Midnight Starlight

by Moonatik

2 - Inside the Vault

12:00 - 12/03/1002 - The Open Road, baby!

The warm light of the midday sun shone through the canopies above and onto the winding forest road, where a motorcycle carried Starlight down the road at blurring speeds. Kicking up dirt and leaves in her path, she raced ahead with the wind in her mane and without a care. A stereo was on her back, blasting an upbeat synth track that mirrored her feelings of joy, warmth, and the thrill from the open road. Freedom never felt this good!

She heard the roar of another engine off to her right. She looked and saw a gorgeous, blue unicorn mare racing aside from her on a motorbike of their own. The mare turned her head to Starlight, presenting a smug smirk that expressed boundless confidence. The way the wind rushed through her silky, luxurious pale-blue mane only amplified Starlight’s attraction to the mare. She blew a kiss at Starlight, winked, revved her engine, and sped ahead.

Being the experienced motorcyclist she was, Starlight knew a challenge to race when she saw one. She kicked into gear and throttled, quickly catching up to the mare in front by making use of the slipstream. Yet she failed to take the lead as a litany of obstacles stood in her way. Either the road narrowed to the point where overtaking was impossible or she failed to push her advantages or the other mare simply outskilled her.

A sharp turn was dead ahead, straddling the edge of a steep drop. Likely in anticipation, the other unicorn slowed down. Starlight, however, did not. She wasn’t intimated, she sped up. Rapidly she approached the bend, taking the lead, shooting ahead, whipping her vehicle around to drift and…

All of a sudden, she was driving on flat ground. She turned her head around. The trees were gone. The other mare was gone. The blue sky was gone, replaced with an expansive uniform grey. No hills on the horizon, no sun nor moon in the sky. In all directions, nothing but a dry, flat, desolate desert. There wasn’t even the puff of wind.

Confused, Starlight steadily slowed her motorcycle down to a complete stop and disembarked. She looked from side to side, finding nothing but vacant emptiness that seemed to stretch endlessly, like the whole world had been rolled flat. Just moments ago she was rushing through a dense forest, how did she end up here? It didn’t make any sense. And, wait, since when was she a motorcyclist?

Then the truth of what was happening popped up in Starlight’s head unceremoniously, so obvious it wasn’t even worthy of a shrug.

“Oh, right, I’m dreaming. Duh-”

A sudden bright flash of white light filled her environment, nearly blinding her.

Once she blinked the light out of her eyes, she was out of the desert and back in her hometown of Sire’s Hollow.

No, not just back in Sire’s Hollow. Back in her home on the day her life was ripped up at the roots.

Sitting before a tower of books of varying sizes, Starlight, her body back to that of a filly, and colt-aged Sunburst struggled to magically remove a thick book from the bottom of the stack. Starlight knew what happened next, the books would fall, Sunburst would catch all of them with his magic, he’d get his cutie mark, and would be whisked away to magic school. Though this was all in a dream, not affected by real events. Perhaps this time things would be different?

It wouldn’t. Everything happened exactly as she remembered. She expected it to the point that she didn’t even flinch when the books came tumbling towards her. Sunburst caught them, he got a cutie mark, and he was never to be seen by Starlight again. Right as it had happened before, as it always had.

Of course. Why would it have been any different? Far too many times had Starlight relived this awful day in her dreams, but for some reason, it felt different this time. Usually she was overwhelmed with bitterness and anger, though now she could barely put on a frown. Somehow she felt reason to smile, like she was better empathising with Sunburst-

But before she could gather her thoughts, another bright flash stunned her.

She was still in Sire’s Hollow, still a filly, yet a few years older, out on the outskirts of town and flying a kite on a warm and clear spring day. Strange as it may have been, flying kites was one of the few things that Starlight took honest and wholesome pleasure in. Regardless of experience or skill level, anypony could experience the joy of watching a kite fly. Truly, an egalitarian hobby. Something she easily got the whole village into.

At least, she felt that way until the spool was yoinked from her hooves. As a sudden gust of wind ripped the kite away and out of her control, panic rushed through her.

“No! Where are you going?” she wailed.

She shot to her hooves and dashed after the kite, her little legs hardly able to keep pace and her meagre attempts at grabbing it with magic failing to retrieve it. Soon it blew into the leafy clutches of a tall, thick tree, and she skid to a stop.

First she tried pulling at the trapped kite with simple telekinetic magic, but it came to nought as it was thoroughly entangled in the dense network of branches, as if the tree were eating it. On top of that, the way it was pressed against a particularly pointy branch meant that pulling it loose risked tearing it. She grit her teeth and groaned, but quickly repressed the frustration.

Instead thinking to be more surgical, she used her magic to pluck away and span individual branches that were keeping the kite in place. Yet every time she pulled one branch away, another branch would swing out of nowhere and pull the kite further in. Before long, it was more trapped than it was before. Every new thing that the kite got caught on only fueled Starlight’s fury further.

“Stupid tree!” she snarled, feeling magic mustering in her horn. Directing her magic towards the canopy she engulfed practically every branch and leaf in her aura, making it emanate a spectral glow. Like a piece of paper she split the canopy in half, sending a woody crunch sounding through the air as the kite drifted loose. She snatched it up with her magic and brought it safely to the ground.

But retrieving the kite wasn’t enough. With the kite secure, Starlight’s bulging eyes glared at the tree, fury pounding in her head. Her aura moved away from the canopy and gripped tightly around the trunk. With little effort, she started to pull the whole tree upwards. The ground shook, then cracked. She threw her head back, ripping the tree with all its roots right out of the earth, and with a flick of her head and a “Hyah!” she launched it skywards and across the horizon.

Watching it disappear, Starlight smirked. In the face of her outburst, the world had momentarily yielded, allowing her catharsis. Wherever it was going to land was the last thing on her mind.

That was until an otherworldly sensation hit her on the flank.

An itch, followed by a chill, completed with a sharp sting. Starlight’s eyes went wide as the whole of her body tensed up. Dread slowly crawled over her like a thousand spiders as her legs stiffly trembled in place. The thought that her worst fear had come true sprang to the forefront of her mind, and she knew that there was only one way to find out. Turning her head, she hesitantly looked back at her flank.

To find that a cutie mark had appeared.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” she whined. “No!”

Her blood exploded like water poured into a hot vat of frying oil. Impotently, she tried to rid herself of the new mark, punching at and scratching her flank. That soon turned to her rolling around on the filthy torn ground, frantically kicking her hind legs as if that would somehow rid her of her cutie mark, as her whines descended into incoherent wails.

It happened so quick, as the result of such a sudden surge of emotion, and in such mundane circumstances that there was nothing she could’ve done to prevent it. Yes, without the magic granted by her cutie mark it would’ve been impossible for her to build her utopia, but every time she returned to this memory, it infuriated her that she had been branded with this cursed blemish against her will.

Except for this time. Right then she found it… funny?

At least, something in her head found the sight of a filly raging at their cutie mark amusing. She froze on the spot, the jarring thought practically taking her out of the memory. Not just that, but her focus was pulled away by another bizarre intrusion.

“Cutie mark memories, cutie mark memories.”

That voice! It was familiar, but simultaneously like nothing she'd heard before. It felt like it was coming from right next to her, but also so distant, and from no direction in particular. Less the voice of someone present, more the voice of an otherworldly, omnipresent force. Yet it was too dorky to be-

Then, another sudden flash.

“Woah, are you alright?” Starlight had heard the crash and the pained scream all the way from her isolated little garden and came running. The sounds were way off in the mountains behind her house, yet still in earshot.

Sure enough, a white earth stallion was lying in the snow, goggles strapped to his face and a path marked in the snow leading from him to a broken pair of skis. She didn’t know his name back then, but this was the first time she met her most loyal and dedicated follower, Double Diamond. Given that she was running through a memory meant she knew his name all too well.

“Yeah, I’m-” Double Diamond tried to stand, but pain flashed across his face and he crashed back into the ground. “Nope, nope, not alright! I think I broke one of my legs!”

Starlight had expected as much. Ponies rarely came out here for a reason, getting injured this far away from help was a death sentence. There was a small train station nearby, but that could more accurately be called a train stop, it didn’t even have a ticket office. For all intents and purposes, the only pony out there was her. Fortunately, she had the foresight to bring a first aid kit and some thick blankets.

“You don’t seem to be bleeding, that’s good. I’ll splint your leg, that should prevent any further damage until I can get you back to my house. Here.” Starlight reached into her bag and passed Double Diamond a small vial containing an opaque red liquid. “Basic healing potion, should accelerate the healing and repress the pain.”

“Thanks,” Double Diamond breathed, uncorking the vial and swallowing the potion in a single swig. All the while Starlight started work on a simple yet effective splint around the stallion’s leg, carefully holding his leg up with magic as she worked.

At some point during the ordeal, Double Diamond’s eyes must’ve drifted to Starlight’s flank. “What’s your cutie mark meant to mean?” he asked. “It’s just an equals sign.”

“Oh, that?” Starlight looked back at her flank, her magic still working on the splint. “I removed it.”

“What? Really?” Double Diamond’s eyes went wide. “How is that even possible?”

She’d just finished applying the splint as she held her head up. “Well, if you’d like to know more -” Starlight froze as she spotted a pony-shaped orange blur amidst the snow. She locked her gaze towards it, it reacted with a subtle flinch. Narrowing her eyes, Starlight peered through the snowy haze, the figure slowly backing away. She recognised the figure, she was sure of it. Determined to see it clearly, with a flare of magic the snow was parted and the figure came into full clarity.

“Sunburst?” she gasped.

“Aah! Starlight!”

The two ponies stared at each other, Starlight stunned into silence with her mouth and eyes wide open. Sunburst looked so different, so much taller and now having a goatee, yet it couldn’t have been anypony else. His fiery orange mane, his distinct creamy blaze and ‘socks’, his sapphire eyes behind circular glasses, all draped in a cyan cloak. His presence didn’t feel dreamlike, but physical. Like a lone island of corporeality in a sea of formless hazy abstraction.

“Starlight - I - Um, hi?” Sunburst stammered, shakily waving at her. Even with his unmistakable verbal quirks on display, his voice was clearer than anything else in the dream.

With Starlight’s attention locked solely on Sunburst, everything else dissolved into blurry noise. Double Diamond’s leg was no longer a concern, it was hard to tell if he was even there anymore.

“Hey, uh, now that you're here - um, now that I’m here with you, you’ve always been here, it's your mind. Right, um, could you uh, tell me how your cutie mark spell works?” Sunburst said, a grin flashing on his face.

Almost suddenly, Starlight was sent scrambling at the request. “Wh- My what?” she said, pulling away.

“You know, the spell, for the cutie mark magic! The one you use to remove ponies cutie marks? It's easier if you just tell me than-” Sunburst paused for a moment. “Actually, just come up to the cave, you can explain it there.”

Starlight shook her head in bewilderment. "Cave? What cave?"

“Yes, the cave above your village! With the cutie mark thing, the staff, the other cutie marks! Just come over here! I'm right here Starlight!”

His words echoed through her mind.

“I'm right here!”

Starlight shot up out of bed gasping.

01:36 - 12/03/1002 - Ourtown

Sunburst’s breathing was still heavy, as performing the dreamwalker spell took a lot out of him. He knew the theory back to front and took extra time in the preceding week to practice, yet those practice sessions were always under controlled conditions and without the attached baggage of digging around in a childhood friend’s mind. It was impossible to know just how cold the water felt until he stepped in.

Being forcibly ejected from the dream once Starlight awoke shot him back into the frigid embrace of reality. In front of him stood a tall glass vault that towered above everything else in sight, its eerie blue light flooding the entire cave. It held dozens of floating images in segmented individual compartments, without a doubt the cutie marks of the villagers. Standing before the vault was a tall wooden staff, the lynchpin of Starlight’s myth.

He had a thick black cloak to keep himself warm, and it was doing a good job in the face of the biting draft. It had served him well so far, even if it did drag on the floor. If anything it was nice to not be stuffed into a Arcane Institute uniform for one night.

But by his side, one of his three escorting guards was grilling him.

“You told her to come here?” the armoured unicorn stallion barked. “Giving away our location and our mission?”

“Well- yeah!” Sunburst cowered. “It’d be easier to just ask her, right? I’m supposed to get information on the spells she uses and-”

“Through the dream!” the unicorn yelled. “That’s literally the entire point! Stars above, this was your assignment! How are you screwing up so bad?”

“It seemed like she was missing me! Starlight and I grew up together, that’s why I was assigned to this mission! Maybe she’d be willing to give it up if I’m nice to her?”

Pressing a hoof into his helmet, the unicorn guard seethed. “You’ve got the be the stupidest pony I’ve ever had to escort-”

“Hey, lay off of him!” a second guard, an earth pony stallion of an astonishing stature, butted in. “Look, there’s no point giving him a hard time. We’re here to do a job, and it’s to help this guy complete his mission. So quit it.”

A tense moment passed, with the earth pony staring down quietly at the unicorn. The unicorn soon backed away, huffing hot air from his nostrils. Rank dynamics likely came into play, Sunburst thought. He’d been introduced to the three guards on the long train ride over, learning that the earth pony was a volunteer corporal in command of the other two conscripted privates. The third guard in the cave, a thestral, kept to himself.

“Okay, Sunburst,” the earth pony said, removing his helmet and turning to Sunburst. His unbound head revealed that he had a soft, disarming baby face that sharply contrasted with his gigantic build. It surprised Sunburst at first, but the calm earnest look from the earth pony put him at ease. “What did you find out? What did you learn about Starlight or the spell from the dream?”

“Uhh,” Sunburst thought for a moment. “I dug through Starlight’s cutie mark memories, I saw the moment I got my own cutie mark, which I guess left a lasting impression on her if it’s that prominent of a memory. I saw a memory of her getting her cutie mark, I saw the founding of the village and almost got to the first use of the spell.”

“What about Glimmer’s own cutie mark?” the earth pony asked. “Anything we should know?”

“She must’ve been ten or eleven at the time, she was flying a kite that got stuck in a tree. Struggled to get it out and ended up pulling the whole tree apart to get it free then pulled it out of the ground,” Sunburst recalled. “Big tree, too.”

The thestral finally spoke up. “How big we talking?”

“Fifteen or so ponies tall, big thick trunk, and she just-” Sunburst threw a hoof up to emphasise “-ripped it out of the ground! Roots and everything!”

“And that’s what got her a cutie mark?” the earth pony asked.

“Yes, it must have been. Memories are just retellings of the pony’s perspective,” Sunburst asserted. He wasn’t making it up as he went along either, his own research into the mountains of theory and evidence confirmed it. “They can be corrupted, filtered, or distorted but never consciously altered. Like, ink might fade on a dirtying old parchment and what state you’re in at the time may change how you read it, but the ink can't change what it says. That’s how she honestly remembers it.”

“Magic’d a whole tree out of the ground before she was in high school. So her special talent is magical strength and you told her exactly where to look for us,” the unicorn huffed. “We’re all screwed.”

“Hey, well, she doesn’t know about you!” Sunburst retorted. “Couldn’t you just go hide somewhere? Or teleport us out?”

The unicorn was stropping around the cave. “I’m better off teleporting out of here myself.”

“You’ll do no such thing, Private,” the earth pony commanded at the unicorn. He turned back to Sunburst. “He can only safely teleport himself or one other pony. We can all hide and leave quietly, but she might go looking for you if you do. Doesn’t leave us with a lot of choices.”

Sunburst felt trapped, physically and mentally. There was no easy way out of this cave. Until, like lightning, an idea flashed in his mind. “What if I go with her?” he blurted out.

All three guards snapped their heads around towards him. He could only see the earth pony’s expression, jaw dropped and eyebrows shooting into their foreheads. He assumed the others looked much the same under their helmets.

“How stupid are you?” the unicorn raged.

“Private!” the earth pony barked at the unicorn. It silenced the unicorn right away. “Alright, I’ll be honest, given what we’ve heard about Starlight, that sounds nuts,” the earth pony said to Sunburst. “Are you sure about this?”

Sunburst recalled what he was told in his initial briefing with Saitasuna. “I-if anypony’s right for this, it’s me,” he stammered. “I’m a childhood friend of hers, she still holds fondness for me if her dreams are any indication. She’s probably not going to hurt me.”

“And if something goes wrong, how will we know?” the earth pony followed up.

“I mean, there’s guards and soldiers poking around normally, right?” Sunburst asked, unsure of his own rationalisation. “You can just hang around. Keep watch. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine,” he insisted, both to assure the guards and himself.

The thestral suddenly chirped. Everypony turned to him, watching his tufted ears frantically flickering. “She’s near,” he muttered. “I hear her.”

“Okay, we’ll go with your idea, Sunburst. We’ll stay close.” The earth pony spoke in a considerably lower voice. He then gestured to the unicorn. “Private, cast spells EEI-6 and SA-3”

The mage-guard jargon was familiar to Sunburst. EEI-6 referred to a spell that made them invisible to anyone but themselves, and SA-3 made them inaudible to anyone but themselves. Sure enough, after he groaned and nodded, the unicorn's horn flared with light and the three guards vanished. To the naked eye and ear, Sunburst was completely alone. All there was left to do was to wait for Starlight to arrive.

He knew he wasn’t alone, but that didn’t ease the sudden sense of vulnerability flooding through him. He chewed on his lip, fiddled with his cloak, and wiped the growing sweat from his forehead. The howling wind rushed through the air accompanied by the dozens of thoughts rushing through his head, a whirl of what-ifs and maybes and could’ve beens combined with worries regarding how best to present himself. Look casual? Look professional? Sure, Starlight might’ve seen him in the dream, but it was essentially a first impression all over again.

Moonlight didn’t penetrate very deep into the cave, there wasn’t a lot of it to go around on the best of nights, leaving the vault as the main source of light and sending his long shadow casting across the floor and to the entrance. Soon a distinct distant murmuring from outside cut through the noise of the wind, followed by hoofsteps, followed by a glow from the outside rapidly approaching. More and more it felt like a bad idea, and part of Sunburst was screaming for him to hide or turn to the guards.

Yet before he could act, Starlight stepped into the cave and into the illuminating light of the vault, and her eyes met his. She skidded to a stop. The light spell in her horn snuffed out. She staggered on the spot, nearly losing her footing, her eyes going wide and jaw hanging open as she heaved out panting breaths. Like she’d just had a heart attack.

“Sweet Celestia,” she gasped.

All the while, Sunburst was frozen stiff. “Uhhh.” He timidly raised a hoof. “Hi?”

“Sunburst!” Starlight ran up to Sunburst with a smile reaching across her face, leaping forwards to practically tackle him in a hug. “It- it really is you! Good grief, I- I never thought I’d ever see you again, I’d written it off entirely, but you’re back! You’re here!”

Lost in the struggle of trying to think of something to say, and with the wind knocked out of him from Starlight’s sudden embrace, Sunburst simply reciprocated the hug.

Eventually, Starlight released him and took a step back. A relieved, almost innocent smile was adorning her face. Her teary eyes moved up and down his body, taking in all his features. “You have a beard!”

“Hm?” Sunburst’s eyes moved down his face. “Um, yep. That I do.”

“Never thought you’d be a goatee guy!” Starlight chuckled, her captivated gaze still examining every inch of him and focusing on his cloak. “I take it you’re some kind of important wizard now, right?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that. I’m a researcher of sorts, in the study of magic. A lot of it’s kind of degrading, my boss is a serious pain in the flank,” he muttered, “but you know, it’s good work.”

“You must’ve done well in magic school, then,” Starlight commented.

Sunburst opened his mouth to speak but swiftly bit his lip, glancing away from Starlight. A sudden, strong compulsion to lie about his experiences crossed his mind, only for it to be drowned out by a logical impulse assuring him that there wasn’t much point in misleading her. Perhaps sharing his shortcomings would more easily convince her that he’d be interested to try living in her crazy village. “No, I- I flunked out,” he confessed.

“Oh.” Starlight’s smile faltered. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Ah, it’s fine,” Sunburst assured. “I nailed the theory but I wasn’t able to actually do any of the magic myself. Like I wrote this report on Oneriomancy for all the big wig wizards to draw from, but that doesn’t make me a good Oneriomancer. As you just found out.”

“Oneriomancy?” Starlight cocked an eyebrow as her lips hung open, then realisation flashed across her face. “Oh, dream magic! So that was you in my dream?”

“Yeah…” Sunburst admitted.

Starlight rubbed her chin, her eyes narrowing. “Hm. I’ll be honest, that’s kind of creepy-”

“Hey, uh, what’s all this about, aha?” Sunburst hastily cut Starlight off and threw a hoof back to point at the vault. “Big wall of, um… Cutie marks?”

A broad, exuberant grin illuminated Starlight’s face. “Why, I’m glad you asked!” she exclaimed, prancing past Sunburst and towards the vault, making a sweeping gesture to draw his attention to its dominating presence. “This is the Ourtown’s Cutie Mark Vault! It’s what I’ve been up to the last few years. This contains the cutie mark magic of everypony in our little village!”

“Wow. The whole village?” Sunburst feigned surprise. As unbelievable as it was in person, he’d had a week to process its existence.

“After my isolating upbringing, I learned that difference and individualism only tore ponies apart. Cutie marks were the most disgraceful expression of this, making ponies think they were so much better than everyone else. This knowledge and experience acted as the furnace to forge an ideal society free of cutie marks and their suffocating influence, and this village, Ourtown, is the realisation of that vision! Let me tell you, it’s so much better here, ponies are so much happier!” Starlight had a proud smile on her face and a hoof held to her chest. “You should see it when everypony’s awake!”

“Yeah, it’s all pretty… Um…” Sunburst pouted his lips, his eyes darting around the cave. There were a hundred words that crossed his mind, strange, confusing, horrifying. Though he knew that openly criticising or degrading Starlight’s actions would doubtlessly offend her. After a long awkward pause, he eventually settled on a neutral “Interesting?”

“And it’s all made possible by this!” By use of her magic, Starlight excitedly hoisted the Staff of Sameness into the air. “Behold, the Staff of Sameness! It was one of the great Mage Meadowbrook's nine enchanted artifacts, and we are so incredibly fortunate to have it- why are you looking at me like that?”

The proud smile on Starlight’s face faltered and crumbled into once she noticed the look Sunburst was giving her. Brow furrowed, head pulled back, lips tightly clenched, a look that saw right through Starlight’s nonsense. Once Sunburst realised his expression, he snapped to a stiff, neutral look and dismissed Starlight's concerns with a “Oh, oh, nothing. Nothing.”

“Is something wrong, Sunburst?” Starlight clutched the staff, holding it close to her chest. “I didn’t say something bad, did I? You’re not gonna leave again, are you?”

“What? No!” Sunburst shook his head. “It’s just that… that stick- staff. It’s… It’s just a stick!”

Starlight’s face said everything, a combination of disappointment and sheepishness. “Oh. Right,” she sighed, eyes drifting to the floor as she put the staff back on its stand. “What gave it away?” she asked, a hint of wry amusement in her voice.

“Well…” Sunburst shuffled on the spot. As long as she was asking, he thought he might as well explain. “It doesn’t radiate any independent thaumatic energy, there are no detectable enchantments, and the thaumatic signature that does linger on the staff is nothing like what appears on Mage Meadowbrook’s artifacts. Plus, Mage Meadowbrook had only eight famous magical items, not nine.” Sunburst came to an abrupt halt. “That’s- that’s how I knew. Figured it out as soon as I got here.”

“Wow, really?” Starlight said, seeming impressed at Sunburst’s breadth of knowledge.

“Have uh, any of those-” Sunburst pointed to the vault. “-ponies caught on yet?”

“Nope,” she chuckled. “Guess they aren’t as knowledgeable as you, heh.” Starlight rubbed the back of her head, a smile on her face with her eyebrows pulled together.

Was she trying to just laugh it off? Sunburst thought.

“Okay, aside from that, it’s great here, trust me, I could-” Starlight gasped. “Ohh, I’ll show you around town tomorrow morning! Well, ‘morning’, but yeah! You’ll stay at my cottage tonight, and first thing tomorrow I’ll introduce you to everypony! You’ll get a feel for the place, meet all my friends, talk with me about books and magic, it’ll be great! Just like old times!”

Sunburst jerked back and repressed a gasp. She was rolling out the red carpet for him, not questioning his motives or even reason for being there, like she’d forgotten or ignored everything he’d said in the dream. Exactly what he had proposed to the guards, going better than planned. He didn’t even need to ask. Turns out there was an easy way out of this cave. “You know what, Starlight? That sounds great!” he said, forcing a smile onto his face.

“Yes, yes!” Starlight's face lit up with unbridled excitement, giddily rearing up and kicking her forehooves like a foal waking up on Hearth’s Warming. It took her a moment to regain composure, her smile unchanged, before she skipped gleefully past Sunburst and towards the exit. “This way!”

Sunburst barely had a second to react until Starlight’s magic tugged his cloak and pulled him alone. Once underneath the cave exit, Sunburst took one quick look back into the cave. No sign of the guards, no footsteps leading to the exit or any sight of them in the cave. They must have still been in the cave and watching Sunburst’s back from a safe, invisible distance. He internally insisted to himself it was assuring.

“What are you looking at?” Starlight said suddenly, startling him.

“Um, the vault!” he lied, whipping his head around to meet Starlight’s eyes. “It’s really an… impressive work of magic. Mhm.”

“Heh, I know,” Starlight chimed, donning a self-assured smirk and confidently sauntering forward.

Sunburst locked his gaze ahead, hiding his apprehension for the remainder of their stroll.

Comments

[bkam]

I rather like your take on Starlight's Cutie Mark story.

[Mix-up]

Fun chapter, I do like the idea that Starlight cutie mark actually symbolized a kite and it's tail, it never even occurred to me, the scene that show how it happened it also funny demonstrating he magical prowess pretty well. I wonder if she think she could have a used for Sunburst's dream walking spell for converting other ponies to her cause as another form of brainwashing which would give her an ulterior motive for her to want to get close to him again to and maybe get him to join her cause, like the guard outpost near by, combining it the dreamwalking spell with her brainwashing techniques along with the cutie mark removal spell. I am guessing she will learn of more of Sunburst's inaptitude in practical magic and will exploit it to convince her and manipulate him into buying into her spiel and join the cult or convince himself there is more to learn more about her spells and methods or try to get her to league with NMM, which in my book would be worst.

On an extra note. which I didn't thought remember to mention it before, but in the show the vault showed that there were exactly a 100 cutie marks in them so logically there are a 100 cult members in Our Town, which contradicted the first chapter, just mentioning it.

On another case, I noticed on your Twitter(X) that a lot of your illustrations a lot of ponies wear full body clothing, it NMM trying imposing this as a form of body shaming, or mass conformity to the new regime, or is it that ponies are a lot more cold these days/nights for them, with the whole eternal night thing and all?

[Moonatik]

11651843

On another case, I noticed on your Twitter(X) that a lot of your illustrations a lot of ponies wear full body clothing, it NMM trying imposing this as a form of body shaming, or mass conformity to the new regime, or is it that ponies are a lot more cold these days/nights for them, with the whole eternal night thing and all?

Something to note about the Eternal Night is that it isn't entirely legitimate. NMM made sunlight invisible while maintaining the day/night cycle, so it looks like the night is neverending but things mostly go on as normal. Plants still photosynthesise and the planet remains warm.

More ponies wear clothes as a result of thestrals/bat ponies becoming more culturally prevalent. At the start, most thestrals were Lunarists and vice versa, so they took the leading role in founding the new society. As Lunarist thestrals came to dominate cultural, government, and business institutions, elements of their culture soon became the expected norm. It was common for thestrals to wear full-body clothes for two main reasons. One is they were out mostly at night when it was naturally colder and needed the extra layers, which started as a practical adjustment but evolved into a cultural tradition. Two is that thestrals faced discrimination during Celestia's era and were often stereotyped as being dirty or unhygienic, and in a way to combat this, they dressed in smart, formal clothes with their manes and coats well-groomed to present an image of respectability and dignity (this is something black American civil rights leaders like MLK did). This started as a political statement but morphed into a general social expectation. but the main reason is that i like it that way

A lot of ponies still choose to not wear clothes, most simply because they are more comfortable nude but others use it as a political statement against what is increasingly becoming the norm.

[Mix-up]

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but the main reason is that i like it that way

You certainly won't hear any complaint from me with that honest arbitrary reason, I completely get that. But it's always fun to hear writer' in world reasons as to why it happened, it helps to imagine even more possibilities of other dynamics at play or it's impacts on a society, even if it's some time made on the spot. Hope to see more of your art stuff and designs, keep it up. I like to imagine, to help perpetuate their message, wherever the thestrals decide to set up a business, or industries, or operation they make sure that the locals they hirer have to wear uniforms or have a strict work dress code to follow, as to force them to adopt those norms in the area, as to make it more of a norm for most ponies.

[Comma Typer]

And we're back with Sunburst. I don't have much to say other than how cute it was to just see the two of them bond near the end. Away from the political intrigue that's been around in the fics I've read from you, even for maybe a brief moment, it's a refreshing turn. I'm more than intrigued to see how this relationship goes, what with the Lunar Empire bearing down on the both of them albeit differently for different ponies...