Starswirl could scarcely believe it. Princess Twilight had said there was an entire wing of the castle library devoted to his works, but to see it was something else entirely. He never really realized how much time he spent writing throughout his life.
The wing had been recently made open to the public by appointment. Well, parts of it. The scroll he needed was absolutely in the restricted section still. Thankfully, the security was perfectly willing to allow the old stallion who wrote everything to browse his notes. The fact that his old comrade Flash Magnus was the one guarding the entrance certainly didn't hurt.
There was a plaque on the entrance to the wing. "Starswirl the Bearded: the First True Mage." Not particularly accurate, but by some definitions of "mage" not a wild fabrication either. As he walked among the racks and shelves, he thought about how rarely a pony got to see their legacy firsthoof. He had been talking with the princess and her friend Starlight about advances in magical theory. Most of his notes available to the public were either outdated, or discoveries that were so ingrained into modern spellcasting that they were taught in early childhood. The contents of the restricted section were usually only taught to top personnel at magical institutions, if at all. Before her ascendancy, the princess had had to break into the archives to find her prize.
Starswirl's prize was no longer in even the restricted section. Not anymore, sadly. It had been destroyed in conflicts not so long past. There was a recreation of it, however, sitting on the shelf where the original would have been. It was easy to identify; he just selected the scroll that appeared to be less than a thousand years old. Even with preservation magic muddying the accuracy of that judgement, fresh parchment stood out starkly in a wall of slow decay.
He brought the scroll over to the nearest table for examination. The spell wasn't copied correctly. He recognized certain lines and angles in the diagramming to be out of place from his initial notation. The spell as presented would likely work, but not for his purposes.
The near-decade of research notes leading up to the final notation was unharmed and on the shelves around him. He took the earliest dated scroll and began consulting his own writings. Ah! There was the first mistake. The angulus primaria in the topmost section was wrong. It needed to be eighteen point six-seven-one degrees, plus or minus some in the fourth decimal place based on local leylines. Most of the other mistakes in the work spiraled out from there. If the primaria was being changed, the luminare needed to be adjusted to match. That line also led into the bottom section, so those needed to be tinkered with as well, with those calculations being relatively simple. The circle that the line connected into needed to be made slightly larger so it would properly loop back in the right place, and so on. The failsafes were also improperly copied, which was likely because the last pony to cast it using the original had gone out of her way not to use them. After all was done, the process of fixing the notation was nearly two hours of work, plus an additional twenty minutes to make a copy for himself. Given the flaws in the original, Starswirl talked to the archivist on duty on his way out to let her know about the work he'd done.
He quietly neglected to mention the copy he'd made, as he technically didn't have the required supervision from staff to make it. It was his work, he had a right to it in any sane world.
While talking to the archivist, he asked where, if anywhere, he could find biographies of ponies from ancient history. It pained him to refer to his own youth as "ancient," but the fact of the matter was that his youth had been over a millennium ago. The archivist brought him to a section of the palace libraries, and he asked if Starswirl was looking for pre- or post-Unification ponies. This required clarification on whether that was by birth or death. Apparently, they had a small section specifically for the ponies that bridged that gap. His own biography, likely needing severe updates, sat on the same shelf as the one he needed.
Next came reagents and material. The modest home he kept in Canterlot wasn't well supplied — most anything of value for spellcasting spoiled between adventures or was small enough to simply carry with him — but the palace allowed him a bottomless stipend for research, and this technically qualified. Besides, the ingredients he needed were almost entirely simple, cheap basics for the modern spellcaster.
The markets were bustling, and Starswirl had to pick his way through the crowds. It was slow going, even when ponies noticed the old stallion and made room for him. Eventually, he managed to cross the square to the shop he needed.
Instead of the typical bell one would expect to be attached to the door, a short progression of harp chords met his ears. A show of magical prowess was all it was; a trigger like that was more complex than a laypony would realize, and if one were to examine the workings likely more complex than necessary to show off just how very good at magic the proprietors were. Suppliers of magical goods were just as focused on their image even before the Unification, although the fashion back then was for a localized bit of warm air. It was pleasant, and displayed that despite not having wings they were just as much masters of the environment as any pegasus.
The plant-based ingredients were out for customers to browse. Most of them, anyway. Anything worth more than its weight in bits (or had potential use "recreationally") merely had signs saying he should speak with staff. Starswirl had to remind himself that the prices were sensible relative to the earnings of the modern pony. One bit for two ounces of vinea ardere was a logical price to pay these days, even if just after Unification they would have cost one bit for enough to do two weeks of non-stop experimentation. And besides, the spell he would be casting didn't require anything to explode, so the price of vinea ardere was of little immediate concern. Starswirl gathered up several stalks of firmum germinabunt and eyed them for freshness. As luck would have it, the smallest stalk was also the best candidate; he wouldn't have to bill the palace anywhere near as much for the tiny amount he actually needed.
Earthen components were more of a hassle. Harder to harvest and only rarely growing wild, none of them were kept within reach of the store's patrons. He informed the mare at the counter that he was also looking to buy limestone and a small piece of andesine. She asked if he would be interested in having the recipe he was clearly going to make prepared on site for him, at a small fee of course. Starswirl declined. He had always prepared it for himself before his time in limbo, and now he simply preferred it.
After retrieving his requests, he informed the mare that she should please be billing the cost to the palace under his name. As soon as Starswirl told her who exactly to name on the tab, she immediately said that such minor ingredients (andesine certainly wasn't a minor ingredient even if it was easier to get in the modern day, but he let that pass without comment) were on the house for such a great unicorn. Starswirl insisted, as the palace had a research budget for precisely this sort of thing. She enthusiastically packed his supplies in a pleasant violet box, and wished him luck on whatever project he was pursuing. As though he would need it. She also asked him for an autograph, to which Starswirl happily agreed.
Preparing the ingredients for spellcasting was relatively simple; everything was being ground into one concoction. First was the limestone and the gemstone. Those had to be pulverized into a fine dust. For this, he had to borrow equipment from the palace's research division. They had a machine that could easily crush rock the way he needed.
Starswirl liked working with the palace scientists. They needed little instruction in the obvious precautions to take when preparing ingredients. He didn't need to remind them to clean the machine between substances so that each sample would be pure for mixing later. (He still did remind them, it was just from habit rather than necessity.)
With the stone parts thoroughly powdered, he brought everything to his laboratory at home, where he had personal tools for grinding up plants. The sound of stone on stone as the grinding wheels turned would be unpleasant to many. He found them comforting. It was a sound of research in progress. After a few minutes of this, the stalk of firmum germinabunt was nothing but a tiny smudge of paste. That done, he placed it inside a small transparent box under sunlight to dry it.
With all his ingredients reduced, it was time to mix them. The limestone was the primary base, so he first measured out a large portion of that, followed by less than one percent of the mix going to the andesine and firmum germinabunt. All of that was then stirred as thoroughly as he could to spread the lesser portions evenly throughout. He considered his work appropriately finished when he could no longer see traces of the gem or plant in the grayish-white. Then it was a simple matter of adding water and mixing again. He had boiled and purified several gallons the previous night. As he stirred, the concoction turned thick and viscous, difficult to manipulate by hoof. When he finally found it too difficult to move the clay, he poured it out into five simple rod-shaped molds and brought those to one of the few extravagances of his house: a kiln in the backyard. He fired it and left his creations to cook.
While the kiln did its work, Starswirl double-checked his spellwork (flawless, of course) and cracked open the biography he had picked up, skipping directly to the last few pages. Extrapolating from a few of the dates presented there, he plugged the numbers he calculated into his spell's diagram to complete it.
When enough time had passed and the fires were dying, Starswirl checked the molds. They appeared to have baked long enough. He cracked them open to receive 5 thin, perfect sticks of chalk. They were an odd shade of pale green due to the added ingredients, but that shade was consistent; no flecks or inconsistencies showed. Good, the additives wouldn't perform their function in the spell if they weren't distributed properly around the circle.
He brought both the chalk and his notes into a backroom with an empty, unremarkable tile floor. Now was the easy part: actually drawing the spell circle. It was second nature to him. The flow of magic in him and his surroundings were an extension of his breath, automatic and not to be worried about so long as they continued. Within a few short minutes, he was done and checking the circle for errors. Wasting no time, he stepped into the circle and lit his horn.
The hardest part came immediately after the easy one.
Starswirl appeared in a flash of light, landing on his hooves in what appeared to be a study, with an aged green unicorn he would recognize anywhere staring at him from the seat in front of his writing desk. The calm smile with which Clover regarded Starswirl would have been strange, but Starswirl knew that this was one of the less extraordinary things to occur in either of their lives. Clover broke the silence first.
"I recognize that spell, Starswirl. Which means that despite being several decades my senior you have managed to outlive me then. Where have you been?"
It was nice to hear somepony speaking Old Ponish at a native level. Starswirl walked beside his apprentice. Well, fellow master these days. "I can tell you, but you must keep it in the absolute strictest confidence. The secret is discovered far in the future, you see."
Clover looked down at his withering body and chuckled. "I think I can keep a secret for another five minutes or so, don't you?"
"Very well then. My travelling companions and I found ourselves at odds with little Stygian. He accepted the help of dark powers, and we sadly saw no other alternative but to lock him in limbo for eternity. The problem is it required all of us to be sealed away as well. A protege of the princesses–"
"Oh? They're still around far in the–"
"–Yes they're still around far in the future. Their reign is glorious and prosperous and I would like the record to show that Puddinghead can go stuff it. Anyway, a protege of theirs, herself ascended to alicornhood and a princess, rescued us from limbo with the help of her friends. They ultimately saved Stygian from his dark pact as well. I've been living more than a thousand years in our future for some time now, learning things I never would have dreamed of knowing today."
Clover puzzled over that for a moment. "That sounds lovely, but why have you come to tell me this? How have you come to tell me this? You made it quite clear a pony can only cast the time travel spell once in their lifetime, and I doubt having an exceptionally long one changes that."
"Let us start with how. It's quite simple, really. Just because I invented the spell doesn't mean I ever cast it, boy."
Clover's jaw dropped. "You let me cast that incredibly dangerous spell untested? I was the first pony to travel through time?"
It was Starswirl's turn to laugh. "You absolutely were, boy. Yet another on your long list of accomplishments. And that brings us to why I'm here. It was not to inform you of where I've been since my disappearance, but for something far more important.
"Even before my disappearance, you had proven yourself to be a capable wizard, and a capable leader. Nearly everything good about Equestria in the future is built on foundations set by you, your wife, or Cookie. You have done so very much that I find myself wondering why I am not a mere amusing footnote in your history. And that leaves me with one uncomfortable fact. Regarding you, I have things left unsaid, and you deserve to have them spoken."
"I did not feel like we had much in the way of unfinished business, Starswirl."
Tears began to well in Starswirl's eyes. "Oh, but we do, bo- Clover. I have no heirs of my own, but you have always been as a son to me. I know I was never good at expressing that I cared, but it's true. And something you should have known a long time ago is…"
Starswirl wrapped his forelegs around his former apprentice in a tight hug.
"...I am very, very proud of you."
Author's Note
So, with how much lighter the material is than the previous one, this was a LOT more fun to write. (And also doesn't on any level require me to talk about the horrible nature of man and the clusterf*** that is life right now in the author's note.) Basically as soon as I posted Memories of Myself I had the core idea for this pop up fully formed, and I just started a new job that leaves me with quite a bit more free time so I really had creative juices flowing. Hope you all enjoyed this!