13. The Six New Mornings - Asher and Milo, Part Three
The Conversion Bureau
HUMAN
in Equestria
By Chatoyance
13. The Six New Mornings - Asher and Milo, Part Three
Lime Sherbet is used with the permission by the superb author Gabriel LaVedier, from the excellent Dames Of The Tea Table, which you should read because it is wonderful.
Special thanks to my spouse Aedina for her assistance with historically accurate Elizabethan speech.
The window at the end of the hall looked out over a nearly eighteen hundred foot drop to the roof of the massive castle keep. The tower was close to the edge, so that only a dozen feet separated the edge of the keep roof from the tower. The keep itself was over a thousand feet high, below this was the first tier of Canterlot city, another thousand feet, which led to two more tiers, and then the massive five thousand foot drop to the rolling plains below the impossibly steep Canterlot Mountain.
Under the physics of old earth, the whole of Canterlot, castle, city, mountain and all, would have been impossible. It would have collapsed because of everything from the inverse-square law to the angle of repose. Earthly atomic forces were insufficient to the task of holding such a megastructure together, the semicircular gardens would have crumbled from shearing forces even before they could have been completed during construction.
But this was not earth, and the physics that humanity had evolved under had no place in Equestria. Dweons took the place of atoms, planar attraction stood in for gravity, and the inverse square law had only been encountered the first time hooves stepped outside the bounds of the Equestrian cosmos. The air pressure was the same at the top of the impossibly vertical Canterlot Mountain as it was upon the flat, rolling land below. Above all, the sky truly was a dome, not crystal perhaps, but solid, and the sun and moon were vast and arcane disks upon it, the stars jewels of force set within the substance of it.
Celestia and Luna had sought whatever order they could find, as they spun and careened through the chaos in the ages after Discord. Only one thing in their universe remained still - the ruins of their simple castle. It seemed ancient, yet it might have been thrown forth from Discord's chaos newly created to appear old. The sisters had memories, broken, fragmented memories, of having lived in the castle, but even these might well be entirely false.
The ruins of the castle were stable and still, and the sisters - for that is how they thought of themselves - clung to it while all around changed and swirled in senseless horror. The castle was also a clue - it was a direction that pointed beyond chaos to something the sisters wanted more than anything. Order.
Tiny peepholes, no larger than an earthly proton, were Celestia's answer. The castle had pointed the way, and Celestia had followed that glimmer of hope, and each brief new glimpse left the sisters hungry for more. New concepts entered their minds - flat surfaces that did not change, flat surfaces called 'land'. Piles of land, 'mountains', and pools of stable, constant water in 'lakes' and 'oceans' and 'ponds'. An arching dome above of pale blue and deep black that seemed to turn somehow.
Over great time, they took what they could see of the other world, and interpreted it as best they could. In this way the chaos was divided into land and chaos above, and eventually the chaos itself plastered over with a dome made from the underside of the land, space easily wrapped and twisted upon itself, for that is what the sisters understood and knew.
Eventually, Celestia spied life. The solid thing ran on hooves and panted with breath. It possessed tail and ears and eyes. If the universe was made better by order, then existence could only be better by being solid and still as well. The sisters took permanent shape, and walked, for the first time, upon the flatness they had made. And then, in such overwhelming stillness, they cried, for they knew they were alone.
Life, was a pattern. It could be reproduced. And in time, smaller, simpler versions of the now pony sisters walked the rugged land and nibbled the sparse vegetation that Celestia developed from her visions of beyond. The smaller ponies had eyes, and ears, and tails and hooves, and those hooves pounded the land as they galloped.
Peridot Cabochon galloped now, her hooves pounding not land but marble, as she ran toward the window at the end of the hall. Her pony eyes were half blinded by tears, her pony heart blinded by anguish. Her colt despised her, and she despised herself.
When Sloane Cameron had first become Peridot, when she had been remedially ponified by the nocturnal princess Luna, she had taken her first steps in confusion. Raw emotions flooded her, emotions she had spent an entire human lifetime learning to repress and ignore. One did not get ahead within the Good Families by being sentimental. Feelings were the first casualty of the war for position and power in the real world, and they were a sacrifice Sloane had been more than willing to make.
But pony Sloane, Peridot, found herself in a new war, now that human power was forever lost to her. The war was within herself, and unlike the vast majority of newfoals, she did not welcome the overwhelming compassion and innocence that now dominated her new brain. She didn't understand it. She had never been allowed to experience it before, and its alienness terrified her. She resorted to her familiar tactics, and fought the strangeness as best she could.
It was a losing battle, and she lost ground every day. In the end, cold indifference gave way in heaving sobs to the realization of what she had thrown away as a human, and endless regret over it all.
Now, glad of her feelings, Peridot Cabochon was left with another problem - she had no idea how to express the tender and loving good within her.
On that first day after her ponification, Peridot had a terrifying night of realization. Her plans to spend her newly gained three-hundred birthdays began to crumble. It was her design to gradually take over the Equestrian court. She planned to start a new, pony version of the Good Families - with her at the top, of course. Even on that very first night, her goals had ceased having any value to her. She had fled the Human Masada after the 'guns and bacon' incident, driven by ambition and vengeance, but now this motivation was fading.
Now, on the other side of the species barrier, the former Sloane Cameron had suddenly found empire building unappealing, and vengeance undesirable. Neither served kindness, neither would increase happiness for all, or demonstrate empathy. Indeed, such drives were the opposite of everything that now filled her heart.
Peridot had rolled on her bed, unable to sleep, desperate to understand who she had become, and what mattered to this new creature that cared about others, and desired harmony above domination. One thing came back to her, over and over during her dark night - Milo. Her colt. Her one and only colt, her little foal, her beloved Milo.
The thought shocked her. Beloved. As a human, she had not permitted herself to feel love. Now it burned within her like a hot coal. To love anything or anyone amongst the perpetually struggling Good Families was to be weak - to be vulnerable to emotional extortion, or manipulation, or destruction.
Milo. She loved her colt. She always had, though she had never once shown it or admitted it. With that absolute certainty came an absolute shame - he must have felt so terribly rejected. As hard as she could try, Peridot was unable to remember a single time she had ever embraced her child. She wasn't sure if she had held him even once after he had been born.
She had passed the years, waiting for her injured Milo to be remade, to be fixed, to be transformed. It was what she lived for. She would be there, she would make it right. She would be the mother to her colt she always should have been. She fixed in her mind the moment - Milo would arise, as a newly made pony, and he would run to her, crying out her name.
Unless. Unless he rightfully resented her for the past. He might see through her, see that her love had only been revealed by her own selfish escape from the Masada, and not from any concern on her part. He might see that she hadn't been ponified for him, but for another cunning and destructive plot.
And that is precisely what had happened. Milo had not run to her. He had not cried out her name. He had looked upon her with the loathing she deserved. The loathing she had earned with years of neglect and emotional distance. Peridot's hooves slammed into the marble. The window was there, just ahead. She would crash through it, and crash out of her poor Milo's life. It was the only thing she could do now. She could end his disgust, end his grief, and leave him free to enjoy a new mother without any emotional connection to her. It would be the only decent thing she had ever done for her little foal...
Peridot leaped. She arced through the air, her powerful hind legs launching her at the middle of the great glass window. There would be a huge smash, and a long, long fall, and then Milo would be free of her. The cut would be clean, neat, tidy, and she would have paid for her faults with her very life. Everything tied up. Everything square.
The window fogged from her breath.
Outside, a constellation of pegasai flew past, chasing an enchanted ball. It was some aerial game. Milo was a pegasus now, perhaps one day he would laugh in delight, pursuing just such a ball.
The window wasn't getting any nearer. If anything, it seemed to be receding, faster and faster.
Peridot noticed that her vision was cloudy. Everything seemed bleached out by a silvern glow. As she curled her body in mid air, she noticed that her forelegs were coated in light. The window shrank further and further away, as the hallway rushed past her. She was being levitated backwards, against her will. She struggled, briefly, then relaxed. There was nothing to do. She was helpless, held suspended in space by a powerful telekinetic field.
Princess Luna carefully set Peridot Cabochon down on the marble floor. The green unicorn did not bother to rise, or to run again. She just stared at the floor, her hind legs sprawled out, her forelegs supporting her slumping body.
"We are confounded by the steel of thy desperate and undesirable resolve. There is no admiration within us, but lives there instead surprise that thou wast able to overcome all compassion for thine living body in thy mad rush to extinguish life's blazing flame." The princess did indeed seem surprised. Ponies never attempted suicide, and the Equestrian language lacked even a word for the concept.
"We can only surmise that some unfortunate selfishness hast remained despite thy most careful transformation. Mayhap we have overlooked some aspect of thy head meats and are ourselves at fault for thy action." Luna's expression turned from shock to sadness as her horn once again blazed forth with light, a silver glow echoed by a similar radiance encompassing Peridot's head. Finally, the princess ceased her work, and shook her mane.
"Peridot Cabochon, thou art lost on the river of thine owne emotion, and see not the rocks and falls as thee dost navigate thyself. We do command thee never again to wallow in such selfish escape, and to this end, we have signed our rule in writ made flesh."
The green unicorn looked up. She didn't feel any different, but neither did she doubt the princess.
Luna turned to Milo. "Newmade Colt, attend us well. We have cantered through thy mother's thought and soul, and in her heart there is naught but the greatest love for thee, howsoever faulty her expression of it. She would to embrace thee as all that was precious, and ne'er have thee distant be again. We pronounce this unto thee as unquestionable truth. Thy anger and grief is now void and without meaning, for thy mother sits thus, consumed only with fear that thee lovest her not in return."
The princess of the night lowered her head and stared into Milo's new pony eyes. She pressed her head closer still, and only Milo's pointed ear caught Luna's faint whisper. "She loves you. Go hug her. Now."
What neither Milo nor anypony else caught was the noctural diarch's personal aside. "Newfoals...!"
Milo stepped unsteadily to where his mother sprawled on the marble. Without any word, he sat his hindquarters down, and then carefully wrapped his forelegs around the grass-green unicorn. Peridot began to sob, and then to wail, as she threw herself, as best she could, at her child in return. The two, colt and mother, held each other tight, both heaving with tears of regret, relief, and joy.
Crimson, Morning and Plantain felt themselves overcome as well, and pressed together in pony comfort. For a time the hallway was sniffles and tears all around, at the shocking crisis that had been averted.
Only Luna noticed when the last flash of golden light signified that her sister had finished the transformation of Sergey Brin. As the ponies in the hall drew together in hugs and glad words, Swiftwind and the new stallion that was his father, emerged from the Waiting Room.
Sergey walked stiffly on his four new legs, occasionally supported by the presence of his son. "I can't believe it. I'm still me. I'm still me... I feel like me, only I'm a pony, and it's okay, it's alright. I think I'm me. I must be me. I'm still me!"
Swiftwind shook his head, but stayed close and caught his dad with his strong back whenever his wobbly father seemed to falter. His father truly loved him. His dad was there, and would always be there. But Swiftwind knew, that despite his father's relieved words, that Sergey Brin was not entirely the same. Never again would he beat his son, he would never again harm him, or hurt him, or knowingly break bone or skin. In this way, Sergey was forever changed, and it was a difference Swiftwind could only feel the greatest gratitude for.
Milo sniffed and wiped his nostrils on his foreleg, matting his coat. "Mom?"
Peridot, her forelegs wrapped tightly around her son, nuzzled him. She sniffed back her own tears. "Yes?"
"I don't understand. Was there something wrong with you? Did princess Luna fix it?" The little pegasus reveled in finally being held.
"There... there was something wrong with me, but it had nothing to do with the princess." Peridot briefly groomed her son's poll with her teeth, his mane was a mess. "When we were... when I was part of the Good Families, I cared more about them, than you. It was like... I guess I was broken, inside."
"But you're okay now?" Milo suddenly looked less like a colt, and more like a foal in the moment. Peridot, for the first time, could feel her child's insecurity, and comprehend what it meant.
"I think I finally am." She squeezed Milo tight. "From now on, the only 'good family' that matters to me, is us."
For all of his years, a moment like this was all Milo had ever truly wanted. Just to feel he was the least bit important to his mother. Just to feel loved at all. Now that it had come, it was almost more than he could bear, and Milo was forced to let out his emotion again. Finally his tears stopped. He clung for a while, eyes blurry, unwilling to let go because he feared the moment would end and never come again.
"It's all right, Milo. It'll be alright from now on." Peridot pulled away with difficulty, and stood up. "Come on, we need to get going. Everypony's leaving."
As Milo stood, he saw that the princesses had already gone, and that the head maid, Lime, was explaining something to Asher - 'Swiftwind' - and his father. Petra, Seraph... Crimson, Morning and Plantain were talking with each other, and it was clear that it had become time to go somewhere else.
"Mom?" Milo pressed his body into his mother as they walked, he felt like he couldn't get enough of finally being able to be close to her. He felt as if he had been hungry, starving, for years and years, and was being fed at last. "I'm gonna need a new name."
Peridot, struggling to not stumble, laughed. "What do you want to be called?"
Milo buried his head in his mother's barrel, forcing her to stop altogether. "Noooo. I want you to name me." Milo sniffled again. "Because you're my mom." He spoke the word 'mom' as if it were a sacrament.
The intensity of that weighed on Peridot. She was his whole world, and for the first time she realized that fact. Earth, Equestria - any world or cosmos - a child needed their mother. That was truly universal. "I'll need to think about it then. I want to pick a good one. Something you can be proud of."
Milo cried again, as they caught up with the others.
The moon blazed through the windows as Lime Sherbet finally got the growing troupe of newfoal guests settled. The three fillies, of course, wanted to share a room. They were the best of friends and naturally wanted to be together. Swiftwind and his father were given the room beside the three fillies. Across the hall, Lime placed Milo and his mother Peridot.
Crimson, Plantain and Morning Star wondered if they could have tea again, like last year. Lime sent Gelato off to bring a cart with tea and cakes for all of the newfoals. Thinking further, she had Gelato also bring some bowls of what was left of the Thai coconut hay and rosehips from dinner. Newfoals tended to be hungry after their transformations, and it was likely that Swiftwind, mister Brin and Milo would all enjoy something more substantial to eat.
That was one of the many things that had made Lime the head of the maid staff at Canterlot - anticipating needs before guests even realized they lacked something. It wasn't that difficult, Lime often thought. You just had to pay attention, and care for the happiness of others. What modest Lime didn't realize, was that she was truly exceptional at both.
When Gelato returned with the silver cart, Lime found she hadn't been wrong about the needs of the newly transformed guests.
"Oh...mnn.... this... this is fantastic. I couldn't even think of trying this a few hours ago but now... Mnn Mnf... thank you, by the way. Very thoughtful!" Sergey Brin was utterly lost now, awkwardly pushing his bowl of Thai-styled hay around the room, chasing it into a corner, gobbling the entire time like a hungry dog. The brown and white newly formed earthpony was lost in gustatory ecstasy, unthinkingly reenacting the first and oldest Bureau tradition - the First Meal As A Pony.
Swiftwind giggled at his father's unconsciously wagging tail. "I think he likes it."
"Here." Lime used her hornfield to set a bowl on the floor of the room and then floated a pitcher over to fill it with water. It was very clear that mister Brin had not yet learned how to use his new body. It was only kindness to make things easy for him. "He'll probably be thirsty after he finishes licking that bowl clean. Here's some nice water, easy to reach."
"Dad's kind of... he's not used to..." Swiftwind felt momentarily embarrassed by his father's clumsy, pet-like behavior.
"Stuff and nonsense. You have to stand, before you can trot." Lime smiled warmly at the blue colt. "I can't imagine how hard it must be to have to learn everything over again like a newborn foal. Be proud of your father. Help him. He's here for you, after all."
Lime had heard about all of the various intrigues and circumstances of these guests, of course. It was part of being the welcoming hooves of Canterlot Castle. Every guest had a story, and that story determined what they needed to feel comfortable and content. Lime liked nothing better than to know every guest of the princesses had just what they needed, right when they needed it.
Before she left, Lime made sure a second bowl of Thai hay and a large pitcher of water, and a second pitcher of melonade was set on the low table in the room. Sure enough, as she turned to leave, she spied Swiftwind stuffing his muzzle into the bowl, just as hungry as his father. The door closed, a bang and a rattle suggested that the little unicorn was likely chasing his own bowl across the floor just like his father, equally lost in the overwhelming savor of his new pony senses.
The three fillies barely noticed Lime when she entered to serve them tea and cakes. They were such good friends that it made Sherbet smile. The warm camaraderie reminded her of her own two closest compatriots, and their adventures together. Crimson, Plantain and Morning Star were heatedly discussing the events of the day, and plotting out likely futures for the two boys and their parents.
As Lime quietly closed the door, she heard Crimson Beauty - ever the proper one, that filly - call out. "Thank you kindly!"
Lime smiled at that. Crimson had turned out to be every bit as nice as her statue had seemed.
At Ms. Cabochon's room, Lime found Peridot with a hoof to her muzzle. Her little colt was sleeping, exhausted from too much emotion, and now filled with long desired contentment. The dark purple pegasus was curled up, his head using his mother's belly as a pillow, his back tucked into her flanks, pressed as tight and close as he could manage.
Lime was very quiet as she brought in another big bowl of leftover Thai hay and also some cakes and tea. Cabochon nodded and smiled at that. Being a unicorn, she could enjoy them without having to move and so disturb her child. Lime set down a pitcher of water and another of melonade as well, and then carefully left mother and sleeping colt to their intimate peace.
They would all leave tomorrow, but the troupe would be back again at least once more. Two statues remained in the Waiting Room, the years passing them by until the calendar permitted them a return to life. They were all like chrysalises, waiting to become butterflies.
Or perhaps pegasai, Lime thought, and giggled at the notion.
Plantain Acres crept carefully out of her bed, and moved quietly to the doorway. It had taken half the night, but finally her friends were asleep. Using her mouth, she slowly opened the door just enough to slip through. Once she was outside, she made sure the door was shut without a sound.
For six years Plantain had waited on her dreams. It was said that Luna walked in dreams, and within them could be met. As Celestia was the sun, bringing new dawns to the world, so Luna was the moon, attending night and the end of every day.
It was said that Luna guided the souls of the dead to whatever awaited them after.
Not for a moment had Plantain ceased missing her dearest lapine friend. Crème Bûnnée had been her closest companion, her teacher, her true friend, and in the end, her savior. Crème's absence gnawed at Plantain, chewing at her soul, breaking her heart. She tried to smile. She tried to be a good sister to Crimson, and a good friend to Morning Star, but... she always felt melancholy. She wasn't the same pony she once was, because her other half was gone.
This time, her hurt was greater than any fear. Luna was mysterious, and she spoke in ancient words. On Nightmare Night, she was terrifying - and thrilling. Few dared to bother her at any time. But Plantain Acres could bear no more. If the princess of dreams would not come to her in sleep, then she would go to the princess in the waking world.
Plantain stepped cautiously down the marble corridors. Though she strived for quietness, still her hooves made tiny clicks against the stone floor. Section after section, hall after hall, Plantain worked her way towards the part of the castle that Luna inhabited.
She had overheard that after raising the moon, the princess tended to retire to her quarters. Sometimes she could be found on a large balcony nearby, rearranging the stars. Occasionally, she was entirely absent, on some mysterious purpose of her own. Plantain hoped that luck would be with her upon this night, and that she would find the princess alone.
Luna's tower was across a large stone bridge which arched over an impossible drop to keeps and halls below. Plantain nervously ambled forward, darkness below and stars above. The moonlight made a fairy ribbon of the bridge and porcelain teeth of the other towers and spires. Halfway across the deserted bridge a breeze surprised Plantain by ruffling her mane. She looked around for the pegasus that must have caused it, but the night was lonely, and nothing flew in the sky.
Dark lanterns hung on both sides of the heavily embellished door. There were no guards, either, which struck Plantain as very strange. The royal guard was everywhere in the castle, standing proud in ancient armor. The lanterns were bright all through her trek until this point. Plantain felt the stone railing to make sure she wasn't dreaming. It felt solid.
The moonlight revealed the great tower doors were partially open. Images of Thestrals - bat winged ponies - flew through a carved, star-filled sky upon the door. A carved moon had been gilt with silver, and silver had been used to make the carved stars shine.
Beyond the massive doors, only darkness waited. Plantain stood, gathering her courage, before pressing on.
The darkness was profound. Plantain, only two or three hoofsteps in, found she could see nothing ahead. No window cast moonlight to guide her hoof falls, and no trail of light led from the tiny breach between the nearly shut doors. Plantain turned her head to look back over her flanks to see any light at all, and found no sign of the doorway whatsoever.
Carefully, the little earthpony turned her body entirely around, and blindly moved forward, sweeping her forehooves in an arc with each step. After her eighth or ninth hoofstep, she realized that she should have already met the other side of the barely open doors. Five more cautious, sweeping steps made her certain. There was no wall, and there was no longer any door.
Plantain sat down where she was, afraid and confused. She also felt guilty, for she had gone without permission into the private tower of the princess of the night. Plantain had no idea how to leave wherever she now was, or what she had gotten herself into.
In the absolute darkness, Plantain lightly tapped the floor with her hoof, in the thought that small, sharp echoes might indicate the size of the chamber, or even provide a clue to the presence of a wall. Plantain's hoof squished into sand instead of hard marble, and this alarmed her greatly.
All around her, as far as the poke or prod of her forehooves could tell, was sand. She was sitting on sand, the floor somehow absent or changed. The smell of water touched her sensitive nose, as her ears began to hear the sound of lapping waves.
Plantain's heart beat quickly now, for this was nothing ordinary in her experience, but was clearly some great and terrible magic at work. Possibilities raced through her mind. Could she have been teleported somehow, to some dungeon for her trespass? No... there was no smell of old stone or moss. The water smelled clean and fresh and pure. The sand was like that of a beach, not grit over dungeon stone.
Was it a dream, then, after all? The pain of her own bite just above her left pastern strongly argued that she must be awake. Plantain looked up, to see any hope of light or stars, but the same everpresent blackness confounded her vision in all directions.
Splish.
The sound was distant, but it was unmistakably wet.
Ploosh.
Plantain's pony ears rotated and locked onto the source of the sound, triangulating it. The sounds were ahead and to the left, and they were growing closer.
Splish. Sploosh. Splish. Splosh.
It sounded almost familiar. Like some object being dipped in water, over and over. Plantain's pony nose picked up the faint whiff of wet wood. Wet wood and... and an animal scent. An oh, so familiar animal scent. Tears began to roll down Plantain's cheeks. The scent was unmistakable. It was the scent of a bunny. A very special bunny, one that was part creature from the Everfree. Part Snow Bunny. Crème.
The mane that ran down her withers began to stand up, a tingle of fear and awe down her neck and back.
Splish. Ploosh. Splup.
The paddling had stopped, not more than eighteen hooves from where Plantain sat in darkness on some impossible shore. The smell of wooden boat and paddle blended with the almost overpowering familiar scent of her lost friend.
"Crème?" Plantain's voice quivered in the dark. "Is... is that you?"
Plish.
It was a small sound, not a paddle this time, but a paw. Plantain had heard it before, when her lapine other half had played with the water during many a bath. During play in the pond just beyond the plantation weather zone. That time in the vast crystal fountain in Leviathania when the show had performed for dragons.
"Crème... oh Crème!" Plantain was crying now, her fear almost replaced by grief and loss. "Do you need help? Are you in danger or trouble or..." Plantain wasn't sure what she was saying, because she had no idea what was exactly going on. All she knew was that the darkness was frightening, and this encounter was beyond her understanding.
Ploop, Ploop.
"Are you... okay?" Plantain leaned into the dark, ears focused on the exact source of the sounds.
Plish.
Why was there no light? Plantain yearned to see her friend. She could smell Crème clearly, precisely, that dear and beloved scent, strong and bright and so alive, right there, just a short space away.
Plantain began to rise to her hooves. If she could just touch Crème, if she could just get to her...
Ploop! Ploop! Ploosh! Plish! Ploop! Ploop! Plip!
The splashing was furious, desperate. Plantain froze, half standing, half sitting, her weight on her forelegs.
"Crème?" The splashing stopped. "Should I stay where I am?"
Plish.
Carefully, slowly, Plantain sat down fully once more. Just to be certain, she decided to confirm it. "I should stay here, right here, is that correct?"
Plish.
Plantain stared into the darkness, her useless eyes trained on the exact place that her ears and nose told her was where Crème sat in a tiny boat.
"Crème... Crème... you saved us, Crème. You nearly saved us all. We lost Hamton and Cutler and... some of the others... but they told the princesses where we are. They put a stop to the humans using pigs and chickens for meat. All the human children made it, and they are nearly all ponies now. Only Oliver and Isla are left, and they'll have their chance a few years from now. You saved... you saved me, Crème. You saved my life." Plantain let out a sob, she couldn't hold the tears back.
Plish.
Plantain wanted to jump up, to run to the smell of her bunny friend, but something inside her kept her still. Plantain felt no evil, no wrong from this, but she did feel a danger, as if she stood on the edge of a cliff, beyond which there was no returning.
"I miss you. I miss you so very much! I miss you every day, every single day. I miss you at breakfast, and I still look to see you there, but you aren't and... and..."
Ploosh, Plip, Plip, Plish!
Plantain wiped her eyes and nose with her foreleg. "I know. I know. I'm trying. I really am. Crimson - that's Petra, she's an earthpony now, just like me - Crimson is my sister now! Did you know that? I have a sister now!"
Plish.
"I can't... you can't come back with me, can you?
Plish.
"I don't like the idea of you being in this dark place, Crème! I don't understand this! I want to rescue you, I want to have you back, I want..."
New smells and sounds filled Plantain's nose, overwhelming her. They came like an assault, strong in the dark, with her attention so focused. The smell of berries and clover and warm summer grasses. Pies and cakes and... bunny laughter. Tiny squeaks and yeeps of joy and playfulness. The sort of sounds that Crème made when she was happy, only they were many and varied.
Plantain could hear bunny feet scampering and jumping and running about. And music, strange, otherworldly music, beautiful beyond anything she had ever heard before. It was a party, a celebration, and there were bunnies everywhere, more than her nose or ears could count.
And the hint of other smells, in the dark, farther away. Pig scents and chickens... and ponies.
"You're... you're alright, then."
Plish.
"Whatever is going on... it sounds like fun. Are you happy, Crème? It isn't bad? It's good?"
Plish.
For a while, relief streamed out of Plantain's eyes, down her cheeks onto the hard marble floor. Plantain set down the leg she was using to wipe her eyes with and a resounding 'clop' filled her ears. It echoed off of wall and ceiling.
Plantain looked around. Soft moonlight streamed through open windows, bathing the tower entrance chamber in silvery light. The marble tiles checkerboarded underneath the carpet that ran into the interior of the princess's tower. Low sofas and tables gleamed in the evening glow, and Plantain could make out the frames of ancient paintings on the walls around her.
Carefully, the little chestnut earthpony raised herself to her hooves and turned slowly around in the silence. The huge double doors were slightly open, just a crack, just enough for her to delicately, quietly exit.
In the light of the moon and stars, the stone bridge led away, back to the grand halls and keeps of the rest of the castle. Plantain took first one step, and then another, as she moved as quietly as she could away from the mysterious tower of the night princess.
When she reached the middle of the bridge, her left hoof pressed upon something that wasn't stone. Plantain looked down and slowly lifted her hoof.
There, in the center of the bridge, thousands of hooves above any garden or soil, was a single, white, Equestrian clover flower.
Plantain stared at it, laying there, on the stonework, flattened by her hoof. Plantain lowered her head to the stone, and the green, sweet smell filled her nostrils. Carefully, she picked the blossom up with her teeth, and raised her head. Reaching back, curving her long neck, she worked the flower into the pocket of her topcoat.
The mane on her withers rose again, as a tingle rippled down her neck and back. Plantain took one brief glance back toward the tower of the princess of the night, and saw the doors were tightly shut. The firefly lanterns blazed to each side of the doors.
Quickly, without heed to the sound of hooves, Plantain galloped back into the castle, and did not stop until she was behind the door to her room, and snuggled tightly into bed beside her grumbling, sleepy sister.
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why do people dislike chat's fics? they're epic!
Maybe it's just the fact that I'm awake at 3:30 AM, but... this chapter very nearly made me shed tears. :)
2938989
because some people are jerks. it's unfortunate, but true.
Absolutely cosmic, Chat! I love the concept of the origins of Equestria with the broad hints on the origins of the sisters as well. Plantain's visit to the shores of the river Styx and her interaction with Crème were inspired and a beautiful gift from Luna. Well done!
2939042 *sigh*
I found the condensed creation story at the start of the chapter frustrating. You can split a cliffhanger up a little bit, sure, spend some of that attention capital on an aside or a reflection, but if the aside is too long you'll start to lose the reader. The Chatoverse creation myth is explored in detail in other stories where it's more plot-appropriate to do so. A sentence or two hinting at what the sisters have been through, hinting at the larger story underneath would have been all I'd have ventured here.
Chat, you also have a rocky relationship with separating your subjects from their verbs with commas. I see it a lot all over the place, not just with you, and especially often with complex subjects.
The man who had handed her his coffee, was now smiling.
"The man who had handed her his coffee" is the subject, and "was" is the verb. Even though there are several words between "man" and "was," that comma shouldn't be there. For another version of this mistake, I'll take an example from this very chapter:
Life, was a pattern.
Here a comma is separating the subject and verb and it's not even a complex subject. I do know why it's there, though: it's to indicate a pause. Commas do often coincide with pauses in delivery, but that does not make them a kind of pause punctuation mark all by itself. Pauses will come through naturally in the flow of reading.
2939161
I dunno, I rather liked it, and it flowed nicely into the body of the chapter.
Nice touch with the seemingly random chapter picture, then the scene at the end. Took a second for it to click.
Holy mother of cows. And I thought getting used to the Exponential Lands was a big deal. The inverse square law (if we're calling it that) is a property of three-dimensional space (as we know it). What in the wide world of Equestria do ponies have instead of that!?
I spent a good fifteen seconds just staring at that opening image, trying to make heads or tails of it. At the time, this is all I could get:i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/masonry/000/203/208/ruby%20pinch%20wat.png
In any case, the beginning of this chapter showcases one of my favorite aspects of your writing style, your ability to churn out alien laws of physics like it ain't no thing. (I assume planar attraction is distinct from planotrahesion, given that Equestria is not a giant floating rectangle or Sierpinski gasket.
) Hypercylinders seem to be something of a signature universe shape for you. Of course, that you have a signature universe shape is another reason why you're one of my favorite authors.
For all that Luna doesn't want to be seen as a goddess, she sure did act like one. "Thou shalt not kill thyself," writ directly into Peridot's head meats. Then the brief trip to the edge of the Pony Styx. (Which was awesome, by the way. I love the idea of Luna as psychopomp, especially when considering how it worked during her exile.)
But I ramble. Fantastic chapter on all counts. Eagerly looking forward to more.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that even in the direst of textual circumstances, some words and phrases remain funny enough to make me stop reading and laugh aloud for almost a full minute, and that "head meats" as a euphemism for brain is one of them.
Your faithful student,
LittleSallyDigby
On the one hand, holy sprock Luna just went into that pony's brain and imposed her will on it without permission or approval of any kind.
I mean... this was an entirely benevolent use of that ability, and I guess it's more efficient than psychotherapy in some respects, but still, holy sprock. That is hard to justify in my mind.
On the other hand, that last turn of phrase makes me think of Zaphod Beeblebrox and his self-initialed brain scans.
This is becoming a bit of a trope, that Luna's personal chambers are so dark you can't see your hooves in front of your face. I feel like defying it at this point, and can think of a few good methods.
... Oh.
Ohhhhh.
Crème's not coming back, is she.
Dammit I'm gonna cry.
I haven't cried at this story yet but I'm going to now, and I don't know why.
I'm glad it was a happy part that did it though.
Right in the feels.
i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7102672640/h9DFBA2F3/
that was a very good psych out you gave us. I thought Peridot already jumped at the end of the last chapter.
2939161 I'm inclined to agree, keep the commas to where it's appropriate. Don't underestimate a reader's own capacity to place their own inflections and emphasis and pauses into a work of their own accord.
2939572 Well there are only so many other mathematical relations possible. One just needs to find the relationship that allows gravity to cease affecting architecture in a destructive fashion.
2939604 Yeah, that detail is pretty big, but was glossed over. I mean if Luna just went in and saw "Oh, she's trying to remove herself from Milo's life, and that's what went awry" and then let Peridot know that her son actually did love her, then that'd have been an improvement.
Plantain's reunion though... spot on.
Really like the etching of the bunny - It reminds me of those dreamy, surrealist European woodcuts from the early 1900s, especially the way the water is represented flat and graphically.
As powerful as it would've been, I'm glad Milo didn't lose his mom and that they got that whole misunderstanding sorted out. Hopefully the microscope project won't fall by the wayside, though, either. I wonder how Luna's messing with her brain affects her ability to be reckless or negligent - Maybe she's deathly afraid of heights now, and has been forever barred from her longstanding dream of being a test pilot/lumberjack/crab boat crewmember.
But in the end it's still cool, because everyone's preserved on the other side of the River...But you die and it's just more of the same ol' same ol', indefinitely? Reincarnation was hinted at in another story, but I hope there's at least a Buddhism-like escape hatch, because picturing the whole run feels a bit like one of those clanging, stroboscopic, forever-looping dreams you get dragged through when you have a fever. Being stuck in some kind of looping subjective state like that is the only thing I have anything even close to a phobia of.
Hmmm, I dunno, I'm pretty confident you could build a functioning Canterlot in this universe, but it would only look like a stone castle on a stone mountain, and underneath be something totally different. But then so is the original Canterlot, not being at all made of what we'd consider "normal" stone to begin with. Maybe you really could do it with natural materials here instead wickedly intricate artifice, but any technology that could manipulate forces with that precision on that scale would probably belong to a civilization so advanced that things like "castles" and "mountains" wouldn't interest them.
I wonder if in Equestria you could build something up to the sky dome, or if it always recedes from you, like the speed of light. Maybe space is hyperbolic and shrinks the closer you get.
2939572
You can probably "program" the energy to not fall off in certain directions. It would have to naturally fall off a little bit, though, otherwise you could be burned by a campfire a mile away, but it's probably a more Aristotelian or animist thing, where the phenomenon of "campfire" includes an agent to monitor the ponies around it and determine how much warmth they'd expect to receive. As for things like gravity, it's already been stated entropy works differently there (I've always thought magic sounded like Maxwell's Demon...), so increases in mass probably wouldn't necessitate increases in the "holographic" volume that corresponds to that region and so warp spacetime the way mass-energy does here, and instead things fall because they "want" to, just like Aristotle said. ...Assuming entropy is what causes spacetime to warp here, which isn't a lock yet, but it definitely fits with this universe's personal style.
2939161
Powers Of Ten is one of my very favorite films. If this chapter were music, it would be verse-chorus-verse.
In order to set up - for all readers - my mystical sequence at the end, I needed to underscore the nature of Luna and Celestia. While most pony fans would agree that the pony sisters are goddesses - some have never thought of this, and others do not perceive them this way. I write for anyone who might read my works, and I also... write for the future.
Peridot is heading towards the window - and her death. The underlying theme, then, is mortality.
At the last moment, she looks out the window, and sees... BIG. Equestria is vast, the drop is vast, the scale is cosmic. Cosmic is our second thematic element.
Running with those two themes, I do a cosmic zoom, using the window view as the bookends, to travel back in time in order to underscore the true, deific nature of the pony sisters. This sets up the acceptability - to any and all readers - that Luna is a psychopomp.
The cosmic zoom returns to the place it began, the real and metaphorical window.
This sequence has now established four important things, effortlessly, and in an interesting manner:
1. The pony sisters are deific.
2. Luna can believably be a psychopomp, guiding the souls of the dead.
3. My future book 'The Forbidden Well' has another brick of foundation. Future readers will be able to look back at this story with awe and astonishment going "Wow! Her world is so amazingly consistent!" Which is a reaction I treasure.
4. The physics of Equestria are vastly different than Mundis, and the pony sisters can alter them.
The entire sequence sets up the ending sequence, where Plantain briefly touches the fringes of what comes after. Verse-chorus-verse.
“Space, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space!” - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
The use of commas to indicate dramatic pauses was a commonplace feature of literature in at the turn of the century up until the fifties. After the fifties, as people no longer read books dramatically out loud to each other (actually, that probably ended in the twenties, to tell the truth) the use of commas changed to fit the changing times. Books were written with shorter, simpler sentences to fit the shorter time that people had to read them, and the clues for dramatic reading were entirely lost, because they were no longer relevant.
But authors like old Dougie up there, and I, grew up reading those old books, and we work by reading our own sentences out loud - or did, in the case of the now deceased Mr. Adams. I still live, however, and all of those old golden and silver age books, as well as Victorian literature influence me to this day. I naturally speak in the manner in which I write, at least when I am not nervous on Skype, and my sentences are long, and my words sensuous. My commas are the natural breaks of my speech mannerisms, and they are used for deliberate dramatic effect.
Except when I get too tired and screw up. Everybody screws up sometimes.
But mostly, they are my style. It is part of what makes my writing... my writing... and not just some textbook rattle of words. I consider my writing pose poetry, it is meant to be read dramatically, with fire and passion and made up voices, some of them quite silly.
I appreciate your desire to enrich and educate me, and everything you say about commas is valid for the twenty-first century. But I write from an older world, and a love of times, and stories, written long before you were born. It doesn't always work. But it is mine.
No, actually, they won't. If you had been forced to sit in the classrooms of my youth, listening to students of every grade and level desperately trying to sound out three and four letter words, stumbling on sentences that I mastered before I attended my first kindergarten class... well. It would be one thing, if this had happened in only one town, in one state, but I moved every three to six months of my life, and such illiteracy was the rule and not the exception.
A quick glance over the bulk of stories here will turn your stomach. BUT - if you can hold your meat, and your mud, you will see that most of the writers here are as devoid of command of dramatic pauses as they are short on imagination. While it is most likely that those who read my works must, rationally, be superior in intellect, ability, charm, panache, fine taste, ethics, and likely possess superhuman powers - there may be among this elite some more... ordinary... members of Fimfiction, and they deserve a few hints about where the pauses go.
Yes.. I am being a bit silly here, but I do value what style that is mine. It may be that I am out-clevering myself, and it may be that the style of writing I enjoy - especially for this particular work, with it's sub-theme of Old English Children's Book From Edwardian England - might be too ancient for modern tastes. I grasp this. I do.
But so long as Douglas Adams can write 'Space, is Big.' with a nice comma there for dramatic effect, well, then so can I, even though the old guy is dead.
Fnord.
2939591
I am utterly happy you enjoyed that. I hoped someone might find it funny.
2939604
The brain is part of the body. If the body is altered, the brain must also be in order to permit the creature to make use of its body. Pony brains are suited to pony bodies, and they are designed - not evolved - to suit pony society.
Luna is not as adept at ponification as her sister Celestia, and she would be remiss if she failed to do a proper job. The evolutionary adaptations of earthly creatures are a terrible disadvantage within a created, non-evolutionary cosmos. Luna may have screwed up, and left some bits unaltered, which for Equestria, would be like turning out broken, crippled ponies.
Luna is both princess and co-goddess here. She is not merely the keeper of law, she and her sister literally are law, both physical law, and social law. If one of her subjects is so broken that she is able to try to kill herself, then the problem is incorrect neuronal construction, not personal liberty.
Each new universe has its own ethos, because every universe is different, and has its own what works, and what doesn't work. Right and wrong depend on local physical laws. There is no absolute right or wrong in the multiverse, because there are no absolute physical laws across all universes.
Luna is an embodied group of physical laws. She has the same right to correct the flaws in Peridot, as the gravity of our own world has the right to pull you to earth.
2941355
I was very concerned about the illustration. I hoped it would be appropriate. I feared I had not done a sufficient job.
And more and more.... I can see Luna and Celestia standing stock still if anyone calls them Molly and Megan, respectively.
"MEGAN WILLIAMS! Just WHAT do you THINK you're doing to causality, young lady!?"
2941786
I gave it a reread and nah, I still don't think it should be there. It's the placement of it that gets me. None of the points you gave involve information needed to understand how the cliffhanger resolves: Luna pulls Peridot away from the window with magic. That's how the cliffhanger resolves, and it takes eight paragraphs (after the first, which is actual narrative) to get to it.
I say eight paragraphs because that's where Peridot's reflection starts, and I can understand a more intimate time-slowing-down life-flashing-before-the-eyes retrospective in the context. That's a good fit, and a good way to extend the suspense of the cliffhanger (if you don't count Peridot's reflections, it takes twenty-one paragraphs to get to where the resolution begins). The creation-myth stuff, however, just pulls me away from what has my attention as a reader, and that is "Will Peridot really die?" It's like "Oh, wait, we're talking about this now?"
2942056
Okay. Hopefully it worked for some folks.
I can only try my best, and be the weirdest I can be.
I... I...
*runs for the tissues!*
2941906 I think you might enjoy some of the historical passages in my story Roots. But I could be wrong.
2942849
I too think this is one of your weaker stories, maybe the weakest in terms of narrative, flow and overall structure, but it's interesting all the same. The main narrative, the original thing I came to read about, fizzled disappointingly, but the parts which have come after are nevertheless drawing me back. It's a different story now, and whilst it is undeniably lumpy, the content shows flashes of brilliance.
I don't want to sound mean and say it's terrible, because it's not, but it's less a single story and more a collection of set pieces (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) with their own more-interesting backstory than the relatively weak main story it purported to be.
Taken differently, this isn't human in equestria, it's humanity, and that is something I don't mind at all.
I know I just said this is one of your weaker stories - and whilst it is, because as a story it lacks flow - but I want to make it clear that there are some pieces here that are just fantastic. The hackles on my neck rose right up when I read about the bunny. That sort of imagery is superb, and it could stand being said louder.
I don't begrudge the story changing gears on you, because that's clearly what has happened. In return, you've extended your reach and changed the tone of the narrative. That it's mid-stride is just a trifle; whilst I could bring up a long litany of issues (biggest is comma abuse), it would do little but detract from what you got right, and that's some startling imagery.
If you want to look at the technical and grammatical issues some time, I offer you the same deal as with LaVedier, who suffers from the same sorts of problems, but just be aware, that's some cracking world-building and some spine-tingling and awe-inspiring vistas.
2941786
Huzzah!
No, really. I, too, take much criticism for my effusive use of commas and ellipses with nary a care. But I do so like the little little pauses that illustrate the ebb and flow of language as it is spoken ... or as it should be spoken, at any rate.
Then again I am old, and I still drill my penmanship on odd occasion to ensure my cursive maintains style and legibility. So my opinion on the matter may not be exactly present tense...
For me, the simple fact I can read your works and pick out the different speech patterns of the characters is golden. In the vast world that exists betwixt my ears your characters have voice, pattern, and even meter - and this differentiates them very well.
So, yes, in this modern age of the Comma Sutra (A Guide to Grammatical Satisfaction) and those who will intone from its musty well-worn pages with exacting precision - as if reading the litany with any semblance of excitement will anger the gods of Oxford and Webster - I think you should continue exactly as you are... It shall, of course, give your pre-readers a case of the kittens each and every time they must re-read a passage and look beyond parenthetical typecasting and the rules of conjunction - but this shall be good for them I think. ;)
Charon is also a moon.
2945366
Thank you for that, thank you very much.
I made the insane mistake, very recently, of submitting my Optimalverse novel to Equestria Daily. Two separate pre-readers made a point of rejecting my book on the most spurious of grounds - my use of 'En Dashes' versus 'Em Dashes' did not somehow please them, that I didn't use enough semicolons (something I've been taught NOT to use), that my sentences were too long to be 'enjoyable', that they personally didn't like my comma usage.
I was rejected TWICE, for only ONE submission. They were likely going for three and I'm out - but there was an internal battle.
I was informed behind the scenes that the entire thing was ridiculous, and blatantly political - they just didn't want ME on EQD ever again. In the end, it became clear I am being blackballed there, just because I am me. My pre-reader friend is going to quit soon - he's had enough.
Getting crap about my less modern writing style - STYLE, not rule, not fact, not absolute - destroys my will to write. It feels like pettiness, and it feels like EQD all over again. I have been very sad last night and today.
I was very happy with chapter thirteen, and my only wish was that what I had tried to do with it would be emotionally resonant.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your post. I hover just barely above emotional collapse with regard to my writing most of the time now - hearing your entirely supportive words was a balm in a time of distress. Your kindness was something I desperately needed.
2941857
I see my problem. For good or for ill, my mind tends to default to its "Discworld" setting with certain terms, "god" among them. I hear "god," I think "manifest belief whose form is defined by its believers and whose powers are directly proportionate to the number thereof."
Obviously, this doesn't apply to the Royal Pony Sisters, but until now, I hadn't realized your takes on Celestia and Luna were
anthropomorphic personificationshippomorphic ponifications, i.e. incarnations of one or more universal forces and/or concepts.So, yeah. Blame Terry Pratchett.
I really need to read your comments on your own stories more often. I'm probably missing more than I realize.
2946413
Well I hope I didn't upset you. I've always tried to be honest with my comments, but not brutally so. I expect no less from everyone else. Chapter 13 was fine, for me. The little side-trip into the history of Equestria was fascinating, and I thought that you melded the transition well. One could argue it shouldn't be there, but I've got no complaints. Weaker, or weakest, you should understand, does not mean weak.
Now buck up and get back to writing, I'm waiting for chapter 14!
2959715
The ultimate result of using our senses and the power of logic to examine the universe as it appears is to determine that it requires no deity to bring any of it into existence, or to maintain it, or to be responsible for anything which goes on inside of it. This is the obvious conclusion of scientific investigation, one which over 90% of all legitimate scientists, world-wide hold.
This doesn't mean all scientists are atheists, or that they follow no philosophies, or that they lack a 'spiritual' side, it simply means that there is no room for big 'G' god, if you use logic, reason, and observation to understand reality. There's no need for gods. Or souls. Or anything magical.
Science can't say god (magic) doesn't exist, of course. You can't prove the nonexistence of something that has no apparent existence. But, following Occam's Razor, if there is no evidence whatsoever of god (magic), and if there is no need whatsoever for a god to exist to explain anything, then... in practical terms, in rational terms, that pretty much puts paid to god as far as anything other than literally mindless, blind, arbitrary belief just for the hell of it.
This is why folks like Richard Dawkins are so calmly clear and gently adamant about the issue. The gaps in knowledge, within which some evidence of godly matters might be sneaking about like some supernatural ninja get smaller and smaller every single day. Right now, the only remaining hope for a hiding place for god is in the quantum realm, and that's closing up real, real fast.
Apparently, god is really, really, submicroscopically shy. Or utterly doesn't want to be found. Or is deliberately hiding from us. Or doesn't, you know, exist.
And that is the practical result of using our senses to look at the world, see what happens in it, work out how it happens, and then prove that concept is true through doing it bits of it ourselves. Which is all science is.
The proving bit, of course, is where technology comes from.
2959903
Many readers really wanted to see Windfeather strongly and harshly punished. I wrote just such a Trollestia ending for the little native Equestrian. I desperately wanted my readers to like me, so I did what they wanted most, instead of what I should have written.
Later, Peachclover came along and wrote a marvelous, and much kinder, more loving, and more in-character-with-Celestia (as I see her) alternate ending that surpassed my own rude one.
I regret not taking the path Peachclover did. I got caught up in 'revenge-fever' over the little pegasus bigot, instead of writing Celestia as a gentle and always kind teacher and mother figure.
2960053
I think what Sozmioi was referring to was metaphysical Naturalism not being the same thing as Physicalism, i.e. how a completely naturalistic universe can still have non-physical elements, or even be entirely non-physical, just that all the thinking and perceiving inside it are its effects as well as causes. But there can be a whole zoo of "attractors" and "landscapes" and geometry and other abstract-but-real phenomena that do all the same heavy lifting as some explicit, conscious teleology, and all that changes about consciousness or meaning is that it happens to be made out of (what looks to itself like) little particles instead of some inscrutable magical stuff. Mathematical Platonism is probably the strongest and most serious example of something like this, though I'm biased because I think it's correct, and that a naturalistic universe is much more elegant, coherent, and satisfying than one with supernatural elements.
-----
I dunno... I actually appreciated both of Windfeather's punishments as kind of mirror images of each other. The first time, he's thrown into a more extreme version of the exact situation he was unsympathetic to the newfoals for being in (and he'll still be alright, just really confused and out of place), and the second time he was forced to experience their situation in the literal sense. The second one is almost crueler, I think, because it happens again and again, even though he does get to go back to his old life (presumably traumatized), as opposed to having to start over in a completely unfamiliar but benign new one.
2915451>>2963122
It has already been explained. The humans kept the animals unaware of where they were, or that humans were involved. Only diamond dogs dealt with the meat animals.
Until Sloane Cameron - Peridot Cabochon - decided she wanted meat, and she didn't buy the notion that pigs had souls that could tell Celestia or Luna anything. She went in with a gun. Gave them all away. That was why she left and got ponified, remember? Not for her son, Milo, but because the rest of the humans were mad at her for blowing their schemes.
And that was why Peridot was so ashamed. She had left the Masada not for her son, but because she was tired of being treated like crap, and because she wanted to start her own little empire. Because she showed the smartest pig that she was human, and she had her diamond dog servant kill that pig with a gun.
It's all there. Just go look.
As for the D&D specific monsters in the Everfree - well, I am just following two sources for that: Hasbro, and the writers of MLP:FIM. Hasbro owns D&D - they bought it off of Wizards years ago. The writers of MLP have been using D&D in the shows we watch: manticores (Monster Manual 1), cockatrices (Monster Manual 1), minotaurs (Monster Manual 1), dragons, natch, and blatantly D&D like adventures. Oh, and phoenixes (Monster Manual 1).
MLP:FIM is often like D&D with ponies. I'm just agreeing with the writers of the show, and the corporation that owns them.
And, I'm not the only one!
2966120
Less "bought it off of Wizards" and more just "bought Wizards". The D&D rights are still subsidiary to WotC and would go with Wizards if they bought themselves back for some reason.
Not that it makes a difference. :P
2939572
yes, it seems to me that 'inverse square law' isn't really quite what she's aiming at, nor is 'angle of repose'. I mean, on the length scale of a city, the inverse square is effectively a constant. Also, angles of repose are for granular materials or materials lying on slopes - not things tightly bound to a solid rocky mountain.
Canterlot would be difficult to engineer, and would require materials other than stone, but it is not a physical impossibility. I suspect that ordinary steel would suffice, if not iron.
2966120
Long, long before Monster Manual 1, those creatures were in myth. Unlike, say, Beholders and Displacer beasts.
And as for the piggies... if the humans had emphasized the risks entailed by their meat supply, that would have helped. As you might note, one of my guesses was the correct answer. Even knowing that, it still felt DEM. Powers not established in canon being used without specific (instead of oblique) reference previously... I'll go back and check the early chapters to see if I missed a more concrete reference, but given its plot significance, you might want to beef up the preparation on that point.
Wonderful chapter. I loved it.
Glad to see everything worked out with Peridot and Milo :D I do so adore happy endings.
That scene with Plantain... so intense and powerful. I'm gonna need a moment.
Also since everyone's been giving you crap about the commas, let me just say that I personally approve of the use of them as pauses. I trained myself to do that with ellipses instead, but commas work just as well most of the time. As long as you don't do what some people do and start using more than one comma in a row to indicate a longer pause (I seriously used to know people who did this. I am glad that I no longer do) we're cool.
It is the square/cube-law:
The mass increases by the cube, but strenth increases by thecrosssection, which is the square. As an example, if one simply doubles the dimensions of a pony, its mass will increase 8x, while the crossesction of the legs increase by the square, so are 4x as powerful. Its each square-unit of legs will have to support twice as much force.
That last scene, especially, was amazing.
10392854
With the mythic nature of the Pony Sisters established from the first episode (the 'pony bible', Celestia depicted in early Catholic Manuscript style as hanging over all, creating all of Equestria, night and day) I was convinced that the Princess of Night and Dreams also had to be a psychopomp. Of course, I thought, she would attend the dead and dying, and take them to whatever the Equestrian afterlife was. By the final book, we will understand just that a great deal better!
Thank you for liking this chapter... I was going for an eerie effect, one that I hoped would give the reader the feeling of a deeply infranatural experience.
Cartoon physics. Gotta love it.
I found the description of Equestria's inspiration and creation fascinating.
Oh dear. I take it the reunion did not go well.
Madrigal poked her head in from a couple of stories back. "Hey, I resemble that remark. Bogus!"
A stern look from cyan eyes made the apocryphal intruder quickly remove herself from the narrative...before she found her pinions plucked.
Meanwhile, back here in the real world... I feel Plantain's sorrow. And not just because I loved that little half Snow Bunny too. I suffered my own great loss a little over a year ago, and I still haven't recovered from it and I don't think I ever really will. I seek whatever Joy I can find, and I have dived headlong into this new fantasy of ponies and magic, as a refuge, as an escape, as an indisputable rejection of a reality I sometimes find too painful to bear.
I do not live full-time in a fantasy world. Sometimes I almost wish I did, but I have obligations to meet, and people who depend on me, and I have a purpose in life skill and while that purpose exists I have to be here to fulfill it.
The only hope that sustains me is that my best beloved waits for me on the other side of this reality. Without that I wouldn't be able to go on at all.
11494456
Plish.