//------------------------------// // 5 - New Directions // Story: The Ninth Enchantment of Mage Meadowbrook // by Thornwing //------------------------------// Starlight spent the night in sleepless torment. Tossing and turning, never finding comfort in the majestically appointed bedding and cascading pile of pillows heaped all around her, she blinked away the tears. For all the recent confidence she had built in coming under the literal and proverbial wing of the Princess of Friendship, a gnawing loneliness ate away at her insides in turmoil. A pawn in somepony else’s game. A fraud in her own fur. Affixed with a cutie mark she no longer trusted. She buried her head under the pillow to try and hide its sight, but could feel the blood circulating through her flank with each pained heart beat. Each beat feeling like a scolding slap that she deserved as the cost of her failure. Is my whole life a lie? The question repeated over and over in her head. A knock came at the door. Starlight’s muffled voice called out from underneath the pillow stack, “Go away! I don’t want to talk right now.” Exhausted, vexed by her dreams, and feeling like a prisoner in her own mind, she didn’t feel like receiving anypony at this late hour. She groaned as the door creaked open. The patter of a larger pony’s gait crossed the space between the door and the bed as Starlight clung even tighter to the pillow barely covering her horn and top mane bob. With another creak and groan from the old oak bedframe and mattress, the unwelcomed guest made themself comfortable lying down in the unoccupied space at Starlight’s side. “Nevertheless, I am here to talk,” she said. The lower than expected voice caught Starlight by surprise. Hitching a short breath and shimmying out from under her protective covering, she turned to see a pair of dark and silvery moonlit eyes hovering above and offering a calming presence amidst the battle raging within. “Princess Luna — I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware I was dreaming.” “You aren’t.” Her dark lips parted with one side lifting into a curling corner — the best attempt at a smile that she could usually muster. “And yet you are just the same. But that doesn’t matter. A nightmare is still a nightmare regardless of your conscious state.” “But, how did you know?” “A waking nightmare calls to me just as strongly as a sleeping one, but I sense this is a special case. What troubles you, Starlight Glimmer?” “Ugghhhh,” Starlight answered as she dropped back down on the pillow. “My whole life is a lie.” Princess Luna took a moment to let the silence settle. “Perhaps, so might I suggest we speak truth. Lies begin where truth ends, and we both know that’s not why we are here. I’ll start.” Looking down with a confident and majestic gaze, she continued, “I am Princess Luna of Equestria, Warden of the Moon and Keeper of Dreams.” She finished and motioned a nod toward Starlight. Starlight lifted her head and thought for what seemed like an hour. “I am…” The seconds ticked by with every loud beat of her heart. “—I don’t know!” She flopped back onto the pillow, forehooves covering her head and her eyes filling with tears once again. “I mean, I thought I knew, but now I don’t. How can I trust my own feelings if I don’t even know where they’re coming from? How can I trust my own destiny or cutie mark? I have so many questions, and nopony with answers.” Luna placed a hoof on Starlight’s shoulder. “I know who you are.” A gentle warmth flowed from Luna’s touch across Starlight’s shoulder. Her tears welled up, on the verge of spilling out and soaking into the already matted fur of her cheeks and continuing on to further ruin the soft velvet pillow that had been feeling the brunt of Starlight’s crisis of self. “You are Starlight Glimmer, a pony like so many others and different yet the same. You have your faults, as we all do, and you have your strengths, as only those that can accept their faults can truly have. You are courageous. You are powerful. You are smart. And you are a good friend.” “I enslaved an entire village and nearly tore apart the fabric of space and time.” “And you are stubborn.” “I’m a horrible friend.” Luna’s gaze turned sour. “I thought we were speaking only in truths?” “That is the truth.” Starlight propped herself up once again and wiped at her eyes. “I sit in the shadow of Twilight and her friends because I’m afraid to face to my past. I did some pretty awful things, and now I’m not even sure if I was in control of all those awful things I did. My magic? My cutie mark? My destiny? Is it all a lie? I picked up some stick in the desert and everything was so clear. Now, it all feels wrong, and I’m afraid it might happen again. Now I’m supposed to find the staff. What if it turns me into that monster again?” Luna turned to face the window in the light of the moon streaming down across the far side of the room. “I once thought as you do.” She lit up her horn and conjured a shadow in inky silhouette that floated toward the path of the moonbeam. “Overcome by guilt, I gave into the darkness. I fought with my sister as I sought to subjugate everycreature under my very own hooves.” The obscurity morphed into the shape of a mare’s head and positioned itself over the crescent moon. “I spent a very long time in contemplation of my actions, somehow knowing I had full control of them all along.” “Yeah, but that was Nightmare Moon — that wasn’t you.” “On the contrary, the truth is that we are one in the same.” Luna’s horn shone again with a deeper and darker hue than Starlight had ever seen it take. “I fostered the spirit of doubt, jealousy, and spite.” The blot fell from the window and floated over toward Luna. Peering down into the small roiling cloud, her eyes flickered and flashed in lightning strikes across her silver glare. “Over time, those feelings grew to outweigh the good — my love for my sister, Starswirl’s guidance, trust in myself.” The ball slowly grew as she became transfixed on the sight as though she were inspecting the largest onyx gem ever discovered. “I lost focus of what really mattered. I let myself become Nightmare Moon.” “But what does all that have to do with me?” Starlight flippantly replied, breaking the spell and spoiling the mood. “It has everything to do with you, and also nothing at all. Don’t play coy with me, Starlight Glimmer. I know the signs when I see them. I have experienced what you are going through myself. Who better to understand your current state of mind? You feel alone and unsure of yourself. You doubt your strength and question your intelligence. You feel like you aren’t in control, and you don’t like that feeling at all. You miss the confidence and sense of purpose, even if it wasn’t always for good.” “Yes! I admit it!” Starlight’s ears perked up. “I don’t feel like I’m in control of anything because I want to be good, yet I’m supposed to be able to fix all my faults and mistakes without breaking a sweat? I got lucky! If I hadn’t failed, Twilight and the others would still be slaves in my misguided experiment, or worse yet, on a different timeline altogether. How am I supposed to be confident in myself when I can’t even be confident I’m doing the right thing now?” “My young pony, that is where your greatest strength lies. You have friends you can rely on, and you’ve proven yourself to be a friend that we can all turn to in our time of need. The pendulum swings both ways. Take comfort in knowing that I have trust in you. My sister, and Twilight, and all your friends — we care about you and we know that in your heart you know what is right. You control your own destiny, and you know this to be true. Don’t let anypony convince you otherwise, least of all yourself.” “Mind control? What if I was mind controlled, or still am?” Starlight winced. “I mean, I’ve dabbled so I know a thing or two about—.” Luna shrugged off the comment with a laugh. “Oh, Starlight. I’m sure you know that mind control spells are merely suggestions imprinted on the thoughts of another. If they don’t already have some level of trust in the caster, there is no way for the spell to take hold. Even the most skilled mage would need to find a way to anchor the spell that didn’t involve brute force. No — mind control is out of the question. You are your own pony and you need to trust in your friends if you ever doubt yourself, even for a second.” Luna paused along with Starlight. She smiled, and Starlight smiled back. “Thank you, Princess. I needed to hear that.” “Don’t thank me,” Luna replied. “Thank yourself for having the courage to reach out to a friend for help.” “I… I… okay.” Starlight stammered. “But I still have questions that need answers.” “Then you best get some rest while you still can. I‘m still finishing up with Twilight, but I understand you have quite the quest laid out ahead of you.” Luna slid off the side of the bed and lit up her horn. “I bid you, goodnight, Starlight Glimmer. You know how to reach me if you require further assistance.” “Wait, what?” Before she could get an answer, Luna disappeared in a burst and collapse of a moonlit nebula. Starlight’s head hit the pillow once more. As she closed her eyes, the only question on her mind was trying to rationalize the enigma of whether the Princess of the Night was actually present or something she had only experienced in a waking dream. The outcome was the same either way. Her mind finally at ease, she quickly fell asleep. After a somewhat sleepless night, tossing and turning in a borrowed bed high in the tower of Canterlot Castle, Starlight woke to a knock at her door. Without waiting for an answer, Twilight Sparkle’s magical aura thrust the door aside as she came tromping into the room. “We’re already behind schedule,” Twilight said. “The train leaves in less than an hour, and you’re not even close to ready!” Starlight rolled over and mumbled, “This had better be a dream.” Reaching up, she wiped the cold and crusting drool from the her cheek. “Guess not.” “I don’t want to fall behind again. Starswirl is already up and asking for directions to your old village. If we don’t hurry, he might just try and go by himself!” Starlight tossed off the covers and ambled out of bed. “Hold your ponies, Twilight. I doubt he’ll leave without us. I mean, we’re all in this together, right? That’s how these friendship quests work?” “I’m not so sure about that. He’s been acting really strange ever since we made it out of the Cavern of Crystal Lights.” “How so? You’ve only just met him. Maybe he’s just like that?” Starlight scurried over to the washroom to get herself put together. Twilight paced at the foot of the bed. “It’s got something to do with that book, and the staff, and obviously his family. You saw for yourself how closely he’s bonded with Priestess Celeste. If he’s the last surviving member of one of the ancient pony houses, there’s no telling what kind of secrets he’s hiding. That kind of information won’t be found in just any other book out there. The ancient tribes passed down their knowledge mainly in oral history. He’s hiding something; I know it.” Starlight shook her head as she simultaneously brushed her teeth and combed her mane. “It’s probably no big deal. We all have secrets, even ones we don’t tell our best friends.” She grimaced and spat out the residue from her mouth into the sink and took a sip of water from a glass sitting next to the faucet. “We’ll just go get the staff from my old village and bring it back to the altar. Piece of cake.” “Piece of cake?” Twilight looked a little peeved at the response. “This is big, Starlight. Fate of all the magic in Equestria, big! If we don’t find that staff and get it back to the altar, there’s no telling what could happen.” “Relax, Twilight. The staff has been gone from the altar for a while. I found it in the desert shortly after you became a princess, and nothing bad has happened to Equestrian magic since.” “Okay, so that rules out a few things, but what if certain things happening in the past few moons are a direct result of the staff not being where it should? What if that’s why my magic is fading? I’m still exhausted from our fight with the Pony of Shadows, and it’s not just from lack of sleep. If we don’t restore the staff, I could lose my magic forever!” “Guess we’ll have to return the staff before that happens.” Starlight slung her bags over her back. “By the way, how much sleep have you been getting lately?” “In the past week? Counting last night, about twelve hours total. Why do you ask?” Twilight continued to pace the floor while Starlight finished getting ready. “Is that, uhh, normal?” “We just freed Starswirl and the pillars from limbo and then saved the world from the Pony of Shadows, so I’d say it’s par for the course.” Twilight turned one final time and headed toward the door. “Let’s go grab breakfast before Starswirl commandeers a train.” Starswirl called out from the open train window as Twilight and Starlight raced down the hill toward the station. “All aboard!” Using his magic he blew pair of toots on the train’s signal horn. The train conductor shook his head and mumbled to himself, “That’s my one and only job.” He then repeated aloud, “All aboard.” Starlight made it to the train first. Twilight bounded up the steps with an overstuffed satchel strap digging into her wing sockets. “Mornin’, Princess Twilight,” the conductor said as they passed. “Thanks for holding the train for us,” Twilight replied somewhat out of breath. “Anything for royalty,” the conductor said as he closed and latched the passenger car door behind them. Twilight and Starlight quickly took their seats. Twilight unceremoniously dumped her bags on the floor next to her bench without so much as a flicker of levitation magic. She just flattened her wings and dropped her haunches letting the packs slide off her back. Starswirl waved from the section ahead of them. “It seems somepony got up on the wrong side of the princess bed.” Twilight slid into her seat. “Just saving up what’s left of my magic. Never know when I’ll need to use it save Equestria before some random threat to our existence snuffs it out.” “Twilight, are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Starlight asked, a little worried for her friend. “You don’t seem like yourself, and I’m worried about you.” “I’m doing great. Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not like I’m a princess and saving the world isn’t part of job description. That and the fact that I spent most of the night arguing with Princess Luna. Not to mention, Starswirl—” Starswirl wasn’t paying any attention. He had his head stuck out the window, magically blowing the train whistle as the train began to pull out of the station. Starlight chuckled. “It’s okay, Twilight. Let the old wizard have his fun.” She dropped into the seat opposite Twilight after stowing her bags in the luggage rack above. “So tell me, what did Luna have to say to you? I only saw her for a short while last night, but she really helped me put things into focus.” “Ahhhh…” Twilight sighed. “She didn’t help. I wanted answers about the staff and Starswirl and this Priestess I’ve never heard anything about, guarding a shrine in the core of Canterlot’s foundations, and all she wanted to talk about was me.” “Well, she is pretty good at what she does. Are you sure she didn’t help you out at all?” “She just kept repeating stuff I already know. ‘Trust in your friends’, ‘You know what you need to do’, ‘I have faith in you’; I’m the Princess of Friendship — I don’t need a pep talk. I need to know what Starswirl won’t tell me.” Twilight dropped her head to the side to glance and point around Starlight. “Look, he’s just avoiding me now.” Starswirl sat in the next row, having curled up along his bench, eyes now closed. Starlight could hear him start to snore. She glanced over at Twilight. “Maybe he was up all night as well, thinking about our mission? He’s probably just as tired as you. Or stressed — I mean, this whole mission sort of revolves around him. Maybe avoiding discussing things is his way of dealing with the pressure? Can’t you give him the benefit of the doubt?” Twilight’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t get any sleep last night — again. Too many questions and not enough answers. Usually I have Spike around to act as a sounding board.” Twilight paused to clear a catch in her throat. “I don’t mean to be short with you, Starlight. This mission is important, and I hate going in without all the information we need to be successful, especially when it’s sitting right there.” She pointed over toward Starswirl, grit her teeth and gave a little sneer. “I’ve got an idea,” Starlight said. “How about we all take a nap since we didn’t really get much sleep last night, and then we’ll all be awake and alert when we arrive?” “Fine, but I still don’t like how he’s avoiding my questions.” Twilight laid down across her bench. “I need some answers.” “Pretty sure we all want the same thing, Twilight. Get some sleep. We’ve got quite a ride before we reach my old village.” Starlight nestled into her bench and tried her best to get comfortable. It wasn’t as easy falling asleep on a moving train as it was in a soft, warm bed, but she somehow managed with the unsynchronized stereo whinny of Starswirl and Twilight competing for Equestria’s loudest snorer as the train continued down the track.