The light hitting Starlight as she drifted out of her slumber was not warm, but it was briefly startling. Starlight was a mare that cared very much about the details in her life. Sunlight on her face was not how she normally awoke in her bed, and as her mind became more aware, she realized she was not even in her bed at all.
Her eyes blinked as they adjusted to the sunlight, which was filtering through the blades of grass in front of her muzzle. When Starlight lifted her head, she realized that she had been sleeping in a field of grass. This did not sit well with her. She did not remember coming here, the flowers that nearly towered over her were vibrant and the grass was softer than any she had felt under her hooves before, certainly something that she would have remembered.
She felt an itchy sensation on her fur, and looking back at her body to see the cause, Starlight jumped to her hooves in shock.
She was wearing a dress.
Starlight was not opposed to dresses, but she could never see herself wearing one like this by choice. It was a light blue, with a hoop and several layers of fabric inside the skirt. There was what appeared to be a white apron tied around her waist and overlaying the dress. She spun in a circle as she noticed — likely the worst part of it all — white tights on her back legs and black dress shoes on her hooves.
Starlight grimaced. She preferred functional outfits if she wore them at all. These puff sleeves and hoop skirts were a hindrance as she moved around. Even the apron was unnecessarily flamboyant, with a large white bow where the strings were tied around her back.
“Alright. Is this a prank? Pinkie, I know you’re probably the one behind this,” Starlight said loud enough for anypony else in the field to hear. She knew how Pinkie enjoyed pranks just as much as she did baking. “Rainbow Dash?” The speedster was also a likely candidate, as her pranks were often more mean-spirited.
“To whom are you speaking, Alice?” A familiar voice came from behind her.
Starlight whipped around in surprise. She could recognize his voice anywhere, but she had never heard him speak so formally, even around royalty. Once she saw him approaching, she suppressed a laugh. Her best and oldest friend, Sunburst the unicorn, was not as disorderly in appearance as she was used to.
The unicorn was often so engrossed in his magical studies that he paid no attention to his own appearance. Yet now, instead of his mane being scruffy and unbrushed, it was pulled into a low bun, with not a single strand out of place. His glasses were not about to fall off of his muzzle. His tail appeared straightened. The most surprising, however, was his outfit. Sunburst usually only donned a star-studded cape. As he approached Starlight, he instead was wearing a dull violet dress, with a blue bow around his neck and a bonnet around his bun. It was the same kind of dress as Starlight’s, poofy and not made for function, even with a big bow on his back, matching the one on his chest. A dull violet cape wrapped around his shoulders and chest, and though his dress was longer and Starlight could not see his back legs, she wondered if he also wore tights and dress shoes. The thought was hilarious.
“Sunburst, what are you wearing? Did Pinkie or Dash put you up to this?” She gave him a teasing grin. She knew he also never wore anything for the sake of fashion alone, and it was uncanny to see him so well-groomed, in an outfit she could only picture Rarity wearing.
“Sunburst? You were talking to nobody, and now you are speaking nonsense,” Sunburst narrowed his eyes at the mare. Starlight could not find any cracks in his expression, and frowned, still certain that he was tricking her, or somepony else was.
“Come now, it is time to focus on your studies,” He turned swiftly around and Starlight scrunched her face up in bewilderment.
“Sunburst, what are you saying? I just woke up and I have no idea where I am, and you’re acting really strange. What is going on?” Starlight trotted beside Sunburst.
“You scampered off to follow your little dragon through the fields and fell asleep among the flowers because you find my lessons so dreadful. You should have a little more respect for your mentor, Alice,” Sunburst responded with bile in his words, barely looking at her.
“Stop calling me Alice. You know that’s not my name. I’m Starlight,” She raised an eyebrow at him. What was the point of him talking to her in circles like this? “And what do you mean ‘pet dragon’?”
“I will not play your games, Alice. You best not have lost Dino,” Sunburst said with the same sharp tone. By this point, he sounded completely unfamiliar. As they walked Starlight accidentally stepped on an inner layer of her dress and tripped forward. She tumbled onto her back, and as she laid there for a moment, watching the clouds and wondering why the pegasi were not directing them, she felt feet pressing on her stomach. She sat up straight, finding a little purple dragon with green spikes on her lap, kneading her fur with his claws. A pink bow tied around his neck.
“Ow! Spike, what are you doing?” Starlight hissed at him, but he only looked up with a blank expression. She pushed him off of her with a hoof, and he stood back up on the ground, frolicking around on all fours among the grass and fragrant flowers, batting at stems with a claw.
“Spike?” Starlight grew concerned as he did not respond other than looking back at her, with the same blank look in his eyes. She did not notice Sunburst trotting back to her until he spoke.
“Ah, you found Dino. Please keep him out of trouble. I will not be chasing after him if he runs off again.”
“Sunburst, what is Spike doing here? What are you doing here?”
“I told you I will not play your games, Alice. Be serious. My name is not Sunburst, you know this. You insisted that you would only study if Dino accompanied you. Now I have complied with this, so you must comply with my instructions.”
Sunburst began to walk away again, toward the shade of a tree, where an old book lay against the trunk. Starlight did not follow.
“You’re acting weird. This isn’t like you. What’s going on here?” More than anything, Starlight was furious. If this was a prank, it was not funny. She tried to use her magic to float the book over to her — hoping to get some answers in its pages — but no magical blue field fell over the object, and she did not feel any power course through her horn.
She tried again, but not even a fizzle of magic came out of her horn. No amount of strain would allow her to cast any spells.
“What? Why can’t I use my magic?” Starlight began to hyperventilate. Her most reliable skill was spellcasting. How would she figure this out if she couldn’t use magic to do so?
“Magic? Alice, stop playing and come here. I have had enough of this,” Sunburst huffed.
Before Starlight could retort again that she was, in fact, not Alice, she heard a rustle in the grass. She looked to see Spike chasing a butterfly through the field and toward a pond.
“Spike, wait!” Ignoring Sunburst shouting after her, Starlight chased after the little dragon. Starlight again tried to lift him with her magic, but again it did not work.
“Spike!” She said, more demanding. The dragon’s ears flicked and he paused for a second, enough for Starlight to catch up to him. The butterfly continued to flutter over the pond, and Spike’s expression changed to annoyance as he sat and watched it go out of his reach. Starlight took a seat at the edge of the pond and caught her breath.
“What is happening, Spike?” He tilted his head and looked at her, but said nothing. “Why won’t you talk to me? Why is Sunburst in a dress?” She chuckled ruefully, then sighed. Her head bowed down, and she saw her reflection in the water. The dress looked like a costume on her. Something she hadn’t noticed before now was a black ribbon around her head, tied in a large black bow in her mane. Her ears flattened as she frowned.
“I’m getting really tired of all these bows. If I had my magic, I would teleport right out of this frilly thing,” Starlight said as she pulled at her sleeve with her front hoof, but she had no clue how to take the dress off without using magic. The dress itself had many layers and no sign of any buttons or ties that she could reach, and the mare was used to simple spells for tasks like this that would take more time if she used her hooves.
As she looked at the water, she saw something else in the reflection. When she focused on it, it appeared to be a light blue pegasus wearing a red waistcoat and holding a pocket watch, standing on the other side of the pond. The bright red coat was only matched in starkness by the pony’s bright rainbow mane. Starlight lifted her head to see Rainbow Dash on the other side of the pond, checking her gold watch with silver spectacles at the end of her muzzle.
“Oh my! I’m going to be late!” Her recognizable raspy voice exclaimed. “I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!” She continued chanting as she seemed to hop along the grass on the tips of her hooves, instead of flying away.
Starlight raised her eyebrows at this peculiar behavior. She got to her hooves and started running around the edge of the pond. Starlight knew that Rainbow Dash was the most likely one behind this preposterous prank. Spike followed behind Starlight, curious to see what the commotion was about.
“Dash! Stop, I need to talk to you!” She called after, but the pegasus was still too fast, even when not flying.
“No can do, I’m overdue! No time to say goodbye, hello. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late,” Dash turned her head to respond to Starlight, but kept hopping, until she reached a pony-sized hole buried under the roots of a large, dark tree, almost completely hidden by the leaves and branches around it. Dash did not pause, running directly into the darkness.
Starlight stopped in front of the hole, crouching down to see if she could peer in, but it was as if the sunlight could not reach inside.
“A burrow? Why would she go in here?” Starlight asked, but was not greeted by an answer. Instead, she heard hooves stamping on dirt behind her, growing closer.
“Alice, what are you doing now?” Sunburst scrunched his nose in annoyance.
She simply ignored him at this point, squeezing her poofy dress through the opening and slowly crawling inward.
Spike tried to follow through the hole, but Sunburst pushed him away from it. He pressed his free hoof on the skirt of Starlight’s dress, pinning it down and stopping her.
“Sunburst, let me go!” Starlight pulled but the dress wouldn’t tear away. So she kicked at him and he retracted his leg with a whine of pain. She continued moving, pushing aside roots and rocks, but stopped when she heard something behind her.
The tunnel was wide enough for her to look back… and to see Sunburst crawling in.
“What are you doing?” She exclaimed.
“No, what are you doing, Alice? This is dangerous!”
“I need to figure out what’s going on,” Starlight scoffed and crawled further.
“You should know by now, curiosity often leads only to trouble — ”
Sunburst’s response was cut short as Starlight let out a resounding shriek, and fell downward. Having not looked where she was going, she had slid off of an edge, where the hole appeared to continue downward forever. Sunburst gasped and moved forward as quickly as he could, grasping her back leg in his hooves, but he could not do anything except slide down with her.
Starlight was already off the edge, and her body was too much for him to hold. Sunburst felt his glasses slide off of his nose before he tumbled down as well. Spike had followed them both, and could only watch from above as they disappeared into the darkness below.
Author's Note
Starlight is autistic and that made her very relatable to write for. The reason why Sunburst is wearing the dress is because he is taking the role of Alice’s sister, though in this story he is just her mentor. Like Alice’s sister he is supposed to teach Starlight, though they never get around to it. Spike is also the cat. I did not originally start with Sunburst falling down the hole with Starlight, but I realized that their dynamic was really needed for the story, Starlight being alone just wouldn’t have the same energy.
After This I Won’t Mind Tripping
Starlight’s instinct was to use her magic to levitate herself, but she was spinning head over hooves so fast as she fell that she couldn’t concentrate enough to cast the spell. After a moment Starlight remembered that she couldn’t use her magic anyway. Though as all this happened, she was screaming in fear, preparing to hit the cold dirt bottom of the hole with deadly speed and being unable to stop it… after what felt like a minute passed, she realized this was too long and deep for it to be any kind of creature-dug hole, and it must have been bottomless. She shouted in frustration.
“Am I ever going to hit the bottom?!”
“Wait… Starlight?”
She couldn’t turn her head to look as she was tumbling down, but she recognized the voice. It was Sunburst. But he didn’t sound like before, all uptight and demanding. Instead he sounded a lot more like himself, if a little tired. He hadn’t been screaming like she was, he had been silent, so she hadn’t noticed him falling alongside her. He must have been knocked out in all the confusion somehow, and only woke up when she shouted.
“Sunburst? You fell in here too?”
“Fell where? What’s happening, Starlight? Where are we?”
“I don’t really know, I woke up and you and Spike were there, but you were both acting strange—”
“Why am I wearing this frilly… thing?”
Starlight couldn’t help but chuckle, despite the situation. “It’s good to have you back. The real you, I mean.”
“Can you cast a spell? Get us out of here?” He sounded more panicked than before. Starlight remembered how frightened and confused she had been too, at first. Not to mention that both of them were currently plummeting to nowhere. So she stopped laughing. Wishing she could do as he said and explain everything from the safety above ground.
“I wish I could, Sunburst. But for some reason, my magic isn’t working.”
She heard sparking, and felt a small aura of magic beside her. He was trying to cast a spell.
“Agh…!” He exclaimed, his voice tight with frustration. “It’s no use, my magic doesn’t seem to work either.”
Before Starlight could respond, she gasped, feeling a gust of wind from below. She yelled as she was turned right-side-up, and the skirt of her dress filled with air, and puffed out like an umbrella. Her head was still throbbing, and it took a second for her sight to stop spinning. When she looked to her right, she noticed Sunburst was in the same situation. In the darkness, she could see his silhouette doing the same motions as she had just gone through. His own dress was doing the same thing, and now they were both floating down much more gently.
“Are you doing this?” Sunburst asked.
“No…” She trailed off. She didn’t see the glow of a magical aura around Sunburst’s horn, so she knew the other unicorn was not the source of it.
“After this I won’t mind tripping over my cape as much,” Sunburst said, as he tried to steady his breathing.
“You mean your dress?” Starlight ribbed with a smirk, covering the fact that her heart was still racing and her breath was as unsteady as the other unicorn’s.
“Is that what I’m wearing? It’s so… bulky,” he said with annoyance. “Yours at least seems practical. Wait — why are we wearing dresses?”
“It’s hard to explain… I’m not even sure why all this is happening. Like I said, I woke up and you were acting strange. I saw Rainbow Dash and she disappeared through a burrow hole, and now we’re falling down that hole, and we can’t use magic.”
“Hmm…” Starlight immediately recognized Sunburst’s tone of voice. He was deep in thought, though she couldn’t see his expression clearly in the darkness. She wished she could cast a simple light spell so they could see each other.
As she thought that, something came out of the darkness below them. As they fell closer toward it, it came up to Starlight’s side. She reached a hoof out to it, and felt a ring attached to a chain. When she put her hoof through it and pulled, hoping it was something that she could hold onto to stop falling, instead there was a click, then a bright glow. She shut her eyes and turned her head away quickly from the sudden blinding light, and when she was able to look again, she realized that it was a lamp sitting on a table. She knew little about decoration, but she could see from the tattered pattern on the lampshade and the dusty wood carvings on the table that they must have been old. And what was stranger… Neither of them were attached to anything. As they floated down past the table and lamp, she couldn’t help but keep staring. It was standing on nothing.
“Curious…” Starlight muttered.
“Hm, what is?” Sunburst turned his head, and noticed the hovering table. The mare was not surprised that he had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed the whole interaction, she knew just how focused Sunburst could get inside his head.
With the light — that now seemed to follow them even as the lamp disappeared above them — they could see that they were not falling down a tunnel of soil. At least, not anymore. They were surrounded by stone, and even more furniture. As they fell further they saw candelabras on dressers and bookshelves next to fireplaces. Both unicorns were silent with confusion and awe. They passed a mirror hanging in front of them, but it showed their reflections upside-down, floating up. While Starlight was preoccupied watching what she could only assume was an uncannily detailed funhouse mirror, Sunburst had found a nightstand with books on it. He picked one up and opened it, hoping for some answers, but his glasses almost floated off and he had to let go of the text to catch them and affix them onto his muzzle again. While he was busy with that, he landed in a rocking chair, and as he held onto the arms of the floating furniture in surprise, Starlight watched this and snorted in laughter.
“You look just like an old mare!”
“I’m not in the mood for — Woah!” He slipped out of the chair as it rocked forward, and his dress puffed up again as he floated back down to Starlight.
“Sorry, it was just the chair, and the dress, and the bonnet, and your glasses… hahaha — Aah!” Starlight had to take a moment to laugh, wiping her watering eyes with her hooves. But she was cut short when she felt herself falling faster, her dress tightening as she was squeezed through a tight space, pressed uncomfortably against Sunburst. She heard him screaming as well… but once she had opened her eyes, they had finished going through the strangely confined part of the tunnel, and their dresses had caught them once again, floating down the hole which was now back to the same size it had been before.
“This must be some kind of magic.” Was all the stallion could say after the frightening moment had passed.
“All of it? That would be some powerful spell.”
“It’s possible. You’ve casted spells as powerful as this before.”
Starlight couldn’t argue with that. She was one of the most skilled unicorns she knew, other than Twilight. If she could turn back time and change the future, perhaps another talented unicorn could have created this illusion. She doubted it was Twilight, unless her alicorn tutor had somehow botched casting a spell and trapped them here on accident. She would not believe that the Princess of Friendship would do anything like this on purpose.
“You’re right, it is possible.”
As they had been talking, they had both been spinning very slowly. Turning onto their sides. Now they were both upside down, dresses still puffed out, still floating downward and somehow not plummeting at full speed. Starlight wanted to comment on how strange it was, but after everything that had already happened, she decided that it went without saying.
“But how come we can’t use—” Sunburst couldn’t finish his thought, as the two of them stopped suddenly. Starlight could see the ground, but everything was still upside-down. More importantly, she saw a bright blue pegasus with a rainbow mane, clip-clopping down the hallway as she hopped like a rabbit.
“Dash!” Starlight cried out, but the pegasus took no notice of her. “C’mon Sunburst, we have to follow her! Dash, wait! Please!” Starlight called, and looked up to realize that her tail had gotten caught on a curtain rod. She did not stop to think about it. She was able to kick the hook to free herself, then tumbled down, galloping after the pegasus.
“Why does this feel familiar…?” Sunburst muttered as he got himself down, only for his dress to fall over his head, burying him under layers of fabric. When he pushed it out of his face, he followed after his best friend, feeling a bit ridiculous as he held up some of the dress with his hoof to keep it from dragging. He realized that his bonnet had fallen off completely, and he stopped to pick it up off the ground and carry it along in his free hoof. It was the most practical part of the outfit after all, since it kept his mane out of his eyes. He would have to ask Starlight how to tie the bow.
