• Member Since 22nd Aug, 2015
  • offline last seen February 7th

Gentlehoof


I live in Colorado

More Blog Posts33

  • 222 weeks
    HL Maps


    The Earth Pony Village


    The Enchantress' Eternal Garden
    The Unicorns Hidden Valley.

    6 comments · 759 views
  • 224 weeks
    Ponies are Doomed to go Extinct.

    I have been thinking about this for a while ever since I saw the last episode of MLP and I have not seen anyone mention the problem I noticed, so I decided to post on it.

    Read More

    15 comments · 574 views
  • 236 weeks
    A little side project to clear my head.

    To break up the monotony of working every day on Herd Life, I jumped on a little project to help clear my head. Please check out my latest one shot short stories, The Lonely Widow, The Lonely Widow.

    Herd Life is making progress, just a few more pages to go.

    0 comments · 278 views
  • 250 weeks
    Story Update

    Ch 59 is out for those who haven't seen yet. Videomaster was nice enough to continue editing.

    0 comments · 376 views
  • 284 weeks
    Editor

    Peers is busy right now and I am in need of a temp editor. Anyone up for the job? Familiarity with Google Doc a plus.

    3 comments · 350 views
Mar
29th
2017

Aprils Fools, a few days early. · 2:58am Mar 29th, 2017

Well, chapter 24 is done but waiting to be edited. Peers is busy for the week and says that he can't get to it until thr or fri. so... I thought I would help pass the time if I release my April fools joke chapter early. I was going to release this on April 1 as the next chapter but after thinking about it, I thought it might be a bit mean, so here it is in a blog instead. I plagiarized a real story to make this, and I did it all for fun so treat this as a parody.
For those who may wonder, the answer is no, this is not how Herd Life is going to end.



The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened. Bars of sunlight cast through rents in the walls made motes of dust glitter where they yet hung in the air. Scorch-marks marred the walls, the floors, the bright murals, soot overlaying crumbling friezes of ponies and animals which seemed to have attempted to walk before the madness grew quiet. The dead lay everywhere, stallions and mares and foals, struck down in attempted flight by the lightnings that had flashed down every corridor, or seized by the fires that had stalked them, or sunken into stone of the palace, the stones that had flowed and sought, almost alive, before stillness came again. In odd counterpoint, colorful tapestries and paintings, masterworks all, hung undisturbed except where bulging walls had pushed them awry. Finely carved furnishings, inlaid with ivory and gold, stood untouched except where rippling floors had toppled them. The mind-twisting had struck at the core, ignoring peripheral things.

Princess Celestia wandered the palace, deftly keeping her balance when the earth heaved. “Luna! Sister, where are you?” The edge of her light yellow cloak trailed through blood as she stepped across the body of a mare, her sapphire blue maned beauty marred by the horror of her last moments, her still-open eyes frozen in disbelief. “Where are you, sister? Where is everypony hiding?”

Her eyes caught her own reflection in the mirror hanging askew from bubbled marble. Her clothes had been regal once, in white and gold; now the finely-woven cloth, brought by merchants from across the sea in Saddle Arabia, was torn and dirty, thick with the same dust that covered her mane and coat. For a moment she hoofed the symbol on her cloak, a golden circle with wavy golden flames radiating out from it. It meant something, that symbol. But the embroidered circle could not hold her attention long. She gazed at her own image with as much wonder. A tall mare, in the prime of her youth, a soft jawline framed the edge of her face with a long delicate nose set just before her beautiful large pale-magenta eyes. Celestia began to chuckle, then threw her back her head; her laughter echoed down the lifeless halls.

“Luna! Come to me. You must see this.”

Behind her the air rippled, shimmered, solidified into a mare who looked around, her mouth twisting briefly with distaste. Not so tall as Princess Celestia, she was clothed all in pink, save for the snow-white lace at her throat and the silverwork at the hem of her cloak. She stepped carefully, handling her cloak fastidiously to avoid brushing the dead. The floor trembled with aftershocks, but her attention was fixed on the mare staring into the mirror and laughing.

“Princess of the Sun,” she said, “I have come for you.”

The laughter cut off as if it had never been, and Celestia turned, seeming unsurprised. “Ah, a guest. Have you come for the party? It will be starting soon and you are welcome to take part. Luna, sister, we have a guest. Luna, where are you?”

The pink clad mare’s eyes widened, darted to the body of the sapphire blue maned mare, then back to Celestia. “Nightmare Pinkie take you, does the madness already have you so far in its grip?”

“That name. Night-” Celestia shuddered and raise a hoof as through to ward off something. “You mustn’t say that name. It is dangerous.”

“So you remember that much, at least. Dangerous for you, fool, not for me. What else do you remember? Remember, you sun-blinded idiot! I will not let it end with you swaddled in unawareness! Remember!”

For a moment Celestia stared at her raised hoof, fascinated by the patterns of grime. Then she wiped her hoof on her even dirtier dress and turned her attention back to the other mare. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The pink-clad mare drew herself up arrogantly. “Once I was your star pupil, but now-”

“Betrayer of Friendship.” It was a whisper from Celestia. Memory stirred, but she turned her head, shying away from it.

“So you do remember some things. Yes, Betrayer of Friendship. So have ponies named me, just as they named you Princess of the Sun, but unlike you I embrace the name. They gave me the name to revile me, but I will yet make them kneel and worship it. What will you do with your name? After this day, ponies will call you Ponybane. What will you do with that?”

Celestia frowned down the ruined hall. “Luna should be here to offer a guest welcome,” she murmured absently, then raised her voice. “Luna, where are you?” The floor shook; sapphire blue maned mare’s body shifted as if in answer to her call. Her eyes did not see her.

Twilight Sparkle grimaced. “Look at you,” she said scornfully. “Once you sat in the Solar Court. Once you had ponies fawning over your every whim. Now look at you! A pitiful, shattered wretch. But it is not enough. You humbled me in the Hall of the Sun. You defeated me at the Gates of Canterlot. But I am the greater, now. I will not let you die without knowing that. When you die, your last thought will be the full knowledge of your defeat, of how complete and utter it is. If I let you die at all.”

“I cannot imagine what is keeping Luna. She will give me the rough side of her tongue if she thinks I have been hiding a guest from her. I hope you enjoy conversation, for she surely does. Be forewarned. Luna will ask you so many questions you may end up telling her everything you know.”

Tossing back the hood of her pink cloak, Twilight Sparkle fixed her gaze onto Celestia. “A pity for you,” she mused, “that one of your unicorns is not here. I was never very skilled at Healing, and I follow a different power now. But even one of them could only give you a few lucid minutes, if you did not destroy them first. What I can do will serve as well, for my purposes.” Her sudden smile was cruel. “But I fear Nightmare Pinkie’s healing is different from the sort you know. Be healed, Princess Celestia!” She extended her horn, and the light dimmed as if a pink cloud had been laid across the sun.

Pain blazed in Celestia, and she screamed, a scream that came from her depths, a scream she could not stop. Molten cotton candy seared her marrow; frosting rushed along her veins. She toppled backwards, crashing to the marble floor; her head struck the stone and rebounded. Her heart pounded, trying to beat its way out of her chest, and every pulse gushed new bubbling caramel through her. Helplessly she convulsed, thrashing, her skull reverberated through the palace.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain receded. The outflowing seemed to take a thousand years and left her twitching weakly, sucking breath through a raw throat, Another thousand years seemed to pass before she could manage to heave herself over, muscles like jellyfish, and shakily push herself up on hoof and knees. Her eyes fell on the sapphire blue maned mare, and the scream that was ripped out of her dwarfed every sound she had made before. Tottering, almost falling, she scrabbled brokenly across the floor to her. It took every bit of her strength to pull her up into her hooves. Her hooves shood as she smoothed her hair back from her staring face.

“Luna! Heavens help me, Luna!” Her body curved around hers protectively, her sobs the full-throated cries of a mare who had nothing left to life for. “Luna, no! No!”

“You can have her back, Ponybane. The Great Nightmare Pinkie Pie can make her live again, if you will seve her. If you will serve me.”

Celestia raised her head, and the pink-clad mare took an involuntary step back from that gaze. “Ten years, Betrayer,” Celestia said softly, the soft sound of steel being bared. “Ten years your foul master has wracked the world. And now this. I will…”

“Ten years! You pitiful fool! This war has not lasted ten years, but since the beginning of time. You and I have fought a thousand battles with the running of the ages, a thousand time a thousand, and we will fight until time dies and the Pinkiness is triumphant!” She finished in a shout, with a raised hoof, and it was Celestia’s turn to pull back, breath catching at the glow in the Betrayer’s eyes.

Carefully Celestia laid Luna down, hoof gently brushing her mane. Tears blurred her vision as she stood, but her voice was iced iron. “For what else you have done, there can be no forgiveness, Betrayer, but for Luna’s death I will destroy you beyond anything your master can repair. Prepare to-”

“Remember, you fool! Remember your futile attack on the Great Lord of the Pink! Remember her counterstroke! Remember! Even now your unicorns are tearing the world apart, and every day a hundred more join them. What hoof slew Luna, Ponybane? Not mine. Not mine. What hoof struck down every life that bore your mark, everypony who loved you, everypony you loved? Not mine, Ponybane. Not mine. Remember, and know the price of opposing Nightmare Pinkie!”

Sudden sweat made tracks down Celestia’s face through the dust and dirt. She remembered, a cloudy memory like a dream of a dream, but she knew it true.

Her howl beat at the walls, the howl of a mare who had discovered her soul damned by her own hoof, and she clawed at her face as if to tear away the sight of what she had done. Everywhere she looked her eyes found the dead. Torn they were, or broken or burned, or half-consumed by stone. Everywhere lay lifeless faces she knew, faces she loved. Old servants and friends, faithful companions through the long years of battle. And their children. Colts and fillies, sprawled like broken dolls, play stilled forever. All slain by her hoof. The foals faces accused her, blank eyes asking why, and her tears were no answer. The Betrayer’s laughter flogged her, drowned out her howls. She could not bear the faces, the pain. She could not bear to remain any longer. Desperately she summoned her magic, her tainted magic, and Teleported.

The land around her was flat and empty. A river flowed nearby, straight and broad, but she could sense there were no ponies within a hundred leagues. She was alone, as alone as a Alicorn could be while still alive, yet she could not escape memory. The eyes pursued her through the endless caverns of her mind. She could not hide from them. The children’s eyes. Luna’s eyes. Tears glistened on her cheeks as she turned her face to the sky.

“Heaven, forgive me!” She did not believe it could come, forgiveness. Not for what she had done. But she shouted to the sky anyway. Begged for what she could not believe he would receive. “Luna, forgive me!”

She was still holding her magic, and he could still feel the sticky stain fouling its surface, the stain of the Pinkie’s counterstroke, the stain that doomed Equestria. Because of her. Because in her pride she had believed that ponies could match the creator, could mend what the creator had made and they had broken. In her pride she had believed.

She drew on her magic deeply, and still more deeply, like a mare dying of thirst. Quickly she had drawn more magic than she could handle unaided; her skin felt as if it were aflame. Straining, she forced herself to draw even more, tried to draw it all.

“Heaven, forgive me! Luna!”

The air turned to fire, the fire to light liquefied. The bolt that struck from the heavens would have seared and blinded any eye that glimpsed it, even for an instant. From the heavens it came, blazed through Princess Celestia, bored into the bowels of the earth. Stone turned to vapor at its touch. The earth thrashed and quivered like a living thing in agony. Only a heartbeat did the shining bar exist, connecting ground and sky, but even after it vanished the earth yet heaved like the sea in a storm. Molten rock fountained five hundred feet into the air, and the groaning ground rose, thrusting the burning spray ever upward, ever higher. From north and south, from east and west, the wind howled in, snapping trees like twigs, shrieking and blowing as if to aid the growing mountain ever skyward. Ever skyward.

At last the wind died, the earth stilled to trembling mutters. Of Princess Celestia, no sign remained. Where she had stood a mountain now rose miles into the sky, molten lava still gushing from its broken peak. The broad, straight river had been pushed into a curve away from the mountain, and there it split to form a long island in its midst. The shadow of the mountain almost reached the island; it lay dark across the land like the ominous hand of prophecy. For a time the dull, protesting rumbles of the earth were the only sound.

On the island, the air shimmered and coalesced. The pink-clad mare stood staring at the fiery mountain rising out of the plain. Her face twisted in rage and contempt. “You cannot escape so easily, Ponybane. It is not done between us. It will not be done until the end of time.

Nearby the air warped and shimmered. A blue box slowly appeared to settle onto the soft grass. A door on the side opened and a dark-tan earth pony stallion with an hourglass cutie mark stepped out and looked about. Following behind him was a light-grey pegasus mare with a cutie mark of bubbles. One of her amber eyes wandered apart from each other like it wanted to look at more interesting things.

“Where are we Doctor? This doesn’t look like ancient Roam.” The light-grey pegasus complained. “You said you were going to take me to see the colosseum.”

“Strange, this was supposed to be April 1, BCE 106,” the Doctor said scratching his head.

Report Gentlehoof · 411 views · Story: Herd Life · #Fun. Aprils fools.
Comments ( 7 )

I see you are a wheel of time fan. Well done sir!

4475644 wouldn't it be cool if the whole wheel of time was redone with ponies?

I expected something stupid for April fools, this was quite dark.
Not complaining, just unexpected :rainbowlaugh:

The idea of this was to release it as a chapter on april 1. It would start out epic then move quickly to the ridiculous then finish with the absurd. I was going to have it posted for the day then move it to the blog with the real chapter re-released in its place. The idea was to shock the readers with the sudden dark and ridiculous story that is completely different than what I normally write. But after sitting on it for a while as I waited for the date to arrive, I started to think that it may anger some of my readers. When Peers notified me that he would be late in editing the current chapter I decided to just put it out in this blog for the fun of it.

So, who thinks that Pinkie Pie would be absolutely terrifying as Nightmare Pinkie, the Great Lord of the Pink?

Wheel of time? isn't that by Robert Jordan?

4476546 yep, I parodied the prelude to the first book

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