Starlight studied the crystal in her hooves.
It’s purple lattice prismed in the light of night, the flames of candles and the twinkling of stars being all that was to illuminate the words etched into the crystal.
Friendship is Magic, and you are our friend. Just remember that we will always be here, now and forever. Stay safe, Starlight.
With a sigh, she looked out the window to her right, her slanted reflection staring back at her. Her eyes drifted to the horn on her head, still glowing softly despite the lack of use. Every time she thought of a spell that she could still do, her horn pulsed in response. Each and every time, she winced, gently putting a hoof on the cracking surface.
With how sore it always was, she had gotten used to it. It still felt nice to massage the pain away but… it always came back.
Forlornly gazing back to the crystal, she thought of her friends. They must be so worried for her… no word for over a month… she began to wonder if this was all worth it. If any of the time she had spent at Kamare-taj had actually helped her. She had learned to use magic again… but not in the way she had known her entire life. Maybe…
Glancing at her door, Starlight’s mind went to a book she had found her attention always catching in the library.
Staring at the crystal in her hooves, she breathed in deeply, closing her eyes and holding it close. Was it worth the risk?
Thinking of Twilight’s smile, Spike’s quirkiness... of Rainbow Dash’s cockiness, Fluttershy’s gentleness and Rarity’s inspiration… Applejack's sincerity and Pinkie’s ridiculous but livening jokes…
Another pulse went through her head and she sighed, opening her eyes and looking at the crystal one more time. With one more glance at her reflection in the window, she tried on a devilish smirk. Pocketing her crystal, she quietly left her room and found herself crossing the halls with silent haste. Her eyes darted side to side, quickly looking into each passed room before she found herself looking at the courtyard.
Focusing inward, she tried to channel magic into her hooves, and she furrowed her brow. Holding her breath, she stepped onto the cobblestone.
Nothing.
As she released her breath, she found that her hoofsteps had been reduced to ghosts of their actual sound, and her own ears strained to hear them. As she crossed some more archways and courtyards, she found her hooves getting heavier and heavier, louder and louder, and she soon stepped into the graces of the library.
Panting, she quietly glanced into the library and back out into the courtyard before closing her eyes. With a nod and a breathy smile, she made her silent entry.
Eyes flickering from side to side, she weaved through the bookshelves and deeper into the library. Stepping down into the Master’s Only section, she looked at all the hanging tomes and the various books clattered on the multiple study tables. There was only one she had her eyes on.
Trotting over to the Ancient One’s private collection, her eyes flickered with the golden shards inlaid within the Book of Star Swirl the Bearded. The Study of Time. Breathing a little more shallowly, she licked her lips and unchained the book before rushing over to the nearest table. Brushing aside some miscellaneous books, she set the tome down and smiled.
Pulling up a chair, she took the apple that she had forgotten in a study session earlier that morning and took a generous bite as she began to flip through the pages. When Jade hadn’t been looking, she had been able to glean a few pages already, so she moved onto a completely different section she knew she had nothing to go on.
Just reading the text of Starswirl in an ancient Equestrian dialect was an honour for Starlight, and she stopped on a particular page with a highly detailed drawing of some sort of… necklace. As she tried to make heads or tails of the text, something seemed to click within her and she found herself muttering the words she couldn’t quite understand.
“The Eye of Faust…” Starlight murmured. Blinking she frowned. “The Eye of Faust?”
Slowly, her confusion at the foreign name fell away as she found her gaze drifting up. Up and up… to the dialed pedestal in the middle of the circular room. Sitting in the very center of the circular room’s pedestal was a curious work of craftsmanship. Shaped like an eye, it’s center was hollowed and gilded with an intricate design, one she had seen several times across the whole of Kamare-taj.
Glancing down at the very accurate depiction of the same necklace displayed out in the open, she glanced behind her and searched for the signs of anybody watching her.
“Jade?” she called out, her voice echoing across the musty confines of the library. As the echo faded, and she waited, there was nothing. Chewing more of her apple, she turned back to the necklace. Looking down at the back, she looked behind her once more before rushing out of her seat and trotting over to the pedestal. Eyes darting, she lifted the Eye and rushed back to her table.
Putting it on, she let it rest against her robes and she squinted at the instructions laid in the book. “First, open the Eye of Faust,” Starlight managed to read. Nodding, she breathed slowly, focusing inward once more. Now, she could sense something else. Something new, powerful… and familiar.
Her concentration let her legs begin to move of their own accord. Her forelegs twisted once clockwise, and once more counterclockwise before tapping both hooves down quickly, silently. Breathlessly, Starlight heard a soft shifting and she found a brilliant green light emitting from her chest. Glancing down, she widened her eyes at the sight of the Eye now shimmering with ethereal power.
“Whoa,” Starlight said, twisting her head to the side in preparation. “Next, establish a connection with the Eye of Faust.”
Finding her left foreleg ending up touching the back of her right foreleg, she found it circling around until it ended up on the front, before tracing up her leg and to her chest. In the blink of an eye, her right foreleg had been surrounded by spinning runes and symbols. Fascinated by them, she held up her foreleg with wonder and bafflement. Glancing down to the book, her mind raced through the text before her she looked at the apple. The half-eaten apple glistened, and she lifted her hoof.
Glancing from her hoof to the apple, she pointed her hoof at the apple, and flicked her hoof. Instantaneously, a circle of glowing lines, spinning etchings and a tingling sensation came to fruition, and by instinct, she twisted her hoof one way. Slowly, the apple went from half eaten to a plump, luscious untouched apple. Seeing the spectacle before her, she blew air through her lips.
“Oh my,” she whispered, before twisting it the other way. She then watched as the apple seemed to take bites out of itself before it stopped at the core, where it proceeded to mold and rot. Twisting it the other way once more, it went back to being a full apple, unblemished by any bite marks or potential mold.
Looking back down at the book before, she glanced at her outstretched leg, the amulet, and back to the book. Moving the apple and pushing the book forward, she flipped the pages with her one hoof until she came upon the ripped rituals.
Breathing, she twisted her hoof… and the pages formed from nothing, it would seem. They floated in, almost looking as if it were reattaching themselves to the book before the pages floated down and settled against the rest of the book. It was as if there was never a tear in the first place.
Her eyes scanned and frowned at the words circling some strange otherworldly symbols, the likes of which made Starlight squirm in her robes. The very sight of them caused her face to flash in concern before words started spitting out of her muzzle.
“Dormammu…” Starlight muttered, “...the Dark Dimension… eternal life…?”
A loud boom echoed around Starlight, but it wasn’t one that she could hear. Her ears flicked and found nothing, but her mind reeled from the sound. The sound of the universe’s heart beating. Stumbling backwards, the spell was broken and the Eye shut, before Starlight was made to witness something she almost couldn’t describe.
It seemed to come from the book, spouting one crystal which began to increase more and more until multiplicitous images flickered through each and every one, the tower incomprehensibly stretching to the ceiling and beyond. Images of Starlight’s head swivelling around in the same pose she was now, flames billowing from dropped objects and green mana-flame eradicating entire cities. Glimpses of a dark, barren side of a shattered ringworld and the countless stars seen without a sun and moon as Rainbow Dash, bearing the Element of Loyalty rallied a group of strange ponies. Glances of an alicorn that resembled an older Flurry Heart standing beside Twilight, Starlight herself and another unicorn she didn’t know, Rarity activating a glowing miniaturised mana-reactor, Applejack’s form crackling with unbridled electricity, and Rainbow Dash performing multiple sonic rainbooms before throwing a star-spangled shield.
Each crystal pulsed with things she didn’t understand, and she wouldn’t for not even had a second passed in witnessing the array of crystals before she heard the booming voice of Jade ringing through the air.
“STOP!”
Starlight’s mind reeled from the sheer number of things that had just been introduced to her head, and the crystals collapsed into nothingness before Jade came bounding down the stairs and straight to Starlight. Her form slid to a stop as her eyes widened from the retreating light and the sound of glass shattering and clinking, but no sight of any of the crystals Starlight herself had witnessed. Huffing with adrenaline, Jade stared at the book wide-eyed, still seeing the crystals in her eyes disappearing.
Jade then glared icily at Starlight, her features hardening and raging. “Tampering with the continuum of probability is forbidden.”
Starlight fumbled for words as Jade slammed the book shut with enough force to rattle and blow dust off the table. The percussion echoed through the library.
“I was just… I-I wa-was j-just doing exactly what it said in the book-”
Jade stepped forward with silent anger. “And just what did the book say about the dangers of performing that ritual?”
Starlight glanced at it, shaking. “I don’t kn-know I-uh- haven’t gotten to that part y-yet…”
Jade glared at her before sighing hoisting the book onto her back, marching to the wall of the Ancient One’s texts. “Temporal manipulations can create branches in time,” Jade growled, putting the book into place and clasping the chains tightly and forcefully. “Unstable dimensional openings, paradoxes, time loops!” Jade marched back to confront Starlight and jabbed her in the chest. “D’you want to get stuck reliving the same moment over and over, or never having existed at all?”
Starlight stammered, getting back to forehooves. “They sh-should really put the warnings b-before the spell-”
Jade gnashed her teeth and shook her head. “I thought you would’ve learned by now that messing with time isn’t foals play! What with you prancing around parallel timelines and dooming countless lives to an unwarranted fate all because you tried to change a fixed point in time!”
Starlight’s ears at this point had been folded long ago and she bit her lip, her mind racing as she winced from the reminder. “I’m sorry…”
Jade dropped her head and sighed before her body relaxed, though the tension in the air did not dissipate. “Your curiosity could have gotten you killed.”
Starlight winced harder.
Shaking her head again, Jade frowned and breathed rhythmically, trying to calm her angered state. “Where did you even learn the numerous spells required to perform such a damning feat?”
“I, uh…” Starlight mumbled, “I have a knack for magic. It’s part of what my cutie mark represents.”
“What you just did takes more than a ‘knack for magic’,” Jade said. “Even mages and wizards in the past who’ve had talents in the mystical arts have had to train many moons to get to the level you are now.”
Jade furrowed her brow. “No, you were born for this sort of stuff. You were born for real magic.”
Starlight grimaced. “And yet, my horn is as inactive as ever. Broken, useless.”
“But you can still use magic now, can’t you?” Jade said. “As one door closes, another opens. For now, your horn may be stricken, but you could still recover.”
Starlight swivelled to look Jade in the eyes. “For now? Not forever?”
Jade shook her head. “We’re not prophets, Glimmer. Nopony could predict that.”
“Then when are you going to start telling me what we are? What all of this is? Why I’m still here and not someplace else that could help me?”
“You know very well why you came here-”
“Then why?”
For a moment, nopony said anything.
Silently, Jade motioned for Starlight to follow her to the pedestal. As Jade brought her forelegs onto the pedestal, Starlight stood opposite of her, wondering what she was doing. “What are you…?”
“While your friends and the Princesses guard the world from physical threats, we sorcerers defend the world against more mystical and otherworldly threats.”
Twisting the two dials, the giant globe above their heads rotated, stopping just where Kamare-taj would be on the map. “The Ancient One is the latest in a long line of Sorcerers Supreme, going back to the mother of all magic, Faust.” Looking down for a moment from the globe above, she squinted at Starlight. “The same sorcerer who created the Eye you so recklessly borrowed.”
“But who’s Faust?” Starlight asked.
Jade snorted. “How am I supposed to know? She’s Faust. Some texts I’ve read have suggested she was an alicorn much like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, but that she had mastered more than just the three tribes. While an alicorn may have mastery over the three elements ponies are attuned to, Faust was able to tap into the same magic we use now. A different kind of magic.”
“So what does that mean? Is she all powerful?”
“Why are you asking me?” Jade sighed. “I don’t know everything.”
“Sorry.”
Jade looked back up to the globe and shook her head. “Anyways, Faust built three sanctuaries all across the known world. Three sacred citadels to guard over Equus in three places of power where great cities and nations now stand.”
Jade now gestured to the goliathan doors that surrounded the circular room. “That one leads to the Canterlot Citadel” -She pointed to the door behind Starlight- “That one leads to the Neighpon Citadel” -She pointed to the one adjacent to the main hall- “And that one leads to the Zebrican Citadel.” Jade finished by pointing to the door Starlight was facing.
“Together, these three Citadels create a shield that protects the world and, in turn, we mages protect the Citadels.”
Starlight furrowed her brow, watching as Jade twisted the dials and blazing lines of mana burst across the globe, hovering above the landscape itself and shimmering in solidarity. “But… from what?”
“What do we protect the world from?” Jade turned to Starlight. “From other-dimensional beings. Otherworldly threats.”
“Like Dormammu?”
In that moment, Jade looked at Starlight with bafflement and urgency. “Where did you learn that name?”
Starlight gulped. “I read it in the Book of Starswirl? Why?”
Jade’s eye twitched for a second before she twisted the dials once more. “Dormammu… he is the Eater of Souls, the Bringer of Darkness and the Lord of the Dark Dimension. There are only two others greater than he that pose a threat to Equus, and those are names that do not need mentioning. Dormammu is a being of untold power and endless hunger on a quest to bring all worlds under his rule… and for one reason or another, he wants our world the most. Equus.”
Starlight’s eyes flickered with memory of the book as she watched a spectacle unfold before her eyes surrounding the globe, and she furrowed her brow. “The pages that were stolen…”
“A ritual to contact Dormammu and draw power from him.”
Starlight glanced at Jade before incredulously smiling and shaking her head. “Okay, you know what? This is crazy. I mean, I’ve hung around ponies that literally defy all explanation and this is somehow way past that. I came here to heal my horn, not to go hoof-to-hoof with the powers-that-be. I’m out-”
And with that, a large resounding cloister bell resonated through the confines of the library, the source coming from a door Starlight had just been introduced to.
Jade frowned as the magic of the illusion above disappeared before her ears flattened. Eyes wide, her mouth parted and her gaze darted to the Zebrican Citadel entrance.
“Zebrica…” Jade murmured as the door promptly opened while a zebra sorcerer rushed to the through the door. Just as she passed the threshold, something clear, sharp, and etheral sliced into her, causing her to stumble and fall limply to the ground. As Starlight squinted to look at a group of ponies chanting down the hallway of the Citadel, she frowned in confusion as one griffon, clad in similar green attire to Jade, raised a paw to a big undulating ball of energy.
“Mordo!” Jade screamed, rushing away from the pedestal and stopping a few paces away from the door. “STOP!”
Mordo barely spared Jade a glance before slamming his talons into the ground. Promptly, the ball of unbridled energy slammed into the floor and-
KRAKOOM!
An ear-splitting explosion rocked the world before debris from the Zebrican Citadel came flying through the door. Starlight saw in that split second, Jade forming a shield spell that encased her in symbols and runes, but Starlight wasn’t skilled enough yet to react in the same amount of time. Caught off guard and in the fraction of a second, several pieces of fast-moving debris struck her, sending her flying.
She could feel her back impact with something that gave way before the rubble flew away from her and she tumbled to the ground, encased in stone dust and splinters.
Winded, Starlight coughed, and turned around…
Only to find a blank wall.