//------------------------------//
// XXIII. Revelations 
// Story: Memoirs of a Magic Earth Pony 
// by The Lunar Samurai 
//------------------------------//

	The last thing I expected as I drifted into the void beyond my reality was a feeling of striking something. My hind legs struck something solid and immediately crumbled beneath my weight. The sensation brought me back to the reality I had so desperately wanted to escape. As my back hit the ground, my eyes drifted open. There was something inside of me that wanted to quickly diagnose the problem and return to that blissful void beyond this world.
As I regained my senses and the room around me became clear once more, I realized what had happened: the rope had snapped, or at least I thought it had.
However, as my vision sharpened more and the sounds of the room returned to my ears, I noticed something strange. I heard my name called from somewhere.
“Is he going to be alright?” Another asked.
“I’m not sure, Spark,” the first voice responded.
I rolled my head in the direction of the voices. As I made that movement, I felt their attention turn to me. Gentle hoofsteps heralded the approach of a familiar stallion with a red hat where his horn should be. As Eventstar’s image drifted into view I remembered those images that had flashed before my eyes only moments ago.
“Evenstar?” I whispered. Only when I spoke his name was I aware of the noose that was still tight around my neck. 
I would have begun to panic, but Evenstar gently knelt down and removed the rope. His eyes said it all. I could see pain deep within his mind as he tossed the noose to the side.
“Starswirl…” He whispered as he looked to me once more. “Why?” His eyes were filled with tears, as though he had nearly lost one of his own foals. “This isn’t the way.”
That pain that streamed down his face brought forth my own tears. I didn’t once stop to think about the damage that my escape would inflict on the ponies I knew. I never thought for a moment that I was worth something to anypony but myself.
“I… I’m sorry…” I whispered as my vision blurred. “I just…” I wasn’t able to put my thoughts into words, I was only able to let tears roll down my cheeks.
“It’s alright, Starswirl,” Evenstar said. His voice sounded as though a weight had been lifted from his chest. “You’re alright… you’re safe.”
We simply stayed there for a moment, letting our minds wander to the what ifs that the noose so boldly prompted. What if I hadn’t been spared? What if Evenstar had found me swinging from those rafters?
The more I pondered the gravity of what had just happened, and the more I think about it now, I realize that my life was almost cut short well beyond my fruitful years. At the time, I could only think of Evenstar and the damage I had caused, but now, looking back, I see this as one of the most formative times in my life.
While I was swinging by my neck, I felt a peculiar sense wash over me. In the face of finality, in the true inevitability of death, I had been given a vision. I saw and felt a sense of accomplishment as I watched my life unfold before me. I was able to see objectively for the first time, I was able to take in the whole picture. There, in front of my face, was the answer. Nothing that had brought me stress in my life was necessary. No matter how many times the professors preached their lies of conformity or how often the unicorns looked down on my kind, none of it was required the life that I was leading. I wasn’t going to be able to escape their oppression, but I was going to be able to escape my own.
I didn’t need college; I had never looked into the future beyond my schooling to see where I would end up. I was so busy trying to break free of a box that I had put myself into. The door to the cell was wide open, but I was busy trying to file away the bars.
“Evenstar?” I muttered, breaking the chilling silence of my dorm. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Starswirl… It’s perfectly okay.” The stallion, one of the greatest minds in theoretical magic, then knelt down and hugged me.
There was something urgent I needed to tell him, something I desperately needed to make known, but for that brief moment it could wait. As I felt his warmth radiate through my frigid body, I simply let my eyes drift closed as a smile crept across my face. It was one of the most beautifully comfortable things I had ever experienced.
He drew away what seemed like hours later and I started speaking once more. “I saw my future, Evenstar.”
“What?”
“I saw what I’m really meant to do.” I looked into his eyes and smiled. “I quit.”
“You quit?” He asked, obviously confused by my statement.
“Yeah. I’m done with the Theoretical Magic Degree. It’s obvious I can’t learn it here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn it. This school is amazing for getting such knowledge, but a degree doesn’t mean fulfilment in life. I’m meant to do magic, I’m meant to dream up worlds where I have complete control of my life, but my life isn’t meant to be supplemented with a degree.” I laid my head back and let a new stream of tears flow down my face. They were joyful this time. I had removed the problem that had plagued my life since the day I had arrived on campus. “I’m leaving the university.”
Saying it wasn’t a terrifying prospect would be a lie, but there was much more gained than lost as I cast away that burden. I had so desperately tried to shrug it away for the past months but the only solution was to stop climbing the mountain itself. There were some things I would never be rid of, like my race, or the passage of time, but I could control my future.
“Are you sure?” Evenstar asked. It wasn’t a concerned question, rather it was one of anticipation, as though he had wanted for me to come to this conclusion.
I silently nodded. This wasn’t what I wanted my life to be, I had no desire to become somepony I wasn’t. I needed to break the mold, to push the boundaries, but I had been going about it all the wrong way. I had nearly perished because of my mindset. Despite my desires to change the world, I wasn’t willing to let my own intuition guide me. I wanted so desperately to be told what to do, how to think, speak, or act, and I wasn’t able to conform to that standard. The result was an attempt on my life and the near complete ruin of the impact I have made since then.
I would have told you I became a new stallion that day, I would love to believe it, but as I see so clearly now, I was only starting a more difficult journey. I wasn’t able to tread on the trail of unicorns; that much was obvious, but I was able to blaze my own path to the end. It was then that I realized that my life, despite how convolutedly dark my reality had become, I was able to cast it all away by simply changing the world around me.
Spark left soon after, presumably because he had other matters to attend to, but Evenstar stayed with me that night. All we did was sit in silence, graciously appreciating the company that we gave to each other. I could feel like he wanted to tell me something, to tell me that we weren’t much different, but something was holding him back. Something was keeping him from opening up to me. That didn’t phase me, however, as I readily accepted the silence in order to catch my own bearings on the world.
It wasn’t until the early morning that either of us spoke up. Surprisingly, it was me who said the first word. “Evenstar?”
“Yes Starswirl?” His deep voice was comforting and curious, as though he had waited all night for me to begin a conversation.
“What am I going to do now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… I’m leaving University and I’m really not sure where to go from here. This place, this world that I live in, I can’t play by its rules.”
“Well why not?”
“They nearly destroyed me…”
Evenstar paused for a moment, his eyes darting around the room as he calculated his response. “What do you want to do?”
“Well…” I started as I let my thoughts wander to the future once more. “I want to study theoretical magic… I feel like it’s my calling.”
“Well, your cutie mark certainly says so,” Evenstar offered as he pointed toward my flank. “However, how do you expect to come into the world of magical theory without a degree?”
“That’s why I’m asking you. I don’t know anything about this place, I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to magical studies, but you do.”
“So you’re not interested in becoming famous?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow. “With becoming well known among the rest of your peers as that one earth pony that can perform magic?”
I thought it was an odd question to ask, especially at a time like this, but there was something about his words that made me concerned about their intent. “No, I just want to learn.” My face must have shown my confusion as Evenstar’s tone changed once more.
“Are you sure it isn’t the tantalizing fact that you may very well be known for changing the world in ways that you can’t yet imagine? That the world may one day commonly know the name Starswirl with appended phrases of prestige and strength? Are you sure your motives are only for yourself?”
I felt like he was getting at something, but I couldn’t quite understand what. Evenstar rose to his hooves and continued once more. “Are you sure that deep down you don’t care if you’re known? Are you sure that it would be fine if all of the works you ever devise may one day be given to somepony else?”
The thought that my creations may someday be severed from my name did send chills down my spine. It wasn’t a pleasant thought to know that my work may be claimed by somepony else, but something deeper than that chill told me that it was fine. I wanted to practice magic, I wanted to understand the inner workings of the world. Fame, to my naive mind, was secondary. I looked to Evenstar once more with a fire in my eye. “If I leave work in the names of others, but know my work is fruitful, I do not care who claims it.”