//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Learning // Story: Unforeseen Consequences // by SilverEyedWolf //------------------------------// Rarity stirred from her position, groaning as her back made a couple of unsubtle noises that told her she shouldn't be sleeping where she was sleeping. She resolved to buy herself a mattress topper or something of the like, then reached out a hoof for her comforter. She felt around for it longer than she would have admitted, before cracking an eye and looking down at her sheets. Except they weren't her sheets. She gasped, wide awake and bolt upright in an instant, as she looked down at what she had thought was her bedclothes, but was instead her most expensive bolt of cashmere, and in the deepest variation of purple that she had. Normally, while a bit luxurious even for her, not a giant deal. But it just so happened that her cat, Opalescence, had been shedding recently, and her 'bed' was not her bed, it was her fainting couch. And for some reason, it had been moved over to her wall... Her dream came back to her, and she shivered when she remembered that voice that had spoken to her in it, from all those years ago. She must have done some sleep-walking last night, as well as some sleep-magic if the state of her room was anything to go off of. She heard some rattling from the room connected to this one, the one that housed her oven and pantry, and her heart thumped painfully in her chest. She opened her mouth, willing the words to ask, to seek out the answer as to who was there. Her throat closed at the answer, present in her mind, the silhouette of the tall creature playing across the stage of her mind. She shook her head, pushing the thought of the dream out of her mind... But still found herself unwilling to call out, so with a quiet but deep breath, she crept off of the couch and snuck to the doorway. It wasn't a dream, her brain filtered through the fuzz as she looked at the body belonging to the voice that had been waiting on her for years. Its back was to her at the moment, the head and neck completely immersed in one of her kitchen's lower cabinets. She noted, faintly and in the farthest reach of her mind available, that while it was twice as long or tall as she was, it was thinly framed; its shoulders were wider than hers but narrower than Macintosh's, Applejack's brother. Its hips were in line with the shoulders, and its fluffy tail was sweeping the floor rapidly as she heard some primeval crunching noises deep inside the cabinet. Scrabbling with her mind, she cleared her throat and said, "Andesoth?" It froze, hackles raising and tail sticking straight out from its spine. After a moment, she heard some more crunching and a clearing of a throat. "Rarity?" it said, half a question and half an admission of guilt that reminded her of her little sister being caught with too many cookies in hoof to remove her leg from the cookie jar. "Are you perhaps eating my cereal?" she asked, her hope overrunning the fact that she could see the box she'd absently left out on the counter. It sat there, taunting her with the knowledge that it wasn't in the cupboard, but something akin to it was. She watched as its hackles smoothed before it asked, "Is that what these hard tubes are called?" It remained within the cupboard. Rarity sighed. "No, Andesoth, those are my dried penne," she admitted, feeling her sanity slip just that little bit more. It let out a rumbling noise, at the top of its chest and in the bottom of its throat, before saying, "Then I am eating your dried penne, Rarity," as though that sorted everything. After a moment, the crunching resumed, as did the tail's movement. She raised a hoof towards it, before placing the hoof back on the ground. Her muzzle opened, closed. "It would taste better after being cooked," she offered, the hackles raising again for a moment before almost instantly smoothing. "If you haven't eaten the jars of sauce, I could even dress it properly?" She noted, with incredulous amusement, as its tail actually tucked between its hind legs. "I am afraid it would be an empty gesture at this point," it said, still guiltily. "There remains... maybe fifteen of these tubes." There was another crunch, a beat of silence, then, "maybe eight." "As you were then, I suppose," she said, giving in to the insanity of the day and walking over to the cupboard she kept her bowls in. "If you're still hungry, maybe you could try something that is supposed to be crunchy? I am about to have some cereal; I can pour another bowl?" It continued crunching for a moment, before finally withdrawing its head from the cupboard. The waxed paper bag that used to have pasta in it dangled from a long strip off of its nose as it looked at her, its tail slowly wagging still. "I would be appreciative, Rarity," it said, its large ears perked on top of its head. She reached over with her magic and pulled the bag down, tearing it from the Andesoth's mouth. "Very well. Do you prefer cinnamon or choc-" She paused halfway through the word, looking the creature up and down as some of Fluttershy's conversation floated up to her in her mind. "You seem to me to be a canine, dear; can you even have chocolate?" It snorted. "I am resistant to most poisons," it said with a grin, quickly followed by a frown, "but it still is not comfortable. I would prefer the cinnamon choice." "Very well," she said, smiling up at the creature, then realizing she was smiling up at it and wiping the expression from her muzzle. "How about milk? Are you lactose intolerant?" Its face went blank. "I do not know this, lack-toes intoleration, but I am able to drink milk." Rarity nodded, using her magic to open her icebox and float a pitcher of the fabled substance over to her table, walking over with the bowls as the box of cereal also flew through the air to the table. The thin paperboard unfolded and the pieces clinked almost musically against the glass. The milk splashed in before being banished back to her icebox, two spoons delicately scooping into the food before she nodded, smartly. She sat on her normal seat, then watched the creature approach the other side, where she'd situated the other bowl. It pulled out the chair gingerly, looking at the two-and-a-half-foot-tall tabletop and the half as high seat. It looked at Rarity, who was watching it without saying anything, before it moved the chair aside and crouched, still a couple of inches taller than she was. It watched her for a second, and she gave a little twitch when she realized it was waiting to follow her lead. Looking at the creature's hornless head, she reached out with a hoof, gripping the spoon with her frog and scooping up some of the cereal with it. She then carefully transferred the spoon to her mouth, placing it in and using her upper lip to pull the food off, before placing it back in the bowl. It watched her take another, slower, bite before it reached out to the spoon in its bowl. It tilted the utensil so that it only withdrew the spoon from the bowl, and looked it over. After trying a couple of different grips on the strip of metal, it settled on pinching it between its top three digits. Wiggling the bowl of the spoon experimentally, it dipped the end of the spoon into the cereal, pulling up a large bite and depositing the food into its maw. Rarity shivered at the crunching noise, the creature making a show of obliterating its food with open mouth and a slight smacking noise. She cleared her throat, loudly, before taking another bite, the creature watching her make a show of chewing with her mouth closed. It hummed, one of its ears twitching and flicking before it started chewing again, carefully keeping its mouth closed around its food. It returned the small smile Rarity gave it, before swallowing again and taking another bite. They quickly finished off their respective bowls, Rarity after the calories last night's castings had used, and the Andesoth eating towering stacks of cereal pieces with each bite. At the end Rarity picked up her bowl in her hooves, lifting an eyebrow at the Andesoth. "I'm about to do something very unladylike, and if you ever tell anypony about it I will deny it and be very cross at you for blabbing." Its ears flicked for a moment, flashing between being perked upright and being sprawled backward along its skull. Rarity nodded before lifting the bowl, swirling it a bit to get the sweetness residing at the bottom of her bowl, before she tilted her head back and took a heavy drink of the milk, draining half of the bowl. She let out a happy breath as she lowered the bowl to the table, quietly smacking her lips in delight at the syrupy sweetness leftover from the cereal. The Andesoth's ears kept flicking for a moment, before it lifted its bowl as well, bringing it to its lips and tilting back. Rarity felt her own ears flick upright as she watched it drain the entirety of its bowl before setting it back on the table gently, a long tongue flicking out and licking its lips as it looked back at her. She let out a small laugh before she drained her bowl, levitating a napkin to her chin and wiping away the few errant drops. "Well then, with food out of the way, I think it's time you and I had a chat," she said, placing the bowls in her sink with her magic. In the same motion, she summoned a kettle out of a nearby cabinet, filling it with water and plonking it on her stove. After a second's thought, she pulled out an entire box of dark tea and placed it on the table, flanking it with two large mugs. "At your wish, Rarity," the creature said, shifting from its crouched position and falling onto its haunches with crossed back legs. "What would you ask of me?" She tapped the table in front of her absently with a hoof, thinking. "You don't want to eat me?" she asked, nodding when it shook its head. "I suppose that would be a relief. Last night, you said that you, uhm, wanted me, for, uh, all of my days?" It nodded, smiling. She let out a short hum. "What exactly does that constitute?" It frowned. "I mean, what do you mean by that declaration? Do you seek my time, or my companionship, my friendship..." She shivered, before giving it a flinty stare. "My body?" It looked at her, its ears lowering as it thought. Then they perked, it smiled, and she heard its tail sweeping across the floor again as it said, "Yes." She let out a quiet hmf noise, looking it over. "May I assume you are a male?" "I am," he confirmed. She nodded, leaning back in her chair for a moment. She glanced over at the stove, wondering when the water would boil, before sighing and actually lighting the burner the kettle was over. "I don't quite believe you, Andesoth," she said, watching as he frowned heavily, his ears laying down again. "While I will say that I am quite the catch, as it were, I do not believe that the only thing you want from me is to be my coltfriend." His tail had stopped its gentle sweeping. "I mean, you're an unknown creature from, what, the darkness of space? Dimensions? And now that you're free, you don't want to, say, eat every pony between Las Pegasus and Manehatten?" He let out a chuffing noise. "I am not from the Darkness," he said, back slumping. "That is merely where you pulled me from. And while I admit that I do have a craving for meat," Rarity shivered at this admission, "I am not prepared to kill and eat another creature. I am not a monster, living only to fill its guts, Rarity." She looked into his eyes for a moment, seeing the pain behind his words. After a moment, she nodded. "Alright then, I will believe that," she conceded, his eyes clearing. "Then, if you are not from the Darkness, where are you from?" she asked, glancing over at the kettle and pulling it from the stove, clicking off the burner as she placed it on the table. He hesitated, scratching his head absently as his muzzle dipped to the table. "It is hard for me to remember," he said, running his digits behind the crease of his ear. "Time moves differently in the Darkness, and a being does not feel it the same way all of the time. In the Darkness, I took a single breath in between the times we spoke, but to my surprise found you much older than the first time." "Wait, so you meant for me to summon you right away? When I was a little filly?" she asked, pulling away from him. "You would have taken me, as a-?" She watched his face warp in confusion, then into a point of clarity. "How would I have taken your companionship when you were little?" he asked. "In most of the same ways, I suppose, besides the physical. My peoples practiced such things, arranged betrothals between those of higher stations. The age disparity is not usually so great, but arrangements have been seen to happen before even birth." Rarity's mind rocked a bit, but she leaned forward to clarify, "But you would not have sought after anything more, physical?" stressing the last word. He recoiled, as though slapped. His ears drooped as he looked at her, saying, "Once again Rarity, I find myself in need of telling you that I am not a monster." He leaned forward, displaying his teeth as he said softly, "We had evil creatures, who preyed on the young as you fear." He gnashed his teeth together, the sound massive in the suddenly too small room. "We skinned them." She gasped, shivering, watching his teeth carefully until he leaned back, dropping his expression into a frown. After a moment, he sighed, reaching out to the kettle and pouring the hot water into both of the mugs. Setting it to the side, he opened the box of tea and gently sniffed at the bag, nodding and placing it into the mug he had pulled to him. "I think," he said, softly, "that that should be the first thing we clear up." He looked up at her, pleading in his eyes. "I am not a monster," he said. "My teeth may be bigger, sharper than yours. My claws are for fighting, tearing; my legs made for sprinting, for running down prey. But I swear on the hides of my kin, I am not a monster." Taking a breath, Rarity reached out to the remaining mug, pulling out her own teabag and dropping it in. She looked him over for long, quiet minutes before she nodded. "I am sorry, Andesoth," she said, before slowly reaching out a hoof across the table. "I... I think I believe you. I may have misjudged you, and I am sorry." He looked across the table, then down at her hoof. Slowly he reached out a paw and placed it on her leg, covering her hoof to her knee, and gently squeezing it. She shivered at his touch, the pads smooth and leathery on her fur, but she found the touch warm and soft. "I must say, I don't think we have any predators quite like you in Equestria," she said. "Maybe that is why I am making all of these unfounded assumptions about you. I will endeavor to correct myself in the future." "Thank you," he said softly, before releasing her leg and picking up his cup. His large tongue extended once again, and he lapped at the tea for a moment before a snickering had him look across the table. Rarity made a show of blowing on her own beverage, before taking a quiet sip. The Andesoth watched, before snorting and smiling a bit. "I see that this is a society that puts particular emphasis on how to drink," he said, before copying her dainty sip. Rarity hummed, saying, "I think it's more about being quiet while eating and drinking. Your crunching earlier, in the cabinet, was quite appalling, to be honest." He looked over her face for a moment before letting out a quiet chuckle. "I will take pains to ensure that I eat your dried penne more quietly in the future," he said with a smirk. "Please do," she said with her own giggle before she frowned at him. "That was a joke, yes? Please do not eat any of my dried pasta, it's supposed to be boiled first." "Ah," he said, nodding. "I'm afraid that was my own assumptions. I saw your teeth were flatter, and more for grinding than my own." Rarity let out a ladylike snort, covering her muzzle with a hoof. "While that is true, we do still enjoy cooked food more than dried grains." The Andesoth looked pointedly at the box of cereal. "...Touché, I suppose. I believe you will find that to be an outlier though, as most of our foods are more processed than dried pasta. Which is in itself quite processed," she said, frowning. "I'm afraid I am not explaining myself very well." "It is unimportant," he said with a smile. Rarity nodded, taking a sip of her tea. "So, you eat meat?" she tried to segue into a new topic. "I do," he said carefully, looking into her eyes. "I prefer it to not be able to speak to me, though I will admit all of those like me do not share the same compunction. I find it distasteful, immoral, to say the least." Rarity nodded. "Speaking of those like you, we were talking about where you came from before I... Before I became insulting," she said inquiringly. He hummed, deep in his chest, before nodding. "I believe I mentioned that time distorts in the Darkness," he murmured. "I am not sure how long, exactly, I was in there for. Trying to recall any amount of time within its influence is uncomfortable, and the time before I was cast into it is hazy. On top of that I do not appear to have aged much while in its grip," he said, looking at the back of one of his paws and running the digits of the other through the fur. "I estimate my body to still be around three hundred cycles." "Cycles?" Rarity asked, cutting in. "Yes, how we measured large amounts of time. One cycle was five seasons, each season lasting two and some months," he said, frowning as he remembered the details. "One cold season, then an intermediate one of warming, a hot season, another intermediate season of chilling, then the season of dying nature. Our cycle used to end once the first snows came, in the past, but I think we started measuring them in months before I was banished." "Banished!?" she said, a bit loudly. She pressed a frog to her muzzle, clearing her throat before asking, "Banished?" He chuckled a bit, nodding. "Yes, banished. You've rescued a criminal from his prison, Rarity." She gulped audibly, then sipped at her tea. "Uhm, may I ask...?" He sighed. "I was a magician, in those times," he said, tracing a circle in the air with a digit. "I was one of the better ones even, and the tribe's leader conscripted me into his courts. He did not, however, tell me how sensitive the other mages were," he sneered. "Apparently one needs only to question another's abilities, before finding oneself at the wrong end of a spear. They came after me with allegations of communing with demons to take over the tribe after dispatching the leader." "That's awful," she said with a frown. "I never had any interest in taking over the tribe, I merely had some questions that needed answering," he finished, taking a heavy drink as the cogs in her mind ground together for a moment. "Andesoth?" she asked, getting his attention. "Did you commune with demons?" He snorted, and she relaxed a bit. Until he said, "Of course I did. How else does one gain power?" Rarity gazed at him, blankly. He gazed back, eyes softening. "What is it you call a demon, Rarity?" he asked, and she blinked at the question. "Well," she said, stalling a bit as she gathered her thoughts, "in Equestria, they are evil beings that reside in Tartarus. They are contained there until a pony summons one, using its name and protective shields, and they generally form a contract. The demon adds its magical powers to the pony, in exchange for the pony's life essences. Any communication between ponies and any being from Tartarus is heavily monitored, and can only be done by licensed officials with training and legal documentation." The Andesoth hummed. "They are simpler in my world," he said. "A demon is any spirit or power that does not have flesh or any body on our plane, in our existence. A demon could be the lingering soul of a dead creature, or the combined consciousness of a certain group, even down to the slow-flowing spirit of a creek." "Oh, like a shaman," Rarity said, perking up. "We have ponies like that here, who use magic to speak with the spirits of the land, and less often with the restless souls of the departed." He nodded a bit, smiling. "These creatures, shamans as you call them, were forbidden in our society. The speaking with a spirit has some risks, and in the past it was known that a group of spirits came together and formed a vengeful monster, destroying an entire tribe after it had wiped them out." "That does sound dreadful," Rarity murmured. "It was the price that one paid," the Andesoth said, shrugging. "Even within the places that ones like me were allowed free existence, there were rules and laws. The greatest of these laws was to know what price was being asked of you before you paid it." Rarity's ears twitched, and the Andesoth chuckled and nodded. "Indeed, although I hope you find this price preferable to having your body taken over and burned out to enact revenge on a group that slaughtered another group of creatures," he said heavily. Rarity's muzzle scrunched. "I suppose that will remain to be seen." The Andesoth shrugged, taking a drink from his cup as Rarity digested all of the information. She frowned suddenly. "You said earlier that you appeared to still be around three hundred cycles old?" she confirmed, with him nodding at her. "How long were your months, if I may?" "They were forty and two cycles of day and night," he said, looping his digit through the air. "Though there were some who said that we were going to end up with the cold months in the middle of the hot seasons if we did not figure out the cycles more precisely." "So your cycle is longer than our own year," she murmured to herself, using her magic to open a drawer across the room and pull out a charcoal piece and some spare paper. "So, forty-two days to each month, and how many months to a cycle?" she asked, sketching out some numbers on the pad with the blacked stick. "Eleven," he said, "though they were still trying to match the months with the seasons." "So that's four-hundred and sixty... Sixty-two days?" she said, watching him following along with her math mentally before nodding. "And how, uhm, long were your days?" He frowned and shrugged. "We did not measure any more finely than by the day and night cycle. Our times during the day were measured by the position of our smallest sun, and by the moon at night." "Wait," Rarity said, looking up from her page and placing the stick down on it. "Your smallest sun? You had more than one sun?" He nodded, looking at her strangely. "Do you have only one? We had a small, bright white central star, that had four other, larger ones spinning around it in unity. We also had our moon, which was very small compared to the suns, and had a surface that glittered and gleamed in the light." Rarity stared at him, stunned. "You had five suns, and a moon made of diamond?" she asked. He shrugged. "The creatures who cared could never make up their mind on the moon's material," he said. "Personally I think it was more likely ice crystals, but we are never to be sure." She slowly nodded, looking down on her page as her brain restarted. "Well, if you don't have a length of time for your days, I can't truly be sure of your age equivalent in our years," she said with a shrug. The Andesoth nodded. "It matters little to me," he said, "as I spent what felt like many, many cycles in the Darkness. I have no problem with defaulting to whatever your own age may be." Rarity hummed to herself, looking over his fur and finding no signs of gray or white hair, nor any wrinkles. "Very well," she said, "let's round it out and call you twenty-five in pony years." "So it shall be," he said. Rarity nodded, sipping at the last dregs of her first mug of tea before pouring more water into it. "That's a lot of talk about your society, but not much about you yourself," she said. "You told me last night that you were the Andesoth. Was that your name, or a title, or perhaps what your race calls themselves?" He shrugged. "I am the Andesoth," he said, simply. "Should I call you Andesoth then?" she asked, cocking her head to the side. "What exactly does Andesoth mean?" He shrugged, making a strange face before repeating, "I am the Andesoth. If that is what you mean to call me by, then that will be what I answer to. And..." He looked up, scratching at his wrist with a paw, "the Andesoth is the Andesoth. I am not sure you have a translation...?" Rarity hmph-ed, then cocked her head. "Speaking of translation, are you speaking Equish?" He blew some air between his lips. "That is complicated," he said, layering his digits in the table in front of him. "I am, honestly, not speaking at all. Do you remember when you heard me in your head, last night and years ago?" Rarity watched him physically speak all of this, her ears twitching at the tones he let into the room. She nodded. "I am still speaking to you in the same way," he said, gesturing with a paw in the air. "But because I have a body now, and it is before you, you 'see' me speaking. What is actually happening is my magic coming together with yours, letting you hear what I would like to say. Most brains cannot truly comprehend this, so they trick you into 'hearing' me." He looked into her eyes and chuckled. "I would not worry overmuch about it," he said with a smile. "In function, it is exactly the same, and I cannot hear anything from you that you do not speak." She rubbed her forehead a bit self-consciously, wondering if that was true, before nodding. "So if someone else were to come into the room?" she asked. He waved his paws out in a rippling pattern, saying, "My magic works like sound does. Walls and solid things muffle it, but I also cannot truly focus it, not in this way, so anyone walking in would hear me and see me talking, the same as it is for you." Rarity nodded again, happy to know that it wouldn't appear to everypony else that she was talking to... herself... "Actually, that brings up another point," she said, looking him over. "Everypony can see you, correct? You are here and not just in my head at this point?" He opened his mouth to reply, before chuckling. "Anything I could say could just be your own delusions if that was true," he said with a smile. "Anything at all could be a delusion at that point, though. How do you know you aren't sitting at a healer's, deep within some dream, never to wake up?" He snorted. "But no, I am truly here. Any passing pony could see me as well." She rubbed her forehead again, scowling against the threatening headache. "You wouldn't happen to know a bouncy pony named Pinkie Pie, would you?" she asked, resolving not to think about it too hard. "I actually don't know any ponies, besides yourself," he said. "There is a passing resemblance to some beasts of burden we had, that we called horses, but they did not speak or think." Rarity blinked at the Andesoth. "Whoreses?" she asked. "Horses," he replied, nodding. "Great lumbering things, taller than I am, but again, they only bare a passing resemblance to your kind." She opened her muzzle, closed it, shook her head. "Does that mean anything special?" he asked, cocking his head and looking closer at her. "I think it is the second time you have done that." She let out a light laugh, placing her frog against his encroaching nose and pushing his head away. "It just means that I am moving on from something, letting go of it. I was going to tell you that we also have whorses here, but I don't think they're the same thing, and I don't want to go into it, really." He nodded, a sage look overtaking his features. "I understand." Rarity snorted, letting his nose go and leaning back. She looked him over and sighed. "You know that I'm going to have to introduce you? It wouldn't do to have you stuck here all the time, nopony knowing about you." He nodded, his ears standing upright. "As you wish Rarity." "That said," she said, tapping her hoof on the table, "I'm not introducing you as the Andesoth if it doesn't mean anything. Would you mind adopting a name? A pony name?" He shrugged, his ears flicking. "What would you suggest?" "Hmm," she hummed, looking him over. "Something dashing, perhaps even mysterious. Something like Astral Eyes, or, Star Seer, or, Spirit Speaker!" He snorted. "Does your kind have an analogy for the saying for something being 'too on-the-nose'?" She scoffed, rolling her eyes but with a smile. "Something with more subtlety then. Let's go with a single name, something like, Duskshine, or maybe Silvertooth?" He made a noise, deep in his chest, before suggesting, "Moongazer?" "Hmm, no, I already know a mare named Moongazer," Rarity muttered. "Hrm, maybe, Cobalt Shores?" He snorted through his nose. "What shores?" "You're being awfully unhelpful for as picky as you're being," she said, scrunching her muzzle. He chuckled. "Well it is my name after all. Hmm, how about, Moonshine?" "That's an alcohol darling," she said, smirking a bit. "I should think that it would give the wrong impression. Does Shadow Mage strike your fancy?" His eyes narrowed a bit as he thought. "What about something like Mystic?" Rarity looked like she was waiting for something more, but he shook his head. "Just, Mystic. Or Old Mystic, if that sounds better?" Rarity's nose wrinkled. "That sounds nearly as bad as naming yourself Sage or Quartz Crystal," she said with a smile. "I'm trying to come up with something that goes with your eyes. Can you see well in the dark, or are they just a very lovely color?" He blushed a bit, smirking at her. "I would dare say that they see better than yours, certainly at night. Perhaps then something like Umbra Seer?" She tapped her hoof in thought, before saying, "What about Seer? Just plain Seer?" He stared into the distance for a moment, before licking his nose and saying, "A bit too broad," while tapping his claws gently on her table. "Tack on Spirit, make it Spirit Seer?" She rolled the name around in her head, taking a bit and considering before she smiled and nodded. "Spirit Seer. It has a nice sound to it if a bit spooky." She looked him over pointedly. "It should fit perfectly." "Very well then. Spirit Seer," he said, with a nod. "Lovely. Now, we need to-" They were interrupted by a knocking on her front door. Rarity froze as a voice called out, "Hello! Anypony awake? I brought cupca~a~a~a~akes!" "Oh no," Rarity whispered. "Pinkie Pie."