"Hello Anon, thanks for coming to my birthday party!" Starlight Glimmer says happily. Her smile seemed strained and forced though, like she was trying to keep face.
"No problem Starlight," you say, "I'm glad to be here! So, where are the others?"
She flinches in a manner that surprises you, then she looks down at the ground before answering, "...Nopony else came."
"What? What do you mean nobody else came?"
Starlight doesn't say anything for a second, and she bites her lower lip quite hard as if she's trying to stop herself from crying.
Oh geez, this is awkward. Twilight said she would come to the party with you but last second she sent you a letter saying she and her friends had to deal with a friendship "emergency", whatever the hell that means. Seems like she got the same letter you did, and it doubly seems like you and the Mane 6 were all that she invited.
Even with the stories Twilight told you about the especially sinister things she's done, all she seems to be is a sad mare that's alone on her birthday. Sure you felt uncomfortable with the situation, but you went in anyway to keep her company and make her feel better.
You take a seat next to her at the long dining table she had set up in her humble living room. The thing nearly touched the walls with how many sections she slid in the center of the table, clearly she was expecting a lot more ponies here than just you, and technically you weren't even a pony so you didn't know if that made it worse or better.
It seemed sitting at a huge empty table only made her feel that much worse, but she tries as best as she can to hide the fact how much she's hurting. You try to help out as much as you can by setting plates and getting the gift pile set on the side (even if it was just the one from you), trying to ignore how much she's rubbing her eyes and sniffing.
Oh man, this is hard to watch. Small talk was going nowhere.
"So uh, did Pinkie make this cake?"
"No," she sniffs, "I, uh, insisted I make it myself. I wanted to make this party really special since I would have had... real friends to spend it with."
It did seem like she tried her best, it looked like a streamer bomb--no a nuke exploded in here, she tried tying balloons to just about everything in the room too. A music player and a mountain of vinyls sat silently in the corner waiting to be used, and the cheesiest party games lined the living room as well.
"Well it's, um, really good. I mean it." Starlight gives a "hm" to that, and just pokes at her colorful cake.
You aren't at all socially equipped to deal with a tense situation like this. You have no idea what to do so you just sit there soaking in this uncomfortable situation. Eventually though Starlight's sadness starts to make itself more known, and she tries to play it off as coughing into a napkin but it's obviously quiet sobs.
You couldn't just sit here doing nothing and pretending to be ignorant of the situation. She might have been a villain before but you only know this Starlight, and this Starlight deserves at least one friend on her birthday.
You place your hand on her back to try and diffuse this bomb, but it was a lot more sensitive than you thought because she explodes into sobs the moment you touch her.
"Aw come on Starlight, you know they care about you, things just come up sometimes at the worst moment." Stroking her back only quells the sobs enough for her to be coherent.
"I--I know *hic* buh-buh-but it's just not fair!" She sobs loudly. You have to wrap your arm around to calm her down again.
"It's just... it feels so b-bad to have somepony call you their friend and then flake on you like you d-don't even matter that much to them!" Starlight tucks her face into your chest and sobs into your shirt. Man, that's wet.
"I-I know I'm a bad pony, but I'm trying s-so ha-ha-hard!" She's completely breaking down in your arms. Oh man, are you making this worse? It's definitely getting worse. How the hell do you fix this?
"Starlight, listen to me, hey!" she quiets down enough to hear you, "You're not a bad pony, at all. Granted I hardly know you but that's no way anyone should talk about themselves." She's gone quiet now, and after a minute or so of sniffling she pushes herself away from you.
"I-I'm sorry for dumping all of this on you Anon. It's just making friends through hard work after living most of your life forcing people to be your friends is so... stressful. And the fact that it's my first birthday since... my past life, doesn't really help either."
"I feel so paranoid all the time about every little thing I do to try and be a better friend to everypony, to the point where I'm lying awake at night thinking of some off-color thing I said or did, and it just spirals down into hours-long thoughts about how I'm going to royally blow it and have no friends again."
Tears were still flowing freely down her cheeks, she wasn't even bothering to wipe them anymore, just letting them drip into her cake.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I can understand what you're talking about more than you think," Anon says softly.
She turns to you with teary bloodshot eyes, "Really?"
"Yeah, actually. I mean look at me, I'm probably the only thing like me in this universe! I bet you can already tell how suspicious ponies here were of me when I first showed up."
"No one wanted to even talk to me, let alone be my friend. Twilight was the only one that took a chance on me and gave me a place to stay and helped me make some of my first friends."
"And now you're just as popular as her?" She asks.
"Pfft, no. Sure I talked to a lot of ponies and tried to make them my friends, but now I only have like 5 real friends that I genuinely care for, and I know they care for me."
Anon continues, "If you want my honest opinion, and don't tell Twilight this, I don't think friendship can be made into a science that solves everyone's problems. Sure when you're the new guy you try to please everyone and that makes it harder on yourself because now you're trying to make a million friends, but after a while when people get used to you you get to find those who really care about you. Basically you go from quantity to quality."
Starlight frowns in confusion, "So what are you saying? Should I just give up and wait for them to come for me?"
Anon shakes his head, "No, it's definitely a two-way street. You get in what you get out, and I think you'll be able to tell when someone's wanting to give you as much as you give them."
"That... makes a lot of sense. Like you can fly a million kites but there will only be a handful of ones that fly for you every time you need them to?"
"Yeah, you could say that."
Starlight wipes her eyes one last time and gives you a huge smile. Suddenly she's wrapped herself around you in a giant hug, and you return the favor. Inside, you mentally pat yourself on the back for having somehow nailed this.
"Thank you Anon, really, you helped me figure a lot out about myself. I just have to try my best, yet be patient at the same time until the right ponies come along." Separating from the hug, you hand her the little gift bag you brought with you.
"Well, I'm pretty sure you just got one of those friends, Starlight."
You paid Rarity to make it, so does that count as a gift from you and her? You suppose it doesn't really matter.
Starlight tosses out the packing paper and with her magic pulls out a pale lavender beanie dotted with white starburst patterns stitched in. You were never one for getting gifts, so you always picked something functional.
Starlight's eyes well with tears again, "Anon... I love it!"
Starlight made good on her lesson about getting real friends instead of just a lot of them after that day. The next year at her birthday, after having some fun with Twilight and the other Mane 6, she would return home to have the real birthday party.
Walking inside she flips the lights on to see Anon and Trixie lazily lift spiked punch glasses to her from their comfortable seats at the much smaller table, and with much less decorations. The cake left something to be desired too, it was much smaller and clearly made by a human and a unicorn that got a little tipsy before they even started baking.
"Surprise!" The duo cheers.
And Starlight wouldn't have it any other way.