2 - All The Time
Chapter 2: All The Time
Twilight followed behind ‘Star Swirl’, her hooves plodding along mechanically as she tried to process how she was literally walking in the hoof steps of one of the greatest mages that Equestria had ever seen.
There was doubt, of course, there was no way the awe-inspiring foundation of modern magic was this roguish stallion. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. His physical description, well what little there was recorded, seemed to match. He had a grey coat, yellow eyes and… Twilight frowned. She realised that there wasn’t much else in the history books pertaining to Star Swirl at all.
Most of the facts centred around his achievements and what he did, not really what he looked like. In fact, the most books usually delved into was his uncommon dress for the era. The Stars and Moon bell-studded cape and hat were his trademark for the ages. Twilight’s mouth habitually twisted in disdain. Some ponies didn’t even know that.
She sighed. Did she get the right pony? Perhaps she would find out later when they got to his home. They always said that Star Swirl had a penchant for towers and underground passages. Maybe his home was in one of those. Or maybe… maybe she’d stumbled back in time to before Star Swirl had met the Princesses? It made sense, this was before the unification of the tribes. Gah, this was not what was planned at all! A simple spell and she was just meant to go a few seconds back. She’d only made a few modifications to Star Swirl’s original spell. It shouldn’t have sent her that far…
A sudden thought occurred to her. Of course it wouldn’t work! If she went back a few seconds then she would have seen herself before she even started the spell. That in itself was proof for the fact that she hadn’t gotten the spell right! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Could that be used as a fail-safe for the spell? No wait, if she prevented herself from travelling because she didn’t see herself travel, then she made a self-fulfilling prophecy and it would have failed anyway?
So absorbed was she in her thoughts, Twilight didn’t realise that Star Swirl had stopped, and she continued forward until she stumbled into him.
“Oof, sorry,” she mumbled. The unicorn was stock still. He didn’t reply.
“Star Swirl? Hello?” Twilight waved a hoof in front of his face. She prodded him.
“What?” he said. “Oh, sorry I must have blanked out there.” He blinked a couple of times.
“I’m just trying to figure out how to get across.” Twilight looked ahead to where the unicorn was pointing to, a fairly new-looking rope bridge swaying gently in the breeze.
“It’s a bridge,” Twilight stated. “You can just trot across it.”
Star Swirl’s eyes darted to the bridge and back to Twilight.
“Yes,” he said, eyeing the structure. “I can, can’t I?”
Twilight hesitated, taking note of the affirmative and negative in his statement, but then spoke the question that was hanging around them anyway.
“You’re not scared of heights, are you?”
“What? Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Good, you can go first, then.”
Star Swirl looked like Twilight had asked him to swallow pins and needles.
“Y-Yes, of c-course. I’m not af-fraid!”
Twilight grinned. “Of course you’re not. I’ll go on the bridge first, no need to prove yourself, since you are so brave indeed.”
The sarcasm seemed to slip by Star Swirl.
“Yes. I will hold onto your torso. To keep you safe, so you don’t have to fear falling off.”
Twilight nodded good-naturedly. “Yes, that would make me feel so much more safe.”
As her hoof hit the plank of wood and it creaked, Twilight had to suppress a giggle as she heard a small whimper issue from the beleaguered stallion.
–––––
Fluttershy looked at Discord.
“Is Twilight, uhm, coming back?”
Discord fumbled in his notebook. He pulled out a pair of reading glasses.
“Oh I don’t know! She said she was going a few moments into the past but I knew she would have failed.”
Fluttershy’s face drew into a frown. “I don’t understand.”
“Well if she were successful, then we would have seen her past self appear before her future self left.” He shivered. “We’d essentially have two Twilights for a brief moment in time.”
Applejack looked like she’d pieced it together in her head. “Hey, but if that’s true, then yer would’a known about it before Twi’ left. Why didn’t yer say something?”
Discord shrugged. “If you know Time, then you know that doing so wouldn’t have made a difference. She simply would have stopped going back and then blame the failure of the experiment on me. Then she would have tried going back anyway.”
From Applejack’s frown, Fluttershy figured she was confused. Celestia knew she didn’t get it.
“Uhm, okay. I don’t really understand, but I don’t think you could have done anything…”
“Anything? He’s Discord! He can do anything!” Applejack snapped.
Discord crossed his arms, looking annoyed in spite of himself. He waved a sharp claw in front of Applejack’s muzzle. Her eyes darted left and right as she tried to keep track of it. Eventually, he drew it away. From Applejack’s expression, Fluttershy knew she wasn’t pleased with the draconequus making light of the moment. She glanced at him, he looked serious though.
“I may be powerful but I’m not all-powerful,” he growled, snapping into existence a mug of coffee. He leaned back in the air, sipping the brew. He visibly calmed himself. “And just because I have the power to influence things, doesn’t mean I should.”
“Ah don’t get it. Why wouldn’t ya help yer friends if you had the power to?”
“There’s such a thing as helping too much.”
Fluttershy piped up. “How can you help too much?” She thought about all her animal friends in her cottage and inadvertently smiled. “Helping makes you feel good as much as the ones you are helping?”
Discord stroked a claw across his wizened beard. He held out one claw-tip, composing himself.
“Remember the breezies?” He conjured up clouds that resembled the breezies. “There’s such a thing as too much kindness.” He blew on the clouds and they floated around the pair. “If you coddle ponies too much they’ll grow to love the attention and the reward without the effort.” With a sharp claw he ‘popped’ each cloud. “It’s meaningless after that.”
Fluttershy bit her lip. She learned that lesson not too long ago.
“I suppose you’re right…” she mumbled. “But there are still times when being kind and helping others is the right thing to do.”
Applejack grunted in agreement. “Sure as hay, and I think you could’a tried harder ta help Twilight.”
Discord laid a paw on his chest. “I’m offended you would think so low of me, Applejack.”
“Yer were a little hard on her before…”
“I’ve put that behind me. Besides, Twilight did everything herself. I just put in the magic and poof! Away she goes. It’s not my fault if she gets it wrong.”
“But yer knew it was wrong!”
Discord sighed audibly. “As I’ve been saying, me dear Applejack, I couldn’t have prevented it. It was out of my power.”
“Sounds like a load of baloney to me.”
“That’s enough you two,” Fluttershy started, her voice carrying a slight edge. Surprised by her tone, Applejack and Discord lapsed into silence and stared at Fluttershy. Fluttershy could feel her confidence faltering but she bustled on. “We all have concerns for Twilight.” She looked to Discord and Applejack in turn. “And we all want the best for her, as before. We should concentrate on what to do now instead of thinking about what we’ve done before.”
“You're right,” Applejack mumbled. “Sorry, Discord.”
Discord cocked his head, as if unable to process what Applejack had done.
“You're apologising to me?” he asked incredulously. He paused and drew a breath. “I guess I'm sorry too.”
Applejack looked confused.
“Fer what?”
“For that.” He pointed above Applejack's head. A cotton candy-coloured cloud broiled ominously. He snapped his fingers and dismissed the cloud. Applejack shook her head.
“Ah well, I would'a expected you ta do that,” she mumbled, eyeing the now-vacant patch of sky. “At least I didn’t get drenched.”
“Yay, you see?” Discord said pointedly while looking at Fluttershy. “We're friends again.” He spoiled the effect by rolling his eyes.
This isn’t how I pictured making up would be like, Fluttershy thought.
––––––
“Come on Star Swirl, you can make it across,” Twilight cheered. Her hooves waved enthusiastically, but there was a slight bemusement to the movement, a slight exaggeration that Star Swirl couldn’t dismiss. “There’s nothing to fear,” she added a little unnecessarily. Then she grinned wickedly. “Just don’t look down.”
So of course, Star Swirl’s eyes gravitated towards the misty fathomless depths below.
“H-Ha H-H-Ha! V-Very funny.”
Somewhere along the way, Twilight had managed to detach herself from Star Swirl’s grabby hooves as the bridge swung to and fro. Her eyes were filled with laughter as Star Swirl realised that he hadn’t fooled her for a second.
“Don’t worry, it’s a new bridge, what could go wrong?”
“Don’t say that!” he snapped, crouching as a gentle breeze rocked the structure. “You’ll hex me.”
Twilight smirked. “Hexes don’t— ah wait, not in this time…”
Star Swirl glanced curiously as the mare trailed off and stared blankly into the air for a moment.
A bit of a feather-brain, he thought to himself. His distraction was short-lived however as a slow wind picked up around him, shifting the boards slightly. His pondering dissolved into the void as fear and self-preservation took over.
This is the worst thing ever, Star Swirl fumed.
A particularly strong breeze brought out a girly shriek from his lips. The sound of poorly-contained laughter overlaying his silent embarrassment echoed through the gorge.
I regret saving this mare, he added darkly.
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I believe that you meant he.
I believe that you meant my, but it could be a dialect thing. Stupid Americans! Why do we have to be so different in our way of speaking and spelling!
I like it. I can hardly wait for the next chapter.
Tehehehe brilliant. I like this a lot.
More chapters please ^^.
5622421 Thanks as always, fixed in a jiffy.
5635816
It`s my pleasure, especially if my memory is correct in assuming that the chapter was unedited. All the more reason to praise your skills at either hiding mistakes or learning from them! Only two errors if the dialect wasn`t a problem, after all!
I see what's going on in this story... it's the typical 'go into the past and effect things so they turn out how you know them in the first place' type of thing, also if this is before the unification and Twilight has a castle, that means shes an alicorn so why wasn't Star Swirl suprised and kept calling her a unicorn? Also... I see what Discord did there, messing the spell up on purpose so she goes back and does what she needs to... man you are one sneaky dude Discord, you knew what was going to happen from even before your 'reform' and yet you still played your role perfectly to the max just so things turn out the way they did
...
Maybe the reason he went through all the trouble to do so was Twilight had some sort of hand in his creation? Would make sense why he's trying so hard to keep the timeline in check when he could just as easily mess it all up for the ultimate chaos... maybe im over thinking things
5707923
Presumably, Twilight's still caked in mud, so Star Swirl can't see her wings yet.
Hm... might want to change that sentence up a bit. The reader has to either infer the she above is Fluttershy or read on into the paragraph to rule out it being Applejack.
According to sitecanon, it is spelled "Starswirl", just one word and not "Star Swirl" as two words.
PS: you actualy published this entirely unedited?
8147457 Yes, sorry, and I never got around to editing this fully. As a side note, I used the naming convention found on the wiki: Link Here. I quite like the naming convention as two separate words, and I don't think there's been a canon spelling that will significantly alter my opinion to change it. It's very similar to Cadance, Cadence, Cadenza sort of thing. I hope it doesn't distract too much from the story. Thanks for the comment.