//------------------------------//
// 26: Cutie Remarks (Pt. 1) 
// Story: Shining Together 
// by Bookish Delight 
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Starlight blinked, her jaw agape. None of this was expected. All of this was a little too... tolerant. Nice, even. Where was the chastisement? Where was the lecturing? Where was the well-meaning, impossible-to-get-truly-mad-at patronization?... 

Where was the Twilight? 

No, seriously, wasn't Sunset also a Celestial protege? Where was she? Who was this?

She really might be different. Starlight blinked again, stared at Sunset again. Finally, she managed to utter, "You mean... the doing, or the happening?" 

Sunset shrugged. "Meh. Both. Lay it on me."

"Uh, okay, then." Starlight took a deep breath. "The happening..." She shuddered as she recalled distant, aggressively-repressed memories. "It's probably not too hard to figure out. You know how cutie marks show themselves once you've found your life's calling? Well, take that calling, rip it out of yourself, and toss it somewhere else—I dunno, lock it in a glass cage in a cave or something. 

"After you've done that... things change. You might not know it right away, but you know it whenever you try to do something you know is, well, you. You know you're supposed to be doing something, you know you're supposed to be someone—but it's always on the tip of your tongue. Lost in a fog. And if that's your life for long enough..." Starlight shuddered again. "I did it to myself once by accident, and it took forever to reverse. And I also did it to everypony in my town. By their request of course, after I convinced them it was the right move. 

"The 'doing', meanwhile, takes a lot of energy, but isn't too different from moving objects. I'm just... 'tuned' to interacting with cutie marks, since I was obsessed with them for so long. Especially when I first realized I could manipulate them? I could barely contain myself. From then on, every mark removed was a victory, especially given how I felt about cutie marks at the time."

Sunset stayed quiet and nodding through Starlight's explanation, then quiet for still longer afterwards, with her fingers to her chin. She picked up her geode, examining it from all sides. "How did you feel about cutie marks at the time?"

Starlight's answer came too quickly for even her comfort. 

"Like ponies put too much stock in them!" she blurted out, balling her fists. "I mean, you've lived in Equestria for long enough, you've seen what goes on. Ponies build their lives around them, act like all roads lead back to them, ridicule fillies and colts who don't have them yet, act like they're our total reason for living! Seriously, people talk to me about mind control, abut subjugation, and yet, we've got this institution—" Starlight's indignant energy fizzled. She fell silent, and drooped. Her voice softened and leveled. "Sorry. I'm not sure I can be rational when it comes to that question."

Sunset shrugged. "I'm currently holding a stone in my hand that lets me see into peoples' motivations and memories. I have been told, by a genius scientist, that it defies all scientific explanation." She looked to Starlight with a tilted smile. "Rationality stopped being welcome here a long time ago."