Cleansed of Darkness

by SilverStar7

No Understanding

Starlight pushed open the door to her bedroom. Her legs were shaking violently enough that walking had become difficult. No amount of breathing exercises while pressed against the wall had allowed her to relax this away. As soon as she had crossed the threshold into her room, she ignited her horn and closed the door behind her, then collapsed onto the floor.

Gradually, she began to inch toward her bed. Upon reaching it, she put both hooves on the edge and pulled herself up, crawling into bed until her head was resting face-down on her pillow. One of her hind legs was still hanging off the side and she flung her body over so that leg was on the bed and she now faced the ceiling. Only moving her eyes, she looked to the far corner of the room and identified one of her kites resting on her dresser. A beautiful red and gold delta she had hoofcrafted the week before. With her horn, she grabbed it and brought it to rest on her stomach. And she brought her forelimbs up to gently wrap around it.

So she laid on her bed, clutching at the kite, hardly moving. And her thoughts, having no where else to go now that she had made it to the safest place she could conceive of, went back to that other place. That chamber. She replayed the experience of entering the room and seeing... another Twilight? She did not even know what to call her.

The pony clearly was not Twilight herself. Not only was she not an alicorn, but she was not even some past version of Twilight. She was a full grown mare with no cutie mark, and Starlight knew full well that Twilight got her cutie mark as a filly. This pony was someone else. Perhaps even something else.

Within the ocean of chaos in Starlight's mind, the mare's consciousness fought to tread water. The air it sought was reason and it struggled to keep the tumult from entering its lungs. It's Twilight's room. Twilight's room. Why would Twilight have... that? But Starlight soon realized this piece of flotsam would not support her weight. Twilight would never do that. There was no way. That pony could not be.

Starlight thought of the room's purpose. It was a room to relax. She had seen Twilight after times in that room, and she always looked relieved. It was this clear sign of benefit that made Starlight want to try meditation for herself. And within the churning of Starlight's thoughts, something arrived beneath her. An idea that seemed to allow for purchase.

What if it was me? What if I brought that into the room with me? Starlight was aware of types of magic that allowed for a pony to witness events from within their subconscious. Dangerous spells that caused the deepest fears and angers of a pony to materialize before their eyes. She had, at one time, considered trying to learn such spells in the hopes that it could reveal in others their own subconscious fears about their Cutie Marks. However, her success with persuading other ponies to join her had made such methods of coercion unnecessary, and she had abandoned the effort. But perhaps Twilight had come up with a more interesting idea:

Using the spell on herself.

That was something Starlight could imagine. Twilight, deciding that the only thing worthy of fear was fear, and so wanting to face fear itself, had enchanted her room with magic that would force her to encounter her own subconscious demons. When faced with anxiety brought on by some undealt-with pain, Twilight could enter the room and see what was hurting her. Choose when to fight such a battle and put to death the chaos of thought before it festered.

To have such a strength of resolve was unfathomable to Starlight, but she could imagine that a Princess like Twilight, who had faced the Lord of Chaos himself, was more than capable. And it would certainly explain why Twilight would want to keep Starlight from using the room. She clearly was not ready for facing her own fears. But, in spite of that, she had seen it.

What am I afraid of, then?

Of course, it was obvious. That she would turn evil again. That she would enslave Twilight and take her Cutie Mark away. Finally force true equality upon the citizens of Equestria, as she now feared she was destined to do. Dethrone the Princess and--

The footing beneath her consciousness shook. But if that was Twilight after I took away her Cutie Mark, why was she not an alicorn? Plus, that explanation would not fit with Twilight begging her not to take her Cutie Mark again. Especially considering that she did not even have one. And why was she a blank flank? Why not have an equal sign Mark?

And there was something else. Something that Twilight had said right at the start. Something about a trip? Starlight had no plans for travel at the moment. Twilight, the real Twilight, was the one currently away on a vacation.

So Starlight sank once more into the tempest of disorder inside her head. As her mind sought safety, another potential life preserver bumped into her.

When Starlight had unlocked the door, she had been wondering about potential safeguards for the room. Maybe it was not actually vulnerable to a simple spell. Perhaps the room conjured up that vision to get Starlight to leave. After all, that was what that Twilight had been shouting for, for her to leave. It was certainly a manifestation of something that scared Starlight as much as anything she could envision.

But then... why did it speak before she entered? Doing that only prompted Starlight to come in. Granted, she was going to anyway, but why help her along? And why did Twilight get tangled in her chains like that? If it was based on Starlight's own thoughts and fears to keep her out of the room, would it not know that literally tripping up would cause Starlight to want to help? Again, drawing her into the room.

Then, with a mighty crash, a wave brought her mind firmly against the shore. But when she looked around, she saw that she had landed upon an accursed island. Surely she could not have arrived here.

What if there really is a pony in that room?

It could not be real. No matter if it looked real. Or felt real. Or sounded real. It could not be real. What a condition to be in. A mane, a sweat-soaked film of knots. Beet-red eyes, spouts for tears into a growing puddle on the floor. Chains, the only company in a dimly lit chamber.

Why, in all the realms of Equestria and beyond, would Twilight lock up a pony in a room in her castle? It would be senseless. Even if that pony was a criminal, that was what Tartarus was for. And she certainly did not look like a criminal. She looked like Twilight. Sounded like Twilight.

But she was not Twilight. And she was not real.

It can't be. She can't be.

Unable to divine any answers to her questions, Starlight simply stroked at her kite while she remembered the horror on that pony's face and wept and thought of the chains and wept some more.

As the minutes turned to hours, that crying slowly began to help. Tears became less frequent. Her breathing became reasonably stable. There were times when she thought she drifted off to sleep. At other times, she even thought about getting up. No doubt she would have to leave the room eventually.

And as the sun neared the evening horizon, there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," she said automatically, quickly igniting her horn to pull the water from the tears off of her muzzle and throw them to the other end of the room. As she sat up, Spike opened the door.

"Hey, Twilight just got back from her cruise," he said. "She's downstairs now."

Starlight nodded. "Okay."

For a moment, there was silence as Spike simply stood in the door and Starlight just sat on her bed. Then, "Uh, are you coming?"

Shaking herself, Starlight said, "Right, yeah." And finally got out of bed.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

How dark will this story get?

[SilverStar7]

8657604
I'm not sure how to measure that. If I had to give something... I find the idea rather dark, but the rationale of the situation has some gray areas. I actually hope the opinions will vary. To give some bound to it: I think I can safely assume no one will find it as dark as stories like Rainbow Factory or Blink.

[mishun]

What if there really is a pony in that room?

It's a bit unexpected that her next thought wasn't about changelings (yeah, that's most likely wrong, but still is the most probable next thought).

[SilverStar7]

8658888
A fair point. To be completely honest, this never occurred to me, but in hindsight, it does seem obvious.

I wrote this chapter the night it was published, as I felt there needed to be more time given to a reaction from Starlight before the next chapter. Had I sat on it until today, perhaps that thought would have come to me. For the next unwritten chapter, I will give myself a cooling period before publishing so that I can consider ideas like that for edits.

[AlexTFish]

Wow. This is certainly intriguing.

It very much sounds like the... pony, or whatever it is... in that room does not enjoy being visited by Twilight, and hoped that the trip would mean that Twilight wouldn't need to go in there for some time. Whatever Twilight does to that entity, the entity does not like it. And that line about "don't take my cutie mark again..." It makes me wonder if in fact the pony in the room is the real Twilight and the one Starlight has come to know is the impostor.