The mist abated as Starlight climbed the path leading out of Sires Hollow, left behind in the city she would call home. Her two worlds that were so mashed together were separating, the ridge between the town and the bay cutting through them and pushing them apart. She imagined there was an earthquake, the bay with the Immortal Dream breaking off and flying into the sky, friends and airship and water and rocks and everything, but it didn't reach her legs. Her hooves were padded with boots of air, her step so unnaturally light she was more worried she would fall away into the heavens first.
A shimmering reached her ears, and then the harmony comet came into sight, orange and swirling with wisps of white energy trailing through its overglow. She recognized Slipstream on the deck, and Slipstream waved. Funny, that her friends were waving hello here when it was the end.
Starlight barely noticed the rocky trail beneath her hooves, and it transitioned all too soon to the staircase down to the fishing boat dock. She tried to focus on where she was walking, yet the sensations of creaking boards and crunching flakes of gravel eluded her, her path carrying her onward and onward. Either the end was coming all too quickly or not soon enough, and now it just had to switch back to the former. Before she could even process it, she was on the boat.
"Hey, everyone!" Slipstream greeted. "Got all your things? This would be a bad time to forget and leave stuff behind."
Valey belched. "Uhh, whoops! I totally forgot two of my most valuable things ever." She turned, winking at Maple and Starlight. "Guess we'll have to hurry up and get those writs so we can get back here and fix that, won't we?"
Maple giggled. Actually giggled. "We'll take good care of ourselves and make sure we're nice and shiny when you get back."
When they got back... That was too far in the future for Starlight to think about. She knew the only way she'd survive this was letting go. If her friends returned, that would be a miracle, not something she relied upon to live.
Valey cleared her throat. "Actually, though, we, uh... We actually do have some last-minute gifts to give you. Just thought it would be cool to have something to remember us by."
"Right." Maple nodded. "And I do as well. But first..." She glanced over her shoulder to Fishy, Cardinal Foghorn and Silver Saddle. "We probably should handle official business. Do we have the Writ of Harmonic Sanction?"
Shinespark glanced over her shoulder at the entrance to the bridge. "In there. Shall I go fetch it?"
Valey thumped her back. "In a sec. First, I wanna-"
Starlight's attention was stolen by Jamjars, slinking up to her side. "It's not too late to change your mind," Jamjars whispered.
"I'm not changing my mind." Starlight's ears aggressively folded. Second-guessing herself after all she had done to prepare for this goodbye would only bring pain, she knew. "I'm sorry. You'll... You'll have to make new friends in Riverfall."
Jamjars gave her a look, then opened one of her saddlebags and pointed to a folder inside. It was stamped with a Griffon Empire Classified label, and Starlight quickly remembered where she had seen it before.
"That's..." Starlight frowned. "You were showing me that the night Gazelle attacked. While I was having a sleepover with you."
Jamjars nodded seriously. "You're really comfortable leaving me to solve whatever she left unfinished on my own?"
Starlight stared at the folder, remembering what was inside. Plans for some sort of machine, with an Indus harmony extractor tail similar to Aegis's and a design she had only seen in the fake Yanavan's cave in a dream in Mistvale... "What's to solve about it?" she asked, slightly apprehensive. "The other me is still alive somewhere. Maybe she'll do something with it."
"And you're comfortable with that?" Jamjars pressed. "I saw your reaction to seeing this. You don't want to make sure I don't take them and do... whatever?"
"Will you take them and do whatever?" Starlight gave her a deathly serious look. "I'm staying here because I don't want to do anything more important, and that's the exact kind of thing I want to avoid!"
Jamjars shrugged. "What's the kind of thing you want to avoid?"
"Anything other than throwing those plans away and never pulling them back out," Starlight replied. "Which probably isn't what you had in mind."
Over her shoulder, Fluffy Fleece approached, curious. "What are you talking about?"
Jamjars smoothly closed her saddlebags, practiced in the art of hiding what she was doing without any trace of suspicion or guilt. "Telling my friend how much I'll miss her and wish she'd come home," she replied, staring longingly at Fluffy's mane. "I don't suppose it's to late for you and me to make amends?"
"Um..." Fluffy blinked. "Well, if you say sorry, but I still don't think we're ever going to see each other again..."
Starlight watched the exchange, not knowing what to say. "I'm... staying here," she repeated. "I'm sorry, Jamjars. Maybe I'll see you again someday. Just don't do anything with those, okay? I'm saying I trust you, and that's what you always want, so... that's my goodbye present."
Jamjars folded her ears, a look of real guilt flashing briefly across her practiced face. "Yeah, well... I'm sorry too. For everything. I need to be alone right now. See you later."
Her horn flashed, and suddenly she took on a wood-grain camouflage. Starlight quickly lost her as she dashed for the stern entry.
"Woah," Fluffy remarked, staring at where Jamjars had disappeared. "How'd she do that? Is magic just stronger in the north?"
Starlight shrugged. She didn't particularly want to talk about Jamjars, but that was where her thoughts all were... "It's a camouflage spell. And I don't know. Maybe we can just make our magic stronger when we really need it. She's never relied on others a lot before."
"Yeah..." Fluffy rubbed a shoulder awkwardly. "I get the feeling."
Gazelle's paw shivered atop the altitude control, and he didn't open his eyes. His angle was set. His course was up to fate. He had lost track of the seconds, but knew the mountain ridge was still up ahead. How? He just had that much faith in fate's course for him.
Too low, and he would strike the ridge and explode, never needing to try again. Too high, and he would sail into the future, keep fighting his destiny and fail later, rather than now. Neither option was anything but a curse. There was no perfect middle ground. No right path. He almost imagined hitting the angle so perfectly, it sheared his ship in half, leaving half of him behind and half sailing onwards... It was a pointless image, but better than the cheering and drum beats that filled his head, begging him onward to becoming the Empire's hero.
He wanted that ending. It almost felt like a suitable way to atone. Too bad he couldn't do-
A shockwave smashed through his entire body, flinging him into the ceiling of the cabin as the floor bucked and ground beneath him. The airship lurched wildly, its nose flinging into the sky.
...But he hit the ground again, and it was still there. Ignoring the sudden bruises on his body, Gazelle clambered to a window, looking out. Had fate spoken?
Had he clipped the ridge? Had he cut it so close, he struck the mountains, yet his craft survived? Warning lights flared all over the dashboard, but he ignored them. If destiny willed it, he could ditch the ship and fly to Ironridge from here. Emergency sirens urged him to do just that.
Outside, though... He had to look. There it was: the final mountain ridge was behind him. Ahead, there was nothing but a sheer slope and then a sheerer precipice, the Aldenfold mountain wall dropping so far that the Yakyakistani mountain range below looked like it would barely rise up to his paws. The whole horizon was open.
Fate had spoken. Gazelle stared out the window, and saw his destiny.
His destiny was another airship, pointing right at him from the side.
"Still no response, captain," a unicorn mare with an Equestrian military uniform and her mane in a bun called, hunched over an expensive transceiver. "They're not answering out signal to halt."
"That's because that airship isn't of Equestrian design!" a stallion called out from nearby. The roof of their craft was low and its design flat and wide, employing no dirigible and built for maneuverability and speed. "The north doesn't have manatransceivers, do they?"
"They're flying north across the border," the mare replied, walking to the front windshield alongside an older mare in the pilot's chair. "So unless we're saying this is a return journey..."
"Wouldn't be surprised," the captain muttered, the smaller craft appearing on a radar as they approached. "Makes a lot more sense, sending forces from the west to reinforce that incident in the east when there's a risk of these to catch. I hope our princess realizes how impossible it's going to be to keep this whole thing airtight now that the spell is..." She trailed off, raising a spyglass and staring through to the window of the other ship. "Sweet Celestia, what is that thing piloting it!? It looks like a monster..."
The communications mare took the spyglass, peering through herself. Her ears fell. "It's a sphinx, commander. Griffon Empire royalty. Most of them usually have writs, but most are..." She focused the lenses. "Oh my Celestia, is that Gazelle? The security advisory..."
The stallion relieved her of the spyglass, taking a turn for himself. "Not the guy that attacked that school in the east? They said he was extradited back to the Empire for justice there! What's he doing out this far west?"
"Hmmm..." The captain reached down for a military terminal, tapping several times and bringing up an image of Gazelle. She took back the spyglass. "That seems to be him, alright. Looks like he's on a shoot first, ask questions later list if seen south of the border. And whatever this is, it counts."
The communications mare took another turn with the spyglass. "Are his eyes closed? He looks like he's going to crash."
"After assaulting our citizens?" The captain shrugged. "Maybe he'll save us the ammunition."
With a crunch and a spray of snow and shattered ice, Gazelle's ship tore through the mountain ridge, visibly damaged yet carrying through to the other side.
"Or not." The stallion shrugged. "Permission to fire when ready?"
"Light him up, boy," the captain replied. "But don't waste ammo. Save the big things for shoring up the border in the east."
Below the mountain wall, across fields of snowdrifts and past the still-ruined shells of the skyport, down the sloping wall of the Stone District and through the trees and groves of Ironridge, a muscular yellow unicorn with a black beard sat in a meeting on the top floor of the Karma Industries tower, the window across from him facing south. Arambai leaned on a table, marking notes idly with a pen while other ponies talked and argued. Suddenly, a bright flash pierced his attention, from far, far away at the top of the Aldenfold wall.
He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the afterimage. "What in the Flame District was that...?"
"And that," Valey finished, lecturing Silver Saddle with Shinespark held tightly to her side, "is what I'll do to you if I get back and my friends here have had the coolest and most welcoming time ever. Savvy?"
Silver Saddle stared at her and batted her eyelashes a single time. "You have the weirdest methods of flirting."
"And you're a hussy," Valey replied. "So there. Like what you see that much, show off by being cool to my friends."
"Valey," Shinespark interrupted, "is this the best use of our time?"
"Hey." Valey shrugged, putting her down. "We've had enough bad scrapes with guards that I wanna make sure all the ones here are cool. We're cool, right, Foghorn?"
Cardinal Foghorn nodded. "If that's your adjective of choice."
Maple nudged Valey gently. "I think we'll be just fine with them. Maybe let's spend the minutes we have left with each other, instead?"
"Do it," Shinespark encouraged, leaving for the bridge. "I'm going to get the Writ of-"
The bridge exploded.
Everyone yelped and wheeled about, a loud flash and bang coming from inside the open door. A few wisps of smoke trailed out, but after the noise was done, the room looked completely fine.
"What happened!?" Grenada snarled, charging up the staircase from below. "Who did that!?"
Maple, Amber, Shinespark and Valey were already hurrying along, Starlight with them. Even Fluffy hovered anxiously along.
"Aw, bananas..." Valey groaned, reaching the bridge room first. She moved aside to make room for others.
The floor was faintly singed, and there were traces of soot on the windshield that would need to be wiped away, but the control panel looked just fine. In the center of the blast radius, however, was Jamjars, laying on her side, horn dancing and sparking with wild energy, staring at herself with a stunned expression of guilt, disbelief and bliss.
"Your horn!" Fluffy shouted, pointing over Starlight's shoulder. "That's a magic surge! You got your..."
Jamjars' flank, once empty, now held an image of a chess queen. And beside her was an unbound, still-half-rolled and very conspicuously empty scroll bearing Princess Celestia's royal seal: a used Writ of Harmonic Sanction.
"What did you do!?" Shinespark hissed.
"Why?" Maple sniffed, not needing to ask.
"You used it? You betrayed Maple and Starlight?" Amber stared with wide eyes, starting to cry. "You got a cutie mark for this?"
Starlight's worlds had been smashed together, an impossible combination she knew couldn't last. It was always going to be one or the other... but suddenly, both of them shattered and fell away.