Morning Meir Mysteries: Case 3: A Mayan Island Mishap

by XombieSlayr

Chapter 18: "Welcome back, Ms. Cordelia."

Chapter 18: "Welcome back, Ms. Cordelia."

I was in a classroom. More specifically a lecture hall.

I looked down and saw that I was no longer wearing my white blouse and blue bow tie, but a rather bland looking plaid student uniform that probably belonged to the academy I was now in.

I looked up to the podium as a unicorn in a blue suit walked up to it and stood facing the crowd. He gulped. The auditorium was packed to capacity, a thousand young unicorns eagerly waiting to hear what this lecture entailed. Why was he so nervous?, I thought.

"Good day, everypony," The unicorn nervously spoke into the magical microphone, "and welcome to this year's guest lecture by the renowned Professor Starswirl the Bearded. The Professor requires no introduction, and I am honored to be the one to welcome him back to Cambridle.

My brain did back flips in my head as that name struck me like a rock over the head. "Starswirl The bearded??" I wondered out loud.

I was then shushed by a student sitting a few seats from me. "Oh. Sorry!" I apologized before leaning in to hear more.

The subject of today's lecture will be the Amniomorphic Spell." The unicorn then glanced at Star Swirl himself, who waited by the faculty entrance in the bottom right corner of the room, and I saw as he pleaded with his eyes, please don't deviate from the plan we approved earlier. Star Swirl gave the briefest, slightest nod.

I had no idea what was going on here, but I knew where I was. This was the legendary infamous lecture that Clover The Clever herself attended back in her school days, and the first time her genius was truly witnessed before a crowd, when she deciphered Starswirl's madness inducing lecture.

And just in front of me, two rows down, I saw her. She sat there in her seat, writing ferociously, the sound of her quill on parchment being the only other sound in the room besides the low, gut churning babble that Starswirl The Bearded was now speaking in at the front of the class.

There where always stories of the insanity of this lecture, but being here now, and actually hearing a Class ninety six Speech Inversion Spell with my own ears seemed too good to be true. To my ears it sounded like a jumbled language of sounds and consonants that I was sure didn't exist on this plane of reality. But it was nothing compared to the voice of the dark ones screeching inside your skull, so it did nothing to my senses or functionality. The same couldn't be said for these poor students unfortunately.

Everypony else was so busy either crying, rocking back in forth in their seats, or muttering to themselves face down on their desks, that I was able to get out of my seat and walk down to the second row. I then sat next to Clover who in contrast was so focused she didn't even notice me till I said hello.

"Hello." I greeted her warmly.

She stopped for a breadth of a second, eyes moved to acknowledge me. "Hi." she said, before continuing to write furiously in her notes. She had gone through three pages worth of parchment already, and was getting close to needing a fourth.

I tried again, this time focusing on the lecture. "Interesting to hear a Class ninety-six Speech inversion spell at work isn't it?"

"Class ninety-nine." Clover said without a thought.

"Huh?"

"It's Class ninety-nine. You can tell by the usage of the Arthurian Jammer between each vowel."

I thought for a moment. "Well...no, actually' I pointed up to the chalkboard which Starswirl was now scrambling over with chalk, writing down all manner of ridiculously complex equations, "If you take at look at the fifth parable, you'll see he's using the Molluskain Babble Principle, which was not actually introduced to Magical Harmonics till the ninety-sixth variation of the Speech inversion catalyst."

I looked over to her. "Sooo...it would be the ninety-sixth. Right?"

She didn't answer, but suddenly looked completely shocked. The quill fell from her hooves as she fell back in her chair and let out a frustrated groan. "Ugh! Of course it was the Molluskain Babble Principle! How did I miss that?!"

She turned to look at me, her eyes wide with curiosity. "More importantly, how did you not miss that?" she asked.

"Oh, well after I learned magic, I started studying everything I could. The Babble Principle was one of the first things I learned in depth."

"Huh. Who are you anyways?"

"My name is Morning Meir. It's an honor to meet you!" I said cheerfully, extending my hoof out to her.

Clover smiled and shook it. "Clover Cordelia, and it's an honor to meet you....I guess?" she said awkwardly.

I was too oblivious by the fact I just shook Clover The Clever's hoof, to acknowledge the uncomfortable tone in her voice. "Forgive me, Miss Cordelia, but-

"Whoa. Clover is just fine, kay? I'm not a teacher or anything."

"That's fine, but we need to go. Now."

"Go? What for?"

"Because none of this is real. You're actually-

"Trapped inside a construct of my own mind? Yeah, I know." She said nonchalantly.

It was my turn to be puzzled. "Wait. You know?"

Clover leaned back in her chair. "Of course I know! I put myself in here after all." As she spoke the scene froze around us, time seemingly stopped at her whim. "I've been reliving every single lecture I ever had for the past thousand years. Figured with all this free time, I should make use of it to study."

My eyes widened with amazement. "You've been reliving every single lecture you've ever had? That sounds....exhausting."

"Nah. I never run out of paper to write in, and I don't need to eat or sleep either. Though I can of course." She then turned to look at me again, as she fiddled with the branch of parsley in her mane. "So, what is it that's so important that I have to go? I haven't needed to for thousands of years, so why now?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"Its.....a long story."

"I literally have nothing but time. Go on, let's hear it." She said resting her head on her hooves and turning completely in her seat to focus on me, ready to hear the whole story.

So I told her. Everything.

---

"...and then I used the spell to come in here, and here was now, and then I don't know what happened because it hasn't happened yet."

Clover looked at me with huge eyes, her pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks. "Wow. That really was a long story, and that's saying something in here." she commented rubbing her eyes.

Then she sighed. "So ol' Tezzy's really coming back? Fantastic. I thought we were rid of him the first time." She said, sounding both annoyed and angry. "I see why you risked your life to come in here then."

"Yes. If we don't do something, the whole world is going to be destroyed!"

"Pfft. Save for this Simon and his doomsday cult." she scoffed and shook her head. "That is so cliche."

"So? Will you come back with me?"

Clover thought for a moment, thoughtfully fiddling with the branch of parsley in her mane as she thought. Finally, she smiled. "Yeah, sure. I'm pretty sure I've done enough studying for one or several hundred lifetimes anyways." she joked.

She got out of her seat and gestured for me to follow her, as we went up the stairs to the door marked exit. "C'mon then, Morning. We have a world to save!"

As soon as the door opened, we were gone. And when I opened my eyes, the world was back, and Daring and Oracle were by my side.

But they weren't looking at me.

The Chamber Of Oceana

The entire cave shook, as huge chunks of marble fell from the ceiling, plunging down into the churning sea. The blue light from the crystal had gone from a pulse, to a now rapid strobe light, that circulated all throughout the area.

Then there was a crack that formed in the crystal, a narrow beam of light shined out from it.

Then another. And another. There were now hundreds of beams of light all bursting forth from the now crumbling crystal.

There was a blinding light, a massive explosion that threw us all back, and the sound of the whole cave coming down on us.

---

"What happened? Are we dead? Am I dead?" I wondered as I laid there, a terrible pain in my side from where I hit the wall.

I moved around on the floor. "No, not dead. Good."

I then decided to try opening my eyes. I was surprised to see the afternoon sky, looking back at me from above. "Huh. That's interesting." I said mindlessly.

I sat up and saw that the entire cave had collapsed around us, revealing the wide open sky and wide ever expanding ocean. And over where the crystal once stood, Clover The Clever, with her mint green mane, burlap cloak and parsley branch behind her ear, now stood, rubbing her head. "Ohhh..." she moaned. In her hoof she clutched a large blue sapphire.

"Ugh. Are we dead?" I heard Daring call out.

"No." I called back.

"That's good." She called back.

I looked around for Oracle, only to see she too was alright, as she got up off the ground. "What happened?"

Clover then decided to chime in. "I happened. Sorry about that. I never really calculated just how big of a boom a thousand years worth of stored up magical potential energy would cause." She apologized. She then looked down at her hooves and seemed surprised to see the large sapphire glowing in her grasp. "Huh. I had forgotten about you..."

It was then that we heard the shouting and the fierce beating of drums, along with the sound of several hundred hooves thundering across the grassy plains of the village.

Daring flew up and looked over to the fields. "Um, guys. We have company! A lot of it!"

Oracle suddenly looked panicked. "The blast must have alerted the entire village! Quickly, you must leave before they catch you!"

"We're not going to leave you here!" I protested.

"I'll be alright. I can stall them long enough for you to get away." She sounded like she knew she wasn't going to see us again.

But then Clover stepped forward and smiled. "How bout we just stick around then? See how this goes."

"Are you insane?" Daring argued. "We'll be captured for sure!"

"Just trust me alright? We'll be fine. Promise." Clover said softly. "I'm the reason these guys are after you right? If they are anything like their ancestors, then they'll listen to me."

Although Daring still seemed to be against it, we didn't have time to argue about it as we were now surrounded on all sides, spears aimed inwards by very angry looking tribal ponies. The angriest of them was the village chief who then stepped forward.

His eyes instantly moved to Daring, who then tried to avoid his gaze. "I told you to leave well enough alone. To let us defeat Tezcatlipoca on our own terms, and leave our village in peace." he said, his voice getting angrier as he spoke. "Twice, now you have proved you are not willing to go in peace. So now we must-

"Do what?" Daring interrupted, rounding on the chief as she narrowed her eyes. "Huh? What, you're going to kill us because we're trying to save the world and you'd rather sit back and wait for it to burn a little first? Go ahead and try, and still won't stop us from doing what's right!"

The villagers became restless as shouting broke out amongst them. Many of them were confused and demanded to know what was going on. Others were angry that Daring was accusing their chief of something so terrible.

But they all went silent when Clover stepped forward. For a minute nopony spoke, but the chief broke that silence soon after. "When we heard the blast, I felt the surge of power that was let out by your reawakening." he said seriously. "I am not surprised to find you standing here, Great Clover."

"Then I suppose we won't have any problems with letting us leave. Right?" Clover asked, her voice becoming very toned, as if she was more demanding then asking. She knew how to hide the true motive behind her words, like I did. Impressive!

The chief didn't pick up on it, but I could tell from the sudden worry in his eyes that he knew what she was really saying. "You were...supposed to awaken when the traveler returned. Then you could-

"Protect your village, while the rest of the world burned?" Clover accused, suddenly narrowing her eyes. "You failed to mention that one to your people didn't you?"

The villagers around all gasped in shock, a few turning their heads to a now very worried looking chief. But worry quickly turned to composure as he explained himself. "Our village has been protected by your magic, since my ancestors first aided you in stopping-

"Aided us?!"Clover exclaimed, suddenly outraged. "Me and Starswirl did everything to protect this whole island from being incinerated by hellfire with Tezzy stomping around, while your ancestors ran back to your village and prayed that Quetzalcoatl would save you. Aided us? You guys did NOTHING to help us, so don't even try to tell me that you did."

This only caused more unrest amongst the villagers. The chief primarily looked the most outraged, narrowing his eyes at Clover, I could practically see the sparks fuming from their eyes as they stared each other down. "You dare speak to me that way? After all the Olyoya have done to protect you for the last thousand years!?" He yelled.

This was ridiculous. That announcement at Sapphire Sands said they would begin evacuating to bunkers in three hours. Which meant we were running out of time.

Reaffirming my resolve, I gently pushed past Clover and locked eyes with the chief. "Look, I understand that there is some tension here between you two,' I explained, "But we don't have time for this! That lunar eclipse is nearly here, and Simon is still planning to release Tezcatlipoca. To do that, he will come to this village, and he won't care who he has to kill to get what he wants. Clover and the Heart are safer with us. Or do you want your village terrorized by a madman and his cult, of which are far better armed and trained then any of you?" I asked, looking around at all the faces that now wore concern and worry. "Is that what you all want?"

The villagers grew silent, as many now looked scared and worried, my words apparently getting them to see what was really at stake. The chief said nothing though, as he only looked angrier. He got up in my face, and just when he was about to say something, somepony else said something first.

It was Oracle. "None of this is what we want." She said, making everyone turn to look at her, as she walked up to me. "Our village has been cut off from the rest of the world, because our ancestors only believed in protecting themselves. We hid in the mountains for centuries, Clover's magic giving life to the land. We never had to worry about food, water or our survival." she stated. But then she shook her head as she looked down at her hooves. "But what good is all that if we are too afraid to help the ponies who share the island with us? If we are willing to let the world burn, so we can keep living in paradise? It's time for things to change." She put her hoof on my shoulder and smiled warmly. "And they start with you taking Clover and the Heart. Together, you can use it to stop Simon."

"But how?" Daring asked suddenly. "We've known that we've needed this thing to stop Simon, and that he needs it to release Tezcatlipoca. But how do we use it? It's not like there's an instruction manual." she joked.

Oracle chuckled at Daring's quip. "There is no instruction manual, no.

But there are a set of keys."

Comments

[Bluecatcinema]

Nice use of a guest star in this chapter.

[XombieSlayr]

8919381
Thank you! And also thank you for your continued support! I will be sure to keep working hard on this story, and I even have an idea for the next Morning Meir Case as well!

[Bluecatcinema]

8921044
I look forward to seeing what that is.