Bits
First bit.
“Where is this horse’s bit?”
1. Bit (n): small, round coins made of gold or silver with an embossed rim, the standard form of currency used throughout Equestria.
“AHH! BITS! WHY OF COURSE! Why didn’t you just say so? I do believe I have a few right here.”
Dr. Hooves searched for bits in his pocket, quite frantically. How many does he need to procure again? Oh, well, the cloaked figure said bit, meaning only one, but that seems illogical to foalnap somepony for just one bit.
“Just how many do you suppose I need so you could free me from this bridle? It doesn't exactly give one the ability to move freely, therefore interfering with my search for the bits that you so clearly need,” said the Doctor.
The hooded figure pointed at another hooded figure, one smaller in stature. The smaller one took a jockey’s whip and hit the Doctor in his flank, causing an agonized neigh to escape the his lips.
“That, good sir, was uncalled for. I said I had agreed to your conditions, and would gladly surrender to your terms. Why would there be a need to hit me?” he questioned.
The cloaked ones heeded him not, apparently not caring for his pleads. The two cloaked figure exchanged words in a hushed fashion, so as to prevent their captive from hearing.
He was then dragged further into the dark, damp cave the cloaked ones had taken him to and was thrown inside a dungeon. Yes, as if a dark mysterious cave was not enough, there was also a dungeon inside the cave.
“Hey, wait, can't we just talk about thi-” he was cut off by the slamming of the door. He looked around the room he had been taken to.
He was in a stone room that was dimly by a single torch on the wall. The door was made of wood and had a small metal door at the bottom that appeared to be for serving food.
Dr. Hooves thought about the earlier scenario and still wasn’t sure how he got here. One minute he was asleep, safe and tucked in his bed, then, next thing he knew he woke was at the entrance of a dark cave, in a bridle with a cloaked figure looking for his bit. He was in a bridle. Who knows what kind of fetish these cloaked figures have? For some reason, he found himself blushing at that random thought.
A bridle? Who in Celestia’s name wears a bridle, nowadays?
“Couldn’t they have tied me properly like the masculine stallion I am?” The doctor complained in a hushed voice.
Dr. Hooves shook the thought off his head. There is no time to worry about fashion. Now is a great time, as any other time, to apply the laws of SCIENCE!
Step 1. Identify the problem.
“Well… I'm in a dungeon, in a bridle, and I haven't got the damnedest clue as to how I got here. It wasn't hard to identify the problem.” He couldn’t help but roll his eyes at such an obvious answer. However, it was an absolute necessity that he go at it in an orderly manner, carefully following the scientific method that he revered.
Step 2. Formulate a hypothesis.
"Possible solutions, hmm?" He looked around the dark dungeon, finding all possible things to let him off those dreadful bridles. He looked around, and he looked around good, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t find anything, not even a single strand of hay. There is nothing in there, nothing but rocks and more rocks. He couldn’t help but let out a low groan, the cave’s walls automatically brought his groan in a rhythmic repetition, an echo.
“Great whickering stallions! An echo! THAT’S IT! I could utilize the echo, and maximize the wave to make it as a loud electronic speaker serving as my beacon for help. Now, I only need to find my sonic screwdri..ver…” His voice trailed off when he remembered that he was still only in a bridle and nothing else. Too bad he could not proceed to step 3.
And here he had already formulated the blueprints in his brain.
Second bit
He woke up, having fallen asleep due to lack of anything else to do. After an admittedly confusing day of waking up in a weird situation and still in the dungeon, he ended up sleeping in the rocky cave without a single comfort that any civilized pony is used to having. Yet, he still ended up asleep faster than a Wonderbolt in an aerial display.
It was the faint whisper, a soft small voice that served as a catalyst to break his sleep. The voice whispered- “Hello… is anyone in there?”
He opened his eyes, and blinked. There was a faint light coming from the bars on the door, most likely from the tip of unicorn's horn.
“I-is anyone in there? Can you hear me?” The young colt’s voice quivered with fear as he called out, not much louder than a whisper.
“Shh, quiet little one, less those two cloaked figures hear you,” said the Doctor in a firm, yet inviting voice. He walked to the door at the entrance of the dungeon.
He spoke through the food hatch at the bottom of the door. “Can you help me get out?” asked the Doctor
The young colt responded, “Yeah, I think,” then he closed his eyes, concentrating all of his energy into the tip of the horn. Ethereal mist enveloped his horn, and all his young muscles clenched, putting all he could into his spell. A little spark managed to form and hit the lock and with a click, it opened up.
The Doctor walked out of the dungeon quite easily, still wary of his escape being discovered. The obviously tired colt signalled for him to follow his small footsteps.
They carefully ventured further into the cave, until they reached a place where a shallow river flowed in. Where there is a river, there is an entrance for the water to go in. Once they were out of the cave, the doctor finally felt safe to speak.
“Why, I am grateful for your help little colt. I wonder if I ever shall ever be able repay you. What is your name, dear?” He smiled softly as he followed beside the smaller horse. He received no reply, the awkward silence chipping away at the Doctor's patience.
They continued walking, trotting on what seems to be a forest trail, until they reached a tree with several empty crates stacked together to form an enclosure, with the tree crown serving as the roof. It was only a little taller than the colt.
“Is this your playhouse?” asked the Doctor.
The young colt shook his head.
“Your secret base?” he quipped.
The young colt shook his head again, but this time offered the answer to the doctor already. “This is not any of those things you said, sir; it’s my home.”
The Doctor’s eyes roamed around the place the young colt called his home. The crates were moldy, as if they had been discarded. He looked at the young colt and he opened his mouth to speak.
No words could fit the things he needed to say. He wanted to ask, Why? Why would a young colt like you live amidst the forest, in a house which walls are made out of trash?!
He exhaled, trying to calm himself. He put a sympathetic hoof on the colt's shoulder and gave him a sad smile.
“What is your name, child?”
“The townsponies call me... Star Swirl.” The colt looked away, like he just said something humiliating, like his name was the most embarrassing name one could ever have.
“Why do you look embarrassed, Star Swirl? It’s a mighty fine name.” And an awfully familiar one at that. The doctor pondered where he'd heard it before.
Where as Star Swirl is a name easily recognizable to most ponies, Dr. Hooves never bothered learning about history, especially if the history concerned magic.
Magic is limiting, while Science and Mathematics are the real magic, he always said. Being an Earth pony as he is, he was long deprived of the wonders of magic. He chose a path that let him use his brains and creativity to conjure things in his own way, by inventing them.
“Well, Star Swirl, what do you usually do around your town? What do you do for fun? Dr. Hooves asked.
“I do errands for small bits of food and leftovers, sir.”
Hearing the young colt say that made Dr. Hooves’ heart break to bits.
2. Bit (n): a broken or irregular part of something that often remains incomplete. Synonyms: fragment, fraction, piece, scrap
“Where I'm from, a colt is expected to be able to lift heavy things with their own muscles. I, however, find it difficult to carry anything, really. I always end up tumbling and falling.”
The Doctor looked at the colt confused. It was a preposterous idea to ask a colt to lift anything with brute force. Just where in Equestria was he from?
The Doctor still wondered why he was named Star Swirl and why, for some reason, he disliked his name.
“Star Swirl, why do you despise your name so? Why do they call you that?” asked the Doctor.
Star Swirl looked away, and with a sad voice answered, “When I trip and fall, they say I look like I’d seen stars swirling in front of me.”
Dr. Hooves patted the young colt’s head to reassure him. “There, there, my boy. I myself am not the strongest of colts. But I'm not all that bad, am I?”
The colt smiled, comforted by his words. He looked up to the sky, admiring it’s beauty. His eyes widened, remembering something.
He turned to Dr. Hooves, “I saw you fall from the sky, from a grass-colored circle, and I was afraid to approach you as the Unnamed saw you first. They dragged you into the cave. I only was able to save this… thing.”
The doctor smiled when he heard this. “Could it be my sonic screwdriver, or my hologram projector?! Either one of those would be useful to getting me back home.”
His hopes faltered as he looked at the colt’s hoof. T’was not his sonic screwdriver. Nor his hologram projector.
It was only his telescope. “Damn.”
Third bit
Despite the earlier disappointment, Dr. Hooves accepted the telescope and thanked the colt. He learned that the colt didn’t know his parents, nor did he know what parents were.
When he asked about Equestria, the young colt looked as though what he said was gibberish. The Doctor had no idea where he was or how he’d get home, so he settled with asking Star Swirl some questions he had.
He asked the colt, “Why did those things put me in a bridle?”
The young colt blinked and replied, asking, “Is there anything ponies wear other than bridles?”
Dr. Hooves found the young pony’s answers to be profoundly confusing. Star Swirl seemed to have had little to no understanding of most of the things Dr. Hooves talked about. The poor colt didn't even know what the word Equestria pertained to.
The doctor concluded that it must have been because the young colt was uneducated, due to lack of a parental figure.
At any rate, they were both famished, so he helped the colt gather food from the forest. He took the time and taught Star Swirl which mushrooms and berries were edible. He hoped that with that knowledge, it would lessen the colt’s dependence on the scraps of food the townsponies spared him. He made a mental note to thank Rose for her lectures on plant materials, a subject which was normally out of his field of interest.
He stayed with the colt for a couple days and nights, teaching him several essential survival tactics, as well as giving him someone to talk to.
One night, the two ponies were gathered by a fire. They just finished eating their dinner and the Doctor was fiddling with his telescope.
The young colt looked at the older stallion with eyes full of curiosity.
“Excuse me, Doctor, but you never did tell me what that thing is?”
“This, my dearest Star Swirl, is a telescope.”
“What does it do?” the younger one asked.
“It helps you take a closer look at the skies.”
“What do you see up there?”
“What do YOU see?”
“Stars”
“Not just stars, swirls of stars. Star swirls, one might say.” He looked meaningfully at his young friend.
Dr. Hooves wanted to change the meaning of the colt’s name, to make his name something to be proud of.
He gestured for him to move closer. Star Swirl stepped up to the telescope and followed Dr. Hooves’ instruction. After a while of peeking, twisting and turning, he got a closer look at the night sky.
The young colt gasped in awe. The swirls of stars were magnificent, painting a picture of brilliance in the night sky.
“Star Swirl,” the Doctor started. “Your name is not something to be embarrassed of. It’s a wonderful name. It reminded me dearly of the sparks you were able to produce amidst the dark cave to free me. Star Swirl is not about your clumsy-nature, but about your magic”
The stallion looked at the sky as he said those inspirational words. Feeling proud, he looked at the younger colt to see his grateful reaction, but was instead greeted with a look of confusion.
“Magic, what’s magic?”
Okay, that was it. The colt is uneducated. That’s the last straw. If they could allow a young unicorn not know what magic is, yet know how to use it, then what kind of an educational system does this town he speaks of have?! He was going to complain until they made reforms.
He was hesitant at first, because a gentlecolt should never resort to complaining. However, if there’s no one to stand for the welfare of a young pony, then one should resort to whatever ways he could, even if it meant complaining.
The next morning, Dr. Hooves convinced Star Swirl to take him to the town he kept mentioning.
They arrived at a little mountain, overlooking what the young one called a town. But there was no town in sight. Only a fence and several bridled horses inside. There were no clothes, no houses, no food. There were no signs of civilization.
His eyes widened in dreadful realization.
Not because they were all naked, or bridled…
Not because there was no houses or beds, or bake shops or castles…
Not because there was no food…
Not even because none of the ponies have cutie marks…
But because inside their mouth, attached to their bridles, were the bits those cloaked guys talked about.
3. Bit (n): the usually steel part of a bridle inserted in the mouth of a horse, used by a rider to control the horse’s movements.
Fourth Bit
The ponies were treated as livestock, given hay to eat after carrying carts of heavy loads. Pegasus, Unicorn, and Earth Ponies, all of them were there in the vast plains. They had not a cutie mark, nor talents or a personality. Only work.
The doctor did not understand. He did not understand at all. He sat on the ground. He tried to process what was happening. He tried hard to remember. He did. His thoughts swirling around his head and as if answering his query, his mind replied with the voice of Rose. Her voice, in his memory as she read to him a book called the history of magic.
Before the great kingdom if Equestria was formed, ponies were treated as slaves, existing only to serve the purpose of the cloaked race called the Unnamed.
He remembered the cloaked people looking for his bit.
They were allowed to form no reasoning, thought, emotions or personality and thus, was not able to realize their own potential and earn their cutie marks.
He noted the lack of cutie mark, not only of younger ponies, but even older ones.
They were interbred and had no knowledge of families.
He thought of the reason why Star Swirl has no understanding of the word parents and his lack of a proper home.
The unicorns had no use for their horns, as any signs of magic is treated as an abomination, and all who practice it were burnt to ashes, to be eaten by the Unnamed.
He finally understood. He finally see why Star Swirl was not living in the town with the rest of the ponies as though he was banished, as though he was forced to live in the forest in such a poor living conditions.
It wasn’t about where he was, it was about when. He was asking the wrong kinds of questions all along, making the assumptions without any basis at all. Why, maybe going to a pre-medieval era makes one lose his scientific touch!
“It all makes perfect sense!” He got excited, and before he reigned in his instinct, he was dancing, he caught the hoof of the younger pony- Star Swirl.
Star Swirl.
His dance came to a slow halt as he realized that the puzzle is still incomplete. He looked at his hoof and he thought. He’s missing something. When, there is that much thing in your mind, it can be quite, for the lack of better term, cluttered. He managed to find it, that memory of Rose. That memory that told him the answers to his questions.
Star Swirl the bearded, the most important conjurer of the pre-classical era, was the first pony who fought for freedom against the unnamed. He was the first to study magic, and explore its’ possibilities. He lived a long life, and managed to see the founding of Equestria before he breathe his last breath.
And the portal.
His eyes got sad. No invention as of the present Equestria is able to bring out a portal like that, at least not yet. Eliminating that possibility, he was almost sure that it is some kind of advanced time travel spell that brought the doctor is here. The doctor remembered that Rose did say that magic like that lasts only for a moon. He paused. He could tell, he’ll be out of this place soon enough. His heart thumped loudly, he knows it will be time soon. He wish he could do something- anything at all to help his young friend be the stallion he will be. As he was sitting down, feeling weak, he held out his hoof to the young colt shoulder.
“Who are you, colt?”
“I’m Star Swirl, sir.”
“Yes. Yes. You are somepony. You have an identity.” He paused. “Each of them, too.” He gestured at the townspony then. “They have had identities, taken from them and someday, when you’ve grown enough, you’ve give it back to them.” He paused for a while as a small howl of wind silenced them.
“I will leave soon enough.” He noted the sadness in the young unicorn’s eyes. He smiled. “What you’re feeling right now, is sadness.” He gently pats the colt’s head and messes his mane. “Feeling is alright, and it is perfectly normal. With your identity, comes a right to feel.”
“…And Magic. Those spark from your horn. You have the ability to make what you were thinking come true. You do not need me to tell you that, right? But you can. You can make things happen, more than opening locks and doors. You can if you try. You can. You should.”
A small GREEN circle of light appeared overhead. The Stallion bit his lower lip. It’s time. “You never asked, but my name is Dr. Hooves.”
When the young colt realized what is happening, his eyes widened, he used all his concentration on bringing all his magic to pull his friend down-back, back to him. He doesn’t want to let go.
A little bit of time. A little bit of time is all he was asking.
4. Bit (n): a short period of time : a while
He concentrated harder, hoping that with his magic he could get him his friend back. He shot a huge concentrated ball of magic to the closing circle where his friend is going.
The portal closed before it reached him and the magic that hit the sky exploded. Filling the sky with swirling stars, as his tear-filled eyes was filled with awe.
And his flank lit up.
Additional Bit
Old and living at the castle of the Unicorn King, King Bullion, Star Swirl was looking at his notes. He has developed several scrolls of magic. All kinds of magic one could ever imagine- transfiguration, dimensional calibration, and teleportation. He gave each magic a name. He gave everything a name, even his emotions. At first, he said that an overwhelming joy and positivity would be called hoovey, in honor of his first friend. However, some ponies nowadays called the emotion hoofy. He can only wonder how it would sound in the near future.
He looked at each of the scrolls he made and he smile contently, remembering the only friend that he had and lost. He looked at the latest parchment on the table. It reads, time travel, and summoning. He has been trying to piece the magic together for a while now, to create a new form of magic. He succeeded of course. He read the results of his experimentations out loud. In his hoof, the telescope that was left to him by the Stallion that gave him his cutie mark.
“I tried to summon the vase that I broke today to yesterday and it did. A green portal appeared overhead after I cast the spell, and pulled the broken fragments of the vase, which is the reason why yesterday I had to clean shards of the vase that is yet to break.”
He paused and read again. “A green portal appeared over head.”
He suddenly got excited, agitated. This is finally it. His heart ran fast.
Why?
Because the portal was finally green.