On September 9, Starlight and Sunburst took advantage of the last Sunday before the reopening of the School of Friendship to take a trip to Sire's Hollow and gather the parents for lunch and an afternoon together.
Once they arrived in their native village, the two youths realized with relief that Stellar Flare's recorded voice was no longer present at the village gates. Starlight and Sunburst smiled at each other, remembering that incredible day.
Sire's Hollow had remained the same old-fashioned village as always: the houses with pointed brick-colored roofs and towers used for astronomy blended harmoniously with the more recent buildings, in this case a minimarket, a shake bar and a perfumery.
Starlight nostalgically remembered the afternoons spent at the central fountain eating a snack and running at breakneck speed. Good times, before Sunburst moved to Canterlot…
"Hey, honey bun! Sunburst! How are you guys?"
Starlight placed a hoof on her face; her father was always the same, with his sugary nicknames…
"Hey, Dad… How are things around here?"
"Oh, you know… Ever Essence has invented a new perfume that combines caviar with lime and rose! She called it… Caviart! Brilliant, right?"
"Err… Y-Yeah… I guess so."
"But let's not fiddle around here, young ponies! Stellar has already set up a nice refreshment in our internal courtyard. Do you remember, Starbun, all the birthdays celebrated there with your little friends?"
"You mean those fusspots who only came to our house to eat cake and jump on the bouncy castle?" Starlight said, polemic, only to regret it immediately afterwards. She didn't understand where that touch of acidity had come from.
The two stallions were stunned.
"Um, I meant... Yes I remember, dad, but it's been a long time and I no longer have contact with any of them..."
"Oh, that's no problem! I heard Gem Glitter moved back here and-"
"Dad, please, no. I am not interested."
"Oh…"
Starlight had no intention of reconnecting with her so-called foalhood friends. As far as she was concerned, only Sunburst had shown genuine friendship for her, the other foals of Sire's Hollow had simply exploited her father's beautiful house, its thousand interesting trinkets to discover and the thousand ideas that always flashed through the mind of that very inventive stallion.
When they came to visit they gave her just a couple of glances and then ran everywhere, either for a cold drink, for an antique globe, or even a bouncy castle. Starlight wasn't essential for them on that big playground.
As soon as Stellar Flare saw her son, she rushed to hug him and check the length of his beard, between his moans and Starlight's giggles.
"So, guys, what do you say, do we honor this beautiful buffet? I made sunflower canapés, buttercup salad, chocolate cream pies and a recipe I recently discovered in a cookbook… Salted Kumquat Sandwiches!" Stellar said, after the torture of his son's beard.
Everyone got ready to eat, and the parents noticed, between one appetizer and another, the great alchemy that reigned between Starlight and Sunburst. The two then exchanged a knowing wink.
At one point, having finished the sunflower canapés, Starlight noticed the plate on which they had been placed; it was ivory in color, with the varnish now starting to crack, with a brown border and a lovely vase of sunflowers in the centre, hence the decision to use it for the canapés.
"Dad…" Starlight said, her face suddenly shadowed, "…What is this plate still doing here?"
Firelight began to sweat slightly, and not because it was a hot, sunny day in early September.
"Well, my daisy, it's a gift from your mother, and it seemed appropriate for sunflower canapés..."
It was an insufficient justification, and he was perfectly aware of it.
"I'm surprised after twenty-four years you still haven't thrown that garbage out."
Firelight was annihilated by the venom of his daughter's words; he stood in a corner tormenting his front hooves while Starlight was undecided whether to go into a rage or burst into tears like a lost filly.
In the end, she opted for the third option: to go to what had been her bedroom.
"Excuse me, I would like to go to rest. Thanks for the buffet, everything was great."
Stellar reached out with a hoof in her direction, but couldn't say anything. Sunburst, after a reassuring look at his mother, decided to follow his friend.
Sunburst found Starlight lying on the bed with her face turned to the pillow. She was crying.
The wizard approached slowly, and gently touched her shoulder.
The girl moved and looked at her friend, her eyes flooding with tears.
"It... it took me years to stop thinking about her, to forget about her, to pretend she's not somewhere laughing, joking, traveling or whatever... And what does he do? WHAT DOES HE DO?! He still keeps her awful plate on the sideboard!"
Sunburst didn't clearly remember Starlight's mother, and nopony had ever told him the story in detail, not even his parents. Whenever he tried to ask to his mother, she wrinkled her nose:
"Leave that one alone. She doesn't deserve to be remembered."
Sunburst didn't want to be insensitive, but he needed to know if he wanted to be near his dear friend.
"Starlight… I don't want to force you to tell if you don't like it, but… What happened between you and your mother?"
The pink unicorn looked at her friend, then got out of bed and went to the window. She sniffed, and began to speak:
"My mother Charm is noble, she is part of the Canterlot elite. She was bored with her setting and decided to travel Equestria on her own, without her oppressive parents or the coltfriend they had decided to foist her. On one of her trips she met my father and fell in love with him. And he, stupid, fell for her. He truly believed that young lady from a good family could marry and stay with him forever, like in fairy tales. My father is wealthy, but only because his family has always collected rare antiques, not by birth. Well, Charm actually married him and had a daughter. She deluded him for good. In my opinion she went all the way with him just to spite her parents, who were snobbish and very strict. I've never met them and I never even cared to know them. For four years she enjoyed being a wife and mother, but on my third birthday something went wrong. Suddenly I was no longer a pretty little doll to be adorned with colorful bows, but a little brat who demanded her attention in a petulant way. My mother helped my father in the antique shop, she said she liked it because it was a small, enchanted world. It was all a game to her, who had never struggled in her life. Sometimes she painted for pleasure... Dishes, paintings, fabrics... My father even sold something, and unfortunately kept something as well. In short, the fact is that just when I had started to explore the world around me, she got tired of holding my hoof. I no longer stood still, I paid no attention, I was no longer a docile doll. I was annoying. And her relationship with Dad also began to suffer, because he loved to follow me in my discoveries, but in doing so he had involuntarily knocked his wifey off her pedestal. I remember one evening at the end of October when she took her things and left. That was twenty-four years ago, and we haven't seen or heard from her since. My father says that she was an unhappy and restless soul, and I simply think she was an arrogant, spoiled pony convinced that everything was due to her. End of the story. Pathetic, right?"
Sunburst was silent after his friend's long outburst. Starlight's story in some ways resembled his.
"I understand you very well, Starlight. Even though my father never completely abandoned me, he was still terrible with me and my mother."
The girl turned her head to Sunburst.
"You never told me about it… What happened?"
The ginger-haired pony took off his glasses to wipe them with a cloth.
"As you well know, I moved to Canterlot when I was seven, and there I attended Princess Celestia's magic school. Here, the city environment literally went to my father's head. He kept insisting to my mother that they go out every night, and sometimes she indulged him, but then she got tired of leaving me at home alone and always having to resort to the foal-sitter for trivial reasons. My father took it badly, he felt like a young stallion again and couldn't bear the idea of having to go back to being just a husband and family pony. Maybe because he was younger than my mother, maybe because he got married too early, but Canterlot represented a prolonged adolescence for him, the end of her marriage for my mother and the transformation of a father into a nice, albeit definitely unreliable playmate for me. And then… When I was ten, he cheated on my mother with a patron of a club that he had frequented with her. Mom found out almost immediately, and it was terrible. Despite being a rational mare, that day she started screaming like a fury, and before I could understand anything I saw dad's suitcase tumbling down the steps of our apartment building... From that day on I see my father occasionally, always with a different partner. He's not bad, and in some ways I feel sympathy for him... He's eternally immature, I can't expect to change him."
Starlight was genuinely impressed by Sunburst's story. She knew Sunspot, he never seemed irresponsible or unpaternal. But then again, many creatures love to wear masks and act out scripts.
"Have you visited your father recently?" she asked him, hoping not to sound too bold; Sunspot was still a sensitive subject for him.
"Yes, last week. I found him well. But his latest flame is unbearable, and morally dubious."
"What do you mean?" Starlight asked, genuinely surprised.
"When I told her I was Flurry Heart's Crystaller, she asked me why I quitted. After explaining to her that Flurry no longer needs it, do you know what her response was? But darling, you can always wait until the Princess is old enough to marry her!"
"Eww! Flurry is just three years old!" Starlight replied, scandalized.
"Yeah… In my opinion this is a social climber… It wouldn't seem true to her having a stepson related to the royals of Equestria…"
"Your stepmother isn't the only one who's got her head up…" Starlight murmured, leaning against her window sill.
"Are you referring to the time you were in Our Town?"
The girl looked down.
"Yeah… At eighteen I left home. I was tired of Sire's Hollow, tired of my father, tired of having no outlet. I've studied magic like crazy all my life, moving from city to city to collect as many spells as possible. At the age of twenty I found a remote town its inhabitants simply called Our, so I decided to settle there to experiment magically in peace. The more my magic evolved, the more my sense of omnipotence grew. Eventually I convinced myself that I could manipulate other creatures' minds at will. I, who hadn't been able to hold on to either my mother or my best friend, had cherished the illusion of being able to control others, so that they would never disappoint me again. Do you know what this attitude is called?"
Sunburst stood absorbed, shaking his head lightly.
"Delirium of omnipotence. No creature can claim to command the others' thoughts and actions, and in fact it all ended badly. I attracted the ire of the villagers and it took me some time to rebuild a serene relationship. I had to start over, and Princess Twilight suggested I come right to you, where it all began."
Sunburst lowered his head sadly.
"I'm sorry to have been the cause of your discomfort, Starlight. Really, I had no idea."
Starlight smiled at him.
"Don't be sorry, it's not your fault. You were just a foal at the time, and growing up I should have left behind that childish desire for payback. Without wanting to, I also dumped my mother's faults on you..."
"Would you like to see her again?"
The smile slowly slipped from the mare's beautiful face.
"No…She's gone for no good reason, now leave her in her shell. I don't need her anymore."
The last sentence, said with dry hardness, made Sunburst understand that there was no longer any need to ask questions. He then approached his friend and hugged her tenderly. Starlight reciprocated, enjoying the scent of peaches that the wizard loved to use, since he was little.
They remained in that embrace for an indefinite period of time. Starlight felt completely safe in that warmth, in that perfume, surrounded by those cream hooves. It was the same for Sunburst too.
When they parted ways, the two youths tenderly looked into each other's eyes: it was as if there was something new between them, something that didn't need to be explained with words.
Their lips joined in a kiss as surprising as it was predictable, as new as it was natural; it was the culmination of a friendship that had never completely died out, a good omen for the future.
Sunburst had never fallen in love in twenty-eight years of life, too busy with his studies of magic, his sense of inferiority and the agitation that came from having the others' eyes on him. It was much better for him to shut himself in the house, by candlelight, and immerse in some ancient parchment oozing with forgotten magic.
As for Starlight, there had been a moment, immediately after being saved by Twilight, in which she had confused gratitude and falling in love. She often fantasized about their future together, and everything seemed splendid to her, she saw herself as princess consort of a wonderful pony, who had given her back the freedom to feel positive emotions.
When Twilight had told her that she no longer needed her teachings and that it was she who had given her some advice in terms of magic, the candy pink unicorn had finally understood: she was not in love with Twilight, she had never really been. She was only momentarily infatuated, but a warm sense of familiarity with the lilac alicorn remained in her heart. In that moment, Starlight hoped that Twilight might one day find love as well.
"And now?" Starlight asked, afraid of that overwhelming feeling she had never felt before.
Sunburst stroked her cheek softly.
"If you want we can try to see where this story will lead us… I don't want to force you, Starlight, I-"
The girl interrupted him with another kiss, even more passionate; if she could have felt lost a few seconds before, now she was no longer lost, not after looking into Sunburst's hopeful eyes.
"Wow!" the wizard exclaimed.
"Sunburst… I don't know what awaits us in the future, nor if I can be a good marefriend, but one thing is certain… I want to try. I don't want to run away from opportunities anymore. And you?"
"Me neither, Starlight."
Meanwhile, Stellar Flare and Firelight sat in the living room.
The solar mare had observed her friend pacing nervously from side to side before asking him the fateful question:
"Firelight… Answer me truthfully… Are you still in love with Charm?"
The purple pony stopped and turned his head towards Stellar, gasping slightly, like a thirsty stallion who can't find a drop of water in the desert.
"I… No, I don't think so. It's been too long, so much that sometimes the features of her face appear blurred to me..."
"Did you really throw away all her photographs?" asked the orange pony, in great surprise.
"Yes, I swear! The only thing I keep is her sunflower plate!"
"Why exactly that?"
"Because…"
The stallion stepped into the yard for a moment, levitated his plate, and regarded it with sad longing.
"… Because it is probably one of the few acts of generosity that has seen her protagonist."
This time it was Stellar's turn to gasp; she didn't expect such a negative note, so severe towards his ex-wife...
At that moment, the two heard hoofsteps coming from the stairs and Firelight hurried to hide the plate under a napkin.
"My soul! You feel better! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you…" the father murmured to Starlight, sadly.
The girl lifted a hoof.
"No, Dad, I'm the one apologizing. I still have a tendency to make a fuss over nothing from time to time. If you want to keep Charm's plate, that's no problem for me, after all it's just a lump of clay."
"Oh…"
Starlight was radiant as she held Sunburst's hoof.
"We got engaged." simply said the purple-haired unicorn, while Firelight's pupils widened in amazement and Stellar smiled enthusiastically.
"But wha-But when?! I…I don't know…what to say…I really…" Firelight said, a great sense of warmth flaming in his chest.
"A hug is enough." Starlight answered him, rubbing her cheek against the same chest that had seen her asleep so many times after the bedtime story.
"Congratulations, my guys." Stellar Flare said, embracing both of them.
And while the parents got lost in imaginative chatter about future weddings and grandchildren, the two newly engaged took a nice walk in the courtyard, while the sun slowly turned amber.
"There's still the buffet to clean up…" Sunburst said.
"Oh, well, it'll wait."
"Agree!"
Starlight had rarely experienced moments of such perfect happiness. She and Sunburst didn't need to talk to each other, it was enough for them to look into each other's eyes and turn their gaze to the sky, where flocks of birds were flying free, and where the clear clouds heralded a clear night.