Starlight opened a groggy eyelid, not exactly out of choice, but partly a natural response predicated on her body's alertness. She shifted sluggishly in her bed sheets, at once becoming obtruded by a sort of uncomfortableness and was now half-consciously searching for a good position to continue her sleep. The shutters to her window were blocking off most of the morning ethereal light.
Morning.
But Starlight, for whatever reason, could not latch onto a dream. That is, her mind hung on a thread of being awake, it would sway into the edge of sleep, but after several moments she stayed that way. Her eyes were closed, but as the minutes stacked up and she remained sharply aware of the fact that she was awake, it devolved into annoyance.
She moaned, as though suppressing a shudder, and willed herself to rise up, involuntarily setting her gaze on the alarm clock. Darn, she woke up early for some reason; the clock still had a whole hour left. She shuddered once more, mumbled incoherently to herself, and plopped out of bed. Using her magic, she disabled the alarm clock.
"Can't be lazy..." she started with a yawn, "on a Monday morning."
It was decided: vain attempts at sleep would only be a waste of time.
Starlight headed down the flight of stairs to the foyer, took a turn—and found herself in the kitchen. It was very strange, she went on to wonder, that this minor trip from her bedroom to the kitchen swept by in an instance, and she didn't even notice it; by the time she blinked rapidly, as if checking her senses, she was mildly surprised to be standing near the breakfast table. It was like her brain simply didn't feel the need to register her minor journey.
"Whoa," she mumbled with an ironic chuckle, resting her chin on a hoof. She still couldn't decide whether she was fully conscious or not.
"Stirred up already?" she heard Spike's voice come from behind her. Before she could rotate on her chair to glance back, Spike strode past her and began fumbling with the opened drawer. When he closed it, he held a bowl with a silver spoon inside.
"Morning, Spike," said Starlight in an exhausted voice.
"Want some cereal?" he asked as he opened the fridge, taking out a box of oats and a carton of milk.
"Hmm? Oh, no, I'm good. Thanks."
"Heh, suit yourself." He was humming a certain tune to himself, all while happily sitting down and readying his breakfast, as though out of practiced habit.
Starlight kept silent, watching with a fixed stare as the baby dragon began greedily consuming his cereal.
"Ye knmm," started Spike with a mouthful, but then he quickly swallowed first. "You know, the map's been calling you out to solve friendship problems more and more lately. Twilight's asked me to keep track of all the times the girls are called out, er, as a way to build a record, and you're really making a difference!"
"Yeah, I can't believe it myself," said Starlight.
"Are you kidding? This totally shows how much you've contributed," Spike went on excitedly. "Ever since you sorted out the relationship between Princess Celestia and Princess Luna—which is the most awesome thing I heard about in the past month—you've been dealing with the kind of risky friendship problems even Twilight would be hysterical about," he ended tittering in a half-whisper.
"Oh... uh, yeah, I've noticed that, Spike. Good to know."
"Uh, Starlight, you okay?" Spike stopped eating and raised an eyebrow in her direction. "You seem out of the zone, if that makes any sense."
Starlight exchanged glances with Spike; but then a change came onto her face, and she smiled.
"Ha, ha, sorry Spike," she said. "I guess I'm just tired, that's all. Got a lot of things on my mind."
"Oh, that's alright." He consumed another spoonful of oats. "Um, do you by any chance wanna share what's got you up a stump?" he asked, inclining his head.
"I don't know exactly, just some doubts about this whole place, and that medal of honour, and—" those words seemed to drop out of her, but upon realizing this she said nervously: "Oh, no, no, not what I meant. But..." Her mind drifted off momentarily, and she sighed. "Spike, have you, uh, ever had one of those things in your head that you just can't explain, like, an idea that no matter how much you describe it you can never get the true meaning out?"
Spike stared longingly at her. "Huh, I don't—think so?"
"Yeah, me neither!" she said, almost as though to herself. "I woke up too early, that's all, even the darn alarm clock overslept." As she said this Starlight stretched out her arms and levitated a bowl and spoon, then began pouring herself some cereal. "So what's new with you?"
"Well, same old, same old," replied Spike, pondering. "Yesterday while you were out with Trixie I ran some errands for Twilight, organized the library, nearly dropped my gem collection out the window, oh, and I can finally do a backflip! Wanna see?"
"I, uh, think I'm good for now. Thanks for sharing."
"Ha, just you wait," said Spike with an air of confidence. He jumped out of his seat, smirking stupidly. "I'll be the first baby dragon in Equestria to perfect the backflip."
"And the only baby dragon," reproached Starlight, smiling.
"Good morning!" sang Twilight as she strolled into the kitchen. She cast a glance at Starlight, mild astonishment highlighting her face now. "Wow, you're up early. I thought you always went to bed later than Spike and me."
"Yup, I still do," said Starlight. "I guess yesterday didn't exhaust me enough."
"Well, since you're up, the girls and I are planning out a trip for Vanhoover; Rainbow Dash brought it up, and we were all super enthused with it. A little get-away, something we all deserve. Ideally we'd be setting out in a week, just get the technicalities set out and whatnot." As Twilight explained she took a seat in between Spike and Starlight. "You wanna come—both of you?"
"I dunno, Twilight," said Spike with brevity, as it were, with a sort of growing reluctance. "I was kind of looking forward to spending time with Big Mac and Discord next week." He chuckled to himself. "We've got all sorts of crazy fun activities in mind, it's just that we never really agreed to a specific date. And, you know, I was thinking next week since my schedule will be empty."
"I get it, Spike, even you need a 'boys only' week," said Twilight, rolling her eyes, leaving Spike's face somewhat flustered.
Starlight stifled a chuckle with the back of her hoof.
"H-hey, you got it wrong," said Spike in reproaching tones, "I just, er, gotta expand my circle of friends, that's all—even if I love spending quality time at the spa with Rarity."
"What about it, Starlight?"
"Why would I refuse something like that? I'd love to join you and the others," said Starlight with decision. "Being cooped up in this castle can get pretty lonesome at times, believe me."
"You girls can discuss that amongst yourselves," said Spike hurriedly, with underlying animation. He had finished his cereal, got down from his seat and tossed it in the sink. "I'll be back to do the dishes. A new issue of the Power Ponies just came out today, and I plan on getting my claws on a copy!"
"Don't be out for too long!" Twilight called after him as he took off.
"Don't count on it!" he responded sarcastically, but nevertheless waved goodbye, and then he was gone.
"I think this will be good for you," said Twilight. "It can serve to broaden your horizons."
"Definitely, that's something everypony could go for," said Starlight with a nod. "Heh, myself especially, considering my—ahem—totally evil past."
"Come on, Starlight, that's all been corrected by now," assured Twilight. "It may be true that friendship isn't always easy, but there's no doubt it's wor—"
"Worth fighting for," put in Starlight brusquely, smiling amicably. "I know, I know. I guess I'm just trying to say that this all means a lot to me, and I'm really grateful, for you and your friends giving me everything I didn't know I wanted."
"Our friends," corrected Twilight. "Besides—" her face suddenly resembled an innocent and anticipating expression "—maybe we can even convince Sunburst to join, hmm?"
"Oh—ha—ha—very funny," deadpanned Starlight. But she contemplated the suggestion; her lips suddenly twitched, accompanied by a faint smile. "I mean, it really is your call. And I... I..." she interrupted herself with a yawn. "Oof, still kind of tired."
"How much did you even sleep?"
"Let's see," said Starlight with a thoughtful look. "I hit the hay at twelve-ish, set my alarm to seven, took me about an hour to actually fall asleep, and because my brain hates me I woke up an hour earlier and couldn't go back to sleep."
"You didn't experience any crazy nightmares, did you?"
"Well, Princess Luna never paid me a visit, and—eh, can't even remember if I had a dream."
"Whatever it is, I'd advise a solid sleep routine, it does wonders for your mental performance. And by extension, it helps to always be at the ready to answer friendship calls," said Twilight, seemingly satisfied. She chuckled amusingly to herself. "Heh, maybe that's why you decided to steal ponies' cutie marks and rewrite history: a lack of sleep."
"Huh?" Starlight eyed Twilight dubiously. "What do you mean by that?"
"Sorry, that was just a joke," replied Twilight, lightly smacking her forehead. "All has passed."
"Whoa, whoa, hold on a second," interposed Starlight with a chuckle, as if they had reached a conclusion far too quickly. "Take my word for it, Twilight, I'm not offended, you just made me curious about what you're conveying there."
"It's nothing, just..." Twilight forced a smile. She and Starlight exchanged meaningful glances, that is, Twilight looked vaguely unwilling to say anything else, but this was one of those moments of unexplainable feeling that vanishes before you can even think about it. She sighed in an undertone. "I read that a full night of sleep lost is the equivalent to reducing your IQ by ten points."
"Oh yeah, it was a book on sleep deprivation and neuropsychology."
"Right. So when you're sleep-deprived you're prone to irrational decision making."
"That makes sense." But then a new thought struck Starlight, and she narrowed her eyes almost suspiciously. "Wait a minute, you asked if my evil past was due in part to a lack of sleep. What are you conveying there?"
"Nothing, nothing at all," said Twilight, dancing her eyes about as if to find something of capital interest. "Like I said, just a joke, nothing more; we've all got jokes to share, right?"
"I dunno if that's what you meant."
"Oh, come on! You told me you weren't offended."
"Ah, I know, I know," said Starlight distinctly, reverting her gaze back to the cereal bowl in front of her. "But... are you calling me irrational?"
"What I'm saying is that everypony is inclined to some irrationality, and, you know, that whole equality thing and the going-back-in-time fiasco was pretty senseless." She almost stopped here, but quickly added: "Which is why your redemption led you to think more clearly. See, proof that friendship's both ethical and logical."
Starlight stared somehow absentmindedly at Twilight, and was on the point of saying that she agreed—thinking it over, what Twilight said did in fact make sense—though she felt like she were gripped by a certain force.
"Of course, friendship is ethical," said Starlight, "and you obviously know what you're talking about, weighing in your past experiences and all that. But the mistakes I made weren't done out of some fundamental irrationality. I thought about my hatred for cutie marks every minute of every day for years. My own reasoning for doing what I did was completely developed in my mind. I mean, it was wrong," she suddenly caught up, "but even the most intelligent ponies can be wrong."
"No pony is absolutely consistent," said Twilight. "Princess Luna as Nightmare Moon, Discord when he sided with Tirek, Trixie and the Alicorn Amulet—you too." Twilight said these words gently and seriously, her face seemingly ready to flash a friendly smile. "Please don't get me wrong, Starlight, the last thing I'm doing is calling you stupid."
"Oh, no, no, I wasn't thinking that," chuckled Starlight, beginning in an access of simple-natured chatter. "You definitely weren't calling me stupid. Eh, maybe this is like one of your tougher magic lessons: I'm not understanding where you're coming from. I know what irrationality is, and in hindsight, I honestly don't feel it."
Twilight's eyes immediately made it known that she understood Starlight's position on the matter, and, unexpectedly, to the degree that suggested, little by little, she came to be eager to lay out her points for Starlight.
"Alright, how can we start this?" Twilight started off, pondering. "I know. For the two of us to be on the same page, we need to agree on what your presuppositions were."
"My presuppositions? There were a lot of 'em," said Starlight, looking carelessly at her own hooves.
"The worst things a pony could do is be motivated by irrational underpinnings," said Twilight almost mechanically. But she stared boldly into Starlight's face, continuing with some new-found animation. "It's the reason why foals are so much more inclined to temper tantrums than mares and stallions. We just need to agree on what your axiomatic presuppositions were when you decided to enslave that whole village. It's pretty easy. Just think back to—"
"Whoa, hold up a second. You said axio-something-what? Maybe I'm rustier in my Olde Ponish than I thought."
"It's not Olde Ponish," said Twilight, smirking. "I'm talking about axioms."
"Oh, right, sorry," said Starlight sheepishly. "Axioms. But I thought everypony held the same axioms." She gave a gesture of confusion. "How could you even function without following the same principles?"
"'I think, therefore I am.'"
"Um, what?"
"You know, the old saying from Starswirl the Bearded," said Twilight nonchalantly.
"Well, sure, but what does that have anything to do with axioms?"
"It's quite simple, my pupil," went on Twilight, a certain pride resembled on her face as she said that, which blazed out, brightly, from her eyes. Starlight had to restrain the instinct of rolling her eyes and paid close attention. "It follows the same pattern of 'A equals B, therefore B equals A.' The statement is logically sound—duh—but it only works if the first part is true. You just have to assume that A does in fact equal to B, or else the statement doesn't work; and there's no other statement to prove the former. You need some sort of truth underlying all that logic for it to work. It's my theory that your reasoning for equality was based off of rotten axioms."
"Oh boy, this is getting a little complicated," said Starlight with notes of reluctance ringing in her voice. "I mean, Twilight, I've thought long and hard about this stuff when I wrote my... eh... manifesto," she said with noticeable embarrassment. "A-and maybe you're right, but—I don't know. I can't see how my assumptions were irrational. Evil? Yes, of course, I'm not denying that! But lacking in logic? If that's the case I don't think I would have gotten as far as I did."
"But you readily tossed that thinking aside when I was able to reason with you," said Twilight, her voice highlighting a shade of peremptory undertones.
"Yes, yes you did reason with me," conceded Starlight. "Can't be disappointed about that."
Twilight looked at Starlight with a sincere, fixed stare, humming in thought. "Look, I..." she started to say but faltered for some reason. "Look at it from this perspective: you need to frame your beliefs properly. If you can't do that then it's no wonder you'd go out of your mind."
"You think I 'framed' my beliefs incorrectly?" asked Starlight.
"No, I think you didn't frame your beliefs at all. You predicated your past beliefs on the assumption that you knew everything."
"Wait, that's not tru—" Starlight nearly fully jumped in, but some strange thought involuntarily flashed in her mind.
"When you were running that village as their de facto leader, you have to ask yourself: did you believe that your knowledge extended to all there was to know about cutie marks? Did you ever admit to yourself that you could be wrong?"
"Well, I... I mean..." She was smiling nervously; but following a brief pause her face suddenly captured an air of desperate resolution. "No. Giving it some thought, back then I believed I was one hundred percent in the right."
"That's just it," said Twilight. "Tyrannical dictators like King Sombra or Nightmare Moon—the reason for their evil beliefs was the idea that they knew everything. Everything necessary. Look, I'm not trying to be a smart aleck when I say this, it's not spontaneous. In fact—let me fill you in on a little experiment I once did."
"Did it involve excessive reading?" remarked Starlight with near derisive composure.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "No, not exactly," she said. "I decided to play a 'game' with Spike. I went up to him and asked him to play. He said, 'Sure. What do you have in mind?' I then told him, 'Okay, you go first.' No, really, that's it. You go first. He totally didn't know what to do."
"Well, yeah," said Starlight, tilting her head. "I won't know what to do too if you don't even define the boundaries of the game."
"Exactly. In that moment Spike had an infinite amount of freedom. He could do anything. When you have no limits and your filter against endless possibilities is stripped you become stunned into immobility. Ponies just aren't made to handle the prospect of infinite knowledge. It's irrational. If that's your predominant axiom then it'll lead you to do all sorts of evil things. You have to frame your perceptions of the world, take on what you can chew. When you learned that there was so much more to friendship than what your resentment towards cutie marks led you to believe, you realized how much you didn't know; you acknowledged your ignorance, something that the bad guys never do; you took up the position of my pupil to uncover the hidden power of friendship. Is it really a coincidence that that happened right when you stopped trying to exercise your revenge plan against my friends and me?"
Everything Twilight said about being evil Starlight already knew. Sort of. That's to say, she was very sure she already knew this but could never properly articulate these sophisticated ideas to herself. At this point she, in this order, subconsciously nodded her head in surprising agreement throughout the little speech, was quiet for an awkward instance, and then, retracting herself with a twitch in her back, heaved a sigh and cast a glance of marked skepticism.
"I don't know if I can accept that," Starlight drawled out at length, as though her tongue were impossibly heavy.
"Hmm, okay then," said Twilight tactfully. She rubbed a hoof under her chin, at once lapsing into an off-the-cuff contemplation. "Maybe I could use a magic-related metaphor."
"It's not that," Starlight drawled out again, almost breathlessly this time. "My resentment wasn't some kind of irrational axiom that drove me to do what I did. I thought a lot—I do mean a lot—about my past, there's nothing I can say that's more truthful than that."
"I'm not saying you didn't think about what you did, but you were orientated in the wrong direction."
A mysterious change flashed over Starlight's eyes, one of evident trepidation, and, namely, one which was quite out of proportion to the necessity of the moment.
"I agree that I had my priorities wrong," she said with vague timidity. "But the idea you're tossing to me—that evil actions are what they are because of some fundamental irrationality—I wasn't like that, Twilight. And I... to think that I..." She suddenly became pale. "I have something I need to tell you, something I took away from my experiences as an evil dictator."
"You can tell me anything, Starlight," said Twilight, smiling. But the weightless pensiveness of her composure, Starlight noticed, reflected something of a premeditated nature, that's to say, it was as if Twilight bore some general sense of what Starlight wanted to express.
"This occurred to me after I moved into your castle," Starlight went on. She got halfway up from her seat, intending to stand, but thought better of it and sat back down. "What occurred to me wasn't just an inconvenience. It was probably the worst conclusion I could have ever come to, both morally and intellectually."
Twilight blinked, almost in a start. "The worst conclusion?" she said with dubious concern, the kind of response one makes to a friend when said friend exaggerates a remark for the sake of effect.
"I learned why I really wanted to usher in a society of absolute equality, and why I held so strongly to that group identity—to that group identity. It may have started when Sunburst left me, but it's something else," she spoke with an aimless air, as though she were searching for something specific, something abstract. "Something else kept pushing me in that direction."
Twilight slightly frowned. "We all have our reasons for doing things. Our motivations are immeasurably more complex than our explanations for them. Once you get that sorted out, in my opinion, that's when you can align yourself with the true values of friendship. It's the magic of friendship that—"
"Okay, okay! I don't need the whole speech," said Starlight quickly. But," she sighed, "I never made the right sacrifices."
Sacrifices? What sacrifices? thought Twilight, deigning to refrain from responding too soon.
"The main reason why no pony was truly happy in my village, and why they were happier after I left, was my refusal to make the appropriate sacrifices," said Starlight. "You need to make sacrifices, Twilight, you need to make sacrifices or your whole perception of a prosperous life will fall apart. Whenever you correct yourself, when you admit to your flaws and whenever you face the uncomfortable truth, it's like you're reborn again. That's why ponies like me, or you, or our friends are capable of improvement: we learn our lessons and change accordingly. It's not easy to do that, because that requires constant exposure of your beliefs to doubt and constant confrontation with what you don't understand. We improve when we sacrifice a piece of ourselves in exchange for wisdom, we do it all the time. I had to come to terms with that when I gave up my tirade against your connection to your friends, or when Trixie admitted to ranking below you just so she could make new friends. The motivation that drives the commission of the worst possible atrocities is the consequence of the unwillingness to dedicate yourself to the right—to the right sacrifices!"
Starlight paused to catch her breath. She had started off steadily, but towards the end she was speaking with fervent rapidity. Twilight exchanged glances with her, as if to get a good look at her; she was quite at the edge of her own seat, involuntarily enough.
"Don't you think you're exaggerating—just a tad?" said Twilight, mildly beside herself, but which she contained very well. "I've never read in a book this idea that you make sacrifices on a daily basis. A sacrifice is something special, something that takes a great deal of virtue to make. When Princess Celestia banished Princess Luna to the moon one thousand years ago—that was the biggest sacrifice she ever made, and the only one for the last millennium."
"Yes—I agree—but, Twilight—I meant something else," pronounced Starlight, laying stress on each syllable.
"Do you mean the smaller, more abstract and interpersonal 'sacrifices' ponies make?"
"Um... yes?" Starlight squeezed out, terribly unlike her usual taste and tact.
"Oh. Well, in that case," said Twilight, quite satisfied, "my point still stands. I don't think you need to sacrifice, say, hot water for a bubble bath just to act morally."
That's what Starlight was hoping against: a rebuttal.
"Okay, how else can I stack this up?" said Starlight again, almost breathlessly.
"You sure you're not just throwing up old platitudes to push the envelope?" put in Twilight with an edge of playful sarcasm.
Starlight gave Twilight a hard look; but she simply groaned and recollected herself. "No, not that," she said.
"So... was that bit about sacrifice the 'worst' conclusion you came to, 'intellectually and morally'?"
"I, uh, should've been clearer on that, but no; that was just me rambling; sorry," said Starlight quietly, yet with marked solemnity. She took a deep breath. "Suffering is essential to our existence," she enunciated like a soul appealing to some higher divinity, with nothing to lose and, moreover, quite out of proportion.
"Well, um—okay," said Twilight falteringly. "That's... some interesting insight... to say the least."
"Suffering is the inevitable consequence of our vulnerabilities. B-but, I mean, that's not a bad thing, at least not totally bad." Her tone suddenly dropped. "Ironically enough, I learned this after you befriended me, and even after I started hanging out with Trixie."
"What philosophy books have you been reading?" asked Twilight, tilting her head.
"Oh, nothing worth noting," said Starlight with a gesture. "It's just silly old me thinking about these existential life issues. And... heh... I had to, Twilight! For Celestia's sake, I nearly ended the whole universe because I was too stupid to see the truth."
"Be-cause your presuppositions conflicted with what's intrinsically reasonable," said Twilight gleefully, as though she had anticipated this. "That's what I've been saying, Starlight."
"No, no, no—it's not like that! The reason why I was so reluctant to see the flaws in my past behaviour—and especially why I held to my group identity—was to protect myself from my own vulnerabilities. You do it too, everypony does it! We're willing to do such awful things just to hide from our own limitations. It's only natural that the finite can't encapsulate the infinite; we are finite, and we can't deal with the paradox of infinity. Without flaws there's no story. If you're perfect and you can know and do everything—there's no story to tell, Twilight. Life is full of tragedy, and it's that very tragedy that gives us... love... and friendship." Starlight was starting to lose her breath again. "By your refusal to commit the proper sacrifices you assume you're already too perfect to improve, and if you do that then it'll lead you down the darkest road you can imagine. We're vulnerable, and that's tragic, but if that's the price to pay for existing then so be it.
"When you saved me from my self-reinforced condition of petty revenge and resentment—that was the best thing that could have happened to me—but the conclusion I came to from that experience, from the aftermath, was also the most terrible thing that could have happened to me. When we rely on our groups of shared beliefs, like my push for collectivized equality, it was to fill in the gaps."
"Gaps? I don't think I follow," said Twilight at length, without the slightest haste.
"If I were on my own with my pernicious beliefs then my end would have come very quickly and very tragically. Ponies, or any intelligent being for that matter, are willing to enact so many horrors, and it's no wonder. If you don't frame yourself properly—like you said, right?—then you can't act in the world. It's no wonder we go to any lengths to preserve group ideologies. And I... I thought: well, if you're too involved in defending your beliefs, then Celestia knows what you'll do in its defence. Once I developed my hatred for cutie marks it all just came crashing down for me, my defense against the infinity of possibility was stripped. I assumed that I could just make up my own reality. But if you bring yourself down that path, then... you know the rest. To say the least, I was entirely complicit in my own demise."
"Makes you wonder about our own group, with Spike and the others," said Twilight, who at this point had started to become incredulous.
"Oh... right," tittered Starlight, without taking the trouble to conceal the disappointing irony of her tone.
"But there is a way out," said Twilight again, with heart in every word. "I think it's the way out genuine and sincere friendship has been offering ponykind for thousands and thousands of years. The way out of your conundrum, imposed by the vulnerability of facing the unknown, is to strengthen your character through the wisdom of others. You've already read the journal my friends and I wrote up a while back, but you need to see the letters I sent to Celestia every week when I first came to Ponyville."
"I've been meaning to," said Starlight, a half-hearted smile spreading on her face.
"Listen, I'm not arguing for deterministic morals or anything like that," went on Twilight, her countenance resembling genuine disposition in many respects. "When I started writing letters to Princess Celestia every week—around the time I first came to Ponyville—it all became one giant lesson, a lesson which led to these—" She weakly flapped her wings for show. It was a small gesture, merely an act to allude the obvious; but one which, much to Twilight's surprise, set her heart at ease, and she wondered why ever since.
"I'm especially lucky for Princess Celestia's patience with me," continued Twilight with a greater air of personal dignity. "Month after month went by, and the lessons piled up. I learned to never lose faith in your friends when a massive dragon was sleeping in a nearby mountain; I learned that we can all find our hidden talents during my first Winter Wrap Up; I learned to always share your true feelings with your friends; to always expect the best from your friends; to always fight for the friendships you make along the way. To live out your experiences together—that, to me, is the best kind of friendship. The amalgamation of this wisdom is what brought me out of the abyss when Discord first took over.
"Starlight, the correlation between what I've learnt as a pony and my status as the Princess of Friendship is crystal clear. Please understand that I'm not saying this to drive a wedge between your personal beliefs, or, Celestia forbid, between us. I care more than anything about your progress as one of my very best friends. Everything I say I say with the same intentions Princess Celestia had for me all those years ago. To think, there's millions of diverse ponies in Equestria, and I've had the privilege of meeting you."
There was something gravely precise about the manner in which Starlight shifted in her seat, for reasons she could not understand. Her expression, one of a childlike good-naturedness and strong, frank feeling, resembled an all-knew artfulness and sincerity, and in that very moment she felt a sudden urge to say "thank you," but realized that the respond would likely come out as "what for?" And so she smiled warmly.
"It's because of you that so many of us have been reformed," Starlight, although now in a much more cordial mood, replied with a vague, obstinate shadow backdropped in the tones of her voice. "Me, Trixie, Discord, Princess Luna, and... and I..." She heaved a sigh from the bottom of her heart. "And I still don't know what I don't understand." The smile was short-lived.
"We're not flawless, Starlight," said Twilight, smirking.
"Makes the whole difference, doesn't it?" said Starlight. "I've seen ponies talk at length about their capacity for good. It almost sounds like a sugar-coated scam, like it's almost too good to be true. If you go till your face turns blue on why you're such a good pony, and never on your vices, there's some things you need to learn."
"We all have our different methods of learning. Besides—eh." Twilight paused to glance out the window. "We've been here a while."
"Oh, right, right," chuckled Starlight. "You've got your princess duties to attend to, and I ought to catch up on my reading. Been spending a little more time with Trixie than I'd like to admit," she ended with guiltily drooped ears.
"Sure thing. But before you go—" Twilight looked searchingly at Starlight "—I have to tell you something."
"Uh, sure, what is it?"
"When you mentioned our vulnerabilities as imperfect beings it reminded me of something."
"Really?" Starlight blinked, as if coming to her senses. "What did it remind you of?"
"Of me when I was a filly. Well, more specifically, what I thought about Spike when I first adopted him. Let's just say this morning chat of ours inspired me."
"You're getting me pretty curious."
"Let me tell you. When I first started taking care of Spike, he was only an infant, barely capable of leaving my side without crying about it. One thing that struck me about Spike was his—" she gestured a hoof at Starlight "—his vulnerabilities. I mean, really, he was just perfect, and I guess his 'perfection' was payment for taking on the responsibility of caring for him. Heh." She stifled a breathy laugh with a hoof, but her eyes started to become clearer. "Technically I was his parent; and as time came and went I thought about what that meant. Look, here's a baby dragon, and I'd have to chase after him all day when he got older, and he can get sick, he can get hurt, some ponies might be mean to him, he'll be disappointed at times. He was, and still is, vulnerable, and back then I took that as a grim constant. And then there was me, with my filly mind, I thought how I could improve him, remove his vulnerabilities. I would enlarge him to five meters tall, I'd give him a magic-based exo-skeleton, and iron scales, and maybe some magic of his own, and a specialized system in his lungs so he never runs out of flames. And... I mean, you could remove his vulnerabilities one by one—theoretically, of course. But then I realized that the more I removed his vulnerabilities, the more I removed the thing I love."
"Yeah, I..." Starlight began, mechanically, but instead she seized the moment to first exchange glances with Twilight. "I know what you mean."
"That's good to hear," replied Twilight. "This has been a good chat, I'm glad we shared it. So then, talk to you later today?"
"Definitely."
Starlight had settled on taking her cereal bowl with her to the library, and Twilight went on her way to her study. It was still very strange, Starlight went on to think some considerable time later. She could plunge herself into an infatuation with this particular idea of hers, she could spin out volumes upon volumes detailing what she really, really thought; but how would even that be enough?
In any case, there is not much else to add.
