Sunny Starscout sighed, her face flat against the table, and looked out the window at the skyline of Maretime Bay.
Of the Three Great Cities of equinity, Maretime Bay was perhaps the least glamorous. It knew neither the natural beauty of Bridlewood, nor the fine artifice of Zephyr Heights. The air was thick with smoke and the stink of countless tides over countless moons, and only her lighthouse's slight remoteness from the city proper spared Sunny from the miasma.
But her spirits were nonetheless choked by a less tangible smog, and the city looked all the more grey for her melancholy. She looked up at the framed photo of her father, Argyle Starshine.
"Another year..." she lamented. "I don't know if I can keep going that long..."
Sunny was beloved by the entire city as the mare who brought back the magic - though she had her friends to thank for that, and Izzy had been the star of the Harmonoid fiasco just a moon or two later. But despite her celebrity, Sunny found ordinary life to be rather uneventful - a series of chasing trends, desperately looking for something to fill the crushing void in her life, and never finding it.
Forcing herself up out of her seat, Sunny awkwardly picked up her half-eaten breakfast, stuffed it into the fridge, put on a cute fuchsia down jacket, and shambled out the door.
Sunny's friends sat around a white table, under a cheerful white-and-pink umbrella, worrying over their tomato sandwiches and glancing every which way now and again.
"We really should just talk to her about it," Hitch frowned. "We shouldn't talk about her on the end of her tail. Especially out in public like this."
"But what if she doesn't wanna talk about it," Pipp pouted.
"I think she would've brought it up by now if she did," Zipp agreed.
"Well," Hitch fidgeted. "Talking about it out here isn't going to help her."
They all nodded, taking half-hearted bites of their sandwiches.
"We should do something for her," Izzy considered. "Just some little nice thing to help her feel good."
"Lie-wha?" Hitch scowled suspiciously, his mouth full.
"Like just take her out for a movie or something," Izzy blinked.
"Unh-unh," Pipp shook her head, "Movie tickets are so expensive -- and the snacks?! She'll get guilty when we foot the bill for her, that's the last thing we want."
"If a princess is sayin' that it must be way out of my budget," Izzy sighed.
"It'd be a lot cheaper if we just rented a movie," Zipp pointed out. "Even if we bought snacks, as long as it wasn't from a theater, we're looking at what, half the price? A fourth, even? We can argue over what movies to watch all the way up to clicking 'rent now' on the app, and there'll be no lines or mares bringing their noisy babies."
"We'll be the noisy babies," Izzy nodded.
"Oh, but we can't ask Sunny to leave the Bay while she's feeling like crud," Pipp considered. "Hitch, how's your home cinema situation lookin'?"
"Me?!" Hitch leaned back in his chair. "I've barely got room in my house for five ponies to stand. It's Sunny who's got the 'cinema'..."
It was raining. Sunny didn't care.
She let one hoof move in front of another, thinking about how much happier things used to be. She'd gone nearly noseblind to the smell of the fish and flowers in the market, and didn't find any joy in simple things like figurines and games anymore. She hadn't even taken her rollerskates out today - which was probably a good thing, considering the rain. That's all she needed was to skin her knees or break her nose and probably get a fine from Hitch.
"Uh, Sunny." Speak of Discord, there was Hitch's voice now. When Sunny looked up, he was tilting his head with an apologetic grimace. "You're walking on the grass." He pointed to the sign she'd blindly walked past, reading KEEP OFF GRASS.
Sunny gasped, looked at the sign, and looked down. "O-oh," she squeaked, and quickly stepped back onto the cobblestone. "S-sorry! Oh loons. Am I in trouble?" She sighed and looked away, dejected.
"Not at all," Hitch laughed. "But you might catch a cold if you stick around out here in the rain. Somethin' on your mind?"
"Uh," Sunny mumbled. "No, just..."
Hitch waited patiently for the awkward pause to pass.
Sunny sighed again. "Just forcing myself through a lousy day, ya know?"
"The girls are in town today," Hitch reminded her. "We could stream a movie at your place."
"Mm," Sunny considered. "I do have some credits for a free film or two. You'd all probably need to stay the night, though, it's getting late."
"Hey, I can walk home from the lighthouse," Hitch waved off. "But if you're alright with it, the gal's'd be happy to stay over."
She could tell from his shining eyes that there was more to it than this - he wanted her to accept the company. Had it been that obvious that she wasn't feeling so well? Sunny frowned and blinked, thinking it over. Then she nodded. "Okay. Bring 'em over whenever they're done with their errands... If I don't answer the door right away, I might be in the shower."
"We're showering already," Hitch joked. "See you in a bit."
After cleaning up around the house, rearranging everything, dusting everything, and vaccuuming, Sunny fell onto her couch, placing her hoof-mirror on the floor, and sighed.
"I'm not in the condition to host anybody," she fretted, redoing her braids. "I'm just gonna be a downer for everyone. Ouch." She winced. "Why do I insist on wearing my hair like this."
But she knew the answer to that - she'd always worn it that way. Ever since her father taught her how to do it. She'd never learned how to do any other styles, and she hated how she looked with her hair completely loose.
Knock knock.
"Eyaargh!" Sunny cried, startled. She rapidly stuffed her hair into the last few braids and leapt up. "Just a moment!" She seized the hoof-mirror in her mouth and scurried to a random drawer to put it away, then gave the room a quick look over and ran to the door, pulling herself up and opening it.
"Hey," Zipp jerked her chin upwards and smirked.
She had some small saddlebags on, with what looked like bags of gummy candies bulging out from under the flaps. Sunny couldn't see what was in the others' bags, but was relieved to see they'd each brought something or another. Knowing Hitch, he'd probably packed something healthy to offset the candies and chocolates the girls had undoubtedly all selected.
"Girls! Hitch, uh, come on in," Sunny tried to smile, backing up and gesturing for them to enter. "I see you brought snacks - I didn't have time to make dinner, sorry..!"
"Don't worry about it," Izzy beamed. "We wouldn't wanna eat you out of house and home!"
"No one mare could possibly make a proper dinner for me and Pipp," Zipp quipped.
"H-hey!" Pipp objected. "I'm not a bodybuilder like you. I don't have to eat 6000 calories a day!"
"You're the straw that breaks the chef's back," Zipp patted her head.
Sunny's smile widened a bit. "I was gonna say that I ordered pizza."
Izzy squealed and hugged her. "You're the best friend!! I never get to have pizza!"
"Make yourselves at home, I'll just get some ready-to-eat stuff from the kitchen and be back in a minute." As she headed out of the room, the girls and Hitch sprawled out over the well-kept old sofa Sunny had painstakingly dragged into the living room and began to unpack, with Izzy singing something to herself. As she suspected, Hitch arranged several small bags of baby carrots on the coffee table.
Sunny looked through her pantries and selected some chips and dips, as well as an assortment of sodas and juices - Pipp didn't drink anything carbonated unless she was getting viral off of it.
She frowned, realizing this would take more than one trip. Fortunately, she hadn't opened anything. As she made her way back to the living room with the chips and returned to the kitchen, she was distinctly aware that her friends, babbling about miscellany, were intentionally avoiding bothering her for the moment.
"Aw yeah," Pipp clucked. "Bright Nights been a threat, belee dat. Every third or fourth single she puts out is a bombshell. But she's stupid. If she just called me out in her lyrics, that'd be one thing, but she finna drag Zipp into it, and now she's in for a pound."
"You're gonna let her have it for smack-talkin' your sista?" Izzy guessed as Sunny returned with the dips and headed to the kitchen a third time.
Pipp laughed. "She wishes. Naw, Zipp goes in, she's featured on my next track. You know how hot Zipp spits?"
Sunny returned with the sodas in time to see Izzy innocently shake her head, likely as clueless as to what that meant as Sunny was.
"She's like a dragon, trufax," Pipp grimaced. "Glad she's on my side!" She gave an affectionate grin to her sister.
"Been a hot minute since I had to sit a filly down," Zipp said solemnly, returning the grin with a stoic pout.
"You girls think this is enough snacks? Remember we have pizza on the way," Sunny fretted, looking over the table, completely covered in every possible color of edible. "Oh, what're these?" She picked up a suspiciously bright-green bag full of toxic-colored gummies.
"Warheads," Zipp grinned. "You 'n' Izzy might not like those -- whoa!" Izzy had already popped open a bag and put five in her mouth, chewing with primly closed eyes.
Two movies later, five ponies lounged with round bellies and sleepy heads.
"Thanks for this, girls," Sunny admitted with a sniffle. "I guess it was pretty obvious, huh."
"Mm-hmm," Izzy smiled at her with compassionate eyes. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
"Not much to talk about," Sunny sighed. "It's just... another year."
"Mm," Hitch nodded with furrowed brows. "I can't imagine how it feels."
"Huh?"
"I still talk to my mom and dad," Izzy nodded. "I know one day that'll change, but..."
Sunny stared at Izzy with her mouth half-open.
"Look, I know what it's like," Pipp soothed, scooting over and patting Sunny's hoof. "For the first couple weeks, you kept forgetting. You got up, went to look for him, and he wasn't there and you started crying."
Sunny furrowed her brows, her eyes widening. "I'm sorry, what?"
Pipp froze mid-pat, blinking. "D... Didn't you?" She stammered. "Didn't you feel like a bad person for the next few months to years because you got used to him being gone?" She turned to Zipp with crazed eyes. "We felt like that! Right? Right?! Didn't we feel like that!"
"Sure did," Zipp tilted her head, pouting.
Sunny blinked, staring at Pipp like she was crazy.
Pipp blinked back at her, glancing at the others in nervous confusion. "Um," she glanced to the opposite wall and back. "... Your pops is dead, right?"
"Are you seriously asking that, Pipp," Zipp facewing'd.
"Yeah?" Sunny confirmed tersely, staring evenly at her. "Pretty sure he is... Why."
"W-well I mean," Pipp fidgeted. She turned to Zipp and rolled a hoof at her, beckoning her to recover for her.
Zipp sighed and leaned forward to see Sunny better past Pipp. "We've noticed you've been really down lately and we did a little asking around and we know your dad's birthday's coming up," She tilted her head. "So we figured..."
"What the mayonnaise are you talking about?" Sunny balked. "Sure, I do a little ritual to remember and honor him every year, but my dad died ten years ago. I'm not still grieving! Who do you think I am?! Applejack?!"
"W-w-w-w-well some of us still feel left behind..!!" Pipp sniffled, watery-eyed.
"I dunno, I think he got the short end of that stick," Zipp shrugged.
"Wait, what." Hitch stammered. "Then why have you been so miserable over the past week..?"
Sunny sighed, closed her eyes, and tilted her head up. "Breath of the Wild 2 got delayed..." She lowered her head.
Everyone's mouths dropped open in shock.
"It did?!" Pipp shrieked, leaping into the air, her wings fluttering wildly. Being full of pizza and gummy worms she quickly fell back to the ground.
"What!! Awww windigo butts!!" Izzy whined, sniffling and crying. "How long?!"
"A whole kerfuffling year," Sunny sighed.
"No way! I can't play Kirby for that long! Forgotten Land is short as a daffodil!" Izzy stamped.
"Yeah..." Sunny nodded sadly, then faceplanted back onto her table. "Yeah, it is..."
"Try Elden Ring, that game never ends," Zipp suggested.
Author's Note
Written partially in response to the many, many, many, many fics about how sad Sunny is that her parents are dead, just like Applejack, Markiplier, and Batman before her.
Happy April Fool's, you sappy sissy sugar plum fairies!
