Chapter 8: Some Unusual Places
Bulk Biceps
"Aieee!!!" cried Bulk Biceps, in what was perhaps not the most masculine utterance of his life, as three invisible, slimy and horribly strong tentacles dragged him through the circular aperture that had formed in the air on what had been a quiet Ponyville lane, dragged him to someplace else -- a region of wooded hills overlooked by mountains and overlooking farmland. All this Bulk saw in a single frightened glance as the tentacles brought him to their side of what was obviously some sort of mystical portal. He looked back through the portal, seeing the inappropriately and madly cheerful face of Pinkie Pie, a bit of that Ponyville lane visible beside her -- and then the portal flickered and vanished, leaving Bulk alone with whatever had taken him.
The tentacles pulled him through the air onto some sort of invisible surface, three times his height at the shoulders from the ground. The surface was soft and warm -- even fluffy. It smelled vaguely like a Pony mare, but there was a strong overlay of something else -- something vaguely like a mammal and vaguely like an insect, and not entirely like either. As he touched down curls of fluff wound themselves around all four of his lower legs, holding him down firmly atop the invisible surface. He struggled, but he was in the grip of a far stronger field, being projected through the fluffy, mare-hair scented bonds, than any he could project through his wings, or oppose with even his muscles. Once he was firmly attached, the slimy tentacles withdrew, and from one point behind him and two below and to his side he heard great smacking and gulping noises. Terror flared in his heart as he wondered if he were about to be eaten.
"Help!" he cried, hoping somepony could hear him. He cast desperate eyes around the surrounding landscape. They were standing on a hill. Below was some sort of farm, though the fields were bare, interspersed with trees, and seemed to be full of rocks ranging from small stones to large boulders, arranged in unusual and complex patterns. Around him were hills, many of them queerly-regular in outline and some crowned by rings of standing stones. Suddenly the creature which held him captive shifted. He heard great scuffing sounds below, but its footsteps were oddly-soft for something which must have been far bigger than a buffalo. "Help!" he cried again.
Noises came from his vicinity. They must have come from the creature, for he could feel the warm fluffy surface beneath him vibrate to its breath in rhythm with each noise. The strange thing was that they sounded as if several voices were speaking at once, in a similar manner but from different directions and with different pitches. They ranged from tenor to bass, but were all peculiarly gentle, the sort of cooing noises that some gigantic mother might have made to comfort a frightened foal. Sometimes they got more complex, and he caught a tantalizing hint of meaning, as if the creature were trying to speak Equestrian but failing -- he could not make out any comprehensible words.
Now his face was pointing toward a particular hill, which was crowned by a yellow-painted farmhouse next to an orange barn Suddenly another portal opened in front of them, and Bulk saw through it that building's front door. A moment later the invisible creature stepped foward and through the portal, and they were standing in front of the orange barn.
It made excited noises, sort of like deep-throated croaks and groans, and then a train of more complex noises in which he almost thought he could understand at least one actual word: "Gran" or "Granny." Bulk's blood ran cold at the thought of what bizarre monstrosity might be the grandmother of anything as strange as his invisible captor. He renewed his struggles, but no more avail than before -- the soft, fluffy manacles which held his limbs gave a little at his strongest efforts, but would not yield past a certain point. Something knocked heavily, invisibly and repeatedly at the barn's main door.
"All right! All right! I'm a-comin!"
The voice could have belonged to an ordinary older mare, Bulk thought, but obviously no ordinary mare could possibly live in this strange place, know such a strange creature. Though -- looking around frantically at the landscape -- didn't this place sort of resemble the eastern White Tail Hills? Say, around Nickerlite along the railway fifty miles west of Ponyville, or a half-dozen or so miles into the hill country of Dunnich ... some of those mountains looked awfully familiar ...
The barn door opened, and the entity within the barn was revealed to Bulk's apprehensive gaze.
She was a compact, slightly chubby orangish-yellow older Earth Pony mare, wearing a light brown head-scarf, from under which protruded curls of greyish-white hair. In her right hoof, she leaned upon a wooden stave, carven in curious designs; she carried a pair of side-bags. Bright golden eyes examined him curiously.
All in all, she looked like some strange old hill mare, not some sort of inequine monster. What's more, she looked somehow familiar ...the cast of her eyes and muzzle looked like somepony he knew ...
"Well, well," she said, grinning wickedly. "What'd you bring home this time, Claire? Adding a nice Pegasus stallion to your harem?"
A sudden and horrible suspicion came into Bulk's mind, one which was even in accordance with some of the weirder stories he had read. Though in those stories, didn't the huge horrible tentacle monsters usually go after innocent young mares? Bulk was hardly innocent, and he was certainly no mare, but what if ...?
Then he caught another implication of what he had heard. Claire? Was the huge horrible thing that had him captive named 'Claire?' It didn't seem like a likely name for some evil tentacle monster ...
Huge indignant snorts came from the invisible creature beneath him, followed by what sounded exactly like a colossal raspberry.
The old mare chuckled. "I'm just funnin' you," she said, her eyes flicking rapidly up and down, as if she were addressing both of them. "Come on, let's get Mr. Bulk inside," she continued, "and this door shut. Need to get the wards up full afore it's entirely safe for him outside, even round these parts."
The creature bore him within. The barn consisted of mostly a single great chamber, centering upon some sort of examination table, equipped with thick leather straps, which looked as if they were meant to hold down some fairly large creatures. Around the walls were a variety of strange machines on caster wheels, some of them seeming to be electrical in nature. There was a small steam engine and arrays of large batteries.
It looked, in short, like the laboratory of some sort of black magician or mad scientist.
Earth Ponies couldn't do magic. Which left "mad scientist."
This didn't look good.
Then the awareness burst upon Bulk that she had addressed him by name.
"How'd you know my name?" Bulk shouted questioningly.
"Pinkie told me," the old mare said.
Suddenly, Bulk realized exactly whom the old mare resembled.
"You're Pinkie Pie's mom?" he asked.
The mare chuckled and actually blushed slightly.. "Why thank you for the compliment, but no. I'm her grandma. Golden Pie, but you can call me Goldie. And you'd be Bulk Biceps -- Fluttershy's special somepony."
"Yeah!" His enthusiasm about that was genuine.
"You're safe here, Bulk. We brought you here to protect you." She indicated her lab. "I know this all looks spooky, but I don't do any terrible experiments here." She nodded to his captor. "Claire, you can let Mr. Bulk go now."
The wet tentacles reached for him again, but this time Bulk did not bother to struggle. Two looped around his barrel and set him down gently on the laboratory floor.
"I'm a biologist and midwife -- Miskatrottic University, Class of `44," Goldie said proudly. "Small but eclectic college, up at Arkhoof in the Duchy of Morgan."
"Yeah," said Bulk, looking around back in the direction where soft and oddly multiple breathing indicated the presence of his gigantic and invisible former captor.
The creature made a series of complex and oddly-apologetic mposes.
"I know you got ... um ... startled the way Pinkie and Claire brought you here," Goldie said. "Claire's sorry she surprised you, grabbin' you like that. She knew she had to hurry, so she couldn't take the time to explain herself. It's hard for her, account of most folks can't understand her spoken Equestrian. But she can understand you right well enough, and she's educated an' all that, so you can always talk to her by writing if need be."
"Claire?" asked Bulk again. Wait, wasn't that the name of the tentacle monster?
"Yep," said Goldie. "That's who's holding you. Pinkie's twin -- sororal rather than identical, obviously. Pinkie jest looks a lot more like most other Ponies."
The statement hit Bulk like a thunderclap, suggesting whole secret realms of horror in these hills. "That thing's Pinkie's sister?!!" he blurted out, an instant before his common sense told him that this might not have been the best thing to say, under the circumstances.
There came huge, indignant-sounding noises from behind him -- how did Claire manage sounding like a whole chorus -- including a vast raspberry. He was sprayed in a fluid that smelled much like mare spittle.
"Now behave!" snapped Goldie. "Both of you. Claire, it is not good manners to spray saliva all over our guest!" she said to the invisible tentacle monster. "We all raised you better than that."
Apologetic rumbles came in reply.
"And Mr. Bulk Biceps, shame on you," scolded Goldie. "Since when is it proper to call a nice young mare a 'thing'?' Inkie told us that you had good manners, but I'm not seeing them today."
Nice -- young -- mare? Bulk screwed up his face, tried to wrap his mind around the concept. Well, Claire hadn't actually hurt him, even though he was much smaller than her. And she was Pinkie's age, and Pinkie was something like a year younger than Fluttershy -- 'Shy was 24, so Claire had to be 23 if she was Pinkie's twin, which was young. But ... mare? Female, sure, but ...
What kind of Pony is huge and invisible? Bulk asked himself. Then he remembered growing up, and mean Ponies asking him if he were a really a Pegasus Pony, or some sort of weird bull, with his freakishly huge body and tiny wings. He remembered hearing that some Ponies called his niece Scootaloo a 'chicken' because she had little wings like his own, and could barely fly. He remembered how hard it had been for himself to learn to fly. Pony is as Pony does, he remembered his mother once telling him.
Suddenly, Bulk did feel ashamed of his own words.
"I'm sorry, Miss Claire," he said to the invisible fluffy Pony behind him. "I was mean. I won't do it again."
Conciliatory deep coos came from the huge entity, and a wet tentacle briefly patted him on the back.
"Now to business," said Goldie. "From what I understand, you've gotten on The Twister's poo list. Probably because you're in love with the High Lady Fluttershy Wind, am I right?"
"Um ... yeah ..." Bulk said, while his brain was trying to process the last part of what she'd said. 'High Lady' -- wait, I knew she's a real aristocratic sort of Pegasus, but that title's normally only used for a Clan Matriarch or member of a Matriarch's immediate family ... Accompanied by the name "Wind," there was another possibiity, but that was surely ridiculous. "High Lady ...?"
"Just a term," said Goldie, blinking. "Don't read too much into it. Why, next you know I'll be calling my daughter Cloudy a Princess of the Crystal Empire!" She chuckled to herself at something, then continued. "Right. So what I'm going to do first is strengthen the wards on this building."
"Then Discord can't get through?" Bulk asked.
Goldie laughed. "Oh, no," she said. "Discord can get through. Don't be fooled. That immaculately-conceived bastard can get through any ward made by mortal Ponies. He could even have gotten through the Crystal Heart in time, if he was so minded." She walked over to her machines, pulled several switches. There was a thrumming in the walls of the barn, which Bulk could feel in his flight feathers.
"Thing is," Goldie continued, "He'd have to work at it. And the Twister don't work at anything. That's his greatest weakness, more fundamental even than his reaction to extreme cold, or even to the Elements of Harmony. He's lazy."
She walked around the barn, tapping the walls at places with her staff, mumbling to herself. Each time she did so, Bulk felt twinges in his flight feathers.'
"There," she said with satisfaction. "Wards are tight on this house. Now I've got to tighten them around the whole property." She looked up at Bulk, grinned. "We're not lazy, you see. Can't afford to be when you farm rocks. That's why we can always beat him. His own fault, really."
"Huh?"
"He gave us our motto. More of a command, really, to our Original Ancestress, which is why it's in the imperative form." She pointed to an odd phrase, on a plaque hanging over a work bench.
Bulk picked out the letters. "V-a-de," he said. "Firm-am pet-ram," he said. "What's it mean?"
"Vade, firmam petram," Goldie corrected his pronouncation. Classical Western Amareican,. To put it in Modern Equestrian: 'Go, farm rocks.' Which she did. And we did. And still do. Course, the Twister never counted on one thing."
"What's that?"
"We learned how to do it really well." She smiled wolfishly. "His mistake."
Bulk didn't understand. But he glimpsed something that Goldie Pie was saying something about her own family, about how tough they were, and in this slightly-chubby old mare he could sense something indomitable and awesome. And abruptly he felt very glad that she had chosen to protect him, and almost sorry for anypony who decided to make himself her foe.
***
Discord
Taking the paths of least resistance from place to place, not the obvious ones that ordinary mortals knew, not the inobvious one of magical teleportation, nor even the routes that Claire "Least Noticeable" Pie took through hyperspace, but ones based on random quantum fluctuations and micro-wormholes that formed and vanished unpredictably -- save to his intuitive motions -- Discord tunneled through spacetime from his domain to the Pie Rock Farm.
He knew of course that Bulk Biceps had been there. Discord could track him, could track anypony, anywhere unless something were specifically interfering with his senses. He couldn't sense Bulk right now, which meant that some mage of unusual ability was warding against Discord personally, since most ordinary wards were as permeable as so much Swiss Cheese to his powers. There were only a few mages who could do that -- and one of them lived right on this farm.
"Goldie Pie," he breathed hatefully to himself. But of course she wasn't the real problem. She was just an agent of something greater, the Paracosmic Paradise. In this place, where Goldie's family had bound a natural nexus in the Earth-currents through transducing devices older than Ponykind, tamed it to serve the purposes of Paradise, most of Discord's own powers were stymied, reduced into Lawfulness should he overstep the wards.
He could still make his way in. He could do it by brute force, physically destroying one after another of the rings of standing stones that were the projections of the ancient Eldren machines into readily-perceptible reality. That would be noticed, because it would result in huge explosions and energy discharges optically visible as far as Canterlot itself, and it would mean the direct intervention of the Princesses. He wasn't certain what would happen then, given that he'd be fighting Paradise at the same time. He shuddered at the thought of anything close to an even fight.
Besides, this was one thing that his Voice of Reason had specifically warned him not to do.
"Do you want to be stone again for another millennium or two?" Wind Whistler had asked him. "It's not as if I mind. I've got lots of reading to catch up on, I can work on my models -- say, would you like to play some chess? In merely a century, we could explore all sorts of variations ... I'm sure you'd come up with some very interesting ideas ..."
Discord shuddered again at the thought of chess. Especially given that Wind Whistler wouldn't let him cheat.
Anyway, he was pretty sure that Wind Whistler was just mocking him. He'd had stray thoughts of chess positions over the last two and a half millennia that made him suspect that she had already organized a chess club in there with some of the other entities he had consumed.
He wondered if Destruction just exploded the board when the game got too intense ... heh ... but Dr. Fuchs in particular probably played by the rules. Boring little git, he'd been. And chess was the kind of game just made for those Elder Things. They had probably already worked out multi-dimensional versions of the game ... Wind Whistler would probably wriggle in pleasure at the very thought.
Being stone again would suck too.
Besides, it would leave Fluttershy free to break his heart some creatively new ways. Even if he killed Bulk, he was certain she wouldn't wait for him for a thousand years, based on what he'd seen already of the little minx. He'd escape in a millennium or two and find out that she'd built some sort of huge fancy seraglio, full of stallions just waiting to serve her.
Why did he even like her when she did things like that? Or might do things like that. Much the same thing, really, in non-linear probability based time-flows.
Most Cosmics tried to keep to linear time when Incarnate because of fear that this sort of thinking would drive them mad. Never stopped me! Of course, he was mad, but that just made life more interesting.
Which was the problem with the other way he could pass the wards. He could of course see the tangles of energy, and while Goldie was a very, very competent mage, she had of course done it in linear time. He could follow her paths backward and unweave her wards, and there was nothing she could do about it because even though she could cast paratemporal spells, she had to move in linear time to repair the damage he could do and he could simply unweave faster than she could weave.
But to do this, he had to walk her pattern, backward. Her long, Lawful, oh-so-boring pattern
Yuck.
Hardly worth the trouble. Even though it would let him get to Bulk and do something subtle to him to detach him from Fluttershy, something Fluttershy wouldn't realize had been done until it was far too late and she realized she loved Discord and she no longer cared about Bulk because, really, how could anyone really care about that big slab of Pegasus muscle? He didn't even have to hurt Bulk -- just maybe make him fall in love with one of the mares on the farm, or turn gay, or something trivial like that. Why, that would hardly even be unethical!
But again, boring.
As Discord sat and dithered, he could feel Goldie Pie moving around her patterns, scuttling like some sort of Pony version of a spider, reconnecting them to the Earth-currents and strengthening them until more and more of Goldie's House, the Pie Rock Farm and a good section of the surrounding hill country, including almost all of what had been the Hyperborean town of Panemellorum became inaccessible to him.
Fine, he thought. Play it that way, you spoilsports. He remembered that a couple years back, Goldie hadn't let the Alicorn Illusion come out to play either. A thought occurred to him. He could go hunt her down and -- no, wait. That wouldn't get him Fluttershy, and it would alert the Princesses to his betrayal, and -- while tormenting Trixie for getting away from him before would be funny, it wouldn't actually accomplish anything toward his main goal.
Think before you act, Wind Whistler had advised him. Work to make Fluttershy trust you, don't just throw it all away on an impulse.
Boring, Discord thought of her advice.
But marginally better than being stone. Or risking being stone. And definitely better than losing Fluttershy forever, or killing her and then having to wait centuries or more until the Alicorn Gaia respawned.
I'll have to deal with this later. And on the other end of the problem, Discord decided, and left Dunnich.
***
The Voice of Reason
In the headquarters of the Discord Chess and Games Club, Wind Whistler and Dr. Schwarzwalder Fuchs were wrapping up a game, while three other members watched.
Fuchs had thought that he had the advantage through much of the midgame, using one gambit after another to advance closer to his goal. But then on turn 32, Wind Whistler had made the key move, catching Fuchs in a three-move-ahead potential fork on his queen, and from then on every move Fuchs had made to wiggle out of the trap had only pushed him in deeper.
"Check," said Wind Whistler," moving her King's Bishop, and ..." she looked it over again ... mate in twelve."
"Oh, you've got to be kidding," said Fuchs.
Green-Glint-of-Copper-Shade gave one of the peculiarly ululating whistles which two and a half millennia of experience had led Wind Whistler to comprehend as laughter. Hee was actually better at the purely-tactical side of chess than was Wind Whistler, though she could still beat herm two out of three games because of her superior strategy. Then again, hee had only been the guard unfortunate enough to be on duty at the biomantic laboratory when an earlier incarnation of Discord had decided to snatch up some proto-shoggoth matter to make the first Smooze; hee was only of slightly above average intelligence for an Elder Thing. Still, hee'd probably seen Fuchs walking into that trap several moves ago.
Four-Dimensional-Hint-Of-Destiny, who had actually been a top scientist of hies race, sniffed contemptuously through all five of hies breathing apetures. No doubt hee had seen what Wind Whistler was doing from the moment she'd gotten her pawn structure into place. Four-Dimensional was much better at chess, as hee was at most pure-logic games, than was Wind Whistler, though she could usually beat him at combined luck-and-logic games. Hee rather lacked the killer instinct, as did most of heis kind by comparison with Wind Whistler; hee would not commit hermself save to an almost-sure thing, which was a disadvantage in many classes of games -- including most of the ones which most accurately simulated real life.
Destruction was paying absolutely no attention. The Draconequus was lounging across a sofa and chair, playing some sort of video game which from the sound effects and music was something involving a lot of explosions. Wind Whistler found it interesting that -- while Destruction had hated his intended role while alive in the real world, he seemed to revel in simulated destruction now that he was a mere ghost inside Discord's brain. She wasn't sure if this was the sign of a nascent sense of compassion, or simply a way to relieve the pressure. Wind Whistler found his inevitable explosions annoyingly disruptive, especially if she were trying to work on something important at the time, but she had a sneaking sympathy for them -- he hated exploding too, and couldn't stop himself.
Besides, when he exploded he gave Discord blinding headaches for minutes at a time, which never failed to darkly amuse her. She was unsure if she had posssessed this sadistic streak before she had been taken by Discord, whether it had developed in consequence of seeing Discord wreck everything she had worked for since the Cataclysm, or whether it represented some worrisome contamination of her soul by Discord's own. She figured the second or third were the most likely, and hoped it was the second: she certainly did not want to have her ghost-self become like Discord, for then she would be truly lost. In the meantime, she tried to avoid taking it out on her fellow-prisoners, who were all at least as much Discord's victims as herself..
The four of them were really a good example of the fact that pure logical capacity was not the same thing as social compatibility. Wind Whistler herself was exceedingly logical, and when harnessing Discord's full intellectual capacity could beat even Four-Dimensional at chess -- though she didn't do this when in the clubroom, as that would have robbed the game of all its fun. The others were not able to tap Discord's mind the way she could, and hence were limited to their native (or in Destruction's case, normal Incarnate) levels of intelligence.
If logical capacity were all that was important, Wind Whistler should have been the best of friends with Four-Dimensional, who was a brilliant scientist; and despised Destruction, who for a Cosmic Incarnate was astonishingly dim, as if he were merely some sort of sapient detonator instead of the equinification of a Concept of the Universe. It was close to the other way around. Her favorites of the four were Destruction and Green-Glint, who were rather jolly companions and always good for a sing-along; while Four-Dimensional was an arrogant, insufferable boor. Fuchs was just a mediocrity -- smart enough in a technical sort of sense, but without much in the way of intellectual independence. She could easily see how he'd joined a pseudo-religious cult back in his day. It made matters worse that he had been tagging along after her for the past two and a half thousand years.
She waited while Fuchs went over the position in detail, came to the inevitable realization. He wasn't stupid, after all -- he was almost Green-Glint's equal mentally, though not in her own class. He was unimaginative, but methodical, and he eventually exhausted all the alternatives and saw that the iron jaws of her trap had closed firmly on his game.
"How did you do that?" Fuchs asked her. "I could have sworn that I made no mistakes -- but you're always able to look ahead more moves than me."
"As always," replied Wind Whistler. "I focused my play mostly on strategy, setting my tactics to the task of merely denying you an opening to shatter my strategy. Control the key positions firmly, and I force you to play my game, on my terms. Your tactics then would have to be far better than mine to win -- and they rarely are."
She knew that this was the kind of line that often led other Ponies to consider her insufferably smug, and she was right. Fuchs looked at her angrily and then scowled at the board, perhaps trying to intimidate the pieces into yielding the secrets of the game.
"Heh," laughed Destruction, pausing his game.and sitting up to look at Fuchs. "Little filly's got ya beat coming and going!" He took a swig from a big foaming mug of beer -- or possibly fuming sulfuric acid, depending on his whim -- not that any of this mattered in this consensually-constructed world, and belched noisily. "Dontcha know you just can't beat Windy? She plays all the angles at the same time!" He grinned cheerfully.
Fuchs shot him a look of annoyance.
Wind Whistler smiled back at him. She'd come to really like the Concept of Destruction in the millennia she'd known him. He was really inept at formal reasoning, but he was a heck of a lot of fun at parties. And sometimes he would utterly shock her with some amazing insight, whose origins he could never adequately explain. Also, for some reason he could also not adequately explain, he seemed to like her.
She sometimes had to remind herself that he'd been the one who'd actually triggered the Cataclysm. It wasn't as if he'd really meant to do it anyway. The other Cosmics of Nature's Fury had apparently used him somewhat like an explosive device -- just tossed him in the general direction of a problem and let him blow it away for them. This struck her as an extremely abusive way to treat one's own sibling. She sometimes wondered if the reason he liked her was simply that she saw him as more than just an intelligent bomb -- indeed, as her fellow-captive.
Of course, inside Discord there was a limit to the damage he could do. Mostly, all he could damage was Discord's peace of mind. The rest of them all got used to saving their positions frequently -- Wind Whistler had done a mathematical analysis on Destruction's explosions and figured out the most efficient save-frequency to avoid major informational loss. Out in the real world, Destruction's ... well, destruction might have been more of an obstacle to his making friends, especially as in life his even his smaller explosions had been capable of devastating whole continents, and his larger ones of smashing stellar clusters.
She'd once asked Destruction outright if he were happier in here than he'd been in life
Destruction had simply given her a chilling, predatory smile that had actually shaken her, despite the fact that she knew they were friends and that he wasn't angry at her at all, and said, still smiling: "No. Freakin. Way."
Surprisingly, he hadn't exploded. Which meant that he was perfectly happy and at peace with his deep, deep hatred of his brother.
Yeah. If she ever did get to do her Good Ending plan, she was going to have to be very careful about where she reincarnated him. She did not want it to be on the same planet, perhaps not even the same solar system as herself and Discord, for fear of becoming part of the collateral damage.
But he was still her friend.
"Plus, her tactics are pretty near perfect," commented Green-Glint, perusing a book on the theory of backgammon.
Green-Glint-of-Copper-Shade was just a purely nice, good-natured sort of Starfish Alien. If hee'd been a Big Brother Pony, instead of a member of an asexual race of pre-equine beings she might have considered breeding with heim just because the foals would have turned out so sweet. Plus, hee was just plain loveable. Too bad we're all ghosts in the mind of a maniac she thought wistfully. Not much chance of any more foals from me. Ah well, I'm one of the common ancestors of all Ponykind. That has to count as more evolutionary success than most Ponies ever have.
"Bah," said Four-Dimensional. "Her tactics are sloppy. She relies almost entirely on audacity and strategy. Which leaves a weakness in her game." Hee lifted a fluted and strangely-carved plastic goblet to one of his mouths, and sipped from it, holding a tentacle curled around it in what was an aristocratic manner for heis kind.
Your game certainly had a weakness, Wind Whistler thought unkindly of the Elder scientist. I can sort of understand shoggoths, she thought, they were just dumb machines at the start. But self-replicating emotivoric shoggoth colonies? What the Tartarus were you thinking?
She knew, of course, of what Four-Dimensional had been thinking. A last-case weapon, to consume the Unknown God if it ever broke free of its captivity. And what were you going to do with the Smooze after it ate the Unknown God? Did your logic ever get beyond this "victory?"
She'd actually asked the pompous old pentasymmetrical windbag once, and he'd sniffed at her and said: "I would have thought of something when matters got that far."
Oh, I do imagine you would, she thought. Probably something involving spreading those membranous wings of yours and getting the heck offworld. Idiot. She really despised entities who failed to think things through, and having high-level superequine intelligence made her have less, rather than more, respect for the offending being.
"Strategy," she told Four-Dimensional in the here-and-now, "always comes first. One must have a game plan before starting the game, even if one must modify it as conditions change."
"And what's your game plan, huh?" Destruction asked her. "In the bigger game?" He leered at her mock-comically. "Cuz I don't think yer showing my brother how to go round the bases with your distant great-great-whatever-grand-daughter just cuz you feel sad about poor Discord being unable to get a date for the prom."
Wind Whistler chuckled. "Indeed," she admitted, "I am hoping to maneuver our esteemed host into a position more advantageous for all of us in the long run."
Fuchs looked dubious. "By getting him sexually involved with your own distant descendant?" he asked. "That seems sordid, by your standards."
"First of all," Wind Whistler pointed out, "it would be impossible for him to become romantically-involved with any existing Pony, save Celestia or Luna themselves, without it being one of my distant descendants. Even the Changelings and Deep Ponies are of my lineage. Secondly, there is nothing in the world less sordid than love. Thirdly, for that reason, love is often quite uplifiting."
"I don't see it," said Fuchs.
"I'm not surprised," said Wind Whistler, sighing to herself. You are actually a stallion. Of my species. The only one I've ever been able to find in here. So why do I find you so utterly repulsive in that manner?
She knew the reasons why, of course. He'd belonged to a pseudo-religious cult which had denigrated the individual, extolled society while hating everypony who actually lived in it. He ideologically-imagined sex to be purely a reproductive and recreational endeavor, which in the Ideal Socialist Society would have about as much emotional meaning to Ponies as having dinner.
Some ponies made the mistake of imagining Wind Whistler to be emotionless. Or at least emotionally cold. Neither was true. She was loyal to her friends, remorseless to her foes, caring toward most colts and fillies, and she loved. In her three thousand, five hundred and seventeen years of immortal but incarnate life upon the Earth, she had mated with dozens and dozens of stallions. And she had loved, or at least very strongly liked, every one of them.
There was something missing in Dr. Fuchs. Something that she had noticed almost as soon as she made his acquaintance, and something which had led her to refuse every offer he had made over the millennia of their mutual imprisonment for what he termed "sexual recreation." She did not want to mate, even as a ghost, with another ghost who regarded her as some sort of piece of sapient recreational equipment, rather than a dear companion and friend.
She admitted that sometimes she could be rather cold, or at least come off as cold. But she had never, not in three and a half millennia of life on Earth, been as cold as Fuchs. And she hoped that she would never become that cold, because she knew that -- especially as a ghost in the mad mind of another, her equinity was the only thing keeping her real.
And she did not trust Dr. Fuchs. He had betrayed one culture that had been kind to him. He might choose to betray his fellow-captives.
So she smiled cryptically, and said.
"Let me simply say, my good Herr Doktor, that the best games are often postive-sum. And that which benefits our esteemed Master Waffle Peak may be not necessarily to our disadvantage."
Dr. Fuchs looked at her in bafflement. Green-Glint inclined his tentacles in a manner which she knew meant agreed-cheerful-hope. Four-Dimensional lifted his head-stalk at her in curiosity.
And Destruction just grinned. A grin that had entirely too many teeth in it.
Strategy, Wind Whistler thought to herself. Just keep your eye firmly fixed on the strategy.
And the tactics will take care of themselves.
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Ever heard of Saya No Uta?
Fuminori is in a car accident that kills his parents. But the brain surgery used to save his life doesn't do a flawless job.
Instead he now sees, hears, FEELS, smells, and tastes everything and EVERYONE like something out of the cuthulu mytho turned inside out and dyed red with blood.
He sees the sky, chairs, cars, the ground, food, his house, his friends, EVERYTHING as slimly red flesh monsters that would make lovecraft proud.
Then he meet Saya . . . a beautiful young girl is the only person who appears, sounds, feels, etc, NORMAL to him. There is a reason for this: SHE -IS- AN ABOMINATION FROM BEYOND! So hideous that anyone who sees her goes mad.
He grows closer and closer to Saya, while alienating his friends who don't even look, sound, etc, human to him anymore.
He also sees torn apart human flesh as FRUIT, like what Saya eats (she can eat any kind of meat, she just LIKES THE TASTE). While Saya DOES CARE for Fuminori, and treats him with nothing but respect and caring, and has minimal understand of humanity, she is also at her core she is sadistic, jealous. Fuminori meanwhile, feels nothing at killing the 'monsters' he's surrounded by if it means protecting Saya.
She also experiments on their next door neighbor giving him the same brain damage as Fuminori, and the man proceeds to brutally murder his wife and child thinking they're monsters. (And does . . . uncivilized things to Saya seeing her as the only human in the world). Fuminori kills him in defense of Saya.
Ending 1) Saya heals Fuminori's brain damage, letting him see normal, and leaves him, never letting him see her real form or voice. He spends the rest of his days in a mental hospital, the last exchange he has with Saya is over text messages.
Ending 2) Saya and Fuminori are both killed, Fuminori at this point having become a cold blooded killer (after all, in his eyes, they're not human), and Saya, well, is Saya, and she dies along side him.
Ending 3) Saya completes her life cycle, dies, and spreads her spores around the planet, turning everyone into monsters like her, so Fuminori will see a normal world again that way.
Sorry, but after reading that visual novel, even the otherworldly abomination that act NICE I don't really trust. Saya acted nice, but she was still a monster on the inside.
Even if they SAY they're nice, Saya kinda damaged my ability to trust tentacle monsters from another universe.
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUH . . . if pinkie pie's rock farm is in a rock universe . . . . that bloody doesn't explain how she got hit by the rainboom . . . or how she started out drab and sad, and how she HATED being at the rock farm.
"Come on, let's get Mr. Bulk inside,"
Where'd she get the name?
equipped with thick leather straps, which looked as if they were meant to hold down some fairly large creatures.
What the heck? 0-0
So I take in this reality, Octavia, and Photo Finish are not Pinkie Pie's blood siblings as they are in the Pony POV Universe.
While Biceps does have a point about prejudice, if Claire can be biologically called a pony is another matte.
Cloudy a Princess of the Crystal Empire!"
Cadence, "Hey."
He could even have gotten through the Crystal Heart in time, if he was so minded."
Ah, difference from the pony pov verse, since there the Crystal Heart was able to take ANYTHING he threw at it.
He's lazy."
True.
I doubt Discord intended for his geass on Surprise to be passed down to her children. The one mare we know of that he intentionally went out of his way to SPARE from his rampage.
"Goldie Pie,"
Wonder if she's related to Golden Apple.
He shuddered at the thought of anything close to an even fight.
Sounds like him.
Dr. Fuchs
Do I want to know?
So Destruction still exists as his own awareness in there?
He'd escape in a millennium or two and find out that she'd built some sort of huge fancy seraglio, full of stallions just waiting to serve her.
Discord immaturity is showing.
Of course, he was mad, but that just made life more interesting.
Careful, might make you sane.
But to do this, he had to walk her pattern, backward. Her long, Lawful, oh-so-boring pattern
REminds me of when in Dragonlance books, their entire plan to drive off Father Chaos was to catch a drop of his blood in the gray gem, which would force him to stay in one form, or leave, and chaos HATED the former even more than he loved the idea of obliterating his children's creation from time and space.
Green-Glint-of-Copper-Shade
???
I'm pretty sure the Witch Family can claim the invention of the Smooze.
She could easily see how he'd joined a pseudo-religious cult back in his day.
So?
The other Cosmics of Nature's Fury had apparently used him somewhat like an explosive device -- just tossed him in the general direction of a problem and let him blow it away for them. This struck her as an extremely abusive way to treat one's own sibling.
Strife, "He wouldn't be treated like that if he actually DID HIS JOB! Anarchy has a stronger work ethic than him!"
Which meant that he was perfectly happy and at peace with his deep, deep hatred of his brother.
Discord, "We were both hurt! It was a matter of survival! Don't be like that!"
And what were you going to do with the Smooze after it ate the Unknown God? Did your logic ever get beyond this "victory?"
That's why it's called a FINAL Last Resort.
Ironically, there are being who function perfectly with the logical Wind Whistler detests, mostly cause they keep their goals vague enough that they redefine them as things change.
0-0 How did Wind Whistler's family get involved in Seaponies?
He'd belonged to a pseudo-religious cult which had denigrated the individual,
Can we stop kicking religion between the legs, please? :-(
Now I want to see Maud contesting Cadance's claim to the throne. After all, she'd get to rule over a nation of sapient rocks! Aside from the return of Paradise, what more could she ask for?
…wait, she probably didn't inherit the title. If I recall correctly, your Crystal Empire was patrilineal. Darn. There goes that joke.
Discord really needs to learn that beings who function in linear time can't be blamed for things they might do, but don't. Or haven't. Or won't, but that can be trickier to determine before the opportunity passes. In any case, blame does not traverse parallel timelines.
You know, I've always thought of the Smooze as an unusually musical and non-acidic shoggoth. It was the constantly forming and unforming eyes and mouths.
I can't help but think of Sandman when I read about Destruction. I keep imagining him as a red-head with a passing resemblance to BRIAN BLESSED. I suppose Trixie would count as Delirium, albeit a much saner instance.
In any case, looking forward to more.
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(* regarding the story of Saya No Uta *)
Good Lord, that's horrible. But Claire's not like that at all -- she's just a gigantic invisible eight-headed many-legged fluffy pony. And her "tentacles" are just her eight prehensile tongues. And she neither hurts nor wants to hurt anypony, or anything, really. She's a friendly Pony, though she's a very physically-strange one. She has a single personality with eight brains and a complex nerve system, most of this required to operate her main ability -- opening Gates to any point in the Local Universal Group and possibly some points beyond.
She's the anti-Wilbur's-Twin, basically.
Don't know what you mean by a "rock universe." Pinkie's farm is located about 50 miles west of Ponyville and a half-dozen miles south of the railroad tracks, in the eastern White Tail Hills, south of the small town of South-Dunnich. The Pies are not the only rock farmers in the world, but they happen to be descendants of the first ones. Rock farming got its start under the Crystal Empire.
Most rock farms have no real hidden depths -- they just take rocks of kinds known to have ores or crystalline inclusions, arrange them in patterns in relationship to nearby ley lines, and use the geomantic energies (the "Earth currents") to refine the ores or grow the crystals. The Quartz Pies are unusual because of Goldie Pie's role in the Friends of Paradise cult and because of the three very unique Daughters of Paradise belonging to their family.
Pinkie Pie (like her elder sister Maud and her twin Claire) are Daughters of Paradise, sired by and psychically linked to the Paracosmic Paradise, the entity that evolved from the Age of Wonders AI designed to control the Great Wish. Pinkie is the Herald of Paradise. Her Reality Warper powers were necessarily suppressed when she was young because they were too dangerous, they were re-awoken (rather than created) by the Sonic Rainboom.
All the Sonic Rainboom did was awake powers which already existed, in any of those who it touched. It didn't create them ex nihilo. Every one of the Mane Six was already special, and their powers might have been awakened by other events -- having them all awakened together just strengthened the potential bonds between them.
Pinkie Pie found her farm to be a boring place because (1) it is a fairly boring place (as are most farms not being menaced by monsters from a hell-forest) and (2) Pinkie, as the destined Herald of Paradise, is an especially frenetic high-energy needs-to-be-part-of-social-activiity sort of Pony who would have been bored in any role other than chief caterer to a whole town.
Pinkie's a rather immature Pony when Twilight Sparkle first meets her -- she's by my chronology 19 but she acts more like a Pony in her early teens, because she's highly-neotonous. She's not finished psychologically growing to adulthood -- that won't happen for her until she's in her mid to late twenties, because her mind requires greater complexity than the Pony norm to work her powers, and hence takes more time to grow.
As a small child she found the rock farm incredibly boring, and soon after she awoke to her destiny she left home for a new one. That new one was Ponyville, because Paradise knew that she needed to be present there to become an Element-Bearer. (Pinkie did not totally understand this, especially when she was younger). She exaggerates the dreariness of the Pie Rock Farm in part because her "norm" for existence is almost continual partying. Her hyperactivity was driving her family round the bend. Think about Pinkie's preferred mode of behavior and it becomes obvious why they would tell her not to talk and sing and have fun -- her preference was t do this all the freaking time!
Pinkie communicated to Goldie through Paradise. This was a rapid emergency kind of communication which they can't afford (in terms of power expenditure) to do all the time, not the psychic equivalent of a cell phone. Goldie knows who Bulk is and his relationship to Fluttershy because Pinkie previously told her these things, mostly mundanely (visits, letters etc.) Also -- I edited this out because it was textually redundant -- Marble ("Inkie") Pie, Pinkie's next-youngest sister, age 21 at the point of this story, is friendly to and corresponds with Fluttershy.
Goldie is a midwife. The straps are to keep her, the mother and the foal from getting injured during a difficult birth. I included the detail because it looked very sinister -- but actually isn't.
Her barn is equipped like a mad scientist's laboratory because Goldie is a scientist (a biologist, in point of fact) and much of what we think of as "mad scientist" equipment is what one gets when one is trying to operate electrical equipment in a pre-electrification environment.
Plus, she really is a mage. No, she can't do unicorn magic. What she can do is focus her Earth Pony magic in ways that most Earth Ponies can't. Mostly because she knows a lot about how the Universe works, and how to push to achieve the effects she wishes. This requires a lot of preparation, but she's been preparing the area around the Pie Rock farm for some three-quarters of a century.
This is far from the first time Goldie's appeared in my writings. She's one of the main characters in the (small) part of Pinkie Pie and Sensibility I've written and plays a (small) role in Collateral Damage (she unsuccessfully tries to convert Princess Ceymi).
Right. Though I think they're logically some sort of kin. There's a family resemblance there.
Eh, she's (almost) half-Pony. All the Daughters of Paradise are immaculately conceived upon mares who are Friends of Paradise (some of them are literally virgins, some aren't, though Cloudy was). Cloudy Quartz Pie, the daughter of Goldie Pie and Jasper Quartz, was partly descended from Daughters of Paradise, but mostly from normal Ponies. She bore three Daughters of Paradise, very atypical and special ones -- Maud, Claire and Pinkie -- before marrying Igneous Rock and having Marble and Limestone Pie, who are normal Ponies.
Claire is a very unusual Pony. But, then "Pony is as Pony does," part of the philosophy which will enable the Ponies to spread throuhout the Universe -- if they can survive the next twenty years. Oh, and Claire herself helps too, as do her husbands and her children, all of whom have abilities useful to interplanetary exploration and settlement.
I know. What happened was that the curse was turned into a blessing. Some of Discord's magic embodied in it was used to warp reality and create a whole new means of resource extraction, and branch of Earth Pony magic.
Oh, yes.
To make clear the difference between Discord's POV and my own, Discord is immature and jealous. He never told Fluttershy how he felt, he just expected her to understand it and takes her falling in love with Bulk as betrayal. Fluttershy isnot promiscuous (though she definitely has the potential to be polyamorous), and she doesn't want a seraglio full of stallions. Or mares. Or Changelings, or draconequi, for that matter.
All that is required to be a Princess of the Crystal Empire is provable descent from Crystal-Imperial royalty. Princess Iolite, who helped found South-Dunnich, flourished over ten centuries ago. She's left a lot of descendants by now. Jasper Quartz (who died seven years before Luna's Return) was one of them, as is every single child and grandchild of his now-widow Golden ("Goldie") Pie. And Jasper is far from the only known descendant of Iolite Quartz.
This doesn't mean that the Quartzes of Dunnich have a valid claim to the throne. They probably lack this because Iolite Quartz -- not wanting to get dragged into the complex intrigues, battles and outright assassination attempts between Morion, Aventurine and Crimson Quartz -- abdicated her claim. So this means her descendants would logically forfeit their claim as well. The fifth Quartz sibling, Rose, also abdicated her claim, and she managed to survive to the present day due to having been in the Crystal City at the time it was time-lost.
But anyway, this is one of the reasons why Goldie said it. She finds it funny. I don't know if this is conveyed properly in my story, but Goldie is highly intelligent and more than a little bit sarcastic by nature. Very nice, but sarcastic.
Yes. Though it would have been harder than getting through Goldie's wards.
One of the reasons the Pie Rock Farm was decided upon as a sanctuary was that Pinkie trusts Goldie, and that Goldie is a very cunning Pony. Plus, it was much easier for Claire to make a portal from where she was to where Pinkie was than to make two portals, one being to the Crystal Empire where Claire has probably never been.
Dr. Schwarzwald Fuchs, who worked on the original Manehattan Project, in the last century of the Age of Wonders, and who was the first being Discord possessed when he entered that era. His pattern got consumed by and attached to Discord, and has both survived and been contacted by Wind Whistler. He is a Ponification of Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs (1911-1988), noted physicist and Soviet spy.
Moley-moley-moley-moley! But then, Wind Whistler already suspects as much.
I have no idea how good (or bad) was Klaus Fuchs' chess game. I actually play myself, and my comments about strategy versus tactics in chess are I think valid ones.
Oh yes. Is it bad that the voice I hear when I write him is (a sinister version of) Bobcat Goldthwaite?
He genuinely likes Wind Whistler. Which doesn't mean she's necessarily safe around him, because he's, well, Destruction.
He is kind of pissed at Discord.
An aside: in Greek mythology, it was quite common for one entity to "eat" another but the consumed entity to live on in the other being. Discord has a whole miniature society existing inside his mind at the moment, and isn't even sure who is and isn't in there. Since some of those he consumed are insane or have dissipated or otherwise gotten free of him, his uncertainity is understandable. All he knows about for sure are Wind Whistler (because he talks to her) and Destruction (because Destruction gives him headaches).
Greek mythology goes further than this. Athena, supposedly the daughter of Zeus without any mother involved, is very OBVIOUSLY meant to be the daughter of Metis, one of Zeus' wives he consumed due to a prophecy that the child of Zeus by Metis would surpass him.
Since the original source of this idea probably came from the (Athenian) version of Greek mythology, I think that what was going on here is that the priesthood of Athena was trying to set up a claim for Athena to become the next supreme deity of Greek mythology. Unfortunately for them, Athens lost the Peloponnesian War, so the "secret" was never revealed. Author Existence Failure on the grandest of scales, where the "author" is a whole city-state empire!
The Legend of Metis was one of my major inspirations here. Not in terms of the Birth of Athena, but rather the part of it where Zeus is counseled by the words of Metis from within himself afterwards.
Deities, at least, could survive being consumed and emerge later to do other things. That's what happens to all of Zeus' full siblings -- Kronos swallows them and Zeus tricks Kronos into disgorging them.
A translation of (part of) the name of an Elder Thing -- the star-headed pentasymmetrical aliens who built the city at the Mountains of Madness -- into equinely or humanly comprehensible terms. That's the one who Wind Whistler kind of wishes was a Pony stallion, because hee's very nice.
Just because Wind Whistler thinks analytically about love doesn't mean she doesn't feel it, you know. That's the mistake Fuchs makes regarding her, and the one which canonically really hurts her when Ponies assume this about her. Poor Fuchs. He took exactly the wrong approach to her, right from the start.
She hangs with him because -- well -- her choice of potential acquaintances is rather limited, and she doesn't outright hate his guts.
Well, they knew how to summon and (sort of) control it. And the Deep Ones use ordinary shoggoths for their original purpose, as construction machines. Doesn't mean that the Deep Ones invented them.
Yeah, but Wind Whistler's pretty clear on the "don't destroy the Earth" aspect of her goals, and Four-Dimensional's plan to have an uncontrollable goo eat an uncontrollable god doesn't really strike her as much of an improvement. In fact, she thinks the Smooze is potentially more dangerous than the Unknown God, as Smooze which ate the Unknown God might very well absorb its power, combining it with its own to become uncontrollable self-replicating Horror From Beyond. Possibly eating much of the Universe.
Though, now that she has access to Discord's memories, she knows who would probably stop this from happening. By cauterizing that whole region of spacetime.
The Jagermonsters from Girl Genius would probably call this one of those plans that's bad because you wind up losing your hat!
To be fair to Four-Dimensional, some pointy-headed manager Elder Thing probably set herm an impossible problem to solve, and this was simply heis less-than-ideal solution.
The "pseudo-religous cult" is the Age of Wonders version of Communism. (Which is what the real Klaus Fuchs followed). To both Discord (in Trinity and Wind Whistler, it strikes them as ludicrous (for somewhat different reasons).
One of the things I totally agree upon with mainstream American conservatism is that the popularity of Communism (and of Fascism, for that matter) was as a replacement for traditional religions. The malignity of these cults comes from the fact that they of necessity wind up worshiping human beings, and generally fairly insane ones at that (such as Stalin and Hitler). And being worshiped tends to drive the (non-divine) object of worship insane. Both Stalin and Hitler were far less crazy before they rose to absolute power than afterward.
This is also why (incarnate) Celestia doesn't want to be worshiped. She knows how fallible she is, fears her own potential for insanity, and she doesn't want to be driven megalomaniacal. Cosmic Celestia probably doesn't care one way or another if mortal entities worship her, as she's more interested with being Fusion.
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I find it hard to believe that whichever writers and artists first created the Smooze hadn't been thinking of At the Mountains of Madness when they did so. While the Cthulhu Mythos was perhaps culturally less prominent in the 1980's than it is today, it was far from unknown; indeed this was around the time that the first versions of the Call of Cthulhu game came out, and I first read At the Mountains of Madness as a small child around 1973. It was one of the stories that first got me into science fiction! The story was first written in the early 1930's and published in the mid-1930's
The reason I particularly think that the Smooze was directly based on shoggoths was the way that the Smooze kept forming and reabsorbing temporary organs. This is a dead-specific reference to Lovecraft's concept, and quite unlike other obvious inspirations such as the Blob. The Smooze is also stupid (like Shoggoths) rather than malevolently super-intelligent (like E. E. "Doc" Smith's Eddorians).
4539799
Um ... I don't know if this is going to hurt you more ...
A Robust Solution.
FWIW, I don't think Flutterbulk is a OTP, but it's kind of implied in canon. And Bulk's actually a pretty nice guy.
good stuff! btw nice use of wind catcher characterization and her interaction with other beings.
and good thing Discord Doesn't have Chaz (From Sluggy freelance) or he be turn to stone, not get fluttershy love and be stuck in a black hole.
and before you ask, Chaz is a sentient sword The sword doesn't consider itself to be either good or evil, but it does require the blood of the innocent to power it. Blood can presumably be donated willingly, but it has almost never been so in practice. It has almost always been taken from the corpses of those already dead, or even by killing them directly. (Luckily the hero Torg use the former not the latter) but don't let that fool you, the sword is INCREDIBLY powerful. (It exists outside the Web of Fate and can thus kill even those who are protected by it. It also bestows the same quality upon its wielder. not only that a single scratch is enough to kill even the most powerful beings in the setting, regardless of their defenses. The Demon King of the Dimension of Pain is the only entity in the entire story that has ever survived, and even he was permanently crippled.
I also like how you handle Bulk talk with goldie and his apology to pinkie 'twin'. good work.
Remarkably accurate.