There was silence within the cage on the cart, the only sounds coming from the wheels as it moved along. Sunburst wouldn't look at Starlight anymore, but Starlight kept her eyes fixed on him. She said not a word and made not a sound, but the tears flowed from her eyes like two tiny rivers.
"W-W-," Starlight tried to force out what she wanted to say, but soon enough, her attempts to speak allowed the sobs that she'd been holding back to start coming forward.
"W-We're n-not f-f-fr-friends?" she eventually choked out.
"I don't know, Starlight," Sunburst answered. "We had a lot of fun together as foals, what with you coming over to my house and me to yours, but a lot has happened since that day I left for Celestia's school, and we've become different ponies."
"B-But that doesn't mean we can't still be friends!"
"..."
Sunburst didn't immediately respond, deciding to mull over what he wished to say.
"This is bad, Starlight. What you've done in this village... I'm thinking it's up there with some of the worst things in Equestria."
Starlight wanted to answer, but couldn't bring herself to speak.
"I'm talking about the really bad stuff, Starlight," he elaborated. "Nightmare Moon forcing a permanent night upon us, Discord turning our world literally and figuratively upside down, the changelings trying to enslave Canterlot. Even the centaur demon Tirek that just tried to steal all the magic in Equestria."
"What you've done here... It could be on par with all that other stuff."
Starlight had nothing to say. She wanted to rebut his statement, but she couldn't find the words. In truth, there were no words, because everything he said was right.
She wanted to take all the cutie marks from everypony in Equestria. She wanted the control of her village to extend beyond her village, forcing ponies to see things her way and feel what she had felt for so long.
Deep down, she didn't want to cause harm; she only wanted everypony to be friends and cooperate with one another. She just believed that giving up having cutie marks was the way to go about it.
She wanted to do good, but as the saying goes, the road to Tartarus is paved with good intentions.
"...You're right, Sunburst. What I did here is every bit as bad as you say it is."
Sunburst finally looked at Starlight, seeing where the mare's tears had stained her cheeks and hearing the defeated tone in her voice.
"What I was doing here in this village? It's all kinds of wrong. I only realized that recently, and just because I got a taste of what I've been dishing out. I was becoming as bad as all those creatures you mentioned."
"But I don't want to be like that, Sunny."
She looked up at the stallion, her defeated tone replaced with one that had more resolve.
"I don't want to become like them. I let my emotions get the better of me and lead me down a path that would do nothing but cause me to hurt others. I created that spell and used it without even considering how it made other ponies feel or even if it was truly safe."
"I... I need help, Sunny," she finally admitted, more to herself than her friend. "I have problems, and they've been festering inside me for some time now. The only way things are gonna change is if I want to change, and I seek out the help to do so."
"I don't want to lose you as a friend. I don't want you to turn your back on me!"
Starlight's tears returned, making fresh stains on her cheeks.
"Please, Sunny! Don't stop being my friend!"
The sobs she'd been holding back finally came out, and the mare wept openly as the cart came into view of the village. Sunburst didn't say anything for several moments, but when he did, his voice didn't quite sound the same.
"You mean what you're saying? That you want to change for the better? That everything you've done is wrong and you are seeing the error of your ways."
"Yes, Sunny!" Starlight answered him, the conviction in her voice as strong as it had ever been. "I want to change! I don't want to become a monster like all those others! I..."
Starlight trailed off as she thought about whether or not she wanted to say what she was gonna say next, but after a moment, she finally came out with it.
"I don't want to lose you again, not after you've come back into my life."
"Then we will have much to talk about when you arrive at the castle."
"Wh-What?!"
Starlight looked back up to Sunburst, but the colt was no longer in the cage with her. Instead, there was an alicorn. In fact, it was the very same one she had seen when the two were trying to escape the village before.
Only this time, Starlight saw all of the details and knew exactly who was sitting before her.
"P-Princess Luna?"
The alicorn nodded, and then her horn lit up and a bright flash overtook the two of them.
Starlight jolted awake, sitting up in her bunk and looking around. She was still on the train, but she now noticed that it had stopped. Outside the window was a platform, with fluted columns holding up a roof made of concrete, steel and glass. Decorating nearly everything was golden filigree, shaped into all manner of intricate design.
The mare gulped down some saliva as she realized exactly where she was now.
"Canterlot."
KNOCK KNOCK!
The sound made Starlight jump as she turned to see who was knocking on her door. The door slid open and revealed a stallion clad in golden armor, and giving her a stern look.
"On your feet!" he barked at her. "You're to be taken before the princesses immediately!"
Starlight quickly slipped out of the bunk and moved slowly ahead, stepping out of the cabin and moving in the direction he then indicated. A second stallion had been waiting outside, and once he saw that she had gotten up and stepped out, he began to move towards the exit.
Starlight followed, the other guard moving up behind her. Once they had all stepped off the train, another four guards joined the group, two on each side of Starlight. A final stallion with a chevron on his armor stepped forward to address her.
"If you make any move or attempt to escape," the stallion warned, "then you will be recaptured and taken to the dungeons, and you will wait there until the princesses are ready to review your case. Understood?"
Starlight nodded in response.
"Good," the stallion said dismissively, then barked out orders to the guards around her.
"COMPANY! MOVE OUT!"
The guards and Starlight moved from the train station through the main streets of Canterlot. Just behind them were Twilight and her friends, moving together as a group, but not in the same kind of rigid formation and timed steps as the guards did. Each one of them wore a myriad of different expressions on their muzzles.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack both looked ahead at Starlight, glaring at her as she would occasionally cast a glance back to the group.
Fluttershy, for her part, wore a worried expression on her muzzle. She wanted to see Starlight punished for the bad things she did, but she feared just how harsh of one she might receive.
Pinkie Pie was in a rather somber mood, but despite the low in her emotions, her mane maintained a sense of poofiness to it.
Rarity elected to take her mind off the current situation as best she could, so her solution was to produce a sketchbook and some pencils to work out some ideas she had.
Twilight wore a similar worried expression to Fluttershy, but for a different reason. Before she had woken up, Princess Luna had visited her in her dream and told her of her plan to visit Starlight's dream and test the mare to see if she could be redeemed.
The memory of her entering the dream had caused the mare to blush; Luna had arrived as she had an imagined date with the equine counterpart to the blue-haired boy she had met and crushed on during her visit to the human world.
Regardless, Luna told her of her plan, but had not conveyed the results of said plan to her. Instead, Twilight would have to infer the results based on what she saw. To that end, she had noticed a change in Starlight's demeanor, but it wasn't much different than the mare had after she had been recaptured in the mines.
The change that she noticed, however, was that her looks appeared to carry an amount of remorse with them, as though she were genuinely feeling bad about what she had done.
Of course, whether she actually did, or if these were simply 'cragadile tears', was yet to be seen.
After some time, the group of guards and ponies had reached the front gates of Canterlot Castle, the lead guard with a chevron speaking to the guards at the gate, who nodded and permitted the group entry. Once inside, the ponies were led by another guard, this one having two chevrons and a star on his armor, into the castle itself.
Starlight had resigned herself to fate at this point. What she had experienced earlier may have been a dream, but what she had experienced in it felt as real to her as if she had lived it.
What she had declared in that dream, she meant every bit of it here and now.
She had problems, and she needed help, and she should face the consequences for what she had done to her village, but more important than all of that, she didn't want to be the mare she was before.
The guard stopped the group before a set of doors. The six mares from Ponyville were all too familiar with these doors, having seen them on many occasions, but they were new to Starlight.
They were a dark-golden oak, stained in such a way as to bring out the richness in the wood even further. There was ornate, baroque carving in the door, and at the center of a shield on each door was the flag of Equestria: two alicorns, one white with a sun and one black with a moon, circling each other around a globe.
Starlight again swallowed a mouthful of saliva as she realized exactly where she was.
Canterlot Castle's throne room, where both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were waiting to pass judgment on her.