Starlight Glimmer felt strange. She was lightheaded and confused, as if she'd just woken up from a very odd dream. She remembered a place of pure white, and all of her deeds laid out before her. Until a year ago those deeds had been dark indeed, but Twilight Sparkle had been a fount of wisdom and patience for her. With her teacher's help, Starlight had truly turned herself around.
She had just finished her hardest, and strangest, task yet. Twilight had heard rumors of the Jade Orb, supposedly one of Meadowbrook's enchanted items. Starlight had remembered with a wince how she'd claimed that her "Staff of Sameness" was the ninth of those eight legendary artifacts, but had agreed to help her teacher reclaim it.
They'd found the Orb quickly—rather, it had found them. The Orb had been damaged, and its magic had gone haywire. What should have been a powerful protective spell had corrupted the pony holding it, turning her into a nearly indestructible monster that wanted to put all of Equestria under its "protection." Starlight had spoken with the pony, reasoned with her, had made her see that if she truly wanted to protect Equestria then she had to be a part of it, not seek to rule it. She and Twilight had then taken the Orb from the poor pony. Starlight had used her magic to repair the damage and get the artifact working properly again. Truly, that had been the easy part.
Once she was finished, however, the world had faded to white. She'd found herself in that strange place with Princess Twilight. She had wondered whether it was somehow the Orb's doing. Had she botched the repair? Now, with the reassuring solidity of good Equestrian soil under her hooves, Starlight turned to ask what had happened. She never got the question out.
"I don't believe it." Twilight sounded nothing short of awed. "You did it. Starlight, you did it!" she exclaimed. An ecstatic grin lit up her face, and was that the gleam of tears in her eyes? "Oh, I am so, so proud of you!" She was as excited as Starlight had ever seen her, nearly prancing on the spot like Pinkie Pie might.
"Did what?" Starlight took an uncertain step backward. Twilight was acting very strangely. Was this also a result the Orb's malfunctioning magic? "What are you talking about?"
"Starlight." Twilight was definitely getting choked up. "Look at yourself!"
"What?" Starlight asked again. She craned her head to look back at her body.
At first she didn't see what Twilight was talking about. Maybe she subconsciously blocked out the terrifying reality of it. Same color coat, same tail, same four legs, same cutie mark. She looked just like she always did.
Then her eyes widened.
"Wings?" Starlight said, disbelieving. Her mind reeled, trying to come to grips with what she saw. She had wings. She twitched unfamiliar muscles and they shifted along her sides. The feathers gently tickled her as they moved. "I have wings."
She was an alicorn like her teacher. Like the princesses.
"Yes," Twilight answered joyfully. "I knew you could do it, but I never thought it would happen so soon!" She stepped forward and leaned against Starlight in a loving hug. "Congratulations, Princess Starlight."
Starlight was stiff as stone.
"...No," she whispered.
"What?" Now it was Twilight's turn to step back in confusion.
"No!" Starlight shouted. She galloped several steps in a panic, as if she could outrun the new appendages and what they meant. She turned wild eyes toward Twilight. "What did you do?!" she demanded.
"What do you mean?" Twilight asked. "You earned this yourself."
"Change me back," Starlight demanded. She teleported right in front of a startled and confused Twilight. "You have to change me back!"
"I didn't do this!" Twilight repeated. Her eyes were wide and her heart was pounding from Starlight's unexpected reaction. "You've ascended, and I can't undo it. It can't be undone." She reached out a hoof. "Please tell me what's wrong."
"What's wrong?" Starlight echoed. "Look at me!" She flared her new wings angrily. "I devoted my whole life to equality, to the idea that nopony is better than anypony else, and now you've turned me into... this!" she spat.
"Just because you're an alicorn doesn't mean you're better than anyone else," Twilight said, desperate to calm her student down. "I've been an alicorn for years, and nopony thinks that about me."
Starlight Glimmer sneered. "Oh, Twilight," she said bitterly. "You're so wise for your age that I sometimes forget how naive you are."
"What?" Twilight asked. It had been months since Starlight had said anything like that to her. She was sounding alarmingly like her old self, like the pony she'd been before accepting Twilight's friendship.
"Ponies bow to you when you walk into a room," Starlight said to Twilight. "You have guards and servants sworn to obey you." She walked toward Twilight, who backpedaled nervously. "Ponies come to you for judgments. Your word is the law of Equestria!"
"It's not like that!" Twilight protested. "I'm just glad to help, and ponies know it."
"Plenty of ponies are 'glad to help.'" Starlight spat. "Not all of them have castles, and titles, and access to the most powerful magics in the world. I don't want this!" She gestured at herself, at the horrible new wings that she felt growing out of her sides like tumors. Then she sighed and turned away.
"It looks like you've ruined my life for a second time," she said.
"Starlight..." Twilight was tearing up again, for a very different reason than before. "I—I'm sorry. I thought you'd be happy."
A dozen retorts ran through Starlight's mind, but none of them did justice to how she felt: the anger, the fear. The betrayal. She glared wordlessly at Twilight as she tried to think of some way to convey it all. When she couldn't find the words, she let actions speak for her. Starlight charged her horn and teleported away.
Starlight thought she might be on the verge of a panic attack. Her breathing was short and rapid and her heart pounded in her chest. Her wings, the awful things that marked her as everything she stood against, opened and closed and fluttered against her will. She galloped westward with no specific destination in mind, just trying to put distance between herself and Twilight Sparkle, and the Orb that had started all of this.
She had to go somewhere. Not back to Ponyville or Canterlot, it had to be someplace far away, where nopony would see her and think that she was special. She didn't think she could stand the looks of awe when ponies realized who and what she was. They would bow to her. They would try to raise her up on a pedestal, to give her a castle and an honorific. They would want her to leave everything and everyone she loved and become the princess they thought she'd want to be. The princess they thought they wanted her to be.
The wings. It all came back to the wings. Before she quite realized what she was doing, Starlight had conjured a magical blade and pressed it against the joint where her left wing met her barrel. The blade trembled there for a moment before scattering into motes of light as her concentration broke. Starlight Glimmer was anything but a coward, but she knew that she could never go through with mutilating herself like that.
Her breath came in heaving gasps. All she wanted was someplace safe to go, to hide away from prying, adoring eyes. She could only think of one place: that tiny, nameless town she'd used to lead. It would be ironically appropriate, she thought. The place she'd used to rule, though she hadn't thought of it that way at the time, would be the place she went to hide from being a ruler.
It would be a long trip, however, and at the moment she had no idea where she even was. Her panicked flight had taken her far to the west, but not along any particular road. She'd just teleported as far away as she could and then started running.
She forced herself to breathe and think. She had a powerful mind, and she needed to use it. That town would be a good place to hide for now, a retreat until she could figure out what her new status meant and what she was going to do about it. That meant that she had to get there, and for that she needed a train. For a train, she needed a major town or city.
She and Twilight had been about half a day's trot out of just such a town when they'd been attacked by the Orb and its bearer. There was no way she'd gone back all that distance with one teleport and a few minutes of galloping. She needed to find a road and follow it west, and it would eventually take her back to civilization.
Starlight lit up her horn, intending to use her levitation spell to look around from the air. She hesitated. Twilight would undoubtedly be looking for her, and the glow of her magic might give her away. For better or worse, she did have wings now. She didn't need the flight spell anymore.
She firmly pinned her wings against her sides and cast the spell. She rose up into the air, looking all around for the dirt road that she and Twilight had been following. At last she found it, perhaps a mile to the north and parallel to where she'd been running. She nervously looked around for her teacher, but there was no sign of Twilight Sparkle. With a deep, calming breath, Starlight teleported to the road and set off west at a canter.
Twilight was lost. Not physically, like her poor student, but in her heart and mind. She had thought she was doing the right thing by teaching Starlight Glimmer what she knew.
Starlight had more skill and magical knowledge than any pony Twilight had ever known, herself included. Where some ponies might have felt threatened by that, Twilight had been excited by it. She'd been sure that Starlight had the potential to ascend like Twilight herself had, though in her wildest dreams she'd never thought it would only take Starlight a year to do it.
She'd been sure that Starlight would make a wonderful princess. Starlight had such a strong will, and her heart was in the right place—it always had been, even when she'd led that awful town. She had a genuine love for other ponies and couldn't stand to see them suffer. Starlight had been badly misguided, but she'd truly believed that she was helping her followers to live peaceful and happy lives. Indeed, as Twilight had told her student more than once, she reminded her a bit of Princess Celestia in that regard.
Twilight shook her head mournfully. It had all been so clear to her, but now she had a feeling like a monstrous worm twisting through her gut. Starlight was upset. More than upset, she was furious. She thought that Twilight had done this to her on purpose, had forced her into a form and a life that she didn't want. Worse, Twilight had to face the fact that she was at least partially right. Twilight's teachings, and this latest mission, had unquestionably had a hoof in her transformation.
A pale blue light shining in the sky caught Twilight's attention. Starlight was using her levitation spell. Twilight came within a hair's breadth of teleporting to her, but she restrained herself. Starlight wanted—needed—to be alone right now, and Twilight was obviously the last pony she wanted to see.
I'm supposed to be the Princess of Friendship, she thought sadly. How could I have messed this up so badly?
With her head hanging low, she started walking slowly west.