The Last Light of the Evening Star

Starlight Glimmer was the embodiment of the Element of Magic. That came with an immense reservoir of power, which no-pony else, save her fellow alicorns, had access to (a fact which Sunburst had often admitted to being more than a little jealous of).

It also meant that sensitivity of her horn, in detecting nearby spells and enchantments was dialed way up. She felt the teleportation spell that Evening had cast, before Evening and re-appeared in a flash of pink light in the library.

“Something’s coming!” Evening Star declared. She was not the shy, anxious pony that Starlight had seen head up the stairs a moment before. And she had not just grown more confident, but Starlight could feel more ambient magical energy surrounding her, some untapped reservoir of power.

How had she not noticed that previously?

Trixie pointed a hoof at the staircase from whence they came, and Starlight saw the thing that had frightened the two mares. The stones of the staircase were slowly being sucked dry of all color, then all texture. The same thing was happening on the ceiling above and around the door from which they’d all entered.

“Everypony close!” Starlight ordered, flying up into the air and creating a spherical force field big enough to contain them all.

“What is it?!” Trixie cried out, shaking Evening Star in demand of an answer.

Starlight cast a glance toward the librarian, who’s expression flashed with guilt for a moment and then returned to the same scowl of determination.

“I don’t know…but if we touch it, we will die.” Evening replied.

“Oh dear…oh dear…” Fluttershy said, drawing close to Starlight in hopes of catching a whiff of some of her bravery.

The massive library chamber was quickly becoming as gray and uninteresting as the staircase. More distant bookshelves looked practically two-dimensional, while the now colorless books on their shelves had begun to seem identical and flat. Whenever the grayness appeared, there was a popping and sizzling sound, like that of a lightbulb burning out. This hissing was accompanied by a smell, almost comparable to the slight whiff of ozone which teleportation sometimes brought, but much less sweet and much more burnt.

Starlight took a deep breath and extended her magic, to release a tendril from her shield spell and test The Dullness' boundaries. The moment that the appendage touched the graying shelves, it flickered and then the whole spell simply popped out of existence. Starlight blinked, and realizing that the forcefield had dropped around her and her friends, she
focused her magic and visualized the courtyard outside. She relaxed slightly, reassuring herself that despite the panic of her allies, the situation remained firmly under her control, at least for the time being.

Then in a flash of magic, the four ponies were standing in the castle courtyard. Whatever relief that might have come with this was quickly diminished as she saw the grayness which had overtaken the library, spreading throughout the ruins, with accelerating speed.

“Fluttershy, take Trixie!” Starlight yelled and the pegasus nodded and scooped up Trixie by the forelegs. Starlight, meanwhile, did likewise with Evening Star and flew straight up into the air.

She watched as more and more of the grayness consumed the castle. As it did, the moss and vines which had constricted so much of it, became not just colorless, but quickly ceased to be, altogether, fading into the poorly detailed stonework.
It was like watching the world unravel in front of her eyes.

“They’re not going to make it!” Evening Star cried out.

Starlight glanced where she was pointing and saw that Fluttershy, still recovering from her wing injury earlier in the week, was having trouble lifting Trixie over the castle gate and rampart.

“Hold on tight!” Starlight warned, before diving back downwards. As soon as she got within range, she used her telekinesis to lift Trixie slightly, so that she and Fluttershy were in no danger of touching the rapidly disappearing stones of the gate.

As the four of them landed ungracefully, just outside the castle, Starlight glanced back.

The entire castle had become a haze of black, white and gray. The invasion had paused. Whatever entity had caused this distortion, appeared to be sated. For now.

Still, there was no point in sticking around to wait until it got hungry again.

“C’mon,” She said, using her horn to gently prod the panting Fluttershy into movement. “We have to get out of here.”

The group adopted a gallop for the next few minutes, which eventually turned into a canter, when it was clear that whatever it was, wasn’t right behind them at just this moment.

They picked back up again when the sounds started. First it was a howl, then a crowing, followed by squawks, grunts, snarls and squelching, less definable cries. And in a matter of seconds, the entire forest was shaking with cacophonous dissent and all four ponies had to cover their ears to avoid being deafened by the outcry. Whatever it was Starlight had just witnessed, the locals were no more enthusiastic about its arrival.

After that, Starlight kept everyone moving until they were well outside the Everfree’s borders. It was afternoon by this point, and they were all so exhausted that more than one of them collapsed on the grass of Ponyville's surrounding pasture to catch their breath and process what had just happened.

“Well...that was…certainly…an experience.” Starlight said, trying to give her best reassuring smile to her companions.

“What was that thing?” Fluttershy asked.

They all turned to look at Evening Star, once again, for some kind of answer. She shrunk at the attention, all the strength that she’d exuded a few minutes previously having completely deflated.

“I…I don’t know…it…it just triggered something in me.” Evening Star said.

A series of images flashed through Starlight’s head, about what Evening Star might have seen, to give her amnesia, but which would nonetheless leave her scared of that…contagious pigmentation.

None of them were pleasant.

Trixie smiled. “Well, it was a good thing you were there. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have known it was so dangerous!”

Her statement failed to give attention to the fact that it had been Evening Star’s idea to visit the castle in the first place.

Evening gave her another weak smile and Starlight sensed she was thinking the exact same thing. Normally, she would have said something reassuring to a pony like Evening Star, who clearly suffered from deep seated self-loathing.

At the moment, however, there were more important matters to address.

“No wonder the creatures of the forest are so angry with us.” Fluttershy said.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Evening Star asked.

“Imagine if your home was being destroyed for no reason, you’d start taking it out on whoever you thought was responsible.” Fluttershy said.

“Uh, our home was kind of destroyed…by the Ursa Major.” Trixie said, nudging Fluttershy with her leg.

Fluttershy’s countenance darkened. “Whatever was in that castle didn’t start spreading until we showed up…I wouldn’t be surprised if it was unicorn magic behind all this. The things in the forest…just because they can’t talk, doesn’t mean they aren’t smart. They knew it was bad when that stuff…spread…and they are going to keep blaming Ponyville until we find a way to stop it.”

Evening Star looked at the ground. But it wasn’t with the rising despair that imminent destruction should have elicited.
No, it was with the glumness of shame, an emotion that Starlight was all too intimate with.

“I have an idea.” Starlight said, before the whole group could descend into the same depressive slump. “It’s been a long night. Fluttershy, can you escort Trixie home?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I’m sorry I couldn’t fly us out of there as well as I thought.”

Starlight smiled. “It’s okay, you tried your hardest…you just needed a little help is all. We’ll discuss my plan in the morning, okay?”

Fluttershy looked reluctant to go to sleep after what she’d seen, but she also looked too tired to protest. So, she nodded, and Trixie glanced back at Evening Star, waving goodnight to her, as she and Fluttershy disappeared into the night.

“I assume you want to talk to me about what happened.” Evening Star said, as if she were a school-foal about to be chided.
Starlight straightened up. “In your dream…did any of this happen?”

Evening shook her head. “No. I’m sorry…”

“What did happen?” Starlight asked.

Evening looked uncomfortable, but at least now it was in a slightly less suspicious way. “Well…I dreamed that…I was an alicorn and you were a unicorn…and in the dream I needed your help…doing a spell. I begged you to help me…I seemed really worried and…angry. Eventually…you gave in…but when we cast the spell…it felt…wrong…like I’d done something I couldn’t take back.”

As she described her dream, the magical aura around her seem to intensify, temporarily, before calming back down. Whatever blockage Evening was experiencing in her memory, it seemed to be tied directly to her magical potential.
How powerful would she once she remembered everything?

“How did you know what that stuff was?” Starlight asked. She’d studied the limitations of magic her whole life. She’d faced creatures from other realms of existence.

She’d never seen anything like that before.

“I don’t know.” Evening Star said. “I wish I did; I want to help you and the others…but…I can’t remember.”

“Would you be alright with me using my magic to try to fix your memory?” Starlight asked, watching Evening’s expression for that same shift, she’d noticed earlier.

“Of course!” Evening Star said, with a weak smile. “But umm…Dr. Horse and the other unicorns cast every mind-heal they knew…they said whatever happened to me, couldn’t be cured.”

Starlight gave her most princessy smile. “I’m the princess of magic and my friend is an expert on obscure spells, I’m sure if we work together, we can figure out something.”

Evening lowered her eyes. “If you think you can help…I-I tried everything back when I first woke up. Eventually, I just stopped trying…”

Starlight turned away. “Why didn’t you ever ask me to help before? You must have known I lived right outside Ponyville.”

Evening looked up at her. “I-I never thought to…”

Starlight frowned. She didn’t like to toot her own horn, but it was not a boast to say she was known throughout Equestria. That her and her friends’ exploits had been published in every major publication around the country. It wasn’t impossible that Evening Star really was big enough of a shut in, that she’d never considered petitioning her or one of the other princesses for help. But Evening Star’s explanation also ran contrary to her supposed desperation for answers.

“Let’s get back to the castle.” Starlight finally said. There was a lot that needed to be done and she was unsure of just how much time they had left, before The Dullness got hungry again.

Evening Star, as far as Starlight was aware, had never visited the Palace Library, even during her last two stays there. That made it odd that Starlight hadn’t needed to tell her where anything was…she’d just known. And with a reflexivity which suggested long term familiarity.

Not only that, but Evening Star was quickly proving to be a prodigy when it came to magic. This partially explained why Evening’s cutie mark was a magical symbol, not a book like Sunburst’s. But it didn’t explain why an amnesiac with an aptitude for magic had ended up working in a library.

Surely faculty of the School for Gifted Unicorns would have wanted to snatch her up, to train her properly, if only to be sure that her gifts didn’t…malfunction. When Starlight Glimmer thought back to the article in the Ponyville Express, covering Evening Star’s appearance and requesting that ponies who may have known her contact the hospital to help fix her memory, she didn’t recall there being a mention of Evening Star being particularly talented at magic, a fact which surely would have helped narrow down the search for relatives or friends.

“You sure know you’re way around magical tomes,” Starlight said, as she moved up to where Evening Star was flipping through “Mental Magic of the New Millenia”.

“Thank you.” Evening blushed. “Magic has always interested me…even though I’m not very good at it.”

“You moved that caravan back at the Ursa Major attack…that’s advanced telekinesis if I’ve ever seen it.” Starlight said.

Evening got even more flustered. “That…that was nothing.”

“And you managed to burn a whole in the wing of that Cactus Wren…before Celestia blew it up. That was battle magic…most unicorns never get a chance to use magic like that.” Starlight said, her words containing a little bit more accusatory bite than she’d intended.

“I-I’ve never done anything like that before…” Evening said. “I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”

Starlight nodded, slowly and returned to her own research.

Their library was quiet after that, for at least another half-hour. Then Evening Star coughed and pointed at the page in front of her. Starlight saddled back over to her to look at the page. It contained a complex magical equation and had been labeled “Usogost’s Telepathic Transference.”

“This might work…if the memories are still in my brain…” Evening Star said.

“How did you even know what this would do?” Starlight asked, glancing up from the page.

“Oh…I just assumed everypony could understand equations like that.” Evening said. The bizarre thing was that the lame excuse didn’t even sound like lying. It sounded like Evening truly had no idea how intelligent and powerful she was.

Magical talent was one thing, the ability to cast powerful spells without dropping from exhaustion. But the capacity required to understand an equation and use it to cast a spell of sufficient complexity precluded a level of academic learning. No pony was born, with the ability to understand such mathematics.

Trixie for instance, was an example of a unicorn with a high level of magical talent, but with too little patience required to learn high level spells. Starlight remembered Trixie from her time at the School for Gifted Unicorns. She didn’t remember Evening Star; despite the fact they were about the same age.

What could Evening Star have possibly been doing pre-accident, that led to her developing such skills?

“Evening Star…” Starlight began as she picked up the book with her telekinesis. “I want to help you…but I need you to be completely honest with me, alright? We don’t have time to play games here.”

Evening Star stared at the carpet. “I…I did something…really bad…I don’t know what it was…I just know that I can’t be forgiven.”

Starlight thought back to her own jealous fits back in school, the times her control issues and her inadequacy had almost destroyed her relationships with her friends.

“That’s not true.” Starlight said, stepping up to Evening Star and putting a hoof on her shoulder. “In the little time I’ve known you, you have saved countless lives and put your own in danger, to save your hometown. Whatever you did in your past life…it doesn’t define you.”

Evening Star looked up at Starlight and then away. “Thank you, Princess…for being so kind.” She took a deep breath. “But you don’t have to lie to me.”

Starlight’s comforting expression fell.

“The only reason I did the things I did…was because I wanted to be important. I wanted to be like you and your friends. I wanted to impress the whole town, to prove I wasn’t just a crazy librarian. No pony felt bad for me until I put myself in danger...and the only reason you and the others care about me is because you feel bad for me.”

“EVENING STAR!” Starlight clapped a hoof down on the stone floor, startling Evening into looking back up at her. “Listen to me! I have battled with evil creatures…giant dragons, centaurs, changelings…I know evil, when I see it. You are not evil. But you will never be able to do good…not until you realize you can.”

Evening Star stared at her for a moment and then took a deep breath. “You’re right princess. I promise I’ll try.”

Starlight relaxed somewhat. “Now…let’s set up this spell.”

Everything was ready. The candles were lit, the equations had been triple checked and the air was thick with incense. The incense smelled like cherries, because it had been Pinkie who purchased it for Starlight, but that part didn’t matter as much for this particular spell.

“Okay…” Starlight said, using her telekinesis to swing a pendulum in front of Evening Star’s face. “I want you to concentrate on the very first thing you can remember…”

Evening Star nodded and squinted at the pendulum.

“As you concentrate, you will feel your mind opening up. The experience is relaxing…like drifting down a lazy river. As you drift, you pass by all the memories which have been locked out of your mind and you know that soon everything will be alright and all the anxiety and guilt you have felt…will melt away like ice cream in the summer heat.”

Evening Star continued to nod, and as she did, each nod grew slower, and her eyes drooped further.

“I am joining you in the river, Evening. But everything will be fine…we will look at your memories together. It will be as if we were watching a good movie together.”

Evening Star nodded one last time, then Starlight released the magic which had been building in her horn. At first, she was afraid that the wave of thaumic energy would overwhelm poor Evening Star. She had only mingled magic a few times before, and only with more confident and experienced casters, like Celestia and Luna.

But after a moment of psychic fumbling, their auras intertwined, and Starlight’s eyes widened at the images suddenly flowing into her frontal lobe. Just as the magic she’d been holding back flowed like the lake depths of a busted dam, so too did the memories pour out of Evening Star’s subconscious. Without any rhyme or reason, she was bombarded with a thousand moments of perfectly intact inadequacy, boredom, frustration, alienation and more yearning that she’d ever known in her entire life.

There was more though. Underneath the seething self-disgust and thought crushing desperation, was something even worse. Like The Dullness, it was not any kind of magic that Starlight had encountered. It was not dark; it was not chaotic. It was older, older perhaps than anything she’d yet gazed upon.

And it was angry that she had dared to awaken it from its slumber.

Starlight let out a scream as the stream of blue magic extending from her horn to Evening Star turned pink, then red, then burned as bright enough that, had her eyes not been rolled back in her head, it might have blinded her. Then something inside Starlight, just as primeval as the vault in Evening’s mind severed the connection, sending her reeling backwards.

She writhed on the ground, as every muscle in her body fought to escape the thousands of burning hot needles running along every nerve ending. It was more pain in a few seconds that most ponies would not feel over their entire lives. And it was backed by the pragmatic hatred that all organisms instinctively held for each other, as means of survival.

The pain was so great, that Starlight hadn’t realized that when she’d started screaming, she hadn’t stopped, until she felt the warm glow of Evening Star’s magic wrapping around her and numbing the psychic tendrils lashing at her mind. She hadn’t realized either, that Evening Star was sobbing and calling her name, until the piercing shriek in the back of her skull finally faded to merely subconscious reverberations.

“Starlight, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry…please…I didn’t want any of this to happen!” Her eyes were wide with terror and her muzzle wet with tears.

Starlight coughed as oxygen began rushing back through her body. Then she flexed her legs and wheezed.

That thing…that…monster, was staring down at her, with the same pathetic countenance as any other pony. As if the skin it was wearing wasn’t just a clever disguise for nothing more than a howling void.

“Get…away from me.” Starlight ordered, scrambling across the cold floor and pressing her wings to the nearest wall as Evening Star stared at her with deepening grief.

“L-let me heal you…” Evening Star said, taking a tentative step closer.

“GET OUT OF HERE!!!” Starlight ordered. “You don’t belong here!! GET OUT OF MY HOME RIGHT NOW!!”

Evening Star stared at Starlight for a moment, her sorrow replaced with shock. Her panicked breathing slowed. And her sobbing was replaced by a few, trickling, traumatized teardrops. Then she nodded, turning away and slowly trotting out of library.

As she listened to Evening Star’s echoing hoof-steps grow more distant, she had to grind her teeth together to stop them from chattering. But nothing she could do would stop the memory of what she’d just seen repeating in the caverns of her mind. After a little while, the Princess of Friendship’s teary-eyed shuddering gave way to stuttering giggles. Then it wasn’t long before the castle was filled with the frenzied sounds of laughter that can only be brought on by madness.

Starlight was eventually snapped out of her revelry by a booming voice.

“STARLIGHT GLIMMER! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

It was Celestia, she’d been calling out for Starlight for the past fifteen minutes. And now she’d finally found her.

Starlight crawled closer to her fellow alicorn, reaching out and wrapping her hooves around one of Celestia’s golden horseshoes. “I’m having a laugh…this is a humorous situation! Everything I’ve studied…everything I thought was important…none of it matters!"

She wiped an eye with her hoof as Celestia raised an eyebrow. Then she giggled and continued her explanation. “I tried to cure Evening Star’s memory loss. I guess that’s what I get for trying to help somepony!”

Celestia cleared her throat. “Starlight, please pull yourself together…now is not the time for hysterics.”

Starlight glanced up at Celestia and seeing that she wasn’t laughing, or even smiling, sighed and slowly got to her hooves. “Yes, it is Princess. The whole world...the entire universe...is about to be destroyed...and all the things I've learned, none of them can save us. I'm the princess of Magic and nothing I do can protect us from her or from what she brought with her! Every lesson I learned in friendship…I never encountered anyone like her. I never met a creature who had really and truly done something so terrible it couldn't be forgiven…”

Celestia frowned at that assertion but chose to focus on what the most pressing matter. “You believe Miss Star to be responsible for the recent attacks?”

Starlight Glimmer lifted her eyes. “I know she is, princess…I looked in her mind…whatever she did, it was so bad that her subconscious made her burn out all the memories with magic, just to keep her from going mad." Starlight looked back down, tears forming in her eyes. "She doesn't believe she's evil, but only because she doesn't remember what she's done...”

Celestia turned to look at the set up for the ritual as Starlight continued.

“When I tried to see what she was hiding…she lashed out at me, without even meaning to…I’ve never encountered anypony as powerful or as knowledgeable as magic. But that’s not all.”

Celestia turned back toward her. “Really?”

"Yeah...it gets worse...somehow..."

Celestia stepped closer, lowering her head toward Starlight. “How, exactly?”