Starlight Glimmer isn't as great of a liar as she thinks she is.
Oh, she's good. You don't convince an entire town of ponies to follow an ideology that goes completely against our nature as a species and involves frequent use of forbidden magic without knowing how to lie or spin doctor. This is especially true when blatant indoctrination procedures are a key part of "welcoming" somepony into the group. It probably helps if you completely believe in what you're selling, though.
She is a very good liar and manipulator, but she's not so good that she can have me buying into a complete one-eighty of her personality without a second thought. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Spike appear to share at least some of my sentiments. Fluttershy is almost always in favor of forgiveness, and Rarity is similarly a fan of second chances. Pinkie Pie is as unknowable as ever, but seems to trust and welcome her wholeheartedly.
I won't do anything to encourage or discourage the latter three from welcoming her into the herd, and with the time to prove herself I expect the former three will follow suit in forgiving her if she proves worthy of it. Applejack is smart enough to know that trust is earned and I'm willing to wager that being the Element of Honesty will give her an edge when it comes to seeing through any deceptions Starlight might attempt.
Rainbow Dash is similarly slow to forgive Glimmer, likely for stealing the mark she so adores and then coming back for revenge by messing with a defining moment of her life multiple times. Even if she herself doesn't recall it, it's a matter of principle. Beyond what she probably feels has been done to her personally by Starlight, she's loyal to her friends and that translates effectively into being very protective of them. Glimmer will need to work hard to earn her trust and loyalty, but if push comes to shove I know Rainbow will choose us over her any day.
Spike appears to be following my lead for the most part. He's always been a perceptive boy, and I think he knows that despite my talk about becoming her friend, I've been subtly keeping her at leg's length. He's young and impressionable though, and I've warned him that although Starlight is our friend now, he should always try and use his head and think when he's dealing with anypony, most especially ponies who are very good at lying and deceiving.
As for me, Starlight is a very good liar, but she's not so good that she has me believing her little transformation is completely genuine. From what I've seen, she's a true believer and an ideologue in her interpretation of equality. And ideologues are almost universally shown to be very slow to give up on the ideology they believe in, even when blatantly shown the flaws and hypocrisy of said beliefs. More importantly, Starlight Glimmer has shown herself to be patient and vindictive when somepony earns her ire, as my friends and I have done. Our trip through time shook her up, I don't doubt that, but I also know that she is still extremely dangerous and it's entirely possible she's just playing nice now in an attempt to escape actual punishment for her crimes while she works out a new way of trying to get her revenge.
My opinion of her therefore is that she needs to be watched and subtly kept at leg's length. Not so much that she will think that it is anything but a period of awkwardness after she tried to ruin my life and the lives of everypony I've ever known and loved, but enough that I can observe her to make sure she's being genuine. To that end, I've borrowed a few agents from Celestia to keep an eye on her and keep me informed of her doings when we aren't together. I'm told they are very good at being discrete, and I hope they're right. If Starlight so much as cracks an evil smile, I want to know about it so I can smack it off her face.
I'm not holding a grudge. Princess Celestia and my parents raised me to be better than that. I'm simply being practical with a pony who is as dangerous as she is.
I will admit though, that little trip through time she sent me on really has changed me. And I honestly don't know that it's a change for the better. I've seen things that would chill her and the rest of my friends to the bone. The what-ifs and could-have-beens when everything goes wrong. I've seen the bad endings, and what's worse is that I'm not young like Spike; unable to fully grasp the magnitude of what we'd seen. My mind is sharp enough to know that our timeline may not have dodged all those arrows so much as delayed their impact.
While Luna has returned and is happy, Sombra is dead and in pieces, and Discord appears redeemed and is making bonds that will continue to temper him with morality long after Fluttershy is gone, some of the threats I saw still exist in some form or another. Chrysalis is still out there somewhere, no doubt plotting her revenge the same way Starlight did. Flim and Flam are still opportunists, always looking to cheat and cash in on some new scheme, and like Starlight they still have an opportunity to set something in motion to ruin Equestria either through indifference or outright malice. Tirek, though imprisoned, is still alive and could escape again, gather his strength and attack us the same way Starlight did.
I'm not holding a grudge. I'm just noticing a lot of parallels in the many ways those other Equestrias were ruined and Starlight's behavior.
What truly scares me though, is the final world I dragged Starlight to see before she took us back further to see her past. H.P. Lovecolt once wrote that, "The oldest and strongest emotion of ponykind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." and there was nothing left in that world. I don't know what happened, and what frightens me further is that I will very likely never know what happened. I have theories; An incredibly powerful spell gone terribly wrong, the alicorn amulet falling into grave misuse, Celestia and Luna beginning a great war with each other that left nothing in its wake, or some still unknown threat that has yet to come. I don't know what caused the desolation of that world, but I want to try and find out and be ready for it.
Everypony's been worried lately that I'm working too hard again. Spike doesn't like that I'm not letting him see all the letters I'm sending to Celestia, Luna, and Cadance. He knows to respect my privacy but he also knows that its rare for me to be sending so many letters and not once letting him transcribe them for me or otherwise help. I'm sure he's grateful for having less work, but he knows me well enough that when I get going on something I sometimes need him to pull me back. He can't very well do that if I'm locking him out of the equation.
The truth is I just don't want him to worry about the things I've been worrying about lately. I don't want him to have to consider the things we've seen in a more terrifying light than he has to. I've been asking to know what the princesses' plans are in the event that certain actions are taken or events go a certain way. What happens if another changeling army appears, or somepony attempts a coup, or some other horror within Tartarus is able to escape? What are the strategies to swiftly put an end to potential wars with the neighboring nations if tensions reach a breaking point?
The other princesses share my friends' concerns when I write to them. Cadance has tried to be helpful with answering my questions, but her replies generally tend to devolve into asking if I'm okay and often involve defaulting to following Celestia's lead due to her aunt's greater experience in such matters. Celestia, meanwhile, has been remarkably unhelpful, dodging around the specifics of her plans and asking me to trust her and offering platitudes that my concerns matter greatly to her and she is taking them seriously.
Only Luna appears to either respect me enough or has the decency to tell me exactly what she thinks; that I'm becoming paranoid and allowing the stress of what I've gone through to get to me. She thinks that I want to plan for every possibility and I don't want to accept that there may come a time when something terrible is going to happen and nothing I do or say will be able to stop it and no measure I could take could prevent it. She tells me that I should take a few days or weeks to collect myself, talk it out with friends and ponies I trust, and relax before I say or do something rash.
Maybe she's right. Maybe I'm starting to become paranoid. Having to see for myself the many different ways things could have gone wrong can do that to a pony. Especially when things go horribly wrong in spite of what you assumed were any number of contingency plans that your mentor - the same mentor you once adored and still blindly trusted even after she was overpowered by a love-drunk cockroach - no doubt had set up in that instance because it would be highly irresponsible and negligent to not have them in place should you fail. It tends to alter your perspective. I really doubt my scale of what constitutes a terrible disaster will ever be the same.
But I still see no problem with asking the questions and looking over things myself with new eyes. Even if I am paranoid, I only have to be right once for it to be completely worth it. It's not that I'm hoping to be right, I'd prefer it if I was never right when it comes to this sort of thing. But I can't stop my mind from seeing all the terrible ways things could still go wrong, and if I can't stop it I may as well make something productive and helpful out of my own psychosis. Besides, the resulting "I told you so's", while unhelpful and should be timed after the crisis is over, are probably priceless and much like the entire debacle at my brother's wedding, in the event that I am right and their refusal to believe me leads to something terrible, I can take some small joy in my own rightness.
I am going to take Luna's advice and try to tone things down, though. I don't want everypony to start worrying so much that they try to stage an intervention and I want to be ready in case I'm right and Starlight tries to make a move against me. She's already going to be in for a nasty surprise if she tries to hit me with her cutie mark removal spell. Or any other spell, for that matter. And that's before I give her my rebuttal: a nice stiff blast of magic right in her smug, bitch face.
...Alright. Maybe I'm still a bit upset with her. Not without good reason, mind you, but I'll probably have to work through it at some point if I'm to make any headway with her. Especially if it turns out that she is actually being sincere in wanting to be our friend.
Maybe I'll keep talking to Luna about it, too. I imagine she knows a thing or too about holding grudges and subsequently about letting them go. Plus, having her around to be so open and honest with me - and bluntly so - might be exactly what I need right now to keep me on the straight and narrow. Maybe if she has time, I'll invite her over for some dinner tonight. Or breakfast rather, given her general sleep schedule.
I've actually been meaning to make time to get to know her better, but between her work, my getting situated in this castle and everything else that comes with being a princess, plus her aforementioned sleep schedule and the general craziness that seems to be inexplicably drawn to Ponyville, it's been difficult to find time for us to sit down and talk. I'm sure if I really needed her she could make time, but I don't want to impose and make a nuisance of myself.
That would be rather nice, now that think about it. Her and I sitting down and having a nice long chat over dinner. Maybe about what happened on my trip through time, maybe about her day, or anything else that comes up. If the Night Court is anything like what I've seen of the Day Court, I can imagine Luna might have some things she wants to vent about too. It'd be good for us to blow off some steam together.
As a matter of fact, it's already sunset and this is around the time when she starts waking up. So maybe if I send the letter now I can catch her before she eats or gets too involved in anything, she can teleport over, and we can have dinner together. Or breakfast. Either or.
It'll be fun and a good way to take my mind off things, which I'm sure she'll agree is exactly what I need right now.