The forbidden magic still licking the end of Starlight’s horn, the image of a pink gem floated away from its owner, who bit the end of her hoof. Starlight transmuted a jar out of thin air and set the mark inside, trapping it like a bird.
Floral gasped for breath but no sound came out. They backed off as she took a step then another. Her color was running from her coat. Her third was her final step as her hoof collapsed into sand. Her entire body fell apart.
“Starlight, you used your special talent!” Twilight said in awe.
“I know but…I…I…didn’t think that would happen,” Starlight stammered. She stared at the jar, cutie mark spinning inside.
Twilight walked over to the mass of sand, the wind whipping some into the air. She swept some aside with her hoof until she felt the hardness of the gem itself. She pulled it out and looked at it. It was glowing.
“Any chance we can get out of here? My body’s probably pretty hungry by now,” Starlight said.
“We might have to use this, don’t you think?” Twilight showed her the gem.
“It’s possible since it’s been the thing linking the two worlds together. It’s logical to try.”
“Let’s do it.” Twilight had the two link hooves with the gem between them. Starlight still kept the jar under her arm. Twilight focused and thought of a number of spells to activate the gem. After some time passed, she figured that she had to try one at least. A difficult spell relating to magical artifacts might work so that was what it was going to be. But as soon as she sent the spell, she knew that something was off. The gem emitted sparks and flickered very fast. It surprised them by blasting apart the jar.
“Oh, no! The cutie mark!” Twilight yelled. It was already too late by then to recapture it. The gem sucked it in and the two of them found themselves encapsulated by a bubble of energy. There was no escape and they were helpless to do anything but wait as it shrunk them so small that they vanished completely from that dream world.
The two of them flew through a tunnel of light. Twilight couldn’t help but wonder if she was being thrust through time again, fully aware of what it felt like not too long ago. But when it ended and they looked around, Twilight didn’t think anything was right. They weren’t back in Ponyville it seemed; neither in the future or the present. They stood in an old looking house made of wood with homely furniture around. It looked completely plain save for bunches of flowers kept in glass jars scattered around. Twilight walked towards one and tried to pick it up, only to discover that her body was ethereal. She could touch nothing.
The two heard a voice, their heads turning to a darkened hallway. There were soft footsteps as what Twilight remembered to be a human appeared. Her jaw nearly dropped. Was she sent to the human world? Did the gem create a portal somehow?
“That’s an odd creature,” Starlight remarked. She didn’t bother to hush her voice. She figured the same as Twilight that they weren’t actually present.
“I’ve encountered them. They’re called humans and are as remarkable as we are,” Twilight said, praise dripping with each word.
Starlight rubbed her chin like a scientist. “Fascinating.”
The human they were watching didn’t seem that remarkable though. She wore a brown dress and a white shawl. Her brown hair was tied behind her head. Her aged skin was almost translucent, her veins blue in the sunlight from the near window in the kitchen where she entered. Her shoulders were constantly slumped as if there was a great weight upon them.
“My dear…will you ever come out? Will you be locked in that room of yours forever?” Her voice dropped in the middle of her sentence as if the name of the person she was addressing wasn’t there. The woman looked sadly down the hall to a shut door.
“I remember this. It was from my past life.” The ponies turned to see Floral, her cutie mark still gone, a specter just like they were. “I never recalled my name though. It must have been pretty just as I used to be.”
“You came from this human world? I don’t understand,” Twilight said.
“My spirit keeps these memories deep inside. That’s how I remember where I came from even if some things were left behind like my name. My mother could do nothing but call out and yet, I wasn’t there. I had already departed. My room is empty. I fled to a distant place where I could cast myself away from the destruction all around me. My friends were gone, my life coming to an end anyway. I was a magic user just like you, destined to die, you see.”
“Wait a second. Humans can’t use magic,” Twilight interjected.
Floral sighed. “In my world, it was possible for a select few. It was a curse. We didn’t have titles like princess. A magic user was diseased. I fled this world and everything in it and came to yours. You and so many use magic like it’s nothing. I didn’t see other ponies for a long time. My mother in the pony world dreamt me once and I came to life. That’s how I was born. From a dream. When I came, her life was spent. She died and it took me years to leave the forest.” The two of them listened to her story while the mother washed dishes in her lonely house.
“My spirit has always wandered and so I did into the pony world. But I learned that even with all your magic, you couldn’t prevent many of the same things from happening in my world. You all suffer so much destruction at times. Monstrous beasts, those who use the world for their selfish benefit. I believed it was time to go once more but this time, I would take the pony most worthy with me. You Twilight are something special. Friendship was what I needed and couldn’t find in my past life. Where we can go together, we’ll change the fate of many. I can sense that.” She spoke as if reaching out with one last special request.
“That can’t happen, Floral. I won’t abandon my world,” Twilight said. “I can look around and see a world you decided to leave behind. I can’t tell what is beyond these walls. Maybe the world was as bad as you say but I can tell you that my world is not unsalvageable. Friendship has saved us from many dangers and it will continue to do so.”
Floral must have sensed that she couldn’t convince Twilight to go with her. Starlight felt sorry for her. She looked so defeated now, with little more to say and nowhere to go. Her body was destroyed and her soul only a place where these memories of another world dwelled and for whose time had run out. There was also little that Twilight could do, her words ineffective for the most part against someone so convinced in her own way of doing things. After all of Twilight’s force had failed and after her own attempts to match them had also failed, Starlight remembered that the only way to unfurl the wool from one’s eyes was through matching their soul, piece for broken piece. She was in a unique sense of reflection towards her own self even as she remained encapsulated in the alternate creation of another mind.
“Floral…things are not too late,” Starlight said softly. Floral lifted her head, her eyes pools inside a face shadowed by her bonnet. “I thought I could force the world to be what I wanted it to be but I was wrong. It’s really the smallest of changes that can prevent a bad future.” Starlight felt like a blind mare trying to walk without a cane, yet led by a strangely sharpened sense of things. Despite not knowing the world around her, it felt as if she and this strange mare somehow belonged.
“I tried to change my ways but nothing worked,” Floral said.
“The friends you’ve yet to make are still out there. It’s never too late to try again.”
Floral stared into Starlight’s eyes. “You mean that it could be different? That I can return to the world I left behind and there will be a friend waiting on the other side? I don’t know if I want to believe it. It sounds impossible that I can change destiny.”
“I can’t say yes or no but it doesn’t mean you can’t look. There is still time,” Starlight said. “Time for us all to try anew. Our world might not be perfect either way and maybe yours isn’t either but things never are,” Starlight said.
For once, Floral’s face smoothed out as she began to be convinced by Starlight’s point of view. Her anguish in the human world turned to the smallest bit of comfort as a serene realization came to her. The two ponies in front of her were right. It was strange how in the middle of all this death, her own in two worlds, a pony sitting on the floor and her mother thinking about the daughter who died, she could only think about life blooming again. She thought of a field of pretty flowers in the spring where a young girl played. It was as close to perfection as she ever knew. She wanted to see it again more than anything. A friend waiting by the edge of the cliff and watching shooting stars.
“If you, the friend of a princess, are right, then you have my thanks,” Floral said with a weak smile.
“Let us return to our world,” Starlight pleaded. “We can’t stay in your head forever.”
Floral laughed but out of happiness this time. “All you have to do is break the gem and to speak the spell that comes out and it will all be over.” She stood and admired herself in the mirror. “I’ll miss this pony form, I think.” She looked at them. “And you two as well. You’re wiser than anybody I’ve ever known.” Her body finally began to fade away, the whisper of her spirit emptying itself. “Goodbye.”
Twilight wanted to cry, knowing that this was the end, but there was nothing she could do. Before her own reply could be uttered, they were whisked back to the dream world. The cutie mark still spun around and the gem lay on the ground.
“I guess we have no choice,” Starlight said. Her voice ached.
Twilight cracked the gem with her hoof and pulled out a tiny scroll that was inside of it the entire time. “You know, it’s not too bad. She belongs there in her world. Maybe she’ll make a new start of it. Perhaps even turn things around. You never know. At least we got to meet that one time, even if it was for a little while. I bet she’s the kind one among her friends, don’t you think?”
Starlight smiled. “You’re probably right, Twilight. As always.”
Twilight looked closely and read the word on the scroll. It was strange for a spell. It sounded like a name, one she had never seen a pony named before but it reminded her of the bonnet, flowing freely in the wind. With that, the cutie mark vanished.
The End.