Starlight Glimmer failed to suppress her yawn as she poured herself a cup of coffee in the teacher’s lounge at the School of Friendship. It was looking like another day of “professional development” as each of her friends and fellow faculty members presented their own takes on what would be important for their task of enriching young minds. In her experience, this mostly consisted of extra-long pep talks and Rainbow Dash pretending that she wasn’t just making it up as she went.
This would be a lot more fun if we turned it into a drinking game like Trixie suggested… “For every trust fall exercise, take a shot! For every reference to that starfish story that ends with ‘It means a lot to this one!’ take a shot!”
She managed a smirk. Trixie was a dumpster fire of personality disorders, but at least she was fun and had no filter, which was more than most ponies could say.
Just then, there was an overhead crackle of static from the newly-installed P.A. system Twilight had installed over the summer.
“Attention! All faculty are to report to the headmare’s office immediately!” Twilight declared, the panic in her voice unmistakable. “My office. Please hurry!”
Starlight raised an eyebrow. The biggest problem with having Twilight as a friend and mentor was that the panic in her voice could signal either a world-ending crisis that threatened all life in Equestria or something akin to her fretting about the minutia involved with organizing her bookmarks by dimension, glossiness, or thickness.
It tended to be a fifty-fifty chance of the apocalypse.
This is my life. I chose this.
Starlight sighed but dutifully made her way to Twilight’s office as fast as she could (without risking coffee spillage, of course).
She arrived at the office with the others and took in the sight of Twilight leaning over her desk, her hooves steepled and her brow creased with worry.
“Everypony, we are facing a crisis,” Twilight said, her voice surprisingly calm, but low and grave. She shut her eyes and exhaled through her nostrils. “I’ve just been informed... that the stars are gone.”
They all stared back at her in silence.
An audible gasp escaped Rarity. “Oh no!” she cried. “Does Princess Luna know?! Surely she would be the first pony to contact if the night sky were devoid of stars!”
“Hey, hold on a second!” Pinkie shouted, rushing over to the window, jutting her hoof out at the sun, still low in the morning sky. “The sun’s still there, and I’m pretty sure that’s a star too!”
Twilight blinked. “Well, yes, but—”
“No buts about it, Twilight,” Applejack said, shaking her head. “I may be a simple farmpony, but even I know that the sun ain’t nothin’ but a star that happens to be closer’n any other. An’ it’s still there, so…”
“Ooh, ooh!” Pinkie exclaimed, waving her hoof in the air. “I know! Maybe some evil force is slowly making its way inward from the outermost edges of the universe, eliminating star after star, galaxy after galaxy, but due to the speed of light and time dilation we’re just noticing it now, which means we only have a small amount of time before it comes for us and completely wipes out the sun and all life in Equestria!”
Everypony stared at her in silence.
“We’re all going to diiiiiieeee!” Rarity wailed, collapsing onto the nearby fainting couch Twilight had placed in her office specifically for occasions like this.
“No! No, jeez, everypony calm down!” Twilight shouted as she massaged her temples. “The sun is not in danger and nopony is going to die!”
“We all are, eventually,” Fluttershy muttered.
Starlight raised an eyebrow and glanced over at Fluttershy. “Um… are you okay, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy blushed. “Oh. Sorry, but when you take care of a lot of animals with relatively short lifespans, you become a little used to the idea of your own mortality.”
“Anyway,” Twilight said, clearing her throat. “The threat we face is nowhere near as dire as what Pinkie described, but we are still in the midst of a major crisis!
“Everypony… we are completely out of gold star stickers!”
Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes and visibly sagged even as she continued to hover in the air.
“Riiight… Okay, I’m going back to the gym and inflate some more buckballs,” she said flatly before turning to fly back out. “Lemme know how that whole sticker thing turns out.”
“What?! B-but…” Twilight stammered as Rainbow left and she suddenly found herself confronted with the unamused faces of her friends/faculty. “This is serious, everypony! The new school year begins in a matter of days and we are stickerless! Don’t you see?! Gold star stickers are the lynchpin of our whole institution!”
Starlight heaved a sigh but put on her kindest smile as she trotted over to Twilight and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Okay, Twilight, I know you’re concerned,” she said, “but I’m sure we’ll manage.”
“Manage?! Sure we can ‘manage,’ but how will we let students know that they’ve done truly exemplary work?!” Twilight demanded, pressing her muzzle into Starlight’s. “The gold star sticker is a universal sign of academic excellence! Our students will feel unappreciated and neglected!”
“Twilight, look… you’re probably overreacting,” Starlight said as she tried to maintain her composure (and not outright tell Twilight she was being ridiculous). “No student is going to care if they don’t get a gold star.”
“Ocellus might,” Fluttershy said.
“Ocellus is the exception!” Starlight snapped, causing Fluttershy to flinch. “Um… what I mean is that we have lots of other ways to positively reinforce our students’ work! We can use smiley face stickers!”
“You would have us use… smiley faces?!” Twilight gasped.
“What’s wrong with smiley faces?” Pinkie asked, crossing her forelegs indignantly. “I love smiley faces! I sang a whole song about them! It’s practically my theme song!”
“I like them as much as the next pony,” Twilight said. “But for true excellence, a gold star sticker is the only recourse! No smiley face stickers, no ‘Super Job!’ stickers, no ‘Well Done!’ stickers as backhoofed compliments, no ‘Teacher’s Hard Worker’ consolation prizes… why, if Celestia hadn’t put genuine, authentic gold stars on my work as her student, I’d never have become the pony I am today!”
Starlight sighed. “Okay, look, if it’s that important… why are we out of them? Can’t we just order more?”
Twilight shook her head. “No. The company that makes them discontinued them. They said the foil that makes them shiny and reflective was too expensive!”
“Then… I dunno, you’re a princess, issue a royal decree commanding them to make more and then raise taxes by like… 1 bit to fund them?” Starlight suggested, waving her hoof in the air.
Twilight froze. A wide grin slowly spread across her face. “Starlight… you’re a genius! I have to get Spike to write up an official decree immediately!”
With that, she flew out of her office, leaving the rest of them to contemplate how a tiny portion of the national budget would now be spent exclusively on reassuring overachieving students that their work was gold star-worthy.
Starlight groaned and then downed her coffee in one large gulp. “I’m going to need a lot more of this stuff,” she grumbled. “If anypony needs me, I’ll be in the teacher’s lounge.”