//------------------------------// // XLVI: Acceleration // Story: Memoirs of a Magic Earth Pony // by The Lunar Samurai //------------------------------// “Starswirl,” Evenstar said as he gently nudged the door shut behind him. “In all of my academic career, I have never seen the Academy unanimously sit awestruck as I gave a lecture.” His gaze fixed on my own, and I realized that what he wanted to say couldn’t properly be said at all. I was still dumbfounded at the fact that I had made something so incredible. I just did what came to mind I hadn’t really expected it to become the next great discovery in mathematics. “But why?” I asked, trying to grasp the rapidly growing elation in my heart. “Because your insight has opened the door to a frightening new world.” Evenstar’s voice was wondrously grave. He spoke as though he had witnessed a deity and lived to tell the tale. He chuckled to himself. “Maybe I should tell you exactly what happened. From there you can draw your own conclusions. “As Amethyst and I left the library, we were both upset. I can assure you neither of us wanted to talk about what had happened with your… well… your lack of attendance. However, as we arrived at the Academy, we were greeted by some of the most powerful magicians of our time. They had come from all across the land in order to hear of the theory, and when I took to the stage, they were all equally amazed at the beauty of your solution. This is something some had been working on for years, but never could truly grasp using conventional knowledge.” “After that, Polaris, the president of the Academy, presented an award to Amethyst and me for our discovery.” Evenstar paused for a moment as his gaze drifted to the floor. “However,” he said in a much lower tone, “I do have an apology to offer. I was tempted during my journey to tell the Academy that an earth pony had formulated the spell, but I could not bear to see something so magnificent be thrown out due to some social superiority complex. Instead… I simply took the award and left. We had plans to stay for several more days, but I couldn’t bear to face them again.” Obviously that did not sit well with me, but I assumed it was the proper thing to do given the circumstances. If the limit was as important as Evenstar claimed, I wanted to be willing to sacrifice my help in constructing it. “I really don’t see how that’s an issue,” I said as my head cocked sideways. “They wouldn’t even let me in, why would they…” I caught myself as I began to reflect on my own statement. Something was beginning to irritate me about what I had just said. “Again, Starswirl, I’m so terribly sorry.” At this point, Evenstar looked more distraught than I had ever seen him before. Small trails of tears began to drift down his cheeks as his gaze continued to bore through the floor. “I wanted to… I really did.” “Wait,” I started, trying to console my mentor, but I couldn’t find anything to say. So I simply sat there as he silently wept. The only thing that I truly felt at that time was astonishment at Evenstar’s conviction. In the grand scheme of things, an award didn’t seem that important. “I… I don’t understand. What’s wrong?” Evenstar looked to me with the pain of a lifetime in his eyes. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I may have taken your only chance…” “My only chance?” Evenstar squeezed his eyes closed and drew in a staggering breath. “Amethyst can explain better than I. I’m so sorry…” He didn’t look to me as he stepped out of the room, and as the door latched a chill raced down my spine. “What was that all about?” I muttered as I turned my attention to the small puddle of tears on the floor. “What happened…” As silence filled the room once more, a darkness grew as well. Rain had been approaching, and as I turned my attention to the window, I could see the first drops of rain tapping against the glass. As it grew, a feeling of loss grew in my heart. A gentle knock on the door heralded Amethyst’s arrival. A moment later, and her purple coat seemed overwhelming in the otherwise drab room. She nervously bit her lip as she followed my gaze to the floor. “I’m sure… he’ll be fine,” she said with an unconvincing pause. “Regardless, I need to tell you something.” As you can imagine I was rather confused at what had just happened, so I sat, wide eyed, waiting for Amethyst to continue. “Well… I’m not sure what he said to you, but as you can imagine… I don’t come bearing good news. You see, the Academy works in a rather strange way. Policy dictates that a pony present must take an award, so he was forced to accept yours. We had planned to attribute it to the work of the three of us, but… we couldn’t say that we were…” her mouth squashed into a frown. “Well…” “That you couldn’t be working with an Earth Pony?” I asked, trying to help her say what I had expected for days now. “I thought we’d been over this.” “Well… We were forced, in a way, to take it between the two of us. And since it was such a revolutionary discovery… we kinda… got seats in the Academy.” “What?” “Evenstar was given the designation of Mage, the highest honor in the Academy. They’ve asked him to personally attend the chamber gatherings.” “And that’s… bad?” “Well, Starswirl, Evenstar was really focused on how this affected you during the entire trip. I think he got it in his head that you would still be upset about it, but I see you’ve come to terms with it, at least, that what it seems.” “So… why is this such a big deal?” “Because that could have been you.” I was about to dismiss the gravity of her statement with another flippant question, but a small voice told me to think first. That would have fixed everything. You could have been given that title. I tried to shake the thought from my mind, but it had taken hold. I had no reason to believe that they would have accepted an earth pony into their ranks, but Amethyst and Evenstar both seemed so regretful that the possibility was all but guaranteed. I didn’t have a chance to ask Amethyst to clarify, instead she simply turned and walked out of the room. Again I was met with silence, and the voice in the void of my mind spoke once more. It was right there, it whispered. I wanted to ignore it, but the more I tried, the louder it grew. I had that chance, that opportunity to break free of the world that I had been struggling against for so long, and yet I had missed the one opportunity to make that change. The two of them, they acted as though taking the accolades themselves was a sin, and the more I pondered it the more I realized it was. I had been wronged, the one chance for my dream to come true had been, once again, destroyed. This is all you are, Starswirl. An assistant. It’s all you’re ever going to amount to. By now the voice felt as though it was coming from somewhere in the room. I wanted to rebuke it, to refuse it’s brash assumptions, but I was realizing that those assumptions were more plausible with every passing second. The breathing grew deeper as I tried to refuse this notion that I had been wronged by my friends. They were sorry, they didn’t mean to take it for themselves, but that wasn’t going to change the fact that they had taken something from me, something that I had been working towards for months. I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to be somepony important, but I was realizing I was becoming second rate. Tears came once more as I struggled against myself. I wanted to believe that something positive would come from this mess, but the more I extrapolated and the more I thought, the more clouded my future became. Those dreams of success and glory, they had hinged on me making a stance against the academy. This was, for all I knew, the one chance I had been given to make such an appearance. The one thing that I had accomplished had been stolen from my grasp like candy from a filly. The desperation that filled my heart slowly gave way to anger. I was too tired to fight against its growing power, so I began to feed off of it. For months I had fought against those constraining societal rules and yet they always found a way to assault me. There was nothing I could do against them. Every minor victory was followed by a major defeat. I rose from the chair, a new power filling my heart. I wasn’t going to allow any pony to force me into second place. I had earned that title, it was rightfully mine, and I refused to let any pony tell me otherwise. I opened the door and started toward the staircase to the laboratory beneath my hooves. I took the steps as quickly as my hooves would allow on their narrow size. As I reached the door, I didn’t take a moment to reflect, I only acted. The two of them visibly seized as the door swung open and crashed against the wall. Evenstar was sitting before the board as Amethyst wrote an equation over the crack in the slate. “Why,” was all I could force out between my clenched teeth. “Is something wrong?” Amethyst asked. “Why do you think I’m here?” My voice was more breath than noise, but it rang clear as day through the chamber. Amethyst started after swallowing a lump in her throat. “Evenstar invited you to help us develop-“ “Help? just to help!” Tears were streaming down my face as I shouted in a whisper across the room. “I didn’t mean it like that… I… We…” I know now what she was trying to say, but my rage was unfettered. “I can’t take this anymore! I’m so tired of constantly being pushed aside and detested for who I am.” At this point I couldn’t tell you what or how I felt, all I knew was that hatred fueled me. Hatred for what, I am not sure. “I just want a chance… I just want to be something more than just some filthy mud pony that helps a Mage…” Evenstar’s body heaved once. That’s when I realized he was crying as well. “I didn’t want it to happen this way… I wanted to help you.” “Then why didn’t you?” I shouted as I shook the tears from my eyes. “It was too important! The limit had to be shared… I couldn’t let the world suffer so I chose to let you suffer instead. I never wanted to do this to you. I’ve never…” Silence descended on the room as I let his statement linger in the air. It was what I had feared for so long. Evenstar wasn’t interested in me or my development, he was interested in the development of magic. I had deceived myself into thinking he was my greatest ally when, in fact, he was only using me for the benefit of his work. I choked back my tears once more. “Then if that’s what’s important, I can’t do this anymore.” Without another word I grabbed the cloak on the wall and flung it over my head. I didn’t want to think anymore, and I definitely didn’t want to stay in the laboratory. So I ran.