Solstice

by Scorpius

A Lesson in the Scriptures

But Starswirl stood his ground and refused the demon’s offer. When he saw that he could not convince Starswirl to worship him, he cursed and howled in frustration. In anger he lashed out with his chaos, and took from Starswirl his horn, as he had the Thaumata[a] who defied him. And still Starswirl did not give in, for though he had no horn with which to wield it, he could still feel his magic in his veins[b].
—Inlectatio 4:15-18

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Maria ducked her head down, below the head of the stallion sitting in front of her, and stifled a wide yawn with a hoof. The High Priest could have been the most engaging speaker in all of Equestria, and Maria would still be bored out of her mind—she’d been attending services at the temple twice a week since first year, and still didn’t really understand their purpose. She supposed that was another thing that Arpeggio hadn’t taught her.

“… and we must remember that Starswirl was faced with a dilemma…”

Not, of course, that the High Priest was the most engaging speaker in all of Equestria. Maria suspected that the stallion would probably fail a third-year oration exam. She smiled at that thought, imagining him stood in the examination hall before a class of barely-teenage foals, and droning on in that distant, monotonous voice of his. At least he became a priest instead of a teacher.

“… In that moment, the tool with which he shaped his power was stripped from him…”

There wasn’t a clock in the temple—Maria had always suspected this was deliberate, to prevent people from glancing up at one in frustration—but she’d chosen her seat carefully enough that she could see Canterlot clocktower through one of the arching windows. It didn’t help much to glance at it, given that services in the temple weren’t even close to fixed-length, but it was at least a reassuring sight.

Besides, at the rate things seemed to be going, today’s service might end up finishing right before dinner, and she’d get to avoid any awkward conversations.

“… this sacrifice is the one that we symbolically carry each Thursday, when no horns…”

She tried to turn her attention back to the High Priest, but couldn’t focus. At least she wasn’t asleep—she could see a number of students nodding off in the crowd before her.

The problem with services in the temple was that there was very little one could do except pay attention, for there was nothing more frowned upon in society than not following the teachings of the Church—or at least going through the motions. In fact, there was just one option available to anyone who simply didn’t want to pay attention to the service without being rude: reading the Scriptures.

Maria lit her horn and guided the small, red book from under the desk in front of her and sat it open on the surface. A quick glance up at the signs hanging on the pillar behind the pulpit told her the reference she needed for today’s reading, and she skimmed to it as quietly as she could. It wasn’t Wild Plants, but at least reading about the apparently historical deeds of Starswirl the great would keep her occupied until the High Priest ended his lecture and got around to the dismissal.

“… let us become like him: devout in the face of challenges that seem so insurmountable…”

Oh for crying out loud. It seemed as if the High Priest couldn’t ever come up with something new to say—each week, no matter what parts of Scriptures were read, he would always talk about how the congregation should “be more like Starswirl.” It was enough that, for her first years visiting Canterlot, Maria had become convinced that the Church was all about worshipping and becoming more like Starswirl. It was only after Hearth’s Warming in her first year that she had found out that it was, in fact, supposed to be about revering Magic and its Source, so it was hardly a surprise that she still found the whole thing somewhat pointless.

No, not pointless. No matter how twisted the High Priest’s message seemed to be, Maria had been raised to respect the beliefs of others. They might confuse her, but that didn’t make them pointless.

“… Go, and let the Magic in your veins guide you in the will of the Source.”

Finally!

“We will follow where we are led.” The response was mostly muttered by the congregation, a mix of students on the balconies and citizens on the floor, and yet you could easily make out the words as they rumbled through the hall.

“May the joy and peace of the Source be forever in your hearts.”

There was another loud rumble: this time, the whole congregation rose to their hooves. Seconds later, the deep notes of the bass began to play, and the string quintet struck up a slow, calm tune as the congregation began to amble into the street. Maria was happy not to rush, standing in the crowd of students who were jostling forwards to try to reach the door (and though she loathed the temple services’ dull content, she had to admit that she liked being able to leave with her fellow students, instead of waiting for them to all leave first). A quick glance behind her, back at the clocktower, told her that if she took long enough getting to the door she’d definitely be back just in time for dinner to start.

All in all, today has gone pretty well—for a Monday.

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[a] in some versions, “those members of the Thaumata”. (Recall that there is some dispute over whether the Thaumata refused to give way to Discord or put it to a vote which narrowly lost; see Inl. 1:17-23 for further reading.
[b] “In all the Scriptures, there is no word more thoroughly debated than this.”—translated from Uncertainties of Scripture, High Priest Sol Everfree, C.E. 249.
The debate over this word has been twofold: first, there is a great deal of dispute in the source material itself, with almost the same number of copies reading “veins” as “bones”, and a smaller but still significant number reading “soul”; second, there subject of where magic comes from is one that is being hotly debated in present academia, with no clear sign of resolution. We have chosen to use “veins” here in this translation only because it has, by the tiniest of margins, the strongest support from the source texts, and do not intend to comment on which we think is correct.

Comments

[fourths]

Ooh, this is interesting with the whole scriptures/magic stuff. And I love the footnotes, here; disputed words in texts interest me.