Ponyville, Equestria
The Year 17 after the Day of Shadow

Seventeen years of war.
Seventeen years after the Elements of Harmony disappeared.

Princess Twilight's Castle - empty. The Council of Friendship - abandoned. The Map of Harmony - silent.

The streets of Ponyville lie in darkness, under a moon that's rising on its own, in the shadow of a wall that shouldn't be there.
It - the wall - has been built for war, like many of recent constructions, and is circling the town like an overgrown circus arena, descending on the inside.
In the little spaces that remain, countless refugees have built their little shelters - usually three stores worth of two-room-apartements with tight little racks and a tiny oven, the reef raising upwards like a bunch of uniformed pine trees.

In one of the dark backyards buried behind these shelters, there was a small vegetable garden, surrounded by a park, enclosed with high iron fences. It formed the front of a tall, dark terrace of bizarre format - three different buildings from different time periods, poorly shoved into one another with a single, barely lit portal as entrance.
Usually, it was very quiet and lonely there, but tonight, a hooded pony in a dark green robe was emerging from the shadow and trotted across the pebble-stone path towards the little round portal.

A doorbell was rung - three times and a half - and a little peephole in the door opened. Two gloomy blue eyes looked outside.

"Which is your heart's desire, thee who enters here?", a gruff voice declared in a pompous tone. "What mission doth thou put upon yourself?"

The hooded figure gave a short sigh, but then exclaimed in a (slightly less pompous) voice: "To grow the plant of rest and contemplation, for all of those who seek the hidden garden."

"Have gracious spirits smoothed thy path to us," the doorkeeper continued, "or tethered countless ills the hooves beneath thy crown?"

The hooded mare made a pause, pawing the pebble-stones beneath her hoof: "I... had a fairly good journey, all things considered! Dry. Unbothered by criminals. Too many flickering lanterns for my taste..."
"Then entrance you will find inside our chambers, and gratitude may find your every doing!"

"That's nice, I guess... wait, wasn't that a syllable too much? And what's about the widow's foal?"
Now the doorkeeper hesitated.

"What's about him?", he asked.

"Does he need help?", the hooded mare repeated. "You know: Is there no help for the poor widow's foal?... Secret hoofshakes, hidden amuletts, ugly tattoos on your foreleg... anything else we need to do?"

A minute of agonizing silence.

Then the doorkeeper released a little, desperate cry: "... I... I've botched it up, haven't I?"

"It's no big deal-", the hooded mare tried to say, before a series of angry punches loudly overshadowed her voice.

"My. First. Day. On. Duty. And. I. Blow it!!!"

"Oh, for pony's sake!"

The visitor lifted her hood and ignited the long mauve horn on her forehead.
A cloud of purple magic flew up the door and inside, lifting the doorkeeper - a short hazelnut pony with auburn curls - up to the peephole, forcing him to gaze into two dark blue rings wrinkled by age.

"Look - I have said the words, you see who I am... would you just announce me to your higher ups already?"

The stallion, though nodding, gave a very disappointed glance sideways.

"Oh, alright... So chase with haste upon your master's chamber, and make it known to all who care to listen, that Starlight Glimmer, Sorceress of the court, will come with service and with good advice. "

A happy tear ran over the earth pony's cheek, and as soon as she let him fall, he was galloping up the stairs... leaving Starlight behind, the door still closed.

The unicorn tapped three more times against the dark wood, then retreated. "Alas, dear doorkeeper, I knew thee not!"

A little time later, Starlight was trotting down a spacious hallway, decorated with plenty of comfy chairs and dark blue curtains. Once in a while, those were interrupted by a violet banner, showing a round yellow emblem. On it, a dark blue alicorn with flowing mane and tail was holding a black and white crystal, forever symbolizing the duality of good and evil.
The Poor Fellow-Ponies of the Night and the Selenic Temple, Starlight thought. Also known as "the Nightmares".
She couldn't help but feel massively impressed, despite the awkward show back at the portal.

Before her, the short and stocky doorkeeper (which had introduced himself as Brother Nutcrack) still tried to look dignified while pushing a dolly with dirty blankets around.
On Starlight's question to the why he only answered: "To be among my kin."

Eventually, they reached the other end of the hallway, where a tall, slender mare stepped out of the neighbouring corridor.
Wearing a long, blueberry cowl and a bright blue cloak over it, a tightly knit hood covering the head, she seemed strong and ageless at first - only a little older than Starlight herself.
But when they came closer, her weariness showed itself, from the bleak ashen face to the lethargic-looking purple eyes, that wouldn't quite fit the bright pink mane under her hood. And if she hadn't shook her big wings, Starlight would not even have taken her for a pegasus - so earth-bound and depressing was her overall demeanor, when she looked at Starlight with these melancholic eyes.
"Most Marvellous Miss Glimmer", Brother Nutcrack loudly declared, "Might I introduce thee to our dear preceptor and abbess: Tirania of Ponydad, who wished your presence in these sacred halls of dream... Now if thee excuse me... I have to do a ritual washing or two..."
And off he went with shrieking wheels.

Even though her visit had been requested, Starlight felt a little intimidated right now, if just by the cold welcome she had gotten. After a short exchange of formalities, Tirania then wordlessly pointed towards the staircase and asked her to follow upstairs.
Their goal was at the south wing, a slanting tower of several square blocks. They went up as high as they could, before taking a small door out on a balcony. There, they turned to the right and followed another row of wooden stairs around the building up to its top, where there was an ungarnished cube of bricks with a single steel door to the south.
Starlight could grasp a short glimpse of some darkened windows right next to it, when they were already stepping in.

They entered a quadratic chamber, barely lit with glowing crystals. Most of the corner was filled by a giant old oven, heating up the room to tropical temperatures. Spread over the shadowy floor were flower buckets as big as a pony, filled to the brim with dark rich earth and light splinters of wood.

A light-blue Zebra stallion (wearing the same cowl as Tirania) leaned over them, pouring out bright blue gravel into each of the pots.
Noticing the visitors, he glanced up and stopped in his tracks. He gave a brief bow to Starlight, before he turned to Tirania, the hooves clapping in excitement.

"Do the stars for once stand in our favour, Sister? Can it really be?"

"Indeed, Brother Quaggas", Sister Tirania exclaimed. "Miss Glimmer is honouring us with a sample of Luna's famous moon lavender."

The stallion gasped, and Starlight hurried up to untie the small sac on her waist, then levitating it right into Brother Quaggas' hoof.
The Zebra opened the bundle with his teeth: A volumious heap of little grey seeds and bright violet blossoms popped out and spread a gentle, sweet odor through the stuffy warm air.
Brother Quaggas took a good breath of that smell, then carefully put the sac on a nearby desk and reached out for a band right next to the wall.

Blinds on the outside of the building unfolded, and suddenly, the floor and the flower pots on it were covered by the most beautiful colours. The garish, pale moonlight fell through a row of stain glass windows and was taking the form of an endless grey mountain range, varied only by small tints of green and blue. As on the tapestry back in the hallway, a dark blue alicorn stood front and center, behind her the emptiness of space, speckled with stars and planets and sprinkling nebulas.

The sheer amount of details and nuances left Starlight in pure paralysis. "I... I don't think even the Royal Palace has windows quite like these", she finally uttered, stepping closer just to catch a look at Jupiter far on the eastern firnament.

Sister Tirania gave a mischievous little smile - the sort of smile usually not expected on bony faces. "Our enchanters have only followed the instructions in your book, Lady Glimmer. Even they would have been helpless without the knowledge you passed on."

"I did very little", Starlight responded in all sincerity. "Most of that came from Luna. Even if I tried, I could never craft such glasses. Or such colours..."

Her glance went over the blank spaces... long stretches of nothing between subtle tints of cyan and mulberry.

Every other artist would have used a substitute colour of matching darkness. Even master craftsponies could not create a consistent black field or let it flow seemlessly into lighter colours.

But here, she found a jet black that remained translucent.
That should have been impossible, and it went beyond anything she had found in Luna's notes.

And therefore, even though she could not hide her amazement, Starlight still felt a nasty sense of doubt nagging at her brain:
Someone ambitious was at work in these halls... someone with an immense power or an insane talent for chemistry, that was able to trump an alicorn princess. It was absolutely insane.

Well, at least the light seemingly had no immediate negative effects. On the contrary, Starlight felt her spirits being softly uplifted. As if the idea of the giant vaccuum outside the planet were actually an assuasive thing...

"They'll answer their purpose either way", she finally said. "They're going to dissolve the moonbeams into their individual magical particles. That way, the moon lavender can absorb them, reconnect them..."

"... and spread them as pollen all across the room, to better the dreams of all who sleep in it", Brother Quaggas closed in gleeful expectation. "A true miracle of modern medicine. Some say it even gives you entry into unknown parts of your mind."

"I don't know about that, but they are very relaxing for sure."

"And they'll hopefully bring our mission to the next level", Sister Tirania stated in an anxious tone, when she took some of the seeds with her wing feathers and carefully put them into the dark soil. Brother Quaggas, using a wooden dibble, went on to do the same with the pots at the other side of the room.
Starlight watched them for a time, once in a while glimpsing back to the stain glass window.

"I must say... your arrival here in Ponyville was really unexpected", she eventually revealed. "Princess Fluttershy and I weren't aware that Princess Luna had... a cult following, so to speak. She wasn't as out-going as her sister, after all."

"Indeed", Tirana replied calmly. "But the Order of the Nightmares is far older than you think.
We formed more than two hundred years ago, in a time when Luna was still trapped on the moon. We came from the backlands of Horspaña far in the west, in the Selenic Mountains where the moon ends his run. Back then, we were only a small order of simple scientists and philosophers, and our domain were sleep and all aspects of astronomy. We were preparing for the return of Nightmare Moon, which had been foretold a long time ago."

"But Nightmare Moon was defeated by somepony else!", Starlight exclaimed. "Why are you still here?"

Starlight could see a shadow form on Tirania's face. "To persevere", the abess stated.

"To persevere? For what?"

"For everything!" Tirania sharply declared , her purple eyes creepily reflecting the dim light of the crystals. "The night may be peaceful now, but Luna has never forgotten what she was capable of. She was always aware of the evils out there in the world...", her voice came down to a whisper, "... and within oneself."

"... I know", Starlight answered after a while. She disliked the abrupt mood shift and felt not inclined to deepen that particular subject, especially with a religious person.

After silence had stretched the time just a little bit more, Tirania continued, more reserved this time.
"It was my tenth year in the order when she first came to St. Selena and talked with us about our research. I still remember how enthused she was about our studies, and all the papers about sleep we had written and collected in her absence. As a sign of her appreciation, she taught us about the art of enchantement and led us to studies we had never even considered before, like the secrets of the mind and the effect of meditation. For fourteen years, we flourished under her guidance.
Then, seventeen years ago, it was all put up to a test. The dreaded sleeping sickness had infested the lands around our monastery. Princess Luna approached us and offered her famous lavender - and other of her artifacts - as material for a very complex treatment. When it showed positive results, she gave us more and more samples of the lavender, and said that when we had cured the plague and found its source, she would return ... and help us to wipe it out."

Tirania for a moment kept staring in the air, as if her soul had left that old body and had gone back to brighter and more youthful days.
Then she sighed. "But ... as you can imagine... she never came back. The lavender would eventually run out, as we never learned how to cultivate it, and we had to rely on our other methods... until today."

Her gaze went back to Starlight, slowly turning from ecstatic mystical heat to simple curiosity. "I see you surprised. Has she really never told you about us?"

"No, she hasn't," Starlight replied offhand. "It was probably too soon. I'd only been her protégé for three years before she... vanished."
She did her best to rid her voice of the bitterness and envy she felt. It wasn't her right to distrust her mentor, but in this moment she really couldn't grasp why Luna had kept this a secret...
"Maybe she felt she could handle it on her own."

"A likely assumption", Tirania remarked empathically. "She was rather independent. And after all: No pony would have expected the impending danger." She suddenly swallowed. "Were you..."

"I wasn't there at the time", Starlight interrupted her, more harshly this time. "And I have no idea what happened to my friends or Luna or Celestia. And before you go silent and all - you're not the first one to ask, and yes, you are apologized. But could we now please move on? We haven't all evening after all, and you did not just request me to deliver some plants, didn't you?"

"... Right!", Tirania answered after a moment of surprise." Well, we did cure the plague and followed it into other regions, building several branches and winning new members in the process. The sleeping sickness was mostly gone, but we discovered another plague: disturbing nightmares, spreading alongside the war and haunting the days and nights of ponies everywhere. The dragons didn't bother us when we moved eastwards, but more and more we got the feeling that we had to leave Horspaña and get to the source of the problem. When we heard how severe it had gotten even in Equestria, we asked the Princess for permission to build our preceptory."
Tirania made a pause, biting her lips. "And here we are, still in the process of build-up, but already with a very... strange case under our care."

"But if I ain't mistaking, it's not exactly nightmares that are the problem here", Starlight asked, drawing the invitation letter from her pocket. "You've described it as 'heavy panic attacks, combined with visual hallucinations and gradual paranoia, causing sleeplessness and severe hopelessness."

Tirania nodded in grieve. "Yes. And she's young, Lady Glimmer - so young! Too young for such insanity. We've done our best to calm her down, but there is something that might be out of our depths... something only you can help with."

"I will do what I can", Starlight answered immediately. "If my magic can right it, I won't give it a second thought."

Tirania sighed in response and, shaking her head, poured out another sweep of seeds.
"Your boldness is admirable, and I do, in fact, believe your magic could help her. " She made a short pause, longer this time. "If you're still taking cutie marks away, that is."

A little while later, the two went down a quiet corridor and followed a chain of numbered doors until they finally reached a single room on the far end.

Gently, Tirania pushed Starlight towards the handle.
"She's probably sleeping... We had her talk with some psychiatrists earlier, so she might still be tired. You better approach her more carefully in that case," she added cautiously. "No hasty movements. Act confident and without fear..."

"Now that's gonna be easy!" Starlight murmured.

"... and you better don't touch her - she's not ready for that!"

Neither am I, Starlight added in her head. If only Twilight were here. Or Fluttershy... But princesses nowadays don't get invested with the crowds anymore.
So, as usual, she held back her instincts and jumped right into the fire, opening the door with a soft swift of her magic.

The room was almost pitch-black - only a small block of luminescent crystal threw some light over the small wooden bed on its side.
There, tightly bound under a glistening blanket, was Starry Eye - a slender little Earth Pony with ill-looking white fur and boney ankles. Her leaf-green hair sat on her head like a helmet, but it wasn't thick enough to hide the signs of pain in her face.

Besides the bed sat what was presumably her mother - an Eastern Unicorn mare, big and stocky, the mane tied to a bun, but in everything else the very picture of the girl. Her hoof rested on Starry Eye's forehead, and deep shadows surrounded the almond shape of her eyes.

She half-jumped when Starlight entered, and at first she made a very hostile impression. Though she was clearly not a Ponyville native, Kelly Stern apparently had heard rumors about some of Starlight's more controversial deeds, and was afraid the court magician would try something potentially dangerous on her daughter. Only when Starlight swore to not take action without verbal permission, Kelly Stern reluctantly stepped back.

She lifted the blanket with her hoof and ignited her horn to light things up.

"There it is - that blast'd thing! ", she growled in her broad accent, pointing in a dark corner deep under the wool.

Starlight followed her light, and at first she was a little confused. The "blasted thing" looked more like a six-angled starfish.
But the more and more she looked, the more uneasy she felt.

Were it the arms, stiff as needles and sharp as knifes?
Were it the colors, a shriekish purple and the white of fletched teeth?
Or were it, that the little dots on its surface seemed to be... MOVING?

That couldn't be! Starlight had to close her eyes and blink.
When she opened them again, the dots were perfectly still... or weren't they?

Starlight couldn't quite tell. Sure, the light could play tricks on her, but whenever she moved her eyes a little, the little dots seemed to be... shaking... shuffling...

A little disturbed already, Starlight let wander her magic higher up on the flank. She recked her neck and looked on the other side of the Cutie Mark.
As a whole, it didn't resemble a starfish as much as a sun clock, or a cobblestone picture on a plaza... if it weren't for the big black point in the center.

It - and this time Starlight wasn't mistaken - reflected the light Starlight threw at it, as if it were a three-dimensional hill on the skin!

For a moment, Starlight couldn't breath. She felt, as if she had looked in the eye of darkness itself - a wild, beastly presence that would wipe out life itself without even acknowledging its existence.

Starlight suddenly felt the urge to destroy it. To beat it in the gut and throw it back to where it came from.
She could not recall to have had such emotions ever before... and yet, it seemed familiar: something that had always been there, and rightfully so. It was a raw, physical reaction, removed from any empathy or sentient decision - nothing but brute animalism, tempting in its simplicity.

This has to be dark magic of a very special kind, Starlight thought, when she had finally managed to shove it away.
Taking another deep breath, she went on to scan the body, while Kelly Stern in her back kept the eyes on every move.

The signs became more and more obvious...

"What does happen when you touch the mark?" Starlight suddenly asked.
For a time, she had contemplated not asking that question, but it had interested her ever since Tirania brought it up.

Kelly Stern's ears instantly grew red as she heard it.
"What - what do ya think of me... Ah could never..."

"You are her mother!", Starlight rebuked her in a sharp whisper. "Don't tell me you never touched it at least by accident... when you tried to comfort her... or kept her up when she fainted..."

Too late Starlight realized that she had make a big mistake.
"Never mind."
While Kelly Stern turned away to hide her tears, Starlight nervously continued.

Her magic slowly hovered above the flank and - besides the remains of dark magic - revealed some other, even more disturbing details: little scars on her ankle, red bruises on her thigh, dirty little spots of dust and grain, as if some pony had attempted to rub it off on the street, and a thick blue effusion on the knee cap which (to Starlight's horror) was shaped like a horseshoe...

"D-did she...?"

"Yes, " a very light voice answered.

... Starlight slowly raised her head and looked into some of the most lifeless, flat eyes she had ever seen: long, sharp eye lashes, two solid circles of purple, one about the other, and a pupil as tiny as the hole in a camera obscura. As they pierced her, they reminded Starlight of a puppet: emotionless and glassy.

However, when Starlight's horror flew by, she noticed the deep wrinkles contorting the face into a sad frown, and her disgust was exchanged with pity.
What a shame to judge a little girl by her looks, when she was so afraid...

"We didn't intend to wake you up", she stated gentle and pushed herself carefully on the edge of the bed. "I'm Starlight Glimmer, Sorceress of the Court in Canterlot."

Starry Eye slowly nodded, but also gave a scared glance to her mother.

Kelly Stern returned the glance and approached the magician.

"Ma'am - Ah must insist that ya just give us the diagnosis and then leave us alone! My daughter hadn't had a good sleep for four days, and Ah am not going to waste her bed time for another psycho-talk."

But Starlight ignored her, forcing herself into a broad smile that hopefully would find a welcome.
"I want to help you, Starry Eye. I'm very experienced with cutie marks and all ways of pony magic. I've already took a look on your cutie mark from the outside, but I also need to know about your perspective. How are you feeling?"

Starry sank a little deeper into her sheets, giving no response at all.

"Have Ya even heard me, Miss Glimmer?"

"It's okay", Starlight continued. "You don't have to fear me! I just want your best."

"... but that's the problem", Starry Eye finally whispered.

"What?"
"THAT is the problem. That... That you want my best - THAT's the problem."

"I don't quite understand", Starlight stated in mild puzzlement. "What do you mean by that?"

Starry stared at her emptily, but her breathing was getting notably heavier. When Starlight was coming closer, she finally pressed her eyes together and said:
"It's because I am a bucking mental! There - you get it?"
...

The words kept hanging in the air like a mic drop. While Kelly Stern was groaning in the background, all Starlight could think was: Teenager.

Strangely enough, it didn't repel her - rather the opposite.

She cleared her throat.

"Well, if you mean 'mental' as in 'mentally disturbed' - you're absolutely right. But in my opinion, that's not quite the same." She let her words sink for a moment.
"Let's start over, shall we? I need to know when and how you got your Cutie Mark. Can you tell me the whole story?"

Starry - not as good with words and possibly a little ashamed of her outburst - gave an unsure look to her mother again, who - after an approving gaze by Starlight - reluctantly resigned.

"She got it nearly three weeks ago", she answered. "Stars had just come back from playing with her friend. Pretty tired, like she'd always been. So Ah asked her to lay down for a bit.
Ah went to the oven to make some tea for us, when Ah suddenly heard that darn rumbling from the living room. And that screaming... Sweet Celestia, Ah haven't heard her screaming like that since... ever!
Ah dropped everything and came back to find her on the floor - shoving herself around like fish in a pool of quicksand. She was yelling for something to 'get away'. Something in her dreams, Ah think.
It was around that time my husband came home, and together we helped her back on the couch. Then..."

She swallowed for a moment.
"... Then Ah touched her flank by accident. Ya can't imagine how loud she got! She went really hard on us. Kicking around like a buckball champ... all sobbing and crying... hit me right in the muzzle, and Ah useless thing was crying, too. It was a nightmare!
And then, the neighbors come swarming in through the open door, like a herd of locusts, and suddenly, we can barely move a flank. All that noise, and that constant mumbling and rumbling, and Starry Eye between all of that, crying even more...
Ah swear - Ah was losing it! Made them all shut up right that instance. Asked them to wait outside 'til the dust had settled. Some won't come to dinner anymore", she added with a slight smile, "but I don't care that much. When the last one of them was gone, my dear Parcel Post had finally tugged Stars in that blanket and she was calming down.
And then... then we saw that mark, and... well, Ah'm sure we had the same thought: It wasn't going to get better.
Soon, we could barely get her out of bed. She would not take visitors anymore, and her friends would stay away to give her some space... but she still felt this bucking pain. Sometimes, she'd start crying out of the blue, but couldn't tell why, and other times, she suddenly stopped her meal and would not finish for the rest of the day, because she felt so sick..."
Her voice broke for a moment, as her throat released a sharp, raspy sound and she had to brace herself once more.
"We should have come here weeks ago! If Ah just hadn't been such a balky mule..."

Starlight gave a soft nod, signaling her to stop.
She herself had to keep her emotions from overwhelming her, as it reminded her of a very dark time in her life.

For others, three weeks didn't seem long, but it was more than enough to screw you up completely - she had learned that the hard way.

She looked at Starry Eye again, who - during her mother's tale - had slowly moved towards the darkest corner of her bed, tugging the blanket into her hooves.

"You were fighting with something?", Starlight went on. " Something your mother couldn't see?"

"... I saw nothing", Starry Eye slowly replied. " 'Twas just a dream."

She was obviously lying - Starlight felt it. "Well, even if it's just a dream - you HAVE TO tell me. If you can remember it, of course."

Starry Eye turned away, her small forehead wrinkled in fear. After a while she said: "I'd like to... but I can't."

"Are you serious?"

"I haven't seen it yet. It's just... a brute. Like a massive wall. A big dark something. I can't hear what it's saying... but I can feel it. Every move is like a cut in my head."

"And it is saying something? How does it sound like?"

No answer again, but it was clear that she at least was looking for an answer now - slowly licking her lips while she sought for words.

Starlight chose to try a new direction, as she wanted to bring that interigation to a quick end. "You were a late bloomer, weren't you?"

Starry Eye listened up, then hesitantly nodded. "My friends had their cutie marks two years ago, at least", she whimpered, a far too familiar tone in her voice. "Sunny and Mani and Guina..."

"But apparently they're still playing with you", Starlight reminded her, as she felt that would cheer her up. "And they came for you when you were in pain. They didn't abandon you. That's something, right?... Right?"

... Starry Eye did not hear her anymore.

Her quivering limbs suddenly paralized, and her throat let out a dark, unarticulated sound, half whining, half coughing. The broken mirror of her eye - clear and sharp before - now blurred and ran over like a cup of wine, emptied on the floor, the purple flickering and splashing from the inside.

Then Starry Eye screamed, and it was like a howling hydra in Starlight's ears.

One for one they rose from the abyss - her childhood in Sire's Hollow, her lonely days all by herself in the valley, her wicked speeches to what would soon become her minions... pictures, sounds, feelings... long rows of overlapping pictures, turning into a hopeless cry, a vengeful laughter... never ending... never...

"No... NO!!!"

Her horn literally blew up, and as it did, a white wave of magic dipped over their heads and then splashed out again, filling the room with a pool of sizzling sparkles.

For one trippling moment they rotated like a carousel, then burst into little flashes and blinked out of existence.

After the last of them had popped that way, there was no other sound left in the room than Starlight, rubbing her forehead from the sudden shock.

Glimpsing around, she saw Starry Eye in the bed, Kelly Stern on the ground and Tirania at the door - all staring emptily in Starlight's direction who slowly realized what had happened.

"Oh... it's Fiducia Compellus again, isn't it?", she uttered. "O-okay, don't worry - I got that! Just a minute..."

She let out another wave of magic, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw Starry Eye coming back into motion.
The little filly was severly blinking at first, but when her eyes fell on Starlight, her face turned a dark shade of grimson.

"What the buck were you doing? First you do that... that thing to me and then you just put me under mind control? How dare you!"

"That wasn't my intend", Starlight apologized. "I just wanted to calm you down, but... this was the first spell that came to my mind, and... it somehow worked."

"It worked, alright! It totally worked!" Starry's body was shaking again, but with anger this time. "I-I can't stand this anymore! All that whining and caring and cheering me up... it's driving me crazy! Why can't you just... leave me alone or something."

Starlight could almost not bear to look at her. She looked to Kelly Stern, who rubbed her forehead like Starlight had done, and Tirania, whose slit eyes conveyed a merciful, but still stern disapproval.
As she had every right to - Starlight had botched it up.

And yet - as she looked over all the facts she had garnered - the answer seemingly lay only one question away from her.

She turned to Starry Eye. "I'm very, very sorry! ", she emphasized. "And I understand that you are frustrated - I would be, too. But I have to ask you one more thing before we part ways. That bruises on your flank... that terrible pain... can you feel any of it right now?"

Starry Eye seemed confused, looking down on herself as she pondered. "Erm... no..."

"But you felt it, when we talked about your friends, didn't you? Or when your neighbors came to see you."

"... yeah ..." Starry's eye brows curled up, as she remembered. "...think so... doesn't make any sense, now you're mentioning it..."

"I wouldn't say so... in fact, you've given me a very definitive answer. Thanks for your endurance!"
Starlight stood up and turned to Kelly Stern, whose face wore the signs of a heavy migraine. "I think I can tell now what's going on here!"

She expected the bulky unicorn to decline any further dialogue, being instantly repulsed or disgusted by her methods. But the expression on her face was none of that - just the unrepressed care of a mother.

"... Ah don't know if ya're a genius, or a madmare, or anything else. But please tell me ya can fix her! Ah... ah can't stand seeing her like that!"

Starlight braced herself, as she put the vague pieces together into what had to be a legitimate diagnosis.
"I'm afraid your daughter is infected by some sort of curse - a very, very dark one, I believe. It has ingrained over her actual cutie mark and now feeds on it, like a parasite. That means, whenever your daughter will use her special talent, that curse will be there, biting into her flesh and causing her the same pain you witnessed right now. It'll never consume her completely, I think (as a pony's talent isn't something you can just swallow up). But it will destroy her enjoyment of it, and over time, might repel her from ever using it again. This way, she'll never live up to her full potential and will be even worse off than a blank flank."

Silence.

Kelly Stern's athletic body remained frozen in place, but the heart behind these muscles was shaken to the core.

"My daughter has been with the Cutie Mark Crusaders for four years now", she remarked in a tone of devastation. "She's the last of her class that hasn't gotten her mark yet. Ah've heard her crying to sleep sometimes. Ah haven't been the most friendly to ya, but... if ya can do anything... just rip it off - please!"

"I can't."

"But ya sure did so before - an entire village no less!"

"I didn't really rip them off", Starlight yelled. "I just switched them with a curse mark that numbed their special talent to a point where they almost forgot what it was. Do you really want me to do the same to Starry Eye - DO YOU?"

Kelly Stern looked to her daughter in the bed, than back to Starlight. "Then switch between us - my marks for hers!", she suggested.

"What?"

"Ah'm dead-serious!"

"Don't do that, Mom!", Starry Eye shouted.

"Will ya don't tell me what to do, young lady!"

"I won't let you do this!"

"We're talking about your damn future here!"

"And what's about Dad?", Starry Eye yelled. "And the twins? What will become of them? You want to give all of that up just for me? I'd rather die!"

Kelly Stern pressed her eyes shut, the tears running over again. Sister Tirania offered a wing, and she buried her muzzle into it, sniffling like a child.

The real child watched her - the cheeks red of heat, yet seemingly convinced of her point, that no personal pain would ever be as important as her family.

She looked back at Starlight again, and her face expressed a gentle, but firm determination that bordered on trust. "You really can't do anything else, can you?"

"I'm afraid not", Starlight answered sincerely, "not for now. But I'll keep my eyes open. And you... you'll just make the best of it."

Starry Eye nodded, now suddenly emanating an aura of allevation that seemed rather curious to Starlight. Apparently, now as her deepest fears had been confirmed, there was no doubt holding her back anymore.

"You said, that thing is eating on my special talent", she said. "What does that even mean? How can it know my special talent if even I had no clue?"

"Now that's a question for the ages," Starlight replied weary, "but considering your reactions today, it could be something along the lines of... friendship. Social interactions harm you, but only when you receive kindness. When you're yelling at me... feeling justified anger... it doesn't seem to bother you that much."

"Now that's a relief", Starry Eye snorted. "Am I supposed to be yelling at ponies from now on?"

"No - but it sounds fun, doesn't it?", Starlight answered, a light smile in her cheeks before she turned serious again. "Unfortunately, I'm not really a doctor. We're probably far away from any solution in this matter. But maybe we can stall for time... better your condition again... I'm sure, Sister Tirania can offer you some of her methods. She has studied the pony mind for quite some time now."

The abbess, still holding Starry Eye's mother, seemed to notice the light mockery tone in her voice.

However, she nodded in agreement. "We're going with breath control for a start. Then some meditation... physical training... a good nutrition plan... lavender tea... basic lesson in good manners..."

"My manners aren't that bad...", Starry murmured into her blanket.

"As your colourful language definitely shows! But I thought of a little bit more... formality."

To Starlight's surprise, Starry gave a little chuckle to this, and when Kelly Stern eventually tugged her back into her blankets, the wrinkles in her face had nearly disappeared.

It was not too long after that, when Starlight Glimmer and Kelly Stern slowly trotted down the staircase to the entrance hall - both tired and numbed by the late hour and the rough events of the day.

"I really must apologize for that Fiducia again", Starlight said. "I haven't done that in a while. Didn't thought that through."

"Don't sweat!", Kelly Stern replied. "It calmed us down, and that's all what counts. If things go down, yowl... I mean: y'all do... what ya do... when ya do it." A big yawn interrupted her speech, which she followed up by taking all the last steps at once and elegantly curving into a candelholder.
After she had more carefully backed away from that menace, her head turned one last time up the staircase, thinking back to her daughter.

"Ya're sure that's the right place here? Gonna be quite boring with all those vooha-luna-shama-lama-ding-dong - no offense!"

"None taken! - She's gonna be alright! There's a little more to that vooha than you think."

"She'll still have a hard time here! No friends, no Buckball, no family... not a single pony to be nice to her!"

"That doesn't mean she'll have no friends ever again", Starlight said, laying a hoof on her shoulder. "It's just gonna be... different. You have to treat her like an adult now. Let her sort out her problems on her own! We have enough for ourselves."

"Sure do!" She let out another sigh - probably the up-billionth this evening - and began her way back home.
Out the door and through the garden to the music of a nightingale. Illuminated only by the full moon, giving the illusion that Luna herself were present that night.

But in reality, this moon was only about as sacred as the crystal on Starry's bedside table, where now Sister Tirania sat, slowly reading to a sleeping filly from a small yellowed book:

"... Now stir the air into your chest! Feel, like your chestbones rise and sink in the same, regular rhythm. Be a wave on the ocean, carrying a ship! Let it flow... up... and down... Carry it with you to the sacred lands... whose shores were made for you... Think of the sound of crystal flutes... and join into their choir..."

And despite all the emotional strains and physical pains of the day pressing her into the sheets, Starry Eye couldn't resist to give a little "Peeeep!", before she went off into the land of dreams, a smile on her face.

---- To be continued ----

Author's Note

For everyone that's a little confused: This chapter is only supposed to be an introduction to Starry Eye in her childhood. The real plot will be kicking off in the next chapter, which is currently in production.