Starlight was in a place she was vaguely familiar with, but her mind was in a haze. She stood in front of a two story stone house with long, rectangular windows, a wooden roof, and a matching door. Without looking back, she knew that there would be two rows of identical houses facing each other directly to her rear. She knew that this was a place of loneliness- moreover, that she somehow caused this empty feeling that hung in the air. She knew this, but couldn’t remember how she knew this.
She spun to examine the rows of buildings behind her, but they weren't. The houses that should have stood identically, side by side, didn’t stand at all. Taking their place was a grand nothing, stretching to the horizon. She whirled back, but the house that once stood alone was gone as well, replaced by nothingness. Starlight now stood in a vast expanse of absolutely nothing- a desolate desert of sand, with an eternally orange sky to match- wearing on forever in any direction. Not so much as a cloud in the sky, or a mountain in the distance. The looming feeling of emptiness grew as Starlight panicked, her usual cool headedness neutralized by an overwhelming dread.
Dread, dread- dread of what? Dread of... something. Something that was coming for her, kicking up dust as it screamed towards the helpless unicorn from the horizon. Something threatening and unknown- the kind of unknown that struck fear into anypony and everypony. A raging, monstrous beast of malice, a creature ripped straight from the darkest corner of Tartarus, only to be made worse by one’s own imagination struggling to know the unknown- to comprehend what it has yet to perceive. But Starlight did know one thing about this menace: it wanted her, and no amount of running or hiding could save her from it.
Starlight stared into the cloud of disturbed sand and dust, desperately wanting to know what it was that came for her, to sate the curiosity of her imminent fatality. What bell had tolled for her? What demon would be her executioner? For, of course she had been dubbed guilty, even before the trial began, and the sentence was inevitably death, with no protection from the cruelest of punishments.
At first, she could make out nothing more than the figure of a unicorn, not quite the color of pink, but rather a pale violet. Staring harder, she could make out that it was a mare, sporting a purple mane accented with teal streaks. She appeared familiar. She almost looked like... Starlight! She stared into her own eyes, which stared right back, filled with anger and hatred of an intensity Starlight didn’t know her own features could express. Her reaction should have been to run, but she knew running from herself was futile. She faced herself head-on, knowing that it wasn’t just herself, but all of her accompanying fears, secrets and lies. The demon that was her judge, jury, and executioner could have been none other than herself. Except the Starlight she saw was the embodiment of everything she hated about herself: every regret or concern, everything she wished to have said or left unsaid, everything she wished she could change about herself, all tied up with the vile past that defined her guilt.
Starlight watched helplessly as the cloud of dust blazed toward her at an incredible velocity, just short of Sonic-Rainboom speeds. It showed no signs of slowing or changing course, and Starlight braced for the impact. Just before the collision, Starlight got a split-second view of her own face, devoid of every emotion aside from hate. And then the two met, and all was black.
After a brief pause, Starlight mustered the courage to open the tightly pressed eyelids that she had clenched shut in fear, the way a filly closes her eyes and covers herself in blankets to hide from a dark closet. What she saw horrified her beyond any fear she had ever felt before. She was right back where she started, but now she recognized the tiny hamlet she used to call home. It looked the way it had before Princess Twilight had shown up and ruined it all.
No, not ruined. Starlight told herself. Not ruined, but liberated. But it had been ruined. That snobbish princess had no right to come in and disassemble all of Starlight’s hard work, and that filled her with rage- the same rage that she had seen in her doppelganger’s eyes, just before their collision and subsequent union.
That’s not true! Twilight came to help, and I was stuck in my ways. In fact, Starlight had been stuck in her ways- so stuck, that she had felt the need to exact her revenge on the princess that had come to take it all away. Proving this, Starlight noticed a mare lying in the street. She could just make out the sound of labored breaths originating from the figure. As Starlight got closer, a horrible truth hit her: that mare lying there was Twilight, her closest friend.
“Twilight!” Starlight called, skidding to a stop over the alicorn, somehow knowing that she was the reason this mare lay dying here. Twilight opened her eyelids to reveal a weak set of glistening purple eyes, laden with defeat and a crushing loneliness.
“You- you did this.” The princess just barely managed to get out before needing to gasp for air.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know! This is all my fault.” Starlight whimpered, tears streaking down her face.
“Yes, it is, and my-” She broke into a coughing fit, and Starlight saw blood twinged in that cough, and running on Twilight's lips. “My final act as princess will be to ensure nothing like this can ever happen again.” With this, Twilight’s horn lit one last time, unleashing a bolt on pure mana, striking Starlight with every ounce of energy left in her failing body. The last thing Starlight saw was that blinding flash of vengeful purple light.
Awaking with a start, Starlight bolted upright, throwing off the covers, and causing something in the room to topple over with the commotion, thudding as it hit the carpeted floor. Still on alert, the unicorn immediately looked to the source: a small purple dragon, startled by Starlight’s sudden outburst.
“Spike? What’re you doing in my room?” Starlight shot.
“C-coming to w-wake you up, like you asked me to.” Spike justified defensively, pulling himself to his feet.
“Oh, uh, sorry about that.” The mare apologized. “I just had an awful nightmare.”
“Yeah, I could see that. Twilight wants to see you after breakfast.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks.” Starlight called as the drake left, seeming slightly irritated- or maybe embarrassed- with the recent events. Starlight, herself, was also quite embarrassed. Nonetheless, she pulled herself out of the massive bed, shivering a bit as her body was exposed to the cold air of the castle. Being in a temperate region meant that even late Summer nights like the one just past could still get rather chilly on occasion, yet Twilight refused to light a fire, so as not to waste wood.
The sleep-deprived mare might as well have been a zombie wandering through the halls of the castle. In truth, she had gotten only slightly less sleep than normal, due to staying up late in the unnecessarily large library, looking for a book that she inevitably wouldn't find. Starlight would typically be able to deal with the loss of an hour or two of sleep, but nightmares tended to stunt the replenishment of energy that sleep provided, with her most recent one being particularly taxing.
Stumbling into the kitchen, Starlight opened the oven to find her already-prepared morning meal: pancakes, with just a touch of cinnamon. This was the same meal Spike had served her on her very first morning here, which she had naturally appointed as absurd. Who puts cinnamon in their pancakes? She had asked. Eventually- and with great convincing on both the chef and Twilight's parts- she reluctantly bit into them, and was dying to know the drake's recipe ever since. Spike desperately deserved more credit than he was given, especially considering not even Pinkie Pie could replicate the flavor that Spike would forever refuse to disclose the recipe of.
Starlight scarfed down the stack, chasing it down with a glass of water only because she needed the hydration, otherwise she would have been more than happy to let the taste linger as long as possible. Upon finishing, the plates were levitated over to the sink in a teal aura, and Starlight set off to find the Princess of Friendship in a castle that had only recently begun to seem traversable, both in size and pathfinding. Even now, it wasn't unfathomable for Starlight to get lost within the walls of the place she called home. She had, however, grown accustomed enough to regain her own bearing, rather than needing somepony to find her, which was almost always tasked to Spike.
Acting upon an educated guess, the first place checked for the whereabouts of the princess was the library, and Starlight was, of course, correct in that assumption. The library was not only a storage for one of Twilight's favorite pastimes, but also acted as her study, meaning the princess could be found here if she were to be either reading or filing some of her seemingly unending paperwork. Two in the place of one- making it the ideal first stop when one needed to find the princess.
"Hey, Twilight. I hear you need to see me?" Starlight called as she stepped through the arching library doorway.
"Did you have a nightmare last night?" Twilight inquired, jumping right to the point.
"Uh, yeah. Why, did Spike tell you?"
"No, but I had one, too. According to this letter from Princess Luna, so did the majority of Equestria." Twilight informed the mare who was entirely too tired to want to deal with something like this right now. Putting urgency before sleep, Starlight went along with it anyway.
"What does that mean for us?"
"Well, Luna seems to think this means there was a disturbance in the Dream Realm last night."
"I don't follow."
"Princess Luna believes that Equestria may be dealing with an indirect attack, which means that somepony- or something- is purposely disrupting the Dream Realm, and she hasn't the slightest clue why." Twilight gave a pause to allow the direness of the situation to set in.
"Wait, but isn't Princess Luna supposed to be the goddess of the Dream Realm or something?" Starlight questioned.
"No, surprisingly. Contrary to common belief, Luna is not in control of the dreams, but rather she exists as a peacekeeper of the realm. From the books I've read, entities such as Princess Luna have been appropriately dubbed with the term Dreamwalkers."
"Okay, but that still doesn't tell me what we're supposed to do about this." Starlight had begun to grow impatient due to her fatigue.
"I'm not entirely sure myself, to be honest. It is my understanding that she wants us to help her determine the cause of the disruption and put a stop to it, but it isn't properly explained as to just how she would like us to help. It is clear, however, that she will do her part from within the Dream Realm while we work from without. I suppose it would make sense to-" The princess was cut off as Starlight was presented with a sharp pain in her temples, akin to that of a sudden and severe migraine, causing her to yell in pain as she collapsed to the floor, pressing her forehooves to the sides of her head in a desperate but ultimately useless attempt to alleviate the pain.
"Starlight?!" Twilight called as she knet by her friend's side. "What is it? Are you okay? Starlight?!"
He came to in quite an unusual predicament, and with quite the headache. At first, he was led only to believe that he was in some sort of stasis, in which he had no control over his own body, and would give the outward appearance of a coma. That was before his eyelids snapped open without being urged to do so. The sight that greeted him was not necessarily terrifying, but rather unusually strange to the point of leaving him awestruck and speechless. In front of him lay a purple creature, possessing four legs and having the build of a... dog? No. It was more like a horse, or some other equine being in nature. It's eyes visibly filled with joy and relief upon noticing his own awakening.
"Oh, thank Celestia you're alright, Starlight!" Starlight? Who's Starlight? "I was about to send for a hospital stretcher. Are you alright?"
"My head is killing me, but I think I'll live. It must have been some kind of awful migraine." He said, but yet he wasn't the one who had done the speaking, nor had it been his own voice. As he began to perceive what was going on around him, he was hit with the startling overload of reality.
Then he fainted.
Twilight helped Starlight back onto her own hooves, allowing the mare to use her for support as she regained her senses. Starlight had a disconcertingly strong feeling of being watched... no, not quite that, but more along the lines of being accompanied by something aside from herself. Discounting Twilight, she could perceive another presence in the room, yet there was no real proof to confirm her thoughts.
"What happened?" The princess conveyed her concern with an instant curiosity, yet it wasn't one devoid of compassion.
"I don't really know. I was overcome by a sudden pain in my head, and then I blacked out."
"Do we need to have you checked out in the clinic?" Twilight offered.
"No, I think I'll be fine. Let's just get back to what we were doing." Starlight assured her.
"Alright, but the moment something feels off, let me know right away. Understood?"
"Got it." However, to Starlight's dismay, something already felt off. Well, 'off' wasn't quite the word for it, as it didn't feel unnatural, just different. Something had changed, but she couldn't put her hoof on it. It was almost a feeling of duality, as if she was still herself, but now had something more as well. She felt... more than whole , but words could not truly do justice to the feeling. It was just an experience. An experience that was far from over.
Author's Note
Imagine this as a 'teaser' of sorts, for there's much more to come.
Ps: feedback is welcome, as always!