But nopony was. They didn't see what had happened to her. Sunburst strode through her town to the same smiling faces. Some were surprised to see he as a she, but none knew the next step, or seemed to intuit it. Such things were generally private things.
To be worried about between two ponies that had already passed a few barriers into intimacy.
Of course they didn't notice. That would have been rude. And yet... Sunburst found herself wanting to talk about it, to talk about her complete status. A shame there was nopony to do that with. Only her mother knew it happened, in either direction.
She was not the one to discuss that with... "Mom."
"Hm?" Stellar looked up from the magazine floating in her magic. "Everything alright?"
"Better." Sunburst came closer to touch noses. "But, since I'm here... I feel like this might be kinda related... Whatever happened to--"
Stellar put a hoof over Sunburst's mouth. "We've been through a lot. Can you ask that next time, if you have to ask it at all. Little Sunbeam... I like looking forward, to the future. The past has been nothing but a complete pain to me, especially these last few days."
Sunburst took a calming breath. "Mother, I must... insist."
Stellar deflated with a sigh. "I had a feeling you might. Is this about him?"
"Tell me about them. Where were they when this was happening?"
Stellar neatly folded her magazine and poured herself a refill of coffee, abandoning her cup of tea. "He is at least one reason I made the choices I made... Sunburst, I don't want him to darken my door again. I made some poor choices. I don't regret you, even for a second, but if I could yank you... Pull you out of his grip and somehow live my life without him in it, ever, that is a choice I'd make."
Sunburst flipped an ear back. "That bad, huh? Um, but... So... What happened?"
Stellar massaged her stinging temples, trying to abate the returning pounding. "He left the very moment he learned I wasn't just a mare to have fun with. Abandoned and alone, you entered my life. You and all your little imperfections. I did my best, by you, by myself... I made mistakes... There was nopony there for me, Sunburst. I don't say that asking you to forgive me--"
"--I already did."
Stellar raised a hoof. "I'm just explaining it. Alone, with a... unique child, I made my choice."
Sunburst touched his nose to her snout, where a few tears were leaking, but nowhere as strongly as before. "I see... Thank you. That... helps, I think." She worked her hooves in the air as if packing a snowball. "It comes together."
A stillness settled between mother and daughter, words heavy yet souls lighter having carved some mutual ground across years of tangled emotions.
Sunburst ran a hoof idly through her starburst locks, blinking back the sting of unshed tears. She glimpsed her reflection - blended slopes declaring her complex history plainly for all to interpret as they would.
Stellar managed a tight smile, voice still unsteady. "Regardless what any foalish gossip might claim, my Sunbeam, remember that your comfort in your own coat is all that should ever matter."
She gave Sunburst's cheek an affectionate pat. "Now! This dreary little whistle-stop has had quite enough upheaval. What say we blow this ice cream stand and let the rest sort itself?"
Sunburst snorted at the sharp turn. "Yeah... Enough for now." They hugged gently and walked out of that house and its heavy emotions.
"We flavor tested some new amazing varieties!" Bouncing back, Stellar took Sunburst to her drink stand to try her newest varieties. Some of them were even good.
Sunburst licked her lips of the flavors. "One last thing, one last, I swear, then I'll get out of your mane."
Stellar snorted at that, nose wriggling.
"I'm assuming that story... was my birth-dad, but what about Sunspot?"
Stellar blinked gently. "O-oh... That... Is, in some ways, less... troubling. Time comes for us all, eventually. Sunspot remained a lovely stallion." She huffed exasperatedly. "Please tell me you feel the same. This is not the day I want to hear he was secretely doing something awful."
"No!" Sunburst hopped back at the very idea. "Dad, Sunspot, was great... He just... kinda vanished, and you never said why." She rubbed her cheek. "I see.... Wow, I learned a lot today."
"At the price of my tears." Stellar rolled her eyes. "I love you, but I've had enough of you for today." She pushed at Sunburst. "Go explode at somepony else." She was smiling despite that. "Come visit again, with less drama, kindly."
Sunburst didn't argue that dismissal. "Take care then. I'll write."
"You always do." She smooched Sunburst's cheek gently. "On with you."
"Going." Sunburst trotted firmly to the train station, buying a ticket to the Crystal Empire even as a train pulled in with a hiss of its brakes.
He turned towards the train to see the ponies coming and going from it.
He didn't expect Starlight to be among them.
"Sunburst!" Starlight hurried towards Sunburst. "There you are. Why did you come here, and why..." She clopped a hoof to her face. "Am I here just in time for you to head back?"
Sunburst felt her face heating. An old friend, just the one to maybe discuss things with. "I am... so happy to see you. You don't even... Starlight, can you come with me? I want to talk."
Starlight inclined her head. "Here we are?"
Sunburst pointed at the train. "I'm headed back to the Crystal Empire. Come with me?"
Starlight nudged at Sunburst. "Wicked thing, dragging me all over Equestria! I came here when I heard you came. There was no way you came here without a very good reason." She prodded at Sunburst's chest. "The kind you might need a friend for?"
"And I need a freind." He looped an arm around her, drawing her back to the ticket stand to buy her a ticket. "Please?"
"I can't say no to you, Sunburst." Starlight huffed gently. "Is it good news or bad?"
"Good, mostly, I think? I'd say good." She floated the new ticket to Starlight's arcane grip and both headed for the train headed Northwards. "I have so much to talk to you about."
Sunburst settled with a grateful sigh into plush velvet seats as the train glided out from Sire's Hollow, Starlight cheerily bumping shoulders with her. Home was still hours ahead, but with this treasured companion surprises were undoubtedly in store sooner.
"Sooo..." Starlight drew out slyly once they pulled smoothly onto straightaways. "Gonna finally tell me what in Tartarus was worth the hike out to our mildly accursed foalhoof home or do I need to ply you with enough of these cute little biscuits first?"
She brandished a flower-etched tin, eyes twinkling. "Because I'm fully prepared to sacrifice tastebuds for gossip gold if need be!"
Sunburst bit back an amused grin even as her cheeks colored slightly. Some things never changed - Starlight's incurable audaciousness chief among them. Still, somber tones crept in as the true gravity of recent days' events loomed thoughtfully under her smile...
"I uncovered my origins at last, Star...who and why I am was long obscured." She exhaled slowly. "I've much yet to process myself regarding it all."
Starlight looked Sunburst over from the side. "Origins? Stellar Flare and a stallion, Sunspot was it? They loved each other very much..." She touched her hooves together. "And a Sunburst happened, yay."
Sunburst let out a tense laugh. She was wrong about most of that... "Let's start from the start. When I took my first breath, I wasn't a stallion."
"Y... what?" Starlight looked even harder, as if peering would pull back the confusion. "You were a colt when I met you and a stallion after that. Boy. Girl now, sure, but you were a boy before."
"Sure sure." She put a hoof over Starlight's. "I was, at that point... But first, I wasn't either. I wasn't a filly or a colt. I was kinda in the middle, where I... am now."
She rubbed at her cheek and noticed something. "Oh, look who's back." She trailed along her returned little beard. "I missed you."
Starlight focused on that beard. It was smaller than it had been, but then it had been nothing at all for a short time. "I'm getting confused, Sunny, but also very interested. Please tell me more."
Starlight chewed her lip, eyebrows knitting together. Her usually quick wit stalled, grasping for the right words. She shook herself then refocused on her oldest, dearest companion with a sympathetic half-smile.
"I wish I could say I completely get all that from just that quick overview...but I think I understand enough to know this is big for you." She gave Sunburst's hoof a bolstering squeeze. "How about we start simpler - what feels right to be called now? Are we at Sunburst the stallion or...?"
She let the question hang, an open door awaiting Sunburst's guide. The passing scenery and biscuit tin sat forgotten as the mares sank into the here and now - a friendship weathering life's unexpected storms as it had many times before.
Sunburst touched noses with Starlight. "How about just Sunburst?" She chortled like an evil madmare. "I've evolved beyond your paltry pronouns! Mua ha ha ha."
Starlight swatted at her, laughing. "Oh no, what will we do! Alright, Sunburst, they/them, got it."
"That works." Sunburst leaned back with a smile. "You're so easy to get along with, Starlight."
Starlight peeked behind herself at the other ponies riding along, then pointed at herself. "Me? Seriously. Now you're just lying. Still... glad you're feeling better, and glad you're alright with you, whatever you looks like lately."
Buoyed by her dearest friend's breezy acceptance, words began to flow more freely from Sunburst as the train rambled on. Stories of childhood now viewed through an adjusted lens, ponderings on how differently things might have blossomed had nature run its course.
Starlight listened thoughtfully, curiosity kindling as Sunburst described their newly balanced mix of masculine and feminine aspects with almost academically detached fascination. This was the pony who had rambled for hours about magical theory's impacts on Equestrian infrastructure when they were foals. Some scholarly tendencies endured.
"So yeah, I kinda have the best of both now I think?" Sunburst concluded their latest magical hypothesis with a self-conscious chuckle.
Starlight simply nodded along sagely. "Well I'm no gender scholar, but so long as you're at home in your skin, I'm happy." She nudged Sunburst playfully. "Though fair warning I reserve rights to give you the ol' 'I told you so' if any handsome suitors come begging for dates!"
Sunburst colored at that. "I doubt that... I'm no classic vision of mare, or stallion..." She waved over her delicately balanced middle of a form. "Just a pony."
"You're underselling yourself. Now... I need to know. Curiosity is eating me alive." She raised her brows together. "I know what a mare has back there, and what a stallion has back there. What does a Sunburst have back there? You don't need to go showing it off." She laughed tensely. "We are in public and all... but you can tell me, quietly...?"
Sunburst's blush grew to a fiery color. "I'll... show... you when we're not on this train..."
"Okay." She had the feelings to imitate Sunburst's coloring, dropping that topic for the time. "So, Crystal Empire! I sure seem to be visiting there a lot lately. Oh, and do I have permission to tell other ponies about you?"
"It's not a secret." Sunburst rubbed awkwardly at her cheek. "I'm a public pony. So, uh, go ahead."
"I'm holding you to that!" Starlight had other friends to share such news with, and already she was planning it out. "And you get to tell your bosses."
"Bosses?" Oh, right. She had forgotten, for a moment, about the royal couple.