"Still the same old Starlight Glimmer."
I took one step outside, turned around and went back in. Even just an hour over the horizon, the sun was too bright. My eyes watered and danced with spots as I found my way upstairs to the bedroom.
There was a sunhat somewhere. Rarity gave it to me for my birthday a few years back, and I promptly put it in my closet and forgot it. If I saw her again today I would kiss her.
Next, sunglasses. I didn’t own any, because they were an accessory for the cool ponies, which I assuredly was not. But Spike had delusions along those lines, and like the good big sister I was I played along, and got him a nice purple set that matched his scales for his birthday. So it was that I walked back outside with not just one but two birthday presents protecting my eyes.
The shades even matched my coat. It almost looked deliberate.
Ponyville felt different. Just walking around I could sense it. The ground was like a live wire, vibrating beneath my hooves. Ponies moved through the streets with a furtive energy, talking too loud, laughing too often. They waved to me and seemed happy.
I waved back each time. None of the ones I recognized seemed to be missing any parts. But a vague sense of dread plagued me as I hurried through the market, past the stalls and down the cobbled streets toward the forest and Fluttershy’s cottage. I’d have flown, but Rarity hadn’t made this hat with a winged pony in mind. I should get her to add a chin strap.
I made it to Fluttershy’s in what had to be record time on hoof. My breath rattled in my chest, and I stopped at the shaded edge of the woods to rest. My lungs wheezed.
Fluttershy wasn’t on top of her cottage. I could see that from here, so I trotted straight up to the door and knocked. No answer. I knocked again and pushed the door open. “Fluttershy? It’s me! We need to find Discord!”
No answer again. It occured to me that the cottage was dark. I slipped the sunglasses off, let my eyes adjust, and looked around for her.
A clutter of dishes crowded on the table. The sink was stoppered full of stagnant water. Bits of down and fur from her woodland friends drifted on the floor, but none of the little animals themselves were seen. I couldn’t even hear them – the usual constant stir of tiny needle claws that filled her home was gone.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Fluttershy!”
It wasn’t polite to enter somepony’s home uninvited. It was even less polite to enter their bedroom. But there I was, walking up the stairs, pushing open the door, and coming to a stop.
It was empty. The faint musky scent of wild animals stained the air. The bedspread was wildly disheveled. But of the cottage’s master there was no sign. It appeared to be empty. Not even Mister Raven to unnerve me.
“Dammit.” I gave the room a final look, turned, and left.
The market was more crowded on my second pass through. An hour closer to lunch would do that. Dozens of ponies met me with friendly smiles or greetings as I passed. I smiled queasily back at them.
“Twi! Hey, Twilight!” I turned and saw Applejack waving from her little apple stand. She had a good spot as usual, stacked out near the intersection in the center of town. I trotted to the counter and leaned over to exchange a nuzzle with her. My sunhat collided with her stetson and my glasses bumped against her cheek.
“Sorry,” I said. “Eyes are bothering me today.”
“S’alright. Allergies still?”
A bright tower on a mountain. I blinked away the image. “Yeah, a bit. Hey, sorry, have you seen Fluttershy? It’s extremely important that I find her.”
She sat up straight behind the counter. “I haven’t. Is something wrong?”
I wrestled with how much to tell her, then realized how stupid that was. Discord was turning the world upside-down and I wasn’t being open with the very friends whose help I needed to fix this disaster. “Yes. Discord’s up to something and it’s gotten out of hoof. He’s starting to hurt ponies, and I need Fluttershy so we can find him and put a stop to it.”
“Ah.” Applejack looked past me, out at the market. “This about those dreams?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. Have you, uh…”
She nodded slowly. “The other day, when you asked me if I’d been having any weird dreams, and I said I hadn’t? I might’ve been a mite untruthful there.”
I blinked. “You lied?”
She winced. “Don’t have to put it so harsh. It’s just… dreams are personal things, ain’t they?”
“They’re supposed to be.” And that was the heart of the problem: dreams were nice and safe, locked inside our heads. But whatever Discord had done was letting them loose. “You haven’t noticed anything… wrong, I guess?”
“Naw, not wrong.” She was being evasive. With Applejack you could always tell. “But enough about me, what’s got you all worked up?”
“Trixie. Her horn vanished overnight. It’s like she’s just an earth pony now.” Too late I realized who I was speaking with, and wished for some way to reel those words back in. But the moment was past – I had to watch them bounce through Applejack’s head, and her eyes widen. “Er, I mean, she’s become an—”
“I heard what you said,” Applejack cut me off. She didn’t look angry, at least. “And I get it. She okay?”
“Of course she’s not okay, her horn is missing!” Honestly, how hard was it for ponies to understand this?
“I meant, how is she taking it?”
Oh. “She’s… fine, for now. I think she’s in shock still. She acted like it was no big deal. Said it was just like in her dream.”
“Well, maybe it ain’t a big deal, then.”
“But it is!” I leaned over the stall’s counter. Applejack leaned back. “She’s supposed to be a unicorn! There’s nothing wrong with being an earth pony, but that’s not what she is! And somehow Discord has figured out a way to… to twist that! To pervert it. Who knows what could be next?”
“Mm.” Applejack eyed my sides. “Ponies might be sprouting wings.”
“That’s different.” I sat back and pulled my wings tight against my barrel, as if that could somehow hide them. “I didn’t lose anything. It’s just ah, uh, personification of the magic of all the tribes, united by friendship.”
“Uh huh.” Applejack sounded unimpressed. “That’s great and all, sugar, but I hope you can understand why I might not think a missing horn is such a terrible thing.”
Because you don’t know what you’re missing. Those words, at least, I knew better than to speak. I just nodded.
Her features relaxed into a half-smile. “Good. Anyway, I assume you’ll want to go on looking for Fluttershy. I’ll keep an eye out for her. Hey, want an apple?” She ducked down behind the counter and emerged with one held lightly in her teeth.
I was about to turn her down when my stomach growled. Damn Trixie and those stolen pancakes. I blushed and took the apple with my magic. “Thanks. What do I owe you?”
“It’s on the house. I was about to head back to the Acres anyway.”
“Already?” It wasn’t even noon. That wasn’t like Applejack.
“Yeah. Guess I don’t just feel like sittin’ here today, you know?”
Fair enough. The thought of selling apples in the market didn’t appeal much to me either. I turned and started to walk away when a final thought hit me, and I turned back. “You said you were having weird dreams?”
Now it was her turn to blush. She nodded.
“About what?”
Applejack looked away. She gazed up at the sky, as if the answer were floating up there. Her silence lasted so long I started to think she wasn’t going to answer, and simply wanted me to leave. I was ready to offer an awkward goodbye when she finally spoke.
“About being free.”
Something about that answer set me back on my hooves. A hollow feeling settled into my stomach. I took a hesitant step back toward her, and stopped when she fixed me with her gaze.
“But…” I licked my lips. “You’re free now. Aren’t you?”
She laughed. But it was a dry laugh, empty of humor, with no heart. “You think? Twilight, you’re the smartest pony I know. But sometimes you ain’t too bright.”
“Hey!” Even harried as I was, that riled me up. It wasn’t like Applejack to lob even such a light insult at any of her friends. Part of me wanted to be outraged; the rest couldn’t figure out what she meant by it.
Applejack didn’t give me time to figure it out. “Anyway, I’m going back to the farm. Later, ‘gator.”
She stepped out from behind the stall, and that’s when I noticed them. I must’ve seen them earlier – how could I not – but my brain skipped over them, ignored them as so impossible that they didn’t just deserve but demanded not to be seen. But now, standing, stretching, smiling at me, waving as she prepared to leave, I had to notice – to believe. The illusion was broken. The ponies around us saw it as well and began to chatter.
Applejack spread her wings and took off. She lumbered into the air in the manner of a pony still learning to fly and vanished over the rooftops toward the west.
* * *
If I closed my eyes, and if I stood in the center of the cavernously large shower stall in the airy bathroom attached to my private quarters in the castle, and if I turned the water down as cold as it could go, until my whole body shook convulsively and my teeth rattled and my hooves clicked on the crystal tiles, I could almost forget where I was. I might be somewhere else, standing in a December rain. The water washed away my cares; my overheated nerves froze in their channels. My thoughts slowed until nothing remained in the span of my awareness but the cold and the water and the dancing afterimages locked in battle behind my closed eyes.
In time the water shut off. I heard hooves on the tile, and then felt the scratchy warmth of a towel flung over my quaking shoulders. Another followed, covering my head and soaked mane. I opened my eyes and was still nearly blinded by the slivers of light peeking in beneath the smothering cloth.
I inhaled deeply through my nose. Linens and sweat and candle wicks. “Starlight,” I croaked.
“Come on, you’re freezing.” Her hoof snagged my foreleg and dragged me out of the stall. I stood there like a foal while she rubbed the towels into my coat, mane and tail, until they were all as dry as could be reasonably expected. I winced and covered my face with my wings when she finally pulled the towel away.
“Too bright,” I said.
“Sorry.” There was a shuffle, and another towel returned. Warm and dry, this time. I clumsily wrapped it around my face and let myself be led over to the bed. I settled onto it and sank into the soft comforter.
Starlight climbed up beside me. She hugged me close, and the warmth of her body slowly began to seep into mine. When she spoke again, her voice carried a hint of anger.
“Are you trying to get sick? I don’t know if alicorns can freeze to death, but what if I hadn’t found you in there?”
“I’d be fine,” I said. I was so tired. The events of the day, all the crises and panic and running around and the stabbing lights in my eyes, they all conspired to drag me under. “It’s all falling apart, Starlight.”
She huffed. Her hot breath stirred the hair of my mane, tossing it all askew. “It’s not that bad yet. Trixie is fine. I’m fine. You… are you fine? What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“They’re fine.” I tried to figure out how to say what needed to come next, and the sheer ridiculousness of it set me giggling. “Do you think Applejack is fine too, Starlight? She’s a pegasus now.”
“A… she’s a pegasus?”
I rolled over in her grasp. The towel still covered my face, but I imagined I could see her features anyway. Puzzled, unsure, worried. The fact that I was responsible for some of that worry twisted my guts. “Sorry. About all this, I mean. I’m sorry. Thank you for getting me out of the shower. And yes, she’s a pegasus. Like, with wings.”
“Oh.” There was a long pause. “What did she dream of?”
“Being free, she said. Being free.”
“Ah.” Another pause. “That’s not so bad, is it?”
“It’s…” It’s not bad. It was a terrible and troubling and incorrect thought, but there it was. A unicorn losing her horn? Terrible. An earth pony getting wings? That was something amazing. That was straight out of a fairy tale. But how could I put that in words without insulting an entire tribe? “It’s wrong. She’s an earth pony. She wasn’t meant to have wings.”
Yet another pause. I could feel Starlight’s eyes fix on my wings.
“That’s different,” I said.
“Right.” I heard her swallow. “Did you find Fluttershy?”
“No. Her cottage looks like she’s been gone for days. She’s probably in the woods looking for her new animal friend.”
“Do you think she’s okay?”
“Yeah.” Fluttershy was tougher than she let on. She might be scared of ponies, but the dangers of the forest had nothing on her. She’d come back when she wanted, and not before. “Discord won’t let anything happen to her. She’s the one pony I’m not worried about right now.”
“Nopony…” Starlight trailed off. It took her a moment to find the words to continue. “I spent the day in town. Nopony’s hurt, but… Some things are happening.”
I tried to brace myself, as best as one could while lying on a soft bed in the warm embrace of their best friend. “Happening how?”
“Just… changes.” Starlight shifted, pulling away a bit. The sudden cool air between us chilled me. “Mrs. Cake is pregnant.”
“Oh. Uh… good for her?”
“No, I mean, she’s several months pregnant. She looks like she’s about to give birth. She and Carrot are ecstatic.”
“Okay.” She hadn’t been pregnant when I bought pastries from Sugarcube Corner the other day. I spent a moment considering all the implications there, then spent another several minutes trying to forget them. “What else?”
“Mayor Mare quit. She bought her entire staff lunch, then got on a train to Canterlot. I don’t think she’s coming back.”
I nodded. “And you?”
Silence. After a few moments, she sighed. “Nothing yet. Still the same old Starlight Glimmer.”
“That’s not so bad.”
“Isn’t it?” She snorted. “The old me was terrible. I stole everything from ponies, their very selves. Shouldn’t I want to change?”
“You already have, though.” I sat up as best I could while still wrapped in her legs. The towel shifted, and a bit too much light seeped in, blinding me. I pulled it tighter around my face. “You’ve changed enough already. You’re fine just the way you are. Everypony… everypony was fine before Discord did this.”
“Nopony’s hurt. Even Trixie is happy with what happened.”
“She doesn’t understand yet, then. Soon she’ll get it, and she’ll want her horn back. We need to make that happen, Starlight. We need to find Discord and stop this.”
“Yeah.” Starlight sighed, and she pulled me back down. “You need some rest first, though. I’m worried about you, Twilight.”
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
“All the same, try to get some sleep.” She pulled away from me, and replaced her warm embrace with that of the blankets. They were cozy enough, and I felt the tides of sleep washing over me. The last thing I remembered was the scent of linens and sweat and candle wicks.
"Still the same old Starlight Glimmer."