Chapter One: Back to the Future
I shivered, and shook my mane free of my hat so that it would lay on my neck. The frozen tundra where Baron Starswirl had decided to place his caste was always cold and desolate. I think that he prefers it that way. I pushed my jester’s hat back so that it would sit more comfortably, all the while jingling its merry tones through the empty cobblestone walls. I found my sigh out of place next to my jaunty trotting gait as I wound my way to the magical laboratory. That was where the Baron Starswirl himself was currently waiting for me to show for another one of his magical experiments.
Why had the Princesses made me come here? Now, it’s not a court Jester’s place to second-guess their royal ruler, but why did they have to take me away from Cadence for a year? It was draining on both of us, but I guess that they just needed me to preside over whatever he was finally coming to a breaking point with. Why they sent me to do it, I’ll never know. Perhaps they were just looking to see if Starswirl could lighten up, move to a warmer place, shave that beard? I knew that he definitely needed to shave. That thing could be used to weave a rope.
Opening up a doorway, I came into Starswirl’s laboratory, lamp in mouth, as he works on a mortar and pestle with his back to me. It was dank and dusty, with random things strewn about that gave the entire room an eerie glow, along with an arcane one. The whole atmosphere of the room was on the status quo with most powerful mages, so it didn’t affect me as much as it had before. Another thing was that it was damp. The walls, ceiling, floor, almost everything was moist, mainly because we were situated up in the northern mountains. That meant that the castle was covered in snow for a good portion of the year due to the snow that was scheduled to fall year round.
“Thine simple reagents be with me, Baron.”
Starswirl grunted in acknowledgement as he returned his focus on his work with the bowl and grinder. I rolled my eyes from behind the glow of the lantern, and reached back into my saddlebags. Being that he sent me out into the snow for a good few hours to gather the ingredients he requested, I couldn’t help myself from doing what I do best.
“Of course, thine animalistic grunting proclaims to me that thou hast partaken in a wonderful game of abuse the manservant! Wonderful choice, sir!”
Letting all the reagents fall onto the counter right next to the Baron, I reached under my hat and brought out one of my many stacks of cards that I always had laying about. Shuffling them with my hooves, I focused on each and every one of the cards as I shuffled them, making sure that the right ones appeared when I wanted to them. The Baron suddenly stopped grinding mortar to pestle, and brought himself to face me.
“Doest thou question mine sexual tendencies, Jester?”
Smiling at him innocently, I drew out the top card on the deck, face down, and turned it around for Starswirl. Without even looking down, I recited the card I knew I drew.
“Ah! The King of Hearts, shows that thou owns a fiery passion, and a firm grasp of thine lovemaking skills!”
Starswirl spluttered and babbled incoherently at my sudden assault against his sexuality. Raising an eyebrow, I drew another card. Without looking at it again as I did with the previously drawn card, I rattled out what it was, and it’s meaning, saying,
“Aha! Yonder card doth contain a twin! A second King of Hearts, it shows that thine sexuality hast been very acquainted with thine secret lovers, thine male consorts. Doth mine cards speak false to thyself, Baron?”
Starswirl stared at me very hard. Then, he looked at the cards, and picked them up with his magical aura, most likely trying to scan them for magical illusions, or other magical residues that would allow me to draw two King of Hearts cards. After a good amount of magical testing, he quietly places the cards back onto the large wooden island that was in the middle of the magical lab.
“Art thou firmly set in thine beliefs?”
I smiled as I sent my retort flying through the air.
“Not as firmly set as thine mother, surely.”
He stared at me for a good few moments, the vestiges of a smile gracing his features.
“Touche, good Jester.”
Returning back to his work, Starswirl began to add various things to his pestle, grinding them up finely and putting them in a flask. Circling around him, I looked at all the various ingredients he was putting together.
“Poison Joke, a root from an ancient world tree, frost from a windego- Baron, what would thine self be needing of these ingredients?”
The Baron lifted the flask, he combined the prepared ingredients with liquid from a stoppered and completely covered wine bottle. Knowing the bottle it came from, I knew that it contained unrefined mana.The Baron himself had spent the last two weeks depleting himself of his mana, collecting the crucial ingredient with care. When the ingredients were mixed together, the mana did its work and completely liquified the reagents, while creating a unique solution. Swirling the slurry, Starswirl turned to me and placed the flask down, the liquid turning a light green color.
“Aha! Thou wish’st to celebrate hearth's warming eve early this year! With mine coat of red, and yonder liquid of green, mayhaps I should procure the mistletoe and-”
Starswirl silenced me with an amused smile and a hoof to the mouth. Removing his hoof and stepping back from the counter, he levitated the mortar and pestle to it’s resting place. It was a bookcase resting on the wall just behind his current workspace, laden with various other potion refining equipment.
“No, Jester. ‘Tis a potion, mana mixed with ingredients of yonder earth and spirit for to make a pony speed through time, and exit through the other side forthwith.”
Raising an eyebrow, I tapped my steel horseshoes onto the stone table top, right next to the flask. I watched the potion with amusement as the heavy thuds from my hooves caused ripples to disturb the calm surface of the green liquid.
“Thou stateth that ye flask hath the power for a common peasant to travel through time? Surely, thou jests.”
Starswirl picked the flask back up in his hooves, and put it on a metal pan, which was situated over an open fire. Then, he began to start to add in some regular reagents that would be found in any other magical, or herbal, potion brewed by the zebra race. Slowly stirring the ingredients in, whatever they happened to be doing to the makeup of the potion made the potion froth a bit, before coming to a rest. After a brief moment of time, it returned to it’s first color. I poked the flask once.
“What doest thou expect out of ye flask when it happens to be consumed? Thine faith in potioncraft may be hefty, but I do not want you to be the one to test thine potion.”
Starswirl looked at the flask for a second with a completely serious expression on his face. Then, he looked up at me with a little smile.
“Thine complacency to the throne is well known, Jester. Doest thou give unto me the same honor?”
I laughed at him, and pushed the low hanging little dangling bells off of my face, to look at the old mage more clearly.
“Thou must be jesting, making a fool out of poor Jester! A potion, which can send mine own mortal frame through time to meet with mine princesses in yonder future?”
Starswirl picked up the potion, and looked at it, continuously swirling it around in the flask, before setting it back down, and lifting a few more reagents. Placing it back down on the island in the lab, he tapped on the flask with his hoof, leaning on the counter heavily.
“Jester, yon flask containeth a large leap for ponykind, and it’s continual use of magic. Besides, what is a new trick without it’s testing on another? What would you be more prithy to, a regular citizen of Equestria, or you that must consume it? Even if it weren’t to a peasant to sample the elixir, I would partake within it mineself.”
I sighed and leaned over the tabletop, grabbing the flask in my hoof and hefting it within my grasp. Swirling it around, I turned my head back to my friend. Time travel seemed like a business that a lithe tongue and even stronger body couldn’t be able to survive, if it happened to come to the more negative of outcomes.
“And how far into the future doth this potion harken? Doth I have any solid fears to bring about other than the obvious that lay before me?”
Starswirl placed his hooves beneath his snout and leaned upon them, staring straight at me and affixing my vision so that I wouldn’t miss one word. I felt myself become strangely relaxed with myself as my focus, surprisingly, zeroed in on his words. Usually, this wouldn’t happen unless I was being directly spoken to by the Princesses, so this was a new sensation for me to experience with a regular pony.
“Jester, I doth not wish to harm you with the lack of words that could be spoken here. Yonder potion could not work, and fail in such a spectacular manner doth thine own bodily form does not survive. Upon other considerations, mine own thoughts would have me state that thine own outcome of the time could range from a few minutes through the future, to years and millennia through time and space. Upon drinking this solution, thine own fate is thrown to the fickle hooves of old mare luck.”
Glancing back at the potion, the bright green color seemed to grow in intensity and malice, almost to the point that it seemed that the potion would just break out of it’s glass container and threaten my life. I began to think about everything I had done in my extensive life, everything from raising Cadence to the first day in my extensive career as a Court Jester...
It had all seemed like enough, even if I wasn’t about to poof away into non existence and smoke. Cadence was old enough to be easily cared by her aunts, and I had lead an extraordinarily large and long life that was good enough to leave behind with all certainty. But, I couldn’t be one to potentially go out with a concerned frown, could I? I’m the Court Jester of the Royal Throne, it was in my contract to be a fool! Putting on a large smile, I swept off my hat and put it on my hoof, extending it before me.
“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well!”
The baron shook his head, and took the flask out of my hoof, placing it back onto the holder above the open flame.
“Jester, what shast hold thee back from thine jests? We doth not have time for silly recitations of Shakespeare, as amusing as it may be!”
Then, he smacked himself on the forehead with one of his own forehooves. Sighing, he looked at me and said,
“I oftentimes forget with whom I talk to, Jester. Forgive my opening for another one of thine finely barbed remarks. Now, I must remind thee, Jester, that thine own aptitudes for natural magic might affect mine potion. Whilst I said that I could not definitely point out a specific time, I would doubt that the effects would be much more than under a full revolution of the sun and moon. Twenty and four hours, to be precise. Then again, there always exists a room for error, do not be surprised if thine own eyes perceive an entirely new word.”
Remembering who I had on board in my mane, I placed the hat down on the counter and felt about in my tri-colored hair for a certain weasel that I had known for a long time. Finally bumping on a curled up mass, I nudged it into action, receiving a few claws to the scalp along the way.
“Archimedes? Archimedes! Archie, ‘tis time for thy weasel self to wake up!”
I wrenched the weasel in question out of my mane, and put him on the counter, on top of my cap. When Archie finally uncurled from his sleeping position, he brought his little beady black eyes up to mine, as if asking, ‘What is it now? I was having a completely perfect dream, you know.’
I chuckled at Archie’s reaction to being woken up, but continued on with the business at hoof. I looked over his regular brown and black coloring to make sure that he was completely fine, before leaning down and poking his little ferrety form. I got him on his paws, and nuzzled him once.
“Archie, the Baron hath given me a task of partaking in yonder potion. It shath send me hurtling forward in time to an unknown outcome, and we scant even know if it is a safe decision. Doest thou wishst to stay with the good Barron for now? I do not wish to force this fate upon you, old friend.”
Archimedes squeaked at me, before climbing onto my muzzle, and going back to whatever he was up to inside of my mane. Laughing out loud, I placed my cap back on snugly, before turning back to Starswirl.
“I presume that Archie doth not need to partake in mine appointed liquid?”
Starswirl shook his head no, before circling around the table top with the vial of potion within his telekinetic grasp. Sitting down in front of me, he also took out a feather quill, and a large scroll. Dipping the quill into an inkwell, he hands the potion to me.
“Simply take one full mouthful, good Jester. The rest will be completely up to the potion.”
Taking the potion in my hooves, I held it up towards Starswirl with a little slosh of the drink inside. Smiling at him, I jingled my hat back and forth, keeping my head in time with the sloshing liquid within the flask.
“Well then, let us eat, drink, and be merry!”
