The sound of a door slamming open woke Starlight. Hard.
"I don't see her!" a voice said, followed by, "No, wait, there she is! Her mane's draped over the couch arm."
She vaguely recognized Gallus's voice belonging to both sentences. Groaning, she sat up, rubbing her eyes and allowing her vision to change from fuzziness to clarity. She looked over the back of the couch to see Gallus, as expected...
Standing behind Princess Twilight? What was going on here? Suddenly Starlight was very, very anxious.
Gallus gestured towards her while talking to Twilight. "She just started glowing all over, and rambling on and on about... weird stuff. But it was like I wasn't even here while she was talking. I wanted to be scared, but instead I just... got worried about her."
If Starlight's heart had been swimming before, it was now frozen in a lake of ice. What exactly had happened?
"Starlight," Twilight said as she approached the couch. "Are you okay? Gallus burst into my office minutes ago, saying something went wrong during your session with him." She blinked. "Which surprised me in no small part because you told me you were getting ready to take some much-needed time off."
Starlight groaned again, holding her forehead with one hoof and draping herself over the couch's back. "I was... I-I don't know what happened, I—"
A moment of a memory flashed before Starlight. A memory that made her fear the worst within the single moment it took to manifest itself. "Oh my gosh. Oh, no."
"What? What is it?" Twilight asked.
"Gallus," Starlight said. "I'll keep my distance, I promise. But can you tell me what I was saying to you before you went to get Headmare Twilight?"
"I, uh... don't know if I should," Gallus said, looking around the room.
Twilight closed the distance between herself and Starlight, and placed a hoof on Starlight's shoulder. "What he means is that, based on what he told me," Twilight said, "neither of us are sure you'd take it well. It involves... things I know you've been trying to move past."
A pang hit Starlight's heart, felt even in its chilled state. She took a deep breath to stay calm. "I understand," she replied, looking frantically back and forth between them, "but this is important to me. Tell me. Please."
Gallus looked down to the floor... then up to Starlight with wide, worried eyes. "You were talking about... giving up emotions. Giving up cutie marks. Using magic for both."
The moment Starlight heard those words, the whole sordid scene replayed in front of her.
===
"Uh, Miss Starlight?" Gallus said, shifting away on the couch. "Two things: I'm not a pony, meaning so I don't have a cutie mark. Also, literally what?"
Starlight closed her eyes. At least, she felt as if she did. But her vision stayed fixated on Gallus, and the colors shifting and surrounding them both.
"Everycreature has a cutie mark, Gallus," she intoned. "Even if they're not cute pictures on their flanks. Some have them there, but my research has shown..." She pointed to her solar plexus. "That everyone has them in here as well. Inside themselves.
"Everycreature gives them different names, but we all have callings. Hopes. Motivations. Beliefs. Dreams. Emotional centers. Imagine what you can do, however..." Starlight paused to let it "with none of those things to stop you."
If Gallus had had a reaction, Starlight didn't notice. "No fears," she continued. "No apprehensions. No pain, sadness or grief. Imagine making and keeping as many friends as you want, as much family, blood and found, as easily as you want, without fear of rejection."
Her eyes widened. The world widened. And her voice cracked the tiniest bit.
"Imagine being immune to the pain of loss when they inevitably abandon you!"
Starlight's lips moved on their own, now, as her peripheral vision tinted itself brown and lavender. Why did she feel like crying? The power was hers. It always was. It was her responsibility to use it! Why did she feel like running away and letting tears flow until she dried up completely?
"There's nowhere my magic can't reach. And nothing it can't help. Are you willing to do what it takes to live here? To throw your old self away and embrace true harmony? Please," Starlight breathed. "Let me help you. Let me help us!"
===
Once more, Starlight jolted back to reality. The memory was now clear as day. Lightning struck her frozen heart as she realized what she'd done. She still wanted to run away and cry forever—though now for slightly different reasons.
"Oh my goodness, no," she nearly shrieked, shaking her head frantically. "Gallus, I am so sorry. You have got to believe me, I didn't mean a single word of what I said. I would never do that to you. I would never do anything to hurt you, or any of the other students, I..." She buried her face in her foreleg, choking on the lump in her throat. "I... I love you all so much, I—"
"What are you talking about, Starlight?"
Odd. Gallus sounded... different. Slowly, Starlight raised her head.
At first fuzzy glance, Gallus and Twilight still seemed to be standing in front of her. She looked around. The colors were different again. Much more brown than before. She looked back in front of herself as her vision sharpened.
And the sight before shattered her frozen heart, with the single tap of a chisel.
Gallus—a Gallus whose plumage was far more gray than blue—spoke again, with a tone of voice that dripped with laziness. Apathy. Complacence.
"Honestly, what you're saying makes a ton of sense. I can't have nightmares if I never dream. Right?"
Starlight looked around, all around, to see herself back in a cabin she never thought she'd be in again. She rushed to the side window, and looked out at drab tumbleweed-covered town made of just over a dozen huts.
Her hair felt different. She patted it, and encountered the contours of a bun she hadn't worn in ages. It took everything she had in her to look behind herself, but she already knew what she would see before she saw it: an equal sign where her cutie mark used to be.
Knowing she was right didn't stop the shivering. Didn't stop the fight-or-flight. Didn't stop her whimpering.
She turned to run out the door, but was greeted with the view of Gallus, the other students, and Princess Twilight standing in front of it for her trouble. All of them were faded, washed-out shadows of their normal selves.
A long, two-pronged tree branch was tossed at Starlight's hooves. "What are you waiting for?" Gallus asked with a glazed stare. "Use your magic. Solve our problems. That's why we come to you, right?"
He then took a single step forward, with a very direct gaze that would have pierced Starlight's emotional defenses—had she any left. "Isn't that why you're still here at all?"
Starlight screamed.