Mirror, Mirror

“I suggest you evacuate the village,” the stranger said, an edge to his words.

“This is my home, and I believe I speak for the rest of my village when I say I’ll leave it when I die,” Lord Scrawl spat. Angry murmurs rose from the growing crowd. I pressed against Father, who was watching the exchange with the intensity of a timberwolf.

The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “You’re being affected by their magic; can’t you see that?! Put your personal sentiments aside and look at this objectively!”

Lord Scrawl stepped closer, eyes blazing. The stranger stood his ground. “I would notice if my mind was being tampered with. Now leave. My. Village.”

The stranger snorted. “On your own head be it.” Pulling his cloak tighter around him, he started walking away.

Father nudged me. “He’s kicked him out of the village, hasn’t he?” he asked softly. I nodded.

“Tell him he can stay at our house until morning.”

“Mister!” I yelled, running after the stranger.

The stranger turned. “What, filly?” he growled. “Can’t you see your lord’s banished me? I’ve got to find shelter before nightfall.”

I scowled back at him. “It’s Clover, not filly. Father said you can stay at our house ‘till morning, but if you don’t want to…”

The stranger sighed. “Alright.”

“What’s your name?” I asked, looking behind me to make sure the stallion was still following.

“Starswirl.”

I wondered if Father had started home yet. Maybe we should wait for him—he’d had business in the village and had said to just start walking home without him. He hadn’t mentioned what the business was exactly, but I suspected it involved convincing Lantern not to close the mine.

If he closed it, I’d break his nose.

“Have the villagers seemed unusually hostile lately?” Starswirl asked suddenly.

I frowned. How had he known about that? “Yeah, actually. Baked Crust is almost always friendly, but yesterday she frightened three foals with her yelling.” Rotten Apple at the market was in a bad mood too, but that was normal.

I went on. “It’s not just her either. Funny Story, White Marble, and Letter have all been just plain nasty since the other day.”

“Hmm.”

We walked in silence for a while longer. “Where are you from?” I asked.

“Canterlot.”

Canterlot! I’d never gone beyond the woods, but traders exchanged so many stories about the city I didn’t know what was false. “Really?! Is it as magnificent as they say? Why did you come to Whitetail?”

“My occupation.”

He wasn’t a trader or peddler; that much was obvious. And Whitetail was hardly a center of trade. It was right by the Everfree though, so…

“Are you one of those fancy hunters?” I asked. It hadn’t happened in years, but every so often a hunter would come in hopes of slaying a rare beast. Mother told tales of a time when they came from all four corners of the world, and not just hunters. Magicians and scientists, determined to uncover the secrets of the Everfree.

Not one came back, she’d told me. Slowly they stopped coming, warned away by the locals and carcasses of their predecessors.

“Something like that.”

I stopped suddenly and whirled around. “I’ll tell you right now, stay away from the Everfree. Manticores and hydras…Nobody sees them and lives to tell the tale.”

Starswirl tilted his hood back to look me in the eye, his expression somewhere between amused and thoughtful. “Shamrock, was it?”

“Clover.”

“I didn’t come here to find a hydra. I came here to find something far worse.”

Neither of us said anything the rest of the walk home, thankfully only over the next hill. Father had yet to return when we arrived.

“So what brings you to Whitetail? Business, perhaps?” Mother asked after they had introduced themselves. I tossed my cloak on the floor, earning myself a disapproving look.

“Yes,” Starswirl said, removing his own cloak.

I gasped. Hanging at his side was crossbow, and poking out of an oversized saddlebag were several barbed arrows.

“I’m a demon hunter,” Starswirl informed Mother and I. “For the past two weeks, I’ve been tracking three of them.”

Mother’s magic fluttered out and the log crashed to the floor. Blushing, her horn lit up, and she moved the log into the fire.

“Far worse than a hydra,” he’d said. “Is…is that why you told Lord Scrawl to evacuate the village?” I asked.

Starswirl nodded. “They’re sirens—”

Mother’s eyes widened in recognition.

“—similar to seaponies, though they fly rather than swim. Their song causes malice, clouding the minds of ponies and spreading yet more hatred. Once within their control, the magic of ponies is a feast to them.”

A shiver ran down my spine. “Like changelings.” Mother talked about them once, and that night every shadow looked like a hole-riddled hoof and every sound a buzz of wings.

“No. Changelings feed off of love and positive feelings, not magic. Mind control is a separate ability for them and isn’t connected with their base ability, shape shifting.”

The door swung open, slamming against the wall. Father shivered in the doorway.

“Father!” I squealed, running over and nuzzling him.

“This is Starswirl,” Mother said, carefully enunciating her words.

“Are you staying with us?” Father asked.

“Yes. Thank you for your hospitality,” Starswirl said with a bob of his head.

Father looked at me, brows raised.

“He’s deaf,” I informed Starswirl. Or just about. He could still hear very loud sounds. “He has to be able to read your lips.”

“Yes. Thank you for your hospitality,” Starswirl repeated, this time looking straight at Father.

Father smiled. “It’s no problem.”

Over dinner, Mother explained everything to Father. The demon hunting, the sirens. When she was done, Father looked pained and wary. “I guess being deaf does have its advantages after all,” he joked.

Maybe. I looked away. I wished the accident had never happened. Ponies treated Father differently than they used to…like he was disabled. He wasn’t! He was still the same pony, you just had to look at him when you were talking. And there had to be enough light, and you couldn’t talk too fast.

Still. It wasn’t fair.

“Can you tell a story, Mother?” I asked, levitating my bowl into the wash basin.

Mother smiled and turned so Father could ‘listen’. “Alright. My father’s family has lived in this valley for many years…”

“And every generation crazier than the last. Except for you, dear, it skipped you,” Father interrupted.

Mother’s glare could have turned a river to ice. I giggled. This was our tradition: I would ask for a story after dinner. Mother would oblige and weave a fantastic tale, riddled with Father’s clever remarks and my raucous laughter and horrified gasps.

“As I was saying…It was my great-great uncle, Twisted Oak who discovered the pool. It was a summer afternoon, very warm. He walked through the trees, looking at all the strange plants but being very careful to touch nothing, for in those days there was no clear boundary between Whitetail and Everfree.

“Suddenly, he heard a noise. Twisted leapt around, but saw nothing. But how is one to see wolves of sticks and crocodiles of stone, among trees and rocks? So he ran.”

Father raised his hoof. “Actually, I have a funny story about that. See, Glowing was taking a walk when he thought he saw a timberwolf, so he set everything on fire—”

I giggled. “Did he set himself on fire?”

Mother pressed a hoof to her mouth, giving Father the most exasperated look she could muster through her laughter. “Pickaxe. Please. Oh, where was I?”

“Your relative was running,” Starswirl said. Sometime during Mother’s story, he had gotten up and was now examining a ridiculous, bell-adorned cloak.

“Yes. Twisted sprinted as though Cerberus himself was on his tail. But he knew that he couldn’t run for long—soon he would tire, and then he would be devoured. Mustering all his energy, he let loose a massive explosion. When the smoke cleared he stood at the bottom of a crater. Hooves shaking, he walked through the ashes, one goal in mind: get home.

“Suddenly, he found himself falling, and then he hit his head and fell unconscious. When Twisted came to, he was in a cavern. Above him daylight streamed in through a jagged hole. He realized what had happened—the explosion blew a hole in the thin rock at the top of the cavern, and he had fallen inside.

“But he wasn’t a featherhead like the pegasi; he couldn’t fly and he couldn’t escape the cave. In saving himself from the jaws of timberwolves he had doomed himself to a slower death.”

Starswirl muttered something about a spell. Ignoring him, Mother continued.

“I don’t know what happened next, Twisted Oak never told anyone. But this is his sister’s, River Reed’s best guess. He’d always wanted to write a book. Even if his talent wasn’t writing a book, he was going to write one anyway.”

“Stubbornness seems to run in her family too. Especially your grandfather,” Father muttered to me.

Grandfather was famous. Or infamous, depending on who you asked.

Mother sighed. “Okay, I’ll give you that one. So, without parchment or quill, he began to narrate aloud. For the next day, he narrated the story he never had a chance to write, which is now lost to the ages. His only sustenance was water, taken from the pool flowing in the cavern. Then he came to these words…”

Mother and I chanted it together. “And solemnly sweared not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly there!”

“Twisted’s reflection rose up out of the crystal-clear water, dragging itself onto the rocks. Sure he had gone mad from hunger, Twisted stared. And stared.

“And solemnly sweared not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly there, he repeated. Again, his reflection dragged itself out of the water. Now three Twisted Oaks were in the cavern. Well, Twisted thought, he was desperate. So they chanted and chanted, until scores of them filled the cave fit to burst. With the magic of dozens, Twisted Oak levitated boulder upon boulder to form a staircase out of the cavern.

“Finally, Twisted Oak was free, and sunlight had never looked better,” Mother finished.

“What happened next?” I asked.

Mother shook her head. “The rest of the story is less happy…perhaps another night.”

“Tonight?” I pleaded.

Mother smiled a bit. “Okay, I guess you’re old enough. Twisted Oak thought it was hilarious at first—River Reed wrote about how he would raid the local bakery, and have a perfect alibi. Of course, once everypony realized that there were multiple Twisteds, that didn’t work anymore.”

Mother’s smile fell. “As time went on, not one of the copies faded as Twisted thought they would. He went mad, unsure if he was even the original. Finally, he threw himself in the river. All over Whitetail, Twisted Oak started flailing. River Reed realized he was drowning—all of him—on dry land.”

The jingling of the bells on Starswirl's cloak was thunderous in the silence that followed Mother’s story.

Father nudged me. “Why don’t you show Starswirl to the guest room?”

I slid off the chair and grabbed my cloak. Wrapping it around myself, I opened the door. “C’mon.”

-

“Was your mother’s story true?” Starswirl yelled above the roaring gale.

“Yeah!” I yelled back, galloping to the barn. We ran inside and I slammed the door shut. Strands of hay settled on the floor.

I lit up my horn, bathing the room in a magenta glow. “There’s a lamp somewhere in here, and there’s a cot too.”

Starswirl snorted. His horn flashed, and a miniature sun appeared in the middle of the room. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, glaring at him. He could’ve given me some warning.

“I’m going to go look for the pool your mother talked about,” Starswirl informed me.

“Why?” I asked.

Starswirl looked down at me, and his mouth twitched. “Because the last thing I need is six sirens to deal with.”

The idea came up suddenly, unexpectedly and I blurted out the words. “I want to come with you.”