Missing Pages & Scrawled Footnotes

by Ice Star

Arachnae's Loom [Unfinished] [Scrapped]

Author's Note:

STOP! EXCESSIVE SPOILERS LIE WITHIN THIS EXCERPT-Y THING IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THROUGH THE SNOW, TOMB OF MAGIC, AND OTHER STORIES INVOLVING ICEVERSE STARSWIRL. THIS IS A VERY CONTEXT-HEAVY SCRAP THAT YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD CAPS LOCK HAS KINDLY WARNED YOU ABOUT. PLEASE DON'T READ ANY FURTHER BECAUSE SPOILERS ARE NO FUN! THANK YOU!

---

What happens when you try to combine crack shipping, villain origin stories, historical drama, lots of lore and even more? This scrapped story, of course! The idea sprang when I was talking with a friend about what Starswirl's youth must have been like in the Tribal Era where everypony was stupid beyond belief. The idea was to take cues from Starswirl's shown traits and write an 8,000 some word story about how he's a freaking prick and why he lives alone in a valley and stuff like that.

Then came the idea to bring in Chryssie. That started because I needed something that would ruin a bit of Starswirl's life (even though he had it coming) to show not only his lack of empathy for anything outside of being the pony equiv. of Donald Trump (in this universe, at least). A problem befitting a Dark Age noble who would have been considered an adult at the time - even though he and everypony else would be far from it - or at least just somepony with a bloodline and money:

Arranged marriage.

And then came the thought of who he would marry. Somepony who didn't want to be pushed around of course! That's how Chryssie was brought in, and it was decided she would become what she is via magic accident after an arguement. Next, I had the idea of bringing in even more conflict to this tragedy to help support how a magic accident so powerful to create the first of an entire race could occur in an age where teleportation was considered a miracle beyond words and Alicorns had been forgotten.

Have Starswirl - who isn't quite what history remembers him as (mostly due to his life and personality being lost to time) - and certainly isn't anypony special or particularly powerful (he never finishes his spells) but is styled as one because society says so meet somepony - pre-accident Chryssie - who is actually hiding true talent and become antagonistic towards them. Yay, life.

And then the first changeling queen or something would happen. This scrap is sorta from months ago so I don't quite recall what the original outline was since if this had gone through it would have been written ages ago.

It was scrapped because the story wasn't flowing very well and that spark I have for pretty much every other story ever was missing. Something felt wrong, so it was discontinued. Plus it turns out, that according to a small bit in Of Fever Dreams And Falling Stars - which occurs hundreds of years earlier - changelings already exist and aren't transformed ponies.

---

Here were some notes I typed about Starswirl based on how he behaved and thought in various stories and stuff:

-Starswirl ran away as a teenager as shown in Spare Him His Life
-He was from a noble family
-His parents were 'normal' (stupid nobles but not mean spirited or overly racist like he is)
-12 years old in story? Gah, his age is so undefined...
-city-born noble
-privately taught/did not go to a ye olde school of some kind
-Starswirl enjoyed the misery of common ponies as shown in Through The Snow
-Starswirl was a 'scholar' by Tribal standards (read: he's an idiot)

---

Teen|Tragedy|Romance

[Summary was lost, sorry]

---

I'm honestly not sure why the romance tag was there. Because crackshipping? Neither of them were even gonna like each other at all, I mean Starswirl's this complete-

You know what? Just enjoy the scrap and I'll stop rambling.

Until next excerpt!

~Icy

There was a single color that defined the world that Aracnae lived in. A gray sky with titanium clouds and silver snow that rained upon a ground where little grew, even when the slush had soaked away. The cold never left this country, so what little crops managed to survive the first wave of snow and ice that caused the few weeks of almost-warmth to submit to winter once again.

Maybe, if there were proper artists whose works felt as alive as their subjects instead of being as flat as their eyes that barely saw what was in front of them, the gray could be nice. Arachnae wasn't a pony who thought this. She was exchanging one manor for another. While this one was bound to have the same gray world surrounding it, and portraits coated with fine layers of ash, it could have other things as well.

It could.

There will be a castle of stone, also gray, to crouch over them all.

It might.

Her mother said there would be better tailors in the capital. Arachnae said some things is response.

It must.

Father had almost disinherited her for those things.

It will.

This arrangement had been set up and it was final, after all. She would leave the dreary manor in the country where she was born

[THE LAST LINE WAS UNFINISHED]