We Have No Mouths, and We Must Confess

Act 1 Part 3

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It was hard to say what woke Starlight from her troubled sleep.

It could have been the morning song of birds coming from the tree looming above the bench she reluctantly chose to serve as her bed. Or it could be the wood itself, which proved to be as far as possible from being comfortable for night’s rest. Narrow, rigid and frigid, it made Starlight’s body ache more and ended up not restoring her energy but sapping from its already deplenished pool.

A heavy head groggily turned to the horizon to observe a crack of dawn through half-lidded eyes. Even in her barely awakened state Starlight understood the futility of returning to sleep, yet her entire being demanded that she not leave the wooden seat.

She did the opposite and slid from the bench, nearly falling when her tired hooves refused to obey.

Actually, she was happy her awakening took place so early, while most of the ponies were still asleep. It wouldn't do to be seen sleeping on the street right outside Twilight’s castle like a homeless pony.

Speaking of which, it’s crystal bulk towered over her, reminding of the last night.

More than anything Starlight wanted to just walk away from it, to travel to some faraway corner of Equestria and start a new life. It wouldn’t be a new experience for her. This time it wouldn’t include enslaving anypony.

For a few moments it sounded like a solid plan and she almost picked a random direction to go, happy again it was early enough, so nopony would stop her and ask questions.

It was the last part making her pause and think.

Firstly, there was a chance ponies would look for her. Not out of concern for her well-being (though Twilight still could), but because she technically was a criminal on a probation period, so to say.

Secondly, it was just rude to leave without explaining anything, no matter how much she wanted to avoid it.

She had to speak to Twilight if she had any respect for that mare and any respect for herself. Albeit it was a perfect time to leave Ponyville, it was far from perfect to talk to anypony, especially Twilight, who had arrived home late at night yesterday.

So, with her head hanging low, ears drooped, Starlight shambled around the castle and sat by its foundation on the opposite to the entrance side, basking in the warming rays of the rising sun.

Her mind was numb from the events preceding her short sleep and from the length of the said rest, leaving her melancholically observing the nature of Ponyville’s countryside slowly waking up.

Suddenly, she was as if struck by lightning: a conflicting mess of sensations paralyzed her body when she deeply inhaled the crispy morning air. From one of the castle windows a rivulet of the most beautiful scent trickled down to her nostrils—the aroma of freshly baked pancakes.

The sweetness of the smell quickly became bitter, however. It meant Starlight had to confront Twilight about her abrupt departure. Also, it reminded her about the last time she ate, which was too long ago. To make it worse, she had a suspicion participating in the breakfast wouldn’t be an option for her. With a great effort, Starlight rose to her hooves and, steeling herself, headed inside the castle.

She stubbornly looked at the ground until it changed into crystal panes, then kept her eyes down, despite a reflection staring back at her miserably. There was no sense in looking elsewhere—she wouldn’t be able to hide from herself in the castle.

Spike was sitting at the table, munching at the pancakes with Twilight nowhere to be seen. Either not noticing Starlight dishevelled appearance or just disregarding it, he greeted her in a carefully neutral voice:

“Good morning.”

Starlight’s sleep-deprived mind was still trying to comprehend the fact Twilight wasn’t having breakfast and enough time passed to make the situation awkward. Failing to come to any somewhat elegant solution, she cut straight to the chase.

“Where is she?”

Spike regarded her for a few moments with a nonplussed gaze and grumbled, “Good morning to you too, Spike.” Then he put a piece of a pancake in his mouth and spoke as he chewed, “She ish shtill shleepin’.”

That bit of information helped Starlight none, pushing her brain back to a state of a complete lock.

Nothing changed by the time Spike finished eating the contents of his plate and moved it to the side while pulling a cup closer, all that time keeping his eyes locked on the mare standing in the doorway frozen like a statue, staring into nothingness with ears pressed back.

Only after Spike took a couple of sips, he finally broke the silence.

“You know,” he slowly said, “she wanted to talk with you.”

Though Starlight heard him clearly, she neither moved nor made any other indication. She knew exactly what Twilight wanted to talk with her about. The question was if she should admit eavesdropping or not. Deciding she couldn’t make it worse than it already was, she squeezed out of herself, barely holding back tears, “She wants me t-to leave.”

“What?” Spike reacted with a grimace and added, bewildered, “No one wants you to leave!”

“What, even you?” Starlight bitterly muttered without thinking and clamped her hooves over her mouth, looking at Spike in horror.

Spike gave her a long look full of disappointment but said nothing. Then he diverted his attention to his coffee. His expression hardened and his eyes widened as if he saw something horrible in the dark depths of his beverage.

“I almost died back then,” Spike said quietly, nearly a whisper.

Starlight rushed to him from the door, falling to her knees, “Spike, I am so sorry! Please–”

The dragon didn’t let her finish, raising his claws in the air.

“I never…” he began, then corrected himself with a mirthless chuckle, “Alright, I was pretty cross at you at first.” He let out a sigh. “I’ve forgiven you because Twilight believes in you and you’re important to her.”

Starlight, who was half-sprawled on the floor, moved to take a standing position while intently listening to Spike with her eyes wide and ears perked.

“But…” Spike trailed off and Starlight tensed up. “I am not going to tolerate you moping around. You’re lucky Twilight has been away a lot lately and didn’t see you looking like the world is ending. If she did, she’d go mad with worry and I don’t want that to happen.”

“I…” Starlight hiccuped. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t see with her head hung in shame, Spike gave her a sympathetic glance.

“Listen, I don’t know what your deal is—if there are any problems then talk with Twilight.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I swear, you’re as bad as she is.”

“I actually think I should just leave,” Starlight muttered and sniffed, trying not to start crying again.

“Ugh…” Spike’s hold on his nose tightened and he shook his head, grimacing. “You do realize that will break her heart?”

Starlight winced.

“But everypony complains to her about me…” she weakly retorted.

Spike threw his arms up in frustration.

“So what? They know you for who you were, not for who you are. Everyone will come around, Starlight. After all, I forgave you, though you almost got me done.”

Starlight timidly smiled.

“Thank you, Spike.”

She moved to accentuate her words with a friendly hug but meeting his hard gaze stopped. However, Spike seemed to appreciate her attempt and his expression softened.

“If you really want to thank me, do what I told you.” He pointed at the sink. “Start with washing your face. You look horrible, it is not what Twilight needs to see when she comes down for breakfast.”

After slowly creeping across the library for long minutes, the blinding ray of the sun finally reached a figure sleeping in a sitting position at the table. The golden wave warmly caressed her cheek, swiftly traced the lips drooling on the book-pillow. Like an ethereal comb, the luminescent claws sneaked into a dishevelled mane and then at last reached for the swollen eyes, harmlessly piercing the skin with their blinding radiance.

Twilight squinted and mumbled in her disturbed sleep, trying to shy away from the sun’s unblinking gaze; it proved futile, making her realize how uncomfortable she was. Surrendering to her fate she opened her eyes and instantly closed them with a hiss as a single blink was enough for the fire to be poured into them in full.

Intelligibly grumbling under her breath, Twilight forced herself to tear her head from her improvised pillow to discover a parchment covered in smudged scribbles clinging to her cheek.

She picked it off with her magic, stared at the text trying to decipher at least some of its contents and failed completely. Then the gaze of her red and shadowed eyes moved to the other notes chaotically covering the table. Although they were more or less intact, the words and letters blurred in Twilight’s eyes; combined with a throbbing headache, it made them completely incomprehensible.

The worst thing was, Twilight couldn’t recall what instigated her to start working on any project in the middle of the night. She kept recalling memory after memory until it was as if she pulled a thread of a bag only for its contents to spill into her face to reveal themselves bricks.

All the events of the previous day instantly became fresh in her mind. The emotions brought along were stale, yet still quite unpleasant, readily adding to the aching of her exhausted body and splitting headache.

Unfortunately, in her years of studying magic Twilight never managed to find a spell to cure her predicament. However, there was a potion of sorts which could help her to alleviate the hardships of a new day and she luckily would be able to find a steaming cup of that magical dark liquid in the kitchen.

It took more than just a few moments at the kitchen’s sink for Starlight to make herself at least somewhat presentable. Some magic became involved to deal with mane and coat which looked exactly like she slept at some bench in the park.

Spike, despite suspiciously observing her haphazard attempts to hide the aftermath of the obviously unusual night, said nothing. As soon as Starlight stepped away from the sink he used it to wash his dishes and dry them.

By the time she finally was done with her appearance, the plate and cup were returned to the table, though not empty—a breakfast was awaiting her. The sight of glistening with melted butter pancakes and the steam coming off a cup full of pitch-black coffee was what made her hurry up.

Starlight threw herself on her breakfast and began to hungrily devour it, barely chewing and keeping burning her mouth while Spike watched her in indecision what to feel: pride for his cooking appreciated or awkwardness for the display.

Anyhow, both his hesitation and Starlight’s gusto were gone when their company was joined by none other by the Princess of Friendship herself. Spike shot Starlight, who froze mid-bite, a cautious glance, though kept silent. He didn’t have the chance anyway, as it was Twilight who broke the tension she wasn’t aware of.

“Morning, Starlight, Spike,” she croaked, not paying attention to anything but Starlight’s cup. I took her some time to register it wasn’t empty and then she added, “Ugh, Spike, can you make the coffee stronger than usual, my head is splitting in a half.”

“Sure, but maybe you shouldn’t have stayed up all night, instead.”

“I didn’t stay up all night.” She then grabbed a pancake from the counter with her magic and promptly stuffed it into her mouth.

Only now she realized she was starving. The tea she had at Canterlot was of the best quality in Equestria, yet that didn’t make it a good substitute for a meal, sadly.

Vigorously chewing the pancake she continued to justify her unplanned all-nighter, “And I was doing research.”

“What were you studying?” Spike asked her, feeding more and more spoons of coffee to the machine.

With a flick of his claw, the crystal inside of it came to life and soon the kitchen was filled with the aroma of roasted coffee beans and the gurgle of boiling water.

A bite of food was something Twilight desperately needed, however, it refused to do any favours to her memory, so she had no choice but to quietly say in shame, “I… I don’t remember.”

Upon hearing her words Spike guffawed.

“Stop laughing!” Twilight barked and immediately regretted it, clutching her head in her hooves. In a much softer voice, she added, “I made notes, I just haven’t checked them yet.”

Another pancake was levitated into the air, then froze midway to Twilight, who frowned and shook her head. It changed its course and soon landed on an empty plate to soon be joined by its brethren when Twilight generously took the rest of the stack. Her dubious look travelled from the now empty plate to the one she took for herself and just filled. She continued to stare, then rolled her eyes and went to the table, inadvertently taking a place opposite to Starlight, not noticing how tense she was.

Since her teacher appeared in the doorway, Starlight lost any appetite and could only stare at the table, her insides churning from acute anxiety. Only after Twilight was half-way through her breakfast did she gather enough courage to speak.

“You…” Starlight gulped. “S-spike told me you wanted to speak to me.”

“Umm,” Twilight hummed in confusion. Then she remembered why she needed to talk with Starlight and froze, staring into nothing. “Yes,” she continued awkwardly and slowly.

Right this moment, learning from Starlight she was unhappy to stay at the castle was the last thing she wanted to discuss. She didn’t ever want to hear she was a bad host, or even worse—mentor.

However, with Starlight raising that issue, it had to be addressed, so she finally asked, hesitantly moving her pancakes to the side, “Does anypony give you trouble?”

“No,” Starlight’s answer was instant. Unnoticed by Twilight, Spike poked her under the ribs with his claw. Rubbing her violated side with the hoof she quietly said, still avoiding eye contact, “After everything I’ve done, who can blame them…”

Spike slapped his forehead.

Twilight couldn’t help but let out a sigh, longingly looking at her growing cold breakfast.

“Starlight, stop,” Twilight said wearily. “Your past is behind you, you should learn from it, but not dwell.” She tried to meet her student’s eyes, but Starlight kept dejectedly looking with the ears pressed to her skull at the half of the pancake at her plate as her life depended on it.

Suppressing another sigh, Twilight called, “Starlight. Look at me.”

Blue eyes didn’t meet the purple ones, as the seconds passed in strained silence. Twilight had to suppress another sigh coming, deciding instead to continue her speech:

“Whatever you have done… tried to do... can’t be undone, that is true,” –Starlight jerked as if Spike poked her again– “There is another truth—I can see you not only capable of change but striving to. For me, you will never be a lost mare who has done some bad things, but a wonderful mare I look forward to knowing more about.”

Starlight looked at Twilight with wide eyes, but her mentor was too distracted with her thoughts to notice and meet the bewildered gaze she was being given. However, when Twilight finally looked at Starlight, the latter turned her head to the table once again. Twilight took at as a sign of her words not being placating enough, so she went on:

“If anypony in particular harasses you, please report this to me—I’m always on your side, no matter what. Other than that… I am afraid you will have to give them time. The ponies in Ponyville can be suspicious at first, but as they get to know you better, you will be friends with the entire town in no time.”

More out of the desire to show Twilight there is nothing to worry about, rather than out of pride or anything else, Starlight spoke in a small voice, “I spoke with Mr. Cake yesterday. He seems to be a very nice stallion and I think he liked me as well.”

“See? I’m sure you will become an example of friendship sooner than you realize.” Twilight smiled in encouragement.

Her expression held up for only a few moments until a monstrous yawn contorted her features. Although she managed to cover it with her wing, a blush settled on her cheeks.

“Maybe you’re right, Spike—I can’t neglect my sleep schedule anymore like that. I am a princess, after all.”

“You shouldn’t have been doing that when you weren't a princess either,” he shot to her as he was gathering the plates from the table.

“I am going to try and make sense of what I was researching last night,” Twilight said, picking with magic her cup and plate. “So, if you need me for anything, I’ll be in the library.”

Spike chuckled at Twilight’s predicament again. “As if she hangs around anywhere else.”

The remark fell on deaf ears, as Twilight was already gone and Starlight was too deep in her rumination.