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Beware The Carpenter


What looks white when it's glad, red when it's sad and transparent when scared; sleeps through the night yet hides from the sun, won't give its name but pretends it's a bee and enjoys rollerskating?

T

They lied to me. They told me I’d been sick, that I'd contracted a virus, and that’s why I couldn't remember two years of my life. Celestia, my friends, Shining Armor, Cadance, Spike… they all looked me straight in the eye, and told me the same thing, the same lie, for eighteen years.

I will never forgive them.


Equestria at peace and Luna by her side, Celestia has everything she ever wanted. But now that she has what she asked for, Celestia refuses to uphold her end of the deal and Zecora does not abide broken contracts.


You think I’m crazy; don’t you? You’re just like all the others, judging me before you know me because you believe everything you hear without even considering that that the world might be wrong; because you don’t think!

I don’t care.

The world doesn’t know me, Celestia’ doesn’t understand me, and you don’t deserve to glimpse the world I live in.


Set twenty-two years after Storm of Secrets.
Reading trhe Summary of Storm of Secrets is recommended but this hyper summary will brief you on everything you need to know -

World:

1. Most alicorns are mortal unicorn/pegasi with an average amount of magic. There are six cosmic forces that require an Alicorn to steward them, and when one steward dies another takes over, becomes immortal, and gains a large but non-ridiculous power boost.

2. MQ is a measure for a unicorn's raw magical power. An average unicorn had 100 MQ. Unicorns with more than 400MQ are referred to as Alpha Unicorns. Twilight 636, Celestia 1220.

Plotline:

1. The Everfree Forest is bigger on the inside than the outside. The deeper levels include multiple hives of changelings and monsters called Terrormongers who can create illusions, feed off fear, and are being held at bay by a secret Equestrian army corp called Everfree Rangers. (Details unimportant.)

2. Rainbow Dash is married to a Ranger veteran named Silent Storm.

3. Zecora is a martial art master; and has trained elite rangers for years, including Shining Armor and Silent Storm.

4. Shining Armor has gotten a massive boost to his power, and now has an MQ over 1800.

5. Cadance is Luna and Celestia's niece! Her mother is Celestia's half-sister who stewards the oceans and rules the island Queendom of Oatlantis.


There will be satellite stories linked in the authors notes of various chapters; read them if you want a fuller picture of what's going on. Some of them have less obvious connections, then others, but they are all relevant; particularly Forsaken and Celestia's Smartypants.

I almost rated this story mature. This is not a clopfic or a gorefic, but there are a lot of serious issues including things like rape, torture, suicide, addictions etc. Consider the story to have a lot of mature content, not juvenile content. I don't claim to have all the answers about everything I touch on; but I hope I've at least asked the right questions, in a way that will make people think.

Chapters (26)
Comments ( 176 )

Consider the story to have a lot of mature content, not juvenile content.

Then shouldn't this story be rated mature?

3917253

To most 'mature' would mean to specifically describe what got kissed, what got touched ect. To me 'mature' would mean a sensible discussion on the physical/ emotional results.

Given that some statistics say one in three American girls will get pregnant before age 20; I don't see any reason to rate this as inappropriate for most teenagers because it includes 'mature themes' like unplanned pregnancy.

Poor Twilight... literally robbed of her chance with having a family of her own. I also remember the time before you changed your name to your current one now and I feel like that nudge to Iron Will is possibly part of your other story which I should get to sometime in the future. If only because I like knowing the facts:pinkiehappy:

Also a shiplist from memory;

Spike x Sweetie
Rarity x her sanity
Rainbow x Storm
Twilight x disaster
Shining x Cadance
Applejack x Fancypants?! Wait what?!
Pinkie x ???
Fluttershy - deceased along with child and husband
Philomena x Pyromite


Did I get them all? Except Iron Will of course, that'll be for your other story

3944180

Pinkie x ???

Some lucky bloke who get's Pinkie and identical triplet daughters who act crazier then their mother :pinkiesad2::pinkiesad2::pinkiesad2: On the other hoof, maybe not so lucky. There's a story behind that.

Applejack x Fancypants?! Wait what?!

Yup; there's a story behind that too.

Twilight x disaster

There is definitelya story behind that; don't assume it will be simple. All theories welcome.:duck:

3947780 I just hope they aren't all colts and are named Moe, Larry, and Curly.

As for Twilight, do you think she got cursed?

Meh, seems like a quite general answer isn't it?:pinkiecrazy:

3949106

"Cursed?" :twilightoops: "Who would curse me, and why?"

3953759

Well, you did mention some cursed artifacts...

Comment posted by Beware The Carpenter deleted Mar 29th, 2014

That was interesting. Best of luck with the next chapter.

So... Kill all the ponies?:pinkiesad2: I just think Twilight may be a little lonely being in the school with almost literally no family or other friends to be with her.

Though with what you wrote in the story summary... Twilight is going to be in some deep defecation:pinkiegasp:

4151965
Thanks for the corrections :twilightsmile:

So... Kill all the ponies?

Whose killing what ponies now?

4154785 Let me see... Fluttershy is dead, her husband is dead, her unborn child is dead, Sweetie Belle is dead... Rarity is insane (with possible dead cats). 9 hostage ponies are dead... I'm starting to fail to count dead ponies

4156300

I won't lie to you, people will die in this story; but so far, in a story set 22 years after SOS, I've killed 1 of the mane six and have added/ will add 13 children. I've killed 1 CMC and will add 1 child with 1 more on the way, and as for the captives I've killed 9 out of about 400.

That hardly counts as killing everyone.

(I guess you could also count Owlishious in the death count, but owl's only live to their mid/late twenties at most and I'm thinking Owlishious was already fairly old when he met Twilight. He had a good life. :pinkiesad2:)

So then, would all those times she wanted to go back to the Zahharen be 'planned' coincidences? There is more to this than meets the eye. We must go deeper and never turn back. Wait, that sounds like a terrible idea... but I'm doing it anyways:pinkiecrazy:

Now Twilight is getting the short end of the stick of things so to speak. But maybe, just maybe after 'recovering' (more or less) she can reface her past of what had happened and perhaps shed some new light on things. They say that time can heal all wounds, but how deep are Twilights?

4245944

5. Invented term for the device though I admit not the most creative of names; :eeyup: Precient means marking out a location; so I combined it with the word compass.

Thanks for the corrections.

4245944

As for the 'coincidences'. the first and last ones were planned; as for 'Spike's incident with the diamond dogs' I'm working on the vague story idea that Spike finds a illegal Diamond Dog casino that uses gems for chips, getting a gambling addiction, working up some huge debt and Twilight learning to count cards to help him.

It could be interesting if developed properly but I don't want to pen myself in yet in saying what happened except there was an... 'incident'. :moustache:

Well now... This could be one reason why she went insane. But then again, there is obviously something more pressing. The cause of their deaths (but for me, it would be why Twilight married a zebra or rather, how it came to pass).

Another curiosity is about the name of your second story. It's near similar to this, I daresay identical but with just an S at the end.

Hang on... Shining said something happened twenty years ago to Twilight for her to cry bloody murder... Could ponies have attacked the zebra settlement? Or was it some sort of insanity plague? Curioser and curioser...

4293208

Originally and chronologically I was going to begin the story with the kids; but that leaves me with four chapters of character introduction/development before anything serious happens, so I decided to start with Twilight so I could get straight into the plot. I still wondered though, if maybe people would like the kids opening better so I posted it separately and whenever conducting an experiment, you should try to restrict extraneous variables. Looks like the Twilight opening wins.

breeding despondency to be smothered in alcohol or a vented on a hooker
How long as he been here
and while Dashi had filled the void
When I thought I was you
you’re going to hurt her even more then Twilight is

1. Extra A.
2. Has.
3. Dashie.
4. Forgot your opening quotation mark here.
5. Than.

And so we have more glorious back story. Or rather a better glimpse into what we already know. Wow he was such a drunk. Can't really blame him though.:pinkiesad2:

I really, really, really want more of this series. Great, realistic writing that has kept me hooked the entire time. Please keep on writing and being awesome!

but right now that promised seemed distant
Twilight had shifted through the remaining remains of the village
and she had had not difficulty withdrawing money
wanted to screamdenial

1. Promise.
2. Sifted.
3. And she had no difficulty withdrawing money.
4. Forgot your spacing.

All I can say for this is... well, shit dropped the bomb. A massive bomb.

“I had… truly hoped that you would be able to tell me about father.
and had the instinct to care for a child was frozen in your subconscious with the mind block

1. Forgot your closing quotation mark.
2. Remove Had.

Stranger and stranger... I just hope her son isn't leading her to a trap made out of hate and spite for being left all those years ago.

4455351

If he wanted to kill her, Twilight would be dead by now. He's taking her to where he lives. :fluttercry:

Thanks for the spell checks.

4455389 But even if he did kill her then and there it would have been too suspicious because she would be found even sooner since she is above ground and in a house. Not to mention with Shining and the rest of the squad in the town (or soon to be) they would eventually find her quite easily.

Even if her body was hidden, there would still be the stench of decay and of course the flies and maggots attracted to the corpse and so on and so forth.

Quite a few things to take into consideration:pinkiecrazy:

Twilight froze; took several moments to
Fidora was very pretty earth zebra
You may have to do things, ‘descent’ ponies wouldn't ordinarily do

1. She took several moment to.
2. Fidora was a very pretty earth zebra.
3. Decent.

Wow... wait, if the mind block only happened a few years ago, why is it that she can't remember much, or rather anything about her son before the wipe? She would have remembered who she had a child with, she would remember who she was married to! Unless the memory block was not the only thing used... there could have been a memory wipe. Things only look like it goes downhill from here until it reaches Equestria's core:pinkiesad2:

It's definitely going to get harder.

Not that way you perv, get your mind out of the gutter:pinkiecrazy:

4499790

Twilight doesn't remember about two and a half years of her life; in that time she met Obtrillion's father, got pregnant, and gave birth. Obtrillion was left at the orphanage a few days after the village was massacred, which was around a year before Twilight 'woke up'.

None of her memories were ever 'wiped' just blocked. Her mind palace has some false walls in it.

4499860

I think this is the first time ever you haven't added spell checks. That probably either means I didn't make any, or you were too engrossed in the story to notice, :scootangel: anyway, I'm happy.

this story is fucking amazing!

Comment posted by nodamnbrakes deleted Jun 17th, 2014

4558212 I think it made me throw up in your mouth a little.

Twilight startled back, Obtrillion broke the silence

1. Stared.

Well... that escalated in a very different way... Forever scheming, forever plotting. Doesn't help that I'm playing Dishonored through mostly non lethal means... except rats, hate those

fuck! why must twilight be surrounded by people who will betray her!? why!?!

Comment posted by Beware The Carpenter deleted Jun 17th, 2014
Comment posted by nodamnbrakes deleted Jun 17th, 2014
Comment posted by Beware The Carpenter deleted Jun 17th, 2014

4558333

Shining Armor - Celestia - Obtrillion

Pick one of them and I'll explain their motives.

4558779 how about all three in the order you mentioned them? because i'm having a hard time imagining why they could do this.
.
.
.
ok, i did come up with 'reasonable' reasons why they did what they did, but i'd still like to here it from the mouth of the creator.

4558790

I promise you, there are very good reasons for everyone involved to act the way they do. For now, you get one question answered, if Refferee or someone asks another question they get one each for this chapter. Intelligent observations or predictions will earn you more answers.

4558831 alright then, let's go with Obtrillion.

4558860

Manipulation is the only way he has ever really learned how deal with anyone. He wants his mom to love him but he knows that Celestia will never abide his existence and so he needs Twilight to 'choose' him over Celestia.

4558905 well that's just great. so she's surrounded by crazy ponies who all think they know what's best for her. yeah, we need the next chapter.

Why is this story not popular?!?

Comment posted by the other sans deleted Jun 27th, 2014

but he wanted to spend some time with you little brother and he didn’t want to leave him alone with Sky Blaze
When I were seven; they left me and my sister at the northern edge
Sky Fire carefully wrapped his wing Spy’s mane
he already knew they answer
“If I were pulling your tail, you’d know it. I swear; this actually happened; tell her Tungsten.
Pinkie Zip, Pinkie Zest and pinkie Zing
but they’ve argued about ever since
from remembering that awful, aweful day
and then went to the desert bar
a different person at Youtherd then she was at home
of custard on her desert tray

1. I believe you meant His.
2. We.
3. Sky Fire carefully wrapped his wing around Spy's mane.
4. The.
5. Forgot your closing quotation mark.
6. Forgot to capitalise.
7. But they've argued about it ever since.
8. Awful.
9. Dessert.
10. Than.
11. Dessert.

I am both very scared and very intrigued about the Pinkie triplets. There should be a dedicated story for them and heck, I bet it would be interesting finding out what they would do.

But on the topic on culture... I say it's extremely debatable seeing as there will be those that disagree and agree on the fact of a fifteen year old sleeping with their boyfriend and etc.

Personally, I would say no. Call me old fashioned but I don't believe at the age of fifteen, anyone would have enough experience to see the outcome of sleeping with their other half even if they do know to a degree, will they be prepared for the unexpected? Because we all know that safety isn't 100% fullproof but just merely mitigates the chances of actually conceiving.

But I also believe that the place where they grew up in is a major factor since you already mentioned about some places with girls at the age of eighteen expected to be mothers and so on. This is a topic that we all need to walk on egg shells otherwise there could be a massive argument with no one side obviously winning (at least to the bystanders who wish to not take part)

I am both very scared and very intrigued about the Pinkie triplets. There should be a dedicated story for them and heck, I bet it would be interesting finding out what they would do.

You're wish is my command!:pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy: I have a one-shot on them mostly written that I hope to release next week. Be afraid, be very afraid :pinkiecrazy::pinkiecrazy::pinkiecrazy:

While I've liked the story so far, it seems like it just derailed. We cut from the main plot, to a relevant and interesting flashback with Dash and Zecora, and then we have a chapter and a half of...things that don't seem to be related to the story, and which if they were in their own story, I wouldn't read. I'm sorry, but I simply have no attachment to these two characters; the only "present day" part of these two chapters that I found interesting was about the relationship between Zecora and Dash's daughter.

From your author's note, I see you have a point to make, but that point has, as far as I can tell, nothing to do with the main plot. Unless there is some sort of important payoff, I think these chapters would be better left in their own story, where you can properly make your point and it doesn't derail this story.

4612747

Well; Storm and Rainbow Dash's kids are going to Ponyville for Youtherd, forgive me if I'm wrong but didn't Twilight first go to The Zaharren trying to save several hundred ponies who had been in Ponyville during the Youtherd celebration? :twilightoops:

It wasn't too long after Celestia broke her oath to Zecora to help save her daughter, that something happened to Twilight who could be seen as the closest thing Celestia has to a daughter; these events may or may not be connected.

There are other clues but those are the ones I meant to be more obvious.

Also; if you read the attached story you'll know that Raggarock and Zecora are arch enemies and before she was forced to flee, Zecora had been establishing a revolutionary sub-sect of Shamans to try and get rid of Raggarock and the things he was doing. A secret organization that still exists today and which Sky Blaze may know how to contact.

I'm planning to release quite a few short stories that connect to the main plot that I'll be posting links to in various chapters. They might seem single stories, yet all but one of them are relevant to the overall plot. I suggest reading them if you want to really understand what's happening in LOTH and why.

Ultimately; this is a mystery story. Especially recommended for people who like to think. Be alert for clues but beware the red herrings; intelligent questions will be rewarded with cryptic answers.

Pay attention

You're right; I'd forgotten that "this is a mystery story" note, and had unrealistic expectations. It's obvious from your comment that you do have a goal in mind for what looked like a digression, so I withdraw my previous comment. Sorry about that.

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