Through The Galaxies

by FoolAmongTheStars

i. Astrophe

Author's Note:

n. the feeling of being stuck on Earth.
_{Ancient Greek ᾰ̓́στρον (ástron), star + ἀτροφία (atrophía), a wasting away due to lack of use. Pronounced “as-truh-fee.”}

Growing up, Starlight had heard stories of Equus, the home planet of her teacher, Twilight Sparkle.

She heard all about the glowing blue marble that sat in the heart of the universe, the centerpiece of all creation, at least in her teacher’s eyes. She recalled the fondness in which she spoke of the jungles, the beaches, and the valleys, the way Twilight would describe them made the hologram stills that Starlight owned look like the scribbles of a foal. The stories and the adventures she would tell between lessons stirred in Starlight such excitement that she almost wished she could see it with her own eyes someday.

It was hard to recall that feeling now, the reality of it all was almost too much to process.

Her hooves sank deeply into the soft, moist earth below her as the larger planet’s gravity pulled her down. Back in the Ark, she was as weightless as a feather—Equus made her feel heavy and grounded, even the dark blue sky felt cold and suffocating, like a thick blanket she could not shake off. The computer’s reading informed her that the planet's oxygen was safe to breathe, and she gladly ripped off her broken helmet and tossed it recklessly to the side. Starlight coughed and gagged as the world rushed in, overloading her senses. In the Ark, the atmosphere was thin and still, the air here shifted and blew past, unrelenting and space-cold, her thick space suit felt like gossamer flapping wildly in the throes of the Equus breeze.

Somehow she managed to stumble away from the wreckage, not because she recalled her teacher’s warnings about the dangers of fire and explosions, but simply because the smell of smoke and burning metal was too unpleasant to be around, the heat on her back intolerable as the cold that pushed her back.

She walked until the fire was just a pleasant, orange glow in the corner of her eye, and the ground under her hooves gave way for something more pleasant, something softer and sweeter that put something in the back of Starlight’s mind at ease. Her head throbbed, something moist and warm flowed down her forehead over her right eye, making it hard to see the way forward in the darkness. Pain shoot up her back left leg, forcing her to limp through this…this…forest! Yes, she remembered, a place filled with “flowers” and “trees”, she wished she could see them, but it was so dark, and her head was killing her.

Wait, she thinks she sees one, tickling her nose, it was small and so very pretty. Her leg didn’t hurt anymore, and it was much more comfortable to lay on the ground, but the throbbing in her head wouldn’t stop, it hadn’t stopped since she broke through the planet’s atmosphere, it had shaken her ship violently and ripped her from her seat like a rag doll, she hadn’t had the time to strap in. Grogar’s forces had seized the Ark, there had been no time to prepare, Twilight had to drag her away, shield her from the screams and the smell of burned ozone, there had been no time to ask questions as Twilight slipped something over her neck and shoved her unceremoniously into the ship.

There had been no time to say goodbye.

A sound between a scream and a sob shook her shoulders. She rolled over onto her back, taking in deep breaths. The oxygen on this planet was so abundant that it filled her lungs to their maximum capacity, and for a moment she feared that they might burst from the pressure, but they resisted and the air rushed out of them with each painful sob that left her. Lying on the ground made the trees appear impossibly large, she had no idea that they could grow so tall, hiding her home and the stars from her view.

Her hoof went to her neck, clutching something hard and warm, the last gift of her teacher. If it was what she thought it was…

“Help me…someone, anyone, please…” she mumbled, closing her eyes and pouring her magic into the dormant stone.

The stone responded almost immediately, pulsing against her chest like a hummingbird’s heartbeat, filling her with hope and light that displaced the night for a brief second—but it was gone before she could revel in it.

She didn’t know how long she lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness to the point she wasn’t sure if what she saw when she opened her eyes was real or not.

She thought she saw ponies gathering around her, but she blinked and it was only the shadows of the trees, she blinked again and the ponies moved frantically around her. But there was one vision that refused to leave her, his hair was like fire and his face, golden and wrinkled with worry, filled her vision as he cradled her body, lifting her from the cold hard ground.

“By that stars, Starlight Glimmer!? It’s you, right? Starlight? Starlight!”

The voice was unfamiliar and sounded very far away, but those eyes…she recognized those eyes anywhere.

Sunburst—?

---

Usually, a hug from her best friend was enough to calm her down, but Starlight’s crying echoed loudly inside her bedroom, loud enough to cover Sunburst’s weeping. She clung to his thin frame for dear life and he hugged her back just as fiercely, aware that this could very much be the last time they would hold each other. After what felt like hours, Starlight’s cries lessened, even though grief was still a heavy lump in her throat she could not swallow. The two young ponies broke from the hug, but Starlight caught his hoof in both of hers as if that would prevent him from running, and she smiled a little when he squeezed her hoof back.

“I just don’t understand,” Starlight mumbled, voice hoarse from crying. “Why would Twilight do this? You’re so much smarter than me, if anything, I should be the one she sends away.”

“It’s not about that,” Sunburst answered, pushing his glasses aside so he could wipe his eyes.

“Then what is it?!” Starlight snapped, tired of the excuses that ponies had thrown at her ever since it was announced that the Zeniths would be leaving. It wasn’t unheard of but it was rare for ponies to leave the Ark, it hadn’t happened in Starlight’s lifetime though, and for it to be her best friend…

Sunburst hesitated with a well-practiced lie on his lips but softened when caught under the full force of her teary gaze. He could never tell her no—especially now. He scooched closer, looking around the empty room as if spies were hidden under Starlight's sleeping pod or listening in through her window as the Ark made its way through the galaxy, stars drifting in the endless void of space. Draping his foreleg over her shoulder, he pulled her close, in the way he had done many times to share the stories he heard the adults tell that weren’t meant for young ears such as theirs. “It’s something important that only my family can do.”

He cupped his hooves over her ear and whispered in such a low voice that even Starlight was straining to hear. Her face wrinkled with confusion, then her eyes widened and she gasped.

“It’s real?!”

“Shh! Not so loud!”

“Sorry,” Starlight said, dropping her voice low as well, “but I thought that was a fairy tale that Twilight made up!”

“It’s very real,” Sunburst said with a grin. “Mom and Dad have a pretty good idea of where it is, we are going to go see if they’re right, and then—“

“You’ll come back!” For the first time since she heard the horrible news, she felt hope blooming in her chest. “Your parents are the smartest ponies on board, of course they’re right! You and Sunset won’t be gone forever! This is great!”

Sunburst didn’t return her enthusiasm, and she felt her heart sink again.

“It’s not that simple,” he said, looking down at the space between them and the wrinkled gray sheets of Starlight’s bed. “If they are wrong, we have to keep looking…we can’t come back until we find it.”

The silence that followed was louder than her crying, and Starlight could feel the tears gathering in the back of her eyes once again, but she bit her lip, looking down at their joined hooves.

There weren’t that many foals aboard the Ark, so it was natural that they became such close friends, but as they grew older and games became less frequent, she grew to appreciate him for who he was: honest. Her father loved her, but his coddling was suffocating, and Twilight was wise and a wonderful teacher, but often spoke in riddles and circles. They always kept secrets, they could never be straightforward with her, and the older she got, the more frustrating the grownups' evasiveness was. Sunburst’s honesty was a gift she never took for granted. If he didn’t know, he would say so, if he did, he would explain with great detail everything that he knew. She was usually careful with this aspect of her friend, for his honesty never took into consideration her feelings—which had caused more than one fight between them—but still, Starlight took the chance to ask, for her grieving heart scrambled for anything to hold on to:

“…but once you find it, you will come back, right?”

Sunburst smiled in the low light of the drifting stars, giving her hoof a reassuring squeeze. “Yes, I promise.”

---

Starlight woke up to the worst pain she’d ever been in her life without the luxury of forgetting the events of the night before.

Her head throbbed dully and pricks of pain shot up Starlight’s leg with every twitch of her muscles, but a sense of urgency and duty cut through the fog of grogginess that wrapped around her brain. Twilight had trusted her—saved her—and Celestia only knows what happened after that, but the worst-case scenario could very well be true. Starlight gritted her teeth and sat on the bed, fighting against the dizziness that threatened to push her down. She would not let Twilight’s sacrifice be in vain.

“Wow, hey, you can’t move yet!”

A pair of hooves pushed her down and Starlight was embarrassed by the little strength this pony needed to do so, still, she fought, waving her hooves about to get this pony off her. “Ma’am! I’m trying to help you—ouch! How can you be so strong!? I put enough morphine in you to sedate a galactic elephant!”

Starlight blinked and her vision finally focused on the room around her, and the unicorn mare glaring daggers at her. What she first noticed was her thick glasses, hastily taped together and with one of the lenses cracked, over sharp purple eyes that looked down at her unflinchingly. Her coat was a soft cream color and with her red hair gathered messily in a bun at the top of her head, there was an intellectual air about her, but Starlight was sure that she was no doctor or healer, judging by her bedside manners.

“Is this how ponies of the colonies greet each other?” The mare huffed, her horn glowing as she picked up a basket of supplies from the floor.

“Where am I?” Starlight asked, her voice hoarse and tongue dry.

“At the hospital,” the mare answered curtly, with her back to her as she messed with something on one of the many shelves that lined the wall. “You got a private room and everything, only the best for her Highness after all!”

Starlight’s eyes drifted from the mare’s back to the room around her. Just by the number of unopened crates, boxes, and bags that littered the floor around her, the room looked more like a storage closet than anything else. Rusty walls had lost their metal shine decades ago, along with the glass on the two windows of the room. One was above her bed, boarded up with just enough gaps between the planks to let the sun stream in and shine a spotlight on the dust particles in front of her, and the other by the door, also boarded up with scrap wood and tattered curtains for “privacy.” There was a plastic cup with a straw to her right, set up over a metal crate as a makeshift nightstand, Starlight reached for it with her magic and took a cautious sip of it, then drank more fully when she realized that it was plain water, downing the liquid in just a few gulps.

“Excuse me, huh…”

“Moondancer.”

“Moondancer, where am I, is this Equus?”

“Oh my Luna, you really are messed up in the head!” The mare laughed hard enough that she had to grab onto the shelf for support, once she got a hold of herself she continued. “Unfortunately, this is Trojan L5, the only populated planet of this sector of the galaxy…yeah, I would make that face too if I found out I landed here.”

There was heavy thumping coming from the hallway that grew louder until the door to the room opened with a hiss and a metallic moan that startled Starlight. A pony stumbled in, his metallic hooves heavy against the stone floor, and he looked at her with one organic eye and one synthetic, both of them wide open as his jaw slackened in an expression that mirrored hers. Over the years she had imagined this reunion to the point of rumination, she pictured fanfare and celebration, a happily ever after like the stories Twilight would tell her, all that crashed and burned inside her mind, leaving her feeling cheated, sitting on the uncomfortable thin mattress as she stared at her long lost friend. Or what was left of him.

Moondancer cleared her throat. “Hey, I got like a million things I need to do, so…”

“Huh, yeah, thanks, I, I’ll take over from here.” Sunburst stuttered.

Moondancer shrugged and headed for the door. “By the way, you might want to double-check her, she woke up asking if she was in Equus.” She said with a giggle before closing the door behind her.

Unpleasant as the mare was, Starlight almost wished she stayed, being alone with Sunburst now was its own kind of unpleasantness. She tried to get out of bed and instantly regretted it as a flare of pain shot that idea down. Sunburst was instantly by her side, moving faster than a normal pony should, especially one that she recalled beating in various races growing up.

“Here, let me just—”

“No, don’t touch it, I don’t want—” Starlight swatted his hooves away from the morphine drip, their hooves made contact and the sound of flesh and bone against metal rang like a hollow bell. Starlight flinched, and Sunburst jumped back as if burned.

She rubbed her hoof, her eyes wide and curious as she stared at her old friend. She was surprised she recognized him at all, the last time she saw him he had been only a colt of twelve, tall for his age, but scrawny and awkward in his growing body. She remembered his youthful features and the way he put on a brave face as he, his parents, and his sister boarded the ship that would take them across the galaxy and away from the Ark. The image of him waving at her until the doors of the ship sealed shut had been burned to her memory for fifteen years.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Sunburst said hastily, pulling a small bag from his cloak and handing it to her. “It’s not much, but it’s nutritious and should help you feel better.” He saw her empty cup and snatch it, pulling out a canteen and filling it up with a dark red liquid. “This will also help.”

His hair was still the same shade of red she remembered, but it was longer and hung over his left eye—the synthetic one—as he dipped his head to fill her cup. His yellow coat was duller than the colt in her memories and he had grown a beard, thick and red, that hid most of his features from her gaze. His cloak also did a good job of hiding the extent of his new mechanical modifications, but as far as she could tell, all four of his limbs had been replaced.

He placed the cup on the nightstand and Starlight looked away, opening the bag and pulling out objects that looked like food. She started with a red glossy sphere and after a momentary hesitation, took a cautious bite of it. The skin broke with a satisfying crunch and a sweet fluid leaked down her chin, catching Starlight by surprise. It kicked started her hunger and she ate ravenously, finishing the sweet treat in only a few bites. She would have eaten the rest of the food in the same manner, had she not caught Sunburst staring at her with an amused expression.

Starlight blushed. “It’s rude to stare.”

“Sorry,” Sunburst said with a chuckle. “I forgotten how difficult it is to have fresh fruit in the Ark, you probably never had an apple before.”

“There were talks about creating an orchard but—” Starlight froze, the memories of screaming, explosions, and the image of the slumped bodies of those she called family made it hard to breathe, much less talk. “But now…”

Sunburst grabbed the nearest empty crate and used it as a makeshift chair, taking a seat next to her, he spoke in a very gentle voice. “Starlight, what happened?”

She swallowed thickly and, somehow, managed to speak around the lump of grief in her throat without choking. She told him about her last day at the Ark, how she woke up and had her usual breakfast of protein porridge and vitamin juice (it was incredibly bland when compared to the food Sunburst brought her), how she helped her father with his research (he was getting on in years, his arthritis was starting to bother him), how she met up with Minuet and Harper for some gossip (that’s where she heard about the upcoming orchard), followed by her training with Twilight.

It had been so normal, so mundane, that when the Ark shook and the lights flickered, she didn’t think much of it—the Ark was old, something was always breaking, malfunctioning, or leaking—but then the sirens wailed, heralding the end of her life as she knew it.

But worse than the sirens was the change in Twilight’s expression. Her teacher was as old as the Ark, if not older, it seemed nothing bothered her or worried her, but Starlight saw, for the briefest second, a look of genuine fear on the alicorn’s features before her expression hardened and she told Starlight to run, ignoring her protests and questions.

After that, it was all a blur. Grogar’s forces had siege the starship and laid waste to its interior. Starlight heard the screams, witnessed ponies running for safety only to be shot down by a barrage of lasers and gunpowder, and saw the mercenaries blocking the path ahead only to be swept away by Twilight’s magic. The way their bodies had crumpled with just a wave of Twilight’s horn would be forever etched in her nightmares.

And then, just as it seemed that the worst was over, he appeared.

“You saw Grogar?” Sunburst asked, surprised and a little frightened. “He never leaves his battleship, some don’t even believe he’s real…”

“Well, it looked like him, or as the rumors describe him at least.”

Some twenty years ago, around the time she was born, the rumors of a small mercenary group had reached the Ark, and when Starlight turned five years old, the gossip turned into fearful murmurs as this group gain more and more power over the galaxy, turning into a genuine threat that Twilight took seriously. The leader of this group was described as a “ram”, an ancient creature that once lived in the mountains of the fabled Equus, a race many had thought extinct, for no one had seen one in a thousand years.

She shuddered as she recalled just the amount of raw magic that emanated from the curl of his horns, his glowing red eyes that barely acknowledged her as he stalked towards Twilight, who had spread her wings in defiance and warning, shielding Starlight from his sight. The amount of magic they displayed was suffocating and she had never felt so helpless and small, like a drifting asteroid caught between two black holes, threatening to pulverize her if she made the wrong move.

Starlight took a sip of the red liquid Sunburst offered her and grimaced. Ugh, medicine, just as she suspected. “Twilight flew into a rage when she saw him, so whoever he was, he was important.”

Sunburst nodded, putting a hoof to his beard, stroking it pensively. “What happened after that? How did you escape?”

“We managed to escape him and then we went to the hangar,” Starlight looked down at her cup, trying not to cry. “I thought Twilight would be coming with me, but when I boarded the ship she…” Starlight reached for her chest with a tinge of panic, only to sigh quietly when she felt the stone underneath her robe. “She stayed behind, to stop Grogar, I think, next thing I know I landed here and you know the rest,” she shifted in her bed to face him, noticing with some relief that the pain in her leg had lessened considerably. “How long was I sleeping? Did you find any other survivors?”

“You have been unconscious for two days,” Sunburst nodded towards her forehead, which was covered in bandages, “you had a pretty bad concussion, but luckily the beacon you used helped us find you in time, as for survivors…I’m sorry, we haven’t found any pony else.”

“Oh…”

He put a hoof on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “But that doesn’t mean that no one else escaped, have a little fate.”

For a moment, it felt like they were back in the Ark, with him comforting her after a long day of magic lessons that she failed horribly. Starlight smiled covering his hoof with her own. His metal hoof was warm and smooth to the touch, shimmering in the sunlight. She could feel every scratch and dent on it, some she assumed were earned by everyday use, others, like the long scratch that had been welded together crudely, concerned her greatly.

“Sunburst, what about you? What happened after you left?”

She regretted her words as soon as Sunburst pulled his hoof away. His smile faded and he looked away, examining his mechanical hooves as an excuse to avoid her eyes. “A lot…”

The awkwardness returned, filled with a thousand unanswered questions that made the silence all the worse. Even if he had been open to her questions she wouldn’t even know where to start, or if she even wanted answers. After everything she saw in the Ark, it wasn’t hard to believe that the worst had befallen him and his family, with only Sunburst alive to tell the tale.

The sound of the door opening startled them both and Sunburst jumped to his hooves. “Shining, wait! She needs more time!”

“Sorry, it’s out of my hooves.” The stallion said. He was tall, muscular, and would have been considered handsome if not for the bags under his eyes and his dirty blue mane and tail, which were in desperate need of a wash. He was dressed from head to hoof in dark armor, with a shiny blaster gun that was just as big as her strapped to his side, which Starlight eyed nervously.

“Boss wants to see her.”