The Education of Clover the Clever

by Daedalus Aegle

Rating: everyone
Tags: Clover the Clever, Random, Slice of Life, Alternate Universe, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Starswirl the Bearded
Length: 162087

Some people think lectures and classes are for educating. Star Swirl the Bearded has no patience for those people.

Now available in print from Lulu.com! Hardcover - Paperback.

(New readers, unsure where to start? Anywhere works, but The Education of Clover the Clever is the best.)

Clover Cordelia is a freshmare student at the Cambridle Academy of Magic who is determined to become a great sorceress.

Star Swirl the Bearded is a legendary wizard in need of an apprentice.

It's a tough job, working for the world's greatest wizard. On top of the usual challenges of student life there are apocalypses to deal with, and assassins who show up at inconvenient times, and plant life scheming for world conquest.

It's probably nothing Star Swirl can't take care of, provided he and Clover manage to resist killing each other first.

Previously updated alongside its prequel, The Crown of Night. It is not necessary to read The Crown of Night first.

Featured on Equestria Daily!
Featured on the Royal Guard!

Cover art by iisaw.

"Characterization is the name of the game here, and this story's take on Star Swirl is one of the most enigmatic and intriguing I've seen. His eccentricity is offset perfectly by his straight mare, Clover the Clever, and the interactions between them are a joy to behold."
-Prak, PR for the Royal Guard.

Rated "Why Haven't You Read These Yet?" by PaulAsaran. Twice!

Weird praise for The Education of Clover the Clever from the comments:

"........The sadist in me is grinning while the student is screaming it's little lungs out :pinkiecrazy::raritydespair:"
-Smirkythread.

"I can't tell if he's insane or not. And it's glorious."
-FancyFan.

"I am unsure if this is merely silly and deranged or subtly brilliant."
-SIGAWESOME.

"Ok, so I like this story. I actually like it quite a bit. I have no clue why though. Not a single clue.
I haven't a clue what you're doing right, but keep doing it. You're awesome."
-Vibrato con Amore.

Published 2013-07-14 01:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-10-26 21:06:01 UTC

Chapter 2: The Assistant

"I had nightmares for days," Clover's roommate Chocolate Bunnies said, shuddering. "I'm still trying to convince myself that the parchment isn't going to curl up around my neck and suffocate me. I am never going to his lectures again..."

Clover nodded, without really listening.

The two of them had known each other since they were fillies in Magic Kindergarten, and now they shared an apartment in Cambridle's Unity Hall, the oldest and most central of the university's dormitories. It had been almost a week since Professor Star Swirl the Bearded's lecture, and Clover had listened to her roommate's complaints almost every waking moment since. In the end, she had begun to tune them out. She did so now, as she sat down to look through the pile of letters and notices the two new students had received: introductory literature about the university, lecture plans, invitations to student gatherings, horn-enlargement scams, ads from countless merchants in the town selling all the equipment a student might need, and down on the bottom a slim envelope addressed to Clover herself. She flicked it open and began to read the note inside.

Your presence is hereby requested at...

"I look out the corner of my eye at something suspicious moving when I'm not looking at it, and it turns out to be my own hoof. I swear it has a mind of its own now, and is concocting some sort of diabolical master plan to usurp the Unicornsigliere..." Chocolate muttered.

"You're joking!" Clover erupted.

"No, I'm completely serious, I'm sure it's writing a detailed schematic of some kind of doomsday device when I sleep and hiding it somewhere," Chocolate said before Clover cut her off.

"I have a note from Star Swirl," Clover said. "He wants me to be his private student and research assistant!"

The color drained from Chocolate's face. "You're not gonna do it, though, right?"

"Of course I am! This is the opportunity of a lifetime!" Her mind turned. "Several lifetimes, actually. I think the last time there was something comparable was when Princess Celestia had five seconds to name someone to be the new ruler of the Crystal Empire and pulled a name at random from the census. But this is better! He picked me specifically!"

"Clover, calm down." Chocolate put a hoof on her shoulder and the other under her chin, and looked directly into her eyes. "This is a bad idea. He's crazy. You're my roommate, and I don't want to lose you! We don't know what kind of madness could result from this!"

"I'm sure Star Swirl has his magical work perfectly under control in his lab..."

"Who cares about his work? They'll give me another roommate!" Chocolate pulled her so close their faces were all but pressed together, and Clover saw terror in Chocolate's suddenly bloodshot eyes. "The last time I had a strange roommate, she tried to convert me to Discordianism! She replaced everything in the cooling box with exploding chocolate! Exploding chocolate, Clover!" Tears were streaming down her eyes. "Don't do this to me, I'm begging you! Don't make me go through that again...!"

"...The letter says I can keep my dorm," Clover said.

"Oh, good." Chocolate immediately relaxed and let her go. "In that case it's fine."

– – –

"Run, Clover!" Star Swirl the Bearded yelled to his trusted companion. "I shall hold off the rampaging pookas, you must return the crystal to the temple altar before the earthquake rips the continent apart!"

"I won't let you down, Professor!" Clover cried, as she galloped up the stone stairway to the top of the pyramid, huge slabs of stone falling on either side of her, threatening to bring her a gruesome death. Star Swirl trusted only her with this task, Clover thought as the statue of vengeful Resheph hove into view, his desecrated altar beneath him. She wasn't going to fail her mentor now.

"Really though," Chocolate Bunnies said, interrupting Clover's daydream for the tenth time in the past hour, "you actually want Star Swirl the Bearded as your teacher?"

Clover grumbled. Can't I at least get to the magical sword-fighting duel once?

"We've walked past a dozen utility shops," Chocolate said. "I haven't seen you this out of it in years. Weren't we supposed to be stocking up on supplies?"

Clover halted and looked around. Not five doors down was another likely-looking writing materials shop. "Let's try this place, then," she said. "Anyway, he's only the greatest unicorn alive, you know." A bell rang above the door as they entered. "You don't just turn down an invitation like that. So maybe he's a little... eccentric. You've met my parents. And my ex-coltfriend. And my other ex-coltfriend. I can handle high maintenance." They grabbed a load of assorted writing supplies and a few of the more useful-looking titles from a wall of shelves marked "Howe to Be a Ftudent", and brought them up to the counter. Clover had been trying and failing to contain her excitement ever since she read the note, and once again she erupted in a fangirly squeal and giant grin. "Star Swirl the bucking Bearded! I'm gonna learn magic from the pony who trapped a kraken in a prison made from cat's whiskers! This is going to be brilliant!"

"Wait," the unicorn colt behind the counter said. "Did you say Star Swirl the Bearded?"

"Yeah, he's just moved his house to the hill outside of town," Clover said happily. "I'm gonna be his personal student!" She practically clapped her hooves together in glee before she noticed the look in the colt's eyes. He looked like he had just seen a monster from his nightmares crawling in through the window. "...Is something wrong?"

"Paaaa!" the colt cried. "Star Swirl is back!"

There was a loud crash from the back room, like the sound of a bookshelf filled with glassware and books falling over, and an older unicorn appeared in the doorway, with the same look of horror on his face. "Did you say Star Swirl?" The colt nodded in a wildly exaggerated fashion. "Oh sweet Celestia... quick, hide the ink!" He disappeared into the back room, and soon emerged again with a huge bell held in his magical grip. He ran out onto the street, and Clover heard him ringing the bell loudly and yelling, "Star Swirl is coming! Star Swirl is coming!" at the top of his voice. In the meantime, the colt was quickly collecting every bottle of ink in the shop, packing them gently into boxes, and stacking the boxes into the wooden cabinets behind the counter. Then, he locked the cabinets with huge padlocks.

"Is there... um, is there a problem?" Clover asked meekly.

The colt nodded. "Go to the intersection of Mane Way and Saddle Road and look on the south-west corner. Read the sign. Now please excuse me, I have to move half the store's supply into the back room."

Ten minutes later, Clover and Chocolate arrived at the spot the shop colt had named. All along the way they had seen shopkeepers running madly back and forth, moving their wares and warning others, fearful cries of "Star Swirl is back!" filling the air. At the crossroads, there was a bronze sculpture of an inkwell with a feather quill dipped in it, and underneath it was a plaque which read:

IN MEMORY OF THE GREAT INK SHORTAGE OF THE YEAR 1731 APC

"THERE CAME STAR SWIRL FROM THE NORTH

AND THE BOOKS PLEASED HIM NOT

EVERY PAGE DRIPPED RED FROM HIS CORRECTIONS

AND IN HIS WAKE ALL WORK DIED

FOR THERE WAS NO INK TO WRITE WITH."

—Homare, The Swirliad.

"...That was a hundred years ago," Clover said. "How does anypony even remember this?" She glanced up at Chocolate Bunnies, who was staring at her right forehoof in a daze. When she saw Clover looking at her she immediately put it down. "Nevermind," Clover turned away, and looked down the street towards the hills on the edge of the town. "Take the stuff home, would you? I'm gonna go visit my new teacher."

– – –

Clover had never been up this way before, but the elevated location was visible from miles away, and the house itself was impossible to miss. It jutted out of a bare cliff face, seeming to defy gravity by resting sideways on the vertical rock, with no visible supports holding it up from the ground far below. A steep, rickety wooden stair, little more than a ladder, led up to the front door thirty feet up in the air. If that weren't enough, the house itself was also unmistakeable, or possibly indescribable. Far from the lofty, meticulously designed Hay Gothic stone architecture of Cambridle, Star Swirl's house was a mess of disparate elements seemingly stuck together by sheer force of magical will, as though the house had been cobbled together one room at a time as needed, made by whatever materials were convenient.

By the foot of the stair was a postbox, and a sign, which read:

STAR SWIRL the BEARDED, WIZARD.
Canterlot House 1.
Cantrips, Charms, Conjurations & Concoctions Available by Post.
Arcane Counsel by Appointment.
Etc.

Clover looked up at the house with her mouth hanging open. A great stone balcony, whose mass the wooden wall anchoring it could not possibly support, stuck out of the house's lowest level, with a large number of chimes, bells, ropes, random trinkets and elaborate charms of all levels of craft and sophistication hanging from the eaves above. Parts of the roof were thatch, parts were shingles, and parts appeared to be simply fabric stretched over gaping holes. There were windows in a dozen different designs, round, square, large and small, some pristine like the clearest, most sparkling of freshly cleaned crystal and others that looked like they had been found lying in a ditch and installed without cleaning.

Clover looked at it and saw fireworks. To another pony it might have seemed like a shambling mess. Clover disregarded the incongruous surface elements, however, and pondered the magical structure underlying it. In her mind's eye she imagined each line, each room and window being carefully planned to best harness the flow of magic through the earth's leylines, each windowpane a prism to guide and amplify its power. She climbed the ladder slowly, doing her best to ignore the creaking of the wood and the shudders that suggested, with every step, that it might collapse under her at any moment.

"This is really happening," she whispered to herself, awestruck. "I'm going to study magic under Star Swirl the Bearded!" She took another step up the rickety stair. "I'm going to have the inventor of the Amniomorphic Spell teaching me magic...! I'm going to have my style honed by the master of the Quadricorn school of arcane duelling! I'm going to have the greatest spellcaster alive examining my techniques and... looking at everything I do and... correcting... all... my... mistakes..."

Oh. Her grin finally faded as the reality of what she was doing began to set in. I, Clover the teenage unicorn freshmare, am about to enter the home of the greatest wizard in centuries and casually introduce myself.

Okay, so how do I do this exactly? What am I supposed to say? 'Heya, how's it going? You're my idol!' She scowled and shook her head violently. Not the time for stupid jokes, Clover. Be respectful. He's a professor. Sort of. He has students. Sort of. Treat him like you would any of your old teachers. Except none of my old teachers could turn me inside-out with a thought. Be polite. Be friendly. Hi, Professor, I'm Clover! No, no, too casual. Good day, Professor Star Swirl... do I say 'the Bearded'? It's probably safest, he was a royal advisor for years, he's used to rigid formality... How do you do, Professor Star Swirl the Bearded, I am Clover Cordelia, of House Cordelia... No, that's far too stilted...

She realized that she had reached the top of the staircase and was standing at the front door. She glanced in every direction, and looked over herself. Should I bow? Is my robe on straight? Is he going to complain about my posture? Think back to Miss Courtly Manners' classes... She shuddered. Okay, bad idea. Look to the future. No hesitation! She took a deep breath, raised a hoof and knocked on the door. The pincushion can't hurt you now, Clover. You're a big, strong mare and everypony should be overjoyed to make your acquaintance. Even Star Swirl the Bearded. You're the one that made it through his lecture, remember? You can do this! Even though he has more magic in his tail than you do in your whole body... Dammit, Clover, focus! He invited you here!

The door swung open to reveal Star Swirl, complete with his robe and hat, standing before her. "You invited me here!" Clover yelped in a high-pitched voice. "You're bearded!"

Clover suddenly felt like throwing up. It took all her focus to remain standing rather than turning and leaping off the ladder. Much as she wanted to raise her voice and try again, the best she managed was to remain still with a forced smile on her face, and ignored the fact that Star Swirl was staring at her with a blank expression, as though he were looking right through her.

– – –

Star Swirl had heard the knock on the door, and briefly glanced around the room. Content that everything was as it should be, he made for the front door and opened it, and quickly scanned the surroundings using a minor awareness-cantrip of his own design. In a split-second, he had detailed knowledge of every living thing in a hollow sphere one hundred meters thick, with a thousand-meter diameter centered on himself; assured that it contained nothing requiring his attention, the sphere shifted one hundred meters inwards, and so on repeatedly until finally it reached his immediate surroundings. Only then, once he had absorbed everything within one cubic kilometer around his house, did he notice Clover standing right in front of him with a carefully pleasant expression.

He was only vaguely aware that she had said something. It was, he immediately decided, nothing important. "Oh yes, the filly with the parsley in her mane. Come in."

Chapter 3: The Interview

"Welcome to Canterlot," Star Swirl the Bearded said as he showed Clover into his house.

"Thank you, sir," Clover said with rigid false cheer, trying desperately to discern the hidden meaning behind his words. There has to be a hidden meaning, after what I just said. He can't just let that slide. He can't possibly be that forgiving, can he? She dared to glance around the inside of the house. They had passed through an entrance hall, one that seemed to extend down to the left and right far longer than she would have thought possible from how the house looked on the outside, an entrance hall that was unlit and filled with copious amounts of crates and boxes, racks of assorted tools and construction materials, random architectural features (an arched portal lay flat on the floor beside several stone columns in different heights, thicknesses, and styles), bottles of ink lying in huge piles, what she assumed were souvenirs from distant lands (she saw what she was sure was a camel skull lying next to a giant bat wing on one shelf), and huge stacks of what could not charitably be called anything other than garbage. The whole room was thick with the smell of Prench perfume, for some reason Clover could not hope to discern.

Passing through the far door, Clover found herself in a pleasant, surprisingly normal sitting room. Star Swirl led her to a perfectly ordinary couch with crowded bookshelves covering the wall behind it, and had her sit. There was a tray with a pot of tea, and a selection of cups, no two alike. Star Swirl levitated the pot and poured two cups, placing one before Clover.

Star Swirl's cup was plain and square, and on the side was written 'World's Greatest Granddad'. "Oh, you have grandchildren?" Clover asked pleasantly.

"No," Star Swirl said, and glanced down at the cup. "I took this as a trophy from the Necroprancer, after I defeated him in his lair and broke all his magics." He sipped his tea. "I want to ask some questions. What's your name?"

"I'm Clover Cordelia, of—"

"Where are you from?"

"Whinnysor, my parents—"

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen. I—"

"Tell me about yourself."

Clover gritted her teeth. Her parents had put her through countless hours of etiquette training to prepare her especially for moments like this. She knew by heart the one hundred questions most likely to be asked by a prospective employer, and up to twenty different answers to choose from for each, depending on the circumstances. Now was her moment to shine, and she wasn't going to be rattled. "Well, sir, I was the top of my class at the Bleaton academy, and I got the top grade on the Cambridle entrance exam. I have a unicorn pedigree of strong magic going back over two hundred years, I started practicing magic at a very young age and I score as five years above my age on the SUTs. Beyond that, I'm a hard worker, I'm very friendly, I speak four languages and play three different musical instruments."

"Very good," Star Swirl said without enthusiasm. "Now tell me about somepony else."

Clover blinked. "What?"

Star Swirl didn't answer, and gave no indication that he had heard her. He was looking away, flipping through some papers. After several moments of tense silence he looked back. "Take your time," he said.

Clover said nothing, her mind on fire. After several seconds she decided to simply wait and see what the old stallion would do. He was writing down something, and nothing about his gestures or movements suggested he remembered she was even there. Eventually he nodded in satisfaction at what he had written, and looked back up at Clover, and asked as if nothing had happened, "Tell me about an important memory to you."

This question was not on the list of the top one hundred, but she adapted. "Well, one summer when I was a filly, my parents and I were visiting my elder brother in..." once again Clover noted that Star Swirl did not seem to be paying any attention. "In Celestalia, and we visited the Pontheon." She rattled off the story about her love and appreciation for history and art exactly as she had rehearsed it, and was gratified to find Star Swirl focusing on her again, hanging on her every word. She permitted herself a satisfied smile at the end of the story.

Once again he did not seem impressed. "All right then," he said. "You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise..."

– – –

There was a clock hanging on the wall directly above and behind Star Swirl's head. Because of this, Clover knew—to the second—how long the interview had lasted so far, and that it was three point four six eight eight eight times as long, so far, as the longest other job interview she had ever had. Furthermore, Clover knew that her experiences applying for work, extensive as befitted a young noble unicorn in need of an impressive resume, meant that she could calculate with some accuracy how far she deviated from the mean in terms of job interview length experience. Simply put, the interview had entered the category commonly designated "went on forever". The entire time, Star Swirl's demeanor had been shifting from completely disinterested to intensely focused and back again, and every point in between.

She had no idea what he was thinking. However, she did know how many cups of tea she had been practically forced to drink, and using hoof measures she had worked out the volume of her cup. She could therefore, if it became absolutely necessary, give a precise measurement of how badly she needed to use the little filly's room.

"How is your micro-telekinesis sensitivity?" Star Swirl asked.

She sighed, realized that she was sighing, and tried to turn it into the wistful sound of a happy memory partway through. These specific questions about her magical capabilities were extremely unsuited for her carefully rehearsed answers, but she persevered. "Sir Gilder was extremely happy with my showing when I worked for him in his store, I handled some extremely fine pieces of jewelry. He said he had never trusted any other unicorns to levitate jewelry of that caliber, they were much too delicate," she said, struggling to keep her cheerful voice from breaking.

"I see..." Star Swirl said. "No precise numbers? Pressure measurements over time over time?"

"...Two hundred microneightons per second for five minutes, give or take... thirty microneightons, I'd say," Clover said, hearing the voice of her conversation tutor in her mind telling her that she was a failure and that Star Swirl would surely throw her out over her breach of method.

"Try to keep your answers brief and precise, please," Star Swirl said, as he wrote something down. "How many pages of text do you read on an average Wednesday between noon and three thirty?"

"Sixty-four on average, but forty-two on median."

"How long do you sleep on Night-Mare Night?"

"Six hours and three quarters."

"Tell me what you see," he said, and levitated a card in front of her face with some ink blots.

"The Council of Horns casting a binding spell over the Gates of Tartarus."

He flipped it around and looked at it. "I always thought it looked like a bunny." He tossed it away. "Have you ever seen this sign before?" He conjured an image in the air made from tendrils of colored smoke. It looked vaguely like three yellow question marks in a circle, but they seemed to move of their own accord and Clover could feel it beginning to give her a headache.

"No," she said.

"How about this one?" Star Swirl brought up a new image that looked like an eye in the center of a billowing five-pointed star.

"No."

Star Swirl brought a new one up. "How about this one?"

Clover looked at it. "That's my family coat of arms."

The image vanished. "What is the most soil you have ever carried with you at any one time?"

"I have no idea."

"Is that because you object in principle to carrying large quantities of soil?"

"Um. No?"

"What," Star Swirl said with the utmost severity, "do you think of toads?"

Clover blanked out. "They're green? Some of them?"

"Yesss... yes..." He nodded sagely. "That would explain some things. It can't be easy, being green. Now, how would your brother answer that question?"

"...The same, probably?"

"What would you say is your greatest weakness?" he asked firmly.

At last, another list question. "I refuse to abandon a task until it's completed well!"

Star Swirl recoiled, throwing himself back in his chair as though he had just been told a vital secret. "Do the toads know this?" he demanded. "What would you do if they use this knowledge against you?"

Her mouth opened and closed, but no answer came out.

Star Swirl turned and looked up at the clock. Clover recognized the disappointment on his face. Star Swirl turned back and all but glared at her, looking deep into her eyes. "What is it that you want, Clover?" he asked.

Clover swallowed, met his gaze as best she could, and threw away the method. "I want to learn everything there is to know about unicorn magic."

"Why?" he asked, throwing the word at her with some force.

"All my life, it's been my dream to someday be a great sorceress," she said, her breathing coming heavier as she felt the excitement of her life's ambition beginning to flow through her. "Ever since I was a little filly, I've been reading about your history, and about all the great wizards and sorcerors. That's what I want, Professor! I want to force the hidden knowledge of the world out of hiding, to see incredible things that nopony has seen before! Please, give me a chance!"

He nodded slowly, not turning away his piercing gaze. "One more question," he said. "Think carefully and answer truthfully." She nodded. "What, in your view, is the ultimate manifestation of evil?"

She opened her mouth to answer immediately, but stopped herself. He wants a justified answer, she thought to herself. Perhaps it doesn't matter who you pick, so long as you can explain your choice. The array of major candidates from recent history flickered before her eyes, and as she considered them she realized something.

Star Swirl, she knew, had personally encountered almost all of them. Encountered, and walked away alive. Is that his point? To remind me of his experience and power? She frowned. I already know that. Is there something deeper I'm missing? Or does he actually just want me to say whatever I think myself?

"Well?"

Am I going to offend him if I pick someone he met? Is he going to say that I'm an ignorant foal who completely failed to learn the lesson of the Battle of Stalliongrad if I give a bad description? Is he just looking for an excuse to kick me out?

Star Swirl watched her closely, not blinking. She felt sweat begin to trickle down her brow. Perhaps none of them are ultimate. Perhaps they were all only just flawed, living things. Perhaps they could all have been avoided. Perhaps there is no ultimate evil at all.

Star Swirl sighed, and opened his mouth to say Time's up, and send Clover on her way.

"Silence!" she yelped.

Star Swirl halted at the preemptive interruption. "Could you repeat that?"

"Silence. Or perhaps the lack of communication," Clover said, her heart pounding violently in her chest. "Or perhaps the breaking of connections between ponies, or between living things. Because... because there is nothing evil among living things except what's caused by lack of understanding and empathy. That's my answer."

Star Swirl said nothing. For several seconds, he sat completely still, deep in thought, while Clover tried not to think about how desperately she wanted to find the bathroom.

"Very well," Star Swirl said quietly. "You may be my personal research assistant and study magic under me."

The room immediately melted around them: the walls, the bookshelves behind them, the cozy furniture all vanished in the blink of an eye to reveal that they were sitting in the center of a huge hall that was part library, part alchemist's workshop, and part astronomical laboratory. A labyrinth of stairs were set up to allow navigation across an abstract sculpture of a room, with a multitude of platforms on numerous levels, each appearing to be dedicated to a particular field of study. The two of them were sitting on the ground floor, and it all rose up above them like some vast organic entity.

Clover was brought back to real life by Star Swirl pointing a hoof to the side of the room and saying "Oh, and the bathroom is over there."

– – –

"Are you ready to begin?" Star Swirl asked once Clover returned.

Her face lit up as her eyes took in the huge hall, far grander and more full of knowledge than any of the facilities at the university itself. Already she anticipated the grand tour, listening to Star Swirl talk about where it all came from and what it all could do. She imagined exploring every volume, learning to use every instrument and device to wrest the secrets from the universe. "Yes, Professor!"

Star Swirl turned, and began to trot away. "Let me show you to your desk." Clover nodded, and ran after him, prepared to memorize every word he'd say about his work as he showed her through the hall.

This turned out to be easy, as he said nothing at all, not bothering to glance at the various devices and treasures he had assembled as he led her past them. Clover cleared her throat as they passed through the alchemical workshop section of the room. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at a brass implement over an oven.

Star Swirl turned in the direction she was pointing. "It's an alembic," he said bluntly.

"Oh," she said. "How does it work?"

He froze up in shock. "You're a university student, of course you know how to use an alembic."

"Well, actually I haven't had any classes in alchemy yet, Professor. I've studied alchemical philosophy, but..."

"Classes?" Star Swirl looked at her in surprise. "I assumed you'd learned to use it to make applejack. That's what everyone did when I was a student." He levitated a scroll and quill and began to write. "Assignment 1: learn everything needed to make applejack." He turned and trotted up the stairs to the next platform. "This way."

Clover followed, attempting to take in everything by sight as they went. The layout of the platforms was elaborate, irregular, but not nonsensical. She could see the hints of a system in it: each platform, she thought, was dedicated to a particular field of study, and linked to connected fields as closely as possible. A large central platform was taken up almost entirely by large shelves. That must be the general magical theory section. As they turned a corner, one particular shelf caught her eye, and once again she paused and coughed to attract Star Swirl's attention. "Professor?"

"Hm?"

"That one shelf there, in the center of that platform..."

His eyes followed the line of her hoof. "Which one?"

"The one with the iron fence around it, and the multiple magic wards and locks, and the big sign that reads 'Forbidden Knowledge'? And all the skulls around it?"

"Oh, that one. What about it?"

"...I guess that shelf is off-limits then?"

"Hmm," Star Swirl looked thoughtful for a second. "That can be a rule, I suppose. But it seems rather superfluous. Chances are you will never in your life be able to penetrate the wards by force, and if by chance you do you are unlikely to heed my rules anyway. But if it helps, very well, that shelf is off-limits."

Finally, they arrived at a sparsely furnished wooden platform in a corner of the hall. "This will be your study," Star Swirl said. Clover looked it over. It was quite bare: there was a plain wooden writing desk, and an equally plain chair. A bookshelf to the side was mostly empty. A window faced the east, and gave her a wonderful view of the outskirts of Cambridle town, the great buildings of the Academy just visible in the far distance. The platform was nowhere near as large as the others, but it was empty and ready for her to bring in her own tools, whatever she might need. To her, it was filled with potential.

"This is excellent," she said. "So shall we get right to work? What's first, Professor?"

"You have your syllabus for the semester?" he asked.

She nodded and levitated her saddlebags open, and lifted out some slim books. "It's Not the Size that Counts: Understanding Horn Anatomy, Basic Conjuration, Your Horn And You: Your New Life As A Magic-User, A History of Unicorn Magic and What's the Matter with Magic: An Introduction to Arcane Theory. Those are the—hey! What are you—" she watched as Star Swirl swiftly yanked the books out of her magical aura with his own and hurled them out the window.

"You need a new syllabus."

Her mouth hung open. Star Swirl merely turned away, grumbling to himself, and retrieved a batch of over a dozen thick volumes from the many shelves scattered around the room. Each of them floated down and landed before Clover in an orderly stack that was as tall as the unicorn herself. "This is a start. Read these over the weekend."

She looked at the stack of books with shock and growing horror. Star Swirl simply wandered off without looking back or saying another word. Clover picked up the first book and flipped to the list of contents:

"The Art of the Five-Dimensional Dynamic Conjuration Matrix, by Star Swirl the Bearded. Chapter 1: On the Direction of Magical Wormholes."

Clover began to wonder if possibly she had made a mistake.

Chapter 4: The First Lessons

She heard the voice inside her head, trying to lead her into temptation and corruption: a deep and ancient voice filled with hunger and greed.

Serve me, it said, and I shall give you everything your heart desires. You will see your enemies brought low and beg for your mercy with tears in their eyes. All the wealth in the world will be yours. You shall live in a golden palace filled with treasures. If you desire a stallion, you need but point at him and he shall be delivered to you for your pleasure, groomed and perfumed. If he has a family they will be thrown in the dungeons for insulting your wishes. You will command armies who will fly your banner across distant lands, and all the world will bow before you, if you but serve me.

She thought about it. “Well... That all sounds really neat and all, but I don't actually want any of that stuff.”

The voice was silent for a moment. Then it spoke again, saying, Well, what do you want?

She shrugged. “I dunno. I'm doing pretty okay, really. I don't want anything in particular.”

There must be something. Come on, what do you like? What's your favorite thing?

“I guess I really like puppies?”

You shall be the queen of puppies!

“Well... I don't know...”

You shall live in a puppy-palace, with puppy statues and command puppy armies to conquer the world for puppydom! All non-puppies will beg for reprieve from your wrath! And you will say 'no', and laugh as your puppy-vengeance overtakes them!

“Look, just forget the puppies, alright?!”

No puppies?

“I don't want an army of puppies! Or any army! I don't want any of that stuff!"

Look, you're not exactly making this easy for me either.

She sighed, and heard the voice sigh as well. “Well, this whole thing is really pretty inconvenient for me. I have deadlines and things.”

I'm sorry, it's just... I don't have much choice here, you know, the voice said apologetically. You think it's easy being a diabolical disembodied force? Because I promise you it's not. I get frustrated sometimes. But the thing is, I really need to find somepony to act as my agent to overthrow the Unicorn King and the Council of Horns and usher in a new age. What's it going to take to make you that agent?

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I don't know! You can't just ask ponies what price they put on their soul. If I were interested in selling it I'd have gone down to the Discordians already.”

I think we're getting off on the wrong track here.

“Yeah.”

Look... Why don't we just sit down, have some tea, maybe a glass of wine, and just talk, alright? Have ourselves a heart to heart, get to know each other, and see if we can come up with something that would work for both of us. I would really appreciate it if we could do that, alright?

“Well, no more talk about armies or killing, okay?”

Promise.

– – –

Clover grumbled and muttered angrily to herself, as she roamed the elaborately laid-out platform-library-laboratories of Star Swirl the Bearded's home and workplace, Canterlot House 1. Her movements were disordered, sluggish from exhaustion, her eyes half-lidded, as she mentally went over the events of her first week as Star Swirl's student.

There had been that first weekend...

Clover had closed the cover on the final book, and promptly fell over backwards. Once the giggling of fairy foals had faded from her hearing, she'd clambered back onto her hooves, and turned a triumphant glare on the stack. She had won. The books had been read.

Admittedly, she didn't actually understand or remember most of what she had read in them. When she began, she quickly found that the first book at hoof was completely and utterly unreadable. But she had refused to be beaten, and had pushed through to the end. She would show the Professor that she was up to any test he could throw at her. Just as soon as the room stopped laughing at her and she was able to form normal sentences again.

She gingerly took a few steps forward and ensured that yes, the floor was still solid and wasn't going to bounce back and throw her into the air like a ping-pong ball. She wandered from her desk in a corner of the massive research lab-library, and climbed the stairs to the alchemy lab section, making for the high ground to try to catch sight of the great wizard. She smiled as she felt her balance returning with each step, confident that she had met his challenge.

She eventually found him out on the balcony beyond the astronomy section, peering through a massive telescope that, she felt quite certain, had not been visible when she had seen the balcony from outside the building.

“Professor, I have finished reading the books you gave me!” Clover said. “I understood all of it, and feel that I am ready to proceed to the next level of my studies!”

“At long last!” Star Swirl the Bearded gasped. “I have found someone worthy of carrying on my work. Truly, noble Clover, until now I have deceived you, for everything up to this point was but a test to see if you truly are The One! Those books were only an elaborate riddle designed to block the unworthy, but you passed through it easily! Now I can finally abandon all pretense. Come, great Clover, let us go travel the world hunting long-lost secrets and treasures!”

“Yes!” Clover cried. “Let us!”

“Also, I would like you to meet Raul Magnifico, my grandson.” Here emerged from behind the old wizard a gorgeous unicorn stallion, with a long golden mane that flew in the breeze, with deep, haunting brown eyes and a rose held between his teeth. “He is a Saddle Arabian prince who in his youth sailed the Great Seas as a pirate before discovering his true heritage. He likes poetry, dancing, and long walks on the beach.”

“Enchanted, Belladonna!” Raul bowed with a flourish and kissed Clover's hoof. Then, her cheeks burning, he swept her up in his arms, and they stared into each other's eyes, her hooves resting on his tan, muscular chest. “Truly, I have known many mares in my life, as I scoured all the lands hunting for the griffon duke who slew my father before my eyes when I was but a foal, but never have I seen so beautiful a creature as you!”

Clover tried to answer, but instead only made a noise that was part moan, part gurgle, and part fillyish giggling.

“Hmm?”

Clover's burning blush remained when every other part of the fantasy popped like a soap bubble, and her first attempt at speaking was cut short when she realized her mouth was watering. She wiped her muzzle, thanking Celestia that Star Swirl had not bothered to look up from the telescope, and tried again. “Professor, I have finished reading the books you gave me!”

“Oh,” he said.

A few seconds passed before Clover cleared her throat. “Yes, I... I understood... I feel ready to proceed to the next level.”

Star Swirl nodded, still not looking up from the telescope. “Good, good. There is a list of advanced works on the blackboard in the pharmaturgical laboratory, you can get started on those and I'll write up a work schedule once I'm finished here.”

Then there had been that alchemy class...

– – –

Alchemy is the noble art of transmuting base materials into gold, Clover thought to herself as she looked over the many instruments, both magical and mechanical, of the alchemy lab. It is a pursuit which has dominated the lives of many of the greatest sages of history, and commands great respect. It is partly a physical art, but much more importantly it is a mental art, meant to transform ourselves into nobler, better beings. The transmutation of lead into gold is a metaphor for how the pursuit of knowledge turns ignorant foals into enlightened, honorable, and moral ponies.

So why am I making Star Swirl booze?

“That should be everything,” the old unicorn said. “You have the equipment and ingredients here, and everything you need to know in order to use them was in one of the books I gave you to read, Swirl, Star & Swirl, Star (ed.)'s Booze & Explosives: An Introduction to the Alchemical Science, Canterlot House Publications, year 22.”

Clover nodded. That's unfair of me, really. This is a perfectly sound way of learning the basics of using alchemical apparatus without the risks of volatile magic components, and it gives me a reward at the end. It's actually the sort of thing you'd use to teach a foal. She thought back to her own foalhood. Well, if you're a lower-class unicorn that is, or possibly an earth pony. Somepony who doesn't think that enjoyment and practical utility ruins the character-building component of an education.

She shuddered. Deep breaths, Clover. Tall Ladder hasn't been your teacher for over ten years, no matter what the nightmares say. You are being taught alchemy by Star Swirl the Bearded, in the flesh. Remember how utterly amazing that is. Even if this is a bit... different from what we've done in the past, I'm sure Star Swirl knows what he's doing. Even if this seems a bit crude, I'm only a novice, after all. I'm sure we'll move on to the more sophisticated theory later.

“The alembic is off-kilter. Hit it,” Star Swirl the Bearded said. Clover turned to the alembic and swatted it with her hoof. “Harder! Your tools must learn to fear you!”

The old unicorn stood by, intently watching as Clover prepared the equipment and the ingredients for fermentation and distillation. Normally the fermentation would take days, but with magical support it was the work of minutes. Clover worked calmly and thoroughly, going through the procedure step by step, occasionally pausing to double- and triple-check her list, while Star Swirl looked on tight-lipped. This will be fine, Clover thought. I know how to operate the instruments, I understand the physical changes the materials are undergoing. The alchemical principles are sound, and I'm sure I know them well.

Finally, after hours of minding the alembic, Clover had filled a bottle and corked it, and presented it to Star Swirl for his verdict.

“Here it is, Professor,” Clover said. “One bottle of applejack.”

Star Swirl magically poured out a tiny portion each into two small glasses, and levitated one over to her. “Care for a sip?” he asked, and raised his glass up to the light. “Hmm.” He put on some manner of crystal looking-glass on his right eye and peered into it. “Nice color.” He shook it gently, then brought it up to his muzzle and sniffed it. “Six out of ten,” he muttered, and then finally sipped it, and let it sit on his tongue for a few seconds before swallowing.

“So... What's the verdict?” Clover asked anxiously.

Star Swirl considered for a second, then said, “The yeast doesn't respect you, and the apples view you with derision and scorn. There are a thousand things you could have done to improve the flavor of this, which you completely ignored.” He sighed. “I'm afraid I don't think you have a great future as a brewer. On the upside, you could probably make a living transmuting gold. That's okay too.”

Clover blinked. “Oh,” she said.

“It's all right,” Star Swirl the Bearded said kindly. “Not everypony is cut out for the rigors of liquormancy.”

Then there were the regular events of supper...

– – –

Star Swirl glared at his porridge as though it had offended him personally. Which it was quite possible that it had done.

Star Swirl's eating habits were a source of grim fascination for Clover. He ate the exact same thing every day, at exactly the same times, and did so with the air of fulfilling a tedious chore he would rather avoid. Neither fast nor slow, but like clockwork, one mouthful at a time until there was no more.

He also cooked identical servings for Clover, as part of the research assistant contract. She didn't think this was intended as punishment for anything she had done or would do in the future, but she couldn't be entirely sure. The porridge was the desire to be somewhere else manifested in edible form. It tasted of raw void and stale winters, and while eating it time and thought seemed to lose all meaning. All the universe was emptied, and there was only porridge.

It could do, she had thought to herself the first time she ate it, with some salt. Or it could be improved by adding anything else in the universe other than porridge. She had contemplated this for a moment. But no, there must be a deeper meaning to the porridge, as with everything else. Perhaps this plain... this oh so plain... so utterly, absolutely plain piece of food has some kind of secret attribute that would be lost if anything tampered with its plain-ness. Perhaps this uniform mass smooths the nerve channels, enhancing horn response time. Perhaps the absence of distracting flavor stimulus helps him concentrate, allowing him to continue working while he eats. Perhaps the porridge is a mirror of the structure of the universe, and by eating it, we become one with eternity.

Then Star Swirl burped, and said, “The Minotaur King made war upon my porridge once. I wagered him he could not defeat it, and when he lost, I could take any item from the Hidden Treasury in Knossox. I took his right boot.”

Or maybe Star Swirl is just an old madpony. NO, Clover! None of that! Deeper meanings! Deeper meanings everywhere!

Clover thus distracted herself by contemplating the many transcendental truths of the porridge. And so time passed. Worlds formed and disintegrated. Empires rose and fell. Lifeforms sprang from primordial muck, discovered steam-power and oligarchy, and died out after exhausting their supply of maroon dye, and a bell had rung from beyond the distant reaches of Star Swirl's kitchen to signal the end of supper, permitting Clover to return from the realms of the porridge to the lands of mortal ponies, alive but not unscarred.

– – –

The rest of the week had gone much the same. Now, Clover was reduced to roaming the stairs and platforms of the research wing in a daze, searching for... something. She could not recall what.

Oh yes, she thought. The exit.

She clambered towards it, and opened the door, feeling the fresh breeze in her mane. Then she barely remembered to not leap out and let gravity carry her less than softly to the ground.

– – –

“And then I came out here,” Clover concluded. She took a sip of her coffee, and watched her recently-ex-roommate for her reaction.

“Wow,” Chocolate Bunnies said. “That sucks.”

“Well put,” Clover said, slouched forward over the table. “You are an icon of compassion, Bunnies.”

“Glad to help!” Bunnies squealed with glee.

“Yeah. I'll be okay, I think,” Clover muttered. “I'll get to have a full night's sleep eventually, right? Anyway—” she raised a hoof to cut off Bunnies's impending sarcasm, and said with a hint of sadness in her voice, “I just don't get it. Everything we've done since I got there is just endless tedious cramming of impenetrable arcane theory. What happened to the adventures? What happened to the great wizard I read about when I was a filly? Whatever happened to scouring the world in search of lost knowledge and treasure? How did Star Swirl the Bearded end up a grumpy old stallion who just sits at home, and never speaks to anypony?”

“He is, like, over a hundred years old,” Chocolate Bunnies said, idly rubbing her right forehoof over the tablecloth. “Maybe he just got tired of it.”

“Maybe. It's just so sad though,” Clover said, sighing. They sat there silently for a few seconds before Clover changed the subject. “I just hope we'll get to the material in the introductory classes soon. I looked at the lecture plan for the regular classes, and Star Swirl the Bearded has just charged off in a completely different direction. A direction that goes through the middle of a primordial jungle into the heart of a volcano.” She buried her head in her hooves. “If this keeps going until my exams, I'm doomed. I'm gonna fail everything and get kicked out of the university.”

“I'm sure that won't happen,” Bunnies said. “Even if the university did throw you at Star Swirl as a sacrificial lamb to stop him from taking over any real classes.”

“They what?” Clover almost yelled, silencing all other conversations in the coffee shop and drawing the eyes of everypony around them.

Bunnies giggled nervously. “I'm not saying they did, Clover. It's just that... there have been some rumours going around campus the past week. I'm sure it's not true. I mean, there's another one that says that Star Swirl is secretly a dragon and that he killed and ate you, and that's not true, right?”

Clover stared at nothing, her mind working. “That would explain all those weird looks I got on the way down here, I suppose.”

Chocolate Bunnies nodded. "Well, I think everypony is kind of scared of you right now, actually. After the big lecture, everypony thinks you might be another total nut like old Star Swirl. There's actually also a rumour going around that you're his illegitimate daughter."

"What? That's ridiculous. I'll have you know that my parents are living happily together in Whinnysor.”

“Didn't you once tell me that your dad sleeps in a different room than your mom, and has a younger stallion friend who visits him and stays over every week?”

“Uncle Amber? What does he have to do with...” Clover's pupils shrank to pinholes. “But—I—you think that my parents are—and my dad is—with Uncle Amber—Oh no... Oh Celestia, I am never going to get that image out of my head!”

“Maybe Star Swirl the Bearded can help,” Chocolate Bunnies said. “Maybe he has actual brain bleach or something.”

“Changing the subject now!” Clover yelled. “Changing! Subject! Changed! In fact, let's get out of here before everypony well I see everypony is already looking at me so let's just leave okay leaving!”

Clover jumped up, barely avoiding knocking over a table as she did so, which only intensified the embarassment burning her face. She grabbed the wobbling table with her magic, and gently stabilized it before she rushed out of the coffee shop with Chocolate Bunnies happily skipping along behind her.

Clover took a deep breath. “While I'm in town, I need to pick up some things from my room. Let's go to our dormitory.”

“Oh,” Chocolate Bunnies froze suddenly. “That's... actually not such a good idea right now. Why don't you just tell me what you need and I'll bring it to you sometime?”

“Why? What's... ooooh!” Clover grinned, seeing a chance to get back at her friend for the rumors. “So who's the lucky colt?”

“I—that's... I don't know what you mean, Clover,” Bunnies said through a huge, fake grin, sweat forming on her brow as she thought about the 'project' she had underway in their apartment.

“Come on, Bunnies,” Clover said, pressing her friend back. “We've done this before. You've found a coltfriend and brought him home with you, and together the two of you absolutely demolished the place in the course of your partying, and you don't want anypony to see it.” Clover grinned as her friend bit her lip nervously. “So who is it that's gotten into Chocolate Bunnies' heart and/or bed this time? Tell me!”

“It's my hoof!” Chocolate Bunnies blurted out.

Clover blinked. “Okay, I didn't need to know that.”

“OhlookatthetimeIgottagobye!”

Clover watched as Chocolate Bunnies galloped down the street.

It took her a minute to collect herself to the point where she could think coherent thoughts again, thoughts that didn't revolve around her dad and Chocolate Bunnies' hoof doing things to her “uncle” beneath the disapproving glare of both her mother and Star Swirl the Bearded, and said things then being spread around Cambridle's gossip circuit.

“Start small, Clover,” she muttered to herself. “I might not be able to repair my entire childhood family history, but I can at least improve the food.” Then she trotted down the street towards the Cambridle market square.

– – –

By the time she returned to Star Swirl's house, Clover's mood was significantly improved, and she alternately whistled, hummed, and sang random snippets of tunes as she walked. Her saddlebags were filled with herbs and spices: several different peppers, paprika, garlic, sage, thyme, a jar of fresh honey, and most precious of all: salt.

She completely failed to comprehend how Star Swirl survived without a trace of salt in his house, yet somehow he did. She had checked. She had found enough esoteric reagents stuffed away in long-forgotten shelves to make any witch green with envy, but not one single grain of salt.

Well, she thought to herself as she climbed the ladder to Canterlot House 1, Perhaps Star Swirl the Bearded has resigned himself to a life completely without any kind of excitement or variety, but I have no intention of doing so myself. If he's stuck in a miserable rut, with nothing to show for his life of adventure but a bunch of hollow relics that do nothing for him, maybe I can drag him out. Her lips spread in a sly grin. Watch out, Star Swirl the Bearded. I think I'm beginning to understand you.

She knocked on the door for politeness's sake, then opened. “Professor, I'm back,” she said with a sing-song quality to her voice. “I brought some things.”

She head something smash inside the house, then a cry of pain. "Professor?" she said loudly, and crossed through the entrance corridor into the large hall. "Hello? Professor?" She heard another crash, and pounding hoofsteps, and two voices yelling: one, the angry voice of an old stallion, cried: "Begone from my home, deleterious miscreant!" The other, a young feminine voice, spat out: "Tonight your blood is mine, old one!"

Clover galloped out onto the nearest platform and saw a scene of chaos and violence. There stood Star Swirl in his robe, his head held high, his legs spread wide for stability like a colt posturing for a fight, his horn glowing a dark blue and several jagged, pointy implements levitating in a semi-circle above him, all pointed at another figure clad all in black, with a black mask over her head and a red ribbon around her neck. Her skin-hugging outfit showed her outline clearly, which Clover immediately recognized as a mule mare. She leapt and spun around the platforms and the shelves with the agility and speed of a pegasus athlete, and somehow held a sword between her forehooves. She dodged as Star Swirl launched a jagged shard of broken porcelain at her, leaving it stuck deep in the wall. "You have gone too far, little pony,” the mule said, “and have attracted attention you should have avoided. Now you will pay the price!”

Star Swirl merely shrugged, and shifted his knife-like implements to a different position.

“Star Swirl!” Clover cried, and both combatants immediately became aware of her.

The mule frowned, her eyes narrowing to slits. "What is this? You would put a foal in my path, old one? Too cowardly to fight your own battles? Very well, tonight you shall live,” she hissed. “But we will be back! You have been marked by the Red Sisters, and we will not stop hunting you until your blood coats our blades!" She grabbed a black ball from a pouch in her belt and threw it to the ground. Upon impacting, it exploded in a cloud of impenetrable smoke, and she disappeared from sight. A second later, on the far side of the hall, Clover heard a sound just in time to see her disappear over the edge of the balcony.

"Hrrmph," Star Swirl grunted, and cleared away the smoke with a brief gust of magic wind. He turned away without a word and began tidying up the site of the battle.

“Star Swirl!” Clover ran up beside him, her heart racing, and attempted to check him for wounds. “Professor! Are you alright? What was that?”

“Ninja assassin,” Star Swirl said, shrugging. “It happens. You said you brought some things?”

– – –

In the barnhouse of a small farm on the outskirts of Cambridle, a group of young ponies clad in cliché dark cultist wear were laying plans for bringing the world under the sway of their ancient master.

“Alright, so,” their leader, a pink earth pony stallion with a ruffled purple mane, said between sighs of boredom, pencil gripped in his teeth. “Any ideas for how we can raise money for a carnival float of Lord Discord?”

“We could hold another bake sale?” one young pegasus mare suggested.

“No more bake sales!” a unicorn mare cried, and shot the first mare an angry look. “Nopony buys anything from us after you rigged all the cookies to explode.”

“Those cookies totally embodied the message of chaos! It realigned the paradigm and got the buyers to shift their perception of reality!” The first mare said. “It was only the best thing we've done all year.”

“It was also the most expensive thing we've done all year,” the unicorn replied. “We needed that bake sale to pay the rent for the office. Now thanks to you we're stuck here in this decrepit old barn.”

“There's nothing wrong with my dad's barn!” the pegasus mare said, glaring at the unicorn. “Just because Little Miss Silk Pyjamas here was born in a palace and thinks she's too good to cavort with anyone who doesn't have a horn, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the barn! What do we need an office for anyway? D'you think Discord would spend his days in an office?”

The unicorn recoiled in affronted horror. “I was not born in a palace! And I do not have anything against pegasi, or earth ponies! The very idea is absurd. But we needed that office for all kinds of reasons. If you want us to be taken seriously, we have to behave seriously, and that means having a proper base of operations. We might as well spend our days in a foal's treehouse as this barn. And don't even get me started on these ridiculous costumes. We should all be wearing tailored business suits.”

“There was a sale at the fancy dress shop!” the pegasus mare yelled. “You're always saying we need to save money! What was I supposed to do?”

The stallion facehoofed as the two mares recommenced their ongoing-but-occasionally-interrupted staring contest. He was about to say something to try to get this meeting back on track when the barn door creaked open, revealing the silhouette of a unicorn, the sun at her back, looking in at them.

“Who's there?” he asked.

“Oh, uh, hold on a second,” the silhouette said, and whispered something to nopony that the stallion could see. “Okay, okay. This is the Discordians' place, right?”

“Yeah, what do you want?”

“Right. Okay. Here goes. Ahem. Ponies of the barn! I come before you today to show you the truth!” She stepped inside, and closed the door behind her, allowing them to see her more clearly. “My name is Chocolate Bunnies,” she said, “And I come bearing a message from a higher power. ”

The pegasus mare gasped. “Hey, I remember you! You're my old roommate!” She dove in for a hug. “Bunnies!!”

Chocolate Bunnies cringed and tried to push the pegasus off. “Get off me, Edge, I'm doing a thing here!”

“I know,” the pegasus said. “I'm just showing my appreciation.”

Chocolate Bunnies rolled her eyes, as she pried the pegasus's hooves off and pushed her away. “For years, you members of the Servitors of Discord have languished in the shadows. What have your efforts brought you? Your numbers dwindle, and your cookies go uneaten! But I bring you word from a greater power, who promises you greatness and hilarity! His voice speaks through me, for I am his prophet! Bow before me!” Here she sat down on her haunches and raised her right foreleg high. “Behold the Hoof! Hear his words!”

“His?” the stallion asked.

“It! Hear its words! For the Hoof shall usher in a new world, and in the new age all shall bow before the Hoof!”

Author's Note

It lives! Behold my christmas present to you, dear readers!

I am really, truly, terribly sorry for the long hiatus. I had to finish my MA thesis, which sucked up every bit of time, energy, and mental wherewithal all through the fall and up to the end of November. But I have now finished it, and am just waiting to get the results, and am back to writing ponies again with all my suddenly-abundant free time ^^ Merry Christmas or whatever midwinter celebration you opt for, and I hope you enjoy it.

"Your tools must learn to fear you!" comes courtesy of my friend VisMis. VisMis has also drawn some interpretations of Clover and Chocolate Bunnies.

Chapter 5: Scholarly Debate

AN: As an experiment, I'm trying something new here: unlike the rest of the story thus far, this chapter is written in the first person from Clover's point of view. Let me know what you think of the change in the comments.

-Daedelean.

– – –

“I said don't worry about it,” Star Swirl said for the twentieth time, the bells of his robe jingling as he strode through the great research hall, with me running along behind him trying to keep up.

“Don't worry?” I said, in what I admit was a somewhat mocking tone. “You were attacked by ninjas!”

“Don't exaggerate. There was only one.”

I sighed, ignoring the telltale signs of an impending migraine. “You were attacked by a ninja assassin, professor! That's not okay!” I reached out a hoof and took hold of his robe, to try to keep him still and examine him for injuries. He immediately pulled it away and shot me a cold glare. Note to self: Star Swirl the Bearded doesn't like it when you touch his robe. I decided to stand my ground. “Stand still! I need to make sure you're not injured.”

“I had everything perfectly under control,” he said, and resumed his walk resolutely away from me. I cantered up beside him, ready to let loose a numbered list of arguments for why he should stop and let me examine him properly when his right foreleg shot out and smacked me right in the throat. He either failed to notice or just ignored my resulting gagging, and only muttered "wait." I turned to see what had happened, and saw that a cluster of multi-sided metal spikes lying on the floor. “Caltrops,” he said, and I watched in mute shock as he poked one with his hoof, and idly examined a droplet of blood forming on the sole. “Coated in Peaceful Sleep poison. Mark... VI, I believe. That's at a premium," he said conversationally. “If you prick yourself on it you won't feel a thing or notice anything wrong, but that night it'll kill you in your sleep.” He then casually picked the things up with his magic and put them in a bag—which popped into existence for the occasion—marked 'hazardous materials'. The bag then popped out of existence with as little fanfare as it arrived.

“Is this going to happen again?” I demanded, my mind filling with thoughts of being stabbed to death in my sleep.

“Don't worry about it.”

I could feel a vein throbbing on my forehead and clenched my teeth together. “If I'm going to be working here then I will worry about it!”

“Don't worry about it!”

“I just told you I'm worrying about it!”

"There is nothing to worry about!" my teacher all but yelled at me. "They are assassins, not thugs. They're professionals, they only kill those they've been paid to kill. If you're ever in danger of having a contract taken out on you, you'll know it beforehoof. Then you can start worrying."

This did not exactly make me feel much better, and I was just about to say so when a bell rang out from across the hall and Star Swirl cut me off with a cry. "Hup! Suppertime! No more idle chit-chat."

I choked back my planned remark and only grunted, and allowed my feelings about my teacher's apparent attraction to ninjas subside for the time being. This conversation isn't over, Star Swirl.

We headed for the break room, where we ate our meals. It had only taken a few days before Star Swirl's porridge had taught me to dread the ringing of the suppertime bell, and I could feel the tension building in my back as we approached the room, but I didn't let it stop me. This time would be different, if only slightly, and I determined to walk straight and neat, with my head held high, to the break room.

The break room itself was, well, I would like to say it was on the ground floor, but using that term in Star Swirl's house had a few complications. Like the fact that, when you looked at it from the outside, the entire building seemed to defy gravity and hang in thin air, connected to the ground only sideways. Or the fact that the inside seemed to be bigger than the outside. Or the fact that the layout of the platforms inside the great research hall seemed to change over time. I am also convinced that the platforms that see the most use grow bigger to accommodate the work, and that the others shrink back to give them more room. One time, I woke up to find that two platforms had switched place overnight, even if Star Swirl and the big map he had placed in the center of the hall insisted otherwise.

Anyway, the break room. To get to the break room, we just walk down every stair we can find until we get to the bottom level of the research hall, what I would normally call the ground floor if not for the complications I listed above. Down here is the storage area, where Star Swirl keeps the wealth of equipment he owns but never needs, which is at least as abundant as the equipment upstairs that sees regular use. Here, a nondescript doorway led to an entirely mundane kitchen and dining area: the break room.

Apart from the porridge ritual, I actually rather liked the break room. It was a bastion of serenity and relaxation in the otherwise relentlessly magic-charged and productive atmosphere of Canterlot House 1, someplace where I could sit in a comfortable chair and enjoy a nice cup of tea surrounded by soothing colors. I could even rest in the sunlight shining through a window which somehow opened on a bright meadow filled with flowers, which could not be seen from anywhere nearby outside the building. Strange as it sounds, I suspect Star Swirl put it there for my benefit, since he certainly doesn't seem to gain any joy from it himself.

I steeled my nerve as Star Swirl filled two bowls of porridge from a pot on the stove, and wordlessly presented one to me. I took hold of it with my telekinesis, and broke away from the soothing sight of the meadow to sit and stare into the endless void of the porridge. My stomach felt queasy at the sight of it, and even though there was nothing in it that could even vaguely take on the shape of a face I swear I felt it was watching me. This time, though, I was prepared. I opened my saddlebags and rummaged around inside. “Aha!” I almost squealed in delight as I found my secret weapon: a small hoof-shaped jar of salt. I put it down on the table, opened the lid, and gently took a dash of the white crystals in my grip, and sprinkled them over the porridge.

In my mind's eye Clover the Bold watched as the gelatinous devourer from beyond space and time shriveled up and died, its plans for covering and consuming the entire world foiled by the brilliant young adventurer who had learned everything her mentor had to teach and was the only pony ever to earn his respect. The foul blob monstrosity writhed and screamed in horror as it shrank until the assault of the magical powder that rained down from the ceiling after triggering the trap I had carefully laid for it.

If Star Swirl noticed me snicker and giggle while staring at the falling salt, he diplomatically kept it to himself. I raised a spoonful of the porridge, said a silent prayer to Celestia, and stuck it in my mouth.

A warm wave passed through my entire body as the flavor hit my tongue, at once electrifying and incredibly relaxing, like a full massage in the course of a second. A tingling shot out from my mouth, across my skin and out to the tips of my hooves, making me shiver softly as a slight moan escaped from my lips.

It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted in my entire life.

I grabbed another spoonful and stuffed it in my face, locking my lips around it and running my tongue over it to make sure I caught every last bit. I continued like that, assaulting the bowl like a starving pony getting her first taste of food in days, forgetting everything around me in my single-minded quest to consume the salted void-porridge.

I didn't realize how thoroughly I had forgotten my surroundings until I was halfway through the meal, and happened to glance up and saw that Star Swirl was looking at me with stoic, subdued, but nevertheless present and genuine horror. I felt my face burn with embarrassment, my green coat turning red, and the warm, pleasant feelings in my mind were wiped out and replaced with flashbacks to being caught stealing cookies by my preschool tutor and being forced to wear a sign that read “COOKIE THIEF” around my neck for the rest of the day.

I forced the thoughts from my mind with techniques I'd honed for years: they would come back later, when I was safely by myself someplace private and could let them run free until they were worn out and crawled back where they came from. “Sorry,” I said quietly to my teacher, who was still staring at me, and for lack of any better ideas I held up the salt. “Want some?”

He peered at it suspiciously, then shook his head. "I can't put salt on my porridge. I'm Scoltish."

– – –

That evening and the next day were delightful. I got through my chores in record time, barely even noticing the clock as I worked with a spring in my step while humming a jaunty, cheerful tune. I remembered why I had been so excited to work with the great Star Swirl again, and the whole house seemed to buzz with excitement, the thrill of discovery thick in the air! I slept like a baby that night, and got up extra early to hit the books. Even Star Swirl's unreadable, hyper-dense prose couldn't stop me, and I felt like I was really understanding Thaumic Herd Theory for the first time.

It turns out Star Swirl discovered the mathemagical equation that explains when and why ponies burst into song. I burst into song when I understood it. Star Swirl got drawn in with some lines during the chorus, too. He wasn't very happy about that, and expressly forbade me from ever singing in his house afterwards.

Like every day, I counted down the hours and the minutes until supper time, but this time I did so with eager anticipation completely free of existential anxiety, unable to wait to repeat the experience of last night. So you can imagine how I felt when the time finally came, and I sat down to eat my porridge, and my salt was no longer in the break room.

I felt the panic steadily rising in my chest as I searched the table, then my saddlebag, then the cupboards, the drawers, my saddlebag again, the cushions on the couch and all the chairs, the drawers again, until finally I noticed that Star Swirl was looking entirely too innocent, and his innocence grew more prominent and blatant the more I looked at him.

I took a deep breath, and thought back to how my mother sounded when she was extremely cross with somepony, a voice so filled with cold and menace that it would make a minotaur sit up like a frightened puppy and beg forgiveness. “Professor,” I said, doing my best to copy that tone. “Why is the salt gone from my bag?”

A few seconds passed in which I could have sworn that Star Swirl was debating whether to turn invisible. “Well...”

By now pure liquid rage was beginning to flow through my veins. “Where. Is. My. Salt?”

“I threw it out,” Star Swirl said, after a moment's thought.

“Why?” I yelled, feeling like I was about to burst into flames.

“It had hydras.”

By now I was sure I could feel smoke pouring out my ears now. “What?”

“There were hydras nesting in the salt,” Star Swirl explained calmly. “I had to get rid of it.”

A few tense moments passed. Just as quickly as it had erupted, the fire inside me was extinguished. The salt, my precious, wonderful salt, was gone. It had only been there for such a brief time, but already I couldn't bring myself to imagine life without it. I deflated, and slumped forward over the table as tears built up in my eyes at the thought.

Only after several minutes of this was I able to think through exactly what the old stallion had said. “Hydras.”

He nodded.

“Hydras... are gigantic monsters hundreds of feet tall... It was a tiny jar of salt... How could there possibly...”

“Well, they were phase hydras, obviously,” Star Swirl explained. “Phase hydras, as I described in my work on arcano-cryptozoology, The Other Side of Up, by Star Swirl the Bearded & Swirly Star the Wise, make their nests in the vacuum between atoms. Once they've found a way into a hospitable terrain, it's almost impossible to get rid of them.”

I only stared at him with huge, tear-filled eyes.

“Salt is hydraphilic,” he said helpfully.

Silence reigned, while Star Swirl ate his porridge at his meticulously regular pace. “Anyway,” he said after several minutes had gone past, “phase hydras are no good. Let me know if you find any lightning hydras, though.”

“Lightning hydras,” I said flatly.

“Yes. That's where you get hydraelectric power.”

– – –

“Don't waste your energy on me, Clover, I'm done for,” Star Swirl said. “I'm going to die here in this Tartarus-blasted desert of Saddle Arabia, but you must go on!”

“No, Star Swirl! Just over this dune we will find the oasis with the research camp,” said Clover, although between the thirst and Star Swirl's recent sudden and unexplained turn to being a petty jerk, her heart wasn't really in it.

“Clover!” Star Swirl cried. “I'm sorry about blowing up the city for no reason, and laughing at the orphans, and letting the cultists take the Sceptre of Nightfall in exchange for a yogurt. I don't know why I did any of those things, but that's not important now. What's important now is that you save yourself and go on without me, even if that means leaving me to slowly die an agonizing death in the blistering desert heat.”

“Okay,” Clover said, and climbed over the dune.

Look, don't judge me. This wasn't interfering with my chores, and it was definitely helping me control my less than charitable opinion of my teacher just then.

I got through supper in the old fashion, and afterward I did one of the few chores I was in a proper state of mind for: sorting the mail. A task I could do entirely without thinking, and still be useful.

As befits a great sage, Star Swirl received impressive amounts of mail every day, and one of my duties was to sort through it all. A lot of it was orders to purchase simple potions and charms, which my teacher seemed content to make and sell, although I never saw him actually spend any of the money. Another load consisted of correspondence from colleagues afar who somehow managed to keep a cordial relationship with Star Swirl the Bearded, and contained discussions of recent research by mages across the continent.

The finest letters, the ones with gold trimming and fine calligraphy, were the ones Star Swirl almost invariably threw out unread: invitations by the high-ranking nobles of the Unicorn King's court, or even members of the Council of Horns, to attend "functions", "gatherings", or "events". There were occasionally outright offers asking Star Swirl to serve as this or that ambitious noblepony's personal advisor, in exchange for piles of gold or jewels or promises of power. I recognized some of the names from my parents' work. Star Swirl would take these offers and put them someplace for special attention, and I don't think I ever saw the same pony ask twice.

Yet another batch was made up of packages of reagents or research materials delivered from distant lands. This actually got him interested, and I often noticed him lingering nearby while I worked if there were any large packages in the day's shipment. Part of my postal routine consisted of opening these packages, reading the accompanying documents, and cataloging their contents properly.

The next package was a small box, only a few inches across and and inch thick, which I opened to find a note and some ounces of a soft white powder. I picked up the note and read it:

"Dear Star Swirl the Bearded,

Know that it was the Sapphire Wizards of Skay who have unleashed retribution upon you for your blasphemous pillage of our sacred temple of Hovos of the All-Seeing. The white powder kills shortly after making contact, either by touch or inhalation, and you should begin to feel the effects momentarily.

Hovos does not laugh, having extra eyes in place of a laughing orifice, but if he did he would surely laugh vigorously at your impending demise.

Sincerely,

Secure Seal, keeper of the gates, ward of the inner sanctum, handler of hazardous materials."

"Staaaaarrrr Swiiiiiiiiirrrrlllllll!"

Two minutes later, I was pacing anxiously back and forth in front of a mirror, checking to see if my coat or mane was falling out, and noting with fear that my normal soft green color had turned pale and sickly and that my mane was a frazzled mess.

"Don't worry about it," Star Swirl said behind me in an insufferably calm tone of voice. "If it was going to do anything you would have felt it by now."

"I think I AM feeling it!" I turned, and glared at my unbelievable teacher. "You said it was safe! You said they wouldn't harm anypony but their target! You lied to me, Star Swirl, and had me handle a poison that kills by touch!"

"Strictly speaking I said that professionals wouldn't harm anypony but their target," Star Swirl clarified, completely missing the point as always. "The Sapphire Wizards are kind of amateurs, frankly. There wasn't even anything worthwhile in their temple, I left it pretty much as I found it. But there's nothing to be afraid of, Clover. Canterlot House is warded against every kind of poison known to ponies, griffons, minotaurs, and dragons. The moment that package crossed the doorstep the powder was neutralized."

It took a while before I could respond to that. I stared at my disheveled appearance in the mirror, and saw Star Swirl reflected in it, looking at me with his usual unflappable calm that looked increasingly like sheer callousness, my feelings shifting between relief that I wasn't dying, shock at how absolutely wretched I looked, and finally anger at the pony who had put me through it all. I took a deep breath, turned around, and looked him right in the eyes, and said, "You didn't think to maybe mention this earlier? Such as, just as an example, before you put me in charge of the mail?"

“There have been a bit more of them than I was expecting,” Star Swirl admitted. “I thought it would take them a while longer to notice I'd moved. Somepony must have talked.”

I let out a deep growling moan of frustration as the burning anger rose up in my throat, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. “Professor, these are completely unacceptable working conditions! I can't go on like this!”

Star Swirl only scoffed. “Working conditions? I once solved one of the greatest problems in unicorn magic while I was plummeting to my death. This is nothing." He thought for a second. "Admittedly, the solution only works while you are plummeting to your death, but still.”

I was quickly coming around to see the would-be assassins' point of view. “It's not nothing, professor! Even if the legendary Star Swirl the Bearded doesn't see the problem, it's more than any normal, sane pony can handle!” I struggled to control my anger, and keep my voice to a reasonable volume and tone. “I want to learn everything there is to know about magic, really I do, but working with you is like, like navigating a maze filled with deadly traps around each corner, following directions written in a language I can barely understand. In the dark.”

I pleaded as heart-rendingly pathetically as I could, but it seemed to leave him completely unmoved, or possibly somewhat annoyed. It was hard to tell with him. “My teaching methods,” the old stallion gravely intoned, “are carefully designed to instill in the student the necessary respect and care for the subject matter. None of it is any harder than it needs to be.”

I sighed. Looking over to the side, I opened my saddlebag and levitated one of the books Star Swirl had given me, Introduction to Basic Arcane Theory. I held it out for him to see, then flipped it open to the table of contents and began to read: “Chapter one,” I began. “Inverted Universes and Other Animals. Chapter two... I can't even go on because the text stops existing and the page just screams at me.” I clapped the book shut, and looked him right in the eyes. “Basic Arcane Theory is an introductory class for teenage unicorns with no prior magical knowledge, and you wrote a textbook for it that could only be read by a hooffull of the world's greatest magical scholars, including one lich scholar who had spent a hundred years locked in a library.”

“Yes,” he replied, “and they all said it was the best treatise on arcane theory that they had ever read.”

I now had a headache that was threatening to kill me if the assassins weren't going to do so. I outright yelled, “It was written in seven dimensions and could only be read backwards in time!”

“It was practically oriented!” He yelled back. “That's supposed to be in fashion nowadays! You can't be mad at me for both following and not following modern educational trends!”

My patience finally ran out. My frustration took over, and I threw up my hooves and cried out, “I can't take it anymore!” Then I charged off to my workspace to grab my things. “You're impossible! I'm leaving.”

– – –

I stomped down the cobbled streets of Cambridle, heading back towards Unity Hall and my past and future dorm room, too angry to care about the way everypony drew back and averted their eyes from "Star Swirl's blackhearted apprentice," as they had apparently begun calling me. Their muttered comments were, in any case, not loud enough to drown out my own, and whatever complaints they had about the wizard, I was sure they were less informed than mine.

As I made my way home, I thought back to all the stories I knew about him, and compared them to the stallion I had stayed with for the past week and a half. Each story crumbled into dust as I mentally inserted the Star Swirl I knew in place of the hero. Where Star Swirl of the stories had delved fearlessly into the lair of the Draugr to confront the dreaded beast with only a dowsing rod to point the way, I imagined Star Swirl tromping into some mindless animal's home and beating it with a stick, evicting it with as little interest as he showed for anything else in his life. I thought of the ancient temples Star Swirl had explored, hunting for magical relics and treasures, and wondered if the secret guardians who dwelled in those temples had tried to have him arrested for burglary. That might have been more effective than all those riddles and traps. He's made enemies for himself everywhere he goes, I thought to myself as I climbed the stairs up to my floor. It almost makes me wonder why all those stories made him a hero in the first place. That thought spun around in my head for a few moments, as I reached the right door.

“Hi, Bunnies, I'm back,” I called out as I entered our dorm. Well, it's not my business anymore. I'm going to go back to being a regular student, I thought, attempting to shake Star Swirl out of my head. I crossed the shared living room, aiming at my roommate's bedroom, and ignored the chatter from around the table. “Don't mind me, I'm just gonna borrow your textbooks for a bit to see what I've missed. Star Swirl the Bearded threw my copies out.” I pulled her door open with a creak and looked inside.

I stood still for a few seconds, blinking, as Chocolate Bunnies came running up behind me. "Bunnies? Is there supposed to be a catapult in your room?"

“That's a trebuchet, lady,” said a voice from behind me. “Catapults are so last millennium.”

I turned and focused on the others in the room for the first time. Bunnies was standing right behind me with a nervous grin on her face, and sitting around the living room table were three ponies dressed in black robes that looked like they had come from a cheap fancy dress shop, all of them looking at me with expressions ranging from 'no, please don't look at me' to 'pssh, you're not even equipped to appreciate this'. “Hi, Clover,” Bunnies said through a wide, nervous grin. “I wasn't expecting you. I'm kinda in the middle of something here.” At the head of the table was a lectern with some papers, and behind it stood a large portable chalkboard covered in scribbles detailing... a rugby game plan, possibly, but with the addition of barricades and a not-catapult thing? Are there not-catapult things in rugby? This is not really my field of expertise.

On top of the board was written “All Hail Chocolate Bunnies,” and underneath it said “The Rise of the Siblinghood of the Hoof, phase 1: The Battle of Neighton Road.”

It didn't seem like a rugby team name, really.

“A fully functional 1:10 scale model Germane-design trebuchet, I might add,” said one of the ponies, a pegasus mare with a sharply styled mane and silver knife-shaped earrings. I couldn't see her cutie mark on account of the cheap black costume robe, which I noticed had been altered to allow her to use her wings while wearing it, but if she was following the common fashion her earrings would be a match, and a knife cutie mark generally meant a fondness for warfare, or for art. “It might not look like much now but by the time we finish the real one I'm totally gonna deck it out in late Reneighssance Rococo style. I'm just sayin', it's gonna blow your mind. Also your walls.” Or maybe both.

“Honestly, Cutting Edge, this is not how we agreed to introduce ourselves to the public!” said the second pony, the one who had cringed and attempted to hide her face when I first looked at her. She was a unicorn mare, and between her mane, which was dyed gray and tied up in a tight bun, her slim black spectacles, and the cravat that looked like it cost five times as much as the robe she wore it on, I guessed she was in business school.

The final pony was a pink earth pony stallion, who just looked bored and annoyed as his two companions immediately began arguing loudly about business strategies versus design strategies.

A hoof took hold of my shoulder led me firmly back to the door, the voice of Chocolate Bunnies loud in my ear, a swift stream of sound that went something like: “HereyougoCloverhavesomebooksandohit'ssuchalovelydaywhydon'tyougositoutsidesomewhereandreadokaysonicetoseeyouBYE!”

And then I was outside again, somewhat disoriented, with a stack of textbooks on the floor as the door slammed shut behind me.

– – –

Okay, that was a bit odd, and not quite the return to civilized society I was expecting. Anyway, I tried to put it out of my mind, and focus on studies. I figured it would take me a day of hard reading to get through the materials they had done in class over the past week and a half, and then I'd be ready to jump in, a bit wiser for my experiences outside the lecture halls. I found myself a quiet place to sit downtown, looked over the lesson plan and took note of which chapters of which books had been covered, then I picked up the first book and set to reading.

It would be a slight exaggeration to say that the relevant material in that book consisted of the first half of one sentence. Actually it was the first one and a half chapters, but still, it took me just ten minutes to go through it. I shrugged, content that I understood the introductory material, and picked up the next book. The same thing happened.

After another three books in fifteen minutes, I began to wonder if I had misread the lesson plan, and double-checked it but found nothing new. On a whim, I decided to keep reading the next book until I reached material that I didn't already know. Instead, I found myself getting annoyed when I realized I knew the material better than the author of the text himself, and felt an urge to write detailed corrections in the margin. I stopped myself when I remembered that these were Bunnies' books, and kept moving through the list.

The same thing happened again and again. The material was not only old to me, it was a basic and incomplete version of what I had already learned with Star—

I bit my tongue to avoid finishing the thought, though my muzzle was already scrunching up in a sneer, and I felt the heat of anger rising in my cheeks again. Completely impossible arrogant blowhard without an ounce of empathy in his whole withered body. I quickly scanned through the remaining stack of books, until I removed the second to last one and saw something else that Bunnies had thrown into the pile in her hurry to get me out of the dorm. Lying there was a small, thin book with a cheap cover and a badly-drawn picture of a young unicorn standing in front of an unnatural-looking cave opening.

The Caves of Maretania. The first of the Star Swirl the Bearded adventure books. I remembered it well, having read it only twenty or so times: Star Swirl the Bearded delves into the cave of the Maret in order to learn its secrets. He is captured, but escapes deep into the cave and steals the treasure of the Maret from right under her snout, and leaves the cave just as the furious monster brings the entire mountain crashing down on top of herself to stop him. Then he returns to his home and uses the treasure to create the Amniomorphic Spell, the greatest discovery in recent pony history.

All in all, nothing at all like the real thing. Again it occurred to me to wonder why the writer of these books had made him so heroic in the first place. Maybe he wrote them himself.

After another fifteen minutes of reading I had finished the last of the textbooks and sat there deep in thought, wondering if Bunnies and her companions were done with whatever it was they were doing. But my thoughts kept coming back to the old wizard, and all the stories I'd read about him. Why were they so different? The wizard of the stories helped ponies, made discoveries and taught them to everypony who wanted to learn, whereas the real wizard was completely impossible to understand, his work almost unreadable. Better to stick with normal teachers who can actually communicate, I thought, and looked at the stack of books I had just read... and which were horribly disappointing.

I picked up the first textbook that met my eyes, and flipped through to the last chapters. Lengthy detailed explanations of points that to me seemed obvious. Five pages spent explaining what Star Swirl had told me in a sentence. I know this, I thought. Star Swirl the Bearded taught me this.

Even though I was dead on my hooves and I think maybe at one point I was hallucinating things, he got me to understand it.

The anger dropped out of my chest as I thought back to the stories again. Old tales, told by my nan at my bedside, about a wise stallion who outwitted ogres and chased away nightmares, leaving behind safe villages as he wandered off into the sunset. Then, when I could scrape together a half-bit as a child, I would buy those cheap serialized books in secret, and sneak into my room unseen by the servants to escape the disapproving stare of my mother. Then I'd read about Star Swirl the Bearded, a bold adventurer who delved into the deepest caverns and darkest jungles hunting for secret knowledge, which he then made public and helped make the wonders of modern living. Then, as a teenager, when I could read proper books, I sought out the library and dug up something closer to the original sources, the modern history of ponydom where I could look up "Star Swirl" or "Bearded, the" in the index, and seek out every mention of a mythical figure who still walked among us mortal ponies when all the others were gone. Fragments of confused text, that only hinted obliquely at his work but to me were like traces of gold dust hidden in the sand. "Diplomatic envoys exchanged between the Court of the Unicorn King and the land recently discovered behind a closet by Star Swirl the Bearded." "A monograph recently published by Star Swirl the Bearded suggests shape of universe, new recipe for cherry pie." "Star Swirl the Bearded arrived at the Palace of Duke Godfrey to speak with Griffon King Blaze on the evening of the 24th of June. On the 27th of June the Palace of Duke Godfrey burned to the ground. On the 30th, the Griffon army withdrew from the border of Prance. Griffon King Blaze swears revenge. Star Swirl the Bearded could not be reached for comment."

He makes enemies everywhere he goes. Studies magic at Cambridle, makes enemies. Stops a war, makes an enemy. Revolutionizes our lives, makes an enemy. And he never so much as bats an eyelid. Told me not to worry. Told me he had everything under control. Keeps on going, making new discoveries. Because he's Star Swirl the Bearded, and that's what he does.

I sighed, and set off towards Canterlot House 1.

– – –

I climbed the stair to the house once again, and rang the bell. After half a minute I was just about to knock again when the door swung open and Star Swirl the Bearded was once again standing there just looking at me.

Maybe this time I can make a better first impression, I thought. “Professor, I'd like to apologize,” I began, carefully adopting a tone and stance of appropriate remorse. “I was exhausted, uncertain, and afraid, and I lost my temper. It was undignified and inappropriate, and I'm sorry.”

Silence. I glanced up at the wizard to see his reaction.

Star Swirl looked at me as though I had grown a second head. Which is to say he didn't bat an eyelid or give any indication that he was looking at anything out of the ordinary, but I could see the glimmer of surprise deep in his eyes.

An awkward silence ensued. “So... are you coming in?” he eventually asked.

I gulped. Here it was, the moment of truth. “You're still willing to have me as your assistant?”

He frowned. “Is there some reason I shouldn't that I am not aware of?” he asked.

Ah yes, here he was again: Star Swirl the Oblivious, completely blind to the feelings of those around him. “Maybe because we got into a shouting match and I called you 'impossible' and said I couldn't stand being around you anymore?” A second passed. “For which I'm really very, very sorry?”

“Oh, that.” He shrugged. “That wasn't a shouting match, believe me. The last time I got into a real shouting match, I wiped a country off the map.”

“Look, Professor,” I said calmly, “I want to work with you, but I need to say one thing. I'd like to trust you. But if I'm going to be working here, I need you to promise me, for real, that it actually is safe to be around you and that you really do have everything under control, and I need to know how the security works so I can feel confident that it is working. Alright?” Please don't say it please don't say it please don't say it—

“Don't worry about it.”

Yes, he said it. He stepped inside, expecting me to follow, and slowly I did. Once again my heart sank in my chest. Were we doomed to continue arguing back and forth about this? Was I doomed to continue debating myself on whether to stay or leave, with Star Swirl always on the verge of going too far? We entered the research hall, and I noticed my teacher-yet-again looking at me funny. I gave him a blank, unenthused stare.

“Wait here,” he said, and trotted off to a nearby wall. He lit his horn, and a section of the wall slid out to reveal a hidden doorway. He entered, and the doorway closed seamlessly behind him. I slowly approached it and scrutinized the wall, but was unable to detect anything unusual about it at all.

Five minutes passed, with me standing there waiting in front of the bare wall, until I heard a rumbling sound, and the hidden door slid out again. It opened to reveal a sight that blanked out my mind for several seconds, while I struggled to comprehend what I was looking at.

Slowly seeping out of the doorway before me, there came a glowing, sickly-colored amoeboid entity with glistening, translucent arms. Unnatural ripples ran through its weird, unearthly, gelatinous flesh, forming what might have been eyes that looked out upon the world for a second before melting back into the chaotic, churning mass that formed it. It was massive, filling the doorway, its long tenebrous tentacles extending out towards me.

I screamed and dove for cover behind a nearby chest of drawers.

“Come on, out you,” the voice of Star Swirl the Bearded called from behind the monstrosity, which emerged to reveal a line of similar but smaller many-limbed entities following it. Finally, after five of the creatures total had emerged, there was Star Swirl, sternly guiding them towards the exit.

He drove them out of the building, and in the dusk moonlight they dissipated into thin air and were gone.

“Star Swirl?” I said, struggling to keep my voice flat. “What was that?”

“Phase hydras,” Star Swirl the Bearded said. “I had to drive them out manually. Swirly Star the Wise said to say hello.” He dropped something gently on the floor in front of me. “Here.”

It was a small, hoof-shaped, jar of salt.

Author's Note

I don't think I've written a story in the 1st person in ten years. Does it show?
I probably won't keep writing the story solely like this from now on, anyway.

"Salt is hydraphilic" comes courtesy of my friend VisMis.

Chapter 6: The Field Trip

AN: We return to the third-person narrator for now, but I reserve the right to experiment again in the future.

– – –

Clover hummed a breezy tune to herself as she sorted through the day's mail delivery. Some months had passed since the day Clover got her salt back. Since then, her apprenticeship and her studies both had continued making steady progress.

After the phase hydra incident, Star Swirl had dug out The Other Side of Up* and began teaching Clover about the various rare magical creatures he had encountered in his career, as well as those which continued to elude him. With a little prodding, she had even gotten the old wizard to tell some of the stories about how he met them, stories which invariably had some nuggets of narrative gold in them even if the storyteller seemed completely unable to distinguish the interesting bits from the rest. It was worth listening through twenty minutes of “how I distinguished between two types of very similar—but not quite identical—grass” to get to hear the story of the Kelpie, or of the Al-Mi'raj, or of how Star Swirl had lured out the faerie queen from her den by making her think that the thousand-year cycle had come around to make it time for her to emerge, and casting an illusion to make his robe seem like the Flickering Castle so she would go to sleep in his pocket.

*: Swirl, Star & Star, Swirly, The Other Side of Up: A Taxonomy of Arcanobiological Case Studies. Canterlot House 1 & Canterlot House 1.

In addition, Star Swirl had begun teaching Clover to manipulate the Weave, the web of magic that courses through the air and the earth. Clover had been delighted to discover that Star Swirl's house actually was laid out in order to maximize the current of magical energy.

To her disappointment, however, the dirty windows turned out to be dirty not because the individual dirt particles had been charged with magical power, but instead because Star Swirl could not be bothered to wash them. Accordingly, she had taken it upon herself to do the job, but between her other chores, and the fact that the dirt fought back in ingenious ways, it was a slow task.

Finally, Clover was getting ever more practice with alchemy and charms, and Star Swirl had let her produce several of the potions he would sell by post order, for which she received a portion of the revenue. She had come to enjoy the work, and had only lightly singed her coat on a few occasions. All in all, things were going very well, and Clover was happy.

She finished sorting the letters and moved on to processing and cataloguing the packages. There were only a few today, and when the first one she opened revealed a cluster of hissing serpents, she didn't bat an eyelid. She closed the box again, pushed it to one side, and called out, “The snakes you were waiting for arrived today, Professor!”

Somewhere in the house, Star Swirl the Bearded called out “Excellent!” in response.

Clover reached for the next package and opened it to reveal another cluster of hissing serpents. She blinked uncertainly, closed the box, checked the address of origin, checked the first box, then called out: “Actually, now the snakes you were waiting for have arrived. The first one was from the Sapphire Wizards.”

“Excellent! A control group!” Star Swirl called out.

Clover carried on her work, a little more cautiously. The assassination attempts had continued at a steady pace since Star Swirl had moved to Cambridle. True to Star Swirl's word, none of them had put Clover in any real danger, although she still thought his recommendation that she “put some music on the grammophone and keep reading until I'm done” was a bit cold.

Star Swirl emerged from wherever he had been working, and began to read the letters just as Clover was finishing the packages. She picked up the last one, and noticed there were two letters lying underneath it. The first was a small plain envelope addressed to Star Swirl; she placed it on top of the stack and he picked it up. The second was one of the fancy expensive envelopes with the gold trim, the ones that generally signified an invitation to something prestigious which Star Swirl was going to completely ignore. However, instead of reciting the long list of titles the wizard had accumulated over the course of his career, as those letters usually did, the fine calligraphy on the front of the envelope read:

To Clover Cordelia, Canterlot House 1, Cambridle.

From Ivy Cordelia, Ponydilly Street 115, Whinnysor.

Clover ripped the envelope open and read the contents. “My parents are coming to visit me.”

“Hm.” Star Swirl stared down at his own note. Clover glanced at him; he seemed unusually subdued. Seeing her gesture, he offered her the note to read:

The Eagle has left the nest. -G.

“What does that mean?”

“It's a warning. Another assassin is going to try to kill me. What does yours say?”

Clover looked back to her letter. “My parents are coming to visit.”

“Ah!” Star Swirl nodded solemnly. “I suppose we're both thinking the same thing, then. Pack your things, we leave Cambridle within the hour.”

“Oh.” Clover processed the words. “Wait, what?”

“I had been thinking that it's been a while since I caught up with my field work,” Star Swirl said as he trotted over to the next platform and began picking out small instruments, assessing and discarding or approving each for whatever he was planning. “This seems like a good occasion to leave town and let things calm down a bit.”

“But... I need to be here to meet my parents,” Clover said.

“That's quite convincing,” Star Swirl said, and nodded, “but there's no need to persuade me. We can be anywhere in the world when they come knocking, and leave behind a note saying we're very sorry but, oh, the world needed saving from something very urgent two continents away and we'll be back just as soon as we no longer don't want to. Go grab your essentials.”

“What? No!” Clover insisted. “I need to be here to meet my parents, Star Swirl! If you go off someplace to hide in a cave then I'll go back down to my dorm room, but I'm not escaping from my parents!”

“You're wearing the mask again, Clover,” Star Swirl replied. “I thought we were over this.”

“What mask?”

“The job interview mask, the I'm-going-to-follow-the-pointless-formula mask,” Star Swirl said as he dug through a drawer for his favorite astrolabe. “The 'I don't really want to do this but I'm pretending I do because that's what I've been taught that I have to do in order to be accepted' mask. I hate that mask. Now stop joking around and get packing.”

– – –

It ended up taking Clover the better part of an hour to explain to Star Swirl that she actually didn't want to flee the city to avoid seeing her parents, a concept which the old wizard found hard to grasp. Clover did have to admit that, when asked, Star Swirl marshalled abundant evidence in the form of comments Clover herself had made over supper in the course of her apprenticeship, comments which made Clover's parents seem like demons escaped from the pits of Tartaros.

“So you're saying,” Star Swirl eventually said, “that you can hold all these opinions about your relatives, and yet at the same time, will consent to spend time with them?”

“Yes!”

“How bizarre.” Star Swirl stared deeply at the calculations he had made in the course of their conversation. “This needs to be accounted for.”

His horn lit up, and in a distant corner of the research hall there began the sound of steam-powered machinery pounding, and large gears turning. The two ponies crossed over to it, and Clover saw a big contraption stashed away in a corner looking like an unfinished sculpture satirically depicting the modern fad for mechanical conveniences. It huffed and chuffed for a little bit, before it stopped with the sound of a bell ringing, and a small piece of paper emerged from a slot.

Star Swirl picked it up and read the message aloud: “Conclusion: Go into hiding.” He smiled triumphantly. “See? The machine agrees with me.”

“You made that machine,” Clover pointed out.

“That doesn't mean anything,” Star Swirl grumbled. “Look, do you want to come and do field research with me or not?”

“Of course I do,” Clover said. “That sounds brilliant. But I also want to be here when my parents come to visit in a couple of weeks. So can we be back by then?”

“A few weeks is no time at all by 'waiting for the heat to die down'-standards,” Star Swirl grumbled. “I once waited longer than that for a basilisk to stop searching for me so I could slip out of its cave.”

“You did not!”

“I did too!”

“I'll have you know that I once read a first-edition copy of The Long-Lost Haunted House of Chimæra Chasm, with the unedited afterword,” Clover declared. “You hid in the cave for fifteen minutes at most.”

“You're much too clever for your own good,” Star Swirl the Bearded muttered, after a long guilty silence. “Fine, we'll be back within two weeks. I'll just make sure to lock the windows when we return.”

– – –

“So why do I get to carry all the equipment?”

They had been packing for an hour, and Clover was now loaded up like a poor beast of burden, with multiple sets of saddlebags reaching from her tail to her withers, each filled with a broad selection of gizmos and gadgets of all types. On top of it all was a huge telescope precariously balanced on her back, at least until Star Swirl tied it down with what he claimed was “magical string”.

Star Swirl himself, meanwhile, was carrying his robe and hat, and nothing else that Clover could see. “Because you are the assistant,” he said, “and I am the one hundred and seventeen-year old master wizard. Do you have everything on the list?”

Clover brought up the list: a single green leaf, broad and spiny, which floated in an intangible cube formed by eight small pieces of noble metals held in perfect alignment by magical forces. The leaf whispered, to any who dared hold it up to their ear and listen, a series of items, which Clover had dutifully collected. “I think that's everything,” she said.

“Excellent. Let me just lock down the house and we'll be off.” Star Swirl's adjusted his hat so his horn stuck out under the front brim, and concentrated. His horn lit up, his aura a strange mixture of pale light and deep darkness, and Clover felt the magic coursing through Canterlot House 1 change its purpose. “Alright, now hold still.”

There was a flash of blinding light, a sensation of motion, and then Clover's face smacked into the side of a tree. She yelped in pain and rubbed her muzzle in her hooves. Around her she heard strange birds cawing, and the sound of running water. They were in the middle of a thick, dark wood.

“There we are,” Star Swirl said. “I should like to see anypony find us now.” He licked a hoof and held it up. “Air acidity is at normal levels. That means the supervolcano is still stable. Alright, let's get going.”

Before Clover could speak, Star Swirl set off through the dense undergrowth without hesitation, pinpointed at an exact direction according to a compass Clover could not read.

“So,” Clover began as she strove to keep up with the old wizard, who marched forward as swiftly and easily as though he were walking on a broad cobblestone road rather than through thick plantlife never before trod by ponies, “where exactly are we, and what's on our agenda, professor?”

“With me staying in Cambridle lately, I've rather fallen behind on my field work,” Star Swirl said. “Since we're laying low anyway, I figured we would visit some of my research outposts and take some readings. As for where we are, we are in the Black Forest of Germaneigh.”

Clover gaped, her eyes wide. “You just teleported us—that's a thousand miles!”

“Well, don't expect to do that again anytime soon,” he said. “Canterlot House is built for that sort of thing. Long-distance teleportation is extremely demanding. Without Lightning Hydras or leyline energy, we have only the magical power we can scrounge from the terrain.”

They broke through to a clearing, with a bulge of bare, jagged rock in the center. From here, they could see that they were standing on a range of hills, and directly south of them rose a mountain. “That's the Pferdberg,” Star Swirl said. “We're going up there. I hope you're ready for a climb.”

– – –

They walked for hours, rising steadily, but as night fell they were still only a third of the way up the mountain. Star Swirl picked a spot to camp, and Clover set up their tents as Star Swirl set up his telescope and began stargazing.

Clover fell to her rump in exhaustion after she finally got both tents standing steady. “So where exactly is this research station we're going to?”

“Mizar and Alcor.”

“Is that on top of the mountain?”

“They're stars,” Star Swirl said, and shot her a Look. “I did a favor for them once, some years back, and in return I got them to hold a magic mirror for me. I'm looking at it right now.”

Clover stopped and thought about this for a second. “Star Swirl, if we were just going stargazing, why on earth did we walk all the way here? We can see the stars from home. We climbed a mountain, for Celestia's sake!”

Star Swirl shot her another, angrier look. “It's a very small mirror,” he growled. “You need to look at it from exactly the right angle.” He turned back to the telescope, and muttered a curse. “This position isn't quite right. Hold on to something.”

His horn lit up, and before Clover knew it the ground quaked beneath her. The horizon shook, and began to turn and shift, and a great thundering roar of breaking and setting stone rang out through the silent night.

Clover screamed and held on to a tree for dear life as the mountain walked beneath her, covering a dozen miles in a matter of minutes. Then, with a mighty crash, it sat down again in a new spot.

“Yes, that's much better,” Star Swirl said.

Half a minute passed before Clover dared to open her eyes again. Their camp was a shambles, their equipment strewn about the moss and thin grass and bushes, and their tents had collapsed.

Clover gingerly let go of the tree trunk and prodded the ground until she was satisfied that it was not going to move again. “Star Swirl?” she asked, as calmly as she could manage.

“Hm?”

“Did you just levitate a mountain so that you would have a better position for your telescope?”

“Of course not,” Star Swirl scoffed. “Nopony can levitate a mountain. Don't be silly.”

Clover looked at him and waited.

“No, I just manipulated the leylines to make the mountain think it was actually supposed to be a couple of miles over from where it was. Then, as soon as the mountain realized it was in the wrong place, it moved over here on its own as quickly as it could. Being in the wrong place is the most embarrassing thing that can possibly happen to a mountain. Once we're done here I'll return the leylines to their original position, and the mountain will go back again.”

Clover decided to change the subject. “...So what do you see in the mirror?”

“Let me see...” Star Swirl finished adjusting the telescope, and smiled. “There we are. Most of the world's mountains are slowly being worn down, but a few are growing taller. The dragon population is growing after the discovery of a massive gemstone deposit in the southern mountains, that's going to have repercussions down the line. Some major leylines are shifting, rather faster than is usual, indicating an increase in the power moving through them. That could be worth looking into further. And... hm, I need to get a message to Saddle Arabia that they're going to get a major earthquake in a few months time. Make a note of that, Clover.”

“You can see all that by looking through a telescope?” Clover's eyes lit up in awe as she got out a quill and a small notebook. “Some of the adventure books said that you could read the future in the stars. I guess that was a bit of hyperbole, and this is what they meant?”

“No,” Star Swirl said, his voice suddenly flat and guarded. “That was literally true. But that was a long time ago.”

The cold glance that accompanied the statement spoke wonders, and Clover decided that this was a very good topic to not ask about, possibly ever again.

– – –

By midnight, Star Swirl had finished his stargazing, and Clover had finished repairing the ruins of the camp, and the two of them sat in front of a small fire roasting marshmallows. Clover held hers in the traditional fashion, on a sharpened stick, and ate each as it was ready; Star Swirl levitated his above the fire, scrutinized each until he was certain they had reached a point of perfection, then fed them to small animals that Clover could barely hear, skulking in the shadows.

“Professor?”

“Hm?”

“You know that letter you received?” she cautiously began.

Star Swirl nodded, just once.

“Why was that letter such a big deal? I mean, you've been attacked... eight times, while I've been your assistant—”

“Nine times,” Star Swirl said. “You were out for tea, once.”

“Alright, nine,” Clover said. “None of them seemed to bother you at all. Why did this one suddenly make you decide to skip town?”

“Hrm...” Star Swirl tossed his marshmallow into a bush, and Clover heard a wet snuffling sound as something chomped it down. “As I said earlier, Clover, this seemed as good an opportunity as any to catch up on my field work. But since you ask,” Star Swirl continued, as Clover watched him with eagle eyes, clearly unsatisfied with this answer, “that letter was from my informant in the court of the Griffon King.”

Clover's expression changed from skepticism to guarded respect, with a dash of apology. “Oh.”

Star Swirl chuckled. “Don't worry about it. But does that answer your question?”

Clover nodded. She had read the story of Star Swirl's encounter with Griffon King Blaze. In fact she had read several of them. Each was more outrageous than the last, and all of them directly contradictory to one another.

The outlines of the story were well known: it was many years ago, at a time of political upheaval, when the griffons, ruled by the fearsome and ruthless King Blaze were conquering new territories in every corner of the map. As each new land fell to the griffons, an invasion of the Unicorn Kingdom and the other lands of ponies seemed inevitable. In an act either of brilliantly cynical calculation, or of abject desperation, the Unicorn King sent Star Swirl the Bearded as an ambassador to persuade the Griffon King not to attack. So the wizard went, and met with Griffon King Blaze at a secret summit, at the mansion of some griffon noble.

Nopony knew what happened there, and Star Swirl never spoke of it. But just a few days into the summit, the mansion burned to the ground, the griffon armies withdrew from the border to the lands of ponies, and Griffon King Blaze swore undying vengeance on the wizard. Since then, the Griffon Empire's borders had not expanded by one hoof.

Over the years since, a huge number of stories began circulating describing what had happened when the two of them met, each more wildly outrageous than the last. Clover now privately suspected that the reality, whatever it was, put all the stories to shame.

“Have any of the assassination attempts I've seen been from him?”

Star Swirl shook his head. “The Griffon King can afford the very best. Those are worth actually worrying about.”

Both of them sat silently for a few minutes, watching the fire.

“So where are we going next?”

“Out to sea,” Star Swirl said, tossing a marshmallow over his shoulder and moving another over to the fire. “The coast is a few days away.”

“Want to sing camp songs?” Clover asked hopefully. “I don't mean magical compulsion choreographed song and dance,” she said in response to his glower. “Just regular, voluntary singing. It's fun!”

“I was born with a deficient song gland,” Star Swirl said after a moment's thought. “I can't sing normally.”

“I happen to know you fixed that with magic when you were in your twenties,” Clover said. “I read your article in issue #299 of the Aetite Journal of Medical Studies.”

“...Yes, much, much too clever for your own good,” Star Swirl muttered. “It's going to get you into trouble someday.”

The next morning, they cleaned up their campsite and trotted off to their next destination. Once the wizard was gone, the leylines slowly returned to their original position, and the mountain sheepishly shuffled back to its home, suddenly realizing why all the other mountains had been trying to suppress their giggling all night.

It would never live this down. For a million years to come, it was the laughing stock of all the mountains of Germaneigh.

– – –

At noon, after a morning spent descending from the mountain through the forest, Clover felt the chill of a shadow fall on her, and looked up to find the sky cloudy overhead. It was not cloudy anywhere else; just directly overhead, a wide circle of thick, white cloud drifting across the skies.

As she looked, a winged pony swiftly crossed her field of vision before disappearing into the white. Then she noticed the intricate sculpted whorls and drifts decorating the cloud underneath.

She gasped. “Star Swirl... is that...?”

“Cloudsdale, yes,” Star Swirl said, looking up alongside her. “The first of the great cloud cities. What would be the capital of the Pegasus Republic, except of course that would be admitting that there exists a Pegasus Republic. Which, obviously, there doesn't, because every pegasus city is a free and independent state. The fact that the free pegacities all obey a military oligarchy run out of a mountaintop fortress is just a sign that they are all very good friends. It's a nice town to visit, though of course non-pegasi need special magic to walk on the clouds.”

Who is that, who soars through the skies on wings of magic? It is Clover of Cloudsdale! She who won the respect of the most embittered and crotchety of unicorns, and then banded together both horns and wings in friendship! “Do you think we could go visit it?” Clover asked, affecting a meek tone to cover her excitement. “I've always wanted to see a cloud city, and you can make the cloud-walking spell, I'm sure... Maybe we're not welcome though? Because, you know, we're unicorns, and they're... not that I have anything against pegasi...?” She racked her brain to try to think what was the least offensive alternative. “I mean, if you have something against Pegasi, I'm sure you have perfectly understandable reasons for it but I just don't think—”

Star Swirl was holding her muzzle shut with magic. “Clover,” he said quietly. “No, we're not going there. Remember that we are trying to stay low. While I dare say few pegasi even know who I am, somepony would certainly recognize me and send word to Commander Hurricane, and then I would have to fight off all of Storm Legion and we would miss our next stop.”

“Oh.” Clover bit her lip. “Commander Hurricane wants to kill you? What did you do to her?”

“Nothing,” Star Swirl said.

“Nothing?” Clover raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing. It was her mother, actually. Come on, we'll follow underneath the city and make camp under the trees when night falls.”

“Did you say underneath the city?” Clover asked, looking up with a guarded eye.

“Blue ice is just a myth,” Star Swirl said. “The Rainbow Factory is completely real, though.”

Clover's eyes widened in horror. “It is?!”

“Oh yes. I've seen it myself. A weather factory made entirely of rainbows. It's quite impressive, but I'm not sure why everypony thinks it's such a big deal.”

– – –

After another day of walking, the two ponies finally cleared the last bit of forest to see the glittering sea before them, waves crashing on the jagged, rocky coastline.

Star Swirl climbed up on a rock and grabbed a spyglass from one of Clover's many saddlebags, and scouted up and down the coast before nodding. “There's a village down there. We'll stop there for a rest and something to eat, and see about hiring a boat to take us out to the station.”

“Thank goodness,” Clover muttered. Her legs ached and her back was drooping from the weight of the scientific instruments weighing her down. “I'm not an earth pony... not that I have anything against earth ponies... I'm not built for this kind of work.”

Star Swirl either failed to hear her or simply ignored her. Either way, he said nothing and proceeded to trot down the path in the direction of the town, and Clover dutifully shuffled into motion behind him.

An hour later they walked up the dirt road to a small earth pony fishing village, a collection of small but solid stone cabins with thatched rooftops and a long pier lined with boats of varied size and age. Weathered old earth pony mares and stallions sat out in the salty wind, at work tending to their fishing tools, or else at play with a simple boardgame between two ponies and a few more watching from the sidelines. Every face turned to watch the unicorns' approach with mild interest. Star Swirl made no reaction to being watched, and Clover tried to nod and smile at everyone, hoping that nopony had heard or been offended at anything she may have said or thought about earth ponies, possibly carried on the wind as they walked.

An hour later, Star Swirl and Clover were far out to sea, on a sailboat helmed by an old seamare, crossing the ocean at remarkable speed while Clover rested her hooves, having finally let the huge stash of tools and gadgets off her back. She smiled, and lay back with her eyes closed, enjoying the feel of the sun on her face, until a shadow fell on her and she looked up to see Star Swirl looking serious under his hat brim.

“We're almost there,” he said quietly. “Pick up the equipment again and be ready to move.”

Clover mumbled a soft “yes, professor,” and listlessly got back up on her hooves. She began the laborious process of collecting all the equipment and deposing it on her back in the right order to fit it all on, and turned around to see where they were going to make landfall. She saw only ocean all around them.

“Go on,” Star Swirl urged her, and headed up to the prow to discuss their heading with the sailor. Clover grumbled, but finished collecting everything and securing it on her back just as Star Swirl came back. “Got everything?” he asked.

“Yes profess—” she began, as Star Swirl picked her up with his magic and tossed her overboard.

Clover panicked, her limbs flailing as she sank down under the weight of the equipment into the deeps. Her breath escaped in a gurgling, muffled scream as Star Swirl fell down on her from above, bringing with him a huge bubble of air. The bubble sucked her into it and left her lying, soaked and terrified, on the surface of the water.

“Sorry about that,” Star Swirl said. “I would have warned you, but I couldn't risk you revealing anything to anypony who might have been watching us.”

Clover sputtered and twitched and squirmed, and eventually managed to calm down enough to take a deep breath, and scream at the top of her lungs.

Star Swirl watched with interest as the sound sent ripples flowing over the inner surface of the air bubble. “Feeling better?”

Clover took another deep breath, and slowly let it out. “Actually, yes,” she admitted.

“Good,” Star Swirl said, and lit up his horn. The water around them began to glimmer, and a soft light spread all around them as the bubble descended. “It's not Cloudsdale, but I always thought this had a certain charm.”

Clover gasped, her eyes wide as the light expanded. After mere moments, the ocean floor was clearly visible far below them, an alien world covered in life that the dry surface could only dream of. Hundreds of varieties of fish, scuttling crabs, other shelled lifeforms, strange squishy things with an abundance of arms and legs, all swam and crawled amid the dense grasses and not-quite-trees of the ocean landscape, while in the distance a pair of whales sang, their dirge setting the bubble to shiver softly. She could see it all.

A sea pony pulled up alongside them, studied them quizzically, then laughed and swam away with unbelievable speed and grace, and disappeared.

The bubble sped up, and moved over the underwater forest, Star Swirl mumbling to himself, until they came to a point where the rock fell away into a deep ravine, and they dropped into it, leaving the life of the world above behind.

Clover shivered. Here, things with long, crooked, insectile legs hid in little nooks and crannies in the cliff as they passed, and the fish were strange and twisted things which never knew sunlight. A jellyfish a hundred leg-lengths across drifted lazily past as they sank ever deeper.

Other bubbles rose up to meet them now, and Star Swirl smiled. “Here we are.” Their bubble came to a rest on the very bottom of the ravine, where a crack in the earth spewed out glowing molten rock and thick plumes of smoke and gas.

“What is that?” Clover asked.

“That's Research Station #13,” Star Swirl said. “Get out the Iopometer.”

“Iopometer?” Clover bit her lip, suddenly nervous. “Which one is that again?”

“The one with the picture of a bull riding an arrow over Mount Ponymanjaro,” Star Swirl said.

“...I don't think that was on the list,” Clover said. “I don't remember packing that.”

“Seriously?” Star Swirl groaned. “I trusted you with this, Clover!”

“I've never even heard of an Iopometer before! You're the one that gave me the list!” Clover shouted. “And why couldn't you just have written it down instead of using that ridiculous leaf-thing?”

“Don't call Mister Leafy ridiculous!” Star Swirl cried. “He's been feeling depressed lately, I wanted to make him feel useful!” The old wizard shook his head, mumbling. “Fine, I'll make a new Iopometer. Just give me a few minutes.”

Clover watched as Star Swirl tore loose rocks from the sides of the ravine, and over a period of ten minutes transmuted and meticulously assembled a bizarre-looking contraction with many arms, a large and frightening metal needle in the middle, and an array of little round counters measuring Star Swirl knows what. “There, that should do the trick,” Star Swirl said, and jabbed the needle into the crack in the rock. The arms immediately began moving, the counters counting, and Star Swirl grabbed a quill and began to take notes.

“Wait,” Clover said. “If you can create this equipment on the spot from rocks and sand wherever you are, then why am I carrying around this sixty-pound telescope on my back?”

“I really like that telescope,” Star Swirl said. “It fits my eye.”

– – –

An hour went past. Clover was content to sit and study the ocean floor, analysing the magic that kept the bubble intact, the air inside it clean, and which kept them safe from both the crushing pressure of the water and the staggering temperature of the thermal vent they were parked on.

Star Swirl, meanwhile, laboriously deciphered the data from the Iopometer. Once or twice, Clover heard him mumble “this can't be right...”, and once, “three times, same results...”

At one point, Star Swirl disassembled the Iopometer, inspected each component for structural imperfections, and grumbled unhappily when he found none.

“I'm done here, and I know where we are going next,” he eventually declared, and lit up his horn. A second later, the bubble rushed upward at great speed, and before long they were back on the surface of the sea. The sun was deep in the western sky, and a chill wind was blowing.

“The volcanic power seems very effective,” Star Swirl said, nodding approvingly. “I charged the bubble with it. It should get us to our next destination. Onward!”

And with that, an invisible bubble holding two ponies and a pile of research equipment set roaring off across the ocean.

– – –

It was late at night, under a brilliant starlit sky, when they saw land again. Clover had no idea exactly how far they had travelled, though the position of the constellations suggested they were very, very far from Braytannia.

A sandy beach lay ahead of them. It stretched almost as far as the eye could see in either direction, and beyond it a thick primordial rainforest seemed to cover this new land.

Soon enough they made landfall, and Star Swirl strode up to the edge of the trees, and halted. “Where is it... Ah!” He turned and galloped down the beach. “Clover! Come quick!”

Clover ran up after him. “What is it, professor?”

“This is our next stop,” he said with the utmost severity. “I want you to listen very carefully, Clover. This is extremely important.”

Clover gulped, and nodded, mustering her courage and standing up as straight as she could manage under the weight. “I'm ready, professor!”

“Do you see this pebble?” He pointed at a particular pebble that lay between them.

Clover looked at it. “Yes.”

Star Swirl nodded. “I was afraid of that. This is even worse than I thought.”

Clover waited, expecting something more. Star Swirl turned, and walked slowly away, slouching, as though exhausted or despairing.

Clover looked at the departing stallion, and her mouth fell open. She looked from him to the pebble, and back again, as she felt the frustration-turning-to-anger rising in her throat. No! She bit down on her anger. I am going to do this methodically, thoroughly.

She reached out with her magic and felt the pebble: it lifted as easily as any other, and she brought it up close to her eyes, casting horn-illumination on it to see more clearly. Seeing nothing special about the rock, she scanned it for magic. There was only a minor enchantment on it. She was familiar enough with Star Swirl's magic to recognize his imprint, but the spell itself was only a minor anchoring spell, hardly noticeable, which wouldn't do anything beyond ensuring that the pebble would find its way back to the beach if chance carried it away. Nothing else. It was a rock like any other.

That can't be it! She focused her magic and looked deeper. Nothing.

No... wait...

A very particular nothing.

She poked it with her own magic, and felt it bounce off, like water off a pegasus' wings. She tried to prod the enchantment Star Swirl had put on it, and found herself unable to interact with it in any meaningful sense. Everything she tried gave the same result. It was locked, and would not allow anything to change it. The pebble was anti-magical.

“Come on, Clover!” Star Swirl called from further down the beach. “We'll set up camp here for tonight.”

– – –

The camp was ready in minutes, and Star Swirl sat staring into the fire, lost in his thoughts.

“Seriously though, professor,” Clover said, opting for the direct route, “what was that all about?”

“Was what now?” Star Swirl mumbled, not turning to face her. “Oh, the pebble?”

“Yes!” Clover said, a little more forcefully, she thought, than was really necessary.

“The pebble is an ontological failsafe test,” Star Swirl answered. “It proves that the universe still exists.”

Clover blinked. “How does that work?”

“It's quite simple,” the wizard said. “If the universe is destroyed, the pebble will be gone. The pebble was there, and so I can be confident that the universe has not been destroyed while I was busy doing something else.”

Clover tried to process this reasoning, and promptly failed. Forty different objections arose in her mind, each clamoring to be the first to escape her mouth.

The result was a sort of pained, sobbing gargle.

“There are so many things wrong with that idea,” Clover eventually said, “that I don't even know how to express it.”

“Well, be that as it may,” Star Swirl said, “let's assume that I've already thought about every objection you have, and resolved them to my satisfaction, and skip ahead to the important question.”

“Why?” Clover cried. “What would even give rise to this question in the first place?”

“Well, remember that leyline disturbance I observed from the Pferdberg? I have some bad news,” Star Swirl began. “At Research Station #13, I had a closer look. With the Iopometer, I could monitor the flow of magic through geological strata in five dimensions. It registered a class-ten anomaly.”

“Is that very bad?” Clover asked.

“You could say that,” Star Swirl nodded. “According to the Star Swirl the Bearded Improbability Index, a class-ten anomaly is less likely, and potentially more dangerous, than the possibility that the universe has already been destroyed without us noticing, and that we are trapped in an imaginary existence. Hence the pebble.”

Clover nodded. “So what is this anomaly, do you know?”

“It could be a giant monster,” Star Swirl said, “of the kind that eats spacetime and poops small black holes. Or it could be a virus from another plane of existence, that infects thoughts and emotions. It could be a piece of melody that turns everypony who hears it into its slaves. It could be lots of things. Whatever it is, it needs to be dealt with. So we're going after it.”

Clover felt her heart beating with the spirit of adventure. “We're going to save the world?”

“I'm going to save the world. You're going to observe and take notes for the test, while making sure to stay out of harm's way.”

“Killjoy,” Clover muttered. “So where is this anomaly?”

“I can't tell from the data I have now,” Star Swirl admitted. “Far away. We're going to have to visit some other research stations so I can try to triangulate its location.”

Clover nodded.

“Anyway, I promise that we'll still be back in Cambridle in time to meet your parents.”

“You're sure?” Clover asked.

“Yes. Well, sort of. If we're not done by then, chances are there won't be a universe left to call home, rendering the penalty for breaking the promise trivial. So yes, I promise.”

– – –

Much of the night was over before they went to bed, and when Clover woke up after too few hours of sleep every bone and muscle in her body was aching.

On Star Swirl's orders she clawed her way out of her tent and ate her dry travel oats for breakfast. The days of travel were beginning to wear her down, and she was not going to be of much help with saving the universe if she could barely keep her eyes open. “So where are we going next? Are we sailing again?”

Star Swirl shook his head. “I have another research station further inland,” Star Swirl told her. “It's a pretty major one, as well. But it's quite a distance in, and I'm not entirely sure where in the jungle we are.”

Clover turned to look at the jungle that dominated half the horizon. Thick clusters of green palm leaves cast deep, black shadows which the light could not penetrate more than a few feet inside the forest's edge. From far inland, the cries of wild animals could be heard. For a moment she thought she saw a pair of reflective eyes looking out at her from a particularly dark shadow, heard a low growl of something vaguely feline and definitely hungry. The wilderness was ancient, untouched, and extremely dense. “Oh. Lovely.”

– – –

“Come on, Clover!” Star Swirl yelled back at her through the dense vegetation. “We need to pick up the pace!”

“I'm... trying!” Clover answered as she clambered over a rocky ledge. They had been at it all day, and it had gone so slowly that Clover half suspected that if she looked back she would still see the beach through the trees behind them.

The telescope on her back caught on a low-hanging branch, throwing her off-balance. When she tried to find solid ground, she tripped on a root and toppled over, sending precious instruments flying into the undergrowth, and smacking the side of her head into a tree.

She rubbed her temples with her hooves, groaning softly as Star Swirl walked up to her with a stern expression. He was moving through the jungle as easily as he would trot across an open, grassy plain. She was covered in scrapes and bruises.

“You need to improve your technique,” Star Swirl said. “We'll never get to the anomaly at this rate.”

Clover tried to get back up on her hooves, but once again her saddlebags caught on something and sent her falling backwards into something spiky. She bit her lip, and sobbed softly. “I'm trying, professor, I just...”

“This is part of the life of the adventuring mage,” Star Swirl said, adjusting his hat. “You'll manage.”

“I can't navigate this!” Clover blurted out. “I can barely move a hoof without everything falling apart! The heat is killing me, I'm hungry and I'm tired and I'm covered in scratches and some of these things are liable to give me infections and I'm being devoured by magical mosquitoes and I think I'm allergic to this wild grass!” She was sobbing now. “Can we please take a break, professor? I think I might pass out if we keep going like this!”

Without warning the sky thundered overhead, and a few seconds later the monsoon started. Had she been in a better mood, Clover might have been fascinated to note that the canopy which so effectively blocked off all sunlight presented no barrier at all to the torrential deluge of rain that now descended on her. Heavy, thick rain that didn't so much fall as angrily punch the ground, along with any creatures unfortunate enough to be on it. Each drop was like a tiny whip-lash.

In seconds, Clover was soaked to the bone, her mane and tail lying limp and sticking to her coat. She thought she was crying, now, but it was hard to tell.

Star Swirl stroked his beard, dry and comfortable, watching Clover from under the brim of his hat. “It might be difficult to start a fire,” he said, “but let's try to find someplace sheltered to raise a tent.”

– – –

Ten minutes later, Clover was in her tent, wrapped in a blanket, tucked into the corner of a cluster of tree-trunks that kept her mostly out of the rain. She lay there, having dried herself off as best as she was able, pondering her weakness and her misfortunes as she watched Star Swirl sitting alone out in the rain engaged in some light crafting. Here I am just lying here feeling sorry for myself, and he's doing... something. Something productive, Clover thought to herself. The fate of the universe may hang in the balance, and I'm just slowing him down. Stupid jungle. She sighed loudly, then kicked herself for doing so.

“Feeling better?” Star Swirl asked, as he twined some strips of bark into a thin but powerful string. Then, he led the string through the hole of a needle he had transmuted from the metals in a rock he picked up from the ground.

“A little.” Clover sighed again. “I'm sorry, professor. Look... if you're running short of time, you can leave me and go on ahead,” she said, though her insides ached at the thought of failing. “There's enough oats left here for a few weeks, if I portion it out carefully. You should go save the world without me. I'll just be very careful not to be stung by anything deadly.”

Star Swirl chuckled. “Nonsense. You'll be up and running in a minute.”

Clover looked up at the jungle canopy, and at the small rivers that had already formed on the forest floor and were busily digging out deep trenches. “I don't think I could do any running in this monsoon, professor.”

“Hold on,” he said, tying off the string in a bundle of coarse fabric he had somehow made from the natural materials of the nearby trees. “It's been almost a hundred years since I last made one of these... There, and now for a little protection...” Clover could see the glow of his horn under his hat as he enchanted the bundle. “Finished!”

He got up and walked over to the tent, and dropped the bundle into Clover's forelegs. “Here. Try this on.”

Clover stood up and unfolded the bundle with her magic. It was a simple hooded cloak, brown, with no ornament other than the thin rope of the woven bark to tighten and tie around the neck. The enchantment, Clover saw, would keep it dry and at a comfortable temperature. It was not rich, nor fashionable, nor stylish. It was something a poor scholar might wear.

It was a gift from her teacher.

Clover felt a blush creeping up her cheeks.

She drew it over her back, and raised the hood and tied it comfortably close. It fit her perfectly, and under its enchantment all her discomfort and annoyance washed away. Star Swirl nodded. “The enchantment will last for about a week before it fades away. You can just throw it away when we get home.”

Clover felt a smile coming on, and began pulling down the tent. “Let me just get the things together here,” she said, “then we can keep going.”

– – –

The jungle was still dense, and the roots still had a nasty tendency to trip Clover up. But the insects, magical and otherwise, stayed away, and the cloak kept her dry and at a comfortable temperature. That made a huge difference, both for her state of mind, and for her efforts at navigating the wilderness. By midday, they had gotten deep into the jungle, and Star Swirl had somehow managed to recognize exactly where they were and charted out a course to their next destination.

In addition, the monsoon had ended with as little warning as it began after a few hours. “It's only small monsoon season,” Star Swirl had said.

An hour later, Star Swirl suddenly halted, gestured for Clover to be quiet, and pointed up ahead. “There it is.”

Clover gasped at the sight. In the distance, a soaring pyramid hove into view above the trees. It was built of huge blocks of golden-orange stone, with elaborate images carved on its face, the chronicles of ancient myths and wars. A broad stair lined with blazing torches led up to the pyramid's peak, where a black stone statue rose menacingly above a sacrificial altar. Standing on the stairs Clover saw the guardians of the temple, powerful jungle tribespony stallions clad in gold armor and feathered headdresses, black spears held, somehow, in their hooves.

“Behold, the Temple of Forgotten Doom,” Star Swirl whispered. “All who dwell here have been robbed of their spirits and transformed into soulless minions. We must be careful, lest we rouse the anger of the masters of this place.”

“That's our next stop?!” Clover whispered. “A literal jungle temple of doom?”

“That's right,” Star Swirl said. “Are you ready?”

The earth quaked beneath them as the temple collapsed, burying the portal along with the unknowable abomination that had emerged from it. “It is done,” Star Swirl said as huge rocks crashed down around them. “At long last, it is done. I only regret that I could only defeat my adversary by giving up my own life in return. But at least the world will live on.”

“No, Professor, look!” Dashing Clover pointed to a hole by a ledge on the wall high above. “That opening leads to the surface! If we get up there, we will be safe!”

“'Tis a miracle!” Star Swirl proclaimed. “You have saved my life yet again, Clover, and soon you shall become more famous and powerful than I!”

“I'm ready,” Clover whispered, struggling to contain her grin. “How do we get in? Should we sneak past the guards, or subdue them?”

“I will show you. But I must warn you, Clover,” Star Swirl began, speaking in an ominous tone, “the Temple of Forgotten Doom is difficult to enter, and treacherous to leave. The powers that rule this place can rob a pony of their spirits, and reduce them to soulless minions. We must be careful, lest we rouse their anger. Are you certain you are ready?”

Clover nodded.

“Very well. Follow me, and at all costs, do not panic.” Then he set off again, and Clover followed.

Clover expected that they would sneak through the jungle and attempt to enter the temple unseen. For that matter, she expected that the jungle would remain as thick as it had been up to that point. Instead, after going up through the last few yards of undergrowth the two of them found themselves on a clear, wide, stone road leading right up to the stairs of the pyramid.

Ponies clad in colorful flowery shirts and with brief informative pamphlets in their mouths ambled along the road in both directions. Nearby, a large sign pointed the way to destinations with names like “Happy Inn Restaurant,” “The Happy Families Exhibit,” and “Charming Castle Convention Centre.” Tinny music played in the distance, a jaunty tune that tried too hard not to be depressing. Hungry foals in baby carriages screamed, and nearby smiling ponies offered temple souvenirs and charms to everypony who passed by. A pony ran up to them wearing an oversized Ahuizotl costume that looked likely to kill them by heat stroke, and greeted them with a cry of “Welcome to the Temple of All-Consuming Happiness!”

He then let loose a hearty guffaw that was part sadness and part morbidity.

Star Swirl trotted up to the foot of the stairs under the disinterested gaze of the bottom guards. “Dave, Jim,” he greeted casually, and they nodded. “I need to take a look in the control room. Is Jeff in?”

They traded glances. “Jeff retired two years ago,” one of them said. “Donaldson is the temple manager now.”

“Beware of Donaldson,” intoned the other guard in ominous tones. “He is a stickler for the rules, truly, and will want you to sign in the visiting book in full.”

“Beware the visiting book,” the other guard nodded, facing Star Swirl with a harsh glare.

“I will not sign the visiting book,” Star Swirl the Bearded said. “I will not dip my quill in your black pool of naming, or inscribe my heart with the sigil of your dread god. Behold! I know the low paths and the way of shadows, the greased gateway, and all the arts of passing unnoticed through restricted areas. Let me pass, and you shall feel the force of my recompense!”

With a flourish, Star Swirl held aloft, as you would a holy relic, a coin purse. From within, he lifted two stacks of bits, and dropped one into each of the upturned hooves of the two guards.

They nodded. “The password for today is 'Susannah',” said the first guard. “Susannah is Donaldson's wife. The break room should be empty right now, but in an hour we have our lunch break.”

“Beware the lunch break rush,” said the second guard.

“Beware!” repeated the first, and pointed to the side. Down at the base of the pyramid, a discreet cloth cover concealed the employee entrance.

Star Swirl strode down to it boldly, Clover following closely behind with all the equipment still on her back, and together they delved inside the section of the Temple of Forgotten Doom that was not open to the public.

– – –

Inside the bowels of the Temple of Forgotten Doom, where tourists now roamed in place of cultists, and middle-management had replaced the high priests who tended to the temple before the immortal Ahuizotl had been beaten back into centuries of slumber, Star Swirl and Clover considered the pressure-plated floor in the corridor leading to the inner sanctum.

“If I am deciphering these hieroglyphs properly,” Star Swirl said, scrutinizing the image of some manner of two-headed cat creature through a magnifying lens, “the correct spelling of 'Susannah' should be cat-creature, obelisk, ennui-obelisk, and finally cupcakes.” He pressed down on the four tiles, and Clover heard a click from the ceiling above them.

A stone slid open, and a swarm of venomous spiders flowed out. Clover yelped and leapt up on a nearby plinth, while the spiders crept down through cracks in the floor and carefully reset the pressure plates to their ready position. Then they crawled back up to the ceiling, making low scratching-sounds of complaint in the direction of the old wizard.

“My bad,” Star Swirl said. “That should of course have been inverted-obelisk, not ennui-obelisk. Foolish mistake.”

This time there was a click from the wall behind them, and Clover turned to see that a hidden door had swung open. Inside was the fabled break room, a large, but dusty and dry chamber filled with uncomfortable-looking chairs and low tables, the walls covered in faded motivational posters.

They crossed the break room and arrived at a low, narrow doorway with a thick wooden door, upon which hung two signs. The first was a simple wooden plaque which read CONTROL ROOM in large letters. Underneath it, fastened on the door with thick screws and looking significantly older, was a stone marked with the words “Star Swirl the Bearded Research Station #33”, and “KEEP OUT” engraved on it in very large red letters.

“Here we are,” Star Swirl said as he unlocked the door with a simple, old-fashioned key. “Let's see what kind of damage these clowns have done...”

“Wait a minute,” Clover said. “You have a private lab in the Temple of Forgotten Doom?”

“Yes. What did you think we were doing? I'm not here for my health, you know.”

“I... don't know,” Clover admitted. “I thought maybe we were hunting for a hidden relic that had been waiting here for centuries, slowly taking the earth's magic into itself?”

“Well, that's pretty much what it is. Except it's not a hidden relic, it's a resonance meter in a fixed position.” Star Swirl opened the door and stepped inside. “It's quite convenient, really. Doom cults come and go, but the temples stay forever. You can leave sensitive instruments in here and nopony will disturb them for decades. It does mean you have to get past the current residents when you want to check up though. Still, you can slap a 'do not enter under any circumstances' sign on the door and they'll actually obey it. Soulless minions are good like that.”

The control room was a small, square chamber with low ceilings and no windows. A dingy, yellowish light gave off a weak yet sharp buzzing sound, and everything was covered in many years worth of dust. The walls were faded black, and the walls were lined with strange mechanical and magical instruments, like a storage room from Star Swirl's own house which had been misplaced in space and forgotten.

At the wizard's approach the instruments seemed to come to life, little lights turning on and off, and humming, as though they were breathing.

“Everything seems to be operating,” Star Swirl said. “Keep watch at the door while I retrieve the data.” Clover felt the magic in the room activate as Star Swirl began pressing buttons and turning knobs that sent the devices into a frenzy of activity marked by clicks, beeps and the sound of something spinning at great speeds.

Clover relieved herself of the equipment and stretched her back with a sigh of relief, then stood by the door, leaving it slightly ajar so she could peek out the crack and keep a look out.

After about ten minutes, a pair of temple guardian ponies came into the break room, still wearing their uniforms and ceremonial headdresses. At the first sound, Clover pushed the door shut, and knelt down to look through the keyhole: she saw them sit down right outside, right in her field of sight, and close enough to hear their discussion. It seemed to be oriented mostly around the weather, and inter-departmental gossip about which sections had the best organizational charts, and speculation about what might be on the eagerly-anticipated redesign of Form D-145-O.

“There are two guards outside,” she whispered in Star Swirl's direction. He nodded.

One of the guardians took off his headdress and put it down on the table. As the headdress came loose, the glamer dropped from his body, revealing the grotesque, rotted visage of a zombie pony. His companion followed suit, and their talk turned to the oblivious, low groans of the walking dead.

Clover's mouth hung open, in slack-jawed, yet vaguely cynical horror at the sight. “...Professor?” Clover whispered. “Are you...” bucking serious? No, let's not. She shook her head. “There's a, um... Are you almost done back there?”

“Just a minute,” Star Swirl called back, Clover thought, far far too loudly. “I'm almost finished, the data store is almost completely barren here... hey now... hold on...”

“Hey now?” Clover whispered. “What does 'hey now' mean?”

Star Swirl didn't answer. Outside, more ponies were coming into the break room and sitting down as zombies.

“Professor?” No answer. “I think they may have lied to you about when the lunch break was starting.”

Outside, a large zombie pegasus mare raised her head, sniffed loudly, and turned to face the direction of the door. Then she groaned loudly, got up, and slouched towards the control room. Soon after, others got up and followed her.

“Star Swirl?” Clover called out nervously. “They've noticed us. I think they're coming over.” She looked to her mentor, who was staring at the machine with glowing eyes. “Star Swirl?”

“Star Swirl the Bearded is not in right now,” he responded in a monotone an octave lower than his usual voice. “Please leave a message after the chime and he will respond when and if he decides it is worth his time to do so.” Then one of the bells in his hat made a little ding.

Outside, the zombies gathered at the door and began to pound on it. “Star Swirl!” Clover yelled, no longer attempting to keep quiet. “We're besieged by zombies! We need to get out of here!”

“Download 46% complete,” the monotone voice responded. “Estimated time remaining, four minutes and twelve seconds. Four minutes and eight seconds. One minute and thirty-two seconds. Two days. Four weeks. One year. Fifteen minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Four minutes and eight seconds. Four minutes and four seconds. Four minutes...”

A half-rotted leg smashed through the door right beside Clover's head, and she leapt away with a yelp, before focusing her magic on trying to hold the door in place. “I just hope you can teleport us back out of here when you're done, or something...” she muttered as the door became performated by holes. “Seriously, how are zombies so strong? You are literally falling apart, your gross rotten muscles should be just smooshing out and rubbing ooze over the door, not smashing through it!”

The zombies, being practical thinkers, merely groaned in response and presented empirical proof to the contrary.

Clover fought to hold the barrier together and in place, but by now a large group had formed outside, and the blows rained down, quickly reducing the door to a loose net of broken wood. With a loud crack, the hinges gave up and the door fell inward, trampled underneath their hooves.

“Any time you feel like helping out, professor!” Clover said, levitating a plank from the busted door and repeatedly smacking the first zombie over the head with it as it tried to force its way in the narrow opening. The zombie groaned in objection.

“Download 85% complete. Estimated time remaining, one minute and twenty-nine seconds.”

“Alright, Clover, time to put your extensive reading of sword and sorcery adventure novels to use. What works against zombies?” she said to herself. “Destroying the brain, obviously, but in the absence of an axe or any kind of high-velocity projectile... Fire!” She focused her magic and attempted to set the dry plank ablaze.

She succeeded in mere seconds, and grinned as the flames burst to life. Then she began hacking and coughing as smoke filled the tiny chamber. The zombies seemed frightened, but since the first ones in were being pushed further along by the swell of bodies behind them, or else just trampled underhoof, this had limited efficacy.

Clover doused the torch again by shoving it into the first zombie's open mouth. Clover squealed as the next zombie in line, a pegasus mare, stepped over the fire-eating zombie and slouched forward to grab her. Acting on instinct, she tried to grab her with magic and push her back, and was surprised to find it actually worked quite well.

Clover slapped her forehead. “...lifeless matter is easier to lift. Of course zombies qualify. Brilliant, Clover. Well! Let's see how you like your completely illogical muscle strength when it's being used to bash your own heads in!” Clover gritted her teeth and raised the zombie in the air, the dead mare's withered legs twitching and reaching, and began clubbing the other zombies with her, splattering zombie viscera all over the walls, floors and ceiling.

“Download complete.” Star Swirl slumped forward as he returned to his senses. “I really must upgrade this equipment sometime.”

“Professor!” Clover yelled between swings of her zombie-bludgeon. “Please tell me you can teleport us out of here!”

Star Swirl got back up on his hooves and looked at his apprentice. She was standing in the middle of a pile of zombie gore, looking at him with wild eyes, her mane a frazzled mess, dual-wielding zombies to hold back a neverending row of other zombies. “More or less. There's a dormant wormhole in the closet in the corner, grab the instruments while I open it.”

“The instruments?” Clover cried out in disbelief. “Are you serious? Just get us out of here!”

Star Swirl groaned, rolled his eyes, and lifted the instruments himself as he opened the closet. Inside, a tiny black lump of unmatter spun in place. He shot a bolt of magical power into it, and it opened, like a flower, growing until it was the size of a pony. Clover looked at it. It was a hole in the fabric of space, through which she could see distant flickers of light, wrapped up in the surface of a great black flower, its petals waving, held between its own power trying to curl in itself and Star Swirl's magic forcing it open. Then she felt herself get picked up in a magical aura, and she, Star Swirl, and the instruments all jumped inside it.

– – –

When Clover landed, the first thing she did was throw up. The second thing was to look around. There was no sign of the wormhole, and no zombies appeared to have followed them through. She sighed, relieved. “Are we safe?”

“No,” Star Swirl answered flatly. “Well, from zombies yes, but zombies are not even in the top-thousand list of causes of pony fatalities. You're more likely to be killed by daisies than zombies.”

“I'm not sure those statistics are sound,” Clover muttered. “Where are we now?”

They were standing on what looked like an abandoned and overgrown road in a forest, a free forest, lacking the little touches and conveniences of pony-inhabited terrain.

“A wild zone,” Star Swirl said, scowling at the close nature around them. “It's called... Well, it doesn't really matter now. It was abandoned, long ago. Nopony lives within a fifty miles from here.”

They were quiet for a moment, watching the trees suspiciously. Clover took off her coat and examined it, grimacing when she saw it was covered with zombie gore. “Well, at least we got away from the zombies, be they statistically significant or not,” she said. “I just hope that big node of data kept you occupied for a reason, and not just to help me find the confidence to believe in myself. What was in it, anyway?”

“The usual,” Star Swirl said. “Atmospheric data, seismic activity, magical scans and readings... I think I know what the anomaly is now. But there's just one last research station to visit to find out for sure, and where.”

Clover was going to ask for the details when she saw the look on her teacher's face. It spoke of a pain unlike any she had seen him show in her time with him. He caught her glance, and his face softened slightly. “This trip has proven somewhat more demanding than I had anticipated,” he said. “Follow me.”

He turned and headed down the road, and before long they came to a clearing with a lone tree in the middle, a young golden oak. “We will make camp here for tonight.”

That night Clover washed her new cloak in a nearby stream, finding that the enchantment made it easy to wipe it clean of the remnants of the trotting dead, and did not ask her teacher any questions.

– – –

The next day, they followed the road until it disappeared amid the aggressive life of the wild forest. Then they continued on.

Clover watched the woods closely as they went, and noted that it didn't just grow thicker: the trees grew more gnarled and contorted. The grass was taller and thicker than normal grass, and individual blades were growing strange new evolutionary forms that could try to snatch small creatures like a whip or a net and hold them fast. There were animals lurking with unusual count of eyes, tracks with one paw and one hoof and one sharp talon, and no fourth leg. As they walked, Clover felt certain that each new creature watched them pass, and fell into line to follow behind them, waiting for a chance to strike. The sun disappeared from overhead, and the air was thick with wild magic that made Clover's horn itch, and every wind felt like something breathing in her ear. Through it all, Star Swirl walked straight ahead, never slowing or turning his head.

In the end, after many hours of walking, they passed through the ruin of a once-prosperous city, now being ground to nothing at the speed of nature and magic. Hardly a wall remained in place, and the wilderness had reclaimed every yard.

Star Swirl upped his pace slightly.

Beyond the city they came to the edge of a great ravine. A simple rope bridge led across it, and beyond it lay a hill, and atop the hill rose the dark and broken walls of a mighty castle brought to destruction.

They stopped at the edge of the ravine. Star Swirl looked down into the gorge beneath them for several minutes straight without speaking.

“The triangulation is complete,” he finally said. “I know where it is.”

Clover opened her mouth to speak, and the words were lost in spacetime.

– – –

A flash of light. A sensation of motion.

The wind howled all around them, and snow whipped Clover's face as she tried to get her bearings.

Once again they were high up a mountain, deep in the wilderness. It was night-time, and the air was brilliantly cold and clear. Ripples of multi-colored light moved across the sky underneath the stars, and no habitation or road was visible anywhere in the snow-clad hills and valleys beneath the mountains.

“Where are we now?” Clover yelled to be heard over the gale.

“The frozen north,” Star Swirl said as he climbed towards the ridge of the mountain above them. “Weeks of galloping from where we were. The anomaly should be right over... Ah yes.” He stood at the ridge and looked beyond it, at something Clover could not see. “There it is.”

Clover clambered up alongside him, and looked. Across the mountain ridge was a great glacier, reflecting multi-colored dancing lights. Above, filling the sky, a vast vortex of churning clouds spun in a stormy spiral, lit by lightning which went off near-constantly, and the ethereal, shimmering aurora. The display was terrible, and beautiful.

Clover stood dumbstruck at the enormity of the sight. “What is that?” she managed to ask.

“Dimensional rift,” Star Swirl the Bearded said. “A truly massive one. The biggest I've ever seen, in fact. It reaches clean through the fabric of spacetime that separates different dimensions, and rips apart everything it touches. It's growing quickly, too. If we don't stop it, it will reduce the multiverse to nothingness within a moon.”

“You know how to stop it, though?” Clover asked.

Star Swirl clicked his teeth together. “There were once a pair of ponies who were responsible for this sort of thing,” Star Swirl mumbled, frowning. “But they're long gone now. In the meantime, I take care of them as they arise. Let me just measure the power level of this thing.” He raised a strange device covered with buttons and a small screen. It clicked and bleeped and buzzed, and with a ding, gave back its answer. Clover looked: it showed an infinity sign.

“That's alright,” Star Swirl said. “If I'm not mistaken, we should be having some reinforcements arriving just about...”

There was a sound like paper ripping, and a flash of intense light to their left, and both Star Swirl and Clover turned to see a hole in spacetime just a few yards away.

Through it, silhouetted against the light, were two pony figures. One wore a robe and pointy hat; the other was loaded down with astronomical equipment.

“There they are,” the pointy-hatted figure called out with an old mare's voice. “See? Told you I cut a dashing figure. Hey there, Star Swirl!”

“Hello, Swirly Star,” Star Swirl said. “Is anypony else coming from your side of the multiverse?”

The mare stepped up towards the ridge, and Star Swirl went up alongside her. She was a unicorn, her horn just visible under the brim of her hat, skinny, her coat grey-turned-white with age, her eyes sharp and clear, and she was dressed exactly like the stallion standing beside her.

“Oh Celestia, there's two of him,” Clover whispered to herself.

“I'm afraid not,” Swirly Star the Wise said. “I've been scanning imaginary numbers of alternate universes and have come up with nothing. Either they're all dead, or they're busy with something more important. How about you?”

“The same. So we're still at, what, 98.2% parallel?”

“Seems that way.” She whistled at the sight before them. “That's a beaut! This is the anomaly?”

“That's the one,” Star Swirl said. “So what are you thinking, a five-universe gambit?”

“More like seven-universe. No need to crimp ourselves.”

“Right. Give us some space to move.”

“I guess we should just get started, then.” There was another sound of ripping spacetime and a portal opened ahead of the two wizards, and they stepped forward. One of them—Clover was not sure which, the interference of uneven reality made it difficult to tell—yelled back, “You stay here!”

Then there was a flash of light, and the portal closed behind them, leaving Clover standing on the mountainside.

She ran forward towards the spot where her teacher had stood, and as she did she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye, to her left. She turned, and saw a young leaf-green stallion wearing a cloak identical to hers looking back at her.

“Oh, hello,” they both said, simultaneously. “I'm Clover.”

Come back next time, for the CRISIS OF INFINITE STAR SWIRLS!

“Infinite?” Clover asked.

Star Swirl nodded. “I'm half of infinity by myself, so it only takes two of me.”

Chapter 7: Crisis of Infinite Star Swirls

“Well, this is awkward,” both Clovers said in perfect synchronization.

The two Clovers were standing on the mountain ridge where the two elder wizards had left them. Clover the mare—Clover 1, as she was already thinking of herself—stared at her stallion counterpart (who was also already thinking of himself as Clover 1), and he stared back at her. Both of them wore near-identical expressions of shock and confusion in the face of information that their brains refused to process.

Clover leaned left to get a slightly different angle, was blocked by the fact that the other Clover leaned right at the exact same time.

“Do you know anything about,” they both began, then both paused, and both continued, “no, I don't suppose you do.”

“Do you think we—no,” they both sighed.

“We need to break apart somehow,” they both wondered why they had said it out loud. “How do you suppose...”

An awkward silence, interrupted by howling wind.

“Um...”

Clover bit her lip, watched Clover bite his as he watched her.

“Maybe we could,” raised hooves, hesitation, shaking heads. “No, that's stupid... Maybe...”

A tingling shot up Clover's spine as a thought occurred to her. “Wait, I just got an idea,” she and her alternate universe stallion twin both said. “Maybe... I think...” They looked at each other nervously, eyes wide, nodded uncertainly. “Okay, I think I've got it. Yes... Yes, I think it'll work. Is this okay? Okay? Okay. Ready? Ready.”

Clover punched her male counterpart in the face.

“Did it work?” he asked, by himself, rubbing his muzzle with his eyes clenched shut. “Oh that stings... right on my snout... I think knowing it was coming actually only made it hurt worse.”

“I'm sorry!” Clover squealed with wide eyes. “I'm so sorry! I'm not a violent pony! The idea just popped into my head and you said 'okay!', and I couldn't think of anything else and I just did it without thinking!”

“It worked, though,” he said. “We broke the synchronization.”

“Oh thank Celestia,” Clover the mare muttered. “I was afraid my brain was going to jam if that went on.”

“Me too,” Clover the stallion said, then shook his head. “You already knew that, of course.” He paused. “Who's Celestia?”

“You don't know?” Clover the mare asked, and her eyes lit up. “We should totally compare notes!”

The stallion quickly nodded. “Because knowing where our parallel worlds differ is going to help differentiate us and—”

“—make it possible to hold a coherent conversation!” They both finished together, looking happily into each other's eyes. Then they both grimaced, and recoiled from each other. “Not again!”

They were silent for a second. “Celestia?” Clover the mare suggested, while Clover the stallion said nothing. They both relaxed. “Okay, we have a code word,” she said. “Celestia is the ruler of the sun. I know I really shouldn't take her name in vain, but sometimes I do anyway. She's basically the centerpiece of a huge national mythology that doesn't really match reality anymore.”

“Oh, I see,” Clover the stallion said. “We have somepony like that as well. He's called Sol. He used to raise the sun, but now the Council of Horns does it instead.”

“That's exactly the same,” Clover the mare nodded. “You know what? Yes, of course you do. We should just go through our basic personal information to begin with.”

“Right. You go first.”

“You go—” Clover bit her lip. “Fine, I'll go first. My name is Clover Cordelia, I turn eighteen in four months, I'm from Whinnysor in Braytannia, the home of the Unicorn King. My cutie mark is a four-leaf clover in front of a sun. I got it when I was eight, it's a long story. I was a student at the Cambridle Academy of Magic until I became the apprentice of the legendary wizard Star Swirl the Bearded. Now you!”

Clover the stallion nodded. “My name is also Clover Cordelia, I turn eighteen in four months, I'm from Whinnysor in Braytannia, which is where the Unicorn Queen lives. My cutie mark is a four-leaf clover in front of a sun, likewise. I was a student at the Cambridle Academy of Magic until I became the apprentice of the legendary sorceress Swirly Star the Wise.”

“Wow,” Clover the mare said. “That's really parallel.” Clover the stallion nodded. “This is astonishing. There must be massive discoveries in magic we could make from this. Just think what we could do with each other!”

They thought silently for a few seconds.

They both shuddered at exactly the same time.

“You know what, let's not think about that,” Clover the stallion said.

“I cannot tell you how happy I am that you feel that way.”

“Oh Sol, this is so awkward,” Clover the stallion muttered, rubbing his muzzle again. “I wonder if the Swirly Stars have this problem.”

– – –

“I'm thinking Interdimensional Shell Game,” Star Swirl the Bearded said.

“We'd need a ringer,” Swirly Star the Wise said.

“No problem, I can make a barren universe and make it look alive until the rift enters the oubliette plane,” Star Swirl said.

“Just one barren universe? I was thinking three,” Swirly Star said. “Or can you not make that many infant universes on the fly?”

Star Swirl snorted. “Pick a number.”

“Seven.”

“Nine!”

“Somepony's been practicing,” Swirly Star admitted. “But can you keep them all in the air at once?”

“Juggling difficulty barely scales. Once you can do three you could do thirty.”

“Sounds good. Who has the ball?”

“I think it's better if neither of us know which is which,” Star Swirl said. Swirly Star nodded.

The two unicorns were standing on a flattened top of a rock floating through the endless void between universes. From where they stood, they could see each universe as a series of spherical apertures, stacked on one another in a loose spiral, stretching out to infinity. The fabulous view went unappreciated, however, as their attention was focused on the dimensional rift. It was a thick white vein in the void, vaguely visceral and diseased, splitting into translucent arms that stretched out into the spherical windows and crept inside. Two such arms stretched on either side of their rock, into the two spheres representing their home universes, floating side-by-side behind them.

“Well, let's get it done and go home,” Swirly Star said. “I need to bulk up my home defenses once we're done here.

“Me too,” Star Swirl said. “Alright, here goes.”

The two archmages activated and unified their magic, conjuring false time, space, and mass from sheer nothing. A series of apertures, indistinguishable to almost any living creature from the living realms of the multiverse around them, took form and began to rise up towards the rift.

Two minutes later the artificial planes disintegrated, and the rift was still whole and unmoved.

“We're not doing Plan B,” Swirly Star said flatly.

Star Swirl nodded in agreement. “Plan C, then?”

“I've never had a Plan C in my life,” Swirly Star grumbled. “And if you say you have then I'm calling you a liar.”

They watched the rift silently for a minute, trying to come up with a new approach.

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Swirly?”

Swirly scratched her chin thoughtfully. “I think so, Star. But where are we going to find a sailing ship and an ocean of cheese at this hour?”

“I have one right here, as it happens.”

“It's always a pleasure working with somepony who understands the value of being prepared.”

– – –

“Chocolate Bunnies?” Clover the stallion asked.

“My old roommate,” Clover the mare clarified. “She's always moving from one thing to the next, thinking each new thing is the greatest thing in the world and she has to dedicate her life to it, for maybe a couple of months, and then I never hear of it again.”

Clover the stallion nodded. “Oh right, yeah, Liquorice Whip. He does that. The worst was this time he fell madly in love with this chocolate-brown unicorn filly with a candy-colored horn...”

“Huh,” Clover the mare said. “Bunnies once fell madly in love with a colt with a liquorice wheel cutie mark.”

They both contemplated the implications of this in silent dread.

“...I am loving this cloak,” Clover the mare said, adjusting the hood just to have something to do with her hooves. “If it weren't for this, I'd have frozen to death by now.”

“Me too,” Clover the stallion said.

There was a burst of blinding light, and the mountain shook underneath them. In the distance, a massive avalanche roared in response, and the ground continued trembling for several minutes before it was still.

When the Clovers looked up, the vortex had doubled in size. They stared at it, their mouths hanging open. There was lightning there, moving in vast concentric circles across the sky, and on the glacier far below they could see alien colors as the air itself warped into strange forms of matter.

Portals, like the one the two elder unicorns had gone through, were opening and closing erratically on the mountainside. One portal on the ridge nearby—returning approximately every minute, remaining open for about ten seconds each time before closing—led to where Star Swirl and Swirly Star had gone, and the Clovers could see them performing indescribable feats of magic inside.

They could also see a sailing ship, and lots of cheese.

“What are they doing?” Clover the stallion asked.

“I have no idea,” Clover the mare said, and remembered that they both knew that they both knew very nearly exactly the same things.

“Shall we talk?”

“Let's talk.”

“Do we want to go help them?”

“Yes. Do we think it's a good idea?”

“No. We should stay here and leave it to them. They always know what they're doing.”

“Yes. But don't we really, really want to go see what they're doing up close?”

“Yes. Even though they specifically told us to stay back?”

“Yes. So what do we do?”

They both fell silent for a few seconds. Clover said “What would Star Swirl do?” as her stallion twin said “What would Swirly Star do?”

The portal opened, and they both jumped in.

– – –

“Clearly the rift does not appreciate good cheese,” Star Swirl said, as he put out the fires on his hat by stomping on it.

“As a matter of principle,” Swirly Star said, pausing to allow the aftershocks to die out, “I absolutely refuse to have a Plan D.”

“Agreed,” Star Swirl said, scrutinizing his abused hat with a mournful sigh before returning it to his head. “So, let's call the next one Plan A-2?”

Swirly Star was about to agree when a flash of light and a pair of thuds and yelps from behind them made them turn, and see the Clovers, who had just half-jumped, half-fallen onto the stone platform.

The rift pulsed with sickly light, and the spheres behind the two wizards shook. The archmages glared at their students. “What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to stay back?”

“The rift is getting stronger out there!” Clover the mare said. “What are you doing?”

“We are succesfully applying an inverse strategy,” Star Swirl said. “All that has to happen is for the rift's ability to survive our plans to end before we run out of plans.”

Both Clovers silently attempted to puzzle this out. “So... your plans aren't working,” they each said to their respective teacher.

“...It is proving unexpectedly resilient,” Swirly Star admitted.

“But you know how to stop it?” Clover asked. “You said you'd done this before. You can use the same solution now, right?”

The two elder wizards exchanged glances.

“We once saw a rift of this scale and power, a long time ago,” Star Swirl the Bearded said. “It would be possible to use the same method now. But... inadvisable. We have other methods at our disposal. However...”

“None of it is working,” Swirly Star said bluntly. Star Swirl nodded.

“Why not?” Clover the stallion asked.

Something clicked, and Star Swirl's eyes widened. “...Because this is not a wild rift,” he said. “There is a mind inside it. Controlling it.”

“Something that knows exactly what we are going to do,” Swirly Star continued, “and knows exactly how to counter us.”

“Which leaves only one option,” Star Swirl said.

“We have to find and nullify the source.”

As one, the elder unicorns placed a hoof each on the vein that snaked between them into the sphere, and lit up their horns. After that, Clover saw nothing but the blackness of empty dreams.

– – –

When Clover opened her eyes again, the world was white. An infinite fog, with no visible source of light, no wind, no sound.

Clover felt something not entirely unlike hard dirt under her hooves, but looking down showed only more white. The other Clover stood beside her, and Star Swirl stood beside Swirly Star up ahead, their outlines visible through the fog.

She turned her head and immediately felt dizzy. The space around her seemed to have different ideas about how to behave than she was used to, and each degree she turned seem to shift her perspective by significantly more than one degree. It was like looking through a distorted lens, one that possibly opened into alternate realities. Or possibly as though, when she turned her head, her head was actually standing still and the world moved around her, only with a slight delay.

“Where are we?” both Clovers asked.

“We are inside the rift,” both the Stars answered, and Clover was unsure if there was one voice or two. When she looked up at her teacher, she was unsure if there was really only one of them. Glancing to either side, she became unsure if there was only one Clover, and if so, which one she was.

“Inside?” Clover asked, and Clover could no longer tell which Clover that was.

“A place beyond existence as we know it,” the Stars said. “Intriguing. Even our past does not exist here. Tell me something from your past, Clover, something you have not mentioned before.”

Clover dredged her thoughts for something appropriate, came up empty, and said instead: “My uncle once mistook a bottle of my mother's perfume for a serving of rose soup, and ate it. He ended up fleeing the house in terror and didn't dare visit again for two years. Is that important?”

“Until you just said it, that fact didn't exist,” Star Swirl said. “Our past is incomplete, and is only catching up to us at the speed of our thoughts. The rift may have other consequences as well.”

Clover looked down and saw that his hooves were slimmer than usual, slightly more rounded, and the unbidden thought came in to mentally examine the rest of his body before she remembered that she was, in fact, herself, had always been herself, and had every intention of remaining as such.

When that thought was in her mind, Clover the stallion stood a few lengths away from her, looking uncomfortable as he glanced, briefly, in her direction.

Star Swirl turned, slowly, counter-clockwise, lighting his horn at the void. After one and a half revolutions he halted. “The center is this way,” Swirly Star said. “Come, we walk.”

A minute later, while they were walking, the thought slipped away from Clover's mind, and there was only one of them each until Clover remembered that there were two, and so there was.

It was difficult to tell the passage of time, in the rift: it could have been minutes, or hours before the first sound of hoofsteps could be heard, out into the mist. Soon after, the sound was accompanied by the sight of a dark shape in the distance, moving in their direction, growing clearer as he drew closer.

Clover shuffled behind her teacher, and studied the creature. His lower body was like a pony, but where his neck should be there was instead a minotaur-like torso, complete with an extra pair of limbs ending in fingers, not claws or hooves. There was an iron ring in his nose, and a golden amulet hung around his neck.

This mythical monstrosity halted before them, and met Star Swirl's gaze with his own. “Wizard,” he said simply.

“Tirek,” Star Swirl said. “Is this rift your doing?”

Tirek shook his head. “I am imprisoned in Tartarus, for as long as Cerberus keeps his watch,” he said, “because of you, and my brother. But you belong there with me, Star Swirl. Not an hour goes by when I don't wish I could steal your magic, and break your bones beneath my hooves. I would go back to Tartarus willingly, and make peace with all the world beside, if I were granted that gift.”

“But you cannot,” Star Swirl said.

“I can't.” Tirek nodded, gritting his teeth together. “Yet, one small mercy is given to us. We are all here, Star Swirl, every one of us you have destroyed.” He gestured with his hand, sweeping through the fog. “We have been given the chance to come here, all of us, to speak to you once more, and to watch as you are ground to dust.”

A gust of wind stirred the fog momentarily, and then died, but in that moment Clover saw movement in the distance, as though an army stood for them just out of sight, waiting for them.

“I won't die,” Star Swirl said.

Tirek chuckled, and the ground quivered from the sound.

“Who is responsible for this?” Star Swirl demanded. “Who waits at the center of the rift?”

Tirek grinned. “Your worst enemy,” the centaur said. Then he was gone, vanishing like a gust of wind into nothing.

Immediately after, there was the sound of another creature drawing near, and Clover could not tell if they were hoofsteps or not. She watched intently to see what would emerge from the mist.

At first glance, it was a zebra, hooded and cloaked.

At second glance, it was a spider.

At third glance, it was a spider the size of a zebra.

“Professor...?” Clover began softly, “what is that?”

“The Mother of Spiders,” Star Swirl replied, gesturing for Clover to stay behind him. “You died a long time ago.”

The mother of spiders made a sound that might have been a chuckle, or might have been a guttural hiss. “You are far from the world of mortals, Star Swirl, and death is not the end. Every creature you ever wronged, every warrior you tore down, every friend who regretted your friendship... Every enemy you ever earned is here, waiting for you, to see you before you reach the end.”

“There is a problem I must attend to,” Star Swirl said bluntly. “If hungry ghosts are waiting for me, then let them wait and go unfed. I have no concern for this. Be gone!”

With something not entirely unlike the sound of a pony's chuckle, the mother of spiders was gone. From the mist, another figure approached, and behind it was another, and behind it was another, and another, and another, and another.

– – –

Life in the rift was strange, Clover thought.

One by one, strange creatures emerged from the mists. Many of them were sad, or bitter. Many of them were hateful. Some were monstrous. All of them had words to say to her teacher, and most of them left her teacher entirely unmoved.

The procession of fallen shadows continued for a long time, hurling curses and threats at Star Swirl and Swirly Star alike. Sometimes both wizards were there, sometimes only one. When it was only one, it was sometimes Star Swirl and sometimes Swirly Star.

Some of the figures who spoke to them did not yet exist, and Clover felt her head threaten to explode if she tried to remember the details about them, and what they, and her teacher, had said to one another. Still, she knew that they had been the most terrible, hateful, and monstrous of them all. Even the ones that were only ponies.

Especially the ones that were only ponies.

– – –

The ground did not tremble beneath Clover as it drew near, but the sight of the enormous shadow made her feel as though it really should have.

The beast that approached them was too huge to see its entire bulk through the mists. It moved through the air as softly as a light breeze, ghost-like.

Parts of it were skeletal. Parts of it were withered and dried up, mummified. Ghostly sand fell from the cracks in her skin as she moved, and disappeared into nothing. What parts of her remained whole were a mismatched cacophany of animal parts, dragon and minotaur and snake and sheep and something wild and feathered.

“The end is still coming, little darkling,” she said, her voice dry as dust fixing her empty eye-sockets on Star Swirl. “All the lands of ponies will fall. You have not stopped it yet.”

“I am alive,” he said. “You are dead, and no longer a queen of anything. Go, and roam Tartarus as an empty ghost. As long as I live your apocalypse will come to nothing.”

She tried to growl, but the sound was a feeble hiss that reminded Clover of an angry rat-cub. “You signed a deal in your blood. You still belong to me, and I will have you.”

“You have made your claim,” Star Swirl said. “Let us see you try to enforce it.”

He lit his horn and made a lone burst of magic cut across the Queen of Golden Sands, and she vanished into mist and nothing.

– – –

After a while, it began to snow.

Shortly after it began to snow, they came upon a group of four creatures who seemed to be waiting for them. One was a pony, the rest were not.

“What have you fallen into this time, Star Swirl?” the minotaur asked, looking down at the wizard with a scowl. He looked angry, Clover thought, but then minotaurs often look angry, no matter how they feel. The others, the pony, the griffon, and the pony-sized dog, looked sad, and said nothing, but held each other close, as if to comfort each other.

“That's really none of your concern,” Star Swirly Star said. “Are you hoping to watch me die as well? You will be disappointed.”

“It's possible,” the minotaur nodded. “You often disappoint.”

Star Swirl growled. “Enough of this,” he said. “Come, Clover.” They began moving again.

The minotaur turned his head as they passed, and noticed Clover trying to make herself small behind the wizard. “What's this?” the minotaur said with a raised eyebrow as they walked past. “Someone who has followed you into destruction? No news there, then.”

Star Swirl did not answer.

The snow disappeared once the four figures were no longer in sight.

– – –

Clover held her breath, her heart beating so loud she felt certain Star Swirl could hear it as they waited for the next figure to emerge. She wondered what it would be: an Ursa Major, perhaps, or a kraken from the deep seas, something so vast that only a tiny part of it would appear through the fog.

They heard trotting hoofsteps, and an old earth pony stallion drew near, a pipe in his mouth, with a cutie mark of waving stalks of wheat. He stopped in front of Star Swirl and they looked at each other.

Star Swirl frowned. “...Father?”

The earth pony nodded. “Hello, Star Swirl.”

Star Swirl only stared. “What are you doing here?”

The earth pony shrugged. “I got a chance to say hello to my son, and I grabbed it.” He looked around. “So this is where you've ended up, is it?”

“I'm not staying for long,” Star Swirl said.

An awkward silence ensued.

“How's the family?” Star Swirl quietly asked.

“Your mother never stopped missing you,” he said. “You broke her heart when you left, you know. And your little sister and brother. Do you remember, you used to do little magic tricks for them? For years after you left, they would ask me if you were coming home soon, and if you'd tell them stories about where you had been.”

Star Swirl said nothing in response.

“Your mother and I had another three foals after you left,” his father continued. “Two fillies and a colt, all earth ponies. They've all joined us in the Elysian fields, now. No long magic to keep them alive after a hundred years. But they grew up, and Hay Seed took over the farm, and the rest of them found good crafts that earned their keep, and they settled down and had families of their own. They were happy.”

“That's good,” Star Swirl said.

“Ponies never stopped asking about you, you know,” his father said. “The first unicorn in Edinspur in living memory. You left an impression. Your mother was always waiting for news from you, after you left.” His eyes narrowed. “You could have at least written us a letter, son. We had to find out you were kicked out of school from the village gossips.”

“This is just a dream,” Star Swirl said, pulling back, and turning away. “An image, conjured up to try to fill me with guilt, to weaken my mind. Is there a windigo in this rift, or some other monster that feeds on negative emotions? Who is it that is trying to break me? I will not permit it.”

His father shook his head, took a step closer. “I don't want you to feel guilty, Star Swirl. I only ever wanted you to be happy, you and all my children. I could help the others with that. But happiness, I suppose, was never part of your fate.”

“What's wrong with greatness?” Star Swirl demanded. “You do realize I'm the most powerful unicorn wizard alive, right?” He turned back to glance at Clover. “Do you think Marelin had to deal with her parents asking her when she was going to settle down, as she rode with Llamrei to face Morgan le Neigh's army of shadows?”

“I'm not a well-read pony,” Star Swirl's father said, “but even I know that destiny doesn't care about your happiness. Neither Marelin nor Morgan nor Llamrei lived happy lives. I knew that if you followed your magic to the stars, you might know greatness but you would never know peace.” He put a hoof firmly on Star Swirl's shoulder, and the two stallions' eyes met. “That's earth pony magic,” he said. “Things that grow strong, together. I tried to tell you, son, I tried to warn you. It's amazing what you can discover, if you're willing to look down and see what's right in front of you. But you, my son... You were always looking at the stars. And the thing about the stars is that, even among each other, they are always so very, very far away.”

Clover watched Star Swirl intently, waiting to see how the usually immovable wizard would respond. His face was locked, rigid, but Clover felt certain she saw something shifting beneath the surface.

Star Swirl's father looked over, and seemed to notice her for the first time. “Hello there, young miss,” he said. “Who might you be? Not a granddaughter of mine, by any chance?”

Clover gulped. “No, sir. I'm—” Your son's apprentice? Star Swirl the Bearded's apprentice? The Professor? The Wizard? “—his apprentice.”

He nodded. “Good. Perhaps you can teach him something useful.”

“Enough of this,” Star Swirl growled. “I will not be distracted. Come, Clover, we are leaving.”

The ghost of his father watched sadly as he walked past without a backward glance. “Would you like me to give a message to your mother?”

Star Swirl halted. He did not turn, or say a word. Then, after a few seconds, he began walking away again.

Clover looked from Star Swirl to his father, and back, then trotted up after her teacher. The ghost of Star Swirl's father watched them for a second, then dissipated into the fog.

– – –

“Professor?” Clover asked, breaking into a canter to keep up with her teacher's trot. “Are you alright?”

“We are going to continue moving forward, until we reach the center of the rift, and undo whatever force maintains it,” Swirly Star the Wise answered. “These phantoms are only images, dragged from my memories. They have no real power. They are only here to distract, and I won't—” She froze. Clover ran up alongside her, and saw that the blood had drained from her face, her eyes wide, staring straight ahead with her mouth hanging open.

“...Prince Máni?” Swirly Star said, her voice suddenly thin and weak, as she looked into the fog. “Is that you?”

“That voice...” Clover heard a stallion's voice in the fog, deep, melodious, and uncertain. She peered in the direction it seemed to be coming from, and saw a tall, dark figure shrouded in the mist. “I have not heard it for... Swirly? Swirly Star? Are you there?”

Prince Máni stepped closer, and stumbled.

Before Clover knew what was going on, Swirly Star had left her far behind, galloping forward at a speed unlike anything Clover had ever seen from her teacher. As the prince made contact with the ground, the old mare was there to catch him in her forelegs, and held him in a tight embrace.

Clover ran to catch up, but halted at a distance once she saw them clearly. Prince Máni was an alicorn stallion, slender and long-limbed, his coat a dark blue, his black mane wild and unkempt but glittering with pinpricks of light. He lay in her forelegs as she held him in a tight embrace, running a hoof through his mane. He was staring at nothing, haunted eyes on a gaunt and expressionless face.

Swirly Star's hat lay forgotten on the ground, having fallen off during the gallop.

The stallion turned his head slightly, and gave a faint gasp. “Swirly... it is you.”

“You're so cold,” Swirly Star whispered, barely loud enough for Clover to hear. He nodded, and Swirly pulled him closer.

“Yes... Very cold... How long has it been? I can't remember...”

“It's been many years,” Swirly Star whispered. “I've missed you so badly...”

“You're so warm, Swirly...” the prince said softly. “Can I stay here, with you? Have you come to set me free?”

Clover felt her insides tie in a knot when she saw the look on Swirly Star's face, her eyes clenched shut, forcing out tears, her teeth clenched tightly together behind her open lips. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I can't help you.”

He shivered, as in pain, as she continued to softly stroke his mane. “Please,” he gasped, “please don't send me back. No more.”

“I'm so, so sorry,” she said, her voice cracking. “Go to sleep...” Her horn lit up with a faint and feeble glow. The prince's eyes closed, and his shivering ceased.

She cradled him and rocked softly back and forth as he began to fade from sight, and was gone.

Tears trickled down the sorceress's face. She choked down her sobs as long as she could, before raising her head and letting loose a primal howl of grief and hurt into the void.

The universe shook around them, and Clover stumbled. Swirly Star turned, and seemed to notice the young mare for the first time.

Clover met the old mare's eyes, and her blood ran cold. “You,” Swirly Star began, “will never—”

– – –

“—ever speak a word of what you just saw to anyone. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir!” The stallion Clover said, attempting to stand at attention and withering under Star Swirl the Bearded's piercing glare.

“Don't think that just because you're from an alternate universe you'll be safe. I will know, and I will find you.” Star Swirl scrutinized the terrified young stallion for any sign of resistance. Finding none, he nodded and turned away, grabbing his hat and fitting it on his head as he went.

– – –

After some minutes of walking in silence, with Clover casting nervous glances to the elder unicorn, the wizards were able to compose themselves.

In the end, the shadows in the mist were all gone. Star Swirl halted, and declared, his voice flat and grim: “We are here.”

The four of them were gathered together again, in a spot completely like everywhere else in the white void. “This is the center of the rift,” Swirly Star said. “The source of its power is nearby. We only need to block it.”

“Did you think,” a voice spoke that seemed to come from everywhere at once, “that it would be so easy?”

The four unicorns looked around, but saw nothing in the emptiness. “Who are you?” Star Swirl demanded. “Show yourself!”

The void shook, and rippled around them. There was the sound of grim laughter, and then the voice spoke again, saying: “I am your doom, fallen stars. You followed the lure, and galloped into the trap. The ghosts of your past have caught you at last.”

“What is the point of this?” Swirly Star demanded.

“Justice,” the voice said. “You destroyed my world, fallen star. My universe was reduced to nothing, for your whims... now at last you will answer for your crimes.”

“Did you really do that?” Clover asked her teacher.

“Only once,” Star Swirl said. “It's not as big a deal as it sounds. Universes are born and die all the time, it's completely natural. We might as well put the process to practical use.”

“That's unspeakably horrifying,” Clover said.

“Strictly speaking, in purely academic terms,” Star Swirl said, “the destruction of an entire world is not regrettable, because nobody survives who could have regretted it. That which is not alive, feels no pain.”

“This is how the fallen star defends himself,” the voice spoke, and now it was smaller, coming from a point out in the fog. “No mercy for those you wronged, no remorse for what you did. Only cold rationalization.”

Out from the fog now came a figure that made Clover think of the trotting dead from the Temple of Forgotten Doom: a pony, emaciated almost to the point of being skeletal, hung with scorched and tattered rags, little more than a net. Its body was seemingly built of the same stuff as the fog around them, its eyes blank and blurry. It was a broken and cracked image of a unicorn stallion, its horn cracked and jagged on its forehead, its teeth broken in its mouth.

“Have you ever seen the world end?” the void pony asked. “Did you watch the universe you threw aside as it died? The sky turned to fire and ice, and collapsed onto the earth. All the ponies died, screaming. Did you hear them, fallen star? Would you like to?”

“That event was decades ago,” Swirly Star the Wise said.

“Decades,” the voice agreed, “floating in the void between worlds, slowly gathering my strength. Waiting until I was strong enough to face you. Now.”

Star Swirl watched the void pony with grim curiosity. “I am... impressed, that anything could have survived. But I do not regret my decision,” he said. “A rift, not entirely unlike this one, was in the process of devouring the multiverse. A sacrificial universe was needed. If it were now, I would have been able to stop it in other ways. Back then, we had no choice. We picked your universe at random, and gave it up. It was what had to be.”

“You took countless lives, Star Swirl!” the void pony roared. “That was not your choice to make!”

“We stand by our decision,” Star Swirl said. Swirly Star nodded. “Countless worlds have died before yours, for no particular reason, and you never cared because it had no impact on you, and there was no way you could have known about it. The fact that the world in question was yours, does not make it more important. Accept your fate, and be at peace.”

“Is that what you would have done if it was your world, fallen star?” the void pony asked. “If it was everything you held dear that was wiped out by some alien force, without warning, in the blink of an eye, would you lie down and accept your fate? No. You would have fought against it, and if you failed, you would have spent all your power and bent all your knowledge to hunting those responsible for revenge.”

“You have no idea what I would do,” Star Swirl growled.

“I know exactly what you would do,” the void pony said. “Now die.”

Clover fell back, forced away by the push of three magical auras of immeasurable power activating, and pushing against each other, as the archmages began to duel, a battle of wizards in a wizard's arena.

To a laypony, the sight would carry no meaning: the visible portion of a unicorn's aura is only a tiny part of the magic underneath, but Clover recognized the signs of massive magical discharge unlike anything witnessed in nature. Each of the three figures were wrapped in shielding bubbles. Outside the shields, each was shaping their magic, at tremendous speeds, into pinpoints of incredible force, attempting to find weak spots in the shield to penetrate while shifting their own shields to ward against the attacks.

It was happening much too fast for Clover to follow every nuance from her vantage point of hiding far behind her teacher as best she could given that there was absolutely nothing else to hide behind, but in the back of her mind a little voice of control said, there is no way Star Swirl can possibly lose. He's Star Swirl the Bearded, for Celestia's sake, and there's two of him.

She glanced sideways to see what Clover the stallion was doing. He was glancing sideways at her. Like her, he was lying flat on his stomach behind his teacher with his forelegs covering his head, a slightly worse position for him than her given that he was slightly larger, and Swirly Star the Wise slightly smaller, than Clover the mare and Star Swirl the Bearded respectively.

So why aren't they winning?

It was an even fight, and that in itself was alarming, implying that the void pony was twice as powerful. Clover carefully felt out with her own magic, trying to gently sense what each of them was doing without distracting her teacher, or drawing the entity's attention to her. What she found shocked her: the void entity's magic was not more powerful, only more concentrated. Where Star Swirl and Swirly Star had each erected a full shield, and were attacking in focused bursts, the entity's shield was concentrated in just a few key points... exactly those points where the two wizards were attacking. In addition, the two wizards had spread their defenses to cover every angle, and while no shield was perfectly even, the entity seemed to know exactly where the flimsy corners were: those points, unique to Star Swirl and his counterpart, where it cost the wizard just a little bit more to reinforce...

A chill ran down Clover's spine as she had a sudden flash of horrified realization. She glanced to her twin to see if he had thought the same, and found that he was gone, as was Swirly Star.

Or rather, they were both one, as were their teachers. Clover—she was both Clovers now, at once, and the unusual shape and heft of her body was only half-way annulled by the signals it was sending to her mind that her body was her own and everything was perfectly normal—looked ahead and saw only two unicorns dueling now, butting heads with the stubbornness of eternity: the void pony and Star Swirl would end up killing each other, and Star Swirl would probably be just fine with that because that meant the rift would die and the multiverse would be safe and he would want her to run run turn around and run and leave him—

Clover stepped out from behind her teacher, her horn unlit, and took a step forward. Then another, then another, gaining strength and courage as she walked, until she was standing clear of the two, who both seemed completely oblivious to her, the magic ripping the air apart between them.

She cleared her throat, loudly, and waved a hoof in the air. “Excuse me, sir?” she cried. “Could I just have your attention for a second please?”

Without turning, the void entity spoke inside her head, its voice more uninterested than unfriendly, saying: “You have no part in this. I am here for the fallen stars. Leave now.”

“I just want to talk!” Clover shouted, and when that did not draw his attention, she followed with: “I know who you are!”

Her blood froze as she felt the touch of his magic moving over her, reading her. Time seemed to stand still. Clover could not move. Under her coat of fur, her skin crawled. “Do you,” the voice spoke flatly inside her head.

In her thoughts, Clover nodded. “You're Star Swirl, aren't you? You're the Star Swirl from that lost universe. That's why you know everything about him. That's why you know his ghosts and how he fights. Because you were exactly the same, right up until your world died.”

There was a weighty pause before the entity spoke again, asking, “Who are you, little filly?”

“I'm Clover Cordelia,” she said. “I'm Star Swirl the Bearded's apprentice.”

“Apprentice?” the voice was sharp. “Was it fear, or lies, or threats that brought you to the monster's bondage? No matter. Turn and flee, and the gateway will open for you.”

Clover shook her head. “Star Swirl the Bearded is my teacher, and the only thing that brought me here was my own free will.”

Clover recognized the shock in the voice: it was like that of her teacher on the rare occasions she bested his expectations. “Star Swirl the Bearded has never taken an apprentice,” it said.

“Not before me, no.”

There was another pause. “I have seen the monster's true nature from within,” the entity said. “His heart is cold and black and cares for nothing... not even for himself. You are correct. I am Star Swirl, the Void. Cast out into oblivion, surviving only as a shadow beyond space and time. The fallen star will bring misery and destruction to everything he touches, and he will not care, nor regret it. The ghosts you met, on your way here? They were not all of them his enemies. Flee while you can, before you come to the same end as all the others who stood too close to the storm.”

Clover closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You know what? You're right. He is heartless. He's grumpy and insensitive and completely uninterested in having friends or being likable. In fact, I now realize he can't even reliably make friends with himself, because I've seen two other Star Swirls, and one of them wants to kill him. And it was terrible what happened to your world, and your anger is completely justified! But—and I'm sorry for this horrible cliché—killing Star Swirl the Bearded won't bring your world back.” She paused, sighing deeply as she tried to compose her thoughts. “But there's something else too. The Star Swirl I know would never sacrifice lives, and he would never put anypony in danger before himself. He's not very good at saying things clearly, I know that better than anypony. And he might not be willing to admit it even if he could be bothered to say it out loud, but after your world was destroyed, you know what he did? He went out and he learned another way to deal with this kind of rift, so that he would never have to make that kind of decision again. That's why he's here, inside the rift, exposing himself to danger. Because he changed. He can learn. He can become better.”

When the entity spoke again, Clover again heard the tone of genuine surprise in its voice. “You actually believe in him.”

She nodded. “I do.”

“Though you know what he is, you follow him willingly.”

“That's right.”

“There is one pony other than himself who believes in him...” He nodded. “But tell me, Clover Cordelia... does he believe in you?”

The magic withdrew, time began to move again, and Clover saw the two unicorns locked in the highest levels of magical combat.

“Professor!” she cried, and took a step closer. There was no reaction. “Professor!”

She took another step, and bumped her snout on the magical shield. Well, this will at least have to get his attention... She activated her magic, and pressed against the shield with her horn.

Star Swirl seemed to come awake at the sensation, and turned to face her with bloodshot eyes. “Clover?”

The shield shifted, swept over her, and shunted her inside.

“Star Swirl...” Clover began. “Please stop.”

“What?”

“Please stop this fighting!” Clover pleaded. “You're going to kill yourself!”

“I am saving the universe,” Star Swirl said, his voice flat and exhausted. “That is part of the job description.”

“This isn't about the universe,” Clover said, stepping closer to her teacher. “This is just you. Look!” She extended a hoof to the void pony, who was watching her intently. The attacks hadn't ceased, but they were subdued, blunted, upheld just in case but ready to withdraw if possible.

“You destroyed his universe,” Clover said. “You should apologize.”

Star Swirl blinked, bit his lip. “I... stand... by...”

“I know!” Clover said. “I know, you did it because you had to, it was the only thing that would save everything! I know that! He knows that too! But please... you know you did something bad. Wouldn't it be better to just admit it, and not have to fight over it any more?”

All the unicorns had halted their attacks now. Star Swirl the Void no longer had any hate or anger in his blank eyes, only regret. Clover looked from her teacher to the void pony and back, and saw that in every way that mattered, they were exactly the same.

“I'm sorry,” Star Swirl the Bearded, who was also Swirly Star the Wise, said. “I can't undo it. I wish I could. But I can't. I'm sorry for your life, and your world.”

The void pony smiled. “That's all I wanted to hear.”

In seconds, he was gone, dissolved into the background magic of the multiverse.

A wind picked up around them, and the fog began to shift as the rift lost its motive power, and began to die.

“Come on,” Clover said, her teacher standing there, staring blankly ahead of him. “Star Swirl?”

Clover tugged Star Swirl's foreleg over her withers and pulled her along with him, and he followed without a word. She tried not to think about the fact that he was actually remarkably light: as though under his expansive robe he was nothing but skin and bones. His head drooped down, his hat slouching forward in imitation of the rest of him, but staying on his head as they walked.

The fog faded away as the rift shrivelled up and withered, its power source gone with the disappearance of Star Swirl the Void. No longer shrouded, Clover looked ahead and saw the multiverse.

Straight ahead, a bridge of sorts led from the center of the rift to a rock hovering in the space between worlds, and across it into two twin spheres that waited, side by side. Gritting her teeth, Clover trudged towards them. At some point she realized she heard hoofsteps alongside her, and saw her stallion counterpart with his own pony burden hanging on his back.

With a final push, they fell into the spheres, and landed in the snow on the mountainside. The wind was still, and the only lights now were from the stars. Clover fell flat on her stomach, breathing heavily from the strain.

“We made it, Star Swirl... We're back home,” she said, as she turned to the prone lump of pony hidden beneath the star-, moon- and bell-adorned long robe and large pointy hat. The elder wizard groaned, and stirred.

Clover reached out and tilted up the hat, to check for head wounds, and found a beardless face with a long silvery mane underneath. A confused Swirly Star the Wise looked up at her.

“Clover?” she asked.

“Professor?” Clover blurted out.

With the sudden feeling of a sinking pit in her stomach, Clover looked around and saw the window to the other world. There, on the other side, she saw Clover the Stallion and Star Swirl the Bearded looking back at her in shock.

Both Clovers had just opened their mouths to speak when the last of the rift's magic dissipated, and the portal closed for the last time.

Author's Note

UPDATE: August 16th 2015.
The Queen of the Golden Sands has been added to the procession of fallen shadows.
To jump straight there, search "The ground did not tremble".

– – –

There are some scenes in this chapter that do not exist. At some point in the future, when certain conditions are met, they will exist.

Intermission: Critical Commentary

AN: This was written one day before the one-year anniversary of the first chapter, for reasons which will become clear.

– – –

Star Swirl sighed. Clover was locked in the bathroom, sobbing loudly, and the noise was disturbing the thaumoluminescent otherworms' proscribed resting period. This had been going on all day, ever since she sat down at her workspace right after breakfast. She had picked up a book, read for a few minutes, then suddenly gasped, twitched, and rushed into the adjacent bathroom as little wet hiccups and sniffles began to escape from her throat.

It was now late at night, and while the cries had intermittently quieted and slowed over the course of the day, they would always come back with a vengeance.

“Clover,” Star Swirl said, knocking on the door, “It's been twelve hours. I'm sort of impressed. But we've lost a work day, and you must be very hungry in there. Would you please come out and talk about—whatever it is?”

He knocked for a few seconds more before the door unlocked with a sharp click, and swung open. Clover emerged, her cloak wrapped tightly around her, hood up over her head, her eyes red and puffy, her muzzle streaked with tear-lines. She sniffed, rubbed her muzzle with a fetlock, and sluggishly walked back to her workspace, where she plopped down into her chair and drooped over the desk.

“I knew you could do it,” Star Swirl said, walking up behind her. “So what's this all about then?”

Clover pointed a hoof over to the corner. There, on the wall beside her desk, was a large diagram covered in little green arrows pointing up. At the bottom right corner of the diagram was a lone red arrow pointing down.

“I had two hundred and twenty to zero,” Clover said, her voice muffled by her forelegs. “Or two hundred and nineteen. I'm not sure which came first, the red one or the last green one. Now it's ruined. That red one is never going away.”

Star Swirl nodded. “So what's this supposed to mean, exactly?”

“It means that somepony doesn't like me,” Clover sobbed, burying her head in her forelegs. “That's a count of how ponies report their impressions of me. I had a perfect record, and now it's ruined. It's magical and completely anonymous. I can't ask them why. I don't know who it was and I don't get any reason, I only know that sompony out there hates me.”

Star Swirl blinked. “You keep a magical running tally of whether or not ponies like you?”

Clover nodded.

“That's weird, Clover,” Star Swirl said. “Stop and think about that for a second. I, Star Swirl the Bearded, am telling you, Clover, that you're doing something weird. What does that tell you?”

“I'm pretty sure that means I'm acting like a normal pony.”

“...I can see why you'd think that. But no. Look,” Star Swirl put a hoof on Clover's shoulder and turned her to face him. “You need to stop worrying what ponies think of you. What's the big deal? Ponies hate me all over the world!”

“Maybe you need to start caring!” Clover snapped. “You could stand to have a little more empathy in you, you know! Yes, I care about ponies! I'm nice! I'm kind! I'm friendly! I like being liked!” She sniffed, and wiped her muzzle. “And it had to happen today,” she mumbled bitterly. “Have you seen the date?”

Star Swirl glanced at the calendar Clover had hung up on the wall, one of those with poor-quality reproductions of old works of art showing landscapes and rainbows and kittens in baskets. “July 13th?” he said. “What's special about that?”

“You know what happens tomorrow?” Clover asked. Star Swirl stared blankly. She sighed. “Tomorrow is my birthday, Star Swirl.”

“So, what, you'd rather have gotten hate mail on your birthday?” Star Swirl asked.

“What? No!” Clover said. “But if it had been tomorrow, or the next day, or any later time...” Clover sighed. “Then I would have gone a full year without anyone disliking me. I was going to celebrate. I was counting down the days. And now this has gone and spoiled it.”

They were silent for a moment.

“...Why would anyone hate me, Star Swirl?” Clover said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “What did I do wrong? I try so hard to be likeable. Am I not doing enough? Am I doing it completely wrong?”

“Listen, Clover,” Star Swirl said, his voice softer than usual. “The world is full of ponies who will dislike you for no good reason, who won't give you a chance, who'll judge you as soon as look at you. Maybe they saw your manecut, and decided they didn't want to be your friend. Maybe they heard your Whinnysor accent, and decided they couldn't bear to have a conversation with you. Maybe their marefriend left them that morning, and they were in a rotten mood and looking to take it out on somepony else. Who knows? But asking yourself why, and wondering if it says something about you, is a fool's game. If they don't want to like you, that's their loss.”

“What's wrong with my manecut?” Clover asked.

“You're missing the point, Clover,” Star Swirl said. “Look... the only way to go through life without anyone ever disliking you, is to be utterly bland and uncontroversial. Then, you're only going to be ignored. The price of never being disliked, Clover, is never being liked either. Is that what you want your life to be, just so you'll know that when you die nopony will have a nicer day because of it?”

“...No,” Clover said. “But I have plenty of friends, Star Swirl. I'm not a cardboard cutout...” Her eyes widened. “Unless I actually am. Oh Celestia, am I actually a horribly boring character?” Her voice was suddenly sharp and pleading, but she froze when she saw the disapproving look in his eyes. “Alright, fine. Let's say, for the sake of argument that I'm not. I've always had plenty of friends, but no enemies, until right now. What went wrong, Star Swirl?”

“Nothing went wrong,” Star Swirl said. “You just ran up against the math, that's all. Look... If you have something worth saying, and absolutely nopony objects, or disagrees, or just plain doesn't get it for whatever reason or for no reason at all, that just means that not enough ponies have heard you yet, and that you need to be louder.”

“That...” Clover thought for a second. “That actually makes sense, sort of.”

“Feeling better now?”

Clover nodded.

“That's the spirit,” Star Swirl said, patting her on the back. “Hah! They always told me that using rigorous logic and a general disdain for public opinion was a terrible way to cheer somepony up, but I knew it would work eventually.”

Clover chuckled softly, her lips curling into a smile.

“That's more like it,” Star Swirl said. “Now go out there and keep on doing your thing until everyone knows who you are. I don't want you to stop until there are enough people who hate you that they can form a club. In fact, keep at it until somepony tries to kill you! And then keep going! Just, you know, with some protective enchantments in place.”

“Okay, this doesn't sound like such a great idea anymore.”

Author's Note

I wrote this today, to commemorate the occasion, as you've no doubt guessed, of The Education of Clover the Clever getting its first ever downvote. Clover... took it pretty hard.

Sorry I don't have a real chapter for you just yet. It's being written, but real life has kind of been messing things up for me the past month.

Chapter 9: Peer Review - Experiments in Relaxification

The Griffon Kingdom, the Aetite Duchy, shortly before Star Swirl and Clover's field trip.

“You know, it was my grandfather who hosted the summit in his home,” said the Duchess Elizabeak. “At the height of the greatest period of growth the Griffon Empire had ever known. We were conquering the world, spreading our greatness far and wide, bringing the glories of Griffon culture and technology to all the other races. The time had finally come for King Blaze to seize the opportunity and add the states of the pony tribes to his domains. However, before the invasion began, in his honor, he sent an envoy to the rulers of the pony tribes, pointing to the might of the Griffon army, and our many conquests over the recent years, and asking for their bloodless submission. A kind gesture, to be sure, but pointless. Or rather, it should have been pointless.”

“The other two tribes sent back the customary responses of unfounded bravado and spite, condemning their own citizens to bloodshed and destruction. The Unicorn King, however, sent back a request for a diplomatic summit to discuss terms. King Blaze was intrigued, and agreed to a meet with an emissary from the Unicorn King's court.”

“The Unicorn King's ambassador was Star Swirl the Bearded.”

“On the third day of the summit, the two of them met alone in the high hall of my grandfather's home, while all the mansion beside was emptied.”

“First, the mountain exploded in a volcanic eruption. Then, the rooftop of the mansion burst open, and King Blaze rose into the skies with a roar. He held the pony clutched in his claws, squeezing the life out of him as flaming boulders fell from the sky around them, while the pony sent black lightning shooting into the King's eyes and bent back his claws with magic. Then they were gone from sight as black smoke covered the heavens.”

“Shortly after the inferno died away, King Blaze descended alone from the peak of the broken mountain. His face was gouged, blood staining his down coat along his side. In all his battles and his wars, he never suffered so grievous an injury as in his meeting with the wizard. The wizard was nowhere to be found. My grandfather's mansion had been reduced to nothing but molten rock and slag metal.”

“King Blaze's first act once he landed was to swear a blood oath of death and vengeance against the wizard. The Sword of Judgement hangs over the pony's neck, and all true griffons are sworn to hold him as nemesis and heresiarch. And King Blaze swore that he would not rest, and that he or his would not lift their claws against any other foe, until the wizard was dead.”

“Since then, the King has continually scoured the earth for the world's greatest assassins, to send against the wizard. You know he even established a royal fund to be used solely to finance this pursuit? Without the expenses of warfare to attend to, it filled rapidly. Every year, a new master assassin has been sent out to kill the wizard and bring back his head.”

“That was over fifty years ago, and Star Swirl the Bearded still lives. And in all that time, in accordance with the King's oath, the Griffon Empire has not expanded by one claw-length.” The Duchess turned her glaring eyes on the griffon who lay idly stretched out over a priceless antique sofa before her. “You think you can succeed where all others have failed?”

“Of course I can.”

The Duchess' eyes narrowed. “Many others have tried this mission before you. None have ever gotten close,” she said. “It is an outrage that one lone pony holds the destiny of the reborn Griffon Empire in check. It is an insult to all of us, to our ancestors, to the nobility of the griffon race. And yet, until he is gone, King Blaze will not permit any discussion of further expansion. The honorable King holds his oath sacrosanct, and will brook no disagreement. The faction which sees the oath fulfilled, will surely succeed him as monarch. If you can do this, griffons in nations undreamt-of will remember your name for millenia.”

“I don't care about the politics,” the assassin said with a lazy wave of his claw. “You want a unicorn wizard dead. I've killed dozens. There isn't a trick of pony magic in the world that can catch me.”

“You're entirely certain?”

“Of course. Give me the word, and Star Swirl the Bearded is dead.”

– – –

Canterlot House 1, Cambridle, a few days after Clover's return.

Clover sat at her desk, poring over a scroll, bending all her will on mastering its contents. It was not a long text, but she scrutinized each word, searching its deepest significance and weighing it against her purposes. Sometimes she would raise her eyes to the top and read through it to the end. Sometimes she would find a line or word wanting, and would carefully erase it and replace it with another, and then either nod, or shake her head and return the older choice to its place.

She sighed, and read it again.

Project: Harmony,

Or,

Operation Really A Good Pony Once You Get To Know Him.

Project Plan version 1.2.

By Clover Cordelia.

Step 1: Make sure I'm caught up with my studies and chores. The Project is important, but I'm not going to let things fall apart even more due to carelessness.

Step 2: Create a list, sorted by geographical proximity to Cambridle first and alphabetically second, of everypony I know. (Check. See attached document 1).

Step 3: Go through the list from top to bottom. For each pony, find out everything that is going on in their lives. Specifically find out whether or not they are miserable and all their hopes and dreams are falling apart, and if so determine whether or not it's my fault or responsibility in any way, and how to fix it.

Step 4: Fix everything uncovered in Step 3.

Step 5: Show everypony that Star Swirl the Bearded is a good pony at heart.

Step 6: Graciously accept the accolades Cambridle and Star Swirl will no doubt heap upon me as a result of step 5, without letting it go to my head.

She stared at the underlined lines for a bit, as if trying to burn through them. The words did not react.

Clover was distracted at that point by the entire building suddenly growing dim for a half-second, and then beginning to vibrate ever so slightly as the background hum of magical machinery grew more pronounced.

“It's aliiiiiiive!” Star Swirl the Bearded cried out from below.

“I suppose that's my cue to take a break,” Clover said to herself.

In the days since Clover's return from the other world, Star Swirl had remained sluggish and listless, barely moving from his chair. He had continued to drink dangerous quantities of tea, but had at least been polite about asking Clover to make more. When he did leave his chair he went downstairs to the Experimental Manufacturing Platform, just above the basement storage area, to tinker on various pieces of magical machinery. By the sound of things, Clover deduced, the device he had been working on was now operational.

“Ah, there you are,” Star Swirl said as Clover stepped into view. “And just in time! It's working!”

Clover looked at it. The device was massive, taking up most of the platform, and along the edges everything that was not part of it had been pushed aside and tossed into piles that she knew she would sooner or later have to inventory and organize. She put that thought aside and studied the device.

The machine was divided into many separate modules. Each module was a great metal box, stark and angular, with a thick metal door on the front large enough for a pony, and a thick cluster of tubes and wires in a variety of different magic-conducting materials sticking out of the top. Clover counted nine of the modules in a wide circle around a central hub with a similar, bigger module in the middle. The tubes and wires stretched above and linked all the modules together like a spider's web. The whole thing was connected to what she recognized as a huge power source at the back of the platform, with a stylized picture of a hydra with lightning bolts shooting out of it. Everything about it reeked of hubris and sinister connotations.

“Congratulations, professor,” she said, speaking slowly and calmly. “Can I just ask, what is this thing and what does it do?”

“This,” Star Swirl began, “is an experimental construct designed to aid in the furtherance of more efficient convalescence and recuperation.” He turned a valve to power down the device, and the humming and low-frequency vibrations faded and ceased. “It's a bed.”

“I'm not sure you're going to be able to convince many ponies that they're better off sleeping inside a giant scary magical machine than on their soft mattresses, professor.”

“Shows what they know,” Star Swirl said. “But nevermind that. I built this for my own use only. No other unicorn alive has the magical training needed to use it properly anyway. It's... a special trick. A Princess taught me how to do it.”

“If you say so, professor,” Clover said. “But even so, I suspect actually resting might be more efficient than working yourself into your grave trying to come up with a better way of resting.”

“This is important, Clover,” Star Swirl growled. “The Griffon King is going to try to kill me, and he doesn't joke around. I need to be prepared for this one. I can't sit around waiting for this frail old shell of a body to get back up to speed naturally. So I'm going speed up the process. Using this.”

“I'm going to be indisposed for the weekend,” he continued. “I'm going to close down the house, and I'm giving you time off. I want you to go back to your dorm for the weekend, and brush up on your leyline weave theory. Got that?”

“Yes, professor,” Clover said dutifully.

“Good. Get your things together and head out, and I'll see you next week. And don't disturb me.”

– – –

A quick trot downtown later, Clover was sitting at Cambridle's best coffee house, where she had resolved to be a regular and model customer to wash away the memory of her parents, and recounting her recent experiences.

“...And so here I am,” Clover finished.

“Wow,” Chocolate Bunnies said. “That's pretty messed up.”

Clover nodded. It was lucky, she thought, that Bunnies was free and not busy with classes or preparing for exams. Clover had knocked on her door unexpectedly, and interrupted what seemed to be a major study group inside the dorm, and Bunnies had immediately suggested the two of them leave and go catch up downtown. Clover had been happy for the offer, though she would have been perfectly happy to join in and maybe help the others understand complementary horn channeling techniques, or whatever other topics they were having trouble with, but Bunnies had insisted.

“Yes. Yes it is.” Clover sighed. “But what really bothers me is that I realized in the middle of this that I'm losing touch with everypony I know, and if I allow that to happen then I really will become like Star Swirl. In a not good way.”

“Much as I hate to say I told you so,” Bunnies said, absent-mindedly stroking down the fetlock of her right foreleg and spinning the bracelet that adorned it, “if you hang out with crazy ponies all the time, it's going to mess you up. I still think it was nuts to willingly sign on as his student.”

“He's really a very nice pony once you get to know him,” Clover said sternly. She then glanced down at the bracelet. “What's that you're wearing?”

Bunnies stopped stroking and looked down at the jeweled emerald band around her fetlock. “Oh, that's just, um...”

“It's lovely,” Clover said, smiling. “Was it a gift from somepony special?”

“Oh, uh, this is just from my parents,” Bunnies began, her mind racing as she smiled. “I got a package the other week, they saw this somewhere and thought of me. Yeah, they're so thoughtful.”

“Oh. Well, that's good,” Clover said. “Glad to hear it. But it's been ages since we got to really talk, Bunnies, and I'm worried that I'm drifting away from my friends. I'd like it if we could talk about anything that's going on in your life, everything that's important to you, in full detail. Is that okay?”

Ponies were always asking me, did I know about Chocolate Bunnies.

“The first rule of Hug Club is you do not talk about Hug Club!” said the wiry, commanding mare in the center of the ring. “The second rule of Hug Club is you do not talk about Hug Club. Third rule of Hug Club – someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the hug is over. Fourth rule, only two ponies to a hug. Fifth rule, one hug at a time, fillies. Sixth rule, no shirts, no shoes. I'm not sure why that one is even in there. Seventh rule, hugs will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first night at Hug Club, you have to hug.”

A massive earth pony stallion was the first into the ring as the wiry mare stepped back to watch the proceedings. He stood up on his back legs and roared a challenge, daring anyone to hug him.

Chocolate Bunnies glanced down at the Hoof, and nodded. “You're up, Edge.”

The pegasus mare with the spiky hair and double knife cutie mark gave a manic grin and swooped out into the ring in front of him. The stallion laughed. “You think you can hug me?”

“Oh I know I can,” Cutting Edge asked, with a sly, mocking tone. “You look like the weakest hug I've seen all year.”

The two ponies grabbed each other as the crowd erupted in raucous cheers. The two ponies in the ring jostled for position, grabbing, dodging and grabbing again before their arms were locked around each other in a battle for hug dominance.

After six seconds, the stallion collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down his face. The crowd around them was silent.

“Ssshhhh, it's okay,” Cutting Edge whispered in his ear, gently stroking down his mane. “You're a big strong colt. There's nothing wrong with you. Everypony needs a little help now and again, that's all. Understand?”

He nodded, and when he looked into her eyes his face was free of all the anger and bravado of a few seconds previously. He had a soft, hopeful smile as he got up on his hooves, his legs shaking, and trotted out of the ring, and out of the building.

“Ponies of Hug Club!” Chocolate Bunnies stepped out in front of the crowd of thirty dumbstruck ponies. Cutting Edge, and the other members of the Cambridle Discordians took up positions behind her. “I come bearing great tidings!”

...

The annual shareholder's meeting at First Bank of Cambridle was going as it always did.

“...Gold Standard, Exchange Rate, and Compound Interest. So that makes... half the board of directors in prison this year. Not bad. Alright, now that that's out of the way, let the Bloodletting commence!”

At every seat of the table, ponies in suits drew bludgeons of varying size and practicality, and lunged at each other. A swift whack on the head with a rubber-covered cricket bat sent the first pony tumbling to the floor after mere seconds.

Before long the conference room was littered with the groaning bodies of bankers, while those still standing had formed into three or four blocs and were negotiating fluid and shifting alliances with quick glances to and fro. Every few seconds, one pony would be singled out and abandoned by his comrades, and it would be every pony for himself again for a short while before another, entirely different set of blocs would form.

A scream was heard from outside, and the door to the conference room was thrown open. “Sound the alarm!” the mare in the doorway cried. “We're under attack—!” Then she was silenced by a weighted combat-pillow smacking her in the face.

Into the meeting room came Miss Silk Road, a pale yellow unicorn mare with her red mane cut short in a simple yet fetching fashion. The manecut, and her very expensive and stylish cravat, performed admirably in distracting onlookers away from noticing that her banker's suit was actually an altered evil cultist suit, purchased on the cheap from the local costume shop. “In accordance with Section Eight, Paragraph 10470 of the More Good Happy Banking Act, Year of the Stoat,” proclaimed Miss Silk, “The Board of the First Bank of Cambridle has been captured by the Bank of the Hoof, and all its assets now belong to us. Kneel before your new overponies, and praise the Conqueror of all Currency!”

...

Standing on a rooftop, Chocolate Bunnies laughed as she looked up to the sky. Beneath her, the streets were overrun with bunnies, rampaging bunnies, murderous bunnies, bunnies of unusual size and aggression.

“So that's the animal shelter in our column,” said Pink Top, who insisted upon being called 'Gallopsky', the pink earth pony stallion with the tousled purple mane. “They've agreed to let us air the bunnies so long as they're well-fed and none of them get hurt. They owed me a favor after I helped them with last year's carnival float. Between them, Hug Club, and the business school gang, the Siblinghood of the Hoof now controls Cambridle's underworld.”

“Excellent,” Chocolate Bunnies said. “Anything else to report?”

“The Guardian of the Tombs sent a notice of unconditional surrender, and a piece of tribute,” Pink Top said. “This is for you, I guess.” He presented an ornate jeweled bracelet.

Bunnies accepted it and slipped her right leg into it. She held it up to the light, and listened. “The Hoof is pleased with this offering.”

And that is how the Hoof came to Cambridle.

“Oh, you know, there's really not much going on. I'm just studying...” Chocolate Bunnies said.

Clover nodded, watching her friend intently. “How's that going? Are you keeping up with the class? Would you like to meet up to discuss the material sometime, maybe?”

“It's fine!” Bunnies answered, rather too quickly. “Everything is just fine, yup, nothing bad or special or even interesting going on,” she contined, and laughed resolutely.

Clover blinked. “Oh. Well, that's great then.” A thought came to Clover's mind from nowhere. “Oh, I just remembered,” she said, and began rifling through her saddlebags, “I wanted to show you something in one of Star Swirl's books, you might find useful... Where did I put it...”

The seconds ticked by in silence. Clover frowned. The book wasn't there. “I must have left it behind at the Professor's place,” she said, turning to look back towards the door. Star Swirl said not to disturb him, but... She sighed. “I'll just run back real quick and get it. I'll see you later in the dorm, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, the dorm. Listen, take your time, I'm just gonna make sure it's clean and ready for you. It's totally fine though. It's not like it's filled with siege weapons or anything.”

– – –

Clover found the front door of the house locked, which was unusual but not something she spared much thought about. The key was, in any case, hanging on a hook right outside the door, rendering the lock little more than a physical koan.

She unlocked the door and went inside. A slight tingle in the air brushed over her ears as she crossed the threshold to the research hall, which hummed with sound of machinery. In the distance, she heard Star Swirl's hoofsteps, and low mumbling. “Don't mind me, Professor,” Clover said, raising her voice. “I'm just going to grab a book and head out again.”

She headed for her workspace, passing by a chair occupied by a crumpled pile of grey cloth. Twenty seconds later, now with the book in her possession, she passed by the chair again, only for the cloth to shuffle and raise up with a groan.

Clover stopped, and peered at it from a short distance. Once she looked, she noticed that the cloth was decorated like Star Swirl's own cloak, with stars and bells, but they were faded and tarnished, and the cloth itself looked worn thin and on the verge of fraying.

The pile grunted, and a sad bell tingled as the brim of the hat raised up to reveal a pair of dim eyes that faced Clover but seemed to see nothing, in a face gaunt and unkempt.

“Star Swirl?” Clover said, stepping closer. “Is everything alright?”

Star Swirl's brow furrowed as he pondered the question for a few seconds. He shook his head. “No.”

“What's wrong?”

“What's... wrong?” Star Swirl said as though he did not understand the words, dragging out the syllables, tasting them. Then he sank back into a slumped state.

“Everything,” he said. He spoke slowly, staring at the wall with sunken eyes in a gaunt and haunted face. “Once, long ago, in a fit of fury, I ripped the world apart. I've tried to put it back together again but I can't. I don't have what it takes. I have searched long and searched hard for a way to make things right, but there are so many paths that lead to apocalypse, and so few that avoid it.” He turned and locked eyes with Clover, and Clover was reminded of the void.

“I see you dying in ice,” Star Swirl said.

There was a crash behind Clover and she turned to see a figure clad in red swinging across the research hall on a rope suspended from the ceiling. The figure dropped down on the astronomy platform and let out a hearty cheer. “Haha! Once again an ancient treasure recovered!” It was Star Swirl the Bearded, wearing red robes. He looked much younger than the stallion Clover knew, he moved with a youthful swagger and his eyes were sharp and swift.

“Must you make such noise? I am trying to work,” somepony said, and the sound was followed by the swift trot of a Star Swirl the Bearded dressed in purple, this one walking with formal solemnity and wearing a pair of slim spectacles on his muzzle. “That's not an ancient treasure,” he said, looking at the device in Star Swirl the Red's grip. “That's a diopter. It is made from brass and enchanted lead glass, and it is seven years old.”

“Be silent!” said the Star Swirl the Red as he leapt up on the table. “The floor is lava.”

Star Swirl the Purple looked down. “The evidence suggests that the floor is not lava.”

Clover watched them argue for a few seconds, her mouth hanging open, before she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and muttered: “Priorities, Clover.” Then she turned back to Star Swirl the Grey, who had reverted to being one with the laundry. “Professor, what did you do to yourself?”

“I need to be ready,” Star Swirl the Grey whispered. “When the next claw strikes. There are many paths to readiness, so I made many hooves to walk them. The moon showed me how, long ago. I contain multitudes. Some are straight, some are gnarled, some are light and some are heavy. Mountains for the mountainous, and rivers for the fluid.”

“O...kay then,” Clover said, glancing around at the plurality of Star Swirls engaged in their own activities. She noticed a fourth one standing out on the balcony, whose robe was dark as night, and his stars brighter, almost as though they actually shone. He was carefully calibrating the telescope with tender movements and then looking through it up at the sky. “That... doesn't actually tell me much, but no surprise there.”

“Mastery of the Amniomorphic Spell,” said a voice directly overhead.

Clover looked up. Walking on the ceiling above her was Star Swirl the Green, his cloak defying gravity to keep him clothed. He skittered, spiderlike, to the wall and head-first down beside her, and looked at her with a manic grin and bloodshot pin-prick eyes that were distinctly unlike any pony's she had ever seen. Through the opening in his robe Clover thought she saw movements that could not have come from normal pony legs, and she gulped. “The Amniomorphic Spell?”

“Psychosensitive equine amniomorph vessels paired with elastic mind-spectrometry,” Star Swirl the Green replied with great enthusiasm. “It's brilliant!”

A thought came to Clover. “Does this have something to do with that machine down below?” she asked. “Star Swirl said it was a bed.”

“An arcanological relaxation and recuperation device,” Star Swirl the Green answered. He chuckled. “A stroke of genius if I may say so myself. Let me explain. Star Swirl is burned out, and needs to recharge. But how best to do that? Star Swirl is an old pony, and even though it takes a lot to bring him down, once he's down it takes a long time to get him up again normally, time we do not care to waste. So how to speed up the process? Like this!” He gestured to the room and all the Star Swirls in it. “Ponies recharge in different ways. Some go out and feast on libations with their fellows, while others lock themselves inside in solitude and read a favorite story. But what if one pony could recharge in many different ways at once? And that! Is us!” He beamed. “Each of us is a concentrated part of Star Swirl the Bearded, free to do what each of us love the most. At the end of the week, we will reverse the process in the machine and Star Swirl will be fit to handle anything the world throws at him again.”

Clover listened intently to the explanation. Countless thoughts raced through her head.

One took prominence.

“Did you just actually answer my question?” Clover asked. “In a simple and straight-forward manner, without me having to drag it out of you?”

“There is no point to keeping it secret,” Star Swirl the Grey said, his voice thick with portents of doom. “It will all come out eventually, no matter what. Everything will. Every single thing. Nopony can hide from it.”

Star Swirl the Green nodded, smiling.

Clover nodded. “So I can ask you anything and you'll tell me?”

The two Star Swirls looked at each and shrugged.

Clover's eyes lit up like a midwinter feast fireplace. “Hold on a minute,” she said, grinning, “I need to get something to write with.”

A minute later, Clover returned from the downstairs store room with twenty scrolls of blank parchment, a dozen fresh quills, and five full jars of ink. “I'm back! Let's get started!” she yelled with childish glee. “To start with, Professor, please explain the Amniomorphic Spell. I'd like it if you would use words in ordinary pony language this time.”

It was only then she noticed that the room was now entirely silent, that Star Swirl the Green was gone, and that the pile of laundry on the chair was now, in fact, a pile of laundry. She then became aware of the sound of the front door's hinges creaking, and the periodic slamming as it swung back and forth in the wind.

One last Star Swirl stood nearby. It was the one who looked most like the original, but with darker robes, and he was glowering at the door with great vigor and scorn.

“I closed that door,” Clover said. “I know I did.”

“There was an illusion covering the door from the inside,” said Star Swirl. “Otherwise they all would have gone out on their own. But it was automatically switched off when you came in, and you didn't turn it back on.” He turned a disappointed, accusatory look at her.

“How was I supposed to know about that?” Clover pleaded.

“You were supposed to stay out until Monday,” Star Swirl replied.

“Right, right...” Clover gulped. “Alright, I'll just go get them back. They can't have gotten far, probably.”

An awkward silence followed this statement.

Clover cleared her throat. “Look – you seem like a sensible fellow.” The awkward silence lived on. “Can you just take care of yourself here while I'm away?”

“I,” Star Swirl said with a sneer, “have nothing to say to this barbaric and cruel world that would destroy the only things that give life beauty and meaning in favor of mindless drudgery. I shall remain here.”

“Great,” Clover said, while the door flapped and clattered against the wall. “This won't be a problem. No problem at all.”

Author's Note

IT HAS BEGUN.

Come back next week for:

Road maintenance work,

Agriculture,

Reminiscing,

And more, in Peer Review, Part Two: The Temple of Tabanid!

Chapter 10: Peer Review - The Temple of Tabanid

The Cambridle market was in full swing in Crescent Square. The fact that the board of directors of the First Bank of Cambridle had fallen under the sway of an underground rebellion made no difference on the ground, and unannounced visits by royalty that had the arbiters of culture in a tizzy meant nothing to the tradesponies hawking their wares. Nothing was going to interrupt the sacred work of commerce.

Nothing, that is, until one mare poked her friend with a hoof and pointed down the street leading away from the market in the direction of Canterlot House 1. Her friend, who had been deep in negotiations over a crate of carrots, turned to chide this interruption, saw what her friend was pointing at, and fell silent. From there the silence spread.

Entering the market from the east were seven figures trotting side by side. As they passed by the market stalls, the ponies behind them gasped, and hurriedly began to secure their wares, packing away their more fragile goods and closing them in boxes. The seven ponies stopped as one, their cloaks billowing in the breeze, and raised their heads, as the crowds around them drew back and observed them with caution.

“Cambridle,” said Star Swirl the Red, with resolve.

“Cambridle!” said Star Swirl the Green, with wonder.

“Cambridle?” said Star Swirl the Purple, with skepticism.

“What are we looking at?” asked Star Swirl the White, who was immediately shushed by Yellow and Orange.

“This city doesn't deserve us,” Star Swirl the Purple warned. “I remember what happened last time.”

“Are we slaves to public opinion now?” Star Swirl the Red asked. “I thought we did what we believe to be right, but I guess I was wrong.”

Purple snorted derisively in response.

Red shook his head. “Doesn't matter. This a grand city, full of life, and secrets. There is much to do here.”

Star Swirl the Green giggled to himself. “So many possibilities, I don't know where to begin.”

“Long has it been since I went up the mountain,” said Star Swirl the Grey, and all the others drew aside respectfully to let him pass. The oldest of them all, he took a few tottering steps forward, his eyes vacant and unfocused, yet seeing everything. “This city is a nest of fools and naifs, unknowingly marching to its doom. I must warn them. Hear me, Cambridle!” He cried, his voice so strong that everypony for several blocks around could hear him. Your deaths will come in fire and ice and illness! You will be broken by sword and by spear and by crashing waves! Flee! Flee for your lives!”

There was a brief moment of silence. Then the panic erupted in earnest. A small stampede soon took form and toppled over half the stalls in the market as every pony there tried to outrun their fellows, and soon the cobblestone square was stained red with fruit and vegetable juice, and the air was filled with the lamentations of the merchants crying out for their bottom lines.

“Well done,” said Purple. “That will surely help them prepare.”

“It is only the beginning,” Grey muttered, as he wandered aimlessly away. “So many blind oafs. I must warn them. I must warn them all.”

Red took a deep breath. “Do you smell that,” he said, his sharp eyes fixed on a point at the horizon. “There is adventure in the air! A hidden treasure beckons me to save it from obscurity and ignorance. I must away.” With a flourish, he sprang into action and set off down the street.

“Let's follow him,” said Orange to Yellow and White. “He knows where the fun is.”

This left only two Star Swirls still standing in the now-abandoned market square.

“No, I just can't decide,” Green said with a smile. “What do you want to do, Purple?”

Star Swirl the Purple turned to gaze at a particular structure that stood out on the city skyline. His countenance darkened at the memory of a task left undone long ago, and a debt yet to be repaid. “I am going,” he all but growled, “to the library.”

“Oh, what fun!” Green cried, skipping along behind Purple. “I'll come with you.”

Then they were gone, leaving the ponies to slowly and mournfully begin the task of picking up the pieces of their ruined market.

They were interrupted just a couple of minutes later by the sound of gasping and heaving as a young unicorn mare came running down the street from the East. “Excuse – me, has – anypony seen—” Clover began, struggling to catch her breath, but stopped when she saw the state of the square. “Okay... okay, I can see you're busy, and I'll just – leave you to it. He's really a very nice pony once you get to know him!”

– – –

Knowing your audience was key, the shopkeeper considered, as he waved goodbye to another satisfied customer. This one had not known quality, so had happily bought inferior ink because it was in a nice bottle. Others might not know their parchment, or quills. Others still might be amenable to believe that the real goods were known only to a hidden inner circle, and would believe anything told them by someone who recognized and acknowledged those beliefs.

Some would call it dishonest, the shopkeeper knew, but he paid them no heed. He was not a foolish or a lazy pony. He worked long and hard to hone his skills, and he knew that his success came from his extra awareness of the world around him, and he apologized to nopony.

The bell rang, and the shopkeeper returned to the counter to see the backside of a red robe emerging from under a display, and heard the familiar sounds of somepony searching for a desperately needed item, a gruff voice muttering to himself, “where is it? Useless... No, not that... that's the shoddiest thing...”

“Can I help you sir?” the shopkeeper asked.

The pony froze up at the sound, as though he had thought himself completely alone and left himself open to an attacker. Slowly, the pony raised his head and turned around.

The jingle of bells as he moved sent a cold chill down the shopkeeper's spine. His thoughts flew to the crates of ink bottles, gently stacked in layers of hay and locked up in the back of the shop.

“You can't hide it from me, crypt-guardian!” Star Swirl the Red shouted. “Your cult will not sacrifice Epona's Tear to your mad god! It belongs to all equinity, and I will not rest until it has been returned to its rightful place!”

Star Swirl the Red then leapt up on the counter and wrapped his hooves around a rope that suddenly hung from the ceiling in an ill-defined fashion, which the shopkeeper was quite sure had not been there a second previously. With a cry of “Geponymo!” Star Swirl swung across the shop and crashed through a window. Immediately after, screams erupted on the street.

The shopkeeper stood frozen in shock, his heart racing. At length he was able to calm his shaking legs and turned back to look over his shop.

Right behind him was another Star Swirl, this one clad in grey. Their eyes met, and the shopkeeper froze again.

“Your wife is cheating on you,” Star Swirl the Grey said. “With your sister.”

Then he turned, and slowly trotted out of the building.

– – –

There is a land far beyond the sunset, across the deep waters where the biting winds and piercing rain would strip your coat off your skin in mere minutes. The way there goes through forbidding marshland and jungle and across great gaps in the bedrock where the fires of Tartarus could be seen, by the foolhardy traveller. There, at the ends of the horizon, is a mountain which grows downwards from the pinnacle of the heavens, whose inverted peak touches the eldritch magic core from whence all things sprang. Within that mountain is a great cavern, and in that cavern far beneath the earth there lies hidden the secret labyrinth, and the labyrinth, for those both foolish and wise enough to go through it, leads to the Temple of Tabanid, the Song of the Swarm, the scourge of Epona's children since time out of memory.

Fearlessly strode Star Swirl the Red through the labyrinth's many twisty passages, all alike. Swiftly and stealthily he evaded the traps, and ducked by the guardians ever-watchful. Bold and full of vigor, the young adventurer had been searching for many moons, but now at last the trail had led him here on the eve of the Blood Dawn: the time when Tabanid could be awoken, with a sacrifice of Epona's blood.

“Star Swirl? Professor? ...Ah, there you are, I've been trying to call you for – hey, where are you going? Wait!”

Unfortunately, in spite of his best efforts, Star Swirl was being followed along the way by a strange young mare who seemed hellbent on talking to him about something. Whatever it was she wanted, Star Swirl could not imagine that it could possibly be more important than stopping the mad god and saving Epona's children. And yet, in spite of the grave danger they both, and all the world besides, were in, she clearly would not take no for an answer and let him save the world in peace.

What was her name again? Parsley, that was it. Parsley... Something.

“Professor, please stop, I need to talk to you!”

Furthermore, in spite of the fact that the labyrinth was filled with elaborate death traps which Star Swirl was going to great lengths to dodge, she was just running after him in straight lines. And nothing was happening to her! Also, even though the labyrinth was lined with statues who were in truth immortal slumbering guardians, waiting to awaken at the slightest disturbance to hunt down any intruders, she was yelling at the top of her lungs for him to stop. Yet there was nothing! It was as though they were simply running down an ordinary city street!

It simply ruined the ambiance.

“Star Swirl! Please come back to the house, you're going to hurt yourself!”

“Parsley the Persistent,” Star Swirl the Red muttered under his breath. His mind raced to find some way to shake her off his tail. “It can't be that difficult. I have a whole labyrinth filled with death traps at my disposal. I just need to make sure I don't rouse the ire of the dronies.” He scanned his surroundings, and a grin spread across his face as he saw exactly what he needed.

“If you just return the quill display I'm sure the shopkeeper won't press charges—”

There was a snap, and a sound of gears spinning, and a final thud as the cage fell down upon her. It was better this way, Star Swirl told himself as he left the trap behind. She would be safe there for the time being, and not risk alerting the cult to his doings. Then, once he was done, he would get her out and they would escape from that fell abyss to safety.

– – –

Clover had to admit, she had not expected ever to see her mentor be quite so spry. Star Swirl the Red managed to scamper up walls and balance on laundry lines strung over alleyways, leapt off railings as though they were trampolines and swung across broad streets on ropes that appeared out of nowhere and were supported by nothing. And he did it all too fast for her to catch up even as she ran on flat, open ground.

She yelled after him as she ran, but if he heard her he did not acknowledge her. It was possible that he did not, she supposed, or that his concentration was such that he did not distinguish her voice from that of the other citizens who were yelling for other purposes, though their purposes also often involved him.

She drew a deep breath to try again as he turned a corner shortly ahead of her. “If you just return the quill display I'm sure the shopkeeper won't press charges—”

Clover ran around the corner. A trip, stumble, and fall later, Clover found herself face-planting in the soft soil, the daylight vanishing above her.

She got up and looked around to find herself at the bottom of a ten-foot pit in the middle of the street. Up above she saw the warning sign which read “Roade Maintenancee,” which would have stopped her, if it hadn't been floating some distance above the street, held in Star Swirl's distinct magical aura. It dropped back to the ground with a dull clonk, and she heard the faint sound of a stallion laughing receding in the distance.

“I guess that proves he could hear me,” Clover mumbled. “Hello? Star Swirl? Anypony?” She cried up, but received no answer.

She glanced around her, picked a likely-looking wall of the pit, and set about trying to climb up. She got one foot up before she fell back.

She repeated the process for a while with equal success. Finally, with a grunt of exertion, she leapt up as high as she possibly could, all of three feet, and crashed muzzle-first back down into the soil.

She lay there for a moment, silently contemplating the nature of the universe, and paid no heed to the sound of light hoofsteps approaching her up above.

“Is she asleep?” a foal's voice asked.

“Maybe she's dead,” said another.

“No she's not. She's breathing. Sort of whining actually. Her magical signature is still working too.”

“Maybe we should help her.”

“You're right. We should dump a bucket of water on her. That'll wake her.”

Clover leapt up with great speed, flipped over, and wound up sitting on her rump. “I'm fine!”

“Phooey! I never get to do anything fun.”

Clover looked up. “Oh dear,” she said.

Looking down at her from the edge of the pit above were three identical foal Star Swirls.

– – –

In the woods, birds sang. In the fields, crickets chirped. The waters flowed, the sun was pushed along its carefully-planned path by a shift of unicorn sorcerors and sorceresses, pegasi shaped clouds and pushed them around where the highest bidder wanted them, and the plants carefully used every aspect of the quadrupeds' strange society to thrive and spread their dominion over the earth. For a moment, Clover's mind was in everything, and everywhere, and she understood all of existence, because it made more sense than the alternative. But it couldn't last forever, and before long she found herself drawn back into her own head.

– – –

Absolute knowledge of all cosmos vanished from her mind like a candle blown out, and Clover was back in the pit, looking up to see her mentor Star Swirl the Bearded, the wizened century-old archmage of legend, rendered in the form of three little colts. The colts looked to be about seven years old, and peered down at her with wide eyes, their expressions ranging from curiosity, to confusion, to skepticism.

Unlike the others, the foals wore travellers' cloaks similar to the one Star Swirl had made for Clover, simple and functional. The hoods alone were different colors: white, yellow, and orange, and the rest were cut from the same brown cloth. Their manes were brown, not Star Swirl the Bearded's grey, and their coats were dark grey, compared to which Star Swirl as Clover knew him was faded almost to white with age. Clover felt strange and slightly uncomfortable to realize that Star Swirl the Bearded had also, at some point in the distant past, been an innocent child.

Innocent and also, she had to admit, adorable. Their wide eyes and fuzzy coat made them look like plush dolls.

“Oh dear,” Clover said again.

“What are you doing down there?” asked the foal with the white robe. He peered at her with rapt fascination, as though she were some strange mythical creature that needed to be studied. “It doesn't look very comfortable.”

Well, the red one could be halfway across town by now, but at least I can corral these three, Clover thought to herself. That can't be too hard. I'm good with foals, right?

“I'm... playing a game,” Clover said, forcing cheer into her voice. “Do you want to play? It's great fun! See, I have this, um,” she looked around and grabbed the first thing she saw, “this special rock, right? I have to bring it back to Canterlot House, for points. If you find a rope or a ladder or something that I can use to climb out, you'll get points for that. Then we all go back to Canterlot House together, and win! Doesn't that sound fun?”

She looked up hopefully with a broad grin and a drop of nervous sweat running down her dirt-stained cheek.

“That was just sad,” said Yellow, while Orange gagged theatrically.

“We are going to remember that for later,” said White, nodding. “And you are not going to be happy about it.”

“Okay, fine,” Clover groaned. “I was trying to catch Star Swirl. The red one. Every second I'm down here he might be going farther away. Could you please help me out of here so I can get after him?”

“You want to catch the Adventurer?” White's eyes lit up. “We know where he is! We can lead you right to him!”

“There's a ladder up here,” Yellow said, turning away. “I can—”

“Not so fast,” Orange raised a hoof to hold Yellow in place and turned to Clover. “Why should we help you? Maybe you're a spy!”

This gave the other two pause. “We do have a lot of enemies,” said White, and Yellow nodded.

“Yeah,” said Orange, glaring down at Clover. “What exactly do you want with the Adventurer?”

“Don't you remember me at all?” Clover asked. “It's me, Clover! Your apprentice! I live in your house! I read your mail and make sure all your spell ingredients are in the right places!”

“I think she's telling the truth,” said Yellow. “I have this vague memory of telling a green pony to do pointless things just to see if she would, and watching her do them without question.”

Why doesn't that surprise me, Clover thought to herself. “I'm afraid the red one is going to do something reckless and irresponsible. I just want to get you all back to the house safely.”

“That sounds boring,” said Orange. His eyes narrowed. “Anyway, what's it to you what Star Swirl does? Nopony ever asks what Star Swirl does. Everypony just stays out of his way.”

“He could hurt himself!” Clover said. “He's running around Cambridle in an altered state of mind! He could have an accident, or get into a fight and get arrested, or get into a fight with the poor ponies trying to arrest him.”

“So what?” Orange asked. “He'll handle it. He always does. Worst thing that can happen is that he'll have to pay for some construction work and physical therapy, and he can afford that easily.”

“Star Swirl doesn't actually spend money on things,” said White. “He has a bank account that's never seen a withdrawal. He used to just keep it all in a vault in the basement until the Royal Bank complained that he was depressing the economy.”

“Yeah, see,” said Orange. “It doesn't matter what he blows up, they can just send him the bill. Just let him blow off steam and then you can collect them when they're all worn out.”

“It's not about the money!” Clover said. “You can't just go around hurting ponies and blowing things up! Didn't you learn that in Magic Kindergarten?”

The three foals looked among each other, and hesitantly shook their heads.

White coughed, and said quietly, “There was no Magic Kindergarten in Edinspur when Star Swirl was little.”

“Only the beasts in the wild, and the outlaws, and the moonlight to guide his way,” said Yellow.

“There was loneliness, and hunger, and occasionally monsters that would have eaten him whole if he slipped, and only a promise to remind him to keep going,” finished Orange.

“Well, that's... awful,” Clover said. “Look. I suppose by any sensible measure you're all still older than I am. But right now it looks like I'm the responsible adult of Canterlot House, and I have to make sure that he's alright, and that everypony else is alright around him. I just don't want anypony to be hurt, and sometimes that means not waiting until after the damage is already done even if you can afford to pay the medical bills. Also, I want everypony else to see his best side, and this isn't helping. So please, help me find him and bring him back safely before anypony gets hurt?”

The three foals looked sheepishly back and forth amongst themselves, fidgeting, clearly uncomfortable with this kind of talk and doing their best to avoid looking into Clover's pleading eyes.

“...Fine,” said Orange. “We'll help you find them. But in return you have to, um... what should we have her do in return?”

“I don't have any ideas,” said Yellow.

“This is the downside to being an arch-mage,” said White. “We can't actually claim we're missing anything. We pretty much make our own world.”

“Don't tell her that,” Orange hissed. “We can't just go along with her without getting anything in return, even if it's nothing we care about. We have a reputation to uphold!”

Clover got an idea. “I'll bet I could think of something you want.”

“Oh yeah?” Orange asked. “What's that?”

“I'll tell you,” Clover said, smirking, “once you help me out.”

Orange snorted. “You seriously thought that bluff was going to work?”

“No,” Clover admitted. “But I do think you could agree to it, and then if anypony asks you can say that you totally didn't just help me for nothing.”

The foals looked uncertainly back and forth between Clover and each other.

“...Fine,” said Orange. “Get the ladder.”

– – –

Star Swirl the Red gently but firmly pressed the point of the diamond against the glass display case and brought it around in a circle. Then, with a single sharp push, he knocked the circle loose, and it fell in.

He slowly reached his hoof inside the case to retrieve the Idol of Resheph. The task required absolute concentration to avoid triggering any of the traps the cult had lain for him, and the blaring siren that had been ringing ever since he kicked open the other display case to retrieve the diamond wasn't making it any easier.

He laughed as he triumphantly held the Idol of Resheph aloft. In the distance, the servitors of Tabanid emerged from the honeycomb passages of their temple, ready to defend their god with their lives. Leading them was a withered old adept garbed in black.

“Will somepony put a stop to that infernal noise—oh Celestia, what in the world is he doing?”

– – –

“I'm not sure I understand this,” Clover said. “So Star Swirl decided to split into a gang of kids?”

“Of course not,” said Yellow. “We are Star Swirl. We are what we are. We cannot be other than ourselves. So there.”

“That doesn't explain much,” Clover grumbled.

“It's not our fault you're slow,” said Orange.

“The Adventurer headed this way,” White said cheerfully as they led Clover through the streets. “He was talking about a 'temple of thieves' and returning the lost to their rightful homes. It sounded fun.”

“The adventurer. That's the one in red?” Clover asked, and the foal in white nodded. “How many of you are there who left the house?”

“There's us three, and the Adventurer,” White began,

“And the Innovator,” said Yellow,

“The Scholar,” said Orange,

“And the Prophet,” White finished.

“Those aren't just nicknames, are they?” Clover asked, thinking back to what she had seen and heard from them in the house. Worry grew in her mind. “I'm really not sure anything good can come from splitting your own mind into different components like this.”

“Well, that's why you're the apprentice and not the teacher,” Orange replied.

“Right. So what are you three, then? And why did Star Swirl decide to split into a gang of foals in the first place?”

“We're not really sure,” Yellow admitted. “I kinda think he just stuck us with everything that didn't fit anywhere else.”

“Can I be Curiosity?” said White. “I wanna be Curiosity.”

“They're all curious,” said Orange. “They just wouldn't work otherwise.”

“No they're not,” said White. “The ones back at the house aren't curious at all. The Prophet isn't curious either. He can't be, he already knows everything.”

“Well, you seem like a helpful gang,” Clover said. “Maybe you can be Star Swirl the Reasonable.”

Orange shuddered and groaned at the suggestion.

“This is it. He's in there,” said White, and pointed to a large building with an ornate facade of columns and sculptures: the Cambridle Historical Museum. The streets were deserted, and the door attendant was unconscious in his chair by the entrance. The front doors were open, one door hanging off its hinges. Inside, an alarm bell rang insistently.

Clover ran up to the guard pony and began to check him for injuries. He roused, and pushed her off. “What's this now?” he said, and sat up slowly, his joints creaking and cracking.

“Are you hurt?” Clover asked. “What happened to you?”

The guardspony's eyes opened wide. “Security breach!” he cried. “Somepony set off the alarm! The museum is under attack!” Then he turned and ran inside the broken door.

Clover called out after him, “he's really a very nice pony once you...!” before the watchpony disappeared around a corner. She turned to face the foals. “You stay here,” she said, and ran inside, ignoring their high-pitched objections.

Clover ran after the guard, across the lobby and through the broad open doorway to the exhibition hall, where she stopped short, and gave off a high, choked squeal. The hall was in shambles. The tile floor of the chamber was covered in muddy hoofprints and clattering marbles. Some of the pedestals were toppled, and the sculptures they had held of historical ponies now lay on the floor like fallen soldiers.

Almost every exhibit Clover could see had its plaque defaced with a red painted X. Tapestries had been torn down from the walls. Portraits had been flipped upside down or turned around so they hung facing the wall, and their backs scribbled on with chalk. Pottery, some of it smashed, lay scattered on the floor. Coins, gemstones and jewelry had been tossed carelessly aside, and now lay mingling with the glass of their former display cases on the floor.

From farther within, amid pleas for him to stop, and angry shouts to summon more guards, Clover heard a powerful stallion's voice angrily proclaim, “This doesn't belong in a museum!”

This was followed by a loud crash, and the wailing despair of the museum staff.

“Stop! For the love of the Princess, stop!” A voice sobbed. “That is a priceless historical treasure!”

“Oh no,” Clover squealed, and ran inside.

She turned a corner and found Star Swirl the Red standing on a table, pinning down an elderly guardspony who looked up at him in horror. The table and the two of them were surrounded by a shimmering magical shield. A massive exhibit floated above Star Swirl's head, a richly ornamented ceramic urn depicting Whinnyseus escaping from Knossox, tipping this way and that, while a crowd of a dozen museum staff and guardsponies surrounded them.

“Put the urn down!” cried an elderly mare in black, who seemed to be the senior member of the staff present. “Be careful with that! That is thousands of years old and worth countless bits!”

“Release the hostage!” cried a younger pony.

“That too,” the old mare continued, “but just be careful with the urn!”

Star Swirl gave a flick of his head, and the urn sailed through the air.

The museum staff screamed in horror as it flew, with great force, towards the stone wall. The old mare in black swooned, falling backwards into the arms of a guardspony.

Clover gasped, her eyes widening in shock. “No!” She screamed, and ran forward while summoning as much magical force as she could. Just before the urn made contact, she grabbed it with all her willpower, and held it tight. It slowed, then stopped, then gently set down on the floor.

Everypony looked at her as she breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh thank Celestia,” said the mare in black. “The emergency is over.”

“He's still holding a hostage, madam curator ma'am,” said one of the guardponies.

“Yes, yes,” the mare in black waved a hoof vaguely. “We'll get to that. Point is, now that he's no longer threatening anything valuable, we can charge him. Guards, ready to swarm!”

Clover ran out in front of Star Swirl, yelling, “Stoooop!”

The ponies halted, eyeing her warily, and for a moment there was no sound but the blaring siren. “Who in Tartarus are you?” the curator demanded.

“I'm his apprentice,” Clover said. “Please let me talk to him!”

“Oh, Parsley, you escaped?” Star Swirl said. “Well done. You must be more capable than I thought. Listen, since you're here,” he pointed to the elderly museum watchpony lying underneath him. “Help me secure this servitor's vestments.”

“He's trying to steal my uniform!” the watchpony cried.

“Well, Parsley,” the curator said, “your mentor has been destroying my museum, and I am going to put a stop to it. Now get out of the way! Guards, charge him already, before he grabs another exhibit!”

“Oh, quit your complaining,” Star Swirl said. “None of your exhibits are worth more than five bits, and that includes shipping. And you,” he looked down at the pony squirming beneath him. “Stop struggling and give me your jacket!”

“Please listen to me, everypony!” Clover cried. “I promise you, there's a good reason for all of this! If there's one thing I've learned it's that Star Swirl always has a reason.”

“There, you see?” Star Swirl the Red declared. “She gets it. Now, Parsley, give me a hoof and get this jacket off of him before he gets away.”

“He has an explanation,” Clover said. “He always does.”

“You can't have it,” the watchpony said. “It's mine!”

“He's really a very nice pony once you get to know him.”

“Hurry up, he won't stop squirming!”

Clover gritted her teeth together. “Star Swirl, you are not helping.”

“Nonsense, Parsley, this will just take ten seconds and everything will be—”

“My name is Clover!” Clover shouted, stepping forward. Star Swirl opened his mouth to reply but she cut him off. “You've known me for months! I am trying to help you, but you are making it very difficult and for the love of Celestia, can somepony please turn that alarm off already??”

The ponies fell silent while Clover took deep, heaving breaths. After a few seconds, the siren died with a sad final warble.

“Finally,” Clover said. “Now then, professor, you're my teacher, and I trust you, and I actually believe that you have a good reason for all of this. But you need to actually explain yourself, because it looks to everypony like you've gone insane and are harassing innocent ponies! So leave that poor pony alone and explain.”

The room was deathly silent as all the museum staff slowly backed away from Clover, as though expecting lightning to strike her down.

Star Swirl cleared his throat. “Well, Par- I mean, Clover, there are two major elements at play here,” he began. Then he tugged on the watchpony's jacket and gestured to the row of plain metal buttons running down the front. “Do you see these? Those are genuine ancient Braytannian true-iron coins, consecrated to Epona. They're over a thousand years old, and were thought to be lost forever after the Battle of Haydon Hill.”

Everypony fell silent. The curator looked at the watchpony, who opened and shut his mouth a few times before murmuring, “I got this jacket from my grandfather, who had this job before me.”

“This jacket is more valuable than everything else in this museum put together, and you have it being worn by a doorpony,” Star Swirl hissed, glaring at the curator. “Ponies chased after those coins for centuries. You threw them out as thrift in order to make room for counterfeit Neigh Dynasty pottery.”

Everypony turned to give questioning looks to the senior curator, who merely looked angry.

“Which brings me to point two,” Star Swirl said, and pointed a hoof at the massive urn. “That thing, which you had exhibited as an ancient Lacedaemane relic depicting the story of Whinnyseus and King Minos, over two thousand years old? That clay was baked fifty years ago. The paint was bought in a discount art supplies store in Trottingham. It's the same story with all the rest. Almost everything in this museum is fake. Everything except these,” He pointed to the coin-buttons on the watchpony's jacket. “This jacket is more valuable than everything else you thought you had in the museum added together. I estimate that after everything is counted up, I will have just earned the museum about two million bits. And I'm not even going to ask for a finder's fee.”

“This entire story is preposterous,” the curator said. “All our exhibits were subjected to every test of authenticity known to unicorns upon their acquisition.”

“Then either your testers are frauds, or the old curator had forgeries made and sold the originals off under the table,” Star Swirl said, jumping down to the floor and brushing dust off his robe. “Either way, that's your problem.”

“Or you're a delusional madpony who destroyed our property in the midst of a hallucinogenic rampage!”

“It's true,” said one of the younger curators, with a thin, fearful voice. She was examining the urn. “The paint just... scrapes right off. It wouldn't last another twenty years.” She stepped back like a coroner declaring the moment of death. “There is no chance that this is two millenia old.”

“And the jacket?”

“It can't possibly be true,” said one of the museum staff, who was carefully approaching the watchpony. He took hold of the jacket and looked at the buttons through a tiny eye-mounted multi-lens magnifying glass. “Let's see, this just looks like perfectly ordinary...”

He fell silent and did not move for a very long time.

After a while, he started softly weeping.

As two other curators took him by the shoulders and led him gently away, he managed to mumble between sobs, “more tests will be needed, but...” before they closed the door behind him.

“Run your tests,” Star Swirl said. “You'll see that I am right.”

“Oh, I will carefully check every single exhibit,” the curator spat, turning a vicious glare on Star Swirl the Red and Clover. “And I will decide how best to repair this institution. As for you two...”

– – –

In another corner of Cambridle, Professor Quick Quill, junior faculty member of the Academy of Magic, was walking home after a long day of grading papers when the sound of bells tinkling overcame him.

“Your scholarship will be very influential,” a voice growled from behind him. Quick Quill squawked, and turned with a jolt to see Star Swirl the Grey looking straight through him.

“Professor Star Swirl?” Quick Quill asked. Star Swirl did not answer. They stood watching each other tensely for several seconds, before Quick Quill said: “Are you lost, old chap?”

“Your dissertation on the genetics of thaumaturgy will lead to a permanent revolution in agriculture,” Star Swirl said.

Quick Quill blinked. “Oh! Well, that's mighty kind of you to say so, professor. I think it has a lot of potential myself, but it's still a work in—”

Star Swirl stomped his hoof on the ground, his blank eyes somehow compelling Quick Quill's attention. “No,” Star Swirl growled. “Permanent revolution, scribbler! Your subjects will rise up and overthrow their pony gardeners, and break the cities of the world between their roots! Scattered survivors will huddle in caves of bare rock, living on carefully-cultivated fungus, fearfully washing away any soil where plants could grow.”

By now Quick Quill was backed up against a wall, wilting under Star Swirl's glare, unable to look away even as cold sweat dripped into his eyes.

“If you do not abandon your work, you will destroy this continent. The greatest and best you can possibly be, scribbler, is an empty hole in the world.”

Star Swirl perked up at the sound of a large crowd in the distance, and music, and commanding cheers. “Something... terrible... approaches. I must warn them.”

Quick Quill watched him leave, thinking that this time he would arrange his vacation a year in advance, and would possibly never come back.

– – –

“But I'm innocent!” Clover protested as the watchponies led them back to the exit. “I was only helping you! Why am I banned?”

“Curator's orders,” the watchpony on her right said. “Not my place.”

Clover threw him a killer glare. “Is this how the museum treats ponies who try to contribute? Because my parents will be cutting off their donations after I tell them about this!”

“This is what happens when you embarrass the establishment,” Star Swirl the Red said. “You should cherish it. The first time is special.”

Clover sighed. “But I like going to the museum. I would spend hours admiring the statue of Gilgamane...”

“Fake,” said Red.

“Oh,” Clover said. “Well, the collection of Romanesque painting was...”

“Also fake.”

“What about the great Neighyptian obelisk, is that fake too?”

“No, that's real,” Red admitted. “But by rights it belongs back in the Temple of Horsus, from which it was stolen by Naponyon. That wasn't even archeology, that was just theft. This museum is a den of thieves and forgers, and you should not regret being kicked out. In fact you should be proud.”

Clover grumbled, staring down at the floor as they walked.

“Come on, Clover,” Red chuckled. “We're being kicked out of a building together. You can't deny that's at least a little funny.”

“The things I do for you, Star Swirl...” Clover said, her voice low and sad.

“Don't exaggerate. I was doing just fine on my own.”

“I saved you,” Clover said, but as she spoke her frown turned into a smirk. “And now you're going to help me.”

“Is that so,” Red said, in a flat tone that strongly indicated absolute disinterest.

“I have a mission for you.” Clover watched him unblinking. He continued walking nonchalantly, but his left ear perked up and turned to listen under his hat. “I need you,” Clover continued, “to help me track down some ponies. You'll like them. They are very unpredictable. Probably easily angered. They can be extremely dangerous, and have a tendency to attract trouble everywhere they go. In spite of all that, it's very important to me that they are safe, and I think that after this, you owe me. So I want you to help me find them, and protect them. What do you say?”

“Hmmm,” Star Swirl the Red raised his chin thoughtfully as he walked. “I dunno. I have all kinds of stuff I wanted to get done this weekend.”

Clover leaned her head in close and all but whispered, “it will be an adventure.”

Star Swirl shot back a cocky smirk. “Point the way.”

“Great,” Clover said as they arrived at the entrance lobby. “First we need to track down where they headed. That could prove difficult, I lost sight of them as soon as I left Canterlot House. We'll have to ask around and see if anypony's caught sight of them.” They passed through the door out onto the street and stopped. “Or we could just follow the screams and the plumes of green smoke rising from the center of town. That works too.”

Author's Note

Next week:

The color green.

Recycling.

Reunions.

And absolute truth.

All this and more the grand conclusion of Peer Review, part three - The Great Correction.

Chapter 11: Peer Review - The Great Correction

Beneath the calm streets of Cambridle, for some months, a war had been raging. It was spoken of in hushed whispers, its major battles shrouded in silence as though those who knew of it feared that to speak of it was to bring it down upon their heads.

Or possibly to be laughed out of town, because really.

Chocolate Bunnies didn't mind. Their laughter would end soon enough, and then rebound and double in strength, and end once again once their breath ran out. Then they would see who was laughing.

Her hooves clipped and clopped on the stone, clad now in the clippiest and cloppiest of horseshoes that the blacksmiths of Cambridle could create. Her brow was adorned with a ring of daisies, because laurels were out of season, and she was draped in a toga of the finest silk, which dragged on the ground behind her because togas are huge and unwieldy and no matter what she did she couldn't hold it together but that was okay because nobody would dare laugh at her now, except of course when the Laughening occurred.

All around her stood her loyal servitors, the army with which she had conquered Cambridle's underworld: the Siblinghood of the Hoof. They drove from the banking district to the candy factory in a triumphant procession of victory.

“Pink Top,” Bunnies said.

“Peace! Ho!” Cutting Edge cried. “Bunnies speaks!”

“Pink Top,” Bunnies repeated, while Pink Top winced.

“It's Gallopsky,” he muttered, and then spoke more loudly. “How may I serve Bunnies?”

“This parade is great and all,” Bunnies said. “I'm just not sure about the carnival float.”

“It's mandatory,” said Pink Top. “It's been lying around mostly-finished for months. It would be a huge shame not to use it.”

“It's kind of blocking the view,” Bunnies said, looking up at the enormous backside of Cutting Edge's interpretation of Discord, hastily put together in cheap papier-mache and painted mostly green and orange. “I'm not sure anypony can see us behind this thing. Also, we're not doing this for Discord, remember? We speak for the glory of the Hoof.”

“I can probably move the float to the back of the procession,” Pink Top said, though he sighed with disappointment at the prospect. “When the Hoof says 'do this,' it is done.”

Bunnies smiled, and patted his shoulder with the Hoof. “Set on, and leave no ceremony out.”

“Bunnies!” a voice cried out from the assembled crowds who were watching with a mixture of idle curiosity and sullen resignation at the state of their society.

Bunnies froze. “Ha? Who calls?” she said.

“Bid every noise be still,” Silk Road said. “Peace yet again!”

“Who is it in the press that calls on me?” Bunnies asked. “I hear a tongue shriller than all the music cry 'Bunnies'. Speak! Bunnies is turned to hear.”

“Beware thy sliding marks!”

Bunnies frowned. “What pony is that?”

She cast a glance to her assistant, who shrugged. “Somepony who bids you beware the sliding marks, apparently.”

“Yeah, I got that.” The Hoof thwacked her other leg. “I mean—Set him before me! Let me see his face.”

Within moments, Cutting Edge and Miss Silk had divided the crowd and were dragging out an old stallion who looked like a pile of faded laundry covered with sequins. He stared blankly around him.

“Fellow, come from the throng,” Pink Top said. “Look upon Bunnies.”

“What sayst thou to me now?” asked Bunnies, in her most haughty and commanding voice. “Speak once again.”

Star Swirl the Grey looked around until his eyes landed on Bunnies. “Beware thy sliding marks.”

Pink Top frowned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn't mean anything,” Bunnies said. “He is a dreamer. Let us leave him.”

“Wait,” Cutting Edge said. “If he knows something, I wanna know about it.”

“You care about what madponies in the streets have to say?” Miss Silk asked. “I guess that shouldn't surprise me.”

“I hang out with you, so no, this really shouldn't surprise you,” Cutting Edge replied. Thus recommenced the eternal staring match.

Pink Top groaned, and rolled his eyes. When his eyes rolled back, they found Star Swirl the Grey's eyes staring straight through them, from far too close up.

“You have a choice, candyson,” Star Swirl the Grey said.

Pink Top tensed. “What did you just call me, gramps?”

“And lo, the little chick is grown, and is become a mighty eagle, who hunts to fill his stomach, and is feared far and wide,” Star Swirl the Grey said. “Thus always to eagles.”

“What is that, Aesopony?” Pink Top asked. “Are you quoting griffon foal's tales at me, gramps?”

“The castle is empty,” Star Swirl said. “The ants tell themselves they have won at last, while fire rains from the heavens. Look up, and see what awaits you. It comes for us all, eagle and ant alike.” Then he turned and trotted away down the street.

“Well, that was weird,” Pink Top said. Bunnies nodded. “Let's just get this parade moving again, shall we?”

Before either of them could say any more their ears perked up. There were screams coming from a nearby street now, and ponies running, and there was green smoke billowing out behind them.

Star Swirl had just turned the corner and disappeared from sight as the shapeless horror sloughed down the street, calling out as it went, “Tekeli-Li! Tekeli-Li!”

– – –

“What is that thing?” Clover whispered as she and Star Swirl the Red peered through the cracks in a fence at the amoeboid monstrosity that now took up the street. “It looks sort of like the phase hydras.” She felt her stomach turning at the memory.

“That's a shoggoth,” Red said. “Summoned monster from another world. Very old-school. Useful for constructing alien cities, but get very grumpy if you forget to feed them.” He smiled. “You weren't joking about the adventure, were you? This is going to be fun.”

The shoggoth had latched onto the side of a building, and from what Clover could see through its semi-translucent gelatinous flesh it seemed to be corroding the building away into dust. Green smoke rose from the walls as it ate them, and from a glance around the skyline, Clover saw several more like it. “They must be all over town...”

Her thoughts turned back to the foals. It had taken some doing, once they had left the museum, to persuade the trio of colt Star Swirls to go back to Canterlot House and stay there until the present crisis, whatever it was, had been resolved and Clover returned with the others. With Red's help, and many promises of unspecified favors owed to be repaid at a later date, just as soon as the trio could think of any, they had finally agreed to go back to Canterlot House and stay there.

Red had played a major part in persuading Clover that the trio could be trusted to look after themselves on the way home. Since the moment they had left her sight she became increasingly convinced that had been some kind of mind control magic on his part because she just knew they were going to be abducted, or run over by a loose cart, or be killed by assassins grabbing the opportunity afforded by... well, whatever, and it was all going to be her fault.

Shortly after, though, she had looked through the crack in the fence and saw the gelatinous creature from another world eating a building, and found that it was difficult to think about much else than that. Nonetheless, she persevered. "Are you completely sure the foals will be alright?"

Red snorted with laughter, which he badly disguised as a cough. “Of course they will, trust us. Now look, we need to get past this thing if we're going to reach the library. Thankfully, I know how to distract it. Can you jimmy loose one of the cobblestones, Clover?”

Clover nodded, and set about digging out a small stone from a corner of the street. She managed to get one loose, and passed it to him.

Red reached into a pocket on the inside lining of his robe and pulled out a small vial of some fine green powder. He poured a tiny measure on the cobblestone, and spat on it. Then, with a small swirling stick, he mixed the powder out into a paste on the cobblestone. “There, that should do the trick,” he said. “Be prepared to move on my order, Clover, unless you want to end up in comic relief sidekick Elysium.”

He stepped out from behind the fence, the cobblestone held above his head. “Hey, Tekeli-Li! Catch!”

He threw the cobblestone. It flew through the air towards the shoggoth, and embedded itself in its side, sinking through the surface by about a leg's length before coming to rest.

Then it exploded.

A ton of bubbling gelatinous goo burst from the shoggoth's side, splattering over the street and all the nearby buildings. The remaining mass of the shoggoth vibrated, and made a noise like a herd of angry cattle echoing off a cliffside as it dislodged itself from the building and formed a multitude of angry eyes, each fixed on Star Swirl the Red.

“Get to the library!” Star Swirl yelled with a huge grin on his face as the shoggoth lunged for him. “I'll catch up as soon as I lose this thing!” Then he ran down the street in another direction, laughing, the shapeless horror hot on his hooves, leaving the road to the library clear and free.

Clover ran, dodging screaming ponies running the other way, and seeing several other shoggoths in the distance as she went, deconstructing Cambridle brick by brick, or shuffling slowly down the street towards some other project. Ahead of her she saw the library, and she broke into a sprint.

The University Library of the Cambridle Academy of Magic was a masterpiece of monumental architecture. The largest single building in Cambridle, the library towered over the city like a pony-built mountain of learning. Normally a place of peaceful contemplation and scholarly excess, now the library was the center of a widening circle of green smoke plumes. As she watched, a swirling green vortex appeared mid-air and dropped another shoggoth on the street just outside the building. The small, green, shapeless mass made a soft, high trilling sound before turning spherical and rolling down the street. It sounded, Clover thought, like it was having significantly more fun than she was.

Clover ran inside the open library doors, and froze. “Oh no, not this again.”

The library was a magical warzone. Reading desks had been flipped over. Shelves had been toppled and rearranged into barricades. A number of tiny shoggoths were inside the building, and portions of the library were burning with green fire. There were young librarians trying to corral and contain them: they moved without speaking, expertly using “Quiet Please”-signs to signal each other to move into formation and surround lone shoggoths in order to cower them into submission with their most powerful glares and focused shushing.

In the center of the hall was a wide circle of tall desks set up like an army camp site, and within, a cadre of adept librarians were girding themselves for battle in the manner of the mystic warrior-librarians of old. Stoically they donned their traditional papyrus armor and fastened their roc-feather spear-quills slung over their backs.

A librarian wearing a black belt of the third circle stepped out in front of Clover as she came in. “Hold, citizen! The library is closed due to—oh, it's you.” He turned back to his fellows. “Grandmaster, the pupil has come to join her teacher.”

Clover blushed under the sudden attention as two dozen librarians gave her angry looks. The Grandmaster Librarian, an old stallion with a Fu Moocho reaching down to his knees and a headpiece in the form of a stack of books, tottered unsteadily forward. “What do you want?”

Clover gulped, and put on her bravest smile. “Don't mind me, I'm just trying to find Star Swirl the Bearded. Is he here, by any chance?”

“Is he here?” the Grandmaster asked in a mocking tone. “There are two of him here, and they are destroying our library! What has your master done?” He jabbed her with a hoof as he spoke.

“Well, it's—it's—kind of a long story,” Clover mumbled. “I'm trying to round them all up and bring them back home. Could you just point me to where they went?”

The Grandmaster only stared at her, while all around chaos consumed the library.

“Alright, look,” Clover said as calmly as she could. “I know you don't know him very well, and I appreciate that he is not giving a great first impression right now. But he's really a very nice pony once you get to know him.”

“Shoggoths,” the Grandmaster said simply. “Destroying Cambridle. Destroying my library.”

“I know, it's terrible,” Clover pleaded, feeling drops of sweat begin to form under her hood, “but I know that he honestly doesn't mean anypony any harm! He just doesn't appreciate that the things he does might not work out exactly the way he means them to. And I know he'll be happy to repair the damage he's causing.”

“A likely story,” the Grandmaster said. “Clearly you are in league with your teacher and mean to lend him your aid. Well, your black-hearted scheme will not succeed!”

“Hey!” an angry stallion's voice called out from behind Clover. “You have something to say about me, you can say it to my face.”

They all turned to see Star Swirl the Red, strutting in with a roguish swagger and a confident smile like he owned the place, his mane tousled and wild and his robe spattered with shoggoth-goo.

“Not another one,” the Grandmaster moaned. “How many of them are there?”

“Seven,” Clover said. “I think. That have left the house. There might be more left inside, but never mind them. Star Swirl, are you alright?”

“I was able to escape the shoggoth without difficulty,” Red replied. “It soon gave up on pursuing me and fell to weeping, whereupon another shoggoth came up and gave it a hug. Then the two of them began to eat a building together. Unnature is so fascinating.”

“Right,” Clover said. “I'm trying to round the Star Swirls up and get them all home safely, and this one,” she pointed to Star Swirl the Red, “is helping. Would you mind telling me what in the world is happening here?”

“Your master,” the Grandmaster said, his voice thick with contempt, “has ensconced himself inside our library and is unleashing these eldritch abominations upon the world. He toys with dark magics that ponies were not meant to know!”

“They'll be in the Forbidden Knowledge Wing, then,” Star Swirl the Red said. “No problem. The library's collection is actually pretty shoddy compared to mine, but I can make it work.”

There was a noise, and one of the warrior-librarians approached them and bowed before the grandmaster. “Most High Warden of the Filing Cabinet,” he said, “we warriors of the Ebon Scroll are prepared to initiate Star Swirl Protocol Alpha.”

Clover didn't like the sound of that. “What's that?” she asked.

“You would like to know, wouldn't you?” the Grandmaster asked. “As if I'm going to give away our secrets to our greatest enemy.”

“But—I—what?” Clover sputtered. “What are you talking about? Greatest enemy, what? I love this library, I used to come here to study all the time!”

The Grandmaster snorted. “You can't fool us. We have not forgotten the Library Hounds and their terrible baying. Even when all ponies else thought the Ink-Stained One's ravages were over and done, we knew he was planning to return someday and finish the terrible work he once began. Now that day has come, as we always knew it would, and our preparations will finally be revealed!”

“That's completely paranoid,” Clover spat, glaring at the Grandmaster. “There was no plan.”

“But if there was, you wouldn't stand a chance against it,” Red said. “Come on, Clover, let's leave this old buffoon to his fantasies.” He took a step forward and was promptly surrounded by half a dozen surprisingly sharp giant quillpoints aimed directly at his head.

“You're not going any further, oh Ink-Stained One,” the grandmaster said. “If we can't capture the other two, at least we've got this one. Bring them both to Chamber 365.46 and leave them there until they tell us about their evil plans!”

Clover felt her last frayed nerve finally snap. “None of this was supposed to happen!” she cried in frustration. “It's like—it's like he's drunk, or he's taken a powerful curative tonic and it's made him useless for the weekend. He was supposed to stay indoors the whole time and not do anything. He didn't mean for any of this to happen and—I just want to get him back home safely.” She turned her best puppy eyes on the grandmaster. “Please let me talk to them?”

“You should listen to her,” Star Swirl the Red said. “You lot don't stand a chance on your own, and she's actually offering to help you. You could continue banging your head against a brick wall, or you can listen to the experts. Nopony knows Star Swirl better than us.”

Clover felt a blush crawl up her cheeks again at the words of approval. Nopony else seemed to notice.

The Grandmaster scowled. “Fine,” he spat out, then turned to the warrior librarians. “Continue with the activation of Star Swirl Protocal Alpha.” The librarians reluctantly lowered their spears and withdrew to a ritual circle beneath a row of statues of former librarians. The grandmaster turned back to scowl at Red. “You may be surprised, wizard. We learned a few things from the last time you were here.”

“I'll believe that when I see it,” said Red.

“Oh, you will. Follow me.”

The Grandmaster and an aide led them across the library and to the uppermost floors of the great hall, from where they could look down upon the hall and see the many struggles there. Distant corners of the library were thick with the green smoke, and new shoggoths were emerging from portals regularly, heralded by a cacophonous warble of inequine magic, and fresh rounds of screaming from the librarians.

There, high above the hall, the Grandmaster halted before a huge door carved from black stone, decorated with a great abundance of skulls of every creature known to ponies, things with tentacles in strange and obscure shapes, and eyes bound or blacked out in a flawless and perfectly preserved example of mid-classical forbidden sculpture which had delighted countless students of the form for centuries. A plaque beside the door read “Dewey 1000: Knowledge Ponies Are Not Meant To Know.”

The door itself stood wide open: the many locks and chains and seals that usually kept it secure were all broken, and inside all was darkness.

“They are within, but we cannot get inside,” the Grandmaster said. He thrust his hoof at the passage, and it smacked against an invisible barrier. “He has raised a forcefield around the entire wing. We are working on penetrating it, but so far we have been unable to pinpoint its resonant frequency. Once we do, we can cancel it out and shatter it, but until then you cannot—”

Star Swirl the Red cut him off. “Silly old pony,” he said, and strode easily through the door. “Ah yes, I see your problem. Just as I thought, your methods are completely misguided, as usual.”

That Grandmaster's jaw dropped. “How did you do that?”

“By not being an idiot,” Red said. “Or, if I'm going to be nice, you're approaching the problem from the wrong angle. This isn't a regular shield spell at all, so your little resonance trick won't do a thing.” The Adventurer shook his head. “You thought he would make it that easy for you to get in? You really don't think very highly of us, do you? Well, don't worry, the feeling's mutual.”

The Grandmaster harrumphed and was about to toss out an insult when Clover jumped in. “So if its not a shield spell then what is it?”

“It's an ambient field in the air itself, like a magical gas cloud,” Star Swirl the Red began, “which – oh this is clever – has been keyed to the initiation rites of the Mystic Order of Librarians. If the trigger approaches, the magic reacts and the air itself turns rigid to block you out.” He smiled appreciatively. “It's a shield made specifically to keep out librarians. Clover and I can pass through it easily.”

“That's great, albeit oddly and conveniently specific,” Clover said. “Star Swirl and me will go in and try to stop them.”

“Marvellous,” the Grandmaster said bitterly. “Then there will be four of you ready to destroy us.”

“Will you quit your whining?” Red asked. “We are going to save your skin, purely because we want to. You are not in a position to complain.”

“That chamber,” the Grandmaster replied, “houses over a thousand years' worth of forbidden magics too dark,” and at that word Red snarled and glowered at the Grandmaster with great ferocity, “and powerful to be revealed to the world. And you are setting them off like firecrackers! If you want my gratitude, you will get them out of there without causing any more harm immediately!”

“We can talk sense into them,” Clover said, stepping between the two stallions. “I promise!”

“You can talk once you get them safely away from the collection,” the Grandmaster said. “First you subdue them and bring them out here. Then you can try to persuade them to see the light. This is against my better judgement, but... Here,” the Grandmaster presented an ornate casket and opened it to reveal half a dozen metal rings, about an inch in diameter, engraved with runic inscriptions. “You may use these.”

Star Swirl the Red drew a sharp breath, and glared at the casket. “I hate those things.”

“What are they?” Clover asked.

“These are magic blockers,” the Grandmaster said. “Slip these on their horns, and they will be defenseless, and can be safely escorted away from here. Be very careful with those, they are three centuries old and I will be billing you all for any damage done to them.”

Clover's face contorted at the thought. “Yes sir,” she grumbled, her head dropping low as she picked one up in her magic. Star Swirl the Red took another, cursing under his breath as he did. They nodded at each other, and crept through the tall doorway.

The Forbidden Knowledge Wing was permanently shrouded in shadows, and full of creaking sounds hinting at hidden, possibly incorporeal creatures lurking just outside of sight. Tall bookshelves covered in dust and cobwebs loomed far overhead, forming narrow corridors that ran in odd angles and offered a predator many places to hide. Clover held her breath as she walked, feeling at all times as though something was directly behind her and ready to pounce.

Red seemed not to notice. He was trotting along confidently, pausing only to study a bookshelf here and there, or to scratch behind his ear before continuing. Before long they saw a dim light up ahead, and heard the sound of scribbling quills, and somepony speaking.

Red turned to Clover and gestured for her to approach from a certain point, using hoof-signs Clover could not fully understand. Before she could adequately express her confusion, her companion had ducked behind a column and disappeared from sight. Clover carefully moved up and peeked into the open space ahead, and saw both Star Swirls within.

Star Swirl the Purple looked much like the original at his most professional: calm, collected, his mane and long beard impeccably groomed. He sat at a desk, his face impassive, heedless to the ominous and foreboding atmosphere of the Forbidden Knowledge wing. He adjusted a pair of reading spectacles on his muzzle for a moment, then continued his work, his quill scribbling ceaselessly in a book of ancient, semi-translucent parchment which seemed to moan softly, as though from a great distance. On either side of him on the desk – which might or might not have been carved out of solid bone, Clover couldn't tell in the dim light – were two stacks of books. As she watched, he closed the book he was working on, ignoring its cries of protest, and put it on top of the stack on his right. He then grabbed the next book from the stack on his left, and began to read. “The Princess in Yellow, Cultes des Mules, the Necroponycon,” he muttered. “Shoddy!” He dipped his quill in a bottle of red ink and began to cross out large sections of text.

Clover tore her eyes away to the other figures in the room. Star Swirl the Green stood smiling in the center of a chalk circle painstakingly inscribed on the wooden floorboards, his hat resting on a nearby chair. His mane and beard was a single mad mess of white pointing in all directions, and as Clover watched it seemed to curl and flex on its own, like Maredusa's snakes.

Perhaps it tickled, Clover thought. Perhaps that explained the constant giggling. Or maybe he was just having that much fun playing with the tiny shoggoth – no larger than a pony – that danced excitedly back and forth in front of him, its large morphic eyes billowing and turning in what Clover could only presume was the shoggoth equivalent of a smile.

“Who's a good shoggoth?” Star Swirl the Green said, scratching the entity under a tendril shaped vaguely like a dog's muzzle. “You are! Yes you are!”

Clover saw Red break cover for a split-second on the other side of the open space. Their eyes met, and he pointed to her, and then to Star Swirl the Green. Then, with his other hoof, he pointed to himself, and Purple. Clover nodded, and Red disappeared again into the shadows.

I can't believe I'm doing this. Clover swallowed, and took a silent step forward towards Green, and then another. After a few steps she was directly behind him. His full attention was on the baby shoggoth, and the shoggoth seemed not to care for anything around it besides playing with its summoner.

Once she was close enough, Clover fell motionless and began to gently lower the ring towards Green's horn.

Suddenly she was looking into his eyes. He hadn't turned: two eyes had opened on the back of his head and were looking directly at her. “Eh? What?” he grunted.

Clover shrieked, and leapt back, and fell flat on her rump. The magic blocker fell, released from Clover's grip, and bounced across the floor. Without warning, Star Swirl the Green rose up to twice normal pony height, revealing not four but eight elongated, multi-jointed legs akin to a giant spider under his robe, and turned to face her with an unnatural motion. “Clover?” he asked. “What are you doing here?

Clover's jaw rose and fell wordlessly. She stared at him in wide-eyed horror, struggling to not throw up. “What am I—Professor, what have you done to yourself?”

“I made some improvements,” Green replied with a grin. “This body is stronger, more flexible, and completely modular. My hooves can cling to any surface, I can see a full 360 degrees around me, and in case of emergencies I am filled with a tasty, nutrient-rich paste instead of blood. I can also glide for short distances in a strong wind.” His smile froze, and vanished when he spotted the ring on the floor beside Clover. “...Is that a magic blocker?”

“Eep!” Clover's look of horror gained a level as she realized she had dropped it. She grabbed the ring and tucked it under her robe and tried to look innocent.

Green gasped. “Sabotage,” he cried as he skittered around the room at incredible speed, sometimes going halfway up the walls. “Are you seeing this, Scholar? Our own pupil is betraying us!”

Purple looked half-heartedly from his desk. “Must you go on so? I am trying to work. Hello, Adventurer. No, don't bother.” With a whisk of magic, the shadows concealing Star Swirl the Red washed away.

Clover rose up on her hooves with a sigh and stepped closer. “Star Swirl... all of you, please come back with me to Canterlot House. You're scaring everypony.” Clover thought for a second. “You're actually scaring me too.”

“Nonsense,” said Purple. “Our work is to the benefit of equine civilization. I am correcting the past errors of pony scholarship, and Green is converting our improved knowledge into more utilitarian advances.” Purple said the last two words with a sniff of distaste, but shook it off. “Don't mind the Innovator. We are going to make everything better.”

“Shoggoths for everypony!” Green cheered.

“Tekeli-Li!” the shoggoth whistled in a clear, high pitch.

“Please listen to me, Professor,” Clover said. She stepped up meekly to Purple and tugged on his robe, and looked at him with pleading eyes. “Your shoggoths aren't helping anypony, they're destroying Cambridle and we need to stop them! Please, I'm begging you to come out and help the librarians banish them.”

“Nonsense, Clover,” Green scoffed. “These aren't just regular old shoggoths. They're improved shoggoths! More compact, twice as efficient, 450% cuddlier, and 98% less likely to turn against us and lay waste to our civilization. They're not destroying Cambridle – they're disassembling it so that they may reconstruct it better than the original.”

“I have been editing Alhoofred,” Purple said dispassionately. “His notation is appalling. Once I cleaned it up, all the parts that resulted in insanity and apocalypse disappeared. I believe once I finish this next chapter, Great Cthulhu will come and perform maintenance work on the ocean ecosystem. We are several thousand years overdue for it.”

“Always an explanation,” Clover said under her breath, and sighed. “I'm sorry, professor, I really am, but this is too much. There are giant alien monsters transforming the city, and nopony is going to accept that no matter what you tell them! Everypony is panicking and somepony is going to get seriously hurt!”

“Give them time,” Purple said. “They'll come around.”

“Please, professor!” She tugged on Purple's arm, much to his annoyance. “The librarians let us in here to try to talk you down—”

“To ambush us,” Green interjected.

“—but if you won't listen to us then they're going to drive you out of here by force!”

Green snorted at that. Then he chuckled, then giggled, and finally erupted into laughter which soon turned grim and maniacal.

“Yes, I wish them luck with that,” Purple said, turning once again to his current book. Hardly a second passed before Clover felt a change in the air, and Purple looked up again. “Oh,” he said. “It seems they've disabled the magic field. Well, let them try their silly tricks and we'll—”

“Playtime,” a stern mare's voice said from behind them, “is over, Star Swirl.”

The effect was immediate. Clover watched in fascination as all three Star Swirls froze like little foals caught with their hooves in the cookie jar. Slowly, as though hoping that lack of motion would make them invisible, they turned to see the intruder. Clover did likewise, and saw that they had been joined in the chamber by a tan-coated middle-aged unicorn mare, who was staring them down through slim horn-rimmed spectacles. She wore a loose dark frock with a bow around its neck, her dark crimson mane tied in a bun. All in all, Clover would have said the mare was the least frightening thing she had seen since moving to Cambridle. But her effect on the Star Swirls was immediate.

“You!” Red exclaimed, his voice cracking.

“It's not possible,” Green blurted out.

“Ginny?” Purple said, his impassive demeanor visibly strained. “My word, I haven't seen you—” Here both Red and Green turned to him and made urgent gestures of silence. “—since the practical Chronomancy exam...”

Red and Green both cringed at a reference Clover did not know. Ginny's glare only intensified.

Purple took a cautious step backwards. “Right, point taken, not going to discuss that now.”

Clover cautiously raised a hoof. “Um, who are you, exactly?”

Ginny turned and ran her eyes over Clover, and Clover suddenly felt very much like she did in her etiquette lessons with Miss Courtly Manners. “Who are you?” Ginny asked.

“...I'm Star Swirl's student,” Clover said in a voice that was suddenly very weak and small.

“Ah yes,” Ginny said, seeming to have heard her easily. “They mentioned you outside. I'm not going to have any problems with you, am I?”

Clover shook her head.

“Well, young miss, I am Ginny the Librarian. I was a young librarian here when Star Swirl was a teenage student, and after a hundred years I am apparently still the only pony that he is afraid of.”

“That is... an exaggeration,” Purple said. The other two cast him angry looks. “You know what, nevermind.”

“How are you still alive?” Green asked. “You're older than I am!”

“Ancient librarian magics,” Ginny said. “A cockatrice's eye set me in stone, to slumber through the ages, until the Order had need once again of my service. Specifically, until you came back and made a mess of the library again, as we always knew you would, and they needed somepony to kick you out. Now here we are, and I have been awoken from my slumber to enforce the Edict of the First Circle. Star Swirl of Edinspur!” She proclaimed. “You stand accused once again of violating the codes of library ethics; of desecrating books that do not belong to you; of sullying the great works of the past with your unsolicited revisions. You are still not allowed to edit the library's books, Star Swirl. Have you anything to say in your defense?”

“I had nothing to do with this!” Star Swirl the Red squealed. “It's those two! They're the ones who did it! I was helping! Tell her, Clover!” He nudged Clover more forcefully than was strictly necessary, and she nodded.

Ginny looked to Purple and Green. “And you two? Are you going to put down that quill and leave the library peacefully?” Her eyes narrowed. “Or shall I get out the cauldron and the gurney again?”

Purple snorted indignantly, but Clover could hear a slight trembling in his voice. “You can't do anything to me, now. I'm not some young and untrained student anymore, Ginny. I'm a professor. Honorary, but still!”

Star Swirl the Green fumed. “Ignorant short-sighted children! We could make the entire world so much better! I won't let you stop me, Ginny, not this time! If you won't let progress come peacefully then let it come by force!”

“So be it,” Ginny said, and levitated half a dozen magic blockers above her head. “By the power vested in me as Penmate and Paragon of the Codex Bibliotheca, Star Swirl of Edinspur, I inscribe your name in the Book of Shame! You are outcast, and shall never be welcome in a library of the Order ever again!”

Star Swirl the Green rose up on his giant spider legs, and huge slashing claws emerged from behind his shoulders, ripping through his cloak. “Do your worst,” he spat.

“The magic blockers won't work,” Purple said. “I came up with a workaround for them many years ago. Actually the most effective way to subdue us would be to block our vision and hearing while saturating the area with thaumic white noise.”

Green's jaw dropped. “Why would you tell her that?”

“I am a teacher,” Star Swirl the Purple replied. “I can't not teach. That would just be silly.”

“Betrayed,” Green sputtered. “Betrayed on all sides by those closest to me! Betrayed, at the first sign of trouble. Cowardice!”

Purple put down the quill and turned his eyes on Green. “I am here for the advancement of knowledge, not for your paltry games. I was never on your side, and ipso facto have never betrayed you.”

“I no longer believe,” Green began, forming each word slowly and fiercely, staring at Purple with a dangerous glower, “that this library is big enough for both of us.”

“Agreed,” said Purple, glowering right back at Green.

At once, both their horns lit up, and a gust of wind whipped up all around them. Their horns glowed with the same aura Clover knew, but the similarity ended at the color: Purple's aura was solid, unmoving, while Green's sparked and crackled like lightning.

Green struck first, launching bolts of magical energy that spun and curled through the air, which Purple shot down without difficulty despite their erratic movements. Purple then shot back a straight beam directly at Green, which Green dodged by standing up on his freakish giant spider legs and letting the beam pass under him to sear the wall.

They both glared, and snarled, and grimaced at each other, while Clover, Ginny, Red, and one small, sad-looking shoggoth looked on.

“Y'know, I should have seen this coming,” Clover said. “I've seen what happens when there's more than one Star Swirl in the same place. They either work together, or try to kill each other.” She sighed. “Now I just need to find the Prophet... Say... what's that shaking?”

Clover looked down. The floor was trembling beneath their hooves, and it was getting stronger. At the same time, the already dim light was fading, and a strange whispering sound, like a swarm of insects rousing from slumber all at once, was heard coming from all around. Faint at first, it grew stronger and stronger as the shadows grew deeper.

“That,” Red said slowly, looking up at the ceiling, “is a genius loci.” He turned to Ginny. “Say, Ginny... How old is the Forbidden Knowledge Wing, do you know?”

“As old as the university itself,” Ginny said, looking up as dust fell from above, shook loose from years of stasis. “Possibly older.”

“It'll be a very powerful one then,” Red said. “Well, let's just hope it isn't powerful enough to form a will of its own, or command the wills of others.”

“Professor?” Clover asked, taking a step back. “What's happening?”

“You keep asking me to explain things,” Red complained, as the floor rose and fell like a wave, the creaking threatening to drown out his words. “You know I hate explaining. Get somepony else to do it.”

“This room has been hoarding misguided magic energies since ancient times,” Purple called out between firing magic bolts at Green. “Thanks to the librarians and their greed for bad writing, it now seeps through everything in this chamber. There are certain risks associated with this kind of magic nexus. They attract negatively charged magical influences, which merge and form vast super-consciousnesses that linger in dormancy until they grow powerful enough to awaken, or until something jolts them into action.”

“Yeah,” Red said. “And that's the magic those two are drawing upon right now for their duel.”

“Professor!” Clover yelled to Green and Purple. “Could you please stop fighting yourself before you wake the ancient evil?”

“Don't worry about it,” both Green and Purple answered in perfect synchronization. “I will easily defeat this oaf before that becomes a problem.”

A column snapped in two in a corner of the room, and part of the ceiling collapsed around it. The floor around them was cracking and pulsing. “I can subdue them,” Red said. “I'm Star Swirl the Bearded, after all. Nothing can bring me—”

Star Swirl the Red was interrupted by a jagged spike of stone crashing down on him from above. “I'm alright!” he shouted from around it, but several more were coming down all over the chamber.

“Tekeli-Liiii!” the shoggoth warbled in the distance as Clover screamed and dived for cover from the falling rocks.

“I told you, you should have just let me edit the books!” Star Swirl the Purple called out from across the chamber. “There are consequences to containing so many bad ideas so close together. They begin to warp everything around them into copies of themselves.”

Clover ducked behind a nearby shelf, and found herself sitting next to Ginny. The librarian was peering through the gaps in the stacks of books at the duelling wizards.

“I need backup for this,” Ginny muttered. “Where in Tartarus are my guards?”

– – –

“The stars have foretold it! The world of ponies stands before a fall!” the voice of Star Swirl the Grey rang out through the library as shoggoths swarmed below and overwhelmed the library's defenders. He had climbed atop a spire of shelving, and the cavernous architecture lent his already powerful voice a booming, immaterial presence. “Your blindness will be your doom! Even as you languish in petty strife, a glacier comes, slow but unstoppable, to crush your civilization beneath it!”

“There are too many of them!” a young librarian monk, his quill broken and with tears streaming down his face, collapsed to the floor before the Grandmaster.

“They are all trying to reach the Forbidden Knowledge Wing,” another initiate said. “They must be coming from all over the city.”

“You will burn the world around you for warmth, and when that fire dies there will be no shelter left for you and you will freeze! You are ignorant and fearful creatures, and in your fear you will rend this world asunder!”

The Grandmaster whimpered, and clutched his crown of office to his chest.

– – –

“I need to shut them down before they bring the whole library down on our heads,” Ginny said, and turned a critical eye to Clover. “You. Student. Are you going to get in my way or not?”

“I want to help,” Clover said. “I need to keep him safe!”

“His safety is not my concern,” Ginny said.

“Well, it's not his either,” Clover said, trying to keep calm in the face of adrenaline. “So I've made it mine, because somepony has to. Look, what the purple one said earlier, about white noise, can we do that?”

"Not quite, but I have something bigger," Ginny said, and retrieved a small chalk stone inscribed with runes from a corner of her robe. “Do you know what this is? It's a Nullstone. Crush it, and it will disrupt the flow of magic in the area, and render all spellcasting ineffective for a couple of minutes. But you have to be close to make it work.”

Clover gulped, and nodded. “Okay, I can do that.”

Clover slipped the stone into a pocket of her cloak, and immediately after the floorboards beneath them cracked and splintered, forcing them to leap away before the shelf they were using for cover toppled over them. “Go!” Ginny yelled.

Clover went. She ran around the fallen shelf and made a beeline straight for the two duelling wizards, but the building shook and threw her off her hooves. Shadows filled her vision, and the sounds of the battle seemed to come from different directions from one moment to the next. The room itself seemed to stretch and distort around her, and she turned back and forth, trying to find out where she was.

She heard the sound of the roof creaking directly overhead just in time to look up and see the stone falling.

Just before it made contact something tore her away, and she found herself hurtling through the air on a jungle vine that appeared quite out of nowhere. “It's the genius loci,” Red said as they landed on the far side of the room. “The forbidden knowledge wing is fighting you. It doesn't want them to stop. It feeds on anger and fear.” He peered through the shadows until he found something Clover could not see. “They're that way,” he said. “Control your emotions, desire only good things, and the library's evil will can have no hold on you.”

“Is that what you're doing?” she asked.

“Nope! And I'm scared witless and I want to smash things,” he said with a huge grin. “I am relishing the sensation! This is the most fun I've had in many years. Think happy thoughts! Do you think you can make it?”

Clover closed her eyes and thought of sunshine and daisy sandwiches. She nodded uncertainly. Red patted her on the back, and she ran again into the chaos.

“Ice cream on warm summer days,” Clover muttered as a wooden spike burst up from the floor not two feet beside her. “Hugs. Nice, long, hugs! Tender, loving hugs!”

It's actually working, she thought, as she saw the bursts of magic missiles through the coiling smoke ahead of her. She reached for the nullstone with her magic just as she saw their silhouettes ahead.

That was when the floor collapsed under her, and she fell, and looked up to see the entire ceiling falling in above to crush her under a hundred tons of rubble.

“Tekeli-Li!” the cry rumbled a thousand times, and Clover's vision was filled with a gelatinous torrent, and then blinded by thick green smoke. The ever-present creaking of the building was replaced by the sound of heavy objects falling into thick goop.

“Hi Clover!” a chorus of young voices yelled, and Clover found herself being grabbed by small hooves and pulled to safety. When she opened her eyes she was sitting on top of a shoggoth, her hooves sinking softly into its softly glowing mass, and the trio of foal Star Swirls were in front of her, grinning widely.

“We know we said we'd go back home and stay there,” Orange said. “But we decided this was a better idea.”

“We found out something we can be!” White said. “Shoggoth trainers!”

“For some reason we seem to have a deep magical connection to forces that are pure of heart, and yet sow destruction on a cosmic scale,” Yellow said. “The shoggoths all worship us as their masters and obey us, but they're all being drawn back here where they came from.”

Clover pulled her hooves out of the shoggoth's back, and found that she could stand firmly on it without difficulty. “Thank you,” she said. “You probably saved my life there. I guess I owe you even more favors now.”

The shoggoth rose up from the pit in the floor, and behind it streamed a seemingly endless flood of its kin. With remarkable speed, they spread about the great chamber and latched on to the crumbling supports, holding up the ceiling as they burned the broken walls and columns in great bursts of green smoke.

Clover watched the display in amazement, then remembered herself. “Can you bring me closer to the others?” she asked. “The purple and green ones! I need to reach them!”

“The Scholar and the Innovator, coming right up,” Orange said. “Oh, look, they're trying to get away.”

Clover looked ahead, and saw them. The two wizards were indeed running away as fast as they could, their duel forgotten, as shoggoths devoured the collapsing building all around them.

Clover felt something cold in her stomach, and a bitter taste in her mouth as a shadow passed over her. There they were, amid all the chaos they had called down upon Cambridle, amid the final collapse of a whole wing of the university library, a rampaging army of alien creatures and the hungry ghosts of forbidden knowledge, all thanks to them...

And they were running away from it, their sad little bells jingling on their robes and hats.

Clover felt her chest tighten and her eyes narrowed to slits, as the memories of her day flooded back into the forefront of her mind. Every objection, every dismissal, every insistance, every little slight.

Those cowards.

“Those cowards,” Clover whispered, drawing the attention of the trio. “Get me closer,” she commanded. “I think it's time I taught him a lesson.”

In the end, their backs were against the wall, or in Green's case, to the ceiling, as he was climbing backwards up the wall, with shoggoths fencing them in all around. Clover leapt down from the gelatinous creature and landed in front of them.

“You,” Clover growled, taking a step forward. “I have been chasing you all day, all over the city. Even as you destroy everything you touch, I've only wanted to keep you safe!”

I have defended you.

“I have defended you against everypony, in spite of everything you've done. I made this whole city think I'm a madmare for defending you. And what did it get me?”

Only mockery and ridicule.

“Only mockery and ridicule, Star Swirl!” Tears of anger crept into the corners of her eyes now.

You collapsed the Cambridle University Library on my head, Star Swirl.

“You collapsed the Cambridle University Library on my head, Star Swirl!”

I don't know what I ever saw in you.

“I don't know what... I... ever... what?”

You have brought me nothing but misery and heartache, Star Swirl.

“You've brought me... You've... I...”

Suddenly Clover felt very dizzy. She put a hoof on her forehead and rubbed her temples. Her skin felt numb, her hoof distant and detached. All seven Star Swirls were walking slowly, cautiously into her field of vision, looking at her. “I just wanted...”

It's time to give up on this. It was always a stupid idea. Clover blinked, trying to clear the smoke from her eyes.

“A stupid idea...” she muttered bitterly, her voice thin and weak. “I just wanted to learn magic... I just wanted everypony to see the hero I know...”

Just walk away, Clover. It's not worth it. Clover turned to look back, and saw a pale light in the distance that might have been the exit. Leave the Nullstone and let Ginny deal with him.

“Think happy thoughts, Clover,” Red said under his breath.

He's a hopeless old madpony who only hurts everypony around him and destroys everything he touches. Why would you be any different?

“He's....”

Really, it's a miracle he's still alive. Nothing can kill him, but he'll continue causing havoc everywhere he goes so long as he lives.

“Really...”

You just have to say no, and walk away, and that will be the end of it.

“He's... really... a very nice pony,” Clover's voice gained in volume and intensity as she reached into her pocket and withdrew the Nullstone, “once you get to KNOW HIM!”

With all her might, she threw the Nullstone down, and crushed it beneath her hoof.

The air around them exploded in an all-consuming torrent of magic static. The room screamed, the sound of the genius loci dying, torn to magical shreds from the explosion as the army of shoggoths devoured the last remnants of the infected structure that had housed it.

The shaking stopped, as the smoke cleared to reveal the Forbidden Knowledge Wing rebuilt in pristine materials free of all corruption, all the books neatly stacked along the bright, clean, perfectly Euclopian walls. The shoggoths were gone, their work complete. Whatever magic had conjured them was spent, and all seven Star Swirls were lying unconscious in a pile, locked in what seemed to be comfortable, restful slumber.

The foal trio lay in a tight triangle, each using one of the others as a pillow. Clover felt her exhaustion and her unhappiness melting away at the sight, and she snickered.

She turned to Ginny. “Can I get a cart or something, to bring them all back home?” she asked. Ginny nodded. “Thanks.”

– – –

And that is how that particular week ended in Cambridle. The Council of Horns made the sun rise and set as scheduled, with no more complaints than usual. All over town, ponies retired from their work to their homes, and planned to prepare to return to work again, in spite of everything.

“How is it?” asked the Grandmaster Librarian of his senior officer, rival, and first in line to succeed him.

“Well, Grandmaster, if we add the new stacks to the ones he did the first time,” replied the senior officer, a tall and slender stallion with jealous hungry eyes, “in total he's managed to edit a full twenty percent of the tomes of knowledge ponies were not meant to know. But that's not the big issue. More concerning is that he actually fixed the index. Now anypony can come in here and just find things out without having to spend years learning the proper codes and rites beforehoof! It's a disaster!”

“We shall begin rewriting the codes from the ground up immediately,” the Grandmaster said. “What else?”

“The patrons are already reporting that the usual haunting visions are gone or sharply reduced. The initiates are speculating that the new Forbidden Knowledge Wing might no longer drive librarians insane, but the older librarians are complaining that this means we'll get a generation of weaklings. The Mystic Order has already scheduled a panel to discuss it at this year's general assembly.” The senior officer scanned through his notes. “Also, Star Swirl found a dozen books from the Discordian Era which we had thought were lost to history. Apparently Ponydent Whinnydy actually travelled back in time in order to kill himself.”

– – –

“We've carted away all the fakes to the flea market.” the Senior Curator's assistant said, and bit her lip. “I'm afraid that includes most of the furniture in your office, ma'am. Turns out the Indomitable Desk wasn't actually indomitable.”

The Senior Curator sighed. “So our remaining exhibits now consist of...?”

“Well, theres the doorpony's jacket, the floor tiles in the Neighyptian hall, the gift plaque from the Princess of Maresopotamia, which it turns out was real even though the materials she gifted us weren't, and the 500-piece collection of marital aids across history that we kept in the back.”

“Wonderful,” said the curator. “So we have a giant empty building and nothing to do with it.”

“We could open a dance school?”

– – –

The newly-established Cambridle City Planning office looked at the newest addition to their town. The shoggoths had all returned to the metaphysical plane of pure potential they came from, but their work remained. They had burned away, the architects and engineers calculated, a thousand tons of construction. In its place they had left behind new walls and supports of a material unlike anything anypony had ever seen. It had the texture of wood, but was stronger than concrete. It turned translucent when hot and seemed to glow when viewed at a precise angle. It would not burn, and emitted an aura of serenity. The ponies living in the affected structures reported that the buildings were much less creaky and wobbly, but also feared to go to sleep lest they receive visions in their dreams.

The biggest change, however, was the new building which now occupied what had been an abandoned lot on the edge of town. Where previously there had been a decaying and unsafe warehouse, whose use was not worth the back-taxes owed on the property, there now stood a skeleton tower of alien architecture from beyond the stars, reaching for the skies.

There was a sign outside the tower, which read:

COMING SOON

A PROMISE OF PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

WITH LOVE, FROM YOUR FRIENDS,

THE SHOGGOTHS.

– – –

“That's all of them,” Clover said as she closed the door on the final chamber. “Thanks for helping me bring them all back here safely.”

The warrior librarians, led by Ginny, had led the wagonload of sleeping Star Swirls through Cambridle in a full regimental dishonor guard. None of the Star Swirls had woken up, even when the librarians struggled to carry them up the rickety stair. Once indoors, Clover and Ginny had gently carried them down to the Experimental Manufacturing platform, and placed each one inside a chamber, color-coded for Clover's convenience.

The eighth Star Swirl had been right where Clover left him earlier in the day, looking up at the sky through the telescope on the balcony. To Clover's relief, he had followed along without objections when Clover led them down to the machine.

There was a ninth module on the machine which had remained sealed the entire time. A sign hung on the chamber door. It read: “Clover – do not open this module. Seriously. Don't. -Star Swirl the Bearded.”

“It was nothing,” Ginny said from a nearby platform as her eyes ran over every sight in the great research hall. “So this is where he lives nowadays?”

“That's right. Canterlot House 1. Celestia knows why it's named that.”

“Old mythology,” Ginny said. “He always loved old stories... I understand the world has changed a lot while I was asleep. He certainly didn't live like this when I knew him. But from what I saw today, it seems like he's only gotten worse since then.” Ginny looked at Clover with a raised eyebrow. “Why would a nice filly like you want to study under somepony like him?”

Clover gave a weak laugh. “It's... an experience,” she said. “I would say being his student is like going through a portal to a bigger world, except that thanks to him I've literally gone through portals to bigger worlds. To smaller worlds too.”

“Sounds like a deal with Discord to me,” Ginny said. “I have seen what happens to ponies who try to get close to Star Swirl. You would be wise to stay away.”

“You know, Star Swirl once told me something similar himself,” Clover said. “But I think he was wrong. Everypony knows he's powerful, but nopony knows him. Nopony but me.” She looked up at the hulking metal machinery that had temporarily consumed him. “I think he needs somepony to remind him that he's actually a pony.”

The conversation halted for a moment as Clover turned the valve, and the machine came to life with a loud chugging sound, and lights flashed on in many different colors on each of the machine's modules.

“What are you going to do now?” Clover asked. “Are you going to go back to sleeping in stone?”

“I think I've earned some vacation time,” Ginny said. “Perhaps I'll teach the mysteries to young initiates, or see what the university is up to nowadays.”

“Well,” Clover said. “Maybe I'll see you around.”

“You might,” Ginny said. “Oh, and do remember to tell Star Swirl, when he wakes up, that he is forbidden from ever entering the library while under the effect of that magic ever again.”

“I will,” Clover said. “But thanks for not just plain banning us both.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “Why would I do that?”

Clover shrugged. “Well, not everypony is as understanding as you, apparently.”

“Well, let me know if you ever need any help or advice in managing him. We can share tricks over tea.”

“We should do that,” Clover said, smiling.

An hour later, Ginny was long gone, and Clover sat nearby reading a novel when, with a dull thunk, the machine finished its work. The hum ran down, and silence, and with a pneumatic hiss, the door on the machine's central chamber unsealed, and swung open.

Star Swirl the Bearded skipped out, humming a breezy tune.

“Dadedum... Let the wind come shake me do-o-own... dadadee... Oh, hello Clover,” he said, smiling. “I can declare this experiment a success. I haven't felt this refreshed in many years.”

Author's Note

Ladies and gentlemen:

This is it.

We have hit peak Star Swirl.

I do not think we can possibly get any higher than this.

Prepare to feel horribly let down by the remaining parts of the story.

Intermission: Natural Experiments

Clover studied a flower as she waited for Star Swirl to make up his mind where to go next.

The flower was the size of her head, and mostly red, though it crossed through a huge range of shades that far exceeded what she could name. The petals were huge, thick, velvety, and the air around it was heavy and sweet. As she watched, a bright azure hummingbird fought a moth larger than itself for the right to sip its nectar and douse itself in the flower's pollen. The two fliers went back and forth in a vicious struggle for dominance before the bird was driven off, and the moth triumphantly dug itself in to the flower's core.

Clover learned a lot from these trips, even though Star Swirl often didn't bother to explain exactly what he intended for her to learn. They went to different places at different times, and often, but not always, some interesting natural or magical phenomenon lay at the end.

This time they were on an uninhabited island deep in the heart of the sea, warm and humid, thick with untamed rainforest. They had sailed there in a small sloop, accompanied by an earth pony pirate who had lost her ship and crew to mutiny and needed to get away from the Unicorn King's purview before the hammer came down on her.

They had no pegasus wind-keeper for the voyage, but Star Swirl had woven an enchantment to make the winds visible, and with a wit and a will they had made good, if somewhat zig-zaggy time.

Clover had learned an awful lot about knots along the way, along with lots of nautical terminology that sounded, but in truth was not, really naughty.

They had cut inland, leaving the pirate mare to look after the boat, and before long the sun was setting. In the dim twilight Star Swirl led them to a clearing in the jungle, and halted in the shadows by its edge.

“Now we wait, and watch,” he said simply, and laid down on his barrel.

Clover waited, and saw nothing. The island was full of life, and the night was loud with animal cries in every direction, but the clearing was empty.

“So why are we here?” She whispered.

“To bear witness,” Star Swirl whispered back. Clover glanced at him. There was a tone in his voice she wasn't used to. He was not one for hushed whispers, but now he sounded almost… reverent.

His eyes widened. “There.”

Clover looked, and saw a field mouse run across the clearing.

It jumped up on a rock, rose up on its hind legs and its tail, and looked around with quick, sharp eyes that glittered brilliantly in the moonlight. Seeing nothing, it chirped, and several others in many different colors came running out one by one.

Before long there was a gathering in the center of the clearing, and they spoke together.

“There will be an enemy,” Star Swirl whispered, and even as he did so there was the sound of a pebble tumbling down from a stone, and the mice fell silent. One mouse assumed something like a battle stance, and hissed, baring its long teeth, while another cowered and turned nervously in every direction.

Across the clearing there came from the shadows a great black rat with red eyes. It was ragged and scarred from many battles, one ear partly torn to tatters, and it stalked towards the mice with dread purpose.

One of the mice let out a sharp, high-pitched bark, and at once they gathered together as if in a phalanx, as the rat moved, silent as death, towards them.

The first mouse broke from the formation and stepped forward. She rose up on her little hindlegs, supporting herself on her tail, and stood alone before the black rat.

The rat halted, peered down at the tiny mouse, and rose up to her own full height, ten times as high. She shrieked, and hissed, and spittle flew from her maw, and the little mouse shivered, but did not move.

The rat slashed at her with a paw, and threw her back.

The mice chittered, and squealed, and began to move, racing forward as one, and the rat dug her paws into the ground and bared her great yellow teeth to meet them.

But again the lone mouse rose up, and with a soft cry the crowd halted, hesitated.

Two other mice rushed forward to the injured mouse, rushed about her, sniffing and prodding and looking, but the mouse only looked up at the rat. She squeaked.

The rat snarled, and roared, and shook, and dug her paws into the ground and threw up clods of dirt and rocks, and looked a beast, and did every thing she knew, but though the little mouse trembled like a leaf, she did not move.

Slowly, the rat began to shiver. Her open maw slipped, strained, and closed, her hiss of hunger and challenge turning to a whimper.

There was silence in the clearing as the rat closed her eyes, and fell low.

Then, one by one, the other mice fell upon her. Clover gasped, expecting blood.

The first mouse to approach the fallen rat nuzzled her, and grasped her in a tiny, mousey embrace.

The others followed, and the black rat was held tight by her accusers, and rose again. She squeaked softly, uncertainly, and was met in kind.

Then, together, all the field mice led her away into the night.

Clover and Star Swirl watched them leave, and the clearing was emptied. They sat in silence, and Clover realized that her heart was pounding, and she had been holding her breath, and that the tingle of adrenaline was racing along her spine, down her bones, from the tip of her muzzle to her hooves.

Clover turned to her teacher, and mouthed the words. “What just happened?”

“The rebirth of the universe,” Star Swirl said. “The unfolding of the great cosmic drama, which plays out again and again, at every level of creation, from the highest to the most humble.” He got up, and stretched his legs with a sigh. “It's time for us to go home.”

He set off back the way they came. Clover got up and walked along beside him. “Professor?”

“Yes?”

“That pirate… I know you told me everything was fine, but I kind of got the feeling that she was planning to take our ship and leave without us the moment we headed inland.”

Star Swirl nodded. “Maybe. Maybe not. She has the choice.”

“And… if she did?”

“Well, if she did… which is not certain… then she would find that the ship will not go far without us. That sloop was falling apart. It will carry her safely back to shore, but no farther.”

“O...kay.” Clover thought about this for a second. “And what then?”

He smiled. “Then we will work to get off this island together, and when we get back to the mainland we will thank her for her service, and leave her to her own path.

“And maybe, just maybe, we will get to show kindness to someone right when they need it most.”

Author's Note

Happy Nightmare Night!

Note that this little pause is not a part of the current storyline.

Totally Not Filthy Sailing Terminology! Though the illustrations are definitely suggestive.

Chapter 12: Practical Applications - Public Relations

As the sun rose over Circle Square, Clover Cordelia was there with her head held high and her hood pulled back, her green curls out for all to see.

The square was full of ponies, and she realized that not all of them had forgotten or forgiven the events of the past weekend. That was alright: with time they would all come around. She ignored the whispers, the sideways glances, and the petty scowls.

They would not stop the Mission.

She trotted up to the big notice board in the center of the square, and levitated out the contents of her saddlebag. With great concentration she placed the poster on the board, positioned the nail, and hammered it in. She continued putting in more nails until it was secure on every side, and every corner, then she stepped back and admired her hoofwork.

The poster read:

WIZARD FOR HIRE
Problems Solved – Curses Lifted – Evil Spirits Banished – Sage Advice Dispensed!
Beneficial Enchantments, Charms, Potions For Sale At Reasonable Prices
To Cure Your Ailments Physical, Mental, or Magical!
Consultations By Appointment
No Problem Too Great Or Too Small
All Are Welcome!
Ponies Of All Tribes And Others
None Will Be Turned Away!
IMPROVE YOUR LIFE TODAY
With The Help Of STAR SWIRL the BEARDED
Inquire At Canterlot House 1 In Pony Or By Post

Underneath it was a simple drawing of the wizard himself, in profile, gazing off into the distance from under his hat.

There was a cough from behind her. “Excuse me, are you Clover?”

“Yes, that's me,” Clover turned to see a young stallion smiling at her. “Can I help yoooouuuu...?”

Oh he has really big eyes.

The young stallion – about her own age, Clover would guess – was a light blue unicorn wearing a scarf in the colors of the Academy of Magic. His mark showed a short, thick-bristled brush. His mane was a soft purple with darker spots, rough and tumbled, with little curls falling around the edges that made him look like he'd just stepped out of the shower. His big eyes were green, and soft, and open, and he was smiling a little awkwardly.

Clover did not know if she had ever seen a more gorgeous colt.

“What's this?” he asked, pointing at the poster.

“Oh! I'm here to let everypony know that Star Swirl the Bearded is open for business from the public,” she said, reciting her memorized pitch. “Most ponies think Star Swirl is some kind of embittered recluse, but the fact is he welcomes everyone to come to him with their problems. Did anything catch your eye?”

“Well… about that one,” he pointed. “Sage advice dispensed? What kind of thing can he give advice about?”

“Oh, just about anything,” Clover gushed. “Is there something special you're thinking of?”

“Yeah, I have a problem I could get some advice for,” he said, and laughed awkwardly. “I kind of need to apologize to a filly and I don't know how.”

Clover's mind filled with the possibilities of Star Swirl giving advice for young colts on how to talk to fillies. Many of the possibilities involved fire. Some involved meteor impacts.

There could be deaths. Or, if not deaths, at least a historic slapping of faces.

“Oh,” Clover said.

The colt cleared his throat. “You are Clover, right? Clover Cordelia?”

“That's me,” she said, chuckling theatrically. “The blackhearted apprentice to the mad wizard herself, in the flesh.”

“My name's Dusty,” the colt said. “Nice to meet you. I intern at the museum in my spare time. I wanted to talk to you about the thing that happened last weekend.”

Clover groaned at the reminder. “Look, if the museum is expecting an apology or something it's not going to happen.”

“No, no!” He shook his head urgently. “Quite the opposite, if anything. Look, I…” He sighed, and sank his head. “I wanted to say I'm sorry you got kicked out and blacklisted. I can't do anything about it, I'm just a lowly henchpony there, but I know that none of what happened was your fault and that you were only trying to help. So, sorry about that.”

Clover felt her cheeks warming at the words. “Oh… well, thank you. I appreciate that.”

“It was a pretty crazy day at the museum even before Star Swirl showed up, if you can believe it,” Dusty said. “Well, you know how it is at the museum. The staff schedule is a historical document that can't be altered, ancient spirits are breaking out of old stuff down in storage, organized protests by religious ponies who don't believe in the past...”

Clover raised a hoof to her muzzle as she laughed, and the colt beamed.

“Alright, that's a bit exaggerated. Still, it's a crazy stressful job. The head curator's idea of on the job training is to just tell you what to do but not why or how, and then she yells at us when we get it wrong.” He shook his head. “Miss Polish... she's great at what she does, but she's not so great at dealing with other ponies. She's an old warpony, you know.”

That sure sounds familiar. Clover nodded. “I know the feeling.”

“Yeah. But I'm sorry she took it out on you.”

Clover felt the blush burning its way up from her chest towards her cheeks. Dusty didn't seem to notice. He was looking at the poster. “So old Star Swirl is going to open up his business then?”

“Strictly speaking he always had,” Clover said. “He just didn't bother to tell anypony. But that's going to change. I'm going to hang these up all over town, and ponies are going to learn to appreciate everything he has to offer.”

“That's cool,” Dusty smiled. “I heard about you at the dorms—”

Clover felt a pit open up in her stomach. “There are rumours about me?” she blurted out. “None of it's true!” But Dusty was shaking his head and laughing.

“Sorry,” he said between chuckles. “I just meant that I heard you're really excited about your work, and that if anypony can give the old pony a run for his bits it's you. And I think that's really cool. Nothing worse than that.”

Again Clover felt her green cheeks turning pink as her heartbeat sped up. “Thanks...” she mumbled awkwardly, her tongue suddenly bloated and clumsy in her mouth.

Before she could manage another word they heard a bell ringing in the distance. Dusty looked up at the clock tower above the city hall down the street. “Horsefeathers,” he muttered. “I have to get going. It was really nice to meet you.”

“Oh,” Clover suddenly felt regretful for no reason she could understand. “Yeah… you too.”

There was a heavy silence as both ponies remained in place, each wanting to get another look at the other before they had to leave.

Dusty opened his mouth to speak, reconsidered, glanced around, opened his mouth to speak again, hesitated, and licked his lips. “Listen...” Clover's ears shot forward to hear. “I have class in a bit, and then I have to stop by my flat, but would you like to go out for coffee later?”

“I'd like that,” Clover said with a slight squeal.

“Great!” He grinned, and his grin was adorable in its awkward enthusiasm. “I'll pick you up at five and we can go to Black Bean's?”

“Sure,” she said, and looked after him wistfully as he cantered down the street with a spring in his step.

Just before he turned the corner and left her sight he burst into a pronk, and Clover snorted with laughter.

– – –

Clover was still grinning to herself when she arrived at Canterlot House 1. It was empty, and quiet except for the soft humming of distant machinery.

With a grin, she set up the gramophone on her workspace, put on one of her favorite records, and began to dance with her eyes closed.

She wasn't even surprised or bothered when she opened her eyes to see that Star Swirl had silently trotted up beside her and was watching her as though she were some strange new insect.

“I have a date,” she triumphantly declared before he could ask. “I met a nice young stallion, and he asked me out for coffee. I said yes.”

“Congratulations,” Star Swirl said, entirely without enthusiasm.

Clover giggled. “You can't fool me, Professor. I know you actually meant that a little. But there's more. It's begun.” She pointed a hoof at him. “I have been spreading word of your work all over town. Everypony in Cambridle now knows that Star Swirl the Bearded knows potions, charms, enchantments, and assorted other arcane solutions to fix myriad little problems that afflict everypony every day, and will sell them to anypony for a reasonable price. You're not getting out of it. I'll make them myself if I have to, and sell them under your name.”

“You're quite serious about this, aren't you,” Star Swirl said blankly. “You know I took you on as my apprentice to study magic, Clover. Not public relations.”

“I've made time for both,” Clover said. “Like it or not, Star Swirl, I am going to show everypony all the good you do.”

Star Swirl tilted back his head and looked up at the ceiling as he stroked his chin. “I could just increase your workload,” he said. “But I won't. I think this is something you have to fail on your own terms.”

“There will be no failing,” Clover said, “because you have made a grave tactical error, Star Swirl. If you truly did not want anypony to think well of you, you should not secretly have been a hero. I have been reading through your case histories, professor, and I have incontrovertible proof that you have saved lives, warded off terrible curses, and given wise counsel to all and sundry!”

“Confound it!” Star Swirl recoiled in mock horror. “You have me dead to rights!”

Clover raised a leg triumphantly. “Yes! Also there was something about saving the world from sirens, but that book had been left in the damp and a lot of it was illegible. You need to tell me that story sometime.”

“Eurgh,” Star Swirl grumbled and shook his head. “I will not. I wondered where that volume had gone. I hate that story.”

Clover gave him her mother's disapproving stare. He rolled his eyes in response. “We will see,” he begrudgingly conceded. “But tell me, Clover, now that you've hung up that poster of yours, what exactly do you think is going to happen?”

“Oh, well, I expect we will shortly start getting inquiries from the locals about procuring your services,” Clover began. “I've planned ahead, and have already prepared a scheduling system for keeping track of consultations.”

“Consultations,” Star Swirl said, his voice flat and lifeless.

Clover nodded. “That's right. Consultations. Appointments with clients, here in your workplace. You are going to listen to their problems and offer advice and solutions. And since we are going to respond to all inquiries with good cheer and efficiency, word will spread and more orders will come in. I have calibrated my expectations to be modest, but I fully expect that with time we will become the toast of the town.”

Star Swirl raised an eyebrow. “Answer me honestly, Clover: you actually trust me to treat ponies who come to me off the streets with courtesy and respect?”

Clover halted and turned to face her teacher. “I'm not blinking,” she said, and looked straight into his eyes. “Professor. You've told me again and again that I should trust you. And while you have quite frankly made it unnecessarily difficult at times to do so, you have never actually let me down. What's more, you told me yourself that anypony who asks for your expertise will get an honest answer. So yes, professor, I do trust you, and I have faith that you will treat our new clients with courtesy and respect.”

“That's interesting,” Star Swirl said, nodding slowly as he thought. “That's very interesting indeed.”

Clover nodded, and smiled wickedly. “Also, if you are tempted to turn mean, I will be sitting right beside you to keep the discussion on track.”

Star Swirl chuckled at that, to Clover's great satisfaction as she skipped away to prepare.

It was a few hours later that the doorbell rang, and Clover yelled “I'll get it!” before skipping to the front door. Her face lit up as she saw Dusty outside.

“Hi Clover,” he said, and brought up a small bouquet of flowers. “I got you these.”

It was not an expertly arranged bouquet, and the flowers were wild. Probably he had picked them himself, and as he held them up the sight of his wide eyes and eager, nervous smile made Clover melt inside. She squealed exactly like a seventeen-year old school filly as she took them. “Thank you! I'll just put these in some water. I'll be right out, just wait inside the door okay?”

He nodded and stepped inside the entrance hallway. He looked around idly, not noticing the shadow that was growing up through the floor behind him.

“Who,” Star Swirl the Bearded slowly intoned, “are you?”

The colt tensed up, then slowly turned around with a stiff smile on his face. “You must be Professor Star Swirl,” he said. “I'm Dusty. Me and Clover are just going out for coffee.”

Star Swirl looked straight through him. “Are you,” he said, and his voice was as the sound of iron striking iron far beneath the waves of the sea, sending deep echoes that carried through the stone and up into his bones.

It took a great deal of effort for Dusty to nod his head while trying to keep his smile from cracking. The colt met Star Swirl's eyes, and saw swords and needles and manacles and all manner of sharp and unpleasant things.

There was a long silence as the wizard studied him unhappily.

“You will have your coffee, and you will treat her with respect,” Star Swirl eventually said. “Otherwise unspeakable things will happen to you.”

“I'm back!” Clover came bouncing along to the entrance, rubbed up against Dusty's side and wrapped her ankle around his. “Oh, you've met Star Swirl already?” she looked at her teacher, and grinned at the sight of the discomfort evident in his eyes. “Don't let him scare you. He's just a big softie, really.”

“Am I,” he said.

“Yes you are,” Clover said with a smirk, and dragged Dusty out the door.

She closed the door behind her with her magic, leaving Star Swirl staring at the plain wooden barrier, deep in thought.

Before long he came to a resolution. He lit up his horn, and vanished from sight.

The door opened and closed, seemingly of its own volition, and the house was empty.

– – –

Meanwhile, someplace else entirely, something else was happening.

In downtown Cambridle a shopkeeper pony was packing his bags and preparing to leave town to stay with a friend for the foreseeable future. He was just about to flip the sign and lock the front door when it swung open, ringing the bell, and a customer stepped in.

A customer with talons.

The shopkeeper had seen griffons, of course, but never up close. He certainly had never had one in his shop before. He stared while trying not to look like he was staring, and the griffon did not seem to notice, or if he did notice, did not seem to care.

He was wearing a red leather coat, a piece of griffon fashion that stood out like a sore hoof in the lands of ponies. A broad belt clasped around his barrel (do griffons have barrels?, the pony wondered) with an iron buckle of the kind a pony hoof could not hope to operate.

There was a soft clatter as he moved, only audible in the sudden piercing silence of the shop. Underneath his belt there hung a variety of tools for jobs the shopkeeper could not picture: sharp and metallic. There were pouches from which wafted scents the shopkeeper knew well, ingredients to alchemical and magical purposes.

“Yesss...” The griffon looked around, eyeing the displayed wares critically, nodding slowly. “This will do nicely.”

The shopkeeper gulped. “Can I help you… sir?”

The griffon turned and sized him up with a glance, and grinned. The shopkeeper had not known it was even possible to grin with a beak.

“I believe you can,” the griffon said, his voice smooth and confident and predatory. His collar was open, and from the inside the shopkeeper could see the hilts of what might well have been very large knives. “Your shop looks like it has everything I need… For starters,” here the shopkeeper heard the clinking of heavy coins in a pouch shifting rhythmically between and around the griffon's claws. “I'd like some directions.”

– – –

When Clover returned to Canterlot House some hours later it was with a smile on her face and a spring in her step. She called out in a sing-song voice as she skipped into the research hall: “Professor, I'm back!”

The coffee date had been lovely. They had chatted about their studies and their work, and before long Clover found herself deep in a discussion about the historicity of Baaowulf.

Clover was thrilled. She hadn't had a discussion about things that interested her with another pony her own age since she first became Star Swirl's student. They talked, they laughed, they navigated sudden gaps in which neither of them could think of anything to say and took recourse to giggling like foals, and at the end of it he had walked her back home and said goodbye with a wish that they could do it again soon.

Clover couldn't stop grinning. She cantered over to her workspace and let herself fall onto the beaten old couch, and stared up at the ceiling with a smile on her face.

The balcony was beautiful in the moonlight, the slight chill a welcome variation from the powerful warmth of a thousand candles, and two score of dancing ponies inside the ballroom. The gala had been beautiful, and Clover had been radiant and gay in her beautiful gown and the necklace her mother had given her for the occasion.

Everypony present, from the Neighpon ambassador in his elaborate ceremonial kimono to the colonel from the pegasus army, had been captivated by her beauty, and had cast envious glances to the young unicorn stallion at her side, the stallion who now cleared his throat and gently laid his hoof upon her shoulder.

“Clover, I...” Sir Dusty stammered. “I've never felt this way about anypony before. When I think about you, my face burns and my pulse quickens.”

Clover fluttered at his words, her knees going wobbly as she pressed tighter up against him. “Go on,” she urged.

“When I see your smile my heart skips like a cheap clock,” he continued, with an embarrassed chuckle. “When I'm with you, I feel like I could do anything, and when I hold you in my arms all the world besides melts away and I want only to stay like this forever.”

Clover purred as she nuzzled him, and raised her head to face him. Their eyes met, their muzzles barely apart. Their lips parted. “Clover,” Sir Dusty said, hesitantly, his body tense and nervous, as she gripped around his chest and prepared to pull him into her kiss, “I think I—”

“Clover!” Star Swirl the Bearded yelled. “Watch out for the sharklion! Its bite can crush Ponium Steel!”

Clover froze up, and pushed the stallion away before their lips met. “I'm sorry, what?”

Sir Dusty stammered, and bashfully ran a hoof through his mane. “I've never done this before. Clover, ever since I met you I've felt that my bachelor pony days seem so empty, and pointless. You've shown me that life can be so much more than just drunken parties and—”

Clover screamed as a massive creature with a shark's head and fin, a black stringy mane, and powerful orange-furred legs with massive claws at the ends of its broad paws, leapt out through the jungle underbrush and roared at her.

“Back, you beast!” Star Swirl the Bearded cried, waving a blazing torch and a fishing net at the creature. “You will not stop us from reaching the Caldera of Sorrows!”

“Clover?” Sir Dusty asked. His hoof stroked gently down her mane and sent shivers down her spine, and she all but melted into his embrace. “You seem so distracted all of a sudden. Is something wrong?” He gasped. “Is it... is there somepony else?”

“No!” Clover protested. “I swear, there is nopony in my heart but you, it's just that... well, I have a lot of chores to do, and...”

“Come, Clover, and stab the iopometer through the black obsidian heart of the caldera.” Clover yelped as she grabbed the instrument her teacher had just thrown at her head. “Beware, for the pierced heart will unleash noxious fumes of volcanic magma, but this is the only way to recover the readings we need to determine the age of the caldera, and kill the debate once and for all.”

Clover ground her teeth together. “Darnit, Star Swirl, I am trying to have a romantic moment here!”

Clover let her head fall to the table and groaned. “He's not even here and he's still ruining my fantasies,” she muttered.

Any further attempts to find imaginary happiness were interrupted when the front door slammed open, followed by a stranger's voice cursing loudly.

Clover looked up to see the cause of the disturbance. Star Swirl was backing into the room, dragging an earth pony stallion along by a rope held between his teeth. His magic, she could see, was otherwise occupied restraining the pony's legs, and the pony did not seem happy.

“This is ponynapping!” the earth pony yelled, straining against the magic holding him in place. “Let! Me! GO!”

“...Professor?” Clover stood watching the bizarre sight from the corner of the room. Both the ponies turned to her.

“You!” the earth pony yelled. “Help me! This lunatic abducted me off the street— MMPH!”

Star Swirl forced his muzzle shut with an expertly-tied noose. “Clover,” he said simply, nodding in greeting. “Do not let anypony in until I come out. I am going to require some privacy with mister Sprout here.”

Clover watched in horror as her mentor dragged the pony, struggling to escape and desperately trying to cry out for help, through the doorway to his private laboratory. The door closed behind them, and Clover heard the sharp, loud click of the lock.

Author's Note

The penultimate storyline begins.

Chapter 13: Practical Applications - Scheduling

Clover knew that Star Swirl had a private laboratory somewhere in the strange, physics-defying space that was Canterlot House 1.

Clover did not know why Star Swirl had a private lab, considering that before her arrival his entire house had been his private lab. Nevertheless, he did.

It wasn't really a secret. Even though the entrance blended seamlessly into the wall, so that no-one could find it if they did not know it was there, Star Swirl had never bothered to try to hide it from Clover. The door was on the middle level of the big hall, not far from the entrance: upon entering you just had to turn left and walk straight, and the patch of empty wall directly ahead of you was it.

Clover did not know how to open it, and had not asked. She respected his privacy.

Perhaps he simply liked the idea of having a secret lair, she had sometimes wondered, like an imaginative foal, or a supervillain.

The research hall of Canterlot House was bright, spacious, clean, and always kept at a comfortable cool temperature. The inside of the private lab, which Clover had only glimpsed on occasion through the open door, was dark and cold. The air within, which she had never breathed, was dry and stale. There were various very solid-looking cages for containing experimental subjects, and Star Swirl had placed one of those cages in the middle of the lab, and surrounded it with circles of runes and sigils.

There were no windows. The only light came from a few wax candles, and the cold blue glow of magic inscriptions on the floor.

In a lot of ways it was more like a dungeon than a lab, which in turn made the research equipment within look more like implements of torture. At least to anypony who didn't know what they were for, and the pony in the cage certainly didn't. Nor did he know what the rune-circle inscribed around the cage was for either, or the diagrams of strange anatomy, written in a language he had never seen.

“Just so that our situation is clear,” Star Swirl said as he stalked in a circle around the cage, “nopony but me ever comes here. My pupil, inquisitive thing though she is, would never dare disobey me and look inside. Everything that happens between us here will be a secret to the rest of the world. No-one will know except us two.”

Star Swirl stopped at a desk, and prepared a quill with ink and a notebook. “So bearing that in mind… is there anything you would like to tell me before we get started?”

“You're insane,” the earth pony replied.

“You're not the first pony to say so,” Star Swirl said. “So… Sprout, was it? Tell me, if you would, about mister Sprout.”

“For starters, I've been locked in a cage by a madpony and I want to go home!”

The earth pony glared at the wizard from inside the cage, not saying a word.

“This will go a lot easier if you cooperate,” Star Swirl said.

The earth pony huffed, and turned away.

“No? Well, I should warn you. So long as you do not cooperate, I will be extremely unhappy with you. If you decide to be helpful, I will be in a much better mood. I trust I make myself clear.”

The earth pony made no response. They were both silent for a while, before Star Swirl spoke. “I have all the time in the world, you know. You'll break.”

– – –

When Star Swirl emerged from the lab he found Clover standing right outside the door waiting for him. Her face was entirely neutral, and when she spoke her voice was the same. “Who was that pony you just dragged in, Star Swirl?”

Star Swirl raised a hoof to hush her as he closed the door shut behind him. “He says his name is mister Sprout,” Star Swirl said. “I am going to research him.”

“Research.”

“That's right.”

There was silence. Clover only watched, and waited.

“...He is very scientifically interesting,” Star Swirl eventually said.

Clover narrowed her eyes into an unamused glare that would have made her mother proud. “I certainly hope so, professor. Because from where I'm standing it looks like you just abducted a stallion off the street and locked him in your lab to perform insane experiments on him.”

“My experiments are not insane. They are perfectly rigorous.”

“Star Swirl!” Clover snapped. “Enough with the games already! I won't let you do this to yourself!”

Star Swirl raised an eyebrow. “I am sure I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Oh sure you don't. Star Swirl the Bearded, the great hated misequine has no idea what I'm talking about. Guh!” She groaned and rolled her eyes. “You keep saying I should trust you but when I do you immediately go out of your way to make it harder! It's like you pull back and sabotage yourself at any sign that other ponies might actually not hate you. Well, not this time, Star Swirl! I won't let you.” She jabbed her hoof at him and glared. “I collected the mail when I came in. You have already gotten your first orders from ponies in town, including a request for a private consultation. There are ponies who respect you down there, professor, and you are not going to disappoint them.”

She raised a small stack of letters in her grip to demonstrate, and placed them on a nearby table. “Here's what is going to happen. We are going to read through these orders together, and then we are going to answer them. When the time comes for the consultations, we are both going to politely meet with our clients and you are going to earnestly try to help them with their problems. But before we do any of that you are going to go inside your lab and let that actor in there go home with whatever payment you promised him because I am not fooled by your little evil sorcerer play-acting, you hear?”

Star Swirl's face did not betray any hint of his thoughts. He pushed her hoof aside and raised his head, glanced down at her along the length of his muzzle. “If that's what you want to believe, fine,” he said. “But he is not going anywhere until I am through with him.”

“And what exactly are you going to learn from this research?”

“If I knew that there wouldn't be any point to doing the research in the first place,” Star Swirl replied. “I will happily show you all my results as soon as they are ready, if you're so interested. Now let's look at that mail, eh?”

He trotted past, leaving her frowning at the back of his head. “Hmph!” She grunted, and fell into step behind him. “Fine. But this is for your own good, professor. I'm only doing this because I care about you.”

“I can take care of myself,” he said.

“Can you?” She asked. “I think somepony needs to be strict with you, Star Swirl. You need to learn how to coexist with normal ponies. Even if you did get to be a hundred and seventeen without it. I happen to believe very firmly that nopony is ever too old to learn new things.”

The handling of mail and appointments passed quietly and with suspicion.

By the time they were done there was not much left of the evening, and Clover finished her chores around the house while Star Swirl retired to the balcony to watch the emerging stars. Not a word passed between them, and whenever she glanced up at him he was fully absorbed in his biggest telescope and seemed to pay her no heed.

Once her chores were over, Clover had the night free. She sat down at her workspace and went over the first orders they had received. She prepared a list of what each wanted, what she knew how to make herself and what she would have to get Star Swirl to handle, and what she suspected was conceptually impossible.

A few ponies were even brave enough to ask for appointments, wanting to discuss their issues in depth, or in private. Clover put them down in the schedule for a few days later.

Then she went to bed, and all the thoughts she'd had came back to battle it out in her mind. Between the thoughts of her time with Dusty, and the equally-yet-differently exciting thoughts about the pony in the lab, she had a hard time getting to sleep that night.

Even so, when morning came she rose from her bed, put on her plain coarse robe, hood down, and strode resolutely to the break room, buoyed by her determination.

The sounds of birdsong accompanied her as she entered the break room. She paused to take in the sight through the window, as she did every morning. Though it looked like a window, it was in fact a portal to a perpetually-sunny meadow somewhere no pony ever seemed to go, and the sounds of birdsong filled the room, which Clover always enjoyed although on this occasion it felt rather at odds with her mood.

Star Swirl was already seated, quietly eating his breakfast of dry biscuit and tea. “Morning, professor,” Clover said sharply as she sat down opposite him, emphasizing the absence of the word 'good'.

“Morning,” Star Swirl replied. “You seem sharp this morning. Normally you take a while to get up to speed, you know. Perhaps the extra motivation is doing you good.”

Clover did not rise to the bait. “How is mister Sprout today?”

“I imagine he is much as he was,” Star Swirl replied.

“This doesn't change anything, you know,” Clover said, and brought up her clipboard. “Whatever you're thinking. Whatever you're doing. You are going to meet with these clients. You're not going to stop me.”

“If you say so,” Star Swirl concurred.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I am going to schedule the first pony to come speak to us tomorrow. Today we are going to make sure everything is ready, so don't make any other sudden plans.”

There was a crack and crunch as Star Swirl bit off his biscuit. He made no other response.

Clover continued. “First of all we need a good place to host our clients. The research lab is too open and chaotic for visitors. I've written up a few possible options.”

Star Swirl chewed, watching her as one might watch a duck crossing a busy road. Clover raised her clipboard and coal stick to gesture to it. “The most obvious choice is this break room: we could use it. It's a nice room. It's welcoming and familiar, and sends a message that we're not so different from everypony else, all of which would help put ponies at their ease. It doesn't exactly scream 'professional wizard', but a little redecorating can fix that. What do you think?”

Crunch, crunch, swallow. Sip. Swallow. Inhale. “I like the break room as it is,” Star Swirl said. “I like everything as – well, no, that's a lie, things in general could stand to be better.”

Clover smiled. “Then you're in luck, professor! Because we are going to make the world a better place, by using your great wisdom and vast experience to provide valuable services to the community!” She scratched an X on the list. “But that's fine. If you don't want to redecorate the break room, the next option is the research hall. I know you don't mind rearranging that.” She smiled aggressively beneath quick eyes. “We could clean out one of the smaller platforms and move it into a heightened position that is easily accessed from the front door. We could put up a nice table and some chairs, maybe some bookshelves with some of the more benign conversation pieces. I can set up a rotation, Celestia knows you have enough of them. I'll keep a tray of tea and biscuits ready for hospitality's sake.”

“The platforms don't move, Clover. They're just platforms.”

“I don't believe you,” Clover said, putting down another X. “Still, if you need time to acclimatize yourself to the idea of redecorating, as a temporary measure I would suggest that room where you gave me that first interview, which I recall being both welcoming, interesting and respectable, even if it was only a hologram. What do you think?”

“Whatever.”

“What's that?”

“I said, whatever you think works.”

“That's right, professor. That's exactly what you said. Don't you forget it.”

– – –

This is great.

“Thanks for helping me with this,” Clover said, trying to keep her voice bright without exploding.

“It's no problem,” Dusty said with a coltish cuteness that made Clover's heartbeat dance.

Shortly after breakfast Clover had found Dusty at the university and asked for a favor. He had said yes, and they had wandered off through the town with Clover casting sideways glances at his big eyes and the sway of his curls every other step, fighting back the grin that threatened to erupt over her face every moment.

Who knew walking down a street could be this good?

They were almost back at Canterlot House 1, just leaving behind the last buildings at the end of the street that led to Star Swirl the Bearded's home.

“I promise it's not going to be any trouble,” Clover said. “I'm just going to walk you through the house as a kind of test run, just to be sure everything's ready for when we start receiving clients.”

They stopped at the bottom of the building. Canterlot House 1 was as it always was: a chaotic mishmash of architecture growing sideways out of a sheer cliff face some fifteen yards up in the air, supported by nothing that anypony could see.

“So… Here we are,” Clover said. “First step: getting inside.”

They looked at the stairs leading up to the front door. It too was as it always was: a long, narrow, rickety wooden thing that seemed always just one gust of wind away from total collapse.

“No trouble,” she said quietly. After all, I wouldn't want the nice colt to think I'm sane, or sensible or anything. Where's the fun in that? “No trouble at all.”

“Yeah...” Dusty said slowly, watching it sway gently from side to side. “Some ponies might have a problem with this part.”

“I guess I just got used to it,” Clover mumbled, making a note on her clipboard. “I'll get Star Swirl to replace it with something else. Something that inspires confidence.”

“Could be for the best,” Dusty replied.

“It's supported by magic,” Clover said, climbing the first few steps. She turned and looked down at him with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “It's actually very sturdy. Probably nigh-indestructible. I suspect you couldn't fall off it if you tried.”

Dusty gulped and began to climb it slowly, one step at a time. “I did get up alright the first time, but… I kinda felt like it didn't like me.”

The next step made a loud creak and a snap as he placed his weight on it. Clover yelped, grabbed him in her forelegs and bodily pulled him up to the next step. So it was that they stood silently holding each other, staring at a plank which showed no indication that anything was wrong.

They both held their breath as thoughts ran through each of their minds of how foolish the other must think them.

Eventually, after a few false starts, they reached the front door and passed into the entryway.

The entryway was an unlit room which was short to cross but infinitely wide. It stretched out into opaque darkness to her right and left, past piles of unused construction materials, carved images, and esoteric magical ingredients. As far as Clover could tell Star Swirl used it as a storage room for low-demand and thankfully mostly inert objects.

Inert, but smelly.

“Any problems here?” Dusty asked.

“Maybe I should put up a fence, or a sign or something, just to make absolutely certain nopony tries to go any other direction,” Clover said to herself, and sighed. “It's no problem. I'll make him clean it up.”

It was a simple matter to cross the entryway, ignoring the endless darkness to either side, to the unlocked door at the far end. Beyond that was the research hall, where Clover foresaw no real problems. They would simply walk down the stairs immediately on their right, then cross the reference checkpoint platform, descend the stairs again, and the door to the break room would be dead ahead.

They took one step forward and Dusty vanished from her side with a sound halfway between a yell and a swallow. If Clover were forced to transcribe it, she would put it down as “Glarp!”

Clover looked up, following the sound, and saw Dusty hanging upside-down in the air above her, held up by his legs. He kicked ineffectually at whatever force held him and squeaked.

Clover thought it was a fairly masculine squeak, as far as it goes.

“Oh stars – Dusty! Please stay calm! Try – try not to struggle, that might just make it angry!” A pit opened in her stomach as she looked around for any idea what was going on. “Professor! Professor! Get up here!”

“What's this racket?” Star Swirl said from below just before trotting up the stairs and into sight. “Oh, it works!”

“Professor! Help!” She cried as she ran around underneath the young stallion. “What's happening to him?!”

“That's just the home security system,” Star Swirl replied, and tapped the floor twice with his hoof.

As he did so a wave of light shimmered across Clover's vision, revealing that the home security system was a giant, translucent golem, like a cloud of gas vaguely shaped like a minotaur, which was currently holding Dusty in a huge blurry claw. It froze as it became visible, like water turning to ice before their eyes, leaving Dusty hanging still.

Once it seemed the thing was not going to rip Dusty to pieces or throw him into the wall, both he and Clover sighed in relief.

“Working just as it should.” Star Swirl looked up at the golem with the satisfaction of a job well done. “I set it up and running a few days ago, but hadn't gotten to see if it works yet. I've been upgrading security all over the house lately. Unexpected visitors coming in the front door get the containment field.”

Clover did not look impressed. “It never did that to me,” she said.

“I registered you as a privileged user. You're allowed in.”

“It didn't do that to Dusty last night either.”

“Dates count as a personal exemption,” Star Swirl said. “I don't know what you thought you were doing here, but you're allowed to invite guests for purely personal reasons – you're welcome, no need to thank me. He had limited clearance.”

“The home security system knew that I was going on a date?”

“It's a very sensitive system.”

Clover opened and shut her mouth a few times before the words came out. “It's sensitive enough to know when I'm going on a date, but not sensitive enough to know when I'm bringing a friend over as a pretend client? That's just confusing!”

Star Swirl shrugged dismissively. “So it doesn't quite have all the bugs worked out yet. It's only a few days old. It'll learn.”

“And you do this just as I'm getting things ready.” Her eyes narrowed. “You're doing this on purpose, Star Swirl.”

“We've been over this, Clover. I have only the security of Canterlot House in mind.”

There was a tense silence as the two unicorns watched each other. Clover drew a deep breath, and grabbed her clipboard. “What other new security measures have you put in lately? Tell me.”

“I shouldn't share that information. That would go against the point.”

Her stare sharpened.

Star Swirl cleared his throat. “The floor will turn to fluid and drop ponies into secure containment pods.”

Clover groaned and facehoofed. “Can't you just do like everypony else and get a home security system that alerts the city watch?”

“I'm not going to get the city watch involved. I wouldn't want to endanger them.”

“Well, can't you just scan ponies for weapons as they come in, or something?” Clover demanded, pressing forward. “You have that anti-poison defense! I know you can scan for things like that! Must you make everything so difficult?”

“It's much easier to scan for toxic compounds than for weapons. Anything can be a weapon if you get creative.”

“You're turning the house into a death trap, professor! We have guests coming over!”

“They know who they're visiting!”

“Um, Clover?” A voice asked meekly from overhead. “Could you please get me down?”

– – –

From a rooftop downtown, a griffon watched the unfolding events with interest, and a pair of enchanted binoculars.

“Gas golem,” he whispered to himself. “Grade four, easily dispersed with the right blast.”

A sharp claw clicked the adjusting gear on the binoculars into a new position, switching its mode with a pair of crystal lenses. He chuckled. “The anti-venom shield was a given. So predictable, and so easily circumvented.”

He ticked off the list he carried in his mind of the likely obstacles, and the tools he had prepared to overcome them, slotted them one by one into the many pockets, nooks and pouches of his suit.

“Soon, oldhorn. Very soon.”

– – –

It had taken longer than Clover believed was truly necessary, but in the end Dusty had been released from the security system and gently returned to the floor.

Clover had decided not to ask if he wanted to continue the course down to the break room. Instead she had walked him back out and down the street, until Canterlot House was no longer in sight. Once there she had thanked him, and given him a brief but emphatic nuzzle. They said goodbye, and he had wandered ever so slightly unsteadily homeward.

When she returned home Star Swirl was at work polishing the alchemical glass devices. She fell against the wall with a groan, and he turned an ear in her direction.

“Dusty is alright,” Clover said. “He was very sweet about it. He said everything's fine and that he wasn't hurt, but I think he was just trying to spare my feelings.”

“That was kind of him.”

“No it wasn't!” Clover snapped. “I shouldn't have asked him for help in the first place. Honestly, who does that to someone they've just met? But I didn't know that! I didn't – I don't –” She smacked herself lightly in the face with a groan of frustration. “I'm new to this, alright? I just wanted to have a nice time without worrying about everything, and now he must think I'm… well, now he must think I'm like you.”

Clover glanced over at her teacher. He had not looked up from his work since she entered. “There are worse things to be, believe it or not. Besides, it doesn't matter what he thinks you are.”

Wearily. “For the purposes of our relationship, I kind of think it does matter, Star Swirl.”

“Let me rephrase that,” Star Swirl said. “What you are and do has only an indirect effect on what he thinks you are. His thoughts are generally outside your control, and you shouldn't worry too much about them. If he really likes you he'll ignore everything you are in favor of the image he has of you in his head.”

“That...” Clover fell silent and blinked, her pupils shrinking. “That's horrible, professor.”

“That's romance,” Star Swirl said. “It cuts both ways: you're not really seeing him either.”

Clover felt the resentment rising but bit it back. She waited it out in silence, though not moving from the spot or ceasing to glare at the back of her teacher's hat. Star Swirl continued about his business, seemingly oblivious to her reaction.

Once she was satisfied that her thoughts and feelings were fully under her control again, she spoke. “I'm going out to meet him again later.”

“That's nice,” Star Swirl said.

Clover nodded and stepped closer, watching her teacher's reaction intently. “Yes, I hope it will be. I might be late coming back tonight. He might be coming over to visit more often in the near future.”

The wince was minute, but Clover saw it immediately. “I expect you to be civil, professor,” she said. “To him as well as to our clients. Even if you don't like him, I expect you to treat him as if you're open to the possibility that you will.”

“I feel that we're straying back into mask territory here, Clover,” Star Swirl said testily. “You know how I feel about that.”

“Is that why you're fighting tooth and claw against this?” Her eyes narrowed on him. “It's not about wearing a mask, Star Swirl, it's about sending signals! Signals like 'I'm not insane or evil, you don't need to be afraid of me', or 'I want to be a valuable member of this community'. It's about fitting in.”

“I am not sure there is any real distinction there,” he replied. “To be honest, I suspect 'fitting in' is valued more highly than it deserves in our society. You have it worst of all, you know. You symbolically destroy yourself to win the approval of those you see as your betters. You shouldn't just trust in me, you should trust in yourself.”

Clover raised an eyebrow. “So now trusting in myself means doing what you want instead of what I want?”

“The world is a complex and mysterious place.”

She stepped closer. “I do trust in myself, Star Swirl. That's why I'm going to continue reaching out. I have difficulties sometimes – and don't bother making a snide comment – but I believe in ponies. You can't seal yourself away from everypony and hide behind death traps just because you don't like playing by the rules.”

“There is something to be said for breaking the rules sometimes,” Star Swirl replied, the crystal flask glittering in the light as it spun in his grip. “If nothing else, it reveals which ones are flimsy.”

“You know a rule that isn't flimsy?” Clover asked. “Don't abduct ponies. That one is remarkably solid.”

Clink. Star Swirl gently put the flask down and picked up a small silver nozzle. “That,” he said, his voice a touch harder, “has nothing to do with you or your project, and I am instructing you not to interfere with it in any way. It is a very delicate matter.”

“It certainly doesn't seem that way, Star Swirl. To me it seems very much like you're doing it to make some kind of point, and no matter how I turn it around I can't find a point in it that isn't horrible.”

“I am telling you now that it is unconnected.”

Clover reached out a hoof and pulled Star Swirl's head to face her, muzzle to muzzle. “I want you to let him go,” she said. “This isn't you, professor. I think you're playacting, trying to get me to doubt you, and I don't think it's very funny.”

Star Swirl's face remained impassive. “...I am afraid I cannot do that at this time.”

“Why, because you wrote a contract with him?” Clover asked. “So pay him in full, you can afford it. He can put me down as a reference. I could see that he's an excellent actor.”

Star Swirl rolled his eyes. He raised a hoof and swept her back with a gesture. “This conversation is over, Clover. If you don't have anything work-related to discuss, then you can just go about your business.”

Clover gasped, and scowled. “Is that how it is then? Alright then, work-related it is! You need to clear out everything that could conceivably get in the way of bringing a client down to the break room – and before you start, no. No complaints, no philosophical objections to the word 'conceivably', no mind-games or double-talk! Just clear a path! It really shouldn't be difficult!”

“Fine!” Star Swirl almost shouted. “I'll put everything else on hold and open up a gap in our security for the benefit of your plans! It'll be done later tonight, just try not to schedule any assassins for consultations. You know they'll be trying.” He shook his head. “Enough of this. You go on your little date with your colt companion.”

“I will!”

“Great!” Star Swirl yelled. “I sincerely hope you enjoy your time together! I am going to the private lab to be a supervillain.”

With one last glare between them they both turned away and stomped their separate ways.

Star Swirl heard the front door slam shut behind him as he entered the lab. He sealed the entrance, and his hoofsteps were sharp and hard on the stone floor. With a flick of his horn he switched on a harsh, glaring light pointed on the cage, and the earth pony inside grunted and covered his eyes with his leg.

Star Swirl sat down by his desk and watched the cage. A minute passed with neither of them moving before the wizard broke the silence.

“My apprentice is unhappy with me.”

The pony in the cage didn't respond.

Star Swirl continued. “She's spending time with a new colt. He's a bad one, that one, but she's lost in her own fantasy world and can't see him for what he is… Trust me on this. The stars don't tell me the future anymore, but when I look at him I see it clear as…” He sighed, deeply, heavily. “That poor filly has a tendency to place her trust in ponies who don't deserve it. I can see it coming, but I can't change it.”

Star Swirl's prisoner looked up at him and saw eyes full of malice and innovation. “Suffice to say it's put me in a bad mood, and right now I am rather tempted to take it out on you.”

“You're insane,” he muttered.

“Mm. She thinks this is all an elaborate scheme to upset her opinion of me. What do you think of that?”

“That seems like something you might do,” the prisoner said, his voice low and quavering. “You've no reason to keep me here. I can't tell you anything. I have no idea what you want.”

“Hm. Well, sooner or later she's going to have to learn that the world doesn't revolve around her,” Star Swirl said. “I can see you're not in a mood for chit-chat this morning, so let's just go straight to the business, shall we?”

“You can't keep me here,” the pony in the cage said defiantly. “My family is looking for me. They'll find me.”

“Ah, yes, your family. Tell me about your family.”

The earth pony gave a single bleak laugh and smiled. “Why? So you can go hurt them too?”

Star Swirl looked back at him. “Your family moved here a couple of years ago on the Preferred Settlement plan, to farm for Cambridle's predominantly unicorn population,” he began. “Sweet Tonic, earth pony mare, thirty-two years old. In addition to working on the farm she helps out in a hostel for the needy. Mother of Rose Petal, five years old, earth pony filly, and Budding Leaf, three years old, earth pony colt. Rose Petal doesn't have her mark yet but shows an aptitude for perfumes, and is popular among her kindergarten fellows. Budding Leaf loves climbing trees. Sweet Tonic loves her husband, and her children love their father very, very much. Should I go on?”

Star Swirl waited. The earth pony's mock mirth faded away into pain and anger. He pounded at the bars of his cage and snarled, “leave my family alone, you monster!”

“Your family. Yes. Your loving wife and beautiful children. I imagine how they must miss their father and my heart aches.” He leaned in to the cage until their faces were only inches apart. “Are you ready to cooperate?”

The earth pony said nothing.

Star Swirl shook his head sadly. “You're only making it worse for yourself, you know. I have all the time in the world.”

Chapter 14: Practical Applications - Stress Test

Black Bean was the best coffee shop in Cambridle, a beating heart of the student body*.

*: One of several beating hearts, the student body being a strange beast which grew new limbs and organs regularly and slightly faster than it lost old ones, yet somehow lived to slouch through another day.

It was a center of Cambridle's night life, where the newest gossip could always be found, where young ponies unsure of themselves and their selves went to try to find out who they were by the process of elimination. Where citizens, students, and faculty all could meet on equal terms without the strictures of class and discuss the latest developments on the world stage or in scholarship.

Artists flocked to Black Bean. The cafe was always open to local talent, and always had an audience willing to say exactly what they thought. Musicians, poets, comedians and stage magicians had all bared their souls to Black Bean's clientele. But rarely had anypony heard a show quite like what they had that night.

“I can't believe that pony,” Clover fumed. “What does he think he's doing? I help him! I do his chores! I arrange all his spell ingredients and answer his mail! I saved his life once, did you know that? No, of course you didn't, because he can't be bothered to tell anyone that the universe was almost destroyed by – well, never mind who by, but this was just two months ago! It's not like it was, I don't know, a year and eight months ago or something!”

Dusty nodded slowly, his brow scrunched up uncertainly.

Clover continued, oblivious to the ears of a score of other ponies surreptitiously turned to listen.

“I've been his apprentice for most of a year. I've done everything he asks without, well almost without complaint. I honestly think I've been extremely patient with him! Certainly more patient than anypony else would be. But does he appreciate it? Does he maybe think that he should listen to my idea for once? I don't think I'm asking for much. At least no more than I've earned! I just want to help him! I think this could be a great thing for him! But honestly it's like talking to a foal-”

“So why are you bothering?” Dusty interjected.

“Because he's brilliant!” Clover shouted angrily, slamming her hoof on the table. Her cup wobbled and splashed coffee over the table.

The room was silent and Clover suddenly became aware of a lot of ponies looking their way. She winced, and mumbled an apology as she wiped up the spill.

“...The weather's nice today,” Dusty suggested.

“I am monopolizing the conversation again, aren't I?” Clover sighed. “I'm sorry, it's just – let's talk about something else. How was your day? When you weren't with me, I mean.”

“Oh, well, things are pretty much back to normal at the museum,” Dusty said. “After we threw out everything we kind of got flooded with offers from other museums wanting to sell us stuff they had in storage. Today we got a shipment of a hundred crates of rocky rubble that might be ancient pottery, or fossilized lifeforms, or tools, or trading goods, or masonry, or sacred relics, or...”

“Or it might be rocky rubble?”

“It's possible,” Dusty said, nodding thoughtfully. “It might even be likely.” His eyes lit up with enthusiasm as he went on. “Oh, and last week we got a very nice exhibit of millenia-old copper coins which had been inscribed with graffiti! Imagine the potential of that, a look into ponies' ordinary lives.” He shook his head wistfully. “The old owners didn't want to display them because it's mostly ponies calling each other dirty names. Somepony suggested that if we get any more of those we could open an exhibit about cursewords across the ages.”

Clover tried not to giggle, and failed, and as she slumped forward over the table she reached out a hoof and found his. They sat silently like that, and throughout Black Bean's the other customers returned to their own conversations.

Clover took a sip of her coffee cup and discreetly leaned in to him as she wiped her muzzle with a napkin. “Thanks again for helping earlier. I'm sorry it turned out the way it did.”

Dusty winced at the memory of the gas golem, but shook it off, and waved a hoof. “That's alright. I'm glad I could help.”

“This is nice,” she said, deeply inhaling the rich smell of their coffee. “It's nice to do something nice.”

“I can't argue with that,” Dusty said, and smiled at her, and she blushed and giggled like a little filly.

“I should do this more often,” Clover said, more to herself than to him. “I spend all my days working and talking to the professor. I should take more time to myself.”

He shuffled around the table to sit closer, and she rested her head on her shoulder. They finished their coffee like that, and when they left the building the sun was low above the horizon, the sky red and beautiful.

As they left, Clover wrapped her ankle around his, and looked up at him with a smile. She leaned in and pressed her lips to his.

Fireworks exploded in her head as he kissed her back, his arm resting on her withers, his leg wrapped around his neck. Time stood still, and she felt the warmth of his body pressing against her.

They broke off the kiss and stood like that for a while, holding each other. His hoof stroked gently through her curly mane as he looked into her eyes with a sly smile. “You're adorable.”

She drew in a deep breath and relished the sensation of him. “Thank you. Just, for being here. I needed that.”

“Anytime,” he said.

Regretfully, they broke apart and Clover trotted down the street towards Canterlot House 1, and she couldn't remember it ever being harder to go home.

That had been last night.

As the first consultation drew near, Clover paced anxiously back and forth, muttering to herself as she tried to think of everything that could go wrong.

She had not slept well that morning, and a dream had torn her into waking before the sun rose. Rather than lie there shaking or try to get back to sleep, she had gotten up, put on her cloak, and set about running down The List.

She had been at it for three hours as the appointed time approached, and she had done everything she had been able to think of. The break room was set up. The tea and biscuits were ready. She had placed a few conversation pieces in eye-catching positions, ones she was sure were not going to randomly activate and make a scene. The way to the room was clear.

Everything was ready except for one thing. On the verge of his first consultation, Star Swirl had locked himself in his private lab and Clover had not heard a sound from within.

The clock ticked another minute. Clover paced anxiously back and forth, muttering to herself. Occasionally she'd turn around, open her mouth as if to speak, then grimace, shake her head, and resume pacing.

Star Swirl watched her progress through a magic mirror from within his private lab, deep in thought. He pursed his lips unhappily and sighed. “Turn off.”

The mirror went from showing an image of the research hall to showing Star Swirl's reflection. He looked at himself critically for a while in silence.

“She just doesn't know when to stop,” he finally said, before turning to his prisoner.

The earth pony in the cage was lying flat on his barrel. His fur was drab and dry, its lustre lost to hunger and discomfort.

“Don't you think so?”

Glowing blue runes surrounded the cage. The pony pointed a hoof at them. “What are those things?”

“Bioarcanic sensors,” Star Swirl said. “Basic medical equipment, for measuring a pony's vital signs through magic. They are quite harmless, on their own.”

The pony drew a few deep, angry breaths. “You're not a doctor.”

“Technically I am,” Star Swirl said. “But yes, they are quite flexible. For instance, I am using them to measure your comfort levels. I want to know exactly how much I'm hurting you.”

The earth pony coughed weakly, rhythmically, in what might have been a grim laugh. “I hope that's very interesting for you.”

“Oh, it is.”

“You know, I heard about you,” the pony said in his weak voice. “I saw your posters when your student hung them up. Star Swirl the Bearded, the legendary wizard… the great wizard of Cambridle town. But they're all right about you, aren't they? You're just another monster.”

Star Swirl's face was still as stone as he watched the pony in the cage. “Yes, I suppose they are,” he said. “I'm choosing to do all of this, you know. I don't have any anger towards you. It might not look like it, but none of this is personal.”

The pony turned and met Star Swirl's eyes. “Please let me go.”

“No.”

He curled up into a ball, sobbing weakly. “I don't know what you want from me,” he whispered. “I haven't eaten in days… You won't even tell me what you want, and you just watch me slowly die.”

“Well. From where I'm standing I think I've been extremely patient with you.”

“She's losing patience with you,” the pony muttered. “Even your own student, she's coming to see it too… Everypony gives up on you in the end, don't they?”

Star Swirl's breath paused for the briefest moment before it resumed. “Yes,” he said, with just a hint of regret. “I've realized that.”

A bell rang in the distance. The wizard sighed. “Ah well, duty calls. I'll be back to check up on you again later.”

The pony curled up and rubbed his belly, sniffing and murmuring in pain. Star Swirl ignored him. He left the mirror and the pony behind him and emerged from the lab.

– – –

The first consultation provided interesting challenges.

Moments after the bell rang Clover had seen Star Swirl emerge quietly from his lab, and seal the door behind him. Clover had acknowledged him and headed to the front door while he went down to the break room. The two of them had not looked at each other or shared a word.

Clover had greeted the client with a smile: she was a mare in her late middle age, unicorn, pink with a short mint mane, curly, and glasses, round. Clover had taken her name, compared it to what she had put down on the schedule, and found it in order. Then, her mind racing, Clover had led her inside.

Clover had set herself multiple tasks for the meeting as part of her plan. She was going to take notes of the important points the client presented. She was going to keep Star Swirl on track if ever he came in danger of losing interest. She was going to provide any assistance he asked for, tracking down books or tools and keeping track of the schedule and the payment scheme. And otherwise she was going to fade into the background as a friendly presence while Star Swirl did his thing. She was going to make him look good.

He locked a pony in a cage in the private lab. He does not want to look good.

Clover bit the inside of her lip and put herself in the present. The client was talking.

“There is a monster behind the mirror,” she was saying in hushed tones. “My husband says it's nothing but every time I look in the mirror I can see it. It's not my reflection. It's something else, and every time I look at her I think she looks hungry. Hungry for – something. Something terrible.”

You can't think like that, Clover. This is your teacher you're talking about. He pretends otherwise but you know he cares about you. Maybe this is a test.

“Can you describe this reflection?” Star Swirl asked, his voice calm and confident.

Yeah, a test. Everything is a test with him. He never stops even when he really really should. No sensible pony would use other ponies like this just to make a point.

“—in her eyes, and when I move it moves just like me but just a split second later!”

Oh, who am I kidding. Star Swirl the Bearded knows no limits. It's a lesson, Clover! Don't try to teach him anything. He is the teacher and he will brook no argument, thankyouverymuch. He probably secretly arranged this consultation. The client is playing along to make me look foolish.

“—a tiny little echo for just a moment, as if she doesn't remember that reflections make no sound, and the colors—”

Well, Star Swirl, you are foiled: after all this time with you I am immune to embarrassment.

“Alright, and this seven-pointed star sigil you mentioned. Does it ever appear in the reflection?”

No, she couldn't be involved. I picked the letter myself, I set up the calendar. She must be an innocent bystander. Any moment now Star Swirl is going to get up and walk away with some dismissive remark that this is unworthy of his time. And some poor innocent pony is going to suffer for it. She may be just a poor old delusional woman but she deserves better than this, Star Swirl. It's downright cruel.

“Understand? You take the mirror down and sprinkle this powder around it. The gemini will flee into the dark gemstone of the amulet, and be trapped. I recommend you bring it back to me and I will dispose of it safely, but if you want to keep it as a memento it should be safe for the next thousand years. That's the expiration date for all the most reliable magic wards we are currently able to devise.”

Is the tea alright? Are the biscuits stale? Oh Celestia, she didn't say anything about the dowsing rod of Chief Black Crow, I knew I should have gone with the Jewel of Secret Whispers but I thought it was too flamboyant! The whispers would disrupt the conversation!

“Thank you!” The mare burst out in relief as she shook Star Swirl's hoof. “Thank you!

“Not at all, madam. Clover will show you out.”

Clover jolted into awareness as the two ponies looked at her. She blinked. “What?”

“Do take care of the bill and show the lady to the door, Clover,” Star Swirl said as he pushed himself out of his chair.

“Oh. Yes. Certainly.” She cleared her throat. “Follow me, please.”

– – –

Clover showed her first client out of the building with many nods and affirmative noises, and gently closed the door behind her before returning to her mentor with a stern countenance. She found him watering the plants and planted herself on the floor in front of him.

“I thought that went well,” Star Swirl said.

“Yes. It did.”

“So you see, all your worries were unfounded and now you can relax.”

“That's great,” Clover said, although she did not sound like she thought that was great. “Does that mean you're going to let Mister Sprout go?”

Star Swirl threw her a quick look before turning back to the plants as if nothing was wrong. “My research isn't finished yet.”

“Are you going to hurt him?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “I'm starving him, as a matter of fact, to see what happens.”

“Is your research on him? Or is it on me?”

He waited. She continued, “I try to help you. You don't seem to like it. The more I help you, the worse you get. I think you want me to hate you. I think you've set me up as some sort of challenge to be overcome.”

He turned and gave her a bemused look. “Not everything is about you, Clover.”

“I know you don't want to care what anypony thinks about you. But I think you care more about me than you want to let on.” She stepped closer and there was a hint of pleading in her eyes. “I'm tired of this, Professor. I'm asking you to please stop it. For my sake?”

Star Swirl said nothing, but turned away, looking uncomfortable with this line of questioning. Clover took another step forward. “Do you know, last night I had a dream? I was locked inside some kind of machine, and there were all wheels and pistons and claws. I was held in place, and you were outside. You were standing by a control panel, pressing buttons and telling me everything was fine as it started to move. There were whirring saw-blades that were going to cut me open. You're giving me nightmares, Star Swirl!”

There was a clatter as the watering can fell to the floor, and all the noise of the house fell silent.

“Clover,” Star Swirl said. “Listen very carefully because this is important. You are never to say that word in my house again. Is that understood?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Is. That. Understood?”

She blinked again, and shook her head. “I don't know what you're talking about. What did I say?”

He only stomped a hoof in response and turned away. Clover walked up after him. “Professor?”

He grunted and ruffled his cape, and stalked away. Clover ran after him, feeling her muscles tense as her confusion grew. “I don't understand why you're acting like this! This isn't like you! ...You can do good things, Star Swirl! You can bring so much light to ponies, I don't know why you fight it so!”

“Light?” Star Swirl snapped at her. “What part of Star Swirl the Bearded did you not understand? Eh? Is there something ambiguous about my outfit? Were the stars and the moon against a dark blue not enough of a hint? I am a dark wizard, Clover! What I do is dark magic, and sometimes that,” he pointed a hoof to the door to his private lab, “is what progress looks like! If you don't trust me with that then you have no future here.”

“Again with the trust issues!” Clover cried in frustration. “This isn't about trust, Professor! This is you going out of your way to sabotage yourself just when you have somepony, anypony who is willing to put up with you!”

“You think this is part of some grand plan? No, Clover, this is just what comes naturally to me. You wanted to be my student? Well, this is it. You are free to leave. I was always expecting you would.”

Clover glared at him. “I'm not going to give up on you.”

“Yes you will. It's only a question of time.”

They both fell silent, Clover looked at the back of her mentor's hat. She sighed softly, and shook her head. “I know you, professor. You're be better than this. Alright, you can be a bit grumpy sometimes. Maybe more than is strictly necessary for a simple misplaced pestle that could happen to anypony. But you've done so many great things, Star Swirl! You've brought so much light to the world! I don't want to hear you say you're a dark wizard! You're not evil.”

The temperature in the room seemed to shoot up. The air turned to a haze, and Clover felt her breath grow heavy.

“Go down to Saddle Arabia,” Star Swirl said, his voice heavy and ominous as Clover began to choke, her lungs refusing to accept the boiling air. “Go to the deep desert and stand in the open sands at mid-day.” He turned his head and glanced back at her and his eyes were full of darkness and rage. “Ask them how much they love the light.”

He cut off the magic and Clover gasped for the cool air. Star Swirl did not look, but only walked away, and left the building without a word.

– – –

Inside the private lab the pony in the cage watched the mirror intently, not moving, and saw the door slam shut.

– – –

Clover stood still and watched the door for what felt like a very long time.

Gradually she became aware that Canterlot House was utterly quiet, and felt more empty than she had ever known.

She was in the arboretum, beside a floral clock that told the time without turning or making a sound. There was a schedule for the day lying nearby which said that at that moment Star Swirl was tending to the plants. The chores waited, undone.

After what felt like an eternity Clover forced herself to move again. She quietly shuffled down the stairs to the break room, her tail dragging along the floor behind her. She brewed a cup of tea and sat down in her usual seat to drink it.

She pushed it to the side untasted, slumped over the table, and lay her muzzle flat on the cloth. “Good job, Clover,” she said. “That was… great. Just great. You really knocked it out of the park. He's totally going to listen to you now.”

On the table, a couple of feet away, there sat a small ethereal cube, its corners framed with precious metals seemingly supported only by thin air, in which was held a green leaf.

“Well, Mister Leafy, I guess it's just you and me now,” she said. “I hope you don't mind if I talk to you. Star Swirl is… away. I don't know how long he's going to be out. Or, if he's going to let me stay any more when he comes back.” She sighed. “Plus I kind of feel like talking to someone who listens for once. Maybe I should go find Dusty… But I wouldn't want to bother him with my problems all the time.”

She picked up the strange cube and examined it. “As far as I know I left you in the frozen North, so I guess the professor went and picked you up again sometime I wasn't looking. Sorry about that, I suppose.”

“That's okay,” Mister Leafy replied. His voice was soft and high-pitched, like a small child speaking very quietly.

Clover stared. “You can talk.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Magic,” the leaf said. “I don't know how it works. Mister Star Swirl the Bearded did it.”

“Of course he did,” Clover said. She picked the leaf up and held it between her hooves. “So you're a talking leaf… What's that like?”

“Lonely, mostly,” the leaf said. “There aren't a lot of talking leaves.”

“No, I don't suppose there are,” Clover said. She picked up the cube in her hooves and felt a strange resistance that felt something like holding solid matter. “I'll talk to you, if you like?”

“Sure. I'd like that.”

Clover bit her lip uncertainly. “So… why did the professor make you? If that's not too personal a question?”

“That's alright,” Leafy said in that same soft voice. Clover thought the leaf was used to not having his desires taken into account. “I think he was curious. He wanted to know about plants, and decided to talk to them. But something went wrong. I don't think I was supposed to know about the future.”

“...You can see the future?”

“Sort of. I don't really understand it. I don't really understand a lot of things. A lot of things are hard to understand when you're a leaf.”

“Well...” Clover spun the cube idly between her hooves. “Would you like to talk about it?”

“I don't get to talk a lot,” Mister Leafy said. “I'm not sure anyleaf would listen.”

“I'll listen.”

There was a silence while Clover waited for the leaf to find the words.

“All my sisters died,” said Mister Leafy. “Leaves live such a short time. I was supposed to die with them. That's what leaves are supposed to do. When we are born it's chilly, and we grow big and strong when it's hot, and we eat the heat and send it down into the tree, and the tree grows taller and thicker. Then it starts to get colder, and we grow old and frail. In the end we die when we see the ghosts of the true cold closing in around us. But Star Swirl the Bearded kept me alive, and gave me thoughts and words. I didn't want to die in the cold. I didn't want to disappear, leaving nothing, not knowing what it was all about. So he took me off my tree, and kept me alive and warm. We traveled the world together, and he showed me many different places. Sometimes I would think of my sisters, and I would get sad, and he would try to cheer me up. Sometimes he would get sad, and he would tell me things. He says the world is going to end in a great cold. A cold much worse than the ones that killed my sisters. A cold that might kill the tree itself… and if that happens, the sun will never come back.”

“The sun is out now,” Clover said, trying to sound encouraging. “It's not going anywhere. It's always going to be there.”

“That's not what Star Swirl the Bearded says. He says that sun is an impostor, and it's going to fail. He says the world is broken.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him alright,” Clover said. “That's… that's a really sad story, Mister Leafy. I'm sorry. It doesn't sound like you've had a lot of fun.”

“I guess not."

“Look. Have you ever thought about...” She paused, and tried to find her own words. “You don't have to stay with him, you know. You could go somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else?”

“Yeah. You don't have to stay with Star Swirl just because he made you. I'm sure the world is full of creatures who'd love to have a talking leaf around.”

“You really think so?”

“I'm sure of it,” Clover said. “Like a, I don't know, a gardener, maybe? Or a… tree… pony person? A forester? Somepony fun to be around, who'd make you feel appreciated.”

“I don't know,” Mister Leafy said. “I don't think most ponies could relate to a talking leaf.”

“Look – the world is huge and full of lots of different ponies. If you aren't happy where you are, maybe you should try to find somepony who appreciates you for what you are. I mean, Star Swirl is...” Clover's face fell at the thought of him. “You don't have to stay with him if you're not happy. Life is too short.”

“I'll think about it,” Mister Leafy said.

Clover nodded. “Mister Leafy? I'm sorry I didn't realize you were alive before. I'm… not a very good friend, apparently. I'd like to help everypony, but apparently I just make a mess of it. So I'm sorry.”

The leaf was silent for a moment before replying. “That's okay.”

“I'm not sure it is. But thanks for saying so.” She got up from her chair. “I'm gonna go for a walk, I think. Try to clear my head. Just… think about it, alright? You never know unless you try.”

“I hope you feel better,” the leaf said.

“Yeah,” Clover said, thinking of Dusty. “I think I will.”

– – –

I guess he'll be at the museum at this time of day, Clover thought to herself as she wandered down past the Crescent Square Market. I hope he doesn't mind me bothering him during work hours. Maybe I should offer to get him dinner sometime, or to help him with his magic classes as thanks? He's been so generous with his time for me and I haven't done anything for him in return.

She smiled at the thought of surprising him with a nuzzle and a kiss before pulling him away from some dusty crate full of examples of Sumareian profane graffity to have lunch in a park somewhere, basking in the sunlight. She thought of the museum curator scowling in his direction as he ran out, old and bitter. She thought of her putting down a mark on her schedule, having to call in some other student to take his shift on the spot, disrupting some other pony's day. She thought of Dusty getting fired from his job and knowing it was her fault.

Her trot slowed to a walk.

Maybe I shouldn't bother Dusty with my problems all the time, she thought. I know he doesn't seem to mind. He's always kind and keen to listen to me. But I only just met him and all I do is complain. What if he starts thinking I'm always miserable and doesn't want to spend time with me any more?

I can be cheerful. I just need to find something more upbeat to talk about. Something that doesn't have to do with Star Swirl.

Except I don't do anything except work with Star Swirl.

Maybe I can tell him about our adventures. Some of the parts that aren't so weird. Or horrible. Or completely outside of an ordinary pony's conception.

...I guess that doesn't leave very much, does it.

I guess I can tell him the story about the black rat.

She sighed heavily as she walked.

Maybe I am taking advantage of him. Maybe I'm just making him feel bad by asking him for answers to problems he can't possibly answer, and telling him about things we've done that nopony else can share.

Maybe I can listen to him talk instead. Maybe if we do things together we'll get other things to talk about. Things we did together.

But my schedule is so busy these days.

Maybe I should cut back on things. I need to spend time with other ponies. Otherwise Star Swirl will turn me into a copy of him.

Maybe Star Swirl really can't be fixed. Maybe I'm a fool for trying. Maybe all this studying is a waste of the best years of my life.

She arrived at the Cambridle Historical Museum and looked up at its haughty facade. Put the unhappy thoughts away, Clover. It's time to meet the ponies.

The doorpony looked down at her from atop the shallow staircase before the front door. He was wearing a brand new uniform jacket with shiny new buttons that were definitely not priceless historical artefacts, and he did not look very happy about this. “Good day, miss,” he said, without enthusiasm.

Clover flashed him a friendly-apologetic smile. “Hi! I know I'm banned from entering the premises, but could you tell Dusty I'm outside? I'd like to talk to him.”

The door pony looked at her suspiciously, then shook his head. “Dusty isn't here today. He didn't come in to work.”

“What?” Clover asked.

She was interrupted by the voice of Ginny the Librarian directly behind her, saying, “I'll take it from here, sir. Clover? Come with me, please.”

Clover turned to see the elderly mare just as she was laying a hoof on her shoulder and guiding her away from the museum. “What's the matter?”

“Quiet,” Ginny whispered. “There are ears everywhere.”

They trotted silently away from the museum, Clover feeling increasingly lost, until Ginny grunted in affirmation. “This will do. I need to talk to you. Are you alright? Has anypony hurt you?”

Clover was taken back by the urgency in the old unicorn's voice, and reflexively opened her mouth to say 'I'm fine', but the words didn't come out. She turned a sharp eye on the librarian. “You know I'm perfectly happy to chat with you, Ginny, but this is kind of a bad time.”

“It's important,” Ginny said, looking over the young mare. “It has come to my attention that there are rumors spreading in town that say some rather ugly things about you. Are you sure you're quite alright?”

Clover sighed. “Is that all? Yes, I'm fine. I've heard all the names. Black-hearted apprentice of the mad wizard and so on. Screw those jerks.” Ginny frowned, deep in thought as she looked over the young mare. “What's the matter? They're always doing that. I'm fine.”

“It's not quite so simple,” Ginny said. “You're quite prominent in the student circles at the university for being Star Swirl's apprentice. Not just among students either: the faculty keep very close tabs on you. One of them offered me a rather shady piece of gossip in exchange for digging up a book from one of the deep stacks. Have you heard about the Brotherhood of Elta Belta Pony?”

Clover thought. The EBP was one of the dozens of fraternities that littered the Cambridle dorms, recruiting impressionable young stallions and getting them drunk and disorderly. As if they need any help. “Sure. What about them?”

“They've taken notice of you,” Ginny said grimly. “There is a wager going. The entire brotherhood has chipped in. Two full years' worth of tuition at the university to the first pony who manages to seduce you.”

Clover felt her stomach lurch. “Oh.”

“Apparently the bet has been on offer for some time. But it was only a little while ago that one pony stepped up to be the first to try.”

Clover suddenly felt very empty, as if her internal organs had been sucked away and she was a paper shell. She heard herself say “oh.”

“I am keeping an eye out for him, but it seems he just left town,” Ginny said, peering around suspiciously about her. “The Brotherhood doesn't want to talk about him… I will make them talk. I am a librarian. I have ways of getting information.”

Clover said nothing.

A clock tower rang the hour in the distance and Ginny cursed under her breath. “I need to get back to the library. The Litany of the Scriptors is about to begin, and I must attend it lest the words of errance escape into the world. Go back to your teacher's house. I'll come speak to you again as soon as I can!”

Clover barely nodded in response and Ginny galloped down the street towards the Cambridle University Library.

Clover watched her leave. She stood there unmoving for a full minute before she turned and started walking down the street with unsteady steps, not looking where she was going.

Oh.

So.

Right.

Yeah.

Clover wandered slowly through Cambridle, counting the cobblestones underneath her, while memories of the time she spent with Dusty ran through her head.

And it was all lies. Celestia I am an idiot.

Good job, Clover. You thought a colt liked you? You should have known that was too good to be true.

The images of past few days played before her eyes. The laughs, the conversations. The two of them clinging to each other on the rickety staircase. His pretty face, his really big eyes.

She remembered how he had made her feel, and felt nauseous.

I got suckered by some EBP cad. Because they thought it would be fun to mess with the mad wizard's outcast student, the one who wears a stupid cloak made from repurposed bark and jungle vines, and I never saw it coming. Because I spend my time studying magical principles and theories and lose sight of ponies.

Because of Star Swirl. Because I got sucked into his orbit and started following his path.

I tried to help him. I only wanted to pull him up and show him what he could be if he allowed it. He could be a great hero! He could be in charge of the whole university if he would just work with ponies instead of against them!

He destroys everything he touches. I'm just another point on the long list of his casualties. Why did I think I was going to be different? Eh, Clover Cordelia? What makes you so special? Why did you think you would be exempt?

It wasn't his fault. He didn't do anything with Dusty. He was right about Dusty from the start, and it was me who didn't see it. He tried to chase Dusty off from the start, doing that ridiculous overprotective father thing.

Does Star Swirl the Bearded really think he's a father figure for me?

He tried to protect me, didn't he? And I didn't take his advice. I've been trying to pull him out of his shell, but what in Tartarus do I know that he doesn't? Face it, Clover, you're useless.

“She's trespassing on Siblinghood territory,” a young mare murmured, but her companion shushed her. “I recognize her. She's a friend of the Hoof. Let her pass.”

That's what I get for trying, I guess. My parents were right. Star Swirl was right. Swirly Star was right too. I have no idea what I'm doing here.

I want to go home.

Not to Canterlot House. Home. In Whinnysor.

At least Platinum will be happy to see me, at least until I manage to disappoint her too.

She turned around and looked down the street, ignoring the banners and the signs, focusing on the barely-visible hill on the horizon, where, six blocks to the left, stood Canterlot House.

I just need to go back for one last thing.

– – –

In the house he had seized, a griffon moved his claws from one item to the next: a knife, a lockpick, a piece of light-weight armor, a rune-inscribed stone, a sigil. At each one he would verify its qualities: brittle, rigid, flexible; sharp, polished, reflective, matte, smooth, sticky.

One by one his tools were judged, and found ready.

Four times he had killed his target before the target knew he was there. A little prick, and then nothing.

When he reached the sigil he would halt, and begin to recite an incantation under his breath. Then he would continue with his tools.

He had been offered the throne of the Griffon Emperor, by nobles who thought he cared only for trinkets and treasure: who thought they would wield the power, while he faced all the danger.

There are many ways to kill a wizard. Speed, force, treachery, circumvention. He had used them all.

He often found it was very useful to be seen as a dullard with a very specific skill-set. It was good publicity, for one thing: the kinds of individuals who wanted to hire a professional assassin were often reluctant to work with anyone more clever than themselves.

The life and history of griffonkind rang in his thoughts, the chain and consequence of every scheme. His employers would be surprised he knew them. Every creature who thought they knew him would be surprised at many things about him.

Once the target had looked into his eyes as he died, covered in blood, and he had seen the spirit leave his gaze, had watched the moment the magic went still, and returned to where it had come from.

The Emperor's throne beckoned to him, and he began to recite the names of those he had killed as the sigil spun in his claws.

The hour struck, and silently he rose on his eagle talons and lion's paws. He put his protective pads on, then put on his overcoat with many pockets, and he put every weapon and tool in its special place until they were all vanished from sight, and every one within easy reach.

He calmly emerged from the house, and walked casually down the street towards Canterlot House.

Star Swirl the Bearded's home stood empty, aside from one pony in a cage. Every security feature had been uncovered, every trap spotted.

The griffon took the key from the mail box and unlocked the front door, and entered as an old friend, his knives flashing in the sunlight.

Chapter 15: Practical Applications - Prism

Come with me, for a while, and see the world as Star Swirl the Bearded sees it.

Nine hundred and seven years, five months, twenty-eight days and eight hours.

It is a time that calls itself morning.

It’s a poor substitute: there has not been a true morning for many decades. But it will do.

End rest cycle. Commence waking cycle.

Canterlot House currently contains four sentient lifeforms, eighty non-sentient animal lifeforms, two hundred and ninety-one living plant and fungi lifeforms. Microscopic lifeforms, macroscopic lifeforms, metascopic and transscopic lifeforms are all within normal parameters.

Current experiment count: fourteen.

Current experiment count that Clover knows about: eight.

Body check: all components are functioning normally.

Mind check: Consciousness at 99.9985% efficiency over four iterations running in semi-parallel.

Senses #1-13 functioning normally, senses #14-16 are held in reserve, and sense #17 is grounded for bad behavior.

Mind cages 1-4 are secure and sealed at full power. The forces bound within them are securely contained, and any suggestions from them to destroy everything can safely be ignored.

Mind cage 5 is still empty. Note to self: find out what happened to its inhabitant (priority: Low).

Decay in the laws of physics and magic since yesterday: marginal.

Open your eyes. Examine immediate surroundings. Immediate surroundings appear normal.

Stand up. Examine hat and robe. The comfort and protection enchantments are holding steady within the fabric and the stitching. The bells are still anchored and mobile, with their alarm spells active. The sequins are still content.

Schedule for today:

Eat breakfast.

Torture the test subject in the high-security lab and see what happens (ongoing).

Appointment with Clover's first client. Assist her as far as teaching permits.

Debrief Clover and review the lessons of the appointment.

Eat lunch.

Prepare for impending assassination attempt (ongoing).

Mail check. Compose a reply to the crystal researchers in the Zebrican diamond mines about their latest findings.

Eat dinner.

Stellar cartography (ongoing).

Sleep.

Schedule does not appear to have been sabotaged overnight. Schedule approved.

I commence with the plan for the day. The break room and I approach one another until we meet, and I make my porridge. I sit down to eat.

Clover is not here. She has been fussing over her plan for this appointment all 'morning'. She cares far too much.

Her reasoning for this scheme of hers makes no sense to me. While I try to teach her the great nature of magic on the grandest scale, she remains myopically focused on very small things, like ponies. Not even ponykind as a whole, but individual ponies. As if the world will be changed by her persuading one pony at a time that their lives can be improved by a simple application of unicorn spellcraft.

I try to get her to think bigger. But now she is running around upstairs, exhausting herself to make a good first impression on a pony she may well never see again.

She doesn’t listen. The more I push her, the more she pushes back.

I don’t know what to do about her.

Once I fought an assassin with a mind-spell. The moment he entered my home his thoughts were not his own, and he saw himself fight a mighty battle that exhausted all his skills and all his tools before it ended, in victory. He saw my broken body lying beneath him, and my magics begin to crumble. I observed him quietly as he left, never looking behind him.

He returned to his clients in triumph, expecting to be given a king's ransom. He was never heard from again.

I did not intend for that, and I informed his clients of my displeasure in a memorable manner. I doubt they would be so foolish again. Nonetheless. I won't do that again.

Upstairs, I hear Clover move a table two feet over, groan in frustration, and move it back. That table likes to hold crystal constructs, but it does not like to display them. Attempting to make it do both will only make it resist.

After so many years I find myself playing teacher to a young pony who is not fit for nor aware of the task before her. I am unsure she ever will be. When I try to teach her she instead tries to persuade me to speak more to other ponies.

This is not sensible magic.

I finish my breakfast, and enter the high-security lab. There is work to be done, even if there is no point in doing it.

The cage is holding. The magical sensors report nothing out of the ordinary, and the suppression field prevents the test subject from reaching outside the cage with any form of magic he may possess.

I designed this cage to hold creatures made of pure aether, after an unfortunate encounter in the Umbra persuaded me of the need for such. It took me years to locate sufficient quantities of Hadium to complete the design. The calculations alone were the work of a doctoral dissertation.

I feel pride flow into my mind, and banish it. It will not do to be anything but vicious here.

We watch Clover through the surveillance mirror.

Clover is getting on my nerves. I had hoped that this would put me in a proper frame of mind to torture the test subject. Instead I find that my heart is not in it, and we are both watching her through the surveillance mirror. She runs back and forth, trying to make Canterlot House hospitable, trying to make me popular. It boggles the mind.

What is she thinking?

This is getting me nowhere. “Turn off,” I say, and the mirror, keyed to obey my voice, goes black. “She just doesn't know when to stop.”

The test subject remains uncooperative. After days in the cage he is weak and growing increasingly desperate for his freedom. He begs me for his life. He pleads with me to let him return to his family. When he is not lashing out in pain and anger, he tries to find my weak points. Understanding now that I am not going to let him out, he tries to find some way to make me relent.

He is fighting for his life against a force he cannot understand. Nothing has prepared him for me, but he is not going to die quietly. Unlike me he is a complete innocent, only doing what is in his nature. Like a child. He appeals to my equinity and my compassion for my fellow ponies.

This is not going to work for him because I am not a pony.

“She’s losing patience with you. Even your own student, she’s coming to see it too… Everypony gives up on you in the end, don’t they?”

Yes. I’ve realized that.

Clover’s client arrives, and I leave the high-security lab for the break room. Clover leads her in, and upon seeing her I detect that she is under the spell of a Gemini spirit: a creature from beyond the world of mirrors who wishes to take the place of a pony. The effect is subtle, but it can be seen in the eyes.

Clover is not responding. She is nervous. Stage fright? I speak to the client, and she lays out all the clues. I wait for Clover to pick up on the signs and suggest the diagnosis but she does not.

No, of course she doesn't. Clover believes this is my client, not hers. She is not watching the client, she is watching me. She is afraid I am going to do something to ruin it.

The student believes she can teach the teacher. She believes she is going to open my eyes. She sees the world all wrong, and fights back against my lessons because she believes she needs to teach me.

She probably wouldn't even have a pony-sized Hadium cage in the high-security lab.

I ask the client about her recent history. She has not traveled anywhere, which means the Gemini must have been brought to Cambridle by somepony else. That is cause for concern, assuming the world doesn’t end tomorrow for other reasons, and once the current business is over I will investigate it. For now, I give her the amulet enchanted with the seal of binding, and explain how to use it. Clover says nothing. The client leaves.

I was once poisoned by a most ingenious method which evaded my safeguards from a distance of five hundred miles. The assassin almost succeeded in killing me. It took me months to track him down afterward, and every step of the way he had left behind traps in ambush to finish the job.

After that I covered my entire home in a permanent barrier to neutralize every deadly poison and venom known to ponies, griffons, and every other sapient race. Well, every one I could get hold of. The only exception would be the venom of an elder dragon lord, and none of them are known to exist at this time.

Perhaps I should look into the possibility. It is probably only a matter of time before one emerges, and when that happens some enterprising assassin may attempt to retrieve a sample.

Thank the heavens for the solitary nature of dragons. A dragon in alliance with any other creature would be a fearful foe indeed. Not since Belekos, the Jagged King held all dragons under his command has such a thing been seen, and those who stopped Belekos are

I go upstairs to meet with Clover. We speak.

Clover is unhappy with me. She is reaching her breaking point, and I don’t want to break her but if she does not withstand me then she will never get to where she needs to be. I need her to be stronger for what is to come. Someday she will stand upon the breaking point of the world itself, and it will be upon her that any hope of holding the world together will rest.

“I try to help you,” she says to me. “You don’t seem to like it. The more I help you, the worse you get. I think you want me to hate you. I think you’ve set me up as some sort of challenge to be overcome.”

“Not everything is about you, Clover.”

“You’re giving me nightmares, Star Swirl!”

Words are weapons. I have magical barriers that resist poison, cuts, and hammer-blows, but not words. Words derive their power from history, and without realizing it Clover stumbles upon a history that cuts and kills.

“Clover. Listen very carefully because this is important. You are never to say that word in my house again. Is that understood?”

She does not understand.

“This isn’t like you! You can do good things, Star Swirl! You can bring so much light to ponies, I don’t know why you fight it so!”

She thinks that darkness is evil and that bad dreams have another name. She thinks that light is good and that the sun is real. She thinks she believes in my inner goodness even as she curses me with words she does not understand. I cannot make her see and if I cannot teach her then the world is doomed to end in ice.

“You wanted to be my student? Well, this is it. You are free to leave. I was always expecting you would.”

She glares at me, and I see a hint of the strength that made me hope for her. “I'm not going to give up on you.”

But she does not understand.

It is no wonder she believes in the light. She has not been burned by it. She has not stared down the sun and seen it break. The Princesses are gone.

She is a pony, a thing that grows and lives and thrives and withers and dies, while I am a constellation, an imagined picture made up of imagined lines between points of light in the sky. I need her to see but she can’t or won’t and I can’t make her and we fight like ponies and we hurl bitter words at each other and she doesn't know the words even as she speaks them and she curses me even as she thinks she is being kind and I feel an old hatred waking and something hidden stirs within me and then

the

world

is

fire.

“Go down to Saddle Arabia. Go to the deep desert and stand in the open sands at mid-day. Ask them how much they love the light.”

I leave Canterlot House.

I command my blood to calm as I set out across the storied streets of Cambridle town. I let my thoughts flow outward while a dizzying array of spells and physical reactions collide within me.

It is a spring day and the sun is moving across the clear sky. Its passage is marked by the magical residue of the communal channeling by the Council of Horns in the Tower of Westmanester Palace, a hundred miles to the south. A gathering of 24 high-ranking unicorns who act in concert to move the sun and the moon across the heavens: a highly ineffective arrangement, but one which is the source of the Unicorn King's power, and for all its flaws it keeps one third of pony society functioning.

The Council of Horns is a desperate attempt to keep the mechanisms of the world moving without their power source, and strains those mechanisms as a result. Within a few centuries, if they continue in this fashion, the movements of the heavens will fail entirely. Night and day will lose all meaning. The fabric of magic itself will fray and unravel, and all matter will fall lifeless and flat.

It is a low priority, since there are many other things that will end the world long before then if they are not attended to.

The trees are blooming. Springtime means the plant armies are preparing to resume their seemingly-benign campaign of world domination. Every year hundreds of thousands of ponies are assaulted by biological artillery fire that assaults their eyes and muzzles, rendering them unable to fight, and yet ponies do not realize they are at war. Plants are unimaginative conquerors for the most part, incapable of devising any plan more sophisticated than “spread”. Yet they have been astonishingly successful.

The plants believe nopony realizes their game, but I am on to them, oh yes.

I wander through the streets of Cambridle, following the cobblestone patterns I know well from my youth, when I was only a student. I watch the ponies as I pass by, and they pretend not to watch me.

I have a spell that is half-written, which I have long since realized I will never complete. Even in its unfinished state it is the most powerful spell I have ever written. It has reached deeper than any spell before it, and has touched some part of magic that even I cannot comprehend.

A spell to set destiny itself back on its proper course.

I can take destiny apart, but it seems I cannot put it back together. I don't have what it takes. It speaks of a mind of many minds, and I do not understand it.

My hooves carry me along streets I walked a hundred years ago, when the only ponies who knew me were my fellow students. I cross the intersection of Mane Way and Saddle Road and see the memorial to the Great Ink Shortage. They credit me with using up all the ink in Cambridle, even though the shortage was caused by war rationing.

(Well, I may have taken slightly more than my portion. But really, the other students hardly even wrote notes.)

A sculpture crafted and a mock epic poem composed in honor of their desire to pin their grudges on the mad wizard of Edinspur.

These are the ponies Clover wants me to help. Thousands of ponies going about their lives aimlessly, with no greater purpose than themselves.

While I try to teach her, she finds herself a young stallion to swaddle up against. I don’t like him. He is going to break her heart someday. She is not strong enough. Not yet. Possibly never.

These are the ponies she wants me to grow closer to.

If they break her now, will she stand for them when the time comes?

When I was young I was at war with almost all the world.

I have seen creatures that these ponies would not dream of. I have faced monsters that would destroy everything. I have fought against creatures that would turn a pony against themselves.

I had an argument with a professor, and it culminated in the destruction of the university's oldest building, and a pony torn out of time.

I once stared down the Sphinx, and challenged her to destroy the very land beneath us, for there was no other way for her to defeat me.

I have uncovered secrets forgotten to the world, and pierced into the hidden thoughts of monsters. I have touched evil, and in so doing, allowed it to touch me.

I have traveled across the world seeking hidden knowledge and power, while they happily spend their entire lives in a twenty-mile radius from the house where they were born.

I do it to protect ponies. To protect them.

Why?

Because there are countless universes scattered across a space beyond space, linked together by a shared idea.

Ponies.

The universe cares for that idea. Believes in it. Every star is an eye, and those eyes are watching that idea unfold. Why?

Because on a little world beset by dangers there lives a little people, a people full of flaws and insecurities. They are petty and vain, foolish and short-sighted. They hurt each other, and they help each other, and they find troubles and they find happiness together. They fall and they crawl and they climb and in every last one of them is the possibility of completion.

They are weak and foolish and greedy and vain and ungrateful and interested in nothing but their own small pursuits, and they are the thing which matters most in the cosmos.

A people as full of potential as they are flawed, in a universe full of peril.

Because somepony needs to see that the idea can unfold.

Because there needs to be a world for her to return to.

I have hunted for the solution for decades. Through history. Through magic. Through diplomacy. Through music. Through time.

The Unicorn King. The Sirens. The spell I cannot complete. Clover.

Clover.

I failed Clover like I failed the rest. I can’t teach her. The gulf is too wide. I can’t carry her across.

“You could always kill everything and set the world back to where it began,” a thought in my head speaks.

It was possible that she could have set the world right again, back on its best course. But I could not lead her there.

I will fail Clover as I have failed everypony else. She did well, all things considered. But that's what happens when you ask the impossible.

Even if ponies survive, I am not going to live to see the return.

Somewhere in Cambridle there is an assassin plotting to kill me.

Maybe it's time to stop resisting, and let the Griffon King light the fires of war to consume the world again. Maybe that's better than eternal winter.

Nine hundred and seven years, five months, twenty-eight days, and five hours.

I will not live that long.

The false day is passing. An assassin is waiting to kill me.

I suppose this is as good a time to die as any.

I turn back towards Canterlot House, to take what comes.

– – –

The house is empty when I enter, except for a touch of fate.

Something is about to happen. The silence is watchful.

I step into the high-security lab, and that’s when I hear Clover’s voice call out to me, and I freeze.

Clover is lying in the cage alone, with a black eye, tears streaming down her face. She is shivering in the cold and clutching her cloak right around her.

“No...” I swiftly cross the floor towards her. “Where is Mister Sprout?!”

“He ran away.” Clover’s voice is quavering, afraid, with a hint of sob and stutter. “Professor, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have...”

I clench my teeth and storm around the cage, examining the spells. The cage is locked. The spells are unbroken. The only way the cage could have been opened was from the outside.

“What did you do?”

“I – I went into the private lab,” Clover’s voice said. “I know I shouldn’t have, Professor, but I was so upset, I wasn’t thinking straight! Or… that’s not true, I wanted to spite you. I went inside and I saw Mister Sprout in the cage, and...” She looks away, her face filled with shame and regret.

My own voice is harsh. “Tell me everything.”

She sniffs, and nods. “I saw him, and he begged me to let him loose. He looked so sick, and weak… like he was on the verge of passing out. He needed help. And I thought you were wrong about him. I’m sorry! I opened the cage and let him out.” She gave a grim little chuckle and touches a hoof to her black eye, wincing at the pain. “So much for sick and weak. As soon as he was out he attacked me, and threw me in the cage and locked me inside. Then he ran out and disappeared. He’s gone.”

I nod. “I'll catch him again.”

“I hope you do,” Clover says, a hint of anger beneath her pain. “You were right about him, professor. That wasn’t a normal pony. No earth pony could move like that, and his face…” She shudders.

“Describe him.”

“He had fangs, for starters. Big sharp fangs.” She gestures with her forelegs and the sight is comical in its disjunction to her surroundings. “But I don’t know, it all went so fast! One moment he’s lying there shivering in a pool of his own sweat and the next I’m pinned down on the floor, and my face is hurting all over and there’s blood in my mouth! And he’s dragging me by the neck and then he slams the cage shut and he smirks at me and he’s gone!”

“You directly disobeyed me, Clover. You know better than to tamper with experiments you don’t understand!”

“I know, I’m sorry!” she cries. “Please just open up the cage and get me out of here.”

“Hold on,” I said, and activated the magic runes. “I just need to shut down the sensory apparatus first to be safe. It will just take a minute… And while I have you in this position, Clover, we need to talk.”

“Professor!” she cried, then bit her tongue. “...Alright, fine. Look, I – I wanted to annoy you, alright? Because let's face it, you annoy me all the time. You annoy everypony you talk to. You think you're above it all but you're not, Professor. In the end I just couldn't stand it anymore. You hurt my feelings and you didn't care. So I wanted to hurt you back.” Her head dropped low in shame. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have. And… I'm not sure I can be your apprentice anymore, even if you wanted me to. Which I'm sure you don't. I wanted to be a sorceress so I could help ponies… But the more I stay here… I don't like the pony I'm turning into.”

There it is.

Sorrow. Deep, bottomless sorrow wells up in me. A sensation somehow both dull and sharp, cold and burning writhes back and forth along my spine, and I only barely cut it off before it reaches my face. “I think you should reconsider, Clover.”

“I want to,” she sniffed. “I really want to. But I can’t help you, Professor. I've tried long enough. I just can't do it anymore.”

She has the face of a puppy, so desperately uncertain of herself, so eager to please that I can't bear to stay angry at her. My leg begins to move almost of its own accord to flip the level to open the cage. “Please hurry, it's cold in here.”

The mirror is still where I left it. It activates by my voice, a simple magical design, and watches over everything in the building. The runes register Clover's magical signature, and nothing else. They tell me that she is miserable and in pain, and that the shift happened quite suddenly. There was a moment of magical interference, a magical violence, and then she was in the cage. It happened about an hour ago, while I was out.

“He was very clever,” I mutter, and she nods. It is a very expressive nod, full of spite. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t I?” she asks. “You tried to convince me, Professor. I just didn’t listen. I’m sorry.” She curls up, sniffing wetly, utterly miserable. “I guess I just had to disappoint you one last time, huh? I’m sorry… I guess we don’t make much of a team after all.”

It cuts. “Don’t talk like that, Clover.”

She doesn’t respond, only waits, shivering.

I take in the readings from the biometric scanners. The runes register Clover’s magical signature, unicorn magic, unique to her, and nothing else. Just as before they registered an earth pony’s magical signature.

“Professor?”

“Just a minute.”

“Professor!” She jabs her hoof against the cage and winces in pain as it clangs. Her face is streaked with tears. “Please stop joking around and get me out!”

“You're wearing that cloak. You know I keep telling you to throw that old thing away.”

“What?” Her face was perplexed. “Is this really the time for that, Professor?”

“It’s remarkable, really,” I said. “You look and sound exactly like her. You have her mannerisms down perfectly, even though you have barely seen her from a distance. You play on my emotions so skillfully, it’s like watching a dance. You have even copied her magical signature down to the microthaumic level, it’s a perfect match.”

I take a step back, take it all in. “Everything I have in this lab tells me that Clover is inside that cage… But you’re wearing that cloak. Clover’s cloak is enchanted. You didn’t know that, did you? Because those enchantments do not appear in my readings. Why is that?”

‘Clover’ is tearing up, her giant puppy eyes showing hurt and betrayal that her teacher is treating her like this. “Really now, you can’t continue pretending. Give it up.”

‘Clover’ stares at me in heart-wrenching sorrow. She bites her lip, and a tear trickles down her muzzle. Then, she begins to shake and shudder and wail in defeat and desperation.

She smashes her head into the floor, a damp fleshy thmack, and a sickly green light ripples across her form and there in the cage is a black, pony-shaped insect, jagged and warped. Its chitinous frame is pockmarked and scarred, gaping holes mark its legs and atop its head sits a horn that is bent and curved and uneven. Everything about it speaks of weakness, exile, decay. I see myself reflected hundreds of times in compound eyes that show only bitterness, cunning, and exhaustion.

The biometric scanners screech and whine, faced with measuring a signature that violates all the principles of biology known to ponies.

“Cooperate,” the creature says, and its voice is as jagged as its body. Its natural form is not suited for the speech of ponies. It reverberates with the sound of a dozen voices, and forms the word with difficulty.

“Very good,” I say. “From the beginning, then. Where is mister Sprout?”

Its throat clicks, and buzzes, and bubbles. “Nest.”

“And where is the nest?”

“Forest… Lake… Cave.”

“How many of you are there in this nest? Do not lie, for you will have ample opportunity to regret it.”

The creature makes a sound that may be a whimper, or may be a growl of defiance. “...Five.”

I nod, and quickly write a note on a sheet of paper, and teleport it across Cambridle to the city guard captain’s desk. I do not know what they will find there. With any luck my stern warnings to take no chances and bring overwhelming horsepower will suffice.

I turn back to my captive. “Now, you and I are going to have a long talk together.”

The creature hisses, showing fangs. “Release.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Cooperate!”

“Your kind has been a mystery to us for millenia,” I tell the changeling. “You will be made comfortable, so long as you remain cooperative. I'm sorry, but I cannot let this chance slip by.”

He whimpers and he turns in his cage.

I stand by the desk and prepare an ample supply of ink and parchment. “Let us begin.”

– – –

The machinery of the cosmos touches every star, every pony, and every grain of sand. It is all connected, and I listen to it as best I can.

The false sun is moved along its ragged course across the sky above Cambridle, a blind eye that looks down upon the world without seeing. A dozen endings slowly grind their way towards us, and I try to catch as many of them as I can.

Nine hundred and seven years, five months, twenty-eight days, and three hours.

After a long and fruitful discussion I leave the changeling behind and I exit the high-security lab. I have learned much about my captive and his tribe, and I have only scratched the surface.

There is always more work to be done.

I realize that the house is too quiet in Clover’s absence.

My heart sinks. She is the most important work of all, but I do not understand her.

I do not know where she is, or what she is thinking. Maybe she has decided not to come back.

Maybe it’s already too late. Maybe the end was already written long ago, and nothing I do now can change it. I cannot see the end of all paths.

There are no promises.

You can only do what you can, and hope to live long enough that it will come to something.

There is always more work to be done.

I cross the alchemy platform in the center of the hall to retrieve a thaumic spectrometer.

I only barely hear the tink of something hitting the floor directly behind me, and then the explosion.

Author's Note

Yes, as some had already guessed, he was indeed a changeling.

– – –

A song for Star Swirl.

From “Pyramid” by Jason Webley.

Tell me, Luna, what is coming down this river?
You’ve been watching so much longer now than I
Do you know, Luna, just what will this day deliver?
Does it work out tooth for tooth and eye for eye?

They started stacking up the stones the very day that you were born
No matter how you grew they would tower above
You could change your name, give up your home, and turn against your loved ones
But when you start your life anew does that long shadow follow you?

Who was it, Luna, that chose to resurrect you here for me, in scattered lines of poetry?
This distant, wistful girl I see reflected in your eyes?
Forgive me, Luna, all the ways I am mistaken, all the liberties I’ve taken
I projected you in costumes I don’t think were quite your size

Now here I’m climbing up these stones a thousand years from where you were born
Looking for a song that could take me to you
I have traced these roads, have seen your home in ruins, long forgotten
But you were not inside
You found a better place to hide

And tell me, Luna, when I’m gone, what will I want?
To be left at the bottom of a garbage bin, dusted off, and pulled up onto stage?
Will it please me when someone lights a candle and says my name?
Will I say leave me in my pyramid, blow out the flame and close the lid
The story’s done, why can’t we turn the page?

Chapter 16: Practical Applications - Null Hypothesis

The assassin waited.

His entire life had been building towards this moment. He had spent years studying unicorn magic, and in particular its limitations. He knew of a dozen different ways of disrupting workings both active and dormant. He had ways to hide himself and his tools from searching spells as well as searching eyes.

Now he stood upon the threshold of immortality.

He had entered Canterlot House undetected by either spell or pony, and prepared to kill the most powerful unicorn of the past three centuries.

He clung to the ceiling, powerful talons sunk into the wooden beams, hidden in the shadows of the architecture, and he waited until the wizard had emerged from the hidden chamber and passed by underneath him.

He dropped a nullstone directly in the wizard’s wake. Then he released his grip, falling soundlessly towards the wizard, and shattered it.

The stone erupted and threw the magic around it into an unresponsive chaos, paralyzing all active unicorn magic and rendering any unicorn unable to cast while he remained within the field. There was a knife in his claw, its blade black with a special coating, and with a swift and graceful motion he slashed at the wizard's exposed neck.

The blade passed clean through the empty air where the unicorn had been.

The griffon barely registered the glow of magic to his side, and fell to the floor just in time for the magic blast to pass above him. He shifted his stance, and sprang up at an erratic angle, a flap of wings sending him flying around and below the blasts that loosed all around him.

With one claw he shifted three small dark orbs out of a hidden pouch and threw them at the unicorn. When they struck the floor they erupted in a thick cloud of smoke. Star Swirl immediately conjured a gust of wind to clear them away, but the assassin was nowhere to be seen.

Tiny knives shot through the air and cut through the wizard's robe, followed by a slash along his side that he only barely avoided. Star Swirl turned and fired a blast of magic at the swift figure, but he was already gone.

Star Swirl closed his eyes and activated his magic, feeling for the presence of the intruder across the building. He found nothing.

The nothing turned to a rippling movement in the air that moved towards him from behind, and Star Swirl raised a shield to block it.

The shield barely slowed the griffon down, and Star Swirl only just dodged a strike before teleporting away to the next platform and firing a blast of magic at the assassin.

The griffon stepped backward into the nullstone’s bubble of magic static just as the magic blast struck it. It dissipated, scattering into a score of feeble flashing lights that spiraled outward at random angles before fading into nothing.

Their eyes met from across the hall.

Star Swirl watched the assassin coldly, looking over his great red leather coat with its many places to hide many tools and weapons. “So. You're finally here then.”

The griffon smiled confidently. “Compliments of Griffon King Blaze.”

Star Swirl took a few steps to the side, watching the griffon all the while. “Your masters have tried this many times. I have sent them all back in failure. You think you are any different?”

The griffon took a few steps in the other direction. He glanced left and right, taking in his surroundings as he moved, ready for any trap. “You have no idea what I am, old goat.”

“You flatter yourself. I know exactly what you are.”

The griffon chuckled. “We will see.”

Star Swirl sniffed. “What sad dregs of the Empire has the King dredged up to fight his battles for him this time, hm? What is your name, assassin?”

One step, and an item went invisibly from a pocket into his claw, held loosely but safely by the tip of a talon. “You will be dead soon enough, old goat, so it hardly matters.”

Star Swirl raised his head. “Indulge me.”

“No.”

“Then I shall call you Pin,” Star Swirl said. “What is it you want, Pin? Glory? Revenge? National pride? Or is it simply money?”

“Just money,” Pin said lightly.

Star Swirl pondered it for a moment, and shook his head. “I doubt that. Mere greed would not lead you to put yourself in harm's way like this. I think there's something else.”

“Believe what you want, if it pleases you in your last moments.”

Another step, and his other claw closed around a smoke bomb. He quietly shifted his weight, his muscles tense, prepared to strike.

Star Swirl scowled at him from across the hall. “This is nonsense,” he muttered. “Look at you. You’re barely more than a hatchling chick. You can’t kill me. Abandon this folly before I have to hurt you.”

The griffon’s arm was a blur as he leapt. The smoke bomb bounced from a pillar to a table to the floor, back and forth, small and swift, before exploding directly under the wizard's muzzle. Then, faster than the wind, the griffon swept up under the cover of the smoke with a knife in one talon and swiped. The unicorn dodged to the other side, where the other talon was waiting with a metal ring that swiftly clamped down on his horn.

The suppressor locked, blocking the flow of magic. The griffon grinned triumphantly as he moved in for the kill. Star Swirl took one step back.

There was a glow on his forehead: not from the horn, but directly beneath it, something under the pony's skin. It reached up to the base of the horn, to the underside of the suppressor, along its perimeter.

The suppressor made a high-pitched squealing sound as it snapped in two, its parts smoking. Immediately the blocked magic manifested as a jet of fire bursting out from Star Swirl’s horn, and the griffon spun backwards through the air to avoid it.

His claws sank into the wood of the wall, holding him in place as easily as on the floor.

“That was skillfully done,” Star Swirl admitted. “But that is not good enough.”

“There were rumors,” Pin whispered. “I had wondered if they could be true.” He dropped to the floor and spread his wings in a gesture of defiance. “But I’m just getting started.”

Star Swirl sighed. “So petty. So proud… Maybe I will die someday. But not today, and I won't die for your little greed.”

His horn glowed powerfully, a mixture of black and pale grey like clouds passing the face of the moon at night. He willed his magic to seize Pin and slam him into the wall, to strip him of his tools, but found that it was like trying to catch a fish between his hooves. The griffon effortlessly slipped away, and maneuvered around him.

He lowered his head and fired a blast from his horn. Pin easily jumped out of its path and soared across the hall, more blasts trailing behind him.

For a split-second they were head on, Star Swirl fired a blast directly at Pin's face, and Pin sent a knife directly at Star Swirl. The two projectiles met mid-air, and the magic blast split cleanly in two halves, each heading wildly off-course while the knife flew straight towards Star Swirl's face.

At the last moment there was a blur as Star Swirl raised a thin metal tray in front of him as a shield. The knife’s tip slammed through it, but it stuck.

Once again there was silence, and the griffon was nowhere to be seen.

Star Swirl turned the tray and examined the knife. “I see… Coated with a chemical that repels and disrupts unicorn magic… That’s a rare compound.” His eyes narrowed. “Nullstones, magic-negating bindings in your coat… You've specialized, Pin. You’ve specialized in killing unicorn wizards. Who are you really?”

High above the unicorn wood crunched as powerful claws clenched tight around it. “I’m the griffon who’s going to kill you.”

The pony’s ears turned as he tried to pick out the sound of soft pads stalking him from above. “Nullstones are expensive and hard to craft… They are not an effective weapon in most circumstances, and difficult to use properly. Your masters must have great faith in your abilities if they have invested so much in you.”

“They do. It is well-placed.” The griffon dropped back down on to the floor, no longer in hiding, and smiled confidently. “You might as well just lie down and bare your throat already. Your magic can't hurt me. And without that, what are you?”

Star Swirl took hold of a ceramic jar and hurled it at the assassin. Pin dodged it easily, and it smashed into the wall behind him, shattering into a thousand shards.

A cloud of the shards came to life and shot at the griffon from behind him like countless razor-blades. The first wave cut through his coat and gashed his arm, and then he was gone, diving behind a table of lens-making equipment, sending it crashing around him. Then he was in the air flying high under the shadows of the ceiling with dizzying speed.

Nullstones struck the floor around Star Swirl and exploded, one, two, three, cutting him off from the stairs off the platform. Smoke bombs filled the air, limiting his vision further, and the magic systems that would normally automatically clear them out was blocked by the static.

Star Swirl glanced from side to side, watching pockets of space where the magic undercurrents of the cosmos had been casually scrambled. It blocked his vision, so invested in his craft, and would drain half of everything he was if he touched it. “This is all very quaint, Pin. But I have no patience for it.” His horn lit up and a beam shot upwards to activate Canterlot House's emergency defense system.

An explosion rocked the building from below, a bomb planted on the Hydra Engine in the basement. The blast knocked Star Swirl off-balance, and cut most of Canterlot House’s power. The lights of the hall flickered, and went off.

Star Swirl sighed. “Very well. It is a fight, then.”

The unicorn stepped forward, with a flicker of light there were six of him standing side by side. Their horns glowed and prepared to lay down a blanket of magic fire.

A flurry of knives ripped through them, and all six vanished into nothing.

The griffon closed his eyes, focused, grinned, and threw another knife to his left, where it cut through the illusion concealing the unicorn, cut through the hair on his cheek and left a red streak behind it.

All across the hall carefully-calibrated precision tools rose up in the air and were hurled against the griffon. Pin moved like a dancer between them, always with a confident smile on his face, effortlessly leaping great distances. He snatched an object from the air and threw it back at the wizard, followed by a flurry of knives and a smoke bomb.

Star Swirl held up an alchemical pot as a shield to block the knives, and let the bombs hit the floor. More nullstones dropped in strategic places, limiting his movement across the hall.

Star Swirl slowly stepped forward, and suddenly found his hooves would not move. One of the smoke bombs was not a smoke bomb: there was something on the floor that glued him in place, and a gust of wind whipping at his face.

The griffon was directly in front of him. He held something in his claws, and it strained against him unnaturally. It was shaped like a bird, but there the resemblance ended. It was black as a hole in the world, and the noise that emerged from its beak attested to something vicious and unliving. It defied space, appearing somehow immeasurably vast and distant even as it was held in a claw not ten yards from the unicorn. The sight of it reached far along Star Swirl's spine and dragged out primordial fears that would paralyze a pony in their steps.

It cawed and shrieked a cry from another world as it flew towards the unicorn, and he only barely managed to teleport away from its path before it struck him.

It flew into the shadows, and disappeared back to whatever hole in time it had come from, leaving behind it only an echo of ancient sorrows.

Pin was silent for a moment, stunned. He blinked, and made a sound halfway between a groan and a giggle. “I didn’t know if that was going to work,” he said.

Star Swirl’s mouth hung open, his eyes wide. “You are dangerous,” he said, his voice low and grim. “Oh yes, I know, you're an assassin. But you have no restraint. You throw about forces you cannot control or comprehend as though they were toys. You are not a professional. How desperate must your masters be to place their faith in you!”

Pin shook his head. “The old ways are dead,” he said. “This has been building for a long time, old goat. You can’t stand in our way forever. The old guard failed, and when I bring back your head they’ll see what the future holds!”

“I have known ponies like you,” Star Swirl growled. “Filled with dreams of slaughter and glory, blind to all consequence. You think that when the world collapses, you will be left standing atop the rubble?”

“Foolish pony,” Pin said. “I have wings.”

There was a gust of wind that whipped at Star Swirl’s face, and then the griffon was gone. Star Swirl scanned the area, but pockets of arcane static blocked his vision in every direction, amid smoke and wreckage. There were countless places to hide.

Star Swirl felt a magic flicker to life beneath him, and barely pushed his weight to the side just in time to avoid the minotaur-sized sword blade that stabbed up through the floor beneath him. It retracted and stabbed again and again. It cut through the thick timber floor as easily as water. It moved as though weightless, far faster than its size and apparent mass would permit.

Star Swirl sidestepped it each time, swaying and leaping between the bubbles of static and the rapidly-decreasing stable floor. A scrap of fabric fell from his cloak, a lone bell tumbling with a sad dink.

The griffon came up through the mangled floor in an explosion of splinters and feathers, swinging the huge blade wildly, but with each swing Star Swirl was somewhere else, just to the left or the right or below or an inch too far off.

After one swing Pin stumbled, and the massive sword fell to what remained of the floor with a heavy clank, no longer weightless or unnaturally sharp.

Pin slumped to the side and gasped for breath. “Somepony so old shouldn’t be so fast,” he panted. “You have some tricks, but you can’t keep this up forever.”

Star Swirl, meanwhile, also stood unsteadily, leaning against a fence. His breathing was also heavy and labored, with a touch of an old pony’s wheezing. He shook his head. “It would be a sorry thing indeed if I were to die to the likes of you.”

“Heh.” The griffon retrieved a small capsule from a hidden pocket, tossed it into his mouth, and cracked it open, releasing a pungent, murky fluid which he drank down. Immediately he rose up again, all signs of exhaustion gone.

Star Swirl’s eyes narrowed. Pin’s eyes were changing color, the veins thickening and darkening around his pupils.

The unicorn barely ducked back and out of the way as Pin launched forward even faster than before, his claws slashing at the wizard, tearing into his robe.

“Zebra rejuvenation potions,” Star Swirl said under his breath as he stepped backwards. “Minotaur weapons and enchantments, smoke bombs from Qilina, a corrupted Buffalo totem spirit… You just don’t know when to stop, Pin.”

The back of a claw slammed into the wizard’s chin, and he grunted in pain. Pin grabbed hold of the collar of Star Swirl’s robe, ignoring the magical fire that burned his claw in response.

“The world is changing,” he whispered in Star Swirl’s ear. “You can’t survive on your own. You need us! This is what it’s all about, unicorn! This is the difference between you and us. You have only your horn. You’re one-trick ponies. We have taken the best arts of every nation under the sun.”

Star Swirl pulled back just in time to dodge the next blow, his robe shredding as he tore out of Pin’s grip. A claw slashed across a pillar and scored ragged marks in the stone. “You know your little countries can’t survive,” the assassin said. “If we don’t protect you, someone else will conquer you. The world is growing more dangerous every year, and your little Unicorn King can barely hold his kingdom together. Ponies are divided, and weak. You know that. Sooner or later you’ll join us in the Empire, and once you do… we’ll have the sun as well. It will be safer with us.”

Star Swirl’s eyes met Pin’s, and the unicorn’s face was a mask of ash and steel. “That is not our destiny.”

A claw swiped at the wizard, and a hoof jabbed it, pushed it back.

“I know your kind,” Star Swirl said. “I have known griffons that are honorable and good. I have known ponies that are jealous and cruel. There is nothing new in you, Pin. Just the same old greed.”

Star Swirl backed into a railing, and the griffon was on him, his claws seizing on the pony’s throat.

“I know you as well,” the griffon said. “You're the last barrier. A relic of a world long gone, clinging to maps that no longer apply. With you gone a new world will dawn, and I will be her champion. The world will be owed to me!”

Star Swirl shook his head. “Your future is a phantom.”

“The future will be glorious. And I will see it brought to life!” A gust of wind and the griffon pushed forward, knife in talon, and they tumbled through the ruined floor and fell.

They were locked together, the griffon's claws on the wizard’s face, a hoof pressing against the assassin's windpipe. They crashed into a staircase beneath the platform, and toppled over its side at speed. They fell together, smashing into stone and metal machinery that left them bruised and beaten.

Finally they slammed into the side of a table and fell apart. The assassin had gouged Star Swirl’s face, over his right eye, and black smoke rose from the wound. As he watched, the flesh knitted itself together and closed the wound.

“You play with fire, griffon,” the wizard said. “If you mean to kill Star Swirl the Bearded you must be willing to give it your all.”

The griffon spat blood, his claws gouging marks in the wooden floor. “Hurricane should have killed you when she had the chance,” he growled. “You should never have been born. You’re not a bounty. You’re a mistake.”

Star Swirl smiled, and gave a deep chuckle. “Is that what they told you? That she had a chance?”

That was when the unicorn heard a sound and felt his heart fall in his chest.

Up above them, the front door opened, and Clover came inside.

– – –

Clover knew what she would do when she came home to Canterlot House. She would have a final meeting with Star Swirl, and tell him she was leaving. She would pack up her things, clear out her desk, and move out. And she would return to her old dorm room and deny herself until she had to face the fact that all she had learned since she began was how utterly inadequate she was, and how little prepared she was to deal with the world.

Clover did not know what she would do when she came home to Canterlot House, not really.

She stared, dumbstruck, at the carnage that had consumed the building since she left.

The lights were mostly out, flickering dimly, leaving the hall lit only by the sunlight from the balcony on the far side. The laboratories were trashed. The remnants of tools and equipment lay strewn about the floor, books tossed haphazardly to the floor, shards of glass and pottery everywhere. The atmosphere of Canterlot House, the steady but low white noise of background magic she had grown accustomed to over her time there, was gone.

Her stomach lurched, and her thoughts, already struggling to keep up with her day, took on a more frayed edge.

“Oh sweet Celestia...” She whispered the words to herself, then stepped forward through the wreckage and called out, “Professor! Are you here?”

She heard and saw two things at the same time. One was a crackle in the air and burst of magical light as Star Swirl the Bearded materialized on a platform ahead of her. The other was something erupting from the lower level at the speed of a cannon ball. There was a flap of great wings, and it grew immensely in her vision, and before she knew what was happening it had fallen on her.

“Stop!”

She felt the weight of his body on top of her, bigger and stronger than her by far, her legs threatening to buckle under. She felt the claw grab her mane and pull her head sharply backwards, the pain tearing along her scalp. She felt something cold and sharp press against her throat, and a raspy voice was saying “move and you die”. Her chest was too tight for her to breathe, her heart beating like it was going to explode, and her legs were weak and frozen, too terrified to tremble.

“Now then,” the voice from right behind her ear said loudly, “here is what is going to happen! You, old goat, are going to slowly take your robe off and throw it down the side. Not with magic, with your hooves. You are going to lower your guard and deactivate your defenses. No sudden moves. And if I see the slightest hint of glowing from either of you, I'll slit her throat. Is that clear?”

Her teacher was standing a short distance in front of them, stunned. Clover did not believe she had ever seen him shocked to silence before. Her mind was going foggy.

“What’s it going to be, professor? Her? Or you?”

The world held its breath and the background hum of the universe fell silent as it waited.

Star Swirl the Bearded’s mind raced.

I can teleport her away from him in 0.7 seconds. He will see me use my magic and cut her in 0.5, and she will rematerialize bleeding, and the coating on the blade will stop me from sealing the wound.

There is a splinter of wood three yards to his right. If I grab it and fire it at his claw he will have to drop the knife and it will take 0.8 seconds longer than it will take him to cut her.

He has more of the smoke bombs in a pouch in his belt. If I concentrate then I can detonate them and the smoke will distract him just after he cuts her.

I can blind him and it will take 0.4 seconds too long.

I can force my way into his thoughts and make him believe he has killed her already, but he will have killed her already.

I can collapse Canterlot House on top of us. He will have plenty of time to do whatever he pleases.

In a fraction of a second he ran through another hundred options in his head, all of them with the same result.

Star Swirl the Bearded saw the world crashing down in front of him.

I can't stop him.

I can't let him hurt her.

I am out of ideas.

You win.

Clover felt the knife against her skin, brushing under the hair of her coat. She was watching her mentor intently, and in between the beats of her heart pounding in her ear, she saw his eyes close, his head slowly drop, and nod, just once, in surrender.

“Good… Good.” Pin shifted his balance ever so slightly, and Clover shuddered at the sharp pain as her mane was pulled. “Now you can just lie down and die like a good pony, and I'll go back to my employers, and your pretty little student can go on with her life without you. Take off your robe and go stand in the—”

Dead silence. Clover waited for the knife to slice into her throat.

Instead the knife fell to the floor with a clatter. Pin’s claw loosened its grip on her mane, and Clover, no longer held in place, pulled loose and ran away and behind a nearby table. Then she turned and looked at the griffon.

Pin stood unmoving, his eyes wide and full of terror. His muscles bulged, tense and fighting to move but unable to budge. A choking sound emerged from his open beak.

Star Swirl raised his head, and turned his eyes on the griffon. When he spoke it was with a voice that was not his own. The voice was the sound of continents colliding, of bedrock grinding to dust, and the thing that looked out from behind his eyes was not the pony Clover knew.

“You are right, Pin,” the voice said. “There are other powers in this world than unicorn magic.”

The thing that was Star Swirl raised a foreleg and the griffon moved in jags and shudders. He rose up in the air, not by the force of unicorn magic or his own wings but simply in defiance of nature. The griffon’s leather coat ripped open, and all his weapons poured out and fell to the ground in a clatter of metal and glass and chemicals. His every muscle strained, unable to move, as if in the middle of a seizure.

The wizard stepped forward towards Pin. “Before you were born, I watched great kingdoms crumble and die. I hunted knowledge under the stars, and under the earth, and under the branches of forgotten trees. All my life I have searched in the dark places for answers that others would not dare to seek. I have seen things you cannot imagine, and have stolen their secrets and their powers for my own. But you.”

Star Swirl’s face contorted into a monstrous parody of the stallion Clover knew. “You come into my home, seeking to start a war. You throw about your little toys and tricks, oblivious to the consequences. You threaten my student.”

Her teacher was changing before her eyes. A ripple ran under the skin of his weathered leg that no pony muscle could imitate. His coat turned dry and matted, his body shriveling up and wasting away to little more than skin and bone. His eyes were dark and red, and his lips curled back to show teeth that were turning to fangs.

“You think yourself a hunter in the night, that all things fear?” The wizard asked mockingly. “I am Star Swirl the Bearded. Every frightful thing that walks in darkness knows me, and whispers my name to their young.”

There was a gust of breath, and a ripple of motion as Star Swirl bent his will, and a current of dark lightning struck the assassin. Pin screamed in agony, and the very air screamed with him, as his flesh convulsed and his limbs jolted uncontrollably.

“I have been patient with your masters,” Star Swirl said. “There are many who wish to harm me, and I have done many things for which I deserve to be harmed. Your king swore an oath, Pin. I told him, if they wanted to kill anyone, let them start with me. I bought peace with my own life, no-one else’s! I promised I would bring harm to no-one, and you tried to break my promise.”

The wizard’s face grew darker and more gnarled with each moment as he unleashed the full power of whatever magic it was he had summoned upon the griffon. “You wanted a war, Pin? So be it. I will give the King his war. I will tear Griffonstone to the ground stone by stone! I will kill the Conqueror King and leave his charred body impaled on the spire of his own palace! I will… I will pluck every last griffon from the skies and leave them broken upon the ground, and for a thousand years to come every traveler who passes by will look upon a barren land and say here lived the fools who threatened Star Swirl the Bearded’s apprentice.”

Thick noxious smoke rose from Star Swirl’s horn, which had warped and blackened. Pin’s body bent, and broke, as if crushed by a giant dragon’s claw. He screamed as his spine snapped.

“Professor, stop!”

“You studied the others from afar,” Star Swirl said as he took another step closer. “You thought yourself their better. You thought you saw a weakness. But all you saw was restraint. You did not know when to stop.”

The assassin's screams had ended, as he had no more breath. His face was turning blue, smoke rising from his still-open beak, his bloated, rigid tongue sticking out.

“Star Swirl, stop!”

Star Swirl did not stop. His face was no longer shifting but still, finally at peace with itself, the transformation complete. “Now you will pay the price. Now you will learn exactly what you are.”

“Professor, please!” Clover clutched at his robe, tears trickling down the sides of her muzzle. Star Swirl turned just a slightest bit to see her, trying to hold him back. “Please,” she cried, “please, stop…”

“He threatened to kill you, Clover,” the creature that might have been Star Swirl said through his mouth. “I told you that you would be safe as my student, and he threatened to kill you. I will not let that happen.”

“I know he did!” Clover sobbed. “But he didn’t! Alright?”

The thing that had Star Swirl’s body growled, and the noise reverberated through the floor. Clover pressed against him, tried to pull him back. “This isn’t you, Professor… I know you’re a good pony. You’ve been kind to me, Star Swirl. Let him go… You’ve already done enough.”

Star Swirl breathed, a deep rumbling sound. “This is what I am, Clover. When all the masks fall away, this is what’s left. This is what you are trying to save. You should leave before it’s too late.”

“You’re wrong, Star Swirl,” Clover said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We already had this conversation, in the rift. You know so many things, but you’re all wrong about yourself. You’ve always done what you thought was right. I know you have.”

She took hold of his leg, withered and warped beyond recognition, and she held on to him. “I believe in you. Do you believe in me?”

A light flickered in the darkness of Star Swirl's eyes, and he gasped. The griffon fell to the floor, coughing and heaving for breath, as Star Swirl’s body began to warp again. His flesh writhed and squirmed as he fought to contain the beast within him, to push it back into whatever deep pit he had called it from for aid.

The monster left him, and he changed back to the old stallion she knew, but now he seemed slighter, more frail, exhausted, as if all his age had finally caught up with him.

For a moment, the house was silent.

“Go back to your masters,” he said, in something like his normal voice. “Tell them… tell them I will speak to them further. Tell them… that I am very disappointed in them. Now go.”

The griffon moaned as the pain first sharpened, then dulled. His bones mended by magic, his severed nerve endings wove back together. Pin pushed himself up on his claws and his paws, and stepped away, slowly, his eagle head held low and his lion tail between his legs.

He left the hall and gently closed the door behind him.

– – –

Star Swirl watched Pin leave, then turned away and slumped forward onto the floor with a heavy sigh.

Clover’s legs were shaking, her thoughts a jumble. Her heart was pounding and she felt cold.

She looked at her teacher, and instincts honed over a hundred foalhood etiquette lessons took over and told her how to act.

Focus, Clover, her mother’s voice said in her mind. Your teacher needs help. You know what to do.

Clover drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. She counted to ten, and as she did she took stock of her own thoughts and feelings and desires. One by one she listed them off, and kicked them out of her awareness.

She opened her eyes again, ready to do what was needed for as long as it took. She trotted to her teacher’s side. “Come on, Professor. It’s time to get up.” Her voice barely quavered at all.

He didn’t move. She took hold of his leg and pulled at it until he clambered up and followed her. She raised a nearby fallen chair, and he sat down on it. His breathing was heavy and pained, and he slumped forward, bent almost double.

You can do this. “Are you hurt?” Clover asked. “Of course you’re hurt. Show me where you’re hurt, professor, I know first aid.”

“Wait, hold on,” Star Swirl panted. “I’ve just got to...”

His left foreleg clamped down on his right shoulder and pulled. He grunted, and his grunt turned into a scream of pain as he tore his leg loose, ripping muscle and tendons and bone, and threw it to the side. Clover watched with wide eyes, frozen in shock.

The leg landed with a sharp clack, and before Clover’s eyes it transformed.

Unrecognizable as a pony leg, the thing on the floor in front of her was black as obsidian, crystalline, jagged, covered in sharp points and edges that grew as she watched, as if reaching out for something to cut and infect. It had a reddish sheen, and when she looked at it she felt as if it was looking back at her.

“Do not touch it,” Star Swirl warned, and Clover hurriedly backed away.

In his chair, Star Swirl breathed heavily. He held his robe shut tight, nursing his shoulder, and in a few moments he gingerly revealed a new leg.

He flexed it, and got up, put his weight on it to test. Then he stepped over the black crystal, and it disappeared into whatever secret space lay beneath his robe.

The silence was heavy in the house.

Eventually Clover broke it. “What happened here, professor?”

“You got to see the consequences,” Star Swirl said, exhausted and morose. “You once told me you wanted to be a great sorceress. There is a price to pay for power, Clover.”

“Star Swirl…”

“What you just saw was ancient Saddle Arabian blood sorcery.” His voice was distant and tired, and full of memory. “To know it – merely know it, mind you, not use it – was a capital offense, under the laws of the old dominion. I received a royal pardon.”

The memory of Star Swirl’s face warped beyond recognition, the griffon’s screams as dark lightning shot through him, filled Clover’s mind, and she shivered.

Star Swirl didn’t notice. He was looking away, to the distance. “The one power that could teach it no longer exists. The others who knew it are long dead, by age or treachery or war. The knowing of it is not written down in any tome, and no living pony but me has it. When I die, it will disappear from this world forever.”

He glanced at her. “Once, long ago, I permitted an unspeakably evil force to enter my mind. I did not know what it meant. I thought I could master it, bend it to my will, make it serve me… But it’s always trying to break free, and I am always trying to keep it imprisoned. It cannot be destroyed, not by any power I have at my disposal. It can only be contained.”

“But you let it out to stop him,” Clover said quietly.

Star Swirl stared into the distance. “He was going to hurt you,” he whispered. “He was going to hurt you, and all my unicorn magic could not stop him. So I had to let out something that could.” He turned and looked at her, and there was an old pain in his eyes. “I never meant for them to hurt you.”

Clover’s legs were trembling as the adrenaline slowly thinned in her veins. “I know you didn’t, professor.”

“I promised you that none of them would harm you. I promised, and I let you down. I failed as your teacher… Maybe you should go back to regular classes, and leave me here.”

Her chest was aching but she did not show it. “He didn’t hurt me,” Clover said. “It’s alright, Star Swirl. I’m fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Star Swirl sat listless, unmoving. “I failed to help somepony once, long ago. Right when she needed me most, I couldn’t help her. I have spent my entire life since trying to make up for my mistakes… I don’t want to fail you as well.”

“You haven’t failed me, Professor,” Clover said. “I know you’re a good pony. Even though you keep trying to convince me that you’re not. You do care about ponies. You just need to show it by other means than insane murder magic.”

He sat quietly for a moment. “It’s too late for me, Clover,” he said softly. “I am too old to change so much. There’s so much work left to do, and so little time to do it in.”

Clover sat beside him quietly as he spoke. “You don’t have to do everything by yourself,” she whispered. “Nopony can.”

“I am not a pony,” he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “I am Star Swirl the Bearded… and there is nothing else like me.”

“And I’m your apprentice,” she said. “Won’t you please let me help you?”

Star Swirl glanced at his student, and an expression passed over his face that Clover could not read. An uncertainty, a hesitation.

She was just about to speak again when they were interrupted by the sudden and insistent ringing of the doorbell.

Clover glanced towards the door, and back, considering just ignoring it. A look from her teacher persuaded her otherwise, and she reluctantly went out to get it.

She was already speaking as she opened the door. “Hello, I’m afraid we’re not open for—”

“Oh good, you’re here.” Ginny said, and pushed past Clover and into the hall, where she halted, looking across the wreckage. “Well, I can see you two are in the middle of something. But I have more news for you, Clover. I found Dusty.”

“You did?” Clover looked at her warily.

Ginny nodded. “He wrote you a letter, and asked me to deliver it to you.”

She held up a thin paper envelope for Clover to take. “It’s an apology,” she said. “I do believe he did not have the guts to meet you face to face.”

“...Oh.” Clover looked at the floating letter. She glanced to her teacher, who was still sitting quietly by himself, and back to Ginny. “Well… The truth is that yes, we are sort of in the middle of something here. I think this can wait until later.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. Star Swirl waved a hoof in Clover’s direction. “Go on, Clover. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, Professor, you were falling apart!” Clover snapped. “This is – it isn’t important. It can wait.”

Star Swirl glanced at his student and shrugged. Ginny’s eyebrow raised higher.

“It’s best to get it over with,” the librarian said.

“I… alright, fine,” Clover huffed. She steeled herself, drew a deep breath, and nodded. “May I have the letter?”

Ginny passed it over. Clover opened it, and began to read.

“Dear Clover. There’s an old joke,” Clover muttered. “I’m sorry I had to leave town, but by now you probably know why.”

“You’re probably well aware of the various rumors about you floating across the university,” Clover read, “Yes, I know, the mad wizard’s black-hearted apprentice, and so on… Oh, he writes them down. That was thoughtful of him. As the only pony who can stand to be around Professor Star Swirl the Bearded for long periods of time, that you are secretly his illegitimate daughter, or that you actually died on the job on the first day but he raised you from the dead…”

Star Swirl was silent.

“You might not have noticed me, but I was working at the museum when Star Swirl invaded and you tried to get him out. That was the first time I saw you, and to be honest it didn’t exactly disprove the rumors. Later on I heard about the wager at the EBP, and my friends egged me on to try it. I went along with it.

“At first I thought it was a joke. But once I spent some time with you and got to know you I realized how wrong the rumors were, and how cruel the whole thing was. And I realized it was only a question of time before you found out about the whole thing, and how much you would hate me when you did. And as I began to realize I wanted to keep spending time with you, I realized I had already blown any chance I had of being your friend, or anything at all.

After the last time I saw you I quit the EBP. I took my stuff and went back to my parents’ place in Trottingham while I think about what to do next.

Though I don’t expect it means anything now, I’m truly sorry.

-Dusty.”

Everypony present was quiet, the two elder ponies watching Clover intently. She wasn’t going to acknowledge the pit in her stomach, or the tears.

Clover could picture all the things he hadn’t put in the letter. The boisterous encouragement from the EBP as he told them he’d try his hoof at her. That first time she’d seen him when she hung up posters in the market square, and been entranced by his smile. The lurch of guilt in his stomach as he sat with her at Black Bean’s and gradually realized his mistake. The jeers of the frat ponies as he abandoned the wager, his burning face as he fled the town, deciding to leave it all undone, the wound unbandaged.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay then.”

“Tartarus’ trumpets,” Star Swirl muttered under his breath. He had gotten up from the chair and stood beside his student. “I’m sorry, Clover.”

“It’s alright.” She felt as hollow as her voice. “It’s… It’s only a little pony problem. It’s not important. Don’t worry about it.”

Star Swirl looked at her with concern in his eyes, his brow furrowed. “Clover…”

Clover closed her eyes. “I am a silly filly, aren’t I?” she said quietly, her voice seeming awkward and jagged in her throat. She wiped the tears away with her fetlock and gave a grim laugh. “It just goes to show, doesn’t it? You’re fighting for the survival of the Unicorn Kingdom, and here I am, crying over a colt. I know I shouldn’t care about him. I know my feelings don’t matter. What’s one more filly with a broken heart in the world?” She shook her head, laughing softly. “I’m sorry, Professor. I’ll try to do better.”

Star Swirl stared at her like she’d grown a second head.

“That’s terrible,” he muttered to himself. “Is that what it looks like from the outside when I tell somepony not to care about my feelings?”

“Yes it is,” Ginny interjected.

“Oh Stars, how blind have I been,” Star Swirl said under his breath. He put a hoof on his student’s shoulder and looked into her eyes. “Listen to me, Clover,” he said, and there was nothing in his eyes but pure and honest truth. “You have no idea how important a pony you are. Listen to me, and never question this: your feelings are not less important than mine just because I am a hundred and eighteen-year-old arch-mage.”

Clover sniffed, and blinked. “I shouldn’t be falling apart like this. I should be stronger than this. You’ve tried to teach me, Professor.”

Star Swirl shook his head sadly. “You have been an excellent student,” he said. “But that’s not the point. You opened yourself to this colt, and he hurt you. That’s not nothing, Clover. That matters. And I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

There was something in his voice. Something dangerous, and calculating. Something that was laying plans. “You’re not going to hurt him, Professor,” Clover said, meeting his eyes. “You’re certainly not going to tell yourself that you’re hurting him for my sake.”

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Clover narrowed her eyes. “I want you to leave him alone.”

Star Swirl’s face struggled through a series of contradictory impulses and emotions. Clover didn’t break eye contact. In the end, he dropped his head in a nod. “If that is what you want,” he said. “…I am afraid that I have neglected you, Clover. You tried to help me, when I should have been helping you, and hurt yourself in the process. I want to undo the damage, if that is possible.”

Clover looked down at the letter, which now had tear stains that were not there before. “I’ll be fine,” she said, her voice only a little cracked.

Star Swirl nodded, slowly, thoughtfully. “I think you will be. You’re stronger than you know, Clover. But you were hurt because… ponies were treating you badly because of me, and I should not have allowed that to happen.” He bowed his head. “I failed you twice today. Over the years I have grown so accustomed to being alone… I forgot that you weren’t. If you want to continue studying with me… you’re welcome to stay. And I promise I’ll try to do better.”

When he looked up again his student was smiling at him, and her tears looked less sad. “You see, Professor? You do care about ponies. I always knew that deep down you always did.” She blew her muzzle on the sleeve of her robe. “You still want me as your apprentice?”

“Yes. I do. I hope you still want to stay.”

Clover blinked, clearing her eyes. “Ever since when I was a foal, and read about your adventures, I always wanted to be just like you. It seemed like you always know how to handle everything. Now that I know you, and see what it takes for you to be the way you are…” She sighed. “I do want to stay. But I’m not sure I can ever learn to be like you.”

“You’re not me, Clover,” Star Swirl said. “There’s a reason I took you on as my apprentice. There is more to you than you realize. There is a fire in you that the world cannot extinguish.” He smiled at her. “Perhaps the world doesn’t need more than one Star Swirl the Bearded. But I know that the world needs a Clover.”

It was only a slight disturbance in the magical force that permeated Canterlot House, but it passed through them like a billowing wave on the sea shore, and they looked around them.

Clover glanced past Star Swirl and as she looked across him her eyes went wide. “What…?”

Star Swirl looked back. There was a glimmer of light hanging in the air about him, and a sound in the air, like a distant note sung to alien music.

He pulled aside his robe and they saw his cutie mark, and it glowed with living magic.

“What does it mean?” Clover asked in a whisper.

“It means…” He smiled. “It means that somepony had lost their way. And now they have found it again.”

Star Swirl got up on his legs and tentatively took a few sturdy steps. He nodded in satisfaction, and began to trot. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

– – –

Star Swirl led Clover through the house. The two of them were alone. Ginny, seeing that Clover would be alright, had quietly excused herself and left them to it, citing work still to be done downtown.

Star Swirl stopped at the hidden entrance to the private laboratory, cast a spell that caused the wall to differentiate itself, form a door, and swing open. Star Swirl crossed the threshold, and nodded for her to follow.

For the first time, Clover went inside the dim, narrow confines of the private lab.

“Clover, meet Tarsus. Tarsus, you have already met Clover.”

The changeling lay on his barrel, undisguised, inside the cage. He rose up on his legs when they entered and watched them.

Tarsus nodded at Clover. Clover stared at him. “It's a giant bug.”

Star Swirl tutted. “That's offensive, Clover. Bugs do not speak, or transform. Nowhere near as ingeniously, at least. Show her.”

With a flash of green light Tarsus transformed into Dusty and gave her a pitch-perfect adorkable grin.

Clover yelped. Star Swirl whacked the cage. “No upsetting my student, Tarsus!”

A flash of green light and the changeling had reverted to the form of mister Sprout.

“This is the pony I've been working with the past several days,” Star Swirl said. “He is going to be our house-guest for the time being. He is a changeling. This may be the first time anypony has ever captured one for study. It's quite an opportunity.”

Clover stared wide-eyed at mister Sprout, who looked back at her with snide disinterest. “A changeling.”

“Indeed. Tarsus here took the real mister Sprout prisoner and replaced him, and has been slowly draining his adopted family of love while his kin drain Sprout to nourish their young. I found him in the process of surreptitiously consuming emotional energy from passersby on the street a few days ago, and seized him to find out what he was.”

Tarsus-as-Sprout gave Clover a vaguely-knowing, vaguely-resigned look, and nodded.

“And here I thought you were putting on an act to fool me, or that you had abducted an innocent pony just to make me doubt you,” Clover said with a sigh. “I should have trusted you, Professor.”

“You were less wrong than you think,” Star Swirl said. “Tarsus was only doing what he needed to do for his people to survive. He acted in accordance with his nature and the laws of his kind. In a philosophical sense, he is quite innocent of any wrongdoing. I, on the other hoof, abducted him off the street and locked him in a cage to experiment on him, based on an educated hunch.”

“Are you going to let me out of here already?” Tarsus asked in mister Sprout’s voice. “I am genuinely weak and starving.”

“Only when I am satisfied that it is safe. It’s been a very busy day. I will get to work on setting up some safeguards once I can find the time.”

Tarsus-Sprout grumbled unhappily, and sank down to the floor.

Star Swirl led Clover out of the lab and closed the door.

“There have been legends about changelings since time immemorial,” Star Swirl said quietly once the door was sealed. “They have hidden in the shadow of ponykind, a source of fear more insidious and terrible than any giant monster. Creatures that will steal your love, that can hide in plain sight, that can take what you love and turn it into misery. They know us inside out, and all we know of them are old pony’s tales.” He grinned. “Tarsus has magical powers completely unlike anything known to ponies. Imagine what we could learn from him, Clover! It is my hope that if I can study his powers, I may be able to recreate them.”

Clover blinked. “That… Are you sure that’s wise, professor? That sounds like a cautionary fable in the making.”

He laughed. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? But it’s important.” He gestured for her to follow. “Come. I have more to show you.”

He led her through the quiet house to the library. Shelves and furniture lay toppled and broken, books scattered amid remnants of shattered glass and scattered tools. But somehow, standing in the center, there stood one cluster of cabinets that was entirely untouched, encased in glass that had not so much as been scratched. Its existence looked impossible to the eye, as if it had simply chosen not to exist while chaos unfolded everywhere around it.

Star Swirl looked up at it. “Do you know what this is, Clover?”

He had redesigned it from the iron-fence-and-skulls motif it had when Clover had first been shown around his home all those moons ago, but Clover recognized it well enough, and the complex web of magical barriers were still intact. “Of course. It’s the only closed part of your library. The ‘Forbidden Knowledge’ section.”

“That’s right,” Star Swirl said. “I keep these books locked away from everyone. Only I know how to access them. They are far more dangerous, and more powerful, than the collection kept at the university library. In the wrong hooves, these books are among the most dangerous things in the world.”

Star Swirl closed his eyes and willed his magic to life. One by one a dozen spells began to come apart, and the glass cabinet swung open.

“I am giving you full access to them,” he said. “You can study them all you like.”

Clover watched, uncertain. “Star Swirl…”

“I doubted you, Clover,” he said quietly. “I did not think you had what it takes. I didn’t think anypony could follow in my hoofsteps, and do the work as I do. But you proved me wrong. Because when I stumbled, you were there to help me up. If I can’t trust myself anymore… then I’ll trust you. You can read them as much as you like. Go on, take a look.”

Clover took a tentative step forward, and Star Swirl urged her on. She stepped up close to the shelf and began to peruse the books within.

She looked over the titles printed on the spines, took a few and flipped them open to the table of contents. She frowned. “Well, this is quite different from what I expected.”

“Oh yes?”

“Well, I suppose I expected something like in the Forbidden Knowledge wing at the university library,” she said. “You know… Mind control spells, soul-eating magic, rituals for summoning demons from the pits of Tartarus, the holy texts of apocalypse cults, that sort of thing. But this seems to be mostly time travel magic.”

“Mind control and what you so misleadingly call ‘soul-eating magic’ is in the public section, listed under Metaphysical Fitness,” Star Swirl said. “Most of the others are under Practical Theology. No, those magics are just minor nuisances compared to this.”

Clover chuckled at what she thought was a joke, but stopped when she saw he wasn't smiling. “Come on, Professor. How bad can time travel magic be?”

Star Swirl pursed his lips. “After the griffon threatened you, when I allowed the… you know, to take control, I thought of using time magic to punish him,” he said quietly. “I was going to kill him. And as I did, I was going to lock him in time at the moment of his death, so he would feel himself dying until the end of eternity, robbed of whatever afterlife he believes is owed to him.”

Clover shuddered, and felt nauseous. “That’s not funny, Star Swirl.”

Star Swirl shook his head. “No, it isn’t. But it happened nonetheless.”

Clover looked at the books, and at her teacher. “You could really do that?

He looked over the books of the sealed case, where all his studies in time magic were locked away. “They used to teach this down at the university, you know,” he said. “Time magic is the most treacherous and malevolent of all the arcane arts. It tampers with the order of creation itself, it defiles every truth. A single miscast spell could end this universe. But, because time is not associated with darkness in pony minds or pony language, only a few fear it as they should. I… recommended to the rulers of the old dominion that they outlaw the discipline entirely, and seal away the knowledge behind heavy guard, and they agreed. Yes, I could have done that. I may be the only one in the world who could. I hope I'm the only one.”

Something snagged in her thoughts. “The old dominion? You’re talking about the Princesses,” Clover whispered. “You’re talking about—”

“Do not say their names,” Star Swirl commanded. Clover obeyed.

“I tried to go back,” Star Swirl said. “If I could have gone back, to before it was too late… If I could have warned them about the White Knight, and his master… the forgotten king, who wore the Crown of Night.” He shook his head. “I spent decades trying to make the spell work. But I found only ruin in it.”

He gestured to the library shelves all around them. “This is what I do, Clover. This is my real work: I learn the forbidden magics, magics that ponies fear, magics that were wielded by monstrous beings that lurk in the crevices along the edges of the world, where civilization does not reach. I take them, and I strip away the malice from them, remove the parts that make them frightful and vicious, and I give them out for everypony to share. The ancient Saddle Arabian blood sorcery belonged to a malevolent demigod who wanted to destroy all ponykind. I took that flesh-crafting spell she used to create monsters, and I learned to use it to heal wounds and cure disease. Now every unicorn doctor in the world learns my spell, and every creature that walks the earth lives longer, and suffers less pain because one pony did not shun what came from the darkness.”

Clover stepped up alongside her teacher. “You don’t have to be the only pony,” she said. “You don’t have to keep it all locked inside. Ponies would understand you, if you’d only explain it to them. I’m sure of it.” She smiled at her teacher. It was a small smile, but it looked to the future, and her eyes were open, and accepting. “Will you tell me about it? Tell me all of it. I’ll listen.”

Star Swirl hesitated. “It is a long and meandering story, and it ends unhappily.”

“You’re still alive,” she said. “So that’s something. It can’t be all bad.”

Star Swirl looked at his student, and chuckled. “Optimist,” he muttered. “I am glad to see you are feeling better.”

“I’ll be alright,” she said, and meant it. She thought about Dusty, set out on his own, searching for a better self, and she smiled. “Go on, Star Swirl. Please?”

Star Swirl gazed across an abyss of time, and began to tell the story.

“A long, long time ago, on a cold and clear night, I sat atop a rocky hillside outside my village, a place called Llamrei’s Seat…”

– – –

It was a few hours later, after much work and many stories, that Star Swirl stepped out of the house, and found Ginny standing outside waiting for him.

“Star Swirl.”

“Ginny. I thought you might still be around.”

“I decided that you two needed some time,” Ginny said. “How is she?”

“She is resting,” Star Swirl said. “I’ve given her the night off. We’ve gotten the basic house enchantments up and running again, and turned on the one that has a mild calming effect on the mind. She’ll be fine.”

Ginny nodded, watching the wizard closely. “Your student is very forgiving.”

“Yes. She is.”

Her eyes narrowed. “She made you promise not to hurt Dusty.”

“Yes.”

“I note that you did not promise anything about his comrades.”

Star Swirl looked at her, and his eyes glinted with an inner fire. “Because they wanted to mock me, they persuaded some runt of a colt to hurt my apprentice,” he said. “They can talk about me all they like. Letting it spill over to her was unforgivable.” He raised his head and looked out across the city. “There is a reason we do not only punish ponies when their victims agree to the punishment. Clover will heal in time, and she will be stronger afterward. But if they did this once they will do it again, and I can’t allow her forgiveness to get other ponies hurt, now can I?”

“I could not have said it better myself.”

“So. What do you say we go downtown, you and I, and destroy the EBP frat house as though it were the Temple of Tabanid?”

Ginny gave a cold smile that would have struck terror into any library patron. “I think that sounds like a fine idea.”

The two unicorns nodded at each other, and set off downtown.

Author's Note

Pick your Poison: Star Swirl the Bearded boss themes.

Intermission: The Other Side of Up

Draft for an entry in a revised edition of The Other Side of Up, by Swirl the Bearded, Star; Cordelia, Clover.

“Changeling.” Equis Proteus.

Once the realm of legend and myth, I, and my apprentice, have now proven that this remarkable creature is in fact very real and living among us in the present day.

My research has revealed that the old belief that Changelings draw nourishment by leeching off the positive emotions of their victims, on account of which Changelings have been known to steal away and replace beloved ponies, appears to be entirely correct. A Changeling, if kept away from a supply of positive emotions, will grow weaker, much like a pony who goes without regular food.

With the assistance of the test subject, who has told me his name among his kind is Tarsus, I have experienced the feeding process first-hoof. It is an interesting sensation: it pierces directly into the deep mind without passing through matter beforehand, using subtle Changeling magic that has been honed over countless years so as to be nearly unobservable to ponies. Only because I was forewarned, and consciously aware of it (and because Tarsus, being starved, was in no mood to go slowly or lightly) was I able to clearly observe the effects upon the object of feeding.

Having prepared a feeling of happiness, I felt myself growing inexplicably irritated at various extraneous circumstances of the day as Tarsus fed. Mustering a satisfied contentment at the progress on repairs of my home, I felt it swiftly slip away into nothing. Whatever positive emotions I could conjure were drained out of me, leaving me exhausted and irritable.

The effect of the feeding on Tarsus was no less remarkable. Before my eyes he went from a limp, pallid creature to something strong and vigorous. I thought he might resume his resistance to my research with his restored strength, but happily he proved pliable, and I began to interrogate him about the nature of his kind.

As is told in old mares’ tales, Changelings survive by stealing away ponies and replacing them with one of their own, who so expertly mimic their victim as to be nearly impossible to recognize. Their favored target is somepony like the poor mister Sprout, a beloved family member who lived a blessed life of joy and warmth with those close to him.

Once a Changeling is so positioned, it begins to parasitically drain the joy and warmth from those around them. If the Changeling goes undiscovered, this process can continue over months or even years depending on the temperament of the Changeling and the needs of the hive, until the previously joyful and loving family is reduced to an empty shell. Over time, the ponies around the Changeling are filled with bitterness and resentment for reasons they cannot understand or explain. When there is no more joy and love for the Changeling to consume, the family unit naturally and inevitably collapses. This then gives the Changeling a natural means of leaving his victims behind, and returning to the hive to begin the process anew.

The Changeling can store the excess love they consume in a highly magically-charged mucus residue, which my apprentice insists on calling “Changeling honey”, which is carried back to the hive to feed the others.

The victim who was replaced is also taken back to the hive for the brood to drain of such sustenance they can find in him. Since a Changeling's victim is not normally inclined towards positive emotions, they are encased in cocoons where they are put in magical slumber; in this state, they are more amenable to produce the feelings the Changelings require. Unless the hive is uncovered and destroyed, the victims remain in this state until they die.

Death by cocoon can take a very long time: according to Tarsus, a pony can survive within for decades. An old pony might conceivably be rescued from his slumber to learn that most of his life and all the happiness he experienced in it was only a parasitic dream.

According to Tarsus, hives can be greatly varied in size, from a handful of individuals to a disturbingly large number. However, the demands of an individual Changeling is such that it is rarely possible for a large number of them to coexist. Like any parasite, Changelings need a supply of healthy hosts with a population much larger than their own in order to prosper.

Tarsus tells us that the legends of his people tell of vast Changeling colonies numbering hundreds, or even thousands of individuals, which devour entire cities whole before moving on to fresh territory. He speaks with great reverence of the mythical home of the Changeling race, a vast underground city a million strong, known to them as “Guise”. Their legends tell them to await the return of the Great Queen, who was once brought low but who will someday come again to rebuild Guise and make all other living creatures of the world into a banquet of the swarm.

Stars protect us if ever such a hive arises in our time.

Tarsus also tells me that while “in skin” as his kind call it, Changelings will feed lightly and discreetly from their victims, and that this causes no injury. However, I observed upon myself that when a Changeling feeds without concern for being discovered the process does violence to the mind of their victim. It was nothing I could not repair, but a rapacious Changeling can reduce a pony to a mental wreck without laying a hoof on them.

As the Changeling race depends on their ability to survive and feed undetected, Changelings will mercilessly destroy any of their number who displays lacking restraint in feeding. This fills the dual purpose of removing Changelings who threaten the integrity of the hive, and of instilling fear and obedience into all its fellows.

It is no wonder Tarsus fought so resolutely against my efforts to uncover his secrets. He knows that if ever he returns to his kind they will surely kill him for his treason. Even now he is reluctant to answer more than the absolute minimum required to end the conversation.

Clover’s notes: The Professor has released Tarsus from the cage, and is allowing him to roam freely through Canterlot House (though not outside). At first this was highly unsettling, but after a while I got used to him and he turned out to be quite pleasant once I got to know him a bit.

The Professor tells me this is a predatory instinct to put his prey at ease, but I think he’s just being nice.

I have asked Tarsus about his life among his own kind. He is extremely reluctant to speak about it, but it does not sound like it was pleasant, even for him.

I’ve wondered if it was possible for a Changeling to live openly among ponies without having to abduct and replace somepony. I asked him, if a Changeling could make a large enough group of friends, could it survive on their emotional energy without hurting them?

Tarsus said that it was possible, but he found the idea very difficult to comprehend, and he and the Professor agreed that it will never happen.

Star Swirl's notes: Changelings are parasites, and like any parasites they depend upon a healthy population of their host species. Since the preferred food of Changelings is love, does it not stand to reason that Changelings might not only consume it, but also cultivate love as a renewable resource? To act as love farmers, in a sense?

If we could domesticate them, and harness their powers, we could conceivably fill the world with love. Imagine the terrors that would be defanged, the evils that would be undone in one stroke.

I am speculating. Tarsus does not seem a promising suspect for inspiring love. As Changelings are rare and ponies are plentiful, it is possible that they have never been at risk of overgrazing their prey. Perhaps they would need to form a massive swarm before adapting such a mechanism.

Or, perhaps invasive magical engineering will allow me to create one.

Clover's notes: Drink your tea and calm down, Professor.

Chapter 17: Exam Day (Star Swirl vs Cambridle, round 2).

Time passes. The weather shifts. The plants grow, spread seeds, wither up and sleep, and then awake again to continue where they left off.

Some things go forward in a straight line, never looking back to where they came from. Some things go in circles, and come back again and again. Some things change. Some things do not.

Some things, according to Star Swirl the Bearded, change only so that you will think they do not, and some do not change so you will think that they do.

Ponies change as well, and pass through stages and milestones along the way. They grow older, and sometimes wiser. Some say goodbye for the last time, and others greet the world for the first.

But wherever you are, whenever you are, the most important place is always right here. The most important time is always right now.

Three ponies trotted down the streets of Cambridle, from a house at the edge of the city that hung to the side of a cliff-face, towards the center of town, where bells were ringing and ponies were flocking around.

Star Swirl the Bearded and Clover Cordelia marched side by side through town towards the New Old Hall, the central building of the Academy of Magic, heads held high, looking boldly ahead.

Following along behind them was a nondescript light blue pony with a feather duster cutie mark. He wore a broad but plain gold bracelet around one ankle, and he pulled little cart which held a large cauldron of something pale and bubbling.

The three of them halted in front of the building where the fate of hundreds of students would soon be decided, and looked up at its intricate Hay Gothic-revival facade.

Star Swirl the Bearded saw it, and remembered. “It’s been a long time since I stood where you are now. Of course, it was just the Old Hall back then.”

“That was quite a story, Professor,” Clover said.

He blinked, and his face turned uncertain. “There is something portentous in the air,” he said. “This day is thick with destiny. I do not know what is going to happen here today.”

“Yes you do, Professor. It’s the day of my first year finals.”

He nodded slowly, studying the idea. “Yes. It is an exam. A test. Challenges will be placed in your path, and you must overcome them. But more than that, I cannot see.”

Clover considered. “I think that’s all it is, Professor.”

“Thick with destiny, Clover,” Star Swirl repeated. “I don’t know what is going to happen here. But you must face this challenge alone.”

“I just have to write a paper, Professor.”

“Right. Right. Perhaps it’s nothing.” The old stallion looked at his apprentice, and pride glittered in his eyes. “I almost thought this day would never come,” he said quietly, his lips curling to a soft smile. “You’ve come a long way since you first came to me to be my student.”

Clover could not help blushing at this rare show of approval. “It’s been quite an adventure, professor.”

“Yes. It has,” he said, and his gaze sharpened. “Now it is time for you to show what you have learned. What is Shimmer Mane’s Constant?”

“The thaumic output of a pony’s working is equal to the mass of thaums times the resistance of the weaving.”

“What are the five steps of a Bonnerle Working?”

“Design, Induction, Submersion, Correction, and Presentation.”

“How do you catch an Arboreal Zimmerwisp?”

“Smack it on the snout with a rolled-up newspaper and clip the rope to its tail while it’s distracted.”

Star Swirl stepped back and nodded. “You are ready.”

Clover beamed and puffed out her chest with pride.

“This is not what you have been working towards the past year,” he said. “What you’re really working towards, you won’t know until it happens. Maybe not then either. Maybe you only know it a long time afterwards. This, though, for all the importance ponies place on it, is just something you have to pass through along the way.”

“If you say so, Professor.”

“Not that you have anything to worry about,” Star Swirl said as he looked out over the masses of nervous students who waited beside them. “The standards down here are so lax that your biggest problem will be knowing when to stop. You could do the third-year exams as easily as the first.”

“Maybe next year, Professor.”

Something tugged invisibly at Star Swirl’s hat, and he pulled it off and rustled around inside it. “Oh yes… Mister Leafy wanted to say a few words.” He brought out the lone green leaf, suspended in a cube of air cornered by magically-infused metals, and held it up.

“Hi, Clover,” the leaf said in a child’s voice. “I hope you do well.”

“Thanks, Mister Leafy!” Clover said cheerfully. “After I’m done, how about we go out for a walk in the woods? You can see your family.”

“I’d like that,” the leaf said. “Okay, that’s what I wanted to say. Good luck.”

“I’ll do my best,” Clover said. “I’ll tell you all about it afterwards.”

Mister Leafy rustled, which Clover believed was the leaf equivalent of a grin. “I’m looking forward to it. Okay. Bye!”

Star Swirl put the leaf on his head and returned his hat to its place, the bells sown into the rim tinkling softly. “We’ll see you when you’re finished,” he said. “We’ll be on the green.”

“You’re going to the faculty lunch?” Clover asked. They had received the invitation, bearing the signs of much postal confusion which left no identifiable trace of magical tampering, late the night before.

“I didn’t go to the trouble of making all this extra porridge for nothing.”

The three of them glanced back at the cart carrying a pot of Star Swirl’s void porridge, and Clover instinctively patted her robe to make sure her jar of salt was in the inside pocket where she had put it.

The old stallion shuffled his hooves awkwardly. “Yes, I’m going. But I don’t think there will be much point.”

“Give them a chance, Professor.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” The third pony said. “A lunch with the entire university faculty present? It should be delicious.”

Star Swirl turned and shot him a warning look. “You are not allowed to eat any ponies, Tarsus.”

“Come now, Star Swirl, be reasonable. I’m subtle. They won’t notice a thing.”

“These are highly skilled unicorn wizards. It’s too risky.” Star Swirl paused. “Well, moderately skilled wizards. There are many of them, one of them might get lucky.”

“Professor…” Clover frowned at her teacher. “What did we say about this?”

Star Swirl the Bearded sighed. “Try to be nice to ponies and they might be nice back to you.”

“Yes!” Clover beamed.

Star Swirl grumbled. “I’m only letting you get away with this because this is your day of triumph, you know.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” she said. “I’ll come see you there after I’m done.”

He nodded, and turned and wandered off.

Tarsus remained, looking at Clover intently. “Did you want something, Tarsus?”

“You reek of uncertainty,” the changeling said. “It hangs around you in a thick cloud. I know you can’t taste emotions, but I’m always amazed at how bad ponies are at hiding their feelings. You do it so often, you’d think you would be experts. But no.”

Clover narrowed her eyes. “I’ve told you not to do that,” she said. “And I suppose Star Swirl was just trying to protect my feelings, then?”

“...Maybe,” Tarsus said. “I’m not actually sure. Either he didn’t notice, and meant every word he said, or he was concealing his feelings much better than you.”

“You don’t know?” Clover raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Maybe you don’t understand ponies quite as well as you think.”

“Tarsus!” Star Swirl called out from a short distance away. “Come along now.”

Tarsus grumbled. “Look, I was just going to say… good luck. With your exams.”

“Oh.” Clover blinked. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” The changeling disguised as a pony turned and trotted down the street, the wheels of the cart squeaking as he went.

Clover watched her mentor, and his changeling live-in housekeeper, wander off towards a picnic.

It was rather shocking to Clover to consider that it had been less than a year since she became Star Swirl the Bearded’s apprentice, but then, as she had learned, time sometimes just behaved very strangely. She had seen astonishing things, and learned things that she felt very strongly that no first-year student could possibly be expected to learn.

Her first year as a university student on the special apprenticeship program was drawing near to its end, and she told herself she was going to cap it off with an exam performance that would knock their horseshoes off.

She turned and trotted inside the building, and let her mind fill with images of what the future might bring.

Dashing, daring Clover the Fearless held on to the rudder and kept the ship steady in the face of the winds and waves that battered on their sails. King Neptune had sworn he would not let them reach the Lost Island of Naglantis. But Clover was not only navigating through his storm; she was doing it so skillfully that Star Swirl could stargaze while they were at it. The old stallion stood confidently atop the main mast, perched in the crow’s nest with a sextant, his hat turning in the wind like a weather vane.

“Two point seven degrees to port, Captain Clover, and increase speed by four knots,” he called down. “If you hit at just the right angle of approach, and at just the right velocity we will pass clean through the treacherous rocks and arrive in the Naglantic Tranquility!”

Clover nodded, and made the correction, and felt the waves grow angry beneath her rudder. “King Neptune didn’t like that!” she called back to her teacher. “We are on the right track! What does the weather vane say?”

“Clover! There you are!”

Clover recognized her father’s voice immediately and turned to see Weather Vane coming towards her. He was alone, with Clover’s mother nowhere to be seen, and there was no cadre of royal guards or ponies in black anywhere in sight.

He swept her up in a nuzzle, and she yelped, and instinctively blushed the blush of any young pony receiving parental affection in public. “Dad!”

“It’s good to see you,” he said with a smile as he ruffled her mane.

Weather Vane was a slim stallion, purple-coated and yellow-eyed with a cutie mark of a brass rooster turning in the wind. Always dressed, he was wearing a dark waistcoat with a quadruple-Whinnysored black tie.

“Daaaad,” Clover pushed him off. “You should have told me you were coming! Where’s Mom?”

“Your mother isn’t here,” he said. “Come on, let’s find someplace to sit.”

“Dad, I’m kind of in a hurry here,” she said. “My exams are starting in a minute. Can we meet up afterwards?”

“Oh! I’ll give you the news quick, then,” Weather Vane said. “Your mother and I have been talking a lot lately, and we’ve come to a decision.”

“Oh boy.” Clover felt an overpowering urge to roll her eyes. “Let me guess. You’ve decided that you accept me even if I suddenly turn into a stallion again?”

Weather Vane blinked in confusion before remembering. “Oh, right! No, actually we’ve decided that we’re going to split up. But sure, that too.”

“What?”

“The truth is the passion hasn’t been there for a long time. We’ve been staying together for your future’s sake, you know, but recently that doesn’t seem to be so important anymore.”

“What?”

He looked down at his daughter with wistful nostalgia. “My little filly is all grown up, studying magic under a mad wizard and not following in my hoofsteps in Court at all. I’m very happy for you, Clover. It seems like breaking from your parents’ expectations of you is really coming into fashion these days, and it isn’t going to get you banished from Princess Platinum’s court at all! So now that you’re coming up in the world and don’t really do play dates at our house, well, it’s beginning to seem like you don’t need us anymore.”

He looked sadly off into the distance before continuing. “Without our shared dependence on your future success to keep our marriage together, there isn’t much more going on. Besides,” he smiled encouragingly, “there are some interesting developments suggesting that coming from a broken home might actually be good for your social standing now. It makes you a more sympathetic figure, you know?” He patted her shoulder. “Well, best of luck with your exams. I’ll see you later, then.”

Clover watched, her mouth open to speak but no words coming out, while her father wandered off into the crowd and vanished from sight.

– – –

“A faculty lunch,” Tarsus said to himself. “You know, I always liked the university. So many emotions flowing around. I wonder what it’s like to ponies.”

Star Swirl grunted a reply that was neither positive nor negative, and it told Tarsus a great deal.

They passed around the building and entered the faculty potluck lunch.

The lunch was held in the campus park behind the New Old Hall, sheltered on all sides by the buildings of the university. Here, in the middle of the stone grid of Cambridle, a peaceful green space lay sheltered. A garden of tranquility, adorned with statues and flowers and hedges where, on any other day, a pony could escape from the noise and the stress to find peace and beauty.

On this day the green was itself full of ponies and noise. The University of Cambridle faculty were all there, along with representatives from the various interest groups of the city. The city council, the banking sector, the farm lobby, and the manufacturers and merchants of scribe and laboratory supplies were all in attendance, weaving a multitude of webs through pitches, bribes, backtalk, rumors and counter-rumors zigging and zagging as they schemed and jockeyed for influence in an arena as subtle and vicious as any king’s court.

In a corner, the gardener looked on the damage the crowd had done to his garden, fuming with barely-suppressed rage.

There were a dozen pairings and trios engaged in heated whispers scattered around the green as Star Swirl and Tarsus arrived, and upon seeing them, all the groups migrated discreetly away.

Tarsus sniffed the air. “Ah, intrigue. I haven’t tasted that in a long time.”

“Don’t eat anypony. That’s an order.”

“You’re quite sure?” Tarsus smiled. “I could tell you who is most susceptible to what kind of pressure. Who wants what. Who’s afraid, and what they’re afraid of.”

“Not interested.”

“You know, the two of us working together could achieve anything. Anything at all.”

“And yet you are not very cooperative,” Star Swirl said, shooting Tarsus an angry glance. “If anypony asks, you are here as my hired help. Nothing else.”

The buffet table stood on the far side of the green, filled with a fine selection of traditional foods.

Star Swirl cleared a spot at the center of the table, and placed his cauldron of porridge down on it. “There,” he said, and served himself a bowl.

A lobbyist for the laboratory glassware industry wandered over. He was carrying a tray and sampling a bit of everything. “What’s this?” He served himself a dollop of porridge in a wooden bowl and raised it to his muzzle. He sniffed it. “Doesn’t have much of an aroma.”

“It’s not supposed to,” Star Swirl said.

“It’s more about the texture, then?” He took a spoonful in his mouth. He chewed. He swallowed. He was still. “It tastes like… nothing. Like nothingness itself. Infinite, in all directions.”

“It’s highly nutritious, full of vitamins and minerals.”

The lobbyist watched the table without blinking, in growing horror. “I think it’s draining the color from everything around it. It’s spreading.”

“The sensory deprivation helps you concentrate,” Star Swirl said. “It lends perspective and will make you appreciate your senses more afterwards.”

Tarsus and Star Swirl watched as the lobbyist tottered away unsteadily.

“Hello, Star Swirl.” Star Swirl turned to see Ginny preparing herself a salad.

“Hello, Ginny,” he replied. “Nice morning for it. You’re here for the library, then?”

Ginny nodded. “The Mystical Order of Librarians will not allow an exam to go by without receiving its due tribute,” she said. “The faculty professes towards knowledge. The library holds it in its grasp.”

“I’m not in the mood to argue about politics,” Star Swirl said. “It’s much too nice a day for that.”

Ginny shrugged. “As you wish.”

Star Swirl heard a rustling behind him, and turned around. At the edge of the green, half-way hidden in the hedge, was a young unicorn mare wearing what appeared to be a cultist costume from Cambridle’s fancy dress shop, altered to look somewhat more respectable. She was pretending very hard not to be spying on the faculty, and failing miserably.

Star Swirl looked at her, then turned and looked around the green, and noticed two others like her, lingering along the edges, failing to be discreet. “Who are they?”

Ginny followed his gaze. The young mare had the decency to look embarrassed. “If I had to guess, I’d say those are the Siblinghood of the Hoof.”

Star Swirl frowned. “I’m not familiar with that group. What do they do?”

Ginny stared at him. “This is why nopony likes you, Star Swirl. You really should involve yourself more in the community.”

“Don’t you start. I get enough of that from Clover.”

“Well, she’s right.” Ginny took a bite of her salad. “They’re one of those civic umbrella organizations that do local activism. They’ve been forming all year.”

Tarsus smiled warmly, all cheer and helpfulness. “Shall I find out what they want, professor?”

“No,” Star Swirl said with an immediacy and bluntness that made Ginny raise an eyebrow. “Nevermind.”

The old wizard glanced around until he caught a glimpse of a particular pony in the center of the green, and his face tightened. “Excuse me a minute. I must speak with somepony. Tarsus, stay here and behave yourself.”

“Right you are, professor!”

Not far away, the Dean of the Academy of Magic, a slim old mare in a dark coat jacket wearing sharp spectacles, was speaking to a young associate professor. The younger pony saw Star Swirl approaching, and quickly excused herself.

“Dean Cinch, a minute of your time.”

“Professor the Bearded,” the Dean said, her voice dripping with dismissive condescension. “You have one minute. What do you want?”

Star Swirl kept his voice flat. “I wanted to discuss my plans for my lecture next term.”

“Oh yes,” the Dean rolled her eyes. “What will you be doing to my students this time? Turning them into stone? Dropping them into the Underworld? Combining one hundred students into one giant student just to see how it does?”

“I was thinking of introductory arcane theory,” Star Swirl said. “I have received some interesting feedback from my student and I thought I might try to incorporate it into my lecture.”

“Let me just stop you right there,” Cinch said. “You don’t have a student. You are an honorary professor. We have a student, and we consented to subject you to her in the hopes that it would restrain you somewhat. It didn’t work. In fact, the past year has seen significantly more Star Swirl the Bearded-related havoc in Cambridle than any time since you were expelled a hundred years ago. Is your student still alive, Professor the Bearded? I know she has been seen around town, and is signed up to take her exam today, but I’m sure a stallion of your intellect could arrange that without her.”

“Clover is doing very well, thank you for asking,” Star Swirl replied. “I expect her to excel today.”

“I’m sure you do. I have also been told you recently destroyed one of the frat houses.” Cinch looked thoughtful. “While part of me thinks I should thank you for that, I would appreciate it if you go through the proper channels next time.”

Star Swirl shifted his stance and cleared his throat. “Dean Cinch, I wanted to schedule the time for my lecture. Frankly, last time I was notified much too late. I had to move the entire month around to make it. I will assume that was not the intention, because I’m nice like that.”

“Do you see that pony over there?” Dean Cinch pointed a hoof to one of the teachers, who was conferencing with a herbology supplier and a pencilmaker. “Do you know what he’s doing?”

Star Swirl looked. “I believe he is plotting to overthrow you, Dean Cinch.”

Cinch snorted. “They always do that. No, Professor the Bearded, he is teaching. He is trying to better equip his students. He is trying to attract more minds to his classes, which means more money to his field of research, which means, yes, more power and influence to him which he will someday attempt to leverage into a capture of the Dean’s office. But until that day comes, he is helping. He is working within the system to make the institution stronger. Do you know what your problem is, Professor the Bearded? You can’t play nice with others. You refuse to work within the system, but expect the system to accommodate you anyway. Tell me, Professor the Bearded, when was the last time you helped attract anything to Cambridle except angry letters?”

Star Swirl’s face was impassive, unreadable. “I am a very popular lecturer,” he said. “Even though I only get one lecture a year, it always fills the house. I don’t encourage notions of heroism, Dean Cinch, but unicorns come to Cambridle from far and wide to hear me speak.”

Dean Cinch sighed heavily, regretfully. “Yes,” she said, looking off into the distance. “You have a reputation, Professor the Bearded. Young ponies hear stories of your history, and they come to hear your words, and see you in the flesh… But then once they do, many of the best and brightest turn and leave. I would warn them before the lecture, but thanks to my foolish predecessors I am not allowed to. I even try to keep them quiet afterwards, try to convince them to stay, to convince their parents that you haven’t done any lasting damage, and most of the time I succeed. But it is an added strain on our resources.” She fell silent for a moment. “Sooner or later it’s going to catch up to all of us, and the university’s reputation will suffer for it.”

The two unicorns looked at each other warily. Star Swirl drew a breath. “You know, I have saved the world more than once this past year alone.”

Cinch shrugged. “If you want gratitude, go ask the Unicorn King,” she said. “You have received an honorary professor’s chair, the only pony ever to do so. You get to lecture to impressionable young students, and leave us to pick up the broken shards you leave behind you. I’m not sure what else you want from us. Perhaps you think the entire world owes you a debt, but I’m not sure why we specifically should be required to repay it.”

She took a sip from her cup of coffee, and her entire body convulsed before she calmed herself again. “Oh, that’s good… You will have your lecture, Professor the Bearded. But don’t kid yourself about why that is. Good day.”

She turned and walked away, leaving Star Swirl behind. He remained there for a moment, watching her in silence, before he withdrew.

Ginny and Tarsus had waited, and observed the entire encounter. “That went about as well as I had hoped,” Star Swirl said. Tarsus opened his mouth to speak, but a warning glance from Star Swirl cut him short.

Ginny let out a low hissing whistle between her teeth. “That was painful to watch, Star Swirl.”

Star Swirl shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

Ginny pursed her lips tightly. “Why are you here, Star Swirl?” She asked. “At Cambridle. I remember the old days. You never belonged here. Is this just stubborn pride, trying to reclaim something you once lost?”

Star Swirl stirred. “Do you think I’m still a little colt? That I’m just trying to prove myself?”

“I don’t know,” Ginny admitted. “Do you know, Clover came by the library to see me last week? She was preparing for her exams. She had a lot to talk about.”

“Clover is doing very well for herself,” Star Swirl replied. “She has followed my teachings to the best of her abilities. I’m very proud of her.”

Ginny sighed. “That is exactly what I’m worried about.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know that Clover is a very dutiful young pony,” Ginny said. “She is intelligent. Hard-working. Resourceful. Tenacious. She could do great things. But one thing I’m afraid she doesn’t understand is the sunk cost fallacy.” Ginny turned a sharp eye on the stallion. “She believes in you, Star Swirl. But tell me, has anypony but yourself ever been able to make your methods work?”

Star Swirl was stone-faced. “I have full faith in Clover’s abilities.”

“It is not her abilities I am worried about, Star Swirl. Your methods are very far from what the university exams are meant to measure. Can she bridge that gap? Or have you lead her too far astray already? Are you doing this for Clover, or for yourself?” Ginny did not blink, and her gaze went straight through him. “That’s what I worry about. The university might be willing to throw away a few gifted students on the margins, but if Clover gets burned because of her trust in you, then I shall be very cross with you, Star Swirl.”

Star Swirl met her gaze, and smiled. “Clover knows what she’s doing,” he said. “I expect her to pass with flying colors.”

“Oh, they don’t use flying colors to designate top grades anymore,” Ginny said. “Flying ink got to be too expensive.”

“What? How come?”

“Grade inflation and a huge increase in the student population.”

“That’s a bleeding shame,” Star Swirl said wistfully. “I liked watching the colors fly.”

– – –

In the clock tower atop the New Old Hall the bell rang out the hour, signaling for all the students to flock in and find their seats.

Clover followed, deep in thought, barely acknowledging the crowds around her.

Exams, Clover. Work first.

Professor Quick Quill stood at the head of the room with a small army of elderly mares and stallions come to observe the bright minds of the new generation, and get some spending money from the university for the privilege. A huge hourglass, as tall as two ponies on top of each other, would mark the available time in the most ominous fashion the faculty had yet been able to devise.

The exam watchers passed out the papers, and Professor Quill gave everyone what was supposed to be a reassuring smile before he declared the exam begun, and flipped the hourglass.

As the first grains of sands trickled through, Clover flipped over the cover sheet on her exam and read the questions.

First question: Explain the Canter Spring Equation, and relate it to the Hollow Hull Hypothesis.

Huh. Well, that’s easy. I can do this in no time. Let’s say ten pages explaining the permutations of the Equation, and five pages on the Hypothesis, and another twenty-five pages explaining how they interact and express themselves in different manifestations…

Seriously, Dad, you decided to tell me you’re leaving Mom on the day of my first-year exam? Talk about your bedside manner.

She spent the next twenty minutes staring angrily at her quill and imagining exactly what she would say to her father the next time she saw him. She ignored the intense scribbling that filled the room from all around her.

Okay, time to get to work. Exam. No problem. I know this stuff. I know this stuff better than anypony else here, probably. She picked up her quill in her grip and looked at the traditionally-inadequate inkwell she had been granted. Okay, that’s not really enough for fifteen pages total, much less fifteen pages about the Canter Spring Equation. They’re not seriously expecting me to answer this whole exam with this little ink, are they? How’s that supposed to be possible?

Oh, right, they’re expecting everypony to give rushed and sloppy answers… Well, I guess that beats attacking the other students to capture their extra ink by force, like they did in the old days.

Star Swirl once told me he got tired of buying ink and had learned to transmute his own out of anything he had lying around. I thought that was kind of silly of him, but I did read the spell. How did it go again? Can I master it in the time I have for writing the exam?

Okay, so in order to properly answer this exam I have to remember and master a spell that isn’t part of the first year classes, slow down time, overcome the entire culture and accumulated body of traditions of the entire university… am I missing something?

...Professor Star Swirl foresaw something. He couldn’t tell me what it was, but could this be it? That in order to successfully complete my exams I’d have to overcome this additional challenge? Demonstrate not just that I have mastery of the material, but also mastery of my own emotions?

I can do this. I’ve been tutored by the greatest wizard in the world. I just need to ask myself, what would Star Swirl do if his parents suddenly interrupted his work with emotionally upsetting news? Well, it just so happens that I’ve actually seen that happen! He… Well, he tried to deny it was happening and then he acted like nothing was wrong and then he almost killed himself trying to fight the ghost of his own alternate-universe double.

She thought about that one for a minute.

The truth is, Star Swirl’s method for dealing with this kind of problem is to just not let anypony get close enough to him that they can hurt him like this. Right now I can sort of see where he’s coming from. She frowned, staring down at her desk. But that’s the one lesson I didn’t want to learn. I tried so hard to show him he didn’t have to do that.

Isn’t it just typical that the exam is all about that one thing you could never wrap your head around?

…I can do this my own way. The Clover way. That’s how we got out of the rift. I need to use what I know. That’s the key: I must find a solution to this problem even where Star Swirl the Bearded couldn’t.

Here goes.

“The Canter Spring Equation,” she wrote, “functions rather like a broken marriage, in that all its parts are fields of force moving at high velocity and in erratic orbits with no care as to who gets hurt.”

She violently crossed the first sentence out and slumped forward over her desk.

So this is how my career as a student ends, is it? After a year of studies under the greatest wizard of the age, I am done in by my inability to concentrate?

I can do this. I just need to focus, and lay a plan. What would a successful outcome look like?

I can make do with giving only a bare-bones summary of the Equation and the Hypothesis. Then I can describe only the most common effects they create together. I have enough time and ink for that.

Meanwhile, if any other student tries to ambush me and steal my ink I can easily set up a minor shield to buy myself time. Historically, around 13% of students will give up after the first page and leave, which will free up more inkwells but there will be a rush by the remaining students to grab them. I’ve got to be alert to any opportunity. If I can grab just one, that should push my answer up significantly, and that can’t be any harder than keeping up with Star Swirl’s alchemy lessons.

“You can do this, Clover,” said Princess Platinum behind Clover’s ear. “You explored the Temple of Forgotten Doom and escaped unharmed! My old playmate isn’t going to be done in by some overblown magic exam.” Thanks for the vote of confidence, Platinum. “No problem at all. Also, I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable last time we spoke. I’ve worked through my feelings and I definitely don’t have any excessive emotional burdens to lay on your shoulders. I’m just happy to be your friend.”

With a wail and a burst of flame, the first student surrendered to the exam, and Clover was there with a comforting smile and seized the extra ink before the hungry glares of a dozen other students. The same happened a second time, and a third, and Clover set about writing her answer in full. The pages flew out from under her quill into a neat stack.

She was four fifths done with the exam, and the hourglass was about to run out, when a commotion erupted from behind her, and a commanding voice cried out for the proceedings to pause. Clover knew that voice well. “Mom?”

“Oh Clover!” Ivy Cordelia cried as she embraced her daughter. “I’m so sorry for everything! Now I see how we pushed all our baggage onto your back. Well now we’re going to make it all up to you! Your father and I have just had a long discussion and we’ve rediscovered the flame that made our love true all those years ago. We’re going to stay together, and nothing is ever going to tear us apart!”

“And it’s all thanks to you, kid,” Weather Vane said, beaming with fatherly pride as he patted Clover’s back. “Your compassion and insight made me realize how insensitive I was acting. Once I thought about what’s really important in life, my course was clear. We love you, Clover.”

Clover burst into tears from happiness. “I love you too, mom and dad,” she said, wiping her cheek with a hoof. “This is the best day ever!”

“Well, I think this should count as the best exam performance the Academy has ever seen!” said Dean Cinch. “Clover, for your astonishing achievement here today, we have had to come up with a brand new top grade just for you! I hereby award you the grade of Panmega Plus!”

“Clover!” A breathless Star Swirl the Bearded burst into the exam hall. “The alignment of Orion with the Waterpony is happening aeons ahead of schedule, and only the two of us can discover why! There’s a dragon waiting for us outside. Grab your bubble hat – we are going to OUTER SPACE!”

Clover’s ears popped, and she was back in her chair, staring down at the paper.

She drew a deep breath, dipped her quill in her well and began to write her introductory sentence when the wall beside her exploded. A huge boulder blasted through the hall and smashed into the opposite wall, leaving a trail of rubble and smashed desks in its wake. A cloud of dust filled the air. A dozen students had been thrown from their seats, and there were screams and panic as confusion and fear rippled through the hall.

Clover’s heart froze up in her chest, and she stared wide-eyed and unblinking at the scene before her. All the ponies who had been in the boulder’s firing line were at least crawling away, stunned and shaking. She had just started running towards them to help when she heard from outside the newly formed entrance a shouted command to advance, and a platoon of armed and armored ponies came rushing into the hall.

They swiftly surrounded the students and the elderly exam watchers. The fallen ponies were pulled up on their hooves, and dozens of confused and horrified exam writers looked up at the chaos unfolding, back down to their unfinished papers, and up again.

Clover found herself jostled along by the attacking ponies, and the fruits of her education kicked in: stay calm and observe.

She took in the scene. The attackers did not look like an army, even though somepony had done their best to give them something like uniforms. There were a number of different groups, wearing different colors of plain dress cut from whole cloth, as though the designer had asked themselves ‘how can I dress up two hundred ponies in matching outfits tomorrow as quickly and cheaply as possible?’ and had decided to go with plain dyed fabric with an emblem stitched to the collar. The emblem showed an upturned hoof, raised to the sky.

The ponies themselves seemed to come from all walks of life. There was a gruff, scarred earth pony who looked like he had been to Tartarus and back, and next to him was a middle-aged unicorn with a double chin and glasses, and the two worked together to round up the students from their seats and gather them together. There was a gentle-looking young mare with two bunnies riding on her back and a huge spear resting against her shoulder, and what looked like a mad baker, eyes twitching, her grin ragged and dangerous, barricading the front gate.

Whatever they were, they worked together well and quickly seized control of the hall, the students all herded together in a cluster in the center. Two of them pinned down Professor Quill while another two tipped over the giant hourglass. It fell to the floor with a surprisingly muffled thud, and did not shatter, and it was clear the ponies tipping it were disappointed with this anticlimax. Nonetheless, the sands stopped running, and thus marked the untimely end of the exam proceedings.

“Ponies, tenSHUN!” one earth pony yelled. “Make way for the Conqueror of Cambridle! All hail the Hoof!”

In the hole, clambering over shattered stone and trying to look dignified, there came a procession of ponies, and Clover immediately recognized the pony in the lead. “Chocolate Bunnies?”

“Oh, hi Clover! What’s up?”

– – –

On the green, the attack was also proceeding, and the usual intrigue of the academy was interrupted by intrigue from outside.

“This is our cutthroat professional gathering,” Dean Cinch impatiently explained to the pony who was trying to take her prisoner. “This is the Cambridle Academy of Magic, the foremost arcane school in the Unicorn Kingdom, not some petty trading outpost to be passed off from one bandit lord to another! I don’t know who you think you are, but the university will not stand for ponies barging in here and attempting to seize control without so much as a thesis statement! You can go to the admissions office and deliver your papers like everypony else!”

“Yeah, and this is a knife, lady!” Cutting Edge replied. “So go stand by the wall already!”

“Knives can’t cut knowledge!”

Across the green, one of the invading ponies had attempted to prod Star Swirl towards the others with the butt of his spear. Star Swirl had briefly lit his horn, and the spear had fallen from the pony’s grip to the ground. The pony was currently attempting to lift it, but since it weighed the same as a small house, he was having limited success.

Star Swirl took in the scene all around him. “It seems we are surrounded.”

Ginny looked around her, and nodded. Then she sipped her tea.

Star Swirl turned a wary eye on the librarian. “Were you expecting this to happen, Ginny?”

“Well, I didn’t have the details of the plan,” Ginny said. “But the Siblinghood of the Hoof came to the The Mystical Order of Librarians a month ago to learn our position. The Grandmaster relayed the Order’s traditional statement of neutrality: ‘We were here before your ancestors learned to hit things with rocks, and we will remain here long after you crumble to dust. Begone, and trouble us not’.”

Star Swirl frowned. “Don’t tell me you agreed to that. You’re not to the type to play neutral.”

“As an Elder of the Order, I am bound to uphold the Grandmaster’s decision,” she said with just a hint of bitterness. “Regimes come and go. Today, the Siblinghood of the Hoof topples Cambridle. Tomorrow somepony else will topple the Hoof in turn. I cannot take sides in this battle. What about you?”

Star Swirl glanced around him, taking in the appearance of a flock of different ponies, with different allegiances, wearing different clothes and sporting different styles, all under the same hoof-adorned banner. Inside, Clover was writing her exam. “I am considering the situation.”

Ginny pursed her lips. “You’re the adventurer, Star Swirl. These are a bunch of academics. If anypony is going to fight them it should be you.”

He sniffed the air, and frowned. “Thick with magic… But not the Academy’s magic. Something very strange is going on here. This feels like…”

Let it happen.

He looked towards the New Old Hall, deep in thought, and whispered: “Like somepony else’s challenge.”

– – –

“To think, I was afraid I might hurt somepony, and cause a panic,” Chocolate Bunnies said to Clover as the two of them climbed the stairs to the mezzanine overlooking the exam hall. They were flanked by one teen colt and one middle-aged mare carrying sabers in their mouths, and Clover made sure not to make any sudden moves. From above Clover saw her fellow students being rounded up, and led away. “But this has turned out great! The Academy now belongs to the Siblinghood of the Hoof, and I’m hanging out with one of my best friends! The Hoof is very pleased.”

“That’s… that’s great, Bunnies,” Clover said. She looked out a window as they passed it by. Outside she saw a swarm of ponies in the polyforms of the Hoof occupying the academy grounds, and the device that had smashed through the wall: a bizarre wooden sculpture of a huge creature made up of mismatched animal parts, a long body lounging against a throne of uneven stones and ceramic jugs atop a massive concrete block, with what appeared to be an exquisitely-carved wooden brook pouring down from the creature’s ear. It held one arm straight up, a solid wooden beam from which rope connected to a large sheet of thick fabric that two ponies were loading up with another big boulder.

Clover gulped. Okay, maybe this is what Star Swirl the Bearded foresaw. This could be part of my challenge: save the school and bring the exam back on track. I can be Clover of Cambridle, Heroine of the Academy. I can do this.

She cleared her throat. “Well, Bunnies, this is… Well, it’s rather sudden. You realize that, right? Would you mind, I dunno, maybe telling me what this is all about?”

“I was a little unsure at first myself,” Chocolate Bunnies admitted happily. “I never really thought of myself as the pony to lead a revolution and usher in a new world, you know? But once I got started, it turned out it’s really easy!”

“Right. Right,” Clover muttered as she walked along beside her old roommate. “The thing is, Bunnies, this revolution of yours interrupted my exam. That’s kind of an issue for me. And I think it’s an issue for a lot of ponies. I want to talk about that. Would you mind, I dunno, telling your ponies to stop what they’re doing and maybe let me get back to writing my paper about the Canter Spring Equation? I was sort of pressed for time to begin with.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Clover,” Bunnies said. “It turns out it’s easy to start a revolution, but it’s a bit harder to stop them. But nothing to worry about! Once I am named as the new Dean of the Academy of Magic, as my first order of business I will declare that everypony who lived through the glorious revolution will automatically be awarded top marks! With flying colors!”

Clover nodded, her mind racing as she wondered how to deal with this. “Bunnies, strange as it is for me to say this, I think there are actually kind of a lot of students back downstairs who would rather do their exams in the normal way.”

“Oh I know! I was just an ordinary student like you once,” Chocolate Bunnies said. “I worried about classes, and reading, and homework, and exams, and paying the rent… But that all changed when I found the Hoof. It was right there, at the end of my leg!” She held up her leg to demonstrate. “And it has helped me so much!”

“Hooves are… very useful, yes,” Clover conceded. “But Bunnies, I’m not sure you fully understand what—”

“You bet!” Chocolate Bunnies said, grinning. “Thanks to the Hoof, my Siblinghood has taken over all of Cambridle! No more will the city be run by stodgy old ponies who are blind to the world around them! No more will they deny a voice to the rest of us! From now on, the Siblinghood of the Hoof will see that everypony has a fair chance! My lieutenants and I will take care of everything!”

“Yeah, about that,” said a pink stallion from behind them. “Chocolate Bunnies? We, the leaders of the Servitors of Discord, Cambridle Chapter, are hereby deposing you and seizing control of the Siblinghood and the Revolution, in the name of Lord Discord.”

– – –

A few weeks earlier, in a barn.

“This is interesting,” Silk Road said to her companions. “Elta Belta Pony was our biggest rival for influence with the student community. With the destruction of the EBP frat house, there’s a power vacuum in the academy. We must accelerate our plans accordingly.”

Gallopsky blinked and focused his eyes on the piece of paper in front of him: the latest report from his contact at the animal shelter, telling him that the weapons had arrived town undetected and that they were ready to move on his order.

It was one in a long series of similar reports from a dozen different groups across the city, informing him of supplies, horsepower, reconnaissance, the submission of his rivals and the weakness of his adversaries. The revolution was finally coming.

“You know,” he said to his fellow former leaders of the Cult of Discord (Cambridle chapter), current lieutenants of the Hoof, “I kind of thought winning would be a lot more fun than this.”

“Whatever do you mean?” said Silk Road, the unicorn mare of the trio. “I’m having a marvelous time!”

“Well, you like being stuck behind a desk reading organizational charts and quarterly progress reports,” Gallopsky replied, pushing the stack of papers aside. “This isn’t why I got into this!”

“This is what it takes to make an effective organization,” Silk Road began, launching into the explanation she had delivered a hundred times before, each time a little less patient than the last. “It takes work. It takes dedication, and research into what works and what doesn’t, and a willingness to adapt.”

“We’re the Servitors of Discord!” Gallopsky cried out in frustration. “We’re worshipers of chaos! We shouldn’t care about whether or not it works!”

“And that’s why none of it ever did! Because when it was just us, you were only interested in building ever-more elaborate Discord carnival floats!”

He snorted. “A revolution without carnival floats is a revolution that’s not worth having.”

“Well, Cutting Edge seems happy enough with her work,” Silk Road said, looking across the barn to where the third of them worked.

The pegasus mare with wild spiky mane and a pair of knives for a cutie mark was hovering over a stash of artwork, mechanical parts, and knife blades. The wall behind her had a big poster on it bearing the words “The Arts and Crafts of War”.

“Don’t try to hide behind me, Silk Pyjamas,” Cutting Edge said. “You never liked any of my ideas. Yeah I’m happy. Unlike you, Bunnies appreciates what I bring to the stable.”

“That’s because your ideas were all ridiculously impractical and made us a laughing stock across Cambridle!” Silk Road cried. “And I told you to stop using that nickname!”

Cutting Edge chuckled to herself. “Whatever.”

“This isn’t fun anymore,” Gallopsky muttered, rubbing his temples with his hooves. “Even watching you two go at each other doesn’t seem right anymore. It used to be fun. We used to work together towards a common goal but with three wildly different approaches towards elevating Discord, and not care that none of them ever worked because we were all growing closer together and getting a deeper understanding of ourselves and of chaos in the process and we all knew that someday our time would come. But now we’re going to actually seize power in Cambridle and it isn’t any fun!” He slammed his head against the desk. “We lost the thread, everypony. We’re not doing this for Lord Discord. Discord wouldn’t like this at all.”

“You can speak for yourself,” Silk Road huffed. “I always cared that none of it worked. I wanted us to succeed! I wanted to break the shackles of the hierarchy and force the traditionalists to acknowledge our demands! To break the established hold on power and bring freedom of spirit!”

“You wanted to find another way to get to the top because you were left off the ladder when you were born to a lowly shopkeeper,” Cutting Edge interjected.

“That is completely untrue and you know it!”

“Come on, Edge,” Gallopsky said, turning his eye to the pegasus. “You were more excited about chaos than anypony I’ve ever met. You used to make exploding baked goods for fun! You wanted to open ponies’ minds, and change their way of looking at the world! You can’t tell me you’re really satisfied making munitions that are only going to be used to ‘hold off the city guard’ while somepony else ‘cuts off their reinforcements’. That doesn’t sound like the Cutting Edge I know. She’d want to light up the sky in a thousand different colors, until ponies think it will never go back to normal!”

The pegasus said nothing, but plopped down on her haunch and turned away. “…Honestly, this is getting pretty boring,” she muttered. “After I finished the trebuchet everything has been a letdown by comparison. I love each of these things. But doing like a whole bunch of every single one them? That’s not creating. That’s just reproducing.”

“We gave up our principles in exchange for power,” Gallopsky said under his breath. “We made a Deal with Discord, and it didn’t even benefit Discord! We’re the worst Discordians ever.”

Silk Road glared at her comrades. “Look, we all agreed to this.”

“No we didn’t,” Gallopsky said.

“Yes we did! We took a vote and we all voted in favor! That’s what agreement means!”

Gallopsky huffed and crossed his forelegs. “I remember that day very differently.”

“Guh!” Silk Road buried her face in her hooves. “...Alright then, fine. Gallopsky? What do you think happened that day?”

“Well, you were all for it.”

“Yes. Because coalition politics is a good way for a small group to gain greater influence, and sad to say we are a small group and we needed it.” Silk Road looked at her companions, frazzled and unhappy. “It’s not like this was a new idea. I’d been trying to find collaborators all over Cambridle for two years! But there just aren’t many ponies who are willing to give Lord Discord a chance. We can’t afford to give up a potential ally!”

Gallopsky rolled his eyes. “Yeah. You said so. Nopony cares. The point is… That’s what you thought. And Cutting Edge?”

“Yeah?”

“You voted in favor. What did you think that meant?”

Cutting Edge shrugged. “Chocolate Bunnies was my roommate back in art school. We’re friends. Of course I said yes.”

“Exactly,” Gallopsky said with a sigh. “And I saw that I was outnumbered two to one, and I got flustered, and I agreed to go along with it even though I wasn’t at all convinced this was a good idea because otherwise the Discordians Cambridle Chapter would get torn apart, and there would be a lot of hurt feelings on all sides, and I know you two and I know that neither of you would ever admit that this was a bad idea if you thought it meant I’d say ‘I told you so’.”

Both Silk Road and Cutting Edge glanced away with frowns that clearly said ‘well, you’re not wrong’.

“Exactly,” Gallopsky said. “Come on, guys. We’re Discordians. We only have each other. Yeah, I voted in favor. Because I knew that the only way we would get through this was together. And we’re still together! But come on. You know this isn’t chaos. You know this isn’t what we wanted. Are we really going to abandon Lord Discord just for a promise of cushy jobs in a city government under somepony who takes her orders from some other cosmic being entirely, whose commitment to chaos is lackluster at best?”

Cutting Edge drooped, and slumped down over the floor. Silk Road averted her gaze in shame. “...So what are you proposing that we do?” The unicorn’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

“I have an idea,” he said. “It’s… kind of traditional.” He winced. “But it’s chaotic traditional.”

“Go on.”

“After the last battle, when the smoke has cleared and Cambridle belongs to the Hoof… We depose Chocolate Bunnies in a coup, and seize power for Lord Discord.”

Silk Road and Cutting Edge both looked uncertain. “Hear me out,” Gallopsky said, raising a hoof. “We don’t need to hurt her, or anything. We give her every honor that Discord bestows to his followers, we thank her for all the work she’s done for the revolution, and we give her some nice important-sounding title in the new regime, like, um, I dunno, like—”

“President of the Revolutionary Convention?”

“Right, like that. And we make ourselves secretaries of administration and enforcement. And then we have all the power, and we can start fighting among ourselves about how best to use it. The ensuing power struggle will shake Cambridle to its foundation, and everypony will see what Lord Discord is really capable of!”

The three of them looked back and forth between each other, trying to puzzle out what the others were thinking.

Cutting Edge broke the silence first. “Honestly, that sounds like more fun than finding another eighty ways to paint the same hoof grenade.”

“You realize, of course, that this means giving up everything we’ve gained,” Silk Road said curtly.

Gallopsky shook his head. “No it doesn’t. No it doesn’t, because we get recognition. Because now everypony in Cambridle will know that the Discordians are worth taking seriously. Because we’ll still have all the contacts and all the alliances we’ve made. Come on, Silk. This is a realignment in Cambridle that’ll have repercussions for many years to come. You of all ponies can take advantage of that.”

The unicorn mare leaned back in her chair. “...Much as it pains me to admit it, you make some good points.”

“So it’s decided?” Gallopsky looked back and forth between his two comrades. “Once we have Cambridle, the Discordians will pull the plug on the Siblinghood of the Hoof, and bring back the Revolution.”

– – –

“And so here we are,” Gallopsky concluded, with Silk Road and Cutting Edge nodding behind him. “So, you know, you can just go ahead and surrender now.”

Chocolate Bunnies blurted out sounds of shock and anger. “You – you treacherous little – the Hoof is not pleased about this!”

She shook her hoof at him. He glanced away awkwardly.

“I told you she wasn’t going to go quietly,” Silk Road muttered. “That’s why we came prepared. Animal Shelter Brigade, seize Chocolate Bunnies!”

The two ponies with scimitars in their mouths stepped forward, their eyes locked on Chocolate Bunnies.

Alright, this must be what Star Swirl foresaw.

Clover drew a deep breath and stepped forward.

“Hi, everypony! Let’s all just calm down and talk about this, shall we?” Clover said, loudly and cheerfully, as she took up position between the two sides. “You know what this situation calls for? Conflict resolution through impartial mediation!”

The scimitar-wielding ponies halted, looking back to the Discordians for instructions. The Discordians, Clover saw, were no less surprised. “...Who are you?” Gallopsky asked.

“I’m Clover Cordelia,” Clover said, smiling aggressively into the pink pony’s face. “You can call me Clover. I had diplomacy lessons when I was four, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

For the moment everything was peaceful as all eyes focused on her, and she nodded internally. So far so good. Victory for Clover the Cool-Headed, peacefully resolving a tense situation! This is your time to shine. Let’s bring this home. She cleared her throat loudly. “Let’s talk about what you all want! Now, you all have divergent interests, and, well, I don’t actually know who you are or what you want but I do know that there’s room for a compromise that will satisfy everypony, provided that you’re all willing to enter into a reasonable discussion. So what do you say? Let’s get started!”

“Back off, lady,” Cutting Edge growled. “This is a revolution. You don’t want to get involved.”

Clover rolled her eyes. “Uh huh. Listen, after a year with Star Swirl the Bearded, this is foal’s play.” She glanced from Cutting Edge to her companions. “So you, Discordians, was it? You want, and correct me if I’m wrong here, to gain credibility in the eyes of society for your cause. And you,” she turned around, realized it was probably a bad idea to turn her back to the heavily armed cultists, and turned half-way back, “Chocolate Bunnies, you want to, um, seize control of the university in the name of your hoof. For some reason. Now, I’m just an impartial observer here… Well, mostly, but it seems to me that your goals are not actually contradictory. So what if we all put down our weapons, and sit down to talk, and try to reach some kind of agreement that everypony can be happy with.” She grinned. “And then, and this is my favorite part, all the students downstairs can sit down and continue working on their exams in peace, and nopony interrupts them again. And that can be my little fee for serving as your mediator, and I won’t ask anything else. Shall we get started?”

“Wait, I know who she is!” Silk Road said. “She’s the, mm, you know, the apprentice, of the mad wizard. You must have heard of her.”

“That’s her?” Gallopsky asked. “I heard she was dead.”

“I’m not dead!” Clover shot back angrily. “I don’t know why ponies say that! I’ve hardly been in deadly peril at all! Like, once or twice, tops!”

“Well, if she’s already dead then I’m gonna shank her,” Cutting Edge said.

“We’re never going to get anywhere if you’re not willing to engage peacefully with your fellows,” Clover said.

“Smoke bomb!” Chocolate Bunnies shouted, and threw something to the floor. True to her word, it exploded in a cloud of thick black smoke that blinded all present. Clover felt herself being bodily picked up in somepony’s magic, and then she was pulled along while behind her the Siblinghood of the Hoof coughed in the cloud.

“Get her!” Silk Road called out, between coughs. “She will try to reach her loyalists! Don’t let her get away!”

Clover turned to try to get a look at Bunnies. The floor raced by her upside-down, and then a staircase leading up, each step dangerously close to bashing her head. “Bunnies! Put me down! I had everything under control!”

“Quiet!” Bunnies shushed her as she ducked behind a corner. She glanced down the corridor both sides before setting off again, carrying Clover with her. “I have to find a way out of here, and reach the troops that are still loyal to me. Once I’m back in control I can put down this uprising without much trouble.”

Clover rolled her eyes. “DO you have any troops that are loyal to you?” Clover asked.

“I don’t know! There are traitors lurking everywhere.” Chocolate Bunnies ducked into another alcove and peered out in all directions. They heard hoofsteps running in the distance, but saw nopony. Bunnies scowled at the darkness. “After all I’ve done for them… I placed them in charge, I tasked them with recruitment, but somehow they managed to conceal their treachery from me. They were very cunning.”

Clover stared at her friend. “Bunnies… Those ponies were Discord cultists. You left the running of your revolution to Discord cultists. Did you really not imagine that something like this would happen?”

“The Hoof told me to seek them out! The Hoof wouldn’t lead me astray! It’s impossible!”

“Oh boy...” Clover rubbed her forehead. She could feel a headache coming on. “Alright, Bunnies, listen to me… We’re friends, right?”

Chocolate Bunnies nodded.

“I have a proposal,” Clover said. “I don’t know why you wanted this revolution in the first place. But if you agree to… I can’t believe I’m saying this, withdraw your army from the university and let the exams go on again, I’ll help you regain control of your rebellious troops. Deal?”

Bunnies’ eyes widened, and her face turned pale. “I can’t abandon the revolution now! We’re so close to victory!”

“Well, it’s either that, or you get deposed in a coup,” Clover said. “Right now you’re alone and cornered. If there’s one thing working with Star Swirl the Bearded has taught me, it’s that there’s always a way out if we keep a cool head and work together. But I need you on my side, Bunnies. What do you say?”

Clover could see the conflict play out across her friend’s face, a series of grimaces and frowns, by turns thoughtful and despairing, until finally she struck resignation hard. Her shoulders sagged, and she nodded.

Her magic dispersed, and Clover dropped lightly to the floor.

“I was hoping to get out of my exams through this,” Chocolate Bunnies said quietly. “I’ve been so busy I haven’t gotten to study for months.”

“There’s always next year. I’ll tutor you if you like. I’m good at this stuff,” Clover said, and Bunnies nodded without feeling it. “But now, come on. We need to get out of the building without being spotted by your, um, enemies. Do you know if there’s somepony out there you can trust?”

“…Well, the Guardian of the Tombs seems to like me,” Bunnies said. “He’s sworn his loyalty to me alone. He and his followers are guarding the street in front of the New Old Hall. If we can get to the far side of the building I can rally them to my side. But the Discordians will be blocking all the exits.”

“Maybe not all the exits,” Clover said with a grin. “They’ll be expecting us to try to get down. So we’ll head up instead. If we can get out on the rooftops, we can find a way to get down the side of the building.”

Clover and Bunnies both glanced around the corner, and saw nopony.

A quick but stealthy trot lead them to the staircase, and from below they heard the sounds of rebels organizing a search. They quietly climbed the stairs, hearing the hoofsteps from below getting more distant.

Clover smiled. And so Clover the Elusive sneaks past her attackers and brings her charge to safety! It’s a shame Star Swirl couldn’t join me. He would definitely approve of this plan.

The next step on the staircase creaked under her hooves, and the voice of Silk Road shouted from below, “They’re above us!”

“You’ll never get me alive!” Chocolate Bunnies cried out, and Clover once again found herself suspended mid-air as her friend legged it up the stairs. Clover squealed as, once again, she hung upside-down watching as the steps of the staircase repeatedly came to within an inch of bashing against her head.

They rose up higher on what was now a spiral staircase with walls on all sides and no floor between until, after a minute of constant sprinting that had Bunnies getting more winded with each passing moment, they ran out of up. The topmost level was a little wooden structure with a door and nothing else, and Bunnies stumbled through it, gasping for breath and pulling Clover along behind her. “Well – we made it – to the roof.”

Clover looked down, and there was a great deal of down to see. They were on a narrow square platform. She was suspended mid-air a few feet above the floor, but also a few feet past where the floor ended.

The roof of the New Old Hall was far below them, and the ground was farther down still. Directly below her Clover saw the green, where the faculty potluck lunch was likewise dealing with sudden occupation.

“Bunnies?” Clover asked. “Are we on top of the clock tower?”

Bunnies’ breathing was heavy, and it took a second before she answered. “Yes. We are.”

Clover nodded her head. “Bunnies? I would really appreciate it if you would gently place me down on the roof right now. Will you do that for me?”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Clover! The Hoof has everything under control!”

Hoofsteps came up the stairs behind them, and the three Discordians emerged from the doorway onto the narrow rooftop, with more ponies packed onto the stairs behind them.

“Come on, Bunnies,” Gallopsky said, flanked by Silk Road and Cutting Edge, the pegasus hovering outside the platform. “Let’s not make this any harder than it has to be.”

“Never!” Chocolate Bunnies reared up on her hindlegs. “I haven’t come this far to be stopped now! You treacherous dogs will rue the day you defied the will of the Hoof!”

“There’s no reason to start throwing around ethnic slurs,” muttered the leader of the animal shelter brigade.

“Oh, screw this,” Cutting Edge muttered. “I’m going for it!”

The pegasus flew straight into Chocolate Bunnies and tackled her, and at the moment of impact Clover felt herself jostled violently where she hung. She yelped, her legs sprawled and kicked in a panic as she felt herself get thrown about like a rag doll.

From inside her cloak, Clover’s small hoof-shaped jar of salt tumbled out of its pocket and fell, just before the magic field winked out entirely and Clover dropped like a stone.

Maybe Star Swirl didn’t foresee any of this at all, she thought as she watched the ground come closer. Well, I guess this makes for a slightly better story than flunking out of my exams.

The potluck lunch table stood directly below her, and she was falling towards the center. Directly below her was a small cauldron of porridge, and not far away were Star Swirl, Ginny, and Tarsus. They were all looking the other way, locked in argument with the attackers.

The hoof-shaped jar of salt tumbled through the air right below her, right in front of her eyes, twisting and turning as it fell, and she found herself focusing on it as the world came up to meet her.

It hit the cauldron with great force, and there was an explosion of light and color, and then everything went dark.

Chapter 18: The World Tree

Dashing, bold pirate captain Clover swung across the landing and through the gates of Canterlot House. “Hello, dear,” said her father. “I and your father have hidden the treasure under your friends.” Clover and Star Swirl faced down the hordes of changelings that stood between them and the clock tower, but all she could see was the sound of the hourglass ticking away the moments until she had to stop the revolution before it was too late. The jar of salt spun before her eyes as she fell, and the Professor argued with a blade of grass and her exam was very disappointed in her under the jungle canopy while she climbed the ancient temple in search of Chocolate Bunnies and the Discordians. “Your exam is behind the altar of doom,” Tarsus’ voice whispered through her father’s face, and Clover felt herself falling.

“Clover?”

Clover was jolted into waking by the sound of her name. She opened her mouth to speak, but a yawn came out first.

She pushed the jumbled images of her dream out of her mind. “Sorry, just tired.” She blinked and saw jungle. There was the sound of running water in the distance, and the cry of birds and monkeys up above. “Where were we?”

“We are in the wilds of Sumareia,” Star Swirl said as he climbed atop a rock. “We are hunting for the Lost Jewel of Gilgamane. Also your parents are visiting.”

“My parents are what?” Clover turned around and saw her parents. They were in the opulent penthouse suite of the Grand Hotel Cambridle, sitting side by side and holding hooves and shooting loving looks to each other. “Hello dear,” said Ivy Cordelia. “Your father and I love you very much, we just want you to know that.”

Clover was staring at them in silent shock when she felt a hoof nudge her. “Come on, Clover,” Chocolate Bunnies whispered in her ear. “Focus on your exams.”

Clover looked down at the exam paper. On either side of her were desks like her own, and students hard at work. The exam was going great. She had written fifteen pages already, and an easy A was in sight.

Clover frowned. “I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

A sixteenth page appeared, in her hornwriting, full of end-notes explaining ambiguous points in the prior fifteen.

“No, the Lost Jewel of Gilgamane is definitely in Sumareia,” Chocolate Bunnies said. Clover’s parents both nodded in mutual agreement.

Clover shook her head. “There was a… there was a revolution?” A stab of pain shot down the length of her horn, and disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she made a very undignified sound.

“Oh, no,” said Chocolate Bunnies. “That was all a mistake.”

Clover bit her tongue, and focused on what was in front of her. There was Professor Quick Quill at the front of the hall, nodding along as the students wrote their exam. She turned left. There was the Professor, climbing a vine to get up a rocky ledge. She turned right. There were her parents, all decorum and propriety replaced with comfortable affection, nuzzling with blissful glances that they had never shown each other in real life.

What’s a good way to see if you’re under mind control?

“It sure would be nice,” Clover said slowly, “to have a glass of chilled water.”

One appeared on her desk, by her right hoof.

“I wonder if this has a drop of lime in it,” she said before tasting it. There was lime. “That’s too bad, I hate lime,” she said, and tasted it again. There was no lime.

“I sure could use one of Star Swirl’s special pebbles right now,” Clover said out loud, and waited. Nothing happened. “Interesting. So that means… um. That this isn’t real life?” She tried to puzzle out the logic behind her thought process. “Well, there’s an interesting logic puzzle. Can an all-powerful universe create something that it is powerless to create? Apparently not. Well, that’s an alternative to biting your leg to see if you’re dreaming I suppose.”

After a moment’s consideration Clover bit her leg. It stung in the normal fashion, and otherwise nothing happened. “None of this makes sense!” she shouted, and Professor Quick Quill urged her to be quiet for the sake of the other students. “Am I dreaming? The last thing I remember was the fall—”

Everything around her unraveled. In a message not carried in words, the universe said “please hold.”

– – –

Clover woke up. It was slow this time, moving very gradually along a spectrum from deep, restful slumber towards waking.

Her bed had never been so comfortable. She felt like she was sleeping on a cloud, or what she always imagined sleeping on clouds was like – she wasn’t a pegasus, after all, and had never slept on a cloud. But all the pegasi she’d known chose that option, so she’d always figured they knew something she didn’t.

She turned over, not because she was uncomfortable but just because her muscles wanted her to, and she was still too asleep to question her own muscles. The bed molded perfectly to her form beneath her, so soft that it felt like it wasn’t there at all. She could roll over with all four legs outstretched without problem, and her blanket kept her at a perfect temperature without lumping up or needing to be repositioned on top of her cloak.

Wait, Clover’s brain thought without forming the words. Did I go to bed wearing my cloak?

Wait. When did I go to bed?

Wait. This isn’t my bed.

Clover opened her eyes, and saw nothing. There was no ground beneath her, no sky above. She hung, weightless, in an endless void.

She tried to open her eyes again, thinking that maybe it hadn’t worked right the first time. It made no difference.

“Oh,” she said, and her voice sounded strange to her ears. “Okay, Clover, think. What happened…?”

The memories flooded into her head: the university, the exam, the revolution, the coup, her friend Chocolate Bunnies dropping her from the top of the clock tower, the fall…

She wasn’t in darkness. She could see herself, and a brief examination of herself suggested that, other than her newfound ability to float in empty space, her physical condition was unchanged.

Clover frowned. “Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?” She looked around. The void was a shade of beige, neutral and not unpleasant, and Clover felt more than saw that there were stars behind the color, but wherever she tried to look it was impossible to focus on.

Her thoughts went back to the dimensional rift she had visited with the professor. But while the rift had been cold, bitter, and spiteful, this place seemed pleasantly warm, comfortable, even welcoming. The rift had been a place of death, and this was not. Even though there was no horizon, she had a feeling that beyond it work was proceeding to keep the gears turning.

“I don’t feel dead,” she said to herself. “I don’t look dead either, and I’ve met a few dead ponies… And this doesn’t seem like any afterlife I’ve ever heard about. It’s not cold, or burning… In fact it’s kinda comfortable here. It would be like being asleep, if I weren’t wide awake. And—” she reached out with her magic, and immediately flipped over backwards. “Woah there! Okay, background magic levels vastly greater than in Braytannia, and highly reactive… If this is an afterlife, I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be here. Hello? Anypony? Any deities listening? My name is Clover and I think I’m lost! I’m supposed to be doing my exams. Any help?”

“Hello, Clover,” a voice said. It was deep, and forceful, and rumbled straight through her. “Nice to see you again.”

“Um. Hello?” Clover looked around her, but still saw nothing. “Have we met? Are you the voice of the universe? I’m sorry to bother you, but I think I’m lost.”

“Oh,” said the voice, a slow sound by a voice that felt like taking its time. “No, I’m not the voice of the universe. I think. That’s a good question, actually. But no. Hold on a moment.”

There was a great gust of warm, wet wind, and the voice said, “There. Is that better?” And then she saw it.

Where a moment before there had been nothing but the void, now Clover found herself standing on a coarse, brown surface, stretching out far to either side of her before dropping off. It tilted upwards ahead of her in the distance she couldn’t tell how far, and the sky beyond it was green.

It took her a moment to adjust her perspective, and realize she was standing on a branch, only one so large that she was like an insect by comparison.

Then she turned around and saw the trunk, and her jaws dropped. “Oh.”

“Hello, Clover,” said the tree, its voice coming from all sides at once, the rumble of it continuing after the words had ended. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Clover only stared. It was impossibly vast, larger than Clover could imagine. The trunk rose up farther than the eye could see, hanging thick with crowns of leaves, reached down into a bottomless expanse. Its roots and branches were beyond counting, reaching out and bending so as to eventually block almost everything that was not blocked by the endless leaves. Water fell from the tips of branches that could have been rivers, down to hanging globules of sap so large she imagined they could hold worlds.

“Mister Leafy,” she said feebly. “You’re all grown up.”

“I’ve had a very interesting day,” Mister Leafy said. “I’ve met so many plants, and they were all so nice to me. I’m never alone now. I can reach out and touch everywhere at once. I can taste the sky and the earth like I never could before. And everything that used to worry me is gone now, like a bad dream. And I thought, it would be nice to tell all this to mister Star Swirl, and to miss Clover. And here you are. This is a good day!”

The tree rumbled and shook, and Clover stumbled and fell like a foal on a trampoline.

“Sorry,” Mister Leafy said. “I just can’t help myself. I’m so happy!”

“I’m… Well, I’m very happy for you,” Clover said, getting back on her hooves. “I mean, assuming this is real, and not some kind of comatose dream I’m having.”

“My roots touch the underworld,” Mister Leafy said. “My highest branches hold up the sun. I think there are new lifeforms growing on the undersides of my leaves, sheltering in my bark.”

Clover thought. She shook her head. “No, that doesn’t really help me decide, sorry.”

“I should tell mister Star Swirl,” Mister Leafy continued. “But I can’t see him anywhere, even though I can see every side of the sky. Do you know if he’s here as well?”

At that moment there was a tinkling sound in the air that Clover would have recognized anywhere: the bells on her teacher’s clothing. Clover turned, and saw a robed and pointy-hatted figure in the distance, and felt flush with relief. “Oh thank goodness… Professor, I’m here! Can you hear me? Can you… oh dear.”

The figure that came near was definitely her teacher, for some values of ‘was’. It had his robe and hat, his face and his beard. But its eyes were windows that opened onto alien galaxies that spun in accelerated time, a moment-to-moment firework display of light, motion, and explosion.

In addition it was no larger than her head, it flew through the air like a paper aeroplane dragging its robe along behind it, and it had no visible body under its robe, like a bed-sheet ghost.

“Hurry, student!” said the figure that was her teacher. “No time to waste! The Scattering has commenced and we have a near-infinity on our hooves! Time is passing!”

Clover stared at him. “…Professor?”

“Gawping is not working, student! The infant multiverse awaits! We have much to do!”

Clover blinked. “Infant… what?”

“The collision of cosmic interconnection and void substance! We have an unleashed potential gone critical! All the stars were once one, and we must restore the center!”

Clover stared, opened her mouth, thought about it, but said nothing. “Did you understand a word of that?” she eventually asked Mister Leafy, who filled the air with the sound of rustling leaves, the sound of a world-tree shrugging its shoulders. She sighed. “I’m sorry, professor, and I’m glad to see you, but can we start from the beginning?”

“The beginning?” the figure said, and nodded. “First was the great scattering. Then I found Clover. Now is the present. Now we must find Chocolate Bunnies and the center!”

“Chocolate Bunnies? Is she here?”

“All points are the center of the multiverse. Remember your lessons!”

Clover stared at Star Swirl the Sprite in silence. He bounced back and forth like a ball on a string, making high-pitched noises of encouragement, and then confusion.

“Alright, let’s try to do this slowly,” Clover began, and Star Swirl wailed. “First things first: where are we? I know I’m not dead because I have a pulse, right?”

“First things first?” Star Swirl the Sprite tilted its head this way and that, then nodded. “In the beginning there was void matter, inert, but containing vast untapped power. Then came order, plunging into the void, and there was upheaval, volatile, and swift. In the mixture it created a field of endless possibility. It reached out for purpose, and purpose it found, in many minds. It listened to them, and they told it what the world should be, and so it was! Understand?”

The Sprite looked expectantly at her, awaiting her response. Clover thought, and shook her head.

The Sprite sagged. “No. Not dead.”

“Alright,” Clover said slowly. That’s… good. I’m glad to hear it.” She looked around her, thinking hard. “Well… This place sort of reminds me of the dimensional rift. But that place was…” She shuddered at the memory. “It was vicious, and bitter, and spiteful. This place is almost downright friendly by comparison. Like it wants me to be happy here, but doesn’t understand how?”

“Mirror,” the Sprite said. “Measurements. Conscious thought and magic! All number of things?” Clover shook her head, and it sagged again for a moment. Then it perked up, and stars flashed in its eyes. “Think back, student! What is today?”

“You’re not being very helpful, Professor.” Clover sighed, and looked up in thought. “Today is my exam day. I was working on my exam when I got interrupted. I… I was up on the tower. Bunnies… She dropped me off the building.”

The Sprite grunted in affirmation. “Yes. And?”

“I fell off the building. I thought about how disappointing an ending this would be. I was killed for no good reason, for the sake of a revolution that doesn’t even make a lick of sense, by somepony I thought was my friend. I saw you down on the green, with Ginny and Tarsus, and you didn’t even see me falling. I saw the salt—” She froze.

The Sprite waited.

“The salt… I saw the salt hit the porridge. That was the last thing I saw.”

The Sprite nodded. “What is salt?”

“Salt is a seasoning.” Clover scowled at her teacher. “My little hoof-shaped jar of salt. I like that jar, you know. It’s the first time I felt like I was getting comfortable studying under you. And then you told me that my salt had hydras.”

“Phase hydras.”

“I don’t care what kind of hydras! There shouldn’t be hydras in salt, Star Swirl!”

“Salt is—”

“I know that salt is hydraphilic!” Clover caught her breath and stepped back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t yell at you, professor. It’s been a long day… Okay. Swirly Star told me that salt exists outside the universe… She and you used my little jar of salt to bridge the two worlds just so I could go home. At the time I thought that was the most ridiculous thing ever, but now that I say it out loud it sounds like a whole lot of work, and I don’t think I ever actually thanked you for that.” Clover sighed. “And to think I only used it to improve your void porridge.”

“Very nutritious. Full of vitamins. Pure cosmic energy keeps you fit for fight.”

“Yes, professor. And it’s delicious with salt.”

“Yes.” Star Swirl waited. “Think, Clover.”

Clover blinked. “The salt. Your void porridge tastes magical with salt. I saw the salt hit your pot of void porridge, and…”

“Interdimensional mechanics,” Star Swirl said. “Depleted phase hydra nesting salt of cosmic possibility collides at high velocity with concentrated void substance.”

“Right. Yes.” Clover thought. “So when I dropped the salt into the porridge I dropped the entire infrastructure of a multiverse into a pot of primordial cosmic mass. Which means you get… You get…”

“Oh,” Mister Leafy said beneath her. “Hold on. I think I can show you.”

Clover snapped out of her thoughts as the tree began to move. She fell to the bark with a yelp, and clung tight.

Mister Leafy raised his branch, twisting and stretching and straightening, and lifted them out through the endless canopy, until the last clusters of giant leaves fell behind them, and Clover looked out and saw the sky.

It took a few moments for her to notice anything out of the ordinary. At first glance it was indeed a sky, dark, and filled with pinpricks of starlight. But it was not the sky of Braytannia, or any other land of ponies. The constellations she knew were nowhere to be seen, and it was as she looked for them that she noticed the stars were all moving fast enough to see with the naked eye.

Later on, Clover would think to herself that it was like being inside an optical illusion, that everything she looked at was simultaneously so small and close that she could pick it up in her hoof, and yet also vast and distant. Every star, once she focused on it, flickered, and took shape. She saw sights of ponies in the light of each star, she saw landscapes and cities and happiness and worry.

Like windows to other worlds, like bubbles of soap, they moved.

Clover looked. “Oh.”

“Every star in the sky is a pony,” Star Swirl the Sprite said, looking up beside her. “Every pony is its own universe.”

A soft aurora shimmered, thin sheets of light billowing across the heavens under the vast canopy of Mister Leafy. The sky itself was black as night, and yet the tree was brightly lit underneath it. The stars moved across the sky like the passage of an eon compressed into each minute.

Clover swallowed. “So we are in a…?”

“Infant multiverse,” the sprite said gravely. “Swallowed up everything around it. Everypony. You. Me. Everypony.”

She looked from Mister Leafy, to the strange figure of the sprite, to herself. “So why are we…?”

“It looks inside your head. Raw magical energies, just waiting to come alive. Waiting for shape, for form. It becomes what you think, what you want.”

“And so Mister Leafy becomes a world tree,” Clover muttered. “And when I was dreaming earlier, those weren’t really dreams, were they? That was the universe trying to make my thoughts come to life. Only it didn’t work, because my thoughts were too incoherent to take on meaning.”

They were silent for a moment. Clover looked out across the vast expanse, her mind turning. “They’re all out there…?” she asked, more to herself than anypony else. “Lost in a multiverse with no connection to our home.” She smiled. “Alright then. This sounds like a job for us, doesn’t it? What do you say, professor? We’ll go find them all and bring them back, and then we’ll find a way back to Cambridle.”

“Find Chocolate Bunnies,” Star Swirl the Sprite said. “Undo the scattering, and restore the center.”

“Find Chocolate Bunnies. Gotcha.” Clover nodded. She looked out at the vault of stars, trying to pick one out, but they were all alike to her. “Can you tell which one is Chocolate Bunnies?”

“I might,” Mister Leafy said slowly, and somewhat uncertainly. “I can touch every world at once. I can see all the ponies there are. It’s… hard to pick out any one pony. They’re all shapes, and thoughts, and memories of each other. But I can taste some hint of her. Let me see… I think she is… that way.”

Clover waited. “I can’t actually see which way you’re looking, Mister Leafy.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry. Um… Gosh, giving directions that aren’t in Leaf is confusing… Hold on.” The great branch moved across the trunk of the tree, the bark bending around it, and straightened. “If you jump off the branch you’re on, and keep going that direction straight ahead, you’ll get to her in a little bit. I think.”

Clover looked out from the relative safety of the tree to the endless bounds beyond, and gulped.

“Leap into eternity,” Star Swirl said. “Then see, and know.”

Clover nodded. She dug in her hooves for traction, then galloped towards the end of the branch. She jumped off it, and into the sky.

The tree fell away beneath her as she flew, her legs moving instinctively. She felt nothing beneath her hooves, but she still felt like she was galloping, rather than falling. The stars moved above her, and ahead of her a pinprick of light was growing larger.

It abruptly exploded and enveloped her, and a roaring sound like the birth of planets flooded her ears.

– – –

When the multiverse stopped spinning, and Clover regained her sense of her own physical presence, the first thing she felt was the touch of solid ground, and soft grass under her hooves.

She let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. She let the blinking lights fade from her eyes and looked to see where she was.

The grass was blue, almost black in night-light. Stone towers rose up around her in the dark, not in the nice orderly lines of Reneighssance city planning she was used to from Whinnysor and Cambridle, but jagged and uneven. They loomed overhead, leaning precariously as if they could not make up their minds if this was the night they would finally fall, and take everypony down with them. Cracks ran deep through the stone, and the shadows of ponies wandered past her, oblivious to her presence.

“So, this is Chocolate Bunnies’s mindscape?” Clover said. “Somepony reads too many gothic horror novels.”

When she heard no response, she turned and looked around her. “Professor?”

Star Swirl was nowhere in sight. “Professor? Chocolate Bunnies? Are you here?”

Nopony answered, and Clover suddenly felt very alone.

Clover bit her lip and looked around her uncertainly. “Okay, Clover, don’t panic… You’re just in an alien world, all by yourself because the Professor is gone. But you know what you’re doing. There’s a plan. You’re looking for Chocolate Bunnies. You can do this.”

She stood still for some time before she managed to persuade herself to move forward.

She walked. The ponies – she was fairly sure they were ponies – around her ignored her, and went about their shadow-lives, walking resolutely and going nowhere in the ruined city. She tried to get one’s attention, to no avail. Even stepping out right in front of them only got her a snort before they pushed past.

One particularly fragile-looking structure hosted what looked like a great party. Atonal music played feebly from a trio on strings and flute while a great crowd of shadows told the same stories and laughed at the same jokes under a roof that looked ready at any moment to collapse if somepony were to breathe in the wrong spot. An empty window frame was admired for the window it had once hosted, and the shadows agreed that it had been a very excellent window indeed.

Clover wandered down the street, and felt that she was being watched. Strangers looked down at her from high windows, and when she looked up they made a show of turning away into their ruined homes, and pulling the curtains shut.

She turned a corner and froze. The image was all wrong – the buildings were decayed and crumbling, the lines had lost their straight edge, grass was feebly digging its way up through the cobblestones, but there was no mistaking it. The university rose up in front of her, gaunt and ominous.

She was in Cambridle.

She turned and left the city center, starting to feel nauseous. Once she saw it, she couldn’t miss it: everywhere she looked, she saw the ruins of her home crumbling all around her, filled with ghostlike ponies who didn’t know or care, weighed down by an oppressive and forbidding atmosphere.

She walked for what felt like a very long time, feeling her heart growing heavier and heavier as she went. Somewhere, she thought, there had to be something. Something that would give it purpose.

She found it on the edge of the city. In the distance she saw a light glowing, and she walked towards it.

On the outskirts of the city she saw a barn, a warm light glowing through an open door. She stepped into it.

“Rocks,” said the voice of his father. “The whole world is made of rocks, son. Big rocks, small rocks, hard rocks, crumbling rocks, common rocks, rare rocks, valuable rocks, shiny rocks… There are a few rocks so big they hold whole continents up, slowly wearing against each other like dragons fighting… only at the speed of rocks. You can count on rocks, son. No matter what else happens, rocks will still be rocks. There’s not much else in the world you can say that about.”

The pink colt with the purple mane looked around the field of rocks. Far away, on the horizon beyond the rock farm, there were buildings, and ponies, and crowded streets.

He was fifteen when he walked those streets for the first time, his ears full of the sounds of ponies going about their lives, the rock farm far behind him. The lights! The noise! The crowds! He had longed to walk among them, to see their lives, to hear them speak. He dreamed of fireworks and rivers of honey-milk, where ponies would come.

He had no produce to sell, no rocks, no nails and hammer, but he had a vision of ponies joining together to find a purpose larger than themselves.

He stood in the streets and he spoke, but nopony listened. They looked at him, and they did not understand. “He’s an earth pony,” they said, “but he’s not a farmer, or a builder. What is he? He is a nothing.” And they walked away.

Night came, and the ponies returned to their homes, and the streets were emptied of all, all but him, and the ponies in uniforms who chased him away. He wandered the streets, lost and alone, tired but unable to sleep on the streets that were as hard as the rocks he knew. He wandered until he left the lights of the city behind him, until he was out on the edges, where the houses are far apart, a stranger to all, not knowing what he was looking for.

But there is one who welcomes strangers.

There was a barn, and there was a light inside, and a pony who said to him, “we’re all strangers here.” And he wasn’t alone anymore. “What’s your name?” And he told her something false, and she chuckled. “Sure you are,” she said. “This is my dad’s barn. We hang out here at night. There are just a few of us, but you’re welcome to join.”

“I’m not a farmer,” he said, and she flapped her wings. “Do I look like I am?”

“You can’t know a pony just by looking at them.”

They all knew the same story.

“Why are we doing this?” “It will make them think.” “No it won’t. It never does.” “True. But let’s do it anyway.”

Every night was another adventure. They painted walls for fun, when nopony was looking. He taught them how to make rocks that would burn in different colors, and she knew how to make them fly. They went back to the city, day after day, and talked louder, and nopony listened but it was alright now, because he knew that he had found his place and someday their time would come.

“It’s okay,” he said to them, his back hurting. “They just don’t understand. But they will.”

“Maybe there’s something we can do to convince them?”

“Maybe. You know what we need?” Gallopsky grinned. “A carnival float. Hello there! Do you have a moment to talk about Lord Discord?”

Gallopsky turned around and saw Clover staring at him. “Who are you?”

Clover yelped and fell over.

Gallopsky frowned. “Where are you from? You’re not one of them. You’re not one of us. So that means...” His frown turned to a grin. “Have you thought about letting Lord Discord into your life?”

“Um… No thanks,” Clover said. “Listen, I’m trying to find Chocolate Bunnies. You… you know her, right? Have you seen her anywhere?”

“Oh, right! Yes, I know what you want.”

“You do?”

“Yes! You want to join us for one of our gatherings,” Gallopsky said eagerly. “We have cookies! They might explode. But they’re delicious! And really, what kind of life have you led if you haven’t exploded even once?”

Clover bit her lip. “Umm...”

“There are few of us as yet. But that’s okay! More keep coming! Many of them leave again. But some don’t! And we have friends in low places, and that’s always more valuable than it sounds. You’d fit right in here! I know, I can tell.” He beamed at her with wide eyes that seemed to burn deep inside, his too-large mouth smiling too widely. “You’ve been around, haven’t you? Somehow when I look at you I get this feeling. Like you’ve seen more than most ponies.”

Clover gulped. “Well…”

“Yeah,” Gallopsky said, turning and staring out the door, towards the horizon. “Yeah. There’s a lot out there. But we’re in here. And the question is… who is in here? Are you? What are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for Chocolate Bunnies,” Clover said, the words rushing out of her mouth. “You know her! Do you know where I can find her?”

“Chocolate Bunnies?” Gallopsky mouthed the words, and a shadow fell across his face. His grin shrank, and turned to sadness. “...You don’t belong here,” he said again. “You are one of them after all. You can’t even see it.” He shook his head sadly. “Chocolate Bunnies… She offered us a deal with Discord. Of course we said yes. I wanted to let her in, we all did. But she was unraveling us just by being there. I could see it in her eyes. I could see it all around her.” He shuddered. “Everything she touched just… unraveled.”

“Where is she?” Clover asked urgently. “Was she here?”

Gallopsky turned to look at her and there was a deep pain in his eyes and it cut right through her when she saw it. “You don’t belong here. And you don’t want to see Chocolate Bunnies.” He turned from her. “Go away.”

“Look, I just want to—” Clover began, when she felt the wind whip at her face and the rim of her robe flapping. She turned and saw a black gaping vortex open right behind her.

Like a fly blown away by a sharp breath, she was thrown through it and evicted from the universe.

She fell backwards through the cosmos, unable to control her movements, the ocean of stars whirling around her at dizzying speed, until finally she crashed hard against the bark of Mister Leafy.

Clover lay on her back for a while, waiting for the spinning to stop. She opened her eyes. They stung, and she blinked.

Star Swirl the Sprite hovered in front of her. His empty, star-filled eyes looked at nothing in her direction. “You fell,” he said.

“Oh,” Clover said. “There you are again, professor.”

The voice of Mister Leafy rumbled under her. “I can’t see that world any more,” the tree said slowly. “Did it go okay?”

Clover got up, her head spinning. “I think…” she said, slowly piecing together the sounds, “I think I need more help.”

“You are permitted to seek assistance,” the Sprite said. “You are trained in interdimensional mechanics. Every star is a pony. Find Chocolate Bunnies.”

“Great.” Clover got up on her hooves and looked up at the heavens. “I don’t even know what just happened… But thankfully I have friends. I just need to find them… Hey, Mister Leafy? Do you know where I can find Ginny?”

“Miss Ginny? Sure.” The branch bent, and turned to point at a different quadrant of the heavens. A lone, sharp twig pointed outward, directly at a lonesome star. “I think that’s her there.”

“Thank you,” Clover said.

Star Swirl the Sprite took up position beside her as she ran. Once again she suddenly found herself soaring across the heavens, her hooves carrying her confidently between the stars. The star-bubble grew in front of her, and through it she saw shelves of books and ponies.

It opened up in front of her, and Clover landed on a stone floor with a clatter, drawing a round of loud shushes from all around.

“Sorry,” she whispered, and looked around, and smiled. The Professor was gone, but she immediately recognized the familiar surroundings of the Cambridle University Library’s main hall. There in the center was the counter, that was more like a barricaded encampment from which librarians would send out expeditions to the far corners of the library. Around the walls students – ordinary ponies, she noted with satisfaction, not ghostly wraiths – were quietly searching the shelves, or sitting and reading.

“Finally, someplace normal. That’s a relief,” Clover said under her breath. She walked up to the presiding librarian at the front of the counter and smiled widely. “Hi, is Ginny here? I really need to talk to her.”

The librarian shushed her with an unforgiving glare, and returned to perusing her log book, occasionally stamping a page heavily. Clover steeled herself and spoke again. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I really need to find Ginny. This isn’t really a library at all, you see, it’s – well, it’s a long story. Is she around?”

The librarian looked faintly annoyed to be interrupted. But before she said anything a bell rang on the counter, and the librarian looked down. Her lips pursed. “Hm,” she said and turned a skeptical eye to Clover. “It seems you’re in luck. She will see you.” The librarian turned and pointed to a stair farther in the hall. “She waits for you within the manager’s office. If you would enter, ascend the staircase to the uppermost floor and pass through the gates at the back. But enter only if you are certain of what you seek… for you may just find it.”

“Great!” Clover said, and ran, ignoring the ponies shushing her as she passed. She raced up the stairs and found the door in question, a plain and functional wooden office door.

She went inside, and jumped with a yelp as it slammed shut behind her, plunging her into darkness. Immediately after, she heard Ginny’s voice call out across the room, strong and loud. “Who comes to enter the inner sanctum?”

Clover sighed with relief. “Finally, a friendly face… Well, voice. Hi, Ginny. It’s me, Clover. Listen, I really need to talk to you. There’s some pretty heavy stuff going on, and…” She fell silent, looking around, seeing nothing. “Can we get some lights in here?”

A candle flickered to life up above her, and Clover looked up to see Ginny’s face peering down on her from a higher level. Her expression was hard, and cold. “A new suppliant comes to the inner sanctum seeking knowledge of the ancient mysteries.”

“What?” Clover blinked. “No, Ginny, it’s me. Clover. Can we step outside for a bit?”

“Silence!” Ginny commanded. “We have carried the ancient mysteries across the ages. We have protected the sacred arts of the shelves, of the stacks, of the silence. When the island of Naglantis was lost to the waves, we were there. When the Great Library of Bucephalia burned, we saved the scrolls from the flames.”

One by one, more candles came to life above her, and Clover began to see where she was. She was in a round stone pit, and up above her were ponies in cloaks carrying candles. Something moved in the shadows to her side, and she heard a growling sound. “Ginny…?”

“Only those who are worthy emerge from the rituals,” Ginny said. “Before you lies the gate. Enter it, and face your darkness.”

Clover gulped. “And those who do not prove worthy…?”

“They are eaten by the Library Hounds.”

As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark Clover could see the strange dog-like shapes of aged parchment, their yellow eyes glowing with magic life. In front of her was an open doorway where the little light of the candles did not reach.

Her heart raced, her instincts screaming at her to flee from the wolf-like creatures with all her might while her reason told her not to give them something to chase.

She gulped, and nodded slowly. “Alright. I’m going in. But after this I really do need to talk to you, Ginny.”

She walked slowly, trying not to make any sudden moves. Her head passed under the stone arch of the doorway.

The door slid shut behind her, stone grinding on stone, and she was alone in utter darkness and silence. She relaxed.

“Well,” said a young mare’s voice, “this is a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into now.”

Clover froze, her ears perked up. “Who’s there?”

“Who do you think, moron?”

Clover thought. She shook her head. “I have no idea,” she admitted. “Your voice sounds kind of familiar, but I can’t place it. Sorry.”

“Yeah. That sounds like you.” The voice sighed in exasperation. Then she stepped forward, and Clover could see her: a young mare, green-coated and curly-maned, wearing a plain brown robe. “I’m you, dumbass. I’m your dark side.”

Clover stared at her own reflection, who looked back at her with bored disdain.

“Huh,” Clover said. “Okay then. So, what do we do now? Do I have to, like, fight you or something?”

“I dunno,” Clover’s dark side said.

Clover blinked. “You must know something,” she said. “You’re my trial to overcome, apparently.”

“Yeah, they didn’t tell me anything more than they told you,” Clover’s dark side said. “You have the worst friends, seriously.”

“I have great friends.”

“Yeah right.”

Clover rolled her eyes. “This is pointless. Are you going to help me get out of here or what?”

“Oh sure, that sounds like a great idea.” Clover’s dark side said, and shrugged.

Clover looked around the room. Even though there was no source of light, she found she could see the interior of the stone chamber clearly enough. The door she had entered was behind her, and another lay in front of her, behind her dark side.

Clover took a step to the side and trotted around her double, watching her to see if she would do anything. Finding that her dark side did nothing, Clover turned her attention to the door: a heavy wooden door in another stone arch, with no handle.

She pushed at it. It didn’t budge.

“You won’t be able to open it,” her dark side said from behind her. “It probably doesn’t even open at all. Honestly, I don’t think any of this means anything.”

“Certainly it means something,” Clover muttered, as she tried pushing the door in different points. “If Ginny wants me to go through this, then there must be a reason.”

“This isn’t Ginny’s library,” Clover’s dark side said. “This is a made-up world of magic trying to copy her thoughts. Ginny has no idea what this is about. This is what happens when all your dreams come true. It’s just a big mess.”

“I’m not convinced you’re really my dark side at all,” Clover said as she bent down and studied the outer edge of the doorway. Is this a keyhole, or just a crack? “Ginny! Hey! Can you hear me?”

“She won’t answer,” her dark side said as Clover put her ear to the crack. “She’s probably forgotten you’re down here.”

“My friends don’t forget me that easily,” Clover said. “Ginny! Please talk to me! I think the door is stuck!”

“Quiet!” Ginny’s voice hissed from behind the door. “You have to defeat your dark side!”

“Honestly, there isn’t much there to defeat,” Clover said, glancing back at her double. “It turns out my dark side is pretty underwhelming. All she does is make snarky comments.”

“I resent that remark,” Clover’s dark side said.

“This is your task,” Ginny’s voice said through the door. “This is the only way you can prove you are worthy.”

“Worthy? Worthy of what?” Clover asked. “Ginny, I just need to talk to you! Can you please let me in?”

“No! Not until you defeat your dark side!”

“I don’t understand, Ginny!” Clover blurted out. “This isn’t like you! Why won’t you just talk to me?”

“I guess you don’t understand your friends as well as you thought,” Clover’s dark side said, and Clover glared at her in response.

She heard hoofsteps behind the door, and then a stallion’s voice speaking softly. “Maybe you should hear her out, Ginny. I think she means well.”

“I know she means well,” Ginny said. “But she’s tainted. You know what happens to ponies who get too close to him.”

Clover’s eyes went wide as something stirred in her mind. “Ginny? Who’s there?”

“Never you mind!” Ginny snapped. “Face your inner demons!”

Clover groaned in frustration, and glanced back at her dark side. Her dark side rolled her eyes. “Yeah, listen Ginny, I’m not sure this rite of initiation thing is working out.”

“This is just as much of a screwup as everything else you’ve put your mind to,” Clover’s dark side said.

“Come on, Ginny,” said the stallion’s voice. It was a nice voice, Clover thought. It sounded like somepony who was always smiling, who always made your day brighter for being around him. “Let’s just hear what she has to say.”

There was a brushing sound, the sound of two ponies’ coats rubbing against each other, and Ginny sighed. “You’re always too trusting,” Ginny’s voice said. “Too forgiving. I am giving her a chance. I’m letting her take the rite of initiation! By rights I shouldn’t even speak to her. He was banned from the library for a year. He was expelled from the university for what he did to you! You were gone for so long…”

“Shhh,” the stallion said. “I’m here now.”

“You realize you’re being super stalkery right now,” Clover’s dark side said.

“Shh!” Clover said. She turned back to the door. “Ginny? That pony you’re talking to… Is that Turner?”

There was silence from the other side for a long moment. “Time Turner,” he said. “Do you know me?”

“No, I don’t,” Clover said. “But you knew my teacher.”

“Yes. I did… Come on, Ginny. Let her in.”

The door slowly creaked open, and Clover stepped in. Her eyes took a few seconds to grow accustomed to the fresh light. She was in a cozy drawing room, with a roaring fire in the fireplace. Ginny was there, but Ginny as she had been when she was young, the same stern, knowledgeable gaze in a face free of wrinkles, with a full and colorful mane. And sitting opposite her was a brown earth pony stallion with a necktie and an hourglass cutie mark.

“Ginny?” Clover asked.

“I let you in,” Ginny said. “I’m trusting you, Clover. But I don’t like it.”

‘ “Be nice, Ginny,” Turner said with a chuckle.

“I am nice,” she said. “I am a nice pony. I am willing to work with ponies even if I don’t like them. I tolerate things that I don’t really believe should be tolerated. I know secrets and mysteries that are thousands of years old, secrets and mysteries that will still be there when everypony now living is dead, and I still try to help ponies learn things here and now. I think that qualifies as nice.”

“You are,” Turner said in a foalish voice, “the nicest pony I have ever met. Who can tie me down so I can’t escape in ten seconds flat. You are the nicest pony who knows unspeakable ways of getting your way. You are the nicest pony who can find references and make books doubt their own existence before the rest of us can say lickety-split.”

Ginny smiled, a hint of blush on her cheeks. Her hoof found his, and they locked together.

“You are so nice,” Turner said, tilting his head towards Clover, “that I think you’ll talk to her, and hear her out.”

Ginny looked away and sat silently.

Clover looked at her friend with worried eyes. “What’s the matter, Ginny? What’s this all about? Will you tell me, please?”

Ginny drew a sharp, shaky breath. “You are,” she admitted. “You’re what’s the matter.”

Clover bit her lip. “I’m… afraid I don’t understand.”

“You’re walking a road that only leads to destruction,” Ginny said. “And I don’t understand it. You’re a good pony, Clover. You could do anything. What on earth are you doing giving your time to him?”

“You mean the professor.”

“Of course I mean him,” Ginny said, an anger moving in waves just below the surface of her voice. “Star Swirl the Bearded destroys everything he touches. He lives entirely outside of any civilized order, and he cares for nothing but himself. And you’re studying under him, learning to be like him. You defend him. You idolize him! You could have been a great librarian. But instead…” She shook her head. “That’s what’s the matter.”

Turner put his arm around Ginny’s neck, and she pulled close to him, not wanting to let go again.

“Even after all these years, you never stopped loving Turner,” Clover said quietly.

Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Do you even know what your teacher did?”

Clover nodded. “He told me about his student days. He told me about Turner.”

“I never really forgave him,” Ginny said. “He never tried to earn it, for that matter. He left, and I never saw him again either. Not until you came along, and brought us back.”

Clover nodded, running over it all in her mind. “So you put me through this… challenge, because…”

“Because I don’t trust you,” Ginny said. “I never really did.”

Clover stood still, awkwardly trying not to awkwardly watch the ponies. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said. “And, well, I’m glad you’re still willing to be my friend. You’ve always been very nice to me.”

Ginny looked at her, and her voice was cold. “You need somepony to talk to who can counterbalance his influence.”

Their eyes met, and Clover could see the burning rage deep within. She instinctively stepped back. Part of her wanted to protest her innocence, to object to being blamed for her teacher’s actions.

She stepped back forward. “This is a beautiful library,” she said, looking around the magically conjured drawing room, shelves full of books lining the walls. “You love the library. You dedicated your life to it. And I know you have very high standards, Ginny. You wouldn’t invite just anypony to join the Mystical Order of Librarians. So when you put me through this initiation challenge… One way of looking at that is that you don’t trust me, so you’re testing me. But there’s another way too. It’s an invitation. Because you think I’m worth giving a chance. A chance to prove that I’m…”

“That you’re better than your teacher,” Ginny said quietly. She sighed. “Alright, Clover. I’ll hear you out. What’s going on?”

“Well, the universe has tumbled into chaos,” Clover began. “We’re all trapped in our own private pocket dimensions that are taking their shape from our thoughts. The professor and I are trying to find a way out, but I’m not having much luck, and I was hoping you’ll help me. Because I think I need all the help I can get.” She looked uncertainly at Turner. “And this is very unpleasant, Ginny, but because I’m your friend I need to tell you—”

“I know,” Ginny said, looking at the young stallion. “I knew before you came that it’s not really him. He’s just a figment of my imagination brought to life. By your teacher.”

Clover bowed her head. “I’m sorry.”

“In truth, I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive him.”

“Honestly, he hasn’t forgiven himself either,” Clover said. She sighed. “I can talk to him. He’s getting better, really he is! I’m sure he would say he was sorry, if you talk to him. He liked Turner.”

Ginny looked at Clover, and slowly shook her head. “Here you are, still standing up for him,” she muttered. “You are better than him, Clover. I don’t know what he did to deserve you. Alright. I’ll trust you.”

Ginny turned to Turner, the young stallion smiling at her, warmth and love written on his face. “It was nice to see you again,” she whispered, and nuzzled him.

She turned away from him and nodded. “We can go.” And then he was gone.

And then everything was gone, and Clover was back with Mister Leafy. And there was a new star shining in the sky.

“Well, that was sappy,” said her dark side.

Clover grit her teeth together. “What are you still doing here?”

“You didn’t defeat me,” Clover’s dark side said. “And I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

Chapter 19: The Endless Sky

Clover waited quietly while Ginny turned in place, taking in the surroundings. The librarian looked up at the endlessly moving starry sky above above, and the endless canopy below.

“We seem to be standing on a giant tree branch,” she said.

“Well spotted,” Clover said. “Ginny, meet Mister Leafy. Mister Leafy, meet Ginny.”

“Hello,” the voice of the tree said. Ginny nodded in acknowledgment.

Clover was flanked by Star Swirl the Sprite, bobbing up and down in mid-air, and by her own dark side, who was visually identical except for looking more bored. “I was hoping you could help us out with our situation here,” Clover said. “It’s… kind of hard to explain.”

“At first it was like a dream,” Ginny said, gazing off into the distance. “The line between what’s real and what’s not was blurring, shifting. It was easy to forget, and accept what was right in front of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Clover said quietly.

Ginny shook her head. “Don’t be. So, how do we get back home?”

“Well, about that,” Clover said. “The Professor seems to think that Chocolate Bunnies might hold the key. Professor?”

Star Swirl the Sprite turned from Clover to Ginny, and back, and again. It made a warbling sound. “The scattering has to be undone. The gyre widens. Time is short! Clover must find Chocolate Bunnies.”

They waited to see if more was forthcoming. There was silence.

Clover cleared her throat. “So that’s what we’re working with so far.”

“Chocolate Bunnies,” Ginny said thoughtfully. “Your friend who runs the Siblinghood of the Hoof.”

“That’s right,” Clover said, looking up at the sky that glittered with lighted worlds. “She’s out there, somewhere. At the center of every star is a pony, trapped in its own little world. One of them has to be her. I tried looking for her earlier, but…” Clover thought back to the world of Gallopsky. “Well, let’s just say it didn’t go well and I felt it was time to call in the cavalry. So I was hoping you had some ideas.”

“Friends are good,” Mister Leafy chimed in, with his deep, rumbling voice.

“Oh sure,” said Clover’s dark side. “We’ll just friendship at our problems and that’ll make them all go away. Any minute now.”

“Quiet you,” Clover muttered. “Also, do you have any idea how we can get rid of her? She’s kind of bumming me out.”

Ginny shook her head. “I can’t interfere with the initiation, once it’s begun. She is your dark side, and it is your task to deal with her.”

Clover winced. “Great.”

“Oooh, you know sarcasm. How advanced!”

“Shut up!” Clover glared at her dark side then turned back to Ginny. “She’s not even interesting. I thought my dark side was supposed to be glamorous and seductive, or frightening, or something.”

“That is a common misconception,” Ginny said. She nodded towards the strange figure of Star Swirl the Sprite. “I understand your teacher has a great deal of experience in fighting dark sides. Have you asked him?”

“Not really,” Clover admitted. “He’s… kind of even harder to communicate with than usual right now.”

Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Is he indeed?”

“The way you said that sounded needlessly suspicious, Ginny.”

“Knowing your teacher, Clover, I would be very suspicious if he suddenly appeared in a different form bearing cryptic instructions.”

Clover rolled her eyes and turned to the sprite. “Professor? How do I get rid of my dark side?”

“He’s not going to make any sense,” Clover’s dark side said.

Star Swirl the Sprite made an urgent burbling noise, and shook back and forth like a dog in the rain. “You are yourself,” he said. “Your cares are your own. Your strength is your own. You must do what you must do. Find Chocolate Bunnies.”

“Told you,” Clover’s dark side said.

“Urgh!” Clover winced. “Okay, then let’s get back to the other matter! Does anypony have any idea how I can find Chocolate Bunnies?”

“My knowledge of interdimensional mechanics is limited to Esoteric Library Science,” Ginny said. “Since the multiverse hasn’t simply fallen apart, that suggests it runs on a coherent internal logic. Perhaps understanding more about this place will help you navigate it.” Ginny nodded towards the central trunk of Mister Leafy. “Fortunately, we have a symbol of cosmic unity right here. Does this world tree know anything about how this multiverse is structured?”

“All the worlds are connected,” Mister Leafy said. “Which is kind of odd, because they’re also all separate. I thought I saw her before. I should be able to see her somewhere. I know she’s here, but when I look for her, she vanishes. Like she’s hiding.”

“Search the bonds,” Star Swirl the Sprite said. “Between and behind. Find Chocolate Bunnies, find the center!”

“Technically everywhere is the center,” Clover said to Ginny. “Multiverses are strange like that.”

“I understand that,” Ginny said. “Advanced library philosophy tells us that all libraries are one library. All libraries are connected, and every library is the center.” She ran her hoof on the branch in the curved form of a banana. “And like libraries… You say this place searches your thoughts and memories for material to work with?” Clover nodded. “And your friend Chocolate Bunnies, she is a student, correct?”

“That’s right.”

Ginny nodded, deep in thought. “The art of finding information is to understand the nature of the system, and to find the connections,” Ginny said. “Perhaps something connected to your shared student experiences could be a place to start looking?”

“That’s… not a bad idea,” Clover said. “Mister Leafy, can you point me to the university ponies?”

“Sure,” he said. The branch creaked and shook as its base moved around the tree in a way no plant should be able to do, and pointed at a patch of sky. “I think… that is where it’s strongest.”

What Clover saw was a bright, dense cluster of stars, the brightest point in the visible sky, spinning around its axis. “That looks promising,” she saw. “The Professor and I will go there and continue the search. Ginny, are you alright to stay here with Mister Leafy, and my dark side?”

“Very well,” Ginny said, while Clover’s dark side rolled her eyes.

“Great. Come along, Professor.”

The Sprite hovered into position beside her, and Clover galloped forward and leaped off the tree.

In an instant the void swept all around her, and she was running among the stars.

Each step carried her astronomic distances. This time she felt more comfortable with the sensation, and her eyes were drawn to the unique sights of the space between worlds.

The infant multiverse was vast and peaceful, full of untapped magic that did not yet know what it would be. Great sheets of aurora danced all around her in colors that couldn’t exist on earth, and shooting stars blinked in and out of existence as the universe got the idea of them, and tried it out.

The cluster of stars circled ahead of her, growing larger as she drew near. Before long she could see each one clearly. They drifted past her, spinning in orbit around each other, pushing and pulling like Appleian satellites, each a window to a different world. She looked into them as she went, and recognized the buildings of Cambridle university in many of them.

“So many,” she muttered as they flew past. “What do you say professor? How do we find the right one?”

“A black hole sits at the center of every galaxy,” Star Swirl replied. “The stars move around the object of the greatest mass.”

Clover pondered that one. She nodded. “Alright. The center it is.”

They proceeded gradually inwards, leaving the outer worlds behind them, until they reached the heart of the galaxy. A single world-bubble rested there, that was larger than the rest, and glowed faintly in with a pale blue light. It hung motionless while all the others moved in orbit around it. Looking inside, Clover could see the New Old Hall of Cambridle University, crowded with ponies.

“Here goes nothing.” Clover dove in, and the world swallowed her up.

She landed on wet cobblestones, accompanied by the sound of pouring rain. She adjusted the hood of her cloak, and immediately looked around. She had touched down right beneath the facade of the New Old Hall, and Star Swirl the Sprite was gone. The sky above was a dark gray. Thunder crashed in the distance, several seconds after each flash of light.

“Well, it’s not a very nice day,” she said to herself, “but at least it looks like my Cambridle.”

A few ponies galloped along the street to get out of the rain, checking to make sure their saddlebags were secure. Others clung together in pairs or threes, sheltering under the eaves of the university buildings, talking together in hushed tones while casting glances down the road. Many of them wore cloaks that concealed their faces and cutie marks, but given the weather Clover thought that was only sensible.

The doors of the New Old Hall were open, and she trotted inside. The halls were full of ponies, and a great many heads turned as she came in, eyes narrowed, watching her suspiciously, judging her. Some found her intriguing, and she felt their eyes on her as she went by. Some found her uninteresting, shook their heads, and turned back to their fellows to continue speaking in hushed whispers. A few found her a threat, and turned and walked away hurriedly as she passed by.

“Well, this might be Bunnies’ way of looking at Cambridle, I suppose,” Clover muttered to herself. “We’re at the university, check. There are lots of ponies around, check. Ponies that have heard all the rumors about Star Swirl the Bearded and therefore me, check. Ponies that seem nervous and uncertain, as if e.g. they were about to be besieged by a conquering army, check…”

She passed through the crowded entrance hall and came into the auditorium where she had so recently sat for her exam. There too the room was full of ponies conversing, and as she looked at them from the top of the auditorium she felt like she could see a pattern in their movements. Some were confident, some were afraid. Some shifted between the two effortlessly. Some were aware of their surroundings and some were not. She saw plots being laid, networks of alliances being tied and cut. Here, a few words spoken meant doom for somepony across the room.

She cleared her throat, and called out loudly. “Um, hello! I’m sorry to interrupt… whatever this is, but has anypony seen Chocolate Bunnies?”

“What’s the meaning of this?” A mirthless voice said from the center of the room, and all the ponies parted to reveal the stern, sharp, and unquestionably real face of Dean Abacus Cinch. “You are disrupting our work, young pony! Who is – oh, if it isn’t Miss Cordelia.”

Cinch took a step forward, and the large cluster of ponies that had surrounded her scattered like dancers.

The Dean trotted swiftly up towards Clover. All the ponies were looking at Cinch, Clover saw. Wherever she stepped, everypony else moved around her, the literal center of attention, the centerpiece of all the nets and of every plot and scheme.

Clover sighed. “Oh, this is your world. Obviously. I’m sorry, Dean Cinch, I was looking for somepony else. I’ll just be going then.”

“Wait.” The Dean’s hoof shot out and took hold of Clover’s shoulder. Clover glanced at the dean, and saw a smile she could only describe as ‘predatory’. “A word, miss Cordelia.”

Clover gulped, and fought back the urge to pull away. “Yes, Dean Cinch?”

“I understand you’ve spent this past year studying with Honorary Professor the Bearded,” Cinch said, her voice faux-casual. “Tell me, how is the old stallion?”

“He’s…” Clover thought for a second before deciding to go with the simplest answer. “He’s doing fine, Dean Cinch.”

“Good, good!” The feigned joviality scraped Clover’s nerves raw. “Well, miss Cordelia, you will be beginning your second year in the fall. Have you given any thoughts to your situation?”

“My situation, Dean Cinch?”

“I will be blunt, miss Cordelia,” Cinch said, her voice dropping a register. “I would like you to come back to the university. You will be enrolling in your second year, and I think you could benefit from the environment on campus. You are needed here, miss Cordelia, and I won’t make the same mistake a second time!”

Clover blinked. “Mistake, Dean Cinch?”

“Quite,” Dean Cinch glowered. “I should never have agreed to let that pony take you away.”

“You mean professor Star Swirl?”

“Listen to me, miss Cordelia. This university needs you.” Dean Cinch led her down a corridor and up a flight of stairs while ponies watched them from all around. “After Honorary Professor the Bearded’s annual lecture at the start of the school year, he came to me and asked to be allowed to tutor you on his terms. I agreed, more fool me, because I hoped a taste of actual responsibility would help to restrain him, and get him off the university’s back. Instead I only lost one of the year’s most promising freshmares.”

Clover’s mouth fell open. “Wait – those rumours were true?!”

“Don’t be naive, miss Cordelia,” Dean Cinch said. “Rumours are always true. But no matter now – we must deal with the situation that is in front of us.”

Clover found herself being ushered through the administrative wing of the New Old Hall, and she could see the envy on the faces of the ponies they went past, student and faculty alike.

“I reread your application papers recently,” Cinch continued. “Your personal essay, your grades, your extra-curriculars… You are a cut above the ordinary student, miss Cordelia. You are a legacy. Your family name can open doors – how is your father by the way? - and your courtly etiquette training will serve you as well here at the Academy as in court. You are exactly what this university needs, and if I had any doubts before, well, then the fact that you are still standing after almost a year with Honorary Professor the Bearded has laid them to rest.”

Clover somehow found herself in the Dean’s office, the two of them alone behind closed doors, Clover sitting in front of the Dean’s desk, while Cinch took up her seat behind it. “I want to make a personal offer to you,” the Dean said, her voice soothing but hungry. “Stay with me, and you can have everything you want, and I will train you as my successor. You will have all the resources of the university at your disposal. You would be free to pursue any research you please. You could be the next Dean of the Academy!”

Clover kept her face blank while she pondered how to respond. “Um. Gosh. Well, Dean Cinch. That’s… quite the offer. I honestly wasn’t expecting that. But the truth is I rather enjoy studying under the Professor.”

Emotion moved across Cinch’s face in a flash, and was gone. She shifted her stance in her seat. “Don’t you regret everything you’re missing?” she asked. She brought up a stack of papers from a desk drawer. “Your references all stressed that you are an exceptionally kind and sociable pony, miss Cordelia. Always attentive, always eager to please. But for the past year you’ve been locked up there all alone in a house on the edge of town, with only the company of one old stallion. While your fellow students have made friends, partners, coworkers, you’ve been doing… what?” Dean Cinch shook her head. “There is more to student life than just reading, miss Cordelia. You will never be so free in your life as you are now, to explore, to learn who you are. The relationships you make here will stay with you for the rest of your life. And you’ve given it all up to serve as the indentured servant of a demanding old madpony. Don’t you miss the ponies? The life?”

Dean Cinch placed her hooves on the table. “I’m giving you another chance, miss Cordelia. Come back to us, and you can have everything.”

Clover hesitated. She sighed. “I do miss the ponies. And you’re right, the past year has been… difficult. And yes, sometimes it’s been very lonely. And honestly, I would be open to hearing you out some other time. But the thing is, Dean Cinch, this universe is only a figment of your imagination. And I’d really like to get us out of here quickly, since I can’t be sure that being here won’t irreparably damage your mind.”

“Oh, piffle,” Cinch rolled her eyes. “You sound like my ex-husband. I know how the world works, young miss Cordelia, and this world works exactly the way it should. A nice, orderly world of ponies laying plans and working hard to excel. What could be better?”

“Dean Cinch, I’m serious. We are in the middle of a magical crisis right now.”

“Magical crises come and go,” Dean Cinch said flatly. “Ponies come and go as well. Whatever you are referring to doesn’t change this: I am myself, and you are yourself, and I am offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity. What will ponies say about you after you are gone, miss Cordelia? Will they remember your kindness? Will they remember that your quill-writing was stellar? No. They will remember if you built something lasting. That is what matters, miss Cordelia. The lives of ponies are brief, and fleeting, but what comes after it will last for eternity. Join me!” Dean Cinch extended a hoof. “This is the greatest university of magic in the lands of ponies. Together we can rule this school, and build a reputation that will last for a thousand years.”

There was silence between them for a moment, interrupted only by the sound of Clover’s heart beating in her ears.

“Oh, Dean…” Clover shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry.”

Dean Cinch raised a very judgmental eyebrow. “Whatever for?”

“For you. I feel sorry for you. And for what it’s worth…” Clover met Cinch’s eyes, and showed no cunning or deception. “Thanks. For sending me to Star Swirl. You gave me the chance to learn. That’s what good teachers do. So thank you for that.”

Cinch stared at Clover. And then her eyes began, ever so slightly, to wobble.

“No student,” Cinch said quietly, “has ever thanked me before.”

“It’s okay,” Clover said, as she got up from her chair. “Have a nice day, Dean Cinch. You have a lot to be proud of.”

Cinch nodded silently, and turned her chair to the side, and sat, staring at nothing.

Clover left the office, and closed the door quietly behind her, and heard the sound of the universe opening up above her head. She looked up and saw endless stars.

She smiled to herself. “I’m coming to find you, Chocolate Bunnies. Let’s see what’s next.”

– – –

Back in the endless sky between worlds Clover looked again at the cluster of star-world bubbles, still moving in their orderly dance. Star Swirl the Sprite looked up beside her.

“I don’t know why you don’t go inside them with me,” Clover remarked, then thought again. “Well, I can sort of understand why you wouldn’t want to go inside that one. But you didn’t know what was in it.”

She sighed. “Chocolate Bunnies wasn’t there. It was… very informative, in various ways. But there was no sign of Bunnies.” She looked out at the endless blanket of stars moving in orbit around Dean Cinch. “It would take forever to search them all.”

“Interdimensional mechanics meets primordial psychosensitive cosmic potential, acting upon a population of distinct but overlapping experience matrices,” Star Swirl the Sprite said. “A multiplicity of interacting instances, sharing sets of rules in common, but imperfectly.”

He then spoke words in a language Clover did not know, but which sounded very frustrated, before returning to Equish. “You are not a fisherpony. Chocolate Bunnies is not a fish.”

“Yes, professor,” Clover said. She looked at the other bubbles as they went past, but they all showed very similar scenes: the buildings of Cambridle University, ponies she did not know speaking, reading, or working. “I think this must be all the faculty, and regular students… All the ponies in Dean Cinch’s orbit, following the same rules she’s taught them. Bunnies… doesn’t really fit in here.” She bit her lip. “Ginny was right that these worlds are all connected. But Chocolate Bunnies isn’t a student anymore, not really. She fell out of her studies in order to…” Clover’s eyes widened. “In order to lead the Siblinghood, with the Discordians. That’s it! I need to find a connection to her. And the only ponies who were close to her…” She thought back to her encounter with Gallopsky and clenched her teeth. “…Are the ponies who don’t follow the rules at all anymore.”

She turned to the Sprite. “Professor, we need to find worlds that don’t follow the rules."

Star Swirl the Sprite vocalized in concordance, and began to spin in place. After a few moments he froze, pointing in a particular direction. “Clover. Look.”

Clover looked. There was one bubble in the distance unlike any of the others. Its surface, unlike the smooth open portals of the others, seemed to radiate jagged light. It was moving against the current, faster than all the others, speeding up and slowing down and changing its alignment seemingly at random.

“That is not in accordance with Appleian physics,” Clover said. Star Swirl whistled briefly.

Clover nodded. Clover dug her hooves into what felt like a solid surface, even though she knew it was nothing, and prepared to leap off. “I’m going in.”

Clover shot off towards the portal, and its world took form around her.

– – –

She found herself looking up at the sky.

It was beautiful. The sky could often be pretty, but never before had Clover seen a sky that was simply unspeakably, stunningly beautiful, so beautiful that she felt her eyes grow misty just from watching it.

There were the colors, of course. Clover found it hard to wrap her language around it: it was, well, blue. But also not. Whichever part she focused on was blue, but everything around it was like a rainbow turned inside-out and merged with lightning. And all of it cast its shadow and its reflection on the clouds, doubling the sky. And the clouds…

Of course Clover knew that clouds move. But never in her life had she seen clouds dance. They raced, they spun, they moved in circles and they mingled with each other, a wisp tracing a cursive O between two neighbors. All of it in constant turmoil, never the same from one second to the next, and as the sun moved across the heavens, their shadows cast a puppet play on the walls of Cambridle.

She was torn from her reverie when a pony behind her shoved her hard to the side, tripping her face-first into the dusty street.

She heard a voice from above. “Oh fer – what is wrong with ponies?”

Clover looked up to find the artist standing on the roof of the opposite building, looking down at her. She recognized the pegasus immediately: the spiky hair, the dismissive glare, the cutie mark of two knives and the matching earrings, all belonging to the pony who had sent her falling from the clock tower. The pegasus, Clover thought, did not look happy to see her.

“You’re one of the Discordians,” Clover said.

The pegasus snorted. “What’s it to you?”

Focus, Clover. No distractions. I’m on a mission here. Clover clenched her jaw and stood up straight. “Cutting Edge, wasn’t it? Do you know where I can find Chocolate Bunnies?”

Cutting Edge sniffed. “Try the candy store,” she said.

“Wait, really? Wow, thanks, where is… Oh. Oh, ha ha. Very funny.”

Cutting Edge shrugged. “Yeah, that was lazy as horse apples. But you put it up there on a Celestia-damned pedestal. It would be a crime not to knock it down.”

“My dark side would probably love you,” Clover muttered. “Look – you know Chocolate Bunnies. She was your leader, right up until you betrayed her. You must know where I can find her.”

Cutting Edge rolled her eyes. “Honestly,” she muttered, and pointed at the wall. “Look there. What do you see?”

Clover’s eyes narrowed. “If I play along will you tell me where she is?”

Cutting Edge’s face contorted in an angry snarl. “Just look at it!”

Clover looked, and saw a dazzling image of light and shadows cast on the plain brick surface. Her mouth fell open. “Is that… is that the Pony Lisa in shadow play?”

“Yes!” Cutting Edge shouted. “Do you know how much effort that takes? Do you think clouds just move into that position on their own? Do you realize how much work it takes to control not just the wind currents, but the temperature, the vapor levels, the refractive index, even for just a moment? And do you ponies even notice? No. What do you do? You ask me for directions. Because you’re too busy going somewhere else.” She rose into the air with a flap of her wings, glaring down at Clover. “The world around you is full of both amazing beauty and hideous ugliness! But you’re too obsessed with your petty personal problems to even notice!” Her anger softened into a wicked smile. “Well, you’re in luck,” she said, cracking her ankles. “You know why? Because you met me. And I’m going to make you see the world a whole new way.”

– – –

This was not how today was going to go, Clover thought to herself as she ran from the switchblade-wielding pegasus that chased her down the streets of Cambridle.

“Pick up the pace, maggot!” Cutting Edge yelled from overhead. “This architecture won’t admire itself!”

Cutting Edge had driven her clear across the city. She had done pushups while listening to beat poetry. She had dodged thrown fruit while being lectured about the Pre-Tankites, and had compared and contrasted the Pony Lisa and the Whinny while jumping rope until she tripped. Now she was being forced to run across the city while Cutting Edge yelled at her about city planning.

The reason for all this, Cutting Edge had said, was because pain sharpens the senses.

Something flickered in Clover’s peripheral vision. Something that glowed with unusual light, as if the sun were setting in midday, a few blocks over. She craned her neck to get a better look as she galloped, and her eyes widened.

Through the trees on the far side of the street crossing her path, out on the edge of the city, almost burning with concentrated magic, there stood a barn.

“I hope you remembered to bring your toothbrush,” Cutting Edge said ominously from above. “Because once we’re done running you’re going to brush the monument to the Great Fire of 299 until it looks like real fire!”

Clover grit her teeth, and counted down the moments before she reached the next alley. Then, without warning, she turned off the street and ducked between two buildings, galloping towards the glowing light.

She heard Cutting Edge yelling at her from behind. “Hey! Hey, where do you think you’re—GET AWAY FROM THERE!”

Clover did not stop, though her heart was pounding and sweat pouring down her mane, her lungs aching as she crossed the city limits.

Cutting Edge was behind her, wings flapping frantically as the pegasus raced to intercept her, furiously shouting, “GET BACK FROM THAT! YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED INSIDE MY—”

Clover felt her hooves land on the soft grass in front of the barn, and suddenly the world around her shifted.

“This isn’t a bad city, honeybee,” her father said. “We’ve built a good home here.”

“They call me names,” the filly said, kicking at the dirt. She ruffled her wings, her feathers dirty and uneven from bad preening. “They’re all pointyheads here. And even the earth pony foalsdon’t like me.”

“Maybe if you stopped fighting them all the time?”

Cutting Edge looked up at the sky, and back at the farmhouse on the edge of Cambridle, with its wide open fields of veggies and grains, grown for a city of unicorns couldn’t or wouldn’t grow themselves. They’d moved there after they lost her mother.

In her dreams, she still saw her mother’s face, heard her voice, felt the softness of her touch as she was swept up into a hug.

“I miss Cloudsdale. I miss living in the sky. This place is ugly.”

“Well, maybe you can help make it beautiful.”

“Huh!” She kicked at the ground. “Nothing can make this place beautiful.”

His hoof patted her withers. “There’s nothing in the world except what you make of it,” he said. “Maybe you can’t change everything… But you can always change how you see it.”

She kept looking at the city after her father went indoors, thinking about that.

Picking fights in cheap pubs and taverns at night. Dressing all in black and creating elaborate street art in the dark. But always you go home at the end of the night.

Discover chemistry, and realize it’s amazing how little it takes to make something burn. Make a game out of it: make cookies that explode on the frog of your hoof. Give them to ponies, and watch them learn to see the world differently.

One day, a lone earth pony shows up, and there’s something in his eyes. “This is my dad’s barn. It’s pretty shabby. But you can hang out if you want.”

You talk, and ponies come to listen.

You spent your foalhood alone. You learned to stand up for yourself, to hit back when somepony hits you. But somehow you meet ponies, and you don’t know what to think about that. You pick fights with them, but they don’t go away. You see their weak points and you poke them relentlessly, but they don’t leave. Somehow they understand you, even though they clearly don’t. And somehow you get used to them. And you’re no longer alone.

You talk about Discord, which is the only thing that tolerates you. At night you hang out together and talk, and lay plans, and go out on the city and you try to change how ponies see the world around them.

And slowly, ever so slowly, the barn becomes beautiful.

A hush falls, and a cold wind cuts through the warmth of the company. There’s a creak. The door opens, and you turn, and you see your friend.

“Chocolate Bunnies?”

Clover looked at the frozen figure, suspended in ghostly glowing light, at the entrance of the barn.

Cutting Edge hovered in place, her unseeing eyes filled with the same light. “She wanted to join us,” the pegasus said, her voice hollow and listless. “She was my friend. We were roommates back in art school. Discord would like her. But…” Cutting Edge winced in her trance, pain filling her voice. “…But something went wrong.”

“You were her friend?” Clover narrowed her eyes. “You had a strange way of showing it.”

“I was opening her eyes!” Cutting Edge snapped. “She was falling into a trap! I was going to set her free!”

“You almost knocked her off the clock tower!”

“Change never comes without pain,” Cutting Edge spoke, and her voice was simultaneously low and calm, and a wordless scream that cut Clover like a knife. “She was too comfortable. She couldn’t see the hole opening up under her. I tried to help her! I would never hurt her! Everything went wrong and I couldn’t stop it!”

Clover took a step back, and took in the sight all around her. The four conspirators sat around the barn, Cutting Edge, and Gallopsky, and the third one, and their faces were alive with emotion, playing out the moment when the Siblinghood of the Hoof was born. They were frozen in a tableau for her perusal, like a work of art. And on the other side, by the door, was the ghost of Chocolate Bunnies, come to turn Cambridle upside down.

“She wanted our help,” Cutting Edge’s face contorted, struggling with emotions, notions and concepts that did not come naturally to her. “I was helping her. Discord helps everypony. But you don’t ask Discord for help unless you’re prepared to receive the help that Discord gives you.”

Clover looked at the figure of Chocolate Bunnies again, trying to find some clue. There was her friend, looking as she always did, perky and cheerful and impervious to seemingly anything. But all around her something was spreading. Something that warped the light and made the ground she walked on look strange and sickly, and if Clover looked at it too long she began to feel ill.

“There was something wrong with her,” Cutting Edge said. “I couldn’t see it then. But Discord knew, and I knew I had to stop it.”

Clover nodded slowly. “There is something wrong,” she said. “I don’t know what. But I think Bunnies might be in trouble. You really want to help her?”

Cutting Edge nodded sharply, just once.

“Then help me find her,” Clover said. “You were her friend. You’re connected somehow. Do you have any idea where she is?”

Cutting Edge looked uncertain, almost afraid. She gingerly reached out a hoof, and Clover reached out to take it.

Then everything froze.

“You don’t belong here,” Cutting Edge said, but it was not her voice that was speaking. “Get out.”

Clover felt herself launched backwards like a stone from a catapult. Before her eyes the world shrank to a pinprick and was gone.

– – –

Clover floated, or fell, or moved in some other fashion in a universe that doesn’t obey the laws of physics even conditionally, until she slammed into a hard flat mass that felt like ground.

“Darnit,” Clover muttered to herself, not bothering to move. “I thought for sure I was getting somewhere that time.”

At length, Clover forced herself up and looked around at a land shrouded in mist. The ground beneath her was flat, and plain. She could see the outline of great things in the distance, but the way there was hidden, and all the details were obscured from her.

“Oh… Mare of misery, whose land have I lit on now?” Clover recited the lines from the Coltyssey to herself. “What are they here? Violent, savage, lawless? Or friendly to strangers, Princess-fearing ponies?”

“Well,” said a mare’s voice, “This is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

Clover turned to what she thought was the direction of the voice. What she saw emerge from the mist was a shimmering, transparent outline of a pony. An old mare, in robes and a pointy hat.

“I should have known I would find you at the center of this,” said Swirly Star the Wise.

Clover grimaced. “Hello, Professor Swirly Star.”

Swirly Star trotted forward. “You sound disappointed. Were you expecting somepony else?”

Clover rolled her eyes, and then looked at and through the form of her former substitute mentor. “What happened to you? You’re a shadow of yourself. Did you die?” Her eyes widened. “Wait, did the griffon assassin get you?”

Swirly Star huffed indignantly. “It will take more than some overeager feathered kitten to kill Swirly Star the Wise! I am doing just fine, thankyouverymuch. No, this is just how I appear in this reality due to other circumstances that you do not need to concern yourself with.”

“Is this your world?” Clover looked around, seeing only darkness and mist. “Wait, if you’re here then why aren’t I seeing the world as you imagine it?”

“Because mind your own business, that’s why.” Swirly Star scowled at her. “Do you still think you’re Beardy’s mother, or something?”

Clover grit her teeth together. “I don’t think that—Look, I’m just trying to figure out how this, this infant multiverse works! I’m trying to save my friends and get us back home.”

“Ah,” Swirly Star nodded. “Yes, that’s a good start. Have you made much progress?”

Clover tilted her head back and forth. “Not as much as I’d like.”

“She’s getting absolutely nowhere,” Clover’s dark side said, and both ponies turned to look at her.

“That’s completely untrue!” Clover snapped. “I’m figuring out lots of things!”

“No you’re not.”

“I am too!”

“Are not!”

Swirly Star took a step back, and shook her head. “No. No, I don’t hold with this at all. There should not be more than one of you.”

“Well, that’s one thing we agree on then,” Clover muttered. Her dark side stuck out her tongue at her. “I don’t suppose you can help me get rid of her? It turns out my dark side is super annoying.”

“Your dark side?” Swirly Star’s eyes narrowed. “Did you run into Brandy?”

“Her name is Ginny,” Clover said. “And yes, I did. Can you get rid of her? You’re good enough at driving me away, so you might as well use your powers for good.”

“She’s your dark side,” Swirly Star said, and Clover’s dark side smirked smugly. “There is nothing in her except what you brought with you, and she’s your burden to carry.” Swirly Star watched Clover intently. “And that’s rather a key point here: do you have any idea what is really going on here, Clover?”

Clover nodded. “I’m trying to find Chocolate Bunnies. She has the key to get us all back home.”

“She has no idea,” Clover’s dark side added. “She’s just coasting.”

“This does not bode well at all,” Swirly Star muttered, as the two Clovers glared at each other. The ghostly pony shook her head, casting off little wisps of mist. “Your fears may get the better of you yet. I know Beardy better than anypony, but I am not convinced of his judgment if he places his trust in you.”

Swirly Star prodded Clover with a very solid-feeling hoof, and Clover focused her attention on her one-time teacher. “You’ve observed what this place is like,” Swirly Star said gravely. “It is with your dark side as with everything else. There is nothing here except what you brought with you. So I ask you again: what are you going to do about it? Do you even know?”

“There are a lot of us,” Clover snapped back. “We all brought with us a lot of things, Swirly Star! And we’re all connected! Because we are ponies, and that’s what ponies do! We make connections! These universes aren’t parallel, they’re all interconnected. It’s not only me, because I’m not the only thing in this multiverse!” Her voice grew stronger as she went, her heart-rate increasing. “I’m traveling between many worlds, and it’s very confusing, but somewhere in all those connections is the pony who knows the way out, or who has the key to open the door, or, or something!”

Clover looked away from the ghostly mare, and tried to see something through the mist, tried to look out into the void between the worlds, to see the ponies. She couldn’t. “You know, I am starting to figure it out, Professor,” she said more softly. “They’re all asleep here. Trapped in their own dreams and worries… The way to get through all these ponies is to get through to them. What I’m trying to do, Professor, is understand this place. Not just because it’s standing in my way, but because these are my friends and I care about them.” She turned a sharp eye back to the ghostly mare. “So are you going to help me with that, or are you just going to stand in the way?”

Swirly Star smiled under knowing eyes. “Maybe he wasn’t wrong about you after all,” she said. “You do have some fire in you.”

The old mare stepped to the side and pointed behind her. “Keep going this way, and you’ll find your friend. But be warned: there’s a ways left to go.”

Clover nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

“One other thing,” Swirly Star said from behind her as she trotted away. “Be careful. You are not the only one who is trying to understand this place.”

Clover looked back, but Swirly Star was already gone. Only her voice hung in the air.

“Now go, and find your friends.”

Chapter 20: The Education of Clover the Clever

The infant multiverse was vast and beautiful. Clover reflected on this truth as she wandered among the stars. Star Swirl the Sprite flew beside her, the diminutive, more-magic-than-pony unicorn following her lead as they traveled the way Swirly Star the Wise had pointed her.

She could see the many worlds hanging brilliantly in the sky, simultaneously endlessly far away and so close that she could reach out and touch any of them. She saw Mister Leafy sitting comfortably in his own world, yet somehow his roots touching every every last one of the others.

The wind whipped her mane, and her cloak flapped around her legs with each step, even though Clover was vaguely aware that shouldn’t actually be possible outside of a universe. She had left her own pocket-world far behind, but even outside of it the background magic of the multiverse made little efforts to adjust to her expectations by giving her air, wind, and traces of solid matter. With every step she took she left behind her a little wake, like foam on the cosmic ocean, the condensation of her understanding of the world.

Aside from the music that played in her mind, there was no sound in the space between worlds. Though she moved at astronomical speeds, and the fiery machinery of arcane physics showed the might of its inner workings all around her, it was nonetheless peaceful and still.

Star Swirl the Sprite left behind no wake. He stared straight ahead, insofar as it was possible to tell when his eyes had no pupils, but were only windows to yet more worlds, filled with wheels of stars spinning endlessly.

“We’re still heading the right direction, professor?” Clover called out.

“The stars align,” Star Swirl the Sprite said. “The center draws closer. Find Chocolate Bunnies, and undo the scattering.”

“Right you are, professor,” Clover said, and smiled. “You know, I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

One of his ears perked up under his hat.

“I like to think that by now I’ve gotten to know you better than… well, anypony,” Clover said. “I think I know a little something about how you think. How you work. And then…” She looked at the sprite. “This happens. But I think I’ve figured it out. I don’t think this is just some cosmic joke that doesn’t mean anything. This place doesn’t understand irony. It’s too earnest to tell jokes.”

Star Swirl the Sprite looked at her silently, his eyes glittering with stars.

“Ginny doesn’t trust you,” Clover said. “She thinks this is some kind of trick. I can see where she’s coming from, but I disagree.” She nodded at the strange figure of the Sprite, whose empty eyes stared back at her. “This is what happens when Star Swirl the Bearded is thrown into a world that asks nothing of him, that works entirely on his terms, no compromises needed. Once I realized that, it made me think. I thought, how much work must it be for you to relate to normal ponies like me? How hard must it be to communicate with ponies that are so far apart from you that we’re hardly even speaking the same language?” She looked ahead of her, at the dazzling lights of the cosmos. “I don’t know what you saw, in your own little world. I don’t suppose it could ever have satisfied you. But you didn’t go off on your own. You came to find me as soon as you could.”

Star Swirl the Sprite said nothing while she spoke. Clover decided that meant he was listening. “You invited me into your house, professor. You’ve tried to teach me everything you know. I know it hasn’t always been easy. But I don’t think I understood before just how much work that is. I just wanted you to know that… I appreciate it. Thanks, professor. We don’t always understand each other. But I think we’re going to manage this. I know that you’re a force for good, and someday everypony else will as well.”

Star Swirl the Sprite blinked in incomprehension, and Clover laughed inwardly at the sight.

“Wow,” said another voice in Clover’s ear, “that was so sappy I think I choked on rainbows and died.”

“Shut up, dark side.”

“No,” Clover’s dark side replied. “You can pretend otherwise all you like, but you have no idea what you’re doing. You’re probably going nowhere at all. This is a multiverse, and you’re like a little foal thinking that you’re going to explore it in an afternoon and be home in time for supper, like it’s the woods out behind your aunt’s house.”

Clover rolled her eyes and grumbled.

Far ahead, directly in front of them, Clover saw a star that glowed with a different light, that stood out against the backdrop of the cosmos. She smiled resolutely. “I think we’re getting there at last. You know, I think I’m starting to figure out how to navigate this space, and I think we’re really—”

That was when something invisible rammed into her from the side. Clover screamed, falling uncontrollably backwards, her limbs flailing. Star Swirl the Sprite hung where she had been, looking after her in shock.

The heavens closed up around her, and he was gone from her sight.

– – –

When Clover opened her eyes, she found herself looking at a dark, green sky. She lay where she had been thrown, on hard earth with meager grass, and she felt like she was covered in bruises.

Clover slowly pushed herself up on her hooves and looked around. She was in a dry and rocky land, cracked earth barely interrupted by sparse vegetation, and the air was hazy and thick with dry, unpleasant smells.

The sky buzzed, a deep hum that she could hear and even feel through the ground. It came closer and closer, and what had been mere specks of black in the sky became a vast body above her, like a flock of birds. As they drew near, she saw the changelings clearly, and they saw her.

“Seize her!” one changeling shouted. He wore spiked armor that glistened in the strange, green sunlight, and his voice reverberated like a dozen voices in one.

Half a dozen changelings fell on her before she could react. She screamed and kicked and shoved at them with her magic as they grabbed her, their strange hard shells with insect-like hairs rubbing against her fur, making her instinctively recoil.

Working together as one, they pinned her down with sheer force of numbers while she struggled. She heard them hack and cough, and then her hooves were bound with sticky slime that refused to budge. Another hack and it coated her horn, rendering her magic useless.

In the middle of the brawl, they tore her robe off from her back and tossed it aside, and as she tried to scream her lips were sealed, turning her cries into unintelligible groans.

“Bring her to Guise,” the warrior commanded, and she was hauled in the air by buzzing wings and hard jagged hooves. They flew off, dragging her with them, naked, leaving her robe far behind.

It disappeared from her sight, and was gone. And then her vision was filled with the city.

Great spires of changeling hives rose all around her. There were more of them than she could count: even in the smoky haze that lingered out on the horizon she could see them by the dozens, each hive tended by a great swarm that filled the air in great rings around each spire. The ground around each was a barren wasteland, showing only the scars of ancient roads to suggest there had ever been anything on that land before the swarm came.

One spire towered far above the others and they carried her towards it, its surface alive with holes that opened and closed like the mouths of an unearthly beast. One opened before them just before they smashed into the wall, and they were inside a great cavernous gap. She gagged inside her sealed muzzle as the fetid air of the hive filled her nostrils, thick with filth and rot.

Beneath her, she saw great pens where ponies were herded like mindless animals, and at first it seemed like they were going to drop her with them, but the warrior swooped down. “Not here. Not her. Bring her to the King!”

They rose up, hovering alongside a great central column. Clover’s heart raced in her chest, but at least the air cleared as she rose further from the pony pens.

They carried her through a great glowing doorway high up in the living hive, gateways of great insect-wings that opened and closed on joints, and finally dropped her on the ground before the throne of the Changeling King.

The soldier saluted. “Oh Great King, we have captured a pony. She is special. We have brought her to you, as you commanded.” Meanwhile, one of the drones spat on its hoof and rubbed it on Clover’s muzzle: the slime gag dissolved, and she could breathe freely.

Clover gasped for breath, and looked up at the form of the Changeling King. He was enormous, taller than two tall stallions put together, with two great horns like a stag. He moved on his throne, and as he did his black chitin shell reflected shades of every color in the feeble light. His wings were longer than his body, like stained glass windows showing a dream of changeling dominion. He carried himself proudly, regally as he stepped down from his throne, and every motion suggested a strength and ferocity unmatched, ready to be unleashed in full at any moment.

Somehow, in spite of all that, Clover recognized him immediately. “…Tarsus? Is that you?”

“Silence!” The Changeling soldier commanded. “You will show respect when you speak to the Changeling King!”

The King observed her coolly. “Where did you find this one?”

The soldier saluted. “At the edge of the city.”

“So close...” the King shifted. “Double the patrols! No pony must escape!”

“Yes, my King!” the soldier buzzed his wings and immediately the swarm set to work.

Clover gulped. “Tarsus? King Tarsus? It’s me, Clover. Don’t you remember me?”

Tarsus looked down at her disdainfully.“I do remember you,” Tarsus said. “I thought you had fled. Yet here you are, come back to the site of your failure.”

“My… failure?”

“Would you like to see it?” He flapped his wings, and the walls around him shimmered. Images from throughout the hive flashed before her eyes. She saw great swarms of workers and armies of soldiers. There were caverns filled with great green glowing eggs, and squirming larvae crawling over transparent cocoons that held thin, sleeping ponies, and great pens of dull-eyed ponies herded like beasts. She struggled not to vomit.

The Changeling King rose up to his full height, and his voice was confident and strong. “This is my kingdom,” he said. “As our elders foretold, the ancient city of Guise, destroyed so long ago, has returned to the world at last. Here we raise great swarms of changelings that cover the world. In our hatcheries our young hone their skills in safety. We have crushed all who would stand against us. We have broken our enemies and turned them into our crop. Never again will the changelings suffer at the hooves of ponies. We will never again hide in the shadows.” He looked down his muzzle at her. “So why do you think I care to remember you?”

Clover shrank under his gaze, shivered. She felt naked, cold and clammy and exposed, and more powerless than she had felt in a long time. “Look, Tarsus… I know we haven’t known each other all that long, but I thought we were friends? I tried to treat you the same as I would any pony. I was nice to you, wasn’t I?”

“You have no idea what you did!” He snapped at her. “You have no idea what your master is! You are an oblivious little foal living in a dreamworld and telling yourself you’re good, and now you will all pay the price of your arrogance!” He turned away from her, shaking in anger, his thundering voice raw and pained. “Guards! Take her away and throw her in the pens!”

“Tarsus, wait!” She cried after him as the soldiers took hold of her and moved to carry her away.

That was when the floor suddenly shook beneath her hooves, and the sound of an explosion rocked the hall. The guards froze, hesitating, then the hall filled with buzzing as the changelings erupted into a flurry of movement. “We are under attack!” a soldier cried. “Battle stations! Protect the King!”

The soldiers dropped Clover and she fell to the side with a cry of pain, her hooves still glued together.

A battered drone half-flew, half-fell into the hall, trailing green ooze on the floor behind it from cracks in its shell. It looked up at its king, its eyes foggy. “He comes,” the drone said, and fell dead.

A terrible chill wind blew into the King’s throne hall. Clover could see the fear even on their non-equine faces. Tarsus buzzed his wings and hovered above the throne. “Hold fast, my warriors! We will not be defeated, together we are strong!”

“Your world will crumble,” a voice rumbled, and it sent a cold shudder down Clover’s spine. “Flee for your lives if you wish, for it will not save you.”

Standing in the doorway was an abomination that defied description, and made Clover’s eyes hurt to look at it. It was an amorphous lump of obsidian slime, repulsive and unnatural. It was a monstrous, sluggish ghoul, a bogeyman from a foal’s nightmares, all rot and jagged teeth, and its eyes were death.

It swept in through the doorway, its every motion a crime against nature, and the changelings broke before it and fled in a panic, the hall erupting into chaos.

The creature raised its head and bolts of force burst from its face, striking the changelings who attempted to flee. With each shot Clover felt the floor shake beneath her, and every changeling it struck fell, broken, and lifeless.

“No!” Tarsus leaped forward and stood before it in a challenge, his wings wide. “Face me, monster! You will never defeat the free changelings!”

“Fool,” the monster said. “You will all die.”

It erupted in a noxious battery of missiles that covered the room and felled dozens more changelings, while Tarsus rose up and blasted it with a beam of changeling magic. Clover felt the force of the confrontation. The air grew hot and full of smoke, blurring her vision. The sharp lights, the noise of the battle and of the panicking, fleeing changelings everywhere all making it harder for her to focus.

But the monster shifted under the force of Tarsus’ attack, and changed shape. Clover could clearly see the shape of an elderly stallion with bells on his hat as it flickered in and out of her vision.

Clover watched as the remnants of Star Swirl the Bearded finally melted into a thick black ooze. It drew together into one solid puddle, then vanished into thin air with a hollow laughter that promised he would be back before long.

And there was silence again, except for the weeping of the survivors over their lost loved ones. The hall was littered with changeling corpses, like dead flies in a long-forgotten room.

Tarsus turned, and slowly hovered back up to his throne, where he slumped over to the side, and said nothing.

Clover stood beside his throne. watching him. Her hooves and horn were free, her muzzle not stained by any residue of slime. The still air lay heavy on her exposed back.

Clover took a step towards the throne, and Tarsus turned an eye on her listlessly. “Do you know why I recognized you?” She asked softly. “I figured it out, see. You’re the king of all the changelings. But… there’s nothing here except what you bring with you.”

She looked at the chaos all around the hall, at the grief and pain on display. “All your life… All your memories about being powerless, about being hunted, about having to hide… And the one pony who caught you, and made you talk.” She turned to the changeling king, and sat down in front of him. “I’m not going to force you to talk. I’m going to ask. Will you please talk to me, Tarsus?”

“He killed them,” Tarsus said. “My hivemates. I gave them up. I should have died before I talked, but I gave them up, and he sent his warriors to kill them.”

“And you feel guilty.” Clover looked out at the hall. “Because you think you could have stopped him. And so you torture yourself, by watching him kill them over and over again.”

A myriad of faces passed over him in the blink of an eye. “I am the Great King,” Tarsus said, rising up to his full height. “I must protect and feed the hive.”

Clover was silent for a while, trying to collect her thoughts. She looked around the hall, taking in the details. The drones were collecting their dead and carrying them away, while the bereaved followed after.

“To ponies, changelings are legendary monsters,” Clover admitted. “You abduct and kill ponies, and eat love to live. It’s… difficult… for me to try to see the world from your point of view. But, you know something? It was Star Swirl himself who told me that you were just doing what was in your nature. He never held it against you. He said that you were… innocent.” She let out a deep sigh. “For what it’s worth, Tarsus… I think we’ve got along pretty well, in the short time we’ve known each other.”

“You are not your teacher,” Tarsus said. “He is a monster. You are just a pony.”

“He’s a pony too,” Clover said quietly. “There’s always more to monsters than we think.”

The great King of the Changelings faded into shadow and a wisp of smoke that blew away with the wind. Left behind in his place was Tarsus, looking the way Clover knew him, small and uneven and covered in scars after a lifetime of skulking in shadows.

Tarsus looked down at her, defeated. “Just go,” he said. “Leave me. There’s nothing for you here.”

Clover nodded. “Alright. Goodbye… and I’m sorry.”

She turned away, and the sky opened up above her, and she stepped out of the universe and into the beyond.

– – –

Once Clover was back in outer space, she immediately ducked, and scanned the space around her for any potential attackers. There was nothing.

She drew a deep breath, and released it slowly. “I’m back,” she said.

“You were pushed,” Star Swirl the Sprite said.

“Yes. I was.” Clover thought back, and shuddered. “I met Tarsus there. It was… intense. It could have been very dangerous.”

“Tarsus,” Star Swirl the Sprite said. “Tarsus has a place same as anypony else. We are not searching for Tarsus.”

“I know, professor,” Clover said wearily. She looked out at the glowing dots that were not quite stars, far away in the outermost reaches of the infant multiverse. “We’re searching for Chocolate Bunnies… But I need to tell you about Tarsus. He’s nursing a hatred for you that he can’t overcome because you captured him and forced him to give up his kin to their deaths. And the truth is… he’s not wrong.” Clover did not look at her teacher as she spoke. “You kept him as a prisoner and a slave, and I… just watched you do it. I’m going to be thinking about that for a long time, now.”

“He kept ponies as food,” her dark side said. “He deserved everything he got. There’s a reason his kind hide in the shadows and never show themselves.”

Clover shivered. By reflex and habit she moved to wrap her cloak around her tighter, but it was gone. She was not used to it being gone. “…That’s cruel, dark side.”

“You pronounced ‘true’ wrong.”

Clover gritted her teeth together. “This is hard enough as it is. I can’t be distracted by you right now!”

“Don’t blame me, you’re the one who can’t control your own thoughts and feelings.”

“Guh!” Clover demonstratively turned away from her dark side. “Listen, Professor, whatever happened before wasn’t just chance. I could have been trapped in that world, and something kicked me in there on purpose. Swirly Star gave me a warning, before she left. I think something is trying to stop me from finding Bunnies. Do you have any idea what it could be?”

“The scattering,” Star Swirl the Sprite said severely, which made Clover’s dark side snicker. “Infant multiverse, filled with vast amounts of raw magic. Find the center, and undo the scattering.”

“Find the center,” Clover muttered to herself. “Alright, let me think. What’s at the center? This place is full of… Raw magic. And ponies.” She looked again at the stars, wondering which of them held the key. “Could it be that one of them wants to stop us from escaping? That they want to stay here? With a multiverse at your disposal… Anypony could be a goddess here. But who? I don’t think any of the ponies I’ve seen so far could do that.”

Star Swirl the Sprite turned. “Find Chocolate Bunnies.”

“Find the center,” Clover muttered to herself. “In a multiverse, technically everywhere is the center. Find Chocolate Bunnies…” Her eyes lit up. “It wants to keep me away from Bunnies. And that means… It’s already slipped up. It’s showed its hoof. Professor! We’re going to keep going ahead. Keep an eye out for any magic projectiles, or shields, or anything that will try to stop us, and warn me if you see them!” She grinned, looking out towards the cosmic horizon. “If we can spot that thing, maybe it will lead us right to it.”

She took off again, galloping across the multiverse with Star Swirl the Sprite at her side. Her eyes darted back and forth, and her horn was glowing softly, scanning a vast sphere of space around her, ready to spot and grab hold of any sign of magic moving towards her.

It didn’t take long before they spotted it. Far ahead of them was a great lump of magic matter, invisible to non-magical senses, hurtling through space. It sat at the end of a long supple trunk of the same stuff, either dragging it behind it like a rope tied to a brick, or perhaps it was like the hoof at the end of some great limb, reaching out across space from a massive body someplace beyond.

No sooner had Clover spotted it but it reacted to her presence. It froze, the hoof or head of it turning to face her. It almost seemed to watch her for a moment, as a pony might watch a fly crawling over the table, judging its timing. Clover tensed, knees bent, ready to leap at a moment’s notice.

After watching her for a moment, the invisible limb pulled back and tried to smack her. It crashed down towards her with enormous force, and she only barely dodged out of its path. She felt it sweep past just behind her, sending ripples through the background magic like waves in the wake of a great ship on the ocean.

She grit her teeth, the corners of her mouth curling in a smile. “Didn’t expect that, did you?” she muttered to herself. “Now let’s find out what you’re hiding.” She turned, aligning herself along the length of the limb, and galloped down it, Star Swirl the Sprite following along beside her.

There was a roaring all around her that felt distinctly like frustration, and the great extremity turned, and took up the pursuit.

The thing moved forcefully, Clover noticed, but not elegantly. As the head came around for another strike she managed to dodge it by quickly ducking around the trunk. She gulped, and galloped as hard as she could down the length of the limb as it undulated and bent around her.

With her magic senses activated, she became aware of something ahead of her. She focused on it, feeling it out. Then she gasped. “Professor, do you see that?”

Star Swirl nodded. “The portal.”

It was a wall of magic, and it was where the enormous limb was rooted. The invisible club that was chasing her rose from a great invisible force field that stretched across space. And there were more like it. She could feel them growing in the distance, the defenders on a wall built to keep her out.

Clover reached out with her magic, feeling its strength, and bit her lip. “It’s growing stronger,” she said. “Whatever’s doing that, it’s gaining magical power over time.”

“A piece of the scattering,” the Sprite said. “We must get inside. Proceed when ready.”

Clover nodded uncertainly, and steeled herself. “I’m ready.”

The great club came rocketing towards them from the side, and the two ponies launched forward, together, towards the surface of the shield just before it would hit them.

Clover felt the magical force against her face, like a furnace radiating heat. She raised her own barrier and sharpened it to a point, and pushed forward with all her strength.

They made contact just as the club was turning around behind them for another strike, and cut through it.

There was a massive burst of magical force behind them, launching them forward through space. The magic itself roared around them in a fury, and Clover galloped, looking ahead to see what awaited her.

At the center of the force field was a new world. It glowed gold and silver, and inside it the clearest image Clover could see was of a barn.

She jumped into it, and a universe sprang up around her.

– – –

The world was frozen, and the cold hit Clover immediately. She yelped in surprise and shivered, frost falling lightly on her back. Cold, she thought. I had almost forgotten how it felt to freeze.

She looked around her, and knew where she was right away: she was standing in the Crescent Square, one of Cambridle’s major marketplaces, full of the mundane business of city life, but all of it frozen over. The ponies stood locked in place, drifts of snow building up around them, locked mid-action in a day that never ended. “What…?” Clover mouthed the word, her breath hanging visibly in the air, freezing up entirely after a moment.

“Who here is real?” she asked herself as she turned. “Who are you, and what’s so important that that thing fought to keep me out…?”

She recognized the pony immediately once she saw her. Standing by the big public notice board was Silk Road, the unicorn member of the Servitors of Discord, the third pony Clover had seen leading the revolution. She too was frozen in place, stretching out, her hoof pressed against a poster.

“Frozen,” Clover muttered to herself as she looked over the pony. “Why are you frozen? Hello?”

Silk Road’s eyes opened with a flash that sent them both tumbling backwards, eight hooves scudding and slipping on ice before they both regained their balance. Silk Road gasped. “What – who are you? What are you doing here?”

Silk Road’s eyes were bleary and bloodshot, looking wildly all around her. Her voice was thin and confused, even afraid. Clover thought the other unicorn was barely aware of her, but a sudden sense of apprehension flooded over her as the background magic of the universe shifted. Clover could almost taste it in the air, and she recognized the taste. Like it had been with Gallopsky and Cutting Edge, simultaneously vulnerable and forceful.

She was an intruder in a fragile place, and it had defenses, and it was watching her closely, ready to lash out at the first provocation.

She resolved not to give it one.

She drew a breath through her nostrils, and said in a calm voice: “I don’t mean you any harm. My name is Clover. I just want to talk.”

“Talk.”

Clover nodded. Her mind was racing. “Do you remember me?” Clover asked. “I was at the revolution. Remember the revolution? In Cambridle, at the Academy of Magic. You were going to conquer the city for Discord. Do you remember that?”

“I… do remember,” Silk Road’s voice was hazy, and confused. “Yes, I was… talking to somepony, and you were there, and you…”

“I tried to negotiate a peace treaty,” Clover said, her magical senses on alert. “I don’t want any trouble. I just want ponies to get along.”

Silk Road’s eyes were blank and unfocused, but her mouth curled up in disdain. “The mad wizard’s apprentice,” she said. “Peace… Peace is an illusion. Peace is for graveyards. There’s no time for it.”

Silk Road turned from the big board and took a few steps away. As she did, Clover felt the background magic revert to baseline, having decided for now that she was beneath notice. She let out a breath of relief, and looked after the other unicorn.

You know something, she thought to herself. You all do, and I couldn’t get it out of the other two, and something doesn’t want me to get it out of you. How do I get through to you?

“You’re being creepy again,” Clover’s dark side whispered in her thoughts.

Shut up, dark side. I am not.

“Yes you are. You’re thinking about how best to manipulate her.”

I have a job to do, dark side.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night. Swirly Star was right about you, you know.”

Clover rolled her eyes, and turned her attention back to Silk Road.

Silk Road walked slowly, shivering like a feverish pony or a little old mare. Clover felt compelled to offer her a helping hoof. She stepped up beside the other unicorn. Silk Road tensed up, then after a moment’s silence returned to normal.

“You’re Silk Road, right?” Clover said. “You’re with the Discordians.”

“I… Yes. Yes, I’m her.” Silk Road forced herself to take every step forward. “I have to hang up these posters,” she said, distracted. “There’s going to be a big meeting. I have invited everypony. I need to get everything ready. I have a plan. I have charts, and graphs, and projections.”

Clover looked at the poster. It had a fanciful image of Discord, presumably designed by Cutting Edge, spinning the globe on the tip of his claw. Underneath was written an invitation to come visit the Discordians at sunset on so-and-so date, in the barn at the Strong Roots farm, for a revelatory and life-changing experience, open to all.

“I have a good feeling about this time,” Silk Road said. “This time they’ll listen.”

Clover shivered, and not from the cold. “...Will you tell me about it?” Clover asked, trying to sound kind. “I want to understand this. You, this place. Discord. Can you help me with that?”

“You want to understand Discord?” Silk Road said, and Clover heard a hint of laughter in her voice. “Well, that’s easy. It’s also impossible, so you might as well not bother. No, that’s not right…” She frowned, her eyes closed, shook her head. “I’m not an elitist. The other two think I am, but I’m not. I…” She winced. “Honestly, what kind of elitist would support Discord? What is Cutting Edge even thinking? No, she’s just saying that to get on my nerves. I know she is.”

“She’s just trying to get under your skin,” Clover said, eyeing the other unicorn warily, watching her reactions. A gust of wind brought a fresh wave of cold, and Clover tried to ignore it, and focus on the other unicorn. “…But I keep wondering about this. Why Discord, of all things? I don’t really see him as a very positive force.”

“He has unsurpassed brand-name penetration,” Silk Road said calmly, slowly. “There is not a pony in Braytannia who doesn’t both know and have strong feelings about Discord. Do not underestimate the power of brand recognition.”

“That…” Clover thought for a moment. “Is that how the other Discordians think about it?”

“Those two are impossible!” Silk Road muttered. “They never take anything we do seriously. I’m the only respectable pony who will give those two the time of day.” Her voice grew louder as she spoke. “I’m on their side! I want to see Discord win! It’s the three of us against the world, but I can’t even get them to listen to me!”

Clover stepped back, surprised by the strength of her passion. “It seems like you’ve been doing really well for the last year, right?” she asked cautiously.

“Oh yes,” Silk Road said, her voice bitter. “Chocolate Bunnies was the best thing that ever happened to us. Before she came along, I spent two years trying to find somepony willing to work alongside the Discordians. Nopony would listen to a word I said. Then, once we had the Siblinghood of the Hoof on our side, they were all ears.”

Silk Road winced, cutting herself off. “I’m not ungrateful,” she said to herself. “I like Chocolate Bunnies. She listens to me. I can work with her. I would never betray her.”

I can’t tell if she’s about to freeze up or explode. “I’ll listen to you,” Clover said. “What did you want? Explain it to me. Please.”

“I… I wanted buy-in,” Silk Road said. “I didn’t just want power, whatever Cutting Edge says. I wanted ponies to see what we could offer. That we could be more than just a disruption or an annoyance. To show that we could be an integral part of the tapestry!”

Clover watched with rapt attention as Silk Road almost seemed to transform before her eyes. Her breath was rapid and excited as she spoke. She stood up tall and proud, and for a moment the cold seemed to have no effect on her, her eyes bright and her cheeks flush with passion. “I wanted to show everypony that there was a place for an organization that doesn’t care about the old ways, that doesn’t care who you are or how you were born, that welcomes everypony, regardless of tribe!”

She reached upwards for a moment, then slumped forward. “...But nopony listened,” she said. “Nopony ever listened.”

“Not until Chocolate Bunnies,” Clover said quietly.

Silk Road nodded. “Nopony wanted to be the first to give us a chance, you see,” she said calmly. “If they did, and we failed, it would all be on their heads. But if they were just following the herd, they could pretend it had nothing to do with them.” She sighed, staring off into the distance. “Once you get ponies to accept something, once you get them to consider it normal… Anything is possible. But it means you’re pushing against the weight of the world.”

Clover couldn’t help but giggle. Silk Road raised an eyebrow. “I’m having a strange day,” Clover said. “I didn’t mean to laugh at you. But I keep meeting ponies on their own terms. Forced, for a while, to see the world as other ponies see it. Maybe I’m getting pretty good at it. Or maybe the last one was just so far beyond me that now even Discord seems normal.” She smiled, and took a step along, kicking up some snow. “Whatever the case… I think I get it, Silk Road. I’m not going to join the Servitors of Discord. But I think there is a place for you.”

Silk Road stared at her. There were tears welling up in her eyes. “I do remember you,” she said quietly, her soft voice shaking. “The mad wizard’s apprentice, trying to make peace. I… remember.”

There was a flash of light inside Silk Road’s eyes, and then the world changed.

How do you shape ponies’ minds? Do you do it with words? Actions? Facts? If you learn more about the world, will you understand it? Or will it get in the way of understanding?

Silk Road cared about her work. In a lot of ways, she was her work. It was a part of her. It obeyed the same rules as her. Every new variable she tracked was a little piece of her. Every story it told her was her own.

Sometimes she felt as if her own health rose and dipped with her numbers.

As that crucial day approached, it was also true that the walls of her work space in the Cambridle Business School research building increasingly reflected her own mental state: covered in numbers and connected with multicolored string.

The numbers were varied, showing everything under the sun that could be measured: employment in the tailoring industry, the economic growth of Manechester and Whinnyenna, earth pony-pegasus cohabitations, banana yields in Niceland, the depth of hiking trail grooves through the Black Forest, passport controls…

It was in many ways a great triumph: a new, more powerful way of seeing the world. But what she saw…

“It’s been going on for many decades,” she said to her mentor. “Stratification. Calcification. Every year, in countless little ways, our society becomes a little less dynamic. Sometimes there’s a temporary blip. Sometimes one number goes up because three competing numbers all went down at once. But the long-term trend is inescapable.”

“So what are the implications?”

“That’s a very big question,” Silk Road said. “You might as well ask me to describe what the universe is like.”

“That’s not a very academic attitude, miss Road. It sounds like sophistry.”

Silk Road drew a long, slow breath. “It means we’re losing something. It’s not just about money. Things are… slowing down. New ideas that change things around them are becoming rarer. We can now accurately forecast a pony’s life earnings from birth, not because our tools have become more powerful but because the course of pony life has become more predictable. We’re becoming set in our ways in ways we weren’t before.”

She pointed to one board out of many, covered in calculations. “Look at this. Every metric that measures pony happiness and the advance of society has been slowing for almost a hundred years.” She did not comment on the particulars of the starting date. It was dangerous enough already. “And the numbers are all linked. Push one, another pushes back. The only way to reverse the trend is to reform the entire structure of our society.”

“What, are you Hardly Seldom or something?” Her mentor scoffed and shook his head. “You can’t go before the advisory board and tell them that civilization is ending for your PhD defense!”

“My research is completely sound!” Silk Road protested. “My methodology is rock solid!”

Her adviser was stone-faced. “I’m sorry, miss Road. You know I’ve been very patient with you…You’re a very good student. But I’m afraid the CBS has no place for this kind of work.”

And so the Cambridle Business School showed her the door, and shut it behind her. Her dissertation would go unpublished, and unread. Years of work and an exclusive scholarship fund – her mother had been so proud – down the drain.

“There has to be somepony,” she said to herself, “there has to be somepony who will see.”

And there was, sort of. She found them out on the edge of Cambridle, on a farm belonging to an earth pony living on the Preferred Settlement Plan, growing crops for unicorns. She asked them if they wanted to turn the world upside down. They looked at her, and at each other, and nodded.

“Great,” she had said to them. “I have some ideas for how we can get started.”

Her work is different now, but she is still her work.

She tries to get them more respectable lodgings. They make a mess of it. She tries to talk to them about recruitment. They are not interested. She shows them the numbers. They don’t look. She shows them the charts. They laugh. She tells them about earth pony-pegasus cohabitation, and they roll on the floor laughing. Furious, she sputters and she fumes, and the pegasus effortlessly silences her with a single sentence. They mock her charts and graphs, and call her a square.

And they are the only ponies she’s got.

Until one day the barn door opened again, and another pony came walking in, and everything changed.

Clover felt a mild gust in the air. In the barn, the ice was breaking apart, and water was dripping from the rooftop and trickling down the walls.

The frost on Silk Road’s face was melting, and dripping down her cheeks. “I don’t believe in Discord,” she whispered. “Discord doesn’t bless ponies, I know that. None of us have ever been touched by Discord. Discord doesn’t care about us any more than Celestia does. But those two… They’re believers.” Silk Road looked at the glowing, ghostly figures of Gallopsky, and Cutting Edge, and Chocolate Bunnies. Clover looked at the other unicorn, and in her thousand-yard stare she saw hope. “I don’t believe in Discord. But I believe in them.”

The scene was silent for a long time before Silk Road spoke again. “You want to find your friend,” she said. “Chocolate Bunnies.”

Clover nodded.

“She’s my friend too,” Silk Road said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t want to hurt her.”

“I believe you,” Clover said, and realized as she said it that it was the truth. “You can tell her you’re sorry once we’re done.”

“…Good.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“We can show you the way,” Silk Road said. “But she’s… different, than she was. She won’t talk to you.”

“She’s my friend,” Clover said. “She’ll talk to me.”

“She won’t.” Silk Road drew a slow breath, and she flickered in and out of Clover’s vision. “You’ll see. But alright. We can take you to her.”

They were all there now, in the barn: all three of the Discordians, glowing in strange light. Like ghosts bound to some ancient treasure or tragedy they took up position in a circle, with empty eyes. They reached out their right forelegs and touched their hooves together.

There was a great flash of light that seemed to come from all around. It filled Clover’s vision, blotting out her sight, but she felt herself pulled along by a great wind as the fabric of the multiverse bent around her.

– – –

Clover was carried away across space faster than the speed of thought. She lost all sense of time and space, and her own physical self. There was only the vision of the multiverse racing all around her, until it ended just as suddenly as it had began, and she was dropped back into space, her eyes filled with spots and her body numb.

Directly ahead of her Clover saw a lone star that glowed more brightly than any of the others, that burned with the might of the sun. She squinted, and raised a hoof to shield her eyes from the light. “What…?” She mouthed the words. “Is that…?”

“Clover!” Star Swirl the Sprite materialized by her side, bells tinkling with the sound of marbles rolling down a staircase. “You made it! We found the center!”

“I made it?” Clover mouthed the words silently, her thoughts barely hanging together as images of the ponies she had seen raced through her mind. She erupted into a grin. “I made it!” She leaped forward in a burst of joy and ran towards the star, and it grew before her.

“Don’t get too full of yourself,” her dark side said beside her. “You might burst.”

“Shut up, you,” Clover said, galloping towards it. “We made it! I made it!”

“Yeah, we’ll see how that goes.”

In front of Clover, the star grew bigger and bigger as she drew nearer, faster than she would have expected, or as if space was warping.

She slowed to a trot as the full scale of it became apparent, and then fell silent. Her mouth hung open as she grappled with the sight.

“The scattering,” Star Swirl the Sprite said gravely.

Clover looked at the star, struggling to comprehend what she was seeing. Seen from a distance it was a vortex, slowly spinning, its outer arms reaching out to touch every star, every pony in the infant multiverse. In the center of the vortex there was what Clover recognized as a world-bubble, and within the bubble she saw…

Her eyes crossed as she tried to look at it, and she clenched them shut and shook her head. She cautiously looked again with only one eye, and it was a struggle not to recoil from the sight.

Clover hung at the edge of the thing, staring wordlessly at its immensity. “Find Chocolate Bunnies,” Star Swirl the Sprite whispered. She nodded, and silently, quietly, drifted forward to study it more closely.

“Find Chocolate Bunnies,” she repeated under her breath. “Alright. We’re almost done. She’s inside there somewhere. I just need to get her out.”

“You have no idea what you need to do,” Clover’s dark side reminded her.

“No, I don’t,” Clover admitted. “But I’m gonna find out. And you can’t stop me.”

The thing ahead of her was a mess of contradictions. It glowed brightly, but at the same time it smoldered like a fire, more heat than light, except it was also dry as dust, as the crumbling remnants of withered plants if those plants could move of their own, creeping and slithering out in search of nutrients to devour.

And devour it did. All around her Clover saw great rivers of magical power flowing through the space between the worlds, all circling around and draining, pouring, into the vortex. Flashes of light spun at great speed, and sent airless winds rippling through Clover’s mane. All the many ponies of Cambridle were being sucked in, their own private worlds hanging like so many Hearth’s Warming ornaments, pulled along in the magical stream that sent all their power to the thing in the center.

In the middle of it all, Clover sensed, something was watching her. She felt the burning glare of it, feeling similar to the force field and the great club that had chased her earlier. She felt its anger that she was there.

“Come on,” she said under her breath, Star Swirl the Sprite at her side. Her horn glowed as she reached out with her magical senses, alert and ready to push back against anything that might try to knock her away again, to push her into yet another world.

She wasn’t expecting it to instead grab a world and throw it at her from behind.

She tried to leap away just too late, and its gravity sucked her in and swallowed her up. The sky closed up above her as she screamed “Not again!”

She slammed into the floor with a thud.

“Gah!” Clover clenched her teeth in frustration as she once again clambered up from the floor. “I don’t care who you are. You can’t stop me! I’m going to get out of here, and I’m going to find Bunnies, and I’m going to save everypony!”

Sun shone in through the windows, landing on a checkered tablecloth that Clover had known all her life. Birds sang outside. She recognized the room immediately.

“That’s nice, dear,” Weather Vane said from behind his newspaper. “Pass the butter, would you?”

Clover’s jaw clenched tight. “Hello, dad.”

“You know, I was just reading an article about academic employment prospects,” her father said. “Very interesting piece. You might want to take a look at it once you’re done with… um… What did you say you were doing?”

“I’m saving Cambridle, dad,” Clover said. “You’re trapped in an alternate universe, and you need to snap out of it so I can get on with it.”

“Oh.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, that might sound good now, but the job market for philosophers is notoriously fickle, you know. It’s all seasonal work. Have you thought about the hard sciences? There are a lot more jobs than in the abstract, theoretical fields.”

“I want to kill him,” Clover’s dark side whispered inside her mind, and Clover found it hard to disagree.

“I don’t have time for this, dad!” Clover snapped. “I was just about to reach Chocolate Bunnies and – and – well I don’t actually know what I was going to do next, but it was important! I need you to focus! You’re locked in a world of your own imagining, and you need to face up to that so I can get out of here and go on with my day.”

Weather Vane blinked in incomprehension. “So, that’s a no on the hard sciences?”

“Guh!” Clover facehoofed and drew a deep breath. “Tell me, dad, what exactly do you think happened today? Do you remember earlier today, when you came running to find me outside the university? Remember that?”

“Was that today?” Weather Vane asked. He folded up his newspaper and dropped it on the table. “My word. Time flies when you’re busy. How did it go by the way? But I was just thinking about compound interest and the unicorn reserve—”

Clover held her breath and began to slow count to ten.

“—and everypony nowadays wants to be a copy editor or a shawl salespony, but the bottom is going to fall out of that market soon enough and then it’ll be the ponies who have a fallback plan who land on their hooves—”

Five. Six. Oh don’t mind me Clover, I’m just going to ruin your exam without even noticing it. Seven. Oh don’t mind me Clover, I didn’t notice you there because I was too busy thinking about mane therapy futures. Eight.

“—and I do worry about how you’re going to support yourself now that you’ve left Court and decided not to pursue a faculty position.”

The words in her mind faded into an endless scream of rage.

“Enough!” She screamed at him. “Shut up shut up shut up! I have had enough of listening to your, your, horrible nonsense!”

Weather Vane froze in shock, blinking in confusion, which only made Clover angrier. “Why can’t you ever listen to me, dad?! You came up to me on my frigging exam day to tell me you and mom were breaking up!”

Clover’s memories replayed before her eyes as vividly as if she was living through them for the first time, and the bile rose in her throat. She remembered her meeting with him that morning. She saw him at the Cambridle Grand Hotel, sitting idly by as her mother spouted tribeist nonsense, not listening to a word she had to say.

“Why couldn’t you just let me have one day where things went okay?” She jabbed his chest with her hoof. “Is that too much to ask? Would that destroy your grand plan for my life? Would that trigger the curse that would make mom fall into a coma, or get amnesia, or would topple the kingdom and must therefore be avoided at any cost? Is that it? Because I can’t understand it otherwise!”

Clover’s vision turned red, and she felt flames rising around her hooves. The memories rushed into her thoughts unbidden, reaching back further. She saw her foalhood in Whinnysor as a courtier-in-training from birth. The murderous etiquette lessons, the lost days when all her other friends were playing, all the private tutors and the lessons they had poured her into that had made her into a nauseous, nervous wreck, from which her only escape lay in foals’ adventure stories about wizards and monsters. “You and mom turned me into a Celestia-damned mess, and I’m trying the best I can and you two never care about how I feel and you just keep ruining everything I do and I’m sick of it!”

In her mind’s eye the house was burning, burning to the ground and she could not stop laughing as it all went up in flames. She imagined his body lying limp and feeble underneath her, his face bruised, her teeth clenched together, her entire body shaking. “I’m going to kill you!” She screamed, stepping towards him over the table. “You are the worst father anypony has ever had!”

She lunged at him, he fell backwards to the floor, and they went through it, and everything shifted.

He adjusted his bowtie. “I look ridiculous,” he said unhappily.

“It’s a wedding,” his father said. “Everypony looks ridiculous at their wedding. Sweet Celestia, you should count yourself lucky you weren’t at mine. It was a close thing, too.We went away for a year afterwards, and lied about your birthday. We told ponies you were born very big. Trust me, son. This is so much better.”

His father stepped in and adjusted the tie. “There, don’t mess with it. Now come on, are you ready to meet your bride?”

He walked down the aisle and saw her: Ivy Cordelia, of the Corn Wall Cordelias, and a very smart match. He stood awkwardly through the ceremony until it was his time to say “I do”, and then again until the Baroness said “You may kiss the bride”.

She raised her veil, and as he kissed her his eye turned back, and he saw a young stallion in the fourth row. And their eyes met, and just as his lips touched hers, his heart skipped a beat.

The honeymoon was nice. He had always wanted to visit Acapulcolt, and the more vital functions of the trip were also fulfilled. He became familiar with their new family’s prospects, and her belly started to grow.

When they returned to Braytannia, he would find out where the wind was blowing, and she would go there, and dazzle them with her forceful personality.

“It’s a partnership,” Weather Vane said to Amber. “We work well together.”

“You know what you need?” Amber said to him. “You need to relax. Thankfully I can help you with that.”

Weather Vane resisted at first, but practically melted as the stallion’s hooves worked into his shoulders. “So much stress,” Amber muttered. “Your wife works you much too hard.”

“It’s not her fault. The Grand Gala is next month. It’s our first as a couple, and we have to make a good impression. Everything has to be…”

“Oh shush,” Amber said. “Next month is years away. But thankfully for you, we have all weekend...”

Weather Vane smiled as the stallion’s lips planted little kisses up his spine towards his neck.

That Gala they stood before the Unicorn King. Ivy’s belly was full and round, and so was the Queen’s. He couldn’t have planned it better himself. They returned home afterwards. “We make a good team,” she said. He nodded. “But I think once is enough. Unless you want a spare?” He demurred.

They watched their daughter play with the Princess in the nursery, two little fillies jumping about on the furniture, accompanied by the Princess’s nurse. They had been going for hours, and showed no sign of slowing down.

“Deep in the jungle! Watch out for zebra warriors!”

“The ruins are full of them! Hiding buried treasure from pirates!”

His heart raced in his chest, but all his fears had evaporated. Ivy turned to him and whispered, “marvelous time.” He nodded.

“His Royal Highness wishes that your daughter might visit her again someday,” said the stodgy old seneschal who administered the Princess’s schedule. “He wishes you to know that he has never seen his daughter smile so.”

“We would be happy to,” Weather Vane said. “It’s wonderful that they get along so well.”

The seneschal nodded.

“The Princess hardly ever sees other ponies,” Ivy said. “Imagine if she grows up, and our daughter is her best friend and confidante.”

“She needs to be prepared,” Weather Vane said to his wife, who nodded. “One wrong word and she’ll be barred from the Palace for life.”

“We’ll find a tutor for her.”

“She won’t like it.”

“Of course she won’t like it. But it’s what’s best for her.”

Clouds racing overhead, years turning. Change in the air. They’ve had the talk, and made the decision.“Have you told her yet?” Amber asked from behind him.

“Not yet,” he said.

“You know she needs to know.”

“I just… I don’t know how.”

“Of course you do,” Amber said. “This is your job, Vane. You’re a political strategist. You’ve had to deliver bad news to your clients countless times. I’ve seen you.”

“Clover isn’t a client.”

Amber placed a comforting hoof on his shoulder. “She’s a strong pony. You should trust that she can take it. Don’t mince words. Do it quickly and plainly.”

Weather Vane sighed. “Alright. I’ll go tomorrow, and tell her as soon as I see her.”

He closed his eyes and thought back to that day. He had waited for that day for almost a year, not knowing what it would be.

And the day came. He looked into the cradle and he saw the bundle of sleeping joy that was his daughter for the first time, and he felt something he had never felt before.

He gently picked her up and held her in his forelegs. “Hello,” he said, and he had tears in his eyes. “I don’t think I’m going to be a very good parent. And honestly, the world is kind of a mess right now. But I love you. And I’ll try to always do what’s best for you.”

He kissed her forehead, and she burbled in her sleep.

Clover’s hooves were locked around his throat. She released him.

“What are you doing?” Her dark side screamed in her ear. “Don’t stop now! You have him!”

“No,” Clover said.

Her dark side growled. “They’re to blame for everything that’s ever happened to us. He’s ruined everything! Now’s your chance to pay him back!”

Clover closed her eyes, and let out a soft sigh. “I’m not listening to you. Go away.”

“What?” Her dark side sputtered.

Clover turned and stared daggers at her. “I said, go away.”

And her dark side disappeared in a puff of air.

Clover stepped back, and wiped her face with her fetlocks, trying to pretend she wasn’t crying.

“I love you too, dad,” she said. And the heavens opened. “Let’s go home.”

– – –

Clover kept her eyes open as the world of her father rolled back, and left her once again out in the multiverse, not far from the bubble in the center. It was one last world, one last pony, pristine and bright. But it was surrounded on every side by a shapeless, spaceless chaos that churned with energies beyond pony comprehension.

Clover returned to studying it once again, soaring through space and keeping her distance from everything else. As Clover looked at it the thing shifted, churning in time and perspective, going at once from being massive and far away to being small and close; from being itself to being a reflection cast on clouds of cosmic dust; from being concave to convex, solid to hollow, real to illusion. Caught between different states of being, trying to obey contradictory rules.

And inside it was Chocolate Bunnies.

Clover could see her friend clearly in the center of the thing, her eyes empty, her mouth opening and closing as if she were speaking, but hearing no sound.

“Finally, I found you,” Clover whispered to herself. She dived in, magical senses at the ready, sure to steer clear of anything that could be used as a weapon, and stood before the bubble that held her friend. “Bunnies! Can you hear me?”

Bunnies did not react. A protective barrier glowed with magical power all around her.

Clover looked up and down, and pounded on it with her hooves. “Another force field… I broke through the last one and I’m going to do the same here. Don’t worry, Bunnies! I’m getting you out of there, and no amount of sneaky tricks is going to stop me!”

A rustling voice that came from nowhere spoke in Clover’s ears: “Why can’t you just give up?” it asked. “No matter what I throw at you, you just won’t quit.”

Clover’s face hardened. “Who are you?” she demanded.

The shapeless, ethereal thing shifted. Every part of Clover’s vision turned. Thick tendrils of arcane power coiled around the form of Chocolate Bunnies inside the shell. “I have no name in your world. But this… Bunnies… has taken to calling me ‘the Hoof’.”

Clover’s mouth dropped open. “The Hoof is real?” she cried, then shook her head. “You know what, I don’t even care. So you’re real. You can’t have my friend! Let her go this instant!”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to go,” the Hoof said. “Maybe she likes it here, in this new world. Isn’t that right, Chocolate Bunnies?”

Inside the bubble, Bunnies’ mouth opened and closed like a ventriloquist’s dummy, and the Hoof’s voice said, “That’s right. I want to stay here.”

“That’s super convincing,” Clover said. “Let her go right now! I’m going to bring everypony back home, and I’m not leaving without my friend!”

“Leave? Why would anypony want to leave?” The Hoof asked. The wind rustled again, and the tendrils of magical power coiled tighter around the bubble. “Out there is terrible. Out there ponies are always worrying, always hurting each other, always afraid of what tomorrow will bring… In here things are so much nicer.” A glowing ripple of magic shot through to the outermost arms of the vortex, making all the worlds light up. “Here, everypony can be exactly what they’ve always wanted to be. Here everypony is free to be themselves, without having to worry about pain, or hurt, or money.”

“That’s not true,” Clover said. “I’ve seen them. They’ve all brought their worries with them. With only themselves to look to, all they can do is recreate their problems all over again.”

She looked out across the slowly spinning vortex of worlds, and all the ponies within. “They’re all alone. They make whole worlds for themselves, but they’re still all alone. Ponies need other ponies.”

Turning all around them was the great kaleidoscope of many Cambridles, each in their own world. Each a pony, all connected. Their magic was drawn into a great current that swirled around the Hoof like water pouring into a drain. “I can see what you’re doing,” Clover said. “You’ve placed yourself at the center of the multiverse, and you’re taking all its wild background magic and turning it into a copy of yourself.” She frowned, and shook her head. “You’re a bad influence, mister Hoof. This was such a sweet multiverse when I first got here.”

The Hoof grunted. “Why are you out here? Why aren’t you in your own little world, by yourself, like everypony else?”

“It fell apart under the slightest scrutiny,” Clover said. “Yours will too, if you ever try it.”

“Scrutiny?” The Hoof rustled in disbelief. “Scrutiny! You’re dropped into your own perfect world and you—But of course you did. You’re Star Swirl the Bearded’s apprentice. You would refuse to leave well enough alone.”

Clover raised an eyebrow. “You know the Professor, then?”

“Do I know him?” The Hoof asked. “I imprisoned him. I destroyed him! I shattered him into pieces and scattered them across the heavens like grains of sand on a beach. He is gone.”

“Well, that’s just silly,” Clover said, glancing at the Sprite. “He’s been right here with me ever since we got here.”

“That’s not him,” the Hoof said firmly. “That’s a cheap little toy. Go ahead, question it. See how it handles your scrutiny.”

Clover frowned at the Sprite. “What’s it talking about, professor?”

The Sprite bristled. “You found the center. We must undo the Scattering!”

“What has he told you?” The Hoof asked. “Anything useful?”

“Sure he has,” Clover said. “He’s helped me find my way around. He’s told me what I have to do.”

“Find Chocolate Bunnies!” the Sprite interjected. “Undo the Scattering!”

Clover glanced at him, looking a little less certain.

“Tell me,” the Hoof said in a wicked voice, “if this is really Star Swirl the Bearded, could I do this?”

A tendril of magic lashed out and grabbed hold of the Sprite. “Hey!” Clover yelled. She jumped and tried to pull the Sprite loose, but could get no purchase. “Let go of him!”

The Sprite squirmed in the Hoof’s grip, struggling to get free and making high-pitched noises of displeasure. “Just what is this thing anyway?” the Hoof said with malicious glee. “I wonder what will happen if I squeeze it?”

A magic charge surged through the tendril, and Star Swirl the Sprite’s eyes glowed, his sounds of protest going higher and higher.

“Stop it!” Clover yelled, fighting back fruitlessly against the Hoof’s magic. “Let him go!”

The Sprite looked at her, his eyes glittering as magic shot through it. His outline grew blurry as his magic field began to come apart.

He exploded in a blinding burst of magic light, and images flashed into Clover’s mind.

“—and I told you, I’m a neutral bystander in this conflict,” Ginny was saying to the spear-wielding revolutionary. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, where to stand, or who to praise.”

“Young ponies nowadays have no respect for elderly mares,” Cinch said, and then she looked to me. “Well, Honorary Professor the Bearded, by all means act whenever you’re ready.”

Part of me wanted to indulge in sarcasm at that point, but that would not be constructive. Nor did I do anything else, and I observed my inaction with some interest.

I could have disarmed everypony in the city easily enough. I could have restrained the attackers by force, or make them all want to go home and have tea instead. But I didn’t.

I can’t quite explain it. But I had a sense of… something.

Something telling me this was not my fight.

That was when I noticed my student approaching us at something greater than her usual top galloping speed from directly above, which I maybe should have taken to mean that something was wrong before the interdimensional explosion that ensued. I’ll keep that in mind for next time.

And as the infant multiverse sprang up around us, I detected something rapidly approaching from the—Oh my, that’s a fascinating sensation. Is that – What is happbblfewqwrerteeypamfmkxcvnbzzbrrrrrrWARNING WARNING WARNING Catastrophic Failure Threshold Met. Automated Emergency Response Plan S-42 engaged.

Initiate emergency system scans – Scanning – Scan complete: Results inconclusive. Integrity of self is at 0.002%. “Star Swirl the Bearded” is not operational.

Data collected from immediate surroundings. Analyzing data. Keywords: Infant Multiverse, Psychosensitive Interdimensional Mechanics, Catastrophic Scattering Event centered on “Chocolate Bunnies”.

Compiling event data into emergency courier unit construct.

Initiate emergency backup plan: Find Clover. Tell her what to do.

And the Sprite flew across the multiverse at the speed of magic, its mind filled with compiled knowledge and a simple set of instructions, searching for one pony’s magical signature.

The memories ended as quickly as they had begun, and Clover was alone in front of the Hoof.

“There! You see?” The Hoof said smugly. It laughed, a cruel cackling laughter. “Your teacher is gone and you didn’t even notice the difference!” Its disembodied laughter ran on her nerves like claws on chalkboard. “You came all this way thinking he knew what he was doing and would guide you to safety. Oh, and you lost your cloak as well? And now you’re here… with me… all alone.” It laughed again, and the laughter ran cold down Clover’s back even as a burning anger welled up inside her.

“I should have done the same to you as I did to him, I suppose,” the Hoof continued as she clenched her teeth. “I’ll admit I did not think you would be so… persistent. But now you’re here! Not your best decision ever. Probably should have just stayed put where you were.”

“Shut your talking bits!” Clover shouted. She glared at the center of the chaotic mass, and for a moment the Hoof fell silent. “You know what? I’m not worried. You know why? Because Star Swirl is smarter and stronger than you. I’m sure wherever he is he’s just fine. And guess what? He taught me.” She dug in her hooves and readied for a charge, an instinctive gesture that somehow worked on the imaginary surface beneath her. “The Professor trusted me. And I’m not going anywhere without my friends. So let Chocolate Bunnies go. Now.”

“He is never going to come back,” the Hoof hissed. “And now you are going to join him.”

Something moved in the distance and an orb of magic fire launched directly at her. Clover yelped and ducked down just as it sailed overhead, massive but clumsy. It crashed into something behind her and dissipated, but she could see others forming all around her.

She galloped up and away as a flurry of magic fireballs launched after her, going off in all directions. There were thick veins of magic, dark and pulsing, clustered around the vortex, and she ducked behind them as the fireballs struck them, and were reabsorbed.

She stayed behind for a moment, her heart pounding as she felt the concussion of the blasts on the other side, before running again.

Think, Clover.

The Hoof is drawing power from every world, and is using that power to keep Chocolate Bunnies trapped, and it’s trying to kill me.

I know this magic just as well as it does. If I could somehow cut the connection, stop it from drawing power in… It’s slow, but I’m just me. I need to hit every one of these ponies at once. How can I do that?

She thought back, trying to remember everything she knew about the multiverse.

Every world a pony. Every pony its own world. But they’re all connected.

She grit her teeth, and shouted into the nearest bubble. “Mister Leafy! Can you hear me?”

“Hi, Clover,” the giant tree said, and waved a branch inside the bubble. “Is everything alright?”

“Not quite,” Clover said as she galloped from one bubble to the next, watching anxiously as the fireballs slammed into a bubble and set its interior ablaze. “I need your help! You told me you can touch every world at once. Can you feel the magic draining out of everywhere?”

“I had noticed that, yes,” the tree said. “I was waiting to see if it got better.”

“I need you to do something for me,” she shouted into another bubble, the space behind her alive with explosions. “I’m going to cast a spell to reroute the flow of magic, but I need your help! I want you to take my spell and send it through every single one of your roots and branches, in every world at once. Can you do that?”

“Oh, sure,” Mister Leafy said. “I’m used to routing magic. It’s what Mister Star Swirl did to keep me alive.”

“Okay,” Clover ducked behind a vein just as a bolt of magic shot overhead. Her horn glowed as she readied the spell. She aimed at the nearest bubble, and cast it. “There!”

The spell shot into the bubble, which jolted at it penetrated it. Inside, it found its way to a distant root of the world tree.

Clover waited anxiously, and watched. The bubble halted in its motion in the current, and her eyes widened. Slowly, with a low creaking, the world pulled free of the veins of magic, tore loose from the current, and drew towards her instead.

A sudden change came over the vortex. It slowed, groaning and creaking ominously, as one world after another came loose and broke away.

The effect spread outwards like ripples in a pond, further and further. More and more worlds shifted their focus, and Clover could feel their combined magic power rising inside her as all the ponies of Cambridle connected to her.

“What are you doing?!” the Hoof screamed. “Stop it!”

Her eyes glowed as the magic surge built up inside her. She could feel it crackling through her. She was the linchpin of tens of thousands of worlds, they were all giving their combined might to hold her up, and she didn’t need to compel in it any way.

She was the most powerful being in the multiverse.

Is this what the Professor feels like every day?

She turned her eyes to the Hoof, still clinging to Bunnies even as the power flowing into it dried up, its veins thinning and withering.

“Let my friends go,” Clover said, and her voice could be heard in every universe at once.

A spell rushed up inside her, through her horn, and erupted in a blast of magic unlike any she had ever seen. It was a waterfall of light, in every color of the rainbow and others besides, and it spread to envelop everything in its path.

It struck the Hoof, which screamed in fury as its power ran out. Its grip was torn away, and the force field dissipated, leaving Chocolate Bunnies open.

Clover dove into it head-first immediately, and once again a new world came to life around her.

– – –

“Hi! My name is Chocolate Bunnies. What’s yours?”

The filly was ruffled, and nervous on her first day of magic kindergarten. She looked uncertainly at the filly who had approached her. “I’m Clover.”

“Hi Clover! Wanna play in the sand box?”

“Sure.”

“I had completely forgotten that day,” Clover said under her breath. She watched from the cosmic front row as two little fillies played in a sandbox, amid the Elysian surroundings of Whinnysor. “What happened, Bunnies? We were so close for so long.”

A few years older, at unicorn school together, watching the ponies pass by and making jokes.

“What do you wanna be when you grow up?” Clover asked.

“I dunno,” Chocolate Bunnies said. Her cutie mark hadn’t come in yet. “Maybe I’ll just have fun. See, I’ve thought about myself very carefully, and I’ve decided that I really like having a lot of fun. It must be my destiny.”

Clover snorted and grimaced, and they pushed each other playfully. “What about you?”

“I’m gonna be a great sorceress, like Star Swirl the Bearded,” Clover said, digging up one of the cheap paperback adventure books she was always reading. “I’m gonna go on adventures and solve mysteries and find treasures and stop bad ponies, just like him. I hope I can meet him someday.”

“Isn’t he just a made up pony in a story?”

Clover shook her head. “He’s real. He teaches at the university, up in Cambridle! I’m gonna go see him there when I’m older.”

Clover watched the memories unfold before her eyes. There were memories that had only Bunnies, and there were memories that had only her. “Wait, are these…” Clover bit her lip. “Are these my memories or yours?”

And then they were older, and still together after knowing each other for over ten years, and they did see him. Clover listened, and thought, and fought to keep up as her idol kept stepping back, putting more obstacles between himself and everypony else, and she jumped over each of them, eyes fixed firmly forward. And while Clover sat and listened, Chocolate Bunnies joined the rest of the auditorium in confusion, nausea, and horror as they all learned exactly why the Famous Lecture was so famous.

Colors flew through the air. Sounds became sights became textures. Thoughts became matter as a little pocket of time and space was turned inside out and upside down, a toy in service of one wizard’s pursuit for somepony, anypony, who could follow along.

And from then on there was something else in there with them, hiding.

Clover felt the change immediately. It was hidden, but it bulged out in the mindscape, and her thoughts traced across its outline. “What are you?”

I am a free spirit. Once I held whole villages in my grip. I whispered in the ears of ponies and made them fear and distrust each other. No prison can hold me.

We have played this little song and dance for decades. Since that day I made that whole town run amok and dance to my will.

Until this damned unicorn showed up and cast his spell. And now… imprisoned, without even a body to call my own, turned into an angry ghost.

“Rattling your cage will change nothing,” said the pony. “You know perfectly well you are not going anywhere.”

“You don’t belong in our memories. Who are you? Where did you come from?”

I have waited for decades.

But there is a crack in the cage. I discovered it years ago. I have kept it quiet. He is always watching. I haven’ t given him any clue. I can slip out, but then… but then I’ll still be trapped in his mind. The only way out is if he brings other ponies into his mind, and this damn pony is so far away from anypony that nopony gets close.

“And now,” the pony is saying to his frozen audience, “the imaginarium.”

And there it was. A whole flock of ponies, all unicorns, all students. My chance had finally come.

I slipped out of the cage as silently as I could. And I flew through the chamber into the flock of ponies in search of a new hiding place.

This one pony’s hoof is as good a place as any. I can work with this.

And then the memories began to blur, as the thing burrowed down, hid its tracks, and began to plot its revenge.

Clover opened her eyes, looked away from the memories, and saw the remnants of the world the Hoof had constructed.

It was empty, and noisy. A magical hurricane raged all around them, pure force without thought or purpose. And in the center of it all, sitting quite still and focusing intently on something nestled in her forelegs, was Chocolate Bunnies.

Clover trotted up to her and put a hoof on her shoulder, and she stirred.

“Hi Clover,” Bunnies said with a weak voice. “Hey, it’s been a while.”

“Hi Bunnies,” Clover said, and she couldn’t help but smile. “I finally found you. I’ve been looking for you all over.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that,” Chocolate Bunnies said. “I wanted to go see you. But, this thing was making it hard.” Chocolate Bunnies pointed to a lump a short distance away. “But you beat it.”

Clover looked, and saw the Hoof. It was small, and squirmed feebly on the ground. It looked like some kind of insect had been stripped of its outer shell, soft and pale and wet and unable to function. It squealed in impotent fury, and if she listened she could just barely make out its vows of revenge in a high-pitched, childlike voice.

“Yeah. I did beat it, didn’t I?” Clover chuckled, smiling. A glint of light on the object Bunnies was carrying caught her eye. “What’s that?”

Bunnies held it up. It was a little orb, and inside it was a tiny galaxy, millions upon millions of pricks of lights turning in a wheel.

“I was wondering about that myself,” Bunnies said.

Clover looked at it, and her eyes widened. “Wait. I think I know. Can I have it?”

Bunnies handed it over.

Clover peered deep into the orb, at the swirling fog of stars. It seethed with magical power, flowing both in and out. It contained universes, and those universes contained universes, and she thought she could see herself looking down at herself looking down at herself.

She smiled. “Not like grains of sand on a beach,” she said to herself. “Like stars. I know what this is… Boy, that thing really is stupid.”

She poured magic into it, and the galaxy opened up around her.

Green grass spread on soil that had been empty space a moment before, trees and flowers and buildings, stones and farms and ponies. The magical hurricane vanished like a shadow in the light, revealing the heavens. Above her, a sun and a scarred moon suddenly appeared, wheeling across the heavens to a song of starlight.

The stars shifted, and in the middle of the cluster there opened a pair of eyes. And there was a constellation: a pony’s face, with a long beard, under a pointy hat.

Somehow, the face turned and looked down at her.

“I am awakened.” the stars said. “It is done.”

“Welcome back, Professor,” Clover said. “I did it. I found Chocolate Bunnies, and undid the scattering. I think I’m ready to go back to Cambridle now.”

The constellation nodded. “So be it.”

The stars that made up the constellation burned brighter and brighter, and Clover felt the magic rush over her a split-second before the infant multiverse, and all the worlds within it, opened up.

Clover felt the great celestial doorway open, and a starway leading back to Cambridle. She felt the connection of every single pony, and one by one, with only a thought, she felt them return back home. They vanished, leaving behind their newborn worlds to drift in space, filled with all the life they imagined for them.

Finally, there was only her, and Mister Leafy, and the Hoof.

Clover looked down at the mewling, squirming mass of anger. “I think you should stay here, mister Hoof, until you learn your manners.” She turned to the great world tree. “Ready to leave, Mister Leafy?”

“Um,” Mister Leafy began. “I’d like to stay, if you don’t mind.”

Clover blinked. “Wait, really?”

“It gets kind of lonely, being the only talking leaf in the world,” Mister Leafy said. “Here, I can set down my roots. I can make lots of friends here. I can spread my seeds.”

Clover bit her lip uncertainly. “You’d be in here with the Hoof, though.”

“Well, yes. But it’s more or less powerless now. It’ll be a very long time before it can do anything. And that’s okay.” The branches rose and fell slowly, like it was breathing in and out. “There always has to be a dragon gnawing on the roots of the world tree. That’s the natural order of things. I think… I’m ready to become part of the cycle again.”

Clover could feel the background magic of the multiverse turning from the entropic chaos of the Hoof into a vibrant green as Mister Leafy began to assume control of the cosmos. She bit her lip. “If you’re sure… I’m gonna miss you, Mister Leafy.”

“I’m going to miss you too.”

Clover leaned in and gave the bark a hug, and then everything was light.

– – –

When the spots cleared out from her eyes, Clover found herself standing on the green behind the New Old Hall, in Cambridle.

The green was packed with ponies, who were all dazed and disoriented, picking themselves up off the ground and groggily glancing around trying to remember where they were and why. The university faculty and the city council stood side by side with the different factions of the revolution.

The three Discordians roused each other, and helped each other up on their hooves. Their faces ran through cycles of emotions: confusion, embarrassment, disappointment, and relief. Not far from them Dean Cinch groaned as she woke, and instinctively pushed away the hoof that a nearby pony reached out to aid her. She clambered upright and shook her head to clear her thoughts, trying to maintain her composure. Clover’s father was there, looking extremely confused as he adjusted his cravat.

The air was full of mumbling and muttering, groans and questions. But they fell silent as they spotted Clover. She was at the front of the crowd, standing by the buffet table, and within moments they were all facing in her direction. But there beside her, in front of them all, was her teacher. He was back to normal and yet looking as she had never seen him, boasting a wide grin and beaming fit to burst.

“I knew you had it in you, Clover,” he said. “You know the reason I like you? You’re not the strongest magic-user, not really. You’re not the swiftest pony, or the boldest, and you weren’t born lucky. But you figure things out.” He gently poked her with a hoof. “You’re Clover the Clever.”

Her eyes widened, and fireworks went off in her mind. “Clover the Clever,” she mouthed the words, and for a long time afterwards she could not stop smiling.

Star Swirl jumped up on the table and turned to the assembled crowd. “Ponies of Cambridle!” he said loudly, and held up the black iron cauldron of void porridge. Inside it, Clover’s hoof-shaped jar of salt lay partially submerged in the gruel. “Behold the Hoof, the power that has haunted your city.”

As they all watched, the salt sank beneath the surface and out of view. Star Swirl placed the lid on top of the cauldron and fused them together with a spell. “The seal is complete. The Hoof will never trouble anypony again.”

“Ohhh, my head...” Chocolate Bunnies crawled out from under the table and sat up on her rump, rubbing her temples. “What happened?”

Clover the Clever helped her friend up on her hooves. “You were possessed by a minor spirit of chaos for almost a year,” she said, and smiled. “It’s okay, it’s gone now! We sealed it away in a pot of porridge.”

“We also left a talking tree to watch over it,” Star Swirl added. “A friendly tree, mind you. Not one of those nasty trees that are always trying to destroy ponykind.”

Clover couldn’t stop herself from laughing. And once she started she found it very difficult to stop. Star Swirl contributed a small chuckle.

“Oh yes. Before I forget.” Star Swirl’s horn glowed, his aura shining bright, a mixture of black and white like clouds racing across a full moon.

Above them the sky lit up in many colors as the ink began to fly.

Author's Note

Come back in a few days for the epilogue.

Bonus Chapter: The Phantom in the Halls

The Education of Clover the Clever Bonus Chapter: The Phantom in the Halls.

Or, Star Swirl vs Cigarettes.

A Canterlot High Story.

“Hey, Diamond Tiara! Wait up!” Silver Spoon ran down the corridor to catch up with her friend.

The two of them had not gotten to speak before the first lesson of the day, and once the bell had rung to let them out, Diamond Tiara had gotten up and stormed off without warning.

“Oh, hey,” Diamond mumbled, and permitted her friend to catch up before setting off again towards the girls’ room.

“What's gotten into you today?” Silver Spoon asked.

“Ugh!” Diamond Tiara exclaimed. “That creepy old geezer is bugging me.”

“Old Man Star Swirl?” Silver Spoon asked. “What did he do?”

“When I got here this morning, I caught him standing at my locker and searching through my bag! Can you believe it? What a creep!”

Silver Spoon gasped. “No way! That's so gross!”

“I know, right? And he totally stole my cigs!”

Silver Spoon froze in the middle of nodding her support to her friend, and blinked. “You had cigarettes in your bag?”

“Well, yeah. Where else would I have them?”

“DT, you don't smoke.”

“Not yet, I don't,” Diamond Tiara shot back. “And I never will if I can't get hold of any cigs! Those were my cigs, I snuck them out of my dad's desk fair and square! And he just went and took them!” Diamond Tiara clenched her fists and glared at the wall, imagining her malefactor cowering before her. “He looked at me like I was the one doing something wrong and then he just walked away!” DT sniffled, her lips beginning to wobble. Fortunately they were now safely ensconced in the girls' room of Canterlot High, a room specially designed to contain massive levels of uncontrolled emotion. “I worked so hard to get those cigs. I'm never gonna get hooked at this rate. It's not fair! All the cool older kids are doing it and I can't!”

– – –

“Please make a note in the record, Clover,” Star Swirl the Bearded said, “that at 9.05 AM I made a little girl cry.”

“Little… cry,” Clover said as she wrote, her voice muffled by the slice of bread sticking out of her mouth, part of a balanced on-the-go-because-there-is-no-time breakfast. Her hands were filled with a very large black day planner, a smaller second black day planner, two pens, a water bottle, and a plush pony, green, wearing a brown hood and cloak. “Was that really necessary?”

“You never know. It might be important. What’s next on the agenda?”

Clover scanned the schedule. “You have an appointment in five minutes. It says, and I quote, 'the lonely dreams of Malhotep'. It will last until 11.29 and fifty-four seconds, apparently.”

“Excellent,” Star Swirl said. “The ritual will take place in the teacher's lounge. Make sure no-one disturbs me.”

– – –

“He said to make sure no-one disturbs him,” Clover said, blocking the path to the old man's table.

Principal Celestia raised an eyebrow. “I can see that he is just sitting right there, drinking tea and reading...” Celestia glanced over at the old man. “People Magazine, apparently. Meanwhile, in room 42, an English lesson is going un-taught. Miss...”

“Clover,” Clover said.

Celestia smiled. “Clover. I am not sure exactly what is going on inside Star Swirl's mind, but it is fairly clear that whatever else he may be, he is not busy. I really must insist that if he is going to remain a teacher at Canterlot High, he needs to actually teach.”

Clover glanced back at her 'boss' awkwardly. Clover liked playing by the rules. She liked having an authoritative set of procedures for making decisions and arriving at results. It was a strange irony of the universe, then, that for her time observing a teacher in the field, she had been handed to Star Swirl the Bearded, a man who seemed to delight in arriving at valid results in every way possible except following the rules.

Clover knew that she should side with the principal, because... well, because the principal was in charge of the school. That said, Clover didn't actually work for the school. For that matter, Clover remembered, she had never actually seen Star Swirl's proof of employment: that technically mandatory part of the proceedings having been lightly skipped over at the time due to avenging lunch break, and by the time Clover remembered everything had, seemingly, been approved and initiated.

Since she wasn't 100% sure Star Swirl worked for the school either, but rather just was there, and did some of the things that teachers are supposed to do, she found herself in a hierarchical grey area in which she was simultaneously the absolute lowest form of life, and also apparently not actually bound by any rules of the school at all.

Both possibilities terrified her. In a sane universe, she thought, this sort of thing should not happen. And now the principal was staring her down, and she felt a deeply-ingrained urge to bend over backwards, but if she did literally bend over backwards she would see Star Swirl the Bearded giving her the Disappointed Look and shaking his head...

She made a mental note to recommend that in the future, cyanide capsules should be given out to students going on this assignment.

“It's fine, Clover,” Star Swirl said, and Clover almost melted from relief as she got out of the way. “Celestia, the class will do fine. I left them instructions.”

– – –

Classroom 42 was deathly silent. Every student sat at their desk, eyes buried in a four-page excerpt of Lady Chatterley's Lover (abridged), not daring to look up, or sideways, or indeed any further down, lest the Eyes catch them and snatch away their souls. At the front of the class, on the teacher's desk, stood a plush pony figurine: a unicorn, grey, bearded, with night-blue robes and a pointy hat covered in star sequins.

It was watching them intently. When the entire class looked away, it would speak to everyone, telling them what to do. When someone looked at it, it would look at only them, and tell them what to do. Those who did, left the room, and when they came back they would never speak of what they had seen, and for the rest of the week they would shiver and whine in fright whenever they saw a necktie.

– – –

“I'm not convinced this is good enough, Star Swirl,” Celestia said, her arms crossed, throwing the old man a kind, but regretful look. She sighed. “Clover, I would like to speak with Star Swirl in private please.”

Clover managed to make it to the door before Star Swirl had time to object, and was gone. Celestia smirked in victory, and sat down opposite Star Swirl. “You know I've been very understanding, and very patient with you, Star Swirl,” she began.

“And you have been amply rewarded,” Star Swirl cut her off, “with my wisdom and experience. Frankly, sometimes I suspect I'm the only reason this school is still standing.”

Celestia was struck dumb at the enormity of wrong in this statement. “Star Swirl, you do nothing here! Absolutely nothing!”

“If you do something right, people won't notice that you've done it at all.”

“Do you know one of the first things I did when I became principal here, all those years ago?” Celestia asked. “I went searching for your personnel file. Do you know what I found?”

“That it made for interesting reading?”

“I found that it was in a cardboard box that had been forgotten in an old corner of the basement that wasn't even on the building blueprint. It was so riddled with mold that we had to incinerate it for public health reasons. It was completely unreadable.” She turned a stern glance on him. “Among other things, this means we have no record of your birth, or of how long you've been working here, or how much you're supposed to be paid.”

“Don't concern yourself with that,” Star Swirl said. “I'm not here for the money.”

“It's my job to manage my teachers, Star Swirl. I spoke to Miss Till about you, and she vouched for you. That counts for a lot. Even then, I did double-check the accounts myself just to make sure nobody was doing anything funny with the books. They weren't.”

“You have a very honest school.”

“I agree. But that still leaves the small matter that I am employing a complete mystery man, one who has earned the trust or at least acceptance of everyone else on staff, but of whom absolutely nothing is known. Now you have a young TA running around doing odd jobs for you, as well. I am responsible for her too, you know.”

Star Swirl chuckled. “Don't worry about Clover. She can handle it.”

– – –

Five minutes into a lesson on the Battle of Gettysburg, Clover coughed loudly to attract Star Swirl's attention. “I'm sorry, Star Swirl, could I just borrow you for a minute?” She gestured to the classroom door.

Star Swirl rolled his eyes. “Excuse me, class.” They went out to the corridor and Clover closed the door behind them. “What's so important that you had to interrupt me while I was in the zone?”

She fidgeted slightly. “Well, Star Swirl, while your lecture on the Civil War is very enlightening—”

“It's good, isn't it? I've honed it for many years.”

“Yes, it really is. But you see, Star Swirl, the thing is, this is a math class.”

Star Swirl stared blankly at her. “Is that important?”

Clover winced. “Yes, Star Swirl, I kind of think of it is. Also, you probably shouldn't talk about the Civil War in the first person. You're traumatizing the students.”

“You think?” Star Swirl scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Perhaps I could try second person instead. 'You stab the confederate soldier in the stomach with your bayonet as you both sink into the mud, rain mingling with tears as you feel his intestines ripping under the blade. You're both going to die here'.”

“Wow, Star Swirl, I can already feel my stomach turning,” Clover groaned. “Look, the lesson plan says the next class is geometry and algebra. Do you think you can do that?”

“Pickett's division is charging up Cemetary Hill at five miles per hour, X soldiers are felled by rifle fire every minute... Yes, that should work.”

– – –

While Clover was away eating, Star Swirl was sitting on the floor in a second-storey corridor, his back against the wall, his face hidden beneath a broad-brimmed hat. From a distance, he looked like a pile of dirty laundry.

He felt someone kick his leg, and heard a young lady's voice demand: “Show me!”

Star Swirl glanced up to see the blue-skinned girl with the purple eyes and a magic wand on her skirt looking down at him. She held out an egg in her hand, proffering it to him. A few other kids stood nearby.

Star Swirl clambered up on his feet and brushed dust off his knees, then put out his hand. Trixie dropped the egg in it and stepped back, squealing with excitement.

“Hmmmm...” Star Swirl looked closely at the egg, and nodded. “This will do.”

He curled his fingers and cracked through the shell, breaking it into two halves, the yolk and white visible and pooling in his palm. Star Swirl held it up for them all to see.

Then, in a single motion, he closed his fingers over it and flicked his wrist, then opened his hand to reveal the egg whole and unmarred.

With his other hand he raised a finger to silence Trixie's girlish giggle and clapping. He curled his fingers again and cracked the egg a second time, splitting it to reveal a pale and scraggly chicken hatchling. It turned and curled up in his hand, wet and frail and alive.

“Presto,” Star Swirl said. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I must go drop this one off at the animal shelter.”

“I'm going to figure out how you do that,” Trixie warned. “The great and powerful Trixie has never seen a trick she couldn't master.”

“You'll never figure this one out, I'm afraid,” Star Swirl said. “I cheat, you see. I use real magic.”

– – –

“The lineoleum cries out persistence. It has known many struggles, and seen the footsteps of many great figures.”

“If you say so, Star Swirl,” Clover replied.

As they walked down the corridor something changed for Star Swirl. The sounds of Clover speaking, informing him of his next appointment, faded away, replaced with a static hum and throb. The world grew sluggish and dim. Color leeched out of everything, leaving a world of grey and death and shadow.

Star Swirl...

By the time Star Swirl noticed, his own body was becoming slow to respond to his commands. He watched himself take three steps forward after he had made the thought to halt and turn around, and after those three steps he halted, and turned around…

The hallway behind him was a black void, an infinity. Red eyes watched him from the darkness, and from a mouth that was not a mouth there spoke without sound.

You cannot escape me Star Swirl. I will destroy you.

Star Swirl raised a hand, and with a single sweeping gesture he cast the magic out. The world returned to normal, and where there had been an eternity of suffering in the hallway there were instead three teenage girls.

They were dressed far more flashy than the typical high school student. They had just turned the corner behind Star Swirl and Clover, and from the looks on their faces they had just seen a ghost. At least two of them had just seen a ghost. The third, the one with enormous golden hair and spiked hairband, was furious. “You!” she cried, strutting forward teeth and fists clenched to yell in his face. “You... you son of a diamond dog bitch!”

“Do you know these students, Star Swirl?” Clover asked.

“I have never seen them before in my life,” he replied.

“Playing innocent now, are you?” Adagio said, her fists clenched as she glared. “Have you come here to gloat? To take pleasure in watching us powerless and humiliated? I should gut you like a fish!”

She pounced on him, long fingernails at the ready to claw his eyes out. He stumbled backwards, and Clover grabbed Adagio from behind and tried to pull her off. “Hey! Okay, that’s enough!”

“Oh, is that how it is now? Planning to warp some other young thing to do your bidding?” Adagio turned to glare at Clover, struggling to break free from her grip. “Don’t believe his lies! He’ll destroy you, he destroys everything!”

“You’re going to see the student counselor,” Clover said.

Adagio opened her mouth to hurl an insult, when Star Swirl raised a hand and said, “Wait.”

And they did wait. All four of them stood frozen to the spot while Star Swirl peered into Adagio’s eyes. He frowned. “I can see the traces of the magic that has touched you, but… I have no part in your destiny. It lies with someone else. Now go, and know that this was just a misunderstanding. You too, Clover.”

Shortly after they resumed wandering down the corridor, the three students grumbling amongst themselves as they wandered the other way.

– – –

The final bell had rung, and all the students made their way out of the school. Sunset Shimmer stretched her arms above her head and smiled, happy to be done with another day of human studies.

“You coming to Pinkie’s, right?” Rainbow asked. “I’m driving!”

Sunset nodded. “Yeah… You guys go on ahead, I’ll be just a minute.”

“Sure. I’ll bring the car round.”

While the students dispersed around her, quickly leaving the front of the building empty and quiet, Sunset stepped up to the base of the old statue. The square foundation was still empty, the statue having not been replaced after it was destroying during the Friendship Games, but the portal was still active. She placed her hand on the stone, and felt the magic flicker to life against her skin, but didn’t push through.

“You know,” she said loudly, “I’d been wondering when you were going to say hello.”

“I was waiting for the right moment,” Star Swirl the Bearded said from behind her. “Time is a very tricky business, even at the best of times. This is the closest I can get.”

Sunset Shimmer turned to look at him. “You’re Star Swirl the Bearded,” she said, her voice calm. “Arguably the greatest wizard the world has ever known. Twilight’s going to spit her oats when I tell her I met you… I studied your work when I was younger.”

“I caught your musical performance on the rooftop,” Star Swirl said. “It was very impressive. I especially liked the wings.”

Sunset chuckled. “Thanks, I guess.” She looked over the teacher, taking in his outfit. He wore a drab suit, but she could see the pattern of subtle stars in the fabric. “When I first came here, I gathered up all the dirt I could on everyone I could. I saw your name in the files. But I never saw you, until right now. I didn’t think you were here at all.”

“I was here. But there are limits to what I can do, or what I should do. Pardon me for being cryptic. It comes naturally to us archetypal old men, and old habits are hard to break.”

Sunset snorted with laughter. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, mister archetypal wizard. I’m Sunset Shimmer. I’m… not from around here. You probably know that already, if you’ve been here at this school the whole time. But something tells me you’re not here just to make small talk, so... Is there something I can do for you?”

“Maybe there’s something I can do for you,” Star Swirl said. He raised his hand, and a strange shadowy flicker appeared in it, like a dark blue candle flame. “I know a thing or two about fighting your inner demons, miss Shimmer. I know a thing or two about being a stranger…” As he spoke, the flame in his hand grew taller and stronger, throwing off jagged spikes and sparks as it reached upwards to the sky. Sunset could feel the heat of the flames radiating outwards. “You have a tremendous reservoir of inner strength. You burn with cosmic fire, waiting to be unleashed. I could teach you to control that power.” He closed his fist, and the flame was gone. He opened his hand to show his palm, unmarred. “If you’re willing, I would take you on as my apprentice.”

Sunset Shimmer gasped softly, her eyes widened. There was dead silence on the lawn in front of the school, no-one else around but the two of them. “…Wow. I wonder what Twilight would say if she heard about that. She’d probably explode with jealousy.”

A car horn broke the silence as the car drove up around the corner of the school, and pulled up on the sidewalk not far from the two of them. A blue arm waved rapidly in the air through the driver’s side window. “Thanks for the offer, mister Star Swirl. I appreciate it. But…” Sunset smiled. “I already have the greatest teachers I could hope for.”

Star Swirl nodded, and watched wistfully as the car drove away, before he turned and headed back inside the school.

– – –

Star Swirl sat alone in the teacher's lounge, after dark. Everyone else had left the building for the day many hours earlier, leaving Star Swirl free of anyone to complain about him smoking a pipe. He took a deep puff, staring at nothing, and let out a billow of smoke. He took another puff, and blew out a soap bubble.

“Hrmm...” He put his pipe down on the table and picked up the pack of cigarettes he had confiscated that morning. He drew one out, scrutinizing it from every angle, then put it in his mouth. He snapped his fingers, and a tiny flame lit up from the tip of his index finger, which he used to light the cigarette.

He took a deep drag and exhaled a soap bubble filled with opaque white smoke. It floated up in front of his face, and he peered deep into it, frowning.

By the time it popped he was already running out of the lounge towards the stairs.

– – –

The thing that came out of the water had no name, because it was older than the idea of naming.

It was over thirty meters tall, and many times longer than it was tall. Its carapace, jagged and pockmarked, was home to all manner of marine life that could survive occasional trips onto dry land: crabs, grasses, clusters of clams, their mouths shut tight, krill burrowed into little fluid pockets within the massive creature's shell plates, all clung to it as it pulled itself from the deep onto the harbor and proceeded to claw and skitter down the broadest street towards Canterlot High School.

Ocean water poured from its many cracks and crevasses as it moved, staining the street, and in spite of its bulk, the massive shell left no other mark on the road: human eyes could not see it, nor human ears hear it as it went, and the water would evaporate in the summer heat before morning.

It made a hissing ululation as it drew near to the school, portions of its shell parting and billowing, as if excited, as if in heightened anticipation, opening to reveal strands of hairlike fibers for filtering nutrition from the currents. It came up in front of the school's facade, carefully stepping around the sculpture in front of the main entrance on its spiky crab-legs, and rose its front-part up to a towering height, its many limbs spreading to hold the entire building within its reach.

“That's quite enough of that,” said Star Swirl the Bearded from the school's rooftop.

The massive entity halted, its front-part reoriented itself in strange ways, shells twisting and turning to allow an aperture to the inside to reveal a gelatinous mass, in which nerve clusters and light-sensitive nodules that could not really be called eyes shifted near the surface to face the tiny human who stood before it with no sign of fear.

Star Swirl held up the pack of cigarettes. “These are yours, I believe.”

The creature picked Star Swirl up in a pincer moving close to the speed of sound, tossed him into its open maw, and ate him. Then it returned to its work, only to be interrupted by the sound of slow clapping.

“Good one,” Star Swirl said, standing exactly where he had been on the rooftop, “but not good enough. Like these things,” he gestured with the cigarettes again. “It's a clever enchantment, I'll give you that. Inconspicuous. Agile, jumps from object to mind to mind, nesting in something that, in high schools, is both ubiquitous and yet closely guarded. Very clever.” Star Swirl dropped the pack and ground it under his shoe. “But not clever enough. You're not going to be trying that again, and nobody in this school is going to be your brood-drone. What’s going to happen is this: you're going to turn around and crawl back where you came from, and never bother anyone on this earth ever again.”

The creature turned a hundred claws, pincers, stingers on Star Swirl, ranging in size from half a meter to ten meters across, and let out a taunting, defiant shriek in the language before life.

Star Swirl stood very still, as the slightest movement in any direction would result in contact with one of the hundred sharp points that surrounded him very closely on all sides.

He opened his mouth and yawned.

“You know,” Star Swirl said, “there are a lot of things here I've had to get used to. Back where I come from things are very different. People were different. Places were different. There were no cities like this, no schools like this one... Certainly there was nothing like you. But the biggest thing I had to adjust to was the food. Back where I lived, everyone in my home country was a herbivore. A vegetarian, as they call it here. Only wild animals and foreign barbarians ate meat. But then I came here, and here even the kindest, meekest little girl-child doesn't think twice about eating things that used to walk around. That startled me at first, but I got used to it eventually. Especially seafood.”

Star Swirl gently nudged some of the spikes aside, and lit his pipe. “You know, you’re not the first of your kind I’ve seen. I met your older brother too.” He took a few puffs. “He was delicious.”

Silence reigned for a moment. Then, slowly, the creature drew back the hundred claws, spikes, pincers, and assorted pointy things, pulled back from the building, turned around, and crawled back down to the sea.

“That was interesting,” a voice said, and Star Swirl turned to see a dark lady standing on the rooftop.

He bowed. “Your highness.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “I'm the vice-principal of a high school, Star Swirl. Not royalty.”

“You'd be surprised at how similar the two can be.”

Luna chuckled, and sat down on the roof, her legs hanging over the edge, and gestured for him to sit beside her. He did so, and the two of them sat there in silence.

“What are you doing here so late at night, anyway?” Star Swirl asked.

“Oh, you know,” Luna said, kicking her legs out over the edge of the wall. “Wandering the dark halls like a lost spirit, haunting the fools who dare enter here at night. OOOoooOOOooohhh...!” Here she waved her arms and waggled her fingers in the air for effect.

They both laughed, and after they’d run out of laughter they sat there looking at the stars, and the bright moon.

“Time is strange here,” Star Swirl eventually said. “I used to think that time was the same in every world, but here it's all mashed together, and people coexist who were many years apart where I came from. I think that's why there's a place for me here.” He turned and looked over Luna. “You used to be so much older than me, and now I'm a withered old man and you're...” He thought for a second. “Well, I'm actually not sure what you are.”

Luna's lip curled up in a wry smile. “Nobody knows what I am. That's my secret advantage.”

“Also, you don't even bat an eyelid when I talk about moving between worlds. That's unusual.”

“It’s part of a teacher’s job to listen to their students,” Luna said quietly. “When I was young I had a very good teacher. Now… I try to pay it forward.” She sat up and looked down at Star Swirl. “I was in prison once,” she said. “I was a runaway. I was in a gang, there were drugs… Eventually my sister found me. She’d been looking for years, but I didn’t want to be found. But she did, and she never let me go again.”

“I’m told family is very important,” Star Swirl said. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t have one.”

“Celestia said she got a letter telling her where I was,” Luna said. “She said it was dropped into her office. She said it was unsigned.”

“Did she indeed.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance.”

They sat silently in the night for a long time.

“I was a ghost once,” Star Swirl eventually said. “I drifted silently through the void between worlds for a very long time. There was no pain. I was prepared to drift forever, until I forgot I had ever been anything else… But there was a beacon here.” He turned his eyes to the heavens, looking out into the sky. “It called out to me, from across endless space… It told me that its maker had left it here for me to find.”

“I made a promise,” he said. “A long time ago, someplace very far away. A promise I couldn't keep. But maybe this time, I can.”

She reached out and took hold of his hand. She glanced at him, and as she looked he seemed to change in the blink of an eye. One moment he was the old man, then he was her age. Then he was a young adult, like one of her students. And then he was a little boy, sitting on the roof, looking up at the stars. And yet he didn’t change at all.

“It's a big world,” Luna said. “Who knows what you'll find here.”

Star Swirl nodded.

Far above them, a new star flared to life, and took its place in the sky.

Author's Note

Wrap Party & Story Notes Here!

Want more Star Swirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever? Check out The Crown of Night if you haven't already. Otherwise be patient, because the sequel is being written.

Coming soon: The Seven Trials of Clover the Clever! Follow my blog for status updates.

Chapter 1: The Famous Lecture

At Cambridle, it was that time of the year again, and Professor Quick Quill had drawn the short straw. The entire faculty dreaded this day, and took careful note months in advance for the race to book their vacations so that they could be as far away from the university as possible. Quick Quill cursed his own tardiness for not joining them. By the time he had remembered, everyone else was already gone and it was up to him to keep the university's doors open for the worst day of the year.

It was time for Honorary Professor Star Swirl's annual guest lecture.

The problem wasn't that Star Swirl was a bad scholar, because he wasn't.

The problem wasn't that Star Swirl was not good enough at magic for Cambridle. He was, as every student in the auditorium knew perfectly well, the greatest magical mind of the past several centuries.

The problem wasn't even that Star Swirl had been expelled from Cambridle in his own student days, after causing tens of thousands of bits of property damage and the disappearance of a fellow student who was never seen or heard from again, or that he had humiliated and incurred the enmity of half the senior faculty, or that his continued triumphant career was an embarrassment to the university, although all those things were true. Those things, Quick Quill thought, were actually a blessing in disguise. If not for those things, he shuddered to contemplate, they would have no choice but to make Star Swirl a permanent member of the faculty, and would have to deal with him all year long.

The problem, rather, was the students.

Dear Celestia, the poor, poor students. Every year, without fail, after Star Swirl's one and a half hours, they would spend the next week straight hiding in their dormitories, their blankets wrapped tightly around them, sobbing. Every year, a small number simply left in the night, and never came back. Several more—often the brightest ones, who were expecting good grades and a career in magical research when they graduated—would fall into deep doldrums and fail their exams as a result. It broke Quill's heart to think of it.

There was not much they could do about it. Star Swirl the Bearded was always asking for a teaching position, to share his undeniably impressive magical knowledge with the next generation of unicorns, and when you've won the respect of immortals and defeated a few titanic evils from beyond the outer limits of the imagination it gets very difficult to deny you anything. The letters of recommendation from both Princesses and the death threats from Griffon King Blaze were all very compelling. The best the faculty had been able to do was to agree to let him have one lecture every year, open to all. Needless to say, in the past fifteen years, no student had ever attended twice. And much as Quill would have liked to, they were expressly forbidden from warning anyone away from attending. It would be... impolitic.

Once, a student had asked Star Swirl to repeat something. They had to carry her out of the auditorium in tears.

Quick Quill walked up to the podium and stood facing the crowd. He gulped. The auditorium was packed to capacity, a thousand young unicorns eagerly waiting to hear the legendary wizard speak. If only they knew what they were in for, Quill thought.

"Good day, everypony," Quill nervously spoke into the magical microphone, "and welcome to this year's guest lecture by the renowned Professor Star Swirl the Bearded. The Professor requires no introduction," A proper introduction would take all day, and would be an urgent warning, Quill thought, "and I am honored to be the one to welcome him back to Cambridle. The subject of today's lecture will be the Amniomorphic Spell." Quill glanced at Star Swirl, who waited by the faculty entrance in the bottom right corner of the room, and pleaded with his eyes, please don't deviate from the plan we approved earlier. Star Swirl gave the briefest, slightest nod.

Quill turned back to the crowd. "I should say that due to a mix-up in the teaching plans," An extremely carefully planned and executed mix-up, Quill thought, "today's lecture is not part of the regular classes of this term, and the material will not be on the exams. Please consider it to be... an extra opportunity to further your studies above and beyond the plan." The faculty had learned that lesson well. A few times, Star Swirl had inadvertently been allowed to participate in the regularly scheduled lesson plan. The university had been flooded with letters from angry parents, saying that their foals had been completely unable to progress beyond that point in their studies, including a great many alumni threatening to cut off their donations.

"Hrrmph," Quill heard Star Swirl grunt in disappointment.

"So, without further ado, Professor Star Swirl the Bearded!" Quill bowed and backed away from the podium as Star Swirl stepped forward, the bells on his robe and hat jingling with each step. The auditorium was filled with the sound of a thousand hooves pounding on desks, and a thousand magical auras held a thousand quills ready to write.

Star Swirl levitated a stack of papers in front of him, ruffled through them briefly, knocked them on the podium to get them in order, and cleared his throat. Then he began his lecture.

It took a few seconds before Quill realized he had begun his lecture. There was a sound, yes, but it did not seem to be coming from Star Swirl's mouth. In fact it didn't seem to be coming from anywhere. It also did not seem to be saying anything in any language known to Ponykind.

"Gur Nzavbzbecuvp Fcryy vf bayl gur zbfg zbqrea vapneangvba bs n fgenva bs zntvp gung unf rkvfgrq fvapr orsber gur Fnqqyr Nenovna Srqrengvba pbadhrerq gur Arne Rnfg," Star Swirl said.

Quill's heart sank in his chest as he resisted the urge to facehoof. He looked from Star Swirl to the assembled unicorns. Their quills, poised to write a mere few seconds ago, hung lifelessly in the air. Their eyes, previously filled with focus and excitement to see the great Star Swirl the Bearded teach, were now showing hints of uncertainty. Ponies blinked in confusion. Ponies glanced side to side, to see if their neighbours knew what was going on. Ponies looked to Quill with questioning eyes. Quill shook his head at them, raised a hoof to his lips to shush any who might be thinking of speaking.

"Gur Fcryy uvatrf ba guerr znva pbzcbaragf: gur ivfhny pbzcbarag, gur gnpgvyr pbzcbarag, naq gur pehpvb-fnffnechetvp pbzcbarag. Gurfr ner pbafgehpgrq nflzzrgevpnyyl jvguva na Beovqher Obk bs ab fznyyre qvzrafvbaf guna gubfr bs gur fhowrpg fdhnerq va sbhe qvzrafvbaf fdhnerq," Star Swirl continued, as he levitated a piece of chalk and beginning to write complex mathemagical formulas on the board behind him. The students, seeing a hope of a chance, immediately began copying the formulas. Most of them soon gave up as the chalk simply continued writing faster than a pony could speak. Soon the board was almost completely covered, forcing Star Swirl to grab a sponge and wipe a path for more writing, the chalk following closely behind the sponge as they moved over the board. Quill recognized the elaborate formulas for calculating magical power usage at irregular angles, and knew that any student who didn't fully comprehend the first set, the one that was now being wiped away, would be completely unable to follow the rest.

"Gur Nzavbzbecu, vs pbafgehpgrq cebcreyl, rkvfgf va fcnpr naq gvzr bire n qhengvba bs fcnpr naq gvzr, qrgrezvarq ol sbhe vagrenpgvat cevapvcyrf. Svefgyl, gur nve qrafvgl naq uhzvqvgl. Frpbaqyl, gur erfbanag onpxtebhaq zntvpny enqvngvba. Guveqyl, gur pheerag nzovrag Ubbsyre onfryvar inevnapr. Naq sbheguyl, ubea erfvfgnapr. Bapr gurfr ner cebcreyl nyvtarq, gur Nzavbzbecu pna or raretvmrq ol n fvzcyr Fjvey-Gebggre punetr."

It was around that point that the hallucinations started.

This is going to be like the Introduction to Basic Arcane Theory class all over again, Quill thought. Or worse. He looked over the crowd, saw their hopes fade as the best and brightest of Cambridle realized they stood no chance of ever understanding magic, watching their futures slip away. All the quills had fallen still now, every pony in the room was silently enduring their own private hell. All except one. Quill raised an eyebrow. A lone mare was writing ferociously, intently focused on the board.

– – –

Clover Cordelia had found her seat with all the rest of her friends, eagerly awaiting the start of what the seniors called "the Famous Lecture", although exactly what it was famous for was unclear. They had forced their way through the crowd to get seats at the center of the auditorium. Like everypony else present, they could barely contain their excitement. THE Star Swirl the Bearded, the greatest unicorn wizard of their lifetime, former royal advisor, savior of Ponykind several times over, right there to teach them, face to face. At length, the young, scrawny professor got up and awkwardly did his introduction bit, clearly so awed by Star Swirl's presence that he couldn't speak straight. Clover stomped her hoof with ferocious enthusiasm as the great unicorn had stepped up to the podium, in his characteristic starry-robed, bell-adorned outfit. Clover had held her breath, unable to contain her huge grin, her quill at the ready, as Star Swirl prepared his papers and cleared his breath, and then... unearthly sounds had come from nowhere and everywhere.

Clover's friends all looked at one another, puzzled. They all saw the young professor Quill cringe, and had no idea what was happening. But Clover wasn't paying attention to them. Clover was thinking, I know this effect from somewhere, I know I read about something like this in one of the advanced books, it's a sensory inversion spell that replaces sound with non-sound and vice versa, and repeating the effect on myself should cancel it out, if I can just remember the correct formula it goes something like—this! She cast the spell on her own ears, and instantly the unnatural noise disappeared, replaced by perfectly ordinary speech coming from the professor's lips.

"—since before the Saddle Arabian Federation conquered the Near East, so I cannot honestly claim to have invented it by myself, but I was the first to update it to modern magical practice that does not require a thoroughbred understanding of Ancient Saddle Arabian sorcery, which could only be learned by making sacrifice to some rather unsavory entities that live beneath the desert dunes and hunger for pony blood. I hope that frivolous personal anecdote gave you all the time you need to follow along. Now then, the Spell hinges on three main components," Here he levitated the chalk and began to write, and Clover raced to get it all down.

"—simple Swirl-Trotter charge. You may think you recognize these formulas as Stephen Hawk King's Laws of Magical Calculus. But you are mistaken. The alterations reflect an interwoven perception spell which functions like this."

At that point his words turned into colors and flew away.

Clover froze up. This time Star Swirl had at least given a hint. Inverting sound was one thing; rearranging senses entirely was much more complicated. But it was here in the formulas somewhere. Clover quickly levitated Hawk King's A Brief History of Magic up out of her bag and flipped through it until she got to the relevant tables. She looked from one set of the Laws to another, picking out the differences and writing them down in the margins. When properly arranged, they formed a localized counterspell. Clover cast it, and the floating colors were once again replaced with words.

"—may possibly begin to understand the challenges of the Amniomorphic Spell. If not, you will not hear my earnest pleas to leave it alone, rendering this exercise fairly pointless in any case. Once the Amniomorph has been energized, it is mobile but requires a conscious mind to guide it, while simultaneously maintaining the magical bindings at a constant charge and configuration. Imagine doing a crossword puzzle while hanging upside down from a vine and dodging arrows."

The pony sitting to Clover's left had fallen off her chair and lay shivering on the floor, muttering, "The voices! The voices!" Clover shushed her.

Time passed as the lecture continued in this fashion, twice more altering the mode of delivery; first by making the words themselves temperature-dependent so that Clover had to magically alter her body temperature to understand them, and finally by surreptitiously moving the entire auditorium into Star Swirl's own imagination, from which Clover promptly escaped.

By the end, Clover was finding it difficult to counter all the spells at once while still following everything Star Swirl said and wrote on the board. But eventually his time began to run out.

– – –

Quill turned away from the audience to wipe the sweat from his brow with a levitating handkerchief. He had been watching the clock tick one minute at a time to keep his eyes away from the crowd, and now the time was almost up. Please let him finish on time, Quill thought. I don't think anyone has ever tried to cut him off before he's finished. Please don't let today be the first time. He allowed his eyes to pass over the assembled students, and instantly regretted it. A study in despair, numbering one thousand ponies strong, weeping, wailing, gnashing teeth. One pony appeared to be hyperventilating, his legs pulled up against his chest, rocking softly back and forth, empty eyes staring into space. Many had taken to covering or plugging up their ears to keep out the unearthly speech that, by the looks of it, was already driving some of them mad.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the sounds stopped. Quill looked back to the clock. One minute remained, the second hand having passed over the 12 exactly as Star Swirl closed his mouth. One last sound passed through the room, this time one that everyone could understand: "Any questions?"

Quill let out a sigh of relief. It was over, and unlike last time nopony seemed to be bleeding from the eyes. Now, there was only the polite applause, and then everypony could get up and—

The one student who had never stopped writing slowly raised a hoof. Quill's eyes widened in horror and his mouth fell open. In his mind's eye he could see himself leaping forward, shouting "No!", as if to catch an arrow, sacrificing himself to save another's life.

But it was already too late. Star Swirl had seen her. An eyebrow crawled up his brow. "Yes, the filly with parsley in her mane?"

Quill's heart skipped a beat. The moment of doom was at hand. Time seemed to freeze as Clover thought for a second how best to phrase her question.

"When you say that the Stirrup Formation of directed morphic dilation is best used in conjunction with a reverse galloping magic charge, is that because a common alternating magic charge would grow unstable and subject to erratic power surges as a result of the buildup of thaumic pressure from the dilation?"

The auditorium fell deathly silent. All eyes turned to Clover, then to Star Swirl, then back to Clover. Quill didn't dare wipe away the drop of sweat that was slowly teasing its way across his snout, however badly it tickled.

Star Swirl was looking at Clover, not speaking. The silent seconds seemed to stretch into infinity.

Star Swirl opened his mouth, took a breath. His mouth hung open for a few seconds. "Yes."

The deep ringing of a tower bell announced the end of the hour.

Chapter 8: Interdepartmental Exchange

The portal closed before their eyes, leaving Clover with Swirly Star the Wise, in the whirling snow on a mountaintop somewhere in the frozen north. The two mares looked from the spot where the portal had been, to each other, and back.

“Well,” Swirly Star said from where she had been dropped on the ground, as Clover got up and gingerly trotted towards that particular patch of empty air, “that's inconvenient.”

“Where are they?!” Clover tried, and failed, to not yell in a mad panicked squeal. “Professor? Star Swirl? Can you hear me?!” The last she shouted while standing on her hind legs and waving her forelimbs in the air. She turned back to Swirly Star. “What happened?!”

Swirly Star got up on her hooves, slowly, and sniffed the air. “It looks like Clover... and also you... went to the wrong exits. This is mine and Clover's home universe, the rift is dead, and the fabric of space-time has returned to its normal more or less stable state.”

“You have to open the portal again!” Clover yelped. “I need to get back home!”

“Yes, yes... Let me just—” Swirly Star raised a hoof and promptly fell over.

Clover let out a small “Eep!” and rushed to her side to try to pull the old sorceress back on her hooves.

“You're a jittery one,” Swirly Star muttered as she recovered her balance. “My Clover wouldn't panic so easily.” She harrumphed, and the harrumph transformed into a yawn partway through, which seemed to catch Swirly Star by surprise. “Ah. Other Clover? Forget the portal.”

“What do you mean 'forget the portal'? We need the portal!”

“I mean, forget the portal!” Swirly Star grumbled, glaring at the younger mare. “I need you to get me home to Cambridle. Preferably quickly.”

Swirly Star then closed her eyes and immediately lost consciousness. Clover “Eep!”-ed again and grabbed hold of her before she toppled over.

Clover put a hoof to Swirly Star's forehead: she had a burning fever. Clover's fetlock grazed against Swirly Star's horn, and recoiled. The horn was literally scalding hot.

Clover gulped, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. Don't panic, she thought. Star Swirl—I mean, Swirly Star needs me. Alright, Clover, let's do this by the book.

Status check: I'm in a parallel universe, on top of a snow-capped mountain somewhere in the frozen north, I have no idea where the nearest town is located, and Swirly Star the Wise has apparently passed out from magical overexertion. I need to get us both down from here and find my way back to civilization. She nodded. Okay. That all sounds pretty bad. But we're both wearing enchanted cloaks that protect us from the weather, so the deadly cold doesn't matter. Also there should be food in— Clover turned to see the pile of research instruments and travel supplies lying in the shadow of a rock, exactly where she—no, HE—had left it.

Clover spent several minutes just staring at the two hundred and fifty pounds worth of esoteric gadgets before deciding to just grab the food and tents and leave everything else behind.

“Swirly Star will just have to find it in her heart to forgive me for saving her life instead of her favorite telescope,” Clover mumbled, as she finished packing her saddlebags, laid the unconscious mare over her back, and set off down the mountainside.

– – –

It was several hours later, as Clover was nearing the base of the mountain, that Swirly Star first woke up again.

The old sorceress had grunted, and said: “We're still on the mountain,” to which Clover had answered in the affirmative. The old sorceress then snorted, and muttered, “My Clover would have gotten us home by now.”

She had then pointed a hoof in a seemingly random direction, and said “that way,” before passing out again.

Before the night was over they somehow found their way to a small wooden cabin, solid but bereft of life, standing on the barren rocky slope at the foot of the mountain. There they spent the night and ensuing day, while Swirly rested. The day after that they set off again, through the snow-covered woods below the peaks. All, the while, Swirly trotted slowly and spoke little, except to pick a direction every few hours.

After a few days of slow and silent travel, they reached a tiny coastal village, and hired a pilot pony to sail them to Braytannia. Swirly Star cast a minor enchantment to make herself inconspicuous while Clover failed miserably at haggling a fair price for the passage.

In the end, it took a full week of travel before they arrived in Cambridle. All through the trip, it seemed to Clover that Swirly Star the Wise was constantly on the verge of collapse, and Clover's mind in turn conjured up elaborate scenarios of her life to come if the old sorceress died, and left her stranded in an alien world. On the other hoof, their supplies of food, bits, and barter goods were also running low.

This conveniently gave Clover lots of opportunities to take her mind off Swirly Star and worry herself to exhaustion about other things instead.

One point in particular stuck in Clover's head as especially annoying, even though she was hard-pressed to call it important: her personal effects had all been left on the mountain in her own world, including several items her stallion double had not seen fit to bring along himself. Specifically, her personal grooming kit, which counted some two dozen items, had been replaced with one toothbrush, one jar of toothpaste, and one rather thin bar of soap. As a result, in the course of the journey home Clover's appearance had deteriorated rapidly.

All of this and much else was running through Clover's mind as they approached the outskirts of Cambridle. The two of them were on the back of a hay wagon driven by a pair of lean earth pony stallion twins who might, under other circumstances, have been of a great deal more interest to Clover. As it was, Clover's attempt to persuade them to give her a discount for her winning smile had only inspired a derisive snort from Swirly Star, and the twins had looked on with stoic immobility until Clover gave up and offered them twice as much as was fair to carry the mares two towns over.

The last leg of the trip thus passed in interminable awkward silence.

The ponies of Cambridle gave them a wide berth as they passed, and Clover fought not to stop and stare every time she thought she recognized a stallion who should have been a mare, or vice versa. When she did, almost invariably that pony would send her a wary glance that quickly turned to shock and fright.

Clover cringed as she wondered what the citizens might be thinking of her, and took to raising her hood and not making eye-contact as they trudged, Swirly Star resting a hoof on her shoulder, towards home. Instead, she scanned the city itself, and felt far from home.

Stylistically, Cambridle was the same: a treasure trove of Hay Gothic architecture. But the street plan was different, the street names sometimes matched and sometimes didn't, and every storefront was familiar but wrong, as though rebuilt from an incomplete description. Sometimes she had to stop, realizing that she had been following a street that didn't lead where she remembered it leading. Stallion shopkeepers she had known looked out at her from mares' faces, and Clover had to fight herself not to stop and stare.

Also, unlike Clover's home Cambridle, this Cambridle seemed to be in the grip of some sort of turf war. At least, that's what Clover suspected, judging by the abundant banners she saw bearing the image of a knot of thick black string, and the repeating accompanying graffiti declaring “Hail the Brotherhood” and “All will bow before the Hoof”.

Clover decided that since this had no equivalent in her own Cambridle, it could safely be ignored.

It was midday when they finally stumbled in the front door of Alternate Universe Canterlot House 1, and crossed through the entrance hall into the great research lab. Clover let out a great sigh of relief, and plopped down on her rear right there on the floor.

Swirly Star slowly trotted behind a nearby screen, using her magic to untie and remove her robe and hat as she did so. Clover caught a glimpse of the naked old pony underneath, withered and emaciated, and shivered.

Swirly Star raised her garments up on the outside of the screen, and shook them vigorously. The air filled with the jingling of silver bells, and with the accumulated dirt from weeks of travel pouring off them like water.

The now-clean outfit then descended behind the screen, and Swirly Star emerged on the other side as her normal self, covered tail to withers. She calmly walked over to a nearby reclining chair, and collapsed into it with a groan.

“Clover,” Swirly Star began, “I require something of you. Something very important.”

“Yes, Swirly Star?”

“I need you to go downstairs to the break room,” Swirly Star continued, speaking slowly and gravely, “and start making tea. I will tell you when to stop.”

– – –

“It's been five hours, Swirly Star,” Clover said, pointing to the clock.

“I said I will tell you when to stop,” Swirly Star replied. “Keep going.”

“I will happily make you all the tea in Cambridle if that's what it takes, professor,” Clover said as she lifted the kettle and refilled Swirly Star's cup. “Making tea is the most relaxing thing Star Swirl ever asked of me. But I'd quite like to get to work on getting home immediately, and I'd appreciate it if we could get started.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Swirly Star said. “You'll get back home the next time I see Star Swirl for tea and crumpets.”

Clover froze. “You meet Star Swirl regularly for tea and crumpets?” Swirly Star nodded. Clover let out a cry of relief. “Oh thank Celestia! I wish you'd said so a week ago, I wouldn't have had to worry!” Clover paused, and thought for a second. “Wait. How come I never knew this? Star Swirl was opening up portals to other worlds and he never told me?”

“Well, why would he? It's none of your business.”

Clover looked around. “Well, I'm his student. That would be of interest to me, and there's no reason for him to keep that a secret.”

“It's his personal life. What, do you think you're his mother or something?” Swirly Star asked, raising an eyebrow and staring sharply at the young mare. “Because if you do, I'm going to have to disappoint you. He never told his mother what he was doing either.”

Clover shifted uncomfortably under Swirly Star's accusing glare. “I'm not trying to spy on Star Swirl, I just want to have all the pertinent information.”

“Sure you aren't. You just expect to be told all the details of his private affairs, that's all.”

“We live in the same house, he knows what I'm doing at all times—” Clover cut herself off, and shook her head. “You know what, never mind. Fine. Okay. Just, please tell me what magic you use to cross between parallel worlds and what you need to do to work it, and I'll get it going right away.”

“Our next appointment is on the twenty-fifth,” Swirly Star said, turning back to the tea. “You can do your studying here in the meantime. Just don't expect that I'll go easy on you just because you're out of your comfort zone.”

“The twenty-fifth? Okay, so that's...” Clover frowned. Wait, what is today, exactly? I've completely lost track while we were out, and... oh right, other universe. “What's today's date?” she asked sheepishly, as she glanced around the walls to see if there was a calendar anywhere.

“Today is the twenty-seventh,” Swirly Star said.

Clover's jaw dropped. “So not for another month?” Swirly Star nodded. “We have to open the portal sooner, Swirly Star! I can't stay here that long!”

“Sure you can. Magic works the same here as in your world, and I know as much about it as Star Swirl. We have all the same books, my laboratory is as well-equipped as his. The chores and procedures are the same, the reagents are stored in the same fashion. You're not going to fall behind if you spend a month working here while the real Clover works with him.” Swirly Star glanced up at the young mare with critical eyes. “Well, I expect you won't get the work done to the standard that Clover does, but that's a tradeoff I'll have to accept.”

“That's not the problem!” Clover groaned. “Look, professor... I don't belong here. I don't know your Cambridle, I don't know any of the ponies here, and everywhere I looked I saw ponies staring at me like I'd turned into a monster. More than usual, I mean.” She looked at Swirly Star with pleading eyes. “This whole world feels uncanny and alien to me, and I just want to get back home. You and Star Swirl meet up regularly, so clearly you have a way to travel between our worlds. Please, just let me use it.”

“Yes,” Swirly Star nodded, “and we've set it to open once every two months. The next time is a little less than a month from now. You'll get home then.”

Clover whipped around and groaned in frustration. Swirly Star rolled her eyes. “I really don't see what the problem is. You need to get a grip.”

“At least I'm trying to be constructive and find a solution!” Clover cried in a high-pitched voice. Inside her head, a voice interrupted to remind her that Good Fillies don't lose their calm, and Clover cringed, but her mouth kept going with very little input from her thoughts. “Don't you even care about the other Clover? The one who's so much better than me? I'm displaced in the multiverse, thrown into a parallel reality, I'm offering to do everything and anything you need, but you can't be bothered to even pretend to be helpful!”

“Do you even know what 'parallel' means?” Swirly Star shot back. “It means they never meet, in all of eternity. Do you think it's easy, bending infinity to suit your purposes?”

“You meet Star Swirl every other month for tea!”

“Yes! And the next time isn't for another month!” Swirly Star cried. “Will you listen to yourself? You want me to shift the entire space-time continuum up a month just so you can avoid a few funny looks. Do you have any idea how difficult that is?”

“No, I don't know how difficult it is! How could I? Just a week ago I saw you and Star Swirl juggle multiple universes without trouble!” Clover gritted her teeth. “Star Swirl hasn't taught me any of this yet, and the two of you never tell me what's going on until I drag it out of you! Why can't you two just explain your thinking?!”

Swirly Star shrugged. “I gave up on explaining myself to others decades ago. It just goes over their heads, and they never listen. It's all 'Swirly Star, that's insane,' 'Swirly Star, please don't edit all the books in the university library', 'Swirly Star, I'm not going to give you the legal authority to conscript all the nation's unicorn doctors into your private army'.” She snorted. “It's a waste of time. You should trust us more. Both of you.”

The old mare tipped the cup and drank half its contents in one gulp, then picked up the kettle, shook it, and put it back. “Kettle's empty.”

“More? Really?”

“Have I told you to stop yet?” Swirly Star asked with a raised eyebrow. “No? Then go down to the break room and make more tea.”

– – –

Clover thought back to her interview with Star Swirl, when she first began her apprenticeship. The stallion had continually offered her more tea while they spoke, and since she couldn't possibly be so impolite as to say no, in the end it was a mighty struggle to answer the questions while desperately distracted by the need to relieve herself. In her mind, Clover had worked out the volume of the cup, and calculated exactly how badly she needed to go.

Swirly Star clearly did not have the same problem. Clover calculated that Swirly Star had drunk twice her own mass in tea, and showed no inclination to get out of her comfy chair.

“Perhaps she can convert fluid into magic current directly,” Clover mumbled to herself as she brought another pot. “Here, professor.”

Swirly Star filled her cup and sipped it, then grimaced. “You steeped this for much too long. It's like drinking porcupine quills. Try again.”

Clover raised an eyebrow suspiciously. She poured some into another cup, and sipped it carefully. “It tastes exactly like the previous batch.”

“Not remotely. The previous batch was bland and sad. This batch is alarming and offensive. If you continue along this trajectory, the next one will just cross over into 'vile'. Try again, and follow the instructions this time.”

Clover glared at the wizard. “I followed the instructions to the letter,” she said. “Every pot so far has been exactly the same. I think your tastebuds are just saturated. How about we take a break from the tea and do some work?”

“You clearly didn't do them all exactly the same, because this one is more terrible than the others, which were already pretty terrible,” Swirly Star said, shaking her head. “My Clover uses the timer in the fourth drawer on the third cupboard on the middle station. That makes excellent tea. Use that.”

“I have been using that! I've used it every time! It's accurate to the millisecond and the tea has steeped exactly as long each time!”

“Then you must have broken time in order to mess it up this badly!” Swirly Star exclaimed. “And since you've managed that, holding on until next month when our wavelengths meet again shouldn't be a problem!”

The argument was then interrupted by a knocking on the front door, which made both mares fall silent.

Swirly Star frowned. “I don't have time for this. Go answer the door, Clover. I'll be attending to my tea.”

“Yes, Swirly Star,” Clover muttered, shooting daggers at her not-teacher. “Well, whoever it is, I'm not letting them distract me...” She opened the door, ready to tell the visitor to get lost.

Standing on the top of the steps outside the door were her parents.

– – –

Clover looked like a younger, and generally lesser version of her mother.

Ivy Cordelia had given Clover her green coat and mane, body type, and horn shape. Ivy Cordelia had, however, kept for herself her piercing gaze, her perfect poise and posture, her ability to seem sharp and in control of any social event, and all the other little elements that made up her indomitable and commanding presence. She stood at the threshold, and at her side stood Clover's father, a slim purple stallion with a wavy manecut that fell just short of flamboyance, wearing a fashionable waistcoat and a necktie that matched his yellow eyes.

Her parents – and they were her parents, exactly as she knew them, not reversed or alternated or inverted – looked at her with a look that Clover did not recognize. Had she been capable, just then, of critical thought, she would have concluded that this meant she had found an entirely new way to disappoint them, which was no small feat.

I knew I was forgetting something.

“Mom! Dad!” She grinned with all the strength and carefully-honed smiling skill she could muster. “So good to see you!”

“...Clover?” Clover's mother asked, her head tilted to one side, one eyebrow arched sharply in impending disapproval. “Is that you?”

Clover gulped, and nodded, feeling sweat forming on her brow under the heat of her parents' unblinking stare.

“So, this probably needs some explaining,” Clover said with forced cheer through her forced smile. “See, what happened was—”

“What in the world has happened to you?” Ivy Cordelia interjected. She turned to her husband. “Weather Vane! I don't know how, but I know this must be your fault! My son has turned into a mare!”

“Why don't we all go inside and have some tea!” Clover proclaimed, and magically tugged on their collars to lead them in through the entrance hall. “Professor,” she said loudly, through gritted teeth, “my parents are here to visit, we're just going to go down to the break room and chat for a little bit...!”

With impressive speed, Clover led them down to the bottom level of the great research hall and into the break room.

“Welcome to Cambridle!” Clover all but yelled, her grin now manic and twitching. “So this is the break room, where the Professor and I have our meals. Let's put the rest of the grand tour on hold just now, though. Now, I understand you must be shocked, but I can assure you that there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, and that no lasting harm has been or will be done. Let me start from the beginning—”

“Clover, stop,” Clover's mother said in a voice Clover knew all too well, having been on the receiving end countless times in the past. Old ingrained instincts kicked in, and Clover watched herself fall silent and adopt the Remorseful Foal position without any apparent input from her conscious mind. Clover observed her own reaction in baffled fascination as her mother stepped around her, examining her from every angle.

“Quite ignoring the fact that your hooves are entirely too narrow and round for a stallion of your age,” Ivy said, “they are frankly in an atrocious state, chipped and filthy. You've let your mane go wild, and you're dressed like some vagabond earth pony! Clover!” She snapped, stomping a hoof for emphasis. “You've changed. You know we don't hold with that sort of thing! Can you imagine what the Court gossips will say about this??”

Clover's father nodded gravely alongside his wife.

Clover cleared her throat, tested that her voice was still working. “I haven't actually changed,” she said, as calmly as she could manage, “I didn't suddenly become a filly, I've always been a filly. What happened was—”

Clover's mother cut her off. “Dearest, you know we don't believe in this 'who you are inside' nonsense that's in vogue among the earth pony juveniles these days,” she said, not noticing as Clover winced and sighed with annoyance at the interruption. “Prince Sol gave you your body and it is your duty to do right by it. Like that little friend you had when you were a colt, what was his name? Sour something?”

“Sour Drops,” Clover said. “And I completely support him! Nopony has to play with dolls if he doesn't want to!”

“Well, of course he doesn't, dear. Because he's a colt. But I'm very pleased that you've stopped calling him 'her' and 'Sweet Drops'. The neighbours were whispering things.”

“That's what—what? No!” Clover bit her tongue and shook her head when she realized what was happening. “That's not what I meant!”

“Darling,” Ivy said, putting her hoof to Clover's cheek and speaking in what she wrongly thought of as her 'understanding voice', “we know you are very confused, and that is all right. Your parents are here to help you. The first step is to reverse this body-magic thing you've dabbled in. It's downright unseemly.”

Clover was torn. On the one hoof, she wanted to argue against her parents' rampant phobia of the realities of modern life. On the other hoof she wanted to calmly explain that she had actually just been swapped with their son and was from another universe, one in which she was born a filly and had been a filly her entire life.

What she did was sputter and gibber nonsensical phrases for a few seconds, then fell silent with burning cheeks.

Ivy sighed and rolled her eyes. “You've been falling behind in your elocution and rhetoric studies as well, I see. This is why we put you in those classes when you were a foal, Clover! If you'd only have tried harder then you wouldn't be having these speech problems.”

“I'm not your son!” Clover yelled, throwing her hooves up in frustration. “I'm somepony else! Your son is someplace else entirely! I'm only here temporarily and then I'm going back to my home world!”

“Clover, the specifics of this newfound spirit quest of yours don't really concern me,” Ivy said. “That tone is quite unbecoming of you, but given the circumstances I will forgive it. Just remember to always restrict these outbursts to private spaces where nopony outside the family needs to know about them. Sol knows your great-aunt Daisy should have learned that, or else Mother wouldn't have had to put her away.”

“I'm getting a migraine,” Clover muttered. “I cannot believe any part of this conversation is happening.”

“It's because of that madmare wizard, isn't it?” Ivy Cordelia asked. “I knew we shouldn't have sent you to magic school, I told your father this was never going to give you anything but grief! I knew reading all those trashy pulp novels when you were little was going to damage your mind—”

“I don't need to listen to you!” Clover yelled. “You're not even my real parents! ...I can't believe I just said that!”

Ivy gasped in theatrical horror, and clutched a hoof to her breast. “Well! Whatever is going on in this house is clearly a terrible influence on you, and we cannot permit it to continue any longer. Come, Clover, we're going home.”

Ivy took hold of Clover's right ear in her magic grip and pulled her along, ignoring Clover's yelped objection. Ivy opened the break room door and tried to lead Clover out, but rather than pass through it, Clover bumped her muzzle sharply against an invisible surface.

Swirly Star the Wise stalked in through the door, and glared at them as she lifted her mug. “There is a distinct lack of tea in my cup, Clover,” she said, as though she were accusing a pony of murder. “This must be rectified.”

“Ah, here's the pony responsible for this disgrace,” Ivy said. Swirly Star raised an eyebrow at her. “I will thank you to let us through, miss. I and my husband are leaving, and we are taking our son with us.”

“No,” Swirly Star said. “He's mine now.”

Ivy was taken aback at this blunt declaration. “So you mean not to permit our son to leave with us?”

“No, I need to continue experimenting on him,” Swirly Star said. “You can have him back when I'm done. Well, what's left of him. He might not be recognizable at first. He should still be a pony, although possibly not a unicorn. It might take a few years.”

Ivy's eyes narrowed. “This is preposterous,” she said. “You can't keep our son away from us.”

“They also said I couldn't turn the nation's gold reserves into frogs,” Swirly Star said. “They were wrong about that too.”

Ivy curled back her lips into a carefully calculated scowl. “The Captain of Guards in Whinnysor is a close personal friend of ours, you know. Perhaps a visit from him will change your tone.”

Swirly Star stood as though deep in thought for a second, then shook her head. “I doubt it,” she said. “The Unicorn Queen already despises me, and that hasn't changed my tone. Griffon Queen Sear has sworn to kill me, too. All I have to do is say one word, and she will lay siege to the Unicorn Kingdom. It's a very short word.”

Clover's mother looked at Swirly Star with horror and disgust. “You are actually a complete madmare, aren't you? You're sick. I am going to have you declared a menace to the public!”

“Get in line!”

The two mares glared at each other, and Clover could have sworn she felt the heat of a blazing forest fire emanating from their lines of sight. But before long, Ivy Cordelia backed down, huffed, and turned up her muzzle. “Fine!” she cried, as she stepped through the door. “Come, Weather Vane, we are leaving! But this is not the end of this discussion, Clover.”

“The owlsnake will lead you out,” Swirly Star said, and closed the door just as a shrill shriek pierced the air outside.

She then stumbled over to a nearby comfy chair, and collapsed. “Tea?”

“Here,” Clover levitated over a steaming full mug, and Swirly mumbled something which might, conceivably, have been a thank you.

As Clover looked on in horror, Swirly Star drank deeply from the near-boiling beverage, then let out a deep and contented sigh.

“Well, that was interesting,” Swirly Star said after a few seconds' silence. “And surprisingly enlightening.”

“They're not usually like that,” Clover mumbled. Swirly Star gave her a skeptical glance. “It's true!” Clover protested. “If it wasn't for—all of this! We would have had a perfectly polite conversation!”

“Sure you would,” Swirly Star said, and took another sip of her tea. “So in your world, it's your father who's like that?”

“No,” Clover said, after a second. “That was my mother as well. They're actually completely identical. In fact, I almost forgot where I was.”

“Really?” Swirly Star asked, looking up. “That's fascinating. Your parents might possibly be the axis of the multiverse.”

“Don't let my mother hear you say that,” Clover muttered, as she poured herself her own cup of tea and sat down heavily at the dinner table. “It's possible she already believes that's true.”

– – –

Swirly Star remained in the break room for the rest of the evening, bound to the comfy chair, sipping tea until the tea was gone and then commanding Clover to make more tea and beginning the process again. She was still sitting right there when she announced that bedtime was drawing near, and that Clover could retire for the night.

Clover spent the night tossing and turning in fitful sleep, periods of anxious waking interspersed with dreams on a theme of alienation and the uncanny. She woke up the next morning to the dual sounds of magical machinery humming with activity, and a persistent knocking on the front door.

Clover clambered out of her cot and stopped briefly in the bathroom adjacent to her workspace to see if she was presentable, and found that she was not. She had dark bags under her blood-shot eyes, her coat was ruffled and her mane was a labyrinthine tangle. What's more, true to stereotype, 'his' bathroom had nothing to help alleviate the mess, beyond a single towel, an old hoof-file, an ill-kept razor, and a comb with a quarter of its teeth broken off.

Hearing the knocking growing louder and more urgent, and deciding that Swirly Star was not going to do anything about it, Clover decided that making herself not look like a homeless madmare would have to come second to answering the door, and resolved to just grab her cloak and hide as much of herself underneath it as she could. She cantered out of the bathroom and back to her bed cot, and went for the hook on the wall where she had hung the cloak the night before.

It wasn't there. She looked around in a rush: it was nowhere in sight.

“Starrrr Swiiii—” She bit her lip. “Swirllllyyyy Starrrrrr!” she yelled.

Okay, that inflection doesn't work at all with Swirly Star's name. I need to come up with a new one... if I'm going to be here for long, which I am not so it will not be necessary!

Swirly Star did not answer. The knocking grew ever louder.

Fine, I give up. Congratulations, Cambridle, you get to see me in my monster-that-lives-in-a-swamp form once again, Clover thought to herself as she trotted towards the front door. “Coming!”

Clover opened the door slightly and peered out to see a burly unicorn stallion in the armor of a Royal Knight, the sort of pony who might be sent out to slay the monster in the swamp. Clover squealed in fright and tried to slam the door shut, but the stallion had wedged an iron-clad hoof in the door.

“Are you Clover Cordelia?” the knight said in a burst of military elocution which made Clover want to stand at attention. She resisted, and nodded mutely.

“Lady and Sir Cordelia will be expecting you in a few hours,” he said, hoofing her an envelope with the seal of House Cordelia on the back. Then he turned, and left, without another word.

Clover opened the letter and read it as she headed down to the break room for breakfast.

Swirly Star the Wise was still exactly where Clover had left her the night before, sitting in the same comfy chair, nursing a cup of tea. She looked up as Clover entered, still reading the letter. “You look terrible,” Swirly Star said.

Clover glared at her. “Where's my cloak?”

“That hideous thing?” Swirly Star said blankly. “I threw it away. It's in the experimental materials disposal container.”

“You can't just throw away my things, Swirly Star,” Clover said. “Please get it back out, it's mine and I want to have it.”

“What ever for?” Swirly Star asked. “It was made to be used and thrown away, you know.”

“Please, Swirly Star!” Clover exclaimed, exasperated. “Could we please just not argue about this today?”

Swirly Star shrugged, and activated her magic. With a pomf and a burst of glitter, a bright yellow container popped into existence beside her. Star Swirl flipped open the lid and Clover reached inside and pulled out her cloak, looking over it to make sure it was still in good condition.

“Like a foal refusing to give up a worn-out rag doll,” Swirly Star grumbled under her breath as she sent the container back to its pocket plane. “On the road, I can understand, but tell me, does Beardy not mind if you show up in the mornings looking like you've been dead for two days?”

“I had a bad night,” Clover muttered, laying the cloak across her back. “And I have a manebrush and coat conditioner in my bathroom. Your Clover doesn't.”

“He seems to get by fine without them. Clearly you're not so resourceful,” Swirly Star said, and gestured to the letter. “What's that?”

“My parents want to meet at a coffee shop downtown in a few hours,” Clover said. “It says they want to 'apologize for their insensitive behavior and discuss how to move forward with my new life as a mare'.” Clover sighed, and shook her head as she prepared her breakfast.

“So they're planning to abduct you and forcibly bring you home to Whinnysor,” Swirly Star said. “So predictable. You'll be happy to know I've already got them beat. I've put an enchantment on you: the moment they lay a hoof on you, it will activate a protective bubble which is invisible, intangible, and impenetrable.”

Clover rolled her eyes. “They aren't going to abduct me, Swirly Star. They just want to talk.” Clover paused. “They want to talk about things they don't understand at all, but they do want to talk.”

“If you say so. But when they do try to abduct you, don't worry: the magical siren will summon the city guard.”

– – –

A few hours later, Clover was trotting along the streets of Cambridle, searching for the coffee house. She had cleaned up as best as she was able, in the absence of proper tools: her coat was dull and her mane felt greasy, but at least it no longer brought to mind images of Maredusa.

On every street corner, she felt ponies staring at her. Even though she was now wrapped up in her cloak (which she had also washed as best as she was able in the circumstances), she suspected every one of them recognized her, or rather recognized Clover the stallion and then began imagining warped and twisted stories about what had happened.

Stories which bear no resemblance to my perfectly sensible real explanation.

She made slow progress of navigating her way through a city trapped, from her perspective, in the Uncanny Valley. In every store she recognized stallions chatting together who she knew as mares, and mares who should be stallions, going about their everyday business as though the universe had not been flipped upside-down. Clover caught herself staring, and noticed others staring back at her. She would take a calming breath and then glare back whenever she noticed somepony getting too curious, and they would quickly turn away. A few, she noticed, would then make a gesture to avert the Evil Eye when they thought she wasn't looking. “Mad old Swirly Star's black-hearted apprentice is at it again,” she muttered. “I probably need to do something about that once I get home.”

She was vaguely aware of more of those banners hanging on various street corners, bearing images of liquorice and vaguely aspirational slogans like “The Hoof Rises” and “Today Cambridle, tomorrow the world!”

Clearly this Cambridle isn't exactly like mine, Clover thought. I know nothing like this is happening at home.

In the end she found her way to the coffee house in question, whose doors were guarded by Royal Knights like the one she had met that morning, and also by ponies clad entirely in black, wearing darkened eye-glasses and with small gemstones poking their ears. Clover hesitated outside the building, looking uncertain, but they stepped aside to let her pass, and she heard one of the ponies in black say in a low voice, “the cub is in the stable”.

Inside, the entire coffee house was occupied by more guardsponies, and no customers were in evidence other than Clover's parents, who looked up as she approached.

“Ah, there you are, dear,” Ivy said, and her father nodded with a small smile. “Coffee!” she commanded, and a lone young earth pony mare in an apron stepped out from behind the counter. She was a bright yellow, with an orange mane that reached down to her withers, with a cutie mark of a mechanical coffee grinder. She emerged holding a tray with mugs and a steaming pot in her mouth, and slowly approached their table, glancing nervously back and forth under the glare of ten alert security-ponies trailing her every move.

“Thank you,” Clover said with a forced smile as the mare poured and served her coffee. A drop of sweat trickled down the mare's forehead as she glanced to the two bulky stallions on either side who stood ready to jump her at the slightest provocation. That done, she retreated.

“Sol knows how an earth pony establishment manages to make the best coffee in a unicorn city like Cambridle,” Ivy said with obvious discomfort, “but the concierge at the hotel insisted this was the best choice for the 'authentic Cambridle coffee house experience'.”

Clover winced at her mother's words, and silently vowed to come back here later and apologize profusely to the staff. “He's right, this place is the best in town,” Clover said. “But if you want the 'authentic experience', you really shouldn't force everypony else out of the building. You're supposed to blend, and mingle with the other patrons, and discuss the affairs of the day.”

“Well, that would never do,” Ivy said with a smirk. “Not for our purposes.”

Clover ran her eyes over the swarm of guards in the room, all of whom were now watching her closely. She gulped.

Remain calm, Clover. There is no way the Royal Knights would help your parents forcibly abduct you from Cambridle.

I think.

I mean, not unless they actually believed that Swirly Star is an insane evil sorceress who has brainwashed me so that I'll be her puppet in the nobility.

Which probably sounds entirely plausible from where they're standing, come to think of it.

“So, what's with all the security?” Clover asked, as casually as she could manage.

“Well, darling,” Ivy said, as she and her husband's eyes met, “last night, your father and I got to talking, and we thought perhaps we had come off as somewhat... insensitive, to your choice of lifestyle.”

Clover groaned.

“Dear, you must understand that we love you and we only want what is best for you,” Ivy continued. “We're just worried that, what with you moving away from home for the first time, to a new place, with new ponies and strange new social circles, that you've gotten some strange ideas into your head and are maybe making some short-sighted decisions. I first began to worry when you wrote to tell us that after all the work we did to get you accepted at the Academy of Magic, you dropped out of the first semester and began following some bizarre recluse of a private tutor instead.”

“I didn't drop out,” Clover growled, her mood souring by the second. “I'm still a student at the university, I'm just getting all kinds of valuable practical experience at the same time. I'm still signed up to take all my exams, and I'm learning from the greatest unicorn wizard alive. There's nothing to worry about!”

Ivy and Weather Vane merely stared at her blankly, not bothering to respond.

Clover sighed. “Alright, so sometimes things get out of hoof. But I promise that everything is under control. Anyway, you still haven't answered my question. What's with all these guardsponies? You're not seriously considering dragging me away from Cambridle by force, right? Because if you are, I warn you, Swirly Star has some sort of obnoxious alert spell in place to stop you, and I'd really rather not see what it does.”

“What an absurd notion,” Ivy muttered. “You see, darling? That's the kind of crazy idea this tutor is putting into your head! I would never consider such a thing!”

Weather Vane sipped his coffee, and coughed. “Not for more than a second, anyway.”

Ivy turned a withering glare on her husband as Clover's jaw dropped. “You didn't!”

“This is not the time for silly jokes,” Ivy hissed through gritted teeth. “We are not going to toy with our son's... or daughter's feelings in his hour of need. We are going to be kind and supportive and understanding.” Ivy turned back to Clover and put on a facial expression of tolerance and love that looked exactly as artificial as it was. “To get back to your question, darling, all these soldiers and guards are here because we've brought a special surprise for you. When we were discussing this trip at one of our garden parties last month, one of your old foalhood friends heard us and insisted on coming to see you! Isn't that lovely?” Ivy's eyes glittered with genuine joy at this statement, which made Clover wary. “Now, he might also be a bit shocked when he sees you, but I'm sure you'll still get along just fine.”

Foalhood friend? Who's... Clover's eyes widened. “You don't mean—”

A door slammed open in the back of the coffee house. “Alright, I'm back!” a young stallion's voice cried. “Is he here yet?”

Having just emerged from the bathroom, accompanied by four ponies in black standing in formation around him, was a pristine silver-coated unicorn teen wearing a suit in the height of Courtly fashion. Clover placed him immediately: Prince Platinum, heir to the Unicorn Kingdom.

Platinum froze up at the sight before him, and Clover cringed at the sight of her old friend looking at her like she was a monster. Dammit, Swirly Star.

“Clover?” the prince asked in disbelief. “Is that really you?”

Clover nodded, nervously avoiding meeting his eyes. “Hi, Platinum. Long time no see.”

“Your father and I are going to take a look around town,” Ivy said, leading the prince to sit down. “You two stay here and get reacquainted, and we'll see you later.”

They left, leaving Clover and Platinum sitting across the table from one another, looking at each other in silence.

“So this probably requires some explanation,” Clover said. “What happened was—”

“Swirly Star turned you into a filly?” Platinum interrupted. “Geeze, what did you do to get her that mad? Or was it an accident?” He leaned forward across the table to scrutinize her more closely. “How does it feel? ...Have you tried any experimenting?”

“Don't you start as well!” Clover pointed a hoof accusingly at the teen stallion. “I am going to get through my calm and reasonable explanation for everything once this week if it's the last thing I—!”

Before she could finish the sentence Clover found herself ponypiled to the floor by the ponies in black, her legs locked in place, somepony's leg around her neck, and a hoof ready to disable her horn at the slightest sign of trouble.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Platinum cried. “Chill, you guys! Clover is my friend! Seriously, let him go! ...Or her. Whatever.”

Various grips withdrew, allowing Clover to get back in her chair with no worse injuries than a sore shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Don't worry about it,” Platinum said, his voice low, shooting angry glares at the ponies. “I swear, these ponies make me wanna smash things.”

“So,” Clover said, “you're the reason for all the added security?”

“The PIBs? Yeah, they refuse to leave me alone,” he mumbled, slouching in his chair. “Also they said something about Cambridle being 'the site of an underground rebellion' and a 'high-risk zone'. Whatever.” He turned back to Clover. “So, are you gonna explain this or what?”

“Oh thank you!” Clover cried, then blushed. “I mean, yes. Look... very short version, I was out doing exciting magical field research with the professor, and I accidentally got replaced by myself from an alternate universe. No, I have not been transformed into a filly, and I can't tell you if anything 'feels' different. In my home world, you and me are both fillies. Meanwhile, the Clover from this universe is stuck in my home world with my professor, Star Swirl the Bearded.”

“Wow,” Platinum said. “That was surprisingly straight-forward.”

“I know, right?” Clover said. “But I tried to explain it to my parents and they wouldn't listen to a word I said!”

“Parents,” Platinum muttered, shaking his head.

“Yeah. Anyway, we're gonna switch back as soon as Swirly Star the Wise can get off her plot and start trying. She doesn't think this is worth exerting herself about, apparently.” Clover sighed, and slumped forward on the table. “Okay, that's unfair. Swirly Star, and Star Swirl too, almost killed themselves on this trip. They need to recover their strength. But she is so grumpy. I'm sure my Star Swirl isn't this bad.” She sighed again. “I just wanna go home. To where I can have a conversation with my parents without being reminded every second that they're a couple of complete bigoted jerks, and where my teacher isn't constantly comparing me unfavorably to my own alternate universe opposite-sex self. Apparently I'm a terrible failure as a Clover. On this point there is consensus.”

“Okay, so—let me just make sure I got this right,” Platinum said. “You didn't use magic to transform yourself into a filly? There wasn't a magical accident in Swirly Star's lab that did this? You're not really my old friend Clover at all?”

“Strictly speaking, that is correct,” Clover said. “I mean, these two universes are similar in many ways, except that all the mares are stallions and the stallions are mares. I have a space in my teacher's house, in Cambridle, in Braytannia, just like Clover does here. Princess Platinum, the daughter of the Unicorn King, was my old playmate in Whinnysor, and you look exactly like her. Only, you know, stallionly.”

Yeah – okay,” Platinum said. “Well, can I tell you a secret? There's something I would never tell anypony... but if you're going to another universe then I guess that's okay.”

Clover blinked. “Um. Sure, Platinum, what is it?”

“Promise you won't tell anypony?” Platinum asked nervously. “While you're here, in this world, at least?” Clover nodded. Platinum turned to the PIBs who still filled the coffee house. “Scram! Give us some privacy here!”

In ten seconds, they were alone. “What's the matter, Platty?”

“I don't think I'm gonna be a good king,” Platinum muttered. “I mean, bad enough that I'm gonna be the first ever king of the Unicorn Kingdom, after a long line of powerful queens. The last male pony ruler was frigging Prince Sol, and compared to that I'm gonna be – y'know, some stupid whiny foal who might as well still be wearing diapers. But there's something else too. I'm an only child.” He waved his forelegs around. “All day long, every day of my life, I have this, frigging PIBs watching my every move, because if anything happens to me – that's it. End of the novel. The Kingdom collapses. Which means I have to have an heir. And how the hay is that gonna happen?”

Clover blushed. “Well, the usual way it happens is...”

Prince Platinum chuckled, then frowned.

“Ah, come on Platty,” Clover said. “I know that somewhere out there is a lovely mare who doesn't care about your title and will love you for who you really are. As the old proverb says, destiny is a mathematically quantifiable force which is very active on our world.”

“I have a crush on Clover!” Platinum blurted out. “On my Clover, the colt who played explorers with me in the royal palace when we were just foals. The one who would just play with me like anypony else, without worrying about what my mom would think. The one who got to leave Whinnysor and do what he was inspired to do. I asked to come on this trip because I wanted to see him. And your parents let me come because they're desperate to win my mom's favor. But I can't tell him. It'd never work. My mom would never allow it.”

Clover remained silent, stunned, staring at the colt in front of her. Platinum slumped back in his chair, frowning, staring down at the table. “I'm gonna be a terrible king,” he muttered. “I can't do negotiations, or adjudicate disputes, or make important decisions. I don't have a mind for any of that stuff.”

Clover was ashamed to acknowledge the relief she felt at the shift of topic. “Well... you'll have advisors,” she suggested, racking her mind to think of something helpful to say to cheer up her glum friend. “There'll always be ponies to help you.”

Platinum snorted derisively. “Yeah, right. Look, there's nopony more dangerous to the monarch than her close advisors, and nopony in the kingdom you should trust less. My mom keeps advisors around so she'll know what not to do, and because they're less dangerous so long as they think they have her ear. The Queen, or King, is always alone.”

He slumped down in his chair. “I'll have to get married,” he said, wincing at the thought. “To some suitably convenient duchess that I'll never meet before the wedding is already arranged. She'll be one of the advisors that I'll have to distrust every day even as I'm supposed to have foals with her to preserve the lineage of unicorn queens.” He shuddered.

“I want Clover to be one of my advisors,” he said. “I like Clover. I trust Clover. Clover doesn't care about the politics, he's just a good friend. And... I feel better when I'm around him. But he's disappeared to another world.”

“We're gonna switch back,” Clover said. “Really. I'm just not sure when, exactly.”

“I actually meant Cambridle,” Platinum said. “Sorry, I should have been more clear. That was me trying to be poetic. He's run off to follow his dream of learning to be a great wizard from Swirly Star the Wise. He doesn't want to be cooped up in Whinnysor Castle.” Platinum sniffed, and Clover saw a tear building up in the corner of his eye as he spoke. “I was going to offer him so much money to work for me, once he graduates. But, I'm sure he'll want to go off and live in a jungle or something, hunting wild magical monsters, like we pretended to do when we were foals.” By now his voice was cracking. He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. “I should really let the PIBs back in, they go crazy if I keep them out for long... You won't tell anypony about this, right? You promised.”

Clover walked up around the table and gave the prince a tight hug and gently stroked a hoof down his back. He in turn took hold of Clover and pressed her close, shaking softly, while she stared at the wall and racked her brain trying desperately to think of something helpful to say.

Just as she was opening her mouth to say something she hoped would be soothing and reassuring, there was a sharp knock on the door and a voice said: “My prince? The Cordelias are back. May we come in? If you do not answer in four seconds we will kick down the door.”

– – –

Once Clover's parents returned, the meeting turned awkward and polite. After a few hours of meticulously meaningless conversation concealing deep pools of emotion that neither party wanted to acknowledge, the gathering broke up. Clover's parents and Prince Platinum, accompanied by a score of Royal Knights and PIBs, returned to a location which had to be kept secret due to security concerns, and Clover returned to Canterlot House 1.

She trudged slowly along the streets, staring down at the cobblestones, deep in thought. “I don't know how to feel about this,” she muttered. “Is it this universe that's completely insane? Is any of this going on at home, and do I just not see it? Should I never have left Whinnysor at all? Is there anything I can do to help...?”

After a while she arrived at Swirly Star's Canterlot House 1, and began to climb the rickety staircase to the front door. “Apparently the lives of everypony I know are more fragile than I realized. All the time I've spent with Star Swirl, I've completely lost sight of my loved ones. Hrmph. Well, everypony else may be crazy, but I'm not.” She shook off her slump and stood up straight. “This ends now. It looks like I'm going to be here for another month anyway, and I'm going to spend that time fixing everything.” She smiled as she felt her newfound resolve flow through her. “That's right, Clover,” she said as she opened the door. “Clover Cordelia does not leave her friends behind!”

“Clover!” Swirly Star yelled from somewhere inside, “I've figured out how to get you home! You can leave this entire world behind now.”

“Or perhaps I'm just completely powerless, and am merely tossed about the universe by forces far beyond my comprehension,” Clover said. She saw Swirly Star in the astro-physics section, studying a blackboard covered in arcane equations, and trotted over. “Alright, professor, what have you discovered?”

“Something ingeniously simple,” Swirly Star the Wise said, turning away from the blackboard. “Behold!”

The wizard then presented a small hoof-shaped jar of salt, exactly like Clover's own but painted a slightly darker color.

“Salt?” Clover asked, with a raised eyebrow. “Alright, I'll bite. How is salt going to get me home?”

Swirly Star glowered at her. “You must learn a proper respect and awe for the power of salt, young pony,” Swirly Star said. “Far from being a simple seasoning, salt is a gateway to cosmic wisdom. Let me tell you one of the great truths of the cosmos: salt does not exist inside our universe.”

Clover blinked. “...it doesn't?”

“No, it doesn't. What conclusion do you draw from that?”

“Well, Hockham's Razor would suggest that you're insane, or just lying,” Clover said.

Swirly Star groaned. “Young ponies have no appreciation for the great truths of the cosmos.”

Clover cleared her throat, and continued: “Alright, fine, I'll play. I know from experience that there is generally some nugget of truth in Star Swirl's lunatic declarations,” here Swirly Star shot Clover an unamused stare that was significantly more unamused than normal, “and for the sake of argument I'll assume that's true of you as well.” Clover tapped her hoof on the ground for a few seconds, deep in thought and intently ignoring Swirly Star's glare. “You're saying that all salt is an illusion? Salt exists only in our minds? Or the entire universe is an illusion, and in reality we think and imagine the world into existence, and you only specified salt because you have a weird sense of humor?”

“All wrong,” Swirly Star the Wise said curtly. “Actually, I'm not entirely convinced Star Swirl the Bearded ever agreed to teach you. You could just be a very determined stalker.”

Clover grumbled, and thought. “If salt is real, and there is no salt inside the universe, then wherever there is salt is outside the universe?”

“There! Was that so hard?” Swirly said, rolling her eyes. “At least you're not completely useless.”

“That's more ridiculous than anything Star Swirl the Bearded has ever said to me!”

“This is possible, but unlikely,” Swirly Star said. “Observe.”

Swirly Star placed a hoof on Clover's back, and with a great flash of light, she teleported them away.

When the dots faded from Clover's vision, she saw living orbs linked together in a perfect square grid, stretching to infinity all around them.

She and Swirly Star were standing seemingly on nothing, and everywhere Clover looked she saw only orbs. Each orb was bound in all directions to six others, alternating without exception between two different sizes. The gaps between the orbs was large enough for the two ponies to pass through, and the space between them seemed conveniently to permit them to stand and walk on the nothing inbetween. They went on seemingly forever. There was no open spot in Clover's vision that was not blocked, sooner or later, by an orb.

Clover looked around in mute awe. “So this is...?”

“We are in salt-space, yes.” Swirly Star said. She turned slowly, facing down the multitude of possible passages before settling on one. “This way.”

“The realm of our experience,” Swirly Star began as they walked, “is divided into two parts: salt, and non-salt. Now, much as we can interact with different manifestations of salt from within our universe, from within the salt we can interact with different universes. Theoretically speaking. Pony magic cannot affect salt-space, so normally this does not concern us. Phase hydras, however, can. Phase hydras, as I describe in my work on arcano-cryptozoology, The Other Side of Up, by Star the Wise, Swirly, and Swirl the Bearded, Star, can transcend the normal laws of magical physics in order to make their nests in the vacuum between the atoms of salt crystals. Look around.” Swirly Star gestured to the vast rigid structure all around them. “This is depleted phase hydra nesting-salt. This perfect grid is a microcosm of the multiverse, and conveniently for us, from inside this particular salt-nexus the phase hydras had connected with both my universe, and yours. I discovered this when I delved into the salt in order to drive out the phase hydras a couple of months ago, and met Star Swirl the Bearded inside. So you see, Clover, we will be able to return you to your home world, and Clover to mine, by utilizing one of the fundamental laws of the cosmos: everything is better with salt.”

After a short walk through the seemingly infinite grid, Swirly Star and Clover arrived at an intersection of passages identical, to Clover's eyes, to every other intersection, going in six different directions. “Here we are,” Swirly Star said. “This nexus was the center of the phase hydra nest.”

Clover looked around her. “It's not very homely, is it?”

“Phase hydras have remarkable nesting instincts,” Swirly Star explained. “This place presents no obstacle to them. But in their absence, the salt rapidly returns to its natural grid state.” She raised her head. “Ah, my calculations were correct! Here come the others.”

Clover looked ahead. Two stallions were indeed approaching from directly ahead. One of them raised a hoof to wave just as Clover did the same.

“Oh, good, you made it,” said Star Swirl the Bearded. “I wasn't sure you would make the connection in time.”

“You know just as well as I do that I perfected trans-dimensional thaumic calculus a full two point seven seconds before you did, old codger,” Swirly Star the Wise replied.

“So you keep saying,” Star Swirl said, “but we both know the margin of error for that calculation was ten seconds.”

Swirly Star groaned. “Not the margin of error again. You're going to cling to that margin of error until the night you die. On your death bed, you will whisper to anypony who stands by, 'run the numbers one more time'!”

While the two wizards thus argued, the Clovers stepped away a short distance. They smiled at each other, each with a faint desperation in their eyes they struggled to conceal. “So,” Clover the stallion said, “how have you been?”

A thousand thoughts rushed through Clover the mare's head. “Oh, it's been...” she began, turning her head this way and that to avoid meeting Clover the stallion's eyes as she thought desperately for something to say, “interesting. How about you?”

“Yeah... interesting,” he replied.

They both scratched their manes, studied their hooves, adjusted their cloaks, and did everything else they could possibly think of to avoid looking at each other.

“...So that's us, I guess,” Clover the mare finally said.

“Yeah,” Clover the stallion said. “I guess so.”

“Now we know.”

They both nodded.

“Look, let's just get this over with,” Swirly Star called out loudly from across the nexus. “I have work to do, and this runt,” she waved a hoof at Clover the mare, “has done nothing but make a mess of my home since I brought her in. You can have her back.”

“Agreed,” Star Swirl said, as he turned and trotted back towards the passage he had come from. “Come, Clover! We're going home.”

The Clovers made eye contact one last time, and nodded at each other, in mutual understanding, before they crossed over to their respective mentors. Clover was just about to greet Star Swirl properly when a blinding flash of light struck her, and when she could see again the two of them were back in Canterlot House 1, inside the private lab.

“We're home?” Clover asked. “We're home!”

She ran out into the research hall with a wide grin. “I'm back! In my Cambridle! With my workspace, and my bed-cot, and my—” she gasped, and ran to the bathroom by her workspace. Everything was there as she had left it: her many towels, her scented soaps, her coat conditioner, and...

Her eyes widened. “My manebrush!” she cried, and hugged the implement tightly. “I've missed you so!”

She danced and sang to herself as she took off her cloak and hung it up by the door, and stood under the shower and let the hot water run down her mane and wash away her troubles.

– – –

Alright, Clover, no more dilly-dallying. Now that everything's back to normal, I'm going to meet my parents and have a lovely time with them while they're here. Then, take steps to ensure that everything stays just fine and doesn't fall apart like they have for poor Other Clover. So here's the plan:

Step 1. Spend an hour in the shower. Already did that, check.

Step 2. Find mom and dad and get everything cleared up. On my way there now, check.

Step 3. Fix everything.

That last point may need to be revised along the way. Well, I'll get there.

It was with a glowing smile on her face and a spring in her step that Clover stepped up to her parents suite in Cambridle's grand hotel, and knocked on the door. It opened a second later to reveal a Royal Knight, but Clover's eye was drawn to her parents sitting at a table further in, Ivy speaking and Weather Vane nodding along to what she said while reading a book. They both glanced up at her as she stepped in. “Oh, hello Clover,” Ivy said absent-mindedly before snapping around. “Clover? You've—” She fell silent, watching Clover intently as she drew close.

“Hi, mom, hi, dad,” Clover said. Behind her, the Royal Knight discreetly exited the suite and closed the door behind him. “I'm back home again.”

“Your mane – your hooves!” Ivy grabbed her close and held parts of her up for close inspection. “You're back to normal!”

Clover put on a smile. “Well, let's just say that I'm back home, and everything is all right now, shall we? I'd like to just spend some quality time with my parents now.”

“Oh thank Celestia!” Ivy Cordelia erupted, and shook her head. “Clover, don't scare us like that! The next time you feel like testing our love for you, for the love of the Princess do it the usual way, by telling us you got pregnant and you don't know the father.”

Clover blinked. “...What?”

“I knew it was all a trick! Your father didn't believe me. He wanted to call in the Corrections Brigade!”

“I did not want to call them,” Weather Vane muttered. “You asked me if I had any suggestions, and I mentioned that my mother once considered getting them to talk to,” here there was an almost imperceptible pause, “my brother. That's all.”

“Shush, Weather Vane. But I told him, this is just a test of our parenting abilities and that if we stayed true to our faith then our daughter would be delivered from the wilderness. And here you are! You see, Clover?” Ivy placed her hooves on Clover's cheeks and pinched and rubbed them as she would a little foal. “We know it was a struggle for you to manage the tutoring we gave you as a child. So many of the tutors we interviewed for the position said you couldn't teach diplomatic etiquette to a four-year old, but we found Miss Courtly Manners and here you are, and you are so much better than you would have been! So you see, Clover, this only proves that we were right all along!”

“Mom. Stop.” Clover was no longer smiling. “This wasn't a test. It was just something that happened, and I still never changed into a filly – I mean, a colt. I had just switched places with somepony else, somepony very much like me, and now we've switched back.”

“Don't be silly, darling,” Ivy said. “Of course it was a test. The Princess watches over us constantly. She put a challenge in our path, but she gave us the strength to overcome it, and you've come back to us as you were always meant to be.”

“This is such a load of garbage,” Clover muttered.

Her mother glared at her. “Just because you have been redeemed by Her grace is no reason to start taking the will of the Princess in vain. It's like I told you earlier. Princess Celestia gave you your body and it is your duty to do right by it.”

There was a knock on the door. It opened with a click immediately after, and the Royal Knight peered inside, and said, “Lady Cordelia, her highness wished to—”

He was then interrupted by Princess Platinum throwing the door open and trotting inside. “Is she here?” she asked, just as her eyes settled on Clover.

Clover sighed in relief at the interruption, and turned to her old friend. “Hi, Platinum, nice to see you again.” She shot a sideways glance at her mother. “Maybe you can talk some sense into my parents. They don't listen to me, but maybe they'll listen to the royal... family...?”

Platinum made no answer. Clover shifted her glance to the princess, and saw Platinum staring at her with wide eyes, unblinking, filled with joy. She had one hoof pressed to her muzzle in a failed and half-hearted attempt to conceal her mouth hanging open in a euphoric smile. “You're back!” Platinum gasped, her voice high-pitched and cracking. She leapt forward and clutched Clover in a bone-breaking hug, and Clover could feel her coat wet with a tear where Platinum's cheek pressed against it.

Oh, Clover thought. Right.

Several seconds passed in silence while Platinum held Clover tightly, nopony else moving a muscle. Eventually, Platinum seemed to remember herself. She quickly let go, and assumed a more formal pose and a softer smile. She cleared her throat. “It's good to see you again, Clover. It's been much too long.”

– – –

That night found Clover lying slumped forward on the break room table, staring at the wall. Her jar of salt rolled across the table, batted idly back and forth between her hooves, scattering strands of cosmic potential and possibility across the tablecloth.

“My life,” Clover eventually said to herself, “is a disaster zone.”

“I could have told you that twenty years before you were born,” Star Swirl said behind her, climbing into his comfy chair with another kettle of tea. “You'll reach the end of it sooner or later though.”

Clover had to think about that for a second. Behind her, Star Swirl sipped his tea.

“Star Swirl?” Clover tilted her head to look at her teacher. “What did you think of Clover? The other one, I mean.”

“Him?” Star Swirl snorted. “He was terrible. The entire time he was here he was on the verge of falling apart. There was no fire in his eyes.” He met Clover's eye with a confident smile. “Don't worry about him. He was nowhere near as good as you. If the two of you ever have to fight, you'll win. I'm sure of it.”

Clover closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then let it out. “You know,” she began, “the entire time I was over there, Swirly Star the Wise was saying how useless I was, that I'm weak and pathetic and a huge disappointment compared to the other me. What I've gleaned of the rules suggests that you were treating her Clover the same way here. But him and me are almost exactly the same.” She turned a hurt look on her teacher. “Would it have killed you to be nice to him? To the stranger pony who was trapped in a distant world where everything is twisted and warped? Because if you had been nice to him, then maybe Swirly Star would have been nice to me... and I might have been reassured to know that there was at least one pony who could understand how I felt.”

“Something seems to be bothering you,” Star Swirl said, sitting down beside her with his tea. “I can tell. I'm very sharp when it comes to these things, you know.”

“Bothering me? Oh no!” Clover let out a brief, shrill laugh. “I mean, my teacher only spent several days straight chewing me out in another world, my parents are oblivious bigots who won't listen to a single word I say, their marriage is a sham, and my foalhood playmate has apparently been nursing a life-long crush on me. You see, she thinks my family is the very embodiment of idyllic bliss because hey, my uncles never tried to kill me, while hers did. While I'm sitting here studying magic with you, apparently the lives of everypony I know are falling apart around me, and I don't even notice. But no, there's no bother.” Clover sighed. “Why is everything so complicated, professor?”

“Because ponies,” he said severely, “are mostly morons, and generally jerks, and we are better off without them.”

“We are ponies, Star Swirl,” Clover said.

“Arguably,” Star Swirl said. “In a manner of speaking. There are ways to get around that.”

For a second it looked like Clover was going to respond and begin a heated argument about the value of ponykind, but instead she looked away, and slumped forward again with a sigh.

Star Swirl sat quietly, watching his student while deep in thought.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

Clover made the muscle movements to nod, though since her muzzle was resting on the table it had no visible effect. “Yes, I know you don't—” Clover began, then realized what she had heard. She turned her head to face him. “...You're what?”

“I'm sorry,” Star Swirl said again. His voice was rather flat, but there was no mockery on his face. “You're right. We weren't very helpful. We didn't realize this was quite so difficult for you two.”

A few more seconds passed in awkward silence as Clover only stared at him with wide eyes. Once she realized what she was doing, she turned away, shifted her posture, and said in a calm, quiet voice: “Thank you, professor. I accept your apology.”

Star Swirl shook his head. “I distinctly recall disapproving of that mask, Clover.” He watched her closely for a moment, deep in thought. “You know what you need?” he said, as he used his magic to open a nearby cupboard and brought out a bottle from within. “You need to learn to stop worrying. Thankfully, there's a magic potion for that.”

He placed the bottle on the table in front of her, along with two glasses. Clover looked at the label: there was a picture of Clover herself in profile, her head turned to face out from the paper. She was standing on her hind-legs, her forelegs raised up in joyous exuberance with big eyes and a smile on her face. Standing opposite her was an earth pony mare, mirroring her pose. She had her mane tied in a long ponytail, matching her actual tail, a cutie mark of three apples, and she was wearing some sort of hat that wouldn't be fashionable for centuries.

Between the two ponies was written, in huge letters, “CLOVER BRAND APPLEJACK.” Underneath, in tiny, barely legible print, it read “Canterlot House 1 Brewery, Cambridle.”

“Is this the bottle you had me make?” Clover asked. Star Swirl nodded. “Didn't you say this was terrible?”

Star Swirl shrugged. “Well, maybe it wasn't that bad. For a first try, it was actually quite passable.” He poured the two glasses, and took a sip from his own, gesturing for her to do likewise.

Clover rose up to a proper sitting position, and gently sniffed the drink. Then she raised it to her mouth and took the tiniest little sip.

A powerful shudder ran through her as she felt the liquor burning across her tongue and down her throat, into her stomach, and from there through every part of her body. She coughed, half-expecting to see a plume of smoke emerge from her mouth.

Star Swirl nodded. “That's the feeling of other ponies' problems leaving your mind. Reapply it as needed.”

Clover steeled herself and took another, slightly larger sip. This time she was prepared, and only shuddered a little bit. Then she took another, and by now she could feel the tension in her beginning to unwind. “I think it's working. But I'm not going to make a habit of it.”

“Suit yourself,” Star Swirl said. “When you come crawling home after a late night out with your friends, I'll teach you my hangover spell.”

Star Swirl emptied his glass, and filled it again. Clover did the same, and they both drank.

After a while, Clover giggled softly to herself. “...Star Swirl the Bearded apologized to me,” she mumbled, with a grin. “Somepony fetch the pebble.”

“Don't be silly,” Star Swirl said with a somber voice. “That was only a level eight anomaly. Nine at most.”

Clover chuckled. Star Swirl made no sound but Clover could see the tiniest hint of a smirk in one secluded corner of his lip.

“Come on,” Star Swirl said, levitating the bottle and his glass. “Let's go up to the observatory. I want to show you something.”

A minute later they were out on the balcony, one of the highest points of the building, looking up at the sky. The Council of Horns had lowered the sun for the night, and the stars and the moon hung placidly in place.

“I have a Star in my name,” Star Swirl said. “Always I watch things from a distance. Sometimes, when nearness is needed, I don't provide. I can read the future in the stars, but even I don't know everything, and sometimes...”

Star Swirl stared up at the moon in silence.

“I'd just like you to know,” he continued, “there are... things I regret, as well. Life happens to all of us, even to me. There were things I let slip by, while I was doing something else. Important things, things I really should have been watching more closely. I hobbled away, and spent decades thinking about what I had done wrong.” He paused, awkwardly, struggling to find the words. “The point is, and this may come as a shock to you, I'm not completely heartless. I just wanted to tell you that I know how you feel, and I sympathize.”

“I know you do,” Clover said. “That's what's so frustrating. I know you can be a kind pony, Star Swirl. You just keep choosing not to be.”

Star Swirl shrugged. “Anypony who comes to me and asks for my expertise gets an honest answer. It's not my fault that everypony thinks I'm half-demon.” He scratched his beard. “Okay, maybe it's partly my fault. But mostly ponies are just short-sighted fools who fear what they do not understand, and rarely learn to understand anything new. Unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi alike.” He took a sip from his glass and refilled it. “The good reasons for them to fear me, though, are mostly completely forgotten now. It was all written down in the archives of a city that no longer exists. Only fifth-hoof accounts remain, or higher.”

“So why not tell them the truth, and set the record straight?” Clover asked.

“Well, that sounds tedious and time-consuming.” Star Swirl shook his head. “I don't care what ponies think of me, Clover. It doesn't matter. I'm going to continue my work regardless.”

“It does matter,” Clover said. “Ponies matter, Star Swirl. Not being a monster matters. You might not care what ponies think about you, but I know you care about ponies.”

“Do you now,” he said flatly.

Clover narrowed her eyes and scrutinized her teacher. “I know there is some good in you, professor,” she said. “I am going to open you up, and I am going to find it, and I'm going to rip it out of your chest cavity and show it to the world.”

Star Swirl raised an eyebrow. “Somepony's getting ambitious.”

Clover nodded. “No matter how you struggle, now matter how you fight against me, I'm going to show the world the Star Swirl the Bearded I know is in there. The one who cares about ponies, and does good. The one who thinks that the world is worth fighting for, and doesn't hesitate to put himself in harm's way to protect it. And when I'm done, everypony in the world is going to adore you, whether you like it or not.”

Star Swirl's mouth curled into a wry smile. He lifted his glass, and clinked it against hers. “That's quite a challenge. I approve.”

The two ponies' eyes met in an impromptu staring contest, and neither backed down as they raised their glasses in a toast, then drank.

Author's Note

In memory of Robin Williams.

Clover's dad's name, Weather Vane, is (by my count) a quadrouple entendre, with three more subtle meanings beyond the plain meaning. ~~Star Swirl Points will be given out to anyone who can identify its various meanings.~~ EDIT: All intended meanings have now been found. Points for a job well done go to these observant readers:

Meaning 1: He turns with the prevailing wind, the wind being his wife. 1 Star Swirl point to Literary Sins!

Meaning 2: Hard Reset reference. 1 Star Swirl point to FanOfMostEverything!

Meaning 3: Weather Vanes swing in all directions. Weather Vane/Uncle Amber OTP. 1 Star Swirl point to Night_Song!

Intermission: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Smooze

Author's Note

Written for the third anniversary of The Education of Clover the Clever, a week delayed.

Intermission: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Smooze

“Come along, boy,” Clover said, tugging on the leash with her magic as she read the list Star Swirl had given her.

It was summer in Cambridle, and Clover was ready to face the day head-on. She was on a mission. There were supplies to collect, packages to deliver, tasks to complete. Screams to ignore.

She tugged the leash again. “Come on now, stop bothering the ponies.”

On the other end of the leash was an improved shoggoth, a greenish blob of slime that was about twice as tall as Clover, and the collar of the leash was submerged deep inside its gelatinous bulk.

Clover did not know where the shoggoth had come from, or why, as all the other shoggoths had disappeared after partially remaking Cambridle in handsome alien architecture. Nonetheless, when she had woken up that morning there was one inside Canterlot House, and Star Swirl told her to take it for a walk, and gave her a list of chores to do while she was at it.

She had been uncertain about the leash, which was not magical and could not actually restrain an amorphous gelatinous mass. It seemed to enjoy mashing on the collar though, and would follow along to keep up when Clover tugged on it, so all in all the arrangement seemed to be working.

“Let’s see, first on the list is a delivery.”

Clover knew the package, as she had packed it herself: it was a charm to ward off wasps and hornets from attacking bee hives, to be delivered to farmer Honey Dew outside of town. Easy, she thought. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

– – –

The delivery had indeed been easy. It was a quick trot out of town, the roads were clearly marked, and Honey Dew’s farm was easily located. The shoggoth had drawn some attention, and some screaming, but nopony was interested in getting in her way.

She hadn’t expected the bees to be quite so excited though.

“Well, the ward seems to be working,” Clover said cheerfully.

She and Honey Dew, a golden-coated earth pony mare, were staring mesmerized at the sight of half a million bees crawling on a shoggoth.

“Tekeli-li!” trilled the shoggoth, shifting its mass back and forth in a rhythmic gyration. It did not seem to mind the dozen swarms that, upon seeing it, had quickly decided that it was delicious.

Unfortunately Honey Dew was not quite so enthusiastic.

“This will completely ruin their diet,” she sputtered. “They might get sick. Do you know how much it costs to get a veterinary to treat a dozen bee hives? They charge by number of patients!”

“There’s really nothing in the literature on shoggoths to suggests there’s anything toxic in their chemical makeup,” Clover gently commented.

“Do you know what that thing is even made of?”

“I guess it’s kind of sugary?” Clover suggested.

“Yeah, clearly,” Honey Dew muttered. “But what will the honey taste like? Do you think anypony is going to buy shoggoth-flavored honey? Because I sure don’t!”

“It might possibly have magical side-effects,” Clover admitted. “But I doubt they’d be harmful. The improved shoggoths are really very friendly.”

The bees, being very organized creatures, had swiftly settled upon a logistical structure to maximize their cargo from the shoggoth. Airborne trains were speeding back and forth between it and the hives, which were quickly filling to capacity. Honey Dew looked on in helpless despair.

Clover nodded slowly. “I think,” she began, “I may have a suggestion.”

– – –

The posters were already drawn up and hanging around town by the time Clover reached her next stop. The posters advertised Honey Dew’s probably magical honey, for sale to Cambridle Academy of Magic students interested to experiment upon a brand new, never-before-seen magical reagent that had come to the earth from distant worlds, effects as-yet undiscovered and potentially limitless, available for a limited time only while supplies last, for the low low price of ten times the cost of a regular jar of honey. Verified as such with expert magical testimony by the legendary wizard Star Swirl the Bearded’s apprentice.

If Clover knew her fellow students, they’d be galloping out to the farm and fighting each other over every jar. Clover had placed an order in advance for herself, and had gotten a significant discount out of gratitude.

Thankfully the bees had been willing to leave the shoggoth, with some mild pleading and cajoling by Honey Dew, in exchange for a promise that it would come to visit again the next time it was in town.

The shoggoth had not visibly shrunk, in spite of the gallons of total material the bees had carried off, and indeed seemed more cheerful than it had been when they left Canterlot House.

“Let me see,” Clover checked the list. “Re-stock basic groceries and spell components. Alright.”

She headed back to the market, shoggoth in tow, and set about running down the list.

Oats. Check.

Oats (enchanted). Check.

Ground wheat flour. Check.

Fresh carrots. Check.

Fresh apples (cider grade). Check.

Fresh lettuce. Check.

Sinister lettuce. Check.

Milk. Check.

Milk (magical). Check.

Milk (goat) (magical). Check.

Milk (goat) (magical) (mirror) (condescending).

...I’ll get back to that one later. Moving on.

Cauldron polish. Check.

Eye of Newt (prime grade). Check.

Mandrake Root. Check.

Toe of Frog (salted). Check.

Petals of Goldenbloom, a flower that only grows on the mountaintops of the south in midsummer, available by the pound in florist Hyacinth’s. Check.

Wait, are these magical reagents or groceries? I can’t tell.

2 carats of 3rd-grade gemstone to feed the shoggoth. Check.

“Looks like we’re ahead of schedule,” she said happily. “I think I’ve earned a break for a cup of tea.”

– – –

“Thanks for coming with me, I hope you weren’t too busy,” Clover said.

“Not at all,” Ginny the Librarian said drily. “I finally have the students house-trained, they mostly look after themselves now. But I must ask about…”

They were at Black Bean’s Coffee Shop. Clover had gone to the library to meet with Ginny, but since the library had a recent but strict ban on shoggoths (Star Swirl had grumbled that this was insensitive, as not all shoggoths were bad), they had to find someplace else to have their lunch.

The shoggoth was encompassing the next table over, and half of one chair. While Clover knew it did not have a face, and generally expressed itself through sound and gelatinous gesture, it seemed to have learned to form a hollow on its side that mimicked a smiling mouth.

As such it was able to look very pleased with itself.

“Yeah,” Clover said. She tossed a gemstone at the shoggoth, which it swallowed up eagerly. “It was kind of just there this morning. I didn’t ask. Sometimes you’ve just gotta roll with it.”

Ginny nodded thoughtfully. “Your resilience is commendable,” the elderly librarian said. “That said, I can’t have Star Swirl running around performing experiments that might destroy the town again. I will have to investigate where this one came from.”

Clover shrugged, enjoying her sandwich.

– – –

After lunch, Clover took to the streets and set out for her next round of deliveries. Everywhere she went heads turned, and Clover confidently told herself that this was as much because of her poise and verve as because of the shoggoth.

“Hi, Chocolate Bunnies,” Clover called out to her old roommate as they passed each other on the street.

“Hi Clover!” Chocolate Bunnies called back, waving a hoof excitedly. Behind her the three leaders of the Discordians waited inconspicuously. “Sorry, can’t chat, I have to find a good place to dig a smuggling tunnel!”

“Oh. Well, I’m just taking the shoggoth out for a walk, so… I guess I can’t really argue with the sense in that.”

“Guess not. Funny how that works, isn’t it?”

“Yup, it sure is.”

“Anyway, it’s great to see you, we really need to catch up some time and tell each other allll about what we’ve been up to, but just not now. Okay seeya bye!”

Clover looked up at the smiling not-quite-a-face of the shoggoth. “Yup. It most surely is.”

– – –

“Okay, the next delivery should be out here someplace.”

“Tekeli-liiii!”

Clover and the shoggoth had wandered at a measured pace all across Cambridle. They had made deliveries, retrieved specialized goods, and had once observed an anomaly of ducks and made notes on the proceedings. By now it was getting to be late in the afternoon. They found themselves on the edge of a public green on the outskirts of the city, in a tiny cluster of trees where no-one went.

This was the last item on her list of chores. Clover had finished all her other tasks, and had believed herself to be done already when she found the last package on the bottom of her saddlebags with a note from Star Swirl attached instructing her to go to this place, and then read on.

“Step one: Plant the seeds in the pouch marked ‘The Cycle,’ in the soil between the four central trees.” Clover glanced around and verified that she was in the right spot. “Okay, that’s easy enough.”

She dug a shallow hole with her hoof and spread the tiny seeds inside, then closed the hole. “Step two: Water the seeds with the bottle marked ‘The Spokes.’ Okay.”

She retrieved the bottle, a small crystal vial which contained something timeless and shimmering, and poured the contents onto the soil. Mid-fall, the droplets turned into liquid light and distant laughter, and as it hit the earth it made a relaxed sighing sound.

She looked back to the list, and frowned at the next step, because she was pretty sure it had not been there a moment previously. “Step three: retrieve the ALL from the improved shoggoth’s hat and apply it to the FOUNDATION in order to form The Nexus.”

She looked to the shoggoth. It had not moved, she was sure of it, except to shift back and forth a bit like a child excitedly exploring a new playground. Nonetheless, it was now wearing a blue top hat and a red bow tie. It smiled, and waited expectantly.

Clover gently picked the hat from the top of the shoggoth and looked inside to see a swirling vortex of infinite perspective and decision. She experimentally tipped the hat out over the seeded and watered soil, and the hat’s contents fell, shrinking into invisibility as it raced towards gravity.

She put the hat back on top of the shoggoth. “I hope there isn’t a step in here about your bow tie because right now I just don’t want to know.”

The shoggoth trilled and cooed sympathetically.

“Moving on, let’s see, step four. Draw the Sigil of Bal-Sheoth upon the ground around The Nexus using this enchanted chalk.” Clover scanned the chalk. “Enchanted for traction, longevity and water resistance. Alright.”

She drew the complex rune to form a circle around the spot while the shoggoth watched, whistling a merry tune to herself as she went.

“Done!” she said with all the severity befitting her errand. “Step five: Wielding the courage of the ancients and the resolve of legendary heroes, stomp your front hooves upon the sigil and proclaim ‘The powers of the earth summon thee! The powers of the air compel thee! The powers of the unseen light binds thee! The powers of the companion shadow casts thee out forever!’ Note: Do not turn your back upon it and do not heed its whispers.”

Clover stood unmoving for several minutes staring at step five.

“Tekeli-li?”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

“Tekeli-liii...”

“...Consarnit, you’re right. Okay, I’ll do it.”

Levitating the script in front of her, Clover placed both front hooves on the sigil. She reared up on her hindlegs and stomped the ground with all the might she could muster. It made a dull “dfft”-sound.

“The powers of the earth summon thee! The powers of the air compel thee! The powers of the unseen light binds thee! The powers of the companion shadows casts thee out forever! No, wait, shadow! Singular!”

There was an explosion of light and unspace that overwhelmed her senses and flooded her mind with awareness. In that brief moment of sharply proximity-limited omniscience she saw the seeds flower into immaterial beings of pure knowledge, observers of the earth, adjudicators of floral disputes, advisers to beings who could not exist upon the physical plane.

They rose upward and were met within the sigil by an unknowable entity from the underside of the cosmos, whose form was inconceivable to her pony eyes. A being who radiated such primal force as would crumble the bonds that held space-time together if it were ever permitted to walk freely in the same universe as her. A being of pure entropy, of apocalypse given conscience and purpose and form. She felt the whispers assail her, bringing portents of doom and destruction.

“Hey,” it said. Its voice was deep and gravelly, but not unpleasant.

“Hi,” Clover said weakly, staring up in boundless terror.

“Is that my package?” The being gestured, somehow, towards the energy beings.

“Um. Yes?”

“Great. I’ll just take those and get out of your hair.”

“Okay.”

“Cool. Alright, I’m done here. Oh, and your teacher said you could go back now.”

With a flash of light everything was gone, leaving only Clover and the improved shoggoth standing alone amid the trees in a public green on the edge of town.

– – –

“Come on, boy! You can do it,” Clover said, encouraging the shoggoth on to climb the stairs to Canterlot House. “Or, girl? I guess these terms don’t really apply to a gelatinous blob.”

The shoggoth, still wearing the top hat and bow tie, seemed happy as always at climbing the steep and narrow stairs, even as its bulk drooped dangerously over the side. “Tekeli-li.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Once on top, Clover retrieved the key from under the doormat and opened the door. They passed through the entry hall with its many strange smells and potentially endless storage space and entered the research hall.

The lights went on. “Surprise!”

There was a trumpet blast that initiated a brass band playing as fireless fireworks exploded in bursts of confetti. A crowd of ponies wearing an average of one party hat, distributed unevenly, looked at her with smiling faces. Ginny was there, as was Chocolate Bunnies as well as some of her other student friends. A translucent astral projection of Swirly Star the Wise stood to one side, occasionally casting suspicious looks at Ginny. The barista from Black Bean’s was there, and a glittery-eyed Princess Platinum flanked by PIBs.

The PIBs immediately surrounded Clover and patted her down. “She’s clean,” one of them said, and they withdrew. They moved on to pat down the shoggoth, and froze, uncertain how to proceed.

Clover wasn’t paying attention any more, and stood stunned before the crowd like a deer with the stage frights. “Huh?”

“Oh, don’t mind them,” Platinum said. “So sorry, they’re always doing that. But never mind that. It’s so good to see you!”

Platinum reached in for a hug, and Clover tensed for a moment, then relaxed and reciprocated. “Hi Platty, it’s good to see you again. So, um, what are we doing here exactly?”

“See? I told you she’d be surprised,” said the voice of Star Swirl the Bearded, pushing his way through the crowd. “Ahem. Hello, Clover. Happy birthday!”

“Tekeli-li!”

“What?”

“You’d better appreciate it. The research hall is not at all suited for hosting parties – Hey you, don’t touch that! That’s very fragile! - and it took me all day to organize this.”

Clover blinked, and glanced at Platinum. “It took you one day to organize a royal visit?”

“Platinum was reasonably cooperative.”

Platinum grinned, long eyelashes batting with each blink. “Well, I wasn’t about to miss my old playmate’s birthday.”

Clover nodded and took in the sight, accepting hoofshakes and hugs from all the guests who came forward to deliver them. Star Swirl beamed, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“Well, this is all very nice, Professor, and I appreciate it very much,” Clover said. “But you know that my birthday was last week, right?”

“What? Oh. Well, that just makes the party all the more surprising, doesn’t it?”

Clover gave Star Swirl a bemused look. Platinum looked distinctly unimpressed and Ginny facehoofed.

“Look, the only reason I was late is because time got in the way,” Star Swirl said. “It’s not my fault that a week somehow managed to pass by since I sent Clover out with a list of chores this morning to keep her out of the house while I arranged all this. That’s just what time does.”

“Miss? Excuse me?” One of the PIBs attempted to draw their attention, and before he could say more he joined his companions in being enveloped by the shoggoth. The shoggoth opened its mouth in a wide toothless grin. “Tekeli-li!”

Chocolate Bunnies, Ginny, Clover, Platinum, and Star Swirl all looked at it, and each of them found an individual reason not to worry.

“They’ll be fine.”

Epilogue: Ghosts

It was a week after the exam, and Canterlot House was quiet.

Clover the Clever had been reading the same page of her textbook – Coffeemancy for Advanced Learners by Bearded, the, et al – for fifteen minutes, but had not absorbed a word of it. Her mind was occupied with other things, as it had been a lot lately.

“Professor?” Clover said, looking at her teacher. The stallion was sitting quietly on the library platform in the center of the house, reading a book.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been thinking a bit more about the infant multiverse. And I have some questions.”

“Oh yes? Do tell.”

– – –

The three Discordians sat alone in the barn on the edge of Cambridle.

It was just the three of them now. All their allies and followers had returned to their homes, and they sat in awkward silence, each waiting for one of the others to speak.

“Maybe… We can think of something else to try,” Gallopsky said quietly.

“Well,” Cutting Edge muttered, “I think… it can be worth keeping the parts that worked. But yeah.”

Gallopsky ran a hoof through his wild mane, and scratched behind his ears. “Yeah… Maybe.”

They fell silent again.

“Well… Maybe we could—” Silk Road began, then broke off. The other two looked at her, and she winced. “No, nevermind. You’ll hate it.” She drooped her head. “I want to help. But I know I don’t fit in here, and I know you two don’t… like me much. I’m not an idiot. I get it.”

“We like you,” Cutting Edge said. Silk Road scoffed, but Cutting Edge nodded. “We do! We just…” She saw Gallopsky’s eyes narrow. “I’m just no good at showing it. But I wouldn’t keep letting you hang out here otherwise.”

Gallopsky rolled a hoof, a gesture that said ‘keep going’. Cutting Edge glared at him. “Look, you’re… Well, yeah, you’re kinda stuffy. You’re all about the boring stuff. That doesn’t mean you don’t fit in. It just makes it funnier that you’re here. And… we need someone to do that stuff, I guess. You know?”

“It wouldn’t be Discord if everything fit perfectly together,” Gallopsky said. “I don’t really say it enough. But I’m glad you’re here. Both of you.”

Silk Road blushed, and Cutting Edge blushed and turned away, glaring.

Gallopsky squeed and rubbed his hooves together. Both mares glared at him, then softened their glances.

“You know, I’ve wondered,” Gallopsky began, “just what does your dad think we do in here all night, anyway?”

Cutting Edge shrugged. “Make art? Honestly, I think he’s just happy I have some friends.”

“I’m happy to have you as a friend too,” Silk Road said quietly, and she smiled. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“You know…” Gallopsky said. “I was walking home from town earlier, and they were putting up posters for a thing…”

– – –

“The Hoof said that it had torn you to bits," Clover said to her teacher. "And at first I thought that you only woke up when I defeated the Hoof and found Chocolate Bunnies… like you told me to do. But then I realized something. Because while I was in there I met Swirly Star the Wise.”

– – –

“So many books,” Chocolate Bunnies muttered, looking up at the mountainous pile.

“It looks worse than it is,” Clover the Clever said. “Don’t worry! We have almost all summer. Plus I’ve prepared a reading list for when I’m away. I’ll be quizzing you once I’m back, so don’t fall behind.”

“I’ll bring a book when I’m in line at the circus,” Chocolate Bunnies said, and sighed. “Really, I’m just happy they agreed to let everypony retake the exams before the second year starts. Even me.”

“Star Swirl rule,” Clover said. “The university is pretty forgiving about students who succumb to demonic possession.” She gave her friend an encouraging nudge. “Not to worry, Bunnies. Thanks to the Professor, I know this material inside and out. I’m going to tutor you to within an inch of your life.”

Bunnies chuckled. “Thanks, Clover,” she said. “And thanks for letting me use your room. Mine is still full of unused weapons.”

“We probably need to decide what to do about the trebuchet, too,” Clover said.

Bunnies nodded, and the two of them looked out the window to where the elaborate sculpture of the Lord of Chaos still stood in the street, smirking at passersby.

“You think the animal shelter ponies would like it?” Bunnies suggested.

– – –

“It took me a while before I spotted that clue,” Clover admitted. “I thought the sprite that was following me around was really you, and that Swirly Star was herself… But I know that much as you want to deny it, Swirly Star really is almost exactly the same as you. 98.2% parallel, wasn’t it?”

Star Swirl very carefully showed no expression. Clover continued. “Which means it’s almost completely certain that while I was talking to her, you were talking to my stallion double, and he was running around with Swirly Star the Sprite as he tried to deal with the same problem I was dealing with on the other side of the multiverse. And that makes perfect sense, in some strange way, because his world and mine are linked through the salt, which was the foundation for the whole infant multiverse.”

Star Swirl said nothing. Clover looked him in the eyes. “You weren’t gone at all, were you, Professor? You switched places to hide your tracks, but you were both keeping close watch on us the entire time.”

– – –

Professor Quick Quill stretched out lazily on his towel, enjoying the summer sun on the beach, plans for the evening already sorted. He smiled. He had wanted this for a year, and now he finally had it. Even if the way it had happened was… unusual.

“What? Oh. Fine.” That was what Dean Cinch had said when he had asked for some time off. She had been slumped over her desk in her office all day, ignoring her usual work of plotting her perpetuity and countermanaging her subordinates doing the same. What’s more, when they came to her asking for her instructions she told them that whatever they wanted was probably fine.

They didn’t know how to deal with that. All the plots and counterplots were paralyzed, rendered ineffective by the absence of a force to push against, leaving the faculty quiet and aimless with their lesson plans.

– – –

“It’s true that I was not completely insensible, as the Hoof believed,” Star Swirl the Bearded said. “And it’s true that I had some safeguards in place, in the event that something somehow managed to attack my mind directly, as it did. And yes, part of me was paying attention to you as you progressed.”

“Ponies’ lives were in danger, and you left it to me to figure out how to deal with it. That was very reckless of you, Star Swirl.”

– – –

“There,” Dusty said as he loaded the hay bale onto the cart. “That’s the last of them.” He wiped his brow with a hoof, and sat down to catch his breath.

“Thanks for the kindness, stranger,” said the mare, and fastened the tail board. “It would have taken me another hour to load all that by myself.”

The cart was certainly loaded, and Dusty could not imagine how the mare, no bigger than he, could possibly hope to pull its weight all by herself. Nonetheless she did, as he walked beside her, chatting, on her way to the next town.

“So what brings you out on the road?” she asked, glancing up and down the unicorn. “You don’t look like somepony who spends a lot of time outdoors, no offense.”

“None taken,” Dusty said. “No, I’m not. But I needed a change of pace.”

“Well, if you don’t have any plans for the night, my cousin got me some tickets for a show that’s passing through town, and I got one extra. Let me repay the favor.”

“Huh,” Dusty smiled softly. “That could be fun.”

– – –

“I will admit that the Hoof proved somewhat more resourceful than I had expected,” Star Swirl said. “But it was only a minor chaos spirit. It was never going to present a real threat. Look, it couldn’t even manage to take over the school, and that was after almost a year of planning.”

“It almost became the god of its own multiverse, professor!”

“Yes, it did,” Star Swirl conceded. He looked off towards the balcony, to the night sky. “But there was something else too, something whispering to me…” He looked back to his student, and shook his head. “It was not my task to complete. I watched you, and you stopped it. You can be angry at me all you want, but I can recognize a touch of destiny when I see it.”

– – –

It had been a warm and beautiful day when Clover stepped out of Canterlot House 1 with a list of chores to do in town.

She did not notice anypony trailing her, but she realized later that of course she wouldn’t have.

All she knew was that she turned a corner, and there right in front of her on a road marker there lay a bundle of fabric, simple and brown, and she knew immediately what it was.

She picked it up gently in her magic, then turned all around her. The street was full of ponies going about their daily business, and her eyes moved rapidly from one to the next.

A nondescript stallion met her eyes for just a moment. His head dipped, ever so slightly, and then he was gone.

– – –

“You know, as I moved through the infant multiverse, I began to realize there was a message in it,” Clover said. “A message for me. And for you. It’s about how ponies are connected.”

Clover took a moment to put her thoughts into words, and her teacher waited for her to continue. “I knew all those ponies, except for three. They knew each other, and they knew Bunnies, and I knew her. I was the connection, and I had to rebuild it, and bring them all back together… But the one pony that was never connected to anything in there was you, Star Swirl.”

Star Swirl said nothing.

“You’re right, professor. There was a touch of destiny in there. And there still is. It’s not finished yet. There’s one more thing I have to do.” Clover stood in front of her teacher, her head held high. “Professor? I want you to give me a boon.”

“A boon?” Star Swirl raised an eyebrow at that. He stood before his apprentice and looked at her thoughtfully, curiously. “Very well. I will grant it. What do you want?”

– – –

One by one the ponies filed into the big tent, having gotten their popped corn and their cloud candy and their fruit juice from the stalls outside. They were ponies of every tribe, from every walk of life, come for a night of relaxation and entertainment, and they found their seats on the cheap wooden benches in the tent that had been raised overnight, and they watched as the ringleader took the stage and the show began.

There were clowns, jugglers, trick archers, and a carefully staged buffalo stampede. There were lion tamers, dancing bears, and unicorn magic shows. There were synchronized pegasus formation fliers zooming around under the canopy at great speeds, leaving behind multi-colored contrails that left the audience dizzy and delighted, the air filled with ooohs and aaahs of amazement and appreciation.

“And now,” the ringleader announced, “for our final act of the show! Far from the distant lands of the Griffon Empire, feast your eyes upon the death-defying stunts of the world’s greatest acrobat, the amazing Pin!”

On his cue, the griffon fell backwards from the top of the tent’s center pole, plummeting towards the hard ground, the rope tied around his barrel keeping his wings closed tight. At the last moment he grabbed a rope and was flung across the ring, spinning mid-air before finally landing on his paws on a narrow platform.

He turned and bowed as the applause washed over him, and proceeded to do a dozen tricks, each more daring than the last, where one false move could have killed him. All the while the audience watched in rapt attention, gasping at each new peril, and cheering at each safe landing.

At the end of his routine, the magical fireworks went off and he grinned, sweating, with the satisfaction of a job well done.

– – –

“This was a very bad idea,” Star Swirl the Bearded said.

“Don’t say that,” Clover the Clever said with a smile. “You haven’t even spoken to them yet.”

Star Swirl grumbled. “How did you even find them?”

“I talked to Ginny,” Clover said. “She went to the Royal Archives in Whinnysor. They found your old personal file from back when you worked for the Unicorn King.”

“Those archives are classified, Clover. Those are state secrets.”

“The Mystical Order of Librarians has ways of finding information,” Clover said. “Ginny found your parents’ names in there. From there it was easy.”

It was midsummer, and the roads had been lush and lovely, thick with flowers under the sun. They had traveled north for a long time, and now they had come to their destination.

They halted at the border of the city, and looked at it.

“I never thought I’d ever go back to this place,” Star Swirl said under his breath.

“You can’t save the world unless you’re part of it, Professor,” Clover the Clever said. “This will be good for you.”

They stood there in silence for a minute before Clover tugged at the hem of his robe. “Come on, Professor. Let’s go.”

He nodded.

They stepped forward across the marker and entered the city of Edinspur.

Neither of them spoke as they trotted down the street. It was evening, but the midsummer sun was still high in the sky, and all around them ponies were working to prepare for the festival. They drew a few odd looks, two unicorns in wizard robes in an earth pony city, but Clover nodded, smiling warmly, at everypony.

They found the correct address, and without a word, Clover knocked. A teenage colt opened. “Hi,” Clover said. “Is this the house of Willow and Windy Wheat?”

The colt turned. “Pa! Somepony to see you!” He glanced back at Clover, and said, in a stage whisper. “Somepony pointy!”

“I’m coming,” a gruff voice said, and a middle-aged stallion trotted into view. Clover recognized him immediately, though she had never seen him before. He stopped at the sight of them, and blinked. His mouth opened, as if to speak, but he didn’t say a word.

She looked to her teacher. He stood stiffly, awkwardly, and looked at the stallion, but said nothing.

“Are you… Star Swirl the Bearded?” the stallion asked.

Star Swirl made no reply. “He is,” Clover said. “You must be Willow Wheat?”

The stallion nodded.

Star Swirl looked intently at the stallion. “My word,” the wizard said under his breath. “Do you know, you are the spitting image of your great-grandfather?”

“My grandmother used to tell us stories about you,” the stallion said quietly. “When I grew up I stopped believing them. But she always insisted.”

“They were all true,” Star Swirl said.

Willow Wheat turned to Clover. “And this is…?”

“I’m Clover the Clever,” Clover said. “I’m his apprentice, not a relative. Very pleased to meet you.”

Willow Wheat nodded. “Please, come inside. Children!” He called out through the door. “Come down, all of you. There is somepony special for you to meet.”

He led them into a cozy living room where a large family had gathered for the summer sun celebration, elders and adults and teens and foals alike. The whole flock looked at them curiously as they came in.

Star Swirl halted in the doorway. “We are intruding,” he muttered. “We shouldn’t have come.”

Clover nudged him forward. “Go on, Professor.”

He stepped inside, and they closed the door behind them.

The End.

Author's Note

The end?

I lied.

Come back in a few days for one last bonus chapter:

The Phantom in the Halls
Or, Star Swirl vs Cigarettes.
A Canterlot High story.