Starlight wakes up after a battle to find two centuries have gone by.
The fight against the Pony of Shadows didn’t go according to plan, and when Starlight comes to, she finds she’s been in a magically induced coma for two hundred years.
Nothing is as recognizable as the Equestria she knew, not even the landscape.
”Twilight, look out!” I shouted as I telekinetically shoved the Princess. The dark tendrils missed her as her grip on Stygian faltered. I watched as the colt was pulled back into the mass of shadow made solid and the head swung towards me.
I tried to get a shield up, but the blast from the bedeviled shadows struck me full force in the side, blasting me across the ancient hall and into a pillar before grabbing me and slamming me against the floor. I felt a couple of ribs break and through the dim haze, I could hear Twilight’s scream.
“Starlight!”
Blackness surrounded me, but instead of cold stone and crushing pain, I felt soft blankets and a strange numbness. A quiet beeping sound was in my ear, but I couldn’t open my eyes. They felt like they had been sealed shut with some of Pinkie’s party string.
“She's waking up,” a voice said. “Send for the Princess.”
“Hey,” Twilight said, stepping into the room. “How are you feeling?”
I smiled weakly. Truth be told, I was doing everything weakly.
“Sore,” I said. “Stygian gave me a pretty good wallop there.”
I saw the Alicorn’s form shuffle a little, and it was then that my blurry vision realized that she was wearing her regalia, something she hated doing.
“I hope I didn’t pull you away from some official function,” I said. “I’ll be ok for now, and you can let the girls and Trixie know that I’m ok.”
Twilight looked down, and as my vision continued to sharpen, I saw that she was taller and leaner, rather like Cadence the last time I had seen her. Her mane and tail were longer and seemed different, though things were still blurry.
“Starlight,” she said with a hitch in her voice. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
And the cold fear that I had felt gripped my heart once again.
“You’ve been in a magically induced coma for over two hundred years. You and I are the only ones left.”
I looked at her. “You’re joking, right? This is just some prank of Rainbow Dash’s or Pinkie, and any second now they’re going to burst through that door and yell surprise.”
The Alicorn just looked on at me as my vision cleared fully.
It wasn’t just that she was taller, everything about her screamed royalty now. Between the regalia and the shimmering mane, everything reminded me of the Diarchs.
“Twilight,” I asked, my voice starting to shake. “Tell me it’s just a joke. Please.”
She lowered her head, and I saw a tear slide down her muzzle.
And truth sank in. My vision went blurry again as tears filled my eyes.
I had been too weak to walk myself, so Twilight pushed my wheelchair down the paved path. I couldn’t even look at my body, the muscles atrophied slightly from the coma I had been in. I couldn’t believe any of what I had been told and demanded to see Trixie, Applejack, any of them.
And as we rounded a corner, I saw a set of stone plinths, each worked in the shape of a cutie mark.
A trio of Diamonds.
Three Apples.
A trio of Butterfies.
Balloons.
A Lightning Bolt.
And a star-headed wand.
I looked at them and reality washed over me. I saw that the dates on them that most had lived long lives, particularly Trixie and Rarity. Dash had a date not long past the day we had gone to fight the Pony of Shadows, and my heart clenched.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“We managed to defeat Stygian,” Twilight said. “But it wasn’t easy. The Shadow that held him was difficult to push back. Dash was struck trying to get you to safety, and died from her wounds a few days later. Scootaloo was crushed, and it was weeks before she ventured out of her home. Eventually, as the fight got worse, Luna flew in. She was able to pull Stygian from the Shadow, but only because she took it into herself bore it with her into the hollow world of Limbo. If not for her sacrifice, none of us might be here now.”
“Then who raises the moon now, if not Luna?” I asked, brain scrambling to process the information.
She ducked her head slightly, looking longingly at the plinth bearing the trio of diamonds, a tear slipping free.
“I do,” she whispered.
“You…”
She nodded. “Two hundred and thirteen years now,” she said as she raised a hoof to the plinth. “Rarity used to joke that her wife was turning into even more of a night owl.”
“Wait,” I said. “You and Rarity?”
The Alicorn turned and turned a weak smile on me. “After losing Dash and Luna, and you being held in that coma,” she said. “I decided life was too short to waste time on fear. It took a few false starts, and more than a few fights, but Rarity and I lived a nice, mostly quiet life together. Getting to be the consort of the Princess of the Night had perks for her, but even the longevity that those held beloved by Alicorns gained didn’t sustain her past a century and a half. It was hard letting her go. She was the last of us, the last vestige of my old life.”
“What about Spike?” I asked suddenly. “Dragons live long lives, where’s Spike?”
“I don’t know,” she said, turning from the memorial of her love. “He took off shortly after Rarity died. Nopony has seen a sign of him since.” Her aura gripped the handles of my wheelchair. “It’s getting late, and I have to raise the moon soon. We should go inside.”
I looked at the wand.
“What happened to Trixie?” I asked softly. She had been my first real friend, one that met the new, less evil and using-magic-to-fix-all-my-problems me. The first that wasn’t part of Twilights group. The closest thing I had ever had to a sister.
“You’d be proud of her,” Twilight said. “She stayed by your bedside for quite a while and visited every day. Quit touring and took your spot as my student, hoping to find a way to wake you up. She became quite the little librarian. She wound up marrying this colt from Trottingham and settled down…what was his name? I’m always getting him and their grandson mixed up.”
“Grandson?” I asked.
The Alicorn smiled as she trotted next to me. “She’s got quite the lineage,” she said. “I’ve taught more than half of them myself. There’s one filly in particular I think you might want to meet.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said.
“Why not?”
As the tears slid down my face, I could feel the anger and despair raging within. My emotions always colored my magic, and the area around me began to cloud over.
“I’ve been unconcious for two centuries,” I growled, feeling the mana crackle all around me. “Found out that all my friends are gone, and you want me to meet somepony that will only remind me of that fact?”
“Starlight,” Twilight said, her tone more forceful and commanding that I had ever heard before. “Calm down.”
“No!” I shouted, the cloud of anger darkening the air around me. “It’s easy for you to be calm, you got to see their lives, you’ve had time to grieve and accept things!” The cloud began to sizzle with barely contained magic and tears flooded my face, matting the hair of my muzzle.
“Starlight,” she began again.
“Don’t you get it?” I asked. “I just learned that a friend died saving me, and all the friendship in the world couldn’t save those that needed it the most!”
She took a step back, her horn beginning to glow at the tip.
“Calm down, Starlight,” she said, worry on her face. “Your magic…”
“Forget it, Twilight,” I snarled, drawing mana to my horn. “I refuse to accept that this is the world I have to live in.” I concentrated on memory, and a scroll began to form, edges torn and frayed.
“Starlight, don’t!” Twilight shouted as I hit the scroll with my magic.
The vortex opened over me, but before it could pull me into the past, it began playing images. I watched for the moment I would need, the fight against Stygian.
I saw Trixie playing with a pair of foals, a filly and a colt. I saw Applejack, older and a little wizened hauling apples to town, a small colt trotting along with her. Fluttershy winging her way along with an older Scootaloo flying next to her, the younger Pegasus wearing a lightning shaped pendant around her neck. I saw Pinkie behind a counter, flour in her mane and photos of her friends, myself included on the shelf behind her.
I saw Twilight and Rarity at the altar. I saw the gatherings at Hearth’s Warming, the Summer Sun Celebration, the births of foals and marriages. I saw the lives of my friends played out in reverse.
I shuddered and screamed out in rage, magic going out and burning the scroll, the ash blowing away in the breeze. I doubled over as I released the pent up pain and sorrow, wailing over my lost friends and horrified that I would even consider taking the happy events that I had seen away from them. No matter how much I wanted them back, I couldn’t deny them the happiness they had found in their lives.
Trixie wouldn’t want me to go back to the way I had been.
As I wept, I felt a feathery wing slide over me.
“I know, Starlight,” Twilight whispered.
I continued sobbing as she wheeled me back to my hospital room.
“I know.”
“Are you sure about this, Starlight?” Twilight asked a month later as I packed supplies into a surprisingly deep bag. Containment enchantments had come a long way in two centuries. It seemed like I could have fit a ladder into the pannier and it would still have space.
I nodded. “I can’t sit around and read about the changes, Twilight,” I said to the Princess of the Night. “I have to go out and see what’s become of things. Ponyville, my old village, see the Crystal Empire. I have to get out.” I looked over at a picture frame that held ten photos, one for each of the Elements of Harmony, one of all of us at Hearth’s Warming, and photos of Trixie, one after our mishap with the map table and one of her family taken not long after her first grandchild was born. The last two were of an older Spike and of Luna.
“There might be a way to find Spike,” I said. “Maybe even bring Luna back. Not that I think you’re a bad ruler, mind you. It’s just the thought of her being trapped with that in limbo is horrible.”
Twilight nodded, levitating a small card over to me. I took it and looked at it curiously.
“It’s a royal voucher certificate,” she said. “Anyplace within Equestria or the Crystal Empire will accept that you’re a member of the court and your costs will be covered by the Crown. Just sign any receipt and have them send it to me and you’ll not have to worry. Just don’t go buying anything extravagant.” I saw her eye twinkle a little with humor.
I tucked the card into my bag. “Thanks, Twilight,” I said.
“Sure,” she said, then turned slightly and opened the door. “And there’s somepony that wants to meet you.” she added.
I watched as a young Unicorn mare walked in, and my heart stopped. I could see Trixie in her, from the mane and coat colors and the shape of the face. She was a little leaner than Trixie had been, and longer in the leg, but the familial resemblance was uncanny.
“Starlight Glimmer,” Twilight said quietly. “Meet Starlight Echo. Trixie’s great-grandaughter. She’s volunteered to be your guide.”
“Hello, Ms. Glimmer,” the mare said, a soft but throaty voice. She shifted nervously and I saw the music notes of her cutie mark.
“Please,” I said. “Call me Starlight, or if that’s too awkward, call me Glimmy. Your great grand-mare called me that from time to time.”
She smiled. “Could you tell me stories about Grandma Beatrice?”
I raised an eyebrow at that. When I had known her, she had hated her given name. “I think I know of a few,” I said as I lifted my pack onto my back and strapped it down. “But first, you and I need to work out a trade level for stories. I want to hear it all.”
I felt Twilight’s eyes on me as we left, and faintly heard her speak.
“Don’t be gone long, Starlight,” she whispered. “Come home when you can. I’ll be waiting.”
I stared in awe at the train. It was a streamlined object, glittering in smooth metal and polished crystal. Echo looked at me with a small smile.
“First time seeing a train?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “They just look different from what I’m used to.”
“Well, if we want to get to Canterlot proper to catch the connection to Ponyville, we need to board this one.”
I nodded and we climbed onboard the traincar, and I was surprised to see it wasn’t a train I was used to. Instead of cabins, it had rows of seats and ponies of all sorts just milled about, some climbing off with no baggage. Others boarded with us, briefcases and other business parcels with them.
“Why am I the only pony with luggage?” I asked.
“It’s a commuter train,” Echo whispered back. “It’s only used to ferry ponies from one end of Canterlot to the other. It doesn’t have any other stops.”
I blinked. “How large is Canterlot now?”
The young filly frowned as she thought. “Maybe a hundred square miles, give or take a hoof,” she answered finally. “Princess Sunset would know better, she comissioned the last mapping session of Equestria two years ago.”
“Princess…Princess Sunset? Where’s Celestia?”
“Headmistress Celestia is at her estate in the hinterlands as she always is when the school is on holiday,” Echo replied, a curious look in her eye replaced with understanding. “You weren’t awake for her stepping down and appointing her replacement. After a few years of mourning for Luna, she decided that her heart was no longer stong enough for ruling Equestria and passed the throne to her long lost protege, Sunset Shimmer. She’s been the Solar Diarch for nearly a century and a half now.”
I turned to her. “Can we get an audience?” I asked. “Today?”
She frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “Day Court is usually tightly scheduled. It’s why my family always petitioned to the Night Court instead.”
“I need to speak with her,” I said. “She’s one of the only friends I have left. She’ll make time for me, I’m sure.”
The doors slowly slid shut, booming as the guards on the far side pulled them to. As soon as the echoes had died away, Sunset dropped the regal look on her face and fairly well pranced down the steps that led to the dias her throne sat upon. Even adjusting to the wings and the royal regalia she now wore, I could recognize the pony that had stumbled through the mirror all those moons ago to swap out a journal.
“Starlight Glimmer, you are a sight for sore eyes,” Sunset said as she slid up and hugged me. I returned it in kind, not realizing I had tears in my eyes until I stepped back and blinked.
“You're telling me,” I said. “And look at you, a Princess at last.”
She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “Yeah,” she said. “At last.” She smiled and looked at me. “How are you taking the news?”
I tilted my head downward a little. “It took some getting used to,” I said. “I don’t know a lot of the details, but you can only take in so much at a time.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish…ah, I can’t even wish for it not to have happened, because it’ll sound like I rather you had not woken up. And after listening to Twilight for the last two hundred years blame herself, I can’t be that mean.”
“Maybe to a point I wish I hadn’t woken up either,” I said softly. “But I’m sure there’s a reason I did.”
“Harmony only knows,” the Solar Diarch nodded. “Now, besides catching up, what brings you to my court?”
“So what’s it like?” I asked as we walked down the halls to the archives.
“What’s what like?” Sunset asked, nodding to a few guards as they saluted her.
“Raising the Sun, ruling Equestria by day,” I said. “Being an Alicorn?”
She sighed. “I hate it, sometimes, to be honest,” she said. “I want things to be like they were, with Celestia and Luna in charge and Twilight able to be carefree like she used to be. I want to be able to sit down and play music with my friends like I did a century and more ago. But these wings shackle me, and I have a responsibility to the throne, just as Twilight does.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” she said with another sigh. “Celestia transferred most of her power to me and Luna encapsulated her power in her regalia before heading out, so anypony that took over for her would have become Princess of the Night.”
“Do you ever visit our friends across the mirror?” I asked.
Sadness flashed across her eyes, and I realized how insensitive the question was.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly.
“No,” she said, sniffing. “It’s ok. To you, it’s only been a few weeks since you visited. I’ve had to forgive a lot worse in my time.” She raised her head and shook out her mane, the sparkling brilliance in it more evident as we entered the dim archives. “I did for a while, but after a while, seeing them get older when I didn’t, it started to hurt too much. Correspondence to their families lasted for a while, but now even that’s petered out. I doubt there’s even enough magic over there now to power the journals.”
I blinked slowly. Out of all the ponies I had ever met, I had felt a closer connection to her than anypony next to Trixie. We were former villains, student’s of Twilight Sparkle, heroes by necessity.
“What do you think?” she asked softly. “Do I sound bitter?”
“No,” I said. “You sound like Twilight does; sad. Like you were able to move on until I came along and mucked up the stall.”
“Starlight,” she said. “No, that isn’t it at all. Yes, it hurt when I started to see my friends pass on, but we never gave up hope that you would wake up. Yeah, maybe I got caught up in duties along the way, but you’re still my friend, and I’m glad you’re ok now.”
“Heh,” I snickered wryly. “Stuck out of time, but I’m all right.” I shook my head. “I don’t even know this world anymore, Sunset. How am I supposed to do anything?”
“Is that why you’re looking for the most recent maps?” the Solar Diarch asked me.
“Partially, yes,” I answered. “One of Trixie’s descendants has offered to go with me to help catch me up on what might have changed socially, but I really just need to see the things that have changed. Put some miles under my hooves.”
She nodded and stopped in front of a large printed map of Equestria. I looked at it, awed by the change in the land of my birth. Canterlot was now sprawled across the mountainside, Ponyville, where it hadn’t rated more than a dot in my time, was now a good-sized city. Cloudsdale was missing, but I knew of many maps that didn’t count the Pegasi cloud-cities since they tended to migrate.
My eyes automaticaly scanned north, at the little vale where the village I had started had been nestled. There was the marking for a hamlet, indicating that it had grown to something slightly larger than Ponyville had been while I had slept.
“For everything that’s different,” Sunset said. “A lot is the same. The School for Gifted Unicorns still runs, Cadence still rules in the Crystal Kingdom, and Ponyville is still there.” She smiled. “You should go see the Princess there. You might find it a pleasant surprise.”
“Princess?” I asked. “But Twilight is here in Canterlot.”
Sunset just smiled serenely as she shook her head. “She’s not the resident princess anymore, Starlight,” she said as she turned. “You’re welcome to make copies of any of the maps you want. I’ll see if I can find an archivist to help you find anything you need. It was good to see you again, Starlight.”
“You too, Sunset,” I whispered. “I won’t be long.”
“I should hope not,” she said before walking away. “After all, the longer roads always pull you towards home eventually.”
“You got to meet with the Princess!?” Echo said as we walked to the train station. “What was she like? Is her mane really made of fire?”
I looked at the younger mare. Heh, younger, I thought. That encompasses pretty much everypony except Celestia and the Princesses, now.
“She’s just a regular pony with a lot of responsibilities,” I said. “And her mane wasn’t made of fire as far as I could tell.”
The mare shuffled her hooves as we waited in a queue for tickets.
“So,” she drawled. “Where are we going first?”
“Ponyville,” I said. “I want to see what used to be home before we go anywhere else.”
“Ooh!” Echo squealed. “I’ve always wanted to see the castle there. I hope the Princess of Joy is in when we get there.”
I marveled at the sight of Ponyville. When I had lived here, the tallest buildings had been town hall and Twilight’s castle.
Now, three and four story homes packed the inner streets and the sprawl of the town made it seem even more organized that the broad open streets had.
“So many homes,” I whispered as I looked down from the elevated tracks as the train travelled down the mountain from Canterlot.
“Actually, a good number of those are actually shops,” Echo said. “Ponyville had a mercantile revolution around sixty years ago. With it being a good hub for trade with many of the neighboring lands due to it’s important history, merchants started setting up shops left and right. It’s been a booming industry.”
I saw a small cottage set off from some of the urban sprawl, a large amount of grass surrounding it.
“Fluttershy’s cottage is still standing,” I whispered.
“It’s been made one of the historical sites of the town,” Echo said. “The immediate lands were made part of a memorial by the Lunar Diarch upon the passing of her friend. One of the highest requested jobs for young ponies is tending to the homes of the former Element Bearers.”
I blinked away tears. My friends had a legacy that had still had an impact to this day.
“What are the other sites?” I asked.
“The old Carousel Boutique,” Echo replied. “The original Sugar Cube Corner, Fluttershy’s cottage as you saw, and the Golden Oaks library.”
I whipped my head around. “The golden Oaks?” I asked. “But it was destroyed before I had even moved to Ponyville.”
“Princess Twilight had it rebuilt by some of the best Unicorn architects forty years after her placement on the throne,” Echo told me with a frown. “But I thought you lived there for a short time?”
I shook my head as the train continued to rumble down the tracks. “Twilight and I never even met until after the Oaks was destroyed and her castle created,” I said. “It was actually the happiest moment in life looking back at the day she asked me to stay as her student.”
“You were her last student, too,” Echo said. “She has refused to take on any other learners, despite there being many applicants each year.”
I looked down. That made me feel uncomfortable, for some reason. I saw the sparkling towers of the Castle of Friendship start to draw closer.
“And Sweet Apple Acres?” I asked.
“Still family run,” Echo said. “Though it’s a fair bit larger than it used to be. It can’t be harvested by two or three ponies anymore. Takes a full ten to get the whole of it done once the season comes down.”
“There are that many Apples living there now?”
She shook her head, my mind having trouble assigning the studious and straightforward nature to somepony that looked like the showpony I used to know that was practically the opposite of her great granddaughter.
“Not just Apples, but a few Pears and Oranges as well,” she said. “The farm now raises all three.”
I let all the information tumble in my head as the train pulled up to a new stationhouse in Ponyville, the platform larger than any I had ever seen before.
“So, where to first?” my guide asked.
“The castle,” I said. “I want to see my home.”
The doors swung open as the two Pegasi that stood watch put their backs against them. I strode inside, the sight and feel of the crystal beneath my hooves casting my mind back to when I had lived here. I knew every twist and turn.
But what I didn’t remember was the rows of stained glass windows set in the walls. I could tell they were lit by globe crystals from behind as opposed to sunlight, but I wondered why they were even here. I saw the ones that I had walked by in Canterlot several times. Twilight’s coronation, the defeat of Nightmare Moon, of Tirek, of Discord, the defeat of the Changelings at the Royal Wedding and more.
But there were also some that I didn’t recognize. One was obviously a memorial to Rainbow Dash, and I walked by one for each of the Elements. I also saw one memorializing the wedding of Rarity and Twilight. But the further in we walked, the less I recognized the ponies or the events depicted.
Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember any of the windows when I visited Sunset containing their standard images. It was as if she didn’t want the reminders…
“Starlight!” a voice cried out, and a loud pop from a teleportation sounder just before I was grabbed up in a pair of hooves.
“Oh, I am soooooo glad to see you!” the Alicorn that held me cooed, her wings flapping excitedly behind her lifting us into the air. “I’ve heard so many stories of you from Mom and Aunt Twily and Aunt Sunset…”
My eyes widened. “Flurry Heart?” I whispered.
A yellow flash enveloped us and we were on the ground again, the youngest princess of Equestria practically prancing in excitement.
“It’s so nice to actually meet you,” she said. “Well, I’ve met you once, but I was a foal, but I would sit with Aunt Twily when she would sit with you, but you were asleep, so of course that doesn’t really count either…” She shook her head and fluffed her wings, giving me a glimpse of her cutie mark, a snowflake with a heart shape inside the lattice of the flake.
“So you’re the Princess of Joy, huh?” I said. “I see you took over Twilight’s old digs.”
“Oh, not just her castle, darling,” the excitable Alicorn said, immediately cementing who she reminded me of now. She spoke like Rarity and acted like a subdued Pinkie Pie. “All of the Elements still meet here to answer calls by the map, just like we have since the map was formed.”
I saw the map room behind her and walked towards it. It still held six thrones, the cutie marks of my friends still cresting the seatbacks, but below each was a set of other marks, Flurry’s sitting just beneath Pinkie’s triple balloon. Rarity’s was adorned by a trio of cherry blossoms, a set of gears, paired daisies, and a shooting star.
Rainbow’s caught my eye next, the first mark beneath hers was a shield shape with a lightning bolt within.
“Scootaloo?” I whispered.
Flurry nodded. “The Second Element of Loyalty,” she said, her tone tempering as she recognized the somber moment. “She had Dash’s spirit. Maybe not quite as fast, but certainly no less determined and willing to stand by her friends.”
“How…”
“I don’t really understand the science behind it,” Flurry spoke up as she walked around the thrones, gazing at each. “That’s more Aunt Twily’s area than mine.”
“I remember them all,” she said. “Just because the Pillars had returned and the Pony of Shadow’s locked away didn’t mean that friendship problems stopped cropping up too.” She passed by Twilight’s old seat, and I saw Trixie’s mark just below hers, making my eyes mist over.
“Aunt Sunset said she didn’t want to see those reminders everyday and neither did Aunt Twily,” she said as she glanced at the stained glass windows depicting the Bearers in order. “But I think it’s important to remember not just the friends that came first, but all the friends that have sat in those seats. To do less is to dishonor those that have come before and after.”
She shook her head and her cheery mood returned. “I bet you want to see your room,” she said suddenly, wings twitching with excitement.
“My…My room?” I whispered.
“It was kept exactly as you left it, you know,” she said as she turned and capered over to the door leading to the stairs.
“Exactly?” I squeaked.
“Down to the extradimensional space by the bed,” she said, winking at me. “Clever place to hide those, by the way. Aunt Twily never would have found it.”
My face was burning so much I’m sure I could have set fire to the tapestries I passed by.
I stared at the ceiling, the softness of my bed awash in memories. Somehow, there had been no decay or even collection of dust in chambers I had once called mine. I lit my horn and opened the pocket of extradimensional space and reached in, withdrawing the items I had stashed within.
A battered journal with a much tattered and faded bookmark ribbon. A rock candy necklace. A battered old conical hat with several rips in it.
And a stack of letters, bound with a white ribbon. I took the top one, the note in a much opened envelope, one bearing a circular mark with several rays coming off of it.
Opening the envelope, I withdrew the much folded bit of paper and gingerly read the words inked onto it.
Starlight,
While I know that things are still in a bit of flux for you, I just want you to know that my offer to you last week is a standing one.
So, when you are ready and willing to try again, you know where I’ll be.
With much love,
Sunburst.
I felt tears forming as I looked at the letter. I had intended to give him an answer after we had dealt with the Pony of Shadows. I had put it off for weeks, months even. Ever since the incident with Chrysalis I had been struggling with my feelings for my first friend sorting out what was seen through rose colored glasses and what was true, what had changed and what had remained the same from the colt I knew when I was young.
And now…
Now I never would. I clutched the stack of letters tightly as I cried.
Grief is an odd thing. In the month since I had awoken, I had been flung back and forth across the spectrums of anger and anguish so many times. For every moment of relief I had five that stung in ways I never thought I’d experience.
I was starting to come to terms with the fact that my friends were gone. If you consider only crying when presented with reminders coming to terms.
I had been happy that I had Sunset and Twilight still, familiar faces to help my transition into this strange time, but they weren’t the ponies I knew. They were more distant, more strict, less joyful. Sunset had gone from a girl that enjoyed being with her friends to one of the rulers of the land, tasked with raising the sun. Twilight no longer struck me as the mare I had debated magical theory with, her face more serious than I was used to since she now warded the dreams of Equestria and her moon sailed the sky.
Even though those two friends were still here, they were also lost to me.
After I cried myself out, I tucked the bundle of letters into my pack along with the other baubles I had stashed there. I looked at each as I packed them, memories rising with each.
The rock candy necklace Maud had given me the first year after her move to Ponyville on my birthday. It had been a family tradition of hers, and for her to have given me a string made me feel welcomed by the laconic mare. Days spent flying kites floated through my mind as I tucked it into my bag.
The hat came next, remembering the day I had met Trixie and the insane stunt with a manticore that had caused these rips and tears to be bestowed on the hat. I never knew why she had given me the hat, but now it was enough to make me smile sadly.
I paused with my journal in my magic, opening it to read a random entry, only to find the ink smeared and nearly illegible. I frowned. The transdimensional pocket I had opened to store things I didn’t want anypony else finding should have been essentially timeless, but the ink in my journal looked like it was the two hundred years old that it would have been had it been exposed to the elements.
I flipped through the pages and sighed. Some pages were perfectly readable as the day I wrote them, seeing the entries for my plans for revenge on Twilight to the day she took me as a student, the day I made friends with Trixie, Maud, Thorax, and others.
But I still wondered why some pages had faded. After a moment, I shrugged. Maybe my seal just wasn’t totally perfect, and Flurry had known about it, so maybe just enough time had seeped in.
I packed the last few things and rose from my bed and left the room. I found Echo just outside, her head ducked as she saw the look on my face.
“Is everything all right?” the near copy of my first friend made post-reformation asked.
“I suppose,” I replied. “It’s just for all that’s the same, there is so much different. I wonder if I even want to find out what happened to my friends, or try to find Spike. Just seeing those seats downstairs drove some of that pain home.”
The other mare nodded. “I suppose I can understand that,” Echo murmured. “I am, after all, just here to guide you if you need help. But to me, your memories are just stories told to me as a foal, so I’m not sure I will be able to appreciate everything the way you may see it.”
I sighed. “I get that,” I told her. “But nopony ever learned anything by avoiding difficulty or uncomfortable situations. Remind me to tell you about my issues with magic solutions sometimes.”
She smiled. “I seem to recall Grandma telling some of those,” Echo smiled. “But it would be nice to hear from you, for the perspective.”
I turned and started to walk down the hallway when my legs gave out suddenly and I crashed to the floor, my tongue suddenly thick in my mouth and my vision going white. I heard Echo’s voice calling is surprise as though through cotton and several other voices yelling amidst a blaring sound of some sort.
”She’s seizing!”
“Push two amps!”
“She’s going tachy!”
I felt a jolt though my body and the world dimmed for a moment, then slowly came back, the voices fading and I found myself looking at Flurry and Echo from the floor.
“Are you ok?” Flurry Heart asked, horn lighting as I felt a scan spell rove over me.
I just laid there, my heart hammering in my chest and it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I thought at first that it was due to my strange seizure, until I realized that Flurry was leaning against my chest.
“Air,” I croaked, and the Alicorn hopped off me, looking a little sheepish as she did. I rolled onto my hooves, my legs still a little shaky.
Echo stood next to me, a welcome source of stability in an increasingly unstable world.
“I’ll see about some dinner,” Flurry said. “I’m sure that with everything that you’ve been through, you could use a meal.”
As she hurried off, Echo looked at me.
“What happened?”
I shook my head, ignoring the minor wave of dizziness it caused. “I don’t know,” I whispered. I looked at my escort. “Did you hear those voices?”
The Unicorn frowned. “What voices?”
“I heard voices during the attack,” I whispered, almost to myself. “They sounded familiar, somehow.”
“I didn’t hear anything, Glimmy,” she told me.
I frowned, my mind trying to place the voices I had heard.
“We should go find a bathroom,” Echo said. “Get you cleaned up and let the cleaning staff in to work on the floor.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked at me, an uncomfortable look on her face. “You had a seizure,” Echo stammered. “And during, you ah…well, you lost bladder control for a moment.”
It dawned on me that my hind legs were damp. The smell and sensation were now assaulting my senses and I nearly dragged my escort down the hallway.
In a flicker of yellow light, platters of food were dropped onto the table, pulling me from the internal research I had been doing. I was still trying to figure out what had caused the seizure, and what had caused the voices. I was worried that there might be some lingering effect of the coma. I knew that in cases where a subject suffered lack of oxygen for any appreciable time, brain damage could occur.
“Dig in!” Flurry’s bubbly voice broke through. “It’s all been grown locally by the Apples, and I made it myself!”
I looked at the platters in front of us and my mouth watered as I took in the various foods. Spring green salads, a platter of steaming hay fries, oat and fruit cakes, and a hot pot of what smelled like lentil soup. My stomach growled and I immediately began setting cakes and fries on my plate. I’m sure I looked like Twilight used to as I dove into them, abandoning manners to silence the complaints rising from my empty tummy.
“Someone looks hungry,” Echo said, spoon hovering in her citrine aura.
I paused for a moment to wipe my mouth with my napkin. “Famished for some reason,” I responded. “It’s been a while since I’ve been this hungry.”
“Well, there’s plenty,” Flurry Heart chirped. “So help yourself!” She turned to my companion and grinned. “Tell me about yourself, Ms. Echo.”
“No miss,” Echo said. “I’m the great-granddaughter of Beatrice Lulamoon, who you knew as the Element of Magic.”
“I thought you looked familiar,” Flurry cooed. “You look very much like her.”
“So I keep hearing,” Echo muttered, gesturing at me. “She even called me Trixie one time on the train.”
“I said I was sorry!” I protested.
“But, my field of study is temporal mechanics and their effect on the mantic fabric,” the echo of my friend continued. “Much of my research is from Princess Twilight’s notes, but…”
The food soured in my mouth.
“Temporal mechanics?” I whispered. “You’re researching time spells?”
“Of course,” Echo said. “I thought you knew. Didn’t Princess Twilight tell you?”
“No, she didn’t,” I said, standing suddenly. “Do you have any idea the amount of trouble that kind of magic can cause?”
“Of course,” she responded, looking confused at my outburst. “That’s why I’m researching it based on its long term effects on localized rifts.”
“You can’t just open up a temporal rift to see what happens,” I shouted. “The ramifications on the course of time are too unpredictable. I should know!”
“That’s why I chose you as a subject for long term observation,” Echo said. “With Princess Twilight being an Alicorn, temporal anomalies would have little noticeable effect. But you are a regular Unicorn. Even in a coma I could see if there was any lingering effects your time travel might have had.”
My blood ran cold. “Then all I am to you is a test subject? A lab rat?”
She realized at that moment the way she had delivered her information. “No, Glimmy…”
“Shut up!” I growled. “No matter how you phrase it, no matter how you sugar coat it, there is no way I would be ok with you poking around my head or in dabbling in time travel.”
Flurry Heart shifted uncomfortably. “Starlight,” she started.
“No, I think I’m done,” I snarled, storming out of the castle, leaving Echo behind.
The train rattled as it raced along a set of tracks that hadn’t existed prior to my coma. I stared out the window as the hills of the Inner Valley gave way to the mountains of the Northern Reaches. I could still feel lingering anger in my heart at how Echo had calmly declared how I was just as much a walking and talking experiment in progress as I was a link to a relative she barely remembered.
As the train rounded the edge of the mountain the tracks had been carved into, I caught sight of the village I had built, and my jaw dropped.
When I ran this hamlet, it was two rows of identical houses and shops with my house at the tail end. I never realized until later just how ingrained I had been for equality, even subconsciously designing my little commune in an equals sign. Now, it had spread out to nearly four times it’s former size with buildings of all shapes and sizes, colors and finishings.
And at the edge of town, where the train platform rested, was my old house.
I walked slowly to the building, and I saw the restoration efforts that had been undertaken through the years, new sheathing on the exterior walls and fresh shingles on the roof. A plaque next to the door noted that this was the former home of the last student of the Princess of the Moon. I smiled at the mention. At least I was remembered as something other than…
Wait a minute…
Hadn’t Twilight said she had taught each of Trixie’s descendants? My mind whirled, replaying every word I had heard both Twilight and Echo say, no longer trusting anything I had heard from the living echo of my best…friend.
Living echo…Her name hadn’t been unusual to me at first, but now my mind had sprung into suspicion mode. There had been too many loose ends, like how niether Sunset nor Twilight had wished to speak on our friends, understandably so at the time, but now somewhat uncharacteristically. Twilight hadn’t gone into details about how Dash died or how I had been placed in stasis but not Dash.
Sunset hadn’t seen me or sent word once in the month I worked on getting my atrophied limbs back to serviceable condition. While I understand being a princess was demanding on time, she could have made time. Even if she was having odds with Twilight, she would have mentioned that when I saw her at the palace.
And Flurry Heart, not knowing why or how the Elements selected new bearers. She may be the Embodiment of Joy and Bearer of the Element of Laughter, but with Twilight, Sunset, and Sunburst back when she was younger, she should have been able to explain it at least in general terms.
A loud footfall fell behind me and a shadow fell across me.
“It’s about time you got here, Starlight,” a voice said. It was deeper, more resonant, but I knew who it was.
“Hello, Spike,” I said as I turned around. The drake towered above me, his color darker in his age and smoke curled from his nostrils as he breathed. Most noticeably in changes was how his left eye was now a scarred hollow. He looked as though he had gone through a war.
“I’m glad to see you,” he rumbled. “I’m sure you’ve got questions.”
“So what happened to your eye?” I asked as I was lead into the new district of my town.
“That’s what you lead with?” the drake grumbled.
“It is sort of staring me in the face,” I returned.
“Let me start back a little before,” he sighed. “When Rarity died, Twilight was devastated. I never even saw her open a book for months. She went and held court, raised and lowered the moon, and slept. It took a while for her to get back to as normal as she could get. After ten years, I had to take a vacation, step out of the fast lane. And that’s when Thorax found me.”
“He was still around?”
Spike nodded. “Changelings live some pretty long lives,” he sighed, reaching up to rub a claw over the scarred mess that had been his left eye. “Chrysalis declared war on his kingdom. When she vanished after you rescued everyone, she set up a new hive in secret.”
We walked for a moment in silence. “Did you know that in most insect species, once a queen starts laying eggs, she doesn’t stop? Chrysalis raised a whole army in a few decades and started a civil war in the Hivelands.”
“And Twilight or Sunset didn’t do anything?” I asked, incredulous.
“They had agreed to a non-interference policy with the Hivelands,” Spike said. “One I was strongly against. I stayed behind to help defend the young and elderly. Thorax sent an envoy to the Diarchs, but was returned without a refusal for aid.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t sound like either of them,” I protested. “They would never just let a friend fight alone!”
“When they were just the Princess of Friendship and a simple runaway, yes,” the drake returned. “But now they are the rulers of an entire nation. They had no choice. I see that now.” He chuckled ruefully. “It’s interesting how losing an eye will help you see better sometimes.”
“So what happened?”
“Chrysalis attacked the Hive, late in the night,” Spike continued. “And they had a couple of manticores with them. I lost my eye to one, but what they didn’t know was just how much fire I could breathe.” He closed his eye and took a deep breath, blowing out a puff of smoke. “I can still hear the screams.”
“How did it end?” I asked, afraid for the answer.
“Thorax and Pharynx took on Chrysalis two on one in the middle of the final push,” he said as we entered a public square, a fountain portraying Pegasi pushing some clouds together. “They won, severing her hold on the other Changelings, but she managed to kill Pharynx in the process.Thorax still sits over the Hivelands, but he’s not as easy-going as he used to be.”
“Well, looks as though the sleepyhead finally woke up,” a voice said from behind us. I blinked as I turned around.
And while he was no older than he had been while I had known him, he was also visibly different. He was wearing a threadbare sweater and a scarf done in yellow and pink, and just a hair transparent.
“Discord?”
“In the flesh, so to speak,” he said, dipping in a slight bow. His voice was a little more mild
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked. “You’re not quite solid.”
“I spent just a bit too much time not being me,” he said. “As a being of Chaos, I have to be chaotic as much as possible. And I decided to just take a break from being me for a while.”
“Fluttershy,” I whispered.
“Of course not,” he sniffed, turning away. “I just needed to decide what kind of chaos I wanted to explore this time. It has nothing to do with the kindest, most beautiful pony the world had ever known not being…”
I set a hoof on his shoulder, feeling it almost like a liquid. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “I understand how you feel.”
“I suspect you do,” he said, firming up a bit as he turned. He frowned at me, tilting his head. “You’re not under some sort of spell, are you?” he asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” I said, turning in a circle. “Why?”
He reached out and curled his talons around something in the air and pulled hard and my world lurched, the air turning white.
”She’s stable, but I’m not sure for how long.”
He released the whatever it was he had grabbed as I collapsed. He frowned and rubbed his talons together, feeling something between them. He grew just a bit more solid as he did. “This is Chaos magic,” he said, his voice starting to sound like it once did when I knew him. “You never cease to surprise me.”
Discord sat his teacup down on the table he sat next to. Well, he set it up on the table, since it and his chair were affixed to the ceiling of the room I was in. He leaned back and affixed me in his gaze.
“I am quite sure you heard me the first time I mentioned it,” he grumbled, adjusting his scarf in his claws. “You are practically radiating Chaos magic, almost like a tether of some sort. It’s different enough from my magic that I can’t affect it or see what it’s doing, though. It’s mildly annoying.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, lifting a glass of water and rinsing the last of the bile from my mouth. I had apparently suffered another mild seizure. Thankfully, this time I maintained control of my various bodily functions, just a few mild returning of my lunch and breakfast. Possibly some of yesterdays as well, from the amount that came out.
Discord turned his gaze on me and I felt my ears pin back against my head. “No offense,” I added quickly. “It’s just, so much of this is so different from my understanding. Two hundred years is a long time.”
“To a pony, at least,” Spike rumbled. I was still trying to get over his size and the changes to him. He was much more reserved, and the grizzled appearance was something I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to reconcile with the innocent dragonling I had known. “For him, it’s almost like a blink of an eye.”
“Or for you?” I asked, wondering how he was dealing with knowing he would outlive his friends most of the time.
He closed his good eye, sighing in agreement. “Maybe eventually,” he admitted. “Right now, it’s still a fairly good length of time.”
“Why me?” I asked. “Why was I placed into a coma but not Dash? I wasn’t worth the trade for one of the Bearers of the Elements.”
“You weren’t placed there by us,” Spike replied with a confused look. “The final strike from the Pony set you there. We just trailed to keep you healthy.”
I frowned. “Spike,” I asked carefully. “How many students did Twilight have after me?”
He gave me a confused look. “None,” he said. “You were the last private student. She had a few that she mentored, especially when she ran the school for a year or two while Celestia was training Sunset.”
“And Trixie’s foals,” I continued. “How many of them did she teach?”
“Well,” he said, eye going distant for a moment. “With the exception of her second filly who happened to be a Pegasus, all of them. And her grandfoals all enrolled in the school if they were Unicorns.”
“I know you’ve been out of touch for a while,” I said. “But do any of you know of a descendant of Trixie called Echo?”
Spike glanced at Discord, who shrugged helplessly.
“I don’t particularly keep track of the get of a common stage illusionist,” he gave as an answer.
“Says the draconequus that writes Fluttershy’s lineage on her birthday every year.”
“I’m just honoring the memory of the best friend I had,” the former Lord of Chaos sniffed. His form faded slightly as he said that. “It’s perfectly rational.”
“That’s why I’m worried,” Spike said before focusing on me. “I kept tabs until I left, and I still get letters from Celestia, discreetly. I’ve never heard of a pony named Echo, though.”
I nodded. “I was given a guide,” I said. “By Twilight called Starlight Echo, who looks remarkably like Trixie did. She wanted to study time magics, and was using me as a test subject as well as wanting to hear about Trix.”
“Time magic?” Discord said. “Isn’t that your particular forte?”
I opened my mouth to respond but was cut off by a disembodied laugh.
“Of course it is,” the voice continued. “It’s one of the reasons I took an interest in her.”
I blinked. “Echo?” I whispered to the air, but the voice was off subtly. It sounded almost like…
A wall of mist appeared, and a Unicorn mare walked out of it, revealing Echo.
“You are so much more than just a guinea pig, Starlight,” she said, her eyes flashing red for a moment, matched by a faint glint at her neck. Her form shimmered and shifted, her coat shifting colors and her mane resettling.
“You are the final piece of a puzzle I never managed to figure out…”
The microphone cutie mark disappeared, replaced slowly by another.
“But now, I think I know that I was being a bit too subtle.”
She gave herself a little toss of her mane, the pink coat pristine as my own, and a jagged shard of a pendant hung from her neck. Her hair was a perfect match to how I had worn mine a lifetime ago in this very village, as was her tone and malicious glare.
What gave me and the other two in the little house pause was the red sheen to her horn and the pendent hanging from her neck. it held a faint resemblance to something I had heard Twilight and Trixie talk about.
“The Alicorn Amulet?” I whispered.
“Remember what I said about you never ceasing to surprise me?” Discord said with an amused chuckle.
I stared across the room at the other Starlight Glimmer, shocked beyond words.
I stared at my doppelgänger, stupefied before I flared my horn, using a spell that Twilight and I had researched to identify Changelings. Despite Spike’s story that Chrysalis was dead, I didn’t want to risk it.
My dark reflection started to laugh again, the amulet dangling from her neck gleaming in the light. “Ah, Starlight,” she chuckled. “You should know that I’m not a Changeling.” Her horn flared red, echoed by her eyes. Moments later, I felt my joints locked up, and I saw Spike stiffen as well, and Discord wavered slightly, his image going ghostly with a look of surprise.
I strained against the mantic hold, feeling my magic scrabbling at my counterparts. “What do you want?” I asked, trying to bury the panic I felt coiling in my belly.
My double smiled evilly.
“You.”
I was yanked forward and felt magic scraping across my body, focusing on my horn. “I have traipsed across countless dimensions,” Echo growled. “Acquiring power from however I could to defeat Twilight Sparkle. In my last trip, I discovered that you managed to perfect time travel. And all knowledge from my dimension was long since lost. So, I just need the knowledge in your mind. It will be over quick, but from the last few times I’ve siphoned knowledge from my other selves, it might not be a soothing feeling.”
“What do you mean?” Spike growled, managing to inch a little forward.
“Well,” Dark Starlight mused, tilting her head and shoving the dragon away. “One was left a gibbering madpony. But she was alive, at least.”
That panic in my belly started growing exponentially. “Why, though?” I whimpered. “Why do you want to fight Twilight still? She was right in our argument!”
She turned her red tinged eyes on me and scowled.
“My Twilight was not as benevolent as you may have experienced,” she growled, sliding the amulet to the side to reveal a small puckered scar, devoid of any hair despite it’s old appearance. “My Twilight left me this to remember her by after she recovered her cutie mark. I feel it every day, so don’t talk to me of how Twilight was right.”
She spun, stalking back and forth, her head swiveling around to keep me in her sights. “I have spent decades preparing,” she hissed. “And I have stepped through fifteen universes, stealing whatever I could, including this.” She touched the amulet. “And then I started hunting myself, and my power grew even further. I will not be swayed, and I need your memories before my victory can be perpetrated. But I had to separate you from those friends of yours, so I looked for an opportune moment and tied myself to you. I forced you into stasis during the fight with the Pony of Shadows. I hid in the background, waiting for you to awaken so I could get your mind while in it’s vulnerable state.”
I stared at her, my panic starting to turn to anger, an anger I had only felt after my flight from this village generations ago.
“You did this?” I whispered.
“Ah,” Dicord’s ghostly voice filtered in. “That explains the strand of chaos magic on you. She’s twisted the fabric of reality to ignore her. That’s also why there are those inconsistencies you mentioned.” He smiled toothily. “I like her.”
My anger started to build, a red cloud seeping from my horn. “My friends suffered for years,” I hissed. “Worried about me. Luna lost, Celestia in mourning, and Trixie heartbroken!” The grip on me wavered. “All for a pointless grab at power? You should look at yourself, you should be horrified.”
Starlight whirled on me, her face twisted in rage. “Horrified?” she sneered. “I have the ability to make my utopia a reality, all over Equestria! The Diarchs will bow before me and I shall be able to make a land where all ponies are equal!”
I closed my eyes and turned my head to look at Spike. I saw the sadness in his remaining eye, remembering the fight he and I had experienced. I knew what I had to do, but I wasn’t sure that I could do it.
“Hey, Spike?” I whispered. “Tell Twilight I’m sorry?”
He blinked, then surged against the magical bonds as he realized what I was doing. “No!”
I turned and slid my magic along the thread that held me, canceling out the hold by linking my magic into my dark reflections.
Mantic harmonics were unique by Unicorn, and apparently ours were close enough that the spell interpreted my will as hers and dispelled the grip. The second my hooves hit the floor, I dove forward and tackled her, teleporting us to the ruins where the fight against the Pony of Shadows had occurred. The broken stonework still lay where I remember it, but the whirling rip in the fabric of the world pulled at my mane. I wrapped my hooves around her neck, reaching for the clasp of the amulet.
“You fool!” she shouted, blasting me away, and I was sure at least one bone broke. I painfully climbed by to my hooves, remembering every spell I had used against Twilight a lifetime ago.
She rose before me, eyes flaring with dark magic. “You can’t hope to defeat me,” she snarled, horn glimmering with dark intent. “I’m more powerful than you, and I know how you think. You’re hoping that Spike will bring the Princess here and the two of you can redeem me. Pathetic!” she fired a blast at me that I dove under, galloping towards her.
“Wrong,” I said, teleporting past her and leaping towards the vortex.
“The world needs Twilight,” I said as I felt the pull grow stronger. “It needs Sunset.” I locked my telekinetic force on her, pulling her forwards.
“It doesn’t need us,” I whispered as we fell into the deathly cold of Limbo. I looked at her as my mint green magic started to flare.
“And I’ll show you a world where everypony is equal.”
I stared at the other me, my horn sparking and flaring as I drew power to it.
She started laughing. “A world where everypony is equal?” she mocked me. “Limbo? You should have waited for your princess friends, or better yet, that pitiful draconequus. What do you think you can do? I have the power of dozens of you and decades of experience.”
I smiled, keeping the power blazing bright as I saw a blot of darkness grow closer from beyond her.
“Me?” I asked innocently. “I’m not planning on doing a whole lot. I’m just keeping the gate open. She, on the other hoof, might want to have some words with you.”
Dark Starlight sneered. “That is such an old trick,” she snorted. “You really expect me to look…”
”FOOLS!” the voice of the Pony of Shadows roared as it approached. ”You have sealed your own doom and allowed me my way out of this torturous prison.”
It wasn’t the same as it had been on the fateful day that had started this odd confrontation. It now held a much more mareish shape and the obvious influence of Nightmare Moon was all over, stars flicking into being and dying out along the length of its mane and tail. But I saw on its back a pair of midnight wings, wholly physical and midnight in hue, weakly flapping as though to pull away from it.
My reflection stared at the being and took a few steps away in shock. “What have you done?”
I smiled sweetly and leaped onto her back, wrestling with her. My hoof touched the clasp of the amulet and it popped open for a second before I was wrenched away. But in that moment, I felt an invasive touch worm it’s way into my mind, and I understood some of how it worked.
She whirled to me, ignoring the still approaching Nightmare of Shadows. “You still think you can beat me?” she shouted, face furious. But her eyes had returned momentarily to their regular hue, and confusion crossed her face.
“Where am I?” she asked before the red seeped back in and her imperious look returned.
“The amulet is controlling you, Starlight,” I said. “You aren’t in control of your actions anymore. It’s making you commit these attacks. You are stronger than it is, fight it!”
The red seeped out again, and I saw a face like that of a frightened filly.
“Please,” she whispered in an equally soft and young voice. “Help me.”
But the Nightmare was upon us now, and the influence of the Alicorn Amulet surged back into being. “Fool!” she cried. “I’ve absorbed dozens of unicorn’s magic and I’ll take yours as well!”
The Nightmare paused before bursting out in laughter. “Pitiful little foal,” it hissed, towering over us. It grabbed us both in it’s magic and lifted us to eye level. From this vantage I could see the dim outline of Luna in its back. I started memorizing the position as my double started her egotistical - and predictable - demands.
“You have no idea of whom you are dealing with,” she snarled before spitting in the eye of the being that held us. “I am Starlight Glimmer, the eventual ruler of the land!”
“You are not in your land,” the Nightmare rumbled. “You are trapped, just as I am. But with your magic along with that of the princess, I can now escape.”
I readied my magic, eyes locked on the flittering wings. If I knew my old temper as well as I thought…
Dark Starlight blasted the Nightmare in the face with a large crimson beam, ripping part of its head off. As it’s magic grip weakened, I teleported forward to just by the wings and grabbed onto them, pulling with both hooves and magic, and slowly, Luna’s head emerged.
“Luna!” I called as her ears started to twitch. “You’ve got to fight it, we don’t have a lot of time!”
Her gaze was weary. “I shall try, but ware, for its durability is beyond what we thought.”
I glanced up and saw the head healing. Amazingly, the giant gouge that the other me had carved out of it was rapidly filling in, eyes, crest, and horn all that remained to regenerate. I redoubled my efforts, dragging Luna’s front hooves out and clearing the front half of her barrel.
“Simpleton!” The Nightmare howled as its horn started to coalesce. “I shall crush you for your impertinence!”
Another crimson beam shot up, tearing off an ear.
“Who is it that aids you, Starlight Glimmer?” Luna asked tiredly as we struggled to get the rest of her body out.
“Myself,” I said, tucking under her barrel and shoving up. “After a fashion.”
Luna frowned but pulled a back hoof out and we began to work on her other leg, when the Nightmare spun its head around and stared at us.
“She cannot escape me as easily as you believe,” it said, horn starting to glow with it’s magic and I realized the error I had made. It would feel as its host began to break free and would have no compunctions blasting an interloped from its body. What was a minor wound to a being of magic?
Black tendrils started to snake up Luna’s legs as a deep throated chuckle seeped out of its mouth. “Maybe I should envelop you as well,” it mused. “You seem to hold a lot of power yourself.”
That was the point when another crimson shot tore through its neck.
“I’m not done with you,” I heard my double shout. “Don’t ignore me as though I’m nothing!”
Luna tore free from the tendrils as they dissipated. She rose to her full height and we both leapt from its back. I was amazed at the look of the Alicorn, her body no longer the taught specimen she had been in my memories. She looked as though she had been suffering from a wasting disease, her muscles lax and her skin loose. That she could even fly was a miracle.
“I hope you brought more help than a single filly, Starlight Glimmer,” Luna said tiredly, watching as the slowly shrinking Nightmare charged after a teleporting copy of me. “For even my power wasn’t enough to dispel the evil intelligence contained within that otherworldly mind.”
“I’m not planning to take it on,” I said, horn starting to power up again. “I’m planning on using it.” I turned to her. “Your sister is waiting for you. You should go see her.”
“What about you?”
“I have to have a little talk with myself,” I said. “And I’m not sure how it’s going to go. But she’s made a mess of the world on the other side of the rift. I can’t let her escape.”
Luna looked at me. “You intend to trap her in Limbo and battle her unto the end?”
I shook my head. “No.” I looked at her as my magic began to shape the spells I needed. A third Starlight slid out of my body as the Similo Duplexis spell ignited. “I intend to end this by any means necessary,” I said with both voices, the strange sense of the other me in the background of my mind. “I know how to get through to her, I hope.”
Luna nodded. “As you wish, Starlight,” she said. Her horn lit and she removed her chain of office, the only piece of regalia she still wore and lowered it over my head. “I know not if that shall aid you, but I wish you luck.”
I began to weave Accelaro into the network of spells I already had going and oriented my thoughts on the battling duo as Luna limped her way towards the opening that was beginning to squeeze closed as my attention from keeping a thread of mana flowing out of it faltered slightly from having so many things going on at once.
I looked at my simulacrum. While she worked off my subconscious, she was just as much a clone of me as a golem. She looked back at me and brushed a hoof along her nose.
“Let’s do it,” she agreed, turning back and scraping a hoof along the strangely invisible but tactile ground in Limbo.
“Last one there has to reorganize Twilight’s library,” I said. “No magic.”
She grinned. “You’re on.”
And we sped towards the battle, Accelaro helping me cross the distance in mere moments. I skidded to a stop and started blasting the Nightmare as well, flickering back and forth thanks to my speed spell to avoid being hit by wild shots from my evil twin or stomped upon by our nemesis.
I wound up standing next to Dark Starlight for a moment when we both hit it in the same spot, shearing a deep gouge through its barrel.
“I assume you freed your precious Princess Luna?” my counterpart sneered as we kept an eye on the Nightmare’s regeneration. It was already moving slower than the initial hurts it had taken, and it was smaller. It still towered over us, but less so now.
“She’s out, yes,” I said, horn still glowing as it kept Accelaro going and a battle spell on a hair’s trigger. I sensed my duplicate coming up on us.
The Nightmare roared, and we both unleashed spells on it. The giant of shadows and malice stumbled backwards, struggling to regenerate again. As an arrogant chuckle slipped from the throat of my evil self, my duplicate leapt forward. I body checked Dark Starlight, distracting her and wincing from the tender rib I jostled.
She turned at me, horn blazing again, an angry glare on her face.
And my duplicate slammed into her, hooves hitting the catch of the amulet and pulling it off.
“NO!” she screamed, reaching for it as I grabbed it with my magic, speeding away as I let the duplicate spell go.
And the Nightmare hit her with a blast that flung her across the dark landscape of Limbo.
I looked at the Alicorn Amulet, breathing hard. I could feel the temptation to slip it on and use it to destroy both my twin and the Pony of Shadows, to step out and take my place at the side of Twilight and Sunset.
I forced it down, and merely held the amulet in my magic as I sped back and behind the Pony of Shadows. All signs of Nightmare Moon were gone, and it only vaguely resembled a pony now. As it loomed before me, now merely twice as tall as Celestia, Twilight, and Sunset now stood. I teleported into the air, my flight spell activating as I wove together a spell similar to the one I used once upon a time to bottle my anger.
The amulet was the container, and the malevolent being below me was the anger.
I saw a weakened mint green blast stagger it, and I used that moment to attach the siphon spell to the amulet.
With a horrid screech that made my ears pin against the sides of my head, the Pony of Shadows started to distort, being pulled towards the hovering amulet. It elongated, looking like a balloon-artist inflating the first balloon. The screaming died as the head was fully pulled into the amulet.
I landed on the ground, my horn starting to ache from the constant pull of mana. I watched as the amulet hovered in my grasp, the last bits of the Pony of Shadows being pulled into it.
I pulled the amulet down as the siphon ended, and felt it just barely land on my hoof when a blast of magic hit me broadsides, sending me sliding across the ground. I struggled to my hooves, feeling the whipping winds of the rift fluttering my mane again.
My duplicate stared at me, hatred and malevolence evident on her face.
“Give that to me,” she gritted. There were red spots along her coat from where the fight had caused grazes from the Nightmare.
I gripped it in my hoof and looked at her with a confident smile.
“You want it?” I asked. “Come and claim it.”
I dropped it on the ground and covered it with a shield crystal spell. I knew now that while she might be a little stronger, she was still a one trick pony. I, on the other hand, had months of practice and training and sparring with Twilight that had expanded my repertoire. It evened out the playing field, but all she had to do was score a solid hit on me to end it, and I felt my magic starting to sputter as I focused on keeping the rift open from the inside, lock down the amulet, and trade blasts with my dark self.
“You know you can’t win,” she panted as we stared at each other.
“I don’t have to,” I panted back. “I just have to keep you at a stalemate.”
“So, an eternity of conflict, then?”
I shook my head, but I felt a warmth in my chest, like my mana was suddenly flooding back into me. I saw my twin take a step back, her horn dimming for a moment.
“What…”
I looked down, and Luna’s chain of office had started to glow, runes appearing on its circumference. I felt the warmth start to turn into a blinding heat, and light suddenly spread across Limbo, driving some of the darkness back.
I stalked forward, suddenly emboldened. I grabbed Dark Starlight in my magic and pulled her forward while I rushed forward, hoof connecting with her jaw. She slumped and in her eyes, I saw a reflection of my image.
A nimbus of light had blossomed around me, and it had taken the form of an Alicorn.
I grabbed her again, and flung her through the rift. I took up the amulet and looked at it for a moment before flinging it as hard as I could away from the rift.
I returned to the land of Equestria, and shut the rift. Dark Starlight was staggering back to her hooves, a look of incredulity on her face.
“How?” she grunted.
“You got me,” I said. “But right now, you and I have a promise to keep.”
I started pulling all the mana in the pendant, opening a rift in time.
“You wanted to see time magic,” I said as I scanned my timeline. I locked on the point in time I wanted.
As we were hauled into the time vortex, I smiled grimly at her.
“And I promised to show you a world where ponies were equal.”
We fell out of the vortex, and dust puffed up as we landed. I looked around as the time rift closed, bits of pain filtering through my mind.
The Wastelands from the alternate future caused by my tampering with the Rainboom looked just as horrid and frightening as it had the first time I had seen it.
The wind was biting as I watched my double look around in confusion.
“Where are we?” she growled as she turned back to me.
Talk about deja vu, I thought, a small smile creeping across my face.
“This is what you want,” I said sweetly, then glowering. “A world where everypony is equal.”
“This is a trick,” Dark Starlight said, a touch of fear tainting her face. Her horn still held a slight tinge of red as did her eyes, but the influence of the Alicorn Amulet was beginning to fade. “This can’t be what you say it is. I’ve never seen a world like this!”
“Because this is a future timeline,” I said. Something prickled in the back of my mind and I turned and walked over to a hill. Maybe a couple of hundred lengths away, I saw a familiar scene play out as my past self shouted at Twilight and pulled her into a vortex. “One created by my tampering with fate. Time magic is something that should never be taken lightly. I learned it the hard way.”
“But I'm stronger than you,” my twin growled, horn beginning to glow with a red-tinged mint glow. “You may have your tricks, but you lack the will to do what is needed to win!”
I felt the pendent around my neck pulsing, feeding mana to me slowly. My blood was starting to run hot, and even the chill wind wasn’t enough to cool me. Her ensuing attack splashed weakly across my conjured shield.
“What is needed,” I repeated, contemplative. “Torturing other versions of yourself? Killing ponies that could have led full and happy lives?” I stalked forward, my own horn flickering to life. “Destroying my own timeline just to grab a spell or two?”
She flinched, so swiftly that I almost didn’t catch it. I caught it suddenly, the reason why she had taken a while to reveal herself.
“You didn’t mean for it to take so long, did you?” I whispered. “I stayed under your stasis too long because you’ve never used the spell before. You had been playing at being Echo for so long you actually believed that would be your life, didn’t you?”
She turned away, a flash of pain on her face.
“You liked the life you had,” I continued. “One where you were happy.” I gave her a sad smile. “Why didn’t you just end the spell?”
“I still had my revenge to enact,” she spat, but I could hear the hesitation in her voice.
“Did you mingle with society, I wonder?” I asked. “Have friends, maybe a special somepony?”
I had a flash image, of Echo watching everypony special slowly fading while she remained the same. The images came on so fast that I felt a moment of nausea. I could feel my cracked rib again, the pain slowly starting to filter back into my awareness. I latched onto it, using it to keep me grounded.
“Just like everypony did,” she whispered, more to herself than me. Although, she was me, after a fashion, just one that hadn’t had the same options.
“You can end this,” I told her. “The amulet corrupted you, made you continue in your path. You said yourself that you never ripped information from your other selves until after you found it.”
The pendant I wore was pulsing faster now, almost vibrating against my breast. The other me stumbled, the red fading away and fear shot through her face.
“Shut up,” she rasped. “You don’t know what I’ve seen! What I’ve done!” She lowered her head. “What I remember.”
I saw the puckered scar on her throat and sighed. “And I can only imagine,” I whispered. “But it’s never too late to turn a new leaf.” I saw her shuffle slightly.
“Not for me.” She straightened slightly and turned to face me, the age showing in her face. “And not for you.”
She fired a beam of magic at me, and I countered with my own beam. The two clashed together and flared, neither of us gaining any ground. The confluence of our magic grew, until it spiraled out and took us both in its brilliance.
And that’s when I saw them all. As we both drifted, a thin stream of white light connecting our horns, I saw her, hooves clasped over her ears and eyes squeezed closed. And all around her were ghostly images, all staring at her accusingly.
All were alternate versions of me. Some younger, some older. There was even one stallion. The were all clamoring in voices I couldn’t hear, and I saw tears leaking out from her eyelids.
The pendant Luna had given me began to shine, and I felt my horn light again, my magic flowing forth and grasping my alternate self and drawing her in towards me with dark blue light. I took her into my forelegs and held her as she shied away from the contact.
I looked at the ghostly forms, feeling sorry for them.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I know it wasn’t me, but I’m so sorry. I wish I knew how to release you all.”
“You can’t.”
I looked down at my other self. She wasn’t looking at me, but off into the distance. “You can’t release them, not as you are now. It would require you to be something you’re not.”
She looked at me and the look in her eyes showed me that the residual influence of the amulet was gone. The wind of the wasteland blew through again as the magic around us faded.
“You’d have to kill me.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I said. “You’ve learned now. You know better. You know how to travel between realities, you can go and change things.”
She shook her head. “I burned a lot of bridges in my paths.”
I set her down, stepping back. “I thought that too, once upon a time.” I turned and looked at the map table in the near distance. Wondering if I could use it to help somehow.
That was when a searing pain hit me, flinging me down the far side of the hill. I used my momentum to roll back to my hooves, the burn on my side threatening to make me pass out. My other side stood above me, her horn blazing with light.
“Fool,” she snarled, anger on her face amidst her tears. “Your feelings have made you weak.”
She fired again, and I hopped to the side, firing back as I did.
Her blast gouged a furrow in the ground where I had been standing.
Mine took her in the horn, shearing it off near the base.
As the shockwave died down, I saw the ground between us start to collapse spiraling in on itself like water circling a drain. I felt myself being pulled forward slowly and dug my hooves in to halt my approach. I looked over at my opposite and saw her stumbling, her horn sparking and leaking mana. Her eyes were wide open with shock and pain.
“What…what’s happening?” she stammered.
I looked at the strange vortex and sighed. “Your horn kept spells active even when not actively channeling mana,” I hypothesized. “Including the one that kept us tethered. I think that the world is trying to right what you’ve wrenched out of place.”
Ghostly shapes began to form around us, each another me. They all slowly grew more solid as my dark reflection grew more alarmed. One by one, they rushed her and phased through her, becoming more distinct on their exit from her. I felt a momentary pang of sorrow at each anguished cry that came from her as a specter pulled something from her.
“I’m not sure that you can ever truly right what you’ve done,” I whispered as she collapsed, panting. “But you should at least have the chance. Return home, Starlight Glimmer, and try to move on.”
She looked at me, pain still clouding her eyes. “I can’t,” she gritted. “Returning home isn’t an option. Not without my horn.”
I smiled, reaching up to touch the pendant around my neck. It still had a little mana, and I had an idea.
“I can help her,” a voice said to the side. I turned and saw the stallion version of me step forward. “I’m familiar with the dimensional travel spell she used. I’ll need help, but I think I can return us all to our home dimensions.” He smiled sadly at me. “I can’t help you with your timeline, though.”
I nodded. “I’m fine with it,” I assured the specter. “I’ll get used to how things really are in this new Equestria eventually.”
He moved closer to me and merged with me and I felt an alien presence within my mind. My horn blazed, mint green and midnight blue intermingled as he cast a spell. One by one, the spirits of my other selves were pulled slowly into the vortex, then the physical alternate me was lifted in the magic aura.
The stallion’s spirit stepped forward and they both disappeared into the closing dimensional rip. As it closed, I sighed, sagging with fatigue suddenly. I made my way to the cutie map, hoping to use its residual magic to return me to where I had come from.
I climbed up to the surface and began casting the same spell I had several minutes ago, sending mana into the table and I closed my eyes.
“Starlight?” a voice said.
I opened them to see Princess Twilight and Sunset standing before me in the cavern where the rip into Limbo had existed.
“Hi, Twilight, Sunset,” I panted exhaustedly.
“Spike told us what was going on,” Sunset said. “And looking back, it was clear where our actions had been influenced.”
“Is Echo coming back?” Twilight asked.
I shook my head. “She should be back in her home dimension,” I said. “Missing the last few inches of her horn for the foreseeable future. Hopefully in that time she’ll…” I shuddered, muscles seizing up.
“Starlight?” Twilight asked, apprehension on her face.
I staggered backwards, collapsing against one of the pillars. “I don’t know…” I retched, dry heaving as my head swam.
Sunset stepped forward to help only to be thrust away be some unseen force. “What in…?”
I tried to stand, muscles spasming and vertigo taking my bearings. I collapsed, world spinning. I heard Sunset and Twilight crying out in concern, but I heard other voices, too.
”Heart rate is spiking,”
“Push an amp of D-40, her sugar’s crashing!”
“Seizure! She seizing!”
The world was turning white at the edges as I looked at the regal forms of two of my good friends. I felt life flowing out of me and I smiled. At least I’d see Sunburst again, and Trixie.
I smiled.
“Goodbye,” I whispered as my eyes slid closed.
Doctors rushed back and forth as I looked on. I heard hooves rushing forward and I turned to see Sunset racing towards me.
“Twilight,” she panted. “Is she ok?”
“I don’t know,” I said as I looked in through the window. “She’s had four seizures in the last few hours. Doctors don’t want to say anything unless she regains consciousness.”
We watched as the doctors stabilized our friend and stepped away slowly. After getting permission, we stepped in and sat by the bed, looking at the Unicorn, paler than we were used to seeing and a bandage wrapped around her head.
“Starlight,” I whispered. “I hope you’re ok.”
A groan sounded from her, and she cracked her eyes open.
“Hello,” she whispered, her voice hurt.
“Starlight!” I cried, echoed a moment later by Sunset. “I thought we’d lost you!”
“Why?” she slurred, looking back and forth. “Did I go somewhere?”
“Very nearly,” Sunset said, stepping forward and smiling, tears in her eyes.
Starlight blinked.
“Where are your wings?” she asked.
“My…wings?” Sunset parroted.
Anything else that might have been said was interrupted by a rushing form of an azure mare that shoved her way past us to hug the bedridden Starlight.
Starlight looked more shocked than we did.
“Trixie?”
“You’re all right,” the showmare kept whispering. “Thank Celestia, you’re all right.”
Starlight met my eyes and with a sheepish look, asked me the oddest question I have ever been asked in recent memory.
“Um,” she whispered over her best friends repeated sighs of relief. “What year is it?”
Twilight stepped away, her horn still glimmering slightly. “There is some fading chaos residue in your mantic aura,” she said. “Though, honestly, I still find your story difficult to believe.”
“Likewise,” Sunset remarked as she brought in a tray from the hallway, some food on it. “It’s hard to believe that Twilight or myself wouldn’t help a friend that asked, no matter how jaded we might become with age.” She set the tray down on a table and nudged it over to where I could reach the items on it. “Especially if Spike felt it was important enough to stay and help.”
“The entire time I was there, nothing felt right,” I whispered, glancing over at where Trixie dozed. “You and Sunset ruling Equestria and not speaking to each other, Flurry Heart not understanding how the Elements worked, even the events not lining up with what I was hearing between you and Echo.”
“It’s an eerie thought that she managed to latch onto you and pull your mind into the future,” Twilight said with a shiver. “We both know the kind of damage that can have on the timeline. And just to get a spell, too.”
“For a while after we got you here, you showed no brain activity,” Sunset mused. "That must have been while you were waking up in the alternate timeline. Then you started seizing here, your body trying to pull your mind back.”
“I had some seizures there, too,” I nodded. “And I could hear the doctors shouting.It didn’t make sense at the time, though.” I tried to levitate a spoon of peas to me, but my horn just sparked. “And apparently I’m in the middle of mantic burnout.”
“Well, that’s to be expected,” Twilight giggled. “Between your concussion and the fact that you burned through part of a Royal Regalia’s stored mana in the other timeline, you’ve been a pretty active filly.”
“It was pretty gutsy towards the end, Starlight,” Sunset grinned. “And despite what you said, I think you’re important enough to the world. You’re one of my friends, after all.”
“Agreed,” Twilight smiled. “Though it was really noble, being willing to sacrifice yourself to save your friends. That takes true courage, such as you’ve demonstrated before. I’m so glad you were willing to learn friendship from me!”
I giggled as well and patted my hooves in the air. “I wouldn’t go that far," I whispered nervously. “I was operating on the edge of my horn most of the time when my other self revealed herself. The whole thing with the Pony of Shadows was a wild gambit.”
“That paid off,” Sunset rebutted. “You think I knew what I was doing when I faced Twilight down at the Friendship Games? For all I knew, throwing that amulet of hers down could have just broken the thing.”
“Or when we rescued Nightmare Moon,” Twilight added. “I didn’t know any of those ponies, especially when AJ told me to let go. I was scared stiff.”
I smiled. “Seems like we do an awful lot of last ditch moves,” I quipped.
“It is kind of our thing,” Sunset agreed.
A doctor poked his head in. “Alright, now,” he spoke kindly. “I know she’s been asleep for a while, but I must insist she get some rest after the ordeal.”
I looked at the stallion. “Doc,” I began with a groan. “I’ve been in a coma for a week. I think I’ve rested enough.”
“Nonsense,” he puffed. “Comatose states are not adequate rest for the brain. You’ve passed the observation window for concussions, so its safe for you to try to sleep now.”
I slid down, my eyelids suddenly heavy. I looked at my two friends, then at the sleeping Trixie in the corner.
“Will you be here when I wake up?” I asked, a tiny shred of fear worming it’s way up my spine.
They both smiled.
“Of course we will,” Twilight said.
And I smiled, closing my eyes.
“Good,” I slurred as sleep came up on me.
“I’ve had enough of missing my friends for one lifetime.”
