Cloak And Daughter
“Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it’s the place where we find the deepest heartache.”
—Iyanla Vanzant
~
A sphere, a cube, and an octahedron rotated in a turquoise aura, spinning round and round. They revolved in a perfect circle. The rhythm was a steady tempo—a sharp contrast to the erratic beating of Starlight Glimmer’s heart.
She barely watched the shapes, her eyes glued to the ceiling. Her magic was restless, pulsing in time with the words that played over and over again in her mind. Those stupid, stupid words. Like many things, they came in threes.
“You’re a mare.”
After everything that she had put Sunburst through during this visit—including literally transporting them to her foalhood playroom in their foal bodies—she had to go and screw it up. Again. Rightafter they had found some common ground.
Starlight was never one to leave well enough alone. Watching the blocks she had hung onto since foalhood spin, she felt incapable of it.
“You’re a mare.” Dear Celestia above, could she have said anything worse than that?
She should have knocked. When she didn’t, too excited to show Sunburst a way to improve their grown-up game, she shouldn’t have looked. Sunburst was changing. Some ponies were sensitive about their bodies. About being seen by just anypony.
Sunburst’s attachment to the cloak made all too much sense in hindsight.
Starlight had experienced her own phase with clothing in the past. The dark, spiky things she wore reflected what—and how—she felt. Somepony barging in back then would have sent her into a tirade that rivaled the blaze of dragonfire.
But Sunburst…
Her magic almost faltered. It had been mere minutes ago, but the recollection felt like eons past, her mistake echoing across space and time.
She had seen what nopony was supposed to see.
And her fool mouth was faster than her idiot synapses.
Now, here she was. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, fighting tears with the constant rhythm of her magic. Almost like she was back home again, although this bedroom was far too cheerful and colorful to truly be hers.
“How could I have been so stupid?” she thought aloud.
Inanimate as they were, the blocks seemed to reply, “Are you anything but?”
Starlight tried to argue against it, but every rebuttal seemed inadequate. The time-travel and age-regression spell had been a boundary crosser, but this… This, was beyond the pale.
Somepony knocked at her door.
The blocks fell to her chest. Light as they were, their impact nonetheless sent reverberations down her spine. The toys settled against her fluffy coat, cold and smooth and contradictory as the knock continued.
Scrambling, she lit her horn again, whisking the blocks back to their place on her bookshelf. Then, she sat on her haunches on the edge of the bed, calling out, “C-come in!”
Sunburst poked through the threshold. Hesitantly, at first, glasses following muzzle following nose. Cape billowing behind, reflecting the stars. Moonlight shone through Starlight’s open blinds, illuminating the face of her friend as their eyes met.
If Starlight had been a spiritual mare, she would have said that Sunburst looked hallowed in this light. Like Starswirl, Mistmane, or the other legendary Pillars of old. The kind of pony that tales were written about, their deeds passed down around campfires and in crowded taverns, their histories scribbled in the margins of dusty storybooks. The ponies whose names meant more than the sum of their stories.
In all the glory of the saints, Sunburst looked at her with a combination of trepidation and remorse. “Can—c-can we talk?”
And Starlight Glimmer, feeling ever the sinner—one who had wrought her wrath and despair upon countless others, innocent others, if only to absolve herself of the absence of the pony before her—could only nod.
Sunburst strode in, each step a calculated, quadratic formula of reckoning. The hoofsteps of one who knew not where they tread. If Starlight had read any of Rainbow Dash’s beloved Daring Do novels, she would have recognized the pattern. Sunburst stepped as a pony would when in an ancient temple, counting each hoofstep, sure that one wrong move would end in tragedy.
“H-hey,” was all Starlight could think to say as Sunburst closed the door.
“H-hello,” Sunburst said back.
On instinct, Starlight’s horn glowed anew. Without looking, her magic found the blocks. They spun once more, twisting, turning, circling with the ferocity of the gulf between them. Black waters roaring and churning, as deep as twenty years and as shallow as three words.
The waves lapped, eroding the soil.
Sunburst pointed at her, one eyebrow raised. “Um, why are you doing that?”
Starlight’s aura shimmered, halting for a breath before the three blocks within it continued on their way.
“I don’t know. I… I just…” Starlight watched it run. “It always calms me down.”
Silence.
Then, Sunburst spoke, quietly at first. “I remember... when I taught you that spell.” The words were calm, but not collected, scattered in their pauses. “We had a picnic… down by the little creek.” The faintest hint of a smile followed. “Remember?”
“... Y-yes.” Starlight could taste the crisp apple juice on her tongue. Could smell the fresh-baked, crunchy cookies they had devoured between weathered pages. The ghost of a smile curled across her muzzle as she looked back up. “You… You brought all those old books. With all those words that…” She giggled. “That I couldn’t even pronounce.”
A slight, shared chuckle betrayed the tension between them.
The gulf seemed to shrink as if the ancients had granted them some reprieve. Some tiny mercy. Bringing land and shore and water together.
The hum of magic was the only sound in Starlight’s bedroom.
Then, Starlight took a breath. Long, slow, resigned. Her smile and ears fell as she said, “I’m so sorry, Sunburst.”
Sunburst paused, something flickering in those cyan eyes. “Do you—wh-what are you sorry for?”
The question was simple. Even so, Starlight didn’t know how to answer. Was it even right to apologize? Was her apology borne of empathy, or was she just monopolizing the conversation? The only thing she knew for certain was that what she had said—those three wretched little words—made Sunburst slam the door in her face. Surely, that must be apologized for, if nothing else?
As she learned time and time again, Starlight had to make everything complicated. Everything had to be felt deeply; every action demanded a reaction. Sunburst leaving Sire’s Hollow for Canterlot and Princess Celestia’s tutelage—as ill-fated as that was—had eventually led to Starlight stealing cutiemarks. If nothing else, her past was proof enough that she never thought things through.
She stared at her hindhooves, finding no answers as Sunburst looked on.
“Starlight… I’m not a mare,” he said.
Starlight looked up, eyes wide.
Well. Starlight might not have been the most… experienced mare when it came to matters of the heart, but she knew a few things. While she wasn’t sure if she had ever been in love, there were no words she couldn’t pronounce anymore. She knew anatomy. She knew physiology. She knew…
… Sex…
… And what she… had seen…
“W-well, I...” Starlight met his eyes for the first time in what felt like an eternity. “O-of course,” she said, hoping she sounded convinced. “I—I’m sorry for what I said. I wasn’t thinking.”
No truer words had been said, before or since, on the face of Equus.
Sighing, Sunburst looked away.
Starlight felt the waves of the gulf lap at their hooves. While the blocks continued their circle, she mustered a smile. “Really. I mean it,” she assured them both. “I—I was just… confused, is all.” When Sunburst didn’t reply, she added, “I should have knocked. Especially after barging in last night.”
Sunburst glared at her. “Yes,” he said, every syllable a gnashing of teeth, “you should have.”
Starlight winced. The shapes in her aura sped up, whirring through the air.
“A-are you going to tell Twilight about this?”
“No,” Starlight immediately replied. “I wasn’t—I’m not going to tell anypony.”
“... Good.” The low hiss of his breath mimicked any snake as it slithered away. Warning, but not willing to fight. Hiding back in the shadows.
Starlight let the silence rattle between them. Whereas the events of even a few hours prior seemed to bring them back from the edge, she wasn’t sure if their friendship could survive… this… whatever it was.
“I…” Trailing off, she took a deep breath. “Can I ask you something?”
Sunburst peered at her from the corner of his eye.
She felt shame spilling forth, like a secret red cloud from her horn, the moment the words left her lips. But she had no intention of taking them back. If truth was what Sunburst had concealed from her, it was truth alone that would salvage… whatever they would have.
“Can…” Starlight pawed a hindhoof at the floor. She leaned back on her haunches, staring at her gyrating blocks before turning back to him. “If you’re not a mare, can you tell me… Um…”
Loaded. The question was loaded more than Applejack and Rainbow Dash during a cider-drinking contest. More than Twilight and Spike showing her a future of desolation. More than Trixie firing herself into the mouth of a monster that would surely devour her.
There was no less danger in this.
Sunburst. The pony who meant more to her than Equestria itself. The colt who had taught her how to spin objects in her levitation. Who had introduced her to magic and friendship. Whose absence wounded her so deeply that she could not open up again. Not for almost twenty years.
The pony that she would destroy Equestria over, if only so that others would feel her agony.
Sunburst avoided her eyes, gaze searching all around the room for the antidote to the overdose of her knowledge. “You—h-have you ever heard of… Uh…” He stroked his beard—his impossible beard. “Transponies?”
Starlight shook her head.
“Oh.” Sunburst opened his mouth, then closed it. She could hear the echo of his lips from across the room.
“I’m sorry,” Starlight replied, unsure of whether her words mattered now.
“No, it’s….” Sunburst rubbed at his nape. “It’s not something most ponies understand.”
The shame in his eyes was palpable. Like a millstone, it pulled her own heart deep into the sea, dark and angry and circling in time with her own magic.
“How about…” He slowly met her gaze. Golden magic encompassed turquoise, taking the sphere, cube, and octahedron in its own mana. They rotated with timed precision in his aura. “L-let me find a way to explain…” After a moment, he said, “Tell me the earliest memory you have of us.”
At last, Starlight smiled again. A real, genuine smile. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, before the words came. The memory was crystal clear, feeling like it was just yesterday…
“Say hi to your new neighbor, Starlight.”
Starlight Glimmer looked up at the mare above her. Her coat was cream-colored, her mane a mix of lavender and blue. The mare laid a forehoof on her daughter’s shoulder and pushed her towards the colt. His coat was a light orange, his mane almost the exact same shade and pattern as his mother’s.
“Hi there! My name’s Starlight!” She grinned so wide that it hurt. “Do you want to play with me?”
The colt, hiding behind his mother’s hooves, trotted forward before offering her a shaky nod. She clapped her forehooves together, then beckoned him to follow her.
“I have this really cool game!” She led him towards her most prized possession. “It’s called ‘Dragon Pit’. It’s really fun, I promise!”
Sunburst—still silent—nodded. Once they were in her playroom, he watched her set up the game and its pieces while the adults talked in the living room.
Starlight Glimmer, focused on showing her new friend the rules—and letting him have the blue dragon, the best piece, just this once—barely noted the words drifting in and out of her ears.
“Just moved here from the Smokey Mountains…”
“Oh, I can see why…”
“... Sunburst is a… different… kind of colt…”
“... Oh, that’s… Lovely, how you both are—”
“Well, Sunspot has his… er, own—”
“I’ll go first!” Starlight declared, straining her horn as she pointed it at the die. When it didn’t budge, she groaned in frustration, making her new friend laugh.
“Here,” Sunburst said with a giggle, taking the die in his magic, “I’ll show you how.”
“I…” Starlight swallowed, her eyes darting between her hindhooves as she thought it over. Then, she tilted her head as she faced him. “I always knew you as a colt.” She let loose a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “M-Mom and Dad always did, too.”
“That’s because I always was a colt, Starlight.”
“B-but…” The lump rose in her throat again. This time, Starlight felt like she was the star of the newest Daring Do novel. Once one obstacle was dodged, a new trap sprung up in its place. She rubbed one foreleg with the other. “W-well, I don’t want to be… gross, but—”
“My body has n-never… cooperated, as my mother would say,” Sunburst began, pushing his spectacles back up on the bridge of his snout, “but I always was a colt. I always knew that’s what I was supp—what I am.”
Blind, Starlight rubbed her nape and replied, “I-I see.”
Silence blanketed them again, oppressive and stifling. Then, with a sigh, Sunburst wiped at his glasses with a handkerchief. “Here, let me try another way.” He put his glasses back on. “When did you know we were going to be friends?”
Starlight almost scoffed. “The day I met you.”
“Right. But how did you know that was the case?”
Starlight rubbed at her chin, letting the question flow through her ears. “I—I guess I just… felt it?” She shrugged, then sighed. “Sorry. That’s kind of a silly answer, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. It’s true for you, isn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“Well,” Sunburst shrugged in turn, “that’s just it, Starlight. As much as you knew we were going to be friends from the day I met, I knew I was a colt as long as I can remember. Telling me otherwise would be like telling you that we weren’t going to get along.”
“... I see,” Starlight said again, feeling nearsighted now, rather than completely blind. “I—I guess that makes sense.”
There it was: a growing smile on his muzzle. Starlight wanted nothing more than to cultivate it.
“And speaking of that day,” Starlight continued, before she could say or do or misunderstand something else and spoil the moment, “you beatme. At a game I literally justtaught you.” Starlight grinned. “Decisively.”
Sunburst laughed. “Yes, although I tried to go easy on you when I was winning.”
Starlight laughed in turn. “Did you really?”
Sunburst nodded.
Her wide smile felt anything but forced.
Then, with the carousel of shapes still spinning before his eyes, Sunburst gave a long, burdened sigh.
“Your parents understood things pretty well when my mom told them, but my dad wasn’t as… accepting.” His words were slow, deliberately chosen. Plucked from a dictionary and thesaurus Starlight could only glimpse. “I think he thought it was a phase. Like I would wake up one day, and… be…”
Sunburst’s words trailed off, but Starlight’s mind filled in the gaps.
“Don’t you think this is taking it too far?”
Stellar Flare shook her head, sighing.
“Sunburst is our daughter,” Sunspot said, his tone firm, clear, as plain as day. “It’s one thing to let her call herself a ‘he,’ but to introduce her to other ponies as…” He bit his lip. “Isn’t that why we left the Smokeys?”
Stellar Flare stood in a different light. “Nothing has changed since we moved here, dear. Sunburst is still a colt.” She laid a forehoof on his shoulder. “I know that it’s… different, but you know what we’ve been told.”
“And I’m telling you, Flare, we should get a second opinion. This is insane.” The thunder of his keratin clapped like the beating of war drums as he moved away from her. “I’ve had enough of playing pretend. Enough games. She needs help.”
Stellar glowered at him. “He needs nothing.”
“Horseapples,” Sunspot spat. The spatter of his spittle misted like rain. “I’m taking her to Canterlot. To a real doctor.”
“Is Doc Triage not a real doctor?” Stellar spat back. She narrowed her eyes, limbs tensing as she stared her husband down. “This isn’t something we did, Spot. This isn’t a disease, or some kind of curse. This is—”
“A fantasy!” Sunspot dismissed her with an exasperated wave of his forehoof. “Flare, we have a daughter, not a son. If she grows up to be gay, fine, but this is something else entirely.” Hot steam flowed through his nostrils. “Whatever it is, it needs to stop. But you’re indulging it!”
Never one to back down, Stellar prodded a forehoof at his chest. “Spot, don’t you get it? This is who our Sunburst is! This isn’t something anypony, or any doctor, can change. If you can’t see that, then—”
“Then what?!” Sunspot advanced, every bit a stallion, overshadowing Stellar in both height and muscle. “What are you going to do, Flare? Huh? Run off to another town? Find some kind of magical artifact? Whip up a potion? Manipulate all of Equestria into thinking that she is—”
“I will do whatever is necessary, go wherever we need, talk to anypony we have to, in order to give Sunburst the life he deserves! And if you can’t say the same, then maybe that life won’t include—”
Forehoof still pointed in mid-freeze, Stellar’s jaw fell agape. Twin sets of eyes found something curled behind the couch.
Sunburst bolted to his bedroom and jumped on the bed. He buried his face in his pillow, cries rising to the ceiling, to Celestia and Galaxia, even as hooves thumped across floorboards, even as they—
To return to this place and time…
To return to anything resembling this moment…
To be in that body...
“... Sunburst.” Starlight joined his side. “I—I’m so sorry. I had no idea, or I wouldn’t have...”
Biting his lip, Sunburst stared at the objects in his aura. The three blocks fell to the floor beneath their hooves. A sphere, a cube, and an… octahedron. One that did not belong in this strange pattern. One that stuck out like a sore hoof amongst the others.
“I’m sorry,” Starlight said again, for the thousandth—no, millionth—time, since she had known the truth of those words, the impact they left upon the deep rivers of her heart. She could not imagine the depth of the cut, how much he had been wounded. She could only say it again and again. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Saying nothing, Sunburst looked out the window.
The silence settled between them, chilling, foreboding, as heavy as the grave. For a moment, she spotted something white, blue, and lavender soaring between the stars and the moon. It dissolved into the aether.
Starlight had no right to know anything further. What remained between Sunburst, Stellar Flare, and Sunspot was theirs. She was privy not to the dealings of father and… to father and…
“Do you remember when I got my cutiemark?”
His words seemed far away, sailing beyond her, adrift on the oceans between them. She looked to the stars. They were numerous and innumerable, constellations far and wide. Orion and his belt. Sagittarius and his bow. Draco and his spiked tail. All warriors in their own might, and here she was, thinking as if she had anything to offer him—anything worthy of making him turn back to her.
“Yes,” Starlight said, her breath cold dragon-mist under Luna’s watchful eye. “I’ll never forget it.”
The edifice loomed over the two foals. Starlight clapped her forehooves excitedly, in awe of Sunburst’s latest magical feat. Creating this huge tower of books was no easy task, but he made it look so simple.
Gritting her teeth, Starlight honed her magic. She focused her tiny, stubby horn on a teal tome towards the bottom. The tower of knowledge settled when she pulled the book free—but only for a second. Then, it swayed, unstable, stacked far too high.
Wide-eyed, Starlight took a step back, then cowered, covering her face. In seconds, everything would crumble down, sure to crush her. She was young, but even she was sure that this was it, that this was the end, as time froze, a mass of yellowed parchment and ink soaring down from above as she closed her eyes tight, not wanting to see it, not wanting to feel it, and—
When she opened her eyes, the books were flying away. Wide-eyed, she could barely believe what had saved her.
Sunburst strained, his horn pulsating with the effort. Hundreds of years of knowledge yielded to the embrace of his powerful aura. Golden magic encompassed her friend, a vibrating hum filling their ears as the spellbooks circled around him.
There was a brilliant flash of gold mana—so bright that Starlight had to shield her eyes. Sunburst’s magic levitated him off the floor. The books shot back onto their shelves, far and away from her.
As Sunburst alighted back down to his hooves, there was a second surge of light. White, smaller, but no less—no, far more—significant.
The sunburst. The glimmers of magic. A cutiemark. An orange sun with bursting, yellow rays, six blue stars dotting its brilliance. Stars that looked like diamonds. His diamonds. The ones in his eyes.
He leapt, overjoyed, neighing like the foal he was. Like the colt he was.
He ran out the door, almost shoving past her, to escatic parents and a celebratory village. He left her behind, unable to follow. Leaving her to chase rainbows, chase memories, chase the feeling of knowing and being known, of knowing him, before he was whisked away, so swift, so cruel, so final—
“My dad was so happy when it happened. Moved us to Canterlot the next day. Took me to the entrance exam a week later. He… thought that it would…”
Sunburst exhaled. “Fix me.”
Though her vision blurred, Starlight resolved to stare straight at him. She owed him that much.
“When I went to Princess Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns…” Sunburst laughed, laughed, his beard shaking. “My parents, of course, met with Princess Celestia. Dad, of course, was especially eager. He… he asked her about—about me.” Though his beard quaked, he wasn’t laughing anymore. “And Princess Celestia, you know… Well… she is wise, of course, but she didn’t know what to make of me at first. It wasn’t until after I... failed out... that she finally answered his questions…”
Dear Sunspot,
I hope this letter finds you and your family well. I understand this must be a difficult time for Sunburst.
I apologize for taking so long to get you the answers that you seek. In all of my years, I have only met a few ponies like your foal.
I wish I had more concrete answers for you. I have learned the hard way that much of a pony’s life lies in shades of gray.
Sunburst is a colt. Despite what his body might indicate, I know, in my hearts of hearts, that you have a son, rather than a daughter. The conviction he feels is not a delusion. It will not change.
I know this might come as a shock. Or… maybe not. Sunburst seems to have known what, and who, he was from the very beginning. The others I have met with a similar condition took years, if not decades, to discover who they truly were. I can only wish that I had known this before my own—
The letter landed in a wastepaper basket on the other side of the room.
Starlight gaped. “He—after… a-all that, he still…”
She wanted to close their distance. To cross those oceans, part the sea, and touch him. Lay her forehoof on his shoulder, her forelegs around his neck.
As Sunburst chewed on his lower lip, eyes averted to the space between them, Starlight couldn’t deny him his agency.
She knew where the conclusion led—knew it as much as her own galloping heartbeat—but it was his to reveal.
Sunburst took a deep, cleansing breath through his nostrils.
“Get out, Spot.”
Three words. Almost monotonous.
“What?!”
One word. A bark. A growl. A warning, more than anything else.
Stellar Flare stomped a hoof. “You heard me.”
Sunspot stomped back, coming muzzle-to-muzzle with her. “Youwouldn’t dare. This is my—”
“This is our home,” Stellar hissed back, matching his tenacity, “and if you won’t accept it as our son’s, you won’t accept it as mine.” She held up the crumpled letter in her green aura before flinging it back into the trash. Teeth gritted, she flattened her ears and glared daggers back at him. “I’m done. We are done. Get your things, and get out.”
In the corner of the room, Sunburst—tall, lanky, muzzle beginning to curve in the same way as his mother’s—avoided his father’s glare.
But not for long.
“This has gone on long enough. You. Are. A. Mare.”
Each bellow and stomp was a blade slicing through Sunburst’s heartstrings. His father shoved him in the chest, eyes sweeping between his hindlegs. Sunburst flicked his tail up, but it was too late, the shame oozing from his cheeks.
“Nothing you read will change that. Nothing you hear will change that. No amount of magic can mask that—if you had the ability to do any, anyway.”
Sunspot’s eyes flashed red. “Sunburst, you are my daughter.”
“Enough!” Stellar Flare shouted. “Leave him alone! Pack your bags and go!”
Horn throbbing with his blue aura, Sunspot stared Sunburst down, advancing with momentous hoofsteps as the colt backed into a corner.
“Princess Celestia indulged you out of pity, but I will not. I know better—I made you,” he seethed, molars sharp as fangs in the dim light. “I changed your diapers, for the love of Galaxia! Your mother might play along with your delusions—” his eyes blazed— “but the world will not. Nor will I. Ever.”
The spiral of his horn crackled, pointed right between Sunburst’s eyes. “You are just a filly playing pretend. You will never be a father. You will never be my son. You will never be—”
Magic flashed, green against gold.
To his horror, Sunburst met his mother’s widened eyes, her pupils pinpricks. Bitter tears stared back at him, borne of love.
He had never heard a stallion run so fast.
In the moonlight, tears were diamonds.
Frozen, Starlight let him find his gemstones. Let him sniffle, let him bite his tongue, let him chew on the inside of his cheek. Let him stare out her window and number the stars beyond. Let him do whatever he needed to in order to move from there to here.
“Stallions aren’t supposed to cry,” he mumbled, glancing her way before returning to the moon.
Starlight bit her lip in turn. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to share, but he was worthy of far more than her words.
This time was Sunburst’s. After all, she had led him here. If only she had knocked. If only she had waited until morning. If only she hadn’t been so ignorant, so foolhardy, so determined to make things heartfelt and significant and…
About her...
Sunburst took a long, shuddering breath, eyes tracing the constellations. He remained fixated on what lay beyond her. Astronomy was his new escape, antiques, prestidigitation, and geology forgotten.
As memories and years raged between them, Starlight Glimmer crossed the greatest distance in Equestria to lay a foreleg around Sunburst’s shoulders.
“You are a stallion,” she said, her convictions overpowering the trembling in her words. “You are. I don’t quite understand everything, but… I’ve always known you as one, and that’s not going to change. I promise.” She smiled at him through a translucent veil. “A-and… it’s okay to cry, Sunburst. It’s—it’s better for you to cry.”
Her other foreleg found a place around him. They embraced fully, alone but for the stars.
Sunburst felt lighter than she expected, his muscles thin and wiry. She thought of all the hours, days, months, years he must have spent nose-deep in a book, researching not only the improbable, but the impossible. Trixie had told Starlight what had made her disbelieve in the Alicorn Amulet. What Twilight had done was just trickery; nopony had ever been able to truly perform such a spell. But if there was anypony alive who could…
“I’ll… I’ll find a way,” Starlight vowed, whispering into his ear. “I’ll find a way to—t-to turn a—”
“Don’t—” Sunburst wheezed, audibly struggling to find himself amongst her guilt. “D-don’t do this to me.”
“But Sunburst, I—”
“It’s impossible, Starlight.” The bitterness was palpable against her shoulder. His breath hitched. “Trust me. I have searched every spellbook, every ancient text, everything you could think of.”
“But—”
Pulling away, Sunburst pressed his forehooves against her shoulders. “It’s impossible.” His words rang with a hollow finality. “All I have are the potions, and they only can do so much. Even the ones made by Canterlot’s best doctors.” The frown etched across his muzzle may as well have been carved from granite. “I will have to take one of those potions every month, for the rest of my life. Those potions, and the cloak, stop everypony from asking too many questions.”
Usually, hovered between them. Starlight lowered her gaze, unable to look him in the eye. “Surely, there must be—”
“There is nothing.” The last word rolled off his tongue to sizzle in the air. “Nothing will truly make me a stallion. Nothing.” He released her, sighing as all four hooves returned to the floor. “All I can do is hope that the world sees me like my mother does.”
Shaking his head, Sunburst stared at his hooves. “Even after I started taking the potions, my mom tried to find another way. She wrote, planned, did just about everything to try and get me back into Princess Celestia’s school. She’s convinced that if I can just get back in, I can get the Princess to find a way to—” he scowled— “to turn me into a real stallion.
“She’s practically trying to run my life at this point so that it’ll happen. She doesn’t understand that this is as good as it gets. She doesn’t get that—” he tensed, shaking his head at something in the far-off distance— “that… there's...
“... That D-D-Dad… isn’t ever… going to…”
Crossing the seas, Starlight held him once more. The tears that fell from her eyes were undeserving of him, not worthy to mourn his loss.
Still, they fell, him into her, as silence hugged them both.
This time, it was not the silence of strangers—thick, heavy, awkward—but that of friends. Meeting, parting, returning. Pushing past the oceans between them, the sands of time, joining where nothing else mattered.
After some time, Starlight nuzzled his cheek. “Well, if it helps, I’m not going anywhere. And…” She smiled, eyes shining in the moonlight. “You’re all stallion to me.”
Returning the nuzzle, Sunburst gave an uneasy chuckle. “Y-yeah?”
“Yeah.” She sighed happily as he tightened her grip around her. “A big, important, wizardly stallion,” she said, meaning every word.
When he laughed this time, it was the most precious sound she’d ever heard. “That’s all I could ever ask to be.”
As she pulled away, Starlight Glimmer looked past the spectacles on Sunburst’s snout. Past what she had glimpsed, unannounced, and what she had learned, unworthy.
The friend whom had meant more to her than cutiemarks, than Sire’s Hollow, than Equestria itself, stared back at her. While she could not understand—could never fully understand—she knew enough now of friendship, and magic, to offer him everything she could.
“Thank you for telling me all this. You didn’t have to.”
The faint ghost of a smile followed hers. “I know. I’ve never told anypony before. It feels... kind of nice, really.”
“Y-yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The two shared a warm glance in the dark of night.
Then, Starlight said, picking up where they had left off, “I’m really glad you came here.”
And Sunburst, wearing his cloak but none of his apprehension, replied with a grin, “Me, too.”
Author's Note
One of the inspirations for this story, along with rewatching Uncommon Bond, was this image.
I debated on tagging this story Alternate Universe or not. In the end, I chose not to, for the following reasons:
1) Luster Dawn being Starlight and Sunburst's daughter is not canon, and;
2) Even if it is, if there is one pony in Equestria who could find a way for Sunburst to be a biological father, it's Starlight. Doing the impossible is... well, her thing.
I want to give a shout-out to Ice Star's story, Song Of Myself. By far, one of, if not the best transgender pony stories out there. I gave that story a tiny nod in this one.
Hope you enjoyed the story! As always, comments are appreciated. 
