Ch. 1: Do you miss your old home?
Starlight Glimmer was feeling quite relaxed that evening as she sat at the royal dinner table, facing her mentor. It was cold and dark inside the crystal castle, with only a few lit torches to warm up the air around them. She enjoyed moments like this, as it helped her calm down after her daily adventures outside. Her other friends, the five members of the Mane Six, would often leave the castle to sleep with their families or simply go back to their homes, leaving her, Twilight and her assistant dragon, Spike, alone in the silent castle at night.
"You know, Starlight," Twilight began, breaking the silence gently, "I used to live in the Ponyville Library before this castle was here." Using magic, she stirred her mug of tea nervously before continuing. "I used to run it, actually. It's funny, things were so different back then."
Starlight looked up from her warm mug, curious about the subject. "Really? What happened to it?" She rested her elbow on the table, wanting to hear more.
Twilight shifted in her chair, her memories causing her to frown. "Well, we had a battle against Tirek. When he went mad with power, he burnt down the library. It was a tree, so it was very flammable. Well, burnt down isn't the right word, he actually made it explode with a powerful beam. I barely just teleported myself from the blast."
Starlight was amazed and horrified, "Wow, that's horrible, but it sounds pretty epic, if you don't mind me saying." She took a sip of tea using her magic, leaning back into the shiny, crystal chair. "Do you miss your old home?"
The question made Twilight sigh. "I suppose I do, but I guess we just have to carry on, you know?" Twilight looked from her seat, up at the crystal decorations and expensive chandeliers with candles lit on them, reflecting a warm yellow light around the otherwise dark blue and purple dining room walls, making her feel a little regretful. "I did like the old, natural warm feel of the Golden Oak Library, though... We did salvage the library's roots."
"So THAT'S what that wooden thing stuck to the roof was," Starlight interrupted, rubbing her chin inquisitively.
"Hey!" Twilight snapped back, extremely offended, "It's not just some 'wooden thing!' That 'thing' was my home, and-!"
Starlight interrupted her. "Hey, hey, I didn't mean it like that, Twilight. You know I'm not the best with nice..." She turned her hoof around in the air to emphasize, "nicey nice words. I'm sure it was an amazing home for you. Sorry." Twilight held her breath, and nodded, exhaling again to release her annoyance.
"That's okay, Starlight, it's just... that tree meant a lot to me, and it still does. Of course, I don't let that get in the way of me making new memories here. My friends helped me learn that." Twilight looked up at the ceiling. Starlight followed her gaze, looking up at the beautifully constructed windows that represented some of Twilight's friends. They seemed to glitter gently in the moonlight, with white foggy light reflecting around the dining room. Starlight felt like she was entering a trance. The crystal fractal patterns that seemed to loom around the room, rotating into infinity, an endless cycle of...
Twilight's voice suddenly broke Starlight out of her trance. "Let me ask you something, Starlight." Starlight slowly looked down. Everything began to appear blurry for some reason, only barely making out Twilight's purple figure sitting across the table.
"Do you miss... your old home?" Twilight's voice called from across the blurry table. The blurring got worse, as the table appeared to melt into the crystal floor beneath it.
Starlight covered her eyes, trying to re-adjust her vision, to no avail. "T-Twilight? What do you mean? Twilight, what's happening?" Starlight kept rubbing her eyes in pain, trying to clear her blurry vision, but it only got worse. "Twilight!" She kept blinking, trying to make out what was in front of her. She couldn't understand why her vision was fading like this, was it tears, was it a spell?
The purple shade that was once her mentor began to twist and melt in front of her, morphing into a dark-blue blurry shadow that stretched and contorted in front of her. It appeared to be coming closer, with a growing, gaping black blur that looked like a mouth. Behind it, the walls appeared to be falling, crushing everything around Starlight. Starlight was horrified, and tried to scream for help, but nothing came out. She felt like she was underwater, as the horrifying dark-blue blur came closer and closer. It's dark face appeared to morph into a blurry silhouette of Twilight Sparkle's face, hinting a very greyed tint of purple in the dark-blue mist. Starlight fell on her back as she tried to back away from the monster, but felt as if her four hooves were tied and locked in position, the crystal chair melting under her and trapping her in it's molten mist. Multiple voices, in twisted pitches that resembled what once was her mentor Twilight Sparkle, began chattering and echoing around the melting room in a loud, powerful voice.
"Heed to my warning, Starlight Glimmer, as your crimes may be plenty! This is your chance to abandon your path, so that your life will be simple, and healthy!... Awake, Starlight Glimmer! Awake!"
The voice grew louder and louder, grinding in Starlight's ears. She couldn't cry, she couldn't scream, she couldn't do anything but be devoured by the growing darkness that filled the swirling room. In that final moment, her vision suddenly became extremely clear and sharp for a split second, more clear than she could ever see. Something horrifying, that resembled her mentor, covering her field of view, who appeared to be crying, or screaming, her purple fur with unhealthy patches of grey stretched along her skin, holding Starlight firmly with her hooves, with a dead melted look in her eyes up-close. It screamed, "CHANGE!" loudly at Starlight.
After that, Starlight could see nothing, and began to choke.
Some old bedsheets rustled loudly before Starlight popped her head out from under them, taking in a huge gasp of air. She reached out to turn on her lamp. She covered her eyes from the shining light temporarily, which were full of tears. She jumped off bed, wanting to tell somepony about her horrible experience immediately, shuffling her hooves nervously as she tried to find the crystal door.
But she couldn't find one.
As she started to pay more attention to her surroundings, she found that she wasn't in the castle anymore. She was in an old dusty room, with plain stone walls. The bed appeared to be quite old and wooden, too, and very uncomfortable. It felt eerily familiar to her, as if it were home.
"Wait, where am I?" Starlight asked herself. "Shouldn't I be in the..." She walked up to a small little blue window facing the bed. What she saw made her voice trail away weaky, and make her jaw drop in horror.
A row of old brick buildings with wooden roofs, facing each other with seven houses on each side of a dirty, sandy pathway in between. The houses were in a state of heavy disrepair, with purple banners hung on each house equally. In fact, minus their doors, each house were identical to the next. She recognized this town only too well. It was her town, or as it had been once known, "Our Town". She had once ruled this town with an iron hoof before, having tricked everypony that by being equal, they could be happy. It was a past that Starlight had long since wanted to forget and avoid repeating, and here she was again.
She was frozen in place for quite some time, until a knock on her door was heard. She shook her head and left her room, walking downstairs in this old, rugged home. Walking past an extremely simple kitchen, she arrived to what she remembered to be her main door, and opened it.
"Hey, Starlight!" a male voice called. There, standing in front of her, was Double Diamond, a completely white colt who lived in the town. He seemed a few months younger than she last rembered, and seemed somewhat...greyer.
"Double Diamond? What are you doing here?" Starlight asked, raising her eyebrow as she looked around anxiously.
"Well, I came to wake you up, Starlight." The white colt explained, "It's time to check on our visitors that you trapped last night." This made Starlight freeze again. She could barely believe what she was hearing.
"No no no no," she spluttered at him, "what are you talking about? I didn't send anypony to the..." Her voice tailed off again as she looked over him. Everypony in the town seemed to be walking around with horrifyingly unnatural big grins, some wearing dirty old vests. A horrible-looking muffin stand caught her eye, with some of the most horrible-looking muffins sitting on the trays. Starlight's eyes widened, she felt like her entire life as she knew it was gone.
"I-I need to go!" She said quickly. Breathing heavily, she ran back into her house and up into her bedroom, breathing fast and uncontrollably. She ran up to the small, bedroom mirror to reach for any paper bag she could find, inhaling and exhaling loudly into it. She looked into the mirror, finally seeing herself.
She had her old manestyle, the one that packed itself around her horn in a nerdy way. Seeing this added to her already heightened tension, as this was the mane-style she wore before she had turned her life around. No no no no no no, this can't be happening, this CAN'T be happening, she thought to herself while almost bursting the paper bag with heavy breathing. She stumbled backwards, and fell onto her bed.
She then made the mistake of looking up at the table across her bed, where six glowing jars simply sat on each other, stacked neatly like a house of cards. There were the six cutie marks of her friends in there. A cloud with a rainbow thunder-strike from it, from Rainbow Dash. She remembered how she used to learn how to "chillax" with her. Fluttershy's was there too, and filled her head with memories of how she learnt how to handle animals, and enjoy picnics in the green fields. Pinkie Pie's cutie mark, with it's three balloons, seemed to hit her gut as she remembered the times she tried baking with her. Applejack's three-apple cutie mark stared her in the face, along with Rarity's. And then there was Twilight's cutie mark, sitting to the very right of them all, shining with an immense, purple glow, trapped in it's container. Her mentor's cutie mark...
Something in Starlight's head snapped from the tension, and she started screaming. Screaming and screaming she dug her head into the bed and kept screaming, muffled in the mattress, unable to think properly. Every time she dug her face into the mattress, the scarred image of Twilight's horrifying, greyed blurry face kept re-surfacing from the darkness of the sheets, and vanishing when she lifted her head again to breathe. She wanted to wake up, she was convinced that this must be some kind of horrible dream, that she'l wake up, and be able to tell Twilight about it, and forget this scene forever, and maybe even learn a friendship lesson.
But no matter how much times she buried her head into the bed the jars wouldn't go away. She began crying, she couldn't handle this. She could have sworn that she would've woken up in the castle, and meet her friends and live happily. She didn't want to re-live this moment again.
A warm, comforting arm wrapped itself around her back. She looked up to see the white stallion from earlier patting her back. "What's wrong, Starlight?" He asked, "C'mon, this is a happy town. What's there to be sad about?"
Starlight wanted to say a million things back, but she could only gulp and choke on her tears. She looked up at him, grabbing Double Diamond by his shoulders, shaking him back and forth in distress. "NOTHING is fine here! This is ALL wrong! I'm..-I'm so sorry!"
Double diamond was confused by her behaviour, and quickly backed off. He couldn't understand how this confident leader of equality had become a sad, babbling mess overnight. "What are you talking about, Starlight? You run our town, you TOLD us that being equal was the right way. Come on," he snorted, turning around to leave the room, "we've got to check on our guests! You were gonna check on them an hour ago to see if they've accepted our, uh, philosophy. Anyway Starlight, see you at the re-conformation house." He shrugged to himself and left Starlight on her own. He only made it to the bottom of the stairs before she heard Starlight screaming again.
"GUESTS?!"
Quick as a flash, Starlight Glimmer rushed out of bed downstairs coming face-to-face with the stallion.
"T-Take me to them, I need to set things RIGHT!" She was breathing heavily down his muzzle, her heartbeat racing dangerously. He was visibly confused and worried by her behaviour, so he quickly walked with her to the end of the strip of buildings, in front of the building where the "guests" were trapped.
Starlight ran towards the door, opening it hastily. She found Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle all laying on the floor weakly on the floor inside the cold chamber, tired and exhausted. That's when Starlight remembered only too well, how she had forced them into this room for going against her ideology of extreme equality. But... why where they here again? Why was she leading the village again? Shaking her thoughts aside, she bolted inside, to the surprise of the rest of the village, and began to apologize profusely to Twilight and the others, leaving them extremely confused around her.
Twilight looked weakly up at her, blinking in confusion. "I'm glad you've seen the error in your ways, Starlight Glimmer, but what do you mean, we were friends?"
Starlight helped Twilight to stand, almost choking in her tears as she explained how they had forced her out of her village, and how she tried to break their friendship by stopping the magic rainboom using time travel, and how Twilight stopped her, and instead became her friend. Twilight and the others were extremely confused, clearly not sharing these memories Starlight seemed to have.
"I'm sorry Starlight, this sounds quite amazing and all, but we never did anything together." Twilight said.
"YEAH" Rainbow Dash butted in angrily, "except for like, TRAPPING us and taking away our cutie marks!" She fluttered above the ground softly, crossing her arms in a very angry way. "Not exactly something a friend would do, ya know."
"I know, I know, I'm realy sorry. But... if we were never friends... That means... That means..." Starlight looked down, beginning to realize the severity of the situation.
"It means you never knew us, sugerpot." AppleJack said. Of course, she meant to say sugercube, but her lack of a cutie mark seemed to affect her accent at that moment.
Twilight continued Applejack's train of thought more clearly. "Starlight, it means that you never did any of those things. Maybe it was some kind of gut feeling trying to warn you, where you felt so guilty for what you did to us, you had a long frightening dream imagining what would happen if you didn't stop all this.'
Starlight began to cry. "But...that means.. we were never...friends...and I never got to meet...my childhood friend... Or get Trixie as a best friend... Oh Trixie, I can't lose Trixie...!"
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "You know about Trixie? But that's impossible... We KNOW her. And I'm pretty sure I would never let you be HER friend, no offence. She's kind of a bad egg."
"But you did!" Starlight exclaimed, "And you found it very hard to, and, and I got to meet the other princesses, Celestia and...and the other one!"
"Luna?" Rarity asked from behind her.
"Yeah, her!" Starlight said excitedly, "She's the one who controls the uhhh, the moon, and... and dreams..."
Her voice trailed off as she began to slowly understand what was going on. "And... Dreams..." she said again, looking down at the dusty floor.
"Starlight..." Twilight said slowly, rubbing Starlight's back comfortingly with a hoof. "It's alright. We can still be friends. If anything, it means you can do everything again. The right way." She gave an encouraging wink and a pat on Starlight's back, leading Starlight outside the damp dusty room and out into town.
"Maybe..." Starlight said hopefully, "This was Luna's way of... warning me of all the heartache and trouble I would go through, if I didn't listen to your advice. She gave me a dream so... vivid... and horrifying... yet amazing... That I would want to be your friend. She showed me how amazing friendship feels that I'd end up changing my ways so that I could get that feeling back. I... I don't want to lose you all, even though it wasn't real, I'm just..." She fell on her rump onto the floor, wiping her eyes. "I don't know what's real anymore! I just want everything to be back to normal. I-I-...I want to learn more about friendship again!" She began to cry, and the entire village began crowding around to watch their leader slowly going mad with sadness on the floor.
"Wait, are you saying their kind of friendship is good, Starlight?" asked Suger Belle from the crowd. Starlight looked up at them. Their battered clothes, their horrible village. This was no way to live, she thought, and nodded.
"It's true, friends. I've been... a terrible leader to you all. I... shouldn't be your leader, I should never have been." Starlight slowly stood up, talking to her crowd with a more clear voice, more confident that she was setting things right, using everything she seemed to have learnt from her dreams and her mentor within them. "I've been leading you using very selfish personal desires of mine. Being different doesn't make you lose your friendship, far from it. Instead, it's better to appreciate and take interest in what makes each other special. It's okay to like some ponies more than others, it's okay to have friends that you choose. You don't need somepony else to choose a friend for you. I'm sure that Princess Twilight Sparkle here can give you a better explanation than I ever can. You all-... You all need to fend for yourselves, I... I can't do this anymore! You're all getting your cutie marks back, and I'm leaving forever!"
After her broken and disjointed speech, Starlight quickly turned around, and began to run towards the cave nearby, tears running down her cheeks as she only desired to set things right as soon as possible. Twilight and the others were surprised, they didn't think they'd find escaping this easy, but they couldn't help but feel sorry for Starlight.
"I think it's quite clear," Rarity commented out of nowhere, "that the poor dear has simply gone mad. I mean, making friends with US, after all that nonsense and trapping us. I'm still quite upset with how she treated us prior."
"I don't know what to think," Twilight said. "On one hand, she was an evil leader who seems to be misunderstood, but everything she told us back there, it felt too real to be just an ordinary dream. Perhaps Luna really did give her those dreams of us being friends. In fact, maybe Luna saw our discomforting dreams last night, and realized we were captured! So she gave Starlight a long, painful dream about being our friends, so she would become extremely attached to us and let us go. What an amazing rescue plan. I never would've thought of that."
"That's because you can't enter other ponies' dreams, Twi', so you obviously wouldn't think of doing it," dead-panned Applejack behind her.
"Oh, right." Twilight said, and then turned around towards the town. "Well, we better go and explain everything to the village ponies. I'm pretty sure they're even more confused than we are. Just look at their faces..."
Indeed, the village ponies were all shocked, and had no idea what do to. As far as they knew, their leader had just cried and barked at them with something about forgiveness and friendship, and then abandoned them. What COULD they do?
"Listen up, everypony." Twilight called out, attracting the attention of the townsfolk. "Today marks a very special day in your lives. You're going to have to learn to live very differently. Rather than pretending that you're all perfectly equal, you're going to instead respect each other's specialities and talents, as well as your own. You can choose your friends, rather than have them being chosen for you. Your leader, Starlight, she... well, she has seen the error of her ways, and-"
A voice called out from the crowd. It was sugar-belle. "Does that mean I get to make pies?"
Twilight was taken by surprise, and nodded, trying to hide her cute little smirk. "Yes, yes it does. Now, as I was saying-"
Another pony called out from the crowd, one who would later be known as Party Favour. "Wait, so I can do lots of fun party stuff, instead of like, boring stuff all the time?"
"Yes." Twilight answered again patiently. "And that goes the same for everypony else. You don't need to pretend to do something you aren't good at anymore. You can start being yourselves. I'm sure it will take a while, but, you'l get used to it eventually. And please, go easy on your friend Starlight. I think she's had quite a nasty self-evaluation of herself, so she needs a while to re-cooperate properly. I think she might be a little unstable for a while, so try to be nice and understanding."
As she finished speaking, all the towns-ponies gasped. It sounded as if there were magical flying fireworks flying through the air. Flying, glowing cutie marks were flying through the air, and landed on the town-ponies' flanks, replacing their equal-signs that they had been cursed with prior. They all floated a few feet off the ground while shining brightly, retaining their previous, beautiful colours, before falling back to the ground looking much more different and vibrant than before.
"I think she went to break the cutie mark vault to restore everypony's cutie mark." Said Fluttershy, who had been standing there silently in the corner this whole time. "She really does seem sorry. It's so weird, too. I saw her smiling and chuckling in a really evil way last night, she hid our cutie marks in her home! I think they're still in there, actually... She's acting so different now. I hope she gets better."
"Speaking of our cutie marks," Twilight interjected, "it's time to get our cutie marks back!" Twilight said, beginning to march towards Starlight's home. "Come on, girls."
They entered her home, and found their cutie marks trapped in their jars, packed neatly on the table in the bedroom. They both took their cutie marks and opened the jars, letting their respective cutie mark fly and re-attach itself onto their flanks, making them sigh with relief. Rainbow Dash did a loop-de-loop in the air, glad that she could get flying again.
"This is great!" Rainbow yelled, "Look at me go, woo!" She then fluttered down to the floorboards next to her friends. "Can we go already? I'm sick of this place."
They turned to leave, but found Starlight staring at them in the doorway. They gasped, Fluttershy and Rarity falling over backwards in surprise. "This wasn't some kind of trap, was it?" Rainbow called out. But then they looked at Starlight's face, and realized she wasn't being a threat at all.
Starlight was panting in the doorway of her bedroom, out of breath, having to lean on the door for support. She had just arrived after freeing the cutie marks from the vault nearby. Her eyes were red from crying with disbelief, her mane was visibly and painfully torn apart. Apparently, on her way there, she had tried to pull her own hair out to make it appear less than the thick, neat mane-style that it did before, with some of the stray hairs sticking out and covering her left eye from a very ugly mid-parting. She began to stutter in between heavy breaths. "Please... don't... leave... me..."
The mane six exchanged horrified looks at each other, as if egging each other to say something nice. Finally, Twilight took a confident step forward, and spoke reassuringly. "Starlight, I don't exactly know what you saw in your dreams, but after your acts of selflessness today, I think it's safe to say that you have truly changed. I don't mind becoming your friend. Besides, I was going to offer you that all along." She looked around, making sure the others were on the same page, nudging some of them to nod in agreement. "In fact," Twilight continued, "As the princess of friendship, I hereby invite you to come back with us to our castle in Ponyville. Maybe you could tell us more about these adventures you've dreamed of, they sound quite interesting. After all, I see no reason why we shouldn't make the good ones a reality." Twilight winked, and continued. "It will also help you calm down and take some time off from the village, too. Which by the way, I'm sure it can take care of itself after some friendly advice from us to help them get started."
Starlight Glimmer wobbled her lip, shaking in place. This was a lot to take in for her. She felt a rush of emotion from Twilight’s accepting speech, but she couldn’t express it properly. She simply froze in place, breathing rapidly.
"Come on everypony!" Pinkie Pie chimed in with her usual smiles, especially thanks to her cutie mark being returned, "I know a pony that needs a hug when I see one, and this pony needs a BIG hug!" She jumped towards the distraught purple-haired unicorn, giving her a big hug around her neck. The others smiled, joining in, surrounding Starlight Glimmer in a big, warm hug.
That was exactly what Starlight needed. If she had any tears left, they now came out as tears of joy, and her sadness quickly turned into excitement for the new future that lay ahead of her.
This was her second chance, and she was determined not to make the same mistakes again.
Author's Note
I guess this is where it ends. I don't think this is a new idea, but I thought it was a cute AU to think and write about. This was pretty rushed though, but I don't know what else to write about.
If people do end up liking this garbage, I'll consider making a continuation about the Mane Six trying to cheer up Starlight by re-creating the good times they had in her dreams.
