I rested my quill on the edge of a massive, heavy textbook. It swayed side to side, balanced perfectly… before gently toppling down and collapsing onto my desk. It was so quiet it was barely audible.
The office was empty save myself, and fairly chilly. It was winter, after all, and the students of the school had all gone home to enjoy the cold weeks with family. I had remained, because this place was stable. Reliable. The Friendship School was my home, and I felt comfortable there.
Letters adorned the surface of my desk, each opened neatly. The empty envelopes were piled neatly in my out-tray. I had been trying to keep the place organised ever since Twilight had gone back to Canterlot. I felt that it was necessary to enforce order and rigour into my life. Keep things straight in her absence. Even though she insisted that being headmistress was my responsibility, my job, it felt to some degree that I was just keeping things ready for her.
This evening, however, I felt… conflicted.
I got to my hooves. It was clearly too late for me to be hanging around an empty office, no matter how comforting it might be. It was cold, I was hungry, and I knew that having a nice meal fill me up would help me clear my thoughts.
I trotted out into the corridor and bumped into Sunburst. I very nearly collided into him, so hasty I was in trying to escape the silence of my office.
“Oh… Starlight!” he exclaimed. “You’re here as well?”
“Not for much longer,” I replied, levitating a scarf and wrapping it around me. “I was just doing some paperwork in preparation for the next school year. I don’t work well from home, ha ha.”
Sunburst flashed me a cheerful smile. “Well, I was just visiting the book collection we have here. Nothing, um, nefarious!”
Of course it wouldn’t be. It was hard to associate Sunburst and nefarious in the same sentence.
“Any news from your friends?” Sunburst went on, insisting on the difficult corridor-talk. Inside his robe, I could see a large, bugling and angular shape he was trying to keep concealed next to his shoulder. I elected to ignore it; my stomach was too busy tying itself into knots.
“Well, some.” I hesitated. “You’ll never guess what Applejack and Rainbow have—…”
Several books slid out from under Sunburst’s robes and clattered onto the floor. “Oh! This isn’t what it looks like!”
I sighed. “Late returns?” I asked, levitating one of the heavy tomes up with magic. “You’re also in charge of... You should…”
“I know, I know,” Sunburst muttered.
I cracked a small smile, glancing over the title of the book. Of Alternate Timelines, Dimensions, and Universes: an Introduction for the Novice Warper, by Justin Avarysious Elderwood. Not exactly light reading… cosmic wormholing wasn’t anything that I associated with the term ‘novice’. At least I could still rely on my old friend being a bookworm. “Well, whatever. Just… make sure the forms are filled out properly.”
Sunburst scurried past me with the large pile of books teetering on falling to the ground once again. I went to hand the tome back to him, but stopped partway.
“Actually, consider this one returned,” I said.
“Um, very well,” Sunburst said. “Enjoy! The middle bit gets a little dry.”
I shook my head slowly, marvelling at the unicorn’s attitude, and continued on my way outside.
Ponyville was icy cold; a frigid breeze had been sent in from the North to send temperatures in the heartlands down. One advantage of being friends with Yakyakistan; cold winds were readily available to the Cloudsdale weatherponies.
It was late afternoon, bordering on evening. Most ponies were either headed home or were already home. I didn’t expect to see many of my friends around town. Rarity had headed out of town, Fluttershy was heavens knew where, and Pinkie was on some sort of journey of discovery. Something to do with ‘broadening the mind’, and exploring the ‘true meaning of partying’. I didn’t really understand what that was all about, but it had been comforting to think that nothing really changed that much. Yes, Twilight had left to rule Canterlot, yes the gang had mostly split up, but they were still friends. I could deal with that.
Two of them… weren’t friends anymore.
I tightened my scarf around my neck and trotted down the streets to my home. I noticed that quite a few things had changed since I had arrived. New stores. New faces. New… everything. When had Ponyville become so unfamiliar?
I honestly couldn’t remember.
These weren’t things that’d even matter to most ponies. So what if two of my friends were dating? Why did it even matter? Moreover, I ought to be happy for them. It wasn’t like I was jealous or scared or… much of anything, really.
I guess it was the change that got to me, more than anything.
I spotted a familiar mobile home pulling into the main square of town. Groaning as she came to a slow halt, Trixie flashed me a quick smile and a wave.
“Oh! Over here, Starlight!”
I smiled back. I suppose I could take five minutes to say hello to a good friend.
“Hello there, Trixie.” I trotted closer. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been in town.”
“Well, I was trying to beat the snow and get here before the chill set in,” Trixie began, and shivered, “But it seems I miscalculated.”
“Planning a good show, then?” I asked.
“Only the finest and most extravagant you’ve seen yet!” Trixie waved her hoof with a flourish. “I expect you to help me suitably advertise.”
I suppose some things didn’t change. That was good. I liked stability, and I liked that no matter what happened, I could always rely on Trixie to… well, be Trixie.
The illusionist tilted her head. “You look a little down, Glimmer. Don’t tell me the school has been rough on you?”
“No, I’m just… Thinking.”
“Oh, a pensive type of melancholy. Have you ever considered watching a magic show to cheer you up?”
“Only five bits for a seat?”
“Precisely! It’s as if you already knew my act.”
I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. “Come with me, I suppose. It’ll be warmer than your mobile home, after all. Plus, I have some of Applejack’s cider, and you always miss Cider Season.”
I drew my curtains closed with magic, hoping to keep the warmth in. I had already explained my situation to Trixie… after all, she would understand me better than anypony, except perhaps Twilight herself.
“So, two of your friends have begun dating, and you’re upset because…?” Trixie asked, sipping at Applejack’s cider I had graciously offered her.
“Well, it’s just… I don’t like it when things change. I got used to everypony leaving, but now it’s like… the situation is evolving.”
“Oh.” Trixie made a noise as if she was feigning understanding. She probably was.
“It’s not the same for most ponies. The last time change happened to me too fast, I kind of… went off the rails.”
“Yes but that’s the sort of grand life-changing error that you only make once,” Trixie retorted. “Remember, I once tried to invade Ponyville myself!”
I sighed.
“...And I did a fairly excellent job of it too! Minus the modest bout of insanity,” Trixie went on.
“I guess I just feel like everypony is moving on without me.”
Trixie nodded. “I somewhat understand. I’ve had my status-quo changed once or twice myself.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Oh yes?”
“Hmm.” Trixie took another sip. “I didn’t expect to come back to Ponyville so frequently until I met you, after all.”
I sat down heavily into one of my couches. “Is that so?”
Trixie went bright purple. “Trixie does what she wants, Starlight. I just… decided to want something different than what I used to.”
“Well, I want to not go crazy and start a cult,” I retorted, only half-jokingly. I had done it once, after all. I shouldn’t discount the possibility of doing it again.
“I hardly think that you’ll do something so drastic just because Applejack and the Rainbow One started getting intimate,” Trixie said. “You just think you will because of… repression.”
“Repression?”
“Or something. Look, I do performances, not psychological analyses.” Trixie levitated a glass of cider towards me. “Just relax, Starlight. And if everypony is starting to couple up, well, why does that have to matter so much?”
I glanced at the heavy tome I had taken from Sunburst. I raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Because it means I’m getting left behind.”
Dimensional travel wasn’t really hard. You weren’t technically moving very far; the equivalent distance of a small step, but instead of it being in a direction, it was more into a region of non-space that, traditionally, you probably wouldn’t move in.
“This is a terrible idea,” Trixie pointed out.
I continued reading the tome with rapt attention. “Relax, I’ve done this before.”
“Yes, whilst you were destroying Equestria. Repeatedly.”
“Yes, which is why I know exactly what not to do this time. No messing with time! I’m just shifting to a different dimension.” I glanced at my friend. “Come on. Just for a look!”
Trixie groaned. “It’s never just a look. It’s never just a minor invasion of a small town in the middle of nowhere, and it’s never a short adventure. They always get out of hoof, Starlight. Every time.”
“Well, they shouldn’t. There’s nothing in the spell that means that things should backfire.”
“There’s nothing in the spell, perhaps. But there’s plenty in the caster!”
“It won’t be that bad.” A flash of light erupted from my horn. “Come on, let’s go. We’ll be in and out before you know it.”
Trixie moaned as she stepped towards me. “Since when has the great Trixie become such an enabler?!”
With a flash and a crack, myself and Trixie took a single, small step in no known direction.
“Congratulations, Glimmer my dear!” Trixie taunted.
“Please be quiet.”
“Oh, but Starlight, it’s even better than you said it would be! In and out before I even knew it, she said.”
Both Trixie and I were sitting in a cell. Our backs were against one another for warmth; I was very glad to have brought her with me. Admittedly, perhaps being thrown in a cell wasn’t exactly what I had initially planned, but…
I heard hoofsteps approaching. Both myself and Trixie glanced through the bars at the approaching unicorn.
“Imagine my surprise,” the unicorn began as she approached our cell, “To find that none other than myself had teleported into my Ponyville apartment, triggered every single trap I had placed, and brought… this pony with them.”
Trixie glanced over at me. “Good news Starlight; we got to meet your alternate universe self.” She began to hiss. “Could you have picked one that wasn’t evil?!”
I frowned. Sure as sunrise, the pony on the other side of the bars was myself. I recognised the coldness in my eyes, the subtle hints that I knew I dropped when I was manipulating ponies. Trixie was right; I wasn’t a good pony in this universe.
“Tell me, how did you get here? I assume you’re actually me, and not a changeling or using a spell to pretend to be me?”
I noticed that I was wearing the equalist cutie-mark. Not me… the other me, the alternate universe version of myself. Great. It appeared I hadn’t gotten past that just yet.
“I’m not sure I should say,” I replied. “I was just passing through.”
“Just passing through?”
“She is literally a tourist,” Trixie growled. “And I’m just along for the ride.”
“A… tourist?”
I somewhat resented being called a tourist. Technically I suppose it was true in a sense, but literally puncturing through the seams of reality seemed to be a bit high-effort to be called something as banal as ‘tourism’.
“Yes. She wanted to know how she was doing in other universes.” Trixie glanced up at evil Starlight. “So, um, how are you? No coltfriend? Marefriend? How is your career?”
Evil Starlight blinked. “Um… that’s a rather personal question. I suppose I’m doing well enough… I managed to defeat the Princess of Friendship, which was pretty good...”
“See Starlight? This one isn’t even in a relationship. So you’re fine.”
I felt my previous insecurities resurface, only to be rather brutally bullied by Trixie. Amazingly, feeling left behind by my friends felt like a small matter compared to being interrogated by an evil alternate version of myself and also being made fun of by my best friend.
Evil Starlight frowned. “Well, I mean, I also spread equality throughout all of Equestria, so I’m actually sort of a big deal.”
“Oh please, we all know that was just an excuse for you to wield power and control things you didn’t understand,” Trixie went on. “Starlight told me all about it.”
“I’m not sure I want to hear this,” I said.
“Why not? Weren’t these insecurities you’ve dealt with?”
“No, I mean I don’t want to hear this,” I snapped, gesturing at my evil self.
“Are you making fun of me?” Starlight asked Trixie. She narrowed her eyes. “Wait, I think I recognise you…”
“Ah, my reputation precedes me!” Trixie exclaimed.
“You were very irritating.”
“You have no idea,” I said, earning me a sharp elbow from Trixie.
“Any friends worth talking about then, Evil Starlight?” Trixie asked.
“I… I have plenty of friends!”
Trixie turned to me. “She has no friends.”
I decided that this had gone on long enough. My alternate self looked ready to start firing magical missiles at us. “I think we had better be off.”
“Ah, magic recuperated?” Trixie asked. She turned back to the other Glimmer. “Well, it was a pleasure, but we really must dash.”
“What? Where are you—”
Both myself and Trixie collapsed back in my apartment. Trixie immediately crawled her way back to the glass of wine, half-drunk, that she had left behind before our little trip.
“Let’s never do that again,” Trixie exclaimed.
I felt a pit in my stomach. “That was only one small dimension away…” I breathed out. “How is it possible that I’m so close to being evil all the time?”
Trixie continued drinking, visibly shaking. “Glimmer, you know how you’re one of the most powerful, dangerous spellcasters I know?”
“Yes?”
“I am not. So please don’t put me anywhere near evil Starlight again.”
I sat down heavily, leaning against a chest of drawers. How many other dimensions was I still evil in? Was this the only one I wasn’t bad in? The thought was a frightening one.
Trixie seemed to catch my anxious look, and immediately stepped towards me, putting her hoof on my chest in order to attract my attention. “Oh, ho ho, no, no you don’t. We’re not going back again. You’re just going to have to imagine the best. Or worst; either way we’re not doing that again.”
“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do now!” I gestured wildly, angrily even. “On one hoof, I’m clearly evil and out of control… on the other, everypony I’m friends with just goes and leaves.” I folded my hooves. “What kind of a choice is that supposed to be?”
“Well, what is the great Trixie, then? Sauteed apples?” She frowned. “I am your friend, and I’m still here. And so is Sunburst if I recall! And yes, they might have less time for you now than before, but Applejack and Rainbow are still in town…”
A flash of light erupted in the room. Twilight Sparkle erupted into the apartment, panic in her eyes.
“I detected trans-dimensional wormhole magic and I came as fast as I could!” She glanced at me and cast a quick spell, engulfing her former student in brilliant lilac light. Her gaze softened. “Oh, thank Celestia, you’re the Starlight from our universe.”
Trixie glanced over at me, a smug smile playing her lips. “And look, it seems you still get visitors from time to time as well!”
I scratched my chin, feeling rather embarrassed. “Sorry, I… didn’t mean to make you worry.”
Twilight breathed out. “I know that, of course, it’s just… it’s a very dangerous spell and I didn’t even know if it was you who had cast it.”
I sat down on one of my chairs, relaxing somewhat. “Well. That was certainly… instructive.”
Twilight glanced at Trixie. “Is she… all right?”
“Starlight is feeling a little left-behind,” Trixie told Twilight, much to my mounting dismay.
“Hey! I was just curious!”
“I see. I sometimes feel that way too,” Twilight said, sidestepping my protests with practiced ease. “Did you learn anything interesting from trans-dimensional travel?”
I frowned. “I learned that I’m still pretty evil in that universe.”
“Ah.”
“So, now I kind of feel even more insecure.” I folded my hooves. “So… great.”
“I think it just means that the version you are is the best Starlight I know,” Twilight said with a little smile. “That sounds like a good thing to me.”
“Well my competition with myself isn’t… exactly hard.”
“Is that a problem?” Trixie asked.
I sighed. “I guess not.”
I turned back towards the book, and sighed heavily. Yeah… it probably wasn’t a problem. If my alternate self had everything together, had everything on lock, wouldn’t that just make me the worse one?
Magic spells should really put these sorts of life lessons on the front page. Really would save a lot of time and magical energy.
I felt Trixie wrap her hoof around me and gave me a gentle squeeze. “Come now; you can always rely on me to come back to Ponyville every now and then. So you won’t be getting left behind by me at least.”
I flashed my friend a warm smile. “Likewise, Trixie.”
“More wine then?” Trixie levitated a bottle.
Twilight smiled. “I can have a small glass before having to teleport back to Canterlot…”
“Very well then.” I opened the second bottle. “Very well indeed.”
Author's Note
Hey there folks.
I've been very busy with PhD stuff, so frankly I'm pretty exhausted. Sorry if it shows in the writing; I'm struggling a bit to balance everything right now.
This story is an entry for FoME's Ponidox contest. Be sure to check out some of the other participants too!
Good luck folks, and cheerio.
