Chapter 12: Reawakening
In darkness, a glittering cyan speck of a soul floated, alone, stripped of its power, and hungry for more. It hung in the void like a snowflake, small and fragile but unique, a packet of magic containing the sum total of a mare. Silently, it drifted towards a lone, friendless star, and its inviting world clustered densely with uncountable other sparks, seeking companionship – but something stopped it; a string, an impossibly thin silver line extending out across the thaumato-physical plane into infinity, or to a substantially closer triumvirate of stars that something in its primitive memory insisted was important. Someone was there, someone important – someone she had to rescue!
Memory sparked and images danced like motes of light around the soul as it drifted in the void. There was someone it had to help, someone in need of rescue – a friend! And one of those three stars had stolen her! Even without the sudden aid of the strand, she would have tried to get there, in spite of the insistent howling of the hungry darkness and the alluring glow of the nearer world.
The strand began to pull faster. Void whipped past, blurring – empty space blurring – as she was yanked like a bobber on a light-years-long fishing line through the emptiness between stars, accelerating to exhilarating speeds that would have been deadly to a physical being, until she crossed the last parsec in the blink of an eye and flashed down towards a green and white and blue world hanging almost forlornly in the orbit of a yellow star. And then she missed that world and rammed into its crimson satellite.
And, with a startled gasp, Rainbow Dash woke up.
------
She shot up from the cracked depression her body had made in the red dust, coughing and hacking as her brain registered the extremely unpleasant feeling of dust choking her lungs and coating the inside of her throat. After a second or two, the feeling faded, and she collapsed sideways with a groan, completely sure the dust was still there.
What happened? She asked herself, staring off towards the abrupt and jagged horizon. Swallowing, she slowly rose to her hooves, drawing her wings back in tightly against her sides. Her feathers felt cool – almost cold, really – and entirely too stiff, but that could wait! Something important had happened that was hovering on the tip of her tongue, just waiting to be loosed into the world again if she could just remember what it was…
Exasperated with herself, she sat and looked up at the sky. Wherever she was, there wasn’t an atmosphere, which begged the question of how she could breathe, but that could wait too. Up above, instead of the warm sun she’d been expecting, unobscured by clouds, there was some kind of green and blue orb. She blinked in confusion as she tried to remember what happened.
Okay, I was trying to do an astral projection so I could get back to finding Twilight… She frowned. And then…Discord? Yeah, Discord appeared – and the Princesses, too! They said something, I ignored them…why am I here? Where is here?
“I would hope you would recall my moon,” Ghealach said. The dust swirled lazily up from the ground and coagulated into an equinoid form a few feet in front of Dash, completed portions gradually fading from rust-red to Ghealach’s usual palette until she was recreated perfectly. “There are precious few places you have been with red dust and no atmosphere.”
“So it worked?” she asked hopefully. She stood again and shook herself to get as much of the dust as she could out of her coat. “I did an astral projection again? We can get on with things?”
“For our purposes, yes, it worked,” she answered vaguely. “In the sky above you is the world of Domhan. This is where your friend is – and where Beta is. Uphold your portion of the bargain, and I shall uphold mine.”
“What do you mean, ‘for our purposes’?” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “That sounds an awful lot like equivocation.”
“Your interference with our – with my – magic had unintended consequences,” she bit out. “You are almost useless to me now. Almost – do not think this will excuse careless error in carrying out my plans.”
“What happened?”
“Death happened,” she replied simply. “Your tether was cut when you failed to hold open the tunnel I created for you. You were cast loose from your body – though corpse is a more apt term for it now – and hurled into the void. If I had not maintained a connection, however tenuous, with you, you would have been beyond help and would have proceeded either into your next reincarnation or into full starhood. I could not tell which at the time, and had no intention of risking my most valuable asset by allowing things to proceed normally. You either would have become infinitely more useful or completely worthless – and with the powder figured in, I gambled on preserving your soul in its current state rather than waiting.”
“I’m dead?” she gaped, dumbfounded. “Dead?”
“Your former body is,” she clarified patiently. “I have created a new form for you here, in much the same way as stars and other celestial bodies inspire forms for themselves. Your soul does not reside inside it – it is bound to me, close enough that extrication at this point can no longer be performed without severe damage to both of us.” She let that hang in the air for a moment, to sink in; Dash’s expression morphed from one of shock to one of anger as she parsed that.
“So we’re stuck together,” she summarized. “We’re stuck together permanently, you have complete power over my soul, I didn’t have any say in it whatsoever, because you didn’t want to lose an asset?”
“It was a rash decision on my part,” she admitted, “the reasoning behind which is not entirely clear, even to myself. I would place the blame on your influence through our bond.”
“So it’s my fault that I’m stuck like this, is that it?” she demanded furiously, wings snapping open with a metallic rattle. Startled, she whipped her head around to get a good look at herself. Surprisingly, her wings were metal now – like Beta’s, but her feathers were iridescent and glassy, clear, with waves and ripples of rainbow light playing across them as she turned her wings in the reflected light of Domhan. Her coat was more-or-less the same color, but her legs had lengthened subtly, and her tail seemed to have strands of what looked like seaweed or rivergrass running through it, dark green blades tangled with the rest of her rainbow hair. Worst of all, her cutie mark was completely gone.
“I took some liberty with your form to better suit what I needed,” Ghealach informed her coolly. “While I dislike the meddlers, the kelpies seem to respond favorably to them. By giving you a form similar to the stars, I hope they will react – if not with friendliness – then with less outright hostility to your appearance.”
“I don’t even get my own body?”
“Your existence is completely, wholly, entirely, fully dependent upon me,” she hissed, thrusting her face forward and forcing Dash to draw back. “Do you comprehend this, Rainbow Dash? I pulled you back from over the brink of death. It was not through altruism or attachment – you are useful. Nothing more, nothing less. This form maximizes your usefulness.” She smirked. “In your position, I would expect you to be grateful.”
“Grateful?” Dash snapped. “Grateful? For messing with my body and using necromancy?”
“It was not necromancy.”
“I don’t care!” she snapped, whirling away furiously and starting to pace. “All I wanted was to get Twilight back. All I want is to get my friend away from that – that – freak called Beta Centauri who thinks she’s her sister. I didn’t want to get involved in your own arguments and plots, I didn’t want to be resurrected so you could use me as some kind of goddess, and I really didn’t want to get fused onto you forever! I didn’t even think those would be risks!”
“You were thrown a curveball,” Ghealach responded simply. “Tantrumming will not help.”
“You got everything you wanted out of this,” she growled. “Don’t tell me what I can’t complain about.”
“I was bound to you for the rest of eternity,” she pointed out. “This is less than an ideal situation.”
She fell into a sullen silence then, sitting and contemplating the horizon for a few blissful moments of quiet. When she spoke again, her voice was more subdued.
“They think I’m dead,” she murmured. Ghealach nodded. “All of them think – Pinkie, and AJ and Rarity, and Fluttershy, and the Princesses and the rest of Ponyville – and Scootaloo – “
“This is correct.”
“And the Princesses think I’m dead because of them?” she asked. “And not because I messed up?”
“Most likely. I have not had the time or inclination to check.”
She nodded. “They – this is going to tear them all up, isn’t it? I mean, first Twilight’s gone, now I’m dead…”
“I am no expert, but a period of grieving would not be unreasonable to expect.”
She wondered if she’d gone too far this time, even inadvertently. She hadn’t considered the possibility of her death while trying to find Twilight; even when she was contaminated with the phoenix beak powder, it hadn’t been her foremost concern. Yeah, things had gotten scary when the stuff had almost killed her, but Ghealach had stepped in and it hadn’t been as much of an issue then – with her keeping the powder at bay, she thought she could rescue Twilight, get back to Equestria, and then allow herself to be put out of commission for a few weeks while the doctors sorted the situation out; she’d be cured, Twilight would be safe, and everypony could laugh about it and she could maybe share a few stories of her adventure. Now, though – now, in their eyes at least, she was actually genuinely dead – and the reality was almost as bad.
This is getting way out of hoof, she thought. If I finish this quickly, maybe I can get back before…
“Before what? They already think you’re dead,” Cloud Ferry asked. The dust ahead of Dash didn’t even stir as the phantom materialized – abruptly, and without warning. “Don’t even try to suppress me, moon-witch! She’s stuck onto you and so am I. Put me in a box like you did before and I’ll take my third of our power with me.”
“You are not making an excellent case for why I should even permit you to exist.” Ghealach frowned. “You realize, of course, that it is now within my power to eradicate you utterly?”
“Try it and let’s see how well dear darling Dashie’s mind holds up afterwards,” she replied saccharinely. “She’s doing so well already, after all, what with you having to suppress all the other personality fragments so they can’t become phantoms, the half-healed scars Beta left all over the place – it’s like navigating a warzone in here! – and now the guilt on top of that.”
“What other personality fragments?” Dash demanded. “What are you talking about? I thought it was just you!”
“Ha! Just me?” She laughed. “You’re keeping her in the dark about what you’re doing to help her in her own mind, Ghealach? Already taking up some of the pastimes of the ‘meddlers’ as you call them?”
“She did not need to know at the time.”
“And I bet it was for her own good, too,” she snorted. She turned back to Dash. “To answer your questions, O host, I am referring to the other proto-phantoms trying to pull themselves together in here, that your omnibenevolent ally has so effectively suppressed without your knowledge. There’s a pegasus with bat wings and an herbalist zebra tottering around in the dark corners of your mind, looking for enough hints to let them recall a few more shreds of their lives, and those are just the two who are furthest along.” She smirked. “Beta really did a number on you, dear. Given enough time, you could have every one of your past lives upgrading to phantomhood. If you think you have no peace now, well…”
“It is a non-issue,” Ghealach insisted. “I have them firmly under control.”
“You could’ve told me, at least,” Dash grumbled. Ferry laughed again.
“What kind of chess player tells their actions to their pawns?” she asked rhetorically. “That’s all you are in her eyes, dear – a pawn.”
“Enough!” Ghealach snapped, wings flaring angrily. Cloud Ferry’s form froze and shattered like a pane of glass, but she managed to whisper one final parting sentence before being sealed away again.
“I will remember our deal.”
Silence reigned once more. “Was she telling the truth?” Dash asked cautiously.
“I am, indeed, suppressing the nuclei of two more potential phantoms. The others are not yet coherent enough to pose credible threats in the near future.” She hesitated a beat. “If you so wish, I…I could cease blocking them.”
“What?”
“I have not been completely isolated for all of my existence,” she explained. “Mortals, or once-mortals, respond better when they are given a choice in matters, however illusory. I am assuming you are not yet mad enough to agree to this.”
“…Thanks, I guess,” she responded, “but I was actually asking about the second thing. Am I just a pawn, or are you going to hold your end of our bargain?”
“As I have said before, our goals are coincident. You accomplishing your goal is necessary to me accomplishing mine, and vice-versa.”
“But if they weren’t?” she pressed.
“They are. It is a non-issue,” she answered evenly. “Focus, instead, on how we may accomplish our shared aims. The unseating of a star from the rule of the world she nurtures is not an easy task.”
“How are we supposed to do it, then?”
“She must be broken,” Ghealach declared. “She must be so thoroughly defeated – killed, if possible – in such a way that she ceases to be a concern for an extend period of time, on the order of millennia or greater. Doing so is no easy task, but there are ways – “
“Woah, woah, woah – hold up!” Dash interrupted. “I don’t know a whole lot about astronomy, but wouldn’t killing a star make it explode or something? And wouldn’t that be, like, really bad for that planet up there?”
“It would be,” she confirmed, “if that is what actually happened. When – “
“So they don’t blow up when they die?” Dash frowned skeptically. “Twilight told me – “
“ – I speak of ‘killing’ a star, I am not referring to killing its body,” Ghealach finished irritably. “The astral body remains behind, unharmed, if you kill its soul – its avatar, its personality; sending that aspect of it into its next incarnation in the cycle has no effect on the physical star itself, or I would not have suggested such an incredibly suicidal and self-defeating plan.”
“So how do we do that?”
“Stars forms are almost impervious to physical attacks, capable of re-forming with sufficient rapidity to render such crude means wholly ineffective,” she explained. “In order to kill one – as Alpha Centauri was killed – “
“Twilight isn’t Alpha Centauri!”
“I never suggested that. There was, in fact, a meddler called Alpha Centauri who was the sister of Beta Centauri two millennia ago, as well as a third known as Proxima who I have since lost track of,” she growled. “It is difficult to mistake someone for someone who does not exist. May I continue?”
“Sorry. Yeah, go ahead.”
“In order to kill one, as Alpha Centauri was killed two millennia ago by Proxima Centauri, one needs to attack it with magic,” she continued patiently. “From my observations, I know you have very little aptitude for this.”
“I did an astral projection, didn’t I?” she protested. Ghealach snorted.
“As astral magic goes, projections are along the lines of cheap card tricks, or the illusions employed by stage performers,” she said dismissively. “You have not yet even scratched the surface of what the school is capable of, and as you are not an astral body, I think it highly unlikely you will be advancing in it soon.”
“I – “
“Mere teleportation – the simplest of gravitational manipulations – disables you,” she cut her off. “You barely survived your first projection and your second projection did kill you. You are like the proverbial street magician that finally managed a fireworks illusion and wanted to challenge the archmage to a duel.” Dash’s response was silence. “No, you do not have an aptitude for magic. It is fortunate for you that I have both an aptitude and several million years of practice. You need concern yourself primarily with the second portion of my plan: rebuilding a rapport with my wards.”
“That’s it? All I’ve gotta do is make friends?”
“In my name.” She nodded. “You will land in the portion of Domhan the locals call the “Outlands”. Heroic deeds are among the fastest ways of winning popularity. In the heartlands of the meddlers’ domain, opportunities for visible acts of heroism are few and far between. In the Outlands, however, things are far less tame and secure. There should be ample opportunities to insinuate yourself into the hearts of the locals. You will work your way towards the heartlands, of course – but if you become popular fast enough, in my name, it should draw Beta towards you like a large and aggressive moth to a flame.”
“And that’s good, I guess,” she replied questioningly. Something whispered in the back of her mind that forcing Beta’s hand and facing her on ground that she chose – as opposed to in a place where Beta could have laid any number of traps – was a sound strategy. She didn’t recognize the whisperer. “So, when do we start?”
“As soon as possible,” Ghealach answered. Her eyes sparked with power for an instant, distance no longer requiring her to call upon visible amounts of energy for something as simple as folding space. The fabric of the world bent around to envelope Rainbow Dash – and this time, for once, she almost managed to keep her stomach in check.
Almost.
------
The feeling of the cool predawn air rushing over her pinions was almost indescribable, Twilight thought as she and Beta soared over the grassy plains of northwestern Domhan – the nation, and not the world; her fellow Queen had made it clear that the two were, in fact, distinct, though Domhan was the only country she’d ever seen maps of in the atlases she’d read since her arrival. The plains threw up thermals even at this early hour, vast columns of warm air that her wings caught and let her rise as high as she wanted and more, sent up from the occasional geyser field or lake. Small stands of trees that greatly resembled the trees in Whitetail Wood back on Equus dotted the landscape, spreading lazily across hillsides and flatlands alike. The place was beautiful.
Every now and again, as she and Beta and Rookwind flew, she would spot a cluster of flickering lights or dark, boxy shapes; villages, populated by land-dwelling kelpies and wolves, though wolves tended to stick to nomadic lifestyles.
“They are a very proud and traditional people, the wolves,” Rookwind remarked as they passed over a much more tightly-grouped cluster of fires that she assumed was a wolf camp. “For two thousand years before the coming of the Queens, they lived by the fang, by the paw, and by the claw. In the two thousand years since your departure, they haven’t had much reason to change that.”
“Do they have any permanent settlements?” she asked curiously. “Any camps that stay up, even if the wolves living there change?” They almost sound like griffons, she thought. Landbound griffons.
“They come to trade in kelpie towns, but beyond that they keep to their wandering packs,” he replied. “It makes calling on their aid to put down buggane councils a royal pain, though in places where wolves roam my Guard does not have much trouble from bugganes.”
“Buggane councils?”
“They get it in their heads every once in a while that five of their brains working together might be marginally better than one alone,” Beta said drily. “It’s about as close as they get to any sort of civilization.”
“A bonfire, a cookpot, and four or five giant moles,” Rookwind added, chuckling. “And usually by the end of it the cookpot’s filled with one of their councilors.” Twilight winced.
“We’d let them be, since they take care of themselves well enough without our aid, but sometimes when one forms near a settlement the smell of Domhanane beings is more enticing than the odors of their fellows,” Beta continued. “Then, we have to break them up, before someone gets killed and eaten.”
They lapsed into silence, Twilight digesting the new information as the countryside slipped past beneath them. No, Domhan was not much like Equestria at all. In Equestria, in Canterlot and most of the rest of the country, the worst that could happen to a foal would be getting lost, or – in vanishingly rare instances – abduction for ransom. Here, they were considered a valid food source for monsters. Not even in Ponyville was that a problem, and Ponyville was on the edge of the greatest concentration of monsters and wild magic on the planet!
An hour passed as rolling hills gradually gave way to squat, thatched-roof hovels and muddy farmlands. A warm glow was growing on the eastern horizon, but it didn’t seem like the suns were ready to rise yet – if they even would on their own. Twilight’s doubts were vindicated when Beta signaled them to descend; they landed on a rocky outcrop atop one of the last hills to be found. The sunsglow on the horizon was competing with the lights of a city to the north; she assumed that was Caisleanard. Beta folded her wings and turned towards where the suns would first peek up into the sky.
“Are we raising the suns?” she asked, trying to keep her eagerness out of her voice. She was a star, wasn’t she? She’d get to raise the suns – or at least her sun. Just like Celestia! For the first time since she’d learned the basic tenets of magical theory and discovered a mere unicorn lacked the power to bring the morning alone, she felt like she could realize her fillyhood dream.
And then she felt the world shift below her subtly – too subtly for anyone but a star, with a star’s attunement to gravitational fields, to detect – and the top rim of Beta Centauri poked above the horizon.
Of course, she realized, not without disappointment. It’s not the suns that move – it’s the planet. Of course.
“I think I’ll be taking care of the raising of the suns for the foreseeable future,” Beta declared, smiling slightly at Twilight – apologetically, though not completely so. “You’ve been gone a while, and you’re a bit out of practice – I don’t think giving you a chance to disturb the planet’s rotational period would be a good idea for now.”
“It’s fine,” she assured her after a moment of silence. “That makes sense, I guess. I’ll have to do it again soon, though, if I ever want to get back into the flow of things.”
“Right,” she giggled. “Soon, soon. Right. Not today, though.” She settled her wings back into their resting positions and took a seat to observe the sunrise she’d set in motion. “We should probably wait here for our entourage to catch up. I think we might have left them in the dust.”
“The last I saw of the vanguard wolfpack was back near the bridge,” Rookwind rumbled. “They may be some hours yet.”
“It should be fine. Lord Radiant Eye can’t possibly be home yet anyways – he can’t teleport, after all.” Twilight shot a look at Beta. “Kelpies can’t teleport, can they?”
“Radiant can,” she replied evenly. “One of many tricks his family has kept to itself in the intervening years. House Eye has secrets none of the other noble bloodlines even suspect. Its constituents still surprise me every once in a while.” She snorted. “Not that the other houses don’t have secrets, too. Measured Speech’s mother, for example, managed the most comprehensive smuggling operation in Domhanane history right under the Royal Guards’ noses.”
“I set her straight,” Rookwind growled. Then, his face wrinkled in what could have been a grin had he not had a beak. “Dismantled her empire in three days. The look on her face was absolutely priceless.”
“You arrested her?” Twilight asked curiously. The thunderbird nodded.
“And executed her,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “Horrible things she was smuggling. Only punishment she left herself with. A pity.”
Twilight swallowed and focused on the rising suns, trying to ignore the sudden queasiness he felt. Another…disconcerting…difference from Equestria; these people seemed to be rather cavalier about ending lives, for food or for punishment. She tried to steer herself away from the thought that, at some point, she might be forced into a situation where she would have to order an execution. Of course, in steering her thoughts away from that, she made it the only thing they seemed to want to drive towards. Of course she’d have to order an execution at some point – she was an immortal now, wasn’t she? An immortal ruler? Unless she passed all judicial duties to deputies or to Beta, it was guaranteed that she would have to execute someone at some point! And passing on roast deer might be acceptable after a fashion, but what would they think if she refused to order the execution of someone they thought deserved it?
I will avoid a situation like that at all costs, she resolved. Even if that means deputizing servants to deal with it for me. I will not order someone’s death, no matter what they did.
“Alpha?” Beta prodded her gently with a hoof, snapping her out of her thoughts. She shook her head and looked at her sister.
“Sorry.” Alpha smiled. “My mind wandered off a little there. What were we talking about?”
“Nothing. We were mainly waiting for you to return to yourself,” Rookwind replied.
“We should probably fly back and find our entourage again,” Beta decided. “It wouldn’t do to arrive in Caisleanard without all our various servants and hangers-on.”
“Will Radiant be able to feed them all?” Alpha asked worriedly.
“Of course!” Beta laughed. “And if he couldn’t, he’d still do his best to make it look like he could, as a point of prestige. The nobles have this funny system among themselves – layers and layers of protocols that I still don’t get, even after two thousand years of having to work around them – and they’d be willing to thoroughly bankrupt themselves to give us a ‘worthy’ reception when we choose to visit their castles.”
“Just because they’d be willing to doesn’t mean that we should encourage them,” she said. “Do you help them finance the feasts, at least?”
“Can’t. That’d be as bad as bankrupting yourself, taking royal aid to feed royal guests, according to their protocol.” She shrugged. “Radiant’s better than most of them, but this time I think he’ll try his hardest to make a good impression – House Eye has always prided itself on its loyalty to the old regime – you, me, and Proxi – and now you’re coming personally to stay with them for a night. Plus, some of the other major nobility of the Heartlands will be coming over, with their retinues – granted, theirs are smaller; basically, if I haven’t missed my guess, he’s going to be going all out, to prove himself to you, raise his standing amongst the rest of the nobility, and vindicate his way of running things. His peasants don’t pay taxes, after all. If he can provide just as well as the others for us, without any tax income, he might finally get them to be quiet about his eccentricity. And I’ve probably missed or forgotten a few other minor and major goals.” She shrugged again. “Politics. What can you do?”
Alpha frowned. She couldn’t recall Princess Celestia ever having to deal with something like this – but then, most times she’d been in Court, she’d been young and had her nose crammed into a book about feudal politics, as opposed to observing them unfold in front of her. “Would it be possible to ask him not to bother?”
“Bad idea,” Rookwind answered swiftly. “The other nobles would take that as a sign of disfavor. Radiant would have to be officially insulted by the suggestion, no matter how much easier that would make things financially, to save face. Other ladies and lords would see it as an opening to prove their own wealth by hosting you, and you’d have to accept or risk insulting them as well. Radiant would probably be actually insulted by you accepting their invitations and not his, and so on, and so forth.”
“When was this system even instituted?” she asked exasperatedly. “I think I liked it better back before I died.”
“Oh, I tried to keep it like that!” Beta said, grinning. “I think I succeeded fairly well, with a few modifications. You ruled over them by a network of friends, right? I just made that official.” She giggled. “Things…may have gone downhill from there…”
“I didn’t rule over them through my friends.” Alpha frowned. “I made friends with them and they gave me a rough idea of what everyone wanted, and then I gave it to them.”
Beta’s grin faded. “Really?”
“Did it really seem like I ruled them with friends?” she asked, thoughtful. Fragments of memory flicked through her head; names and faces, not associated but familiar, rose unbidden from the morass of her deep memories – everything was so muddled, nothing from then was clear, all she could remember was from the frighteningly brief period of twenty years before –
Startled, Twilight shook her head. The parade of images lost a bit of its impact – she didn’t feel like she should know the owners of those faces, or the faces to those names – but it didn’t stop, not completely; if anything, it sped up, and it didn’t stop until the features of what must have been a thousand kelpies, wolves, and thunderbirds had all burnt themselves back into her immediate memory. Somehow, she had the horrible feeling that each and every one of them was long dead. For an instant, she felt horribly alone.
I have friends back on Equus, she reminded herself. I have Princess Celestia, and I still have Beta. I might be Alpha Centauri, but I’m Twilight Sparkle, too. I’m not alone.
“I think I can see them – cresting that hill, over there,” Rookwind said, his wing rattling as he gestured towards a ridge back the way they’d come. Their retinue snaked down the near side of hill, shaded in profile by the rising suns, winding quickly down the grassy slope – they’d abandoned the road entirely in favor of a straight-line approach, it seemed – and between isolated trees; she smiled. It could take some getting used to, traveling with so many companions at once, but it wouldn’t be too hard, certainly. Especially if more memories reconnected. In time, things might even become familiar, despite the gulf of time between her death and her return.
Besides, she thought, as Rookwind and Beta took to the air once more and she followed, if things get too uncomfortable, I can always visit Ponyville again – maybe even Caelum. Her smile widened as she remembered the constellation she’d briefly been a part of; dancing through gravity wells like that had been enough to give her a taste for adrenaline to match Rainbow Dash’s. Maybe I can convince Princess Celestia to join a constellation with me. And when everypony else finally joins us – oh, but I’ll have to bring Spike here, I can’t leave him behind…
The cool morning air washing over her wings again slowly settled her mind, and she turned her thoughts back to politics and Domhan. Caisleanard was only a few hours away, after all – and if Radiant Eye really was as loyal to her as he professed, she didn’t want to make a mess of things through absent-mindedness.
Of course, even if I were paying attention, I might still mess something up, she thought sourly. I guess I’ll just have to rely on Beta a little longer, and hope for the best.
Stats
Page generated in 0.022 seconds
Total duration
1,007 users online
1,277,523 hits today, 1,822,946 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Oh right! Ghealach (How do you pronounce that?) to the rescue for Rainbow!
Hmm, so if Rainbow died, and her soul is light years from her body, wouldn't that make the powder stop trying to devour her soul?
Hmm, what does she refer to as Meddlers? Heavenly bodies that 'descend'?
Hmm, Beta seems to be saying 'Soon, not today' a lot lately. Having trouble relaxing, eh Beta? And Twilight seems to be forgetting about her friends and how worried they must be rather quickly, though given all that's happened to her that's fairly understandable.
Hmm, so many Hmms!
Here's an interesting thing to ponder: Brown Dwarf Stars.
Worry not about delays! Quality over quantity in all events!
3509044
In order: Yes, and yes, but Beta Centauri in particular. Ghealach and Beta have some history between them
As for Ghealach's name, I've been pronouncing it "gay-uh-lak", with that final 'a' sound being the same as in "at", although I am completely certain that is not how the Irish pronounce their word for "moon" - which is where I got her name from (I also got the other funny names from Irish, though I've forgotten what Uisceban means. Caisleanard I fused from the Irish for Castle and Hill). If I go by the IPA stuff on the Irish Orthography page, I still don't know how - there are IPA symbols involved there that I don't even recognize, much less know how to pronounce.
So, yeah. I'm going to stick with "gay-uh-lak" until someone who knows Irish comes along and helps.
Geez, Dash's deal keeps getting worse, though she seems to recognize it for what it is, now. Nice to see the plan, finally.
Hoping this ends with a Rainboom.
3450377 Jesus, I just decided to look at Magnetars, based on what you said about them. Magnetars have enough magnetic power to that, if a magnetar were to replace Earth, every credit card on the planet would be wiped clean at a distance halfway to the moon. Just 1000km/621 miles away, the fields would not just mess with the iron in your blood, it would distort the shape of your atoms to make life impossible.
Holy shit, you weren't kidding about 'how much it would take to break them'.
3510765
I might work one in at some point, yeah
3584288
Yeah, magnetars are one of those really fascinating things about the universe that you never, ever want to come close to Earth. I also place in that category primordial black holes, double-planet systems, and strangelets
.
Pfft. Souls exist in this universe; Death isn't such a big deal when souls objectively exist. It's less death and more permanent exile.