A/N: Well, I was able to get this one out faster, though once again I apologise for the short length and the loose...connectedness that I warned you about. As I said, this is mainly tying up loose ends before moving onto the final stretch. I must warn you though that when you reach the last paragraph, please do not jump to conclusions and start becoming hysterical. First read my author’s note at the bottom before you do that. I will say that I have no intention of making this a crossover or forcing my fans to watch something that they haven’t needed to so far.
Study Five: The Stare
Star Swirl smiled as she got ready for the day. She had a lot of plans and that meant that she was likely to enjoy at least some success simply due to probability. Mentioning her plans to visit the spa had turned out well as she’d been invited to Fluttershy Pose- she paused. She really needed to stop referring to her that way if she disliked it. Anyway, Fluttershy had invited her to join in with her regular session with Rarity Belle, Bearer of the Element of Generosity whom she’d been assured wouldn’t mind. Indeed, she’d received confirmation that Rarity would be delighted for them to spend time together. She packed a basket containing not only the money she’d need, but also the jars and equipment she’d need for both the visit to the spa and her later plans. She lifted the basket in her mouth, adjusted her hat and trotted happily to the spa.
---
“Ah, Star Swirl, there you are,” said Rarity from just outside the spa as the earth pony arrived.
“I’m not late am I?”
“Of course not. Fluttershy and I have just arrived. Now come along.” Rarity waved them inside. “The usual. For my new friend Star Swirl as well. My treat.”
“I have the Bits to pay for myself,” argued Star Swirl.
“Nonsense. It’s only fair that I treat my friends once in a while. Especially when it means that I get to hear more about Canterlot!”
“Okay, but I spent most of my time indoors and wasn’t really that involved with the elite, despite my ancestry.”
“Well, I can’t really hold that against you,” said Rarity as they walked into the sauna, “The same was true of Twilight after all. Even despite being Princess Celestia’s student, having a princess for a foalsitter and a brother as a captain of the royal guard.”
“You mean Princess Mi Amore Cadenza?” asked Star Swirl as she raised an eyebrow. She immediately dropped it again as she felt her sweat shift. The heat was far too uncomfortable for her to understand why someponies did this for pleasure. “She foalsat for me as well. As well as most of the noble families.”
“You and Twilight were born into noble families!?” gasped Rarity.
Star Swirl rolled her eyes. “Well obviously. How else could Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of the Element of Magic have afforded such an education? Why would she have been foalsat by a princess even before earning her cutie mark? Why would Captain Shining Armor Sparkle have risen through the ranks so quickly unless he was being watched more closely than normal and why would he have had the opportunity to get to know a princess well enough for them to fall in love? Princess Celestia is known to reward great contributions to ponykind with nobility. Did you really think that such a famous author like Twilight Velvet would still be a commoner?”
“Twilight Velvet?” asked Fluttershy. “Isn’t that...Twilight’s...”
“Mother. Yes,” Star Swirl finished.
“I’m afraid that I wasn’t aware of her books,” said a flustered Rarity.
“Well, they’re technically written for foals,” Star Swirl said with a shrug, “but they’re still worth a read considering who her daughter is.” She gave a grin. “There are probably some copies at Golden Oaks Library. Maybe we should head there after this. I’d like to see Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of the Element of Magic again, after all.”
“Perhaps that would be a good idea,” agreed Rarity.
“Well, as for myself, my ancestor completely revolutionised the study of magic as I’ve been trying to explain to everypony for years.” Star Swirl sighed.
“Are you all right, Star?” asked Fluttershy in concern as she looked at the squirming earth pony.
“The heat is a bit much for me. This is my first time in a sauna.”
“Your first time?!” gasped Rarity. “And in a spa in general?”
“Yes.”
“Then we must make sure that you enjoy yourself! And that you don’t overdo it. Perhaps we should cut our sauna time short.”
They quickly moved onto the next area and dressed in bath robes. As Aloe and Lotus began to apply their face masks, Star Swirl said, “The main reason that I’m here today is because I have an unusual request. I’d like to store our hoof clippings and Rarity Belle, Bearer of the Element of Generosity’s horn shavings in the labelled jars in my basket.” Everypony present froze and stared at her with round slowly blinking eyes. “If that’s okay with you, that is,” she added with a nervous grin.
“Well...if that’s what you want,” said Fluttershy.
“It’s...an unusual request, but far be it from me to deny you something that I no longer have use for anyway,” replied Rarity.
“Zeese is a very strange thing to ask for, but ze customer is always right.” Lotus shrugged.
“Thank you so much!” Star Swirl grinned.
“And how has your week been Fluttershy?” asked Rarity. “You were helping Star Swirl and Rainbow Dash over in Cloudsdale, weren’t you? How did that go?”
“Oh...Well, it was a bit scary when she almost fell off the cloud, but otherwise it was nice.”
---
After their session at the spa, they followed through on their plans and headed to the library. “Good morning, Twilight,” Rarity said in greeting to her fellow unicorn as she walked through the door.
Twilight looked up from the sheets of parchment on her desk and the quill which had been dancing across the paper returned to the ink well. “Morning Rarity, Fluttershy and Star Swirl.”
“Good morning,” the Pegasus and earth pony agreed.
“What can I do for you?” Twilight asked as she walked over.
“Well Twilight, earlier today, Star Swirl informed us that your mother was a foal’s author,” explained Rarity.
“...Yes.”
“And so Fluttershy and I were wondering if we could try her books. This is a library after all, so we thought that we’d each take out a copy.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “...Oh!” she hurried over to a shelf and began frantically searching lifting books with her telekinesis before putting them down again. “Spike! Where are Mom’s books!?”
“In your bedroom, where they always are!” came a reply from upstairs.
“No! Not my copies! The library’s!”
“What!?” came Spike’s voice again and he quickly hurried into view. “The library’s copies? Twilight, I’ve checked before. The library doesn’t have its own set.”
“Really?” asked Twilight. She turned back to her visitors. “Well, you can borrow my personal copies if you’d like.”
Rarity frowned. “Twilight, it’s silly for the library not to stock the books of a famous author who is also the mother of the librarian. Such books should be on proud display!”
“You’re right Rarity,” Twilight admitted. “I’ll order some. But before I do, I was just finishing up a report for Princess Celestia. Spike, seeing as you’re here now, you may as well send it straight away.”
Star Swirl frowned in confusion at that statement and watched as Twilight quickly signed the parchment she was working on and neatly packed the sheets together before rolling them into a scroll and floating it over to Spike. Spike then inhaled and blew a green flame over the scroll, burning it up as the flame swirled in a vortex before disappearing.
Star Swirl’s jaw dropped in horror. “Why did you just burn up Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of the Element of Magic’s work!?” she cried. Spike turned towards her with a look of confusion on his face.
“Oh Star Swirl,” sighed Twilight, “Spike just sent the report to Princess Celestia.”
“Really!?” asked Star Swirl she slowly advanced towards Spike, lowering her head to his level. “I don’t really know much about dragons, fascinating as they are. I must admit that the flame didn’t behave according to my expectations. Green isn’t a typical flame colour after all. And I suppose the whirling vortex was due to the teleportation effect?”
“Um, yeah,” Spike said. “Princess Celestia taught me how to do it.”
“Really?” asked Star Swirl. “Fascinating. Do you think that you could teach me?”
“Well, you can’t magically produce fire, can you?”
“No.” Star Swirl’s ears drooped in disappointment. “I’m still interested though, could we still arrange for me to study your flame? A green teleporting flame is something that I’ve never come across before. It’s fascinating!”
“Well, I’m kind of busy with my chores right now.”
“I understand. I’ve got some other studies planned for today, myself. Maybe I could learn more about how you use magical fire some other time. Is that okay?”
“I suppose.”
“Thank you! I’d better head home to start my other studies. Goodbye.” She picked up her basket and left.
---
Star Swirl stared through her microscope and frowned. She lifted a hoof to a knob and twisted scowling in concentration to channel the gravity through her hoof enough to twist the knob. The focus improved as she intended, but using her hoof was still difficult. The only advantage it gave her at the moment was that it freed up her mouth. Still, she was happy to be improving her magical abilities. She concentrated once again on the sample she was examining before her eyes brightened. That was the last of her samples and she could now report her discoveries. She turned to her diary and lifted a quill with her mouth, beginning to write. She had already reported most of the day’s events including her interest in Spike’s abilities and intention to study him further. She quickly added her latest discovery. That while pegasus and unicorn hooves were structurally similar on a microscopic level, earth pony hooves were far more similar to a unicorn horn (or alicorn). Pleased with her discoveries, she packed up and lifted her basket, carrying it outside in preparation for her next task. She stared into the distance at the Everfree Forest and realised that she wasn’t actually sure where to go. Being an indoors pony from the city meant that she wasn’t really used to navigating through dense clumps of trees. She might be able to find what she was looking for after a while, but her psychologists wouldn’t approve of her taking such a risk. Admittedly, they may not have approved of her entering the forest at all but there was no need to be excessive when it was not called for. She shook her head. She knew the way from Sweet Apple Acres. While visiting the Apple family would use up some of her time, it would still be pleasant to see them again and doing so would prevent her from becoming lost. She trotted off in the direction of the farm.
---
“Hello, Applejack Apple, Bearer of the Element of Honesty!” Star Swirl said in greeting before wincing. If Fluttershy disliked being addressed that way so much, maybe there were others who felt the same way. She had to learn to address ponies in ways that they were comfortable with.
“Hey there, Star!” Applejack replied as she looked up from the soil that she was attending to. “What brings yah round tah these parts?”
“Well, I needed to...” began Star Swirl before her jaw dropped. Applejack had just lifted the watering can with her tail. “How did you do that!?”
“Do what?”
“Move your tail like that!” cried Star Swirl. “There’s no muscular structure in your tail! It’s just hair! How do you move it like that?!”
“Ah this?” asked Applejack as she turned to look at her tail. “It’s nothin’. Really simple like. Remember Ah told yah that earth pony magic runs through our hooves an’ tail? Well, as the magic runs through our tail, yah can twist it an’ use it as easy as if yer tail was a leg or somethin’. Give it a try. It’s not really hard.”
Star Swirl concentrated on her tail. She could indeed feel the magic flowing through it. She tried to twist her tail and it responded! After a couple of twitches to get used to having an additional appendage, she lifted her tail and used it to adjust her hat. “Thank you! This will be really useful!”
“That’s all right. So yer parents never taught yah any o’ this stuff?”
“No. I don’t think they even know about it,” replied Star Swirl. “I’ll have to teach my father. But I don’t mind. I like teaching stuff. I even use to line up my dolls when I was younger and teach them about the workings of the Universe.” She smiled fondly at the memory.
“Ah was wonderin’ if maybe yer parents weren’t earth ponies. Mr. and Mrs. Cake are earth ponies, but their twins are a unicorn an’ a pegasus. Not easy fer ‘em tah parent ‘em.”
“Lucky foals,” muttered Star Swirl. Applejack pointedly raised an eyebrow as she glanced back at Star Swirl. “I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with being an earth pony. It just gets so frustrating to me. It would be so much easier if I were a unicorn. And I know, nopony’s ever managed to switch before. They’ve all had these horrible accidents and then the newspapers remind us that we shouldn’t try to copy them because Princess Celestia doesn’t want anypony else to get hurt. But with my cutie mark, it makes it difficult for me to think that I should be an earth pony. For example, your talent is running an apple orchard, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Now, it wouldn’t be impossible to do that as a unicorn or Pegasus, but it would be more difficult. For you, your cutie mark fits your tribe, but for me...”
“Ah thought that yah didn’t know what yer cutie mark meant.”
“I don’t.” Star Swirl sighed. “But I feel like, even though it was wrong of me to decide that it must have to do with using magic, it’s still related. Is the fact that I’m disappointed that I’m not a great conjurer like my ancestor holding me back from acknowledging what my true talent is?”
“Only yah can answer that un, Star,” replied Applejack.
“You’re right.” Star Swirl smiled. “Thanks for the talk. I really appreciated it. But I don’t want to hold up your work anymore and I’ve still got some more plans for the day.” She lifted up her basket and headed off in the direction of Zecora’s hut.
---
Star Swirl dropped her basket in front of the patch of blue plants. She had to be very careful to avoid touching them. She lifted a jar and held it steady between her hooves as she unscrewed the cap with her lip before setting it aside. She then picked up a long pair of tweezers and gently used them to grab the stem below the nearest flower and pluck. She was about to place the flower into the jar when she heard a deep growl.
Star Swirl slowly lifted her head and dropped the tweezers at the sight in front of her. How did she miss the sound of a fully grown timberwolf sneaking up to her? Well, that had an obvious answer. She was too excited and distracted by the opportunity to study poison joke.
The wolf obviously knew about the dangers of the plant as it slowly circled around the patch. Star Swirl stared at it. It was a magnificent creature. The fine blurring of plant and animal. The mixture of tree and carnivore. Bark layered over the supple form of a sharp toothed predator. Its eyes gleamed as it starred at her. It was beautiful and she was glad that she had the opportunity to see something so majestic.
She wondered what being eaten would be like. It may have actually been worth it to become part of so great a magical creature. The wolf continued to approach and opened its jaw, drool dripping from its fangs. Suddenly, it snapped its jaws shut and began to slowly back away as it shivered in apparent fear.
“What do you think you’re doing, young cub?!” came a familiar voice. “You do not try to eat the ponies walking here! Is that clear!?” Star Swirl slowly turned around to meet the gaze of Fluttershy. And what a gaze it was! Fluttershy was flying above them, but staring intently at the wolf. Star Swirl recoiled from the glare.
She could feel the waves of disapproval emanating like some kind of gaze attack. Her mind was immediately filled with thoughts of how disappointed her parents would be at how she hadn’t prepared for danger, of how her psychologists would disapprove of her reckless behaviour and how she hadn’t attempted to escape, of how her new friends would be upset if she had so simply thrown away her life and how she should have ensured her safety for the benefit of future studies. It bordered on traumatising and it wasn’t even focused on her. The wolf scampered away, tail between its legs and Fluttershy turned to Star Swirl as she landed.
“It’s a good thing that I was here and it wasn’t part of a pack,” she said.
“...Yes,” agreed Star Swirl. She was still a little taken aback by the encounter. “How-how did you do that!?”
“Oh...um...well, that was...The Stare,” said Fluttershy as she blushed and turned away. “I don’t really like using it much...but sometimes...it...helps.”
“That was amazing!” cried Star Swirl. “It was clearly a magical ability. I could feel you projecting your disapproval through your eyes. Do you mind...teaching me?”
Fluttershy’s eyes darted about in concern. “I...don’t know about that. Maybe...if you come with me to my cottage, we can discuss it there. It’ll be safer.”
“All right. I’d be happy to visit your cottage.”
---
Fluttershy and Star Swirl sat at the table, drinking tea and discussing the day’s events. “Thank you again for saving me,” said Star Swirl.
“Oh...um...That’s all right.”
“But I’d really like to learn how to use The Stare from you.”
“Um...I don’t really...like using The Stare,” said Fluttershy as she turned, allowing her mane to cover her muzzle and an eye. “I only use it when one of my animal friends is...misbehaving...or in emergencies.”
“Well...I think that I got a pretty good idea of how it works. Maybe if you just gave me some pointers?”
“I don’t know if I’d be able to help you with that...”began Fluttershy before being interrupted by a white rabbit which bounced towards the table. He stretched his forelegs towards Star Swirl before making an exaggerated shrug.
“Oh, this is Star Swirl, Angel,” Fluttershy explained before turning back to Star Swirl.
“Star Swirl, this is Angel Bunny.” She once again turned towards the rabbit. “Star Swirl thinks that she can learn The Stare.”
Angel turned pointedly towards Star Swirl and raised an eyebrow as high as it could go as he slowly folded his forelegs.
“What? Don’t you think I can do it?” asked Star Swirl.
Angel rapidly shook his head.
“What if I prove it?”
Angel slowly unfolded his forelegs and pointed one towards Star Swirl before making a beckoning gesture.
“Oh Angel, are you sure that you want her to test it on you?” asked Fluttershy.
Angel nodded rapidly.
“All right, but please don’t hurt yourselves,” Fluttershy requested.
Star Swirl got up and walked over to Angel. “Okay. Look at this!” She leaned forward and scrunched her face into a frown as she glared at Angel.
Angel began to twitch. He lifted a paw to his mouth and his eyes began to water. He suddenly collapsed and began hitting the floor as he shook in silent laughter.
“That...wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Star Swirl.
“Um...No.”
Star Swirl sighed. “I was doing it wrong, wasn’t I?”
“Well...irritation isn’t really the...easiest way to activate the stare. And...to do it to just prove a point...isn’t going to work well either.”
“Right, disapproval. Of course.”
“And...it’s a...certain...um...type of disapproval. The type that...a mother would feel.”
“Right! Of course! Your kindness actually makes your stare more powerful! Naturally, I’m nowhere near as kind as you. But, I suppose that I can work on it. It’s a difficult ability to study or practice though.”
“Well...that was part of what I meant earlier.”
“I suppose so. I’m not going to just give up though. Well, thanks for everything anyway.”
---
After her visit with Fluttershy, Star Swirl trotted back towards her apartment, her basket hanging from her mouth. Her eyes scanned the crowds as she moved through the marketplace. Suddenly she froze. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Something that she thought was completely impossible was in front of her. Was she wrong about this? Apparently so, as her eyes focussed on the impossibility. An hourglass cutie mark on a brown earth stallion.
A/N: Okay, firstly to make this very clear, my version of Time Turner/Doctor Whooves is NOT meant to be THE Doctor. I haven’t even watched many episodes of Doctor Who yet myself (though I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen so far). While there will be minor references to more traditional interpretations of Doctor Whooves, this is meant to be a different character. He actually has more in common with the TARDIS than with The Doctor himself and even then, he is nowhere near as powerful. He was also born a completely ordinary pony. Gallopfree is a little village outside Trottingham. Not a different planet. He’s never been to space, has never owned a TARDIS, has one heart, can’t regenerate and has no experience with travelling around with humans. What he IS will be explained. Twilight Velvet is a toy pony who is generally considered to be the toy of Twilight’s mother, making them the same pony. Her card also indicates that she is an author. Also, Twilight being nobility makes much more sense than her not being nobility, so there we go. Also, Celestia ennobling for writing good children’s literature strikes me as the kind of thing she’d do, but I think that Twilight has older noble blood in her from other evidence. I consider The Stare to be a magical ability, but even if Star Swirl was using it correctly, which she wasn’t her ponyality isn’t as suited to it as Fluttershy’s is. I’m also considering putting up a blog post on some background information for those who are curious about, for instance, why Twilight’s mother’s last name is “Velvet” rather than “Sparkle”. As always, I welcome questions, comments, suggestions, etc. Only two chapters left. The climax and the denouement.
EDIT: Made some slight changes to a few scenes.