//------------------------------// // Reflections // Story: Convergence // by Masterweaver //------------------------------// "Aaaaand done!" Twilight's horn stopped glowing, and she stared at the Map with a ragged grin. "That... that should work!" Spike nodded and smiled, standing by with a handkerchief. “Yep, you definitely did a thing there.” Twilight nodded, and for a few seconds the two just stood there, Twilight panting and Spike waiting for her to say something. “So, what does it do?” Twilight smiled and took the handkerchief, wiping off the sweat from her brow. “Well, remember how Screwball managed to get in here using a portal?” “Yeah. I’m still trying to figure out where the whale came from, by the way.” “Good for you. But anyway, this is a thaum-field oscillation spell that I’ve adapted to redirect any quantum-based intrusions outside the palace before their manifestation is allowed to completely form!” Spike stood on his tip-toes so he could examine the map. “Did you remember Clover’s Revolving Paradigm this time? The mayor keeps sending us letters about the thing in the records department.” “Obviously.” "Well, I guess that covers it. No more portals. I'm sure Starlight will be happy to hear that." Spike took the handkerchief back and checked to see if the thrones needed dusting. "You know, she’s been pretty down since that whole stunt Screwball pulled with Tirek." “Where is Starlight, anyway?” Twilight looked around the room, as if expecting her student to be lurking in some isolated corner. “I didn’t see her at breakfast.” Spike opened his mouth to tell her where Starlight was, but shut it again when he realized he didn’t know. “Huh. That’s kinda weird. I mean, I definitely woke her up, but I don’t think I’ve seen her today. Like, at all.” Twilight made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. “She probably just got lost in the castle again...” A sudden sparkle sprang into her eyes. “I have an idea!” Her horn began to glow, its aura encircling the map and settling over every peak and valley of the miniature Equestria. The map began to spin, picking up speed until its features seemed to blur into a single uniform disk. Twilight’s purple aura darted and sparked, sketching rough lines into the pristine crystal. When the map finally came spinning to a stop, the image of Equestria had been replaced with circles upon circles. With a flick of Twilight’s enchantments, the circles rose up into the air, with lines of light spreading out from each and connecting them together. Spike stared, not sure whether to applaud or gasp in horror. “Twilight. What did you do to the map?” he asked quietly. “What? All I did was temporarily set the scanning matrix to show us the castle’s interior.” Twilight ran a hoof over part of the map. “Frankly, I think it’ll appreciate having a bit of a break from monitoring the entire kingdom.” “Twilight, it’s just a map, it doesn’t...” Spike stopped talking as the map hummed, almost sounding like a purr as Twilight petted it. “So, um, you mentioned using this to find Starlight?” “Oh, right. Well, assuming I’ve done this right, I just have to input Starlight’s basic mana structure and...” Starlight’s cutie mark appeared in one of the circles. “There she is! Right in... her bedroom.” The two of them looked at each other, then at the map, and then back at each other. Spike was the first to speak. “Okay, so she spent the whole day in her room.” He sighed. “This is not going to be good, is it?” “Probably not,” Twilight agreed as they started towards Starlight’s room. “I just hope it’s not too bad.” "Starlight?" Twilight knocked hesitantly on the bedroom door. "Are you okay in there?" She and Spike stood in the hallway, anxiously awaiting some kind of reply. They waited for her to start cursing, or for something to clatter against the door as it was thrown, or even for screams of distress, but they heard nothing. After a few seconds, Spike awkwardly cleared his throat. He beckoned Twilight away from the door, until they were both huddled against the opposite wall. She leaned down until her head was level with his mouth, and he began to whisper. “Do dead ponies show up on the map?” Twilight went pale with shock. “I don’t know. But surely there’d be some kind of alert if she was attacked?” “Twilight, we don’t even know how to get the doors to lock in this place yet. How would we know if there was a security system?” “Fair point.” Twilight turned to look at Starlight’s door again, chewing her lip nervously. “What should we do?” “Well, we’ve got three options. I can go get a therapist, I can go get a mortician, or I can go make a couple of mugs of cocoa.” “And what would I be doing?” Spike looked at Twilight as though she had grown another pair of wings. “You’ll be going in there to find out which is the right option. And then probably yell at me when I show up with the wrong pony.” Twilight glared at her assistant for a few seconds, and seemed to be tensing for an argument. Then she looked at the closed door, and sighed. “You’re right. I guess we’ll start with the cocoa plan.” “My favorite plan,” Spike agreed, already turning on his heels to leave Twilight to her business. Twilight took a deep breath, and knocked again. When there was no answer, she turned the knob and stepped into Starlight’s room. Starlight hadn’t gone in for any lavish furnishings when she picked her room. It only held a simple bed, a nightstand and one or two empty wardrobes, despite having enough space that it could easily be a room in a museum. The windows in particular were enormous, and if thrown open would probably be able to fit four pegasi stacked on top of each other. There was a bedsheet tucked into the window at one corner, as though Starlight had tried to make curtains without a rod. More than half of the window was still letting sunlight through, but it cast a long shadow on the bed. Of all of the things that Twilight could have found on the bed of a silent mare, perhaps the least distressing one was Starlight, unharmed and breathing normally but curled up like a bored cat. Twilight was torn between relief and confusion, and she approached the bed cautiously. “Starlight? Are you okay?” Starlight unfolded a little, staring at Twilight as though she were an interesting bug crawling along the floor. “I’m fine.” “We missed you at breakfast.” Twilight put a hoof up on the bed, trying to get Starlight to look her in the eye. “And lunch. And basically the entire day. What’s going on, Starlight?” Starlight sighed and rolled over, turning her back to Twilight. “I ran into the Cake twins the other day.” She must have felt Twilight’s concern somehow, as she quickly amended that statement. “Not literally. I was just wandering around town, and we struck up a conversation.” “And how did that go?” “Pretty good.” Starlight’s voice took on a nostalgic, mellow tone. “They’re making good progress on learning how to speak. Little Pound Cake actually said ‘Hello, Starlight!’ to me and everything.” “Did he really?” Twilight asked, as invested as she could be while still being deeply worried. “Well,” Starlight chuckled hollowly, “it came out more like ‘Hewwo, Staw-wight!’, but it was still pretty impressive. And adorable.” Twilight nodded, both front hooves now firmly on the bed. “So, why has this got you feeling... down?” Starlight tossed and turned until she was facing Twilight. “Because I started thinking, and realized something. Those twins should be dead.” Twilight stared into her student’s eyes, torn between fear and curiosity. “I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.” “One week ago, a crazy centaur packed full of literally all of the magic in the world showed up in the middle of town. One wayward blast, and Sugarcube Corner would have been a smouldering pile of glass and gingerbread. A few months ago, a slightly less powerful version of the same monster had a battle against four alicorns in the same body, and quite a few earth-shattering spells missed their mark and wound up dangerously close to the defenseless civilians. An infestation of plunder vines with no limiters on how much force they exert on their prey. An empire of traps designed by a devious mind with no capacity for mercy. Undetectable infiltrators at every level of society during one of the most heavily secured events in recent history. The literal embodiment of chaos, and an attempt to completely shatter Equestria’s ecosystem.” Starlight made a sound halfway between a whimper and a sigh. “The odds of Pound Cake actually living long enough to learn how to speak are astronomically low. The fact that he was even conceived is a miracle.” “It’s a fascinating theory,” Twilight said, crawling up onto the bed. Perhaps things weren’t as bad as they appeared; she could remember many a time that she had lain in bed well into the middle of the day, simply because she had stumbled upon an interesting idea and didn’t want to do anything that could distract her. True, Starlight didn’t seem to be toying with the most pleasant of notions, but science was very rarely all sunshine and rainbows. “I’m pretty sure most ponies wouldn’t even think of how unlikely their own existence is.” “Most ponies haven’t lived and breathed proof.” For a moment, Starlight’s horn sparked with magic, but she let the spell go before Twilight could tell what she was doing. “Of course, we’ve all imagined what life would be like if we had never been born, but we never ask how different the world would have to be just to stop us from being born.” Twilight leaned in, now fascinated by the slightly macabre concept. “Please, go on.” “Name a pony. Not anypony special, just someone that you’d probably notice if they went missing.” After a few seconds of thought, Twilight decided on Davenport. “That’s the quill and sofa salespony, right?” After a nod from Twilight, Starlight nodded back. “That’s a perfect example. At first glance, you wouldn’t think that a world without Davenport would be all that different from our own. You’d probably just buy quills from the department store, or get them on special order from Canterlot. But what would have to happen in order for Davenport not to exist, or even not live in Ponyville? He might have discovered his cutie mark while travelling abroad. He might have moved to another town, or even never have visited Ponyville. Maybe he died young, or his parents didn’t fall in love in the first place. But even that is far too simple.” Twilight nodded in silent encouragement, wanting her student to demonstrate her new thought process in full. “There are no effects without causes. None of these changes could happen on their own. But what would have to change in order for his parents to not come together? It could be anything from a distracting noise to a dramatic shift in the political climate. What sort of situation could a quill and sofa salespony possibly die in, and for what reasons? What effects would that have on the way his town worked? And how would that changed town affect the rest of Equestria? In almost every case, a world without Davenport is a very different world from the one that we know.” Twilight couldn’t help but clap her hooves together in awe as Starlight finished. “That’s amazing, Starlight. This theory of yours is spectacular.” Starlight seemed to stiffen, and her eyes narrowed as she turned to Twilight. “My... theory?” “Yes, your theory! What, you think I’ll try and take credit for it?” Twilight patted Starlight on the back with her wing, and teleported a notepad into the room. With a flick of her magic, a quill began feverishly scratching its way across the page. Within seconds, a cloud of smoke was rising from her notepad from how fast she was writing. “Oh, just imagine the implications this’ll have! It works on so many levels, even the social sciences will have a field day with this one! But what are you going to call it, that’s the real question!” “What am I going... to call it?” Starlight’s teeth were bared and her hooves were trembling, but Twilight was too caught up in her hypotheticals to notice. “Well, yeah! Every big theory needs a name! Ooh, how about ‘Glimmer’s Cascade’? Or maybe the ‘Starlight Ripple Effect’? Or you could go the more clinical route and call it Starlight Glimmer’s Theory of Mutable Destiny, or something like...” A small spike in the room’s background magic made Twilight look up. “This isn’t a theory, Twilight.” Starlight’s horn was crackling with energy, and tears were beginning to bead in the corners of her eyes. “This is a provable part of how the universe works, and the last thing I want to do is plaster my name over it for all of eternity.” “Wait, this is provable? Since when?” Starlight’s horn sparked and sputtered until it completely stopped glowing. “Seriously? Have you actually saved the world so many times that it’s just the sort of thing you forget about after a few weeks?” The lights started to flicker on inside of Twilight’s brain. “Oh. This is linked to the alternate timelines, isn’t it?” “No, it’s linked to the Lost Idol of Boreas. Of course it’s linked to the alternate timelines! What else would you call everything that happened, if not a series of radically different worlds that all resulted from one seemingly inconsequential change?” “Well, one might call it evidence that the Elements of Harmony are very important to the continued survival of Equestria.” Starlight snorted in derision. “Ego aside, that’s hardly mutually exclusive. If we stop one filly from reaching a certain speed at a certain time, world-saving superweapons fail to activate, and any one of a million nightmare scenarios unfolds. Equestria tears itself apart in a war against Sombra, or the Everfree Forest is allowed to consume half the kingdom in order to hide survivors of the changeling invasion. Eternal darkness, eternal fire, eternal cherry pie, or just... nothingness, stretching on forever. If Rainbow Dash doesn’t perform a sonic rainboom, then Equestria falls.” “We don’t have any proof that those other timelines are doomed,” Twilight protested. “The war against Sombra was still going strong when I saw it. Nightmare Moon seemed to have a working government in place. I mean, I didn’t really get the chance to look at an overview of each world’s politics, but most of them looked like they had a pretty good chance of surviving.” “Really?” The room began to vibrate ever so slightly as Starlight’s horn shone brighter. “A good chance of surviving? Tell me, what was the last you saw of Zecora in that one universe where she was the last beacon of hope for free-willed ponies?” Twilight opened her mouth to give an answer full of hope and the sincere belief that Zecora had survived, but accurate memory got in the way. “I don’t remember it that clearly,” she admitted. “It was a bit of a confusing day for me. When Chrysalis attacked, I ran. I didn’t dare to look back, because I was afraid that whatever I saw would make me too terrified to keep running. But I could hear, and I could smell. I could hear Zecora being thrown to the ground, and I could hear Chrysalis laughing. I felt her charging a spell, and I felt her fire it. I smelled...” She coughed into her hoof, trying to keep her stomach under control. “I smelled burning meat. I don’t remember if I heard any screaming.” “Realistically, what are the chances that she made it out of that? Would you expect a zebra to be able to take a blast from the queen of the changelings, after she’s probably been feasting on half of the kingdom?” “Zecora isn’t like other zebras. She might have made it out...” “Even if she survived the blast, there wouldn’t be anywhere for her to run. That entire hidden village would be ash within hours. And in the extremely unlikely event that Zecora made it out alive and unharmed, that village was the last bastion. That version of Equestria was as good as dead when you left it. So many of them were on their last legs. And that’s not even taking the last world into account.” Starlight lit up her horn again, and Twilight heard something rattle behind her. “The last world...” Twilight turned around, and noticed that Starlight’s turquoise aura was wrapped around one of the drawers in the nightstand. It was rattling slightly in her grasp, but she didn’t seem to care about opening it. “Starlight, what have you got in there?” “Call it a souvenir, call it leftovers, call it an incomplete funeral. Whichever one you think suits it.” Starlight’s magic disappeared from the drawer, and she flopped down on the bed. “How many ponies are alive right now in Equestria, because of you? How many ponies have been born, or found their destinies because of Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony? How many ponies had their lives changed by the sonic rainboom, that wouldn’t be where they are today if that ring of color hadn’t passed over them all? How many deaths are on my shoulders?” “There might not be any,” Twilight felt the need to remind her. “Your spell was breaking every law of time and space already. The timelines most likely collapsed into non-existence every time we did something different.” “That’s not what Screwball said.” “We have no idea if Screwball was telling the truth,” Twilight pointed out. “With how inconsistent she sounded, she could just be a prank from Discord, conjured out of our memories and fears. Or just an incredibly powerful conjuror. We have no way to prove that you’re guilty of all of that.” “And if there isn’t any proof in that drawer, I’ll believe you.” Twilight reached out for the drawer, pulling it open with a flick of her magic. The bottom of the drawer was mostly just a few odds and ends, the sort of things that she might have thought were Starlight’s few worldly possessions if she didn’t know that Starlight hadn’t owned a spare scrap of clothing since she fled the village. There were a few books, a balled-up cashmere scarf and a small vial of grey dust. “What’s in the vial, Starlight?” Starlight let out a short, sudden burst of laughter. “You can still do scanning spells, right? So you tell me.” After a moment of hesitation, Twilight nodded and cast her spell. There was a lurching moment of nausea, and then she watched every molecule spread out as an ethereal map in her vision. Subconscious labels attached themselves to every different cellular form, and within seconds she knew exactly what the dust was. She wondered where the nearest bucket was, and if she could accurately grab it with a teleport. “How did you get this?” she whispered in barely restrained disgust and horror. She turned back around to look at Starlight, who was staring at the vial with a far-away look in her eyes. “When we got back from... that place, we had this dust in our coats. It was built up in our hooves, but most of that got left outside Sunburst’s house. I’m betting you had a shower when you got home, right?” Twilight nodded automatically. “I was too busy looking around my new room. I ended up trailing this stuff all over the place. I didn’t even notice it until after we had dealt with Screwball, and when I found out what it was, I didn’t know what to do about it. Should I burn it? Bury it? Or should it be carried with me, as a promise to myself that I won’t do something like that again?” Starlight shoved the vial back into the drawer so fast that Twilight almost expected to hear it shatter. “And then there’s the thought that somewhere out there, right now, the pony who’s dead in that vial could be alive and well. What do you even say to somepony like that? ‘Hi there, I’m Starlight Glimmer, and I’m the reason why there’s a universe out there where you were ground into paste and left out to dry’? Would I even be able to look at other ponies like ponies anymore?” Twilight felt something rising up in her throat, and swallowed it back down before she could think too hard about it. “So, how does this prove that those timelines are still out there?” Starlight sighed, and her magic reached into the drawer again. “You know, Twilight, for somepony who’s really smart, you’re kind of stupid.” A storybook floated into view, and Starlight began to flip through the pages. Every two or three pages, a stunningly intricate woodcut depicted a scene from the book. “This is a story about a proud young foal who wants nothing more than to be a knight. He spends his entire life striving towards that unreachable goal, even going so far as to refuse the aid of his friends out of pride. Moments before the final battle, his hard work and unwavering determination is rewarded with a magical sword that makes him into the knight he always dreamed of becoming.” She stopped flipping the pages, letting the book come to rest on a gorgeous woodcut of a masterfully crafted sword. “By gaining the sword, the entire story is changed. It ceases to become a cautionary tale about the dangers of ambition, and instead becomes a tale of determination and its rewards.” She turned her gaze from the antique pages, and fixed her eyes on Twilight. “Now pay attention, this is the important part.” She tore out the illustration of the sword, and flipped back to a few pages before. “If we continue the story from this point, but with that page missing, does he still have the sword?” Twilight spent a few speechless seconds trying to recover from the shock of Starlight’s literary vandalism before answering. “Of course not. If you remove the event, then nothing tied to that event can continue to exist, especially if you go back in time.” “Whereas if the hero of the story still finds the sword,” Starlight slid the page back into the book, undoing the damage with a flicker of magic, “but burns the bridge that leads back to the cave where he found the sword, then that sword continues to exist.” She closed the book and put it back in its drawer. “Do you understand yet, Twilight? If that other timeline had been erased by our actions, then that vial of dust would have disappeared.” The cold withdrawal in Starlight’s eyes was gone now, drowned out by her tears. When she spoke again, her voice was cracking on every second syllable. “How many ponies are alive in Equestria right now?” Twilight tried to think of what to do, of how she could get Starlight to think about something more positive. But after about three seconds of watching Starlight try not to cry, she could think of only one thing. She remembered a time when she was just a very small filly, barely a few months into being Celestia’s student, and she had broken a vase so important that she had been taught about it in history classes. She had sat in the corner and bawled her eyes out, but instead of take her out for ice cream or assure her that the vase wasn’t all that important, all that Celestia had done was hold the crying filly tight against her and wrap those enormous warm wings around her. Twilight inched forward on the bed, little by little, until she was finally close enough. She wrapped her hooves around Starlight and pulled her in close, her wings folding around to encircle the unicorn. There was a small gasp of shock from Starlight, but she soon relaxed and started crying into Twilight’s mane. “It’s okay, Starlight,” she whispered as she let Starlight hug her as tight as she needed to. “I’m here, Starlight. You’re okay here. I promise.” The sound of a door opening distracted Twilight, and she turned her head to see Spike standing patiently in the half-open doorway, with two mugs of cocoa steaming on a silver tray. She gave him a reassuring smile, and turned to nuzzle against Starlight’s ear. “Care for a glass of cocoa, Starlight?” she whispered. A muffled ‘mm-hmm’ was the only answer Twilight needed, and she waved Spike in. She wasn’t expecting a glass of cocoa and some kind words to fix things. Starlight didn’t have the kind of problems that she could get rid of with a strong lecture. But as first steps went, she could go a lot worse than a glass of cocoa and two good friends.