The Dying Words of Starswirl the Bearded
“This is it, Spike! The Sanctum of Starswirl the Bearded!”
Spike didn’t share Twilight’s enthusiasm, holding himself close to her back as he shivered into her mane, not sparing a glance for the frozen tower. “Ugh, it’s freezing. Why did you have to bring me along, anyway?”
“Spike! You know why this is important.”
“Because you want to listen to some old wizard talk?”
“It’s Starswirl the Bearded!” Twilight stomped her hoof on the frozen steps.
“Can we argue inside? I’m cold.”
Twilight sighed and shook her head, her horn lighting up as she pulled open the great wooden doors, the rimed-over surface cracking as chunks of ice tumbled off them onto the stone landing. Spreading her wings, she leapt inside, slowly skittering to a halt as she pulled the door shut behind them with a loud thump.
“We’re inside! Oh, this is so exciting! No one has been here in hundreds of years. Can you believe it?”
“Yeah. It’s still freezing,” Spike grumbled, letting go of Twilight to cross his arms across his chest, shuddering. “So what’s the deal with this spell of yours, anyway? I thought you said there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“There isn’t,” Twilight said, trotting towards the spiral staircase in the center of the tower.
“So how are you going to talk to him? He’s been dead for, like, forever. If there’s no ghost, how does your spell know who to talk to?”
Twilight shook her head. “The spell doesn’t talk to anyone. When a pony dies, they leave a psychic imprint on their surroundings, reflecting their last moments in Equestria. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to hear Starswirl’s last moments!”
“Why would you want to listen to a dying pony? Isn’t that kind of personal?”
“Because it’s important!” Twilight jerked her head, peering up towards the top of the tower before redoubling her pace. “Clover the Clever said that his dying words were so profound, mere ink on paper could not convey them. Do you know what that means?”
“She was a lousy assistant?”
“No! That there are words that are so deep and meaningful that they can’t even be written down! That’s fascinating! A whole new branch of unknown vocabulary. Isn’t that exciting?”
“Exciting. Right.”
Twilight sighed.
The pair fell silent as they wound their way up the tower, Twilight’s frown turning to a smile once more as they approached the top of the stairwell, her horn lighting up to yank the door open before she even reached the top step. “We’re here!”
Spike looked up, tilting his head to peer past Twilight’s horn. “Isn’t much to look at.”
“Well, Clover took everything important when she left. Anything that was still here probably would have rotted away by now.” Twilight stepped into the empty room, her horn lighting once more to carefully pull the door closed behind her. “Now Spike, you ready to take a note?”
Spike hunched his shoulders, rubbing his claws together for several seconds before he nodded his head. “Yep. Just gotta get your ink out of your saddlebags.” He reached down. “And hope it isn’t frozen.”
“It’s not THAT cold.”
“Speak for yourself. So what am I writing?”
“The last words of Starswirl the Bearded!”
Spike blinked as he straightened up, an inky quill clutched between his claws. “I thought you said they couldn’t be written?”
“Right! So I want you to try and write them and see what happens. Now hang on!”
Spike tightened his legs around Twilight’s sides as her horn flared, the bare stone blazing with violet magic as her spell took hold before suddenly extinguishing itself as a faint, wheezing voice filled the room.
“It can’t end like this. Tell them I said something… profound.”
“…profound,” Spike muttered to himself, before brightening as he pressed the quill into the parchment at the end of the sentence. “Got it!”
Silence hung in the room for a long moment.
“What?” Twilight shouted shrilly, stamping her hooves on the ground. “That can’t be it!”
“I don’t know what to say, Twilight; I wrote it down just fine. I guess she really was a lousy assistant, huh?”
“But… Clover the Clever said that his words were so deeply meaningful, mere words couldn’t express them! They moved her, Spike!”
“I dunno. Sounds to me like she just couldn’t come up with anything good either,” Spike said, chuckling to himself as he leaned back on the terribly still mare. “Right, Twilight?” He paused. “Twilight?”
Twilight’s eye twitched.
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Shouldn't that be Entries?
Also, I notice only 3 are here. Have bigger plans for the fourth one?
4899894
Indeed! I plan to expand that story out to being a full length, independent submission.
4899992
I was very confused until I remembered what I used for the cover.
Isn't that a MCR song or something
4900101
I don't even know, man. Google gave it to me.
Maybe I should have chosen a different cover image.
You should advertise that you single-handedly staved off Skywriter and Eakin from getting that Best New Writer prize. That's my favorite part of the story
4900118 I thought this was a fic inspired by the band with the same name (hence the cover image).
4900316
Mwahaha.
4900365
I have to admit I never even heard of them before last night. Maybe I should use a different cover image. But what?
4900457 Do what you want. I'm just saying you unknowingly used their band logo as your cover image.
The more you know.
4900463 I feel my copyrights have been violated.
4900101 its a kick-ass metal band
4900316 and thus me from getting five bucks from horizon.
4900782
Did you guys make a side bet on one of them winning?
Or was that just in reference to me getting that prize instead of them or you?
4900838 Horizon had a judges prize where his top pick--which was Listen-- would get $5. if it got a different prize for some other reason, then the $5 would go to the next story on his list of favorites--which was mine. Listen got 4th instead of 3rd by a mere .03 points.
Interestingly enough, if this hadn't been your first time, then Eakin would have gotten the new author award, which would mean I still would have gotten $5.
4899992
Here I am!
(Yes, I know you mean the other one...)
4901722
Please don't sue me.
4901736
...no?
4901730
Don't worry, I won't...
4901748
Yay!
4901789
Lack of standing, clearly.
4901822
Frank? I thought you were representing Earnest. You know how important that is.
4901862
Oh dear. Afraid of having his search ranking diminished, is he?
Well, two can play at that game.
4900316
I'll get you next time, Dragon!
4902039
Of course not.
I'm way too cool for people to forget about me. 
I'm still kicking myself, though, for not getting in on this.
4902365
So that means we'll be going head to head again next time there's a writeoff, eh?
I look forward to our rematch.
4902372
Yeah, for some reason I sense that this contest would have been up your alley.
Not quite sure why. Just a feeling.
5129735
It was my personal favorite of my short stories from the writeoff, though actually I was pretty happy with all of them.
I think the punchline should've had a little more buildup than a 35-word paragraph. Descriptions of Twilight's physical anticipation, the sound of Star Swirl's breathing, etc. It still made me laugh (though not as much as Spike did), it just came more abruptly than I expected.
What's with me reading sadfics recently? I always keep away from sadfics. Must be some kind of morbid fascination.
Anyway, I somehow found my way here from "The Element of Surprise". And so far I'm liking what I've seen.
On an unrelated note, I've seen your reviews and you scare me. You have enough of standing here that if you declared my fic "not worth reading", I'd might stop writing.
5413025
You shouldn't stop writing because someone didn't like your story. Instead, see it as an opportunity for improvement. And remember, just because one person didn't like your story doesn't mean that no one else will. Though, of course, you should always be aware of why people say that they don't like something; knowing what you "did wrong" in their eyes is valuable, though on the other hand, just because someone says you did something wrong doesn't necessarily mean that you did so, and even if they are right, their suggestion for fixing it may not be the right one.
And certainly don't let me be the one to kill your ambitions. I have very high standards, and I sometimes also have somewhat idiosyncratic tastes.
I'm glad you've been liking what you've seen so far. I still love the final line of The Pony and the Phoenix.
If you're interested, I have another short story collection as well, Assorted Short Stories, some of which you might find interesting. But really, I like everything I've written, though Crepes is a bit old at this point and needs more editing work that I keep putting off. If you're looking for something a bit sad, The Butterfly's Burden is a good choice. If you're looking for something more upbeat, Dawn is a good choice, though all of my romantic stories are at least hopeful (though Through Glass is a bit melancholy).
And if you like modernist rock poetry, The Collected Poems of Maud Pie are the best modernist poems about rocks on FIMFiction (and indeed, perhaps, on the internet at large).
Because, you know, there is a lot of competition in the field of modernist rock poetry.
Though if you don't find Maud amusing, you likely won't find them very funny either.
In Final Witness, you really nailed Granny Smith's voice. I couldn't help but hear her in my head. Good job!
5606476
Thanks! I always try to get character voicing right, and I try to hear the characters in my head as I write them; I'm glad they made their way into your head too.
5897883
Wow, that's really flattering. Thank you!
I'll have to look those up.
"The Dying Words of Starswirl the Bearded"
This would be even better if there was some sort of "magic-bank-bits" unicorns had to fund for casting such intensive spells.
Totally Awesome!
So profound & so evil, it should rate a "Dark" tag
6187075
Alas, poor Twilight. All that way for nothing.
I'm glad you liked it.
4902372
Randomly came across this story, and I was like...
Hmmm, I wonder if he knows about this....
Then I saw your comment.
This was golden, have a like
8030683
Given that you enjoyed this and To The Sun, you should probably check out The Legend of Falling Rocks, Buffalo Brave as well if you haven't already; I suspect you'll get a kick out of it.