Sunburst sat in front of her foalhood home. She had learned the truth, but had it set her free?
She looked back at herself. "I was... born a mutant."
She didn't mean mutant in an entirely bad way. Ponies were born with aberrant features at times, sometimes grand and wonderful.
Limbs that could bend in certain ways other ponies couldn't, for example, or mismatched colored eyes. Mutations, but not at all bad. They all worked together to make ponies, as a whole, an even greater thing. Something to be embraced.
Except hers. Her mother had decided that was a step too far, and she had acted...
"Mom..." Sunburst stood just to pace. "Mom..." She felt a confusing knot of things.
She was not born a stallion. She was not born a mare. She had been both. Was that... "Was that bad?" She snorted softly. "Was that bad?"
It was like she was requesting the universe to answer, but it had none to give her.
"Was I so wrong to be as I was born?" Sunburst whispered. She thought of Flurry Heart's delighted smile those many nights ago, granting her blessing through magic's chaos. What was normal but the spectrum they emerged as under moon and stars?
She touched a hoof above her heart, feeling the jewel's steady rhythmic pulse there. "I am not a... problem, or a blessing. I simply am."
The truth rang through her, the declaration a cool stream overflowing rigid dams erected without consent. "And I have to finish." She turned back to that house and opened it without knocking. "Mom?"
"Sun?" She looked up where she had been seated in the living room they had been sharing tea a short time ago. Her face was stained with tears, but she quickly got to wiping them away. "I'm in no shape to be seen..."
"Mom..." She internally chastised herself. She was saying that word a lot that day. "You're fine."
"I'm not fine." Stellar slid to her hooves off the chair. "I hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you... my precious little foal. I didn't want to hurt you..."
"I know." Sunburst closed with Stellar and took her in a one-armed hug. "I know that... But I'm an adult now."
Stellar shuddered at the announcement. "And what does the adult I helped make think now?"
Sunburst touched her cheek to Stellar's. "First, I still love you. Second... I don't agree with the choice you made..." She snorted suddenly. "Starlight still would have been my friend..."
Stellar rolled her eyes at that, a tense laugh escaping her. "You two were destined to be best of friends..." She hiked a sudden brow. "Part of me hoped it'd be a little more than friends..."
"Mom!" Sunburst swatted at her. "Now is hardly the time." But both were smiling. Teasing about mate partners was such a lighter topic. "Three... I want to be what I started as."
Stellar blinked back fresh tears even as she smiled. Her Sunbeam, always determined to shine. "I should have trusted you enough to blaze your own trail."
She exhaled shakily, moving to gather woolen shawls and sturdy boots with quavering magic. "I'll get some things. We have to go out of town on this journey."
Sunburst's brow furrowed as she accepted the practical offerings. "Journey? To where?"
Stellar glanced up, eyes grave yet glimmering with new possibility. "To the Glade of First Bloom, hidden in the southern pine barrens. Where those who helped me will still live."
She set her jaw, pacing to the door with Sunburst hurrying behind. "If my beloved wishes to retrace the past, we will together. Come - there is no time to waste!"
Sunburst's ears danced atop her head. "Wait... This wasn't just..." She made a snipping motion with both her hooves. "A doctor?"
Stellar stared a moment before it clicked. "Celestia, no... So crude. Not for my child. You were more male than just a sliced mare. You had the body, you know this... I brought you to a far more delicate and specialized place. Magic was involved... You were given an entirely male form."
"Oh..." On one hoof, that made sense, on the other, she felt a chill run through her. She had been laboring for her entire life under some unknown spell. Flurry hadn't transformed her at all! She had just knocked a spell free. "That... makes sense..."
With some parts of her world coming together, Sunburst accompanied Stellar out of the house and they set out from town side by side. "How far is it? You didn't go too far with a newborn foal, I imagine?"
"Not that far." The path Stellar led Sunburst down trails Sunburst had never been down, the town lost to sight. "You were a little thing, so delicate and wonderful in my arms..." She looked back over her shoulder at Sunburst. "Are you sure? Is this what you really want?"
Sunburst paused amidst the fragrant pines, unexpected doubt creeping upon her determination. Did she truly wish to solve this puzzle started with her first breaths? Once glimpsed, there would be no going back.
"I wonder sometimes..." she murmured. "Had you allowed me to just grow my own way, would we still have come to walk these very steps someday?"
Stellar glanced away and back, but her steps pressed on. "I know you too well... You would have come here, eventually, sniffing out an arcane secret, no doubt."
Sunburst burst into laughter at that. "That sounds right." The tension lightened and they made it into a little clearing. "Here? I don't see anypony."
"They aren't ponies." Stellar sat near the center of the clearing. "Watchers of the glade, I request you."
A snout poked free of the bushes, long antlers spreading out and long ears twitching. The deer looked at Stellar curiously. "You return." Their eyes slid to Sunburst. "The spell is in tatters. Did you come to ask us to weave it again?"
Sunburst cringed at that, stepping away. "N-no! No... Please don't..."
The lead deer blinked slowly as Sunburst's reaction, head tilting in wordless query toward Stellar Flare. The mare flicked her tail in mounting agitation under that patient gaze. A few others peeked from hiding, but were more visible with their motions.
"We won't be needing any further magical meddling today, thank you." Stellar steadied herself before continuing. "I've brought my daughter to...better understand her origins, if you would be so kind as to indulge her questioning."
The deer inclined their graceful neck in acquiescence. "We remember well the small foal delivered into our care those years prior. An uncommon case of in-betweenness...yet still aglow with destiny."
They peered closer at Sunburst, who shrank from their inspection until finding courage to meet the eyes directly. "Yes, glimmers yet remain now unlocked...you have chosen to bloom as destiny saw long ago, unfettered. Would you have your words with us, little seedling?"
Sunburst dared a step forward, adjusting her glasses nervously as she went. "Y-yes, I would. Your spell was broken, by happenchance, really... Um... And I think I like the result..." She looked back at her body. "Why did you? Why bind a foal like that, even if Mother, Stellar, asked?"
The deer nodded slowly. "A fine question. You had in you such magic. Dangerous magic. Enough to reshape these lands, given time... It is rare a pony presents us with the opportunity to intercede with such things before they finish growing." The deer presented a cloven hoof. "We took our opportunity."
Sunburst flattened her ears. "You did that to stop me from... You are the reason, on purpose, I was always so terrible with magic?!"
Stellar scowled. "You didn't mention that. This was not supposed to hurt Sunburst. This was to help them."
"What is done, is done." Several deers nodded with their elder's words. "If you do not wish us to reseal them, what have you come for? Just questions?"
"Free me." Sunburst took a firm step forward, stomping the ground in the motion. "Remove it, entirely. I want to be what I should have been from the start!"
The deer elders exchanged solemn looks before nodding in acquiescence. "Very well, wild one now returned. Let our arts return innate channels kept hidden."
They arranged themselves in a circle around Sunburst, horns beginning to shimmer as they intoned in their melodic tongue. Stellar watched anxiously as swirling motes coalesced around her daughter, weaving glowing strands over her poised form.
Sunburst's eyes drifted closed, senses turning inward as magic older than pony civilization worked through her. She saw without seeing - the vibrant markings coating the elders in testimony to their oneness with forces beyond the mundane. Felt without feeling the heated crackle of power racing down antlers to discharge skyward in branching arcs. Heard without hearing the chorus of stone, stream and star welcoming her home.
There came a resonant thrum as bonds unseen unraveled from her spirit. Sunburst drew breath swelling with the scents of promise. Something unlocked within and she knew at last herself unbarred. Whole.
She also felt a strange new, and yet familiar, presence. She was no longer entirely a she. She shook herself with a bit of a blush. She was a little of a he, but she was a she. She felt sure of that. She was a she... with a little extra? But it was part of her, and, whole, she could feel her magic flowing through her.
It wasn't just a strong flow. It was smooth and orderly. Everything was going through the spaces it should. She was whole... "Am I... Was..." She crashed to her haunches.
"Was Starlight and I... Were we meant to be magic peers?" Her arms shivered, thinking of that alternative history.
The elder inclined his head softly. "I cannot see through the mists of time to what might have been, but never was. I also have not met this Starlight. Our spell is undone, your questions answered. Have you come for anything else?"
Sunburst gazed at her hooves still tingling with unleashed possibility. Joint magic destiny or no, this freedom alone was gift enough. She offered the awaiting elders a deep bow.
"I came seeking truths hidden to me, and through fated threads or fortune's winds, I am blessed to leave better than I could have hoped for." She smiled gently Stellar's way, her magic adjusting her glasses anew. "And with, um, old mistakes put right between me and her."
The deer herded closer, antlers lowered in procession around Sunburst before they stamped down delicately one by one signalling oaths sealed. Their leader met her eyes, tone grave yet warmed by dawning respect.
"Long have we stood sentinel for ripples through the tapestry mortal hooves weave lightly. Never have we faced one granted our arts stand humbled requesting naught but knowledge and concord restored." The elder smiled briefly. "You and your bonded may walk this glade without invocation henceforth. Go well, little catalyst who moves the immovable."
Stellar approached as the assembly retreated, stars in her eyes and heart full to bursting with pride in the gracious wisdom this soul had cultivated. She had erred greatly, yet somehow born light enough to illuminate the shadows clinging between them still.
"Shall we go, my Sunbeam?" Stellar offered softly, joy and melancholy embracing. "I would so like to get to know the mare standing before me now." Linking shoulders, the pair made their way home.
"Let's." Sunburst threw an arm over Stellar, walking on the other three legs. "Thank you."
"Thank me?" Stellar turned an ear to Sunburst. "What did I do? We already established I messed this up quite... a bit..."
"And you fixed it." She nudged against her mother, keeping her held close. "I forgive you."
"But... What about the time?" Stellar wrinkled her nose. "You and Starlight, magical peers, all that? Years wasted..."
"If you taught me anything." Sunburst pulled her in, hugging as they walked. "We have to roll with the times. I can figure out how to be my brilliant self today and tomorrow. No point worrying about yesterday."
Stellar smiled gently. "I knew I raised you right."
Together, they returned to Sire's Hollow.