No Equality in Desire

Chapters

1 — No Permanence in Love
2 — No Comfort in Reminiscing
3 — No Satisfaction in Sharing
4 — No Devotion in Desperation
5 — No Pleasure in Longing
Epilogue — Nopony Worth Keeping

1 — No Permanence in Love

Starlight Glimmer looked up at the keen of the train whistle. She kept looking when she saw the mare.

The steam locomotive hissed into the distant terminal, tossing up a cloud of dust on the horizon. Not long after, she arrived at the edge of Our Town—bright and berry-coated amid the arid landscape. Strands of her thick, coily mane stuck to her throat, flyaways that escaped the elastic holding back her mulberry tresses under a pair of blue candy-like baubles. A rolling pin poked out from one of her heavy saddlebags.

“Welcome!”

Starlight Glimmer trotted down the thoroughfare. A meager procession followed: a monochrome white stallion, another in shades of slate blue, and a navy-coated pegasus mare who stood out against the stark landscape like a swooping buzzard. They arranged themselves in a neat row, baring their gums in a trio of grins.

Yet Starlight’s teeth remained concealed. She stared, expressionless, beholding the newcomer, a unicorn mare the color of raspberry sorbet, dusted in grit that sparkled like granules of sugar.

In a way that hadn't happened in a long time, Starlight’s voice caught as she asked, “What, ah, what brings you to our little village?”

The mare’s ears perked at the question, drawn forward with a weary sigh. She had a battered sturdiness about her, as though she once weathered the indignities of the unfair world beyond the town line with a clenched jaw behind closed lips. Starlight studied her flushed face, imagining the textured history her life certainly held, wondering about her secrets.

“I heard this was a place where everypony can be equal.” The mare’s voice was sweet, a coating of sugar in the back of her throat. She shuddered, hitching up her heavy saddlebags. “Is that true?”

Starlight approached, eye level with her. She extended a hoof—and the mare took it. Her grasp was warm on Starlight’s fetlock.

“Absolutely,” Starlight answered. “In fact, this is the only place in Equestria where that’s possible.”

Sugar Belle, Starlight would soon come to learn, smiled. The crisp, clean light played off her magenta irises, sweat glinting on her lashes. Starlight’s hoof quivered under her grasp.

“I’m so glad you found your way to Our Town,” she said.

Past the soft, rosy edge of Sugar Belle’s smiling cheek, something gold flickered. A trick of the sunlight, surely.

—

The fan creaked overhead, washing Starlight’s home in a weak breeze. It was hot in the flatlands of Our Town, even as the lofty surrounding mountainside remained snowcapped. Occasional clouds whisked above, untended by pegasi magic and never dense enough to staunch the harsh rays. Night Glider knew better than to rise and push the streaks of cirrus together when nopony else in the village possessed wings.

The high temperatures served a useful function, giving reason for the residents to crop their forelocks and tails into a sleek, uniform cut. Starlight had smiled through that first, blazing summer, watching as her three villagers merrily brooked the heat without complaint as they hoisted up the rafters of their burgeoning community.

Her soon-to-be fourth resident sat at her table, raising a clear glass of water to her lips. Sugar Belle had abandoned her heavy saddlebags to a heap on the floor, sighing with an air of beleaguered, mundane tragedy. She gulped from her glass with unabashed need, Starlight smiling placidly across from her.

“Thank you.” Sugar Belle breathed deep when she was finished, her snout wet. “I needed that.”

“Of course. I aim to provide for the needs of all my ponies here, no matter how small!” Starlight put on a cheery grin.

“That’s nice. You’ve been very nice to me. I hoped for that.” Sugar Belle tittered. Settled now with her thirst slaked, her eyes drifted about the room. “I like your house. It’s nice, too.”

Starlight’s curation of the interior was meticulous. She lived alone, but refused the unchecked habits that came from doing so, the impulse to allow one’s inner self to spill over into civil life. The floors sheened with wax and every corner of every shelf had been swabbed with the twisted point of a rag. Our Town’s flag hung framed on the wall, a brutal square of gray that demanded the eye’s attention. But that was not where Sugar Belle looked.

There was a portrait of Starlight on her bookshelf. A grinning filly at the time the snapshot was taken, her twin pigtails bushed above her ears. Crouched in front of her balmy green yard, lilac flank bereft of a mark—hooves outstretched in waiting for somepony to land between them. It was a stab of innocence. She kept it for the same reason she kept her fridge stocked with jugs of saccharine apple juice and that scuffed trio of painted wooden blocks at her bedside. Each was proof that her life had taken place before now. That the little filly still lived inside her, teeth bared.

Sugar Belle hummed. Giggled, maybe, as she parted her stare from the photograph.

“Well,” Starlight said, crossing her forehooves, “it makes me glad to know that Our Town has begun to develop enough of a reputation for you to seek it out. What brought you here in need of true equality?”

Sugar Belle’s posture canted into the table. “I’m lonely,” she said, a shaky blurt of feeling. “I’m… unfulfilled? I don’t know. I had friends, and then, I didn’t. We ran a bake shop together. And, well, our differing talents drove us apart.”

Starlight’s chin bobbed at a steady rhythm. “It’s so hard to lose friends. Especially when friendship is the purest expression of love. We all honor that in Our Town. Here, nopony favors you or believes they’re better than you because of something as arbitrary as a cutie mark. I’m sorry your old friends made you feel lesser as a result of their,” she flicked her hoof, “talent-flaunting.”

“Oh, you misunderstand.” Sugar Belle touched her throat, wiping at the slicked hairs of her mane. “They didn’t make me feel lesser at all. I wasn’t a bad baker, nothing like that. In fact, I’m really good at it. I was the best.”

The sweep of shadow from the rotating fan blades ambushed Starlight’s equilibrium. There was a jump in her belly.

“Oh,” she said. “Then, why…?”

“Because I shouldn’t be better than anypony else.” Sugar Belle’s jaw was set with a noble tilt upward. “I lost my friendships because of my talent. It caused the ponies I cared for the most to become bitter and miserable. And if it made them so unhappy, then I don’t want it anymore.”

Starlight’s heart thumped, elevating that jump in her gut to a frisson. She became conscious, then, of how she appeared, wondering if the humidity had brushed gray crescents of mascara under her eyes. Or, if her face betrayed an abrupt revelation of something hungry in her, the drag of her tongue over her teeth.

“That's very admirable of you, Sugar Belle.”

Sugar Belle’s lips curled in a shy smile. “Surely no more than any of the other ponies who've given up their cutie marks.”

“Right. That's right.”

—

No matter a pony’s willingness, peeling back a cutie mark was never painless.

Each of Starlight’s residents had shored up resolve on their trek along the mountainside, only for it to be burned away by some feverish, animal protest the moment the incantation began. Night Glider had kicked with ferocity, hooves chipping at the stone floor, teeth clenched in self-inflicted agony. Party Favor yelped, running for the corners of the cave even after the stark pink shape of his balloon animal had been pulled free. And Double Diamond had lain beneath Starlight’s Staff of Sameness with a numb death-ready glaze in his eyes, near unconscious by the time the fresh equal sign appeared.

But Sugar Belle went to her cutie unmarking with a clean dignity. Head lifted, hooves splayed in stalwart balance, she groaned when Starlight’s aura enveloped her, but gulped it down, like she was attempting to be polite.

Starlight stored her cherry cupcake mark in the topmost square of the vault. She gazed up at it as Sugar Belle panted behind her. Starlight didn’t witness the moment her bright colors bled out, seeping like melting sorbet. She turned only at the sound of the magical thrum, the sinking note that meant her mark of equality had appeared on that washed-out pink flank.

Sugar Belle wore it well.

—

“We’ll all start working on building your new home tomorrow. Once you’re settled, you’re going to love it here!”

Starlight helped Sugar Belle lay a clean sheet over the guest bed mattress, pulling it taut between them with equal force. She would be spending her first night in Starlight’s own cottage, as was customary.

“Wow, I feel like a guest of honor!” The aura surrounding Sugar Belle’s horn shimmered in time to her laughter.

Starlight beamed. “It’s merely an honor all of my residents deserve. You see, we all take turns with our tasks to keep the town running. There’s never any concern over who is better at their job than somepony else!”

“I really like the sound of that,” Sugar Belle said. She hung her saddlebags at the end of the bed, heavy with their pie tins and whisks—then stepped back from it, like a foul thing. “I guess I didn’t need all of this stuff after all.”

“Actually, Our Town doesn’t have a bakery yet,” Starlight blurted. “But if we did, we could use your supplies as a contribution. You’d be willing to share them for the good of the town, right?”

“Oh. Good idea.” Sugar Belle fluffed her pillow. She paused with a pensive head tilt. “But, why wouldn’t you have such good ideas?” She giggled.

“I’m… sure you have good ideas, too. Equally good as mine.”

The induction process proceeded as it had with the first three, enacted like a ritual. Sugar Belle perched on the edge of her bed with a guileless grin. She pulled free the bauble elastic from her mane, pushing the desaturated coils over her withers for Starlight to reach.

Starlight’s pastern brushed the pulse point at Sugar Belle’s neck as she swept her mane into her grasp. A light scent of spice was tossed into the air, cinnamon and clove. The springy hairs tickled the sole of her hoof. Breath catching, Starlight submitted to the briefest hesitation, stroking down the length of those curls with a gentle touch. She indulged the idea of that unique softness like a kept secret.

Soon after, her brush was raking through those fine hairs with a tempered aggression, flattening them under the grease of chemical relaxer.

Mane and tail clipped and soaking in alkali, Sugar Belle snuggled into her bedding. There was a sweet domesticity to her face. Her breath rasped from the pressure of the pillow on her snout, hooves twitching under the blanket to fight the fusty heat.

Starlight lingered on those details before she closed the door.

“You like her.”

She turned, facing Sunburst.

He sat, pert and exact, in the center of the wood-boarded floor. It was that irritating, self-serious posture he always adopted, white-socked hooves tucked beneath him. The color of his coat, a shade akin to a glass of cold apple juice, was grossly incandescent in her living room.

Starlight’s nostrils flared. His dumb colt face stared up at her, the short mop of his orange mane hanging over his eyes.

“Of course I like her. She came to me willingly. She’ll be a wonderful friend.”

Starlight crossed the creaking floor, stepping through Sunburst.

Beyond the window, the blue-dark of night chirred with locusts. A moth thumped the glass like a thrown stone. Starlight turned on the sink faucet, running her bristle brush under the hot flow of water. The steam carried a burnt chemical odor to her nose.

“She sure looks a lot like one of the fillies you had a crush on. The one with the curly mane?”

Sunburst perched on the edge of the counter, hind hooves pressed to the cabinet, an anxious leverage.

“Can you be quiet?” Starlight slapped the wet brush on the sink’s rim. “I’m busy.”

Sunburst’s teeth sunk into his lower lip. They sawed back and forth until it swelled. That nervous habit often left him with fine lines of chapping, as bright as the velvety blush of pink at the end of his snout.

“Knock it off,” Starlight groused, shutting the faucet. “You’ll give yourself a sore, or something.”

Sunburst’s wet lip popped free. He trotted behind Starlight, hopping to follow her ascent on the staircase. She closed the door to her bedroom and he melted through the paneling, entering inside.

There was a lilac smudge on Starlight's sheets. She brushed at it with a shaky hoof, twisting her hindquarters to peer at her flank. The dusted-on equal sign was intact. No whisper of turquoise poked out from beneath her heavy application of powder.

“You like baking,” Sunburstsaid. He perched on her duvet like a whimsical little cat. “Remember those peanut butter cookies we made? They didn't turn out very good.” His nasal giggles followed.

“I know. We were supposed to let the dough chill in the fridge.” Starlight's attention was fixated on her own reflection in her vanity mirror. She scrubbed her eyes clean of mascara with a cotton pad, blinking past the film of makeup remover. “And you were supposed to be in charge of reading the recipe. But of course you probably got distracted by some magical something-or-other. As usual.”

“My parents were fighting again that day. I came over because being with you always cheered me up.”

The gray-smudged cotton pad in Starlight's magic squeezed into a tight ball.

“Then you should know better than anypony how pointless romantic commitment is. It didn’t keep your parents together.” With a flick of her neck the cotton sailed into the wastebasket. “I gave up on it a long time ago.”

She turned off the light and slid into bed. Hooves ruffling the sheets, it was too warm. The insect hum outside was strident. Sunburst curled next to her, a bright beam in the enveloping dark. He blinked, a sheen of moonlight on his murky teal eyes.

So many sleepovers had passed under that honest gaze, the two of them giggling into the soft underside of their shared blanket, stomachs aching from mirth and the overindulgence of sweet things. They always lay side by side, their bodies forming equal divots in the mattress. Until the day came that Starlight reached out to find that space beside her was empty.

Starlight’s hooves dragged Sunburst near like a plush toy. In her grasp, he was supple as air. There was none of his brightness this close, none of that vexing cleverness in every degree of his face. There were his wet eyes, the fluff of his inner ears, the coltish pudge of his belly. His soft coat, fuzzed at the edges. The sun of his cutie mark.

Starlight threw him at the wall.

It was a noiseless act. No thump of hide or grunt expelled from lungs. Sunburst crumpled, his cheek squashed under his weight, limp hooves curling. The dark blur of his big pupils stared outward.

A horrible burning welled in Starlight’s eyes. Sheets tossed aside, her hooves clattered on the wooden floor. She crouched over him, shaking, her gut jerking with quick, tearful gasps. Her hoof touched his face, his chest, blunt gestures of remorse.

When she blinked, he wasn’t there. Wet dots darkened the floor.

Starlight’s head wrenched upward and she raked a hoof over her eyes. Her skin prickled; a heavy pulse in her neck throbbed. The room was empty. The shadows betrayed no hidden witnesses.

When she crawled back under her covers, she pulled the sheets over her head and thought of Sugar Belle. She was a floor below, a small distance of less than twenty feet. Deep in sleep, her eyes swiveling under her lids, head cradled by her pillow. The warm shape of her leaving a gentle impression on the mattress.

Starlight tucked a hoof under her belly, her own body’s pressure like the momentary weight of Sugar Belle’s grasp at the edge of town.

Her stomach growled.

2 — No Comfort in Reminiscing

It was a grand day in Our Town. Party Favor and Night Glider were conversing under a square of cottage shade, safeguarded from the searing sun. Double Diamond lay out in the open stretch of the thoroughfare, his white hide appearing bleached. His tail flicked the dust while he played with a blade of yucca leaf, sliding it over little hills and furrows in the sand.

A breeze blew in the crisp scent of prickly pear buds, ruffling the fine hairs of Starlight’s blunt-cut fringe. Seated at the long wooden table outside the bake shop, she squinted into the distance, attempting to wring some charm from the flat gray rocks jutting up on the horizon.

“Here you are! Fresh from the oven!”

A plate came down in front of her. Atop it sat a single muffin, curling with a wisp of steam.

The pale blue magic of Sugar Belle’s aura lifted. She wore a rictus grin and a tatty white apron. Her smooth mane was tied in a conservative bun, a culinary mare’s protection against stray hairs dropping into the batter.

Starlight perked up. “Wonderful! Thank you, Sugar Belle.”

“You’re welcome!” She smiled, a vacant show of teeth. “I hope you like it.”

Starlight closed her eyes, primly levitating the muffin and peeling back the wrapping. She bit down—and an ashy bitterness caught her tongue. Her mouth flooded with saliva. Starlight’s lips pulled back as she chewed, the combatting textures of sticky dough and burnt ends snapping between her teeth. But she swallowed it down.

“Oh. You made a face. Did it not turn out how you expected?”

Starlight opened her eyes to the sight of Sugar Belle’s concerned frown. “Not at all!” she insisted. “In fact, it’s exactly what I expected. You should feel very relieved, Sugar Belle. I can say with certainty that you’ll never have to fret about being better than anypony at baking ever again.”

“Well, that’s good news.” Sugar Belle scratched at the dirt.

“It is! In fact…” Starlight set down the muffin. It was wet and gray where she’d bitten, sweltering under the heat. She craned her neck, selecting at random. “Party Favor! Could you join us for a moment?”

In the distance, his ears lifted. He excused himself from Night Glider and trotted over. “Yes, Starlight?”

“I have an exciting job for you!” She gestured at the door of the bake shop, shining with a fresh coat of lacquer that had been applied not but a few days prior. “I’d like you to bake Sugar Belle and I a batch of muffins, please.”

Party Favor blinked, pinning her with that sweet, unaffected look he always wore. His pale blue eyes were a shade off from ones she knew well.

“Sure, Starlight. But…” He scratched his foreleg. “I’m not really a baker.”

She grasped him around the withers and he stumbled into her. “Of course you are! In Our Town, all of us are capable of carrying out the same duties with equal talent. Sugar Belle could use some support in understanding that her muffins are just as delicious as any of ours.” Starlight prodded at the nape of his neck. “So, go on!”

Party Favor skittered through the door. An abrupt metal clatter followed.

“I hope he knows where the aprons are. And to wash his hooves before starting. And that the batter…” Sugar Belle’s words slurred. Her ears pinned as the equal signs on her flanks let off a sheen of gray.

A sourness gripped Starlight’s gut. The muffin was beneath her snout, the faint wind carrying its tart stink to her nose.

“Here, come sit with me while he works.” She patted the unoccupied space beside her on the bench.

Sugar Belle sat. Her hocks pressed up into the craggy wood, her unsteady forehooves on the tabletop. But she met Starlight’s eyes as though her singular attention was a reward.

A memory cut in like a harsh sunflare. Starlight could hear the trickle of the town square fountain in Sire’s Hollow, smell the mist of chlorine. Beneath its basin, the curly-maned filly had turned her eyes away when they sat together, wilting under some callow embarrassment. When Starlight grasped the tickly hairs of her fetlock, shy and tender, the filly squeaked out a laugh and cantered away like they were playing a game, and the moment carried no special meaning.

It was special only the next day, when that curly-maned filly’s hoof was raised by a colt. The two of them under the fountain, her giggles high and acquiescent. She called him strong, but Starlight saw him quivering.

There was nopony for her to run to. No warm coat to bury her snout in and lament the unfairness of it all, no consoling smile to tell her everything would be all right, because they could still play Dragon Pit together and all those tedious rules that made up the romantic world were dumb anyway. Who needs her. We have each other. Friendship is all that matters.

And yet, the fillies she grew up beside were enraptured with being noticed. They learned early on the little rituals of capturing attention, the things that were promised to draw a colt’s eye. They dabbed on smears of lipstick and teased their manes into ostentatious styles, shaping themselves into somepony lovable.

But Starlight spent that time becoming herself.

“Are you happy here, Sugar Belle?”

“Of course.” She tilted her head. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Just checking in!” Starlight leaned her chin on her hoof, the plate clattering with a bump from her elbow. “I mean, you have your bakery now. And here, nopony could possibly grow resentful of your skill.”

Behind the bakery door, another clatter ricocheted. Party Favor yelped.

“You're surely right about that,” Sugar Belle giggled. Her face became awash with sentiment. “You know, while working today, I started thinking. Did I ever tell you the story of how I got my cutie mark?”

Starlight’s neck prickled. In the distance, the white heap of Double Diamond stirred, his ears standing at attention. Night Glider’s eyes bore through the shadow, drawn by the notion of that milestone. A taboo, not to be spoken of in Our Town.

“No. You never did,” Starlight said.

“It was a strange day.” Sugar Belle’s horn lit. She slid her apron over her head, folding it on the bench. A puff of flour rose from the touch of her magic. “My grandma was the one who taught me how to bake. My mom never really liked it all that much, so Nana shared it with her grandfoals. My cousin and I spent so much time at her house trying new recipes. It was so much fun! And it was really special, when it was just Nana and I.”

A hoof pressed to her chin, Sugar Belle closed her eyes. “I still remember the taste of her cookies, how she talked. She would always say, ‘You’ve got to fooold in the flour’ in this funny voice—I can’t do it justice.”

Starlight shook her head. “No, I… I can imagine it.”

Sugar Belle sighed. “Anyway, when I was around ten, she started to get sick. She was older when she had my mom, and so… you can guess how this story ends.”

A bead of moisture clung to her lower lashes. Her eyes were angled to the sun and it sparkled, her lips parting with a trembling intake of breath.

“There was this silly baking competition where we lived, just for foals. Nana encouraged me to go, of course, even though she didn’t feel well enough to come see me. So I went, selfishly. And I took first place!” Her lips pulled back with a rough laugh. “You know, it’s so hard to remember that day, aside from the facts. I don’t remember feeling happy. I don’t even really remember the moment my cutie mark appeared. I just remember the look on my mom’s face when I came home and she told me the news. That while I was gone, Nana had…”

Sugar Belle’s hoof pressed to her snout, a little wrinkle appearing between her brows. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. It was just one of those weird coincidences of life, you know?” She looked sidelong, blinking hard. “Does it even mean anything?”

“Yes!” Starlight gasped. “Yes, it does. Your cutie mark took your grandma from you. Just imagine how different things could have been if…”

Sugar Belle was sniffing, gulping back barely suppressed sobs.

The woodgrain of the bench caught on Starlight’s coat as she hurriedly pulled herself close. Her forelegs wrapped around Sugar Belle’s belly—and she held her. The contact was different, more complete, than the faint brush with her velvety coat when she swept her mane into her grasp or held her hoof on the edge of town. Starlight touched the rhythm of Sugar Belle's breath, the quick expansion and contraction under her ribs.

“I'm sorry,” Starlight whispered.

“Thank you.” Sugar Belle shuddered.

A sharp tap on the table—Starlight’s head shot up. She straightened, her hooves slipping away. There was a steaming tray of muffins before her and Party Favor stood above them with an anxious smile. An apron was sloppily slung across his chest.

“Here you are, Starlight!” he said, levitating one of his newly-crafted baked goods to her plate. It nudged up against the wilting muffin already occupying it, sloughing crumbs.

Starlight’s heart was pounding, a throbbing woosh of blood in her ears. “Thank you, Party Favor! Looks like you found everything you needed.”

Her mouth cottony, her teeth sunk into the fresh muffin. It was bland, like unspiced oats—but it wasn’t wretched. It was a simple, serviceable fact of a muffin, something anypony could make. It was not the brutal subversion of a mare whose talent for rendering flour and sugar into first-prize winning delicacies inspired envy in the hearts of her friends. As Starlight gnawed, she imagined what it would be like for her teeth to pierce the flaky skin of one of Sugar Belle’s beloved pastries, for tart jelly filling to wet her chin with red.

“So, is it good?”

Starlight swallowed, the muffin dragging down her throat like sand. “Even better! It’s equal.” She beamed up at Party Favor. “Neither of you is better or worse at baking than the other. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Party Favor sighed, dabbing at his brow. Sugar Belle’s lips ghosted with a smile. And behind her, Sunburst leaned in to sniff the new tray of muffins, the curls of steam undisturbed by his questing snout.

“His sure smell a lot better.”

Starlight planted her forehooves on the table. “See, Sugar Belle? You had nothing to worry about!” And with that, her hind legs kicked free from the bench and she was trotting at a fast clip toward her home.

She didn’t make it inside before the bolt of nausea hit her. Scrambling out of sight behind the bricked edifice, Starlight vomited into the scraggly brush lining the base of her cottage.

“Oh no! Maybe the batter was too raw! Or… or…” Beside her, Sunburst blurted out half-formed explanations, his little hoof raised and quivering.

Starlight allowed herself a single wet cough. Sucking her tongue, she spat onto the dry ground.

“Starlight?”

A hard pulse throbbed in her neck. She wiped her mouth and turned, facing Double Diamond.

There was a dumb frown on his face. “Just wanted to check on you,” he explained. “I was worried about Sugar Belle. It seemed like she wasn’t being a good friend, talking about her cutie mark story like that.”

Starlight’s lips rolled back from her gums. “She’s still getting settled! You remember what it was like, don’t you? Sometimes we need to reminisce about the old world in order to leave it behind.”

Two pairs of blue eyes bore into her. Sunburst was squinting in the way he always did when something was just a little too far away.

“Want me to talk to her?” Double Diamond was still talking. “I can help her understand what we—”

“Just leave her alone! All right?”

Double Diamond flinched as though lashed.

Starlight went inside to clean her teeth.

3 — No Satisfaction in Sharing

The wind exhaled a warm updraft. Her kite lifted, its tail snapping with a stream of colorful ribbons.

Starlight was a good mile from Our Town, perched on an outcrop overlooking a dry basin of powdery russet earth. It was quiet here, disturbed only by the rush of wind, sweet and full, churning up from the gully like a cauldron. Her mane tossed across her withers. The pale string of her kite caught the sunlight, illuminating the fraying fibers.

“What a great piece of sedimentary rock! This one has at least seven layers.”

Behind her, Sunburst trawled in the dirt. He hmm-ed and grunted, nosing between sand-encrusted crevices.

Starlight’s aura steadied her kite against a sudden thrash. Her jaw clenched. “You’re probably studying way more interesting magic crystals these days.” She twisted the reel, dragging the kite down a level. “Stuff that would make these desert rocks seem boring by comparison.”

“I guess so.” He trotted up beside her, a gold flicker in the corner of her vision. “But you wouldn’t really know, would you?”

Starlight’s snout twitched, the hide wrinkling along the bridge of her nose. Her nostrils flared, but she restrained showing her teeth.

“And whose fault is that?”

When there was no reply, Starlight looked down. Sunburst was on his belly, nose pointed toward a new pile of stones. His haunches flexed as he leaned to study them, his short tail an orange crescent in the dirt.

The midday heat was playing havoc on her skull. A sharp throb pulsed under her horn, twinging with the tug of the kite string in her aura’s grip.

Starlight kicked Sunburst off the cliff.

His tail flipped over his back. He rolled the length of the steep slope until his head struck a rock.

His neck jerked the wrong way.

Starlight shrieked. Her magical hold dropped. The kite snapped upward, spinning into the open air.

“No!” Her hooves scrambled for the spool, lunging queasily over the edge of the sheer rock face.

“Starlight?”

Hooves on packed earth clopped behind her. Somepony panted beside her ear. The kite was ensconced in a shimmering pale blue aura, ferried back to the cliff.

“Gotcha!”

Sugar Belle stood steady, eyes narrowed in concentration. Her mane was down, the relaxed strands of it billowing about her neck like loose silk. She brought the kite to the ground, its twine wrapping into a limp coil in the dirt, pale as a shed skin.

Starlight stumbled backward. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes darted into the ravine. Nothing was there.

Sugar Belle’s brows were furrowed. “I was taking a walk.” She gestured to the tangled kite. “I saw this in the sky and thought it was pretty. I’m glad I caught it in time.”

“I would have, too! You know. Unicorn.” Hot under her hide, Starlight wrenched the kite upward in her aura, pressing it to her chest. Her hoof slung over the sail, bending the spar. Realizing what she was doing, she threw it to the dirt. “I mean—thank you, Sugar Belle.”

“No problem! It’s just what friends do,” Sugar Belle recited with a flat grin. She glanced where the kite had returned to an earthly banishment, then remarked, “I didn’t know you liked to fly kites.”

Starlight sighed. “That’s because I don’t tell most ponies about it.” She snagged the reel, whisking the trailing twine back into the spool. “It’s kind of a personal thing.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Sugar Belle’s ears lowered. Then, she smiled. “I promise you don’t have any reason to feel embarrassed about it, though. Like I said, it’s a pretty kite.”

Starlight finished her winding. She brushed a granule of dirt off the bright turquoise sail. “Thanks. I… made it myself.”

“That’s super impressive!” Sugar Belle brightened. “Did you used to have a cutie mark in kite-making?”

Starlight flinched. She glanced behind her. The equal sign was intact. “No. Of course not. I—” She shook her head. “My mark was for something else. Kites are just something I like. And something I'm good at making that has nothing to do with my talent. That’s… what makes them so special.”

When the day had come that her mark seared its way onto her flank, both too soon and too late, Starlight turned to look and found, despite everything, she didn’t despise it. It represented her skill in magic; that was incontrovertible. But the shape of it, with its layered four-pointed stars and trails of turquoise, always appeared to her as the image of a kite in gentle descent.

“Hey, I get it!” Sugar Belle said. She scuffed her hoof in the dirt, suddenly demure. “You know, I really like nature. I like looking at flowers, and eating fresh-picked apples under a tree. Sometimes, it would even inspire my…” She gulped as her equal mark sheened over with gray. “Anyway, what I’m getting at is: my friends didn’t think of that too often. I wasn’t known for it, you know? Nopony ever just asked me, ‘Hey, Sugar Belle, want to go for a walk? I know that would make you smile.’” Her words trailed into faint laughter. “That probably sounds silly.”

“No, not at all!” If Starlight was heated before, there was a fever in her now. “It’s exactly the kind of thing cutie marks take from us.”

She stomped, hooves scraping the dirt. Sugar Belle was watching her with a dispirited little half-smile. And Starlight realized, a breath too late, what she ought to have said.

Neck raising to attention, she cleared her throat and said, “Hey—Sugar Belle. Want to go for a walk?”

Sugar Belle blinked. “Oh. I mean—I wasn’t trying to—”

Starlight lifted her kite, tucking it away beside the outcrop until her next respite. She held out a hoof. “I know. But, I want to.” She swallowed. Her pastern shook. “If you want to come with me.”

A flush emerged in Sugar Belle’s cheeks, her coat drawing nearer to the shade it was when she first arrived. “How could I refuse?” she laughed, taking Starlight’s hoof.

It surprised her this time, that Sugar Belle could just reach out and touch her in reciprocal. And Starlight believed, for a moment, there was something magnetic inside of herself. Somepony worth keeping.

—

The sunset came down like spilled apple juice on the horizon. Each night, the sweeping flatlands turned to an ocean in the blue-dark. And each night, they walked together alongside that endless sea, freed from the questing eyes of the villagers, nopony to wonder why one of them was receiving exclusive time with their fair leader. Everything was watery and dreamlike in the blue cast of evening, every accidental brush of Sugar Belle’s tail on Starlight’s flank charged with special meaning.

With one eliciting question after another, Starlight learned more of her preferences, her secret longing.

“I used to dream about owning my own bakery. It would have this big display case! Oh, the treats I’d fill it with…”

“I really don’t care for anything too flashy. I’m a simple mare, easy to please…”

“I’d like to have a family one day.”

When she said that, Starlight galloped ahead, instigating a juvenile game of chase. Sugar Belle laughed, a high baffled sound, but followed her anyway. The sand cascaded about their hooves, their loose manes whipping in rhythm. Sugar Belle reached her quick, mirroring Starlight’s stride. Her pupils were big, appearing to eat the irises. Violet, rather than magenta, in this light.

All the while, a flickering gold presence followed like a second shadow. Starlight outran it.

—

“You know,” Sugar Belle said, “I think you should share your kite flying hobby with the town.”

On a broad desert stone, they lay on their bellies, side by side. Starlight tensed. “Really?” She rolled a pebble underhoof. “It’s not like it would contribute anything meaningful to our cause.”

“Yes it would!” Sugar Belle perked up, suddenly inspired. “It means a lot to you, Starlight. And it’s not fair you feel like you should keep it a secret. You’re creating a beautiful world here. The things that matter to you belong in it.”

It was not the world, but her, that became beautiful when she chose her next words.

“Either we’re all equal, or none of us are. Right?”

An evening breeze caught her mane, enlivening it like a halo encircling her head. The rest of Equestria could have dropped away, then; the glow of the moon could have sucked down into an unending dark. Starlight would go on living—as long as Sugar Belle was beside her.

That night, anything could have happened. Starlight’s lips could have reached to brush hers. Instead, they twitched into a smile.

“Right.”

—

“Heads high, everypony! Catch that updraft!”

Starlight marched aside her row of villagers, each of them biting down on a reel. A range of kites juddered in the air above, drifting high and low, incapable of falling into a uniform row.

Party Favor’s horn ignited, attempting to wrangle his drooping line. Starlight hurried to his side. “Now, Party, remember: not everypony here has a horn!”

“Sorry, Starlight,” he puffed around his spool, spittle flecking his lip. Trying to smile, he said, “I'm glad to be doing this with you! It’s so special when friends can share their favorite things.”

As he babbled, Sugar Belle’s neck rose elegantly, her kite ascending on the breeze. She caught Starlight’s stare and smiled, twine clamped between her teeth. Starlight worked her way beside her, finally able to raise her own kite into the air.

“Starlight!” Night Glider’s strident voice broke her reverie. “Need a little help over here!”

Her kite wobbled, then dropped, clattering in the sand. Starlight’s ears rushed with blood. “Sure thing!”

As she went to the damned pegasus, something soft brushed against her legs.

“This is the true happiness you wanted,” Sunburst said. “Are you happy?”

4 — No Devotion in Desperation

Five new residents joined Our Town. Among them were three mares and two stallions. In under two months, the village doubled.

One of the mares arrived with her husband, looking to start anew. The other was freshly eighteen, a rangy runaway. And the third was a unicorn with a golden coat and gamboge mane whose coloring made Starlight’s chest pang with a dull ache. She smiled, tight-lipped, when that sunny mare's brightness bled out.

However, it was not her who brought Starlight new vexation.

“May we keep living together?” the wife asked as she and her husband walked the grit-laden path, returning from their cutie unmarking. She had at least a decade on Starlight, a tidy maturity in her austere face and silvery coat.

Starlight was faintly baffled. “I don't see why not.”

“Well, from what we understand, all the other residents are single. Would it be inequitable for us to remain partnered?”

She was right. Their union was a leftover from the old world. If she wanted, Starlight could tear them asunder. They would do it, too. She could mandate partnerships. Nopony would ever choose another—or be chosen.

Instead, she said, “It's fine. The equality of Our Town frees us only from the burden of our talents. After all, we’re all unequal in name! That sure would become confusing if we shared one, right?”

Neither the wife nor her husband remarked on her glib joke. They nodded, pressing to one another in a private nuzzle. Her husband’s coat was a muddy shade of brown; his stubble bristled against his wife’s throat. But a gentle smile broached her stern features, melting for him. They occupied a denser atmosphere, moving through the world with a tacit protection.

It was something Starlight’s staff could never strip.

—

“You’re in luck, girl! Famed singer Feather Bangs has chosen your town to perform at.”

The stallion at her table had a coat the color of expired mustard, yet somehow his mane was fouler, the tips of his forelock dyed with a washed-out frost of blond. He flipped it periodically, like he was trying to shake a stubborn fly.

Starlight folded her hooves, seated across from him at her table, wearing a rictus grin. “Indeed. How… lucky of me. Though, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of you.”

Again, Feather Bangs tossed his mane. “I’m on the come up. More of an ‘if you know, you know’ kinda pony. And trust me. You’ll know.”

Starlight already knew several certain things about him after the length of a single conversation. It was doubtful he would ever become a friend of hers. But he was here in Our Town. All that remained was to absorb him.

“You know, Feather,” Starlight approached him that afternoon as he nosed, frowning, through a display rack of cloaks, “maybe you found your way to our little village not to perform, but to belong. I’m sure a pony like you must feel like he’s performing every day of his life, even off the stage. That must be so hard.”

She had already won as he turned to her, blinking. “Oh. Nopony’s ever noticed that about me before.”

A little more time in the town, watching all the happy faces surrounding him, that was all he needed. It was a singing relief, like a scab scratched free, to see the saccharine hearts of his cutie mark stripped and entombed behind her vault. Feather Bangs twitched along the cold cave floor, sweat slicking that ugly mop of a mane she couldn’t wait to shear off. Starlight didn’t look away for a moment.

But when she did—he found his way to Sugar Belle.

“These muffins are almost as sweet as you, girl. Emphasis on almost.”

It was an obvious lie, but he made it flow from his lips like honey. Sitting at the outdoor bakery table, he juggled the remaining muffins on his plate, maybe in an effort to avoid choking them down. But Sugar Belle laughed, high and acquiescent, and sat beside him at the table.

He held her hoof, but Starlight saw him quivering.

—

“I’m disappointed in you, Feather Bangs.”

It was evening, the townsponies toiling away with drills and hammers, constructing the newest cottage. Feather Bangs had pressed between Starlight and Sugar Belle with a toss of his clipped mane, making a show of flexing his foreleg as he sawed. Jaw grinding, Starlight took him aside, a hoof around his withers.

“What for?” he asked. “Aren’t I working just as hard as everypony else?”

“On your cottage? Of course. But not at the thing that really counts.” Starlight infused her voice with dismay. “You haven’t truly been liberated from your cutie mark. I can still see its teeth in you, even now.”

She spoke indiscreetly, and several heads swiveled in the direction of Feather Bangs. Sugar Belle was one of them, a hammer in her mouth. She met Starlight’s eyes, brows furrowed, and Starlight nodded to her, knowing she would understand.

“Our new friend has lived such a shallow life thanks to the burden of his special talent.” Starlight walked a tight circle around him. “He thinks the only way ponies will value him is if he can vapidly flirt his way into their hearts. Doesn’t he know he has the devotion of all of his wonderful friends?”

“Feather Bangs! We all love you!”

A susurration of protest rose from the watching villagers, moans of assurance and worthiness. They washed over him like a tide, fumbling hooves caressing and holding him close—blunt gestures of friendship made physical. It was invigorating to see them all move in unison, united by a collective dream. Starlight’s blood rushed to electrify her.

Feather Bangs’ ears pinned, chin rising above the crowd. Meekly, he asked, “But what if I want to fall in love?”

Starlight’s lips peeled back from her gums, revealing a smile she could have sunk into his neck.

“Then you’re loving wrong.”

The villagers continued to murmur, a swelling bubble of tension that burst when Starlight said: “I think you’ll feel better after some re-education.”

—

“In sameness, there is peace…”

“Exceptionalism is a lie…”

“Free yourself from your cutie mark…”

Starlight’s canned voice droned as she opened the creaking door. The cottage nearest to her own was reserved for dissenters, a tranquil chamber of reflective isolation. She only had reason to use it on a few occasions prior. Feather Bangs had just concluded his fifth night inside.

“It looks like our friend is ready to re-join us!” Starlight announced.

Feather Bangs’ hocks buckled as he exited, hungry gray crescents hanging below his eyes. He went to the collective embrace of the town like a maggot to flesh, thoughtless in his starvation.

“I’m sorry. I was a bad friend.” Sugar Belle was gasping as she came up behind Starlight. Her wet eyes shone in the dim cast of evening. “If I knew he was struggling this badly, I wouldn’t have led him on…”

“Don’t say that. It’s not your fault,” Starlight shushed. She crossed the thoroughfare as their evening walk began, Sugar Belle leaning on her shoulder. They passed the half-finished skeleton of Feather Bangs’ cottage.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Starlight kept murmuring. “You’ve been a good friend.”

There were a thousand other words she wanted to let pour from her mouth. None were in the language spoken by her village.

There was a darkness on the edge of Our Town. It told her she was running out of time.

5 — No Pleasure in Longing

“My mom says she has a plan for us to get married someday.”

“Bleh—no way! I’m going to marry a cute filly! Doesn’t she know you’re going to marry a handsome colt?”

“I keep trying to tell her! But… with how much she and Dad have been fighting lately, I think it makes her feel better to imagine me ending up with a friend.”

Their shared blanket canopied above their heads, a shelter against the demands of the controlling adult world. It couldn’t reach them here, when they were small. Sunburst lay beside her, his nervous breaths warming the covers. His teeth worried his lower lip.

“I’m scared, Starlight. What if they… break up? Can moms and dads do that?”

Starlight, who had only ever known a life with her father, said, “I guess so.”

“Dad talks about leaving. I don’t want him to.”

“I won’t leave.”

Starlight crossed the equal distance between them, pulling Sunburst close. “No matter what happens. You're my best friend, Sunburst, and friends don't leave. I’ll always be here for you.”

“Yeah,” Sunburst sniffed. “I’ll always be here, too!”

—

Starlight’s morning apple juice was bitter. The taste had her thoughts spiraling between then and now and what could be. What she saw in her imagination felt more vivid than a memory. Light blooming through her window, Sugar Belle bending to pull a tray of steaming fritters from the oven, her mane loose from sleep.

It's coily again, soft as cotton. Her coat is a berry-sweet pink.

She turns with a smile warmer than the sun. It's a beautiful morning in Our Town—a name belonging to just the two of them.

Starlight’s hunger festered like an illness.

—

“Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

Starlight was smiling on Sugar Belle’s doorstep, her cheeks aching.

“Just me?” Sugar Belle giggled. Her horn shimmered as she finished tightening her bun, preparing for the day's empty work. “Wouldn’t that be unfair to all our friends?”

All their friends could rot. “Not at all! It’s no different than the time we already spend one-on-one. That’s important for friends. To strengthen their bond.” Starlight swallowed. “To bring them closer.”

Sugar Belle smiled, a polite expression that implied nothing. She approached and Starlight almost flinched when she playfully butted her head into her neck. Her mane lacked the sweet scent of spice; it didn’t smell like anything.

“Then, I accept,” Sugar Belle said with a grin. “But let’s at least cook together!”

—

Warm candlelight danced off the vase of native golden poppies on the dining table. They were elegant, but not flashy, and sat in sweet accompaniment to the spread Starlight prepared ahead of time. Sugar Belle gasped when she entered, steaming vegetables and buttered dinner rolls already on her plate.

“I know what you said before, but I wanted to surprise you!” Starlight babbled, sweeping a rag down her chest to banish any remaining flour. “I made dessert, too! It probably won’t compare to the pastries you used to bake, but it’s an old tea cake recipe that’s been in my family, and…”

It caught Starlight off guard when Sugar Belle said, “I’ve never been taken care of like this.”

She sunk into her chair, spearing a forkful of carrot. Her mane was still pulled back in a limp bun and there was an exhausted slope to her shoulders. But the look on her face as she chewed belonged to a mare of divinity.

“This has all been so nice. Everything you did for me was so nice,” Sugar Belle kept saying as she finished dessert. She sipped what remained of her wine, giggling with effervesce. “It’s funny, I guess. I’ve spent so much of my life caring for the needs of other ponies—even when they didn’t ask. I paid attention, noticed little things that are important to them. That's the whole reason I came here. So my friends could be happier without me.”

“You must have loved them a lot,” Starlight murmured.

“I did. I do.” Sugar Belle swirled her glass, turning her eyes downcast into its depths. “Can I tell you a secret? I regret it, sometimes.”

Starlight’s heart was pounding, her pulse felt in the tips of her ears. Her own wine rippled from the jig of her leg. “You… regret it?”

“I regret not being selfish. But, selfishness always felt like cruelty.”

Sugar Belle went quiet. She drained her glass.

“I know what you mean,” Starlight blurted. “It’s uncomfortable—wanting something.” There was a dry patch in her throat she couldn’t wet. “It’s why I founded Our Town. So nopony would want for anything. So nopony would feel the pain of desiring friendship in their loneliness. Because having desires… it’s impossible to have them equally.”

Starlight started to laugh, wiping a hoof down her snout. “That’s why friendship—true friendship—is equal. It’s the purest form of love. Because otherwise, when you want somepony, one of you has to push; one of you has to be pushed.” A pause. “And that scares me.”

Sugar Belle’s hoof slid across the table, quiet as air. She touched Starlight’s pastern, and asked, “Why?”

A longing as physical as an organ squeezed within her. “If you push too hard, you push them away. And they leave.”

“I won’t leave.”

That was her imagination, shaping itself fiendishly around Sugar Belle’s voice. But reality was far crueler, for it showed her an image of Sugar Belle bringing Starlight’s hoof to her cheek.

“Can I kiss you?” Starlight’s voice gasped.

“Oh,” Sugar Belle whispered. “Would that be—”

“It’s fair. It’s okay.”

“It is? Can I be selfish...?”

Sugar Belle’s nearness came next, the tartness of her breath from the wine. Her lips were pursed, like she was sipping. Such a delicate press, overwhelmed by the needful slack of Starlight’s wolfish tongue.

“Can I hold you?” Starlight panted. “Can I touch you?”

Sugar Belle was nodding. The squeak of the chair, hooves striking the floor. They crossed the threshold of the stairs, ascending into Starlight’s unmade bed, the sheets billowing around their sudden pressure on the mattress. Hair floating down, elastic tugging free of Sugar Belle’s bun. Touching the rhythm of her breath; the fuzzed edges of her pale coat parting like a hoof swept through frosting.

Breath loud in ears, tongue on an elegant neck, lips concealing teeth. Sugar Belle’s high, sweet noises, the flexing of her throat.

Starlight floated above Sugar Belle, above herself. She took in the moment as a witness, saw the two bodies on the bed, side by side. Perfectly equal.

And she would have kissed from her chest to her belly, would have eaten past the barrier of their flesh and pressed them into one—when Sugar Belle’s head tipped backward.

And Starlight met Sunburst’s eyes.

“Do you kiss all of them like this?”

Starlight crashed down into her body, inescapably herself. Clumsy, guilty Starlight, no longer a uniform line paralleling another. A scream ripped from her throat. She scudded backward, thumping onto the floor, panting hard.

“What’s wrong?” Sugar Belle was gasping.

But Starlight could only scream, “Get out!”

Her horn flared, an awful popping sound. Sugar Belle flinched, crying out. She scrabbled for the sheets, concealing herself.

“Get out of here!” Starlight shrieked. “Go away!”

Whimpering, eyes wide, Sugar Belle vaulted from the bed. Her hooves were a distant clatter on the stairs. The bedroom door swung ajar.

For a long time, Starlight panted on the floor. Her hooves scraped the woodgrain, a faint whistle rasping in her throat.

Then she turned, facing Sunburst.

“I told you to be quiet!”

A bright crash rang out as books and picture frames erupted into fine particles. Her horn glowed with violent light, a corona of destruction blooming across the floor.

Sunburst was unmoved. He sat, pert and exact, in the middle of her room.

Starlight stalked toward him, glass chips crunching underhoof. “Tonight was perfect. I had everything I wanted. And you ruined it!”

Her nostrils flared, inches from his face. And he had the temerity to frown.

“Then why aren’t you happy?”

Starlight didn’t answer.

“I think you know it’s wrong.”

“The world is wrong.”

“The one you’re trying to make is.”

An unnatural cold gripped the room. Starlight’s hoof throbbed, a line of blood running from her sole.

“You can’t love a pony in Our Town. Not in a way that’s good.”

“She wanted me just as much as I wanted her!” Starlight was shouting. “You think that’s not good? It could have been worse. I could have enchanted her mind to make her love me; I could have forced her in any number of ways. But I never would have done that! We chose each other! Because we’re equal.”

Sunburst didn’t speak. He shook his head and pointed.

Starlight looked behind her. There was a smudge of lilac on the sheets. Her flank was streaked with gray, horrible wisps of turquoise rising beneath the powder.

“Not while you have that. And she doesn’t.”

Starlight bared her teeth—and bit down on his neck.

She shook him with the thoughtless ferocity of a dog, raking his weightless body along the floorboards. Stamping flat, panting quick, she ripped and tore, peeling back the wretched image of his sun, chewing down—until there was nothing left.

Wet dots darkened the floor.

—

“Be your best by never being your best…”

Alone in the cottage reserved for dissenters, Starlight’s own voice recited her doctrine in monotone. Rocking on her haunches, she beat her head against the ground.

She spent the night there, smiling into the dirt.

—

It was a grand day in Our Town. All of Starlight’s friends were here, equal in their love for one another. And she could want for nothing more.

She trotted down the thoroughfare with a jaunt in her step, teeth exposed in a wide grin. Double Diamond rose a shaky hoof to wave at her, eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. Party Favor was tying knots in a frayed length of rope, chin jerking to smile as she passed. Night Glider paced in a circle, wingtips grazing the sand. Feather Bangs chatted with a vacantly smiling mare. His eyes were sunken and he laughed when she did, his belly tightening.

“Starlight.”

When Sugar Belle approached, she was quivering. Her mane was still loose, tousled and unbound.

“Good morning, Sugar Belle!” Starlight exclaimed.

“Hi.”

Sugar Belle’s eyes were flicking, searching her face for a lingering glimpse of that wretched inner mare who’d let herself slip so carelessly into civil life. “About last night. I wanted to—”

“It’s all right, Sugar Belle! You're not in trouble. I forgive you for leading me on, but I expect better from you from now on.” The wind licked Starlight's gums. “You're a good friend.”

Sugar Belle flinched as though lashed.

And she fell at Starlight’s hooves.

“I love you, Starlight!” she gasped in the weeping tones of the desperate. “I love you more than a friend. I don’t care if that means I’m loving wrong. I want to be with you forever—because lovers don’t leave!”

But that was Starlight’s imagination, shaping itself fiendishly around Sugar Belle’s voice. Reality was far crueler.

“Okay, Starlight.” Sugar Belle grinned. It didn't reach her eyes. “I'd better head to the bakery.”

As she left, Starlight glimpsed in her a twin hunger. It was the voice of all the secrets she shared; the gentle reaching out of her hoof; the begging, disbelieving question: “Can I be selfish?”

They would starve together, equal in their desire. They would pass one another and do no more than smile. They would exchange pleasantries in the language spoken by Our Town. And this would go on for another year, their identical holding pattern of longing deferred.

Starlight should have anticipated, then and there, Sugar Belle’s betrayal.

Epilogue — Nopony Worth Keeping

“Either we’re all equal, or none of us are!”

Sugar Belle had screamed this at her from the crowd, her voice louder than any other in the treacherous chorus as Our Town rose up and crashed down upon their fair leader like a drowning flood. Starlight still couldn’t decide if those words were mere coincidence—or chosen specifically to destroy her.

Her fire was dying and she had no more friends. Twilight Sparkle and her followers made sure of that. Starlight imagined their deaths a thousand times over, cracking bones and spat-out feathers, until the images went stale. She tucked her hooves beneath her belly, an insubstantial warmth against the whipping midnight chill of the mountainside, wind tugging at her uncombed mane like abused kite ribbons.

There was a whispering crunch of hooves on snow. Behind the last shuddering flames, the shape of a pony wavered into existence. Starlight flinched, mistaking the divine figure for another ruinous alicorn. But she bore no wings, just the sweet spiral of a horn and a coily mane that drifted to encircle her ears like a halo.

“Hi, Starlight,” Sugar Belle said, looking no different than when she arrived two years ago, “Want to go for a walk?”

Starlight smiled.

Side by side, they crossed the ridge, a distant glow from Our Town rising in the flatlands below. At this hour, everything was watery and dreamlike, awash in hypothermic blue. Sugar Belle matched Starlight’s stride like a second shadow.

“What will you do now?” Sugar Belle asked.

Starlight’s voice was rough from disuse. “Destroy Twilight Sparkle.”

Sugar Belle closed her eyes. Nodded solemnly. “And, what about us?”

“Nothing, I guess.” Starlight dragged her tongue over her chapped lips. “You’ll all learn soon enough how painful it is to go on living the way I have all my life.” She bared her teeth. “As nopony worth keeping.”

Sugar Belle blinked. Her irises appeared violet in this light.

And she said, “I just hope, one day, you stop hating yourself.”

Starlight jerked. “I don’t…” Her breath clouded the air, meaningless words evaporating to mist.

And a solid truth rose in her, the opposite of her hunger’s yawning absence. Sugar Belle was asleep in the flatlands below, tucked in her cottage. Eyes swiveling under her lids, head cradled by her pillow. The warm shape of her leaving a gentle impression on the mattress.

Starlight looked at the space beside her. She kept looking when she saw Sugar Belle disappear.