Exordia

by Claystead

Part 1: A Living God

Equa, capital of the Respublica Universalis Equestrica, 27 BC (Before Celestia)

The heavy oaken door opened with a creak. Clover furrowed her muzzle at the musty smell of old books, scrolls and leather, as well as the darkness within the edifice. She banged on the door with her hoof one last time, despite the fact that she had already opened it.

There was still no response.

The unicorn sighed and entered with her bread basket in her mouth, and closed the door behind her. Her master was well past eighty winters old, and his hearing was not what it once was.

She lit a couple of lamps and carried her basket up to the first floor. As she had expected, her master was slung in a deep armchair in front of the fireplace, apparently deep asleep.

Clover smiled and walked over to a counter by a side wall, the only surface in the house that was not covered in various reading material. As she put down the basket and pulled down her soft damask hood, she had to smile at the memory of the rough burlap cape she had worn when the Republic was founded two decades earlier. Time had been kind to her, with her youthful looks being preserved even now in her forty-second winter and her connections in the Senate securing her and her master this luxurious marble villa gratis.

“I bought us some bread and vegetables at the market, seeing as how we missed dinner today because of the funeral,” she called out in a loud voice so that the old stallion should hear her, as she pulled out a knife from a stack of books with her magic and inspected it to see if it was clean, “You really should have been there. Smart Cookie had the most wonderful speech at the Temple of Luna afterwards.”

Clover sighed and put down the knife for a second.
“I will really miss Princess Platinum. She was a great leader and good friend. And it is a shame not a single one of the Founding Triumvirate lived past two-and-threescore winters.”

She started cutting the bread.
“She was only four dozen and four winters… I guess the good die young. Not like you, eh, old fogey?”

Clover waited for the inevitable return quip, but strangely enough it never came. She frowned.
“Master?”

Still silence.
“Mentor?” she tried, knowing that the old stallion was flattered by that title.

When there was still no reply, she put away the knife and went over to him, shaking his shoulder lightly with a hoof.
“Patron!” she called out, an official title her master publicly decried on any occasion.

He remained silent with his eyes closed. A few gears finally started turning in Clover’s head, and she looked to his chest. It was not moving.

She swallowed and barely held in the tears welling up in her eyes.
“Aww, pokkr hellìr…” she cursed mildly in Old Unicornian.
As she tried to figure out what to do now, she noticed a scroll and five medallions with some form of softly glowing crystal embedded within them lying spread across his lower legs.
Curiosity got the better of her despite the solemn occasion, and she rolled up the scroll in front of her eyes with magic.

My dearest student;
I am sorry I never got to say goodbye to you, but quite frankly I did not know what to say that would be appropriate. I have known for a long time that I have been nearing the end of my life, with a burning sensation in my side growing stronger for each passing day. As I write these words, the pain is so overwhelming that it sucks the energy out of my body. I fear I only have hours left in this world.

“Clover the Clever” they call you. I know you have always detested that moniker, humble as you are, but I must agree with them. You are a great student of the art of magic, have always been, and I am of the belief that you may one day become one of the great masters of the craft. I guess I am proud of you, even if I have never told you. I was always of the belief that criticism was a better incentive than unnecessary praise, and it appears to have made you stronger. I hope, no, I know that you will be able to carry on without me, even perhaps adopting an apprentice of your own, or finally settling down to have a family.

However, I do not write these lines to compliment you. I have, over the years, sadly kept a secret from you. I know you think you know everything worth knowing about me, but there is more to my past than meets the eye at the first gaze. I have hidden something of great importance to the future of Equestria. It is not meant for you, but you must guard the secret until someone worthy comes along. This might sound confusing, but in time, you will understand.

Do you remember a decade and a half ago, when I taught you about magical focusing crystals and how they could be used to store magic or even thoughts? The attached amulets are of the latter type. You will understand as you put your horn to them and see the… memories I have left you. I have no doubt you will, Clover the Clever.

With the deepest reverence and respect;
Your former mentor
Starswirl the Bearded

Clover put away the scroll and furrowed her brow. She picked up an amulet with magic and turned it around in the light of the fireplace. On the back the simple thing had only a date as decoration. Her brow furrowed even more as she calculated the date to be more than sixty years earlier, before she was even born. What had her master been keeping from her for so long?

She sorted through the amulets until she found the earliest date, and then put her horn to the crystal.

PART I - A LIVING GOD

Greetings. This amulet, or amulets if my journey is long, is a memory recording. If you happen upon this I am most likely dead, murdered by robbers or savaged by some wild animal. The reason for this recording is that I fear everything I have worked to achieve in the last two years will be lost. I simply cannot let that happen. I ask you kindly to attempt to return this to Unicornia. Tell them it belongs to the apprentice of Silver Marlin, he is well known enough that they will be able to direct you to the right town, where you hopefully will be able to find my family. If you are not able to do this, please give it to someone who can.

I guess that is it. The date is currently the third day of the seventh moon in the seventeenth year of the reign of King Gilded, and my position is almost exactly at the Unicornian-Pegasopolian border. From here on out I will begin each entry with the date and my approximate position.

But let me begin with the beginning. My name is Star Swirl, son of Milk Swirl, but most ponies address me simply as “Starswirl”. I am not sure why, but I guess it rolls easier over the tongue. I am a student of magic, a former apprentice under Silver Marlin of Unicumbria. It is with great regret I say “former”, but I will come to that in a minute. I am a black-maned, cornflower-colored stallion, two-and-score years old, or “twenty-two” as some say. I am currently headed south, to Pegasopolis, to hopefully partake in the greatest military expedition the pegasi have ever conducted. Why would a studious unicorn join forces with our past and possibly future enemies, you ask? Well, allow me to remember the events of…

19th day, 5th moon, 15th year of the reign, Black Forest, Unicumbria County, Unicornia

The beat of my heart hammered in my ears from the physical strain of prolonged gallop and jumping over dead branches, drowning out the soft thuds from my hooves hitting the forest floor. My legs were burning, but my fears of what terrible beasts pursued me kept me going until a singular thought stopped me dead in my tracks. I stumbled, but regained my balance and turned to yell.
“Master!”

The old stallion struggled behind me, still clutching the bag of herbs we had been filling just a few minutes earlier.
“Agh!” he whimpered, as his leg caught onto something and he tripped.

I cursed inside and stormed back to help him back up. As I inspected his leg for any sign of a sprain, a horrifying growl rose up from the undergrowth right by us. I let out a relieved sigh as I realized that it was not a pack of timberwolves or ordinary wolves as we had feared when we started running, but rather just a bear, which can be outrun fairly easily by a pony. Sadly, it turned out the bear was nearer than I had anticipated.

I caught a glimpse of a massive wall of fur bursting out from the bushes before a giant paw hit me over the side of my head and sent me flying. Barely conscious, I tried to push myself up with a how, but a horrifying rip in my stomach as the claws of the bear bore down on me made me collapse like a wet towel. As the darkness descended upon the fringes of my vision I saw the bear open its terrible maw right above my face.

Unknown date, somewhere in the Black Forest

My eyes flickered open in the bright light. Or at least it appeared bright at the time, it might have just been a wax candle. I quickly closed my eyes to shut out the burn, but opened them ever so slightly when I heard a soft female voice come from somewhere behind me and to my right.

“Drink this.”

Just ahead of my mouth was a slightly angled bowl. I tried to ask why I should drink its contents, but my entire body hurt too much for my tongue to form a coherent word. Apathetically, I leaned forward and imbibed the fluid.
A bitter onion taste filled my mouth before the darkness collapsed across my field of vision again.

22nd day, 5th moon, 15th year of the reign, somewhere in the Black Forest

A tickling feeling on my tummy followed by a sting of pain woke me up. I tried to cover myself up with the blanket I felt under my back and around my shoulders, but the tickling and stinging continued for several seconds.

“Mommy! It is not fu-“ I grumbled, stopping when I opened my eyes and saw the unfamiliar surroundings.

I jerked up and scanned the inside of the low-roofed cabin with my eyes.

“What?” I said, confounded, “where am…”

I noticed a sniffing sound and looked down. What appeared to be a unicorn mare sniffed my stomach, where a bandage was pulled aside to reveal a deep gash.

She looked up at me and smiled warmly.

“I was just smelling for onion from the soup. Had I been able to smell it, your insides would have been pierced by the claws of the bear, and I would not have been able to help you.”

The mention of the bear made me recall what had happened.
“Was I with somepony when you found me?”

She sighed and pushed the bandage back into place.
“Your companion is no longer with us, I am afraid. The old one had heavy internal bleedings, and left this plane two days ago.”

I was saddened, but at the same time curious at this mysterious situation.
“Two days ago? What date is it today?”

The light green mare with a dark green mane walked over to a tabletop and started using the magic from her horn to cut up some parsley she fished out from a small box.

“I am of the belief that it is the twenty-second day of the fifth of the moons your kind counts.”
I frowned at the strange form of expression, and realized she spoke with a slight accent.

Upon closer inspection of her now, I realized that she was actually several heads taller than me, taller than any pony I’d ever seen.

Outlander or not, I had to thank her.
“You have my gratitude for saving me, stranger.”

“Oh, I just happened to be walking through the woods when I came upon the bear standing over you,” she said without turning, “I just did what anypony would do.”

My eyebrows raised in surprise. “The bear was still there?”

“Yes,” she replied, “it was about to crush your skull with its mouth. I had to stop its heart, even if I do not generally like killing. It was simply too large to daze or knock out."

I stood up on my hooves, wincing slightly at the pain of my stomach and a headache I had just noticed as something apart from my abdominal pain.

I found the strength to let out a disbelieving snort. “Sure you did,” I added sarcastically, “only the most skilled unicorn doctors can do that, and the patient needs to be completely still. There is no way in hay you could that on a moving bear. No unicorn could.”

My savior stopped chopping and put down the knife, silently staring out of the small cabin window in front of her. Then she turned her head just enough for me to see her playful smile.

“But I am no unicorn.” she said, still smiling.

I started to feel my consciousness slipping out of reach again, and as if she could sense my reduced mental faculties, a huge pair of wings shot out of her back.

As I slunk back onto the small bed I had been laying on, one thought echoed in my mind.

Alicorn

27th day, 5th moon, 15th year of the reign, somewhere in the Black Forest

Alicorns. The race of unfathomably powerful winged unicorns that pegasi, earth ponies and unicorns alike worship as our creators and supreme rulers. The belief in the alicorn gods is the only thing that is common between the races. As you can guess, I spent a lot of the first couple of days staring awestruck at the apparition before. She was real, but did not look like any of the familiar gods I knew from the temples.

So, I spent the next couple of days quizzing her about her kind, more eager than ever to learn more. She remained silent for the most part, though, but revealed enough that I could piece together a clearer picture.

First off, the alicorns were not gods, but rather another, rare, immensely powerful race. Also, they lived for thousands of years. They were still few, though, because mares of their kind rarely got more than two foals. Finally, most, if not all of the supposed hierarchy of the gods repeated ad nauseum in the temples. They are for example not ruled by a divine pair of mares named Celestia and Luna, which happens to be the most central tenet of our religion.

When I inquired about the name of my rescuer, she answered only “Lylith”, without any details of her heritage or birthplace.
As you may understand this whole situation confused me deeply, but as the days passed I slowly came back to health again. Sadly, the lessening of my pain allowed me to truly take in over me the death of my master. Hence, by the eight day of my stay in the small cabin, I was reasonably gloomy and downtrodden.

Little did I know that the same evening, my situation would change radically.

I was lying in my bed that evening as usual, for the umpteenth time reading a scroll about classification of wild herbs, the only literature I had brought with me out in the woods.

Lylith stood by the window, silent, staring out into between a couple of worn curtains. She had done this several times in the last couple of evenings, often standing there up towards an hour at the time, but I had never been able to ascertain a reason for this peculiar behavior.

This night, however, her eyes fixed on something in the dark, and her ears fell back flat against her head. She sucked her lips in for a moment before turning to me.

“My little pony,” she said in a grave, but low-key voice, “while I have enjoyed your company the last week and half, I am afraid our time is coming to a close.“

I raised my eyebrows in surprise; I had at least expected to be there another few days until my wound healed completely.

“But…” I started.

She held up a hoof to stop me, and pointed towards the side door leading to the attached outhouse of the cabin.
“Go. That way. A few hundred paces south of this place there is a hill. From its top you will be able to see a logging camp a few miles away. Now go, hurry, and do not stop. And do not turn around.”

I was about to protest when a heavy banging on the front door startled us both. Seconds later a dark, loud voice came from outside. It spoke in a language I had never heard before, but Lylith obviously knew it, fear clearly visible in her eyes.

“Ka?” she asked, cautiously.

There was a brief pause and the banging stopped, before the voice spoke again, hardened and commanding this time.
“Lylith, kan’esh â numan o karnak!”

Lylith took a step towards the door as if to open it, but then stopped and looked at me.

Outside the voice started listing seemingly random syllables, but I guessed from the tone that it was a countdown to something.

“Go!” Lylith hissed, and before I knew better she had picked me up with magic from her horn and thrown me into the room with the toiled facilities, slamming the door shut behind me.

I fumbled confused around in the dark for a few seconds before I found the door on the other side of the outhouse, and stumbled out into the almost moonless night.

Behind me I heard a loud slam as if somepony had bucked down the front door, and the noise frightened me enough that I started galloping, gritting my teeth due to the pain in my abdomen.

After a couple of unpleasant minutes I reached the top of the hill south of the little cabin. I stopped for a second to catch my breath and my wits. As I wiped some sweat off my forehead with the back of my hoof I noticed that the tiny droplets shone with an orange glow. After a puzzled moment I realized they were refracting something behind me.

I turned and looked back towards the little clearing where the cabin was situated. Large orange flames licked the sky where the cabin had been. In front of it three dark silhouettes, two of them clearly having wings, stood out like a hoof in front of a lamp in a dark room. In front of them something was burning and squirming on the ground.

One of the silhouettes, the one I could not determine whether possessed wings, leaned towards the squirming shape on the ground had. I saw a flash of metal, and I almost thought I could see a soft red glow surround the levitating object. Then the dagger, at least that was what I determined it to be, was plunged down into the squirming shape, and it fell still.

The silhouette stood up straight. For a second it stood completely still. Then it turned towards me.

I froze on the spot, and the silhouette seemed to do the same. Then, as two wings suddenly extended from this silhouette as well, two glowing red eyes opened up in its face. I stared mesmerized into them for a few seconds before fear welled up in me at the recognition of a night vision spell. As I turned to run I caught a glimpse of glowing eyes suddenly appearing on the other two silhouettes as well. The two of them started moving at exactly the same time as I.

Once again I ran like a moonstruck colt through the forest, almost blindly into the darkness, barely swerving around precariously close trees. All the time my abdomen protested loudly with pain, but the sound of hooves behind me kept me going. Not until the soft thuds became flapping of wings did I stop to duck into a bush, covering myself from above observation.

I held my breath and ignored my stomach pain as I listened to the flaps in the air somewhere above my hiding place. After what seemed like an eternity did the flapping subside and move away. To be sure I hid for at least half an hour more before dragging myself slowly out of my uncomfortable hiding place. I had no idea where I was, so I decided to just walk in a random direction. After nearly three hours of walking I stumbled into a little clearing lit by a large flame and occupied by three silhouettes. I cursed to myself silently before collapsing from exhaustion and pain.

28th day, 5th moon, 15th year of the reign

Obviously I had not stumbled back into the clearing with the cabin; then I probably would not have been making this recording now. Rather, I had collapsed by the campfire in the logging camp Lylith had mentioned. The loggers were kind to me; three burly stallions, unusually strong for unicorns. When I awoke in one of their tents they immediately gave me some food and asked me from where I had come. I looked around and could only see identical hills in all directions, so I decided that telling the loggers that I had been lost in the woods for several days would be easier for them to believe.

As I ate some bread and an apple, I impressed the stallions by using a spell to change its look and taste into that of a pegasopolian-grown orange. I knew it was only temporary, but the unicorns were impressed still at the advanced level of my magic.
“Say,” said the biggest of them in his thick northern accent, “if I could’ve known ‘at spell, I could’ve turn me wife back young ‘gain.”

I smiled.
“You would have to be a pretty powerful unicorn to change something that large and livi-“

I stopped in the middle of the sentence as a realization dawned on me. If alicorns actually existed in the physical world, it should be very possible to change your own appearance and nature to match theirs. With the right spell, it should be possible to become an alicorn.

31st day, 6th moon, 17th year of the reign

The knocking on the door startled me enough to spill ink all over the page of notes I was filling.
“Coming!” I shouted, as I struggled across a floor overflowing with loose sheets of paper and various crystals
.
I was almost gasping for breath by the time I reached the door. I composed myself and opened it, trying not to think of all the stubble in my face.

One of my old friends, Silvery Scales, was the one who had knocked. He made a face when he saw my appearance.
“Starswirl? You have a beard? And why are you almost never out?”

I smiled sheepishly. “Well, almost. I am sorry I have not been able to see you and the others that much the last two years, but I have been working on a spell…”

He furrowed his brow. “You have been working on one spell for two ye-“

I saw he wanted to continue, but a hoof had pricked him on the shoulder, and he seemed to remember what he had come for.
“My uncle got this guest down at the tavern. He wanted to meet Marlin. I thought you should be the one to give him the news.”

With that Silvery shrugged and walked down the street with a grumpy look on his face. Behind the spot he had been standing was a plump little grey pegasus aged around fifty, perched precariously on a small cobblestone poking up from a foul-smelling puddle.

“Please, do come in.” I said invitingly, and with a smile that made his curly white beard and mane move, he hopped over to my doorstep.

“Greetings,” he said with a strong accent, “I go by the name of Oropédio of Pegasopolis, or ‘Plateau’ of Pegasopolis in your language. I seek my friend Marlin. This is his house, no?”

I hesitated. “Uhm… I am Starswirl, his former assistant. I am afraid my master passed from this world a few years ago. I am sorry.”

Plateau’s eyes saddened. An awkward silence lasted for several minutes before I tried asking something to end the silence.
“Er… you should not have happened to come across a place selling magical focusing crystals on the way here, should you? I am trying to permanently strengthen the magical field of a pony, you see, so as to preserve a physical alt…”

My voice faded away as I noticed that rather than the expected polite interest the old unicorn focused on me with renewed vigour.

“Like the Rocks of Ponitthaya?” he asked.

I frowned. “Rocks of Ponywhaddayasay?”

However, the old stallion had zipped past me, with the toga that I only now noticed he was wearing flapping after him.

I found him in my old mentor’s study, reading a scroll eagerly.

“Listen…” I started, but he interrupted me.

“Look.” he commanded, pointing to the scroll.

I did what he asked, and to my surprise I saw an illustration of ponies worshipping six glowing crystals, beams of magic shining from them and to the horns of the present unicorns. In the background. What really piqued my interest, though, was the golden alicorn spreading its wings above them all in the background.

I looked at Plateau. “Where can I find these?”

“Far, far east. Beyond the edges of the known world.”

I frowned. “I’m afraid that is a little too far for me, sir…”

Now he smiled warmly. “You are Marlin’s student, yes? Then you know magic well, no?”

“Uh… I like to think s-“ I started.

“Do you know how to do a cloud walking spell?”

“Ye-“ I got out before he fished a paper out of his toga and held it up in front of me. It was a letter addressed to my former master.

Silver Marlin of Unicornia,
Our most esteemed Commander has, under advice from his trusted former teacher, requested that you are to aid his approaching military endeavor into the eastern lands. He would like to assure you that you will be richly compensated, as well as being granted full access to the Pegasopolis Library, as you requested from his predecessor on several occasions. Please meet him in Pegasopolis as soon as possible.

The letter was not signed, but a wax seal at the bottom revealed it to be from somepony within the Pegasopolian military.

I looked at Plateau. “You want me to take his place in this expedition? How can I trust that you will not cut my throat as soon as we leave, and rob my body?”
He still smiled, and rolled the scroll up enough for me to see the title.

The City of Ponitthaya
Translated by Silver Marlin from the original treatise by the esteemed pegasus philosopher Plateau of Pegasopolis.

I looked back at Plateau.
“I will go pack my bags.” I said.

Comments

[Lunar Fire]

Cool story!! I'm guessing the Rocks of Ponytthia are the Elements of Harmony. This story for the win