//------------------------------//
// CHAPTER XXXI: Self-Evidence 
// Story: Special Illumination 
// by ponichaeism 
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	As the judges took their seats on the bench again, Starswirl glanced over his shoulder at the crowd murmuring to itself. He spotted Rum Runner sitting off to the side, sweating and fidgeting. Starswirl pitied him slightly; here Roaming thought he was going to be the hero for once in his life, yet now everypony would think him a confused fraud, or worse, a liar.
I did what I needed to do to extricate myself from this charade of justice, Starswirl told himself, but it didn't alleviate the guilt in his heart. He could feel the Harmony growing more distant by the second. The wizard looked around the town hall, trying to see past the material to the luminous radiance he knew was behind it, but he couldn't.
Or....maybe it had never been there. Maybe his mind had been playing tricks on him--
No, it must. There is too much evidence to support it. All those experiments we did at the Academy, the existence of draconequii, it's irrefutable.
His heart started pounding, and that's when he knew he was terrified. He stared at the triumvirate of judges sitting on the bench talking to one another. Any moment now, they would return a guilty verdict and cast him out of town. He remembered he still had his hat on and ripped it from his head as a belated sign of respect.
Calm yourself, Starswirl. Breathe.
He closed his eyes and focused on expanding and contracting his lungs and on smelling the scents on the air.
"Now then," Pasture Allfields said, quieting the crowd. "Mister Starswirl."
The wizard's eyes flew open. "Yes?"
"Do you have a final statement you'd like to make before we pass judgment over you?"
"I do." Starswirl took a deep breath and assayed his thoughts. He looked over his shoulder at the townfolk again, and especially at Rum Runner, quivering to himself with dread. 
He's as terrified as I am, Starswirl thought. 
Suddenly everything he wanted to say clicked into place and he turned back to the three judges.
"In my wanderings I have been to many strange places in this world of ours and I have seen wonders you could scarcely even imagine. Yet wherever I roamed what struck me infinitely more than the differences were the similarities. We ponies--no, not even ponies, all the thinking races, whether they be pony, horse, griffin, bovine, qulin....we are all more alike than we realize, or more alike than we want to realize. What is it that gives us such a strong desire to divorce ourselves from others?
"Although, please, don't ask my ex-wife that question. I dread what she'll say."
A chuckle went through the crowd behind him, and even Lockhorn Plenty smirked for a moment before he regained control of himself. Starswirl turned away from the judges and started pacing the space between the benches and the judges. 
"It is fear that grips us," he continued. "We cling to our traditions because we are scared of the unknown. Scared of what will happen should we let go of what we know. Scared that our ways will erode, fade away, or worse, turn out to be inferior. This deep-seated fear becomes a part of us and drives us without ourselves even being aware of it. If you want to run me out of town, go ahead. I am very used to suffering for my beliefs." He smiled. "Although mostly that would be my belief that I can still fit into a size five robe."
Another chuckle rippled through the crowd. 
"But make your judgment for the right reason, because you are convinced of my guilt, and not because I represent some mythical notion of an alien outside world coming to strip away everything you hold dear away. Ask yourselves why you want to see me banished. Do not let your fear control you or else soon it will not be long until there is nothing left of you but fear. The greatest honesty in this world is to be honest with ourselves, first and foremost.
"Of course everypony's commitment wavers sometimes. Sometimes I find my own lacking, and I must struggle to convince myself to have faith. But at times like those I recall what my dear old mother told me, time and time again: 'Starswirl, you should be committed'." He touched a hoof to his chin and pondered, "Although now that I think back, she always used to say that as we walked past the hospital tower holding the lunatics, so perhaps she had a different meaning of 'committed' in mind."
He didn't get quite the laugh he expected, although he chalked that up to the townfolk not having much experience with mental institutions and the double meaning of the word 'committed'.
"It's easy to allow fear to overcome our commitment to honesty, because fear is seductive." He glanced over at the judges. "It entices us by threatening what we hold dear. Judge me how you will, but I only ask that you judge me, and that you do not allow the fear that dwells in the heart of everypony to make your decisions.
"Thank you," Starswirl said. 
As soon as he stopped talking, his body started to tremble, now that he'd reached the moment of decision. His heart pounded and his stomach twisted itself in knots. The judges seemed to spend an eternity looking at one another; Starswirl bit his lip to keep himself from yelling at them to hurry up.
He stared at the contemplative face of Pasture Allfields, the great unknown.
Finally, the pear farmer cleared his throat and asked the ponies flanking him, "Do either of you need more time to decide?"
Both Lockhorn Plenty and Orrin Tin shook their heads.
"Right then," Pasture said. "In the matter of the unicorn Starswirl, who finds him innocent of the charge of bewitchment and fraud?"
Lockhorn's foreleg went up, whereas Orrin's stayed firmly at his side. 
Starswirl's stomach dropped out. Pasture Allfield's hoof wasn't raised, why wasn't it raised, he thought, Are they going to run me out of town?! The wizard's knees started to shake and sweat beaded in his mane.
"Who finds him guilty?"
Orrin Tin raised his hoof, but to Starswirl's confusion, Pasture didn't.
"Those abstaining?" the pear farmer asked as he raised his own hoof. "Two-to-one against."
An uproar went through the crowd; the miners disagreed with the verdict quite ferociously, and weren't afraid of letting it be known.
"I don't understand," Starswirl said, frowning.
Pasture licked his lips, then said, "Personally, I think more likely than not you were bamboozling the lot of us. I was going to vote you guilty, but after your closing speech, I had to admit there ain't a whole lot of evidence you did anything that don't fall apart the closer you examine it. I realized I was trying to make something from nothing. So's I chose not to vote you guilty on the chance you didn't do a thing. Since there was only one guilty vote, you're off the hook."
Starswirl nodded in gratitude. "Thank you."
"But I'd be mighty careful if'n I was you," he added.
The wizard's eyes shifted to Orrin Tin, and he keenly remembered what the mining magnate had said several nights ago: 
If you put one little hoof out of line....
"If'n there ain't no more business," Pasture said, "then this folkmeet is adjourned."


As the earth ponies streamed out of the town hall, the stallion nearly gasped with the sheer anger and resentment flooding off of them. It was especially powerful because the gullible and easily manipulated mining ponies thought they had Starswirl cornered, and yet the wizard had slipped out of their hooves with such admirable verve. Their frustration was delicious! It took all his effort and willpower not to break through his public mask by grinning with delight and thereby draw attention to himself, for the wizard was cutting through the crowd and coming very near, and would surely notice.
But tonight, the stallion would find out if there was enough twisted energy blanketing the town to sustain him. 
Oh, but he would not reveal himself immediately to these earth pony peasants. As the wizard himself had said, fear of the unknown was so much more potent than the fear a stallion, however formidable, could generate. He would remain a specter in the night and drive these ponies out of their minds with fear.


With a pleasant smile on his face, Starswirl ignored the filthy looks some of Orrin's crowd threw him. Orrin himself and his family quickly hurried away; Golden Vein gave Clover, who stood at the door with her father, a spiteful glare as she walked past, which the unicorn filly was only too happy to return. Starswirl stepped between Jack Apple and Diamond Joe with a "Pardon me." Clover beamed up at him as he approached, and he tousled her hair.
"Were you really married?" she asked.
"No, it was just a joke, Clover," he said. "But I got a laugh from the crowd, so my little fib was worth it. These ponies really aren't so bad after all."
"I wish I could share your optimism," Carmine said under his breath.
"That was some mighty fine talking," Brandy Apple said, joining them. "If'n you'll recall, I told you the first night you wandered into my establishment that I'd give you a free mug for the inhospitality a'this here town."
"Very fondly," Starswirl said.
"Then how's about the both a'you come on down and celebrate with some complimentary mugs a'cider, to say we're awful sorry for all the mud this town has dragged you through? And I'm sure we could rustle up something for your young one."
Starswirl and Carmine shared a weary look, one that plainly said they could both use a drink.