“...So then he says, ‘transmutation? I think I’ve walked into the wrong mage’s guild!’”
The occupants of the poker table burst into a raucous laughter, slamming their hooves on the table and patting the teller of the joke on the back. Cigar smoke hung in the air, filling the space between the dirty lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and the table below.
The room was small and lit only by the dim lightbulb hung by a wire from the ceiling, the occupants of the room casting long shadows from where they were sitting. The room had no windows, no doors, and no apparent means of entry or exit. The walls were concrete, grey, and covered in mould and moss. Water dripped from the roof in one corner, and someone had hastily placed an empty bottle underneath it to keep the floor dry. The pony who did this, in fact, was sitting at the poker table we recently mentioned.
The pony in question was unkempt and unwashed, much like the room in which he currently sat. He had a dark grey coat that was covered in cowlicks and grime and a purple mane, cut short, not becauses he particularly liked that style, but because he couldn’t be bothered to take care of it. However, on close inspection, one would be able to see that underneath the unwashed coat and the three day stubble, the pony had handsome features.
He’s not important.
To the unkempt pony’s left sat a mare with a pristine white coat. Her piercing gaze was settled on the unkempt pony as he counted up his chips, looking him up and down. Her scarlet mane was styled in a fashion reminiscent of the royalty of the past, and the gown she wore doubly so. She would not have looked out of place dining with the princesses or hosting a ball or gala. There was an unfortunately low number of chips on the table in front of her, but she didn’t care. The only reason she ever came to these poker games was because she wanted to get with the unkempt pony.
She wasn’t important either.
To her left was a large, brown creature. It was humanoid and had a brown mane and bat wings. A tasselled lion’s tail swung back and forth behind him as he laughed. He had an impressive number of chips in front of him, and was taking advantage of the mare’s focused gaze on the unkempt pony to swipe a few of her chips when she wasn’t looking.
He also wasn’t important. No, none of these people are important to us except for the unicorn to the left of the winged creature. This pony is Starswirl the Bearded, and he is the focus of this story.
Starswirl is a light grey coated pony, with a magnificent white beard and mane. Atop his head sat a stereotypical wizard’s hat, decorated with bells that jingled as he moved his head. Of course, it wasn’t stereotypical for him to be wearing it- he started the trend, after all. A matching robe adorned his body and kept him from feeling the cold of the unheated room.
Starswirl was smiling as he looked over the ponies (and monstrous creature) around him. They were his friends, and he was theirs. Where they were, it was easy to get caught up in the novelty of being able to do whatever you want, and many ponies neglected to make friends in favour of doing all the things they couldn’t do before. Starswirl was lucky to have met them.
“Okay, okay, settle down, Scorpan,” Starswirl said to the laughing beast beside him, his gruff voice nearly drowned out by Scorpan’s laughter. “It wasn’t even that funny.”
Scorpan, the brother of Tirek, was here because of an accident he suffered while travelling home alone from Equestria. Against all odds, he claimed he was attacked by a shark in the dry, barren badlands. Starswirl held suspicions that the winged creature was lying, but let Scorpan continue telling his story whenever he felt like it.
The mare, Gem, was the first born daughter of a royal family. She was set to inherit the throne when her little brother made an attempt at her life. She survived the stabbing, but died in the hospital after choking on lime jello.
The unkempt pegasus was named Rusty. Rusty invented the train, or so he claimed. He died from tetanus.
As you could probably guess by now, these four ponies were in the afterlife. More specifically, Rusty’s personal part of the afterlife, crafted by his own hooves to take whatever form he wants it to. It wouldn’t be much of an afterlife if the entire place was just full of dingy old rooms with poker tables.
“You know what, guys?” Starswirl said, getting his friends’ attention. “I’m really glad I’ve got you guys to keep me company up here, you know? I’ve been here the longest out of all of us, and let me tell you, those times when I was all alone? Well, even being able to do whatever you want gets boring after a while when you have to do it alone. I guess what I’m trying to say is... thanks for being my friends.”
Gem smiled, a sweet smile that set Starswirl’s heart aflutter. “You don’t need to thank us, Star. You’re the one that helped us all come to terms with our deaths. We should be the ones thanking you.”
Rusty rolled his eyes. “We’ve all known each other for a minimum of five hundred years, now. No need to start getting sentimental now.”
Scorpan leaned over and draped his arm over Starswirl’s shoulders. “You and me? Friends in life and death. Brings a new meaning to ‘best friends forever’, eh? Usually it’s not so literal!”
Yes, Starswirl was perfectly happy where he was. “I hope that never changes, Scorpan. Dying was the best thing to ever happen to us!”
“I am so bucking sick of being dead!”
Starswirl was lying down in his bed of clouds—an object he was unable to use in life—staring angrily at the empty black sky above him. His wizard’s hat was being held in his hooves, and he was vigorously shaking it, the bells attached to it jingling rapidly.
“It’s so boring! There’s no danger to it, no excitement! Am I seriously supposed to put up with this mundane life for the rest of eternity?”
Starswirl rolled over onto his belly and sighed. “Dying was the worst thing to ever happen to me...”
The wizard closed his eyes. “I miss living. I miss my cottage, and going to the market, and doing magic. Especially magic.”
As you could probably tell, magic was redundant in the afterlife. Having the power to do whatever you want without using magic sort of takes all the fun and danger out of it.
“No more magical breakthroughs... no more lab explosions... no more demon summoning...”
Starswirl felt a rush of wind and sat up, surprise on his face. In most places, wind was a completely natural occurrence, especially when sitting in the sky atop a bed of clouds. But this was the afterlife, and Starswirl had made sure to not add any wind.
Starswirl slowly turned to face the direction of the wind, only to find himself face to face with a face.
It was large- larger than his entire body, and had two large horns jutting out of the side of it. Its empty eye sockets were lit with an internal red light, and its wickedly sharp teeth made its grin look sinister in the darkness.
Ssssstarssswirl...
The pony in question gulped. “S-speak of the devil... heh-heh...”
A clawed hand shot up from underneath the cloud and grabbed Starswirl in its powerful grip, dragging him up into the sky.
“W-what are you doing here, Sabapepr? Not that I’m not happy to see you or anything, but, um, I thought you were banished to Tartaurus?”
Sabapepr narrowed its eyes.
Yesss. YOU put me there, if I recall correctly.
“That was all a big misunderstanding! Honest! I thought you were another pony-eating demon. I-if I knew it was you, I never would have-”
Starswirl’s excuses were cut short as the beast squeezed him in its might hand. It was the first pain Starswirl felt in centuries, it hurt all the more for it.
Silence. I will make you pay for what you did. You enjoy it here, in the pleasant afterlife, where you have all the power in the world? Then I shall take that all away from you!
The demon opened its other hand, revealing a purple book, pages yellowed with age. Starswirl’s eyes widened as he recognized it.
“My journal!”
Yes. Starswirl the Bearded, I curse you to be bound to this book for the rest of time!
Before Starswirl could react, Sabapepr thrust his arm out to Starswirl’s face and the book collided with the wizard’s snout.
With a flash of light, the unicorn was gone, only the book remaining.
Sabapepr laughed and dropped the book.
It fell down, down, through the clouds, and pierced the veil between the world of the dead and that of the living, hitting a pegasus on the way down.
It was against all odds that the book containing Starswirl’s soul fell on the head of that particular pegasus. Of all the ponies in all of the world, the chances of the book falling on the courier making her way to Ponyville were astronomically low.
“What the hay?” the mare muttered as she bent down and caught the book before it could fall further from her reach. She held it up to her face and read the words on the cover.
“The Journal of Starswirl the Bearded?” she wondered aloud, scratching her head. “Who’s that?”
She looked up, searching for whatever it was that dropped the book, but only saw clears skies, not a pony in sight. After a few minutes of searching for the journal’s owner, she gave up and tossed the book in her messenger bag, intent on skimming it later. With that business finished, she took off towards Ponyville.
The quaint little hamlet of Ponyville isn’t the sort of place you’d expect to find a large castle. Numerous cottages with thatched roofs surrounded a small town hall, and ponies milled about lazily in the hot summer sun. A short walk north from the town hall would find one in the market, where all sorts of ponies hawked their wares to the jumble of ponies on the road.
In fact, the town was so small it didn’t even have its own guard post. Apparently, nopony bothered to inform Twilight Sparkle of that when she decided to make her large, sun-blocking castle in the town, the humble homes of many other ponies living in its shadow.
This castle was the destination of the courier. She flew over the thatched rooves, market stalls, and upset sun-bathers and towards the crystal castle that was home to the town’s resident Princess.
The castle itself was a tall building- very tall, in fact. It was made of crystal in all the colours of an aurora, and was shaped to resemble a tree. To the pony inside, it was a pleasant homage to the Tree of Harmony, which helped keep Equestria safe from the dangers of the Everfree forest. To everypony else—who didn’t know the history of the castle and believed it to simply have been built overnight—it was evidence of the sentimental nature of the princess inside, who was unwilling to let the idea of her tree/library rest in peace after it was destroyed by a demigod.
Yes, this quaint little hamlet was much more exciting than the thatched cottages would lead you to believe.
The courier lowered herself to the ground and trotted a few steps forwards before knocking on the massive door of the castle. She briefly wondered if anypony would even hear her knocks in the large building, and was about to fly up to a window when the door slowly opened up, a violet alicorn struggling to push the heavy metal door.
“I really need to fix this-” the alicorn wheezed, trying to catch her breath. She took a few deep breaths before greeting the courier. “Good morning, Ditzy. How are you today?”
The courier—Ditzy—rubbed her head. “A bit dizzy,” she admitted. “I got assaulted by a book on my way here.”
This elicited a strange look from the alicorn.
“Anyway, I’ve got mail for you!” she exclaimed, stuffing her muzzle in her bag and bringing out a large stack of letters, many of which were covered in small drawings of hearts or scribbled on in foal’s hoofwriting. “I fink itch mostly fan ‘ail.”
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
Ditzy spat out the letters, and the alicorn caught them in her magic. “I said, I think it’s mostly fan mail,” she repeated, pointing to the numerous letters.
The alicorn blushed. “Yeah, I’ve been getting a lot of that lately,” she admitted, embarrassed. “You said you... got assaulted by a book?” she inquired.
Ditzy nodded. “Oh, yeah! It just fell out of the sky. I have no idea who it belongs to. Here,” she said, digging through her bag once more. She pulled out the purple-covered book, and the alicorn held it in her magic. “It’s a journal. Do you know anypony in town named Starswirl the Bearded? I want to return it if I can.”
The alicorn made no comment, instead choosing to stare at the book in silence, her mouth slightly agape, eyes wide.
“Um, Twilight? Are you okay?”
The alicorn—Twilight—slowly nodded her head. “Do... do you not know what this is?” she asked, her voice hushed. Ditzy shook her head, confused.
“Isn’t it a journal?”
Twilight just nodded. “It... it is. Trust me, Ditzy, you won’t be able to find the owner of this journal. Not in a million years.”
Ditzy’s ears drooped. “No?” she asked. “Well... you like books, so I guess you can have it. I don’t need somepony’s old journal.”
Twilight just nodded once more. “Okay, thanks!” she shouted, slamming the door.
Ditzy shook her head.
“What a silly mare.”
Twilight slammed the door shut, holding her prize close to her chest.
“I can’t believe it,” she muttered. “I can’t believe this. This must be a dream.”
She repeated herself multiple times as she made her way to the large living room of her castle, the book held close to her body as though it were a newborn child in need of protecting.
“Ponies have been searching for this for years. Hundreds of years. And it just falls out of the sky?” She dropped down on the couch. “No. No, that’s simply not possible. Obviously it’s a fake. That’s definitely the case.”
She examined the royal purple cover of the journal. Twilight lifted a hoof and traced it along the flowery script, possibly written by the great Starswirl the Bearded himself. If this were the real journal of the great wizard, then hidden inside of it would be all sorts of magical breakthroughs and spells that hadn’t been seen in a thousand years.
“I have to make sure it’s real. If- if it’s real, I’m the luckiest mare in all of Equestria! Alright, Twilight, let’s do this!”
She stared at the book for a few long minutes.
“Okay, Twilight, don’t give up now. I can do this. It’s only the most amazing discovery in the past thousand years. I’ll open it in three... two... one!”
The book remained closed. Twilight sighed.
“Calm down, Twilight. You just need a minute to calm down,” she told herself, closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths. A few minutes later, she finally felt herself calming.
The patter of dragon feet on the ground distracted Twilight from her meditative exercise, and she opened one eye to glare at the intruder. Spike, her dragon assistant, was standing beside her, one eyebrow raised.
“You’ve been sitting there with your eyes closed for like, half an hour. What are you doing?” the dragon asked. He glanced at the book in her arms. “And what’s that? I’ve never seen that book before.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I was meditating, Spike, but it looks like I’m done with that for now,” she answered him. “And how would you know if you’ve never seen this book? We live in a library. There are lots of books.”
Spike’s face adopted a deadpan look as he surveyed the living room with its numerous, pristinely-organized bookshelves. “I don’t know, Twi. I’ve shelved these books lots of times.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and levitated the journal in front of Spike’s face. “This is a very, very rare book. It might be the personal journal of Starswirl the Bearded himself! I was just about to examine it more closely, to see if it’s the real thing.”
Spike grimaced. “Sounds boring. I’ll stay out of your mane.”
Twilight turned onto her back as Spike left the room, muttering something about Twilight being the Princess of Eggheads, a comment he likely would have regretted had Twilight heard.
“Alright, Twilight. You’ve been training for this your whole life. You can do this.”
She took a deep breath.
“It’s time to read.”
The world around Starswirl was a darkness unlike any he had ever seen. It was much too dark to be considered black— no, it wasn’t blackness, but an emptiness, as though someone had taken a knife and cut out the world around him, leaving him suspended, alone, and very confused.
“Hello?” he called out, his voice trembling. There was no echo, and it something about the way his voice sounded in the nothingness was wrong. He didn’t call out again. The strange quality of his voice made him uncomfortable.
His soul was bound to his journal, he realized. Was this what the inside of a book was like? An empty nothingness for as far as the eye could see? Lonely, silent, maddening in the isolation?
He hoped not. That would really suck.
Starswirl tried paddling his hooves in the air in a vain attempt to ‘swim’ forward. He quickly gave up once he realized he had no way to tell if it was working, with no visual markers to guide him.
Not to worry, he thought to himself. An intellectual pony such as I will have no problems entertaining himself in this abyss. I may have had all external stimuli stolen from me, but I still have my mind!
With that thought comforting him, he relaxed and allowed his body to float aimlessly in the wretched emptiness, attempting to entertain himself with thoughts on magical theorems and proper demonic summoning techniques.
Five minutes later, he was curled up into a tight ball, his hat pulled over his eyes.
“I can’t stand this any more! This silent nothingness is driving me mad!”
Now, readers, don’t fret. Starswirl’s situation did, in fact, improve.
Not immediately, but it did improve eventually.
After what felt like hours to Starswirl but in all reality was likely to only be a few minutes, a small point of light appeared in the void, catching Starswirl’s eye in the darkness. He moved his forelimbs as though swimming, and to his surprise, he moved forward, towards the glowing blue light.
He swam faster and faster towards the light, his actions spurred on by a mixture of impatience and a growing feeling of cold on his limbs. The nothingness had started to become painful on his exposed skin, and he feared he was in a place where no creature, living or dead, was meant to inhabit. These fears pushed him to swim faster and harder.
He hurtled through the void, faster than his legs were moving, and he belatedly realized that at some point during his swim, he had stopped moving under his own power and had begun flying through the nothing as though being pulled forward by the still distant blue light, caught in its gravity. As he neared it, faster and faster, he let out a yelp of surprise and covered his face with his forelegs, his eyes closed.
Even with his eyes shut, the bright blue light nearly blinded him as he passed through it, an electric tingle on his skin accompanying his return to the world of the living.
Twilight flipped a page that was yellowed with age, utterly absorbed in the purple-covered journal she was reading. No doubts in her mind remained- the work detailed in the journal was so perfect, so utterly exquisite, that the journal could belong to none other than Starswirl the Bearded himself. Twilight imagined unveiling the hidden knowledge in the tome to the world, forever being hailed as the mare who uncovered the hidden mysteries of the past, revealing the hidden truths of thaumaturgy as Starswirl saw it. She would forever be hailed as a hero in the magical community.
A loud noise shocked her out of her reverie. The sound of shattering glass. Her first thought was Rainbow Dash. It would not have been the first time she’d crashed through one of her windows.
Twilight used her magic to remove a first-aid kit from underneath the couch she was lying on. If there was one thing Pinkie had taught her, it was the advantages of being prepared for any sort of emergency, especially the kind that happened as often as a broken pegasus, and she had begun keeping first-aid kits throughout her home in case of a medical emergency.
She noticed how light the kit felt as she made her way to the source of the noise. She’d need to restock it soon. It was the third time this week alone that Rainbow had crashed into her home.
“I wonder what Rainbow broke this time?” she thought aloud. “Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than the time she broke the sink in the library and flooded the place. I still can’t believe she ruined an entire shelf of books.”
She entered the hallway. “Rainbow, I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again. You really need to be more careful when-”
Twilight stopped short upon seeing the mess in the hallway. Shards of a glass mirror that once hung proudly on the wall were scattered on the floor throughout the hallway. Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be seen.
“What in Equestria...?”
The shards were strewn across the full length of the hallway, and Twilight was unable to tell what exactly had caused the mirror to shatter. She carefully made her way closer to the mirror’s frame, making sure not to step on any glass shards.
The frame was empty, the wall behind it untouched. Whatever had happened to the mirror to cause its destruction wasn’t enough to even scuff the wall.
“That’s not right... anything that would hit the mirror with enough force to do... this... should have damaged the wall...” she told herself, attempting to piece together what had happened. “So why did it break?”
She was too busy investigating the mirror’s frame to notice the shards near the end of the hallway rising, as though an invisible being was rising up from the ground, carrying them along with it.
That wasn’t a simile. An invisible being was rising up from the ground, the glass shards being risen along with it. They outlined the general shape of the being- a pointed hat, a flowing robe, average height, by pony standards.
A glass shard fell from the top of the being and onto the ground. The crystalline noise it made as it clinked against the ground echoed in the silence of the hallway. Twilight whirled around, just in time to watch the glass shards all fall back to the ground as though the being holding them up had suddenly disappeared.
Twilight stepped back, mouth slightly agape for the second time that day. She came to her senses much quicker than before.
“Spike!” she called out. “Get down here!”
Starswirl rose, feeling weightless. Glass shifted as he moved, shards covering his entire body. He didn’t feel them. When he got to his hooves, he stopped and looked around.
He was in a hallway, the walls made of blue crystal. Shards of glass were everywhere, and a mare stood, facing away. As he moved his head from side to side, a piece of glass dislodged itself from atop his hat and plummeted to the floor.
Clink
The mare quickly turned around, horn lowered as if to strike. Starswirl gasped, having a less than perfect track record with combat scenarios. The lowered horn, glowing horn startled him, reminding him of numerous childhood beatings, and he panicked, casting a teleportation spell.
He appeared on the other side of the castle, half of his body lodged in a wall. A terrible possibility when teleporting blind. He walked out of the wall, his body noncorporeal.
A voice from across the castle. “Spike! Get down here!”
Chapter Three - The Panic of the Purple Pony Princess
The hour following Starswirl’s impromptu teleport was an eventful one for all parties involved.
Starswirl, with his many years dealing with spirits and spooks of all sorts, realized fairly quickly that he had only partially returned to the land of the living. It was merely his spirit that had returned, leaving him a noncorporeal entity. Upon realizing this, he hastily stepped into a wall, unsure of whether or not he was visible, and his there while he tried to make sense of his situation.
I’m a ghost! What an opportunity!
And it was. Towards the end of Starswirl’s life, he had been studying death and spirits in an attempt to understand what made ghosts and why they appeared.
I had wanted to do a case study on a ghost for my research, he thought, giddy. What better way to understand the subject of a case study than to become the case study!
With that thought in mind, Starswirl got to work understanding himself over the next hour. He pondered such questions as ‘why am I so tired after casting my teleportation spell?’ and ‘why am I hungry if I don’t have a body?’
Meanwhile, Twilight was with Spike in the living room. She had left the broken glass where it was for a more in-depth study later, and was currently sitting on the floor with her dragon assistant and a Ouija board. They had already tried spectral analysis, magical analysis, and more mundane methods of deducing what had happened, and none had bore fruit. When Spike had suggested the Ouija board, Twilight decided to humour him.
“Now we just hold the little heart thingy-”
“Planchette.”
“Swearing isn’t Princess-like, Twilight, and it’s a super good plan. Now, we just hold the little heart thingy and ask a question, and the ghost will answer us! That way we’ll find out what’s going on.”
The two placed their claws and hooves on the planchette, Spike considerably more eager than this alicorn friend.
Starswirl poked his head out of the wall, looking around for any sign of danger, and upon seeing Twilight with a small dragon, which he assumed was for ghost-hunting, he quickly retreated back into the wall.
He tentatively poked his head out of the wall once more. If he were visible, they most definitely would have noticed him by now. With this in mind, he observed the two.
“Ghost!” Spike called out. Starswirl assumed they meant him. “We summon you!”
Starswirl didn’t feel particularly summoned. There was no tugging on his ethereal soul, no pain, and no compulsion whatsoever.
I guess it’s kind of an optional thing, he thought, amused. Nevertheless, he walked over towards the two amateur mediums.
“Spirit, tell us your name!” Spike intoned, ignoring the skeptical look on Twilight’s face. The planchette stayed where it was. “Spirit, I command you to tell us your name!”
“Well, now that you command it I’d better do what you say,” Starswirl scoffed. “Kids these days need to learn to respect their elders...”
The pony and the dragon didn’t hear him, as expected. All three beings in the room were surprised, however, when the planchette started to move.
“It’s working! I told you it would, Twilight! Get the notepad!”
Twilight levitated the notepad in front of her and took down the individual letters as the planchette highlighted them. On a normal day, her skepticism would have won and, and she might have accused Spike of moving the planchette himself, but today was not a normal day. The broken mirror had defied all explanation, and recent events had caused her to have an open mind about new things.
“So, what did it say?” Spike asked, eager.
Twilight read over the message again. “I...” she started. “I think the ghost sassed us.”
Spike jumped up and ripped the message out of the air, reading it. “Oh, a wise-guy, huh?
Starswirl snicked. I guess those things really do work, he thought, amused. Well, I’m stuck here for an unknown amount of time. I may as well have some fun.
“I am the ghost of King Sombra! Fear me!” he moaned, raising his hooves in the air. The planchette, with Spike’s claws still on it, started to move once more.
Starswirl wasn’t actually sure what was going on with the mad unicorn king. Whether Sombra was dead or alive, he was sure he would get a reaction out of the two. If he didn’t know what was up with Sombra, why would the uneducated masses know?
Twilight read the message aloud.
Spike jumped up into the air and yelped before running and hiding behind the couch. “It’s Sombra, back from the dead to get revenge on me for saving the Crystal Empire! Run Twilight! Save yourself! He can’t kill us both!”
Now, news doesn’t travel very fast in the afterlife. There are no newspaper deliveries, radios, or any other means of communicating with the world of the living. The beings in the afterlife are forced to rely on the slow yet steady flow of new souls for their news, and even then it takes a while for that news to circulate.
So you can imagine Starswirl’s surprise upon hearing that the small, immature dragon helped save the long-lost (or recently-lost, by Starswirl’s perspective) city.
Is he serious? He sounds serious.
Starswirl, for the first time, took a good, long look at his surroundings. The walls were made of blue crystal, and they stretched up high, the ceiling of the room far above his head. Tapestries hung from the walls, depicting various scenes, usually involving six ponies and larges monsters of various types.
This is a castle.
He took a close look at the purple pony. Her horn was glowing as she held aloft the notepad, a slightly confused expression adorning her face. Her wings fidgeted nervously, as if-
Starswirl immediately regretted his prank. “It was a joke! A joke! I’m not here for revenge! I’m not here to kill you! I would never try to kill the princess!” he stammered out.
Ouija boards are fickle things. They’re used to the slow, ominous speech of the long-deceased, who have largely given up with their unlife and communicate with one or two word answers. Because of this, Spike’s Ouija board was having a rather difficult time keeping up with the ghostly wizard's rapid speech, and so skipped a few words.
Twilight read what the Ouija board had relayed.
“I’m here for revenge... I’m here to kill you... I would try to kill the princess!”
Spike screamed and ran out into the hallway. Twilight screamed, thinking the ghost of a powerful king was trying to kill her. Starswirl, misunderstanding Twilight’s scream and believing it to be a battlecry, screamed as well.
Twilight launched herself into the air and flew out the window, shattering glass in her haste to escape.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh... wait, where’d they go?”
Numerous books were strewn about the library that Starswirl had found in one of the upper rooms of the castle. It had taken him a while, but he had figured out a way to interact with the physical world. All he had to do was swipe his hoof through whatever it was he wanted moved, and it would slide a small bit in the direction he swiped. With enough swipes, the books could be dropped from the bookshelves to the floor and opened.
He’d had a minor setback when he started to wonder about the nature of his intangibility. As he was climbing the stairs to explore the strange castle, he had started to wonder how he was standing on the floor when he passed through everything else. Once he realized how strange that was, he immediately fell straight through the floor.
Being the genius he was, it only took him ten minutes to realize that ghosts could fly.
And thus the afternoon was spent flying around the castle and reading books on history in an attempt to catch up. He had no need to hide what he was doing- the strange new princess had run off and Starswirl didn’t know where the little dragon went.
Now, evening had rolled around and the sun was starting to lower, its light casting a pink glow over the landscape. Starswirl tried to light some candles with his magic, but nearly passed out after lighting only three.
With a firm resolution to get to the bottom of his magical troubles, he attempted to light the remaining candles with one of the ones he’d already lit, but only succeeded in knocking the candle off the wall sconce he had found it, lighting an adjacent tapestry on fire.
He decided to work in the dark.
Unable to cast a light spell for more than a few seconds at a time, Starswirl strained to read each word of the history tome he had opened, a job only made harder as the passing of time saw the setting of the sun beyond the horizon.
A knock on the door. Starswirl’s ears perked up as he heard the knocking, as clear as if the front door were right in the same room as he was. An amplification spell.
He debated getting up and seeing who it was, but decided against it. He couldn’t interact with the knocker, so the entire exercise would be pointless. He went back to reading.
Again, a knock at the door. Starswirl groaned.
“It’s bad enough I can’t see anything, now I have to put up with this infernal noise...” he grumbled to himself, floating through walls and towards the large front door. He poked his head through the massive door.
He was greeted with a pile of trash. Items of all sorts sat in the pile- sticks of wood, hundreds of small bags, a pony skull, and what appeared to be various severed body parts of creatures indigenous to the more wild parts of Equestria. Behind the pile, the purple pony princess stood, herself laden with similar items as those in the pile.
Beside the princess stood another pony, with a butter-yellow coat and a flowing, light-pink mane. She was saying something to the princess in a quiet, demure voice, laced with a slight trace of panic.
“I-I-I just d-don’t think this is s-s-something I can help you with!”
“Of course you can! Ghosts are pests, right? You’re the best in town at getting rid of pests!” Twilight retorted. “That’s why I went to you! Well, also everypony else was busy, but that’s beside the point.”
She knocked once more, her hoof going straight through Starswirl’s face.
“Alright, Fluttershy. It looks like nopony’s answering, so the ghost might be distracted. Now’s our chance!”
She pushed the door open.
“We killed Sombra once, we can do it again!”
Chapter Four - Plumbing, Magic, and Other Unfortunate Things
Twilight stepped through the doorway- and through Starswirl, who was too distracted by the yellow pegasus to move out of the way.
We all know that Fluttershy takes care of animals, but Starswirl had no such preconceptions. All the talk of pest control frightened the slightly senile wizard, who assumed she was a ghost hunter and/or an exorcist. He examined her, wondering how a shy, adorable pony like her could get into such a nasty business.
Fluttershy hung back as Twilight entered the castle, her legs shaking as though they were having trouble holding up her body. She stayed that way until Twilight pulled her in with her magic and shut the door.
“Alright,” Twilight started, placing the pile of junk on the floor. “I read as many books as I could find in the local bookstore on the subject of ghosts as I can. Which isn’t much. Written Script really has to expand his inventory. What do the ponies in town do for books?” She coughed. “Um, anyway, like I was saying, I read all about ghosts, so I went out and bought a bunch of things that the books say will be useful in ghost-vanquishing. Hold this.”
Twilight tossed the pony skull to Fluttershy, who shrieked and jumped behind a tapestry. The pony skull bounced on the thankfully soft carpeting of the floor, landing in an upright position. Twilight was too absorbed in her book to notice.
“Now, we just need to start the chant and we can bind the ghost in this skull!” Twilight said. “Then we can do whatever we want with it. I cast my vote in the ‘throw it in the river’ corner.”
She sat and drew a circle around the skull in chalk, then began chanting. “Gnitnahc gnidnuos-nital suonimo-”
A small purple blur, covered in pots and pans for war, streaked out from a hallway. “Twilight the ghost is trying to burn the castle down you gotta do something!” it shouted as it raced past Starswirl.
Oh wow, he was here this whole time?
The little dragon ran up to Twilight and hugged her leg. “He set fire to the library and threw books all over the place to use as kindling! He’s a monster on a rampage! We have to stop hi- oh, hey Fluttershy, what are you doing here?”
“...I’m not sure.”
“Burned down the library?!” Twilight exclaimed, rushing up to check on the damage. “What does the ghost have against knowledge?!”
Starswirl floated up through the ceiling to the second floor. Fluttershy and Spike shared a look before running after Twilight.
Now, you’re probably wondering why Starswirl remained in the castle for so long. After all, he’s already frightened and angered a princess, and scared her dragon assistant, not to mention the fact that what he believed to be a ghost hunter was currently in the princess’ employ.
You see, before Starswirl settled down to study in the princess’ expansive library, he had attempted to make his getaway, only to discover an invisible barrier of some sort keeping him from wandering more than a few metres from the castle. A few minutes of detective work later, and he found his journal, lying abandoned on the couch in the living room. He was unable to touch it, and quickly deduced that it was an anchor of sorts, keeping him from wandering too far.
Which sucked, if you were to ask for his opinion.
As long as Starswirl was stuck in the castle with the upset princess and dragon, he was going to keep an eye on them.
The princess kicked open the door to the library and gasped. Starswirl had left the library in more of a mess than he realized. Books were strewn all across the floor, and the remains of the burned tapestry had been spread across the room by a breeze from an open window.
“Oh my,” commented Fluttershy, who had just caught up to Twilight. “Have you considered... moving?”
Starswirl floated around Twilight as they performed rituals and incantations in the vain hope of getting rid of him. While they were preoccupied with this, he occupied himself with testing the limits of what he was capable of.
He first attempted to communicate with the princess. He spoke to her, then, when that failed, tried speaking directly into her ear. When that failed, he stuck his head inside of hers—a less exciting prospect than he had hoped, as it was too dark to see in there—and shouted. There was no response.
He then tried using a quill and ink. She had some ready, laid neat and tidy on a desk in her library, and it would only be a matter of picking up the ultra-light feather, dipping it in the ink, and writing. This, however, was more difficult than he expected. His hooves weren’t capable of lifting, only a slight pushing, and the quill went fluttering to the floor. His attempts at magic were similarly ill-fated, and he ran out of strength before the quill could even be dipped into the ink.
His attempts at writing had reminded him about his magical dilemma, and he spent a short amount of time attempting to solve that particular problem. He quickly gave up, however, when he realized he had no way to study his own magic without using it, and vowed to return to that line of research eventually.
This is infuriating, he thought as he abandoned his magical musings. I feel so impotent. I can’t communicate properly, I can’t use magic, and I can hardly affect the world around me. Is this what Earth Ponies feel like on a daily basis?
Starswirl came from a different time.
When his testing of himself failed to stave off his boredom, he turned to exploring the world around him. The princess was performing some sort of ritual with a tree branch topped with a gemstone, the little baby dragon holding up the piece of wood as she chanted something in a long-dead language. Fluttershy was sitting with her back to a wall, looking back and forth in fright.
Starswirl floated up to her and went to examine her. She was pretty, with a long mane and bright blue eyes. Her being a pegasus baffled him. Weren’t most ghost hunters unicorns?
Starswirl passed his hoof through her face, and the mare flinched a bit, shivering. “I guess I can affect the world a bit,” he muttered to himself.
He floated straight through her, and she shivered some more. He took satisfaction knowing that he could actually affect other ponies in some way, even if it were only a momentary chill.
After he passed through her, he found himself in the wall. He examined some metal rods that he had found when he was passing through the wall earlier. The wizard passed a hoof back and forth through them, wondering about their purpose. Were they structural?
Being from a time long passed, Starswirl wasn't aware of the concept of ‘indoor plumbing’. As he passed his hoof through them, he felt something loosen. The rod started to bulge at one end, and he backed up. “Uh oh." The pipe burst a moment later.
Fluttershy jumped up and screamed as the pipe burst inside the wall, startling her.
After seeing what happened with the pipes, Starswirl stayed far away from the electrical wires he found.
Twenty-three ancient rituals, fifteen talismans and a four-minute rant on how rude it was to haunt people later, and nothing had worked in expelling Starswirl from Twilight’s castle. It had gone on until late into the night, and the moon was high in the sky. Spike had fallen asleep and now lay curled up by Twilight’s side. Fluttershy, surprisingly, was doing rather well, considering she currently sat in a haunted castle.
Surprisingly well for Fluttershy doesn’t mean much, though. She was hiding underneath the table in the large dining room they had moved to, the tablecloth hiding her from the world… just as she had been since the twelfth ancient ritual, involving the seventh talisman—one of Zebrican make—and a small yet delightfully colourful explosion. She occasionally spoke up when Twilight said something to her.
For her part, Twilight was lying on the ground, frustrated. “Nothing is working! There are so many books on ghosts, and they’re all wrong!” She flipped through the book she was holding in her magic.
“W-well, how would you know if it worked?” Fluttershy asked from the confines of her table fortress. “What if it left and we didn’t notice?”
“That’s actually a good point,” Twilight conceded. “I guess I assumed something dramatic would happen when it did work.”
It hadn’t worked. Starswirl was floating above the trio, talking to himself.
“...and that third talisman was broken, you could clearly see the scratches on the inscription. The fourth talisman wasn’t even magical, it was just a necklace, my mother had one just like it. And...”
He went on like that for a while. Needless to say nopony heard him.
Fluttershy crawled out from underneath the table. “So, do you think it’s gone?” she asked, nervously glancing from side to side as though that would help her figure out whether or not the invisible ghost was still around.
“Maybe,” Twilight responded, sounding unsure. “There’s one more book here. I’d feel better if we cast the spell in here first.”
She opened the last book and started to read.
Fluttershy shuffled her hooves. “Um, Twilight? I should probably go take care of my animals...”
Twilight looked up from her book, a small frown on her face. “Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess you do,” she acquiesced. “Listen, Fluttershy, I’m sorry I brought you into this. I guess I was just afraid, and with everypony else busy, I wanted to have somepony by my side during all this.”
“But you do have somepony, Twilight. What about Spike?” She glanced at the little baby dragon.
Spike was snoring loudly beside Twilight, still wearing his pot-and-pan armour.
“Um, I guess not,” Fluttershy said.
“It’s okay, Fluttershy. Go,” she urged. “We’ve been here for hours and no ghost has made an attempt on my life yet. I’ll be fine.”
Twilight didn’t need to tell her twice. Fluttershy quickly opened up a window and flew out, not wanting to walk through the dark lower levels of the castle on her own.
Twilight sighed and put the book down, ready to cast the last ghost-banishing spell she had. Her horn glowed as she charged her magic and shaped the spell in her mind, a bright magenta light practically pouring off in waves.
Starswirl watched. “It’s not going to work,” he commented. “That spell requires much more power than you’ve got. May-”
A bright flash of light blinded the two as the spell was finished.
“-be if this castle was on a leyline, you could succeed,” he finished.
Twilight shrieked and whirled around, staring at Starswirl with wide eyes.
Starswirl looked behind him, confused, then turned back to Twilight and pointed to himself. “Can you see me?”
“Ghost! Why are you still here?! That was a banishing spell!”
“I don’t feel particularly banished.” Starswirl looked at himself. “But you can see me, which is new. I guess it partly worked.”
“Get out of my house! Or am I going to have to stop you again, Som...bra...” Twilight trailed off as she looked over the floating wizard. His pointy hat, long, flowing beard, and cloak were not the crown, fangs and cape she expected from Sombra. In fact, Twilight started to realize that the ghost in front of her wasn’t Sombra at all.
“About that...” the ghost started. “I’m... not actually Sombra...”
Twilight’s jaw was agape as she realized who she was talking to, her wings drooping to her side.
“I’m really very sorry,” Starswirl continued. “I thought it would be funny.”
“...and then you could tell me all about your life, in great detail, from birth to death so I can write your biography and you can show me some of the unfinished magics you were working on before you died and you can help me out with my own studies and...”
Starswirl continued hovering as the princess continued listing off all of the things they could do together. She had been going on for a few minutes now without taking a breath, and it didn’t look as though she were stopping any time soon.
Surely she would need to breathe by now? Starswirl wondered.
“...and then we can start our own travelling show where you tell spooky tales to foals and educate them on magic and history and we would bring knowledge and happiness into the world and...”
Maybe it’s because she’s an Alicorn? Do Alicorns have larger lungs than normal ponies? Should I ask?
“...but my father would never approve of such a marriage,” Twilight finished.
“What was that last thing?”
“Travelling show?”
“No, the other... nevermind. Don’t you think starting a travelling show is a bit unbecoming of a Princess?”
Starswirl didn’t know if travelling shows had become a thing princesses do in their spare time. He had been dead for a thousand years, and for all he knew, princesses toured Equestria with travelling circuses, entertaining the masses with magical feats and wearing clown noses. He just didn’t want to do those things.
“How did you know I was a princess?!” Twilight asked, mystified. “Did you cast some sort of mind-reading spell?”
Starswirl glanced at Twilight’s wings.
“...Oh. Well, um, I guess that’s not really princess like,” she acquiesced. “It’s just that I get really nervous when I meet ponies I really really respect, and I’ve known about you since you were a little filly- no, since I was a little filly! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you were ever a little filly! Unless you were! I’m not judging you! I know what it’s like to feel like you were born in the wrong body!” She looked back and forth, checking to make sure no one was around, before whispering. “I wanted to be a pegasus.”
Starswirl stared at her blankly, unable to formulate a response. He knew what was going on- the young Princess was acting exactly as Clover the Clever had all those years ago, when he first met the young, excitable filly. She had followed the then-young wizard’s career extensively, and when she had met him had rambled and embarrassed herself.
That behaviour was to be expected of a starstruck young unicorn. Starswirl was understandably surprised that an Alicorn princess would react in the same way.
“...What exactly are you the princess of?”
“Friendship. I-I’m sorry, I’m just... you’re my hero. I’m really really nervous and I ramble when I get nervous... heh heh...”
Starswirl felt a pang of sympathy for the young princess. She reminded him a lot of his apprentice, now that he thought about it.
“So, you’re not going to exorcise me?”
“N-no. Can I have a minute to myself, please?”
Starswirl nodded, hesitated, then floated down, through the floor.
He found himself in a circular room, where six large chairs sat, one with a smaller chair sitting beside it. Each chair had an image on the back, excluding the small one. He recognized two of the images- Twilight’s cutie mark and Fluttershy’s cutie mark adorned the backs of two of the thrones.
There goes any lingering doubts I had about her princess-hood.
Starswirl ‘sat’ down on one of the thrones- one marked with a small image of a cloud with a rainbow-coloured lightning bolt blasting from the bottom. He couldn’t actually sit, of course, considering his non-corporeal nature, but he hovered in place to make it look like he was sitting.
The room itself was imposing, with a high ceiling that towered over him and dark blue walls with little spikes of crystal jutting out.
“How does one even make things like this out of crystal?” he wondered aloud. He had wanted to get out to the Crystal Empire to study the unique architecture, but he never had the chance. A mad unicorn had enslaved it and somehow made it disappear before he could make the trip. Tragic. Not exactly unheard of in Equestria, but tragic nonetheless.
If what the dragon had said about defeating Sombra was true, however, Starswirl may just get his chance to study the Crystal Empire. He grinned as the thought struck him.
I may have had a rough start, but it looks like things will be smooth sailing from here on out.
The door to the throne room burst open, a blue blur flying in. When it stopped in the middle of the room, it looked around. It was a pegasus pony- she had a rainbow mane and angry looking magenta eyes. The cutie mark on her flank was the same as that which adorned the back of the chair Starswirl was occupying.
“Twilight! I heard you were having ghost trouble! Don’t worry, I’ll kick its flank for you!”
Her eyes swept over the area Starswirl sat, and he cringed. “I doubt you could touch me, but let’s not test it out!” he cried out, covering his face.
Rainbow neither saw nor heard him. With the castle being as large as it was, Twilight was oblivious of Rainbow’s shouts.
“...The ghost must have kidnapped her!” the pegasus exclaimed upon finding the castle empty, scratching her head. She flew back out the door.
“That was odd,” Starswirl commented, no longer covering his face. Twilight chose that moment to enter the room.
“There you are!” she said. “I’ve been looking all over the castle for you. Did you say something?” Twilight interrupted him before he could answer. “So, I’ve been thinking,” she started. “Are you planning on going anywhere any time soon?” she asked.
Starswirl shook his head. “Couldn’t if I wanted to. I can’t stray far from my old journal.”
“Yay! I mean, aww, that’s disappointing, I’m sorry to hear that. Well, if you can’t leave, how about you take the guest room?” Twilight offered, an excited and hopeful smile on her face. “It’ll be like a long sleepover, but with Starswirl the Bearded!”
“I don’t exactly have a choice, so I suppose I could use your guest room. Thank you.”
“Yay! This will be so great! We can stay up late and study! I’ll have Spike make his famous nachos, and we can-”
The door burst open once more, the blue pegasus returning, holding a bundle of brown and white fur in her arms. “Sniff her out, Winona!” the pony said, holding the dog out.
The dog licked her face.
Another pony—an Earth pony this time—trotted through the door. She was orange, with a blonde mane and green eyes. A stetson cap covered her ponytail. The one on her head, that is.
“Ah thought you said Twi’ was missing,” she grumbled, pointing to the princess sitting on her throne.
The pegasus looked at Twilight, who was wearing a confused look for the umpteenth time that day. Starswirl wondered if they had found a cure for Frozen Face Syndrome yet.
“...Winona’s a really good bloodhound! Good girl, Winona!” the pegasus said, clearly trying to save face. The dog wagged her tail.
“...Uh huh. Sorry about all this ruckus, Twilight. Rainbow told me a ghost got you, or somethin’.”
“Oh, it’s alright, Applejack! Look, I want you to meet somepony!” she exclaimed, excited. She pointed at the wizard. “Meet Starswirl!”
Applejack and Rainbow exchanged glances. “Is he behind the chair?” Rainbow asked. “‘Cause we just got here, and if he’s already hiding behind the chair, he would probably get along really well with Fluttershy.”
As she spoke, Starswirl floated up to the pegasus. A quick wave of his hoof in front of her face confirmed his suspicions- the two new ponies couldn’t see him.
He voiced his observations to Twilight.
“You can’t see him?” she asked the two mares, who looked at each other in confusion. “I guess the spell only affected me? Well, this is going to blow your minds, but the ghost of Starswirl the Bearded himself is here!”
There was a moment of silence as the two mares processed what Twilight had said.
Twilight pointed at Starswirl, who was trying his best to pat Winona in the head despite his non-corporeal nature. “He’s right there!”
“Are you alright, sugarcube?” Applejack inquired, a bit of worry making itself known in her voice. “Ah know you’ve been real busy lately, with your princess-y duties and all. Maybe you should go to sleep.”
“Um...” Twilight answered, suddenly sheepish. It would seem she realized her error. She remembered what her grandmother had always told her- when you meet a ghost, don’t try to tell anypony. They’ll think you’re crazy. Oddly specific advice, in hindsight, but Twilight decided to take it to heart.
“You’re right, girls. Thanks for looking out for me.”
“No problem, Twi’,” replied Applejack, a smile on her face. “Have a good night now, you hear?”
Rainbow Dash and Applejack left, Winona running after them.
“What were they even doing here? It’s the middle of the night,” Starswirl asked.
Twilight shrugged. “Fluttershy probably ran into one of the on the way home. They’re right, you know,” she changed the subject. “I really should be getting some sleep.”
Starswirl nodded. Twilight turned and started to walk out of the room. She looked over her shoulder at Starswirl as she did so.
“I’ll be asking you all sorts of questions, so rest up, alright? We’ve got a big day of research tomorrow!”
Four kilometres north of the city of Hoofington, deep in a sprucewood forest, there is a place where the snow never stops. Nopony knows why this is, though the locals have many theories. Some say it is the home of a vile witch whose heart is so cold that the very air around her is chilled to freezing temperatures. Others speculate that Nightmare Moon had cursed the area before her banishment. No matter the cause, everypony who knows of it avoids the area, and those who enter never return.
It is called The Madmare’s Cage, and everypony who speaks of it does so in hushed whispers.
Deep below the earth, completely sealed off from the outside world, rests the Cage’s namesake. In a completely spherical cavern, its walls covered in a smooth layer of frost, The Madmare hovered in place.
She was pretty. Beautiful, in fact. Had she not been what she was, she would have attracted many suitors. But she was what she was- a beast. She wailed and moaned in her prison, for it was a prison. She was unable to escape.
Her unnaturally long, flowing green mane whipped around in a wind only she felt as she thrashed her limbs in an attempt to move, just as she had for hundreds of years. Formless spirits swirled around her, a hurricane of misery. They were the souls of those who dared enter The Madmare’s Cage, and they were hers, their material forms wasting away in the wilds above.
She was lonely. For hundreds of years, she had inhabited The Cage, with none to keep her company. She drew toward her the souls of those above, luring them in with promises of warmth and love, yet their company wasn’t enough. She needed more.
Then she felt it. Someone long gone had returned. She did not know how, or even who- her memory had degraded since her imprisonment, and she could hardly remember who she was, let alone those from her past. But the feeling that warmed her heart as the being appeared once more comforted her, and she knew she had to find them.
She could feel them, in a place far to the west. She would find them, but first she would have to break free of her prison. She would find a way to do so.
She started to plan.
Chapter Six - A Pony, a Zebra, and a Ghost Walk Into a Forest
The sun rose on time, shining its bright light over the hamlet of Ponyville. Ponies awoke in their beds, the last vestiges of their pleasant dreams fading quickly from their memory. Ditzy Doo crashed into her mailbox as she left her home.
Yes, it was an ordinary morning in Ponyville. The inhabitants of Twilight’s castle, however, were not having an ordinary morning. It had all started when Twilight’s alarm shrieked out its daily cacophony.
Two minutes before the clock struck seven, Starswirl floated up through the floor of Twilight’s bedroom. Normally he would not have intruded on a young mare’s privacy, but he was a ghost now. Ghosts intruded on bedrooms all the time. Usually with the intent of terrifying their occupants to the brink of insanity, true, but that’s beside the point. Starswirl believed the social etiquette relating to the privacy of bedrooms to not apply to ghosts.
Floating up into Twilight’s bedroom was his first mistake.
The reason Starswirl had floated up here was a simple one- he was bored. As a ghost, he wasn’t capable of sleeping, so had the entire night to fill. Unable to interact with the world, he had quickly grown bored. When the sun rose, he had finally had enough of it and quickly went to go awaken Twilight in the hopes that she would provide some entertainment.
He had passed his hooves through her in an attempt to wake her up, but it failed to produce the desired result. She had merely shivered and pulled the blankets tighter around herself.
When that failed, he attempted a ghostly classic- moaning. His ghostly moans echoed ominously throughout the room, their eerie quality surprising him.
When that had failed, he gave up on the idea of waking Twilight and resigned himself to a few more hours of boredom. He sat in the corner, attempting to come up with something to do until Twilight woke up.
Staying in the room was his second mistake.
The alarm clock went off. Starswirl, having never encountered an alarm clock, screamed in fright. The sound of her alarm mixed with the sound of a stallion’s screams woke Twilight up immediately.
Twilight, still with the fog of sleep shrouding her mind, was confused as to why an elderly stallion was screaming in her bedroom. Frightened, she started to scream as well.
Downstairs, Spike screamed from where they had left him the previous night.
Breakfast was awkward, for a few reasons. First and foremost, the morning’s incident was fresh on the minds of all involved, and everyone involved avoided speaking of it.
Secondly, Spike was unable to see Starswirl, and was skeptical about his existence. Each time Twilight spoke to the ghost, he wondered to himself whether or not she was unwell.
Thirdly, Starswirl was unable to eat any breakfast, due to his ghostly nature, and stared at Twilight with a jealous look as she finished her hay bacon.
“So, I was thinking today I would bring your journal with me as I went about my errands,” Twilight was saying between mouthfuls. “You should probably get to know the town if you’re going to be spending time here.”
Starswirl nodded in agreement, unable to tear his eyes away from the hay bacon.
“We might want to see about bringing you to Zecora, too. She might be able to do something to help you.”
Starswirl’s ears perked up. “Zecora? Now that’s a zebra name if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Do you know a lot about zebras? As far as I’m aware, there wasn’t much contact with them back when you were still... erm, alive.”
“I spent a year studying zebra magic in their homeland. An odd people, if you ask me. Still, it’s hard not to like the Stripes.”
Twilight sputtered and dropped her fork. She coughed a few times, trying to dislodge the piece of food that was stuck in her throat. “You... can’t say that word, these days, Starswirl,” she said when she composed herself.
“What word? Stripes?” Twilight nodded. “What should I call them, then? Bangles?”
“No!”
“Witches?”
“No!”
“Then what should I call them?! Sheesh!”
“Just call them zebras!”
“Surely we can still call them Skunks? Some of those potions they brew smell bad!”
Twilight facehooved.
“...I’m just saying, I don’t see how it’s offensive. We called them that all the time back in the day. No one complained.”
The two were walking through the Ponyville market. Well, Twilight was walking. The journal in her bag allowed Starswirl to float beside her.
Twilight was ignoring Starswirl as he ranted on about how things were back in his day. The subject matter was upsetting, to say the least, and she would look crazy if she tried talking to him in public. She kept her mouth shut.
Applejack’s stand was easily one of the most busy in the marketplace. A throng of ponies milled around it, hoping to get the freshest and ripest Sweet Apple Acres apples they could. Twilight still wasn’t sure why apples were so well-loved in Ponyville, even after all her time there.
She quickly made her way around the crowd, doing her best to avoid Applejack. She didn’t want to talk so soon after what happened last night.
They made it through the busy marketplace and emerged at the other side. The streets here were quieter and less busy.
“Does Zecora live in one of these houses?” Starswirl asked, gesturing to the nice houses on the side of the street.
“Zecora doesn’t live in town,” Twilight explained. “Her house is in the Everfree forest.”
“Ah, that nice forest that surrounds the capital? I spent a lot of time there in my youth. I used to explore and watch the forest grow with each passing season.”
“Um... the forest isn’t as nice as it once was.”
“Come now, it’s only been a thousand years. How bad could it be?”
Twilight bolted down the path, ducking under low-hanging tree branches and jumping over fallen logs as the manticore chased her through the woods.
“Faster!” shouted Starswirl. “Run faster, unless you want to end up like me!”
“I’m running as fast as I can, Starswirl!” she shouted back, agitated.
“Use those chicken wings of yours!”
“That’s racist, Starswirl!”
Twilight relaxed as the tea warmed her and soothed her tired muscles. “Thank you, Zecora,” she said to the zebra across from her.
Zecora smiled. “You are most welcome, dear Princess. I am happy you arrived without much duress. The Everfree seems darker of late. It is good you have not met a gruesome fate.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked. “Has something been happening?”
As the two mares spoke, Starswirl was floating around the room, examining Zecora’s collection of herbs and potions. He recognized a few, yet most were completely unknown to him. He passed his hoof experimentally through a bottle of green dust, and it emerged out the other side with a green tint.
“The timber wolves howl longer this season than last. It troubles my sleep, as they go on long after the day is past. But before I continue, a question seems fair. Why is there a hoof floating in air? ”
Twilight followed Zecora’s eyes. Starswirl was looking at them, one hoof green and, Twilight assumed, visible to all.
“Starswirl, if you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it!”
He looked down, sheepish.
“I’m sorry, Zecora. This is why I came here. This is going to sound crazy, but... do you know anything about ghosts?”
Zecora took a sip of her tea. “Zebras have stories of many a ghost and ghast. However, I’ve never seen one in the past.”
“Oh, that’s a relief. Most of my friends already think I’m going crazy. I’m glad I have you on my side, at least.”
Zecora nodded.
“We were wondering if you’d be able to help us? See, he’s linked in some way to this book,” she removed the journal from her bag, “and we were wondering if you’d have any idea how to free him?”
Zecora shook her head. “I would love to help, good Twilight. But with ghosts, I know not what is right. ”
“It looks like we’re stuck with each other for the time being, Princess,” Starswirl said.
Twenty four hours ago, Twilight would have been thrilled. All she could manage now was a sigh.
“...Hurrah.”
As the pony, the zebra, and the ghost spent the afternoon drinking tea, a pony entered the woods north of Hoofington. He was dressed in winter gear, despite the warm summer weather, and had on his back a bag full of exploring tools.
He was one of the few adventurers who dared enter The Madmare’s Cage.
As he neared the Cage, he felt the air around him getting colder and colder. His winter clothing seemed to do nothing to block out the chill, and he shivered. He reached a point in the path where the snow began to fall, and stopped just short of entering. If he took one more step, whatever event that caused ponies to never return may happen to him.
He steeled his nerves and stepped forward. The snow started collecting on him as he walked, stopping briefly every few minutes to shake it off. It only got colder and more snowy as he got closer to the center of the kilometer-large circle of cold.
He stopped just a hundred metres from the center when he heard a voice. He looked around frantically, eyes surveying the snow for the source. He heard it again.
Come closer.
The voice wasn’t coming from around him, he realized, but from within him. He shook his head frantically, as though he could dislodge the offending thoughts from his mind. “Get out of my head!” he shouted into the sky.
We’re going to be best friends. Just come a little closer.
