Delaying the Inevitable

Chapter 1[/size]

Where in the name of Celestia is that guy? I was wondering to myself.

I must have been standing here waiting for his arrival for surely half an hour now, I might as well go to university all by myself.

I turned myself around to the park’s exit. It was pretty windy today and the weather team announced it’ll be going raining for most of the day now. I was walking away from the place I’m always standing at, where I wait for my friend Comet Shade to arrive. But it seemed he decided not to come today. I hope he’s alright.

‘Heeeey! Omega! Where do you think you’re going without me?’ I heard the voice of Shade behind me, but it was not well audible because of the wind.

I turned myself around and saw him, he’s mane and tail were almost standing horizontal because of the wind.

‘Come then! We’re gonna be late!’ I shouted to him. He couldn’t hear well what I was trying to say so I waved my hoof at him to signify he should follow me. He saw it and ran closer to me.

‘What was taking you so long?’ I asked.

He was breathing heavily, he must have been running from his home to here.

‘I’m terribly sorry for that,’ he shouted so I could hear him better, ‘but I had overslept myself I believe.’

I smiled and rolled with my eyes. That’s when a raindrop fell on my muzzle.

‘We should better hurry now, we don’t want to be late for Veral’s class’, I told Comet Shade.

Shade and I both study history together. We met each other last year when we started the studies and we have become friends since then. I don’t know why but history had always interested me a lot. It’s like telling a story, but you’re telling a story that has actually really happened unlike the legends of Richard the Hoovenheart, the Mare in the Moon and other old ponytales.

But the pony that has always interested me the most, is none other than the almighty Starswirl the Bearded. He was the man that has shaped our great land of Equestria. Without him, I believe Princess Celestia would’ve never become such a good leader.

And Comet Shade, well he loves telling stories. When we come together to study, he always takes the word. He is a master in convincing everypony that history surely is a piece of magic.

But now back to reality: we arrived, soaking wet. Both of us tried to get the water out of our hair and fur, but the only thing we were doing was making each other wet. My tail was just dragging on the floor getting dirty and making the tiles wet while Shade’s tail was short and didn’t have that problem. But luckily we were right in time and class had just started. There aren’t many other ponies following history. Only seven more, making a total of nine.

And there was our favourite teacher, professor Veral.

‘Alright alright everypony, the lesson has started so shut up,’ he said in his deep voice.

Everypony looked in front of them and got silent, the lessons have begun.

Today’s lesson was about Starswirl, we had been talking about him for a couple of days now already, it’s incredible what he all had done.

‘And so when Celestia faced Discord, she found herself completely defenceless against him. But by luck and miracle, Starswirl and Scorpan came to her using their newly made spell, the Spell of Harmony.’

I wrote down ‘Spell of Harmony’. I already knew about this: ‘it was the spell Starswirl and Scorpan used that had the ability to turn Discord into stone. However, they found out that the spell was too unstable to use it another time so they decided to fix the spell, but eventually never got around to do it.’ When I was saying that, Veral said the exact same thing at the exact same moment. Everypony looked at me. Veral too, he had his eyebrows lifted. I heard somepony whisper ‘nerd’ in the background and I started to laugh awkwardly and my cheeks turned red.

‘I see you already know a lot of this, don’t you?’ Veral said to break the awkward silence.

‘Oh yes, of course,’ I answered. And I knew everything of it, except for one little thing but I decided to ask Veral that question after the lesson ended.

‘I didn’t know you knew so much about Starswirl?’ Comet Shade said, he was sitting next to me.

The lesson had ended and everypony left except for me as I wanted to ask Veral something. He was already packing up his stuff.

‘Professor?’ I said. He looked up to me and continued: ‘what’s the matter?’

‘I was wondering myself, why didn’t anypony finish that spell?’

The professor moved his eyes all around the room giving and expression that even he wouldn’t know the answer. But I was wrong: ‘oh, well that’s because the spell unfortunately got burnt away after a fire struck his library.’

He finished packing up and then continued: ‘he was able to save a couple other pieces of his work, but the Spell of Harmony was forever gone in the flames.’

‘That’s so unfortunate,’ I replied. Professor Veral sighed and continued: ‘that’s the way things go, Omega.’ He left the room and I did too.

‘See you again tomorrow,’ Veral told me and I thanked him. Shade had been waiting at the door for me to get out of the classroom.

‘Was that a revenge for me letting you wait this morning?’ he said in a laughing tone. I sniggered and we walked down the square to our favourite brasserie here in Canterlot to get ourselves a nice hayburger to eat.

Bourgon, the gastron of the brasserie knows us very well by now and immediately gave us a table to sit at. Luckily it didn’t rain so hard as before, but it was still windy so we decided to seat ourselves inside.

‘So, what shall it be? A hot saddle, Cutie Mark Tartiflette or a hayburger I presume?’

We nodded at each other and Shade answered Bourgon: ‘you can get us a hayburger, thanks.’

Bourgon bowed down his head and left us. I opened my backpack and lifted a book out of it using my magic.

‘Ah, come on Omega, it’s dinner time! Put that book aside, we’ll study in the evening. Just enjoy your hayburger for now.’ I looked at him with a saddened face, still having the book lifted up.

‘Fine then,’ I answered. I placed the book back in my rucksack and put my hoof on the table so I could rest my head on it.

Comet Shade sniggered and rolled with his eyes. ‘You can’t stop learning about that Starswirl now can you?’

I put my head straight and said: ‘yeah yeah, I know. I’m an egghead,’ and I let my head rest on my hoof again.

‘I didn’t mean this to be insulting or anything, Omega. It’s just that it’s quite characteristic of you to constantly be studying.’

I pulled away my attention from Shade as Bourgon had arrived with two hayburgers and two bowls of water.

‘And here you go, a hayburger for monétalon and a hayburger for majument,’ he said to make fun of us as we’re always sitting here together like a couple. He gave us our two plates. Both of us lifted the hayburger up with our magic.

‘And besides, hmmm,’ Shade tried to say whilst swallowing a piece of his hayburger, ‘it’s ponies like you that tend to change Equestria. I mean just look at Celestia, no wonder she is a princess with all that knowledge she has, or say Starswirl.’

‘Yeah, I don’t see a book horse becoming a princess any time soon,’ I replied.

He ignored my rather pessimistic remark and he continued: ‘and I’ve got a random interesting fact for you by the way. Did you know that the hayburger actually comes from Hayburg? In the original recipe, hayburger is made with hay, dried in a unique way like they tend to do there in Hayburg,’ he continued.

I found his voice very soothing and made me become much more relaxed. That is one of the reasons why I adore it when he tells a story to me.

We finished eating our hayburger and got back to university to follow our side lessons: geology, astronomy and Equestrian. If I were to say which lesson intrigues me the most, it must be geology as it is like trying to look for a treasure. I wonder if there would be any artifacts of Starswirl left that still needed to be found, that would be amazing! To find an old library or laboratory of him would answer so many questions I still have about him.

It was evening and my day at university was over. I decided to go to Comet Shade’s so we could study together. Comet Shade lives on the outskirts of Canterlot at the hillside which gives an incredible view on the Equestrian fields.

‘Now you can take out your books,’ he told me suspiciously polite. I smiled at him and took out our history book and laid down on the sofa. He took a seat on his father’s chair. I took the book using my magic and put it right in front of my eyes blocking my view from him.

‘So according to this book,’ I said while slowly lowering my book down, ‘after Scorpan left his brother Tirek, he decided to team up with Starswirl to create a spell that could be casted on Tirek if he would ever be able to escape: the Spell of Harmony. It says here that the spell took the two 34 years until it was done, but I can recall myself reading another book that said it took them 42 years to finish the spell?’ I looked at Comet Shade.

He smiled and sighed: ‘8 years difference? Does that really matter? Anyways, the Spell of Harmony had the ability to transfer magic from one pony to another, including earth pony magic, pegasus magic, unicorn magic and even alicorn magic! Phew, pretty impressive.’

‘I know right?’ I continued. ‘I’ve heard the spell was based on Tirek’s ability to suck away other ponies’ magic. Starswirl gave that spell to Celestia so she would be able to weaken Discord by taking away his magic.’

And the rest of the time, we were studying, asking each other some questions to see if we understood everything well. This went on for a couple more hours until late in the night when I decided to get home again.