Chapters The kettle whistled loudly, causing the grey coated, elderly stallion to wake from his involuntary nap. He looked about in confusion for just a moment, before he realized the sound was that of the water boiling. He grumbled good naturedly about how boiling water shouldn’t be allowed to scare stallion as old as he. A small huff escaped him as he forced his old body out of the cushioned chair, moving for the small kitchenette where the kettle whistled its horrendous tune.
The room itself was simple. It was circular in shape, with a single bed and cupboard to the right of the door. A pedestal-like desk for working stood between the bed and the wall, though it looked largely unused, with only a few pieces of paper, an almost untouched inkwell, and a quill lying neatly beside it.
To the left of the door was a small fireplace made out of stone. A twin pair of cushioned, and reasonably comfortable, chairs were placed in front of it at a slight angle. At the end of the room there was the small kitchenette, with only the most necessary equipment: bronze pots and pans, dishes, and a few utensils. Two wooden mugs completed the set, incidentally also being on top of the small mountain of dirty dishes, waiting to be washed. Two windows either side of the sink allowed the sun to illuminate the room.
Between the bed and the kitchenette was a table with four chairs, all wooden and simple in design. To the far right of the room, between the kitchen and fireplace, was a wooden door that lead to the private study and personal library of the owner of this home.
“Now now, calm down little one,” the stallion said in a kind voice, directing his words to the kettle as it was surrounded by his grey-white aura. A porcelain cup, the only one he had managed to find in the past ten or so years, levitated over. A few dried leaves made their way from a dwindling supply on the shelf, into the cup, boiling water soon following.
“Aaah,” he sighed, taking a deep breath of the brew. “Tea is such a rare thing these days. A lot of the Earth Ponies’ seeds and saplings were lost in the snow. Even now, more than ten years later, we still have trouble growing some of the more exotic plants. This place’s climate just isn’t the same as the old.”
A loud tapping on his front door brought him out of his reverie. Reluctantly, he set down his mug, turning towards the door with a small sigh. His magic grasped around the handle and he opened it.
“Yes?” He asked, looking down at a dark green earth pony stallion. His mane was shaggy and he looked as if he was barely out of his teens. He looked up at Star Swirl, quivering, his eyes betraying some fear for the unicorn even after years of being united.
“Star Swirl the Bearded, correct?” The stallion inquired, looking hopeful.
“The beard gave it away, didn't it?” Star Swirl joked, glancing down at it with a small, proud smile. “So, what can I do for you, young one?”
The other stallion appeared hesitant for just a moment before he looked up with a serious expression on his face. “My name is Rhubarb Silver --no the rhubarbs I grow aren’t silver-- and I was told to get you and lead you to the council.”
Star Swirl looked confused for a moment, before he turned and headed for the cupboard beside his bed. His magic grasped the handle of a drawer, but before he could withdraw the his cape and hat from within, Rhubarb’s voice stopped him. “They said it was urgent matter, no time to dress I'm afraid.”
Star Swirl looked back and briefly nodded. His brow furrowed at the ominous words. He followed the earth pony out of his home and headed directly for the council’s building.
The two stallions quickly found their way to the large wooden building, used as a of summit for the ruling council of Equestria. Stopping before the door, Star Swirl quickly righted his mane and beard with a small pulse of magic.
“Let’s see what the problem is then, shall we?” He smiled down at Rhubarb, and knocked on the door. As he finished knocking a deep, female voice sounded from within.
“It’s obvious! There has GOT to be treachery involved!”
Frowning, Star Swirl forwent any further knocking and opened the door, causing the three mares at a large round table in the room to turn to stare at him.
The room was large and octangular, made out of numerous large tree trunks interlocked with each other. It was a single large room with little in it, save the large table in the centre, six chairs of which three were occupied. In the far end of the room was a table laden with some cheese, bread and two cans of water, all of it just in case the negotiations and debates dragged on.
Rhubarb Silver backed out of the door as the elderly stallion trotted up to the table and gave each of the three mares a glare that spoke volumes of his worry, both for the situation that was evidently enough to have these three at each others’ throats, and the state of the three mares.
One was a unicorn clad in a purple, star speckled cape. She wore a jewel-encrusted tiara on her head and her coat was as white as the purest snow, her mane was the colour of pure platinum, held in luxurious corkscrew curls. Her piercing blue eyes were currently eyeing up the newcomer. She was often overly dramatic and vain, but also showed a
Another was a pegasus with a faded blue coat and a short, dark-grey mane as well as purple eyes. She wore nothing, not even armour, as one would have expected. Judging by her physique, she was a trained fighter and knew her way around hard work. She was the most suspicious of the three. She barely trusted anypony, and was liable to come up with conspiracy theories if it meant she could get a problem solved quickly. Sometimes, however, she showed intelligence that no one would think she had.
The last one was an earth pony, her coat a healthy, light brown with hints of dirt hinting at recent work in the fields. Her mane and tail were brown with a hint of red, and both held in a long and tight braid. A pair of kind, yet sharp, nutty brown eyes sized up Star Swirl as he watched them all. The kindest and most light hearted of the trio. She was known to walk around town, visit the taverns and get a mug of mead with her fellow ponies every now and then. When times called for it, though, she was a master negotiator and almost terrifying to behold.
“Miss Platinum, Hurricane, Levelhead. What is the cause of this summon? When there is no time to put on my signature cloak or hat, then I sense some great urgency.”
The white coated mare, Princess Platinum, spoke up first, a hoof held to her forehead as if she was about to regale some great tragedy in a pageant. “Oh, Star Swirl, it is simply horrendous! A terrible accident has occurred, something we do not yet know anything about nor will we-"
“Oh for the love of.” Hurricane massaged the bridge of her nose with a hoof. “Star Swirl, something has happened and we believe you might know something Cl-”
“No! We must relay the news to him gently, Hurricane,” Platinum interruped, slamming a hoof down on the table while glaring daggers at the pegasus. “Do not go about your brutish ways here, we must put it in gentle terms!”
“Platinum, he’s the most powerful sorcerer in history, he can handle our news without scooping jam all over it and pretending it’s a caravan like you do when you feed a foal its medicine!”
“I have never! Mister Swirl is by no means a child, and nor should you insinuate that he is! I am simply saying tha-”
“Enough! ” the sole earth pony in the room bellowed, slamming both of her hooves down on the table with enough force to leave small dents. Both Platinum and Hurricane ceased their argument to stare open mouthed at Levelhead. No matter how many times they were told or how many times they witnessed it, the serious side of the otherwise friendly pony was shocking. Even Star Swirl felt the hairs on his neck rise at her outburst.
She sighed and shook her head in an exasperated manner, the two other ponies having seated themselves silently. She looked up at Star Swirl. “Clover has disappeared, Hurricane believes that there is some treachery involved on her part. We don’t know anything save that the state of her home is - well, most is destroyed, or toppled over.”
Hurricane stood with such force that her chair toppled behind her. “You realise how big a chance there is of that being a ruse!?” she exclaimed, pointing a hoof at Levelhead. “Give me one reason why she should have left us, one measly reason that would tell us why she isn’t here and there’s no evidence of her not setting up the entire thing as a decoy, making us think some accident happened! It’s as likely as anything that she wants the unicorns to rule again and fled to plan for it to happen!”
“That’s absurd,” Star Swirl snorts derisively. “I’ve known that filly her entire life. She was never one to betray anypony regardless of what happened. She certainly wouldn’t do it now of all times! Not to mention that she was one of the few unicorns that did not suffer from some form of megalomania.”
“Megalo-what?” Commander Hurricane looked positive puzzled, one eyebrow raised and her face betraying her lack of understanding.
“Megalomania, superiority complex,” he explained with a sigh. “She saw ponies as ponies, none any more important or powerful than the others like so many unicorns did.” A small embarrassed blush spread across Platinum’s cheeks. “She would treat an earth pony as she would her neighbour. Why would she betray the unity we created to do something so pathetic as rule now that we're all united?”
“Regardless!” Levelhead cut in. “I believe we should show you the extent of the damage wrought to her home. You, being who you are, may have some greater insight into what happened once you see the mess. You may even be able to sense something, if what I've heard of your skills from Platinum is any indication.”
Star Swirl nodded, beard bobbing. “That would be wise. Lead the way.” The three mares stood up and went out through the door, with Star Swirll in pursuirt..
They reached the small wood cabin in a few minutes. It was much like Star Swirl’s own cabin: two rooms, one with a bed and kitchen, and a work place in the other. The largest difference here was that Clover’s main room was her ‘study room’, and the adjacent room her sleeping quarters with a small kitchenette. A decently sized fireplace was located in the right side of the room between two bookshelves. Most noteworthy, perhaps, was the large hourglass in the far left corner of the room, as well as her overstacked and her well-used desk on the left side of the door.
Or…
That’s how it should have been. More research papers than anypony with bother to count littered the floor. Several bookshelves were tipped over and more than a few of them had scorch marks, if they weren’t missing entire parts. The hourglass’ top half had shattered, the sand within spread across a large portion of the floor. In the middle of the floor was a massive scorch mark. Around it was nearly nothing; no papers, no inkwells, no books. It was as if a shockwave had pushed everything back.
“What in the name of Titania happened here?” Star Swirl whispered, cautiously stepping inside.
“Titania?” Hurricane muttered, sounding confused.
“The entity who gifted us with our magic, according to legends. I assume Pegasi have similar stories about Jupiter, and Earth Ponies have stories of Eponia,” Star Swirl answered automatically. Hurricane nodded, satisfied, even though the elderly stallion couldn’t see it.
He walked around the paper-littered room with his nose close to the floor, searching for something. Having made one round, he stood up and closed his eyes, letting his horn flare bright for a brief second. When he opened his eyes he wore a troubled look on his face.
“There are traces of extremely powerful magic in the air,” he finally said, turning to face the others. “There are a few possibilities. One, she had a magical surge again and teleported herself in the last second before she destroyed the entire building. The teleportation and release of energy was so violent that it did this,” he gestured at the room. “It happened to me once, too. The other possibility is a magical battle. The destruction is enough that it could look like it.”
He stood silent for a moment, neither of the three council members moved either. After a minute of contemplation he finally spoke up, his tone commanding. “Organise a search party. Ten kilometre radius, and make sure that every rock is upturned. Last time we checked her teleportation range was eight kilometres. If it was a magical surge, she may have extended that range a bit by accident.
“If she was kidnapped, I doubt whoever got her could be far away. Clover is immensely powerful, and if anyone battled her they wouldn’t have very much magic left afterwards.” All three mares saluted, even Platinum, and immediately turned.
Turning around, the stallion headed for the hourglass, having spotted something a few moments before, and started wiping away the sand. Beneath the sand he found a small book with several research papers. He just had to look at the blank cover to know that it was probably Clover’s diary. Holding it aloft and out of the way in his magic, he took a look at the research papers. What he found confused even him. On the papers was a spell matrix so complicated that even he had trouble deciphering it. The only thing he could gather from a glance was that it would require a large amount of magic.
He turned towards the window at the right side of the room, looking out at the setting sun. His brow furrowed into a concerned frown and his mouth became a thin line.
“Where are you, Clover?”
Author's Note
Here is the prologue on my new story. This is only the prologue and the next chapter will be in "present time." That means we'll be seeing no more Star Swirl, Princess Platinum, Commander Hurricane, Chancellor Levelhead or Rhubarb Silver.
And to everyone that says my characterization and appearance description of the three "council members" is wrong. I salute you with both my middle fingers! The Hearth's Warming Pageant is just that, a pageant. It's meant to entertain and tell a story, but educate others in history. As such, their personalities wouldn't be completely accurate, not to mention that no one save the Princesses ever met them, and that was when they were at the brink of death, more or less.
That being said, I hope you enjoy this as much as I do! I am really hyped about this and I hope it will do great!
Thanks to Switches for doing a little bit of editing and Skeeter the Lurker for helping me out in general.
14/02/2014Taranasaurus for helping me out! He's agreed to, pretty much, become my new editor from today on. Nice to have someone that doesn't randomly go on hiatus. *looks at Switches*
“Thank you, Princess Luna,” Twilight said, standing next to said princess by the entrance to Star Swirl’s wing in the Canterlot Archives. “I really appreciate you and Princess Celestia giving me permission to go in there.”
Luna smiled down at her sister’s student, her eyes betraying some curiosity and hope of their own. “Tis nothing to thank us for, Twilight. You have proven yourself worthy of our trust.” Her smile changed. It changed to one that was slightly more mischievous. “Proven yourself worthy of entering where no mortal has entered in centuries,” she continued dramatically.
That got the unicorn’s attention. “Centuries? I understood that this part of Star Swirl’s wing is under heavy security and only a select few were ever granted entrance, but centuries?”
Luna nodded. “Yes, and there is reason for that. Reasons you will discover, once you read what is within that library.” Luna’s horn flared to life and a small scroll bound by a golden ribbon with silver lining appeared between them. “Here, take this and open it once you reach the door, You will then be allowed entry.” She turned around and took a few steps, only stopping herself to look back. “Take care, Twilight, and good luck with your search. Mayhaps you will find what happened to Clover the Clever.”
A good two minutes later and Twilight found herself in the front of Star Swirl’s wing, a wooden door being the only obstacle between her, and her destination.
It looked just like any old door to anyone looking. If searched with magic, however, the amount of enchantments, wards, and spells weaved into the door and the room beyond was something that even Twilight couldn’t count. “Wow…” she breathed, looking at the door with newfound light, as if it were more than a simple piece of wood.
She shook her head to clear herself of her momentary stupor, taking a step forward as she levitated the scroll out of her saddlebags. With her tongue in her cheek, she untied the ribbon with such care that it seemed more like she was attempting a new spell.
Twilight looked between the matrix and the door, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.
“What the…?” The unicorn looked around, going wide-eyed as she took in her surroundings. She was no longer in the Star Swirl wing, but now found herself in a small, heptagonal room. Six shelves lined the majority of the six walls from floor to ceiling. Behind her was the seventh wall, and the door. It was no more than it had been before; just a simple piece of wood separating this room from the outside.
On the floor were several stacks of books and scrolls, some shelves having more books on the floor beside them than on them. Above the single, circular, table in the room hovered several eerie blue flames which illuminated the entire room, casting dark shadows on the smooth stone floor. A single old cushion placed by the table allowed whoever entered here a place to sit.
Princess Platinum, Commander Hurricane, Private Pansy, Smart Cookie, Chancellor Levelhead --Levelhead? Could it be Puddinghead?-- and Clover the Clever… Oh my. I asked to be given access to books containing information about the founders, but, she glanced around. This looks more like their personal library than anything else. Everything they ever written, anything that holds just a tidbit of information about them… It’s all here I bet.
Her eyes roamed the room greedily, taking in the smells and sights of it. It was old, very old, but kept in surprisingly good condition. "Judging by how long it’s been since these six ponies lived, it’s safe to assume that this room is covered in spells to keep time from affecting its contents too much," Twilight mumbled to herself.
After trotting around the other edge of the room, scanning the bookshelves, she finally stopped in front of the wall dedicated to Clover the Clever. She couldn’t quite blame the lack of content on whoever made this library, as Clover had disappeared at the age of thirty five. She hadn’t lived all that long, so not a lot of books or scrolls could be written about, or by, her. What few there were covered the two upper shelves, a few stray tomes and a small bundle of scrolls, presumably letters, lay spread across the rest of the shelves.
Letting her horn flare to life she grabbed a few of the scrolls and tomes, and carefully levitated them onto the low table, putting each one down with the utmost care.
When she had a compiled a small stack of material, she turned to look one last time at the lower shelves and spotted a small, unassuming book. It had a brown cover with no engravings or anything written on it. It was a plain book seemingly bound with faux leather.
Lighting her horn, Twilight grabbed ahold of the book and lifted it to her face.
“Strange,” she muttered, bringing it closer to inspect it. “It doesn’t feel any different from the others. It looks almost the same as everything else in here, save being smaller… so why does this one seem so different?” She shot a glance towards the table. There was still so much to do that it would take her at least a day or two to read through. The small book found its way to the table as well, and she soon followed. She sat down on the cushion and pulled a large tome in front of her, and started reading.
She looks up from the book in front of her, eyes fixating on the figure of a middle aged stallion beside her. The only feature she can make out is a dark grey coat and a vague hints of a face. She doesn’t know why, but it feels like he’s smiling as he his gaze rests gently on her… or at least she thinks he’s looking at her. The blurred face makes any expression difficult to read. Turning her head to look at the book again, she looks upon a simple spell matrix; a small circle with only a few components written in Arcane, a sort of written language used to explain magic. The few arcane symbols on the page are among the simplest of magical runes, but despite how easy it should be she just can't make her magic work.
After several failed attempts, she looks up at the stallion again and feels words asking for advice flow from her lips unwillingly. She doesn’t want to ask for help, she wants to find this out on her own.
She can feel the stallion smiling at her, inhaling as if he’s about to speak. He pauses and instead turns toward a medium sized hourglass standing on the table not far away. His horn flares to life with a gentle light surrounding it. The hourglass is surrounded in the same aura which then lifts it up and brings it closer to the two of them.
Again he draws in breath to speak, but this time he doesn’t stop. Words flow from his mouth, detailing and describing the intricate functions of magic. He goes on to explain how the flow of magic through ones horn must be guided through the aether and controlled via the ley lines. He then goes on to explain how one must wrap the lines of energy around what one seeks to move, and then move it. He’s about to say more but stops himself and looks down, smiling sheepishly. He starts explaining how magic works again, but in a much simpler and easier to understand way, though he ends up going on a tangent again and bring up the level to the point where she can’t follow anymore.
Briefly apologising he rephrases his entire explanation, saying that looking at the object she wants to move is not enough, but that she needs to both see and feel it with her mind. He tells her to imagine how it looks from all sides at once in her head, then imagine that small threads appear from her horn and that these threads wrap themselves around the object she is thinking of. Then, when she has done that, he tells her that she has to, not imagine, but force it to move. Asking it to move won’t work, she has to tell it to move.
She nods in understanding, sure that she’s got it now, and looks at a quill lying not far away. She stares at it with eyes narrowed in concentration and tries to see every single hair on the feather all at once, imagining every side of it in her mind, and then she imagines those small threads of magic wrapping around the feather and holding tight. From her peripheral she spots a faint glow of light that is not the stallion’s, and the same light surrounds the quill. Smiling at her accomplishment so far, she tells the quill to move, she tugs at the threads with her mind and watches as it steadily rises into the air, wobbling dangerously. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t steady. She did it.
Twilight Sparkle sat up with a start, heart pounding and brow covered in cold sweat. Wide, dilated eyes peer around the room lit with the ethereal blue flames, watching the shadows dance at a tune that only they heard. Placing a hoof on her chest, she breathed in deeply before exhaling and letting her hoof move outwards. Said maneuver was repeated several times before she eventually calmed down enough to look around and not have a panic attack.
Another one of those dreams, she groaned, rubbing the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. They’ve become more vivid lately. She looked back at the book in front of her, only a few pages from where she started. She sighed and turned a page "I need to continue. Luna entrusted me with finding out what happened to Clover, and I’m going to find out!
She wiped her forehead with her hoof before taking a look down at the book in front of her. She tried to recall what exactly the book was about. She remembered that it had focused around Clover and Star Swirl the Bearded, but the details were lost in a cloud of both drowsiness and irritation at the reoccurring dreams. She seemed to recall something about ‘early’, but what exactly was ‘early’ she couldn’t remember. If looks could kill this book would be burning from the withering glare Twilight shot at it, almost accusing it of being why she had another of those weird dreams. These dreams were some she had had for years, plagued by them most nights of the week; that they were becoming clearer as time passed didn’t make it any better.
“Might be a good idea to see Celestia about it, like Shiny suggested,” she mumbled. “But I need to continue. I can talk to Celestia about it later.”
A page turned and Twilight dove into the tome once more.
Author's Note
So, here's chapter one!
Apologies everyone if it seems lacking, but I promise you that the stuff happening here is important!
I'm on the planning stage of Chapter 2, about 30% complete, I think. I'll do my best to have the chapter out before new year!
Until then, cheers!
Edit: 06/04 - 2014
Chapter 2 - But not unimportant
For the next hour the only sound near Twilight was that of the pages in the book turning, and her own breathing. No sound was heard from the outside, the enchantments on the room were making it sound proof as well, she assumed.
In that hour she had journeyed into the relationship between Clover and Star Swirl the Bearded. She learned about the ancient unicorn’s thirst for knowledge that equalled Twilight’s own. She’d read about what Clover had learned, how she was taught, and so on.
Twilight sighed and closed the book, resting one hoof on top of it as her eyes trailed towards the ceiling. Tracing the invisible pattern of blue flames hovering in the air.
“Well… that book gave me nothing to work with.” She looked down again and pushed the old book away, glancing over the other tomes and scrolls she had collected. “Maybe…” her gaze turned to the thin brown book, the smallest of the bunch. Curiosity driving her, she lit her horn and carefully levitated it over in front of her.
“Let’s see if this one holds the answers.”
She could almost feel the creaking of the its spine as the age-old book was opened for the first time in centuries, if not millennia. Dust from the book swirled around as it was blown away by Twilight’s exhalation.
Looking at the first page her minds grinded to a halt, all information processing stopped, jumped out the window, and signed off for the day. Her eyes widened as the sound of her large breath getting sucked in filled the room.
Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock
Time passes and only after an entire minute of her staring at the first page does her brain manage to kickstart itself again. The processing reluctantly signing in for yet another day’s worth of working.
“You… have got to be kidding me,” she whispered, running a hoof across the dried ink on the page as it to see if it was real. It was. She opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, in an attempt to properly articulate herself. Twilight eventually had to accept that no words she said could explain how incredible it was that this exact book was present in this collection. Vast as it was. This should have been lost to time long before the castle of Royal Pony Sisters was built.
She glanced up to see if Discord were anywhere to be seen: he might’ve played a prank on her. There was no one there. She looked down again and re-read the single sentence written upon the first page.
”This diary belongs to Clover The Clever. May none but I open this book.”
A violent shake of her head later and Twilight was able to function properly again. Or function as much as she could given what she had just found.
“If I didn’t know better I’d think somepony was pulling a prank on me,” she murmured, about to turn the page, but a sudden thought struck her. “Wouldn’t it be an intrusion of privacy? …Who am I kidding, she died thousands of years ago… but still.” Groaning, she flipped the page and began reading. Clover had been dead for millennia; she probably wouldn’t even mind if she did somehow find out that her diary was being read...
“Titanian year - 724, Tenth moon. Titania’s Day.
Dear Diary,
I spent the day advising our dear Princess Platinum. A great many of the lower castes came to her regarding disputes about property and from which regions they were allowed to collect food from.
Magister Sparkle and Magister Lulamoon were the two unicorns causing the largest ruckus today. Both of them claimed to be allowed to “harvest”, as they so kindly put it, the north-western region. Section 7-3-1 to be precise. It took us some time, but we eventually found the logbooks which determined that aforementioned region was under the ownership of Magister Lulamoon.
Next was a complaint from the Sun’s Guild. They were dissatisfied with lowering the sun as early as they had to. They commented on the lower temperatures, and how it shouldn’t be quite as cold as it is now. They wanted to give the sun more hours to hopefully increase the Earth Ponies food production. They’re right, though, and they were allowed half an hour longer. They argued for more, but we couldn’t give it to them for fear of throwing the season’s out of balance.
On a final note, I’ve been working on a spell that my mentor handed me a few days past. He didn’t explain much save that it was a spell of such magnitude that it held the power to alter one’s destiny. Mentor Star Swirl told me that he couldn’t figure out the spell, but that perhaps I could. I do not know if I can live up to his expectations, but I will try.
Signed, Clover the Clever.
For the next several hours, Twilight continued to leaf through the journal and read entry after entry. She was surprised; it seemed like diary had far more pages in it than was possible for such a small size. She just chalked it up to being a high-level spell by the high-level unicorn.
She was so sucked into it that she barely registered the flow of time; the grumbling of her stomach all but ignored, even though it sounded as if its rumbling could shake the very castle she was in.
One entry, made the day after the Windigo Winter ended, centered about a day spent primarily with Smart Cookie and Private Pansy. It was a day between friends where they shared stories from their tribes. Later on, it wrote, they theorised about what had drawn the windigos to them. Was it truly just their previous hatred for each other, or was something else? They never reached a conclusion, as far as Twilight could read, and just settled for it being the hatred they felt for each other back then.
Other entries detailed days spent studying, finding use of the exotic flora found in the nearby forests surrounding their settlement. While alchemy was something she often tried her hoof at, it was clear that most days studying were spent studying magic of one kind of another. She especially showed interest in Star Swirl’s newest spell, one that made one capable of travelling through time, albeit, only a brief period.
Closing the book with a sigh she glanced up at the flickering flames, and let everything that she just read flow through her mind, organizing it. What was startling, she realised, was that some of the entries seemed vaguely familiar to her. As if she had read them before. One entry, one about a campfire and a game of something similar to truth and dare, was frighteningly similar to a dream she remembered having a couple weeks back.
“Turns out the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant is fairly accurate,” she spoke out loud. Glancing down at the diary, she continued. “They really did hate each other, but the chance meeting of the respective leaders and their advisors changed it all in a single night. I can’t believe it.”
Grrrrgggg
“Who’s there!?” Twilight sprung to her hooves, her head spinning from side to side in an attempt to catch sight of whoever had made the growling sound.
Grrrrgggg
“I think it is your stomach, Twilight,” a female voice said, from behind Twilight.
Twilight whirled around and stood face to face with Princess Luna, surprised that she had not heard the princess enter. A sigh of relief escaped her as she sat down heavily on her rump, her empty belly growling yet again.
“I think you may be right, Princess, but how did you get in here? I didn’t hear you?”
The alicorn smiled and motioned at the door with a small tilt of her head. “Tis Tia and I who built this place and enchanted it. Getting in and out is no challenge for either of us. After all, did we not give you a way to enter?”
At that exact moment Twilight tried to calculate how much it would hurt to bang her head against the door a fifty or so times. “Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry, Princess, but I guess all the reading has taken its toll on me.”
“Tis no reason to apologise, Twilight, just follow me and I’ll have some dinner served for you,” a light chuckle escaped her, “I suspect you are hungry.”
“Famished,” she admitted, then paused. “May I take a book with me? I want to show one to Celestia and possibly ask her a question… if you don’t mind.”
Luna tapped a shod hoof against her chin, looking at the almost pleading face of Twilight, then at the small brown book lying just in front of the cushion. By the way the unicorn glanced to it from time to time, when not looking at her pleadingly, she assumed that this was the book she mentioned.
“I suppose there is no harm in it,” she replied with a small shrug. “Just be careful that it is not damaged. Everything in here, from the largest tome to the smallest scroll, is the original work. Nothing is a copy.”
Twilight grinned widely up at the princess, carefully grabbing the book in her telekinesis and bringing it towards her. “I’ll make sure to be careful, Luna!” And with that, she followed Luna out.
The princess touched the door’s handle with a hoof and disappeared. Twilight followed suit and soon stood on the other side of the door, book still held on her aura, and the princess by her side.
“If you’d follow me, Twilight, let’s get some food.”
The large oaken doors were enveloped in a dark blue light and pushed open by Princess Luna as she and Twilight Sparkle came trotting down the hallway and through the double doors.
The room was as large as Twilight remembered it, the size of it roughly matching the entire floor area of the tower in the castle she used to live in. Despite having been here before, she still marvelled at, not only the size, but also the way it was built. One longtable stood in the middle of the room, one high chair on each end of it and a large number of sizable cushions on either side of the table, meant for guests and such to sit on. It was lit from above by three chandeliers as well as a number of large candles spaced out evenly on both wall.
At the far end of the table sat Celestia, a smile gracing her lips as she noticed how her student and sister approached.
“Luna, Twilight, I’m glad to see you both joining me for dinner!” Celestia said, standing up the meet them halfway. She gave them each a brief nuzzle before returning to her seat, Luna taking the chair to her right and Twilight the one to her left.
“We wouldn’t miss dinner for the world,” Luna replied, turning her head to nod at the servants, thus signalling that they could bring in the food.
Several carts were brought in, each of them carrying trays of various kinds of food. Soups, salads, cooked vegetables, and more. The servants pushing them, all unicorns, lit their horns almost simultaneously and levitated the trays onto the table, placing an assortment of dishes in front of each of the three ponies.
While food such as this, both in quantity and quality, were commonplace for the two princesses, it definitely wasn’t for the young unicorn. She sat almost agape at the sheer amount that was placed in front of her. Glancing to the side, she saw both Celestia and Luna eating peacefully, neither of them seeming shocked by the amounts.
There’s got to be enough for at least three ponies here! she exclaimed internally, slowly reaching out with her telekinesis for a waldorf salad. She placed the book, which she had been holding in her magic since entering, on the table. A fork was enveloped in her magenta aura, pierced a piece of celery and put it in her mouth. It tasted divine!
“So, Twilight,” Celestia said, having stopped eating and was instead looking at her student. “I refrained from asking when you came in, but I was wondering, what is that book?”
Twilight opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by Luna. “A book from the ‘Six Wings’. I allowed her to take it with he as she said she had a question for you regarding it.” Her turquoise gaze shifted to Twilight, silently telling her that now was probably the time for the question.
Celestia watched curiously as the unicorn grabbed the book, stood up and trotted carefully over to her, holding the book in front of her. Tugging at the pages with her magic, she flipped it open to one of the entries she had read.
“Please read this,” she told Celestia, letting the alicorn take the book in her own magic. A minute went past as Twilight watched Celestia read, trying to spot any change in her expression. Even the slightest. There were none, however.
Celestia closed the book and looked back up at Twilight, the shadow of a confused frown present on her otherwise immaculate face. “This doesn’t tell much more than Clover spending a day with Private Pansy and Smart Cookie,” she said. “Why are you showing me this, Twilight?”
The unicorn almost cringed. The tone and, in her mind, demeaning look her mentor gave her was almost enough to get her to just pretend as if nothing had happened and all, and just take the book back to the library. However, she had to ask; the question had been plaguing her ever since she read the entry.
“A few weeks back I had a dream that was almost identical to this one. I dreamed that I sat around a campfire in a clearing that was exactly as described in the diary. It was mid fall and the leaves were red and brown. I even dreamt that-”
“Twilight, I’m sorry, but I fail to see how this is of any importance in regards to your search,” Luna cut in, bearing a perplexed frown on her brow. “I allowed you to take that book from the library because I thought you had an important question, but-”
Twilight raised a hoof to halt the princess mid-speech, effectively silencing her. “The dream wasn’t very detailed on anything aside from the scenery, but I dreamt that I was sitting together with a pegasus on my left, and an earth pony on my left. Exactly as the diary depicts.” She tapped the item in question for emphasis, looking at Luna. “I think there’s a connection, but I don’t know what it is.” Her gaze went back to Celestia. “I wanted to ask if you know why this dream is identical to this entry, and why I dream of ponies I’ve never even seen. You can’t dream of ponies you’ve never seen before so there has to be something going on.” She ended her short tirade with shooting a small apologetic glance at Luna. The princess didn’t seem offended by being interrupted, so no harm done, she assumed.
Celestia, for her part, had watched the small exchange quietly with a cup of tea held in a golden aura by her lips. As Twilight looked back at her she let the china cup down on the small sauce. “Tell me, Twilight, have you ever heard the myths that each of the six founders possessed a special ability?”
Twilight’s brow furrowed in confusion but she nodded nonetheless. “I do. It’s said that Commander Hurricane possessed the ability to instill fear directly in the hearts of her opponents. It isn’t much different from Fluttershy’s ’stare’ , but the essence is that she could somehow take whatever small fear her opponents held for her and magnify it. Princess Platinum was said to be able to force ponies to speak the truth. No spell can do that. Stories claim that Smart Cookie couldn’t get lost. She always knew where north was, and where she was. Private Pansy couldn’t feel any pain, and could completely erase pain from others. Puddinghead, or Levelhead as the plaque says, is said to have been able to stay alive for up to two weeks without food and water, and still work normally.”
Celestia nodded, smiling a small proud smile. “And Clover?”
“Clover…” The unicorn’s face scrunched up in thought as she attempted to dig out the small piece of information. She was fairly certain she’d heard about it, but she couldn’t recall any obvious answers. “I’m afraid I can’t remember, Princess.”
Celestia chuckled lightly, putting up a hoof when she saw Twilight’s ears splaying back on her head, and her head dropping. “My apologies, Twilight, I wasn’t making fun of you.” That got a relieved smile out of the unicorn. “I would not expect you to remember, as it is only mentioned in passing. In the Hearth’s Warming Pageant, to be precise. Remember what Clover, or you, asked ‘Princess Platinum’ when she came back to unicornia?”
“Clover asked her if the other two tribes had seen reason.” Celestia waved her hoof, signalling for the unicorn to continue. “As… she predicted?” One of Twilight’s eyebrows rose skeptically at her own words and the insinuation of it all.
“That is exactly what it is, Twilight,” Celestia responded, having easily spotted the skepticism in her student’s face. “According to myths, Clover had the gift of something similar to premonition, or scrying. It is possible that you have this gift as well, and you scry back into the past; watching the past unfold bit after bit through the eyes of Clover the Clever. Even I know very little of such abilities, all I know is that your description of your dreams matches what I know. Such scryings are always blurry and difficult to interpret, very much like your dreams.”
If Discord had been present at this very moment it would only need a snap of his talons for Twilight’s jaw to literally hit the floor. Every now and then there were ponies that claimed to have a sort of special power. Only in the rarest of rare cases was there ever a single grain of truth to the claim, the only instance of such an ability being true, to Twilight’s knowledge, was Fluttershy. Some might argue that Applejack had an ability similar to Princess Platinum’s, but spending some time with her revealed that she was just very perceptive and could see almost the smallest of tells, whereas Platinum could sense a lie even with her back turned. Supposedly.
“You… can’t be serious. How could I possibly have the same ability as Clover!? Such abilities are dubious at best, we don’t even know if the founders really had those abilities!” Stopping herself before she got out of hoof, she inhaled and, stretching one hoof out in front of her from her chest, exhaled again. She started again, this time much calmer. “Princess. If you’re right then that means I’m…”
“Yes, Twilight. I believe that you are a ‘Seer’.”
Author's Note
I promised you guys another chapter before the end of the year, didn't I?
Also, I would like to thank Cherry Frosting for helping me out with the grammatical kinks here and there! My old mate, Switches, went on Hiatus which is why Cherry here boarded the ship.
We all experience a day in our lives where things become so absurd that we find it difficult to do anything but laugh. Times where we are told something that tickles our laughing bone without actually making us mirthful. Days when we think that everything is just ridiculous.
Twilight was having just that kind of day. She had heard many strange things in her life so far. Far more than any her age would have, in fact. She had heard stories of a mare trapped on the moon for a thousand years, of an ancient empire appearing from nothing after just as many years. While all of these had been proven true, there had been one thing in particular that made these incidents different than the current one. Celestia, ruler of Equestria and immortal alicorn, had witnessed these. She had been there, personally, as the one that banished her sister to the moon for an entire millennia. She had also been there to defeat Sombra just before he cursed the Crystal Empire.
This, however… Twilight being told that she might be a seer, a kind of pony that many claimed to be but none could prove, made her laugh nervously. Clover’s “special ability” was just a rumour. A rumour that was hardly ever mentioned save in passing, and even then it was only insinuated. If that wasn’t enough, Clover the Clever predated Celestia and Luna by a century, if not more, which meant that she could not say that she remembered it to be so. It was guess work. And Twilight didn’t like guess work.
“T-That was a nice one, Princess,” Twilight chuckled. She took a few calming breaths to quell her laughter, and then spoke again. This time with more control and not so nervously. “I knew you had a penchant for pranks, Princess, but I don’t think this is the time for jokes. I’ve had these dreams for years and they’re starting to get annoying.” Stopping her small rant, she took a breath and waited for Celestia to respond.
It was not Celestia who replied, however, but Luna. “I do not think my sister is fool of you, Twilight Sparkle. I can vouch for her in this case. I do not believe you one prone to tell lies, and, as you might know, I am a warden of dreams and what most would call a Dream Wanderer. Had you truly dreamt of these events, I would know. As it stands, I have seen none of the dreams you claim.
“You may ask yourself, ‘how?’ right now, and this is how. If what modern, or fake, seers claim is true, then a vision is much like what one experiences when using pleasure drugs: Hallucinations, things that are not real but perceived as real. I can see and wander through dreams, but I cannot see what is born partly of magic and partly of thought. Your link with magic is extraordinary as it is, which may be why you have this ability.”
Twilight had been listening attentively, saying nothing as Luna spoke with an, admittedly, slightly annoyed tone in the beginning though softening as she went on. When she finally finished Twilight was left with a single question begging to be asked.
“You said that ‘visions’ are similar to the effects drugs have on a pony, but you then mention magic. How does that work?”
A small smile teased at the corner of Luna’s lips. A hint of white showing behind the indigo fur as her mouth split into a small grin showing her teeth. She would ever admit it, but she enjoyed being able to put herself higher than others. Not in the sense that she saw herself as superior to normal ponies, but in that she couldn’t help but bask in her short moments of superiority that came with knowing something others did not, or winning a game. In short; she liked winning.
“First you must understand that this is mostly guessing, Twilight,” the unicorn nodded, prompting Luna to continue. “Magic is, as you well know, a force that permeates everything. It is everywhere from the smallest seed to the largest mountain. Without magic, the world would be a barren wasteland full of nothing. This leads me to believe that magic is not just in everything right here and right now, but also in other places normally inaccessible to us. The past or the future, for example. This theory is backed up by the Time Travel spell which you once used.”
Twilight raised a hoof and was about to say something when the alicorn waved it off with a hoof, already knowing what would be said. “Celestia was nearby and heard it all. Nevertheless, it is theorised that Magic is everywhere. Not just in physical objects such as what I mentioned earlier, but metaphysical ones as well. Time, being one. It is theorised that magic is a link through time, which is why a spell that allows one to travel through time is at all possible. Now, my guess is that you are linked to the past, to Clover the Clever in particular, through the magic that flows through time. As I mentioned; a lot of this is guesswork but some is based on research of magic.”
Already were possibilities swimming through her mind, all of them born of this new piece of information. She had never taken much time to study time magic, as it was still a difficult subject even for her. She had only ever tried it once, and was still surprised by how well it went, even with the spell matrix in front of her. She had studied almost every field of magic, having left out only a few for various reasons. Be it difficulty or her simply not being allowed by Celestia.
There are so many things we could do if this is true. If magic truly links the past and the present, we could learn so much. Herbal cures forgotten that may be of use. Ancient spells that nopony knows of today… So many-
“Twilight.”
Twilight jumped, jolting out of her own thoughts at the sudden mention of her name. She looked up at Celestia who had spoken, her eyes already asking the question about to leave her lips.
A small smile played at the corner’s of Celestia’s lips. “Twilight, I believe you might be able to use this small piece of information for your research. If you are truly linked to Clover through the magic in Time, then you might have a reliable way of finding out what happened when she disappeared.” She stopped and looked thoughtful for a moment, her gaze trailing to one of the windows for a short while. Meanwhile, Luna her resumed eating, though her ears were directed at the two of them; intently listening to what was said. “The only problem will be to prove your discoveries to others.”
“That is a problem,” Twilight conceded, idly tapping a hoof on the table as she thought it over, trying to find some way that it would be possible for her to project her own findings to others. She turned to the indigo alicorn. “Princess Luna, do you have any suggestions?”
Luna looked up from her food, fork hovering just above her half-empty plate. Her brows knit together and her nose scrunched up in a way that Twilight could only call cute. “I do not know a reliable way to do so. I could teach you how to control your dreams to some extent, unreliable as it is, which would allow you to project to me what you saw in your vision via the dream. I would witness what you dream of and then vouch for you in the real world. Thoughts, and dreams, cannot lie, so I would know if you were telling the truth. The problem would be making others believe you.”
She paused for a moment to take a bite of her salad before continuing. “While me vouching for you may convince a few, it will leave the masses as a whole unconvinced. Historians need physical evidence in the form of texts. Without those, they will take neither yours nor my own or my sister’s words as the reliable.” She shook her head. “I am afraid there is no entirely reliable way to do what you wish to do. You will have to find a way of your own. Celestia and I shall help you if you wish us to do so.”
Twilight sat silent, her brain already working full capacity to find some way to project her thoughts, or visions, to the real world and prove that she was, indeed, speaking the truth. Meanwhile, her fork and knife worked in tandem, the unicorn unconsciously guiding them as she finished her meal.
She sat like that for several minutes; just thinking and eating when, suddenly, a thought struck her and shattered her concentration, sending the cutlery previously held in her magic clattering down on the plate.
“Princess Celestia, Princess Luna,” she started, looking at the two of them, meeting their slightly surprised expressions. The sudden sound of silverware on ceramics startling them. Celestia inclined her head, signalling for Twilight to continue. “Is it true that there is a Truth Speaking spell? A spell that, when cast on a pony, forces them to speak the truth?”
The alicorn sisters shared a surprised glance, then looked back at Twilight. “How do you know of that spell, Twilight?” Celestia asked, her brow sporting a confused frown that soon melted away into a small smile. “I believe I did my best to keep that particular spell away from you.”
Now it was Celestia that was the center of attention, her sister and student looking at her, one with shock and almost hurt, the other just confused. “May I ask why you chose to keep such a spell a secret from your Student, sister?” Luna inquired, one eyebrow raised and ears pointing straight forward; awaiting an answer.
“If I knew Twilight well enough, she would have used that spell, knowing it was harmless, on just about every teacher she could come across, flooding them with questions that they were then forced to answer truthfully. I did it both for her, and the teachers’, sakes.” Her smile widened just a little. “I wouldn’t want her innocence ruined by her asking a question with an answer containing adult information. That, and I’d want the teachers to have their weekend’s off, as well.”
“Truly? I find it hard to believe that,” she glanced at Twilight, the mare sporting an embarrassed blush, “okay, I concede. If her reaction is anything to go by, then I do believe you keeping the spell from her was the right decision.”
Twilight coughed. The blush still present on her cheeks but far less so now, than before. “I can’t say I wouldn’t have… Okay, I would have abused it quite a bit in my earlier years as Princess Celestia’s student. I-I can see why you kept it from me.” Her ears tilted backwards and she veered her gaze off to the side.
Celestia reached a hoof towards Twilight. “Twilight, do not be saddened that-”
“I’m not sad,” she interrupted, turning towards Celestia. “Just a bit embarrassed to be read that easily.” And she wasn’t sad. No tears, no hurt were present in her eyes anymore. Just the hope that this new revelation could bring her one step closer to finding out what happened to Clover, and proving it. “But… Since the truth spell does exist, can I convince either of you to cast it on me when I found out what happened to Clover?”
“Are you sure, Twilight?” Celestia asked, hesitation creeping into her voice. “The Truth Spell lasts for at least an hour, and any question you are asked you will answer truthfully, regardless of what the question is.”
The unicorn smiled. A small upturn of the corners of her lips that told her mentor not to worry. “Yes, I’m sure. I know I risk embarrassment, but that’s all that’s at risk. I think the worst I could speak of is that night ten years back when you were talking in your sleep. I think you called Blueblood a-”
Finding that it was exceedingly difficult to finish her question with a golden shod hoof covering her mouth, Twilight kept quiet and looked at the almost horrified face the princess made. Or Celestia’s version of horrified which was eyes widened a little and ears pointing straight up. Nothing compared to a normal pony. “Please don’t mention that in front of Luna,” she all but pleaded, causing Twilight to blush in embarrassment yet again --she seemed to be doing that a lot lately-- and mumble a muffled “sorry.”
“You called Blueblood a what?” Luna inquired, leaning closer to Celestia with her eyes as wide as possible; the lunar princess doing her best to appear innocent.
“Nothing, Sister.” Celestia removed her hoof from Twilight’s mouth and regarded the unicorn again. “But if you’re sure, Twilight, then I will grant you your request: I will subject you to the Truth Speaking Spell when, or if, you discover the fate of Clover the Clever. Until then, I trust you have a lot of work to do, my faithful student.”
“I do, Princess… I do,” Twilight said, turning her attention back to her lunch. Right now she needed to eat, then she could go about researching a way to use her link with Clover the Clever, if she really had it, to find out what happened to her, as well as figuring out a way to project her thoughts to the real world.
But for now, the food was the most important thing.
Author's Note
And with this, we start the final treck on the journey.
Yes, people, The Fate of Clover is drawing to a close. Only around three chapters left after this one. I know it's a short story, but it was meant to be from the very beginning.
Also, sorry for the massive info-dump, but it was necessary for the coming chapters. Anyway! I hope you like it. Please like, favourite and enjoy
~~P.S - This chapter is unedited. If you find mistakes of any kind, please tell me~~ Thanks to Emerald Ray for editing this... It's been four days and I haven't gotten word from the guy/gal editing the previous chapter... wonder what happened. Anyway, here it is! And edited!
Chapter 4 - Research and Solutions
Author's Note
The following chapter is rather short, and for that I apologise.
The following chapter is a sort of summary of three months of research on Twilight's part, as well as a bit of time spent with her friends & overlapping at least one episode. I decided to write it like this because writing it as fully fledged chapters would
Regardless, I hope you like it. And thanks to Taranasaurus for helping me with editing and proof reading. He's turned out to be a real big help, too
Please comment and tell me what you think.. I like hearing what your opinions on my stories are
P.S
Chapter 4 - Research and Solutions
In the weeks that followed, Twilight worked tirelessly to create only theories for the spells that she would need, if she were to even have an inkling of a chance to find out the truth behind Clover’s disappearance. She poured over books like Pinkie Pie in a candy shop, thinking up theory after theory and testing them thoroughly again and again.
The few that made it farther than her wastebin, that is. More times than she cared to count did she throw paper balls filled with notes over her shoulder, groaning in frustration at her inability to come up with a theory that seemed to work. She knew almost nothing of the link Celestia said she had with Clover. The theories she could find about magic flowing through time, as well as any tangible objects, did shed a little light on her problem, and brought her ever so slightly closer to the answer.
It was only during one of the rare breaks she allowed herself to take that she found one of the first hints. Twilight and her friends were having a picnic in one of Ponyville’s parks when an old acquaintance returned. Ponyville ended up as a large slave camp under the iron hoof of Trixie wearing the Alicorn Amulet. The amulet had made her powerful enough to defeat Twilight in a magical duel, and she was thrown out by Trixie shortly after. Only the help of Zecora and her friends enabled her to defeat Trixie and get the Alicorn Amulet off of her.
Neither the magic duel nor Trixie’s corruption were actually the important parts. What was important was a spell Trixie had used shortly before the duel to tell them about how miserable her life had been after her initial humiliation in Ponyville. The spell created a magical screen that showed them what had happened in the past. She had used what Twilight assumed were her own memories of things past and projected them onto the screens
Only a pair of puppy eyes from one pink pony and a talking to from Rainbow Dash had kept her in ponyville for the remainder of the time she had scheduled for her visit. They all understood how important this was for her, but that didn’t mean that she should just put her research before her friends. Especially not when she had actually made time in her schedule to be together with them.
The week in ponyville passed and she returned to Canterlot and her research, digging through her notes and whatever books she could find about the spell Trixie had used with more fervor than ever before. At one point she stumbled across something similar, yet much larger. It was a mix between a sort of meditation and spell. If cast correctly, it would send one into something called ‘Hall of Memories’. It was a place deep in one’s consciousness where all memories, big and small, were kept. She discovered little more about it, save a subtle reference that a few individuals could even enter another pony’s Hall and show the memories of the one whose hall they had entered. From the way the author phrased it she gathered that it was more guesswork than anything else, especially since there was no factual evidence for it.
If she could properly cast this spell, she might be able to explore the link she had with Clover. According to what Luna and Celestia said, the link she had with Clover was one that allowed access to her memories. Could it be possible that she, via the hall of memories, could bring forth whatever memory of Clover’s at will? Maybe, but she didn’t know. One thing she did know was that she wouldn’t give up. She had a way to find her answer, regardless of how small the chance of it being a success was.
But even though she had found a way to possibly draw forth Clover’s memories at will, she still did not know how to project them into the real world. She could possibly use the spell Trixie had to project memories into the present. The problem, however, was that they wouldn’t be her own memories. She couldn’t project them onto an arcane screen like she did with her own memories. The Hall of Memories spell and the one Trixie used were similar in many ways, so if she could bring forth Clover’s memories, then perhaps she could make it her own somehow. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was so simple as to just be a matter of watching it over and over again until it became a memory of her watching it.
She resolved to find out. She wasn’t quite done yet, but she was getting ever closer. Three months of reading, taking notes, and researching had passed. She had found a way to possibly unlock a millennia old secret, something that might unveil the mystery of the ages. But despite not being entirely done yet, she knew she was close.
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. It was several hours before Twilight woke up again, groaning as she rubbed her aching head. She stood up on wobbly legs and leaned against the table for balance, almost falling back on her side as the table slid across the floor a little.
Even as she was trying to fight her dizziness and not to succumb to the nauseating feeling in her stomach. She felt everything that had flooded her mind whirl around in her head before settling far too slowly. She didn’t know exactly what had happened, save the fact that she had found the ‘link’, and had opened it. At the moment, however, she didn’t really care what it was, the killer headache she was the victim of being the thing that she was most occupied with.
Several minutes of headache and dizziness later, she could finally feel the pain receding and making place for more rational thoughts. Slowly, ever so slowly, she started sifting through everything that had been forced onto her, quirking an eyebrow at the strange things, smiling at the funny ones - even frowning at those she found confusing and abnormal.
There were memories of a foalhood, of the first toy she was given, the first book she had read. She even found recollections of Clover’s parents, a light purple stallion and a blue-coated mare. She wasn’t surprised by the fact that they were both unicorns, given how society was back then. There were memories of friends, of fights, but most prominent were the ones with an old bearded stallion. It was interesting to see how Clover’s relationship with Star Swirl had been very much the same as the relationship Twilight had with Celestia. Just like she had lived in the castle with Celestia, so too did Clover live with Star Swirl in his own wing of the Unicornian castle.
She continued focusing on the memories of Star Swirl the Bearded and his education of Clover the Clever. The dream she had had where Clover was first successful at telekinesis was one of the first to come to the forefront of her mind. Further down that road, she came upon several memories of teaching sessions, from alchemy to magic theory, to testing spells she had created herself and almost ruining whatever table or room she was in from the resulting explosion.
She chuckled a little as she ‘remembered’ a certain mix of potions blowing up in Clover’s face, taking with it half her mane and mutilating her eyebrows.
Another memory pressed forth, one that she could somehow feel was important. It was of Star Swirl handing over a small book as he told her how it contained possibly his greatest achievement and greatest failure at the same time.
“‘I don’t doubt your abilities, Clover, but I’m not sure if you can do what I could not. Even so, I wish you good luck’. Isn’t that what he said?” Twilight muttered, repeating what Star Swirl had said in that memory. What was that book? It seems… familiar? She idly tapped her chin and looked around as she thought it over. It wasn’t long before her eyes fell upon the diary of Clover which she had left on the table. It wasn’t exactly the book that Star Swirl had given Clover, but if it was so important to her, and so difficult, then some of her thoughts on it might have been written down as an entry.
A quick burst of magic opened the diary as Twilight bent over it, rapidly scanning every line on the page for clues. With nothing on the page she opened up on, she turns to the next page only to find nothing on that either. For several minutes she looked through the diary with no luck until she came to the very last page, upon which a large spell diagram was drawn. It took only a glance for her to see that whatever this spell was, it was on a level that even she had not reached yet, and probably wouldn’t for the next half decade.
“Age… no. Could it be? It’s not an age spell, but…” Her hoof ran across the page as she mumbled to herself, trying to find out what the different symbols and parts of the spell meant. She recognised all of the symbols, but the array they were put into made it extremely confusing.
She continued in the same manner, mumbling to herself as she studied the spell for several minutes as a headache slowly built. At first she thought it was a product of the confusion she felt by the spell in front of her, but even when she took a short break to rub her temple did it not stop in the least. Not even a short minute of attempted meditation helped in the least.
It was only when she took her time to sort through what she had seen so far that there seemed to be something pressing against her mind. Or rather, it didn’t so much press against her mind as it was a memory that tried to make its way to the forefront of consciousness. It was a strange memory, but it quickly made sense.
Furrowing her brows, she lit her horn and threw up an arcane screen in the middle of the room, letting the memory play there. Even as she did so, she made a mental note to somehow thank Trixie for showing her this spell in the first place. What made it so genius wasn’t that she could see her memories play out, but the fact that the memories were played out from a third person perspective, meaning that she could see exactly what Clover was doing rather than just see the effects of it around her.
What she saw made her seize up and stare open mouthed.
“No… No. Th-that can’t be true.” She shook her head and looked up on the screen again, watching as it played from start to finish once more. Nothing had changed, the memory still played the exact same thing in the exact same way. Not a hair on Clover’s body moved differently in the second playthrough than it did in the first.
She gulped and would have fallen to her rump had she not already been sitting down. Her ears lay down and she shook her head, trying to shove the truth out of her mind and become unknown again. Alas, the memory playing out in front of her - Clover casting a spell, leaving her home a wreck as she seemingly teleported away only to reappear on a cobblestone street - would not let her.
In an almost panicked frenzy, she grabs the book and scans over the spell diagram yet again, constantly shooting glances to the memory before quickly reverting to the book. The two ponies approaching Clover, the place she was at, the spell was she was casting before she disappeared… It all made sense, far too much sense.
It was only thanks to Cadence’s breathing exercises that allowed her to not start hyperventilating. She swallowed and let out a deep sigh, hanging her head as she spoke into nothing her acceptance of the truth.
“I-I know what happened to Clover.”
Day court was just about over, and Celestia sat on the throne with her sister by her side, discussing one of the petitions that had been brought in earlier that day. As it was, there were currently no other petitioners and it was only a sense of duty that made Celestia stay until her time was officially up. Her sister had come by just a few minutes prior to ask how many nobles had been a hair’s breadth from being sent flying out of the windows. The answer had been twelve, a new record.
It was much to their shared surprise, then, when the large double doors opened to allow a small lavender shape to step through them. Their attention turned towards Twilight as she slowly walked closer with a small brown book hovering beside her, ears splayed back and with an almost frightened look in her eyes - but also determination.
The silence in the room was heavy as Twilight finally stopped at the foot of the stairs that lead to the twin thrones. Even from the diarchs’ position atop the dais could they hear the unicorn’s loud gulp.
“Yes, Twilight?” Celestia asked kindly, exuding that warmth and motherliness that she was so well known for among her subjects. It didn’t take Celestia’s familiarity with the mare to see that something was bothering her.
Twilight took a deep breath and let it out, cautiously taking the first step up to the thrones. When she was finally at the top and stood in front of her Celestia and Luna, she felt herself starting to second-guess. The revelation was enormous, so much so that she would gladly forget it and just let it be another mystery never to be solved. But she knew that it would not be so; she knew, and she was compelled to tell them.
She put down the book beside her and took yet another deep breath to steel herself. “Princess Luna, Celestia… I know what happened to Clover the Clever.”
Luna tilted her head and raised an inquisitive eyebrow, her face mirroring that of a curious dog. “Pray tell, then, what happened to Clover? T’is the mystery of the ages and we would gladly like to know.” Celestia only nodded her agreement, though her eyes were locked onto Twilight, concerned.
“I… She…” Twilight stopped herself and closed her eyes, forcefully composing herself. She slowed down her breathing, forced her heart to not hammer in her chest.
Finally, after several moments, she opened her eyes and looked up at both the royal sisters, steel in her eyes despite a frightened determination. “Before I begin, please cast the Truth Speaking spell on me, Princesses.”
Luna spared a quick glance to Celestia before she lit her horn and let a coat of magic cover Twilight before it soaked into her body.
Need to test it first. Let’s try to say, ‘Star Swirl was a mare’. “Star Swirl was a stallion… Alright, it works.” Twilight smacked her lips a few times to get a sense of the feeling of saying something she didn’t mean to say, then refocused on the alicorns.
“Twilight?” Celestia asked tentatively. She’d wanted to asked more but a raised hoof from Twilight stopped her.
“Luna, Celestia… I-I was born in the city state of Unicornia in the year 27 Before Equestria by my mother, Trefoil the Wise, and Ruby Quartz the Stoic, my father. I was taught and educated under Star Swirl the Bearded from age six and onwards, later earning my place as council mare of the late King Whitegold’s daughter, Princess Platinum.” She gulped and looked up, having lowered her head during her speech, and delivered the final nail in the coffin that was her old, ignorant self. “And my name... is Clover the Clever.”
Of all the possible answers that Celestia and Luna had expected when they allowed Twilight access to the hidden library, this was definitely not one of them. Truthfully, they had expected her to return empty-hoofed and with only the barest hints as to Clover’s disappearance, but nothing substantial and, certainly, not this. Had they both not know that Twilight was under the Truth Spell, they might very well have dismissed what she was saying as a prank.
“I… Clo - no, Twilight. Can you prove this to us?” Celestia asked, taking a hesitant step forward. She could see by the way the unicorn’s ears were splayed back and the way her eye subtly twitched every now and then that her student wasn’t in a very solid state of mind, so she proceeded with as much care as a mother would her new-born child. “I know that you were under the truth spell and could not have told a lie, but I think I speak for both my sister and I when I say that we trust you, but-” She was interrupted by an indigo hoof passing into her line of sight, blocking her view of Twilight. She glanced to her side and caught Luna’s meaningful gaze and stepped back, allowing her sister to take her place.
Luna stepped up to Twilight and kneeled down, bringing a hoof up under the unicorn’s chin to both prevent her from looking away and also to get her full attention. “Twilight, look at me, good. Now, look into my eyes and just relax.” Twilight did as she was asked, silent and somewhat hesitant, but also curious. Despite her brave face earlier, the façade was cracking. She could attempt to hide her uneasiness and shock behind that mask however much she liked, but it would only hold for a few minutes at best before it cracked and let her true feelings be known. Of all the ponies in Equestria, Luna might very well know better than any what it feels like to hide your true feelings and try to appear normal for all the world to see. She smiled as Twilight’s eyes met hers, the purple meeting cyan.
She lit her horn and spoke calmly. “You are worried and confused, Twilight, I know.” The light of her horn washed over the unicorn and she almost immediately seemed to sag, the tension in her body being washed away by the gentle flow of Luna’s calming magic. “But do not fret, you are still you and, in time, everything will be all right.”
Her smile widened slightly and stood up, stepping back as she did so. She threw a small, reassuring smile towards Celestia when said pony looked at her questioningly. “Calming magic. Very useful when dream walking,” she whispered, answering the unasked question as Twilight regained her bearings.
Celestia nodded and tilted her head towards Twilight as if to ask permission. Luna nodded, prompting Celestia to turn her attention back to Twilight, already preparing the question she had to ask. She was glad to see that Twilight was no longer trying to keep back a flood of uncertainty, fear and confusion, but was much calmer and just sat in contemplative silence.
“Twilight?” she asked, causing the unicorn to look up at her, awaiting whatever question she knew would inevitably come. “Can you tell us how you came to realise this? How did you find out about… Who you are?”
Twilight sighed, lifting a hoof to pat down some of the hairs that had sprung out from her mane during the few minutes before Luna had allowed her mind to come to some level of peace. She hadn’t even noticed it by now, and neither had Celestia, which wasn’t very surprising given the magnitude of the news she had received moments prior.
Twilight’s horn sparked to life and two empty, arcane screens appeared behind her. “I guess the best thing would be to start from the beginning. As I told you a few months ago, I found out that I had a certain Link which allowed me to access the memories of Clover, or so you told me. These memories have plagued me for years, coming to me in the form of dreams. I didn’t realise where they came from until I read he- m-... the journal. So much was identical to my dreams and when I brought it to you, I thought I had finally found a way to find out what happened to Clover.”
“I knew that if I was under the truth spell, as you had told me about by then, that I could tell you what I had seen via the link, but it wouldn’t be enough to convince other ponies. I was on a break in Ponyville with my friends when Trixie - I’m sure you remember her - came back with the Alicorn Amulet. She used a spell, the same one that makes the screens behind me, to show us of how her past had been since she initially came to our town. I figured that if she could use that spell to show how her past had unfolded, then so could I use it to show what I had seen via the link. During the days of Trixie’s brief reign I trained with Zecora, I briefly told her about my research and the problem I had. She told me about a meditation method that she often used to revisit her past and learn from it, and promised to teach it to me when Trixie had been… dealt with. She told me about how it would allow me to visit something she called the Hall of Memories, but also informed me that it was more than just simple meditation and required a bit of magic together with intense focus.”
She paused to regain her breath before continuing. “We got the amulet from Trixie and she apologised, so no harm no foul… That’s beside the point, but anyways. I spent about a month researching and practising the spell I had seen Trixie use, and when I had finally learned it went to Zecora to ask for her help. She agreed, saying that she had made a promise, and we then spent quite a bit of time training that meditation method, and I finally seemed to have it within my grasp just two days ago, I think.” She shook her head, pausing in her speech. “Sorry, I had a few black-outs so it’s been difficult to keep track.” Both Luna and Celestia nodded in understand, the latter then motioning for Twilight to continue.
She took a few moments to reorient herself, digging through her memory to be sure that she got everything right even as she prepared her magic, causing her horn to shimmer slightly. “Anyway. I entered this Hall of Memories when I came back to Canterlot and the library, having spent a few days with my friends before that as a break. I’d explain what it looked like, but it was really nothing but a white expanse with shimmering blobs of light,” Celestia nodded knowingly but said nothing. “I found several screens similar to the ones behind me there, but little else. At one point I came upon a sort of ‘thread’ . It looked like it should have been one of those screens, or I think it should have, but it wasn’t. When I tried to grasp it I… The best example I can give is that I opened a floodgate and had every one of Clover’s memories flood my mind. I blacked out and woke up a few hours later, I think.”
She turned and looked to the screens behind her, upon one of which images were starting to fade in as Twilight worked on making her memories into visual representations. “I sorted through the memories and came upon one where Star Swirl gave Clover a book with a certain spell in it. I then looked in the diary and found the diagram of that spell. I felt a memory try to surface while I did that. When the headache it gave me become too much, I played it on a screen such as these… and this is it.”
The light surrounding her horn flashed brightly before a small beam shot from it and impacted on the first of the two arcane screens. Upon it appeared a still picture of a pony the exact likeness of Twilight - though wearing a cloak and looking a decade or so older - with her horn shining like a beacon and her face set in a mask of intense concentration. The room she was in was filled with book shelves lining the walls, a large hourglass standing in one end of the room with a desk cluttered with papers and a few tomes in the other end. There was a door which lead to a different room, probably the kitchen, but it was locked.
Twilight’s horn flashed again and the screen started playing the memory. An ethereal wind picked up inside the room, whipping around both papers and scrolls as well as causing both Clover’s mane an cloak to billow around her. The wind got stronger and stronger until it was as if a whirlwind of paper and scrolls surrounded her. When her horn’s light finally reached its apex, her eyes opened and showed shock, surprise, and horror. Even before the spell had finished, she knew something had gone horribly wrong.
Even soundless as the memory was, Celestia, Luna and Twilight could almost feel the scream that tore itself from Clover’s throat as the spell propelled her through time and space and twisted her very being. An explosion rocked the cabin she was in as the spell failed, leaving it a shadow of its former tidiness. Bookshelves fell over, some shattered. The top half of the hourglass was crushed and the rest tipped over, flooding a large part of the floor with its sand. Some books caught fire, but most noticeable of all was the large scorch mark on the ground where Clover had stood seconds prior.
The memory stopped and froze on the image of the wrecked room. Twilight turned back towards Celestia and Luna, awaiting the questions that would inevitably come.
Luna looked away from the screen with her brows furrowed in a contemplative frown. “Curiouser… Tell me, Twilight, do you know what this spell was?”
Twilight nodded and picked up the book, opening it on one of its last pages then presented it for the lunar alicorn. “It says here that it was a time travel spell which was supposed to allow her to travel into either the future or the past, much like Star Swirl’s original time travel spell, but only that it would allow one to remain there indefinitely.”
Celestia took the book in her magic and brought it closer, skimming over the text with Luna looking briefly over her shoulder to scan the text for but a second. “How was it made?” Luna inquired, looking back to Twilight.
“If you turn to the next page you’ll see a spell diagram.” “She cautiously reached out for the book, nodding in thanks as Celestia passed it back to her. She turned it around so that both the alicorns could see the page she had flipped over to; it showed the spell diagram. “I spent some time looking over it and sifting through… my memories and found out that way. The idea behind the original time travel spell was that it set a timer on you, so that you would be sent back to your own time when you became, say, two minutes older than you were upon casting. The way Clover - or, well, I - tried to to avoid this timer was to use parts of the age spell to reverse your age every time the timer was almost up. The problem, however, was that a miscalculation was made which caused that part of the spell to multiply over and over again until she reached the point where she was technically zero seconds old, or just born. Since the timer could no longer go back, the spell fell in on itself and cancelled out.”
Both Celestia and Luna hummed thoughtfully as they digested this new information. It made sense, sort of, when they thought about it. They had both studied Star Swirl’s spells, including the time travel one, and with this new information, and the spell diagram in front of them, they could see how it’d make sense and how it could potentially work. It was, however, too much work for even them to come up with a way to make it fully functional on the spot, but the idea and logic behind it was not lost on them.
Star Swirl was a genius in his own right, but Clover was certainly one too, Celestia mused, her eyes falling down to rest on Twilight, a smile following. But then again, we’re talking about her. That she’s intelligent is no surprise.
“It certainly is an interesting theory,” Luna said after a few moments. “And forgive me for asking, Twilight, but can you show us further proof that you truly are, or were, Clover the Clever? As we said before, we do trust you, doubly so because you are under the truth spell which compels you to speak the truth regardless of what medium you use, but without substantial proof such as the memory you just showed us, we cannot accept your word quite as easily as we’d like to.”
Twilight nodded. “I understand, and I guess it makes sense.” Luna nodded as well, the ghosts of a proud smile playing at her lips. Twilight, for her part, turned towards the remaining arcane screen and shot a beam of magic at that too, watching as a cobblestone street and Clover still wearing her cloak appeared. There were houses on either side, and it was clearly in the richer part of the city, Canterlot if the towering palace that could be spotted over the rooftops was of any indication.
Twilight looked back towards Celestia and received a nod of approval. She refocused on the arcane screen and the memory started to play. The first thing that happened was that Clover immediately started to lose signs of age. It was only when she seemed to shrink that the change registered in the mind of the pony herself. She stepped forward, the cloak falling off and revealing her cutie mark; a large pink star with a starburst of five smaller, white ones surrounding it. She continued to shrink and become younger and younger until she lost her balance and fell onto her side, the Cutie Mark having disappeared a few moments ago.
About half a minute passed before a newly born unicorn filly lay wailing on the ground. Just then, a pair of ponies rounded a corner not far away and approached in a hurried trot, having apparently heard the crying. They were a pair of unicorns, one mare and stallion. The stallion was a light blue with a mane and tail of a darker shade of blue. His cutie mark was two crescent moons, the smaller of the two being inside the other. The mare had a white coat with a purple and white striped mane and tail, her cutie mark being three, five-pointed stars. Celestia and Luna recognised them instantly; they were Night Light and Twilight Velvet, Twilight’s parents.
They looked at the filly in front of them and had a quick discussion as to what to do, or so the viewers of the memory assumed. It took less than half a minute before the mare picked up the filly in her magic and placed her on her back, then turned around and trotted away with the stallion following, their faces a mix of concern and determination. The last thing they saw were a young, white colt with a two-toned white mane opening the door to one of the smaller mansions and allowing the two adults inside.
“You were adopted,” Celestia noted. It was more of a statement than it was a question. “I never knew that… Does it bother you, Twilight?” She looked away from the screen and down to her student.
Twilight turned around and met Celestia’s politely inquiring eyes with her own thoughtful ones. “I’m not really sure. It may just be Luna’s spell, but it doesn’t trouble me as much as I think it should. Yes, I’m disappointed that they never told me and I’m sad that I don’t quite remember my… real parents. Clover’s memories are still so far off that they don’t quite feel like my own… even if I know they are.” She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. “I need to talk to them at some point, but right now what I need to most is to get past all of,” she waved her hoof at the screens behind her, “this.”
Celestia nodded in understand but said nothing, giving Luna the chance to speak. “So, Twilight, is there more you wish to show us? I, for one, think that you have given us plenty of proof of your discovery, and I am sure my sister feels the same.”
“No.” Twilight shook her head. “There isn’t. The only thing, well… I, I really just want someone to talk to, and I don’t think my parents are the ones considering that I just found out that I’m adopted.” She paused. A wry smile made its way onto her lips. “Still, though, they’ve treated and loved me like I was their own, so I can’t fault them. Plus, I suppose it’d be difficult to explain that they had just found me on the street.”
Celestia smiled and sat down for the first time since Twilight had entered, placing herself on her belly in front of Twilight with a warm smile on her lips. “If it is of any consolation, Twilight, you could say that Luna and I were adopted as well.” At this, Twilight tilted her head confusedly.
“I believe what my sister is trying to say,” Luna butted in, laying down in front of Twilight as well. “Is that we never knew our true parents either.”
This revelation had done nothing to help Twilight’s confusion. “So you two were abandoned? Who raised you? How long ago was that?” She would have fired off more questions, eager to move to a topic that did not revolve around her being someone she thought long gone, but Luna’s raised hoof stopped her.
“T’is true that we did not know our true parents, but we did have two ponies we considered to be our mother and father. We were, believe it or not, actually born mortal, and…”
Twilight sighed and closed her eyes, listening to Luna’s retellings of their past and their parents, about finding their cutie marks and ascending. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t help the small smile that teased at the corners of her lips. I wasn’t raised by the parents that brought me into this world, just like Celestia and Luna. Like them, I never knew my real parents and became something I never expected to be. But even then, my life as Twilight Sparkle is a real as anypony else’s. I’m Twilight Sparkle, but I’m also Clover the Clever, and I don’t intend to change that. I still have some things I need to sort out before I can fully accept that, but I’m sure I can grow accustomed to it, given the time.
Author's Note
And here it is, the finale and revelation of what happened to Clover the Clever. I hope you guys liked it and were, well, surprised. That was really my goal all along
I would more than appreciate it if you'd leave a comment telling me what you think. It's no surprise that I've been looking forward to this for a very long time and, as every artist out there, I thrive on the opinions of my readers.
With that being said, there isn't much more to comment on. I wish to thank Taranasaurus for his help on proofreading/editing my chapters. He's been invaluable when it comes to catching my more stupid mistakes and offering advice to making quite a few of my paragraphs better. So Hat's off to you, Taranasaurus.
There will be an epilogue out in the not-so-distant future, so until then... See you, and thank you for sticking with me!
Epilogue - Past and Present
It had been a trying year for Twilight since she had tried to find out what happened to Clover the Clever after she disappeared, only to find out that Clover hadn’t so much disappeared as sent into the future. A year filled with doubt, shouting matches, research and more failed spells than she cared to count. Her friends had been there, of course, doing everything in their power to help her through the more difficult days when the uncertainty resurfaced.
When they had first heard the news the reactions had been mixed. Rarity, the one who knew the most about unicorn history, had simply ceased functioning; she had stood there for her mouth hanging open and eyes wide as saucers. Of course, all of them knew of Clover from when they had played in the Hearth’s Warming Pageant, but only Rarity had known why she was famous outside of that one legend she was told as a child. She claimed to know simply because of study sessions with a friend. And then, to think that her own friend was the very unicorn that had suddenly disappeared millennia ago.
Twilight still chuckled at how she sputtered, while futilely attempting to regain her composure after she had told them.
Applejack and Rainbow had taken it more in stride, although Rainbow had jumped off the ground, shouting “Awesome!” loud enough to make the entire room wince. Pinkie Pie had just gasped and embraced Twilight immediately. She had said something about how fantastic it was that Twilight had finally found out who she really was, despite not knowing that she was somepony else than Twilight Sparkle. The choice of words, while innocent, had sparked another bout of doubt. It didn’t last long, however, as Pinkie did her best to apologise in the form of suggesting a “You Found Out That You Were Clover and Sorry For Making You Sad Again” party.
Whatever plans Pinkie was brewing then, were, luckily—depending on one’s view—interrupted by Fluttershy’s surprisingly loud inquiry as to how exactly she had discovered her true identity. The following explanation of how she had come across her true identity was one riddled with questions from all six present ponies and dragon.
Twilight let out what should have been a happy sigh as she corrected a jagged line of chalk on the floor, but found it to instead be one of aggravation as her thoughts turned to the day when she had tried to explain it to her parents, and also ask why they had never told her that she was adopted.
It hadn’t been pretty, as Twilight’s already fragile state of mind had been tipped over completely by the shouting match that ensued. Sure, her father had attempted to keep the two mares from waking the dead, but even his best wasn’t enough to calm down Twilight as her feelings of betrayal and uncertainty were unleashed in a flood. Why had they never told her? Wasn’t it important for a child to know her parentage? More questions had followed those, each in a louder volume, and each answer returned with equal volume.
It was only when Shining Armor stepped through the door—he and Cadence having come to visit—that things calmed down. Thanks in part to a Guard Captain’s commands and Cadence’s calming presence, as well as two heavy barriers separating the mother and daughter.
Frustration as well as anger and sadness had flooded Twilight’s mind, but the calming presence of her older brother and sister-in-law helped her to get things talked out with her parents. They hadn’t told her because they never felt the time was right, and between her living in the castle and studying under Celestia, and then moving the Ponyville. They hadn’t had many chances when she was finally old enough that they thought she should be told. But every time they had visited, or she had visited, they had backed out, not wanting to ruin what little time they had together.
It had taken a few months before things had returned to some semblance of normality and Twilight had fully forgiven her parents, and Shining, for not telling her earlier.
Many more things had happened in the year since her discovery of her birth name, among those making sure that absolutely no one knew of it; she didn’t want to have the entirety of Equestria know that she was, in fact, Clover the Clever, not to mention how many historians across the world would come hunting her down for information about an age long gone that only someone who had lived there would be able to give. She was perfectly willing to share what she knew and could remember with the public, but she wasn’t keen on letting the world know that Clover was among them quite yet. She was just happy that she had had the princesses on her side.
But above all, however, she had been researching. It had been less intense than when she tried to discover what had happened to - well, herself - but it was still enough that Spike had had to take over Library duties from her every now and then.
What she had been studying was a time travel spell, but a far more complex one that had only been attempted once before, and failed miserably. She should know, after all, she was the one who attempted it.
It was with the thought of her previous failure that Twilight stood in front of a large spell matrix drawn on the floor in her library. She was watching for any irregularities or mistakes, however minor, to make sure that nothing went wrong this time. She walked around it for several minutes before she felt satisfied, only to then walk over to a book on her desk and look through her notes on how to cast it.
It was half an hour later, and five double checks on both notes and spell diagram, that she finally felt ready.
“Wish me luck, Spike,” she said, her voice wavering with uncertainty..
“Good luck, Twi. And calm down, I know you can do it. You are, after all, the greatest unicorn sorcerer in, not one, but two eras!”
She shot him a deadpan look before returning her attention to the diagram in front of her. “Not funny, Spike.”
The dragon in question just shook his head and took a single inconspicuous step closer to the kitchen where the fire extinguisher was coincidentally located.
“Alright, I’m ready. If all goes well I should be back in eight hours.” She shot a sincere, if nervous, smile at her assistant over her shoulder. “I’ll see you then.”
Spike chose to stay silent as she stepped into the centre of the circle and lit her horn.
She could feel the power build up, almost see it with her mind’s eye. The light from her horn slowly grew stronger and stronger until it shone like a beacon. The notes and different sections of the spell slowly took form in her mind, clicking together like pieces of a puzzle. Ethereal winds blew around her, whipping her mane and tail around her.
Almost there.
The feeling that you feel when you are about to put in the last piece of a puzzle, a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, welled up inside Twilight as she felt the spell near completion. And, after several more moments, a wide grin spread across her muzzle as she felt the final note of the spell fall into place and whisk her away on the streams of magic that permeated everything.
Spike, for his part, came walking out of the kitchen with the fire extinguisher and immediately started dousing the small fire that had been left in the wake of her teleportation. While doing so he took in the toppled table and chairs, the papers and books everywhere as well as the remains of a half-eaten sandwich slowly gliding down the wall.
“You would think she’d learn,” he mumbled.
Twilight shook her head, clearing herself of the dizziness that often came with teleportation, and opened her eyes. She glanced around and saw several wooden houses, all nearly identical, as well as simple dirt roads. A large mountain loomed in the distance with the moon peeking up just behind it.
So this is what it looked like. In hindsight, that thought was somewhat stupid given the fact that she had full memory of the place, but being here was something different from just remembering. It should be… Ah! Over there!
She turned to the closest house, her face illuminated by the soft yellow light that poured from the window. It was nothing out of the ordinary, and only looked different because of the light coming from within. She trotted over to it and knocked on the door thrice before stepping back to wait. No, what made this house unique wasn’t the way it looked, but the pony who lived there.
The door opened and a dark grey stallion with a long grey mane and even longer white beard looked out, green eyes piercing through the darkness with a grumpiness so often seen in old ponies. That grumpiness, however, melted away and was replaced by a dumbfounded look when his eyes landed on the sheepishly smiling Twilight. Or, as he knew her—
“Clover?!” Star Swirl exclaimed, wrapping his front legs around her with a surprising amount of strength from such an old stallion. “Young filly, I… Wait. You look....” He released her from his grip and stepped back, scrutinizing her with a nearly uncomfortably level of intensity. “How come you look so much younger than when I last saw you?”
“It’s… a long story. Can I come in?” She tried her best to appear calm and nonchalant, but found it difficult in the presence of her biggest idol. It was all she could do not to squee of delight.
The stallion stepped back and held the door open for her, letting her enter, and then closed the door after her. “I have some tea brewing, why don’t you take a seat by the fire and I’ll have it ready in a moment.”
Twilight nodded and went to the fire, taking the chair nearest the door.
Her attention was drawn from the picture above the fireplace when a small porcelain cup floated in front of her. She gladly accepted it and blew on it before taking a small sip. She grimaced; it was still too hot.
“So, Clover,” Star Swirl said, sitting down in the other chair, his green eyes focused solely on the other unicorn. “You have a lot to tell me, I assume. You disappear suddenly, your home is nearly a ruin, and when you return after a month you look ten years younger. Tell me, what happened?”
Twilight sighed, taking another sip of the tea while sorting out her thoughts. “A lot happened, actually. The short version is that I was propelled thousands of years into the future.”
“WHAT?!” Star Swirl was on his hooves, staring at her with wide eyes. “Thousands of years? Don’t be ridiculous, such a thing is impossible!”
Twilight shook her head. “It isn’t.” A small smile tugged at her lips as her former mentor sat back down, still somewhat stunned. “It’s very much possible, and that’s also how I returned. The time travel spell you created has survived for millennia, and I used a modified version to return here. As for my story, it’s a long one, but let me start from the beginning. You once gave me the notes for your time travel spell when I asked for it to try and make you capable of staying in the past, or future, for a longer time than just a few minutes.”
“I noticed how there was a timer that couldn’t be changed without making the arrival point uncertain, so I tried with implementing some parts of the Age Spell in it. You know how the timer worked: When you become a set amount of time older, you are transported back. So, using the Age Spell, I tried to make the spell make you younger every time the timer ran out. That way you could stay for however long you wanted. It didn’t quite go as planned, and although I ended up roughly where I wanted—I had aimed for four thousand years into the future—it failed. The part that made me younger went out of control and made me a newborn filly. When it could no longer make me any younger, because I was literally zero seconds old—new-born. It fizzled and stopped. I was then found by a pair of ponies and adopted, and lived there for the past 24 years.” She smiled faintly and took another sip of her tea before resuming her tale: Her life, her discovery of her own journal, the subsequent search for anything related to Clover’s disappearance, her ‘dreams’, friends and her discovery of her true identity.
Once she had finished her tale he sat in contemplative silence for several minutes, just staring at the fire and enjoying the company of his friend and former pupil. “Do you wish to be called Twilight, then?” He looked at her, face impassive.
“No.” She shook her head, smiling. “I am Clover, but I’m also Twilight. You knew, and know, me as Clover, so that’s what I want you to call me.” That got a smile out of the older stallion.
He smiled widely, then laughed loudly and joyously. “If that’s what you want, Clover. Still, it’s good to see that you are well and learning. This Celestia sounds wonderful, she must be a fantastic teacher. Better than me, I suspect.”
“You have different ways of teaching, but you are both equally great and famous, even.” Twilight was silent for a moment, her thoughts suddenly turning to the time. Out the corner of her eye she could see that the moon was about to dip below the horizon; she had been here for many hours already. “Speaking of Celestia… it’s about time that I have to return.”
Star Swirl sighed, his ears splaying back against his skull. “I had expected as much. It does not make me happy, but I suppose that it is inevitable. If you discovered who you were via research then that must mean that you did not stay, or there would be records of your presence here after your disappearance. It saddens me to see you go, but I guess such things are inevitable. Just… promise me one thing, Clover.”
Twilight looked at him, noting how he looked so sad yet so happy at the same time. Knowing that she was all right had to make him happy, but now knowing that she had to go would be almost as crushing as realising that she was gone in the first place.
She nodded.
“Just promise me that you will take good care of yourself and your friends. You were the only one I ever had, and I treasure you as much as you seem to treasure them.” He shook his head. “I hate to say goodbye, but they are inevitable.” He smiled sadly. “Goodbye, Clover. It was good to see you again. And don’t worry, I will keep quiet about your little visit. After all, we can’t have the history books say that you suddenly appeared again. Wouldn’t make much sense now would it?”
His chuckle seemed to warm her heart; it made her happy, and it also gave her an idea. “You know, I don’t think this will be goodbye,” said Twilight, watching as he raised an eyebrow, clearly confused. “I’ll come visit every now and then.” His eyes shone, a smile already forming on his eyes. “Once every month, I can come visit if you want. We’ll have to keep it private and a secret from everypony here, but it shouldn’t be so hard. After all, there are no records of me ever returning after I disappeared.”
Star Swirl smiled. He smiled wider than he had in years. The past month had been a hell for him: His only friend had disappeared and none of the search parties had returned with any clues as to her disappearance, nor could any of the other unicorns find out what spell she had cast from the residue magic in her home. That, coupled with the Great Winter only a decade prior and the ensuing squabbles that had followed the discovery of what was now Equestria, had made his life an almost depressive one with no reasons to smile. Only Clover’s presence had ever really made him smile genuinely.
He bowed his head, grinning from ear to ear. “I would like that very much.”
Twilight smiled too and went forward to hug him, an embrace which he returned eagerly. They stood like that for a few moments until an ethereal wind started to pick up around them.
Twilight stepped back and turned her head this way and that way, watching as small arcs of energy spread across her body at random. The wind continued to grow stronger until it was strong enough to low her hair up and around.
“I’ll see you in a month, Star Swirl,” she said, the arcs of energy becoming more and more frequent. It almost looked like she was glowing.
“And I will see you, my friend.”
The arcs now covered her entire body, jumping to and fro. Then a large spark seemed to erupt from her core, blinding both unicorns, and seemingly swallowed up Twilight.
When Twilight opened her eyes again she found herself in the middle of Golden Oak’s Library. Nothing had changed except perhaps for a few books being out of place and a small amount of fire extinguisher foam left here and there where it hadn’t been cleaned up.
That, however, wasn’t the important part. A quick look out the window revealed it to be morning, and that meant that the market stalls were open. Which, in turn, meant that it was time somedragon got out of bed.
“Spike. SPIKE!” Twilight shouted, only to cringe as the sound of something hitting the floor came from upstairs.
“Huh! Who’s there?!” Spike shouted back, peeking down from the top of the stairs. “Twilight? You’re back! Did it go well? Did you meet Star Swirl?” While talking he had walked down the stairs and was now standing on the lowest step.
“I did, and he was actually really kind. Anyway, I need you to go out and buy me some more chalk. We’re going to need a lot more from now on.”
“Huh? What for?”
She smiled at him, a smile that clearly showed him she was looking forward to something. “I’m going to be visiting Star Swirl once a month from now on. And don’t worry, we won’t be discovered.” Her smile morphed into a smirk. “It isn’t in the history books, so nopony ever saw me there.”
“Uuh… alright. Does it have to be now, though? I was in the middle of stuffing myself with three times my weight in Emerald Cake.”
Twilight shook her head. “It’s already past the time you should be up. I’ll get some breakfast going in the meantime-Hey, don’t look at me like that. I learned how to cook.”
Shrugging, Spike walked towards the door and opened it, throwing a look back at Twilight before he went out. “I’ll be going then. Also, emerald dust in my portion, please.”
“Sure,” she replied, chuckling.
Star Swirl stood for a few minutes and watched the place where Clover had been standing when she returned to—as much as it pained him to say it—her own time.
A sigh escaped him and his eyes trailed towards the ceiling. She may have been born here, but her life in this time ended a month ago. Now her life is in the future, and all I can do is wait for her to visit… I’m looking forward to it.
“It looks like,” he said, closing his eyes and smiling. “You finally discovered the Fate of Clover, my dear Pupil.”
Author's Note
October 6th marked the birth of what I would call my Manum Opus - My greatest, and proudest work.
I will say it here and now that I am proud of this story. It started as a small idea that Twilight found a diary and found out that it was Clover's, and as time went on she came to the realisation that she wasn't just Twilight, but she was also Clover the Clever. What you see here is the result of that story, something that I am not hesitant to call the best story I have ever written, and something that will likely remain the one thing I am the proudest of for a very long time.
With that being said, I want to thank everyone who has ever edited for me, both Switches before he decided to take a break from editing, and Taranasaurus who took over after him. But even then, this wouldn't have been possible without you guys: The readers. While this isn't my highest rated or most read story, there are still a good 500 of you who have read this story.
So it is with both a heavy heart but also a deep sense of satisfaction that I close the door for The Fate of Clover and say a final thank you.
It was difficult, but it was fun.
