A Taste of Her Own Medicine

by origami

Chapter 8

Something jolted Starlight from her sleep. Quickly looking around for the source of the disruption to her sleep, she discovered that she wasn't on a train heading to Canterlot. Instead, she was back in her home in her village, laying on her couch.

"What's going on?" she thought as she stood up and examined her surroundings, finding nothing of her old home amiss. "Where did those six go?"

She moved next to her front door. Opening it, she looked out to see her village, and everypony in it going about their morning. Stallions and mares offered polite, yet unenthusiastic greetings to one another as they passed. Foals were quietly making their way to the designated schoolhouse for the day's lesson. Even the youngest foals in the village were rather quiet as far as children went.

The sight confused Starlight greatly.

"What's everypony doing?" she thought to herself. "I thought everypony got their cutie marks back from the vault?"

Spotting a familiar stallion walking in front of her house, Starlight called out to him.

"Diamond!"

The white pony turned and looked at her with a half-smile. "Good morning, Starlight."

"What's everypony doing?"

Diamond looked at her confused. "What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?! Why doesn't everypony have their cutie mark?!"

The stallion laughed. "Because everypony gave them up, just like you asked us to."

"But what about the six mares?! The ones that came here because that map sent them?!"

Again, Diamond chuckled. "I think you may have come down with something, Starlight. We haven't had any new ponies come here for a while. Do you think we need to find some more to recruit?"

Starlight went to further rebutt his statements, but stopped as she looked back at her flanks. Instead of the mark she had earned in the forest as a filly, the charcoal-grey equal sign sat in its place. The sight of the mark only confused the mare even more than she already was.

"But... I could've sworn..."

"Are you okay, Starlight?" Diamond asked, his laughter having ceased and genuine concern now present in his voice.

"Uh, yeah," she answered him after a moment. "Just, uh, had a strange dream. I thought it was still going on for a moment. Go ahead and go back to what you were doing."

"Are you sure?" he prodded, not entirely convinced by her response.

"I'm sure," she replied, giving an additional head nod. "Go ahead and get back to whatever you were doing."

Diamond stayed in place for a moment before he decided to let things go. "Okay. Just... if you're not feeling well, don't be afraid to talk to somepony."

"I will," she said with a smile, hoping it would get the stallion to go about his business.

It did, as Diamond continued walking towards his original objective. Starlight stepped back inside and closed the door. Quickly, she locked the door, drew her curtains shut and went over to her vanity. Grabbing a bucket of water, she dumped it on her flanks. The painted-on cutie mark was quickly dispelled, and her natural cutie mark was revealed underneath it.

Dropping the bucket, she sat down on the stool and looked at her reflection in the mirror.

What is happening? she asked aloud to herself. I could swear it was real!

Those six mares showing up, me taking their marks, them revealing my deception, the village turning against me and taking my mark, my escape attempt, and my attempt at revenge!

It all felt so real!

Was it really all just a dream?

Shaking her head, she sat down and went about reapplying the fake cutie mark, covering over natural one with paint matching her coat color, drying it on, and then adding the equal sign in its place. However, when she got to adding the fake mark, she paused.

Did she really want to do this? After what had happened?

But... did it actually happen?

She shook her head and added the mark. What was real and what wasn't could wait until later. If she stayed in her house too much longer, ponies would start to get curious and pay her a visit, and she wasn't in a good state of mind for house guests.

---

Stepping out of her house for the day, Starlight saw her villagers going to and from each other's homes. Just as in the main portion of Equestria, small towns often had homes double as businesses, with ponies being things such as bakers, tailors, contractors, or artisans. So, each did what they could to support the other villagers, while also supporting themselves.

It was a good system, Starlight thought, that ponies worked to support each other, and everypony reaped the benefits in the grand scheme of things.

Her thoughts turned to her usual to-do list as leader. First would be checking with the ponies responsible for food and finding out what they would need. To that end, her first stop would be to Sugar Belle to see if she would need any of her ingredients.

Finding the mare at this time of day was a no-brainier; look for the hungry ponies getting breakfast. Sure enough, there was a crowd gathered around a home with some outdoor tables set up outside. Approaching with a smile, Starlight went ti greet some of the gathered ponies eating there.

However, as soon as she got close, a few of them took notice of her and immediately hushed their conversation.

Seeing this caused Starlight to pause in step. What were they talking about that they wouldn't want her overhearing?

"Starlight?"

Her train of thought was interrupted by Sugar Belle, who noticed Starlight's approach and moved to meet her.

"Hi Sugar Belle. Just checking to see if you need any ingredients for your baked goods."

"My muffins?"

"Uh, yeah, those."

Sugar Belle thought for a moment before shaking her head. "Nope, I have everything I need for the recipe."

"Okay. Just let me know when you need anything and we'll make sure you get it."

"I will," Sugar Belle replied, giving a small smile as Starlight turned to walk away.

The lilac mare and village leader was about to move on, but she took an extra second to look over the baker mare.

Did her smile always look that forced? she pondered to herself.

Shaking the thought from her head, she moved on to the ponies that took care of whatever clothing items may be needed. Granted, there wasn't much needed in the way of clothing, but things for the rainy weather and hats for the really sunny and hot days were good reasons to maintain a small wardrobe.

Coming to another house in the two rows, Starlight saw Silk Loom, a mare and dressmaker, sitting at a table and working on her namesake. "Hello, Loom," she greeted as she waved a hoof.

"Good morning, Starlight," came the mare's reply. "Anything I can make for you today?"

"Oh, Thank you, but I have all I need. I actually came by to see if you need any more material for clothes."

"Well, I think we have all we need. Got all the colors in the wheel right here in my basket."

Loom opened a basket and pointed to each small bolt of fabric, rattling off the names of each color visible.

"I got my beige, taupe, eggshell, cream, wheat, mint, robin egg blue-"

"I see you have what you need," Starlight cut her off. "Just let me know if you get low or run out of something. I'll be sure to place an order for it."

"Will do," Loom answered, closing the lid on the basket, but not before Starlight took notice of a swath of fabric colored hot pink.

I thought that was a color that we deemed too unique? Starlight thought, but dismissed just as quickly; she had more stops to make.

---

Starlight finished her rounds feeling more confused and conflicted about what she saw. After speaking with Silk Loom, she next saw Bonded Guild, the contractor and architect who helped design and build the village. He did have need of materials, as well as some new tools to replace some of his old and worn ones. She made note of the request and left, but not before making a mental note of Guild's apparent distaste for plans he had to construct new homes for any new residents which may find their way to the village.

It can't be because of having to build the homes; Bonded has always loved to do stuff like that, Starlight reasoned to herself. Is there something in the building plans that isn't to his liking? Perhaps, but why not talk to me about it?

The last stop was what she referred to as the village artisans, but calling them that was only a technicality. In truth, they were potters, mostly. Each of them made various types of pottery, only adding some simple glazes with very limited ranges of color added to them.

The only pony that wasn't a potter was the blacksmith, and he mostly crafted very basic necessities, none of which had any kind of flare to them.

They also made a request of Starlight, with the potters needing more glaze for their pots, and the blacksmith requiring more iron to make items Bonded Guild would need for his building project. The mare jotted down the needs and left them, but couldn't help but overhear the group talking about how they somehow located a magazine with information about a new glaze pigment that made it look like the pot was made of genuine rainbow, and then lamenting how they wouldn't be able to get it.

Making her way back to her home at around what she figured was lunch time, Starlight kept pondering everything she had seen. The ponies in town didn't act any differently than they had before, for the most part; she didn't recall any of them ever sneaking around before...

...or did they?

Had she been so oblivious before now that she never noticed ponies talking in hushed whispers behind her back?

Or worse yet, had she noticed and simply chose to be woefully ignorant of them?

Without thinking, Starlight opened the door and walked in. After closing and locking it, she turned and sat down on the floor by the entrance.

"None of this makes sense," she thought out loud. "I know those mares came here the day before, and I know they exposed me and freed everypony's marks yesterday, so why is everything set back like it never happened?"

"Starlight?"

The sudden voice caught the mare off guard, and prompted her to finally look up and over at her couch.

Sitting there with a tea set and several cups were Double Diamond and a second stallion. The newcomer gave a sheepish smile and waved one of his white hooves at her. Diamond looked at her and then made a gesture towards the stallion.

"We had a newcomer approach the village," the stallion explained. "He said he heard about what we were doing and wanted to check it out. I started to explain how everything works around here and mentioned your name. He said he knows you from way back when you grew up in a town called Sire's Hollow. Do you know him?"

Starlight adopted her own sheepish smile. "I do, Diamond, but it's been a long time. We were still foals when he went away to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns."

The lilac mare then turned to the new stallion and gave him a wave.

"Hello, Sunburst."

Author's Note:

Happy Belated New Year!

I've been working on this story since a few days after Christmas and actually have several chapters that I've finished and only need to review and spell-check before posting them here. With how the ideas for this one are flowing, I'm tempted to write this story to its completion before I move on to the others, but I have ideas for those other stories and want to get those ideas down before I lose them. Regardless, I have more chapters which I will be posting in the coming weeks once I've had a chance to review them and make any corrections for spelling and grammar (though I'm sure I'll end up missing some anyway).

Comments

[i_am_the_jam]

Interesting twist...

[Moonlight_Mist]

Is this Luna's doing? This feels like an orchestrated dream, considering what's already happened. Now sure how she knows about the connection between Sunburst and Starlight, though. It's either that or timey-wimey, like a time loop a la Groundhog Day, which might have been plausible up until Sunburst showed up. That's too big a difference. Unless the Mane Six are there to, and they just brought Sunburst with them and he went in first. Though I think Double Diamond would have mentioned there being multiple visitors, having been Starlight's enforcer during her rule of Our Town.

[Pete100]

I’m a little upset that it was just a dream, but I’m curious on where this goes.