Fine, have words.
"Twilight?"
It was noon, and the Sun shone bright in the sky.
"Yes?"
Everything was perfectly normal.
"What is happening?"
Almost.
The purple pony calmly sat in front of the flaming crystal castle. "The castle is burning," she simply replied in a plain tone.
Starlight leaned to the side, mildly concerned. "I can see that. ...Why is the castle burning?" she asked, turning towards Twilight again.
"Well, I set it on fire." Twilight watched the way her shadow danced in front of her due to the flames behind her back.
Starlight swallowed, her concern growing. "And why did you set your castle on fire?"
Twilight looked at her and smiled.
Starlight smiled back, an awkward and forced smile as she began to nervously sweat.
"You know, it took a lot of study to get the spell just right. Normal fire doesn't burn crystal."
"I... can imagine." Starlight gave a small, deliberate cough into her hoof. "So, hum, why exactly did you feel the need to set your house on fire while I was gone?"
Twilight blinked. With her right eye only. The left one followed two seconds later.
Starlight took half a step back. "Well, huh, what about the books?"
"They're just books," Twilight said, staring in her eyes, "I can get new, identical ones."
Starlight smiled again and gave a forced chuckle.
From inside the castle, a low, hissing sound was heard.
Starlight's smile faltered. "What about Spike?" she asked, suddenly filled with concern.
Twilight blinked. In unison this time, though with her lower eyelids. "He's fine," she dryly said, "he's helping out Pinkie with a party at Sugarcube Corner."
Starlight gave a sigh of relief. "Okay then. Do you want to talk about why you decided to burn down your home and all of your belongings?"
Twilight drew a small circle in the sand with her left hoof. "Eh, not really."
Starlight gave a nod, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a few seconds.
"Is something the matter?" Twilight asked, looking up at her.
Starlight looked at Twilight and took another deep breath. "There's no other way for me to go about this, so..." She grabbed Twilight's head and forced her to turn around. "WHAT IN CELESTIA'S NAME IS GOING ON?" she screamed.
Twilight looked at the fire, then at Starlight, then back at the fire, then back at Starlight. "The castle is burning. It seems pretty evident to me. Are you sure you don't need glasses?"
Starlight shook the alicorn. "You know that's not what I meant! Why did you set it on fire? WHY?"
Twilight got up, walked to the door of the castle, opened it and held it open while looking at the unicorn. "Do you want to see?"
Starlight very hesitantly followed her. She reached the princess and stepped inside the burning building, and the door fell closed behind her. "So what was it?" she asked, looking around at the flames that were consuming the interiors.
Twilight began to walk and motioned for Starlight to follow her with a wing.
Starlight followed her. The passed through a crumbled section of a wall and entered the library.
What was left of the library, at least.
Now it was mostly fire.
Twilight nonchalantly strutted through the crumbling shelves, the flaming piles of torn pages and covers, the floating curtains of burning papers and the glowing mounds of scorching embers, and Starlight followed her.
"What is happening?" Starlight asked, as she walked right through a particularly tall conglomerate of flames.
"We're walking through the burning remains of my castle as they are slowly consumed by the fire and threaten to crumble upon us at any moment. Now we exit the library and go back to the main corridor, then we go up the stairs and to our rooms." Twilight never turned around as she explained all of this, she just kept walking on at the same, calm and relaxed pace.
Starlight walked behind her as they exited the library through another hole in the wall, and as they entered the corridor the roof of the library collapsed and the room was buried by the wreckage of the one above it.
The pair walked up the stairs, gusts of smoke and hot gasses violently blowing from the upper floor, assaulting them, covering them with ashes, taking away any breathable air.
The pair emerged unharmed and perfectly clean at the top of the stairs, and as they walked over the burning crystal pavement the staircase crumbled behind them, reduced to a pile of rubble and flames.
They walked to Starlight's room. The door was now just a black stain on the floor. Inside, the pictures hanging on the walls and resting on the furniture were burning, the faces they depicted distorted as they disappeared. The furniture itself was rapidly being consumed. The bed was on fire. The kites Starlight kept there, moved by the currents of hot air generated by the fire, had began to float upwards. They were burning, too. A small section of the roof had collapsed, allowing a portion of the sky to be visible, starlight flowing in. Some kites flew out from there and floated upwards as they burned. The glass window had been shattered by the pressure, but the smoke that flowed out of it prevented from seeing anything outside.
The two walked out and into Twilight's room. Twilight opened the door and motioned Starlight to look inside. Starlight did.
"That's why you set the castle on fire?"
Twilight nodded.
The thing in the room remained silent.
Starlight walked back out, then into her room. She gave one last look at the burning kites against the night sky above her, then walked up to the bed. She lifted the burning cover, slipped beneath it, over the burning mattress, placed her head on the burning pillow and laid there.
"Sorry if I aflamed the castle."
"Aflamed is not correct, Twilight."
"It's from a song. Neither is this."
. . . .
