Perception

The stone path brought Starlight to a rural, yet pleasant town.

The sight of Ponyville was unmistakably different from the capital city. Buildings were low-rises, having only a few levels at most. They were built simply, but retained some kind of rustic feeling, reminding Starlight of her old hometown. The buildings might be traditional, but they were painted vibrantly with contrasting and matching colours. They were scattered throughout from the town's central plaza, with a gazebo-like structure in the middle. Alleyways were winding and non-linear, opposite to the uniform road structure in the capital. Despite the town's charm, Starlight found it rather hard to believe that a regal princess would set up her residence here, rather than the vastly elegant capital city.

That was at least until she saw something that seemed out of place in this town, causing Starlight to stop in her tracks, her hooves rubbing onto the gravel path beneath. Her inhaled air was trapped well within the confines of Starlight's expanded lungs.

It was a castle that could match up architecturally with the buildings back in the capital. A huge golden door commanded entry into the stunning castle, carved painstakingly with absolute precision. Windows were tinted a bright, cool purple infused with sparkling amethyst of the best quality. Three main keeps dominated the region surrounding it, with balconies peeking out from the sides of their enormous construction. A white, translucent star was centrally placed at the top of the main keep, reflecting the light from the sun down onto the ground, causing Starlight to squint at the build.

Numerous banners and flags fluttered with the light breeze, their poles gripping onto the external surfaces of the crystal infused castle. All of them had a purple background with a lighter shade of magenta within a six pointed star, with six other white stars around and behind it. That insignia was all too familiar to Starlight Glimmer, for she knew, deep in her heart, the owner of the castle.

It was Twilight's castle.

Starlight closed her eyes and shook her head several times, trying to kick out those annoying, flashing black spots in her vision. Regaining her composure, she walked up the open side path that led to the massive castle, her hooves attempting to minimise the contact with the gravel ground as much as possible.

Reaching the entrance, Starlight dragged the heavy, thick door open from their original positions, enabling her to slide gingerly between the gap to sneak into the castle. She carefully pushed the displaced door back into the closed position, emitting a sound less audible than the furious beating of Starlight's heart.

Starlight's ears stood upright and attentive, but a grave silence deafened her ears. The tall ceiling hallways and corridors made Starlight feel so utterly insignificant in the castle, with bigger than life statues dwarfing her body. Despite the cold weather outside the castle, Starlight felt comfortably cosy in the interior, from the heat from the candles of the chandeliers hanging high above the ceiling.

Starlight pushed open another crystal blue door to reveal a giant, spacious room, causing her eyes and even her head to pan around the entire area. A circular crystal table was right smack in the middle of the room, equidistant to all four walls of the room. Rushing forward hastily, she discovered a map of the region imprinted directly onto the table, depicted in great detail and contrast. Seven crystal chairs accompanied the table, each spaced equally apart from each other, except for two chairs placed side by side. Of the seven chairs, each of the six had colourful symbols that were reminiscent of the cutie marks she almost got away with.

Starlight could barely hold her breath for much longer. She could not be any closer to the six without alerting them to her presence. She could feel their aura in the smoky air lingering around, as though they could clutch onto her soul at that very instant. A shiver ran down Starlight's spine, her hypersensitive sixth sense alerting her to imminent danger.

"SPIKE!" a familiar voice rang down the corridors, reverberating down the corridor into Starlight's startled ears.

Starlight jerked back in utter surprise, nearly losing her balance despite the rough carpet in contact with her hooves. Springing forward, she ran to the door and pressed her ears hard onto the dry, grainy surface.

"Yes?" a slightly rougher voice responded.

"I will be presenting a speech to Celestia's School of Magic in Canterlot tomorrow!" Twilight's voice permeated into Starlight's eardrums, the excitement in her voice being undeniable.

"Oh, fantastic!" that voice replied. "On what subject?"

"It is on cutie mark magic!" Twilight joyfully declared. "And how it brought out the magic of friendship in me. Come, let's go to the meeting room to rehearse."

"Cutie mark magic?" Starlight thought to herself, pulling her head away from the side of the door with her two front hooves. She readied herself as the sound of clopping drew in intensity. Her horn sparked with magic, bringing her back out to safety back in Canterlot.

Twilight's presentation was about to begin.

Panting heavily, Starlight followed a entire string of ponies galloping at full speed, trying to rush to Celestia's School of Magic for Gifted Unicorns. The flashy surroundings around Starlight seemed to whizz past her as she navigated through the hustle and bustle of the roads in Canterlot, until the sight of a shaking, purple building remained in her field of vision.

Walking up the steps into the entrance of the purple building at a decelerating rate, Starlight's head bowed down, facing the yellow calcite stairs with little physical strength in her hooves left. Starlight pushed her chin up to gaze at a dissipating bottleneck at the entrance doorway as every single pony wanted to rush in and catch Twilight's much awaited presentation. With every bit of energy in her left, she tugged herself up to head past the darkly-toned double doors that gave entry into the magic school.

Puffing out air from the very depths of her lungs, Starlight used her raw body weight to force the lecture theatre's door open, to observe an obedient audience that nearly filled the whole room. The audience sat on individual red, velvet cushioned seats with a pop-up table for note taking. Some ponies were leaning their weight forward, pressing down onto the table, straining to absorb any word coming out from Twilight's mouth. Some ponies were in a flurry of activity, scribbling frantically on scraps of paper. The presentation was accompanied by projected slides which allowed Starlight to follow the proceedings seamlessly, despite her late arrival. A confident Twilight was at the head of the theatre, speaking to the crowd calmly.

Starlight slipped silently into the few empty seats left at the back of the theatre, near the entrance she entered from. She tried to match the behaviour of the rest of the audience by holding her head with her two front hooves, supported by the table.

"The power of cutie mark magic is very real," Twilight lectured the audience, pointing at the projected slide with her hoof. "And in the context of my friends and I, it can be traced to a single event."

Starlight could see the joy in Twilight's eyes as she continued with her presentation, causing her to roll her eyes in obvious displeasure. Twilight stopped for a moment, pausing to take a sip from glass of water from the side of the lectern from which she spoke, clearing her throat.

"Without Rainbow Dash's race to defend Fluttershy's honour, the Rainboom wouldn't have happened," Twilight spoke, unaware of the consequences sharing this would follow. "Fluttershy's love for animals would never have been uncovered; Applejack wouldn't discover she belonged in her farm..."

Twilight's eyes toured around the audience via the three point contact rule she read from her public speaking book, causing her to be painfully ignorant of the presence of Starlight Glimmer in the audience at the back row.

"Without this Rainboom, I may not have entered magic school," Twilight admitted to all in attendance. "Princess Celestia would not have sent me to magic school, or to Ponyville to meet my friends!"

"And the most powerful thing about cutie mark magic was the connection I shared with my friends!" Twilight continued her explanation, panning the audience in one clean sweep from right to left.

Twilight's neck jumped back. Her eyebrows rocketed up, nearly touching the edge of her purple mane. She turned her neck uncontrollably, scanning for her worst fear at each and every aisle of the audience. She squinted at the audience with bated breath, her mouth open and unmoving.

Despite checking thoroughly and methodically, Starlight was nowhere to be found in the crowd.

Shaking her head, believing that she must have been hallucinating, Twilight tried to bring her mind back to her speech. Her mouth was open to cease the sudden, awkward silence, but nothing came out. She had no choice but to look down onto the flashcards she prepared discreetly on the lectern to jog her memory. Breathing in as calmly as she could, she continued her lecture.

In reality, Starlight was indeed present. After the two had their eyes locked for a split second when Twilight was panning the audience, Starlight gingerly evacuated her seat to head for the exit just feet away. She could hear the sudden bout of emptiness in the room from the side of the exit doorway. As she stepped out of the entrance, she knew that, in Twilight's mind, she was feared to return to haunt her again, judging by the natural, uncensored reaction.

With a valuable piece of information about her origins, Starlight opined that Twilight should better to be afraid of what she could be capable of in their final endgame. A casual smirk failed to leave Starlight's face even as she walked out of the vicinity of the school with her cheeks puffed out proudly.

"It begins...now," Starlight muttered bitterly.