“Kiddo, did you have a nice day?” Trixie leaned over the bed where Sumac lay and kissed him on his ear. Her lips lingered there for a moment as she inhaled, drawing in his scent, and she treasured the few precious seconds she had to bond with him.
“Yeah.”
Smiling, she pulled the blanket up over Sumac’s body. “Try to get a little sleep. I think a nap would do you good. It was very nice of Vinyl to get you a stuffed Cadance doll.”
There was a hint of a blush upon Sumac’s cheeks as Trixie spoke these words. He did not respond, but laid there with his head upon the pillow. The bed was soft, it had to be the nicest bed that he had ever been in, and the pillow was like resting one’s head upon a cloud. He imagined that this is what it felt like for napping pegasus ponies.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said ‘doll’ I suppose.” Trixie leaned against the bed, lifted Sumac’s foreleg with her magic, and then slipped Cadance into his embrace. She dropped his leg and then tucked the blankets around him.
“What happened with you and your mother?” Sumac asked as he fought to hold back a yawn.
Nostrils flaring, Trixie sat down upon the floor beside the bed and stared at the wall. Her mouth opened as if she was about to speak, but nothing came out. After a few seconds, she closed her mouth, shook her head, and her ears drooped. Drawing in a deep breath, she tried again and had this to say.
“We stopped talking. Things were already strained between us and I dropped out of school. That caused a lot of problems between me, her, and her father, my grandfather. The Lulamoon name has a proud and storied history to it. My mother had me out of wedlock and that caused a lot of strain between her and her father. She lived and breathed for his approval, hoping to get back into his good graces again…” Trixie’s voice trailed off and she continued to stare at the wall.
“But what happened?” Sumac asked.
“The Pathetic and Worthless Trixie dropped out of school.” Trixie closed her good eye, reached out with her foreleg, and grabbed Sumac’s leg in her fetlock. “That is what he called me. Every day I heard it from him. I was my mother’s failure. I was the ruination of the good name ‘Lulamoon.’ And when I dropped out of school, Caper Lulamoon lost his mind. He and my mother fought and I decided to leave. I hit the road and I didn’t look back. My mother hired agents to try and capture me to bring me back home. Eventually, that stopped and she gave up on me.”
“So, on the road, you tried to become great and powerful?” Sumac looked up into his mother’s face and saw pain. He watched her eye open, her head turned, and she looked at him. The corners of her mouth twitched and one ear flopped up and down a bit.
“I didn’t want to be pathetic and worthless. I had this plan to become the Great and Powerful Trixie and then I was going to go home, bust down his door, and I was going to show him what I was capable of. I was going to make him pay for every single time that he called me ‘The Pathetic and Worthless Trixie.’ Caper Lulamoon is one of the most powerful wizards of our era and I wanted to crush him in a duel. But all that changed. Now, I just don’t care.”
“What made everything change?” Sumac asked.
“You,” Trixie replied in a muted whisper. “You made it all go away.”
“I think you’ve become great and powerful.” Sumac looked up at the mare that he called his mother. “So just how powerful is Caper, anyway?”
“Caper is one of the few unicorns capable of slowing time down to a crawl… but now is not the time to discuss this. You need some sleep and I am aware of your tactics to avoid naptime.” She pulled her hoof away from Sumac, releasing his leg, and then she booped him on the nose with a light tap. “You’ll probably be meeting my mother soon enough, but I doubt that Caper will have anything to do with either of us. Honestly, I’d rather not have you meet him. He’s an awful pony and if he said something mean to you—well, the old plan for revenge might spring back to life and that would be terrible.”
The most dreadful thing happened, a yawn escaped, and Sumac was startled by its ferocity. It was so sudden and so powerful that his ears popped. His mother’s shadow fell over him and he felt her kissing him on the snoot. Breathing in, he could smell her, she smelled like floral soap, tea, and the faint scent of mint.
“If you can’t sleep, I’m going to give you some tea that might help you. We want you well rested for the wedding tomorrow.” Trixie pulled away from Sumac and smiled. “Kiddo, I love you.”
“Mom, I love you too…”
Groggy, Sumac awoke holding his Cadance stuffy. He couldn’t remember if he had dreamed or not. A powerful feeling of thirst left his mouth dry and there was an empty ache in his stomach. His body felt stiff, too stiff, and it kind of hurt to move. But move he did, as there was a powerful motivation to do so.
He needed to pee.
With a flick of magic, he turned on the lamp beside the bed, which filled his tiny room with light, banishing the darkness. After a few fumbles, he got his glasses onto his face. With no one around to watch him, he picked up Cadance, gave her a final parting squeeze, and then placed her upon his pillow. He didn’t know if she had helped him sleep better, but it never hurt to be thankful.
Sitting up in bed, he looked around. His room was almost pie shaped and his bed was against the wall that was the widest part. Looking out his narrow slit of window, he saw that it was dark. How long had he slept? He flopped out of bed and almost did a face-plant. Grumbling, he forced his stiff body to behave and he found his balance as he stumbled for the door.
Stiff legged, his front shoulders aching just a bit, Sumac paused and looked up at the ornate cuckoo clock on the wall. It was just a little past four—in the morning. He had been put down for a nap at about four in the afternoon. He blinked a few times as he stared up at the clock, and then he turned his head to look at the two other unicorns in the dining area.
“Good morning,” Fox said in a subdued and tired sounding voice.
“Morning,” Sumac replied. As he spoke, he saw Vinyl waving at him.
“Vinyl awoke because of back pain. I awoke because of some troubling dreams involving candles being blown out. Tell me, Sumac, what brings you down here at this unalicornly hour of the morning?” Fox regarded Sumac with one arched white eyebrow.
“My nap ended.” Sumac stood at the base of the stairs, blinking and studying Fox.
“Well then, I do declare, I have somehow failed to grasp the obvious.” Fox made a come-hither gesture with his hoof, inviting Sumac to come and sit down with them. “Come on over here and sit with us. We have tea and biscuits to help us while away these last few dark hours.”
At that moment, Sumac decided that he was wrong about Fox. He liked Fox. Smacking his lips, Sumac went over to the table, pulled out a tall chair, scrambled up into the chair, and then leaned against the ornate edge of the table. As he got himself situated, a glass of juice was poured, some cookies, which Fox had called biscuits were put on a plate, and Vinyl poured him some tea.
Feeling as though he might die from thirst, he drank the juice first. Lifting the short glass, he gulped it down and discovered that it was pineapple juice. It wasn’t delicious, refreshing apple juice, but it would have to do. When his glass was empty, he set it down, and as he got himself a cookie, Fox filled up his juice glass once more.
“This cookie is weird,” Sumac said as he examined it. Sniffing it, he decided that it smelled good, but he didn’t recognise much about it.
“The recipe comes from far away Windia. Those are nankhatai biscuits. They’re a kind of shortbread, but spicy.” Fox leaned back in his chair and gave Sumac a nod. “I brought the recipe back with me after I traveled there.”
Curious, Sumac focused his attention upon the curious unicorn. “What’s it like in Windia?”
“Dying,” Fox replied in a nonchalant voice, “everything is dying.”
“What? Why?” Sumac lifted up his juice glass again.
“The war.” Fox placed his hooves upon the table and focused his intense, piercing stare upon Sumac. “Tell me, young master Sumac, do you understand how valuable earth ponies are?”
“My best friend is an earth pony.” As Sumac replied, he was aware that Vinyl was watching him, which made him feel nervous for some reason. There was reason to suspect that he was being studied.
“Well, in Windia, two factions of diamond dogs began warring over a matter of faith and religion. The elephants got involved with one side and things went downhill. Many of the ponies began to flee the sub-continent and have gone elsewhere, to more peaceful places, like the Grittish Isles and Equestria. With not enough earth ponies around, the land has begun to die in places, the rich dirt has turned to dust, and the threat of famine has become very, very real. Princess Celestia sent me over there to investigate the phenomenon.”
“Wait, so if there are no earth ponies around, the land begins to die?” Sumac set down his juice glass and almost sloshed some of it out and onto the table. He stared at Fox as his brain tried to process this information.
“Does this shock you, Sumac?” Fox’s ears, which were orange on the outside but white on the inside, angled forwards over his face. “You have only lived in Equestria and have seen the rich and plenty that we have here. Griffonstone is a wasteland… their never ending bickering and the occasional predation of ponies has driven our kind out of their land. The ground has died without the hooves of earth ponies to nurture it. The rains are rare and the weather is chaotic without pegasi to shepherd the clouds. Every place that we equines are driven from, the land begins to die.”
For Sumac, this was a stunning revelation.
“Lucerna Perpetuum has been studying this phenomenon for a long time.” Fox looked over at Vinyl and then returned his attention to Sumac. “We have theories and guesses as to why this is happening. The world wasn’t always like this. The phenomenon began after the time of the windigos when much of the world froze over. Something changed, but we don’t know what, how, or why. That was why I went to Windia, so that the phenomenon could be studied.”
Fascinated beyond measure, Sumac crammed a whole cookie into his mouth and began to chew.
Vinyl’s chalk squealed as she wrote down some words on her slate and when she was finished, she held it up for Sumac to read.
Tarnish and his druids are desperate to find a way to reverse this. I am too. This affects us all. All life is connected in ways we do not yet understand.
“World peace isn’t just a dream, it is a necessity,” Fox said in a low voice as Sumac chewed his cookie. “Earth ponies must be allowed to roam peacefully and in safety, without molestation or fear of predation. Other kingdoms are only now beginning to take notice and acknowledge the problem, like Griffonstone.”
After swallowing his cookie, Sumac asked, “Can I help? Can I join? I want to do my part.”
Grinning, Vinyl nodded, and she looked very pleased with what Sumac had said.
“This is why Twilight Sparkle’s school exists.” Fox poured himself a bit more tea, added some honey, and then slipped in a slice of crystalised lemon. “It is a heuristic study of friendship and harmony. The nuts and bolts of it. Friendship isn’t just magic, but survival. You see, Sumac, Twilight Sparkle has taken it upon herself to figure out why this is happening and how to reverse it. Friendship is necessary for a harmonious coexistence. And students such as yourself, well, you represent our bright and glorious future.”
Unable to respond in a meaningful way, Sumac jammed a whole cookie into his mouth again and began to chew. By going to school, he was saving the world. Going to school was easy. All he had to do was just show up and he was doing his part. But that wasn’t enough and he wanted a bit more active role in everything.
Feeling better about just about everything, Sumac was looking forward to being Vinyl’s apprentice.
Fantastic.
ponies are the will of the planet!!!!!
im goin with that
7696168
Think about every place shown in the series where ponies don't live.
Griffonstone: wasteland.
Changeling territory: wasteland.
Dragon homeland: wasteland.
The future where there seemed to be no ponies around: wasteland.
The implications are right there in the show for all to see.
So.... you're saying we can't actually wipe out the dirty, filthy mud ponies? Well that's a bummer.
7696183
7696184
Damnit, using Sad Sweetie Bell is playing dirty! Now, I'm feeling bad.
Yeah...
The revelation that a single variation of a single species is necessary for the survival of the entire planet is a pretty big deal, indeed.
It's pretty in line with the idea that the end of the Centaur civilization was basically an armageddon. The world was broken and is currently hobbling along, patched together by the last efforts of the Centaurs...
And I remember something somewhere of their overreliance of the equine races. And if they designed the systems that sustained the world through the crisis.
Well it's bound to have some pretty bad effects on the other races.
7696174
oh i get that
but the will of the planet thing is like this
"I planet deem you unworthy of a nurturing environment because you shun or otherwise chase off the ponies!"
then the area around said species goes into a stasis like state that can only be fixed with earth pony intervention
7696199 Was it Grogar's dark star that broke the planet?
So, without earth ponies and pegasi, or at least without their magic, the whole world will end?
Puts a bit of a different spin on Tirek, don't it?
The Windigos, and therefore the ponies, broke the planet. And now, only ponies can maintain it.
That sucks.
7696241
Yeah, pretty sure it was that.
Maybe there was more and more consequences to the way that the Centaurs played with magic and science, and most likely the fact that they had those things opened the door for Grogar and the star, but I'm pretty sure the catalyst was the dark star summoning.
7696174
Like the ponies need another excuse for being more self-entitled: "Non-equines, this world, Equus, belong to us and it´s only thanks to our grace and benevolence than the land itself allows you to live from her, as dictated for the centaurs from old. Remember being thankful".
If I were a griffin or minotaur, I would be pissed about the blatant favoritism.
7696312
Please, show me where I named this world Equus.
Citation needed.
If things worked on it's own before...
And ponies are required for things to function now...
Does this mean ponies are a backup system?
7696318
AFAIK you never named the planet.
AFAIK you never outright stated if its a planet or a flatworld cosmology or somethibg more convuluted.
Please clarify both of these questions right away.
7696443
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/09/3e/9d/093e9de96a729b3532a85044b57224ab.jpg
7696197 Was looking at this comment & I was 'sweetie unsure' of the intention of it too? (emojis are good for this)
7696318 Don't think you ever have. I know I've always referred to it as that with relevance to a story involving Earth as well just as a point of origin. Equus the planet and Equestria the continent to me is just a personal choice as some others use.
7696450 Oh whose a grumpy kitty?
1.bp.blogspot.com/-4nGh8gB1GCI/UdXxYiNIikI/AAAAAAAAQ4c/JglcbkSkg9M/s500/gcg2.gif
When I was young colt, could never pronounce biscuit right, always called em' spickets!
I think it would be awesome if Sumac tried using his Sorcery on Grandpa Lulamoon to try and figure out just how he does his time slowing so he can tell Trixie how so she can show him up that way without the need for revenge only to learn that the "Time Slow" he does is a sham. Nothing more than a perception altering field he can generate which causes those inside it to perceive time as having slowed down while the outside of it is lined with an powerful illusion mixed with a bit of what is happening on the inside to make those outside believe time on the inside of it is moving slower as well. In fact I am betting that is what will happen.
A Reading from the Gospel of the First Tribes 4:15-16
"And so it was given unto the equine races to be the shepherds of the land. Where their hooves trod the land would flourish. Where their wings beat the rains would be plentiful. Where their horns glowed the darkness would be at bay."
"The Dark Goat of the wood said neigh to this and set forth to blight the world. To spite him a grand plan was enacted and in a distant time the children would inheret the strength to become the new stewards of creation."
7696312 You are missing something. What this chapter stated was that earth ponies are nedeed to keep the soil alive, and the pegasus help, by controling the wild weather (wich, without then, does not become random...it becomes outright DESTRUCTIVE).
But to make the planet habitable you need more then a tamed weather and fertile ground. There are monsters, and you need warriors. There will be unknown chalenges, and scholars are nedeed. The school, the very first stone for a new harmony age, have almost all the species avalaible in the planet, ´cause Twilie already noted that every and each one have its own place and use. We did not see any minotaurs there yet, but I bet that the diamond dogs that Tarnish saved are part of the school already, one way or another. Plans are being laid already for a good changeling and a good harpy to join too.
We need everyone. Not everypony, but everyone.
Perfect opportunity for me to add my $0.02 for the story (and possibly the series) as a whole:
I have read Weed and its immediate sequal. I have read this story and its one-shot prequel. I do not know Gosling or Fox or many other characters who slide in and out of this story. But because they have a solid, coherent back story, even if it's one just vaguely or obliquly mentioned or alluded to, it gives them a depth not usually found in fanfics.
The reason? You have found the perfect balance between assuming the reader has read everything and therefore nothing needs be mentioned, and assuming all readers are brand new readers, and thus, "Remember when we *flashback sequence that completely retells an earlier story*", both of which are traps too many long term fic series writers fall into. It gives depth to the world.
Bravo, kudzuhaiku, bravo.
7696183 sure you can but ultimately you won't like the end results
7696168 I wouldn't say will but I would go with stewards. Druids like Tarnished more so.
Overall interesting chapter
7696270 We need a different Dark Star to haul that Dark Star away!
th09.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2014/025/8/c/dark_star_ortho_by_unusualsuspex-d73mfp0.jpg
My favourite old sci-fi movie!
So the big reveal is that earth ponies are basically poison joke, except not with magic, but the land.
Poison joke is cool, and I'm glad you use it a lot
7696312
Favoritism only counts if it's someone making a direct and obvious decision on the matter. Picking <them> over <you>. What we have here, from their perspective, is just reality. "We kicked out all the ponies whose magic specifically cultivates and tailors the natural world, now the natural world is failing. ... Durrhurr why that be."
It's because the principle nature of the world is Harmony. And you can't very well have harmony if you're separating into groups and fighting each other. That's not what harmony is. Harmony is all but seamlessly intermixing, living among one another without overt conflict. In other words, those races were dicks and ponies left, so just because they didn't KNOW they'd be screwing themselves over doesn't mean this doesn't fall on their heads.
7696635
What if the fact that there were less ponies in a certain land contributed to unstable conditions, less food, crops, wildlife, more disease, and that contributed to tense situations that escalated to large conflicts. Which caused ponies to leave and the strained conditions to just get worse?
I mean, if "harmony" is broken between the ponies and the diamond dogs, for any reason, who suffers from famine? Not the ponies.
One-sided need to make the other party happy is not harmony, even if the ponies don't go out of their way to take advantage of the situation.
Like I said earlier, though, I'm pretty sure this is basically the Centaurs' fault, who built ponies in their image, and used them as the way to repair the world.
And, to be frank, literally the main characters of the other story are working to fix it (which means Raistlin's comment about ponies being self-entitled is crap). The whole "everything is connected" is a big deal, sure, but I bet more importantly it's also up to how Tarnished would not allow the other races, even if they've screwed up before, to suffer like this. Tarnished is a bleeding heart that way.
7696685
7696635
This has a means of fixing itself.
The disease has to be removed.
7696174
Either that, or the equine races with their deus ex machina powers and excessive tendency towards xenophobia have taken all the good land and driven all the other species out. It happens.
There is so much to cover and wonder about with this I am going to have to get back to you when I get home and have a proper keyboard.
Seriously though, woah.....
I can't seem to figure out the significance of the title.
7696701 So do we get to reenact the Trixie leg scene but instead with the entire world now? It's the only way to get the sickness out?
7697112
Well, the Big Bad was revealed in the end of Venenum Iocus.
Alright, proper keyboard acquired. Warning, this rambles.
First off, how thoroughly was the planet wrecked when the Centaur civilization collapsed? It almost seems like the collapse began with the fall of the black star but the worst of the devastation occurred when Discord arose, or when the Windigos broke free, though perhaps these two events are contiguous. The events are hinted at in "A gallery of horrors" in VI but ultimately unclear except that Crown of Corruption's influence began warping the land and those who lived on it beyond recognition. How was this curtailed? How was the corruption halted? Who created poison joke?
Whenever and however it happened exactly, the world fundamentally broke. The heavens were still and the land dead unless they were put in motion by ponies, a fate foreseen by the Centaurs and the ponies their plan to fix it. Though "fix it" in this case seems to be a temporary measure, a treatment without any immediate cure. Tarnish and his wake are the cure. Terrathauma has something to do with this in a significant way, to call directly on the heartbeat of the earth, which struggles against the Crown of Corruption. Is the best joke played on death life? Is the left hand of darkness light?
This makes me wonder about the Everfree Forest. As far as I'm aware in this setting the forest has no immediate pony stewards, it is a font of life and nature. Maybe like the area that would become Mount Maud the virility of the forest is a response to foul magic, which could make sense if Nightmare Moon's fall caused foul magic to pollute the area. Or perhaps there are still secrets tucked away in its depths?
I wonder if the result of harmonious coexistence would be to repair the world and make it like it once was, for heaven and earth to be in motion again, or would it mean that the peoples of the planet could shepherd it into wholeness as a result of their efforts? Perhaps the latter will lead to the former.
Unless of course a direct application of druidic magic to the entire planet is necessary to get the globe restarted. If the planet needs to be coaxed into life a bit more aggressively, or the corruption needs to be purged all at once, I wonder if that could be the one and only time Sumac and Tarnish could work together without complete tragedy. Can a druid with enough magical power have sex with a planet? Will Tarnish's fourth child be the world?
Oh....ooooooooooh.....the planet's basically dead already. The land was meant to be healed and restored by the efforts of ponies via the remnant of the Centaur civilization but while the taint of Grogar and the star remain, there can be no true victory in the struggle against corruption. We will wait to see the how of it, eh?
As an addendum, the name of the story seems to me to be a compromise in-universe. Twilight wanted to call it her School of Friendship Fundamentals but after debating with Cadence about it being too bookish she eventually decided to call it her School for Fantastic Foals, a place for every fantastic child who could attend, no matter what they were or where they came from. A vision that every foal can be fantastic, perhaps?
7697610
Grogar revives the dead.
The world is dying.
And that is all I will say about the issue.
7696685
7696780
Precisely. We are reading the story from the perspective of Tarnish, Sumac, and their friends and allies. Of course Team Good is full of ponies trying to help everyone and not just everypony , but there are plenty of hints about how ponykind society is far less noble.
Like why Boomer is an orphan and his race is slowly vanishing due to ponies taking over their habitats and kicking them out (similar to the real world Amazonian Tribes) . Also, while Trixie has adopted the pigmy dragon , does society recognize him like a "son" rather than a pet?
7697619
Boomer = she.
7697615
Oh? But necromancy fundamentally alters that which is returns from death, it's not a resurrection but a perv...Oh! I see.
And The Mad Goat creeps ever closer to his Eternal Kingdom.
While everyone else speculates on the nature of the world, I've noticed that Sumac never found his way to the toilet.
7697637
That happened off screen.
Surely the "horrendous-hypothesis" is significant here.
This chapter is past a "big reveal"...this looks to be THE reveal, at least, when it come to villainous plans/motivations. Now, I could be wrong (I am, of course, not the author), but it seems that the unknown reason for the slow death of the world is the corruption of the source of magic. Granted, knowing how well our illustrious author makes something "obvious", only to throw us for a loop at the last second *coughhelianthuscough*, I'm not going to stop wondering.
...I had a thought just now. Forgive me if this has already been addressed in the comments somewhere, but would the lantern allow non-ponies to experience the same "understanding"?
Oooo, that's a painful personal history there, Trixie.
Holy crap, what is wrong with this planet? An accute case of Discord? Or just poor land management science that is normally unknowingly corrected for by magical pony magic?
Ahh, hmn. Well, that gives a timeframe for it.
7738723
If you want to know what is going on, reading The Weed and Venenum Iocus will help a little.
Za Warudo?
Za Warudo.
7696183 just replace earth ponies with Alicorns and you are good to go. ;p
Unfortunately, this telling makes it sounds like every species that isn't a pony is the problem, and the world would be better off with the pony master race in charge or as the only ones left.
Fortunately, you have proven that that would be working with incomplete information, not to mention clashing with other themes in your story, so it's likely not the case.
8550131
if you read what there is of skyreach (or whatever tis name was) and puzzle the peices together youll figure it out, an alicorn ancient, probly one of the very first of there fully manifestd kind named tera firma sacrficed her physical body to heal the blighted land after all the damage discord, the iwndigos and other creatures did to it
Terra firma however due to no longer having a physical body cannot directly self actuate her power, she needs the earth ponies, her chosen tribe, to spread it for her.