No one should have to be alone when they die.
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Starlight had been feeling weird all day, like that once in a blue moon where you wake up as if you never went to sleep in the first place; eyes open, no lingering drowsiness, and a dream half-remembered that transitions cleanly into reality. Her horn lit up if only briefly and casually threw the thin and slightly scratchy blanket off the bed, only shortly preceding herself. While slightly disoriented and maybe just thirsty, she stepped around her mauve nightstand to her windowsill, instead shoving the curtains aside by her hoof, peering outside at the stimulating landscape from her castletop perch, the beautiful valley beyond Ponyville, perfectly framed to meet her eyes just as it met the sun fighting its way slowly up the horizon between each peak.
A gentle rapping at the door broke Starlight from her reverie.
"Starlight, breakfast is almost ready!" Twilight's voice called out, stifled justly by the wood. A warm smile found her face, small, but sincere as she stepped towards the door. She pulled it back with her foreleg and welcomed her friend's visage kindly.
"Morning Twilight." Starlight said, minus her usual inflection. She stepped aside, letting Starlight walk out before they began to make their way to the dining room, side by side all the while. With a flick of her head, she blindly closed the door behind them with a soft click just as their front hooves met the stairs.
"Have any good dreams?" Twilight spoke up a flight later, her musical voice never failing to lighten up the room.
"Heh, not really. I remember Spike was in my room trying to figure out a puzzle cube when I went to sleep. It wasn't there when I woke up, so I can only assume he pawned it for gems." A cute laughter was shared between the two just as they stepped from the carpeted stairway onto the colder white stone floors of the main castle, the large stained-glass doors to the kitchen a short few meters away.
She pushed one aside and Twilight followed right behind, the former taking a seat at the red-plush bar stools that bordered the central island. Her hooves clinked against the tinny halfsteps, gently climbing up to the counter where everyone's breakfast sat, save her own, which floated over only a few brief seconds later on behalf of her host, who had apparently donned a twee apron in the last moment or so.
"Where's Spike?" Starlight asked, seeing a distinct lack of the little purple dragon anywhere in the room.
Twilight shrugged. "I sent him off to get some milk for breakfast but he isn't back yet, he left an hour ago."
"Eh." Starlight turned her dreary eyes back to her plate, hooves on the table. Magic once again coursed through her veins, this time with more fervor, as she finally started to wake up. A few minutes later and the delicious cakes were nothing more than a memory, the purple mare wiping her lips with a napkin and leaning forward to lie her head on the cool stone, something enjoyed for probably a few minutes too long before a familiar face wandered into the hall.
A timely thud brought the door closed behind Spike as a "Hey Starlight!" broke the silence in a surprisingly welcome manner.
Hearing the door open and leaning back up left Starlight feeling a little out of place, like she did just a bit ago in bed, the only major difference being the cool cheek she was resting on the countertop serving as a present reminder of abject reality.
"I got the milk," he said and turned to Twilight, setting it up on the counter. "Sorry I'm late," he turned again, now to his other best friend, "I was getting you a present." Spike set a small metal thing on the tabletop, brandishing a scarab-like pattern indented it's blue steel plate. "Don't think I forgot it's your birthday, Glimmer. I know you like rare stuff to talk about for when Sunburst shows up."
She chuckled akwardly at the unexpected gesture, glaring down at the weird trinket. "The lady at the store said it's from some limited collection that hasn't been produced for a few decades. I'm not sure what it is though... future study topic perhaps?" He seemed amused at his own becoming.
"It's... interesting, thank you Spike." Starlight replied, trying to sound genuine as she spoke almost defeatedly. Starlight had hoped no one would remember her birthday, and in truth she had almost forgotten herself. Despite how much progress she made, she never felt wholly at place here, with real friends that cared how she felt and a place to call home. She had wasted so many years of her life on what can only be described in retrospect as childish antics, that all and all just made everypony's lives worse for having happened. And now she was twenty-six. An adult, but it didn't feel like it.
She felt short, physically and mentally, like whenever she let her guard down the ponies around her towered over her, curving in ways that fought gravity just to oppress her presence. She knew she didn't deserve any of this after what she put those ponies through, but she was shown mercy anyways, like a divine being holding her tight and telling her everything was gonna be okay.
Without another word, she silently thanked Twilight with a nod and made off for her room again, now with a glass of milk that Twilight had poured and that weird medallion. A sluggish trek that paradoxically went by too fast to process. She opened her room to a squeak from the door, something that happened whenever she swung it back too far, and closed it again to go sit at her desk. In between the rhythmic beats of her internal drum, she took notice in the sunlight that its light seemed to change the color of her new toy, from almost blue to a silvery color, bordering gold on its intricate edges...
Starlight had been staring at her new medallion for a while now, turning it back and forth in her magical embrace, looking over its many seams and ridges. The more she looked, the more detailed it seemed to get, drawing her in in a way she couldn't explain. Of course nothing lasts forever, but Starlight wanted it to. She thought about all the wonderful conversations she and Sunburst would have discussing its origin and purpose, developing some theories in her head already. He had plenty of books in his collection that could probably identify this thing, or at least try. Honestly she hoped for the latter.
To her complete surprise, Spike abruptly turned the handle to her door, startling the mare like she'd been caught doing something worse. He walked in holding the puzzle cube from last night. "Hey Starlight, sorry I kinda- took this. I finally figured it out though!" His voice was chipper, but reserved. Obviously seeing the surprised look on her face, he continued, setting the cube on the dresser. "Either way, we haven't heard from you all day, and I wanted to make sure you were doing okay? You kinda left in a hurry after breakfast and never came back."
"All- day?" Starlight said in stark confusion, immediately looking to the window and seeing the pitch black sky beyond her room.
"Yeah. Twi and me are headed to bed sooner than later. I hope you had a good birthday anyhow." He stifled out through a yawn. Before she really had a chance to react, he had already left her alone again, sitting in silent contemplation, now for different reasons, but all the same concentrated on the amulet. She was hardly unaccustomed to the feeling of feeling like she was out of control of her own mind, as panic attacks weren't uncommon for her, but to lose hours like this is something that just hasn't happened before. She decided to be the bigger person in this one-mare show and just go to bed, under the assumption that it just wouldn't matter anymore in the morning.
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Starlight woke up to the unmistakable sounds of nighttime; crickets chirping outside in synchronous harmony, a faint wind by the window, and the creaking sound of some part of the building that's always curiously missing in the daytime. Awakening much the same way as the morning before, she was unable to go back to sleep, and just like before, she looked out the window. It wasn't unusual to look out at Ponyville at night and see no lights on, but the thing that scared her was far more abnormal; the stars were out too.
In a fit of panic and confusion, she darted from the castle, only to notice that all those ambient noises seemed to disappear just as she swung open the large main doors; in fact everything seemed quieter.
This has to be a dream, she thought, there's no way this is real. Not knowing how to feel was normal, but this wasn't real. She could just wake up whenever she wanted, but the grass below her hooves seemed so real and- and... her better judgment confirmed her worst fear.
I suppose we don't always make the most informed decisions when we panic, do we?
Our protagonist ran and ran as far as she could, feeling like the world bent backwards into itself the farther away she got, like her world just kept getting smaller; it was claustrophobic, until...
She arrived on a hill, just outside of town. A very familiar one at that.
Trixie was there, sitting in the grass, looking mindlessly out at the pitch black sky. She looked over to Starlight. "Sit."
She did as her friend commanded, sitting down in the slightly damp grass, still wet from the light shower earlier that night.
"W-what are you doing out here?" The sound of crickets slowly began to return.
"Looking at the stars, isn't it obvious?" The blue mare said in a wistful manner that should've been condescending.
"But there aren't any stars, they all disappeared."
"Here, let me show you something." From her side, Trixie produced the medallion, it's alloy blue sheen glistening beautifully in the moonlight. "Look."
She held the trinket in her hoof in such a way that it obscured part of the sky. "Why do you think the stars disappeared?" She spoke again, now looking Starlight in the eyes.
"I-I don't know. I mean everything has seemed a little... picturesque lately?"
Trixie nodded. "Now, look." Her horn lit up, projecting magic into the medallion, filling its creases with a sweet blue light that Starlight had grown accustomed to. When she stopped and brought it back down, a star had found its way back into the sky, the North Star in fact."Pretty, right?" She said with a smile and a glance. "Now you try."
Starlight took the trinket and placed it in the gap of her hoof, holding it up to another star, picturing it in her mind and reading its thoughts. She cast her magic and filled it with that same essence, but when she brought it back down, she didn't see a star at all.
"Where is it?" She asked. Trixie couldn't help but give her a warm smile. She pointed down at Ponyville.
"Your star is down there."
Looking down to match her friend's guide, she was horrified at what she saw, she wouldn't have called it a star at all. It was a swirling mass of dark green, like the liquid you'd see in a magic ball, and it punched a hole in her stomach. If she felt like the world bent around her before, this was so, so much worse. Even if it probably wasn't real, she swore she could see the fringes of the town literally bend before her, curling up into the sky, pulling and stretching in ways that should've destroyed it. But the star remained.
"A dreamer is waiting for you Starlight."
"A-a w-w-wh-" she couldn't even get the words out. Why was Trixie so unphased?
The world bent more and more, the ground becoming the sky and the lights of the houses turning on like a crude mockery of the stars, all the while the ball sat still, staring at her from the shadows behind the one building that didn't change at all. Even Twilight's castle wasn't sacred to this nightmare, hanging crudely downward from the center of the sky, plucked from its mound and repurposed as an eldritch chandelier.
So distracted was she that it took several moments to even notice her hooves had begun to flake apart. Bubbles of fur and flesh had begun to painlessly pull away and float off into the air. She looked to her friend for any consolation, but didn't find it. Trixie's body had changed, elongated to unnatural proportions and thinning her down to almost bones. Most disturbing of all though, was the large chitinous growth that had silently ejected from her face. The shiny white blade-like structure overtook her eye and wrapped around the back of her head like it was always meant to be there.
Amidst everything else, the medallion began to move. Rising from the damp grass, ever... so... slowly, until it lined up right between Starlight and the star. It lit up with an innocuous teal green light as it slowly drew the mass of the star from way beyond into itself. The process got faster as more was consumed, but for Starlight it couldn't have happened slower. Beyond all measures of knowledge or understanding, she knew exactly what this meant. She was going to die, and from the looks of Trixie's steadily atrophying form, it would probably be alone too. What does it really mean to leave a world behind?
The star's form had been absorbed in full now, and she knew it couldn't be much longer. The magic Starlight had imbued the stone with lit up again in a light blue, now gracefully folding out into what looked like... a dress? A tall form, transparent, had emerged from the stone, the source it's heart. She wore a hood like a nun, and its visage shared a common sentiment. Starlight didn't know if she should be afraid or comforted. The nuns hand would reach out to hold her by the chin, but just before, Starlight would look back one last time at her best friend Trixie, and see her in perfect health. In fact everything was back to normal, the stars were out, the buildings unstretched, it was perfect, and so she found herself at peace. The mysterious woman held her in her arms, and she was surrounded by light.
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Starlight woke up in her bed the next day, feeling more tired than she'd ever felt.
"Starlight, breakfast is almost ready!" Twilight said from the other side of the door.
Starlight smiled, and went back to sleep.
