Slowly slipping out of nothingness, Starlight feels more and more awake. She feels every single piece of grass under her, most of them on the sides slightly and gently brushing her coat, her purple and cyan mane flowing slightly within a lite breeze, and her nostrils sensing every bit of air entering and exiting her snout. She is still feeling like she is tired so when she actually gain consciousness she refuses to wake up and in a moan she moves around a bit, trying to find the comfortably laying position.
The birds sings and cheers a bit everywhere. The sound of unceasing waves reaching and falling into the sea again somehow bother her calm, as a part of her mind asks herself why she hears all that nature.
She weakly open her eyes, and for the very first instant she wakes up, she reasoned that she dreamed of schemes and shenanigans she done with old dusty scrolls, and that her revenge day is still not about to come yet or such. But then her brain finds out that in face of her a big square of stone stands alongside with some grass around, the slope of the place she is is quite surprising because of its cubic edges but as Starlight gets standing she slides off the shore and falls in water.
She does a little sound when she falls, surprised, then she tries to swim and breath, which she almost never done giving how far the coasts are from her home, but luckily she can succeed in navigating through the water and climb at a less steep shore of the water-filled cavern there was just behind where she was sleeping.
“Oh dear. That was, so scary!” She mumbles to herself, still shocked.
After getting herself a bit calmer she shakes herself in order to get rid of the water, but it only makes her coat blurry now.
“Urgh, great.” She says disappointed. “Um. Anyone’s there?”
She walks around without much any actual direction to go at, she is just seeking for anything to help her understand what happened or where she is. When she walks, every of her step does react with sounds in the grass, the branches, the leaves, and little humidity there is in the forest she walks in now, and eventually she feels hungry. Arriving near a coast of the island she find out she is on, she feels quite thirsty too.
“Party Favor? ... Sugar Belle? ... Night Glider? ... Double Diamond? ... Come-on, this isn’t funny anymore...” She says, still waiting for answers. “I know I’ve done some bad things to you but, I’m not worth dying all alone here right?”
Unfortunately, nothing replies to her voice.
Finding a little lake or something, not connected to the ocean as a step of sand separate it from the sea. Having trust in this waters, she approach her nose from it and stick her tongue out, in order to taste the liquid. Even as a pony that usually don’t drink very sophisticated drinks, this water is very dirty and salty for anypony like her to enjoy. She then give up and walk around the shore of the lake, then she gets in the water, swimming a bit while she still have hooves touching the ground, trying to reach the next piece of land aside of the island she woke up in.
After intense and desperate tries to find something she knows, she just start walking mindlessly, looking at the ground. But suddenly she bump into something. It is a big pillar in dark purple, and it is surrounded with red and post-burned looking cubes. She wanders what it used to be, since it looks quite old. Probably related to magic? Oh! And there is a chest nearby the forsaken frame!
“A... pickaxe that is glowing and a sword that is halfly broken?” She asks to herself out loud. “What I am going to do with that?”
She continues walking around, this time more seeking for objects. Utterly she can manage to find something civilized. A wheel.
“Oh, finally something not wild!” She says, all happy to finally see something made by somepony.
It is a axe made of stone, it looks not much fancy or efficient, but solid nonetheless.
“And it is mine.” A grumpy looking pony says. “So you better keep your wandering hooves away of it.”
“Oh, hehe.” She is embarrassed. A bit of red on her cheek lays. “I wasn’t going to steal it, for sure!”
“Yes, totally.” The guy says. “That is why you already stole the stuff in my chest, huh?” He says gesturing at the things she is carrying in her backpack.
“I am sorry, I didn’t knew it was your things, here, have them back!” She says, worried of his anger.
Once she gave everything to the stallion, she pass and move on. After a tiny time walking, she hears behind the bush in the direction she just was walking from, a malicious kind of laugh. Curious about its maker, she approach the place again, finding the pony that spoke to her just recently laughing ridiculously loud as he got her goods.
“What are you laughing at, exactly?” She says, suspicious. “Did you trick me?”
“What? What are you going to do, little unicorn? Cry to your mommy Celestia about your adventure in the wild?” He says, mocking her shamelessly. “Go-on, filly, get home, adult ponies doing adult things here.”
The earth pony sees her becoming really angry-looking, and therefore he draws his sword. Starlight can’t conceive if she is controlling her magic at this instant, because her wills to do this is questionable. But a moment after, the earth pony receives a beamray coming from Starlight’s horn, she looks concentrated and angry for a single second when the magic ray spurts out of her and the pony disappears after having shined in a hurt red. It’s body lays on the ground before it explodes in powder or dust, that slowly vanishes after a time. The lasting goodies are now pixels icons, turning around endlessly in wait of a sentient character to collect them.
A little bunny in the background seen that and looks horrified, does a little surprised sound when the dust figure collapsed on ground and runs away in terror.
“Um. Oopsie!” She smiles in embarrassment, not really sure if she wanted to do that. “I- I’m sorry!!”
The calm comes back and she’s alone in this forest. When nothing happens she quickly gather all the items she and the pony had and flees before grabbing too much attention.
Is it an illusion? She finally see a wall of stones or such figures in the distance. Then, they looks like houses, with wooden rooves. After eventually looking enough on it, Starlight sees some trails that conduct to the village.
“Yes! People! Finally!” She says while she runs.
But because of thirst or hunger, or maybe both, she faint on ground. As fast as she started running, Starlight falls on the ground in such a bad manner that she hurt herself.
A pink or slightly clear red pony, with a dark magenta mane levitating a piece of cake aside of her, walks to her and smiles gently.
“Hey traveler!” She says. “Are you taking a nap on the ground? Come-on! Our hamlet is just few step further there!” She gesture at the towns.
Starlight doesn’t reply anything, and is just on the verge of fainting, this time it would mean falling in a deep sleep without much hope to wake up shortly. The pink pony induce a spoon with her magic and slips a slice of her creation into the mouth of the exhausted mare.
“Taste this, you will have some sparkles in your mouth.” She says.
Starlight barely manage to clench and swallow the piece of cream of the colorful cake. She does a little ‘mhh’ sound as she does like the cake, and then the pink pony makes her drink some water from a waterbottle. The fresh, potable water makes easier to integrate the piece of cake and she regain a few semblance of energy.
“Th- thanks...” She mumbles.
When she looks up, she sees the pink pony smiling.
“Welcome.” She smiles happily. “My name is Sugar Belle.”
“Sugar Belle!?!??” Starlight is shocked.
After walking half a minute, they find themselves in the town.
“So. This is your town?” Starlight asks.
“Yes. It is called Startown, because of the star on the top of our tree.” She gesture at the tree.
When she looks at it, she sees her cutie mark on top of the tree. The star is made of 8 branches, the 4 front cardinals are purple and the 4 others in diagonal are white.
For a second, Starlight’s eyes shines in a rainbow and her cutie mark brights. When she looks at her flank, having heard a little swing sound and a warming feeling on her cutie mark, she sees nothing. Everything seems normal as she stare at herself, while she is sure to have felt something when she first saw that star.
“What is this tree?” Starlight asks.
“It is our Tree of Life. Whenever we needed it, it was showing us a way to save ourselves. Recently it have cease to function after the explosion of a creeper too close of it.” She explains.
“A what?” She replies, clueless. “A creeper?”
“You don’t know what a creeper is? Are you silly or you lived in a castle of all your existence?” She is suspicious. “But yes, they are green sneaky creatures that explodes on your face.” She says.
“Okay.” Starlight Glimmer sighs. “What I’m going to tell you seems totally impossible. But apparently I am coming from a different world and found myself on the grass a few hours ago in middle of nowhere, so I think something teleported me here, and I’m stuck here with absolute zero clues.”
“Well, I don’t see why it would be impossible.” She gesture at her horn. “There is magic in our world after all.” She says. “I don’t think I will blindly trust you that fast but hey if you convince me one day I might help you try returning to your world.”
Starlight have a few reluctance yet.
“So... What will the cake cost me?” She mumbles, shyly.
“Cost you?” Sugar Belle giggles. “My help doesn’t cost anything as far as I know... But I do expect you to be kind with us in return?”
“Of course, hehe.” Starlight feels conscious. “I’m very very kind.. I’m known in my world for that.....” She lies.
Sugar Belle smiles to her, and just move on. Someponies wave at her, in the habitants all around she can also recognize Party Favor, Night Glider, Double Diamond, and a lot of ponies from her old village and few other from ponyville other places she have been.
Starlight, eventually advised by somepony, made her way to a kind of inn. It is made of a single hut, and have few on-ground hay-made beds. It is very early technology bed, factually, but from her point of view and her memories of what she have done, that is a nice hostel for sure.
Having rested and feeling better, having continued to eat the cake and drink, she just stays laid and waits for anything to happens. Feeling still confused about what she is doing here and what she is supposed to do, she get out of the building to glance in the surroundings of the village.
The village is in middle of a plain, aside of a mountain and near a lake, surrounded by a forest in the distance, and some rivers are visible in the very far that seems to encircle the place along with a forest at west and at south. Starlight kind of feels the tiniest comfortable in this town already, it seems nice, and even if her believes aren’t truly around, the ponies of here seems pleasant. It is still disturbing for her that all the ponies she knows or much are here under roughly the same personality she used to know them for.
Eventually, a conversation, that slowly turns as an argument, caught her attention. When she reaches to the street, she sees two ponies, one placing a cube of soil, the other one destroying it.
“You can’t just steal my place like that!” The feminine pegasi pony argues.
“You weren’t here for weeks, now you are trying to get back? I paid for your slot, now I own it!” The licorn stallion replies. “I deserve this place because my balloons makes everyone happy in the town!”
It find out it is Party Favor and Night Glider, two ponies that she very well know in her world, but unfortunately she don’t know much about their story in this one. She still recognizes each others’ manners and way of speaking.
“Are you saying I’m useless?” Night Glider says. “It clearly isn’t with my help that we cleaned the sky out of snow clouds for month, maybe years now!”
“Whenever finally the pegasus would help our town I was already at work to like, survive!” Party Favor says. “It is a betrayal to even think about going back to Rainbow Heights!”
Someponies gather around like Double Diamond, and even if pegasus are rare here, it looks like they aren’t happy to be put in that basket, surely having done their best in the past.
Starlight glances at the star on top of the tree. She hesitate for a instant but can’t keep her mind to herself anymore.
“Hey, friends. Why are you arguing?” She asks. “I don’t think it matters. Why not dividing the area in two so you both have a place to rest in?” She smiles, in hope of their calming.
They turn their heads to her and they doesn’t look like they agree.
“Dividing the area? This surface is the least I can reclaim for being the only one to work for the happiness of the town!” Party Favor.
“Night Glider. Party Favor. I know what you feel. But wouldn’t it better to have everypony share the same amount of space in a town?” She says, trying to convince them. “Why do you have to fight for your differences? Wouldn’t it be easier if we all were the same?”
“I don’t know who you are, but saying I’m the same as this joke-pony is a big mistake!” She says, furious looks at Starlight.
She feels a bit scared or shameful as she didn’t succeeded in persuading them. Night Glider take off and flies away, as she whooshes away the clouds she come across explode in dust, surely cause of her angriness, her power to drive around clouds makes this happen.
“I- I’m sorry...” She says. “I wouldn’t thought I couldn’t soothe the tensions between the two of you.”
“It’s okay, you tried.” Party Favor says. “But how do you know my name?”
As Sugar Belle comes by, Starlight gesture at her. She waves at her, surely hoping she is well welcomed in the little hamlet.
“She’s just. Very talkative.” Starlight says.
“Hey Starlight? What are you up to? Did you found new friends?” Sugar Belle asks.
“Yes, I did!” She smiles and gesture at Party Favor and Double Diamond that happen to stand nearby.
“You mean we are friends already?” Party Favor asks, a bit surprised.
“What do you mean? We just met?” Double Diamond says.
Starlight looks around and feels a bit desperate. She feels stressed out for some reason for an instant, then she tries to retain calm.
“I’m sorry.” Starlight says. “I’m just so scared and I’ve just woke up in the wild without any reason to be here and I’m horrified that everything I remember is not true in this world. I’m just so hopeless right now...” She sighs, exaggerating her emotions slightly to induce their friendliness.
Party Favor does a step to her and have a hoof on her shoulder, trying to recomfort her.
“It’s okay, we aren’t hostile to you yet. What do you have in mind? Would you like us to help you for something?” He offers.
“I’d like someone to explain to me everything because I’m a certain pony that I can’t do anything if I don’t know the world I’m in.” She says.
“I could.” Double Diamond says. “Whatever you need, I’d like to give it to you.”
She smiles and hugs him for a second, before realizing what she is doing. He blushes and does a little movement of surprise while she does a step backwards, in an embarrassed face.
“Sorry! I didn’t meant to frighten you or anything!” She adds.
“It’s alright. I wasn’t aware you are a clingy friend.” He replies. “But since you just arrived in this world, is it your natural mane or would you want something new? I’d gladly improve it if you’d like.” He smiles.
“Yay! I’d love that!” She smiles. “Thanks for your caring, Double Diamond.”
“Oh please, call me Diamond.” He replies.
