We Have No Mouths, and We Must Confess

Act 1 Part 2

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“I can’t believe she said that to me,” Twilight muttered to herself as she heavily sat down on the stairs in front of Canterlot’s Library.

The process of checking out the books and getting out of the building became blurred in one solid experience of trying not to cry and acting fast in the case she failed. Yet as Twilight repeated aloud the question echoing in her head all that time, she realized, perhaps, she was… wrong.

Moondancer’s motivation was perfectly fine and understandable; Starlight’s past could indeed raise very fair concerns. However, it wasn’t exactly Moondancer’s fear bothering Twilight so much, nor even the lack of support she received—rather her confusion with Twilight’s reasoning; she shared it, in a sense.

Even if Twilight wrote off Moondancer’s poor choice of words as something completely unintentional, it didn’t remove the question. She hated it, but even more, she hated the answer.

Twilight was focusing on the issue so hard her vision seemed to darken—actually, it was just getting dark outside. It appeared to her she had spent almost the whole day in the library looking for the books (which was far from an uncommon occurrence).

With the sun nearing the horizon, it meant Princess Celestia was about to end her day. Though Twilight hated to take her former mentor’s free time, she desperately craved her soothing company right now. She also wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of flying home at night. Despite her flying abilities improving greatly the last few months, covering the distance between Canterlot and Ponyville in nearly absolute darkness might be a bit beyond her skills.

The tome-laden saddlebags swung in Twilight’s magic and took their place on her withers. Alicorn or not, she couldn’t fly to the Royal Castle directly with so much load, so she let out a heavy sigh and let her hooves carry her there by themselves, following the all too familiar cobblestone paths.

Soon enough Twilight found herself before one of the arched gates leading inside the castle itself. Her approach was completely unhindered by the guards until this moment. She suspected nopony would have questioned her if she walked into the lavish interior without missing a beat, but her pause at the entrance prompted one of the sentinels to speak:

“Your Highness,” the armour-clad stallion addressed Twilight with a low bow.

She couldn’t help but cringe inwardly—she still wasn’t used to such an official treatment. What made it worse was that she could recognize the guard from her fillyhood and was sure he must have remembered her from back then as well.

Her suspiсion was verified when he spoke in an apologetic tone, “I’m sorry, Princess Twilight, if you came looking for Princess Celestia, she retired into her chambers after some especially vexing negotiations and asked not to be bothered unless it is of utmost urgency.”

Even without any dire circumstitions present, Princess Celestia would warmly welcome her—she always did. However, Twilight wished not to exploit her hospitality and chose to give her a well-deserved rest instead.

“Twilight,” an unexpected, though easily recognizable, voice called from behind her, “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, Princess Luna!” Twilight turned to greet her. “Not at all, I was just passing by.”

“You don’t have to call me Princess anymore, we are equals now,” Luna commented in a slightly exasperated tone, knowing very well her wish would be ignored, and continued with a smile, “Anyhow, since my sister is sleeping off that headache the minotaur ambassador gave her and you are here, would you like to join me for my breakfast?”

“It would be my pleasure, Princess Luna,” Twilight replied with a grin on her own, oblivious to the diarch rolling her eyes.

“...And then he claimed because of it, Equestria has to give them the Rainbow Falls. Can you believe that?” Luna nearly shouted, banging the table in indignation with her silver-clad hoof. Shaking her head she added in a much more reserved manner, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tia get so angry at work.”

“I am so sorry to hear that.” Twilight couldn’t help but mirror Luna’s motion and shake her head in a deep discontent. ”I knew the Minotaur Clans can be worse than gryphons when it comes to deals, but that is still ridiculous.”

For a while, they sat in silence as Luna angrily shoved spoon after spoon of oats in her mouth, or maybe she wanted to deal with her meal as soon as possible—it had grown cold.

Twilight sipped her tea, wondering if she would ever have to deal with similar issues.

“But enough of politics.” Luna perked up when she swallowed the last of her bowl’s contents. She took a swig of coffee before continuing, “How’s your student faring so far? I barely had a chance to get a good look at her during the Crystalling. We were a bit busy, after all.”

“I’m glad you asked!” Twilight’s previously moody expression dissolved into a wide smile—at last, there was somepony who appreciated her mentoring endeavour. “She is doing quite well at socializing. You may recall it was the reconciliation with her old friend, Sunburst, which averted the crisis at the Crystal Empire. She’s staying at the Castle of Friendship now, and I am just heading back from the library with a fine selection of books...”

Caught up in praising her pupil, Twilight failed to notice the change of Luna’s expression—the Goddess of the Night frowned, staring at the contents of her cup.

With gusto and a hoof to her puffed out in pride chest Twilight finished, “...I believe she is more than capable of rising from, eh, a ‘former villain’ to a pony who will be remembered if not as a hero, but as an exemplary mare.”

To her disappointment, Luna hesitated with her response.

“Hmm, quite possible. After all, if I were not to believe in reformation, I wouldn’t be here now,” she uttered, her voice full of melancholy, and paused in a fleeting bout of recollection. “However, my concern is not as much about her.”

“Huh?”

“As I said, it is not my place to judge your faith in her. I won't ever forget I was no less a threat for Equestria once, and you always supported me no matter what.” Luna accompanied those words with a grateful bow of her head, yet then she faced Twilight again, her gaze was nothing but stern. “I question only your true goal, not the consideration.”

Twilight momentarily lost the ability to speak, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water. She barely held off snapping at Luna when she finally found words. “What kind of ulterior motive could I possibly have in a situation like this?”

Luna’s reply was spoken calmly, but in a patronizing tone:

“You have yet to take any major responsibilities as a princess, and while I admire your enthusiasm, I believe you shouldn’t create problems for yourself to solve where they don’t exist.”

“I don’t–” Twilight tried to give a fair hearing and was interrupted as Luna wasn’t finished.

“Please, don’t take all that as my assumption of your ineptitude, Twilight,” she said kindly, seeing Twilight’s reaction. With a sigh, she went on, “Your title of the Princess of Friendship is earned rightfully so. You don’t need to validate thyself to anypony. While your initial effort in helping Starlight Glimmer is nothing but commendable, I believe turning her into a full-time resident of your castle and offering her a scholarship are excessive measures.”

Twilight’s eyes started to burn and a desire to get out of there as fast as possible welled in her chest; not because she didn’t want to cry before the eyes of a goddess, but because she feared she would yell at Luna instead. Making a scene was the last thing she needed right now—she had had enough of that today.

Thankfully, there was a way to avoid it all.

“I…” she began, her eyes darting around in the search of the object she needed and finally her gaze fell on it.

“Oh my goodness, just look at the time: I am late to my train back to Ponyville!” Twilight cried in not convincing sounding shock. She was past the point of caring. What she was doing was already rude; acting genuinely wasn’t going to change much. “It was a true pleasure to talk with you, Princess Luna, and I am so sorry for leaving in such an abrupt way, but I’ve got to go!”

Twilight was already on her way out of the room when she was speaking the last words. Shutting the door with a bang, she left behind a confused and scowling alicorn.

Spending most of the day listening to Mr. Cake stories about Twilight until the customers finally began to appear en masse improved Starlight’s mood significantly. It was safe to say there was even spring to her steps as she headed to the Castle of Friendship. Learning about Twilight’s misadventures not only let her forget about her worries for a time being but made her somewhat change her view of the entire situation.

Before Starlight had thought of Twilight as some kind of paragon, an infallible example of friendship and all virtues associated with it. Discovering that a path full of mistakes led to that image somehow made it real and more precious instead of tarnishing it.

Twilight was just a pony like her. A pony very like her. It almost seemed they once started from the same place (Twilight hasn’t been stealing cutie marks and practising brainwashing, of course).

Of course, there was a dark side to all what Starlight learned today: how precious the friendships she once sought to destroy were and how long the story behind every one of them was. And while Twilight was more of a pony than a saint in her eyes now, the issue of underserved hospitality still lingered in Starlight’s mind. Yet, with something else to think about, those things couldn’t dominate her thoughts like before.

However, one of the issues raised today couldn’t be ignored. Despite how vast the knowledge Starlight acquired, Ponyville's geography still evaded her. Now, without the sun turning the Castle of Friendship into a shining beacon, it wasn’t that easy to locate it.

Not even knowing which direction to go, Starlight was left with nothing but her luck to rely on.

There was no train Twilight planned to board. Though she still could do it, which was preferable to a night flight and overall a more reasonable option, it wasn’t her mind guiding her when she exited the Royal Castle premises. With a mighty but awkward flap of her wings, she launched herself in the air and, using just as overly energetic movements, began to build the distance between herself and Canterlot as fast as possible.

Only as the ivory towers dissolved into the darkness did Twilight let herself relax a bit and stop trying to outperform Rainbow Dash. Still, when she sighed, the sound coming out of her throat resembled a feral growl.

Moondancer wasn’t as much at fault as it appeared at first—she was genuinely concerned. They also didn’t talk often and that mare tended to be a bit too straightforward, if not outright rude sometimes. So it was fair she jumped to such harsh conclusions.

But Princess Luna?

The worst part was she supported Twilight where Moondancer hadn’t, which somehow made the sting of the accusation burn more. After being told about her ability to rightly dispense judgement, to hear she was self-indulging in procrastination by mentoring and housing Starlight was not far from sounding like a crime of neglecting her actual job.

Combined with Moondancer’s misplaced fears it was like salt on a fresh wound, making Twilight seethe so hard that she had to consciously stop herself from grinding her teeth. Those things became the iceberg’s tip of Twilight’s fury as her subconsciousness built more anger using today's frustration as a foundation.

For all she knew nopony was nagging Fluttershy about her decision to be friends with Discord, nopony came to Princess Celestia asking to throw Nightmare Moon out her castle and she couldn’t recall anypony suggesting a death sentence for Tirek. Yet, in the eyes of everypony, suddenly Twilight was wasting her time as a ruler of nothing by playing in friendship with a criminal.

Not only that, but Starlight was considered equivalent threats—a monster, essentially; no offence meant to Luna and Discord. The Elements of Harmony were never used against her. She needed a different kind of help—the support she was still receiving from Twilight and would need a while longer, with Twilight to decide how long.

That train of thought was dangerously close to the hated answer to Moondancer’s question, which made Twilight’s anger flare, directed at herself now.

In her indignation, Twilight almost failed to notice how from the black of night’s veil the form of a pony materialized a mere length in front of her. Fortunately, the seemingly unavoidable collision was averted by an improvised barrel roll, though they still brushed their feathers in not the softest of ways.

Twilight stopped, hovering in the chill air, and looked back, seeing nopony. Either that pegasus, who Twilight failed to identify in her panic, didn’t care at all about almost crashing into another flier, or they recognized Twilight and were afraid of consequences of almost causing an accident involving a princess. Anyhow, they were gone now.

Broken out of her reverie, Twilight became much more aware of her surroundings and suddenly felt cold, the coolness of the night sky having nothing to do with it. It was very fortunate indeed she was able to perform such an aerial manoeuvre—she was unladen. Her saddlebags were left at the Royal Palace!

There was no point in going back to Canterlot right now. However, it had to happen eventually, which meant a few things for Twilight: she had to waste at least half of a day for the future trip and there was a chance to run into Princess Luna.

Becoming incredibly frustrated was the only thing she had achieved today.

Coming to those conclusions, she growled into the silent sky in a flash of anger. At least, when she squinted at the ground, she realized that Ponyville was basically below her, meaning she soon could get home and put this hell of a day behind her.

Latching on that thought, she dove from the cloud cover to the silhouette of her castle, gleaming with distant stars.

By the time Twilight landed on the roof of the castle, everything transpired with her today caught up with her body. Her eyelids began to droop as soon as she entered the top floor and her hooves suddenly grew very heavy as they sensed the familiar warmth of home. So it took her a few moments before she realized it wasn't a peculiar refraction of the light on the surface of the crystal floor, but a light spilling out of a door ajar on the way to her room.

Wondering about who could be staying up so late, Twilight opened the door and was met with a sight of Spike lounging on a bean bag with a comic in his claws. Not only was it something not supposed to be happening—instead of acting like he was caught, Spike just calmly looked over the pages of his book. Needless to say, it served like a bucket of oil splashed into a fire.

“Spike!” she barked, a mask of rage contorting her features. “Why. Aren’t. You. In. Your. Bed!?”

To Twilight’s growing fury, he licked his claws to flip the page first.

“I’m reading before my sleep, just as you let me.”

“It is…” Twilight faltered momentarily and looked around, but failed to see any clock nearby. It didn’t matter, she could tell it was very late, anyway. “It is the dead of the night! And don’t you dare pretend you didn’t know!”

“It is one hour past midnight, yeah,” Spike replied to her, still unfazed. “But I only started reading ten minutes ago. It’s not my fault I finished my chores so late. If anything, I think I deserve some rest after doing somepony else’s job, too.”

With that, he returned his attention to the comic book, though it lasted until Twilight grabbed it out his claws with magic and threw it on the floor.

“What do you mean ‘not your fault’ and ‘somepony else’s job’?” she then yelled at him. “Who else?”

Spike glared at Twilight and hopped out from the chair to cross his arms on his chest and continue to glare at her.

“Well,” he grumbled, “I finished everything on time as I planned, but then I found out the room with cleaning supplies looked like Discord was there.”

“I’m sure Discord has nothing to do with it,” Twilight acidly commented through clenched teeth.

Spike rolled his eyes.

“Of course he doesn't.”

Twilight slowly approached him, and, her eyes blazing with wrath, towered over the young dragon who stubbornly refused to look daunted. “Then what’s the matter, Spike?”

“Maybe you should ask your student that,” he quipped back, raising his brow.

“Maybe you should stop blaming others and take responsibility for yourself!”

Spike stepped back, but quickly regained his composure and barked back, pointing his claw at Twilight, “Hey, I am not lying, okay?” For the first time since this fight began, she doubted her righteousness. “Have you even seen Starlight? She wanders around the castle unable to find anything to do all day while looking like somepony died. I can live with that, but making a random mess and walking away is a bit too much, don’t you think?”

Somehow Twilight knew Spike was telling the truth indeed—he wouldn’t act the way he did if it wasn’t so. However, it helped the situation none, since the anger had to go somewhere.

“Argh!” She growled, storming a few steps away in frustration. “Everypony keeps and keeps complaining about Starlight. I’m so tired of it!” Funnelling her frustration at nobody in particular helped her a bit and then realized she was quite unfair to Spike. Still hoarse from her howl, she hastily added, addressing him, “I’ll talk with her tomorrow.”

Spike didn’t move, his lips pressed together tightly, continuing to glower at Twilight. She let out a deep sigh and heavily sat down on the floor as wrath began to abate, letting shame and weariness take place, and whispered hollowly, “Just… go to bed, please.”

At the doors did he finally speak, in a surprisingly sympathetic voice, “Good night, Twilight.”

Twilight winced hard at his intonation and croaked, “I’m sorry, Spike, it’s been a hard day. Good night.”

Her eyes fell on a comic book she threw on the floor in her tantrum.

“Spike?”

He didn’t reply to her, though the lack of sound meant he at least stopped to listen. Not looking Spike in the eyes she passed the colourful book to him with her magic.

“You deserve to read it for a bit, but not too long. Okay?”

To Starlight’s utter dismay, Fortuna turned away from her when she stepped onto the dark streets. Being already slightly chaotic by its countryside nature, Ponyville turned into an elaborate maze by night. On the positive side, the frustration of being lost left no room for more depressive thoughts, but it was a silver lining too thin to appreciate.

It felt like the whole night passed by the time the imposing black bulk of the castle finally rose from the ground before Stalight’s weary form. She even contemplated not bothering to go to her room and spending the night on the carpet right after the entrance.

Starlight made an effort to wipe her hooves before heading to her room. Trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake Spike, she was moving across the halls when she heard noises too loud for the late time. Worried about their origin, she begrudgingly took a detour.

Surprisingly, it sounded like Twilight was angrily shouting at somepony, though Starlight couldn't decipher any words. Driven rather by curiosity than concern, she approached the slightly opened door only to hear Twilight growl in fury:

“Everypony keeps and keeps complaining about Starlight. I’m so tired of it!” she spat and then added in a weary and still discontent tone, “I’ll talk with her tomorrow.”

Starlight felt the floor sway under her hooves, and she had to lean on the nearest wall to prevent herself from falling. However, she recovered quickly and, still wishing to remain unheard, trotted away as fast as she could, leaving in her wake a trail of tears she was unable to hold.

When her hooves finally carried her out of the castle did she give some freedom to her emotions, still not loud enough to wake everypony with her wails.

Shuddering and sniffling, Starlight sat in front of the castle’s entrance, right in the middle of an empty road, letting two waterfalls dew the ground with sorrow and salt.

She had a chance, a once in a lifetime gift and she blew that opportunity away. No matter how nice and patient her mentor was, there were limits to everything—she was a pony, after all. And the more Starlight thought of it, the worse it seemed: she imposed herself on Twilight, made her friends confront her, probably tarnished her reputation in Ponyville and beyond…

Starlight stomped hard in her anger, digging her hooves into the firm soil and instantly grimaced when pain shot back to her shoulders. She struck again and again until her front limbs felt numb.

The pain stayed, an ache deep inside her.

Defeated and broken, she looked behind herself, at Twilight’s home, and realized she couldn’t force herself to make even a single step closer to it; yet, she was about to fall dead asleep where she stood. Left with not much choice, she limped to a bench not far away and climbed onto it, tears still freely flowing down her face.

Albeit it made little difference to what she could see, Starlight closed her eyes and curled against the night’s cold, nursing sore hooves close to her aching heart. She was pretty sure the few remaining hours before the dawn would be spent in that living nightmare, but her frazzled body had other plans.

After such a long day Twilight expected herself to fall asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, yet as she lay in her bed, minutes passed by and she just kept staring at the ceiling, growing more and more agitated.

The reason for that wasn’t only in the well-needed rest alluding her. The recent conversations played in her mind like a broken record, a bit differently each time as she was coming with new retorts.

Tired of being alone with her thoughts and darkness, Twilight got out of her bed with a groan and turned on the lights. It revealed she was mistaken: there was one more companion to her bout of insomnia.

“Who?” Owlowiscious cheerfully greeted his master from the roost.

Twilight couldn’t remember her pet owl being in the room when she went to sleep; though that certainly wasn't the first time she failed to notice him coming or leaving. Nevertheless, she was more than glad for the presence of her loyal nocturnal companion.

“Hi there…” The rest of her words, whatever they could be, became an incomprehensible coo as she ruffled Owlowiscious’ feathers.

For a few seconds, Owlowiscious allowed himself to indulge in Twilight’s affection, then soared to the ceiling, circled the room and perched himself high on a bookshelf. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.

The moment of bonding was a bit too short for Twilight’s taste; it was still a breath of fresh air after the long day.

With a sigh, she commented, “Well, at least I know you won’t berate me for letting Starlight live with me.”

The seemingly positive fact was instantly poisoned by the dark whisper of reason in Twilight's mind. “Sure, the owl won’t say anything. He is an owl, for Celestia’s sake.And he can still hate Starlight like any other.”

“Who?”

“Oh, you know that poor unicorn everypony keeps hating for no reason,” Twilight muttered in a sarcastically joyous tone as she decided to play along with the owl’s trademark conversation pattern.

Actually, there was a reason… Starlight did try to do some quite sinister things, which was hard to forget. Yet, each time she remembered Starlight's face, the expression of pure emotions written all over it, she couldn’t help but think that under no circumstances she would have been able to decline her remorse.

In her distraught state Twilight failed to notice that she had started to speak aloud, “Why can’t the others see it?”

“Who?” This time the hoot sounded like a genuine question, sympathetic even.

“Moondancer, Princess Luna, Spike…” Frowning, Twilight slumped on the floor and leaned on the bed hoofboard. “Perhaps, all of my other friends as well.”

For whatever his internal reasons were, Owlowiscious fell silent and simply regarded Twilight with his unblinking wide eyes. That effectively killed the conversation they were having (if she was fair with herself, it was already quite one-sided, to begin with) and once again Twilight started to hear her thoughts.

“Are you trying to prove something, or…”

“Nothing,” Twilight said aloud, practically barking.

Teaching Starlight was an act of selfless support, caring about her because she needed care; after all, Twilight was supposed to be an examp–

She just wanted to help Starlight, that was all. To make that mare feel happy and find her place in life after the unpleasant events of her past. Yet Twilight couldn’t ignore not only it sounding fake even in her head—she had also failed. According to Spike, Starlight wasn’t content with her life in the castle. It was more concerning to Twilight than any other issue; she couldn’t do anything about it in the middle of the night, however.

It made Twilight realize she wasn’t likely to get any sleep this night, despite how tired her body felt—her worries just wouldn’t let her drift to Luna’s realm. Remembering that not so little detail cemented Twilight’s resolve to forgo rest—the longer she could avoid meeting her, the better.

With the warmth of blankets and pillows refused, there weren’t many places left to spend the night hours. Thankfully, one place would always welcome her with familiar comfort.

The lights in Twilight’s room went out when she left for the library, Owlowiscious quietly following his master like a shadow.