Her eyes drifted open. Then they glanced toward Twilight's throne. Then they snapped awake. She's gone, Starlight thought, weighed down by a faint feeling of dread and bleariness. As she stood up, cramped and stiff from sleeping on the throne room's floor, the unicorn wondered where her mentor had wandered off to. Sighing, Starlight cracked her neck. Her gaze wandered over to a gently snoring Ani, who had agreed to take turns watching Twilight with her, just in case the Princess woke up and/or puked. "It'll be just like old times," the brown stallion had exclaimed.

"You used to take turns watching Princesses sleep?" Starlight Glimmer had asked.

"No, silly! I used to sleep on cold floors, like these ones. Well, not like these - mine had a lot more splinters -"

"Whoa, wait," the mare had interjected, blinking in surprise, "why were you sleeping on floors?"

Ani huffed out his chest and said "Because I lived in the most terrible rump-wart known to pony-kind: an orphanage. A crowded one, too. Oh, look at your face, Starlight! I'm just full of surprises, now, aren't I? I can tell you all about it later, but you planned on sleeping, right-" his friend had nodded "- all righty-tighty-flighty, then, let's sleep!"

So she'd gone to sleep, determined to tackle the upcoming problems with fresh eyes. Fresh eyes, however, did not prepare her for the scene she was greeted with outside. In the soft morning sunlight, a cluster of confused, perturbed ponies were crowded around a confused, perturbed Princess of Friendship. When Starlight burst onto the castle's doorstep, the townsponies barely took a moment to look at her before continuing to jabber at Twilight Sparkle. The alicorn backed away from the onslaught of ponies, only to have them inch forward. Then, bizarrely, one of her wings sprung out horizontally and whacked the pony next to her. Starlight Glimmer lunged forwards and placed herself between the Princess and the group. Then she fried under their gazes for a few seconds because she hadn't planned on what to say next. The complaining had died down; everypony was looking at her expectantly. Her mouth started working again before her brain did:

"Hello, everypony. If we could all please give each other a few measures of personal space -" the mob backed away from Twilight "- Excellent! Thank you. Now, who wants to kindly explain why you're all harassing the Princess of Friendship?"

The Princess' purple ear had flicked uneasily at the mention of her title. Why - no, not now. You're doing great, Starlight. Keep going. Once the unicorn had realized what she was saying, it was easy to figure out the rest of what she wanted to do. So the reformed villain patiently, pleasantly stared down the congregation until one of them - Harpa? No, no, um... Lyra - spoke up: "We're here because we had appointments. Twilight was going to give us friendship advice. Well, I had an appointment, anyway-"

"So did I!" a yellow unicorn declared from the crowd. Two other ponies raised their hooves.

"- and Bon-Bon is just here to support me. I mean," Lyra said as she scanned the ponies around her, "it looks like a lot of friends are here, too."

Twilight Sparkle shifted away from her pupil, who let her go. Starlight hadn't realized she'd been keeping a protective hoof on the purple mare. Then the lavender-eyed unicorn cleared her throat and addressed the townsfolk: "Well then! It looks like you all learned a valuable lesson about supporting your friends. Two ponies are more powerful than one and that power can be used to stress and scare your Princess, so maybe don't freaking do that, ok?" A quick look at the crowd told her that nopony was happy with this. "Ok! Great lesson," Starlight Glimmer proclaimed, leading the alicorn back into the castle.

"I don't think that's going to help me," Lyra said, her brow quirked with skepticism.

"What are you talking about? That," Starlight replied, backing through the castle's doors, "was an excellent lesson. You were lucky to get it. It'll have to do for now. Spread the word; that's the only friendship lesson anypony is getting until... Until sometime! Goodbye!"

The towering golden door was magically held open for the two mares. Starlight Glimmer saw Solar Moon standing nearby. How long has he been there, she thought, just standing in the doorway..? "Thanks," she told him.

"Make no mention of it," he replied, closing the doors. The unicorn mare's eyes rested on the saddlebags at his side.

"Leaving so soon?" Starlight made no attempt to hide the irritation in her voice. Last night, as Solar Moon and Ani helped her clean the soup off of Twilight's passed-out head, the gold stallion had revealed that he'd left some spells in the library.

"A spell? Was it," she'd asked, "by any chance, a spell that swaps a pony's past and present self?"

"That was one of them, yes," he affirmed. Starlight's features had drooped with the most exasperated look in Equestria. She didn't talk much for the rest of the night.

So it shouldn't have come as a surprise when she, seeing him ready to leave, said: "I guess you're the kind of stallion who leaves a mess for others to clean up?"

A pained look danced across Solar Moon's face. "No, of course not," he said. "I simply had not realized that there was a mess to begin with. I apologize. It should have been obvious. You cast Quasar's spell, did you not?"

"On accident," Starlight Glimmer said, nodding. Seriously? He's only just realizing this?

"And that is why the Princess was acting so strangely," the stallion murmured. He met the mare's steely gaze. "I - I will assist you in any way that I can," Solar Moon said solemnly. "That is, if you will accept my help."

The spellcaster mulled over her options. It would be a pain to have more ponies involved with this. And I can't shake this feeling... In a softer tone, the unicorn mare said: "Honestly, I'll need all the help I can get. And that spell. It'll take much longer to undo it if I don't know where to start."

Then she turned to Twilight Sparkle, intending to ask if she was ok. Oh. Spike had run up to the alicorn while Starlight wasn't looking. They were hugging. Twilight looked extremely unsettled, almost scared. Spike didn't seem to know what was wrong with her, but he hugged anyway. Noticing the ex-villain's look, Twilight chose to speak up: "You cast a spell on me?"

Starlight Glimmer sighed. She had a lot of explaining to do.


"La-la-la!"

Pinkie Pie's singsong voice rang out happily as she trotted out of Sugarcube Corner. What a great day it is today! A day of sunshine! The smell of dew! It's a great day and not a weird one. She thought that a baby's cry had woken her up, which would've been weird because she didn't live near babies. But that couldn't have happened! So it was a great day, a brand new day full of smiles. She had a lot to do today - orders to fill, a delivery here and there, and maybe even a party, if there was still time! She had all her tasks perfectly memorized. First, though, the party pony needed taffeta. Old Geri ordered cupcakes, and he always liked to have the box lined with taffeta. I never asked him why he likes it that way, did I? Maybe, she thought, he pretends it's a little ocean with sea ponies at the bottom. Why are sea ponies called hippocampi? Does that mean that a hippocampus is the word for one sea pony, which also part of my brain? Oh my goodness! I have a sea pony in my brain... Pinkie's train of thought carried her and her clear blue gaze about town, only pausing to bring up a pony's mood here and there.

A few hours later, the cupcakes were done and Pinkie Pie was off to deliver them. She hummed a lighthearted tune and sang, "Off to the Old Pony's Home to drop off lots of cupcakes!" Soon, she came to her destination and rapped on the door. "Hel-loooo," she called, "Geri! I've got your cupcakes!"

Chelsea Porcelain, another one of the Home's residents, answered the door. "Pinkie Pie, child," the mare creaked, "we weren't expecting you."

"Oh?" Pinkie replied in puzzlement. "But Geri always orders cupcakes for the entire Home! Wha- what..."

Porcelain cut her off with a distinctly sharper tone: "This is some kind of prank, then? Miss Pie, I thought you had boundaries. Of all ponies, I thought you knew when to draw the line. I'm - I'm quite - Oh! Good day, Miss Pie." With that, the old mare slammed the door.

Pinkie stared at the door with wide blue eyes, wondering what she'd done wrong. A muffled voice from the other side of the door could be heard: "Chelsea! Chelsea, was that Pinkamena? Oh..? Oh dear."

Mr. Waddle opened the door a crack and poked his spotted, wrinkly head out. "Pinkamena, dear," he said. His eyes were dim with sadness. "I know you're scatterbrained sometimes, child, but... Geri is dead. And so you can understand why... Why Chelsea would react..."

"Oh," Pinkie said, her voice cracking a little. "W-when did this..?"

"Child," the elder stallion replied, aghast. "It was just last month. How could you forget?"


"You're absolutely, posi-toot-ly sure this isn't dangerous?"

The sounds of the Everfree forest followed the unicorn trio as they made their way amongst the dank, dark tree trunks. An earthy smell emanated from the compost underhoof. "For the sixth time, Ani," Starlight Glimmer groaned, "I'm sure! Twilight and her friends go in here all the time. But you keep asking and that keeps making me less sure!" For Celestia's sake, she thought, it's only been two minutes, if that!

"It shouldn't make you less sure if you're sure, for sure," Ani stage-whispered.

"As juvenile as he is, Ani has a point," Solar Moon quipped, deadpan.

"Not you too," Starlight said, half-laughing and half moaning into the cool air.

Starlight Glimmer had decided to scour the library in the Castle of the Two Sisters first, since its books were more varied and ancient. If push came to shove, the spellcaster would probably ask for permission to enter the Canterlot Archives. But it hadn't quite come to that yet, so she intended to work with what she had. At the moment, what she had was a couple of unicorns and a spell gone wrong. I've been worse off, the mare thought wryly. Suddenly, she remembered what Ani had said about living in an orphanage. "Hey, Ani," Starlight said to the stallion behind her, "what were you going to tell me earlier, about the orphanage? It's a long walk. A story might make it shorter."

"Oh, yeah," Ani said, "I was abandoned as a filly. I grew up in an orphanage."

There was a beat of silence. Starlight waited expectantly. A cricket started chirping nearby. A leathery bat swooped down and ate it.

"There were bullies, too," the brown stallion offered.

"Oh... Kay? Um," Starlight Glimmer said questioningly, stepping over a puddle. "That's it?"

"Yup!"

"I suppose this shall be a long walk, after all," Solar Moon sighed.

"I could tell you the story of how I got my Cutie Mark," Ani piped.

"Yes! Anything to distract from the weird smells we keep passing," the mare declared.

"How's that sound, Mister Moony," the brown unicorn asked, "wanna hear it?"

"Please, I am quite intrigued by this," the golden stallion replied. With that, Ani started speaking over the sound of crunching leaves and distant critters:

"All right! It all started because of those bullies that I mentioned. They were after me every day because I 'didn't have a Cutie Mark,' but you know how it is. They were bigger, I was little; they were older, I was a squirt. And they were jerks. Can't forget that part. They probably would've bullied me whether or not I had my mark. So," Ani said as he leapt over a mushroom, "I ran from them day after day until I found out about teleporting from a book. That would be the thing to stump them! I practiced teleporting when I could, but I couldn't seem to get it right. I started to feel all funny - dizzy, almost - when I got close. That wasn't good, but it didn't stop me from trying. Eventually, the day came. I was running from the bullies again and they cornered me. I panicked. I teleported! Sort of. The closest thing to it would be an advanced time travel spell, but you know what I'm talking about, right? My portals, my reality-jumping; my talent! That's when I discovered it."

"That's amazing," Starlight said under her breath.

"Right?" Ani replied, beaming at her. "Anyways, that first jump was really, um, violent. More like ripping through space time than slipping through. First I was in space, looking down at the world, then I was in something... There aren't any words for it yet. Don't worry! I'm careful not to cause any gravitational anomalies anymore. I ended up seeing a reality with humans in it! And Dan, Starlight; I think you'd like Dan. The pets in that world are a lot more interesting than Equestria's. Anyhow, I wrote down what I saw and felt when jumping realities and I was able to figure out a lot about how the multiverse works. And that's the story of how I got this baby!" At that last sentence, he tapped his flank. His Cutie Mark, five small galaxies encircling a bigger one, certainly seemed to support what he'd said.

The trio stopped in front of a chasm-spanning rope bridge. Out of curiosity, Solar Moon asked: "How long ago did this happen, Ani?"

"'Bout nine or ten years ago, I guess," the brown stallion answered. "And, uh, Solar Moon? My full name is Animated Universe. No offense, but it sounds weird when you use my nickname."

"Right, then," Moony replied with an awkward cough. "I only mention this because it would seem to coincide with the time I earned my Cutie Mark. I had calculated the path of a comet, you see, and I detected a gravitational anomaly shortly before everypony was due to see my discovery. If I hadn't accounted for it, my calculations would've been off and... Well, I might not have this on my flank."

"Hah," Starlight Glimmer said, sitting down on the gravel-laden grass. "I actually have some experience with comets ten years ago, too. I got my Cutie Mark when I destroyed a comet by shooting it with raw magic as it flew past. It folded itself down a dimension and... Ah, Solar? What's that look for?"

The stallion in question looked very unsettled, from his pinprick pupils to his scrunched up mouth. "Y-you," he sputtered, then managed: "Is that why I was never able to locate it again with a telescope?"

The mare's eyes widened. "Would it have appeared around May 4th..?"

Solar Moon face-hoofed. "Can you at least tell me why," he said dejectedly, "you were compelled to knock it into being two-dimensional?"

"Oh, um," Starlight said with a slight blush, "I was a blank flank for a long time, so these other fillies would tease me nonstop about it. One of them was a stargazer-talent and they made a big deal out of finding shooting stars for their friends to wish on. Well, one night, I saw that comet - that 'shooting star' - at the same time as they were wishing on it. So I thought it'd be funny to, you know, crush it out of this dimension."

"Cool," Ani whispered. Starlight Glimmer grinned in response. "I will never forget their faces," she laughed.

"Let's just get on with this," Solar Moon said irritably, striding across the bridge.


A/N: All constructive feedback is highly appreciated! This was, again, released in a rush.

Animateduniverse, I hope I did a good job of retelling your character's backstory. This was the best way I could think of to make it fit in with the rest of the narrative.

Thanks for reading and bye for now ^_^