Never
“Have you learned your lesson?” Starlight Glimmer said, smiling at him with the sharpness of a knife.
Double Diamond nodded. His ears ached with the droning of loudspeakers from the previous days, making the edge of all his thoughts so painfully fuzzy.
Starlight’s eyes narrowed, the edge of hostility in them nothing she had ever shown him before. It was certainly not anything like the look of the Starlight Glimmer behind closed doors. That was a Starlight he hadn’t known could exist. A Starlight that was almost more of a mare than their leader.
“And what was your lesson?”
Double Diamond opened his mouth, and at first, nothing came out. He closed it, swallowed, and pretended he didn’t see her approval at his fear.
“Love de-equalizes ponies.”
“Yes?” she whispered, tapping one of her hindlegs expectantly. Starlight’s steely stare bored into Double Diamond, one foreleg tucked under her muzzle and keeping her in the grim pose of a philosopher, even though there were no thinkers in Our Town, just revolutionaries. “Anything else?”
“L-Love is wrong. Love is foolish,” stammered Double Diamond, throat crushed by either hoof or magic. “There is no love in Our Town.”
“Go on,” she ordered, spellbound and hungry-eyed for something Double Diamond didn’t want to understand, even if he could.
“I don’t love you.” Double Diamond wished that he could say that and make it completely true, but there was no truth in Our Town. Just Starlight’s reality. The only reality. “I never did. I never have. I was blinded. I don’t love mares.”
“Of course,” chimed Starlight with an eerie half-attempt at her usual pleasantness. “Nopony is allowed to let themselves be burdened by something so terrible here. But you struggle with something just as terrible as the idea of loving mares, don’t you?”
“I don’t love stallions either!” Double Diamond pressed his folded forehooves as hard together as possible and tried not to think of Party Favor.
“That’s right.” Starlight Glimmer smiled at him, eyes oddly distant, and her expression snake-like.
Double Diamond beamed at Starlight fearfully, purposefully biting the inside of his cheek as he did so.
“Can you tell me what the most important thing you learned in the House of Re-Education was? More important than following the rules of Our Town?”
Double Diamond knew now that he could never understand Starlight Glimmer, or what could possibly be more important than the rules of Our Town. He knew that Starlight telling him to do something was not so much different from learning it himself. Starlight told him that, but she told everypony else in Our Town that too.
“Nopony loves Starlight Glimmer.”
Starlight stopped smiling when Double Diamond spoke. “That’s right,” she murmured, voice taut and shadowing its usual clipped, authoritative cheer.
Most of all, Double Diamond could not understand why Starlight Glimmer would make him tell her that in the first place.
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10039928
Yeah, unless I add some sort of sequel or anything then it’s probably not going to be connected to anything else.
Good read
10040360
Thank you!
Poor crazy bitch
10040755
Yeeeep. Thank you for reading and leaving a comment that made me chuckle.
i must admit i be kinda interested in finding out what a reformed glimmer would do meeting him again
10041847
If I ever picked up a storyline/series with this, that is certainly something I would want to explore too. Thanks for reading!
10110582
Oh my goodness Filly this isn’t the story for gay puns
But I like it 👀👍
10110592
wdym there are stories that aren't?
10110674
oh umm
hmm
Brr...this gave me the chills, Starlight here is so utterly convinced that she is unloveable because of past hurts that she dare not let anyone close to her again is troubling, especially since it reminds me of someone I was talking to recently who wishes that the world keep its distance, they won't dare try anything new or let anyone close because they fear always being in the wrong, of being hurt.
As someone else commented, I wonder how things would go should Starlight run back into Double Diamond again. Maybe since in the finale, we saw Starlight standing alongside Sunburst and Trixie she could run into him and it would be super awkward, but that in of itself would make for a compelling short story, the unease would be palpable to the reader.
10225397
Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment. I'm not really sure if this storyline will be continued, but if it didn't I'd probably turn the focus to Double Diamond.
Most of the Propaganda Hut* dialogue is fantastically crafted as bite-sized bits of Starlight's banal dystopia, but I do need to call attention to "Hope is the thing with feathers because it should be made to fly away." That feels like it's negatively singling out pegasi.
Still, a fantastic tragedy. Starlight may not have removed her mark, but she still had to suffer for her bleak little society. Excellent work.
*Nopony out-slogans the Hut!
10479945
That particular line is a reference to Dickinson and just a prettier way to make a phrase that means “abandon all hope” (hence why it is flying away) sound appealing and propaganda-chic. Hope has feathers because it is meant to be abandoned and will abandon the ponies, according to Starlight.
So it wasn’t made to be too horse racist.
Hope *is the thing
Also, nice Dickinson reference.
Man. I love the idea of exploring pre-reformation Starlight. I personally headcanon her as not having any romantic experience at all by the time of the finale, both due to a combination of self-loathing and the goodness in her (however deeply it was buried at the time) realizing that fraternizing with her "subjects" was going too far.
With that in mind, I wasn't expecting to read a romance, however brief and ill-fated, between Starlight and Double Diamond here. Especially because PartyDiamond is better.
But! I like how you did it, especially in these tiny chapters, the second of which is just chilling. It might just be the cadence of me reading the slogans in my head, but I sensed a growing desperation in them as they went on, particularly the ones about love.
And that third chapter... wow. A tiny glimpse of the real demons behind the monster Starlight was at the time. I... almost feel sorry for her when Diamond says that no one is allowed to love her. Just damn.
When I get around to Don't Make A Shadow Of Yourself, I just know I'm going to love it.
10600959
PartyDiamond is definitely my preferred ship, yes. But I'm sure you could tell. Knowing how you have Starlight inexperienced with romance, or anything like it, I wasn't sure how you were going to react to this little story. Considering Starlight essentially guilt trips/manipulates a pony into a romantic relationship with her, then throws them in the slogan shack when doubt sinks in, and severs their bond through using her once-lover as psychological self-harm.
And whoops, fixed that error.
The last pary just makes me sad, the way Starlight is convinced she is unlovable to the point of making everyone believe so is so heart breaking :((