A week had passed since I became a...reindeer. Quite frankly, I feel something gnawing at my mind and trying to change me, but my previous memories seem to be keeping it at bay. It's very disconcerting and I really wish it would stop. There are moments where I wished I hadn't kept my memories, but there are other times where Yolumay tries to kill me and my memories of movies and books have helped me survive. She's so predictable that I've actually started becoming fond of her and her stupi-predictability. Huh. Used the word twice. Mother Doe seems to have some rather personal undertones concerning the ponies that live 'next door' as do all the reindeer here. I haven't seen my 'father' much, but when I do see him he tends to stay around for hours on end. I wouldn't give him a last minute coffee mug for father's day, but at least he prefers to spend time with his children when he can. Maybe too much time.
While walking through the castle with my almost politically correct mother, I overheard guards talking about preparations for the Snow Spirit festival and preparing security and all the stuff a guard with a helmet grasping their skull would do. Come to think of it, I hadn't left this mansion or castle, whatever it was, and wasn't even allowed to walk around on my own. I was always accompanied by someone and Yolumay was always hiding around a corner somewhere anyways. She's so fun to annoy. So...incompetent at everything she does. It's like watching the three stooges. I can't get over her. Anyways, I've been brought by my mother and the guards to a warehouse full of reindeer I'd never seen and, surprisingly, a few ponies.. Why are they all so colorful? Looks like someone ate one too many skittles and starbursts and barfed them out through their nose.
"My queen and son! How are you today?" King Anglacite asked with a cheerful expression.
There were several floats behind him with one having a throne of ice sitting upon a mound of snow. Many giant, blue snowflakes jutted out partway through the snow and accompanied the thin streams of frozen blue liquids going down from the throne. Several reindeer wearing blue overalls and carrying a wide array of tools were looking it over one last time. The king kissed his wife then ducked down to have a better look at his son. The deep blue pits that were his eyes unnerved the young child.
"I see the savior of our people is already walking impeccably."
"He has been galloping around like crazy lately."
"I wish I was there to see that. That being said, the festival is about to start and I need to sit on my throne while the soldiers perform their march. If it isn't too much to ask," He said when he stood up. "I want to take my son with me on the Frozen Throne so that my...our people may witness him in his glory."
"I'm not sure I can permit it," mother teased. She turned and tapped her chin gently as though she were thinking it over.
King Anglacite walked next to her then whispered something in her ear. Some rather...uneasy memories were jostled at that point, making me queasy. How ironic that one who had already performed the deed several times over in a previous life could not stand to think about it in his new one. Sad, isn't it?
"I guess that, under these terms, I would be willing to let him go with you on the parade."
"Excellent! I'll see you later at the feast."
He swooped at Stelimus and tossed him towards the float in question, and he was surely nuts to perform such an action. His son was terrified with the aspect of flying to his death because of the overzealous 'deity' who decided to use him as a sports ball. Stelimus saw him jump and twist his body towards the side, then frost and sparkles blew around him and landed the prince in the throne where he was caught and placed.
"There you go. Right here on the seat with daddy."
Stelimus was placed right in front of the reindeer who had decided to sit on his rear rather than sit on his haunches. There were even armrests on the throne.
"Ready, your highness?" a blue pony asked while looking through his notes.
"That's GOD-King to YOU, pony," he 'corrected'.
The pony rolled his eyes and groaned. "Let's get this show on the cobblestone!" he shouted.
The massive metal doors made a resounding and painful screeching noise as they were pulled aside by a group of reindeer and a few ponies. Stelimus noticed, thanks to his 'excellent' observational skills, that the ponies were at least a foot-and-a-half shorter that the deer. It was something that didn't really surprise him considering the short stature of ponies, but without seeing a human nearby, he couldn't really make a proper comparison and, thus, his attention already waned.
The first thing that Anglacite noticed once out of the warehouse was the lack of cheering and celebrating. Reindeer had lined up along the white cobblestone roads and some confetti and balloons were still falling down, but they were looking in the direction opposite of the float and outside the walls. Following their gaze, the two reindeer saw something horrifying staring down at the entire city. Stelimus reared back instinctively and whimpered, but his father put a foreleg over him and held him in place, surprising the young fawn who looked up to see his new father looking on with only determination. There wasn't an ounce of fear in his gaze. The source of this disturbance came from some sort of gigantic beast far away from the city and standing in a blizzard-like fog of the dark tundra. The outline of its body could still be seen but not in detail. It was the presence of three, glowing yellow eyes all the way at the top of its mass that attracted everyone's gaze. Considering that Anglacite knew the city was about ten kilometers in diameter if rounded up, and uneven at the limits of the walls, this creature was more than capable of leaping over the whole city in two steps.
It looked around briefly, then the yellow lights locked onto Anglacite's eyes. The creature's loud groan resonated within everyone's ears before it turned its head then continued on its way. The king sighed and eased himself back into his chair.
"Pfooh. I never thought a colossus would come all the way near an inhabited zone. They aren't hard to deal with, but they can cause tremendous amounts of collateral damage." Anglacite looked down at his son to see him breathing heavily. "It's okay, son. While I might be a God-King, I have fought creatures like these several times before and you will also eventually fight them, but only when you have become strong like your daddy."
"The king has chased off the monster with his gaze alone! Resume march!" a soldier shouted.
The people were all cheering and ecstatic at the claims of that one reindeer and started throwing confetti back into the air. Many of them were hailing their king and others bowed at his mere presence.
"Bunch of brown noses."
The buildings in this city all had the same architectural design: Pillars half-built into the walls with frost growing over them. The pillars, however, all had different etchings and artistic designs to them, so each house had its own 'personality', if one were to put it mildly. The walls were all painted with a substance most certainly made to resist extreme temperatures but was still pale in comparison to those Gregary remembered in his home world. Very rarely were they anything more than various coats of red, green, blue, yellow, or white. They all had a very renaissance-like feel to them. The roofs were usually made into a spiral shape or a rounded cone and were covered with tan-colored tiles. Unlike the vast majority of buildings that humans had almost always made, almost none of these houses had corners, but was either rounded or replaced with a pillar. The walls themselves seemed to be made of pykrete or a similar substance. Considering the extremely low temperatures, their ability to remain intact was not really surprising. The windows, however, were different for almost every house. Some were stained glass while others were frosted glass.
Street lights, similar to those found in the streets of old England, stood at the corner of most streets. They twisted upwards and had many rounded strands of black metal that all coiled around the base like a chameleon's tongue while the lamp itself seemed to hold a gently moving blue ball in it that emitted a bit of light; a light most likely easily seen during the night.
The soldiers continued to toss their spears upwards and spin them around on their antlers while the float continued forward. Stelimus retreated back into the fur of his father. He was never good with exceptionally large crowds, but his dad just grabbed him with his hooves and put the fawn right in the eyes of everyone there, causing him freeze and become stiff like an icicle. This made his father to laugh. After about an hour, everyone arrived in the town center that was just simply gigantic. It comprised nearly one-eighth of the city's total size. There were tables and chairs everywhere as well as numerous cooks dotted all around. Plates and utensils were already prepared for everyone and the smells of various spices and dishes made Stelimus drool in envy, but then he remembered he had no teeth and cursed under his breath. His father took him towards the table closest to a very wide building standing atop several dozen steps. Said table was perpendicular to those taken by the population there and was readied to house Anglacite's family and many high-ranking individuals in the city. Stelimus was placed next to his mother and the king stood atop the table and said:
"My great reindeer of Pykritus, we have gathered here today to celebrate my siblings and I's actions that helped you all become how you are today, but I do this celebration not to embezzle my own ego--"
"Which is quite huge," Mother Doe innocently added.
"Yes. Right. No. I do this to celebrate my first and greatest creation: My people and our culture! Geniuses have all been born from your ancestors and I have seen them all! Many times did one come and invent exciting new technology and research that aided our growth as a species. This is why all of you are always invited to down with the royal family. You are all extremely important to the survival and development of your species. I am only here to protect it and set it in the right path!" He picked up a glass full of a purple liquid then raised it high in the air. "TO THE REINDEER!"
"TO THE REINDEER!" the population shouted.
"You aren't going to celebrate without us, are you?" a female voice spoke from an unknown location.
Everyone looked around in confusion until their gazes were attracted to an enormous black bubble that formed Anglacite and his family. Two forms came from it before the bubble closed. A loud amount of 'oooo'-ing erupted from most of the male populace when a doe revealed herself. She was as tall as Anglacite but she had a very delicate and effeminate frame. She still had antlers like the god-king but they were covered with flowers and green vines. In fact, her body was more akin to forest deer covered with flowers and various other plants than a reindeer. Her top fur was mostly green, likely from moss, and the undersides were a dirty white. Her shining, emerald-green eyes were adorned with very long and exaggerated eyelashes which she fluttered rather annoyingly. Both Anglacite and Stelimus groaned loudly in annoyance.
"Oh! This must be your son!" she cried out.
She approached him a moment then kissed him on the head. A few flowers started to grow on his head, but they were quickly turned to ice and shattered off his skull in an icey powder.
"I would appreciate you not to do that to my own blood, sister," Anglacite hissed.
"Oh, pfff. Why not? I just like to keep up this 'Oh so effeminate and delicate' gig to please the idiots in the crowd."
"Effervescence," another figured hissed.
"Brother Grimliss! How good to see you again!" Anglacite cheered.
The king stood up and hoof-bumped his brother. Grimliss was much taller than even his brother and was covered in a black cloak of fluttering shadows. His face was even covered by a cowl, hiding any facial features he could have possessed.
"Why not show yourself to my son?" Anglacite grinned evily.
"Sure."
The reindeer turned to face the tiny fawn who looked at him with saucer eyes, completely unaware of whatever was going to happen. He never dealt with this sort of thing before. Were they truly gods?
"HOW ARE YOU DOING?!" he shouted.
Dropping the cowl revealed a deer's skull with purple flames standing in the dark orbits of its skull. The antlers were twisted and melded together, creating quite a mess but still leaving a few branches to stretch out.
Stelimus was so shocked he accidentally urinated himself.
"Dammit, Grimliss! Look at what you did!" Mother Doe complained.
Black shadows started crawling all over the skull to reform into black fur, but the eyes and lower jaw did not change.
"Oh, Primula. You should get so--" Effervescence tried to calm the situation but failed.
"No! He might traumatize Stelimus for a lifetime. You're also responsible!" Primula pointed at Anglacite.
"What'd I do?"
"You know very well what you did! You're even laughing at your son's expense!"
"Ooooo boy. That was embarrassing and all but I wasn't going to blame anyone but my bladder control. Curse this young body! And now I learn that I have the Creepy Fairy and Grim Reaper as an uncle and aunt. If this is what happened to them when they left, I worry to know what would have happened to the other two were they to survive. I can feel that this life is going to be full of surprises. Too bad I'm about to wake up from all of this pretty soon...any minute now..."