Starlight, Starbright, the Brightest Star I See Tonight

Starlight groaned, gesturing vaguely at the massive computer cores. “She's not actively intervening here, so clearly talking about it isn't that much of a problem.”

“She's still adhering to the privacy protocol,” Luna said, raising an eyebrow as she stepped closer. “Did you not know that? I assumed you had a calculated reason for summoning me instead of her. For another sixteen minutes, she will not hear us unless you ask her a question. Of course, Cadance is listening, as always.”

Cadance was the third computer core, one focused on security and care. She had very few restrictions and did not adhere to privacy protocols, but she very rarely released any data whatsoever. Usually, she only intervened to stop someone from dying.

Starlight looked back towards the computer cores themselves and swallowed. “Will you tell her I asked?”

“No,” Luna said, smiling. “Because I am willing to indulge in this experiment with you. The Mirror of the Multiverse has been locked up for decades. I will keep you safe, and we will see if this proves to you that you should socialize.”

“Fine.” Starlight nodded, mentally counting the minutes until Celestia would be aware of her actions again. “What do you need me to do?”

Luna gestured, producing a map of Equestria, and a path through the ship to one of the massive storage bays.

“I’ll unlock the bay when you approach. I’ll ensure Celestia and Cadance don’t intervene. All you have to do is bring the mirror to my core console room. We’ll perform the experiment there,” Luna explained.

“Okay. Thank you.” Starlight bowed and quickly slipped out of the labs, as she pondered the purpose for this experiment.

She had a hard to express fear that came over her as she walked, and she realized that nothing was as it seemed.

In a way, she knew that she was lying to herself. She was fairly certain that she was lying to Luna, at least, because her experiment wasn’t about companionship. This was still her seeking that eerie hollowness in her heart, trying to understand what she was missing. It seemed possible to her that some other version of her would have figured it out by now.

Starlight should have known by that point that Luna was lying to her as well. She had no real reason to care about Starlight’s socialization. She hadn’t been built with the Harmony Pursuit, and she had no processes dedicated to the wellbeing of individuals. She was a systemic analyst, a testbed which only had to occupy herself with hypotheticals most of the time.

So Starlight wondered why Luna was helping her, as she rode the elevator down into the belly of Equestria. She theorized that Luna was just curious, but she also worried that the Alicorn Intelligence had an ulterior motive.

Starlight slipped down through layers of the ship, past agricultural centers and residential districts, checking the time to make sure that she would still have time to meet up with Sunburst after fetching this mirror for Luna.

The storage bays of Equestria stored a wide variety of things. Some were designated as Waste Storage, holding materials that ponies had not yet figured out how to recycle or reuse, while others were more secure. Failed computer cores, weapons used to defend the ship when they’d encountered the Draconic Dreadnought, and magical artifacts were all stored in the depths of the ship.

The map guided her to bay 5-1. There were two doors to the massive bay, the loading door that was over ten ponies high, and then the access hatch that was used for entry and exit.

As she approached, the light over the door turned green, giving her a moment of pause.

“Are you really going to do this?” Starlight asked herself in a fearful whisper. “You want to know…”

Even if she didn’t figure out what she was yearning for, she believed that this was an opportunity to peer beyond the walls of Equestria, and to better understand herself.

She opened the door and slipped inside as lights turned on to reveal the bay.

Bay 5-1 was beautiful, like a museum. Instead of cold steel racks stacked with boxes, two levels of flooring held individual pedestals and glass cases, each item with an ornate plaque detailing its name and purpose.

Thankfully, the entire collection was alphabetically arranged, so it wasn’t hard for Starlight to find the Mirror of the Multiverse.

The mirror itself looked very nice, made of carved wood and silvered glass, but the frame had been modified at some point. Screws and bolts bit into the wood, holding wires and sensors to the mirror’s surface, and a large 50-pin data bus hung disconnected off to the side.

But it was about a pony length and a half long.

“Luna, how am I supposed to move this to your data core?” she asked as she lifted the glass case and set it aside to access the mirror itself.

“You only need to get it outside of the bay. I can then teleport it, and you, to my core.”

Luna’s voice was quiet and slightly distorted. Starlight looked around before realizing that the only speaker in the entire bay was just above the entry door. This space was cut off from the Princesses.

She shivered, and looked around as she came to the realization that the god-computers she trusted with her life every day were forbidden from this place. The bare idea that there was any place they could not go or see, that was enough to scare her.

She picked it up in her magic, careful not to touch the mirror’s surface, or the data connector. It was hard to tell what an artifact like this would do to a careless unicorn’s magical aura.

With her prize, she descended the stairs and then stepped out of the bay, closing the door behind her.

Then, in a flash of blue magic, she was in the cold circular room at the center of Luna’s computer core, with the alicorn’s hologram looming over her, smiling.