After school, we all gathered to say goodbye to one another, before everyone headed off. Except me. I was waiting for Flaming Star to show up as he had asked me in his note. So I sat down on the stairs, waiting.
After a while, Flaming Star showed up. I noticed he was holding something behind him but couldn't tell what exactly.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." I gave a half wave of a hand. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?"
Flaming Star stepped forward and revealed what he was holding. It was a bouquet of sunflowers. And they looked fresh. "These are-um, for you."
"Oh, wow." I took them from him. "I uh- thanks." The petals looked as bright as the sun. I wanted to know where he got them but, "Wait, how did you know my favorite flower?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Let's say it was a lucky guess." He gave me a smirk.
"Riiiiiiiight!" I rolled my eyes.
"OK fine. I figured your name would be a clue."
We both stared at one another for a few seconds until I decided to break the silence.
"Anyway, thanks again for these."
"It's nothing, really." He shook his hand in the air. "So uh, do you mind walking for a bit?"
I looked at him and took a second to make my decision. "Sure!"
We started walking with one another. I was not sure how long the walk would take but I didn’t mind, since the air that afternoon was quite fresh. Not long after we had started walking, Flaming Star spoke up.
"So, you remember that time you were tutoring me?"
"You mean two days ago?"
"Yeah."
"Of course I do!" I narrowed my eyes and looked at him. "Every. Single. Second of it!"
He bit his lip. "I thought so."
We stayed silent for a while. Long enough that it was getting rather awkward.
"So, is this like, your apology plan or something?" I said as I took another look at the flowers.
"Well, not exactly!" Flaming Star rubbed his head. "It's more of a "thank you" plan."
At first I was confused but it hit me soon afterwards. "OH! Right, how did the thing with your father go?"
"I talked to him." Flaming Star nodded "It worked way better than I expected." He then stopped and pointed with his thumb to somewhere. "Hey, you wanna get something? I’ll pay."
I leaned to the side and saw that he was pointing at a café "I mean, why not?" I gave him a smile.
We both entered the café. It was rather empty but it did have nice decorations with the way brownish wooden planks accompanied with the natural lighting that came from the windows next to every table gave it a unique look. We sat down behind a table. The waitress came to take our order. Since the café was rather close to school and I had never tried anything there, I decided to see if they have a good quality in their services too or not. So I ordered a milkshake. I have gone to multiple cafés and I have drank many milkshakes to a point that I have developed a very specific taste for them. Flaming Star, on the other hand, ordered an orange juice — a rather odd choice, to say the least.
After the waitress left, I started the conversation again. "So, you were saying that you talked to your father?"
"He responded way better than I could even imagine." He put his hands on the table.
"Well, I am glad you sorted out the problem."
"Yeah." He sighed and gave me a smile. "Thanks, for your suggestion..." He paused for a second and turned his smile into a smirk. "...And for tutoring me."
I crossed my arms and leaned back. "Not the apology I was looking for but," I glared before continuing. "I guess I accept it."
He leaned back on his seat and put his hands behind his head. "I guess the flowers did the trick, then."
"Yeah, maybe that too."
They brought our order then. Quite fast, but it was also not very crowded. My milkshake was in a tall cup with a pink straw. It looked nice, and I gave it a taste. It wasn't bad, but it wasn’t good, either.
Since we were not in a hurry, I gave another try at breaking the ice with Flaming Star. "So, how is your magic practice going with Steely Armor?"
"It is going nice. He made me these gloves" — he showed me his hands — "that help me maintain my magic easier."
"How?"
"He said he made them from firefighters' clothes, so it might stop my fire powers to some extent."
"Wait!" I raised my hands to stop him there. "How did he know that?"
"He didn't!" He shook his head. "He was like: ‘It should work!’" He made air quotes. “Steely can be a little odd sometimes. Like, he has cameras set up everywhere.”
“Thats very odd!” I slurped a little of my milkshake. "So you are getting the hang of it."
"Kinda?" He took a gulp of his orange juice.
A thought just hit me then. 'I can probably find out more about Steely Armor and Flaming Star right now.' We had time, too. So I started.
"Hey, how did you two meet up?" I asked as I took another slurp from my milkshake. "You two seem very close."
He looked at me for a second and put down his glass. "Well, where do I start?" he looked out the window. "Back in Falcon Stone, you know the elementary one, I had a lot of people who thought I was cool." He paused for a second before continuing. “And I thought they all were my 'friends' but, when the time came, they all backed up. All of them!" He drank a little bit more from his orange juice and continued. "But Steely, he stayed. He, was there for me. Since then, we've always been together. From then I realized that he is the one I should be calling 'friend'"
"I see." I nodded and looked out. The sun had almost set. Apparently time had passed faster than I expected. I slurped the milkshake faster.
"Hey," Flaming Star said. "How did you all meet up?"
I almost slurped a little too much and was about to choke when I heard that. I coughed a couple times before responding. "We-well w-we, uhm, we uh-uh it just, how do I put it?" I moved my hands around in the air till it hit me. "IT'S A LONG STORY!"
I had shouted that last part. I felt all the few people that were in the café were staring at me.
"Ooooookaaaay" Flaming Star said as he narrowed his eyes. "If you don't feel comfortable it's OK."
"NO NO NO! It's just that uh, It's a really long story! And I...uh..." I picked up the flowers and my backpack and stood up. "Actually, It's getting late and I need to do some stuff so yeah, bye!"
"Wait, what?"
I got out of there in a flash. I panicked for not a very good reason but, the truth is, I really hadn’t been expecting that question. I neither was ready nor knew how I wanted to explain everything to them. It's just not easy to convince people of this world about a world that is full of magical ponies and various creatures that they think of as myths.
I could have gone back to school and picked up my motorcycle but I wanted to walk the rest of the way home. I needed to think a little. Breaking the truth to the boys would be hard. I could just give them an outline and not go into details, but they would probably ask questions and I couldn’t just ignore them every single time. But by telling the truth, I will have to tell them about my past too. What if they....
"NO Sunset! Don't go there." I told myself before my chain of thoughts took me somewhere I didn't want to go.
When I woke up, my body hurt a little. I probably tossed and turned a lot in my sleep. Anyway, I went and started doing my Physics homework, but after about thirty minutes of reading the book to get an understanding of the subject, I realized I understood absolutely nothing. I should have been listening in class.
Thankfully I still had Twilight to rely on. The moment I picked up my phone, I remembered that I had to ask her about how the talk with Steely Armor had gone too.
I messaged her to see if she was available or not. And she replied in a few seconds.
-Hey
-Hey
-How did it go?
-what?
-Thought you said you'd be talking to Steely Armor. (-_-)
-Oh right
-No luck
-but how did it go?
-he said it's nothing important and we should not bother
-that's nonsense
-if it isn't important why is he so protective about it?
-I don't know
-Well then, I guess it's time for my plan
-Are you sure?
-yes, if he doesn't budge we have to
-It's for the better
-ok
-Also,
-can you help me with physics, I wasn't paying much attention today.
-sure
-video call?
-yeah