Proportionate Retribution
Into the hall of Friendship, Starlight Glimmer walked into with a heavy heart. “I know there’s no excuse for what I did,” she told the assembled Bearers. “I’m ready for whatever punishment you think is fair.” With the exception of Twilight, all looked at her with coolness, and the impassivity of a pony who must pass harsh judgement on another, and doesn’t want to get too close to them. Starlight knew that feeling well, but she never thought she would be the one seeing it in others.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about how bad Equestria fared, without just one group of friends,” the alicorn princess said with concern to Starlight. “Because even when one friendship dies, the result can be disastrous!” The dragon nodded in approval, and Starlight couldn’t blame either of them considering what she put them and all of Equestria through with her foolish meddling with time.
Starlight sighed, and sunk her head, murmuring, “I know firsthoof how true that could be.”
“And that’s why I’ve asked you here,” Twilight said, standing and striding over to Starlight. Afraid to look up, Starlight Glimmer couldn’t bear to think what the princess must be feeling right now. Despite this, a hoof cupped Starlight’s chin and lifted it up to face a smiling face, as Twilight said, “If you’re willing to learn, I’m willing to teach you what I know.”
Starlight couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She saw every bearer smiling at her, not looking at her with resentment or hatred at all. “You’ll have the power to make Equestria an even better place,” Twilight said gladly.
Starlight Glimmer backed up, looking from pony to pony, wide-eyed, and certainly not believing what was happening here.
“You’re just joking, right?” she said to Twilight, with a nervous laugh. “For a moment I thought you said you were going to teach me and give me power, as punishment.”
“It’s not a punishment, Starlight,” Twilight told her soothingly, “I want to teach you about the magic of Friendship. We’ve been looking for you for months on end, not to punish you, but because you did something incredible!”
“I did?” Starlight said, stepping back a step. “B-but you said that differences made your friendship strong! I tried to destroy that!”
“Starlight, seriously?” Twilight said, shaking her head with a curious smile, “Yes, you had some mistaken ideas, but you convinced a whole village of ponies to give up their cutie marks for the sake of being your friend! Your magic is some of the most powerful I’ve ever seen, but that’s nothing compared to your power over friendship! How did you convince them? How did they come to love you so deeply? Unless you’re seriously suggesting you put everypony in the village in that little room, before it was even built?”
“Em, no, that room was kind of a last minute thing because we couldn’t convince you...” Starlight admitted.
“I am in awe of your friendship making skills,” Twilight said, bowing her head, “If anything, I want to know what you can teach me about it!”
“But they all hate me now!” Starlight retorted with an unavoidable quiver in her voice, “Now that they know what a horrible thing I did to them, just to satisfy my own petty—”
Zipping up to Starlight’s face, Rainbow Dash cut in with, “Have you even been to your village, since everypony got their cutie marks back? They’re still there!”
“If everypony in that village wants to remain friends with each other,” Rarity said sidling out of her chair and magically easing Rainbow Dash back just a bit, “Then why wouldn’t they want to remain friends with you?”
“Because—I—because I took their cutie marks and lied—lied to them!” Starlight exclaimed, taking another step back. “I told them they were happier!”
“And did you think they were happier?” Applejack asked, walking up next to Rarity.
“Yes, but... obviously they weren’t!” Starlight protested. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before!”
“You made some bad decisions,” Fluttershy said, not so much leaving her seat, but somehow her presence projected clearly despite her quiet tones. “But if you truly believed what you were doing was saving your friendship with them, then you weren’t, um, lying.”
“Yeah,” Pinkie shouted from her chair, “You were totally lying about your cutie mark, but that’s about it!”
“I think they can forgive you for that,” Rarity said with a smile. “You had no choice, after all, since the unmarking spell couldn’t be performed without your cutie mark.”
“If you just wanted to be accepted as a friend,” the princess said, “Then it was wrong of you to lie to do so, but I don’t think anypony couldn’t forgive you for it.”
Starlight couldn’t see the princess very well, because everything was getting all wavery and watery. “But I destroyed the world!” she shouted, wiping at her eyes. “Everything w-was dead and grey, because of me! How can you not punish me for that! I—I killed you all! Everypony died, just because of my foolishness. I saw the future, just as much as you did, princess! My—my hatred destroyed everything anypony ever loved! I destroyed the world!”
“No you didn’t,” came Twilight’s voice in a contrary tone, pressing a handkerchief into Starlight’s hoof. “When did you ever destroy the world?”
“Weh... what?” Starlight wibbled in confusion. She blew her nose, and looked around. Nopony was laughing. Did the princess just say...
“When did you ever destroy the world?” Twilight repeated in what looked like honest confusion.
“You... remember, right?” Starlight asked warily, openly staring at the princess, “Everything was dust. All the plants, and the animals, and the ponies... there was nothing left. No sun, no moon, no stars. It was horrible!”
Glad for the handkerchief to daub her eyes with, Starlight couldn’t say more without her voice breaking.
Instead, Twilight nodded solemnly and said, “That was the most horrible thing I have ever seen. Worse than Nightmare Moon, even worse than Tirek, there was just... nothing. Worse still, I don’t know what caused it. There was no villain to fight, no challenge to overcome, nothing left to save, just... a vast expanse of nothing.
“Starlight,” Twilight cupped her chin again, keeping Starlight from looking away.
“That never happened,” the purple princess said carefully to Starlight Glimmer, without any amusement in her expression.
Starlight blinked, in utter, complete befuddlement. “I don’t... understand?” she squeaked, pulling away from Twilight’s hoof.
“When did it happen?” Twilight protested, tilting her head wryly, and standing straighter before Starlight. “A week ago? A month ago? If it did happen, then why is everything alive and everypony well? It never happened, because you never stopped the Sonic Rainboom, not even once.”
“I stopped it like—a dozen times at least!” Starlight said in befuddlement, feeling like she was the butt of some sort of princessly joke here.
“Good to know I was a total pushover as a filly,” Rainbow Dash grumbled quietly.
“Each time your spell pulled me back into the past,” Twilight explained, “It changed history so that you had another opportunity to stop the Rainboom, otherwise you wouldn’t have had to stop it again. When you change history, the future that would have happened doesn’t happen. That future isn’t just pushed over somewhere else in the world. It never exists. Starlight, your decision in the end, to let history run its course, and save our friendship? That was the only thing that happened. Everything else may as well have just been a dream.”
“Mwuh?” Starlight Glimmer replied, vaguely noticing that the other five were gathering together supportively around Twilight.
“If the cutie map made you dream of changing the past, without travelling through time at all, it would be no different than what happened to you,” Twilight lectured patiently, “Without changing the past, there is no time travel. You’ve been beating yourself up this past afternoon for the ‘terrible’ crime of having a bad dream!”
Starlight didn’t understand. She did understand, but she didn’t, but how could she be... be blameless??
“And for giving me a bad dream,” Twilight admitted, rubbing her forehead alongside her spiraled horn, “Which I definitely didn’t appreciate, but in the end what happened to both of us helped you see the error of your ways. I’ll have a bad dream any day, if it helps somepony like you realize her true strength. Now you know how important and good cutie marks are, and how friendship is made stronger by our differences. You learned that changing history is a bad idea, a good lesson for anypony to learn. And you know the one lesson you learned that is most important of all?”
Starlight Glimmer... blinked.
As one, everypony shouted, “Stop hiding from your friends!”
“Now then,” Twilight said in a more businesslike tone, stepping forward again, “Your first assignment is to return to your village, and apologize for deceiving them. To prepare for this, you’ll have to learn to accept that you were trying to help them, but were wrong in your way of doing it. It—Starlight?”
“Do you think we overdid it on the rehearsing beforehand?” Pinkie Pie asked worriedly.
Twilight lifted a hoof and tapped the side of Starlight’s head saying, “Hello? Are you—” The purple and pink pony toppled over sideways like a statue.
“Yep, definitely overdid it,” Rainbow Dash said, folding her forearms and nodding sagely.
Author's Note
Starlurr did nothing wrong.
