Starlight, Starbright, what little mare do I see tonight, with her nose oh so rosy red and her horn all aglow?
—Sunburst, the evening before he got his cutie mark and his friend didn't.
#
Ms. Maple led us to a faculty conference room on the lowest level. Being below grade, it had basement windows at ceiling level, frosted to prevent nosy students from spying on teachers. A pink and red marble table, with a gilt bullnose, ran the center of the room, hosting rolling black gilt net chairs that contrasted against the green slate covering three of the walls—also in a gilt wood frame. Mahogany cabinets and chests of drawers bulked like an eastern city skyline against the remaining wall. They had gilt handles and locks. A magic-powered icebox glowed faintly yellow beside a sink and a sideboard lined with a double row of crystal glasses.
An executive lounge. Carne Asada had had an interest in hotels in major cities up and down the east coast, and I'd been her bodyguard or messenger in many a room that resembled this, though few had so much gold. Grape Sucker's Las Pegasus hotel had had plenty, comped to high-roller business ponies. An extra large, red-cushioned, executive chair pushed into a corner beside an L-shaped mahogany desk, carved with gilt acanthus fronds, clued me into who usually used this room, that and that the princess' runty protégé trotted to the second seat on the far side, close to said desk, which was clearly customary for her.
She immediately looked across the table, where Sunset Shimmer glowered, golden forelegs crossed across her chest and looking aggrieved.
Sunset muttered, "Does Princess Celestia really want us in the same room after all this time?"
"Who are you?" Twilight asked, glaring. "Other than the school bully?"
"I was her first personal student."
I coughed and cleared my throat, getting everypony to look, including Ms. Maple—and Moon Dancer, the shy aristocrat having chosen the farthest seat.
I said, "Actually, her first student this century was my mother, Mage Midnight. Sorry, Sunset. You're number two. Twilight, you're number three, though you probably took the place of Sunburst, my friend from foalhood. He flunked out. My fight with Celestia was about her wanting me to be number four and me refusing until she made me an offer I couldn't refuse." Moon Dancer jerked to attention when I looked at her. "I am going to make a wild guess here, but you are about to be designated number five."
She looked at Twilight, who startled looking at her, then said, "I don't think so..."
Ms. Maple said, "I'm going to fetch your teacher. He's late, and a bit scatterbrained, and very nervous about his promotion. We'll talk later about your rearranged schedules." The door clicked shut behind her.
Twilight asked, "The Princess isn't teaching us?"
"Unless somepony switched her gender," Sunset pointed out, acidly. I flinched at the word switched. Her gender, I told myself, not her cutie mark. She looked down at the table, rubbing marble as if she could hide her reflection in the surface. "She never wants to teach me directly, anymore."
"Sunset. This morning. I thought you said you talked with her about your relationship—"
"I thought wrong, okay? Actions speak louder than words." Her green eyes flashed at me. "You're one to trust what she says!"
Twilight said, "The princess is kind and trustworthy..." She trailed off, eyes unfocusing. She likely remembered the battle at the pavilion, and that she learned Celestia had hidden a grim secret, one that could have left Equestria a frozen wasteland. Oh, that and a possessed Celestia had tried to incinerate her. Her mouth slowly opened.
I said, "Royal decision. Moon Dancer, do you know what happened the day the sun didn't rise?"
She shook her head, causing her scrunchie to loosen, and her short hair to slowly cascade down.
"Sunset?"
She nodded. "She explained about the Summer Sun celebration."
"See, Celestia does trust you.... Moon Dancer? Before our teacher trots in, you need to know. Twilight, her brother, my friends Citron and Streak, and I broke a curse Celestia had saddled herself with by breaking harmony. Not solid what harmony is, but I ended up switching Celestia's and Shining Armor's cutie marks to do it. Technically, Shining is cursed now because harmony actually cursed her mark, but switching de-fangs the curse completely so long as their marks stay swapped because Shining doesn't rule Equestria."
Moon Dancer whispered, "The Princess of Marks. Your magic is cutie mark magic?"
"Oddly enough, yes. Unfortunately, harmony cursed Celestia and her sister Luna at the same time, so technically there is a second power-hungry alicorn that can control the skies by herself. Since two days have passed, in 601 days from now, she will return to attack Celestia and bring eternal night to the world. I am, or I gather we are, tasked with preventing that from happening."
Sunset added, "And if you breathe a word of this, Celestia will be forced to kill you."
Moon Dancer jumped up, hooves banging on the table.
Both Twilight and I cried, "Sunset!"
Moon Dancer stood there, shaking. Tears started dripping.
The red and yellow unicorn grinned widely. "Sorry. I couldn't help myself."
Twilight shoved her chair back and rushed over to embrace the young mare. "Lunettes, Lunettes! Don't worry. Aside from the curse thing, the princess is really as good and kind as everypony says she is." From the nickname, Prench for glasses and a play on her name, I gathered she and Twilight really had been friends.
Sunset muttered, "Tell me another."
I sat down beside her and rolled my chair so I could lean into her. "Stop worrying about Celestia. I'll discuss her attitude with her. If that doesn't work, I'll wallop her upside the head."
That made her chuckle. The princess was the one chink in Sunset's armor.
"That said, I understand what she's trying to teach you."
Sunset pushed away, glaring at me with her emeraline gaze.
"Everypony else you can boss around. Her? You melt like ice in the summer sun."
"A joke!"
"Nope. That's called a metaphor. Seriously, the next time she blows you off, you need to pull a Sunset."
"A—? What?"
"Pretend she's me, then tell her off. Demand she teach you. Demand answers. Ask her why she ignores your needs. Act confidently, like the friend who saved me this morning in front of school." I pulled out a gold bit from my messenger bag and snapped it onto the table. I knew it was actually harder to do something for real than to think about doing it, so I added incentive. "I'll wager you four more of these if she doesn't open up to your best effort."
"That's more than my allowance."
"Don't worry. You're giving me the perfect excuse for a fight. If your best effort fails, mine won't."
Sunset Shimmer's smile grew until it was genuine. Pearly teeth gleamed. A knock interrupted what was going to be a sisterly bear hug.
Chairs rolled and books thunked as we arranged ourselves properly around the table like well-conditioned little high school students. It didn't occur to me to ask why the teacher would knock.
The door unlatched and a pony eye from the dark hall peered in. "Am I interrupting?"
"Streak?" I asked.
She opened the door. "I—"
"Is something wrong?"
Blue feathers fluffed as she half opened her wings. Hurricane's armor struck the door frame, denting the wood. Streak scooted in, eyeing the damage, muttering, "More like that. Bad day."
I wanted to tell her that a classroom wasn't the proper venue, but could tell she wasn't herself. I waved a hoof at the others, who swiftly found a book to read.
I asked, "Does this have to do with Firefall?"
"The constable talked to you, too?"
"Yeah, she's missing."
"The sergeant has—"
"Sergeant major—"
"Starlight, not the time! The copper has me pegged as the culprit, I just know it. And no, I didn't do it. Saw her fly away, though."
"Where to?" I asked.
She gave me a look, so I asked, "Toward the castle?"
"That much I can answer. No."
Dejectedly, I said, "I was the last to talk with Firefall."
Streak sighed. "She was going to be my instructor this morning, but it got worse. When Shining Armor started teaching me instead, I heard somepony diving at me."
I rolled my eyes. "Let me guess. Princess Mi Amoré Cadenza?" Maybe I hadn't pegged her personality as well as I thought.
"No. The Princess."
Twilight piped up, "Princess Celestia?"
"I think she hates me."
I quipped gleefully, "You're the only pony who nearly killed her."
Blue wings shoved me back, rolling my chair and me away. "Had she hit me, she'd have caved in my rib cage."
"But she didn't."
"A? A! See that? See that!?" She showed me bruises darkening on her shoulder, lines of scratches from her neck to her barrel, and a fresh bandage on her burnt flank. "You bet I shot away. She buzzed my tail, no matter which way I swooped. She's a crow worrying a hawk, just scarier. I thought I was going to die! For a big pony, she's wicked fast. Can't bank or roll as well as I can, especially with me wearing the armor, but she cheats!"
"Cheats?" Twilight echoed with me. While I grunted agreement, Twilight scoffed. I thought, You've got to learn that in the real world, your enemy kills you any way they can.
I eyed the petite purple unicorn. "Celestia rules Equestria. She is far more than the illusions you have of her. Look up disillusionment. You're going to understand the meaning at this point." I turned back and prompted Streak, "Cheats?"
Streak furled her wings and with less fire said, "She teleports in front of you. Again and again. She forced me to kick away her kicks—to protect my head with my wings, even. Thank Celestia—GAH! Whatever, for the armor, or I'd've fallen oot of the sky. Her strikes could shatter bones. This went on ten minutes, until my heart wanted to burst and I couldn't dodge branches or pitch up from the ground!"
It wasn't occurring to her that she was a pegasus who went ten minutes avoiding an alicorn attack."Then what?"
"She teleported me in front of Shining Armor, freezing my lungs. I skidded across the trotting track into his hooves. I lay there gasping and she told him, 'She needs more stamina. Work her. Starlight will teach her how to turn an attack to her advantage.'"
"I will. I'll make it fun, trust me."
"Fun for you."
"Admittedly."
"The princess put her muzzle in my face. Nose-to-nose. She said, 'You need to learn to cast the magic in the armor. My friend Hurricane Stormchaser did.' I nearly peed myself. That's when she sent me here." Streak looked pointedly at the four horns in the room. "I feel out of place. I'm a pegasus, for Celestia's— I'm really out of place!" she wailed.
"Um," said a new, albeit familiar, voice from the open door. He cleared his throat as he trotted in. "Miss Streak, there are two earth ponies enrolled as first year potion students, and a pegasus graduated as a master amulet craftspony last year. So, yes, you're in the right class."
Sunset and Streak blocked my view of the door. Looking around them, I saw a stallion with a goldenrod coat and red hair. He had a matching red-crested mane, goatee, and tail sticking out of his royal blue star-studded wizard's cloak.
I froze.
He cleared his throat and coughed nervously as he reached into the wagon load of books that trailed in his magic, and sent one floating onto Streak's back. The sky-blue book was a magic primer: happy foals pranced on the cover. "Basic terminology. Memorize it. I'll pull you better from the university library for tomorrow's class."
Had... Sunburst... not seen me?
Streak grabbed the book in her primary feathers. She grumbled, maybe because putting an object on a pegasus' back was rude, and sat at the back of the room. Moon Dancer scooted to Twilight's side, but Streak didn't notice.
I could see how my friend could be made to feel out of place.
I rolled in beside Sunset, shifting left as he trotted right, staying hidden, but I jumped and shrieked when he dropped his entire load of tomes, grimoires, wood tablets, texts, and scrolls on the table extension of the desk.
He didn't look back, though my heart sped. What had Celestia told me about him? Right: "He proved a great talent in thaumaturgical semantics, but is ultimately male, narrowly focused on his special talent for elucidating and combining spells, with self-inhibited magical abilities, and, oddly, as put off by friendship as you seem to be."
I was earning high marks in the latter subject. Or flubbing it, spectacularly. I didn't know!
Sunset noticed my nerves and hissed. "You okay?"
I gulped.
She magicked over a glass—not recognizing Sunburst, though I had talked about and described him to her—and poured water from a pitcher with sliced limes bobbing in it.
That—and my shifting behind Sunset—caught Twilight's attention. She stared. I could read her mind: Shy in front of new teachers, how self-defeating. Streak leafed through her book with her long feathers, still looking rattled while Moon Dancer craned her neck to see the amusingly big pictures while glancing periodically upfront.
"So—" Sunburst started.
I fumbled the act of swallowing a sip of water, got it all the way down my windpipe, then coughed droplets all over the place.
I swiveled behind Sunset, trying to breathe as distressed tears gathered. I nevertheless kept Sunburst out of sight, and Sunset inadvertently aided, spinning about and clapping my back as I doubled-over, hacking. Glancing through yellow and red hair, I saw him finish organizing his pile of books into piles, first by size and then by repeated swapping, likely alphabetizing.
Librarian.
"As-as I was saying. What was I saying?" He shook his head, then coughed into a hoof as I quieted. "Um, I think I am as surprised by this assignment as you are. I have no lesson plan or curriculum because this is my first official class. I've tutored foals and ponies your age. Dozens of adults! In practical casting and th-th-thaumaturgical semantics. I'm wiz at figuring out what you're sticking on in your head."
He posed sideways to flaunt his wizardly trappings—his long waggly goatee, silvery metal-rimmed glasses that magnified dark turquoise eyes, and the stars on his cloak—only lacking a pointed Star Swirl the Bearded hat with jangly sleigh bells.
When nopony laughed, golden magic pushed up his glasses. "Equestria coronated a new Crown Princess—"
Nope. Didn't recognize me. No way. Maybe the braided garland hair? The torn ear and bruises? My mature mare curves? Or maybe his lens prescription had expired!?
"—who is reputedly also a wizard, though mage is a more gender-correct term, in conventional magic, diagnostic magic, and battle magic, much of it reputedly complex, and that doesn't include at least one spell she was observed having invented ereyesterday. Princess Celestia wants her best students up to speed, though she hasn't yet told me what that means. She sent me home to Ponyville yesterday to move to Canterlot. I am, or ra-rather was, the librarian at the Golden Oak library."
"Wow," Twilight said, "I'd love to live in a library!"
"You bet. You never want to leave home, and you can read all the books in bed—" He coughed into a hoof. "Th-the best I can do is speculate on the urgency of the matter from those who know the Princess of Marks. Her new royal highness is said to be demanding, impatient, and very competent. The latter was very true—best I can remember her from when we were foals, though I'm sure she remembers little of me. Keep that in mind when you study, and that she's probably going to be auditing your assignments and tests, and grading you as much as I will."
Surprise, a dash of amusement, then a pinch of anger finally burned away my nervousness. I lifted a hoof.
Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer shook and shuddered in her chair, her withers bouncing. At first, I thought she had finally figured out who he was to me and didn't like it. Then a snort escaped her muzzle and I knew it was something far simpler. The only pony in the room that didn't know the Princess of Marks listened was him.
What had Sunset said? I couldn't help myself.
"She's going to be grading us?" I asked in a strained whisper to disguise my voice, though thinking about it, I realized I'd had a piping foal voice back then. I held Sunset's chair preventing the bulkier mare from rolling out from between us. She twisted to look at me—then got a half-smile, sensing a prank.
"Yes. Princess Celestia says she has quantifiable scholastic requirements going forward, over a year and a half timeline."
"She told you this?"
"Oh, well." He coughed and pushed up his glasses. "She was rather busy and the new princess' chargé d'affairs filled me in on her needs and attitude."
"You said you knew her? Did she teach you anything?"
He huffed, his demeanor changing on a silver bit, souring. "Not to depend on others... but to depend on yourself. Yes. Definitely. She taught me that." Growling, he trotted over to the books, pulling out almanac-sized hoof-books with waxed brown-fiber covers, and levitated one to each of us unicorns.
Mnemonics, it read, by S. Mortarboard with S. Daze.
"Yes. Since I specialize in semantics, it's as good a place to start as any, and it answers your classmate's question. She was a pony I called Starlight Starbright and she taught me this. No matter what the foundation—no matter what the structure and even if it towers above you—it takes only moving the balance point, the keystone, to cause the cascade. If you can readily find the keystone in a structure or a spell, striking it or setting it, you can cast that spell. I found keystones for her. She'd get stuck, even when she fathomed the vastness of the spell space and could locate the singularities. I'd find her where to push. The best spellcrafters author the mnemonic to evoke the internal sensation that lets you push a keystone point. When I realized the enormity of the technique I'd discovered, I earned my cutie mark."
He lifted his cloak to reveal what one might think was a sun rising behind a mountain or cloud, rampant with a spray of four-point stars. A decade ago, I had thought I saw books arranged edgewise in a semicircle around a sun because I had just tipped a hundred tomes over on myself. My friend had saved me from being crushed to death.
It hadn't been books he'd focused on: Clued into his thought processes, I clearly saw the business end of an old-timey key with the books as key wards and the space between the books as key bits. His cutie mark was a magic key radiating sparkles.
Twilight raised her hoof, after glancing at me. "Teacher?"
"Yes?"
"Twilight Sparkle. Um? Teachers usually write their name on the board."
He shook his head and blinked, which I remembered was his equivalent of a face hoof (in this case) or shocked disbelief. I could almost imagine a bean rattling in a can. I remembered I found it adorable.
Once.
Long ago.
He trotted to the green slate levitating yellow chalk. He tapped out:
Sunburst Mortarboard
"You can call me Mr. S. However, because of my lack of advanced degrees and being only your age, all the research and treatises I've published are co-authored with my faculty advisor, so you'll see S. Mortarboard & S. Daze. S. Daze is—"
While he talked, Sunset froze. She slowly stood and I noticed she shook, ever so slightly. With Sunburst facing the board, she approached him, stalked him really, until she stood less than a pony length away, breathing hard through her nostrils. What I could see of her face, she frowned and bared her teeth.
Streak noticed, dropping her book as she fluttered onto the table, causing Moon Dancer to squeak and scramble away.
"You're that Sunburst," Sunset accused in a low sinister voice. "You're that lousy colt that abandoned Starlight when he got his cutie mark."
He rotated his head to match his blue eyes with hers, his eyes flicking to notice that a turquoise aura roiled around her horn.
She screamed, "Aren't you!?"
I heard Streak launch into the air as I belatedly realized what could go badly wrong next. Sunset Shimmer knew my history. She knew that for all my prevarication about running away to learn magic, I'd only had to do that because Sunburst had left me. He had indeed been the one that could discover the keystones that I was too stupid to discover myself. Not only that, she understood that I had thought that I might find Sunburst—and have my life be again like he had never left me. As foalish as the thought was, my attachment had been the fatal attraction that had overcome inertia and made it possible for me to run away. Last night, she'd learned all the hurt I'd endured because of that decision.
That I'd been savaged.
All because of one "lousy" colt.
Head down, stubby horn pointed at his chest, Sunset Shimmer charged him. In that instant, I loved Sunset.
In the next instant...
It felt like the shockwave of an explosion. Having a year ago in-teleported a fractional second after a celestial-ton fertilizer bomb had detonated, I recognized the shockwave impulse against the front surface of my body. Your body jerks back; you feel it in your guts.
But— nothing exploded.
Yet, everything in the room jerked away from the red-haired stallion... Displaced hoof lengths into the air, rotated clockwise and shifted right as a single conjoined unit. Everything not bolted down lifted together with no regard for mass. Turned, examined like sculptures in a hoof. Ponies, books, glassware. For a second, enough to gasp for the air punched from my lungs, we hung suspended. Then dropped.
Streak, in magic-enhanced flight, found her trajectory redirected into the ceiling. She cratered the plaster. A disintegrating small crystal chandelier tumbled along her uncontrolled trajectory for the transom window above the door. All Celestia's crystal serving pieces slammed down, many shattering. The water pitcher bounced, erupting water, splashing me as I landed back in my chair and rolled back. Crystal, brass chandelier parts, shards of broken transom window, and plaster crashed down with the racket of a china bowl of dried beans and nine-penny nails.
Nifty defensive spell Sunburst had!
Not entirely unexpected. He had caught a hundred heavy tomes to save my life, and shelved them. Alphabetically, I'd noted that the next day, having started to cry seeing the books from our disastrous game.
Librarian.
In training. Obviously.
Sunset slid back on her rump, but immediately righted herself, only to be knocked over by Streak who had bounced off a wall. I levitated both aside as they rolled away in a tangle of legs, jumping the obstacle.
I cast Pull to anchor myself if he cast Impulse again. Despite my bruises and torn ear, I saw him recognize me as I stepped forward. His mouth dropped open, but his eyes narrowed warily.
With all that had happened in the last 36 hours since my coronation, the last 2 1/2 days since I'd told Celestia to pound sand, really, this confrontation felt ill-timed. I had once loved this colt. I'd ruined my life pursuing him. I'd thought the pony was my other half. My soulmate. My one and only friend. I'd denied it, but subconsciously I'd vowed to marry him. I had found him adorable. The yearling stallion he'd become only added fuel to the fire of the emotions raging inside.
I wanted to sock him.
I wanted to hug him and start crying.
I wanted to run away. (I'd grown good at running away. Intuition screamed do so.)
I stopped in front of him. We blinked at each other as Streak and Sunset thumped into one another and a chair struck a wall behind me. The two sounded too agitated to get out of each other's way.
"You—" I yelled, but my voice cracked. I croaked out, "You abandoned me."
He shook his head in disbelief. "I—? I—?" His voice ramped up, "I— WHAT?"
He ceased to look adorable. Male, he out-massed me. His muscles visibly shown. The veins on his head and neck bulged as his eyes widened and face reddened.
Rage.
"After what you did, you have the AUDACITY to excoriate me!?"
Fight reflex kicked in, bringing clarity. I backpedaled, saying, "You got your cutie mark then walked out of my life!"
He clopped away, muttering to himself. "I told her it wouldn't work." His magic picked up a notebook and a quill, shoving them into a briefcase. "I told the princess! I'm so stupid. Stupid! How hard can it be to say No!" He punctuated the word by clopping a horseshoe on mahogany.
He panted, working to control his breathing, facing the desk. He shoved a copy of what had to be his book into the briefcase with a thump.
I said, "No is not an answer Celestia accepts."
He zipped the brown fabric so hard, it should have thrown the briefcase over his shoulder. He rounded on me and came muzzle to muzzle, hot breath scented with oats heating my nose.
"You! You slammed your door after I went to tell my parents who were waiting in the street. When I came back to invite you to my Cuteciñera, nopony answered. That afternoon, your butler said you were ill. My invitation got returned. When I got a scholarship offer to attend Celestia's School at dinner time, I galloped over to tell you, but your butler told me I was no longer welcome. I didn't believe him... not at first. When a pegasus caught me climbing the fence, like I always had to see why you hadn't shown up at school, he threw me in the street and told me you thought I was making a foal of you and to go away. He broke my rib. I wrote letters but, when a dozen came back, I understood: You were envious. I could learn spells easily, and my cutie mark demonstrated that. You couldn't take it. So you threw me in the trash, like a porcelain-headed pony doll with a tiny chip, no longer worthy of the Lady Countess of Sire's Hallow, the Earl of Grin Having. I was a commoner, a nopony who lost his usefulness. I vowed I'd show you. I did. I made somepony of myself. I've revolutionized the field of magic semantics!"
He huffed and shouldered me brusquely aside. "With Princess Celestia as my co-author, supporting my findings!"
His horseshoes screeched as he halted his stomping out of the room. When I looked, I saw Proper Step blocking the door frame, wearing my dark green livery with my stars and auroras cutie mark crest.
"You! You were her butler!" Sunburst scoffed, reared and crashed his horseshoes down. Glaring, the redhead spat on the floor, levitated him aside, then stomped down the hall. He screamed, his voice fading down the school corridor. "I quit, Princess! This will never work!"
The PTSD tinnitus returned with a fearsome squeal in my ears. My world fogged with glaring white. I shook. My mind was blank and quiet as Sunburst's words ricocheted around the inside of my skull like steel ball bearings. The meanings couldn't register because...
Because...
How could they? The pony had said the sky was made of grape jelly but it rained apple juice. His words contradicted reality.
Proper Step looked as distressed as he'd been last night, stricken as if he'd seen somepony die.
Thinking about it, maybe he had.
Me.
He knelt, prostrating himself. Voice quavering, he said, "I did that. What he said. To increase the pressure on you. Sunburst's walking out on you was the opportunity the Princess said to look for..." He pressed the upper part of his muzzle and his horn against the floor so he could not meet my eyes.
No doubt in my mind that he wanted to die.
"It's true," I stated, admitting altered reality.
The sledgehammer struck glass. My world shattered. Everything I'd based my life upon crashed in shards to the floor around my hooves. Like a rag doll, I followed, barking my knees, banging my shoulders, and striking my head.
Blue and purple phosphene stars whirled around amidst the pain I understood I deserved.
I pushed Sunburst out in a moment of pique, and Proper Step took advantage and made it permanent. Which means Sunburst didn't abandon me. Everything I've based my decisions in my life, my opinions of the trustworthiness of friends, even the corrupting nature of cutie marks is...
Completely baseless.
I'm melting. I'm disappearing. I'm...
I covered my eyes with my forelegs, moaned, and started rocking.
I heard ponies gathering. I heard hooves. I heard voices, but the words sounded inside out and backwards. Feathers rustled, but I grew warm so it wasn't only Streak who held me.
"Hey!" somepony cried. Horseshoes clattered, scrabbling away against the floor. I got tugged aside, wrenching my neck. I heard ice cubes battering glass.
A gout of ice water splashed me in the head and muzzle. Ice and lemon slices bounced off my horn and rolled off my shoulders and across my back.
"Gah!" I cried, leaping to my hooves, flinging aside Streak who'd taken some of the splash.
Sunset Shimmer stood there, holding in her magic the two emptied pitchers she'd thrown in my face as my washed out mane dripped on the floor. Around me, I saw my classmates—and in the doorway, Ms. Maple and Mrs. Squick, the school nurse, wearing her nurse's hat with a red plus symbol.
Sunset said, "Well, that worked. Seriously, Starlight! Now you can stop being that colt's victim and live your life free of that past."
I blinked at her.
...The fiery mare was right. I whispered,"That sounds familiar."
"Me and Celestia. What you've told me... like... a hundred times! Fair's fair."
I nodded and dripped.
The nurse put a frog to my forehead and looked into my eyes. Somepony found a towel. The adults got me trotting through the halls, where ponies saw their new princess dripping followed by an odd entourage. I kept thinking of what I'd learned and the label Sunset, who had acknowledged herself as my student, had applied.
Victim.
No longer a victim.
I felt myself lifted onto a bed. In the nurse's office. I let myself be examined.
Was I free? Was this true?
Near Mrs. Squick's desk, blocking her glass cabinet of first aid bandages and antiseptics, stood ponies worrying about me. Friendship went both ways, and somehow I'd merited their attention and concern. I didn't understand it, but now I began to think I probably could learn. I knew one thing, looking at the yellow mare with the mane that resembled fire frozen in time: Like Citron, she demonstrated she supported me, whether I liked it or not. I started blinking as my eyes misted up. Tears ran down my cheek.
Love felt like this.
Ms. Maple asked, "Do you want to talk about it? Streak explained it—"
I wiped the tear with a fetlock. "Oddly, I'm okay. I'm learning something important about myself."
"Talking it out definitely helps."
"I will. With my friends." I felt what I'd felt last night with the prince—not the riding part, but the expanding feeling. My heart expanded. It had expanded when we met on the Strand. It had encompassed him when I held him in the bath, causing him to release this burst of emotion magic. Looking at Sunset, I felt that expanding feeling. Like Cadance had said—as had the prince—I overflowed. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
I was a ceramic pot. I'd been badly crazed. I'd been dropped and I had shattered into a hundred pieces, one for each book Sunburst had saved me from being crushed under. So many pieces, none of them fitting together like puzzle pieces. I glued myself together—now. I would not be the same.
Through the open door, I heard a voice increasing in volume. "Ow, ow, ow! Stop that!" I heard marching hooves and somepony who sounded like he was being dragged against his will. Princess Cadance strode into the office and said, "There you are, Ms. Glimmer!"
Behind her, she dragged Sunburst. She held his right ear in her magic. His brass shod hooves slid in place, like the wheels of a locomotive when the train starts but spun because they couldn't get traction. "Ow!"
Her magic flicked out. Released, he sat on his butt. He glared up at her, then jerked his head around to face me, seeing me on the table. I had stood in his horseshoes. I understood the resentment he felt because I'd felt it, too. I'd lashed out, and he had too. He'd made something of himself: a librarian and magic scholar. I'd made myself a criminal— and a princess, which I thought of as the same thing. We'd both learned something about ourself.
His expression went flat.
I slid out of the bed before Cadance could cast a heart-shaped spell, stepping close enough to nuzzle him. I knelt on my front knees. I'd noted what Proper Step had done, and I heard the old stallion gasp in the hall as I copied him. I curved my neck forward and laid the upper part of my muzzle, pointing toward my chest, on the floor. My horn clicked on the tile as my horn touched it, preventing me from touching my forehead to the cold hard surface as a pegasus or earth pony could.
I said, "Everything you said was true. I closed the door on you. I shut you out. I learned what it feels like to earn your cutie mark three days ago. I did a horrible thing to you. While circumstance conspired to separate us, I let my pride keep me from finding you and discovering what went wrong. I knew you. I knew you wouldn't abandon me, but let myself distrust my heart. I knew where you lived. I knew your family would throw a cuteciñera for you. The next day, I learned you would come to school here. Yet, I. Did. Nothing. I exchanged pride for my best friend and soulmate, and I apologize. I only now understand what is truly precious."
Twilight murmured, "She's truly a princess."
"Starlight—" he started.
I cut him off. "Don't forgive me reflexively. I am not doing this to obligate you. I hurt you. I am responsible." I raised my head. "We are two different ponies now. The Aurora Midnight you called Starlight Starbright and her Sunburst are long-ago memories and can never again be. I morn them."
Cadance sucked in a breath.
I looked and saw the Princess of Love choke up, majorly, lips quivering. I humored myself by telling myself it was all my fault. Tears streamed down her cheeks; considering she wore mascara like Celestia, it wasn't pretty.
I overflowed again.
I looked at Sunburst. His eyes glistened and he rattled the bean. His breath caught, then he smiled. "You're right. You really aren't the Starlight Starbright I once knew. But, I am very happy to make your acquaintance, Princess."
I forgave his use of the P-word.