Spike was doodling on a random scroll he found. It was crumpled up and half-filled with notes on a particular combination spell, but it seemed Twilight had messed up. She was taking new notes on a new experiment. Or something of the sort. Spike didn't care. This was another one of those moments, one where Twilight, probably one of two ponies who cared to befriend him, was off getting a lesson with Princess Celestia, and he was left all alone. He had to be honest: it didn't bother him anymore since this had happened so often.
He knew the deal: Twilight was called by Princess Celestia for a private magic lesson, since she had more potential than most fillies. She was off having fun experimenting with magic, and he was left alone to do nothing but scribble on papers (if he could find them) and clean up around the apartment. He hated being lonely, whether he was used to it or not.
This time, he was doodling in the middle of the night. Well, it was about 10:30 P.M., which was fairly late for a baby dragon like him. Twilight had wanted to give him something for his early birthday, since she had to leave for a field trip with the other foals in two days. That was his birthday. Twilight wouldn't be home on his birthday. But she wasn't home right now, either.
Maybe she was, but had just fallen asleep in her homework or experiments.. That was possible.
Maybe she wasn't, and was instead in Celestia's part of the castle, having overworked just a tad bit. That was another possibility. There were a number of things that could have happened, but all of them meant Twilight wasn't here. She wasn't with him. She cared more about books than she did her friends, and that included Spike. He sighed and soon fell asleep, drooling on his portrait of him and Twilight and Shining Armor playing together. As they did before. As it was when they were all close. When he wasn't lonely. He thought about the emptiness of the room often. And he was doing that this night, too.
He opened his eyes. Wait, when did they close? He didn't know, but it was bright out. Well, brighter than it was before. With his eyes opened, it was just plain white. Oh, there was something on his face. He removed it to discover a note from Princess Celestia about Twilight. She was out on the advanced students' field trip. Spike would have to be alone for longer than just his birthday.
But on the back of the index card was a note to check his bed. He did. On it was a kite shaped into Twilight's cutie mark, to be a memento of her whenever she was gone and he felt lonely. It reminded him of when he, Twilight, and Shining Armor would fly kites together. Twilight never got too good at it, and Shining Armor joked that even Spike could fly a kite better than her. She let go of her kite then, but Shining Armor had caught it. He'd given it back and Twilight had blamed it on Shining Armor. It was an ongoing (fake) argument with several laughs.
But there were no laughs. It was only him, and he was sobbing. It started out a single raindrop. It then turned into a shower, and next a flood. He was alone now. No Shining Armor, no Twilight, no Celestia. Wait. Where was Celestia? He rushed out of their part of the castle and into Celestia's. He'd gotten used to the big space. It was simple to find his way around after having lived there for so long. He opened the door, without knocking like any noble citizen would, and walked in to see if he could find Celestia. She was washing the dishes in the kitchen-like area. Spike couldn't see her face with all the hair, but when she greeted her, he swore she had been crying or something of the sort. "Hey, Spike. Did you get the note?"
Spike just stood there. Twilight had never been like this, not in front of him. He had no idea how to comfort ponies. "Yeah. I want to tell Twilight thank you. But also, were you... crying?"
Celestia sighed. "I can't hide much from you, can I?"
"Nope," Spike answered, still concerned. "Why were you, anyways?"
"The lonliness," Celestia stated. She left it at that. She finished washing the dishes, then turned around to face him. With a gesture for him to follow her into a different room, Spike obeyed. They sat in her bedroom, which looked cheerful, bright, and adventurous, almost like you would expect the Princess's room to look, just with a few extra touches that made Celestia seem like a little foal at heart. She probably was.
Spike joined Celestia on the bed, then dared to ask, "Why are you so lonely? You have so many subjects!"
"Everything. It was enough when I took over both day and night after my sister had turned into a monster, forcing me to banish her to the moon. But I got Twilight later. She was almost like the little sister Luna was. Almost."
He didn't even know who Luna was, or that the legends Twilight enjoyed reading were true. He decided it was best to keep it secret. "So why wasn't she completely like a little sister?"
Celestia shrugged. "I guess no one can replace Luna. Besides, Twilight is awfully young. She could be my friend, I guess, but she's so distant nowadays. I need to get her doing more with her classmates."
"I don't think she cares about hanging out with them, though," Spike said quietly.
Celestia nodded in agreement. She looked at Spike with a worried look. "I'm worried that she won't be able to make friends later on. But I'm also worried that I'll lose one of my closest friends."
"You'll never lose me. Hey, did you ever think of finding a new student?"
"I'll think about it," she said, rubbing her chin.
Two days later, she did find a new student who was hoping to learn more on magic. When Celestia came back with Twilight and the advanced foals with her, she had a new little unicorn with her. Her lilac coat matched her purple mane, where a teal streak ran through it. If Spike hadn't known better, he would've guessed that Starlight was related to Twilight. Oh, and that was her name. Starlight Glimmer.
She was shy, and her eyes darted around the exam room as if she were watching out for somepony that could possibly hurt her. When it came time to hatch the dragon egg, as Twilight had once done to Spike's egg, Starlight blasted it like it was nothing. The dragon was pushed into a new room, planned to be sent to the Dragonlands. Celestia gaped, as well as Twilight, who was watching her next to Spike, as Starlight started to glimmer. On her flank appeared a new picture, oddly similar to Twilight's cutie mark. Starlight started crying, facing away from Celestia, Twilight, Spike, and the Judges. She dashed out of the room in a fit of tears and Celestia followed.
The two had a talk. She would be placing Twilight with Starlight so that they could learn from each other and hopefully become friends. They didn't become friends, which meant a lot of tension because they were put in the same tower. But Twilight did learn some things from Starlight. One thing about Starlight was that she had discovered most of the magic on her own. She realized that magic was tied to her emotions. The stronger they were, the more powerful the magic was. Twilight used that knowledge.
Starlight soon gave up on lessons with Twilight, since they were presumably too easy for her. Spike thought this might be a good thing, because he wouldn't have to be all alone while Twilight was doing her lessons. One day, when Twilight started on her lessons, Spike went to go find Starlight. He discovered her in her bed, completely covered in everything on the bedsheet that she could find.
He sat next to the pile of comfort and hugged it. Starlight, having peeked out of the pile, groaned. "Is something wrong?" he asked. But nopony says yes. Everypony always says they're fine, whether they are or not. Starlight, surprisingly, wasn't one of these ponies.
"Of course," came the muffled answer from under the blankets and pillows. Spike pulled off the blankets so that she could see him. Then, he gestured for more. "My whole life is wrong."
Spike was shocked to hear her answer be so harsh. "Why?" he dared to ask.
Starlight groaned again. Spike having the audacity to ask these questions bothered her, but she could finally share her troubles. "No idea. I'm just different."
"But you're a good type of different! You're two years younger than Twilight, and yet you're the one teaching her cool stuff," he supplied.
"My grades and magic may be good, but I've had... bigger problems," Starlight took the risk of saying. She didn't wait for Spike to usher her to continue, though. "I just don't know how ponies work. I don't get the whole feelings deal, and I often hear that I don't care about others. Which is totally wrong! And the ponies in my old town always said I acted weird. Do I?"
She waited for Spike's honest answer. And he answered as truthfully as he possibly could. "I haven't seen you act weird. What's so weird that ponies would say such things?"
"The stuff I say, the way I act. But most of all, my magic. It's too powerful for them. Nopony understands how my magic works. Not even me. That's why I'm here."
Spike sat there in silence. He didn't know Starlight hurt this much. He had no idea what to say, so he asked a question that had been nagging at him for a while. "Why are you so tense around Twilight?"
"Twilight," Starlight repeated, "is my classmate. The one who was in the gifted program. Right?" Spike nodded, and she continued, proud that she had remembered a name for once. "I don't know. Am I distant?" I guess it's just that I'm afraid of friends. Mostly ponies."
"And me?"
Starlight shrugged. "You seem pretty chill. I like you. But this one pony I knew was my so-called friend. We promised to be with each other. Forever. But then he abandoned me when he got his cutie mark. Which was why I started crying when I got my cutie mark."
He gaped. "They weren't tears of joy?" Starlight shook her head and crawled off the bed. Spike followed. "Do you mind if I'm your friend?"
"What if you leave me behind?" she asked, doubtful.
Spike held her hoof. "I won't. I'm lonely and forgotten pretty often. But I've learned that lonliness is often a mutual feeling shared between ponies. And, well, dragons, too. Like me. You can trust me."
Starlight shrugged. Spike didn't know what that meant, but Starlight was off to explore the tower. She found the kite Spike got for his birthday, and questioned it. He explained that it was a gift, and by the way Starlight was eyeing it, he told her to take it. She thanked him several times and took it out to fly. Spike joined her and watched as the kite drifted around. It was quite therapeutic.
Starlight thought that, too. That was why she did it. She said she got close to hurting herself really badly, and that her therapist bought her a kite before it was too late. It calmed her down sometimes, and she enjoyed watching it fly. But sometimes, kites weren't enough.
After her lesson, which was later that night, Spike was asleep. So was Twilight and Princess Celestia. Starlight couldn't sleep, as always. Her life was wrong. What kind of small filly had insomnia? It was probably the overload of magic in her bloodstream. But something made it so that she couldn't sleep, that she had to toss and turn every night, trying to cry herself to sleep. But she couldn't drift off to sleep, no matter how hard the tears fell. She decided to try something she hadn't in a few months.
She teleported outside of the castle, far from the guards in the gardens and fields, and found a place on the mountain where she could be alone. Sometimes she hated alone, sometimes, she liked it. Now was one of those times where she needed it. She took a small, sharp breath of mountain air, which was not much since there wasn't much to breathe when you got higher up. Starlight was a Straight A student. She'd discovered that on her own, though.
Starlight took her breaths and then mentally screamed in agony as she hit her horn. A unicorn's horn was the most sensitive part of their body. For some tougher ponies, it was just a little sting to have it hit. For weaker ones, it hurt terribly. For Starlight, though, it was different. She was tough, there was no doubting that. But her blood was full of magic. It ran through her veins. She was mostly magic, and the horn held the most. Harming the horn meant harming the rest of the body, too. She had done this before. But that was when she'd started to train herself not to scream when doing this. Other ponies would hear. Other ponies would stop her.
She turned around. It was almost sunrise. It would almost be time for somepony to come find her. It would almost be time for her to be stopped. Which was why she had to do this quickly. Her body was in pain, the next few times she hit herself. It was a terrible pain, but her body was tough. It didn't get to the serious part. But she started seizing, and soon enough she was unconcious, breathing tiny breaths at the top of a mountain away from civilization.
Luckily, Spike had woken up early as usual, and had discovered Starlight's disappearance. Celestia had been notified, and she and Spike were out searching for her. So, just minutes after Starlight had become unconcious, Celestia and Spike found her. Beat-up, but she was breathing shakily. Celestia teleported the three into a hospital, where Starlight had to explain.
Spike hugged her, and Celestia did, too, because it seemed she desperately needed it. "We'll find a way to cap the magic. It won't be as hard to manage life after, okay?" Starlight resisted the terrible urge to just run off and start a new life, and instead hugged Princess Celestia tighter and sobbed into her, first a raindrop, then a growing shower, and finally, a whole flood. She breathed unsteadily, nodded unsteadily. Celestia with her soft hooves comforted her.
After the incident, Celestia had done training with Starlight to get the magic under control, as well as given her therapy when she needed it. After all, magic came from emotions. With a bit of help, Starlight's magical ability calmed down a bit, but it was still powerful and fierce when she needed it. And Twilight stayed around more, too. After hearing what had happened, she felt sorry and vowed to be a better friend. And Starlight vowed to accept Twilight as a friend.
Starlight did have her meltdown moments from time to time, but it was rarer than before. All in all, she's grown. She even finally gathered the courage to ask about her old friend, Sunburst, who was not doing as well in magic. They reunited, and Sunburst made a few new friends with all of Starlight's new friends.
Starlight was very far from perfect; there's no doubting that. But she's better now. She just needed a friend. She just needed to stop being lonely.
