Starless Sunlight
“Oh, you’re back. I thought you’d never come back with how long you took!” Starlight Glimmer grinned. She and Princess Twilight Sparkle were standing on opposite clouds, staring each other down. Twilight didn’t reply to Starlight.
“Oh, what? Too tired of trying to stop me?” Starlight’s taunt couldn’t break through Twilight’s silence. Twilight only stood there, eyes closed and head down. Starlight cocked her head to the side.
“Twilight? Are you still there?” Starlight waved a hoof in front of Twilight. Twilight didn’t move.
“How long are you going to stay like that?” Starlight sighed an annoyed sigh. She waited. Nothing happened. After a while Starlight rolled her eyes.
“Well, if you’re just going to stand there like that, there’s no use in talking to you, is there? I suppose I’ll just wait.” Starlight turned around and folded her forelegs. She closed her eyes and waited. And waited. And waited. After a while, Starlight could hear a sigh from behind her.
“Starlight… do you know why I’m trying to stop you?” Starlight turned around to look at Twilight. Twilight’s eyes were still closed, but now in a look of remorse instead of concentration.
Starlight thought about Twilight’s question. No answer could come to her mind. Before Starlight spoke, Twilight began speaking again.
“You don’t, do you? You don’t know why I’m trying to stop you.” Twilight opened her eyes. She looked away. Her face was one of mild anger. Starlight began to speak.
“No, I don’t! I don’t know why you’re trying to stop me. But somehow you still are! Which is annoying.” Starlight looked at Twilight. The lavender alicorn gave a mirthless laugh.
“No. I stopped trying to stop you after the thousandth iteration. After that, I started just trying to stay sane. The worlds I’ve seen almost prevented that. One almost made me go insane.” Twilight paused. She took in a shaky breath. Her horn flickered randomly with untapped power. It looked like it was about to explode at any second.
“You know, Starlight…” Twilight looked at Starlight. Starlight could see no hope in her eyes like there had been before. No spark. There was only grim determination. “I haven’t been trying my hardest.” Starlight felt chills when Twilight said that. Twilight shouldn’t have been like this. She shouldn’t have been hopeless. Starlight somehow knew it was wrong. It felt wrong. Like something about Twilight had broken that shouldn’t have been. But Starlight didn’t know why.
“I haven’t even come close. As a fellow student of magic, you should know that a mare’s power is related to her special talent, her race, and the size of her Magical Cortex, where magic is stored in the brain.” Starlight nodded. That was one of the first things any unicorn hoping to study magic was taught. She couldn’t argue with that.
“Then you also know that of the pony races, Alicorns are by far the most powerful. A combination of the three pony races, Earth, Flight and Active magic all run through their bodies. The combination makes them obscenely powerful, such that one of them can control the sun on a regular basis. Not only that, but the power running through an alicorn’s body extends their lifetime nearly a thousand times over.” Starlight again nodded. Princess Celestia was notable even in her town, out in the desert. Twilight took a deep breath.
“In fact, an alicorn’s Magical Cortex is so large and so filled with magic that even Princess Celestia doesn’t know her limits. Neither do I mine. I tested them once. I never ran out of magic. Not in three days, not in a week, or a month, or five months did I run out. That’s the main reason I haven’t run out of magic in all my fighting with you.” Twilight sighed.
“Why are you telling me all this?” Starlight asked. Twilight looked at Starlight again.
“So hopefully you’ll realize what that I’m about do won’t leave any of you for them to find.” Twilight closed her eyes. Starlight felt an involuntary shiver run down her spine.
“W-what do you mean?” Starlight hoped she was wrong about what she thought Twilight was about to do. Twilight’s wings twitched. Her hooves shifted.
“I’m sorry to do this to you, Starlight. I wish I didn’t have to. But I’ve run out of options. After the thousandth iteration, I gave up with the peaceful route and started calling all the magic I knew I had out of my Magical Cortex.” Twilight looked at the sun. Her eyes didn’t burn.
“I hate what you’ve driven me to, Starlight. You pushed me and pushed me to this. Even when I offered you another way, you refused. I knew then that I had to make a horrible decision. A decision I know I’m going to regret for the rest of my long life. But there’s no choice now, is there? There’s no other way to get you to see why all of this is wrong. So in order to protect Equestria and my friends from you, for whatever consequences I have to face… I’ll take them. I’ll try it.” Twilight looked down.
“I’ll use the one spell I never had the will to use until now. It’ll hurt me, this I know. It’s going to split my very soul into pieces to cast it. But it’ll be worth it. It’ll be worth every second of agony I go through if it saves my friends.” Twilight paused. She laughed another sorrowful laugh. “My friends… if they were here they’d be telling me not to. They’d be yelling at me, screaming at me not to do this, that there’s another way. But they aren’t here. They’re gone right now. So I’ll try it.” Twilight took a few steps forward. Her horn started glowing warningly. Twilight didn’t speak for another several minutes.
“What are you going to do?” Starlight’s voice held no small amount of fear. Twilight didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Starlight already knew the horrible answer. And she knew… it would not end with mercy. Starlight backed away. Twilight lit her horn brightly.
“You don’t have to do this… you could turn back.”
“I didn’t before. But now I do have to. You made sure of that.”
“Twilight, please… don’t do this.” Twilight didn’t answer. Her horn grew brighter. Starlight felt herself being surrounded by Twilight’s magic.
“Starlight?” Twilight looked at Starlight with an emotionless expression. “What do you think it feels like to be on the sun?” and then, all Starlight saw was golden fire.
Twilight and Spike fell out of the time spell once again, onto the floor of their crystal castle home. Twilight only stood in that spot, unable to move. She could feel her soul shattering inside her. She didn’t feel anything about it. Spike walked over to Twilight.
“Twilight?” Spike knew not to press any further when Twilight was like this. He just wrapped his tiny dragon arms around Twilight’s legs and comforted her. Twilight could only break down into howling, heartbroken, soul-shattered sobs. She had won. But it didn’t feel that way. She had won. And she had lost a friend.