Chapter 25: Starlight’s Mother, Part 1 - Who Was She?
The Elements of Harmony and the CMC are on their way to town to search for Starlight. While there, they walk by Trixie’s wagon. Trixie opens up the side and sees the group walking by.
Trixie: Heeeeeeeeey! Twilight and Friends!
The group stops and turns toward Trixie who’s waving to them, they decide to go see her in case maybe Trixie knows where Starlight is.
Twilight: Hi Trixie! Good to see you.
Trixie: Same to all of you, did you enjoy Trixie’s performance last night?
Trixie grins smugly, hoping for some more praise
Sweetie: That was pretty cool how you got yourself and Starlight to fit into that lamp without being a genie. And your horn didn’t even glow! I can’t even imagine how that worked out...
Scootaloo: Maybe there was a secret escape under the bottom of the lamp?
Apple Bloom: But even then, Trixie would o’ still had t’ squeeze her and Starlight though such ah tight space!
Scootaloo: True, but didn’t Big Mac once accidentally squish you so hard you went down the berry squish drain during the Sisterhooves Social?
Apple Bloom: Well yeah… though this was certainly still ah different method then the sheer force o’ weight…
Sweetie: Are we more liquid then we thought?
The CMC continue to ponder more on how Trixie did what she did. While the rest giggle knowing it was just something Trixie wished for from Twilight’s genie magic.
Twilight: You had a good show, Trixie. Though while we’re stopping by, I don’t suppose you know where Starlight is right now? I know you told me last night that Starlight wanted to see me when I was available today.
Trixie: Well... coincidentally she’s probably looking for you right now! I think she headed to Saddle Arabia using the portal gum expecting you to be back at the palace.
Twilight: Uh oh, I don’t know if I should go to Saddle Arabia in case she happens to gum portal back to town, and we just end up traveling in circles. I feel like she’ll come across Princess Celestia, Malakhar, Kubuya, or the Sultan. She’ll ask them where I am and they’ll say I’m likely at…
Twilight widens eyes briefly
Twilight: Sweet… Apple… Acres… Oh no! We better go back… We should of just stayed at the farm!
Trixie: Oh Twilight, is it ok if I come with?
Twilight: Of course, Trixie! Come with us!
Trixie opens the exit of her wagon and starts galloping along with the group back to Sweet Apple Acres. They quickly get back to the gates of the farm, but then they hear a scream.
Twilight: That sounds like Starlight! Come on, she might be in trouble!
They get closer to the farm house before they hear Starlight’s voice again
Starlight: APPPPLLLLLEEEEEEJAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKK!
Starlight is then seen running from the other side of the house straight to the other side where the Elements, the CMC, and Trixie are. Starlight heads straight over to Applejack. She’s shaking, and terrified.
Applejack: Starlight, what’s wrong?!
Starlight: Applejack! I think your house is haunted!
Applejack: Haunted?! What do ya mean?
Starlight: You’re probably going to think I went insane… but when I got here looking for Twilight after Princess Celestia informed me at the palace that she’d likely be here… I came by the backdoor of your house and peeked into the windows… and I saw these transparent, glowing ghosts of your parents!
Applejack chuckles as she’s aware that this would have made her an emotional wreck just hours ago, and also expresses relief that Starlight is ok.
Applejack: Oh? Is that all? Ya’ll had me worried fo’ ah moment!
Starlight goes wide-eyed, she thought Applejack was going to be surprised that somepony has seen ghosts of her parents.
Starlight: WHAT?! How can you respond like this isn’t a big deal?!
Applejack: Well… ah mean… it would o’ been ah big deal just ah few hours ago… and it even took ah little while t’ convince me even after they appeared… But Twilight and Spike summoned mah parents’ spirits using Spike’s Dragon Tear. It’s capable o’ bringing down the deceased souls all the way down from space!
Starlight flails her hooves as she looks absolutely incredulous
Starlight: Since when could it do that?! Since when have we found out the dead go to space?!
Twilight: Ohohoho… Believe me, Starlight… it has been an absolutely crazy day…
Twilight and the others proceed to recap to Starlight what they talked about around Pear Butter and Bright Mac’s spirits. Starlight just holding her fore hooves on the sides of her head hearing everything that’s been learned in just the past few hours.
Starlight: So let me get this straight… we can bring back the dead as spirits with the Dragon’s Tear… the sun and moon wouldn’t be able to move without our magic… plus our planet doesn’t rotate… the souls of the deceased join some big shield invisible to us orbiting around our planet and moon… said souls protect us from outside threats in space… Life is magic… Genies and thus Twilight is at least PART spirit… and the planet is alive?!
The rest of the group nods, though Trixie herself is also kind of freaking out since she hasn’t heard all this either.
Trixie: And all of you are taking this calmly like it’s already some common knowledge?!
Twilight: Oh we freaked out alright. We just kind of already got most of it out of the way. It’s still kind of all swirling in my head to be honest… *Twilight spins her eyes*
Starlight: This is just insane… the fact that Applejack is calm during this means it is true… she’s the element of Honesty. She couldn’t lie, or at the very least… wouldn’t be able to hold a straight face very easily if any of this was not real…
Applejack: Like ah said, it did take some time fo’ me t’ acknowledge much o’ this as the truth. But considering just moments before ah was told all this, mah parent’s spirits were summoned… there’s just about no way ah could really object. It’d have t’ be one heck o’ ah conspiracy t’ say both ponies that are living AND dead have conspired together including mah own parents t’ peddle ah lie… especially since there’s really only been one time before all this that ah Dragon’s Tear has brought spirits down. And that was ah long time ago when Jinn was still around…
Starlight: Just let me take some deep breaths, then I can finally be calm and proceed to tell you what I wanted to see you about.
Starlight takes a few moments to do a breathing exercise as all the things she was just told swirl in her head. She still kinda shakes a little or her ear twitches thinking about all the crazy but true facts about their world as well as life and death. But eventually, she gets back to a relatively normal state with a determined look on her face.
Starlight: Ok… Twilight… it’s time.
Twilight walks on over to the front of Starlight with a determined look of her own.
Twilight: Yes, it is…
Starlight / Twilight: Please, help me find my mother! / I’m gonna help you find your mother!
Starlight & Twilight: Wait… How did you know?!
Starlight / Twilight: Applejack must of told you! / Applejack told me!
Starlight & Twilight: Maybe we should stop talking simultaneously?
The two giggle a little bit before ultimately the subject matter of finding Starlight’s mother puts a rather heavy air around the area.
Twilight: Before we go to try finding your mother. Is it alright if we get an explanation from you? I know you’ve already told the CMC, at least a big part of it considering you’ve told them how you got your Cutie Mark. We’ve already got the gist from Applejack that you don’t know who your mother is, and your father refuses to tell you. Maybe start with… why haven’t you shared this years ago?
Starlight lowers her head solemnly
Starlight: I guess… it just never occurred to me to bring it up at the time…
Applejack: It’s ok Starlight, after all… Twilight went almost 2 years without telling us she had ah brother that she loves so much. *winks*
Twilight smiles sheepishly, putting a hoof behind your back
Twilight: Well… you girls never asked!
But er… ahem… how about we get the little that you do know about your mother?
Starlight: There’s only a few facts I know. One of which I just learned recently, thanks to the Cutie Mark Crusaders
Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo all beam a grin.
Starlight: Just to narrow it down so not too many questions are asked. My father actually doesn’t know what happened to her after she disappeared either, he really only just refuses to tell me her name. Because otherwise he’s just as much in the dark as I am, the birth certificates in Sire’s Hollow conveniently leave off Parent’s names, and this wasn’t a case where she died from complications of childbirth. She gave birth to me in my old home rather then a hospital, but she survived my birth for certain. And even if she had died from child birth, then my father would of most certainly known.
And the only other big fact I know is something the Cutie Mark Crusaders already know...
Twilight: I did overhear Apple Bloom mention that you told them how you got your mark, and that your mother might be related somehow. I suppose that’s a good time as any for you to finally tell us, too?
The other elements pay really close attention as they themselves have always been curious about how Staright got her mark.
Starlight: Certainly, I also gave a little bit of the gist of it to Applejack at the ball. But I’ll certainly provide at least a little more detail then the summary I gave her…
Starlight takes a deep breath
Starlight: First of all, I was a latchkey filly. I never even had one babysitter, when my father went to work I was always alone in the house by myself. When Sunburst was still in town, he at least tended to come over from time to time. But once he got his cutie mark and left, that was it. Which added to why him leaving was the beginning of such a dark part of my life... As I was left alone for most hours of any days my father had to work.
One day, I was playing with a ball in the basement and when I accidentally supercharged it into a wall. A hole broke through, and when I looked into it... I found two books, and read them both. The first one I read…. ehehhehheh… isn’t exactly relevant right now… but the 2nd one absolutely was. It was a spell book for some of the more advanced unicorns, and I mean like super advanced. As in probably most students aside from you at Celestia’s gifted students school may have had trouble performing the kind of things in that book. And yet, even as young as I was… I somewhat understood the nuances in the book.
I found a spell in the book of self-levitation AKA flight with just magic. Surprisingly, it was one of the more simpler ones in the book. I decided to give it a try, and soon I was having some fun flying all around the basement. But then things went wrong when I tried picking up the ball at the same time. Because it was such an advanced spell, and I was inexperienced with controlling that kind of power, it led to me unable to control what I was picking up and soon all the toys on the basement floor were orbiting around me. A magic aura appeared, and at least my father has told me he remembers that my eyes were glowing then.
Twilight: *gasp* This sounds quite similar to my magic freakout after I had hatched Spike…
Starlight: It probably was pretty much just like that. Though speaking of my father, he came home at the time and I screamed to call for him to help me. He came down, and eventually tackled me down. I may have a complicated relationship with my father, but I was thankful to him for saving me. I became scared of what might have happened if say… I had that same magical freakout but in the kitchen, with a lot more dangerous materials like knives swirling around me…
Once we recovered from the shock, I told my father what happened. Naturally, leading to him keeping that spellbook as far away as possible from me. But amid my father looking if I had any injuries, that’s when he noticed that I had gotten my Cutie Mark. He pointed it out to me, and I immediately looked at my flank. Now obviously that magic outburst was what gave me my cutie mark. But what an outburst like that doesn’t exactly do is really explain what it means. Perhaps, naturally it just means I have a lot of raw magic power. But the problem is, it makes it quite vague.
Twilight, your cutie mark is somewhat similar in that way, but you knew it meant your skill in magic because you had read for hours upon hours about magic, plus you received the mark just as you were about to become Celestia’s protege. I didn’t have that, it just simply happened as I used an advanced spell for the first time. So I didn’t understand what sort of future I was destined for, not to mention of course that I hated cutie marks because of Sunburst leaving. So even if I kind of knew what it meant, I would of grumbled about it regardless.
So… the only explanation for my raw magic power… as deduced by the Cutie Mark Crusaders… is I had to have inherited it. Somepony in my family has a bloodline of strong magic power. And my father’s bloodline I’m pretty sure has no signs of that. So that means… it has to be related to my mother somehow…
Twilight: I see… then this isn’t just a matter of family-related strife... The identity of your mother holds the keys to the very pony that you are destined to be!
Starlight: Also, Twilight… I think it’s about time I confess something to you… Do you remember when I finally turned around while we were traveling through time after all you did was just softly speak to me?
Twilight gasps, as she’s long wanted to hear this
Twilight: Yes…?
Starlight starts streaming down tears
Starlight: I think I gave in… because hearing your voice then… was almost like having the mother I never had… you’re the closest to a mother figure I’ve ever had… *sniff*
Twilight: Oh Starlight… come here…
Twilight calls Starlight in for a hug. Starlight hugs Twilight and Twilight wraps both of her wings around her, as Starlight’s tears stream down her face and onto Twilight’s shoulders. The rest of the group with sympathetic tears and smiles as they watch the long hug Twilight gives Starlight. Twilight softly speaks to Starlight in the middle of the hug.
Twilight: Let’s go solve this, together… We’ll go to Sire’s Hollow right now… You and your father are going to be reuniting with your mother, one way or another…
Starlight lets go of the hug and wipes the tears away from her eyes
Starlight: Thank you, Twilight… Allow me to get us there.
Starlight pulls out another piece of gum back to Starlight’s old hometown. Once the portal is open, Starlight enters first, as Twilight and the others follow.
((Story continues after the break))
