* * *
The First Time You See Her
Part Seven
Jeffrey C. Wells
www.scrivnarium.net
* * *
He travels by darkness.
It is a calculated gambit, because darkness is the domain of the one he fears most, but in a purely practical sense, it still conceals him from the prying eyes of the shadow-king's lieutenants. He has hidden himself and the small cart carrying his burdens and his charge here in the great northern forests, and he is making his way westward to the ocean.
It is ridiculous, a griffon pulling a pony-cart. Especially a griffon of his exquisite pedigree. He knows that pegasus ponies habitually wrap their drays in a wind-cocoon, practically without thinking, a technique that allows them to carry their burdens effortlessly through the sky. Not so griffons, who are good at keeping themselves aloft but not much else. There was a time when he complained about the ridiculousness of trudging along the ground, hitched to a wagon. Now he saves his complaints for the bitter, damnable cold, which lessens slightly day by day as he approaches the more temperate weather of the sea.
The windigos are back. Auric Turncoat can hear them howling in the north, the killing cold billowing out from their far-off herds like a fog. The windigos are back and the shimmering curtain of the aurora is missing from the sky, and to Auric's mind, this means that the Crystal Empire is no longer a place of light and love. There is no going back. There is only forward.
So, Auric trudges on. He bears away from the Empire a number of warm blankets, a small cask of hastily-selected gems and baubles, a quantity of crystalflower honey, a single blue-white coronation gown made of woven mineral threads, a few alien spikey-flowered plants of the far-southern deserts (kept alive in these climes by earth magic alone), and, oh yes, the rutting alicorn queen of the Empire herself, great with foal.
She sleeps, fitfully, as the wagon rattles across the twisted roots and ice-ridges beneath the evergreen canopy. Speak of exquisite pedigree being brought low. Auric is highborn, to be certain, but this is Ladybird, Alicorn of Prolificacy. Her holy creatures are the benevolent insects and crawling things of the earth, and her name is invoked when ponies get the urge to be fruitful and multiply. The Lady of Fecundity. Her beatific face gazes down from innumerable stained-glass windows in the alicorn citadel of Everfree. (Ponies do so love their stained glass.)
The Lady of Fecundity is lying, broken and forlorn, beneath a pile of blankets in a rude little crystalline pony-cart, being dragged across rough ground by an unlikely ally. It is a base position for so elevated a pony.
Auric spares a glance back at the battered cherry-red alicorn queen. She stirs in her sleep.
"So sorry," attempts Auric, in Pegasopolian, which he is not very good at. "Ground is very not-smooth."
"You are doing your best, I am certain," Ladybird murmurs back to him in the hoarse, guttural tones of his native Griffoni. Auric is relieved. It is much easier for him to appear urbane and charming in his mother tongue, and it is very important to Auric that he appear urbane and charming. The role of "stuttering imbecile" has never sat well with him.
"Nevertheless," she continues, "it would do my bones well to stop and rest for a moment."
Auric brings the wagon to a halt and begins unhitching himself. "In my defense," he says, glibly, free now of the constraints of the pony language, "I can conceive of much better carts than this. Some wood, or springs, or anything with a little give. Basically anything other than a solid chunk of rock crystal on wheels. Back in Aerie, they used to tell me your kind were master artisans, albeit with a penchant for baroque heart- and rainbow- themed ornamentation. What happened to that? Can't you construct a wheeled device that doesn't clatter one's beak to blunting? Then again, perhaps you are not so concerned about this, what with your strange and alien so-called 'teeth.'"
The alicorn empress coughs out a laugh. "The Empire makes what the Empire knows," she says. "Crystal. Wool. What we make that is hard breaks before it bends, and what we make that is soft is too soft to bear weight. As with its exports, so its citizens. So its rulers."
Dangerous conversational territory. Not something that Ladybird needs to be thinking about right now. Auric has always been a firm believer in identifying sensitive topics in his interpersonal relationships so that he can get right down to the business of avoiding them and pretending that they don't exist. "Oh, pish-tosh," he says. "You make fine rulers. The Emperor will sort out this whole misunderstanding with Sombra. You'll see."
"If you are so confident the matter will be sorted out," says Ladybird, "why are we running away?"
"Well, political intrigue is such a tedious process, of course," Auric replies, spreading a blanket out on the cold ground and weighting it down as best as he is able to with a flask of water and a ridiculously small wheel of fiore sardo cheese. "Not something a young expectant mother needs to be worrying over. You need to keep your strength up, and on that topic, ta-da, look what I've made—a little picnic for us!" He gestures magnificently at the pedestrian meal. "Just like the ones we used to enjoy on the Khionian fields, except, you know, freezing cold and basically no food."
"It looks just as heavenly," says Ladybird, struggling to rise. Like the gentlecock he is, Auric helps her down from the wagon and situates her as comfortably as possible. "It occurs to me in our hasty departure, I have packed rather a lot of things."
"Things hold the wagon down," says Auric, tucking more blankets around her. "They keep it from rattling so much."
"They also make it harder to pull."
"You needn't worry about my hardship, Your Majesty. The exercise is positively bracing." He glances, briefly, at the wagon, as he settles himself down on the blanket. "Some important keepsakes in there, I suppose?"
"Just a few little pieces of the Empire. To help ponies to remember it."
"You speak as if it's going away."
"Do I?" says Ladybird, slicing the cheese into little pieces. "I do, I suppose."
"I promise you, love, the Empire will be right there for you to come back to, just as soon as this little fiasco blows over. Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. Your uncle Auric's got it all taken care of."
"I'm a hundred years older than you."
"You always make me forget, my darling," says Auric, helping himself to the smallest bit of cheese he can find. "You always seem so fresh, so vibrant, so ingenuous, so—"
"Naive? Inept?" The faintest flicker of a wry smile.
"Well, I wasn't going to say either of those specifically—"
"—but the thought crossed your mind. No fibs."
Auric ducks his head and flushes under his feathers. "I have no desire to insult you in any way."
"You insult me more by glozing with me than you ever would by telling me your true thoughts." The Empress gives a weak, agitated groan. "Because you're right. You're absolutely right."
"Nonsense, love, I don't know what—"
"Queen Arborvitae sent me to Corazón to stabilize it. I ended up erasing it from the map."
"The Prince's doing, not yours. You were a victim of wicked magic. An Unseelie love-poison, if I remember correctly? Wicked stuff."
"I was a victim of my own heart. Alicorns are not to rule, Auric. By dictum of the Queen. The power and the pride go to our heads. We become mad with them, and the Nightmares creep in. That's why the Queen sequestered us all at Everfree. But despite her forbiddances, I kept thinking, 'What wrong can come of a feeling so pure as love?'"
"Your Majesty," says Auric, "you're babbling. Why don't you just have a drink, and—"
"Let me speak," she says, and there is just the faintest touch of the Voice of the Mountain in her words. Auric knows better than to cross such a thing.
"Sorry," grunts Auric.
"I... loved His Highness Prince Corazón. Unexpectedly. And that's the thing with ponies: love is tied to marriage. Marriage, to power. Power, to rule. I let things go too long before I pulled away, fearing the Queen's wrath. I said to him, 'I would be with you if I could find a way to love you without thinking of the consequences.'" She shakes her head. "He found a way, all right. And when the Great Dragon Migration veered off-course and threatened our land, we were neither of us available to defend it. We just sat there, staring into one another's eyes, as the walls crumbled around us."
Auric grimaces, saying nothing in response.
"She gave me a second chance. One last opening to redeem myself in the eyes of the tribe. I was to provide strength to the failing Empire. I fell in love, again. I shared a mortal pony's bed, again. This time, I was disobedient enough to marry the stallion in question. And, just as before, the kingdom falls. My love is a mistake, Auric. My love destroys everything."
"Nonsense," says Auric, bobbing his head in irritation. "As I said, just a little diplomatic fracas that the Emperor will surely—"
"He's dead, Auric. A wife knows. Admit you saw him die, and that you're attempting to conceal it from me."
There is a moment of silence.
"Confirmed, then," says Ladybird. She rises from the blanket and, with Auric's help, climbs back onto the back of the cart.
"I'm sorry, love," replies Auric, quietly, tucking her in again. "It was Sombra, your husband's advisor. And... a conjured beast. A gnarled, black, insect-thing."
Ladybird closes her eyes, settling in amongst the blankets. "My daughter."
"No, I know your daughter perfectly well," says Auric, shaking his head vigorously as he returns to the front of the wagon and begins strapping himself to it once more. "That thing was most certainly not your daughter."
"Ah, but you do not, in truth, know Chrysalis at all." Ladybird gives a hard swallow. "You have at last seen her true form."
Auric stops short for a moment, and then continues harnessing himself. "You weren't there. It was the unicorn's dark magic, or—"
"It was her, Auric. The heir of Corazón was conceived with Unseelie love-poison running through my veins. She was twisted in the womb and arrived wrong, inequine, barely alive. I taught her the magic by which she appeared to the world as any other alicorn pony; Unseelie magic again, taken from the Prince's forbidden library. No matter how normal she seemed, she was always black inside, a void from which love and vitality could not escape." A clattering breath. "She took poorly the news that I was expecting. She's always relied upon my love and strength to support her, and the thought of sharing that love with a sister... drove her to desperation, it seems. Desperate enough to throw in with an usurper, to lend her strength to his."
Auric throws himself against the traces, and the wagon begins to move.
"Secrets coming out all over," he mutters.
"I am weak from her," says Ladybird. "From so many years of feeding my daughter's ravenous need. That is why I will not survive this birth."
A bright flare of panic explodes in Auric's skull. He turns one paw against a rock, stumbling, and the cart skids to a halt. "No," he says, with a sudden, croaking, off-kilter laugh. "No. That's ridiculous."
"It's true, Auric. I have ushered enough offspring into this world to know the signs."
"No," repeats Auric, his voice sharp and quick. "No, you can't. Impossible. Totally unthinkable. What are all the bunnies and birds and little ponies going to do when whelping-time comes along?"
"They will get by," says Ladybird. "Ponies did not stop silversmithing when Sterling became one with eternity. They did not stop gilding when Lily did. That is the final, bitter truth about the alicorns, Auric. No one actually needs us."
"I need you!" Auric shouts, his voice keening like a hawk's call. "You promised, Ladybird. You promised you would be here for me. Remember?"
"I remember."
"Some of us don't come naturally to immortality! You told me you would be with me to help me through the rough parts! All this 'seeing all my friends wither and die' business that everyone says is so horrid! What am I supposed to do without you?"
"You, too, will get by."
Auric grits his beak. "You said you would be my rock, Ladybird. I loved you for that. I love you, full stop."
"And I love you," she says, "and it is to your great misfortune. My love destroys everything." The alicorn's eyes begin to drift closed again.
"Ladybird," says Auric.
"L'mi'amore," she repeats, but drifting back to Pegasopolian as sleep begins to take her again. "L'mi'amore distrugge tutto."
"Ladybird!"
There is no response. The last Crystal Empress breathes, shallowly, her fragile expiration painting the air above her nostrils in delicate curls of white.
"Perhaps," says Auric, "we could stand to go a little faster."
Auric unhitches himself. He finds a distinctive-looking cloven tree, the ground at its base just soft enough to yield to his claws. Quickly, economically, the griffon unloads the wagon and buries the last salvaged artifacts of the Empire in the shallow hole. The plants are left to fend for themselves in the bitter northern winter. The food, he keeps.
He straps himself to the cart once more and continues west.
* * *
He travels by both light and darkness now.
It is no longer a calculated gambit on Auric Turncoat's part. He is in fact beginning not to notice the difference between night and day at all. He pulls with a steady, plodding gait, the wagon's harness digging into the gray leonine fur at his shoulders, rubbing it raw; and he is also only dimly aware of this. All he knows clearly is that there is warmth and safety to the west, and that the faster he achieves that warmth and safety with his precious cargo, the faster the world can start getting back to some semblance of normalcy. The faster he and Ladybird can get down to the business of reclaiming what's been lost.
The Crystal Empire's capital city of Khione sits at a broad nexus of many tradeways, on the central crest of a great northern plain. When threatened, Khione has always relied on the strength of its palladium, a heart-shaped relic of pure cosmic spectrum capable of wrapping the entire city in a protective shell of love and unity. There has rarely been a point in the Empire's history that its first line of defense has failed it.
"Rarely," but not "never." Khione's exposed position on the grassy sub-glacial flatlands makes it open and accessible, a virtue in peacetime but an unquestionable liability in time of war. Auric knows from private conversations with the Emperor that, if Khione's fall appeared both inevitable and imminent, it was his plan to relocate the government to a defensible, secluded, little-known mountain fastness on the sea-cliffs of the great western ocean, a place called the Fortress of Song. There are many Griffoni terms for such a political bolthole, but Auric is fond of the Pegasopolian word for it: "reduit."
Auric knows the location of the Fortress of Song. He also knows that a cloistered order of earth-tribe hospitaler sisters makes its home there. Possibly with a midwife or two in its ranks? At the very least, females. Pony hens. "Mares." Whatever. Auric implicitly trusts that womenfolk, even without formal training, are far better at helping new life into the world than an uneasy griffon cockerel would ever be. The one thing Auric trusts himself to do is pull, and so pull he does, day and night, until the traces are dark with the blood of his sores.
Ladybird rises from slumber only occasionally to drink and perhaps to nibble at a few dried berries. She rarely speaks, and when she does so, it is in Pegasopolian. Largely "l'mi'amore distrugge tutto" again and again. Once, while half-asleep, she utters the word "obnubilum." It is not a word that Auric has heard before, and the Empress is in no state to provide clarification. He soon forgets the word was even spoken.
The snow gives way to rain, over the course of days. Ladybird's moans become more acute and her rest more fitful, and Auric begins dimly to realize that there is a very real possibility that her foaling is near. There is no question in his mind whether or not he should stop and deliver the child himself. The thought of a cold wilderness birth for the new Crystal Empress—attended only by an incompetent griffon—is an unthinkable one. No, it is the reduit or nothing.
It is nearing nightfall in the final hours of his journey when the lights of the Fortress of Song come into distant view. There are disquieting biological things going on with the Empress's hindmost regions, things that are doubly worse when not compartmentalized within a clean white eggshell, as it is with his people. Auric is one of those creatures who prefers to forget that life arose from slime and muck once upon a time, and is not yet far removed from that. The baby is coming. The Empress moans, her breath ragged and weak.
"Almost here," says Auric, his heart in his throat. "Not far now. I can see the lanterns."
"It's dark," says Ladybird, simply.
"It'll be warm there. Warm and dry."
"The wind is blowing," she continues, her speech turning feverish. "The wind is blowing like the world is ending."
"The world isn't ending, love. We're almost there. Don't give up."
"I'm so cold, Auric. Didn't think death was going to be cold like this. I'm really quite old. Old. In pain."
"Stop saying that. You're going to be fine. You have a baby on the way. A little foal who's going to need you. This story doesn't end with you dying. The stars wouldn't allow a story with an ending like that."
"Stars. What do they know?" Ladybird gives a rattling chuckle.
"Banish it to Tartarus, Ladybird, I'm not going to live forever in a world that doesn't have you in it!"
"We don't always get to choose the world we live in," she says.
Auric stops and turns in his traces. The once larger-than-life alicorn goddess-queen of prolificacy is sickly and somber and small, hardly a lump in the cart's sheltering blankets. The barrel of her chest barely shifts them as it rises and falls.
"L'mi'amore," Ladybird whispers, no longer to him. "L'mi'amore distrugge tutto."
"Let it destroy everything else," says Auric, turning back to the road ahead. "It won't destroy you."
Auric truly believes this. He cannot afford not to.
He begins, again, to pull.
* * *
Auric Turncoat surrenders Ladybird to the keeping of the Sisterhood of Song. After that, he does not trust himself to be anywhere nearby. Auric is a fop, a rogue, a connoisseur of trivial things. His surname was given to him because he deserted from the Griffoni armed forces once, a long time ago; never mind that his side was clearly in the wrong. History still frowns upon a betrayer. Auric can wax rhapsodic on the topic of cognac, cheeses and well-aged meats. He is an excellent player of both bocce and carrom, and is a peerless pastry chef (he has cold claws). He has a hobby interest in metalsmithing which he has not at all seriously pursued, because there is something about having accidental immortality thrust upon one that lends a certain lack of urgency to one's life. No one ties a cravat like he can. All in all, Auric Turncoat is convinced that he has done nothing important in his entire life and that the world is generally a worse place for him being in it. Much like his friend, the Empress, he has great faith in his ability to ruin anything he touches (that is not a soufflé).
Auric puts Ladybird in the hooves of the capable and runs away for a time. It is for the best, he thinks.
This is the reason he is not present when she dies.
* * *
In the dark dead of night, a small white pony stands in the shadow of the Fortress's cloister-arches. It is as far as she can go, because she has taken a vow not to step past the line that the arches scribe. She cradles in one hoof a tiny, tight-swaddled bundle.
She knows exactly what to expect, but she is nonetheless unable to suppress a tiny, timid squeak when the huge gray shape descends into the courtyard, starlight on its wings. It moves strangely, smooth and snakelike, and its beak and pounces are sharp and gleaming. Ponies are easily startled by sharp things. When it speaks, its Pegasopolian is halting and broken.
"You are the 'Basil.'"
She nods. "Sister Basil, yes."
The shape cocks its head at her, the pupils of its hard yellow eyes expanding and contracting. "You are... crystal?" it asks, at last.
"My sire was crystal," she stammers. "My dam was earth. Many families are mixed, this far south."
"I can see the body?" the shape asks. There is a halt in its voice. He is trying not to cry, Basil realizes. And he's a "he" now, she realizes further.
"There is no body," she says. "I've never seen an alicorn... pass, before. There's so much energy in them, so much magic. It consumes them when they return it to the world." She shakes her head. "There's nothing to show you. I'm sorry."
The griffon croaks out a harsh sob, and sympathetic tears well up in Basil's eyes. She reaches out with one hoof, as if to comfort him, but pulls away at the sudden snap of his beak. The griffon's eyes are blazing now.
"Did you have choice?" he hisses. "Did you have choice, save mother, save baby? Did you choose baby?"
Basil pulls the bundle close. "No," she says, shaking all over, choosing rudimentary words to make sure the terrific creature understands her. "Save baby or lose both. Only choice."
The griffon sinks back into himself, the fire in his eyes dying to cinders again.
"Mother's first-born came out wrong," he says, after a moment. "Monster."
Sister Basil frowns at him, not understanding. "A birth defect?"
He searches for words, frustrated, but cannot get the right ones to come. "Maybe is correct," he says, in tones of resignation.
"Don't worry," says Basil, hugging the bundle to her breast. "She's fine. Beautiful. Perfect, even."
The griffon nods. "See baby," he says, his voice flat and disaffected.
Basil swallows. Her lips tug absently at the swaddling clothes for a moment, as if about to comply, but she then tucks them back into place. "My superiors would have my hide if they knew about this. They're nervous around your kind." A beat. "As am I, obviously."
"History shaped by those who break rules," says the griffon. "You are here despite nervous."
She nods. "You have risked your life in service of the Empire, and my superiors repay you poorly by rebuffing you. You cared enough for the Empress to drag her all the way from Khione. I have faith that you're not going to eat her foal, not after all you've been through."
"Yes. I am smallest of worries. Baby must be kept safe. Shadow in the East, Sombra. Will stop at nothing to get baby. Others maybe as well that I do not know about. You must remember this above all, because it is most important thing: baby must be kept safe from world."
"Yes. Obviously. Of course."
"Repeat."
"Baby must be kept safe from world," says Basil, dutifully.
"Yes," says the griffon.
He clacks his beak, then, and shakes himself out in a great rustle of feathers. "Lost things along way," he says. "Pieces of Empire. Must go fetch. Will take time to find them. Keep baby safe until I return and help keep watch."
"We will."
"Good."
Sister Basil fidgets. "Her mother was... not lucid, by the time she got to us. The Sisters do not know what to name the foal. Can you tell me what her name is?"
The griffon ducks his head and looks away. "She is named 'My Love.'"
"It's a beautiful name."
"No," says the griffon, choking on the words. "She is named 'My Love' because she destroyed everything."
"I... don't understand," says Sister Basil.
"No. You do not."
Sister Basil stands in silence, the bundle squirming against her chest. The huge gray griffon gives a great all-over shudder and takes a deep breath, appearing to master himself. He raises his head once more.
"See baby now," says Auric.
The two share a glance, and then Sister Basil tucks her head to the bundle and pulls back the wrap.
Oh man. I like Auric. Now I'm at least as interested in his story, modern day, as I am in Cadence's. Admittedly, I might be a bit biased toward gryphons but he's such a rich character.
Oh Auric!!!!! You poor thing! I just wanna hug Auric so much right now.
Okay Auric was interesting before, but now I really want his story. From accidental immortality to the present. Also very interesting that Chrysalis is Cadance's sister. So Changelings=Unseelie in this universe, that's fitting.
5043141
Agreed, friend.
This partially explains why Candance's father was apparently the first pony to be hounded by changelings.
5043233 - Actually... I think it's reversed. Unseelie came first. Chrysy was born from her mother, as a changeling when her mother was under the effect of Unseelie magic. She then taught her daughter Unseelie magic to hide her existence. It's possible all changelings are in fact Chrysy's children or born via similar circumstances, though them all having wings and horns, corrupted alicorns implies the former.
Changelings in other fantasy parlance are indeed a halfbreed between fey and normal. Chrys, being born of that magic, birthed a new race.
Reduit. I keep forgetting to comment in approval of the multilingual pun--'fishing' in latin and 'reduced' in french. I imagine this has come up in the comments before, but I haven't been watching them.
5043474
I was implying something different, probably should have been clearer.
I was implying more to the folktales of Seelie and Unseelie fey and the Changelings were now the Unseelie of this universe seeing as how the Unseelie and their magic was what helped bring them into being. I said they were fitting as their circumstances are more in line with fairytales version of the Unseelie being the ones of misfortune.
Auric stops and turns in his tacks
Wow.... just wow, So much new information here. Mainly, HER SISTER? Oh man, that's gonna sting if she ever finds out!
5043233 I want to know HOW he became immortal.
Oh crap, the love poison. Guess that explains exactly which kingdom fell in the storybook the CMC used on H&H day.
Holy crap, and there's Chrysalis's backstory. Didn't see that one coming, but it makes sense that Cadance and her could have related origins given that they're both alicorns of love (if you turn your head and squint a little).
Haha, well there's why it took a thousand years for Cadance's country of origin to come out, all the clues are buried in a random hole somewhere. Well, that and it sounds like they're going to keep it a secret on account of Sombra.
Dang, poor Cadance, I rather hope she doesn't ever hear that explanation.
I agree with basically everyone else, Auric is awesome and I am now really curious about his story.
5043530
And "redo it"- in other words, to "start over again". Which is what Cadence ends up doing, naturally.
Hurm... very good chapter, but I'm not sure of the timescale here - the dialogue implies that there are still a fair amount of alicorns around, yet there can't be that long between this point and when Luna falls, since both she and the empire were gone for a thousand years, and Luna's fall presumably happened when there were barely any left.
Admittedly, this doesn't make sense anyway, since I believe it's canon that both Celestia and Luna defeated Sombra (since Luna knew about the empire), and yet the empire reappeared after Luna's return, but still, this implies almost all alicorns died in a very short amount of time. I think.
Point is, the timescale could maybe use some clarification. Or maybe I'm just dim and can't understand it, I don't know
Oh man. So alicorns are too powerful to risk falling in love?
I can only imagine the talk waiting for Cadance in the near future.
5044734
The alicorns have been leaving steadily, and it is indeed not long until Celestia and Luna are the only two left. Most of them haven't been literally dying in such a dramatic fashion. They just sort of stop showing up and reunite with the Alicorn Plane as they become dispirited. I cut the part where you actually see Everfree, but it's pretty much a ghost town at the time of this part and the loss of the Empire is the nail in the coffin for everyone but Celestia and Luna, who are forced to take control of a very wounded Equestria in the wake of the Empire's eradication, and that diarchy is plagued by Luna's preexisting demons and does not last long.
EDIT: That said, it probably does not happen that same year. I'm taking the loose interpretation that when Celestia is monologuing to Twilight at the beginning of "The Crystal Empire, Part 1" she means "about 1000 years ago." It is also possible that "1000 years ago" is just pony shorthand for "a really long time" the same way that ancient Hebrews used "40" as representative of "a huge number" rather than literally four tens of something.
EDIT 2: INB4 Lex Luthor / cake jokes.
5044838
Are the alicorns going through a sort of 'passing of the elves' where for whatever reason they just grow weary of the world and thus leave it to the ponies, who are the 'man' substitute, of a sort?
Which I guess makes Celestia & Luna a sort of paired Arwen who retains immortality, though it strains the metaphor somewhat.
5044906
Alicorns in this story are about 80% Tolkien Elves and 20% Jedi.
5044838 Okay, that makes a lot more sense - just didn't get the sense of Alicorns dwindling from this chapter. Which makes sense, since it's from Auric's point of view, and he's be far more concerned with Ladybird herself rather than her race. Although I would like to see something about that, in this or another story - a "twilight of the gods" sort of thing (uncapitalized, as opposed to Twilight of the gods, which we already have and is adorable. ).
And I also imagine 1000 years to be, at most, a rough approximation. Although I personally like to imagine a good deal of time between the various events of Luna and Celestia's reign (I hate it when people portray Discord's first defeat and Luna's fall as being close together, for instance). But this works very well for this story.
You have this wonderful, emotional scene set up, and then you drop that on me. Honestly, how am I supposed to react?
A beginning, on the other hand...
In any case, a crystal cartload of revelations here. Cadence's family is not at all what I was expecting, though love being born of the reproductive urge makes perfect sense. That alicorns were not meant to rule... well, it says something about Celestia that she's managed for as long as she has. And, of course, the nature of Cadence's sister was that wonderful sort of twist where I never saw it coming, but it seemed obvious in hindsight.
Auric himself is a fascinating figure. An eternal vagabond, a dissipated immortal who was probably never meant to be, who has been the cause of so much trouble and so much help. I can't help but suspect that his imperfect grasp of Pegasopolian distorted his intended message. Maybe he didn't want Cadence kept safe from the world. Maybe it was the other way around.
Excellently done. I'm eagerly looking forward to more.
5044838
Or like in Watership Down, hrair, means anything over four (since rabbits can't count past that), but would be better translated as "uncountable", "multitude", "millions".
Honestly, I hope it gets confirmed in the show, because as it is the timeline is very wonky.
Anyway! As an Italian reader, I need to ask you if you've done your homework on what Cadence's mother says. Now, I know you're working with flawed material (in modern Italian, Mi Amore Cadenza belongs in language spoken 300 years ago, and for it to actually make sense, it should be Cadenza del Mio Amore), but "Lo mi'amore distrugge tutto." is, I think, strictly wrong.
It's wrong for a couple different reasons, too: "Mio" by itself would necessitate the article "IL", which would make the phrase Il mio amore distrugge tutto and which could actually be spoken by an Italian person today. It is not inconceivable that in the past, the article "LO" could be used before (although I've never heard it used that way unless it was in vaguely half-forgotten poetry).
But, if you were going to go for that feel, it would actually still be wrong: because "LO" would have to be shortened to "L' ", with an apostrophe, since "Amore" starts with a vowel, and it's an actual grammatical rule (or an error that foreigners always make) that the articles "LO" and "LA" have to be shortened before a word with a vowel, turning the phrase into "L'mi'amore distrugge tutto" or "L'amore mio distrugge tutto", the latter of which is also correct in current usage, although a bit archaic, with a melodramatic and emotional feel.
Yes, Italian articles are a bitch; I know of at least one case of an American who's lived in Italy for twenty years and still can't get them right.
Anyway, I only bring this up because such an error stand out very much against such a good backdrop.
In particular, Chrysalis' back story is brilliant and...I won't say "Head canon accepted" because I'm of the opinion that head canons are supposed to changed based on the needs of every single story, but it explains so much, and it fits so well with the actual canon, that I want to use it myself.
5044640
You know, it's funny, but that never occurred to me. The french pronunciation is so thoroughly ingrained in me (I took French through an immersion program from 1st grade onward) that I had never sounded it out like that.
5045434
Thank you for your expert opinion. I do not speak
ItalianPegasopolian, only some French, and I may have been overly-applying French rules? At any rate, the use of "lo" over "il" was a deliberate choice after some research said that either might be appropriate in the context and "lo" was more archaic, which I thought might be a better fit for this, the "oldest" chapter of the entire piece. I had no clue I should be using a contracted "lo" in this circumstance, as I thought I would only use the contraction if it directly preceded the vowel noun. Would "L'mi'amore distrugge tutto" be grammatically correct, then? If so, I'll change it to that.5045222
Blame the toy line, not me.
Other than that, glad you liked it. I like Auric quite a bit, and I'm glad other people are enjoying him, because he's kind of a major player in the last half of the cycle (the part actually in Cloudsdale; I suspect people are beginning to wonder what the hell I'm doing titling my stories after a city that never frickin' appears in it).
5045630
"L'mi amor distrugge tutto" would be even more archaic and appropriate; Auric could have just misheard or gotten confused by a non native language :-)
5045704
We'll go with that, then, and presume that at some point in time in the thousand years they removed the apostrophe and added an "e" on there. It's difficult trying to reconcile fact and canon, huh?
EDIT: ...a few seconds later, I'm not so sure. I want people to get the reference more than I want to be super super correct. Maybe I'll go with "l'mi'amore" instead of "l'mi amor"
5045750
There is no such thing as a work of fiction that is consistent with itself in its entirety :-D
Even reality only works thanks to ridiculous coincidences (like how the assassination that kicked off world war one only happened because of five separate avoidable strokes of luck) :-P
SO MUCH MYTHOLOGY! SQUEE!!!
And as always, your vocabulary continues to astound.
5045643 I have the sad, sneaking suspicion that Auric is one of those characters whose death is written into their creation, and that Ladybird's prophecy is true, just...somewhat delayed.
Of course I don't expect you to confirm or deny this, it's just the feeling that I get from him.
5046228
By that argument, Cadance has been a ticking time bomb since before she was born.
5046504 Oh, that was a narrative prediction, not a causal one. I don't think Ladybird's love causing destruction was anything more than the natural consequences of her own actions and those of others.
5044838
With the alicorn mythology you're developing, I'm really curious as to where and how Twilight will—eventually, and probably not in this story—fit into everything as the first ascended alicorn of this setting. As you've said before, the normal rules may not apply to her. Of course, there's always my personal headcanon about exactly what that spell of Starswirl's that Twilight completed was actually meant to do…
5045222
Agreed. Skywriter's doing a fine job dropping hints here and there about just how much grit and determination Celestia must have in this setting, having literally pulled Equestria back together alone after the passing of the other alicorns and the banishment of her sister. Personally, I think she's well overdue for a loooooooooong sabbatical.
5044838
But you doesn't hasta call her—Johnson!
5045169
The good rule of thumb I tend to work on is the way people round to the nearest conveniant number in informal speech - usually a 5, 10, 50 or 100. "A thousand years" in casual conversation likely means the number is going to be in the zone that a person is likely to round to a thousand - so, most likely, more than 900, but less 1100, where people are likely to say "900 years" or "eleven hundred years" (and even then a few people will round to a conveniant and impressive sounding number like "a thousand" even if it's, like, 700 or something...!)
So there is almost certainly decades, possibily even nearly two centuries, between Nightmare Moon and Sombra to play with - and we don't even have a ball-park for the Discordian Era, except that it was before either of those...!
5044913
Makes sense. Though I guess the current era makes it the return of the Jedi order
5044081 I suspect this is actually correct; "traces" are... well, I'm not precisely sure, but they have some relation to the harness by which a horse (or, presumably, a pony or griffon) pulls a cart.
5046738 Well, we can assume that Nightmare Moon was gone for exactly 1000 years, or as near to it as makes no odds, due the fact the prophecy specifically stated that's when she'd be freed. But you're right, of course. Plus, unless you were intentionally being specific, you'd probably say "a thousand years" for anything up to 1200, where it becomes "one-and-a-half thousand" or "one-and-a-bit thousand" or something similar.
Although... when you're dealing with immortals, even 200 years can sometimes be considered a short time, so who knows?
5046697
It won't feature here because this cycle doesn't progress that far in time, but in this chronology the Destiny Spell was always meant to create new alicorns; that was the entire point of it, and it was written in response to the opening stages of the alicorn decline, before things got really bad. Just as in canon, it failed.
5046828
Yes, fair point on Nightmare Moon.
By the same token, the fact the Crystal Empire showed up more sort of unexpectedly (Celestia clearly knew or suspected it was coming enough to have a railroad and guards watching the area); which says the exact timing wasn't as precise (it may even be she had no idea if it would come back at ALL.) Otherwise ,she'd have known exactly when it was coming (and dealt with it before the show started, since it had to have happened before NMM).
That is some amazingly interesting backstory on tidbits on the functioning of alicorns, and how Cadance is related to other people. I have my suspicions on the identity of this "Queen" character. Mostly influenced by my preference towards tying in G1 when practical.
Also, kudos to Celestia for keeping it together for as long as she has, seeing as how apparently every single other alicorn died, went nuts, left, or some combination of the above.
5044913
That is a highly interesting comparison. I like it.
5043141
100% agreement with this statement.
This makes me wonder how old Ladybird was, she doesn't seem that old, for an immortal. She's apparently 100 years older than Auric who is apparently immortal but still growing into it, so is so only a few hundred years old? Where do normal little Alicorns come from anyway. The fact they seem to represent facets of reality would suggest they began with the world but apparently not.
Also if I understand correctly both Chrysalis and Cadence are actually half alicorns, their fathers are normal ponies, what ever that means compared to a normal alicorn.
I think you mean "ingenuous" . . .
And now I can't stop thinking about dresses made of asbestos.
5053123
Ladybird is being especially self-deprecating here, so I thought the harsher words were appropriate.
I didn't specify, but the dress is quite possibly made of white basalt fiber (which we didn't learn how to produce until the 20th century, but I'm calling Crystal Pony Magic on this one) and could probably turn a crossbow bolt.
5047345
Alicorns in this chronology tend to breed true and have dominant genes, so an alicorn/other pairing is likely to produce another alicorn when it produces offspring at all. That said, they have (as Cadance notes elsewhere) an abysmal birth rate, so conventional repopulation is difficult. They find their sphere of influence in a moment of Cutie Mark Realization; we see Cady earn hers in "Lady Prismia and the Princess-Goddess."
Jury is still out as to whether or not male alicorns exist in this version of the universe.
5053235
When she was saying she's a hundred years older than he is? I guess I just don't see "disingenuous" as a trait associated with youth, and her using it as a springboard as its antonyms seems less natural to me than ingenuous transitioning to its synonyms. But I think I see where you're coming from.
What does this mean about Celestia and the sun then? Would it actually continue to rise and set without her? Or just that it wouldn't go out if she died and could be made to move by unicorns as suggested in the Hearthswarming story.
5054003
A little of both. Ladybird, in her despair, presumes that--if an alicorn does not exist to claim a sphere of influence--that either ponies or restored natural processes will just take over. In the case of celestial objects, she probably thinks that the unicorns would take up the job again. Celestia disagrees, apparently, since she's been moving the moon consistently even though it's hard for her. Who's to say which one is right? Certainly Cadance is not personally involved with every act of love on the planet, so it's possible for love to go on without her. The truth, as always, is probably somewhere between.
5054003
That was a really long way of saying "probably #2," wasn't it?
5054250
More of a nobody knows and nobody wants to find out really.
Ugh, so hard to type on a tablet, so can't give this the properly loquacious feedback it deserves. Suffice to say, I'm absolutely loving this. Some very powerful writing here, and excellently woven mythology. Bravo! (That's pegasolpian, right?)