//------------------------------//
// A Broken Circle 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Hours passed since the time Glimmer first woke up, and still sitting in Maple's embrace, Starlight started to twitch. Harshwater was long gone, and Glimmer had been mumbling under her breath for nearly half an hour.

Eventually, Starlight craned her neck. "Should we wake her? She sounds uncomfortable..."

"I've been awake for a while," Glimmer replied before Maple could answer, instantly becoming coherent. "Trying to put myself back together. I'm not having much luck."

"Put yourself back together?" Maple's curiosity was roused, and she sat up with Starlight. "Are you feeling better?"

Glimmer gave an impatient sigh, keeping her eyes closed. "Getting there. Do you have water? That would help a lot."

"O-Of course." Maple pulled a flask from her cutie mark, placing it carefully in the filly's hooves. "Careful. It's full."

Glimmer drank deeply, gratefully corking it again with her hooves and setting it aside. "Thank you." She struggled to sit up, feeling over her face with a hoof, then dropping it uselessly. "Well, I can do almost nothing. Starlight, tell everyone whatever you like. I suppose I get to be at everyone's mercy for a while."

Maple tilted her head, torn between several questions... and glanced at Starlight. "You know her? We're already helping her, so I assume..."

"I know her, and we're helping her." Starlight nodded. "G... Err..." She winced. "Give me something to call you I can safely say in front of my friends."

"Make up your own name," Glimmer requested as Maple looked at both of them oddly. "I still have a headache, and bigger things to think about."

"Something safe?" Maple blinked. "What do you mean?"

Starlight briefly folded her ears, glancing between her duplicate and her mother. "Maple, I've known her for a while. It's hard to explain, and will just get more confusing if I try. Can you just..." She hesitated, realizing she had no idea what she needed to ask.

"I do have a lot of questions," Maple admitted. "But I guess it's still not the first thing on my mind... You saved Valey, didn't you?"

"Me?" Glimmer shrugged. "Yes, I did. And Starlight, before you ask why, I promised I'd just do what you would have done when I offered to buy you some time alone. I didn't think this would happen, but one teleport and a shield were what I had."

Maple frowned, but inched a hoof onto her shoulder. "I can't imagine actually being in that blast. Are you shaken? Is there anything I can do to help?" She looked around, then hesitantly crawled onto the bed. "I remember what it was like for me and Starlight having this happen in Ironridge..."

"Help? Not likely, I'm afraid." Glimmer shook her head. "My problems are metaphysical right now. You're welcome to keep me company, though. I would appreciate it."

Maple accepted the invitation, Starlight following into the bed behind her. "It feels strange, seeing two of you," Maple murmured, hugging one filly with each foreleg. "So where did you come from? And why do you look like Starlight?"

Glimmer shrugged. "Can't say. Don't expect me to leave any time soon, though."

"What's wrong with you?" Starlight suddenly asked. "You did the same thing as me, using my horn until I went blind. But you know more about it?"

Slowly, Glimmer nodded. "This is the simple version, but think of your horn as containing a very flexible, ring-shaped tube filled with liquid. When you use your magic, the liquid spins. Now imagine that part of the tube was pinched or missing. You try to use your magic and spin the liquid, but it backs up and creates a bulge that needs to slowly drain, and gives you a worse headache the bigger it is. Using your harmony extractors, which are actually very incorrectly named, you can siphon some of that off to relieve the pressure, but having too little in your system..."

Starlight swallowed. "Makes me disappear."

"Right." Glimmer's ears folded. "But that recovers with time too, unless you go too far. Going too far in either direction, too backed-up or too empty? Well, you've been to both ends before. Where I am right now, imagine that backup bulge has exploded and broken the whole system even more than it was in the first place."

Starlight thought about it, and quickly decided this was a very uncomfortable mental image. "So fixing you..."

"Isn't going to be easy," Glimmer answered. "You know what would happen if I touched a harmony extractor right now. So, I'm figuring out what still works and trying to plan how I'll get to a place where I can put myself back together."

Maple stared at her with no small amount of awe. "How do you know all that?"

Glimmer bit her lip and didn't answer.

"She just does." Starlight looked away. "She's helped me so far, so I don't really ask how..."

"Well, I'm glad you feel that way about me." Glimmer shook her head. "Because I'm probably going to be stuck with you for the foreseeable future. I can pull my weight, of course."

Maple hugged her a little harder. "I don't think there's a single pony on this ship who's only here because they're needed. But don't worry, you. Even if you couldn't do anything, I think having someone to take care of will be good for me right now. I still feel messed up inside by what happened to Izvaldi, but..." She stopped, taking a deep breath. "We're all together, flying away from it. It'll be fine."

Glimmer smirked wryly. "Thanks, but I'm offering to help. Even as a cripple, I can do a lot, and no offense, but your team needs it." Her unseeing eyes shadowed. "Well, not needs, needs. You're pretty hard to stop, when you want to be. But you could be so much happier on your way... Ask Starlight how common it is for me to get my hooves dirty if you need to."

Starlight squinted. "What are you even offering? You almost never do more than just talk to me."

"There are rules," Glimmer sighed. "Rules that are in my best interest not to break, but sometimes do anyway because I happen to have a heart. Now I'm paying the price, and am in a situation where I couldn't keep to them if I wanted to. So I might as well make the most of it and try to ease your path."

Maple smiled a little. "Our path, hmm? If Valey is too hurt to fight in the tournament, I wonder where we're going from here."

"Stormhoof, still," Starlight murmured, looking out the uncurtained window. "We're going south along the ocean."

"Stormhoof," Maple breathed. "Well, maybe it will be fun this time? No fights, no pressure? Everyone who's up to no good will be looking at the contenders, and I think we still have friends in the nobility. Chauncey is gone, Garsheeva will be focused on Izvaldi... I bet everyone will be focused on Izvaldi. Maybe it will actually be like a vacation."