Trial by Ash

by Flint-Lock

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sad, Thriller, Drama, Starlight Glimmer
Length: 3929

In the skies of a murdered world, Starlight Glimmer seeks redemption.

Starlight Glimmer, along with her best friend Twilight Sparkle, travels to the ash-smothered wasteland she inadvertently created. Her task: to make amends for the murder of an entire world.

Special thanks to Georg and BronyWriter for proofreading and editing!

Published 2018-01-24 07:10:07 UTC
Last updated 2018-01-24 07:10:07 UTC

And in the Emptiness, there's a Solution...

I did this.

Starlight Glimmer, ex-villain and student of Princess Twilight, looked down at the world she had murdered.

Once, the valley below her had probably been a nice place: maybe it had been a beautiful meadow, with lush, green grass peppered with wildflowers. Right in the middle of it all, a clear, blue lake, full of fish. Now it was pure nightmare fodder: a plain of wind-scoured rock smothered with ash, broken here and there by the occasional shrunken puddle of sludge. Like a shaken jigsaw puzzle, all of the individual pieces were still, but they’d been rearranged into a jumbled, lifeless mess.

A little further up the valley, Starlight could see a field of metallic skeletons that used to be the skyscrapers of a great city, sticking up from the ash dunes like rows of tombstones. A razor-sharp wind blew through the ruins, whistling through the rusting frames with an eerie moan. It was like the city was mourning its dead.

Though her physical body was laying on a bed back in Equestria, the unicorn could still feel her gut twist itself into knots. Sparks of dull purple guilt leaped from her glowing Core. She hadn’t personally destroyed this world- it hadn’t been her who cast the spell or started the war or done whatever it was that turned this world to ash- but her thoughtless tampering with causality had made it possible.

Why was this all still here? With the timeline restored, this world should have faded away like a bad dream. Yet here it was, chained to her soul in a way nopony really understood. For weeks, nightmares of ruined and ash-choked skies had lurked in her subconscious like predators, snapping at her dreams, stealing her sleep. No amount of warm milk or lullabies would drive them out; even Princess Luna hadn’t been able to help. It was like the multiverse itself was punishing her.

Not that she didn’t deserve it.

“Starlight?”

The unicorn turned her head to see the wispy form of Twilight Sparkle floating alongside her, a concerned look on her transparent face. Like herself, the alicorn princess of friendship — and adorkableness — looked more protozoan than pony, with a wispy, equine-shaped aura surrounding a glowing core.

“Yes, Twilight?” Starlight said.

“Are you…?” Twilight didn’t finish.The yellow sparks jumping from her Core said everything.

Starlight nodded. Her friend placed a ghostly hoof on the unicorn’s equally ghostly shoulder.

“Remember our exercises?”

Right. The exercises. Though she no longer had lungs, Starlight took a deep breath and pressed her two forehooves together. In her mind’s eye, she could see the self-loathing within her, like oily cobwebs gumming up her thoughts. She then imagined gathering up all of those horrible things, squeezing them into a ball, and hurling them into space.

Some of the tension eased, and a gentle sense of coolness flooded through starlight’s being, turning her core’s aura a semi-contented purple. Her non-existent stomach calmed down somewhat. The sparks of guilt slowly flickered out, sort of.

“Is that better?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s better.” Starlight opened her eyes once again, brows furrowed. She could hate herself all she wanted when they were done.

The alicorn gave a small smile. “So, Star, are we still on the right track?”

“Let me check.” With a thought and a pulse of magic, the unicorn stretched her mind’s eye thin across the ashscape. At first, there wasn’t much to sense; just the faint background magic, along with the occasional spark from magically-conductive rock, but if she concentrated, she could feel a…”warmth” somewhere to the northwest of their position, like a candle in a dark cave.

She nodded to Twilight,

“All right,” the unicorn nodded. “Lead the way!”

With that, of their respective Cores turned a fiery orange as they sped off towards the horizon. So far, it looked like Moondancer’s research had been right on the money. Pink sparks of hope jumped from her core. For once in her life, one of her ideas might actually work.

-

As she flew, Starlight placed her forehooves against her Core, relishing the gentle warmth it gave off. Everything she was, everything she had been, and everything she would be was contained in that tiny glowing orb. Separating it from her physical body had been incredibly risky- if it were destroyed, she’d be just an empty shell, but without a magic mirror, it had been the only way to travel to this lifeless wasteland.

In a way, it was fitting; what better way to travel to visit a dead world than as a ghost?

Time passed. At least, Starlight was pretty sure it was passing. The dim little orb that passed for a sun hadn’t moved since they’d materialized here. Below, the lifeless ashscape scrolled by. For a moment, it felt like she was watching a snapshot of a dusty, grey ocean, with troughs and crests of dust. Off on the horizon, the wind whipped up ash and dust into an ominous black cloud.

Without something to keep it anchored, Starlight’s mind began to wander a little bit, floating and bobbing like a raft in a stormy sea, before beaching itself on a particularly interesting thought.

“Twilight?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you something?”

Of course.”

“Why did you insist on coming with me?

When Starlight had proposed this little venture, nopony had been surprised when. Since fillyhood, her life had been one big string of harebrained ideas: brainwashing her friends, declaring a personal vendetta on cutie marks, messing with causality out of spite, etc. What had surprised everypony was that Twilight had not only approved it, she’d insisted on coming along.

“Why do you ask?” Twilight said.

“Twi, everything about this plan was risky. You knew it from the start. The trans-dimensional projection spell alone could have killed us a hundred times over. Even now, we’re still at risk.”

“What’s your point?”

“Twi, look at it this way; if something happens to me, that’s not that big of a deal; sure everypony I know will be sad, but Equestria itself will be alright. But if something happens to you, Equestria loses both a Princess and one of its greatest defenders! So why risk everything for this?”

Twilight smiled. “Because that’s what friends do.”

Starlight shook her head and chuckled, pink sparks jumping off her core like fleas. She should have guessed.

The wind suddenly picked up. Slowly, the ash storm stretched itself across the ash scape like a black, boiling bedsheet. Occasionally, a lightning bolt would crawl through the roiling clouds, followed by an angry boom like the roar of an enraged world.

Starlight winced. A tense, prickling sensation racing down the back of her neck. There was something... wrong with the storm. It was like whenever she looked at it, something was looking back.
Something caught Starlight’s eye. Her Core spat yellow sparks like an anxious sparkler. Faces. There were were faces in the storm. A boiling mass of ponies, changelings, griffons, all stretching out towards her like jurors on a bench, accusing her. The howling winds became a chorus of voices screaming “you killed me!” over and over again.

“Starlight!” Twilight flew in front of the unicorn’s face. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah...yeah, I’m okay.” Starlight lied through her teeth.

No, wait. Starlight shook her head. Once again, the storm was a shapeless blob. The faces, just billowing ash blown by the wind. That was all. It was just her imagination. Yep, just her silly old imagination playing a prank on her like it always did. That was all.

She almost believed it.

“Starlight, are you okay?”

“Yeah... yeah I’m fine,” she lied, trying to hide the sparks of anxiety that kept spitting out of her Core. “Just, a little uneasy from all of this... death.” Best not to let Twilight worry any more than she already was. Back home, the princesses’ blood pressure was probably reaching four digits.

She needed a distraction, now. Thankfully, there was already a thought nibbling at the back of her mind; one that had been there for a while.

“Hey, Twilight? Can I ask you something?”

“Anything, Star.”

“Do you like being a princess?”

Twilight was silent for a moment.” Do you promise not to tell?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a cupcake in my eye.” Starlight chanted, sticking a hoof through her right eye and out the back of her head.

“I see….” with a sigh, Twilight hung her head, ears pressed flat against her scalp. “The truth is, no, I don’t like being a Princess.” Twilight said in a voice little louder than a whisper. “ Every day, somepony is asking me to look over some new law or settle some dispute. Oh, Princess Twilight, please look at my proposal!’ Oh Princess, can you please help me with my neighbors?”’ Another sigh. “And just when it seems like I have time to relax, I have to go help save Equestria from another megalomaniac who wants to take over the world, because we apparently have an endless supply of them just laying around…no offense, Starlight.”

“None taken.”

Twilight huffed. “To tell the truth, sometimes... sometimes I just want to quit. I want to throw away my crown, lock myself in my bedchamber, and never come out. Forget all about Equestria, it can rule itself. But then I remember all of the ponies who depend on me. And how ”

“Heavy is the head that bears the crown, isn't it?”

“True,” Twilight sighed. “ Until I became a princess, I never realized just how heavy it was.” A slight smile spread across her face. “But at least I don’t have to bear it alone.” She rested a hoof on Starlight’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Twilight.” Sky-blue sparks popped off of Starlight’s Core. She’d needed that.

“Don’t mention it... murderer.”

“What?” Starlight recoiled, a wave of white-hot astonishment rippling throughout her envelope.

Where had that come from?

“What is it?” Twilight tilted her head.

“Why did you say that?”

“Say what?” Twilight lifted an eyebrow.

Starlight frowned. “You literally just called me a murderer!”

“I never said that!”

“What did you say immediately after I thanked you?”

“I…” Twilight put a hoof to her chin. “I don’t remember…” She sniffed, wiping something unseen off her cheek.

“Don’t remember.” Red sparks began to fly from Starlight’s Core. “How can you forget something that happened less than a bucking minute ago!” She stopped, slapping a hoof over her mouth. She hadn’t been that upset. Where had that anger come from? “Oh, Twilight, I’m so sorry... I... I don’t know…”

“It’s alright it’s alright.” The alicorn, sniffed, her face scrunched up. “Sorry, I just….I just need a minute.”

“Twilight...what’s going on? Is it because of what I said?”

“No it’s...it’s something else.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know!” Twilight’s core turned pulsed a dark, melancholy blue. “I guess it’s because they’re so lonely…”

“Twilight, who’s lonely? What are you—”

Before Starlight could finish her sentence, the world began to dim. She clapped her hooves over her ears. She could hear them in the storm. Voices. Thousands of them. Like a thousand mares, stallions, fillies, and colts were all screaming at once. Each time they screamed, it felt as though a little piece of Starlight was being chipped off, absorbed into the mass. Frantic, Starlight tried to maintain the little bubble of self around her, but it was like a colt trying to shore up a sand castle against the tide.

Give up. She should just give up. It was her fault that they had wound up like this, trapped between life and death. She should join them, share in the suffering she had helped to cause. It was the least she could do.

“I’m sorry!”

Twilight’s voice punched through the fog clouding Starlight’s brain. A bubble of destructive magic drove off the damned souls, and the next thing Starlight knew, she was floating just a few hooves above the top of the ash storm. Below her hooves, she could see a little vortex of ash swirling around and around, like a whirlpool... or a mouth.

“Stop... please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

Starlight whipped herself around to see Twilight engulfed in a filmy bubble of ash, her ghostly form curled up into a fetal position. Her barrel heaved. Thin streamers of light began to leak from her Core, slowly trickling down into the Storm like water through a stream.

“Please make it stop please make it stop,” she croaked.

“Twilight!” Starlight reached a hoof towards her friend, only for something to violently swat it away. “Twilight, fight it off!”

Nothing. Her friend remained in the fetal position, sobbing pathetically. Whatever this storm was, it wasn’t going to release its new prize. Not easily.

Frantic, she blasted the barrier with magic. A small, ragged hole appeared in its side, like a rip in an old gunny sack, only for the wound to seal itself shut.

“Let her go!” Starlight roared as she blasted the barrier repeatedly, as if the damned souls actually cared what she had to say. Twilight’s aura began to flicker and sputter. Color began to leach from her aura. Her Core began to shrink and dim.

Panting, Starlight floated off and let her mana reserves fill for a bit. Purplish light streamed through her body and into her horn, charging and charging magic, channeling it into her horn until it looked like she was balancing a small star on its tip. It’d probably seem stupid to an observer: using brute force when it clearly wasn’t working.

True, but as her great-grandfather once said, it wasn’t working because she wasn’t using enough of it.

Pressure began to build within Starlight’s Core, like she was trying to contain a supernova in a sarsaparilla bottle. With every bit of energy she could spare, Starlight pointed her horn towards the bubble, making sure not to hit Twilight’s Core directly, then released her hold on the contained magic. Abeam as fat as a tree trunk shot out of her horn and slammed into the storm. Ash flashed into vapor. For a moment, the faces returned, screaming in pain. Starlight ignored it. Eternal suffering or not, they had hurt one of her friends.

Once the beam dissipated, the ash bubble was gone. All that was left was a single, lavender orb of Twilight Sparkle, stripped of its envelope but otherwise unharmed. Quickly, Starlight snatched up the living essence of her friend and tapped into its internal mana reserves. Not too much, just enough to replace some of the magic she’d expended.

Dust and ash began to swirl up around them once again. Cradling Twilight’s soul in her hooves, Starlight charged her horn once again, then twisted her body around. A jet of magical energy shot out with an Equus-shaking boom, and a magenta comet rocketed towards the horizon.

Below them, the landscape whipped by almost too fast to be seen. A mach cone formed in front of the speeding mare, growing sharper and sharper until it bloomed into a shimmering sonic rainboom. Multi-colored shockwaves spread across the sky; the first bit of color this world had seen in a long time.

Like a leaking bucket, mana drained from Starlight’s body at an alarming rate. The core inside her began to dim and shrink. Before her reserves drained entirely, Starlight shut off the flow of magic, and the jet disappeared, leaving only a trail of sparkling purple motes. Being a spirit, Neightonian physics had no authority over them. Instead of slamming into the surface at hypersonic speeds, the two of them stopped instantly.

Carefully, Starlight released her friend’s core and gave it a gentle nudge. A translucent purple blob formed around the little sphere, stretching, squeezing, and pinching itself back into the shape of Twilight Sparkle.

“Stop, please, stop!” Twilight screamed, kicking and bucking reflexively as if fighting off some unseen predator. Black sparks jumped off her Core like excited fleas.

“Twilight! Twilight!” Starlight seized the princess by the shoulders and gave her a good shake.

“Twilight, it’s okay. It’s okay.” She embraced her friend They’re gone. You’re safe now. You’re safe now…”

Slowly, the black sparks faded away, and Twilight's Core returned to a more neutral color.

“I… I… thank you, Star,” she said with a smile

Starlight returned the gesture. “You’re welcome.” She started giggling uncontrollably. Twilight’s face scrunched up, the erupted in laughter bordering on hysteria. They’d made it. Sweet Celestia above, they were still alive!

“You know,” Starlight said, wiping unseen tears from her eyes. “That’s, what, the second time I’ve saved your flank?”

“I guess I’m getting rusty. What’ll be this time: half of my kingdom? A castle of your own?”

“Hmmm…” Starlight scratched her chin with her hoof. “You know what, I’ll settle for a milkshake at Hayburger instead.”

“Deal!” Twilight and Starlight hoof-bumped.

Starlight held up a hoof. There it was; an inexplicable feeling of rage, battering her like a storm. Red sparks began to jump from her core. Already, they could see the wind start to pick up, scouring the ash drifts.The already dull sky began to grow even darker.

“Horseapples,” Starlight grumbled.

“Come on!” Twilight motioned towards her. Needing no further encouragement, Starlight launched herself into the air, only for her form to flicker and sputter like a dying radio.

“Starlight!”

“I’m okay.” She groaned, pouring magical energy into her form, stoking her spiritual fires. That little escape of hers had drained a lot more mana than she was comfortable with.

“Here!” Twilight let loose a stream of raw mana. Once she was fueled up, Starlight and Twilight held hooves and launched themselves in the direction of the Fount, with death itself in hot pursuit.

The warmth grew hotter and hotter like they were a colt slowly inching closer to a fireplace. Just up ahead, they could see a thick grove of withered trees, somehow unburied by the ash. That was it. They were almost there! Just another kilometer!

“Move it, Sparkle, move it!” Starlight shouted as the ash storm closed in on them. Tendrils of ash and soot stretched out towards the two, lashing, whipping. Screaming faces popped in and out of the roiling mass.

Almost there…

One of the tendrils brushed against Starlight’s hoof. Another scraped her leg.

Al...most... there...

Something like an electric tingle washed over Starlight’s body. As soon as it passed, the world became still. Like the eye of a hurricane, the Storm still swirled around them like a furious, dusty ring. Everything was still. Uncannily still.The two of them set down. Starlight took a minute to regain her strength.

“Starlight…”

“What?”. A ghostly jaw dropped. There, right in the middle of the dying grove, was a clearing, like a bald spot on a full head of hair. And in the middle of that clearing was the thing they had come so far, and endured so much, to find.

The Well.

-

The Well both was and was not what Starlight what expected. One moment it was a jeweled cistern overflowing with blue light, another moment it was a ragged hole in the earth weeping tears of light. Then it was an old-fashioned well. Then it was all of them at once.

Starlight took a hoof step forward, jaw-slack. This... this was... what could she say? Every living thing in this world: ponies, parasprites, manticores, etc, had come from this spot. Back home, countless explorers had tried to find it, all failed. On a world full of life, finding it would be like trying to find a specific pebble in a rockslide. One a world with virtually no life, however...

Closing her jaw, Starlight took a hoofstep towards the Well, then another, until she was touching the mystical object. No reaction, but she could definitely feel the warmth it gave off, feel the life-force sleeping in it. The energy was there all right, it always would be, but it was locked up. Inert.

All it needed was a little push

Snapping out of her awe-induced trance, Starlight turned to Twilight and nodded. Slowly, the unicorn opened a tiny hole in her Core, and a thin stream of raw mana trickled out into the Well; tiny rivers of light feeding into a lake. This was probably the riskiest part; .too much, fade from this world entirely. Too little, and

At first, nothing happened. For a moment, Starlight’s stomach clenched. Was that it? Had their entire ordeal been for nothing?

As if it had heard Starlight’s doubts, the Well began to glow with a light that was not light. In that strange not-light, Starlight saw peace, serenity, love; a billion different shades of virtue shining through her. It was like life itself was being refracted through a prism.

Feathery tendrils of not-light leaped from the Well and pooled around Starlight and Twilight’s form, slowly soaking into them. It was like every birthday party, ever Hearthswarming, every friendly hug she’d ever received was being compressed into one, single instant. She was a jar, slowly being filled with life.

The feeling stopped. Starlight’s envelope sparkled with barely-contained life-force, a magical battery charged almost to the point of exploding. They turned to each other, nodded, then shot out of the protective bubble and through the Storm, punching a massive hole in the swirling prison. The substance of life itself soaked into the Storm, silencing the screams, soothing the damned souls. The screams stopped. Hate and despair were replaced by a feeling of acceptance and peace; The wind died down to a gentle breeze, and ashes drifted to the ground like snow.

Rest in peace.

Student and teacher crisscrossed the globe. Wherever they went, a curtain of glowing life-stuff soaked into the ground, soaking into the dead ash, rearranging dead carbon molecules into something much more useful. Before their eyes, the dunes became mounds of black, loamy soil. Caustic bogs became crystal-clear springs and lakes. Rivers cut through the ash scape once again. Some of the life-energy even soaked through the topsoil, past the bedrock, and into the planet’s crust. Slowly, like a magical motor turning over, the planet began to rotate once again. Day and Night had returned.

With the last of their energy, Starlight and Twilight rocketed into the ash clouds smothering the skies, focused the last of their light. There was a burst of light, and a shockwave followed by a massive thunderclap. They could feel magic coursing through the soot, scouring the filth from the sky. Beautiful, golden sunlight shone through once again.

With her power exhausted, Starlight set down on one of the hills of black earth, with Twilight touching down right beside her. The life energy was working fast; already, she could see tiny green shoots poking up through the loam as they soaked up the magic and life-enthused soil. Soon, insects would be reborn, then birds, then fish, then... who knows?

Though the feeling of utter bliss had vanished, Starlight wasn’t too upset by its loss. It had served its purpose. In its place, she could feel a pleasant coolness spreading through her body. It was like somepony has just taken a heavy load had been taken off of her back; one she hadn’t even known she was carrying.

As the planet reset itself, Starlight put a hoof on Twilight’s ghostly back, a contented smile on her face. Her friend returned the gesture.

I did this.

No. That wasn’t right. Starlight turned to the mare beside her.

We did this.

Author's Note

Inspired by Muzzy's "Spectrum"