No Equality in Desire

“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.