Train wheels clattered beneath Twilight, Starlight and Rainbow Dash's hooves. They had a coach to themselves, snow-covered hills rolling past on the short journey to Canterlot. A magical orb sat snugly in Twilight's saddlebags, safely encasing the red gemstone she had found, and the skies were clear and free of foreboding. Eventually, once Ponyville was sufficiently behind and they were settled, the conversation turned to Starlight's story.
"Star Module..." Twilight muttered over and over under her breath. "And you were using that."
Starlight nodded, but it didn't pacify her friend's consternation. "And it's named for you, or you for it," Twilight continued. "That just can't be a coincidence. But the sheer unlikelihood of us meeting-"
"Hey, Twilight?" Rainbow kicked back, crossing her hind legs in the air. "You know, we're the Elements of Harmony, and you got promoted to princess. I'm pretty sure whatever Starlight's done, we're the unlikely ones, here."
"I don't think my name has as much to do with anything as you think it does," Starlight added. "Like I said, stars are very common for naming unicorns! If I had to guess the module's name was related to anything on purpose, it would be 'the stars will aid in her escape'." She rubbed her forehooves against each other. "Of course, that's not as easy for filly me to think. More than anything, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hearing my name in that context kiiind of made an impression..." She rolled her eyes.
"But it just..." Twilight fidgeted. "I don't know, this just seems incredibly strange. Maybe I'm getting too into it, but you started out as a normal filly who worried about losing friends and having parents and... and normal-pony problems! This shouldn't be happening!"
Rainbow checked her with a hoof. "Yo, Starlight. This story is one hundred percent true, right? Or as best as you remember?"
Starlight nodded. "I've reconstructed a few parts. From what others have told me, when I wasn't there... but we're far enough in, I can start showing proof if you want it. I just used a Nightmare Module, didn't I?"
"See?" Rainbow shrugged at Twilight. "Doesn't matter whether it shouldn't or should. That's like walking up to someone and telling them they aren't scientifically possible."
"Eh heh heh!" Twilight giggled sheepishly. "No, but seriously, girls. Doesn't this seem a little... you know..." She fidgeted again, a frustrated frown appearing as words failed her.
"Are you in denial?" Rainbow raised a serious eyebrow, hiding a smirk. "Who was it again who was going on and on about how this is just telling us what happened when Puddles died?"
"I am not in denial!" Twilight protested, flinging a hoof. "Rainbow! That's different! This is... I mean..." She cast a wide-pupiled gaze at the pegasus. "Aren't you concerned?"
Rainbow Dash blinked. "Concerned about who? Starlight?" She pointed. "She's right here, and looks pretty fine to me."
Starlight gave a thankful smile. "I am here, and believe me when I say it isn't a low point in my life." She looked at Twilight. "And I was pretty concerned about myself, too. It still bothers me that all that happened, but there's no changing it."
Slowly, Twilight looked up. "Did you try?"
"Huh?" Starlight tilted her head.
"Time travel," Twilight pointed out. "Something that's been bothering me for a while is that if so much went so wrong in your past, why would you make all the tremendous effort of going after me and my friends, but never try to change your own circumstances?"
Starlight simply nodded.
"I would," Twilight continued. "And that's just at this point. I don't even know what could have been bad enough to cost you your friends, and I do know the kinds of dangers time travel poses to the world. I've seen them firsthoof! And you hadn't when you started using it against me. It just doesn't make sense. If you're not some sort of chosen one and this wasn't destined to happen, it should have been possible. Even if you tried and you failed, you could just try again."
Starlight took a deep breath, then sighed. "I can't tell you without spoilers. But it isn't because I didn't think about it."
Rainbow gave her a sideways look. "So were you actually destined or something, or what?"
"To do what?" Starlight shrugged. "On a biological or magical level, I'm not a normal pony, sure. But what Glimmer kept trying to show me is that reacting differently to moon glass or having the muscle structure to support wings didn't mean a thing about whether I could live a normal life. When I first ran away, I was actually weaker than most foals, remember. I had nothing special, no cutie mark and a malfunctioning horn."
Rainbow pointed a hoof. "Yeah, but you do have weird sort-of batpony powers?"
"It doesn't matter." Starlight shook her head. "The worldview Glimmer tried to teach me... one I believe, by the way... is that there aren't limits on what someone can do if they're ambitious enough. Not ones that are built into the way the world works, at least. Twilight, you ascended into an alicorn! I may have started out with a slight advantage, being able to use Nightmare Modules safely with the help of some extremely supernatural glass and fire..." She huffed. "But that doesn't mean I had to, and it doesn't mean anyone else couldn't if they tried hard enough."
"Are you sure about that?" Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Tell me how an ordinary pony who wasn't you could cast a Nightmare Module."
Starlight stared her straight in the eyes. "Find an unprocessed windigo heart, use Shinespark's experiment to strip your cutie mark from your body, insert it into an empty batpony using whatever technique they used to put Valey together, find some way to transfer your memories, and then use the modules to your heart's content."
Twilight blanched. "That's..."
"Too hard? Too high a price?" Starlight folded her ears and sat back down. "That's why I said this is only possible if you're ambitious enough and never give up. No sane or reasonable pony would ever go a tenth of that far, or one without something they would die again and again for. But it is possible, and that one's actually easy enough I could tell you how."
"Starlight..." Twilight swallowed. "I'm starting to think I don't like this story."
Rainbow Dash glanced at her in concern. "You okay there, Twi?"
"No... I mean, yes. I'm just..." Twilight shook her head. "I can't see where the magic of friendship is in all this. It doesn't feel like the world I live in. Maybe I am in denial..."
Starlight closed her eyes and nodded. "The north is a fundamentally different place."
Twilight shot her a look. "It still should be the same magic!"
"Should it?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "It's cut off by an immensely magical chain of infinite mountains and it's normal for ponies to never get their cutie marks. Are you sure there's nothing fundamentally different about the north?"
Twilight was speechless.
"You know what?" Rainbow Dash piped up. "I think it's time to change the subject. So Starlight! That sword they had wasn't Gerardo's, was it?"
"It was." Starlight nodded. "I was pretty surprised to see it there, but maybe not as much as I could have been. I knew it had a history, after all." She shrugged, relaxing again into her cushioned train seat. "And if you remember, they were discussing using it as a catalyst for the Nightmare Modules."
Twilight nodded, but Rainbow stared at her with a slack jaw. "Not an egghead," she reminded as the windows went dark, a small tunnel passing briefly overhead. "What's a catalyst?"
Twilight cleared her throat to explain. "A catalyst is a reagent used to lower the activation-"
Starlight cut her off with a chuckle. "The Nightmare Modules are essentially a kind of magic powered by emotion, Rainbow," she answered. "The Elements of Harmony work the same way, I would guess, but I haven't had the chance to study them. Luna was able to use her loneliness to run them, which I also used in the form of moon glass. But apparently the emotions burned into that sword, as Felicity described it, are so intense that it can cast Nightmare Modules too."
"And the sword used to be Garsheeva's," Twilight added, picking up where Starlight left off. "Whatever happened to it probably had to do with that war in the murals... I knew Star Swirl lived through the founding of Equestria two thousand years ago, but I hadn't guessed him banishing the sirens was part of the same event chain. It makes sense, though." She rubbed her chin. "The sirens are those fish dragons in the murals."
"Welp! You're the history buff, not me." Rainbow kicked back again. "I just wanna know, if you need that sword to use Nightmare Modules..." She blinked. "That's how you use them now, right? Without moon glass? Anyway, where was it when you were stealing our cutie marks?"
Starlight leaned against the window, half-staring out at the snowy landscape passing by. "I don't want to tell you exactly how it works, but it turns out that sword is very responsive to transformation magic. I had it with me at the time."
The two-pronged equality stick appeared in her hooves.
Both of her friends blinked at the same time. "But you told us that was just a stick!" Twilight protested in surprise. "When your cutie mark was revealed! That you needed to keep your mark because it was what let you take others'!" She tilted her head and frowned. "I had the impression you really wished you could have been free of your cutie mark back in that town."
"I had two of them." Starlight didn't meet her eyes. "So if I needed to, I could leave behind one that really was just a stick. As for why I didn't remove my own cutie mark? You'll see." She held out the stick, offering it if either of her friends wanted to see it.
"So, uhh..." Rainbow squinted at the stick. "How did you just pull that out of thin air?"
"Magic," Twilight and Starlight said, perfectly in sync. They blinked, looked at each other and grinned, and Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.
"Whatever." Rainbow shook her head. "So you really just could've, like, been a normal kid? If only you hadn't ran away or kept trying to get some more decent stuff in your life?"
Starlight nodded. "It took a long time and multiple acts of risking my life to get noticed by the powers that did. Crossing the mountains, using the harmony extractor against the windigoes, touching the Nightmare Module in Stanza's catacombs in Gyre..." She sighed. "Remember all the way back in Ironridge, when I talked to the harmonic flame?"
Both of her friends nodded. "That was the beginning," Starlight continued. "My first real conversation with a higher power. Remember how it went? It was worried about me, but because it cared about ponies in general and I needed it. Not because of what I was. But it saw where my path was headed. The next power I stumbled into, the Night Mother, had a far bigger agenda than just helping lost ponies. The more I stuck my neck out and wasn't content with what I had, the more things kept ramping up..."
"Yeah, but that's dumb, though," Rainbow interrupted, pointing a hoof. "What were you supposed to do, just sit down in the windigo storm and die?"
Starlight's chin wrinkled. "I can't deny I did a lot of good that might not have gotten done otherwise. But what any other pony would have done was not run away into a mountain range everyone thought was endless, alone and poorly prepared. I could have made new friends, learned to live with myself in my old home, gotten a cutie mark and maybe followed Sunburst to a far-off school. Trying to improve your circumstances isn't a bad thing, and the world would be a much worse place if everyone just stopped trying. My answers to problems were just... extreme."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, uhh... no offense, but you can say that again."
Starlight sheepishly grinned.
"It's funny," Twilight mused. "But when you put everything this way, cloistering yourself in a tiny village and ruling just that with an iron hoof sounds almost too easy. Next to fighting monsters and learning about eldritch magic and doing things for entire cities."
"Says us," Rainbow Dash drawled, hooves folded behind her head. "Million-time saviors of Equestria from evil maniac butt."
Starlight obtrusively cleared her throat. "Sorry to cut this conversation off just when it's getting fascinating, but aren't we almost there?" The equality stick disappeared in her hooves again just as the train rounded a mountain and Canterlot appeared through the window, a short mountain gorge away. "I really want to get this thing to the Princesses, so they can deal with it and I don't have to. Speaking of things you wouldn't mess with unless you were way too ambitious..."
She chuckled nervously, and the train continued to clatter as it approached the gates of the city.