Penance

by Bicyclette

Rating: teen
Tags: Equestria Girls, Science Fiction, Suicide / Self Harm, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle (EqG), Death, Alternate Universe, Zipporwhill, Dark, Starlight Glimmer, Romance
Length: 8925

As the years passed in Juniper Montage's mirror, Starlight found a way to give its inhabitants an escape. One she could never have for herself.

shortdesc

As the years passed in Juniper Montage's mirror, Starlight found a way to give its inhabitants an escape. One she could never have for herself.

longdesc

Starlight Glimmer failed to wrest the Magic Mirror from Juniper's grasp. She failed to convince her of the error of her ways. Instead, Juniper Montage sucked her into the Void just like Sunset and her friends. There was nothing to stop her after that.

As the Void filled up with more and more people facing the fate of a featureless eternity, Starlight discovered a method of escape, of sorts. Juniper banishing the other magical artifact users meant they had access to the Memory Stone, which Starlight could use to craft an interior world of a shared dream among the Void's inhabitants. A temporary solution, to pass the time until the day they could all escape the Void altogether.

But what if that day never comes?

info

an entry to The Spring Fling Contest.

thank you to Krack-Fic Kai and Moproblems Moharmoney for prereading, and Rego for shortdesc advice.

Published 2023-04-30 21:30:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-04-30 21:30:00 UTC

Zipporwhill

In the hands of the one who once held it, and would never hold it again, the Memory Stone was a blunt instrument that tore away at the mind in chunks, leaving thick scar tissue where the forgotten memories were separated from the remembered ones. But Starlight Glimmer was not a human teenager who grew up in a world with no magic. Starlight Glimmer was the unicorn that wrote the spell that could remove the cutie mark of an Alicorn Princess.

Starlight Glimmer could do anything.

In the metaphorical hoof-hands of her mind’s eye, the Memory Stone’s magic was a surgeon’s scalpel, able to make changes much subtler than forgetting an awkward interaction, or the existence of a person, or the past three years of a life.

Zipporwhill was following her instructions well, her excitable fidgeting stilled as she lay in repose with her eyes closed. Not even breathing, as she had been taught how to do here, like all new arrivals were. Her mind still pulsed and hummed with life and awareness, but directed inward, away from the outside stimuli Starlight was trying to cut away.

Starlight sank the blades of blue light into Zipporwhill’s mind.

The first cut was always the easiest, as a bright, thin line of blue traced itself around Zipporwhill’s memories of her short time in the Void so far, holding them back from the rest of her until there came a time to restore them. Then, the real work began, as Starlight reshaped the last fifteen years of her life. Blue lines traced around those teenage memories of being anxiously glued to the TV news alongside her parents as national government after national government fell. Of the pledges recited every morning during her final years of high school at Cloudsdale Comprehensive. Of every state-mandated viewing of every movie, sitcom, reality show, and interview of Her Cinematic Majesty that was churned out by the entertainment complex that stood at the apex of the new world order.

She kept her beloved schoolfriends, but not what happened to them after that protest. She kept her first kiss, but not that it happened while on the run from the Ushers. She kept her first real “I love you”, but not the night sky that it happened under, when the very first stars began to go out.

And most importantly, she kept the dogs.

The ones she owned and raised and loved. The ones she bathed and pampered for a living. The ones she walked past on the street just once before never seeing them again. Border Collies and Golden Retrievers and greyhounds and poodles and huskies and beagles and the innumerable majority of no specific breed. The world may have turned out wrong for the humans living in it, but the dogs didn’t know any of that.

Starlight even kept those two most spoiled little Cotons de Tuléar that the world had ever seen. Just not why it was so very, lifestakingly important that their coats had to be kept immaculately coiffed and styled at all times.

With what remained, Starlight crafted her dreamlands, a version of Zipporwhill’s life that would have happened if that fateful day at the Canterlot Mall had not. All of the pains and joys and wins and losses that made human existence and its challenges meaningful, without the despair that came with a world that was just wrong in a way she was powerless to change. A life that her mind would not reject. A life she would not question the reality of.

When she was done, Starlight closed her mind’s eye and opened her “real” ones, to look down at the closed eyes of Zipporwhill. Eyes that would not open until the day they could escape the Void, when she would go back and reverse the work she had just done.

A soft smile of serenity and peace.

Not the too-wide, rictus smile she still remembered all too well. Certainly not that.

Twilight

Starlight watched as Sunset Shimmer’s eyes stopped glowing, and she removed her hand from Zipporwhill’s wrist. There was a content smile on her face, reflecting the unchanging one on Zipporwhill. Sunset stood up, unfolding her body so that she would be at the same level as Starlight and Twilight as she turned to join them.

“She’s settling in really well,” Sunset said, marvel in her voice. “I wish I could do this as well as you. I don’t think I could have kept in her memories of Ripley without the pain of losing him.”

“Nonsense, Sunny. If you hadn’t, she would have found love and happiness in the dogs she had after Ripley. Just like she did in life. Who knows? Maybe it would've even been better that way.“

“Oh, I don’t know,” Twilight said, frowning as she nervously adjusted the glasses she didn’t need. “Is it bad that I wish she had been an astronomer instead of a dog groomer? We used to get, oh I don’t know how to say this, important people? Or maybe, people who really cared about what was going on in the world, and would know more about it?”

“I don’t think she has those people around her anymore,” Sunset said. “Because she doesn’t need to. She never wanted to run the world. She just wanted to be famous and important, and live in leisure and luxury.”

She looked back down at Zipporwhill’s body, and Starlight’s gaze followed. One file over from Upper Crust. One rank down from Chestnut Magnifico.

“So this is who is left in her life. Palace staff. People who are kind and pleasant and won’t ever feel the need to talk about difficult or complicated things, until she has a reason to take her anger out of them.”

“That’s almost more depressing, isn’t it?” Starlight said. “That people are just keeping up the system of the world that she created, but on their own now, without her needing to even do anything or make any decisions.”

She looked back up at Sunset and Twilight.

“But it’s interesting, you know? Seeing how human society adapts even after such a big change.” She gave a knowing look to Sunset. “Not too different from how ponies are, sometimes.”

Twilight smiled weakly. “Yeah, that’s interesting to think about…”

Twilight looked back down, but not at Zipporwhill, lying in peaceful repose. Starlight could tell that she was not looking at any of the bodies in particular, arranged in neat little rows and columns all the way up until where one edge of the Void met itself and looped back around. Instead, her gaze was unfocused, as if taking in the entire tableau all at once.

Then, without saying anything, she began to walk off. Sunset and Starlight exchanged a glance, before following her. They knew where she was going. Only a few paces away, along the edge of the grid of bodies until she got to a conspicuously empty spot, between the still forms of Pinkie Pie and Rarity.

“So, who’s next on the rota?” Twilight asked, almost off-handedly, as she stared down at the empty spot.

“Fluttershy is,” Starlight heard Sunset reply.

“Oh, that’s great! She’s really been getting into her writing. I think she finally found something to fill the rest of that void that settling in newcomers couldn’t.” Twilight kept staring at the empty spot. “She’ll have a lot of stories to tell.”

“Yeah, it’ll be nice!” Starlight said. “I mean, it always is. With any of you.”

Twilight turned around to give them a smile. But as the moments passed, the smile softened. Twilight wasn’t quite looking at either of them, but beyond them, at the infinite white void that stretched out in all directions.

She looked down at her bare feet, the material of her socks and shoes long lost to early experiments on the physics of the Void.

“I know it’s early, but I think I want to go back now. If you two are going to be okay.”

“Of course we will, Twi!” Sunset said, her voice reassuring. “It won’t even be that long before we’re scheduled to wake Fluttershy.” Sunset took Starlight’s strong hoof-hand in her right hand. “And you know, we always have each other.”.

A soft look in her eyes, Twilight took Sunset and Starlight’s free hand and hoof-hand to complete the triangle.

“I really wish you could come into the dreamlands with us, and not just visit with the Empathy magic. It’s close, but not really the same as actually being in there, you know?“

“Yeah.” Sunset said, giving both of them a squeeze. “Me too.”

They hugged each other, the three of them, all close and tight, Sunset making up for what Starlight’s shaky arm couldn’t manage. Then, they let go, though Twilight held on to Sunset’s hand and gaze for just a little bit longer than Starlight’s.

Starlight gripped the Memory Stone in her strong hoof-hand, and offered it up to Sunset. Wordlessly, Sunset gingerly took the stone, her soft fingers brushing up against Starlight’s frog-palm as she did so.

She turned to Twilight, who had already laid herself down to take her place, her eyes closed, her arms folded across her body.

Sunset knelt down to place a hand on Twilight’s side, and the Memory Stone glowed in blue, its magic to be shaped by her guiding mind in the simplest of operations: to seal away precisely what had been sealed away before, following the contours first laid down by Starlight all those years ago, adding to it everything that passed between the start of this latest awakening and this very moment. To return her to a world where she could eat and sleep and dream and have ambitions and realize goals and connect with the people in her life while doing anything else other than sitting in an endless and eternal void.

To return her to a world where things still mattered.

A world better than this.

Sunset

Sunset nestled her head in the cavernous crook of Starlight’s neck, her crimson hair soft against Starlight’s rough blend of heliotrope skin and coat. Her fingers entwined around the nubs along the edges of Starlight’s hoof-hand, where the fingers could or should have been. Starlight breathed in with lungs that did not need the air, and let herself relax against Sunset’s embrace.

Their view was the same as it always was, sitting on the edge of the field of bodies, the forever inaccessible portal still shining forever out of reach above them. She tried to meditate on the calmness of that unchanging sight. Its constancy. Its contrast with the breathing warmth that she could feel against her side.

They could let hours pass in such a state. Even days. Even weeks. Their bodies would not hunger or thirst or tire. Their joints would not stiffen. Bedsores would not form. Their bodies were not really bodies here, in the Void, like they were in the outside world, or were back in Equestria. Their bodies were, as far as Starlight theorized, magical constructs that felt and worked how their minds expected their bodies to feel like and work from a lifetime of living in them.

But those long discussions on the subject with Sunset and Twilight, complete with experiments and theories written in the unraveled threads of sacrificed clothing, were years ago now, even though they kept going round and round on the same ideas long after the last time any of them or their friends had anything new to say on it. That had been the fate of all conversations about the Void itself a long time ago.

Still, round and round they went, those old conversations. And what else was there to do in the ever-lengthening stretches of time when it was just the two of them, amidst the sleeping bodies of every person that now mattered in their lives?

“What if I could figure it out, Sunset? How to make the dreamlands work for a unicorn mind like ours?”

Sunset took a moment to respond, as if needing to thaw out her voice after being frozen in an Ice Age of silence.

“But one of us still has to be out here, to wake the other one back up. We can’t both go in there together.” She gave Starlight a squeeze. “And I’m not leaving you out here. What would even be the point if I couldn’t be with you?”

Starlight looked away, as if she was contemplating the distance, so that Sunset couldn’t see her face.

“You know, I could probably teach Twilight to do that. It’s not like it’s impossible for humans to learn how to manipulate the magic here, just because they grew up without unicorn horns.”

Sunset frowned deeply. “Starlight, you know what happened the last time someone said something like that.”

And, without thinking, Starlight responded,

“I mean, Twilight’s not the one suggesting it, and it’s not like Twilight would use it for what she—”

She stopped when her brain caught up to her mouth. Awful. Awful. How could she do that to Sunset, to remind her of the last thing Starlight would ever want to remind her of? The worst thing that had ever happened in all their years in the Void? And to be so flippant about it…

When Starlight could bring herself to look at Sunset again, she saw that she was staring off at where Twilight lay.

“I mean, she’s so happy in there, you know? Everything feels right. I can see why she feels so awful when she’s out here instead. And if we’re in there together, what, she’ll be the one to watch over us alone? She wouldn’t even have you, like how I have you. I know she would do it for us if we asked, and she’d gladly try to suffer through it, but I could never put her through that.”

Starlight knew, from her own visits to the dreamlands, that Sunset was right about how happy Twilight was, living that life she had expected to live in a world full of wonders and the love of her friends. Even Sunset’s absence from it was not a dark cloud hanging over them, or an excised memory. In the dreamlands, Sunset had gone home to Equestria to live happily ever after there, explaining why her visits were so occasional, and why every time she took such joy in catching up with her friends just like the old days. And Starlight…

Sunset cut off her thoughts by continuing.

“I don’t know. I feel like it’s almost… good that we can’t spend time in there like they can. That we can’t remember what it’s like to not remember. Otherwise we’d just be so tempted to, oh, I don’t know. Figure out how to send all of us to the dreamlands at the same time? If that’s even possible?“

Starlight laughed. “Well, isn’t that an idea? That would solve everything, wouldn’t it?”

Sunset gave her a wry smile. “Well, then what would happen if a new arrival comes? Imagine being stuck in a featureless void for all eternity with what for all you know are a pile of corpses? I could never leave anyone to a fate that horrible!”

“We could leave the Memory Stone, and maybe write a book on how Equestrian magic works, so that whoever ends up here after us could, after who knows how many years, figure out how to join us?”

Sunset raised an eyebrow.

“Do you really think a book is going to do that?”

Starlight laughed. “It was just an idea. I mean, it’s not like this magic would work on our unicorn minds anyway. I don’t know.”

She changed the subject to another old conversation that kept going round and round.

“You know, it’s been at least a year since Zipporwhill arrived. What if she’s the last one? What if the Mirror is broken, or Juniper Montage is dead, or whatever, and there won’t be anyone coming in and out of here for all eternity?”

“Starlight, we always say that right before a new arrival comes.”

Starlight held her tight with her strong arm.

“But what if?”

And Sunset responded as she always did in the last several dozen hundred times they had had this exact same conversation.

She sighed with pronounced exasperation. She let a good amount of time in silence pass, for good measure. Then she said,

“I don’t know. I guess it’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get there.”

Their lips met, and held, and could hold forever, a breathtaking kiss between two bodies that did not need to breathe. Hands met flesh, rough hairs half-merged into skin meeting skin that was supple and soft and warm.

Starlight Glimmer was the unicorn that wrote the spell that could remove the cutie mark of an Alicorn Princess. Given years of time alone with Sunset and nothing to otherwise distract her, of course she could figure out how to use her Empathy magic for herself.

Minds met, emotions reacting to emotions reacting to emotions, mirrors of mirrors, reproducing endlessly.

It was the only way that Starlight could believe Sunset when she told her that no matter what Starlight thought of the smeared and blended mix of human and equine features she inhabited, that she was, in every way, beautiful.

It was the only way that Starlight could believe that Sunset could know every awful thing she had ever done in her life, and tell her that still, in all ways, mind and soul and body and heart, that she truly deserved the love that Sunset gave her.

And in those moments, and only those moments, could Starlight quiet the incessant hum of regret in her mind, if not for long.

Sweetie Belle

It had been so many years since the last time someone new had arrived that Starlight briefly wondered if she was hallucinating that bright, white ball of magical light that spiraled out of the unchanging portal that hung forever inaccessible above them.

(But of course, in the Void, hallucinations did not exist, and their minds received whatever passed for stimula directly, without the filter of the subconscious deciding what to see and not see. Twilight had told her once that It was the thing that she noticed and was distressed by the most in the time she spent back out in the Void.)

She nudged Sunset, who looked up as well, as the ball of light resolved into a tumbling body that thankfully landed at the “edge” of the void where Starlight and Sunset spent their endless time, in the space where no bodies lay. It was always so much more awkward to calm the arrival down and explain what was going on when they found themselves entangled in a pile of warm corpses.

Feeling an excitement that she had not felt in many years, Starlight got up to join Sunset as she raced to greet the new arrival, who was very curiously dressed in what could only be described as an astronaut suit. Even more curiously, unlike pretty much every other previous arrival who spent their first few moments in the Void disoriented and panicked, the new arrival immediately found their bearings, put a gloved hand on the featureless white expanse that was the ground, and got themselves up to look directly at Sunset and Starlight. Though their face could not be seen from behind the reflective bubble of the suit’s visor, the body language of the friendly and excited wave they gave was unmistakable.

The rich tenor of a woman’s voice could be heard, if a bit muffled through the suit.

“Sunset Shimmer! Oh, you’re still alive! I knew I’d find you here! Tell me, is the air safe to breathe? Are there any native diseases I have to worry about?”

Sunset and Starlight shared a quick glance before Sunset answered.

“If you’re asking if it’s okay to take that thing off, then yeah, you’ll be perfectly fine! I’m more sure of that than anything.”

“That’s great!” the woman said, as she reached behind her helmet with a gloved hand. A hissing noise and a pop followed, before the helmet came off to reveal the beaming face of a middle-aged woman with skin of pale white and a short, curly buzzcut of purple and pink. She took a deep, experimental breath through the nose, breathing out through her mouth.

“Oh wow, it doesn’t smell like anything in here!” She took another deep breath for good measure. “Or, uh, look like anything,” she said as her neck swiveled around to take in the sights, or the lack thereof. As her eyes swept the field of bodies, she paused on one of them for a brief moment, a frown flashing on her face, before looking back at Sunset to beam at her again.

“Oh, I have so many questions! But they can wait for now, because it’s just so wonderful to see you! I mean, I hope it isn’t too awkward to just ask this, but, can I give you a hug?”

This wasn’t too surprising to Starlight. New arrivals, after all, tended to be people who did not like Her Cinematic Majesty very much, and thus had correspondingly warm feelings for her most hated enemy that they grew up watching vilified on stage and screen. That trust and admiration also tended to make the process of getting them to accept their new life and fate much easier. And so it was all too expected for Sunset to reply with that kind voice she always used for times like this:

“Of course you can.”

It took a second for the woman to figure out what to do with the helmet tucked under her arm, but once she put it on the ground she rushed forward with the excitement of a young girl, wrapping Sunset in her exosuited embrace. It was an odd sight to be sure, as Sunset still looked like the teenager she had been when she entered the portal decades ago, and the woman was bent down to hug Sunset at the waist in a way that seemed tighter and more familiar than even the most parasocial of relationships.

“You don’t recognize who I am, do you?” she said, her embrace still holding her face tight against Sunset’s stomach.

“Ah, I’m afraid I don’t,” Sunset said, as kindly as possible. “I mean, I’ve been here a very long time”

“You have,” the woman responded, sniffling all the while. She let go of her hug just enough to look at Sunset in the eyes, with tears in hers. “I’m Sweetie Belle.”

As Starlight watched their emotional embrace, all she could do was think. This Sweetie Belle, of course, would have no reason to know who she was. But she sort of knew her Sweetie Belle, over in Equestria. As Rarity’s sister, of course. Sort of. If that had been the Sweetie Belle that had come through the portal, would she have been so emotional about seeing Starlight?

Her ruminations were only stopped by Sweetie Belle turning to her and speaking.

“Oh, and I don’t want to be rude by ignoring you!”

She half-got out of her hug with Sunset and turned toward Starlight, a genuine smile on her face, with none of the discomfort or polite anxiety that pretty much every newcomer had first had when looking at her half-pony, half-human form.

“I was just so excited to see Sunset because I knew her so many years ago. I mean, we were a couple of years apart, but we did go to the same high school! But I’m so very glad to see you, too, alive in this place. You’re Starlight Glimmer, aren’t you?”

It took a second for Starlight to process this. More than a few seconds, as her jaw hung open, before she could manage a “Wait, what? How?”

“Princess Twilight told me!” she replied, and before Starlight could process that Sweetie asked, “I’m sorry, but do you do hugs?”

“Oh, uh, sure!” Starlight replied, and was immediately answered with a hug that felt just as strong and genuine as the one Sweetie Belle gave to Sunset had seemed. It was so tight that when Sweetie let her go, Starlight instinctively took in a breath that she did not even need.

With a hand on both of their shoulders, Sweetie gave them a solemn look.

“She’s just so sorry, you know. She tried everything she could, she really did, but she couldn’t figure out a way to get you home. She wanted me to tell both of you that personally.”

A pall of silence fell between the three of them as this was digested. Starlight’s guts twisted at the thought of Twilight, her Twilight, wasting years of her life trying to save her, wasting even more of her anguish on the pony she had already gone through so much to rescue from herself. All because of her stupid decision to go through a portal she probably wasn’t even supposed to touch. Because of what, she was bored and curious? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

And she looked at Sunset, who seemed lost in her own emotions, tears streaking silently down her face, and she felt all the worse for only thinking about herself in this moment.
“Thank you so much for telling us that, Sweetie Belle,” Sunset said. “I’m sure Twilight tried her very best.”

Sweetie Belle smiled. “She did. She really did. She loved you both, and never stopped missing you.”

Starlight’s guts twisted further at that, and Sunset and Sweetie both gave her a compassionate squeeze, Sunset giving her that silent look that said she knew Starlight might be spiraling right now, and that Sunset would be here for her, and that Starlight deserved all the love that was given to her, and none of her self-hatred.

It was Sweetie Belle who broke the silence, much to Starlight’s relief.

“Ah, I guess I kinda buried the lede there, huh? There’s just, like, a lot of stuff I need to tell you about what’s going on on the other side of the portal, you know? And I guess I should start with what you’ve probably guessed by now.”

She took in a breath that she still didn’t know she didn’t need to take before continuing.

“Juniper Montage is dead.”

Juniper Montage was dead. And there was so much more to tell.

Juniper Montage was dead, and the old order fell. The ultimate power of her magic was the only backstop holding the regime built around maintaining her place in society together, and without it, it crumbled without a fight. The magical artifacts that had been the only threats to her power were freed to be studied and used, and contact was made with the universe of magical ponies from whence they came.

The news was not good. What some had long suspected in secret had turned out to be true, and the stars of the night sky going out truly were the stars going out, as the Equestrian magic that had been allowed to run rampant through this universe for so long began to crumble its physical laws from the inside. Its ultimate fate was nothing less than its destruction into entropy within the span of a few months, if nothing was done about it. With the artifacts that they had combined with the knowledge of Princess Twilight Sparkle and her researchers, the humans could stave this off for a little bit, but on the order of months and years if they were lucky. Equestria was not an option, as sending even a single human through would destroy their universe in its current weakened state.

But Equestrian magic would not destroy an Equestrian artifact. So there was one option left. The only option that humanity had.

Without Juniper Montage, the people that had been banished into the Mirror could not be gotten out. But pushing another human in was a much simpler task that Twilight had figured out pretty easily. And from the structure of the artifact, it was known that it worked as a portal to somewhere, though with the trip being one-way, there would be no way to tell just what awaited. Another universe? Another world? The surface of the sun? Oblivion?

But they were facing oblivion anyway.

Sweetie Belle was just the first, and it was a fitting honor. She was the longest-serving member of the Resistance, and the one that had been the closest to the first seven humans to be banished to the mirror. It was her duty to make first contact with whoever was surviving on the other side, and help prepare whatever society existed there for what was to come.

Because once she was through, she could not send any message back, because nothing went back through the portal. If what awaited her on the other side was a torture pit staffed by demons, she could not warn the humans that were already planned to go in after her. If the world on the other side was a place humans could barely survive, limited in carrying capacity, she could not tell the rest to limit the number that came through, no matter how many would be then fated to starve to death. Or worse.

Those unknowns did mean that not every resident of the doomed universe was willing to brave the portal that the former tyrant of the world had been banishing people to for decades. But still. There were a lot of people who were willing to risk the unknown in the face of an inevitable known.

And risk it they did. The first waves were manageable, and small, equipped with the same vacuum-sealed environmental suits that Sweetie Belle had on when she had come through the portal. Like her, they had been selected and trained to expect a wide variety of different circumstances that the world on the other side of a magical portal could be in, and it was much easier to get them to understand how the Void worked than the average person.

But the waves didn’t stop. The protective suits became cruder, then flimsier, then homemade, DIY. Then the new arrivals stopped having suits entirely, and just came in with the clothes they had on their back. And the trickle turned into a stream, and the stream turned into a torrent.

Once, the bodies of the dreamers and the dead had been arranged in neat little rows, both for their dignity and for the ease in finding a specific dreamer to check in on them if need be. But what was dignity in the face of survival? The field of bodies became a pile that spread and spread across the “floor” until it reached the edges of the Void where the space wrapped around on itself. Then there was nowhere to go but up.

But the people didn’t stop coming.

Starlight and Sunset’s old friends had come out of the dreamlands together when Sweetie Belle arrived, to have a tearful reunion followed by catching up on the decades missed in the lives of their friends and family on the outside. They didn’t go back, not as long as Starlight and Sunset needed them for everything from moving bodies to talking to arrivals to ideas to moral support. That the work was vast, and the fate of the world depended on them once more kept them all going, and made even the awful circumstances of it bearable. Even with years of life in the Void to internalize the fact that their bodies were not really bodies here, it was hard to treat the ever-growing mountain of not-flesh as a floor, despite the fact that none of the sleepers could ever be damaged or even feel pain.

If it was that difficult for them, it is easy to imagine how difficult it must have been for the new arrivals.

And in this chaos, Starlight and her friends worked together beautifully, alongside the denizens of the Void both old and new who had stepped up to help in creating this new world. And in the process, they discovered that it was easier than they had imagined.

Gone was the need to make them forget that they were banished to a pocket universe on the whims of an all-powerful tyrant that nothing could be done against. The tyrant was dead. Gone was the need to make them forget, as awful as it was, the fate of the universe they left behind. They stepped through that portal with hope, after all, of finding themselves in a new world on the other side that they could live in. And Starlight and Sunset were going to give them exactly that.

All they had to do was to remove the memories that happened in the Void, between materializing on a seemingly endless mountain of corpses and agreeing that, yes, they would like to forget that whole experience after all. Very simple.

And the dreamlands gained a new planet.

From the perspective of the new arrivals, they stepped through that portal that no one had any way of knowing what was on the other side of, hoping to find themselves in a new world on the other side that they could live in. And they got exactly that. A new Earth, of lush forests and green hills and blue oceans, and an ever-growing community of the people that had come before them

And the torrent of people became a flood, and new arrivals got buried in each other, and Starlight and her friends had to fish out still-awake people from the pile one by one even as new arrivals kept arriving and screaming in fear, and the work kept going, because the people kept coming.

Until they didn’t.

The last person to arrive was someone who, in a past life, was a Las Pegasus stage magician. His last memories of the dying universe were of being helpless to watch as his husband and all the other people in line behind him disintegrated into nothing before everything flooded with light.

And the work continued for a long time after that. Only a small fraction of people were difficult to convince to enter the dreamlands, but the denominator was large. Plus, they needed to check and double-check and triple-check that every single person in the innumerable pile of bodies below them truly had been put to sleep and were not simply so deep that their screams couldn’t be heard, or stuck in a catatonic state, or whatever else. Forever was a long time, so they had to really, really make sure, which meant that the work continued for a really, really long time.

Until it didn’t.

Eventually, there came a time when every single arrival had been accounted for and settled in the dreamlands, in some form or another, into a life that they wanted to live more than the alternative of the oblivion they escaped or the Void they were in. Enough at least to not reject it in their minds. And within the dreamlands, on that new Earth, they built a society that learned from the mistakes of the world that they had left behind. One that made sure that every last human in it was truly cared for, and could find a place in society to live a fulfilling and meaningful life.

As Starlight observed it, she couldn't help but be reminded of Equestria. An Equestria without cutie marks.

And of course the old residents of the Void, in their dozens, had all at one point in another woken up, as they had been promised they would be if the situation in the Void had changed. The strange circumstances somehow had little effect on the ordinariness of the reunions as they found old friends, relatives, and even fans among the seemingly endless stream of arrivals. They had been kept in the loop through the entire process of creating the new world for the new arrivals, and in the end they all came to a unanimous agreement, despite the vast differences between them that made the old dreamlands so fragmented.

Each of them, out in the Void, held in their heads all their memories of both their time in their dreamlands and the Void and everything that came before either. Each of them wanted to join their stories with this new one that was being collectively written.

And so, one last burst of creativity, as Starlight got to work to give each of her old charges a new chapter in their lives in the dreamland, seamlessly merging them with the collective consensus reality that was being formed by the new arrivals. One by one, they were put back to sleep, from Vignette Valencia and K-Lo, to Micro Chips and Principal Celestia, to…

Applejack and Rarity and Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash and Twilight.

They each said their goodbyes, and made Starlight and Sunset promise to wake them up regularly so they could keep them company when needed. And their old friends were hardly the only ones among the many, many residents of the Void to offer this. And they did.

But of course, there were plenty of times when it was just the two of them, alone.

Shimmer

When a “person” was sent through the portal by Juniper, it was always with the clothing they were wearing, and nothing else. They theorized a connection between how this portal worked and how the portal to Equestria worked, but as long as they did not have access to either, it could only remain a theory.

Still, the clothing was useful. Unlike the human bodies they were on, they could be cut, broken down, and put together. And without it, the Void would be nothing but a mountain of bodies stacked as high as a skyscraper.

With it, they could at least give some internal structure to the mountain. A single thread, spliced together out of countless strands, snaking through the entire pile, wrapping around at least one limb of at least every body. A way to keep track of all of the countless souls under their charge.

And on the top layer, with enough layers of jackets and skirts and jeans and dresses, Starlight and Sunset could spend their endless awakening on a “floor” of fabric that let them, at times, forget the innumerable bodies in the layers beneath them.

And when they were alone, they just had each other, and the Void.

And like she had innumerable times before, Sunset nestled her head in the cavernous crook of Starlight’s neck, her crimson hair soft against Starlight’s rough blend of heliotrope skin and coat.

And Starlight did not know why this moment was the moment, and not any of the innumerable moments and eternities they had been alone with each other since the very last bit of the great work was accomplished. But in every previous moment like this, she kept telling herself that there was no hurry, after all, in the face of an eternity to come of moments exactly like this. And she kept putting it off.

Until she didn’t.

“Sunset. I have to admit something to you.”

And that got Sunset’s interest, as the most interesting thing that Starlight had said in years.

“What is it?”

Starlight took in a deep breath that she did not need, and exhaled it, before continuing.

“I was lying all those times before, when I said that unicorn minds like ours couldn’t be sent to the dreamlands like human ones could. Really, there is no difference between them at all, and I could have sent you to be with your friends any time.“

Sunset gave Starlight’s hoof-hand a loving squeeze.

“I know, Starlight. I knew that from the beginning. And I meant everything I said before. That wouldn’t have changed a single thing about me being here with you.”

She smiled gently at her.

But Starlight didn’t smile back.

“No, Sunset.”

No going back now.

“I’m telling you this because that is what I’m going to do.”

It took a moment for Sunset to process this, but the quiver in her voice meant that she truly understood the weight of it.

“What are you talking about, Starlight?”

“Sunset. It makes no sense for both of us to be stuck out here, in an eternity of unchanging nothingness. How can I keep you here, away from your friends, away from the life you deserve?”

"What are you talking about Starlight? The life I deserve? Starlight, you're my life! My everything!”

“I know! That’s the problem, Sunset! I don’t want to be your everything. I don’t want to condemn you to this eternity with me. I love you too much to not do this.”

“To not do what? To make me forget us, and everything we’ve been through together?” Sunset gripped Starlight’s foreleg-arms tight, as if that would stop her from this train of thought. “To make me lose the most precious thing I’ve ever had? It doesn’t matter that I won’t even—” Sunset’s voice was broken, despairing at the very thought of it. “That I won’t even remember it after.”

Starlight smiled serenely.

“Don’t worry about that, Sunset. I learned my lesson. You will remember me, and our love, and all the moments we shared together. As much as I can fit with the story that I wrote for you.” Tears welled up in Starlight’s eyes. “Including why I’m not there with you.”

Sunset gripped her harder. Her knuckles would have been white.

“Starlight! I don’t want to go! I don’t want to leave you behind!”

“I know, Sunset.” Her serene smile flashed into a grimace for just a second. “That’s why I’m not giving you a choice.”

Shimmering blue energies began manifesting in the space between them, reflected in Sunset’s widened eyes.

“Isn’t this the first lesson you ever learned? You can’t just make decisions like this for other people!”

“I did, Sunset. I learned that lesson so well. Just let me unlearn it. Just this once, and I will never do anything bad ever again. I don’t even have to promise.”

The energies coalesced into glistening knives of blue light. The desperation grew in Sunset’s voice.

“But Starlight… I love you so much…”

“I know, Sunset. I know that better than anyone ever could.”

“I could never be happy without you…”

Starlight did not say anything to that.

The knives of blue light began pressing into Sunset’s mind, already beginning to cleave away the memories that conflicted with the story that Starlight had planned for her. Starlight knew every memory and feeling that Sunset had ever had, so it was a very easy task. It didn’t matter that she could feel Sunset desperately trying to access those very same memories, as if holding onto them tight in her mind would allow her to keep them.

In the smallest voice possible, Sunset whispered,

“Starlight… I don’t want you to be alone…”

The knives stopped their movements. In a voice just as small, Starlight replied,

“And what if I do?”

A quivering moment of silence passed between them, before Starlight began to press the knives deeper. But this time, there was no more resistance. Even Sunset’s grip on her relaxed.

Instead, Sunset just stared deeply into Starlight’s eyes with love, just like she had done countless times before. Like countless times before, those bright blue irises sent Starlight’s heart aflutter, and flooded her soul with a peace that she would otherwise never know.

“Could you give me one last kiss before I go? Even if I won’t remember it?”

It took everything in Starlight to whisper the very last thing she would ever tell her.

“Thank you.”

And fittingly, the last stroke of the blade of memory magic that Starlight would ever perform was by far the most artistic of them all.

Cutting away the memory of a last kiss, as it was happening.

Sparkle

The stars hung twinkling and plentiful in the black ribbon of the night sky, and Sunset was so lost in them that she didn’t even notice Twilight coming up from behind her until she felt the warmth of a mug of tea pressed against her wrist.

“Oh, thanks, Twi,” she said, as she turned to take the mug from her, their fingers briefly brushing against each other. She blew on the tea, and took a sip, the flavors of the rich liquid coating her throat as it went down.

She turned her gaze back upwards, and felt another warmth, this one of Twilight nestling her head on top of Sunset’s shoulder as she joined her in looking up at the heavens.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Twilight said, her voice full of wonder. “Just imagine, once we get that observatory built. An entire new cosmology out there for us to discover and explore!”

Sunset smiled weakly.

“Yeah, that’s interesting to think about…”

Sunset meant to find something more to say, to match what Twilight was bringing to the moment. But instead, she just inhaled deeply, then exhaled deeply.

“Actually, I was thinking about something else.“

“Oh, of course! Yeah, of course you were. Sorry. I mean, I just have that on my mind a lot, you know?”

“No, don’t apologize. It’s good that you’re excited!”

Sunset felt Twilight’s arm wrap gently around her side.

“But I’ve been talking your ear off about it all week! Or maybe our entire lives? I want to know what you’re thinking about! I mean, if you want to tell me.”

Sunset opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated for a moment.

“I don’t know. I kind of just want to pick your thing instead, you know? It’s a lot happier.”

“Oh, now you have to tell me, Sunny,” Twilight said playfully. “You know the rules.”

Sunset sighed, in mock exasperation, a genuine smile forming on her face.

“All right. I’ll tell you. Having to relearn where the stars are again reminds me of when I first came to your world. It was the first time I noticed— that I realized that I missed Equestria. And well…”

Tears welled up in Sunset’s eyes as she put the feeling to words.

“I just wish Starlight was here with us.”

For the familiar grief and pain, Twilight gave her a familiar squeeze of comfort as she buried her face into Sunset’s neck.

“Yeah. Me too.” Another squeeze. “Me too.”

They just stood there, in silence, for a moment, Twilight gently rocking Sunset side to side, letting the silence seep in.

“We just have to do our best, you know? She sacrificed herself so we could be here, in our new lives in this new world. Every moment like this—” she rocked side to side some more “—feels like it’s for her, you know? That’s how I think of it.”

Sunset held the arm thatTwilight was holding her with, her skin soft and warm. “That is a nice way to think of it.”

“I think it is.”

And a calm silence fell between them for a while, until Twilight spoke.

“You know, that was Rarity on the telephone just now. They want to host us for dinner tomorrow before I leave for Wally.”

“Oh, that’s great! I’d never turn down a chance to have Applejack’s cooking.”

“Don’t you know it! And it’ll be nice to be forced to have a break from thinking about the expedition. I know everything is already literally packed and planned and ready, but that’s not going to stop me, you know?”

Sunset laughed. “I just hope Moondancer doesn’t get on your nerves too much this time around.”

“Oh we get along fine these days! Honestly, it’s the support crew I’m anxious about. I mean, these things have gotten me pretty good at hiking, but I always feel like I’m slowing everyone else down.”

It was Sunset’s turn to give Twilight a supportive squeeze on the arm.

“It’s their job, Twi. You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Twilight hugged her back. “But will you? It’s not like they’re going to run couriers all the way out to the Wallflower Memorial Reserve. You’re not going to be hearing from me for weeks.”

“I’ll be okay back here, Twilight, really! It’s not like you’re the only person in my life.” She snuggled into Twilight’s face. “And I’ll even enjoy getting all the blankets to myself for the first few nights, before it just becomes missing you.”

“Aww.”

Their lips met for a kiss. Then they looked into each other’s eyes, and smiled.

“Oh, and one more thing! Rarity did want to warn us.”

“What is it?” Sunset asked, curious as to what could possibly be so important in that moment.

“Amber Gem composed another new song on her recorder, and she is very proud of it.”

Sunset groaned, understanding.

“Thanks for that one! I’ll have to mentally prepare myself…”

Glimmer

And Starlight’s Empathy magic let go of Sunset’s dream. And she had to take a moment for herself, as tears streamed down her face, her half-formed muzzle split into a grin that she could not help. And slowly, surely, the serenity that was her default state now returned, suffusing back out to every corner of her being.

It was a process, she noticed, that grew shorter every time.

And she resumed. Her Empathy magic that she guided in her mind’s eye traced the eternal thread that weaved through and wrapped around every dreamer in the chaotic pile that lay eternal beneath her feet-hooves, over and over again, in every possible order and combination, like beads on a string.

And as she followed the string, she found her next dreamer, a different one every time. And as she entered their dream, her meditation would continue.

She would feel everything that the dreamer felt in the slice of their life she was about to peek into. All of their triumph and loss and joy and grief and passion and calm and happiness and sorrow. And love. And she would take it all into the serenity of her mind, becoming ever closer to a pure reflection of the collective being of every soul in the world that lay humming and thriving underneath her.

And her meditation would continue.

And this is how things went on in the Void.

Starlight

There must have been other Zipporwhills. That was how the connection between their worlds worked, wasn’t it? So in Equestria there must have been a young, excitable filly with a bright smile and thick glasses and a dog named Ripley that she loved more than anything else in the world. Maybe she was a unicorn, or an earthpony, or a pegasus. Maybe she lived in Ponyville, or Cloudsdale, or Canterlot, or some small town she never would have heard of. Maybe even Sire’s Hollow, for all Starlight knew, for how little she visited. But no matter what, she knew that she would have had that dog named Ripley that she loved more than anything else in the world. And from the contours of her mind, she knew that she would have a cutie mark having something to do with dogs, and whatever about that made her feel fulfilled and happy she would have a lot of in her life, because that is how Equestria worked for ponies that weren’t broken like Starlight was.

And it was bad enough that she had that brokenness inside of her in the first place, but no, she had to go further than that. She had to take that brokenness and take it outside of her and spread it on others, convincing those poor, gullible ponies in that tiny town that they were broken just like she was and were better off without their cutie marks. But they weren’t, were they? That is what those townponies proved in the end, wasn’t it? That she was the only broken one out of any of them.

And it was bad enough that she had taken that brokenness outside of her and spread it on that tiny town of ponies, but no, she had to go further than that. Starlight Glimmer was the unicorn that wrote the spell that could remove the cutie mark of an Alicorn Princess.

Starlight Glimmer could do anything.

And of all the things she could have done with her talents and powers, she used them to take that brokenness inside of her and use it to break the entire world, with all of its millions of souls and lives and destinies and meanings that would have gone on to be just fine without her. Not just once. Not just twice. Over and over again, until that brokenness spread and spread and spread and turned the entire world into a bleak and empty wasteland where not even a single soul could live.

There must have been other Zipporwhills. Ones that did not get to live that carefree life full of meaning and love for that dog named Ripley that she loved more than anything else in the world. Ones that lived their entire lives having their bodies crushed under the weight of Sombra’s forced labor, their souls withered to listless husks by the feeding of Chrysalis’s Changelings, their dreams no refuge from the dread chill of Nightmare Moon’s eternal night, their sanity warped beyond comprehension by Discord’s chaotic realm.

There must have been other Zipporwhills, and everything bad that had ever happened to any of them was all Starlight's fault.