Fixing Flashlight

by Neroson40

Crippled

I woke up the next morning to Spike shaking me. I wanted a little more sleep, but he just shook me harder.

“Flash! This is-” the door swung open and Twilight stomped into the room. “-important.” The stomping woke me up enough to see that Spike was scared and that Twilight was recently crying about something. Nonetheless she looked mad.

“How could you not tell me?” She whispered. Then I saw that she had the paper from six years ago in her saddlebag. “Your parents are gone and you don’t remember anything about it… How could you not tell me they were gone!?”

“I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me,” I finally said. “You looked so happy that progress was being made, and I didn’t want to ruin that, telling you would’ve made you sorry for me.”

“Congratulations,” Twilight said. “You didn’t make me sorry for you, you made me mad at you.” She stormed out of the room before I could say anything. She wouldn’t say anything all day. No matter what I tried she wouldn’t talk to me, not even an apology would get a response. Then Applejack came to us.

“Twilight, we need to talk,” She said. “In private.” They went off and I just sat and waited, eventually Big Mac came back.

“Howdy Flash,” he said. “How’s it goin’?”

“Twilight found out about my parents,” I said. “Now she won’t talk to me.”

“I can imagine why,” Mac said. “You didn’t tell her in the first place, meaning to her that you don’t trust her with stuff like that.

“The thing I don’t trust her with is being able to take it with a genuine smile,” I said. “I didn’t want her to have to push herself. I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re thoughtful, ya’ just didn’t think it totally through.” It was around then that Twilight and Applejack came and Twilight said something that caught me off guard.

“We’re going to Canterlot.” When I asked why she refused to answer. We asked Mac and Applejack to watch the castle and got on a train to Canterlot. Twilight to me right to the castle near the mountain top.

“Why are we going there?” I asked. She didn’t answer directly.

“There’s somepony you have to meet.” That was all she said. When we entered the throne room, there were two alicorns and a unicorn, all mares. The older alicorn was white coat with sun kissed rainbow mane. A name touched my mind with that one. Celestia. The younger one was blue coat with starry mane. Her name came to me too. Luna. The one who held my attention the longest was the unicorn. She wasn’t facing me for the majority of the first minute. But I knew her. The indigo mane, the silver coat and the quill and scroll cutie mark…

“Starlight?” I said. She refused to look at me.

“So you are his sister,” Celestia said. “She was just telling us the story of how you lost your parents, General Sentry.”

Reluctantly she started a story.

“My parents, along with eleven other ponies in Ponyville… they died six years ago because of me. The only survivor was my brother…” At this pause she turned to me with tears filling her eyes. “Even then he didn’t go unscarred. A falling wooden beam from our house destroyed the functionality of the nerves in his wings. He can’t fly anymore.” I remembered little clues since waking up that made that revelation make sense. All of the petty officers I unknowingly trained with were earthlings, with me as the only exception. I never took my hooves off the ground simultaneously, not even trying. Then came the biggest one, when Rainbow Dash dislocated my wing. I didn’t feel it!

To see if I could still move them at least, I told myself to stretch them. They did, but when I flapped them it was apparent they were too weak to carry me. “She’s right…” I said. “I can’t fly.”

Starlight turned to me and lowered her head. “I can never ask you for forgiveness, mainly because I’m sure I won’t get it. Not only did our parents die because of me, but you lost his wings, and that’s something I can’t even forgive myself for.” I noticed she was shacking with self-directed anger. I pulled Twilight to the side to ask a question.

“Would I forgive her if I had all the information?” Twilight thought about it for a little bit. When she took her wing away from her lip, she looked at me with something I wish I remembered.

“Nothing’s ever been as bad as that, either to me, or you,” she said. “But every time somepony did something wrong and admitted to the mistake, you forgave them. In the year and some that I’ve known you, you’ve been the most forgiving pony I ever knew.” That helped a little. But then again, I still couldn’t forgive Starlight for killing our parents. The main reason being I didn’t have enough information on the event. Unless I knew why the fire was started, I probably wouldn’t be forgiving her any time soon. I returned my attention to Starlight.

“Sis,” I said in a caring tone. “Normally I’m sure that I’d forgive something as terrible as what happened,” She looked up in surprise at what I just said. Though she looked almost relieved that I was saying it. “But this time… I can’t.” I said, regretting my poor choice of words even as I said it.

“What?” Starlight looked at me with ruined hopes.

“What I meant to say was… um…” I tried to break the news to her gently, going over any possible way to say it gently. Finally I got one. “I don’t remember what happened.”

Comments

[SageBrony07]

Wow. Thanks for the update. I'm happy about this story. Nice twist, and nice Back story twist.