//------------------------------//
// Part Two 
// Story: The Encore of Clover the Clever 
// by Ice Star 
//------------------------------//

Powerful gusts from the swoop of a pair of wings encircled me. They felt so cold, like a windigo. I shivered and shut my eyes even tighter. The old memory reaches the fear up from my stomach and chokes me.

"Help..."

A warmth receded and I knew that the monster, the griffon-shifter, Stolas, was gone. Whether he flew away silently or used magic mattered nothing to me. Just the thought of him no longer being here was a blessing, and I had never believed in blessings before. The Three Tribes called any host of things that were traditionally favored a blessing, be it the sun's light, a good battle, or the discipline of a spouse deemed too vulgar. 

"THOU CANST  OPEN THINE EYES, OUR PRESENCE IS THAT OF JUSTICE, NOT OF TERROR."


I gulped. How can I trust an ever-shouting voice? Although her speech mannerisms are vaguely familiar...

Off track. Stop this foolishness. Just ask her...

"Could you speak quieter?"

I winced at a wind only I could feel.

"Please...?"

"That We can do."

A sigh escaped me. Her low voice felt stern yet calming now that she was no longer thundering like the very storms I feared in foalhood. She even spoke in that queer way the dark godling that Master Starswirl kept did.

But... who was 'she'?

I suppose it is time to open my eyes...

One.

Deep breath in.

Two.

By the blessed sun's light, you are safe.

Three.

When my eyes opened I was greeted with the sight of another being not quite fitting into the world I had left. Yet, at the same time, I felt as if mayhaps she did belong there, in a way, with her coat of orchid's lavender and her animate mane and tail the color of glowing gold light. Was hair that glowed a blessing? Her height was colossal, and with her long legs and graceful neck it became painfully obvious that I was a mere ant to this creature. But that was not the end of her splendor. Her inky blue eyes, which were thickly lashed, had a sky blue 'C' of cosmetics painted carefully around them and her mark was a golden apple paired with a cabbage-colored plant sprig I could not identify.

Just like the last Alicorn, she wore jewelry: a collar-like necklace made of glowing gold and studded with square-cut gems of blue and white. I could not tell if the gold glowed on its own, or if it was swept up in her light. Her boots of gold, each studded with three colorful emeralds, rubies, and sapphire, each seemed to elegantly flow and mold to her legs so one could not tell where she began and garb ended. Her crown, a radiant 'O' circlet of gold wound with the same plant on her mark rested atop her head. Not even the earth pony tribe had used plants for crowns. I could not imagine why this strange mare would when her jewels were beyond anything that the unicorns could craft. 

As she stood there with her sculpted eyebrows arched in an almost rebellious manner, I noticed that she herself seemed to be glowing, not just her mane. Now I could see her whole body radiating light as yellow as a cat's eyes catching the light of a harvest moon.

"We sensed a peasant-soul in need of aid. Might it be you?"

I nodded, utterly dumbstruck. Back in life, the two godlings had been considered freaks by ponies. Now, when I stood among an adult of their kind, I feel as though I am the lesser life. How is this? And how is it that the godlings even managed to have a kind? Shall they grow up to be half as alien as this? Oh, curse all my thoughts! These creatures defy all logic and order — around them, I feel as though it is I who are unnatural and they who are somehow superbly so, perhaps even beyond so. 

"Doth thou speak?"

"Yes," I whispered.

"How fortunate. The mute ones can be rather difficult to judge." Her expression is not one of disdain but of a muted joy that is so genuine I almost feel that I should call it ugly, for I have never seen anything like it. 

"Where am I...? And... umm... who are you?" My voice continued to be naught but a hoarse whisper.

"We are Elysium, Queen of Paradise. And as for where you are..."

Elysium's horn lit up and a bright aura as pure as any gilded substance encircled me like a snake.

"...We can show you."

I yelped in surprise as she telekinetically dragged me over the side of the floating pavilion, leaping into flight once more.



...



In my life, the divided pony tribes always squabbled. We squabbled over territory and superiority. Over what we thought we knew, racial purity, and who should die first. Over food, captives in war, and the raids our lives were built around. 

We fought over beauty as much as we fought over the ugliness that we tried to gild.

Some ponies had more trouble with this than others... to some, the outer look was everything, like the castes and races they were born into. My dear friend Platinum had battles fought over her foolish remarks and her appearance, and could not understand my hurt at seeing our own kind perform violence in her name — even violence against each other. She knew she was not pure of heart, driven towards stallions as all the tribal physicians say we mares ought to be. She knew that about herself, and for years, she still let good unicorn stallions duel to the death over her favor. I never told her that I do not believe her when she was saying she had to go that far to play along. The weight of those unsaid words has always felt the same as lying to me. I am not sure I would feel worse if that did count — and not just because Platinum, my dearest friend, never saw my horror. I was not allowed to even suggest it, and I do not know if I was content with that or not — I did not question my limitations. Nothing good ever comes from doing that. 

They were all empty inside. The Magicspire was not as northward as the main, vast valley that the Tribelands were in, yet everypony there was chilled far more. 'Lara, that godling is exactly what everypony wants her to be. She fit in perfectly with the Unicorn Court and there was an extensive web of peasants in the land that loved her, and they helped her on the migration southward. She acts like a pony and calls herself one, but I think she is more like one of those tonics or powders you can take too much of, and want forever, even when the rot you from the inside. Maybe that is why she is so beautiful. Maybe that is why Starswirl never got her. I don't doubt that is why nopony can get enough of being around her — I used to be the same way. And I was the one who heard her sticking her magic down her throat until she threw up late at night. That godling never knew I knew — or she just pretended I did not know and accepted that I never spoke about such things. She knew how to treat me with the utmost kindness — so much it always felt rather out of place — and pretend like I wasn't there at the same time. The sister that follows her like a starved dog was the one creature I knew she hated — I heard enough of their fights, and more than enough of what they said to the other to know that one has something going on with her emotions that is better off not seen. She goes on and on about a greater good and something darn near nopony's heard of  —  optimism — and tried to stay devoted to Starswirl's rules and good side as much as I did. Maybe 'Lara is the best king of emptiness there is but I cannot pretend that she isn't still empty — even though I want to.

Starswirl did this to all of us, and stayed behind with Kawblance during the migration. Truthfully, I never thought to get the little colt out and I am not sure anypony else did either. Starswirl was so empty he could not die anywhere empty. Nopony knows how much more ground the windigos gained in the Tribal Lands and nopony cares because they're all going to be stuck there — part of me still wonders: did Starswirl and Kaw freeze together soon after, or have years of slowly wasting away in that valley? Did he kill that colt and eat the mushrooms grown on his bones? Does his death even matter when for the rest of my life, nopony was ever truly free of him?

Kaw was a dastardly thing — a colt with nopony to miss him picked up from some faraway place. I never thought of returning him, and while I never thought of keeping him, I got used to having him around to toil. It was still in me to behave as a servant does, and I would still sometimes do his work simply so that they were not imposed on a colt. I always took care to never speak to him. Nopony in their right mind destroys other animals except to keep them from the things that ponies need and to be rid of an infestation, but Kawblance killed for reasons that made him plainly evil and made sure that other ponies knew about it. No amount of beatings ever made him obedient, which is something so thoroughly unlike a child that I have to wonder if he was even one at all. 

...I barely knew 'Lene. Nopony knew much about that demon. That dark godling had all the marks of the born-evil creatures in every tribe, from the tales of the elders to the wisest minds and their medical arts. She rarely spoke, was only interested in the queerest things, and preferred mindless animals to those like us. Her melancholy was all-encompassing and the notions that she withdrew from light and company like a spider. Her sentiments were skewed to objects she held dear and injured wildlife. That one cared not for norms or ponies and her speech was always improper. I suffered from loneliness often in my life from how much Starswirl isolated me, but she suffered from company and had no friends or lovers. Her elder suffered no such lack of company and did not dress as the other gender. 'Lene was pitiful in the way of heirs and spares — politics runs in the very being of her older sister, and as the eldest, I know she must have been an heir. But oh! What a pitiful, empty soul 'Lene is — the real spare of spares. 

I know nothing of what will become of the godlings, but I know that the lives of Starswirl, Kawblance, and everypony I have ever known all feel like nothing but a vain yesteryear compared to this enchanted realm. Though the realm we now flew over was anything but a hollow shell of vanity.  A sun and moon both hung in the sky shedding light over the unearthly landscape below, and somehow the night-side managed not to make me sick with fear. It contained two 'halves' divided by a fiery mountain-ringed chasm whose bottom was unseen.

Whilst I attempted to view the world veiled in this eternal twilight, I was startled as I gazed below me with nothing more than the aura generated by the queen's magic to keep me afloat.

The land so far beneath me obeyed no laws! The massive continent stretched out from across all directions with no hint of an end. Behind me were shining cities with strange houses bearing flat roofs and many courtyards scattered across the hills. They varied in size, some are alone, and some are close together creating what look like small towns. Not all of the houses were the divide between stately stone and thatched roofs that I knew in life. I saw houses that defied the senses: houses the color of sand, caves, and the biggest breezie grottos I had ever seen. Spreading out from there were all sorts of things that should not be: plains rolling into forests and rivers. Snow began to appear on mountains that looked to be many days away from these patchwork villages. Stretching toward what I assumed was the north there was a bare expanse of dirt, with nothing and nopony to speak of.

"We see thou art puzzled by the desert," the queen called, "What doth thou think of the realm?"

"It is all impossible!"

Her expression did not falter. "We see," she answered flatly.

"It is! I was told that the world was much flatter than this. How can so many types of houses exist? How can so many different types of places exist? What world is this modeled off of?"

"Mere mortal, thou hath overreacted."

"Why do you keep speaking like that? You speak like the godlings of my master, who spoke as though they were multiple, even though they could be separated and were not royalty."

I heard an unexpected scoff. "We thought you might have adopted a speech pattern of the court in your later years, despite spending most of your life as an errand filly to a fraudulent excuse of a wizard."

Fraudulent?! I thought, Master Starswirl knew more than the entire Unicorn Court, how could that be fraudulent?

"Perhaps you should face in front of you, as there is nothing more that is noteworthy behind you, Clover 'the Clever' as you were ironically called. Do you not wish to see more so-called 'impossibilities'?"

I nearly jumped at her venomous tone, but alas there was nothing below me. I knew that I was called 'the Clever' mostly as a joke in a society in which obedience was associated with cleverness, and cleverness was to be something that put a prettier price on one's head, but it also reflected those seven distinct freaking spells that outshone what most in the court's gentry knew. I watched the strange queen with a mane that put gold to shame recompose herself before I faced forward.