In the dark of Starlight's bedroom, Twilight, joined by Princess Luna, sat with crossed hooves on the troubled unicorn's couch and watched her as she slept. In her sleep, Starlight tossed and turned, her coat slick from spent tears and a sheet of cold sweat. On her nightstand sat the newest of her growing platoon of dead soldiers, an empty bottle of hard cider and another of rum.
"She told us it was an accident," Twilight spoke, her voice hushed. "She said she was just lost in thought and wasn't paying attention to how far she was leaning. She finally admitted to all the drinking she's been doing, but all that really did was give her a decent scapegoat to blame; she was drunk and she fell."
"And?" Luna queried, nodding her head.
With a sigh, the former librarian concluded, "She's a very good liar... usually. She thanked Rainbow for acting as fast as she did and catching her."
"I take it that you feel her thanks to have been felonious as well?" the Princess of the Night questioned.
Silently, Twilight nodded in affirmation.
"I want to take a look at what she's dreaming," she said, her eyes never leaving her sleeping student. "If they're unrelated, we'll leave. But if... if they can shed any light on this mess..."
Twilight trailed off, unsure of what to say. They would help her, there was no doubt about that, but how would they help her?
She didn't know.
Her brow knitted in frustration.
She hated that she didn't know.
"Luna, please, I need to do this. I don't know if she'll try a second time, but I can't watch her do that again. She's important to me; I have to do something."
Desperation filled the purple pony's voice as she spoke, her hooves trembling and her wings twitching.
"I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of invading her privacy like this. The dreamscape is an intimate place in a pony's mind and I know that, but..."
Again, she trailed off.
The larger alicorn pondered the request for only a moment before silently taking to her hooves, pacing over to the occupied bed, and beckoning Twilight to join her. They both sat at the edge, careful to take a position that would keep them from falling and hurting themselves as they joined Starlight in slumber. Closing her eyes, Luna's horn cast a blue glow around the dark room and from it extended two strands of magic. One snaked its way over to Starlight and reached into her forehead, the other into Twilight's.
Loyally obeying its owner's will, the magic slowly ushered the two princesses into unconsciousness and, with the metallic creak of nonexistent hinges, opened the door into the dreams of another.
~ w ~
Atop a cliff, at the very edge, stood a lone pony. Far below her, the waters of a churning black sea beckoned for her to join them. Princess Luna and Princess Twilight watched the pony as she contemplated something immediately known to them.
Twilight stifled a gasp as it attempted to leave her lips and cursed her own obliviousness.
"Is this what I believe it to be?" Luna questioned, her expression stoic.
Eyes watering, the lavender alicorn stammered, "Th-the future that could have been. The last one."
"Then I believe your questions have indeed been answered."
The purple princess suddenly found her mouth very dry. A horrible, icy pit sank deep into her stomach, the cold spreading throughout her entire body.
All doubt had been thoroughly, mercilessly quashed.
Her student, her close friend, had tried to kill herself right in front of her. Their battle through time had taken place over a year ago and, ever since, Starlight had wished herself dead without her teacher ever even knowing.
Twilight watched as the pink unicorn gazed out into the abyss, unblinking in her contemplation. Bags lined her eyes, dark rings that spoke volumes about her inner struggle. Her expression was one of morbid resignation, the sort of look that one might wear after learning in an empty hospital waiting room that the little cough they'd been suffering from was merely an initial symptom of a deadly disease that had no cure and claimed all that it infected.
There was a vicious conflict brewing deep within Starlight's soul and the wounds that she sustained as she fought were quickly bleeding her dry. Her demons outnumbered her a dozen times over and, much to her teacher's horror, it was clear that the battle would soon be ending.
Starlight wasn't simply losing. No, the truth was much worse.
She'd lost a long, long time ago.
"I never knew," Twilight softly cried. "All she had to do was talk to me and I would've dropped everything to be there for her. All of us would."
"If only it were so simple."
Drying her eyes with a hoof, the former librarian turned to the Princess of the Night and asked, "What do you mean?"
"Emotions are languages all their own, Twilight," Luna spoke, the sagely nature that her voice carried reminding the smaller alicorn of her solar mentor. "Hate speaks loudest, the fires of its misguided passion easily understood. Love's volume comes quick at hate's heels, passionate as well, but in ways more subtle. Next is desire, equal to love in the strength of its voice, yet more varied in what it sets its sight upon and far simpler for others to comprehend. Sorrow, however, tends to be one of the quiet ones. Though there are times where it can, of course, be heard, it is of a very shy nature and often works to remain hidden from prying ears. Similar to sorrow, fear can both shout and scream its presence like a wild crack of thunder, or whisper so quietly that none can hear. Some fears are bold, while others timid, but all possess the power to shake a pony's foundations and sunder their soul."
Twilight's eyes remained fixed upon her student.
Pointing a hoof down towards Starlight, Luna shook her head sadly and continued, "Softest spoken of them all is guilt. It trots hoof-in-hoof with both sorrow and fear, but keeps itself eclipsed in their shadows. It knows what it has done and silently dreads the knowledge that, someday, judgement will come to crush it beneath an unfeeling, unstoppable gavel. To make guilt's language all the more complex, it often seeks out its own judgement, unable to cope with the weight of its crimes."
The older alicorn suppressed a sad sigh.
"Worse yet, both guilt unfounded and guilt known all too true can carry the same weight. Both possess the strength to destroy those gripped by them."
A silver-clad hoof gently lifted Twilight's chin so that both could meet eyes.
"With what you have told me and the picture now painted before us, I can only reason that your pupil is soon to leap," Luna said, eyes frighteningly certain. "Though none of this is real, to her it most certainly is. Go to her while there's still time. Save her from herself and allow me to end this nightmare."
In an instant, Twilight's wings flared.
A pink mare threw herself from the edge of a cliff in despair.
A lilac rocket traveled thousands of feet in the span of a second.
A life, though free from any true danger, was spared.
Confused tears trickled down pink cheeks, unsure if their owner deserved the salvation of the hooves cradling her.
Lastly and most thankfully of all, a nightmare ended without a body tossed into the sea. For once, Starlight Glimmer heard only the sound of silence... and yet comfort still managed to find her.