//------------------------------// // More Good Decisions // Story: Starlight Glimmer Makes Many Mistakes // by MagicS //------------------------------// “Alright Spike I have two theories. One is that that little accident changed our timeline. Two is that because of that change a new timeline was created that we’ve hopped into and I’m certain that it’s just as good and happy as the original while at the same time we totally haven’t messed up our world and timeline at all and everything is just peachy. Sounds like a good theory, right?” “Could you slow down for a second? I’m not sure I caught all of that. And in the future I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t use “we”, okay?” “That’s fair.” The two of them walked through the Everfree Forest the next morning, they had nothing else to do anymore and no place to go so they might as well go somewhere they probably couldn’t cause as much chaos. Probably. Starlight was leading them on and still trying to justify and rationalize things while Spike plodded along in annoyance. The two friends had seen better days. Spike knew that none of what had happened was on purpose of course, and he didn’t really want to stay mad at her or anything like that. It’s just that she was kind of making things difficult. At least none of the creatures in the Everfree would really be a problem for her, and both of them could fly if it came down to it. But it still wasn’t exactly making Spike happy that they had to retreat here for now. Zecora seemed to like it just fine but he liked his home to be a bit more comfortable than this. And where would they even actually sleep in here? They didn’t have a tent. Or sleeping bags. Or food. And neither Spike nor Starlight had paid attention to Twilight’s lectures on “Edible flora of the Everfree”. “Starlight, where are we even going right now?” Spike asked her. Finally curious enough at where she might be headed. “Just a little someplace special, I already told you I knew about the caves around here thanks to Maud. Now we’re gonna go see her future home too.” Starlight replied. “I hope it’s a little more fireproof than Twilight’s.” Spike snarked at her. Starlight shot him back a glare. “It is.” Their so far short journey into the Everfree eventually took them to an entrance to one of its many caves. It was funny for Spike to think that when he first moved here something like this might worry him or seem a little daunting. Now it was so far from scary it was almost laughable. After everything else he’d seen and been through the terrors of the Everfree Forest were like nothing. “Now it might take a little while to find it. I can’t remember exactly which way we went when I was down here with Maud but I’m pretty sure I’ll recognize the right spot and then it’s just the small matter of knocking down a wall and viola! Home sweet home for the near future.” Starlight said enthusiastically. Spike however was still a little concerned. “Knocking down a wall? In a cave? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” “I did it just fine before.” She shot back at him. “Yeah but Maud was there to make sure nothing bad would happen. She probably would’ve stopped you if you were about to do something dumb. What if you accidentally cause a cave-in or destroy the place you’re trying to get into this time?” Spike reasoned. “It’ll be fine, Spike. Trust me. Even if I can’t excavate as precisely as she can my magic is strong enough to hold things up.” Starlight was unwilling to budge on this issue. “Besides you’re gonna love it down here, it’s really pretty and there are tons of crystals and gems for you to eat.” Spike rolled his eyes but went along with her. “Alright, against my better judgment I’ll trust you. Going with my gut has gotten me in a lot of trouble before so maybe going against it will actually work out well?” “I’m glad you have so much confidence in me.” Starlight’s voice dripped with sarcasm as she led the two of them deeper into the caves. The cave was quiet and devoid of any monsters or other creatures that might call the rest of the Everfree Forest home. Starlight lit up her horn to give them some light to see with, not as much as a candle but Spike decided not to bring that up. Normally she would need a hardhat to see better just like Rarity did when she was digging for gems. Speaking of gems, Spike’s mouth began watering as he looked around the cave, the walls embedded with and practically overflowing with all sorts of delicious looking specimens. If they weren’t trying to find something he’d have taken the time to devour a few bucketfuls already. “It should be close by. I’m pretty sure she said it was hollow granite but I’ll be honest, I can’t really tell granite apart from any other rock.” Starlight said. “It’s just gonna be a big wall.” “Great, you be on the lookout for that and I’ll be on the lookout for which gems look the best to eat.” Spike said. Starlight briefly turned to look back at him, an annoyed frown on her face. “Very helpful.” And right as she turned to face forward again her face smacked right into a very hard and very painful wall of granite. “Oof!” The unique and highly recognizable resonating sound that echoed through the cave as Starlight’s head collided with the granite told them the very important fact that it was hollow. “Hah! Knew I could find it again!” Starlight said, rubbing her red muzzle and trying to salvage as much pride as possible. But Spike wasn’t letting her get away with it that easily. “You know it would’ve been more impressive if you intentionally found it.” Starlight rolled her eyes, not deigning to respond and instead getting ready to blast through the wall. With a somewhat strong blast of magic it was a simple matter to smash the granite and Starlight and Spike walked into the hidden sanctuary that rested in the caves. It was just as amazing as Starlight remembered, with the waterfall coming from an underground river and the glowing gems on the ceiling that gave the illusion of sunlight, illuminating the entirety of the cavern. Spike as well was amazed, walking slack-jawed out into the large room and looking around in awe. Starlight grinned, she was going to enjoy rubbing it in his face about her being right. “Woah.” Spike said. “I can’t believe there’s something like this down here.” “Yep.” Starlight said as she walked beside him. “Maud and I were pretty surprised to see it too. Cool place to live, right?” “Well I already live in a magical crystal castle but yeah, this is pretty cool too.” Spike said and Starlight couldn’t really deny that he had a point. Starlight hopped down to where the calm waterfall pooled into a pond, taking in the scent of the cold water while Spike glided down to her. This whole place had a nice and relaxing atmosphere to it, she always liked hanging out with Maud here, just quietly spending time together. As she craned her neck to look up at the ceiling of the cavern she had to think that Twilight would be interested in whatever magical property it was these gems had that made them glow like this. Maybe when they returned to their own time she could bring Twilight here. “So now what?” Spike’s voice interrupted her thoughts. Starlight looked down at him, a confused look on her face. “What do you mean?” “We can’t just stay here all the time. Twilight doesn’t know about this place, how would she ever find us?” “I figured she has a spell to track us down with once she finds where we traveled back to.” Starlight shrugged. “No, that’s the kind of spell you would make.” Spike accused. “Well fine, in a couple days maybe we could start going back to Ponyville. Or maybe head to Sweet Apple Acres and take Butter up on her offer.” “I don’t know if I feel good about potentially horrifically altering Applejack’s life.” Spike said with a grimace on his face. “Oh come on!” Starlight stamped a hoof. “I wouldn’t do anything like that. And we have no idea if the library burning down was even a bad thing, for all we know the change could be a good one.” “Okay, you can keep telling yourself that and I’ll keep telling myself that Twilight has nothing to be angry at me for and we can both sleep easy tonight.” Spike folded his arms over his chest and looked away. “Grr.” Starlight grumbled but didn’t want to get into a bigger argument. “Whatever, let’s just enjoy the scenery for now. You can go eat whatever you want, I’m gonna go lie down.” Starlight did as she said and took up a spot right at the water’s edge. Spike in turn shook his head and decided that now might as well be the best time to figure out which gems in here tasted the best. Starlight just stayed like she was for a while. Her mind going over the events of yesterday and trying to figure out how they even got into this situation in the first place. And then there was the fact that while it was bad enough that she had time-traveled like this again she even made another, likely bad despite what she was saying earlier, change to the past that she had no idea how they would revert or fix now. Starlight was going to be placing her bets on Twilight to just magically appear and fix everything, in all honesty it seemed like a pretty safe bet considering who it was she was talking about. Maybe a little irresponsible of Starlight to just let it all ride on that right now but her students didn’t need to know about any of this. She was still a good role model. Right? “Mmm, this is delicious.” Starlight shifted to see Spike walking towards her with some random orange gemstone in his claws, happily chowing down on it. Upon the two of them meeting eyes Spike frowned and started looking around ashamedly. “Uh, you know sorry for giving you such a hard time about all this.” Starlight just grunted. “Meh, kind of have it coming.” “Admitting it is the first step.” Spike smiled. Starlight couldn’t help but giggle and Spike was happy to join her. Still friends even if they got on each others nerves a few times. Spike after all had to deal with all of Twilight’s neuroses all his life and Starlight had Trixie. So they were used to it. Even in a stressful situation like this one or two arguments weren’t going to come between them. “You know I’ll understand if you aren’t too thrilled by my suggestion but we might… want to go see Princess Celestia?” Spike suddenly decided to broach to her. Starlight winced. “Yeah, let that be the last resort. I don’t want to bother her with this.” She raised an eyebrow at Spike. “And wouldn’t that probably mess up the timeline again.” Spike shrugged. “It might still be our best bet.” There was a retort on the tip of Starlight’s tongue about how if he had a problem with her intentionally trying to change things in the past for the better it seemed a bit hypocritical that he also wanted to go to Princess Celestia with this. But she never got to say it as a sudden shaking took hold of the cavern. “Uh, Starlight...” Spike worriedly said as his head whipped back and forth while the walls of Maud’s future home shook. Starlight desperately looked over at the entrance she had made in the chamber only to see to her despair a series of cracks spider-webbing from around the edges and quickly going up the walls. The glowing crystals and gems in the ceiling were similarly cracking and the light emanating from them was blinking weaker and weaker. All around the two of them bits of rock and dust started falling and the formerly calm waterfall began spilling out like a raging torrent. With a nervous grin Starlight looked back at Spike. “I think I screwed up this time.” “So now that you’ve destroyed two future homes what’s the new plan?” Starlight and Spike stood panting on the forest floor, covered in dirt and debris after vacating the collapsing underground chamber. Starlight decided some more rest was in order and lied down on her back, looking up at the minor amount of sky she could see through the thick trees. The day had not gone as planned. “Well Spike, I was thinking of starting a war or two next. Sound good?” “At this point anything with prior notice is fine by me.” Spike sat down and rubbed his eyes. “Ugh, sorry Starlight.” Starlight rolled over and got back up. “Did you notice something back there? No vision going white or anything like that even though I obviously just changed something again. So either my theory was incorrect or the change was so minor that it didn’t matter.” Spike raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, and?” The unicorn had a determined and somewhat annoyed look on her face. “Spike, in the short time we’ve been back here I’ve burnt down a library and possibly just destroyed a beautiful underground cavern, both of which two of my closest friends called homes at one point. I still have no idea how we traveled back in time or how any of this works and I’m sorry to say but at this point I am officially beyond caring.” “Starlight… you’re worrying me again.” She turned to him with a smile that just made him even more uneasy. “No need to worry at all Spike. Reality and space-time haven’t collapsed and I doubt whatever small changes I make for the good of my friends and Equestria will cause them to either.” “Starlight...” “But first I need to prove my theory about creating new timelines that don’t harm our original one at all. And once I do it’s a free ride to fun for us until Twilight finds us and fixes everything.” She leaned down so her nose was even with Spike’s. “And as I’m sure Twilight has told you many times, the way you prove a theory is by testing it.” “I really don’t think we should do anything like that.” Spike sweated nervously and shook his head at her. “Sorry Spike but I tried doing things the safe and sensible way and look how that’s gone?” Starlight spread her arms wide. “If I’m going to be stuck in the past I’m gonna make the most of it. Come on, I have the perfect testing idea.” Spike begrudgingly followed again as Starlight led them to another part of the Everfree Forest. Maybe it was just Spike’s imagination but the forest seemed unusually calm and eerie for the Everfree, as if it itself wanted to give Starlight a wide berth. Well, Spike had dealt with Twilight in worse moods… and Starlight in worse situations. Even if she was frustrated and didn’t care about not accidentally changing the past anymore he knew she wasn’t going to intentionally make things worse. He believed in her to not do anything too drastic. Maybe. “Here we are.” Starlight suddenly said after a few minutes of walking through the forest. After looking around for a second, Spike shot Starlight a questioning look. “It’s just a hole and some thorn bushes.” “Exactly.” Starlight responded. “And this hole leads to the magical mirror pool.” “Oh… right.” Spike flashed back to the day where dozens of Pinkie Pie’s terrorized Ponyville. It was something he tried to forget. “I’m going to permanently block off the mirror pool, not only do I know that that will cause a change in history but I also know that it will only be a minor change that can only possibly bring good.” Starlight said. “Once I block it off we should experience another “whiteout”. It’s a foolproof plan.” “Except you have no idea if it will actually work.” Spike flatly said. “That’s why it’s called testing a theory, Spike. We both know how much Twilight has drilled this kind of stuff into you.” Starlight said with a little annoyance. “So if nothing happens?” “Then I’m completely wrong about everything and we’re back to knowing nothing.” Simple enough. Starlight’s horn lit up and she furrowed her brow in concentration as she focused on the hole leading into the underground domain of the mirror pool. Her immense power flashed at its apex and a blast of magic tore into the ground, twisting and shifting the earth around to completely collapse the tunnel and make sure that Pinkie Pie could never find it this way. She and Spike both wobbled on top of the shaking ground as the dirt settled beneath them but otherwise there was no problem. “Okay, so that should-” Before Starlight could finish her vision began to blur and a white blanket started to close around her eyes, her hooves trembled but overall the feeling was much less powerful than when the library had burnt down. In a second it was gone and her vision returned to normal, this time not even fully disappearing in the first place and with no sense of vertigo to accompany it. Looking beside her, Starlight saw Spike reacting in much the same way. Blinking to check to see if his vision was okay. “Well then. Obviously this wasn’t as important of a change as burning down Golden Oak Library.” Starlight said. “I suppose the bigger the event the more powerful the shift. Guess it proves my theory right at least, I hope,” Spike just glared at her. “I don’t think we should make a habit out of this either way, Starlight.” Starlight got a devilishly mischievous smile on her face as she looked at him. “But then how will we ever have fun back here?”