Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

by daOtterGuy

Apprentice

“Useless, useless, useless,” Starswirl muttered angrily to himself as he ascended the stairs of his ivory tower.

One-way full-length glass walls showed a scenic view of the harbour town of Pearl, bathed in the light of the moon and pale imitations of it. A magic-enriched coastal settlement inhabited by only the strongest of magically-inclined unicorns. His tower was situated at the town’s highest point, a place of power granted only to the Archmage, the most intelligent and magically gifted unicorn of the Magi, which was obviously him.

“They were supposed to only be marginally incompetent, not wholly worthless,” Starswirl continued.

He liked to talk to himself, since who better to speak with than the smartest unicorn of a generation? His so-called “apprentices”, six in total with names not worth remembering save one, certainly weren’t worth talking to.

They were chosen as a tactical decision on his part. Train those with some measure of talent from the slums and they would happily act as a shield for him against the vultures that circled him, hungry for his power. They were expendable, but could be made of some use to one such as himself if they weren’t all such idiots.

“Is it really so difficult to even learn the fundamentals?” Starswirl seethed. “A simple teleport to town square and back. I could do that before I even began elementary school, yet these imbeciles can’t even cast it.” He hummed thoughtfully as he amended, “Well, most of them can’t. Stygian can at least do one-way.”

Stygian, his best and most studious pupil who was marginally intelligent and somewhat enjoyable to speak with. Taken directly from the orphanage where he had been abandoned, he showed the most promise of the lot. Especially as a spell cracker with his knack of copying other unicorn’s unique spell signatures.

Though, he did have some… strange ideas. He wanted to experiment with mixing unicorn magic with the other races. Even with those outside of ponydom. Starswirl thought it was a waste of time considering how obviously superior unicornian magic was, but Stygian was insistent on it.

“... I’ll keep him,” Starswirl mumbled as he opened the door to his personal chambers. “Maybe indulge his crazed ideas to ensure he stays around. As for the rest of them… I’m tempted to cut them off, but I’ll still give them a chance to redeem themselves in the coming days.”

Should they fail at even that, he would send them back to the gutters where he’d pulled them from. What they did after that wasn’t Starswirl’s problem. He had gotten out of that cesspool on his own merit. There was no reason others couldn’t do the same.

“Always a problem of competency,” Starswirl remarked as he flicked the lights on with a burst of magic.

His chambers were bathed in light. An amalgamation of book stacks and tables heavily laden by equipment, various projects in different states of completion. There were no personal touches save for a cheap star-patterned blanket covering the bed in the corner. A carryover from his past for the sake of frugality.

“I should rest,” Starswirl mumbled. “These problems can be addressed later.” He trotted toward his bed, but found his attention drawn to a bubbling concoction on one of his workbenches. “It's done early… I could maybe take a few moments to test and do some initial observations…”

As was the case most nights, Starswirl focused his attention on his latest project of interest until he eventually passed out on the table, snoring loudly.