Chapter 28: Legend
The first Monday back at school after the dress rehearsal, Sunset used her free period to search out a certain place. You’d think it wouldn’t be hard for a teacher to find the janitor’s office at their school, but she had gotten turned around quite a few times on her way. Frankly, she wasn’t even 100% sure which floor she was on when she finally found the set of steel double doors that led into a dimly lit workshop area.
“Hello?” Sunset let herself in, but nobody seemed to be here. Looking around, the room was 90% filled with things you would expect to find, a workbench, tools, half-repaired furniture and equipment. But there were other things. A row of salt shakers stood lined up neatly on one shelf, with labels on them that read “Infected,” “Cleanse in progress” or “Cleansed.” There seemed to be an alarmingly large amount of weed killers piled up in one corner of the room, far more than the school grounds should warrant. And in between the mundane tools, here and there were those that defied explanation or even a guess at their use by the average onlooker.
“Can I help you, Ms. Shimmer?”
Sunset turned around without surprise. She’d gotten used to the owner of the voice not giving away his presence unless he wanted to. The only sound had been the ticking of a clock somewhere prior to him speaking up. “I broke something the other day,” she explained her presence. “I was hoping you could take a look at it for me.”
“Oh?” The Phantom of the Halls raised one bushy eyebrow. “Broken things are somewhat of a specialty of mine. Let’s see it.”
Sunset pulled the broken pieces of her geode out of her pocket and placed them on the workbench.
Lars Writs walked up, pulled a magnifying glass attached to the workbench over and began looking over them, hemming and hawing – a little ostensibly, Sunset thought – for a good few minutes. “I’m not a jeweler, you know,” he said finally. “I’m just a janitor.”
“I’m not asking a jeweler, or a janitor for that matter. I’m asking a wizard,” Sunset stated calmly.
“A wizard, you say?” He glanced at her while still bent over the table, but there was a clear twinkle in his eye, a challenge.
Sunset held his gaze for a while before she sighed. “Are we really gonna do this? Fine.”
Spotting an old blackboard, she picked up a piece of chalk and wrote his name in big letters.
LARS WRITS
She looked at him, but he remained silent, to which she rolled her eyes. She began crossing out the letters and writing them down underneath in a different order one by one.
STAR SWIRL
“Well, I wasn’t trying to hide it very hard,” he finally said with a smirk. “At least not from you.”
“Why hide it at all, then?”
“I did reveal myself to you once, you know, during your senior year. Even offered to make you my pupil.”
Sunset was taken aback by that admission. “I don’t remember that.”
“You wouldn’t.” He shook his head. “It was during that unfortunate episode with the Memory Stone, one of the short moments in time you didn’t even realize you had lost until the effect became permanent. Anyway, you declined my offer, and you seemed to have all the support you needed at the time. So rather than reintroduce myself, I thought it would be best to just keep my distance, unless fate decided there was a reason for our paths to cross once more.”
Sunset pondered that for a moment. She knew that Wallflower had been using the Memory Stone for quite some time, although sparingly, around school before their big confrontation back then, much more than a week. There were probably any number of small moments she and other students had forgotten without ever realizing it. To think that meeting the Star Swirl the Bearded was one of them.
“Anyway, you really did a number on this,” he went on as if they’d just exchanged business cards. “This was responsible for the magic surge the other night, I take it?”
“Among other things,” Sunset said. “Can it be repaired?”
Star Swirl stroked his long beard thoughtfully. “The physical object is beyond repair. Maybe the spell matrix could be lifted and re-enchanted on another geode. But, even from just a cursory glance, there’s a lot missing that would have to be re-engraved. Probably easier to redo it altogether.”
“I don’t know how to do it,” Sunset admitted. “It’s wild magic, originally from the Everfree, best I can tell. Chaotic in nature. It just about bucks every principle of formal magic I’ve ever learned. I never could fully figure it out how it worked in all the years I’ve had it. I was hoping if anyone could make sense of it, it would be the legendary Star Swirl.”
“I’m afraid not. I’m not even the Star Swirl you hold in such high regard.”
“I figured,” Sunset said thoughtfully. After all, I have a magic pen pal who occasionally hangs out with that Star Swirl, and the portal is closed right now. “I know this world had a Star Swirl, but he was a renaissance polymath, died over 500 years ago.”
Star Swirl nodded. “I know of him, from books, never met him. I haven’t been here that long.”
“So, if you’re not the Star Swirl I know from Equestria, and you’re not the Star Swirl from this world either …”
“I am like you, an expatriate who made mistakes in his own world, one not unlike the Equestria you know, and I was given another chance by fate and the kindness of others for a fresh start here.” He looked back at the broken fragments of the geode on his workbench. “How did you manage to break this so thoroughly?”
“You want the technical explanation?” Sunset asked with a grimace.
“I would very much enjoy that, actually,” he said with that youthful twinkle in his eye. “I don’t get to talk shop with others of my unique persuasion very often these days, as you can probably guess.”
Sunset sighed and leaned against the edge of the workbench. “Here’s what I think happened: This one was originally part of a set of seven, but it was damaged and one is currently … unavailable. I took a Hail Mary to try and summon the magic from the others across town, because I had no better idea at the time. But since I was short one geode, I also drew on my cutie mark magic to pump a little extra into mine in order to compensate. Between the existing crack and the magic overload, it was probably too much. The spell matrix, already frayed at the edges from the damage, must have started unraveling, putting further stress on the crystal, and then the uncontrolled release of magic eventually shattered the geode itself.”
He nodded along with every step of her theory, seemingly having no trouble following. “I see. A classic case of over-channeling. And you used your cutie mark magic to force an activation, you say? Inspired, if somewhat foolhardy. Harmonic and chaotic magic don’t mix very well. Perhaps it would have shattered even without the prior damage.”
“The worst thing is, I think it might have broken something in me as well,” Sunset said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “I haven’t been able to feel my own magic since that night.”
Star Swirl looked thoughtful and stretched out his hand. “May I?” he asked gently.
Sunset nodded, and he lightly touched her forehead with two fingers. The way he was looking at her face was not unlike the curious look he gave the magical geode earlier.
He sighed when he withdrew his hand. “The good news is, I don’t think your magic is extinguished forever. You wouldn’t be standing here if it was,” he said. “But you are right. It’s weakened to the point of being almost nonexistent.”
“But I could get it back?” she asked, not daring to hope.
“Perhaps. I’m not much of a healer myself, but I guess exposure to a strong magic field, like in Equestria, could set you on the road to recover most of what you lost.”
“How long?”
“At least a year, I reckon. Even then, you might have done some permanent damage to yourself. It’s unlikely you’ll ever be as powerful as you once were.”
Sunset shook her head. “I don’t have the access right now, and I have a feeling that I don’t have nowhere near that time either. I can’t leave right now.”
“I wish I could offer more help,” he said with feeling, “but my own magic has diminished substantially from being in a world low on magic for so long.”
“That’s alright,” Sunset said, pushing herself off the workbench and gathering the geode fragments in preparation to leave. “Thanks, anyway.”
“You’re always welcome here if you need some advice.”
Sunset stopped at the door and listened to the ticking of what looked to be an ordinary wall clock, but the familiar clicking had been in her ears throughout the whole conversation, and now that she stood next to it, she realized that it wasn’t actually counting seconds. “Did you know that your Geomancy Attenuator is out of phase?” she asked, pointing at the object. “It’s no longer in sync with the resonant frequency of the ley line.”
Star Swirl quirked a brow, picked up what looked like a tuning fork from his tool wall, and walked over to tap it against the apparatus. After listening to the thrum of it for a moment, he concluded: “You’re right. It’s off by seven microthaums. I’m gonna have to re-calibrate it when I get the chance. You could tell that just by ear?”
A fond smile made its way onto Sunset’s lips. “My mentor used to make me take these apart and put them back together as punishment when I was being a brat. As a filly, I could suss out an offset of three microthaums.”
Star Swirl gave her a gentle smile. “I think you’re gonna be just fine, Ms. Shimmer.”
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Interesting... this Starswirl is not from Sunset's Equestria, nor from the human world... the mirror world from the Reflections comic arc maybe? After all, the only Starswirl seen there was the visiting one from the normal Equestria.
REALLY loved the work on the dialogue, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Sunset figuring things out about the janitor/Star Swirl was a great touch as was wanting to check on him concerning at least a lead on repairing or replacing the geode (the other surviving Rainbooms' geodes are undamaged though as far as I and others have been able to tell, so they can be passed down to Sunny's friends [or, at least, five of them] without too much trouble).
Anyway, really looking forward to more of this.
“Did you know that your Geomancy Attenuator is out of phase?” she asked, pointing at the object. “It’s no longer in sync with the resonant frequency of the ley line.”
Star Swirl quirked a brow, picked up what looked like a tuning fork from his tool wall, and walked over to tap it against the apparatus. After listening to the thrum of it for a moment, he concluded: “You’re right. It’s off by seven microthaums. I’m gonna have to re-calibrate it when I get the chance. You could tell that just by ear?”
A fond smile made its way onto Sunset’s lips. “My mentor used to make me take these apart and put them back together as punishment when I was being a brat. As a filly, I could suss out an offset of three microthaums.”
Jean-Luc! . .
11832531
Hmm possibly. Side note ; star swirls name never actually comes up at all in the movies when it comes to the portal. Well, other than the one we use for the sirens.
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Using dimensional magic to banish the sirens might be the reason people think he made the portal mirror... and apparently so do the minds behind the Reflections comics as he makes more than one
Sunset, I doubt that could be fixed.
Ok? Still odd imo.
Yep, it's a loss cause alright.
Is he saying he's also from another dimension like Sunset!?
At least it's better than nothing.