A False Dawn
This Quiet Earth
by
Dafaddah
Chapter one: A False Dawn
Edited by and based on an idea proposed by Sharp Logic
Artwork by Nevina based on a prior version by TotallyNotaBrony
Starswirl the Bearded slowly opened his eyes to the night and the glory of a star-spangled firmament. Celestia’s in fine form tonight! He chuckled. This wasn’t the first time he had fallen asleep stargazing. It was pleasantly warm, still there’d be Tartarus to pay in the morning when his aged limbs stiffened up from a night on the ground, but for the moment he was content to lie back and enjoy the view.
Yes, Celestia had truly outdone herself. Her first attempts when she took over the stewardship of the night had been sketchy at best. But not this evening. Tonight her sky almost rivaled those of her banished sister Luna, even if the layout of the stars was a bit unconventional. Those stars to the right in his field of vision reminded him of the constellation of the Goat he’d known in his youth. And on the opposite horizon, that looked almost like The Hunter upside-down! With a grunt Starswirl rose to a crouch, forelegs to either side. His heart beat faster.
It can’t be.
He swallowed. His eyes roamed the heavens. The Fish. The Great Dog. The Scorpion. They were all there, and oddly tilted in relation to the horizon. In the center of the sky however, the stars were strangers to him. How odd! He then turned his gaze towards the most prominent feature of the night sky: the moon. He had so far avoided looking at it directly in order to better view the fainter stars. As his pupils dilated the orb’s features became discernable and a familiar countenance stared down at him, its face half in shadow. The image was not of Nightmare Moon, but that of an entirely different creature. It had been so long, he hardly recognized it. After staring at it for a full minute, he knew he could no longer deny it.
Stunned, he sat back on his haunches, face to the heavens.
It is!
There was a tug in his heart as memories older than a century reminded him of the first years of his life so very long ago, and stoked feelings he’d thought faded as time tumbled ever forward, leaving only receding echoes of youth’s passions, pleasures and tears. A shiver ran from deep in his belly and up through his barrel, causing his head to tremble and the bells on his hat to tinkle softly.
He had not thought at his age he would be given to such emotion. The very idea of it brought a smirk to his lips. Are you so old now that each of passion’s visits are cherished in their rarity? It’s time to ascertain your circumstances, old fool!
He rose to all fours. Bells tinkled as he wiped the dust from his cloak. Tiny clouds billowed around him, causing him to sneeze. This blasted dust is everywhere. He scanned the darkness. There were no light sources to be seen other than those in the sky. The pale moonlight revealed ruins all around him: swaths of broken walls, tumbled stones, gravel, dust and more than a few mysterious dark empty spaces. He turned as he peered. The ruins extended to the very horizon.
So much for sight! Starswirl closed his eyes to sharpen his focus and inhaled. His keen pony nose detected nothing but the smell of dust, tinged with the acrid bite of rust, and almost as an afterthought, hints of mildew and decay.
He also could hear nothing other than the sounds of his own movements: not the wind, not a bird’s call, not even an insect’s chirp. The night was as silent and cheerless as death.
How did I get here? he asked himself. He thought for a moment, and then his eyes grew wide.
The spell! He had cast a cantrip to travel into the past. It was a refinement of a spell he had used dozens of times while trying to investigate the nature of time, and thought little of it. The past was mostly impenetrable except in a few special circumstances, and the future a roil of conflicting visions. But then something had happened when he cast the spell, something very different from all those other times.
“Uhn!”
A voice! Starswirl’s ears swiveled to locate the source. It had sounded nearby, perhaps off to his left a bit. He swallowed, and set the tip of his horn glowing bright. Its light cast sharp shadows in a circle around him. A few ponylengths away, a pony head rose from the rubble, sporting a dark blue mane with a pink stripe. Lavender ears projected from each side, and he could just see the white tip of a unicorn horn projecting from above the pony’s pole.
For some reason he felt immense relief at not being alone in this dismal place. He took a step forward and stumbled on some loose debris. At the sound the pony’s head turned towards him in a blur of speed as a beam of energy shot from the unicorn’s horn.
Starswirl felt his limbs go numb and he collapsed onto the uneven surface. There was a flutter of wings and the pony landed above his supine form, forelegs spread wide, wings outstretched. It was a mare, noted Starwswirl, an alicorn at that. He cringed as he saw the fury in her regard. She tilted her head to one side, and the tip of her horn lit up so brightly it blinded him instantly.
“How did you bring me here?” she accused with a growl. Starswirl froze. The very first instant she had stood above him he had recognized this mare. It was the one he had seen in so many of his visions of the future. The one who could save Equestria, or bring it to its utter destruction. Given the state of the landscape around him, Starswirl had few doubts which one this mare was. He cringed, and waited in dread.
Twilight stared at the prostrate stallion. That hat. The beard. Those bells! Her eyes grew wide and her chin dropped.
“Starswirl the Bearded?” she said.
The stallion in question raised his muzzle to get a better look at her. His pupils shrunk as his vision adjusted to the brightness, his gaze coming to rest on her face. The legendary scholar nodded and waved a hoof. “Indeed I am. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Twilight squealed. Loudly. “OMIGOSH! It’s you! It’s you! It’s really you!” She clamped both forelegs around his neck. "REALLY!" She pulled back to better see her idol, grinning from ear to ear.
“You’re my number one hero OF ALL TIME, I mean I’ve read absolutely everything you’ve ever written, although I guess you must have written some stuff that wasn’t preserved in the Royal Canterlot Archives because even I don’t save all my checklists and stuff like that. Oh, and I’ve read everything written about you as well, although some of the more outlandish claims can’t be corroborated even though I’ve quizzed Princess Celestia about you like a million times until she started ignoring my questions – say, did you and she had a falling out? ‘Cause she would never tell me why –” Twilight ground to halt.
At some point as she was shooting her mouth off she had encircled Starswirl with both of her wings and raised him aloft in her levitation field. His legs dangled limply like her favourite doll Smarty Pants’. It struck her all of a sudden that most ponies would not consider this very friendly behaviour.
She swallowed and smiled sheepishly at the levitating stallion. Opening her mouth to apologize, Twilight discovered that somehow in the last few seconds a large iceberg (or possibly a small mountain) had taken up residence in her vocal apparatus. Her lips flapped, but no sound came out.
Floating serenely, Starswirl smiled more broadly still. “And to whom do I owe the pleasure of company, on this enchanting evening?” He chuckled while motioning downwards suggestively with a hoof.
Twilight felt heat rise from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. Struggling to get her tongue to work again, she gently lowered her idol to the ground. "St-St-Starswirl!" she finally managed to say.
The bearded unicorn’s head drew his back an inch. "This may prove confusing," he said mildly. "That's my name as well."
“No!" Twilight cringed, her ears falling flat against the back of her neck. "I mean, you're Starswirl!"
He raised a single eyebrow. "Well, it would appear we have reached a consensus on the matter of my identity, at the very least."
Twilight turned her head away and closed her eyes. This was not how she had imagined meeting Starswirl in the flesh. Idiot, idiot, idiot! she thought, and took a deep breath. Ok, you're a princess now, start acting like one. She scratched the back of her head. What would Princess Celestia do when meeting famous ponies? She straightened up. Of course! Follow protocol!
She turned back towards Starswirl and did her best to recreate Princess Celestia's usual sunny disposition: polite, yet flowing with warmth and genuine concern. She wished she had had a mirror available to practice the look first.
"Let's try that again," she said and held out a trembling hoof. "I'm Princess Spylight Twarkle."
Starswirl looked at the proffered purple coated limb, the slack jaw and the eyes as large as dinner plates on the alicorn mare. Just as nervous meeting me as a first year student at the School of Magic, and about as stable emotionally. No wonder my visions about her were so wildly divergent. He reached over and with a hoof pushed up on her chin gently until her mouth closed. He then took her hoof in his and shook it gently.
"It's a pleasure meeting you, Princess Spylight. If I might say so, that's a most interesting name." He had the pleasure of seeing her blush again. Definitely a descendant of Clover!
The thought of his former student brought with it a gentle melancholy. He was struck with a sudden feeling of affection for this mare. He looked at her distraught eyes and downcast ears. Years of living with and teaching ponies had taught him how to defuse such situations. "Please excuse my familiarity, but you look like you need a hug." He pulled close and wrapped his forelegs around her. He felt her tremble, and then ease in his embrace. That's better! He pulled back.
He had always had an artist's powers of observation. They had stood him in good stead all these years and had given him confidence in his estimation of others. Looking into her face he saw a kindhearted mare whose concern for the feelings of others was both her greatest virtue and the source of most of her anxieties. By this light, the visions he'd had of her made more and more sense. He grinned warmly and was rewarded with a shy smile. Her next words cemented his opinion of her.
"Thanks! I really needed that!" Twilight felt a wave of relief as she saw her idol's gentle expression. It took all of her willpower not to squeal again in delight. "I've fantasized about meeting you since I was a little filly. There are so many questions I want to ask you about the amniomorphic spell, about how you and Clover the Clever turned magic from a dark art into a science, and about time travel, of course!" Her gaze dropped to her forehooves as she recalled her own embarrassing experience with that particular spell. When she looked back up she could see that his expression had turned more serious as well.
"Princess Spylight," said Starswirl gravely, "I wish to caution you about what you say to me. I know for a fact that you are from my future, and normally the cosmos has a way of preventing time paradoxes. But as you are decidedly an alicorn I must assume that you exist beyond the usual strictures imposed on mortal ponies. I'm not sure it would be wise to tempt fate, or destiny, or –" he waved a hoof in a broad circle over his head "–whatever entity is the guardian of this causality." His smile was tinged with sadness. "You may ask me anything pertaining to my own time, but please, do be careful not to let any hint slip to me about yours, despite my burning curiosity at meeting an alicorn other than our two Princesses."
Twilight was stunned. Of course he was right. Any clue she gave him about the future could irrevocably change some action of his in the past. That might modify the course of the history that led to the shape of her world, and all the ponies and dragons there that she loved. She swallowed as the weight of responsibility fell onto her withers like a ton of bricks.
“I think I understand. I actually tried your time-travel spell before I became an alicorn, and all I did was cause everypony confusion and a few embarrassing injuries to myself.” She looked up and felt heat on her cheeks again. “And my name is Twilight Sparkle. Sorry for the starstruck filly routine a minute ago.”
Starswirl laughed. It was a deep laugh that made Twilight feel even better. “Honored, Your Majesty Princess Sparkle.” He bowed.
“Oh, you can just call me Twilight. I’m really pretty new to all this princess stuff and –” She paused when Starswirl raised a hoof to his mouth and coughed. “–right. No details about the future.” She sighed. “This might take some getting used to.” She looked around. “By the way, did you summon me here?”
Starswirl raised a bushy eyebrow. “I certainly do not recall doing any such thing. However, the last thing I remember before waking up here is casting a modified time-travel spell. It should just have transported me a day into the past.”
“A single day? Of what use would that be?” asked Twilight.
One of Starswirl’s ears drooped. “Er, I left a notebook out overnight in an area where I do force field manipulations and it rained, so I wanted to go grab it before it got wet.”
Twilight’s eyebrows rose. “But wouldn’t that create a potential time paradox if you’ve seen the notebook after it got wet?”
“But I didn’t see it. So it should be perfectly safe to go back and get it,” he said. His grin faded a bit.
Twilight’s brows furrowed. “Well, maybe you left it somewhere else,” she replied. “Did you look for it?”
His other ear dropped. “Of course I did, and no I did not leave it elsewhere!” – he paused and pursed his lips – “Young mare, I am quite certain I left it out in the field. The only other place I ever put my notebooks is in the pocket of my cloak, and as you can very well see –” he raised the hem of his cloak and pulled the edges to reveal a deep enclosure hidden in its folds. At its bottom lay a somewhat ragged looking folio. Its edged glowed as Twilight gently pulled it into view. "– it’s where I left my missing notebook."
He puffed his cheeks and slowly exhaled. “I hate it when that happens.”
Twilight focused all of her considerable attention on the notebook. An actual hoof-written notebook, heretofore unseen, belonging to Starswirl the Bearded! Hungrily, she raised it before her muzzle and stared at it, perplexed. “This doesn’t seem to be one of your known manuscripts. And it’s not written in Equestrian!” she remarked.
The book was pulled forcefully from her telekinetic grip and thrust back into Starswirl’s pocket. “This notebook is for these eyes only!” He said angrily and turned away, withers hunched. “You’re not very well mannered Miss Sparkle. One would expect more of a princess.”
Twilight facehoofed. Way to go, Twi! By now he must think you a first grade lunatic.
“Starswirl, I am so sorry! I got carried away!” She took a hesitant step forward. “It doesn’t excuse the behaviour, but it’s just that, to me at least, there isn’t anything more important than the stuff you’ve written. Please forgive me. It... it won’t happen again.”
They both stood immobile for a moment. Finally his back relaxed. He turned towards her and sighed.
“I too must apologize,” he said. “It’s uncharitable of me to place such demands on a mare suddenly thrust into the unknown. Goodness knows many ponies would be in a total panic at such an occurrence, yet here you are helping me find my lost notebook!” He looked back towards her and winked. “And my close associates call me Maestro.”
Twilight felt her cheeks tug up as she made a realization. “You know, several of my friends were pretty disappointed when they met the ponies they most admired. But now that I’ve met my own idol, I can report that he’s actually a very nice pony.”
His cheeks turned rosy and he looked away. “You flatter an old scholar, Miss Sparkle.”
She stared at his back, seeing patterns of dust on his cloak. It seemed to be everywhere around here, she thought. Wherever here is.
“Er, Maestro,” said Twilight hesitantly, “on the topic of our situation, do you have any idea where we are?”
The grin on his muzzle faded. “I think I have an idea of where we are. However, I am far less certain of when.”
Twilight looked up. For the first time since she arrived she became aware of the unfamiliar stars above her, and shivered.
Starswirl noticed Princess Sparkle’s expression growing concerned. Perhaps it was time to get the young mare’s mind onto more constructive pursuits, such as investigating their circumstances.
“Princess Twilight,” he asked, “could you please project your light approximately an order of magnitude brighter, and position it above us at an altitude of some ten ponylengths?”
“Certainly, Maestro,” she said. The light rose from her horn to levitate above them, providing a much better view of the immediate area.
It revealed more ruins, scattered debris, and a few low walls that rose from the earth no more than a ponylength. The walls appeared to be made of some foamy material.
Starswirl went to the nearest one and picked up a piece that had broken off. “This is not stone,” he observed. He hefted the fragment in his hoof. “Fascinating! It’s light, yet very hard.” He passed it to the princess.
While Twilight examined the material, Starswirl noticed an odd pile of debris in an angle where two of the walls met. For some reason he felt that it looked a bit off, as if its pieces had been deliberately placed together instead of being the result of debris falling haphazardly. He carefuly brushed off the top of the pile and found a flat piece obviously placed in front of others fitted together to form a crude box.
The princess discarded the piece of wall material she had been examining and moved closer. "Did you find something, Maestro?"
He gingerly levitated the flat frontal piece away from the pile. It was two hoofs high and almost three and half wide. Behind it lay a cavity. "It would appear so, young mare." His horn lit up as Twilight brought her own head next to his. Together they peered inside.
"There's nothing in there!" said Twilight. She looked up at the sky. "Dawn is coming, I think." She sounded uneasy.
Starswirl gently blew into the hole causing a cloud of dust to come spilling out and Twilight to jump back. With the dust were small motes of something more solid: thin bits of what looked like confetti. None of the pieces were big enough to actually identify any symbol or image upon them. "There was paper in there. But it seems time has already taken its toll. How unfortunate."
He lifted his eyes and noticed the sky brightening on the horizon. As it was no longer needed, Twilight extinguished the light she had kept floating high above them. Something felt wrong about this situation. Perhaps the lass’ unease is rubbing off on me, he thought.
As they continued to search through the ruins and the day grew progressively hot, both ponies drew nearer to each other. In the angle between some walls they found another similarly constructed cache holding more confetti, and a few unidentifiable pieces of debris and a tarnished pin in the shape of a butterfly, of the type one might find worn by a young filly. By this time the first rays of the sun were projecting from over the horizon.
A shiver ran through Starswirl's spine. From Princess Twilight's expression he could see that she was also feeling increasingly distraught.
"I don't like this," she declared. She looked into Starswirl's eyes. "Sunrise shouldn't be quiet like this," she added. "Where are the birds and animals, Starswirl? We’ve been traveling out of doors for an hour and we’ve yet to see or hear a single living thing!"
Starswirl felt his ears droop. She's right! he thought. Out loud he said: "I don't know. Perhaps we are on a world where there are no birds and animals."
“Then why the pin in the shape of a butterfly, Maestro?” When he shrugged she continued. “I also can’t detect any of the magical auras produced by living beings, nor the ley-lines that should be there under the ground. It’s as if the only sources of magic for miles around are us two.” She encircled herself in her wings and shivered. “I’ve never felt such a total absence of magic before. It’s as if all of sudden, everypony at a party froze and the room became completely quiet.”
“Well lass, we won’t find answers just standing here,” remarked Starswirl. He gestured towards a point on the horizon. “Come. There are taller ruins in that direction. Perhaps we’ll find a few intact buildings.”
Without waiting for her to answer he pressed on. Twilight followed quickly in his hoofsteps. Thus they progressed as the steadily increasing light of day made navigating and searching the debris ever easier. Periodically they would find more of the empty caches.
On one of the walls Starswirl noticed traces of colour under the ever present dust. Bells tinkled as he picked up the hem of his cloak and dusted off the area nearest the pigment. He revealed two symbols. The first one, painted in green, was made up of only a few letters: WASG. The second was a longer string, EATERS, scrawled inside a red circle with a diagonal bar across its diameter.
Twilight came to join him in examining the symbols. “The script looks similar to the one on the cover of your notebook!” She squinted and looked closer. “Do you have any idea what they mean?”
Starswirl took a deep breath. “I have no idea.” He traced one of the letters with a hoof-tip. “But the script is the Roman alphabet –” he looked around and the expression in his face mirrored the devastation around them “–and this world, young princess, is Earth, the place of my birth.”
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I think I'll be following this one.
Normally I would try and write a serious, thoughtful comment on what you did right and why I like this, but in this case all I can say is...
MOAR
You could have mentioned this story as an author's note at the end of Renaissance Pony, you know. It would have saved me a few minutes of "Needs more Starswirl! Worst end ever! No comment for YOU!".
So please excuse me if I'm a little cautious for this one.
3990308
Good suggestion. I have to agree that I'm also not satisfied with the ending of Renaissance Pony. This idea was to have brought Starswirl full circle to the stage of his life before he arrived in Equestria (i.e. Starswirl in the pre-classical age). The big problem is that canon provides no further information on Starswirl's ultimate fate, so I wanted to leave scope for other Starswirl adventures, such as This Quiet Earth without having to add each one as more chapters to RP.
I am debating writing another "epilogue" to RP, your thoughts on the issue would be appreciated.
No eaters. Big "Uh OH!" if you read The Change novels.
No eaters. Big "Uh OH!" if you read The Change novels.
No eaters. Big "Uh OH!" if you read The Change novels.
3990656, 3990657, 3990658
Yeah, those whacky eaters are a hoot, ain't they?
mane
ley lines or ley-lines.
These kinds of stories do draw me in. Following for sure.
4001929
Thanks for the edits!
Each time starswirl speaks, I hear John hurts voice in my head
After finally finishing reading Renaissance Pony, I can guiltlessly begin reading this story... and... hell of a way to start.