• Member Since 17th May, 2013
  • offline last seen 6 hours ago

Daedalus Aegle


Black Lives Matter. Good things are good, actually. I write about wizards and wizards' apprentices. 90% of prophecy is just pattern recognition.

Sequels1

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(New readers, unsure where to start? The Education of Clover the Clever is best.)

The stars can see the future, and they don't like what they see.
Beset by signs of a great evil approaching on the horizon, Princess Luna and a young unicorn who speaks to the stars set out to uncover and prevent an unknown disaster.

Star Swirl the Bearded: the greatest wizard nopony has ever heard of. Why is that? What did he do? Why do so few now remember that he existed at all, and why do those who do remember him say he was one of the most important unicorns of all time?
A mythical retelling of Equestrian history.

23.02.2014 Featured on Equestria Daily!
Prequel to a more popular and completed sequel, The Education of Clover the Clever. Feel free to read either one first.

Cover art by VSabbath, used with permission.

Chapters (23)
Comments ( 296 )

This is fantastic! I cannot wait to see more! You have a highly enjoyable writing style, and you kept me interested throughout the story so far!

I have many questions, but I'll keep them on hold, as I'm positive they'll be answered later.

Okay. You have me hooked. I can only imagine where you might go with this, and hope that my thoughts can somehow compare to what you write. You definitely have talent, and I have to thank 2997295, for the blog that brought me here. You have earned a like, fave, and follow from me.

:heart:
~Sparky

Well, if I were looking for things to gripe about, this doesn't seem to fit in the timeline Hearth's Warming Eve set down, but that could probably be written off as historical inaccuracies or some such. I guess you said "retelling of Equestrian history" too, so yeah.

Anyway, it's well done so far, and seems like it has potential. Must see more before I can offer a stronger opinion. Not sure what to expect from it next, so I'll just wait and see. I haven't really read many stories strongly focused on Star Swirl before either.

Next time those other Colts try to bother him, he can chuck a star at their heads.

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Sooner or later I'm probably gonna add the alternate universe tag, when it becomes pressing to do so. I actually started planning this story before I noticed the relevant details of the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant at all. I'm considering my options.
Anyway, I hope you'll like it as it goes on :scootangel:

That spell with the luminiferous aether sounds kinda like the unicorn version of the sonic rainboom. Maybe Star Swirl is secretly Rainbow Dash's distant ancestor.

So now I find myself wondering when he will encounter Luna again, since it's bound to happen eventually. If it's essentially her school, maybe she still teaches there sometimes, or at least visits occasionally, then everyone will freak out when they realize Star Swirl knows one of the princesses to some degree.

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Star Swirl and Luna are the main characters, so the fact that she's not in this chapter at all is an oddity. We will see more Luna soon enough though. Possibly tomorrow, in fact.

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...Or even tonight, apparently. Because for once the writing actually went more or less smoothly and I wrote 2000+ working words in two nights.
I know that's not a huge amount all things considered, but when my work usually takes weeks of polishing to get to that point, I am happy with the efficiency.

Congratulations. Your story has good enough grammar to be included in the Good Grammar Directory, a comprehensive directory of grammatically correct stories on FIMFiction.

Hmm, curious how this is going to relate to Star Swirl, though I can think of several potential ways. And I don't remember Blue Horn being mentioned before, but it seems likely he's where the Blueblood name will come from.

Also wonder who the White Knight guy and his master are, of course. I would guess that the war they plan to start is what led to the conflict between the pony tribes, but since Clover is a long way from being born yet in this, that seems too large a time-frame for anything but the most distant setting of the stage.

Interesting to see a story with earth ponies as the racist conquerors, by the way. It's almost always the unicorns or pegasi doing stuff like that.

3200911 "Interesting to see a story with earth ponies as the racist conquerors, by the way. It's almost always the unicorns or pegasi doing stuff like that."

I like to think that everyone has their own distinctive way of being awful. Earth Ponies, at their most xenophobic, probably see themselves as being the ones who do all the work, growing the food, building the cities, and generally keeping society going, while pegasi are just barbarian imbeciles and unicorns are detached intellectuals with no understanding of the real world. And that, it occurred to me, is pretty much how fascists saw themselves: the voice of the hard-working common man against those who would leech off them.
But, every group has some racists in it, of course.

Re the other stuff: we will have to wait and see.

Not bad, not bad at all.

As much traction as the Royal Canterlot Voice has gotten amongst the fanbase, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use the Traditional Royal Greeting in a fic before. Nice, very nice.

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Thanks :twilightsmile: This story is more serious, and less funny, than The Education of Clover the Clever, but I hope you like it.

Gotta love the Princesses as dragon slayers.

Now that's how to demonstrate how much of an adorable badass you are.

Librarians are awesome. I'd like to believe Twilight operates hers with similar late returns rules.

Yeah, if we don't get the Bluebloods from Blue Horn I will be very surprised.

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Poor, poor Luna. I feel just horrible for putting her through this chapter.

I am deeply hoping for and looking forward to something terrible happening to Baron Whiteblood.

Oof, I've really been falling way behind with all the stories that get long chapter updates lately. But yeah, I hope adding it to my group got you some extra views.

So hmm, pretty much this whole chapter can be summed up with a simple "poor Luna". :ajsleepy:

And for Star Swirl's latest chapter, the library hounds were pretty amusing. And man, that school seriously has a long idle period between the students moving in before classes start.

I hope the thesis work is going well, by the way.

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So hmm, pretty much this whole chapter can be summed up with a simple "poor Luna". :ajsleepy:

And it took me 13k words to say it. How's that for efficiency.

And man, that school seriously has a long idle period between the students moving in before classes start.

I think that was in the middle of the summer vacation or something. Or maybe they're not very interested in classes in general. (Yeah, I guess I should actually pay attention to details like that...)

I hope the thesis work is going well, by the way.

Thanks. One way or another, it'll be over soon, then I can finally do stuff I actually enjoy :twilightsheepish:

If I may ask, have you read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss? I just read it, and there were some portions that made me think of this story. (It is really very good, and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.)

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No, I can't say I have, though I've seen it around. What made you think of it?
Hope you've enjoyed my story so far :)

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Quite a number of things, but mainly when the main character arrives at the University where a large portion of the story takes place, and first enters the library there.

Now that was pretty awesome. Nice going, Star Swirl.

The parallels to Luna Eclipsed were a great touch.

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Thanks ^^ I'd been waiting to write this chapter for ages. Luna Eclipsed is my favorite episode, and I wanted to work it into my story. In this version of Equestria, I imagined that when Luna meets Twilight dressed up as Star Swirl, she's actually remembering a meeting with Star Swirl himself under very similar circumstances, and she's more willing to listen to Twilight and try her ideas as a result. That's the kind of thing that amuses me :twilightsheepish:

Congratulations on finishing your thesis :twilightsmile:

Poor Luna can't catch a break, i do have to wonder why Celestia and Luna didn't run courts together from time to time, Celestia must have known she was falling from tradition and protocol and it was bound to put the day and night court at odds¡
So Nightmare night as a party started at Cambridle? i found it odd that people at Everhold would forget the holiday or be so callous about it (no fuss whatsoever for the birthday of a princess? come on nobles, no even to pander to royalty? do they know it's her birthday? if the feast is a yearly thing why did no one ask about no getting invited?) , but if it's only associated with party and fun at Cambridle.... it makes kinda sense.... unless Baron has got a hand at no-pony attending the party or Luna offended the nobles supposed to atend to dinner at court?
I'm excited to see Star Swirl and Luna getting close and someone else getting aware than Luna needs friends, the luminous aether must have been a fabulous gift; pity than most ponies where way to scared to notice. The star's premonition at the end though... something big is coming and I'm curious¡¡¡¡

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Thank you :twilightsmile:
Nightmare/Night Mare Night is Luna's birthday. Since the founders of Cambridle liked Luna, they picked that night to found their school. But over time she became less important to them and it just got to be a big party for the school. As for the nobles at Everhold... well, they're just that awful, really, and apparently save all their fake good behavior for Celestia :P

“Like Coltysseus' human statue gambit in the Fillyad?”
:rainbowlaugh:
coltysseus instead of odysseus and Fillyad instead of Illiaden
5/5 Twilight sparkles for that! :twilightsmile::twilightsmile::twilightsmile::twilightsmile::twilightsmile:

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Thank you :twilightsmile: Also Coltysseus apparently made a human statue instead of a horse statue to hide his soldiers inside to get past the mighty walls of Trot.

Oh lordy, so these guys are working up Equestrian WW1.

Well, there's a divergence from those books I've been mentioning (you know the ones). If it had paralleled, Blue Horn would have been involved in Star Swirl's expulsion as well, not just the professor that hated him.
:derpytongue2:

I suppose hard to keep to a schedual with characters who have a DESTINY. You know, as opposed to those who only have a destiny.

Oh dear. I think just realized what Starswirl's failure is.

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Quite right. It went straight to his head.
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Feel free to send me a PM with your theory. Hope you're enjoying the story :)

Comment posted by Daedalus Aegle deleted Feb 9th, 2014
Comment posted by Daedalus Aegle deleted Feb 9th, 2014
Comment posted by Daedalus Aegle deleted Feb 9th, 2014

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So I tried to respond to this comment once, but then just now I was looking over the comment section and I realized I had responded on the story page, which puts the comment on the latest chapter, and that reply notifications might not work if the response isn't on the same chapter :facehoof:
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear your theory in a PM if you want to send it :)

I have a little bit of constructive criticism on the first chapter. If you haven't read the first chapter, dont read this.
I dont get why the pony's are saying nightmare moon. Alright, the whole nightmare moon incident happend and luna was sent to the moon for 1000 years. We've seen all of nightmare moons return and her transformation back into luna via elements of harmony...
Look this is too hard to explain by typing. BASICALLY, The whole "omc, princess luna is nightmare moon!" Thing could only happen after luna was nightmare moon. And assuming the nightmare moon thing only happend once...
I dont really know how to word this (probably because it's 5AM and i havnt slept) So i'll try 1 last time to get it right!
Basically, ponies shouldn't be calling princess luna 'nightmare moon' yet because the whole nightmare moon thing never happened yet. So starswirll's mom is using a stereotype that wont exist for AT LEAST 1000 years! THE END, GOODNIGHT!!!

Didn't Luna get the nick name Night-Mare Moon when Celestia trapped her in the moon, and the night that happened got called Night-Mare Night?

Apart from that it's a very nice story.

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Hi guys, I don't wanna spoil anything so I'll just say that in this version of events, Night-Mare Moon was already one of Princess Luna's many titles, seeing as how she was the Mare of the Night and the Moon.
Also, the way the ponies acted in chapter 1 shows how superstitious villagers felt about Luna even before she turned into a monster. After all, she rules the night, and the night to them is just the time when the wild animals roam free and all good ponies huddle up indoors.

Hope you're enjoying the story, and thanks for commenting :)

I'm getting the feeling that Luna could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she had worked harder at convincing Celestia that Star Swirl has all the qualifications.

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