Crystal, as it turns out, is a mighty fine conductor for sound.
Thus, a party taking place in the Throne Room of the Friendship castle easily echoed and carried throughout all of its rooms and hallways. Not that it was terribly difficult, given just how loud the party in question was. After all, it wasn't just a we-beat-the-big-baddie party, but also a we-reformed-the-big-baddie-who-was-really-just-misunderstood party, and also a welcome-to-a-thousand-years-in-the-future-and-sorry-for-all-the-missed-birthdays party (Pinkie patent pending).
It had begun many hours earlier with everyone who had been involved in this week's 'incident'. Twilight and her friends, of course, not to mention the illustrious Starswirl the Bearded and his troupe of legendary heroes known as the Pillars —including the recently reformed Stygian. The Princesses Celestia and Luna were also in attendance, eager to catch up with old friends. Oh, and Spike was there too.
Wild gales of laughter rung through the halls as stories were shared over a hearty feast of foods both ancient and modern, accompanied by enough booze to sink a ship. While most of the modern ponies refrained from drinking to excess (one particular rainbow pegasus excluded), they quietly respected the culture of their new friends and simply enjoyed the festive atmosphere as their anachronistic guests unapologetically quaffed like there was no tomorrow.
But, in time, as Luna's moon peaked in the night sky and started to descend back towards the distant horizon, the party began to wind down, as was the fate of all parties.
The Princesses were the first to leave. Reunion party or not, someone still had to run the government the next day. Rarity and the other non-alicorn Elements headed home next, save for Rainbow Dash who had to be carried, leaving behind the ponies who lived in the castle and the ancient heroes who were accustomed to parties that lasted from sun-down to sun-up.
Starswirl pushed back his chair and stood, gathering his hat and robe from where others had 'borrowed' it over the course of the evening. "I suppose I shall be taking leave as well."
"Heading to bed?" Twilight asked through hiccups. Her earlier experiments on the limits of an alicorn liver had proven her hypothesis to be significantly generous; a miscalculation that had left her very giggly and unsteady.
"Stars no! I'm heading into town." He donned his belled cap and made for the door. "This cider may be fine for ponies who guzzle it down without giving a thought to taste, but I seek a stronger spirit. Something I can savor and nurse as I ruminate on the future."
He turned back at the doorway and gave a stiff bow. "Princess Twilight, I bid you good night for I daresay I shall not return before dawn." He stood and his gaze hardened considerably as he turned it to the rest of the partygoers. "As for the rest of you: no shenanigans or monkeyshines while I'm out."
"Yes, Starswirl," they chorused in various levels of clarity.
"And remember the Heroic Code!"
"Yes, Starswirl." Repetition slightly improved their vocal cohesion.
The wizard, seemingly satisfied, turned and left. It was only once they heard the distant sound of the main doors opening and closing again that the Pillars seemed to relax.
"Finally," Somnambula sighed, "the old fart is gone."
Twilight gasped at the insult against her second favorite historical mage. "That's rather rude!"
"Yet, accurate." Mistmane sat forward and set down the flagon she'd been pretending to nurse (yet secretly refilling all night) and rubbed her temples. "You haven't traveled with him. As a sorcerer, his might is incomparable. But as a travelling companion..." Words failed her, leaving only a pained expression.
"He's like a stodgy old granddad," Flash Magnus supplied.
"Yes, that's it. That's it exactly," Rockhoof agreed. He tossed back the last third of his firkin and slammed the vessel onto the table. "Always trying to tell us what to do and how to act as though we're not grown stallions and mares —heroes, as well— who can make our own decisions."
A general murmur of assent rippled throughout the room before it fell quiet. Despite most of the guests anticipating his departure, Starswirl seemed to have taken the jolly atmosphere with him.
Thankfully, there was someone with the innocence of youth on hand to break the ice with a new topic out of nowhere.
"What's this Heroic Code?" Spike asked.
"Ah, nothing so grand as the name implies, young drake." Rockhoof leaned forward and tried to purloin another slice of decadent chocolate cake with his shovel. The elusive dessert remained just out of reach until Twilight nudged it closer. "Thank you. It was just a list of rules Starswirl instated when we all first began travelling together."
"One," Mage Meadowbrook started, "A hero must always save the common pony from evil and danger."
"Two," Stygian continued, "A hero does not hoard the party's glory for themselves like a fil- er... like a dragon."
"And three," Mistmane said with an odd chuckle.
"No bedding with party members!" All five remaining pillars and Stygian completed in perfect, sober unison.
"Aaaaaand I think it's high time I take Spike to bed." Twilight announced. She stood up, a little unsteady on her hooves. The young dragon in question rose as well, a protest already on his lips.
"What? No! I'm not —*yawn*— tired."
"Give it up kid," Flash Magnus chuckled, "The lady knows what's best for you. We'll still be here in the morning with stories and leftovers." He eyed Rockhoof who was once again refilling both his plate and his tankard. "Well, maybe not leftovers."
Spike nodded drowsily, already almost asleep on his feet and left down a hallway. Twilight went to follow but turned back. "Everypony remember where their rooms are for the night?"
Confidence buoyed by their positive replies, Twilight too exited the party, leaving alone the six temporally displaced ponies.
Exactly as Stygian had feared.
Though he'd enjoyed the party, in the back of his mind he'd also been dreading this point. When it was down to just him and the ponies he'd turned against. He'd always felt a little disconnected from the rest of the party; a natural side effect of being the last member to join after the others had already racked up many great accomplishments, and from being the only one without a particularly impressive skill. Honestly, sometimes he wondered why Starswirl had brought him along at all. The wizard's promise of seeing potential in him seemed so thin now, especially compared to the amazing talents of the others.
He shook his head trying to rid himself of these dark thoughts as he knew all too well where dwelling on them would lead. Things were different now and could only get better so long as he worked at their relationship just as Twilight had instructed. Following this line of thought, Stygian posed the question that had been picking at him for a few minutes
"Why was it that that was one of his rules? Was there something that happened in one of your early adventures that I was not present for, something that set bad precedent? The others make sense, even just as general advice, but I can't imagine why he'd be so against any of you being in interparty relationships."
Flash swirled a stick of his new favorite cheese-based food in the cold marinara as he shrugged. "Who knows? It never really bothered me."
Stygian was surprised. Of all ponies, he'd assumed that Flash —the soldier with a body that mares and stallions alike desired, though for different reasons— would have been the first to object to such a rule.
"I always thought it was a way to control us; get us to hoof the line," Somnambula mused. "Starswirl's a stallion who likes holding all the cards. Real authority complex."
Flash shook his head. "I don't buy it. Feels out of character for him. Too devious. He's a brilliant magician, but not much a tactician."
Rockhoof coughed. "I thought he was concerned with the danger that heroics would pose to a pregnant mare or a foal."
"Could be," Meadowbrook countered swiftly, "But that only applies if anypony got pregnant. We'd have been fine so long as we avoided the heat season." She paused and an odd look crossed her face. "Do... do you think he knows that that's how it works?"
Shock prompted Stygian to come to his master's defense. "Of course he does! If nothing else, he is a very learned scholar."
"Yes... but can you picture him ever actually being with a mare?"
The room went quiet as they all tried to picture it (some more reluctantly than others). The quarrelsome old stallion they knew lying on a bed with the sheets half-draped across his capeless form. Eyes half-closed and brows wiggling like a pair of seductive caterpillars...
They immediately decided to stop thinking about it.
Seeking a way to redirect the conversation, Flash spoke up. "Well, whatever the reason, it doesn't matter anymore, does it?" The rest of the table turned to him curiously. "This is a new age. With a new generation of heroes. We can retire. Finally settle down." His voice turned low and husky as he wrapped a wing around Somnambula beside him. "Get busy."
Stygian blinked as clues from countless incidental memories clicked together. "Wait, are you saying that you two are..."
"Oh for years now," Somnambula tittered as she leaned into Flash's masculine pillow of chest fluff. "Since long before you joined the group."
"But what about the Heroic Code?"
Flash snorted and rolled his eyes. "A stallion's got needs, boy."
"As does a mare," his pegasus partner added, curling her tail around his flanks. Her eyes lit up and she laughed. "Oh! Remember that one time Starswirl caught us in the act? After the battle with the squidula cultists?"
"How could I forget? Feathers and phalanxes, did we ever get an earful after that!"
"And then," Stygian piped in, thinking he'd figured out what came next. "You reflected on your actions, took his advice, and chose to abstain from then on?"
That did it. Flash broke down into full-bellied laughter, his body practically doubled over as it struggled to take in air. A few of the others chuckled along in a more modest quantity. Stygian just wished he got the joke.
After a long minute, Flash finally recovered enough to talk. "That's a good one, Styg. Course we didn't. At best we learned how to make sure the old coot was well enough away before getting down to business. That, and not to do it without a powerful soundproofing charm. Speaking of which, Misty?"
Mistmane reached into the depths of her mane and pulled out a small charm; little more than a gemstone on a silver chain. "I've got you covered. Hang it on your doorknob and the whole room should be soundproofed till well into the morning."
She threw it and Flash deftly caught it with a wing. "Thanks," he said before turning to his marefriend with a toothy grin. "So, you want to blow this popsicle stand?"
She returned a smile that was somehow even toothier than his. "Oh, I can think of something I'd be inclined to blow."
The pair stood as one and swiftly left the room, tails entwined and wings interlocked. As the population of the room dropped to four, Rockhoof scratched his beard thoughtfully.
“He does make a good point. The world is safe now. And there are new heroes for when it’s not. We're free.”
He leaned back, food and drink forgotten, as he sank deeper into thought. "I rarely gave thought to starting a family. There was always the next adventure or monster."
Meadowbrook turned to him and propped her head up on her hoof. "But you have given it thought."
He nodded, not properly facing her. "I suppose so. If the right mare were to come along. Somepony strong and dependable..."
"Who you know you can trust."
He turned and finally met her gaze. Their eyes connected and something in his posture softened, like a question he'd never dared to ask had just been answered. He nodded again, slowly, and with more meaning. "Then I suppose I could be convinced to hang up my shovel."
The mage leaned closer, her ears folding back as her tal began to swish behind her. “Perhaps I could try wielding it.”
"Wielding it?" he asked. “Wielding my shovel…” And then his eyes widened. "Oh. Oh! Yes! You think you can handle my shovel?"
"Maybe," she slipped a sly smile. "I'm quite good with my hooves."
"It is a mighty tool."
"That's true. You got a quarterstaff I can practice with?"
He scoffed. "A quarter staff? More like a half staff!"
"All the better then."
Stygian had the distinct feeling that something was being said beyond mere words, yet for the life of him couldn't grasp it. Though he was pretty sure that, at some point, they'd stopped talking about Rockhoof's actual shovel. It wasn't until they rose and Mistmane levitated over another silencing charm that the pieces clicked into place.
"Be careful you two," Mistmane warned teasingly, "Try not to break anything."
“If we do, at least you'll be here to heal us up.”
“True, but I was referring to the crystal walls and floor.”
The earth ponies headed for their guest room, her head leaning against his broad neck as they talked in low tones, leaving Stygian and Mistmane alone.
Stygian was not a pony who operated well in large groups. Unless he really asserted himself, he had a tendency to drift towards the outer fringes of any gathering. Unfortunately, despite some ponies assumptions to the contrary, this did not mean he was conversely very skilled at dealing with one-on-one interactions.
As the pair sat in silence he struggled to come to terms with this new perspective on the group dynamic. He didn't think it unreasonable that, after having traveled together, shared campsites, and watched them bathe, he'd developed something of a smoldering affection for his female companions. He was a stallion in the prime of his youth, after all, and they each held their own captivating charms. Somnambula was flirty and cheeky, with a figure that even other pegasi would kill for. Meadowbrook was older and thicker, but had a comforting almost motherly way about her. Even Mistmane despite her age still looked good and had a mystical, foreign appeal.
So learning that most —if not all— of them had already coupled up was something of a blow to his worldview.
Not that he'd been under any illusions that he might ever have had a chance with any of them. They were all just so far beyond his reach. Stronger, wiser, more experienced. Heroes. They existed as ideals rather than options.
So deeply was Stygian engrossed in his thoughts that even he was surprised when he began to speak. "I guess that last bit of the code was really more of a suggestion, huh?"
"So it would seem." Mistmane didn't even look at him as she spoke, choosing instead to focus on folding a stray streamer into a complex shape. Was she bored with his presence already? Or had he made her mad somehow?
"So if those two are a couple," his voice continued unabated, nodding his head towards where the pegasi pair had been seating, "And those other two are as well..." His mouth went dry. The question sat there on his tongue like a clove of garlic, its presence filling the air before he even opened his mouth.
"I guess that means that you and Starswirl..." It died in his mouth. He couldn't finish the question, but he'd managed enough.
Mistmane huffed and rolled her eyes, for a moment looking all the world like a disgruntled teenager. She grumbled something unintelligible under her breath.
"I'm sorry?"
"I said,'' she repeated, a cutting edge to her voice, "That no one ever remembers it right. I sacrificed my beauty to restore my homeland, not my youth. I may be a little wrinkled and grey around the edges, but I'm still only twenty-four!"
"...What?" Stygian stammered.
"I'm twenty four," Mistmane repeated, "So I'm sure you can imagine why I get a little tired of ponies suggesting that Starswirl and I ever... ugh!... coupled up. He's like my grandad!"
Stygian noticed that the way she spoke had changed now that they were alone and relaxed. Though, judging by her rosy blush, the alcohol also had something to do with it. Her cultured and collected cadence was toned down and she seemed to talk quicker; letting the sharp ticks and clicks of her words flow freely.The longer she spoke, the more he thought he could see the chatty young mare beneath the wrinkles.
"I mean, honestly!" She continued to rant, making full use of this sympathetic ear to vent her spleen. "It gets insulting after a while. Every inn and boarding house we stopped at: 'And I presume the venerated elders will be sharing a room?' No! And Meadowbrook's constant need to play matchmaker didn't help things either! As if I couldn't get a stallion my own age if I tried. Stygian, you're about my age, right?"
"Huh, what? Oh, yes. A few years younger, actually."
"Really? Hm. Anyway, you still think I'm attractive, right? You'd bed with me, given the chance?"
"In a heartbeat."
The words slipped out before he could stop them. His face flashed crimson with shame and embarrassment.
Mistmane’s eyes widened with momentary surprise then quickly collapsed back down into a coy glance. She subtly licked her lips as they curled into a devious smile. “Why Stygian, I never knew you felt that way.”
He nodded dumbly, still too embarrassed to speak. Suddenly, a pair of soft lips graced his cheek and his entire body went rigid. He turned and found Mistmane’s face barely a hoof’s length away from his.
"Since we're in a confessing mood, I should probably say," She reached up and leaned in so close he could feel the fur of her lips tickle his ear. "When you turned into a shambling mass of darkness, that was so hot."
"R-Really?" he gasped, already barely able to breathe.
"Oh yes," she purred, sending a shiver down his spine. "Such power and strength. Amazing. In the weeks that followed as we tracked you, I kept dreaming about you sneaking back into camp... overwhelming me with your magical power... having your way with me.
Stygian found he was having a very hard time forming coherent thoughts. To think that the refined and elegant creature that he knew had this kind of monster hiding within. He’d never seen her so… assertive before. More than that, he kind of liked it.
She asked him something, but the words failed to penetrate. He nodded anyway, and gasped slightly as her magical grip tilted his face to line up with hers.
As she pressed her lips to his once more, Stygian could only wonder what in the world he was getting himself into.
As it turned out, what he got into that night turned out to be the best decision of his life.
After a brief surge of beginner's passion, their series of one-night-stands settled down into a stable relationship. They were content to take things slow, both being new to the world of romance. But, as the saying goes, life always finds a way, and it was three years after being released from Limbo that the unicorn couple returned to Castle Friendship for a Pillars reunion... with an extra body or two in tow.
"She is so adorable!" Somnambula pirouetted through the air, a little horned bundle of fur and blanket clutched close to her chest. She landed deftly and switched to nuzzling the babe like a lonely cat. "I see she has her father's eyes."
"And her mother's wrinkles, I'm sure!" Rockhoof called from across the room where no less than three foals of various ages were using him as a living jungle gym. "Ow, ow! Pumice, your father's beard is not a swingset."
"It's just baby fat," Meadowbrook corrected her husband's comment as she horned in on Somnambula's cuddle time to inspect the child. "She has excellent bone structure. This one's going to be a real beauty, just like her mother."
"And the colt has the makings of a fine warrior as well," Flash praised. A slightly older ball of teal fuzz batted away at its reflection in his polished greaves. "Of course, he's got nothing on my girls, but a fine lad nonetheless. Oi!" He turned sharply to address a pair of little pegasi, no more than two, one of whom seemed intent on trying to eat the other's hair. "Arrowhead! Leave your sister's hair alone! The soap does not taste how it smells!"
Stygian smiled at the assembly. He'd filled out in the past three years and was currently experimenting with a moustache. This was it. This was the kind of camaraderie he'd been missing back before Limbo. And the children were an unexpected bonus. "Do you think Starswirl will make it? He's the only one we're missing."
Mistmane shrugged awkwardly as she retrieved her little Cherry Blossom from her godmotherly smothering. “I couldn’t say. It’s hard to contact him when he keeps moving. You'd think he'd just settle down in Canterlot or one of the magic universities and teach, but I guess old habits are hard to break.”
“Once a wandering scholar, always a wandering scholar,” Rockhoof added.
A distant knocking distracted them from further conversation.
“I’ll get it,” Stygian said. If it was his old master, he wanted to be the first to see him and show him how he’d grown.
Sound from the children playing quickly faded away as he navigated the crystal corridors. Soon, he reached the main doors which swung smoothly open at his magic’s touch.
On the other side stood Starswirl, looking not a day older nor younger than he had upon emerging from Limbo. Even his expression was set in its familiar disapproving frown. But Stygian thought that something in his eyes seemed harder than usual.
“Starswirl! You made it!”
The old wizard did not speak immediately and merely eyed him up and down. “Yes,” he said eventually. “You look well.”
Stygian forced a smile even though Starswirl tone unnerved him. Was something wrong? “Thank you. Ah, you too. It took getting married to really get me into a healthy lifestyle, but what works, works.”
Starswirl seemed to tense slightly. “Yes… I had heard that you got married.” He took a step forward and Stygian flinched back, despite now having several inches on him. “I also heard rumor,” Starswirl’s eyes narrowed dangerously, “Of a child.”
Stygian brightened, instantly forgetting the dark tone of the words. “That’s right! Two, actually. We're so excited!”
Starswirl’s tone remained level. “I see. And… the mother?”
“Oh she’s excited as well. Probably more tired than me though. Stars above am I glad that only mares have to nurse!”
“No you simpleton, I meant who-”
“Stygy?” Mistmane walked around the corner, a small teal colt on her back. “Honey? Is everything alright? You were taking so long.”
As the child came into view, a flash of fear passed through Starswirl's eyes, though it was quickly drowned out by a spark of anger.
"You fool!" he roared, rounding on his former apprentice like a lion. "After everything I've said, after everything I've done, the minute my back is turned you renege on the Heroic Code and sleep with another party member! Not only that, but to have a child as well! Does your insurrection know no bounds?" He twisted and pointed to the foal. "That thing should never have existed! It is an abomination!"
Married life had been good to Stygian. Being in a stable and supportive relationship had done wonders for his mental health and self-esteem. Meanwhile, fatherhood had grown him a spine worthy of a giraffe. Suffice to say, he was not the weak and whimpering colt he once was.
"How dare you..." His voice came out low and hard, as unyielding as cold-forged steel. "That is my son. My brave little Aventurine. It's one thing to barge in here and start giving orders like you still hold some kind of authority, but to attack my son? To say he shouldn't exist? You've crossed a line, Starswirl, and I won't stand for it!"
Starswirl dismissed Stygian's anger with a shake of his head. "Be silent and listen to me, you prattling fool. That child is-”
"No, you listen to me for once!" He grabbed Mistmane in his magic and pulled her to his side. "This is my family. My happiness. Something I found for myself. And I don't care what you have to say about it. Just because you could never find yourself a mare back in the day doesn't mean we all should be forced to share in your involuntary celibacy!"
"Invol... Boy, I have slept with more mares than you've ever even fantasized about!
"Then why?" Stygian demanded, "Why are you so against us having children?"
"Because you are both of my blood!"
His words echoed like the final knell of a bell, hanging heavy in the air with the weight of their meaning. For a long minute, not a soul spoke.
"...What?"
Starswirl sighed and suddenly looked a lot less like an angry wizard and a lot more like a tired old stallion. "I didn't want you to find out this way. Ideally, you would have never found out at all." He groaned and rolled his eyes. "But out of everypony in the world, you just had to go and court each other, didn't you?"
"I... I don't understand." Aventurine pawed at his mother's mane, perhaps sensing her growing distress. If she noticed him, she made no sign of it. "How can you be father to both of us? I knew my father. He was-"
"The stallion your mother married after I moved on. You see, when I was young, I traveled across many lands and slept with many mares in the hopes of seeding the next generation with a new breed of heroes. You two are some of the mixed results of my efforts. Inheritors of my blood and power, yes, but also cursed to share a father."
The air was gone and Stygian could not breathe. His heart beat in his throat like a wardrum, practically drowning out the old wizard's explanation with its heavy thuds. His eyes turned to his wife, meeting a pair that mirrored his own shock, confusion, and fear. "No..." It was barely a whisper, more a thought carried on a breath. "It's impossible. We can't be... be..."
"... siblings." Mistmane finished breathlessly.
"Half siblings at most," Starswirl corrected. "Stygian I know to be the son of Clover, my student. She brought him to me herself in hopes I would instruct him as I had her. As for Mistmane's mother, I don't remember her. Somepony from the Eastern Unicorn Empire, I'd imagine."
He stepped forward and bore his cold gaze into their eyes. "You see now why the child should not exist. It's common knowledge that foals born of shared blood are destined to become monsters or fell mages or deranged perverts.”
"N-No!" Mistmane cried, shaking her head vehemently. "You must be wrong. You have to be!"
"There is no mistake. I even made a spell to identify those borne of my seed."
“Cast it.”
“What?”
“Cast the spell.” Stygian’s anger and shock had reduced to a cold and sober grimness. “Prove that I'm your son and this isn't just another deranged method to keep us in line.”
Their potential father hesitated, then finally sighed, a defeated look on his face. "Very well. If that is what it takes." He lit his horn, its silvery-blue aura coming instantly to life. It pulsed for a few seconds, shifting and flickering as the wizard concentrated, then radiated outward like a ripple, passing through bodies and walls until it was out of sight.
Stygian analyzed it as it swept by. From his brief glimpse, he could tell that Starswirl had not lied; the spell would do exactly as he had said and identify those who shared his blood. All that was left… was to wait.
They did not have to wait long.
After a moment, Stygian began to glow. As did Mistmane and the foal on her back.
“It’s true…” she whispered.
Before anyone could react further, a cry of alarm from deeper within the castle caught their attention. Hero instincts rushing to the forefront of their minds, the three unicorns abandoned the doorway and ran inside, back to where the party was taking place. Upon reaching the room, both their minds and their bodies came to a screeching halt.
Sitting in the center of the room, eyes darting about nervously, Somnambula was glowing.
Off to the side of the room, alert for incoming attacks, so was Rockhoof.
As was Meadowbrook.
And Flash Magnus.
And all their collective foals.
"Ah. Bugger," Starswirl said dryly, looking completely nonplussed. "I suppose I have something to confess to the rest of you as well then. Would you like the good news or the bad news first?"
"Many years ago," Starswirl began, "when I was but a young stallion in the prime of my youth, I dabbled in the mystic arts of prophecy and foresight."
Six ponies sat around what should have been a pleasantly tasteful snack table, now cleared, and listened with rapt attention. Not a soul made a move to interrupt or comment. They all wanted, needed, to hear every word he was about to say. Behind them, a half dozen or so toddler-aged foals of all tribes played together in a big dogpile of wings and horns and hooves.
The old wizard shook his head. "It is a dangerous art, one with countless unforeseeable consequences. One has no way of knowing if actions taken to prevent a tragedy are in fact what may cause it to be. And yet, once burdened with knowledge, one cannot help but feel responsible for the future, whether good or ill, whether through their own action or inaction."
"In my searches of the strands of time I foresaw disaster. Countless fell monsters, dark evils, and tragic endings. At the time, due to my early accomplishments and my mastery of sorcery I was already recognized as a powerful figure among all the tribes. Being young and egotistic, I even fancied myself a hero— like in the old stories. But this was too much. Too many disasters. Too powerful creatures. Too much for one hero." He took a deep breath as the listeners unconsciously leaned in. "And so, being the strong-headed youth that I was, I concluded that the only solution was... well, ah... to make more heroes."
The room went dead silent. You could hear a pin drop. Or the soft squishy noise of Whistle Reed teething on his rubber shovel.
"Your solution," Rockhoof said slowly, "To impending disaster, was to go out and sleep with as many mares as possible in the hope that one of your children would be able to solve the problem?"
"In a nutshell, yes." Starswirl stroked his bread as a nostalgic glint entered his eye. "Ah, those were quite the days. Every week a different village, every night a different mare. At first I only selected mares who'd give the best chance of heroic offspring. The fastest flyers. The strongest spellcasters. The greatest alchemists. The most talented, the most skilled, the most beautiful mares the world had to offer. After a decade or so, in due fairness to all the others, I lowered my standards so they'd have a chance to mother greatness as well."
He either didn't notice or simply didn't care about the looks he was getting from his audience. Shock, disgust, and disbelief from the mares, with a veneer of the same on the stallions (that hid twinges of jealousy and begrudging respect).
Shaking himself out of his trip down memory lane, Starswirl picked up his previous serious tone. "And so, many years later, when I saw the first signs of my prophecies beginning to emerge, I retread through my old grounds. I chased down rumors of mares and stallions who had done great deeds and gained fame and notoriety. Although, many of those stories turned out to be either just that or overblown accounts, so I developed a spell to pinpoint ponies who shared my blood." He gestured across the table. "And, one by one, it lead me to each of you. The rest, as they say, is history."
Stygian was... conflicted. On one hoof, he was the son of Starswirl the Bearded! Long lost sons of famous ponies were the kind of thing that happened in foal's stories, not real life! And yet here he was, sitting next to his father with the original bloodline spell to prove it.
On the other hoof, he knew Starswirl. Knew him better than most. And for as talented a wizard as he was, he was not exactly father material. Now that Stygian was one himself, he knew something of what it took to be a father. So perhaps it was for the best that he'd kept the relationship secret.
But daddy issues aside, he was still left with the tangled mess involving his wife... his half-sister. He still loved her —nothing could change that— but the new knowledge left a sour taste in his mouth.
"This is ridiculous," Flash Magnus snorted, his wings rustling in agitation. "Completely ridiculous. I don't care what your spell says, my father was a hero who went MIA during the battle of Cloud Nine."
"I had two mothers," Meadowbrook said quietly. "I always wondered who my father was, but they always refused to talk about it. But I never would have thought..." She trailed off, her eyes staring vacantly into the middle-distance. Somnambula placed a wing around her barrel and pulled her close.
"No one would have, because the very notion is insane. That one stallion would go out of his way to have as many children across the realm as he could in the pursuit of some savior complex."
"The spell is correct," Mistmane said slowly, her words coming out with difficulty, "I inspected its formula thrice over. There are no flaws or errors in it. We are, for better or worse, all related."
Silence fell once again as they processed this. What would this mean for their future? Their marriages? Their children? The stigma surrounding incest was strong, even in the old days. Certainly some nobles did it to keep their bloodlines pure, but they never dared wed closer than cousins. And the foals themselves, would they become monstrous and wicked like everyone said, or was that merely a product of ponies mistreating them out of fear and disgust? A maelstrom of questions swirled about their heads, not helped in the slightest by the glaring light.
Stygian blinked. He wiped his eyes and blinked again. "Is it just me, or is the room getting brighter?"
The group tore their attention away from their own introspections and denials. Now that someone had said it, there was no doubt. The room was brighter than it had been, and only seemed to be getting brighter. Thanks to his position at the table, Starswirl was the first to spot the cause.
"The foals!" he gasped as the color fled from his face.
Six parents turned around to the play area and immediately turned as white as the wizard had.
The children were glowing. Not the normal 'healthy glow' often attributed to energetic foals and pregnant mothers, but a sinister black and white miasma that shaded their bodies like a coating of salt and soot. And they were only getting brighter.
"Grab them!" Starswirl shouted, "If you ever wish to see your children again, grab them now!"
The parents needed no further instructions. With the supernatural strength granted by their parental instincts, they leapt towards their offspring, each angling for their own.
But it was too late. They phased through the foals like they weren't even there.
Crackling energy filled the room. Like a knife through parchment, a vortex ripped through the air, raw and jagged.
"What is this?!" Meadowbrook shouted.
"The other reason I didn't want you all to have children!" Starswirl braced himself against the table as magic rippled and surged from his horn. "We do not belong in this time! It's only the essence of void from Limbo permeating our bodies that's keeping us aging normally and not turning to dust!"
"What does this have to do with the foals?!" Rockhoof tried, over and over, to grab his child, yet she slipped through his hooves every time.
"They don't have that protection! Time itself is trying to send them back a thousand years, when they'd have been born had we not entered Limbo. Hold on!" His horn surged once more, releasing a blinding corona that made everypony squint and turn away. When they could see again, everything was normal. The vortex was gone. The blinding light had subsided.
The foals were gone.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Stygian roared like a madstallion, moving to throw himself at the wizard. Mid-leap, he hit a barrier.
"Save... Saving them!" Starswirl panted behind a glare that burned with intensity. "Some... someone help me up. There is more that must be done!"
"Lesser Twilight! We require the use of your table!"
Starlight frowned. And lunch had been going so well too. She dabbed some mustard off her lips as the Pillars burst into the map room. "It's Starlight, actually. And I'm more than happy to share. Was the grand hall not enough space for your part-"
Her words died in her throat as the better half of her sandwich was cast to the floor. "Hey! I was eating that!"
"No time!" Starswirl scolded as he began to cast. The Map came to life under his spellwork, rippling with a rainbow of colors that resolved themselves into a map of Equestria. The image flickered and blurred as he poured more magic into the spell. Runes appeared from the air, glowing as they swirled and spiraled in complex formations like a flock of butterflies.
Light seemed to fade from the room until the only illumination was from Starswirl's horn and the spellrunes in the air.
"Sands of time reverse the flow," he chanted, eyes glowing with raw power, "to show us scenes from long ago. Cast this eye through history's pages, blow clean the dust of bygone ages."
Magical energy surged to a tipping point, then with a final push it cascaded through the rest of the spell. The corona around Starswirl's horn died away as normal lighting returned. After a moment, the map of Equestria flickered back into place, but no one noticed. They were all looking around for their children.
"Well?" Flash demanded, "Where are they? Where are my daughters?"
"Safe." The old wizard fell heavily into a throne, still breathing hard. "Safe, in the past."
"What?!" Someone cried, but no one knew who.
In moments Stygian had him by the beard. "Why?! Why did you do that? Even if they were born of blood, they were still our children, and you-"
"I saved them!" Starswirl shouted back, just as loud. "That wasn't a spell that took them, that was Time itself acting upon the world to fix an imbalance. You can't fight Time. It took everything just to have some element of control over where and when they landed. It's only thanks to my interference that you can rest easy knowing they landed safely in pony settlements around our era, rather than over an ocean or before the Great Migration arrived."
"But... they're trapped. Lost in the past." Mistmane's words cut through the tension between the stallions with her sober sincerity. "My beautiful little Cherry Blossom. My brave little Aventurine."
Starswirl struggled to sit up, but forced the motion. "Wrong. They are the opposite of lost. I know exactly where and when they are." He hesitated. "Within a degree of accuracy."
"Then get them back," Rockhoof growled.
"I can't. They're dead."
A gasp rang through the room and with a wail, Somnambula fainted.
"You said they were safe!"
"They are! But they are part of the past. They grew up and lived and married and grew old and died centuries ago. That is how time works." He thrust a hoof towards the table. "But thanks to me, you can at least see how their lives played out. Show me Pumice."
At his command, the image on the table wavered. The map shifted and zoomed and was quickly replaced with a moving image of a mare trotting through a small village.
"Pumice!" Meadowbrook cried, "She... She's all grown up."
"And in my village," Rockhoof added in awe.
"I did say I aimed their arrival. You can see her at this age or you can see her as a foal or as a grandmother. As I said, this is all in the past."
The healer's eyes remained locked on the image as Pumice began haggling with a shop owner about some cabbages. A lone teardrop fell and fizzed as it passed through the illusion. "Is there truly no way to get her back?"
He shook his head. "She's a part of history. Time wouldn't have forced the correction if there wasn't some action she was meant to take that would impact the path of the future. Any change would ripple through our present and create a paradox. All we can do now is watch."
After a few hours of watching their children's lives, most of the Pillars had, to some degree, come to terms with their loss. After all, they grew up in an age where one was considered lucky is three out of eight of their children lived to adulthood. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but one they'd known of since childhood.
"What would you like to see next?" Starswirl asked. He'd recovered much of his strength since the modified observation spell required no more magic after it was first cast.
"Go back to Arrowhead," Flash Magnus urged, "I want to see her in another battle."
"No, go to Pumice again. I want to see what stallion she fell in love with to have my granddaughter, Midnight Quartz."
"Arrowhead it is then."
The scene shifted to a battle-scarred landscape. Large swaths of land had been churned as though by a giant's plow, leaving chaos in its wake. Trees were scorched and blacked, some still smoking. The battle itself seemed to have wound down some time before, but the bodies of many ponies still lay scattered across the battlefield. A young pegasus flew back and forth, calling out whenever she found somepony still alive, the white cuff on her wing stood out like a banner in the devastation.
"So she transferred into the medic squadrons," her father said approvingly from a thousand years away, "An honorable profession."
Arrowhead darted across the plains, her eyes moving in a never-ending search, ready to spot the smallest detail. A hundred rapid assessments made every moment to determine those who could be saved from those who couldn't. She landed suddenly and began to dig out a small pile of rubble. After a few moments, a nearly-invisible patch of teal was revealed to be a foreleg, followed by a whole unicorn.
"Wait a minute..." Mistmane murmured, suddenly taking an interest in the display.
He emerged from the rubble fully, coughing and battered, but alive. The image provided no sound, but his lips moved in what looked like words of thanks. Lifting her hoof, he gave it a tender kiss, dirt and blood and all. Arrowhead blushed and smiled.
"That's him!" Mistmane cried, pointing to the stallion on the table. "That's my Aventurine!"
"It is?" Flash peered closer and his eyes widened. "Sweet thunder, it is! Look at that curved horn. What's he doing on the battlefield? And what did he just do to my daughter?"
"What any gentlestallion would do." She then addressed the table. "Follow them, but skip ahead. Do they become friends?"
"It doesn't work like that," Starswirl clarified, "Only I can-" Much to his surprise, the spell apparently did work like that as the image sped up until it was a blur of color. "That's not right..."
It stopped on the view inside a small cottage.
Arrowhead sat by the fireplace, an apron tied around her waist as she stirred a pot of something bubbling. The home was warm and cozy, cluttered with small memories and trinkets and all the necessities of daily living. A travelling cloak hung on the door, slightly ragged and weather-worn. The door opened, hidden from her view, and in walked Aventurine. He was older and much healthier than when they'd seen him last. Sneakily, he crept up behind the cooking mare and landed a quick kiss on the nape of her neck.
"Oh my stars, they're a couple!"
"No! They can't be. I'm sure your lad's just a close friend."
Arrowhead stood up, turned with a smile, and greeted her husband with a passionate kiss, much deeper than his teasing peck. Each of them wore a necklace which became entangled as they embraced, the matching pendants fitting together like puzzle pieces. As she stood, the apron settled across her midsection, revealing what had been hidden while sitting.
"They have a child together!" Mistmane turned to Flash excitedly, light sparkling in her eyes. "Our children fell in love and-!" Her joy turned to shock in an instant as the day's earlier events came back. "They... had a child and they're...
"Cousins," he finished. "They're cousins."
"Oh dear. Well, at least they don't know, right? And it seems there's no way they could ever find out."
"True," Somnambula agreed from her vantage point in the ceiling, "and more the blessed are they in their ignorance. Though I worry for the child. If one generation of incest is dangerous, I can't imagine what kind of pony would result from two generations of it."
Mistmane took a deep breath. She daren't imagine it either. But she had to know. She needed to know everything about her lost daughter, both good and bad.
"Move forward," she instructed, "Show me the after the child is born."
The illusion blurred before settling on a scene filled with trees. Arrowhead sat on the porch of a rickety-looking hut built into a tree. She was older and wore her hair in an elaborately braided updo. She also wore both necklaces herself. Across the way from her there was some sort of celebration going on with a bonfire and countless ponies dancing. Most notable of the group was a filly, no more than nine or ten, who kept dashing between the dancers and Arrowhead, chattering along at what looked like breakneck speed.
Mistmane stared at the child, gobsmacked. The seafoam coat. The orange mane. The potion bowl cutie mark. She looked up and stared at the same features on her fellow Pillar.
Meadowbrook did not say anything. Her eyes were practically popping out of her skull, their shocked amazement mirroring darkly the excited gaze of the doppelganger filly below.
"Meadow..."
"I... Ah didn't recognize her." Meadowbrook's voice was soft and her accent reemerged from her subconscious as old memories came back. "She wore her mane diff'rent an' she was called Arrowroot. But Ah just called her..." she slowly lifted her head, eyes wet with moisture, "Mother."
"That's crazy," Stygian shook his head. "I mean, that'd make you my... our..."
"...granddaughter."
"Wait," Somnambula asked, "I thought we established that Starswirl was all of our fathers?"
Everyone stopped and turned to Starswirl. Starswirl looked decided anywhere else.
And then, like a specter of doom emerging from the mist, they saw him in the illusion.
The sky blue mane that ended in curls was unfamiliar. The goatee of a beard rang a few bells. But the star-spangled cape and bell-covered hat were unmistakable. Starswirl the (slightly) bearded had just entered the scene.
He wandered through the crowd with a jovial air, refilling cups and bowls from a flask of wine that never seemed to run dry. The group of half-siblings watched in shocked silence as young Starswirl worked his was over to Arrowhead. They spoke briefly and he refilled her cup. They talked a little more... and she led them inside the house.
"Ah rememba that festival." Meadowbrook said in a tone that brooked on emotionless. "Mother got really angry a few weeks later and swore off stallions completely. A few months later she married Momma."
A few seconds passed before something seemed to click in her mind.
"You slept with my mother!" She roared at the wizard.
"You slept with my daughter!" Mistmane howled in the exact same instant.
"I slept with a lot of ponies' mothers," he rebutted stiffly as he refused to make eye contact. "It's also a fact of life that every mare I slept with had to be somepony's daughter."
"So Starswirl's actually your great-grandfather, then." Flash Magnus commented. "So then I wonder, do I have a second grandchild-" he winced, "-and sister, out there somewhere?
The map-turned-timetable seemed to take this as a command. The images spun once more until it landed on a snowy plain. It was night, with only the moon to make the snow gleam like diamonds. Clumps of bamboo dotted the side of the road, casting dark shadows against the brilliant whiteness of the landscape. Through it, a lone mare trudged. Arrowhead didn't look much older, but she seemed far more tired. Each step seemed to hurt her, yet she continued to walk. Clutched to her chest was a bundle that shivered against the cold. Ahead of them sprawled a massive wall. Unicorns with long curved horns patrolled the top, their shining coronas acting like beacons.
Just as she was about to reach the massive red gates, Arrowhead collapsed. The doors opened before her and a group of stallions emerged in fur-lined armor. They stared down at the pegasus disdainfully. She shifted and removed her bundle. One guard raised his pike at the sudden movement, but froze at a word from his commander. The wrappings fell away, revealing a tiny filly, no more than a month or two old, yet with a mane of seagreen hair that flowed and moved with a mind of its own. Arrowhead said something, but the words were lost to the winds of time. After a moment of consideration, the commander nodded and took the babe from her. He wrapped it in his own cloak and turned to re-enter the walls. The doors closed behind him and his guards, leaving Arrowhead alone in the snow.
"I remember," Meadowbrook said, though she was still not quite altogether there. "Mother left when I was young. I remember now, I had a little sister, but only for a few days. They said that there was something wrong with her; that she was different. Mother took her far away to be treated— and never came back." She turned to Mistmane, eyes glassy.
Somnambula shifted uneasily on her perch. This was not what she wanted to see. She understood that her daughters had been dead for hundreds of years, but she still didn't want to watch it happen. Desperately, she called out with a bit too much forced enthusiasm. "Flash! What about our other daughter?"
"Yes!" he agreed suddenly, clearly sharing her unease, "Hortative Halberd! Show us her!"
Once more the scene swirled and became a fortress of stone and cloud, a standard fare for a Pegasi Armada outpost. Halberd was in the banquet hall, laughing and drinking with a group of comrades.
Flash let out a sigh of relief. This was much better. "There. I see she made Lieutenant. And so young, too. That's my- oh come on!"
Starswirl, older and with a fuller beard, had just entered the banquet hall.
Modern Starswirl cleared his throat. "In my defense-"
"Shut it!" Flash interrupted, "Just- No! Don't even say anything! You morally-bankrupt tailbuster who knocked up both of my daughters! Show me her child, map! I know there's one!"
It obliged, shifting to Halberd in a private bedroom nursing a scrawny green earth pony with a fiery orange mane.
"What?!" Rockhoof's thunderous shout practically shattered the crystal throne he sat on. He'd only been paying attention out of morbid curiosity, but things were different now that he'd been involved. "But... but I was an orphan!"
Without being prompted, the view cut to barracks. A pegasi guard wearing captain’s stripes held young Rockhoof who now looked a few months older. Teams of pegasi came and went, reporting back to the one holding Rockhoof with regretful shakes of their head. Each time a team returned he crossed a grid off a large map on the wall. The view sped forward until the entire map had been crossed out. It accelerated once again to show the captain delivering Rockhoof to an elderly mare at the Earth Pony village under the volcano.
"I- I always wondered who my parents were." The giant's voice had never been softer. "On some level, I'm glad to finally have an answer. But a part of me now wishes I didn't."
He watched as the scene continued to unfold as the Matron he'd known growing up took him into the orphanage. Then, in the background, he saw her. Pumice. His daughter, already a mare full grown when he was just a babe. He'd always thought that using magic to fix problems led to more complications, but this alone gave him a greater headache than anything he'd seen thus far.
A terrifying thought struck him. If Starswirl's tastes truly knew no bounds as the evidence seemed to show, then no mare was safe. Even his own daughter.
"Spell," he said quickly, unsure how to address the illusion,"Show me my daughter Pumice and the stallion she fathered a child with."
Again, the spell did exactly what it was told. It dutifully showed him Pumice... with, as he'd feared, Starswirl. Much to his horror, it also chose to display the very moment of Midnight Quartz's conception.
"Gah!" Rockhoof reeled back in disgust, covering his eyes (as did his pseudo-siblings), "Starswirl, you fiend! Is there any mare you didn't bed?"
Starswirl shrugged, hardly even phased. "At this point, even I'm not sure."
Another thunderbolt of an idea crossed Rockhoof's mind, this one even more horrific than the last. Silently he begged the sun, the moon, the stars and anything else that might be listening to please let this one mare be spared. "R-Rose Quartz! Show me! Did he ever meet Rose Quartz?"
The STD of a stallion sighed. "Now you're just being needlessly fanciful. It's definitely not going to work on ponies other than those who— what?"
The view stabilized on a mountaintop city that was half stone, half clouds. A rare point of convergence where Earth Ponies and Pegasi had collaborated in building a community. It closed in on a shop. Though it was late, the evening dusk still illuminated the sign that hung over the door.
[Rose Quartz' and Dancing Petals' Enchanted Goods]
The view pushed inside the shop, to where a pink mare sat at a workbench, facing away.
"Please no," Rockhoof muttered under his breath. "Please no, please no, please no, please no."
Just as his aneurysm was about to pop, the shop door opened. Rose Quartz, presumably, gave a half turn, just enough for one eye to see behind her. A much younger mare, a pegasus, was backing in through the door making shushing motions to a stallion she pulled by the hoof. To absolutely no one's surprise, it was Starswirl, with a mid-level beard and only a noble streak of grey in his mane. The pegasus half-dragged him upstairs and beyond a door which read Dancing Petals' room. Keep out!. The door slammed shut once the pair were inside.
Rose Quartz laughed silently and closed her workspace door, latching it behind her.
Rockhoof couldn't help but sigh in relief. It was as though an enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. After Pumice, he knew that the spell was more than capable of showing the most intimate of acts, so if that brief encounter was the most it could show in the overlap of her life and Starswirl's, then he felt secure in saying that she was safe.
"Dancing Petals?" Flash mused, "You know, that was my mother's name as well."
The group stared at him blankly as they all waited for the other horseshoe to drop. Flash blinked, groaned, and facehooved as he realized just how oblivious his statement was. "It's me, isn't it? I'm the product of that night?"
The illusion showed daytime, a few years later, in a sitting room of the same building. A tiny Flash Magnus bounced on Petals' knee, playing with a wooden spear. Across the room, a middle-aged Rose looked on tenderly.
"Cherry Blossom!" Mistmane cried. The rest turned to her in confusion.
She pointed at the illusionary Rose and the image froze, helpfully enlarging the area she indicated. "That birthmark on her cheek. I didn't see it before because she was turned the other way. I named her Cherry Blossom because it looks like a flower. That mare's my daughter!"
A loud THUMP! reverberated through the room as Rockhoof's legs gave out from under him. With some effort, Stygian and Flash helped him into a chair. The poor stallion had gone pale as the grave. He turned towards Mistmane with the speed of two grindstones twisting atop one another, his eyes sunken and hollow as his posture seemed to shrink every second.
"Mist... I... I'm so sorry."
She looked at him, confused but also scared. After everything they'd seen and heard so far, she couldn't imagine what he might feel he needed to apologize for. Actually... she could.
"Show me whatever he's thinking of!"
"Oh come now, there's absolutely no way my spell would-"
They were back in Rockhoof's village. Red and gold leaves covered the earth and foods of all kinds covered the tables. A harvest festival if there ever was one. A young Rockhoof, barely fifteen if he was a day, led an equally young Rose Quartz away from the dancing and celebrations. Soon they found themselves in a barn together. Alone. Young Rockhoof began to lean in, as though going for a kiss, but quickly backed out and chose instead to rub his hooves in awkward nervousness. After his third of fourth attempt, Rose stopped playing and took the initiative, leaning the rest of the way into the kiss herself. She was stronger than they'd both expected, and they fell backwards into the hay. This failed to deter them as their kisses began to grow less awkward and more passionate. Before anypony watching could realize, the two had begun-
"Skip ahead!" Rockhoof, face burning hotter than molten lava, commanded, "No pony needs to see this!"
Thankfully, the spell complied and cut to the next morning, with the couple still spooning, asleep in the hay.
"I'm sorry Mistmane, I didn't know. Rose —no, Cherry— and I, we grew up in the orphanage together. We were close, inseparable at times. And then the harvest festival came and… she… we... When she found out she was with child, she fled the village in shame. I- I never saw her again... we were just so young and curious... and foolish..." His voice broke down into soft mumbles.
Mistmane had never seen the giant look so small. After a moment she sighed and placed a hoof on his. He met her gaze, eyes brimming with regret.
"Rockhoof... I can't say I'm happy. I can't even say I'm not angry. But I can at least say that it's not your fault. You didn't know. Stars, you'd have to be some diabolical prophetic madstallion to be able to have known. And I can at least say that I'm glad that my daughter's first time was with a friend, somepony she trusted. After all," her gaze moved over to Starswirl, "It could have been worse."
"Still," Flash commented dryly, "To think: you and my grandmother."
"My daughter," added Stygian.
"My aunt," said Meadowbrook.
"My own first cousin once removed," Rockhoof himself added with a sigh.
"Yeah, so... how exactly do I fit into all of this?" Everyone looked up to where Somnambula was still lounging in her perch among the tree roots. "I mean, am I involved in this clusterbuck of a family tree or am I just the odd pony out here?"
"One way to find out," said Stygian, who was also feeling slightly on the fringes of all this being as his mother Clover seemed to be the only mare involved who wasn't someone else's daughter. "Show us her parent's meeting."
A wash of yellow overtook the view. Sand as far as the eye could see. At the center was a mare pulling a cart. A thick turban obscured her face and mane with only a thin slit to see through. Soon she came upon a bustling city. Working pegasi flew past, towing giant blocks of sandstone to build distant pyramids and temples. Other hawked goods in the streets, their pitches silent to those who watched. The lone mare wrote it all down in a small notebook. As the sun reached its midday peak, she navigated her way to a boarding house. Therein, she helped herself to the local tavern. Only then did she finally remove her turban.
"Oh! It's my granddaughter," Rockhoof exclaimed, "So Midnight Quartz became an explorer."
The doors to the tavern swung open to admit another guest. It was a unicorn, clad in no desert gear but wearing only a starry cape and hat, he-
"Alright, I've seen enough." Somnambula waved a wing dismissively. "I can guess how it goes from there. Honestly, I'm not even surprised at this point. I'm just glad to be included."
"And that's the last one then." Starswirl snapped closed a scroll onto which he'd been writing something. "With that, I have all the pieces I need."
"What, a piece of every one of our daughters?" Flash snapped back, having long since lost most of his respect for the stallion.
"And mothers."
"And grandmothers."
"To be fair," said Starlight Glimmer, who had never actually left but was just enjoying the show from the sidelines, "There's a lot of overlap there."
Starswirl, wizard of the arcane, merely smirked. "You think I'd just leave them? That I could be that callous? Observe. Show me Arrowhead's last moment."
Dutifully, the scene returned to the snowy field outside the Eartern Unicorn Empire's walls where Arrowhead lay in the snow.
Starswirl lit his horn.
Suddenly, a black void opened in the ground beneath Arrowhead, swallowing her whole in an instant.
No one said a word for a long moment.
"Did you just change-" Stygian started.
"Cherry Blossom next."
The illusion became a bedroom in the mountaintop city. In it slept an elderly Rose Quartz née Cherry Blossom. Much as before, Starswirl cast some unknown spell and the mare vanished into darkness.
"What are you doing?" Mistmane demanded.
"Now Aventurine."
It was a carriage route running through a forest. The teal unicorn lay on the side of the road, his body broken and bleeding, bandits still visible running away through the trees. He too was consumed by blackness.
"Starswirl, explain!"
"Hortative Halberd!"
The pegasus sat in the bottom of a chasm, a wing hanging limply by her side. Unlike the others, she was awake and clearly reacted poorly to being suddenly consumed by a pit of nothingness.
"Somepony do something!"
"And last but not least, Pumice."
She too was an old mare, but rather than in bed the spell found her collapsed on a mountain trail. The pitch swallowed her without complaint.
Starswirl was all smiles when he turned his attention back to his party members. He did not, however, expect to be on the receiving end of enough hostile energy to fuel a war.
"Starswirl," Stygian said warningly, his body language only one step away from open combat. "You'd better have a very good explanation for whatever the Tartarus you just did."
The wizard blinked in confusion then replied to their hostility with a scowl. "A good explanation?" he repeated. "A good explanation? What? Did you think that I cast a magic eye a thousand years into the past just to show lives you could never touch? No, they may be incestuous monsters, but those are still my foals and grandfoals. And not even the forces of temporal realignment will stop me from getting them back. I just needed to track down what actions of theirs were critical to the timestream. Now that I know..."
He rose from his chair and tapped the table with his horn. Instantly the spell deactivated and it receded into the floor. He stretched out his neck and legs, making the joints crack and pop like fireworks. "Stygian. Pop quiz. Do you remember what I said earlier?"
Stygian gaped blindly for a moment. Out of every possible action, this was not what he had expected. "Ah, from what time?"
"Just after the foals were lost. Nevermind it. I told you that Time cannot be fought. History cannot be changed. These are both true. But they can be tricked. They can be cheated. I've done it before, after all. Do you remember why I said that the time vortex was not trying to swallow us as well?"
That much he did remember. "Because we spent so long in Limbo and were saturated with its void energy."
"Correct. And where do you think all your children are now?"
Meadowbrook gasped. "You don't mean..."
"I do."
"But... how?" Stygian pressed, "You used no artifacts, no leylines."
"Magic has made considerable advancements since those days, young one. Advancements which I have studied thoroughly. Limbo exists outside of Time. For it, time is merely another coordinate just like the three used in physical space. Ergo, much like physical coordinates, I don't need to be there to open a portal, I just need to know the right vectors."
Mistmane stepped forward, tears brimming on her eyes, though whether they were from joy or sorrow was unknown. "If you've been planning this all this time, then why did you tell us it was impossible to get our children back?"
Starswirl shook his head ruefully as a black light began to pulse from his horn. "I did not want to raise your hopes if it failed or was impossible. Everything hinged on me being able to determine what actions of theirs were so crucial to the timeline; something I thought might take months, if not years. As luck would have it, the task was much easier than expected. Now hold on to something!"
Energy crackled off his horn, rising to form a swirling pattern in the air. The hair stood up on the back of everypony's neck as the ambient magic in the air increased tenfold. The air split open; a dark ellipse of void hovering between the floor and the tree-chandelier. It winked once, opening and closing before depositing an aged pink mare on the floor. It winked again, and deposited a pegasus. One by one five ponies were expelled from Limbo into the modern era. One was conscious.
"What's going on- '' was all that Arrowhead managed before she and the others were caught by a second spell. A thick beam of magic —blue rather than his usual white— shot from Starswirl and engulfed the quintet. Nothing happened for a split moment before their bodies began to stretch and squash. They grew smaller and smaller by the second, bleeding off mass like a sandcastle at high tide. Injuries were healed and then vanished. Weakened old muscles grew young and strong and then weak and untrained again.
Starswirl collapsed onto the ground as the spell drained him of all the magical reserves he had left. It slowly faded out as he ran out of magic and stamina. He tried to stand, but quickly changed his mind as dizziness overtook him. "Ooh, I believe the age spell might have taken a bit too much out of me. Never was skilled at those. But, there you go." He gestured towards his work. Where adults had been before there were now five foals, babbling and looking around curiously just as they had twelve hours previously. "Five children, good as new... give or take a few months. Now we're all one big happy... family... again..."
The old wizard, tired and drained, passed out.
No one wanted to approach at first, but it was hard to resist the call of one's own children. Eventually Stygian made the first move. He stepped right up to Aventurine, his son, and also his uncle-in-law. The tiny unicorn stared back into his father's eyes. Was there intelligence there? Did the colt remember thirty years of life in the past, or had Starswirl's spell wiped the slate clean? Was there even a way to know?
Aventurine raised his forelegs and put on a pleading expression. Stygian sighed and obliged, picking him up. Did it really matter, in the end? One way or another, he still had his precious son back. The colt was the child of himself and the mare he loved. Anything beyond that was just needless complication.
He smiled as the colt naturally clambered atop his head to his favorite riding position. Idly, Stygian wondered if the Ponyville bar was still open and if they sold something strong enough to make him forget that this entire day ever happened.
Author's Note
Well, you said you wanted incest. I hope this is enough to satisfy you.
