Truthseeker

by RB_

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear 5

Boom Boom Boom.

The door opened immediately. “Lyra? Oh, thank Equestria, you’re alright—”

Lyra said nothing, just marched past Starswirl and into the tower.

Starswirl blinked as she passed him. “Erm… Lyra?”

She reached the back wall, then slumped against it.

“I was worried,” Starswirl said. “I waited for hours—I waited until the reset, but you never… came…”

Lyra was staring back at him. Bags lay under her bloodshot eyes, both fixed on him.

“…Lyra?”

“It’s not a time loop,” she said at last.

Starswirl cocked his head. “What? What are you talking about?”

“It’s not,” she repeated, “a time loop.”

Lyra began to recount the events of the previous night, starting with the Innkeeper entering her room. As she spoke of the ponies resetting the world, Starswirl’s eyes grew wide—and then, when she told him he had been one of them, he sank to his knees.

She told him how she had spent the rest of the night in the storehouse, and how, once dawn had broken, she had left her hiding spot to find the village back to normal. She told him how she’d watched as ponies came in and took food from the pots and barrels—not realizing that most of their stores were empty. She told him how she’d watched as ponies began to take down the festive decorations that adorned the buildings—decorations she’d watched them put back up, mere hours before.

And all the while, Starswirl looked on in grim, disbelieving silence, his mouth hanging slightly open.

Once she was finished, he spoke:

“That—” he paused, swallowed. “That’s not… that can’t be…”

“It’s true,” Lyra said. “It’s all true. There is no time loop—it’s all been a trick. “Something makes everypony reset the world at night, or at least as closely as they can. And then it makes them all forget.”

“Then the tempearl… and the Inkeeper…”

“The tempearl was never stolen,” Lyra said. “It just couldn’t be replaced. And the villagers couldn’t send me back, so they needed to remove me. Permanently.”

“But—but then why aren’t you affected!?”

“My blessing protects me from mental manipulation,” Lyra said. “From lies, including about myself.”

“But—Then why do I—”

He stopped. Then:

“My perfect memory,” he whispered. “I remember because I can’t… forget…”

Suddenly, he snapped his head back and howled. Lyra flinched against the wall.

Starswirl scrabbled to his feet and tore his way across the room, leaping past Lyra and down the stairs to his workshop. Lyra got up and followed him a few moments later.

She found him standing over one of the workbenches. He was silent, and facing away from her. Looking past him, though, Lyra could see what he was staring at—the wooden box. She could just see the inscription in the top of it:

“For Clover. At last my promise is fulfilled.”

“Starswirl,” Lyra said. She hesitated, then shook her head. “Starswirl, I think it’s time you told me what’s really going on.”

Starswirl took a deep breath in. As he let it out, he seemed to sag, to deflate, his shoulders drooping and his neck lowering.

Then, he began to speak:

“I first met Clover,” he said, “many years ago.

“She was just a filly, then, only a few years old. Her parents had brought her to me because she was sick, very sick. They were poor ponies, but they had taken her to every medicine-man and doctor in the land. Most would not look at her; those that did pronounced her unable to be cured They said she would not live to see ten years of age. I was their last hope.

“I took her in, but on one condition: she would become my apprentice, and in exchange, I would do everything in my power to see her live a long and happy life.

“It was an act of greed, not one of benevolence. I needed someone to assist me with my work. Her arrival into my life was an opportune one. And yet…”

He took another sigh, and turned to face Lyra. For the first time, Lyra was struck by just how old Starswirl looked. It was as if the youthful fire that normally animated him had faded down to merely an ember.

“And yet I came to adore her as if she were my own,” Starswirl said. “She had such an interest in learning from me, and such a knack for it as well… every new spell learned quickly and thoroughly, every new potion memorized and perfected… she was filled with passion, a passion I myself had once had. And one that she reignited!

“She was full of determination, as well, the determination to live. The medicine ponies had given her no more than ten years; she gave them ten, fifteen, twenty! I did all I could to combat what ailed her, but I don’t think either of us really thought she needed it, until… until her twenty-second birthday.

“Her illness came back, then, back with a vengeance. She became so weak, she could barely move… could barely breath at times, I, I did everything I could…

“I came up with one, final answer,” he said. “A last resort, but it was my only chance! If I could not cure her of the disease, then I would take away its ability to harm her! I would give her immortal life!”

He planted his hoof.

“Immortal life—in the body of an alicorn!”

Lyra’s jaw dropped open.

An alicorn—the ascension spell! Twilight’s ascension spell!

“I know it must sound mad,” Starlight said. “But I was confident I could do it, that I could induce an ascension, just as the myths of old spoke of, and so I threw myself into the research. I sequestered myself in this tower, ignored the outside world, even neglecting to eat, to sleep for days at a time, because I knew I didn’t have long.

“Clover’s life was slipping away, every second I dawdled—I knew I had little time to waste. And then—”

“And then the time loop happened,” Lyra said.

Starswirl nodded. “It seemed a miracle. With time repeating itself, I would have all the time I needed to save Clover. On the day before her birthday, too. I couldn’t have asked for better timing.”

“How long?” Lyra asked. “How long has the loop really been going on for?”

“Three-hundred and sixty-two days.”

Lyra gasped. “That’s… that’s nearly an entire year! You never noticed? Not the seasons, the weather?”

“It’s cold all year, here. And it’s been overcast ever since—the stars! If I’d just asked a peagsus to clear a patch of night sky, I could have avoided all of this!”

He spun around and kicked the workbench, its contents rattling around from the impact. He seethed, his teeth grit.

“I’ve wasted so much time,” he said. “I could have finished this months ago… instead, I took my time, and Clover could have died during any minute of it!”

He kicked the table again, and the box slid closer to the edge.

“If only I’d seen this before… Thinking back, there were signs! A stray cough here, a slight deviation of route there! The signs were all there, but I ignored them because I needed so badly for time to be repeating!”

With one last shout, he kicked the table again, and the box slid off the top of it. It sailed to the floor, only to be surrounded in a golden glow.

Lyra levitated the box back up to the workbench, Starswirl’s eyes dimly following it as it settled back down.

“That may be true,” Lyra said. “But she’s not dead yet, is she? There’s still time!”

The anger flowed out of Starswirl’s face.

“Yes,” he said. “There is.”

His horn lit, his white-coloured magic surrounding the box’s lid. It hinged open, revealing the box’s contents—a black journal.

“Is that…?”

“Yes,” Starswirl said. “I finished it six days ago. Three days before I summoned for Ditzy Doo, and got you, instead. The box was my mother’s. I reinscribe it every morning.”

“You—you finished the spell?” Lyra asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I have no way of testing it, but if it doesn’t work, then I never deserved these robes, or this tower. The spell within this book will change the pony who casts it into an alicorn, immortal and divine, given the right source of power. One Clover has an abundance of, and one that I never could have.”

But… but that doesn’t make any sense! Lyra thought, frantically turning Starswirl’s words over in her head. Twilight was supposed to have finished an incomplete spell!

Starswirl shut the box, the sound of its lid snapping closed breaking Lyra out of her ruminations.

“Come,” Starswirl said, his fire suddenly returned. “Let us find a way to end this wretched state of affairs, so that I may finally give Clover her birthday present.”

─────

Lyra and Starswirl appeared in the middle of the village in a flash of alabaster light. The ponies around them jumped at their sudden arrival, and the thunderclap that came with it. A small crowd began to gather, a crowd which followed them as they walked, growing larger as more curious ponies came to see what the commotion was all about. Glancing back, Lyra could see some of the ponies who had chased her the previous night.

They came soon upon the storehouse, the two of them entering and leaving the crowd of spectators outside. Together, they began to take the barrels out from the back of the store, Lyra rolling them along the ground while Starswirl levitated them outright, and move them outside.

“Hey!” one of the onlookers shouted, after they’d amassed a decent pile. “What are you doing with our food?”

“You will see shortly,” Starswirl told him. “Lyra, I think that will do.”

“Right,” Lyra said, uprighting one last barrel. She wiped the sweat off her brow and moved to stand next to Starswirl.

“Ponies of Needlewood!” he shouted. “Come hither! Gather around, for I have something of grave importance to share with you all!”

The crowed massed, drawing closer to them. Several ponies near the back broke off to fetch others.

“We have been deceived!” Starswirl shouted. “All of us!”

“By who?” a mare in the crowd asked.

“I do not know,” Starswirl said, “But it is of great importance that we discover this—only after we free ourselves from the deception which even now looms over us! For, you see, today is not the day after the Hearthswarming!”

Murmuring in the crowd.

“I can tell from your faces that you do not understand, but allow me to explain! For, you see, all of us, and me, and my companions—all of us have been living this same day, over and over again, our memories being removed at night as we ourselves return things to the way they were!”

“You’ve lost it!” someone else in the crowd, a mare, called out.

“Have I?” Starswirl said. “Well, perhaps I have—but perhaps this will change your mind!”

As he spoke, his horn lit, and a matching glow covered the lids of all the barrels behind him. At once, all the lids popped off, and the barrels fell forward—revealing themselves to be empty!

“You watched us take these from your own storehouse!” Starswirl said, over the gasps of the crowd. “You will find that, like these, most of the barrels of food in there are empty! In fact, I would wager that only one or two barrels remain!”

He gestured to the crowd. “And yet, by your memories, that storehouse should have been nearly full!”

“He’s right!” a stallion near the front of the crowd shouted. “I took inventory just two days ago—there wasn’t a single empty barrel in there! Someone’s taken our food!”

“Yes,” Starswirl said. “And the culprit is yourselves! Previous versions of yourselves, on previous versions of this day!”

“But that’s impossible!” someone shouted, and Lyra was amused to see it was the Innkeeper.

Starswirl stomped his hoof. “It may seem impossible, but it is the truth!”

The crowd surged with outrage. Several ponies stepped into the storehouse to verify what Starswirl was saying. One of them was the stallion who had talked about taking inventory. When he came out, he was frowning, and his brow was furrowed. The crowd quieted down when he spoke.

“It’s true,” he announced. “Most of our food is gone. I’m… not sure we have enough to last more than a few months.”

Gasps from the crowd, but Starswirl stepped in before panic could take hold.

“I will do everything in my power to assist with this matter!” he said. “I can arrange to have food and supplies sent here from farther east! But first, we must act to extricate ourselves from this curse!”

He took a step forward. “Does anyone recall having seen anything suspicious? Anything at all? Odd unicorns, moving about in the night? Strange items? Anything unusual?”

The crowd was silent… and then, at the back, a small voice spoke up:

“I did!”

The crowd parted, revealing a lanky colt.

“I saw somepony, yesterday—”

“It’s not yesterday!” someone yelled.

“On the Hearthswarming, then! Somepony was out in the west field! I seen ‘em! They had a cloak on, an’ a shovel!”

“Then let us go to the west field!” Starswirl said. “Lead the way, boy!”

─────

All across the barren field, shovels struck into dirt. The sound of moving earth filled the air as ponies dug. No one knew what they were looking for; they just knew they’d know when they’d found it.

Lyra worked too. No one had asked her who she was, or where she’d come from. They’d just handed her a shovel.

At last:

“Hey! Something’s here!”

Everyone dropped their tools and ran over to the pony who had yelled. Lyra did her best to see over the heads of the ponies who had gathered around the hole.

Starswirl pushed them aside and made his way to the hole. He got down into it, pushing aside the last bits of earth to reveal something.

He stood and held the item aloft in his magic: a small burlap bag, held closed by twine. Slowly, he undid the knot and removed the bag’s contents, holding it over the heads of the crowd for all to see.

The object was wooden, carved in the circular shape of two snakes, each one eating the others’ tail. Strands of thread had been wrapped into grooves in each snake’s hide, which stretched between them to form an intricate web. At the center of the web sat a gemstone, a ruby, wrapped and held in the threads that bound it to the rest of the hellish artifact.

“Tail hair,” Starswirl said. “And a fire ruby… this is magic most foul!”

“Is that what was causing all this?” someone asked.

“I have no doubt,” Starswirl said. Without a word more, he levitated the thing high into the air. And then, with a flash of his horn, the totem burst into emerald flame. A cry, shrill, inequine, filled the air—and then fell silent.

“At last,” Starswirl said, “this nightmare comes to an end.”

Comments

[Ze1a7in]

Wait, will Starswirl having finished the Ascension Spell in the past have an adverse effect on the present?

[iraneth0]

that was way to easy.

[Undeadking243]

8728660
I think the spell may have turned Clover the Clever into Holly Leaf on accident. The first time we meet Holly Leaf she said something about taking something that should have been hers in the first place. Also before Holly Leaf blew up the house that she was living in she said that you don't have a proper appreciation for life until it's slipping away. I think the spell may have turned Clover into something else.

[Flod]

Nooooooooooooo! Im caught up! Now i have to wait for more chapters of this amazing story!

[Soda Pop]

8729089
...I want to die.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Well, that's the pseudoloop taken care of, but there are still the matters of the culprit and whether or not Star Swirl's spell will work as advertised. This may get thornier still...

[Darkest Dreams]

I knew it wasn’t a time loop. Now to find out the culprit and how this works with Lyra’s story.

[Ragegamer243]

8728985
Well that's an interesting theory.

[Tallow and Port]

.......wait...... that crazy Hollyleaf mare said... “that thief?” About Celestia... and then “I will have what was rightfully mine” or something similar.......... is..... is “hollyleaf”.... actually clover the clever?