Starlight Glimmer committed Equestria's only capital crime about a month after her sixteenth birthday. It started on a Monday.
Starlight sat on her bed, strumming her guitar, fighting to stay awake. She looked at her clock: almost eleven. It was a silent magical clock. Dad loved old-style antiques, had ticky-tocky clocks all over the house, but not in Starlight's room.
Ticking drove Starlight crazy. Broke her concentration. Kept her from sleeping. Crazy. Starlight was hypersensitive to certain things. Mom said she felt the same way. Sensory hypersensitivity. Sensory processing disorder. Mom had names for lots of crap. Starlight just hated ticking, is all. It made her bonkers when things weren’t exactly how she liked. Starlight wanted things how she wanted them. Was that too much to ask?
Eleven o’clock. Starlight was supposed to be in bed by nine-thirty, whether her parents were home or not. Which they never were, of course. She was getting tired enough that she was thinking about leaving a note in the kitchen: 'Mom, really need to talk, please wake me. Starlight.'
Starlight’s vile spellbook, her black grimoire, her necronomicon, blackened by fire and bound in pony flesh and covered in unnameable runes, was buried deep in her bedroom closet, and she heard its sarcastic laughter in her mind.
Or maybe not.
She’d been hearing voices since before puberty, since shortly after Sunburst abandoned her, years before that book found its way into her hooves... but the book’s voice seemed different from her usual voices, somehow. For instance, it knew things Starlight couldn’t know, not even subconsciously, and it was always right.
Your mom’s almost home, said the book.
Starlight strummed a G-minor chord, but flubbed it and the sound was atonal. “Shut up! You’re just another schizophrenic hallucination."
You're bipolar, in addition to schizophrenic, the book said, but that doesn't mean I'm not really talking to you, baby. And remember: I’m the one who believes you. Not your mom.
She didn’t expect dad home until Friday night, just like always. Mom was usually home by seven or eight, but maybe she was off to one of the distant homesteads or mining camps tonight.
Maybe mom would be back tonight, maybe not. Starlight had been getting herself off to school in the mornings before she turned ten. They'd given Starlight her own key to the house even before Sunburst left. Heck, she'd spent so much time with Sunburst because mom and dad were never home. Sunburt's parents had practically raised—
Starlight slapped her right forehoof against the strings of the guitar, making an unmusical bang. Typical! The one night she needed help from mom, mom was off helping somepony else.
Maybe your mom is ‘helping’ some of the stallions? Sunburst’s dad, maybe? Mr. Sunspot? asked the book.
"No! Mom's not like me."
You know I tease you because I love you, baby. You complete me. Your mom is coming up the front walk.
The book was right, again, lending credence to her ‘not all in my head’ theory. Starlight heard the front door open, felt a puff of wind, heard the door close, mom’s hoofsteps, and then the kitchen sink running.
I'll just stay here, said the book. I'll be able to hear the yelling just fine.
Starlight leaned her guitar against the wall and tiphooved out of her room and down the hall.
Mom was levitating her lab coat under the kitchen sink faucet, scrubbing blood out of it with a stiff brush. Mom’s stethoscope still hung around her neck and her medical bag was at her hooves.
Walking into the kitchen, Starlight said, “Bad day, mom?”
Mom, a purple-maned, pine-green unicorn, with a cutie mark of a scalpel and stethoscope, looked up at Starlight. Mom was petite, bordering on tiny, and Starlight had stood taller than her for two years now, although Starlight was still several inches short of her adult height.
Mom said, “There was a bleeder. Twenty-five stitches and a vein repair. Heh. I don't get to practice my vascular surgery very much since I left the city.”
Starlight glanced down at the not-very-old scars on her own wrists, just above her forehooves, then looked back at mom.
“Who?” Starlight asked. Thinking about her suicide attempt from last summer made Starlight’s knees weak, and she felt like puking, so she sat down at the kitchen table and balanced her head on her forehooves.
“I can't talk about patients, Starlight.”
“Mr. Pots died while I helped you with CPR. I helped you with Mr. Fleet’s amputation.”
And youuuu still haaaave the niiiiight-maaaares! sing-songed the book in Starlight's head. That’s some quality foalhood trauma! We’ll let those two bake a few years, then circle back. Starlight tapped her horn with her hoof, trying to silence the voice.
Mom said, “Those were emergencies, honey. Without somepony to clamp arteries, Mr. Fleet would have died. You were the only pony here. And Mr. Pots—well, we did our best, but it was just his time. Starlight, you’re supposed to be in bed, baby.”
“I know, mom.”
“It’s a school night, honey.”
“I said I know!”
Mom leaned against the counter, levitated the labcoat up, and shook it once. Her lemon-yellow aura surrounded the now-soaking labcoat. “The blood didn’t set. Good. It still needs bleached, though. Are you hungry, honey?”
Starlight ground her teeth, and reached up a hoof and flipped her short new manestyle. She hated it when mom didn’t argue back. “No. I made myself supper. Hours ago.”
“Homework, Starlight?”
“I did it.”
Mom hung the labcoat and stethoscope from the antique wrought-iron coat tree, then sat down, across the table from Starlight. Mom yawned into a hoof, then put a hoof onto Starlight’s. “Why are you still awake, honey?”
“I... I need to talk to you about something.”
Mom’s face dropped, suddenly sad. “Oh, honey, do you have galloporrhea again?”
“No, mom. No STDs today.”
That's a suspiciously specific denial! said the book.
Mom nodded, her voice soft. “Take your time, honey. I’m home for the night. I’m sorry I was so late and you had to stay awake.”
Starlight looked down, breaking eye contact. She stared at her wrist scars. “Mom... are you pregnant again?”
Mom leaned back in her chair and blinked. “Yes. I am. How did you know?”
Tell her I smelled it, baby! the book screamed.
“Just a guess. Mom, dad’s always on travel. We only see him, what, one day a week? How do you two even do that?”
“Starlight, that’s too personal a question to ask your mother.”
“You ask about my sex life.”
Mom tapped a hoof on the table. “Honey... That’s because sixteen-year-olds aren’t supposed to have a sex life. Because I’m the only doctor for a two-day hike in any direction, and you keep picking up STDs. Sometimes I ask as your mom, sometimes as your doctor, and either way, it’s different.”
“You only married dad and moved from Manehattan to West Craptown, Equestria, because he knocked you up. You two're hypocritical to bust on me for playing with my friends.”
“'Playing'?” Mom’s face darkened. She took a few breaths to calm herself.
Good. Starlight really wanted a fight. It would delay telling mom her real problem.
Mom took a deep breath and continued, “I was an adult, a trained surgeon with my own life I was living. I married Firelight because I love him. I was pregnant, yeah, but pregnant because we loved each other. I chose to move here because I can help more ponies. Manehattan School of Medicine had ten thousand doctors. This whole province has one. Me. If I’d known way back when how much I would love being a country doctor, I would have studied family practice instead of vascular surgery.”
“Mom... why do you keep getting pregnant? Don’t you love me enough? What did I do wrong? I, I try to be good. I try to get you two to love me...”
Mom’s jaw dropped open. “Starlight! How could... of course I love you! I love you more than... than... than... life itself!”
“Nice cliché, mom.”
“It’s true!”
"How come you're never at home for me?"
"I love you, but I have an oath, too. I'm the only doctor for over sixty miles in any direction, honey."
“How many miscarriages have you had, mom?”
Mom got very still. Her mouth moved as she silently counted. “Seventeen. Seven before you, ten after.”
“Seventeen, counting Sunrise?”
“No,” Mom whispered, a tear forming at the corner of her left eye. “Sunrise, she was a live birth, even if she didn’t last very long.”
“Eighteen, then. Mom... mom, I need you. I don’t want you to die. A miscarriage is going to kill you, eventually. You get sicker every time.”
“Not every time. It’s not—
“You're almost fifty! You’re the only doctor in town, who will save you the time you finally get sick-sick? Doctor Briar is a veterinarian. Constable Keystone has EMS training, but she’s a cop, not a doctor, and not even a very good cop. Look at all the crap I get away with under her nose.”
“We had you, honey. We can have another foal, if we keep trying. I know it.”
The book whined in the back of Starlight's head. This is boring! I wanted fireworks!
“I feel like... mom... like I’ve been a bad filly. I've been awful for you, you 'n dad. I’ll be bad again... I know I can’t stop myself. I feel like you keep getting pregnant, getting sick, risking the miscarriages... so that you two can get a foal that’s worth loving.” Starlight's eye burned. She blinked, refusing to cry. After a moment she turned her forelegs over to expose the scars on her wrists.
Mom walked around the table, squeezed her tiny bottom onto the same chair with Starlight, kissed Starlight’s scarred wrist, kissed Starlight between the ears, and then hugged her, cheek-to-cheek, touching horns.
Mom laid a hoof on the scar on Starlight's right wrist. "That wasn't you, it was that damn book."
"I made the choice. I levitated the knife."
The book interjected, You’re changing the subject! Tell her your news! I wanna hear the fight.
“Starlight! We love you so much—don’t ever doubt that. Even when we’re screaming at you. We know we’ll love your brother or sister just as much. That's why we keep trying.”
“Your uterus, mom. Do you really think...?”
“I had you.”
“But mom, you said I was so premature. That I almost died, too.”
Mom hugged Starlight even harder, buried her face into Starlight's neck. Starlight felt mom's tears wet her coat. “Two hundred and fourty-four days, you were in the neonatal intensive care unit. Two hundred and forty-four. But look at you now! Strong, healthy, happy. You are happy, right? Mommy's little miracle. Daddy’s pumpky-wumpkin.”
“Ugggh, mom! It’s bad enough when he calls me that. ....When’ll dad be home?”
She thinks you're healthy? gloated the book to Starlight. How cute! No psychiatrist, that one, definitely a surgeon. No understanding others’ inner minds. You got it honest.
“Your dad’ll be home Friday, like always. The crazy hedonistic life of the Equestrian antique dealer. He’s in Vanhoover, this week, I think. Or maybe Las Pegasus? Some Baron or Earl croaked, big estate sale.”
"I would love a sibling, mom... but I'll be a bad influence."
"You'll be a wonderful big sister."
Starlight gently rubbed mom's belly. “How far...?”
“Two months.”
Starlight frowned. “You usually miscarry at three."
Mom patted Starlight’s head. “Not every time. You baked for seven whole months.”
“Seven out of eleven. Do the math, mom. I was in the hospital longer than I was inside, well, inside you. Sunrise... you said she baked for six months?” Starlight asked, remembering.
Starlight’s earliest memory, from toddlerhood, was the tiny coffin and quiet funeral. The expanse of gravestones, the sunbaked grass underhoof, the smell of pollen, the dry wind off the foothills. Standing there in a black dress and a fully loaded diaper, being told to be quiet and wait and stand still and stop whining.
Mom nodded, and sniffed once. "Six months gestation. No hospital in Equestria could have..."
Say something insulting, suggested the book. You've almost gotten through her calm.
“Mom? Plenty of families have only one foal on purpose. I think, that if I was good enough for you two, you wouldn’t keep risking your life.”
Mom kissed Starlight’s neck, then nuzzled Starlight's ear and horn. “That's just not true. We love you more than you can know. Is this what you wanted to talk to me about? Is this why you're up past bedtime?”
“Your defect...” Starlight said. “Pronounce it again?”
“Bicornuate uterus,” Mom said, precisely, ever the elitely-trained Manehattan School of Medicine surgeon.
“Is it hereditary?”
Mom hissed, then reared back. Her eyes narrowed and ears perked forward. “How far along are you?”
She’s the smartest pony in the province, excepting you, the book observed. That’s why you two keep me entertained.
Starlight leaned forward, gently planting her face on the kitchen table. “I'm not. Yet. But... this afternoon... no protection... and then I looked at my calendar. I'm fertile today, and...”
“All right. Doctor mode on, mom mode off. Spell it out clearly, Starlight. You're essentially an adult, I want informed consent before I treat you.”
"I need a morning-after pill, mom. Doctor. Doctor Mom. Please."
It's the evening after! said her book.
Mom cradled her head in her hooves. “Starliiiiiiiiiiight... we talked about this. You've got a reputation.”
You're the school slut! cried the book. Be proud, baby. Everypony knows your name. You were patient zero for the school’s galloporrhea epidemic. Your mom should'a been an epidemiologist, figuring that one out.
Starlight looked at mom, and noticed a few spots of blood in the inside of mom’s left ear, and another halfway up mom’s horn. Whomever this evening’s patient had been, he or she had been quite the bleeder. “You and dad are never at home, what else am I going to do with my time?”
“Try doing your homework instead of doing your classmates, Starlight!”
Now you've got her stirred up! said the book. Twist the knife.
“I've got the best grades in the whole school, mom. The principal is learning partial differential equations from me. And he’s not learning it very well.”
Mom closed her eyes and breathed deeply for several seconds. “You are, by Celestia, the smartest pony I’ve ever known, and that’s really saying something, considering the medical schools I went to and the professors I knew. But for a smart pony, you make some wicked-bad decisions.”
The book jeered in Starlight’s mind: Not smart enough to get rid of me! So cute you three thought a wood fire would burn me.
Starlight said nothing. What? Mom was right.
Mom stared at her.
Starlight said, “Mom... I get so lonely...”
“Yes," mom said, "before we change the subject, it’s hereditary. I can give you an ultrasound any time you like. You're... five years past menarche? Six years? If your uterus is also bicornuate, it’ll show clearly at your age.”
“Don’t wanna know.”
“When was your last period?”
"Fifteen days."
Mom nodded. "Very fertile. Hmmmm... Did you have sex recently? Besides today?"
"Last Friday. Last Thursday. Wednesday. Tuesday. Monday. Et cetera. Used protection, though."
"Sweet Celestia, Starlight!" Mom's mouth opened and closed several times as she tried to find words. “I knew you were getting around, from all the STDs, but...”
Starlight said, “Only twice. Not ‘all’ the STDs.”
"How many different colts?"
Starlight looked down and her ears wilted. Her tail thrashed.
Eventually, mom said, "Why didn't you use protection today?"
"We were drunk. Well, drunker than usual."
“How hard is that protection spell? Any unicorn alive can do it, and you’re no ordinary unicorn! We've bought you condoms, too!” Mom sniffed. "Ugggh. I smell booze on your breath, since you mention it. I smell the sex, too. Yuck, Starlight. If Mr. Sunspot ever figures out you can teleport, he’s going to figure out where all the liquor from the store is disappearing to, and you’ll be looking at a jail cell.”
Like jail could stop us! sneered the book. You have enough magic in one sneeze to turn Contable Keystone into paste! And if I help? Ha! She'll wake up in ten thousand separate dimensions! You’ll be a lesson at every police academy in Equestria: beware the unassuming unicorns, they might be demigoddesses in disguise.
Mom continued, “Or your friend Sunburst? Let’s say he comes home for a school holiday, and finds out you’ve been robbing his family? Still want to be your friend then?”
“He left me. Not my friend. Screw Sunburst and his whole family.”
“I don’t think you mean that. I’m still waiting for your informed consent.”
“I don't want... yeah. Can you fix this, mom? Make me not become pregnant? Please?”
"Stand up. March! To my office. The prescription is in the vault. But I need to do a blood test, first."
Starlight stood. "Blood test? Mom, why?"
"Starlight.... You lie to me. You lie to me a lot. I need to know if you're pregnant. That's a whole different prescription. Which I can also give you, if you ask. But, I need to pick the right one. Right now, I'm your doctor, not your mom, okay?"
Starlight’s ears wilted. “Okay, doc. Horse feathers, this is embarrassing.”
“I changed your diapers and diagnosed your galloporrhea. We’ll survive this embarrassment. But tomorrow we're going to talk about protection, again, and why teenagers should be abstinent, again, and why teenagers shouldn't drink, again.”
"Yes, mom. Mom, I usually use the protection spell. I was just..."
"Drunk."
Starlight nodded.
“Will you tell your dad?” mom asked. “Or do I have to? It’s better if you tell him. I mean it when I say you’re essentially an adult.”
Starlight tucked her tail. “I’ll do it. If he gets home Friday late, like usual, then Saturday, after breakfast, I’ll tell him.”
Mom stopped walking. "There's no history of alcoholism on either side of the family. Why do you drink so much?"
Starlight looked Mom in the eyes. "I told you! I’ve told you again and again. I drink to shut up the voices. They tell me do things. I mean, my wrists? The cutie mark thing....? The graveyard incident?"
"That. Never. Happened! We agreed it never happened. We agreed to never talk about the graveyard again, Starlight."
"After you broke my ribs, I was too afraid of you to talk about it. I asked some of the other foals if their moms ever broke their ribs. Survey said: no."
"Me bucking you in the chest saved your life!" Mom hissed. "Somedays, I think I should have broken your jaw, instead. If you had finished that spell—! Necromancy is the death penalty, Starlight! Celestia herself would have come to Sire's Hollow to put you down, along with a battalion of the Guard."
“I get my lack of impulse control from you, mom.”
“Of course! A surgeon’s first instinct is to cut at the problem with the sharpest scalpel at hoof. You don’t have that excuse.”
"Celestia wouldn't kill a juvenile for necromancy, mom. Probably just Tartarus."
"That's no better! I don't know where your magic came from. I mean, my family are all pegasus ponies! We never did figure out where my horn came from. But you're too powerful for your own good, honey. It's a shame your drinking doesn't dull your magic."
Ohhh, she's mad now! said the book. Try insulting her heritage!
“I can tell you’re from a pegasus family, mom! Would grandma Firestar have been ashamed of my magic? No! She was ecstatic I was off the charts! At least dad’s family is unicorn to the bone.”
“No bigotry, Starlight. You and I have pegasus blood, even if we’re unicorns. Your sister Sunrise was a pegasus.”
Starlight’s jaw dropped “Really? I... I never saw her body.”
“Of course not! You were a toddler. It’s true, though. Don’t be a tribeist, love-bug. Unicorns are not better than anypony else. My parents love you. Your uncles and cousins love you. Why can’t you love them?”
Now you've got her stirred up! the book said. And she's not even seen a half-percent of your magic, or what we can do together! Call her a barren infertile desert and you’ll get your fight!
Starlight shook her head, hit herself on the horn, clearing out the book’s words, and took a deep breath.
“Don’t hit your own horn, Starlight! Doesn’t that hurt? It worries me when you do that, with your history of... self harm.”
"Your family is fine, I guess. I love them. Sorry. I suppose I just miss Grandma Firestar. She had that spell, the one that helped me think straight.”
“You don’t hear voices, love. It’s just your active imagination.”
“None of those things, the suicide attempt, the cutie marks, the graveyard, none of those were my ideas, mom. The voices told me to do them! I told you I need treatment. You’re a surgeon, mom, but I need a shrink.”
"Starlight, that's not even funny. There are no voices in your head. You aren't sick again. I refuse to accept that."
"To the Pony of Shadows with what you accept, mom!"
"Two hundred and forty-four days in neonatal intensive care. Eight months, you were sick. Eight months, I slept on a couch in the waiting lounge. You! Aren't! Sick! Again! You can't be. I love you too much for you to be sick again. Starlight, schizophrenics don’t know the voices aren’t real."
The book howled laughter. For a doctor, she's pretty stupid, isn't she? Wishful thinking is no substitute for antipsychotic medications. Replace the fake skulls decorating your bedroom with real ones and she might believe you, then.
Starlight said, "Atrociously premature birth is statistically correlated with mental illness after puberty. Especially in unicorns. And even more especially unicorns who are also above the ninetieth percentile in magic. And we both know I’m at least five or six nines past the decimal.”
Mom facehoofed. "Been reading my medical journals again, have you?"
Starlight felt a tear in her eye, and blinked it away. “I hear voices. Maybe it's my magic, and I’m, I’m, I’m an antenna. But things talk to me, mom.”
“You. Are. Not. Sick. You can't be. I love my little filly, mommy’s little miracle, Starlight, too much for that.”
Starlight looked at her mom, kept her face neutral, and made a life-threatening decision: You want a filly, mom? You'll never carry another pregnancy to term. We all know that. You’re too old, now. What you want is Sunrise back. I can get her back for you. You wanted a pegasus foal. All my cousins are pegasi, and you’re jealous. I’ll get Sunrise back for you. And you’ll see just how much magic I’ve got! And then maybe, after I’ve done something nopony else could do for you, you’ll love me for who I am.
Starlight nodded to herself.
The book cheered, That's my slutty partner! Necromancy, chapter five. I'm looking forward to it! Wednesday next week is a fulllllll moooooon! We’ll drink flaming grog out of baby skulls when we’re done.
“Starlight?” Mom gently tapped Starlight on the nose with a hoof, then pursed her lips and blew onto Starlight's horn. “Equestria to Starlight, come in please. Are you in there?”
Starlight blinked, nodded, and followed mom out the front door and across the courtyard, through the warm night, under the crescent moon, to mom’s clinic. It was humid, the scent of rain on the wind. But Starlight was too deep in thought to notice.
Necromancy was Equestria's only death penalty, but sixteen-year-old Starlight Glimmer believed she had enough magic and brains to avoid any consequences. After all, she’d been stealing liquor for five years without getting caught, right? She'd been humping for almost as long with only two STDs and no pregnancies, right? She removed those two bullies’ cutie marks and only gotten a week detention and forced to write an apology. She was as non-stick as an enchanted skillet, immune to consequences.
After she got Sunrise back from the graveyard, mom and dad would be happy. Mom, especially. Mom got more sad after each miscarriage.
What was the difference between stealing liquor and raising the dead, really?