When Night Glider awakens, she feels no sorrow for the breakup of last night.

When she gets up and stares in the mirror, brushes her mane, monotonously scrubs the toothbrush back and forth across her teeth, there is barely a spark in her eyes. In her past life, she would’ve looked at the towel and remembered how her partner would casually throw it across the room, landing perfectly on the rack each time.

In her past life, Night Glider was a passionate lover. She would dance across the evening skies, painting streaks of brilliant whites and blues in devotion to her partner, and together they would laugh and grow close to each other. Today, Night Glider cannot remember his name.

She forgives herself for forgetting. Life is easier without hard feelings like regret, heartbreak, and loneliness.

And yet, there is a part deep inside her that stirs. She cannot acknowledge it consciously, but it forms a single butterfly, fluttering in her chest, waiting to be set free.

Should she set it free, or should she let it be? It’s not a choice she, or anypony else, has had to make in a long time—it is a strange, strange feeling.

Right on cue, there is a knock on her door.

She wipes her face one last time and sets the towel down in her own way and opens the door without anxiety. None that she recognizes, at least.

On the other side is a pink-purple mare with a parted mane. She seems confident, self-assured—feelings Night Glider was sure were devoured in the Nothining.

In her past life, Night Glider would have considered the mare nothing more than a charlatan and told her to slink off with the rest of the weasels. But Night Glider is disoriented and desperate and so she lets the mare speak.

“Hi,” says the mare, “my name is Starlight Glimmer. You seem lost. Would you like to join my village?”

==

Hear us, O Moon, and have mercy, because we have sinned against Thee.
- Equestrian Lullaby

==

Tired. Starlight Glimmer is feeling tired.

The magical process of indoctrinating Night Glider into Our Town is not difficult. Starlight Glimmer is a one-in-a-million unicorn, and the spell to extract her cutie mark is not a difficult one.

Even the process of having transported Glider from town to town, avoiding the suspicious glances of other ponies was not difficult. It is a trip Starlight has taken many times, and she understands the other ponies do not have the capacity to act any further than that.

And yet, Starlight Glimmer is tired. With reluctance, she acknowledges that as always, the process has taken a toll on her. Watching the confusion and doubt and yearning slip from Night Glider’s eyes as she succumbs to bliss is…

Starlight quiets her horn. No, she could not. She had a duty to serve, as much as her body desperately wished to cast the cutie-removal spell upon herself.

With a soft sigh, she splashes water on her back, rubbing off the faux cutie mark she carefully paints on every day. It’s past dark, though some of the candlelight in the distance still flickers as ponies linger beside their bedroom windows. Above, the moon beams brightly, and though it already increased significantly in size during the Nothining, Starlight swears it grows larger every day still.

Like every night, Starlight Glimmer watches by her windowside too, watching as the world goes to sleep again.

Somewhere, a clock strikes midnight, and all of Equestria begins to sing.

To Thee, highest Queen,
Redeemer of all,
do we lift up our eyes
in weeping:
Hear, O Luna, the prayers
of your servants.

Starlight knows that to many ponies, such a song brings sweet release, but to her, it always brings a sense of mourning. Every day, she sees so many ponies experience hurt and pain. It is a tragedy that Luna had to sacrifice so much in order to bring peace to Equestria, and that despite her utmost efforts the ponies experienced tragedy still.

She spots a shooting star, and makes a wish.

As her lips silently whisper a prayer of her own, tears trickle down her face. If Luna could hear her, like she did all the other ponies, maybe Starlight wouldn’t need to govern over Our Town as her own personal catharsis. Maybe she, like all the other ponies, could be free.

And with that, the last candle in the distance extinguishes, and Starlight closes her blinds, tucks herself into bed, and falls asleep.

==

Somewhere deep in the night sky, the shooting star continues its streaky path. Somewhere embedded deeply in the heart of Canterlot Castle, an alicorn fidgets, perturbed by a feeling it cannot quite identify, but relates so deeply with.

And so, Starlight Glimmer, a mare who has never experienced fantasy, begins to dream for the first time in her life.

==

Hear us, O Moon, and find mercy, because thou have sinned against We.

==

At first, there is nothing, like there always is.

Then, a barren wasteland, devoid of life, dead grass rustling with the dusty breeze.

Then, a jungle, an empire, kingdoms risen and fallen in the span of a thought.

At the end, Starlight finds herself in Sire’s Hollow. She sees Little Starlight playing in the fields with the pony whose name she sought so badly to banish from her mind—how enviously had she seen Night Glider forget her own partner’s name so easily.

Sunburst.

His fur is as bright as his name. In the dream, and in Starlight’s memories, he radiates vigor, intelligence, passion with intensity Starlight has never seen before.

She remembers how much they enjoyed each other’s company, and in the dream world, she is free to live and relive her memories without regret, watching their lives play out like acts in a stage play. They study together, compete together, share together, and Starlight gives and receives freely.

Yet, she is afraid. As time progresses in her dream, it points toward her past, and filly Starlight’s future. Worry wells up in her chest and she begs the dream to end right there, so she can wake up and dream it again tomorrow.

The dream does not end. In the dream, and in her life, Sunburst disappears. He says he has to go even though Starlight doesn’t really know why, and he steps on the train to Canterlot one last time and leaves Starlight chasing dust and hopes and dreams until the meaning of the word “Sunburst” in her mind warps so thoroughly that some nights, she cannot help but scream it over and over—Sunburst, Sunburst, Sunburst—as if the louder she pours it from her body, the faster it will leave her for good.

As the dream reaches its finale, Starlight weeps for her lost friendships and the things that could have been. Sire’s Hollow fades into nothing but an ethereal, abstract structure as the land warps back into kingdoms, empires, jungles, and barren wasteland once again.

And soon, back into nothing.

But, a voice rings out from the skies. It booms authoritatively, yet with kindness, grace, and sympathy.

“Starlight Glimmer, do you wish to be saved?”

==

Right hoof of the Mother,
corner-stone,
way of salvation,
gate of heaven,
wash away our
stains of sin.

==

As far as Starlight knows, the Nothining occurred not many years after Sunburst left for Canterlot.

She was still much in her own head, then, and not up to date with the affairs of Equestria, but from what she’s picked up over the years, she’s formed a tale in her head.

One day, the sky went dark and a mystical beast known as Nightmare Moon descended from the skies and terrorized the ponies for a night. Yet, it was challenged and bested by a group of brave warriors who reformed the Nightmare and banished her from Equestria.

In her place stood a new pony: Luna. And though Equestria returned back to its near-idyllic state, Luna could not help but notice the cracks in society as they eroded the lives of the down-trodden and tempest-tossed.

But more than ever, she could not forgive herself for having been consumed by the Nightmare. In place of her former pride and wrath lay a new sense of penance and shame, and though she could heal the wounds of other ponies night by night, she could not repair her own self, as hard as she tried.

Thus, while nopony knew how the Nothining exactly happened, one night, all ponies found themselves in a shared tumultuous sleep. That night, something had happened, and when everypony woke up, there was no more to worry about, no more to pine about, no more to dream about except for the bliss that followed when Luna removed all their stress within the span of a dream.

==

“Starlight Glimmer, do you wish to be saved?”

Around her, the dream is beginning to collapse.

Chunks of sky and earth collapse into void, leaving nothing behind but black. A vortex begins to swirl in the cloudy sky, intensifying around Starlight as she squints from the beams of light that seep from it.

The vortex terrifies her—it’s a storm of proportions ponies would only refer of in the Equestria of old—and yet, something in her tells her not to be afraid. The voice is strong, stronger than Starlight’s.

She recognizes that the voice is Luna’s, and that Luna is here to grant her wish at last.

So, as the world continues to crumble around her, Starlight takes a leap of faith into the vortex and finds herself sucked in, deeper and deeper, as the world around her vanishes in a flash of black and white.

==

We beseech Thee, Moon,
in Thy great majesty:
Hear our groans
with Thy holy ears:
calmly forgive
our crimes.

==

In her dream within a dream, Starlight Glimmer is blind.

She has no eyes to see with, no mouth to speak with, no chest to breathe with. As she floats in ephemeral space, she finds herself feeling more like a concept than a solid pony.
Yet, wherever she is, she also finds she’s able to move around to and fro. Without her own form, somehow she can travel more fluidly, express herself more freely.

And because it’s Starlight’s first time in such a place, after she gets over her initial sense of shock, a new feeling begins to take its place: curiosity.

There are other orbs of life surrounding her, and she does not fear before venturing into them. With each one, she enters a new world, a different place in Equestria, seen through a different set of eyes each time.

Starlight realizes that these are memories—memories of other ponies.

There is one of two sisters who cannot get along, and yet find a way to compromise and understand each other. Another of a shy mare reluctantly thrust into the spotlight, obligated by a friend, yet finally able to express her true feelings. Another of a little dragon desperate to find recognition among his own peers, and who yet finds peace among his place in ponykind.

The memories are comforting and encouraging. But between each positive lasting memory, she finds ten more.

The sight of a young mare scorned by her peers, only able to find peace in isolation. Of a shy stallion unable to confess to his marefriend, and his marefriend unable to confess to him. Of a griffon grown in poverty among Equestria’s outskirts, outcast and stuck in the mud no matter how hard they tried. Of a newly minted alicorn, struggling with the weight of having abandoned her old friends, and unable to save her new ones.

Her own memories came streaming back to her. Her sense of shock, and loss, and betrayal. Her own guilt at creating Our Town to escape her past, and yet taking the cutie marks of others again and again to try and find resolution within herself. There is one word that rings out in her mind again and again. She is guilty, guilty, GUILTY.

She wants it to end so badly and cries out for Luna like a lost foal seeking her mother and soon there is a blue wing that wraps around her little bubble and hushes her and says everything will be okay.

Luna sings.

Hear us, O Moon, and have mercy, because we have sinned against Thee.

As she does, Starlight finds there is a strange sucking sensation. Wisps of something wrap around her and take parts of her away. Slowly, she begins to lose feeling, like the rest of the ponies. She thanks Luna for saving her.

Yet, as she notices the sorrow leave her body, she notices there is much more that goes, as well.

With a little whoosh, all her memories begin to fade.

Starlight gasps as she begins to forget how she first met Sunburst, how they’d become friends so quickly and planned to have fun like this forever. Some part of her doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want to stop feeling. Even as the Nothining begins to claim her completely, whether by instinct or desperation, she moves her little ethereal body away from the black hole pulling everything toward its mournful center.

By chance, as she swims against the rising current, she hops into another memory.

In it, a little colt watches his friend disappear into a speck of dust on the train as he rides into Canterlot. He is confused and doesn’t know what’s happening too. Starlight watches as he grows into a more and more isolated stallion, living with his own regret and shame and thoughts of what could have been, before those thoughts were sucked here into the Nothining.

Starlight realizes these are the memories of Sunburst.

For all these years, he had missed her, too.

And so with one final shout, she thrusts herself into these memories and even though she is sucked into the Nothining before falling into a deep slumber, the last thing she feels is hope.

==

Princess Luna shivers as the ball of Starlight’s memories enters her own core. It was not the first set of memories she’d claimed for the night, and yet part of her still hungered for more.

Nay, she could not say it was a part of her any longer.

But it knew every part of her, every insecurity and flaw and even as she felt the chill of Starlight’s feelings spread over her, it taunted her and punished her, as she had designed it to.

Its purple tendrils reached far beyond her own being, wrapping her in a veil of solemnitude. You are not worthy, it said. You are imperfect and miserable and you deserve every punishment you get, every bad feeling you absorb.

Thus was the Tantabus that Luna had created, which had caused the Nothining. Within her own deepest recesses, she’d buried her own feelings and sacrificed the rest of her body toward gathering those of all the creatures of Equestria and beyond so that they’d never feel inconsolable pain and regret as she once had.

Luna had felt what everypony else had felt. It was her duty, her penance to do so.

But, as she peered through Starlight’s memories one final time before incorporating them too, there was something else she felt.

Hope, and forgiveness.

Hear us, O Moon, and have mercy, because we have sinned against Thee.

Luna realizes that though she’s heard the lyrics so many times, and sung them so many times herself, she’s been meaning to say it to herself all this time, too.

She remembers all the times she’d spent with Celestia so many moons ago. How they’d always looked out for each other, been there for each other, raised the sun and moon together.

Once, she thought Celestia would never forgive her for turning into Nightmare Moon. She remembered the shock and horror on the other ponies’ faces as she’d returned, like she was some kind of unwanted wretch.

Hope, and forgiveness.

It blossomed within her heart, and not long after, Starlight’s memories and Night Glider’s memories and Sunburst’s memories began to escape, and in the mornings, they would find themselves with a renewed sense of strength, and a new desire to connect with their friends.

For the first time in a long, long time, Princess Luna smiled, and the Tantabus began to cease.