"Starlight, what the hell? We have to help them!"
Starlight let her eyes linger over the scene for just a second longer, before saying:
"No."
"But why?!" An indignant Sunset Shimmer glowered with the force of her former mentor's sun. The bright red in her mane made her already intense glare even more powerful; even Starlight could feel her breathing choke up a bit at the sight.
"It's not our business to interfere," said Starlight.
"You're just scared of what you might see, aren't you?" seethed Sunset. "You're scared of death! Remember that time at the banana plantation? And that time at the abandoned village next to the river?"
"That—that was months ago!" protested Starlight, but she knew that Sunset had scored a vital point.
"I didn't see you go through any life-changing experiences since then," snorted Sunset. "But this could be your chance. Can't you set aside your own personal fears to do something good? Just this once? These ponies obviously need our help!"
"The biggest help I gave to the world was when I succumbed to my personal fears," muttered Starlight. But she knew she wouldn't have much time before her companion's passion transformed into rebellion. It was just like those other times. Sunset wasn't somepony who followed the flow. She generated it.
Starlight, too, believed she had that kind of ability. She had founded a whole new way of life for a sizable colony after all, founded on her own tragic past, twisted convictions, and S grade black market magic. But Sunset's force of personality was different. It wasn't just burning charisma that gave her eyes an enchanting depth, or her pose a captivating regality. It was a kind of awkwardness, the kind observed from square pegs in diamond holes. As if she were dislodged from the natural flow of things, just enough to send her off the course in her own direction, but not enough to stop her from being popular or attractive or all those other things that kept ponies within a social environment.
"Now you have a chance to change that!" said Sunset. She waved an arm at the expanse below. "Together, with our combined powers, we can solve whatever's going on! I know we can!"
"Maybe—maybe they're just have a festival!" stammered Starlight.
"Yeah, right! The Burn Your House and Let's All Scream In Agony Festival?!"
"I admit the burning roofs are a bit suspicious."
"There are children down there!"
"But I—"
"If you're not going to do anything, stay right there until I come back! I'll just deal with it myself!"
Starlight raised a hoof, but it was too late. Sunset had ran off, bouncing roughly against magic platforms that guided her down the cliff to the township below.
She gulped. There she went. Towards the place with all the crying and screaming and sounds of structural collapse.
Perhaps—perhaps it wasn't a town of ponies. Maybe it was a town of cows or goats instead, in which case Starlight would have absolutely no issue. Armed with such superb logic, her mind was about to propel the rest of her in pursuit when she heard a rustling from the side.
"Gah," choked the figure, as Starlight's instinctive magic lash yanked him from hiding by the neck.
"Who are you?" asked Starlight. "And why are you sneaking around here?"
"Gah," repeated the figure—a older stallion, it seemed, decked in full armor. It was not like anything Starlight had seen in Canterlot or elsewhere, with gleaming ornamental wings along the sides, and hoof protectors that extended well past the knee. It was as if the final say on the design had been handed to a narrow-minded but well-meaning porcupine.
He waved at the lash. Starlight gripped it harder. The trick was that ponies could do anything if they tried. To get them to try, though, they had to be pushed.
"Go on. Show me that you can answer."
"Gra... Grandiose Fervor!" the stallion managed, with the last of his breath.
Starlight eased up and dropped him to the floor with a clank. "And why were you hiding?"
"Please... miss unicorn," he wheezed in a hoarse voice. "The village. You have to—"
"Have to?"
"Have to help," said the stallion, and he looked up at her with tears in his bloodshot, hateful eyes.
"No."
"But I'm begging you!"
Starlight's horn glowed once more and hoisted him up, binding his legs in a magical clasp. She gave him a keen stare, and found out everything she wanted to know.
"Scuffed knees. Bloodied hoof guards around the bottom, splashing up. Most of the scratches were reaching up from the ground." Her eyes narrowed. "You caused this."
"I—I can explain—"
"I don't want your explanation." Starlight shrugged. "What good would it do? Look at that." She swung him over, hanging him off the cliff, making him scream. "Oh, shut up. You can hear them, you know. From all the way up here. Even if it's a bit faint, you can hear their cries of pain."
"I had a good reason!" yelled the stallion, sobbing. "It had to be done!"
"Everypony always has a good reason. These things always have to be done." The lash wobbled. "I used to think like that. Wait, no, I still do." Starlight tapped herself on the head. The lash wobbled even more.
"Who are you?!"
"My name is Starlight Glimmer," she replied.
"Starlight Glimmer?" the stallion repeated. "You... I've heard of you! Old Gerry's grandson left the village because of you!"
"I don't know who that is."
"You're a villain!" He strained to glare at Starlight Glimmer, twisting his neck so hard that she could see the skin around it flop. "You steal ponies' cutie marks!"
"Was," said Starlight. "Was."
"You've done worse things than I have! In fact, you're the reason why I had to do what I did!"
Starlight raised an eyebrow.
A cocky grin spread across the stallion's face. "Yes, that's right. You... you're the scourge that drives poor ponies like us to desperate measures. You are to blame—"
The rest of his sentence was cut off by screaming as the lash vanished, leaving him to fall freely.
Pick him up? Or not? Pick him up? Or not?
It wasn't as if the fall would kill him, reasoned Starlight. It would probably paralyze him, or at the very least break a few bones. Then the hunger, or the thirst, or not being able to escape from the wildlife, or even the internal bleeding... that would kill him. It was unfortunate. He was an Earth pony. Gravity did that to Earth ponies. Or crippled pegasi. Or, yes, crippled unicorns.
No, Starlight was not interested in finding out the cause of the event. It was a tragedy, plain and simple. He had brought about X event that caused Y village to blow up in conflict, due to Z reason, and purportedly that reason was her, in which case the reason was not Z but SG. What did it matter? Ponies were dead and dying now. With Sunset's magic on the fray, likely a few might be saved, but by the time they had reached the area, Starlight already knew the worst had passed, and the ones whom Sunset would find—they were the lucky ones who would have lived anyways.
No matter how elaborate or gripping or gray the story was, it didn't change reality. And Starlight wasn't looking for entertainment right now.
There was the case of murder; yes, Starlight was squeamish about ponies dying, and she could never find it in her heart to kill another pony. But then again she had established quickly that the perpetrator was not a pony. Just like how scum were scum, and flies were flies, ponies who were not ponies were, simply, not ponies.
Was it up to her to judge? Sure, why not? Even Equestria had laws that exiled its criminals, stripping them of citizenship. Denying them of the most fundamental facts—the geographical location of their birth—second only to the fact of the birth itself, was a constitutional exercise. Or in Sunset Shimmer's case, it wasn't just exile, it was the outright ridding her of her pony form.
Though it perhaps wasn't quite the same. Her identity had been taken as a result of standing trial. The stallion, however, could only stand trial after his identity had been removed, in the court of her opinion.
Starlight frowned. Sunset would probably slap her if she could hear what she was thinking.
That mare really did generate her own flow. She was driven by a set of principles and values and a conviction that probably rivaled even Twilight Sparkle's. With that kind of power, she not only could change the world, she had to. Whether she did it subconsciously or not.
Whereas Starlight...
She shrugged at her own thoughts. She knew. It wasn't so much conviction with her as it was the simple absence of a moral compass. She didn't really need one when she knew what she wanted, and what she didn't, and when that was enough...
Well, maybe it could be argued that that was a moral compass. An innate sense of what was right to want, and what was wrong to deny, shared across ponykind. And as such there were actually no such things as morals, just needs, wants and don't wants under a different name.
But then again there was this stallion at the bottom of the cliff, and he would have said that it was his morals that drove him to do what he did.
She shrugged again. It didn't matter because he wasn't a pony.
"Sunset?"
"Starlight?" Sunset turned to reveal a face flecked with ash. "You came here!"
"I changed my mind," said Starlight. "How are things?"
"You couldn't have come at a better time." Sunset looked back at the ground, where a row of injured ponies were lying on scraps of cloth. "I managed to pull out some of the survivors, but they're all badly wounded. And I've..." Sunset pounded the ground with a vicious stomp. "I've forgotten a lot of medical magic, so I need you to show me again. I'm so useless."
"You're not." Starlight placed a hoof on her shoulder and gave her a smile. "You got them out, right? I'm sure they would have suffered more if you hadn't taken them out here where it's safe. You're familiar with Engsen's Painkillers, right?"
Starlight delivered the crash course on magical first aid and for a while, it was quiet. The victims before them were mostly unconscious. The victims around them were no more. Either Sunset had doused it out, or the fires did move faster than expected; the last of the buildings had burnt down, and now it was just spent charcoal creaking and splitting. This was the end of it, and all they had to do was see it through and move on.
"They told me what had happened," said Sunset quietly, as she continued working. "Before they passed out."
"Oh?" said Starlight.
"You see, they were purely an Earth pony tribe. Not Equestrian, but pony still. Their ancestors carved out a home for themselves in this wild forest, fought off the beasts, and managed to cultivate the land." Sunset stopped briefly as she focused on her healing efforts. "Warrior-hood and strength have been considered noble virtues for as long as this village was founded."
"Mhm."
"But then, as they grew and traders came, they realized how strong magic was." Sunset shook her head. "There were a few bad apples that antagonized them with powerful magic, and in the face of that, their strength was of no use. In the end, they managed to survive, but only through cunning and luck. Since then, the younger ponies have been demanding for more books, more knowledge, and even getting magic of their own to defend themselves with.
"But the older ponies refused, and saw it as lingering corruption caused by the bad magic. So..."
"They started a war within their village?" asked Starlight.
"Kinda?" replied Sunset. "It was to show them that strength was still important. The Grand Destriers—that's what they called the council—went around, dragging the leaders of the movement out of their homes. They wanted to stage a challenge in the town square to show that strength still ruled. But the rest of the ponies, they couldn't believe that their council would do such a thing. They thought that it was some kind of enchantment placed on them. They panicked, and everypony thought everypony else was under a spell... and the result is this."
"Some ponies barricaded themselves in. Some fought to the tooth and nail. Others were just careless, and set fire to things. It happens. I've seen it before." Starlight shrugged. "Grand Destrier, huh. That's a fancy title."
"They were too proud to move on," spat Sunset. "Sounds like a bunch of old farts that couldn't accept being obsolete."
"I guess." Starlight waved at the charred earth before them. "It's easy to say that they were wrong with all of this going around, though."
"Even if they hadn't burnt the village to the ground, it would still have been wrong!" exclaimed Sunset. "Those young ponies would have been beaten to a pulp!"
"You don't know that."
"I do." Sunset's gaze coursed with fresh steel. "I had to fight off a couple of them. They were dressed in some kind of ridiculous pointy armour. Like... like a porcupine had designed it."
"Or just made the final decision," said Starlight.
Sunset blinked. "Huh? Whatever. Anyways, they were not weak. Compared to the young ones, they would have trounced them for sure."
"I wouldn't discount any kind of revolutionary. Passion is a remarkable asset in fighting." Pointing to the prone ponies, Starlight added: "Are any of them here, you think?"
Sunset shook her head. "I wouldn't know."
"Not that it matters."
Starlight sighed and looked around. It was late evening again, and the orange light was making her sleepy, in a way that the fires from before, oddly, hadn't. There was a haze blanketing everything. It was likely that she could make half a bit from it.
"Bet you half a bit that my booger is gray," said Starlight.
"What? No!"
Eh, thought Starlight, and she glanced back to the surroundings. It wasn't as if she was wrong.
"Whichever way, I suggest we get moving soon," said Starlight. "I'm tired and we need to find some food."
"But we can't just leave them here," protested Sunset. "They need our help!"
"You said that they fought each other because they thought somepony had cast a spell. When they wake up, they're going to find two strangers who happen to be unicorns." She lifted her hooves. The left one made a soft crunch as it knocked against the right one, as a layer of grime slid off. "They'll put two and two and panic together. And then we'll become late additions to the barbecue. Like potatoes, really..." She frowned. "Why are they always the last to go in when they take the longest to cook? I don't get it at all."
"We saved them," said Sunset, pursing her lips. "You're forgetting that."
Starlight added: "There's also the small issue of me having stolen one of their ponies a while back..."
"Starlight?"
She waved a hoof as if to bat the accusing tone away. "I'm sure he's happy. Or she." She glanced around again. "Happier than these guys at least. Call it... net positive karma, right? That my 'bad' action a long time ago has become an act of good, outweighing the bad."
The crunch of Sunset taking one step forward was uncomfortable. "You stole one of them away?"
"Can we just go?"
"I think this is a great time for you to apologize," said Sunset, as the beginnings of a storm brewed in her expression.
"I'm sorry guys," Starlight said in the general direction of the villagers. "I feel so much better now."
"It's not about you!"
"You can let them forge a new life with a clean past, or you can dig it back out and change their destiny forever," said Starlight coolly. "I'm not trying to make this into a good thing. It's not. But that's what you do with bad situations, you make them better in the best way you know how. And I know a thing or two about founding villages from scratch."
Sunset bit her lip. Starlight tried not to swallow.
Then Starlight turned, heading for the exit, and behind her, the sound of weary hoofsteps on sooty ground followed.
It was always a point of fascination just how dark the night was. Living in civilization had made nighttime illumination such an expectation that the real night, in its absoluteness, was amazing. Of course, it wasn't so bad if you were outside under the moon. But if you were outside, you were sharing that darkness with the two-headed snake, the three-headed snake, the five-headed snake, and a host of other colourful creatures that would make impressive albeit impractical guards for a prototype Our Town. All of which were much better suited to said darkness than herself.
Yes, to be sheltered meant to remain in the dark. So profound. Starlight wanted to scratch a grid of two vertical lines cutting two horizontal lines in the dirt nearby for some reason, as if it were not sufficient to quietly ruminate on the matter, but express her preoccupation. "Look at me! I'm thinking!"
"Can't sleep?" asked Sunset, in the darkness.
Starlight turned to face her, wondering if the rustle of her mane on the sheets was enough response. When it wasn't, she grunted in acknowledgement.
"I can't stop thinking about what we saw down there."
Starlight took a deep breath, collecting the air needed for a gentle crooning voice. "You did the best you could. And that's what matters."
"But those poor youth. They were trying to do their best. And those elders just wouldn't listen."
"The same could be said the other way around," said Starlight. "And no, I'm not trying to start an argument. Just saying that there's always many sides."
"Mmm."
"And that wasn't what was keeping me up anyways."
Sunset's curiosity was like newly sprinkled sugar in a bowl of water. "What is it then?"
"We're near to somewhere I used to operate," mused Starlight out aloud. "That means we're actually heading closer to Equestria, not further. We have to do a 180."
"Technically we've been in Equestria all this time," said Sunset helpfully.
Starlight groaned. "The continent. We're supposed to have left the nation. This is no good. We must have wasted at least a week."
"Hey."
"Hm?"
"You're really serious about not wanting Twilight to find you."
"I am."
It was quiet for a bit.
"Goodnight, Starlight."
"Goodnight, Sunset."