"What are you in for?" a pinkish-lavender alicorn asked Sunset Shimmer. Her purple and turquiose colored mane had been hacked roughly to shoulder length, and was in a simple ponytail.
Sunset Shimmer's forehoof gestured at her own messy red and yellow mane. "I invented a spell that can turn any mirror into a portal to another world. So that's why we don't get to have mirrors in here. I'm sorry about that."
"Not your fault." The pale lavender pony shrugged. "I don't think anypony in here could really help themselves. If they could...they wouldn't be in here."
Sunset's wings unfolded and spread, her feathers gleaming orange in the prison yard's sunlight. "And of course, I'm also in here for growing these. I already had the horn."
The other pony snorted. "Of course."
Sunset asked, "What about you?"
The other alicorn looked wistful. "My wings, of course." She unfolded her own pair. Her feathers were a bit ill-groomed, but nonetheless ponyfeathers. She beat her wings a few times for emphasis, rising several hooflengths into the air.
"Careful there!" Sunset warned. "If you ever go as high as the nets--" The orange alicorn flicked her eyes upward for emphasis. "They WILL have to stop you. They don't have any other choice."
The airborne pony let herself sink to the ground.
"So is that all?" Sunset asked. "Wings? You must have done something to GET the wings."
"It started because I lost my best friend. When I was a little filly, my closest childhood friend got his cutie mark for advanced magic. He was tested and taken away to a special school for gifted unicorns. I never got to see him again. And I guess in some ways, I never really bounced back from that."
"Oof," Sunset said.
"Maybe I didn't even really WANT to stay out. I wanted to see him again."
Sunset laughed bitterly. "I guess you didn't know these places aren't co-ed."
"I didn't know. I didn't want to know. All I wanted was a way to make more friends, friends who wouldn't leave me. So when I started having wild ideas about how to weave a spell that would make a whole town of ponies into best friends...I didn't even WANT to resist the urge." The pale lavender pony pulled a creased photograph out of her small purse. "Here's my entire town doing a musical number together, in perfect friendship and harmony."
"Wow. An entire town. No one was even out of tune?"
"Everypony was such good friends, the ponies who couldn't sing in tune noticed when other ponies' ears hurt from their wrong notes, so the tonedeaf ones just moved their mouths without making any noise. And, of course, everypony who could dance did the dances, tonedeaf or not."
Sunset chuckled. "That must have been really something."
"Oh, it was. The whole town was the best of friends for most of a day, until Enforcement found out and came to get me. So now...here I am."
Sunset said, "You and I should try to be friends, but not with a spell. We don't know how much time we still have, but let's try to do the best we can with what's left of our lives." She stuck out a forehoof. "I'm Sunset Shimmer."
The other pony tapped hooves with her. "And I'm Starlight Glimmer."
Sunset smiled. "Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise."
***
A few days later, Sunset and Starlight sat at one of the picnic tables, trying to relax.
"Wow," Starlight said. "Is that even possible? How is she...why is she in here? How is a pony like her even still allowed?"
Sunset's eyes followed Starlight's gaze. Starlight was looking at a bright pink pony whose mane and tail were multicolored and waving. "Princess Cadance, you mean?"
"Is that her name? Yes, her. Look at her! She's got to be three times as tall as anypony else, even anypony else in here."
Sunset's mouth crinkled. "She looks a little taller than she really is, because she's very, very skinny. Have you ever met a giraffe?"
"I've seen one in a zoo."
"Their legs are very long, but they're mostly skin and bone. Cadance is the same way. That's how she's still below the mass limit. I like to think...well, she's stayed under the limit for a very long time. She turned into an alicorn so long ago, it wasn't even illegal yet. That's why we call her Princess. Because she had an official royal title. She earned it, by helping ponies find love, instead of fear and hate."
"An alicorn princess of love." Starlight seemed to be mentally chewing over the thought. "Imagine that."
"It's not so far-fetched. Love is a wonderful thing. And hey, weren't you an alicorn of friendship?"
"I took over an entire town, without even asking anypony if they wanted it. Probably not the same thing."
"Well, it's too late to cry over spilt oats. We're in here and she's in here right along with us. Princess or criminal, we're all the same now."
The giraffe-like alicorn approached Sunset and Starlight. "Hello. I'm Cadance. Cady for short."
She's really only about twice as tall as me, Starlight Glimmer thought. Maybe two and a half times as tall.
Sunset nodded her hello. Starlight said, "I'm Starlight Glimmer. After my best friend was taken away...I kind of tried to become an alicorn of friendship, you might say. I mean, I really couldn't help myself. I just wanted everypony to be friends."
Cadance smiled cheerfully. "How nice."
"But now I understand it was wrong."
Cadance frowned. "Was it entirely wrong, though? If only you'd learned how to control yourself...how not to overdo it..."
Starlight shouted, "I was wrong! I couldn't stop myself. I didn't even ask anypony if they wanted it. In less than a day, I took over one town and I was working on two more. I would have conquered the world, without even thinking about it! My power would have grown and grown and grown, and THEN where would we be?"
"My dear," Cadance said, "I see you feel bad about it. Maybe you would have felt enough responsibility even if nopony had stopped you. Maybe you would have become a proper princess. A princess who helps her little ponies, instead of hurting them."
Starlight lifted a forehoof and dug it into her own flank. "Look at me! I'm already fifty pounds heaver than I was three months ago. And I'm six hooflengths taller. I know where I'm headed. I don't have any illusions about it. I'm in runaway growth. If it wasn't for the special diet they feed us here, I might already have gotten huge and gone crazy and grown big enough to crush the whole world, just by trying to live in it."
"But for a new alicorn, a bit of a growth spurt is natural."
"It isn't 'a bit of a growth spurt.' It's...just go away! Get out of here! Go eat your own hooves, you horrible, filthy pretender! I never want to see you again!"
Cadance backed away several steps. "If you ever want to talk, about diet and exercise, and self-control..."
"GO AWAY I HATE YOU!"
Cadance trotted away, while Starlight glared at her bony backside. "I hate ponies like her. If it wasn't for ponies like her, who think being an alicorn can be a good thing, maybe I would have had the strength to resist. Maybe I would have made friends some other way."
"I'm sorry," Sunset said.
"You go away too. I just want to be alone right now. Friendship has never done me any good, not in the long run."
Sunset bowed her head in apology, got up, and walked away.
***
Starlight and Sunset spent some time together every day, not least because they'd been assigned to share the same cell. One morning, they walked out into the yard.
A yellow alicorn with a light blue mane and tail spread her wings, leaping easily atop a picnic table. "Fellow prisoners, listen to me!" she shouted. "You have nothing to lose but your captivity!"
"Oh, applesauce," Sunset said. "This isn't good."
Starlight's gaze moved back and forth between Sunset and the yellow alicorn. "What's going on?"
"That's Lemon Hearts. And by the look of things, she's finally lost it."
Lemon Hearts proclaimed, "I have achieved the power of changing my body's shape!" She stretched herself, growing tall and skinny. "Behold! But I can do yet more! I can teach you how to escape this prison, and gain your freedom!"
Lemon's body stretched out until she was like a pile of spaghetti, heaped high upon the table. Her front legs extended upwards, reaching towards the nets above the yard. A squeaky voice said, "I can go between the net's ropes and cables and chains. I can go anywhere I want, anywhere at all! As is an alicorn princess' right!"
Both her forelegs penetrated through a single hole in the lowest net, which was made of rope. "Upwards and out!" Her voice sounded like a helium addict's. She threaded her foreparts through a second net, made of steel cables. "No mere unicorns or pegasi or earth ponies can stop us!"
Lemon Hearts' forelegs reached upwards through the third and final net, a tangle of steel chains. For a moment, Starlight thought the alicorn really might escape. But sparks flew through the air, as spaghetti-like limbs brushed against electrified chainwork. Lemon Hearts' upstretched body began to fall, sparking and sizzling with electricity, as ponies screamed and tried to flee, pressing towards the edges of the yard.
A small, dun-brown alicorn mare tripped and fell into a deep puddle of mud. Sunset's horn glowed orange. The same color of orange glow surrounded the little mare. The magical aura lifted her, flinging her away from Lemon Hearts.
One of Lemon's ultra-flexible limbs fell across the puddle where the brown mare had been, sizzling as electricity raised a cloud of muddy steam.
Starlight stared at the fallen tangles of yellow flesh. "What happened to her? They...didn't kill her, did they?"
Three prison guardmares marched out of a building, with a medic between them. The four mares looked up to make sure no part of Lemon was still as high as any of the nets, and marched towards the center of the pile of yellow pony spaghetti. The medic tried to untangle Lemon's limbs, but visibly struggled. Soon another four uniformed mares joined the first four, but even then the puzzle was too difficult. It took both medics at least a quarter hour to even guess at which parts of the heap were which parts of Lemon's body.
Sunset said, "Well...I think Lemon just died. Probably. I wouldn't want to sell any life insurance on her right now."
"You're so callous! Don't you care about her?"
"Starlight, I've been in the system for years. I've seen more alicorns come and go than you can imagine. And the main thing I've learned is, help out when you can, but every alicorn is already a goner. It's not a question of whether an alicorn will die, but when. And nopony knows the day or the hour, when any alicorn will take her final ascension flight. Which is just a fancy way of saying, die. Or first turn into something this world doesn't even have a place or a name for, and THEN die."
Starlight grimaced, stomping her forehooves. "Is that really what you think? Alicorn transformation used to be a beautiful miracle, not a curse. Alicorns like us were princesses! We were honored and worshipped! We did so much good in the world. Why are you so sure those days can never return? Don't you have any hope in your heart at all? Or have you just given up? You coward!"
"If I didn't have any hope at all, I wouldn't listen to Cadance. I wouldn't try to at least delay the final transformation, for me or for anypony else. But I know better than to have too much hope. When an alicorn lets down her guard, and thinks she can safely turn into a wonderful, pretty pretty princess as her final form...that's when she's at the most risk of destroying herself and the ponies around her, by turning into a monster."
Starlight raised a forehoof, striking Sunset across the face. As the lavender alicorn ran away, Sunset's magical aura rubbed the bloody cut on her cheek.
That night, neither Sunset nor Starlight mentioned their recent argument.
After lights out, Sunset heard Starlight crying. The orange alicorn didn't know how to make the other mare feel any better, so she didn't say or do anything at all.
Maybe, she thought, Starlight just needs to cry it out.
The next morning, when both ponies woke up, they helped brush each other's manes like nothing had happened.
***
The next night, in the cell they shared, Starlight started a new conversation.
"I've had weeks to think about how I acted, ever since I was so mean to Cadance," Starlight said. "I shouldn't have said the things I said when I first met her. I know Cadance means well."
Sunset rolled over in her cot, and looked across the two-pony cell at Starlight. "Cadance really does mean well. And she's lasted so long...she must have been doing SOMETHING right. Even if it was just the different luck of turning into an alicorn back when it...wasn't the same as it is nowadays. Back when everypony could expect an alicorn could live for thousands of years without going berserk."
Starlight sighed. "Do you think Princess Celestia is still alive?"
"No idea. I would have hoped YOU might know something. You've been out in the world a lot more recently than I have."
"How long have you been in here?"
"I turned alicorn when I was a teenager. It's been...eight years for me now."
Starlight pursed her lips. "And you're still alive. Huh."
"Cadance might sound crazy to you...but she really does know some things. She's the oldest known alicorn in the world, if you don't count ponies like Celestia, who when last I checked, the newspapers said was hiding away from the world. I don't know for sure if she even exists anymore."
Sunset continued, "But we know Cadance is real. She's worth listening to. Maybe she can't save you forever, but her advice might buy you some extra time."
"When I first met her," Starlight said, "I just thought the world was playing another cruel trick on me. Princess of love, my ass."
"Your ass?" Sunset laughed. "You have a very nice ass."
Starlight snorted. "Stop it. Don't try me."
"Sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."
"I don't know if it's just being locked in prisons with only mares...but I think I understand now. It can do something to a pony."
Sunset rolled onto her back, looking up at the ceiling.
"Sunset...if you really think I have a nice flank..."
"You have a GORGEOUS flank."
"Buck it. Every day we have left is precious. Who knows when we might get a chance like this again." Starlight rolled out of her bunk, and crossed the few hoofwidths of distance to Sunset's. "I hope you know how to do this. Because I never have, especially not with a mare."
"We'll figure it out together."
***
Sunset and Starlight lay entangled under Sunset's bedsheets. "I think I love you," Starlight said.
"I think I love you too. But...didn't this all happen kind of fast?"
"I've been looking at you in...that way...ever since I first met you. I never knew love at first sight was a real thing, until the day I was transferred here from Everfree."
"I guess it took me longer to notice you. I mean, to notice how beautiful you are. The first time I ever really thought about you this way was tonight."
"Never before? Not even once?"
"Not even once. But suddenly, everything. Huh. I should have suspected something."
"Should have suspected what?"
Bells and klaxons echoed through the cellblock. A guardmare knocked on the door of the cell. "Are you two decent in there?"
Starlight said, "How wouldn't we be decent?"
"You'd be surprised. If I let you two out, can you control yourselves?"
Sunset said, "I think so. In fact, I hope we just got some of it out of our systems, at least for a little while. Or we sure tried to." She snorted. "What about you, Starlight?"
"I think I can control myself? I love you so much, I'll do it for you. Because I could never stand to have anything bad happen to you."
The guardmare said, "I guess we'll have to risk it. Because we have a Class Four event out there. We need all the ponies we can get." Her key rattled in the door's lock, and the door came ajar. "Come on out right now. Meet in the main yard."
Starlight asked, "What is it? What's happening?"
Sunset crawled out of bed, and pulled on Starlight's mane. "Just come outside. Please."
"Well...ok. But I still don't understand."
***
Outdoors, in the darkness so far from any city, a million stars seemed to fill the night sky. Because of austerity cuts in the magic budget, there was no moon.
But straddling the prison's west wall, an enormous giraffelike blot on the sky seemed to block out countless stars.
Sunset gritted her teeth. "I was hoping never to see this day."
"What day?" Starlight said. "It's the middle of the night, with a sky full of stars." She nudged Sunset. "Isn't it romantic?"
"That's Cadance. She finally went out of control. She's gone into catastrophic overgrowth."
"But...she seemed so nice. She would never want to hurt anypony. I'm sure of it!"
"That's...partly her, talking through you. Her influence in your head."
"A princess can't take over somepony else's head! I mean, if she was, I would know."
"Oh? So why do you think you and I...suddenly fell in love?"
"Love is natural. Love makes the world go round. Without love...there wouldn't even BE ponies."
"I just know my feelings towards you have changed a LOT in less than a day. That isn't natural. And it isn't right. You're a very nice mare, Starlight, but you deserve to be loved for yourself. Not as part of Cadance's new world-destroying overgrowth disaster."
"But a world full of love would be better, not worse. Don't you even WANT my love?"
"I only want your love if it's real."
A guardmare shouted, "Class Four Event, Plan A. Unicorn horn lasers, FIRE!"
All around Starlight, fellow prisoners aimed beams of magic at the starless blot upon the night sky. A dimly glowing shield crackled and sizzled around the enormous, night-shrouded alicorn.
"No!" Starlight said. She tried to cover her ears and eyes with her hooves, and curled up on the ground. "How can you do this?"
"It's necessary," Sunset said. "If we let every alicorn grow out of control, we wouldn't have a world to live in. Everypony would get crushed by simple plotmass, or magically turned into something that wasn't a pony anymore, or even eaten by some hunger-crazed alicorn maniac. Don't you even KNOW what happened to Manehattan? To New Bronieswick and Quebuck? To To-roan-to and Trottawa? How about the entire Haywaiian Islands? To Frisia, and Purrsia, and most of western Chineigh? Not a pony left. Just a wasteland, a disaster of alicorn overambition, as far as the eye could see."
"There has to be another way," Starlight moaned.
"I understand wanting to believe that. I used to hope the same thing. When I listened to Cadance talking about practicing self-control, and moderation...ways an alicorn can try to slow down her own personal overgrowth disaster...sometimes I even liked to imagine that Cadance might have found it. Another way. Not just a way to slow things down, but a way to avoid alicorn disaster altogether.
"But do you know...earlier tonight, I was wanting to do things to you that ponies can't do, like literally merge our bodies together into a bigger pony. I started to feel that if only I tried hard enough, it might really be possible, and we would be together forever. That's how much Cadance got into my head. I don't think she MEANT to do it. I'm sure she didn't mean to hurt anypony. But in the end, she didn't have any choice. And we don't have any choice either."
The sky-blotting silhouette slumped to the ground, crushing most of the yard's west wall.
With the wall mostly destroyed, the prisoners could escape...if they chose to. Maybe one or two of them did slip outside the grounds, under cover of darkness and chaos.
But when a guardmare shouted, "Thank you for helping to save the world! Bunk check in five minutes!" almost all of the prisoners turned around, and shuffled back towards their cells.
As Sunset tugged Starlight back to the main building, she said, "Starlight, I don't know whether I'll love you tomorrow. But at least I'm pretty sure I'll LIKE you, all on my own, without any princess of brainwashing MAKING me do it. Just me, wanting to be your friend. Isn't that enough?"
Starlight didn't speak, but she followed Sunset's pull. She felt she would follow Sunset anywhere the mare wanted them to go, even to the end of the world.
