A Glimpse of Shimmering Sky

by Long Long Way From Home

Friends

After a while, Starlight seemed to become more comfortable around Sunset. The girl in glasses was smiling more frequently, and even laughing with the redheaded girl. They talked about their interests, and where they were from. Sunset learned that Starlight was moving to Canterlot from Manehattan, and would be starting up at CHS that upcoming school year. Due to some difficulties in school, she was moving from her mother’s place in Manhattan to her father’s city apartment in Canterlot. Starlight quieted down a bit after that, but Sunset backed off in the interest of getting the girl comfortable sitting with her again.

Eventually, the topic of conversation moved to friends, and Sunset found herself gushing about her own. She loved her friends, and made no secret of it, growing brighter and more exuberant with every story. Starlight, on the other, hand only seemed to shy away from the subject, becoming more and more closed off until she had stopped speaking entirely. It took Sunset a moment to notice this, distracted as she was by her own stories, but once she did she was quick to quiet down.

A moment of awkward silence passed between the two.

“So…” Sunset broke the silence, leaning back against the bench and scratching her head, “Any particular reason you were sitting alone at Sugarcube Corner?”

Starlight winced, before immediately turning away with a scowl.

“It was nothing.” she said with a huff.

“Really? Because it sure didn’t seem like nothing.”

“Maybe I just like sitting alone, okay?” Starlight snapped back, anger flashing in her eyes.

Sunset, however, was not impressed, and didn’t flinch at the outburst.

“You sure? It didn’t seem like it.” Sunset responded calmly.

At this Starlight looked down, her angry look making way for one of sadness. Her shoulders slumped and she sighed heavily. There were a few more moments of silence, Starlight clearly collecting her thoughts and Sunset giving her a chance to gather them. After a while, Starlight spoke.

“I...don’t really have any friends.” Starlight spoke in a defeated tone, all traces of anger from before now gone.

“Growing up, I was always a bit of an outcast. I was always more interested in studying than in making friends. I only ever had one friend, Sunburst, but he ended up moving here when we were both still pretty young.”

“Was he the one you kept looking at at that table?” Sunset interrupted.

“Yeah. When he moved, I didn’t have anyone, and I wasn’t able to make any friends. I was the outsider.” Starlight sighed again.

“When I wasn’t able to get people to like me, I started...acting out.”

Starlight trailed off. When Sunset’s continued silence prompted her to continue, she flushed slightly and rubbed her arm with embarrassment.

“I...kinda became a bully. When Sunburst left, I didn’t feel like I had anyone...and I didn’t think it was fair that everyone else did. I started getting mean...breaking up friendships so I wasn’t the only one alone. I made up rumors, told lies to get people in trouble, all because I hated being alone.”

Sunset frowned, beginning to lose herself in thought as she listened to Starlight’s story.

“Eventually though, people figured out what I was doing, and, well...here I am now.” Starlight finished with a weak chuckle and a smile that was more of a grimace.

The sounds of children playing around the park and the ambient noise from the city filled the girls’ silence.

“I’m sorry” she continued, “You probably think I’m a terrible person. I just...I just didn’t know what to do.”

Starlight felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Sunset had turned on the bench to fully face her. There was a fiery look in her eyes that the purple skinned girl couldn’t help but shrink away from.

“You are not a terrible person.” Sunset said firmly. Realizing she was scaring the girl, she loosened her grip and softened her glare.

“Listen, I know where you’re coming from. To tell you the truth, I haven’t always been the nicest person either.”

Starlight’s eyes widened slightly at the thought of this girl who had sat with her and listened to her story out of the kindness of her heart could have ever been unkind.

“But eventually, I was shown that being a bully wasn’t a good way to get ahead in life. I had someone who showed me kindness, and offered me a second chance when I fell. I made new friends, and after that everything changed.”

Sunset smiled again, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as she remembered Twilight offering her a new lease on life. Things really had changed since the days before that fated fall formal, and she was thankful every day for it.

“So don’t give up. Think of this as your chance to start over again.”

“But what if I can’t make any friends? What if...what if Sunburst doesn’t want to be friends with me anymore?” Starlight trailed off again. Her eyes turned misty and she let out a sniffle.

“Hey” Sunset said, slightly louder than she had intended, snapping Starlight’s attention back to her, “I’m sure Sunburst would be happy to be friends with you again. Besides, even if he doesn’t, you’ve already got a friend at CHS.”

Sunset smiled widely and waited for Starlight to catch on. Starlight’s purple eyes widened, and her shocked face turned into a bright smile.

“Do you mean it?”, Starlight asked excitedly.

“Of course! Now come on, since you’re new in town, I’ll give you the tour! It’s a beautiful day, so it’d be a shame to waste it, don’t you think?”

Sunset stood up and held out a hand to help Starlight up. Starlight looked at her hand and hesitated for only a moment before grabbing it to let Sunset help her up. The two friends turned to walk side by side, with the redhead leading the way, happy that she could spend such a beautiful day out with a friend.

Author's Note:

The end! I hope y'all enjoyed it! It was certainly fun to write. And the world could always use more friendshipping.

As always, if you have comments or suggestions, lemme know in the comments or send me a message. I'm always happy to hear from you guys!

Comments

[MrAskAPirate]

s6.postimg.org/5pzpmopep/Pirate_Approved2.jpg

Very sweet story; nice to see Sunset helping her shoddy substitute find a place in the world,

... crap, did I say that out loud?

[aceina]

needs a sequel of sunset introducing starlight to the others

[Long Long Way From Home]

7607590 That's a good idea! I hadn't thought of that, but I'll definitely consider it!

[Long Long Way From Home]

7607466 It's ok, everyone was thinking it

[Shadow Hero]

7607590 And Princess Twilight come over and met's you human version of her Student.

[aceina]

7607724 eh honestly i dont agree i feel princess twilight should be left out of stories like this as its not about her

[Superbowl]

7607466

shoddy substitute

I think Starlight is a better Sunset than Sunset. Minus, you know, Sunset's added bonus of being in awesome movies. Starlight is shown to be troubled about her past and getting better much more so than Sunset, the "being Twilight's friendship student" angle actually matters with her instead of abruptly ending, she isn't instantly and unrealistically a good person like Sunset, who inexplicably turned 180 after being hit with a rainbow laser; Starlight was actually persuaded psychologically and is still learning. Practically everything that defines Sunset apart from being Celestia's former student and living in the human world, is done much better in Starlight.

[Mellow]

7608751 I mean I want to like Starlight but then she goes and does things like mind-controlling the ponies she's supposed to be friends with. She shows no remorse, she knew what she was doing and wanted it to happen. Even near the ending I feel like she doesn't quite get it. It comes off as her being more concerned that she didn't complete the friendship lessons rather than the fact that her instant reaction to encountering an obstacle was to create an entirely new mind control spell.

I feel like in rainbow rocks I could at least believe that Sunset was sorry for what she did whereas with Starlight, the script just tells me that she's sorry when all her actions point otherwise (never mind that she didn't really receive any repercussions for doing this).

I guess I'd just rather have a 180 degree turn from a character followed by a well thought out redemption arc over a marginally less sudden 180 degree turn followed by the script telling me that a character is good even though they do terrible things without regrets.
I mean Starlight knew what she was doing. People/Ponies like that need help, but not the make friends kind of help.

[Superbowl]

7611872 That is precisely what makes Starlight far more interesting. Sunset lets go of her past and gets over it so quickly, it's like it doesn't matter at all. It doesn't add anything to her present character. Starlight meanwhile is clearly struggling, having spent most of her life with quite the warped set of morals, it's fascinating watching her learn drop by drop how her old thinking is wrong. She isn't presented as "totally good already", she is presented as remorseful but really ignorant on the questions of morality. She knew what she was doing, but she didn't do it out of malice, she did it out of cluelessness. Twilight's there to put things into perspective for Starlight, and it's pretty safe to say she won't be putting spells on her friends like that again. She might do something different that's immoral, but that's something to anticipate. It makes her interesting. Sunset just... isn't. Her redemption largely happened off-screen, her personality changed inexplicably, she lives like an almost perfectly content protagonist, completely wasting the potential of her backstory. Flaws are what makes characters interesting, after all.

[Mellow]

7612046 Sunset does indeed have a lot of wasted potential, however I'd like to point out that it is not only flaws that make a character interesting, the challenges they face and how the character grows and deals with them is also very important.

In regards to Sunset being a largely content main character, "so what?" Do characters constantly need to have inner struggles for them to be interesting? Twilight was and is a content protagonist but people (or at least I) still enjoyed seeing her episodes (season 6 has been 'eeeh' ). Furthermore Sunset still has plenty of flaws such as anger management issues and overprotectiveness among others. Also as far as Sunset being content I wouldn't be so sure; they had that entire unused plotline for friendship games, but only time can tell.

Now with Starlight Glimmer, I don't exactly see how her actions were out of cluelessness. She purposefully mixed those three specific spells and even when asked why she did it, she says (as well as also being stated at the start of the episode) that her motive was to impress Twilight. To me that's the equivalent of a friend, who is a chemist, inviting me over and drugging me with a specific, calculated dose of a mixture of substances so that they could impress their boss. That right there, isn't on the same level as a character flaw, that right there is a serious psychological issue.
Starlight's apparent lack of empathy as well as the lack of repercussions for her actions, make her (again, to me at least) a very hard character to like. It doesn't few like she's learning anything, it just feels like she doesn't do things because she's told not to, without understanding the reasons why.

I'd also like to point out that Starlight's 'redemption' happened even more offscreen than Sunset's, during Rainbow Rocks everyone, including Rarity and co. where still giving shit to Sunset (as well they should at that point) until the climax where Sunset helps save the day. Starlight on the other hand had a musical number and was equivocally forgiven by everyone, while also not doing the self blame thing that Sunset did.

I'm completely fine with agreeing to disagree, but I just want to make my perspective on the matter clear. I do not mind Starlight as a character, I just think that she needs help.

[Superbowl]

7614015

the challenges they face and how the character grows and deals with them is also very important

Right, and Sunset practically doesn't have to do either, she flips a full 180 instead of growing and then kinda sulks in the background of RR until everything works out.

In regards to Sunset being a largely content main character, "so what?"

It makes her backstory completely detached. She's like a completely separate character from the one in the original movie. And without that backstory she's much blander than the rest of the main characters. At this point she's kind of a placeholder Gordon Freeman type of character, with her only relevant personality trait being that she still loves magic from her pony days.

Now with Starlight Glimmer, I don't exactly see how her actions were out of cluelessness.

Cluelessness of what's right and wrong. In her mind, if it gets the job done and nobody's hurt (apart from the hangover, but I'm sure she didn't intend that), she can't see it as bad. She has to learn the very basics of being a decent person. She does seem to be trying though.

Starlight on the other hand had a musical number and was equivocally forgiven by everyone, while also not doing the self blame thing that Sunset did.

Spike keeps bringing Starlight's past no less than the humane 5 do with Sunset, and Starlight seems to take it worse to boot. And with self-blame, I don't even know what you're talking about. Starlight goes through freaking phases of self-blame (direct like in The Crystalling, coping with self-deprecating humor like in No Second Prances, etc). Sunset is just sad that people still remember, then sings a song "yo I forgive myself so it doesn't matter anymore" and is subsequently perfectly fine.

I just think that she needs help.

Which is exactly what we're witnessing Twilight give her, which is something new and refreshing for the show. Starlight is actually contributing something of interest for the overall plot, while Sunset is just a replacement "basic protagonist" who's shown to be pretty awesome at things but barely has any depth.

[Mellow]

7614114 Agree to disagree it is then, we view the Sunset and Starlight very differently from one another. I just can't see Sunset as a 'placeholder' as you say, nor can I see Starlight's representation in the show as all that interesting, especially since character's reactions to the things she nonchalantly does are... subdued? Although that might just be the iffy writing on the larger part of season 6 so far.

To be honest I don't view Starlight and Sunset as particularly similar characters at all. They each have their issues, weaknesses in characterisation etc. I just happen to prefer Sunset over Starlight. The ideal for me would have been if Sunset had received the student of friendship treatment way back, after the first movie.

Also to clarify I think Starlight needs to spend a good few years with the royal psychologist as well as given whatever medication (if any) exists in equestrian for sociopathic tendencies, alongside learning how to be friends from Twilight.

[Wilddog88]

Well starlight glimmer and sunset are kind of alike. They both have a time when they thought friendship was useless, but in a different way.

Sunset thought friendship was pointless and doesn't give you power. And part of that blame goes to Princess Celestia for not catching the signs early like she did with twilight.

Starlight thought friendship divives through cutie marks and made her town. Both had bad views of friendship and became a villain to strike out at it. And they were both convinced that true friendship may be better. Sunset needed to be hit with the elements because she was too caught up in her thoughts. Starlight was just a child who never got over the moving of sunburst.

Simple fact they thought they were better then the useless friendship.

[Csquared08]

That was pleasant, though I think it would have been easier to read as just one chapter instead of a few smaller ones.