Memory of Magic

by Little Kaiser

Starswirl the Bearded Wing, Canterlot Library, Part 1

What a lucky mare she was.

"Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!"

Indeed, ever so lucky she was. The Starswirl the Bearded Wing was never open to strangers. In fact, even the Academy's many members are admitted into the haven of knowledge only upon presentation of a Royal Decree or an Academic Order. The enchanted, reinforced iron gate prevented intrusion with a mere teleportation spell or brute force. The keys were held by the Grand Librarian. And the guards patrolling the hallway where it sat added up to the security. No ordinary pony may set hoof in these quarters.

Not unless you happen to be the library intern.

"I can't believe this is happening!"

Unable to calm herself, she swooshed across the rows of books and went from shelf to shelf in no more than a mere blink of the eye. This one intern in particular is more than happy to be here amongst the books, rather than in the warm comfort of friends, or a cozy duvet and mattress combo. The archive was made of stone, and it was quite cold in there, anyways. “Miss Giddyhoof! Behave yourself!” scolded the Grand Librarian, Linen.

“I can’t Librarian Linen! Not when I’m positively allergic to ancient scrolls and magical books!”

The unicorn librarian seized the menace with his magic. The white aura made Miss Giddyhoof float. She grunted, trying to break free from the invisible vice, but to no avail. So instead, she chose to benefit the moment. “Oooh, look! Librarian Linen! I can fly!” The pony twirled and looped. The white unicorn could only sigh. How did he ever end up with this pony? This earth pony.

He gently lowered the light-brown mare onto the floor. Miss Giddyhoof landed with a light tap. “Now listen to me. This place is the most sacred one in all of Equestria. I ask of you, Miss Giddyhoof, not to damage anything in this room. Your task is simple, you just need to sort the manuscript section and add the new ones in order, just like in training,” Linen said before pausing, looking Miss Giddyhoof in her eyes to make sure that his new recruit had understood his orders. “Do you understand?”

“Of course I do, Librarian Linen! I’ll get right to it!” Miss Giddyhoof saluted like a mercenary, her regard stood up high.

“Good. Now I will leave you to it. I trust that you will not endanger this sanctuary, Miss Giddyhoof. But please, be careful. You may browse anything you like while you are here.”

“Really? Can I really?” the mare said with enthusiasm. The librarian could clearly see her eyes beaming with intense joy.

“Yes. Whatever you can get your hoof on.”

“Woohoo!” the mare shouted. She jumped with her forehooves in the air.

“I will be off now. I shall return by the end of the day. If you wish to leave when you’re done, then please alert the guards.” Miss Giddyhoof nodded. The unicorn then turned away and trotted out of the room.

“So many books. Which one should I read first?” she muttered to herself.

She had always been intrigued by magic. Although an earth pony, she was an avid knowledge-seeker and bookworm. She knew at an early age that she would never be able to cast a spell, or make herself wings that would work, but being a positive pony, she decided to take it another way. What she lacked in natural talent, she made up for it with intricate understanding. She would have probably aced the entrance exams for Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, yet never having casted a single spell.

Oh, and she actually did.

Miss Giddyhoof, or rather Velvet Giddyhoof had always liked to read about the history of magic. She thought that magic had a story. Where did it come from? What did ponies and others alike discovered about it? What did the ponies do in the Classical and Pre-Classical era? What did the Griffons know about it? Questions upon questions built up in her head as she dug through the shelves laid before her eyes. It was an infinite resource that she could just chew like grass.

Her intense perusal came to an end as she sat herself on the cold floor, her head spinning from information overload. “Wow. Too much info. Need to stop.” She laid on the cold floor, closing her eyes for a short rest. A mental image came into her head. The last time she had questions, it was about Starswirl the Bearded himself. She remembered having wanted to know about how he passed away, and what his last works were.

In depth stories about the great magician were scarce to the public, mainly because the very informative materials were safely guarded inside the Starswirl the Bearded’s wing. The public’s main sources of information would then be hearsays (mostly from the Princesses themselves), followed by actual textbooks written by ponies after him. And they almost exclusively talked about his achievements.

It’s safe to say, that everypony knew he had a beard, but nopony knew it’s color.

“Hmmm, maybe if I check under-”

“Vel!”

The mare scrambled to her feet. She was sure that she was caught slacking on duty. It had been almost an hour since Librarian Linen left. She was beginning to regret putting her work aside. ‘Why didn’t I start a bit before doing this!’ she thought to herself.

“Hey, hey, no need to panic. It’s just me.”

Velvet turned to face the intruder. “Gosh, can you please knock before you shout my name! I almost lost my heart,” she said.

The other one laughed at her antics. “You know, when you said that you wanted to intern with the Canterlot Library, I knew that you were only planning to make it into here. You don’t really want to work, do you?”

The mare was alarmed. She didn’t think it was that obvious. “What are you talking about, Spike?”

The dragon walked up to her. “Don’t think you can fool me, Vel. We’ve been together since you started your tutelage in Canterlot. I know you in and out.”

Spike, a purple, small and wingless dragon with green spikes, was Velvet’s companion throughout her years of tutelage under Princess Celestia. For almost two decades, he had kept the mare in check. Spike was very much like a personal assistant with whom one was warm enough to share a conversation and joke around. Velvet had come to regard him as a brother.

“Fine. You caught me. Now can you please help me salvage whatever is left of my chances at getting hold of first-class material? It wasn’t as pleasant to get here as you might have thought, you know?”

Spike laughed. “For you it wasn’t. I just had to waltz in through the door,” he said arrogantly. Velvet was annoyed.

“Whatever Spike. Now come on! Help me find some books or scrolls. I’m looking for Starswirl’s diary or biography. Whatever you can find about him.” Velvet continued her search in the history section.

“Aye, aye, Captain!”

It was a section that most had abandoned. Nopony was interested to read about what went on in the past. It was a generally accepted idea that there had been too much struggle before the world came to how it was now. What ponies of today needed to do, was simply to honor those who had participated in the building of a modern Equestria, and to pass on the honor ritual to their offsprings. Make sure that they don’t forget the lessons learnt.

Velvet could never agree with that kind of mindset. She believed that it was a duty for ponies to really understand the ‘lesson learnt’. What good would putting a fire out be if the ember wasn’t removed? Ponies would make the same mistakes again and again for generations.

---

“I think we need a rest, Vel. I’m beat.”

Spike laid on the floor. After hours of ravaging untouched books from their shelves and skimming through a hundred introductions, the dragon had thrown in the towel. “I don’t think there ever was any biography on Starswirl,” he said whilst staring at the giant hourglass in the rotunda.

“No, that can’t be right. There has to be something! At least a page or… or a sentence!”

Velvet growled in frustration. How can the most renowned pony in practically all of the West Lands not have written a word about his life? It seemed like they conspired at some point in time to erase the traces of the magician: it was just too evil to be true. But he was definitely an object of envy by many. It was a plausible theory after all.

She sighed. All the hard work to get into the safest parts of the library had seemed to be fruitless. She had had to train herself to speak the librarian’s language, master the classification system and remember by heart all the different types of documents in existence and what their brief description was. And all that was for a headache in the end.

“Well, tough luck rookie. Maybe we should look somewhere else. And by the way, you still haven’t started your task yet.”

“Yeah, I should get to it.”

She went to the rather small pile of manuscripts stacked in a box, just besides the manuscripts section. This was where they stored papers that were either pages ripped off from a book that couldn’t be found, or articles that didn’t belong to one. A recent cleanup of the public section (which was last year, in fact) had revealed some of these slotted in between the pages of books. Usually, manuscripts that were deemed by the Academy to be of significance were stored in the secure wing.

The first manuscript on top of the pile was about some experiments using gemstones for storing magical energy. It wasn’t of much interest, but the Academy had always been keen on keeping records about magic, to no surprise. The next manuscript talked about geomancy and the zebras. She sorted them according to the number that the Academy had assigned.

She was practically done with her task in 20 minutes flat. “Okay, that’s done. Now I just need to sort the-”

As she opened the manuscript drawer, she fell silent. In it was a large mess of papers haphazardly stacked. Some were just laid on top of the existing ones. It was as if the librarian knew that practically nopony would ever lay their hooves on it again, and so didn’t bother to do a proper job. Why did they even keep these manuscripts then?

“Manuscript section. Spike, can you give me a hoof with this, please?”

“Nu’uh, not unless I get something in return. It’s not my job anyways.”

“Fine. We’ll get some snacks at Pony Joe’s.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about. Let’s get to it then.”

There were at least a thousand manuscripts available. The first number on the new pile was 1064. This would take much longer than she had hoped. After a while, they had it sorted out into neat piles of a hundred manuscripts each. Velvet then began to insert them into the slots in the drawer.

“That was 359, 360, 361, 36-”

The manuscript slipped from her grasp. “Whoops.”

It dropped onto the floor, facing the mare. She quickly picked it up. “Hmmm, ‘Manuscripts on my thoughts about Tolpott’s Basis Matrix and Clover’s Condition’, what’s this about?” She began to read the article.

“Everything ok there, Vel?” the dragon inquired.

“I’m fine. I just dropped this one. It’s interesting though. I’ve never thought about magic this way,” she said.

“What about it?”

“It’s an article from somepony. It did mention Clover the Clever though. Wasn’t that Starswirl’s student?”

“Yeah, she was. His best one.”

“So Starswirl wrote this, huh.”

She continued reading until she reached the last few paragraphs. She was somewhat appalled by what Starswirl had written. ‘Starswirl was disappointed with her?’ she thought.

This was something new for her. For all her life, she knew Starswirl as a great pony who bore no resentment towards anypony else. He was a saint in Velvet’s eyes. Yet here were his own concerns and disapproval written in ink and preserved on an ancient manuscript: a proof of the inverse. He was more pony-like than Velvet thought.

“Hey, Vel, you might want to take a look at this.”

Velvet trotted to her assistant. “What is it? Did you find something interesting?”

She looked at the manuscript. It was a document written on both sides. The front side was a short acknowledgement. The other side was an introduction to a memoir, written by Clover the Clever.

“Spike! You did it! You found it!” she exclaimed. With a swift motion of her forehooves, she pulled the dragon into a tight hug.

“Okay- Ok- Pleas- let me go!” He squirmed, but it wasn’t going to break him free from the vice.

She released him. Spike was gasping for air. “Oh, this means so much to me!” Velvet said, enthusiastic about the find.

The weight of that piece of paper was tremendous. It might be a key to understand more about the personality of the greatest magician in Equestrian history, and ultimately the history of magic in Equestria. Velvet could already feel a positive aura enveloping her. She was on the path to finding the greatest treasure in Equestrian history: a memory of magic.

“Well, that’s just an introduction. We still need to find the whole memoir.”

“Right. I think it could be somewhere in here.”

Just as they were about to go searching again, Librarian Linen knocked on the archive door. “Miss Giddyhoof, are you done with your task?”

Velvet yelped. “Uhhh, almost done with it. Just a few more manuscripts to put away.” She laughed half-heartedly.

“Well please make it quick. As soon are you are done with it, I will lock the archives.”

She felt disappointed. Why didn’t she tell him that she needed another hour? Why did she have to find it at the very last moment?

“That’s okay, Vel. We’ll come here again one day, I’m sure of it,” Spike said.

Velvet could only nod. She hurriedly stored the remaining papers away and made her way out of the archives. Librarian Linen bolted the door and locked the gates, sealing the most valuable part of the library from any hooves.

“Great work, Miss Giddyhoof. I thank you for your effort. We never really made time to clean that section. It was too messy anyway.”

“Yeah, I’d figure that out.”

They walked towards the library entrance. “I shall see you tomorrow. There are some scrolls that need to be-”

“Librarian Linen, when can I go back into the archives?”

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“When can I go back to the Starswirl the Bearded Wing?”

The librarian was surprised. Not many ponies wanted to go into the archives. And most ponies that did, were only intending to steal a book or a scroll. No documents from the archives may be copied or taken outside of its home. “What for? Did you leave something important in there?”

“No, I didn’t. But I just wanted to stay in there longer. There’re so many books to be read!”

“Now, Miss Giddyhoof. You know well that nopony can just walk into the archives and do as they please. Even I aren’t allowed to go in there whenever I want. The order has to come from the Academy or the Princesses.”

“But, just for once. Please? I think I’ve found something big and-”

“No, Miss Giddyhoof. I’m sorry.”

Velvet stood quiet. Librarian Linen was firm with his verdict, and by the looks of it, nothing would persuade him to do the opposite. “A-Alright then. Thank you.” She tried to hide her disappointment. She trotted out of the library with a tear rolling down her cheek. She was so close to finding it, yet time didn’t side with her.

Outside, Spike was waiting for her. “Are you okay, Velvet?” He rushed to check on her.

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine.”

Inside, she felt like she had lost a dear member of her family. And worse: she could have prevented it. All it took was a little lie, or ruse. Anything to get to stay back inside the chamber. In her head she began cursing and blaming herself. Her tears were no longer held back from flowing. She sobbed.

“Come on, everything's going to be okay, Vel,” the dragon said, then hugged her hoof, “I’m sure we’ll be back in there someday.”

“You think so, Spike?”

“Yeah, definitely. I think we’re on a good cause. It’ll work out for us.”

Velvet wiped her tears. She was thankful for having Spike as her assistant. And even more so for having him as a friend. "Come on, Spike. Let's go get our dinner."

"Wooohoooo!" the dragon cheered.

The two walked down to Pony Joe's, just by the corner. There had been hearsays that Pony Joe was making his special recipe donuts tonight.