Verse 16
The concert area was an empty lot in the suburbs just outside of Fillydelphia. The town ponies kept the land undeveloped for fairs and flea markets, so the dirt had already been padded down and worn. At one end the stage was nearly assembled, with a number of goat assistants assembling the last of the lightning equipment.
“This… doesn’t look like a good idea.”
Luna raised a brow at Starlight. “Come on, he can’t be that bad.”
“Can’t believe Poppin actually booked you with this guy.” Lightning Dust agreed. “He’s pretty bad news.”
Luna turned and made a face. “You’ve met him?”
“Yep, and now I have some questions for that mare.”
“Poppin’s still on the train from Manehattan.”
“Should’ve let me teleport her,” Starlight said.
“We have time to wait. By the way,” Luna looked to Lightning Dust, “what happened to you with this guy?”
“Tried to sell the Washouts used flamethrowers,” she replied, “almost bought them too until we read the fine print. Apparently they were used and broken.”
“Yikes.”
“Twilight said he’s pretty shady,” Starlight nodded. “His business always seems legit, but you gotta read between the lines.”
“I’ve never even heard of this guy before,” Svengallop shook the dirt from his hooves as he walked on the flattened dirt area in front of the stage. “I don’t like the idea of working with a nobody.”
“Well, we all have to start somewhere,” Luna said.
Tempest looked back to the entrance. Beyond the chain-link fences were tiny portable outhouses, barely large enough for one pony. “Yeah, but could we start somewhere… else? Literally anywhere else.”
Standing before them, a towering minotaur stared with a confused look on his face. “Are--are you talking about Iron Will, right in front of him?” He had a microphone and checklist with the names of a few other performers for the evening.
Lightning Dust sneered at him. “You want us to talk behind your back? ‘Cause I’ll do it. I don’t need a reason, and Svengallop loves to gossip.”
“Gaw, wha--me?” He gasped disingenuously. “No, I would never.”
“Look, Princess,” he got down from the stage to meet Luna head-on, “Iron Will knows there have been many complaints about his services in the past. But, Iron Will would also like to mention that they have been nothing but legitimate. If you read the terms of service for this concert and don’t like it, you are free to leave.”
“See?” Luna turned to her band. “This is perfectly fine, there’s nothing to--oh my gosh! How long is this?”
The terms of service were ten pages long, densely packed with sections and subsections of highly specific and convoluted definitions. There was a whole section simply defining what an “audience member” and “performer” was.
“This has to be some kind of scam, I can’t read through all this!” Luna shoved the papers back to Iron Will. But before he could explain himself, Tempest stepped forward and took the document back from his hands.
“Actually, this is pretty normal for a terms of service agreement,” she said, flipping through the pages. The rest of the Knights took a closer look for themselves and agreed.
“Luna,” Lightning Dust snickered, “have you really never seen one of these before?”
“So what if I haven’t?” Luna’s face flushed red with embarrassment. “In any case, if that’s the normal length, then I suppose I will have to read it.”
“Normally I just ignore these,” Tempest said, “but it sounds like you should probably take your time with this one.”
“Let’s see what we have here,” Luna sighed. “Page one. For the purposes of these terms of service, ‘User’ shall mean you as an individual or the entity you are representing which is accepting these terms of service. “Services” shall mean…”
“...Article Sixteen. Failure to comply to the terms set by this agreement shall render the user liable to termination with Iron Will’s Events and Hosting Co. and--” Luna shut the pile of papers as soon as she scanned the rest of the page. “That’s it, I’ve had enough.”
Svengallop stuck his hoof out at Tempest. “Told you,” he said dryly, sticking out his hoof.
Tempest fished two bits from her travelling bag and tossed them over. “I can’t believe you actually read it all, Luna.”
“Well, you all were scaring me with your stories about Iron Will!”
Luna got out of her seat and paced around the trailer car they had been given. Three other performers were parked next to them, each trailer provided as compliments from Iron Will. Despite their warnings, there didn’t seem to be any of the dangerous fine print that the Knights were worried about.
“Poppin trusts him,” Luna said, “and that’s enough for me. The ticket sales have gone up since two weeks ago, hitting almost a thousand ponies.”
“I still say we keep an eye on him,” Starlight said, skimming through a few pages of the terms, “but he does seem legit. Some pony almost always gets a bad deal when they work with Iron Will, but whoever that is, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be us.”
“So he might screw some pony else over?” Svengallop asked to clarify. “Is it bad that I’m very much okay with that?”
Lightning Dust shrugged. “I’m pretty sure it should be, but honestly, I don’t mind.”
“I’ll give this over to Iron Will and let him know we’re agreed,” Luna said. Just as she was about to leave the trailer, however, a knock came at the door. She opened, expecting Iron Will to be impatiently waiting for her response.
But there in front of her stood six kids from Starlight’s school.
“Hey, hey!” Smolder barged in. “Headmare Starlight, is that you?”
“Smolder!” Starlight jumped and fell back in her seat. “I-I’m just here supporting my friends! What are you doing here?”
Silverstream pushed her way in behind Smolder. “We just heard the craziest rumour from Scootaloo during her tutoring session!”
Smolder shimmied up to Starlight and flashed a smug grin. “You wouldn’t happen to be part of the Nightmare Knights, would you?”
Starlight whipped her head around, looking for help from the other Knights. Sweat suddenly began beading on her forehead. “Pfft, no. That’s crazy, where would I find the time for that? Luna’s just a friend, and I’m helping her out by showing my support for her creative endeavour.”
“More importantly,” Tempest interrupted, “how did a bunch of kids manage to track us down all the way from Ponyville?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Silverstream pointed to Ocellus, who was waiting by the door outside the trailer with the others. “She turned into a bugbear and we all hitched a ride.”
Gallus stuck his head in. “And finding you wasn’t hard, either.” All the kids flashed tickets to the concert. “Luna’s name is listed.”
“Okay, I get that you’re all fans, but seriously, why would Scootaloo think I’m part of a band? I’m pretty sure she was just joking.’”
Altogether the six students pointed to Lightning Dust. “Scootaloo said she heard it from her,” they revealed in unison.
An air of silence fell on the trailer as Starlight’s head slowly turned around towards Lightning Dust. The rest of the Knights decided it was best to leave the two of them to sort out whatever was to come. Luna neatly stacked up the terms of service as Tempest and Svengallop stood next to her.
“Hehe, good luck with all of… this,” Svengallop waved at Lightning Dust as they teleported to safety.
“What do you mean you didn’t know?”
“I just didn’t know!”
“How could you not know?”
The six young students stood watching their Headmare arguing back and forth with her bandmate. The two were at each other’s throats, each blaming the other. Lightning claimed Starlight’s secret was never officially stated to be a secret the whole band had to keep. Starlight claimed Lightning should have had the sense to realize that it was.
Standing furthest back was Yona, looking more uncertain than the rest. Smolder and the others, once they had heard about Starlight’s involvement, gathered up what bits they could and bought tickets to see if it was true. But, sure if Starlight wanted to be found, she would have told her students.
Yona was not sure if this was the best way of discovering the truth.
“Just admit it, Headmare Starlight’s just too good for the rest of us. That’s why you don’t want ponies to find out you’re involved. You’re ashamed of us.”
Starlight gawked, her head darting around as if looking for words to say. “I have never claimed to be better than any pony or creature.”
Lightning’s wings stuck out in frustration. Even if Starlight never said she was better, she lived as if she was. Her second chances, her privileges, not every pony had those. What she was afraid of losing were things other ponies, other villains, did not have.
“But you get treated like it. I made a mistake and I still can’t rejoin the Wonderbolts. But you nearly destroyed the world for revenge, and Princess Twilight ended up giving you a job. You don’t want to be seen with us because you think if ponies found out you’re part of the Knights, they’d think you’re back to where you started, is that it?”
“If you can actually say that, then you don’t understand what I’m dealing with at all,” Starlight snapped.
“You’re right, I don’t. I would never hide something I like to do. And even after both my teams left me behind, I still wouldn’t betray my friends.”
Starlight turned away. She couldn’t believe Lightning Dust was making it look like her fault! Being in a band, that was fine, but she didn’t want her interests to affect her students. If her students saw her on tour with a band, they’d think she wasn’t devoting her time to the school. And then Twilight would hear about it, maybe even question if she was really right for the job!
And of course there was Sunburst. Who could know what kind of stress would be put on him if he thought he had to pick up for her slack?
“Yona told friends this was a bad idea!” The young yak’s voice and stomping hooves shook the trailer. “Friends should not try to expose Headmare Starlight’s secrets.”
“Yeah, but doesn’t Applejack teach us that honesty is what keeps away trouble?” Gallus said. He looked at Starlight. “We weren’t trying to bother you, we just wanted to know the truth.”
She looked at them all. Lightning Dust was, if nothing else, prideful. What ponies thought of her meant very little. But these six young students were everything that the School of Friendship stood for. What they thought was what Starlight cared about the most.
“Gallus, I know you only had good intentions,” she replied to him, “but lying and keeping secrets aren’t always the same. Sometimes, it just means that there are things other creatures don’t need to know about. I really like being in a band, but this kind of music, it’s not something I can separate from my past. I’ll talk to Scootaloo when I get back to Ponyville, but can you six promise me you won’t tell any creature?”
They traded guilty looks at each other. Certainly, none of them wanted to upset Starlight, or get her into a fight with her band. They were simply excited.
“Headmare Starlight,” Sandbar raised his hoof, “I promise we won’t tell any creature, but, why do you want to keep it a secret anyway? Like you said, you’re having fun. And band members are like friends, right? Don’t you want Equestria to see how cool you guys are?”
She gave those words a thought. A band was like friends? They were a little dysfunctional, but she supposed that was true.
“It’s just about keeping my personal and professional lives apart,” Starlight answered, though she herself wasn’t satisfied with how that sounded.
She definitely didn’t need to go around telling everyone she was in a band, but was hiding her involvement necessary? Luna obliged her wishes and kept her name out of any documents regarding the band, so not even Twilight knew about her involvement when they performed in Canterlot.
But now that some of her students knew the truth, what message did it send? That sometimes it’s alright not to stand with your friends? Music was supposed to be more than just business, but she wasn’t treating it as anything else.
“I guess that’s fair,” Smolder nodded, stepping to leave the trailer. “I, uh, guess we’ll see you after the concert, then.”
Starlight snapped out of her own head. “Wait, you’re actually staying to watch us?”
“Heck yeah! It’s Princess Luna, who wouldn’t want to see that?”
They filed out and shut the door behind them, leaving Starlight to come to terms with Lightning Dust. Maybe, she was right. Starlight wanted to keep her lives separate, but she didn’t want the rest of the band to think she wasn’t as invested.
“Lightning Dust, I--”
“Save it,” she got up and stretched. “You wanna talk? Find me when I’m not pissed off.”
Secrets Exposed
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Didn't you almost get Scootaloo killed once because you didn't care about safety regulations?
10355912
Yes she did. But who would expect Lightning Dust to be self-aware of her shortcomings?
“Let’s see what we have here,” Luna sighed. “Page one. For the purposes of these terms of service, ‘User’ shall mean you as an individual or the entity you are representing which is accepting these terms of service. “Services” shall mean…”
“...Article Sixteen. Failure to comply to the terms set by this agreement shall render the user liable to termination with Iron Will’s Events and Hosting Co. and--” Luna shut the pile of papers as soon as she scanned the rest of the page. “That’s it, I’ve had enough.”
Oh my god she actually read the whole paragraph of the rules lol 😆
Yeah you should tell that to flutter shy and twilight About how iron will almost gyp them
Way to go lighting
Well then I'm sure things could a gone a little bit better now starlight Students knows the secrets and Starlight and lightning needs to talk about what just happened