Their Town, Not Ours
As the terrain grew flatter and more arid, Faye noticed it growing closer as well: Starlight was flying the ship at lower and lower altitudes.
She didn't question this, but she did wonder. It wasn't like they could just run out of power, and Starlight didn't strike her as a daredevil. But at least it made for an interesting view.
Some mad engineer had designed the ship with a window on the bottom; a long, rectangular pane of something akin to glass set into the floor of the mess hall. Normally, it was covered by the grand table, but that could detach from the floor and retract onto the ceiling using tiny winches that attached to the corners, cleanly clearing the room. That was how it was now, Faye sitting on a bench and fiddling with her wing spokes, watching the desert scrub rush past.
Halcyon was out in ghost form, taking a flight around. Faye wondered what that must be like, not only detaching as a ghost but being able to fly. They had tried halfheartedly a few times, but some instinct told her she couldn't do this like Halcyon could, and even if she could, she wasn't sure she wanted to.
Even if she had turned control over it to another for a few years, this was still her body.
Being alone left her with time to think, and inevitably her thoughts turned to Unnrus-kaeljos and Nanzanaya. Nothing about that situation sat well with her. The light spirit she had seen in a vision in the crystal city was overwhelming in its callous, destructive might, and doubly so when it appeared to her after in a dream. And calling Nanzanaya its loyal servant, and ordering Faye to trust her... That didn't add up with Nanzanaya's assertion to Halcyon that she was a guardian of the unknown.
Perhaps Nanzanaya was lying, knew far more about the light spirit than she let on, and the two of them were in cahoots to manipulate her? That was the most straightforward answer, but it also didn't make sense. Why wouldn't their acts be coordinated? Why would they contradict each other, and in doing so make Nanzanaya look less trustworthy than she wanted to appear?
Perhaps they were both benevolent, somehow, and Unnrus-kaeljos thought its word would carry weight, and speak to Nanzanaya's good intentions even if she didn't know it was speaking with Faye? But that would mean not only was this ancient destroyer well-meaning, but dumb enough to not realize how it looked to her. That was just implausible.
The safest solution, contrary to what she told Halcyon earlier, felt like dropping both of them and running away. Except for one big problem: she needed to get her hooves dirty with this in order to get Seigetsu to give back her bracelet and leave her alone. Spy on Nanzanaya, get in her good graces and find out what her true motive and goal was, that was the deal. And Faye wasn't confident enough in what she had learned to go to Seigetsu and claim she had done enough.
And that led to the biggest conundrum of all: that deal had been made within the two-day hole in Halcyon's memory, while she had been nothing but a green jewel in Seigetsu's pocket. As had the entire trip to the crystal city, and both visions of Unnrus-kaeljos.
Halcyon didn't know Unnrus-kaeljos' true nature as one of the gods who destroyed Indus. She didn't know that Unnrus-kaeljos wanted her to trust Nanzanaya and considered her a loyal servant. And she didn't know that they were spying on Nanzanaya for Seigetsu.
So how should Faye break it to her?
She almost didn't want to. Halcyon was paranoid enough as it was without knowing they were in the sights of an ancient, possibly-evil god. And Nanzanaya was bound to be more crafty than she acted. If she suspected Halcyon had an ulterior motive for working with her, it would be easy for her to feed them false information... or, at least, less-trustworthy information than usual. Perhaps the best way to hide from Nanzanaya that she was being spied on, and hide from her that Faye already knew things about Unnrus-kaeljos, was for the pony interacting with her to not know about those things at all.
Faye closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and shuddered. It wasn't like she was a stranger to keeping secrets from Halcyon. That was basically the point of her existence. Even after their reconciliation in Ironridge, there were still other things she had never told Halcyon. Important things, things she barely even cared to admit to herself.
Like exactly what she had wished for, down in the tunnels in the days after the avalanche.
That particular memory also contradicted what Procyon said she had wished for, so Faye couldn't even know if what she remembered was true. But there was no way Procyon's disappearance could have tampered with these more recent memories. She had been visited again by Unnrus-kaeljos. There was no possible other explanation. And Halcyon...
In all of Halcyon's searching for the divine, her staring up at the heavens and down into the chapel, Faye knew what Halcyon couldn't yet articulate for herself: Halcyon was searching for an absolute good in the world, a reassurance that there was a plan and everything would be okay. Learning that there really was a god, or two gods, whom together had destroyed the previous world... Halcyon didn't need that.
She was doing so well, after the troubles she had in Snowport and the Crystal Empire. Faye didn't want to set that progress back. And there were so many benefits to keeping her mouth closed.
So, that was what she would do. Maybe after Seigetsu left them alone, Nanzanaya had gone her separate way, and they had their bracelet back safe and sound, then she could tell Halcyon. After a little more time, when she was sure Halcyon was strong enough to take it.
"I get why you could miss the ground after being in the air for a week," Corsica said, wandering onto the bridge, "but try not to miss it so hard that we have a bumpy reunion, okay?"
Starlight was at the controls, a distant expression on her face. "We're almost there. And... I'd rather not be seen approaching."
Corsica looked out the windshield. The desert around them was absolute, made less of sand and more of dusty clay, brownish-gray in color and fading into snowy mountains in the distance. Those mountains had appeared on the horizon sometime while she was sleeping, and from their height and distance, she suspected this was the Aldenfold.
Funny. It didn't look nearly high enough to produce the views she remembered seeing on the voyage to Equestria, though it was still pretty high. Maybe the mountains were lower in this area, or maybe they were already high above sea level.
"So," Corsica lectured, crossing her forelegs and leaning on a wall. "You ready to tell us what that's about, yet? If this place is so frightening it took a lecture from Papyrus to get you to come here, you think maybe we should be prepared?"
Starlight swallowed. Twice. "There's a town, near the entrance to the caves that will get us to the crystal palace." She hesitated. "They might... use the entrance to those caves for storage. So, we'll have to sneak through. Leave the ship out of sight, maybe in the mountains. The town is in a depression to shield it from the wind, which is why we're approaching low. To stay out of sight. It..." She sighed.
"Oh yeah?" Corsica nodded. "What are they gonna do to us if they catch us? Are they cannibals? A secret Yakuza headquarters? A reclusive tribe of combat monks?"
Starlight blinked.
"Because between you and me, I bet we could take them." Corsica twirled, flipping her mane. "I've gotten pretty good over the last week, you've gotta admit."
"Don't fight them," Starlight whispered. "Please."
Corsica raised an eyebrow. "They're that strong?"
"Get Twilight to tell you."
Corsica glanced between Starlight, the windshield, and the ship's controls. This was not the look of a world-wise pragmatist steering the team clear from danger. It was the look of a frightened filly who had broken a wrathful parent's favorite vase.
A look Corsica knew well, because Halcyon often used it to get out of things back in Icereach. And she knew exactly how to handle that.
Lighting her horn, Corsica nudged up the ship's altitude control. It began to rise.
Starlight slammed it back down with both forehooves, then crystallized it in place, summoning a beautiful spire of teal crystal with a jet of light from her horn. She gave Corsica a frantic what are you doing look.
"Uh uh," Corsica said, putting her own hoof on the lever - she couldn't move it, but this was more about posture and messaging. "I know what it looks like when someone's avoiding things. This is about you not wanting to take responsibility for some mess you've made, isn't it?"
Starlight hissed in recognition. "Look..."
She didn't continue, even when Corsica raised an eyebrow.
"I will put a gag on Twilight if she tries to explain this before you can," Corsica threatened. "What did you do?"
Starlight wilted, stubbornly continuing her silence.
"Everyone's got some skeletons in their dirty laundry," Corsica said. "Come on. You want mine? I alienated my dad, my friends, pushed away everyone who used to be or could have been close to me because I didn't understand how other ponies worked, or how I worked either. Boo hoo. Now it's your turn. Go on."
Starlight was close to breaking, Corsica could tell. So she pushed a little harder. "If it's actually serious, I won't rub it in. Don't worry, I'm a professional at this."
"...It's called Our Town," Starlight finally sighed. "I founded it. I ran it, up until... I don't know, a year ago? With an iron hoof. Made all the rules. Bad rules, compensating for my own insecurities and failures. Didn't let anyone leave. Actively recruited, with empty promises. Eventually got ran out of town by everyone who lives there. End of story."
Corsica suspected there was more. "So basically you were a school ringleader bully. But as an adult. Been there, as a kid. What else?"
Starlight gave her an are you crazy look.
"Come on," Corsica nudged. "That's the sort of trouble mundane ponies get into. You're a Flame of Harmony with allegedly unstoppable powers. Sure there was no eldritch magic involved, anything that makes it ten times worse?"
Starlight gritted her teeth. "Well, there was, but it doesn't change anything. I'm not immune from having normal-pony problems just because I'm special. Big surprise, right? What my rules were, or how I enforced them, or how I got overthrown aren't what matters here. The only thing that matters is that if anyone in that town sees me, or my airship because everyone there has seen this ship before, we're going to get a frosty welcome and the best way I can atone for what I did here is to leave those old wounds undisturbed and not make all of them re-litigate this. And the only reason I'm here anyway in spite of that is because someone else couldn't leave well enough alone either. Which is why we're going to sneak into the caves and try not to let them know I'm here at all."
Corsica nodded. "Sure thing, fearless leader. I will do exactly as you command. Any chance Twilight and her other friends were involved with your history here?"
Starlight gave her a deeply unappreciative look. "They were."
"Well, I wasn't." Corsica straightened up. "So how about you hide your ship on the outskirts like you want, and then I go check out the lay of the land myself, along with anyone else who wants to come and is a stranger around here. No mention of you, scientist's honor. And then we come back here and I give you all the lowdown."
"...It's a better plan than the alternatives." Starlight shook her head. "But that means it's on you if you slip up and disturb the peace here with word of my presence."
"Hey, don't worry." Corsica flashed a lazy grin. "I love disturbing the peace. In case you didn't notice, a peace this uneasy deserves it."
As they drew closer, Corsica finally saw what Starlight meant about the town being down in a depression. The plateau didn't meet the mountains in a great wall, like the Aldenfold's Ironridge face, nor did it slope down into foothills like the outskirts of Sires Hollow. Instead, it was separated from them by a broad gulch, the mountains rising up on the other side at a straight forty-five degrees, the snowline beginning only just above the plateau's elevation. Trails were tucked into their folds, and the terrain immediately became like what she was used to at Icereach, though it was too close to see beyond the initial mountain wall.
On the plateau's side, the gulch wall was lazy and meandering. While it would almost certainly hold a river in runoff season, Corsica saw ample hollows on the plateau side where one could build a village that was both well-drained and protected against wind and flooding. When Starlight confirmed which one actually held Our Town, Corsica realized she needn't even have guessed: there was a tiny, ramshackle train station nearby, connecting the town to the outside world.
She felt like making a jab about why they didn't just take the train and benefit from its strange magic - evidently, Starlight had a way around that, as she had been in the Crystal Empire. But the answer was too obvious to question. Starlight was stalling about facing her past.
"So, you're the only other one who's coming?" she asked, standing on the deck and glancing up at Seigetsu.
"That would seem to be the case." Seigetsu stood at attention, hands folded behind her back. "Seeing as your friend has decided not to show, and everyone else was bade remain behind."
Corsica wasn't sure what to make of Halcyon's absence. Nanzanaya getting told to remain behind made sense; Seigetsu probably didn't want her charge requiring attention while exploring a new locale. But Halcyon had been in her room, and mumbled something about being busy when Corsica knocked.
Maybe she was just feeling under the weather? Either way, Corsica wasn't about to drag Halcyon out for a fun time while also trying to sort through Starlight's issues. Today was a good day, and this week had been a good week, but if she wanted the next week to be good as well she would have to respect her limits. So Halcyon got left to brood for now.
"Are you sure about this?" Twilight said to Starlight after the ship touched down, sitting on its landing gear with the harmony comet extinguished. "We have a good rapport with the townsponies here. We could tell them you've changed-"
"Certain," Starlight said. "The ones who have never been here before get to scout out the lay of the land and feel the town's mood. It's the gentlest option we have."
Corsica was positive Starlight meant gentlest on herself, even though she talked like she was worried about the townsponies. Maybe she thought she was, and was just out of tune with her own feelings. That sure happened a lot. But this had been Corsica's plan in the first place, and that meant she had no reason to disagree with it. Stretching, she felt a blast of wind ruffle her mane, hot desert air mixed with mountain cold.
"Feels almost windier down here than up in the air," she complained, trying to fix her aesthetic before it was too late.
Starlight jumped at the opportunity to talk about anything else. "The harmony comet projects a weather shield around the ship. Without it, you could have been blown off the deck many times over, even at a normal cruising speed. And I had us making triple time. No reason not to, when we have infinite fuel."
"We oughtn't delay," Seigetsu spoke up. "If everyone who is going is ready, then let us be off."
"Yeah." Corsica followed her to the ship's edge, where Starlight had made another crystal staircase to get down. Did this ship really have no natural way on and off? "Let's go."
She jumped the last part of the way, catching herself on limber legs. The ground crunched beneath her hooves like snow, even though it was just dust and brittle dried mud. This area probably got some spectacular storms to produce that.
The wind was lessened slightly in the ship's lee, but the moment she stepped out into the open, it hit her again full force, and she had to shield her eyes. Dust storms were probably common here, too. What had possessed Starlight to found a town here, of all places? She saw so many good spots while they were flying...
But maybe it was better than it looked. The view was nice, mountains on one horizon and flat nothing on the other. And there was something pleasing about the crash of wind in her ears. It was different than Icereach's wind. There, the wind was mixed and twirled by mountain walls and valleys, bearing the scent of frost and snow. Here, there was a component of that, but another wind that had carried on for endless miles without an obstacle, picking up dust and salt and sand, blowing straight and true. The two winds did a dance around her, hot and cold, snow and dust, water and sky, the heat of the sun a distant afterthought on the late afternoon horizon.
No shrubs grew in this climate. Nothing gave the world any signs of life. And yet Corsica felt alive.
"Majestic, isn't it?" Seigetsu asked over the wind, striding up beside her. "And somewhat ironic, when you consider that we've arrived here faster than if you took a boat from Snowport."
Corsica blinked. "Huh?"
"This was your original destination, was it not?" Seigetsu asked. "You came petitioning us for passage to the Catantan Peninsula. Unless my sense of distance is greatly addled, Fort Redsand should be several days' march in that direction." She nodded to the southwest, judging by the sun and the mountains.
Things suddenly clicked in Corsica's brain. "This is where we were originally trying to go to look for Starlight?"
"That it is," Seigetsu said. "The eastern coast of the Griffon Hand Sea, multiple months by boat from Snowport. I suppose it is fortunate for you that you did not get the chance to sail here."
Corsica stared. "There's a train station right here. We could have just..."
Seigetsu shook her head. "That was one of the first things I verified upon learning your intentions. You already knew the width of the sea. The trains would not have been able to carry you here with their magical speed."
"What happens if you try anyway?" Corsica asked. "If someone who knows about the real distance tries to ride a train?"
"It depends," Seigetsu said. "If that real distance is, in fact, short enough to traverse normally in a single day, then the magic never applies and it will work the same regardless of your knowledge. The route between Snowport and the Crystal Empire, for example. But if someone attempts a trip that is magically shortened, the train will never arrive at its destination. It will run onward through phantom terrain for eternity, and if it turns around, it will find itself back at its origin within moments."
Corsica's eyes widened.
"You hail from the north," Seigetsu said. "You came here with a Writ of Harmonic Sanction. It is the same defense mechanism employed in the Aldenfold to prevent unwanted crossings. Though I have never tried it, I suspect your writ would have a similar effect on the trains. Were a party comprised of writ-bearers who knew the extent of the tracks to attempt a long journey, they would likely arrive at their destination as if no magic was present whatsoever, at the end of a lengthy travel."
"And you keep knowledge of that under wraps?" Corsica asked. "Surely ponies who know about the trains have tried to test this for themselves before."
Seigetsu shrugged. "Legends do exist among the populace of ghost trains that never reach their destinations, running ever onward yet remaining close to home. They are rare enough occurrences to remain in the realm of legend, but common enough that most conductors have heard of them and would turn back if they thought something similar might be afoot. Train crews can be a superstitious bunch, which works out in our favor. After all, knowing that trains sometimes fail to reach their destinations is not enough to give away the true length of the journey."
"What's it all for?" Corsica asked. "Who creates a system like that, and how? If they just wanted to make it easier to get around, why not remove the weird conditions? And if they wanted to make it harder to get around, why not just have no trains at all?"
"None but Her Majesty Celestia can know for certain," Seigetsu said, marching onward into the wind. "One thousand years ago, she wielded an ancient power to remake Equestria and the surrounding world, in preparation for ruling it alone after the fall of her sister. I have told you how we benefit from this system, how it is used to localize conflict and limit the spread of information, holding Equestrian society in a peaceful stasis. The only knowledge we have is inferred from those results. I believe she did it this way because this is the result she desired to achieve."
"It just makes no sense." Corsica focused on the approaching gulch. "What kind of power can even do something like this, creating 'phantom terrain' where there isn't any, or bridging terrain together where there's more than it looks? I was paying attention the whole ride to Ponyville, and it all looked seamless. If I had been walking alongside the train, would it have been an illusion, or could I have felt it with my hooves? This violates everything we know about the conservation of matter, the three-dimensional structure of space..."
Seigetsu listened and didn't respond.
"What would happen if you took a phantom train, rode it for a few days, then got off and walked around? What would happen if, while you did that, someone else did the same thing? Would you meet each other? What if you got off at different times, when you thought the land around you was different? Could two ponies occupy the same absolute position in space at the same time and see different land around them? How would the worlds they see merge back together if they walked back home at the same time along the tracks? Can a phantom train hit another train running in the opposite direction? What if you built a village out in phantom train-land? If the terrain didn't actually exist on the real map, since it's phantom-generated, would the village exist too? What if...?"
Faye lay on her back in her bed in her room, the door locked and her clothes off, Halcyon off on a ghostly adventure to explore Our Town that nobody else got to know about. The official team, Corsica and Seigetsu, could do their thing, thinking they were alone and not realizing they had a third pair of eyes. As far as they were concerned, she was here, having a nap or something.
She wasn't sure she saw the point in such subterfuge, but Halcyon seemed to think it was a good idea, so she went along with it. Not like she could say no to sitting around and doing nothing.
And then she saw Procyon.
"Where've you been?" Faye lurched upright, covering herself swiftly with a sheet.
Procyon gave the floor a disdainful look. "This might come as a shocker to you, but I don't... really like heights. I've been following along at ground level."
"Figures." That was probably related to why they couldn't fly. "While I've got you here," Faye said. "What do you think of Unnrus-kaeljos?"
Procyon blinked. "Isn't that your call to make? What do you mean?"
"You were there for that dream," Faye said. "At least, you said you saw it too. When Unnrus-kaeljos told me to trust Nanzanaya, and that she was his loyal servant. But on this voyage, she told Halcyon she's more like a guardian who doesn't trust his intentions, and..."
She finished explaining Nanzanaya's stance, then looked up at Procyon for appraisal. "I just need a second opinion on what to make of this. From... someone who's seen him too."
Procyon looked faintly unnerved, but held a hoof to her chin. "I suppose it's out of the question that both of them are telling the truth and good guys? You sound like you've made up your mind that Unnrus-kaeljos is untrustworthy, even though he did give us what we asked for. Could always be that Nanzanaya has a good heart, and he knows it?"
"I considered that," Faye explained. "But that would mean he somehow doesn't realize how this whole thing looks to me. And you'd think if they really were both on the same team, he'd give her the time of day once in a while too, so she'd know more about him than that. And forgive me if I'm not jumping at the opportunity to trust someone who appears to me in visions depicting the end of a world."
Procyon nodded along. "I agree. In that case, once we assume Unnrus-kaeljos isn't naive and knows you wouldn't trust him, it seems like the logical conclusion is, he's trying to bias you against Nanzanaya."
Faye blinked.
"Think about it," Procyon said. "You say she's a guardian of sorts, someone trying to position themselves to keep this unknown threat in check? If I were an evil god, and one of my powers was to make it hard for others to accumulate knowledge about me, I would feel threatened by those who make an effort to do so anyway. And I would want to isolate them to prevent them from sharing that knowledge."
Faye rolled that idea over in her mind. That would imply Nanzanaya was trustworthy, or at least in an enemy-of-my-enemy situation... but it also made much more sense than anything she had come up with. She nodded. "You might be onto something."
"You look hesitant," Procyon guessed. "Got doubts about trusting Nanzanaya?"
Faye nodded.
"Unnrus-kaeljos wanting to push you away from her doesn't guarantee she's altruistic," Procyon said. "Not all bad guys are on the same team. It could be possible she's the type of pony to fight him because she wants to steal his power for herself. But based on your description, I at least believe that Unnrus-kaeljos doesn't want you working with her. Even if she does turn out to be untrustworthy, that means there could be some considerable benefits to working with her, depending how well you can mitigate the fallout of a betrayal. And I think it's more likely that she is what she says she is, anyway."
"You do?"
Procyon nodded. "You want to know more about the light spirit who granted our wish years ago, don't you? Halcyon certainly does. It seems quite believable to me that other ponies who have been in the same situation as us would feel the same. After all, having met Unnrus-kaeljos then and now, is your instinct to buddy up with him and help him achieve his goal, whatever it may be? Or is it wary curiosity? You don't trust him, but you want to know more. So it seems to me that the safest assumption to make about others who have met him would be the same."
"That... makes sense," Faye said. "She could be just like me. But then again, I'm not that trustworthy of a pony myself."
Procyon shrugged. "Well, you've got me there. Unfortunate if you think that way, since I tried to take all our negative qualities with me. But you still came to me for advice on this, and I've told you what I think about myself. So if you're willing to give my ideas the benefit of the doubt, why not do the same for Nanzanaya?"
Faye thought about that.
"There's no harm in listening," Procyon pointed out. "At the end of the day, the actions you take based on the information you've learned are your choice. Not mine. Not hers. Not the light spirit's."
"Good talk," Faye said, taking a deep breath. "Anyway, I've got some nothing to do. You want to hang out, or go explore the town with Halcyon, or...?"
"I think I'll be on my way," Procyon said, turning towards the door even though she was a ghost. "By the way, it's Corsica's birthday today. In case you aren't as adept at tracking that as I've always been. If you wanted to do something nice for her. Your call."
She drifted out through the door, and was gone.
Corsica's birthday, huh?
Faye got out of bed. This year made twenty for her. No more dumb teenager jokes. She knew it was going to happen at some point on this voyage, but Procyon was right; she hadn't been tracking the exact day. And judging by Corsica's lack of mentioning it, she wasn't either.
Maybe she would do something nice for her friend. Corsica seemed determined not to leave well enough alone and only hang out with Halcyon, so it wouldn't hurt to repay that and keep the lie going a little while longer. Right? Right.
Corsica would probably even enjoy it. And while she was off exploring Our Town, Faye had plenty of time to prepare.
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I think that's supposed to be Corsica talking in the next paragraph?
World building's a bitch, isn't it?
Equestria is a hyperbolic plane ;)
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And the trains make a Euclidean approximation of where its stops would be, cutting out the extra space.
I see Corsica's curiosity and raise a few questions of my own...
What if you took many short, magicless train rides instead of one long magical ride? Does the magic sense your intentions somehow? Is the phantom terrain conjured from scratch, or is it just random bits of real terrain stitched together, like a procedurally generated video game map? Is it the same phantom terrain each time its summoned along a particular rail? Does phantom terrain outside your field of vision blink out of existence, like unloaded video game land? What's the minimum distance needed to activate the magic? If you die in phantom terrain, what happens to your corpse? Does it teleport to where it would be in normal space, or does it cease to exist? Could a creature apply the magic to their own appendages and walk/fly/swim anywhere they didn't know the true distance of? What if...
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Aha, thank you!
Well, if it does really end up that long, I hope it gets an ending. I wouldn’t want to be left in this same emotional limbo thirty years from now…
Still, I greatly admire your ambition.
Well, I’m caught up.
Now what do I do?
I’ve been dreading this for two reasons. Obviously now I have to wait for more, but, more importantly, I can’t ever maintain the same amount of emotional investment in a story that’s continuous as I can in one that’s complete.
So, while this certainly isn’t the end of the story, it is in a sense the end of my caring about it to an unhealthy degree. Which is maybe a good thing, but it doesn’t feel that way.
Pontificating aside, I can’t make a summary comment on this until it’s done, but I will take this opportunity to thank you profusely and express how lucky I consider myself that this series exists. I have not had a great week, and this work kept me sane- and I know TOW is long enough that it can do the same if I lose even more marbles and decide to reread it. Which I will.
Oh, I will say one thing- I think you did an excellent job with the process of Starlight taking up her old role again. It was believably emotional and realistically difficult, but it didn’t take so long that it became frustrating, and, though she hasn’t fully embraced her return to “miracle-working northern folk hero” status yet and still has some work to do, we can tell that she will, and so watching it is less stressful. I was really happy to see that happen this way, especially with my favorite character ❤️
I see we're saying that Starlight hasn't yet reunited with her former subjects, unlike in the canon season five finale. I hope it goes as well as it did in the show...
EDIT: Another unfortunate thing about this series that, owing to its scale, it really feels like an independent piece of media, and my instinct upon finishing it is immediately to look for fanworks- which, obviously and tragically, don't exist. Well, that's what rereads are for.
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Welcome to the front! I'm afraid to say that judging be my personal experience, losing your emotional investment will be pretty difficult
11684905
That might be worse; I don’t know if I want to spend all my time between updates listlessly wandering around…
Finally Starlight will face her past. I think it's something she needs to do, and come clean about what she has done to those poor ponies in that village.