The Broken Bond

by TheApexSovereign

IV.XIII - Gored at the Gourd (3 of 3)

A sweet sugaryness permeated the air. The sky droned on and on and on, polluted with thousands of stupid lights like some aerial Hearth’s Warming tree. And their buzzing was more annoying than last year, more so than cicadas in the dog days of summer. Another inhale, another dizzying wallop to the senses. Starlight felt fat just from smelling! She hugged her stomach, massaging the dull, writhing ache that hadn’t stopped since fleeing from Applejack.

I’m finally alone, thought Starlight. Nopony was around to thank her as if they knew her. None could offer their paltry sympathy, trying to decipher that which Starlight hardly understood: the source of her constant mistakes, her inability to learn and her propensity to worsen ponies and their lives instead of helping them. Oh, Twilight… If I could take it back, I could. I might. Would that have made you happier? Me, continuing on? Your friends living their lives instead of trying to help me with mine?

...Dying?

The thought made her want to scream. Scream. How dare she, this… this insane hypothetical that only existed in fantasy.

But it could be real. And that could was enough to not want to take chances. It’s better this way, she told herself for the umpteenth time. Avoiding my friends. I’m sure one by one they’ve moved on and continued with their night. I’m sure of it. She had gotten some looks, a couple questions, mainly from foals and grubs asking who Starlight was playing Hide and Seek with. She half-lied and told them her friends.

A bag of ice clunked down in front of her. Starlight was startled, almost forgetting she wasn’t totally alone: the juice bar-tender, blessedly speechless the whole time.

Starlight felt gross all of a sudden. Part of her didn’t blame this kid for her silence, her aversion of the eyes. All signs pointed to her being put off by this sullen pony, and rightfully so; she’d every reason to be overjoyed and feel loved as far as a stranger could tell. She didn’t know she was annoying and disappointing her friends, or even offending them in Twilight’s case.

And yet… a sad, pathetic part of Starlight hoped she didn’t give off a certain air, despite the fact that she didn’t want anypony breathing down her neck—literally, in some cases—because they wanted to hug her.

“Why aren’t you talking to me?” Starlight asked, genuinely curious. Her casual tone caught the little thing completely off guard. “Weird question, I know,” she amended, humorously. “But I’m not looking for company right now—could find plenty of that if I wanted to—I just couldn’t help but notice how, um, different you are from your the rest of your people. And before you take offense, I find different interesting.” Her friend gallery was proof of that. Starlight propped her chin with a smile. “So... what’s up?”

The little changeling spoke in a shy female’s voice. “Th-thanks, but it’s nothing, really.” Well, somepony was quick to dismiss herself. “I’m your server, and you my customer. A customer who clearly wanted peace and quiet and a bag of ice, and those were all I had the right to provide.”

“You must have questions, though.” As in, ‘Why aren’t you enjoying your party?’ ‘Why do you look so miserable?’ ‘Is something wrong?’ ‘Do you need another freaking hug?’ The girl was really trying to be discreet, too, but Starlight had a faster eye than most. “I noticed you looking my way as you cleaned those... bowls? Cups?” She never thought of them enough to ask last Gourd Fest.

“B’holders, actually. But I’ve not corrected anycreature. Prince Pharynx thought they were different from Equestrian tableware, and so… the name stuck. I think it’s… a little lame, if I’m being honest.” She giggled gently, as did Starlight, though mainly toward the notion that a dope like Pharynx thought “b’holder” was a cool name, which obviously made it superior to pony-made bowls.

In the following silence, the nymph leapt backwards, supposedly off a stool, buzzing to a basin to retrieve another soaking foreleg-full of b’holders. “But to answer your question,” she grunted, setting down the stack of eight with a solid thunk, “yeah! Hoo…” She panted, shaking her hooves prior to retrieving a soapy, nappy tangle of steel wool. “Yeah, I’ve got some questions of my own. N-not that it’s anything about your horn, o-o-or, shoot, I shouldn’t have mentioned that at all, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Calmly, with an assuring smile to match, Starlight added, “You’re fine. Continue, please, I wanna hear you out.”

“W-well, if you insist…” The changeling’s pink little fin wobbled as she scrubbed the b’holder vigorously. “I just thought it’d be rude to bother you if you’re clearly not in the mood to talk. O-or so I thought, but clearly you are.” Perceptive one, this kid. Starlight found herself enthralled. “And I won’t presume that you want me to ask them now that we’re talking. I might be young, but I’m very mature for my age, you know.”

“And humble.” They smiled to one another, until a pesky shot of pain through her horn made Starlight wince, grabbing it. “Oh, thanks for this.” She grabbed her ice bag in both hooves and placed it to her pulsating forehead, pinning it with one. “This’s been killing me all night, so double-thanks.”

“No problem squared!” chirped the young changeling. A math joke—adorable. She went right back to cleaning her legion of dirty b’holders, a grin as sweet and nerdy as its owner now stamped upon her face. “It looks painful,” she said. “I couldn’t sit there without doing something.”

“I know the feeling. Believe me,” Starlight added under her breath. Blessed Equestria, the frigid weight on her forehead was a million times better than the doctors’ dumb “numbing spell.” Was it unhealthy to put this right upon her stump? Who even cared at this point? Starlight would give her magic up again just to eliminate the pain, honestly.

And suddenly, she felt gutted, the warmth tickling her bosom gone. Iciness seeped into her head, crept beneath her mane. Her teeth chattered. Worst of all, that’s all there was—just cold. Nothing deeper about it. Nothing was special anymore, Starlight remembered. She wasn’t special. Everything was surface level, no longer soaked in magic down to a molecular level for her to manipulate with godlike power.

She was just like everypony else.

Which is fine! Starlight told herself. But she had always struggled with change, that’s all! And it was an issue that existed long before Sunburst fell out of touch. Sunburst… Mom...

Starlight asked the child before she felt completely hollow, “Excuse me?” That drew her big blue eyes, a darker shade than her powder-blue carapace. “What’s your name? I-I don’t think we’ve met before.” A finger of water crept icily over her left eye. She almost forgot it was there, silly pony! Starlight removed the ice pack, instinctively picturing a heater, only to realize she could no longer will the atmosphere to her desire.

The child smiled, like smile-smiled, in spite of this tragedy. “I-I’m Ocellus, Miss Starlight. If… if it’s okay with you, would you like to be friends?” she quickly asked.

A sudden question, something this stammering nymph acknowledged as her cheeks lit up faster than Starlight’s ever could.

She empathized with that, and her rashness. Ocellus’s mouth opened in preparation to backpedal, but was unable to commit before Starlight replied, “I’d love that.”

A full second passed before acceptance, and a relieving exhale. “Well, um, w-would you like a nectar cocktail?” Ocellus asked, gesturing to the carved stone shelves behind her, stacked with various labeled bottles filled with an array of orange-yellow fluids. “I’ve gotten really good at making this one! It leaves this tingly aftertaste on your tongue, being a mixture of every citrus you could shake a stick at. I call it ‘Lightning in a Bottle.’ E-even though it’s served in a cup. Uh, I mean, buh-holder,” she mocked like a dope.

Though Starlight giggled, something in the back of her mind felt off about all that. She’s quick to serve me a drink before saying anything else, Starlight realized. Ocellus might not think I’m interested in talking about her if not myself, if her first instinct is to do what she’s been doing all night.

Starlight smiled gratefully, though surely it came off as pitying because of how unsubtle she always was. “I’m good, thanks. But what about you? Been doing this long, Ocellus?”

A shake of the head. “N-no, I took after my dad at about eight-thirty. We specialize in nectar, so… it’s kind of expected of me.”

Starlight hummed, noting the way her pointed ears wilted, and her smile felt at least partially forced there. “So what’s your specialty, then?”

“‘Mine?’” Ocellus smacked herself on the chest, as if no one had ever asked her such a thing. “O-oh, well… it’s boring, but I love to read and learn new things.” A smile eased its way in. “Most changelings call me anti-social, but… I dunno, if I had somepony who shared my interests, I like to think we’d sit all day in King Thorax’s personal glade and just... read all day, and then talk about what we’ve read. We’d share thoughts and opinions about what we’ve learned so we remember it better.” She sighed with the wistfulness of a child’s fantasy—just the idea of having a friend. It was sad, but it hurt to see her look so despondent whilst claiming, “But nopony would wanna do that for fun. Like I said, it’s kinda dumb. B-boring, I mean. I’m sorry—y-you have so much more to deal with, my problems look so trivial by comparison!”

Starlight was speechless, which she knew only worsened Ocellus’s fastly-wilting confidence because Ocellus was so eerily familiar. In her mannerisms, her likes, even the light, or lack thereof, in which she viewed herself.

Starlight reacted, speaking from the soul, knowing what this child both wanted and needed to hear. “Well you’re in luck, because I love reading.” Wide, foal-like eyes regarded Starlight with such wonder, she laughed under her breath. “And I love to learn, to boot! And we’re friends already, so I’d say we’re on the right track. Whadda ya say to an afternoon spent being ‘boring and dumb,’ Ocellus? Reading about the exciting truths of our world and growing smarter than our peers while doing so?” Starlight cleared her throat and exhausted brain of any lingering theatrics. “I dunno about you, but that sounds like loads of fun in my book. No pun intended,” she added, snorting.

Ocellus giggled shyly, covering her reddening face. It was cute. It was very cute. Starlight kept laughing, her giddiness a ticklish flutter.

Though in the back of her head, all the while, a doubt took root.

A pinching in the back of her brain: what was she doing, it asked, befriending this child without thinking? You idiot, it whispered with her voice. Two biospheres sat between their homes, and Starlight had no way of getting there without a horn. She couldn’t ask Twilight for help, either, whether by spell or train ticket, for every time she did would flare a reminder in Twilight’s mind of how her brilliant ex-student made a reckless, life-changing decision that now affected her royal life, inside and out.

And then, even if all of that panned out, she might hurt this sweet little girl with another reckless decision. Just like she did with Twilight, just like with Tempest, and Applejack, too; if not in some oh-so-brilliant act of kindness or responsibility, then her constant sadness and drama and angst that nopony had room for in their busy lives.

Regardless of how much they think they wanted it. Wanted her.

Starlight blinked, forcing out such thoughts and yanking her smile back up. At least don’t ruin this girl’s evening, too. Just play it by ear and stop obsessing over hypotheticals… very likely hypotheticals...

Starlight shuddered, exhaling.

Ocellus was still cleaning hollowed-out stone, smiling like she just found buried treasure in what may very well be her first friendship. She really is adorable. And an interesting name, too… It was certainly fitting, with those huge knowledge-starved eyes.

“What are your favorite topics, Ocellus?” Starlight asked, bracing her elbows against the bar.

“O-oh! Um…” Ocellus placed the sudsy steel wool to her chin. “Well, obviously history. I mean, it isn’t obvious to you, but it is to me.” Starlight tittered, nodding. There was much of herself in this girl, albeit an older version from the filly who only cared about games and Sunburst. “Equestrian history has been my passion this past year. It’s inspiring, honestly! I just wish there were more concrete records of the pre-Tribe era. Ancient pony civilization must have been scary, but all the more breathtaking if they grew into the ponies of today.”

Starlight almost, almost, faltered in her smile. “Yeah, I bet… Hey! I got some rare books I can bring next time I’m in the area. If you’d like,” she added, in case she was being presumptuous.

A ridiculous notion, she realized, as Ocellus immediately squealed, “I would love that!” She covered her grin. “Uh, sorry.”

Starlight just laughed, laughed at this rare youngling whose love was learning. A feeling bolstered by a warm heart—she was blissfully unaware of the truth of the pre-Tribe era, and that made it all the sweeter.

She had no idea it was lost because of the Witches of Flutter Valley. Our only link to that era is the final journal entry of one Lickety Split. It was safer if the public thought light of Starlight’s outburst in Hayburger the other night, if the humored questions asked in regards to “the rumors” were anything to go by. Most, it seemed, believed Starlight had made a deal with classic witches: ponies squatting in the Whitetail Woods or Everfree, reading omens in the murky depths of bubbling stew.

None, not even her friends, could fathom the walking nightmares they really were.

“If you two are having yourselves a friendship connection,” came the voice of a mature-sounding mare to the left, “then I should take my business elsewhere. You know what they say about third wheels.”

“O-oh! My apologies, Miss!” squeaked Ocellus. “I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s fine. I’ve a habit of going unnoticed.”

“Oh, well, could I get you anything?”

“Water to start.”

Starlight was stunned. You’re here, too. The words died in her throat, closing with shame, embarrassment, and a bit of intimidation.

Fizzle—Tempest—-glanced in her direction, knowingly, like she was in on some mild amusement. “About what I expected, as far as reactions would go,” she told the back shelving.

Starlight could only imagine how alone she’d been at this party. Which meant only one thing. Even though she thinks I’m stupid...

She steeled her heart easily, having already written Tempest off days ago. “I’ll cut the crud just the way you like it: why’d you come?”

“Is that for my coming here, or this moment in particular?”

A riddle of the ages. “Hit me with both,” Starlight decided.

“I’ll do you one better and fire both answers at once: Princess Twilight. She so kindly extended the invitation.”

How she said it… Starlight’s gut feeling remembered Tempest thinking just as irrationally about Twilight, and perhaps even others, as she herself did. Especially about their young friend’s hidden motives.

“In case you’re wondering,” Starlight felt compelled to say, “no, Twilight has no idea you’re the reason I,” she glanced at a cleaning Ocellus, “freaked out.”

“I didn’t care about that. You, though..." She couldn't finish.

Sweet Celestia she really was a spitting image of Starlight’s soul. “Regardless, you’ve probably thought about it half a hundred times.”

Tempest gripped her b’houlder of water. “I felt terrible,” she said softly, as if Ocellus would gossip, let alone understand. “Alright? I felt…” She lifted the stone bowl to her lips. “I couldn't get it out of my head. Like it was playing on an accursed loop.” She knocked it back, bottoms-up with both hooves. Twin rivulets snaked down her pulsating, muscle-sculpted throat.

Starlight tore away, praying she couldn’t see through that scarred eyelid. I’d forgotten how… impressive she is. She was more fit than any pony ever ought to be, even a royal guard. Just pure muscle. Part of Starlight blamed the dimness of her bedroom for not noticing, the cool pigment of her coat, too; the other remembered accepting it quickly when meeting her in the hall, forever after taking it as part of Tempest’s “package without consciously doing so. Like Maud’s way of speaking or Trixie’s… Trixie-ness. Maybe she was feeling squishy and self-conscious.

“Surprised that I feel anything but contempt beneath this mug of mine?” Starlight looked and was surprised, shocked further by Tempest’s sorrowful eyes. “I can feel bad and awkward, too, you know. I was pretty awful the other day.”

“Oh, you were.” Tempest frowned—good, meant she cared about a second opinion. “But honestly I should have known better than to drop that on you. It was pretty narrow-minded, disregarding your life’s struggle. I didn’t mean for it to come off that way, but I wasn’t really paying attention to how I was speaking.” She forced a laugh—gotta keep it lighthearted. “My first mistake, really.”

“That was no reason to flip out like I did. There never is.”

“Well, as somepony with an ongoing history of ‘flipping out,’” Starlight quieted, recalling the last several years of her life, right up to her encounter with AJ mere hours ago, “you… just… you gotta keep an eye on these things. Be conscientious. I don’t, not always, not as much as I’d like, but…” Almost never.

Starlight cleared her throat. “You know, I’m more surprised now than I was then by how, ah, calmly you’re exposing yourself like this. Forgive me for being so blunt, but from what I know of you—which, let’s be fair, is very little—that isn’t your typical M.O.”

Tempest’s shoulders dropped. “No, it clearly isn’t.”

Starlight laughed, she so bluntly dismissed herself for no good reason. “Not bad for a former villain, though. I remember how long it took me to open up to Twilight!” As if she was any better then as she was now, but Starlight shoved that out of mind.

“It took you almost a year and a half?”

“Uh, well, no. I guess I didn’t take a sabbatical of penance.”

“Well, believe me, I implore you: I’ve done and felt a lot of unusual things this past week.”

Even a blind pony could tell how unusual this was for Tempest in how she was hunched forward, shoulders twin peaks at the base of her neck. The slight stiffness in her otherwise dispassionate voice added to it. In a way, Starlight felt honored; in another, she might have been coerced into doing this by Twilight because it was so out-there.

Starlight opted to shed her own light on Tempest’s words. Former or the latter, it wouldn’t be suspicious either way: “I don’t think it’s unusual, doing these things without really knowing why. It means you’re acting on instinct. That’s gotta be comforting, right?”

“I find it unnerving.” Scary, she basically meant.

“But it means you aren’t as horrible as you think you are.”

“I never said that.”

“It’s why I said ‘think.’” Now it was Starlight’s turn to smile knowingly, and Tempest to look away stiffly.

“You know,” began Tempest, “you’re far from the ‘reformed villain’ label that it’d be an insult, attaching it to your name. Take it from somepony who’s struggling right now to apologize for acting like a total screw-head.”

Starlight was dumbfounded, and not by the slur. “Uh, wow. You really mean it.”

“Yeah, if that’s not indicative of my feelings on the matter,” she hesitated, locked eyes at last for half a heartbeat, “well, there you go.”

Starlight was still reeling from the slur for foalish, uppity unicorns. It was shocking to say the least; even Trixie, who regularly dismissed ponies to their faces for the most superfluous of reasons, wouldn’t stoop to use such foul language.

Little Ocellus, nearly forgotten, tilted her head curiously. “What’s a scr—?”

“Don’t!” Starlight suddenly found herself no better than a newborn, staggering and shouting from on top her plushy mushroom stool. “Don’t finish that. Ever. Till the end of time, okay?” The youngling was too surprised by her outburst to register all that.

Then Ocellus’s parted lips pursed, she nodded affirmatively.

A soft laugh drew Starlight left. Tempest was smiling defeatedly at her toned chest. “See what I mean?” she asked. “You’ve a weak perception of yourself that’s forgotten as soon as somepony else’s problems are at the forefront. I’m far from reaching that point.”

Starlight remembered a conversation with Luna that suggested otherwise. “And you’re so different?”

Tempest didn’t lift her head. “Look, I’ve grown accustomed to doing without thinking. In my time with the Storm King, every mission, every fight and betrayal near the end, I became adept in detaching myself from the moment and just acting. Like the weapon I was. The tool that I am.”

The enormity of her poor self image made Starlight gasp. “You are so much more than that! A tool wouldn’t feel remorseful for hurting a… another pony.” No need to label themselves “friends” again. Tempest’s personal feelings might not have changed, for as Starlight said, her actions, for better or worse, had blossomed from the essence of her being.

“I feel like I’m speaking with the princess now,” Tempest remarked. Her near-invisible smirk must have been Starlight’s imagination. “I’m well aware of my worth, I don’t despise myself that much. And if I wasn’t already certain, Twilight’s tried convincing me as if I’d figured otherwise.” Starlight had nearly forgotten why Tempest was actually here in the first place, and wondered if she made any progress in a decision. “But here’s the thing: those days are supposed to be behind me, and yet, I’d pinned you against that wall as if you were one of my subordinates. I was still the same Commander Tempest Shadow.”

“It’s really not as bad as you think, but I can see what you mean.” Starlight would be lying, and hurting Tempest in the long run, if she claimed blindness toward the shades of her old life bleeding into their conversations.

Self-spite slathered Tempest’s words as she continued, “I’m not so different from how I used to be, but I’m fighting to get better because I know I can be. Therefore, I hope you will accept my apology, Glimmer… Please… and let’s never speak of it again… Um.” She shook her head, wrinkled her nose like she tasted something rank. “Ah, horseapples,” Tempest sighed. “I’m terrible at this friendship thing.”

Starlight felt sorry for her. She knew what it was like to fail hard and then doubt yourself forever. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up—”

“That is richly ironic, coming from you.”

“Seriously, though! I’m the one who failed to account for the implications behind brainwashing her friends.”

“You brainwashed your friends?” Ocellus cried.

“Because of homework,” said Tempest.

“No, it’s because I was terrified that I’d wasted Twilight’s time and energy in failing to learn anything about friendship.” Starlight felt ridiculous saying it aloud, and held a burning cheek. “I’m also the pony who’d traded her reason for living with zero consideration, again, for how her friends might feel. And that was just last week.”

“But you did it for a noble reason,” Ocellus tried to say, but Tempest thought over her, “So what you’re telling me, is we’re both pretty bad at this. And that we’ll never be perfect.”

I suppose so. But Tempest’s hopes were too unrealistic to agree with. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that. But it’s just hard, for us, you know?”

“Changing?” Ocellus wondered, to Tempest’s side-eyed displeasure, or was it curiosity?

“Kind of,” said Starlight. “I’m more referring to how, when backed against a wall, and something from our past drags us back to the moment where it all went wrong.. We just sort of snap. Just a little.” Like when I thought my first friend left me. That he hated me even though I was only being me, trying my very best… A notion so painful, so likely, that she refused to believe that was the case. It had to have been cutie marks, it’s the only explanation that didn’t hurt so much. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, we don’t always make the selfless choice. Not when you’ve spent your entire life concerned with your own happiness. But so long as we feel bad about it, we’re not so bad. I think.”

“Very reassuring,” Tempest muttered. “Now are you referring to yourself, or me?”

Starlight was thinking of herself, but her comparison was totally applicable to Tempest’s own mindset, especially from the other day. How Tempest was spurred into a rage at the notion that her entire life was some piece in a cosmic chess game.

“Both, I guess.”

Tempest’s mind had to have been in the same place, clenching her jaw thoughtfully. “I haven’t changed my opinion, just so you know. About…” she glanced in Ocellus’s direction, who was busying herself cleaning and pretending she wasn’t listening intently. “You know. I doubt I ever will, even though I’ll accept the job.”

And the world was softer all of a sudden—even the constant ache burrowing deep in Starlight’s chest hesitated. The amber glow above, softer, its sugary aroma a little mouthwatering, even the buzzing was a gentle melody to absorb this by. “Y-you will?” Starlight asked, disbelieving. “Tempest, that-that’s wonderful! Really! What changed your mind?”

“As I said, I can be better than this. ‘The wanderer.’ I can be a better version of myself than some aimless vagabond… Besides,” she continued with bolstered vigor, “I’ve a debt to repay to Twilight, and this country. It’s a win-win as far as I can see.”

Starlight could see it now: Princess Twilight Sparkle, ever-shadowed by her strong, fierce but warm-eyed bodyguard bearing the six-pointed starburst, worn with pride and desire instead guilt and a sense of duty.

Basically, the opposite of why Starlight was willing to sacrifice herself for Twilight.

That didn’t pan out so well, this ugly mentality—the opposite of friendship. Tempest ought to change her mindset quickly for Twilight’s sake, perhaps talk to her about her guilt and misgivings.

That would save her from making the same mistakes.

Starlight pushed it out of mind; this was a happy moment for Tempest. “Well, regardless of your reasons, I’m happy for you. I’m sure Twilight is, too. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think you’d take her up on the offer. I mean I wouldn’t, considering… But it just goes to show how much stronger you are!”

Tempest, looking straight ahead, unclenched her jaw and said, “...Fizzlepop.”

“Uh, yeah that’s, uh, that’s your name!”

“My name is Fizzlepop.” The older mare swallowed. “My friends can call me Fizzle, if they’d like.”

Starlight blinked. It was like some obvious yet profound equation was just solved in front of her: Tempest Shadow is ‘Fizzlepop,’ friends call her ‘Fizzle,’ she wanted Starlight to call her ‘Fizzle,’ therefore, Fizzle wanted to be friends with Starlight despite offending her.

This… was unexpected. Actually, it was totally unthinkable! And Starlight was truly speechless. “This’s a pretty roundabout way of asking if you still wanna be friends!” She could be wrong though. She just could. “I-if that’s what you’re suggesting…”

Fizzle looked away, a pink dusting her mauve cheeks. “Tch. I wouldn’t have said anything I don’t mean, so shut up and accept it already.”

Starlight tittered both at her shift in demeanor, and in conversation. “Hey, I’m not complaining. I think that name’s less of a mouthful, don’t you think, Fizzle?” It felt… good, saying that again and without fear or regret weighing heavily.

Her friend smiled. “Indeed. And it sounds less ridiculous to me than ‘Fizzlepop Berrytwist.’ Hey, barkeep!” She clapped the wooden counter.

“Who? Me?” Ocellus squeaked.

“Yeah, you. Give me something mild.”

“Um, it’s nectar, Miss Fizzlepop. Fizzle! I-it’s the very opposite of mild, by nature.”

“So dilute it with water,” she told the child like, well, a child.

“A-alright! One second, please.”

While Ocellus buzzed about her work space gathering the appropriate bottles, Fizzle—I can’t believe she still wants to be my friend—turned to Starlight. “So.” She slid one mushroom closer to the middle.

“Uh.” Starlight did the same. “So, heh.”

Fizzlepop took another seat, leaving one empty between them. “What happened?” she murmured, leaning closer. “When you…?”

“Here you are!” Ocellus cheered, clunking down a b’houlder of nectar, almost as thin as water.

“Thanks.” Fizzle smirked, possibly out of politeness, but then she lifted it to a smiling Ocellus and it deepened in a way Starlight hadn’t seen from her. “I’ve not had something this sweet in years,” she said. “Much less served to me by a bright-eyed little thing such as yourself. Don’t you know who I am?”

Ocellus flushed, nodding. “I-it’s nothing,” she said, bowing just as quickly. “I just know you’re not a bad guy anymore, so I’ve no reason to be afraid!”

Fizzle, grinning a tiny grin, rose the b’holder to her lips.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all she’d thought about since it happened, my… offense: her reaction. And she seemed concerned, surprisingly. Starlight was tickled. She’d forgotten how alike they were beneath a surface level.

She looked to Fizzlepop, guzzling down her drink like the broth of a soup, and said, “As for what, ah, what happened the other day? With the freakout and the uncontrollable emotions and ostensibly my magic?” Starlight tittered, because that got dark and awkward and Ocellus, shocked, was appalled by this flippant facade Starlight continued trying sell to an audience who didn’t buy it nor want it nor find it the least bit charming oh why am I like this?

Starlight sighed. One problem at a time, and at the moment, her’s didn’t matter: Tempest, or rather Fizzle, the self-proclaimed S-H-word, probably felt awful still despite being forgiven. “Uh, just so you know, for the record, I’ve equal responsibility for that fiasco.”

“I spurred you into that mindset,” Fizzle gasped between gulps of nectar.

“Wait, you did?”

“Fair enough,” Starlight said intentionally over Ocellus. “But if I hadn’t sorta kinda lost my mind,” ‘A week ago,’ was the unspoken part, “I’d never have bothered you to begin with. So please, don’t think you were the absolute cause.”

“Only partly,” Fizzle muttered, diving back into her drink.

Starlight felt bad nodding, but she did so with a smile. “Yeah, that’s how it goes, usually. Mistakes and whatnot… So anyway, yeah! I’ll tell but only if you don’t share it with you-know-who.” Ocellus could be trusted, Starlight believed, but she didn’t want rumors potentially tarnishing Twilight’s reputation. That would be a PR disaster and a half.

Fizzle gave a look, then nodded behind her bowl.

She pulled it from her lips a second later, sighing sharply, but with a content smile on her lips. “That was delicious. Hey, bar—O-Ocellus.” Fizzle got another ‘Who? Me?’ look sent her way. “Before we proceed, do you swear your silence as Starlight Glimmer’s friend?”

“Uh, yes ma’am!” She saluted.

“Good. Because if you break that promise, I’ll come find you and eat you.”

Ocellus wrinkled her nose. “Firstly, don’t patronize me, please. I’m not that young, I’m thirteen.” Starlight took one look—Fizzle sitting there, stupefied—and guffawed. “Second,” she heard Ocellus continue over her, “everyone has their secrets. And if this is one Starlight wants to maintain, then trusting me to keep it that way is a test of our friendship. All I’m saying is, there’s no need to threaten my life if I already have a stake in this.”

Fizzlepop blinked, eyes returning to their cool, almost predatory glaze. “I like you.” She smirked; Ocellus blushed. “Excuse my wariness, kid. It’s nothing personal. I, ah, didn’t grow up in a very tight-knit community, is all.”

“It sounds sad,” said Ocellus—with soft eyes and wilted ears, she genuinely sympathized.

“Yeah, well, I’ve dealt with it long enough not to need your pity.”

“Fizzle,” Starlight hissed.

“Actually,” Ocellus said shyly, “it’s not that I pity you for your life. I do feel bad about what you carry now, and your struggle dealing with it. But I wasn’t talking about that, rather it’s the filly you were that makes me sad. The one who went through all that… and made you. S-sorry if that’s insulting!” she cried, shrinking. “But… I doubt it was any fun for you. So, I’m sorry about that. I really am.”

“Uh.” The taller pony glanced over, caught Starlight’s amazement at this mature little bug and said to her, “It’s… a good feeling. To know you’re empathized with instead of rightfully scorned. I appreciate your pity.”

“Sympathy,” Starlight whispered.

Fizzle nodded. “You understand what I mean.”

Ocellus giggled into her hoof. “I do, yes!”

What a sudden, dumbfounding, and wholly heartwarming exchange. “You’re a natural,” Starlight remarked to them both. Fizzlepop would be fine, and down the line Ocellus would surely find somepony who appreciated her for her, and befriended them through a deeper bond instead of something surface-level like learning.

“Starlight,” said Fizzle, “I still want to know what happened back there.” Ocellus looked over whilst cleaning, ears and lips perked. “When you fled.”

That was a benign way of labeling her cowardice—coincidentally the one thing she didn’t tell Twilight. That and Fizzle’s connection to it, of course. “Alrighty then. So,” she looked between the two of them, “you know how I teleported, but do you know when?” Fizzle actually nodded. She’s really thought about this as obsessively as I had. “I wanna make it clear right now that it was completely unintentional. Like, I didn’t even think I could do that...”

And Fizzle listened to her every word, never interrupting or giving any indication for what she felt, which was unnerving save for the occasional nod. It didn’t take long for Starlight to lose her reservations, the worry of being judged, reported, or coddled. They respected her the worse the tale got, until she was almost—almost—-ready to tell them the real version she had kept from Rainbow Dash. The sad, pathetic version where she tried so desperately to maintain this tremulous status quo, she ended up having a meltdown at the last pony to understand, much less care, for that sort of thing. So Starlight kept it in, and even forgotten about it in the midst of reliving this idealized version of herself—the non-emotional, judgemental-of-her-friends variety everypony seemed to think she was.

The one remark Fizzle made was, “To think, if I could leave in the blink of an eye like that, there’s a lot I’d have missed out on. A good lot, mind you.”

Starlight smiled, despite how it stung—she could have not ‘missed out’ on the chance encounter with Twilight. Then, perhaps, she wouldn’t have made everypony more worried and scared of her enough to throw this party and uproot the lives of all of Ponyville!

“So, yeah!” Starlight concluded, fighting a sweat, hardening her heart and ignoring the ‘could have”s and “should have”s bombarding her every other thought. “Whatever they did healed my nerves like a charm. Kinda wish they didn’t though! Or that the numbing spell for my horn actually worked.” Speaking of which, Starlight scooped up and slapped herself in the forehead with her perspiring bag of ice. “Because this, ah, this really hurts. Like, a lot. Periodically!” she added as Ocellus opened her mouth to speak.

Fizzle glanced over, saw that had satisfied her question. “I can’t help but feel somewhat envious,” she said, smiling. “Not for the pain, I’m quite familiar with that business, and that’ll subside in a month or so. But I was never treated when I started using my magic again.”

Starlight’s gut dropped. “Wait, so you’ve—?”

“Lost all feeling in my face,” she finished, bowing slightly. “It happened so gradually that once the ache subsided, so did my sense of touch.” Fizzle gestured around her muzzle. “It’s been years, I think. Goes to show how I haven’t ever thought about it. So there isn’t any need to feel sorrowful for me,” she told Ocellus.

The little bug wiped her eyes, snorting thickly. She’d been a leaky dam the entire discussion, not that Starlight blamed her. From her perspective, they must be—

“The two of you,” Ocellus croaked, “you’re both such sad, strong ponies.”

Starlight couldn’t believe she was hearing that after such an embarrassing tale—losing control of both mind and body. Yet Fizzlepop smiled warmly at this… wonderful, naive child turning back to her. “It really goes to show how great your power was. Or is, I should say.” She put a hoof to her chin. “Makes me wonder what that says about me.”

“Are you… angry? At me?”

Fizzlepop looked to her like she’d regrown her horn. “Absolutely not. It’s your life, why should I care?”

Right, right, right. Fizzlepop was still… learning. She had no reason to feel for Starlight’s struggles—which, she shouldn’t! Because Starlight gave it up willingly! She… pushed that narrative to Fizzle, right? Or did she know it was an accident and still wrote her off as some stupid pony? She might not be angry, after all, but that doesn’t mean she lacked an opinion.

“Um, so, your face, huh? That must feel weird,” said Starlight, in an oh-so-natural topic change.

“It doesn’t feel like anything,” said Fizzle. “I’ve grown used to it. You, on the other hoof—”

“You said you’ll c-c-cook your brain!” Ocellus cried, because Starlight felt comfortable enough dropping that little nugget an hour before her bedtime. “That’s scary, Starlight! Aren’t you afraid of hurting yourself?”

Every day.

“‘Like a hard-boiled egg,’ if I remember correctly.” Starlight wanted to blast that smirk off Fizzlepop’s face, the poor girl was an even paler blue than before.

“It must be terrifying, Starlight!”

“It’s very low risk!” Starlight assured her. “My face-nerves are what I gotta worry about. They can’t be mended forever.” She shook her pounding, freezing head. “Honestly, though, I won’t for this, just for the record, but this idea’s just becoming more appealing by the moment. Just pop on over to home and back a few times and destroy them irreparably. Because this. Sucks.”

“Yeah, well, that’s life sometimes,” sighed Fizzle.

Ocellus rose, propped upon the bartop. “That’s quite pessimistic of you, Miss Fizzlepop.”

“Big word for a small fry.” Fizzle wore a fond smile. “Do you even know who I am?”

Starlight could read the tenseness of her shoulders like a book. She’s afraid of judgement.

Ocellus said with no fear in her voice, “Of course I do. But I’m not afraid of you, because you’re clearly a good pony,” she claimed in a way only a child could. “Now you are, anyway.”

Fizzle released a silent sigh. “I was waiting for the clencher. You got spirit, kid. But, ah, I wouldn’t say I’m a good pony. Not clearly. Perhaps underneath…” She gestured around her face. “This. Perhaps.”

“Beneath the cool exterior, captivating voice, imposing form and hornless head held high?” Starlight snorted. “Yeah, you definitely got the makings of one. A model good pony, ready to present herself as Princess Twilight’s gargoyle of a shadow!”

“Um, that could use some work. A little bit,” said Ocellus.

“What are you two talking about?” Fizzle snapped, defensive.

Ocellus waved her hoof. “It’s your public face! The image you built for yourself. You look kinda evil, sure, but that makes it even more striking that you’re one of the good guys now! You just need to change what the image of you represents.”

“Well, isn’t that a nice, simple outlook?” Fizzle’s smile, then her muzzle, fell. “Life isn’t so black and white, pipsqueak.”

Starlight remarked as though commenting on the weather, “I was a crazy dictator who ruled with an iron hoof. Sounds horrible, right?”

“Uh, w-well—”

Oh, sweet considerate Ocellus. “It’s horrible, don’t sugarcoat it… And I know it is,” Starlight resumed in a casual manner, “but at the time, I thought it was sortaaa, kinda… necessary, for lack of a less heinous term. I thought that no pain was worse than losing your friends, and so I did whatever it took to ensure no one would again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” chuckled Starlight.

“For having to explain that to me.” Ocellus sat back in her stool, rubbing her elbow. “It must feel terrible, looking back at what you’d done.”

“Oh, for sure it is! But I’ve looked back so many times, now, talking about it is pretty easy for me. It’s when I re-live it that’s a problem, though, thankfully that’s starting to lose its luster with time.” And for something once again being my fault as a result of my own hubris.

“You make me want to gag.” Starlight looked to Fizzle, her offense dispelled a tad seeing her humored grin, propped lazily by one hoof. “You’re so selfless, even as a tyrant.”

“That excuses nothing,” Starlight and, to what shouldn’t have been a surprise, Ocellus, said in unison, but it was.

“Eerie,” the changeling shuddered.

“And it’s ignoring something important.” A grossness stewed within Starlight. Perhaps she ought not to say anything… but Fizzlepop needed to hear this, and that was more important than her own guilt and disgust. “Be warned, though. It’s something a little bit, shall we say, dark. For, if I’m being honest with you guys, and myself, doing that to those ponies, it… it made me… feel... good.” Silence. There was no explosion, no eruption of slander and appall. Just two quiet, curious individuals willing to hear out and understand. “Like, helping ponies, being a leader… it made me feel like I was really, truly bettering ponies lies. I felt, or so I thought, their love. And I loved them. And to me, that was worth living a boring, hard life in the middle of the Bad Lands. And I did all of that while ignorant to the terror I’d instilled within my friends.” She bowed her deservedly hornless head. “And that is the scariest, worst part about what I’d done. Who I am… getting so caught up in my sense of what’s right, I become confused in what is and isn’t correct. I never, ever want to make that same mistake again!”

And yet, she did. Frequently. A poor example of how ponies can change, Starlight was a fool in bringing this up.

A hard, yet gentle weight settled upon her mane. “I wouldn’t look too deeply into it,” said Fizzle. “We all enjoy what we’re good at.” Starlight looked up, dumbfounded.

Ocellus nodded, to Starlight’s further shock, but when they looked to her, expectantly, she was at a loss of what to say.

“Yeah, I did.” She gave a sad smile, to imply she wasn’t as sad as they might think. “I enjoyed it every day, and oftentimes forgot how blessed I was.”

“Hey,” Ocellus said, perking up halfway, “I’ve learned that cutie marks aren’t as cut and dry as ponies think. Just because you were great at magic, it doesn’t mean your cutie mark explicitly had to—”

“I know, sweetie. Believe me,” muttered Starlight. “They’re emblematic of a pony’s being, though. Who they are, what they are, even why they are and what they will be, it’s all symbolized in these… cute, foalish tattoos on our hips. Like I said, I know,” she told a dejected Ocellus. “But the Cutie Mark Crusaders specialize in this stuff, and they’re convinced my talent was never magic.” It was a sound hypothesis: Applejack, for example, was insanely strong while her mark represented a devotion to the farm and her family. “But I lost what I held dear,” continued Starlight. “Whatever that says about me, I lost my horn, my talent-talent, everything that makes me who I am. And that was in exchange for Twilight’s life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Both of them looked doubtful, concerned, and not at all convinced: they, too, could see right through the nonsense, into the self-aggrandizing mare before them.

Starlight, once again, bowed her deservedly-hornless head. “You know, it’s ironic kinda,” she realized. “I’m branded for life with what I’d done to ponies for years. Fitting, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, don’t say that! This doesn’t have to be the rest of your life!” cried Ocellus. “Uh, s-symbols can change! Their meanings are interpretable by the beholder and the context they’re in! Um, uh…” She looked around, mumbling frantically. “Uh, hey! Fizzlepop, what does your—?”

“Nopony’s. Analyzing. My mark,” seethed the older mare. Starlight cast a quick glance to the rainbow-colored firework protectively erupting before a smaller magenta one. “Just in case you were about to,” she added, loosening tension.

“I understand. Sorry for being presumptuous!”

“Honestly, you people are more apologetic than ponies.”

Ocellus just giggled.

As they spoke, Starlight realized Fizzle’s bursts might resemble a certain pair of pony’s respective magics, and she knew it. Starlight smiled, for no matter what happened, or how she felt, Fizzlepop was destined for a special bond with Twilight. Maybe if she screwed up hard enough, Fizzle would be there to pick up the pieces. Become Twilight’s new…

Her new…

As Starlight’s brain flicked ‘on,’ the world did as well: everything from the bar to the lights to her two friends were there and it made as to sense why they were there.

It was so obvious.

How could she have been so lost in her own grief to not have noticed? Because everything made sense now!

The timing of Fizzlepop’s arrival, the emergence of her room and that special armor, Twilight getting sick and Starlight coincidentally saving her and becoming obsolete and unwanted in every sense save for the forefront of her former teacher’s mind because she herself felt responsible!

And the witches. Those monsters! They wanted this, but they did nothing but obey Starlight’s wish and make it happen despite their power! They were gods in every sense of the word, but did nothing but react and live their lives as Starlight, Fizzlepop, Twilight and everypony else had ever lived theirs!

All to get to this past week.

From Starlight’s coincidental find, to the deal she made, down to its very precise wording. From the witches’ refusal to obey Twilight’s own wish, and their own great power to do so much more despite having not done a thing for themselves or any desire to speak of!

It all made such a stupid amount of sense. And Starlight, once again, was too caught up in her head to have noticed:

She was born so that Twilight would survive.

That was her Destiny, that was her purpose in life. That’s what the starbust on her flanks meant, with the magic trailing off it! Starlight’s magic was the reason Twilight was saved! And now that that was done, Starlight had… nothing.

She gasped, aching, however light. Happy. Sad and angry. This wasn’t fair, said one half of her, but it had to be, and she ought to feel honored to have played such a critical role in Equestrian history!

...And even if she wanted to change it, which, she couldn’t this was what fate rolled for her, what it dictated for Twilight. There was no changing one’s fate, Starlight’s constant blundering was proof of enough of that. Nope, no tricks, no friendship was strong enough to circumnavigate the will of Harmony—the Witches of Flutter Valley.

Her greatest flaw, unresolved after three years of living with the smartest and most patient friend a stupid broken unicorn could ask for, made more sense, too. Not on a personal level, of course—that might very well be one of the eternal mysteries of Equestria—but on a cosmic scale it was pretty cut and dry: Starlight needed to be as twisted and “suicidal” as she was. In being that, only she would be so desperate as to save a pony who hated it more than she appreciated it.

Holy crud. Holy crud. Somepony had to know this, to tell Twilight why Starlight did what she did in the hard days after leaving her life—for one reason or another, after all. Possibly even tonight!

“I’ll spare you my two cents, Fizzle.” And the surefire blubbering that would break through along with it.

“Your two cents about what?” she asked.

“About how lucky you are, you know?” Starlight braced herself on folded forelegs, tracing with her eyes the grooves in the countertop, every one of them having their place, their story and history. “You’ve got a future, and a wonderful one at that with Twilight. You’ll make her proud, I know it won’t seem that way but you will. She may seem easy to please,” Starlight gasped, her throat closing. Crud! “But that’s only because she’s so happy to watch you succeed!”

“Is… is something the matter, Starlight?” asked Ocellus. She was concerned. So was Fizzle, in her own head-cocked way.

With eyes were trying to discern some secret code in Starlight’s face. “You look like you’re about to puke.”

“I—!” Starlight’s voice failed her, thank Celestia. It’d be weird to cry in front of the ex-commander of the Storm King and a little girl. She swallowed the surging down, stepped on it in her brain. Mashed it till it was less than a memory.

“I’m just saying,” she resumed carefully, “that, your new job will be a wonderful opportunity to get closer to Twilight. Take it from somepony who’s been living with her and Spike for years! They would love the fresh face in that big old castle of theirs.”

Fizzlepop and Ocellus just… stared. Pitying. Like she was already crying!

“Though, be warned, there are some things that need getting used to before you’ll consider it your new home.” Starlight began speaking from experience, remembering Twilight’s tired groan, her peeved pout, the way she would laugh and how easily she’d do it. “First of all, don’t go lagging behind on their schedule. ‘Sleeping in’ is ‘sleeping the day away’ in the Sparkle household.” Starlight swallowed, scrubbing away a tickle on either cheek. “Every day is an eight-thirty wakeup. If you aren’t, Twilight’s gonna pop into your room and do something really mean, like tickle your nose with a feather or fill the room with this insanely white light. And she’d stomp her hooves like a royal guard on sugar, shouting,” she hesitated, drumming her hooves rapidly against the bartop, “shouting, ‘Come on, get up, let’s go, we gotta move, we’re burning daylight!’” Only Starlight laughed, and did so short of breath, gasping intermittently. “Spike makes the best breakfast, by the way!” she remembered. How could she have forgotten? Taken it for granted? “And, and he’s always willing to lend a claw with something. He might occasionally want your company in going to the market, though. It’d be best not to fight it! He’ll get you with those weepy dragon eyes, the little sneak.”

Fizzle continued looking very, very serious. “Why are you giving me these irrelevant details?”

“Why are you upset, Starlight?” added Ocellus.

“These are the details that’s gonna save your friendship with Twilight and Spike, so pay attention!” They would need someone to effortlessly fill the hole Starlight would leave behind.

“I’m up at six regardless of the day.”

Starlight ignored Fizzle. “Regardless, Twilight’s pretty laid back as a castlemate. F-for being a princess, of course, but she doesn’t like it when her friends call her that. Hates being reminded of how much more important she is than me! O-or anypony, of course. But you’ll have to get used to that side of her, it’ll make her happy if you acclimate to it quickly. None of this ‘princess’ stuff, either, you hear? It’s either Twi, or Twilight. I tried Twiggles once but she hated how that sounds… so don’t call her that, either.”

“Uh…”

That same, dumb look this entire time. Starlight groaned. “Fizzlepop, come on! This is important! Twilight’s gonna be destroyed the first couple days, and she’s going to need a friend who actually gets me, can talk to her about this and guide her and make her understand because, believe it or not,” Starlight hooted, “you, the pony I met just a few days ago, knows me better than anypony I consider my best friends!”

“Huh!” Starlight laughed, sniffling. “Isn’t that just ironic? Well,” she snorted a runny nose, “guess what? It’s not, because the real Starlight Glimmer is too much of a coward to show herself to anypony else, because if they knew me, they’d hate what they saw!”

“Stop it. Stop this insane talk right now.” Fizzle jumped from her seat, turned fully. “You aren’t making any sense, Starlight.”

“How are you not grokking this?” she cried.

Fizzle rose her voice, bordering on shouting each word individually, “Because you’re talking as if I’m coming in to replace you. That is crazy. You aren’t going anywhere and… and I wouldn’t want you to anyway!”

Oh, she would.

“You… you understand what I mean, don’t you?”

If not now, in the face of this ridiculous display, then sometime later, when Starlight screwed up irrevocably and said or did something really angering.

“Well, newsflash here, Commander. Everything you’ve seen and known this past week? All this insanity that’s been going on and how clearly not-okay Twilight is? It’s all because of me. I’m the one who made it happen!”

“You just got done telling me how make mistakes, and that we can always change.”

“When?!” Starlight wailed, wailed. Oh sweet Celestia…

Fizzle tensed as she snapped, “The story! The one about your village, and how you brainwashed those ponies because you cared about them! That’s who you were, Starlight—!” Fizzle caught herself, breathed in… and exhaled. “And that, to me, is what you show in the pony you are now.” Ocellus nodded reassuringly beside her.

Starlight smiled, despite feeling sorry for herself. These two were so good… both of them, good to the core. Unlike Starlight, nasty and twisted with a flicker of it buried beneath a network of terrible deeds and personality flaws.

“Sooner or later,” Starlight began, unable to meet their eyes, “Twilight’s going to stop thinking with her heart and start using her brain. She’s going to realize just how much she hates me for all of this.”

“So, what, you’re just going to run?” Fizzle croaked.

“Something like that,” Starlight blurted without thinking.

Ocellus buzzed up and above their heads. “Wait here, I-I’m going to go find Princess Twilight!” Starlight’s heart sank. “Just, just wait he—Ah! Oof!” She grunted beneath Starlight, pinned underneath her.

What did I just do? Starlight was stupid, she was saving Twilight more elongated grief. “Don’t, please! She wouldn’t understand!”

“Please, get off me!” Ocellus wiggled beneath her.

“Wait! Just wait a minute!” Starlight had to finish. Make her understand. She was smart, she’d get it. “Twilight would be so disappointed in me if I don’t understand friendship after all these years! If you tell her what I told you, then she’ll never let me out of her sight again!”

A pair of hooves grabbed her by the shoulders. “Shut up and get off of her!” Starlight heard as she was thrown, careening in the air a full second before something flat and hard slammed up to meet her back.

A weak buzzing faded hurried out of earshot. Starlight scrambled to her hooves and thrust herself in the fuming glare of Fizzlepop. “Why’d you do that?!”

“You’re acting like a crazy pony! You need help, Glimmer—-Twilight’s help.”

“No. I. Don’t!” Starlight snarled, shoving this musclebound brute’s unmoving chest. “You don’t know a thing about me, or Twilight! If you did, you’d be on my side a hundred percent!”

“Is that so? Because not a few days ago, you were talking her up and down as being this great and understanding friend. But you’re making her seem like a disgusting mirror of yourself!” She thrust a hoof out.

Starlight hit the ground hard with a single-legged shove. “You jerk,” she said. “You did not just say that, you jerk!”

“I did and I will again! You’re a broken mirror who can’t see herself right, let alone the lengths her friends have gone to show they love her. You are the one who is so lucky, I wish I’d had what you do when my horn was broken! But I didn’t. And you’re squandering it. Like the self-loathing little worm Twilight said you were!”

“She did not!” Starlight cried, Tempest’s tearful fury blurring with fresh tears of her own.

“She said it kindly, you little idiot, but she made it clear just the kind of weak little pony you are! And she called you strong?” Tempest hooted sardonically. “I’ve met equally messed-up people who would laugh at this sight before me.”

Starlight Glimmer, once the most powerful mage in all the land, now a supposed self-hating, self-destructive, hornless incompetent so delusional she herself believed she hasn’t been crying the last two minutes.

“I hate you!” she roared. Nothing else seemed fitting. Not even that. “I hate this, I didn’t want it! I didn’t wanna get rid of my horn in the first place!”

“Then what were you expecting to lose?!”

“My useless life for one!” And the pressure swelling and swelling within Starlight burst in a choked, deteriorating mess of sobs. Tempest said nothing. Her silence screamed of disgust. “I’m just this pathetic little thing, wh-whose friends, only tolerate her, because they’re too kind to turn me away!” Starlight broke again, crying into her forelegs. “Because that would make them worse than me! Don’t you understand?! That’s the only reason they’ve kept me around!”

“You are so delusional. It’s sad. It’s honestly heartbreaking, and I don’t say that lightly.”

Starlight couldn’t take it anymore. Between this and attacking that sweet little changeling, Twilight wouldn’t be able to save Starlight’s face after this fiasco.

And then, she remembered: Twilight was definitely on her way, whether by wing or teleportation it wouldn’t be long now.

She scrambled in place a heartbeat before tearing away from the scene, heaving and choking back sobs. It was so telling, how Tempest said nothing to stop her.

---

One minute they were talking, laughing, everything was going fine. Then the next, she just… broke.

Fizzlepop didn’t know what happened, much less how.

And yet she stood there, gawking like a fool. Instead of running after that… that stupid, poor little soul. I could have done something, anything, better than what I just did. But Fizzle didn’t, just like she didn’t that Ursa victim from making a stupid, rash decision and ruining her life.

That was the truth of Tempest’s character, laid bear. Like the universe, or whatever crap Glimmer believed in, gave her a test, and she failed spectacularly. That’s who she’ll always be: a pony who stepped on the wounded instead of extending a hoof to help, like Glimmer would.

No, this was nothing. She hit me, I hit her back. She ought to have known better than to tell me what I do and don’t know about her and Twilight. Fizzlepop bared her gritted teeth, shedding her self-pity even as it continued gnawing through her chest like a parasite. No, Fizzlepop didn’t care about Starlight Glimmer anymore. She hit me. Except, she shoved Fizzlepop, rather weakly, and clearly in a fit of grief. I hit her back.

For thinking this way, she gave herself a good bash across the face. It stung—a blunt, dull tingle edged in fire.

Oh, Celestia and Luna, if they even heard these prayers, explain to Fizzlepop what was wrong with her, and why was she deemed fit to serve Princess Twilight by everypony save herself? No wonder Glimmer subconsciously thinks them a poor judge of character. It’s not like her fears were rooted in any truth, just the wrong ones. Potentially.

Probably not.

She didn’t know anymore. About her future, about Twilight. And that made me terrified. Afraid that I was making some kind of mistake in accepting Twilight’s offer.

And she took it out on Starlight.

Gods. What was wrong with Fizzlepop? What was wrong with Starlight? What’s wrong with ponies, she wondered, as if the stupid fireflies above would answer for the Two Sisters. What is it about losing a horn that made unicorns go crazy, thinking the world is out to get them?

“You look sad and lonely,” a bland voice remarked. Fizzlepop genuinely screamed. “Sorry, was that too blunt?” Whirling, she met with a deadpanning mare in an ugly wool dress. “I’m practicing. Forget about it actually.”

Fizzlepop shook her head. “Where did you come from?”

“Up there.” Maud tilted her head back, once, toward the several-meter-high wall sloping jaggedly up to the surface of the Bad Lands. “From the magic used to carve the Hive, it now bolsters a unique hybrid of magical geodes between tunnels. It’s so beautiful I wanted to cry.” There was a beat, and before Fizzlepop could finish processing and altogether dismissing this drivel, the pony continued, “Sorry for blabbering. Beforehoof I’d gotten done beating half of Ponyville in a nectar-drinking contest. Now I’m in the midst of an intense sugar rush, and it’s making me talkative and unafraid of strangers.”

“You sound like a normal pony to me, albeit a rather soulless one.”

The pony just blinked. Fizzlepop felt guilty all of a sudden, hoping she didn’t offend this mare. I’m on a roll tonight. Come on, I have to do something, Starlight needs serious help, whether she wants it or not. More than what I can give, but I can at least… ugh, explain myself to her. Or at least tell her I’m sorry. She might have to stoop to her belly, muzzle buried in the Bad Land sand, to prove it.

Fizzle was stunned, feeling weirdly okay with the notion. Probably just overwhelmed by everything from her racing, loathsome heart to the encounter with this random rock of a pony.

“Look, listen,” Fizzlepop began, pausing to clear her throat soundlessly, “I don’t mean to be cold, but I just did something absolutely thoughtless, and I have to go and make it up to my… ah,” Screw it, I have nothing to prove to hide anymore, “my friend. So if you don’t mind...”

As she turned, this strange, random pony said without a scrap of emotion in her voice, “I’ll take a wild shot in the dark and guess it’s Starlight Glimmer.”

---

“Obviously, Rainbow! Who else could it be?!”

She didn’t need to announce the obvious. It was bad enough that it happened, but did she have to acknowledge it, too?
Starlight had just attacked, though not really, but, she did… just verbally abuse a child. She would never do that, but she did it anyway. Why did she do it? Obviously for no good reason, but Starlight hasn’t had a reason for anything she’d done, let alone a good one! She just acted wild out of the blue, no warning whatsoever! Was it the witches? Were they controlling her? Rainbow was taking this far more calmly than anypony ought to!

Twilight watched as her friend lowered herself to the child’s level, never ceasing her smoothing of the girl’s quivering pink fin. “Easy, kid. You’re okay now. Starlight didn’t… well, she thinks she meant it, but she’s been a little out of it, is all!”

“I know,” choked Ocellus. “Th-that’s not why I’m…” She gasped. “It was just so scary, and I didn-didn’t know what was wrong! I was useless, I panicked and I am useless and now she’s...”

“Oh, my goodness,” Twilight moaned. She had to pace to keep herself from completely plunging into the deep end. “Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Ohmigoodness…”

Her withers, and tracks, were grasped by something distinctly tender, as they have many a time. “Now, Twilight,” AJ said soothingly, “this situation’s lookin’ mighty dire, an’ I know tonight ain’t the win we was hopin’ for, but there’s no cause for makin’ a scene in front-a all’a these folk, m’kay?”

But she made a little kid cry!

...And that was no excuse to make it worse. Or demonize Starlight as though Twilight wasn’t equally culpable in hurting this child.

“You’re right.” Exhaling, Twilight asked calmly, “Ocellus, what did Starlight Glimmer say or do to prior to her insulting you?”

However faint, her changeling-eyes widened, glistening with swarms of ever-shifting lights. “I… I’m not s-sure.” She gulped. “I-It all happened so fast. I’m sorry.” Within a half circle of the Elements, and backed by her changeling king, Ocellus shuddered with sobs anew. “I-I-I failed! I failed her, and now she hates me!” she cried. Thorax frowned.

Hopeless, Twilight looked to the girls, to AJ beside her. Despite being the only one to have had contact with Starlight, not her nor any one of them knew what Ocellus was talking about. None of them had seen Starlight since she fled from Applejack, who spent the party searching high and low for their hurting friend.

Thorax, replacing Rainbow’s hoof on his subject’s throbbing back, frowned with puzzlement.

Like slipping on a mask, he leaned down with a grin. “Hey, Ocellus,” he hissed, “would you like to decorate a gourd with me?”

Ocellus picked her head up. Wiping her nose, she blinked wetly at her king. “What about Prince Pharynx?” she rasped.

“Oh, you know how he is,” Thorax said dismissively. “My big brother had always been independent.”

Ocellus stood. “Well, if you ins-sist, Thorax.” She spread her translucent pink wings and buzzed them, their visage melting to a blurry aura that lifted her like a feather in the wind, wavering across the Gourmet to where all the party attendants sat in pairs or even trios decorating their gourds.

“Find us a good one!” Thorax called, then, with a seriousness Twilight only heard of once, from Starlight (who was ashamed to have been the cause of it), he addressed the group. “Ocellus has always had trouble making friends, so her and I’ve gotten real close this past year. And guys? I hate to think this, but… she probably knows more than she’s letting on.”

“Yeah, figured that, too,” sighed Applejack.

“Why would she feel the need to lie about something like this?” cried Fluttershy.

“For the same reasons as Starlight, duh!” said Pinkie.

“How can any of you be so sure?” Rainbow asked. “It could be just like she said, you never know.”

Thorax nodded. “True. If it were anycreature else, I’d agree. But she’s the smartest kid in the Hive. I swear, nothing gets by her.”

“So,” began Fluttershy, “what are you saying, Thorax?”

“I’m saying that she’s covering for Starlight. They might have been reading together, or something. And then Ocellus said or maybe asked something that triggered her PTSD.”

Pinkie leaned dramatically, and with utter seriousness, against the king. “Not Starlight’s Perplexing Trauma Sadness Disease!”

Thorax’s muzzle wrinkled. “Um, kind of? B-but that’s not what it stands for! P-T-S-D: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

Twilight’s gut sank with every word. That sounded deadly serious, and even worse… “I’ve never heard that before.”

“Nor have I.” Rarity stepped forward. “Though if I know Starlight, the poor dear has been living with this, ah, ‘pee-tee-ess-dee’ for most of her life. She always seemed stressed, more often than not, always penitent in her downfall after losing Sunburst.”

Perhaps it was before that, too. Twilight knew next to nothing about her home life, or what she did before Sunburst came along. And Twilight, if this night yielded nothing good, was desperate enough to break Starlight’s trust and seek out her family in Sire’s Hollow.

“PTSD is a changeling sickness,” Thorax explained. “A mind-disease. Related to scary or intense experiences affecting your mindset in the present. Soldiers got them all the time from having to defend our home from Bad Lands beasts. The failure at Canterlot was a recent one. Usually, though, it came from a fear of failing Mo—uh, er, Queen Chrysalis.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Fluttershy. She was clutching her breast, gazing sadly at the floor. “So you’re saying poor Starlight has this… this anxiety-induced trauma disease?!”

“What are you seven conspiring about over here?” snapped the last pompous pony they needed right now.

Rainbow, thankfully, zipped right up into her face. “Trixie, ya gotta butt-out. We’re kind of busy right now.”

Trixie peeked around her, looking truly gutted. “Is something wrong with Starlight?” She became indignant before Twilight’s heart could warm towards her concern. “And you girls had the nerve not to tell me?”

“Nice and subtle, there, Dashie,” Rarity muttered, the pegasus hovering there, groaning ‘Stupid’ into her hooves. Meanwhile she broke away, stepping up beside the pegasus. “Well, now that the proverbial kitten’s out of the bag, Trixie, is there anything you noticed about Starlight that might help us? Something pertaining toward her behavior throughout the party, mayhaps? Something she said, or…?”

“Believe it or not, I am not her only friend.” Trixie’s glare was… intense. More so than usual. “I know that might be a shock, considering how much you’ve been avoiding her—”

“Hey, she’s been avoiding us!” Rainbow snapped, obscuring her pain.

Not that Trixie would notice, and if she did she cared on a scale of ‘very little’ to ‘Are you serious?’ “Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you over the world’s smallest violin! Howsabout you girls figure it out for yourself? You’re mighty, accomplished ponies! The kind who’d walk all over us if you lacked the humility.”

“Like you?” Pinkie chirped. Her smile, the bouncing, it was all a mask.

“I do not lack humility! And it’s because of that that I don’t treat Starlight like some big baby who needs this love-fest of a party to remind her that ponies like her—as if she didn’t know that already.”

“Just what worm crawled up your apple, Trixie?” AJ hocked a loogie to the side, much to Rarity’s disgust. “Shoot, if y’weren’t lookin’ down the length o’ your snout on us, you’d see it’s darn clear that Starlight needed an’ wanted something like this!”

“I-I thought she was sad that nopony seemed to be thanking her,” mumured Fluttershy.

“Oh-h’oh!” Trixie bellowed. “You’re so on the wrong page you aren’t even in the same book, Fluttershy. Sit in the back and let the adults have their talk.”

AJ stammered. “Hoo-eey, you’re nastier than a pile o’ garbage right now, Trixie!”

“What’s your problem?!” Rainbow snarled, diving between AJ’s and Trixie’s.

“You girls are my problem!” Trixie began pacing. “All I wanted was a night to myself, and you had to go and screw that up even more! One night, just one night you six had to do something, anything right by Starlight, but you went and did… did—I don’t even know what! But you’ve evidently made the problem worse—surprise, surprise—because you’re all trying to make Starlight have a problem! And in doing so, you’re making her said problem. That is my problem, because you want Starlight to be your problem.”

“That’s completely kookoo!” Pinkie cried.

Twilight snapped out of her reveries and stepped up with her friends, leaving Thorax a worried bystander. “Trixie, we’ve been doing our best to help Starlight, too. Like it or not, she does have a problem. She’s hurting, badly.”

“No, she isn’t!”

“AJ has seen it for herself! And for whatever reason, she doesn’t want to talk to me. We’re trying to get her to open up, that’s all we want, but she outright refuses to do even that! This is a serious problem, Trixie.”

“That sounds more like a you one than a Starlight-problem, to me.” Trixie glanced up in Rainbow’s direction. “Feathers-for-brains over here’s your little spy, right?”

“Why, you—!” Rainbow’s tail was thankfully stepped on by Applejack. “You know that’s not how it is, you jerk!”

“If it quacks like a duck!” Trixie shouted back. She approached Twilight, brushing past Rarity, whose eyes and everypony else’s angrily followed her step as she continued, “You must know already, how Starlight’s only spoken with me about what’s bothering her. And that bothers you, doesn’t it?” Trixie halted, her smirking muzzle inches away from Twilight’s. “That’s why you’re so desperate to believe it must be something more—that it isn’t a problem on your end, but Starlight’s. And that’s frankly disgusting, Princess of Friendship.”

That wasn’t true. It couldn’t have been! It… Twilight started. It doesn’t make sense. Starlight’s behavior doesn’t make sense, and if she’s opened up to Trixie, REALLY opened up to her…

She wouldn’t be acting like this right now.

“No,” Twilight realized. “Trixie, don’t you see? It’s terrible. This is terrible. It’s sad and horrible and while we stand here, bickering amongst ourselves, Starlight is out there feeling like all her friends secretly don’t like her!”

Trixie flinched back, puzzled, eyeing Twilight as though her person held the code this riddle. “No she doesn’t! That’s crazy! Why would she think that? Does she think that about me?! Why, what’s she keeping a secret from her best friend?” The frequency of her questions—cracks in Trixie’s smug armor.

“I don’t know for sure, yet. But think about it, Trixie: if Starlight truly told you everything, and I mean everything, you’d be in the same boat as I am: gathering everypony you know, doing everything you can to dispel all those dark notions swarming in her head. But she hasn’t, Trixie. Starlight’s not told you anything meaningful and if she has, I guarantee it wasn’t honest. Not completely.”

And then Twilight waited for something, anything. A realization, a reaction, something.

Trixie stared hollowly, dumbstruck, at Twilight’s thundering, bleeding heart. Part of her was thankful she finally got through to Trixie, but her pity for the magician was aching. She only wanted to be a great friend for Starlight in this trying time, and for that, in spite of how nasty, uncooperative, and shortsighted she’s been… much like with Starlight, her dedication to doing what’s right was honestly heartwarming.

Trixie might not have been a perfect friend, nor the most amazing influence on Starlight—a hidden, buried fear validated at last by this horrible week—but they complimented one another like sugar and salt, made each other better despite it being against all logic.

And that, at the heart of it, was what friendship was all about.

“Trixie,” Twilight caught her eye, then the unicorn’s lightly-quivering chin, “listen to me. Are you listening—like really listening?” A quiet blink, a humbled nod. “I don’t know if this, all of what you just said, if it’s how you care. Or if your behavior is no different now from when you first befriended Starlight—partially using that poor, hurting pony as proof that you’re better than me.” Twilight withheld her spite, yet her disappointment shone clear as Celestia’s sun.

“I don’t care,” she continued. “I really can’t care. Not right now. I don’t have the strength, energy, or the heart to think of anything but Starlight. I’m completely on empty in every sense of the word.”

Trixie’s huge, glimmering eyes widened to their limits, her eyebrows squeezed together. “You look pretty exhausted there, Princess.”

“I feel dead,” Twilight said plainly. “Like I wanna take a nap for a thousand years and then cry my eyes out. But so long as I can keep them open, and dry, so long as I can feel my love for her, burning me awake at night, I will help my friend. Because, what’s going on, right now, in the heart of our best friend? That is bigger than you or me. Bigger than whatever rivalry you feel still exists between us.”

“There is. No. Rivarly,” Trixie hissed, her expression unchanging. “Who are you to judge me, Princess? Who are you?”

Twilight smiled sadly. She pitied her. Truly, she did. Her sentiments weren’t that of a friendly competing nature a la Rainbow and Applejack’s. But one friend at a time.

“Your friend, I hope in the future,” Twilight answered. “When the three of us are looking back on all this, laughing about it, you’ll feel comfortable enough to tell me why we always have to compete.”

Trixie eyed her from chin to horn, as if comprehending Twilight for the first time. And she yanked away, disgusted by what she saw. “If you think Starlight is ever going to laugh about this. And I mean genuinely, sincerely laugh, and not that weird titter-thing she does…” She shook her head, smiling without any of the pomp, the grandeur, or any pleasure to speak of. “You really don’t deserve her, Twilight.”

A sentiment Twilight realized for herself, every hour of every day, since she discovered the depths of Starlight’s love for her.

And how easily that love can fracture if not properly reciprocated.

Rainbow shoved Trixie aside. “Would you get outta here already?! Nopony here wants you messing Starlight up even worse!” Trixie galloped away and around the bend, probably to look for Starlight herself.

The contact of Fluttershy’s hoof in Dash’s side startled her. “Oh, Rainbow, I don’t think she’s done anything that bad…”

“Ya don’t think.” AJ approached. “But ya don’t know for sure, either. Think it might be best if one of us keeps her occupied, while we go lookin’ for Starlight?” She scratched beneath her stetson.

Rainbow raised her hoof. “Onetwothree not it!”

“Not it~” Pinkie sang.

“The two of you are so rude.” Fluttershy shook her head. “Okay. I’ll talk to Trixie. Maybe I can see what’s got her all worked up. She could just be scared for Starlight for all we know.”

Rarity pulled Fluttershy gently into a one-legged hug. “I’m inclined to give Rainbow’s theory credence, darling. Sorry to say, but that Trixie’s could’ve filled our Starlight’s precious head with all manner of drivel.”

Twilight frowned at Rarity; for as generous, loving, and patient as she was, she’d always been a little judgemental beneath the surface. “That’s insulting to Starlight’s intelligence. She’s wise enough not to give in completely into Trixie’s, uh, ‘drivel.’ Let’s split up girls, we have to find her.”

“Maud would know for sure!” said Pinkie, bouncing around them. “She doesn’t trust Trixie to be alone with Starlight right now, so she’s watched them like a hawk! Hey, Fluttershy, what do hawks watch for, anyway?”

“There isn’t any time!” Twilight snapped. “Pinkie, please, focus! Go find Maud and see what you can extract about Trixie’s interactions with Starlight. Be specific. Fluttershy, do what you do best. The rest of you, with me. Let’s find our friend.”

“Right!” they said in unison.

---

Harmony’s little bandaids made for the passage into the heart of the Hive, witlessly barreling through Reeka’s manifestation of her bloated corpse.

Draggle couldn’t literally see, but she saw them enter her sister and emerge out her backside as though she were nothing but the wind. That’s because she was, they were, and Draggle felt them doing so, too, and continued running through their ethereal forms as they bounded for the pass, stewing in their thoughts and fears and anger and regret.

What a delightful show this has been to watch, write, and be a part of.

“Such talkative ponies. They really do have much in common where it counts,” said Reeka.

“You mean in their hatred of us?” Draggle wondered. “Or their cowardice?”

“Both, of course!” giggled Baby Sister, though her figure was a meat shell they’ve both long outgrown. No different from spooky Halloween—or, rather, Nightmare Night—masks, scaring the little ponies. “Their darkest sentiments are only shared within the walls of their bedrooms.”

“And us,” added Draggle.

“Obviously. Shall we come to Starlight now? She seems lonely.”

“I guess. We’ve gathered enough of her strength to make it our own, have we not?”

“I’ve not stopped all day,” giggled Reeka.

“Nice.” Draggle only did what felt ‘right.’ Never questioning. And now, it felt like it was time. “I feel like making her scream. I wanna go now.”

“Me too!” Reeka cheered. “Yeah, let’s break her again! And again and again until there’s nothing left for the bandaids to piece back together!”

Reeka knew better than to believe that, but as the mortals say, living in the moment was the best way to exist. The future was murky, and the past, more often than not, terrible. Draggle shifted her concentration, blinking over to a mile outside the Hive alongside Reeka.

Now, to concentrate. Focus. Manifest, and draw their corporeal forms by the molecule for what felt like centuries. Even if it was just a millisecond.

---

Starlight hiccuped. She sniffled, snorted, a tickling upon her lip. Any tingling was scratched away. This is all my fault. I’ve no right to cry. But it hurt so bad her nose ran anew, like the rivulets of blood upon her thighs following her mad scramble up the Hive walls. Those, at least, were now coppery-smelling paint flaking off her fur. Disgusting. She was disgusting. She was crazy.

She attacked a child who only wanted to help her new friend, and Starlight completely flipped out.

What’s wrong with me? Why was I born like this? To BE this?

Shallow sobs wracked her, hammered her soul as liquid traced her upper lip. In the distance, within the glowing crown-shaped Hive, her friends were enjoying themselves decorating gourds together. Trixie, even… she hadn’t seen her all night. Clearly she was avoiding the stress and annoyance of being Starlight’s chaperone—they both knew she would never leave Trixie’s side once joined. A ball and chain, and until she came into her life, Trixie had been free to go and do as she pleased.

Hornless, that’s all Starlight was now: a sad ball and chain needing help in every sense of the word, dragging everypony down attached to her.

“I should just go already.” It was the perfect opportunity. Wouldn’t be long before they knew what she’d done to Ocellus, and said to Fizzlepop, who definitely hated her now. Soon, the whole world would know her sacrifice was ill-planned. Selfish.

“I’m bad and selfish and just plain terrible,” Starlight croaked. “I’ll leave… I gotta leave. Before...” Nopony would find her. No one could teleport to her if they didn’t know where she was. It’d be perfect.

She only had to slide off this rock, and walk to the darkness encroaching at her back.

Starlight tried.

Her muscles were clad in iron, unable to budge. I’m glued to this thing. She was chained to her friends. I don’t wanna leave them but I should. I have to. They won’t make me. I’ll only make their lives worse than I already have if I stay.

“YoU’rE a VeRy CoNsIdErAtE fRiEnD, lItTlE pOnY.” The hairs on the back of Starlight’s neck stood on end, her heart tightened.

“What do you want?” she muttered at her spread, red-streaked hind legs.

“To TaLk!” Reeka answered.

“I hOpE yOu DoN’t MiNd HoW wE’vE bEeN dRaWiNg FrOm YoUr GrEaT pOwEr,” drawled a deeper double-voice. “wHaT aM i DoInG, AsKiNg? So MuCh Of It’S gOnE tO wAsTe AnYhOw, YoU wOn’T bE nEeDiNg It! AnD uS? wElL, iT’s HaRd, MaKiNg ThEsE vIsItS hApPeN!”

Starlight’s stomach turned. These things have been inside her, used her for something she had no knowledge of, not to mention a will to be a part of it. “You had no right.” She hugged her belly. “No right doing that.”

“BuT yOu WeRe AlWaYs So PrAgMaTiC,” Reeka tutted. “WhY cHaNgE NoW?”

Starlight said nothing. If she ignored them, Reeka and Draggle would do what they had to and will go away. Maybe my life really was the payment, and they just wanted to torture me until now. A chilling notion, but one that had a definitive end to all this heartbreak—and made Starlight’s heart rise, to her horror.

“Oh, come on,” Draggle’s dual-voice wobbled, echoed, encircled her brain. “ThE oNe ThInG i LiKe AbOuT yOu PoNIeS aRe YoUr CuTe LiTtLe FaCeS.” A long, spotted finger, tipped by a nail so dirty it was black, penetrated Starlight’s view. “CoMe NoW.” It pressed against her chin, a cold spot reeking of rotten nature and blood. Her face was lifted, and Starlight looked upon the towering, lanky shadow outlined in a starry night. Draggle’s eyes were ruby flecks in a space of abyssal black. Unblinking. Uncanny.

Starlight wouldn’t shudder. She did, but she closed her eyes and pretended she wasn’t afraid of them.

“We ArEn’T sO oVeRpOwErEd, YoU kNoW,” Reeka said from somewhere. “We CaNnOt So MuCh As ToUcH aLL tHe LoVe AnD fRiEnDsHiP eXuDiNg FrOm ThAt.” She meant the party. They were like flies, buzzing around a spoiled feast they couldn’t touch. A cold comfort, a small victory, one that made Starlight smirk.

“Seems you’ve been waiting with bated breath for little old me.”

“dOn’T fLaTtEr YoUrSeLf BeCaUsE oF sOmE StUpId TaNgEnTiAl MaGiCkS,” Reeka muttered. “ThIs BaStArDiZeD oFfShOoT oF oUr GloRIoUs PoWeR. dId YoU kNoW tHaT sTaRliGhT—dId YoU kNoW fRiEnDsHiP mAgIc IsN’T rOoTeD iN aNyThInG rEaL? mAkEs MoNsTeRs LiKe Us ThInK, dOeSn’T iT?”

“It DoEs,” Draggle remarked.

“Oh, YoU bArElY uNdErStAnD hOw TiReK wAs ToPpLeD, yOu FoOl. NoT tHAt PrIncEsS tWiLiGhT Is AnY sMaRtEr, ShE hArDlY cOmPrEhEnDs PoOr StArLiGhT hErE!”

“I don’t care.” Starlight knew what they were doing. She really didn’t care anymore.

“aNd ThE aNsWeR Is ScrEaMiNg At HeR iGnOrAnT,” Reeka continued, “jUsT lIkE tHaT pEcUlIaR sIgN uPoN tHe TrEe Of HaRmOnY. wOe To ThE HeArTaChE eQuEsTrIA WiLL fAcE bEcAuSe Of HeR oBlIvIOuSnEsS!”

“I don’t care!” Starlight snapped, her gaze leaping up… and shrinking upon seeing Reeka, as tall as she was wide, arms so fat they looked to be melted propped upon her hips. Her face naught but a hole by this point, veins and blood vessels spider-webbing out from its black depths.

“yOu ThInK i’M bEuTifUl,” she declared. “ThAt MaKEs Me HapPy. ArE yOu HaPpY lIkE uS, sTaRlIghT?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, I just want it over already.” Draggle’s head snapped into a tilt at ninety degrees, not understanding. “Just,” Starlight inhaled, sighed shakily, “just get it over with, please, whatever you’re here and what you wanna do. I don’t care anymore. I’m done. I’m just so tired,” Starlight whimpered.

Draggle ogled her, unmoving. “i SuPpOsE sHe Is.”

“iNdEeD. wEll, If YoU iNsIsT sO eAgErLy.” And Reeka moved, a fist lashing upwards, grasping into a fist fast enough to catch a fly. “We’Re HeRe To CoLlEcT, yOu SeE.”

An icy chill lingered from where Draggle’s finger left her chin. “ThE rEsT oF YoUr PaYmEnT,” she said. “All ThAt Is OwEd!” In the blink of an eye, five claws filled her vision black, and freezing temperatures gripped Starlight’s face.

And she screamed.

Not from how cold it was. Not because somepony was touching her. Not even from the pain as she was lifted off the rock, slowly, painfully, a pain worsened as she kicked and flailed like the foal she was.

It was the memory of Hydia, her huge claw gripping Starlight by the face, before gleefully tearing her horn off.

---

Maud’s heart and hooves stopped dead. “That’s blood.”

Tempest Shadow scanned the wall left to right, but didn’t see what was directly in front of her. “All I see are rocks.”

Maud saw a frantic getaway. “Starlight left us,” she realized. “She hurt herself to do it. Look.” Maud stepped close, pointing to a sliver of crimson staining the face of a slate incline. “I know rocks. They don’t bleed when they’re hurt.”

“They don’t get hurt, period.” Tempest effortlessly scaled the Hive in three jumps, like a mountain goat, leaving Maud reeling from her callous dismissal of rocks. “You coming or what?” she called down. “I’m not leaving her a second longer than I—” Maud made it in one leap. Tempest hid how perturbed she was beneath a cold mask. She marched ahead into the darkness. “Let’s follow these tracks. See them in the sand here?”

“Wind doesn’t blow sand into hoof-shaped imprints,” Maud answered flatly, intentionally for once.

Tempest stopped, clenching her jaw, staring hard into Maud who threw it back twice as hard, doubly hateful. She was bold, harsh; in her opinion, Starlight was being naive thinking she could befriend such a wild soul. But not even this “Fizzlepop,” the hardest pony to have ever lived, could beat out a living rock in an intimidation contest. She whirled away, following Starlight’s evidently frantic gallop.

Hopefully she stopped at some point. “This is your fault,” Maud said.

“I told you I was sorry.”

“Save it for Starlight. You said horrible things to her. I don’t know if she’d forgive you.” Part of Maud didn’t want her to. It was horrible, but this stupid, idiot, angry mare almost ruined everything. Even if she were in the mindset to empathize and do so, Maud may try convincing her not too.

Yeah, and the moon was made out of cheese.

Tempest muttered to the calm night sky, “How’s a pony like her stand something like you for this long…”

Thing. Emotionless. Maud was thankful she was riding high on a sugar rush, still. She might not have blurted out, “I don’t like you,” the way she did. Tempest had to understand the gravity of this admission, though. “I’ve never said that to another pony before.”

Tempest didn’t so much as falter in her step. She must have heard that too much by now to feel affected. “It’s because you’re a coward hopped up on liquid courage from all that nectar.”

Sure, there were plenty of ponies she didn’t like. “There are none I’ve come to hate quite like you.” Maud sighed inwardly, trying to calm her racing heart. This Tempest had driven Starlight over the literal edge, fleeing for her life out to the Bad Lands where wild beasts roamed, and she didn’t seem to care. She didn’t have trouble expressing emotions like Maud did, either—she was just a cruel pony.

“I’m just scared for her,” said Maud, feeling a touch guilty.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Understandable. I usually do that without meaning to.”

“Again, I ask, what does she see in you?”

Maud watched pebbles and sand pass by. Every one of them unique and interesting with a long story to tell. Just like ponies—that is what Starlight saw in others, a connection which strengthened their bond in Maud’s heart the day they met.

“I wonder that a lot,” she confessed in spite of that. “I’m not a good friend. I am not always there for her when she needs me. I can’t comfort her because I don’t know how. I can tell you how a geode forms, but not what runs through Starlight’s heart most of the time.”

Tempest glanced behind her, scarred eye furrowed with… something not angry, nor positive either. She returned to the black desert ahead. “What do you get out of it, then?”

“Somepony who accepts me for me.” Maud’s heart ached terribly. She hoped to every princess and even oft-ignored Harmony that her confession would be enough for the one to receive it—if they even found her. ‘I love you, Starlight. You’re my best friend.’ That was all she needed to say. All Starlight needed to hear, and she would understand fully what that meant for the seldom-speaking Maudileena. She was going to say it. She had nothing to fear. Not even this pony who could barely grasp the concept of friendship, who was so far out of Maud’s concern she mainly felt pity for the difficult road to redemption ahead of her.

Starlight walked hers already. If Tempest was half as patient and willing to learn, one day she might have somepony to tell her that she, too, was loved. She might even have a party thrown in her honor, and hopefully she wouldn’t be so deep in despair that she visualized it all an elaborate ruse and deeply wound the pony that loved her.

I should have never left her alone. She needed to hear what I’d wanted to say. Maybe, if I had…

It was too much. It didn’t matter. It was too big and scary to think about right now. They had to find Starlight first.

“I hope for your sake, Starlight understands why you felt justified to verbally assault her.”

“I never said it was justified.” No, Tempest only said Starlight “baffled” her and she reacted poorly. “Don’t concern yourself with my sake, little pony. Unlike her, I don’t base my entire life around the perception others have of me.”

Maud thought that that’s what drove her to the Storm King in the first place. She didn’t care enough to say that. “Starlight knows what it’s like to be different, and judged for that,” she explained. “She’s the best friend freaks like us could ask for. You’d be happier to appreciate that.”

“You’re blunt.”

“I need to be.” Not that she always was. Heck no. “I’m a dancer with four back-lefts when it comes to talking about our feelings. I’d rather avoid it entirely if I could help it.”

Tempest chuckled, and reared her head, white teeth bared. “More ponies ought to be like you, Maud Pie.”

“That would be a boring place to live.”

The large mare chuckled as though Maud was joking.

---

The entire world was on standstill. Watching this very moment with bated breath.

The earth gone beneath her hooves, Starlight must have been hovering in place, far more steadily than she ever had with a horn. The breeze was gone, everything a still, solid weight upon her. Even her thoughts ground to a halt—her joints, muscles, her very breath, even the blood pumping furiously in her ears—-frozen solid, pouring all her focus and existence into the huge five-legged spider clutching her underbelly.

Nopony in all her life had ever touched her there before.

Touching her, pressing against her, so close—too close—-to something else. A horrible two-toned giggling filled the air, and Draggle squeezed as one would check the firmness of a watermelon.

Starlight squeaked, the first noise since being grabbed… by Draggle. She was being touched—THEY’RE TOUCHING ME.

And a thousand needles stabbed her everywhere at once, her brain and senses lighting up and devouring her like wildfire.

Terror, an instinct within realized. I’m experiencing terror.

And Starlight Glimmer screeched.

Flailing. That’s all she was good for now: galloping, and failing at that. Starlight moved against her own exhaustion, pawing desperately through the air praying to everything, even the ones touching her, that she would find purchase on solid ground. It didn’t come immediately, but if she ran harder she could flee from the icy pressure gleefully squeezing her belly, giggling like a child possessed by true evil.

“PlUmP aNd DeLiCiOuS!” her captor remarked, clutching and squishing her rapidly.

Starlight’s voice jostled embarrassingly, even as she fought, kicked, wailed and screamed and spat and swore until she cried so hard, so terrified and violated, she soiled herself violently.

“LoVeLy.”

“HeY, yOu GrAbBeD hEr!” Reeka teased.

“Puh’-puh’lease…” Starlight dropped her head, sniveling, blind with tears, reeking and flushed with heat. The world moved around her, until Draggle’s frigid forearm pressed up from underneath her dock. Starlight was cold. She felt gross. She was nasty. Her heart ached so bad she wanted it to stop.

And suddenly, she was pincered between two, twig-like claws, nails digging into her face. She cried out, they had to have been impaling her cheeks. “Stop!” she squeaked. “Ow! Ow, it hurts! It hurts!” She couldn’t specify what—everything was tired, burned, pinched or ached.

“Be SiLeNt AlReAdY.” Reeka slid into view, a matted, filthy head of black wire. One eye was as big as Starlight’s head, and it smoldered with absolute loathing. “YoU’rE cAuSiNg A rAcKeT.”

As if she cared about who saw her by this point, even in this state. “What do you want with me?!” It was too much: failing Twilight, hurting her friends, lying to herself and everyone. Starlight was far from strong; Fluttershy was strong, Maud was strong—they acknowledged their faults and tackled them, head held high, again and again no matter how many times they failed.

They were so much better than her. And she just made their lives worse.

Starlight wailed, realizing this. She was a bad broken mess. The Witches of Flutter Valley took her horn and in doing so showed the world who Starlight Glimmer truly was, stripped of her power and her confidence. “I’ve already paid my debts, so if you want my life just take it already and let me GO! I don’t care anymore, you hear me!? I don’t CA-A-ARE!” Starlight squealed with all her guts.

“My, My, ShE’s GoT sOmE lUnGs On HeR,” Draggle above, around, inside her head remarked. “I WoNdEr HoW LoUd ShE cAn Go, ReEkA.”

“SaMe HeRe.” Reeka stepped back, her monstrous brown eyes never breaking contact as she shouldered out of the way of the Hive. They just wanted to play with her first, Starlight despaired. Reeka clucked, certainly sensing this. “wE’vE bEeN tHiNkInG, sTaRlIght,” she said aloud over her whining. “HoPiNg, ReAlLy, ThAt OuT oF eVeRyThInG wE’d ToLd YoU, yOu’D aT lEaSt ReMeMbEr Us ReFuSiNg YoUr MisErAbLe LiFe!”

Draggle laughed dopily, not that it made her thunderous voice any less horrifying. “EvEn I rEmEmBeReD tHaT!”

“I remember, I know already!” Starlight wailed. “I’m useless, even to you! But what else do I have to give? Why are you still bothering me if my horn was supposed to be payment?!” Her stomach was cold, her belly was touched, so was her rear, her face, her brain and heart and everything and all felt unclean, violated, defiled. She wanted it gone, all of it to go away. But the witches said nothing, nothing, nothing and it was maddening to no end! “You took my horn, you’ve ruined my friendships, what else is there if not my life?!”

“YoU’rE eAgEr To Be RiD oF tHaT,” Draggle observed. “HoW’d TwIlIgHt FeEl To HeAr SuCh SeLfIsHnEsS, i WoNdEr?”

She was right. It would destroy Twilight. But she would get over it. Yet Starlight wept pitifully all the same.

“GeE!” Reeka cooed, tapping the matted, frozen flesh—once the place of her jaw. “It SeEmS lIkE sTaRlIgHT hErE dOeSN’T hOld HeR LiFe In SuCh HiGh ReGaRd.” The air warbled with her words, until it turned out she was humming. “AnD All We SaId WaS yOu’D lOsE aLL yOu HeLd DeAr. Do YoU rEmEmBeR tHaT, dRaGgLe?”

“I dO, i Do! AnD i ReMeMbEr YoU’d GiVeN hEr A wArNiNg So ThAt sHe MaY aVoId ThIs NiGhT! wHaT wAs It, SiStEr Of MiNe?”

“i ToLd PoOr StArLiGhT tO dEsTrOy HeRsElF, sIlLy! Oh, StArLiGhT, wHy, Oh, WhY aRe YoU sO sElFiSh?”

Starlight didn’t know. As demonic laughter filled her heart to burst, she just cried, unable to do anything to defend herself like the useless pony she now was. She could barely live like a normal pony, for Celestia’s sake. And Starlight cried from the depths of her stomach, “I just wanted were my friends not to waste time babying me,” she descended, sobbing. “That’s all I wanted, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, m'sorry...” She was so, so pathetic. Even with her horn she would be powerless against just one of them.

Celestia wasn’t some god. Nor Luna, or Cadance and likely not Flurry Heart. And definitely not Twilight. Their strength was a mirage, their full power a smidgen of what Hydia possessed. Starlight’s was a puff of it. Everypony else? Dust. Embers.

The Witches of Flutter Valley weren’t even mere gods. They were actual Gods—they were the representations of Harmony, and Starlight could only submit to their will just like everypony else.

Reeka at last ceased her laughter. “YoU jUsT hAd To ToRtURe YoUr FrIenDs By ExIStInG! aNd NoW tHeY’rE fORcEd To PaY fOr YoUr ImPuDeNCe.”

Starlight hiccuped, sniffled, gathered her breath and voice after one failed attempt. “They, they already do,” she squeaked. “I’m the problem in their lives.”

“NoT yEt!” sang Reeka. “Oh, NoT eVeN cLoSe, My DeAr! Oh, Oh WaTcH tHiS… wAtCh, sTaRlIGhT!” She didn’t. She didn’t want to see Reeka’s horrible face. She didn’t want to see whatever was in store.

“WATCH,” the witch roared loud enough to be heard from Canterlot.

Terror impaled Starlight, forced her eyes open to where the horizon-crowning jewel of the Bad Lands shone ahead. She didn’t understand.

“YoU sEe ThAt?” One flabby arm rose, rose, and rose and at last froze, flicking a gnarly, pudgy talon at the Hive. “YoU’rE tO lOsE wHaT yOu TrEaSuRe mOsT,” she uttered without any prior playfulness. “ThAt LoOkS pReTtY iMpORtAnT tO mE. wHaDdA yOu ThInK, dRaGgLe?”

Starlight felt nothing but the steady slam of her heartbeat. “No,” she breathed, tears flying from her cheeks as she shook her head. “No, no you’re just scaring me! Y-you said that my magic was what I held dear! Hydia told me she’d come to collect my payment and then she took my horn! You can’t do this, you can’t be serious!”

Reeka gasped, her form stone-still, pointing at the Hive and all her friends. “YoU tReAsUrE yOuR mAgIc MoRe ThAn YoUr FrIeNdS?”

“N-no!” That hesitation sealed her fate. It meant that deep down, she didn’t. “Oh, Celestia, no! NO-H’OH!” And she kept screaming her denial. But Starlight knew, knew that, perhaps, if she’d considered her wording to Hydia more carefully…

“ExAcTly.” Reeka’s grin was audible. “yOu’Ve EnJoYeD yOuR tImE wItH tWiLiGhT sPaRkLe, ClEaRly, BuT nOw Is ThE tImE tO sAy GoOdByE.”

“No, NO! NO!”

“nOtHiNG lAsTs FoReVeR, aFtEr All, BuT i’M sUrE tHaT iN sPitE of ThIS lAsT wEeK, yOuR fRiEnDs HaVe EnJoYeD yOu ImMeNsElY.”

Lies. Everything they said was a salty lie in a fresh, opened wound. All Starlight could do was shed tears. Cry, and tell them, “I already paid! Twilight’s safe, you can’t just take her away like that!”

“Ah, BuT dEbTs CaN bE rEpAiD iN iNcReMeNtS, yOu SeE! aNd If YoU rEfUSe To GrAsP sO mUcH aS tHiS, wEll, YoU aRe A mArE oF fAiTh, sTaRlIgHT. iT’s wHaT BrOUgHt yOu tO OuR dOoRsTeP, AfTer All! NoW hAvE fAiTh ThAt LosInG yOuR HorN wAsn’t EveN nECeSsArY! tHaT iT wAs A mErE LauNcHInG pOiNT FoR BrInGInG aLL yOuR ‘dEaRlY-hElD’ fRiEnDs TogEtHEr, rIgHT heRe, RIGHT NOW, sO tHeY mIgHt PaY fOr yOuR cHoICeS oNe. LaSt. TiMe.”

My horn… didn’t even need to be taken?

Starlight felt dead, if this is what it felt like: her emotions, thoughts, her very breathing demanding too much for a pony who lost and was about to lose everything but the honor of existing. Existing while her friends did not. All she felt was nothing, couldn’t think of anything beyond, They took my horn for no reason. Starlight hardly felt the thin burns underneath her eyes when Draggle released her face, swiftly holding out two fingers like a ‘V,’ as if clutching the Hive between them.

Draggle’s arm looked a mile long from within the palm of her hand. “I hOpE yOuR pAyInG aTtEnTiOn, StArLiGHt,” she said in her deep, southern monster-echo, “bEcAuSe ThIs WiLL bE fAsT. It’LL hURtChA. PhYsICAlLy, BuT mOReSo EmOtIoNaLlY. bUt If YoU hAdN’T rEaliZeD tHe NeCeSsItY oF aLL tHiS yEt, YoU wILL sOOn EnOUGh.”

Reeka sighed from everywhere and nowhere at once. “sPOiL tHe EnDiNg, wHY dOnChA?”

“tHiS oNe’s SmArT,” Draggle replied, “BuT sHe’S sTiLL a PoNy.”

“FaIr EnOuGh.”

Starlight was quivering in Draggle’s paw. “Just tell me without the song and dance!” she stammered. She wanted to sound strong and fearless but she never fooled anypony, she never will, much less these Gods. “This isn’t fair! You could at least give me a straight answer already!”

“FaIR, eH? WeLL, HeRe’s A sTrAiGhT anSwEr FoR yA,” said Draggle, “aNd I kNoW yA gOt HeArIn’ iSsUeS So PeRK uP yOuR eArS, pOnY. ‘CaUsE i’M oNlY sAyInG tHiS oNcE. iT’s So SiMPle A cOnCePt ThAt ThE dUnCe ThAt i WaS cOmPrEhEndEd It, MuCh To HeR sHeEr, MInD-bReAkIn’ hOrRoR!” White static leapt from finger to finger, enwreathing her adjacent nails. Above the soft crackling, the towering witch grimly intoned, “MuCh LiKe LuNa’S dOwNfALL, ThIs, RiGhT hErE, iS nEcEsSaRy FoR eQuEsTrIa’S fuTuRe! HoW’s ThAt FoR fAiR?!”

Utter dread seized Starlight by the heart. “Why?!” she wept, a deteriorating whine.

Draggle brought her fingers together, squishing the magic and pulling it again like gum betwen her fingers. “BeCaUsE nOt EvErYoNe HaS aN eAsY lIfE, sTaRlIGhT gLiMmEr.”

“YeS, yEs, YeS!” Reeka snapped. “aNd LiFe’S sTrUgGlEs MakE yOu StRoNg EnOuGh To SaVe OtHeRs. yOu CaN cUt ThE ViLLaIn SpEiL, DrAgGlE, dO iT!”

“What is going on?!” Starlight roared at the everything she could think of.

And then there was light, and everything became white, scalding pain.

PAIN.

Starlight had spilled tea on herself but this was like three whole pots! The whole world was engulfed in white, hot pain! So sudden and harsh it was, that Starlight’s voice was caught before erupting in a ragged scream. I’m dying. She felt her very being, ever nerve and cell in her body, saturated in magic, screaming at once. As much as it hurt she forced an eye open: before her a stream of teal magic, viscous, dripping, damp like magma stretched toward the current between Draggle’s claws, forming a slingshot prepared to fire a bolt from her stump. Starlight roared—howled—as agony pulsated fast as her heartbeat, the cadence of her screams climbing with the pain until her throat gave out but air. The will to shriek continued pushing out her lungs.

Starlight grit her teeth until her teeth ached, and stopped aching. She shoved herself against the pain.

“We’Ve EnJoYeD tAkInG a SlEdGeHaMmEr To YoUr HuBrIs, Ya KnOw!” Starlight cracked an eye open to find Reeka’’s mutilated face, eyes bright with excitement. Engulfed in a shuddering blue glow, Reeka’s warts speckled her in shadows dancing like candle flame. “WhAt’S aBoUt To HaPpEn WiLL hUrT, I PRoMiSe YoU tHaT. aNd It WiLL pAsS. oH, wHAt Am I sAyInG? yOu KnOw BeTtEr ThAn MoSt ThAt A BrUiSe FaDeS wItH tImE.”

And then, with a hum, Reeka asked, “DoEs PoNy WaNnA mAkE hEr FrIeNdS gO bOoM-bOoM?”

Staright’s heart exploded. “No! No-no-no!”

“Hm?” Reeka cocked her head like a stiff action figure. “WhAt WaS tHaT? POnY wAnTs HeR fRiEnDs To CoNtInUe SuFfErInG iNsTeAd?”

This was real. This couldn’t be reality but it was, this was about to happen and it was all Starlight’s fault. “No, no, no! Stop it! Stop it, please!” she cried anyway. Useless. “Stop, please! I’LL DO A-NY-THING!”

“WhAt?!’” Draggle hollered over the roar of magic. “I cAn’T hEaR eIThEr Of yA oVeR tHiS rAcKeT! i ThInK pOnY wAnTs HeR fRiEnDs To Go BoOm-BoOm! LeT’s MaKe ThEm Go BoOm-BoOm, RiGhT nOw!”

“YoUr FiNgEr’S oN tHe TrIgGeR, dRaGgLe!”

And Starlight Glimmer screamed, refusing to let this be the end as her phantom horn tingled, throbbed to its very tip and shot back to a surge of emotion, however flimsy in her chest.

A spark within her she would never, ever forget: her magic. And the flint: Everypony, I'm sorry...

In spite of the immediate horror, a subconscious part of Starlight was overjoyed to have felt it again.

...but I WILL NOT let them hurt you!

The rest of her grabbed on and yanked her forehead away.

---

She scanned everywhere for that head of purple hair.

Starlight was just gone. Rainbow called back to her crisis training in the Wonderbolt Academy. ”Inhale, fill your breast, exhale. Assess,” Rainbow cited, doing so.

Starlight was just plain gone. She wasn’t in the Hive. She couldn’t teleport… again! Crud. Rainbow’s heart sank. Of course she did that, Rainbow would run away too if she’d flipped on a kid after losing her wings!

Her heart skipped a beat as, upon the darkness ahead, a teal beacon blinked to life. That’s no campfire. No smoke. No shuddering.

Only one thing in Rainbow’s life glowed a blue like that.

“HEY, EVERYPONY! I FOUND HER!”

---

My magic, Starlight realized. It’s still here! It made perfect sense. A horn was but a catalyst. Whole or not, the magic, Starlight’s unique inherent magic, was a part of her.

It ultimately belonged to these monstrous Gods, true, but this was Starlight’s property.

This is mine. She bellowed over the cacophony of magic, “I will not let you use me!”

“This is my magic, MY life! NOT YOURS!” Starlight gathered herself—-her thoughts, her heart, every ounce of strength left in her bones—everything that was Starlight coalesced into a lashing whip. Her heart skipped a beat finding Draggle’s magical tether jerk towards her.

Reeka’s eyes widened.

Starlight cackled at her.

“ShE’s… ReSiStInG! SHe’S aCtUaLlY fIgHtInG bAcK!” Draggle exclaimed.

Starlight’s whip was diamond—hard, unbreakable. Fragile, but she refused to let it break. She wouldn’t let it. I’ll save you everypony. The whip was her refusal, denying Twilight’s fate and substituting her own for it. It was Trixie, who spent so much time, energy, and would-be income trying to put a smile on her worthless friend’s face. It was all of Ponyville who did the very same, because they loved Starlight, despite how undeserving she was.

“I WILL NOT LET YOU DO THIS TO THEM!” Starlight cried, her last word ascending with the pain upon her forehead.

“All’A ThIs, DeSpItE eVeRyThInG gOiNg On InSiDe Ya, AnD yOu StILL hAvE tHe StReNgTh To FiGhT fAtE, HoWeVeR fUtILe?!” Reeka, soaked in the luster of a magical teal bonfire, clapped her hands excitedly. “Oh, Ho-Ho, StArLiGhT! sTaRlIgHt, My DeAr! YOU REALLY ARE SOMETHING ELSE, AREN’CHA?!”

The pain was a memory. It wasn’t even real. Her friends were real, their lives real, and they were in jeopardy because of her, and Starlight was not going to let them die. “You will not hurt them!”

Five daggers thrust so deep, so swiftly into Starlight’s belly that she gasped. Her mind and body screamed to ignore it, to save Twilight and Maud and Sunburst and everypony she loved regardless of how they now felt about her. Starlight ground her teeth until everything, the wet warmth upon her belly, and the agony ablaze on her forehead, receded into a dull tingle.

“ThE mAgIc Of FrIeNdShIp Is A fOrCe To Be ReCkOnEd WiTh,” Draggle’s voices said with shock. “i ReAlIze ThAt NoW, sIsTeR, dOn’T yOu?!”

Reeka’s sniffles echoed in the air. Glistening tracks shuddered teal around her face. “I dO, aNd It’S bEaUtIfUl, iT iS!” She hooked her claws into the black hole of her grey ruin beneath that pig’s snout of a nose. Disgusting; this was a putrid creature of evil and she was their people’s God in every sense of the word. Starlight hated her, hated her with so much of her soul she roared, roared at the pain, at her own weakness, hooking her brain deeper into Draggle’s beastly pull against her. “It’S sO vErY hUmAn—tHiS sTrUgGlE aGaInSt ThE iNeViTaBlE. jUsT gOeS tO sHoW tHaT wHeN tHe ChIpS aRe DoWn, ThErE iSn’T a FoRcE gReAt EnOuGh To StOp ThIs DeSpErAtE kInD oF lOvE.”

Draggle physically gave Starlight reprieve, than jerked her forward hard, almost snapping her neck and tearing her brain out with it. “SHUT UP ALREADY!” Starlight hardly understood what was said. She heard fine, but she didn’t care. They didn’t matter, her pain didn’t matter, whatever the heck she was doing to her body didn’t matter.

Because real, worthy people’s lives hung in the balance of whether or not Starlight could fight back and succeed for once in her life.

I will not hurt them, she thought, finishing aloud, “I’ll destroy myself before I let that happen!”

“ShE cErTaInLy WiLL iF wE cOnTiNuE pLaYiNg WiTh HeR. CUt It AlReAdY, dRaGgLe!”

And everything was gone, the earth rushing up to slam unto Starlight’s belly and knock the wind out of her. Starlight gasped, scrambling to get up and get away, kicking up sand only to find no one around. The Bad Lands shifted beneath her, hissing thunderously against the silence. The charred, clean smell exuded by her magic was gone, and that is when Starlight gasped, gripping her forehead, patting it free of pain to her shock. Just a dull tingle she could ignore as easily as she did yesterday, after Twilight cast the numbing spell.

Even the mess of her own making was gone, thank Celestia. And the cuts on her thighs, too. It was like it was all a bad dream, ahead the Hive sat unaware of what transpired.

“Where are you?!” Starlight cried. No one was behind her, or beside her, or even underneath her. “What just happened!?” A beat. “What was all that!?”

Her friends almost died. They almost died because of me. Starlight convulsed, gulping down a surge of vomit. “Oh, gosh!” she gasped, cupping her mouth. “Oh, oh my gosh! I could have destroyed them!” If she had, if she wasn’t strong enough to fight back, they might have…

Starlight belted out a broken, terrified sob.

“StOp YoUr BaWLinG, AlReAdY!” said Reeka’s voice. “YoU’rE sO dRaMaTiC, aLL yOu PoNiEs ArE.”

Starlight didn’t care. She almost destroyed her friends; these things almost made her destroy her friends! “What do you want from me!?” she cried. “Was there even a deal to begin with?!”

“Ah, SeE? nOw ShE aSkS a GoOd QuEsTiOn,” said Draggle, from nowhere and everywhere. “YoU oUgHt To KnOw By NoW, tWiLiGhT’s ToO iMpOrTaNt To LeT dIe, YoU sILLy GoOsE!”

So, yes? Or no? “If I hadn’t fought back, you monsters would’ve—!”

“SpArE mE tHe SeLf-CoNgRaTuLaToRy ChEsT bEaTiNg,” Reeka groaned. “SoUnD yOuR dElUsIoNaL yAwP tO yOuR rIdIcUlOuS fRiEnDs, tHeY’ll BeLiEvE yOu. BuT kNoW tHaT tHe SiTuAtIoN wAs EnTiReLy In OuR hAnDs.”

“What?” Starlight roared. “Are you serious?!”

Draggle’s demented chortling fluttered above. “We CoUlDa JuSt DiSaSsEmBlEd YoUr FrIeNdS bY tHe MoLeCuLe. LiKe ThAt.” A horrible snap echoed in a growing breeze.

Starlight’s mane lifted behind her. “So what was this?” she croaked. “Another twisted mind game?”

“We’Ve BeEn UtTeRlY sErIoUs In OuR EvErY iNtErAcTiOn,” said Reeka. “tO aN eXtEnT, oF cOuRsE.”

I… I almost destroyed my friends. Starlight felt like throwing up. They tricked me into thinking I will and that I couldn’t fight back! Starlight shuddered, feeling echoes of a throb dance across her forehead. If they were so effortlessly powerful, Reeka and Draggle must have amended quite a horrific sight resulting from Starlight’s battle against their will. If it was so bad my brain was just blocking out the pain...

Starlight could do nothing more than scream, horrified—scream at having nearly been the death of her friends, roar at the witches for making her think she was, and cry over everything else. Everything. She was the reason for it. Now her friends suffered for it, suffered her and her broken self—mind and body.

Starlight could only scream and scream, cry, kick up sand and beat it and roar before falling on her back, sobbing hollowly to reflect the emptiness she now felt inside. She was just so tired.

And that... was fine.

She could leave.

She could still run and become a distant memory.

Twilight would find a new close friend among her circle to read with, study magic and practice it. Trixie would find somepony less high-maintenance. Maud had Thorax to talk to, who was more patient than Starlight could ever hope to be. Ocellus had her people, they would never hurt her as she had.

Yeah, it would be fine. Starlight would be fine. She always bounced back, given enough time.

“I sUrE hOpE yOu MuFfLeD aLL tHaT,” Draggle muttered in the breeze.

“yOu KnOw i DiD, ‘cAuSe So DiD yOu,” Reeka replied. “ShE’s GoT a PaIr Of LuNgS oN hEr ThOuGh, DoN’T sHe?”

“I hate you.” Starlight glared straight ahead, into the starry night sky. “You ruined my life, my friendships, and you’ve just sat there and enjoyed it. You’re evil to the core,” she uttered darkly. “I hope you all get destroyed one day. I really do.”

“We CaN dO wItHoUt YoUr FlAtTeRy,” said Draggle, Reeka adding, “All ThAt’S rUiNeD hAs BeEn Of YoUr OwN mAkInG.”

It was true, and Starlight hated that most. This position, her recklessness a week ago, her desperation to repay some imaginary debt Twilight didn’t even care, much less want, to have repaid…

“Right.” Starlight flopped back, suddenly drained. The stars were countless and prettier than silver. “I think I get it finally.”

The witches, like Starlight supposed her horn was, felt ancillary to the greater picture—an enabler for her self-destructive, friend-harming tendencies. A means to an end, so to speak: the witches didn’t bring about these ugly sides of Starlight. They were always there, stewing dangerously close to the surface. She had lied and hurt her friends on more than one, selfish occasion. Because at the end of the day, despite her belief that she was helping them in the long run, Starlight was just satisfying her own ego.

This fiasco with the horn was no different. And Starlight had reacted in exactly the same manner, to avoid the awful reality that she was miserable and only acted because she felt bad for ever coming into Twilight’s life.

I’d even avoided telling Daddy, her gut dropped as she realized, because he knows, deep down, that I’m the reason my life’s gone so wrong so many times. I can’t bear to look at him and force him to care, not after Mom—

Starlight choked. It’s me.

It’s always been me. The witches aren’t the monsters!

...I am.

“It’s all my fault,” she croaked on her back. Her eyes, brain, body and all became beastly tired. Too heavy to keep open. She let go at last.

Until a feathery flapping shattered her tranquility, punctuated by four hooves thumping against the sand by her head. “Woah,” croaked the unmistakable voice of Rainbow Dash. “Oh, thank Celestia…”

Another set of hoofbeats, two pairs, galloped hard from the distance. “She teleported out here,” panted… Fizzlepop, of all ponies. Starlight kept her eyes shut—not tightly enough to give herself away. “It was too much without a horn, now she’s out cold.”

“Not even bleeding this time,” Rainbow murmured, impressed it seemed. Or aghast. She could be quietly furious.

“Stop gawking. We need to bring her back.” Oh, Maud, Starlight wanted to cry hearing her concern emerge louder than these two tough ponies. “Stop. Right there, please. I’m carrying her.”

Something about her voice was reminiscent of the time Starlight, in the early days of their friendship, had casually remarked Pinkie Pie was “crazy.” She felt pitifully flattered despite having scared her friend half to death.

What just happened felt all the more deserved now.

Terror, once again, gripped her by the throat. Starlight—realizing how faking it would only make it worse—opened her eyes, met with three concerned faces, even Maud’s, whose brows were pushed together, looking down on her.

I’m… so glad you’re all okay.

Starlight couldn’t say that. Goodness, no, there was no justification dumping her recent encounter on their heads. All they knew was Starlight had been laying here, unconscious, only to suddenly awaken.

At least the sand, hard as a rock, was somewhat soft to lay in. “Am I at a beach?” Starlight wondered, feigning herself in a daze.

---

End of Laughter - The Broken Heart

Author's Note:

It's both amazing and sad how acclimated Starlight has become to mental trauma, that she can just force down what had happened through unsettling rationality.

At last we're entering Act V, which will be far shorter than this one. When we return, the aftermath of this encounter will really settle upon returning to the Hive.

Comments

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

I lack any words to describe how fucked this whole situation is. It hurts so much. Good job.

[Blood Rarity]

Now all that's missing is the element of magic and the element of kindness.
Let the madness begin.

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

9540699
Great job Apex, you ruined the story. Also, your use of my quote in the story description is appreciated.

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

9540867
Magic has to be the last one.

[TheApexSovereign]

9540867

9540893
I'll give you guys a sneak peak since you cared enough to comment on that

Act V is Kindness - The Broken Teacher

Act VI is Magic - The Broken Bond

[TheApexSovereign]

9540919
You're right about how the Elements work, but the way I see how Twilight sees it, they evidently purge Disharmony (i.e. negativity) from their target. But we also know that that isn't necessarily the case, since in the human world, the Harmony/Friendship blast/spell has targeted the Sirens' gems and Wallflower's memory stone

And yeah, Starlight is clearly out of it if she's trying to justify the witches as neutral. Of course she has reason to believe they were messing with her, considering she saw no evidence of a home or the area being lived in.

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

The witches touching Starlight in this chapter is something truly horrific. I felt physically ill. Damn.

[TheApexSovereign]

9540971
I'm glad - well I'm not happy I made you feel uncomfortable, but I'm happy that it worked the way intended. Because they weren't even touching her sexually, just holding her. But I put you in Starlight's shoes so I suppose you felt for her

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

9540985
They wouldn't derive anything like that from it, but they would've known that Starlight would feel utterly violated. Why else would they do it? These creatures are on another level of... I don't know if villainy is the right word. That line about them "playing the bad guy" is intriguing. It makes me think I might've been onto something when I commented that they might be "the good guys" in some horribly twisted way. Like making Starlight into... whatever they're trying to make her into, is essential to some bigger picture.

[sonicandmario826]

Hey!!! Ocellus is here and I really liked her interactions with Starlight.

“ How are you not grokking this?” she cried.

Was that a mistake?

“I did and I will again! You’re a broken mirror who can’t see herself right, let alone the lengths her friends have gone to show they love her. You are the one who is so lucky , I wish I’d had what you do when my horn was broken! But I didn’t . And you’re squandering it . Like the self-loathing little worm Twilight said you were!”

*facepalms* Dang it Tempest that’s like the worst thing you could of said.

Man I’m getting tired of these witches. I mean that in a good way they are good antagonists. Makes me wanna sock them in the face.

[Starlight Glimmer1]

Please tell me things end up getting better for everyone. Because if they don’t then so help me I will poke you with the stick again!

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

9541189
You might wanna just poke Apex with the stick either way. He's done enough to deserve it already. My heart can barely handle this pain being inflicted on my favorite horse!

[Starlight Glimmer1]

9541267
Fair point.

[bugfemme]

I am absolutely in love with this story! I binge-read through the entire thing over the past few days, and I don't think I've ever been gotten hooked on a fan-fiction so fast before!
After reading the entire story, the line from a few chapters ago, "We only ever made a deal with Starlight Glimmer" really sticks out to me. It does a really good job of emphasizing the role of fate in the story, and how all of this has been predestined.
Can't wait for the next update!

[TheApexSovereign]

9541992
I feel like the genre tag also gives off a bad vibe

9541877
I'm glad you noticed that line Honestly you can deduce how this will go if you think carefully about the witches' dialogue - even what, exactly, they are!

Welcome aboard, by the way. I'm glad you're hooked onto my story, and that it's grabbed you so thoroughly. I do hope you enjoy what I have in story enough to see this through to the end.

[mishun]

And then, with a hum, Reeka asked, “DoEs PoNy WaNnA mAkE hEr FrIeNdS gO bOoM-bOoM?”

So she directly threatened with mass murder. It's time for Equestrian government to put aside all other concerns and figure out the way how to kill them.

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

9542530
Thing is, only Starlight knows about it. And she seems to want to keep it that way.

[TheApexSovereign]

9542530
On top of what Xerses said, even if she mustered the courage to speak of it, the Witches can, in their own words, disassemble everyone and everything with a snap of their fingers

[mishun]

9542665
Keeping knowledge about murderous psychopath's intentions from supposed victims appears to be, well, morally questionable.

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

9542820
I believe Glimmy's reasoning at this point, is that there isn't anything in the world that can stop them, so why say anything? It would only risk her friends trying to fight a battle they can't win, and the witches definitly destroying them, as opposed to just maybe.

The witches don't strike me as enemies that can be Rainbow magicked away. They, like Starlight's horn, might just wind up being an awful reality that everyone has to live with.

[TheApexSovereign]

9542820
Welcome
derpicdn.net/img/view/2017/9/8/1530530.png

That aside, the witches have no intention of killing anyone. If they did, they definitely would have done so and Starlight knows it. Causing a panic, in her mind, would be worse though

[mishun]

9542836

is that there isn't anything in the world that can stop them

They can flee. Not mentioning that their artefacts, dark magics, imprisoned and former villains, regular transfiguration, portals and, most of all, self-consistent time-travel are all directly weaponizable with morsel of creativity. Heck, even conventional weapons have good chance of being useful.

[TheApexSovereign]

9542972
Everything you listed are extensions of the witches themselves. Their fingernails, in a way.

[mishun]

9543005
Well, they have an expect on "Why are you hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself!" method onsite

[TheApexSovereign]

9543031
You can hit yourself, but you cannot eat yourself.

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

9542238
I really need to go reread the earlier chapters. Or at least the witches dialogue.

[TheApexSovereign]

9543301
If you'd like, here's a list of their appearances so far:
They're first mentioned in I.II
I.IV
Hydia appears in I.V, but only has one line
III.VI
IV.VII
IV.VIII
IV.XIII (part 3)

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

9543319
Thanks!

[mishun]

9543149
Sir Gregor Clegane strongly disagrees

[TheApexSovereign]

9544419
Hey, another Thrones fan! Hi there :)

But what happens when you reach your head? You cannot eat yourself

[Hermaeus Xerxes]

9544788
If you need visual representation, I recommend derpibooru with the everything filter on. You'll find it eventually.

[mishun]

9544788
Well, with a little help from Sir Gregor...

... Although most of the flesh is gone and the lips, nose and ears have been sliced off...

[Venlinelle]

This chapter was too long. I loved it, but it really should’ve been split up.

So much to say!
First off, I adored Ocellus. She doesn’t get a ton to do in canon, but I thought you did a wonderful job with that whole conversation, and I had a lot of fun watching Starlight and Tempest somehow think they could lie to a child who A) can taste emotions, and B) is Chrysalis’s daughter.

Starlight’s theory that she exists so Twilight can live is ridiculous, yes, but it makes sense in context.

I’m very confused as to what the witches actually did here. They pretended they were going to make Starlight kill her friends, sure, but they seemed to be acting like this was some monumental moment, and then nothing happened. Or perhaps I’m commenting prematurely, and something did?