Stuffed Starlight

It was late afternoon and a thick blanket of steam billowed from the Ponyville Express, filling the air with a heady mist and shaking the platform’s foundations as the hulking beast of a locomotive lurched to a shuddering stop.

It grumbled and heaved, and then let out a long sigh as it settled into place, emitting a saturated hiss to announce its arrival with a double-helping of steam and black smoke that it pelted into the atmosphere above.

“All aboard for the Crystal Empire”, the conductor announced, causing the hairs all along Sunburst’s back to bristle.

There was the unmistakable click of a hidden latch, and as the carriage doors jolted open, the silence of the empty station was replaced by the discordant din of ponies talking. One-by-one the passengers of the train flooded the station platform, bringing the space to a sparse form of life, all the while, whilst Sunburst watched them pass with an uneasy sense of dread.

His stomach was doing backflips—almost literally—as he watched the ponies walk in and out of his line of sight. It was whilst he was watching the most recent one, a colt pushing a trolley almost double three times his size with what looked surprisingly like a bird in a cage, that Sunburst was shaken out of his thoughts by the mare next to him.

“So...This is it?” he heard her say.

Sunburst’s ears twitched. Without taking his eyes off of the colt, he watched as the trolley disappeared around the corner before turning his head to Starlight Glimmer. “I guess so...” he said in return.

Starlight was looking at him with a thin smile. A sense of sadness hung over them as she averted her gaze to paw at the ground in awkward silence. The luggage they’d brought was more than enough to tell the story. A green, fau-leather-bound suitcase and a large wine barrel full of Sunburst’s other acquisitions made over the weekend lay just out of sight, cluttering the platform area.

Behind him, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Trixie Lulamoon, and Maud Pie formed up the rear of his group of friends, all gathered to see him off back to the Crystal Empire, but did he really want to go?

Swallowing down his nerves, Sunburst put on a smile for the other ponies. He eyed Starlight Glimmer in particular as he tried to hide his nervous unease. Though they’d only just managed to reforge their long-dormant relationship—something he was grateful for doing—it still didn’t feel right to have to say goodbye so soon.

She was the first one to break the awkward silence. “We’ll see you off now, but...”

Starlight gave pause, her smile turning up a few inches as she took a step closer to Sunburst, causing his heart to almost skip a beat.

The stallion reversed away but was caught up in an embrace as Starlight closed the distance and pulled him into a reluctant hug. “...meet again later, okay?” he heard her whisper into his ear.

“Y-Yeah, of course!” Sunburst blurted without really thinking about it. His cheeks were burning, a feature that made him thankful for the colour of his coat, and he felt a chill run up the back of his spine as Starlight released him from her embrace, her own cheeks more visibly violet from the awkward interaction.

“S-Sorry...” she said.

Though the prospect of meeting again worked to mellow the paint of saying goodbye, it did little to make it hurt any less.

Ten years.

Then years they’d been apart. Before this weekend he’d barely even remembered what it was like to know anypony as well as he did Starlight Glimmer. He’d forgotten, grown numb to it, grown used to not remembering what he’d lost, but two days ago he finally got to meet up with her again and get to know the pony that she’d become.

Not only of the pony he once knew, but of the wonderful, beautiful, mare she’d grown into today. The Starlight Glimmer that stood in front of him was a stark difference to the innocent filly he knew from yesteryear. This Starlight Glimmer had grown into an accomplished, attractive, mare all her own. One that he barely recognised and yet, when he looked into her eyes, he could still sense that familiarity that gave him comfort.

Yes, they’d successfully rekindled their friendship lost, but to end it now? To be forced to say goodbye when it felt like they had finally found their way onto the mend?

Sunburst’s throat was starting to feel dry. There was a hoof on his shoulder and the sounds of ponies talking around him. How long had he been out of it?

As he blinked and became aware of his surroundings, he saw that Twilight and Trixie had started a conversation in his stead.

It took a moment for Sunburst to release he was being spoken to and he snapped to attention, fully breaking out of his nervous trance. A quick inspection of his friend’s faces revealed Maud to be the one looking the most concerned between all of them.

“Are you ready to go?” Twilight asked again.

“Oh—Oh yeah! Of c-c-course!” He jerked his head upright, stuttering.

Putting as much vigour into his motions as he could muster, Sunburst straightened his shoulders and trotted towards the edge of the station platform, though deep down his heart wasn’t in it.

Upon reaching the doorway into the carriage, Sunburst stopped and turned around to face the small congregation of his friends. Starlight Glimmer, of course, had to be the one taking the lead as she approached him with the suitcase hovering in her aura.

With the bag being passed between them, there was a loud ‘ker-chunk’ to his right as Maud begin loading his other bags into the luggage section of the train. He straightened his glasses and turned around , looking at Starlight Glimmer and his other friends behind her for one more time. Whispering between them, he asked: “See ya soon?”

Starlight responded in an equally low voice, a smirk creeping across her face as she pressed her hoof against her nose and reply. “You bet,” she said.

That, at least, gave Sunburst a spark of hope. So long as he had the promise of seeing her again, then maybe he could still manage the interim alone without having to resort to any of his usual extreme measures.

But Starlight wasn’t finished. Before Sunburst could get his hopes up any further, she continued with a quip: “I still want to know if you ever find something interesting in that barrel,” she said.

“Yes well—”

The words died in Sunburst’s throat faster than he could think. It was like a lance of ice had shot through the traincar as his blood began to run cold. Did she... Know?

Looking around, he saw that other ponies had begun filing onto the train around them, and as one particularly burly stallion trotted between them and carried on their way, Sunburst was allowed time to collect and calm himself.

His heart raced as the prospect of Starlight somehow figuring out what he’s had stored in that barrel flashed through his mind and all of a sudden all of his assurances began to crumble.

He clenched his teeth, feeling them grind. The wall of the cabin vibrated slightly beside with the weight of two Pie sisters leveraging the loaded wooden barrel over the threshold. He tried, desperately, to hold a straight face, as he turned to Starlight, ears burning and glasses fogging, and said.

It. Was. Fine.

“Trust me, Starlight. You’ll be the first to know.”

~ ~ ~

As Sunburst trotted briskly through the train the doors clicked shut behind him and there was a growing commotion all around as other ponies went about their business, stowing their suitcases or chatting among themselves.

While he’d had to step around a blond pegasus who had somehow managed to get her head stuck between the supports for one of the benches, he was thankfully left otherwise undisturbed. All the better, for his brow painted a crease as he trudged through the rows of seats, in deep thought over his worries,

Why did he have to go and say that!

Besides the fact he didn’t know if, how, or why Starlight would have hidden anything in his barrel, now he had the burden of reporting his findings. Unless he were to come up with something, could he really lie to her?

He was sure it was just books and a few ornaments. Would she even be interested in any of that? She’s shown no interest in antiquing all day. She’d never—

A sudden, sharp pain raced through his horn, causing Sunburst to wince and stumble to a halt, winded as his luggage dropped to the ground behind him. He was almost to the end of the train car, so he took the opportunity to lean against the wooden supports in the connecting section between the carriages.

He inhaled and exhaled. He hadn’t realised his heart had been racing. As he stood, the ground swayed, though whether from the motion of the train car or from his own light-headedness, he didn’t know.

He attempted to catch his breath, focusing back onto himself as he breathed: In and out; he repeated the exercises from his colleague.

In, hold, and out.

He exhaled through his nose, allowing the moment of blissful silence to bring with it a newfound clarity.

In and out.

The air tasted metallic.

There was a strong magical build-up, most likely from the high density of ponies and the train’s engine gathering static as it sat there on idle—the focus of the conductor’s energies, no doubt.

In and out.

He could hear the commotion from outside as ponies mulled about; the distant clicking and clacking of hooves against the wooden boards of the train cars as other ponies boarded

Trying again, he focused on his magic and let it flow more easily this time. He formed an aura around his suitcase where it had landed, and the strain of its weight resumed at the base of his horn. He felt the resistance pull as it knocked against some barrier and he had to turn his head and watch as the giant suitcase wiggled and jimmied its way between the chairs.

He levitated it higher, clear of other obstacles, and brought it level with his eyes.

Sunburst smiled in satisfaction—albeit slightly—at having overcome the small challenge.

“Ahem.”

A gravelly cough jolted Sunburst’s attention back to the present causing the stallion to yelp and drop his suitcase. The case, having taken two knocks already, sprung open in his grasp with a loud clang upon the nearby bench--Clothes sprawled from the open gap, and as Sunburst was stammering to capture them all, he was brought face-to-face with a grey pony in a blue trench coat and hat: the conductor.

The conductor frowned, a grimace that creased his forehead into an expression that practically emanated with contempt. “Everypony to their seats,” he sneered, eyeing Sunburst suspiciously.

“Uh–Ye–” Sunburst tried to nod, but was caught between grappling his opened suitcase and the domineering pony standing over him–He frantically reached to his coat pocket for the ticket, but was again thwarted when the stallion nickered.

“Don’t bother,” he said, and the stallion pushed past him, a clipper floating in a dim glow in tow as Sunburst’s own ticket–stamped and punched–floated down and lay delicately on Sunburst’s nose where it flopped limply.

“The train is about to depart.”

~ ~ ~

Setting the green suitcase down beside him, Sunburst took the window position just in time for him to feel the carriage begin to move beneath him. There was a shudder, the unmistakable shaking and creaking of wooden trusses, and then like a growling hissing beast, the train bubbled to life.

Everything around him rumbled with a throbbing that coursed through Sunburst’s body, emanating from the seat upwards as the massive engine growled to and the car beneath him lurched forwards like some massive beast.

Inch by inch, it started to trundle forward, pulling from the station as it pushed on the ground, dragging itself forward with a mighty howl.

Sunburst was fully prepared to look out that window and see nopony left behind—he almost didn’t. The thought of being left alone, of repeating what he’d already been through as a colt, was almost too much for him.

But even so, curiosity always won out in the end.

He considered using his magic to open the curtains, but upon reconsideration, he instead reached out with a hoof and gently pushed them aside. No doubt, the train station was—

A tear came to his eyes as he watched the line of ponies passing him by. One by one, like a slow procession of his friends. Princess Twilight Sparkle, smiling and waving like the massive nerd she was, Maud, always the expressive one—and Trixie Lulamoon. She was dancing on her hooves like she needed the little filly’s room and almost fell off of the platform as she screamed and gestured for Sunburst to wave back, to which he happily obliged with a tip of his glasses.

There was only one pony missing, and his heart sank when he noticed it was.

Where are you, Starlight?

~ ~ ~

“No, I don’t want free parking. I don’t even know what that is!” A loud rumble interrupted Starlight mid-conversation.

She withdrew her head from the booth and glanced over her shoulder past the line of ponies to witness the caboose of the Ponyville Express trundle past the tunnel leading to the platform.

“Oh buck!”

Spitting slurs, Starlight booked it back to the platform, dropping everything as she raced outside. She arrived just in time to see the caboose sail past the platform and made a beeline for Twilight, shoving Trixie out of the way as she slid to a halt next to the princess.

“I’m sorry, Starlight,” Twilight apologised, “but you already missed him.”

“I did!?” Starlight asked in disbelief. She then looked at the empty tracks and screamed. “Buck! BUUCK!”