The Misfortune of Clover the Clever

The crowd instantly devolved into chaos as cries of outrage and confusion filled the entire hall. Not even the diplomats and their aids were completely immune to the discourse as each of them had their own opinion, but they were failing in having themselves heard over the crowd.

There were a few who remained silent, and most of those were because they were in complete shock as what was being suggested. However, there were two ponies in particular who had a completely different take on what was happening.

"Did... Did that just happen?" Clover asked as he leaned in close to the pony beside him to make sure she heard him over the crowd.

"I think it did," said Azalea. "This can't be a coincidence. Can it? I mean, you only had that vision a few days ago."

"Have you ever heard of a prophecy coming true this quickly? Most of the ones I read about only came true after the pony had died."

"That's usually how it happens," she said. "And for all we know, it still is. You said you saw everypony bowing to a single pony, right?"

"They were bowing to something," Clover affirmed. "Still not even sure it was a pony."

"I don't see what else it could've been. What do you think," she said as she gestured to the arguing leaders. "Maybe it's actually one of them?"

"Don't look at me?" Clover exclaimed, feeling put on the spot. "I don't know how this thing works."

He was saved from further inquiry as a spark of magic flew into the air from the center of the stage.

The spark exploded with a bang. It was loud enough to cut through and silence the noise, and the shockwave was powerful enough to rattle the teeth of even the ponies sitting in the back row. Once the dust had settled and everyone, especially the battle hardened pegasi, had calmed down, the source of the disturbance made itself known.

"Sorry about that," Elder Gladiolus rubbed at his beard while biting back a sheepish grin. "I may have overdone it a bit."

"A bit?!" Elder Dahlia said from beside him. "What even made you think that was a good idea?!"

"Everypony was bickering like foals!" Gladiolus snapped back. "Sometimes you have to give ponies a good scare before they'll start to calm down."

They would've continued arguing if it hadn't been for the look Elder Lily shot the two of them. They didn't argue further, choosing instead to politely bow before taking a few steps back.

"I apologize for the outburst of my colleague," she said once she turned her attention back to the table. "But he was right in saying that we lost ourselves for a moment."

"It's fine," said Commander Thunderhead, still looking a bit on edge. "It reminds me a bit of my old days as a drill sergeant. Sometimes you need to be a bit extreme to get everypony back in line."

"Speak for yourself," said Chancellor Thistle as she did a poor job hiding a still shaking leg. "The nerve of doing something like that at the summit of all places."

"Perhaps it would be for the best if we resumed the summit tomorrow," Lily concluded. "I still wish to explore the possibility of unifying the tribes, but I think everypony needs a chance to discuss it within their own council first."

"Oh, we'll definitely be talking about it," said Thunderhead. "I'm not thrilled about the idea, but I imagine more than a few brave souls will want to make their opinions known."

"I don't think it will ever work," Thistle sighed. "But I guess we can at least talk it over, among other things."

And with that, day one of the summit came to its uncertain conclusion.

"Is the summit always this exciting?" Clover asked as everyone filed their way out of the lecture hall.

"I don't think so," Azalea shook her head. "My mother took me to one a couple of years ago, but that one seemed like it was little more than a formality. They didn't do much else except go over numbers and then go home. It actually seemed like a big waste of time. This however..."

"This sounded more like Elder Lily was trying to change the very face of the world," he finished for her. "Also, I had no idea what the other tribes went through on a daily basis. That was sort of interesting."

"We actually have it pretty good, recent events notwithstanding. Anyway," she said as she stood up with a stretch. "I'm still a bit worried about my mother, so I'm going to check up on her. Did you want to come along?"

Clover hesitated at the thought. While he was certainly curious about what the elders would be talking about, given his recent vision, he hadn't been on the best terms with Azalea's mother last time they met.

"I better not," he decided. "Besides, I want to take another look through the library. I've still got a few questions I want to try and find answers for."

Azalea gave him a knowing look. "Alright," she said. "Just so you know, you can't avoid her forever."

"I... I know," Clover let his head droop a bit. He'd have to talk to her sooner or later if he was going to continue being with her daughter.

"Hey, cheer up," she nuzzled into his side. "Sure you two had a bit of a rough start, but she'll come around."

Clover wanted to protest further, but that was when he felt a pair of warm lips rest upon his cheek. Instantly he seized up and by the time he recovered, Azalea was already working her way through the crowd, leaving him to sort through his own feelings before making his way back to the library.

The warm feeling had mostly subsided by the time Clover got where he was going. Good thing, too. Not that he was complaining, but he needed to have a clear head if he was going to get any research done.

At first, he thought about trying to resume his studies on fortune telling, and while that certainly made for some interesting reading, he hadn't gotten any closer to finding some real answers. Even after a whole day of studying. No, what he wanted to try to find out more about today was crystals.

Clover tugged up the edges of his cloak, giving him a good look at the mottled leg beneath. He still didn't like looking at his own body, if he was being completely honest with himself. It may have been an improvement on the scars he once had, if for no other reason than he could use magic again, but it still felt strange and unnatural to realize it was his own body he was looking at.

Fortunately, he was a far better versed in crystal magicology than he was in fortune telling, so he knew exactly which part of the library he needed to go.

…Or so he thought.

Quartz, sapphire, even some rare purple diamonds. A million and one uses for each of them based on how well versed and how clever the unicorn was who was using them. Quartz, while good at letting magic flow through it, was complete garbage at storing it. Sapphire had the opposite problem. It could store magic just fine, but it didn't want to give it up once it had a hold of it. He was exploring the possibility of diamond, but then he remembered something about the rare mineral. Monetary value aside, diamond tended to act more like a resistor than anything else. Great if you needed a regulator for some arcane device, but aside from there being other, cheaper materials that could do the same job, it wouldn't be able to channel the raw power Clover now had at his disposal.

He threw his head back in frustration. The closest thing he had found to what he was looking for amethyst. It was the one purple gemstone that was actually malleable under the right conditions, almost like a soft clay or a hard gel. It could easily be molded, which might explain why his body could still move, but it only maintained those properties while it was in a highly charged state, during which it also glowed brightly.

The crystal in his body didn't glow all the time, though. It was only when he used his magic that it did. This would've been so much easier with a different color, namely green. Green crystals were far more agreeable to work enchantments than purple ones, at least in Clover's opinion, especially malachite. He could've easily explained most of his condition if it was malachite, all except for the glowing part. Malachite refused to glow no matter how much power you ran through it.

"Heh," an idle thought popped into his head, making him laugh involuntarily. "Imagine if it was black." It'd look cool, that's for sure. He might even come across as some kind of moody protagonist from those cheesy novels he used to read. He dramatically swept the edge of his cloak around, covering the lower half of his face. "I am the night," he said in jest. He felt like an absolute fool. It was a fun fantasy, though.

But no, reality has its way of reminding you why fantasy is what it is. A fantasy. Black crystals couldn't be used in anything magical, not at all. It interrupted all connections almost instantly. It certainly couldn't store any power. And even touching the stuff made unicorn magic completely fall apart, no matter how powerful. He wasn't sure how it interacted with magic from the other tribes, if what they had could even properly be called magic.

Just another mystery that's going to have to remain unsolved. He began putting the books back on the shelves, the crystal in his body glowing as he levitated them. Was anything ever going to feel normal for him again? A month ago, the biggest thing he had to worry about was if the cute pony in the corner would ever notice him. So much had changed since then.

He had just finished putting the last book on the shelf and was going to see what Azalea was up to, but something wasn't right. Even though he had finished putting everything away, his horn continued to glow. He stared up at it, unsure of what it could mean, when suddenly it began pulling at him. It was subtle at first, but then it started pulling harder when he tried to ignore it. When that didn't work and he actively tried pulling against it, it pulled him so hard that he found his hooves lifted off the ground and he started getting dragged along like his horn was some kind of leash.

Now he was really starting to worry. His magic had been acting a bit funny since it started working again, in some cases it almost seemed to be acting on intuition, carrying out his intentions before he even started casting a spell, but this was the second time it was straight up subverting his own will.

What else could he do, though? Call for help? And say what? That his magic was running away without him? Even though that's sort of what was happening right now, he opted instead to just wait and see. Who knows? Maybe it'd lead him to some sort of answer.

Over shelves and between rows of books he flew, his magic seeming to have some sort of destination in mind. Several times he had to shout to the other patrons in the library to get out of the way. Sure, the library was supposed to be quiet, but decided it was better to break that sacred tenant than to bowl someone over due to a runaway horn.

Just when Clover thought he'd never get wherever he was going, the light of his horn finally dimmed, depositing him on the ground. He looked around at the dusty shelves. Wherever he was, this corner of the library wasn't visited very often. After a little searching, he found a faded sign at the end of one of the rows that read...

"Folklore?" He read aloud. "Like old legends and stuff?" He began poking at his own horn, getting increasingly frustrated with it. "You dragged me all the way here to show me some abandoned myths?" Even if there was something useful here, there was guaranteed to be a lot of nonsense that would do little more than waste his time.

As if in response to his complaints, or maybe even his thoughts, his horn lit up again and not so gently slammed his face into the nearest bookshelf, leaving him seeing stars. Dizzy and confused, but still aware of the same pulling sensation, Clover didn't properly come to until he found himself sitting at a vacant table with a single book sitting in front of him.

"The healing effects of crystals... Seriously?" He glared up at his horn. This wasn't funny anymore. He actually had heard of this before, on his first day of crystallography. They had been told by Professor Citrine that healing crystals was nothing but superstitious nonsense, pseudoscience, something concocted by earth ponies so they could upsell some of the more common gemstones.

Still, he hadn't had much luck trying to find an answer in the approved texts, the confirmed sciences. It couldn't hurt to take a look, could it? He already had the odd book in front of him and his own magic, however weird it was acting, seemed to want him to take a look.

So he did, and almost immediately started laughing. Jasper was supposed to help with stress? Turquoise is lucky?! Bloodstone is supposed to help with blood circulation... Really, now. It wasn't even trying with that one. Page after page of complete nonsense he found, with the "purpose" of each gemstone being more ridiculous than the last. The only thing that even sounded close to the truth was quartz, which was supposed to allow energy in the body to flow more freely. He was able to give this up as a completely lost cause, and maybe seek out professional help for considering the contents of this book for even a moment, but then he read the entry on the next page.

Amethyst. His eyes grew wide as he looked over this book's description of the purple gemstone, what it was supposed to help, and more importantly its role in fortune telling. "Over the years, many doctors have sworn by the healing powers of amethyst, believed to help purify the body and help increase one willpower when used in meditation." Too many of the crystals claimed to have healing effect, but this was the first one to say anything about willpower. Was this why being out in the sun no longer bothered him? He had increased willpower?

He might've dismissed it as a very unlikely coincidence if it weren't for the part it said about fortune telling. "Amethyst foretells a change or transition, or that change is the answer to a problem." Adding that to everything else was just too much. His vision, the summit, his change, everything that could happen, and even now, what Elder Lily was trying to make happen. It was like he finally had enough pieces to know the puzzle is actually a puzzle, but still not know exactly what it was trying to make. He was on the cusp of something huge. He just needed to keep looking.

"What you got there, Clover?"

Clover almost jumped clear out of his skin at the sudden voice. His heart began racing a mile a minute, he suddenly had trouble breathing, and an uncontrollable shaking overtook his body. He cranked his neck as fast as he was able, slowly looking over to find Azalea standing over him, a worried look now on her face.

"I'm sorry," she said sympathetically. "I wasn't trying to scare you. You must've been really out of it."

"Don't," Clover choked on his own breath for a moment. "Don't worry about it. I was just... I found... Here..."

Azalea screwed her eyes as Clover slid the book over for her to see. "The healing effects of Amethyst... What is this?" She stopped to flip the book to look at the cover. "You don't believe in this stuff, do you?"

"Keep reading," was the only response Clover could give.

She raised an eyebrow at his no-nonsense answer before settling down next to him and continuing to read the section. When she got to the part about the fortune telling, her jaw dropped. "This has to be a joke, right?"

"If it is, it's not very funny," he said, relaxing only slightly. "Almost too much makes sense now. Far too much to just be a coincidence."

"But it just... Hmm..." She pondered as she studied him. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Huh?" Mused Clover, caught off guard by the change of subject. "It's not that late, is it?"

"The moon was raised several hours ago. You've been in here most of the day. You need to sleep."

"But I can't sleep," he argued. "Not with this on my plate."

"You're going to drive yourself mad if you keep up this pace. Besides, a discovery this big needs a good night's rest to properly digest, or you're going to undo all the progress you've made."

"I still don't see how I can be expected to sleep after making this discovery."

"Then you don't have to sleep," she said through a warm smile. "But I'm pretty sure you will when I'm through with you."

"I'm pretty sure sleeping spells won't work on me anymore." Clover sighed, confused. "What are you hoping to..." And then he saw the look she was giving him.

Any further argument or existential crisis was shelved from that point onward. He didn't say another word as she led him out of the library and back to the dorm. While she may not have had a sleeping spell that would work, something else certainly would.

Within an hour of entering Clover's room, both of them were sound asleep. Freshly worn out and wrapped in each other's embrace.