"And there I was!" Starswirl thumped the table with a hoof, the entire tea service and the plate of decorated Hearth's Warming sugar cookies jumping up with a rattle before dropping back with a crash. "All alone and facing fifteen of the biggest bog monsters you've ever seen!"
Twilight's teacup wavered in the glow of her horn. "Serpens paludum?" she asked breathlessly. "Or belua olens?"
Starswirl snorted. "Serpens paludum?" He waved his own teacup at Celestia reclining to Twilight's left against the most garish pillow Twilight had ever seen, little bright green pine trees glowing over a cringingly red background. "What have you been teaching this child, Celestia?" Snatching the teapot in a second beam of magic, he poured himself a refill. "Those little marsh wiggles aren't monsters! Why, we used to floss our teeth with 'em!"
"Truly?" Luna took a delicate bite of the silver-frosted crescent moon floating before her. "After all these centuries, finally a solution to the mystery of your unusual breath."
His beard prickling, Starswirl turned his glare to where she sat on Twilight's left. "Once, I would've asked you to respect your elders, young lady. But now that you're a thousand years older than I am, I suppose I must take my own advice, smile pleasantly, and indulge you in your dotage."
Celestia's laugh rattled the crockery every bit as much as Starswirl's thump had, and Twilight couldn't stop a giggle of her own. In the several moons since Starswirl's reappearance, Twilight had heard Celestia laugh like that more often than in all the years she'd lived here in the palace as a student. And while Starswirl still seemed to spend most of his time scowling, Twilight was starting to see how much of that was him playing the role of the great wizard he'd created for himself all those centuries ago.
He was a great wizard, of course, and just getting to talk magic with him had opened Twilight's mind to so many possibilities. Even better, though, during their talks, she'd been able to bring up a few points that had set him blinking and furiously scribbling notes onto conjured pieces of parchment. And now, sharing tea on Hearth's Warming afternoon in Celestia's room high atop Canterlot Tower, the fireplace crackling merrily behind her and snow tumbling big and flaky past the window? Twilight had rarely felt more like a princess.
Giggling again, she reached for one of the little jars on the tea tray and held it up to where Starswirl was stirring his cup. "Some honey for your tea, Starswirl?" she asked in her most genteel tones.
The whole room froze, Luna and Celestia both stopping in mid-chew, their eyes going wide. The spoon in Starswirl's cup clattered to a standstill, the creases on his forehead smoothing for an instant before his brambly eyebrows drew together like storm clouds gathering. And while Twilight's ever-present internal chronometer assured her that the silence only lasted a heartbeat and a half, she would've sworn that it went on for days and days and days, her throat tightening, the little jar getting heavier and heavier.
But then Starswirl took a breath, set down his cup, and smiled in a way that made Twilight wonder for the first time just how old he really was. "No, thank you, my dear," he said, and somehow his voice sounded dusty in her ears. He rose to his hooves, nodded to Celestia and Luna, and turned for the door. "It's been an eventful day, however, so with your permission, I shall withdraw to my room for the evening."
Seemingly as weightless as a cloud, he more drifted toward the door than walked, and Twilight could barely stop herself from asking what he meant by evening. Yes, it was the first day of winter so Celestia and Luna would be switching places earlier than at any other time during the year, but it was still afternoon by any proper measure!
The door to Celestia's chamber pulled open ahead of him, and he stepped outside, the tiny jingle-jangle of the bells around the brim of his hat fading till the sound cut off with a click, the door closing behind him.
Looking from the door to Celestia to Luna and back to Celestia, Twilight let the jar of honey clatter to the table. "What did I do wrong?" she asked.
"It's, umm..." Celestia's sudden speechlessnes and the way her mane billowed to cover half her face made Twilight think of Fluttershy. "It's not your fault, Twilight," she finished after several more long seconds.
"Alas." Luna sighed. "This time of year has always brought out the melancholy in him, and understandably so. After all—"
"Sister!" The unaccustomed sharpness in Celestia's voice, the narrowness of her eyes and the slight baring of her teeth folded Twilight's ears. Celestia recovered quickly, though, everything about her softening again in an instant. "Surely you'll agree that it isn't our story to tell."
Luna's lips pursed, and for a moment Twilight thought she might start arguing. But instead, she only said, "I suppose."
With a nod, Celestia touched her own chin. "Now that he's fetched up once more upon the shoals of time, however, it might do him good to tell that story. And since Luna and I have already heard it..." She arched an eyebrow at Twilight.
It took Twilight another heartbeat and a half to realize what Celestia was saying, but then she surged to her hooves. "Oh! Yes! I—He was going to his room, didn't he say?"
Celestia shook her head. "Given what day it is, I'm certain you'll find him at the cave."
The shiver that iced down Twilight's spine made her wings spread partway. "You...you mean the cave from the Hearth's Warming story? It...it's a real place?"
"Of course." Even now, Celestia's smile sometimes made Twilight feel like she was six years old. "You've been there."
Luna gave a dry chuckle. "Several times, in fact."
Things clicked together in Twilight's head, and she couldn't stop a gasp. "The cave beneath your old castle! Where the Tree of Harmony is! That's the cave from the first Hearth's Warming?"
"It is." As always when Celestia's smile faded, the temperature in the room seemed to drop. "Thank you for doing this, Twilight. He...he's become quite fond of you, you know."
That brought the warmth back to Twilight's chest, and tossing her mane with a nonchalance she didn't feel, she said in her best Rarity voice, "Well, I am the Princess of Friendship, am I not?" She dropped the pose, stepped over to nuzzle Celestia, then did the same to Luna. "Thank you for inviting me this afternoon. I'll see you both later."
With a flare of her horn, she stretched her perceptions out from Canterlot across the fields and meadows of Equestria to the edge of the Everfree Forest and into its heart, the Tree of Harmony a beacon to her magical senses. Puffing the teleportation spell through her mind like dandelion fluff, she whisked away from Celestia's room and crackled into existence at the bottom of the steps carved into the stone wall of the chasm below the old castle.
Even with the Plunder Vines gone and the Tree's influence spreading, the Everfree remained very much a separate place from the rest of Equestria. The pegasi had brought snow to the entire country weeks ago, after all, but here, the cold air stayed still and dry under the close, gray clouds. Twilight ruffled her wings and wished she'd brought a scarf.
But the cave mouth ahead glowed an inviting bluish-silver, and Twilight trotted forward, amazed to think that all those years ago, this had been the very spot where—
A shadow just inside the opening brought her up short, her eyes adjusting to the dimness and showing her Starswirl standing there with his head bowed. She swallowed and asked as gently as she could, "Starswirl?"
He started back, his head snapping over, his eyes wet and wide, a single whispered word jumping from his lips: "Clover?"
More pieces clicked together in Twilight's head, but before she could do anything more than open her mouth, his eyes were narrowing, his face scrunching into something close to his usual scowl. "Oh. Twilight." He shuffled his hoofs against the stone of the cavern's floor, but Twilight could still hear him sniffle as he turned away. "Surely you've somewhere warmer to be?"
"I—" Not sure how to begin, she decided to go with the truth. "I never knew this was the cave where everything happened, Clover and Pansy and Smart Cookie and the beginning of Equestria and all."
"Oh, yes." He waved at the Tree, the Elements of Harmony shining like crystalline fruit in its branches. "That's why the Pillars and I planted our seed here. Of course, that was long afterward, but the magic those three conjured up was so bright and strong, I swear I can still feel it."
Twilight slid about half a step toward him. "You must be very proud of Clover and her accomplishments."
"Proud?" Starswirl shook his head, the jingle of his bells almost lost in the echoes of the place. "That's much too small a word. I was blessed to have known her for the all-too-few years she was my student." The sound he made then could've been either a cough or a laugh. "Still, I've often thought that's why she did so well during the crisis that struck them in this cave. If she'd had more of my training, Pony history would've ended right then and there." Cocking his head, he glanced back at her. "Celestia tells me you've sometimes played Clover in the pageant."
The memories made Twilight smile. "Oh, yes. I asked Starlight Glimmer to take the part this year, and, well, you saw what a wonderful job she did. It really brings history alive, really makes you feel connected to the ponies who are so responsible for the world we live in today."
Starswirl was nodding, but his own smile sat very thin on his lips. "Then perhaps you've noticed over the years who isn't a featured character in the story?"
Blinking, Twilight wasn't quite sure what to say. "Well, according to the history books, you were away on one of your journeys when the wendigos drove the three tribes out of—"
"History books!" Starswirl snorted. "Another task I must see to now that I've returned: correcting their egregious errors!"
As much as Twilight wanted to do a little dance at the thought of learning more of the hidden truth of the world, Starswirl's sour demeanor stopped her. "Then...why weren't you there for the first Hearth's Warming?" she asked.
"Because I'm a fool!" He stomped hard enough to shake the stone. "A blind, pompous, ignorant fool!" He spun to face her. "The disaster that brought Ponydom to the brink of extinction, and I abandoned my student to face it alone due to my own monumental stupidity!"
Catching her breath, Twilight couldn't stop herself from taking a step back, but Starswirl had already whirled away again, his eyes wide and unfocused. "I took Clover on as apprentice during a time of relative peace between the tribes to assist me in my exploration of time travel magic. She was brilliant, of course, organized and disciplined and able to spot the questionable passages in any spell she so much as glanced at."
His sigh seemed to come all the way up from his fetlocks. "And I of course resented her terribly, this young mare daring to raise concerns about my work. I did everything I could to belittle her comments, then pored over my pages after she'd left for the day, more often than not adjusting my calculations in exactly the ways she'd suggested.
"This only made me resent her further, so once my magnum opus was complete, I only gave her the scroll two minutes before performing the first experiment: I was to travel forward several centuries, take a look around, then return to my workshop a mere ten seconds after I'd left."
"But—" Twilight said, then clamped a hoof across her mouth.
He shot her an arched glance. "Clover immediately raised several objections as well. I told her she was a faint-hearted filly, activated the spell, hopped through the portal, and found myself tumbling down a snow-covered hill in the middle of a frozen wasteland."
Not daring to remove her hoof, Twilight had to close her eyes.
The echo of his voice lapped around her like waves in a pond. "I activated the recall sequence I'd built into the spell four times before I rolled to a stop, soaked and shaking and covered with ice, but as you can guess, it didn't work in the slightest. Well, not 'guess,' I suppose, since you're undoubtedly familiar with time travel theory, how forward travel is the simplest thing in the world—we all do it every second of every hour of every day, after all. But traveling backward..."
When he trailed off, Twilight cracked her eyelids to see him looking at her with that thin smile again on his face. "Yes, well." He cleared his throat. "I came to understand the miscalculation I'd made during the three weeks it took me to hike out of that tundra to the fringes of a land I'd never heard of before, a land the ponies living there called Equestria. Turned out they'd heard of me, however, and I quickly found myself being escorted south to the city of Everfree and a lovely palace where two young alicorn sisters lived; they'd recently taken over raising the sun and moon from the Council of Unicorns and had been proclaimed the land's princesses."
His smile got even brittler. "And that's when I learned how far into the future I'd come and how impossible it was for me ever to go back."
"Not impossible!" Unable to keep silent any longer, Twilight flared her wings and leaped into a hover. "I used an amazing short-term spell once—" She winced as she remembered whom she was talking to. "Which you invented. Probably so you could—" Sighing, she dropped to the stone floor. "I'll be quiet again."
A breathy sound made her look up: Starswirl laughing gently. "You remind me of Clover a great deal, you know." He cocked his head. "You're a bit flightier, of course, but, well, it's the wings, I imagine."
Her own laugh took her by surprise, and she could feel her face heating with a blush.
"But yes," he was going on. "After several decades working with Celestia and Luna, I cobbled together that little reversal spell and landed in my workshop a day or two after I'd left. I had just enough time to tell Clover that I was safe, that I couldn't return, that she'd been right about the limitations of that first spell, that I was sorry for the way I'd treated her, and that I knew she was going to have a wonderful life."
Silence drifted through the air like snow, Twilight not even wanting to breathe, Starswirl's gaze again not focused on anything as far as she could tell. "Then I was back in what had become my present," he said, "and she was sealed forever in the history books as one of the legendary founders of Equestria." His voice got quiet. "I've never missed a performance of the Hearth's Warming pageant, but every year, when I think of how I failed her—"
"No." Jumping forward, Twilight wrapped him in a hug. "Take it from a pony who's been the awkward student of a famous teacher. Going back and telling her you were sorry and that she was right was the best thing you could've done under the circumstances. I can't imagine anything she would've treasured more at that moment. Well, I mean, other than you being able to return and be her teacher again."
Starswirl's breath puffed against Twilight's ear as something between a snort and a sigh. "Yes. Well." His forelegs came around to give her an uncertain squeeze, then she let him push her away, a definite pinkish tinge to his white hide. "That's very kind of you to say. Perhaps someday I'll actually come to believe it." He raised his voice. "And perhaps a certain pastel-headed harridan of our mutual acquaintance will someday come to realize that she's grown much too bulky to lurk successfully outside caverns eavesdropping!"
Twilight snapped her head around, that oh-so-familiar fresh-water scent tickling her nose and oh-so-familiar chuckle tickling her ears. A sparkling shadow moved in the light of the cave mouth, and Celestia stepped through, the silver-blue glow of the place becoming more golden. "You have such a way with words, Starswirl," she said.
He snorted again, but it was one of his good-natured snorts, Twilight could tell. "And you have almost as clever a former student as I have." He shook himself, his bells jingling. "We've not done too badly for a couple old pieces of cosmic driftwood, have we, Tia?"
Celestia's snort sounded almost exactly the same as his. "Speak for yourself, professor! Some of us are lumps of basalt rather than anything so ephemeral as driftwood!"
"Basalt?" Starswirl stroked his beard. "Pumice, I'd say instead: light and crumbly and good mostly for smoothing the rough edges of things."
"Really?" Celestia took a step forward. "Like, say, a certain rough old chunk of driftwood?"
His eyebrows bristled. "I take it all back." He waved a hoof at Twilight. "That this child turned out as well as she did I shall attribute to her having memorized my writings before you seized her in your hideous clutches."
"Yes." Bending down, Celestia nudged his hat forward so the brim covered his eyes. "You do that."
And as much as Twilight could've sat there all day listening to the two of them banter, she found she still had a question. "But what about the honey?"
They both froze, but this time, Starswirl gave a breathy laugh. "Clover," he said. "She was extremely particular about certain things, and clover honey was one of them. Try to substitute, say, some orange blossom or blueberry honey in the cruet at breakfast, and be prepared for an all-day lecture on the vital differences between the various varieties." He sighed. "The aroma of clover honey always stabs me through the forehead like an ice pick."
The clicking of her thoughts this time made Twilight smile, and she leaped to her hooves. "Baklava!" she exclaimed.
The other two blinked at her. "Thin layers of dough," she went on, "wrapped around a spiced filling of chopped nuts, baked, and smothered in honey. My grandmother always used to make it around this time of year." She activated her horn. "We'll stop by my parents' house to pick up the recipe, then we'll put some together in the palace kitchen, and you can tell us all about the real Clover the Clever." Extending her magic, she looked back and forth between them. "Sound good?"
Celestia's smile grew as steadily as the rising dawn, and her hornglow wrapped warm and perfect around Twilight's. "That sounds like an excellent idea."
Starswirl gave another snort. "Yes, well, you'll always support any vaguely cake-based solution." His horn flared as well, his silver fire reaching out to join their mingling purple and gold. "But I can't think of a better way to spend the evening."
"Late afternoon," Twilight said. "And I still want to hear how you got away from those bog monsters."
"Why, with a penny whistle, of course!" Starswirl's glare simmered through the glow of their combined magic. "Bog monsters can never resist dancing a jig!" He turned that glare toward Celestia. "Have you indeed taught this child nothing?"
Laughing, Twilight tripped her teleportation spell and carried them all away.
