“Starlight!” A pause, before more angrily: “Starlight! Starlight, get over here!”
The sound of panting echoed up the stairwell of the farmhouse-turned-center-of-business. Not long after, a purple-haired woman in a pair of rounded spectacles with a crack in the lenses, a shabby secondhand suit, and an arm band bearing an emblem of a griffon, quite out of breath and nearly stumbling, stumbled to the top. She emerged into the main “office” of the manager for the local branch of the Hayseed Agricultural Company: a rather fancy name given to a mundane business that had somehow managed to live by filling in niches left in the scars of the Lunar Fall.
The office itself was nothing more than an old attic space that had been repainted and paneled, leaving just enough room for a desk, chairs, and a few other office furnishings in front of a circular window. There were two people already in there. One was the head teamster for that branch office. The other was the manager himself. The former of the two had far less enthusiasm about her job than Starlight did, which even then was far greater than the last wage-earning employee had possessed before she quit. The manager, on the other hand, was a gruff, scowling, impatient, and unlikeable man all around. And he gave Starlight the same look he always did when she showed herself.
“Where in the world have you been? I expected you back up here with last month’s records and hour ago!”
The records in question were currently in a sizeable, only semi-organized stack in her arms as she struggled to catch her breath. “Sorry, sir… The last secretary left them in such a mess and I’ve been trying to get them sorted out since-”
“I didn’t ask for your excuses! I told you to bring me something an hour ago and you didn’t bring it! That’s an hour off for today!”
Starlight clenched her teeth, having long since learned that looking shocked about it or protesting was useless, as she hobbled to his desk and set them down.
“Now listen up. Hayworth here tells me that we’re running a deficit of over 3,000.”
“Well, in all honesty, I’m not surprised, sir. I warned you a while ago that if we don’t have all the bookkeeping tallied at the end of each week we were going to-”
“You getting a smart mouth with me, you Griffonstone import?”
Starlight clenched her teeth again but stayed silent. “No, I’m only saying…”
“I didn’t pay you to ‘say’ anything except what I ask for. Get your ass down to the distributors and tell ‘em I want this sorted out now. You get them to drag up every transaction we have and you get that taken care of.”
“Sir, isn’t this the accountant’s job?”
“Pft. That turncoat walked out yesterday saying she was getting a better offer from Golden Harvest. As if anyone could outsell us… Anyway, you’ve seen enough of the books and you lent a hand last harvest season. It shouldn’t be too hard for you to pick it up and take care of it.”
Cheaper too… She nearly muttered. “I don’t even know what her systems were like. This’ll take me a little time…”
“A little time? And you expect me to go to our clients and tell them to just sit around and wait to see if we stole 3,000 dollars from them? Use your head! I thought you were supposed to be smart!”
By now, Starlight was struggling not to quiver.
“You get out there and you get it hammered out and you get it hammered out today! You’ve got an hour to make up anyway now.”
Starlight had to take a deep breath before she said the next part. “Well…technically, sir…since this is something so important, I think it would be best if you went in person to the distributors and explained the situation…”
“You back-talking me now? You want me to get your visa revoked or something, Starlight? Just say the word and I’ll do it today.”
She sighed. She got that threat at least three times a week—the ultimate whip that could always keep her in line. Normally she wouldn’t even bother protesting as much as she had, but it was sundown…
With a very tired look, she straightened out her suit jacket and turned around. “I’ll head out there immediately, sir…”
“That’s more like it,” he snorted as he sat back down and reached for the books. “And by the way, so you won’t have to make this up too, you can just take the trip out of tomorrow’s lunch break.”
It was a good thing her back was already turned, because Starlight’s teeth really did bare this time. “You’re too kind, boss…”
Within five minutes, Starlight Glimmer was making her way out of the front doors and down the road. She had paused only to grab the matching hat for her secondhand suit. It helped her maintain at least some air of professionalism. Goodness knew, with her arm band properly displayed for all in the community to see, she had a hard enough time looking the way.
She walked rather briskly, not so much due to her boss’ thinly-veiled threat but the fact the sun was getting very close to the horizon and she fully intended to stop to grab some food on the way. If she wasn’t going to get to sit down to eat in peace today, she could at least enjoy her stroll. The weather was nice. There were only a scant few clouds in the sky, something everyone in town feared like ravens at an ill man’s bedside, and the sun was shining for now.
So long as it wasn’t inconveniencing them, few people paid much attention to weather nowadays. Fillydelphia certainly didn’t unless it was cloudy. And if they did look at the sky, they, like Starlight was doing now, made sure to keep their eyes away from the Northeast.
It was unusual to see so much commerce in a town so close to the Equestrian borders nowadays; even if prior to eight years ago it had been built up with paved roads, three story buildings, and gaslighting down several of the streets. There were many towns like this near the border that were now empty and left only for the dead. This one still functioned partially due to being one of the last communities on an east-west trade route as well as being close to Fillydelphia proper; only ten miles north of it. If the Lunar Fall had never happened, a railroad would have been built with the township as a major station. All plans for that had long since been scrapped, however. And while many of the residents stayed there (out of livelihood from running the various companies and guilds rather than bravery), the place had changed.
Starlight passed by several buildings that were boarded up and left in a state of indefinite closure and/or disrepair. Signs with guidelines for what to do in the case of an emergency as well as to remember to practice the alarm drills at home with families were posted everywhere. The next block had homes with well-trimmed and tended gardens bordered by ones that had been left wild for some time. Many of the roads had large cracks and potholes in them, even in the more urban areas such as the one that Starlight now walked down, and the gaslighting didn’t work in a quarter of town. On the next block, she saw a large area of the road had been excavated when the residents were forced to fix the city’s plumbing themselves. No public works officials from Fillydelphia would come there now. They always said they would, of course, but always something would come up where they didn’t have budget or were needed elsewhere.
The real reason, of course, was the same reason the manager wasn’t doing this errand himself
As she passed into the main thoroughfare, where horse-drawn wagons pulled goods to and fro, she was sufficiently insulated from the northwest. Many people like her walked in the open and even children felt safe enough to play on the sidewalks. They were even turning on the lights as the evening approached. The far majority, however, especially those who were conducting business or errands, wore the same griffon arm bands. Most of them had far shabbier clothing than Starlight. Two hadn’t had a haircut in a while and were wearing shirts made from sackcloth. Another looked like she hadn’t seen two meals a day in a long time. Even the most diligent of them had a hollow, worn-out look.
They had more reason to fear the Northeast than anyone, and yet they also had more reason than anyone to be there.
“Oh Starlight!”
She looked up and saw a man, donned in a tweed jacket even more worn out than hers with an old, rusted, pressurized tank on his back and a box full of deflated balloons on his front walking down the street, waving at her.
“You’ve got to hit up the store on Maredisan and 2nd. They got tea in today and who knows when they’ll get it again.”
“Oh really? Thanks for the info!”
He nodded before turning and beginning to call out his balloons for sale, while Starlight slowed a bit in her step. The truth was the township rarely got goods that the various store proprietors wouldn’t get for themselves from cities in the interior and bring back. It hadn’t seen tea bags for sale in close to eight months. She knew her boss was continuously short-changing her, and stopping to eat, drink, or buy would only be more time she’d have to make up later, but the store the shabby man mentioned was closer to the Northeast and night was approaching, which was why it likely hadn’t sold out yet. The chance to get tea again was too much. In the end, she made a turn on the next street.
The area changed again as she walked along. The errand runners gave way to members of Fillydelphia’s military. They were spotty at first, in groups of two marching about on various duties, but it wasn’t long before Starlight was keeping to one side of the sidewalk with her head low as entire regiments of them marched along. A bit further, and not one but two wagons passed her filled with more soldiers. She risked looking up into the back of them when they passed. They were all new recruits. The draft age had been lowered to 15 by the looks of them. And they all looked every part how a kid would who realized they were likely being sent to their deaths. Some of them barely seemed to know what to do with the rifles in their hands.
When she reached a junction, she turned to head to the Northwest instead while the wagons went on to the Northeast. The road was a straight shot, but try as she might not to look at it she caught it in her peripheral vision. A mile from there was the current border of “No Man’s Land”. She had been to it only three weeks ago, despite the prohibition of Griffonstone refugees (even ones from the Sire’s Hollow area).
She saw the blockhouse that had been erected, and beyond it the walls hastily constructed of whatever rubble was available to mortar together; whether it be boulders, building chunks, or even pavement. She saw four different placements for the new rapid-fire guns that used spring loading to eject shells and insert new ones, so that you could just keep shooting with the same weapon and spray the battlefield. Most of all, she saw the forest growing thick just across the barrier and beyond that the darkening skies over Northwest Fillydelphia and Equestria. They said they gradually gave way to everlasting night if you went far enough into it, although there was no way anyone could know for sure. After all, no one had ever gone there and come back alive.
Soon it vanished behind buildings again. A bit further and the soldiers gave way to townsfolk again, and beyond that kids started to come out once again. It was then that she caught something new.
Up ahead there were a number of individuals with arm bands, children, and even a native citizen clustered around the sidewalk. In the current state of Greater Everfree, street performers were far from uncommon, but few came out that close to Equestria. And fewer yet drew in those kinds of crowds at this time of day. Starlight, her curiosity piqued, made out an old crate on the pavement to act as a form of table, and a purple and green dog making the rounds with an old hat in his teeth.
Standing behind the crate was a young woman, dressed in a simple purple sleeved cape made to look like a magician’s over a set of normal clothing. A carved stick that must have been her “wand” was in one hand. As Starlight drew nearer, she saw that she had five cards spread out in front of her.
The dog finished and returned to the young woman’s side. Removing the hat from his mouth, she turned to the others. “Ok! Who wants to volunteer?”
Three different kids raised their hands. She pointed to one. “You had your hand up first, so come on up!”
The child cheered as he approached.
“Now say your name for the audience.”
“Pop Fly.”
“And we’ve never met before, have we Pop Fly?”
“Nope.”
“Alright then, pick a card!”
The boy looked down, carefully considered his option, and finally drew one.
“Now show it to the audience!”
He held it up and showed it to the crowd without letting the girl see, including Starlight. She snorted at the whole thing; having seen many card tricks before and guessing how this would work. Nevertheless, she kept watching as he put it back down with the others.
“Ok, now stand back.”
The boy quickly stepped back and the rest of the audience retreated as well. The young woman smiled and held up her wand.
“Everyone ready?” She held her wand out over the cards and began to wave over them. “Hocus pocus, figgledy fam, arazzamatazz…and alakazam!”
She tapped the chosen card with the wand, and instantly it was incinerated by a spurt of flame. Starlight actually did look up a little at that. Phosphorous paper? She knew of it in professional magic shows. It easily allowed this sort of thing. Most street performers couldn’t afford it, however…
The smoke from the fire endured in the air longer than it should have. It condensed into a thin wisp and seemed to trace in a swirl down and around to the dog, though Starlight quickly figured she imagined it. At the same time, the young woman held out her hand to his muzzle.
A moment later, the dog made a bit of a gyration and then opened his mouth. The card fell down into her hand—whole, entire, and the same as had been chosen.
The audience let out a chorus of “oohs” and “aahs”. The kids gasped in delight. A chorus of applause went out soon after. As for Starlight, her eyes had widened and her jaw hung loose. She actually stopped dead in her tracks.
After a time, she forced herself to look onward and walked again. “That’s…quite the trick. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that before…” she muttered to herself.
As a matter of fact, it continued to weigh on Starlight’s mind the rest of the way. She didn’t even look at the town or the people in it again all the way to the store on the corner, or react to the fact that news of the tea had to have gotten out as there was already a line of people out the door there. Even when the town’s naturalized citizens joined the line and ordered her, along with every other armband-wearing individual, to move down so that they could get in front of them, she kept puzzling over it.
The line eventually did wear down, and at last Starlight left the store with her purchases in hand. She was in luck. The sun was touching the horizon and the interior of the unlit store was already getting so dark she could barely see inside. No sooner had she walked onto the street, however, than the city’s clock tower chimed the top of the hour. She winced, knowing it had been half past when she left, and sighed hopelessly. Since she’d be late either way, two more minutes wouldn’t hurt, so she elected to move to a nearby public bench to take a load off. She didn’t mind that the street remained unlit, both from the gaslighting as well as the various windows and edifices. There hadn’t been an attack since the Lunar Fall and that was eight years ago.
As soon as she sat down, she exhaled in relief and began to pull her shoes off to give her feet some small relief.
“Hey miss?”
Starlight looked up, thinking she was the one being addressed, only to find herself looking at the line stretching out of the corner store (somewhat shorter now as various residents gave up with the onset of sundown). She gave a start on seeing that the young woman who performed the street magic was now standing in it with her dog at her side. A local citizen was behind her looking cross and impatient.
She turned to her uncertainly. “Um, yes?”
“Move up the line, already. I need to be done here in five minutes if I’m going to make it back.”
“Move up…?” She saw numerous people still in front of her. “I’m sorry, but…I’m at the back of the line…”
She rolled her eyes before pointing at the arm band on the one in front of her. “See that?”
“Er, yes?”
“Anyone like that you can just push by. You can skip a good dozen spots.”
“I’m not sure I understand…”
She groaned. “What’s there to understand? You see one in front of you, you get priority. You can jump up toward the front of the line.”
“But they were here before me…”
“Who cares? Just get in front of them!”
She looked confused. “Um, isn’t that unfair?”
Letting out a groan of disgust, she shoved forward and the young woman yiped as she shoved her to one side before doing the same to the next few people in line. “Forget it, just get out of my way too. Figures they’d get tea in the same day some nut is crazy enough to come to this town and get in line…”
The dog growled at her, but did no more. The young woman herself was left standing open mouthed, but she looked more surprised when the people shoved aside simply frowned and got back in line. She stared at them a moment before looking at the nearest one. “Um, excuse me, but…didn’t she just cut in front of you?”
“Sure did,” she sighed tiredly.
The young woman blinked. “And…you’re not mad about that?”
“Sure am.”
That only confused her more. “I’m not sure I-”
She was cut off as a sharp series of cracks went off over the cityscape. Yelping again, she cringed and pulled away from the direction they had come from—the Northeast. The dog whined, tucked his tail between his legs, and pressed against the ground. No one else on the street paid it any mind. The line indifferently moved one step forward.
The sounds continued to repeat for several moments before cutting off, but she remained cringing. At this point, Starlight half-smiled. “You’re not used to being this close to the borders of Equestria, are you?”
She looked at her but continued to shield herself.
“Relax. That happens a couple times a day. They’re just putting down some Nighttouched is all. If it was the Light Eaters, they’d sound an alarm all over town.”
On hearing this, she slowly eased and rose. She smiled nervously as she wiped her forehead, while her dog got up more cautiously. “Oh, uh…heh…thanks. I…guess people living this close to Equestria are…kind of used to this by now…”
“You can tell pretty quick who’s from around here and who’s not, although that guy was right. It’s been a while since anyone who’s not from here was dumb enough to come to town.” A pause. “No offense.”
“Er, none taken.”
“What does bring you to this part of the world?”
“Oh, uh…” The young woman hesitated. Her lips tightened as she ran a hand over the back of her neck, before she looked to one side regretfully. “To be honest? I just go wherever I can nowadays…”
“Wherever you can?”
“A lot of towns don’t really care for street performers. And after the Lunar Fall, a lot of them don’t like seeing things that seem weird…”
Starlight scoffed. “Oh, I can definitely understand that. Sure didn’t take much to get mankind superstitious all over again, did it? And I can definitely understand trying to find some place you’re wanted. Those can be a luxury, can’t they?”
She looked up again, only now noticing the arm band on Starlight’s own limb. “Say, what are those things any…” She trailed off. “Wait, that’s an emblem of a griffon. As in the crest for Griffonstone?”
Starlight sighed. “Yup.”
Her eyes widened more. “Then that means…”
“You got it.”
She winced uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
“Don’t sweat it. It’s not like Regent Gruff is doing any of us any favors toward getting us home. And honestly most of us don’t have our old homes to go back to anyway. Either way, you get used to it after…what is it now…eight years?”
She kept her head bowed. “I know that’s not true…”
Starlight stared back silently. For a moment, a shadow of pain passed over her own face. Yes, she was quite correct. One didn’t ever get quite used to it no matter how much time passed. However, for her to know that…
“So are you a refugee too? From where? Former Fillydelphia?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Trottingham?”
She shook it again.
“Mount Eris?”
She shook it again.
Starlight’s eyes widened. “Good lord… Don’t tell me… You’re not actually from…?”
She looked up and put a finger to her lips insistently. The spectacled woman paused but complied. From her position on the bench and the young woman’s position in line, to say nothing of everyone having their own issues to deal with, it seemed no one else had heard that. The sun was finally sinking under the horizon and even whispering about things like that after dark was enough to elicit superstition. However, she rose from the bench and moved closer so she could speak more quietly.
“Wow, just…just wow. You…you were actually there?”
She shook her head. “No. I was on a trip when the Lunar Fall happened.”
Starlight eased, looking almost disappointed. “Oh…oh, yes…of course. I mean, obviously.” Seeing that the young woman noticed her expression, she grinned sheepishly. “I’m sorry, no offense again. I just thought for a moment that I met someone who actually got out of Equestria after it happened. I should have known there’d be no survivors…” Another pause. “And…there I go sticking my old shoe in my mouth again.”
That last comment had seemed to shake up the young lady quite a bit, but after taking a deep breath she forced out a sigh. “It’s…it’s fine.”
“But still, even seeing someone from Equestria nowadays is amazing. I mean…”
More of the repeating gunfire went off, filling the air with crackling. Starlight sighed and stopped talking, waiting patiently for it to subside before resuming. This time, however, it was followed up by a second round. A third came afterward and kept going until she realized that it had to have been reloaded. She looked up. “What in the world are they shooting at out-”
She cut herself off, as did every man, woman, and child in the township at that moment. Everyone forgot about their businesses, their errands, tea, vouchers that showed a deficit, and everything else in that very second.
The sirens to the Northeast began to blare.
There was a collective moment in which everyone in the town was fully paralyzed at that sound. In the next moment, chaos broke. The children on the street began to scream in terror. The people in the line broke and ran back out into the streets. Starlight and the young woman were far enough to avoid it, but one near the door frame was cast to the ground and trampled. Even that wasn’t fast enough for others in the store, who proceeded to break through the window and pour out through the open frame.
Far up the road, the wagons bearing soldiers were whipped into a gallop to take the rest of the soldiers to the Northeast. However, they barely got up to speed before half of the recruits in the second began to jump out of the back, throw away their weapons, and run as fast as they could. Soon after, citizens and refugees alike, clutching what few possessions they had enough bravery to stop and collect, burst from their homes and ran along with everyone else.
The young woman turned to Starlight. “That’s…that’s that alarm you mentioned, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer. The color had drained from her face. After a moment longer, she looked back to the young woman as the mob began to rush around them, threatening to knock them over as well. “You need to get moving to the Southwest. Now. Don’t stop for anything. Keep going until you can’t walk anymore.”
She looked confused, but Starlight no longer had time to worry about the life of a stranger she had just met. Leaving the tea behind, she turned and bolted the same way everyone else was. Her old hat flew off of her head but she didn’t even glance over her shoulder. She left it to be trampled by the growing crowds.
With the sun fully down, and every remaining light in the township rapidly being doused, it was hard to see anything. People ran into each other and nearly bowled each other over fleeing. Heaven help anyone who stepped out from their home into the flood. She barely made it a block before she saw the more seasoned recruits of the Fillydelphia military running the opposite way, fighting against the flow to try and join the front line. More gunshots echoed over the landscape. By now, all four of the batteries had to be firing along with the rifles. She made it halfway down the next block when the cannon fire began to erupt. That made the crowd more frantic and run even harder.
Some wardens emerged at the end of the second block and began to direct people, whirling noisemakers instead of torches in one hand and shouting at them over the screams to try and corral them, but it was useless. They were ignored or trampled as frantically as the civilians were. All of the civil drills that had been run, all of contingencies they made to relocate people to blockades and safe areas, all of the secure routes to take—all forgotten.
Starlight was no better. She had seen a Light Eater before… And she and everyone else knew while the survival rate of an attack by Nighttouched breaching a barrier varied from 25 to 65 percent, no one survived the Light Eaters once they saw you.
The crowds began to thin out a bit further from the boundary zone. It kept any further tramplings from happening. Some lights had been left burning here, but all tried to stay out of their glow. It was just as she was getting enough room to run easier that Starlight and the crowds around her heard the first screams. And she, foolish as she was, turned like so many others to look.
A dark haze hung above the crowds a block behind her. She realized quickly it wasn’t smoke. The birds, the ones that had abandoned that part of Fillydelphia so long ago, had returned, but they were no longer the birds that anyone remembered. Their brilliant and colorful plumage had turned to shades of murk and night. Their eyes gleamed yellow like tiny candle fires—the only light in the closing darkness. And she saw as they went down again and again, causing screams from the crowds.
Starlight looked back; panic doubling her speed. The memory of the last time she saw a flock of Nighttouched birds still lingered in her mind. How they acted like one mind as they swarmed over people, pecking and tearing until there was nothing left but bones. The scariest part was that was the desired outcome. No one had ever heard of one who survived a Nighttouched wound, but based on what happened to these songbirds and countless others…
Screaming went off at her sides. The breath caught in her throat as she looked and gasped. The rats of the city, or perhaps a legion from the forest that had infiltrated the drainage channels, were emerging from the sewers. Each one had turned black and their formerly red eyes now gleamed yellow. They swarmed over the legs of the people to the side of her. Screams followed as they faltered, and no one dared help them up again. Like Starlight, they only ran harder and tried to stay in the center of the road.
She didn’t run much farther before she halted along with everyone else nearby. The city was cloaked in blackness for the most part now and that made it easy to see a hoard of tiny yellow eyes in the middle of the road ahead. That was all anyone could see but that was more than enough. No one would risk going through them. And as they surged forward Starlight lost the last of her reason and simply ran away in whatever direction she could as fast as she could.
She wasn’t sure what happened over the next few minutes. Sometimes she would turn, especially if she heard screams (or other noises) in the road ahead of her, but everywhere she went led to darkness. What little lights were still in the city were mostly the eyes of the Nighttouched, and she fled from anything that had the slightest twinkle. Run, run, run…that was the only emotion or thought on her mind. Get away. Get as far away as possible.
It wasn’t until exhaustion forced her to slow that her wits returned and she realized, much to her further unease, that she was now quite alone. She didn’t know how. In the chaos, people could have split off gradually or perhaps met a less wholesome fate. What more, she was in an unfamiliar part of the city. While the sky was clear enough, the moon wasn’t out and she could only make out the vague outline of buildings. Screams, gunfire, and bestial noises continued to echo over the cityscape, but none of them were near her. It was hard to tell if that was a blessing or a curse.
Suddenly, she cried out as her foot caught something and she fell to the ground. Instinctively her hands went out and skidded on pavement, making her wince, but scrapes on her palms were nothing compared to what the monsters could do to her. It allowed her to feel the ground in front of her, and she realized it was the sidewalk stone. She looked up and around again. Very vaguely against the night sky she made out the outline of buildings on three sides. She had reached a cul-de-sac.
That made her more fearful. She quickly got up and turned to go back the way she came, but she skid to a halt on hearing screams from a ways ahead and around a corner. It was too dark. She could walk right into a swarm of Nighttouched or one of the larger ones. Instead, she turned back and stepped on the pavement. Extending her hands in front of her, she reached forward until she felt a building wall. She moved along it until she found the indentation of a doorway and reached for the handle. However, on testing it she found it locked. She swore and tried to find a different opening. Even if this was an abandoned part of town, she had no choice now but to hide.
She had just reached the second door and began to try it when a fiery glow momentarily illuminated the door frame clearly. Rather than feel happy about that she gave a horrified gasp. She wheeled around and saw the source. Mounted ten feet in the air, one of the gas lamps was flickering around the tiny pilot light. Her breathing had slowed enough for her to hear the hiss of leaky gas. Every so often it sputtered and flared up briefly as an illuminating beacon.
Starlight began to shake violently. She turned back to the door and furiously pulled at it, but no use. She wasn’t strong enough. She went to another door and tried that one, but by the time the fire flared up again and remained somewhat steady she gave up. She’d risk running blind on the dark roads. It was safer than staying in the light.
She turned around to run again, but didn’t make it a single step.
Three sets of the yellow eyes were now looking at her, and they were drawing closer. A moment later, the lamp flared again to let her see them clearly. These weren’t the smaller swarming creatures. These ones were deer, or had been at one point. In addition to the dark, muted colors, their teeth seemed to have enlarged and converted to being sharper. Their hooves were twisted and stained with blood they had already spilled from trampling. One of them was a stag, and his horns had grown more, sharper, gore-stained points.
Starlight backed up but soon hit the back wall. She had no weapons or means to defend herself. She could scream, but the gunfire was still going off and everyone was screaming. Even if she called for help, who would arrive in time? She knew it was hopeless. She could watch helplessly as they drew closer.
But as they reached the street lamp, a new sound broke through the darkness. A dog barking.
Starlight looked up as the three Nighttouched turned around. Moments later, one of the does gave out a gurgle as a purple and green dog leapt out of the darkness, clamped its jaws around her throat, and took her to the ground. In spite of its size, the dog was far stronger than it looked, and as soon as it was down he began to sharply twist his head while keeping his jaws clamped on its throat. Blood frothed from the wound as the Nighttouched cast out its hooves madly to try and hit its attacker or free itself.
“Hang on!”
The lamp flared as the other two turned to the voice. Starlight was surprised again as she saw the same young woman from earlier dash forward through the opening that her dog had made. Soon she was in front of Starlight, and stopped there and wheeled to the other too. She gasped and wheezed for a moment, clearly not used to running, before she straightened up. “Just stay behind me!”
Starlight looked at her confused. What was she supposed to do? It was too late to argue, however. The buck lowered his horns and readied for a charge while the remaining doe took off immediately. Her dog, still struggling with the other doe, couldn’t defend her.
A moment later, she held up her stick. Starlight nearly groaned at the sight of it, but was cut off as the young woman began to speak. She quickly realized she wasn’t saying one of the four languages she herself knew, but based on the sound and phonetics of it she realized it wasn’t any type of language anyone knew. Her brow crooked on realizing it sounded like “magic words” and not the kiddie stuff from earlier. The doe didn’t care as it came close enough to rear on its back hooves and try to batter her with its forelegs.
Before it could, she stopped speaking and pointed the wand at the doe. Starlight actually cried out when, to her shock, an actual ball of fire erupted from the end of stick and impacted the creature. Not only did the resulting burst bathe the creature in fire, it generated enough force to snap it back and drop it to the ground. It rose again only to madly run off, still enflamed.
The buck broke into a charge with antlers out. The young woman gave a bit of a start but wheeled to it. She chanted something different this time before pointing the wand at it. Starlight cried out in surprise again as a small bolt of lightning snaked out of the sky and struck it dead center in the skull. It quickly seized and fell to the ground, and its momentum caused its body to keep skidding forward until it was right next to Starlight. The scent of burned flesh hit her nostrils, but it moved no more. That bolt had killed it instantly.
At the same time, the dog gave one final mighty twist and a cracking went out from the neck of the other doe. It went limp soon after and he let it fall out of his jaws. Both the doe and the buck began to change soon after. Their muted, darker colors “bled” out of their skin like water into a sponge, returning their physicality to normal at the same time, before they finally reached one point on their bodies and disappeared—the very same place a Light Eater had made contact with them some time in the past eight years.
The young woman let out a sigh of relief and turned to Starlight. “Are you alright?”
She stared back open-mouthed. “What…what kind of magician’s prop is that?”
“Prop? What are…” she trailed off, suddenly wincing before blushing. “Um…yeah! A prop! Right, of course! That’s what this is right here! Yup! Just a run-of-the-mill, old-fashioned, street performer prop! Yeah, I totally got rid of those two Nighttouched just now by using a common, everyday prop!”
Starlight quickly realized she was the poorest liar she had ever met, which only served to make her more shocked. “You don’t actually mean that’s an actual ‘magic wand’, do you? Or is it some new weapon that Manehattan came up with?”
“Oh, no-no! It’s just, um…homemade!”
Starlight would have normally frowned at the insult to her intelligence, but she didn’t have the luxury as she got to her feet. “Anyway, forget that! We need to get out of here! That gaslight behind us is still on! If we’re anywhere near it, then-”
She was cut off by a whimpering sound from the lady’s dog. Again she looked up, and the breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t even gasp a “no” before her eyes shrank into pinpricks.
What she had dreaded more than anything had come to pass.
It stood out from the darkness when it rounded the corner, giving off some sort of faint, shimmering sheen about its body. It wasn’t so much light as what one might see on a glossy finish. It was as tall as a man and longer than a tiger. It had no concrete shape. While it had four limbs like any quadrupedal creature and a head angled down like that of a big cat, complete with a mouth full of teeth, none of it was from any living creature. It was all very crude and basic; like it had been sculpted out of clay by a child. More of a concept of a beast rather than a true one. But it did have the one feature all of them shared: the eyespots. Shimmering like moonlight on the water, they quickly zeroed in on the flame of the broken gaslight.
Starlight’s heart froze in her chest as she started to shake. She was one of the few on Greater Everfree that had seen a Light Eater with her own eyes and lived to tell about it. Compared to the one she had witnessed, this was nothing. It was a quarter of its size and not nearly as defined. She was terrified of it none the less. No weapon could kill them. No fire make them retreat. No wall barricade them from entry. They had remained confined to former Equestria not due to any effort on the part of humanity but due simply to their own preference—stopping before they could go any farther.
All knew, deep in their heart of hearts, that they were living on borrowed time with them. That every day was just a question of whether or not they would come and kill them. She knew that time had come for her and she couldn’t even find the courage to scream.
The dog backed up until it could growl again, but that returned to a whine when it rounded the corner and began to approach. As it neared, however, Starlight heard the young lady again.
“Phew, it’s just a lesser one… Maybe I can pull this off.”
Starlight was nearly apoplectic as she looked at her. If she hadn’t been, she would have laughed at her hysterically. She had seen a Light Eater be fired on by a cannon from a distance of two feet. Other than leaving an inconsequential hole in the middle of its body that closed itself up again three seconds later…nothing. Bullets, spears, and explosives meant nothing to them. They had no flesh to cut, no bones to break, and no blood to spill.
The young woman called forth the same words she had said last time as the thing moved closer. A moment later, she snapped the wand down and let loose another fireball. It impacted against its right shoulder and burst.
Starlight had to blink at what she saw a few times. Although her brain told her it was totally impossible, she swore she saw the Light Eater actually pause in mid-step for just a moment. However, it kept walking soon after. Of course it did. Why wouldn’t it? It was completely invincible and unkillable. She smirked at herself hopelessly, realizing she was grasping at straws so much she was hallucinating. Soon after, the thing drew close enough that its primordial limbs crouched. Its crude jaw opened. She let out a dazed half-laugh. It was over.
Abruptly, she felt a force seize her by the arm and sharply yank her away from the wall, before she was half-shoved, half-flung to one side along with the young lady. Just in time, for the Light Eater lunged forward, its jaw clamped around the top of the lamp post and snuffed it out, before it kept going and smashed into the side of the building. Its force belied its size as it instantly smashed through the door frame and pounded a hole deep enough into the abandoned edifice for half of its body to sink in, and all just from a casual move.
As it slowly extracted itself, the young woman, Starlight’s twice-savior now, whirled on her. “What are you doing? Why were you just standing there?”
Her smile remained wan and wistful. “There’s no point… It’ll tear through buildings to kill us now… I got away from them eight years ago but I’m going to go out the same way as everyone in Sire’s Hollow… It’s over.”
The Light Eater finished pulling itself out and its eyespots turned again. Now it focused completely on the two of them. Its spectral jaw cracked open wide. The next move it made would rip through the both of them.
The lady aimed her wand again. She chanted something new. This time large, dagger-like ice crystals formed out of thin air about the wand and shot at the thing. They simply passed through its body to the other side, although Starlight once again imagined that they moved only slowly through it. The young lady tried another series of magic words afterward…
One of the Light Eater’s misshapen limbs sliced the air so fast if one blinked they wouldn’t have even seen it rise and fall again. A light tinkling sound was heard as the severed end of the wand fell to the ground. Now she didn’t even have her tricks anymore. Now she was as helpless as Starlight.
She gaped a moment before looking up again. The thing took another step forward, forcing her to back up and push into Starlight. Her dog came over from behind and clamped his jaws on her suitcoat shoulder, pulling her back soon after, but she didn’t react to that either as she knew it was nothing but a delay.
Finally, the young lady let her head bow, and for a moment Starlight thought she had realized the inevitability. Instead, she heard something new from her.
“I guess I have no choice.”
Her arm extended into the air and her hand and palm spread wide. Starlight gave a start a moment later when, again to her surprise, an invisible force etched out something on the back of her hand that glowed as bright as a fire.
A symbol…a hexagon. One of the points on it shone out brighter than the rest, emitting a lavender light like a beacon.
“What the…”
“Member of my house, I command you to come to me! Master of Sorcery—Starswirl the Bearded!”
Starlight’s ennui broke on hearing the very air shudder at the young woman’s proclamation. The wind whipped up and the air begin to change. Even the Light Eater paused at it. Soon after, she shrieked again when the young lady began to shine all over her body with that same lavender light. It streamed off of her in thin rays and condensed over the top of her body, before it snaked out and etched something like a painting of light in midair. For a moment Starlight saw the image: the figure of an old man with a long, wispy beard clad in a wide-brimmed magician’s hat and cloak, both etched with stars and bells. So real she swore he would come to life…
The image, on completion, broke and melded into a curtain which fell over the young woman. When it did her clothing changed. The robe that was just for street magic thickened and lengthened into a magician’s cloak worthy of legend. The severed wand she held grew, enlarged, and reshaped into a proper oak stave with a jewel fitted inside. A large, wide-brimmed hat landed on her head, and her cloak collar grew so large that her face vanished between it and the hat brim. Only her eyes still stood out. They were glowing too now.
The Light Eater raised its leg again and swung it down upon her, but she easily hopped to one side to avoid the pavement-shattering blow. It whirled around and lashed out at her again with another limb, but she leapt back from this too. It readied itself to charge but before it could she crossed the stave in front of her. She chanted again, far more powerfully this time with new words. Fiery runes wrote themselves on the air in front of her as fire condensed about her staff, forming a new projectile ball of flame that looked like raw magma. It sailed into the Light Eater and burst.
Starlight’s jaw nearly hit the ground at what happened next.
The Light Eater caught aflame.
A horrible, hideous noise bellowed from its misshapen mouth. It was crying out in pain. It had actually been hurt. And the fires continued to burn it, driving it back as it slapped its own crude body against the rubble and the damage it had done in an effort to snuff it out.
The young lady began to chant again, drawing a rune that looked like lightning this time. Before she was done, the last of the flames were doused and the monster gave an actual angry-sounding noise as it lunged. It was as fast as a bullet, but lightning was faster. She completed her spell and a monstrous bolt snaked from the heavens and struck it in the side. Its body was flung out of the sky and cast so hard into the side of the cul-de-sac it smashed another hole into the buildings.
Quickly she brought the stave around and made one final rune; this one an icy blue. The Light Eater was in more pain than before, but that only made it madder and more fearsome. In spite of the fact Starlight could see an indentation in its side that wasn’t regenerating from the lightning blast, and one of its limbs seemed to have partially burned away, it was almost immediately on its feet again and rearing up. A moment later it sprung off to lunge at her…
Its rear legs never left the ground, for she swung her staff forward and ice erupted from the street in long, spear-like shafts. They pierced its body no less than eight times throughout its torso and limbs and anchored it where it was. Something physical…actually holding a Light Eater in place.
It held its mouth open as its aborted cry faded. It remained rigid a moment longer before all of its limbs relaxed. The eyespots slowly faded into nothing. The rest of its body began to disintegrate and fade away as if it had never been anything more than a mist of fog. In moments, it was gone.
A Light Eater had been killed.
Starlight wasn’t sure how long she struggled to comprehend that; gawking and staring at the ice that had previously pierced it. What finally broke her concentration was a long, deep panting from the young woman. She turned and saw her hunched over on her stave. Her new clothes were breaking off of her like the ash of paper in a breeze and fading into nothingness. Once the cloak and hat were gone, the staff itself fractured to nothing but the half of the stick once again. She let it fall out of her grip, now back in her previous appearance, and nearly faltered.
At the last moment, she took in a deep breath and straightened again. She turned and looked behind her. For a moment worry was in her eyes, and not for Starlight’s welfare but rather at what she had just done.
“Are you alright?”
Starlight blinked.
“Are you hurt?”
“You…” she finally managed, “you…saved me. You killed that Light Eater…”
Instantly she turned red and even more nervous-looking. “Well, um…if you want to thank me, how about you do me a favor and forget you ever saw any of that?”
“Forget…? You…you just killed a Light Eater! Do you know what that means? Do you-”
Another stream of gunfire went off, not too far away. The barking orders of a commanding officer joined it not long after. Considering how calm it was, it sounded like a search and rescue group. That meant as bad as it had been they had to have repelled the rest of the Nighttouched.
On hearing it, however, the young lady quickly tensed. “I…I gotta go. I’m glad I was able to help. Stay safe! Come on, Spike!”
The dog released Starlight at last and quickly ran up to his master. She turned and began to run. Starlight only let her get five steps before she held out a hand and shouted.
“Wait! I didn’t even say thank you! At least give me your name!”
She paused. She turned back to her, hesitated again, but finally spoke just as the gunfire went off again.
“So…let me see if I get this straight. There you were, facing off against not only three Nighttouched but an actual Light Eater, and all of the sudden this person just pops out of nowhere, turns into some kind of wizard, and blows away all four of them including the Light Eater? Just like that? Waves their hand and does some hocus pocus and that’s the end of it? Or did they have to get help from a unicorn first?”
Starlight frowned at the facetiousness. It was the next morning and, along with 450 other residents of the township, she was holed up in a temporary refugee camp three miles outside the city’s outskirts while the Fillydelphia military combed it. All in all, 120 soldiers had died the night before along with 37 civilians so far, but already it was clear more would have been spared if the panic hadn’t gone out from the Light Eater alarm. Merely sounding that had made half of the newer soldiers go AWOL and collapsed the proper evacuation procedures.
Nevertheless, the threat had passed. No Light Eaters ever showed up during daylight, and all the Nighttouched grew sluggish and found places to hide. It was the perfect opportunity to finish them off and clean the town. And with a fresh division reinforcing the city, that left plenty of time for things like interviewing civilians as Starlight currently found herself undergoing in a side tent with two Fillydelphia officers.
“I’m telling you, that Light Eater was killed.”
“Right,” she snidely smirked. “Wasn’t good enough of a story that you somehow survived three Nighttouched all on your own. Had to throw in a juicy bit like that to make it really sound good, eh?” She reached out and tapped her arm band. “I guess your original story of how you avoided a massacre back in Griffonstone wasn’t exciting people anymore?”
Starlight frowned, and the other officer gave the interrogator a jab. “Knock it off, will you? Don’t joke about something like that.”
“Hey, she’s the one making up some baloney about seeing a Light Eater get killed. Everyone knows nothing can hurt ‘em.”
“Someone did,” Starlight spoke up again. “And if we can hurt them and kill them, then we need to learn how. Then maybe we won’t have to live waiting for stuff like this happening again.”
“Ah, give it a rest. Everyone knows there was no Light Eater to begin with. Some new guy got jittery and sounded the alarm is all. It was just another Nighttouched surge.”
“I don’t know about that,” the second spoke up. “Iron Tip’s group sighted one charging the barricade. Three eye witnesses. The colonel had us searching the city to confirm it left last night.”
“So he panicked. Big deal. If had seen a real one, he would have lived to tell anyone about it.”
The second sighed. “Let’s just be glad things didn’t go worse in spite of the panic. This isn’t the ‘cleanest’ we ever came out from a Nighttouched raid, but considering how things broke down…”
The tent flap suddenly opened. The head of a fellow officer ducked inside. “Hey you two. You still doing interrogations?”
“You bet.”
“Not anymore you’re not. Wrap up in here and head on out. The division is mobilizing. We’re leaving the rest to the garrison here and heading out.”
“Heading out? What for?”
“A wire just came in. This wasn’t the only attack last night. It happened all up and down the barrier. That means Trottingham or Griffonstone will probably make a move soon.”
He ducked back outside, leaving his fellow officers considerably more tense and less interested in Starlight. The first one frowned as she took up her hat and rifle from the wall. “We’re done now in my book. I heard they got tea in this town and I want to pick out some bags before we deploy again…”
She walked out, leaving her companion to sigh and turn to Starlight. “Thank you for the information. I’ll be sure to include the details in the report to our CO. For what it’s worth, I don’t doubt a Light Eater really was involved last night and something made it turn back. And a few of the soldiers saw lightning flash on that block too.”
Starlight said nothing. She was already frowning and looking to the side. The officer winced before she turned and made her way out as well.
She no longer paid them any mind, especially if they wouldn’t listen to her. All she thought of now was the young lady from last night, the symbol on her hand, the strange power that had come from her, and, most of all, what she said over the gunfire.
Twilight Sparkle…I’ll find you again wherever you are.