The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Secrets And Fears

Starlight climbed a twisting staircase inside a stone tower, listening to wind blowing against the walls halfway through every revolution. A griffon guard marched at her tail, professional and stoic and doing his part to make sure the guards of Grandbell were a far more pleasant experience to deal with than the Defense Force. Starlight almost thought that if she lived here for a few years, she could stop looking at anyone in armor like they were going to hurt her.

She reached a door, letting out into a new stairwell that only had a few steps left before coming to a level floor. "Your Highness," the guard behind her said. "The filly Starlight."

"Starlight," Gwendolyn greeted, sitting in an open room with an unbroken panoramic window, a few chairs and a tea table in the middle. She wore a different dress than last time, equally simple yet elegant. "Thank you for joining me."

"You asked me to come?" Starlight stepped onto the floor, a regal carpet lining the floor of the tower.

The guard shuffled to a stop behind her, and Princess Lyn raised a paw. "You are dismissed," she regally intoned, then lowered it and smiled at Starlight. "I did! I hope it was not much of a bother. I wished to speak with you more. Please, have a seat and help yourself."

Starlight was too busy taking in the view, pacing to a window and staring out. It had been raining when they flew in, and this was the first time she had seen Grandbell in broad daylight, the storm clouds a mere shadow on the northern horizon.

With a rustle, Gwendolyn joined her, her little paws seeming to glide beneath her dress. "Taking in the Aldenfold? I would imagine that, having lived on an airship for months, such sights would be routine. Or does viewing the world from above never lose its splendor?"

"Don't you have wings?" Starlight tilted her head, watching the filly's feathers through slits in the fabric. "I thought you'd be used to seeing sights like this too."

Lyn shrugged and looked down, flexing her little wings. "It is not seen as stately for royalty to fly. So I do not get a lot of practice, and am... not the best flier." Her wings rustled and folded again.

"Oh." Starlight blinked at the mountains. "I guess it doesn't get old. We could see how tall the mountains are from Stormhoof, too, but they seem taller when you're this far up."

Lyn exhaled. "I heard from a source your friends and you are all trying to cross the mountains together."

Starlight folded her ears. "We are."

Lyn retreated to a chair, beckoning Starlight to follow and pointing out her spread of snacks and food. "That is a lot of Writs of Harmonic Sanction. Unless you have some other way to get everyone through without needing to pass through the Equestrian border checkpoint."

"I think my friends just want to collect enough," Starlight replied, following and taking a seat opposite the princess. "We have two, and Yakyakistan owes us a third if we fly out to get it. It might take us years to get enough."

"Oh. Years." Lyn's ears fell. "That is a lot of dedication. Why do they want to go so badly?"

"I don't know." Starlight shrugged. She could know, if she thought about it, but she had plenty of other problems on her mind, and truth be told, she didn't even want to return to Equestria. It felt too much like facing her past.

"You are not as enthusiastic as they are," Lyn remarked, following Starlight with her slitted eyes.

Starlight shook her head to clear it. "No, I'm... Sorry. I have a lot on my mind."

"Would you tell me?" Lyn tilted her head hopefully.

Starlight blinked... and remembered what the filly had said on their first meeting. Glimmer had told her about her. They might have things in common and get along...

"Right." Starlight swallowed. "You lost your parents, right?"

"You are blunt." Lyn lost her smile, but kept perfect eye contact. "I did. They were killed six years ago in Varsidel, when I was very young. Hence, I was raised by royal tutors and instructed so I could take their place as soon as possible. Why do you ask?"

Starlight glanced away. "Just wondering if we had something in common."

"Your parents died too?" Lyn's ears fell. "I take it your family on the airship is all adoptive, then."

"...No." Starlight took a deep breath. "I ran away from home because they weren't able to care for me when I needed it most. I don't know if they didn't care or didn't know how, but it doesn't matter."

"I see." Lyn let out a breath. "That is what weighs on you, then? You have been wishing you made a different choice?"

Starlight gritted her teeth and looked away. "I made the choice I had to. I want to wish they had made a different choice and I hadn't needed to in the first place, but that's the same as wishing I had never met all my friends from the north. That my whole life here had never happened. That's what's bothering me."

"From the north?" Lyn blinked. "But I was never told your ship had been to Varsidel, and this is about as far south as..." She trailed off, staring at Starlight inquisitively and with dawning comprehension.

Starlight winced, realizing what she had just given away. "If I'm going to answer when you ask me what's on my mind, please promise you won't tell anyone else."

Lyn drew a paw across her heart. "I swear on my own deepest secrets to be trustworthy and never tell."

Starlight sighed and looked down. "Yes. I'm from Equestria. I don't know how I got here, but I don't think I have a Writ of Harmonic Sanction. I ran away from home and crossed those mountains on hoof."

"That's a difficult distance to run," Lyn replied. "It sounds impossible."

"I didn't know it would be that hard when I left," Starlight murmured. "I just knew I had to."

"Almost as impossible as running away from being the princess of an Empire," Lyn added, tugging at a corner on her dress. "Would you believe me if I said I wished I had been born somebody else?"

Starlight nodded. "You told me when we talked on the airship."

"Oh... I suppose I did." Lyn blushed faintly. "You have a good memory. But yes. I know how it feels to... want to do that. But I cannot exactly leave behind everything that I am and start afresh, even if I moved to another world. It is somewhat relieving to be told by someone who has done it that it isn't a perfect answer to our problems."

"More problems than missing your parents?" Starlight looked up. "Or... do you miss them?"

Lyn nodded back. "Of course. I never knew them long enough to remember what they were like, but the tutors who raised me and continue to look after me are royal servants. Their station is below mine, and they show it. It is difficult to find someone to look up to, especially when those I do look to as role models do things like... like what my brother did at Stormhoof. But you are surrounded by your friends, even if you have only had them since coming across the Aldenfold. You are lucky. I am at the top of my own world, and must fight everyone's reverence to be allowed to have others to look up to."

Starlight felt her eyes unfocus. "I know what that feels like a lot."

"You do?" Lyn looked at her with concern.

Starlight took a breath, her thoughts ever since she had touched the Grandbell flame too pent-up in her heart to keep buried even if she wanted to. "I'm the strongest unicorn on the ship, even if my horn hurts me to use. Valey has been teaching me to fight like she does, but I didn't even need that to kill the windigoes and save everyone in Ironridge! And I'm special, but nobody will tell me how. Garsheeva is interested in me, my lookalike is interested in me, harmonic flames are interested in me, I can do thing with old spells and machines that I'm not even allowed to see parts of because someone else thinks it wouldn't make me happy! And I've had these visions, and..."

Lyn's eyes widened. "But you have your friends! They can't help you with this?"

"What would I tell them?" Starlight shrugged. "That when we're stranded in a blizzard and about to be killed by windigoes, I don't want to be the one to save everyone? That hurts to say. And a lot of this would just worry them, and they wouldn't have answers. I feel like I have to protect them." She looked down. "You can't just order someone to... do something differently?"

Lyn shook her head. "Command someone not to be under my command? I cannot, unfortunately." She sighed. "Potential solutions aside, you... know how it feels? Like you are stranded at the top of the world and are responsible for everyone who is beneath you?"

"And the more you look down at them, the lonelier it feels?" Starlight added hopefully.

"But no matter what you try, it never helps you get where you want to be," Lyn whispered.

Starlight swallowed and nodded. "Because you try to do more and more to keep them safe, since you know if you lost them, you'd be even lonelier. But the more you do, the further away you feel, and you know it won't work but get frustrated when people try to stop you anyway."

"Is that how you feel about responsibility?" Lyn raised a curious eyebrow. "For me, I feel like if I do better for my subjects and am a smarter or wiser ruler, I will be... rewarded, somehow, for doing good. I'm not really sure why. It just feels like things should work that way."

"Maybe you want them to," Starlight said. "And feel like if you pretend they do, they will?"

"I don't know." Lyn shrugged, then smiled. "Have you ever told anyone this before?"

Starlight blinked. "Everything we just said? Bits and pieces, but not all at once. And maybe not some of the things I worry about."

Lyn slowly nodded. "That is how it goes, isn't it? You say a little to see if someone will understand, but never too much." She sighed, long and content. "I... actually feel a little better. I'm glad I called you here. It seems the divine seer knows both of us better than we were expecting."

"Yeah. Her..." Starlight's brow shadowed, an image of her reflection telling her she wasn't allowed to know something filling her mind. "I don't know how much she knows, but she says everything. I don't know what to think about her."

Lyn bit her lip. "She sounds like a less-pleasant topic. Would you like to keep talking? I am happy to listen to anything you have to say if you continue listening to me."

"My lookalike is..." Starlight sighed. "How much do you know about her? About where she's from?"

Lyn thought for a moment. "I don't know when she first showed up, but it was some time ago. I feel as if she was here for a long time, but I became more aware of her as I grew older. I only ever saw her in the lower levels of Garsheeva's temple, on the outskirts of the core. In hindsight, if she knew about you and saw that you would come here someday, she probably did not want to leave a presence you would be mistaken for."

Starlight's ears folded. "My best guess is she's me from the future. Everything she tells me is vague and unhelpful, and she keeps trying to stop me from knowing why I'm special or what I'm capable of. But she talks like I'll do something extremely bad there that affects the whole world, and she had to come back to change it."

"Does it make you scared of yourself?" Lyn looked up.

Starlight blinked. "A little? It's more frustrating than anything. If something bad is going to happen, why wouldn't it help, telling me how to stop it?" She slumped. "Everything she's told me is that the way to stop it is to learn to deal with my problems, be content with what I have, and stop reaching higher and higher to protect my friends. Maybe I should be scared, if I'm so dangerous that I can't even know what I'm going to do. And the visions don't help. I've seen two strange visions that seem like they're of the end of the world, and one has an older version of a pony I know."

"...Does it help if I'm a little afraid of myself too?" Lyn asked hopefully.

"Are you?" Starlight blinked.

"Look at what my brother did." Lyn shrugged. "You saw him fighting, but you didn't argue with him before that. That scared me. What if I lose myself like him? The Gazelle I knew hated lords who did that, and then he did exactly what he hated."

Starlight bit her lip. "You really called me here because you needed to talk and hoped I was someone who would understand?"

"I acted on a hunch and what I had been told." Lyn nodded. "We got along well enough when we talked on your ship, as well. I hoped it would be enjoyable and we would click together."

"...Thanks." Starlight slowly nodded in return. "If you're scared of yourself, well..."

She took a deep breath. What did she say to that? After how Gazelle had acted, it was probably a valid fear. That said, there were a lot of bad ponies in the world, and a lot of good ones, too. Maybe Valey could answer this better than she could...

"There is a little more." Lyn's ears drooped. "I snuck into my brother's room the other day, and I found a lot of notes from Geribaldi Stormhoof that weren't there before. I only read a few, but they said sphinxes in the Empire have a long history of... doing what my brother did as they grow up. Some do it worse than others."

Starlight's ears fell. "Are you alright?"

Lyn squeezed her eyes shut. "...Probably. I will make myself be. It's just not something I like being told, let alone finding out like... that. Maybe he was wondering about his own behavior. Either way, that is what I fear."

Starlight stood up from her chair, knowing exactly where that line of thinking led. You didn't just make yourself be alright. If you did, you were only burying it... "You asked me earlier, but you've never talked to anyone about this, have you."

"At ease," Lyn said, holding her eyes shut and taking tight breaths. "I am fine... I-I will be fine."

Starlight frowned. "You're the one with a cutie mark in lie detection..."

Lyn dragged her paws down her face. "You're right. I'm not fine. But I need to be because it's my job by birth, just like I made myself be right after it happened. I... get a lot of practice."

Starlight trotted forward, unceremoniously inviting herself into Lyn's chair and sitting down right at the filly's side. "That's not a good thing, you know."

Instead of any sort of sensible reply, Lyn broke out laughing, wiping her eyes on her paws and almost leaning sideways. "You're the most irreverent person I've ever met," she managed, suddenly smiling and meeting Starlight's eyes. "You don't even care that I'm the crown princess of a continent, do you?"

Starlight blinked. "Well..."

"You're not treating me like you're my subject!" Lyn burst out. "I can't make anyone do that with any amount of exercising my authority! I... I..."

"Are you alright?" Starlight asked.

Lyn flung her paws around Starlight and hugged her for all of two seconds. "I've never done this before," she squeaked, pulling back away. "We are proper friends."

"Really?" Starlight tilted her head.

"I told you, you are not treating me like a ruler," Lyn managed, regaining some of her accent and composure. "Do you see me as an equal? Because that is the message you are sending."

"And you like that?" Starlight blinked. "I... guess so. I'm not really used to talking about myself, though."

Lyn smiled. "You have been doing fine! I'm not either. But we can talk about our fears with each other, and..."

"And?" Starlight asked, sensing she wasn't done.

"...And I wish I could solve all my problems by running away." Lyn sighed, her good cheer draining as fast as it had come. "But that is even more impossible than a filly crossing the Aldenfold on hoof."

Starlight frowned. "If you're asking to run away with us... maybe? But me doing that was completely impossible, and I did it anyway."

"Not possible," Lyn repeated. "Alas, I could flee to the ends of the world and not be free from what happened to my brother. I will always have the possibility of myself doing the same lingering over me, and that is not considering the significant lengths the Empire would go to if it lost me to get me back. Freeing myself from my memories, my history, my duties, and whatever curse Geribaldi has discovered to afflict me..."

Starlight thought hard, running her mind over everything she knew about doing the impossible. It was something she was good at, according to Glimmer. But all that had ever come up in her own past was to never give up, even when the odds were zero.

"Don't give up," she encouraged, taking a faint thrill of warmth for being true to herself. "Maybe some of those are hard, but what about the ones that are just a normal amount of impossible? What about making the Empire let you go?"

Lyn shook her head. "Foals."

"Foals?" Starlight's face scrunched in confusion.

"Foals," Lyn repeated. "The Empire's sphinx population is in a bad place, as my tutors and advisors have made it very clear for me to know. You likely know how our inheritance structure works. When I grow up, the first daughter I bear will become the next empress, and any sons will go on to take leadership of houses that have lost their lords. Out of all of them, Goldoa, Wilderwind and Goldfeather's lords are healthy, but only Everlaste and Stormhoof have heirs. Gyre and Izvaldi's lines are extinct. The power is on the verge of collapse, and without me to provide foals to replenish it... That is what I have been told."

Starlight blanched. "So they only care about you so you can grow up and have kids?"

"Not only, but it is a major reason." Lyn's face fell. "Do you ever read stories about love, Starlight?"

"Romance?" Starlight tilted her head. "Not really. You do?"

Lyn nodded. "A common plot device is that of an arranged marriage, where a couple is put together with no love involved. That is in my future, assuming there is even another sphinx of my age for me to take as my emperor... which there is not."

"That's not very fair," Starlight remarked.

"No. But it is necessary for the Empire. Just another duty that makes it hard to run." Lyn sighed. "You have seen many of the tournament fighters, right? Have you met a stallion named Yulio?"

Starlight nodded. "He doesn't seem very nice."

"His wish is for the first chance at having my paw in marriage."

"Wait, what?" Starlight's jaw dropped. "Him? Now? But he's not a sphinx! And you're... my age!"

Lyn groaned. "That is what I wish more people reacted like. But yes. If there are no suitable emperors from the houses, my position has always been entitled to a free selection of consorts. Those are people we... you know... with." Her cheeks lightened again in embarrassment. "And it would be a binding promise for when I am of age, but... that isn't as far away as I would like." She hung her head. "What would you do, Starlight? I have more power than any filly ever should. I could arrange for him to be killed, if I wanted to. My brother would be more than happy to do it for me. But I'm afraid if I start doing that now..."

"You run," Starlight replied. "It's what I did. Run far away until nothing from your old life could touch you, and then some. Run until you find a place you want to call home." She sighed. "I haven't found one, and I think I'll have to learn to live with the bad things in the world, or else make one myself. But I haven't given up and am not stuck back at my old home with parents who didn't care or didn't know how to show it. I ran and I'd... If everything was the same I-I'd do it again."

Lyn watched her. "...I will think about it. In any event, it is not as if days themselves are on the line. In the meantime, would you like to try some of the food I had brought up? I have raspberry tarts, sugared apples, all sorts of food. Maybe while we eat we can talk about other things..."

Starlight nodded, yet another friend on her mind she needed to figure out how to save.

Comments

[alamais]

"His wish is for the first chance at having my paw in marriage."

REEEEEE

"You run," Starlight replied.

I mean...not that I disagree in principle, but lol so much for staying out of politics and drama.

Also,

"Oh. Years." Lyn's ears fell. "That is a lot of dedication. Why do they want to go so badly?"

"I don't know." Starlight shrugged. She could know, if she thought about it, but she had plenty of other problems on her mind, and truth be told, she didn't even want to return to Equestria. It felt too much like facing her past.

Have they not talked with her about the land they now possess there and the whole 'build a home' thing yet?

[ZanyZapper]

Poor Lyn. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

And thinking back a few chapters, I wonder what would have happened when Starlight was adjusting the power if she had just thought "Screw the writs! I'm shutting it down!" I guess Celly would have shown up to find out why, but maybe they could have high-tailed it over the border. Assuming they could have gotten away from Garsheeva and Meltdown.

[Zapdroid]

I love their dynamic together! I wonder if we’ll get to see an epic escape scene and have Gwendolyn join the party. That’d be great.

[Venlinelle]

Friends friends friends friends

Seeing Starlight be the comforting one for someone else with problems like hers is very sweet. She’s grown so much!

[Venlinelle]

"Almost as impossible as running away from being the princess of an Empire," Lyn added, tugging at a corner on her dress. "Would you believe me if I said I wished I had been born somebody else?"

...About that, Lyn.