The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

The Shadows Before

"Nnngh..." Starlight shivered, feeling simultaneously far too hot and far too cold. Her horn felt like the hilt of a dagger protruding from her head, flickers of pain and instability coursing randomly from it and occasionally dancing through the rest of her body. She could still think, though. It was like something tiny and faint and vaguely pink was forming a shell in her mind, an island for her thoughts to sit on in safety while the magical backlash formed a tempestuous sea around them. Aside from that, this was almost worse than she had felt in the Water District after passing out from overloading her horn before. She was tempted to push herself even further until her horn broke all the way, and just let herself be blind and magicless again if it also meant the pain would go away.

"Starlight," something fuzzy hugging her murmured. "Oh, Starlight..."

Starlight swallowed, trying to get back some control of her body and senses, and with effort, the world slowly slid into a little more focus. She was in her room, and it was light beyond the curtained window. "Maple... I'm alright..."

"No, you aren't." A cool, beautiful rag pressed against her forehead, and Starlight heard a hiss as it seemed to take something out of her horn. In a second, the sensation had faded, and Maple did it twice more. "You feel sick, or maybe magically injured. None of us know what happened to you, but you're not alright."

Starlight shifted her body, not really able to feel herself move but still aware that she was doing it. "I'm more alright than I was," she slurred, not using the full amount of effort needed to speak clearly. "A lot more. I think I died again."

"Starlight?" Maple's worried face came into her swimming vision. "What do you mean? You don't have to talk if it's hard, but we don't know at all what you went through."

"Unngh..." Starlight weathered another wave of dizziness, suddenly aware that she was very sweaty. "I was..." Her memories kept swirling, mixing with the dizziness from her horn. She needed time to think, and trailed off.

Maple nuzzled her, and then there was another cool, wet rag against her horn. Starlight blinked, and slowly, her memories of the Nightmare Module solidified. "There were words in my head," she mumbled. "It started like a mare, but I passed out and everything went gray, and then they were just thoughts. My thoughts were weird. I forgot what colors were and didn't know I wasn't seeing right. I forgot what love was, and needed to get closer to you but didn't remember who you were, or Valey." She weakly stretched her neck, trying to nuzzle Maple back. "I felt cold and dark and empty and scared."

"Words?" More coolness pressed against her horn. "Do you remember what they said?"

"Sort of..." Starlight groaned, wishing the cold would just stay and stop fading after a second or two of use. "They didn't make sense. They asked me questions, like whether I wanted to destroy it and wake up. And something about a nightmare two, and errors, and being broken or missing or unstable..."

"Huh," Valey added from nearby, keeping her voice down. "Two? That's what it said for me when I used it. Like it was the second Nightmare Module, or something. Hey... Starlight? Did it ask you if you wanted all that to happen? Like... I touched the thing too, and it stopped and asked permission to do stuff to me, and left me alone when I said no. Did you say yes?"

Starlight groaned again. She felt hungry, but that was probably a good thing, since she wouldn't have been able to keep food down anyway right then. "It didn't ask," she moaned. "I think. Maybe." Memories sifted again in her head; even though she could hear her own thoughts, everything she knew about the world felt like it had been stirred with a paddle and ideas were taking longer than usual to pull back together others that were related to them. "I think I fainted while it was asking. There was a lot of hissing and my eyes and ears broke and everything went dark..." She shivered, feeling clammy. "It said something about me being broken."

"Oh, Starlight..." Maple switched to stroking her with a hoof, though the rags had helped more. Maybe she was out. "You're still you to me, even if something else says you aren't working properly."

"It said it was trying to fix me," Starlight went on, mumbling. "The words from the thing. But it said it wasn't enough. And I don't feel better at all."

Valey slowly sighed. "Do you... think I should say it?"

"Say what?" Starlight muttered.

Maple's head nodded against her, and Valey took a breath. "Nightmare Modules are like... instructions for machines. At least, that's what Dorable told me. I seriously didn't follow a word of the jargon he was saying. Dude could've been way more concise. Point is, batponies are apparently the machines that are supposed to do stuff with those instructions... and apparently you are too. Hope that's not too hard to deal with."

Starlight frowned. "Did you say that already?"

"I... might have?" Valey scratched the back of her neck. "Last night or whatever, when I was unloading on you guys before the pirates? Bananas, that was forever ago. I don't even remember." She exhaled. "Point is. Yeah. Apparently you're sort of supposed to be able to do that, I guess. Use... or get used by moon glass and Nightmare Modules and whatever. I guess the good news is that you didn't go all cloudy like that mare up on the deck? Or maybe you didn't reach that point in using it, yet, but either way, you look like you again. On the other hoof, if it didn't ask permission and kind of blew you up..."

"Nnngh." Starlight hugged herself and shivered.

"We need you to do a few things," Maple murmured, caressing the back of Starlight's head and holding her gently. "Whatever you do, don't touch more moon glass or other Nightmare Modules, okay? I hope we don't find any at all, but this almost happened to you in White Chocolate's house too, remember? You've been fine touching full moon glass before, but empty pieces will hurt you, and you can't detect danger like Valey can. Okay?"

Valey huffed. "Bananas, if we find even one more Nightmare Module, I quit. Those things are lame."

"Okay," Starlight murmured back. "That's not the only place it happened to me, though..."

"Starlight?" Maple's voice was suddenly tense and worried.

"Two other times," Starlight said, stopping to wince from another wave of dizziness. "Once when I was dead after using the harmony extractor. I... saw a place before I came back. I don't remember it very well, but everything there was gray and it felt cold and empty around me. It felt like... like what I felt inside just now, only it was the world around me. I don't know if I told you about it." She shivered again. "The other time was when I was fighting Hemlock on the river, but you said I just imagined that, so maybe it doesn't count. I didn't remember it well at all, but I remembered it when this was happening..."

Maple stroked her again and smiled where she could see it. "It's okay. You're back now. We can figure all that out and what it means later... Go back to sleep, Starlight. We love you. You'll just have a long time to sleep this off..."

"Yeah. Go back to sleep." Valey's voice was empty. "We'll, uhh... try to figure stuff out on our own."

Comments

[Cold Bolt]

Even after reading Austraeoh, it feels strange that we're hundreds and hundreds of thousands of words in and there are still mysteries like this we haven't even scratched. What are the Modules for? Why do they react to Starlight when they're otherwise attuned to batponies? What was that strange space Starlight saw while Maple had her stored away?

There's something to be said for such massive stories. Who knows how much more there is for us to learn?

[Venlinelle]

Valey, stop being a (lovable) idiot and stop gaslighting Starlight.