The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

At Least We Survived

Valey swiftly winged her way back toward Generosity Two from the hospital, Starlight tucked carefully in her hooves. The cool night air whipped around her as she flew, and it was impossible to miss the bustle of activity around the Laughter dorm. The building had far more lights on than normal.

Starlight stirred. "You alright down there?" Valey asked cautiously.

"Nnngh..." Starlight shifted in her grip, hooves and foreleg bandaged tenderly. "I can... still see..."

Valey pulled up into a slower forward hover, holding Starlight out so they could see each other. "Easy, girl. We're getting you home. Celestia showed up and cleaned up Gazelle. You're gonna be okay."

Starlight started to cry.

"Hey." Valey held her close. "If you even think about saying it's not fair, you'd win a world record for how right you are. What even happened? I thought for sure someone would have been keeping better tabs on that guy."

"I-I don't know," Starlight sniffled.

"Well, you don't need to find out," Valey promised, patting her head and increasing her speed. "I'll do that investigating for you."

Starlight wasn't consoled.

"It's gonna be alright," Valey repeated. "We'll get you back to Maple. Horn hurts?"

"D-Did you find the sword?" Starlight managed, dodging the question. "The moon glass one? I was too tired to get it..."

"Stashed it under some junk." Valey shrugged. "Gonna go back and grab it the moment I've got you home. What was it even doing there?"

"Glimmer brought it," Starlight sniffed. "I couldn't have beat him on my own. She helped."

Valey's eyes narrowed slightly. "She's back? She's still following us?"

"Y-Yes."

"Well, hey. At least she helped out?"

Starlight shook her head. "We n-need to get that sword back now. Gazelle was trying to eat cutie marks like Garsheeva. He ate the meteor that we saw. It was making him stronger. I had to take them back like Chrysalis..."

Valey frowned heavily. "Is that what happened to that one mare's cutie mark?"

"He got one?" Starlight's ears pressed back miserably.

"Well, bananas."

"We need to get the sword," Starlight repeated. "It's just moon glass. She's a normal pony like Shinespark. Maybe she can just hold it to get her cutie mark back."

"Nope," Valey interrupted, facing her again. "I got this. You did a terrific job doing something you never should have had to do, but now your friends are here and they've got your back. This isn't something you gotta do. And even if it's something you can do, I don't want you burying yourself in work or whatever. We're gonna get you home and let you let it out."

For a moment, Starlight looked like she was going to struggle, but then she slumped. "Thanks."

"Whenever I can."

A few seconds passed. "So how's your horn?" Valey asked.

"Bad. B-But I'm used to it." Starlight swallowed, hanging dizzily in Valey's hooves. "Better than a panic attack with the artifice."

"Well, that's saying something." Valey angled into a glide, the shoreline approaching ahead. "Still, though, just so you know? You stood up to a psycho. Probably saved all those kids' lives."

"They're okay?" Starlight managed.

"More okay than you. Though the mare who lost her cutie mark is rough."

"G-Get the sword..."

Valey angled steeper. "I am taking a two-second detour to get you home. Literally. Watch. One...!"

Air whistled around them as Valey dropped even steeper, the island whooshing up to meet them... and she pulled up just in time, swerving and landing on the roof instead of the street.

"Why are we up here...?" Starlight groggily muttered.

Valey frowned and set her down. "Someone left a box on our roof."

She trotted forward, checked it, and popped it open... and blinked. "Huh. Well, I guess we don't need to go back to the dorms."

It was the moon glass sword. Attached was a little note that read, You're not alone. Somebody is looking out for you.

"...Huh."

Starlight just sat, too dazed to properly read.

Valey scratched her head. "Well, I guess that punk we brought back at the crystal palace is helping again. Dunno who else could possibly have brought this back." She glanced sharply around. "You think she's still hiding nearby?"

"Glimmer?" Starlight mumbled, trying to focus on the note. "Yes, but you won't be able to find her..."

Valey shook herself, straightening her coat. "Eh, whatever. So is this thing safe for me to actually carry? Like, normally I can touch full moon glass just fine, but if it's also sucking stuff from you-know-who... Getting some inconsistency on it from my butt, too." She picked up the box with it in. "Doesn't matter, just curious. Let's get inside."

Inside the door, Maple was waiting like a worried tiger. "Starlight!" she cried, pouncing and grabbing the filly from Valey. "Oh, your horn is hot! Starlight, are you alright?"

"Unngh... N-No..."

Everyone else was arrayed in the living room, wide awake, including Harshwater and Grenada and Gerardo and Slipstream. "Help made it in time?" Jamjars asked, sitting on an arm of the sofa.

Starlight managed to meet her eyes. "T-Thanks..."

Jamjars stared at her. "Normally I'd say no problem, but I don't feel like lying right here..."

"What happened?" Shinespark asked, stepping forward. "Valey, what's our status?"

"Uhh..." Valey scratched her head as Maple carried Starlight away. "Indeterminate. No island ponies are dead yet, but apparently Gazelle went psycho and messed them up bad. Or, went more psycho than he was already. What I want to know is how Celestia was here for a whole week and didn't even do anything about that clown. Anyone who's ever set hoof in the Empire could tell you he's insane. Me and Starlight even beat him up once before!"

Shinespark shook her head. "I'll bet President Kinmari will be asking that before us. I... haven't been paying as close of attention to Gazelle as I should have." She bowed, shoulders stiff. "There will probably be a fight over who's responsible."

Gerardo twiddled his talons. "I have an unfortunate feeling such a brawl would take precedence over decisions on whether to allow the border to be opened in our name. Equestria must have some sort of government beyond Celestia. Imagine how being attacked by a foreign prince will sound."

"Except we were the ones who stopped him?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Come on, it's gotta be worth brownie points saving some kids from a crazy sphinx."

"Which could make it worse for Starlight, depending on how she feels about being a local hero." Amber glanced quietly at Gerardo. "Remember when Hemlock's crane collapsed?"

Shinespark loudly cleared her throat. "It's far from that simple. If you were a government pony with strong opinions on whether the border should be open or closed, you wouldn't care about us or Gazelle or the students. You'd care about how you could spin this to support your position. Now, if keeping the border closed is as important to Princess Celestia as she says it is, I doubt she'd even keep this on the table for government ponies to have opinions about, but it still could mean trouble for us." She glanced at everyone. "I think we need to decide fast and now. Our options are to ask for the Writs of Harmonic Sanction, then try to hide out somewhere in Equestria where no one will focus on us while this incident blows over, or else fly back to Ironridge and wait it out in the north. If Princess Celestia is still on our side, she could come find us again and offer whatever she wants to offer once it's safe."

"What about me, though?" Felicity whispered. "If I'm not fit to fly..."

"And what about the ship?" Valey looked sideways at her. "Is it really fit to fly?"

Shinespark shook her head. "Sometimes, we have no choice but to make the impossible happen. For now, though, I want to be part of whatever meeting is going to happen between the leaders. This is a situation that could easily spin out of control the moment ponies who care more about something other than the injured students, us and Gazelle get involved. I've seen a lot of these in my time in Ironridge, and we need to go now. We can't trust that just because we saved lives this will turn out favorably for us. Valey, are you with me?"

"Yeah." Valey stashed the box with the sword and adjusted her beret. "You and me, girl. Need a ride?"

Shinespark nodded. "Thanks. Let's go."

---

Meanwhile, Maple sat with Starlight in the dim bedroom, fussing over her. "Does she need anything?" Harshwater asked, peeking through the door.

"It looks like she's already been treated." Maple shook her head. "Starlight, do you need anything?"

"A drink," Starlight mumbled. "My head hurts."

"Right." Harshwater backed away.

Maple sighed once she was gone. "It'll be okay," she whispered. "It's all over now."

"It's never over," Starlight whined. "This always happens to me. Why does this keep happening? Why do we keep having to fight things like this?"

Maple hung her head. "Well, I... don't know what to say. But Gazelle was here for us to fight now because we let him come with us instead of leaving him behind to die."

Starlight slumped, spent, in the blankets. "So we should have been worse ponies and not tried to help him."

"I don't know," Maple sighed. "This happened with Crystal too. We could have left her behind, or not taken her to Izvaldi when she needed it... Maybe it's just a consequence of trying to do the right thing and help the ponies who need it most. No one ever said doing the right thing was easier."

"The students who got hurt don't think it's the right thing."

Maple shook her head. "Actually, you could have teleported away and left them to Gazelle, and you fought him and got hurt doing it instead. Saving them was harder, but I don't think they thought that was wrong of you."

Starlight whimpered and curled up.

"I don't know why the ponies we keep staying around are the powerful ones, who can do things like this," Maple continued. "It's probably because we're powerful and ambitious ourselves. But I don't know what to do about that. We fought to get where we are and got this strong in the first place so that we could overcome the kinds of problems ordinary ponies face, didn't we? But all we did was trade them out for problems like these. I don't have any better answers for you, Starlight. But I know we're all still here. Whatever you had to do, it was enough. We're still alive."

Starlight sniffled.

"...Do you wish you still had the artifice?" Maple asked. "And your memories?"

Starlight adamantly shook her head. "N-No. I... I did do it without them. And if getting stronger just gives us worse problems, I don't want to deal with whatever they would give me."

"How did you do it?" Maple whispered. "You just tried your hardest, like always?"

"Glimmer was back." Starlight closed her eyes. "I couldn't have beat him on my own. She helped."

Before Maple could reply, the door opened again, and Jamjars stepped through, a water glass held in her aura. "Delivery service!"

"Thanks," Maple greeted, reaching and taking it from her and holding it up for Starlight.

Starlight gratefully drank. "You went and got help," she mumbled when she was done.

"I mean, yeah?" Jamjars' brow furrowed. "You think I was just going to let him do whatever he wanted without getting you some backup?"

Starlight tried to set the glass down, half-empty, and Maple caught it before it could tip over. "Thank you for that too," Maple repeated. "I don't know the whole story yet, but..."

"Well, you're welcome." Jamjars shrugged. "I'm going to go back to the Laughter dorms, if no one minds. I want to see if I can find that book he was reading."

"Gazelle was reading a book?" Maple looked up.

Jamjars nodded. "By or about somepony called Seraphim. I want to read what he read that made him go off the deep end."

"Good luck," Starlight mumbled, curling up harder in the blankets. "I'm staying here..."

Comments

[Oberth Effect]

Slightly early chapter! Thanks!

"More okay than you. Though the mare who lost her cutie mark is rough."

One thing I thought of since reading last chapter -- a mare without a cutie mark could be a good target for Chrysalis to take over if/when she escapes, although to be fair I don't know how that would work since Meadowglade isn't a bat pony (I think?) and there's an existing soul in that body.

It was the moon glass sword. Attached was a little note that read, You're not alone. Somebody is looking out for you.

Huh. Could be Glimmer, as Starlight/Valey said, but it feels a bit too... direct? Not sure who else it might be though, since very few ponies would know just how valuable that sword is. Certainly would seem like her to leave the sword where Valey/Starlight are likely to find it and no one else, though (although shouldn't she no longer have detailed knowledge of the future now?).

I'm also curious whether anyone else saw it.

"Glimmer?" Starlight mumbled, trying to focus on the note. "Yes, but you won't be able to find her..."

I wonder how Glimmer has managed to hide all this time. Another commenter has mentioned how present Starlight appears to have the cutie mark abilities of her old friends. I wonder if Glimmer also has those abilities, and one of those abilities happens to be a more refined version of Jamjars's camouflage.

Jamjars stared at her. "Normally I'd say no problem, but I don't feel like lying right here..."

So did something happen when Jamjars went to get help?

"It's far from that simple. If you were a government pony with strong opinions on whether the border should be open or closed, you wouldn't care about us or Gazelle or the students. You'd care about how you could spin this to support your position.

Urgh, this sounds like it could be a real problem, although it depends quite heavily on how the government is set up. If Celestia needs to keep some faction or another appeased, it could turn nasty real quick, especially if someone related to a higher-up got hurt.

I wish Shinespark and Valey luck.

I want to see if I can find that book he was reading."

I have a feeling the secret to Sphinx immortality might not be the most interesting thing in that book... (Edit: And who knows what other interesting things might be in Dr. Lost's collection, or even just the stuff from the Seraphim estate?)

[Phoenix Kitten]

The aftermath...or the start of it.
Good idea Jamjars. Keeping that book hidden will do a lot of good.

[yellowbastion]

Only 57 more before Czar_Yoshi runs into the hard limit of 1000 chapters per story (…unless Knighty has lifted the limit?).
At one chapter per day, I figure that will happen on March 16th.

[KMCA]

10042690

I'm also curious whether anyone else saw it.

Attached was a little note that read, You're not alone. Somebody is looking out for you.
Somebody is looking out for you.

Somebody

That? It raises an eyebrow because I figure Glimmer, Celestia or a pony would have used "somepony"
Or it's just a typo.

[Oberth Effect]

10042858

That’s an interesting suggestion. We don’t have many candidates for such a creature though...