//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: The God Of Breaking Rules in the Land of the Dead 
// by alarajrogers 
//------------------------------//

While the Lord of the Dead and his court did rest, the god of breaking rules slithered stealthily through the palace like his child Snake, avoiding the guards. Soon he came to the gate of the palace, which led out to the Elysian Fields. A single Orthros sat inside the gate, guarding it. He cried and whined, pulling at his chain. The Orthros, like the hydra, break the rule of heads, so they are the god's children as well.

The Orthros barked. "Halt! Who goes there? You are a stranger!"

"I'm no stranger, my son," the god of breaking rules said. "I look very different, I know, but smell me. I am the god of breaking rules, who created you!"

The Orthros sniffed. "You do not smell quite the same as the god of breaking rules," the Orthros said. "I smell many creatures on you. I smell dragon, and bear, and lion, and goat, and eagle, and even the venom of a toad."

"Yes, all those things are true," the god said. "But my head is still the same head as I have always had."

The Orthros sniffed the god's head. "It is true. You are the god of breaking rules, who created me," the Orthros said, and then whined. "But I wish you had not! I am so very sad!"

"Tell me why you are sad," the god said. "If it is within my power to help you, I will do so, in exchange for a small favor from you."

"My brother is dying," the Orthros said. "One of his heads was torn off in the battle, and now he only has one, and is dying from the lack. We were pups together! We played together, we ate together, we trained together! We thought we would die in battle together, but now he is going on without me! He will enter the Elysian Fields, while I remain behind as the sole guard for the palace, and we will be separated!"

"But you are a mortal dog, even though you serve the Lord of the Dead," the god said. "Someday you too will die, will you not? And then you will join your brother."

"No, god of breaking rules, I am not fully mortal, nor is my brother," the Orthros said. "We can die in battle, but the Lord of the Dead has withdrawn the boon of mortal aging from us, that we may serve him the longer. It may be centuries or millennia before I finally fall in battle myself and rejoin my brother, and will he even remember me then? I do not want to go on without my brother, but I am a faithful dog and I must remain alive to serve my master!" The Orthros whined pitifully again.

"There may be a way I can help you," the god said. "Let me go and see."

Back into the palace he crept, seeking the kennels. In the kennels, he found the dying Orthros, bandaged and lying on clean and comfortable straw, where he was placed to await his end. The dying, one-headed Orthros whimpered.

"Oh, heroic Orthros, who lost his head in battle," the god said. "I am the god of breaking rules, who created you. Are you suffering now? Is there anything I can do to ease your pain?"

"My master's dog handlers have given me potions to take the pain away," the dying Orthros said. "I am only suffering because I know that soon I will be leaving my beloved brother! I would never choose to leave him behind, but my master the Lord of the Dead will not stay his hoof for even a faithful servant as I have been. Soon my master will come to escort me to the Elysian Fields, and I will be separated from my brother for what may be aeons."

"Well, I have a possible solution for this," the god of breaking rules said. "I have already broken the rule of heads to make you, the Orthroi. I can break it again and place your living head on your brother's body. Your soul and his will combine and become one, and never will you be separated again in this or any other lifetime."

"I would be greatly thankful if you could grant me such a boon," the Orthros said. "I don't fear death, but I don't want to leave my brother."

So the god of breaking rules returned to the first Orthros, carrying the head of the second. "Oh Orthros, let me break the rule of heads for you and your brother and fasten his to your body. Your souls will combine into one dog with three heads, and you will never be separated again. Your brother has already agreed."

"I agree as well," the Orthros said.

"Then all I ask is that you turn all three heads away and do not bark or attempt to stop me when I travel from this palace to the Elysian Fields."

"But you are alive," the Orthros said. "The living are not permitted to go to the Elysian Fields."

"I am the god of breaking rules, and that is a rule," the god said. "Would you like me to save your brother and join him with you or not?"

"I am a faithful dog," the Orthros whined. "But I love my brother. Very well, Father, I will not stop you from breaking this rule."

So the god joined the head of one Orthros to the body and two heads of another, creating Kerberos, the dog of three heads. And Kerberos was joyful, for he was both of the brothers at the same time, and never would they be separated again. So he held his bark and did not give chase when the god of breaking rules snuck through the gate, out of the palace, into the Elysian Fields.




The Elysian Fields are the most wondrous paradise a pony can imagine. The grass that grows plentifully is the most delicious and filling of all grasses, tasting better than the apples of the mortal world. There are apples too, and carrots, and many delicious flowers, surpassing the most delightful of their kind that mortals can know. In the Elysian Fields, the shades of dead ponies, and other dead creatures, romp and play endlessly, without suffering or age, so long as they died without evil in their hearts. The only sorrow that anypony in the Elysian Fields might ever encounter is the sorrow of parting from the loved ones and friends who still live.

For most ponies, this is merely a bittersweet tang, for they know that all ponies are mortal. In the fullness of time, the friends and family they loved will come to join them. But for one pony, the sorrow could not be eased. Even as wondrous as the Elysian Fields were, her heart still hurt her, for she had loved an immortal god, and she knew that by the nature of things a god would not normally ever die. Thus she believed that she had lost her love forever.

She sat by the banks of the River Lethe, gazing into the water – which did not show her reflection, as she was a shade, but she knew well how she had appeared in life, and through the magic of the Elysian Fields so her shade appeared to be. She had the whitest of coats, and a lovely pink mane, and beautiful purple eyes. But her colors were all faded with her sadness, for even though she was in paradise, her loneliness could not be consoled.

And then she heard his voice. "My love!"

She turned and beheld him. His body was strange and patchworked now, his face twisted and pulled, his once-handsome eyes corroded; but she could hear in his voice and see in what remained of the face he had once had that he was her lover, the god of breaking rules. Swiftly she got to her hooves and galloped to him, embracing him. "Oh, I don't know whether to be overjoyed or stricken with grief!" she said. "I have missed you so much, but after my passing I took comfort in the fact that at least you were alive. Now you have come to me, and we can be together once more, but this must mean that you are dead as well!"

"But I'm not," the god of breaking rules said. "I have gone through many hardships and broken many rules to get here, and as you can see, I bear the scars of my trials." He gestured at his body, so changed from what she remembered. "But I am still alive, my dear, and I intend to bring you back with me to the land of the living."

"That doesn't seem right," the mare said. "It is the rule that the dead should remain dead, and the living shall not join them until they too are dead."

"Why am I the god of breaking rules if I cannot break the one rule that has caused me and my love the greatest misery?" the god of breaking rules said. "Come, my dear, surely you know where your bones are laid. Take me to them that I may restore you to life."

The beautiful mare did have some misgivings still, but she was merely a mortal and her lover was a god. Surely, she thought, if this thing he is doing is evil, he would know and he would not do it, for he is my love, and a god, and a good stallion at heart. She trusted in her god lover, and did not protest again. She guided her love to her own tomb, where her bones lay beneath the earth. "It will be wonderful if I can walk in the world again," she said. "But if your magic should fail in this, do not grieve. It makes me so very happy that you would try to reunite us in this way, it could hardly numb such happiness even if we do not succeed."

"Oh, but I will succeed," he said. "I stole the clay of Nature, which she uses to create all life." He gestured, and the beautiful mare's bones reassembled themselves into her skeleton. "Put on your skeleton, please, so I may clothe you in flesh."

She stepped into her skeleton and the god of breaking rules went to work. Though he had never created a creature from the clay of life before – his children were creatures who Nature had made from the clay and allowed him then to transform as he would, breaking the rules she had set in their beginning – he had seen Nature do it many times, and he knew what to do. It was easier than Nature's work, for he was creating a pony out of the bones of a pony, not a creature who had never before existed out of nothing but the clay.

First he coated her bones with clay, covering every white sliver, and the clay became her flesh and organs. He then wove the weaver's thread of life all around her body to cover her with skin and re-create her beautiful white coat. Then, remembering how Sky had loved his gift of pegasi, and how the pegasus ponies had loved his gift to them of Sky, he took some of his own feathers from his back. At that time, his feathers were dark brown, as was his leather wing, for he had received them from Eagle and Bat. He washed the brown color off of them in the river Lethe, taking care not to allow droplets to touch himself or his love. Then when they were dry, he stitched them into the shape of two wings with the weaver's thread and the clay, and fastened them to his love's back.

"Why have you given me wings?" she asked.

"Wings are beautiful, and you are beautiful. You deserve to be able to soar in the sky with me," he said.

Then a shadow, dark as the night sky, fell across the two.

"You promised to free me when you freed your love," the Lady of Dreams said coldly. "Did you forget your promise?"

"Did I make you a promise?" the god asked. "I've made so many promises, I can hardly keep track."

His love struck her hoof against his withers. "The Lady of Dreams deserves more respect than that from you," she said sharply, and turned to the Lady. "My apologies, my Lady. What was the nature of the bargain you and he made?"

"I helped him to escape from my husband, the Lord of the Dead, so he would be able to find you and free you," the Lady said. "In exchange, he promised to free me. I wish to walk in the world again as a living pony. The Lord of the Dead took me from the surface world to be his wife, so very long ago when I was hardly more than a filly, but he has no love for me, or anyone, for the heart of death is cold. I wish to live again, and feel love."

"Then you shall have that," the mortal mare said. "Love, how can we help the Lady of Dreams return to life? Do you have any more clay?"

The god of breaking rules shook his head. "I used it all on you," he said. "There's no way I can get any more to clothe the Lady of Dreams in flesh again."

"Well, then it is quite simple," the mortal mare said. "For it is in the power of living mares, clothed in flesh, that they may clothe new spirits in flesh and bring them into life, with the power of their wombs. Take my womb and use its power to give the Lady of Dreams a living body, like mine."

"If I do that you will never have children," the god objected.

"If she had not helped you, I would still be fleshless and trapped forever in death, and the dead do not bear children either. Let her be my sister, clothed in my flesh but of mare's age, not a daughter to be foaled."

The god was reluctant, but he had never been able to deny his love anything, and it was her goodness of heart and generosity that had drawn him to love her at the first, so what choice did he have? He took her womb from her and molded it around the spirit of the Lady of Dreams. The Lady had been mortal far too long ago for even her bones to still remain, but she had been the wife of a god and had been granted some of a god's power. She dreamed her bones and her flesh and her skin into place, and the god molded the clay around her dreams. Her dreams were so powerful that they leaked out all around the god as he worked, and stained him like ink. He broke the rule of ink for his face and all the parts of him that he could see, but because he could not see his own wings behind him, they were stained blue like the dream of a bird winging through the bright blue sunlit sky, or the dream of a bat singing to the dark blue night.

"Now there is one more thing," the god said. "I promised Sun and Moon that I would give their hearts to mares who walk on the surface of the earth, so that they could reunite as sisters. Since you are to return to life as sisters, let me give to you the hearts of the Sun and the Moon." The god knew that if he did this the two mares would be filled with the power of the Sun and the Moon, and would be as immortal as gods once they returned to the land of the living. He could keep his promises to the Sun and the Moon and also ensure that he would never lose his love to death again.

"I do not know if I am worthy to carry the heart of the Sun," his love said. "I am but a mortal mare."

"But I am the wife of a god," the Lady of Dreams said. "I must keep the power of dreams, or else who will ensure that ponies receive the right dreams at night? The heart of the Moon would be well suited to me." She turned to the mortal mare. "And you have given me your own flesh to give me life, and made me your sister. If I am worthy of the heart of the Moon, how could you, the lover of a god and the sister of the Moon, possibly not be worthy of the heart of the Sun?"

The mortal mare agreed with some reluctance that this was the case, for she was humble, but not foolishly so. 

The god gave his love the heart of the Sun, and wrapped her head and her tail in the scarf that was made from the sky's sundress, so it became her mane and her tail. He gave the Lady of Dreams the heart of the Moon, and wrapped her head and tail in the scarf made from the sky's nightgown, so it became her mane and tail. 

"Oh, it burns!" his love cried out. "The heart of the Sun burns inside me! Oh, I fear I will explode, or char to ashes!"

"The heart of the Moon is cold like ice!" the Lady cried. "I fear I will freeze!"

Acting quickly, the god removed his own horn and broke it in half, placing one half on each of the sister's foreheads so they would be able to control the power of magic. In so doing he truly made of them gods, for with wings and horns they were now alicorns, and could safely wield the vast powers he had just granted them. As for himself, he took the goat's horn and the stag's antler he had in his bag, and stuck them on his own head to serve in place of his horn.

No sooner had he done this than the Lady of Dreams cried out. "Oh, no!  My husband is rousing, and he will come and attack us! He will never let us escape back into the surface world!"

"We'd best hurry!" the mare who now bore the heart of the Sun said. "How shall we leave?"

"We must go through the gate of horn," the Lady, who now bore the heart of the Moon, said. "It is the gate of true dreams. From there we can escape."

The three of them flew quickly to the gate of horn. However, when they stepped through, the god of breaking rules struck one of the pillars, and it shattered into a thousand little horns, which he gathered into his bag.

"What are you doing?" the Moon mare asked frantically. "Now true dreams cannot come to ponies!"

"The gate will be repaired, eventually, but now it will be hard for the Lord of the Dead to send the righteous and truthful against us," the god said. "Also, these horns might come to be useful."

"But if he cannot send the righteous and truthful against us, he can just send the false and the cruel," the Moon mare said. 

"How many of them were in the Elysian fields?" the god asked. "We already knew we would need to fight our way through monsters, for all of the unrighteous dead lay ahead of us, and many monsters. I don't wish to harm the righteous dead, and I doubt that the two of you do either. This way, our enemies will be those we can pit our full might against."

"Let us hurry," the Sun mare said. "I will fight if I must, but it would be best if we went as quickly as we might, so there will be fewer foes to stand in our way."

The god of breaking rules and the Moon mare agreed with this, and so the three of them flew through the land of the dead, preparing their magic to fight.