//------------------------------//
// Lily 
// Story: The Tutelage of Star Swirl 
// by Moose Mage 
//------------------------------//

	Star Swirl – 
I pray this note reaches you quickly. There’s been an accident. Yesterday evening, Lily went out to the hills to stargaze, and late in the night there were screams. We went out to see what had happened, and we found four Royal Guards dead. We searched for Lily. I’m so sorry, Star Swirl. She was gone by the time we reached her.
Every pony is asking where you disappeared off to. Everything is terribly confusing. Please come back.	
– Emory

The lines of ink on the page were jagged, precarious, the words more carved than written. And Star Swirl had carved those words indelibly into his soul by the time his carriage had landed on the outskirts of town. 
The pegasi were fast – Star Swirl made it so – and he arrived at the town line before nightfall. He leapt from the carriage and hit the ground running. He flew past the welcome sign and over the town line, into the old buildings and cobblestone streets of Whither’s Hollow.
The buildings of the town enveloped him, and the only sound in the quiet was Star Swirl’s own deafening breath. The streets were bare, streamers and colorful children’s masks lying lifeless in the street, the candy stalls on the side of the road aching and empty. 
Star Swirl slowed, looking around the ghostly street. So still. His eyes turned up to the houses and buildings pressing in around him. In an open window on a second-story floor, a dim face peered out at him, eyes glistening like stars in the distance. At Star Swirl’s glance, the face retreated, and the window was shut fast. 
Star Swirl continued down the barren road. It was all he could do just to keep his balance.
I have a suspicion that I am dreaming, he thought. Just as when Princess Luna appeared to me in the moon two nights ago. Where is that moon now? The sky’s clouding over. But it might appear at any moment. At any moment, I might hear her voice. I might hear her and be saved.
But Star Swirl did not hear the voice of Princess Luna. There was nothing to stop his aimless march through the streets.
But there. Up ahead, coming around the corner; Emory appeared.
Even at a distance, Star Swirl could see the bright red of Emory’s eyes, the untidiness in his fur, the tremor is his step. Their eyes met, and they were pulled to each other. Star Swirl’s legs were suddenly very, very heavy as he walked.
They met in the road.
Emory did not even attempt a smile. “Star Swirl,” he said. “You’ve come. I’m glad.” His voice was rough and worn and quiet, a rusty nail in the noiseless void.
Star Swirl fought the cotton in his throat. “Emory,” he said. He looked around, at the walls surrounding him and the cobblestones beneath him, and finally he found the strength to look Emory in the eye.
“What has happened?” said Star Swirl. “I don’t understand.”
“I know, Star. Neither do I.”
Emory glanced at the barrenness around them. “In any other town,” he said, “the Bicentennial Celebration might have continued. But Whither’s Hollow is so small. Everyone is in mourning.”
Star Swirl considered the word, foreign and harsh, and tasted it. “Mourning,” he whispered.
Emory looked back to Star Swirl. “A few ponies up early yesterday morning saw your carriage leave. They said it was a silver thing, ornate. We all suspected it was taking you to Canterlot. I’m happy we were correct – ”
“Emory, wait a moment.” Star Swirl closed his eyes tight, shook his head. “I still don’t understand… Your letter…”
“I’m sorry it was so short. It’s a… difficult thing to say.”
Star Swirl’s eyes opened again.
“Lily,” he said.
Emory nodded. “Lily. She…” His voice broke. He turned away. Suddenly Emory was possessed by violent shakes. A hoof flew to his eyes. Star Swirl was about to reach out, to offer help, but it was over in an instant. Emory turned back to Star Swirl, wiping his face.
“Excuse me,” he said.
Star Swirl saw that Emory’s eyes were more than red, they were raw and dark and on the brink. Those eyes looked into Star Swirl’s. Emory’s mouth tried to move, to sound out words. Finally he swallowed and said:
“Would you like to see her?”
Something about the question eluded Star Swirl. Something was unclear. Star Swirl’s gaze grew unfocused. 
“What?” he asked.
The tears were brimming in Emory’s eyes. Star Swirl could see him fight to keep them down. “I can take you to her, if you’d like,” Emory said. “We’ll have the wake in the next few days. But if you’d like to see her before then… I can take you to her.”
But Emory’s voice had petered out of existence. A vision lay sprawling before Star Swirl. A vision of a door. A tall door, stark and implacable, not far away. It might have been wooden, it might have been metal, Star Swirl could not tell, he could only recognize the reality of the door. And in his vision it drew closer. He knew what was on the other side. A pony on a slab. A pony under a sheet. A pink pony with a heart turned to cold, hard stone.
The door stood waiting.
“Star Swirl?”
Star Swirl turned and bolted.
Emory’s voice rose up. “Star Swirl!”
But Star Swirl could not hear, he could be neither hindered nor helped. His hooves crashed furiously down on the cobblestone road, a wind flew in his face. He raced through Whither’s Hollow, the labyrinth, to the only place he could think of to go. The one place he might hope to find an answer.
Soon enough, Star Swirl came to his destination. The Blue Rose.
A sign read “Closed” in the window. Star Swirl approached the door all the same. He lifted a hoof to the doorknob and pushed.
The door opened.
He entered the shop.
Star Swirl knew that something was wrong before he had even entered. All was too silent. Once inside, he looked up at the door. The tiny golden bell was gone.
His gaze dropped. He walked slowly, casting his eyes about the rest of the shop. The plants were all there, on their shelves, all different colors and shapes. Wandering in a dream, Star Swirl wondered when these plants had been watered last. It could not have been long. But already they seemed a little dryer, a little thinner, a little weaker. 
Everything seemed a little weaker.
Star Swirl turned to the back of the shop. Sitting on the corner of the counter was a large, round object, a stone-like shape. It was the seed, the one Lily had said would sprout after fresh rainfall.  
Star Swirl approached the seed. He saw himself in its surface, in its unbroken black smoothness. He lifted his hoof and let it gently fall on the seed’s glassy slope. It was cold to the touch. Very cold. The reflection of a face was intent, confused. Star Swirl felt the smoothness beneath his hoof. Unchanged. Unchanging.	
It was only a stone after all.
Star Swirl removed his hoof and backed away from the stone. Everywhere he turned, he was wading in a dying dream.
He turned and ran from the shop, crashing through the door, out into the streets, unaware of the world around him, his dry eyes burning in his skull. 



Over the next two days, the ponies of Whither’s Hollow would not raise their voices very loudly. They would not conduct any more business in the streets than they had to. The tents were taken down, the stalls were cleared away, and the streamers and children’s paper masks were swept away.
None of them ventured too close to thirty-three Blackwood Road. There, Star Swirl had shut himself up. They left him in peace as best they could. 
But if they had ever ventured very close, something in the air would have given them pause. A magic in the air. A new magic, electric, all-pervasive. 
And there inside, in the quiet, Star Swirl worked.
The cabin was dark, the windows blocked with heavy curtains. The Dragon’s Tongue pulsated green. The floor was strewn with crumpled papers, notes of feverish diagrams and symbols. Star Swirl’s hat and cloak were cast aside, thrown into a corner.
Star Swirl sat, hunched over his desk, shivering, a quill dancing erratically over a fresh sheet of parchment. Tiny droplets of ink flew from the frenzied quill-tip, dotting the top of the desk with night-black pinpoints of ink.
The quill stopped at the bottom of the page. It fell dead back to the desk.
Star Swirl looked at what he had done.
He had crafted a spell. A scroll of magic born from passion and desperation. It was raw. It was Fire, to burn through the paper walls of reality.
A Time Travel Spell. 
Star Swirl stood slowly from his chair, unblinking, fixed totally on his creation. It could send him back. For a few moments, Star Swirl could send himself back. A chill ran up his spine to the crown of his head. He had not slept; the world was beginning to tilt around him. But he was suddenly wide awake, struggling to realize the gravity of his work. This is… This is…
What is this?
Something was wrong. Star Swirl had labored for two days ceaselessly, grasping desperately at a vague, nameless hope, racing down the one path which had never failed him – magic. But now the spell was born, and something was wrong. The thought echoed back in Star Swirl’s mind.
What is this?
I shouldn’t be shaking, I shouldn’t feel so unnaturally cold. What I’ve done is as real as the desk sitting before me. Is it really so shocking? Isn’t this one of the fundamental principles of Magic? Anything is possible. No – everything is possible. But yes, I am shaking. And I am unnaturally cold. What is this that I have done?
This is not a tool for balance.
I have taken a plunge into uncharted oceans. There’s no knowing how this would change the world, the very onrush of time. If I dared… Time may stall, crumble, dissipate. If I dared to… to change something…
But Lily.
Star Swirl pushed his chair aside and backed away from the desk, from the spell, stained green by the Dragon’s Tongue, everything, stained green. He went to a window and pulled away a curtain. Night was rising fast. The first stars began to burn. And Whither’s Hollow, in the light of the bright falling sun, was so very beautiful to Star Swirl.
This is not a tool for balance.	
He turned from the window.
Do I try to save her, and risk everything – risk all of reality – or do I let the story finish on its own? Finish in death and tragedy?
Star Swirl wanted to scream. He could feel the noise, bubbling up in his throat, a wild beast fighting for freedom. But something inside Star Swirl would not let it loose. He swallowed the scream. His knees buckled, weak from running, standing, sitting, and Star Swirl fell down to the floor, kneeling there, panting, staring at his hooves.
Star Swirl looked up. The natural light of the open window fell on his desk, overpowering the green and washing the magic scroll in gold.
Star Swirl stood. 
He faced the spell on his desk. And slowly, he made his approach.
No. 
I cannot save her.
But I can still say goodbye.



Lily made certain to open The Blue Rose on time that morning.
As she flipped over the sign on the door to read “Open,” she could not help but hum a tune. How could she not, when life could prove so unexpected, and so extraordinary?
She watered the plants that needed watering, she tended the flowers that needed tending, and her melody welled up within her, filling the room.
Lily stood behind her counter and waited. Outside, she heard the town come to life, and she was happy.
And she did not have long to wait before the front door of the shop swung open; a visitor had come. The most impossible of all visitors; the last pony in the whole of creation who could have, should have been there. But all the same, the pony had come, just to pay a visit to Lily’s little shop.
Ding.
Lily beamed at the open door. “Star Swirl!” she said. “I was beginning to think that you… wouldn’t…”
Lily trailed off. Star Swirl was not the same. He stood there in the doorway, in his blue hat and cloak, staring intently across the room. His face was stone. He was unkempt, he was tired. He stared at Lily. Lily could all but see something dawning in his mind.
And suddenly, the stone lifted from Star Swirl’s face, as if he had only just realized where he was. His eyes brightened, a smile bloomed on his face; utter, tangible, exhausted relief.
“Lily,” he said, beginning to walk across the shop floor. “You’re here. I’m so glad you’re here…”
Lily quickly strode out from behind the counter, frowning. “Star Swirl,” she said, “how do you feel? What’s wrong?”
They met in the middle of the shop, the flowers shining in their colors all about them. 
Star Swirl cleared his throat. “I’m so very sorry,” he said, “that I am late.”
“Oh, that’s no problem at all – hold on, let me see you…” Lily brought a hoof gently up to Star Swirl’s face, peering at him with the air of a nurse. Star Swirl’s smile remained.
“You’re a wreck, Star,” she said, lowering her hoof. “Here, sit down, I’ll get you a cup of tea.”
Star Swirl’s smile began to evaporate. “Oh, no, Lily,” he said, “I don’t have much time. Just let me look at you, just for a moment…”
Lily paused. “Not much time?” she said. “What’s the matter, do you have to see Emory about something, or Pan? If you’re not well, I could go talk to – ”
“No.” His smile dried up totally. Ever so slightly, his lip began to tremble. “No, Lily. I have to… I have to go away.”
Neither moved. Lily stared at Star Swirl, until she had fully understood the idea of it. “Going away,” she said. “Well, if you have to leave Whither’s Hollow, I’m sure you’ll try to make it back for the bicentennial, won’t you? I need some pony to bother, or I swear I’ll just… I’ll…”
Lily was mesmerized by the look of Star Swirl’s face. So clouded. So empty of joy.
She blinked; something warm was swelling behind her eyes. “Star,” she said, “tell me, please. What’s wrong?”
“I have to go very soon now, Lily. And I can’t come back.”
Lily blinked harder, trying her best to stifle the heat, the blurring of her vision.
“Wait,” she said, shaking her head, “just wait, just tell me what's wrong – what you're thinking, what you're feeling, what you… You're leaving, you said you're… But can't you… Can’t you at least tell me why?”
Star Swirl’s face was dark beneath the brim of his hat, his eyes gleaming from within. He took a deep breath and sighed; a tremulous, sick sound. “Oh, Lily,” he said, “there are so many things I would like to tell you. But no. I can’t tell you why, and that kills me, Lily, it kills me that I can’t see you anymore, it’s killing me as I stand here. I’m so sorry. I can only wish that you might find it in your heart to trust me.”
Lily tried to read Star Swirl’s face. A laugh broke from her, and her first tear fell. “You always were such a mysterious unicorn, Star Swirl,” she said. “Any other day, I would try to force it out of you. And I still want to. Oh, you’d best believe it, I’m aching to; I have a right to know why one of my best friends is vanishing from my life. And yet, I look at you, and… and I trust you. I do.”
Star Swirl removed his hat, the shadow passing from his face, and placed it on the floor beside them, his eyes never deterring from Lily’s. Lily attempted a smile.
“There,” she said. “There’s that face. There’s my Star Swirl.”
Star Swirl reached out. Carefully, like a pony polishing a beautiful glass sculpture, he took Lily’s hoof in his. Both of their breaths faltered. And that wonderful invisible warmth inside both of them blossomed into full life. They held firmly onto one another.
“Lily,” said Star Swirl, “listen to me. There isn’t much time left. I just have to say… What do I have to say…” For an instant, his eyes fell. And then they were up again, partners for Lily’s.  
“You’ve done so much for me. I used to be an island. I don’t know if that’s what I wanted, or if that's all I was capable of, but that’s what I was. An island. I never truly realized that I was lonely, before you. But then you helped me. You helped me laugh. You helped me listen. You helped me speak. You’ve changed me, and I am happy for it. But the worst thing of all – the very worst thing – is that I’ll never have the chance to help you as you helped me. I’ll never be able to offer you my shoulder to cry on. I’ll never help you slay your demons. I wish I could have been for you what you’ve been for me.”
Star Swirl paused. The words were heavy in his mouth. He continued. “And Lily… Know this… If ever there was a pony that I could truly reveal myself too… If there was ever a pony that I could have… loved… It would have been – It would be you.”
Lily’s tears ran freely now. She clasped Star Swirl’s hoof tightly in hers.
They moved as one, together, unthinking. Their faces drifted closer and their eyes drifted shut. 
Their lips met. Soft and firm, comforting and exposed. And oh so very warm.
All at once, they realized what had happened, and they broke apart, each careful of the other. They gazed at one another once again.
Lily spoke first. “I’m glad for that,” she said, hardly a whisper.
Star Swirl found, somehow, that he could let a smile into his eyes. He answered, just as softly, “Yes. So am I.”
He magically lifted his blue pointed hat from the floor and fit it back onto his head. He turned. He walked to the door.
But Star Swirl stopped, before he was even close enough to reach for the handle. His face turned upward, to the top of the door. To the little golden bell, the splendid little instrument that looked as if it belonged in a tiny cathedral.
Star Swirl let the ghost of a smile in his eyes bleed onto his face. He spoke, facing the door. “I will miss you, Lily,” he said. “I will miss this place. And… it’s a strange thing… I will miss this bell. This little golden bell that speaks in hellos and goodbyes. This little bell… it means home.”
The bell shimmered in the light. A hypnotic comfort. 
Star Swirl heard the sound of hooves treading behind him. Suddenly Lily stood in front of him, walking toward the door. She stood up tall on her hind legs, reaching high. She unhooked the bell from its perch.
Lily came back down to the floor and turned to Star Swirl. He saw that she had wiped her tears away. 
Lily smiled and walked to him. She reached out to him, and gently placed the bell in a pocket of his cloak.
Star Swirl tried to swallow, tried to speak, but his mouth was paper. His shivers began again.
Lily wrapped her arms around him one final time and squeezed. Then she parted herself from Star Swirl and backed away from the door. Her eyes began to brim again.
“Star Swirl,” she said. “Remember me. And I promise, I’ll remember you. I do believe I love you.” She flashed Star Swirl one last radiant grin. “You remarkable pony.”
Star Swirl nodded, feeling the slight weight of the bell at his side. 
“Lily,” he said. “I believe I love you too. I’ll always remember you. You, and your wonderful laugh.”
And both of them knew that they had said as much as they could bear to.
Star Swirl opened the door and was gone.
Lily stood there for a moment. She wiped her eyes with her foreleg. Abruptly, she dropped her leg and hurried to the door.
Goodbye, she thought. One of us has to say it. Goodbye.
Lily opened the door. She walked into the street. She looked around.
Star Swirl had vanished.