Imperfect Strangers

The length and weightiness of Starlight's grudge for so long made it seem like something insurmountable that could never be eclipsed. Yet in just the span of a lunch break conversation she felt immeasurably better.

Sunburst went back to work. Starlight took a shower using whatever products she found in the guest bathroom. Then she carefully considered going into town for incidentals. She stole a coat from Sunburst's closet to cover her cutie mark and threw on a pair of sunglasses before stepping out to get her own toothbrush and toothpaste and maybe a hair brush. She averted her eyes as she passed the liquor aisle in the grocery store. It wasn't until she was in line for checkout that it came to her attention that she should give herself more credit for her mental fortitude and overcoming her dependency… at least for now.

How long should she abstain like this she wondered. At least a month to really get it out of her system. But then if she started again couldn't she just fall right back in. Was it a real addiction or was it just a bad mix of proximity and depression that had cultivated the habit. A long time ago she used to drink normally; she liked drinking but not what she became when she was drunk. Sometimes she just didn't have an off switch. Was it worth it?

Starlight spent a little bit of time lurking around town just to see what she still recognized and what she didn't but she spent most of her day hiding and recovering in Sunburst's house.

Sunburst came home with his son after school. Hat regarded Starlight with cold eyes as he removed his saddlebag at the table even while she smiled and greeted him.

“Hey, what's this?" asked his dad, floating a school paper in front of his face.

“There's a kite making contest at school,” he grumbled dismissively. “We all have to do it.”

Genuine intrigue sparked in Starlight's eyes. “Oh that's cool," she began. “I love kites. You might say it's a hobby of mine. I actually got to fly them a lot on the boats I was working on because there was always wind. I made them out of all sorts of things. You can ask me anything if you need.”

Without acknowledgment, Hat abruptly vanished from the room in a flash of magic.

Her face fell. “Or not…” She turned to Sunburst worriedly. “I… I didn't come off as too jolly did I?”

“No. Try not to take it personally,” he began softly. “He’s never been like this before.”

“It's okay, he's entitled to have a hard time for a while. I'm sure in time I'll see the real him.” Her eyes suddenly landed on the ad she’d set on the table, the one she'd picked up while she was in town. “Oh, you probably already saw this but I picked it up for you anyway.” She levitated it over to him.

He caught it in his magic and adjusted his glasses. His eyebrows went up in recollection as he gazed upon the burned yellow page. It was written in Clarendon font and looked printed on a manual printing press. “Oh yeah, the antique fair. I did see this a while back. I completely forgot about it with everything that happened. It's tomorrow. We should all go. Hat actually likes this kind of stuff too; maybe he'll be interested. I know it's not really your thing but-”

“No, I'll come,” she was quick to retort.

“It'll be busy though,” he warned. “Lots of other ponies. Someone you know might recognize you.”

Starlight frowned as she considered this. I can just go out in disguise like I did today maybe or, you know what, it's fine. I'll just take my chances.” Whatever happened she just didn't want to miss out.

The flyer also sparked another thought in Sunburst’s brain. “Thanks for reminding me about this; I'm going to go ask him.” He teleported away to his son's door. “Hey, Hat?” he called, knocking reverently.

“What?” grumbled the sequestered colt.

Sunburst pushed inside to find his son spread-eagle, facedown on the bed. “The antique fair is tomorrow. Do you still want to go?”

He looked up at him and thought for a moment “I guess so,” he sighed.

Sunburst gave a measured nod even as his heart leapt inside. This was the first step back toward normalcy for the colt for all of them.

“Why don't we go look at some old family photos,” he proposed.

“Why?”

“So we can remember some happy memories and mybe feel better.” Or worse he thought without adding aloud. “Have you ever been in the attic?”

“We have an attic?” he blinked.

“Yeah, come on I'll show you.” Sunburst teleported them into the space overhead and suddenly they were in a dingy unfinished area with exposed rafters above their heads. Hat stumbled from the sudden lack of a bed beneath him.

“Sorry,” apologized his father.

A slatted window allowed just enough light inside to make the room traversable without tripping. The modestly sized storage area housed crates of Hearth’s Warming and Nightmare Night decorations as well as a few of Sunburst's antique restoration projects including a broken cuckoo clock and a sewing machine.

Sunburst lit up his horn to give them a better view. “I think it's this one,” he muttered, wandering off to a stack of musty boxes adorned with black marker scribbles.

Hat Trick illuminated his own horn as he scanned over the room in wonder. Weird shadows and strange objects floressed in the hard light.

“It's creepy up here,” he muttered, focusing on a draped sheet that looked roughly pony shaped. His eyes went behind the form where he spied a large purple trunk alone against the wall. It had a familiar star pattern printed on it.

“Hey what's that,” he almost gasped.

Sunburst looked behind to where he was pointing and squinted. Oh that's your mother's chest. She kept all kinds of memorabilia and keepsakes in there.

The colt's eyes became huge. “Can we look inside it?”

Sunburst exhaled as he considered the idea. Looking at pictures was one thing but looking through his wife's personal effects might be a little more than he felt he could handle right now emotionally. But his son sounded genuinely interested and what else would they do with such an item but reminisce with it?

“Yeah, I'll bring it down. We can look through it after the photos but we have to be careful.”

He turned back to the open box. “Yeah, this is it,” he confirmed.

It wasn't long before the three of them were in the living room with the old box and the big sealed trunk. Sunburst and Hat Trick sat side by side on the couch while Starlight spied over their shoulders at the photo album.

“This isn't one from the attic," clarified Sunburst. “This one's always out but it's been a while since we looked at it.” He opened the cover to reveal the first photo ever taken of Hat Trick. “Look. It's you.”

Hat trick craned his neck in to see himself as a newborn on a blanket background squinting in the harsh light of a world he hadn't experienced yet. He looked down at the next one where his parents both held him for the first time in the hospital room where he was born.

Starlight tried not to laugh when she noticed the weary expression on Trixie's face compared to her husband's smile.

The whole album contained dozens of photos of Hat’s first year of life from messy high chair feedings to standing awkwardly on wobbling limbs to being carried bundled up in a little ball on a walk in winter time. Trixie or Sunburst smiled over him as they held him in their lap or levitated him in the air to make him giggle. There was one of Grandma Stellar reading him a story.

It wasn't Starlight's life but seeing all these little moments that were long past did give her a strange sense of lament for having missed out on a lot as if she had just gotten out of prison after a long sentence. Viewing Trixie in this light as a mother was so strange. Was she actually a good parent? The photos made her look that way but she always remembered her as being so wild. Her son missed her a lot which must have been worth something.

Though he seemed hesitant at first, hat-trick stayed engaged and quietly enamored the whole while.

“That one was old but here's a really old one,” said Sunburst, pulling the next album into his lap. He opened the album to find a photo of him and Starlight sitting at a little table and eating pizza together. They couldn't have been much older than Hat Trick at the time.

“Look, that's me and that's Starlight," he said pointing at the filly.

“Oh wow,” gasped Starlight. “Where is that?”

“That's Bright Side’s cute-ceñera,” he explained.

“Oh yeah!”

“Her dad took this and gave it to us,” he added.

Starlight pointed at the next photo. “Hey look, Dragon Pit.” The two foals in the image laid stretched out prostrate on the floor at opposing sides of their favorite game.

Hat Trick’s jaw hung open as he scrutinized the photos. They still had that board game in their closet, he realized. It must have been the same one. That was definitely his dad. He had the same facial marking. He had heard Starlight's name a few times in conversation and in the story of his parents meeting but he'd never had a face to go with it nor had he seen these photos before. Suddenly it wasn't just some abstract idea.

The colt looked at the Dragon Pit picture and then surreptitiously over his shoulder at the mare supposedly in it. It looked just like her but her mane was in pigtails. It was hard enough imagining his dad existing before he was born. It was even more difficult to envision him having a whole life prior to even meeting his mother and that Starlight was a big part of it.

Sunburst continued flipping through, every page a surprise and a surreal flashback to events and places long forgotten. The photos were in no particular order; they jumped back and forth in age. Starlight was in so many of them. Even his grandma was with her in some of them. Grandma knew her too? It was like he'd uncovered a conspiracy.

Whether he liked it or not, a long time ago, way before him and his mom were there, the two of them used to do everything together and they were so happy.

He watched as the page flipped to show a new photo that shook him to his core.

“Aww,” cooed Starlight accidentally.

Before them was an image of Starlight and Sunburst hugging each other amongst the aftermath of Hearth's Warming presents.

Hat was utterly aghast at the sight. He had only ever seen his dad hug three ponies counting himself. Dad only hugged someone if they were very close and special. How was it possible that this interloper was in the same elite circle as mom and grandma when he'd never even met her before?

Sunburst shut the book and glanced at his son. He couldn't tell if seeing the photos made him any more accepting of Starlight. He seemed to be bewildered more than anything.

“Pretty weird,” huh?”

“That was crazy,” murmured Starlight. "I haven't seen any pictures like that in probably over twenty years.”

“There's a bunch more too,” added Sunburst. “But I think we should look in that trunk first?”

“Yeah,” nodded his son softly, still trying to wrap his head around the things he'd seen in the album.

“But just to warn you, there's probably going to be a lot of magic show stuff.”

“Okay…”

Sunburst sighed anxiously as he got up from the couch. Hat Trick beat him to the old trunk through sheer eagerness. The box had travel stickers from all over stuck to every side but no lock. Sunburst unlatched one side while his son did the other.

Starlight again looked on curiously from behind, not wanting to disrupt what seemed like a private family moment.

“Let's be very careful with whatever's in here,” he reminded Hat Trick as he allowed the colt to open the lid with his magic. He had a brief flashback to the last time he let him open a box against his instincts. Hopefully this would prove to be a better experience.

The smell of stale air and mothballs greeted their nostrils as the trunk swung open with a squeak. Inside it was filled to the brim. Items, documents, artwork, books, artifacts, they were crammed into every corner all the way up to the top. They were all placed inside nicely but didn't seem to be organized much at all.

“That's a lot of stuff," mumbled Sunburst scanning his eyes across the surface.

Hat trick grabbed an upright cardboard tube with his magic and looked inside. He shook it until a rolled up paper slipped out the end. Sunburst watched him as he unfurled an old show bill with his wife's name printed large across the top. He noted the date of the event.

“This could be your mother's very first professional promotional ad as a magician,” he mused.

Sunburst looked back in the trunk and pulled out something draped in linen. He unwrapped it to reveal an intricately carved wooden mask.

“That's really cool,” marveled Hat as he moved in closer. “Is that from Zebrica?”

“Definitely,” breathed his father. “One of the tribes in the south you can tell from the elongated ears.” He pointed to the features which appeared to be styled more like horns than ears. “Could be a souvenir or even a gift from a fan during her travels.” He passed it to him.

“Why didn't she have this just out in the house,” asked Hat peering through the eye holes. “We have all kinds of weird stuff.”

“I don't know but if you really like it you can have it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I'll hang it on your wall if you want. Set it on the coffee table.”

Hat Trick loaded the mask to the coffee table and then pulled out a framed photo of none other than his mom and Starlight Glimmer. Trixie wore her stage clothes, her horn glowing with a magical aura showing that she was probably the one taking the photo of the two of them. The background was filled with excited ponies, the audience of a show. The viewpoint appeared to be looking out from the stage just before or just after a performance.

“I remember that,” sighed Starlight looking over his shoulder. “I used to help her with her shows back a long time ago.”

Sunburst looked at the photo before passing it behind him to Starlight. The longer she stared at it the more conflicted she felt. That was such a great time, now immutably the high water mark of their relationship. When she looked back, Hat Trick was unfurling a little black cape lined on the inside with red.

“That was her old cape from when she was maybe your age,” said Sunburst.

Hat Trick set it down for the matching magician's collapsible top hat. It popped open as he rotated it in the air. It was fascinating but he resisted the urge to try it on lest he appear to renege on his magic resolution.

Sunburst shuffled the items on the top layer around just to peek underneath only to reveal more of the same. He was still astounded by the sheer volume of effects crammed into one box. Much of it wasn't even accessible without significant effort.

“There's no way we can casually excavate all of this in an afternoon.” He glanced back at his son. "You like this though? You want to keep going?”

“Yeah,” he nodded emphatically.

They continued carefully digging through, sorting things out as they went, treating it like an archaeological dig at a lost ancient city. Three fat photo albums ate up much of their time

They scrutinized each piece together and Sunburst would expound with whatever insight he had or in some cases his best guess while Starlight would occasionally chime in on anything she recognized. Eventually, as it got later, she offered to make dinner so they could continue.

They got about a third of the way done and had a few piles loosely categorized as artwork and photos, magical paraphernalia from her foalhood, travel memorabilia and documents. Now spread out, the project had taken up a good chunk of the living room.

Meanwhile Starlight cooked in the kitchen. She had been absent from domestic life and polite society for quite a while. Unsure of her skills and memory she decided to lean on a hooful of simple recipes from a cookbook that she ran past Sunburst before moving forward on. When all was said and done, Hat Trick grudgingly enjoyed what she had made for them though he wondered if it was just because it didn't include noodles.