//------------------------------// // Starlight Hits the Mark // Story: So You Escaped From Limbo // by Maran //------------------------------// A breakfast buffet was spread out in the royal dining hall, with ponies coming and going as they pleased. Stygian was less interested in the food than the coffee, and so he made a beeline for the beverage table. As he poured himself a mug of steaming brew, he glimpsed something blue to his left. “Mornin',” drawled the blue shape. Stygian jumped in surprise and turned his head to stare at the pony. “Meadowbrook! I didn't see you here.” “That's the idea, dear. How are you?” She gazed searchingly at him, and it was obvious to Stygian that she was asking not out of politeness, but because she genuinely cared. “I'm feeling better.” He poured sugar into his cup. “I had a good talk with Spike yesterday. He gave me some friendship advice and invited me to the next get-together he's having with some of his friends. He knows Discord, can you believe it?” Meadowbrook laughed. “Oui, Fluttershy told me all about Discord. I'm glad you're makin' new friends already. You're pretty good at that.” Then her expression became serious, her mouth forming a straight line. “I just want you to know how sorry I am that I didn't listen to you before, that I wasn't a better friend to you, Stygian. I hope you can forgive me.” He blinked. “Of course I forgive you, Meadowbrook. I only hope you can forgive me for trying to extinguish all the light in Equestria! There's no excuse for what I did, no matter how you or anypony else treated me.” “There's no excuse for what I did, either, cher. I should've asked you for an explanation. That was my practice as a healer – always find out the cause, don't just deal with the symptoms. I forgot that, and we all paid the price for it. But I forgive you if you forgive me.” Her lips pulled up in a smile once more. “Can we start over?” “I would welcome that.” He held out his hoof for her to bump, but instead she threw her arms around him and squeezed him. Since he was still getting used to physical affection, he awkwardly patted her back. “Good.” She held him at forelegs' length. “I want you to have something.” The earth pony reached into her skirt pocket and withdrew a copper bracelet with a pale yellow stone set into it. His eyes grew wide as he took the bracelet in his hoof. “Is this a brimstone charm?” “Sure is. I reckon that since we're goin' to Celestia's School of Magic, it'd be best to ward against any magical bursts from the students. You remember how to use it?” “I believe so.” He slid it up his foreleg. “Tap once to activate and twice to deactivate?” “You got it.” By this point, other ponies had started to wander into the dining hall, including Starlight Glimmer. She stared at them and made her way toward the two ponies of legend. “Hi, I just wanted to wish you two good luck today,” said the unicorn mare. Unease settled in the pit of Stygian's stomach. “Why? Do you think we'll need it? Do you know something we don't?” “No!” Starlight quickly held up her front hoof. “I'm sure everything will be fine, Stygian. It's just that going to Celestia's School of Magic sounds . . .” She glanced to the side. “. . . Kind of intimidating.” “Au contraire, it sounds fun!” Meadowbrook's eyes shone. “Fluttershy told me that the students learn about my methods there.” She put a reassuring foreleg around Stygian. “And I'm sure they'll wanna meet all of my friends and learn from them.” “Of course.” The other mare ducked her head and pawed lightly at the marble floor. “What's eatin' you, Starlight?” asked Meadowbrook. The unicorn mage sighed. “Nothing, really. It's just that I would feel anxious about going to Celestia's School because it took Sunburst away from me when we were foals. We used to be inseparable until he got his cutie mark and his parents sent him to Celestia's School, which was far away from our hometown . . . I think it kind of broke me.” She flashed a strained grin. “But I'm better now! It just took me a long time to move on with my life. A really, really long time.” Stygian took a sip of coffee and held up his front hoof. “I have a couple of questions. First, 'cutie' mark? Really?” She shrugged. “That's what they're called now.” “It just sounds so demeaning to call the symbol of one's destiny in life a cutie mark.” He took another pull from his cup, relishing the bitterness with sweet overtones – like his soul. “Simmer down, cher.” Meadowbrook put her hoof on his foreleg. “She didn't make it up. She can't help it if that's what other ponies call it.” “It's hard to simmer down when you're drinking coffee, Meadowbrook,” Stygian pointed out before turning back to Starlight. “All right, second, you successfully rewrote Star Swirl's time travel spell, so why did you never attend the best magic school in the country?” Starlight gazed at the ceiling for a moment. “I think I could have. Not to brag, but let's face it, I'm probably in the top percentile when it comes to both raw power and skill. But this city is near the summit of the tallest mountain in Canterlot, and my dad is afraid of heights. He didn't want to live here, but he didn't want me to move so far away from him, either.” She winced. “So I had to stay in my town and go to the small school there, burying myself in my schoolwork. I moved out of town as soon as I was old enough to strike out on my own, and my dad couldn't tell me where to go or stay anymore.” “Oh, dear, that's too bad.” Meadowbrook's ears drooped in sympathy. “Do you ever talk to him?” “Not much since I left my real hometown.” Starlight studied the floor. “I wrote to him a few times, but I was really vague about the details. He hasn't made much of an effort to reach out to me, either. We haven't seen each other in three years.” She hung her head. “I guess we both have problems with relationships.” Meadowbrook's mouth twitched. “I would give anything to see my family again.” “I'm sorry.” Starlight angled her eyebrows upward. “I didn't mean to go on about my problems when yours are worse in a lot of ways. Normally I don't even like to talk about my past.” “That's all right, dear.” The healer's eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “We did ask.” Unable to think of anything else to do, Stygian picked up a napkin from the buffet table and floated it in front of his friend's face. She took it in her hoof and dabbed at her eyes. Stygian had very little experience comforting ponies, but something told him that he would get more practice in the near future. “Just . . .” The earth mare crumpled the napkin between her hooves. “Just promise you'll see your papa soon, Starlight. He needs to know that you're all right.” “I will, Meadowbrook.” The younger mare nodded. “Starlight, you and Sunburst are obviously friends even after you separated,” Stygian spoke up. “I'm certain that you can patch things up with your father as well.” “That's true.” Starlight's expression lightened. “It wasn't always easy, though. Sunburst has changed, and I'm still trying to get to know the pony he is now. But I'm trying, that's the main thing. When he got his cutie mark,” she said, earning an eye roll from Stygian, “all I could think about was that he had been a blank flank like me, but then suddenly he was different, and we couldn't be friends for that reason.” “Excuse me, but why did you assume that you couldn't still be friends? Did you try to write him after he moved?” Stygian brought his cup to his lips. “Once.” Starlight swiveled one ear. “But he never wrote back. Maybe it wasn't his fault – maybe the letter got lost in the mail. Either way, I was so disappointed that I never tried writing to him again. I decided that his cutie mark must be to blame, that he didn't want anything to do with me because I was still a blank flank. I concluded that the only way to make friendships last was to make ponies have the same cutie mark.” Stygian snorted. “It's almost like you keep saying that word to annoy me. Anyway, how would you make ponies' destiny marks the same? There are potions that can change marks, but the affects are unpredictable. Usually you're better off leaving well enough alone.” “I researched all of the potions and herbs that affect cutie marks – you'll just have to get used to it, Stygian.” Starlight narrowed her eyes. “Eventually I bought a Heart's Desire plant and used it to experiment on myself until it gave me a mark that I liked – the equals sign. I memorized its thaumic signature and copied it for my own spell.” Meadowbrook whistled softly. “Very clever! I admire your dedication. I bet it took a lotta trial and error to get the result you wanted.” “It did.” Starlight smiled. “Once I figured out a spell that worked, I cured myself using Seeds of Truth. I would have kept the equals sign, but I needed my mark and special talent to cast the spell on other ponies. I found ponies like me, ponies who had trouble making friends, who weren't satisfied with their cutie marks. So I persuaded them to let me take their marks and store them in a vault, and replace them with the equals sign.” Stygian furrowed his brow. “When you say store them in a vault, is that a figure of speech, or did you actually lift the pictures ingrained in their coats and move them to vault as if they're gold coins?” The unicorn mage shrugged. “The Pillars did all kinds of things that had never been done before. It takes a lot more magic to reach the space between worlds than to remove a cutie mark and put it in a vault. Is it so hard to believe that I could do that?” “All right, you have a point.” “So, anyway, I built Our Town to be an ideal community where everypony had the same mark, the same hairstyles, the same smiles, and the same thoughts, and nopony ever felt excluded. But I couldn't let them know that I still had my mark and the special talent of magical prowess. They had to believe I was no better than they were. So I painted over my mark, and . . .” She shifted her weight. “I invented the Staff of Sameness and acted like I needed it to take ponies' marks. I told them it was one of your Enchanted Items, Mage Meadowbrook.” “You did?” The healer slowly shook her head. “And they bought that?” “Um, I didn't exactly find a herd of skeptics. There wasn't a Stygian among them.” Starlight frowned. “They knew enough to trust your good name, but not enough to realize that you never had a Staff of Sameness.” “I never had a Staff of Nothing,” affirmed Meadowbrook. “And I never had nothing that could swap out a pony's destiny mark. It never even crossed my mind to invent a charm that could do that. Stygian's right – marks are best left alone.” Stygian glanced sidelong at the earth pony mage before muttering, “This from the pony who thought the Reanimation Rod was a good idea.” The healer flashed a nervous grin and rubbed the back of her head. “Well now, we all make mistakes.” Starlight's ears faced forward. “Reanimation Rod? I remember reading about a Resurrection Rod, but not a Reanimation Rod. Maybe something got lost in translation.” “The eastern unicorns called it the Resurrection Rod in their books because it sounds better, but in practice it was a Reanimation Rod.” Stygian sipped from his cup again. “Wow, I'd love to hear the story behind that,” said Starlight. “Finish your story first, Starlight, s'il vous plait.” Meadowbrook's grin was frozen as she gestured for her to continue. Starlight closed her eyes. “If you insist. But after I finish, I want to hear all about the great Mage Meadowbrook's Reanimation Rod.” Her eyes opened as she went on. “Anyway, one day, the Map of Harmony sent the Element Bearers to Our Town, and I saw how they all had very different personalities and backgrounds, and they even bickered a little, but yet they stayed friends. At first I couldn't believe it. It took me a long time to admit that I had been so wrong about friendship. But eventually, I realized how awful I'd been to suppress those ponies' true potential, to smother their individuality.” Starlight's ears lay flat as she looked at her hooves. “I even locked up ponies and 're-educated' them if they showed any sign of wanting their marks back. I thought it was for the greater good. It was necessary to preserve my utopia. But . . . It was pretty messed up. It was like something the changeling queen would do.” Stygian cringed. “Harmony, and here I thought the only terrible thing you did was travel through time and almost end all life as you know it.” “Uh, yeah.” She glanced away. “Sometimes I downplay my crimes when I tell ponies my story, but the truth is, what I did was really wrong, and I didn't deserve to become Twilight's pupil after what I did – the two horrible things I did. But she showed me mercy, and she and her friends helped me see the error of my ways.” Starlight met his eyes, showing more confidence. “So I'm proof that anypony can change for the better. And you still have a leg up on me when it comes to learning about friendship, Stygian. I still can't get over how different you Pillars are! You're from different cultures, you're different ages, and you're different sizes. Yet somehow, you make it work! I never would have thought it was possible when I was running Our Town.” Meadowbrook smiled and glanced at Stygian. “Well now, it ain't always easy for us either, but yes, we make it work.” “We are diverse,” added Stygian, “but in some ways, I always identified with each of my friends. Rockhoof and Somnambula wanted to protect their towns from danger just as I wanted to protect my hometown from the Sirens. Star Swirl, Meadowbrook, and Mistmane each studied and experimented with magic to become masters in their fields, just as I wanted to. And Flash Magnus . . .” He took a drink of coffee in order to buy himself some time to think, and because it was coffee. “Flash helped rescue a griffon community from an out-of-control super-storm even though their leaders were hostile toward him.” The healer nudged him. “Just like you helped save the filter fish in Rockhoof's village even though the Mighty Helm captain was rude to you.” “That's true, although I don't know if my motivations were as pure as Flash's,” said Stygian, staring into his cup. “I only helped save the fish because I knew Rockhoof would never come with me to help protect my town unless his town no longer needed his help. And as for the captain's insults, I rather expected them. I was still a colt, all shabby and travel-worn, and a stranger to them. I probably wouldn't take a pony who looked like me seriously either, at least until I got to know him.” Meadowbrook grinned at him in amusement. “Was still a colt? I got news for you, dear, you are still a colt.” “Well, at least you're feeling better, even if it's at the expense of my dignity,” Stygian said dryly. “Stygian, you said your motives weren't pure, but it sounds like they weren't bad, per se. Ultimately, you just wanted to help ponies, and even if you were thinking of your village first, you still did what you could to help ponies wherever you went.” Starlight waved her foreleg to the side. “I'm sure Rockhoof respected that. You helped him and he helped you. And you helped each other in a meaningful way, not based on a twisted misunderstanding like I once did. I'd say that's the start of a solid friendship. And I think it's great that you're all doing this group activity today. It should give you a chance to reconnect.” The earth pony mage nodded. “Like I said, it'll be fun. Wanna come with? You can finally poke around the school and see what it's like.” “No.” Starlight scrunched her muzzle. “No. Thanks for the offer, but I'd just make everything more awkward than it has to be. The seven of you have been teaming up with the Elements and friends for several days now. You need to spend time as a core group again, just like old times.” Then she grinned. “And you can tell me all about how it went when you get back.” Stygian smiled and nodded. “We'll be sure to keep you posted.” At that moment, they heard Flash's voice from across the hall. “Meadow! You let Stygian have coffee!?”