To Starlight Glimmer, the first moments after her death felt like a rainfall.
She felt a downpour of everything, and she was everywhere. Like lights flickering in the city, she heard them call her name. Words flowing from the top of the mountains, pitter-pattering as they hit the rough rocks, crashing against the river banks and flowing downstream. The sun came out and evaporated the water, and sent the clouds rolling with thunder down upon the land again.
It was like that for a long time, although it didn’t feel like it to Starlight. There was a lot for her to do, anyway. From the highest courts to the lowest alleyways, she remained remembered, flitting about here and there like a whisper in the wind.
Then came the first signs of the drought.
Unlike the clouds produced by the weather factories, Starlight’s thunderheads changed their mind. As time wore on, the rain became gentler, softer. The rivers changed into rivulets, and the ponies began to forget. Starlight no longer knew the year, or the faces of the ponies who remembered her. Those who might have seen her saw no more than a shadow slipping away around a street corner, the head of a salamander before it disappeared in the underbrush.
Time marched forward relentlessly, and as the sun warmed and grew closer to Equestria, the water began to disappear. As it did, Starlight began to notice the ponies going away, too. The rain became a gentle drizzle, and eventually the rivulets became no more than lines of water sliding down windows. Starlight did not believe it to necessarily be a bad thing. The ponies who remembered no longer had to stare into the sky with squinted eyes to remember her, after all.
At the core of it all, Starlight understood a drought meant the shortage of water. This meant she also understood once there was no longer a necessity for the water, the drought would end.
So she waited.
And eventually, as the clouds squeezed out their last drops, like the dying moments of a wet sponge, the lines of water found themselves trickling underground, crawling along the rock into caves, where they formed stalactites and stalagmites, the droplets forming into a steady drip. Drip.
“Starlight Glimmer.”
Drip.
“Starlight Glimmer.”
Drip.
“Starlight. I know you’re there.”
Drip.
So, Starlight awoke.
When she came to, she saw a dragon.
Perhaps what caught her attention more was the deep caverns. They seemed to stretch in all distances for miles and miles, the horizons blurred by shapeless fog. Pillars of limestone and gypsum lay scattered, unfathomably supporting the awning, the ceiling of rock which caused the droplets of water to echo as loudly as the downpour once did. The floor was colorful: bedrock embroidered with gold, quartz, aquamarine, and kaleidoscopic crystals that fluttered in the sunlight emanating from cracks and crevices.
It must have taken a long time to construct, thought Starlight.
The dragon spoke again, in its rumbling, resonating voice. “Starlight. I’m glad you came.”
Starlight stared up and up until she saw its chest, then its neck, then its head. It—he—had wrinkles in his eyes. His emerald-green eyes belied the wisdom of ages, matching the scarred maw of the beast. Never before had Starlight seen a dragon so large, or so old.
So she asked him. “Spike? Is that you?”
The dragon took a slow breath. In, and out. The smoke whistled from his nostrils and shook the air around him. “Starlight. I cannot hear you. I cannot see you. I cannot smell you.” He shifted his head downward, craning his neck to face the ground. His head rested mere feet away from Starlight, dwarfing her body. “But I can feel you. I suppose here is where you may be.”
So it was Spike. Starlight waved her hooves in the air. “Spike,” she said. “I-it’s been a while since I’ve felt this… corporeal. I, um, well. I know you can’t hear me. So I suppose I’ll bid you goodbye, and then I’ll be on my way.”
A low rumble emerged from Spike’s throat. It stopped and started. Stopped and started. Starlight realized he was laughing.
“You must be worried,” said Spike. “I must look very different now. Like the big and brave dragon you must remember I always wanted to be. Aren’t you happy I got my wish?” He paused for a second. “I imagine you’re a bit… surprised.” As if predicting her thoughts, he added, “Don’t go. Stay with me for a while, Starlight.”
Starlight walked forward and gently tapped Spike’s snout with a hoof. Her hoof passed through it, as expected, and she reluctantly withdrew it. “Alright. What’s been going on?”
“If I were you,” said Spike, “I’d be asking how Twilight was doing. I’d be asking how Equestria was doing.”
Starlight saw a deep sadness in his eyes. She wished she could lean out and give him a hug.
“Starlight. Twilight has…” he said. “Forgotten. It’s been millennia, Starlight. Perhaps she is orbiting a different star as we speak. Her little ponies definitely are. Hmm.” With great effort, Spike slowly touched a claw to his chin. “Perhaps she no longer needs the stars to aid her. Science and magic have progressed a great deal, after all. Wherever she is, I’m sure Twilight is doing just fine.”
“Forgotten?” asked Starlight. “About you?”
“She had to forget,” said Spike. “She’s been through so much.”
Starlight watched quietly as Spike gave a hacking cough, sending dust falling toward the floor. “Spike…” she cried. “Are you okay?”
“But never mind Twilight,” said Spike. “This is a conversation between me and you. Like old times.” Slowly, shakily, he lowered his claw to the ground, as if making a great deal of effort not to send tremors through the floor.
“Starlight,” he said. “I-I believe I am dying.”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“No.” Starlight swallowed heavily. “No. That’s not, that’s not p-p—”
“It is very much a possibility,” interrupted Spike. “Do you not forget how you passed away those many millennia ago, surrounded by your friends and family? I was there. I have not forgotten.” He looked away. “And today, I believe I am the only one who has not forgotten.”
Starlight sat in shocked silence, hoping, praying Spike would fill the quiet.
Spike laughed painfully again. “Of course, I imagine you’re just sitting there, Starlight, too stunned to speak. This is an odd set of circumstances to meet in, after all. It’s true, my time has come. And this time, it’ll be permanent.”
He steeled his look and stared back at Starlight. “I know you’re there. They said the last time someone dies is the last time their name is spoken. Perhaps you took that statement too literally. Cast a spell, so you were there whenever you were remembered. I have made no such precautions.”
Lifting his head, Spike pointed towards the ceiling. “Up there, they’ve got new magicians, new scientists to remember for a thousand years. You’ve seen my artwork on the floor. I’ve been down here a long, long time. Nopony remembers who I am, either. I suppose that makes us good company.” He chuckled.
Starlight got up. She walked over to Spike and gave him a hug, ignoring her body that phased through him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, I truly am. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Say nothing at all,” responded Spike. Instead, he began to hum.
The slow notes resonated in the hollow chamber. They shook the stalactites and stalagmites, tapering off into an unresolved ringing. To Starlight, it was wistful, striking, poetic. She listened with rapt solemnity, thinking of the home she'd lost so long ago.
When he finished, he curled into a ball, and closed his eyes.
“My time has come, Starlight.”
Drip.
“Won’t you stay with me a little longer, Starlight?”
Drip.
“Perhaps we’ll meet on the other side, Starlight.”
Drip.
“It was good being your friend, Starlight.”
Drip.
Starlight held his claw. She was beginning to feel a little numb now, a little less corporeal. She imagined Spike felt the same way.
“And with my last breath, I say… farewell, to us both. Starlight, Starlight, Starlight…”
Drip… drip… drip…
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