Chapter Seventeen:
“Drowning”

“No,” Starlight whispered, as she watched the cutie marks of Twilight and her friends race back towards their flanks. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” she screamed. She felt the tears well up in her eyes. In just under an hour, she lost everything. Her rock, her village, her supposed friends… And the princess, the very same one who was walking towards her at that moment, she was the one who caused it to happen. And now she was coming to rub it in her face, to tell her that she was better than Starlight.

In a fit of rage, Starlight closed her eyes and let out a powerful blast of magic, one that would send her back to where she came from. However, to her surprise, when she opened her eyes again, she saw the princess casting a shield to protect her.

“What?” Starlight let out, shocked. “I’ve been studying that spell for years! How did you-”.

“I studied that spell for years, too,” Twilight told her, “but what I didn’t know then was that studying could only get me so far. Each of my friends' unique personalities taught me something different about myself. I never would have learned that I represent the element of magic without these five, and I certainly would be here to stop you now!”

Starlight couldn’t stand to listen to what she was saying. The princess was so vain, and Starlight hated what she was implying. She was making it seem as though she’d walked into the village one day and just stole their cutie marks when that couldn’t have been further from the truth. She built that village from the ground up. The ponies who moved there willingly gave up their cutie marks. But Twilight didn’t care. Starlight knew that when she was so quick to dismiss her village, not even bothering to try to understand. She didn’t care that, in the few short days she had been there, she tore down everything that Starlight had worked for years to build. She didn’t care that all Starlight wanted was friends.

Suddenly, before the princess knew it, Starlight teleported deep inside the cave. So far inside that the entrance was just a pinpoint of light. Her hooves began to shake in anger, her anger turning into frustration. If she just wouldn’t have been so careless, none of this would have happened. But she was, and her carelessness cost her everything. She was alone again, and there was nothing she could do about it. The one rock in all of Equestria she could use was destroyed, and even if there was another one, nopony would ever trust her again. Her life was officially ruined, the thought of which made her shake harder.

“It’s not because you were careless,” a voice told her. “It’s not because of the princess either. Your philosophy was just wrong,”

She had trouble accepting that. Her philosophy couldn’t be wrong. It couldn’t be. She’d spent so much time and energy on building her philosophy, and it had been working so well until Twilight showed up. No, her philosophy wasn’t wrong. Twilight was wrong.

“Can’t you just accept that nopony likes you?” the voice said. “Can’t you just accept that nopony wants to be your friend?”

Starlight wanted to cry. She knew the voice in her head was true. She knew that nopony wanted to be her friend. That was the whole point of creating her philosophy. It was so she could have friends. Yet, the fact that she needed to create a whole philosophy on friendship just to get ponies to be her friend finally gave her the awful realization. Nopony liked her. That’s why her village crumbled so quickly. Not because of her cutie mark, but because nopony liked her. She would always be alone because nopony liked her. She was hopeless.

“Don’t cry,” she silently told herself. “You will not cry”. Crying meant admitting that she was hopeless. She didn’t want to cry, and desperately tried to hold back the sobs that were building in her throat. She stamped her feet and ground her teeth, trying to hold back the tears, but she could feel them slipping out. It only made her more frustrated, which made more tears form, the cycle continuing until she couldn’t hold back from sobbing. It was the first time since she was a filly she cried. She knew she was hopeless.

Starlight lay on the ground, sobbing, feeling a physical pain building in her chest. She felt as though she was drowning, her lungs filling with water, and there was nopony to help her. They stood in the distance, talking and yelling, but not coming to help. They were uncaring, watching as she drowned.

She was filled with anger and sadness and loneliness. And hate. Hate was what Starlight felt. She hated the ponies around her. She hated the way Equestria was. She hated her whole life. She was never ever going to be happy. She had no family. Nopony liked her, nopony wanted to be her friend. The one pony who did like her, the one friend she ever had, had left her alone. He probably didn’t care. He’d probably forgotten about her.

Why did Sunburst have to leave her? He was the only pony she ever cared about, the only pony who ever cared about her, and a cutie mark took him away from her. She didn’t even get to say goodbye to him. A cutie mark just snatched him out of her life and left her alone in a world where nopony liked her. Why did he have to leave?

Now she was alone, and nopony cared. She just wished somepony care. She wished there was someone there for her to let out her frustrations. Somepony to hold onto her problems, instead of her having to bear the burden alone. But no, no such pony existed. And the princess, Twilight, made sure that she would always know that.

“Stop crying!” she told herself angrily, trying to hold back her sobs. “Crying won’t change anything!”. She used her hooved to wipe her tears, took a few deep breaths, and tried to think. The princess had ruined her life. Even if her philosophy was wrong, it was the princess who ruined her life. She could have just let Starlight live in peaceful ignorance, but no! She just had to go and let her know how hopeless she was. Starlight was happy, and the princess had to go and ruin her life!

Starlight once again became angry. She would make her suffer the way she suffered. She would make sure of it. She would make sure Twilight understood just how alone she’d been for so long, what it felt like to have the ponies she cared about torn away from her. Starlight would see to it that she got her revenge.

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