Nothing Special

by hironakamura

Chapter 8: Two Little Ponies Again

Starlight is walking down the city's bright crystal streets. She comes by a small but brightly lit snack shop. There are several round tables in front of the it, each one lit by a small glowing gold crystal in the center of each table. A few of the tables are occupied by some random ponies but one of them seats two familiar ponies. Starlight sees Trixie and Flash sharing a pizza together. They turn around to see her. She waves to her two friends and she walks up to meet them.

"Hey, Star. We heard the news. How are you holding up?" Greeted Trixie.

"Okay, I guess. Its better than being banished to the moon for a thousand years." Starlight said with a nervous smile. She takes a seat beside Trixie. "Twilight already had my stuff moved to the Crystal Castle until I could find my own place so its not like I'm homeless or anything. But speaking of homeless, the trains to Canterlot aren't running yet. How are you gonna get back to your carriage?" She asked Trixie.

"Princess Cadence is letting Trixie stay at the castle for a while so we're kind of dorm mates. And Wing Pony's got me covered too. We'll fly to Canterlot tomorrow morning so he can air lift Trixie's carriage back here to the Crystal Empire." She answered, happily pointing to Flash with a hoof across the table.

"Yeah. I can't wait to see Trixie's magic show." Flash said while chewing on his slice of a pizza.

Starlight sighs. "Well, sounds like you two have a plan."

Hearing Starlight sigh, Trixie looks at Flash with concern. Flash shrugs his shoulders and Trixie looks back at Starlight. "Um, have you visited Wizard Horse yet?" She asked Starlight.

"Sunny hates it when you call him Wizard Horse." Interrupted Flash while still eating his pizza slice.

Trixie gestures to him with a hoof. "Oh please, he's not here. He's still sleeping back at the hospital."

Starlight's eyes widen in surprise. "Wait, he hasn't woken up yet? But its been days."

"I saw him yesterday." Flash reassured Starlight after taking a sip of his apple cider. "The doc says he'll be fine but he needs time to recover from being exposed to that much changeling magic. Chrysalis did a number on him, after all."

Trixie looks at Starlight with concern. "You haven't visited Sunburst yet, have you?"

Starlight slowly shakes her head and looks down. "U-um, no. I was held up at Canterlot... and... I guess I've been putting it off."

"How come?" Trixie asked.

Starlight sighs heavily. "Even though we beat Chrysalis, she still got her revenge on me. I'm banished to the Crystal Empire and a pony I really care about got hurt. After what Chrysalis did to Sunburst, I just don't know what to say to him."

"Miss Starlight?" Flash started. "I don't know you that well yet but I do know Sunny. He talks about you a lot. He looks up to you and has nothing but nice things to say. Just go see him. You have nothing to be scared of."

Starlight's face lights up. "He talks about me? What does he say?"

"Wizard Horse says you're loud and bossy." Answered Trixie before Flash could say anything. Trixie discretely winks at Flash and then returns her attention to Starlight. "Isn't that right, Flash?"

Starlight suddenly gets up from her seat and glares at Flash. "What? How are those nice things?" She asked angrily.

"U-um. Sunny means you have a clear speaking voice and... good leadership skills?" Flash said nervously, shrinking in his seat.

"Sunburst! That little... I'll show him who's loud and bossy!" Starlight angrily storms away from the shop and heads for the hospital.

After Starlight left, Flash looks at Trixie and laughs. "You sneak. You did that on purpose to make her visit-... Is that why you're called Trixie?"

"You can lead a pony to water but you can't stop them from being stubborn." Replied Trixie, grinning back at Flash. "The Great and Powerful Trixie was, is and will always be a trickster pony."

Starlight continues to stomp down the crystal streets, fuming with a bitter mood as she heads for the hospital to give Sunburst a piece of her mind. She passes by Sunburst's wizard hat shaped house and notices the lights are on. Starlight thought this was odd. Why would the lights in Sunburst's house be turned on when he's in the Hospital? She thought.

Starlight decides to investigate. Her anger fades and is replaced with curiosity. She crosses the street and walks up to Sunburst's house. She carefully walks up the stairs leading to the house's large wooden front doors. Starlight notices that the front door is slightly open. She begins to think that there might be an intruder in Sunburst's house.

Starlight carefully pushes the door open, making sure to not make noise and walks in. Her horn glows with magical energy, ready to attack any possible intruder she may encounter. When she steps into Sunburst's study room, she sees none other than Sunburst, still wearing his cracked round glasses and tattered blue wizard's cloak. He's sitting at his desk while simultaneously writing on several scrolls with several quills all levitated by his magic.

"Sunburst?" Starlight said, looking surprised.

Sunburst turns around, startled. "Starlight?"

Starlight deactivates the magic from her horn and worriedly walks up to Sunburst sitting at his desk. "Aren't you supposed to be in the hospital?"

"Yeah, the nurse thinks so but I snuck out." He said calmly, returning his attention to write with his magic on all the scrolls. "When I woke up, I had all these new spell ideas, I just had to write them down or else I'll forget about them. I asked for some scrolls but they said no because they wanted me to rest. So when the nurse left the room I-"

"Drop the tough guy act." Starlight interrupted, still sounding worried. "You should be recovering from your injuries."

"I'm not acting tough. I just need to write stuff down." Replied Sunburst, not taking his attention away from his compositions.

Starlight's worry changes to annoyance. "Sunburst, get back to the hospital right now or I swear, I will carry you there as humiliatingly as possible!"

"I am a grown stallion, Starlight. I'm fine and I can do what I want." He continues his writing.

"What you want isn't always good for you!" Starlight said angrily. She uses her magic to take all the quills and scrolls away from Sunburst by force. The gold light levitating each item gets taken over with turquoise light. Sunburst could only watch as the items are crumpled and thrown to the side.

Sunburst stands from his seat and leaves his desk. He walks up to Starlight and faces her angrily. "Why are you always such a control freak?!"

Starlight, just as angry, pokes his chest with a hoof. "Because for a pony that's supposed to be a smart wizard, you keep making a lot of dumb choices!"

"I know that!" He shouted at her. "I mess up all the time! That's why I always leave you out of it so you don't have to put up with my mistakes!"

"You big dummy!" She shouted back. "I like putting up with your mistakes because I like you!"

Sunburst pauses, his eyes wide, looking surprised. Starlight looks away from him, still angry but he notices her eyes. She's about to cry.

Sunburst slowly shakes his head and sighs. "I'm sorry."

Starlight doesn't look at him. She frowns, still upset. "N-never mind that. Lets get you back to the-"

"No. For everything..." Sunburst sadly looks away from Starlight and sits on his hind legs. "Chrysalis used me to get to you. Its all my fault. I already caused you a lot of trouble when we were growing up and now that we're older, I'm doing it all over again. Its like making bad choices is my Cutie Mark's talent or something."

Starlight looks at Sunburst, surprised that he thinks about himself this way. "Sunburst, if any pony should be apologizing, it should be me. Chrysalis used you to get to me and you got hurt. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself if something really bad happened to you."

A moment of silence passes, Sunburst says nothing. He continues to look away from Starlight while she looks at him worriedly. Sunburst soon feels his glasses being gently levitated from his face by a turquoise light. He realizes Starlight is using her magic on them so he closes his eyes.

Starlight focuses her magic and turquoise light envelops Sunburst's glasses. The crack running across its left lens slowly vanishes and the glasses appear as if they're brand new. She levitates and gently returns them on Sunburst's face.

Sunburst slowly opens his eyes and the first thing he sees through his glasses is his friend, Starlight. Her kind face, looking at him, weakly smiling, only inches away from his. "U-um... A reconstitution spell?" He asked, nervously.

"Y-yeah..." Starlight replied, her voice shaking. "Thank you for protecting me from Chrysalis."

"Well, you did all the work. I-I just wrote you a spell." He reasoned.

"And that spell made all the difference." Starlight takes a step forward, bringing her even closer to Sunburst. She starts to feel anxious and she could feel her face heating up.

Sunburst looks around nervously. He wanted to step back like he wanted to run away but at the same time he's so nervous with Starlight being this close to him, he couldn't get himself to move. He swallows a lump in his throat and his heart starts to beat faster.

Sunburst could feel himself starting to blush. With a shaky voice, he tries to speak. "Look, Starlight. I-I... like you too. I always have. When you use your magic, I've never seen such skill and talent. But you're princess material and I'm just a cowardly wizard. Every pony knows the wizard doesn't end up with princess at the end of the story."

Without warning, Starlight quickly leans in and gives Sunburst a quick kiss on his nose. "You big nerd! I'm not a princess. I'm a sorceress."

Surprised, Sunburst's eyes widen and his ears perk up. He blushes even more when Starlight moves closer. She sits on her hind legs and gently leans on his chest, affectionately snuggling her stallion.

Starlight closes her eyes. She could tell Sunburst was as nervous as she is. She could feel his heart beating as fast as hers. Unsure if she's scared, nervous, embarrassed or shy, the only thing Starlight knows is that she's overwhelmed with an emotion she doesn't fully understand but completely recognizes. She's always felt about her friend this way even when they were foals. And she likes this feeling. "You don't have to go back to the hospital if you don't want to. But I'd really like it if you'd take it easy."

Sunburst sees his friend affectionately leaning on his chest. Nervous and heart pounding hard, he closes his eyes and slowly puts his shaking front hooves around her body. He gently pulls her closer in a warm comforting hug. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here with you."

The one final piece of thread holding Sunburst's tattered cloak around his neck gives way. The damaged cloak falls to the floor and the two little ponies stay there, loving each other in the middle of the study as the cutie mark on Starlight's flank begins to glow wildly with radiant magical energy, brighter and brighter.

At the Crystal Castle, in Cadence and Shining Armor's private chamber, Cadence tucks a sleeping Flurry Heart in her crib for the night. Cadence gives her daughter a kiss on the forehead.

Shining Armor walks into the room and notices Cadence. "Oh, you're back. So how was your day at Canterlot?" He asked.

Cadence thinks to herself for a second then giggles. "It all went according to plan. A bud will soon blossom into an enduring flower. And a very strong flower it'll be. Their light and love will power the Crystal Heart for generations to come."

"They better, for all our sake. But you are the Princess of Love, after all." Shining Armor walks over to a large vase decoration sitting at the corner of their room. He looks at the markings on the vase.

The markings show pictures of a large blob floating above a small heart shaped crystal. Surrounding the heart shaped crystal are four pillars, preventing the blob from smothering it. Each pillar has a symbol in its center. One has the symbol of the Sun, another with the Star, the third with the Moon and the fourth with the Sky. "Um, they made it in time, right? All four of them?" Shining Armor asked Cadence.

"Yes. All four of them." Cadence joins Shining Armor and looks at the large vase decoration. "A Shadow will soon fall upon the Empire and it will try to snuff out its citizen's light and love. The Sun on our back was not enough to endure this darkness alone. But now that we have the Star by our side, her feelings and his wisdom working in harmony with the Moon's hope and the Sky's courage will ensure this Shadow never falls and the Empire's future stays bright."

"This place gets more than its fair share of magical catastrophes." Said Shining Armor. "I think its about time we started fighting back."

End.

Author's Note:

This was longer than I wanted it to be and there were scenes that never made it into the story.

There's a scene about Flash's gold armor. In chapter 7, Trixie asks him about why his armor is gold not like the other guards who wear platinum armor. Flash explains that when he moved to the Crystal Empire, all the other guards didn't like him but they had to issue him armor. The only armor available in his size was a set of ancient rusted armor left behind in the Crystal Guard barracks. Its been there for years since the time of King Sombra and no one knows who it belongs to. So Flash gets himself some sand paper and spends weeks cleaning the armor set. Sunburst helps him. After weeks of sand papering, he was left with a set of gold armor and sore callused hooves. None of the other guards made fun of him ever again. This story never made it in because it was already too long but I thought it was worth mentioning because its inspired by how the fandom shat on this character before even giving him a chance.

In Chapter 4, Trixie doesn't rescue Spike. Instead, Spike comes across Trixie helping ponies evacuate. The ponies are too stubborn to leave so Trixie uses her magic to put on a stage show. The stage show was actually a set of illusions designed to trick the ponies into leaving Canterlot safely. This version of Trixie is a reformed show pony who uses "tricks" but in a positive way. The first thing that came to mind is the idea of hope. Hope is like tricking your mind into thinking everything is going to be fine even though you have no logical proof of it. The fact that she is aligned with the Moon makes it even better. "It doesn't matter how dark the night gets, the light of the Lulamoon will shine bright and give hope to all" was supposed to be one of her lines. When you think about it, there's nothing really villainous about going from town to town and spreading joy to other ponies with her magic shows. I thought it seemed kind of lonely that she lives in a trailer she pulls around with no town to call her own. Strange that a character like this was ever presented as a villain on the show.

There's a few more scenes that didn't make it into any of the chapters but they're minor. There's a scene where Flash talks to Starlight about being a princess is over rated because he thinks Celestia and Luna's constantly flowing tails look like fart clouds coming from their butts. There's a scene where Sunburst confronts Trixie for always calling him names but finds out Trixie actually calls Starlight "Witch Horse" and that Trixie only ever gives "nicknames" to ponies she truly deeply cares about. There's a scene where Flash picks on Sunburst because Starlight didn't check in to the castle that night and someone saw Starlight leaving Sunburst's house the following morning. There's a scene where Trixie helps Starlight unbox her stuff but most of Starlight's stuff is like ancient and dangerous magical artifacts like staffs, amulets and tomes or sealed vases containing evil spirits that creep Trixie out. These scenes sound like after story stuff so never made it in.

Thanks for reading.

Comments

[jimboni]

I really liked this story. It's hard to believe you wrote it on a phone during trips. Well done. :)

[howard035]

This was a fantastic story, it feels like you fit so much into it.

[Lord Seth]

The biggest issue with this story is the formatting. There are two chief problems: The dialogue formatting, and the tense.

In regards to the dialogue formatting, here's an example:

"Sunny hates it when you call him Wizard Horse." Interrupted Flash while still eating his pizza slice.

This should read:

"Sunny hates it when you call him Wizard Horse," interrupted Flash while still eating his pizza slice.

I cannot recommend this section of the FIM Fiction writing guide enough. It explains all of the important rules of dialogue punctuation and capitalization and does so concisely as well.

The other problem is the tense, in that the story is mostly written in present tense. Normally stories are written in past tense, as that looks the most natural, and indeed writing a story in present tense will often distract the reader because they're so used to past tense. But the story isn't even consistent with present tense narration, as it will lapse into past tense and then go back to present tense. The story really should have just been past tense the entire way through.

These two issues, unfortunately, were a big distraction from the story for me. It'd improve in quality considerably if the narration was consistently past tense and the dialogue formatting was corrected.

[Mr Legoman]

Cute story. Simple but well done.

[FoolAmongTheStars]

This was a nice read, I had a lot of fun!