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// Parties 
// Story: My Little Fortress: Friendship for the Blood God 
// by jaked122 
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Tholumom Lathonudlerned has been very unhappy recently. He has mourned for the loss of loved ones recently. He has had a mediocre drink recently. He has looked at a masterful engraving of his family and been saddened. He has slept in a decent Alder bed recently. He has complained about the inclement weather recently. He has been angered at his conscription recently. He has been frustrated with his failure in combat recently. He has been terrified by a unicorn recently. He has eaten a decent omelet recently. He is thirsty
        He is slow to anger, but often feels depressed. He is not particularly sociable. He cannot find happiness in his work. He is not self-conscious. He is reserved.
        He has a wonderful kinesthetic sense. He is very strong. He possesses an incredible endurance. He recovers quickly from sickness and injury.
        When he is angry, his hands clench into fists. When worried, he tends to use threats often. 
        His nose is broken. 
        He has begun to wonder whether all this death is worth it.



“And that’s how Equestria was made.” The pink pony said to the dwarf. 
“I must learn how you grew rocks. If I was at home, my people would love to know how.”
        The omelet was enough to sate the dwarf’s hunger. Spike prepared it on a relatively normal stove-top, similar to the kitchens at home. The kitchen; however was larger, and contained an area for eating, not that dwarves really used their dining rooms, a simple chair would do, or perhaps even just standing over the barrel in the stockpile as they ate whatever they found to their liking. The dwarf sat at the table, in a chair that was frilly, beyond the aesthetic frivolity of the elves, but made well enough for the dwarf to justify sitting on it. Across from him the pink pony slouched over the table, examining him.
“Silly, that doesn’t work in other worlds.”
“What?”
“Rock farming only works in Equestria.”
“That’s too bad. It would do great services for my people.” The dwarf sighed. “We are the most skilled masons, blacksmiths, and craftsmen in my world, we can make almost anything; we are limited only in time and resources. We make things that last forever, but we make things of impacable beauty and complexity. Our artifacts-“
“What’re those? They sound like they taste good.” The pink pony bounced around a lot. Tholumom wondered if she was one of those creatures whose strength could never be exhausted.
“No.”  The dwarf wore a scowl. “Eating an artifact, unless it was an artifact meal, would get you killed by any reasonable dwarf.”
“That’s silly.” She laughed. “If everypony was that stern, then we wouldn’t have any fun around here, not even in one of my famous parties.”
“I’d love to attend one of those. Do you hold them in legendary dining room?”
“What would make a dining room legendary?”
“The worth of everything in the room would cumulatively be worth somewhere around ten thousand copper coins.”
“Well… I don’t know how many bits there are to a copper coin, but I’m sure that we have at least a grand dining room.”
“Pinky, I never explained the degrees of worth to a room’s worth, how did you figure that out?”
The purple unicorn walked in to the kitchen, “Don’t ask that of Pinkie. The answer eludes the bet of us, and drove me mad for a while.”
“As in throwing a tantrum, or melancholy?”
“I would not know the difference.”
“Silly, a tantrum would involve you lashing out at other ponies and their property, you’re still around, and haven’t thrown yourself into a water filled ditch, so you weren’t melancholy.”
Twilight’s mouth gaped open. Tholumom laughed. “Pinkie, I don’t even care that you seem to have knowledge about my world. I love you, you funny pony.” Tholumom had heard stories about the seers of elves, not good stories, but stories that testified to their extensive foreknowledge of the events of the future. Naturally, elvish seers never told anyone anything helpful, but they divined what had happened to people who visit them. This is, oddly enough, the only stable source of income that elves have ever managed to wrangle. “Are you sure that you aren’t an elvish seer?”
“Yes I am silly. I’m an earth pony.”
“I know, I know, but you know about the future, and the nature of the world that I come from.”
“That’s my Pinkie Sense.”
“Sounds useful.”
Twilight broke in again. “You have no idea. The entire town listens to her arbitrary warnings that really don’t shed any light on the nature of the prediction.”
Tholumom looked at her strangely, “You don’t seem like the type to accept that kind of superstition. Or at least if those questions you were getting to were any indication of who you actually are, you like to know things.”
        “I’m a student of Celestia. Of course I have to ask questions, but mostly I study magic.”
Grinning proudly at the dwarf, the dwarf found himself uncomfortable. “You aren’t a necromancer are ye? That kind of magic doesn’t deserve the study that they put into it.”
“No, of course not. I wouldn’t dare mess with the cycle of life and death.”
“Good, if you were a necromancer, your skull would make a wonderful totem. I’m glad that I don’t have to do that to my rescuer.” The dwarf’s expression morphed back into a smile as he expressed his gladness that Twilight was, not, in fact learning how to bring back legions of the undead to haunt the living. The pink pony continued to smile throughout the explanation, despite the obvious threat to her friend.
        “What is this fixation on death and punishment?” Twilight was, naturally, concerned after the aforementioned threat. “I mean, your world can’t possibly be that harsh.”
“No, it’s far worse. If you disappoint the nobility, ye would be hammered into either a terrible death, or near death. Our medicine can be useful, but due to the continual plight of the soap-makers, you are almost certain to die of an infection from the wounds of your hammering. All because the nobility forgot that the fortress was not situated in an area where glass isn’t possible to obtain.”
        Tholumom’s face glowed bright red. His hands clenched into fists, almost as though he desired to fight. “Besides, who are you to judge our culture; I don’t know what the situation is like in Equestria, but in the world of the Everlasting Pulley, you can’t imagine the kinds of challenges that my race has to deal with on a daily basis. Perhaps it is our fault; nevertheless, we have lived like this for nearly four thousand years.” Faltering, his voice began to fall. “And perhaps, with our ways, we’ve finally caused our end.” Finally hitting a whisper “But that doesn’t matter to me, what I had perished… long before…”
        “Are you okay?” Twilight was concerned for the dwarf, she still wanted to know more before he went “Melancholy” and threw himself into the Everfree river. 
“Aye. I’ve had a long hard time before I came here. Filled with innumerable joys and sorrows, angers and calms, lovers and enemies. I’ll live a bit longer.” A smile bloomed on his face. “Besides, if what this small pink creature has told me is true, a party would bring me great joy.”
Twilight stared at him. “I guess that I can allow a party. Just so long as you allow me to pick your brain about what happened to you,” she stared off into the distance. “and your civilization.”
“Certainly Miss Sparkle, I’ll tell you about the issues that I am incredibly sensitive about, and I’ll also tell you about that world that I lived in before now.” The pink pony laughed before suddenly becoming incredibly serious, a scowl spread across her features, and she glared at Twilight. The dwarf considered intervening in this obvious fight, but realized that the fight between the two would be more interesting than anything that he foresaw happening otherwise.
“Twilight, how can you not see that he doesn’t want to talk about his civilization, family, and world?”
“I’ll be nice about it Pinkie. If what he said is true, then he is the last bastion of his culture, world, and, indeed, species, I need to write it down, his history is no less valuable than ours.”
“If I can interrupt, I can accept that, just so long as I get a drink. Preferably with alcohol.”
“I guess that’s not too much to ask.” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. 
“What? Do you have something against booze?”
“No… Well… maybe… kinda…” Conflicted, Twilight attempted to balance her open-mindedness with her dislike for mind-altering drugs.
“Let me explain what you are trying to say, Miss Sparkle, you don’t like to drink alcohol because it impairs your ability to think clearly, but other than that, you have no specific objection to it.”
“I guess.” The unicorn shrugged. “Do I really have to drink?”
“Common enough excuse, perfectly valid reason to avoid alcohol, but where I come from” The dwarf smiled and put his leg up on the unmentioned chair that he had been sitting on, “it is more commonly used by humans who realize that they can’t handle the same kind of alcohol intake as a dwarf.”
“Yeah, don’t try to start a drinking contest with Applejack.”
“Is that the name of a pony, or the alcohol itself?”
“Applejack is the element of Honesty, she also happens to be the local apple farmer, and naturally, the cider producer of the town.”
“I’m sure that she’s honest enough.” The dwarf laughed, “But she does realize that she is named after an alcoholic beverage, right?”
“All I’ve ever had was cider... “The unicorn shrugged. 
“Gah! How can you ponies live without an endless variety of booze, all of which has virtually the same effect?” Mock horror dripped from the voice of the dwarf.
The pink pony walked out with the unicorn. “It always helps when the booze is actually good.”
Tholumom thought about this for a second; then shrugged. “Where I’m from, that never really mattered.”
 He followed the two out from the kitchen.