“You’ll never guess who I ran into while antiquing yesterday.”
Across the patio table of their favorite Ponyville cafe, Starlight’s ears pricked, her mouth filled by a bite of sandwich. She smiled presumptuously and swallowed. “Was it Star Swirl? I bet it was Star Swirl. You’ve got that classic ‘Awestruck Sunburst’ look.”
“You’re not far off, but no.” He raised his snout and sipped his lemonade, coyly letting the anticipation build, before placing both hooves on the table to lean in. “It was Stygian.”
“No kidding.” Starlight lowered her sandwich to her plate. “That’s funny. I actually read his most recent book not too long ago: Me and My Shadow.” Something in her expression quivered, like she was holding back a grimace.
Sunburst raised an eyebrow at her. “Now you’ve got that ‘Starlight-Trying-Not-to-Offend-Somepony' look.”
“Well…” She drew out the word. “His book was… it wasn’t what I was expecting, having actually met him.”
“Really? How so?”
“It was… melodramatic. And somehow boring at the same time. Almost like a work of pulp fiction, though I thought it would be more of an autobiography. And believe me, I’m sure there are ponies out there who would eat it up. Trixie sure got a kick out of it.” Starlight affectionately rolled her eyes. “But, if I’m being honest, I felt let down. When I first learned about him, Stygian was somepony I resonated with. And despite having published no less than three books, I feel like I learned nothing about him! Nothing of substance, at least.”
Starlight crossed her hooves, ripping a bite from her sandwich and scattering an errant dandelion petal from between the slices of bread. It fell on the collar of her headmare uniform and Sunburst’s eyes absently fixated on it. His mind kicked into a whirlwind, attempting to match the harried stallion he saw at the antique shop with whatever histrionic depiction lurked in his books.
Drawing a conclusion, he perked up. “Well, he’s invited me to his place for a meal. Maybe I can ask him about his books while I’m there.”
Starlight blinked. “He invited you over? What brought that on?”
Granules of sugar spun at the bottom of Sunburst’s lemonade. He added two cubes from the dish on the table, never satisfied by the sweetness of the standard recipe. “I found something that belonged to him at the shop and returned it. An old dagger from around a thousand years ago, smithed in a pristine obsidian-colored metal with flawless engraving.”
“My, aren’t we wistful?” Starlight giggled, noting the dreamy undercurrent of his words. She folded her hooves beneath her chin. “It was a really cool dagger wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Sunburst sighed with a faraway grin.
“Well, that was seriously nice of both of you.” Starlight reached to cuff Sunburst’s shoulder. “But he’d better not replace me for our weekly lunch dates!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sunburst exclaimed. Then, he chuckled. “As though Trixie isn’t already doing her best to replace me on your side of things.”
Starlight scoffed indulgently. “Oh come on, Sunburst. You know how it is with marefriends. And Trixie. You know how it is with Trixie.”
She laughed in wry recognition, but Sunburst knew the resounding tenderness her sardonic remark belied. An easy smile rose to his face, captivated by the gleam in her violet eyes as she thought of her beloved. It was a gift to see Starlight smile.
When Sunburst learned of the sordid village Starlight built in the decades of separation between their shared foalhood and the present, a chasm of guilt burrowed through the center of his heart. He had paced through hours of mental wounding, finding it easy to blame himself for the vindictive ideology she constructed. All that time he spent toiling in his studies, only to flunk out while his dearest friend suffered. If he stayed, things would have been different. A part of him was convinced. If only Starlight had the steadiness of his companionship, he could have stood between her and her anger.
If he stayed, neither he nor she would have been the other’s answer.
As a colt, his mother used to say, “Starlight is going to make such a darling daughter-in-law one day.” Stellar Flare had a plan for everything, and at a point in Sunburst’s history, that included a series of scrolls on the occasion of her son’s wedding to his childhood friend. This of course was before his application to Celestia’s school was returned with a royal seal of approval. And long before Stellar Flare came to understand that a daughter-in-law would never be a part of how she designed her son's future. Despite their occasional friction, Sunburst could never fully express his gratitude at his mother’s acceptance. Her only vexation came from the countless scrolls she would now have to amend from future wife to future husband — whoever that nebulous stallion could be. Sunburst never saw that far ahead.
But that’s what made friendship with Starlight so easy. Their future followed no set path. While other pairs of colts and fillies were compelled to practice rote adolescent love confessions at the Sire’s Hollow town square fountain, Sunburst and Starlight could battle through round after round of Dragon Pit, the tension of romance never pressing its way between them. But like Stellar, ponies made comments. They remarked on how adorable the both of them were together, and with each instance, Sunburst and Starlight went through the same tired motions of reconfirming to one another that their bond wasn’t destined for love in the amorous sense.
They used to share a bed at sleepovers. At some point, they stopped. Lest an unbidden proof reveal itself like a contagion only proximity could summon.
A few months ago, when Starlight introduced Trixie as her partner, Sunburst was elated. But he was also relieved. All that dodging of misunderstood expectations was tangibly over. Each of Starlight’s friends received her and Trixie with such uncomplicated warmth that Sunburst carried some of it home with him.
The present was a kind place to live. As much as he loved the beauty that existed in Equestrian history, he wasn’t ignorant to its ugliness. Centuries ago, there were roles mares and stallions weren’t socially permitted to deviate from. Chief among them involved partnering solely to ensure childbirth, an ancient idea enforced during the brutal eras of society that did not guarantee a foal’s longevity. The Old Ponish word stalluvji — a term denoting a stallion who was a lover of stallions — was, in most historical texts, derogatory. It was synonymous with weakness, and (more cruelly) selfishness in spite of one’s duty to procreate.
But love endured. Strong and selfless. One of Sunburst’s prized gems from his antiquing endeavors was a humble fragment of scroll, framed and hanging in his vice principal office. It was fragile, and evidently ripped from a larger body of writing, yet the words written upon it were loud.
Inne alt naertrin, del weorld ama prijen ouser luvji.
(In another age, the world will be kind to our love.)
Sunburst had no certain way of knowing if this was a declaration made by a stallion who loved stallions, or a mare who loved mares. There was also the arguable possibility that it was written by a woefully repressed pony about the tribulations against their paramour of the opposite sex.
However, it revealed something in the translation. The Old Ponish word ‘prijen’ did not evoke mere goodwill. It was more accurately translated to the kindness of emancipation, that of ‘freedom’ or ‘liberation.’
In another age, the world will liberate our love. Sunburst knew viscerally the hooves that wrote that line.
If Stellar Flare ever hoped for Sunburst to envision a future plan involving marriage, he had only one. If Starlight and Trixie wedded, he’d like to give them a copy of that framed scroll as a gift.
All this tumbled through Sunburst’s mind, long after Starlight had ceased her blithe grinning. An abrupt bop on his nose jolted him back to the moment, back to the restaurant patio, back to the easy present.
“Still with me?” Starlight laughed.
“Where else would I be?” Sunburst cracked a smile, sipping his lemonade and shaking his mane. “Say, would you mind lending me your copies of Stygian’s books? I’ll see if I can get them all read before my visit. Just so I have something to talk with him about.”
“I only have the last one, Me and My Shadow. I’m sure you could find a library that carries the first two, but they’re not all that riveting. One is more of a practical guide to Stygian’s method for combat strategy, and the other was an account of the monsters the Pillars fought. Only the most recent one is personal. If you can call it that.”
“I see,” Sunburst murmured. “I’ll take your recommendation, then.”
Starlight slid her hoof across the table, resting it over Sunburst’s. “If he’s open to it, I’d like to see him again, too.” She smiled, and it was full of meaning. “Let him know that he has friends in Ponyville.”
—
…With a hoof upon my heart, I spoke with fierce conviction. “Foul monster. How dare you seek to corrupt my heroic spirit? Do you not know who I am? A student of Star Swirl the Bearded will not fall prey to your banal temptations!” Yet the loathsome beast was in possession of a silver tongue. The Shadow spoke to me with a voice like no other. I was drawn into its embrace like that of a lover. Yet, lo! Deception was soon to follow!...
…It erupted from the Well of Shade with a mighty roar. The terrible black cloud of its body crashed over me and I swooned, overtaken by its wickedness. Oh, Star Swirl. Forgive me! For I have fallen to a wretched evil and fear my true self has been lost, scattered in jagged pieces to the Darkness…
…I was pulled from the black heart of the Shadow and plummeted to the cold stone floor, falling as though for an eternity. Perhaps that was indeed true. I had been falling forever, further into darkness throughout my time in Limbo. But now, I was finally reached by the light!...
…“Oh Star Swirl, my dearest friend and teacher, how could I have forsaken you so? My envy and pride made me seek such cruel relief from my woes. I never should have gone astray.”...
…Star Swirl’s beatific voice washed over me. “I absolve you, Stygian. You have been foolish, but you are not beneath redemption. A villain no longer, I see you have apologized and atoned for your wrongdoings.”
Sunburst snapped the book closed, running a hoof down his face and knocking his glasses from his snout. They clattered to the desk as he groaned.
“Melodramatic was an understatement, Starlight,” he groused.
Sunburst reclaimed his glasses and turned the book to its front cover. Stygian and the Pony of Shadows were pressed back-to-back in dramatic parallel. It was rendered in a clean graphic style typical of modern books, but was a gross mismatch with the bloated prose within.
Having read vastly more than the average pony, Sunburst was all too familiar with the style Me and My Shadow was attempting to evoke. A significant number of modern Equestrian authors automatically assumed if a tale was old, its writing ought to be overblown. It was a weak attempt to summon the idea of antiquity, a place in time where everypony, no matter their station, was eloquent, formal, and stodgy to the point of farce. And tales of villainy? They suffered the greatest from this perversion of language.
Too often, this came from the misbelief that Old Ponish was a florid tongue, so its translation must be as well. In reality, it was beautiful in its brevity. Many Old Ponish words were exact conjunctions. Ponies of that era spoke and wrote in short sentences. There was a rawness, an honesty to the language that often made it difficult to translate to New Ponish, which was rife with synonyms and slang. Any formality in the speech of Stygian and the Pillars came from seeking an exactness in their New Ponish phrasing, unfamiliar as they were with colloquialisms. Sunburst gave them due credit for their ability to speak it with such ease.
“Maybe Stygian is just a poor self-translator?” Sunburst murmured aloud, circling a brief trot around his study. “Or, he read a lot of modern historical fiction for inspiration and tried to emulate the style?”
Sunburst could work himself into a rut if left to his thoughts. He hopped back upon his desk stool and unrolled a sheet of parchment, penning a brief letter.
Stygian,
Ight skrippen tul thakka eptur vyr thouth ollen tul thouth establa. Ight ama fro junkt thouth grazen eftardag, tieth gestrin ebbenung.
Storlaet gibten ight thouth nawi bouk. Dunen ight highken. Ight ama likhen naven maror ymb.
(Stygian,
I am writing to thank you once again for your invitation to your home. I would be happy to join you to eat tomorrow, an hour before sunset.
Starlight lent me your new book. It made me think. I would like to know more about it.)
The tip of Sunburst’s quill hovered below that last line, debating his signature (not merely because his name translated humorously to ‘Sunbreak’ in Old Ponish). He thought about the last words Starlight said to him at the cafe and their gentle power.
He signed the letter.
Thouth rijan,
Sollastbreken
(Your friend,
Sunburst)