My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic: Stallion Edition

by SuperPinkBrony12

Chapter 131: Prince/Father/Teacher

Soon after the Crystalling had concluded, and most citizens of the Crystal Empire (as well as Princess Celestia and Princess Luna) had gone back to their homes, Shining Armor and Twilight were most surprised to learn that their parents had arrived. Sure enough, on the platform at the train station, stood a unicorn stallion with a coat the same color as the night sky, with an even darker blue mane and tail styled so that the mane went into a slight curl to the right, moderate amber eyes, and a cutie mark depicting two crescent moons. And next to the stallion stood a unicorn mare with a whitish-gray coat, a moderate purple and light gray striped mane and tail styled similar to Twilight's, light arctic blue eyes (not unlike those of Flurry's), and a cutie mark depicting three purple stars.

"Mom! Dad! You're here!" Twilight happily exclaimed, as she rushed over and hugged them both tightly.

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I had no idea you guys were coming." Shining smiled.

"We thought we'd come in early and surprise you," Night Light spoke up. He then laughed, as he added. "But you would not believe the crazy weather that delayed our train. I tell you, it came right out of nowhere! One moment everything was just fine, and the next, boom, huge blizzards! They had to halt and wait for the storms to clear, so we got a bit delayed."

"But it was all worth it to see this peaceful little angel," Twilight Velvet cooed, as she approached Flurry. "Why, she even has my eyes, and she almost has my coat color," Just then, Flurry began to stur ever so slightly, which only prompted Velvet to coo even more. "Aw, aren't you just a little cutie? Cute as a little button," As she took the baby alicorn into her magical embrace, Velvet asked the parents. "By the way, Shining, Cadence, what are we supposed to call the dear? Or are we just going to spend the whole trip here calling her 'the baby'?"

"Well, you'll be happy to know we already thought of a first name," Shining informed his parents. "Flurry, to go with her almost snow white coat. But it was the middle name we had trouble with."

Cadence beamed, as she informed them. "After a lot of thinking, we decided to go with 'Heart', making her officially Flurry Heart Sparkle, or just Flurry Heart. To mark the occasion of her joyous crystalling."

"Flurry Heart? I think I like that name!" Night Light cooed, as he approached his granddaughter and pinched her little cheeks. "Feel free to bring the little one by when you get a chance, I'm sure she'll just love seeing all of you and Twilight's baby pictures. I'm sure you've already got quite a collection yourself."

"Dad!" Twilight and Shining both playfully whined, while Velvet and Cadence just laughed

Meanwhile, Starlight was saying her goodbyes to Sunburst. "Well, looks like you're finally that big, important wizard you always dreamed of being. Even if that means you're gonna be changing diapers." She half commented/half teased.

Sunburst just blushed. "Y-yup, sure looks like it. But being a crystaller is a full time responsibility, I doubt I'll have a lot of time to just spend on my intellectual pursuits."

Starlight only smiled and said to Sunburst. "Well, I can't think of anypony more qualified than you to do the job."

"You sure you wanna go back to Ponyville and live in the castle?" Sunburst asked Starlight, as he then offered. "If you'd like, I think we could work something out at my place. Or maybe there's a guest bedroom in the castle here that you can occupy. We'd see each other every day."

Starlight shook her head. "As tempting as that may sound, I think for the time being it's better for all involved if I stay in Ponyville. All of Shining Armor and Twilight's friends are there, and in a way they've kind of become my friends too. Still, promise me you'll stay in touch from now on?" She slightly hesitated, before she added. "After all that's happened, I can't stand to have you not be a part of my life anymore."

"I know, I feel the same way. But for now, I think it's best if we just remain friends," Sunburst said to Starlight. "Trying to start a romance now would be moving too fast. Still, I'll make sure to write to you as much as possible. Because there's no way I'll let myself lose touch with my oldest and closest friend. And I look forward to seeing you whenever you can make the trip up here. It's actually pretty nice when the Crystal Heart is working properly." He and Starlight then shared one final hug.

---

Shining had been watching from afar, even as he'd chatted with his parents and tended to Flurry. He found it hard not to smile, as Starlight approached him a second later. "Looks like everything worked out for the best in the end. For your first major friendship lesson, you did pretty well." He informed his student.

"Yeah, it sure looks that way," Starlight acknowledged. "But, if you knew about Sunburst's past, and my own, why didn't you tell either of us what had happened to the other?"

"Your past was something I wanted Sunburst to hear about from you, not from me. Even if I'd told him, I don't think he would've believed me," Shining explained to Starlight. "And as for Sunburst's past. Well, that's partially because I was distracted with... obvious things. But also partially because it wasn't my place to tell you. It was for him to decide when and how to tell you. I hope that makes sense."

"I guess it kind of does," Starlight nodded very slowly. Then, looking into Shining's eyes, she asked. "So, what's next for me? You got some sort of lesson plan or something?"

"Like I said before all of this, I'm still pretty new to this whole 'teacher/student' thing," Shining commented. ""Any plans I might have had for you are definitely gonna have to be put hold, more or less. Flurry Heart needs a lot of attention, and I can't make Sunburst and Cadence do all the work alone, especially considering she's probably going to need a lot of discipline to keep her on the straight and narrow. My parents tell me I was a pretty well behaved foal for the most part, but Twily was always the curious one who got into trouble, and it seems that got passed down to Flurry."

"I can see that," Starlight chuckled, and then asked. "So, what? Are you cutting me loose already?"

Shining shook his head. "No, no, no. You're still very much my student, Starlight, and it's my responsibility to see to it that you remain on the straight and narrow," He then added. "However, I will only be involved a little with your reformation process from here on out. I'm gonna leave it up to my sister to make sure your lessons are carried out in a timely manner, and that you're making progress. So I'd better not hear about you slacking off or sliding back, Starlight! I may have spared you from the dungeons once, but I won't be able to do it a second time!"

"You've got nothing to worry about," Starlight vowed, raising a hoof to her forehead in salute. "You have my word that I'll do my best to learn about the magic of friendship, and make you proud!"

"Good, see that you do," Shining nodded. "Now then, I believe you have a train to catch back to Ponyville. Oh, and before you go."

"Yes?" Starlight asked. She was really worried that she might have forgotten something important.

"You've got to learn to let go of your past," Shining advised. "Most ponies I know prefer not to dwell on it, and Ponyville in general is one of the most welcoming places in all of Equestria. I'm sure you'll find that, if you give ponies a chance and open up your heart to them, they'll be more than happy to get to know you."

Author's Note:

Since Shining Armor is the character of focus in this fic's universe, I wanted to address a potential problem of how he's going to juggle his responsibilities between being Prince of the Crystal Empire, Captain of the Royal Guard, Starlight's teacher, and take care of Flurry Heart (even though he'll have Cadence and Sunburst for help).

I also decided to toss in some possible ship tease moments for StarBurst.

Expect to see one more chapter before the year is over, dealing with the events of "Gauntlet of Fire" in this universe. 2018 won't be as frequent on the updates, 2017 was the big year for this fic.

Comments

[Comickook]

Excellent job on the final chapter of this arc. I really appreciate you going to the effort. The exchanges, characterizations and future story set-up are well done in all the right places. I particularly liked the chat between Starlight and Sunburst as well as Starlight's reasons for wanting to go back to Ponyville despite both her teacher AND her best friend being in the Crystal Empire. And, yeah, the reasoning you mentioned in the author's notes is a really good point.

If, in the "To Where And Back Again" arc, Sunburst DOES take Trixie's place on the rescue team, Sunburst can be prepared with some smoke bombs he picked up from Zecora and some non-magical tools he had the foresight to obtain before they begin the journey (after all, the anti-magic throne would NOT affect his intellect, but that only does him any good if he takes the necessary precautions beforehand and he WOULD have Thorax as a quick source of information concerning the Changelings, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume Chrysalis would take some sort of precautions in case her enemies made powerful friends).

But, in any case, I will still be looking forward to more stories in this series (and more of your work in general), but will also be very willing to respect that real world concerns need to take place.

Oh, and Happy Holidays in case I forgot to say it earlier.

[Yoshifan30]

Well hopefully whatever the future holds for shining armor and hopefully for Starlights Redemption story hopefully things will turn out okay but little they don't know there's a certain Changeling flying to the castle and we're certainly know who that is 😊