//------------------------------// // I Can Explain (Edited) // Story: Starlight's Shattered Glass // by jrock117 //------------------------------// "Thanks, Trixie, you really came out for me this time." "Ha! When has Trixie never come out on top when it comes to helping her dearest friend?" Starlight sighed, "Humble as ever, I see." The two mares walked down one of the many similar hallways within the crystal Castle Friendship. Between the two of them was a rectangular pane, covered with a magenta tarp, being held in Starlight's own blue glow. They were going at a brisk pace, as Starlight wanted to finish this as fast as possible, the less Twilight knew about it, the better. "See what?" Trixie asked. "Uh, what?" "You said that you see, what did you see?" "... What are you talking about?" "Don't play games with Trixie!" She spoke, a little heated, "You said 'I see', What did you see?" This only furthered Starlight's confusion. "What?" "Starlight! Trixie is being serious!" "So am I! What in Equestria are you getting so worked up about?" "Because you won't tell Trixie what you saw!" "I still don't..." Starlight's eyes widened in revelation. "Oooh. Oh. You're talking about, oh." "Hm?" Trixie inquired, kind of. "Trixie, saying 'I see' is just a phrase. When I said 'Humble as ever, I see', that was just me making a sarca- I mean truthful observation. I didn't actually see anything." "Oh, well why didn't you say so sooner?" "Trixie, I swear to Celestia-" "Trixie's beginning to think she should've forgotten about the mirror entirel-Hrmph" Trixie is cut off as her purple friend shoved a hoof in her mouth. "Shh shh shh shh shh..." Starlight, after quickly zipping her eyes back and forth, whispered in Trixie's ear. "Don't talk about the mirror so loud, I don't want Twilight to find out." "Find out about what?" A third voice drew panicked 'meeps' from the two mares as they quickly turned their sights to the third mare in the hall. Princess Twilight Sparkle, in all her purple-but-not-the-same-purple-as-Starlight glory, stood at the end of the hall, just a few feet away. Blocking the mares' exit. "Oh! Uh! N-Nothing!" Starlight quickly spoke. "Ab-SO-lutely nothing!" "Trixie agrees!" Trixie agreed. Twilight 'probably-the-thickest-book-on-the-shelf' Sparkle squinted her eyes in suspicion. She couldn't quite put her hoof on it, but the attitude of the mares in front of her was off. Maybe it had something to do with the mysterious rectangular shaped tarp. "Girls, if something's up, you can just tell me. You know that, right?" Twilight said, using her calmest tone. "Oh! Pfft, haha, nothing's 'up', Twilight. Trixie and I were just, uhh..." Starlight trailed off as she looked around. Her eyes landed on Trixie, whom was looking back, both silently asking the other to come up with something. Trixie, ever the brave one, sighed deeply. She poised herself and looked directly at the purple princess, clearing her throat to get Twilight's attention. "Yes, Trixie?" "... ... I CAN'T DO THIS!" Trixie reached her hoof back and tossed a Magical TrixieTM smoke bomb in front of her, before dashing into the nearest room and diving out the nearest window. "Trixie you jerk! Get back here and-Hi Twilight, nice weather we're having, please stop staring at me like that." Upon Twilight's face was a look between disappointment and curiosity. While she was annoyed that her student, one of her closest friends, still hadn't told her what the big deal was, that had only gotten her gears turning even more. Now she really wanted to know, but she still needed to hold back, she knows first-hoof that letting her curiosity get the best of her leads to disastrous results. "Starlight, you know you don't have to hide anything from me. We're friends, so I'm sure that whatever happened we can get through this." Twilight coerced. Starlight's belief that Twilight wouldn't find out was beginning to dwindle, she couldn't hide it forever, she just needed to get passed Twilight. "Haha, yeah, I bet!" Starlight, tarpped rectangle in her magic, began to shimmy her way around Twilight. "Good thing nothing's happened so we don't need to have a whole friendship speach. Ha ha... Ha..." She spared a look at her teacher/friend/savior and saw a hurt look on the lavender mare's face, a look that stabbed right through her heart. She sighed and flattened her ears. "Ok, I'll say it, but please don't be mad at me." "Starlight," Twilight placed a gentle hoof on her lighter-purple friend, "nothing short of becoming an evil dictater would make me mad at you. I promise I won't be mad." Starlight slowly inhaled as she turned her vision to the floor. "Ok. I may have broken a mirror, a very, very important mirror." Out of Starlight's vision, Twilight's eyes slowly widened. "How... How important?" "Incredibly." Starlight slouched. Twilight's breathing began to pick up as she started to panic. No, she couldn't have broken that mirror, right? "W-What!? Y-Y-You don't mean-" Twilight spoke before she was cut off by Starlight rushing an apology "I'm really, really, really sorry I broke the mirror. I was testing a new teleportation spell and a bird hit my window and my spell just shot off with the wrong force and the mirror shattered into a billion little pieces so I panicked and jumped out my window and landed in a bush and PLEASE DON'T HATE ME!!!" Starlight finished her manic monologue while cradling herself on the floor, still avoiding looking at her teacher. "Starlight! How could you!?" Twilight yelled in both anger and panic. The young princess began a little dance of despair as a whirlwind of terrible thoughts ran through her head. "Why didn't you say anything earlier!? We need to contact Princess Celestia immediately! I hope the journal is okay, please, oh please let the journal be okay!" Starlight stopped cradling. What does she mean by journal? She thought. She does know I don't keep my journal in my dresser, right? And even if I did keep it there, why would it matter? I could just buy myself another one. Twilight had forgone anger by now and went into full panic mode. "What if the journal is destroyed beyond all repair and we can never use it again!?" Twilight pulled at her mane. "What if whatever spell you used sent the journal to another dimension and we can never get messages back!?" Her wings flared out as her feathers frayed. "What if Princess Celestia gets so upset that we lost contact with Sunset that she revokes my princess-hood and teacher-hood and I'm never allowed to see my friends or the friendship students ever again!?" "Um, Twilight?" Starlight asked. Twilight, with her deranged mane, turned to Starlight. "Y-Yes, Starlight?" "Given that you said 'journal' and 'Sunset', I can sort of guess, but, what mirror do you think I broke?" She asked. "The mirror to Canterlot High, of course!" "Twilight," Starlight got up and sat on her haunches. "I haven't been near that for about, three weeks." This caused Twilight to blink in confusion. "W-wha? But, you said you..." "Twilight, I broke the mirror you got me as a gift." Starlight lifted a hoof. "The one with all of those pictures of us and our friends." Twilight was at a loss for words. Needless to say she wasn't panicking anymore, but the blank look on her face made Starlight a little worried. Starlight was about to prod her purple teacher with a hoof, but the young Alicorn spoke. "Oh, ha, ha ha ha, hoooo boy." Twilight shook her head with a chuckle. "Hehe, kinda wish you just said that instead of saying you broke an important mirror." "What!?" Starlight said in shock. "I mean, considering we have a mirror that acts as a gateway to another world, my mind went to that rather than the mirror I got you." Twilight sighed in relief and gave her purple student a gentle smile. "Starlight, you know that the mirror isn't what's important, what's important is the thought behind the mirror. I got it for you so you could see the pictures of our friends along with your reflection, as long as the pictures are ok..." "Uh, Twilight? Why are you looking at me like that?" Twilight's gentle smile didn't leave, but her right eye betrayed the gentleness as it's brow had shown anger, her other eye was just twitching. "Starlight, what happened to those pictures?" "Oh, I was cleaning my mirror last night, so I put them on my nightstand. I guess I forgot to put them back on. It's not often I say this, but thank Celestia I forgot something, right?" Twilight exhaled a breath she didn't even know she was holding. She sat on to her haunches as well. "Wow, I guess we both got a little hysterical." "Sooo..." Starlight began as she rubbed her little hooves together, "In other words, you're not mad that I broke the mirror you gave me?" Twilight giggled. "No, I'm not mad, as long as the pictures are fine, I'm not mad." Before she could trot over and hug Starlight, said pony had fallen to the floor with an incredibly coherent sigh of relief. Twilight giggled in response. "So, now that that's settled, what's in the tarp?" "Oh." Starlight sat back up and unfurled the tarp, revealing another mirror. "It's the replacement that Trixie's letting me use. She just had it lying around in the back of her wagon-trailer-thingy." "Wait, she just happened to have a mirror lying around?" "She is a magician." Starlight stated. "Actually, when she gave it to me, she said that her tricks-Wait, give me a sec." Starlight put a hoof to her chest and spoke with a more pompous tone, "Not all of Trixie's tricks are smoke and mirrors." Twilight stood with a raised eyebrow. "Was... that your Trixie impression?" Starlight rubbed a foreleg with another hoof, "It's not as good as your Pinkie impression, but I think it's good." She smiled a sheepish smile. "I may or may not have been practicing it." This brought a giggle out of Twilight, much to Starlight's chagrin. "Starlight, let's just replace your mirror for now and worry about everything else later." "Yeah, sounds good." The two purple mares walked down the halls to the lighter mare's room, chatting away at how silly the previous situation seemed in retrospect. They eventually made it to her door and opened it, what followed was the most, uncomfortably loud crunch the two had ever heard. Twilight spoke. "Starlight, why is your floor covered in glass?" "Oops." Starlight looked to the side, "I... guess I forgot to get clean my room. Hehe..." "Starlight," Twilight turned to face her student, "now that I think about it, why didn't you just use a reconstruction spell on the mirror? All of this could've been avoided." "I... Didn't think about it at the time. I was probably too busy panicking and jumping out of my window and into a bush." Twilight looked over the scene in the room. "I probably would've done the same thing, had Princess Celestia been in my position and I were in yours." "Haha! That would be fun to see." Starlight said, which caused Twilight to give her a slight glare. "Anyway!" Twilight rushed, "Let's clean up your room, you already have the replacement mirror, so I guess we can just get rid of the glass." After a little song about how you should be upfront about mistakes and a few cleaning spells later, the room was, as Rarity would say, immaculate. The floor was cleared of glass, the new mirror was placed in the frame on Starlight's wall above her dresser, and the photos of their friends were placed back where they belonged. "Hey, Starlight?" "Yeah?" "I just noticed this, and I don't know if you did or not, but what is it." Twilight pointed to a pattern that lay in the center of the mirror, a six sided polygon with each side being a different color. Clockwise, from the top side, pink, blue, white, purple, orange, and yellow. "You know what, I'm not so sure. I believe that's called a hexagon? I may need to get my first grade math book to double check." Starlight replied with a sarcastic tone at the beginning and finished with a deadpan. She leaned back away from Twilight's glare. "Sorry. In all honesty, this is the first time I noticed it. It looks like a nice pattern to me." "Hmm." Twilight squinted at the central pattern. "Yeah, I was just asking because I thought we damaged it, but it does look more like a pattern than a couple of scratches." Twilight felt a hoof lay on her shoulder and she turned to the other mare in the room. "Twilight, thank you for helping out, I really should've just told you upfront, or rather just used a reconstruction spell and kept it to myself." She placed a wash rag that she was using to polish the mirror down on her dresser. "Starlight," the purple princess hugged her purple friend, "it's ok, were passed that now. Let's just get something to eat, I planned on having lunch with the girls in just a few minutes, how would you like to join us?" "I'd love too." ---~~--- Starlight awoke in the middle of the night, a blue glow interrupting her favorite kite dream. She sat up, and with her tired eyes, looked to her open window. She must've left it open in her panic. Her vision, while still hazy, allowed her to see just what she was doing with her magic as she closed the window and pulled the blinds, only making the blue glow stronger in the absence of Princess Luna's moonlight. "Wha?..." She so eloquently asked. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she saw that whatever was causing the blue glow had an effect similar to shining a light through a water tank. Little ripples in the light shining on her wall gave her a calmed feeling. She turned to see what was causing the glow, her eyes settling on her new mirror. She slid out from under her covers and trotted up to it. What in Equestria is causing it to glow like this, why her mirror of all things? She noticed that she didn't even see her own reflection in the mirror, it felt like she was looking at a lake on a midsummer's day. No sound emanated from it, however. All she heard were her quiet breaths. I need to tell Twilight. She needs to see this. Starlight turned to her door to leave the room, but her attention was brought to the calming, rippling pattern of the light that shined over it. She turned her sights back on the mirror. "Maybe..." Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I touched it. Starlight reasoned with herself. She trotted back to her dresser and hopped her two forelegs onto the top, now face to face with the mirror. Lifting her hoof, slowly, ever slowly did she lift her hoof, she touched the surface of the mirror, causing a ripple to spread across, not unlike when you thouch the surface of a bath filled with water. She pulled her hoof back and a little droplet of whatever her mirror turned into fell from it, back into the mirror, like gravity had affixed itself horizontally to the mirror. She breathed a heavy sigh, and before she could leave her dresser, she slipped on a rag and her upper body fell into the mirror, causing it to suck her in, no sound had escaped the mirror, not even her scream for Twilight. It hadn't even been a full two seconds before she fell face first onto wood, tumbled over, hit her back on a wooden corner, and finally collapsed onto a carpet that had seen better days. "Ow... Ow ow ouch..." Starlight rubbed her pained head and looked around. She had fallen into a room of some sort, one that was lit with a lamp easily twice as tall as her. The carpet was brown, just as were the wooden walls. There was a bunk bed to her right, but it might as well have been one bed since the top seemed to be turned into a makeshift shelf. The ceiling seemed to have been white at some point, but was now a stained yellow, with a turned off ceiling light. There was a little nightstand at the head of the bed, atop it were a broken lamp and a stack of papers. To her left was a green dresser, what she assumed she hit her back on, and behind her was another dresser that was built into the wall. Above it, a non-rippling mirror. Before she could stand up, she heard somepony speak. "What the hell was that?"