Star Swirl the Bearded’s Guide to the Arcane Arts

by Midnight Quill

Chapter two: About Feathers and Friendship

May my journey have begone that day, it did at first not lead me far. To be more precisely: It lead me in my parent´s basement.
After all the happenings of the previous day I asked my father for permission to sift through his old textbooks. Although he only was a teacher for very basic magic, nothing according of my level, his teacher once had been Firmament Glimmer, one of the most educated unicorns throughout the whole land and at this time my next possible connection to the arcane art of magic.

I can not remember leaving the basement except for my need´s sake in the following week. And if my father would have had more than three books, I would for sure have stayed a while longer.

For me it was as well the time that I discovered the magic of the written word for myself. Was I in reading same as in writing (last one on demand of my father as well with my horn as with my muzzle) well-versed, yet had I never before read a book that became a key to an other world to me.
My textbooks were filled with instructions, orders and training tasks: Concentrate on the feather. Concentrate on the flow of energy from your horn, match it the size of the object. Concentrate on the position of the feather in the air. Concentrate on the location where you wand the feather to land.

The books of my father were complete opposites: Here, the author for the first time in my reading experience conjectured things, for the first time told about things and phenomenons he himself had no answer for. My father would have kept himself of ever telling me that he did not know everything.
Firmament Glimmer instead wrote of unimaginable tales, legends, observations and experiments.

He told of the dragons in the west which live in vulcans and the phoenixes who build their nests close to them; because the dragons would scare of natural enemies of the phoenixes while they themselves did not harm them nor their brood.
He told of his travels to the north, to the beautiful queen of the Umbrum and of the unique and powerful kind of magic he was able to observe with her.
He told of the tales of the marine pegasi which build their cities above oceans and supposedly were seeing a siren from time to time. “These must have too much salt water in their heads.”, did Master Glimmer, how I began to name him after a while, call that.
He told of his experiments with natural magic and how it let plants grow, of herbs which the Zebras mixed together and about the healing effect these potions possessed.

And he told of the legend of the alicorns.
It was the second time that I began to think about these beings.
“Those possess the strength of an earthpony, the horn and magic of a unicorn, the wings of a pegasus and the size of a full grown Horse.” he told.
“One family, of two of them, lives in the South. One family, of three of them, lives in the North. One family, of four of them, lives in the West. And one family, of five of them, lives in the East.”
At this time I did not want anything more than to get out of the basement of my father and travel to all cardinal points.

“Father.” I asked thereupon, “Why did you never tell me of anything that is written in these books?”

“Because that is unimportant stuff, stuff a unicorn should not bother with nor needs it to cope with his life.” he simply explained.
It hurt hearing those words out of my father´s muzzle. Did not he always motivate me to do ever greater things with my magic? To lift even bigger things, to create more and more complex objects? So I would find out what I was capable of?

Then it dawned on me.
What I was lifting were rocks in our garden. “You do not need a ungainly earthpony-rabble for that.” he always growled, “Only mental power.”
And what I was crafting were pieces of furniture or decoration. “Why ask a rough and brash pegasus to craft something out of metal, when you can create it out of thin air all by yourself.” my mother declared, her snoot so high in the air even White Leaf would be impressed.

At this moment I was simply disgusted by the realization of the way my parents had all the time spoken about the other kinds of our species. I decided that it was time for me to leave my parent´s house. I wanted to make more of my life and than the next teacher in a family of teachers, and I could no longer stand this denigration of others.

“Father.” I addressed the next day, “I find it the time to choose my own way. I want to leave this house and go on a journey. I am asking you for your blessing.”
(Yes, truly, a way of talking that might even be a bit too formal for our princess nowadays, but it were other times back then. With time, language has changed as well.)

It seems like my father thought long and hard about that while we were standing there, but finally he agreed to let me go. Maybe he thought, I would one day return. Surely he must have thought so.

“One more request, father. I want to ask you for a dowry.”

“You want money, to buy you food, drink and accommodation on your journey?"

“No. Those.” I said while levitating the three books of Firmament Glimmer between us.

“No money?” he asked. “And no keepsake of your family?" His voice shifted from surprise to deplore.

“These works are keepsake enough, father. And I have my savings from my work for master Leatherfoot, the hoovecobbler. I won´t need much.”

“Here, take this one at least.” he demand, while he took one of his coats out of his personal wardrobe.

Fascinated I examined the garment. It was unostentatious fashioned, but in shimmering graduations of blue, starting dark on top and getting more pale and bright to the bottom. As I held it reverent in my own magic I could feel that it was like most, if not all of my fathers clothes, woven from the finest wool.

“Wherever you go, everypony shall know that you are a unicorn of a posh house and family. And winter is coming. Take it, it shall be thine.”
I did my best to not show tears in front of my father and thanked him for the gift. Then I hugged both my parents for the last time and left the house.

The first weeks of my voyage were accompanied by many deprivations. I had to get used to no longer having access to my mother´s pantry, not any longer having a sea around to bath myself and neither was I woken up by a soft breeze anymore. Oh, the contrary was the case.
The flatlands outside our village were so stormy that at some times I thought about turning around.

But all the time, the weight of the three books close to my waist remembered me, what my destination was:
Santa Pegasi. The biggest pegasus-city throughout the entire Unicorn Kingdom.

In there, the clouds for the surrounding areas were produced and distributed. Each and every cloud would be pushed away with mighty gusts, what as a side effect caused the storms in the flatlands. For three days I believed that I would never again being able to hear anything than swishing in my ears, until I finally reached the destination of my hike:
A city in the skies, so huge that it´s shadow covered an area worthy of an earl or countess to rule. Buildings made of nothing but clouds so high that they seemed to scrap on the firmament. And more pegasi than I had ever seen before.

“Hold!” I heard a guard shout, and with a look in the sky I could easy spot him and his comrade while they flew down onto my position.
“Traveler, who are you?” they asked.

I introduced myself as a Star Swirl. No epithet, no noble family to which I could refer myself. Simply Star Swirl.
They wanted to know why I was there, and with my answer “To research magic”, they burst into laughter. And after a few more giggled questions and my assurance that I was not lost and my foolish attempt to explain them that I wanted to do researches on pegasus-magic, they both rolled on the grass, laughing.

The following comments from them, even if not quite nice, brought at least a very specific point up I until this point had totally forgotten about: How was I supposed to get into the city, and after arriving there, how could I avoid leaving the city made of clouds on a very vertical way?
I remembered from the books of Master Glimmer that there was something called "cloud-walking spells", but sadly, he never wrote one of them entirely down.

Yes, dear reader, that setback I had to face on my first journey: Weeks of traveling and poor meals to be laughed at from two guards, standing at the bottom of a city I was apparently not getting a single hoof into.
That was when I saw the balloon which held course to the city. It hold the emblem of Prince Bullion, the son of King Stronghold and Queen Admira.

“There is an existing embassy of the Unicorn Kingdom in you city, right?” I asked them, and for two of my coins (two of less than thirty, so a considerable amount of my wealth) they were willingly to fly me up to the embassy, where the floors were made of solid wood and finally an other unicorn could tell me a couldwalking-spell.
(“Like silk so soft, when I step a hoof on you get right now tough.” In view of this simplicity I could have punched my hoof in my face)
But now I finally had arrived (and set my clock for every day to re-cast the spell) , and my studies could begin.

“Magic? Pegasus-magic? Are you insane?”

“Young unicorn, I fear that thyself may have inhal´d too much smoke from thy fireplace considering this confusedness at thy young age.”

“Hahaha, if I had magic, I would lay lazy on the next could and move the water up to the cloudforge from there instead of doing it twice a week with bare wingpower.”

How, I asked myself, could it be that flying beings of easy two to five hundredweights but only with wings in the best case of the size of a condor could not a single time question themselves why they were at all capable of flying but only were telling me something about flight musculature.

I was wearing the coat of my father permanently that time while the pegasi around me did not seem to be bothered by the cold, windy air at all. My speculation, that that was as well an effect of their magic was granted as much belief as a drunk farmland pony when telling that a manticore drank all of it´s cider.

So how was I supposed to find out how pegasus-magic worked if not even the pegasi themselves did know it?
The key for it should be a friend from old times...

“I had no idea they now are letting potentially suicidal unicorns in the city.” I heard a voice from behind. “How did you manage it? Did you corrupt the guards with a slice of your mother´s apple pie?”

When I turned myself around, my heart was skipping several beats. It was Clouddancer.
I had not seen her since years. Although we both had spend much time together back then, after much too less moons her parents had decided to move to a bigger city. Obviously, they had been talking about Santa Pegasi.

It had been so many years ago that two worlds collided when my memories about that cheerful, white-coated filly with the bright green mane with wild stripes of a far darker pink fell like hit by a hammer in the view of this young mare that was grown in beauty as much as in her overall appearance.
She was furthermore standing in front of me in the full armor of a town´s guard. Yeah, my old friend went to the military, and estimated by the imposing of her armor, she had climbed in ranks.

Her armor was made from platings in different sizes, constructed of steel and bronze and covered her complete upper body up to her neck, her back and flanks and the front sides of her legs. It left her wings and her tummy free and looked over all very flexible. It was completely painted in a dark blue (that besides very well fittet the lighter color of her coat), then decorated with golden-striped epaulettes on her shoulders.

Since her shift was just over, we decided to sit down in a cafe. We drank hot chocolate and talked for hours about long past days. In the time I learned how to manipulate the orbits of sun an moon, took lessons from other unicorns and apart from that experienced nothing at all, I became a bit envy when she started to tell about how she joined the city guards of Santa Pegasi and climbed up to the rank of a non-commissioned officer and even got the commando over a small platoon of supersonic troops.

“Remember back then, when I saved you from that tree?” she asked, before she lifted up her armor and presented me her cutiemark. It showed a sharp triangle, breaking through a ring of clouds. No, not clouds, I corrected myself. Sound.

“Flying fast seems to be my special talent.” she said, then told me about how she broke the sound barrier for the first time with a flight from the city down to the lake. And while I was not a big sympathizer of the military, her achievement did impress me. She was not any older than me, and with sixteen already having discovered one´s special talent was outstanding.

Then it hit me like a flash: With whom if not her could I study pegasus-magic?
I came back to the reason of my visit in this city and with pleasure she declare her willingness to support me in my studies as much as her free time allowed her.
And she showed me the city´s library.

It turned out that there had been and still were scholars in Santa Pegasi which had already taken up on my ideas long ago.
For several days I read about aviatic, aerodynamic and aviation, meteorology, the history of flying and anatomy of pegasi, until I reached my final conclusion: They all have not the slightest idea what they are talking about!

It must be said that I truly do not often speak bad of other academics, but this, what they had pulled out of their feathers was simply horse apples, not worth the parchment it was written on.
Weather manipulation was described as a combination of inherited talent and plain effort while flying itself was described as “A gift of nature, to separate pegasi from the simple, earthbound pony folk.” By Celestia´s shimmering tail, something as nonsense as that I had never heard before and barely in the subsequent years.

I decided that it was time to come back on Clouddancer´s offer. Or, to be exact: To again do something really stupid.

“I shall do WHAT?” she asked me, completely aghast from my request.

“Do a supersonic flight with me! I want to try to track your magic down while we fly. Please, Clouddancer. It could be a breakthrough in the research!”

As insane as I must have sounded that day, it was, maybe in combination with her own eager excitement, enough to persuade her.
We unfortunately could not find a foal-harness to tie me to her chest, but instead a friend/comrade of her and a rope.
So we were standing on the edge of a cloud and her friend was angrily telling us that she would not come down and clean up afterwards.

“Trust me: We are going to be fine.”, Clouddancer said to soothe her.

As her friend did not seem to be satisfied with that, she added: “You can trust me that I know what I say and do, okay? Did I ever lie to you?”

As her friend shook her hear, Clouddancer nodded triumphant. “Going to be back in just a minute.” she ensured, before she checked the ropes one last time, obviously not in the mood of loosing her “package” on the way down.

I was tied to her chest as planned, simply because her wings had to stay completely free so she could get the most out of them, and in the name of Luna, how would it have looked if I would have been tied to her lower back?
She looked me in my eyes, checking if I was ready as well, and the moment I gently let my horn glow she cached a breeze with her already spread wings and jumped.

NEVER, neither before nor sadly ever again in my entire life had I felt that kind of acceleration. Santa Pegasi was mere seven hundred cords above the ground and a pegasus has to accelerate really, really hard to get the needed speed in the given, short time of fall to break through the sound barrier.
My cheeks were probably glowing more than my horn from all this excitement while I tried to focused myself on her body mechanics.

I could sense her flight muscles, which contracted in an insane frequency, her breath, quick but steady as a metronome, providing her body with the needed oxygen. And I could feel, how...
There is no fitting word in our language to describe the feeling of floating magic. Even I tend to use the word “flow” because it is so simple and seems so fitting. But magic does not “flow”. Neither does it “stream”. Nor “flood”. We need to get away from the water-metaphors if we want to achieve something here.
Magic moves like the sun in the firmament. The sun as well does not “flow” in her orbit. She “slides” along her way. She... now I´ve got it, she “pushes” along. Magic equals a whirling fluid, that... Ah, damn it. So back to the water-metaphor again. Fine.

Her magic flowded through her body, like made available by an invisible force and subconscious guided by her (NOW I´ve got it! Magic is being guided! Or cunducted!) into her wings, until it had reached every fine limb of every of her feathers. It was surprisingly strong magic, and her coat was permeated with it as well. Her magic seemed to wrap around her like a cocoon.

“A cocoon? For what the hay something like a cocoon?” I was asking myself, a bare second before we broke trough the sound barrier.
Although I never had any affection for swimming, not to mention jumping into water from significant heights, since that day I have a very clear idea of how it feels when you hit the surface. While water may be thicker than air, this cancels out with increasing speed of impact. The sound barrier is only a hard wall of air, and air can be one unyielding teacher.

My bruises needed weeks to heal, but my theories had been right: Pegasi possess magic! And they could, if at least subconscious-passive, use it at their will and needs.

They own magic which will be guided into their wings (haha, never again these “flowing”-metaphors!) to give them flying power (aviation as much as speed) and as well magic that could close around their bodies to protect them from any kind of air pressure as well as from the cold.
Last one could be meticulous observed by me when we were walking around the following weeks, myself afraid of freezing my tail off while Clouddancer wore nothing more than her armor of flexible metal plates or nothing at all. I got myself a very annoying cold in that time although I wore my father´s coat. 700 cords above the ground means that it gets even colder than on the bottom and I really wished that I possessed some natural magic to protect myself from the cold without even thinking about it. I for sure later learned a spell for that, but that did not the slightest bit help me when I was laying in her living room, trembling although her fireplace was lit and being nursed back to health by her.

That at least gave me some enforced time to think about my observations and continue the initial question a bit further: What is magic and where does it come from?
I already asked myself that a while ago, while thinking about my own magic. Did one really “own” his magic or only the ability to guide and use it? Did it have a differed source?
Did an unicorn´s magic really come from within himself and was different from everypony else´s magic or did he just access a natural source? And if that was so, that would mean that one did not possess a strong or weak magic, but instead a strong or weak ability to use it? (Maybe a dissimilar strong connection to the origin/source of the magic?)
What ever the answer was, I was certain that the same applied to pegasi as well.

Weeks turned into months, time in that I could enjoy Clouddancer´s presence and hospitality very much. Ever since that day we landed down in the grass close to the lake below the floating city (well, crashing would be the better word, but we made it at least down as a whole), our old friendship had been reignited.
Sadly, I knew that I could not stay in Santa Pegasi forever and I regretted it very much, but I had a journey ahead of me, a mission to accomplish, and with that I thought that nothing, not even a rekindled friendship, had to stop me.