//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: Nothing But the Truth // Story: Starlight and Aurora // by twilightsparkle3562 //------------------------------//                                                                                          “Something we need to hear?” wondered Twilight as Starlight stood at the entrance to the ballroom, looking at her mother, her teacher and her friends.  “Is this about you and Hoofdini?”                 Starlight took an enormous gulp and sighed heavily as she walked over towards the small group of ponies, all of whom were eager to listen to what Starlight had to say. “Hoofdini the greatest magician that Equestria has ever known…is my grandfather,” she sighed, causing everypony in the room to gasp loudly, even the princesses!                   Trixie was still too weak to react with words, but she did manage to open her eyes in shock! Despite her weakness, Trixie could not believe that her idol, the pony that she admired and inspired her to become a magician in the first place, was related to her best friend.                    “Yeah, I know it’s a shock, but it’s true,” Starlight confessed. “Trust me, I just found out not too long ago, and I’m as confused as you are.”                  “Freaky Geeky,” Pinkie Pie commented. “You think something like that would’ve surfaced sooner.”                  Starlight then felt a shudder and looked back to see Hoofdini’s ghost standing in the doorway. He seemed to be glancing at her, as if he were encouraging her to speak up. “I’m not sure how the knowledge of Hoofdini having a family managed to disappear, but it doesn’t matter,” Starlight went on. “It’s not what I came here to resolve. I came here to finally settle things with my mother, once and for all.”                  “But, I don’t understand,” Applejack replied, walking over to Starlight.  “What does this have to do with your feelings towards Aurora here?”                  “Starlight, you know I wouldn’t force you to do things you don’t want to do,” Aurora immediately spoke up.  “I would’ve respected you in whatever your heart desires.”                  “No, you wouldn’t,” Starlight replied, stamping her hoof down hard.  “I wanted a friend and I was afraid that nopony would accept me as one.  Ever since Sunburst left, I wanted us to do things together, but you put my father, MY FATHER, over me! Maybe I was wrong to run away and start that cult, but when I needed you most you rejected my offer of friendship and all because you were torn up about my so called father!”                  Everypony gasped in shock and disbelief over this confession.  Aurora was now beginning to understand the gravity of the situation in question.  Yes, she made a grave mistake, focusing all of her attention to try and save her relationship with her husband, but like Starlight had said, she couldn’t turn back the clock. “I was doing what I could to help our family stay together.  Your father was doing everything in his power to destroy himself,,” Aurora explained. “I loved him, Starlight, and I wanted to encourage him to seek help, but he didn’t. I tried to stop him that night from attempting the Moonshot Manticore Mouthdive, but he didn’t listen! He was drunk beyond belief, consuming all of that alcoholic cider that clouded his mind! Had he understood, he would have been alive right now!”             Knowing that she needed to place her input on the situation, Princess Celestia was the one who spoke up next, while sighing heavily over the fact that she once again had to mend the conflicts between two ponies. “I can understand how it feels to lose somepony you care about," she said, draping one of her giant wings around Aurora. "When Luna was banished to the moon, for the first whole year I fell into a state of depression and told myself that nothing mattered anymore. But I eventually came to learn, that the best way to tackle personal problems is to talk it over.” Aurora absorbed with the mighty alicorn said and could only wonder if talking it over was even really an option to begin with. She tried for ten years to try and talk to Starlight over her ill feelings, but ended up failing to do so. But, before Aurora could give up hope, Celestia brought up the name of a pony who had helped her and Luna in the past. “However, there is a pony who can help you and Starlight repair the relationship you once had," continued Celestia, talking in a wise voice. "Her name is Sweetheart and she is a therapist here in Canterlot who has helped Luna and myself. She was the one who snapped me out of my depression when my subjects needed me most, and she was the one who helped Luna to overcome her guilt for the role of Nightmare Moon, at least for a while. The question is, will you both take it?”                  A long silence fell over the castle, nopony dared to say anything for fear they might make the situation worse. Even Rainbow Dash, who had also sought the help of Sweetheart to help her cope after her pet tortoise, Tank, went into hibernation for the winter, kept herself quiet. This wasn't the time, nor the place for Rainbow Dash to offer her input on the situation at hand.                                    On the other hand, knowing that there was a way to finally mend her relationship with Starlight, Aurora sighed with relief and attempted to look over towards Starlight with sympathetic eyes. “How can I repair something that we both destroyed with our own hastiness?” she thought.                  “You’ve got to give this a chance, Starlight,” Twilight told her student. “You know that Sweetheart can help you and your mother get over your problems.  In fact, we can all go together if you like. There’s nowhere for you to hide from your problems now. You have to face them. Sooner or later.”                    Feeling like she couldn’t bear the thought of her actions anymore, Starlight sighed and slowly walked out of the ballroom with her head hung low. “Is it really possible to start over after all these years?” she unhappily thought. “For ten long years we’ve been apart, and unlike with Sunburst we didn’t part on the best of terms.”                   Aurora was shocked that her daughter did not respond right away with immediate remorse, though at the same time she noticed her daughter hadn’t snapped and yelled at her. But was that a sign of hope, or just Starlight being unsure of how to respond?                 “Please Starlight,” Trixie weakly called, rising to her hooves as Starlight left the ballroom.  “Trixie tells you, for once in your life, listen to your mother.” But Starlight was already gone, and the question on everypony’s mind was, what was she thinking about all of this?