This Body is Sown in Corruption--it is Raised in Glory
Twilight Sparkle was having a good morning. Most of them were good, if she were honest. One groaned about mornings and waking up, and one did it with enthusiasm, but once the initial displeasure of waking had been dealt with, there was something nice about being alive and alert before the day had officially gotten to a start.
She sat with a her magic lightly clinging to her favorite mug, the one Spike had sloppily painted “#1 Princess’ on. Sloppily, because even though his penmanship was impeccable, the principle of the thing seemed to demand that it look homemade and amatuer. He’d argued as much, and she’d found herself playing along as much out of pride that he’d actually put some thought into the joke as for any other reason.
Coffee, waffles, hashbrowns—these things kept her spirit up. It helped that today was Friday. Spike, humming as he cooked, buoyed her. She still cooked sometimes, but watching Spike go from seeing the task as just another chore to genuinely enjoying cooking had been worth more than speeding up her morning routine.
“The reeve is coming in from Everfree today,” Spike said over his shoulder as he poured the eggs. “You probably remembered, but if you didn’t, he said he would try to make it around three.”
“I’m not even sure why I have one,” Twilight said, smirking. “The way you say that, it almost seems like you’re not as weirded out as I am about it.”
She was. Having a castle was one thing. Castles were houses, more or less, weren’t they? But the whole owning-large-tracts-of-land business was new and a little uncomfortable. Applejack had insisted on giving her a tree from the orchard as a gift as soon as she’d heard. Twilight didn’t have the heart to tell her that before her ascension her luck with plants had been abysmal. Which was why it was good she had the reeve on hand to manage the day to day work on Sparkle Manor. Besides being too far away to comfortably travel to regularly, it was nice to be able to drop the work off on someone competent.
“You know, the Sparkles are nobility. I’ve seen the family charter. I think I almost sneeze-burned it when I was little.”
Twilight snorted. “Your memory’s spot on—I got in a lot of trouble for that. We may not care about what that scrap says, but Sparkles will defend the written word to the death.”
Spike chuckled and spared her a glance as his scrambled eggs continued to sizzle. “Just saying, you should be a lot more comfortable with the idea of owning a manor. Think of it as an assignment.”
“I’m not a student. I mean, not officially. I graduated.”
“Yes, I remember. I think the whole town remembers.”
Twilight stuck her tongue out at him. “Whatever. I know what you mean, though. Think of it as a learning experience. I can do that, and it makes it a bit easier to handle, but…” She shrugged. “As Rainbow Dash would say, ‘eh’.”
“And now we’re using Rainbow Dash as a role model.”
“She’s the most dependablest of ponies, you know.” Twilight paused. “Wait, was that Applejack or—”
“If dependable is predictable, my money is on Pinkie. The more she changes, the more she stays the same. Don’t you have reports to look over before lunch?”
Twilight rolled her eyes and took another syrupy bite. She eyed the newspaper, unopened and unread. She reached for it, but then thought better of it. Spike was here. She should talk instead of read. Besides, she could peruse the paper in her office when the inevitable boredom set in.
“I do, but there are more important things to do first.”
“Oh?” Spike had finished and placed his plate down on the little kitchen table before pulling out a chair. “Like what?”
Twilight smiled at him. “Spend the morning with you, number one assistant. Whatever else?”
The newspaper followed her. It was there in her office all morning. It was there when Spike brought her lunch. It watched her talk to the pony who oversaw her modest estate on the other side of the Everfree. It lingered.
Twilight stretched. A smile grew on her face as she pushed away from the desk and wheeled her chair around in a circle. Done. She’d looked at all of the reports and synthesized the important information for Celestia to peruse, set her own small demesne’s daily affairs in order, even read over a grant and signed off on it. She’d even gotten some mail from the students at Celestia’s school—that was new. The Princess had asked her if she might be willing to be a mentor from afar and Twilight had been eager to try.
And now it was time for something very different.
Twilight stretched her wings, flapped them, and examined the feathers. She really had to get into the habit of preening more often. It just seemed so tedious. Rainbow and Fluttershy had made it seem so relaxing and natural, but it just sort of hurt.
As she was examining herself, there came a knock at the door. Starlight Glimmer peeked in, half-grinning. “Find anything interesting?”
“Just my own hygenic inadequacy,” Twilight said, and snorted. “Anyhow. You excited about tonight? Come in, come in. I’m done for the day.”
“Good! You’ve been cooped up in here forever.”
Starlight crossed the floor of her office and sat in the plush chair Twilight had been gifted by her father. Twilight glowed with a sudden pride. Writing letters to young students was one thing, but here was her very own student. Her first apprentice. It had been a rocky start, perhaps, but Twilight had grown more than merely accustomed to the presence of Starlight. It was beginning to be hard to remember what not having her around was like.
Glimmer sank into the chair. “To answer your question, I’m ready for the weekend. Glad AJ got everybody on board for tonight.”
She grabbed the newspaper on Twilight’s desk and began to leaf through it, humming. “Sorry I wasn’t at breakfast this morning. Was meeting Miss Cheerilee, the school teacher? I was kind of thinking of trying my hoof at the whole schoolmarm business and wanted to know from somepony who really does it if its really something I would like. You know, don’t wanna jump in based on… false impressions. Geeze, the news is grim sometimes, Twi.”
Twilight, who had been focused on her voice, blinked and shook her head. “News? Oh. What?”
“Crazy stallion murders his wife after she finds him doing… oh, Celestia, this is bleak. Forget I said anything.”
There was a moment of silence. Just a moment, where Twilight was very still, and then she unfroze. It was easy to miss.
Twilight frowned. “I’ll probably read it later, to be honest. Was too busy this morning.”
The newspaper returned to the desk, a little disheveled. “Ugh, well, if you really want to. What are you going to do before we head out?”
Twilight chuckled, taking the paper and folding it in midair delicately until its creases were perfect. “Honestly? I’ll probably catch a quick nap, maybe read a bit. Maybe even catch up on the news. A princess should be abreast of the situation in her borders, after all!”
“I suppose you’d know about that,” Starlight said, waving her hoof. She stood, stretched, and smirked. “Well, if you’re off to do that, I think I’ll go look for Spike. Want me to wake you?”
Twilight nodded. “If you don’t mind. Thanks, Starlight. And… you should tell the others about that conversation with Cheerilee tonight. I’m eager to hear about it.”
“It’s fine. I’m just… really glad to be here. And I’ll tell all, promise. How does Pinkie do it?” She made a vague waving motion and then shrugged. “Eh, however it goes. Sleep tight, Ponyville Sage.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Have fun, Prodigal Daughter.” But she smiled as she said it, and she got up herself. Yes, a nice catnap with a book would be nice. Read a bit, then doze. Go out with the girls full of energy. With that in mind, she opened the paper and began to read bits here and there as she strode along the hallway to her bedroom.
It wasn’t really that far, and the paper was boring. She turned another page, expecting another story she knew more about than the reporter because of the Princess, and then she saw it. There, on the left side, a pony’s picture looking up at her.
She dropped it. Her magic died and she couldn’t focus enough to regain it.
Starlight Glimmer hummed a jaunty tune as she walked up the stairs.
Twilight had been a bit distracted, but that was alright. She would love the good news! Cheerilee had offered to put in a good word for her as a substitute, and with a bit of royal approval, she could get firsthoof experience. Perhaps not the straightest path to work, but it was an actual job, and one that she thought she could be good at. Maybe. Who knew? But the prospect of finding out was exciting.
And if it didn’t work out? She was still taking classes with Twilight and through correspondence with Celestia’s professors. She could always go into thaumaturgy and be a full-time royal mage. Celestia’s seneschal had seemed a little too giddy at the prospect, but it seemed like it might be fun. Best of all, she could both be useful and blunt. Nopony cracked wise to a wizard.
She came to the door of Twilight’s bedroom. There was noise from inside, but it didn’t strike her as odd, muffled as it was. No doubt her mentor was merely getting ready, maybe also humming to herself.
It barely registered. She was just happy all at once to be where and who she was. Twilight had done this, really, all of it. Twilight had given her the chance to be who she was, had invited her into the circle of her friends gladly and swiftly.
She opened the doors.
The first wrong thing she noticed was the burn mark on the floor directly in front of the doorway. Somepony hadn’t just burnt whatever it was to a crisp—they’d somehow managed to burn through part of the crystalline structure beneath. She gaped, forgetting her own magic just to touch the center with a hoof. Not warm. At least an hour ago, no doubt more. She swallowed.
“Twilight?”
No answer. There was that noise again, like voices.
But it could be from a lot of places. Twilight’s bedroom was part of a whole suite of rooms, connected by passageways that opened only when she wanted them to.
It occurred to her, like a flash of lightning just a bit too close to her window, that if might very well be a voice. And that, furthermore, that voice might not be Twilight’s voice, and that Twilight had enemies that were powerful and also devious, and…
She swallowed.
No use calling again. She couldn’t risk drawing attention if her fears were founded. But surely they wouldn’t be. It was ridiculous. Who else could it be? A changeling infiltrator trying to get the voice right?
Actually, yes, but she tried not to imagine that.
Glimmer strode further into Twilight’s apartments. She found a few other signs of what could be struggle here and there. The bed in disarray, a few books come loose from their packed shelves. A painting askew. Random, and probably unrelated, but she couldn’t shake the image from her mind of a changeling tackling Twilight from behind, throwing her against the wall… But it could really just be Twilight in a hurry. Things displaced, another burn in the carpet… Honestly, if she didn’t know better, Glimmer would have assumed it was a younger unicorn who’d had a magical surge.
No Twilight in the bedroom, no Twilight in the bathroom. None in her private study… nothing in the little room she took tea in sometimes with guests. Nothing.
So, the frustrated student returned to Twilight’s bedroom, and that was when she heard that sound again. From the closet.
She swallowed and licked her lips. Yes. Whoever the intruder was, whatever it was, hid in that closet. No doubt waiting to strike. Well, she’d show them. She’d twisted time itself and dueled with a princess!
Determined, she marched towards the walk-in closet and readied an arcane blast. It glowed on the edge of her horn. She’d show them that Starlight Glimmer was not to be toyed with, and that no one barged in and messed with her new mentor—
But when she opened the door, she found the interior dark. And in that dark huddled one Twilight Sparkle, newly minted princess of the realm, staring at the wall amongst the torn down dresses and scraps. She didn’t have to see well to see the scorch marks.
Twilight didn’t move an inch. But she did speak, her voice hoarse. “I tried calling, but I figured you wouldn’t hear me.”
“Twilight?”
Twilight hummed a little affirmative.
“What are you doing in here? Is that you? What’s with all…” Starlight gestured in a general fashion to everything around them. “There was a huge scorchmark on the floor.”
“I know.”
Starlight blinked. “So… um, I mean if you know… what happened? Like, seriously? There are some in here, too, I’m seeing that now.” She let the arcane bolt die but summoned light and sent a little ball of illumination floating into the closet.
Twilight was, and this was putting it mildly, a wreck. There was nothing of the content, smiling Twilight Sparkle she’d left only a short time before in this mare. No smile, no warmth, no confident stride and inquisitive eye. She was huddled against the wall, expression blank, eyes red and puffy, mane at strange odds and ends.
They were both silent for a little while. Twilight didn’t react to the light, and Starlight didn’t know where to even begin reacting to what she saw. This was the kind of situation she would ask Twilight for help with.
Finally, Starlight walked in a ways, cleared a place, and sat against the opposite wall. She didn’t say anything.
It was Twilight who spoke first. “You’re probably late.”
“Not quite, but I have a feeling that a night out isn’t what’s important right now.”
“There’s not anything you can do. Just… you shouldn’t let this ruin your night.”
Starlight sighed. “Princess, I may be new at this whole ‘getting along’ thing, but I’m not dumb. Something bad happened here. You burned holes in your floor, shredded a bunch of clothes… oh, and burnt the wall in here, too. Something is up.”
“I had a surge.”
“You… Oh.”
“Yeah. ‘Oh’.”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way! I was just—”
“Surprised,” Twilight said flatly. “Ponies usually are. Magic takes a lot of self-control for us, and so when you see someone with a lot of power you assume they have the will to match or else…”
“It’s not unheard of,” Starlight began, but was cut off roughly.
“It is for a pony of my ability and we both know it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Sometimes I just… I get upset, and things happen. It’s very rare these days. When I was younger, much younger, I used to surge rather often. Caused all sorts of chaos, as you can imagine. But Princess Celestia helped me grow out of it, little by little. Cadance helped too. You know how they help foals deal with surges?”
“Not exactly. Exercises of some kind?”
Twilight nodded, just slightly. “Yes. Breathing exercises, meditation, lots of practice with control and talking about how you feel before it explodes. I never did well with that last one.”
“Did something happen?” As soon as she’d said it, Starlight wanted to take the words back. Too quick, too soon, surely Twilight would tell her to mind her own bu—
“Yes.”
She blinked. “May I ask what happened?”
“You already did.”
Starlight grimaced. “You know what I mean.”
She watched Twilight’s face, hoping for some sign of humor, some cracked smile or raise of the brows. Any port in a storm, really, any at all. But there was nothing.
She pushed on regardless. “Please? You’re always willing to talk when I need help, and you’ve given me so much. Please let me do that for you.”
Twilight turned and looked at her with that flat expression. And she just kept looking, not saying anything or making any real indication either way as to what she thought, until at last she squeezed her eyes shut and said:
“I was going to ask, ‘Have you ever done something that had consequences you couldn’t foresee’, but then I realized how stupid that would be to ask. I did. I’d almost forgotten about it. About him.” She paused, and looked away again. “So. I have surges when I get upset. I can’t control them, or I can but it’s difficult and frightening. It’s mental as much as physiological. Used to be worse, and now I’ve more or less mastered it—that is the narrative I’ve constructed for myself. It’s the story I tell myself, and if I tell it enough, the story becomes reality. I saw something in the newspaper that triggered me. Reduced to that, isn’t it a bit pathetic?”
“Not exactly, no. What did you see?”
“You saw it too, yet you didn’t lose control of your magic.”
“I’m not you, Princess. And you aren’t me. Just because you have a problem doesn’t mean…” She gestured at the air, almost comically really. Trying to grab something that wasn’t there. “I don’t know. I just know that you’re great, that it’s okay to have problems, and that whatever you saw…”
“I saw him,” Twilight said again.
“Him?”
“Do you remember the story about the murder?”
“I… no? I don’t think so.”
Twilight took a deep breath. “Stallion murders his wife after she discovered him doing… things. With their daughter. Girl in a hospital in Canterlot. Do you remember the story?”
Starlight swallowed. She felt sick, nauseous, like the top of her mouth was sweating and the spit would choke her. She was good at chess—she played three moves ahead—she was playing three moves ahead now and she could see where this would lead and she didn’t want it to go there. If she could have moved, she would have. She would have backed up, fallen over, scrambled to her hooves. Fled. But she couldn’t move and she knew she shouldn’t and…
And Twilight started to talk.
“I met him in Baltimare,” she said. “You probably don’t know, but students that Celestia takes on personally have to leave the palace for awhile at some point and be journey-ponies. It’s different for everypony that she takes on. Sunset… Sunset, uh, she did stuff with archaeology, I think? I was tracking old important books that people had reported hearing about… you know, the sorts that appear on the old registers and in old texts but that nothing survives of them?”
Starlight didn’t say you’re rambling.
“And I was young, very young. I mean, not… not very, very young. Youngish. Teenaged. Celestia was worried about me going out on my own a few years early, but I was farther along than any student ever had been and she knew I deserved my chance. Journeymares plot their own way, but she worked out my route around Equestria herself, personally. Every little detail, every inch of it safe. She had ponies waiting for me at the end of every road with food and water and a bed, nice ponies and wise ones. Every in every city knew I was coming and when I was due and they kept an eye on me whether I saw them or not. They… it’s not their fault, alright? They tried. They tried so hard, did so much. But I…”
Twilight’s voice grew more and more ragged. Her words came quicker and quicker and Starlight tried to reach out for her but she was terrified. She could see the endgame. She couldn’t… what would she say?
“I went off-schedule, I guess,” Twilight said, and now came the crooked, wretched smirk. “I got distracted by what else but books? A nice little shop. He spoke to me and he was nice enough. I was… I wasn’t very social but he seemed knowledgeable and so we just… we talked.”
“Twilight…”
“And then I missed the train, and he knew I would because I had mentioned it and he made sure we took the long way and I found out later and… I trusted him because he was an adult. Adults don’t lie,” she said and then ground her teeth. “They don’t… They…”
Starlight did move then, sitting beside her teacher and her friend, wrapping her in a hug.
“Don’t think about fault. Does it help to tell me this? If it doesn’t, don’t,” she said, but Twilight shook her head. There was a part of her, a small part, a loathsome part, that wished she had decided to stop.
“He was nice,” she said again, voice steady. “I hadn’t been supposed to stay in Baltimare, and there was no one there to wait for me, so he offered to pay for a room in a hotel. I was so grateful… he even helped me with the chest of books and I let him because my mother says that you should let ponies help. That it’s good to let others help you sometimes. So he brought it up with me, and then he just… he stood there. And I was unpacking and I didn’t… I forgot about him and…”
“Twilight, you don’t have to retell it detail by detail,” Starlight said. She put her head on top of Twilight’s, next to her horn.
Twilight was quiet. They both were, really, and not for the first time it occurred to Starlight just how alone it would be to sit in that closet, with the door closed and the light cut off, in the rags. She thought, for perhaps the first time, how very alone she was even now, all but cradling Twilight. How alone they both were and would be.
What would come after? The story would end soon, and then what? Nothing. Starlight would fumble for words because it was what ponies did and she would do so even when she knew doing so was futile. She would say those words, empty limping hollow as they must by neccessity be, and then what? The then-what was the problem, it always was. It had always been. The then-what had been there when her best friend had rushed off blindly into his own future, when teachers had found her talented but not teachable, when potential friends had backed off when she clung or when she suspected.
She was looking, came the realization, at the epitome, the embodiment even, of the then-what. The After.
Twilight started again, because they were only halfway to the breathless uncertain end and it had to continue.
“He did things. I… I didn’t have the vocabulary to express what happened at the time. Rape wasn’t… it just wasn’t something that existed in my world, the one I’d built. My family is minor nobility, high class who forget they have a charter from the crown with their heads in books and their eyes in telescopes. My peers were well off and the brightest, and Celestia was there for all of us. It just… it didn’t happen.”
“Until it did,” Starlight said, like an understudy stepping in.
“Until it did.”
“You didn’t tell anyone?”
“No.” Twilight shook. “No, of course I didn’t. I didn’t know where to even begin! I didn’t know what to call it or how to describe it and I didn’t want to and so the next morning it was just me in my hotel and a very anxious mare from Canterly had caught the earliest train to Baltimare because I hadn’t shown up the day before. She was so worried, and she asked me so many questions… and I wanted to say something but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to tell her and I don’t know why! I can’t go back and make myself.”
“What does this have to do with the paper?” Starlight asked.
Twilight opened her mouth, and then closed it. She did this a few times, each time sallying forth to offer an explanation or comment only to have it wither.
So her student took things into her own hands.
“Twilight, will you come out?”
“What, so I can burn my bed with a surge?”
“I’ll be around.” Starlight could see it in her head, even as she tried not to imagine what a surging Twilight would be like.
But Twilight nodded. “Where do you want me to go? Because, frankly, I don’t really care at the moment.”
Glimmer didn’t answer, simply pulling Twilight to her hooves and walking out of the closet. Twilight followed, slowly, almost aimlessly, as her student led her out from her room. She paused for a moment by the place where she’d destroyed the paper and her floor, winced, but said nothing. Her steps as they headed downstairs were fragile things, as if any moment the floor or the stair beneath would shatter. Almost as if her castle was made not of magically-grown crystal but thin glass.
Starlight led quietly through the halls to the castle’s library, and navigated its quiet bookish canyons until she came to Twilight’s reading room and ushered her charge inside.
It was isolated. Quiet. Comfortable, above all else. There was a couch and Twilight laid upon it and stared at the wall. There was a kettle and Starlight left with it and returned with cups and waited for tea. It was something she’d learned from Twilight. Tea, the Princess had insisted, was the proper response of ponies to problems.
She had her doubts about many things. That maxim was certainly one of them. But at the moment she didn’t really care. Twilight thought it helped.
As for her part, Starlight kept busy. The reading room was a mess, and one of the places Twilight had with characteristic precision designated as a zone of organized chaos. From the well-used and abused beanbag in the corner she acquired a blanket and draped it over a quiet Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight believed in tea. She believed in blankets. Both were stupid as hell ways to cope. They did what they could.
She stepped out for a moment, and found Spike where she’d left him--in his room. It was the work of a moment to get him up and moving towards the Boutique with a few simple instructions, and as soon as he’d seen her face he stopped asking questions. If there was one virtue Spike had in spades, it was knowing when to get a move on it.
When she returned, she found Twilight, blanket still around her like the capes of the old Unicornia’s kings as she poured tea for herself. She didn’t turn to greet Starlight. But she did speak.
“Thank you.”
“It’s alright,” Starlight said, before hesitating. She added, “I’ve told the girls we aren’t coming, Twilight. I hope that isn’t a problem.”
But Twilight just shook her head and looked at her tea. “No. I can’t go, and you said you weren’t, so it was better to tell them then to have them just show up here. Or worse, end up waiting a long time and think we forgot.”
“Is it better if you were left alone, or do you want me to stay? Or… finish telling me what happened?” She bit her lip, and then as before she continued. “Twilight, I don’t know what to do here. I’m not even sure if there is something to do.”
“I don’t know either. Come sit with me.”
It wasn’t really a request, and Starlight didn’t treat like one.
They sat shoulder to shoulder, Twilight sipping at her tea here and there and Starlight trying to sort out how one wrestled a problem without, well, wrestling it. She worked out, with no little amount of worry and mental trembling, how one could expect any sort of resolution.
She thought an awful lot about the dead land, and Twilight standing there as the wind howled, telling her to look on the ruin she had wrought. She thought an awful lot about that place. She’d tried not to but…
But it had occurred to her that perhaps her feelings upon that plain—her situation itself—was not unique, but merely an extreme end of a larger spectrum. This was not comforting. To be able to confidently say that she had erred and slipped where few if any might slip… that was comforting. Other ponies might be counted on then to be what they appeared to be. Namely, stable.
“I never told anyone,” Twilight said into the stillness, and Starlight just barely managed not to jump at the sound stampeding into her worry. “Ever. Until today. I lied. Celestia has no idea. I couldn’t tell her. I almost did, when I got back. After a year or so of being back. I thought about it. I… I hinted around the edges of it. She thinks she knows the truth, and the truth she knows is that I ran into some thugs on the street that scared me. That’s it.
“And I forgot and I forgot and I was okay and I wasn’t afraid of stallions and I wasn’t bothered and then today I saw his face in the paper and he did it again. To his daughter. What he did to me, and who else after me? It can’t have just been the two of us. I don’t know how many but there were others, and that poor mare is dead and her daughter is sitting in that bed in that hospital all alone. I know only one thing, Starlight. Just one, insurmountable fact.”
“And that is?”
“That I could have stopped all of that from happening. I indirectly caused that suffering. It is my fault.”
“Twilght, that’s—”
“It’s the logical conclusion. Think about it. It’s just plain causality. I couldn’t speak up, and so he got away with it. I didn’t say anything, he ends up being a model citizen.”
“What about the others?”
“But I was before them,” Twilight says quickly.
“If that filly in the hospital, for instance,” Starlight pressed on, “I mean think about it just for a bit here, Twilight. If it wasn’t her first time to…” She shuddered. Stars, I don’t even want to think about it. “Would you blame her?”
“No.” Twilight’s answer was firm. She levitated the cup away towards a desk against the wall. “No. I’d probably set anypony who did on fire.”
“Then…”
Twilight sighed. “Okay, yes. I can step back and say that it isn’t actually the most logically sound thing to feel. No, I don’t think that about her or about any others. I just think it about myself. I feel it about myself. That I did this.”
“I think he did.”
“You know what I mean. I didn’t… If I had been a braver filly, if I had been a stronger one, than that monster would be rotting in a cell. But I wasn’t.”
Starlight shook her head. “Twilight, you can’t believe that.”
“But I do.”
“You can’t. Twilight, you don’t have to pull his blame onto yourself. You can’t do that. He chose to do what he did. You were a child.”
“I wasn’t that young. I should have been able to say something!”
But Starlight wasn’t done. She pinned Twilight between her forelegs. “No! No no no. No you didn’t. You were a child, Twilight. You were a child and he did things to you that no pony should do to a child, and you don’t get to make yourself and that child out to be the unwitting masterminds of other’s suffering. That’s his job description, not yours.”
Twilight looked away.
Starlight continued. “Look, Princess. Like, as in look at me for just a second. Remember us? You and me, and that wide open wasteland? Remember how horrified I looked when you told me that I had done that?”
“Yes. I remember that day.”
“If you can say this about yourself, then you can say the same to me. I never meant to hurt any of those ponies. I never meant to do that to Equestria. But it happened. I’ve had to shoulder that blame, but in my case I acted and consequences came. I was an adult, even if I didn’t act like one. But you were a child, and you had no way of knowing as a child what would happen. You can’t hold that weight. Not against younger Twilight, and not against yourself. I don’t think anypony’s back can hold it.”
“Someone’s has to.”
She couldn’t say, no, no ones’ back need hold the weight, but found she could not. They both fell silent again, and when at last Twilight broke the silence it felt like perhaps it was the last time she would until the After started. The what-then, and Starlight feared it.
“Could you… could you move a bit? So I can lie down? You can lay your head on me, I guess. I just want to lie down. Just for a moment.”
Starlight had already started moving. They adjusted.
“It’s not your fault,” Starlight said softly, because she had no clue what else to say.
“It is.”
“I can’t even imagine it.”
“I was there and sometimes I can’t either. It’s… it’s hard to think about. I can barely even bring myself to say the word. Did you notice? It just won’t pass my lips. It takes sheer will to say… to say rape. I can’t even remember all of it. Flashes. Long stretches, and then nothing. Holes in my memory.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I don’t know what to say.”
Twilight shook her head gently underneath Starlight’s chin. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m glad you do. But sitting with me helps.”
“There has to be something. How do you…” She wished she could shrug with Twilight Sparkle lying beside her. Which was strange, but the world was strange. “How do you just…”
“Keep going? Well, I already have. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll wake up tomorrow and make Spike breakfast and try to be alive without thinking about it.”
“That isn’t right. You’re wonderful, Twilight. You shouldn’t have to deal with that by yourself. None of that was your fault.”
“Maybe I’ll believe that one day. But I don’t.”
There was a tentative knock on the door. Twilight stirred, but Starlight simply called. “Who is it?”
Rarity answered through the door. “Fluttershy and myself, dear. Spike seemed to think something was dreadfully wrong and urgently needed my looking after. Is Twilight alright?”
Starlight half-rose and she and Twilight’s gazes met.
“I can’t talk about this again,” Twilight said, eyes wide.
“You don’t have to. But they’re your friends. They’re here for you. Let them in.”
Twilight opened the door without moving, without her eyes leaving Starlight’s, her horn glowing brightly for just a moment. They both heard, rather than saw, Rarity’s approach. They both heard how her bright, cheerful, cultured voice faded as she took stock of the worn looking Twilight, as she put pieces together and reconstructed her entire image of the situation.
“Darling? Twilight, what is the matter? What’s happened?”
Twilight hesitated. She kept looking for something in Starlight’s eyes, and seemed to find it.
They both turned and Twilight Sparkle tried to meet the world again, starting with Rarity.
Author's Note
I am glad this is done. I may now jettison it and move back to JobLight and Hammer.
It helped. A friend inadvertantly motivated me to finish this venting disguised as narrative and I suppose that I would like to thank him and perhaps I shall. This is a rather poor attempt at storytelling. I'm unhappy with it. Ironically, the unplanned addressing of this in Night was done better and far more succinctly.
