I was a good writer once. · 12:38am Sep 16th, 2015

No comment on my current abilities, merely a statement of belief.

“... indeed what have any done, in the grand scheme, except deny the inevitable encroachment of time upon their body and mind, even as the signs grow stronger. All we can do is leave our mark upon the world, and hope we are remembered well once we pass on to the great meadow.”
Starswirl the Bearded, many years of that name, gently placed his quill on his writing desk and closed his eyes. He leaned forward to stretch his aching back and withers and tried not to think about the coming day, when he would complete the binding spells that should, in theory, prevent his race from forgetting the Historia Magicae, possibly his last and greatest work. Future generations would depend on those words for their peace of mind and safety but such a spell required power. Perhaps more power than he had.
Fortunately he had some help. Starswirl reached over his desk to a speaking tube and tapped it twice with his hoof.
“Sunset Aura, if you’re still in the library could you please bring me the second Ossory codex and another of your mother’s fine pastries?”
“Can do!”
Starswirl let the tube slip back into place and smiled. Yes, it certainly paid to be the most gifted mage in the Unicorn kingdoms, far better than anything a mere king could achieve. Nevertheless, there was work to be done. He levitated his quill back to the page.
“And yet, no greater indictment of the behaviour of a mage might be found than that he sought knowledge, not for the sake of itself, nor for the betterment of ponykind, but for something so fleeting as fame.”
“You know, you might write faster if you didn’t talk at the same time.”
Sunset Aura trotted through the outer door, a small tray suspended before her. She bore the tray and its contents – a pastry, two scrolls rolled tight, a pot of masala chai and two cups – to a larger table in the corner of the room and set it down with a quiet tinkle. Starswirl smiled and shook his head as the younger unicorn poured them both a steaming cup.
“Young lady, you are, as ever, a fount of profound yet impractical advice,” Starswirl said, smiling. He took the proffered cup and pastry, and waited as Sunset unfurled first one scroll and then the other. “Have you considered my offer?”
“I have,” Sunset said. Her examination of the second scroll seemed to falter. “It is a tempting one but I’m not sure I’m ready to leave my archive just yet.”
As if the archive was your true calling, Starswirl thought, eyeing the spangle of bright red stars on Sunset’s pale blue flank. Potentially the most powerful mage he had seen and yet she hid away amongst her artefacts and trinkets like some sort of librarian. He set aside the chai and tried to give Sunset his most penetrating look. The outcome was not exactly as he expected. She giggled.
“Miss Aura, what is so amusing?”
“Nothing! Nothing... it’s just that you seem to be paying a lot of attention to me these days.” Sunset rather coyly raised the scroll up to her face and peered at Starswirl over the handle. “I’m just a simple archival researcher and you’re the most powerful mage our race has ever seen. Why you would want to spend even a moment with me when you could do anything in the world... why, you could be ruling Unicornia right now if you wanted it.”
“Tempt me not!” Starswirl chuckled as he snatched the scroll from Sunset’s levitation spell and set it on the writing desk next to his work. “The kingdom needs wisdom and guidance, not mere brute power. As for you... Sunset Aura, you are no archivist and you are no mere strip of a filly who knows not her strength. I would have you as...”
His voice trailed off. Sunset’s expression had gone from coquettish to almost horrified as he spoke and Starswirl wondered if perhaps he’d gone too far. But then she smiled, just a little.
“Go on,” she said, lowering her eyes just a fraction. Was she blushing?
“Oh... forgive an old stallion his fantasies, dear child.” She smiled again and Starswirl found himself smiling back as he briefly considered the youth spell he had perfected just a few weeks ago. But no... ultimately such a spell would lead to places he would rather not consider. “One as powerful as I cannot help but see another of equal or greater capacity. I see you as a great and powerful mage and... I hope, a progenitor of such mages.” That one drew a gasp. Starswirl stepped back and turned to get a better view of the young mare. “I also fear you.”
“Fear me?”
“A mage fears power as great as his own. Rivalry amongst such as we can lead only to greed and chaos and, ultimately, death. Come, see,” he said, motioning to the scrolls and his own half-finished writing. “This character, Ossory, for instance sought to prove himself better than his fellows rather than working with them, and in so doing may have released something that consumed him utterly.”
“I read a little of Ossory when you requested information on his work,” Sunset said. Her voice seemed a little faint and it was obvious she was still reeling from the minor revelations Starswirl had dropped on her. If only she knew. “He seemed keen.”
“Young Clover is 'keen', and far too enamoured with politics for my liking,” Starswirl said. He smiled and shook his head when he remembered that his young Clover had ceased to be either young or his student nearly fifteen years ago and was, these days, well entrenched in the highest levels of the court. A fine mage, though perhaps not as clever as the name suggested. “Ossory was arrogant and knew little of anything save promoting himself— and what is so amusing now?”
“Oh, nothing...” Sunset Aura managed to suppress her grin and gave Starswirl the most serious of looks that he almost burst out laughing himself.
“Yes, well, he and those like him are the reason I started writing the Historia in the first place. Future mages need to understand that magic is not something to be trifled with. Those with the most power must be given the greatest guidance.”
She was gazing at him now, fascinated, or infatuated; Starswirl was unsure which, and equally unsure which he’d prefer. He stroked his beard as he tried to recall what he had been saying.
“Yes, anyway, Ossory’s infamy was the spell he named his ‘pocket’.”
“I’ve heard you speak of these before, master Starswirl.”
Sunset’s voice was suddenly very formal, as she so often became when those students were about. But they were alone, which meant she must be playing with him on some level that Starswirl didn’t understand.
“The rants I have had about those infernal cysts,” he said, retrieving his writing tools. He dropped the quill into an ink pot and then stopped, unsure of what to do. “They were to have been his crowning achievement, by his own account. And mine, when I resurrected them and brought them back to the world.”
“What happened?”
“Oh I found out that Ossory’s magic was merely a concoction of half truths and fancywork and that his vanity was matched only by my own.” Starswirl held up the scroll and peered at it though, in truth, he was only pretending to read while he ordered his thoughts. “Ossory claimed invention of a type of spatial rift that would be immediately accessible through a spell of his own devising. Unfortunately he neglected to mention that the rifts were extant prior to his alleged creation and that his ‘magic’ was little more than a location fixer and a sorting spell with a basic predictive function built it.”
“So in essence, a Dewdrop’s Purse of Concealment.”
“That could be the inspiration,” Starswirl murmured, laying the scroll down on the desk.
“But a spatial rift... a spell located within a set of self-enclosed non-euclidian dimensions... tied to a specific set of orgonal markers and accessible from any point in real space? That’s incredible.”
It had taken Starswirl a week to work out the general shape of the spell and Sunset had figured it out in moments. You are wasted in that archive, he thought once again.
“Incredible? Only if he’d found a way to create the self-enclosed geometries himself but, alas, even I have yet to crack that one. You might, given time,” he added with a glance to the young mare. Sunset blushed again. “As I said, he merely found them, and then he poked holes in them to create his masterwork. Foalish young upstart probably ended up stuck in one of his own ‘creations’. As for what he potentially let out... huh.”
“Let... let out? Master, you never mentioned anything being let out before.”
“Oh... I suppose I didn’t.”
Starswirl went to take a sip of his tea and realised the cup was empty. His pleading look elicited a sigh from Sunset who, nevertheless, retrieved his cup and poured a fresh drink while Starswirl returned to his writings.
“When I first discovered the Pockets I thought I had stumbled across a hidden masterpiece, a work of such genius that nothing but good could come of it. Even when I found that Ossory had only co-opted an existing geometric artefact I reasoned that it still had almost limitless potential. I was invested, Sunset, in the fame it would have brought me and came extremely close to achieving that fame in a most painful and bitter way. You see the stonework at the far end of this laboratory?”
Sunset followed Starswirl’s outstretched hoof to a fresco built into the far wall. It was a fairly simple affair, marble inlaid with silver and gold, a stallion descending from a great tower that seemed to be crumbling into a pit.
“A rather plain depiction of the Fall of Adara and the descent of Fleethoof Starshine,” Sunset said after a moment’s examination. “What of it?”
“How old do you think it is?”
“I have trouble with anything younger than a century... oh, stop it.” Sunset Aura playfully slapped at Starswirl’s side at the sight of his enormous grin. “You’re far too young for me.”
“Alas, I was thinking the same thing,” Starswirl replied. His seriousness returned as he faced the mural and for a moment he was back amongst the reasons for its existence. “Forty-five years, give or take a month. I had it installed about two months after finding my first Pocket and about a week after opening the last. You see, Sunset, those pockets were created for a reason. They held... secrets. In this case a magical bomb that transformed one of my previous assistants into...”
He shuddered as the memories returned to his mind. The first pocket had contained nothing more than a small, if rather well-preserved vase that was probably secured somewhere in Sunset Aura’s enormous archive. The second had held some groceries, rather less well-preserved, and a shopping list clearly marked as belonging to Ossory himself, which had encouraged Starswirl to continue seeking the pockets.
“Ossory had invented a means to locate and retrieve his pockets from a very wide area, and I quickly found several more. It was the first of those that my assistant opened, under my instruction. Something... whatever was in there... it was already powerful when it escaped. It devoured his mind in moments, he barely had enough time to realise what... I...”
Starswirl took a deep breath as he tried to order his thoughts. Time heals all wounds? Whoever had said that hadn’t had to look one of their closest friends in the face and see only malevolent hatred staring back through dead eyes, and hadn’t had to suffer the nightmares years later.
“It was a curse. Something from before any recorded history, something so evil that it must have been created only for war, though any war that would require the use of such weapons, I cannot even begin to comprehend.”
He looked into Sunset’s eyes, bright with life and curiosity, and tried to smile. She was seeing a new part of his life now, something she’d never have encountered if it weren’t for her particular talent. Starswirl wondered if it would drive her back to her archive permanently.
“I suppose you must learn of things like this if you are to fully consider my request. To be a mage means occasionally facing situations that are... impossible. Rising above the impossible is what magic is all about, in the end.”
“Master, you...” She took a breath. “Your friend?”
“Ah... Sunset, I don’t think—”
“I have to know. Please.”
The old mage turned to face the mural. He hadn’t looked at it for years, not really looked at it. Casual glances, the sight of it behind other things yes, but not the actual mural, not for many years. He’d thought it quite fitting as a memorial to... to his loss. Had it even been to his friend? He wasn’t sure any more. Of so many things, he wasn’t sure.
“ ‘Oh thou of great and noble race, thy home Adara burns in dead of night. Mourn thee now thy fate and place, to walk this earth forever lost to harmony’s great light.’” He didn’t need to read the stone; the words were etched in his memory far deeper than any chisel could cut granite. “It was meant to remind me that even the greatest can fall. Ossory fell to greed. I almost fell to mindless enthusiasm. Perhaps I still shall fall to pride... my friend? He fell to loyalty. Pure, simple loyalty. He loved me and did everything I asked for that love.”
Starswirl closed his eyes as he pictured the face of his friend, the day before the accident. They had spent the morning walking, planning how they would live out their lives after their great new discovery. He would have been a great noble living in a grand mountainside villa. He’d already found a nice valley with a huge reflecting lake. Starswirl would be the Archmage of Unicornia. Together... together, what great things they could have done.
“I had no choice, in the end. The curse took him, completely and utterly. He’d been powerful, but he’d never fully appreciated his own strength. This curse... this monster that stole him, it knew what he could do. It knew that with a mere thought it could turn this entire city to dust. It knew what he meant to me, and it tried to bargain, to use that love, that loyalty against me. My friend’s life for my even greater power.” Starswirl blinked way the tears as he spoke. “I could see the monster already growing in power. It would have taken me anyway, so I destroyed it the only way I knew; I burned his body to ashes, spread his power to the winds before the creature that had taken him could comprehend what I had done. Twice then, I had destroyed my most loyal friend. My only true friend.
“So now you see, Sunset Aura, what it is to be a mage, to risk all for the understanding of this arcane art. I asked this of you not lightly but with the greatest of sorrow, because I see your power, and I would have you understand just what that power means. I would guide you, teach you to avoid my mistakes, and to surpass me in my success. I would not have you become another Ossory, nor have you suffer the fate of my friend simply because you were too eager for fame and fortune or too enamoured with the thrill of power to see death and destruction coming before it was too late. To follow me would set you on a path to endless toil, hardship, loneliness and pain.”
“When you put it like that...” Sunset Aura looked at her hooves. She took a sharp breath and looked up into Starswirl’s face with a strange, distant smile. “But I get to keep the archive, yes?”
Despite himself, Starswirl laughed, the first decent laugh he’d had in the gods knew how long. Perhaps the impetuousness of youth had some positive aspects, after all. He returned to his desk and lifted pen to paper. “I don’t see why not. For now, hand me that other Ossory scroll. I want to get this on parchment, then we’ll talk about your future.”
Suffice to say, he wrote, pen scratching rapidly across the page. Ossory was a hack.