The brightest light, is at the end of the darkest night.
In this place, Time itself had been altered and broken thousands upon millions of times over and over again and even more, to the point that the one creature who was ultimately responsible for it being used in the first place was the only one who still existed here alive.
And now she existed alone in the void, with only her horrific memories to keep her company.
Memories that flooded her mind now that she’d stepped into darkness and the world had instantly faded away into the shadows as well.
Memories of uncountable moments spent arriving in the throne room to be punished and each time finding an increasingly changing number of events, each darker than the last.
Going from her simply seeing Princess Twilight and her friends gathered there to pass judgment on her, to seeing them getting older and starting to argue among themselves concerning Starlight herself, to seeing the castle get increasingly worn down by events she’d not known at the time, to seeing members of those friends missing and the surviving ones so much older then before that same day, to seeing the castle itself in ruins and a much older Twilight crying in a heartbreaking way and saying she’d always remember Starlight before flying off, to stepping into a toxic and lifeless wasteland that was breaking down around her and horrifically tearing at her body and damaging her fatally as she desperately cried out for anypony who might be alive out there…
To stepping into pure and utter darkness where there was nothing and nocreature left, only herself.
And Starlight was now alone in her own personal hell, and she sobbed and screamed and begged to anypony or anycreature out there who might hear her to please stop her torment.
“I-is-is this it!?! This-this is the punishment I must endure for what I’ve done!?! This eternity!?”
Starlight had screamed, her vocal cords ravaged and yet still functioning perfectly, her tears never running dry no matter how many she shed, her heart breaking over and over again and yet the pain never stopping or getting any better than the last time.
“Please! It can’t be like this! I beg anything out there! I’ll do anything, I swear on my worthless stupid good-for-nothing soul! Please, don’t leave me here! PLEASE!”
And the tormented Unicorn could only weep and beg and plead to the lifeless, unfeeling, unhearing, unforgiving darkness. For there was nothing and no one else to hear her.
“I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry! Why didn’t I stop!?! Why did I keep going with that accursed idea even when I kept hearing my bloody conscience begging me to let it go!?! Why, oh why!?!”
She screamed her throat raw and her eyes poured forth enough tears to bleed, but any change done to herself was gone in an instant, and her regret and anguish was fresh again, never running out the way it would for anyone else who was NOT trapped for eternity in the infinite void outside of Space and Time.
Her torment was that of a soul doomed to be unable to ever know peace, trapped forever even as everything else faded away, and all that was left was an eternity to remember all the terrible events that had led up to this utterly horrible fate, all the things she had done to earn this torment… a torment given to her because of her foolish actions born of selfishness and an unjust lust for vengeance.
Vengeance on innocent ponies everywhere just because she upset that her one foalhood friend had left her behind to go and learn magic after he had gotten his Cutie Mark, and she was thus left alone.
“Oh Celestia, I’m so sorry! Please, I’m begging somepony, anypony or anything, please don’t leave me here!”
WHY did she choose to go this way!?! There were so many other ponies in Equestria who had gone through the same thing, but they’d grown up happy and content, not going down a path of theft and corruption and cruelty, ultimately ending up defeated and being punished in the worst way possible!
Abandoned by all, forgotten by all, and thinking about just how much she had missed out on simply because she couldn’t let go of her stupid fillyhood emotions and focused exclusively on her worthless, narrow-sighted, evil plan.
And now she was suffering for it, for her worthless, foolish, uncaring, self-centered ways that had lead to numerous alternate futures where chaos and destruction-Oh Celestia, those other worlds!!!
And now Starlight cried out and sobbed anew as the thought of THOSE places came to her.
Twilight has shown her just ONE alternate future that was the result of Starlight’s messing with time, and it was a barren wasteland with nothing alive left in it. And according to the Alicorn, there were MULTIPLE worlds that had been similar to that one, futures where all ponykind had been doomed by her actions.
She had doomed so many more innocent ponies and other creatures then she’d ever know to horrible deaths and inescapable despair, all because SHE was unhappy with her own lot in life and had decided to make everypony else pay for it!
“Oh Harmony, WHY!? Why did I do this!? Why, why, WHY!?! Oh why was I so foolish!!?!”
Her tears poured down her cheeks from her eyes like little waterfalls, falling into nothingness and fading away as she mourned and bawled like the poor anguished pony she was.
“Please forgive me. I beg all of you who I’ve killed, please! I didn’t know what I was doing to you all, I swear on my accursed life! Please, I’m begging you, forgive me! Oh Celestia, why did I do this?!”
And with many other words did she mourn and weep and sob and bawl, begging for forgiveness from other ponies long gone, tearing at herself for her short-sighted actions that had doomed her to this terrible existence of nothingness.
She yanked her mane until it SHOULD have been completely gone, she beat her own head with her voices innumerable times until it should have been completely shattered, had beaten at and yanked on her horn until it had been agonizingly broken and then fine a moment later each time,
and had screamed until her vocal cords and lungs should have collapsed in on themselves long ago.
“Please, I’m begging anypony, anycreature, anything out there, just kill me! I’m begging you, please don’t leave me here! Oh Harmony please! I’m so so sorry, please forgive me, please!”
Snot came from her nose and tears covered her red cheeks and even poured down her neck or into her mane as she cried and sobbed, pleading and begging for forgiveness.
But there was no escape to be found for the poor unfortunate pony.
For her own alteration of Time itself combined with being trapped in this time loop which had gone on for Eons had resulted in her becoming an anomaly in existence itself.
She was now a threat to every other world out there. A paradox that should not exist, yet still did.
The only place where she could exist without harming anypony or anyONE… was here in the void, where she would be destined to spend until all things across the multiverse came to an end… if they ever did.
An eternity of unchanging psychological torture as her punishment for what she had done to her world, numerous times over.
Doomed to remember everything she had said and done, all the chances she had ever had to turn back, but had never done so.
Doomed to see how selfish and blind she had been in her agenda, and how she could have avoided this fate if only she hadn’t been so.
Doomed to regret it all for the rest of eternity, without any hope for forgiveness or mercy. For there is no mercy to be found in the cold, unfeeling darkness of a dead univer-
OH FOR BUCKS SAKE, GET HER OUT OF THERE!!!
-
The tormented and grieving pony Unicorn was in the midst of her suffering like always now, memories of so many other ponies she could have become friends with again appearing before her eyes, and her utterly heart-breaking cries continued to pour forth from her throat as she was incessantly bombarded with the weight of her sins and with nopony to help ease her burden.
Her torment was unending, her fate unchangeable…
But then all of a sudden, her blurry vision (in a manner of speaking, for there was nothing to be seen except for her own body and hooves) was… detecting something? Something far away and yet nearby.
She didn’t cease her crying, but that thing was not fading away.
It wasn’t fading away at all, it was actually growing LARGER!
And then, Starlight ceased her current sobbing and now began to focus heavily on this strange thing she was seeing.
And she then rubbed one eye furiously and then the other, one at a time in order to keep at least one eye always on the sight, too terrified to risk it disappearing if she took her vision off it even for a moment.
The thing was… light? Yes, it was LIGHT! A bright and powerful light of… pink and some purple, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen or ever even imagined possible!
And it was right in front of her, and growing larger by the… minute, moment, second, who cared!?!
Fresh tears burst from Starlight’s eyes, but for the first time in forever they weren’t tears of regret and despair.
And it was in front of her, and growing more wonderful at an amazing pace, and-and it was getting close to her!
“YES! Yes please, come here! I’m begging you, whatever you are, take me away from this nothingness!”
Starlight cried out with a desperate hope burning within her as she breathed heavily and reached out to the beautiful, unmatchably glorious light that was now filling almost all her vision.
It was like… a bright light source from things like the Sun or magic crystals, mixed with the suddenness and power of a lightning bolt. It was so utterly mighty and amazing in this dark lonely void, and she’d swear that nothing else could have ever been as beautiful as this heavenly power right now!
And now she saw it fully, and it didn’t seem to be moving TOWARDS her by itself, but rather it was stretching towards her.
For this stream/bolt of energy had seemingly turned its frontmost tip towards one side, and now the tormented unicorn could see the main body of this mysterious and beautiful power, which was apparently a sort of electrical ripping in the blackness itself, like a lightning bolt that did not immediately disappear from the sky in the midst of a storm.
And then, and then it seemed to stop approaching her, and now she could see the very center of this frontal energy mass was starting to brighten even more. Something was happening, it was like… a door was opening!
Yes, it was a door, an inter dimensional door! Starlight had by now needed to shelter her eyes from the power of the light shining into them.
She felt as if she was about to burst from excitement and joy, and it was truly the first time in countless Eons since she had felt remotely this happy. Was she really about to be rescued from this eternal torment, was her sentence of infinite psychological torture finally ending at long last!?!
The blinding burst of unknown power finally seemed to subside somewhat while still being incredibly bright, but Starlight was by now furiously trying to move her legs in a swimming manner to force herself into, by now what she felt to be, the portal.
She didn’t care if it led to someplace dreary filled with horrible creatures that hated ponies or even just a barren wasteland that needed to be crossed somehow in order to get to safety, she would take ANYTHING over the darkness and the horrible torment of her own mind and heart.
“Please please please don’t close up! Don’t leave me here, I beg whoever you are…”
She struggled as best she could, but didn’t seem to move at all… but then, she was! She could gasped heavily and her eyes widened even more as she realized that the aura itself of this strange portal was somehow beginning to push against the all-consuming nothingness and creating something akin to… atmosphere, which meant she was actually moving now!
The concept of Space was now returned at least to this little corner where she was in this dead cosmos, and that meant she was now capable of moving through it!
With everything she had, Starlight pulled and kicked and shoved herself forward with the ferocity of the damned, not knowing how long this miraculous occurrence would last and utterly determined, desperate, not to lose her one chance to escape this hell.
But she moving so slowly! If only she could somehow find a way to go faster, to propel herself through this available space before she lost her chance to escape her hell.
“Come on, why can’t I reach it sooner!? There’s gotta be some way I can do this! Some Magic to… wait, that’s it! MAGIC!”
Almost facehoofing herself at this realization, Starlight immediately began to try focusing her power again, forcing her troubled mind to feel just a bit more of the endless torment and grief to fuel the power stirring within herself.
Even in her agony and torment, her Magic had always been with her, the young mare’s horn often glowing as she grieved and mourned as if mocking her for her actions that lead to her eternal imprisonment.
But now, for once in far too long, her Magical prowess would serve her again, this time in the most important way of her life.
She gritted her teeth as she forced the churning energy into her horn and crushed it down from rebelling or acting like an uncontrolled ocean wave, furiously subduing it and making it submit to her will once again.
It would serve her again, if only for this final time!
Her horn glowing and even taking on a fiery appearance from the amount of power that she had accessed, Starlight moved on pure instinct to direct her beam into the body of light and electrical activity, her knowledge of Magic spells and how to cast them having been deteriorated by Ages spent being ravaged by uncontrollable mental and emotional pain.
Even as her (at this point) incomprehensible trauma again flooded its way into her shattered mind, the power that hope had brought her was now immovable, and the combined psychological emotional barrier she now had furiously cast up stood firm against the terrible memories of her previous despair, the dark thoughts and feelings crushing themselves against her wall and shattering into pieces even as more continued to try to drag her down and back into her abyss.
Starlight couldn’t feel herself sweating, more from the mental exertion than the physical one, as she was too focused on regaining control of her power and her concentration, the attempt more akin to agony than any other description.
Her horn was in pain too, and it was only increasing even as she viciously tried to regain control and cast her spell.
The portal still burned and crackled, but her Magic still was wild and uncontrollable. Her horn felt like it was going to explode now, her head throbbing and now burning with exertion and magical pressure… but finally, she forced it together in some form of harmony, even as every single moment was now agony in her skull and eyes and horn.
The energy crackled, her blurry vision forced itself to focus on the portal, and the portal itself seemed to dim just a bit for a moment…
Starlight screamed for the umpteenth millionth time since her imprisonment at the end of everything, and launched the spell!
An explosive burst of electric blue Magic erupted from her horn and head, but it was nowhere as wild sky fast as it would have been had the surroundings been… well, REAL. The blast fought savagely for every single millimeter of space, being smothered by infinite layers of Unreality, and in turn incinerating them. The power of Entropy itself was bearing down on her more than ever before, but Starlight Glimmer was NOT going to be held by it anymore, nor when she was so close to escape!
“Buck off!”
She shouted vengefully at the empty blackness all around her, and poured more and more energy into her mighty beam, forcing everything she had to strengthen her Magic through the darkness as it tore her a way towards salvation.
“I’ll face my fate out there, not here anymore! NEVER!”
And now the flaming laser ripped and burnt its way through the endless shadows and finally reached its destination, bursting through the final layers of shadow and coming into contact with the wonderful portal itself, and now the more purple aspects of the lovely Magic seemed to be hooking on to the blasting spell!
Starlight suddenly felt something strange, something that was traveling through her own wild power and flowing back into Starlight herself! It was like the portal… no, it was like whoever it was on the OTHER side of the portal was aware that she was here and was now lending her their own strength to break through!
Starlight couldn’t help the new tears from falling now as her hope was empowered and some other strange and wonderful feeling was starting to manifest within her, but she could now see that the beam she had sent out was still under stress from the pressure of the oppressive darkness as it was trying to cut off her escape.
With renewed intensity, Starlight began forcing herself to move further now into the energy, using this new energy pouring into her as an anchor as she felt her own Magic spell finally failing due to lack of true practice and her unstable state of mind, doing her very best to now pull herself out of the blackness and towards the light.
And just then, she felt the reinforcing pressure suddenly pick up dramatically and the agony she was currently in subsiding a little bit, enough to let her actually think a bit more clearly.
And that’s when she heard it: a voice.
A voice reaching out to her from the blazing light that was her hope.
“Get over here now, I’m holding back the Entropy as much as I can! Come through the portal now!”
Her own blast instantly being shut down from her surprise, Starlight didn’t need to be told twice! She felt her hooves come into contact with something, it was the other pony’s Magic that was now enveloping her like a cloud!
Without another thought, Starlight moved herself forward on something solid for the first time in an eternity, and she RAN.
-
She leapt through the shimmering brightness, and fell through Space and Time. Her eyes saw everything that she thought she knew, and everything else she didn’t know existed. The light, it was beautiful and everywhere, and her aching eyes that had been trapped in unbelievably long blackness could not close themselves at all, or even narrow down a bit. She had to see it, she NEEDED to.
She was weightless, but instantly felt that it wasn’t the same as when she was in the empty void. It felt strangely comforting and so much more fulfilling, perhaps because she was now seeing so much wonder and beauty and heading somewhere rather than being in the depths of black emptiness and cruel despair.
No words could describe how she felt or anything, she could only look at everything she could as she passed by it all, speeding down towards a blinding light up ahead that drew closer and closer.
The pony didn’t cover her eyes as she reached the glorious brightness, and was swallowed up in it.
————————————————
Starlight Glimmer did not open her eyes, not just yet. She was busy feeling the solidness of what was beneath her.
Yes, beneath her. She was lying on something solid, firm, and yet… soft?
Her eyes still closed, as if for fear that it would somehow all fade away if she opened them too soon, the now-trembling Unicorn mare spread out her arms/frontlegs ever so slightly, feeling more and more of the solid softness, and she suddenly remembered that she could breathe, and how to breathe.
She breathed in deeply through her nostrils, and held her breath for a moment. She was breathing again, breathing AIR.
She held it in for as long as she could, and then exhaled. The air.
Oh Celestia, the air was perfect.
She gently touched the ground again with more confidence and warmth, her head was purposefully titled downwards, and Starlight slowly opened her eyes… or rather she TRIED to open them slowly, but they shot open at the first glimpse of actual color in the long eons since her accursed punishment began.
Immediately, tears began to appear yet again in her beautiful eyes.
Warm, pure, luscious, REAL grass, thick and soft and comforting was under her hooves. She didn't look up just yet. There had never been such perfect vegetation, such flawless amazing beautiful grass, not anywhere. Not ever in all of creation.
The pony slowly moved her head from one side to the other just a little, seeing more grass on either side of her vision, and noticed that some of it was even brighter the grass she was directly standing upon.
And now she realized that she was seeing her own shadow! Shadow… a shadow means light!
Slowly, Starlight raised her head upwards and then quickly looked up. Yes, unlike the void out there, there was an UP here, too!
And she was now looking at clouds, actual clouds in a sky of the most unbelievably beautiful blue that was more majestic than she ever had imagined.
Ground, air, light. She could see again. She could feel again. She could hear again. She could smell and breathe again.
The light filtering down was so comforting on her hide and flesh, warm and nourishing and gently relaxing. It was so utterly perfect.
She was… living again. She was alive, she was ALIVE!
Starlight couldn’t help it anymore. She collapsed then and there and just lay in the grass, her heart beating stronger and more lively than ever before.
As far as she was concerned, this was her own little personal paradise, and she wouldn’t leave it behind for anything.
“… I made it home. I don’t… know where I am, but… I know that I am home.”
She whispered over and over again to herself, feeling evermore joyful and grateful that the wonderful sensations above and beneath and all around her did NOT fade away at all. She really was here, she was truly and finally safe from the horrors of eternal shadow that had held her captive for so bucking long!
And for the first time in strange Eons, where she had been unable to fade away from existence while even Death had died in the doomed cosmic realm where she came from, Starlight Glimmer was able to finally feel herself sink into the incomprehensibly comforting depths of a truly LONG overdue sleep, with the warm earth as her bed, the soft grass as her pillow, the light of the Sun as her blanket, and a peaceful smile on her face.
By the overall universally accepted standard for measuring the passage of Time, it is the 38th Millennium since the founding of the legendary nation of Equestria upon the holy world of Equus.
For more than 300 centuries, the Divine Princess has reigned from the magnificent city of Canterlot located on Equus, glorious Capital World of the Dominion.
She is the supreme ruler of all Equinekind, by both divine essence and a hard-earned ascension to immortality.
She is the benevolent ruler of billions upon billions of worlds across dimensions by the greatness of her knowledge and wisdom, the unmatched power that flows within her majestic form, and the infinite might of her inexhaustible armies.
She is the Violet Architect, whose legendary prowess of invention and innovation for the greater good is almost all still unmatched by any others to this day.
She is the archenemy of Entropy itself, waging an endless war across unnumbered battlefields of every type imaginable, as she and her followers labor tirelessly to save lives, worlds, and entire timelines from the grasp of innumerable and inconceivable evils, from the most seemingly simple of depraved ponies and other creatures, to mighty and malevolent cosmic entities that are more akin to great forces of nature than actual living beings.
Canterlot.
A grand and majestic Megacity that spans the entire continent of Equus, and the grand capital of all Equinekind/Ponykind across the Cosmos, The Capital City of The Capital World.
The Equus Dominion is not simply held under hoof by the Divine Princess Twilight Sparkle, of course. She also has a complex system of government in place, and she has handed control over a variety of powers and responsibilities to her most powerful and trusted allies, who are also her dearest and closest friends.
But this is not the story of the most wondrous and splendid civilization to ever exist, or of it’s great and powerful leaders and their endless war against the myriad of faces that the darkness wears as it ravages countless worlds and endlessly tries to destroy their solid foundations against its spread.
Maybe they will be told another day, but this is instead the conclusion(so to speak) of the tale told about the rescued Starlight Glimmer as she finally finds the peace she has searched for her whole life.
-
The sight of the poor young mare simply lying on the grass sleeping deeply and soundly in the sunlight was one of the purest and most heartwarming things that anypony could have possibly imagined.
It was a such a wonderfully sweet moment to witness, how she had been enjoying the sight of the world around here, looking for all the world like a little silly filly as she gazed in joyful silence at the grass and sky and how she was bathing in the light of the Sun, before suddenly lying down again and falling asleep like she hadn’t been able to rest in far too long.
Truly, it had been a little bit more risky than usual for a certain pony to open the doorway to this other current of the infinite cosmic ocean, but she had been able to use her own Magic to pull the tormented young pony out from her imprisonment of Entropy and tore away her paradoxical nature during the passage through the inter-dimensional portal itself, a rather powerful and useful trick taught by the Element of Knowledge and Magic herself.
With her no longer stuck as a reality-altering threat, this truly misfortunate version of Starlight Glimmer would now be able to live on in this world and be able to receive the best help available to her to recover from her horrific mental trauma and emotional distress.
But all of that would come when the time was right. For now, the unicorn would rest and finally know what it was like to sleep again after so much time in the void.
Sure, she may be very likely subject to many terrible nightmares, but there was also a Princess who’s job it was to deal with such things as that, and thus it was not an issue to worry about.
Slowly, steadily, the night had fallen, and the stars with the Moon had come out and cast their own blessed light over this world and many others.
Poor Starlight had slept through the entire day, but did not awaken for another few hours after the Sun had gone down… which was now, and slowly she began to stir again, and now her head was up and looking up at the stars and Moon as she slowly rose to her feet again.
The darkness… for a split second, she was struck with a pant of fear as she awoke and saw that the beautiful day was gone, but right before she could panic she’d saw the grass still in front of her face and then the numerous smaller lights in the sky, and she realized that she was still in this wonderful place, and that now it was NIGHT.
“Nighttime… yeah, it’s night, I remember that. It’s not… darkness, it’s just night.”
She said in an initially shaky voice, but now with more confidence as she finished her speaking. With every passing second, her eyes became more adjusted to the dark, and the increasingly amazing amount of light provided by the Moon and stars was so much more beautiful than it had ever been before in her life. The blades of grass were glistening like thin stripes of dark green and white solid light, and the hills much farther away seemed like little mountains covered with ten thousand candles, while the endless stars in the sky were just… indescribable.
For a nice long time, Starlight Glimmer just stood and then sat there in her favorite field and watched the starlight… glimmer.
She was so enraptured by the sheer beauty of this mysterious place that she didn’t notice the presence suddenly appear behind her a throat cleared itself.
“Ahem?”
In a surprised flash and with no little amount of fear, the Unicorn mare spun around and came face to face with… another Unicorn?
*gasp*
“Hey now, calm down there!”
The other unicorn, a medium blue mare with a much lighter blue mane raised a hoof up in a calming gesture.
“Don’t worry, you’re safe, ok? You aren’t in any danger here at all, really.”
Starlight was still breathing just a bit heavily and in a combat stance, but quickly found herself calming down.
“Who… who are you?”
“Hmm-hmm… oh well, I suppose introductions are in order. I am… The Great and Powerful Trixie! And this…”
She gestured with her head and hooves around the field.
“Is the field where she pulled you into earlier today, after she opened up the portal to the dead dimension where you were.”
Starlight stared at the other Unicorn, her mouth soon getting agape as she looked around again and then looking deeply into the eyes of the Unicorn, not knowing why but still feeling the need to search for any answers to be found.
“Y-YOU opened the door between… realities, and got me out of there?”
“Yes, it was Trixie, Miss Starlight. Ahe has been experimenting with Magic for a long time now, and as she was combining a few different spells together, she could hear your agonized voice crying out in the void as she cast her senses beyond the borders of this reality in preparation. It may not make sense, but Magic can literally do anything, so Trixie guessed-!”
The rest of her words were cut off as Starlight had suddenly lunged and seized her and a tight hug, and her body es soon quaking with fresh gasps and sobs.
“Thank you! Oh thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you…”
She repeated those words over and over again like a mantra, her tears pouring afresh as she hugged the pony who was responsible for her salvation from the horrid fate she had suffered for so long.
Her hind legs soon gave out beneath her, and the sobbing Unicorn practically collapsed to the grass as she held onto her rescuer with all the strength she could.
Trixie, on her part, was just a little bit uncomfortable from the sheer force of the hug. But the other mare apparently really needed this, and so she simply hugged right back and stroked the other’s mane.
“There there, now. It’s all over, Miss Starlight. You are now in the care of The Great and Powerful Trixie, and she will never let you suffer like that again!”
And as Trixie finished her speech and promise, her horn glowed just a little… and the entire grassy field for miles and miles in all directions was suddenly shining, every blade of grass now glimmering with the light of the Moon and the stars.
THE END.
