//------------------------------//
// King Klav-Mar 
// Story: The Tutelage of Star Swirl 
// by Moose Mage 
//------------------------------//

	A heavy gray mist boiled over the earth. And in the mist stood Everfree Forest, a crooked maze of tangles and thorns. And deep in Everfree Forest, a scream split the air.
A deer ran. She flew over roots and briars and boulders, she dodged the clawed branches reaching down from the wild canopy above, always moving, round black eyes darting and quivering, possessed by the mindless spirit of self-preservation. 
But still, however fast she ran, she could not outrun the sounds; the heavy, guttural breathing, the growls, the leaves and twigs pulping under massive paws. Always just behind her, always closer.
The deer tore through the forest. If it weren’t so dark, if she could break out of the woods, if the mist would burn away, if she could find a clearing – she might live. But the deep panting just behind her declared otherwise. Hopelessness threatened to drown her. But still she ran. A leap over a fallen log, a splash through a stream, a sprint through the trees – 
The deer tripped on a root and fell sprawling to the forest floor, all flailing limbs and wide eyes, and before she knew she was dead, the beast was on her.
The snap of her neck echoed like the crack of a whip through the Everfree. The hunter stood over his prize.
The Jackal was long and lean. His wild charcoal-gray fur rose and fell, heaving on his breath. He tasted the blood on his teeth and growled.
He sank his fangs into the warm meat of the body, and, dragging the deer, he made his way home, dissolving back into the twisting black trees.




The cave was well hidden.
The mouth of the cavern opened up at the bottom of a cliff face, only just large enough for a bear to pass through. Dark green foliage hung down everywhere, obscuring the entrance – an invisible portal to an impossible world.
The charcoal-gray Jackal came to the cave mouth, blood trailing in the leaves behind him, the deer’s bones grinding against one another, splintered and split from the journey. The Jackal smiled through his mouthful of fur. 
Yes, yes, come, my pretty, he thought. Home we go, just you and Ivan, Ivan and you. But shh, shh, my pretty, my brothers are asleep. We will go down deep, deep into the tunnels, and we will be alone, just the two of us, and you will be mine, all mine.
Ivan backed through the bushes and branches, for all the world seeming to disappear into the wall of the cliff. The last half-beams of light from the overhead canopy were extinguished, and Ivan’s eyes adjusted to the comfortable blackness.
The cave was vast, and the floor sloped down, rocky and uneven. The curved walls were rough and grimy, the ceiling and floor, no different. And scattered everywhere on the floor were the hulking, sleeping forms of dozens of Jackals.
Ivan released the deer from his jaws and set it on the ground, as quietly as he could. He turned and surveyed the cave, searching for a path through the bodies of his brothers. He saw one, leading down to the back of the cave, to the tunnels. About half a dozen tunnels, yawning holes that snaked down like tendrils into the foundations of the earth.
Ivan picked up the deer again, and began to pull it across the cave. The only sounds were the scrape of the carcass on the rocks and the grating, elemental breathing of the beasts. Ivan began to drool. To have the deer to himself, finally, a proper meal to himself – 
“Who’s that?”
Ivan’s ears shot up. The deer dropped, he whirled around.
A figure materialized from the depths of a tunnel. A Jackal; black, graying fur; and tall, at least a head taller than Ivan; and with wild, dancing eyes. He walked toward Ivan, jaws agape, ears flat.
Ivan licked his chops, standing between the figure from the tunnel and his prize. “Go away, Gleb. It’s daylight out – go to sleep.”
“What’s that, Ivan?”
“What?”
“Behind you. The sweet-smelling – ”
“Nothing. Go to sleep, Gleb, go away.”
A growl began to rumble in Gleb’s chest. Sleeping Jackals all around began to shift on the ground, restless, their nostrils flaring.
“You were going to keep it all for yourself,” said Gleb, his voice rising. “We’re starving, and you’re keeping the meat for yourself.”
Ivan’s hackles flew up. “Keep your voice down,” he said, backing away, back to the carcass. “It’s none of your business, it’s no one’s business if I – ”
There was a snarl behind Ivan. He flew around – another Jackal had woken up, snuck up behind him, and now it pounced on the deer, pulling it away. Ivan lunged at the deer, teeth snapping, but too late; the thief tore the deer across the room and set to work on it, crunching, red droplets splattering the walls. 
All at once, the cave floor exploded with life. Jackals’ eyes flew open, noses quivering, and they flew at the smell, converging on the source like piranhas. Howls bore through the air, echoing all around, and before Ivan could reach his stolen prize, a mound of Jackals had descended on the deer in a wild frenzy of fur and teeth.
It was over quickly. Within moments the Jackals dispersed, and all the was left of Ivan’s prize was a stain on the ground. The deer was gone, bones and all. A few stragglers still sat there, licking ravenously at the puddles on the ground. 
“You filth!” Gleb barked at Ivan. “You traitor!”
Suddenly Ivan was the focal point of attention. All of the cave was awake by now, and the Jackals circled Ivan, eying him, hungry and suspicious. Ivan shivered, his tail twitching between his legs.
“You call me filth!” Ivan cried. “Traitor! I’m no filth, I’m no traitor! How could you – ”
“We’re all starving, we’ve all been starving for months. Glutton! You wanted that deer for yourself!”
“Never! I was – ”
A small gray Jackal shrieked, “But it was so skinny! Not much fat, no, not much muscle, either! When will we get some real food? Some real meat?”
There were shouts of consent from all. Ivan scanned the crowd, searching for a way out.
“We’ll have real meat!” Ivan shouted. “Our king promised us! King Klav-Mar promised us a life outside the caves! Don’t we trust our King?”
The angry growls subsided around the room. This was true; the king had promised them all a better life.
Gleb advanced on Ivan, his hackles up, his eyes rolling in his skull. “You’re a liar, Ivan – the king promised us a life outside the caves, yes, but he never said a word about meat.”
A fierce chill rippled through the room. The Jackals nodded, lips curling into snarls – yes, there was never any mention of food from the king. Ivan was a traitor and a glutton and a liar.
Ivan’s fur was matted with sweat, his legs threatened to buckle beneath him. “We must trust our king!” he shouted, unable to think of anything else. “King Klav-Mar is the smartest of them all! He will give us what we want, what we need!”
“Brothers,” thundered Gleb, calling out over the crowd, “we have been hungry for a very long time. And here stands Ivan, with more meat on him than most of us. Undoubtedly, he gained that meat from sneaky meals out in the forest and deep in the tunnels while we’ve slept – when he should have shared it! Don’t you think, brothers, that the time has finally come for Ivan to share his meat with us?”
Ivan began to back away from Gleb, but the Jackals were all around him, their saliva dripping to the floor, their growls long and loud. He saw them, he felt them, slowly closing in around him, and his head whipped in every direction, always to the sight of long, crooked fangs.
“No! You mustn’t! Remember, King Klav-Mar is – King Klav-Mar is – ”
Hissss…
All Jackals froze. All growls stopped. A sound. A new sound, unlike anything any of them had heard before. All eyes turned to the mouth of the cave. It was a strange, crackling hiss, like a wind flying through dead plants.
Suddenly, something burst into the cave, flying high over them, hissing and whizzing and fizzing. Their hunger forgotten, they dove for cover, yelping, scrambling to the sides of the cave. The object landed with a hollow thunk on the floor. All of them watched it from afar – its flight was over, and it was still as the grave, but the hissing would not stop.
A moment of stillness passed. Finally, treading carefully, Gleb began walking to the object. His ears were down, his body, low to the ground, ready to pounce or run at the first sign of life from the lump on the cave floor.
He stood over the thing. No, it was definitely not alive. Then why was it hissing? He lowered his head and examined it.
“Well?” a Jackal called out. “What is it? I’ve never heard the likes of it.”
“I can’t place its smell, not at all,” said another.
Gleb’s black eyes narrowed. The object was red, and oddly shaped. Out of one end, there was a string. Gleb lifted a paw to protect his eyes; there was a light there, on the string. It was on fire. Yes, that was the hissing. The string was on fire, and slowly it was burning away.
He reached out to touch the object, to see if it was alive after all – hopefully it would not bite – and all at once, Gleb saw it. The shape of it, the way it was carved – it was a head.
The head of a dragon.
Gleb’s eyes opened wide, he backed away from the head. “Dragon’s head!” he cried. “A dragon’s head!”
The word “dragon” filled the room, and suddenly every Jackal feared for its life. “Dragons!” they cried. “To the tunnels, to the outside world, run, run from the dragons – ”
The string finished burning.
As if a thunderbolt had been hidden under the dragon’s tongue, the head burst open with an earth-shaking BOOM. And everywhere, inescapable, was light – the light of fire, the light of day, bombarding them all, falling over them like an avalanche. They screamed, they shrieked, their eyes dried up. Hair was burning everywhere.
Hissss…
Another object flew in from the mouth of the cave. And then, hissss – another, and then another. Jackals tried to crawl to the tunnels, tried to find a boulder to hide behind, but the dragon-lights washed over everything. Every boom and every flash brought a new wave of screams.
When the last of the lights went out, there were no more screams.
Ivan lay on the floor. He listened – crushing, absolute quiet hung over him. Save for the whining; his own whining. The smell of burning filled him. He lay there on his stomach, and reaching with his front legs, he began to crawl across the cave floor, to the tunnels, to the cold, lightless tunnels, so close, and slowly getting closer…
A knocking sound began behind him. 
Ivan froze. Again, the knocking, from the entrance of the cave. Rhythmic, relentless. Hooftseps.
The crawling began again, faster than before, as fast as he could manage. The tunnels, Ivan thought. The tunnels are safe. But his legs, scraping on the rock – his legs, so burnt and raw. Such pain. Every rock and every pebble was a white hot coal on his skin, and every inch forward was a struggle. And the knock, knock, knock of the hoofsteps behind him, pounding into his head. He slowed. His claws scratched uselessly at the ground.
Ivan stopped. He lay there among his still brothers, heart pounding, insides twisting in knots. 
Just behind him, the hooftsteps came to a halt.
Ivan smelled the intruder, and knew what stood over him. With the last of his strength, he turned himself over to face the pony.
Ivan laughed at the pony. He laughed at the outline of a sweeping cloak and a pointed hat. He laughed, wild and breathless, eyes bulging.
“You are a nothing!” said Ivan, his words riding on the laughter, his lips curling from his teeth. “You cannot kill us! My king knows better. We can all live again! All of us, live again. My king has said so. My king is smart! King Klav-Mar is the smartest of them all!”
The pony stepped forward and looked down at Ivan, its face coming into view, as cold and firm-set as the stone. The figure spoke:
“Not anymore.”
Ivan choked on his laughter. 
There was a flash of white light from the pony’s horn, and all crumbled to ashes.




Star Swirl chose a tunnel and descended.
His horn was lit as a white torch before him. The tunnels were filled with twists and turns, forks, alternate passages. Star Swirl ventured forever down, marking every route and every unused path with his mind. It would be so easy to lose the way. But Star Swirl would not get lost. He could not.
There were no more Jackals to do away with, at least not in the tunnels he journeyed in. He was always ready for them, nonetheless. But there was no tremor of fear in his legs. His heartbeat was steady and strong.
There came a point where the twists and turns ended. The tunnel shot ahead into the dark, straight and sloping down.
Star Swirl doused the light of his horn. He would be coming to the heart of the place soon, and he would not give away his presence before the time was right.
And so he went on, journeying blind. Walking in the dark, he lost all trustworthy sense of time. A minute might have been an hour, an hour, a minute. The only constants were his hooves on the stone, and a muffled, metallic clinking. The sound of a bell, wrapped in the folds of a heavy cloak.
Suddenly the slope ended. Star Swirl stood on flat, level ground.
Star Swirl stepped forward. The echoes of his hooves rang long and deep around him; he had entered some sort of massive cavern. He had arrived.
Still, he did not light his horn. He stood and listened. It was still daylight outside. The creature he sought might be asleep. Star Swirl strained his ears, listening for the rumble of sleeping breath.
Softly as he could, he stepped forward. Star Swirl could feel the magic building inside him, rising up and waiting to burst at the crown of his skull. At any moment, he could let fly the lights of his horn. 
Then the voice spoke.
It was so low, so thunderous, rumbling out of the perfect blackness; Star Swirl could feel the vibrations of the rock beneath him. He took a step back.
The voice said:
“Well. I had wondered when you would come, Assassin. Tell me; why has your mistress taken so long?”
The voice seemed to rain down from all over. Star Swirl could not make out the point of its origin. It was strong, but at the same time, somehow tired, somehow resigned. A sighing hurricane. Star Swirl braced himself, his bottled magic storming inside him. 
No more words. He had come for one reason, and he would be satisfied.
The magic exploded inside him, pounding in his veins, flying up into his horn, bursting forth – 
The darkness remained unbroken.
Star Swirl’s heartbeat at last began to quicken.
Something was wrong. He tried again, focusing all of his skill, all of his raw will. He could feel it working, he could feel the warm rush of magic in his horn. But he could see no light. It was as if the air around him was an absorbent mist of black, a wall that could not be broken down.
The voice sounded again.
“There is only one of you,” it said. “I am surprised. I expected your mistress to send more. Are you strong, then? Or clever? Speak.”
Star Swirl began to pace around the dark, feeling his way with his hooves. Fine, then, he thought, nostrils flaring. You’d like to talk. We will talk.
“I am clever enough,” said Star Swirl, his voice thin and meatless after the thundering words from the dark, “to recognize a magically amplified voice when I hear one.”
“Hmm,” said the voice. “Observant. But it doesn’t matter. You have been sent by Princess Celestia to kill me. And now, you know it cannot be done. But I will not kill you. Leave. Tell her Royal Highness what transpired here. If it’s any consolation, you can at least mention your slaughter of my subjects. That should earn you some sort of royal title, at the very least.”
Star Swirl continued treading carefully around the room, ears straining, listening to the voice, trying to find its source. Keep it talking, he thought. Keep it talking.
“And why can’t you be killed?” asked Star Swirl.
“You may search for me, if you wish, but you will never find me. If it was my will, I could keep you wandering about in the dark, blind and in circles, until you fall over dead from hunger and exhaustion. I have the magic for that. But instead, I shall make clear to you the path back to the surface.”
“Jackals cannot use magic.”
“I am more than a Jackal. I am the King of Jackals.”
“King Klav-Mar.”
“Yes,” said the voice. “I am King Klav-Mar. And now you will leave.”
“I will not leave.”
The voice paused. Star Swirl stopped walking. He felt as if a great eye was peering down at him.
“I see,” said the voice. “I’m afraid that you are not as clever as you think yourself to be, Assassin. Know when you are beaten. Leave. I may yet decide to kill you.”
Star Swirl lifted his face up, staring down the nothingness. “I’m no assassin,” he said.
“No assassin? Are you here to kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Aha. A riddle. A unicorn has come to kill me, yet he claims not to be an assassin. What are you, then?”
Star Swirl’s face was fixed, an unblinking mask of granite.
“I am here to kill you,” he said, “but I was not sent by Princess Celestia.”
The voice was silent. Star Swirl imagined what lay beyond the darkness, claws clicking against the floor as it prepared to pounce. Or perhaps the room was empty, and King Klav-Mar was the darkness itself.
The voice spoke again. It was softer this time, slower, the storm inside the words subsiding.
“Ah,” it said. “Then I think I know why you’ve come. You have lost something to us. Is that right?”
Star Swirl was silent.
The voice sighed. “It is an old story,” it said. “Vengeance upon the monsters. I have seen it play out for time immemorial. I know every line, every character by heart. And I am sorry. You do not care that I am, but I am.”
All of Star Swirl’s mind was alight, trying to solve the puzzle. Break through this darkness, he thought. How can I break through this darkness…
The voice went on. “I should tell you, Assassin – for that is what you are, whether you admit it or not – that not so long ago, I sent a letter to Princess Celestia. I proposed a future of peace for our two races. I proposed a Jackal settlement, where Jackals can be educated and civilized. I proposed a future. Now… I have not forgotten that your kind has seen pain at the mercy of the Jackals. You know how Jackals hunger, how their minds fall apart at the very smell of pony blood. And you fear us, as you should. But you are all so consumed with your fear, with your anger, with your own bloodlust, that you would never even once consider that we could overcome our nature. My letter was sincere, Assassin. Every word. I do not want to be feared. The Jackals are so much fewer now. Peace is our only chance to survive. But do you think that Princess Celestia is interested in the survival of my race? I tell you now, Assassin, that Princess Celestia will come for me, just as you have. But I had to make an attempt at peace. I had to. I could not let my brothers die off scattered and alone. I brought them together, as many as I could. This was our last chance.”
“She’s dead.”
Star Swirl spat the words in a cold fury. “She’s dead,” he said, his voice rising. “She was murdered. You couldn’t stop them from killing her. Is that your precious 'peace?'"
Star Swirl’s blood ran thick, his breath was a whistle in his dry throat. 
“I understand,” said the voice. “I do. And I swear to you, I know nothing of the murder that has brought you here. My subjects… they are difficult to control. Their nature is all violence and gnashing teeth. What can their purpose be in this world, Assassin? What purpose can there be, for savages in a land of harmony? The world is too small for us. We must overcome our nature. It can be done. I am proof of it. I am a Jackal. And I can use magic. I have intelligence, I have empathy. I will share the light of knowledge with my brothers.”
Star Swirl’s voice was hardly a whisper. 
“No,” he said. “You are the only one. I’ve seen the Jackals. If you truly are a Jackal, and if you truly are intelligent – you are alone. I know… I am the same. I've always felt it. A chasm between myself and the rest of the world. No matter how much the chasm shrinks, it will always be there. I wish that it would vanish. I will work to diminish it for all my days. But we, the outsiders; we will always be alone.”
Star Swirl could feel something twisting behind his granite mask. Yes; now that he said it, he knew it was the truth, and the truth was horrifying.
“I do not know you, Assassin,” said the voice. “But I will prove you wrong. Our last chance isn’t gone yet. We’re going to live, Assassin. We’re going to change, and we’re going to live – ”
With a cry, Star Swirl sank his teeth into his leg.
The blood came swelling up immediately, hot on Star Swirl’s fur, dripping on the stone floor. The rusted, salted smell poured into his nostrils. Star Swirl’s mind opened up, probing the magic around him – 
Yes. Something had changed in the magical blackness. Just for an instant, a fraction of a second, the voice’s concentration was broken. The wall of night shimmered as if about to melt, and Star Swirl, finally, found the point of origin, the spot radiating magic; he had to act, while the window of opportunity was open, before the nothingness closed in again – 
BANG.
A bolt of searing white lightning hammered a crack into the air, elemental and fearless, ripping aside the darkness, exposing the whole of the massive, dome-shaped cave.
Far at the other end of the cavern, the bolt of lightning found its mark.
There was a scream. Not the scream of the voice, ancient and low, but a flesh-and-blood cry of pain and surprise.
The lightning bolt faded, and the cave was black again.
This time, Star Swirl’s horn lit easily. The point of white light illuminated the cave, cold and ghostly. And from across the cavern, Star Swirl could see a mass lying on the floor.
He walked to it. 
As he approached, Star Swirl saw the creature’s feeble attempts at movement, trying to lift a paw, struggling just to breathe. It had barely moved by the time Star Swirl stood over it.
The Jackal was the size of Star Swirl. Its hair was all white with age, and thinning all over, revealing the dried up gray skin beneath. Or perhaps it only seemed gray in Star Swirl’s stark white light. Its claws were cracked and worn, its tail was a lifeless worm on the ground.
And on the creature’s head was mounted the crown of a skull. The skull of a unicorn.
A long white horn protruded from the center of the skull. Or at least, it once had been long and white. It was broken and blackened and smoking. Splintered, cracked pieces lay smoldering on the ground.
The creature’s head turned. Star Swirl could count the threadlike tendons working in its neck as it faced him. Its breathing was labored. Its eyes were made yellow by cataracts.
The Jackal coughed, and spoke. Its voice was so very quiet, so very weak. But precise. A razor cutting through the silence.
“Now you’ve seen me,” said King Klav-Mar. “Now you see me as I am. And I am not a paragon of my kind. I am only the king.”
Klav-Mar lifted his trembling paw and removed the unicorn skull from his head. It landed on the ground. Its hollow crack echoed everywhere.
“See this, Assassin. See this horn. I won it. I fought a unicorn and bested him. Not with brute strength, either. With my wits. I outsmarted him, and he died.”
Klav-Mar’s withered mouth curved up into a smile. “I became more than a Jackal. I overcame that. I was nothing, and then I was a king. My brothers saw my intelligence, my strength, and I built my following… Oh, I was going to work such wonders, Assassin. That was my purpose. What else can we do? What else, but learn our parts in the world, and strive to play them out?”
Klav-Mar’s eyes began to glaze over. The curve of his mouth slowly loosened. He examined Star Swirl, curious and fading.
“And what about you, Assassin?” Klav-Mar asked. “Have you learnt your part? As I leave this world, I leave behind me suffering and failure. What will you leave behind?”
Klav-Mar placed a paw on the broken remains of the unicorn horn and closed his eyes.
Star Swirl’s horn bloomed with daylight, and it was over.



The sun was setting. Whither’s Hollow was all quiet. All were in their homes, with their loved ones, trying to recover, trying to move on.
All but two. Two ponies sat on the outskirts of town, waiting for their friend to come home.
Emory and Pan waited on the road, looking out at the horizon, looking at the dirt path beneath their feet, looking wearily at each other, as the red, dying daylight buzzed around them.
There was a crack. Star Swirl appeared on the road before them.
Instantly alert, the two ran to him. Star Swirl’s face was hidden under the wide brim of his hat. His cloak was worn and dirty.
Star Swirl lifted the hat from his head and let it fall to the ground. His face was gaunt. His eyes were set deep in his face.
Emory and Pan searched for words, for questions, for comforts. Emory raised a hoof, to put on his friend’s shoulder.
Emory froze; Star Swirl had started to shake. Star Swirl turned his head to the ground.
“Emory… Pan…” 
The tears began to fall. The granite crumbled. “I’m… I’m so very tired,” said Star Swirl. “I’ve never been so tired in all m-my life…”
Emory and Pan rushed to him. The three of them stood there, embracing, supporting one another as the night rolled in. They closed their eyes, and they were together. And for a moment, that was enough.