The God Of Breaking Rules in the Land of the Dead

by alarajrogers

Chapter 5

The god of breaking rules went to the border of the river. He looked up and down the bank of the river, and finally found the ferrymare, an old crone clad in a hooded black cloak.

"Oh, ferrymare, I need passage into the Land of the Dead," the god of breaking rules said.

"I will take you, if you have bits," the ferrymare said. "Do you have two bits?"

"No, I do not," the god said, bringing forth his bag. "But I have these beautiful scarves of the day and the night."

"I do not want such things. I only want bits."

"I have a stag's antler and a goat's horn."

"I do not want such things. I only want bits."

"I have the clay of life, from Nature's table, and I have the thread of fate, taken from the Three Sisters, the weavers of Fate."

"I do not want such things. I only want bits."

The god sighed. "You drive a hard bargain, ferrymare. Perhaps I should swim across."

The old crone grinned at him. "You can do so if you wish, but if you do, you will lose all your memories. Those who drink of the River Styx forget their memories of life."

"I thought that was the River Lethe."

"They are all the same river," the crone whispered. "So I would advise that you find yourself two bits to pay me with, or else never shall you cross the river with your memories of life intact."

Dejected, the god of breaking rules sat by the side of the river, trying to think how he could do as he had planned, for he knew that if he left this place to go find a mortal pony to give him bits, he would not be able to find his way back without another dead creature as a guide—and it was great fortune that he had come upon the bird he saved before it was fully dead. Who knew when he would meet with such fortune again?

Then a fish popped up out of the water and spoke to him. "God of breaking rules, why are you so sad?"

"I do not know how to cross the River Styx without swallowing water," he said. "If I bind my mouth and nose so I cannot swallow and I cannot accidentally snort water, then I will be unable to breathe when my head breaks the surface, and I will never make it across. But I do not have coins for the ferrymare."

"If you had gills like mine, nothing could be easier!" boasted the fish. "I do not breathe through my mouth or nose; water flows through the gills by the side of my neck, and I breathe from that. It's a shame you have no gills, god of breaking rules."

"You could give me yours," the god said. "And I could break the rules of water creatures for you, and give you the ability to breathe and walk on land."

"Why would I want such a gift?" the fish asked.

"Fish, in a rushing river such as this one you have nothing to fear but the larger fish that make their meals of you. But what if you were to swim into a calm pond, where those large fish cannot go, and then the sun were to dry the stream between the river and the pond, so you could never return? Or worse, supposing the pond itself dried? With the power to crawl on land and breathe the air, you could make your home in small ponds where you would be the biggest fish, and you need never fear that the pond would dry up and leave you to choke."

"Hmm, that does sound like a good deal," the fish said. "Very well, god of breaking rules, I will trade you some of my gills for the ability to breathe in the air and crawl on the land."

And so the god of breaking rules broke the rule of fish, and created the lungfish, who crawls from pond to pond when hot summer dries up its home.

With gills, the god of breaking rules had a plan to safely cross the river. First he put most of his things in his bag, and put his bag in his mouth, to block the water from coming through his teeth. Then he used the scarves to bind his muzzle, so his nose was covered and his jaw was held together tightly. Now he could not breathe in the air any longer, for no air could come into his nose or mouth. But where air cannot go, neither can water, so he was safe from accidentally swallowing the water of the river. And when he put his head down into the water, the gills breathed for him, so he could swim without running out of air.

In this way he reached the far bank of the River Styx, and was truly in the land of the dead.

He removed the scarves, took his bag from his mouth, and wrung them all out until they were dry, with no risk that there would be water to swallow still held within them. Then he slung them back around his neck and proceeded inward, to recruit help from the dead.

---

In the land of the dead there was a stallion called Futile Ambition, whose goal in death was to push a huge and heavy stone to the top of a hill. The Lord of the Dead had promised Futile Ambition that if he should succeed, he would be allowed to enter the Elysian Fields, the lands of paradise that lie within the Land of the Dead. But this was a lie, for only the virtuous dead may enter the Elysian Fields, and Futile Ambition had been a ruthless schemer in life. To ensure that he could never succeed, a spell had been cast on the stone such that, as soon as it drew close to the top of the hill, it would slip from Ambition's grasp and fall.

Now the god of breaking rules knew that his power could not stand against the power of the Lord of the Dead, and that he needed to conserve his strength in order to break the law of life and death. So he did not break the rule of the stone or its need to fall. Instead he approached Ambition. "Ho there, good fellow! Why do you spend all your time pushing that stone up the hill? It seems a great effort, and I cannot see what you gain by it!"

"The Lord of the Dead has promised me that if I should get it to the top, I will be allowed to leave this terrible task and enter the Elysian Fields," Futile Ambition said. "Such is my ambition."

"And ambition has been the rule of your life, has it not? All that you have done, you've done for ambition," the god of breaking rules said, and looked into the stallion's eyes. "But ambition has won you nothing but death, and a thankless, endless task. What if you were to give up on your ambitions, and follow another's? Perhaps you would have more success that way!" And in so saying, he broke the rule of that stallion's life, and freed him from the hold of his own ambition. To break the rule of a pony's personality drains them of color and happiness, but Futile Ambition was a dead shade, and his slavery to the stone made him unhappy, so all in all, he was not harmed by this.

"You're right," the shade said, the colors he had had in life draining from him and causing him to turn grey. "My ambition has never made me happy, nor brought me success."

"Follow me, then. We will challenge the very rule of the Lord of the Dead, and perhaps you may win freedom from these lands that way."

"Perhaps," Futile Ambition said, "though I find I don't really care very much one way or the other."

"That's the spirit!" the god said, and went to find the next shade of the dead.

He came to a mare named Short Grasp, who had spent her life reaching for what she could not have, and in her quest for the forbidden had even sacrificed her own foal to dark powers, all to no avail, since death had taken her anyway. She was standing in a shallow stream, chained by her leg so she could not escape. Above her on the riverbank, a wonderful apple tree grew, heavy with fruit, and its overladen branches hung just above her head. But if she bent to the water to drink, the water receded, until there would be nothing but dry rocks below her. And if she stood on hind legs to reach the apples above her, the branches retreated, lifting until she could no longer reach them any longer.

"Ho there!" the god of breaking rules called to her. "You seem to be in a bit of a bind there, my lady!"

"Oh, I am so hungry and thirsty!" Short Grasp moaned. "I would do anything for one who allowed me to drink my fill of this water and eat an apple!"

"But you must recognize, the Lord of the Dead has forbidden you these treats," the god of breaking rules said. "Even I, who break the rules, dare not break his rule – not unless we could challenge and overthrow him."

"I would gladly aid with that," Short Grasp said, "but I am chained here!"

"Well, it is a rule that a chain holds together," the god of breaking rules said. "Break that rule, and the chain shall break as well." And so it was done.

Now that she was free, Short Grasp attempted again to bend her head to the water, or to leap up and take an apple, but the spells that had tormented her were still active, and she could not. "Leave off those things! Find satisfaction in something else, at least until you have the power to take what you want," the god of breaking rules said. "Here, why not quench yourself this way?" And he turned the muddy bank of the river into chocolate, with puddles of chocolate-flavored milk wherever there had been a puddle of river water. And Short Grasp ate her fill of chocolate and quenched herself with chocolate milk.

Many souls within the Land of the Dead were suffering torments for their wickedness in life. To each one, the god of breaking rules came, and broke some rule or another, that they would be free of their torments and could follow him. And in this way, he led an army of the dead to the Elysian Fields, for he knew his love had been virtuous, and that she would be within the lands of paradise. The Elysian Fields were well guarded, with walls of bone and briar, protected by creatures such as manticores and orthroi. Only two gates led to the fields, the gate of horn and the gate of ivory, made from the horns of fallen alicorn gods and the tusks of the elephant lords. At night, the Lady of Dreams, wife of the Lord of the Dead, would leave through one of the gates or the other, to travel the world and bring dreams to the sleepers. Directly within the gates was the glorious palace of the Lord of the Dead, made of obsidian and worked all over with gold and silver, studded with gems.

The god of breaking rules had no intent to go to the Lord of the Dead's palace. He intended to travel directly into the Elysian Fields to look for his lost love. But if his army was fighting the Lord of the Dead, he thought, then the Lord of the Dead would be too busy to stop the god of breaking rules. So he told each of the lost souls following him that they had come to challenge the Lord of the Dead, though he knew that task was impossible.

At the gates, the Lord of the Dead himself met the army of shades with his own army. The shades of warriors who had fallen in honorable combat, defending their homes or their loved ones, had been granted passage to the Elysian Fields to serve as its defenders, though never before since the Dawn Times had a defense been needed. Terrifying creatures joined in battle with those shades, attacking the army of the wicked dead. Manticores, orthroi, cockatrices, gorgons, phoukas, bansidhe, and wyverns, all fought alongside the noble dead against the army raised by the god of breaking rules.

But most of these creatures were chimeras, famed for being made by the breaking of one rule or another, and many of them were the children of the god of breaking rules, his own creations from the Dawn Times. They fought the army of wicked shades at the command of their master, the Lord of the Dead, but they granted their father deference, and let him pass. So the god of breaking rules walked right through the battlefield, ignoring the combat, wanting only to reach the gate of ivory or the gate of horn before the shades he'd tricked into following him all fell in battle and were dispersed back to their appointed torments.

And then he met the hydra, who would not let him pass.

"Hydra, I made you!" the god of breaking rules exclaimed. "You could not grow back two heads for one lost if I had not granted you the breaking of the rule of numbers! You could not even have more than one head if I had not broken the law that one creature has one head, for you! Stand aside for me!"

"Father, our lives are torment, for we are always fighting with each other, yet, sharing one body, we can never escape each other!" the hydra's heads screamed. "Your gifts have given us nothing but conflict and discord, and our suffering is endless! Only by serving the will of our master the Lord of the Dead have we found any peace! So we will not stand aside for you. We will crush you, for the pain your gifts have given us!"

"You can try," the god of breaking rules said.

So saying, he leapt into the air, and began to dart this way and that. The god had always been very agile and flexible, and now that half his body was a dragon's, he was even more so. He flew between two heads and caused them to bite at him, snapping, and then when he circled around them, and between their necks, and around them again, he caused them to accidentally knot two necks together. Then he performed the same dance with two other heads, confusing them and flying over and under and this way and that way until they, too, had tangled themselves in a knot.

But the hydra's fifth head had no partner to be tangled with. "Thank you, father," the fifth hydra head taunted. "By tying the others, you've left me free to act, with no interference from the others."

The god of breaking rules fired a bolt of magic at the fifth hydra head, intending to blast it off and thus to force the hydra to grow two more heads, which he could then tangle. But the god of breaking rules was no warrior, for no war can be fought if the soldiers know no discipline and rule. The hydra dodged his bolt of magic, and before he could launch another attack, it caught him in its fanged mouth and bit him, poisoning him with its venom.

He tried to break the rule of the hydra's venom, which brings paralysis and numbness, but already his magic had gone numb, and he could no longer fight. And so the hydra brought him to its master in triumph, and laid his limp and paralyzed form before the Lord of the Dead.

"You did not learn from the last time," the Lord of the Dead said. "Here in the Land of the Dead, nothing can die. But I can imprison you, and I can make you suffer for your crimes. You will remain within the Land of the Dead eternally, but never be reunited with your love."

Then the Lord of the Dead had him dragged beneath the earth below the palace, to be imprisoned in a tomb of stone.

Comments

[Spiritofchaos227]

Curse you Lord of the Dead!! Why won't you let Discord's ship sail?

[Dott]

This is really, really neat. I love how it's written like a myth, it flows very well. :D Reading it, I couldn't help but think of Mythology by Edith Hamilton, which I had to read for mythology class. The writing style is similar, but yours has funny quips, which I like.

(spoilers because I don't know if this counts as a spoiler) Are of the figures like meant to represent canon characters? I know the god of breaking rules is obviously Discord, and The Goddess of Wisdom is obviously Twilight, and the sun and moon are Celestia and Luna. But the Spinner, Weaver and Sealer could fit as the Apple family, and the sky's personality reminds me of Rarity, though it would make more sense if she were Rainbow Dash, because pegasi. I can't figure anyone else out, though. It may just be me being dense.

[alarajrogers]

5663509
No, nobody is literally anybody except for Discord, Celestia and Luna (and Philomena), though obviously the Goddess of Wisdom is based on Twilight. :-) But no, the Mane 6 aren't in this; most of the characters are original, more or less.

And yes, it's intended to read like a myth -- one of my hobbies is world mythology, so I have read tons and tons of this stuff. The snarky quips wouldn't really be there in most myths, though; I'm throwing those in because it's Discord, so I really can't help myself. :-)

[Dott]

5663614 Ah, okay. I remember thinking some of the others kinda sorta fit some of the mane 6, but not as much as the ones you said.

Mythology is super fascinating to me. I need to read some more outside of Greek and Norse. And yeah, it just wouldn't be Discord without him making smartass comments :)

[Captain Wuzz]

Oh good, I was hoping you hadn't abandoned this one! I love Trickster myths and was a bit worried this one was going to be forgotten as I didn't see it on here.

*Goes to read new chapter*

[alarajrogers]

5666653
No... it's the least popular story in my portfolio so I wasn't putting a high priority on updating it, but I have the whole thing outlined line by line, and each chapter is really short. I'd wanted to get it done before Nov 9 last year so I wouldn't have stories sitting un-updated for a year, but that didn't happen.

But yeah, trickster myths are my absolute favorite, and the opportunity to write a myth that steals shamelessly from so many other mythologies and includes subtle callbacks to stuff in the series (my favorite part is still the scene where the god of breaking rules defeats Rock with water, and Rock says "Someday I will have you," and the god says "You just keep telling yourself that", and we all know Rock is right)... oh, I'm definitely going to finish this.

[Captain Wuzz]

5666808

Trickster tales are the BEST.

Have you read "Trickster Makes This World" by Lewis Hyde?

Apart from some parts where he I think he pushes the artist/trickster link a bit tenuously (probably in his choice of artists) it's brilliant. I love the chapters on why Tricksters are attracted to dirt and trouble. Ahhh...they're so much more interesting than the standard head gods like Apollo et al.

[FashionablyHospitable]

Deer me. That ending.

[Emperor]

I feel like Futile Ambition, your Sisyphus expy, is a little too on the nose in his name. Short Grasp is far better by that criteria.

Discord here feels more like a God of Deals, though of course in some cases his personality as a trickster begins to shine through, such as giving the hydra the ability to grow back heads, only for them to be discordant with one another. It's rather interesting to see just how many creatures he has created however, and one begins to wonder just how much of creation hasn't been affected by the God of Breaking Rules. I suppose even ponies have been affected in some way (perhaps with their Cutie Marks?).

The Lord of the Dead doesn't quite seem to understand that nothing can stop the God of Breaking Rules, in any event.