Sunburst didn’t stop running until well after he’d cleared the final edge of Sire’s Hollow, and even then, he continued, rushing blindly ahead. He barely noticed the wetness in his eyes, and even then, he would more than likely have attributed it to the fierce wind which took up beside him than anything else.

He ran without thinking, unaware of where he was, until finally he stepped awkwardly across a series of rocks jutting out from the dirt and tripped, sailing through the air momentarily before landing in a crumpled heap against the hard soil.

A cloud of dust rose around him. Sunburst was slow to right himself, rubbing his head and groaning. His vision swirled for a moment, and he had to close his eyes and wait for it all to settle.

Once he did, he was able to open his eyes and see his surroundings.

He was in the middle of a densely wooded area, surrounded on all sides by thick, twisting trunks and vines that hung like snakes from the branches. Faintly he could hear small woodland critters—he hoped they were small—scuttling about in the undergrowth, and a few curious birds watched him from their nests. Far off, there was the sound of water running—a river, then, or a brook, or a stream—words and terms entered his mind with such rapidity that it hurt, and he closed his eyes, again overcome.

He opened them again. It was the water, the birds, the critters, the woods, and himself. Nothing more nor less.

Alone, he felt his heart calm, but still his mind was racing.

“Oh, Starlight,” he murmured. “Starlight, Starlight, Starlight… what have you done?”

He had other questions. The first was where on Equestria had Starlight gotten that magical book. As far as he knew, no library in Sire’s Hollow would have given a pony a book that would have allowed them to summon something as dangerous as the Peryton, let alone a filly without a Cutie Mark. He supposed he could try and track down its origin through a bit of muddled investigating on his own, but would there be time?

That brought him to his second question, and by far the most important: What was he going to do?

Sunburst looked around him as though searching for an answer in the foliage. He had nowhere near the magical capability that Starlight had. If that Peryton had even a fraction of her power, he doubted he’d be able to go against it directly. But still, something had to be done. Innocent ponies and not-so-innocent ponies would get hurt.

But maybe they deserve it.

The harshness of that thought forced him to raise his head, as though somepony else had said it aloud; but it was still just him in that undergrowth, alone, frightened, confused.

After all, the Peryton had the direct order to stop anypony who was bullying Sunburst. Surely that meant it would only single out those who’d been doing the bullying in the first place.

But magic was unpredictable, and summoning eldritch abominations like the Peryton had a nasty habit of not obeying the laws of common sense. Starlight was powerful, but could she really control something whose existence defied the nature of the universe?

Think, Sunburst! Think!

Thinking got you into this mess in the first place! came another thought, another voice. It was his, but distorted, bitter-sounding, aciding in taste. If you hadn’t said anything, Starlight wouldn’t have thought this was necessary!

“That doesn’t mean she should have done this,” he said, in a voice that echoed off of the trees and into the darkness beyond. Nearby, there was a flurry of movement as something unseen, scared, scurried off.

No, but now she has. It’s all over, anyhow, the voice continued. There’s no going back. The town’s lost. You might as well run.

“I can’t just run!”

You can and you must. You can’t go back there. There’s nothing there left for you.

“There’s Starlight—”

She’s on her own. She’s made her bed. She knows what she wanted to do and has done it. Now you have an opportunity to get away from her, from what she’s done. You must take it!

That voice seemed to echo in the real world. It bounced off of the leaves and whispered between the branches and darted between the great, elongated shadows. It echoed that singular statement over and over: You must take it, you must take it, you must take it…

“No!”

Sunburst stomped his hoof. A cloud of dust rose around him. “I can’t just abandon my home! I can’t just abandon my friend!”

It’s lost, it’s lost, it’s already lost.

“I refuse to believe that!” Consciously, he knew he was just talking to himself, or rather, to nothing at all, yet this voice had a presence to it—a somber, haunting presence, like that of the dead unwilling to depart peacefully for the world beyond the living.

Somewhere without, the eyes of curious animals returned to that clearing, to watch this strange pony talk to the air. They gathered at the edges, wondering.

Believe what you want, the voice continued. It matters not. The town is lost. Your friend is no longer your friend.

“Why? Just because she made a mistake?”

She has acted rashly. It would be foolish to think—

“She’s my friend! That doesn’t change because she made a mistake! If anything, that gives me more reason to return—to help her fix this mistake!”

Fool! the voice hissed. With it there came a burst of wind, so cold that it might have come from the distant north. The wind bit Sunburst’s skin and triggered some primal urge in him to flee, but he grit his teeth and held his ground. She has forsaken you and reason! You don’t need her anymore. You don’t need anypony—

“It’s not about need!” Sunburst shouted. He felt his glasses slip, but he didn’t care. He turned in a circle, as though seeking out the voice’s speaker. “It’s about doing what’s right because it’s right, and that’s the only reason any pony dumb enough to be friends with anypony else needs in order to help his friend!”

A hush came over the world. The birds and animals who’d been watching quieted and seemed to melt into the dense greenery. Even the river, which had been bubbling somewhere distant, seemed to stop, frozen by the force of Sunburst’s words.

He was breathing heavily, he realized. And sweating, too—it was a hot day, and the lushness of the forest insulated the area like an enclosed chamber. That seemed important to him—but he could not recall at that moment why. Heat, temperature—what did that have to do with the Peryton?

“Forget the Peryton,” he murmured. The voice did not reply. It seemed to have gone away. Good; that meant Sunburst could concentrate. “Forget the Peryton,” he repeated. “Starlight’s the one who needs my help. She needs to see… she needs to see that this isn’t going to help any one of us.”

But how? There wasn’t a spell that could magically help a pony realize their mistakes, much as he might have wished otherwise. A pony had to realize on their own terms.

That, he realized, almost with a dim sense about him, could be said about the bullies, too—whether he agreed with that statement was moot, for putting fear into a pony, forcing them to learn by way of power and powerlessness; that was what they did, and therefore they could not learn their own infliction of pain by receiving it in greater degree. There were other ways. There had to be. But the Peryton, he knew, was not one of them.

No sooner had he thought this that, distantly, shouting broke through the forest. He didn’t recognize any of the voices, but knew instinctively what it was: the effect of Starlight’s magical spell.

Sire’s Hollow needed him. No, more than that: Starlight needed him.

He felt rejuvenated, and though a bolt of fear continued to surge through him, he focused instead on his goal: getting Starlight to stop. Only she, after all, could stop the Peryton; and only he, Sunburst, could convince her to do so.

Thinking this, Sunburst circled in his spot once more, watching the shadows, the lines between the trees, waiting for that voice to return, to tell him he was wrong.

When it did not, he broke out at a brisk pace, and ran back towards the town. The eyes of the forest watched until he had vanished once more.

Author's Note

Written by Jarvy Jared.