The world was not always as peaceful as modern Equestria now knows it. Long, long ago, there was a race of immortal beings known as the perytons, who have long since been relegated to the footnotes of history.
Some believe that they still exist, somewhere, tucked away into a corner of the world. Some say they still return every decade, to take their tribute.
Meanwhile, in a little village, Bright Eyes prepares for his first Hunt.
Written for the May World-Building Alliance Writing Competition v2.0
Currently considered 'Complete' as of time of publishing, but I wish to return to this story in future, hence the "Incomplete" tag.
Big thanks to Aragon for his words of wisdom.
Chapters (2)
frist
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Thanks for the great comment! :D
5982465 i am best commenter
That was an interesting read. I like how you established the perytons in a smooth way that made it not only interesting, but in a way where the pacing wasn't too slow. The characters were all defined and written well, which is always a plus. The involvement Celestia and Luna had in the story was also nice, particularly in regards to Luna's role, and having the narration referring to them as Sun and Moon was a fun touch. Anyway, I enjoyed this story, and I wish you the best of luck on your future writings.
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Thank you very much for the constructive comment, Mana. :) Now I can maybe sleep in peace!
5982489 You're welcome! Thank you for sharing this story with us.
Nice world-building, sug. You ever think about going original with this idea?
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I've thought about it, yes. When I have more time I might adapt it, just as I plan to adapt my future Dragonfic (which is actually very similar to this in style) to original fiction as well.
This is a truly beautiful idea, I hope you'll come back to it soon. The perytons are truly intriguing and I'd love to see more of the characters you've crafted.
I also wonder about the idea of the shadows leaving them, if that's still the case or not. Since the first peryton to approach, even with a shadow was clearly suffering. Perhaps they need to collect more shadows?
So many brilliant themes occurring here. I love how you're able to blend real life with a written story and make each feel distinct.
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Thank you!
I actually have a pretty strong idea for a new chapter, but there are other projects in the wings.
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Yes.
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Well, I kind of imagined that the perytons didn't really require a "productive" population as such -- the shadows are what give them their immortality and magical power, as well as their emotions. They are actually relatively small in number and produce a very small number of offspring, given their immense lifespans.
I was kind of thinking that the perytons actually assisted the mortal races for a long while until the mortal population was large enough that the Faded population was relatively small and they were capable of sustaining themselves, thereby allowing the perytons to fade into obscurity? Also, taking a sapient shadow is actually very rare in modern peryton society, which is something i was going to cover in future chapters.
This was quite intriguing. You have a lot of great backstory here, and the whole thing has a nice mythological feel to it. I hope to see more of this story in the future. Do you plan to eventually cover how this fits in to the canon history?
And to be clear, at the end of the story Celestia and Luna are still fillies, correct? I wasn't entirely sure how much time had passed.
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Thank you! And yes, they're still fillies, although, since it's a fairytale, exactly how much time passed between events isn't accurate to real life. I imagine they'd be a few years older at the end of the story than the beginning in real terms.
Since they can control shadows, the Perytons may be the only creatures who can defeat the Vashta Narada!
*Peryton steps into shadow... turns to bones instantly...*
Ooooo-kayyyyy... so that was clearly a flop.
Fascinating. A well crafted story all around, establishing a race we've never seen in Equestria and giving them rich lore. And apparently, it isn't done yet! I look forward to more.
Oh man. Long comment ahoy. Grab some fuckin’ popcorn here.
Huh. Only upon re-read of this passage I realize that the Hierophant is actually a woman. Mare. Shedeer. Whatever. I had assumed it was this old-as-hell deer, a la Merlin, with a huge-ass beard to finish the picture.
Which reminds me: Why did you use the word “Hierophant” here? Like, I mostly associate that with the Major Arcana (It’s Card number V), but that’s probably because my mother knows how to read the Tarot cards and all that. You probably didn’t do it thinking of the Tarot or anything, but that’d be cool!
Now, on more serious matters – there’s a reason why I tell you you’re really Gaimain-ish lately, man, and this paragraph is the reason why. Good ol’ Neil has this habit of presenting fantasy worlds to the reader with an introduction that explains nothing, but shows you one or two names that imply authority or something dangerous, and then builds on them.
It’s not something exclusive of him, of course – many authors do that – but both in his short tales and in Sandman (I haven’t read that much of him, I gotta admit), he does that all the time.
It’s a cool thing, though, I think. What Gaiman tries to establish (and what you’re trying to establish here, as a result) is a double sense of the civilization being foreign, and the world being close enough for us to understand. Plus, it’s always enemy + authority, for some reason? I guess those two things are the most important ones to understand on an immediate basis. You get what you gotta look up to, and what to fear. Not a bad combination.
It’s sort of an in medias res approach to woldbuilding, that’s what I mean. Introduce concepts, explain later. The Hierophant gets no more development later, so here it’s just a way to show us that the world of the story is bigger than what we’re shown. Again, a very Gaiman thing (but all in all, a very Fantasy thing in general). Still, the execution is pretty Gaiman.
Also, Hierophant being female reminds me of Celestia. As at first I thought of an old guy, I hadn’t drawn that parallel before, so now part of my ideas about parts that come later go down the drain. Hrmm. Oh, well, I’ll still babble about them when the time comes.
Here. Here’s the parallel I wanted to point at. This, plus this:
And every interaction between Bright Eyes and Moonfeather, mostly, but this one is the most important one.
I’m actually a little disappointed at myself because I didn’t catch it the first time, but a second look made it pretty clear – there’s a huge Twilight/Celestia vibe in here.
I mean, the parallel is clear enough for me to be pretty sure it’s on purpose, right? It’s this student/teacher thing, with the teacher being a wise old mare with huge and beautiful wings, and the student being a small child (in comparison to the teacher, at least; Twilight starts the show as a young adult after all), and there’s this sense of wonder around it.
Plus, Bright Eyes likes to study. And, well, it also shows up in the names. Bright/Sparkle, and Moonfeather having a space-related name.
I actually think that’s pretty cool! As a way to show the differences between the two civilizations (Equestria and Peryterra), you show a really similar situation to the one we’re already familiar with (Twilight and Celestia). That makes the differences more striking, like the fact that Moonfeather changes every X years, or how she seems to be way more maternal with Bright Eyes than Celestia ever was with Twilight.
Dunno, I thought it was neat. I mean, as long as it’s on purpose. Otherwise, you just like Celestia and Twilight a lot, man. A lot.
As a fantasy/worldbuilding device, however, it’s a good thing. So even if it’s not on purpose, take note of that for future reference or something.
HAH! I liked this line.
No real comment here, I just liked this line. Goes well with your usual voicing; you gotta write more humor/humorous lines, man.
On the other hand, this was a lil’ bit awkward. Thinking out loud is okay if it fits the character (people do that, after all – hell, I’m thinking out loud all the fucking time myself), but thinking inwardly immediately afterwards makes it look weird.
This is a clear opposite to Twilight’s situation, drawing the parallel/dichotomy thingy I’ve been babbling about with clearer contrast. However, once we look past that, this does raise a couple questions.
Perytons dislike the library, as in, the building. However, they’re a-okay with books, as we can see by the fact that Moonfeather sees reading a story to Bright Eyes as something really normal. Maternal, too, because the relationship between those two is pretty cool.
But still, no library but yes books. That’s actually pretty interesting –the library is bad, they say, because it’s lonely, and perytons don’t like loneliness. It was built by someone else. But then, what about the books? Were the books brought with the library? Both Moonfeather and Bright Eyes can read, so literature is part of their education.
What about peryton writers? Is that seen as something bad, too? Writers tend to be lonely, because writing is a thing you do by yourself, in silence. Watching someone write is pretty boring. The perytons like to be in groups, they avoid individuality – so the whole “book” thing is really interesting.
I’d like to know more on that angle, that’s what I’m saying. Stories unite people, but the fact of writing down one is not something that is going to bring the group any closer. And Moonfeather says that memories get fuzzier with time, so you can’t expect the perytons to have an oral storytelling tradition.
Or, well, maybe they do? But unlike humans, a peryton is not going to remember every story he’s ever told, or every story he’s been told (not like humans remember all of them either, but the important ones are there). Seeing just how fucking long perytons live, it’s ridiculous for us to expect that.
Maybe they tell each other the same story all the time? Moonfeather tells Bright Eyes the story on how the perytons came to be, for example. Time passes, Moonfeather forgets, but Bright Eyes is still young so the memory is fresher, it’s not lost in the long millennia he’s been around.
So, some centuries later, Bright Eyes tells Moonfeather the story. And she learns it from scratch. And then the cycle repeats itself.
That’s actually a very beautiful idea, if sad. Of course, it also implies that perytons forget themselves after a while, and are constantly changing because the new memories replace the old ones. But…
It checks out. So HAH!
It’s still pretty sad, though. You can really start wondering if that means that every peryton dies and is reborn after a while, depending on what do you consider an individual. If your memories and personality change completely, you’re not you. Then again, the change is so gradual they probably don’t notice. Is it a change, even?
It’s the old Theseus Paradox all over again, that’s what I’m saying here. Hmm.
Oh, yeah, and the whole Fallen thing, and how they’re something to be avoided. I don’t really think I can add much to that – it’s a fairly straightforward element in the story.
It’s sort of similar to the cutie marks, I guess? For ponies, getting the cutie mark is a rite of maturity, when they discover their identity. I suppose we can see the perytons, their hunt, and their shadows as something that works the same way?
But alien civilizations need to be different, not just a rehashing of the same old things, and I’m really stretching things here. There’s not a parallel in this part, which is good. Plus, blank flanks are just laughed at by little fillies, not outright pariahs.
I really liked the fact that they have nests, by the way. This, more than anything, makes them different from ponies (especially pegasi).
That’s the problem with creating new races – you gotta make sure they’re not just the old races with a recolor and magical ability added to it. The culture, the philosophy, the way they live… It has to be different. This here is a tiny detail, but it does that. They’re not deer pegasi; they’re perytons, and a completely different thing.
The whole “loneliness” thing also adds to this, by the way. I just like the picture of them having huge-ass nests more interesting. It’s a really cool visual. A shame you didn’t spend more time describing it in more detail so we could, like, see the picture.
But that might have dragged on the story a little bit, so maybe it wasn’t a bad choice. Hm.
D’aaaw. Bright Eyes is so cute. He wants to be a grownup.
The connotations in this line are pretty interesting. They have a slow development, not just as adults, but as fillies too?
I always assumed Luna and Celestia had this, y’know, cheap immortality thing. They grow up normally, then when they’re twenty or whatever they freeze in time. Guess you went for the most realistic approach (as realistic as you can go when it comes to immortality and magical talking ponies, of course).
This also implies that for maybe centuries, the ponies had to deal with two prepubescent rulers. And then teenager rulers. And then – man. Those must have been dark times.
On account of the show being so obviously pony-centric (it’s called My Little Pony, after all), ponies have to be the most developed race. They move the sun and the moon, and even before Celestia and Luna were a thing they were playing with the cosmic bodies out there.
Guess the perytons are little more than glorified pigeons, after all. Fucking jackasses. As almighty as they want, but they’re so self-centered they don’t realize the only reason they’re alive is because the ponies are doing all the work there.
Luna is the Moon Princess, though. No Star. I guess they work like the Mario Brothers.
Hmmm. In this story, this means Cadance is immortal. And old as hell. Poor Shining Armor, he’s gonna be outlived.
This also goes against the soft-canon of the books, but nobody cares for the soft canon. I’m also surprised you went against your own headcanon here – I know as a fact you took that book seriously at least once.
(Wink wink, nudge nudge).
Note how this implies Sombra didn’t corrupt the Crystal Ponies with his dark magic. The lack of love (or the lack of a catalyzer – I guess that they need an outside source for it to work, because they’re minerals or something? Fantasy races, they have stuff like that) is enough for them to be depressed and bitter on a normal basis.
Sombra didn’t mess the entire Crystal Empire up and ruled as a tyrant. He appeared once Cadance was away (if she was there by the time the Princesses were fillies, then the only way Sombra could have ruled is for her to run away at some point – and way before Shining was even a thing, to boot) and took what was already there.
Pretty dark, if you ask me. I can see Sombra thinking that the Crystal ponies were born to be ruled (a la Loki from the Cinematic Universe, I guess. That’s a comparison I never thought I’d be doing). And, to be fair, he would have had a point.
“Littlest” is a word I had never seen written down, and it just turned into my third favorite word in the entire English language. God that’s cute.
Luna and Celestia are herbivores, but they don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the fact that the griffons kill and eat animals to survive. I appreciate that!
In case it wasn’t clear enough by now, Luna and Celestia are fitting a messianic archetype here. They show up, fix every problem, then go away. It’s a nice role for them, seeing how later they act as mentors.
Interesting how they act as a single unit until the perytons show up, though. I guess it kind of symbolizes how they were close until Luna went astray? Or maybe it’s just the best way to tell the story. Eh, whatever works.
All perytons who have been shown in a role of authority have been female. I don’t know if that was intentional, but the fact that the Harbinger of Doom here is a male makes me think that the perytons are probably matriarchal.
I mean, the Hierophant was a lady, after all.
Having Luna committing the main fuckup was a given, seeing how she’s the one who eventually falls into darkness. However, it’s interesting that her main motivation here is that they hurt her sister.
Like, in the show, it’s explained that she became Nightmare Moon because she was jealous or alone. Because they didn’t care about her. However, here she doesn’t mind if herself is mistreated – it’s her sister you can’t touch without getting a whuppin’.
I really like that. Adoration for older siblings, and that protective instinct, is something I can get behind easily. Also, it kind of has undertones about the real reason why Luna went grimdark?
Like, she cares about Celestia, and only Celestia. Celestia cares about her, too. But in the future, when everything goes wrong for Luna, Celestia didn’t really help her. I think it’s canon that Celestia’s lack of attention was one of the reasons why Nightmare Moon appeared?
If Luna cares so much for her sister, having her turning her back on her… That must hurt, man. No reason she tried to kill everypony. Et tu, Brute and all that.
This is such a weird sentence when presented without context.
Oh. Ooooooooooh. That was clever.
Hmm. Somewhat bittersweet. Luna is forgiven, but her mistakes are still out there, and they can’t just ignore the consequences. Then again, the perytons brought it to themselves.
I actually wonder what is the moral of the story. No evil deed goes unpunished? Something horrible happens to the perytons, and it’s always because of pride. The pride of the perytons, the pride of Luna.
At first I thought it sounded fairytaleish, but right now it sounds more like mythology. Fits the theme better.
Man. This story seriously needs more love. I won’t say it’s one of your bests because there are two stories out there that I think are better and you know what I’m talking about, but… Yeah. This was really good, man. You’re getting better at fantasy. I don’t know if it’s your defining genre? But in my opinion, it would be awesome if it was.
This.
This is what I love about fanfiction.
Stuff like this.
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That's some humbling praise, dude. Really glad you like it, and thanks a bunch for the addition to You Might Like This.
This was pretty sweet, and I remember being quite excited for the next chapter when I read it. Lots of cool world-building regarding perytons. I was especially intrigued by what the cycles could mean.
However, this chapter was where things went wrong for the contest, at least.
For starters, this chapter felt more like a story about Celestia and Luna than a peryton fairy tale. For a regular old story, it really doesn't matter, but for our purposes, it was a bit of a knock on your story. Second, it felt at odds with your first chapter. Obviously, the connection between the two eventually became apparent, but that first chapter really gave the impression that the main characters were going to be perytons, not Celestia and Luna.
And finally, the ending was pretty blah. It felt pretty cheap and seemed almost like a copout.
With all that said, I did enjoy this story quite a bit, and I would love to see it continued (and to see the ending of this chapter fixed up
).
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Yeah, I spent a long time thinking of an angle to tell the fairytale from, but I realised pretty quickly that this one kind of missed the point a bit..
Oh well. Lessons learned. Thanks for the comments!
If this is cancelled, shouldn't it be marked as such?
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I probably would have done before I left the site about a year back if I'd remembered. Thing is, I'm very slowly creeping back into fimfiction as I'm wont to do and now I'm loathe to cancel it. I like this story and I think I want to do more with it. Not sure yet.
8080619 Ah, alright then. I'm just a technical nut with putting the cancellation and hiatus label on stories, don't mind me!