Mirror, Mirror

Mother was no idiot. She was sure to have seen the trees; the wreckage in the forest. She must have seen the magic—magenta, the same as mine. I couldn’t face her. And so I had turned around and cantered to the village.

Baked Crust barked something I couldn’t hear, shoving me. I bumped into a stallion, and he scowled at me over thick glasses. I stuck my tongue out at him and ran, leaping over a group of foals. Landing with a spectacular crash of bells, I kept running.

It was like some twisted mockery of a parade, I thought, weaving through the throng. No…like they were all enchanted by sirens. Except…Father was deaf, it occurred to me. He couldn’t be affected. I redoubled my speed.

I held my breath as I entered the alley. Did I dare still the bells and stop the infernal racket, but risk a repeat of earlier? Visions of huts, roofs caved in and walls crumbling, flashed before my eyes. No. Definitely not.

I stopped. Letter stood behind the house, and for a split second I felt relieved. No…her eyes were those of a pony who had heard the siren’s song: stony and cruel.

Letter snarled, and I didn’t need to hear her to understand the gist.

I shrunk back, eyes on my friend. “Letter—”

“Oh, shut up,” Letter cut me off, stepping closer. “You’re always whining about something or other. Well, I’ve had enough!”

My eyes widened. Did she really think that, or was that her rage talking? What if…what if she did hate me, but she just hid it?

Letter’s horn flashed orange. I stumbled backwards, all knowledge of constructing shields suddenly gone blank.

Something solid crashed into my chest, hurling me backwards. Pain exploded through my back. My head rang. Letter stood not ten hooves away, horn lowered.

I forced out my remaining shreds of magic. The air around me shimmered.

Letter’s expression was pitiless. The light coming from her horn wavered like a candle’s flame. Shouting, she charged forward. My shield cracked and shattered like glass. A hoof slammed into my shoulder. My world spun. I swung a hoof at her ankles and she tipped, sprawling on the ground.

Letter snarled something, rising up off the ground.

Once again that day, I dragged myself to my hooves. “This isn’t you,” I growled. Lord Scrawl’s and Starswirl’s argument played in my mind. You couldn’t tell if your mind was being messed with until after the fact.

Her chin tilted up, Letter informed me of something I couldn’t hear.

I took a step back. Letter didn’t move. What did she say? I took another step, and Letter turned away, her manner that of any Lady in Canterlot.

Oh, who cared what she said? Turning around, I cantered away, gritting my teeth and ignoring the ache in my shoulder.

The mine was at the opposite end of Whitetail than my home, the reason why Father left so early every morning. I’d been there only once, but right now that didn’t matter. I would find it. I had to.

“Clover!”

My head snapped up and I skidded to a halt. Father! I scanned the small huts; the watchtower that marked the end of Whitetail. No sign of him. But I was certain I’d heard my name called, even over the constant chime of bells.

It could be a trick, it occurred to me and I slowed at the thought. Normally I wasn’t so suspicious. Normally, demons didn’t stalk the village. I trudged towards the watchtower, blood beating a tattoo in my ears. My muscles were tensed and I opened the doors, ready to bolt—

“Clover!” Father rasped. His face was grimy with coal dust, but his eyes were relieved.

I stilled the shaking bells with a hoof.

“Clover, we have to get home. I saw some things flying away from the woods. They were headed to Whitetail.”

“I know. It’s practically a riot there.” I gasped. One of Father’s legs was bent at the knee, so that no weight was on it. “You’re hurt! Can you walk?”

Father rolled his weight onto one hoof and winced. “No.”

If I could rip ancient trees from the ground, I could carry two unicorns. Clenching my eyes shut, I focused. Remember the feelings from before! Rage…inexplicable rage at the world.

“Clover?”

I opened my eyes. I couldn’t do it. “Before, I went to the woods with Starswirl to investigate Mirror Pool,” I said, looking up at Father. “But I was careless and I heard the sirens’ music. I tried to kill Starswirl…and I destroyed an entire clearing. I have all that power, but now I can’t even levitate the both of us home,” I said. Tears prickled.

“It’s not your fault,” Father said.

I rubbed my eyes with a foreleg. “But—”

“Not your fault,” Father repeated. “Magic is always stronger when fueled by strong emotions, and the entire town succumbed to the sirens. Don’t worry about it.” He nodded towards the double doors. “Go do what you need to. I can take care of myself.”

“What if something happens?” I asked. The sirens were behind a civil war. And by the looks of things, the same was brewing here.

“Then I’m deaf, not disabled.” Father swung his pickaxe. “And I can take care of myself.”

A smile tugged on my lips. I flung my hooves around Father. “Thank you,” I sniffled into his mane, though I knew he couldn’t hear me.

My legs felt like rubber. Keep walking, I reminded myself. Suddenly, the constant ringing ceased. Cold air pierced my ears like icy needles.

“What the—” I said aloud, my voice startling in the sudden quiet.

“I’ll be taking that back,” an all-too familiar voice rumbled.

“You’re back,” I said, turning around.

“Yes,” Starswirl said, lowering the hat onto his head. He still looked stupid, but at least now I understood why he wore it.

“Father saw the sirens leave the woods,” I said. “They went into Whitetail; it’s insane there. My best friend tried to beat me up!”

“Hmm. Sirens are strongest in numbers, so they’ll stick together,” Starswirl said. He opened his saddlebag and pulled out another wad of cotton. “Don’t take these out again.”

I took the cotton in my magic. Do what you have to, Father told me. What did that mean? Maybe I should leave demon hunting to the ponies crazy enough to have signed up for it. I could gallop back home. Mother and I could help Father. We would leave Whitetail and find somewhere new to live.

“I don’t know,” I said. “You said it yourself, I was only supposed to go to the entrance of Mirror Pool.”

“I suppose you’ve come to your senses then,” Starswirl said. He opened his saddlebag again and withdrew a bundle of what appeared to be thin, scarlet rocks. He took a deep breath and fired a brilliant turquoise beam at the stones.

Another locating spell?

Light engulfed the demon hunter. With a sound akin to thunder it softened and vanished. I stared. A pair of extra limbs had sprouted from Starswirl’s shoulders. Wait…those weren’t limbs, they were dragon wings! Starswirl stretched out his new wings. Each one ended in four digits, a ruddy membrane stretching between them.

“Don’t die,” Starswirl said. And with that, he brought down his wings and took off.

I started plodding back downhill to the tree line. Everypony in town…I shook my head.

Letter would kill herself and bring down as many ponies with her as she could.

I took another step. White Marble wouldn’t last a minute when fighting broke out. Funny Story. Baked Crust. Messy Scrawl. I imagined their broken bodies, faces frozen in those expressions of unbridled fury. Even Lantern didn’t deserve such a fate.

I stopped and turned around. Dark shapes silhouetted by the sun clashed above the thatched roofs of Whitetail. A shape flashed white, a shockwave brushing over me seconds later. Do what you have to.

“Thank you, Father,” I whispered. I knew what he meant now.

Before, hatred lent me power. Now it was fear and anger of a different kind that gave me energy to gallop to the place I knew Mirror Pool to lie. Anger directed towards the sirens for leaving their shores and coming to Whitetail, bringing this destruction in their wake.

Fear that I may be too late. Fear for Mother, for Father. For Letter and Funny Story and White Marble and every other pony who I just might save if I try!

I leapt over a broken tree. This was no place to be fearful. Through the circle of undisturbed earth, into the pitch-black tunnel Twisted Oak found that fateful summer’s day. I hit the ground and rose to my hooves. My heart stopped.

The creature before me was nothing like a seapony. Its face was elongated with harsh edges and beady eyes. Fins jutted out from its thick neck; its spindly legs. The lower torso and tail were that of a bronze-colored fish. A gem the color of blood shone from the base of its neck.

The siren opened its mouth. Before I could lodge the wads of cotton more firmly in my ears, it began speaking.

“And solemnly sweared not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly there!” the siren shouted, smugness dripping from every word.

CRACK.

The ice split down its width. A spitting image of the siren rose from the fissure, frost clinging to its brass scales. It smiled, the two demons’ expressions twin smirks.

Jamming the cotton further into my ears, I loosed a bolt of energy at the siren. The siren slammed into the wall of the cavern, shaking dirt from the stalactites. It roared. The gem’s light blazed. The two creatures advanced on me, lips curling upward to reveal two sets of fangs.

This was it; I was trapped. I backed up until I was pressed to the cavern wall. I didn’t want to die here! I screamed, unleashing the first spell that came to mind—a telekinetic blast. The sirens flew backwards, mouths opening in shrieks.

I bolted. Outside it was no lighter than the cave, and the roaring gale had only increased. A blur of gold rushed past me.

My hair stood on end. Forks of lightning split the air, followed by a deafening BOOM. The siren writhed on the ground and tremors shook the trees. My head shot up. Starswirl stood on a tree branch, like some avenging pony-dragon hybrid. The siren rose, rocketing towards the demon hunter.

Starswirl dove off the branch, firing a dozen bolts from his crossbow in quick succession at the siren. Opening its fanged mouth, the siren blasted crimson shockwaves, disintegrating the bolts midflight. Starswirl was flung backwards, smashing into a tree.

No! Magenta magic enveloped a tree. It was ripped from the ground roots and all, silhouetted against the white moon. My magic flickered and died, and the tree fell like a comet.

The siren let loose an unearthly shriek. Louder than the destruction I had wrought around us, louder even than thunder, the sound pressed against my eardrums and I—couldn’t—think—!

The tree split asunder, dissolving into a storm of wood dust even as it fell.

A beam of energy shot past me and wrapped around the siren. Horn lowered like a javelin, Starswirl took one step, than another. The beam pulsed. Starswirl clenched his teeth, groaning with effort.

The siren thrashed, but no sound escaped.

“Be…gone…” Starswirl hissed.

The light swallowed the demon, and the last I saw of it was its face, frozen in terror. Starswirl’s words echoed back to me: I don’t know where sirens fall.

“I banished her,” Starswirl explained between pants. “She was…the last.”

“Thank goodness,” I murmured, shaking the cotton the rest of the way out of my ears. My own magic was drained. At this point, I doubted I could swat a fly.

“First thing tomorrow morning, I’m going to seal the entrance to Mirror Pool,” Starswirl said. He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you would like to?”

Mirror Pool. No. Oh, no. “She wasn’t the last,” I whispered. “She made a copy of herself…and it was still in the cavern all throughout our fight.”

We turned. A soft howling that was most definitely not the wind was growing louder by the second. Half-solid things burst from the ground above Mirror Pool. Their yellow pigmentation fell away, revealing palest of blues.

“The original is gone,” I realized. “The template. They’re reverting to ice.”

We watched in mixed fascination and horror. The sirens—echoes now—kept the rough shape, but no detail. Like an ice sculpture when it melts. Their eyes glowed, the only part of them truly opaque. They weren’t disappearing. Mother’s story! The copies only vanished when Twisted Oak died!

“We can’t kill Adagio,” Starswirl said. “I banished her to another world, where she’ll be rendered powerless.”

My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed before I spoke. “Then…”

“They’re here to stay,” Starswirl finished.

There had to be dozens of them, and it took all our power to defeat just one. All of that was for nothing. Why? I would die here, and everything I had done would be in vain. I looked at Starswirl and couldn't find the energy to hate him, though his mercy had doomed us both. He watched the creatures impassively. How could he be so calm?

“Brace yourself.”

Everything vanished. For a single moment, there was Nothing.

And then the world resumed. Starswirl and I stood in an empty road—the main street of Whitetail! I looked around at the side roads and houses. Not a pony in sight.

“I won’t be able to manage another teleport. We go on hoof from now on,” Starswirl said. We half-walked, half-trotted down the road. Turning a corner, I spotted a pony in soldier’s garb.

“Hey! What’re y’all doing out here?” the pony called, seeing us.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The spell over town suddenly broke—”

“We did that,” I blurted. “When Starswirl banished the siren!”

The guard nodded. “Well thank you very much then. Anyway, Lord Scrawl started organizing an evacuation effort. I’m roundin’ up stragglers.”

We followed the stallion towards a train of carts in the distance, Starswirl looking incredibly smug the entire time. I explained the rest of the situation to Achilles Hill, the soldier.

“Someday we’ll retake Whitetail,” Achilles Hill reassured me after I finished. I half-smiled. It seemed impossible, but Achilles' confidence was contagious.

“You were wrong,” I told Starswirl after we caught up with the cart train. Behind us, the creatures swirled about the ghost town, their howls audible even from here.

Starswirl didn’t look at me, his thoughts miles away. Finally, he turned. “About?”

I grinned. “I haven’t come to my senses. Earlier you told me not to become a demon hunter. Well, I’ve decided to completely disregard that advice.”