Special Illumination

by ponichaeism

CHAPTER III: Horn of Pedantry

As the pre-dawn light laid bare the secrets lurking just past the treeline of the dense forest, Starswirl closed his eyes and let his mind soar like a tidal wave out into the web of life generated by the teeming forest. As he tapped into the Harmony, he felt it course through the interconnected root systems woven through the soil, felt it thrive within the leaves and branches and in the bodies of critters scampering across the forest floor in search of nuts and shrubs, and even felt it dwell within the water and air as they awaited a chance to pass on the vital, life-giving elements they contained. He worked his way through the connection that united all things and probed for blockages or festering hotspots where the natural energy had been twisted and left to rot. But it was no use; as he skimmed through the forest he felt a slight tension, a shadowy undercurrent to it, but he could not place his hoof on its exact nature, especially not with the abundance of natural energy overwhelming his senses.

With a sigh, Starswirl rose from the grass and walked back to the house. Judging by the smoke billowing from the stovepipe sticking out of the roof, Carmine was already up and hard at work in the kitchen.

"Good morning," Carmine said, hovering over the kettle hanging above the fire.

The Roanan said it amiably enough, but when Starswirl had lain to rest downstairs the previous night, he'd caught the faint snick of the bedroom door being locked.

"Almost never, fortunately," Starswirl said lightly. "I find that I dislike so very few ponies that I rarely have cause to be glad when they pass away."

He got a gruff laugh from Carmine. It was a tiny opening, Starswirl mused, but it was a start.

"If'n you don't mind," Carmine said, mixing oats into the water, "I have a deal with one of the farmers, name of Lockhorn Plenty, who owns Cornish Fields. I help him out for an extra share of his corn, more than my regular miller's toll would fetch me. If'n you could take care of that, I'd love to get a day's work in the mines."

Starswirl nodded. "Anything to repay your gracious hospitality."

As Carmine levitated a bowl in front of Starswirl, he said, "Just one thing: don't use magic. They, uh, don't like it."

Starswirl thought for a moment, then asked, "Would I, by any chance, be harvesting cotton?"

"Corn. Why?"

The wizard smiled. "Because if you were to say 'They don't cotton to it', it would have been a most magnificent pun, and I do so hate when those go to waste."

Carmine sat across from him. "You make a lot of jokes, Varnetian. It might get....tiresome to some."

"I find," Starswirl said, magically lifting his fork, "laughter does the heart good."

"Won't do much good if'n a pony doesn't have a heart," Carmine said darkly, then stared down at his oatmeal to avoid Starswirl's eyes.

Frowning at the hollowness the Roanan's words implied, Starswirl said, "Everypony has a heart, Carmine, even if it's like a seed that hasn't sprouted yet."

Carmine scoffed. "Spend some time here, and you'll see different."

"I intend to," Starswirl said, mostly to himself, as he dug his spoon into the oatmeal.

As Starswirl neared the end of the dirt road and approached the front gate of Cornish Fields, he looked over his shoulder at the quaint town nestled among the crescent of forest. The morning sun rose over the ridge of mountains and spilled its pinkish light all over the fields of corn between him and Hollowed Ground. The stalks grew straight and tall, so tall that as they swayed in the autumn breeze they almost seemed to be a field of hooves reaching vainly up to grab the distant orb and drab it down to the world's surface so that it could shine brighter. The wizard faced forward again as he sauntered through the farm's open wooden gate. In front of an austere barn that had once been red but had now faded to an indiscriminate brown with the passage of the seasons, dozens of ponies milled around in a rough rectangle. The closer he approached, the more he noticed their latent worry and concern overwhelming the natural radiance of concentrated Harmony generated by the fields of corn. He spotted a portly ochre stallion with a scraggly gray mane and tail facing them all, and in the dim light Starswirl spotted a cornucopia cutie mark on his flank.

Ah, this must be Mister Plenty.

As Starswirl approached, the boss pony's voice grew louder: "....now y'all better git out there and pick, a'cause we got to get the winter wheat planted, sharpish--"

One by one, the herd of ponies Plenty was facing turned to stare at the incoming unicorn, and Starswirl felt the hostility radiating from them increase tenfold. As one-by-one they let their attention be diverted from Plenty, the ochre stallion himself followed their eyes and turned to face the wizard, whereupon his jaw clenched. Undeterred, Starswirl firmly affixed a smile to his face and trotted up to Lockhorn Plenty.

"Hold up, there," the boss pony said. "What do you want?"

Starswirl touched his hoof to his chin and thought for a moment, then said, "I've always wanted a pet phoenix."

Plenty scowled. Through gritted teeth, he asked, "I meant, why are you here on my farm?"

"Ah, I'm here to work." He raised a hoof to shake. "Starswirl, at your service."

The earth ponies glared daggers at him and muttered veiled threats to one another, while the tension in the air kept ratcheting up and worming itself into the fabric of the world itself.

Plenty ignored the proffered hoof. In a sarcastic drawl, he said, "I ain't got any openings, and I especially ain't got any openings for....strangers."

"No openings, hmm? Then why not employ lumberjacks?"

"Now why," Plenty asked, relishing the chance to expose Starswirl for a fool, "would I hire lumberjacks on a corn farm. Am I right, colts?"

He turned and grinned at his workers, who scoffed as well.

Still grinning, Starswirl said, "Because I've always thought making openings was the perfect task for professional loggers."

The silence that descended was so quiet Starswirl could hear each and every pony blinking in confusion.

"Pro-loggers," he explained. "Because an 'opening' is another name for 'prologue'."

Plenty snorted. "Ain't it just like a unicorn, always using their fancy book-reading on us and trying to make us feel like we ain't as good as them. Well, I'm not letting you get away with that on my farm."

"Glad you feel that way, too," said Starswirl, nodding in sympathy. "I was looking forward to doing farm work as well."

"You unicorns are all the same, aintcha?" the boss pony spat. "Got an answer for everything."

"Oh, that's not true. Once, when I was young, a pony asked me a question I couldn't for the life of me come up with an adequate answer for." Starswirl stared up at the sky. "I believe his exact words were, 'Why are you in my daughter's room?'"

A single earth pony in the herd let loose with a loud guffaw, only to be cowed into silence by the oppressive stares of the others.

"Har-de-har-har," said Plenty, "but one unicorn's enough for Cornhaul Fields, thanks."

Apologetically, Starswirl said, "Oh, didn't I mention? I'm a lodger at Carmine's mill. You see, when he told me about your arrangement, naturally I felt obligated to hold up his end of the bargain in return for his hospitality. He treats fidelity to his oaths very seriously, as I'm sure you're aware. But if you'd prefer to stop making use of his services, I'm sure he'll understand...."

The boss pony's fiery eyes tried their hardest to bore holes into Starswirl, but after grinding his teeth into nothing he yelled, "Fine then. Git yourself out there, then." He turned to the others. "All a'you, git to work! Now!"

As the morning sun reached out and streaked its rosy fingers across the sky to replace the gray of pre-dawn with bright blue, Starswirl trotted towards the white picket fence separating the barnyard from the sea of corn. He stopped to take one of the paired set of bushels, which were linked on they hung like saddlebags, lined up in front of the fence. As he slung the straps of one over his back, a light yellow pony sidled up to him to take the next one.

Snickering, he asked, "If you got that little horn, which is supposed to be all mighty and powerful, then why don't you just use it and gather up all that corn at once, then, huh?"

Little horn, hmm? Curious how whenever a pony in this town feels threatened, whatever they feel is threatening them suddenly becomes 'little'.

Starswirl buckled the belt around his stomach. "Because," he said offhandedly, "then you would find yourself out of work, my friend."

With that, he trotted away from the dumbfounded earth pony, ready to start what was sure to sure to be a long and fulfilling day of grueling manual labor.

As the sun complete its celestial arc in the west and became a mirror image of the morning reflected on the opposite side of the sky, Starswirl trotted out of the fields with both of his bushel baskets filled to capacity. An ear tumbled off and nearly fell into the dirt, but he caught it with his magic at the last second. He picked up an explosive blast of fury from ahead of him, and when he raised his eyes he saw, to no great surprise, Lockhorn Plenty fuming at him. But the boss pony, perhaps not wanting to jeopardize his arrangement with Carmine, looked away and muttered under his breath. The wizard walked over to him, unbuckled his bushels, and placed them at Lockhorn's hooves. The boss pony took one scant look at his haul before giving the unicorn a withering stare.

"Carmine always brings me twice as many bushels as you did."

You're a terrible liar, Starswirl thought.

But he put on his well-practiced accommodating smile and asked, "What kind of a guest would I be if I outshined my gracious host?"

With a huff, Lockhorn rolled his eyes. "You tell Carmine he can pick up his share tomorrow after its been all sorted out."

Starswirl nodded, then turned to head back to town. But a symbol on the barn's broad side caught his eye: it was a painted circle with a drawing of a ram inside and, in stark contrast to the weathered barn, freshly-painted.

"That's very interesting," he said aloud, trying to capture a pitch-perfect tone of innocent curiosity. "What does it mean, precisely?"

Lockhorn snarled, "It don't mean a thing to you, unicorn. Now you go on and you git outta here, you hear? Go on back to your own kind!"

Starswirl bowed gracefully, then put his back to the setting sun and started on his way back to Hollowed Ground.