A Glimmer of Truth: Book One

by NightmareTRXY32

The First Steps

This is it he thought to himself. This is my contribution to Eqeustria's future. I only hope that she can overcome my failures, he kept thinking to himself as he watched his daughter play with her closest friend. It was still a bitter pill for him to swallow. All these decades if not centuries of traveling forward and backward through time had taken its toll on the stallion. There were too many promises and regrets he had that had drained a part of his soul.

At least with this last one he was able to make sure she'd be ok. She had a strong will, she got that from her mother he thought to himself. It was enough to make him take one last look at her before the end finally would catch up to him. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh as the Rune he had placed did its job and teleported his essence back to the lab for what would be the last journal entry he'd write.

Starswirl the Bearded closed the cover to his journal for what seemed like the last time. He had seen enough in his time to know how dangerous time travel was, and how much damage it might cause in the hooves of the wrong pony. He closed the journal and shelved it before stepping through that portal one last time. He made sure no pony would follow him as he stepped into the past for the last time. Everything he had ever done was for the safety and security of the Equestria that he knew, and of the one that would be birthed from the ashes of the Three Tribes. There was no doubt that it would see prosperity long after he was presumed dead.

even then the first steps were always the hardest. Starswirl had tried to be the best he could to prepare and even then it wasnt going to be enough. If only he knew that his own daughter would become a threat to time itself. Starlight was so overpowered that she could break the time stream with the magic that she had inherited from the one that would have been her late father. If Twilight hadnt intervened who knows how things might have turned out for the mare.

But how could even he have foreseen the threat that was to come. The threat to the foundations of time itself from a misguided pony out for revenge against the future Princess of Friendship, one Twilight Sparkle. One of whom Starswirl knew of intimately. He had also known that the dark magic he had practiced at one point in time would catch up to him sooner than he had hoped or expected. Or the fact that it would split not only his mind but his body into two beings as well. One that would remain a weakened version of his original self and the other half that would discard the name Starswirl for one that sounded more fearful. Sombra.

Starswirl couldn't just abandon her at this point in time. Even though it was supposed to the end of journey for him, he felt compelled to be there just so she could wake up to greet him one last time. If only he knew what impact his " death" would have on her mental state. He had made it a rule to not travel into his daughter's future and had kept contact with others to a minimum.

If he had known what had happened to her, he would have abandoned all of this just to stay in her life. The more he thought about it, the more the idea stayed with him. He'd leave behind a message of sorts in the off chance she ever discovered the truth. He left behind a magical construct, a holographic message if you will, just for his Starry.

As he was deep in thought, he came to the realization that he had arrived at the point in time he had set for himself to arrive in. He was back in that village again, back where he felt he needed to be if he was to have some part in his own daughter's life. Not that if would matter in the future. He used the disguise spell one last time to make sure no pony here knew his true identity. He would let history run its course and the name Starswirl the Bearded would become one of myth and Legend. Little did he realize that the last page of his latest journal held the truth that he sought to keep away from the very pony he had now come back to. The revelation that would rock Starlight Glimmer's very soul to it's very core.

That there was a reason why she could go toe to toe with that of an Alicorn. He just hoped that she would never learn of it. how could he have known that in the future she would steal the very time spell he had sought to keep locked away in the Canterlot Archives that were named for him. He needed to put that behind him and focus on the here and now.

"Oh there you are,", he said to a familiar pigtailed foal that was playing with a friend of hers.

"Oh Hi, daddy,", she sang back to him. All she could do was smile as he levitated her onto his back.

"Ready to go home Starry?", that was his nickname for his bundle of joy.

How much longer could he go without telling her of what was to come. He kept asking himself how much would it cost him down the road not being able to tell her of her true heritage, or the cost that might come with it. He knew he was doing the right thing hiding it from her. It still didn't make him feel right about doing so, but he knew that in time, she might uncover it for herself at the right time. He never got the chance to tell her himself. Within a day he would be dead. The strain of the magic that had previously split him in two had finally taken its toll. It was only a matter of time before whatever magic was left failed completely, thus killing him in his sleep.

All of his hopes and dreams rested with her now. All he could do was make sure she was prepared for what may come down the road. A part of him wanted to take her with him back to his magic studyroom and just live out the rest of their days in seclusion with the time he had left. There was so much he wanted to teach her even with the borrowed time he was living on. He hated himself for that. He was in the final stages of a Dark Magic infection. And all he could think about was wanting more time to be with his little girl. His Starry.

He left his daughter a vague and cryptic letter only saying that he was sorry he'd not be able to be there for her when she needed him the most. She put a hoof to his chest and quietly sobbed when she found him laying on top of the bed outside of her bedroom. The day before he had carried her on his back as they trotted home. She remembered it as clearly as she could.

Everything she'd do, was for him in some twisted way. That's what she kept telling herself, that she was doing this for her father. She'd bring time and space to a standstill if it meant she'd have him back in her life. Her mind drifted to the last memory she had of her father. It was one of the few joyful memories she still clung to.

"Yes," she replied, waving goodbye to her foal hood friend that was sitting in the sandbox. How could she have known that tomorrow or the next day might be the last time she ever saw him. For the next day, this same friend of hers levitated a stack of books that had nearly fallen on top of her right back into the shelves of the two bookcases they had been pulled from earlier. That flashback was the only happy memory she clung to as she now watched her only friend leave her as well. His parents saw his magic potential and sent him off to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. She waited until the day she came of age and left that town behind her. Even now that memory of riding her Father's back was the only happy memory that stayed with her.

The day that she blamed cutie marks for taking her only real friend away from her. A day that would send her on a path of near self-destruction. After her father 'died', she left that village behind as a painful reminder of what her life had been up until that day. She headed out on her own until she came to a remote area in the middle of the desert and began her plans of a town without Cutie Marks. One by one ponies would travel here under the falsehoods she promised them. That their lives would be more fulfilled if they were to give up the pain of a life full of special talents.

These will be the First Steps to a world free of pain and heartache, She thought to herself.

The only way for Equality is if we're all the same, Starlight Glimmer told herself. While she was telling herself that, a Certain Princess was telling a pupil of hers that there is more to life than dusty old books. What's more, Starlight realized that she was more of a prodigy with magic then even Twilight Sparkle.

After everything that had happened to her, she had to be more careful with trusting anypony than she ever had before. She knew deep down that she felt fractured and alone. She kept telling herself that no pony else would want to love somepony as damaged as she was. The only pony she had ever really loved was her father. It would take a certain showmare to make Starlight realize just how wrong she had been.

As she got the edge of town, a solitary tear streamed down her cheek and onto the ground. There's no going back now she thought. Im going to break the world, the way its broken me.

Comments

[NightmareTRXY32]

7813558 i have one more that will throw you for a loop before it makes sense in chapters to come. im better at world building when i put my mind to then weird romance parts.