//------------------------------//
// Secret's Out 
// Story: A Glimmer of the Past: Daddy Issues 
// by milesprower06 
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Starlight's heart pounded as her dad took two steps forward and peered into the opened chest. He seemed to stare down at the contents for an eternity, and the heliotrope mare silently yearned for a reaction as she was nearly shivering. A few seconds passed before he looked up at her, not with shock, surprise, or disgust, but with a look of genuine, quizzical curiosity.

"Well, judging by the way you look right now, sweetheart, I certainly don't want to jump to any conclusions. But I am a bit confused; I thought you didn't like the way I treated you when you came home." Firelight finally said. Starlight took a quick, deep breath before replying.

"I know. I've had this stuff for a lot longer than that. The reason why I wanted to show you is because when I came back from Sire's Hollow, I began to wonder if the way you used to treat me was the reason why I wanted these things. I thought if I didn't show you right away and kept dancing around the possibilities in my head, that I'd start stressing out about it, and I didn't want that to ruin your visit. So... I guess you could call this a... A coping mechanism. I think when I left home, part of me subconsciously longed for the way you treated me. I wanted to feel safe and cared for. Believe me, having fantasies in my head with these things is preferable, compared to what I tried first. It... It was downright evil, and it's how I came to be Twilight's student. You deserve to know the details..."

Starlight took another breath as she slowly closed the chest and took a seat on her bed, and her father listened intently.

"When Sunburst left for Celestia's school, it devastated me. I was never the same. I was so convinced that if I ever made another friend, another cutie mark would just take them away too. I think that whole goth phase was to get my mind off of my own cutie mark."

"Yeah, the kites were the only thing that got your mind off of it." Firelight said with a slight chuckle, lightening the mood a tad.

"At first I was only jealous that Sunburst got to go to Celestia's school. Then when I left home, I started to get angry. Angry that he never said goodbye. Then I let that turn into hate. I despised cutie marks for taking my friend away from me. I spent the next couple years in libraries researching what little studies had been done around the magic of the cutie marks, and how that magic might be changed and subverted. I started searching out forgotten places that held dark magic."

Starlight took another breath, trying to gather any kind of reaction from her father, but he just looked on intently, without any looks of judgement.

"I eventually set down stakes in the mountain valleys northwest of Manehattan. A cave had gotten my attention; the depths contained magical surfaces that could hold and contain cutie mark magic when properly augmented. Soon I got my first visitor. Then a second. Then a third. As the years passed, I had founded a village in my own little corner of Equestria. I stripped each villager of their cutie mark and stored them in my enchanted vault. I thought that without cutie marks, there wouldn't be any separation, any arguments, and they would never leave me."

Tears started to prick the corners of her eyelids as she reminisced the still-sensitive subject.

"Then Princess Twilight and her friends arrived."

Starlight took a few breaths as she wiped her eyes.

"I wish I could say that's where it ended. That Twilight had a nice, civil conversation with me, convincing me of the error of my ways. But it was a bit more violent than that. They caused a revolt in the village. I slipped away while the villagers shattered the vault. After that, I spent months figuring out how to get back at her; how to take from her what she took away from me. What resulted was... Let's just say it's pretty scary what someone with my sheer abilities can do when we're set on revenge. I almost wiped out existence as we all know it. She asked what had happened to me to cause all this, I told her what had happened with Sunburst, and at the very last moment, she convinced me to try things her way."

Starlight shifted on her bed, pausing for another moment.

"So the friendship lessons began. While they were enough to keep me distracted for the time being, part of me still longed for home; for that carefree safety. When I graduated and got a medal from Celestia for bravery, I figured I should prove it to myself and dive in. So I found a local store and..."

She motioned with her hoof to the chest that sat in front of her open closet.

"...And there you have it. I figured it was far more harmless than what I tried the first time."

Starlight realized that revealing her fetish to her dad had been far, far less nerve-racking than telling him where she had been since leaving home, and that she was now having trouble meeting his gaze. He magically pulled the chair from her desk over to the bed and sat down in front of her.

"Well, you're certainly right about that. Starlight... I frequently think about how differently things would have gone if your mom survived your birth. I handled my grief being dead-set on making sure your every need was provided for. I thanked Celestia every night that Sunburst's family helped out as much as they did. I supposed they sympathized with our situation... Maybe a little too much, because they never brought up how much I was taking you over to them. I pretty much missed your entire foalhood. There are some days I'd give anything to have those days back. By the time I realized how much I had missed, you were a filly, and my smothering affection was too much, too late."

Firelight paused for a moment. "I assume you've gone and made peace with your villagers?" He asked her. She immediately nodded.

"They even invited me to a festival celebrating the village's founding. None of them left after I disappeared."

Firelight smiled at her.

"We all have our ways of dealing with our demons, hun. You saw how I tried to keep half of Sire's Hollow frozen in time to get you to come visit. So if you think I'm going to judge you for how you're choosing to slip back into the comforts of the past... Never."

Starlight's lips trembled as she leaned forward and threw her front hooves around her dad.

"Wow... Well, that's a weight off my shoulders."

"Glad to hear it, sugar plum. Now what would you like to do today?" Firelight asked, releasing his daughter from the embrace.

Part of Starlight's mind wanted to skirt passed this now that she had spilled her secret to her dad, and yet, part of her wanted to go a bit deeper, especially now that she had heard what her dad had to say.

"Actually..." She began, taking another deep breath. Wow, she was actually going to say this... She let out her breath as she raised a hoof towards the chest again.

"You said you'd give anything to return to those days. What... What if I could give you one day?"