//------------------------------// // And my life was turned on end... // Story: Rip Van Glimmer // by Rose Quill //------------------------------// ”Twilight, look out!” I shouted as I telekinetically shoved the Princess. The dark tendrils missed her as her grip on Stygian faltered. I watched as the colt was pulled back into the mass of shadow made solid and the head swung towards me. I tried to get a shield up, but the blast from the bedeviled shadows struck me full force in the side, blasting me across the ancient hall and into a pillar before grabbing me and slamming me against the floor. I felt a couple of ribs break and through the dim haze, I could hear Twilight’s scream. “Starlight!” Blackness surrounded me, but instead of cold stone and crushing pain, I felt soft blankets and a strange numbness. A quiet beeping sound was in my ear, but I couldn’t open my eyes. They felt like they had been sealed shut with some of Pinkie’s party string. “She's waking up,” a voice said. “Send for the Princess.” “Hey,” Twilight said, stepping into the room. “How are you feeling?” I smiled weakly. Truth be told, I was doing everything weakly. “Sore,” I said. “Stygian gave me a pretty good wallop there.” I saw the Alicorn’s form shuffle a little, and it was then that my blurry vision realized that she was wearing her regalia, something she hated doing. “I hope I didn’t pull you away from some official function,” I said. “I’ll be ok for now, and you can let the girls and Trixie know that I’m ok.” Twilight looked down, and as my vision continued to sharpen, I saw that she was taller and leaner, rather like Cadence the last time I had seen her. Her mane and tail were longer and seemed different, though things were still blurry. “Starlight,” she said with a hitch in her voice. “There’s something I need to tell you.” And the cold fear that I had felt gripped my heart once again. “You’ve been in a magically induced coma for over two hundred years. You and I are the only ones left.” I looked at her. “You’re joking, right? This is just some prank of Rainbow Dash’s or Pinkie, and any second now they’re going to burst through that door and yell surprise.” The Alicorn just looked on at me as my vision cleared fully. It wasn’t just that she was taller, everything about her screamed royalty now. Between the regalia and the shimmering mane, everything reminded me of the Diarchs. “Twilight,” I asked, my voice starting to shake. “Tell me it’s just a joke. Please.” She lowered her head, and I saw a tear slide down her muzzle. And truth sank in. My vision went blurry again as tears filled my eyes. I had been too weak to walk myself, so Twilight pushed my wheelchair down the paved path. I couldn’t even look at my body, the muscles atrophied slightly from the coma I had been in. I couldn’t believe any of what I had been told and demanded to see Trixie, Applejack, any of them. And as we rounded a corner, I saw a set of stone plinths, each worked in the shape of a cutie mark. A trio of Diamonds. Three Apples. A trio of Butterfies. Balloons. A Lightning Bolt. And a star-headed wand. I looked at them and reality washed over me. I saw that the dates on them that most had lived long lives, particularly Trixie and Rarity. Dash had a date not long past the day we had gone to fight the Pony of Shadows, and my heart clenched. “What happened?” I whispered. “We managed to defeat Stygian,” Twilight said. “But it wasn’t easy. The Shadow that held him was difficult to push back. Dash was struck trying to get you to safety, and died from her wounds a few days later. Scootaloo was crushed, and it was weeks before she ventured out of her home. Eventually, as the fight got worse, Luna flew in. She was able to pull Stygian from the Shadow, but only because she took it into herself bore it with her into the hollow world of Limbo. If not for her sacrifice, none of us might be here now.” “Then who raises the moon now, if not Luna?” I asked, brain scrambling to process the information. She ducked her head slightly, looking longingly at the plinth bearing the trio of diamonds, a tear slipping free. “I do,” she whispered. “You…” She nodded. “Two hundred and thirteen years now,” she said as she raised a hoof to the plinth. “Rarity used to joke that her wife was turning into even more of a night owl.” “Wait,” I said. “You and Rarity?” The Alicorn turned and turned a weak smile on me. “After losing Dash and Luna, and you being held in that coma,” she said. “I decided life was too short to waste time on fear. It took a few false starts, and more than a few fights, but Rarity and I lived a nice, mostly quiet life together. Getting to be the consort of the Princess of the Night had perks for her, but even the longevity that those held beloved by Alicorns gained didn’t sustain her past a century and a half. It was hard letting her go. She was the last of us, the last vestige of my old life.” “What about Spike?” I asked suddenly. “Dragons live long lives, where’s Spike?” “I don’t know,” she said, turning from the memorial of her love. “He took off shortly after Rarity died. Nopony has seen a sign of him since.” Her aura gripped the handles of my wheelchair. “It’s getting late, and I have to raise the moon soon. We should go inside.” I looked at the wand. “What happened to Trixie?” I asked softly. She had been my first real friend, one that met the new, less evil and using-magic-to-fix-all-my-problems me. The first that wasn’t part of Twilights group. The closest thing I had ever had to a sister. “You’d be proud of her,” Twilight said. “She stayed by your bedside for quite a while and visited every day. Quit touring and took your spot as my student, hoping to find a way to wake you up. She became quite the little librarian. She wound up marrying this colt from Trottingham and settled down…what was his name? I’m always getting him and their grandson mixed up.” “Grandson?” I asked. The Alicorn smiled as she trotted next to me. “She’s got quite the lineage,” she said. “I’ve taught more than half of them myself. There’s one filly in particular I think you might want to meet.” I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Why not?” As the tears slid down my face, I could feel the anger and despair raging within. My emotions always colored my magic, and the area around me began to cloud over. “I’ve been unconcious for two centuries,” I growled, feeling the mana crackle all around me. “Found out that all my friends are gone, and you want me to meet somepony that will only remind me of that fact?” “Starlight,” Twilight said, her tone more forceful and commanding that I had ever heard before. “Calm down.” “No!” I shouted, the cloud of anger darkening the air around me. “It’s easy for you to be calm, you got to see their lives, you’ve had time to grieve and accept things!” The cloud began to sizzle with barely contained magic and tears flooded my face, matting the hair of my muzzle. “Starlight,” she began again. “Don’t you get it?” I asked. “I just learned that a friend died saving me, and all the friendship in the world couldn’t save those that needed it the most!” She took a step back, her horn beginning to glow at the tip. “Calm down, Starlight,” she said, worry on her face. “Your magic…” “Forget it, Twilight,” I snarled, drawing mana to my horn. “I refuse to accept that this is the world I have to live in.” I concentrated on memory, and a scroll began to form, edges torn and frayed. “Starlight, don’t!” Twilight shouted as I hit the scroll with my magic. The vortex opened over me, but before it could pull me into the past, it began playing images. I watched for the moment I would need, the fight against Stygian. I saw Trixie playing with a pair of foals, a filly and a colt. I saw Applejack, older and a little wizened hauling apples to town, a small colt trotting along with her. Fluttershy winging her way along with an older Scootaloo flying next to her, the younger Pegasus wearing a lightning shaped pendant around her neck. I saw Pinkie behind a counter, flour in her mane and photos of her friends, myself included on the shelf behind her. I saw Twilight and Rarity at the altar. I saw the gatherings at Hearth’s Warming, the Summer Sun Celebration, the births of foals and marriages. I saw the lives of my friends played out in reverse. I shuddered and screamed out in rage, magic going out and burning the scroll, the ash blowing away in the breeze. I doubled over as I released the pent up pain and sorrow, wailing over my lost friends and horrified that I would even consider taking the happy events that I had seen away from them. No matter how much I wanted them back, I couldn’t deny them the happiness they had found in their lives. Trixie wouldn’t want me to go back to the way I had been. As I wept, I felt a feathery wing slide over me. “I know, Starlight,” Twilight whispered. I continued sobbing as she wheeled me back to my hospital room. “I know.” “Are you sure about this, Starlight?” Twilight asked a month later as I packed supplies into a surprisingly deep bag. Containment enchantments had come a long way in two centuries. It seemed like I could have fit a ladder into the pannier and it would still have space. I nodded. “I can’t sit around and read about the changes, Twilight,” I said to the Princess of the Night. “I have to go out and see what’s become of things. Ponyville, my old village, see the Crystal Empire. I have to get out.” I looked over at a picture frame that held ten photos, one for each of the Elements of Harmony, one of all of us at Hearth’s Warming, and photos of Trixie, one after our mishap with the map table and one of her family taken not long after her first grandchild was born. The last two were of an older Spike and of Luna. “There might be a way to find Spike,” I said. “Maybe even bring Luna back. Not that I think you’re a bad ruler, mind you. It’s just the thought of her being trapped with that in limbo is horrible.” Twilight nodded, levitating a small card over to me. I took it and looked at it curiously. “It’s a royal voucher certificate,” she said. “Anyplace within Equestria or the Crystal Empire will accept that you’re a member of the court and your costs will be covered by the Crown. Just sign any receipt and have them send it to me and you’ll not have to worry. Just don’t go buying anything extravagant.” I saw her eye twinkle a little with humor. I tucked the card into my bag. “Thanks, Twilight,” I said. “Sure,” she said, then turned slightly and opened the door. “And there’s somepony that wants to meet you.” she added. I watched as a young Unicorn mare walked in, and my heart stopped. I could see Trixie in her, from the mane and coat colors and the shape of the face. She was a little leaner than Trixie had been, and longer in the leg, but the familial resemblance was uncanny. “Starlight Glimmer,” Twilight said quietly. “Meet Starlight Echo. Trixie’s great-grandaughter. She’s volunteered to be your guide.” “Hello, Ms. Glimmer,” the mare said, a soft but throaty voice. She shifted nervously and I saw the music notes of her cutie mark. “Please,” I said. “Call me Starlight, or if that’s too awkward, call me Glimmy. Your great grand-mare called me that from time to time.” She smiled. “Could you tell me stories about Grandma Beatrice?” I raised an eyebrow at that. When I had known her, she had hated her given name. “I think I know of a few,” I said as I lifted my pack onto my back and strapped it down. “But first, you and I need to work out a trade level for stories. I want to hear it all.” I felt Twilight’s eyes on me as we left, and faintly heard her speak. “Don’t be gone long, Starlight,” she whispered. “Come home when you can. I’ll be waiting.”