TMP Prompt #475 - “A Tale as Old as Time”
Prompt: The story starts when your protagonist is told by a parent that everything has been a lie. Another character is an alchemist who is determined to settle an old score.
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Mentor
Clover raced through the atelier, tearing her way through book after book.
“There has to be something!” she gasped. “How can she be so strong!?”
“It’s to be expected,” Starswirl said through gritted teeth. “She always was brilliant.”
SLAM!
The pea-green forcefield flickered slightly as their unwelcome guest resumed her assault upon the door.
“GIVE IT BACK! DAMN YOU, STARSWIRL!”
“You know this mare, master?”
“I…have been dishonest with you, child. You need to know—”
“OPEN THE DOOR!”
“Can’t this wait?”
“STARSWIRL!!”
“I had a partner in my youth. Brilliant, as I said, and beautiful. So beautiful.” He sighed. “We were working together in a small town—her hometown, actually—we…we had a project that I knew, I knew, was powerful enough to change the world. It was a feeling I had from the earliest stages—”
SLAM!
“Master, this isn’t helping!”
“I wanted to see it reach its full potential. I wanted to take it around the world to the Great Cities, with their knowledge and wonders. I wanted to see it achieve the recognition it deserved, but she—”
“FIFTEEN YEARS YOU SON OF A—!”
“All she wanted was to stay in that one-horse town, that worthless little podunk village, when I knew all our plans, all our dreams would just languish there. For the good of all ponies, for the world, I couldn’t let that happen I-I—“
“You stole it,” Clover breathed. “You stole the project.”
“The second it was finished. She never even got to see the outcome.”
“THIEF!” SLAM! “LIAR!”
“I’ve hated myself every day since. Everything I’ve done in my life has been for the sake of that project…for the sake of the world. Everywhere I’ve gone, everything I’ve done. I’m sorry, Clover, she’s right.”
SLAM!
Clover stared at him.
“This project,” she said. “You really stole it ‘for the sake of the world’?”
“Sometimes I wonder if my resentment or bitterness may have had something to do with it, but yes.” He looked her in the eye. “I truly believe that our project can change this terrible old world of ours for the better.”
She nodded.
“I won’t say I’m not—”
SLAM!
“—I’m disappointed, but what right do I have to judge you for living up to the precepts you’ve been teaching me my whole life?”
“…Thank you.” He put his hoof on her shoulder. “But I don’t quite think you understand—“
“MONSTER! YOU DAMNED MONSTER!”
“Heh,” Clover chuckled. “I can’t believe she’s making so much of a fuss over, what, some musty old notes? Some kind of formula?”
Starswirl began to say something, then sighed.
“We have been happy together, have we not? We’ve had a good life. No matter what happens today, remember that, dearest—”
“I’LL KILL YOU! GIVE ME BACK MY—“
The forcefield vanished, the door shattered into splinters, and Clover felt a stab in her heart as she looked into the twisted face of the creature of rage and malice that stormed its way in—and saw her own eyes.
All three ponies said the same word at once.