Delaying the Inevitable

Chapter 3

The rays of the rising Sun covered my entire room and I woke up because of it. It was Saturday that day, that means it’s time for me to study on my own. Shade was probably still sleeping anyways so I got out of my bed to go and visit the library now. After that performance, my interest in starting that expedition only grew stronger and stronger. But Shade is in fact right for one thing, it’s for next year. I still have the time of the world to do research about it. So that is why I decided to get to the library.

It was very silent there, not only because it is prohibited to talk too loudly, but because it was morning.

Even though I have read many books concerning Starswirl, I believe I haven’t read all of them yet. Besides, it doesn’t mean that if the book isn’t marked as containing information about Starswirl, that it is certain it has absolutely nothing to do with him. So, where to start? I might as well first start looking for books specifically about Starswirl before digging deeper.

I walked towards the history category. I already knew where the books were positioned so looking for the letter ‘S’ wasn’t needed. There were in fact quite a lot of them, they filled ten shelves, each of them being about seven meters long. I scanned through the shelves looking for a book I hadn’t read yet. I had to go all the way to shelve six to find a book I hadn’t read yet and intrigued me the most. I am an egghead, but don’t expect me to have read five shelves of Starswirl. Besides, some of them are written poorly and contain barely any useful or interesting information about him. Some of them even feel like straight copycats from other, more famous books.

Anyways, I decided to go and read in the book. I went to a reading spot in the library, it’s a corner in the building with sofas and pillows to make the reading more comfortable.

I was analyzing the content of the book as well as writing down key notes on a separate sheet of paper.

After reading a part in the book which did in fact take almost the whole day, I found the following:

Starswirl did in fact live in a cave in Western Equestria after befriending Scorpan. Their reports were immediately sent to Princess Celestia. She kept it in the old Canterlot Library for everypony to read. Except for the rather more ‘dangerous’ innovations from Starswirl and Scorpan. They were kept safe in a library elsewhere. The book doesn’t say anything about the burning of that library or where it was located at. Maybe the book will talk more about it later on, but the rest of the reading will probably be for tomorrow. I took the book with me to my home and read a couple more pages in it until I went to sleep again.

After a couple more days, I did in fact finish the book. But it didn’t speak about the burning of the library or its location, which was quite a bummer. What still might be interesting to talk about is the road from his cave laboratory to Canterlot. Apparently it was a really tough road to travel. The cave itself has been researched multiple times. And as it is still well in tact, everything has already been found about that place. So talking about that feels pointless. But I wasn’t finished yet. If I wanted to make my research impressive, I’ll have to do even more research.

It was Thursday next week, one day after I had finished reading that book. The lessons had just ended. We were in the park and I told Shade I would be in the library.

‘To read yet another book?’ He asked.

The answer was pretty obvious: ‘of course, there are still a couple more I would love to read before planning my travel.’

Shade sighed, I believe he didn’t really like me going elsewhere.

‘You can always accompany me if you would like to?’ I made it clear to him.

‘I know, but I was hoping to do something else for a change except studying.’

‘Like what?’

He stared in front of him: ‘like learning out other things except history. My magical skills are not well trained and I wanted to increase it by practising.’

I was let down a bit.

‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t show any interest in history. It’s just that I want to have a little change.’

‘Oh, yes of course. That’s alright for me.’

While we were talking we had slowed down and came to a stop. I made one deep nod at Shade, smiled and then turned myself around to get to the library. He was standing there for a little while later until he walked further again.

Looking for a proper book took a long while. The whole sixth shelve contained nothing more than books talking about Starswirl’s spells and discoveries. Luckily, I found a book worth reading on the eight shelf, somewhere in the middle of it. It looked like it was a very old one, the book was about the end of his life, something I know not a whole lot of anyways and we still have to cover it in the lessons. I chose this book aside from the rest as it is about the end of his life span, maybe it would talk a bit more about what happened with everything he had left. I gently tried to take out the book from the shelf using my magic. You could see a lot of dust particles floating through the air when I was letting it descend. I got to the reading spot again.

‘After the banishment of Discord into stone, Starswirl and Scorpan got into an argument about the usage of the Spell of Harmony.’

That makes sense, first of all: the spell was going to be used only against Tirek. Second of all: the spell was too unstable.

‘Scorpan wanted to avoid it being used against anything except Tirek, he even wanted to abandon the project. However, Starswirl the Bearded refused to. He wanted to finish the spell and make it so that it could be used for later possible threats. Three months after the argument, Scorpan left, but returned to steal the Spell of Harmony from Starswirl so that Starswirl would never be able to use it again.’

That’s quite odd? The Spell of Harmony was burned away together with the library. Why does it say that Scorpan stole it? My only possible explanation is that this book must’ve been written down before they knew it was the library that bursted into flames. I’m quite certain it’s in fact the library that got burnt down, not that Scorpan stole it. Professor Veral must be aware of the latests finds, he would never teach us old news. Still, I will have to be sure.

I lifted the book up with my magic and went to the local librarian with it, he must know about the age of the book, right?

‘Excuse me,’ I whispered to the old librarian. He was busy sorting out books and he didn’t instantly notice me. So I spoke a little louder: ‘excuse me, sir.’

He turned himself around: ‘eh what? Oh, you. What is it?’

I lifted the book down a bit more and showed him the cover. The book blocked the view between him and I so I stuck my head to the side and continued: ‘this book, do you perhaps know when it was written?’

The old librarian took a look closer at it. He looked through the pages of the book and the concluded: ‘hmm, yes. This book must have been written around about two hundred years ago from now.’

‘Two hundred years? That seems really old for this book.’

‘Oh well, you might be surprised how well books can be conserved with a little unicorn spell I learned from an old friend of mine.’

I stared at him and at the book.

‘Is there any chance you know about the loss of the Spell of Harmony?’

The man looked at me with a thinking face and then concluded: ‘goh, I can’t seem to remember well. You might consider asking professor Veral about all that, he’s the one who knows the most of this.’

‘Of course, I know him. I’m his pupil.’

‘Oh my, is that so? Well if you see him, tell him he gets my greetings!’

I nodded at him and got out of the building. The shimmers of sunset were covering the town square; it was getting pretty late. I decided to get home before it got completely dark and decided to ask my question to Veral next day.

So when the Sun got up again the next day, I was already standing at the park, waiting for Comet Shade to get here. It didn’t took long or I saw him walking towards me again. I had my books all covered away in my backpack.

‘Good morning,’ he said to me.

‘How was your magic practising?’ I asked.

‘Not bad, not bad. I had been practising to lift up items from a further away distance. I got up to five meters yesterday.’

He actually needs the practise quite hard. An average unicorn’s lifting radius is about seven meters, he lacks two.

‘And about your studies? Found anything new?’ He asked.

‘Yes, I actually did. I’m going to ask Veral for some more information about it.’

Shade gently laughed with his mouth closed.

We were in front of the university. At the door of the university, I saw Veral talking to the librarian I met yesterday. At the moment they saw both of us approaching, they shook hooves and the librarian left. We crossed him, I smiled at him and then focussed myself on professor Veral who was standing at the door.

‘Shade, Omega, good morning’, he kindly greeted us.

‘Good morning professor,’ Shade answered and he got to the door.

‘I’ll see you in class, Omega,’ he answered and left.

Professor Veral looked with a questioning expression at Shade and then moved his head towards me: ‘Is there anything you wish to ask Omega?’

‘Yes there is,’ I lifted the book out of my bag and showed it to him.

‘You see, I was reading this book yesterday and in the book, they claim that Scorpan had stolen the spell, it didn’t got burnt away together with the library.’

‘Oh yes, the librarian there,’ he said while pointing at him as he was still walking on the road, ‘said to me you had asked him about it. Now in fact it isn’t true, this book is not completely correct. The higher shelves in the library contain the older books that don’t always tell the truth.’

‘Oh, is that so? Then that must mean the library was a pretty recent discovery?’

‘Oh don’t worry, I will talk about that more in detail during the lessons,’ he concluded and he tapped his hoof on my back: ‘now let’s get inside.’