//------------------------------//
// 27: Cutie Remarks (Pt. 2) 
// Story: Shining Together 
// by Bookish Delight 
//------------------------------//

Starlight shrugged.

"Well, all right. But remember, you asked for this. Hopefully I can tell this story better than the last time I tried." Starlight took the deepest breath of the night, clasping her hands together. 

"Cutie mark tunnel vision took away my best friend, my only friend, when I was a filly. The second he got his, he was declared a magic prodigy—to be fair, he sort of was—and sent hundreds of miles away to Canterlot. Which for both of us, may as well have been a continent away. 

"What normally happens when that happens..." Starlight shrugged again. "Happened. Our terrible, filly- and colt-level attempts at letters fizzled out real quick, and our lives went on. I didn't get to see him again for decades. And during those decades, I... never quite recovered. Or learned how to make new friends until, well, now, really. 

"My dad also started working even more to support us as the years went on—not that I ever held it against him, since he made up for it when he was around—but it did mean that, between those two things, I basically woke up one day and realized I had way too much time to myself. I know some ponies would love that, but for me, who was perfectly happy with what I had before, it was torture. It was abandonment. It was... feeling unwanted. And once again, my silly filly brain could only point to one reason why things were now the way they were."

"And yes, it's a 'stupid reason'." Starlight exhaled through pursed lips and rolled eyes. "Eeeeeveryone who's read Twilight's published friendship journal has said as much, especially given what I did later. Heck, ponies have told me to my face all sorts of ways I could just have just 'gotten over' it all, and 'easily fixed' my social life and my emotions all on my own or with the occasional random pony for a friend and yeah, I get it!" She threw up her hands. "I freaking get it! I messed up! Didn't help that after Twilight and her friends took me on and liberated my town, I might've gone on a revenge bender against her and wrecked Equestria with a time spell—"

"Hold on," Sunset said. "That was you? You were the cause of the 'crazy time loop' Princess Twilight told about last spring?"

"Most likely. Don't know of any others. Wow, Twilight really did keep me close to the chest and not in the good way, huh?"

"We'll talk about that later," Sunset said. "The three of us. Sorry, keep going."

"Right. So, yeah! Rub it in forever, I totally deserve it." Starlight slumped again, speaking much more softly now. "There are ponies who still haven't forgiven me, and that's fine. I know what I did, and I can't change it. Even with a time travel spell. That pony may not be who I am now, but I can't erase her, and quite frankly, it'd be wrong of me to try. Especially since it doesn't change how I felt then. How I feel now. How I had to stumble through this whole idiotic thing called 'life' in the dark, making all the wrong decisions along the way, in no small part because because cutie marks held such sway over everyone." She snorted. "Including me, ironically.

"So yeah. I'm not the biggest fan of cutie marks even now, and don't know if I ever will be. I always want creatures to make their own decisions... at least now. I didn't back then. Back then, I wanted everypony to come to the same bad conclusions I did. To make the same bad decisions I did."

She finally got the courage to look into Sunset's eyes again. "And between you and me? That's the only thing I regret. A lot of my mistakes could have been avoided if I knew how to not make everything all about me."

She let out a short breath. 

"But I didn't, so here we are."