Once Sunburst and I are out of the post office, Sunburst takes a deep breath.
“I bet talking with Starlight felt good didn’t it?” I remark, smelling the air around me.
“Oh you have no idea, Aita. Now that I got her to share her more recent memories with Firelight, just like you did with me, maybe she won’t dread going home anymore.”
“Do you think that’ll work with Starlight? I know it did for you and me, since neither of us did anything wrong, but Starlight seemed embarrassed about us bringing up her past more than we did.”
“How else would Firelight know if we never tell him? We can’t go around scrubbing our most embarrassing memories. It would be dishonest.”
When I hear Sunburst talking about the dishonesty of whitewashing our memories, I sit down, thinking of the time I accidentally lied to Rainbow Dash in the heat of meeting Bow and Windy again at WBHQ.
“I know what that’s like. I’m just glad Rainbow Dash saved me from all that trouble the last time the map called me… Sunburst, you’re right. I was confident about dealing with Stellar Flare, so I should believe you if you know how to handle Firelight. Let’s find her.”
So, I immediately sniff the area and light my horn, looking for Stellar Flare’s signature. I notice two similar signatures, a strong and familiar one… I just talked to him, so the weaker one must be Stellar Flare. I start walking to follow Stellar Flare’s trail, and within only a minute, I find her.
“Aita, Sunburst, you’re back… and out of the blue.”
“Yes Mom, and I believe Aita here has some news to tell you.” Sunburst cues me by waving his hoof.
“Oh. Firelight just contacted Mangle by using the post office.”
Stellar Flare gasps. “WHAT?!? WHY?!?”
“Don’t you remember, Mom? The letters?”
“But sending them in front of your hooves is the only way you’d read them!” she counters.
“That sentiment goes both ways though, Stellar Flare. Us contacting authority is the only way you’d give your son some privacy. He couldn’t even recoup back at my place without you sending him letters!”
“Aita, Sunburst needs to prepare for the future; his current position certainly won’t help on that front alone. He has me to guide him, so I do my best to prompt him a sense of direction.”
“Sure would hate to interrupt this conversation,” a voice calls out behind Stellar Flare. He sounds like that one vice principal I watched back home that always threatened to fire everyone in school. I get a good look, and he seems to be a grey college-age dragon with green spikes and eyes, and a dark blue polo shirt, pinned with a golden colored badge that is the shape of a star. His left wing is holding his cap as he crosses his arms. “Hey there.”
“Who’re you?” asks Sunburst.
“Mangle’s the name. So, I hear we have some mommy issues goin’ on.”
Mangle tosses his cap into the air in a way that makes it land perfectly on his head.
I gasp.
“Sheriff Mangle?!?”
“That’s right, kid. I got a custom report from one of the citizens of our little village, saying somepony wasn’t getting the personal space we all deserve.”
“Well if you must know, sheriff,” replies Stellar Flare. “For the longest time, I used the postal service until I was shown a much more efficient method of talking to my son.”
Mangle laughs. “Nice try on the wording there Stellar Flare. Clarify…” he then pauses to take shades out of a previously hidden pocket next to his badge. “or YOU’RE FIRED!”
“Fine, have it your way. My son’s childhood friend sent me a letter using magic, and being the mother of a former student of Celestia’s school, I picked up on it right away. It cuts time down to just a fraction of what the postal service could offer, not to mention the potential savings it could incur. The scroll gets sent directly to the pony signed on top.”
Mangle takes off his shades, folds them and puts them back in his pocket as Stellar Flare explains her “solution” to pony error regarding mail.
“Well gather your clique around, because I have a story to tell you all, especially you Stellar Flare. Your son, the changeling and I will stay here until that happens.”
Stellar Flare blinks twice. “Oh you mean now. I sure don’t know where this is going, but I’ll play along.”
Now that I’m home with Dad - in the living room in fact, I finally have the time to talk to him.
“So, Sunburst wanted me to share what I did with you.”
“Alright then, sweetie. I’m all ears.”
Dad nods each time I pause. “I uh, went to a griffon in Manehattan so that I could talk to Mom one last time… she taught me to route magic through anything I hold… I started a village by storing all the ponies’ cutie mark in a vault… then when that failed, I altered a spell to stop the sonic rainboom from twenty years ago… then I became Twilight’s student where I live now and reconnected with Sunburst… got behind briefly on friendship lessons… then I was forced to step up to dethrone Chrysalis, who later became my friend when she recovered… and accidentally invited a criminal to Lightning Dust’s welcome-to-Ponyville party.”
With each experience I recap, Dad lowers his jaw little by little until it reaches its limit by the end.
“You… you really went through all of that?”
I look at the floor. “I know, Dad… it’s certainly something I’m not fond of sharing, but it evidently worked between Aita and Sunburst. All I was hoping by getting it all out of my chest was not to dread coming here because you wouldn’t like what I did.”
“Starlight…” Dad props my chin up so that we lock eyes with each other. “It doesn’t matter to me what you experience. It’s what you learn from them that matters. Whatever you experience, I’ll always be here for you. I love you, Starlight, and nothing’s ever going to take that away.”
I wipe my cheeks dry and hug Dad. “Thanks, Dad… you have no idea how much I needed to hear that. I… I’m sorry I never tried to contact you. At least now, I know I’ll have somepony to come back to whenever I do visit.”
“It’s all okay, puddin’. Now, how about we go get some cookies for old time’s sake.”
“Cookies? …I do remember liking those. Sure, why not?”
“That’s the spirit!”
So Dad leads me out of the house over to the bakery.