• Published 14th Jul 2013
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The Education of Clover the Clever - Daedalus Aegle



Some people think lectures and classes are for educating. Star Swirl the Bearded has no patience for those people.

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Chapter 16: Practical Applications - Null Hypothesis

The assassin waited.

His entire life had been building towards this moment. He had spent years studying unicorn magic, and in particular its limitations. He knew of a dozen different ways of disrupting workings both active and dormant. He had ways to hide himself and his tools from searching spells as well as searching eyes.

Now he stood upon the threshold of immortality.

He had entered Canterlot House undetected by either spell or pony, and prepared to kill the most powerful unicorn of the past three centuries.

He clung to the ceiling, powerful talons sunk into the wooden beams, hidden in the shadows of the architecture, and he waited until the wizard had emerged from the hidden chamber and passed by underneath him.

He dropped a nullstone directly in the wizard’s wake. Then he released his grip, falling soundlessly towards the wizard, and shattered it.

The stone erupted and threw the magic around it into an unresponsive chaos, paralyzing all active unicorn magic and rendering any unicorn unable to cast while he remained within the field. There was a knife in his claw, its blade black with a special coating, and with a swift and graceful motion he slashed at the wizard's exposed neck.

The blade passed clean through the empty air where the unicorn had been.

The griffon barely registered the glow of magic to his side, and fell to the floor just in time for the magic blast to pass above him. He shifted his stance, and sprang up at an erratic angle, a flap of wings sending him flying around and below the blasts that loosed all around him.

With one claw he shifted three small dark orbs out of a hidden pouch and threw them at the unicorn. When they struck the floor they erupted in a thick cloud of smoke. Star Swirl immediately conjured a gust of wind to clear them away, but the assassin was nowhere to be seen.

Tiny knives shot through the air and cut through the wizard's robe, followed by a slash along his side that he only barely avoided. Star Swirl turned and fired a blast of magic at the swift figure, but he was already gone.

Star Swirl closed his eyes and activated his magic, feeling for the presence of the intruder across the building. He found nothing.

The nothing turned to a rippling movement in the air that moved towards him from behind, and Star Swirl raised a shield to block it.

The shield barely slowed the griffon down, and Star Swirl only just dodged a strike before teleporting away to the next platform and firing a blast of magic at the assassin.

The griffon stepped backward into the nullstone’s bubble of magic static just as the magic blast struck it. It dissipated, scattering into a score of feeble flashing lights that spiraled outward at random angles before fading into nothing.

Their eyes met from across the hall.

Star Swirl watched the assassin coldly, looking over his great red leather coat with its many places to hide many tools and weapons. “So. You're finally here then.”

The griffon smiled confidently. “Compliments of Griffon King Blaze.”

Star Swirl took a few steps to the side, watching the griffon all the while. “Your masters have tried this many times. I have sent them all back in failure. You think you are any different?”

The griffon took a few steps in the other direction. He glanced left and right, taking in his surroundings as he moved, ready for any trap. “You have no idea what I am, old goat.”

“You flatter yourself. I know exactly what you are.”

The griffon chuckled. “We will see.”

Star Swirl sniffed. “What sad dregs of the Empire has the King dredged up to fight his battles for him this time, hm? What is your name, assassin?”

One step, and an item went invisibly from a pocket into his claw, held loosely but safely by the tip of a talon. “You will be dead soon enough, old goat, so it hardly matters.”

Star Swirl raised his head. “Indulge me.”

“No.”

“Then I shall call you Pin,” Star Swirl said. “What is it you want, Pin? Glory? Revenge? National pride? Or is it simply money?”

“Just money,” Pin said lightly.

Star Swirl pondered it for a moment, and shook his head. “I doubt that. Mere greed would not lead you to put yourself in harm's way like this. I think there's something else.”

“Believe what you want, if it pleases you in your last moments.”

Another step, and his other claw closed around a smoke bomb. He quietly shifted his weight, his muscles tense, prepared to strike.

Star Swirl scowled at him from across the hall. “This is nonsense,” he muttered. “Look at you. You’re barely more than a hatchling chick. You can’t kill me. Abandon this folly before I have to hurt you.”

The griffon’s arm was a blur as he leapt. The smoke bomb bounced from a pillar to a table to the floor, back and forth, small and swift, before exploding directly under the wizard's muzzle. Then, faster than the wind, the griffon swept up under the cover of the smoke with a knife in one talon and swiped. The unicorn dodged to the other side, where the other talon was waiting with a metal ring that swiftly clamped down on his horn.

The suppressor locked, blocking the flow of magic. The griffon grinned triumphantly as he moved in for the kill. Star Swirl took one step back.

There was a glow on his forehead: not from the horn, but directly beneath it, something under the pony's skin. It reached up to the base of the horn, to the underside of the suppressor, along its perimeter.

The suppressor made a high-pitched squealing sound as it snapped in two, its parts smoking. Immediately the blocked magic manifested as a jet of fire bursting out from Star Swirl’s horn, and the griffon spun backwards through the air to avoid it.

His claws sank into the wood of the wall, holding him in place as easily as on the floor.

“That was skillfully done,” Star Swirl admitted. “But that is not good enough.”

“There were rumors,” Pin whispered. “I had wondered if they could be true.” He dropped to the floor and spread his wings in a gesture of defiance. “But I’m just getting started.”

Star Swirl sighed. “So petty. So proud… Maybe I will die someday. But not today, and I won't die for your little greed.”

His horn glowed powerfully, a mixture of black and pale grey like clouds passing the face of the moon at night. He willed his magic to seize Pin and slam him into the wall, to strip him of his tools, but found that it was like trying to catch a fish between his hooves. The griffon effortlessly slipped away, and maneuvered around him.

He lowered his head and fired a blast from his horn. Pin easily jumped out of its path and soared across the hall, more blasts trailing behind him.

For a split-second they were head on, Star Swirl fired a blast directly at Pin's face, and Pin sent a knife directly at Star Swirl. The two projectiles met mid-air, and the magic blast split cleanly in two halves, each heading wildly off-course while the knife flew straight towards Star Swirl's face.

At the last moment there was a blur as Star Swirl raised a thin metal tray in front of him as a shield. The knife’s tip slammed through it, but it stuck.

Once again there was silence, and the griffon was nowhere to be seen.

Star Swirl turned the tray and examined the knife. “I see… Coated with a chemical that repels and disrupts unicorn magic… That’s a rare compound.” His eyes narrowed. “Nullstones, magic-negating bindings in your coat… You've specialized, Pin. You’ve specialized in killing unicorn wizards. Who are you really?”

High above the unicorn wood crunched as powerful claws clenched tight around it. “I’m the griffon who’s going to kill you.”

The pony’s ears turned as he tried to pick out the sound of soft pads stalking him from above. “Nullstones are expensive and hard to craft… They are not an effective weapon in most circumstances, and difficult to use properly. Your masters must have great faith in your abilities if they have invested so much in you.”

“They do. It is well-placed.” The griffon dropped back down on to the floor, no longer in hiding, and smiled confidently. “You might as well just lie down and bare your throat already. Your magic can't hurt me. And without that, what are you?”

Star Swirl took hold of a ceramic jar and hurled it at the assassin. Pin dodged it easily, and it smashed into the wall behind him, shattering into a thousand shards.

A cloud of the shards came to life and shot at the griffon from behind him like countless razor-blades. The first wave cut through his coat and gashed his arm, and then he was gone, diving behind a table of lens-making equipment, sending it crashing around him. Then he was in the air flying high under the shadows of the ceiling with dizzying speed.

Nullstones struck the floor around Star Swirl and exploded, one, two, three, cutting him off from the stairs off the platform. Smoke bombs filled the air, limiting his vision further, and the magic systems that would normally automatically clear them out was blocked by the static.

Star Swirl glanced from side to side, watching pockets of space where the magic undercurrents of the cosmos had been casually scrambled. It blocked his vision, so invested in his craft, and would drain half of everything he was if he touched it. “This is all very quaint, Pin. But I have no patience for it.” His horn lit up and a beam shot upwards to activate Canterlot House's emergency defense system.

An explosion rocked the building from below, a bomb planted on the Hydra Engine in the basement. The blast knocked Star Swirl off-balance, and cut most of Canterlot House’s power. The lights of the hall flickered, and went off.

Star Swirl sighed. “Very well. It is a fight, then.”

The unicorn stepped forward, with a flicker of light there were six of him standing side by side. Their horns glowed and prepared to lay down a blanket of magic fire.

A flurry of knives ripped through them, and all six vanished into nothing.

The griffon closed his eyes, focused, grinned, and threw another knife to his left, where it cut through the illusion concealing the unicorn, cut through the hair on his cheek and left a red streak behind it.

All across the hall carefully-calibrated precision tools rose up in the air and were hurled against the griffon. Pin moved like a dancer between them, always with a confident smile on his face, effortlessly leaping great distances. He snatched an object from the air and threw it back at the wizard, followed by a flurry of knives and a smoke bomb.

Star Swirl held up an alchemical pot as a shield to block the knives, and let the bombs hit the floor. More nullstones dropped in strategic places, limiting his movement across the hall.

Star Swirl slowly stepped forward, and suddenly found his hooves would not move. One of the smoke bombs was not a smoke bomb: there was something on the floor that glued him in place, and a gust of wind whipping at his face.

The griffon was directly in front of him. He held something in his claws, and it strained against him unnaturally. It was shaped like a bird, but there the resemblance ended. It was black as a hole in the world, and the noise that emerged from its beak attested to something vicious and unliving. It defied space, appearing somehow immeasurably vast and distant even as it was held in a claw not ten yards from the unicorn. The sight of it reached far along Star Swirl's spine and dragged out primordial fears that would paralyze a pony in their steps.

It cawed and shrieked a cry from another world as it flew towards the unicorn, and he only barely managed to teleport away from its path before it struck him.

It flew into the shadows, and disappeared back to whatever hole in time it had come from, leaving behind it only an echo of ancient sorrows.

Pin was silent for a moment, stunned. He blinked, and made a sound halfway between a groan and a giggle. “I didn’t know if that was going to work,” he said.

Star Swirl’s mouth hung open, his eyes wide. “You are dangerous,” he said, his voice low and grim. “Oh yes, I know, you're an assassin. But you have no restraint. You throw about forces you cannot control or comprehend as though they were toys. You are not a professional. How desperate must your masters be to place their faith in you!”

Pin shook his head. “The old ways are dead,” he said. “This has been building for a long time, old goat. You can’t stand in our way forever. The old guard failed, and when I bring back your head they’ll see what the future holds!”

“I have known ponies like you,” Star Swirl growled. “Filled with dreams of slaughter and glory, blind to all consequence. You think that when the world collapses, you will be left standing atop the rubble?”

“Foolish pony,” Pin said. “I have wings.”

There was a gust of wind that whipped at Star Swirl’s face, and then the griffon was gone. Star Swirl scanned the area, but pockets of arcane static blocked his vision in every direction, amid smoke and wreckage. There were countless places to hide.

Star Swirl felt a magic flicker to life beneath him, and barely pushed his weight to the side just in time to avoid the minotaur-sized sword blade that stabbed up through the floor beneath him. It retracted and stabbed again and again. It cut through the thick timber floor as easily as water. It moved as though weightless, far faster than its size and apparent mass would permit.

Star Swirl sidestepped it each time, swaying and leaping between the bubbles of static and the rapidly-decreasing stable floor. A scrap of fabric fell from his cloak, a lone bell tumbling with a sad dink.

The griffon came up through the mangled floor in an explosion of splinters and feathers, swinging the huge blade wildly, but with each swing Star Swirl was somewhere else, just to the left or the right or below or an inch too far off.

After one swing Pin stumbled, and the massive sword fell to what remained of the floor with a heavy clank, no longer weightless or unnaturally sharp.

Pin slumped to the side and gasped for breath. “Somepony so old shouldn’t be so fast,” he panted. “You have some tricks, but you can’t keep this up forever.”

Star Swirl, meanwhile, also stood unsteadily, leaning against a fence. His breathing was also heavy and labored, with a touch of an old pony’s wheezing. He shook his head. “It would be a sorry thing indeed if I were to die to the likes of you.”

“Heh.” The griffon retrieved a small capsule from a hidden pocket, tossed it into his mouth, and cracked it open, releasing a pungent, murky fluid which he drank down. Immediately he rose up again, all signs of exhaustion gone.

Star Swirl’s eyes narrowed. Pin’s eyes were changing color, the veins thickening and darkening around his pupils.

The unicorn barely ducked back and out of the way as Pin launched forward even faster than before, his claws slashing at the wizard, tearing into his robe.

“Zebra rejuvenation potions,” Star Swirl said under his breath as he stepped backwards. “Minotaur weapons and enchantments, smoke bombs from Qilina, a corrupted Buffalo totem spirit… You just don’t know when to stop, Pin.”

The back of a claw slammed into the wizard’s chin, and he grunted in pain. Pin grabbed hold of the collar of Star Swirl’s robe, ignoring the magical fire that burned his claw in response.

“The world is changing,” he whispered in Star Swirl’s ear. “You can’t survive on your own. You need us! This is what it’s all about, unicorn! This is the difference between you and us. You have only your horn. You’re one-trick ponies. We have taken the best arts of every nation under the sun.”

Star Swirl pulled back just in time to dodge the next blow, his robe shredding as he tore out of Pin’s grip. A claw slashed across a pillar and scored ragged marks in the stone. “You know your little countries can’t survive,” the assassin said. “If we don’t protect you, someone else will conquer you. The world is growing more dangerous every year, and your little Unicorn King can barely hold his kingdom together. Ponies are divided, and weak. You know that. Sooner or later you’ll join us in the Empire, and once you do… we’ll have the sun as well. It will be safer with us.”

Star Swirl’s eyes met Pin’s, and the unicorn’s face was a mask of ash and steel. “That is not our destiny.”

A claw swiped at the wizard, and a hoof jabbed it, pushed it back.

“I know your kind,” Star Swirl said. “I have known griffons that are honorable and good. I have known ponies that are jealous and cruel. There is nothing new in you, Pin. Just the same old greed.”

Star Swirl backed into a railing, and the griffon was on him, his claws seizing on the pony’s throat.

“I know you as well,” the griffon said. “You're the last barrier. A relic of a world long gone, clinging to maps that no longer apply. With you gone a new world will dawn, and I will be her champion. The world will be owed to me!”

Star Swirl shook his head. “Your future is a phantom.”

“The future will be glorious. And I will see it brought to life!” A gust of wind and the griffon pushed forward, knife in talon, and they tumbled through the ruined floor and fell.

They were locked together, the griffon's claws on the wizard’s face, a hoof pressing against the assassin's windpipe. They crashed into a staircase beneath the platform, and toppled over its side at speed. They fell together, smashing into stone and metal machinery that left them bruised and beaten.

Finally they slammed into the side of a table and fell apart. The assassin had gouged Star Swirl’s face, over his right eye, and black smoke rose from the wound. As he watched, the flesh knitted itself together and closed the wound.

“You play with fire, griffon,” the wizard said. “If you mean to kill Star Swirl the Bearded you must be willing to give it your all.”

The griffon spat blood, his claws gouging marks in the wooden floor. “Hurricane should have killed you when she had the chance,” he growled. “You should never have been born. You’re not a bounty. You’re a mistake.”

Star Swirl smiled, and gave a deep chuckle. “Is that what they told you? That she had a chance?”

That was when the unicorn heard a sound and felt his heart fall in his chest.

Up above them, the front door opened, and Clover came inside.

– – –

Clover knew what she would do when she came home to Canterlot House. She would have a final meeting with Star Swirl, and tell him she was leaving. She would pack up her things, clear out her desk, and move out. And she would return to her old dorm room and deny herself until she had to face the fact that all she had learned since she began was how utterly inadequate she was, and how little prepared she was to deal with the world.

Clover did not know what she would do when she came home to Canterlot House, not really.

She stared, dumbstruck, at the carnage that had consumed the building since she left.

The lights were mostly out, flickering dimly, leaving the hall lit only by the sunlight from the balcony on the far side. The laboratories were trashed. The remnants of tools and equipment lay strewn about the floor, books tossed haphazardly to the floor, shards of glass and pottery everywhere. The atmosphere of Canterlot House, the steady but low white noise of background magic she had grown accustomed to over her time there, was gone.

Her stomach lurched, and her thoughts, already struggling to keep up with her day, took on a more frayed edge.

“Oh sweet Celestia...” She whispered the words to herself, then stepped forward through the wreckage and called out, “Professor! Are you here?”

She heard and saw two things at the same time. One was a crackle in the air and burst of magical light as Star Swirl the Bearded materialized on a platform ahead of her. The other was something erupting from the lower level at the speed of a cannon ball. There was a flap of great wings, and it grew immensely in her vision, and before she knew what was happening it had fallen on her.

“Stop!”

She felt the weight of his body on top of her, bigger and stronger than her by far, her legs threatening to buckle under. She felt the claw grab her mane and pull her head sharply backwards, the pain tearing along her scalp. She felt something cold and sharp press against her throat, and a raspy voice was saying “move and you die”. Her chest was too tight for her to breathe, her heart beating like it was going to explode, and her legs were weak and frozen, too terrified to tremble.

“Now then,” the voice from right behind her ear said loudly, “here is what is going to happen! You, old goat, are going to slowly take your robe off and throw it down the side. Not with magic, with your hooves. You are going to lower your guard and deactivate your defenses. No sudden moves. And if I see the slightest hint of glowing from either of you, I'll slit her throat. Is that clear?”

Her teacher was standing a short distance in front of them, stunned. Clover did not believe she had ever seen him shocked to silence before. Her mind was going foggy.

“What’s it going to be, professor? Her? Or you?”

The world held its breath and the background hum of the universe fell silent as it waited.

Star Swirl the Bearded’s mind raced.

I can teleport her away from him in 0.7 seconds. He will see me use my magic and cut her in 0.5, and she will rematerialize bleeding, and the coating on the blade will stop me from sealing the wound.

There is a splinter of wood three yards to his right. If I grab it and fire it at his claw he will have to drop the knife and it will take 0.8 seconds longer than it will take him to cut her.

He has more of the smoke bombs in a pouch in his belt. If I concentrate then I can detonate them and the smoke will distract him just after he cuts her.

I can blind him and it will take 0.4 seconds too long.

I can force my way into his thoughts and make him believe he has killed her already, but he will have killed her already.

I can collapse Canterlot House on top of us. He will have plenty of time to do whatever he pleases.

In a fraction of a second he ran through another hundred options in his head, all of them with the same result.

Star Swirl the Bearded saw the world crashing down in front of him.

I can't stop him.

I can't let him hurt her.

I am out of ideas.



















You win.

Clover felt the knife against her skin, brushing under the hair of her coat. She was watching her mentor intently, and in between the beats of her heart pounding in her ear, she saw his eyes close, his head slowly drop, and nod, just once, in surrender.

“Good… Good.” Pin shifted his balance ever so slightly, and Clover shuddered at the sharp pain as her mane was pulled. “Now you can just lie down and die like a good pony, and I'll go back to my employers, and your pretty little student can go on with her life without you. Take off your robe and go stand in the—”

Dead silence. Clover waited for the knife to slice into her throat.

Instead the knife fell to the floor with a clatter. Pin’s claw loosened its grip on her mane, and Clover, no longer held in place, pulled loose and ran away and behind a nearby table. Then she turned and looked at the griffon.

Pin stood unmoving, his eyes wide and full of terror. His muscles bulged, tense and fighting to move but unable to budge. A choking sound emerged from his open beak.

Star Swirl raised his head, and turned his eyes on the griffon. When he spoke it was with a voice that was not his own. The voice was the sound of continents colliding, of bedrock grinding to dust, and the thing that looked out from behind his eyes was not the pony Clover knew.

“You are right, Pin,” the voice said. “There are other powers in this world than unicorn magic.”

The thing that was Star Swirl raised a foreleg and the griffon moved in jags and shudders. He rose up in the air, not by the force of unicorn magic or his own wings but simply in defiance of nature. The griffon’s leather coat ripped open, and all his weapons poured out and fell to the ground in a clatter of metal and glass and chemicals. His every muscle strained, unable to move, as if in the middle of a seizure.

The wizard stepped forward towards Pin. “Before you were born, I watched great kingdoms crumble and die. I hunted knowledge under the stars, and under the earth, and under the branches of forgotten trees. All my life I have searched in the dark places for answers that others would not dare to seek. I have seen things you cannot imagine, and have stolen their secrets and their powers for my own. But you.”

Star Swirl’s face contorted into a monstrous parody of the stallion Clover knew. “You come into my home, seeking to start a war. You throw about your little toys and tricks, oblivious to the consequences. You threaten my student.”

Her teacher was changing before her eyes. A ripple ran under the skin of his weathered leg that no pony muscle could imitate. His coat turned dry and matted, his body shriveling up and wasting away to little more than skin and bone. His eyes were dark and red, and his lips curled back to show teeth that were turning to fangs.

“You think yourself a hunter in the night, that all things fear?” The wizard asked mockingly. “I am Star Swirl the Bearded. Every frightful thing that walks in darkness knows me, and whispers my name to their young.”

There was a gust of breath, and a ripple of motion as Star Swirl bent his will, and a current of dark lightning struck the assassin. Pin screamed in agony, and the very air screamed with him, as his flesh convulsed and his limbs jolted uncontrollably.

“I have been patient with your masters,” Star Swirl said. “There are many who wish to harm me, and I have done many things for which I deserve to be harmed. Your king swore an oath, Pin. I told him, if they wanted to kill anyone, let them start with me. I bought peace with my own life, no-one else’s! I promised I would bring harm to no-one, and you tried to break my promise.”

The wizard’s face grew darker and more gnarled with each moment as he unleashed the full power of whatever magic it was he had summoned upon the griffon. “You wanted a war, Pin? So be it. I will give the King his war. I will tear Griffonstone to the ground stone by stone! I will kill the Conqueror King and leave his charred body impaled on the spire of his own palace! I will… I will pluck every last griffon from the skies and leave them broken upon the ground, and for a thousand years to come every traveler who passes by will look upon a barren land and say here lived the fools who threatened Star Swirl the Bearded’s apprentice.”

Thick noxious smoke rose from Star Swirl’s horn, which had warped and blackened. Pin’s body bent, and broke, as if crushed by a giant dragon’s claw. He screamed as his spine snapped.

“Professor, stop!”

“You studied the others from afar,” Star Swirl said as he took another step closer. “You thought yourself their better. You thought you saw a weakness. But all you saw was restraint. You did not know when to stop.

The assassin's screams had ended, as he had no more breath. His face was turning blue, smoke rising from his still-open beak, his bloated, rigid tongue sticking out.

“Star Swirl, stop!”

Star Swirl did not stop. His face was no longer shifting but still, finally at peace with itself, the transformation complete. “Now you will pay the price. Now you will learn exactly what you are.”

“Professor, please!” Clover clutched at his robe, tears trickling down the sides of her muzzle. Star Swirl turned just a slightest bit to see her, trying to hold him back. “Please,” she cried, “please, stop…”

“He threatened to kill you, Clover,” the creature that might have been Star Swirl said through his mouth. “I told you that you would be safe as my student, and he threatened to kill you. I will not let that happen.”

“I know he did!” Clover sobbed. “But he didn’t! Alright?”

The thing that had Star Swirl’s body growled, and the noise reverberated through the floor. Clover pressed against him, tried to pull him back. “This isn’t you, Professor… I know you’re a good pony. You’ve been kind to me, Star Swirl. Let him go… You’ve already done enough.”

Star Swirl breathed, a deep rumbling sound. “This is what I am, Clover. When all the masks fall away, this is what’s left. This is what you are trying to save. You should leave before it’s too late.”

“You’re wrong, Star Swirl,” Clover said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We already had this conversation, in the rift. You know so many things, but you’re all wrong about yourself. You’ve always done what you thought was right. I know you have.”

She took hold of his leg, withered and warped beyond recognition, and she held on to him. “I believe in you. Do you believe in me?”

A light flickered in the darkness of Star Swirl's eyes, and he gasped. The griffon fell to the floor, coughing and heaving for breath, as Star Swirl’s body began to warp again. His flesh writhed and squirmed as he fought to contain the beast within him, to push it back into whatever deep pit he had called it from for aid.

The monster left him, and he changed back to the old stallion she knew, but now he seemed slighter, more frail, exhausted, as if all his age had finally caught up with him.

For a moment, the house was silent.

“Go back to your masters,” he said, in something like his normal voice. “Tell them… tell them I will speak to them further. Tell them… that I am very disappointed in them. Now go.”

The griffon moaned as the pain first sharpened, then dulled. His bones mended by magic, his severed nerve endings wove back together. Pin pushed himself up on his claws and his paws, and stepped away, slowly, his eagle head held low and his lion tail between his legs.

He left the hall and gently closed the door behind him.

– – –

Star Swirl watched Pin leave, then turned away and slumped forward onto the floor with a heavy sigh.

Clover’s legs were shaking, her thoughts a jumble. Her heart was pounding and she felt cold.

She looked at her teacher, and instincts honed over a hundred foalhood etiquette lessons took over and told her how to act.

Focus, Clover, her mother’s voice said in her mind. Your teacher needs help. You know what to do.

Clover drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. She counted to ten, and as she did she took stock of her own thoughts and feelings and desires. One by one she listed them off, and kicked them out of her awareness.

She opened her eyes again, ready to do what was needed for as long as it took. She trotted to her teacher’s side. “Come on, Professor. It’s time to get up.” Her voice barely quavered at all.

He didn’t move. She took hold of his leg and pulled at it until he clambered up and followed her. She raised a nearby fallen chair, and he sat down on it. His breathing was heavy and pained, and he slumped forward, bent almost double.

You can do this. “Are you hurt?” Clover asked. “Of course you’re hurt. Show me where you’re hurt, professor, I know first aid.”

“Wait, hold on,” Star Swirl panted. “I’ve just got to...”

His left foreleg clamped down on his right shoulder and pulled. He grunted, and his grunt turned into a scream of pain as he tore his leg loose, ripping muscle and tendons and bone, and threw it to the side. Clover watched with wide eyes, frozen in shock.

The leg landed with a sharp clack, and before Clover’s eyes it transformed.

Unrecognizable as a pony leg, the thing on the floor in front of her was black as obsidian, crystalline, jagged, covered in sharp points and edges that grew as she watched, as if reaching out for something to cut and infect. It had a reddish sheen, and when she looked at it she felt as if it was looking back at her.

“Do not touch it,” Star Swirl warned, and Clover hurriedly backed away.

In his chair, Star Swirl breathed heavily. He held his robe shut tight, nursing his shoulder, and in a few moments he gingerly revealed a new leg.

He flexed it, and got up, put his weight on it to test. Then he stepped over the black crystal, and it disappeared into whatever secret space lay beneath his robe.

The silence was heavy in the house.

Eventually Clover broke it. “What happened here, professor?”

“You got to see the consequences,” Star Swirl said, exhausted and morose. “You once told me you wanted to be a great sorceress. There is a price to pay for power, Clover.”

“Star Swirl…”

“What you just saw was ancient Saddle Arabian blood sorcery.” His voice was distant and tired, and full of memory. “To know it – merely know it, mind you, not use it – was a capital offense, under the laws of the old dominion. I received a royal pardon.”

The memory of Star Swirl’s face warped beyond recognition, the griffon’s screams as dark lightning shot through him, filled Clover’s mind, and she shivered.

Star Swirl didn’t notice. He was looking away, to the distance. “The one power that could teach it no longer exists. The others who knew it are long dead, by age or treachery or war. The knowing of it is not written down in any tome, and no living pony but me has it. When I die, it will disappear from this world forever.”

He glanced at her. “Once, long ago, I permitted an unspeakably evil force to enter my mind. I did not know what it meant. I thought I could master it, bend it to my will, make it serve me… But it’s always trying to break free, and I am always trying to keep it imprisoned. It cannot be destroyed, not by any power I have at my disposal. It can only be contained.”

“But you let it out to stop him,” Clover said quietly.

Star Swirl stared into the distance. “He was going to hurt you,” he whispered. “He was going to hurt you, and all my unicorn magic could not stop him. So I had to let out something that could.” He turned and looked at her, and there was an old pain in his eyes. “I never meant for them to hurt you.”

Clover’s legs were trembling as the adrenaline slowly thinned in her veins. “I know you didn’t, professor.”

“I promised you that none of them would harm you. I promised, and I let you down. I failed as your teacher… Maybe you should go back to regular classes, and leave me here.”

Her chest was aching but she did not show it. “He didn’t hurt me,” Clover said. “It’s alright, Star Swirl. I’m fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Star Swirl sat listless, unmoving. “I failed to help somepony once, long ago. Right when she needed me most, I couldn’t help her. I have spent my entire life since trying to make up for my mistakes… I don’t want to fail you as well.”

“You haven’t failed me, Professor,” Clover said. “I know you’re a good pony. Even though you keep trying to convince me that you’re not. You do care about ponies. You just need to show it by other means than insane murder magic.”

He sat quietly for a moment. “It’s too late for me, Clover,” he said softly. “I am too old to change so much. There’s so much work left to do, and so little time to do it in.”

Clover sat beside him quietly as he spoke. “You don’t have to do everything by yourself,” she whispered. “Nopony can.”

“I am not a pony,” he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “I am Star Swirl the Bearded… and there is nothing else like me.”

“And I’m your apprentice,” she said. “Won’t you please let me help you?”

Star Swirl glanced at his student, and an expression passed over his face that Clover could not read. An uncertainty, a hesitation.

She was just about to speak again when they were interrupted by the sudden and insistent ringing of the doorbell.

Clover glanced towards the door, and back, considering just ignoring it. A look from her teacher persuaded her otherwise, and she reluctantly went out to get it.

She was already speaking as she opened the door. “Hello, I’m afraid we’re not open for—”

“Oh good, you’re here.” Ginny said, and pushed past Clover and into the hall, where she halted, looking across the wreckage. “Well, I can see you two are in the middle of something. But I have more news for you, Clover. I found Dusty.”

“You did?” Clover looked at her warily.

Ginny nodded. “He wrote you a letter, and asked me to deliver it to you.”

She held up a thin paper envelope for Clover to take. “It’s an apology,” she said. “I do believe he did not have the guts to meet you face to face.”

“...Oh.” Clover looked at the floating letter. She glanced to her teacher, who was still sitting quietly by himself, and back to Ginny. “Well… The truth is that yes, we are sort of in the middle of something here. I think this can wait until later.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. Star Swirl waved a hoof in Clover’s direction. “Go on, Clover. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, Professor, you were falling apart!” Clover snapped. “This is – it isn’t important. It can wait.”

Star Swirl glanced at his student and shrugged. Ginny’s eyebrow raised higher.

“It’s best to get it over with,” the librarian said.

“I… alright, fine,” Clover huffed. She steeled herself, drew a deep breath, and nodded. “May I have the letter?”

Ginny passed it over. Clover opened it, and began to read.

Dear Clover. There’s an old joke,” Clover muttered. “I’m sorry I had to leave town, but by now you probably know why.

You’re probably well aware of the various rumors about you floating across the university,” Clover read, “Yes, I know, the mad wizard’s black-hearted apprentice, and so on… Oh, he writes them down. That was thoughtful of him. As the only pony who can stand to be around Professor Star Swirl the Bearded for long periods of time, that you are secretly his illegitimate daughter, or that you actually died on the job on the first day but he raised you from the dead…

Star Swirl was silent.

“You might not have noticed me, but I was working at the museum when Star Swirl invaded and you tried to get him out. That was the first time I saw you, and to be honest it didn’t exactly disprove the rumors. Later on I heard about the wager at the EBP, and my friends egged me on to try it. I went along with it.

“At first I thought it was a joke. But once I spent some time with you and got to know you I realized how wrong the rumors were, and how cruel the whole thing was. And I realized it was only a question of time before you found out about the whole thing, and how much you would hate me when you did. And as I began to realize I wanted to keep spending time with you, I realized I had already blown any chance I had of being your friend, or anything at all.

After the last time I saw you I quit the EBP. I took my stuff and went back to my parents’ place in Trottingham while I think about what to do next.

Though I don’t expect it means anything now, I’m truly sorry.

-Dusty.”

Everypony present was quiet, the two elder ponies watching Clover intently. She wasn’t going to acknowledge the pit in her stomach, or the tears.

Clover could picture all the things he hadn’t put in the letter. The boisterous encouragement from the EBP as he told them he’d try his hoof at her. That first time she’d seen him when she hung up posters in the market square, and been entranced by his smile. The lurch of guilt in his stomach as he sat with her at Black Bean’s and gradually realized his mistake. The jeers of the frat ponies as he abandoned the wager, his burning face as he fled the town, deciding to leave it all undone, the wound unbandaged.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay then.”

“Tartarus’ trumpets,” Star Swirl muttered under his breath. He had gotten up from the chair and stood beside his student. “I’m sorry, Clover.”

“It’s alright.” She felt as hollow as her voice. “It’s… It’s only a little pony problem. It’s not important. Don’t worry about it.”

Star Swirl looked at her with concern in his eyes, his brow furrowed. “Clover…”

Clover closed her eyes. “I am a silly filly, aren’t I?” she said quietly, her voice seeming awkward and jagged in her throat. She wiped the tears away with her fetlock and gave a grim laugh. “It just goes to show, doesn’t it? You’re fighting for the survival of the Unicorn Kingdom, and here I am, crying over a colt. I know I shouldn’t care about him. I know my feelings don’t matter. What’s one more filly with a broken heart in the world?” She shook her head, laughing softly. “I’m sorry, Professor. I’ll try to do better.”

Star Swirl stared at her like she’d grown a second head.

“That’s terrible,” he muttered to himself. “Is that what it looks like from the outside when I tell somepony not to care about my feelings?”

“Yes it is,” Ginny interjected.

“Oh Stars, how blind have I been,” Star Swirl said under his breath. He put a hoof on his student’s shoulder and looked into her eyes. “Listen to me, Clover,” he said, and there was nothing in his eyes but pure and honest truth. “You have no idea how important a pony you are. Listen to me, and never question this: your feelings are not less important than mine just because I am a hundred and eighteen-year-old arch-mage.”

Clover sniffed, and blinked. “I shouldn’t be falling apart like this. I should be stronger than this. You’ve tried to teach me, Professor.”

Star Swirl shook his head sadly. “You have been an excellent student,” he said. “But that’s not the point. You opened yourself to this colt, and he hurt you. That’s not nothing, Clover. That matters. And I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

There was something in his voice. Something dangerous, and calculating. Something that was laying plans. “You’re not going to hurt him, Professor,” Clover said, meeting his eyes. “You’re certainly not going to tell yourself that you’re hurting him for my sake.”

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Clover narrowed her eyes. “I want you to leave him alone.”

Star Swirl’s face struggled through a series of contradictory impulses and emotions. Clover didn’t break eye contact. In the end, he dropped his head in a nod. “If that is what you want,” he said. “…I am afraid that I have neglected you, Clover. You tried to help me, when I should have been helping you, and hurt yourself in the process. I want to undo the damage, if that is possible.”

Clover looked down at the letter, which now had tear stains that were not there before. “I’ll be fine,” she said, her voice only a little cracked.

Star Swirl nodded, slowly, thoughtfully. “I think you will be. You’re stronger than you know, Clover. But you were hurt because… ponies were treating you badly because of me, and I should not have allowed that to happen.” He bowed his head. “I failed you twice today. Over the years I have grown so accustomed to being alone… I forgot that you weren’t. If you want to continue studying with me… you’re welcome to stay. And I promise I’ll try to do better.”

When he looked up again his student was smiling at him, and her tears looked less sad. “You see, Professor? You do care about ponies. I always knew that deep down you always did.” She blew her muzzle on the sleeve of her robe. “You still want me as your apprentice?”

“Yes. I do. I hope you still want to stay.”

Clover blinked, clearing her eyes. “Ever since when I was a foal, and read about your adventures, I always wanted to be just like you. It seemed like you always know how to handle everything. Now that I know you, and see what it takes for you to be the way you are…” She sighed. “I do want to stay. But I’m not sure I can ever learn to be like you.”

“You’re not me, Clover,” Star Swirl said. “There’s a reason I took you on as my apprentice. There is more to you than you realize. There is a fire in you that the world cannot extinguish.” He smiled at her. “Perhaps the world doesn’t need more than one Star Swirl the Bearded. But I know that the world needs a Clover.”

It was only a slight disturbance in the magical force that permeated Canterlot House, but it passed through them like a billowing wave on the sea shore, and they looked around them.

Clover glanced past Star Swirl and as she looked across him her eyes went wide. “What…?”

Star Swirl looked back. There was a glimmer of light hanging in the air about him, and a sound in the air, like a distant note sung to alien music.

He pulled aside his robe and they saw his cutie mark, and it glowed with living magic.

“What does it mean?” Clover asked in a whisper.

“It means…” He smiled. “It means that somepony had lost their way. And now they have found it again.”

Star Swirl got up on his legs and tentatively took a few sturdy steps. He nodded in satisfaction, and began to trot. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

– – –

Star Swirl led Clover through the house. The two of them were alone. Ginny, seeing that Clover would be alright, had quietly excused herself and left them to it, citing work still to be done downtown.

Star Swirl stopped at the hidden entrance to the private laboratory, cast a spell that caused the wall to differentiate itself, form a door, and swing open. Star Swirl crossed the threshold, and nodded for her to follow.

For the first time, Clover went inside the dim, narrow confines of the private lab.

“Clover, meet Tarsus. Tarsus, you have already met Clover.”

The changeling lay on his barrel, undisguised, inside the cage. He rose up on his legs when they entered and watched them.

Tarsus nodded at Clover. Clover stared at him. “It's a giant bug.”

Star Swirl tutted. “That's offensive, Clover. Bugs do not speak, or transform. Nowhere near as ingeniously, at least. Show her.”

With a flash of green light Tarsus transformed into Dusty and gave her a pitch-perfect adorkable grin.

Clover yelped. Star Swirl whacked the cage. “No upsetting my student, Tarsus!”

A flash of green light and the changeling had reverted to the form of mister Sprout.

“This is the pony I've been working with the past several days,” Star Swirl said. “He is going to be our house-guest for the time being. He is a changeling. This may be the first time anypony has ever captured one for study. It's quite an opportunity.”

Clover stared wide-eyed at mister Sprout, who looked back at her with snide disinterest. “A changeling.”

“Indeed. Tarsus here took the real mister Sprout prisoner and replaced him, and has been slowly draining his adopted family of love while his kin drain Sprout to nourish their young. I found him in the process of surreptitiously consuming emotional energy from passersby on the street a few days ago, and seized him to find out what he was.”

Tarsus-as-Sprout gave Clover a vaguely-knowing, vaguely-resigned look, and nodded.

“And here I thought you were putting on an act to fool me, or that you had abducted an innocent pony just to make me doubt you,” Clover said with a sigh. “I should have trusted you, Professor.”

“You were less wrong than you think,” Star Swirl said. “Tarsus was only doing what he needed to do for his people to survive. He acted in accordance with his nature and the laws of his kind. In a philosophical sense, he is quite innocent of any wrongdoing. I, on the other hoof, abducted him off the street and locked him in a cage to experiment on him, based on an educated hunch.”

“Are you going to let me out of here already?” Tarsus asked in mister Sprout’s voice. “I am genuinely weak and starving.”

“Only when I am satisfied that it is safe. It’s been a very busy day. I will get to work on setting up some safeguards once I can find the time.”

Tarsus-Sprout grumbled unhappily, and sank down to the floor.

Star Swirl led Clover out of the lab and closed the door.

“There have been legends about changelings since time immemorial,” Star Swirl said quietly once the door was sealed. “They have hidden in the shadow of ponykind, a source of fear more insidious and terrible than any giant monster. Creatures that will steal your love, that can hide in plain sight, that can take what you love and turn it into misery. They know us inside out, and all we know of them are old pony’s tales.” He grinned. “Tarsus has magical powers completely unlike anything known to ponies. Imagine what we could learn from him, Clover! It is my hope that if I can study his powers, I may be able to recreate them.”

Clover blinked. “That… Are you sure that’s wise, professor? That sounds like a cautionary fable in the making.”

He laughed. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? But it’s important.” He gestured for her to follow. “Come. I have more to show you.”

He led her through the quiet house to the library. Shelves and furniture lay toppled and broken, books scattered amid remnants of shattered glass and scattered tools. But somehow, standing in the center, there stood one cluster of cabinets that was entirely untouched, encased in glass that had not so much as been scratched. Its existence looked impossible to the eye, as if it had simply chosen not to exist while chaos unfolded everywhere around it.

Star Swirl looked up at it. “Do you know what this is, Clover?”

He had redesigned it from the iron-fence-and-skulls motif it had when Clover had first been shown around his home all those moons ago, but Clover recognized it well enough, and the complex web of magical barriers were still intact. “Of course. It’s the only closed part of your library. The ‘Forbidden Knowledge’ section.”

“That’s right,” Star Swirl said. “I keep these books locked away from everyone. Only I know how to access them. They are far more dangerous, and more powerful, than the collection kept at the university library. In the wrong hooves, these books are among the most dangerous things in the world.”

Star Swirl closed his eyes and willed his magic to life. One by one a dozen spells began to come apart, and the glass cabinet swung open.

“I am giving you full access to them,” he said. “You can study them all you like.”

Clover watched, uncertain. “Star Swirl…”

“I doubted you, Clover,” he said quietly. “I did not think you had what it takes. I didn’t think anypony could follow in my hoofsteps, and do the work as I do. But you proved me wrong. Because when I stumbled, you were there to help me up. If I can’t trust myself anymore… then I’ll trust you. You can read them as much as you like. Go on, take a look.”

Clover took a tentative step forward, and Star Swirl urged her on. She stepped up close to the shelf and began to peruse the books within.

She looked over the titles printed on the spines, took a few and flipped them open to the table of contents. She frowned. “Well, this is quite different from what I expected.”

“Oh yes?”

“Well, I suppose I expected something like in the Forbidden Knowledge wing at the university library,” she said. “You know… Mind control spells, soul-eating magic, rituals for summoning demons from the pits of Tartarus, the holy texts of apocalypse cults, that sort of thing. But this seems to be mostly time travel magic.”

“Mind control and what you so misleadingly call ‘soul-eating magic’ is in the public section, listed under Metaphysical Fitness,” Star Swirl said. “Most of the others are under Practical Theology. No, those magics are just minor nuisances compared to this.”

Clover chuckled at what she thought was a joke, but stopped when she saw he wasn't smiling. “Come on, Professor. How bad can time travel magic be?”

Star Swirl pursed his lips. “After the griffon threatened you, when I allowed the… you know, to take control, I thought of using time magic to punish him,” he said quietly. “I was going to kill him. And as I did, I was going to lock him in time at the moment of his death, so he would feel himself dying until the end of eternity, robbed of whatever afterlife he believes is owed to him.”

Clover shuddered, and felt nauseous. “That’s not funny, Star Swirl.”

Star Swirl shook his head. “No, it isn’t. But it happened nonetheless.”

Clover looked at the books, and at her teacher. “You could really do that?

He looked over the books of the sealed case, where all his studies in time magic were locked away. “They used to teach this down at the university, you know,” he said. “Time magic is the most treacherous and malevolent of all the arcane arts. It tampers with the order of creation itself, it defiles every truth. A single miscast spell could end this universe. But, because time is not associated with darkness in pony minds or pony language, only a few fear it as they should. I… recommended to the rulers of the old dominion that they outlaw the discipline entirely, and seal away the knowledge behind heavy guard, and they agreed. Yes, I could have done that. I may be the only one in the world who could. I hope I'm the only one.”

Something snagged in her thoughts. “The old dominion? You’re talking about the Princesses,” Clover whispered. “You’re talking about—”

“Do not say their names,” Star Swirl commanded. Clover obeyed.

“I tried to go back,” Star Swirl said. “If I could have gone back, to before it was too late… If I could have warned them about the White Knight, and his master… the forgotten king, who wore the Crown of Night.” He shook his head. “I spent decades trying to make the spell work. But I found only ruin in it.”

He gestured to the library shelves all around them. “This is what I do, Clover. This is my real work: I learn the forbidden magics, magics that ponies fear, magics that were wielded by monstrous beings that lurk in the crevices along the edges of the world, where civilization does not reach. I take them, and I strip away the malice from them, remove the parts that make them frightful and vicious, and I give them out for everypony to share. The ancient Saddle Arabian blood sorcery belonged to a malevolent demigod who wanted to destroy all ponykind. I took that flesh-crafting spell she used to create monsters, and I learned to use it to heal wounds and cure disease. Now every unicorn doctor in the world learns my spell, and every creature that walks the earth lives longer, and suffers less pain because one pony did not shun what came from the darkness.”

Clover stepped up alongside her teacher. “You don’t have to be the only pony,” she said. “You don’t have to keep it all locked inside. Ponies would understand you, if you’d only explain it to them. I’m sure of it.” She smiled at her teacher. It was a small smile, but it looked to the future, and her eyes were open, and accepting. “Will you tell me about it? Tell me all of it. I’ll listen.”

Star Swirl hesitated. “It is a long and meandering story, and it ends unhappily.”

“You’re still alive,” she said. “So that’s something. It can’t be all bad.”

Star Swirl looked at his student, and chuckled. “Optimist,” he muttered. “I am glad to see you are feeling better.”

“I’ll be alright,” she said, and meant it. She thought about Dusty, set out on his own, searching for a better self, and she smiled. “Go on, Star Swirl. Please?”

Star Swirl gazed across an abyss of time, and began to tell the story.

“A long, long time ago, on a cold and clear night, I sat atop a rocky hillside outside my village, a place called Llamrei’s Seat…”

– – –

It was a few hours later, after much work and many stories, that Star Swirl stepped out of the house, and found Ginny standing outside waiting for him.

“Star Swirl.”

“Ginny. I thought you might still be around.”

“I decided that you two needed some time,” Ginny said. “How is she?”

“She is resting,” Star Swirl said. “I’ve given her the night off. We’ve gotten the basic house enchantments up and running again, and turned on the one that has a mild calming effect on the mind. She’ll be fine.”

Ginny nodded, watching the wizard closely. “Your student is very forgiving.”

“Yes. She is.”

Her eyes narrowed. “She made you promise not to hurt Dusty.”

“Yes.”

“I note that you did not promise anything about his comrades.”

Star Swirl looked at her, and his eyes glinted with an inner fire. “Because they wanted to mock me, they persuaded some runt of a colt to hurt my apprentice,” he said. “They can talk about me all they like. Letting it spill over to her was unforgivable.” He raised his head and looked out across the city. “There is a reason we do not only punish ponies when their victims agree to the punishment. Clover will heal in time, and she will be stronger afterward. But if they did this once they will do it again, and I can’t allow her forgiveness to get other ponies hurt, now can I?”

“I could not have said it better myself.”

“So. What do you say we go downtown, you and I, and destroy the EBP frat house as though it were the Temple of Tabanid?”

Ginny gave a cold smile that would have struck terror into any library patron. “I think that sounds like a fine idea.”

The two unicorns nodded at each other, and set off downtown.

Author's Note:

Pick your Poison: Star Swirl the Bearded boss themes.