Chapter 3
CH3
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The Passing
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(The story is about a drama of Starswirl trying to make friends and keep them while suffering the isolation caused by her sudden appearance and impressions left from being the daughter of Twilight and Nightmare, even though she isn’t. Comedy was supposed to be rather light while keeping focus on the main characters, so yeah. Please keep this in mind.)
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The morning glow of the moon illuminated the room; Starswirl felt the warmth of the twilight. It was warmth unusual; feeling the lunar glow replacing the warmth of the sun wasn’t something that any pony would consider normal. However it was a better option than freezing to death from no sun at all. Starswirl pulled herself deeper into the sheets from the invading light, but sadly that light would not vanish, and going to be early in the afternoon had put her internal clock off.
Starswirl opened her eyes and sat upright, her eyes scanned the room searching for evidence if all was true, as if everything was just a dream. But gazing upon her room, she could tell nothing had changed, she was still blue, the night hadn't ended, the contract was still upon her, whether she wanted it to be part of it or not. She twisted around to see the small bundle of scales lying next to her. Spike lay in a warm heap next to her, his eyes shut and his tears dry.
He had recalled memories of good times until all was gone, and then he happily drifted to sleep next to her. She smiled at her former friend and gently kissed him on the forehead. Exiting the bed carefully, Starswirl made her way down to the main floor of the library and began to get ready for the long night. She had breakfast of some daisy waffles and some orange juice and then packed her saddles; she departed from the library about 7 from the time on the clock. She just hoped that it was the correct time, or it might have been an interesting walk from her library to the post office.
Starswirl headed for the door and hesitated, but the thoughts of not doing this would be worse if she didn’t do as she needed to now. The door clicked open as she opened it, stepping outside she found no sign of any mobs, riots, hate signs, prosecution seemed to be absent upon her doorstep, but sadly she knew the truth of how ponies disliked the unfamiliar things in life. For now, she had been fortunate for being ignored, somewhat and for that she was thankful for the reprieve.
Heading off to through the moonlit streets she found herself in the midst of a proverbial ghost town, ponies had all locked or closed their doors in her presence, she walked down the street and she could hear many shutting their windows and doors. She passed shops which suddenly closed and locked their doors and restaurants and their patrons vanish in a blink. Starswirl made her way through town and she found that no pony wanted to be near her, she hoped that wouldn’t be the same for her friends, they knew her story and closing the door to her would be the worst thing to do to her.
She made her way to Ponyville post office; it seemed to be the only place that seemed open in a sea of negligence and ignorance to her. She pushed through the front doors and into the story front, there she found a dozen ponies waiting in line. When she entered the room they paused what they were doing and stared at her, she didn’t know what to say, she just strode forwards and into the line. But as she did, the line was abandoned and vacated for her. The eyes of each pony scrutinized and judged her, they did not all wish to see her at all.
She brushed off the feeling of judgement and decided to complete the task required, retrieving her workload of paper from Queen Luna. She tapped her hoof on the bell at the front of the counter and in moments a grey coat Pegasus appeared and asked. “Can I help you?”
“I came here to pick up a number of letters addressed for the queen; I’m her daughter, Starswirl.” She replied.
The pony nodded and went to the back and came back swiftly, she smiled and said.
“Here you go.” She gave the letters to Starswirl; she then perked her ears and asked.
“Are you new here?”
“Yes, I came only last night, why?” She asked.
“I could make these deliveries by the normal route, you can just add the address to the list on the wall over there and I’ll be sure to send anything along the way.” The Pegasus mare replied with a warm smile.
Starswirl smiled to the kindness shown to her by the only mare that seemed not to care about her being a pariah, she said. “Thank you.” And then did as the mare offered, putting her name and address, she found that some ponies were willing to ignore the bigotry and accept her, she was happy for this slight change and she could tell, maybe it wasn’t so bad.
Departing from the post office, Starswirl entered back into the empty streets, making her way to the market. She needed to go pick up a few things for the library, she doubted that having to eat hay and what little fresh fruits would be a good idea. Making her way through to the market, she found the situation to be nearly similar; only 3 stores were open, very few ponies seemed to be out in the night time.
She looked carefully for the only stall she needed to find, the orange coated farmer pony was happily minding her stall at the market. No one could ignore the sweet apples of Sweet Apple Acres. She trotted over and found AJ patiently waiting for any other customers; she noticed Starswirl and greeted her jovially.
“Well hey there Starswirl, how have ya been this night?” She asked warmly.
Starswirl replied to her honest friend.
“I’ve been well, couldn’t really complain…’ she knew this was going to be a stupid question ‘…where’s everypony else?” She asked.
Her friend looked around a bit annoyed.
“They’re all at home, trying to ignore yah, I say it suits them, better them staying clear of you rather than having to put up with their hooey!” She shouted the last part enough to make a mare jump and knock over a pot somewhere.
She focused upon her friend and asked.
“So what’re you looking for Starswirl?”
The unicorn made her purchase of apples and asked where to go looking for things for the library, AJ warned her though. “I don’t think you should go near the 3 Petals Shop, Lily’s there with the other mares and they don’t take to strangers well. If you need general things, Handy Dandy has his shop down the block; you might need to shout to him, he’s little deaf in the left ear since an accident with mining about a few years back.”
The unicorn thanked her friend and departed the market, she made her way through the streets again and found herself alone once more, but she didn’t feel as alone as she did since this early night, there were ponies who did care for who she was, she was just another pony in their eyes. And for that she was thankful for, Starswirl was accepted for being who she was, just another pony. She continued on through the streets until she felt something bump against her leg.
She looked down to see a red and blue ball. A young filly shouted out.
“Excuse me could you pass our ball back?”
Starswirl gazed upon 3 fillies not far away, an orange and purple maned Pegasus, one yellow coated filly with a red mane and a white unicorn filly who had asked.
“Sure.” Starswirl replied telekinetically lifting the ball and tossing it back.
The three little fillies cheered happily for their returned ball, but one noticed Starswirl’s cutie mark and asked. “Wow, you have such a cool cutie mark!” The orange Pegasus filly said looking at the cosmic swirl Starswirl possessed upon her coat. The fillies crowded over to her cutie mark and admired it, the pastel coloured unicorn asked. “How did you get such a beautiful cutie mark?”
Starswirl thought about trying to avoid the question, but she decided to reply.
“I got my cutie mark when I was born, my mother’s both love astronomy, and one of my mums is the queen now, she loves the night time. My other mum liked astronomy and she named me as Starswirl, the queen liked the name as well and agreed to name me. I like astronomy as well, and I love the skies of the night. I guess it just came to me naturally.”
“You mean you didn’t need to search at all?” The three fillies exclaimed.
There was a slight awkward pause and then she replied.
“Yes…”
“Wow, you’re so lucky, we have to wait to get our cutie marks. Stag it all…” The orange Pegasus huffed.
“Hey don’t start with language Scootaloo; we don’t need to get into trouble.” The pastel unicorn complained.
Starswirl figured the three little fillies were friends, she asked.
“Umm, who are you three?”
“Oh, we didn’t tell you our names?” The yellow earth pony perplexed.
The orange Pegasus introduced them.
“I’m Scootaloo, this is Applebloom, that’s Sweeti Belle, and we’re part of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”
The three smiled at her with an innocence to hide their more active intentions in Ponyville. Starswirl asked.
“Cutie Mark Crusaders?”
“Yeah, we’re a club to go searching for our cutie marks together!” Scootaloo said as she showed Starswirl her bare flank.
“We go crusading together until we all get our cutie marks. At least that’s supposed to be how we want to find them.” Applebloom added.
Starswirl smiled at the little fillies, they were really the best of friends, and she could tell they’d have a wonderful time enjoying each other’s company wherever they went. She said.
“Well it was good meeting you three, I do hope you find your special talent, I need to get going now.”
“Bye!” All three said as she left.
The blue unicorn made her way through the streets until she reached the block where AJ had indicated, it was a rather normal looking business, it just had a sign posted above, ‘Handy Dandy General’, it was a dull looking store, but then again, when was a general store ever supposed to be fancy looking? Starswirl entered the store and the motion of the door was signalled by a bell chime.
A grey coat earth pony greeted her.
“Hello welcome to Handy Dandy, what can I help you with?”
Starswirl replied.
“Oh, I’m just looking for some new pencils and ink, and also I need to look for a geometry set and compass.”
The colt looked over his counter and pointed a hoof down the second last isle.
“The geometry and basic stationary should be just down there, you can’t miss it.”
Starswirl thanked the helpful pony, she found it strange that he didn’t take to her presence as a curse, or the fact that he didn’t seem to honestly care. While everywhere else ponies avoided her like the plague. She didn’t feel disheartened, ponies would always consider her much like this, because they don’t know her and of course that ponies who happen to be the daughter of the very ruler of the kingdom tended to be someone you should try not to aggravate.
Starswirl entered the isle and suddenly noticed that 3 other ponies that looked over from their shopping suddenly picked up whatever they were after and vacated with their trailing whispers behind them. Starswirl felt that this was going to be a reoccurring event for the next few months, maybe even years, she didn’t know, how long would it take for ponies to get used to the sight of a stranger who happens to be different?
She found what she was looking for and departed from the isle and arrived at the counter, she placed the purchase on the counter and the pony at the counter asked.
“Hmm, having some trouble in town lately?”
She paused, and then she replied.
“Yeah…”
The counter pony chuckled.
“The same thing happened to me, for different reasons of course, being a former adventurer, I once took journey’s into Everfree Forest, ponies called me mad, and then I laughed at them, I wanted to be adventurous and it didn’t stop me. I went around doing what I did best, being handy, and then one day I took a job down by the mines in search of treasure. But a stick of TNT blew my eardrums and that kind of ended it, also something about a mace to my face, but that’s another story.”
She stared at Handy who was smiling.
“It happened and then I was left here in Ponyville, it took a long time for ponies to think of me no more than as if I was one of their own, don’t worry, you’ve got longer than I did.”
Handy put in the price and then said.
“That’s 15 bits.”
She gave him the bits and she departed the store still in surprise, she’d never take a simple shop owner as an adventurer, but that arrow must have hurt. She left the store with a feeling of pride for knowing such a pony, he did something until it ended and he was happy to live in this seclusion until he was just part of the community. It would take time for Starswirl, but she had friends, and that was enough.
She trotted back to the library, but on the way she decided to think about her look, what made her so obvious was that everyone saw her, maybe something to cover her, it would be a certainly better if she had something to make her feel as if she wasn’t as stared at by every pony. Along the way she saw the sight of the highly decorated Carousel Boutique off in the distance. She decided to make a change.
She changed directions, she would be looking for help from her friends, and Rarity was one of them, she might be able to help with Starswirl’s slight insecurity if she asked. Upon arriving at the boutique she entered and was greeted by the fashion pony.
“Welcome to- oh, Starswirl, I didn’t know you were coming.” Rarity said slightly surprised.
Starswirl could see that there were 3 other patrons inside the shop/house of Rarity, they stared at her with their scrutinizing eyes and they didn’t break unless she looked back. Rarity laughed nervously and put Starswirl off into a changing room.
“I’m sorry about that, but your presence tends to cause ponies to leave.” Rarity said as she looked around.
“Oh, I hadn't noticed, look Rarity I wanted to ask you if you could make something for me.” Starswirl began.
“Oh of course sweetie, what would you need to be made?” She asked.
“I need you to make me a cloak, and if possible barding, I wanted to dress I something I would feel comfortable in walking around at least to make the feeling of everypony’s eyes a little less depressing.” She replied duly.
“Okay, barding, that wouldn’t seem so hard, however leather and plastic hasn’t been very popular in, wait what am I talking about, its eternal night… its fine, I’ll get an order down in the week, as for the cloak, I believe that I have some fabric ready. If you could wait a bit, I’ll see what I can do.” Rarity offered.
“Okay. I’ll wait.” Starswirl replied.
Rarity rushed to deal with her customers until they all had departed from the shop, they’d probably spread the news of Starswirl’s appearance, Carousel Boutique would take a minor setback, but it was doubtful that the other ponies would abandon coming to see Rarity, she had the only very good tailoring shop in Ponyville.
Rarity attended to the needs of Starswirl, she brought out her pin cushion and measuring tape as she began drawing up the sizes needed for Starswirl’s cloak and dress. After a half an hour, Rarity completed the task at hoof; the cloak was a perfect fit for Starswirl. It had a dark navy colour with velvet, the satin surface contrasted with the inside being an opaque grey, there was just a black string for the neck and that was pretty much it, a very basic and yet beautiful cloak.
Rarity suggested.
“Are you sure you’d rather keep it like that? I mean, navy is a last season sort of thing, however I cannot deny that the cloak looks lovely.”
“Thanks Rarity, but I think it’s perfect the way it is. Besides walking out in Ponyville wearing something that will stand out isn't what I’d prefer. But I might take you up on that offer later.” Starswirl replied.
The two friends said their parting goodbyes and Starswirl headed on back to the library. Along the way she passed through the dark streets of Ponyville now hidden behind a veil, she wouldn’t be as inconspicuous so it was fine for her and ponies wouldn’t be able to really see her in the poor lighting. She was just about at the library when she passed Sugarcube Corner.
As she passed by the shop front a sudden blur ran straight into her. Now the chances that something pink and fluffy moving at such speeds hitting you was a 1-1000 chance, amazingly it was that 1, Starswirl felt the whole world revolve as she was flung over onto her side. Her cloak flew off and into the air listlessly and came back down.
The cloak landed on Pinkie’s face and then she jolted upright unable to see.
“HELP, I’VE GONE BLIND!” She shouted and jumped.
Starswirl recovered to see her energetic friend run about, she quickly focused on Pinkie with her magic and lifted the pink mare off the ground so she didn’t need to chase after her. Pinkie then exclaimed in surprise.
“Hey, now I’m flying…!” She said sticking her hooves out in a comical fashion.
“Pinkie could you hold still I need to get my cloak.” Starswirl said levitating the navy attire off of her friend.
“Awwww…” Pinkie moaned.
“I’ll let Rarity make you one if I see her again.” Starswirl said dropping the mare on the ground.
Pinkie looked over to Starswirl as she put her cloak back on her.
“Hey Starswirl, you look like a superhero with that on!” Pinkie stated.
“I’m not playing super hero Pinkie, I need the cloak for myself. Besides I have my own reasons for having the cloak, if you want one just ask Rarity, I’m sure she can make you one as well.” Starswirl suggested.
Pinkie gasped. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea, we could be cloak friends, you know like a club, or maybe we could be part of a crime fighting team, or even a…” Pinkie trailed off as she headed back inside the shop thinking of her own thoughts.
Starswirl was glad that went better, she headed on and into the library welcoming the familiar smell of her home. She closed the door and prayed that would be enough attention and sneaking for one day, and side long stares.
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Back at the fortress of Queen Luna the ebony alicorn mare sat upon her throne. She had been dealing with the constant requests for audience by many nobles and petty subjects; it had been a very tiring day. While she thought about the coming days and years of her reign she noticed that someone was different.
Twilight, the copy Twilight was stranger than usual, rather than her random functions in studying magic and practical theory of magic and doing whatever its predecessor had done, the copy seemed to be behaving differently. The mare now acted rather smartly, rather than popping up randomly, she now seemed to be organised, moving purposely.
Luna assumed it was just the level of her golem shaping finally paying off, it took years but she made some of the best golem warriors in 1000 on the moon, and even when she was a younger filly, she had a knack for identifying products of golems. Her newest variation being the flesh and blood class had worked wonders, but it seemed that the golem was no longer intent on staying near her, but instead learning.
This would usually have seemed rather odd, but as the clone had now been active longer than a few hours it would make sense that it’s probably sorted itself out. But something felt eerie about how it acted; it wasn’t like looking at Twilight’s memories, the pony was going out of its way to learn various forms of magic and alchemy, it even produced an arcane field of transmutation down in the private labs.
Something was telling Luna that her golem was no longer hers, but the golem didn’t seem intent on leaving the fortress just yet. It was spending its time wisely making sure it learnt things correctly and thoroughly like its predecessor, and it was learning things fast. The magic present in the golem shouldn’t have been capable of keeping up to the sheer demands though. Luna felt that the coming weeks would be a surely greater challenge.
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Meanwhile
Down in the library of the massive fortress a singular lavender shape worked tirelessly for hours with the alchemistical studies, Twilight worked on her plans for the future, the queen would not see her coming. Her plans lay in what must be done now, once she had accomplished all she needed to do, she would carry out her plans for Starswirl. Celestia had been kind enough to give her directions as to what needed to be done.
She loved Celestia, like a mother above all, her memories as Twilight Sparkle were hers now and the one who had fallen from grace would never return, and she promised herself that. She was Twilight Evenfall the chosen of the new order and she would bring back the sun, one day. For now Twilight focused at the task at hoof, to make two ends meet.
All in this world will change as time does and Twilight was determined to make it so, Starswirl would just be her daughter a mare who had found herself lost in the world outside. Twilight however knew that Luna probably suspected her plans and motives at this point in time; she wasn’t going to hide anything to do with her plans now, but the deeper it goes the harder it was for Luna to see.
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Starswirl’s return to the library was welcoming, being able to not worry about her appearance to everypony else she could take off the light cloak and be able to warm up to the magical lighting. Spike was awake and up and about, he was just reading through some small books on cooking and good eating, he was probably hungry considering that it was passed lunch when she got back home.
But first she headed upstairs and began working on the workload she had received. To her surprise it wasn’t as difficult as she imagined, just a few pieces of paper on something’s locally and a note about the upcoming harvest market celebrations being held in Cantervale. She had maps and packages of local plans for expansion which she prepared for, and a few legislations on new policies being implemented by Queen Luna. Starswirl worked through the workload in a few minutes, and then she put the letters to the side for Spike to send off to Luna.
However amongst the whole load of work, she found the one thing that made her pause in her hooves. A blue and cyan letter with her mother’s cutie mark upon it, she knew that this was from her parents. It read: From Star Sparkle and Midnight Sparkle
“Dear Granddaughter, Starswirl Sparkle, we do hope that you have been feeling well. Ever since the announcement of your, mothers unfortunate fate at the hooves of Nightmare Moon we assumed the worst. It is good to think that you, as our new granddaughter may hold the future as the family continues, and it is wonderful for us to hear that you were born even as painfully it must have been growing up in such short time.
Our daughter, your mother must have been caring as to letting you remain free from the control of the new queen, and we are grateful that our daughter did not give up without letting you to leave and be with us. We would like to visit you ourselves sometime in early spring, once the passage of this season and next is complete. We will be hopefully seeing you as a proper mare, we hope you reply.
Your grandmother Star Sparkle”
Starswirl dropped the letter then and there, she honestly couldn’t believe that this was really happening, her parents- no ‘her’ grandparents were visiting her in early spring? She processed all that had been written and just stood there astounded, memories of seeing her parents so proud when she joined into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. It was like ripping a hole in her heart and then filling it with stuffing only to rip it again, this was a bad dream that she did want to wake up from.
Starswirl stood where she was, contemplating the news until it sank in. Then Spike entered the room with the smell of dinner trailing behind him, he was talking as he entered.
“Hey Starswirl, I was…” he noticed the mare was standing still and she had a letter at her hooves. He read the letter briefly and was then stunned as much as his sister was.
“Whoa. Your pare- I mean your grandparents are visiting in spring?”
Spike seemed to get zero reactions out of the petrified pony until he tapped her.
“Starswirl are you okay?” He asked.
The mare turned to look at him and reply.
“Spike, send these letters to Queen Luna, and please get a quill and parchment, I need you to write something for me.”
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Okay so chapter 3 is now properly launched and it is looking okay, I need to tell you guys that this is the way the story is supposed to go, a lot of drama, mild to light humour, but it’s mostly bittersweet and focused upon Starswirl and her interactions with the citizens of Ponyville and also Luna, we will have varying chapters once the main line is completed for Starswirl’s introduction into Ponyville, so just wait and see.
And you should probably know, I will be adding in Pearly, she’s supposed to be part of the coming events, and you will see the Lunar Knights, they’re also supposed to be in this. And okay I think you guys should know that I might decide to remove that dud chapter I had left behind a while back.
Any ideas or suggestions please leave them in the review section.
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97505
Thanks, and yeah, i don't go for clop.
And also just moved here from FF.net, what's it like here?
mace to the face and something about arrows
skyrim?
97544 what do you mean?
97598
Just curious about the commmunity since i only just became a brony.
And also about that Skyrim reference, i adjusted it from the original from FF.net. Thought people would be pretty annoyed about it by now.
give me an explanation as to what celestia did to the twilight clone maybe im just oblivious but it seems to me that celestia delibearletly replaced twilight (or maybe thats just my dislike of celestia speaking)
98424
Possibly (Spoiler), Celestia incorporated her own mind into the clone. But the sentience is interpreted in different ways, as such the clone has Twilight's and part of Celestia's memories and acts accordingly to both by combining them. And there's the confusion of the entity itself as the new Twilight see's itself as stand alone rather than like the old Twilight. So the clone is a fusion or sorts and possesses its own agenda, but keep out an eye for its Celestia personality when it comes. Hopefully that clears something up.
It's a good story so far, but I finally was able to latch on to why something felt off about the writing style here.
You tend to put identifying sentences on one line, then hit return to put the dialog on the line below. This makes for a very odd read to be honest. Also, if you read that first sentence, you'd see the verb tense is all wrong, and instead of a period, it should end with a comma, like so:
See, it comes out a little cleaner, and flows more naturally this way. I don't know if you address this problem in further chapters, but I hope so.
Secondly, I notice several instances of incorrectly used, or even missing words.
The second part of that sentence makes no sense. A thousand what? A thousand golems? A thousand years? A thousand bunnies?
I think you mean conspicuous here. There are other instances of this, but I'd have to go through the whole thing to catch them all for you.
Thirdly, When writing prose like this, it's better to write out numbers than to use digits, unless they're crucial to what you're conveying. Using the digits just comes off as lazy.
Fourthly, the story itself seems a bit... stilted. It's difficult to quantify why it feels off to me, but the descriptions just don't feel natural to me in places. It nothing I can really place my finger on. Maybe after a few more chapters, I'll be able to place it.
Fifth, Run-on sentences. This is just rife with them.
That right there would work better as two sentences. After the word "again", it feels more natural to leave a pause there long enough to indicate a period, rather than a comma. Now I am guilty of run-ons, myself. Lord knows that you can't heave a brick in one of my stories without hitting at least one. A good trick would be to read the sentence out loud. If you feel like a longer pause than a comma could cover is what would be natural there, then end the sentence.
I really like this story, and I want to see it go places. There is no one "big thing" that I can really find wrong with it, just a small battalion of little things that add up to awkwardness. I look forward to reading more, and hope this comment helps rather than seeming like a big nitpicking session.