Don't Make a Shadow of Yourself

by Ice Star

First published 16th of February, 2020

A wandering Starlight Glimmer is unable to reconcile the loss of Sunburst with her long-held ideals.

Before she had her cult town, Starlight Glimmer lived her life as a wanderer with a decaying mind. The mare's self-imposed isolation increases the instability of her corrupt ideals by giving them the chance to fester. Her inability to reconcile the loss of her friend Sunburst outlines some of her worst parts, which she jots down in a series of journals.

Here is one week of Starlight's entries.

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Set before the events of the show and a prequel to the above story. Vaguely inspired by Regidar's Hypnagogic Drift and You Left Me Standing At My Front Door by milesprower06, but this is related to neither. The title comes from this song. Contribute to the TVTropes page!

San Palomino Sunday

I like to pretend we're friends more than I should. But you couldn't stop haunting me if I let you. Instead, you have made me the loneliest mare in the world and the burden of enlightening this gods-forsaken planet has fallen squarely on my withers. And it is because you left me. Can you imagine, for a minute, what it would have been like if the stars had been kinder? What if you had known you were mine as much as I knew I was yours?

I have never given a thought to just how much of a chameleon I have become, except for when it is thrown back into my face. I'm at this an inn in one of the littlest villages I've been to; it's on a grassy area across the bay from Los Pegasus and Applewood. I don't know whether the cape itself is called Cape Clydesdale, but the village is. I'm alone with giants and barely away from the San Palomino Desert and everypony tells me that I fit right in and how nice I am.

It's a shame that you never realized that enough to stay. I bet you are friends with the sun goddess herself now! Do you two take tea together? Was she worth more than me? Has she won your friendship with gold and gifts? Is she the leader you have always dreamed of? Well, that is too bad. I can be a real leader, and I will be. I will mold myself into something absolutely revolutionary that you will never get to see!

Princess Celestia is a mare who knows that only one fits on a pedestal. The sun goddess knows how to be one for the world, and if anypony would listen to me when I know what to say, I'll be like her too. And then nothing like her. She can't keep lying to ponies about everything, from cutie marks to how we should live with others. I can do better. I have been reading everything written about Princess Celestia and her speeches. Before I go to bed, and every morning before breakfast I pore over collections. Only her more modern collections and edited compendiums are available in Equestria, which certainly has me peeved.

Did you know that everypony's finicky aunt thinks 'peeved' is so terrible to say only because Princess Celestia once let it slip in a speech and was quickly startled by her own informality and supposed 'language'? Nopony else with half a bit to bet on their mind would think there is anything wrong with saying peeved. Sunburst, do you know anypony in Canterlot like that? You still live there, don't you? I couldn't bear to set hoof in the city that took you from me, but I'm sure you do. Every sorcerer and their cousin's uncle's daughter's dog's goldfish live there.

Princess Celestia's are good to mix with ponywatching breaks in between things. Everything she says is discreet and dense, that I'm always left trying to pick apart the secrets she hides in those. They're too cultivated and careful that I'm astounded by how unoffensive and clipped they are. How bizarre from the mare who lets us live in such a lonely, unequal world. She writes all her own speeches, and they're so infuriatingly perfect most of the time.

Have you ever pulled one apart and filled a book of one with marginalia? Does their mechanical sweetness infect you? Sometimes, I find their cloying kindness stuck in my head. Discovering that when rereading my notes is like walking backwards only to step in mud right after a rainstorm. I feel the sickening squelch every time I see it and know that kind of sweetness so prim and good to hear with how much I've been hurting. The words of the sun goddess are a band-aid on an amputated limb, and though it pains me to say this, it's nice to think that at least somepony might put a bandaid on me.

I need to focus more on my plans. My saddlebags only have so much room, and I need to minimize material possession for both practical and equal reasons. My entries to you might be briefer on this leg of my journey, and yet are they really? I have written you volumes already, my sun. How can anything be brief between us?

I plan for great things, but even I must obey the Sandmare's call. Goodnight, my Sunburst, for you are mine, mine, mine. Your face is the only one I see when I find myself paralyzed between dreams and wakefulness. It's like you know you should have been should be here for me.

And you aren't.

What does your voice even sound like now? Is it like my dreams? Or are you just lost in your own shadow as the colt I once knew?

Don't worry. One day, there will be a kind Star to align everypony without judgement or difference, and everypony will be equal. Even Alicorns will be equal, and the gods and mortals will live in a society that values nothing more than anypony or anything else, and no divisions, diversity, or differences be allowed. Competition will be eliminated, because all my reading has lead be towards how to establish a path for success.

And one day you might be there, because as much as I wish I hated you

Goodnight, my Sunburst. I'll ramble less about silly things less time.

Author's Notes:

[Revised for print on 10/11/2020]

Metathesiophobia Monday

You live in my head rent-free. I live out of inns and only ever tell ponies I'm heading southeast. I don't know why I say that because it is the truth. When it comes to questions, I rarely answer with that. I can make the truth, and I have. You know that matters more than the letters that piled up at home failing me; when they said I wouldn't be a good fit for Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns they were lying because I made my truth and that outweighs a stack of letters with the opinions of some snobby unicorns in Canterlot.

It definitely outweighs those letters — you know I shoved every single one in a box under my bed, so gods know how much they weighed.

My truth is that I keep heading southeast, where the Badlands hunch over the between the MacIntosh hills and nopony in their right mind lives there. Except for changelings, I suppose. I doubt I'll ever meet one, all the books on your shelves the drones only left the hives on missions. All the towns are getting smaller, and I don't know how to tell if I like that or not. I don't know if I should even ask myself that.

I've stopped buying calendars.

Sometimes, I don't realize I write my name on the inn ledgers anymore. Even though I have never used a pseudonym, my name feels more like a pony that I can step outside of and forget is in the same room as me. I do not know if I am always Starlight Glimmer, whatever Starlight Glimmer is supposed to mean. I think she could be what I would want her to be, if I made the effort. It has been a few years since that's happened.

I had the dream about you again. I usually do.

The desert doesn't always feel as empty as it should. I think it lies as much as I do. Bandits and changelings aside, I know the buffalo tribes live out here too. Other than that, I think the time walking between the towns here makes me into a new mare more than anything else can. Nothing here is like the villages in central Equestria and the enchanted forests to stretch between everything with worlds of their own. I haven't seen a meadow or a plain since... a while, I think. I think about today when it is here and tomorrow when it comes. I think that will change soon, just not today.

When it trots up on me, I think about the past when you're in it.

That makes it sound like I have a choice. Like I don't have those dreams. The ones about us. The ones where we are still friends. We should still be friends. If we could be friends.

I only want to think about the past when you're in it.

I borrow books from traveling libraries and never give them back. The settlements out here are too small to miss them, and even though I have been easing myself into the desert mare life for a couple of years I never go back to the same one twice. I never should go anywhere twice.

I've been reading up more on cutie marks. I used the last few pages of one of my old journals to pass the time with a personal dissertation on their similarities to love poisons and cursing. Everything about cutie marks published could be compared to branding, and all civilized nations have outlawed branding in any and all circumstances according to a variety of domestic laws and international treaties. With something so heinous and permanent being forbidden, why aren't cutie marks?

Yes, I know there are some flaws in how that sounds right now. I'm working on it. It's just so dark, how cutie marks can be. Even a pony who wanted a brand would be judged insane and in need of mental treatment. Entire faux leather-bound series have been written regarding sanity's supremacy and ultimate deciding impact upon consent in situations, and how it overrules any mere agreement that consent has. Manehattan's public libraries have a particularly expansive collection that I would highly recommend.

I read about other things too. Gods, I really don't have time for much else except thinking. I need to see what other ponies say and why first before I really give myself time to make my truth. And if my truth can make me happy, and maybe other ponies, who cares what it is? I'll be right no matter what!

I know I will, I just need time before I seal things off, and rip a bit more open. The dullness of these desert days will sting less in comparison then.

I'll find you in my dreams, whether you want me to or not.

Goodnight, my Sunburst.

Two-Bit Tuesday

The good thing about travel is the sense of sweet normality that comes with it. The numbing habits that come from my life last more than any hoofsteps on all the dusty roads of Equestria. Has it ever bothered you to think about how despite her infuriating, divine differences that it is only size that separates Princess Celestia's hoofsteps from our own? Take away her filthy royal gold and strip her godly nature away, and she could be just like anypony else. I swear it and were it not heresy and crime to say so as I do, then I would scream it from the rooftops. So far, none of the ponies I've even implied this radical new idea to have just laughed at me or acted as if they knew better. How could they know better than a downtrodden mare without a privilege to her name, like me?

She should be just like everypony else.

The concept of kingdoms, principalities, monarchies, republics, and all the other nations of this world has me boiling. At least, it has me boiling more than usual lately. Imagine a world without sparkling regalia, senates, schools, and other such nonsense. A world where no leader was a mighty mountain above the earth that the rest of us are, and everything was for the ponies who were our neighbors. My Sunburst, is it not the ideal world that ensures neighbors know one another, are kind to one another, live in equal conditions and never, ever leave one another? We would never have to worry about choices if all our hooves shaped change for everypony. Wouldn't a place without winners, wonders, and special things just be the best place for the common pony? How could uncommon ever be admired when it requires somepony to be squashed as if being common were a bad thing? Can you even begin to fathom the reeducation this world needs to realign it?

We would never have to look at somepony with more talent, bits, better ideas, or anything else that we cling to so stubbornly in our delusions about the unique. Ponies wouldn't have to worry about anything from what books to read, choices for dinner, and who won't be their friends! Nopony will have friends when everypony has to stand together as a neighbor and comrade. Wouldn't that be so much better, my Sunburst? There won't be another town like Wispgrove where we were the only friends the other had. I won't have to ever be the only unicorn anywhere; I won't have to be alone if nopony else has to be. We as ponies will never need problems if every step I describe is one that is taken and comfort is mandatory to anypony who has been wronged by the awfulness the gods have left us in.

All this chatter about Harmony this and Harmony that has neglected that the gods stick out like a sore hoof, and that no Harmony, big 'h' or small, can coincide with free will. It goes against the very nature of things, and how funny of me to use that word now. I have come to realize that the idea of any nature is something that must be tamed and stricken from us all. After all, cutie marks may be natural, but they are wrong.

Don't you agree, sweet Sunburst? Don't you realize that one day you'll have to?

Whatever made you think that you could be such a tall poppy when growing over anypony creates nothing but shadows? No little flower ever grew in shadows, my sweet Sunburst.

But enough of that, my Sunburst. Perhaps you're just being patient. Wouldn't things be kinder that way? And isn't kind something that we all should be? How can success ever occur in a kind world? I know, I know. Most ponies don't think about that. Most ponies aren't me, and they have not been given this light and realization that has come to me in my darkest hours. I am no longer prey to these thoughts because I now have figured out that the dawn is as fickle as the night, and so is their goddess. We should not swear by such things or wait for them when we have our own hooves to hold each other.

I want these truths to be like bits in ponies hooves, only so much more. I hate the implications that come with that word, though. Truth. Honesty. Those things hurt so much, Sunburst. Can anything that hurts ever be right or kind? I don't think so.

You shouldn't, either.

Bits bother me the ways sleepness nights do, but my feelings toward them burn instead of tear and drain me. I have little bits compared to most travelers seeking lives on the road, and I cannot say I have enough. No bits can ever be enough if somepony has more than their neighbor, and I would explain that to you if you were here you knew better. I can't afford to run out of paper either. Not literally.

But no matter how little I have, I'm left angry by bits. Sleeplessness has a union with anxiety that only hurts me. Don't you understand that?

When I tell ponies my story, they ask why I don't just go home. Why I don't just visit again and ask my family for money. I refuse such shallowness, how they tell me all my problems are so easily solved! I asked to confess my problems to them as the woe-stricken mare I am, not to be given this unsolicited 'advice'. Bits are a problem, I'll touch as little of them as I can. If all my plans come to fruition, we'll have no bits ever. Never ever ever.

Ignore the stray ink, my Sunburst, it turns out only bits and gems get food around here. Around everywhere! All this hunger is just driving me mad! When the next village comes, I'll have more and the growling will stop! If only I could do more than retire to this gods-damned little room so early to make it stop...

I think that's enough for now, my sweetest Sunburst. These are only my two-bits, my innocent ideas, and you need to stop looking at me that way. And I'm perfectly entitled to them because they hurt absolutely nopony.

Walpurgisnacht Wednesday

Did I ever tell you I went to Germaneigh once? Of course, I did not, because it was after I lost you. And whose fault is that? That's right. I can wait. Sunburst, you know I'll wait for you to admit it to me. I could wait until the world ended with what you left me, and right where you left me. Right on my front door. I tell you all my stories now, and I think I do a good job at trying. You know I can't pull everything out of my head, not with the way it is. I will go into the dark spots I know are there; I can write it like that and make it sound like I didn't realize I wasn't the starry brightness I was named for. I'm going to enlighten everypony, yes. You know I will. Sunburst, I'm still a shadow surrounded by fireflies and I can't believe I didn't know that for so long. How could I live like that, with no one telling me the world was night time until I did? Until you made me?

Back to waiting.

Yes. Back to that.

You don't know how long I've been waiting.

I'm not as cruel as you, or your desires to put such terrible inequality between us. I'll tell you. I'll tell you about my trip to Germaneigh. Since then, I have never been farther south. I do not want to spend all my years cantering across every southern country below Equestria. Below Saddle Arabia, Mustainia, Prance, and everywhere else. Don't go to Prance, it is far too expensive a place and filled with material things and wicked art. As an aside, could you imagine how beautiful the world would be without art? I think that it would finally be at peace with itself if we removed such a grotesquely unequal form of expression, stopping all this nonsense about talents or value when realism must reign. You don't need to know about the train, except that this was the one time I had been on one. I hated it. You can't know just how much I hated it because you weren't there, and if you had been I would have had somepony to talk to. Everything would always be better and fairer if you had been there.

I wouldn't have been stuck in a third-class passenger car with strangers and reminders that I could have been somewhere better. The thought that someponies had better places to stay was even more awful than the ride. How did they cope with themselves, knowing how evil they are? Third class means I had to sleep on those overly soft cushy fold-out bench-beds. Nopony who makes those cars has ever gotten the memo that there are ponies in the world who like firm mattresses. I had to hold my own hooves tight enough to leave marks on myself every day because I was stuck on a train. On a trip spanning two continents. For a trip that lasted weeks. Did you know how much I was shaking? No, you didn't. You abandoned me. Did you know how it was like to be smothered in a stale car with strangers and how hard it was to breathe like that? And eat such subpar food? Or how loud train whistles are?

And that passports are gods-damned expensive?

OF COURSE YOU DON'T! YOU WEREN'T THERE! YOU PROBABLY HAD A FIRST-CLASS AND ALL EXPENSES PAID CAR WHEN YOU WERE SHIPPED OFF TO CANTERLOT!

I stayed in northern Germaneigh, and was lucky that I didn't have to waste bits on a pocket dictionary. I kept to the tourist town where the station was and explored the bilingual, bi-cultural slice of Elsewhere. I lived my life outside of myself. For once, I was able to get lost in that instead of being lost. Now, you've always known how much I hated to hear other-talk and babble. That's all languages are. It sends such aches throughout me knowing how deeply they divide us. Claiming that they're in any way enriching us or adding to meaningless status like heritage is no excuse for their existence, not when their eradication could make all of our lives easier.

I found a used bookshop, one of those musty places filled with antiques and even mustier, old-fashioned excuses for ponies. The kind that nopony should have to listen to. I pushed away all kinds of cookbooks, old dramas, and histories of the gods until I found the many old volumes containing the tales of us mortals. Two of them stuck out more to me. Let me tell you about one of them.

The spine was old and battered. The text was all peeling off. It was the decay of what was once ornamental that really caught my eyes, totally not that it was lost at the bottom of the bargain bin. The whole thing was little more than a discarded piece, doomed by the overproduction of what we call creativity and art, something we have foolishly deemed valuable. When I read, I want tales of real things, and I don't mean the deeds of gods and royals. It's only by misfortune that those have to be real. I want to read about ponies as angry as myself, because I know that to cast stones as those who build their castle above you (or live in a castle at all) cannot be wrong. Really, my dearest Sunny, how can anypony who says such bold words really be brushed off as inflammatory? Anything that sparks a moral outrage or protests like that can't be so bad.

It was a book of Equestrian history, and it was as far from Equestria could be. Once I had taken it with me to my room at a local inn, I could see why. The book was older than everypony in our old village combined, and the name of the publisher had been so methodically removed. Some of the pages were damaged with ancient-looking burns, and the pages crediting the authors in the back of the book had been torn away partially. Those foul, yellowed pages had the names of pretentious ponies in academia stricken so forcefully. If you saw those tears, you knew it would be on purpose too. I'm used to finding secondhoof books that have been mistreated in bookshops, but none with such an intent against them as this one had.

I checked the names of some of these scholars in registries at the local library. They all lost their positions at Equestrian universities of archeology and history shortly after this book was published, and all of them emigrated to Germaneigh. With enough work, I managed to uncover the book's complete title, translate it to Germane, and found it in a list of books that are banned in Equestria! Can you believe it?! Princess Celestia herself has banned books just like this, and what for you might ask?

For telling the strangest tale of history, one that nopony has heard before. There isn't an Equestrian historian alive who would attest to these things or sanction the content. No school could ever get way with agreeing with these statements. And now they're all mine to read! In my book, old artifacts from the time when Equestria was still a united triarchy under Puddinghead, Hurricane, and Platinum are used to illustrate a culture of the Tribal Era that nopony has ever heard of before! When have you ever heard stories (ones derived from journals and artifacts I've never heard of) of earth ponies being enslaved by the other two tribes for more than just food? If somepony told you that they were sold off as obvious chattel, would you believe them? Princess Celestia sure seems glad we didn't. Or, what about how the pegasus tribe put literal foals in their legions like it was nothing?

Remember how we were told in school that before magical prodigies were welcome and the presence of the gods civilized the world again, there was a long period of dark ages when magic wasn't accepted? Unicorn ponies without magical schooling but suspicious amounts of raw talent were brutalized in nations like old Prancia, Trotland, the Ottomare Empire, Cotlhuacan, and old Germaneigh. They were deemed witches and warlocks, called foul and terrible names that matched their ugly natures and cruel powers before they were done away with for their crimes against ponykind. In this book, unicorn ponies weren't burning hideous bringers of gloom and doom; the creatures they burned alive were no more than talented, downtrodden youth and maidens with great inborn power and no record of schooling... or anypony to defend them from any accusations of wrongdoing. While I am all for getting rid of the unequal and all their displays of power and think this tradition could be brought back again, I have to disagree with some of the methods and authority used to carry out these deeds. This book has taught me so much about the things that can be masked with light, and I will cherish the lessons it has given me.

Sunburst, did you know that in Germaneigh there is a holiday similar to Nightmare Night that celebrates these old burnings in the springtime? It is called Walpurgisnacht, and the night is filled with revelry, effigy burning, and dark humor. I wonder if one day, I could visit again, with a Princess Celestia dummy just for that occasion. That's certainly something nopony could ever get away within Equestria. With old relics like her done away with, think of all that could emerge from the ashes. You would never have to choose anypony else, or anything else ever again. We will be together again in a life like that, I just know it.

P.S. I forgot to tell you this, but I know you'll get a laugh out of it. Remember how you used to be scared that every Nightmare Night, Nightmare Moon would emerge from under your bed and gobble you up as soon as you took off your costume? Well, if anything in this book is to be believed, then Nightmare Moon was actually real! Ha! Could you imagine anypony believing far-fetched hogwash like that? Clearly, there are some stories snuffed out by the princess and hidden by her, but a pony like me who is aware and awake unlike the rest of these UTTER SHEEP can't be fooled by something so farfetched.

Author's Notes:

Writing a delusional commie horse can be fun.

Trotskyite Thursday

My second book was much different. Now that I've finally found a place to settle and the time to write, let me tell you all about it, sweet Sunburst. Oh, it was absolutely magnificent. Another text as banned as the works of Neightzsche are in Equestria. I know you never had an interest in politics, but trust me, my Sunburst, they're some of the most important things to know. Politics are best when they are about the abolition of anything that promotes diversity, difference, and categorization. In that way, it's like a magic eraser for any form of difference in authority and experience. What is mine becomes yours and what shouldn't be yours should be mine too. It's the eradication of beauty and talent, of the beasts we call culture and leisure. In a way, that in itself is beautiful, isn't it? I know that a world like this couldn't hurt anypony, and I want it so badly, my dear Sunburst.

It's just such a shame that Equestria has never felt this way. The texts that rightfully agree with me are so strictly managed within the borders of the land claimed by the sun goddess. Copies of histories like the one I got my hooves on are seen only intervals of centuries and are confiscated by the guards. And how do I know this? From more foreign texts, of course. You don't travel outside of Equestria without finding out some very interesting things about the land you left.

I just think that you should know, that everywhere I go, I know you should be with me.

You knew how much you mattered to me, how much I adored you. Yet, you threw it all away, and for what? For worldliness and everything that we used to watch from the sidelines! For this toxic thing that ponies call 'success' as if that and 'education' mean more than what we mean TOGETHER! Even these books agree with me, that camaraderie and unity among ponies like us who hadn't ever had everything given to us... and then we must use that unity to CRUSH opposition, wouldn't you agree my little Sunburst? Well, you should agree with me. My second book has fully immersed me in this truth, and its truths are so powerful that Equestria herself has banned it and deemed those who trot along the path of a Trotskyite as following heinous propaganda! Will the injustices committed by those like Princess Celestia, who think they can ever claim to be something as unequal as a leader, ever stop being unleashed upon the world of downtrodden mortals like you and me?

I think that the world could stand to have a lot more equality in order to have so much less hurting. Why, after the glorious ideals of Trotsky began to spread overseas on the eastern continents, creatures actually began to fear him and his circle of comrades! Sunburst, isn't that astounding, that a mortal could be feared by those in power? Even though the rulers of the nations closest to and including his native Sibearia were all mortal, they really started to fear for their own power and the cruel orders they maintained. Could you imagine if somepony like you or me managed to make an everlasting and oppressive goddess like Princess Celestia quiver with worry?

I need to meet ponies like this. I need their stories to make me feel less alone. Trotsky was an east continental pony immigrant in a freezing country of bears and ice dragons. That's even lonelier than the life I live, and somehow he managed to find other comrades. In the Sibearian wastes, he managed to brew up plans with those who shared his interest in the demolition of order, communal living, and the warmth of royal blood across their hooves and paws.

I don't think that it's wrong to say I understand the way they feel and how desperately they want that. I know that Princess Celestia cannot die, but there are times when I think about

I know the goddess is not an omniscient one, yet I still cannot shake this awful feeling she could manage to scry me or have some form of power over me. Who is to say that the old sun-nag that brings our world light isn't capable of something like that? The thought of her scares me, Sunburst. You become more and more like a hostage she has claimed as I am left with my thoughts of rebellion. Is this how the Trotskyites of centuries ago felt? Paranoid and starved of security? I know they often faced literal starvation, and as much as I want to bring their thought back, every time I read over my worn book and come to their tragic ending I have to try not to sob. The Trotskyite rebels, my brave heroes, were starved and chased around their own homeland. The foul royal Ursanov family begged the world to help them, and even Princess Celestia in the west heard them. When multiple god-ruled nations send their armies and supplies to aid filthy royalists, do any righteous ponies have a chance?

The sun-nag took part in the undoing of the few I can think of as heroes. The Trotskyites were right when they said it was more than the talented and minds of magic had to be eliminated like all the stories in my book of Walpurgisnacht. Nopony else was ready to hear what they said, and armies of hoof and claw captured them and executed them as if they were some kind of traitors. Ponies acting on the sun-nag's order assisted in the death of the only pony who I would follow and who offers me good teachings! How could I forgive her, Sunburst?! How can you stand her?! She allowed a tsar, his filthy tsarina, and their filthy cubs to LIVE! TO LIVE AS IF THEY DESERVED LIFE!

My book still has some scorch marks around the edges, just near the cover. The title has been worn off with methods I can't say was from age or something much more intentional. Don't you think that's enough of a clue as to what happened to the publishing of the few who managed to remain in hiding long enough to chronicle the death of their glorious and inspiring comrades that called them to battle in the first place? Isn't this a testament of just how much the united royal armies were able to erase such glorious creatures from history?

Why do all the wrong things happen to those who are oh-so-right?

Sunburst, is there nothing that could make you remember me? Have you not once dreamt of me as often as I am burdened by you?

Author's Notes:

There's the whole joke about Starlight being a commie horse, so me being me, I decided to see if I could workshop that seriously. 'Communism' and 'Karl Marx' don't lend themselves to, particularly good pony references very easily. However, when searching for fodder I could use specifically for this story, I stumbled across Trotsky, who like Marx and Lenin had his own flavor of communism named after him. I didn't even need to make a pun for that, and since pony history is its own kind of alternate history shifting a couple of things (all of horse communism being named for Trotsky being an example) I could have more to play around with.

I don't think that Sibearia being Russia and the conflict being described is a version of events where the Bolshevik Revolution hadn't worked out.

Forked-Path Friday

I'm cold and tired and I wish that would mean something. Really, really mean something. Sunburst, every inn bed I lay in is too small to hold everything that goes on in my head. I don't sleep much anymore. I lay in the dark and read my books by hornlight, even though my book on the history of Trotsky has a spine that will be beyond repair soon. I think I might have also lost a couple of pages in the last village I traveled through. My hooves are always aching from all the walking I do, but I never know where I'm going. Every day I set out with the sun and have to wish that I'm somewhere safe by the time it sets. Can anypony in my situation be blamed for feeling that the accursed sun goddess is out to get them?

I think that I might have prayed to her at one point, long ago. I'm not unique in that, though, and I hate that awful, empty word. Everypony has prayed to Princess Celestia and there is no end to the praise she is offered. How does she deserve it? How can anypony think they deserve that when we could all be making steps forward in order to find equality? Every tavern I stop at has some of the same awful rounds of talk, Sunburst. There are compliments to chefs and the bards that snag center-stage, even though they don't deserve it, those uncommon ponies. No talent that is had should be flaunted, and nopony understands why these types have to be scorned. I've been turned away and denied entry to some places because they falsely deemed me calling out boastful idiots as a good citizen 'improper conduct' and I would have to sleep in fields. Equestria, as a nation, is more focused on the protection of those who will NEVER deserve it instead of everyday ponies like me.

That needs to change. It needs to change so badly, my Sunburst. I'm tired of going nights without sleep. The nightmares are starting to hurt even after I wake up. I want to feel like a happy pony who lives a pain-free life surrounded by community and friendship. Equestria will never be that place because it is so vehemently against any form of equality. They send ponies who are groomed into placing value in all the wrong things off to fancy magic schools while their friends are left to SUFFER! Just close your eyes and think about what a world without royalty, academics, and everything that hurts me us.

I want to share that world with you so badly, my dearest Sunburst.

I wish for it so badly all the nights I spend alone.

I'm sure that somewhere, you're wishing for it too.

Why wouldn't you? How could anypony who loved me as much as I know you did think I deserve anything less? Sometimes, I've earned bits just by looking hungry enough in towns I cannot name. They slip them into my saddlebags or press them into my outstretched hooves. It's like they don't know how much I hate these wretched coins, with Princess Celestia herself carved on there to taunt me. I think that the innkeepers are starting to conspire against me, telling more ponies within their godsawful clique that I'm some alleged boogeymare they need to fear. Why do I think that? Well, it's nice of you to ask something (for once), Sunburst.

I think all the innkeepers within THIS WHOLE REGION! Everypony from the edges of Los Pegasus to Copse-Upon-Ghastly HATES me! And why? I call the terrible ponies in the community out, to leap off their high heath, and act like the rest of us! I speak about the cruelty of monetary systems and all the lies we're surrounded by obscuring a quest for greater equality, and they decide to go ON AND ON about how I'm unfit for their establishment. To Tartarus with all establishments! I'm not harassing anypony! I can wander the roads and meadows like anypony else because I know how to act like eveypony else instead of all those special snowflakes cursed with chatter about 'uniqueness' and 'concerns for public safety and the welfare of patrons'!

TO TARTARUS WITH IT ALL! To Tartarus with the ponies that think bits are a fair system and give me 'advice' on how to spend them, as if I needed food every day when a) there's grazing and b) if I don't write to you every single day, my sweetest of sweets, who will? I bought enough ink to fill the remaining space in my saddlebags. I managed to wedge it in a place where it won't spill all over my history of Trotsky and his comrades. I already have the weight of their executions on my mind, do I need to perform any more emotional labor through toxic social interactions with these bourgeois horseshoe-kissers?

All I need is that ink and the new scarf I got.

I hear it's cold on desert nights, and I have many steps to take before I can even reach the MacIntosh Hills. Nopony is going to find me out there, and I'll begin to work on my speechcraft in earnest. I'll build somewhere so secretive nopony will be able to find it, and there my like-minded and equal comrades will congregate for a life of labor and truth away from gods' eyes, where we all will get what we deserve.

I'll see you there, my one and only; forever and always Sunburst.

Author's Notes:

There's only one more chapter to go!

Soulmate Saturday

Every night, I stare up at the stars and realize just how much I fear them. The night is worse than the day because it shows all these suns unseen. That was what I read once, in a library book. I don't think there are any other kinds of creatures who look out at the stars on other worlds and feel filled with the same fear, the way I do. It's too implausible and feels like nothing more than silly god-driven propaganda that there could be life somewhere else. I'm glad it's just us here, alone. Even if we go to sleep scared and alone every single day because of the inequalities in our waking hours.

Sunburst, are you as afraid of the stars as I am? Please don't laugh and say that just because I was named for them, I have no excuse. The stars are like a brand over me, the same way that everypony else's name is a brand over them. Think about how our names and the names of the gods are rooted so deeply inside us, holding a power none of us ever asked for. I do not know what Starlight Glimmer of Wispgrove really means, or why it isn't more than a forgotten utterance, in the same way, the filler words of our conversations are. Why does 'Starlight Glimmer' have to mean more than 'a' or 'went'? Why do my name and mark carry more implications of a burden than my quest to be the savior of equinekind?

I remember every Nightmare Night you let me help you home early, even when we were both afraid of the dark. The first time it happened, your parents let us trick or treat on our whole street alone. You had been terrified of the fireflies, and I didn't know that night wouldn't last forever, that my time with you wouldn't last forever...

I kept you from everything I was asked to, and I would do it again. I know I've made mistakes. What you don't seem to understand is that I'm trying to change, and I always have been. You never believed in change, Sunburst. Look where it got you. All you do is nose through dusty old books about magic formulae, sit through enchanting labs, and brown-muzzling for the sun goddess. Give me long enough, and I'll be single-hoofedly responsible for bringing total equality to proletariat ponies under the hooves of the gods. I accept this will not be a hero's errand, and after my success, there shall be no more heroes. I will not be popular, not like Princess Celestia was in her rise to power.

There are going to be so many ponies that hate me, and even though I know that these bad ponies exist, the thought of being hated is tearing me up inside. Should I want ponies to hate me more than ever, and push me away as you did? To this day, I can't understand why you left me, not when I was your everything. You knew you were that to me, don't you? If you did, then how could you be so cruel with your abandonment? I waited for months after they shipped you away, and I wrote to you every day. What did I get? Nothing but heartbreak. You never wrote back, never visited your family. I didn't even get the new address when your parents moved out of Wispgrove. The post-ponies never gave me any answers, and my Great-Aunt Andromeda started losing herself completely. She ended up being too busy trying to decide whether to call me Aurora Glimmer or Cassiopeia Glimmer, after her mother.

Do you know how soul-crushing it was for me to have to pretend I was my mother, a mare I had never met, in order to keep a senile old nag from having a fit? Or how much of a relief it was to cast off that horrible homework assignment once I left for good. Poor, poor Sunburst, he never had to do research on what his mother was like because she was always around! You've always been so privileged to have loving parents, and I don't think that's something that should be so selfishly exclusive, not like you had things. I could have been somepony else's niece, or daughter, or even just a charge. My dear, sweet, Sunburst it was always you who reminded me not just of all the things I never had, but that I was capable of being loved.

Not once since the day you left have I stopped needing you. Sure, Sunburst, you may have been the one who had to have his hooves held every time you dropped your glasses, but have you forgotten that I'm the one that needs you to hold her hoof through life? I've sent countless apologies to you, and never once have I stopped begging you to just reach out. To say something again. I understand we all say things that we don't mean. In my case, I know I've gone through times when I've denounced you, written some very awful things, and have just generally been a pretty bad pony. However... I've always been there for you. There isn't a day that goes by since I stopped writing to you; I have always ensured that you have gotten letter after letter ever since the first one I mailed to you. That's why I have ALWAYS addressed every single letter to you and you alone, my dearest most treasured possession; my one, and only Sunburst. In your case, you didn't mean it when you told me you were gay.

I've always believed in soulmates, just as much as I believe ponies can change. You may think that sounds like a contradiction, my sweet, sweet Sunburst. It isn't, and it never will be. I knew you were my soulmate on the eve after the first Hearth's Warming I spent with your family. (In hindsight, I think that finding anything of value during the most material, unmagical of days is horribly ironic.) You act like that kiss wasn't the sweetest moment of our lives. For pony's sake, you pulled away from me and said you might be gay! You can't do that to me, Sunburst. We're soulmates, and that means we can't be hurting each other like this. Not when the world is such a cruel place and ponies have resigned themselves to behaving that way too like it's somehow natural or that anything natural is also good. You need to stop pretending that you're gay, and I know I've told you that so many times now. It's still true because you have turned avoiding into full-on abandonment for years.

Do you have any idea how much I've cried for you? Or over you? Do you not know that it would be painful just for me to try and add all that up into something to explain? I know you're confused, and it's okay to be that way. But but but. At the end of the day, I need you to realize that we will always be soulmates and that I will love you forever and ever.

I will always be here for you, Sunburst, waiting for you to love me back. That's the one thing that will never change, and I promise that I will make a world where even you realize we have to be together.

Author's Notes:

That's a wrap on this piece. Any unfamiliar locations and characters are a) a result of having not re-reading the prequel (because time happens, I getcha) and b) if you're a new reader who hopped on for this installment. Thank you very much for reading, and feel free to check out more of my stories. There's only 100+ to choose from! Please leave comments and don't forget to vote, too! I love 'em.