Happy Birthday Clover! · 5:54pm Jul 14th, 2017
Four years ago today I posted the first chapter of my first story on FIMFiction. It's been quite a wild four years, and both Clover and Star Swirl have been with me through it all. And they still are.
I've said it many times and I'll say it again: I count myself incredibly lucky to have stumbled over two such great characters, characters who never run out of things to say and do and who constantly push each other to ever greater heights. For me, the greatest challenge is just keeping up with them.
And now I'm still here working on the final chapter of The Education. It's by far the longest chapter of the story to date, indeed of any chapter I've posted at one time to date (the record previously held by "Discourse on Fillies", at 15.5k words has been decisively shattered, and even that one I felt compelled to split into three parts). It's also a challenging chapter, as you will see. Could it be that this will be the time I finally go too far, and leave the audience baffled and confused rather than entertained? I'll admit the fear has taken up residence in my mind.
But a week ago I promised you a preview, and here it is. With the caveat that this is still a first draft, have the first page and a half of The Education of Clover the Clever, chapter 18:
Dashing, bold pirate captain Clover swung across the landing and through the gates of Canterlot House. “Hello, dear,” said her father. “Me and your father have hidden the treasure under your friends.” Clover and Star Swirl faced down the hordes of changelings that stood between them and the clock tower, but all she could see was the sound of the hourglass ticking away the moments until she had to stop the revolution before it was too late. The jar of salt spun before her eyes as she fell, and the Professor argued with a blade of grass and her exam was very disappointed in her under the jungle canopy while she climbed the ancient temple in search of Chocolate Bunnies and the Discordians. “Your exam is behind the altar of doom,” Tarsus’ voice whispered through her father’s face, and Clover felt herself falling.
“Clover?”
Clover was jolted into waking by the sound of her name. She opened her mouth to speak, but a yawn came out first.
She pushed the jumbled images of her dream out of her mind. “Sorry, just tired.” She blinked and saw jungle. “Where were we?”
“We are in the wilds of Sumareia,” said Star Swirl. “We are hunting for the Lost Jewel of Gilgamane. Also your parents are visiting.”
Clover turned around and saw her parents. They were in the penthouse suite of the Grand Hotel Cambridle, sitting side by side and holding hooves and shooting loving looks to each other. “Hello dear,” said Ivy Cordelia. “Your father and I love you very much, we just want you to know that.”
“Come on, Clover,” Chocolate Bunnies nudged her. “Remember your exams.”
Clover looked down at the exam paper. On either side of her were desks like her own, and students hard at work. She had written fifteen pages already, and an easy A was in sight.
Clover frowned. “Something isn’t right here.”
A sixteenth page appeared, in her hornwriting, full of end-notes explaining ambiguous points in the prior fifteen.
“No, the Lost Jewel of Gilgamane is definitely in Sumareia,” Chocolate Bunnies said. Clover’s parents both nodded in mutual agreement.
Clover shook her head. “There was a… there was a revolution?” A stab of pain shot down the length of her horn, and disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she made a very undignified sound.
“Oh, no,” said Chocolate Bunnies. “That was all a mistake.”
Clover bit her tongue, and focused on what was in front of her. There was Professor Quick Quill at the front of the hall, nodding along as the students wrote their exam. She turned left. There was the Professor, climbing a vine to get up a rocky ledge. She turned right. There were her parents, all decorum and propriety replaced with comfortable affection, nuzzling with blissful glances that they had never shown each other in real life.
What’s a good way to see if you’re being mind controlled?
“It sure would be nice,” Clover said calmly, “to have a glass of chilled water.”
One appeared on her desk, by her right hoof.
“I wonder if this has a drop of lime in it,” she said before tasting it. There was lime. “That’s too bad, I hate lime,” she said, and tasted it again. There was no lime.
“I sure could use one of Star Swirl’s special pebbles right now,” Clover said out loud, and waited. Nothing happened. “Interesting… So that means… um. That this isn’t real life?” She tried to puzzle out the logic behind her thought process. “Well, there’s an interesting logic puzzle. Can an all-powerful universe create something that it is powerless to create? Apparently not. Well, that’s an alternative to biting your leg to see if you’re dreaming I suppose.”
She bit herself. It stung in the normal fashion, and otherwise nothing happened. “None of this makes sense!” Clover shouted, and Professor Quick Quill urged her to be quiet for the sake of the other students. “Am I dreaming? The last thing I remember was the fall—”
Everything around her unraveled. In a message not carried in words, the universe said “please hold.”
Let that give you a small taste of what we are in for.
Thank you all who have stuck with the story so far. The end is in sight, and there are plenty other stories wanting to be told afterwards. It's been four years: let's celebrate.
Happy birthday, Clover! Your present is enough existential uncertainty to make Runny Haycartes foam at the mouth.
Eagerly looking forward to seeing the finished product. I got on this long, strange ride fairly late in the process, but I'm sure the finale will be one to remember.
(Also, I know it's a first draft, but Clover has two daddies in one of the early sentences.)
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It only adds to the confusion, I know, but that part was confusing on purpose rather than by accident
But yeah, it's all subject to revision, and my regular prereaders can tell you that just about every page I write changes significantly between the first and final drafts.
Late or no, thank you for joining us. Much as I love my characters, it is the readers that make it all worthwhile
More Education: SQUEEGASM!!!
End of Education: NOOOOOOOOO!!!
As a side note, my personal headcanon says your Clover is a direct ancestor of Dotted Line. Because reasons.
Happy B-day to Clover!
This is just the sort of mind-f#@kery that I enjoy! Can't wait to see how she deals with this. (No doubt it will be extremely clever!)
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It really is long past time I sat down and actually read those stories... They're not even very long, for all the influence they've had
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It will be extremely Star Swirl, and extremely Clover. It is somehow both completely incomprehensible, and yet also traditional.
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By the twelve and a half demigods of ketchup! Read them! The multiverse can not be correct until this task is complete!
Insanity is not hereditary, but it can be taught.
--Starswirl the Bearded
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I'll add them to my list.
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Education is a powerful thing.
4601713 That's only half the quote.
Education is a powerful thing, and as such, should be kept out of the hooves of idiots and politicians. But I repeat myself.
--Starswirl the Bearded
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Stay classy. Also you should joine the Time Loops of MLP on Spacebattles!
Yay, new chapter! No, last chapter! If only Clover was simply unconscious from the fall and dreaming, that would be nice (though I doubt a certain dreamwalking pony is around at the moment). Sadly Clover's life isn't that simple anymore (perhaps her life was never that simple). Wonder if she accidentally broke reality and now she's in a highly malleable and suggestible pocket dimension?
Happy birthday to the story, looking forward to the conclusion. Wonder how many other stories are waiting in this universe (aside from the obvious prequel/modern flashback).
Happy birthday Clover!
Good to see she has taken Starswirl's lessons to heart and is able to apply them.
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And in true Starswirl fashion it will be simultaneously deranged and subtly brilliant.
Well, I guess the universe was destroyed while Clover wasn't looking. Star Swirl definitely knew what he was doing when he avoided putting salt in his porridge...