1. Expensive Stationery
“Sunburst, you got a letter!”
Starlight dropped the rest of the junk mail on the living room table while she waited for him to finish with his reading. She took a moment to investigate the envelope in question, curious about the expensive stationery, which felt thick and fancy against her magic. The creme color screamed class, and the elegant writing of Sunburst’s name only added to the scheme. Intrigued, her eyes moved up to read the return address but it was rudely snatched from her magical grasp. “Hey!”
Sunburst looked at her sternly. “It’s rude to read another pony’s mail, you know that?”
“Of course I do!” Starlight huffed, blushing slightly. “I just wanted to see who it was from.”
Sunburst hummed sarcastically in agreement, bringing his eyes to rest on the envelope he’d snatched. “Well, it’s from…” he trailed off before frowning. “It’s from my family.”
Starlight perked up. “Oh?” The way he said family made her curious. Sunburst rarely talked about his family, and Starlight had assumed that it was because he didn’t have anypony besides his mother. However, he didn’t say “my mom” as he usually did, with a fond but slightly exasperated smile, but “my family” with something more akin to disdain, looking at the expensive envelope like it might explode in his face. “Well, aren’t you going to open it?”
He shrugged, twirling the letter in the air. “Maybe. Or I might burn it.”
She put a hoof to her chest, slightly taken aback by his extreme answer. “Sunburst!”
He held out a placating hoof. “Hey, you don’t know my dad. If he’s trying to get in contact with me, it’s not to wish me well.”
Starlight sighed. “Sunburst, I’m sure he’s not as bad as you’re making him out to be, you should at least read the letter, maybe it’ll surprise you.”
Sunburst stared at her for a moment before grumbling and tearing the envelope open. With a slightly revolted look, he dropped the torn envelope to the floor before unfolding the letter and holding it at a leg's length from his face as he read. For a moment a scowl dominated his features, but it was quickly replaced by a look of horror.
As the letter began to shake in his magic, Starlight reached out and poked his shoulder. “Sunburst?”
“Huh?” He answered lamely, still staring dumbly at the letter, his eyes quickly reading and re-reading. There must have been a mistake. He read it a third time. Oh, crap.
“Sunburst?” Starlight tried again, reaching out for the letter, but before she could, he turned on his heel and fled towards his room. She was shocked for a moment before she ran after him. “Sunburst, what’s wrong!?”
She dug her hooves in the crystal hallway and skidded to a halt in front of Sunburst’s room. She peered through the door and saw Sunburst on the floor, digging for a suitcase from under his bed. Completely ignoring his friend, he recklessly grabbed random items and stuffed them haphazardly into his bag. It was only when Starlight snatched a book from his bookshelf and smacked him behind the head with it that he finally paid her attention.
“What!?” He yelped, already trying to close his overstuffed bag.
“Sunburst, what’s gotten into you?” Starlight snapped, waving the book menacingly at him.
“I have to go,” he answered, sitting on top of his suitcase and closing it. “I’ll be back in…a month, maybe? Yeah, that should be long enough, should be gone by then, right? Yeah, that will work.”
“Sunburst!”
“Just get on the train and go! He will never find me in the Crystal Empire, there are some pretty deep catacombs underneath the castle, Cadance would let me in if I ask…wait, no, that won’t work, I have to run!”
Starlight had no idea what her friend was babbling about, but it was honestly getting on her nerves. When he stood up with his suitcase and saddlebags in tow, Starlight struck again. “You’re not going anywhere!” She said as she let the hardcover meet his skull once more.
“Starlight, stop! That’s a first edition!” Sunburst cried in dismay as he cradled the bump in his head. “What was that for?”
“For babbling like an idiot,” she glared at him. “Now, tell me what’s going on?”
Sunburst met her glare with one of his own, but he couldn’t hold her gaze for long, and he dropped it with a sigh. “My dad. My dad is coming to visit.”
It took an hour and another series of threats against his book collection before Sunburst finally calmed down enough to sit on the couch, but he sat on the very edge of his seat, and Starlight had been unable to pry the bags from his grip.
“Now, what’s this all about?” Starlight sighed, sitting down next to her friend, ready to grab him in case he tried to bolt again. “It’s just your dad.”
Sunburst let out a bark of hollow laughter. “Just my dad. You have no idea Starlight. If he’s coming here in pony, and not trying to get me to go to him, it means it’s something serious.”
Starlight rolled her eyes at his theatrics. “Like what, Sunburst? What could he possibly do to you?”
“Make me leave.” He stated plainly as he stared at the ground.
Starlight’s blood ran cold. “What?”
“He could pressure me to go to Canterlot with him,” he whispered. “He knows ponies in pretty high places, if he wanted, he could make up some excuse to make me go with him.”
Starlight shook her head, “He can’t do that, you’re a grown pony, you get to make your own choices.”
Sunburst looked at her. “Want to bet? Like it or not, he’s still my father, and he’s highly influential in the academic circles of Canterlot. He cut me off when I flunked out of magic school, practically threw me out the street. My mom was the only reason I was able to get back on my hooves,” he sighed as he dropped his bag, running a hoof over his thick orange mane. “He was so mad when I dropped out.”
“He threw you out? Just for that?” Starlight stared at him with wide eyes and waited for him to continue. Sunburst rarely talked about his past, and she knew better than to pry, but she never imagined how hard it must have been for him.
“Remember when we were little and all we did was practice magic? My mom encouraged my talent, but my dad was the one who pressured me to do more and be better. So when my cutie mark appeared, he didn’t hesitate to use his connections to get me into magic school.”
Sunburst sighed and closed his eyes, his ears folded against his head. “It was fine, at first, but I quickly lagged behind…I hated it, I knew I had no talent, but my dad wanted me there, and I desperately wanted to make him proud. So I stayed. I studied as hard as I could and pushed myself every single day. And he would smile at my bad grades and tell me I would do better next time, that if I just hang on for one more semester he would let me drop out, but it never happened, he lied to me.”
His jaw tightened as he went silent, looking down at the floor with shame. Starlight scooted closer to her friend and gently took his hoof in hers, giving him a reassuring squeeze, and it calmed him enough to continue.
“Then one day…I just lost it. I had done poorly in the tests again and I couldn’t take it anymore. I refused to go to school, no matter how much my dad begged or threatened me, I didn’t listen. We got into a fight and I told him I hated him…and it all went downhill from there. I didn’t go to class, heck, I barely left my room.” Sunburst’s grip on her hoof tightened. “A few weeks later, my dad had enough, he told me I either had to pull myself together or leave his house. The choice wasn’t hard, I packed my things and left. My dad didn’t give me any money, probably to get me to stay, but I had enough and used what I had to get a train back to Sire’s Hollow.”
“Sunburst…I'm so sorry, I had no idea,” Starlight said gently, after a moment of silence. “But would seeing him after all this time really be that bad? Maybe this means he wants to make things right?”
He returned his eyes to the floor, taking a deep breath. "No, it just means that I have to get the heck out of here!”
Starlight jumped just as Sunburst let go of her hoof, leaping to his feet as he scooped up his bags once more. How did he go from somber storyteller to conspiracy nutjob so quickly? Sighing, she used her magic to stop him, lifting him in the air before he could run out the door and pull him back in.
It wasn’t easy, Sunburst was surprisingly heavy, and he fought her every step of the way, but she gritted her teeth and grunted as she dragged him back to his room. If Sunburst’s dad was coming to visit, then they had to clean the castle first, to show him that his son was doing just fine without him.
And on the off chance that Sunburst was right about his reason for visiting…
Well, he would have to get through her first.
“Starlight,” Sunburst whined as he continued to pace back and forth in the sitting room, his friend standing between him and his only escape route. “I cleaned the castle and my room, now let me go! I told Trixie that we would hang out today. I promise to be back before my dad gets here.”
Starlight raised an eyebrow, fixing Sunburst with a piercing glare. “She’s in Las Pegasus for the weekend.”
“I-I meant Big Mac.” Scowling, Starlight reached out and pulled a book from the counter, the implied threat hanging in the air. “...Rainbow Dash?”
“Sunburst, I’ll be with you the entire time, you got nothing to worry about. I’m sure your dad just wants to see you.”
He shook his head. “He wants something from me! And I don’t like it!”
Starlight sighed, dropping the book back on the counter. He had been like this all week, nothing she said or did could convince him otherwise. He was resolute in his belief that his father was up to no good. Starlight, on the other hoof, wanted to meet the stallion and let him prove himself before she cast any judgment.
“Sunburst, everything will be fine, I promise you.” She crossed the room and wrapped her forelegs around him. “Just calm down, okay?”
He relaxed slightly underneath the familiar touch, and he wrapped his hooves around her. “Okay…I think I’m better now, you’re right, maybe it won’t be so bad…”
Starlight smiled and started to pull away until a firm knocking on the castle’s door reached her ears. She sighed and tightened her embrace instead, holding Sunburst still as he tried to bolt once again. “Let me go! I’m not going back!”
Thrashing wildly, he finally managed to break free from her grip, only to stumble to the side and crash onto the coffee table, knocking over a mug of tea he had yet to clean up from this morning breakfast. Sunburst groaned and pulled at his now sticky and drenched cape, and tried to wipe the dark blot of tea that stained his chest.
Starlight helped him up and nudged him not too gently towards the stairs. “Get cleaned up, right now, and you better get back here in five minutes.”
He listened to his friend and nodded, crab walking towards the stairs, his eyes never leaving the front door.
Rolling her eyes at his actions, Starlight cleaned up the mess with a flash of her magic and pranced over towards the door. She took a moment to smooth her mane and brushed the bangs out of her eyes, even though they were as neat as ever. She squared her shoulders and opened the door, making sure to plaster a pleasant smile on her face.
“Hello, Mr. Sunspot, I’m…” Starlight trailed off as she opened the door and the stallion came into full view. She blinked, swearing that her eyes were playing tricks on her, for this stallion looked exactly like Sunburst, but older. His orange mane was peppered with gray, especially on the sideburns that framed his face, but he still boasted a full and thick mane. Age had carved lines around his mouth and crow's feet to his purple eyes, framed by a pair of square glasses, but they just served to add an air of maturity to him. His coat was a lighter shade of yellow, and he lacked the white socks that his son had, a trait he inherited from Stellar no doubt, but the white blaze of his muzzle was the same. Starlight wondered if this was what Sunburst would look like in thirty years or so.
“Starlight Glimmer,” he finished for her with a light laugh. Even his voice was nice, deeper but eerily similar to Sunburst’s baritone. “My, how have you grown, please, just call me Sunspot.” He smiled, giving Starlight a once over with a similar gentle look that Sunburst possessed, though his stare didn’t leave her feeling embarrassed or judged in the slightest, she actually felt…appreciated? “Last time I saw you, you barely reached my knees. I’m glad you’re still good friends with my son. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been very forthcoming with information, I can’t believe he didn’t tell me just how breathtaking you've grown up to be.”
Starlight choked. Her? Breathtaking? This stallion was complimenting her? Swallowing hard, she remembered her manners. “I, huh, thank you, Mister—I mean, Sunspot. Please, come in.”
Smiling, the stallion entered the castle, following Starlight quietly into the sitting room. “So, Starlight, where’s my son? No doubt locked in his room.”
Starlight nodded. “I’ll go get him, I think he’s in his room. Oh! Please, have a seat, I’ll make some tea…a-after I get Sunburst, of course.”
Sunspot smiled and sat on the couch, waiting patiently as Starlight teleported out of the room. She reappeared in Sunburst’s room without warning him first. “Sunburst, what are you—Sunburst!”
“I’m not going back!” He said as he tossed a rope he made out of the sheets of his bed through the window, which he had tied one end to his four-poster bed. “I’m pretty sure if I land on those bushes, I won’t break my legs, then I can run away!”
Sunburst crouched down on the sill and leaped to freedom, but Starlight, feeling her temper rise, jumped after him and caught the hem of his cape with her teeth, pulling him back into his room with a growl. “Sunburst! Get back here and talk to your dad!”
“No, you do it!”
“I already did and he seems perfectly nice! Stop being such a baby!”
“Nuh-huh!”
“Sunburst!”
“Starlight!”
“...I do hope I’m not interrupting anything,” a gentle voice called from the hallway before Sunspot entered the room. “Hello, son, it’s been a long time.”
Starlight heard Sunburst gulp loudly.
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Upvoted with no hesitation because there’s no doubt of its quality
If this is the kind of stuff you put out as a stop gap, I don’t know what I’ll feel at your next big project! It’s about time Sunburst got to experience the panic, you have me hooked, Sunspot’s motivations remain very… suspect… 😉
11140625
hehe thanks! Hope you enjoy the ride!
I've seen many parents like that in my time in education, sadly. The key question in that case if is they genuinely want what is best for their child, or (as I suspect is the case here) it gives them something to boast about.
Ummm Sunburst I think any connections your dad has pale in comparison to YOuR connections! Effectively family too all the princesses, by being Flurry Heart's godfather in effect. Vice-headstalliion of the School of friendship, good friends with the Changeling King.
That does how ever mean his dad wants something from him still, his dad doesn't have the pull to force him back to Canterlot or Magic School, but he can still try to use Sunburst's political and academic standing to his advantage.
This looks really fun! Gonna be following this one closely!
Consider me hooked.
This entire first chapter was a treat. Can’t wait to see what happens next.
On a side note, are Starlight and Sunburst a couple in this story? Also, we are talking about Twilight’s castle in Ponyville, right?
11142918
Thanks! I hope you enjoy the rest as well!
To answer your questions: no, they're not together in this story, and yes, they're living in Twilight's castle.
11143065
Ah, I see. I’m excited to see what the [Romance] tag is for, then. Don’t tell me; I don’t wanna be spoiled.
If you need to borrow a character for a background bit, let me know.
This whole sequence makes me suspicious and I don’t like it.