43: Fairy Floss by FanOfMostEverything
Fairy Floss by FanOfMostEverything
**************
The creature that had staggered out of the Everfree had made quite a stir in Ponyville, not least because it didn't follow the usual script of terrorizing the town until it was quelled by one or more Elements of Harmony. Instead, Fluttershy had taken in the poor thing, caring for it like any other injured creature.
Pinkie Pie had watched, and smiled, and said the bright, happy nonsense that was expected of her. In time, everypony would learn that this being was more than just a shaved ape or naked bear. In time, they would hopefully learn to accept the human, to welcome him into their hearts.
For now, though, there was work to be done, and with the town's attention so thoroughly transfixed, there was no better time to do it.
At half past eleven, Pinkie rummaged through her closet. Storage space was never a concern for her. Making spaces that were bigger on the inside was child's play, and there was always a great deal of unused real estate on the other sides of mirrors. But what she needed couldn't be kept in so novel a means. It could not be magically contained, for it was made to contain magic.
Eventually, she tugged the heavy object out into her bedroom. It was a stark, black iron peytral, a strange, sepulchral echo of the Princesses' regalia. The craftsponyship was of the highest quality, and it was ringed with bands of black iron and menaced with spikes of black iron. Not a spot of rust marred the dusky surface. The slow fire dared not burn on such a treasure.
Pinkie shrugged on the armor. As the weight settled on her withers, she felt it press down not only on her body but her mind and soul as well. Her mane collapsed like a souffle. The countless paths that most ponies could not walk vanished from the edges of her vision. The high, piping song of baker's yeast and pollen on the breeze fell silent in the middle of a chorus.
Thoroughly disenchanted, the pony began her dolorous tread out of town and into the Everfree Forest. The wood held no fear for her. She was as thoroughly sealed from the world's magic as it was from hers. Timberwolf fangs would detach from their jaws before they would pierce her skin. Manticore venom would do little but itch in her veins. Even the gaze of a cockatrice would do her no more harm than that of an unsatisfied customer. Less, actually. She didn't care about the cockatrice's opinion.
Back in Ponyville, the clocks struck midnight, the witching hour. Pinkie approached what most would see as an intersection between two game trails. Weighed down by her iron burden, she could scarcely see the yawning void that was the gate between dimensions. Still, she could make it out well enough. She stepped high to clear the lower lip of the portal.
The peytral shook and rattled. Iron would not willingly enter Faerie. Most would be repelled, blocked, deflected. But not this. This was more than the metal of thunderbolts. It was the very idea of iron, the pinnacle of ferrousity, a paradox hammered in the forges of the sidhe from that which they could not tolerate by the selfsame smiths who had stripped magic from the blood of man and slipped the hated metal in its place. It could go where no other iron could. But that didn't mean it had to like it.
Its presence and that of its wearer were soon noticed. The musical laughter of the fair folk fell silent before Pinkie, and remained so long after she passed by. The lesser creatures of the in-between fled before her. The rest hid, save only the most daring or foolhardy. It was not only fear that quieted them, but also recognition. The pony wore that rarest of items in Faerie, a torture device that none found entertaining.
Pinkie followed the path of memory, letting recollections of a bygone era steer her hooves. In time, she found her way to a doorway. A pair of proud, willowy figures armed and armored in burnished bronze, stood in her path, their spears crossed over the entrance.
"You will let me through," said the mare. None of her friends, had they followed her and managed to stay free and sane, would have recognized her voice. It was deadly serious, a tone of absolute command, demanding immediate obedience.
"Who orders us so?" asked the creature on her left.
Pinkie sighed. Had it really been so long? "I had many names, once. When I left, they placed this yoke upon me, and the weight pressed them all out of me. Now, I have but a title in these lands. Tell your master and mistress the Exile has returned."
*************************
Hooves echoing on tile were all the announcement she got, and all that she needed. The murmurings of the Court fell silent as the novel sound reverberated through the palace. A single gesture from the Queen sent the courtiers scattering.
The only creature left, other than the royal couple, was a capering, goblin-like figure in motley of a thousand colors. As Pinkie entered, he capered closer and smirked. "How now? Pay heed, o pluripotent patrons! A pink pony prances into our parlor! Prithee, pony, plan you to plop your plot 'pon our palatial paradise?"
Pinkie replied with a grin. Not a smile. Really, even calling the baring of teeth a "grin" was giving it a bit much credit. Still, it did the job, making the jester pale and back away. "Well, Puck you, too, Goodfellow. Always thought they'd take out your tongue before your eyes."
Robin Goodfellow fled from the Exile and her burden. Like any good trickster archetype, he could tell when the time for japes and pranks had come to an end, and those were times when even his welcome wore out.
The same, of course, could never be said of royalty. King and Queen remained unmoved in every sense of the word. To ask for their physical appearance would be to ask about the tensile strength of a promise, the specific gravity of a sunny day. They were the King and Queen of Faerie. They were the woman you want and the man you want to be, and vice versa. They appeared however they wished, and not even an omniscient narrator could hope to hold them in a single shape long enough to describe it.
But even they respected the power of iron.
"So," the Queen said off-handedly. "You return. Not for long, I imagine."
"Not at all." A true smile, if a melancholy one, came to Pinkie's lips. "It is good to see you, though."
"Hmm. Would I could say the same." The Queen examined one immaculate hand, nails long enough to blend luxury and danger. "Why have you emerged from that ludicrous exile of yours?"
All sense of wistfulness evaporated from Pinkie. "One of your pets has emerged in Celestia's world. He may look and sound and smell human, but I know you. Unless this is the first genuine jailbreak in centuries, you let him escape, and I would know to what end."
Guile glittered in the Queen's eyes as she demurely brought a hand to her breast. "Me? Why, I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about."
Pinkie cracked her neck. Her peytral groaned like a living thing, its very presence dulling the lingering perfumes of the Court. "Do not toy with me, REDACTED. I was there when you took the throne. I have not forgotten your games."
"And could I not, as the humans say, have turned over a new leaf?" asked the Queen, smiling a flawless smile.
"No, you could not." Pinkie stared straight into the Faerie Queen's eyes. "How did that one witch put it? 'What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't—'"
"Enough!" There was the faintest twitch, not just of an eye but of the Queen's entire body, like the image cast by a projector with a flickering bulb. What sat in her place in that stuttering split second, I dare not say. "Enough," the Queen said again. She sighed. "Did you have to bring that... that thing?"
Pinkie's gaze did not waver. "We both know if I had not, I wouldn't be leaving this room alive. I might not have entered it alive."
"No," the Queen confirmed. "You would not have."
The King shifted. Mare and Lady both turned to him. Queens were swift and vengeful and did whatever they liked, but kings, slow as they were, were the ones who mattered. "The man managed to escape of his own accord," he rumbled.
"ALSO REDACTED!" cried the Queen.
"What can we do while she wears her burden?" he asked her.
"What can she do? She is sealed, a mere puppet of meat and bone!"'
"Aye, a puppet whose strings cut the fingers that would pull them. I know sense is too much to ask of you, STILL REDACTED, but accept that this slight is one you must let go. None will know, none but you, and she, and I."
"Three too many!" The Queen repositioned herself, as though preparing to rise from her throne.
"Careful there, Your Highness," called Pinkie. "Wouldn't want to vacate our seat, now would we?"
The Queen froze and glared at the pony, glared with enough hatred and impotent fury that by all rights the mare should've burst into white-hot flames.
For her part, Pinkie didn't even seem to notice. She knelt before the King. "Thank you, Your Grace."
The Fair Folk did not feel regret. It was not in their nature. Still, there was something of a long-forgotten longing in the King's face. "You could remain here, you know. This exile of yours has always been self-imposed."
Pinkie shook her head. "Not so long as you believe that tears and blood are the price of laughter. Until the day you can feel joy without the suffering of another, I will continue my hermitage in the blood of ponies." She turned and left without another word or a second glance, and the Queen hated her all the more for it.
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Is a Discworld reference what I see?
Well to be honest that didn't really make any sense =/
Ah, the Fae folk, no wonder Celestia remains so closed lipped, even to speak their names, or even refer to them directly in a worked of magic, one where the sentient have not the protection of Iron in their blood...well, what little protection that is, at any rate, more foul a fate would befall them than I could dare imagine.
That said, Pinky...dear sweet Pinky...that certainly answers many questions right there, and moreover do I see her as a wonderful, and even noble soul. Element of Laughter, I see, is only one of many titles she rightly holds.
Pinkie: You believe that tears and blood are the price of laughter. And that is why you... fael!
Queen: Arrrrrgh! That was a fairy bad pun!
Pinkie: That's what sidhe said!
Queen: The iron-y is slaying us!
Very nice!
Even I can't count all the references!
"It's dwarf bread, man. The cat peed on it, and it doubles as a lethal throwing weapon."
"That makes sense. I bet it menaces with spikes of bread too."
Also:
I'm giving you a yellow card for that pun. Keep it up and you'll see a red one.
newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40160000/jpg/_40160648_yellow_card.jpg
Hey, that rhymed. And referees wear stripes, like Zecora, so does that mean- no, Rogue, don't go there. Bad wolf.
3004640
Haha!
3000005
No, it's a reference to the legends and myths upon which Pratchett based 'Lords and Ladies'. The stories of the Fair Folk go back here in Britain to before the Roman Invasion, to our pre-Christian religion. Those... demons... that Tolkein tried to turn into good guys were amongst the earliest creatures of our imagination that earned the name 'bogeyman'. They are wholly chaotic evil. That Pinkie Pie is one of them who has decided to change (something generally considered to be an existential impossibility) suggests that she is a creature of age and power so vast that even Discord is a faint, passing spark by comparison.
3006702
I was talking about this line.
I'm sure she was quoting Granny Weatherwax.
3000139
Why do you say that?
3002047
Oh, sure, I get a card for a fairly clever chemistry pun, but 3001522 has an exchange out of Monkey Island and gets away scot-free!
3006702
Pinkie isn't necessarily greater, merely different. Chaos is many things. Indeed, chaos is all things. It is possible for a creature of pure joy and laughter to manifest in the world of the fae; a being who, by pure chance, has not a trace of malice or selfishness in her composition. This intrinsic nature would be as immutable as that of any other denizen of that realm, and the incompatibility between the two would leave this Seelie fae with but two options: leave or die. The odds are astronomical, but in a dimension that lies beyond the bounds of time, they are also inevitable.
3007421
She was. Though this Queen isn't necessarily the same creature as the one Granny spoke to. Heck, this may not even be the same cosmos. Faerie is a strange realm, one that makes Equestria look as mundane as our own world. In fact, I've probably said too much.
3007654
Mine were clearly subtle enough to slip past the radar.
Perfection in Pinkie form.
i don't understand the context of this
let see if i get this right
-humans ORIGINATED from equestria(or where the planet equestria is located)
-humans were banished by the fair folk for some obscure reason(we may never know will we)
-humans were possibly some big bad back then and the banishment was meant to "rehabilitate them"
-if by chance modern humanity DOES reconnect with current equestria will the fae folk regret their decision or not?
2996655 True, but those who are foolish enough to speak those words usually don't speak them more than once. The universe, for some reason, does not like those people and as a consequence they don't have the misfortune of passing on their genetic code to later generations.
Now, for those who utter those horrible words, "What's the worse that could happen?" or the aformentioned doody heads who like to say "What could possibly go wrong?" the universe seems to positively delight in tormenting them by letting them survive their utterances so that they can go on repeating themselves, until the universe grows bored with them then all bets are off.
3010402 I believe it to be of a simpler study. The Fae live in the world-between-worlds, and they take the magic from creatures in "real" worlds as a way to produce misery for the victims and joy for the Fae. I could see Earth as a potential Equestria, but the Fae took the magic from our bodies and land, thus making it into the non-magical place it is today.
Of course, even that would become boring after a while, so why not capture a human here and there, to make it more interesting? It's like catching a fish, slicing into it with a small knife, and putting it back in the water. When they begin speaking of this experience, what can come from it but talks of magic and witchcraft and religion? Just pull out a new fish every now and then, and the fun continues. Until one escapes.
3016709
If you go with the Exalted take on it, they're the native inhabitants of the chaos that existed before reality was formed- they're less natives of a "world between" as natives to everything that is not a true world.
3016796 So, if we bring Doctor Who into this equation, then it's the Void, yes? Hmm... This makes me wonder what the Fae would do if Sales were to suddenly show up in the place-that-can't-exist.
3016709 MUST...MAKE...REVENGEFIC
3019254 By all means. I well relish every moment of it.
3019415 but i can't type worth a damn
SOMEONE TAKE UP THE MANTLE
3017080
I'm not Familiar with The Void. the Exalted Version- the Primal Chaos, is a place of absolute potential, but no stability- everything is possible, but nothing stays.
It starts getting more stable the closer to a reality you get- most Fae stick to the "edges" of existence- where they can reliably exist in a consistent, recognizable manner, but aren't forced to be completely static, and they can shape existence as they will.
3019606 The Void is as it sounds, a olace of nothingness, a not-existing place that ids infinite in size, and yet as such not there. The best example I can think of is a Ziploc bag sandwiched between two oranges. The Orange are universes that "border" each other, with the Void separating them.
3019726
Reminds me of the Blind Eternities from Magic: the Gathering.
3019762 Aye, perhaps it does. Never played MTG myself.
3019952
It's not really in the game itself (Outside of occasional references), but more of the background. It's the space between dimensions. It's impossible to use physical senses there (hence Blind, you're effectively blind, deaf, and numb there- you have to use magical senses to navigate), and while technically has no physical space, is functionally endless (Hence Eternities.) Only Planeswalkers (who are protected by their sparks) and beings of incredible power can hope to enter and survive. While it lacks any apparent physical matter, it's full of chaotic energies- Mostly Aetherial (involved with summoning and dimensional travel) Mana (raw magical energy) and Temporal (Energy involved with the passage of time). The only known creatures native to the Blind Eternities are the Eldrazi (horrific, mind-bending creatures that devour planes of existence- sort of a cross between Galactus and A Great Old One) though it's unknown if they originated there, or came from elsewhere and adapted to it.
3022306 It's probably in my favorites list, but I can't remember...
3022885
3006702
Chaotic Evil?
No, they were Neutral, or Chaotic Neutral, or even Lawful Neutral. But they played their... 'games' for their own sake, not for the sake of the misery they caused. That misery was often a by-product, almost always in fact, but not the goal. The goal was to keep themselves alive and entertained. Thus, not Evil. But with no altruism to them, they could hardly be 'good' in any sense.
They lived by the Deal and the Rule. Very rare was it for a rule to be broken by them, and only when it was meant to be.
Or when the heartless bastards felt like cheating the spirit by playing the word.
To call them 'evil' is to misunderstand them.
To call them 'cruel' is to underestimate them.
To call them 'inhuman' is simplest, and most accurate.
3033589
They simply...are.
I don´t think I could see Pinkie the same way from now... even Pinkamena disturbed me less than "Fairy Pinkie".
Flunder happinstance!?
Well then, this certainly changes things.
3033589 Faerie are simply inhuman. Not evil or good. It's like trying to call tornado evil. They simply can't comprehend that they are actually harming others. Humans and other being are lesser for them, too simple to care about they pain... how such simple creature can know real pain or pleasure?
3036238
My personal headcanon, they simply lack souls, which means they are unable of show empathy, free will or creativity. That´s the reason for their fascination about creatures like humans.
3006702
I believe the early myths of fairy were a bit more nuisance than evil. They were 'other' with their own and alien moral codes. As an example you might think of the classic 'sir orfeo' which is a classic fairy kidnapping and rescue, but the 'big bad' fairy king was both bound by his word and the people he had kidnapped were all moments from death, making it possible a rescue operation. Another example is 'sir launfal' which (bearly ) falls into an king authur cycle also has elements of the 'fairy court being more splendid than any human court' (and we are talking about Camelot here so it's a high standard) and a fairy promise being as binding as a ... pinkie one,
o.o *imitates Captain ... Jack Sparrow*
STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY FIC D:
Wow now this interested me o.0 interesting pinkie
3033589 I call them PURGED IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR!
5931310 Your corpse emperor won't protect you! Bow before the Chaos Undivided!
Holy crap, this was intense. Fantastic explanation of Pinkie's powers and behavior. More please.