62 BNM
Unknown dimensional plain
Starswirl's perspective

Nothingness, silence, the void.
Here, time had no meaning or concept, no way to perceive its passage.
As Starswirl observed, his mind wandered.
How can I make sense of this place, hope to send the message to claim the Elements?
Before his eyes, the world suddenly warped, turning into a faint nebula soaked backdrop of the heavens, distant stars all around him as Starswirl's figure materialised. But his figure was warped as well, as if a smudged, watery painting of him lived instead of his solid corporeal form.
"My thoughts shape this place. A manageable existence I suppose. Now, to do what I must."
Reaching out, Starswirl saw a mirage portal form before him in the void, as a pair of faint silhouettes of two Unicorn sisters in deep slumber in the monastery home appeared. As they slept in the New Gryphon sanctuary he'd made for them, Starswirl reached out, seeding images of the Everfree forest, the alcove, the crystalline tree.
"There, now we wait."
His content voice echoed, as the landscape fluctuated in its celestial void around him.

In the mirages that plagued his existence, Starswirl floated ethereally. It wasn't as if he had anything better to do these days.
A pair of Unicorns reached out with their magic, stood before the tree of Harmony. The 6 gems separated from the tree, and a great glow enveloped both sisters.
Now stood before the tree were two Alicorns, both of their manes and tails glowing more then even before they'd lost their Alicorn status in the cataclysm. Celestia now stood with the rainbow mane and tail that would become synonymous with her, and her mark of the Sun glowed more prominently on her flank. Beside her, Luna stood with her deep, glowing blue mane and tail, the white moon mark glowing just as brightly.
"Good, they found them. And they'll know what they must inherit from Discord."
Starswirl stared on passively, it was all he could. Their fate, their decisions, were to be made by them. He only provided the means to shape it for greater change, for greater good.

As Discord threw aside the bag of seeds, laughing hysterically at the idea that he would be overthrown by two newly arrived Alicorns wielding a trio of measly gems each. The combined magic of the elements fluctuated Starswirl's realm in pulsating light as it claimed Discord, his laughing figure solidified in stone for the forseeable future. Seeing the defeat he manufactured these for, Starswirl gave a small smirk in his bleary ethereal form, alone in this place.
"His overconfidence was his downfall. Spreading seeds, as if they'd be a threat. But still, don't trust anything he does."
But as he saw the vision playing out, Starswirl frowned, mentally reaching out as he replayed the vision from the perspective of the two Alicorn wielders. He saw the seeds Discord was casually throwing aside.
"Wait, those seeds... He must have been watching the Princesses, tracked where they received their Alicorn ascendency."
Sure enough, he saw the seeds already taking root deep underground, having crawled to the Tree of Harmony's site. But the tree's inherent magic held them back, repulsing their growth with no signs of letting up any time soon. At this, Starswirl's frown vanished slightly, though his relaxed nature wasn't devoid of caution as he remarked to himself, by speech or thought he didn't entirely know.
"Parasites of his. Still, the tree's magic will endure long enough for somepony to notice them. Even if they are, the Elements need only recharge this tree."
Time warped again, as he saw Celestia's horn glowing a fierce yellow, and the sun rising as the earth span to her magic. In the same vision, Luna's blue magic seized the moon and gave it the nudge to bring it into its usual path.
The future would see a return to routine of celestial behaviour, the sun and moon rising more akin to what they once did before the cataclysm, and before Discord took over with his irresponsible lack of coherent schedule.
And ponies flocked to their rule, thankful for stability and calm after 6 years of a puerile tyrant's rule, even the memories of the civil war seemingly forgotten in wake of it. And sadly, it would be forgotten by many ponies as history went on.
Not that Discord had left much history or culture unaltered in his 6 year rule, many libraries and their books destroyed or warped beyond comprehension once he learned them so nopony else could.
History would start anew, the cataclysm of the civil war largely made murky, a vague war that was seemingly interrupted by a cataclysm that saw Discord's emergence shortly afterwards. It was for all intents and purposes not false, just full of gaps. But to those who had witnessed events long before, they would know.

18 BNM

As the Elements had been getting charged, ready for use by the two sisters, through their eyes he saw it happen. As the Elements' power was drawn on, his window into reality sharpened, though only through the perspective of those who used the Elements.
The dark King Sombra, after overthrowing Princess Amore, corrupted by the mad drug that was power in the crystal magic, used a last powerful spell. The Crystal Empire vanished, along with all its denizens. As the Princesses stared on in shock, the powers of the Elements fading as their intended target had gone, Starswirl cursed on the astral plain. He knew exactly what trick Sombra had pulled.
"That sneak, he vanished the kingdom. The same trick I and Siral used to timejump, but he took a whole nation with him. And before the Elements could quell him, the coward. But cowards endure... He'll return with the kingdom in time."
Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last time the Elements would see intended use against a pony that lost their way.

0 BNM/ANM [After Nightmare Moon]

Celestia gathered the Elements in his window to the real world, and Starswirl hung his head in shame as they claimed the being that was Nightmare Moon, and banished her, the evil that had claimed Luna, to the moon she had wielded, presided over.
"Why must Alicorns succumb to the drug that power is? Its just yet another vindication of Siral's paranoia."
As Celestia quietly wept in the vision, Starswirl found himself berating Celestia like he never would have in real life, berating her virtues for compromising her performance:
"If she'd confronted Luna's feelings instead of being willing to shoulder the burden unequally, Luna would never have felt neglected and forgotten. Curse her blind selflessness."
As the time warped, he saw Celestia shoulder the burden of managing the moon on top of her sun duties, and ruling the Nation of Equestria. She had councils, ministers, who died to age while she endured. Yet the burden remained hers.
"Prove Siral wrong Celestia. Prove that at least one Alicorn can remain good, and powerful."
His words rang through the realm, as time passed without knowing how many years did. But Starswirl remained adamant, as the ages wore on, as he watched.

590 ANM

Before him, a slowly growing body of light interacted with Starswirl, almost like one's shadow on the ground behind one's self. It mirrored him, reflected his behaviour.
But at times, it paused, and Starswirl felt its curiosity. He knew he wasn't truly alone here, somehow.
"This intelligence within this realm, its borne of the power of the elements, but, it learns from me. As the Elements grow, their collective power develops a consciousness of its own. To wonder what it could develop to, fuelling and being fuelled only by the best qualities one could have, is an intriguing possibility."
The grey cloud in the realm concentrated into a silhouette of a pony, but he turned impatiently, an air of bitterness at the loneliness here coming into his tone:
"I would share this knowledge with others, but obviously, I can't."
The white light mass merely shimmered in wordless response, to which Starswirl's voice grumpily rang out in the void:
"And would it be too much to ask if you, my only company, could speak for yourself?"
The being said nothing, it only watched. Like a pet, like a child, it learned, it didn't have much of a mind of its own, for it latched onto the mind it fed off of.
Even so, Starswirl did see something. As the faintest silhouette of a white Alicorn raising and lowering the sun and moon filled his vision. And all over the world, to varying degrees, her necessary power was acknowledged.
"I see that she hasn't found a permanent fix for the moon and day cycles yet. Maybe if she wasn't busy ruling a nation and having to maintain the cycles as they are she might have done something with her time. Honestly though what was I expecting, Discord was a being powerful enough whose defeat needed these elements, I shouldn't expect Celestia to do it. Still, at least she still has humility after however long it has been."
Still, the white mass said nothing. This wasn't much of a comfort to Starswirl, as his grey cloudy form seemed to hover in a pacing fashion before it, only half acknowledging the other being that was like a learner to him:
"And now I'm talking to a being who may as well be an echo... If it is learning from me it likely to learn what it means to go insane from being alone..."
Glancing at the faint visions of Celestia ruling, with no truly cataclysmic threats in an undisclosed number of years it seemed, Starswirl grew impatient for a moment, venting his complaints:
"How long as passed since I merged? Its not as if these flashes of reality whenever the Elements are used give a time date. Just a glance at a calander, a clock, surely she could manage that?"
The silence reigned, as Starswirl's sigh filled the void.

968 ANM

A presence snapping awake, one the Elements' banished enemies, triggered the first different vision Starswirl had since he was here. He saw a grey, shining landscape, from the perspective of the younger sister's mind awakening.
The moon it seemed, if the shape of the Earth hanging high above was any indicator.
"Huh, she has awakened, but is still imprisoned. I wonder what could have triggered..."
Glancing around, Luna/Nightmare Moon's entrapped vision saw the shape of technologically advanced, suits, walking from a rather metallic looking craft of some sort, as if a cricket had merched with a ball and was standing on the grey rocky ground.
As Luna became excited at the prospect of visitors to her prison, Starswirl could only stare in shock, his impatience with not knowing any bearing on time growing thin:
"...Gryphons on the moon... How long have I been here!?"
Silence yet again was the answer, as even the white energy's presence behind him gave no answer, its increase in self awareness still not enough to get any worded answer or reply from it.
Whatever it was, it didn't think like a living being did, no emotion, only logic. Not that Starswirl would complain about a constantly calm being, but he imagined conversations with it wouldn't exactly be lively.

September 13th, 976 BNM

The sight that unfolded was unexpected. Celestia was fighting for her life against a being that seemed intent on causing death to her, with no discernable motivation except the rage that consumed him. Yet he wasn't a being of immense power, but a mere Wyvern, wielding strange gear on his body that was likely why he wasn't dead already if it came to Celestia drawing on the Elements for power. The rough looking town road was their battleground as the Elements charged, and were fired at him. As the beam collided, Starswirl mused pointedly aloud, to the white energy being that watched passively with him like a calm child, and also to himself:
"So first they're used against Discord, then Luna, and now she's using them on a Wyvern? How is it her uses are getting more and more lower risk? And why is he attacking anyway? Why must I be deaf to the real world in here?"
Yet in the vision, he saw the Wyvern somehow, miraculously, powering through a magical blast that had imprisoned, banished, or harmed beings much stronger then even Celestia. And yet he had no magic.
Staring at the Wyvern, Starswirl saw the magic heating parts of his gear by the smoke, and his black scales, yet it was dispersing like water fired against the prow of a fast ship, burning and lighting up the ground around him as he slowly pressed through the attack.
"Wait a moment? What's he doing? Oh no, no, he can't, how's he, disrupting the magic somehow. He's not resisting, he's deflecting, ingenious!"
The Wyvern advanced, Celestia's fearful gaze as the Elemental burst beam kept firing. His grip reached her face, but then swiftly strained to her horn as he was at his breaking point from the heat buildup. Celestia's shock registered with Starswirl's
"Oh no..."
The horn shapped, and lightning bolts shattered through the ethereal plain as white light consumed the vision.

But later, he saw the same Wyvern stood over Celestia, trembling as he stared down at her, and up at the sun, dropping the knife in his grip, his wings burnt and snapped above the gripping claws, as he threatened her one last time before he limped away to his unseen allies.
"The sun. He spared her because somepony was needed..."
Starswirl was quiet as he contemplated this. But in the vision, as it blurred past, he felt the connection to see through Celestia's eyes fading, as she recvoeed after an uncertain time, aided by many, many Unicorns to ulfil the crucial duty of the Sun and Moon cycles enough to preserve global normality.
That Wyvern nearly killed the world, and his common sense thankfully prevailed over whatever madness claimed him. He robbed her of the Elements, but not the world of stability.
"She'll heal. But...She can never use the Elements again."
As he murmured this, the white energy being fluctuated, as its colour flashed in the 6 shades of the Elements each time. Getting the message, Starswirl agreed, his form unseen in the grey void that he was in.
"But, I suppose others can always rise. Virtues to use them are not as rare as Alicorns are... It is how I found those other 6."
Starswirl's memories swam now, the images of the 6 previous ones, whose examples went into the creation of the Elements, blurred past. Mashri, Hinai, Claupe Frello, Nahia, Irvin and Chack.
He settled down, saddened, but knowing the future always had options left.

October 9th, 976 ANM

It had been perfectly normal in the void, as Starswirl felt not much time, however it flowed here, had passed since Celestia's tragic confrontation with that Wyvern.
All of a sudden, the void he was in began to glow, and fluctuate with blue and white lightning arcs, almost like microfractures in glass.
The vision to the outside world opened up, yet he saw no Celestia, nor Luna, as the perspective. It was unmoving, in the centre of somewhere he didn't know, a faint white energy field building in a sphere from all directions.
"Now this is something. Its a crater, but, what are those metal ropes leading here. And-."
As the energy slowly built, not used immensely as it had in the past, Starswirl heard something he'd not heard at all before here.
Voices.
But these voices were distant, innumerable, even peaceful. Some lamented, others rejoiced. He'd never heard so many voices before.
"Starswirllll."
The voices carried, as Starswirl glanced into the void. Away from the vision into the mysterious crater, the Elements' light illumnating its nighttime atmosphere, he saw other shapes further into the cosmic void.
He saw 5 lights, the 5 colours of the Elements not including the green of kindness. They beckoned, as he felt them drawn to him.
"You're here, all this time..."
He knew the voice. It was the first of them.
Mashri's vague Saddle Arabian horse shape stood strong. bathed in a red glow, clad in the Romane soldier garb she'd sported so proudly, a pleased smile on her muzzle. And behind her, the others emerged in order.
"After all this time."
Hinai's voice echoed as she flew to hover far from him beside Mashri, her ethereal pink fading as she solidified, older then when they had been friends, but wiser and still in the best age of her life. Powerful, proud, and yet at peace, the Eastern Dragoness's serpentine body snaked to a stop far from him.
"What took you so long mon frere?"
Claupe Frello's Faroench stallion form bounded to a halt beside her, the blue glow around him calming as he waved from the ethereal expanse between them. His voice, which Starswirl had never heard, rang out with a heavy accent as he greeted:
"You had a eventful life, and still do..."
Nahia's drawl came next, the tigress prowling in her yellow glow among them. She came to a stop, proud, low bodied as always, but a pleased smile on her toothy muzzle nonetheless.
"More trouble then its worth this life of yours innit?"
Irvin strode confidently behind them all, as the fox came to stand beside the others as the purple haze around him faded. His bushy tail wagging, the scoundrel gave a pleased smirk as Starswirl looked on, his face turning expectant as he waited for the sixth.
And he kept waiting.
"Where is Chack?"
"He never arrived." Hinai's voice spoke up, to which Starswirl remarked aloud as it echoed on the plains. Behind him howver, the white energy being that lved with him tried to get his attention to slowly approaching motion in the vision to the real world:
"You mean-?"
"He never died." Irvin shrugged, the Fox stating the obvious as the other 4 seemed to agree. Starswirl was puzzled by this, even as the white presence beside him all but tapped on his metaphysical shoulder:
"I know he still had a number of years in his body, but...What is it?"
Spinning to the vision, Starswirl saw a shape, a Wyvern, but a different one, wracked with mourning grief, slowly walking to the source of the Elements' magic.
Turning his gaze, Starswirl saw another being approaching, ignoring him entirely.
A faint Wyvern female, clearly from the realm beyond.
"Tul'rok, help me!"
Her pleas carried, as Starswirl stared on in sympathy, but more in intrigue. This was new. And all around him, the strange energy those, cables, were putting into the Elements continued to shift, to alter the realm he'd inhabited for who knows how long.
"..I'm not alone, but no one is here! Where are you Tul'rok? Please!"
The Wyvern male, Tul'rok, passed through the boundary field the source of the Elements had created. Beyond it, Starswirl saw two more beings rush forwards, trying to stop him approaching, blinded by reuniting with his dead mate. But the energy field repulsed them, even the magic resistant biology of that strangely familiar black Wyvern and the Komodo female with him not stopping the blowback.
"Tul'rok? Is that you?"
As Starswirl watched on, he saw the mated female Wyvern, the stronger of the pair who died tragically a short while ago, reunite with her lover through the conection between living and dead. But he saw how dangeroulsy close to the source of the power the male Wyvern, Tul'rok was.
But the source, he saw it. Celestia's mutilated horn, rigged to cables supplying a non-magical energy.
Then, the breaking moment came.

October 9th, 976 ANM
Midnight
Dingolia, central mountains.
The grief stricken Wyvern was ignorant of the pleading Wyvern male being pulled from the energy field, trying to save him from whatever strange energy caused this. He only heard his love through the abyss it opened.
"..Tul'rok, I loved you. And Varkan treasured both of us, as did Faral...
Tul'rok broke down, his screams lost over the humming the horn's field emitted: "I killed you, I loved you too much to try and stop you. He was right, I KILLED YOU! I SHOULD HAVE STOPPED YOU!"
Tul'rok grabbed the glowing horn, hoping to get a stronger connection with Sa'ral. The moment his claws touched it, the humming suddenly grew in volume.
Tul'rok saw stars, galaxies, the Universe, time, trillions of past, present and future lives ignoring the rules of time as they mingled after joining the cosmic infinite.
In front of him, Sa'ral was there, fully fleshed. But her brief, tearful smile turned to horror at what was happening to Tul'rok.
He was fading, and beside him, a greyish form was slowly forming like a mist solidifying.
..No. Not this way. Fight it, don't let it take you! We can't be together if you let it take you!..
Tul'rok screeched, despite his determination to see her again, and try and bring her back, he lost the fight against infinite, and the being he was taking the place of.
In the real world, Tul'rok's form was silohuetted in the near completely white half sphere, but it was being slowly dissolved, ripped apart at a molecular level by the energy field. He held onto the horn, unable to let go, as his essence was slightly dispersed into the Quintessenite rocks below, but mostly across the cosmic infinite at the same time.

In the astral plain, Starswirl felt his body burning, as he saw the 5 he'd seen come from the plain of the dead scream in panic as they were cut off.
But not because they were fading, because he was going. He felt something he hadn't felt in what seemed both an eternity, and an instant.
Pain.
Beside him, he saw the screeching male Wyvern forcibly yanked back into place.
The white being of light he left behind seemed to go into a catatonic panic as its 'master' and parent was ripped away, not knowing better. And it latched onto the new 'host' as it felt Starswirl ripped away, the Stallion's link to this plain, as the Element's host, being replaced.
"Its claiming him! No, I have to stay, noo-!"
Starswirl's scream was lost as the stars, the astral plain between living and dead, a plain of pure energy, vanished in a rush of blinding light.

Starswirl felt air, cold, night air, and darkness of the night, for the first time in 1038 years. But to him, he hadn't any semblance of the passage of time as it was.
But as the ground rushed up, he felt the impact on the dirt and rock covered ground, the smooth Quintessenite rocks around the crater wracking his body with pain as he fell in a crumpled, smoking heap on them.

Varkan, the other Wyvern on site, fell to his knees and claws as he saw Tul'rok being dissolved, and Faral, the female Komodo soldier behind him, stumbled back in shock.
"TUL'ROK!" Varkan's scream was lost as the humming boomed shortly afterwards. From the white field, a grey glowing form had been ejected off to the right, settling in a smoking heap as the energy field began to contract.
Tul'rok was gone, and the white field shrunk, and exploded briefly to send a slight shockwave out, rocking the clearing of rocks slightly.
The world fell dark again, the old horn of Celestia having stopped glowing.
Varkan didn't say anything as he stared at it, unable to think.
Quietly, Faral wondered over to the grey heap.
She prodded it, and it groaned slightly. Pulling it over, she saw, to her shock, it was a very old, grey and brown, bearded Unicorn male.
Starswirl's vision swam, his eyes bleary, but he was thankful the night sky was dark, it made no pain of intense daylight on his eyes that hadn't seen proper light in a long time.
He stared blearily at her, and wondered groggily: "I'm, free? How? I-"
He slowly shuffled on the ground seeing the setup with Celestia's horn, the Quintessenite rocks around the clearing, and the overall sense to his own knack for it that high magic had been at work here.
It dawned on him, what he'd seen, what it entailed.
"Who, who did it take?" Starswirl asked.
The Komodo female, Faral didn't know where to start, but Starswirl saw the Wyvern now, lying on his knees, looking at him. His eyes were slowly shifting, where blankness gave way to building rage.
It was the same Wyvern that took Celestia's horn as his own in rage. Varkan.
He slowly shuffled up, beginning to walk over, a knife being pulled from his pocket of his uniform. Starswirl felt weak, tired, he couldn't fight back, and kept submissive in his posture. He had no chance in this state.
"Faral. Retrieve the equipment and horn, be careful of any heat or energy left."
As she left to cautiously begin recovering the equipment, Varkan stood over Starswirl the bearded, his grip ironlike around the knife. Starswirl stared up, still weak from his 'ejection'.
"You were spat out of that mess, just as I lost Tul'rok. By my reckoning, you were in there, and maybe even did that."
"No, I-"
But Starswirl's plea was not one the Wyvern wished to hear. The emptiness in his tone unnerved Starswirl, as he was interrogated, threatened. He was completely at their mercy.
"Shut, up. You're in no shape to take risks. You will answer my questions, or I will begin making you wish you were still wherever you came from."
Starswirl didn't know where to start, but he knew from the Wyvern's tone that he was facing a quick death so soon after returning to the real world if he didn't cooperate.
And yet, as he stared around at the crater, where this anomaly went in, he coudln't help but gaze towards the horn of Celestia, as the Komodo female worked on the equipment first, the horn's light still fading.
Whatever leftover energy from the Elements retained a link, and whatever they did here, caused this switch by way of that link.
Careful to keep his tone quiet, Starswirl first asked:
"Very well. But, how, how long have I been there? What year is it?"
Varkan's grip slackened on the knife slightly, as Faral too looked over from disassembling the exeperiment equipment that caused so much disruption, and cost them a dear friend today.
But for the Wizard, he didn't know at all whether to be free now was a blessing, or a curse, considering his company, the circumstances.
Only time would tell.

Author's Notes:

And there we have it, Starswirl is catapulted into the modern era. Well, 976 BNM, about 24 years before the start of season 1, and 29 years before Volume 1's start according to my scheduling.
For future reference to where this picks up, see:
Volume 1, chapters 11-12.
Volume 2, chapter 4.
But this story is almost done.
As to where it will end, I left some 'unfinished business' that Starswirl was contacting some to investigate at the end of Volume 3, but the main story is about done, just wrapping up now.