Clover was madly searching the mountain castle. He wasn't sure what it was that had woken him up, but he felt... Something. He couldn't really place his hoof on it, but massive influx of magic had just run through the place. He rushed in and out of rooms searching for what it was, but all he managed to find out was what the cooks were making for dinner, and which maid and count were having a secret love affair that was no longer secret.
"Something happened," he wondered aloud. A few of the younger unicorns in the castle looked his way when they heard him talking to himself. However, ever since ponies got it in their heads that he was Starswirl's apprentice, they'd been leaving him alone for most of the time. Not even Princess Platinum had been calling on him anymore since the unification of the tribes. Fine by him, if he didn't have to listen to any more of her whining, it would be too soon.
Clover's ears perked up, "Starswirl," he concluded. "Maybe he has some idea what happened." He shouldn't be too hard to find, it would only be a couple of minutes after the rising of the sun.
He made his way to the sunrise tower, the place where unicorns performed the spells to change the position of the sun and moon. It didn't take too long to notice that something was wrong. As he climbed the stairs up to the top of the tower, he hadn't passed anyone on their way back down. Usually you could see several ponies descending the stairs and carrying the unicorns that had temporarily lost their magic due to the immense strain that the spelled called for.
Clover swung the door open and found Starswirl there along with at least a dozen other unicorns. They were all madly scrambling about while casting a wide range of spells over the entire surface of the spell circle. Off in the corner, he could see some mare bawling her eyes out while a stallion, he could only assume was her husband, was doing his best to comfort her. Her name was... Something or other... Faust, maybe?... He didn't really take the time to learn everyone's names.
The light overhead caught his eye and at first he just dismissed it as the sun, but when he noticed that his shadow was being cast in two different directions he looked up.
Both the sun and the moon were hanging overhead at the same time?! That can't be right. Starswirl knows better than that. Why isn't anyone trying to fix it.
He walked over to Starswirl, aware of the awkward glances that were being sent his way. When he made it over to the unicorn, he found that Starswirl was looking just as confused as everyone else. "What happened?" Clover asked him quietly. "If I didn't know any better I'd say somepony died up here."
Starswirl and his fluffy beard looked solemnly over at Clover. There wasn't anything even closely resembling a smile on his face as he pointed to a pair of scorch marks in front of him. "I don't know what happened," he said. "The sunrise was going like it did every other morning. Everything seemed fine until the magic broke free of the circle. It was their first time watching the ritual, but now..."
Clover's eyes grew wide as he caught the implications of what happened. "What were their names?" He asked as he looked again in the direction of the sobbing mare.
"Two little fillies, Celestia and Luna," Starswirl said solemnly. "So bright and full of life, and so young. They hadn't even discovered their cutiemarks yet." He looked over to Clover with concern on his face. "I need your help," he said. "You've spent a lot more time than I have studying the intricacies of how these spells work. The sun and moon still aren't responding to our commands and I don't know why."
"I'll see what I can do," Clover said as he looked over to the scorch marks. "We need to figure out what went wrong first." He walked over to where the two girls had been standing before they had been consumed by magic. As soon as he had placed a hoof on the ground near where they had been standing, he began to feel a twinge of power run throughout his entire body.
His eyes grew wide as a greenish tinge of light began to reflect off his fur. The source of the light was coming from... The amulet? The amulet he had made to seal away the better portion of his power.
Eyes growing wide with realization, he ran back to where Starswirl was brooding. "Starswirl," he said, panting. "I may have just figured something out."
"That was awfully fast," he said with disbelief. "I doubt even you would be able to..." His eyes focused on the soft glow that was coming from beneath Clover's cloak. "Why are you glowing?"
Clover lowered his voice and made sure his cloak was covering the amulet as best it could. "My alicorn magic is reacting," he said. "I don't know how, but I think those girls are in the astral plane."
"Are you sure?" Starswirl's breath caught for a moment in his throat. "I thought you said that normal ponies couldn't go there."
"They can't as far as I know," Clover said as he looked around to see if anyone was overhearing them. "I want to go check. Think you can get everypony off the roof?"
"I should be able to, I am the Archmage after all" he said smugly. "But what do you think this means?"
"I don't know yet," Clover stared blankly at the place where he felt the reaction.
"All right," Starswirl said. "You do what you need to do." He stepped away and began to rapidly herd everyone else off the roof. Soon it was just him and Clover left on the dais.
Once he was certain that no one else was watching, Clover stepped over and onto the scorch marks that marked the ground. His whole body took on a golden glow even as the amulet began to thrum against his chest.
Clover looked back to his friend even as he allowed the light to wrap itself around him. "I'll see you soon," he said just before the world went white.
He was feeling slightly woozy once he was able to perceive the space around him again. Clover could see nothing but darkness stretched out before him with the exception of a couple stars here and there. He tried taking a few steps forward, only to find that he was unable to see his own legs.
The disorientation caused him to trip. What did he actually trip on in a space with nothing in it? It was hard to say. It may have just been his lack of focus. "Is this what I get for trying to come here as only half of myself?" He asked the emptiness. The emptiness, of course, didn't answer back.
Clover took a moment to re-center himself as he pushed his will out into the astral plane. Slowly he felt a warm glow fill his being as a path opened out before him. He took another step forward and while his body was still mostly indiscernible, at least there was now a slight luminescence to it. "I probably look like some kind of spirit right now," he pondered aloud. A sharp pain pierced the center of his being, giving him a quick reminder that whatever he was going to do here, he needed to do it quickly. That is unless he decided to undo his seal completely. He wasn't quite ready for that. While these ponies could sometimes get on his nerves, he found that he had missed just being a face in the crowd. That would go away if they found out what he actually was.
He raced through the starry landscape, trying to find a sign of anything or anyone that didn't belong there. He didn't find anyone there with the exceptions of a few dreams he momentarily brushed against. He wasn't all that interested in what ponies saw in their dreams and besides, he didn't have the time or energy to get distracted like that.
Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Well, not completely. He did manage to spot the birth of a distant star, which was a rare event even when he was looking for it. Where could they be? He had started to feel a foreign presence in this place, but he still couldn't quite hone in on where it was coming from.
A dreadful thought crept through him as he looked in the direction of what qualified as 'up' in this space. "No..." He mouthed before bolting in that direction. "Please let me be wrong."
Clover soared upward and upward towards a place he never wanted to visit again. It was the place where all of his troubles had started, the plane of ascension.
He pushed through until he reached the highest level of this place. As he touched down, he already knew that his worst fears had been realized. A small white unicorn spun to face him, somehow aware that she wasn't alone. "Who's there?!" She shouted. "If you come anywhere near me or my sister, I'll poke you with my horn."
He might've found that adorable in any other situation. Clover took a few careful steps towards the on-guard filly. Huddled behind her, buried in her pink tail, was a smaller filly of a dark blue color. More importantly, though, he saw wings on both of them. He was already too late.
Clover staggered back from them as he fell onto his haunches. He squeezed his eyes shut as he began to weep for the fate that had befallen them, "not again... Please not again..."
"Luna! Stay away from there! It may be dangerous!" Came the frantic shouting of the older sister.
He peeked his tear laden eyes open as he heard the shouting. Directly in front of him, the younger sister had abandoned the safety of her older sister's side to stand in front of him.
"Why awe you cwying?" She asked, her face full of the purest innocence.
"I'm just remembering something very sad," he said as he tried to clear away his tears.
"I cwy when I get a owie. Mommy kisses it to make the pain go away," the little filly got up on her hind legs and reached for his head. When Clover saw she was unable to reach, he leaned down closer to her. Once she was able to reach his head, she placed a messy kiss on his forehead, just below his horn. She pulled away and patted him on the head with her tiny hooves. "It gets all better now, you'll see."
A pained laugh found itself caught in Clover's throat. He came here to find two lost girls and when he found himself lost in his own sense of dread, one of them had pulled him out of it. He looked down at the filly who couldn't be more than a few years old. She didn't know how bad the world could get. Was he that innocent once? Maybe just maybe, everything will actually be all right this time.
He slowly stood back up, the light emanating from his body casting a light over the faces of the two sisters as he watched them. In that moment, he knew he would watch over them. They needed someone to keep them safe, to guide them. Starswirl would help, of course. And maybe, just maybe, they could avoid seeing these two children suffer as he had.
"Your mother is probably worried sick about you two," he said.
The elder sister spoke up, "I know she is, but how do we get out of here?"
Clover held out a hoof to them, "I can show you the way. If you'll trust me."
The younger sister grabbed a hold of his hoof right away while the elder sister hesitated for a moment before placing hers alongside her sister's. "What's your name?" She asked.
Clover just smiled at them and said, "I'll be watching."
"Clover! Clover! Wake up!" Starswirl shouted over him.
Clover's eyes shot open as he took in a sharp breath of air. "Ow..." He said as he carefully pushed himself up off the ground. He had to be careful of the two little fillies he found curled up and sleeping beneath him.
"I see you found them," Starswirl said, his eyes as wide as saucers as he saw them. "I see wings on both of them. Are they...?"
"They are," Clover said softly so as not to wake them. "The world now has two more alicorns in it."
Starswirl had to take a moment to steady himself, "to think I'd live long enough to see not only the tribes come together, but to also witness the birth of two alicorns."
"How are we going to explain this, though?" Clover gestured to the sleeping alicorns as he shot a worried look at the door leading off the dais. For all he knew, a half dozen ponies could burst through at any moment.
"You let me worry about that," the old unicorn said with a smile. "I've got enough influence that we should be able to avoid any problems. We still have something to worry about though," he said as he looked up at the sky where the sun and moon both still hung there.
Clover stepped up next to Starswirl as they looked up at the sky. "We can't exactly leave the sky like that. I don't even know where to begin fixing that."
"You mean to tell me that after a thousand years of study and isolation, that you can't come up with anything?" Starswirl scolded. "I know you're many times the mage I am."
"You should give yourself more credit than that," Clover said in response. "I may be many centuries your senior, but it was you who figured out how to bring the sunrise ritual's support team from seven down to five. All without exhausting the unicorn directing it."
"I never would've figured it out without the rare theories and texts you've collected." Starswirl and Clover stared off for a moment before both of them burst out in laughter.
"Look at the two of us," Clover chortled. "Trying to put each other on the higher pedestal."
"And to think," Starswirl smiled back. "You would've missed out on all of this if you had stayed sequestered in that dusty old tree."
"Don't let Whisper hear you say that," he said, still grinning. "She can get a bit temperamental about that dusty old tree. Anyway, one of us needs to tell the girls' parents that they're alright."
"I'll do it," said Starswirl. "It should be easier for me to smooth things over." He turned towards the door and only made it a few steps before he froze in place. "Clover..." He said under his breath. "Look."
Clover turned to see what Starswirl was looking at. He didn't know when they had woken up, but they had and they had wandered off as young ponies tended to do. The two filly alicorns were currently standing at the edge of the spell circle and staring up at the sky. He made to run forward before they did something and ended up hurting themselves.
"Hold on," said Starswirl as he held Clover back. "Just wait. I've got a good feeling about this."
Against his better judgement, he did as his friend suggested and just sat down to watch what they would do. A couple minutes passed before anything happened. When something did finally happen, it changed the entire course of Equestria's history.
The light radiating off the sun and moon slowly began to dim. The dimming light gradually became more focused as it shone down on the two children and they didn't do much more than bask in the light of the two heavenly bodies.
The air began to shift as ever so slowly, the moon began to move towards the distant horizon. It started to pick up speed as the sun also began to creep along its destined path. This went on for a few more minutes until the moon had successfully retreated below the horizon and the sun had moved to where it was supposed to be as it carried on the day.
While all this was happening, the young alicorns were carried up into the air over the castle. They spread their tiny wings to gather as much of the light as they could. With every passing moment, they began to glow brighter and brighter until they both glowed as bright as the sun that hung overhead.
Once the sky had been set to rights, they began to drift back towards the ground. All around the castle roof, scores of unicorns gathered to watch the spectacle. They had rushed onto the rooftop once they had noticed the sky moving properly again and while the two ponies had been too distracted to notice their entrance.
As they touched down and the light surrounding them began to dim, freshly emblazoned cutiemarks could be found residing on their flanks. The elder alicorn found herself marked with the sun, while her younger sister carried the mark of the moon.
A hushed silenced fell over the ponies while they stood there, completely awestruck by what they were seeing. Two children had just moved the sun and the moon by themselves. One by one, the collected masses began to bow to the young ponies while they both looked around, confused by the attention they were getting.
When they were the only ones left standing, Starswirl and Clover quickly bowed as well. "What just happened?" Asked Clover in hushed tones.
"I think we just witnessed a miracle," said Starswirl. "Look at them though," they both peeked an eye up to look at the confused and very scared children. "They're going to need guidance to get through all this. Good thing I've got the only other alicorn by my side to help."
"They can't know about me, at least not yet," said Clover. "Look at the way the ponies are worshiping the two of them. If I were exposed, it would completely undermine the position they'll surely be raised to."
"You can't truly mean to stay hidden forever, can you?" He asked. "I mean, you're not alone anymore."
"Trust me, I'm aware," said Clover as he sorted through his own thoughts. "I may tell them some day but for now I think you should take them on as students."
"Me?!" Starswirl hissed. "What makes you think I can teach a couple of alicorns anything?"
"It has to be you," said Clover. "Don't forget, as far as the rest of these ponies know, I'm a nobody. No family, no lineage, no prestige..."
"All right, fine. I'll do it," he said reluctantly. "It's not my fault that unicorns put a little too much value on bloodlines. You're not just hoping to run away, are you?"
"Not from this," said Clover. "I'm worried about them losing control at some point. This country wouldn't survive a couple of mad alicorns on a rampage, especially ones capable of moving the heavens by themselves." He looked up at the slowly moving sun. "I can afford a decade or two to keep an eye on them, just in case."
"Promise me something then, Clover," said Starswirl. "If something ever happens to me, you'll make sure to take them under your wing, won't you? I'm not an immortal like you are and I need to know that somepony will always be there for them."
Clover gave a heavy sigh. It was a reasonable request, even if he didn't like it. "All right," he said at last. "I promise."
"When Starswirl went missing, I should've kept my promise and revealed myself to you girls," Clover said sorrowfully. "Instead I kept myself hidden as I tried to figure out what had happened to him."
"After all that time you never found him, did you?" Celestia asked as she recovered from Clover's retelling of their ascension.
Clover slowly shook his head, "I never found so much as a hint as to what happened to him. Eventually my search brought me to the Crystal Empire and that brings us to today."
"I wish you had come forward sooner," said Luna as she kept a single wing wrapped around him. She was afraid that he'd disappear again if she let him go for even a moment.
Clover seemed to take a moment to enjoy her closeness before pulling himself away. "We'll have more time to catch up later," he said. "Right now though, there's work to be done."