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// Kill The Lights 
// Story: Vessel 
// by TwiNet 
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Starlight had been staring at her new medallion for a while now, turning it back and forth in her magical embrace, looking over its many seams and ridges. The more she looked, the more detailed it seemed to get, drawing her in in a way she couldn't explain. Of course nothing lasts forever, but Starlight wanted it to. She thought about all the wonderful conversations she and Sunburst would have discussing its origin and purpose, developing some theories in her head already. He had plenty of books in his collection that could probably identify this thing, or at least try. Honestly she hoped for the latter.

To her complete surprise, Spike abruptly turned the handle to her door, startling the mare like she'd been caught doing something worse. He walked in holding the puzzle cube from last night. "Hey Starlight, sorry I kinda- took this. I finally figured it out though!" His voice was chipper, but reserved. Obviously seeing the surprised look on her face, he continued, setting the cube on the dresser. "Either way, we haven't heard from you all day, and I wanted to make sure you were doing okay? You kinda left in a hurry after breakfast and never came back."

"All- day?" Starlight said in stark confusion, immediately looking to the window and seeing the pitch black sky beyond her room.

"Yeah. Twi and me are headed to bed sooner than later. I hope you had a good birthday anyhow." He stifled out through a yawn. Before she really had a chance to react, he had already left her alone again, sitting in silent contemplation, now for different reasons, but all the same concentrated on the amulet. She was hardly unaccustomed to the feeling of feeling like she was out of control of her own mind, as panic attacks weren't uncommon for her, but to lose hours like this is something that just hasn't happened before. She decided to be the bigger person in this one-mare show and just go to bed, under the assumption that it just wouldn't matter anymore in the morning.

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Starlight woke up to the unmistakable sounds of nighttime; crickets chirping outside in synchronous harmony, a faint wind by the window, and the creaking sound of some part of the building that's always curiously missing in the daytime. Awakening much the same way as the morning before, she was unable to go back to sleep, and just like before, she looked out the window. It wasn't unusual to look out at Ponyville at night and see no lights on, but the thing that scared her was far more abnormal; the stars were out too.

In a fit of panic and confusion, she darted from the castle, only to notice that all those ambient noises seemed to disappear just as she swung open the large main doors; in fact everything seemed quieter.

This has to be a dream, she thought, there's no way this is real. Not knowing how to feel was normal, but this wasn't real. She could just wake up whenever she wanted, but the grass below her hooves seemed so real and- and... her better judgment confirmed her worst fear.

I suppose we don't always make the most informed decisions when we panic, do we?

Our protagonist ran and ran as far as she could, feeling like the world bent backwards into itself the farther away she got, like her world just kept getting smaller; it was claustrophobic, until...

She arrived on a hill, just outside of town. A very familiar one at that.

Trixie was there, sitting in the grass, looking mindlessly out at the pitch black sky. She looked over to Starlight. "Sit."

She did as her friend commanded, sitting down in the slightly damp grass, still wet from the light shower earlier that night.

"W-what are you doing out here?" The sound of crickets slowly began to return.

"Looking at the stars, isn't it obvious?" The blue mare said in a wistful manner that should've been condescending.

"But there aren't any stars, they all disappeared."

"Here, let me show you something." From her side, Trixie produced the medallion, it's alloy blue sheen glistening beautifully in the moonlight. "Look."

She held the trinket in her hoof in such a way that it obscured part of the sky. "Why do you think the stars disappeared?" She spoke again, now looking Starlight in the eyes.

"I-I don't know. I mean everything has seemed a little... picturesque lately?"

Trixie nodded. "Now, look." Her horn lit up, projecting magic into the medallion, filling its creases with a sweet blue light that Starlight had grown accustomed to. When she stopped and brought it back down, a star had found its way back into the sky, the North Star in fact."Pretty, right?" She said with a smile and a glance. "Now you try."

Starlight took the trinket and placed it in the gap of her hoof, holding it up to another star, picturing it in her mind and reading its thoughts. She cast her magic and filled it with that same essence, but when she brought it back down, she didn't see a star at all.

"Where is it?" She asked. Trixie couldn't help but give her a warm smile. She pointed down at Ponyville. 

"Your star is down there."

Looking down to match her friend's guide, she was horrified at what she saw, she wouldn't have called it a star at all. It was a swirling mass of dark green, like the liquid you'd see in a magic ball, and it punched a hole in her stomach. If she felt like the world bent around her before, this was so, so much worse. Even if it probably wasn't real, she swore she could see the fringes of the town literally bend before her, curling up into the sky, pulling and stretching in ways that should've destroyed it. But the star remained.

"A dreamer is waiting for you Starlight." 

"A-a w-w-wh-" she couldn't even get the words out. Why was Trixie so unphased?

The world bent more and more, the ground becoming the sky and the lights of the houses turning on like a crude mockery of the stars, all the while the ball sat still, staring at her from the shadows behind the one building that didn't change at all. Even Twilight's castle wasn't sacred to this nightmare, hanging crudely downward from the center of the sky, plucked from its mound and repurposed as an eldritch chandelier.

So distracted was she that it took several moments to even notice her hooves had begun to flake apart. Bubbles of fur and flesh had begun to painlessly pull away and float off into the air. She looked to her friend for any consolation, but didn't find it. Trixie's body had changed, elongated to unnatural proportions and thinning her down to almost bones. Most disturbing of all though, was the large chitinous growth that had silently ejected from her face. The shiny white blade-like structure overtook her eye and wrapped around the back of her head like it was always meant to be there.

Amidst everything else, the medallion began to move. Rising from the damp grass, ever... so... slowly, until it lined up right between Starlight and the star. It lit up with an innocuous teal green light as it slowly drew the mass of the star from way beyond into itself. The process got faster as more was consumed, but for Starlight it couldn't have happened slower. Beyond all measures of knowledge or understanding, she knew exactly what this meant. She was going to die, and from the looks of Trixie's steadily atrophying form, it would probably be alone too. What does it really mean to leave a world behind?

The star's form had been absorbed in full now, and she knew it couldn't be much longer. The magic Starlight had imbued the stone with lit up again in a light blue, now gracefully folding out into what looked like... a dress? A tall form, transparent, had emerged from the stone, the source it's heart. She wore a hood like a nun, and its visage shared a common sentiment. Starlight didn't know if she should be afraid or comforted. The nuns hand would reach out to hold her by the chin, but just before, Starlight would look back one last time at her best friend Trixie, and see her in perfect health. In fact everything was back to normal, the stars were out, the buildings unstretched, it was perfect, and so she found herself at peace. The mysterious woman held her in her arms, and she was surrounded by light.

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Starlight woke up in her bed the next day, feeling more tired than she'd ever felt.

"Starlight, breakfast is almost ready!" Twilight said from the other side of the door.

Starlight smiled, and went back to sleep.