Imperfect Strangers

Starlight stood, back flat against the shower wall, The feeling of her bedraggled mane in the hot downpour died away as the tension in her body coiled exquisitely like a spring squeezing to its limit. Eyes closed, a heavy steam filled every quickening breath. Her trembling hoof curled tighter around Sunburst’s horn, pulling him in as he kissed emphatically between her thighs. The tiny rivulets of water trickling down her barrel parted over the top of his rooting muzzle.

I could stay here permanently, she thought. Couldn't I? Things could work out in Ponyville this time. It seemed every wheel was moving against her original plan now, the one she never really cared for. Here she could have real friends again, stability, a respectable job that she loved and this. Why not just succumb to the universe already?

Her hind legs quivered as the coil inside her released. Her forehooves braced upon Sunburst's head like it was the safety bar on a plunging rollercoaster.

With one last gratified sigh, she released him and let her forelegs dangle at her sides. Sunburst pulled away and looked up at her. She dropped to all fours again and wrapped her lips around his, tasting herself on him.

He had to get out quickly and dry off and then perhaps eat something else on his lunch break that was actual food before going back to teach fourth period. Perhaps it was overdoing it to climb in the shower with her but it was a moment where no one else was in the house. They could do whatever wherever albeit for just a short while.

Their kiss ended with a moan and then Sunburst vanished like a low cloud on a windy day to gather his glasses from the bathroom counter. Thoroughly satisfied, Starlight returned to the embrace of the water and her daydreams about the future. They certainly could have continued but he was a difficult one to pull away from his responsibilities which made it an all the more enticing engagement. - - -

Hat trick yawned as school finally sputtered to the finish line. Naturally he didn't get as much sleep last night as he was used to getting although he did sleep well when he did. But all of the excitement of the last twenty four hours was really taxing on his stamina, not to mention the new revelations about his identity made focusing nearly impossible. Yet here he was sitting in school just pretending that everything was normal. Miss Cheerilee and his classmates that knew what happened we're all glad he hadn't disappeared but he had yet to explain why he'd run off yesterday and caused such a stir.

The final bell rang and everyone began to wrangle their stuff into their saddlebags.

“All right, that's it for today,” concluded Cheerilee. Remember that tomorrow is the kite competition which will take place tomorrow at Gusty Hill after lunch. Don't forget your kite.”

Hat’s eyes bulged as the nasty surprise hit him. The kite competition. He'd completely forgotten about it. He hadn't so much as even read the project instructions yet. The supplies were just sitting at home in the corner of his room untouched for the whole week. He began to panic. What was he going to do?- - -

Starlight sat at the kitchen table, leafing through issue three of Red Doctrine. So far it was pretty interesting. It really did have a lot of historical intrigue and seemed to be above Hat Trick's age demographic. She wondered how he’d discovered the series and if he was drawn to it because of Sunburst's influence on him. Even if they weren't blood related they could still share an affinity for history and the esoteric.

She heard the fizzle of magic emanating from the hallway followed by the murmuring of the stallion and his son.

“It'll be fine. just ask her,” Sunburst prodded him. “She'd love to help and she'd be a lot better at it than me.”

She looked up as Hat trick crawled sheepishly into the kitchen still wearing his saddlebag.

“Um… Starlight,” he mumbled. “Can you help me with my kite project, please?”

It suddenly felt like fireworks were going off in her heart. He was asking her to help him with schoolwork and it involved her special interest. She closed the comic book trying not to explode out of her seat. “I’d love to. When is it due?”

“Tomorrow.”

Starlight's eyebrows went up.

“Yeah, I forgot about it. I know we’ll never be able to make a working kite in time,” he moaned. “But I don't want to get a zero. It's going to be so embarrassing.”

“We can make a working kite today,” Starlight assured him. “It'll probably take less than a couple of hours. Building a kite is actually pretty simple if you know what you're doing. We've got plenty of time if we start now. Do you have stuff to build with though?”

“Yeah, she gave us stuff but she said we could use anything. I have the instructions and the supplies in my room.”

He vanished for a moment and then returned with both the paper and the supplies and set them on the kitchen table in front of her. There was a collection of wooden dowels, a small bolt of beige fabric and a bobbin of kite string.

Starlight squinted at the instructions. There was a basic template attached for a simple diamond shaped kite that was easy to build and understand but also the project encountered latitude in what materials could be used and what designs could be made.

“Oh, there's four different categories you can win including uniqueness. That gives me an idea. Everyone else is probably going to be following the template to play it safe. Want to try something more interesting?”

“Like what?” he shrugged cluelessly.

“Have you ever heard of a box kite?”

“No, what's that?”

“Well it's a kite that's in the shape of a box… Hold on, let me show you.” She wandered into the living room and levitated an encyclopedia to her from the bookshelf across the room. She quickly flipped through it back at the kitchen table in front of the curious colt.

“Here we go. It looks like this.” She spun the floating book around.

Hat examined the photo and creased his forehead. “That looks completely ridiculous, there's no way that can fly.”

“It can fly,” insisted Starlight. “Look, there's a picture of a guy flying it right there.” She pointed to the photo. “I've made them before. Design is actually super easy; you just have to get the proportions right. It's just an idea though; we don't have to do it. Do you want to just make something like the one in the instructions?”

Hat looked at the picture again and thought about it. “Uh… okay, fine. Let's try it,” he answered, spurred on by equal parts skepticism and curiosity.

“Great. I'll make a template for you to cut the fabric pieces out and then while you're doing that I'll figure out the best way to make the joints of the frame with what we have. Do you want to paint it like it suggests in the instructions? Otherwise it's going to be pretty plain.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “I have lots of paint already.”

“Go ahead and go get it," said Starlight, spreading the supplies out on the table.

Hat went and retrieved an acrylic paint set from the closet and a big paint brush. When he came back he busied himself with cutting up a number of cloth rectangles in accordance with Starlight's template. She cut the dowels to size while he painted each rectangle a different color.

“This is going to be so pretty,” declared Starlight as she placed the last swatch of painted cloth on the hearth before the fire. The heat would help the paint dry quicker so they could move on to the next step faster.

While that was happening they worked on assembling the box frame and when that was complete they stretched the cloth partitions across it as Starlight thought they should go.

“This seems right," she murmured, testing the weight of the finished craft in her hooves.

Hat rotated the strange geometric volume in the air with his magic. “Yeah, this looks really cool as like art or a model or something but I still don't think it will fly.”

“Only one way to find out,” sighed Starlight, holding up the string.

Outside it was almost sunset. Sunburst went with them to the empty lot just down the street, excited to see the maiden voyage of their strange but whimsical construct.

Starlight looked up at the tops of the trees to see that they were moving. There was some wind up there. Maybe enough to fly a kite. “Alright, let it unwind,” commanded Starlight. She backed away from Hat, gently holding the kite in her magic until the string stretched a decent lead between them.

“Okay, when I say go, you just gallop that way as fast as you can. Ready?”

“Yeah, he answered before putting the bobbin in his teeth and turning around.

“Go.” Starlight kept the craft aloft with her magic waiting for the string to tighten.

Hat took off through the field of patchy unkempt grass. He could feel the string stretch taught from the drag of the kite as his hooves pounded on the dirt.

“It's lifting up,” gasped Sunburst.

Hat looked back over his shoulder to see that it was true. The weird box was gliding elegantly through the air behind him.

Keep running,” shouted Starlight.

Hat kept galloping and the kite climbed even higher.

“Watch the fence,” warned his dad.

He looked ahead and saw that the lot came to an abrupt end at someone's property fence. He continued as far and as fast as he could before having to skid to a stop to avoid a collision with the partition. He looked back expecting the kite to flag and falter now that he wasn't towing it but it had soared just high enough to catch the cross breeze that rustled the treetops. It was hovering self-sufficiently in place.

“Look at that,” laughed Sunburst.

Hat transferred the bobbin to his hooves in disbelief. “No way. It really flies…” - - -

Starlight floated another roll onto her plate and then scooted the butter closer. “Is the obelisk going to end up being an alien artifact?” she asked, her knife spreading the butter seemingly autonomously before her.

“It hasn't been revealed in the series yet,” answered Hat. “But most fans think it is. You find out later that it was smuggled from the ruins of this lost advanced civilization which could have definitely been an alien civilization but I shouldn't say any more or it might spoil it for you.”

Sunburst listened to them quietly from across the table while he ate. His heart swelled with an indescribable levity. Not only did they seem like friends but Hat Trick almost sounded like his normal self.

“Will you help me fly my kite tomorrow?” asked Hat. “You're supposed to bring someone else but I don't think dad has time to come during class.”

Sunburst would get a sub in order to go if he had to but he said nothing about it.

Starlight's eyes fell to the table and she scratched her ear. He was a unicorn. He could probably figure out how to launch a kite on his own with magic but he wanted her to show up for him. Would that be weird, appearing at his school function in place of a parent with a bunch of other parents? “Well, I would love to but I did say I was going to leave tomorrow,” she sighed.

Her untimely reminder brought an awkward silence upon the dinner table and an abrupt end to what had been a nearly euphoric day following the depths of despair. Hat Trick frowned and stirred his food idly with his fork.

Starlight shifted uncomfortably as she wrestled with the words she wanted to say. If there was a time to say them it was probably right now. “I didn't tell anyone this but when I was at the school cleaning out the office, Twilight Sparkle dropped in on me.”

Sunburst's eyes widened. “Oh no…”

“It wasn't bad, really,” she continued. “I told her exactly why I left and she was surprisingly really insistent about wanting me to be the counselor again but it would be contingent upon me being full-time and making a commitment to improve my stability and mental wellness.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I didn't tell her anything. I told her I was skeptical about the idea and she told me not to answer her and to just think about it for a while.”

Sunburst waited for her to continue but got impatient. “Did you think about it?”

“Yeah I did. It's crazy because a week ago I wouldn't have even really considered it for a lot of reasons but a lot of things have changed since then. I want to say yes to her but the thing is that I'm out of on hoof money and I'm going to need to figure out my living situation while I transition so…”

“You could just stay here longer.” suggested the colt.

Starlight smiled. “That would be fun but I think for right now it would probably be best if I just got a little apartment somewhere in town.”

“So you're really going to move back to Ponyville?” gasped Sunburst.

“It's kind of hard not to at this point,” she admitted. “The other thing is, Hat… I know this is going to sound kind of weird and sudden coming from someone you just met but the truth is that I have loved your dad for a very long time.”

“And I've loved her too,” blurted Sunburst, completely blindsided by her sudden admission.

“First as a best friend and then as somepony I wanted to share a life with,” added Starlight. “Someday, if it would be okay with both of you, maybe we could be more than best friends but I think it's too soon to talk about that right now. Your dad and I know each other very well already so we're much further along in our relationship but now I'd like to get to know you too. So I guess what I really mean is that I'll come help you fly your kite tomorrow… and anytime you want.”