Scholar Arc
Day 29
Atlas trotted up the stairs towards Crimson's and Belle's apartment. As a reward for passing his exams with flying colors, Blazing Inferno rewarded him with two days off, after which he'd finally get to join the regular classes as the new semester started.
Needless to say, he wanted to let his friends know about his achievement as soon as possible. So it was with a happy mood that he’d traveled down the mountain to visit.
Atlas came to a stop once he reached the top of the stairs before knocking three times. He sat down humming a happy little melody while patiently waiting for someone to open the door. After sometime passed, he knocked again, this time a bit louder in case they didn't hear him the first time.
After a while, it became apparent that he wasn't being ignored; instead, there simply was no one home to open the offending piece of wood before him.
"They must still be at work..." Atlas mumbled to himself.
Faced with the decision to either wait for one of the two to return or to seek them out, he decided to go and visit Belle at her workplace. Between Crimson and Belle, going to see the latter seemed to be the obvious answer for him, so he started on his way to find her.
Besides, he was curious about the old earth pony stallion teaching her. Maybe Atlas could learn something from him as well since he seemed to possess extensive knowledge about the inherited powers of the three pony tribes.
With a new destination in mind, Atlas began his walk towards Belle's place of work. Since he had never been there before it might take him some time to find it, even though Belle explained to him how to get there from her apartment a few weeks ago. He'd just have to rely on his memory, or, if all else failed, he'd just ask for the way.
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A few hours later Atlas had finally managed to stumble across White Mallow's clinic.
As it stood, his recollection of Belle's directions were horrible at best, so he got lost almost immediately. It wasn't long before he had to find out that his backup plan didn't work out either.
The reason being unicorn elitism.
Whenever he asked for directions, everypony was willing to help him out until they found out that he was looking for an earth pony’s place of business.
While they didn't quite react as extremely as the ponies in High Rock, there was still an unspoken feeling of superiority in a lot of unicorns, causing them to simply scoff at him and leave. Eventually after a lot of wandering about and asking ponies, somepony directed him towards what they knew to be an earth pony district close-by.
Which lead to Atlas finally standing in front of the rather small clinic.
Atlas breathed a sigh of relief and pushed open the door, a small bell announcing his arrival.
"Welcome to White Mallow's clinic for ills and ailments," A voice almost immediately called out to his right. "I'm White Mallow, how may I help you?"
An earth pony stallion with a matte orange coat and a white mane approached Atlas from the side. His eyes were glazed over by a milky white screen, clearly indicating that the stallion before him was blind.
"Ah yes, I'm actually here looking for my friend, Belle," Atlas said as he took in the interior of the small clinic. "Is she around?"
The setup inside was rather simple. A few chairs were to his right in case somepony had to wait. Going in further there were four beds, all of which were currently empty. Curtains hung from the ceiling, allowing for some privacy when needed. The right wall was mostly dominated by three large cabinets containing medicine and ointments, as well as a table set before them. Next to them a staircase went upstairs, leading to what Atlas assumed to be White Mallow’s living area if Belle's stories could be believed.
"Oh, I'm afraid the dear isn't here at the moment," White Mallow responded. "She's currently out at the market buying some ingredients for my medicines. If you'd like to, why not wait for her here? She should be back soon."
"Sure, that would be nice," Atlas accepted the old stallion’s offer.
"Then why don't you take a seat at the table over there, I'll prepare some tea for you while you wait," White Mallow gestured toward the table to their right.
"Will do, thank you very much."
Atlas took a seat as he was told and started to read the labels of the medicines inside the cabinets. There seemed to be a large selection present, ranging from salves that supposedly accelerated healing to oils that helped relax tired muscles.
It didn't take long for White Mallow to return, two cups of steaming tea balanced on a tray on his back. The cups were set on the table and Atlas accepted his gratefully.
"So, you are whom?" White Mallow asked as he took a seat as well, taking a sip of his own tea.
Atlas raised a brow at the rather straight forward question but answered nonetheless.
"Excuse me for not introducing myself earlier, my name is Atlas. I'm Belle's..." Atlas furrowed his brow in thought.
How was the pony equivalent of a boyfriend called again?
"...special somepony?"
The last part of his introduction came out as more of a question and Atlas observed the old stallion in front of him for any indication that he just made a fool out of himself.
"Oh, yes. I remember," White Mallow said. "Belle has been talking about you a lot."
White Mallow smirked knowingly before taking another sip of his tea, while Atlas exhaled in relief. Apparently 'special somepony' was an accepted term.
"I hope only good things," Atlas chuckled as he gave the go-to response for this type of conversation.
"Well, mostly," White Mallow replied, "but also some of your mishaps together have reached my ears."
Atlas simply smiled and sipped his tea, opting not to take the bait.
"I hear you're a somewhat special unicorn." White Mallow continued. "Triple affinity, never seen before stuff. Good on you."
"Ah, there's actually quite a few drawbacks to that," Atlas said.
"Oh really? Like what?"
"Overzealous researchers mainly," Atlas grumbled into his cup.
Laughter filled the room at Atlas's remark, White Mallow finding great joy in it.
"Oh yes, I can imagine." White Mallow said after calming down again. "Those unicorns tend to go a bit nuts whenever there's a new magical mystery to research."
"Tell me about it..."
"Listen, if you ever feel exhausted, be it mentally or physically, you just come over here. I'll fix you right up," White Mallow offered. "I'll even give you a discount since you're Belle's friend."
"I'll take you up on that offer," Atlas replied with a smile. "Sure could have used it a few times recently."
White Mallow nodded sagely while sipping on his tea.
"Moving on then, I can hear that you have a question you want to ask."
Atlas recoiled a bit, apparently, the old stallion had seen right through him. Deciding to no longer beat around the bush, he asked the question he wanted to ask ever since hearing about the old stallion.
"I've heard from Belle that you're quite knowledgeable in the field of history," he began to explain. "More specifically, the history of creation concerning the gifts bestowed upon the three races."
"It is so," White Mallow confirmed.
"Well, I must say, after what Belle told me, I am quite fascinated by what you shared with her and was wondering if you might be able to tell me more." Atlas finished.
"Huh?" Mallow seemed surprised at the question. "A unicorn willing to believe the ramblings of an old stallion? Now that's new."
"What do you mean?" Atlas asked in a confused manner.
"Well, nopony usually ever believes me whenever I tell them about it," Mallow explained. "Earth ponies just think me an old fool and unicorns won't even give me the time of day. For all their fascination with their research, they sure don't care about where they came from and what they could do."
"That sounds quite narrow-minded," Atlas remarked.
It may have just been because Atlas arrived in this world recently, but he felt like he was more readily inclined to believe the old stallions story. If he was to be believed, what he had to share was lost knowledge. As such the unicorns, at least, should be all over it.
"Well, it is quite difficult to prove, really." White Mallow said with a sigh. "After all, I'm probably the only practitioner in the whole kingdom. Even though every time someone comes here to get healed, they just attribute it to my concoctions and technique."
"I believe you," Atlas said with determination. "You’ve already proven to Belle that you speak the truth, and if she believes you, I do too. I'm willing to listen, and who knows? Maybe I'll be able to convince a few unicorns too."
"Oh, that would be wonderful," White Mallow responded. "Right then, let me show you something. Follow me."
White Mallow, sporting a happy smile got up to ascend the stairs once again. After Atlas gently set down his now empty cup, he followed the old stallion upstairs.
Once they arrived at the top, Atlas was lead into White Mallow’s sparsely decorated bedroom. Curiosity overcame Atlas at what he might be shown, or what exactly it was he wanted him to see in this bedroom of his. After all, there was quite literally only a bed and a nightstand in the room.
White Mallow, meanwhile, lowered himself to the ground in front of his bed before pulling a box out from underneath it. He blew some dust off the lidof it while setting it on his bed and motioning for Atlas to come closer.
"Before I show you, there might be some explanation in order," White Mallow began.
Atlas quietly sat down, getting ready for some sweet, sweet story time.
"You should know that I was not always blind." White Mallow began his story. "In my younger days, I was quite an active and curious stallion. I was always fascinated with the unknown; see ponies have been here for such a long time, yet so much remains unexplored."
Atlas tried to imagine a younger White Mallow in his head and wondered if his hair was white from the beginning or if it changed with old age.
"I joined a group of like-minded spirits, and together we went on a great many adventures, exploring the unknown, uncovering forgotten ruins and truths." White Mallow adopted a nostalgic smile. "Those were the days."
"It sounds quite fantastic." Atlas nodded. "Did you lose your sight on one of your explorations then?"
"Yes, there was a rather unfortunate accident." White Mallow grimaced. "We found instructions for an ancient and forgotten spell in one of the ruins we'd explored. One of the unicorns in our group tried to cast it, but it misfired. At least we think it did, for all we know, it was intended to take away the light from the eyes."
"But being blind has sort of opened my eyes to a lot of things though, so I'm not mad at the development. Sometimes I just miss seeing the beauty of nature. You wouldn’t believe the incredible sights me and my comrades have seen over the years.”
White Mallow went silent for a few seconds, most likely remembering the incredible things he had seen.
"Which brings me to what I wanted to show you." He gestured towards the box next to him. "As you can probably surmise, we discovered quite a bit of weird and astounding artifacts on our travels."
He flipped open the lid, revealing an assortment of small statues, necklaces and various other doodads.
"Most of what we found was sold to museums or collectors, but some of it, we kept to ourselves. Either because we liked it or because nopony wanted to buy it." White Mallow explained. "What we're looking for is a small necklace, made from interlocked pieces of wood. There should be a small stone hanging from it."
Atlas took the cue and started looking for said item within the box. He pushed and lifted things out of the way until he eventually found the necklace.
As he levitated it in front of himself, he let it spin slowly so he could take a closer look.
The chain was indeed made from lovingly carved pieces of wood, interlocking in a similar way to chainmail. It was a dark shade of brown, it's weathered appearance testament to it's age. At the very bottom hung a flat rock. Not some kind of gem or otherwise decorative mineral, just a flat piece of regular rock.
Carved upon the rock was a symbol, resembling the latin letter 'M'. Atlas furrowed his brow in confusion. As he already knew, ponies didn't use the latin alphabet, much less to his knowledge ever seen it. Yet here it was, carved into an ancient piece of stone.
Did the Greek Gods send other humans here as well?
As he was contemplating the possibility, he noticed something off about the letter, namely, the letter seemed to be too long. The side strokes extending further than they usually do.
Atlas felt like he had seen something like this before, but he couldn't quite place the memory.
"We found this deep within the ruins of an ancient temple." White Mallow explained. "We believe it to be unicorn in origin."
"Why?" Atlas simply asked.
"For once, the temple was obviously made by unicorns, as the murals and books we found confirmed." White Mallow elaborated. "And more importantly, the necklace is a magical artifact."
Atlas's eyes widened. "What does it do?"
"It opened a door for us is what it did. When we examined the temple grounds, it began to glow a soft purple. Once we figured out that there was a small and hidden opening in the floor, just big enough for the stone we stuck it in there with gusto." White Mallow chuckled. "The glow intensified once we did so and the ground literally split apart, revealing a huge underground system to us."
Suddenly, something clicked inside Atlas as he remembered where he'd seen the symbol before.
"Ehwaz." He whispered in realization.
"Ehwaz?" White Mallow asked, furrowing his brows. "I'm afraid I do not know the meaning of that word."
What Atlas had before him was undoubtedly a carved rune. He'd seen them in various games, such as 'Too Human' or 'The Binding of Isaac', which got him interested since they looked cool. Ehwaz meant 'horse' but was, like most runes, quite open to interpretation. Passage being one of them.
Realizing his mistake of saying the word aloud, Atlas stumbled over his words to come up with an excuse.
"I believe... I... uhmmm... I've read about symbols like this before. It was in this really old book in the academy library, I believe." Atlas adopted an awkward smile, oblivious to the futility of the action.
White Mallow looked at Atlas suspiciously, an amazing feat considering his blindness. For a second Atlas thought the old stallion saw right through his lie, but whatever the case, he wasn't about to reveal himself to an old stallion he just met.
"I'm baaack!" The singsong voice of Belle could be heard from downstairs, accompanied with the ring of the bell above the door.
"Coming!" White Mallow called back.
He once again looked at Atlas, seemingly contemplating something.
"Keep it."
"Wha?" Atlas stammered out.
"You seem to have more use for it than I ever will, plus you seem to know something about it, so it would be more useful in your hooves than in a dusty old box." White Mallow said with finality.
"Thank you very much," Atlas sputtered out. "I'll always keep it safe."
"I'd hope so." White Mallow said as he made to move towards the stairs. "Now come, your marefriend is waiting."