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// Soulmate Saturday 
// Story: Don't Make a Shadow of Yourself 
// by Ice Star 
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Every night, I stare up at the stars and realize just how much I fear them. The night is worse than the day because it shows all these suns unseen. That was what I read once, in a library book. I don't think there are any other kinds of creatures who look out at the stars on other worlds and feel filled with the same fear, the way I do. It's too implausible and feels like nothing more than silly god-driven propaganda that there could be life somewhere else. I'm glad it's just us here, alone. Even if we go to sleep scared and alone every single day because of the inequalities in our waking hours. 

Sunburst, are you as afraid of the stars as I am? Please don't laugh and say that just because I was named for them, I have no excuse. The stars are like a brand over me, the same way that everypony else's name is a brand over them. Think about how our names and the names of the gods are rooted so deeply inside us, holding a power none of us ever asked for. I do not know what Starlight Glimmer of Wispgrove really means, or why it isn't more than a forgotten utterance, in the same way, the filler words of our conversations are. Why does 'Starlight Glimmer' have to mean more than 'a' or 'went'? Why do my name and mark carry more implications of a burden than my quest to be the savior of equinekind? 

I remember every Nightmare Night you let me help you home early, even when we were both afraid of the dark. The first time it happened, your parents let us trick or treat on our whole street alone. You had been terrified of the fireflies, and I didn't know that night wouldn't last forever, that my time with you wouldn't last forever...

I kept you from everything I was asked to, and I would do it again. I know I've made mistakes. What you don't seem to understand is that I'm trying to change, and I always have been. You never believed in change, Sunburst. Look where it got you. All you do is nose through dusty old books about magic formulae, sit through enchanting labs, and brown-muzzling for the sun goddess. Give me long enough, and I'll be single-hoofedly responsible for bringing total equality to proletariat ponies under the hooves of the gods. I accept this will not be a hero's errand, and after my success, there shall be no more heroes. I will not be popular, not like Princess Celestia was in her rise to power. 

There are going to be so many ponies that hate me, and even though I know that these bad ponies exist, the thought of being hated is tearing me up inside. Should I want ponies to hate me more than ever, and push me away as you did? To this day, I can't understand why you left me, not when I was your everything. You knew you were that to me, don't you? If you did, then how could you be so cruel with your abandonment? I waited for months after they shipped you away, and I wrote to you every day. What did I get? Nothing but heartbreak. You never wrote back, never visited your family. I didn't even get the new address when your parents moved out of Wispgrove. The post-ponies never gave me any answers, and my Great-Aunt Andromeda started losing herself completely. She ended up being too busy trying to decide whether to call me Aurora Glimmer or Cassiopeia Glimmer, after her mother. 

Do you know how soul-crushing it was for me to have to pretend I was my mother, a mare I had never met, in order to keep a senile old nag from having a fit? Or how much of a relief it was to cast off that horrible homework assignment once I left for good. Poor, poor Sunburst, he never had to do research on what his mother was like because she was always around! You've always been so privileged to have loving parents, and I don't think that's something that should be so selfishly exclusive, not like you had things. I could have been somepony else's niece, or daughter, or even just a charge. My dear, sweet, Sunburst it was always you who reminded me not just of all the things I never had, but that I was capable of being loved. 

Not once since the day you left have I stopped needing you. Sure, Sunburst, you may have been the one who had to have his hooves held every time you dropped your glasses, but have you forgotten that I'm the one that needs you to hold her hoof through life? I've sent countless apologies to you, and never once have I stopped begging you to just reach out. To say something again. I understand we all say things that we don't mean. In my case, I know I've gone through times when I've denounced you, written some very awful things, and have just generally been a pretty bad pony. However... I've always been there for you. There isn't a day that goes by since I stopped writing to you; I have always ensured that you have gotten letter after letter ever since the first one I mailed to you. That's why I have ALWAYS addressed every single letter to you and you alone, my dearest most treasured possession; my one, and only Sunburst. In your case, you didn't mean it when you told me you were gay. 

I've always believed in soulmates, just as much as I believe ponies can change. You may think that sounds like a contradiction, my sweet, sweet Sunburst. It isn't, and it never will be. I knew you were my soulmate on the eve after the first Hearth's Warming I spent with your family. (In hindsight, I think that finding anything of value during the most material, unmagical of days is horribly ironic.) You act like that kiss wasn't the sweetest moment of our lives. For pony's sake, you pulled away from me and said you might be gay! You can't do that to me, Sunburst. We're soulmates, and that means we can't be hurting each other like this. Not when the world is such a cruel place and ponies have resigned themselves to behaving that way too like it's somehow natural or that anything natural is also good. You need to stop pretending that you're gay, and I know I've told you that so many times now. It's still true because you have turned avoiding into full-on abandonment for years. 

Do you have any idea how much I've cried for you? Or over you? Do you not know that it would be painful just for me to try and add all that up into something to explain? I know you're confused, and it's okay to be that way. But but but. At the end of the day, I need you to realize that we will always be soulmates and that I will love you forever and ever. 

I will always be here for you, Sunburst, waiting for you to love me back. That's the one thing that will never change, and I promise that I will make a world where even you realize we have to be together.