Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Hurrycane

Starlight felt herself being dragged out of the portal. She saw it close a moment later, as the laboratory around her came back into view. But she wasn't paying attention to that. Her vision was blurry, her mind unfocused. Her breath wasn't jerky, or any quicker than normal. Simply she felt distant, detached, suddenly a spectator to her own life. Watching things happen too fast for her to react. She lay there on the cold floor, staring at nothing, thoughts drifting in and out too fast for her mind to register them.

Twilight was at her side. Worried, leaning down, shaking her slightly. "Are you okay? Did something happen to you?" she asked, as if those were important things.

Starlight felt herself nod, and answered that yes, she was okay. Or something to that effect, anyway. She didn't hear the exact words, she wasn't paying attention. She wasn't paying attention to anything. She didn't know if she could, and she knew she didn't want to.

Twilight helped her stand up, and Starlight managed to stay straight more out of courtesy to her friend than anything else. It would have felt impolite to collapse down, and she didn't want to bother Twilight. So she stood there, motionless for a bit, until it occurred to her that perhaps she was obstructing the passage. That, too, felt awfully impolite, and so Starlight slowly moved to a side until she met a wall.

Twilight wasn't in the room anymore. She'd run out at some point. There were other ponies running, or at least walking faster than normal. They got in and out of the room, and talked to each other, and occasionally one of them looked at her. Then they looked away.

Starlight just sat there. She wasn't sure for how long. Twilight had walked back into the room at some point, and she was discussing with a few others. Starlight thought that maybe she should have been part of the discussion too. But she wasn't getting up, so clearly that wasn't what would happen. Starlight thought for a moment that it seemed like rather poor writing on whoever was in charge of dictating the events she was witnessing's part, but it was only for a moment, and she forgot about it soon after.

The sky was red outside the window. Sunset red. Not the unicorn. She was pretty sure it had been morning before. She was pretty sure the window she was looking out of wasn't in the laboratory, either. Evidently, she'd walked out of it. Evidently, some time had passed.

Twilight approached her, again. Twilight asked her if she was okay, again.

Again, Starlight said that she was. It wasn't technically a lie. The mind watching things play out was quite well, if a little disoriented. The body carrying her around was well and healthy. She'd stop being okay the moment the two synced back up with each other, true, but that wasn't then. Not yet, at least. Just for a while longer, not yet.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Well. That's highly concerning, regardless of whether or not Starlight ever does end up back in sync with herself. Definitely a matter to keep an eye on.

[Saix]

Starlight thought for a moment that it seemed like rather poor writing on whoever was in charge of dictating the events she was witnessing's part, but it was only for a moment, and she forgot about it soon after.

Starlight getting so traumatised she almost ascends to a higher plane of reality. This certainly explains why she ended up traumatised and scared of going through portals, and the timeline is becoming clearer now. Come to think of it, they know not to go through that scale in Equestria now, but the multiverse traveling stallion says that scales can lead to different places if they're activated in different universes, so if they ever went exploring in that way they could stumble into it by accident. I hope that Starlight in particular never finds herself back there accidentally.