A Glimmer of Hope

by Gordon Pasha

Radiant Starlight

“Hope!”

She shivered in the darkness.

“Hope!”

She bit down on her lower lip.

“Hope!”

She fell to the floor, with a crash. It hurt. But not as much as her lower lip did. Hope put her hoof to it and drawing it back, found crystalline blood. She levitated the covers off from around her body and back onto the makeshift bed before going over to the sink.

Most doctors and orderlies at Seaddle Specialist had someplace to go when their shifts were over. Homes, families, lives outside of their work. But since Radiant Hope had none of these things, she almost never left Seaddle Specialist. That meant that she slept in Seaddle Specialist. Her room was a tiny thing, one of those places where doctors or nurses working 24+ hour shifts could catch a little sleep on rare moments of downtime. But ever since her arrival and the sudden spike in miraculous recoveries, such shifts were a rarity. The patients all stayed a few days for observation, but that was the most serious thing the night nurses had to deal with. It had been Dr. Fie’s idea that Hope take up residence in one of these rooms. She wouldn’t be bothered most of the time, but in the rare incident of a patient being rushed in in the middle of the night, she could be found easily.

At least the night nurses knew where she spent her nights. Hope did not enjoy listening to the day nurses’ speculations on the matter.

But tonight, there were no emergencies. The corridor outside was dark, as was the little room inside. It was really just a cot for sleeping, and a sink and mirror for doing a little freshening up, and there was a little light.

Hope turned the light on and stared at herself in the mirror. Something definitely seemed to be happening to her coat. It looked less crystalline than she had ever seen it. Maybe it was just the poor lighting, but Hope could have sworn that she looked almost like a non-crystal pony tonight.

“Hope!”

The voice was in her own head. Hope knew it. No doubt, it had been triggered by her earlier encounters with Starlight Glimmer and Dr. Fie. All the guilt welling up in her again. It was Sombra’s voice.

Hope could not exactly place where in her memories it was coming from. Was it that cry of pain he uttered every year on the day of the Crystal Fair, begging her to save him from his intolerable pain? Was it one of those words of temptation he had used, immediately after his fall, to try and sway her to rule the Crystal Empire with him? Was it part of an accusation he lobbed against her during the Siege, when she could never seem to fully convince him that she was trying to make things right? Or was it when, at the Siege’s end, he had looked her in the eye, and told her he was the monster everypony thought he was all along?

Of all of them, that was the memory that hurt the most.

---

She had just got done telling Sombra that she had “never believed in destiny,” and had encouraged him to make his own. She thought he had heard her. She thought he had grasped what she was telling him. And then, as Sombra looked into the Crystal Heart, even as Rabia screeched at him to destroy ‘the weapon,’ Hope was certain that he understood, that he would do the right thing.

“Hope,” Sombra said.

“Yes,” Hope had responded. She had sounded expectant. She had not even been able to avoid a smile.

“I’m sorry.”

Just like that, the smile fell from Hope’s lips. She watched in stunned horror as Sombra lifted the Crystal Heart above his head, ready to break it. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “but what I am, I am.”

Hope screamed, “No!” at the top of her lungs. But it didn’t matter. Because it was over before Hope knew it. There came a burst of light that engulfed the whole of the dais. Hope had tried to shield her eyes, but even so, the light blinded her; it was several moments before she could see again. And what she saw made her wish she was still blind.

There was Princess Twilight. Somehow, she had gotten free in the confusion, and had freed her horn of Sombra’s dark magic. Her friends were beside her. Hope did not need help figuring out what had happened. Twilight and her friends were standing there, proud and tall while Sombra was nowhere to be seen.

That’s when Hope looked down. Once more, she screamed.

There was Sombra’s horn. Just like the last time, it was all that remained of her best friend. But unlike last time, it was no longer was large, fearsome, and red. Instead, it was grey and withered, almost like an old bone. It looked dead.

Hope could not remember much after that. She had fallen to the floor and grabbed the horn in her hooves. She remembered screaming something rude and unpleasant at Twilight. The Crystal Heart returned itself to its pedestal and all the Umbrum were banished back to their Prison. Everything Sombra had done was undone. Everything she had done was undone.

Eventually, and Hope could not say how long, she had gotten to her hooves. She had looked around, almost in a daze. She had seen the princesses and Twilight’s friends, all eyeing her with concern. Eventually, Princess Cadance approached her and said something, and by the tone of her voice it had been something kind.

But Hope never registered the words. She had turned her attention and her gaze to the outskirts of the dais. There had gathered all the crystal ponies. Her fellow citizens of the Crystal Empire. Her people. And from the looks in their eyes, they hated her.

From somewhere among them came a shout of “Traitor!” And then a shout of “Murderer!” And then more shouts, of much worse things.

Hope felt her blood run cold, spreading bitter frost to all her extremities. And then she felt numb.

In the crowd, she saw her old teacher and guardian, Miss Chestnut. She had not seen her in a thousand years but recognized her immediately. And clearly, Chestnut Falls recognized her, by the way she hid her face in shame.

The shouts were becoming deafening now. They hurt Hope’s ears as much as they hurt her heart. The Princesses tried to call for calm, but it was of no use. The collective rage of the crystal ponies was reaching a boiling point.

Hope could not take it anymore. Anywhere she looked, she could see her own people and the fury they directed toward her. So she looked down at her hooves. That’s when she saw Sombra’s horn again.

It was all too much. She had lost him. Again. She had lost everything. The pain, the sharpest pain she had ever known, welled up inside her and demanded immediate expression. It came in a horrible, anguished scream. And a beam of blue light accompanied the scream, shooting forth from Hope’s horn to the vault of the Crystal Palace above. Shards of crystal fell everywhere, causing ponies to dodge and run out of the way.

There were more screams now. Many more. Somewhere, one of the princesses was yelling for Hope to stop. She could not tell who it was. She did not care. She was not even fully aware of what she was doing.

And then she stopped. The beam of light disappeared. Radiant Hope picked up Sombra’s horn and clutched it to her chest. She wanted to hold it there, to hold her last piece of her friend against her chest forever. But then she heard the shouting.

The crystal ponies had had enough. They were yelling again. The shouts and shrieks were getting louder. Or actually, they were getting closer. Hope looked around to see crystal ponies charging toward her from every direction. Their intentions were clear. The Princesses, try as they might, could not hold them back.

And with how Hope felt, she was ready to greet them. She was ready for whatever they would do to her. It would hurt, but then at least it would be over. Everything would be over.

But the noise was causing a great vibration through the broken walls of the Crystal Palace. The whole structure was beginning to shake. And from directly above Hope, a large block of crystal broke loose. She looked up just as it was about to make contact.

She would have welcomed it, but instinct kicked in. At the last possible moment, Radiant Hope activated her teleportation spell. When the block crashed into the floor of the dais, bringing all the charging crystal ponies to a halt, Radiant Hope was already gone.

She reappeared on the outskirts of the Empire, Sombra’s horn still clutched tightly to her chest. It was from here that Radiant Hope could see, for the first time, the full extent of the devastation she had wrought. Smoke filled the air, rising from all directions. A good third of all buildings in the Crystal Empire seemed like they had been burned out or toppled. The once-proud streets and avenues had been chopped up and broken. Far away, even the gates to the Empire stood in ruin. This was not the Crystal Empire Hope knew. This was not her home.

Hope felt her legs go weak under her. Her whole body was becoming numb again. She wanted to look away but couldn’t. It was as though some force would not allow her to turn away. It was as though this was something she had to see.

A tear rolled down her cheek. She did not have the strength to speak nor the words, but she still managed to say something. Something small and weak and hopeless.

“Wh-what have I done?”

---

“Hope,” the voice came again, breaking her out of her reverie. Her own reflection in the mirror seemed to disappear, and Sombra stood in its place. He seemed to be calling to her.

Then he was gone, but Hope reached out her hoof and gently caressed the portion of the mirror where she had seen his cheek.

“I couldn’t save you,” she said. “I thought I could. But then I failed you again. I always fail.”

And then she saw a trail of blood on the mirror, following in the path of her hoof. Hope realized she had never washed it off. She quickly rinsed her hoof in the water.

She wondered whether she should perform a small healing spell to fix her lip. It seemed awfully self-indulgent. But she did not want anypony asking questions about how her lip got cut. So she did it.

Afterward, she used the cheap paper-towels Dr. Fie had so kindly provided her to wipe the blood from the mirror. The paper tore quite easily from even the gentlest use. Hope had to use three pieces before the blood came off completely.

When that was done, she laid back down on her cot. Hope knew she needed sleep, but wondered if she’d ever find any. She hadn’t even been asleep when she heard the voice. It hadn’t been a dream. It had come up suddenly within her. But that was hardly surprising, given everything that had just occurred.

Oh, it has been one Tartarus of a day.

Hope reached underneath her pillow. She pulled out a horn, grey and withered. With a sigh, she pulled it to her chest and then turned over to rest her head on the pillow. With the horn tightly in her grasp, Radiant Hope looked out at the moon through a very small window beside the bed and wondered whether Princess Luna had ever gone through these sorts of things on her return from her own personal Tartarus.

---

But a hustling, bustling city like Seaddle does not consist entirely of one hospital, even if it is as distinguished a hospital as Seaddle Specialist. No, there are streets and homes and restaurants and offices, all filled with ponies going about their daily lives. In one such office, some days later, a rather non-descript looking stallion, his coat, mane and tail all brown and neatly-trimmed and his cutie mark a quill and some sheets of paper, was sitting at a desk, typing.

Quills often worked better for unicorns, but for an earth pony, a typewriter made more sense. No need to try and twist your legs around the quill or awkwardly use your mouth to write, all you had to do was pound your hooves. As long as you made sure to be careful and not pound a dozen or so letters at the same time, you’d be fine.

Stirring Words was busy typing away when a rather overweight grey Pegasus, with balding hair and wearing an old-fashioned sort of vest, came up to his desk.

“How’s that story coming along?” the pony asked. “You’re doing the one about that boat, right? The one they’re turning into a hotel down in Las Pegasus.”

“Actually, it’s a ship, Joe,” said Stirring Words. “The RMS Empress of Equestria."

Stirring looked up at Joe. "You see, the difference is—"

“I don't have a head for that sort of stuff," Joe responded. "Just get it done quick, okay? You know how the boss gets when anypony takes too long to get a story in.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” Stirring said, “not after the boss hollered at me over the tardiness of that story about the gold dispute down in San Franciscolt.”

“Nice work on that one, by the way. I’ve even heard it’s got you noticed. The Daily North Equestria is looking for a new staff writer and I’ve been told that they’re putting out some feelers up here. They said you covered that story in Seaddle even better than they did when it was in their own backyard. Play your cards right, and you could be moving to San Franciscolt any day now.”

Without looking up from his typewriter, Stirring shook his head. “I can’t leave Seaddle. I’ve got family. A sister.”

“Yeah, but she can’t get in the way of your career. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“She’s in the hospital.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Which one?”

“Seaddle Specialist.”

Joe seemed confused. “But, isn’t that the one that has the 100% recovery rate or something? I heard the boss talking about it. He thinks there’s something up and wants to send a reporter in undercover. But if there’s 100% recovery, shouldn’t she be… unless….”

Stirring sent a sad glance Joe’s way.

“Oh, I’m sorry, kid. Having a sister messed up in the head can’t be easy.”

“I manage. I write letters to her every week, and she writes back, but I don’t know how much good it does. She doesn’t make sense most of the time and the doctors think I should stop, but I insist on keeping it up.”

“Good for you! I’m sure whatever mental state she’s in, she must appreciate hearing from you if she writes back. But that’s why you keep getting all these letters, isn’t it? You got another in today. They asked me to drop it off.”

The grey pony put his mouth into one of the pockets on his vest and pulled out a letter. He placed it on the desk before continuing with the conversation. It took much more small talk before he finally left Stirring in peace.

As soon as he was alone, Stirring left off his work and opened the letter, scanning it intently.

“Okay, let’s see,” he muttered to himself. “‘Dearest brother’… hmm-hmm… ‘Your letter has not…’ Your? Oh, it’s actually you’re. Hmm-hmm. Why is that a ‘too’ there instead of ‘to’?”

But after he had read it through a few times, Stirring dropped his mouth down to a cabinet just under the bridge of his desk. It was so small and difficult to see that, of all the reporters who had used this particular desk, Stirring suspected that he was the only one to have ever found the cabinet. He brought out a pencil and a small notebook.

With the pencil in his mouth, Stirring began writing.

“You’re not going to believe who I’ve met; the crystal pony, Radiant Hope. Not my most successful convert so far, but I think I’ve got an opening. I have a feeling she’s going to be very useful to us. Nothing for you to do yet, but be ready to get to work. The plan is falling into place.”

“Stirring Words!” A large, rotund, gruff-looking, pale green pegasus, with wings far too small for his frame, stomped out of an office in the corner and toward the desk, shouting loud enough for the entire floor to hear. “You call yourself a reporter? Where’s that story? The deadline's tomorrow — that means I want it yesterday! Oh, and don’t believe those rumors about San Franciscolt! I ain’t recommending a namby-pamby like you if you don’t start getting your stories in on time!”

Stirring quickly threw the pencil and notebook into the cabinet and slammed it just as his boss came over.

“So, boy, where’s the story?”

“Just putting the finishing touches on it now, sir!” Stirring said with his best attempt at a fake smile.

---

It had been five days. Nearly a week. Things had been pretty routine. Hope got out of her cot early, worked, and got to bed late. Pretty normal.

So why don’t I feel any better? Hope thought as she carried some paperwork on the newest recipient of her healing magic to the third floor main desk.

The nurse on duty, a slender vermillion pegasus with violet hair and an ice-cream scoop for a cutie mark — Raspberry Ripple by name — did not file the folder when Hope dropped it off. Instead, she looked up knowingly at the crystal pony. A small, sly smile spread across her muzzle.

“Haven’t seen you hanging around our beloved leader that much anymore. You two have a fight or something?” she said. For all the conviviality Raspberry was trying to project, Hope could detect a notable hint of schadenfreude in her voice.

Hope didn’t answer. She was used to these sorts of barbs from the day nurses by now.

“It was bound to happen sometime, honey,” Raspberry continued. “You can only get ahead for so long by, er, ‘playing the field.’ Because you’re the one who’s getting played. You’re just a plaything to him. When he gets tired of you, he’ll throw you away. I’ve seen it time and again. Ponies like you, you never last. It’s the hard workers like me that survive.”

Hope began to walk away.

“Funny thing is,” Raspberry called after her, “with the way he is, we never thought a pretty mare could turn his head. Until you came along. Maybe it’s just that you don’t look all that feminine, if you know what I mean.”

Hope continued to walk away. She did not respond in any fashion. She was used to the insinuations by now. When she first came to the hospital, she had tried to be friendly with the nurses and the other orderlies. But, the fact that she had been given a job with no known credentials or experience made them all immediately suspicious. And then when Dr. Fie kept having her accompany him to work with the patients, the others’ tongues really started to wag. Nopony but her and Dr. Fie knew about her special talent, so they all latched on to other ideas.

Hope avoided socializing with the other orderlies as much as possible.

But then she heard a familiar voice. “Hope, dear girl, wait up!”

Hope wanted to keep walking, but knew that she couldn’t. Another emergency patient might have been brought in, and Hope still had to work with Dr. Fie to get them healed, no matter what.

He came up beside her. “There you are! ‘Radiant with ardor divine! Visions of hope, ye appear!’ I’ve always wondered, do you think your parents named you after that old poem?”

Hope felt uneasy. She did not need another reason to regret her parents’ choice of name.

“I never had the chance to ask them,” Hope said. “And that was probably long before that poem was written.”

Dr. Fie smiled. Hope did not. “What is it, doctor?” she asked in a cold monotone. “Is another patient in need of healing?”

“Oh, no, not at all!” said the doctor as two coffee cups suspended in purple floated between them. “I just thought you might like some coffee. You’ve been working so hard what with that taxi pile-up today.”

Hope grimaced. She could feel Raspberry’s eyes on them. Besides, she had never much liked coffee. She could not figure out, for the life of her, why ponies were so addicted to the stuff. It had not even existed when she was growing up, and she had never felt much of a loss on that account.

She felt a loss on many other accounts, yes, but not that one.

“Doctor, if I wanted a cup of that muddy water, I would have gotten it from the machine like every other pony.”

Dr. Fie lowered the two cups of coffee onto a nearby ledge and said, “Hope, what’s gotten into you? I’ve barely seen you these past few days.”

“You’ve seen me when you’ve needed me to help with the patients. That is what I’m supposed to do, isn’t it?”

“Of course, dear girl, but—”

“Why do you always call me that? You know I’m 1,016 years old. So why do you keep calling me ‘dear girl’?”

Dr. Fie quickly shushed Hope and then looked around to see if any of the other ponies had heard. They all did, of course, but none made a big deal about it. After all, the crystal ponies’ thousand year disappearance was common knowledge by now. As far as they knew, she was just another typical member of the species.

She wasn’t, but nopony here but her and Dr. Fie knew that.

“Please, speak a little quietly, dear child,” Dr. Fie said nervously.

“There you go again.”

“Yes, yes, I do that a bit, don’t I? But you see, Hope, it’s only because my incredible intellect and worldliness have given me so much maturity and wisdom that it is as though I have lived for countless millennia. To one of my superior mental faculties, the fall of Trot was but yesterday and the span of Luna’s exile but the blink of an eye.”

This last sentence was, of course, accompanied by a theatric flourish of the hoof.

Hope shook her head and began to walk away. Dr. Fie levitated the coffees and ambled after her.

“You’re not still upset about that night, are you?” he said.

Hope just kept walking, not even turning to look at him.

“Hope, please!” he said, almost pleading. “Please talk to me, dear girl! You’ve been so distant.”

“I’ve done everything you’ve needed me to do.”

“I know, but there’s something missing. You’re treating me just like the other employees do. Of course, they do what I tell them, but we both know what they think of me. Now I have nopony to talk to! Nopony to talk to me!”

Hope stopped in front of an elevator. She turned to Dr. Fie, looking so forlorn, and could not help but feel pity. Without meaning to, she smiled.

Dr. Fie grinned and nodded. “Glad we’re over that. Can’t have you getting like the other orderlies or, Celestia forbid, the other doctors. We both know that they’re just jealous. All those years of training and study, and degrees from the finest colleges, and they still will never reach my level of brilliance. It is only my infinite kindness that keeps me from throwing them all out on their flanks.”

Hope remembered herself. Her smile faded, replaced with a frown. She hit the elevator button with her hoof — instead of just using magic as she normally would — and stepped into the elevator.

Dr. Fie was alarmed. “Wait, Hope! Was it something I said? No, of course not. I never say anything wrong.”

Hope pushed the button to close the doors. As her face began to disappear behind them, Dr. Fie said frantically, “It’s not muddy water like what comes out of the machine! This coffee is from my private pantry! It’s from Saddle Arabia!”

Too late; the doors were closed.

Dr. Fie trudged back toward the main desk. Raspberry’s eyes were upon him.

“How much of that did you hear?” he asked.

“Everything. I have remarkable hearing,” she said. “But next time, lead with the thing about the coffee being from Saddle Arabia.”

“Oh, spare me the senseless advice and get back to your job.”

“Okay, okay,” Raspberry said, doing her best to sound apologetic. “But, you know, doctor, if you don’t have anypony to give that other coffee to… I have been very productive today. I’ve finished nearly three-hundred pages of paperwork.”

“At the salary I pay you, it should be at least five-hundred! I will share my coffee with the only pony in this building who actually deserves it; myself! Now, go away, and do some real work for a change.”

Dr. Fie made a shooing motion with his hooves.

Raspberry looked around her. “But this is my desk.”

Dr. Fie momentarily looked embarrassed. Quickly, however, his features evened out into their usual smugness. “So it is. I was merely testing you to see how attentive you are to your job. Well done. I shall not fire you today.”

With a ‘that’ll show you’ nod, Dr. Fie ambled away.

“What a jerk,” Raspberry said as she returned to filing.

---

Hope stood before the doors to the incurables’ ward. For how much she tried to avoid this place, this was now her second time in a week venturing down here. She took a deep breath has her magic activated the touch-pad on the lock.

Hope walked through the corridor without the hesitancy and dread of her previous visit. Now her steps were sure. She was so determined that she barely noticed the inmates or the rude things they were saying.

But one she did notice. He seemed to be waiting for her. Even with the door and window closed, Hope could hear the voice of the faux-Starswirl quite clearly.

“Princess Radiant Hope! Princess Radiant Hope! Whatever happened to our princess, Radiant Hope?”

Hope closed her eyes and grit her teeth until she was past his cell. Though she could still hear him for the rest of her walk, being beyond his general vicinity made the words hurt a little less.

Hope came at last to her destination. She unlocked the door and went inside, locking it behind her.

Starlight Glimmer looked up at Hope from her little table. She had just been pouring tea, apparently. If she was at all surprised by Hope’s visit, she showed no hint of it.

“I got the orderlies to bring me some tea,” Starlight said. “They take forever, though. This pot was practically cold by the time they got here. But you’re welcome to have some.”

Without a word, Radiant Hope sat down in the chair opposite Starlight.

“One lump of sugar or two?” Starlight asked as she levitated a bowl of sugar and a pair of tongs. “Or what passes for sugar in this place. Though from the taste of it, it might be sawdust.”

I wouldn’t put it past Dr. Fie, Hope thought. But she said nothing.

“I bet it’s two lumps. That’s the way I like it. And we are so much alike.”

Hope said nothing as Starlight dropped two lumps into a cup of tea and placed it before her. Outside, the faux Starswirl continued his rant.

“What is that lunatic raving about?” Starlight said. “He does it half the day and night. You’d think, with the price I paid for this place, the walls could at least keep out a little noise.”

Hope said nothing.

Starlight took a sip of tea, staring at Hope all the while. Looking for another opening, perhaps?

“My, that is an interesting cutie mark,” Starlight said as she lowered her cup. “I forgot to ask you what it means the last time you were here.”

“It’s a caduceus,” Hope said. “It’s a symbol of health and healing.”

“Hmm,” Starlight responded, “I always heard that it was a symbol of deception. Or of secret knowledge and hidden wisdom. Which is it for you?”

“My special talent is that I’m able to heal any wound or illness.”

“My, my, that is special! No wonder you chose to work in Equestria’s premier hospital.”

“It wasn’t Equestria’s premier hospital until I came.”

Starlight grinned knowingly.

Hope felt uncertain how to respond. “Why are you so interested? You hate cutie marks. Everypony who knows your story knows that.”

Starlight’s smile widened. She looked at Hope with the same sort of kind, yet condescending, look that a wise pony might give a half-wit.

“As with most things everypony knows, that’s wrong,” she said. “I don’t hate cutie marks. I’m sure that, at some point in our species’ evolutionary history, they were a necessary and vital way of ensuring our survival. Yet, like the appendix, they’ve lost any real function or purpose. But cutie marks, just like the appendix, can still make us sick, even kill us. What I don’t like is when ponies think their cutie marks are so important that they never reach their full potential. When they become enslaved to their cutie marks, ponies become dead inside. And like a good doctor, I was always just trying to cut out the vestigial organ before it ruptured. See, we aren’t so different, are we?”

Starlight put her hoof on top of Hope’s. “We both just want to heal ponies.”

Hope pulled her hoof away. “I’ve never heard of a cutie mark hurting a pony.”

Starlight shook her head, the smile on her lips practically saying, You poor, deluded fool.

“What about your own cutie mark?” Starlight said.

Hope’s eyes narrowed, “What about it.”

“You’re so convinced that it means your destiny is to heal ponies. But, as I said, that is only one possible meaning of your mark.”

“But how would the others apply to me?”

“Well, deception…. How much deception went into the Siege of the Crystal Empire, hmm? How much cunning, how much deceit, how many lies and how many false promises? You don’t take a whole city, especially not one ruled by a princess and her husband and where another princess is currently in the vicinity, by just walking in and asking for the keys. No, it took a lot of planning and precision, all without anypony knowing about it. It wasn’t just a coup, it was a conspiracy.”

Hope tried absently to bring the cup of tea to her mouth. It began to shake in her magical grasp as she listened.

“And how many of your co-conspirators realized your true goals? My guess, if I’m allowed to make one, is that none of them did. It was a conspiracy of one.”

The shaking cup tipped over. Hope jumped to her hooves as tea spilled down her chest. Luckily, lukewarm would be too generous a way to describe its temperature, so there was no scalding.

Starlight offered the box of tissues. Hope took several and frantically began wiping herself off.

“I’m not judging you, Hope,” Starlight said. “I don’t blame you for how you did it. As I said before, to do the right thing, we have to ignore little moral niceties sometimes. Look at me. I’m a good pony, no matter what others might have you believe. And I think you’re a good pony, too. Sometimes being a good pony means using a little deception here and there.”

Hope did not answer for quite a while. What she finally did say, in a voice small and shaking, was, “What… what about the other meaning?”

“Ah, yes,” Starlight said. “Hidden wisdom, secret knowledge. My guess is you know some things other ponies don’t. Important things. Maybe you’ve tried to share your knowledge with others. But they didn’t listen. They never listen, do they, Hope?”

Hope caught herself beginning to shake her head. She forced herself to stop. “I thought I knew things other ponies didn’t. Important things. But I was wrong. The Siege proved that.”

“Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t,” Starlight said. “But if I were a betting mare, I’d wager that you still have some secrets that are actually quite wise.”

Hope did not answer. If this disappointed Starlight, there was no sign of it. She merely sat back and the two just stared at each other for a while. The mad pony continued to rave.

“What is he saying?” Starlight asked at last. “Sounds like… ‘Princess Radiant Hope’?”

Hope clenched up. Starlight smiled in her self-satisfied way.

Starlight poured another cup of tea and sent it Hope’s way. “Hope, talk to me,” she said.

“This was a mistake,” Hope said as she stood up to go.

“Hope, please,” Starlight said. “You came to me. I didn’t ask you to come down here. It was your choice. There must have been a reason for it.”

Hope turned away from the door. Slowly, she sat down.

“That’s better,” Starlight said.

“I felt I needed to make you understand,” Hope said. “I felt I needed to make somepony understand.”

“Understand what?” Starlight asked with faux innocence.

“I’m not a monster,” Hope said.

“Of course you’re not, dear,” Starlight said.

Hope took a deep breath, and then began. “It’s funny. I always used to tell that to Sombra. Whenever he would talk about how ponies hated him for being a monster, I would say, ‘You’re not a monster.’ He never seemed to listen, until....”

“You talk about him like you know him well.”

Hope was surprised. Starlight had seemed to know so much about her. Too much. But she didn’t know this? Not about Sombra? Was Starlight playing her again or was she genuinely ignorant of Hope’s connection to Sombra?

At the moment, it didn’t matter.

“I did,” Hope said. “He’s the only friend I’ve ever had.”

Starlight downed her cup in one gulp. She said nothing.

“We were best friends our whole lives,” Hope continued. “Well, maybe not our whole lives, but it felt like it. When I was just a foal, I lost my parents. Then I was sent to an orphanage and none of the other ponies would play with me. So I played with fairies and pixies and other magical beings only I could see. I probably sound crazy now.”

Starlight shrugged. “The first day of foal’s school, I tried to launch an uprising of the students against the teacher, citing intent to assign homework on their part. Our glorious revolutionary state lasted until our parents were called in and grounded the whole lot of us.”

“And then Sombra came. The other ponies called him weird, too. So we decided to be weird together. He was the only pony, other than Ms. Chestnut, that made life worth living in there. We did everything together. And then came the Crystal Faire, and the beautiful ceremony where the Crystal Heart shines on all crystal ponies and reminds us of our fundamental unity.”

“'Opiate of the masses'….” Starlight muttered as she poured herself more tea.

“We were so excited… but then Sombra was in such pain…. It was like that every year, but the pain only got worse. Until, I first cast a healing spell and cured him. That’s how I got my mark. I thought I cured him, but then, he changed.”

“Deception,” Starlight noted, more to herself than Hope.

“It was the day I…. He seemed so upset. He just, he just left. Nopony could find him. He was gone a long time. Then when he came back, he was changed. He did… to the princess… he… he shattered her.”

“‘Shattered,’ how?” Starlight asked. “Did he break her heart?”

“He turned her to stone….” Hope choked out.

“Oh, so he actually did shatter her. Literally.”

Hope shook her head frantically. She seemed once more on the verge of tears. Starlight picked up the tissue box and offered it to Hope.

Hope took no tissue. Nor did she cry, however much she wanted to.

“I didn’t know what to do! I thought my friend was becoming a monster! So, I left. I escaped the Crystal Empire before he took over. I went to the Royal Sisters. They attacked. They banished him. But they ended up banishing the Crystal Empire with him. Because of me. He banished the Crystal Empire to get back at me for betraying him. To cause me the same pain I caused him.”

“Well, that beats my backstory,” Starlight said as she took a sip.

Hope went silent. Her eyes began moving quickly, back and forth, as though she was trying to figure out where next to pick up the story.

“I found his people,” she finally squeaked out. “The Umbrum, the shadow ponies. They were my friends, the fairies I had met when I was a foal. They told me they needed my help. I stayed with them for a thousand years. I learned all about them, got to know them. I thought they needed me to free them. I thought they needed Sombra to free them. Free them from the bounds my people had unfairly put them in.”

Starlight clapped her hooves together. “Ha! I knew it! I knew you had only done what you did for the best of reasons.”

“And 1,036 ponies died,” Hope responded.

“There are always some casualties in any great endeavor,” Starlight said. “That is the price of progress. But think of all the future lives those few casualties will save.”

“It didn’t save anyone!” Hope said. “The Umbrum, they were… they didn’t really want to be saved. They couldn't be saved,"

"And Sombra?"

Hope grew extremely quiet. “I couldn’t save him. I tried. I failed. He was a monster, like he always said. I didn’t want to believe it. He was, though. But I’m not a monster.”

Starlight patted Hope's hoof gently. "There, there. Of course you’re not a monster. You just always see the best in them."

"Now you're mocking me," Hope said coldly.

"Oh, no, no, dear. We all know what it’s like to put our trust in somepony and then have them leave us behind. It wasn’t your fault you believed in a false friend. It happens to the best of us."

The way Starlight said it, Hope could almost believe her. Starlight's look of kindness even seemed sincere.

“I don’t see why you’re so hard on yourself,” Starlight said. “The Umbrum deceived you. Had they been what they said they were, all of your efforts would have been justified, wouldn’t they?”

Hope shook her head. “I killed 1,036 ponies.”

“Well, you knew that would happen. You had to know, when you were planning the Siege, that there would be some collateral damage. After all, you don’t invite changelings to the party and then expect them not to break anything. What matters is why you did it.”

Hope put her head in her hooves. “I did it because I was an idiot who believed in friendship and in my friends. Nothing else matters.”

Starlight did not respond to this. She did not seem to want to keep up this line of discussion. Instead, she said, “You never said why Sombra left you the first time. What was it about that day that so upset him. The Crystal Faire was past, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Hope said, lifting her head up.

“Then what was it?”

Hope considered whether to answer or not.

“Come now, dear. You’ve told me so much already. You can’t just leave me hanging.”

In a voice barely above a whisper, Hope said, “I had gotten a letter. I had been accepted into the Royal Academy.”

“Ah, the Royal Academy, Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns,” Starlight said. “Only the finest unicorn mages go there. Supposedly.”

“Supposedly?” Hope asked, still quiet. She was not much interested in why Starlight had said it, but it got the topic off of her and her own story for a while.

“Well, I didn’t go to the Royal Academy,” Starlight said. “I’m not saying it was because my father didn’t make a donation for the new library wing, but… my father refused to make that donation and suddenly I was rejected.”

“I didn’t have any parents to make donations for me,” Hope said.

“I ended up at the Rational University of Canterlot. As fine a university as any other, but not one known for its magical program. Everything I learned about magic was practically self-taught. But I showed them, didn’t I? I stole the cutie mark of Celestia’s beloved protégé, the pride of the Royal Academy, Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

“I was supposed to become a princess,” Hope said, her voice now exactly a whisper.

The look on Starlight’s face upon hearing the word ‘princess’ can best be described as like that of a beggar upon being informed that he’s just won the lottery.

“Princess Radiant Hope. So, that lunatic isn’t such a lunatic after all,” she said, more to herself than to Hope.

And then, a cloud settled over Starlight’s features. “Wait, how do you know you were going to be a princess? Countless unicorns have gone to the Academy and only one has ended up a princess.”

“I saw it. I saw it in the Crystal Heart. The Crystal Heart always reveals to a pony his or her true destiny. It showed me that I would become a princess and it showed Sombra that he would become… what he became.”

“I see,” Starlight said. “I didn’t know that about the Crystal Heart. Crystal ponies don’t seem to like talking about it to outsiders much.”

“I had a choice between that destiny and Sombra," Hope said. "I never regretted choosing Sombra. That is, until I lost them both."

Starlight nodded. “Well, the thing about destiny is that, I think, it isn’t so easily avoided.”

“I never used to believe in destiny,” Hope said. “Now, after what happened to Sombra.... I feel like it must exist because it's punishing us. It's punishing me...."

The tissues now glowed blue. Hope took several and began wiping her eyes furiously. Starlight waited for her to finish. And the lunatic raved on.

“Do you have any clue who he is?” Starlight asked. “He seems to know you quite well.”

Hope just gave a little shake of her head so as to say ‘no.’ She finished wiping her eyes and tossed the tissues into the trash bin. Then she locked eyes with Starlight, her glare becoming intense.

“I want… I need you to understand…” Hope said. “I’m not a monster. I’m not like you.”

“Hope, I’m not a monster either,” Starlight said. “You should know that by now.”

“I don’t know anything anymore,” Hope said. “Except that I’m not a monster. I never meant for what happened to happen.”

“I believe you, dear.”

“I never meant to kill 1,036 ponies.”

Starlight looked at Hope gently, knowingly, almost motherly. “Are you trying to convince me, dear, or are you trying to convince yourself?”

Hope stood up. “Th-thank you for the tea,” she said, her voice still low. “But… but, I should g-get back to my d-duties.”

She was halfway out the door before Starlight could say anything. But Starlight did call out behind her, “Thank you for talking to me. Come again, anytime!”

When that failed to stop Hope, Starlight said, “Just one more thing before you go. You clearly were thinking about recruiting me when you were planning the Siege. Why didn’t you?”

“I knew I could never trust a pony like you,” Hope said as she slammed the door.

“Not like I could trust you either,” Starlight said quietly.

---

Starlight had just set about to cleaning up the tea-set when the door opened again. It was another orderly.

“Letter for you,” he said as he tossed the letter into the room. It landed on the floor.

Starlight sneered as she picked up the letter. There was no envelope — it had already been discarded — and from the rumpled look of the top of the letter, that part had already been read, scrutinized even. But the bottom half of the letter was in much better condition.

Starlight glanced at it.

“Dearest sister,

“I hope sincerely that you have taken to reform and received a new heart, at last intent on following the letter of the law….”

No wonder the orderly in charge of censoring letters had given up. She and Stirring had done an excellent job of concocting a fake brother for her fake identity. This letter, like all the rest, was on the face of it nothing but exhortations about the rewards of an upright life and suggestions of morally uplifting books to read. All of it praiseworthy, no doubt, but also incredibly boring. And every word was in the tone generally considered peculiar to a particularly priggish breed of country schoolmaster, which is what Aurora Gleam’s brother supposedly was. Apparently, he blamed her mental difficulties on some imagined sin or other and never failed to suggest that only repentance was needed for her to begin experiencing good health again. Of course, the censors couldn’t stand it; they would probably let the letters pass now without even a hint of scrutiny.

But Starlight was not interested in exhortations and morally uplifting books. Rather, she was looking for something else entirely.

She sat at her writing desk and scribbled on a piece of paper this:

“I have received last letter of yours. Everything is prepared to begin when you say. I am only awaiting your command.”

Starlight nodded as a satisfied smile crossed her face. As she began writing a reply, she said, “Oh, Stirring, have I got news for you!”

---

It was late. Few ponies remained in the office. Most of them had taken off for home hours ago. But Stirring Words and one other reporter remained hard at work at their typewriters. Or, at least, Stirring Words appeared to be working. In fact, he was just pounding on the keys, typing gibberish onto the blank page. What he was doing, however, was watching Joe, the grey pegasus, three desks away.

Watching and waiting. Waiting for the other to show any signs of fatigue.

Go home, already. Go home. Stirring thought.

At last, Joe stretched his forelegs and his wings. He stood up from the desk.

Finally!

“I think I’m off, Stirring,” the other reporter said. “Can’t avoid the missus all night, can I?”

“You two still having trouble?” Stirring asked, pretending to care.

“Buddy, we been having trouble since the day we got hitched. You about ready to go, too?”

“No, I think I’m going to be for a while,” Stirring said. “The editor’s got me on a new story that’s taking more work than I expected.”

“Oh, still on the Empress of Equestria story, right?”

“Yep,” Stirring said, showing no signs of the fact that he really hoped the other reporter didn’t want to talk about it.

But, of course, the other reporter did. “How hard is it to write a story about that boat?”

“Ship,” Stirring corrected him again.

“Now you’re getting like the boss. He’s always at me about the words I use.”

“But you’d be surprised,” Stirring said, “about how much there is to do. The group running it has been giving me the run-around when I tried to talk to them about it. They just wanted to babble on about 'ghosts and dark energy' and give me the standard tourist spiel that comes with old places like that. I finally got something concrete out of them but now I’ve got to work extra hard to get it all down on paper before the next deadline. The boss wants it before the Empress opens for business.”

Stirring was lying through his teeth. The new proprietors of the Empress of Equestria had been more than happy to talk to him at length about the ship and their plans for it. They had been, if anything, too helpful. Stirring had been able to not only finish, but turn in, the story earlier that day.

Joe approached. “Hey, if you’re really having that much trouble, maybe I can stay and help out. Beats another fight with the little lady.”

Go! Home! Stirring thought. But what he said was, “No, no, that’s fine. She already yells at you for being out at all hours.”

“That’s for sure! So, what’s one more shouting match?”

Stirring’s hooves dug into the typewriter. The other reporter was alarmed by the frantic clicking that resulted.

“Everything okay?”

“My hooves slipped,” Stirring said. “I’ll be fine. Go home. You’ve been working yourself too hard as it is.”

The grey pony shrugged. “I could say the same about you. But okay, I’ll go. Just be sure to lock up.”

“I will,” Stirring said.

When Joe had finally left, Stirring leaned back in his chair and gave a huge sigh of relief. Finally, he could get to what he considered his real work. Going into his secret drawer, he pulled out Starlight Glimmer’s latest letter. After once more reading it through, he almost laughed.

“Radiant Hope a princess? Didn’t see that one coming,” Stirring remarked. Looking up at the presses which would soon be once more in use, he added, “I think I have the perfect idea of how to spin this.”

---

What was Stirring Words' 'perfect idea'?

Read on.

Comments

[dystopia8]

Well, I guess this chapter answered all my earlier questions. Wonderful work, I find myself getting increasingly invested in this story despite not even knowing what direction its heading towards yet. I look forward to seeing where all of this leads.