Diamond
Maud stepped back into the throne room. The map was glowing.
“Come on, Maud!”
Maud dutifully climbed up and into the map.
She emerged—in solid form—in a throne room that looked nearly identical to the one she left. Except for the tree roots on the ceiling. Maud had no idea what the significance of that item was—some form of tree necromancy demanded by the group’s apple farmer? Maud supposed that she would never understand organic farming.
“We are now in the present day—the future from your point of view, Maud. Twilight, feel free to use your magic to confirm that this is—for the most part—the same world you left.”
Twilight sent a beam up through the roof and stared up at it for a few seconds. “Yes, it is,” she finally said.
“Good!” Starlight exclaimed. “With the preliminaries out of the way, may I now present my evidence?”
The group jumped through the map to arrive in the same village with the water fountain from before—there was now a stone parasol at its top.
“This is Party Favor’s tenth birthday party,” Starlight told the others. “He’s about to get his cutie mark.”
“How was he treated before he got his cutie mark?” Spike asked. “If you want to show that getting his mark ruined his life, then we have to see him be happy first.”
“Fair enough,” said Starlight, before bringing them back a few minutes.
The group was now behind the young Party Favor, who was trying to entertain a crying filly by first blowing up a balloon. Only he didn’t have enough lungpower to inflate the balloon, and ended up choking. Unexpectedly, this was enough to get the filly laughing.
The fathers of the various children were gathered at a single table, getting drunk and arguing over which hoofball team was the best. On hearing the happy filly, one of them got up and stalked towards her. “Are you laughing at your father?” he demanded. “Nopony laughs at me!”
The filly started crying again.
“That’s better,” the father said, staggering back to his table.
Starlight then brought her group over to witness an escalating argument between the two bullies seen in their last visit to this village.
“You’ve been lording that Hock Fetlock action-figure of yours over us for long enough,” one of them said to the other. “I happen to know that Party Favor’s getting one, and once I force him to give it to me, then we’ll be equal.”
“You’ll never be as great as me,” the other bully said. “Because you’re ugly and stupid.”
And that’s when the first bully jumped on the second and started whaling on him.
A crowd of mostly colts soon gathered around to watch the fight. The fathers saw what was going on, and started a betting pool.
Party Favor stole a couple more balloons from a clown with a bicycle pump cutie mark, and snuck up to a hedge overlooking the fight.
The first bully was just about ready to put the second in the hospital when they were interrupted by the laughter of the watching crowd. They stopped what they were doing to see the colts laughing at a couple of balloon animals that looked suspiciously like them slamming into each other like a couple of spastic rhinos.
This caused the bullies to settle their differences and collectively kick the snot out of Party Favor.
“…It seems that you have a low opinion of how well fillies and colts treat each other when unsupervised.”
“Oh you noticed? I thought I was being subtle.”
The adults finally intervened, and the clown snatched back his stolen balloons, when he suddenly noticed something.
“Hey!” he announced to the crowd. “This colt just got a balloon-related cutie mark. He just stole my job!”
“Let’s kick him out of the town!” demanded the angry father from earlier.
The hapless birthday pony was then picked up and marched to the town limits, as others gathered tar and feathers.
Twilight and Spike were dumbfounded.
“Let me provide some context,” a triumphant Starlight said, taking them inside the mayor’s office. “This town was Equestria’s primary source of parasols for the past century. Ten years ago, Hoity Toity convinced all the rich and powerful ponies that parasols were ridiculous, and the market collapsed. As you probably noticed, the cutie marks of 90% of the ponies in this village were parasol-related. When ponies stopped buying parasols, those cutie marks ruined the entire town.”
“Now wait a second,” Twilight interrupted. “Surely the government would have trod in to fix the problem.”
“Yeah, like retrain the ponies to make umbrellas,” suggested Spike.
“That is exactly what happened, five years after Party Favor’s disastrous birthday,” said Starlight. “They were able to help many of the ponies, but previously it took 150 ponies to make each parasol, meaning that some of them were so specialized that they could not find any other job to do.” She pointed at the figure of Fancy Pants, who was standing frozen in time next to an assistant at a typewriter.
Time started as Fancy finished reading over the report his assistant had completed. “Yes, this looks fine. I’ll bring it back with me, and I promise that you’ll be well rewarded.”
“But what about them?” the young assistant asked, pointing out the window at the miserable ponies walking aimlessly by.
“I’ve done what I’ve can,” Fancy said with a sad shake of his head. “The programs I’ve implemented should ensure that the next generation can dig themselves out of their despair. But as for the current generation…I’m afraid they’ve been doomed by their cutie marks.”
Starlight froze time once more and waited for her antagonists to react.
“Alright,” Twilight finally said, “this is a case where cutie marks have hurt ponies. There’s more that can be done here, in regards to retraining. I know plenty of ponies who are happy working jobs not related to their cutie mark.”
“But if they didn’t have cutie marks, they’d be happier,” Starlight said, finishing Twilight’s thought.
Starlight stopped reading, staring down at the words before her.
“Is something wrong?” asked Maud.
“How long did you spend writing this story?”
“Two months.”
“And that includes thinking about cutie marks?”
“Pretty much.”
Starlight sighed. “You’ve thought of a better case for abolishing cutie marks in two months than I was able to do in twelve years.”
“…If I might ask, what did you spend most of those twelve years doing?”
“Thinking in circles. And screaming to the heavens.”
“Oh.” Maud approached Starlight cautiously and tapped at her side. “There, there.”
Starlight laughed. “I really appreciate that you’re giving my old point of view a chance here.”
“Can I sit back down now?”
“Yes, I’ll get back to the story.”
“Perhaps…they would have been happier without their marks,” Twilight conceded. “Do you have anything else to show me?”
The next scene was of a desert town. Double Diamond was a transplant from a faraway mountain, and he spent all his time pining for his old home. Getting his cutie mark only cemented his separation from his new neighbors.
“I don’t think cutie marks really apply in this case,” noted Spike. “The problem here is homesickness.”
“Yes,” said Starlight with a frown. “It appears that DD didn’t tell me the whole truth about his cutie mark. I’d like to say that he would have felt more at home in a world without cutie marks, but I can’t make the land of Equestria as uniform as I’d like to make its inhabitants. As long as mountain and desert exist, the ponies who live in each will have to adapt, and that will cause conflict if a single member of one group finds himself surrounded by the other and is unwilling to change.”
“So Double Diamond would be better off with his cutie mark?” Spike asked.
Starlight hedged for as long as she could, before finally conceding. “…Probably. But I at least get to keep Party Favor on my side.”
“I suppose we could go through every pony in your village to decide who should stay and who should go,” said Twilight. “But what if we jump to the chase? How did cutie marks ruin your life?”
“I…I wanted to keep this from getting personal,” Starlight admitted. “After all, I’m trying not to lose my temper.” She stared pointedly at Spike.
“I promise to keep my snarking at a minimum,” Spike promised.
They were in a new village, this one dominated by homes with saddle-shaped roofs. Starlight silently led them to the window of one of those houses, where they could see a filly and a colt playing together. The filly was a young Starlight Glimmer, adorable in pigtails. The colt was a yellow unicorn with white boot and mask colorations, and a two-toned orange mane and tail. The filly was prancing around, talking a mile a minute, while the colt sat patiently. He didn’t speak often, but each time he did, it would completely change the filly’s mood and actions.
Maud noted how calm and collected the colt was. With Starlight’s emotional instability in play even then, he was clearly her emotional anchor.
“Sunburst and I did everything together,” the adult Starlight told the others. “In fact, I don’t remember us ever being apart. Until today.”
As they watched, the filly Starlight used her telekinesis to stack a book atop a tall stack of other books that she had been assembling this whole time. The tower toppled, and dozens of books were about to crush the filly, when a burst of magic from the colt’s horn not only stopped the books, but filed them all back into their proper spots in a nearby bookshelf.
“I bet that would be a useful spell to have,” noted Spike.
“I already have that one,” Twilight replied, her eyes still fixed on the scene.
There was an even brighter flash of light as Sunburst’s cutie mark appeared. With a triumphant whinny, he marched outside to show the town his mark, roughly shoving Starlight out of the way. Two adult ponies quickly organized a parade that took the colt away.
Maud wandered after them.
“And just like that,” adult Starlight commented bitterly, “my friend was gone. His family recognized his magical talent and sent him off to Canterlot. I never saw him again.”
“Didn’t you write?” asked Spike.
“Yes, but he never answered!” Starlight replied, her temper rising.
“Didn’t you have any other friends?” Twilight asked.
“No! They never understood me. And without Sunburst to protect me, they turned on me because I didn’t have a mark.” She sped time forward to show filly Starlight at the school playground to Twilight and Spike. A mixed group of fillies and colts were trying to demonstrate the rules of buckball to her, while simultaneously trying to induct her into one or the other of their two teams. Filly Starlight replied with a temper tantrum that blasted the whole group out of the playground, and running away crying.
In the aftermath, Starlight sat there brooding, unaware of her new cutie mark.
“And after that, my foster parents kicked me out, making it clear that they could only afford to send one of their children to magic school. Again, a cutie mark ruined my life.”
“Well, they are in their right to liberate any pony once they get their cutie mark,” Twilight said with reluctance.
A hole opened beside them, and Maud walked through. She looked around at the frozen scene of a tearful filly Starlight walking away from their home. “Starlight, I think you are leaving something out, something you probably don’t even remember.”
“Have you been poking around my past?” Mare Starlight demanded.
“A little. You said they were your foster parents. How did that happen?”
Starlight looked away. “An accident took the lives of my parents when I was very little. Sunburst’s family had just moved into town, and they agreed to adopt me.”
“That did a lot to help them be accepted by the town,” said Maud.
“I suppose it did. I remember the town was rather suspicious of foreigners.”
“I want you to see the night before. The night when they made the decision to kick you out.”
“Alright.”
With a thought, Maud brought them back in time. The father, a yellow-and-orange stallion, was in the basement inspecting a complicated-looking machine. He was soon joined by the mother, an orange-and-brown mare, as she made her way down after locking the door. She was carrying a piece of paper in her magical field.
“She says in this one that she’s thinking of running away,” Mother said.
Adult Starlight raced around to get a good look at the writing. “That’s one of my letters to Sunburst!”
“Well it took long enough,” Father muttered. “Anything about the duplicator?”
“Naw, she still hasn’t figured it out.”
Twilight pointed at the machine in shock. “They’re running a bit counterfeiting operation!”
“Well we can’t rely on that forever. She got her mark today, so why don’t we let her go?”
“Can we?” Mother asked eagerly. “Can we finally stop pretending that she exists for any reason except to buy our way into the trust of this town?”
“And even better, she’ll stop writing our precious son and trying to corrupt him.”
“Yeah, I was getting tired of burning these things,” Mother said, using her magic to incinerate the letter from Starlight to Sunburst. “And as a bonus, after she leaves we can stop lying to him about how much she hates him. And then we can get him married into Canterlot nobility and all of our problems will be solved!”
“For an emotionless pony, you sure like layering on the melodrama.”
“So was I anywhere close to the truth about your family?”
“No.” She then looked down in self-recrimination. “But in general, my out-of-control temper was the reason I never made any other friends. So you got that right.”
With a flash, Starlight quickly brought the group back to the present day and the empty room in Twilight’s castle containing the map table. She turned away, but she couldn’t stop her sobbing from being audible.
“I think we should stop. At least for the time being,” said Twilight.
“It was a lie,” Starlight muttered to herself. “My whole life was based on a lie!”
After their frequent battles, Twilight and Spike were too intimidated to approach the crying mare. So Maud, after considerable hesitation, stepped forward to tap a hoof ineffectually against her side.
“I do that a lot,” noted Maud.
“There, there,” she said in a monotone. She wished she could do more, but she just couldn’t. “I shouldn’t have shown you that.”
“No, Maud, it’s OK,” Starlight said, drawing herself back together. “I needed to see the truth.” She used a spell to clean herself up and turned around to face Twilight. “I think it’s your turn to show me what a friendship improved by cutie marks looks like. Do you know where and when you wish to go?”
“Are you sure that you’re alright?” Twilight asked.
“I’m open,” Starlight said. “For the first time in a long time I’m open to another point of view. So do your best to convince me.”
The quartet found themselves in the ruins of an old castle late at night. “This is—” Twilight began, before Spike raced over to an open window to stare around him with wonder.
“The Castle of the Two Sisters, on the night of Nightmare Moon’s return!” he exclaimed. “I finally get to see it for myself!”
Twilight directed Starlight and Maud to the same window Spike was looking out of. The full moon illuminated a group of six ponies that were approaching another wing of the wrecked castle.
“I had only just met Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy earlier that day,” Twilight explained, pointing each of them out, “and for most of that day I just considered them to be in the way in my quest to try and stop an ancient curse from being fulfilled. I failed, and Nightmare Moon returned to Equestria a millennium after she had been banished by Princess Celestia.”
“That’s just a folktale,” scoffed Starlight.
“Then how do you explain that!” Spike said, pointing at the bare moon.
“I do remember the moon changing during one of my forays into the Northern Desert.”
“What time is it?” Twilight asked with a smirk.
“What?”
“Cast a spell to find out what time it is right now.”
Starlight did so. “That’s impossible! It’s mid-day!”
“That’s Nightmare Moon,” stated Twilight. She pointed at the other wing, where the other ponies had left Twilight to examine some stones. The very substance of the night seemed to congeal at one end of the hall around the stones. The magical anomaly began to glow, and the younger (and wingless) Twilight leapt fearlessly into it as it disappeared.
At that moment, young Twilight materialized in the very hall that the quartet of witnesses were standing in. And at the other end of the hall the darkness reformed itself into a tall pony in armor, with a large black horn and a black mane that contained the night sky. The alicorn Twilight froze time, catching the figure in mid-laugh.
Starlight ran over to get a better look. “Unbelievable!”
“Now this is why I insisted on using the actual past instead of memories,” noted Maud.
“I seem to remember one night that lasted forever,” Starlight said slowly as she walked back to them. “I thought I was just hallucinating. It was months before I returned to civilization. There was something about Celestia’s long-lost sister being returned to her, but the accompanying story was so fantastic that I was sure it was just a fabrication…”
“We sought the Nightmare out in the Everfree Forest, where she was gathering her power,” Twilight continued. “She sought to destroy us again and again, but each time I found myself saved by a different one of these ponies that I considered to be strangers. Here was where she and I would have our final confrontation, my only chance to activate the only artifacts that could stop her—the Elements of Harmony.”
Time restarted. As they watched, Twilight charged Nightmare Moon, using teleportation to get past her and try to activate the rocks. Her spell failed, and a moment later Nightmare Moon had crushed the stones into fragments.
“You little foal!” Nightmare Moon gloated. “Thinking you could defeat me? Now you will never see your princess, or your sun! The night will last forever!” This was followed by much evil laughter.
It was at this point that Twilight’s new friends caught up with her, in Maud’s mind to meet their inevitable doom beside her. Instead, Twilight launched into a speech informing her foe that the Elements hadn’t been destroyed, because they now existed within each of her friends. As she enumerated the ways in which they now represented Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Loyalty, and Twilight’s own dual-purpose Element of Friendship/Magic, the six ponies were overcome with glowing pillars from above, which coalesced into a rainbow beam that swept up the screaming Nightmare Moon, seeming to obliterate her.
The lights faded, showing the exhausted forms of Twilight and her friends. The sun rose, and from its light stepped Princess Celestia. She thanked Twilight for her service and then greeted the small filly that Nightmare Moon had turned into, calling her “Luna”.
“And that’s how friendship saved Equestria—the first of many times for our small group,” concluded Twilight.
“That…was even more awesome than I imagined!” exclaimed Spike.
“Could…could I see something?” asked Maud.
“Sure, go ahead.”
Maud rewound time and froze it at the instant when the Elements were fully activated and doing whatever they were doing to Nightmare Moon. (Cleansing her of evil? Reverting her to her state prior to her corruption?) The eyes of each of the glowing ponies were closed, and they had a look of complete contentment upon their faces.
“This is the moment when each of you embodied your chosen Element,” Maud said, looking back at the alicorn Twilight. “How did that change you?”
“It’s not something I can put into words,” Twilight said after thinking the question over. “I mean, I may be pretty good at magic, but I never was Equestria’s best friend—Pinkie met that description more than I.”
“I don’t think being a Bearer ever had anything to do with being the best,” Spike added, stepping up to be next to Twilight. “Rarity is obsessed about Generosity, and I think she always has been. Greed is a huge part of her, and every time she lets it control her it tortures her. Rainbow Dash fell apart when she was forced to split her loyalty, and we’ll never forget the day when Pinkie Pie got it into her head that we didn’t take her seriously. I think you six are Bearers because you live and breathe your Elements.”
Twilight nodded. “Yes, I suppose that is right. I’ve spent so much of my life worrying that I wasn’t a good enough friend.” She pointed up at the peaceful expression on her double. “But at that moment, I was sure. I knew what Friendship was.”
Maud stared up at the figures for nearly a minute, her breathing becoming more and more shallow.
“Maud?”
“Could you give me a boost? Please?” Maud asked Twilight, pointing at the levitating figure of Pinkie Pie.
Twilight was surprised by this request, but she wordlessly complied.
Maud reached out and lightly touched Pinkie’s leg. And at that moment she felt everything that Pinkie was feeling, the full realization of being the embodiment of Laughter with a capital “L”.
And she laughed. Maud Pie laughed out loud, more and more until tears of joy ran down her face. Eventually Twilight got worried enough that she brought Maud back down to the ground, where she curled into a little ball of happiness.
Starlight looked slowly between Maud and the frozen tableau of glowing ponies. She walked up to the figure of unicorn Twilight and extended her hoof…
She was stopped by alicorn Twilight. “Starlight, I vowed not to use my magic to try and sway your opinion. It might be considered to be outside of that vow, but technically, that’s me. And if you touch me right now…I’m going to win our little argument.”
“Silly Twilight,” said Starlight as she broke free and made contact with the younger version of her antagonist. “You’ve already won.”
Starlight Glimmer surrendered herself into the custody of the Princess of Friendship, and freely allowed her to revert history so that her village was undermined. Twilight realized that Starlight’s abilities were so great that she could be a great threat to Equestria. Under the circumstances, she could either be banished to Tartarus for all eternity or she could become Twilight’s pupil—any other course would be too dangerous, and after seeing Starlight’s tears on learning how her foster parents had abused her, she couldn’t stand to see her suffering the tortures of the damned. And so Starlight became Twilight’s student.
As for Maud, she was sent back to her family farm, and finally got to experience a Wednesday. She did her best to keep her various promises, getting Rainbow Dash’s Rainboom story into the Post and returning the cloud-walking charm to Flim. Her moment of experiencing true emotion was just that…a moment. And afterwards, she was still an emotional mute. But she didn’t mind quite as much as before.
“That’s…a really touching ending,” noted Starlight. “But you forgot your promise to be a better sister to ‘Pinkamena’.”
Maud looked her straight in the eye. “Starlight, I may be Pinkie’s big sister, but from the moment she got her mark, she’s always been the one taking care of me.”
I haven’t figured out how she and Starlight would meet up in the present day. I can assure you, however, that it was definitely awkward.
“…And so it was,” Starlight concluded.
“And so it was.”