The Test

“What do you mean I can’t use any Elements?!” Starlight roared.

The wind whirled wildly with her anger. Their manes whipped through the air. Twilight dodged a comic book as it flew past her head.

“I’m sorry!” Twilight shouted. “There wasn’t any guarantee-“

“What was the point?” Starlight shouted. “I can’t wield an Element, I can’t become an Alicorn like you did! What’s the point?”

“Is that all you wanted?” she asked. “Power and glory?”

The wind died down almost immediately. Twilight used her magic to catch the falling objects. She began to approach her student, but hesitated. Would she start the wind up again? She let the worry melt away when she saw tears fall.

“I don’t regret it,” Starlight said. “I-I’m in a better place now. I have friends. Ones I don’t have to use magic on to force them to stay by me.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Twilight asked. She tried to put a wing over Starlight’s shoulders, but she pulled away.

“That,” she said, pointing to the wings.

“My wings?” she asked.

“Being an Alicorn,” she said. “Being a hero to Equestria. You offered to teach me, just like Celestia taught you. I thought- I thought I’d get to be like you. That if I just-just believed in Friendship enough, I could become some kind of hero princess. But I can’t even wield an Element. “

“A lot of that’s my fault,” she sighed. “There’s a small chance for being an Element, and an even smaller chance to become an Alicorn. It’s not your fault for thinking that it’d happen.”

“I don’t know,” she shook her head. “I was just assuming too much. I thought I’d get to be the hero.”

“Starlight, you are a hero,” she said. “You’ve saved the world, you’ve saved us.”

“Does it make up for how many times I destroyed the world?” she asked.

Twilight stayed quiet. She started pacing. Every few seconds, she’d begin to speak before changing her mind.

“Those timelines would have happened without you,” she finally decided on.

“I tampered with the timeline,” Starlight said. “I destroyed the world so many times.”

“If every timeline possibility exists, then they existed anyway,” she insisted. “I told you about the day I became an Alicorn, right?”

“You switched your friend’s Cutie Marks around,” she said.

“I looked into it after realizing that nopony thought anything was wrong,” she said. “We had merged into a different timeline. After I fixed everything, what we remembered from those timelines weren’t as ‘real’ to us, just another story. But it was another timeline where the Sonic Rainboom didn’t happen.

“In this one, Dash fell into Everfree,” she continued. “She broke her wing and had to walk out, saving a small bunny from Timberwolves in the process. The lack of a Rainboom threw off Everfree’s weather patterns, which Rarity fixed to save her play. Applejack stayed in Manehattan with her family, and decided to bring country fashion to the city. Dash’s adventures in Everfree woke a berserk dragon, which flew over Pinkie’s rock farm. Rock Farms include Gem mines, and a berserk dragon smelling gems, well, Pinkie didn’t stay to find out. She ran and ran until making it to Sweet Apple Acres, a family that would take her in. I was just a librarian, here to get a book order from Ponyville’s library. And Fluttershy-“

“Stop,” Starlight shuddered. “I get it. But you didn’t cause that timeline.”

“But it happened anyway,” she said. “Timelines like what you made would have happened differently, but they would have happened.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that I did it,” she said.

“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed. “But there is also the fact that there are timelines where you refused my offer of Friendship. Ones where you did worse things.”

“And that makes up for it?” she scoffed.

“For me, it does,” she said. “Because the you that exists here in this timeline, she decided to be a better pony, to believe me when I said it would be okay.”

They sat in silence again. Twilight tried to put her wing around Starlight again, and this time she didn’t protest.

“Thank you,” she said.