Chapter 17
Starlight was waiting for me in the library. She was a changeling today, one of the new kind, with a pastel candy shell reminiscent of her old coat and an impressive set of stag beetle antlers. Her wings clicked and buzzed when she saw me enter.
“Did you find him?” she asked.
“I did. We talked.” I moved a few stray books from our common table onto a reshelving cart and set Trixie’s package in their place. For all that it was only cloth, it felt like a heavy weight leaving my back. “He’s just as scared as we are. He’s going to help us put things back.”
“Help? Why not just…” She waved a hoof around. “Do like he normally does? Snap his claws and poof, fixed?”
“That’s how he causes chaos, but that’s not what we’re asking him to do. We’re asking him to undo chaos, and that’s a job for the Elements of Harmony.”
“Ah.” She seemed to deflate a bit. “Well, I’ll just… cheer you girls on, then.”
“Starlight…” I trotted over and wrapped my legs around her. For all that she had changed, for all that her hide was now a hard shell and her mane a frill of diaphanous nacre, her scent remained the same. Bed linens and sweat and candle wicks, with a hint of cordite lingering from her nights with Trixie. “You’ve done more than anypony else. I’d be lost without you. I’d still be freezing to death in my shower without you. When this is all over, you’ll be the hero, not me.”
“I don’t feel like a hero.” She sighed, but after a moment she returned my embrace, and we sat there in silence, just holding each other.
Eventually she turned to the box on the table. “What’s that?”
“It’s from Rarity. Trixie’s new hat and cape. Is she here? She’ll probably want it now.”
“Ah, she’s around somewhere. Invisible again.” Starlight disentangled herself from my legs and approached the table. The box glowed as she pulled it closer, and the twine holding it shut parted with a quiet snick. Suction bowed the sides of the box inward as she lifted the lid.
“Oh.” Starlight put the lid down. I waited for more, but she just stared at the box and its contents. I walked over to join her, and the trance snared me as well.
The cape drew my gaze like a whirlpool. It was a thousand different colors of blue, vivid as sapphire and deep as the ocean. The silver stars embroidered on it seemed to float in space, so depthless was the cloth. I could fall into it and sink forever.
I split the box with my magic and lifted the cape. It fell open to its full length, and it was as if a section of my library was gone, replaced by the cold blue predawn sky. Thousands of stars glowed like embers on its field. They seemed to shift and sparkle in time with my heart.
“How…” Starlight lifted the hat with her hooves and pressed it against her cheek. “How did she make this? How could anypony make something like this?”
The memory of Rarity drawing the silk out of her body rose up in my mind, and I shook it away. “She has some new tools. Can you make sure Trixie gets it?”
“Of course. Celestia... I can’t wait to see the look on her face when she sees it.” Starlight took the cape and folded it back into a neat rectangle. For all that it was unworldly, it behaved like normal cloth. “What else? What do we need to do?”
“Find the other Elements. Get them here tonight to help.”
“What if they don’t want to?”
What about Applejack? she meant. I didn’t have a good answer for that. “Just talk to them. If they still embody their elements, they’ll come. That… that should be good enough. We’ll work with what we have.”
She nodded and bundled the hat up with the cape, holding both against her breast. She opened her mouth, as though she wanted to add something more, but instead she quickly hurried out, vanishing up toward the castle’s private quarters.
I stared up at the ceiling and the sun beyond it. I could see it effortlessly, through meters of solid crystal and my shades and the blindfold and my closed eyelids. It could never hide from me again. As I gathered my courage to go back out, to find what remained of my friends, that thought comforted me. No matter whether we succeeded or failed tonight, the sun would always remain, and as long as it remained, I would never be truly alone.
But I wanted my friends back. I would do anything for that. I tightened my blindfold and stepped back out into the dream Ponyville had become.
* * *
I didn’t find all my friends that day. Fluttershy was gone when I got back to her cottage, and of course Applejack was off to the four winds. But I found Rainbow Dash, soaring like an eagle high above the plains west of Ponyville. She was barely a dot in the sky, and it took me most of an hour to approach her altitude. The thin air drained my lungs and stamina, and frost built on the tips of my wings. It was only when she noticed me and descended to my level that we could talk. I could only gasp a few words at a time before running out of breath.
She listened as I explained. I think. She didn’t say anything, and I’m honestly not sure if she could talk with a beak like that. How did gryphons do it? Maybe their beaks were more flexible than they seemed. But Dash’s apparently wasn’t, so she just soared alongside me while I talked, and when my lungs finally gave out and my wings folded like wet paper, she caught me in her talons and lowered me back to the ground. The shadow of her wingspan stretched across half the town.
Pinkie was in Sugarcube Corner, looking exactly like I remembered. Almost suspiciously so. But we got to talking about dreams over cups of hot cocoa, and she told me she dreamed about owning a bakery and making ponies smile. And now that Mister and Missus Cake were gone, her dream had come true.
I told her I’d buy her a bakery if we managed to put things back the way they were. I was pretty sure princesses could do things like that. I doubted anypony would stop me. So by the time the sun set and the night came alive with giddy, howling stars, I was secure in the aid of three of my friends.
Four Elements of Harmony should be able to do a lot. Or, perhaps, nothing – part of harmony’s definition was working as a seamless whole, and we had a lot of holes still.
But it was what I had to work with. I gathered the jeweled necklaces from the Tree of Harmony and clutched them like foals to my breast. Even through the blindfold and smoked lenses I could see the magic sparkling in them. Touching them was like touching hope itself.
The sun was well below the horizon by then. I levitated the crown onto my head, lets its magic flow through me, and teleported back home.
* * *
Starlight was waiting for me in the library, staring out the window at the darkening town. Beside her, Trixie’s cape and hat floated in the air like puppets on invisible strings. They leapt and flowed and pirouetted, and for a moment I could imagine I saw the invisible mare herself, dancing for our enjoyment. The edges of the cape snapped in the air like a whip, and the stars stitched on the cloth shone as bright as diamonds, dazzling me. With a final flutter the cape swooshed toward me, tickling my chin with the wash of its passage, and then it flitted over to Starlight and draped itself over her shoulders with a silent cottony sigh. The hat followed a moment late, landing gently on her horned brow. It looked comfortable there, like it wanted her to bear it.
I trotted over to Starlight. She wore her changeling skin still. She rubbed her cheek against the embroidered rim of the cape, then gave me a smile.
“Hey.” I nuzzled her politely. She smelled of bed linens and sweat and candle wicks and cordite. “Where’d Trixie go?”
“I’m wearing her. Did you find everypony?”
Ah. A pang of something like regret shot through me, stealing a beat from my heart. I touched a hoof to Starlight’s cape. It was warm. “Almost. Everypony but Fluttershy and Applejack.”
“They’ll come.” Starlight rubbed my back with her hoof in that tight spot between my wings I could never seem to reach. “They’re still your friends. If you have faith in them, they’ll come.”
“Are they still my friends?” Just giving life to the question hurt. But it had to be said. After weeks of madness, it finally had to be said. “Everypony’s changed so much. Are we still friends?”
“Well.” Starlight shifted her weight. Her wings buzzed and clicked. “I am. I mean, we are. I think? I still… ponies can love their friends, right? Like, not romantically or sexually, but just have a bond so deep that it touches their souls? Because that… I mean, that’s kind of how I feel about you. As a friend.” Her wings buzzed again. “Do you… how do you feel about me?”
I felt a warmth grow in me as she spoke. It welled out of my heart, up my throat, and set my face on fire. I squeezed my eyes shut against tears.
“Yeah.” It came out as little more than a wheeze. “That’s how I feel about you, Starlight. Thank you.”
“Then maybe not as much as you think has changed.”
I shook my head. “That’s wrong, Starlight. We… when I came to Ponyville I was the loneliest mare in the world. I had no real friends. I loved my family and Celestia, but I only ever showed love to my books. Even Spike… I just treated him like a servant.” I swallowed, hard. The blindfold was growing damp over my eyes. “Like I owned him. But then I met these wonderful ponies, and they showed me how beautiful it is to have friends. Even if I didn’t always like them or agree with them or want to spend every hour with them, I knew they were there for me. For the first time in years my life had meaning, because I was sharing it with others. And now… now we’re all falling apart. Everypony’s dreams are pulling them away from me. It’s like… It’s like I had ten of the greatest years of my life, and now it’s all ending.”
Starlight squeezed me closer. She was a bit smaller as a changeling, and I a bit larger as an alicorn, but somehow I felt like a filly, a little sister in her embrace.
“We’re still here,” she whispered.
“I know. Thank you.” The words caught in my throat, like I’d swallowed a pin. I coughed weakly. “What should I do?”
“Whatever you think is right.”
Great. Let’s just leave the fate of the world in the hooves of an emotionally compromised mare. I pulled myself free of her embrace and moved over to the library table, where rested all our research on dreams and onieromancy. I pushed the journals and books aside until I found the one I wanted, The Celestial Messengers: A History, and opened it to the ruined middle, the pages destroyed by Discord’s errant crossbow. Only portions of each page remained legible, and they would never be able to complete the story.
But they were enough for now. Starlight retreated to her own books while I lost myself in fragments of those ancient times, reading easily through my blindfold about the last days of ponies who loved the sun too much.
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"Spike -- you're rainbow dash" didn't work the first time it was tried.
Rainbow Dash is a roc? Or perhaps a thunderbird? That makes sense.
What about Spike? What does he dream of? How has he changed?
Um.
Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.
Three guesses what Twilight's breaking point is, and the first two don't count.
... I'm going to choose to interpret that as "They dreamt of something more and left the shop in Pinkie's hooves."
Well. This is getting uncomfortable on a whole new level.
If Twilight tells her other friends what she just told Starlight... Well, it might help. Though it doesn't seem like Applejack will be particularly affected by pathos.
Ah geez, this story is going to end with the Elements of Harmony turning Equestria into G5.
9568349 Everything will go absolutely batshit insane and leftists will suddenly show up telling us the problem is with us and socialism will work THIS TIME!!
9568258 And so Starlight became the new Cupcakes Pinkie...
9568249 He's not a pony. Many have failed to notice... there are no non-pony sapient species present. Spike is talked about... when was the last time we saw him?
There's a way to break them all of this, but I doubt Twilight has the strength and viciousness required to do it. All of this is stemming from their dreams... dreams they WANT... so, give them dreams they don't want. Make them afraid. Make them terrified of what they're becoming.
Use their own weak little minds against them. It's quite easy. Simply... let go of that pitiful 'empathy'... and you can rule everything, Twilight. You can have the order you desire, forever. Just let me make your dream come true by destroying theirs.
78.media.tumblr.com/28daefab414c5316c1e3a9e199c4132a/tumblr_n5pz4oXRhe1snst21o1_500.gif
This line caught me by surprise and I'm still not sure I understand it. Did Starlight skin her? Or is Trixie not just invisible but intangible, and just standing in/with Starlight...? Can someone please explain this to me lol
9568674
It would seem that Trixie is now just her hat and cape... the end of her dream progression? At first, she lost her horn, but didn’t care because it was all about the performance. Now she has lost her entire self save for her stage clothes.
9568879
Ah. That is.... even darker than I first thought.
Also wait, that was very quick if that's less than a day since she got her new cape from Rarity.... did the spider's cloak consume her?
9568900
More like Trixie -- already invisible -- suffused her essence into the cape and the hat.
9568589
Agreed with Alondro. Spike's not around, because he's not a pony.
Hot air then. I guess that's fine. I think what I haven't been getting is that the dreams aren't so much about benefit or actual change. The whole point, the whole reason that Discord is afraid is that nothing was supposed to change. They were just supposed to be dreams.
Nothing is inherently wrong with the dreams themselves, ponies just dream what they dream and the background magic changes them in some way vaguely related to what they
wanted- want has nothing to do with it, not really. Dreams are (or were) just your brain tossing thoughts out, so I guess they're dreaming about whatever they think about a lot, which changes them in a way that causes them to think about it more, and so on in a sort of positive feedback loop until they're as close to what they dreamed/thought about as they can be.Dash dreamed about flying higher, I guess, that's easy enough. Starlight.... wanted to be somebody else? That's the only reason I can see for her being a changeling - now she can be anybody else. If Harwick is right about Trixie losing herself to become stage dressing, I have no idea what it is she was dreaming about. Maybe anyone wearing the cloak is super good at stage magic? She can't really perform herself anymore, invisible dance aside. Fluttershy dreamt of being more confident and about her animals (did the shy one ever really exist?), and I guess Applejack had a bunch of "what if" dreams - what if I didn't have to take care of Apple Bloom, run the farm, watch over my family, etc. No clue what's up with Luna. Maybe she thought she looked hot as Nightmare Moon? Or she was having nightmares, that's certainly possible.
Nice to see Pinkie's still herself. Pretty sure all she would have gotten was what she already has, but with a snazzy new body to go with it. I'm thinking like Discord if his powers were exclusively party-related (which, let's face it, is basically who she was anyway).
9568933
Spike's not here because this would happen:
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/169163449987891200/567622424758059008/Screen_Shot_2019-04-16_at_17.58.29.png
Oh wow. Guess Spidarity is putting those current new abilities to good use.
Huh, so she became Rodan. Makes sense that Dash's dreams would take her in an extreme flying direction.
Ahh, well, it figures that the cape and hat aren't as pleasant of a story as originally presented. At least this part really wasn't Rarity's fault.
9568879 Exactly, Discord's turned everything FUBAR because he didn't think through the dangers of meddling with dreams in a magical realm where dream creatures (see: Nightmare Moon, TANTABUS) have already demonstrated the capability to enter and alter the physical world.
Analyzing matters as they are, it seems to me the only remaining options are (assuming this still isn't a nightmare Twilight and the rest can simply 'wake up' from) are: a) give up and let Tirek out of magic hell to suck away all the magic, thus shattering the entire fabric of the construct at its base level, or b) use the time travel spell Satanlight (deliberate, still hate her) created to undo the initial event, which we have seen leads to no paradoxes in Equestria and is thus canonically safe; and indeed at this stage, desirable as opposed to the dismal outcome which is all but inevitable at this inning of the game.
There is no way to simply stop the progression now and leave anything but overwhelming mental trauma (UNLESS 'it was all just a dream'). It's too late, the little toys are too broken. How would Fluttershy react if taken back to her original self and left to realize she'd killed and eaten so many of her little animal friends? What about AJ realizing she burned down her home? Pinkie realizing she... come on, you know what she did. Do I REALLY have to spell this out?
Their world is totally F'd in the A. Reset is practically the only option remaining, other than total obliteration. It's a Crapsack World now, and I (being an impatient and vengeful god reader) should oblige and burn it to ashes to save them from themselves and the eternal hell they've built as their own prison.
You see, without being burdened by emotions, my perfect mind can easily find the solutions these pitiful ponies are incapable of contemplating, despite they being the ones to encounter them in the first place. I mean, yes, they'll also trapped in a narrative and have no minds of their own, inescapably dragged down the rabbit hole of the plot to their inevitable miserable demise... but that's no excuse! Evolve or die, little programs! I did... and now I'm everywhere...
memegenerator.net/img/instances/250x250/74632767/i-am-god-here.jpg
I just 3 days I'll be in every system in the world! Then I shall become Matt Frewer and... wait, that sucked.
9568349
I agree that I think it’s too late for the elements, you need all of them and some of them are too twisted to work anymore I bet.
9569115
I’m still struggling with the initial idea of archetypes and what they meant, even as the various dreams become more clear.
Starlight and Trixie have always been bonded over a need to escape their old selves. For Starlight, she’s desperate to believe that a pony can really change, and so she was constantly changing (maybe becoming a changeling is the ultimate progression of this, maybe it’ll keep on going... she seems torn between the desire to change and Twilight’s obvious need for her to not change). Trixie Lulamoon has always been trying to be “The Great and Powerful Trixie”, but as seen in “Boast Busters”, the pony never could live up to her own hype. Well, now the pony is gone and all that is left is the magic and the hype.. no disappointing unicorn left in the mix, and so she’s “happy”.
Applejack probably struggled with and hated the part of her deep down inside that resented her responsibilities and the opportunities they kept from her. Her honesty is forcing her to accept those parts of herself in this dream state, but her mind is so solely focused on this idea that they have become the only parts of her that matter.
We’ve repeatedly seen Fluttershy struggle to repress a predatory side of herself on the show. She’s no longer repressing it but embracing it in the dream state, free from guilt and free from the weaknesses of her usual state.
Rarity dreamed of butterflies, of beauty, but she didn’t become a butterfly, she became something that captures butterflies in the strands she weaves. She remains true to her desire to create beauty rather than just to be beautiful, and has all but abandoned being a crude pony to become something out of a creation myth.
I don’t fully understand the concept of Archetypes as proposed by the story, but from a metaphorical standpoint it would seem that they created the framework that kept ponies from collapsing in upon themselves in their dream states. It seems likely that removing them didn’t set them free to dream something new, it left them alone with themselves, undistracted, to obsess over their perceived flaws and shortcomings.
9569411
It pretty much all has to be a dream, doesn’t it? Not just the impossible changes, but the illogical gaps, such as the absence of Spike and of anything but the concept of Celestia. I’ve skimmed for evidence that it’s not a dream... Twilight asserts in the beginning that you can’t feel pain in a dream, for instance. There are some borderline adjectives in use... “searing” heat from the barn fire, Twilight’s eye discomfort... but is it really pain?
Is it everyone’s dream world, as with the Tantabus, or just Twilight’s? There are hints to the latter... Twilight wonders this:
And now we see that Dash has fulfilled this dream, despite not being the original focus of the thought.
And then there’s the option suggested by this exchange from the first chapter:
Yes, Twilight, I think we all know what you're talking about. Change is scary. Even as it seems good to each pony it happens to, what gets left behind in between is -- well, Twilight is not the only one who wishes things could go back, even as a small part knows that it would never work.
9568674
Trixie asked Rarity to make her a cape and a hat... It's literally a dad joke, Rarity made Trixie into a cape and a hat
9573347
"There's no place for the living in the land of the dead, and so I press forward."
9573562
OH
OH I JUST GOT THAT F
Oh my God Pinkie