Gray flickered at the edges of Starlight's vision as her body moved autonomously down the staircase to the tree room at the base. Once it became clear that she couldn't fight it, she tried to relax, and once she tried that, it was obvious that whatever was moving her was fully in control... and it even moved with all her own ticks and mannerisms. Her muscles stayed tense, as if her body itself was apprehensive; the dissonance was like a splash of cold water that calmed her further. She was a spectator, feeling more and more removed... Was this even real?
She couldn't hear anything. Her ears were a sea of gray static.
The spiral staircase opened out into a familiar chamber, its walls devoid of generators like the palace in Grandbell. Her body looked around for her, like it was curious too... but she shuffled along across the bridge to the tree, moving with reticence and urgency at the same time.
The room's temperature stopped registering to her senses, and she couldn't taste anything. More gray intruded on her vision, everything except the tunnel directly in front of her beginning to flicker and fragment. This had to be an illusion, mind trick or dream. In fact, it felt almost like reliving something that had already happened... or had yet to occur.
Starlight stepped through the tunnel, the flame chamber hoofsteps before her... and something slammed into her senses, stabbing her and tearing through her body.
SCRRRRRRRRKKKRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKRRRRRkrrrrrrkkkkrrrrrrrrr...
Starlight felt herself scream, flail, hit the ground... and it was over. Her senses were slowly returning. She lifted a hoof, and she could move on her own again.
"Starlight! Bananas, are you alright!?"
"Starlight, stay with us! I knew I shouldn't have let you...!"
"She's still breathing! Starlight, do you remember us!? I am never gonna let you play with that again!"
"Unnngh..." Starlight stirred. Her head felt like she had been sledgehammered, and her friends' faces came into focus before the room around them... though she was fairly sure she wasn't in the flame room anymore.
Two things quickly stood out: Maple's eyes were their original red, neither the midnight blue they had been while she was carrying Glimmer nor a new color from being charged with this flame's harmony. And that sword was floating, active, in its runic circle, pointing straight at her.
"What happened...?"
Valey grabbed her shoulders, face flush with concern. "Do you remember us, girl? Your friends?"
"Of course I do..." Starlight tried to will the sword to lower, and it obeyed without question. As her senses continued to clear, she recognized that they were back in the mural room. The flame's presence was far below, but it seemed more distant than usual, as if it was hesitant to touch her. "Maple. Valey. How are we back here? Did you carry me? What happened?"
The two mares breathed a sigh of relief as one. "What's the last thing you remember?" Maple gently prodded.
"I... don't know?" Starlight rubbed the side of her head. "We were going down to the flame room, and I was alone and couldn't control the way I was moving, and-"
Maple interrupted her with a tight hug. "Let's..." Her voice cracked. "Let's go home."
Starlight folded her ears. "What happened?" Her voice grew lower.
"You used that Nightmare Module on yourself." Valey shook her head, still looking upset. "The one that erases memories. After you'd been down below. I guess you just really didn't like something that had happened."
"Mhmm." Maple sadly nodded.
Starlight's breath caught. The one she had drawn a line in the sand for herself never to use...
But it made sense, didn't it? All the gray blocking out her senses. Not understanding why she was moving. Not having her friends there. Maybe everything she remembered was just... holes in her damaged memory...
"Why?" she whispered, slumping.
"I dunno." Valey shrugged. "All we can tell you is what you told us. You said Glimmer was right and not poking your nose into this really was your best chance to be happy in life. And you wanted us to tell you that we climbed this far back up to do it so you could be sure of what you were doing, that it wasn't another panic attack and that you were acting with a clear head. Which I sort of doubt, but hey, they're your words..."
So that was why the flame felt distant. If she was lying to herself, covering up what it had said... If it was a flame of honesty...
"Also?" Valey nodded. "You said to tell you to stay away from positive harmony stuff from now on. These flames, the ship's engine, what have you. That's why Ironflanks didn't take any with her. Apparently you dialed this Nightmare Module way down so you wouldn't forget literally everything, and said if you got exposed to too much, it might counter the effect and make you remember... so yeah. No more crystal palace crawls for you, unless you decide you really just don't trust yourself and need to know anyway."
"But when you were talking this over," Maple whispered, "you said maybe you'd believe it more if it was yourself telling you this instead of Glimmer. You said you... need to settle down and make more friends, instead of going around and trying to get stronger. You said you found more power than you wanted, and needed to draw a line for yourself and leave some of it behind."
Valey nodded solemnly. "Yeah. About that..."
Nyala stepped forward.
"You're here too?" Starlight asked, more than overwhelmed.
Nyala nodded. "I have something for you." She held out her wings, cradling a gleaming, deep purple crystal that somehow made Starlight thankful just looking at it.
"Is that...?" Starlight frowned. What was it?
"Crystallized generosity, according to you," Valey said. "We were there when the flame made it, but couldn't hear what it was saying. And don't ask me how an honesty flame produces generosity. I couldn't follow your answer on that and I don't think you got it, either."
Starlight stared at the generosity crystal, unsure why she wanted it and feeling cold despite Maple's hug. This was it. The end of the line. She had finally decided to stop, give up and turn around, and she didn't even get to understand why.
It wasn't fair. It made her want to cry.
"The professors went back ahead," Maple reassured, wiping the start of a tear. "It's alright."
Starlight did cry. "T-That's to take with us? So we have some harmony to restore my memories if I ever regret this and really do need more power?"
Valey shook her head. "You said to tell you not to think like that, and also no, it shouldn't be strong enough. But we charged up the windigo hearts again if you seriously did want to... Just so you know, though, if you do decide to do that, I'm not letting you do this again if you change your mind a third time."
"You didn't want to let yourself erase your memories again either," Maple whispered. "That's what this is for."
Nyala nodded. "This works like moon glass. It can hold cutie marks. Only you have to give it yours willingly, and it will willingly give it back."
"Yeah..." Valey shook her head. "You told us to tell you that you wanted to get rid of that artifice as soon as you could, but since you needed a cutie mark to control the sword to wipe yourself... yeah. Your call on that, but you know what it's been doing to the way you feel. If I were you, I'd take it off and then keep that thing around in case you ever need it back again."
Starlight was numb. "Can I do it later? I c-can't think..."
"Of course you can." Maple scooped Starlight onto her back, not wincing. "You said the flame would let us out of here so that you wouldn't have to control the castle. Let's go home to our friends."
"Totally." Valey nodded firmly. "You also said that making friends... ones you trusted more than anything, and more than you have now... is how you'll make it in the future. You said if you had made more friends before this, enough to set you straight when you needed it and guide you, more than just us, that this wouldn't have been so bad and you wouldn't need to go backwards like this. And personally, I'm a little offended, but hey, that's just my ego speaking."
Starlight let her ramble. Her vision drifted, a gigantic door closing before her in her imagination as she turned her back on it. All the distance she had come, every time she had learned something that scared her more and more and made the world feel emptier and emptier above her... this was where it ended. This was where it became too much. She had saved her friends from Crystal and the windigoes, and this was where even she could say enough was enough.
It felt like being dead, and yet, was strangely peaceful. Perhaps a shred of intent reached her across the Nightmare Module's divide, a wish from her past self, but right now she could do nothing precisely because there was something she could do. It wasn't like her panic attack where she tested the Nightmare Modules with the sword. There, she had foolishly tried to increase her capabilities so she could have power she could then set aside and not use. That hadn't helped her at all.
But here... she was hanging up a sword. She wasn't getting new power, swearing new vows, or doing anything additional or new. All her life, she really had been getting stronger, making new friends, clinging onto what she had and never saying goodbye, hadn't she?
...All because of that one painful parting with Sunburst.
All because of that one parting, she had sworn to herself never to say goodbye again. Never to let the door be shut by someone else... and here she was, shutting it herself. Maybe this was what Glimmer meant by learning to let go.
It was cathartic. Starlight kicked that door in her mind, banging it closed, a thrill she had never felt before sparking through her senses. She hung that sword of knowledge, left it behind. She could do this. And... even though she was making herself weaker, not just by choosing not to use her advantages but by leaving them behind, they were still there.
There was a way for her to get that knowledge back, at any time. Just use the windigo hearts... jump inside the harmony extractor when it was active... Her friends said it as a warning, but she knew herself better than that. The power was left behind, and yet not out of reach should the day come when she needed it again.
And just like that, Starlight Glimmer didn't have to do everything in her power to still be ready to protect her friends.
Her tears redoubled anew. She was right. Whatever she had learned from the honesty flame, it had certainly been wise. When Glimmer told her this, every time Glimmer told her to step back and let go, it only hurt. Yet here she was, having put down a burden yet still able to use it when the world came to call.
"Shhh," Maple whispered, climbing steadily beneath her. "We're almost there."
"What happened to Glimmer?" Starlight managed through her sobs.
"She isn't here anymore," Maple hummed. "The first thing we tried to do was bring her back. You and the flame did something, I don't know what... and I fell asleep for a few moments, and when I woke up Valey said she had returned and then ran away."
Ran away, had she? Starlight wondered if she would ever see her again.
"Did you see anything weird about the table with the emblem?" Starlight muttered, the fright of her staticky memory draining away.
"Right above the tree room?" Valey cut in. "Bananas, yeah. It looked all normal for a moment, and then... flash. Like it had been an illusion. Thing was all lopsided."
Starlight winced. "That isn't something I was supposed to forget, was it?"
"I don't think so?" Valey shrugged. "I mean, we speculated about it for a while, and it was weird, but not particularly earth-shattering."
"No puns, please," Maple murmured. "Let's just get back to the ship."
Valey snickered.
"How is that a pun?" Starlight asked, her mind almost light enough that she wanted to talk about pointless things. It felt like she was at the bottom of a deep lake, and had been there for some time, but was floating steadily toward the surface.
"Remember that thingamajig from Sosa the Explorer's journal?" Valey flicked her tail, climbing a few steps ahead of Maple and looking over her shoulder. "Where the guy thought the Emblem of the Nine Virtues was somehow related to the shape of the world, and we thought the crystal palaces might be located at the nine points?"
Starlight might have. It had been a while, and her head still hurt physically, even if her spirits were raised. It sounded vaguely familiar... "Maybe."
"Well, we definitely did," Valey continued. "Anyway, we were staring at that lopsided thing and thinking... if that was a world map, and the world itself was lopsided... like, two-continents-mashed-way-together lopsided... the place where it was all smushed and wrecked sorta matches up with the Aldenfold."
Starlight's eyes widened. Mountains formed by two land masses shoved together, moving everything on them out of position, even the crystal palaces... Well, Valey was right that it wasn't going to cause her distress to know, but imagining it was something else.
"So... heh... yeah." Valey giggled. "Earth-shattering."
"Booo," Maple grumbled, climbing steadily on.
Starlight hesitated. So if that flash of gray by the map table had been her remembering the truth... "Then what about the office ponies in the first room?"
"Huh?" Valey blinked. "The what?"
What had that been? Was that not part of the Nightmare Module's effects? "Remember when I tripped?" Starlight pressed. "Didn't I tell you about it?"
Valey shrugged. "I said you looked like you saw a ghost, and you were all 'Well maybe I did' and walked out on me without explaining. Remember?"
Starlight looked down. So that had nothing to do with the Nightmare Module, if Valey remembered the same thing she did. But what was it...?
No. It didn't matter. For all she knew, it was related to whatever she had made herself forget... and Starlight was going to hang up that sword.
The Arc Manta hummed with energy, its engines lifting it out of the sea cave. True to a word Starlight didn't remember giving, the palace had released them of its own accord. She felt a last note of sadness as her hooves left contact with the crusted, orange crystal, and made a small promise to herself that once she had done what she told herself to and made more friends she could rely on, she would find a way to return here and apologize for shunning the truth in person.
But that was the past, and for the future. Right then, Starlight Glimmer sat on a bunk in Maple's embrace, holding the crystal of generosity close and telling herself a story.
Once upon a time...
"Who designed it?"
No singular being. The world has existed in iterations, built up with the intention of improving on each other while leaving the possibility of improving again.
Once upon a time, a curious filly had met with an underground flame...
A flame of love, that told her about the world.
Once upon a time, the world had been different than it was today. There had been cities and castles, and the world had been called Indus, and it had burned from a battle between two titans.
Starlight had no idea if the story was true. She was making it up as she went along.
Once upon a time, dozens upon dozens of smartly-dressed ponies had worked in a building, dreaming of ways in which they could improve their world and save it from death. But dreams had no power there, only science and technology and the two titans that were tearing it apart. It might have frustrated the ponies, but they took saving their world as a challenge to overcome.
Yes. To be loved is nice. And the foundations of the world are rooted in goodness because they were designed that way, precisely for the sake of those who live in it like you.
In order to save their world, they changed it, building a new one out of the ashes of the old. The ponies built a world where emotions and willpower could physically change things, using a mechanism called harmony. They built a world where instead of titans of force and might, who could overpower ponies and their frail bodies, the ones who ruled would be the ones with the biggest dreams, because they dreamed of a new world and wanted those dreams to come true. And they designed the world they dreamed of, and the buildings at its very core became infused with those dreams, and looked just like the ones where those dreams were born.
And once upon a time, after that new world had grown old and the one before it had been lost to time, left to the titans until their battle had consumed all that they were fighting over, there was a little filly called Starlight, dreaming big dreams in a world built so that dreams could come true.
She wished for friendship. She wished for safety. She wished to no longer be alone. And in her fervency, her dreams gave her power, and the world itself began to change, not just for her but for others as well. She fought the greatest forces that world had to offer, saving cities and fighting the destroyers of continents, because it was a whole world and it wouldn't change just for her. She would have to change it for everyone.
...It was a silly story. Even if that was the way the world worked, one filly couldn't shape the world with her dreams over all the wishes and goals of the millions of other ponies in existence. And she was a filly without a cutie mark. If the lifestream was the world's will, and cutie marks were a modicum of power that let ponies pursue their own greatest dreams, she shouldn't be doing anything without one.
Without a cutie mark...
Starlight took a deep breath, and drew the generosity crystal away from her chest. Inside, it glowed faintly with light, a triangular rune hovering visibly inside. It wasn't clingy like moon glass, but it did hold onto her... like the comforting touch of a nearby friend.
Her flanks were bare.
Without a cutie mark to control the black sword, she couldn't use it for Nightmare Modules anymore. But she was sure the generosity crystal would give back the artifice if she ever really needed it.
It was a blade that had been involved in that clash depicted in the mural, she was sure of it. Wherever it had come from, it was probably from Indus, too. But Starlight closed a door on that sword, taking one more step back from a mural of devastation that could easily come to parallel her visions.
She had already metaphorically hung up her sword. Now she was hanging up this one, too.