//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 - Escape // Story: Starlight Glimmer's Plan // by garatheauthor //------------------------------// Starlight Glimmer’s hooves clopped loudly against the stone ground as she galloped quickly through the mountainous caverns. The darkness assaulted her from every direction, being held at bay by the pinprick of light which erupted from the tip of her horn. Starlight’s lungs ached as her chest rapidly rose and fell under the exhaustion of her hasty retreat. She slowed from a gallop to a trot, before finally stopping to rest. Her ears perked up and listened. The only noise to greet her was the sound of her own breathing. The ponies who had pursued her must have given up their chase. Ponies, who mere hours ago, would have been called her friends and neighbours. Within a day they had gone from a close nit community to an angry mob set upon getting revenge. It had all begun when six ponies showed up on the outskirts of town. Two earthponies, two pegasi, a unicorn, and most stunning of all, an alicorn. Starlight welcomed them into her community, and almost immediately they had spat in her face. First they preached an unwelcomed ideology among her town. One which stated that true friendship could only come from groups where everypony had something unique to bring to the mix. Starlight in response removed their cutie marks, and began to indoctrinate them. It may have seemed like a rash move considering the party’s regal leader. However, she couldn’t let such lies flow through the denizens of her home. One of the members cracked and embraced Starlight’s philosophy. At least, that is what Starlight thought happened. Really the mare had faked submission and put into motion a plan to stab Starlight in the back. The next morning the alicorn princess had snapped, offering to submit like her pegasus friend had. Starlight was thrilled, walking into the jaws of the carefully orchestrated trap like a lemming. When her guard was down the pegasus threw a bucket of water at her. The water had missed, with only a single drop landing upon her flank. That single drop turned out to be just enough to wash away her life. The drop cut right through her painted on faux cutie mark, and revealed the true nature underneath. While Starlight may have preached for a world without special talents, she had retained her own. The town turned against her almost instantly. Ponies who she had known for months, for years ran her out like a criminal. Years of her life had been devoted to those two rows of houses and in less than a day she had gone from leader to pariah. The only glimmer of hope was the fact that she had gotten away from the mob. She was now in the caverns of the nearby mountains. None of the other ponies in the small village knew how to navigate them, but Starlight did. Starlight was always a mare with many plans, and even though she loved her town she was prepared to abandon it on a moment’s notice. When Starlight’s breathing was back under control she took a step forward and began to slowly walk deeper into the cavern. As she walked she cursed six names under her breath. “Fluttershy” “Rainbow Dash” “Rarity” “Applejack” “Pinkie Pie” Starlight paused as the image of the last pony was conjured in her mind. The regal alicorn herself. Just the thought of her made Starlight’s blood boil and breath quicken. “Twilight Sparkle.” Her teeth were gritted as she practically spat out the name. These ponies were her targets now. Starlight would extract revenge upon them for what they had done to her community, to her ponies, and most of all for what they had done to her. She would have Princess Twilight begging at her hooves when her plan was finished. The seeds of a million devious plans swam through her mind only to be shoved aside as Starlight focused on the task at hand. She wouldn’t be able to do much from within this cave, she needed to escape. It was lucky that Starlight knew these caves like the bottom of her hoof. For instance, she knew that the cave would split up ahead into three separate tunnels. The left most tunnel would have her out on the other side of the mountain in less than an hour. As Starlight entered said chamber, she turned left. She took only a few paces before stopping dead in her tracks. Large boulders now blocked the tunnel before her. Starlight quickly turned left, and then right, hoping that she had simply overshot the tunnel entrance. There was no such luck. So now she was stuck with two options, neither of which she had actually investigated properly before. Starlight let out a hoarse sounding chuckle as she approached the central tunnel. Her horn was only so powerful, the light barely cutting more than a few metres into the darkness. Starlight inhaled sharply and began to bob her head between the two remaining tunnels. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, Catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” Starlight’s horn settled upon the right tunnel and she approached it. A part of her considered going back, as there was no way of knowing if this path actually led to an exit. It was a small part and was soon overruled. The ponies of her town would toss her in jail, and revenge couldn’t be achieved from a jail cell. Starlight walked forward allowing the tunnel to swallow her whole. It was an oddly beautiful sight, the gemstones embedded in the wall reflecting her magic and causing a shimmering effect. It was still incredibly silent with only her hooves and breathing creating an ambient noise. Not even the dripping of water could be heard. As time slowly crept on by, the shimmering of gems soon lost its beauty and the tunnel refused to end. Deeper and deeper it went into the mountain, going through twist and turn, and yet daylight never once graced Starlight. She could tell the hour was beginning to grow late as a hunger ravaged her belly, which growled viciously for sustenance. Along with that she was beginning to slow, her eyes drooping as exhaustion began to mount. “I mean. A little nap couldn’t hurt.” Starlight said aloud, her own voice repeating over and over in an echo. She ducked into a little nook in the rock. It was hardly large enough to fit herself, but the closeness of the walls made her feel safe. When the light on the tip of her horn faded she was left in complete darkness. Starlight shivered and closed her eyes, letting out a sigh. Sleep came rather quickly considering the hardness of the rock she laid upon. Her dreams were fevered and incredibly lucid. They began normal enough with her living a random day back in her town. The ponies Starlight led all smiled and waved, and of course she had no problem returning the gesture. She continued her walk and as she advanced she noticed that the street went on for far longer than it should have. Starlight walked and walked and as she did so the ponies around her changed, they went from smiling to sneering, growling, and even hissing at her. Finally, the street she thought would never end halted. Standing at the end were six ponies, the same six ponies who had ruined her. They all glared at her. At first they were normal looking, though angry ponies. This normality was only a charade, as they soon began to grow, getting taller and taller until she was an ant at their beastly hooves. Rainbow Dash leaned forward, a grin plastered onto her muzzle. Her teeth were pointed and razor sharp. “So pathetic,” Rainbow Dash boomed in a voice that couldn’t possibly belong to her. Pinkie Pie leaned forward, the happiness she had displayed upon arriving in town having evaporated. “She’s been abandoned, all alone.” Pinkie Pie said before she paused and drew back. Now Twilight Sparkle, their leader leaned in nice and close her eyes taking on a red glow as they stared right into Starlight’s. Starlight tried to scramble back, but behind her a barricade of ponies had formed. They all had death in their eyes and murderous intent upon their posture. Twilight smiled nice and wide her breath reeking of hot garbage. “All alone, just the way she always is.” Twilight’s mouth opened and she lunged forwards taking Starlight between her lips. She swallowed her whole and Starlight screamed loudly. The descent down the pony’s throat was like a waterslide and upon reaching the bottom she found herself sitting within a room. The room in question was a living room, a pretty standard one at that. Soft gray walls flanked her from left to right, and she sat upon a coarse blue rug. To Starlight’s right was a bookshelf, devoid of any titles as each of them had been stacked on a round coffee table before her. She looked at the tower of books, seeing that the stack reached all the way to the roof. The roof began to head skywards, and with it the tower of books continued to grow as volume after volume was added. The tower grew unstable but this didn’t slow construction. Starlight couldn’t imagine that even the grand library of Canterlot would hold this many titles. Finally, the tower buckled and began to collapse. Books rained from the sky landing all around Starlight. Books that were big and thick with leather bound covers of every colour. A book nearly crashed into her head, but she managed to avoid it by stumbling to the left. That had only bought her seconds as the rain of books soon turned into a shower. Starlight turned just in time to see an orange unicorn colt smirking cruelly at her as a book cracked her on the skull. Starlight awoke with a start as only blackness greeted her from the slumber. Starlight let out a panicked scream as she desperately tried to conjure a spell to light her way. It took a few seconds but finally Starlight’s horn shot out a faint beam of light. Starlight winced at even this low illumination. She still felt exhausted and worst of all the back of her throat felt dry. She was thirsty. Starlight pulled herself out of the nook, looking left and then right. She swallowed hard, before letting out another chuckle. “Which way did I come from, again?” Starlight asked herself. No one replied. Starlight studied both direction before deciding to turn right and continue her journey. The hours continued to creep on by, as the cavern began to repeat before her. Each segment looked like the last, with uniformed walls, and generic looking gemstones. The thirst in the back of her throat mounted, and soon she could feel it taunting her with each inhale she took. Starlight would have drunk from a patch of festering water if it would mean putting an end to her suffering. Drip It was such a foreign sound to her. Drip Something that was not her hooves, or raspy breathing, a sound that did not belong to her. Drip It took a moment to realize just what it was. She galloped forward, throwing caution to the wind in order to reach the source of that noise. The tunnel widened and soon Starlight found herself in a naturally formed chamber. In the centre of it was a small puddle. It was shallow and discoloured, the filth of the ground mixing into it. Starlight didn’t care one bit. She scrambled for the puddle and dipped her muzzle into it. She took a hearty sip, and paused. Salt; The water was filled with it. She spat it back out and screamed. Her horn glowed brighter and brighter as her fury engulfed her. She was like a child throwing a tantrum as she stomped her hooves on the ground. Starlight wanted to sob, but the thirst denied her the tears. The taste of the salt lingered on her tongue, mocking her. She then paused, her rampaging stomps coming to a pitiful end. Starlight was a smart unicorn, one who was well-versed in the various fields of magic and worldly studies. Starlight’s magic formed a dome which she placed over the polluted water. The dome then turned to a bubble which she used to lift the water into the air. She studied it for a moment, thinking of a solution. She needed this water. Starlight’s horn glowed and the bubble began to grow bright. She was heating up the bubble and before long the water inside was boiling violently. The bubble expanded to contain the newly added energy. She constricted the middle of the bubble causing it to narrow until finally separating the bubble into two. The upper one containing steam and the lower, salt. Starlight popped the lower bubble causing the salt to scatter onto the floor. She then began to cool the remaining bubble, causing it to shrink. It cooled and cooled until finally only a small bladder of water remained. It wasn’t much, maybe a cup or two at most. Still, that was a cup or two more than she previously had. Starlight turned the bubble into a magical cup and levitated it up to her lips. She took a sip, testing it. It tasted pure, purer than even the highest class filter could manage. The sip turned to vicious gulping as she welcomed the cold water into her dry throat. It was gone in a matter of seconds, yet it had given her the strength to continue. Her slow descent resumed, and by now Starlight was sure it was a descent. Once again the tedium of walking knocked up against her mind. The minutes turned to hours, and before long she had zoned out. Her body was on auto-pilot as her mind filled with imagines of revenge. Oh, there were so many ways to achieve it. Starlight could burn down their town, that would be a fitting punishment. They took her town away from her, she would take theirs away from them. Starlight came to a stop as a gleaming white object caught her sight. She trotted over to it curiously. It was wedged into a little crevice, similar to the one that she had spent the night in. Upon reaching the little space, she pressed her head in. She screamed almost immediately. The object in question was part of the lower half of a pony skeleton. The bones were ancient and covered in a grimy layer of dust. Yet their impossible whiteness haunted her. Starlight jerked back and stumbled away from the skeleton, muffling another squeal. Starlight wasn’t a crime scene investigator, but even she could tell the cause of death. While crawling into the nook a giant bolder must have come crashing down on the pony’s head. Such a sight caused Starlight to clench her teeth and look up at the roof. It appeared solid over her head, but with each step she took a new weight settled upon her already fragile nerves. The cave continued to twist and turn, causing another grim thought to enter Starlight’s mind. She was going to die in here, she was sure of it by now. Her stomach was ravenously hungry, and the thirst had made a nasty return, reinforcing her dark thoughts. By this point Starlight was pretty sure that the cave was just an optical illusion, drawing her deeper and deeper into an infinitely repeating hallway. It may have even been a continuation of the nightmare which so vividly returned to the forefront of her mind. Starlight closed her eyes and sighed, and when they reopened her horn had gone out. The blackness surrounded her from every side. Only it didn’t, a star in the distance, a pin prick in the blanket of night beckoned to her. Starlight approached it slowly, one hoof in front of the other. The pin prick grew, blossoming before her eyes. Her pace picked up, her hooves pounding against the ground. The light grew and grew, until finally it engulfed her. Starlight blinked repeatedly as her senses were overwhelmed by the impossible brightness. It took a few moments but finally she found herself outside. All around her was nature, with tall trees growing in a meadow of grass and vegetation. Starlight cheered loudly, pressing her muzzle against the ground to kiss it. She was outside, she was alive. She kissed the ground again and again, laughing like a madmare as she did so. When Starlight finally pulled away from the ground she noticed a hill. She scrambled up it, and upon reaching the peak she could see a crystal blue lake spread out before her. On the opposite banks of the lake was a small village. It really wasn’t much to look at, but it had one important detail; a train station. Starlight went back down the hill deciding to tackle her hunger and thirst before venturing into the community. It didn’t take long with how tall and abundant the grass was. She felt like a bit of a savage eating from the earth, but the fresh memories of the cave easily supressed any self-conscious thoughts. With her belly filled, Starlight began to walk around the lake, entering into the small hamlet. The ponies of the community studied her. She smiled nervously, hoping that none of them had heard of her exploits on the other side of the mountains. When none of the ponies approached her with anything but curiosity she made her way into the train station. Once inside, Starlight saw that only a single employee was present. He was a bored looking unicorn who was reading a manuscript on his desk. When Starlight approached he looked up. “Hello miss,” he said in a soft voice. “How can I help you?” Starlight smiled warmly. “I was just wondering when the next train is coming into station.” The stallion dragged over a laminated card, his eyes scanning is quickly. “There is a regional train coming in about fifty minutes.” Starlight nodded. “And where does it go?” The stallion ditched the card and already had his muzzle shoved back into the book. “It goes to a couple of small towns in the area before returning to Canterlot.” Canterlot, the very mention of the city made Starlight grin. “I’ll take one ticket please.”