Bits, Pieces and other Scrapped Ideas

by FoolAmongTheStars

In Which Sunburst Thinks About Her Smiles

Author's Note:

Summary: Through the years, Sunburst learns every smile that Starlight has.

Warnings: Cheesiness, fluff, with an extra side of diabetes.

Notes: Just two ponies being cute as always.

Over the years he’s cataloged every smile she has.

The oldest one he can recall is during a playdate as foals. It was small and dainty, like the rest of her had seemed back then, a little nervous and unsure as she pulled out a brand-new game called Dragon Pit and asked shyly if he wanted to play with her. But there was a slight narrow to her eyes, making them guarded and sharp like shards of sapphire. They miss nothing, taking in every little detail of their victim.

These victims tended to be strangers that don’t sit well with her. Not many ponies are at the receiving end of that guarded smile, but there is the occasional pony that she will interact with that would get that smile. When she’d first met his father, he became one of them.

There’s the one he’d seen only hours after reuniting with her. He wasn’t sure if it really counted as a smile, but she’d seemed awed, and surprise tended to stem from positive emotions. Her eyes had been clear and large, brows rising slowly to her hairline as he rattled off his theory to stop the Empire from freezing over. Gradually, her lips parted, her jaw hanging loose, and the corners of her mouth were turned up just the slightest. When she spoke, she sounded breathless.

“That’s amazing.”

If he had been less rattled by the threat outside, he would have taken a moment to analyze the way his pulse quickened when she uttered those words.

Once the Empire was saved, the smile returned in full force, now a true, joyful grin. It’d worried him and pleased him at the same time, still trying to process the events of the last few hours. The smile remained for a while after that, it grew less strained, but also less apparent. The corners of her mouth would tilt slightly at him, but there’d be a slight turn in of the lips that showed resistance. Almost like she was scared to smile at him.

No, scared wasn’t the right word. Worried? No, not quite. Cautious? Probably…

He promised himself to look into a dictionary later on, but he simply never got around to it.

He also didn’t confront her about her smile, as he rarely did at all. There never was a right time, he had no clue how to even start, besides, how weird would it be to tell her he'd been studying her smiles as closely as he studied his books and artifacts?

Time passed, a couple of visits and other end-of-the-world scenarios brought them closer…and then the map called them. While the map sent them on a mission to restore their relationship with their parents, in a way it also served to mend the last bit of awkwardness between them. Despite their blunders, there’s always been a tender place in his heart for her, one that never really went away despite all this time, and spending time with her had reminded him of that.

He told her about it, but he worded it differently so as not to sound too weird and…direct, he supposed. There was something about this feeling he couldn’t put a hoof on, and he decided to wait until he was home to meditate about this. But at the moment he didn’t want to look at it too closely and focused on Starlight’s face instead.

“I guess we make a pretty good team, huh?” She said with a happy, comfortable grin that showed her amusement.

After that, she never used the ‘cautious smile’ on him ever again.

He learned to recognize her sympathetic smile. The one that came with pity-filled eyes, pursed lips, and a quiet sigh, usually reserved when she talked about troublesome students. She used it on him sometimes, when he’s buried in his work and stressed out of his mind, it’s all she needs to get him to stop what he was doing and reassess.

There was the prideful smile that appeared when Twilight praised her or she had done a good job helping Trixie with her performances. He loved sitting in the audience and watch her when she stood in the spotlight and waved at the crowd as her eyes searched for him. He couldn’t be sure but he swore that her grin grew wider when she would spot him, what he was sure of was that he did his best to cheer louder and stomp the ground harder when she spotted him.

Sometimes, when she’s excited about something and feels the need to include him, she’ll put on this open-mouthed smile, grabbing his hoof as she babbled in her excitement, unable (or unwilling) to hide her exhilaration, and her cheeks would flush with her unhindered glee.

It was the smile that she used when she hired him.

After a while of living together, she’d started to pick up on a few of his habits, like biting on her pencil, though she never bit as hard as he did, and he picked on some of hers, like smirking. He could never hope to have the same contagious grin—the one that nicely showcases her wit and pushed her cheeks upwards as she tilts her head in the most adorable ways—but he tried and it never failed to make her laugh.

There was her grateful smile that he’d seen when the legion of doom had been defeated. At the time he hadn’t been sure why he was deserving of that smile, he hadn’t been there to help her when she needed him the most, she faced Chrysalis alone and almost lost. He had looked away, embarrassed, feeling unworthy of her praise, until she placed a gentle hoof under his chin and told him in no uncertain terms that he was as important as anypony else. He appeared just at the right time, he stayed despite the danger, and that’s all that mattered.

Her friendly, everyday smile is small and inviting, and while a little mundane, it manages to brighten any room she’s in.

There’s the smile she wears whenever he goes on a tangent in a classroom filled with bored students, it pulls to the right side of her face and spreads directly out. Her eyes shine with amusement and unspoken mockeries, and she crosses her foreleg over the other while she waits for him to finish.

(Though sometimes she’s too impatient and cuts him off, much to the relief of the classroom.)

She’s always had this maternal smile, a smile that managed to melt any defenses that ponies had up. Whenever he had a particularly long week or felt close to breaking down because of the pressure of responsibilities, she flashed him that smile, eyes gleaming with understanding and she’d invited him to do something to take his mind off his problems, or offer help or advice if he needed it.

The smile she wears during EEA meetings matches his cocky grin perfectly, though hers seems more professional. Her brows are set, furrowed down with determination and sureness. Her eyes two molten pools of blue fire and her grin seems almost strained, as though her opponent wouldn’t be able to handle the full force of her smile.

There were also the ones he didn’t like. The one she uses to hide what she’s feeling, the nervous one, the one that’s is so phony and big that she complains about how her cheeks hurt when they get home. The one she uses when she’s angry or he’s screwed up somehow, the one that’s impossibly large and bears all of her teeth like a warning. It chills him to the bone when he’s the center of her disdain, as rare as those occasions are.

But the ones that come after those, the relieved one, the one that’s full of forgiveness and love, are the best ones.

There’s the carefree smile that appears when she has the day off or she flies her newest kite whenever Rainbow Dash makes the wind blow over Ponyville. It comes with a light laugh, short and sweet, lacking any type of melody. The kind of laugh that pulls at the corner of his lips and compels him to make hot tea for the two of them, be it summer or winter.

The content grin mirrors his own when they’re sitting together on the couch, or when they get home after a long day of running a school to be greeted by the draftiness of the castle.

The challenging smirk she’d given him when she stated that he was a complete lightweight when it came to shots. When he stated that it was the other way around since she was so short, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, because she had understood the challenge underneath and knew it was a bad idea, but she was too stubborn and determined to prove him wrong. She seemed so eager to do something so exciting, even if it was something as mundane as drinking.

There’s the amusing smirk she bore the first time he saw her drunk. It was wobbly and she guffawed at him when he tried (and failed) to impress her with his dancing only to fall painfully to the floor.

There’s the smile she gave him the first time he kissed her. He leaned in and pressed his lips to her grin, his touch making her more flushed than the alcohol had, and her hooves ran through his ‘fluffy red mess’ that was his mane to pull him closer and make him forget about the party and the world in general.

In the morning, the small smile she showed him—partnered with the slight blush of embarrassment and relief—when he told her that he didn’t regret kissing her last night was the most adorable thing he ever saw.

Whenever she feels playful, childish like the pigtails she used to wear as a filly, she’ll stick out her tongue in defiance and wink an eye at him to let him know that he wasn’t imagining the teasing lift of her smile.

The one that comes with the light giggles he receives for pulling her from the brink of tears with a corny joke or a funny memory. One that she hides in his chest as he hugs her and runs a hoof over her back as she collects herself.

The tiny smile that he sees whenever she shows him her poetry. He’s her only reader so far, the only one she wants to share this with, and her eyes would close when he recited the verses back to her.

When she tried to keep her frustrations and stress from showing she flashed a strained smile, the tears shining at the corners of her eyes as she forced herself to laugh in front of others and say that she’s alright. She’s fine, she doesn’t need the extra attention.

“Please, I can do this on my own.” She lied.

There are so many smiles, he knows almost all of them, but he's sure that there are more to discover.

And today, as he tells her about each of her smiles and watches the tears pour down her cheeks in waterfalls, watches her chest shudder with each breath, he tells her:

“And today…today I see my favorite smile, I see a grin larger than mine, a face filled with joy and eyes glimmering with tears of happiness and love. This grin is going to be hard to beat Starlight, but I know that you will, because your smiles are what I’ve found myself living for, and I hope to witness every single one of them during our marriage.” He pulls the ring from his cloak and slips it over her horn. “I love you.”

She chokes back a sob and keeps herself from tackling him in a bear hug, just barely. She looks into his eyes instead, at the calm blue gaze that’s filled with adoration that mirrored her own.

Princess Cadance sniffles a bit, blinking back her own tears, composing herself before she recites the last bit of the ceremony now that the vows are over. “Do you, Sunburst Zenith, take Starlight Glimmer to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love and to cherish until death do you part?”

Sunburst nodded once, affirmatively. “I do.”

“And you, Starlight Glimmer, do you take Sunburst Zenith to be your lawfully wedded husband, to honor and to love until death do you part?”

She sniffled back her tears and answered with a choked voice and several nods. “I do.”

“Then, by the power vested in me by the Elements of Harmony, I hereby pronounce you husband and wife!”

They didn’t wait for the alicorn’s cue, Starlight practically jumped him and Sunburst was more than ready to catch her, their lips joining in a fervent kiss, laughing as Sunburst wiped her tears, even if his own face was blotchy with his own crying.

Cadance laughed and spread her wings. “Dearly beloved! It’s with the greatest joy that I present to you Mr. and Mrs. Zenith!”

Comments

[Jedi Wolf]

Imaginative prompt, and sweet and heartfelt.

[twidash1993]

Just curious? Do you think Sunburst and Sunset are siblings?

[FoolAmongTheStars]

11085109
In canon? Highly unlikely

But in fanfic and in my imagination? Absolutely, I love to write them as siblings