Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
The sun had barely risen above the mountains by the time Lex made his way back to the other end of the camp.
It had taken him an unusually long time to make the trek back. After Aria had left, satisfied now that there was a firm timetable for her transmogrification, Lex had started to return to the field hospital that had become the de facto center of the relief operations he was conducting, his mind awhirl with what had happened between himself and Sonata. He’d been so preoccupied that he’d made it almost halfway back before realizing that he’d left Block Party’s body completely unsecured.
Horrified that he’d made such an oversight – for all of Scrubby’s cowardliness, he hadn’t been entirely wrong; a pony whose body was the focus on a necromantic spell of not-inconsiderable power, and who then died under mysterious circumstances, right outside a city full of ghouls quite clearly needed to be treated as a potential threat – Lex had rushed back to the train station. Fortunately, Block Party’s body still showed no signs of activity, nor magic that Lex could detect, and Cloudbank had likewise said that things had been quiet.
Relieved that his lapse in judgment hadn’t resulted in any serious consequences, Lex had used his dark magic to create black crystal cuffs around Block Party’s legs. Unfortunately, it was at that point that the doctors he’d requested had arrived on the scene, led by Scrubby. Although the earth stallion had been pleased to see the dead body shackled, the doctors hadn’t shared his enthusiasm, with several insisting that such treatment was tantamount to disrespectful treatment of the dead. “If Block Party animates as an undead pony, your consideration won’t prevent him from slaughtering you,” Lex had countered coldly, shutting down their objections.
As they’d prepared for transporting the corpse back, Lex had left ahead of them, wanting to be alone to think. And now, having reached the other end of the camp, he’d come to a firm conclusion: whatever had prompted Sonata’s temper-tantrum, it was going to have to wait. He had bigger problems to deal with than her fit of pique.
Much bigger, he thought to himself grimly as he looked over the whole of the camp, now illuminated by the rising sun. It had been impossible to make out the full extent of the beleaguered ponies living in the camp’s wretched conditions last night. But now, revealed by the daylight, he could see clearly what he’d only glimpsed before.
There were at least a thousand ponies living here. More than that, in all likelihood.
Even as Lex watched, a veritable town composed of torn tents and ramshackle lean-tos was starting to come to life, with ragged-looking ponies blearily emerging to nudge at the ashes of last night’s campfires or begin to trudge in the direction of the river, dented buckets and dirty mugs clenched between teeth or held in glowing auras. Others were hobbling towards the field hospital, or helping those that couldn’t quite make it on their own, queueing into a line to wait to see a doctor…a line that had only somewhat diminished since last night. A few simply came out and looked upward blearily before heading back into their meager dwellings, as though simply wanting to confirm that the sun had still risen…to confirm that Princess Celestia must still be there to move it, realized Lex.
Normally, thinking about the princess whom he aspired to replace would have filled Lex with disdain and frustration. But now those emotions failed to manifest. Instead, all Lex could do was impotently curse her and her fellow princesses for having given him such woefully inadequate information regarding the sorry state of Vanhoover’s ponies. If he’d realized just how uninhabitable the city had become, and how many of its citizenry had been left displaced and destitute, then he wouldn’t have had to grapple with the new problem that he’d just discovered.
I can’t create enough food to feed everypony here!
“Sonata, really, I’m okay.”
“I know, but we should check just one more.” Frowning as she spoke, Sonata looked around at the gathering of tents spread out around her, each of which contained a patient that the doctors considered too serious to be left without supervision.
Set up beside the field hospital, the small forest of dark-colored tents stood in stark contrast to the threadbare ones that made up the remainder of the camp. In addition to being pristine, they were set up in neat lines that were several rows deep. Further, each one had a small piece of wood – which looked suspiciously like planks from deconstructed crates – with a number penciled on it planted in the ground next to its entrance flaps. The result was an orderly array of temporary dwellings that were easily distinguishable from each other, despite their uniformity.
It was obvious, at least to Sonata, that Lex was responsible for the entire arrangement. The knowledge made her sigh as she tried for what had to be the fifth time to find a tent that wasn’t full to capacity for Nosey to rest in. Given that there wasn’t any food to be had, and wouldn’t be until Lex got around to creating some with his magic, Sonata was determined to at least find her best friend a place to rest. “Maybe…let’s see here.” She peered at the number beside another tent that she’d selected at random. “Number J7. That totes sounds lucky!”
“These tents are for ponies that the doctors need to keep an eye on,” protested Nosey, the same way she had each time Sonata had tried to find a place for her to rest. “I don’t mind taking a nap outside. It’s still summer, after all.”
“No way!” Sonata shook her head vehemently at the idea. “I can at least find you a place to get some shut-eye until Le-, until the food’s ready, and I’m betting this will be a winner!” Unzipping the tent flap, Sonata stuck her head inside. “Excuse me, can we-, whoa!” Immediately, she yanked her head out, looking slightly green. “Uh, sorry!” she called to the occupant as she hastily zipped the flap back up. “You just try and recover from…whatever that is! Nevermind us! I’ll get one of the doctors to come check on you super fast!”
Nosey blinked. “What was-”
“Nothing!” replied Sonata with a rictus grin, nudging Nosey away from the tent. “C’mon, let’s go check somewhere else!”
But Nosey shook her head, planting her hooves firmly on the ground. “Sonata, seriously, that’s enough.”
“But we can just-”
“Hey, listen to me.” Nosey reached up to put her hooves on Sonata’s cheeks, turning her head to make the other mare look her directly in the eyes. “I’m okay. You don’t need to do anything else.” She gave her a tired smile. “Just you standing up for me like that was enough.”
Sonata’s ears folded down as she took a step back, moving out of Nosey’s grasp. “I just…I feel terrible about how Lex was treating you.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” replied Nosey, before smirking. “That’s what you were telling me before, right? Block Party wasn’t my fault, and Lex wasn’t your fault, so let’s both of us stop feeling bad about things we couldn’t control, okay?”
That managed to get a wan smile from Sonata, and she sighed. “I guess. But-”
“No buts,” interrupted Nosey, still giving Sonata a friendly smile. “Now, I’m going to go lie down somewhere and rest, so you go do whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing, okay?”
Sonata looked like she wanted to protest for a moment, but then gave a resigned sigh. “Okay. Want me to come get you when its chow time?”
“How about you save me something for after I wake up?”
“Deal.” Sonata’s smile was a little wider as she trotted off, giving Nosey one last wave before she disappeared out of sight.
Sighing, Nosey slowly picked her way through the rows of tents, exiting them and circling around the central area where the field hospital itself had been set up, before coming around near where the supplies had been laid out. Picking her way through the stacks of materials and sundries, she paused as she saw a certain turquoise crystal mare sitting alone…or rather, near a wrapped bundle that looked suspiciously like a pony. Slowly, Nosey made her way over to her. “Hi.”
Cozy looked up from where she’d been staring at the ground, her face completely passionless, before dropping her gaze again. “If you’re looking for Aisle, he went to go talk to…somepony,” she murmured listlessly.
Nosey shook her head. “No, I was just…” She paused for a moment, her eyes flickering to the sheet-wrapped body beside Cozy before returning to the crystal mare. “I wanted to say how sorry I was about what happened to Pillowcase. I didn’t have a chance to express my condolences on your loss before.”
Cozy didn’t look up at her, muttering something that might have been a thanks.
Another long pause ensued, before Nosey spoke up again. “Did he worship Lashtada, too?”
That was enough to rouse Cozy’s attention, and she met the other mare’s eyes again. “Huh?”
“I mean, you’re a priestess and all, but did Pillowcase share your faith?”
Confusion could be seen on Cozy’s face, pushing past her malaise. “…yeah. I mean, I was the only one who got spells or anything, but we would both pray to her.”
Nosey gave her a tentative smile. “Well then, it’s not like you’ll never see him again, right?”
Cozy furrowed her brow. “What?”
“You know. In the afterlife.”
Cozy shook her head, an uncomprehending look on her face. What was this mare talking about? What was an “afterlife”?
Nosey’s smile fell away. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew.” Looking uncomfortable, she started to walk away.
“No, wait.” Cozy climbed to her hooves as she held out a hoof toward Nosey, who stopped in response. “What do you mean we can be together again? What does that have to do with both of us having worshipping Lashtada?”
“Well…before anything else, I want to stress that I don’t know that this is absolutely true or anything. It’s just something that I heard from Lex back in Tall Tale, when I first met him.” Reaching a hoof into one of her saddlebags, Nosey fished through it for a moment before withdrawing a notepad, flipping through several pages before she started speaking again. “Here we go. According to what he said, these ‘gods’ make it so anyone who worships them while they’re alive are reborn alongside them after they die.”
Cozy’s eyes widened, not having heard that before. “What…what does that mean? ‘Reborn alongside them after they die’?”
“Um…” Nosey flipped a page over with her hoof, scanning it quickly before flipping it back again. “I guess it means exactly that. If you worship a god when you’re alive, then when you die you reappear wherever your god lives. I think the implication is that you stay there forever.” She put the notepad away then, giving Cozy another tentative smile. “So that’s at least a little good news, right? He worshipped Lashtada, and so do you. That means that when you die, you’ll be together again.”
Cozy didn’t answer, just standing there with a shocked look on her face.
Several seconds passed, before Nosey bit her lip and canted her head behind her. “Well, um, I’m going to go find a place to rest. You take care of yourself, okay?” Receiving only a vacant nod in reply, she turned around and trotted away.
Cozy barely heard her leave, her mind whirling with what she’d just been told. Long minutes went by before she slowly turned to look at the shrouded bundle that was Pillowcase’s body. She’d been planning on taking him back to the Crystal Empire, hoping against hope that Princess Cadance would be able to restore him to life somehow. It had been a feeble, desperate hope, one that seemed more and more remote with each passing hour, but which she’d clung to simply because she couldn’t bear to face the thought of her beloved being gone forever. But now…
“When I die,” she whispered to herself, “we’ll be together again.”
Lex realizes that there are more displaced ponies than he can create food for! How will he tackle this problem?
Meanwhile, is Cozy's broken heart about to lead her to do something tragic?
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Whatever was behind Block Party is playing an insidious game.
(edit) First thought was the third siren sister, but that's obviously not it at this point...
This can only lead to tears.
Not enough food, not enough medical supplies and only a very limited number of individuals that can use magic to remedy that problem. Lex is probably going to need to get more followers and teach them how to conjure food cause his one convert isn't going to cut it.
For someone who's convinced she drove someone to suicide, one would think Nosey would choose her words more carefully. I just hope Aisle makes it back in time before Cozy does something drastic.
Given Cozy's proximity to the triage center, I'm guessing Aisle convinced her to help though given her state, that's unlikely so he's probably helping out in her place while asking the doctors to pretend that she's been helping. It's probably the only thing he could think of to protect Cozy while she's in a delicate place.
Also, it's interesting to hear that the ponies have no concept of an afterlife here or am I misunderstanding things here?
Aren't there some ponies that directly worship Luna now? I wonder where their souls will go. Be hilarious if petitioners start appearing in Canterlot.
8501225
Heh, that would be really silly if that happened. Still, I imagine that Luna's followers would likely go to the dream realm or at least a place similar to that. This way, they may continue worshipping her while assisting her with her duties or something along those lines.
And the perks is that they can communicate with the loved ones they left behind anytime they slumber.
Nosey just did the equivalent of if you jump off this bridge, youll learn to fly before you hit the spikes because you just wont want to hit them.
8501386
8501225 Pathfinder developer James Jacobs, spoke to that recently, saying that answers would be given in the upcoming Planar Handbook and giving us a summary, but I'm not quite sure what he meant.
From what I can tell, the book is going to say that there are multiple types of petitioners, but he only mentions "prey" (who are petitioners for oni and rakshasa demigods) and "remnants" (which are, according to him, the petitioners for all other gods). If that's the sum total of the new types of petitioners the book is going to debut, it seems like kind of a waste, since the existing template in Bestiary 2 looks just fine to me. Maybe it will result in some sort of form-change that's fitting for the nature of the deity?
That said, the basic answer is that petitioners go to the divine realm of their god. While that can be somewhat awkward to consider when it comes to the Prime Material Plane (i.e. where most mortals live), there's no particular reason why that wouldn't work any differently than on any other plane. The more notable problem is that, insofar as we're aware, Luna doesn't have a divine realm (yet)! That's kind of a prerequisite for reaching any sort of true level of divinity; hence why beings such as empyreal lords, demon lords, and archdevils all have entries for realms that they control, as well as the powers they gain when within them. In fact, I'd venture that having such a realm is a necessary step for becoming a deity.
One wonders if Luna knows that, and if so what she's doing about it.
8501519 Strictly speaking, Nosey wasn't wrong about what happens to worshipers of gods when they die. Though that hardly means that it's a good idea to simply give up on living.
8501017 Why, whatever do you mean?
8501050 Well, I imagine that one way or another there'll be tears involved.
8501082 The problem is that create food and water is a 3rd-level spell, which means that you're going to need to be at least 5th level (for preparatory casters) or 6th level (for spontaneous casters) in order to cast it. Needless to say, Cloudbank isn't that powerful (and neither is Cozy, for that matter). So it's pretty much all on Lex right now.
Aisle's being off somewhere probably does have something to do with the ultimatum that Lex gave regarding Nosey using her spells to help the doctors. But what exactly he's doing about it remains unclear. As for Nosey, her message of hope does seem to have resulted in just the opposite, doesn't it?
Having said all of that, you're correct in your interpreting Cozy's not knowing what an afterlife is. That is to say, I don't believe that Equestrian culture has any such belief system. I say that because, in the show itself, we've never seen any sort of reference to what happens to ponies (or even what people think happens to ponies) after they die. Throw in that the show doesn't seem to have any sort of graveyards, cenotaphs, shrines, or other places for honoring the dead - as well as a total lack of religion - and it starts to become clear that Equestria not only has virtually no cultural norms regarding death, but not even any associated belief systems! Even the statues and other mementos of ponies that are gone now focus entirely on their lives and achievements. There's nothing regarding what happens to them after they die.
Simply put, Equestria is a world that focuses solely on life and the living. It's almost difficult (at least for me) to think that they're so completely uninterested in what happens when life ends, but that does seem to be the case. Naturally, this is an area where gods and religions can quickly move to fill in the void that the ponies have left.
8501938
Well shoot, looks like Lex is going to have to figure out a way to feed all these ponies though given how much it taxes him when he conjured up the feast, I don't think that's going to be possible for a while. He could create a rotation where the weak and infirmed eat first followed by the rest but that's going to take a while to figure out, which risks ponies starving and causing incidents of stealing from their fellow ponies.
Though the biggest problem he'll face in the immediate future(save for his relationship with Sonata) would be Spit Polish and the rest of Block's former cronies. They've enjoyed certain privileges under Block's command and to have that taken away is going to make them try and get back at Lex but given how somepony got a new manecut from Severance, they'll probably target the ponies in Lex's group instead. *Looks at Garden Gate*
Also, on the matter concerning Equestria having no consideration of the afterlife in the show. Well, now that you point it out, I don't think I've ever seen anything that referenced the afterlife...well, save when the CMC sang in Hearts and Hooves Day about looking for a special somepony for Cheerilee though I can't remember what it's called.
Anyways, there was a brief part in the song where we see an elderly pony seemingly giving a funeral service as evidenced by a casket besides him. Though brief as it was, this implies that ponies do have customs concerning the afterlife, or at the very least, how to deal with the loss of loved ones.
Regardless, it would be interesting to see how the gods and religions of the Everfree intend to embed themselves into Equestria.
8501916
What about her Dream Realm? It exists (she was worried things from there could escape to the real world through a portal), it's not the normal material plane, and she has special powers there.
8502448 The food situation is yet another crisis that's waiting to explode, and now Lex has to figure out how to deal with it, particularly since he's already made it known that he's going to be distributing food (i.e. the ponies in front of the train station that he told to go away). So that gives him somewhat less than an hour to figure out what he's going to do. As you noted, there are almost certainly existing tensions within the camp already that are just waiting to flare up if there's a question of some ponies getting to eat while others have to starve.
With regard to that old pony giving what looked like a funeral service during "The Perfect Stallion," good catch there! I confess I hadn't noticed it; that said, I don't find it very convincing. That's because, during the course of that song, we see arcade machines that are freestanding outdoors as well as numerous ponies that never show up again (e.g. the "too short" pony, "too tall" pony, and "strangely obsessed with tubs of jelly" pony). All of which we never see again in the course of the series. We do see that colt in the beanie cap again, but that underlines the point; we actually see him again later.
The point I'm making, in other words, is that certain things in the show aren't meant to be interpreted literally (and are usually things that we never see again, and are never referenced again either). I always flinch when I say that, because it runs counter to the first rule of trying to translate something into a game system, which is to represent what you see, and not your interpretation of what you see. But the thing about a lot of cartoons - the ones that tend to go for humor, at least - is that they have a lot of "sight gags" (my terms for visual-based jokes wherein something happens that disregards the rules of the setting). That's why, for example, we can see Twilight get hit with an anvil (and several other heavy objects) and be fine by the next scene, whereas when Pinkie is almost crushed by a boulder, Rarity anxiously says that they "almost lost" her (that is, that she almost died).
Musical numbers tend to be particularly egregious in this regard. Musical montages, for example, are completely impossible to interpret literally, unless you want to say that the characters spontaneously sing a bar or two at some point, and then just stop until hours or days pass, and then sing another out of nowhere, repeating the process until the song is done. Things like that leave us with little alternative but to pick and choose which of those sequences aren't literal, since if we tried to treat them ALL as if they were, the result would be a world that has no real hard and fast rules when it comes to some of the most foundational aspects of living there. Of course, that's somewhat laborious, but fortunately most of us can intuitively tell when something's a gag, and so quietly write it off when figuring out what to reference regarding the "how" of the way the world works.
It's worth noting, I should add, that Pinkie Pie tends to blur the distinction between "reality" (in the context of the world) and sight gags as a matter of course, such as her accidentally sledding away from Yakyakistan and all the way back to Ponyville at once, in the time it takes her to scream "Nooooooo!!!"
8502812 It's fairly self-evident that dreams, in the context of what we see in the show, occupy some sort of metaphysical area. When Princess Celestia is using Luna's magic in A Royal Problem (season seven, episode ten), we see her in some sort of "between" area where she looks at several different dreams before going into Starlight Glimmer's. That's conveniently similar to the Plane of Dreams, from the Manual of the Planes, so we can safely posit that such a place exists.
The issue is whether or not Luna has anything that resembles a divine realm there. In that case, I'm somewhat more skeptical.
Luna's ability to interact with dreams appears to be entirely based around the magic she receives from her cutie mark. Hence why, once Starlight had removed it, Luna was not only unable to help Celestia deal with Starlight's nightmare (beyond offering encouragement), but couldn't even stand up to her own (remember, she was quailing before the creepy foals in her dream before Celestia pulled her out)! She otherwise didn't exhibit any particular aspects of a being returning to their divine realm; she didn't exhibit any fundamental degree of control over the place simply by being there, nor did being there make her any stronger than she otherwise is. She simply has a style of magic based around dreams, the night, and the moon.
Now, that's an analysis of what we've seen in the show. It's possible that Luna is setting about changing that within the context of this fic, but I suspect that she'd have an uphill battle ahead of her. Unlike David Silver, I don't see the alicorn sisters as being anywhere close to anything that remotely resembles a divine status; at the absolute most I'd say they have the divine source mythic ability, and even then I'd be rather grudging about that; I think it's far more likely that this is a case of how, in older editions of D&D, low-level divine spells could be received from faith alone.
Running behind on several things here. The latest update for a game I play came out, and boy have I been sinking time into it.
This sounds awkward.
Uh oh. You shouldn't have done that Nosey.
Never tell a grieving person they could be together again, if they die.
8503015
Yeah, I know what that's like.
Really? It sounds okay to me.
A really bad idea does seem to have been planted in Cozy's head.
two vary good chapters.
ok who see this coming?
8503381 Thanks for saying so!
8503404
it is vary obvious to me.
8503341
What game(s) do you play?
8504275 Mostly Pathfinder, but severa-
...wait, you meant video games, didn't you? In that case, very few at the moment.
8504880
...Yes?
8504882 Some compilations of old NES games at the moment. Old classics never die.
8504929
OH yes. I have access to emuators for NES, SNES, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and DOS. At least those are the ones I remember. I played and finished the Metroid games a while back. Apparently the next one on my list is on the Gameboy, and I don't have an emulator for that. It sucks.
Btw, what games, more specifically? Mario? Zelda? Mega Man?
8504943 Clu Clu Land.
Oh, and Golf.
8504962
I don't think I have ever seen Clu Clu land.
And golf? Relaxing?
8504968 I suppose that's one word for it.
Is she trying for a suicide kill streak?
11737353 That does seem to be the implication.