A few moments after being ushered into the tiny office of filly Twilight’s now much older one-time student Starlight, she finally snapped out of her self-imposed stupor to gaze in wonderment at her dingy surroundings.
“T-This…” she began stammering in the new high-pitched voice she’d learned to despise.
“Hmm? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the interior decoration of my little oasis of calm too, alongside everything else your friends told me about!” An increasingly concerned Starlight stopped trotting to her seat to glance back at her gobsmacked ‘patient’. “Well, I might’ve taken down a few personal items of late… maybe a few pictures are missing from my desk as well. But still, those kind of minor differences shouldn’t provoke this level of confusion apparent from your glazed expression…”
As Starlight continued to ramble on instead of committing her long train of consciousness to paper (a bad habit of hers), Twilight continued to scan around the desolate room in shock, a mixture of sadness and pity intermingling together in her already overloaded brain.
Where’s Starlight’s motivational posters gone? Her filing cabinets? Her favorite books?! This pathetic excuse for an office looks more like a squatter’s paradise! The desk has a major infestation of woodworm! Her chair only has three legs! The carpet is torn and ragged round the edges! The wall is in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint! At least she has a basic drink dispenser in the corner, but even that looks archaic! H-How can anypony treat one of the most hardworking and loyal mares I’ve ever met like... "Mmmmm?"
“Open wide, there’s a good filly!” Twilight’s silent observations were cut short by Starlight levitating something pointed and glassy into her widened mouth, and holding it there via magic for a few seconds. “Hmm, you don’t appear to be running a temperature. No sign of any cranial trauma, either. Tell me, Twilight: have you been studying too hard again, for the sake of helping your friends? While your attempts to make sure everycreature passes the upcoming exam may be laudable, if it’s at the expense of your sanity, I really don’t think…”
“Can you just… give me a bit of time and space to think, please?” Twilight finally snapped, as each new terrible revelation had finally taken its toll on her ability to keep a level head. “All everycreature has done since I got here is talk at me. I’ve barely had a few seconds to take it all in! I’m not exactly enjoying the experience of having to relive my fillyhood again, either. I thought I’d finally closed, locked and barricaded the door on that sorry chapter of my life, but no. It’s even worse this time around too, because I get to witness the complete destruction of everything I helped create firsthoof! I-It’s not fair. I-It’s just… cruel.”
A predictably mollified Starlight was about to ask Twilight what the hay she was talking about, as this incredibly convoluted delusion seemed a world away even from the stark fantasies the precocious child had imagined in the past. But as a few stray tears began rolling down the lavender filly’s cheeks, Starlight remembered her first duty as school physician: to comfort and console.
So that’s exactly what she did.
“There, there…” Starlight delicately dabbed a sniffling Twilight’s sodden face with a floating tissue. “I’ve had some pretty awful times myself lately, and honestly I was this close to quitting the job. But I quickly realised: sitting around the couch all day drowning my sorrows in triple-choc mint ice cream isn’t going to help the hordes of youngsters who need medical aid here. How could I be so selfish? If any place needed somepony to provide a counterpoint to what goes on there, it’s the ‘College Of Change’, But obviously, you already know all about that anyway, so why am I wasting my… ooohhh.”
Twilight’s frantic nodding was enough of a clue to inform Starlight that no actually, she wasn’t party to the horrors that occurred conveniently just out of eyeshot every single day. Maybe she’s such a good student that Principal Chrysalis spares her the worst punishments as long as her grades remain high… no wonder she wants to keep the rest of her group safe by making sure they pass the big test. So it’s not just about academic excellence for them… I think I understand the situation more now.
Starlight’s appreciation for Twilight’s maturity rose another notch, despite the older unicorn’s misreading of their mutual communication. At least the grown-up’s respect for her younger charge might make her listen to what would generally be regarded by the inhabitants of this new reality as an over-imaginative child’s random ramblings.
Twilight was quick to spot the opportunity, and went in with all horns blazing. It was now or never; an easy choice between gaining an ally in this alternate world she’d rudely awoken into, or be forced to take on this new role as a distinctly unroyal attendee of a nightmare school. Her former besties as her teachers, her old pupils as classmates…
And never seeing Sandbar and S-Spike again, because they don’t exist here. I can cope with a lot of bad stuff, but wiping out the lives of two children just like that? Compared to my own disorientation, such a tragedy renders my own plight completely redundant. Which is why, whatever the risk of sounding crazy, I have to try getting Starlight to hear me out. Right now.
“Starlight?” The spoken tone from Twilight was as clear as a bell, stripped bare of all the uncertainty from before. She gazed up at a still ponderous Starlight with clear agency, a fact the attentive older pony quickly picked up on.
“It’s ‘Miss Glimmer’ usually from the students, dear. But, yes?” Despite her admiration for Twilight’s alleged protection of her friends during the upcoming exam, proper protocol was still very important for the strict senior unicorn.
...And it could’ve been ‘Mrs Glimmer’ one day, if that conceited liar of a showmare hadn’t betrayed my trust to slink off with my former beloved to her trailer between gigs…
“I’m ready.” Twilight’s firm words attempted to pierce Starlight’s vengeful thoughts.
“Sorry, Twilight. I hear you. Ready for what?” Attempting to balance one’s personal and professional lives, particularly when the former was so tempestuous, is no small feat. But it was something a rattled Starlight was determined to do.
“Tell you what happened to me. Please listen to me very carefully, and don’t interrupt until I’ve finished what I need to say. What you’re about to hear might sound outlandish, impossible even. But every word is the truth… and in order to set things right, as well as probably save at least two lives, I’m going to need all the help I can get. Especially with me being stuck in this… diminished form as I currently am.”
“Wait. Let me stop you right there. You mean to tell me… creatures lives are at stake here?! It sounds like you need to inform me about everything, Twilight. Right now.” What Starlight had initially thought was a simple care of psychological distress was quickly turning into a serious matter way above the nurse-turned-temporary-counsellor’s meagre pay grade.
But, as Starlight had more-or-less ascertained from numerous previous meetings, Twilight Sparkle didn’t tell many fibs and if there was any substance to what her charge was saying then clearly she was duty-bound to absorb every word.
“O-Okay, then.” Twilight gulped audibly as she wondered where to begin. “For a start, where I come from, we’re nearly the same age. In fact, I might even be a year or two older than you…”