//------------------------------// // Hello Again, My Oldest Enemy // Story: The Olden World // by Czar_Yoshi //------------------------------// Starlight awakened earlier than she wanted to, courtesy of a light drizzle on her face. Nothing about her felt rested, and she was half tempted to trust in Fluffy's raincoat and try to keep sleeping. But an annoying little spike of uneasiness forced her to pry open her eyes anyway, and with that came the realization that the ground was probably colder than it should have been. And that was saying something, because it was already bare stone. She looked at the recess she had chosen to take shelter in, a small cavity in a fold in a mountain. The exposed rock was visibly wet already. This might have been a shelter from the winds, but Starlight had chosen to make her camp in a rainstorm runoff canal. Her body told her it couldn't move, but she was an accomplished practitioner of the impossible. In barely a minute, she had fixed her coat around her, pulled back on both sets of saddlebags, and was trotting up and out of the recess to higher ground. She couldn't stay here. She had to keep moving. Starlight made it as far as the lookout where she had seen Sires Hollow last night before needing to stop and wake up. Blinking, standing still and barely moving a muscle, Starlight simply existed, her legs holding her up like immobile pillars as her body tried to convince itself of the necessity of living. ...There was a bench nearby. Starlight stumped over to it and sat, grateful for anything to sit on that wasn't a burgeoning riverbed. And she stayed there, the sun low enough behind the clouds that it couldn't possibly yet be noon, rain drizzling down on her coat and trickling around the brim of her upturned hood. Just enough of it touched her muzzle to remind her it was very much still there. Starlight shivered. She was so sore that even the movement of shivering inflamed her cramps, and eventually she twisted about on the bench, massaging her forelegs and trying to stretch her spine. It hurt in the sort of way that would have felt good if she was sitting at home behind a window, separated from it in a cocoon of warmth, with no need or reason to push herself and go outside... but as it was, the coat her friend had given her was the closest thing she had. She knew exactly what that would feel like, though. Even beaten down and trampled, Starlight wasn't about to lose sight of what she was fighting for. Why was there a bench here, anyway? Probably the same reason there was a trail. A generation ago, or maybe more, Starlight supposed this had been someone's special place, a trip ponies could take from the village in the name of an awesome view. She didn't remember the clean trail extending from here; in fact, she remembered the next leg of the climb being much harder. This, she supposed, was as far as most ponies ever came into the Aldenfold. As good as the view might sometimes be, Sires Hollow was presently obscured by low-lying clouds. She could see the mountains rising up to their west, and a small patch of darkness was visible that might have been the eastern ridge poking up beneath the fog bank, but other than that Starlight was sandwiched by gray, clouds raining above and more clouds floating below. What she couldn't see was where she had been, or where she was going... Even when she looked back, like here at this lookout someone had built a bench at ages ago, the past was already hidden from view. She could go back, still. The end of the world had already happened, all of her friends were gone. And yet, it had been a day, and she was still living. Couldn't she carry on like this down there, with Fishy and Fluffy and the others who would say they cared about her and turn out to be telling the truth? ...No. Starlight couldn't. Because the one thing that had given her strength again, she knew for certain now, was her unending drive to keep going. It was what got her across the mountains the first time and what would see her through them again, and what made her more miserable than anything else when she tried to ignore it and seek lasting happiness or accept the things she hated. Giving up and living with her losses? She could do it, but it would hurt, and she wouldn't have nearly enough to live for. But standing up and pushing herself into the impossible, no matter how impossible it was... At this point, it was like a poultice, bandaging and bracing her heart and filling her with the self-sufficient power to carry on. She got to her hooves again. Her body did have limits somewhere that no amount of determination could overcome, and she had to tend to them. She needed to rest properly and find shelter. Unfortunately, this was still the end of the trail. Starlight pulled out more food, munching thoughtfully as she analyzed her options. Right now, she was low down on the south face of a peak, having circled around clockwise on the path to get out of the valley to the east... Last time, she had just kept circling, braving the steep, hoofhold-less mountain face and looping about to the north. The worst thing to do here would be getting lost, becoming unable to retrace her route to the north from before. She had to follow her old trail, whether there were parts of it she regretted or not. Starlight set out, the overlook ledge getting thinner and thinner against the mountain face until it was completely gone, and there was nothing but steep, gravelly scree beneath her hooves. She leaned heavily to the right, rebalancing her saddlebags and tilting her head, trying to focus ahead on her destination instead of down at the distance she'd roll if she fell. But this section was too long and too curved for her to have luck with that, nothing but a growing horizon of crunchy stone ahead of her, and she found her gaze drifting downward anyway. Far below, if she tumbled and rolled all the way, there was snow... It looked like the result of an avalanche from the next mountain over, fallen and tumbled and lodged in the crevice between them. It was also partially melted and refrozen, and maybe a little melted again. In that crevice, it would get no sunlight... She didn't want to fall down and find out. Starlight moved one hoof at a time, and every few steps she stopped, laying on her side and spreading her weight out against the mountain wall so the force of her breathing wouldn't knock her off and cause her to slide down. There was purchase for her hooves, enough that she could keep moving, but none at all to spare. This was slow, dangerous and almost terrifying, and with every sound Starlight's ears spiked inside her hood, looking up to ensure the drizzle hadn't dislodged a boulder and sent it tumbling down to kill her. How had the younger, less-experienced her ever been able to do this? The mountains were far more dangerous than she remembered, though most of it was an experience she had put behind her the moment she was safe. She had just crossed them, and then taken it for granted, and never really connected all the trials and hardships she endured while crossing them with their reputation for being impossible. ...Right. Past Starlight had nothing worth living for and no destination in mind. She could have died in the mountains and cared just as much as if she survived, because all she wanted was to leave Sires Hollow. Now, she had something to live for, a reason to reach the other side... Starlight wasn't sure if it was the first time in her life, but if it was, she didn't know when it had started or what had changed: she was running toward something rather than away. Her hoofsteps were too slow to establish a rhythm and regulate her breathing, her pace set by what the loose mountain slope could take instead of the limits of her body. She was almost grateful for the stillness, hugging the steep slope and resting every few steps, because even though it was tense and far from relaxing it was still what her abused muscles needed. Starlight crawled on, necessity forbidding her from proper rest or sleep, and the rain slackened off, like a dog putting down a chew toy to check if it was still intact. The rain actually made this section easier, though, damping down any dust she could kick up from the loose mountain surface so she didn't accidentally sneeze. Eventually, after the sun reached midday behind the clouds and the clouds darkened to compensate, when Starlight had reached the phase of weariness where she forgot how tired she was because her body was too tired to properly report itself and she wondered if she had regained her energy somehow instead, she saw the end of this climb: a small, rocky chute a ways above her, the bottom of the crevice where this mountain met its larger northern neighbor, poking out of the western mountain face and inviting her to crawl up it instead. Starlight adjusted her course, gaining even more height on the impossible slope so she could meet the crevice where it ended... It was pouring a stream of runoff collected from the mountains it bordered. To climb up this, Starlight would have to wade up a tiny river. And yet, it was the path she had taken last time, on a dryer day, and if she avoided it now she'd not only have an indefinite amount of this cliff face left to hug, she'd have at least one whole mountain between her and her intended path. She needed to take it. And besides, she remembered there being a good campsite on the other side. Starlight crawled on her belly and hauled herself up alongside the crevice, grateful Fluffy's coat was closed beneath her as well. A running rivulet of water splashed one of her hooves with enough cold to shock it even through its numbness, and she briefly froze, taking the hoof and tucking it inside her coat against her to warm it up again. It cost time and precious body heat, but she had to take care of her hooves. The first rule of doing the impossible was not to throw away any advantages you could save. ...Starlight glanced at her saddlebags as she hugged the mountain face, the rain suddenly returning with a vengeance. The artifice she carried... It couldn't purge her of being moon glassed if she re-bonded with it, could it? As helpful as the emotional painkiller was, toughing out a journey like this, Starlight felt like any negative emotions she had, she could use to her advantage right now. And having her crystals back would make this a lot easier. She decided to keep it in mind. She didn't need the boost now. Not yet, at least. With a crackle of scattering rocks, Starlight pulled herself higher. The gulley between the two mountain peaks was draining water quickly, and faster as the rain picked up, beating down against her raincoat and flattening the ear pockets stitched into her hood. Hugging the edge, where the mountain broke off and the chute began, Starlight craned her head around the corner, looking up into it. It had collected plentiful fallen boulders and debris, and the water flowed around and beneath them, rushing out of the canyon. This wasn't a test of getting her hooves wet, it was a trial of clambering over all those boulders and hoping none of them shifted or rolled beneath her. If she fell off a boulder and into the water, and another boulder smashed her against it, it would hurt far more than anything Chrysalis or Herman were going to throw at her. The mountains had no mind with which to grant an efficient death. Starlight gritted her teeth, inside the crevice and standing on the second boulder in. Not only was it small, wet and hazardous, it was extremely steep, too. She didn't have her own magic for this, but she had to get an edge. She needed some help from the Nightmare Modules. Calling on moon glass, she wasn't about to do, both because it left permanent hazardous waste and because she didn't want to risk getting stuck in it like at Griffonstone. But she did have another that could help: the Tyranny Module, which she had called upon against Crystal to augment her body into a bigger, more capable fighting form. Even just having adult-sized legs here would help a lot... She tapped into the module's power, let it swirl inside her, and immediately wheezed as her body swelled and her things didn't grow with her, trapping her barrel in a filly-sized raincoat like a sodden corset. Starlight immediately dismissed the power before she could damage the coat's good construction, shrinking back to her normal size. What were the Nightmare Modules even designed for if not making her stronger? It was almost like their creator had intended them for a completely different purpose altogether. For a few more minutes, Starlight powered herself with thoughts of frustration against the Nightmare Modules, climbing and crawling and sometimes resorting to jumping as a low rumble of thunder passed by overhead. It came from behind her, like the storm was far to the west, and she paused to hope this was just the edge, and it was just passing on by. Eventually, the gulley grew so steep and so narrow, she was more climbing upwards than pressing on ahead. Starlight had to climb thrice her height at times just to avoid obstacles, and multiple times, she told her legs to move and found them simply with no reaction whatsoever. At one point, she collapsed atop a rock lodged high enough between the two walls she could have gone under it if there hadn't been a foot of rushing water, coughed weakly, and stopped, an even higher wall before her and her legs like deflated balloons, completely unable to go on. The sky grumbled, and the rain redoubled its strength, driving her coat into her back and punching her saddlebags into her sides. Whether her body thought it could or not, Starlight needed to keep moving, and so she got up and climbed on. It was easy to do the impossible when the alternative was to give up and die, though that didn't mean there wouldn't be consequences. Starlight crested the next wall and slipped, falling a ways forward and landing on her face in an open clearing. She had made it. This was the other side. She glanced around, darkness creeping at the edges of her vision, and barely had time to identify a sheltered cave entrance and crawl inside. Saddlebags still attached, Starlight was out cold. This time, Starlight was greeted by a lesser emergency when she came to, but an emergency nonetheless: her body was a wall of pain, more than anything she had experienced in the north, only comparable to all the memories she had left behind of this place on her first trip through. She barely had the strength to free herself from her saddlebags, her legs responding to her movement impulses by flopping like beached fish. Eventually, she did it, though without the mortal impetus of do or die, Starlight had no powers of doing the impossible to command herself to move by. She remembered this cave; she had camped here her first time, stayed for a day and a half to rest and recuperate and let out her emotions where no one could see her. It was shallow, yet big enough, and not in any danger of flooding. And the way ahead was easier for a change. So, Starlight rested. She tried not to dwell on her thoughts, but now that she had slept and just needed her body to recuperate more, it was impossible for them to leave her alone. The two foremost faces in her mind weren't Maple and Amber, but Jamjars and Fluffy Fleece. She was going to the north, but wasn't that what Jamjars had wanted? Keeping them all together, making sure Starlight would still be there to protect them and keep them safe? That was what she said, at least. And as much as Starlight hated the idea of Jamjars getting her way after what she had done, how was she supposed to do anything else when her friends were in danger? Hopefully she could be content, make them content too, keep them from doing anything dangerous where she would need to... No, forget it. Valey and Gerardo were determined to go writ-hunting in Yakyakistan and beyond so they could reunite with Felicity. And after Starlight had just seen what it felt like to be left truly alone, she had a fierce desire to save Felicity from the same. Maybe she could make Jamjars stay behind somehow, instead... And yet, every time she tried getting bitter, powering herself with resentment of the filly who called herself her friend, she remembered Fluffy, too. Someone she had almost been hopeful about getting to stay around, a pony she maybe thought of as her friend... If Sires Hollow had been in the cards for her, they probably would have been good friends. Maybe. She certainly would have been an important pillar in letting Starlight back into a normal life, and relearning how to smile. In fact, Fluffy was the only pony out of anyone she called a friend who had ever heard her laugh. It was a real shame to leave Fluffy behind. Starlight wished she could keep everyone. But the idea of a perfect ending had been shattered and dashed against the ground, and she wasn't even sure she could say she was doing this for her friends anymore. ...Well, of course she was. But she was also doing it because taking a dream and throwing herself at it with everything she had, beyond mortal limits and beyond one hundred percent, was the only method of coping she had ever learned. If she stopped trying, gave back into the idea that she could let go and live with her world instead of trying to change it, the pain of everything she had lost and gave up on getting back would surely return. When she remembered that pain, the agony in her muscles almost felt good. It meant she was living, and fighting for herself and her needs with everything she had. Starlight wished she had her telekinesis to do chores for her while she was down, but she didn't, so as time passed she slowly began testing herself and then dragging herself around the cave, doing things that needed to be done. With this rainstorm, it was time to refill her water skin, and at least one of the backups too. It was time to eat until her stomach sat heavy and full, to regain her strength and hold nothing back here while she had a safe haven to rest, and to make room for more water in her bags. It was time to brush out her fur, matted with sweat from the warmth of her coat and the exertion of her climb, and set the coat so it could air out a little before she needed it again come nightfall. She completely drained her waterskin, feeling a little strength returning already as she properly sat down and ate. Not enough to keep going yet, not nearly at all, but enough to move around the cave and tend to her needs. She rooted around in her saddlebags, deciding to see what else Fluffy had packed. Rope? Rope was good. Critical, in fact; she remembered needing it all the time once she reached the caves... Come to think of it, without her horn to use as a light, she didn't know how she would traverse the caves at all. There wasn't a light packed, that was for sure. She hadn't told Fluffy a word about how her horn was useless in this form. There were some matches, though, which could become critical if she needed a fire. A sewing kit with heavy-duty thread, probably for patching her bags or coat if they tore. A book... Starlight's ears fell. Fluffy had slipped her sketchbook inside the bags, the one with all her ideas for her bedroom. Fighting down a lump in her throat, Starlight resolved that it wouldn't be good enough, just to make it back to her friends in the north. For all the effort she had spent so far, and all that she was ready to spend in the future, she wanted a perfect world, and that would be one with her newest friend in it too. She knew she would lose herself in the sketches, but she had nothing better to do. And so Starlight opened the book and read, losing her mind among the imagination of a pony she cared about while her body rested up to resume her eternal chase. Night fell, and Starlight decided to move out. Her first time here, she had camped at this spot for far longer, but two factors spurred her on: there was no edible foliage here, so she would be forced to rely on her preserved cave food, and she remembered that the next segment got easier. That, and she was in a hurry to get back to building her world. Something about the Nightmare Modules made her comfortable, traveling at night. Or was it Fluffy's warm coat? Either way, the clearing outside her cave was flat and walled in by rigid stone, harboring several puddles left over from the storm, though no rain fell now to disturb them. Starlight stared at one, looked at her reflection, nodded quietly, and moved on. To one side of the clearing, there was an exit, a gap in the rocks that towered up farther than she could crane her neck. Starlight stepped through, and the cliffs continued, but so did the road, a path arcing forward into the night. This path opened out into the valley north of Sires Hollow, except she had gained so much altitude, she was not only above the waterfall that marked the end, she was above the deep canyon the river had carved. The ground she stood on was perfectly flat and perfectly level with the land at the top of the canyon, the rock face that bordered the lower valley so perfectly cut away it was easy to see why: the rocks in the mountains were layered, and whatever surface she stood on now was far sturdier and more prone to clean fractures than weathering than any of the rest. Looking at the waterfall and its canyon, it was like someone had taken a clean slice out of the earth and lifted it a mile into the sky, leaving all its strata bare for her to see. ...Even in the night, she could see it, because the clouds had rolled on and starlight twinkled from above. A full moon was just beginning its rise. Starlight took a moment longer just to look, the mountains almost ethereal and haunting from this vantage. She could see a thin crack in the top, sturdy rock plate where the river first flowed, and then the canyon widened as it dropped lower, cutting through a rock that was softer and easier for the water to wash away. Around the high rim of the valley, a thin path snaked its way outward along the mountain wall to meet her, the same layer of rock plate that formed the plateau where the waterfall originated cutting through the peaks to form the floor she was on now, and she could see it zigzagging in a clean-cut road all the way to that plateau, where loam and soil had built up and another forest grew, a forest miles in the sky. She sighed, staring even longer. Beyond that forest on the sturdier rock layer at the top of the waterfall, she could see another horizon of mountains, and a second, higher one beyond that, and one greater than the previous two combined blocking out the stars beyond those. In these mountains, the higher you climbed, the more you were allowed to see just how massive they truly were. Starlight was a filly who could do the impossible, face threats that were larger than life and prevail. But this wasn't just larger than life. It was larger than the world. She stepped out along the path, eroded soft stone to her left and an overhang drop-off to her right, making her way to the forest at the foot of the roof of the world. Starlight was stuck, and didn't see a way to continue. When the mountains had formed, lifting up this hard strata of rock that held together and formed the path she was on as well as the foundation of the forest ahead, they hadn't done so gently. And now, she finally came upon a crack in it: a gap between her current mountain peak and the next one, wide enough that she couldn't hope to jump it with her legs in this condition, let alone with all her saddlebags. She remembered crossing this gap the first time. It was where she had learned her crystals were good for walking upon. Starlight huffed at the gap, not quite dead on her hooves but far from energized, either. Moon glass? Tempting, but she wasn't pushed that far yet. The artifice? Same. As willing as she was to do anything to see her goals through to the end, she still had her stubbornness. She still wanted to have boundaries. ...Time to ask her moon glass sword for aid again. With a lot of careful fidgeting and mouth work, Starlight got out her rope, took off her saddlebags, shed her coat, and one by one used the hilt of the moon glass sword as a lift to float all of her possessions across to the other side. Unusually, the telekinesis seemed to have no feedback on its strain whatsoever, neither mental nor physical no matter how much she loaded the sword down, yet she could still see it wobble and struggle under heavier loads. She slipped into a science-like trance, testing and lifting and slowly carrying her things over, and then finally brought the sword back, knotted the rope sturdily around the handle of the black metal sword, and used her moon glass sword like a hammer to drive it like a piton into the rock at the far side. There. Now she could jump, and had a rope to pull herself up if she didn't make it. Starlight smiled at her work. It took her a moment to realize, and when she did, she just stared. Of all the times in her life, while she was moon glassed and had lost everything, while she was fighting desperately to get it all back... How could she accidentally find herself happy now? Thinking about it wouldn't get her across the mountains. She was just doing what she was best at. Starlight prepared to jump, at the last second remembering that she had floated her coat across and was no longer restrained from using the Tyranny Module. That would definitely help with a thing like this. Once again, she powered herself up, dark energy swirling around her as she used the module to increase her size to a more intimidating, capable form, and her mane and tail shimmered into a starry mist. Starlight coiled her legs, held tightly onto the rope, and jumped, willing that she not prove too tired and lose her strength at the last second. She didn't even need the rope. She landed easily on the other side with distance to spare. Starlight briefly regarded herself with wide eyes, using another puddle on the rock as a mirror. She probably ought to have tested what this form could do, but... she didn't really like the way it looked, either. She was who she was, and she didn't want to change, especially when she knew other ponies who would be happy to steal her look if she didn't want it. Like Glimmer and Jamjars. Besides, she couldn't wear her coat like this. Starlight shrank again, no less determined, and picked up her things and carried on her way. That gap was the only barrier Starlight encountered on her way to the forest plateau, the rock ledge she was walking on widening out and sloping up as a layer of soil built up atop it. Looking back over her shoulder, she could faintly see the river at the bottom of the valley below, where she had walked just a day or two below... No looking back, though. She had a lot of mountains left to cross, and needed to press forward. Up here, though, the scraggly, high-altitude pine forest from below didn't continue. Instead, she was greeted by a biological anomaly: this plateau was a valley of its own, but it held a jungle, thick vines and plants with broad leaves and trees with ribbed, exotic trunks that all belonged in a climate more tropical than any she had ever visited. What were these hot-weather plants doing up here? They didn't even bunch up at the bases. There was actual grass growing beneath the trees, careful and cultivated, with an even length to the blades yet no sign of ever being cut. She nibbled some, and it tasted fresh and faintly sweet. She remembered this forest from before, and supposed she was only struck by its strangeness now that she had a better idea of what grew where, but... still. The only possible explanation she could think of for why it looked the way it did was magic. These mountains were deeply magical, she had known that for a while. And yet, it seemed more obvious now. Maybe it was because she was moon glassed? ...Actually, she double-checked that she still could use the Nightmare Modules at all, briefly conjuring her shield. Because all of a sudden, after stepping beneath these trees, she realized that she could remember the color blue. Starlight wandered forward, utterly mystified, yet with no real reason to question it. Maybe the mountains had leftover harmony magic from the enchantment that used to power them, and it could do something to counteract the effects of being moon glassed. Either way, it felt good here, like she was somewhere she belonged. She found the waterfall canyon, locating it by sound. It was impossibly deep and almost pitch-black, though the moon was directly overhead, shining perfectly down it and reflecting faintly off the waters rushing by far below. Starlight decided to proceed at a healthy distance from it. If she fell in that canyon, she'd be dead for sure. Hours ticked by further, and she lost count of how far she had come. The trees made it hard to see anything for reference but the moon, and every time she looked up, it was like the stars grew a little bit brighter in her vision. Had she been unable to appreciate this the first time she was here? Or did the Nightmare Modules give her a connection to the night sky, making her yearn for it, want to reach out and touch its beauty with a hoof, swirl it around in the sky and drag the stars into whatever patterns her soul pleased? She probably was physically closer to the stars than a whole lot of ponies had ever been before. Starlight continued, feeling more than strongly like the stars were closer even than the sky. It was like a haze of blue light drifted among the treetops, barely beyond what she could touch, motes and twinkles dancing through it and almost reminding her of the cloud that formed around the rails of Shinespark's harmony extractor. Her heart raced faster the more she looked at it, and she couldn't understand where this had been the first time she was here. Did she pass through this forest entirely in the day? It really had to be her grayness, didn't it...? With a little click, her hooves touched something hard and glassy that definitely wasn't more grass. Starlight looked down with a start. Some force had fused parts of the ground together here. It really looked like legitimate glass, not moon glass or any other magical approximation... She hurried forward, somehow finding the energy to run, a low humming building in her ears. She skidded out into a clearing, and her ears and mouth dropped at what she saw. It was a crater, a blast impact. No trees grew near it on account of the ground being fused solid, but the ones growing up to the jagged edges of the glass were big and vibrant, their leaves filled with life and vigor. And in the center, welling up from the hole in the ground where the strike itself had occurred, there was a blue, spiraling energy, letting off the cloud of stars she had seen gathering overhead. It was the source of the shimmering, pulsating hum, though Starlight resonated with it with more than just her ears. The magic here... it felt like a harmonic flame. And yet, it was more of a memory than an intelligence, like what the braziers the flames sat in could feel like if the flames ever were gone, as if this land had once been touched by something holy and would remember until the end of time. Starlight wanted to step closer to the crater, yet a trepidation in her heart held her back from doing so. That, and she had spotted two other objects of much greater interest. They were a pair of gravestones. Wordlessly, Starlight approached the graves, knowing exactly where she was. To an unknown mare, one read. To an unknown stallion, the other added. Both were engraved in a script she didn't recognize, but had only one answer for regardless: Doctor Caballeron, the stallion who had brought her out of the mountains, claiming her parents had died in a climbing accident looking for moon glass. What was there around here to die from? The trees? This place was perfectly flat... Yet, he had left them graves. Starlight bowed her head and gritted her teeth, wondering how she had missed this place the first time, realizing she wouldn't have known it had anything to do with her had she found it, knowing that these were the ponies who took their infant filly climbing into the mountains because they wanted to get their hooves on some treasure. This was the start of it all. Starlight was back where she truly began. And behind her... She turned around and took a step, heart pounding, wanting to see the place where the Eylista meteor had lain. SCRRRRRKKKKKKKKK! A sudden burst of gray static edged into her vision, dancing around her skull and forcing her back with a wince. Starlight's head throbbed, and she felt dizzy, almost like the world was going to fall away... She stepped back in a panic, and it subsided as quickly as it had come. What was that? Cautiously, she tested again, and the same reaction happened, only slower now that her motions were more controlled. Starlight frowned. What was this? The closest feeling she had ever had to it was... when... When she was at the harmonic flames, and falling into one of her gray visions. But this wasn't a real harmonic flame, right? How could it happen here? With a sudden shock of lucidity, she realized she knew: there wasn't a gray vision waiting for her here. There was a gray vision waiting for her at the Flame of Honesty, one she had blotted out from her memory along with all recollection of the talk that followed. This place had some sort of intense harmonic energy... Why the moon glass meteor would leave that behind, she couldn't fathom, but it was what it was. If she stepped forward to check out that crater, she would remember everything she had tried so hard to forget. And if it was strong enough to do that, odds were it would purge her of her grayness, too. Could she really do it? Had the filly she once became foreseen her being all on her own, truly alone like she was now? Starlight set down her saddlebags and stared at her hooves, shaking. It would be a considerable edge, having her magic back for the travels ahead. And... her world had ended. She had hit rock bottom, fallen all the way to the center of the earth and now climbed back up to its ceiling. She had seen the lowest she could go and not given in to darkness, not lost herself to rage but leaned into the one thing she could always count on to make her who she was and give her a purpose in life: chasing her dreams with everything she had, doing the impossible and going beyond her limits to give everything to her goals, even if it meant never reaching them. She knew who she was. She knew who she wasn't. And she was going to reunite with her friends. If she was strong enough to do that, to stand up after her world ended again, was she strong enough to carry whatever it was her past self had seen fit to hide from her? ...Now that she no longer trusted Glimmer, she had no lead on her gray visions whatsoever. Maybe it was her calling to actually do something about those, too, and maybe this could help. Maybe the flame had placed a burden on her she couldn't carry when she still thought it was in the cards to give up and live peacefully, before she gave up on giving up and embraced her determination to move forward. More than anything else, Starlight was tired of running. Starlight swallowed. These were her memories. If they were bad, all the more fuel for her determination to make it back to her friends. She stepped forward toward the crater, and received one last warning of grayness. And then the blue vanished from her vision and darkness clouded in, and her old world returned with a sound of breaking glass.