Starlight Glimmer has spent most of her life chasing after the spotlight.
Soon, it would come to her.

1. Chapter Starlight 1868

Friday, 18 June, 1108

The Village of the Markless.

(Spell diagram for my Equalization spell.)

Today, Starlight Glimmer celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the founding of The Village. She had a lot to think about.

Starlight, modest and humble, woke up in midafternoon. As she prepared her appearance, she noticed a gray hair in her mane. With a huff, she first extracted it, then incinerated it.

Afterwards she surveyed The Village: no new recruits. Double Diamond had left the mail on the porch.

Double Diamond is a male earth pony with a white coat, light gray mane and tail and light cobalt blue eyes. He had a cutie mark of three blue snowflakes.

(I’ve unfortunately fallen into the habit of thinking of a pony only as a name and a collection of personality traits. I need to remind myself of appearances.)

It was a letter, a single letter…from Rosemary.

Rosemary, wonderful Rosemary, as I first knew her five years ago. Her form so fragile, her will so indomitable. I can see her standing on the Unmarking Pedestal in her white ceremonial gown. Tribe of earth, coat of lilac, mane of heliotrope, eyes of fuchsia. Eyes staring with hope at me, as I removed the hated mark of her namesake herb.

“You did it!” she proclaimed when the ceremony was complete. “You liberated me from my awful family! How can I ever repay you?”

“There is no need,” I told her. “I was merely carrying out my sacred duty.” I still only saw her as another Follower then.

Five years ago. Only five years! Not that much had changed in the Followers’ first fifteen years. We had grown from eight to fourteen…fifteen, with Rosemary. My research of cutie mark magic had begun, and I had developed my first new spell that didn’t come with my mark: Communion, which allowed me to speak with and see any pony whose mark was kept in my vault. With their permission, of course. I had to go out into the desert to find “The Rock of Communion”, so I could cast the spell without my true cutie mark being revealed. This spell meant that when the families of seven of the Followers dragged them back to their homes ten years ago, I was still able to keep in touch with them. That number was still seven in Rosemary’s time.

She saw those paltry numbers as a crime. “You are destined to be the savior of all ponykind,” she told me. “And everypony should know it. I spent years in misery with my old mark. I could have run away to The Village from the beginning, if I had only known about you. Well, I won’t stand for it!” And she pounded the dirt with her feeble hoof. “I will be your apostle, Starlight Glimmer, if you’ll let me. I will bring the world to this village!”

If only I had refused her…

(Spell diagram for my Communion spell.)

Not wanting to deal with the contents of Rosemary’s letter yet, Starlight put it in her saddlebags for later. With Double Diamond she swept the empty cottages. Starlight eschewed her magic, standing upright to wield the broom with her hooves.

She did it to make her feel more equal. She did it to make it harder to think, harder to remember.

She remembered anyway. She remembered a time when the cottages were all occupied. Before she and Double Diamond had become the only two Followers to still live in The Village.

Rosemary. Rosemary was responsible for both the full Village, as well as the empty one.

Four years ago I was up to twenty Followers. Those five additions in a single year were all Rosemary’s doing. She not only found new recruits but also spread the word of my good works in the villages where I bought the supplies The Village needed. Ponies now came to me for advice on cutie mark related problems. And I didn’t always tell those ponies that their only solution was for me to remove their marks.

That was Rosemary’s idea. “If they come to trust you, if they know your advice is good, then someday they will be ready to take the big step, to break away from their mark and the bad ponies around them.”

I remember the smile on her upturned face, the dreams she awoke in me. The world was new again. I was new again. I was going to do it, I was going to bring the dream of living without a mark to the whole world, with Rosemary by my side.

And then she brought me to Amber Durum.

(The June 18 communion, re-arranged so I can fit it in a two-dimensional painting. In the top row are Amethyst Gleam, Berry Preppy and Coral Shine. Middle row is Dane Tee Dove, Swan Song and Lyrica Lilac. Bottom row is Comet Tail and Double Diamond. DD is probably telling me something important.)

In late afternoon, Starlight and Double Diamond took the mountain path up the steep hill to the Cutie Mark Vault. Starlight wanted to resume her cutie mark spell research, but the sun was setting, so it was time to begin the meeting. Starlight cast the Cutie Mark Communion spell upon seven of the eight marks in the Vault. Illusory heads of the seven absent Followers appeared in a circle in the center of the cave, with gaps for Starlight and Double Diamond to sit. In attendance tonight: Amethyst Gleam (female earth pony, greenish-gray coat, grayish-cyan mane, light azure eyes, former mark a shattered chalice), Berry Preppy (female earth pony, white coat, mulberry and grayish-azure mane, mulberry eyes, former mark a strawberry and a bunch of grapes), Comet Tail (male unicorn, light yellow coat, grayish-blue eyes and mane, former mark a pony’s hindquarters sticking out of a garbage can), Coral Shine (pale magenta coat, arctic blue mane and eyes, former mark a jumbled-up dance diagram), Dane Tee Dove (female earth pony, light gray coat, light green eyes, very light yellow mane done up in a loose bun, former mark a tippling glass of red wine), Lyrica Lilac (female earth pony, grayish violet coat, very light yellow curly mane, grayish-purple eyes, former mark a pair of crossed eyes), Swan Song (female unicorn, light amber coat, light raspberry mane, cornflower blue eyes, former mark a railroad tie), Double Diamond and Starlight Glimmer (female…I know what I look like!).

The absent Followers immediately began to use the opportunity of being in the same room together to gossip.

Idle rich ponies, every one of them. They all had the marks in their mind that they wanted to have, never mind what they told me. I removed their accidental marks, the marks they got from partying until they were blind drunk. Or I took off the marks they wanted to delay until they had gotten their parties in. That was why they didn’t live in The Village. I knew for a fact that Amethyst Gleam and Coral Shine lived together in a penthouse suite in Manehattan that their parents had forgotten about. Supported by Mark money. Dreaming of Mark exploitation.

I was a convenience for them, a service.

It didn’t used to be like this. My followers used to respect me, to devour my wisdom like manna from heaven.

It was Rosemary, Rosemary who ruined everything!

It started with Amber Durum, the largest village in the region. Rosemary told me about the sinkhole that was steadily consuming the village, that would swallow up the town center in less than a month. The villagers had appealed to the Princess, and she had promised aid…to rebuild the town in six months, when the necessary ponies would be available. Naturally, the villagers wanted Amber Durum saved instead of being demolished and only later rebuilt, and Rosemary volunteered my help.

You see, Amber Durum was ruled by two families, who bitterly hated each other: the Semolinas, and the Puddings. (The latter claimed to be descended from the character in the Hearthswarming Eve play.) Every pony in town had cutie marks related to one or the other town industry of pasta making or pudding making. And no Semolina would lift a hoof to save a Pudding, or vice versa.

I remember standing in Amber Duram’s town hall. It was carefully segregated between clans to avoid a fight breaking out, true, but it was an actual town hall! I had never addressed that many ponies and been allowed to finish my speech before! I was cheered instead of being run out on a rail, with tar and feathers not far behind.

To save Amber Durum, I promised something I had never been willing to do before: I would take everypony’s marks to unify the village, and after we had saved it with our ordinary pony strength in tandem, I would give all of the marks back.

Rosemary was the genius behind it all. She had done the research into sinkholes, and had developed the plan whereby one hundred ponies without cutie marks could relocate the buildings intact. My contribution was my charisma and leadership. …And the heavy lifting which was needed at the very end to save the town hall.

And the other part of her plan worked as well: a dozen villagers of both families realized that they liked each other’s company more than that of their own elders, so they renounced their marks permanently and moved to The Village, raising the Follower count to thirty-two.

It was the crest before the plunge, as DD would say.

As near as Starlight could tell, all seven of the absent Followers were communing from their rooms or other private spaces—Berry Preppy had apparently learned the lesson to not be in a public place on a Friday at sundown.

Double Diamond recited Homily 28 to the Followers. Then Starlight provided her updates, which were few. There were no new recruits in the past week.

“The Summer Sun Celebration is on Monday,” Starlight told the group, her head slightly elevated in her accustomed pose of moral and intellectual guidance. “The thousandth such celebration, I believe. I do not consider it a very important occasion, but the rest of you are living amongst marked ponies, so it will be best to conform to their preferences. How will you be celebrating it?”

“Where is the Princess going this year?” asked Coral, looking behind her through a window that only she could see. “She’s not going to be in Manehattan.”

“I don’t remember,” said Swan Song, scratching her head. “But it’s not Fillydelphia.”

“I think it’s some worthless village called Ponyville,” said Dane Tee Dove.

Starlight gave her a warning look.

“Not that all villages are worthless,” Dane Tee quickly back peddled. “Starlight Village is very nice!”

Starlight sighed. She did not like it when ponies named The Village after her—it sounded too egotistical.

Although on second thought, the name “Ponyville” seemed faintly ridiculous to her. Why would you give any town a name so generic?

“Who started the Summer Sun Celebrations?” asked Lyrica Lilac. She tended to be the most curious of the current group, if not necessarily the most learned.

“It was the Princess of the time, who was also named Celestia,” Starlight explained.

“Was it maybe the same Celestia as our current Princess?” asked Coral.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Starlight scoffed. “That would make Princess Celestia immortal, and a goddess. There are no divinities, Followers. Never doubt that. We ponies alone are responsible for making Equestria the wonderful land that it is.”

“And once all ponies have renounced their marks, we will be as wonderful as our land,” Double Diamond chimed in.

“Exactly,” said Starlight.

This got DD to thinking. (Something that was never easy for him, even before he renounced his mark.) “So, what exactly does Princess Celestia do, other than leading the country? What is her cutie mark for? Because if just means that she leads like the sun, then Starlight Glimmer here would be an excellent replacement.”

The absent Followers pounded their hooves with appreciation. (Starlight had learned to infer such things from the movements of their heads, as that was all that could be seen with the spell.)

“Princess Celestia raises and lowers the sun, moon and stars,” Comet Tail began to explain.

But Starlight was already thinking back on another time she had received such praise…

“All hail Starlight Glimmer, the Savior of Amber Durum!”

It was a month after the town had been saved. The new Followers had moved into The Village, and had built new cottages for themselves, and were throwing a celebration in honor of their beloved leader.

Rosemary was recounting all of my deeds in leading the villagers through the relocation process, while standing at the sink cleaning the dishes. “And then, as Town Hall was teetering on the brink of the sinkhole, Starlight took hold of it with her magic and single-hoofedly saved it from destruction!”

The other ponies cheered.

“Oh Rosemary, here you are surely exaggerating,” I told her. “Thirty other ponies were pulling on their ropes. My contribution was just the most-visible, not the most significant.”

“No,” Rosemary said, holding aloft her dishrag on one hoof, her brow furrowed in thought. “I remember the moment quite clearly. The edge of the building held by your magic was five pony-heights off the ground, a feat impossible for other ponies to achieve, given the attachment points of the ropes. That is an incredible feat of magic, more than any markless unicorn should be able to achieve.”

“Well, perhaps the upper limit of markless unicorn magic is higher than we thought,” I said with desperation.

“No,” Rosemary said grimly as she advanced upon me. “There is only one possible explanation…”

And before I could stop her, she had used the dishrag to expose my true cutie mark.

Despite her suspicion, she backed away in horror at what she had done.

“You have a cutie mark? You?” Night Glider asked in bewilderment as she reared up on her hind hooves.

“You said that cutie marks were evil!” exclaimed Sugar Belle, pointing. “You said that special talents led to pain and heartache!”

“They do!” I protested.

“Then why?” Rosemary whispered. “Why did you take ours and not give up your own?”

“I…I had to!” I cried. “How could I collect your cutie marks without my magic?”

Night Glider pointed out my deception with the staff.

And so it all came out: I wanted to remove all cutie marks so we could all be equal, but my own cutie mark magic was the only way to remove those marks. So I covered my mark.

I took Rosemary’s rag and exposed the mark on my other flank. “I didn’t want to be seen as better than you. I wanted us to be friends. I wanted harmony. I didn’t…I didn’t want to be seen as a god by you, like the other ponies see Princess Celestia.”

“But you lied, Starlight!” Sugar Belle exclaimed. “You can’t have a cutie mark. Either we’re all equal, or none of us are!” She looked around at the others. “I know how to release our individual cutie marks from the Vault. Let’s reclaim our equinity.”

I bowed my head in defeat.

“No wait!” Rosemary said, trying to stop the ponies who were about to head for the Vault. “Don’t you see? Her heart was in the right place! She didn’t want to make the Followers about her!”

“Then who else were we following, if not her?” Night Glider counted. “This whole thing has been a cult all along. I’m getting my cutie mark back.”

Double Diamond looked at me in utter confusion. Ultimately, he would decide to stay and believe in my confession, but at that moment he was speechless.

…And so my happy group of thirty-two fractured. Seventeen ponies went to the Vault, got their marks back, and left The Village forever. Leaving fifteen…no, make that fourteen.

“Leave? Why do you want me to leave?” Rosemary pleaded, after I had dragged her to the Vault the next day and forced her to put on the white gown of unmarking.

“You dare to ask me that question, after what you have done?!”

“I’m sorry! I was just following your teachings, to seek the truth above all!”

“The inner truth of your equality. I have always taught that the outer world of the senses is full of pitfalls. Such as the one you ruthlessly exposed today!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Why didn’t you confront me in private?” I demanded. “I would have told you the truth about my poor decision fifteen years ago, and together we would have found a way to reveal it without ruining all I have fought for.”

(The morning after the others left forever, ten of the remainder decided to retain their marklessness but, unable to look me in the face anymore, moved out of the Village. Only five of us were left.)

“I…it all happened so fast! I didn’t mean this! You must know that I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s too late,” I told her coldly. “You must leave my followers forever.” I prepared to return her mark.

“No!” Rosemary pleaded. “Whatever you think of me, I beg you not to force me back into the tartaric grip of my family. Take the equals mark! But leave me to find a new mark, my true mark!”

I considered.

“You…you said that you ‘found’ the Rock of Communion only six years ago,” Rosemary said with growing realization. “That means you developed the spell—you didn’t gain it with your cutie mark. I beg you, in memory of my previous goodwill, of all of the love I had and still have for you, that you find a way to destroy that mark!”

And I did remember all that she had done for me, and all that she was to me before her accidental betrayal. And in that moment, I discovered my third cutie mark spell, Liberation, and used it to destroy the rosemary mark once and for all.

“Go,” I told her, my head bowed, and my strength spent. “Leave my sight forever and discover who you really are.”

“Thank you,” Rosemary said between sniffles. “Now, what could I become?”

“GO!” I bellowed.

She removed her ceremonial gown and trudged out of the cave.

“Follow your family name,” I told her coldly as she walked out of my life. “You’re a Sage. Take the other meaning of that word—you’re very good at it.”

And so began the irreversible change of the Followers. The poor Followers, the ones who wanted an escape from an unfair life given them by their cutie marks, found that they could not accept me with my mark and eventually abandoned me, to be replaced by the temporary Followers I have today, the ones that depend on my eventual use of Liberation, so they can resume their cursed existence as rich marked ponies.

She never meant to do it, but Rosemary destroyed everything that the Followers of the Markless Manifesto ever stood for.

(Spell diagram for my Liberation spell.)

“…Isn’t there, Starlight?” Double Diamond asked, breaking Starlight’s reverie.

“What was that?” Starlight asked.

“The sun, moon and stars. Surely there’s an artifact that can move them instead?”

“Actually, a dozen unicorns did it before the first Celestia.”

“There, you see!” Double Diamond exclaimed. “We can definitely help her. You’re alright if I go help her, right?”

Starlight, not wanting to make it obvious that she hadn’t been listening, nodded absently. “Sure, you can go help her.”

“Then I’ll get started right now!” DD exclaimed, running out of the cave.

“Oh!” Starlight exclaimed. “Then I guess the meeting is adjourned. Unless anypony else has anything they want to say?”

She looked around to see that the others had already ended the spell.

Starlight walked outside the cave to the top of the hill, looking down at The Village illuminated by the light of the moon. She saw Double Diamond making his way into The Village and over to his home right next to Starlight’s cottage, going inside and lighting the lamp beside the window.

Starlight looked up at the moon, trying to decide if the Mare depicted on its face was sorrowful or wrathful tonight. Actually, she looked hopeful, a new expression.

She debated going to her own cottage to sleep. But then she looked back into the cave, at the bench with her papers and spell reagents. She was so close to finishing her fourth spell, the one that might just turn everything around. So back into the cave she went.

As she arranged her materials, her eyes settled upon the letter from Rosemary. She lifted it up in her magic, and then on second thought plucked it out of the air with her hooves, holding it between them for a moment.

I am a pony who is quick to anger—I will not deny that. But I do not hold a grudge forever. It was only a matter of six months or so before I forgave Rosemary. But by then of course it was too late. Where would I find her? Certainly not in the Sage Herbarium. If I could find the spot of Equestria as far as possible from that place…maybe there. And so I had to let her go.

Last year I lost the last of my true Followers, and it was only Double Diamond and I living in The Village. I started thinking back on how the Followers had started, and where it had gone wrong. I decided I was going to get some answers about Sunburst, the cause of everything. I wrote to the Canterlot Hall of Records, asking politely if there was anything I might be told about him, as we grew up in the same town together.

I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to get a reply, but eight months ago, I did. A simple account, telling me that Sunburst of the Flare family did attend Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns twenty-two years ago (and two years before I founded The Village), but he dropped out between his second and third years. He died a year later.

I don’t know how many times I read that short letter, again and again, hoping against hope that it would end happily for once. No matter how much I resented Sunburst for abandoning me, I never wanted anything bad to happen to him. And in my gut, I just felt that the death was wrong.

It was this feeling of wrongness that inspired me to work on my next spell. There were many things in my life I had been lying to myself about. I wanted to finally know the truth, my inner truth.

And then one day, as I was clearing the tears from my eyes after yet another fruitless re-reading, I caught the signature of the clerk who had sent me the letter from the Hall of Records: Rosemary Sage. I had found her; I had finally found her. And it appeared that she had taken my advice of three years earlier to heart.

(Rosemary, as I imagine her today.)

Doubly motivated, I wrote Rosemary a reply. In the body of the letter, I asked for any permissible details on how Sunburst died, and whether his parents were alright. His father had been in poor health, and accidents do happen, so if it were the case that Sunburst had died an orphan, then I would travel to Canterlot to ensure that his remains got a proper burial in Sire’s Hollow.

In the postscript, I congratulated Rosemary on the new direction in her life and made sure that she knew that I forgave her. If she had forgiven me, she was welcome to visit any time.

I dreaded her response, the letter now in my hooves. It had been three months since I had sent my reply—the Celestial Bureaucracy was renowned for their one-week turn-around time on properly-worded requests. So she could only be delaying because of how much she didn’t want to talk to me again. After all, she had every reason to hate me for my over-reaction. I was the first positive relationship she had ever had in her difficult life, and I ended up treating her just as awfully as her family had.

But I couldn’t put it off forever, so I finally opened it.

First I read the postscript: “I accept your apology. However, I am very busy in Records, so do not expect a visit any time soon.”

So cold. I suppose it was the best I could hope for, under the circumstances.

I expected that would be my biggest emotional response to the letter. I was wrong.

In the body, I learned the official cause of death: Lighting strike as part of his weather duties. “This is absurd,” Rosemary reported, just as I was thinking those very words. “Sunburst was a unicorn, with no reported weather magic, so I decided on my own initiative to investigate further. I discovered the case of a pegasus on the Canterlot Weather Team, Sunover, with colors and cutie mark very similar to Sunburst’s. Sunover was the pony who died on May 28th, I am sure of it. I am also now sure that Sunburst faked his death, for reasons unknown. But they cannot be good.

“How well do you actually know this ex-friend of yours?”

This was exactly what the feeling in my gut had been telling me.

I am taking this short break to pen this entry, Journal, and to get something to eat. And then I will return to my work on Revelation. I will not rest until I know everything.

Author's Note

The spell diagrams are not supposed to be instantly understandable to the reader, more a case of Starlight showing off. Nevertheless, if you are interested in learning more about each one, just click them to be taken to the corresponding DeviantArt entry and check the description.

This is the most-heavily illustrated chapter of the story by far, so don't expect this sort of extravagance going forward.