Imperfect Strangers

Despite an emotionally exhausting day, Starlight's night was punctuated with numerous uncomfortable awakenings. But with no obligations she was able to stay in bed till almost noon. When she finally did get up she almost felt well rested and her withdrawal symptoms were comparatively a dull ache and a muted thrum in her body.

The house was quiet. She was alone in their home now. It was like a continuation of a weird dream. She left her room and got more pills from the kitchen. It wasn't until after swallowing them that she realized she probably shouldn't be taking them on an empty stomach. She could start the day with lunch and then take a shower; that would feel nice.

Starlight found bread in the bread box and vegetables in the crisper so she made a sandwich. She wandered around the kitchen peeking in drawers and inside of cupboards trying to familiarize herself with everything. She still wasn't sure if she was going to keep staying here or for how long if she did but she at least felt a little more receptive to the idea today.

She happened upon an open bag of potato chips and added a hooful to her plate. Then she sat down at the table with her food and tossed a chip in her mouth. She was about to take a bite of her sandwich when there came a magical burst near the kitchen door.

Sunburst appeared out of thin air. “Hey,” he greeted. “You just get up?”

It was then that she realized she hadn't even looked in the mirror yeah. “Yeah,” she mumbled before biting into her sandwich. “You get off early or something?

“No, it's my lunch break,” he explained, pulling open the fridge door. “How are you doing today?”

She tried to swallow before speaking. “Not amazing but I feel more like a pony than I did yesterday.” Maybe even a tiny bit easier to deal with, she thought.

Sunburst began to forage through the shelves. Starlight began to think about the school he worked at and how it used to be the school she worked at. She thought about her old office sitting unoccupied now which inevitably led her to think about her final night in Ponyville just before what would have been her last Hearth's Warming there. She bought them both presents and then never gave them to them.

“So who's the counselor at the school now?" she asked brazenly.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Uh… Fluttershy fills in when she can but she doesn't really have time… I guess Trixie didn't really either. The position has honestly been in flux ever since you left.” His marital loyalties stopped him short of mentioning how the office was lacking of Starlight's dedication.

Sunburst assembled his meal and then settled uncomfortably across the table from her. Right now was a time that they could talk about anything they wanted or anything they dreaded.

She watched him as he rubbed his ear and she knew something important was coming… Or maybe not, she thought as he began eating his reheated stir fry. Despite his silence it was clear that he wanted to say something but couldn't.

“I almost died that night,” she began casually.

His eyes flicked up at her in surprise. “Huh?”

“When I left my office at the school and never came back… I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad about it but it's true. I just started walking out into the snow without a second thought and didn't look back. Alcohol and below freezing temperatures are a deadly combination; you can't actually feel how cold you really are. I spent the night in a cave shivering.”

For a moment he was at a loss for what to say to that. “I'm sorry.”

She shrugged apathetically. “You don't need to be sorry, it was me that did it to myself.”

Sunburst put down his fork signifying his full participation in what was coming. “Why did you just leave like that without saying anything, without even leaving a letter?”

“Because I had reached my limit.”

Horrific memories assaulted her mind of flames crawling up the wall of her office and nearly forcing herself on a student. It was disgusting and shocking. She wished that someone else had done that instead, some other mare pushed to the edge that she'd seen on the cover of a tabloid while checking out at the supermarket but no.

“I’d just been rejected by my two best friends. I was livid and drunk and volatile and destructive. But even through all of that I still realized that I was an unpredictable threat to those that might not deserve it and the real me that lives caged inside was simply incompatible with that kind of world… life in Ponyville.”

She shook her head mournfully. “I could never just go back to my life and get over what you two did to me so I thought it would be best for everyone if I removed myself from the situation before something really bad happened. If I could limit the damage to just hurting myself then that's probably the best outcome I could have hoped for.

“The real you is the you you're fighting to be,” he retorted. “That's what character is. You're not incompatible with Ponyville and that decision didn't just hurt you. The kids, co-workers, me, Maude, even Trixie were devastated when you just disappeared.”

“Bullshit,” she growled.

“It's true. Ponies were looking for you. No one knew if something bad had happened to you. No one but me anyway. My best guess was that you had disappeared voluntarily as shocking as it was but that didn't mean I knew what had really happened to you. You could have reached out to me over all those years but you never did.”

Starlight pressed her hoof to her chest vehemently. “Because even over all those years I was still angry. My long awaited advances may have been a little childish in retrospect. I realize now that you're not just some lizard living in a terrarium that I can pluck out at my leisure. You're your own pony but so am I.”

“I would have gladly opened an angry letter just to find out that you were alive and okay.”

She would be lying if she said it didn't feel gratifying to know that she had hurt them with her absence, skeptical though she was about the portrayal. You can't hurt someone who doesn't care.

“Sending you a letter would have been no consolation to me though,” she fumed. “For what it's worth, I didn't even tell my own dad, if you recall. You were the only stallion I ever wanted to be with like that but you picked my friend who you’d just barely met. I'm sorry if I couldn't find it in me to stick around as a two-way third wheel to that.”

“I- I understand, Starlight. I made a decision that still hurts me to think about to this day but it's not one that I can possibly regret. Falling in love with Trixie was new and exciting and genuine. I'd never felt a mutual attraction like that before. How could I just throw that away so suddenly? But you're still right. Looking back from where I am now I could never take that decision back if I somehow had the chance but at the same time, being almost ten years wiser, I can clearly see that I made the wrong choice when I threw away all the years we had.”

It felt like a betrayal of his son and late wife to finally say it out loud but it was exactly how he felt. Starlight's expression softened to one of somber surprise.

“Even if it wasn't until later that I knew how you felt,” he continued. “It was foolish to choose novelty over a relationship that had already stood the test of time.”

Starlight hung her head as tears quickly came to her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks, hot and thick, dripping along the underside of her muzzle and pattering on the table. That was all she wanted to hear.

She had cried over these events before but never was it as cathartic as this. It was like finally pulling up a weed by the roots that had kept growing back over and over since she slammed the door in his face so many years ago. A kink in a hose that had been building pressure every moment it was denied resolution. She wiped her eyes with her foreleg as she tried to fight it back.

“I've had this conversation with you a thousand times in my head while shoveling coal or trying to fall asleep during a storm or looking up at the stars at night. I say all kinds of things to you but you know what my thoughts always inevitably circle back to? I'm getting what I deserve. I've done so many awful things so how could I possibly atone for them? I don't deserve anything nice, least of all love or companionship. Doesn't it just make sense that my friends would ultimately kick me to the curb like that?”

Sunburst returned a pained expression. Her breath hitched and she began to sob, her chest heaving painfully. He left his chair and went over to her, placing a tentative hoof on her shoulder, unsure of how she would react. Instead of recoiling from his touch she turned to him and wrapped her forelegs around his neck to pull him in tight as if he would escape her. She curled into his withers and cried as he adjusted his grip to match hers.

The two had been waiting so long to have this. They'd fantasized about reuniting and finally shutting this open wound but this time it was real, they were really here holding each other without reservation.

Sunburst absorbed all of her tears and when she finally released him she saw that he was crying too. He lifted his glasses to wipe his eyes underneath.

“Even though I was angry I still missed you," she admitted with a sniff.

“I believe you but I kind of get the feeling that you weren't actually planning on visiting me while you were here, were you?”

Starlight inhaled shakily. “I honestly don't know. I hadn't thought that far ahead. I knew that I probably should but I think I was just going to wait and see if the courage, the gall or whatever you want to call it, would manifest inside me.”

“That's okay… Are we still friends though?” he asked.

“Yeah... If you still want to be.”

“I do.”

“Don't ever do that to me again.”

“I won't,” he breathed, not sure exactly what she meant by it.

Sunburst sat back down in his seat. This moment was like the end of a breath he'd been holding since the day he lost her from his life. The two went back to eating their lunches together like everything was normal.

“I'll continue to keep your secret but you should probably tell your dad you're alive," suggested Sunburst.

“In time,” she sighed. She placed a hoof on her own neck where the dampness of his tears lingered in her fur.

“I’ll tell him but I need to go at my own pace. I have other issues also weighing on me right now. I don't really have a home anymore because my home was a boat that I left behind and it's sailed onward without me. Most of my money is tied up in a bank that doesn't even have a branch in town. As usual I didn't really think things through too much when I left.”

“Well, your old job is open,” quipped Sunburst darkly.

Starlight laughed weakly. “I don't think I would rehire me if I were them. Not if they knew the full story of my departure anyway.”

“You know, the fact that you upended your whole life to come all the way out here to visit a grave says a lot about you as a pony.”

Starlight screwed up her face, remembering that chance meeting yesterday that had changed everything. The irony of the situation was that back then she had spent such a long time making herself presentable and perfect before finally inviting Sunburst to visit her in Ponyville. Then at their next meeting he just happened upon her strung out in a cemetery.

“My life never really stopped being upended since you last saw me.”