Myth Chaser and the Secret of Starswirl

by Myth Chaser

Epilogue

Jewel's eyes finally fluttered open, the brightness of the room nearly blinding her. She groaned lightly as she tried to lift a hoof to shield her eyes. The unicorn felt a bandage wrapped over her forehead, right over the base of her horn. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she found she was laying in a hospital bed, angled upward.

Feeling a weight on the bed beside her, Jewel looked down to see Myth was sitting on the floor beside her, his head resting on top of his hooves on the bed as he slept. She smiled weakly at the sight.

“He hasn't left your side for even a second.” She looked over to see Snapshot. The pegasus was sitting in a chair in the corner with a magazine opened on the hoofrest beside her. Snapshot smiled at her. “Good to see you awake. How you feeling?”

“Feel like I died,” Jewel said jokingly, with a weak, tired voice.

Snapshot laughed lightly. “You almost did. Doctors said it's a miracle that you survived, considering the power that blast had in it.”

“The doctors know?” she asked. “Do they know everything?”

“Just that you were in a magic duel,” Snapshot said. “Princess Luna said she doesn't want us telling others you fought an evil alicorn and saved Equestria. Something about protecting you from the fame and all that.”

Jewel sighed lightly and relaxed against the bed. “So, Princess Luna knows about what happened, huh?”

Snapshot nodded. “Yeah. She's grateful to you for destroying that Nightmare Crystal. Even offered to do something for you sometime, if you ever have a special request.”

“That's sweet,” the unicorn said with a smile. She tried moving her hoof again but still had to fight and strain to do it. “Ugh... Am I really that exhausted?”

“Doctors said you would be. You've been passed out for a week.”

“A week!?” she asked, panicked as she looked down toward Myth laying at her side.

Snapshot giggled lightly at the panicked reaction. “Just kidding, Jewel. You've only been out for a day or two. The doctors said you'd be tired because you used all your magic in one go like that.”

“Yeah,” Jewel sighed, relieved that she hadn't actually been unconscious for a week. That would have been worrisome. She leaned her head back on the pillow of her bed. “Won't get to use any magic for about a week, right?”

Snapshot nodded in response. The doctor had explained to her that unicorn magic would take about a week or so to recharge after such overuse, such as what happened to Jewel when she overused her magic for the final barrier against Moon Shine's attack.

“So Myth hasn't left my side this whole time?” Jewel asked, tiredly reaching a hoof over to rest on his sleeping head, running her hoof through his mane.

Snapshot smiled. “Not at all. He's been so worried about you.”

Myth seemed to relax a little as he felt a hoof running over his mane, and he mumbled lightly as the sensation stirred him from his slumber. “Mnnh?” He tiredly raised his head, and instinctively looked over to Jewel. He perked up quick as soon as he saw Jewel was awake. She smiled at him and he was quick to lunge forward, hugging the unicorn tightly. “Thank goodness you're okay!”

Jewel gasped as pain shot through her body. She hadn't realized how sore she was until he hugged her. “E-Easy!” she pleaded. “I'm feeling really sore.”

“Sorry,” Myth said, pulling away from the mare. “I'm just glad to see you awake.”

“I'm glad to see you, too,” Jewel said. She smiled. “Snapshot said you haven't left my side this whole time?”

Snapshot went back to reading through the magazine she had open beside her, deciding to let the couple talk.

Myth felt a light blush spread over his cheeks and nodded. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Aww, that's so sweet of you. I'm fine, Myth,” she said. “Just feeling sore right now.”

“I'm surprised that's all after what you went through,” Myth replied. “I'm impressed with you, Jewel. I didn't know you had the kind of magical ability to go against an alicorn, let alone one that much stronger than Nightmare Moon.”

“I didn't think I could,” she admitted. “I guess Starswirl's spells are more powerful than we give him credit for.”

“It may have been his spells, but it was still your magic putting them to use,” Myth told her.

“I guess so.” Jewel shrugged. “So what happened after I deflected the blast? I assume we beat Moon?”

Myth nodded. “Yeah. We left her down in that cave and Princess Luna had some royal guards go retrieve her.”

“She's alive?” Jewel asked. “You didn't kill her?”

Myth shook his head. “I couldn't bring myself to do it. It's fine though. Her horn was cracked, so she couldn't do any spells. We don't have to worry about her using magic anymore. Plus she'll be in Canterlot prison for life.”

“I can live with that,” Jewel accepted. “As much as I hate her for leaving me and dad... I never really wanted her to die.”

There was a short moment of silence. As Snapshot turned the page in her magazine, Jewel looked over to her.

“What are you reading?” Jewel finally asked her.

Snapshot looked up. “Oh, uh... Just an article about some of the most fun places for camping,” she answered. “I figured we could use a nice camping trip after all the excitement.”

“Sounds fun,” Jewel agreed. “Maybe rent out a lakeside cabin for a couple days?”

“Sounds good to me,” Snapshot said, then looked to Myth. “What do you think?”

He nodded in agreement. “We did take ownership of that large cabin by the lake that mom and dad got a few years ago. We could invite everypony to have a few days of fun.”

Jewel smiled. “I'd love to meet all of your friends. Maybe I could see if Astrid would want to come too.”

Myth and Snapshot smiled and agreed, the three ponies finally able to relax after several days of excitement, happy to have plans for a fun and relaxing trip with friends. Jewel was excited to get to meet all of their friends. If they were anything like Myth and Snapshot, she knew she'd come to love them all just the same.

The End

Author's Note:

That's the end of the story, guys.

I'd like to thank my editor, Night Ward, for editing every bit of this story. Without him, there would have been so many missed typos that I'm positive some of you would be more than happy to point out.

I hope everyone enjoyed following these ponies on their adventure, and I'd love to know what you all thought of it. Feel free to let me know down in the comments.

Comments

[Gnarrkhaz]

Not a single comment or rating for this story? I know that feel. One of my stories is the same way.

So, i'm halfway through Chapter 4, and overall, i'm liking the story so far.

However, your writing leaves room for improvement. Keep in mind that this is my opinion, not fact (well... not necessarily at least :]). Also, i'm not an expert either, so take my advice for what it's worth. Here's what i've noticed so far and can recall from the top of my head. Also, i assume that you know the terms i'm using to describe your writing. If you don't, feel free to ask me questions.

1. head-hopping

Myth had a smile on his face now, eager to find out for sure if that golden, round artifact thing actually was a compass or some kind of map. If it was, that might help lead him on a path to figuring out how to read it, and what it lead to. If not, he was at a loss.

Snapshot had a small smile on her face as well, now that she was seeing her brother happy and smiling again. It had been a week since she'd last seen him smile. He must have really liked adventure stuff if that's what it took to get him this way.

As i understand, it's somewhat of a controversial issue whether one should hop heads or not. In the above case, one could make the argument that the relationship between the characters is the focus and not a particular character. Therefore, it would make sense to show different perspectives regarding the same subject at the same time.

However, that's not to say that their relationship would be any less important in a proper Third Person Limited perspective. The difference there is that you, as the reader, would have to make the connections yourself, which is, for me at least, normally more enjoyable.

Myth had a smile on his face now, eager to find out for sure if that golden, round artifact thing actually was a compass or some kind of map. If it was, that might help lead him on a path to figuring out how to read it, and what it lead to. If not, he was at a loss.

Snapshot was smiling too, though from the corner of his eye, Myth thought her attention was directed at him for a short moment.

A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say.

I don't know.

2. repetitive words

Well... I have a room. One of those double room things. You know, two rooms connected by a single bathroom, like for a family? Could they stay there with me?

This is a special example because it's speech. It's true that people don't formulate the best thought-out sentences some of the time. However, speech in writing doesn't resemble real conversations to a T.

Outside of speech, it's more grievous and should be avoided even more so. The reader notices it and gets pulled out of the story as a result. Try to replace the words with different ones or leave them out entirely if possible.

3. unnecessary phrases

Like i said, i'm halfway through chapter 4, and i think i've read that Myth's mother researched Starswirl the Bearded three times at this point. It's okay to repeat that maybe once or so after at least a few chapters to shift the readers attention to it because it's important at that moment, but this here is a bit excessive.

The reason why i've read it so often is that Myth explains it to other characters. Whenever he does, we, as the readers, don't need to hear it again. For example, when Myth and Snapshot leave the train in Canterlot, Myth explains what he learned about their parents' findings to Snapshot. There is little information value to the reader because he knows all of this already. You could just write:

Myth briefed his sister on the train ride.

You would lose some of the information, for example Snapshots reactions, but (depending) that's probably worth it.

Then, there are also phrases like this:

It was a hot day today and she could use the cold drink.

The fact that that particular day was hot was mostly irrelevant, so why write about it?

4. saidisms

asked, replied, added, spoke up, muttered, apologized

Personally, i don't find them too annoying when used sparingly. Just be concious of it because they have the potential to distract. A good way to not have to use said tags is to resort to action tags instead, which you do... which is good. Also, leaving tags out altogether is also a good idea when they're not really needed at all.

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Overall, i think you should try to look at your own writing just a bit more closely and consider all the words a bit more, and you'd probably notice these things yourself. Writing is rewriting.

[Gnarrkhaz]

Oh, one more thing: I noticed that there are some clothing items and accessoires in your story that are made out of leather. I did that in my story too until a friend of mine pointed out the implications of that.

[Myth Chaser]

8136365 Fair point, but considering Braeburn wears leather, it's pretty canon for it to exist in Equestria. Rarity Takes Manehattan shows that some unicorns may have the ability to magically imbue or create fabrics, so it could be that MLP leather is just made differently.

[Myth Chaser]

8135049 Thanks for the constructive criticism! I'll take it into consideration and make some changes of what you pointed out, and be on the look out for them in upcoming stories. Thanks for the suggestions. :)