Curse my bad form for putting the foreword in the prologue. Curse it!
Welcome to "Pink'tulu," a tale filled with Lovecraftian horrors, unspeakable beings and... ponies. This just so happens to be my submission (in progress) for the National Pony Writer's Month - as such, I will be attempting to update it as often as I possibly can, within reason.
This fic is rated Teen for occasional harsh language, and dark themes throughout.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is property of Lauren Faust, Studio B and Hasbro, Inc. I make no claims of ownership.
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Part One
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As many similar days for the pink earth pony began, her first idea was an immediate desire for cupcakes.
Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she stifled a yawn as she stretched, faint slivers of sunlight filtering through the window pane. Motes of dust flickered to and fro, seemingly suspended in mid-air as they drifted lazily about. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the early morning as she shifted her weight to the side of the bed, dangling her forelegs over the precipice briefly before coming to all fours, blinking every so often as she did so. Ignoring the grumbling of her stomach for the time being, muscle memory and force of habit began her daily routine: shower, towel off, quietly descend the stairs, unlock the door to the kitchen, turn on the equipment. This morning, she would be preparing ingredients for a rather large batch of cupcakes ordered by Ponyville Elementary for the beginning of Fall Break - indeed, the season made itself known through the chill in the air, seemingly held in by the heavy wooden planks that made up Sugarcube Corner.
As the many stoves and ovens in the kitchen began to crackle to life, however, the ambient heat that they created soon filled the cozy little space with just enough warmth to stave off the chills that would inevitably come without. Pinkie Pie found her mind wandering in every direction, never holding onto a particular notion, worry or thought for even a moment. While she absentmindedly set about preparing her work space, she thought she heard - no, felt - something... it was almost like an ill-perceived shadow, an illusion out of one’s metaphorical peripheral vision.
She braced herself... but the moment passed. No tail twitch, no itchy mane... nothing. Shrugging slightly, she resumed her work.
What little did she know. What little did they all know, indeed.
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You may call me whatever you like.
I am the teller of stories, the singer of songs, the bard of bards; I am the inkling in a person’s - or pony’s - mind, that unfathomable little something that compels them to bring forth my craft. I am the weaver of all things true and fantastic; from my loom comes fairy tale and scary tale alike. I am the feeling one feels when gathered around a roaring campfire in the dead of night; I am the anxious, excited feeling that comes with complete, pure immersion in the art of the tale.
In essence, though I am in need of any introduction, I have deemed myself worthy enough for one.
Our story begins in two times, and in two worlds: the first, in a small, but well-respected University in Massachusetts, the year 1927; the second, a mystical land of fancy, in what is known in the local dialect as the 1005th year of Celestia’s Reign.
Since I am to be the tale weaver...let us begin with the former.
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The United States of America
Massachussetts
1927 AD
Giant tropical centipedes share their territory with tarantulas. Despite its impressive length, it is a nimble navigator, and some can be highly venomous. As quick as lightning, just like the tarantula it’s killing, the centipede has two curved, hollow fangs, which inject paralyzing venom. Even tarantulas aren’t immune from an ambush. The centipede is a predator.
He shuddered, the text from the rather recently published Entomological journal sending shivers rocketing up and down his spine.
To imagine... creatures such as this, and on our very own planet! he thought in awe, not even possessing any desire to imagine how beings from the other realm could use this form to their advantages.
All was quiet in the dusty, sprawling library of the Miskatonic University. The man - middle aged, caucasian, essentially non-descript - sat, slouched over an impressive array of tomes, ranging from texts that looked as though they were fresh off of the presses, to aged, cracked old things that held ancient knowledge and forbidden teachings.
The Professor slowly stretched his back, pinching the bridge of his glasses with two fingers and massaging the bridge of his nose with his other hand. He succumbed to an old, but surely unhealthy habit - he cracked his neck, relishing in the occasional pop! that came from his tired old vertebrae. Hands intertwined behind his head, he leaned back in the equally old seat, his tweed jacket pulling at the sleeves as he stifled a yawn.
Goodness me... what time is it? he wondered. Casting his gaze upward to one of the many clocks scattered throughout the old library, he found himself in quite a shock.
“One thirty-three in the morning?!” the Professor spat, temporarily forgetting the fresh visuals of his musings on otherworldly centipede horrors. “How on earth did I stay at it so late again...?”
On any given night, he relied upon his most faithful - if not a tad zealous - junior researcher, one Conan O’Doyle. Conan was a young man in his mid twenties, of a stocky, but firm build, adorned with a mop of raggled orange hair and freckles on his face. Hailing from an economically depressed village in Northern Ireland, he quickly excelled in all of the standard home schooling protocols, earning the attention of the national government. To make a long story short, he had ended up at Miskatonic at the young age of twenty four, much younger than the vast majority of attendees.
On any given night, Connor would be there at his side, eleven-thirty, sharp - no exceptions. Except, this time...
“... where’s that young lad got off to?” the Professor said aloud. Trusting that his collection of University books would remain secure, the Professor stood up from his chair, his creaking, aching knees sounding out in unison with the equally creaky furniture. Grasping onto the cane that he had leaned against the wooden table, the man made his way toward one of the many exits from the University Library.
It had been a number of years since the Professor had been at it this late. As his numbers in age grew, inversely, so too did his desire for lengthy, all night study sessions diminish; indeed, when he had come to his fiftieth birthday, he had expressed fear to some of his most trusted colleagues that he had lost his zeal and fervor for the line of work he had been in for so very long. Despite all of their reassurances, it was only until the Professor had stumbled upon an obscure translation - or mistranslation, as it were - that would lead to what he would eventually come to call his “magnum opus,” or “life’s work.”
It was well known to the privileged few granted access to the hallowed halls of Miskatonic academia that there once existed a great nation - a nation that rose and fell many, many years before man. It was known at the time as Lemuria: the exact meaning of the name or phrase has been lost to time. What is known is this; a great civilization of humanoids created what is perhaps the greatest forgotten instance of a global government; what is essentially a utopia, for lack of a more academic phrase. This civilization foretold and succumbed to their own downfall - a prophecy that told of horrors descending from the heavens, unspeakable beings from another realm that held nothing but contempt for other forms of life and all that they did and could accomplish. They brought terror and death unto the Lemurian race, and despite their best efforts to forestall the evils that besieged them, they inevitably could not combat the horrors from the other world.
These were the thoughts that ran through the professor’s head as he hurried along the lonely paths carved out of the many, many aisles of books surrounding him.
Even ancient man had notice of evidence that they were not the first to prosper on this Earth. Signs of a civilization lost - faint whispers, scattered about like so many fossils, so very elusive but all the more intoxicating.
The Babylonians, a people that saw their glory days between 4000 and 2500 B.C. - even they had tales of “dark elder ones,” supposedly otherworldly horribles that had come to “undo man.” Next came the Greeks, then the Spartans for a time, then the Romans - the Early Christians, Goths and Visigoths, Huns, Vandals, Vikings from the North, Medieval England, Renaissance Italy, Colonial America, and so on throughout the ages... all have had tales of what roughly translates to “elder ones,” beings that supposedly mean to undo the human race.
Admittedly, to the uninitiated, the prospect of beings from another dimension would seem, at first, farcical. It is an archaic notion, in many admittedly germane-to-the-subject circles, that the reality of all of man’s combined knowledge juxtaposed so laughably against what seems, in its very nature, to be some manner of hoax. Granted, there are a few merits that one may award to whomever would raise that sort of din; for one, the information that absolutely disproves and disquiets any notion of scepticism is, inherently, a risk to the general public; truly, only those truly and meticulously prepared for what lies within that dreaded tome are ready for its horrid knowledge.
Resolving to keep his mind fully planted in the present, the Professor focused his thoughts onto the situation at hand. Sweeping his eyes over his visible field of view, there was - as was to be expected - no sign of anyone present in the Library, save himself. The Professor’s well-attuned ears listened for any sign of movement: perhaps a scuffling of feet, a familiar, stifled yawn, or the fluttering sound of the turn of a page - nothing. There was nothing.
The man quickened his pace.
I don’t like this... he thought to himself. At a window to his left, the faintest hint of a shadow dashed across the stained glass window, an ethereal twilight illuminating the silhouette.
“Goddammit, Jack,” he said aloud. “Get ahold of yourself.” The man berated himself for succuming temporarily to his anxiety. He couldn’t quite point his pinkie at it, but something was surely amiss. His instincts would not lie to him. Not at a time like this.
Happening upon an exit, he tried the handle, finding it - surprisingly - locked.
Hm. Well, that’s a rarity.
He glanced toward the placard that indicated which section of the Library he had found himself in.
The Archives? How in the hell did I wind up here? he wondered. Shrugging, he continued to his right. Least I know where I am, now.
As the Professor walked onward, he couldn’t help but feel unnerved by the eerie calm inside the building. It was if the very atmosphere itself were sucked into some sort of vacuum, taking all of the sound, the ambiance, the gentle feeling of home that usually came with such a shrine to academia.
He didn’t like it. Not a bit.
Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket, the Professor trekked onward, becoming increasingly wary of the inexplicable silence. It was as though even his very footsteps were somehow being engulfed, the sounds sounding out but instantly dissipating, fading into nothingness. This set the man on edge, more than anything else. Any number of things could produce - or create - such intense atmospheric interruptions... perhaps a ward gone awry, or a hex cast with the improper enchantments... heaven forbid, a portal, or some otherworldly horror.. the sheer possibilities were staggering, as were the implications. Having thus resolved to get to the bottom of things, no matter how trivial they may or may not turn out to be, the Professor broke into a light jog, ever advancing towards his destination.
If the Professor knew one thing about Conan O’Doyle, it was that the lad was a bit of an idealist. A dreamer, if you will. There was reference in some obscure Lemurian carvings, some poorly translated jargon about an “ideal world,” a land full of “natural magics” and “beings most friendly.” There were many, many written texts of scholars trying, yet subsequently failing to decipher the true meanings of the carvings... and Conan had yet to fall into that category, as he had been known to have make rather apparent.
It was his own damned fault, the Professor supposed. Early on into his research, he too had made an honest attempt at cracking the cipher, only to arrive at the frustrating conclusion that he, too, was unable to decipher it. He had written about the entire process extensively, several of his works being published in leading Anthropological journals at the time; it was from there, he gathered, that young O’Doyle had first heard of the cipher itself.
It took him back to a conversation - or was it more of an argument? - that the two of them had shared, not a week prior.
“I’m telling you, boy, it’s just a myth! It was all made up! Likely, it was an idealist recreation of a utopian Lemurian society in an effort for the world government to restore hope to its peoples when all hope was lost. You know how the history goes, Mr. O’Doyle.”
“Aye, Professor. That I do.”
“So you’d rather apply your rather considerable - and I don’t say that all too often - talents into what essentially amounts to an ancient literary wild goose chase?”
“Aye, Sir. I know that I can manage it, Professor. Just you wait and see.”
“Heh. Best of luck to you, then. No one’s ever cracked the cipher.”
The cipher. The one vexing, perplexing thing the Lemurians had left behind for man to discover - a consistent, seemingly impenetrable code, definitely a written language, but riddled with so many complex characters and permutations that translation proved both frustrating and, more often than not, impossible. Only two confirmed characters of the Lemurian Cipher have been translated over the thousands upon thousands of years that mankind has tried and tried again to decipher it. It had driven many mad with its complexity.
“The present, Jack. Focus on the present, damn you,” the Professor berated himself. He hadn’t even noticed the light.
“Wait... what’s this?” he said aloud, his jaw dropping slightly as he took in what could not possibly be before him.
It was... essentially ovular, a shimmering, floating essence somehow suspended in the air, flashing every now and again with an opaque, golden-hued light. It seemed fluid, yet solid at the same time; neither moving nor unmoving, it just hung there in the empty space between the floor and the ceiling.
His eyes rapidly scanned the environment - in a far off corner to his right, movement. A bundle of clothes, and... was that a shoe?
“Conan? Is that you over there, lad?” the Professor called out, struggling to keep his tone of voice steady.
There was more movement from the corner. Then:
“...a-aye, sir. ‘Tis only me. Heh heh...”
“What’s so funny, boy? What have you done?”
“Sir, I’ve gone and duffed up as hard as I possibly could... can’t fucking believe it actually worked, too...”
The Professor, taking care to give the rift a wide berth, slowly made his way over to the corner.
“What are you on about, son? What ‘actually worked’? What is this?”
Another wheezing laugh. “Don’... don’t tell me that ye don’t actually know what that is, Professor? After all our time readin’ up on it?”
The Professor worked his mouth, his tongue suddenly feeling very dry.
“You can’t possibly mean... no, that’s just not...” He turned around slowly, his gaze eyeing the rift in the air with a newfound horror.
“That’s just not possible!” the Professor spat. “Only the Mad Arab could summon forth something like this! Don’t tell me you - did you read the Necronomicon?! After I specifically forbade all Junior Researchers from reading it, you went on and read it anyway?”
“...s-sorry, Professor... was too curious, I suppose.”
“You’re daft, son. You’re absolutely bloody brilliant, but you’re also completely daft.” The Professor thought for a moment. “Tell me it didn’t-”
“-it did, I’m afraid. There was nothing I could do to stop it, and you have to believe me - I tried! I really, really did!” The insistent, pleading tone of Conan’s voice was interrupted by a series of hacking coughs. “Unless we find a way to stop them... they won’t stand a chance.”
“There’s still something that I don’t understand, Conan. Something that is very tantamount and germane to the situation at hand, if I am to understand the situation correctly. You mean to tell me that you not only found the pathway to Equestria, but you unwittingly sent Yig and Azathoth there as well?!”