Special Illumination

by ponichaeism

First published 14th of January, 2013

A sinister stallion lurks in the woods surrounding Hollowed Ground. Can Starswirl the Bearded uncover the sleepy town's dark secrets before it's too late?

The great wizard Starswirl has journeyed to the farthest ends of the world, met the most unusual and wonderful equines, and seen the most incredible sights. But even though he's borne witness to cities beyond imagination, now he finds himself drawn to the sleepy countryside hamlet of Hollowed Ground, his interest piqued by nothing more than the mere rumor of a sinister presence lurking in the nearby forest.

The earth ponies living there, though, don't take too kindly to unicorns, especially not ones who stick their little horns into matters that don't concern them, such as the feud between two of the most powerful ponies in town and the mysterious accidents that surround the bitter quarrel. And when the fearsome specter of a stallion starts to gallop through the woods in the dead of night, Starswirl must be extraordinarily careful where he puts his hooves, because the next step out of line may bring the paranoid wrath of the townfolk down on him.

Despite that, Starswirl is as undeterred as ever. While lodging with Carmine and his filly Clover, the only two unicorns in town and object of the townsponies' venemous scorn, he sets off to dredge up the secluded community's dark secrets, and perhaps his gracious host's as well. As his quest for the truth wears on, he will find himself confronting the pagan spirit of the forest, powerful enchantments from a master sorcerer, and his own personal demons. And through his ordeals, the only pony he can rely on is young Clover, who has absolutely no magical talent whatsoever.

However, Starswirl remains eternally confident, for he is armed with the mysteries of the universe. But will even they be enough when the fearsome stallion clad in shadow comes for him?

NOTE: Under construction. Highway-style construction, that is, where it may last for years.

PROLOGUE: Naturally, A Poem

'Almost everything about "The Rime of the Shadow-Clad Stallion" is shrouded in myth, which is the one and only fact every Equestrian literary scholar and classicist who has written about it can agree on. [....] The seventy-eight line poem first appeared in a posthumous collection of Flourish Prose's complete works, slotted neatly between "The Life Idyllic" and "Let Lovers Lie", two poems which are certainly his, as numerous documents concerning their performance at the Roanan royal court will attest. One would assume that, given the linguistic, tonal, and stylistic disparity between the dark and brooding little Rime, written in the northern style, and the two sunny and romantic odes surrounding it, questions about its authenticity would have arisen almost immediately. However, it was written off as an experiment by a master of verse. Just a ludibrium, a triviality, scribbled for a quick coin and a laugh or two. It took a full three decades before ponies began to question its appearance in Prose's canon. This happened after all the major ponies who had a hoof in the compilation passed away. [....] They left behind for all the generations to come this grand riddle: just where this curious little artifact came from. Was it truly written by Flourish Prose? Or has his name been appended to another pony's poem that floated through the upper circle of Roanan aristocracy?

'Unfortunately, due to the messy, expensive, and sometimes nonexistent nature of copyright at the time, as well as the lucrative market for plagiarized and fraudulent works, following any kind of paper trail back to the definitive author is a foal's errand. Only the text itself, its style and linguistic quirks, can with any veracity be used to reveal its author. And that's assuming the text has survived largely intact from the hoof of its original author, which centuries of scholars have debated. Nonetheless, some things about its author can be guessed at. His or her characteristics can be filled in, until we arrive at a somewhat accurate representation, to be further narrowed down with each incremental detail. We can assume they have a familiarity with the north, nearer to the earth pony territories. In fact, the author may actually be an earth pony, which would neatly explain the anonymity: what snobbish unicorn would admit an earth pony to the literary circles of yesteryear? We all remember the first Hearth's Warming Eve. We can also assume the author is older than Flourish Prose, or deliberately mimicking an antiquated dialect. [....] Many claimants have been put forward by a thousand years' worth of scholarly research, all of them unsatisfactory in one way or another: Quilland Ink, a popular alternative to Flourish Prose, wrote strictly in the vernacular, yet some of the language in the Rime is antiquated even by his standards, and a detailed linguistic analysis of his dialect suggests he wouldn't rhyme "wood" with "rood" - which would have been pronounced with an elongated vowel, rendering it "rude" - and if anypony was a stickler for strict rhyme, even to the point of pain, it was him. [....] The list goes on and on, but none of the contenders offers definitive proof. For my part, I had consigned the poem's authorship to the shelf of life's great mysteries.

'Until, that is, I had a revelation the next year, while reading an obscure book dating from long before Flourish Prose. It was a travel account of the author's journey to distant lands, which he would later compile into a far better-known compendium of all his journeys across the world. There, in a passage excised from the later work, I read: "In that cavern, the shadow-bright darkness wrapped around us and our lonely lantern." I found the proof I had sought in that one compound oxymoron that both the Rime and the travel account had in common: "shadow-bright". Only one source had made the connection before, and he blithely wrote it off as the author emulating an archaic saying long since fallen into disuse. But the more I delved into it, the less sense it made. By all accounts, the phrase hadn't existed before that book. The author seemingly made it up, based on his own personal philosophy of the divine light in all things, even the darkness. And suddenly, everything made complete sense. I had cracked the mystery. The author stepped forward, out of the pages of history, to reveal himself at last. And what book brought this revelation to me, solving one of the greatest mysteries in the history of literature?

'"A Journey to Maretania," by the most estimable magi in the history of the world, Starswirl the Bearded and his apprentice, Clover the Clever. [....] Consider the facts: we know Starswirl traveled all across the world, even to the northern earth pony lands. We know he was open to adopting new styles and was well-versed in literature, including the northern style of writing. We know he traveled to Roan long before Flourish Prose was born. We know he met with a frosty reception by the king, and had some of his personal effects seized in retaliation for his anti-authoritarian ideas. It is not entirely beyond the realm of possibility that the poem either circulated or was rediscovered by the aristocracy, stripped of the author's name, or deliberately concealed to hide it from the pro-monarchy censors at the Stationer's Office. [....] My thesis is that we hold in our hooves a long lost work by the greatest polymath of all time, or his equally learned protege. Everything about it, when viewed in the correct light, points to Starswirl the Bearded or Clover the Clever as the writer, be it linguistic, stylistic, historic, or content-wise. [....] Starswirl was a scholar, inventor, magician, philosopher, and lover of knowledge and learning. Perhaps he was more than that, but unfortunately we may never know. All the more reason to treasure what we do have.

'"The Rime of the Shadow-Clad Stallion" is, sadly, a tale untold. This atmospheric, sinister poem sets the stage, evoking an ancient and distant land full of untamed, primeval forest, with air so thick and alive with magic the reader can practically taste it. It transports them back in time and casts a gloomy shadow over them as the eponymous stallion gallops through the moonlit forest, its tetrameter practically demanding that they accompany him on his wild ride by reading every line in a mimic of his relentless gallop. It ends on the tantalizing hint of a story yet to come, its meter breaking apart into a two long, unwieldy, misshapen lines. The reader, having been trained by the past seventy-six lines, cannot help but read the final two in that same breakneck pace. But the confusion of meter and line length disorients them, knocks them out of step with the stallion. Leaves them uneasy and unsettled, imploring them to read on. [....] Everything about these seventy-eight lines declares they are just the prologue to a greater work. Were there unwritten lines that would have followed? Were there written lines that entropy has made unwritten? Or does the tale still exist somewhere, quietly collecting dust in a pile of unsorted papers? [....] What wonders sprang from the quill of Starswirl? We may never know all of them. But, through this thesis, I hope to open our minds to the possibility that they can be discovered again.'

-Twilight Sparkle's introduction to her thesis, presented to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns

The Rime of the Shadow-Clad Stallion

Oh, in the woods, those ancient woods

Of slanted boughs and twisted roods

With oaken eyes and silent ken

That stand in guard over green glen,

A stallion ran, with thund'rous hoof

That clapped against vaulted tree roof,

A frightful din and clamor bright

That sent each beast of wood to flight,

To scurry fast to sheltered home

Before his form, his presence gloam,

Could fall on yon small frail body

And steal the life dwelling in she.

The stallion rode through undergrowth,

Whisp'ring to wood a vengeful oath,

And though he was, to bow, so loath,

He begged succor and fortune both.

And by the moon's silvering glow

Through canopy to ground below,

Under the eaves of sentinels,

Those gnarled wizards of the dells,

A conference he heard agreed

In creak of branch and fall of seed,

A solemn pledge that they would grant

The magic hid within each plant.

The source of life as his own fief

The wellspring from within each leaf

Through which does flow power divine

Coursing through root and stem and vine.

Those ancient oaks and pines and firs,

That solemn stood when ponies first

For magic might began to thirst,

Let power from within them burst.

Around his frame a dark aura

Did burn like flame in the flora,

Behind him streaming as he went,

Past ancient trees that gracious lent

Such power as to make him glide,

As graceful as beneath the tide.

The world went past him so dreamlike,

As unreal as our dreams seem like.

Indeed his hooves, they hit the ground,

Propelling him by leap and bound,

Yet all the same, as he went swift,

His legs not once did seem to shift.

Suspended in the moonlit air,

His shadow form, it did declare

A doom and gloom and great despair

For trespassers, stallion or mare.

For in that cloud of darkness dense,

The one that so harries the sense

Of those unfortunate to see

It come for them through brush and tree,

The one that if it touch moonlight

Does seem more like a shadow might,

The stallion laughed into the night,

His vengeance burning shadow-bright.

The chains that kept his true self fast

Were broke and cast away at last,

And soon would he, his true self be,

Of that which held him back, so free.

In triumph bold, now he did ask,

Galloping to his greater task,

Could this his mask, the hated mask,

Without which he could surely bask

In splendor of his divine right

To rule the teaming peasant blight,

The mask that kept him in this plight,

Be set aside this very night?

No, no, thought he, that would be dim.

Too rash by far, a careless whim.

But, oh, the time till he could skim

This facade off his face grew slim.

His soul was hale, hearty and frim

And soon he'd make the ponies brim

With fear enough to sing his hymn

Or suffer by his iron limb.

Because after all, thought that stallion with a smile most grim,

Who could challenge a pony as powerful as him?

CHAPTER I: The Long and Winding Road

The dirt road snaked across the rolling country hills as far as the eye could see, but if the countless leagues in front of the wandering unicorn bothered him, he didn't let it show on his face. No, his face was consumed by a pleasant, carefree, almost simple-minded smile entirely too youthful for him. This unicorn, destined for nowhere in particular, wore an aged saddlebag and a pointed straw hat with a wide brim. The mane spilling out from under it and the beard flowing from his chin were several shades darker than the lush blue of his coat. His hooves beat out a lazy rhythm on the hard dirt and kicked up puffs of dust as they charted his progress on the road.

The road remembered those who traveled upon it, as the unicorn well knew. It was not merely trampled dirt, but a monument forged hoofprint-by-hoofprint from the once-pristine land by the weight of eons, and the procession of ponies progressing to and fro that those eons brought with them. The physical world tried her hardest to sweep their mark away, with her rain and her snow and her wind, but the time-worn road had endured. Its every scuff, pothole, and furrow told the tales of those who traveled it. Though those voyages might be lost to the tongues of ponies, they were forever inscribed on the earth. It would be their chronicler, even if ponykind would not.

The unicorn's journey was just one more story added to this river of stories.

As he crested a hill, he beheld before him the aesthetic beauty of an idyllic countryside stretching out far and wide, but he knew in his heart that it was nothing but a pale imitation of the perfect reality underlying it. Everywhere he looked, he caught glimpses of the flawless natural order's radiance shining through and manifesting itself, appearing in everything from the pleasing green shade of the grass to the mathematically perfect arc of the horizon curving in front of him.

However, one glance up at the sky overhead told him he must take care not to become part of the world beyond either. The coldly efficient clockwork mechanism keeping the universe regularly ticking away would take the sun below the horizon in a matter of hours, and he had no desire to spend another night sleeping in the fields. As he lay down to sleep under the starry skies the night before he'd heard what he thought might be the distant howl of a timberwolf carry across the open fields.

As he tried to think of a surefire way to prevent becoming a creature's dinner, something on the horizon ahead caught his eye. He halted, but the sudden stop made his weather-beaten hat slip forward and fall in front of his eyes. He had no doubt many uptight ponies would be aghast at their headgear betraying them and making them out to be fools, but the unicorn was well aware how foolish everypony truly was and in these situations did nothing but smile at the humor of the situation. The one thing he rued was that he was had nopony else close at hoof to amuse. He pushed the hat up until it perched high on his head and looked to the horizon again where, sure enough, he spied a cloud of dust being thrown up from the road ahead.

He rambled on until the he drew near to what he realized was an approaching wooden wagon, then stood at the wayside and grinned in greeting. The two earth ponies hitched to the well-used wagon slowed down as well, though the wary look in their eyes informed the unicorn that if he tried even the slightest thing out of the ordinary they would both take off immediately. But only after they found time to give him a swift kick in the head, naturally.

"Good day, fellow travelers," he ventured.

"Hullo," said the stallion.

His mare idled nervously at his side, kicking at the dirt. A foal with a tuft of orange hair peered over the side of the cart. The unicorn smiled at him, but the mare twisted around and gave her foal a harsh glare. He quickly ducked out of sight among the family's possessions.

"Could you perhaps tell me how far the nearest village is?" the unicorn asked. "I fear there may be timberwolves about. I don't precisely have much to offer them in the way of delicacies, either in my saddlebag or on my bones, but perhaps I might amount to a fine pile of toothpicks at the very least."

"Tough to say," the stallion replied, his face hardened against the joke. "Not many folks in County Cornhaul take kindly to, well, your kind."

Cocking his head, the unicorn asked, "Whatever could they have against an Aquarius?"

Still stoically impassive, the stallion glanced over his shoulder. "There is a village thataway, name of Hollowed Ground, but you don't want to go there. Next one's about thirty miles after that--"

The unicorn laid on the innocence fairly thickly and asked, "My fine fellow, why ever would I not want to go to Hollowed Ground?"

The stallion turned his baggy, worn-out eyes to the unicorn and opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. His face had that distinct look that speaks volumes, most of them comprised of various essays on the topic of: 'You'd think I was crazy if I told you'. Fortunately, back at home the unicorn had become what basically amounted to a pony of letters in that very subject, although before he could pry, the mare went briefly wild-eyed and said in a hoarse whisper:

"Folks say it ain't quite right. Lots of strange things happening there. Unnatural, like."

The unicorn's smile deepened. Trying very hard not to sound too keen on the idea of an unnatural village, he asked, "I see, I see. And where is this village?"

In perfect unison, they both narrowed their eyes at him.

He threw up a hoof to deflect their ire and, in a reassuring voice, utterly lied, "I only ask so I know which way to avoid."

The stallion turned back the way he had come and pointed to a distant ridge of mountains poking over the horizon just slightly to the right of the road. "See those mountains? The farther you go down the road, the more forest you'll see on your right. About fifteen miles from here, you'll come to a fork. Now, you're going to want to go left, away from the mountains, because that's where Hollowed Ground is. Now once you make a left, continue straight on 'til you come to--"

The unicorn abruptly said, "Thank you oh-so-very much," and trotted right past them, still grinning.

"Don't go right!" the stallion called after him. "I'm warning you!"

Five leagues down that winding road snaking across the idyllic countryside, the wandering unicorn made a right at the fork and headed towards the forest sprawling over the base of the burgeoning mountains, both of them bathed in early evening sunlight that threatened to become the golden glow of sunset sometime very soon.

It took another half-hour's worth of walking before the tall cornrows lining the road parted. In front of the unicorn, nestled within a crescent of encroaching forest, lay a picturesque country village with stout, timber-framed houses. As the name "Hollowed Ground" implied, he saw mine entrances dotting the rocky hill looming over the thick treeline.

He knew this must be was the place, because the dread lay thick and heavy in the air. He reached out with his mind and felt the Harmony, but it was tainted by a roiling miasma of fear and paranoia lurking under the surface of the world.

Time to get to work, then.

"Hello there!" he said happily, trotting to the nearest house. "How are you this fine afternoon?"

The old earth pony sweeping the front porch looked up, took one look at his horn, and narrowed her eyes. Her teeth dug into the handle of the broom in her mouth.

The unicorn ambled past her, still smiling warmly as if he could melt the chilly reception he was receiving, but he had no luck either with two more earth ponies who returned his hearty greeting with stony silence. The first sound of life he heard was a handful of foals laughing maliciously.

The apparent ringleader, a yellow filly with dark gold curls, sneered, "You know he comes for scaredy-ponies first, right?"

The target of her torment, a much younger indigo filly, whimpered.

"He's gonna find you at night," said the yellow filly, "come right into your house, and he's gonna make you vanish, just like he did to your dumb little mutt. Heh heh heh."

The younger filly broke down in sobs and sank to her knees. Her wails drew the attention of a very brawny, green-coated stallion with three pine trees as a cutie mark. This stallion took one look over his shoulder at the circle of foals, scowled, and trotted over. As his shadow loomed over one of the colts, the colt gulped and started quivering.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Supremely bored, the gold filly said, "We ain't doing nothing but playing, Ettin. That's all."

As the unicorn drifted past them, the stallion locked eyes with him.

"No more playing," the stallion said to the filly, although the intent was plain enough to the unicorn. When one of the colts complained, the stallion backhooved him and shooed him away.

As the unicorn entered the market square, his stomach rumbled. Most of the merchants had packed up for the day, but he spotted one lone carrot-seller with naked desperation etched in every line on his face, the very definition of a pony holding out hope for one last great sale because he had debts to settle. The unicorn trotted up to his cart, shrugged his saddlebag off and dropped it as his hooves.

But as he lifted the flap with his magic, the merchant said, "We don't accept your coin."

The unicorn straightened up. "But how could you know which kind of coin I have?"

The cold-eyed earth pony glared back, obviously unaccustomed to being outwitted in such a manner.

"Well," said the unicorn, checking his saddlebag, "that works out for the both of us, as I've come to realize I've run out of any actual coins somewhere between the inn at the last village and, well, the tavern at the last village."

"If you've got no coin then you've no business with me. So go on and git."

"May I ask, have I been to this town before?"

"Not that I know of."

"Oh, that's a relief. For a moment there I was worried I'd done something to deserve your scorn."

"You jus' keep in mind, this is my crop. I grew it and I ain't giving you any just cause you're one a'them. You keep your little horn and your freaky powers to yourself, you hear?"

"Why wouldn't I keep them? If I gave them away I might not get them back. My friend, could you please at least tell me of work in this town that needs doing? As I mentioned, I'm short on coin and I'd very much like to eat tonight."

"Why don't you go ask that....miller," shrieked the earth pony. "Don't your kind stick together thick as thieves?"

"I know many married couples who can attest that that is not true. Thank you, you've been very helpful."

The unicorn bent down to slip his saddlebag back on, only to find it had disappeared.

Curious, he thought.

"Have you seen my belongings?" he asked the carrot seller. "They seem to have left me behind."

"I ain't falling for your tricks, you hear?!"

The unicorn ignored him and got down on his forelegs. He peered under the cart next to the carrot seller's, where the tracks in the dirt from his bag being dragged off led.

It could only have been a foal, he thought. No adult would fit under there.

Sure enough, he saw small hoofprints in the ground. But there was something else: white powder crushed into the dirt by the force of the hooves.

Flour?

The unicorn stood up and asked the carrot merchant, "Miller, you said?"

CHAPTER II: Carmine and Clover

The mill was situated at the very edge of the dense, overgrown forest. There was no stream nearby, nor did any wind sails stick up from the two-story round stone building, but the unicorn already had an idea about how the flour was ground. He peered into a window and saw an empty living room with a fire burning in the hearth. Sure enough, he saw the firelight glint off a familiar compass lying on the dinner table.

It was a compass he knew very well, in fact. Mareco Polo had given it to him after their expedition to Cath-Hay. It saved their lives when--

Now isn't the best time to reminisce, he thought sadly. Especially about....her.

The unicorn brushed aside the memories and summoned his wits about him, then strode to the door, shouldered it open, and walked right in. The first thing he noticed was a heavy grinding from beyond the far wall. Rather than open the door, he went to the hearth, where water simmered in a cauldron. He lifted the ladle with his magic, dipped it into the soup, and sipped it.

He frowned at the lackluster, watery taste. It was barely soup.

Just as he put the ladle down, the front door creaked open. A sack surrounded by a red aura entered, followed by a gray unicorn with dark red hair.

"Clover?" he called.

The loud grinding drowned out his voice. He sucked in a breath to call louder when he saw the stranger in his living room. In shock, he forgot to keep the sack airborne, and it thudded to the ground. An onion rolled onto the floorboards.

After a second to compose himself, he shouted, "Who the blazes are you?!"

The unicorn smiled. "Why, hello. My name is Starswirl."

"And what're you doing in my house?!"

Starswirl faked mild confusion. "Why, I was invited."

"In-invited?!" the other unicorn sputtered.

"At least I think I was," Starswirl said. "You see, when I arrived, I found all the ponies so reticent and untalkative I naturally assumed they preferred to communicate by gesture. So when I saw your foal take my saddlebag, I merely assumed that that was an invitation for a weary traveler such as myself to follow. I really must apologize if I've misunderstood your customs. As you can probably tell, I'm new in this village."

Starswirl kept his pleasant smile up.

The stallion simmered in anger for a moment, then yelled over the grinding noise, "Clover!"

The grinding stopped. After a moment, the door opened and a glum-looking filly with bright red hair and a pale green coat walked into the room.

"I wasn't expecting you so soon, pa-" she began, but as soon as she laid eyes on Starswirl, she yelped like she was being strangled.

"Have you been stealing things from the market again?" the stallion asked, snarling.

Her eyes went to the floorboards. "I...."

The stallion crossed the room and shook her roughly. "Have you?"

Starswirl stepped forward. "I'm sure it was nothing but a harmless misunder-"

"Quiet," the stallion said. He turned back to his foal. "Answer me!"

The little filly, eyes shining with tears, looked up and shouted, "They deserve it! They're always so terrible to us, papa."

"And if'n they find out the market thief is from the only unicorn family in town, how'll that make them feel about us?"

The filly sniffled and looked at the floor again.

"I told you," the stallion said, "when I'm gone, you stay in the house and you grind the flour. Now you get the things you stole and bring them out here. Then you get back in there and you grind."

The filly trudged up a spiral staircase and came back down thirty seconds later, dragging Starswirl's saddlebag by her teeth. She brought it to his hooves and put it down.

Still staring intently at the floor, she mumbled, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were one of....us."

"Whyever would you think I was not a pony?"

"No, sir. I mean a unicorn."

"That, my dear, is a very dangerous attitude to take."

She looked up at him with her emerald eyes, jaw hanging open as she tried to understand what he meant. But her father stomped on the ground, hard, and summoned her back to reality. She jumped a foot, then trotted into the back room.

"I'm mighty sorry about that, I am," said the stallion.

"Oh, it's no trouble at all," Starswirl said as he checked the contents of his saddlebag. "No harm done. Well, I should be off." He started for the door.

"It's almost sundown," said the stallion, "so's I suppose you'll need a place to spend the night."

Starswirl turned around and saw a flinty look in the stallion's eyes that told Starswirl he was, for the most part, asking to make up for his daughter's thievery. But Starswirl thought he saw something else, as well. They were both unicorns, after all, far from home and in a strange land. Perhaps unicorns really did stick together, thick as....

Well, 'thieves' wouldn't be the best comparison, Starswirl had to admit.

"I would very much like to spend the night," he mused, "but alas, I'm afraid it cannot be bought and sold so easily...."

The stallion just stared at him.

"That would be most agreeable," Starswirl said. "Truth be told, my journey has been more wearying than I expected. If it's amenable to you, I would very much like a few days' to recuperate. I would, of course, be willing to work in exchange for your hospitality."

Cautiously, the unicorn said, "I think we can come to an arrangement." He held out a hoof. "Carmine."

Starswirl shook it. "Pleased to meet you."

"Oh, and if'n Clover gives you any more trouble, you just let me know."

"I sincerely doubt that will be necessary."

"Heh, if'n you say so. She's a handful, I tell you."

Walking past Starswirl, Carmine approached the hearth, lowered his horn, and shot a burst of flame to make the fire hotter. Then he walked over to the kitchen, using his magic to carry the sack with him. He lifted several onions out and started chopping them with a knife.

"Have a seat," he said.

"Oh, thank you," Starswirl said, sitting on a pillow near the hearth.

"So where you from, stranger?"

"The Most Beneficent Republic of Varnice."

Carmine whistled. "Long way from home."

"You can talk. How does a unicorn such as yourself come to live out here in the middle of earth pony territory?"

"Born and bred in Roan," Carmine said wistfully.

"Judging by your accent, you haven't been there for a long time."

"That's true. I picked up the local talk to fit in, and I guess it became part of me after a while. When the Commune collapsed, let's just say I needed to get away for a while. So's I walked out of the city gates, my infant foal in tow, and kept walking until I ended up here. They needed a miller, I had experience, so's I built this mill with my own horn. Been here ever since."

"Just the two of you?"

"Just us."

"And you're the only unicorns in town?"

Carmine stopped chopping. After ten seconds of silence, he admitted, "Depends."

"On what?"

"What you mean by 'town'."

"Why are the ponies of Hollowed Ground so terrified of unicorns?"

Carmine sighed. "When I first arrived, they weren't too thrilled. Nasty looks, muttered whispers, normal small-town stuff. But never nothing bad. Not like now. If'n they didn't need a miller, they'd run me out of town by now."

"What changed?"

"It started last year. Crops failed, pets disappeared, machines got wrecked, mine disasters, things like that."

"What do the townponies say is the cause?"

"Ha! Half of 'em say there's a unicorn living in the forest, using his dark magic on them."

Starswirl leaned forward. "And what do you think?"

"I think this town is going crazy trying to explain a bunch of nonsense. I tell them the pets started going missing about the same time timberwolves showed up, but they don't listen. I point out plenty of machines besides the mill haven't been touched. They still don't listen."

"Curious," Starswirl mumbled to himself.

"What's that?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing. Forgive me, I'm just an old pony talking to himself."

"You don't look that old."

"I feel that old."

"Being far from home will do that." Carmine finished slicing the onions and magicked them into the cauldron. "Don't have much in the way of stew. Folks 'round here seem to think I put a hex on my flour, so they shouldn't hafta pay full price for it. As if getting it cheap will make it any less cursed. That's Hollowed Ground for you."

"Yes," Starswirl said, rubbing his chin with his hoof, "I'm starting to get the picture."

"So, Clover," Starswirl asked, "how adept are you?"

The little filly, who hadn't said a word all throughout dinner, stopped poking her vegetables with her hoof and looked up and said, "I can do sums all the way up to a hundred."

Starswirl chuckled. "It has nothing to do with adding. It means how powerful your magic is."

Clover's eyes flicked to her father, then back to her plate. "I'm not very powerful."

"It's for the best," Carmine said. "These folks are a superstitious lot. No need to give them any more reason to mistrust us."

"Yes, papa."

Suddenly, the house creaked as a stiff breeze whipped into it. Outside, something clattered to the ground.

Carmine groaned. "I won't be a minute."

After he'd gone outside, lantern in mouth, Starswirl peered curiously at Clover.

"So, Clover," Starswirl said again, "how adept are you? The truth, this time."

"I told you," she said, shifting uncomfortably, "I can't do much."

He raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

She glanced over her shoulder to the front door, then leaned closer and whispered, "Sometimes, though, I imagine I'm really powerful, and I make the other foals scared of how powerful I am."

"Power, Clover, is nothing more than that. It must be tempered with wisdom, or else it's less than nothing."

"What kind of wisdom?" she whispered, awed.

"The kind that you only learn over a lifetime of living."

"But you learned it?"

Starswirl nodded. "Back home, when a student shows how adept he or she has become, they are given the title of 'stregone'."

"And you're a stra-what's-it?"

"Yes. My full title is Stregone Starswirl."

"If you're such a great unicorn, why did you leave?"

Just then, the front door creaked open, and Starswirl shushed her.

"....and then they demanded to know if I was a king! And I replied 'I'm more important than a king.' They scoffed and shouted, 'Nopony's more important than a king.' To which I replied, 'Aha! For you see, I am nopony!' Unfortunately, they did not allow me to stay at the banquet, but I was able to take home some fine cutlery. After they flung it at my retreating backside, of course."

Clover giggled as her father sat down and resumed his dinner. From then on, Starswirl noticed a change in the little filly. She kept sneaking glances up at him, like a secret line of communication had been opened between them.

Perhaps one had.

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.