The Light of the Star

In a humble little town in East Equestria, everypony in the local library is suddenly startled by a loud banging amongst the shelves. The librarian quickly trots over to the source of the ruckus and sees a lone unicorn filly with twin ponytails walking solemnly through the aisles, pulling books off their stands with her magic as she passes them.

"Starlight Glimmer!" the librarian says, "What in Equestria are you doing?"

The filly looks back at him and sees the mess she created, "Oh dear, I'm sorry, I-I didn't mean to!" she stammers as she begins to pick up the books she disturbed while the librarian grumbles angrily as he helps her. As they work, he fails to notice Starlight's tear-stained cheeks or red eyes; in fact, not many ponies in town have noticed her after everything that had happened in the past couple of weeks. . .

* * * *

"Wh-What do you mean you're moving?" Starlight asks the orange-coated colt standing on her doorstep.

"They're sending me to Canterlot," he replies, "To Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns."

"B-But that's so far away!" she says, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

"I know, but I don't really have a choice," he continues, "My parents say that a cutie mark is a wondrous thing, and whatever direction it takes me, they say I should follow it no matter what."

"But Sunburst," the filly pleads with her friend, "What about all the things we said we would do together? Like practice our magic or hang out after school?"

"I guess you'll just have to find somepony else to do those things with you," he suggests, "I'm sorry, but I should be going. the train for Canterlot leaves tomorrow, and I still need to pack." He begins trotting away from the door.

"Sunburst, wait!" Starlight calls out, the tears finally escaping as rain begins to fall.

"Goodbye, Starlight!" Sunburst calls back to his friend before galloping away for shelter, leaving a heart-broken filly in his wake.

* * * *

How can they be so wondrous if they can tear ponies apart like that? Starlight asks herself as she continues her walk around the library, paying closer attention to keeping her magical outbursts to a minimum. Ever since Sunburst left, she spends most of her time hiding from the world amongst her new friends: books. She finds that they are the only ones who will not judge her for what happened that dreadful day; even her own parents refuse to speak to her anymore.

"But you're so much better than him at magic, and he got his cutie mark before you did?!" they had said when they found out about Sunburst's new development. "Well, there must be something wrong with you, then," they added, and since then, they rarely even acknowledged her, as if they were ashamed of their failure of a daughter.

Starlight tries to forget everything that had happened by burying her face in the words of others, but nothing can keep the nagging voices in her head away. Something must be wrong with you, then; how can you live with yourself?; cutie marks are wondrous things. That last one still gets to her, and whenever she thinks about cutie marks, she gets so upset that her magic becomes out of control, as the poor books in the library only recently found out. She secretly hopes for a way out of her predicament, a way to ensure that nopony will think of her any lesser than she deserves.

As Starlight scans the various aisles, one particular book catches her eye; leather-bound and very worn, she takes the ancient book in her aura and gingerly brings it down to the floor. The cover displays stars following an inward spiral, of sorts; the title reads Spells of the Ancient Crypt by Star Swirl the Bearded. She keenly opens it and realizes that it is full of spells - both successful and failed - that Star Swirl himself attempted in his days, complete with copies of his notes about each one. Curious, she brings it up to the counter and presents it to the librarian, who monotonously checks it out for her, not caring or thinking hard about the transaction. Little does he realize the consequences of giving such a powerful book to such an equally-powerful young unicorn.

Rather than wasting her days in the library, Starlight now finds herself attached to Star Swirl's spellbook, reading about nearly every single spell in existence. Spells that can remove cutie marks; spells that create new cutie marks for blank flanks; even spells that can change time themselves. In her research, she finds one particular page about a spell that can open doors to other dimensions; this becomes the primary focus of her efforts. She studies day in and out, trying to perfect the spell, called a Trans-Dimensional Spell, for her own use; she desires to open a portal to another dimension long enough for her to pass through and leave her tragic circumstances behind her.

The day finally comes when Starlight will finally attempt the Trans-Dimensional Spell; all her efforts over the previous few weeks have been leading up to this moment. "Alright, here goes nothing!" she tells herself and fires up the spell, which takes most if not all of her concentration and focus. A small portal briefly opens up in front of her before quickly dissipating as quickly as it formed. More. . .focus, she thinks, forcing herself to concentrate even harder to the point that she feels like she will burst from the raw power she expels. Finally, after several minutes of concentration, she manages to create a portal stable enough to walk through. She prides herself in her accomplishment and takes one last look around her bedroom; "Goodbye, everypony," she says quietly and begins walking towards the portal.

Suddenly, the portal shimmers, as if there is some sort of activity just behind it; all of a sudden, a long arm sprouting strange appendages sticks out into the room through the portal. Starlight shrieks and scrambles back, breaking her concentration on the portal and causing it to fade away; she hides behind a stack of boxes as she hears a heavy pounding on the floorboards, indicating that the creature stepped into her room. She peers nervously over the tops of the boxes to see a pair of green eyes set into a sea of black staring back at her. She jumps, scattering the boxes and revealing the intruders; one is tall and lanky with unusual skin and appendages, the other long and black with dragon wings and green eyes. They see the filly and scramble away, too, to the other side of the room; "What's that?!" the tall creature exclaims while the black creature whimpers at the others' side.

Starlight bravely steps forward, shaking with fear, and asks, "W-what. .w-who. .a-are. . .you?"

The tall creature remains hesitant at first but eventually replies, "M-my name's Leo."

"I'm Starlight Glimmer," Starlight says, sticking her hoof out in greeting, which Leo takes hesitantly. "What are you?" she adds.

"Um, I'm a boy," Leo states, "and this is my night fury, Asger," he gestures to the other animal, who whimpers in response. "Wait, are you. . .really a-a pony?" he adds.

"Yes, I am. What happened to the portal?" Starlight asks, suddenly realizing that her one-way ticket out of her terrible life was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, you mean that shiny thing in the air?" he asks innocentlyWell, I think it disappeared when we went through it."

"Oh, really?" Starlight asks, suddenly growing impatient, "Well, why in Equestria did you go through it?! I could have been out of here, but you just had to ruin everything!" she shouts, startling the duo. They crawl further back into the corner of the room, looking terrified, but Starlight does not notice.

I can't believe my luck! she fumes to herself, Of course something like this would happen, preventing me from going away and leaving me stuck here with these freaks! she adds as she looks over at Leo and Asger. What she sees, however, is something she is not expecting; Leo holding his dragon for comfort, eyes sparkling with tears, with Asger almost consoling him.

"I miss Mom and Dad," he whispers, sobbing softly into Asger's neck.

Starlight immediately regrets her initial attitude towards the newcomers; despite having no place in a world like hers, they did not deserve such harsh treatment. After all, they had obviously been rudely stripped from wherever they came from, for which she feels personally responsible. Starlight realizes that, despite being a different species, they seem about the same age as herself and that, if she were in their position, she would probably feel just as scared and alone.

"Hey, don't cry," she says softly, "I'm sorry I yelled at you, and I'm sorry about bringing you here. But, we can be friends, if you'd like?" she adds, walking over to them and taking his appendage in her hoof. Although he was not looking directly at her, Starlight could feel the smaller appendages wrapping around her hoof. A little while later, she senses Leo's chest steadily rising and falling, and realizes that they must have cried themselves to sleep. Trembling with sobs of her own, Starlight squeezes Leo's appendage slightly tighter and whispers in his ear.

"Don't worry, Leo. I'll take good care of you while you're here."