//------------------------------//
// CHAPTER XXX: Field Day 
// Story: Special Illumination 
// by ponichaeism 
//------------------------------//

	Starswirl climbed up onto the wagon bed and hopped up and down several times, testing the strength of the floor. Once he was satisfied it would hold up he looked at the ponies gathered in front of the town hall. The fog had gone, and the unusually bright autumn sunshine made him squint his eyes.
"Clover," he said.
She popped up beside the cart and hooked her forelegs over the edge. "Yes, Starswirl?"
"Run along home and fetch me several apples, please. Oh, and my hat, too." 
"Sure," she said, cantering away to the mill in the distance.
Starswirl scanned the faces of the ponies, all of them staring expectantly at him.
"Ettin," he said, pointing at the brawny stallion. "Could you please come here?"
The verdant pony blinked in surprise, then glanced at Pasture Allfields. The pear farmer, however, nodded for Ettin to do what the wizard wanted, and so he reluctantly approached the wagon.
"I'll need your help, if you don't mind," Starswirl said.
"I do mind," the stallion said. "I don't trust you."
Starswirl smirked. "And that is exactly why I want your help. Would you hitch yourself to the wagon, please?"
As Ettin did so, Starswirl turned to the crowd and announced, "The most important thing about science, above all else, is testability. The worth of a theory rests on whether or not you can get the same results time after time. If you were to repeat the experiment I am setting up now, you would get the same results every single time, more or less."
Just then, Clover cantered back to the wagon with a sack dangling from her teeth and Starswirl's hat resting high on her head. The wizard leaned over the side, snatched the hat off her head, and dropped it onto his own.
Much better, he thought as the shade of the brow descended over his vision.
"Thank you, Clover," he said, taking the sack.
She beamed back at him, then trotted off to join her father again.
"Now," Starswirl called, "will the esteemed judges please join me?"
Pasture Allfield, looking reserved, Lockhorn Plenty, looking cautious, and Orrin Tin, looking positively bitter, approached the wagon as one and craned their necks back to look at him as he drew the apples out of the sack.
"Logic dictates that, as I am currently under the effects of hemlock, I am unable to cast spells to affect the apples, correct?"
Orrin sneered, "That little filly might've--"
"No," Pasture said, "she ain't never had any magic power, far as I know."
"But--!"
Pasture Allfields cut him off with a glower.
"Ahem, yes," Starswirl said. "It is a fact of science that when a pony rides on something such as a wagon, or for that matter, the surface of the world, it propels them forward by lending them some of its momentum. Orrin, you asked why the world does not move under us when we jump? Well, while you are riding, take these--"
He threw an apple to each of the judges in turn.
"Drop it to the ground, throw it into the air, whatever your heart desires. See with your own eyes they fall at almost the exact same rate as if you did it while standing still."
"Almost?" Pasture asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, since this is an uncovered wagon we must account for wind blowing it off course. Apples are spherical and they have some heft to them, rendering them more resistant. Better a big of flour, but I think that would have broken young Clover's back." The wizard turned to the stallion hitched to the wagon. "Ettin, what I'm going to need you to do is find an open stretch of ground and run at a steady clip, or else it will affect the experiment. I have the utmost confidence in you." He turned to the three judges. "I shall await your findings most eagerly."
"You're not coming with us?" Pasture asked suspiciously.
"I had thought about it, but given Mister Tin's, may I say, unfounded suspicion, I think it best not to."
Orrin said nothing, although Starswirl doubted he could with his jaw clenched so tightly.
"Logically speaking," Starswirl added, "leaving you fine gentlestallions to your own devices is the most prudent way. Wouldn't you agree, Mister Allfields?"
The pear farmer said, "Orrin, you do have a problem with that temper of yours."
"Fine," said Orrin. "Let's get this over with."
Starswirl jumped off the wagon and gestured for them to climb aboard in his place. 
"Take your time," the wizard said. "Science demands patience and prudence!"
The three ponies climbed onto the wagon, clutching their apples.
"You may proceed when ready," Starswirl said. As the wagon took off, he turned and made his way back to Carmine and Clover. 
"See?" he asked. "Nothing to worry about."
"Yup," Carmine said, "you're a Varnetian all right. You could talk your way into Tartarus and back out again. You reckon this'll prove anything to them?" 
He gestured to the cart wheeling around the town, and the three ponies riding in it trying to find a flaw in Starswirl's theory; even at this distance, the wizard could see them staring in disbelief as the apples fell straight down, despite the steady clip they were traveling at.
"Starswirl, what was all that you were saying? About the thing I was....seeking?"
The wizard glanced around at the townfolk and whispered, "Not now. Not here."
Carmine threw him a look; of understanding, perhaps?
"You unicorns," sneered Beryl Tin.
Starswirl turned to face her and her daughter where they stood some twenty feet away. 
"Pardon me, Missus Tin?" he asked.
"Why can't you just go bother other folks, huh?"
"I wasn't aware I was bothering you," Starswirl said. He gestured to the twenty feet separating the two of them. "Tell me, am I standing too close to you?"
Lockhorn Plenty's farmers chuckled to themselves.
"You come round here, try and--and work your way into our society. Like you could ever be one of us!"
"We're all ponies, Missus Tin."
Her voice rose in pitch, almost becoming hysterical. "Oh, that's a good one! You ain't ponies. Not even close. You ain't never going to be good enough f-for us."
Why did she hesitate on 'for us'? Was she about to say something else, perhaps?
"You ain't real ponies," she spat. "You're some kind of....of mongrels!"
"Come on, Beryl, that's enough," Jack Apple snapped.
"Our lives were just fine before that miller showed up," she said.
She pointed at Carmine, who went flush in the face, and her daughter likewise stuck her tongue out at Clover. Angered, the little unicorn filly broke from her father's side and rushed forward.
Beryl shrieked and threw herself in front of Golden Vein. "Keep her away from my baby!"
Clover bared her teeth and growled at Golden Vein, but she didn't move, as Orrin Tin's mining crowd stepped forward to protect their boss's wife and daughter. 
"Clover, that's enough," Starswirl said. 
Beryl looked down her snout at Starswirl and said, "Being the owner of a mine has taught my husband a thing or two--"
Starswirl had never felt the absence of the Harmony more keenly than he did at that moment, as his anger was rapidly rising at this pompous, prissy pony. "From what I've heard," he snapped, interrupting her, "one of those things was not how to run a mine."
As soon as it was out of his mouth, he knew he shouldn't have said it. It drew an enormous laugh from the farming ponies, and a not-unhearty bout of chuckling from the others, the ones caught in-between. But as Starswirl saw the wounded look on Beryl's face, and the pure anger on the mining ponies', he knew he did incalculable damage to the Harmony above and beyond what he'd already done while trying to maneuver his way out of the trial. He had given in to raw spite with intent to hurt, and had incurred the wrath of a third of the town for his trouble.
"The farmers are going to have a field day with that," Carmine whispered to him.
"Look, they're coming back," Jack Apple said, and indeed Ettin was driving the wagon back towards the town hall.
"If'n you'll all come back inside," Pasture said as he stepped down. "We've heard enough to render our verdict."
Starswirl glanced over to Beryl, shielding her daughter with her body. The earth mare began to grin devilishly at him. The wizard shrugged her heavy, piercing stare off and headed back inside to await his judgment.