My Little Fortress: Friendship for the Blood God

by jaked122

The Terrors of the Dwarves

Tholumom Lathonudlerned has been very unhappy recently. He has mourned for the loss of loved ones recently. He has had a mediocre drink recently. He has looked at a masterful engraving of his family and been saddened. He has slept in a decent Alder bed recently. He has complained about the inclement weather recently. He has been angered at his conscription recently. He has been frustrated with his failure in combat recently. He has been terrified by a unicorn recently

He is slow to anger, but often feels depressed. He is not particularly sociable. He cannot find happiness in his work. He is not self-conscious. He is reserved.

He has a wonderful kinesthetic sense. He is very strong. He possesses an incredible endurance. He recovers quickly from sickness and injury.

His nose is broken.
He has begun to wonder whether all this death is worth it.

---

The unicorn advanced to him. It was purple, not even the most terrifying stories of his elders had a purple unicorn.

“Hi there, are you okay?” The unicorn asked him. The dwarf had broken into a cold sweat.

Tholumon gasped at his belt, the warhammer had been removed, along with the pickaxe. In fact, he was naked. This fact only bothered him because he shared a room with a horse with a piercing weapon on its forehead.

“Stay away from me you monster!”

“What? I saved you. Why don’t you trust me?”

“Your kind has butchered my family, killed my livestock, and destroyed entire societies with the dangerous point on your forehead.” He picked up the nightstand. “I will destroy you!”

He jumped off the bed. The unicorn did not move. “AHHHHHH!”

“NOPE!”

He stopped midair.

“I can see that you are clearly not ready to meet me. I hope that our next meeting will not end this way. Goodbye.”

With that she left the room.

The purple dragon came back, “I see that the meeting didn’t go well.”

“Yeah. You seem to be right there, buddy.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll know when you are older.”

“Okay then…”

The purple dragon left the room, leaving the magically levitating dwarf to manage his nightstand weapon in peace.

---

The next day the purple unicorn returned. “I see that you have not tried to fall yet.”

“That was an option?”

“No, but I’m glad to see that you are still alive, especially after not eating or drinking for several weeks.”

“That is the constitution of my race.” The dwarf said, smiling. “I’m sorry about yesterday. Care to start over?”

“Fine with me, just put the nightstand down where it was yesterday, and I’m sure that we’ll be great friends in no time.” The Unicorn sounded somewhat sarcastic.

“You must see, madam, or is it lady? Either way I’m sorry about confusing you for the creatures with the same horn in my world. Those blasted horses.”

“I’m a pony.” The statement hung in the air. Conflicting greatly with the typical didacticism that Twilight normally spoke with.

“Where I come from, a pony is but a breed of horse that is smaller than the wild steed.”

“You aren’t where you came from.”

“Fair enough, but what evidence do I have that this is not the road to the gods? That this is not merely the afterlife as promised by the priests of the Flying Trout?”

“Since when does a Flying Trout have priests?”

“Since around the year 62 of my world, dear. When the Flying Trout first took his form among mortal dwarves, and gave them hope for their salvation in his worship. Of course, I was never the kind to worship a god who refused to reply, so I let my practices slide a bit.”

“What kind of god would refuse to answer to their subjects?”

“All of them. The flying trout, the demon of the goblins, of course, they also have a demonic deputy, giving, if anything, more credence to their purpose. But the greater question is, what kind of god do you have, what gives him or her the right to talk with their subjects?” The dwarf laughed. “You must be kidding me. A god that actually talks with their subjects?”

“Yes, in fact I’m her chosen student” the unicorn gestured towards herself with a hoof. She was clearly proud of herself.

“What kinda fortress are ye running here?” The dwarf’s eyebrows furrowed. “Where there can be people who are actually students by profession? That seems a bit strange doesn’t it?”

“Not really. I’ve been Celestia’s chosen student since I was a filly.” She closed her eyes for a moment, either remembering something or hiding from the dwarf’s reaction. “Besides, this isn’t a fortress, this is a town, a town called Ponyville.”

“Wow really abstract name there dear. My own fortress was called ‘The Ideas of Mourning’” he sighed before muttering something about how the fortress had little but sadness.

“Did it really have all that much mourning?” Twilight’s face saddened at this.

“Not really. I was the only one who felt it. Five of my friends died, my wife and daughter perished in an invasion. I’m the only one who felt all that.

“That sounds awful.”

“You can’t even imagine, my little purple pony-horse.”

The glow of the magic cut out, leaving Tholumom to fall to the floor.

“Why did I scare you?”

“You heard what I said about unicorns killing my civilization’s hunters, right?”

The unicorn nodded. “Yeah, our most disliked ‘allies’, the elves, ride them into battle against us when they believe that we have committed a crime against nature by chopping down trees. They pierce us with their horns, leaving many to die in their wake. All for a little timber” He laughed, “But of course, looking at you more closely, you are not that kind of unicorn. Your horn is not particularly sharp, you are purple, and you have a mane that resembles what a little girl of my world would have as a haircut.” He paused looking at the semi-stunned state of the unicorn before him. “Which compliments your freakishly large eyes very well by the way.”

“I’ve never seen another pony act that violently. I’ve also never seen an felf riding another pony into battle.”

“That would be a good thing my dear, for the elves are the only race that doesn’t worship a demon that persists in the practice of eating their enemies.”

Twilight was once again stunned. “Are- are you serious?”

“Unfortunately Miss..?”

“Twilight Sparkle”

“Miss Sparkle, I am completely serious. Of course, they never seem to realize that we have quite a few traps set up to murder them if they are aggressive.” Twilight blinked at the word murder.

“Kill them if they are trying to kill you, doesn’t that sound somewhat extreme?”

“Not really. We enjoy our life, and whether or not we choose to use the equally inexpensive and effective cage trap is none of their concern. They’d die anyway… If in a hundred or so years.”

“How are you so immune to death?”

“Its pretty easy when you see people die around you every day. It doesn’t hurt any less when it’s a friend, or lover… most dwarves can absorb the pain in seeing at least three loved ones die before they go crazy.” Tholumom grimaced. “Now I think I’ve talked enough. I’m actually quite thirsty, and hungry.”

“Would you like hay sandwiches?”

“What?”

“Hay as in-”

“For horses. I’m an omnivore. I guess I can understand you ponies not being omnivores, but I am.”

“Well, I’d appreciate if you didn’t act on your omnivorous urges while you are here. Of course, we do have eggs.”

“Yes, you are a female, thus you have eggs. Unfortunately that doesn’t help me figure out what I’m going to eat.”

“You can eat eggs from a chicken.”

“I wonder why I assumed that you were talking about the other kind of egg. Anyway, that sounds good. After all, I’m not part of my old civilization, so my values should adjust to meet the civilization that I am in.”

“You’re saying that like it will be easy.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Come on, let’s see if I can’t make you something edible out of an egg.” She started out of the room.

“I’m never going to get used to that voice from a horse.” Tholumom said to himself.

“I’m not a horse!” Twilight groaned.

“Definitely going to take a long time to become used to this. I wonder where they brought my hammer and pickaxe to?”

Author's notes: If you liked this initial bit of a story, I like to hear about it, of course if you didn't I'd like to know why. Dislikes aren't helpful to anybody but the reader, comments about why you didn't like it is helpful to the author, and eventually the reader himself.

Comments

[Dergmann]

This story thus far is grand! A little heavy on the descriptions, but that might just be me at 2 AM. At any rate, Grade A work!