//------------------------------//
// CHAPTER XIII: Grief in the Night 
// Story: Special Illumination 
// by ponichaeism 
//------------------------------//

	Clover's eyes itched and burned from lack of sleep. After the third time she stumbled on the road and nearly fell to the dirt, Starswirl offered to carry her. As she climbed onto his back, she sat facing behind them and kept watch on their tail. But as they walked in silence, her mind begged her to ask the question that'd been lurking in it for some time now, yet she had refused to ask in case she didn't like the answer. 
But the silence was too much, and eventually she gave in and asked, "Starswirl?"
"Yes, Clover?"
"Can you....fix my magic?"
"Ah," he said, his tone telling her he'd been expecting the question. "Clover, I don't know whether it's something that can be fixed--"
"Oh, but please!" she cried, turning around to look into his eyes. "You can make monsters appear, so you have to be able to fix my horn, too!"
He threw his head over his shoulder and, in an authoritative voice, said, "Clover."
She quieted down and listened.
He faced forward again and his voice became soothing. "Back in Varnice, there are amazing toymaker's creations, these automatons fashioned in the shape of ponies with hundreds of tiny gears inside to make them move by turning a crank. But if you were to open one of them up and remove a single gear, the mechanism would cease being able to function properly. It depends on every single part working correctly, or it's useless. And that is just a toy pony!"
"But if I've got this magic inside me, why can't I make it come out?"
"We simply don't know enough about pony biology for me to answer that. Not even whether it's a problem with your horn, your spark, or your mind. And I am certainly in no hurry to start opening ponies up to discover the answer."
"But why me? Why am I the one who doesn't have any magic?"
"You do have magic, Clover: you're alive. That's magic enough, but most ponies seem keen to overlook that."
"You know what I meant," she said with a sigh, her ears falling.
"One day--again, this happened in Varnice--three foals came up to me, knowing I was a scholar at the Academy, and wanted to make use of my wisdom. Well, they didn't say that in as many words....anyway, they had a bag of sweets that they could not divide evenly. So I took the bag and asked them if they wanted me to divide it and way a pony would, or the way the world would. They said they wanted them divided the way the world would. So I gave two-thirds to one foal, a third to the next, and none to the last, and continued on my way. Now, why do you think I did that?"
"To teach them a lesson?"
Starswirl snickered. "Yes, Clover, it was to teach them a lesson, but what was the lesson I taught them?"
"That the world isn't fair?"
"Yes, but why?"
"I don't know."
"Me neither. I can theorize about the Harmony until the stars fall from the sky, but that doesn't mean I understand it. I glimpsed its limitless form once, for a very brief moment, but a pony's mind is nowhere near capable of understanding such an infinite power. All we can do is make observations and educated guesses about the results. Perhaps you cannot use magic because the Harmony's flow has some purpose for you; or perhaps the world, because it is separate from the Harmony like we are, is heir to the same flaws we are; or perhaps....there's a very good reason why you should not have magic."
"What? Why shouldn't I have magic?! Why don't I deserve it?!"
"First, tell me why you have such a dire need for it."
"Because....I deserve it. It should be mine. It'd make my life easier. Easier to grind the flour, easier to do....other things."
"Like make the other foals stop teasing you?"
Clover crossed her forelegs, sulked, and refused to answer.
"As I thought," Starswirl said. "During our first dinner, I said that power without wisdom is useless. Using your magic to bully Golden Vein does not help repair the Harmony, and with a dangerous unicorn on the loose the last thing we need is the Harmony being damaged further."
"I promise I won't use my magic to do bad things, so please, can you help me?"
"Alright," he said with a relenting sigh, "I'll see if there's anything I can do to fix your magic. I make no guarantees, though."
"Yay!"
"So first thing tomorrow, we shall remove that horn."
Clover's forehooves went to her horn. "What?"
"Heh heh, I'm only joking, Clover."
"Very funny," she huffed.
"But what I'm about to say is most definitely not a joke: you must promise me that if this does indeed work, you will not use your powers in such a way that will damage the Harmony. Do you promise?"
"Yes. Yes, yes, yes!"
"Are you being honest with me?"
"Yes!"
"And are you being honest with yourself?"
"Ye-huh?" Sensing a trick, she cautiously said, "Yes?"
"You should think long and hard before you answer that question, as being honest with yourself is far more important than being honest with others. You could travel the entire cosmos, and you will never find a pony more worthy of your love and honesty than you are. If you are not in harmony with yourself, how could you ever hope for your feelings to be balanced by other ponies?"
"But wait," she said, her thoughts churning. "Wouldn't it only be balanced if one pony was balanced and the other pony was unbalanced?"
"No."
"Really? That seems like it'd be right to me...."
"No, ironically, balance itself must be unbalanced by only being comprised of balance."
She felt a headache brewing, and squeezed her aching eyes shut. "I don't get all this, Starswirl. It's just giving me an itch in my brain that I can't scratch."
"It so often does that," Starswirl said merrily, "in those who strive to learn. The trick, though, is to not obsess over it, for obsession unbalances you. Just let the knowledge flow through you, and one day you might come to an understanding."
"I don't know if I can wait that long," she muttered.


As they neared the edge of the forest, Clover heard a voice on the wind cry her name. Perched precariously on Starswirl's back, she sat bolt upright and tried to get her eyes to look everywhere at once, tensing herself in case that evil stallion came tearing out of the treeline on either side of them.
But when she heard the voice again, she recognized it.
"Clover?! Where are you?!"
"Papa!" she called.
She jumped to the ground and started to run, but Starswirl grabbed her tail with his teeth and held her fast. She toppled off-balance and fell face-first into the dirt.
"First, we need to talk," he said.
She stared up at the wizard looming over her, a stern look on his face. His head was haloed by the moon, and its light lit up only the edges of his face, making him suddenly seem imposing, frightening even. When Starswirl had first appeared in her house, she'd thought he was just a fun-loving sage. But now that she'd seen him have a casual conversations with a hideous monster he'd summoned, she could not help but be simultaneously terrified and in awe of him right now. What made it worse was how lighthearted he usually was, because she would never have guessed he had such great and terrible powers.
Maybe there is something to this balance stuff after all, she thought.
"Wh-what do you want to talk about?" she asked.
"We cannot tell your father what it is we were up to, do you understand me?"
"Why not?"
"Because I....don't want to worry him."
Clover frowned, thinking that surely that was a lie, but she didn't dare cross Starswirl right at this very moment, in case he turned her into a frog or something with a flick of his horn. She didn't think he would, really, but once upon a time, she wouldn't have thought he was capable of summoning evil monsters, either. So how was she to know what he was really capable of?
"So," he said, "we're going to have to lie."
"Wait a minute, didn't you say being honest is one of those virtue things?"
"I did."
"So if you're lying, how can you be honest?"
Starswirl's face remained severe. "Being honest, Clover, does not concern words, but the emotional connection you forge with another pony. There is a dark power at work in these woods, and I don't want to alarm your father unduly, so that means we must be discrete. I know I have his best interests at heart, so my lying to him will most likely not damage the harmony between us, although I will admit that's a fine line to walk most of the time. Besides, though I may conceal my purpose in the forest, my anger about you sneaking out behind me will be completely genuine."
She dropped her face into the dirt again. "Fine."
"Now, for the last hour we were up atop that hill doing astronomical calculations. You spent the entire time complaining how tedious it was, and although I consider that punishment enough, I would not fault him for punishing you further. You will not accept your punishment with grace, because that would appear too accommodating. You will act like you've done nothing wrong, and that you shouldn't be punished, which will probably make him punish you further."
"Oh, this is just great," she said into the ground. "Anything else you want to get me punished for?"
"Clover," Starswirl said in stern warning.
She pushed herself out of the dirt and brushed herself off. "Alright, alright."
They walked to the end of the trail and emerged from the treeline.
"Papa!" Clover called.
Carmine galloped over, then dug his hooves into the ground and skidded to a halt. He swept up Clover in a tight embrace and nuzzled her.
"Oh, you had me sick with grief!" he said.
"I'm sorry, Carmine," Starswirl said.
Carmine looked up at him over his daughter's shoulder.
"I found sleep hard to come by, so I decided not to waste such a gorgeous night and headed up to the hills to perform some astronomical observations."
"Astronomy, eh?" Carmine asked, his eyes narrowed.
"Oh, yes." With a chuckle, Starswirl said, "I have my notes, if you'd like to check my work." 
He levitated the scroll over and let Carmine see the calculations scrawled on it.
"But I'm afraid young Clover here heard me leaving," Starswirl said, glaring at her, "and she made the utterly foolish decision to follow me out."
"I-I thought he was leaving, papa!" she said. "So I followed him out to stop him."
"Unfortunately," Starswirl explained, "I was already atop the hill when she caught up to me. Rather than send her home alone, I made sure she stayed right by my side."
"He made me do sums, papa. A lot."
Starswirl said, "Although if you'd like to punish her more, I certainly wouldn't blame you."
Carmine held his filly at arm's length. "Is this true? Did you sneak out of the house after Mister Starswirl?"
She dropped her head.
"Look at me, Clover," he commanded.
Reluctantly, she raised her eyes to meet his. "Yes, I snuck out after him."
He searched her face intently, then relaxed slightly and said, "You had me so worried, Clover."
"It was my fault," Starswirl offered. "I shouldn't have been sneaking out in the middle of the night."
"No, no," Carmine said, "you ain't done nothing wrong. I know Clover, and she ain't ever needed much of an excuse to get herself into trouble. Let's get back inside."


As they walked along the edge of the forest, Carmine let Clover walk on ahead and fell into step beside Starswirl.
"Walking through the forest at night, Starswirl?" he asked. "That's mighty dangerous."
"I have tussled with a timberwolf or two in my time, I assure you. Clover was never in any real danger, at least not while she was with me."
"Oh, she might be yet," Carmine said harshly as he stared at his daughter, who walked ahead of them with her nose nearly in the grass.
"The forest doesn't seem that dangerous," Starswirl said. "In fact, while I was up on the hill, I thought it was beautifully serene. I can see why you planted your roots here." 
He held his breath, hoping Carmine would take the bait and expand on his reasons for why he chose this particular town to settle in. 
But Carmine simply scoffed. "It might be beautiful if'n it weren't for all these ponies."
"That's an awfully cynical attitude to take."
"I lived through the fall of Roan, remember? That'd make a pony cynical as all get out--"
A hollow, metallic clattering sound, pails or cans banging together by the sound of it, suddenly rang out in the darkness nearby, like they had been bumped by accident. Trembling, Clover backed up until her tail collided with her father's haunches. He and Starswirl turned in opposite directions and scoured the shadows for the source of the noise.
"Wh-what is it?" Clover whimpered.
Starswirl started lighting up his horn to bathe the area in light, but Carmine panicked and smacked it, dispersing the magic. 
"Sorry," he whispered to Starswirl. "But we've got enough trouble without the townfolk seeing us working magic like that."
Starswirl nodded to show he understood, but with the heavy darkness, he had no way of knowing if Carmine had noticed the motion. The wizard squinted into the night for any sign of movement, but no matter how much he strained his eyes, he couldn't--
A shadowy figure lurched towards them. 
Clover hollered and jumped straight up into the air, then galloped behind her father, who dug his hooves into the dirt and got ready to defend her.
"This ain't the way?" a soused voice asked. "Aaaah was sure twit was this way."
Starswirl saw that the mysterious stranger was actually that stallion who'd been thrown out of the Cider Horse, obviously no more clear-headed now than he had been then.
"No, Joe," Carmine said, exasperated, "this ain't the way home. Your home is over there, thataway."
The pony swiveled its head in the direction Carmine was pointing.
"Oh?" he asked, his voice rising until it cracked.
"Yes, Joe."
"Right," Diamond Joe said, then burped. "Wee-all, I'm a-just be on mah waaay."
As the stallion stumbled away, Carmine laughed bitterly and said, "I can see he's putting his bonus to good use. I tell you, some ponies just have all the luck, don't they?"