Imperfect Strangers

In the morning Sunburst took his son to school and then got coffee at a little coffee shop with Starlight. He teleported her and a ream of flat moving boxes straight to her old office without telling a soul.

Starlight floated her much too hot coffee to the desk. “Looks like she kept it about as organized as I did.”

She exhaled as she spun around in a slow panorama of the cluttered environment. It was so strange to be back here again, back in the room where she'd spiraled horribly out of control. Twilight's large framed portrait was still the undefeated centerpiece of the office.

Sunburst tossed the stack of boxes to the floor and gestured at the bookshelves. “Take all the books and appliances. Just leave all the furnishings like the lamps unless it's something you remember buying but I think it was either already here or bought by the school later. And leave all the files in the filing cabinet obviously. If you have any questions, do you remember where the world history room used to be? Or rather, where it was when you worked here?” he clarified, pushing up his glasses.

Starlight returned a long pause as she tried to walk through the halls of the school virtually in her mind. “Yeah I think so.”

“That's where I am now,” He nodded. “I'll probably be in there. Just make sure to go to my office and not my classroom in case we're in session. Thanks again for doing this.”

“It's really the least I can do,” she shrugged.

Sunburst promptly teleported away to his classroom to start prepping for his day of teaching.

Starlight did a lap around the room for a closer inspection. The air was stale. Everything had a thin layer of dust on it, just enough to take the sheen off. Her eyes fell on a bushy philodendron plant in a little blue pot sitting on a shelf.

“No way,” she gasped. “No fucking way!”

She walked up to it for a closer look. It was Phyllis, her office plant that she had left behind, the last witness to her whereabouts before her disappearance.

She brushed through the leaves with her hoof in disbelief. “She kept you alive... Or at least someone did.” It was hard to believe Trixie would really care or have the time and yet there she was.

“I'm sorry I abandoned you,” she murmured regretfully. “You didn't deserve that. I can't believe you're still here. I can't believe you outlived Trixie. I won't leave you again. I'll take you with me if I have to. She frowned suddenly as she thought about the logistics and the environmental changes the little plant would have to endure. She'd been thriving all this time without her. What if Phyllis resented her for leaving and didn't even want to be with her?

“Maybe here without me is actually the best place for you,” she sighed, patting the plant. “Even though I don't know who your new master will be. I'm happy you're still here though. I'll get you some water later.”

Starlight popped up and assembled several cardboard boxes with packing tape. Then she began to load them with books, the easiest thing to start out with. She emptied the two bookshelves into half a dozen taped up boxes before moving on.

She sat behind the desk, empty boxes ready on the floor to her left and right. The office chair was new, better than the one she had when she worked here. She scanned across the desktop of framed photos and silly little doodads. There was Baby Hat Trick, fairly recent Hat Trick, Sunburst, Twilight. She stopped when she suddenly recognized her own face. The photo was small but it was there, included with the others. Starlight picked it up breathlessly in her aura and floated it closer.

The image showed her with Trixie, both screaming as they plunged down a roller coaster track. The image triggered a memory of when she had gone with Trixie to Las Pegasus once when she was performing there. They got to spend two days together exploring the strip and doing whatever they wanted. It was Starlight's first time as an adult going to real amusement parks or casinos. The trip was so much fun but somehow she had forgotten about it until now. Trixie was sitting in the seat in front of her with her forelegs in the air, mouth open wide. Starlight had her eyes clenched shut in terror and was covering her head having never been on a roller coaster that big before.

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment as the pleasant reveries swept over her and she tried to remember what their hotel room looked like. There was a big fountain in the lobby. She remembered that. They went to dinner together at a restaurant that rotated at the top of a tall tower so that the view changed continuously. Everything about it seemed like a weird dream now.

Starlight carefully placed the photo in a box, unsure if it should be Sunbursts or hers now. It was her memory of Trixie after all. She gathered up all the other little frames, wrapping some of them in old newspaper to keep them safe.

She cleared off the whole top of the desk and then began to look in the drawers. Shuffling through the first one turned up mostly ordinary office supplies. They didn't really need to go, she decided. There was no reason to make the next councilor start with nothing and reinvent the wheel when they moved in.

The next drawer down had more supplies but also some personal effects. Memorabilia, art pieces, things that perhaps she rotated through the display on the top of her desk or the walls. Starlight pulled out a strip of three little instant photos the two of them took at a photo booth on the same trip to Las Pegasus. They were just making stupid faces like a couple of teenagers at the mall. She laughed. Were they drunk when they did this? She couldn't remember. She should have these, Starlight thought but perhaps she'd ask Sunburst first.

She looked back inside the drawer to find that there was another similar photo strip from a different photo booth. She levitated it out and laid it next to the other one. This one featured three frames of Trixie with Sunburst at an unknown venue. The last one was of the two of them kissing. Seeing the two strips side by side really did encapsulate the war of contrasting feelings in Starlight's head. The photos were paradoxical in nature. They shouldn't be able to exist at the same time and yet here they were in front of her and it made her uncomfortable.

A term popped into her head, a school counselor term, a cult leader term: cognitive dissonance. She wanted to just accept Trixie again and finally move on but she wasn't here to defend herself so Starlight continued comparing old Trixie with old Trixie but was that fair? What about growth? What if she just compared old Trixie with the letter and all of the words in it that old Trixie wouldn't have said? What if she could just treat that letter from the trunk like it was their final conversation together? Then maybe she could say that all three of them had come out of the situation having learned from their mistakes and become better because of it.

There came a magical flash with a crackle that yanked her suddenly out of her thoughts. She looked up over the opposing pair of chairs in surprise. She had expected to see Sunburst but instead found Twilight Sparkle standing before her and levitating a framed painting in the air, a shocked expression on her face.

“S- Starlight?” she gasped.

Starlight groaned and hid her face behind her hoof. “Hi,” she quivered meekly. Her old employer, mentor and enemy. What awful luck. She was not ready for this yet. This was not even listed in her brain as something that might happen to her while in Ponyville. She should have been in Canterlot.

“You're back?” Blurted the astounded alicorn. “What are you doing here?”

Starlight tried to compose herself in her seat with at least a modicum of dignity. “I'm helping Sunburst clear out the counselor’s office.”

Twilight looked around at the packed boxes mystified as ever. “What? How long have you been back?”

“Just a few days. I only came here to visit Trixie because… I heard what happened. Then I ran into Sunburst and… yeah.” She cut her explanation off abruptly. Mentioning the part where she was staying in his house suddenly sounded weird to her.

“What's with the painting?”

Twilight blinked in confusion as if she'd forgotten she was still levitating it.

“Oh,” she laughed. “I just wanted to finally swap out that old portrait on the wall while I'm thinking about it. I just look so stodgy in it, don't you think?” She floated the formal painting of herself from off of its nail and set it on the floor against the wall. Then she floated the new one up and hung it in its place, a painting where the alicorn was looking at the viewer over an open book and smiling genially like she was reading to a bunch of kindergartners.

She turned back to Starlight. “Where have you been all this time?”

Starlight puffed out her cheeks. “Oh… were haven't I been? I don't have a place that I really call home. I've been working on ships mostly for the past several years. Most recently I've been working on a salvage and recovery ship. We actually pulled up part of that exploded airship right before I found out that Trixie had died.”

Twilight grimaced. “That must have been an awful week.”

“Definitely one of the worst.”

“How long are you going to be in town? Obviously I don't live here anymore but I'd love to catch up.”

Starlight rubbed the back of her neck. “I'm leaving Friday. I'm going to go see my dad and tell him I'm alive and what I've doing before I… go back.”

Go back… The words felt like tar in her mouth. The more she said them the less appealing the prospect got.

“You go back to your salvage job?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. They move all around to wherever there's work. I might not be able to connect with them again right away and I'll have to sign on with someone else. I kind of just dropped everything to come out here after I heard.”

“So you're without a home and in between jobs right now?” asked Twilight.

“Technically yes, I suppose,” she replied anxiously.

“Would you ever be interested in having your old job back?”

The question hit her like a runaway train. Starlight's mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope.” They shared an awkward silence as Twilight's presumptive smile faltered. “Oh… I thought you were being enthusiastic about it.” Her expression changed to one of puzzled disbelief. “Why not come back?” She argued. “The kids loved you. You were amazing at it. This position needs a full-time counselor who is as committed as you were. I thought you liked doing it.”

“I did like doing it,” admitted Starlight. “But that's not the problem, Twilight. There's something you really need to know… about the night I disappeared. I had a mental breakdown, a big one. For a little bit I didn't care what happened to me or anyone around me.”

“What happened?”

Starlight swallowed. It was long past time to come clean about this. If she had to break the whole story to someone she was actually glad it was Twilight. She and perhaps Applejack were the only ones she knew who could be trusted to be responsible with all the facts.

Starlight swept her main back with one hoof as she braced herself. “Well, I know you probably got a somewhat sanitized version of events from Sunburst but that week when you left me in charge of the school and I invited Sunburst to Ponyville I was planning on confessing my long held feelings for him. Not immediately. I made the mistake of inviting Trixie to our first dinner the day he arrived and the two of them came together before I could ever say anything. I told her to back off because I had plans but she wouldn't and I couldn't stop her. Well… not in any responsible and legal way. I told Sunburst how I felt but it was a little late by that point. He chose Trixie. I'd never felt so betrayed in all my life and it drove me over the edge. The night I left I got really drunk and rampaged through my office. I hated them and I hated me. I couldn't be certain of what I would do so I just left… and the next morning when I was still alive and a little more level-headed I figured well all those bridges are burned now I won't be going back there ever again…

She lowered her head in shame. “I'm really sorry about everything I did but long story short: I don't think someone who can lose it like that should be a guidance counselor at a school. I'd be a liability to you and a danger to young minds.”

Twilight teleported behind the desk to put a hoof on her shoulder. “Are you in a better place now though?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “I've made peace with Sunburst. I'm a lot less angry and I'm not drinking and I want to live. Those are all improvements but I still couldn't reconcile with Trixie and that was because of my stubbornness and… I don't know what to do about that now.”

“Have you been to therapy at all?”

“No but I'm one week sober for what that's worth,” she grinned awkwardly.

“I really want to make this work, Starlight. While I agree that that does look really bad on paper, there's still something to be said about your true character. Bad ponies don't struggle with their issues, they just become them. Your first steps toward wellness are encouraging. If you could keep that commitment to yourself and the ponies around you, I could see you being able to work at the school again in the future and making a positive impact in the lives around you like you did before.”

“I… I haven't even theoretically agreed to do the job though,” she fretted. “I can't just-”

“Don't answer me today,” interrupted Twilight. “Just think about it for a while first. I haven't posted the job yet and I won't until I hear from you first. If you're not ready now I will wait until you are. But regardless of your answer you need to get in with a therapist and a support group.”

Starlight exhaled. She couldn't really argue with that at all.

“Isn't it kind of ironic to be a counselor with so many problems?”

“No.” Answered Twilight. “I think it makes you more effective in the position because it gives you a unique perspective that resonates with other creatures who are also having struggles.”

She'd be rusty for sure but she could jump back in. She could jump back into a lot of things but was any of it a good idea?

Starlight packed up the rest of the room but never told Sunburst about her accidental meeting with Twilight Sparkle or her outrageous proposition that she return as the school counselor. She wondered if Twilight had dropped in on him as well but if she had he kept it to himself so she stayed quiet on the matter. Although she had given Twilight implicit permission to speak to others about her situation at her discretion.

That evening at home Hat Trick resolved to finish off the rest of the trunk. There were only perhaps two dozen articles left inside. There were boring but familially poignant legal documents. Then there was a cool pair of loaded dice in a glass jar. Sunburst had to explain what they were but couldn't explain what exactly Hat's mother had used them for if anything. His best guess, which he didn't vocalize, was that she used to grift on the street corner as a filly.

Laying on the bottom, flat on the naked wood of the box, was another plain looking envelope. Sunburst levitated it into the air and flipped it over to find his own name scrawled upon it in the styling of his late wife.

“It's for me?” he breathed.

Why would Trixie write him a letter, one that she never showed him. He'd gotten letters from her while she was away on tour but why would she write a letter and then not give it to him and then save it in the trunk? Could this possibly have been something for him to find and read later in the event of her death?

Sunburst’s mouth went dry as he shredded the top of the envelope, mind reeling for a comforting explanation for this strange find. He pulled out a pair of papers folded up together. Starlight and hat trick were silent as he read the first page in his head.

The sinking feeling in Starlight's gut began to crescendo. The only explanation she could come up with was that he was getting a matching letter to the one she had read where Trixie spoke candidly about her true feelings.

Hat watched his dad expectantly as his eyes dashed back and forth through each line of the letter. His expression remained stone-faced but getting colder by the moment as if concentrating under a great weight and fearing it would crush him should he falter. He finished the first page and swallowed. Then he peeked but momentarily at the second before abruptly folding them back up and stuffing them back inside of the envelope without a word.

“What was it?” asked Hat with his same insatiable curiosity he’d carried all throughout the experience.

“Your mom just wrote me a letter while she was away,” He replied absently. “I guess she forgot to send it so she just put it in the trunk for a time like this one.”

“Can I read it?”

Sunburst sucked air slowly. “Maybe when you're a little older.”

Hat Trick let out a disapproving groan. Starlight said nothing. Gauging his reaction, whatever was in that envelope, she knew it was upsetting and not in the good old mournful loss kind of way.

Sunburst’s demeanor changed as he became quiet, almost sullen, for the rest of the trunk unpacking. His mood then extended all the way through dinner. He said nothing more about it to either of them and Starlight didn't think it right to ask even after Hat had left them alone to get ready for bed.

Sunburst laid down with Hat in his room once again. At some point in the near future he was going to stop doing this but he hadn't decided when. He wanted above everything to make sure that Hat Trick felt comfortable and safe and loved.