I’m aware this is cliché and has been done to death and this isn’t anything special and… whatever I am… whatever I can do or say… it will never be something new under the mild sun.
Except nevertheless, I’m drowning in a sea of tears... And I’m just another drop in that pelagic despair. The asperity of this world has flooded my lungs and I now find myself in a temporary tartarus. Except I’m not unconscious from my oxygen deprivation, despairingly acute to every neuron shooting fire to my brain.
I cry out in hopes of respite. To grab ahold of you, but I’m all alone. So I grapple unto what I can. And my whole body quivers at the touch of frigid crystals, emitting power. Power enough to conjure bridges between worlds and where your sweet scent still lingers.
And pain. And perfidy...
No. No, I know you’re better than that. You would never betray me… nor leave me out in the cold…
...
You hold in your heart the willpower and integrity to reel back in the one who is broken to the point she’d rather push the world down and away, and fall with it... far, far below the common denominator.
Because she knocked and the one who let her in had flown out the back window in a brilliant trail of newly-fledged feathers she hadn’t yet grown herself...
Except it’s different with you. You’ll stay the same or wait for me. You won’t leave me. Even if you do, I should be able to chase you.
Even though I know I won’t and…
Inhale. Exhale.
...I’m not chasing you right now. I’ll wait, ever-vigilant for you.
I guess that it’s better than having to engage in espionage and the times I don’t see you-- physically or in my thoughts (and my thoughts never comforted me)— is when I’m sulking alone and plotting and languishing. Okay, so maybe this isn’t as different as I thought about it, but these are just… two inverse polynomials reflected across an axis and this is where the lines of then and now dip and curve in indefinite arcs to meet, the number of times they do is determined by how many times you’ll vanish to a land farther away than I could follow you.
Well, actually I already did…
And I wish I didn’t. Oh God, I wish I didn’t.
How was I supposed to know that, were I to tag along-- unbeknownst to you-- on your sojourn through this portal, it would be my greatest downfall? Like the mistake you made coming to my quaint, perfect little village because your magical table starts glowing butt marks one day. Except that ended well, didn’t it?
...Except, how in Equestria does you making out with that hairless bipedal I’d never even met culminate into my happy ending?!
That’s right; I saw you. I saw that lecherous look in your eyes, that lust preceding any remnants of my memory, taking a backseat in the unctuous presence of him.
I growl. Him. I don’t even know his name! All I knew at that moment when I saw you two was pain.
Pain, my age-old friend! Oh, how you come to comfort me in your queer ways!
But you, pain, stay… pain always stays the same…
And when you left, I had to wait before following after you. And it gave me time to convalesce and wipe my tears.
You censured me upon my premeditated return and rehearsed lie telling you what I did there. It was all thanks to the pain placating my hollow self to smile. And it was undeniable the bead of sweat on your brow dried up in a swipe of lavender fur.
So that’s why I’m here and not there to compromise you, to blow the gaff on your little dalliance. To shame you before your little cronies for the cur you are!
...Because, at least as far as you say, I would cause too large a disturbance…
But I digress. You would never leave me… you’re too perfect. Just perfect. You took in the persona non grata and acquitted this dastardly malefactor to make her feel special. And that uplifting so wholly felt by the receiver, it couldn’t possibly be feigned. This is from the one who lived-- no. Merely survived, in a perpetual veil of superficial cheer from unequal equality for the better part of her life. If it were fake, I should know, right?
"RIGHT?"
It’s all I can do to block out the sounds. By Celestia, the sounds! The sounds of distilled affection and empty sweet-nothings. Those noises devoid of probity or fidelity, and all I can do is curl up in a heaving ball and hope for recourse and nepenthe and quietude. Intrinsic and extrinsic. The voices crescendo and my ears are magenta cadavers atop my head.
But it’s all that I can do.
Finally the exchanged whispers reach their climax and cease altogether. The portal is swirling fuchsia nebulae and spins and distorts, shining brightly in the dark, candle-lit room and temporarily blinds me.
Everything is temporary.
You manifest a pony in a flash of vibrant magic. And your hair is mussed and you hold your chest and breathe heavily. And I look up through blurring tears that make the world waver.
All I can see is the brilliant white of your wild smile as you regard me like a lion appraising a crippled gazelle. I feel your hoof lift up my chin and the touch of alicorn. You come close and kiss me. I can feel the warmth of your horn conducting heat to my face counterpointed by the cool clouds of your breath. I’m still crying and I struggle to break free.
“Don’t you trust me?” You ask, frigid wisps escape your lips with every word that staunch the rain, freezing my tear ducts.
And…
I’m back where it all began. I soon find myself in a bucolic nocturne of starlight and black, greenly-gleaming grass. The moon had itself hidden from the peripheries of the canvas and only myself, my happy thoughts, and a bench illuminated in my magic occupied the foreground.
The last few days had gone so well. Not only had my act of revenge reached a positive end with Twilight finally forgiving me, but I had even acquired six friends in one fell swoop. Discussing magical postulates with Twilight, running agility courses with Rainbow Dash, bucking apple trees with Applejack, it was all so… new and refreshing. We even had a party after that big parade number. But soon, everyone had retreated back to their homes with the looming night approaching and I was left to my own musings. Despite being left alone again due to blatant absentmindedness, I found myself not caring. Though I still would have appreciated a nice blanket or something. Even now I reflect on that day fondly as I did at the time, not even accounting for what was about to happen next.
Hoofsteps intrude my thoughts and my ears stand up as I swivel my head towards the source of the light crumbling of rocks. The lavender glow of your horn and your voice is immediately discernible in the ambience. “Starlight Glimmer!” I hear you call.
I look at you quizzically, “What are you doing here?”
“I should be asking you the same thing!” You canter over and point your hoof at my chest to emphasize your point.
You’re treated to one of my deadpan looks and you look away sheepishly.
“Okay, so in hindsight, I should’ve just realized that you weren’t going to head back to some newly-manifested house conjured up by your magic.” She added, muttering. “There really wasn’t much of a point in following you around.”
That caught me off guard for a second. How could someone as amazing and busy as you follow me out here? You’re a princess. You do princess-y things like fielding petitions or saving the world. Even when you’re not, you have a beautiful castle to better allocate your time lounging about in. I’m the one who has nothing better to do in my life than stalk you and plot my revenge.
Or, you know… Before I stopped.
I couldn’t possibly have heard right. Surely, I couldn’t have.
But I quickly reconcile my thoughts and my glare redoubles in intensity. Though the look I gave made you take a step back, my tiredness wins out and I relent, sighing. “Why did you follow me?”
“Because we’re friends!” You say. I arch an eyebrow at that, waiting for some form of elaboration to which you dutifully comply. “Because friends look out for each other. Because friends don’t just care about whether your varnish is up to snuff with convention. Because, at the end of the day, they’ll still occupy your mind even when you’re not with them. You may not have known this, but ponies actually care about each other.”
I flatten my ears. Ouch, burn. Despite my wounds, I bear through it to cap your all-too-true barbs. “So? What importance is it of whether or not anyone cares? I could sit out here all night alone and pretend all that you’ve done was in earnest, eagerly awaiting tomorrow when I could see again the ones who care for me.” I pause, and my eyes moisten a bit. I try to reassure myself, repeating, “You are the ones who care for me.”
You put up a rictus. “Of course we do. We’re your friends...” You bite your lower lip and look earthward. I know you caught my gaze that asks the obvious question for me because you sigh after a time, relinquishing your lower lip. “Okay, so maybe not.” You curl up on the bench across from me with a heaviness as if laden with some inexplicable somnolence. “You know, I thought maybe it could all work out in the end. You, me, and the rest of the girls could all just be buddy-buddy and that would be that.” You try to smile but it’s washed away in a flush of disappointment. “They just… can’t get over the whole taking-away-our-cutie-marks thing. And it’s not my place to judge them for it. The girls, after losing who they were, felt like they had died. They didn’t have what made them them. But I— I still had my friends. I mean sure my magic was an integral part of me, but that’s not what made me me. Not directly, at least. That’s what made Princess Celestia’s personal protege or Twilight the egghead. All I really needed to feel alive were the girls and the friendship they furnished me with. Magic was merely a side-effect of that friendship.
“And I still had that. And that’s partly why I can forgive you. You're not like Tirek or Chrysalis or Sombra or Discord." You chuckle and then meet my eyes. "You were never the kind of deliberate evil that tried to tear ponies apart, but assay to bring them closer.”
That wasn’t true. I didn’t deserve this deserving pony’s magnanimity. I didn’t deserve her integrity. All this time I thought ponies had benefited and bonded more easily when I lay them together, but all I really did was push those pieces an equal distance away from each other. I had to tell her she was wrong, that I wasn’t worthy of amnesty. I begin to interrupt your speech. “But—”
But I was cut off by a gentle hoof silencing my quibbling. “So that’s why, instead of teaching you to push others away, I’m going to teach you the right way to bring ponies together.” You scoot closer to me on the bench and kiss my cheek, engendering an inadvertent blush, much to my chagrin and shock... and… elation? “It’s the least I can do for a pony inculcated with the opposite of that very notion. I believe you can be corrected and loved just as you love others genuinely. Isn't that all you ever wanted since Sunburst left you? I’ll never leave you. Do you believe that?”
And just before I could answer, you and I are teleported through time and space before the magnificent crystal portal in the dim moonlight. Except now you look down at me with that same staid and sublime expression from that night splayed across your countenance and my face is melting in your hoof. You repeat the question:
“Do you believe that?”
I nod and you set down my chin; I make nary a movement beyond that, keeping my gaze fixed on the floor in shame.
And you…
You turn... and the gentle clop of your hooves slowly ceases, punctuated with the eerie, enchanted humm of the portal.
