Chapters “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.”
No. He hadn’t even heard me out, and that was his immediate answer.
“You don’t even know any combative spells, do you?” Starswirl asked.
“Well…no, but I can learn! All the more reason to go!” I argued. After all, what better teacher was there than firsthoof experience?
“It’s all the more reason for you to stay behind!” Starswirl thundered. “Oh, Miss Willow, you were kind enough to give me food and shelter, and now your daughter is dead because I let her come with me,” he said in a falsetto. “In fact, I think I’ll ask her the whereabouts myself. Or better yet, I can just use a tracking spell.”
I stomped my hoof. I’d always wanted to go on an adventure when I was a filly, but when I’d grown up I’d resigned myself to a boring life. Have a farm. Grow plants, sell them and earn my living that way. That’s what my cutie mark meant.
I would never be like Twisted Oak, who went and wrote a book even if it wasn’t his destiny to be an author. “It isn’t fair,” I growled. “I probably won’t ever get to see Canterlot. I won’t hunt demons, or anything else. Can’t you see I want to help you because it’s the only chance I’ll ever get?”
Starswirl looked away. “You don’t get it. This isn’t a fairy tale, it’s real and it’s deadly. The only reason I’m considered the best at what I do is because I’m the only one who survived long enough to be considered anything.”
I turned away, head hung low. So much for adventure. Who was I kidding? Somehow, despite being practically in the Everfree Whitetail managed to be the most boring place in the world. And it was just my luck to live here.
“Oh, so what? Maybe you’ll get it through your head that this isn’t fun,” Starswirl muttered. I looked up. Did that mean—
“Fine. Come with me if you want, but only to the entrance! Now go back to your house and meet me here tomorrow morning.”
I grinned and galloped all the way home.
The next morning, Mother greeted me with a knowing smirk—last night I came home later than expected and grinning ear to ear. Upon being questioned, I’d given her the first explanation I could think of: I’d run into somepony on the way back, but didn’t say who.
Naturally, Mother took this to mean I ran into my special somepony, and had been—vainly—trying to guess it since last night.
“It’s Funny Story, isn’t it?” Mother asked.
I gave her a sideways look and swallowed. “Absolutely not. He’s nuts.”
Mother took a bite of oats, chewed and swallowed. “I can’t see anyone else walking that far after nightfall. Well…”
I waited for her to go on.
“There’s Perfect Apple.”
I stared at her. “Rotten Apple’s kid? The colt always hanging around at the fruit stand?”
Mother nodded, her smirk growing. “You’ve talked to him a few times!”
My face grew hot. I only talked to him when I had to! Sure, he’d greeted me a few times and asked a few questions, but I was only being polite! “I’m gonna go see if Starswirl needs to be shown around Whitetail,” I mumbled, slipping off the chair and out the door.
“Don’t worry, I won’t disown you for courting an earth pony!” Mother shouted after me.
“MOTHER!” I screeched.
I was still blushing when I entered the barn. “Mother’s convinced I’m in love with Perfect Apple. He’s nothing but an earth pony and—”
Oh. Wow. Steel tables had materialized sometime in the night and were pressed against the walls and barrels. The cot had been shoved aside carelessly, and the lamp was now suspended from the rafters with a length of rope.
Flasks of colorful liquids rested on the tables, surrounded by strange-looking weaponry. Complicated charts were tacked to the walls, threatening to fall to the hay-strewn floor. In the midst of it all was Starswirl, levitating a crossbow in aqua-colored magic. He looked up at me. “First rule. Keep your love life out of this.”
“What is all this?” I asked, looking at…a map? It was covered in wavy lines, unlike any map I’d ever seen.
“That’s a topographic map of the northern territories. Secondly, you are going only to the entrance of the cavern. I will go inside, examine the pool, take a sample of the water, and then I will seal the entrance to ensure no one, pony or otherwise, can enter.”
My face fell. “Fine,” I muttered, examining a beaker of bubbling, clear liquid. Water, maybe? I moved to sniff it, and suddenly everything was tinted teal.
“Don’t touch that,” Starswirl said. My head jerked back and the teal disappeared. He’d used his magic. On my face . Ignoring my dismay, he rolled up the maps, stopped up the flasks and placed them all in his saddlebag.
“Is your bag enchanted?” I asked. There was no way it could hold all that unless it was bigger on the inside.
“Yes.” A flash of light, and the tables vanished. “Let’s go.”
“So what does demon hunting entail, exactly?” I asked, stopping at the crest of the hill.
“I find demons and I dispose of them.”
Glancing at the stallion, I rolled my eyes. “But who pays you? How do you find demons?”
Starswirl looked me in the eye, yellow ones meeting magenta. “I don’t want to fill your head with all kinds of romanticized notions about the lifestyle I lead, so I’ll be honest. Most creatures I’m paid to track down aren’t demons and in some cases not even evil. I don’t know where sirens fall, but they are at least capable of causing a civil war and to my employer, that means they must die.
“So I’m being paid a large sum of money to find them and dispose of them, by any means necessary.”
“But you said they were worse than a hydra…” I said.
Starswirl started walking down the hill. “I tried to convince myself that they’re inherently evil. That they’re like Tirek, and I’m doing the world a favor by killing them. The truth is…”
“You don’t know,” I finished, trotting after him. Suddenly I saw him in a new light. Not the cool demon-slaying traveler, but a stallion trying to make his way in the world, and somehow this was where he’d ended up.
Starswirl nodded, and bells tinkled. “Clover. Don’t become a demon hunter. Follow your destiny, whatever it is and find happiness that way.”
Follow your destiny. Ha! Just do whatever the stupid clover on my hindquarters meant. “Mirror Pool is this way,” I said, gesturing to the tree line.
We walked in silence for a while before I couldn’t stand it. “Who’s Tirek?”
“A demon. An actual demon, not like the changelings some ponies think of. He stole the magic of ponies.”
“So…like the sirens?” I asked.
“No. They feed off magic. Tirek was worse. He and his brother Scorpan had the ability to drain a pony of magic, such that they couldn’t use it.”
I shuddered. “Why do you have so many maps?”
“Because I travel a lot.”
That was obvious. “Have you ever been to the pegasus cities?”
“Yes.”
“How? Is there a spell that lets you fly?”
“Yes.”
“Can you teach it to me?” I asked. “Please?”
“No. It’s extremely advanced.”
I could still learn it, it would just take me longer. I sighed. This was gonna be a long walk.
Where the vines are thickest …or thorns? Twisted Oak made a crater, but it might have become a lake…
“Are we close?” Starswirl asked.
I shrugged. “I think so. But I can’t remember where Mother said the pool was!”
“The cavern may be flooded now,” Starswirl said. “But that won’t stop sirens. We need to find it.”
Oh. Water would have drained through the hole. It still could have become a lake, though. But what if it didn’t? Craters were sort of concave, so the middle would be the lowest. I clenched my eyes shut. Imagine a bowl…
When it rained, water would collect in the crater but drain through a hole in the ‘side’, leaving some in the bottom. Which meant…
“Look for an opening by a small pond!” I cried, eyes flying open.
“Or sources of water,” Starswirl said, taking a deep breath. His horn lit up aqua, growing steadily in intensity. I turned my head away, squinting to clear the afterimages. We still could have looked for an opening by a pond.
A wave erupted from the tip of Starswirl’s horn, washing over the flora around us.
“A tracking spell?” I guessed, gazing at the faintly luminescent vines.
“A locater spell,” Starswirl corrected me. “But it doesn’t last long. Hurry!”
We galloped through the forest, the locater spell illuminating our way. But only the plants and some of the ground glowed…not the rocks. A rabbit bolted past us, brilliant blue. Only living things? No, the ground wasn’t alive.
I skidded through a patch of mud the color of the sky and threw my hooves out to catch myself. It wasn’t living things that were glowing. It was water! Inches to my left was a gaping maw of an opening, shimmering with fading light.
“Mirror pool,” Starswirl announced, his voice grim.
“What now?” I asked.
Opening his saddlebags, Starswirl lifted out a pointed hat decked with brass bells in his magic and placed it over his curly gray hair.
I stuffed a hoof in my mouth to stifle my laughter. There really were no words to describe how stupid he looked. “Now your hat matches your cloak!” I said when I was slightly more composed.
Starswirl took out two lumps of cotton. “Stuff these in your ears.”
I did so, and everything became eerily quiet. Was this how Father felt, every day? While Starswirl descended into the cavern, I slumped against a tree.
My ears itched. I tried to scratch them through the cotton.
If this was what ponies called an adventure, it was overrated. A trip to Rotten Apple’s fruit stand was more eventful than this. I remembered Mother and my conversation from this morning and buried my face in my hooves. I ran into somepony walking home… what sort of dumb excuse was that?
I hadn’t told her or Father the truth because I was afraid they wouldn’t let me investigate Mirror Pool. A pang of guilt hit me. They believed me because normally I would never lie.
How long did it take to get a sample of water?
I stood and walked around, stretching my legs then sat back down, wishing I had another cloak. Maybe the sirens had gotten there first. I looked at the cave opening. Should I go in there? No. Starswirl fought a magic-sucking demon. He would be fine.
My ears itched again. I took out the cotton and scratched them. Oh, sweet relief! I looked around, listening. If I heard sirens, I would put the cotton back in.
A twig snapped, and I leapt to my feet, ready to flee. Nothing but a squirrel. My shoulders slumped. Sitting down, I looked up. Sunlight filtered through the canopy and a few birds flitted about.
That was it, Starswirl was taking too long.
I stood up again and trotted over to the opening. This is no time to be frightened, I reminded myself. Sucking in a lungful of air, I marched inside.
-
To be honest, I expected something exciting. Perhaps Starswirl, famed demon hunter in the clutches of an evil siren. I would take up his crossbow—despite having never handled a weapon in my life—and shoot the siren. Everybody would be freed from the demon’s mind control, and I would be a hero.
Instead, Starswirl was standing in front of the frozen pool, examining a sphere of water held in his magic. “This is fascinating!” he said without looking at me, sounding almost gleeful. “Clearly, it’s not water, but something nearly identical. I need to figure out what…”
Not water? I walked over to the pool. It was frozen solid except for a small hole near the edge. I put a hoof on it; it certainly felt like ice.
What would happen if…I started chanting the rhyme in a sing-song way. “And solemnly sweared not to be scared—” My mouth snapped shut.
I glared my fiercest at Starswirl. LET GO!
He released my jaw and let the not-water fall through the hole in the ice. “I suppose we should be going.”
“Oh really?” I muttered.
I followed the demon hunter up the makeshift staircase—
That jerk. Twice now he used levitation on me! Maybe I should just push him back down. Give him a taste of his own medicine! A smirk slid onto my face, and I mustered my magic…
Starswirl stumbled as though shoved by an invisible hoof. “What the—”
I kicked him aside and ran past him, into daylight. The winds were rushing about harder than ever, but I was too angry to care.
Starswirl’s eyes widened. “Clover, you idiot!”
My smirk fell. “Idiot, am I?” I asked, my own words barely audible. Twisted Oak nearly starved to death in that cavern. Maybe now somepony will actually starve to death! I hefted a boulder in my magic, anger giving me power.
Starswirl bolted past me. I threw the boulder, a wordless scream ripping from my throat. The boulder glanced off a shield.
Idiot. Jerk. He deserved to die! I focused my magic again, my breath coming in heaves. Perfect.
Underneath his stupid shield—a little longer…a little longer—Starswirl seemed preoccupied, searching through his saddlebags. Moron. And he was supposed to be a demon hunter too!
Don’t make me laugh.
The shield flickered. I grit my teeth, magic surging through me.
The shield shattered. Trees were torn from the ground, magenta and bark swirling around us like a tornado. And the funnel was collapsing. Starswirl ran towards me, and I smirked. It wouldn’t save him.
Then we were standing in the center of an aqua bubble, and trees were splintering around us and all I could think was what was happening?
Everything stopped.
My limbs felt like rubber; all I wanted to do was curl up by the fireplace at home. I collapsed to the ground, curling into myself like a foal.
Starswirl was saying something. I didn’t know what. I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was go home. I don’t know how long I just lied there.
Eventually, I rolled onto my stomach and dragged myself to my feet.
“You took out your cotton,” Starswirl said by way of answer to a question I never asked. “When we left the cavern, the sirens were already there and you fell prey to their song.” He cracked a half-smile. “I couldn’t hear it over the bells. You attacked me; tried to kill me. You uprooted a lot of trees—”
I looked around at the wasteland, barely recognizable as having once been a clearing. Massive logs and beams of wood dominated the area for at least twenty yards in each direction.
I did this. I remembered doing this. But how? I wasn’t that powerful; I couldn’t be.
“—but I shielded us,” Starswirl finished. All traces of a smile were gone from his expression.
“I caused all of this,” I said. All of this devastation. I was no better than the sirens.
“Yes. Even enraged, it takes a lot of raw power to cause damage on that level,” Starswirl commented.
I sniffled. “I’m going home,” I said. I took a step towards the wasteland. The one I made. A lump formed in my throat. What if it happened again?
I pushed away the thought. No. I felt something rest on my head and looked back at Starswirl. His hat?
“I can’t afford for you to fall under their spell again,” the demon hunter said.
I continued walking, the bells drowning out even my broken sobs.
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.”