No One's Star

Twilight wandered back into the library, tired after her day. She had tried to study, only to be picked up by Rarity for tea and discussion at Sugarcube Corner. After that, Pinkie had spotted her and asked her to help her taste-test some of the cakes she was making. Applejack had stopped by to drop off a shipment of apples and had waylaid her all the way back to Sweet Apple Acres for help with a problem in the well that only a unicorn could easily fix. Rainbow Dash had stopped by to show off some tricks to her and Applejack just because she wanted an audience, and once that had been done, Fluttershy had caught her on the road home to ask her if she knew of any good books about badger dating tips. She had some, so she had brought Fluttershy back to the library and that had devolved into having tea together, and she had just now gotten some time to herself! She was exhausted.

She turned on her radio, flipping through the frequencies until she found something interesting. It had picked up a lot of good channels in Canterlot, but most of them were classical or other types of things Unicorns really liked. She’d been hoping there was something fun out here in Ponyville, but many of the ponies here didn’t even know what a radio was. The only pony who was even into the sort of knowledge to do with radios was a silent white unicorn named DJ-Pon3? She was strange, and the conversations were always incredibly one-sided. She was knowledgeable, but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere whenever they talked.

Twilight rolled the knob back and forth, scratching through static for most of it, only to hit the single country music channel. She groaned and kept going.

“*KSHHHHH*-today we celebrate-*FZZZZZZZZZ*-no one knows-*HSSSSST*-murder Lily tonight-*NYEEEEEE*-grab yer partner by the ears-“ the radio buzzed. Wait, murder Lily? Wasn’t that one of the flower sisters she saw in the market all the time? Twilight spun the knob back to where she heard the comment about murder.

“-listens to me. There’s nopony else out there like me, and the ponies that do live around this Celestia-forsaken place are as empty-headed as you can find. There’s a group of them that ponies keep calling the elements of harmony now? Who believes that garbage. I’ll tell you who: Sheep!

“You can put sheep in a field and they’ll graze wherever they please, as long as it’s within sight of another sheep! They won’t go alone. They can’t be alone. It’s not in their natures. They simply can’t do it. You separate one, and it’ll live life like it wants, but give it any other sheep and it’ll join the flock faster than you can say you’ve never seen a sheep before.

“Out on Sweet Apple Acres you can find sheep and you can watch ‘em. Verify this for yourself if you want. One time, I tested my theory by stealing one and putting her alone in the Everfree. Poor thing didn’t last longer than a day away from her flock, let me tell you. She had a tough time, screaming and yelling while I was carrying her away, but she tried to get back to the rest as soon as I let her go.

“Anyway, if there were such a thing as an element of Harmony, wouldn’t ponies have heard about it before now? Wouldn’t there have been elements of harmony protecting us all these years? What about the floods on the coastline? The earthquakes? The mudslides, the forest fires. All those natural disasters? Where were these elements then to protect us?”

This pony sounded crazy, but Twilight couldn’t stop listening. A pony with access to a radio and the time and inclination to just ramble on about anything he wanted to anypony who would listen. It was like a train wreck she couldn’t look away from!

“Twilight, what is that you’re listening to?” Spike asked, looking up from his basket.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Spike. Did I wake you up?” Twilight said.

“Yeah, is that a Ponyville radio station?”

“It is. I’m not sure who it is, but the pony seems to be having some trouble with himself. He’s… disgruntled with life, I would say.”

Spike yawned. “Well turn it down, would ya? Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Sorry, Spike. I’ll turn it down.” Twilight turned the volume down and kept listening to the rambling pony.

“-should be a way to make everypony sit up and listen. With element of harmony that are just supposed to magically make our lives better, the ruler of this land of Equestria, Princess Celestia herself, is trying to tell us that nothing is wrong, or if something is wrong, then the elements will magically fix it.

“Now, that would be really nice, but I have a hard time swallowing this tripe. To that end, I’m going to conduct an experiment every week, to test if the elements of harmony really exist. I’ll be honest, I would be happy to be proven wrong. If something does exist that can make life better for everypony here in Ponyville, I would be delighted to see it prove itself. We were asked to believe that the elements of harmony stopped Nightmare Moon from returning, but was anypony witness to the event? No. Nopony was. We’re supposed to take six pony’s words for it, along with Princess Celestia. While she is the princess, I still take her words with a grain of salt.”

Twilight was aghast. Did this pony, whoever he was, truly think that Princess Celestia would lie to everypony just to make them happy? Did he really not think the elements of harmony existed? Twilight and her friends got together to use it to stop Nightmare Moon! The night that was supposed to last forever had been stopped in its tracks because of her, her friends, and the elements of harmony. How could anypony not believe it?

The late-night radio host droned on. “The experiment will be one of murder.”

Twilight couldn’t hold back a gasp. She glanced over at Spike, but he was sound asleep, curled up in his basket.

“I will murder one pony from Ponyville every week, starting with Lily, because I cannot think of anything more disharmonious than killing somepony. It stops their life in its tracks, harms their loved ones, and brings chaos, fear, and distrust to the community. It sows fear, foments chaos, and pushes ponies to desperation in order to protect themselves. If anypony is listening, I encourage you to alert the elements of harmony to me and my actions, and we shall see if this amazing power is able to stop me from doing what I plan to. If ever there was going to be a magical, evil-stopping force, let it find me. Lost Sun Radio, signing off, Ponyville. Goodnight and good morning.”

The signal disappeared, and static issued from the device. Twilight powered off the radio and set it aside, staring at the wall as she realized what she had just listened to. This pony on the radio, no matter who it was, claimed to be preparing to murder somepony. He (she assumed the voice was a stallion) was planning on killing Lily! But when? How? Tonight? Tomorrow?

Twilight couldn’t just barge into somepony’s house this early in the morning and tell them they were going to be murdered. That was crazy! She had no proof! Nothing except a radio signal that was long since gone. She’d wake somepony up, alert them, then what? What if the attempt was never made? Everypony would think she was crying wolf, and she’d be pegged as crazy.

Twilight jumped off her bed and went downstairs. Her hooves tapped on the wood of the library as she wandered in small circles around the table in the middle of the tree. She pondered what she had heard and tried to make sense of it somehow.

What did she know? She knew there was a pony, who went by the moniker of the Lost Sun, who had a radio station, who broadcast for short periods of time during the night, to talk about… what? Murder? This was the first time she’d ever found the radio station. Had it been going for a long time?

Twilight grinned. That was her first goal! Research! She needed to find out if this radio station existed before, or if this pony had only started talking when she and her friends became the elements of harmony!

With renewed vigor, Twilight dove into her books. She lit a small candle and began searching through them for something about Ponyville’s radio history, trying to find out when they had first acquired a radio station nearby, and how many ponies had radios in the village in the first place. She wasn’t expecting much, but she needed to gather something. Maybe a list of them.

The night went on, early into the morning hours, with Twilight reading, a stack of books growing near her as she read.

Unfortunately for Twilight, her library didn’t have much on the subject. The amount of information on Ponyville-specific radios was contained in a single volume, and only listed stations up until six years ago. Lost Sun Radio was not one of them, so this was a radio personality that had begun recently, and certainly hadn’t begun murdering.

Twilight yawned, eyes heavy, and looked out a window. The sun had risen while she read, and she hadn’t had a lick of sleep. She wanted to figure out what was going on with this radio station, but she had allowed herself to be distracted.

Spike pulled himself out of his bed and looked down at her from the top of the stairs. “Twilight? What are you doing? Did you not sleep?”

Twilight smiled a tired smile up at him. “No, unfortunately.”

“Why not?”

“You remember that radio station that woke you up in the middle of the night?”

Spike shook his head.

“Well, it claimed the host was going to murder Lily, but it didn’t mention when or where, and I was trying to discover more about it.”

“Twilight, it was a late-night radio show. It was probably just a joke to bring in viewers.”

Twilight hadn’t considered that it was all an act. He had sounded so sincere. “Oh… I hadn’t thought of that.”

“It’s late night stuff. You read about it in comics all the time. It’s shock value.”

“You… might be right.”

“Come on, Twilight. Get some rest. I’ll clean up, and you can maybe go talk to Lily or somepony when you’re feeling more alert.”

“Okay, you’re right. I’ll talk to Mayor Mare about radio stations here in Ponyville as well. She’d know more than I would, and maybe she’ll have a registry I can look at.”

“There you go! Thinking more clearly already!” Spike hopped down the steps and began cleaning up books, picking them up and filing them on the shelves.