Threshold
Sandbar breathlessly pushed open the door to Starlight Glimmer’s office, ignoring the ‘be back soon’ sign and casting one last glance down the hall to see if anyone was watching. He swallowed nervously and tried to keep his smile under control when he saw the resident guidance counselor sitting behind her desk, doodling on a sheet of paper. She was waiting there just for him. He felt his lungs tighten while his heart revved.
Starlight’s eyes flicked up to meet his and he was taken aback when he saw apprehension in them instead of excitement. His face fell slightly as he took a seat before the desk.
“Sandbar,” she greeted cordially, pushing the leaf of paper aside and straightening into an uncomfortably wooden looking posture. “How have you been?”
“Uh, pretty good,” he mumbled, trying to get a new read on the situation.
“That’s good.” The pink unicorn gritted her teeth, eyes flitting about the room as she tried to couple her very delicate train of thought. She cleared her throat and began absently twirling her hoof in circles on the desk. “I-I brought you here because, heh... well, do you remember, oh… last month some time when you came into my office because you were worried about your ability to self motivate and I suggested things like keeping a schedule, taking frequent breaks and getting out of your room more?”
Sandbar scratched the back of his neck, still not exactly sure where she was going with this. “And then we had sex on your desk and you said not to tell anyone because you’d be in a lot of trouble?” he shrugged.
Starlight laughed nervously through a forced smile. “Yep. That’s- that’s the time I was talking about. You remember it alright.”
Sandbar furrowed his brow in confusion. Did she seriously think he’d forgotten about that? That ‘meeting’ was burned vividly into his brain. He’d never forget it. In fact he had yet to go a day since without thinking about it or Starlight in general. It was all so unreal, like a dream come to life.
“So,” continued Starlight cautiously.
Here we go, thought Sandbar, his heart skipping a beat.
“How are you doing with your self motivation now?”
“Oh, um, better,” he smiled, shifting forward in his seat. “I tried your suggestions and I think taking more walks was actually the most helpful.”
“Good! That’s really great to hear,” Replied Starlight, still sporting a strained grin. She paused, once again trying to gather the courage to tackle the real issue and then they soon found themselves caught in an awkward silence.
Sandbar was pretty certain he knew why Starlight had called him to her office during what was usually her lunch break and it had nothing to do with guidance counseling. Why is she being so coy about this now, he wondered. Maybe she wanted him to initiate this time. Before he could test the waters, Starlight was already drunkenly stumbling through her next thought.
“Well you might also remember on that particular day how I assured you it was ‘safe.’” She made dubious use of air quotes.
The usually relaxed and unflappable Sandbar suddenly became petrified as warning lights flashed in his head. “Are you saying it wasn’t safe?” he managed to ask through his constricting throat.
Starlight took a big shaky breath and braced herself on the desk. “There's no easy way to say this, so, In short… yes. I made a miscalculation. I’m pregnant and it’s definitely yours.”
The green earth pony’s blood ran cold. He could feel the entire world crumbling under his hooves. He was falling. Literally, he was falling. Sandbar slumped over the side of his chair and hit the floor with a thud.
The next thing Sandbar remembered was an incredible stench that felt like a pair of nails plunging into his nostrils. His eyes shot open to see Starlight looking down at him, levitating a broken ampule to his nose with her magic. He lurched into a sitting position on the floor, wheezing and clutching his muzzle, trying to dispel the awful sensation.
“Are you okay?” asked Starlight in concern. “I’m really sorry. I wasn’t expecting you to just drop like that.”
Sandbar simply nodded as he staggered back into his chair with one hoof still at his nose. Fresh panic gripped his mind as he squeezed his head between his hooves. “W-what are we gonna do?” he blurted, looking like he was about to cry.
Starlight looked into his eyes and felt an awful pang of regret for putting him in this situation and began to second guess whether or not this was the right way to go about doing this. She’d love nothing more than to get a second opinion from Twilight Sparkle on the matter, however, the number one pony she wanted to talk to about this was unfortunately also her boss and the last pony she could talk to about this. It would ruin Starlight’s job, the school, their friendship, her apprenticeship and that was to say nothing of the legal jeopardy she’d be in. This was a friendship lesson that their curriculum didn’t cover.
She put a comforting hoof on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Sandbar. I’ve already decided I’m going to terminate the pregnancy.”
Sandbar tried to take deep, slow breaths. “You mean like an abortion?”
“Sort of,” she nodded, sitting down in the chair next to him. “It’s more like reversing the process until it blinks back out of existence. I'm not happy about it but things being the way they are, I don’t really see another option here. I can do it myself. Nopony will know except you and me.”
“Well,” he thought aloud. “I’m not gonna argue with you on that.” He certainly couldn’t be a parent. He was still in school. And if he couldn’t be a parent, it seemed unreasonable to expect Starlight to be one. Not to mention that the moment anypony even knew she was pregnant she’d have a lot of lying to do. Sandbar sighed in despair. “Wow, I totally thought this meeting was going a different direction.”
Starlight laughed weakly. “Sorry to disappoint you. I almost didn’t call you here at all. I could have not told you about any of this and just done it and you wouldn’t have to faint on my floor or be kept up at night thinking about it. You could just be a student worrying about school and this problem wouldn’t even occupy your mind but somehow… I just thought that you should know.” The more she thought about it, the more she wished she hadn’t done this. It just didn’t seem worth the possibility of destroying a sensitive young stallion. But maybe that ship had already sailed the moment she gave into her biological urges. In a moment of weakness she’d selfishly shoved him into the adult world with both hooves. Starlight shook her head. “I know I’m supposed to be the guidance counselor here but I don’t know what the right thing to do is.”
“So, what does this mean for us?” he asked, worriedly.
Starlight blinked. “What do you-” She looked into his eyes and stopped mid sentence. They were still full of longing and uncertainty. Oh no, she thought. To him this wasn’t just about getting lucky or avoiding a life changing catastrophe. He was actually infatuated with her. He had been since they first met in the hall and he asked her where his classroom was and he saw her smile and the way her tiered mane fell about her shoulder. But of course he never said anything. How could he?
Starlight’s lips quivered. “Sandbar… I like you a lot. You’re so easy to talk to. You always bring out the best in everyone around you. But I'm afraid this just isn’t in the cards. You know we can’t have a real relationship, physical or romantic. What I did was a mistake and I’m so sorry if I made you think we could be something.”
Sandbar’s face contorted like he’d just been punched in the gut. “What if... when I was older though?”
Starlight sighed in sadness. “You still have some developing to do yet, you know? You and your classmates are going to change so much in such a short amount of time. You’ll meet a lot of new ponies… and creatures.” How could she do this without crushing him? “I mean… I’m not going to say it can never happen, because much stranger things have happened. I’m just saying… You’ll grow and I think you’ll move on.”
“Oh,” he nodded with a deflated look. “Well, you’re the guidance counselor so you’re probably right even if it really doesn’t feel like it to me right now.”
Aww, that’s the sweetest thing that anypony’s ever said to me, thought Starlight, her insides turning to mush. She turned away to surreptitiously wipe an errant tear from her eye. “Well, until we meet some day on the other side of adulthood, how about a nice, platonic hug?”
He nodded wistfully and held out his forelegs for her. They held one another in a long, not entirely just friends way. Whatever happened they’d always share this insane, albeit brief, moment for the rest of their lives.
Sandbar walked slowly to the door. It was going to take him a while to sort all of this out. He paused at the threshold and looked back at her. “Counselor Glimmer... Thanks for telling me about all this. Even though it didn’t feel good, I feel like… you treated me like an adult, like you trusted I was mature enough to handle it. That means a lot to me, especially coming from you.”
“Of course, Sandbar," she smiled. "And don’t forget that you can always come back and talk to me about anything.”
He smiled weakly back at her and nodded before departing. The door clicked shut.
Starlight sighed in relief and then smiled to herself. “He’s going to be fine. I guess maybe I handled that okay after all.” Her smile abruptly vanished. “After I really screwed things up.”
Such was the only way Starlight Glimmer could learn anything.
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Short and neat, I liked it.
It’s too bad this has so many downvotes. I think it’s an intriguing topic and a good piece of writing. Well done!
11055633
Thanks!
I'm completely certain the topic alone is WHY it has all the downvotes. 🤷
Very strange fic. I'm not going to rate it, but i'm very curious as to why this was written. What inspired you? I'd love to know.
11055664
Oh, I don't know. I REALLY like putting characters in adult situations, (not clop) but dramatic, emotionally charged situations where someone gets hurt bad. I wanted to make a story about an unwanted pregnancy in a complicated relationship. I never PLANNED or even wanted to talk about abortion but I was forced to confront the issue as the story developed and I had to decide realistically how the characters would respond to a very delicate and complex situation. I could have written the story to skirt the issue entirely and have them run away together or Starlight get some other stallion to pose as the bio dad of her illicit love child for the rest of their lives but that would have just left us with a fantastical, somewhat naive take on an issue that I wanted to feel real. I didn't want to do that so here we are, for better of for worse...
11055698
Understandable and perfectly reasonable. I hope you learned a lot with this experiment and had fun writing it and expressing your curiosities.
Not my usual genre, but interesting, nevertheless.
Very straight-to-the-point. Motivations of characters clear. I almost filled-in-the-blank and (incorrectly) "predicted" that Sandbar would want to stop Starlight from undoing the pregnancy.
11078897
Thanks for the comment! Since it's not your usual genre, what attracted you to the story?
11079038
The fact that it is not my usual genre; sometimes I stumble upon stories I like, which lie outside my genres, and I picked your semi-randomly.
I guess I was in a mood to explore drama this time.
To say that I was blown away with this story is to compare the glow of a matchstick to the sun itself. I find that, upon meditating on this story for the past few days, the words with which to describe how much I enjoyed this escape my grasp. But here's my best attempt!
As usual, I'll start with the flaws and technicalities, of which I couldn't seem to find any. However, I'm not a narrow-minded individual, and I'm not blind to the ratio of upvotes to downvotes either, so I had to think about what could've caused that and why people could've disliked this fic. Is it because of the statutory nature of the relationship? It could be, but it'd be a very surface-level gripe. After all, this story doesn't paint what Sandbar and Starlight have as good, in fact, it paints it as something that heaved Sandbar out of his childhood and into 'the adult world.' Something that isn't fair, that isn't right, and that will have lasting and visceral consequences for both of them moving forward with their lives. So that doesn't make any sense because this story doesn't champion this relationship as something moral and desirable, or beyond that, acceptable. Stick a pin in this because I want to visit it later.
Is it the inclusion of a pseudo-abortion within the fic? I understand that this is a very divisive issue, but considering the ways Starlight's pregnancy could be handled, the way you did it was by far the most thought-out and realistic of the options. You could've, as you said in your comment, had Starlight get a stallion to pose as the father, and she could've ran away with Sandbar as well. These both skirt the issue, which betrays the point of the story, that being, having this miserable, difficult conversation between two characters. So really, it was the most rational outcome of this issue and reinforced what the story is. Stick a pin in this too.
Now, these things aside, I wanna get into what I LOVED about this fic. First and foremost, I love the way the tone fell so suddenly from cloud nine down to earth. The way the conversation shifted so suddenly made me feel like I swallowed a hot lead ball, and this is what I loved so much about this story. It made me feel that sudden shock of a conversation or situation suddenly turning very serious, and it did so without flinching. And this feeling was made all the more impactful by having Sandbar, a naive kid who thinks he's getting lucky having to face what Starlight pushed him into, however willingly. Other writers might have handled this story with gentler hands and may have dodged around the issue, but you didn't. You charged right into it with maturity. It hurt, it was miserable, it was grueling, but never once did it shy away or attempt to rush through the issue or its tremendous gravity. It was like staring at a lovely painting and watching it catch fire and melt without blinking.
Now, take the pins out. I want to give explicit praise for the way you handled what is effectively a magical abortion. I'm pro-choice, ergo, I believe the autonomy of a pregnant person's body is that of the pregnant person's and no one else's. They alone can decide if they want to go through the arduous process of carrying a child to term and then the complete life-altering journey of having and raising a kid. To that end, Starlight being able to control whether or not she gets pregnant puts the ball in her court, and autonomy over her body completely within her grasp and her grasp alone. It might be a small thing, perhaps just a throwaway explanation for a plot device, but it's well thought out and correct in its politics. Moreover, Starlight's decision to bring Sandbar in, tell him she's pregnant, tell him she's going to reverse the pregnancy and cut things off after a single time displays two things: A very flawed character, one that gives in to her impulses without thinking of the weight of them or their consequences. But it also shows maturity in her cutting it off and actually talking through the dilemma, and not taking any number of the easy outs available to her. It never felt like these two were a fairy-tale romance or some kind of weird depiction of relations between a minor and an adult, it felt like Starlight made a mistake and had to face it. The prose, the refined dialogue, the weight and punch of every word made me feel like I was watching a river of flowing fine wine more than reading words on a screen.
This all said, my impression of you as a writer is that you're not afraid of your own shadow. You go through these topics, and more far more horrific and gruesome, with such maturity, finesse, and thought. Your work keeps me on edge, it surprises me, it makes me feel like I'm wading through trenches, it knocks me on my ass, it makes me feel. To that end, and to put it very simply, you're a marvelous writer with an excess of talent and a shortage of recognition.
11174286
I'm convinced the wonky rating is mostly just from including abortion as a topic. I sometimes wonder what it would be if I hadn't put the A-word warning in the description at all and just let people stumble upon it. It's not like she does it in the story. SHE JUST MENTIONS IT. But, like it, hate it, Hardly anyone ever mentions the A-word in the comments. It's weird to think that that content alone caused a significant negative reaction but no one's actually going to say so.
It's nice to hear it described as "mature" since that's the laurel I've wanted to grasp ever since I started writing for fun.
Ironically, having discussions about this story made me want to write an immature, wholesome, running away together story which I already did.
Thanks for your words of encouragement.
I like the last line. imho it really works.
11668639
It makes it feel like a bedtime story fairytale told by a kindly old man and the final shot is the camera panning out of an old storybook with yellowed pages.