It was a good thing Starlight had gotten to learning the castle when Twilight and Spike had been around, cause she would be lost with them now living in Canterlot as the rulers of Equestria. It helped Starlight that she had taken to renovating the place to fit herself now that she was the sole resident of the house.
It was one of the calm days, Spring Break had started at The School of Friendship, and she had planned on having days to relax. Today was the first of those days, and as such she propped herself in what once was Twilight's map room chair and began to read.
"Where was I? Page...45 there it is."
She remembered as she removed her mark from the book. As she went to start reading however, a sound began to emit from the mirror room. It was the mirror yes, but she needed to know who or what was coming through. So she dropped the book and made haste.
She arrived just in time to watch the pony enter, to her relief it was only a pony she knew. Sunset Shimmer steadied herself onto all fours once again after returning to Equestria.
"Sunset, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I thought I'd come in to see if Twilight was around. Nothing much has happened since Spring Break started back there..." she pointed a hoof at the mirror. "And Twilight hasn't been responding to my messages lately."
"Oh that..." Starlight looked over to her left, noting that the book Twilight and Sunset had used to communicate had been left aside. "She forgot the book in her rush to Canterlot."
"Oh, well that's no issue. When is she coming back?"
Starlight rubbed her neck with a hoof.
"She, lives there permanently now. Celestia and Luna stepped down for her."
Sunset, initially taken aback by this knowledge, took a minute to compose herself before responding.
"Okay...im not jealous. It's not like that was my life goal or anything as a filly."
Sunset looked off to the side, pretending her past never happened.
Before Starlight could respond, the door at the top of the stairs peeked open to reveal Starlight's closest friend and biggest nuisance, Trixie.
"Starlight, you down here?" Trixie continued down the stairs. "The Great and Powerful Trixie wishes to buy lunch for her best friend..." Trixie came to a dead stop upon seeing Sunset in the room, Sunset in turn dropped everything from her mind upon seeing pony Trixie for the first time.
"Who are you?" Trixie questioned.
"Why do you seem familiar to me?" Sunset added in confusion.
"Yeah food sounds great right now, Sunset how about you tag along." Starlight interrupted the pair, walking past Trixie and out the door leaving the pair to just gawk and follow.
The train grinded to a halt in Ponyville Station, those who were left on the train departed as it picked up more ponies for the trip back towards Canterlot. Among the ponies departing was Lightning Dust, her back still stiff from falling from a height equivalent to that of a mountain. She dared not fly, less she injure herself even further.
Her incident involving a rocket and piece of rope had been sobering and equally as painful. It was enough for her to completely cut ties with Short Fuse and Rolling Thunder for good. She thought what she had been doing was different, it was willing participation. It didn't turn out that way, and in her competitiveness she embarrassed herself.
She only came to Ponyville to apologize for real to Dash and Scootaloo for her actions. She was ready for Dash to dig her out and toss her aside, she knew she deserved it.
She searched the skies, hoping she would be able to spot the pegasus before she spotted her and avoid any unnecessary drama. In doing so, she walked aimlessly into a fellow pony who also was not paying attention.
"Oof, oh. Trixie is sorry for not being aware of her surroundings."
"It's fine." Lightning responded before attempting to carry on.
"Hey, I know you. I say, from performer to performer you have quite the reputation."
Lightning turned her head to Trixie for only a second.
"Yeah, and it's not one I enjoy keeping."
"Whatever do you mean? Your show was great. Almost as good as The Great and Powerful..."
"Trixie, just let the mare carry on with her day." Starlight interrupted Trixie's boasting. "I'm terribly sorry, she does this all the time."
Lightning waved them off
"It's no big deal, by the way I was looking for some pony. Do you perhaps know a..."
Lightning was suddenly tackled down and put on her back. While she initially struggled, when she met the rose colored eyes she was looking for she immediately froze.
"You've got a lot of explaining to come here again." Dash said with a threatening tone. "I'm giving you 5 minutes to skip before I send you to the..."
"I wanted to say I was sorry Dash!" Lightning screamed into the face of the pony holding her down. "I know what I did was wrong and horrible. I just wanted to tell her sorry."
Dash stood over her frozen. Starlight put a hoof between them, backing Dash up while Sunset pulled Lightning back onto her hooves. Dash looked off in shame, found an excuse to leave and flew away leaving the four ponies left to settle.
"You okay? I know Dash is very keen on suspicion but I've never seen her lash out randomly." Starlight inquired.
"Eh, she's always hated me." Lightning responded. "And to be fair I kind of deserved it. I did some bad things with her."
Trixie chuckled, causing Dust to raise an eyebrow quizzically at her. Trixie put a hoof around the Pegasus' shoulder.
"Welcome to the club, did I ever tell you about the time I tied her up on stage in front of a live crowd, or better yet that mess with the Alicorn Amulet?" Trixie cackled, then began to settle into a whimper. "It was an embarrassing moment for Trixie, but hey I'm kind of better now.
Lightning was slightly taken aback by all that Trixie had mentioned.
"Excuse me. What?" She said in complete confusion. Starlight put a hoof to her muzzle and added in.
"Basically she's saying your not the only pony to make Dash or for that matter Princess Twilight upset. I for one got cranky over losing a friend to his cutie mark after he got sent to Canterlot, started a village where every pony was removed of their special talent, then did the same to those two and their friends. When that failed, I tried to go back in time to make sure Dash never got her mark in the first place. That didn't work out either. And after all that they still forgave me and eventually let me make my home here.
Sunset continued.
"I was Celestia' s personal pupil before Twilight came and eventually became a princess. I ran off, came back to take her crown...a lot of stuff we can talk about some other time. Basically, same as her. None of it worked, Twilight and the others still let me have another go."
"What The Great and Powerful Trixie meant to pass onto you Lightning is that here we are all ponies who have crossed the Princess and her friends, but we made up for it after we learned our lesson. It's not that hard for them to forgive as long as you don't keep making the same mistakes." Trixie finished her statement with a toothy smile.
"Huh...thats a lot more than what I did."
"What did you do?" Sunset asked.
"I believe I put the lives of all of Dash's friends in danger, and then in spite started a challenger to the Wonderbolts which ended up putting Dash' s sister in jeopardy after a stunt went awry.
Trixie stood alongside Lightning.
"Yep, you'll fit right in. Another pony putting the lives of Twilight and her friends in danger and learning from it to be a contributing member of society." She looked to the remaining unicorns with a confident eyebrow raise. "Say, shall we invite this mare out to lunch?"
Starlight and Sunset exchanged looks, Sunset answered for them.
"I'm sure it wouldn't hurt if we added a fourth. After all you're paying."