions of the stars influenced magic in subtle, still-unknown ways. His job would be to solve these riddles somehow, though he couldn’t even imagine how such things were done.
But it all started with a telescope; his mark promised greatness and goodness.
The autumn morning had warmed considerably and the class waited outside as the tenth hour drew ever nearer. All eyes were on the sky, save two; Lime Tart was helping one of her friends finish their assignment, while Stargazer had his nose in a book. To say that Treacle Tiramisu (Lime Tart’s primary enforcer) was somewhat slow was charitable. Treacle was as thick as the day was long and had trouble making a sentence that was more than a few monosyllabic grunts. Though she was one of the older students, she still struggled with basic literacy and remedial subjects. However, Treacle was as pretty as she was thick; stunningly so, and even Stargazer would grudgingly admit that she was pleasing to look at.
However thick as she might appear to be, she had a sort of low cunning, like a fox who sought entry into the henhouse. She was brutish, freakishly strong, and even at her young age she could pull a wagon full to brimming with goods. Treacle understood that her classmates were afraid of her, or taken with her beauty, and she ruthlessly exploited her assets. She took treats from lunches, and if batting her eyelashes didn’t work, the promise of violence was sure to follow.
Stargazer’s book was Princess Luna’s Terrific Tales to Tell at Midnight. It sat atop his bookbag, up off of the grass, and he carefully turned each page with the eraser-end of a pencil held in his lips. The story he read was about a rather stupid filly and the picksies (not to be confused with pixies) who mined her nose at night whilst she soundly slept, blissfully unaware of the boogery bonanza excavated from her nasal orifices. But this stupid filly, she refused to learn, or to take her school lessons with any sort of seriousness, and she never, ever did her homework. So the picksies dug deep, deep into her cavernous nostrils, until at last they struck brain. But this filly, this stupid, stupid, willfully ignorant filly, her brain seemed no different than gooey snot, so the picksies dug ever-deeper, believing that they’d hit the motherlode.
If only she’d done her schoolwork, she might have been saved.
He raised his head, blinked once, and then glanced over in Treacle Tiramisu’s direction.
If ever there was a filly in danger of the picksies digging too deep…
A low rumble interrupted his thoughts, and then there was an explosion of colour in the skies above Rainbow Falls. One more rainbow among the rainbows, only this one was an ever-expanding bloom of intense colour. He felt it in his bones, the magic of it, and he felt the earth ripple beneath him while the pages of his book rustled. With all thoughts of industrious olfactory orifice-excavating picksies forgotten, he squinted skyward with the hope that he might catch a glimpse of Equestria’s fastest flier.
While Rainbow Dash was awesome, and certainly fun to watch, Stargazer was a quiet fan of Fluttershy. She was kind, Fluttershy, and she was the quiet, shy one. Rainbow Dash no doubt had a surplus of fans, as did the other Elements, but he felt he had a connection with Fluttershy, because he knew what it meant to be the quiet, misunderstood one. To always worry and fret about the feelings of others, and to always feel some anxiety about what others thought of you—without a doubt, Fluttershy was his favourite Element. While he wasn’t shy, not exactly, he was somewhat apprehensive when it came to social situations.
He wouldn’t want Fluttershy to feel left out, so he was a devoted fan.
Another rainboom rocked Rainbow Falls and this one caused the waterfalls to shimmy in some weird way. It was also loud, impossibly so, and Stargazer’s ears rang with the sound of tolling bells. Overhead, the rainbow-hued pegasus was showing off, zagging and zigging, and flying in impressive loops. He wondered what it might be like to fly, but then shivered; the very idea of his hooves not planted on solid ground left him shaken.
Then, a moment later, he saw her; Princess Twilight Sparkle swooped into view, while Rainbow Dash flew circles around her. She was (at this distance) tiny, purple, and made no effort to show off, which he admired. It was nice to have a sensible princess, one that didn’t do zany, irresponsible things, and he appreciated her princessly poise. Though he did wonder if Princess Luna shared gross stories with her, he dared not ask. If his mother found out somehow (mothers had a way of knowing) she would heave that tired sigh of hers that made him want to go to his room and hide in shame.
His mother didn’t need to punish him, he was perfectly capable of self-discipline.
Princess Twilight Sparkle descended from the mist-filled sky and made an almost majestic landing; which is to say, she only stumbled just a little, and made an impressive recovery before she pitched forwards onto her face. While still recovering herself, she tucked her wings against her sides, shrugged to adjust the load on her back, and then flicked her tail three times to make it presentable.
Then she stood in princessly perfection.
“Hello,” she said with a broad smile, “I’m Twilight Sparkle. Uh, Princess Twilight Sparkle.” The princess struck a most majestic pose, head held high, ears pricked, front hooves held close together. “Such eager little faces… I’m so happy to see all of you. I just flew in from Ponyville, and goodness, are my wings tired.”
Mister Fescue coughed, which stood out against the profound silence that followed.
“Way to go, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash cried out from up above, after the prolonged silence proved too much to bear.
“I just became a princess not all that long ago, so I am still trying to get the hang of things.” Ears now splayed, Twilight took a cautious step forward. “It kinda feels like my first day of school right now. I bet all of you are excited.”
“On behalf of Rainbow Falls,” Miss Bottle said to the awkward princess, “we welcome you. Since the announcement of your contest, our cosy little schoolhouse has seen much progress. Thank you for being here today, Princess Twilight.”
“Thank you for having me.”
“I’m Soda Bottle. He’s Blue Fescue, and that’s Juniper Evergreen.”
“I’m pleased to meet all of you.” Twilight bowed her head. “And I look forward to meeting each and every one of you,” she said to the students. “Rainbow Dash, come down here. It’s time for school—”
“But I don’t wanna go to school, Twilight!”
“Rainbow Dash! Come down here right now! Class is in session!”
“No way, I came to be awesome, not be schooled.” The swoopy pegasus flew in a defiant circle and flicked her tail in a way that would get Stargazer after-school detention.
Twilight blew a lip-flappy sigh of exasperation, shook her head, and rolled her eyes.
“We should play a game of tag,” Rainbow Dash suggested from up above, still circling, still defiant.
“That’s”—Twilight paused for a time to consider with her gaze skyward—“actually a good idea. Get some of the rambunctiousness out. Then we can all sit still and be quiet for the awards ceremony. Good thinking, Rainbow Dash.”
A half-eaten cupcake sat upon Stargazer’s desk. He felt guilty for eating it, his mother’s comments about fresh bread were vivid in his memory, and so he found it difficult to enjoy himself as the festivities progressed. He’d grown increasingly nervous as time progressed, and he just wanted all of this to be over so that he could relax. The tension was well-beyond unbearable and he found it hard to sit still.
Something was wrong with Lime Tart. What was wrong exactly was unknown, but the yellow-speckled green filly didn’t look happy. Her anxiousness left him even more unsettled, and the idea that his rival might win made him feel a bit sick to his stomach. She was unhappy though, and from the looks of things, she didn’t enjoy her cupcake either, as she gave half of it to Treacle.
Lime was an odd pony, but nice to look at. She was a painted pony, with yellow speckles, splotches, and spots scattered at random on her hide. One eye—the left—was surrounded by a bright yellow patch, and her right front leg had a yellow sock. He stared at her, unaware that he did so, and for a moment, all of his troubles, concerns, worries, fears, and doubts just sort of went away. Lime was pretty, he decided, and he allowed himself to think about just how pretty she was.
“All of you have done so well,” Twilight Sparkle said while she held a notebook in front of her. “After a review of the school records and the notes of your teachers, I do believe the program is working. Test scores are higher than the first quarter of last year, and all of you seem to be more involved in your school work. The incentive program seems to be working.”
Stargazer tore his attention away from Lime Tart and dutifully listened to Twilight.
“Schooling tends to be a bit neglected in rural communities and as princess, I’d like to fix that.” She flashed a hopeful smile, one filled with warmth and good cheer. “All of you, each and every one of you, you are the future of this town. When you prosper, the town prospers, so it is of the utmost importance to ensure that you grow up to be the best possible versions of yourselves. This means getting a well-rounded education, and also a foundation in social interaction, which this close-knit classroom provides. As foals, you do your schoolwork together, but when you grow up, you will shepherd the future of this town together.”
While all of this seemed nice enough, Stargazer wasn’t sure if he believed it. Manticores existed, and could change all of their futures in an instant. So long as manticores continued to exist, the future of the town would always remain uncertain, though these were nebulous concepts for poor Stargazer, who had a hard time organising how he felt and what he thought into words. He could have the best possible schooling, but if a manticore strolled into town next week…
For the very first time, Stargazer struggled with just how unfair and pointless the world seemed. His grief welled up within him, and with this grief came a flood of feelings, a swelling tide that threatened to overwhelm him. He held fast to the idea that a telescope would change everything. Perhaps he could leave Rainbow Falls and join the great astronomers and uranologists in Canterlot, a city free of manticores.
Sitting at the teacher’s desk, Twilight cleared her throat in a princessly way, pressed her front hooves together, and then with a solemn expression, she addressed the class. “This is a tough choice. All of you gave it your best effort, I’m certain of that, but just a few of you stand out. A select few of you have perfect test scores, and extra credit, and have really gone the distance. The determining factor was attendance. Stargazer, while you have done exceptionally well, the attendance record shows that you’ve missed several days of school.”
His heart shrivelled and crawled up into his throat, where it ceased to beat.
“Lime Tart, you have perfect attendance, and this was the deciding factor. Congratulations, Lime Tart… with your hard work and dedication, you’ve earned yourself a telescope, and also a certificate of accomplishment suitable for framing. It’s important to recognise our academic successes!”
First, Stargazer went numb; he felt very much the same way as he did on the day his father died. All sensation just faded away until there was nothing. Why, he couldn’t even feel the hard wooden seat that he sat on. His ears rang with phantom bells and the sensation of floating in empty space left him queasy. He couldn’t hear the applause of his classmates, the clopping of hooves, their cheers and whoops.
He couldn’t be here—he needed to find some way to slip away, unnoticed, so that he could sort out his thoughts. All of his efforts were for naught. His hard work now seemed painfully pointless, and even worse, his father’s words about hard work being its own reward felt hollow and meaningless. Life was terribly unfair, and that seemed to be the lesson of the day. He stared down at his half-eaten treat and went deaf to the sounds of celebration around him. Everything felt pointless. Nothing had meaning. Destiny offered no purpose. There was no escape to be had and things wouldn’t get better.
Somehow, he had to escape unnoticed…
The cart shed was cool and dark, a comfort for Stargazer’s fevered skin and weary eyes. When the class party began in earnest, he excused himself to go potty. No one seemed to miss him, which made everything feel worse. He couldn’t return to class, and going home held no appeal. If he went home, there would be questions, and right now, he couldn’t deal with questions. He couldn’t face his mother either, because he was mad, and he worried that he might be mad at her, which was terrible.
At the moment, his feelings were too much of a mess to sort out, and so he sat upon an empty wooden crate and thought about all of the ways that life was unfair. Somepony had to take care of his mother and his sister, and that somepony was sometimes him. On those days when he stayed home, he worked twice as hard or harder so he wouldn’t fall behind in school. It wasn’t his fault—it wasn’t his fault—he didn’t have a choice and it wasn’t like he could tell his mother no. When she needed him to stay home, he did, and did so without questioning. It would be a betrayal of his father’s memory if he was a rotten son.
But obeying his mother cost him his prize, the telescope, and now his future seemed bleak. It wasn’t fair that his mother had her back broken, or that his father was gone, or that his future now seemed hopeless. One manticore had ruined everything and made a mess of life. Even worse, his rival, his tormentor-in-chief won the prize, and he had no doubt that she would gloat about it, which made coming to school seem like a bad idea. Perhaps it was time to go home and stay home. If anypony asked, he could tell them that he just wanted to care for his mother, and surely they would leave him alone.
He wanted to cry, but couldn’t. A terrible pressure built around his eyes, which were extra-watery, but no tears would fall. While he wanted to be angry—maybe even throw a tantrum—his temper would not boil over. More than anything else, he just felt bored. Listless. Life seemed so utterly pointless that he couldn’t see the point in living. He hated boredom; it made him feel sleepy. But no nap would fix this, no. He would wake up and life would still be a mess. Ideally, one would sleep—an escape from boredom—and not wake up. An endless blissful slumber, one without care or worry.
The world seemed far too large a place to deal with, and life too complicated to face.
Stargazer thought of his father, who would surely have something to say. Probably something brief, quiet, and meaningful. But his father was gone. His mother never left her bed. Then there was the matter of his sister and the doctor who claimed that everything was fine, just fine, perfectly normal. The manticore had shattered his mother’s spine with one fierce swipe, and then played with its food. Somehow, his unborn sister survived this, but he didn’t believe that she was fine, but no one, not even his mother listened to him.
Rather than boil over, his feverish fury froze. A chill settled in, a frostiness that seemed as though it radiated from his heart. Where there had been a dreadful ache mere moments ago, now there was nothing. Just a sense of boredom of a type that he could not comprehend. Even feeling bad about all of this seemed pointless, as it served no purpose. Nothing about it could be changed; life was the way it was and nothing could be done about it. Life was a thing that happened and nothing could stop it, except for an end.
Alone in the cart shed, Stargazer shivered and wondered how he might die.
Pain scared him, and death involved pain as far as he knew. He might fail, which meant consequences, and he would have to explain himself—he would be made to tell others why he didn’t want to live. Why he felt it was pointless to keep going. And just like with his sister, the grown-ups would dismiss everything he said, and then everything would be somehow made worse. If he failed, living with the consequences might actually be worse than living with the mess he had now.
“Stargazer?”
He was no longer alone and escape seemed unlikely. A single, solitary emotion made itself known: guilt. He’s skipped class, sulked in the dark, and even worse, he thought about ending himself. The creak of rusty hinges caused his spine to spasm, and he squirmed with shivery terror, fearful of whatever might happen next.
“Stargazer, I’m sorry. I had no way of knowing. Nopony told me why.”
He was in enough trouble already, so he kept his mouth shut.
“For you to have done so well while also caring for your mother… and so soon after losing your father… with so much grief… if I’d known…” Twilight’s words trailed off into a soft, prolonged exhale.
The soft rustle of feathers and hooves against packed dirt made his ears twitch, but he dared not look at her as she drew near. Guilt transmuted into shame, and shame into an empty, echoing ache that left his insides hollow. Twilight smelt of sugar, frosting perhaps, and chalk. When she sat down on the wooden crate beside him, the boards creaked, strained beneath her weight, and bowed—which meant that Stargazer had to squirm to keep his balance.
“I’m feeling kinda sad,” she said while she settled in and made herself comfortable. “Without meaning to do so, I hurt somepony… who was already hurt. Something I would never do on purpose. Right now, I could use a friend… and I think you could too.”
Saying nothing, Stargazer turned his head away and stared at the wall.
“You left. And somepony should have noticed. I should have noticed. How awful it must be to have been sitting out here all alone, and nopony noticed that you were gone. I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t want to spoil the party,” he muttered.
“One of your classmates noticed that you never came back from the little colt’s room.”
While this should have made him feel better, for some reason, it just made everything worse. It made him feel as though his teachers didn’t care about him, which just piled on top of everything else that was wrong. He wondered who noticed; who cared enough about him to realise that he was gone. Probably Sand Skipper, or maybe Fizzy. Probably Dizzy Fizzy. It wasn’t so much that Fizzy cared, but that he was a watchful little pegasus, and a known tattletale and teacher’s pet.
Everypony said that Dizzy Fizzy would grow up and become a constable.
“Sometimes we make uninformed decisions,” Twilight said. After a moment of silence, she inhaled, started to say something else, and then failed to make the words happen.
Stargazer sympathised; this happened to him all the time, and always at the worst possible moment, when something really needed to be said. Twilight was suffering that guilt that grown-ups felt when they did something to hurt foals. He couldn’t imagine what it was like, but it couldn’t possibly be worse than what he felt right now. Still, he sympathised and wondered if there was some way to help Twilight.
“I can only imagine,” she began, “how important this was for you. After all of the bad things that have happened, having something good and positive happen must have been important to you. Now you’re dealing with yet another loss, and I bet it hurts more after what surely must have been a lot of hard work.”
He felt a wing slip around him, followed by a gentle tug. Right now, he didn’t want to be hugged, or comforted. He had no desire to be held close. But she was bigger, stronger, and his efforts at resistance proved futile. When she pressed him against her side, he thought of his mother, and how they would sit together, side by side, just like this.
Those days were over, taken, stolen away, and would never return.
Some part of him wanted to be angry with Twilight for the painful reminder, but the numbness persisted. Shame and guilt left him hollow. There were all these thoughts in his head, awful thoughts, terrible thoughts, and he didn’t know how to express them. The worst of them—not wanting to live—gnawed away at his conscience. Twilight’s wing was warm and might have been ticklish, were he not so numb.
“You’re almost the same shade of blue as Princess Luna,” Twilight remarked. “That makes you special.”
“I get teased a lot,” he replied without thought.
“Oh…” There came a soft, heart-wrenching sigh from Twilight. “I’ll never understand why ponies do that.” She squeezed him with her wing once, then a second time, and with the third squeeze, she did not relent; she did not let go. “And you share her love of the stars, from what I understand. I do too.”
Twilight’s efforts to make him feel better did nothing, and Stargazer huddled against her, miserable, inconsolable, but craving warmth and comfort. Oh, how he’d missed this. He could hardly touch his mother now, because jostling her, even just a little, hurt her. She’d cry out sometimes, and then came the guilt—so he’d grown distant.
“I wanted things to change,” he whispered to her, “it’s so hard right now. I needed that telescope so I could have a future.”
“Sometimes, our futures feel very dependent upon items, or events, or things that we think need to happen. I know that feeling. Really, I do. Once, I thought I needed to come up with a friendship lesson, and if I didn’t, then my future would be absolutely ruined. I made a mess of things. I was so focused on getting what I thought I needed for my future that I almost ruined my future… Spike saved me though.”
“I don’t have a Spike.”
The boards of the crate creaked when Twilight shifted her bulk and pulled Stargazer even closer. With him held tight against her, she said, “As it turned out, the only thing I ever really needed for my future was Spike… and my friends. The friendship lessons and everything else, the golden tickets… those were all just things. Stuff. Objects. Things come and go. Telescopes are things. While it might be nice to have one, it will not give you the future that you hope for. I’m sorry, but I think you needed to hear that.”
“Astronomers need telescopes,” he said to Twilight while he looked up at her, and she down at him. Stargazer saw that her eyes were teary, and the idea of a princess crying made his guts feel squishy.
“We can share.” The voice beyond the door was the last voice that Stargazer wanted to hear. “You should’ve won anyway. I’m not sure if I should have it.”
Stargazer’s tormentor stepped halfway through the doorway, then halted.
“I saw your face…” Lime Tart kicked one front hoof into the other and then her eyes dropped down to the bare dirt floor. “When you didn’t come back from the bathroom, I told the teachers you were gone. I got worried.”
A third feeling joined guilt and shame: confusion.
He tried to wiggle away from Twilight’s embarrassing embrace, but she was as immovable as iron. When he could not escape, he went still—but then began to wiggle again when Lime Tart looked him in the eye. It was like looking into a mirror, and he could see all of his own misery reflected back at him. Lime was hurting, that much was certain.
“Lime,” Twilight said to the distressed filly, “what’s wrong?”
“I have friendship troubles,” she blurted out.
When Twilight gestured for Lime to come over, the filly didn’t hesitate. She trotted over, clambered up onto the wooden crate, and sat down beside Twilight, who then closed her other wing around her. The wooden crate creaked in protest, but no sympathy was spared. Stargazer sniffled a bit, but he wasn’t crying. Especially not now, not with Lime Tart watching.
“You have friendship troubles?” asked Twilight. “I just so happen to know a pony that needs a friend.”
“I know.” Lime Tart twisted her head around to look up at Twilight. “I know, I know. My mom keeps telling me to ditch my friends and be friends with Stargazer.” She went silent for a moment, her head dropped, and she peered around Twilight’s chest to have a look at Stargazer. “Your mom needed you and you stayed home. It’s not fair that you lost. You can have the telescope if you want it.”
Stargazer could not believe what he was hearing (indeed, he wondered if this was yet another cruel joke) and he cast a dubious squint at Lime Tart. “Why would you do that?”
“My friends tease me because I’m smart.” Lime closed her eyes and buried her face into Twilight’s side. When she spoke again, her words were muffled and hard to understand. “I do their schoolwork. I do their homework. I have to do so much to keep them happy and keep them as my friends. When I’m with them I have to pretend to be stupid, so they don’t turn mean. They tease me about everything, and they teased me when we had a sleepover and I said that I thought that you were cute. They were so mean… like, really, really mean, and not nice, and so I had to be mean to you so my friends would like me… except we had a big fight yesterday, and I did some thinking when I walked to school this morning all alone, which was awful, because having bad friends is better than having no friends, and then I did Treacle’s assignment so she would talk to me again, and everything hurts inside right now.”
His response was bold and immediate: “I’m not cute!”
Lime Tart pulled her face away from Twilight’s side, which revealed her teary eyes. “Yeah, you kinda are.”
“Am not.” This time, his response came with all of the resolve he could muster.
“Are too. And you helped your mom, which means you’re nice, too.”
He bristled. “I am not cute.”
She replied, “Are too. You’re a nice colour of blue.”
“You called me a blue freak,” he said to her.
“I did.” Lime’s ears fell. “I did it so Upside-Down Cake would think I’m awesome.”
“How long did that last?” asked Twilight.
“Not very long.” Lime Tart’s ears went limp completely. “My friends know I like Stargazer, so that’s the first thing they bring up when they want to razz me.” Her ears lifted a bit, but did not stand up. “When I saw his face after I won, my heart broke and I wanted to go give him hugs, but I didn't because I was worried about what my friends might say or do, and everything feels awful right now.”
“I’m not cute,” Stargazer said yet again while his brain struggled with the idea that his tormentor wanted to hug him.
“My friends never shut up about that,” Lime Tart said while she looked away. “After I said it at the sleepover, my friends started singing, ‘Here comes the bride, fair, fat, and wide,’ and then they made smoochy faces, and Treacle acted like she was going to throw up, and I was so embarrassed that I wanted to go home, and then I got teased about being a crybaby, and how I needed my mommy, and I didn’t have a good time.”
“Wow…” Twilight squeezed both foals with her wings. “That’s kinda terrible. It needs to be remedied, that’s for certain. Lime Tart, I think you have a chance to have yourself a real friend, but it will mean standing up for yourself. Do you think you can do that?”
“I don’t know,” the filly whined. “But I can’t take how things are anymore. My mom is right… my friends are holding me back. I hate acting stupid, and petty, and mean all the time. At night, I have nightmares that I turn out mean, and that scares me.”
While Lime Tart poured her heart out, Stargazer remained stuck on a single point: “I’m not cute.”
It was Twilight who replied, “You’re kinda cute.”
“Nuh-uh.” All of Stargazer’s troubles rapidly retreated from his mind so that he could refute this travesty. “Hamsters are cute. Kittens are cute. Puppies are cute. I am none of those things.”
“Would it be better if we called you ‘handsome’, Stargazer?” asked Twilight.
“No.” He folded his forelegs over his barrel and decided he was done with this. He turned his head away and stared at the wall once more.
“He’s cute right now,” Lime Tart said to Twilight.
“Yeah, he kinda is.”
He snorted in contempt, but his snotty nose thwarted his efforts; at least he was no longer cute. Emotions came back strong, a flood of feeling, and after his bleak thoughts earlier, it felt good to almost be himself again. Things didn’t seem so bad at the moment, and he felt genuinely bad for Lime Tart, his tormentor, though he remained miffed at her. Not for teasing him or torturing him (those things could be forgiven) but she’d called him cute, and that made it impossible to sulk.
“I need to get you cleaned up,” Twilight said to Stargazer, “and back into class. But we’re not done.”
“We’re not?” he asked.
“No,” Twilight replied. “There’s a friendship emergency and I’d be a lousy Princess of Friendship if I flew home without trying to sort it out. So, I am going to take you back to class, and you two are going to help one another hold it together, and then tonight we’re going to spend some time together. How does that sound?”
“I’d like that,” Lime Tart was quick to say.
Stargazer said nothing, but nodded.
“Come”—Twilight gave both the foals a reassuring squeeze—“let us go and try to salvage the day. There’s still some good to be had, and friends to be made, and lessons to be learned. So long as there is friendship, there is always hope, and I want the two of you to remember that. No matter how tough things get, so long as you have a friend, things aren’t completely hopeless. Now let us go back to class and see if we can have a nice time.”
Later that night…
This was possibly the best worst day of his life. After hitting an incredibly low point, things turned increasingly better. Somehow, he enjoyed himself at school. The intensity of the bleak moment faded, the numbness went away, and somehow, even with his resistance, Lime Tart warmed his heart. She was clingy, and touchy, and talkative, and she had no concept whatsoever of equinal space—but she was also warm, sincere, and smart.
Twilight said that Lime Tart was starved for intellectual stimulation, and while Stargazer didn’t fully understand what this meant, he had some vague inkling. His new friend looked upwards at the stars while Twilight pointed with her wing. Somehow, at the end of the day, everything turned out alright. He had a new friend, together they had a telescope, and his new friend had a new cutie mark.
Her joy was his joy and he was truly happy for her.
One peep was all it took to change her life. The change was sudden, immediate… miraculous. Just one look and she was smitten with the stars, just as he was. Now, she was branded with the constellation of Equuleus, which meant little pony or foal, depending on who you asked. Twilight was busy showing Lime where her constellation was located.
“Come closer, Stargazer,” Twilight said to the distracted colt.
He felt no need to protest, so he approached, and was pulled close with Twilight’s wing. Nearby, Rainbow Dash paced, impatient, and with every snort, visible clouds of steam could be seen in the stinging autumn air. Much to his surprise, Lime Tart twisted around where she sat, and then flung for forelegs around his neck. Since it was cold, and he was chilly, he didn’t push her away, but allowed her to cling to him.
“Everything happens for a reason,” said Twilight in a solemn, thoughtful voice that was as soft as the sky was dark. “Tonight, you were marked. But rather than your mark, I want you to think about everything that happened that led up to this moment. Every action, every choice, all that you did that brought you to this moment, this time, this point that allowed your true self to come out from the darkness and shine.
“You made a tough choice to reach out to help another, Lime Tart, and it was then, and only then, that your stars decided to twinkle. The nature of stars are such that they shine brightest on the darkest of nights… and Stargazer I think had himself a pretty dark moment there. You chose compassion, and goodness. These stars are your reward.”
“A stargazer looks at stars.” A phantom smile haunted her muzzle, and her eyes twinkled with mischievousness. “Does this mean that Stargazer will look at my butt?”
He groaned, then tried to push her away, but she was too clingy, and he was too cold.
Twilight’s smile was gentle, and also amused. “I think it is safe to say that you will have his attention.” She gestured upward with her wing, and with an all-encompassing sweeping gesture, she beckoned their attention upwards towards the purpleriffic sky bespeckled with stars. “Every life can be seen as a star, and a constellation can be seen as the bonds that those lives share. Make no mistake, there is a powerful connection here, and both of you will benefit from this friendship. Of that, I am certain.”
Then, Twilight looked down at them, and her eyes glittered with reflected stars.
“Sometimes, I think about what might have been, had I not met my friends. We were brought together for a reason, though I cannot say why or how. I don’t know for certain what drew us together, but I think it is safe to say that the world would be very different without our friendship. The same is true for this new bond you’ve formed, this trust that you’ve established, this telescope that has brought you together.
“The lives of those around you are bound to change, and many will be touched by your friendship. Never doubt the magic of friendship, or the good it can accomplish. Together, there is nothing that the two of you can’t do. If you believe in nothing else, believe in that.”
With Lime Tart’s forelegs still around his neck, Stargazer dared to believe that life would get better. After the crushing despair he experienced earlier, this was a welcome feeling. He looked upward at the stars and thought about the connections that bound them together. A single star was just that, a star. But together, stars had constellations, there were myths and stories and tales of wonder to be told.
And so it was with friendship.
“As for you, Stargazer, there’s a lesson to be learned. Today, you suffered a crushing loss. It hurt. All of your hopes and dreams, all of your expectations… you wanted to win. But circumstances prevented that. You could have been a sore loser, but even in your grief, you worried about the needs of others, and left so they could have a good time.
“As awful as it was to lose, as painful as all of this was, you still came out ahead.” She smiled from ear to ear while she lowered her head down to Stargazer’s eye level. “Instead of a telescope, you got the constellation prize, you lucky colt, and that is a rare prize indeed.”
She pulled away, raised her head, chuckled for a time, and then said to the two of them, “I promised that I’d get you both home at a reasonable hour. Let us abandon all of this profound seriousness and look upon Luna’s stars. We have a friendship to celebrate.”
Author's Note
Again, thanks to all of you for your patience. This has been a journey. So much has changed from the initial concept. It had subplots, and a very different ending, all of which were chopped. There was about 1500 words or so in the ending where Twilight stresses the need for Lime Tart to help her awful friends, and while it all felt very Twilighty, and true to her character, it also dragged down the ending in a most terrible way. So it was cut. A long with a lot of other stuff.
I am too exhausted right now to have an opinion, so I hope you will leave yours.
