Starlight ran as fast her legs could carry her, as she ran out of the ballroom and into the Canterlot Royal Gardens. She couldn’t believe what had just happened! Trixie, her newest friend, had nearly been killed by a manticore. And all because Starlight had been so distracted by her mother, the one pony she’d told herself she never wanted to see again.
“Why did all of this have to happen?” Starlight cried as she looked at herself down in the waters of a nearby pond. “If my mother really wanted to patch things up with me, why did she wait ten years to do so?! And why is everypony putting pressure on me to give her another chance?! What if I don’t want to?!” Starlight roughly splash the water at this remark, her rage filling to the point of boiling over.
However, there were some words that Starlight wished she could take back. But no time travel spell that ever existed would erase what had happened. The events would transpire over and over again, playing repeatedly like a bad novel.
Then, all of a sudden, a voice that Starlight had never heard before spoke up. “Get up, Starlight,” barked the voice. The young unicorn sharply turned around to see the ghost of an aged yellow coated unicorn standing before her, dressed in magicians garb, with a cutie mark consisting of a key opening a lock. “Is this how my granddaughter is supposed to be?”
“What?!” Starlight remarked, surely she had misheard “Who are you, and why are you saying I’m your granddaughter? I never met you, so why are you standing before me now?!”
“Because I’ve always watched over you,” the ghost replied. “Do you think The Great and Powerful Hoofdini would always deny that he even had a granddaughter to begin with?”
Starlight gasped upon hearing this! Trixie’s idol was her grandfather?! But how was that possible?!
“Yes, I know it’s a little shocking to say the least,” the ghost sighed as he sat down on a rock. “But, I couldn’t bear to see my granddaughter lose the closest friend she had since she saw the light.”
“What are you talking about?” Starlight asked. “You’ve seen everything that has happened to me? Even what almost happened to Trixie?”
“That is correct, my granddaughter,” answered the ghost. “I couldn’t bear to see a pony so young be killed by a Manticore, a creature that I have tamed to allow ponies to enter and come out alive. Many have tried to copy my act time and time again, but have failed and as a result, have paid with their own lives. However, while what almost happened to your friend was of great importance,” the ghost went on. “I want you to know that your mother has spent ten years…”
“…trying to find me,” Starlight interrupted and briefly turned her head away towards the water. “Why should I even consider myself to let her back into my life? She never cared for me.”
“She does care for you,” the ghost replied. “It was your own father who drove the relationship between you and your mother apart. I believe that you are blaming your mother for the events that have happened in your life.”
“What are you saying?” Starlight remarked, turning her attention back to the ghost. “Are you saying that I shouldn’t be blaming my mother?! Not even when she refused to be my friend?!”
“I am saying that as your grandfather,” the ghost somberly explained. “You must put the anger and resentment towards your mother to rest. I’ve seen the Princess of Friendship give you a second chance. So why not give your mother the same thing, Starlight?”
“Because she turned me away when I needed her as a friend,” Starlight complained, getting up from the rock and once again staring at her reflection in the pond. “Even if I do forgive her, it won’t erase the pain her rejection caused me. What I needed was a friend, and all I got was the cold shoulder.”
“But, haven’t you made friends already, Starlight?” the ghost remarked, a hint of shame in his voice. “Your mother is already your friend. This was a pony who helped raise you into the mare that you have become, and this is how you repay her, by running away for ten years and nearly ruining the history of Equestria for your own selfish ways?”
“I did what I did,” Starlight replied. “I may not be proud of what I’ve done, but it is how it is! Maybe if my mother had offered to be my friend at that key moment, all of this pain could’ve been avoided! So just go away and leave me alone!”
The ghost couldn’t believe what he was hearing coming out of Starlight’s mouth. Starlight’s behavior was beginning to get to him. “Listen to yourself, young filly,” he angrily cried. “I’m ashamed of you to the point where I don’t know what to think anymore. Go back to the others and apologize to your mother for all the bad things that have happened between you both. For ten years I’ve watched you trot a path of darkness, and now you have the chance to finally close the chapter on those years for good! Take it while you can, you may not get another chance.”
Before Starlight could say another word, the ghost of Hoofdini disappeared into thin air. Realizing that she couldn’t run from her feelings any longer, Starlight left the gardens and made her way back to the ballroom, where Aurora was being confronted by Twilight and all the other ponies (except for Trixie, who was still reeling from her magic trick gone wrong).
“Well, we’re waiting,” Twilight said, staring quite hard at Aurora. “Would you care to tell us what’s going on here? And how Hoofdini’s trick is connected to all of this?”
But before Aurora could say a word, Starlight was spotted on the other side of the ballroom. “Twilight,” she said weakly. “I think there’s something that all of you need to hear. It’s about me, and the greateast magician who ever lived, Hoofdini.”
Everypony gathered in the ballroom gasped! Starlight and Hoofdini were related?!