Adrift Off
Fiddler's Green
A C o n v e r s i o n B u r e a u S t o r y
By Chatoyance
7. Topsides On The Ship Of The World
Peony Garden focused on sewing her husband's kelp-leatherette vest. He had been roughhousing with the fillies near the big blackberry bush by the well in the rear of the plantation house. Somehow he had snagged his vest and torn the back of it. Diamond Dogs as a rule were very sentimental about their clothing and accoutrements, however old or shabby they might become. Diamond Dogs were very sentimental in general, about a lot of things. Most ponies never saw just how sweet they really were, underneath the apparent fierceness on the surface.
Peony was exceptionally dextrous with her teeth and hooves (and wings!), and she was rightfully proud of her sewing skills. She was using both raised and detatched buttonhole stitches to create scallops and embroidered gemstone patterns to cover where the old, beloved vest had been ripped. There was no way to repair the garment such that the work would be invisible, so Peony had decided to create reinforcing decorations over the damage.
Tumblebumble's vest already had many such bits of work upon it. It was a joke between them that one day it would be a vest not of kelp leather, but entirely of her embroidery. It was already edging into Ship Of Theseus territory as it was, but Tumble did not mind. Indeed, the more work she put into his old vest, the more he loved it and prized it as his single best possession.
Peony felt a familiar special thrill go through her. It was something she did not often talk about. She was doing women's work. It was something no native Equestrian would ever feel, or even comprehend.
When she had lived as a human, on earth, she had been 'Oliver Sachs', trapped in the body of a young boy, she had learned at an early age that admitting her true identity was social suicide and a ticket to pain. Her mother, Ophelia, had tried to shield and comfort her, but as a member of the Good Families, the three hundred or so richest elite that essentially owned the planet, the usual options for a person with her condition were considered... improper.
Earth had been a planet ruled by patriarchy and sexism, and in that culture the divisions between gender and activity were often sharply drawn. In the flesh of a boy, Peony's interests and inclinations were nothing less than abomination. But her mother, at home, in private, had taught her incorrectly-bodied daughter basic skills that thrilled her not only because of her very real interest... but also because they were forbidden to her.
During the incident of escaping the Human Masada and eventually being restored to life from stone, Peony had nearly been lost. Afraid to admit her inner truth even to Celestia, she had nearly been an irrecoverable casualty of the nightmare that had fatally injured most of the Everfree Six. She had felt such terror at being fully revealed that she had almost chosen annihilation rather than Conversion to save her life.
But she had been shown acceptance and love beyond what was possible on earth, and in the end, had chosen to live. For more than ninety years, she had been beyond happy as a pink pegasus mare. But the echo of her deep childhood imprinting still sounded within her newfoal mind, and even now, with the earth and human culture so far removed, ancient attitudes still stirred within her.
They were not bad, these faint echoes. Where an ordinary, native mare - or stallion - might perform a task like embroidery with no more thought than to the labor itself, Peony found within such things validation of her very identity. The warm, sweet feeling made her work pleasant in a way that only a newfoal like herself would understand, and made boring work into an almost divine pleasure. With every stitch, she sewed her own self together, reinforcing her inner truth, which in the end, had become her outer truth as well.
"How Vest? Vest survive nightmare encounter? Or vest die sad death of blackberry doom?" Tumble leaned over Peony and gently kissed her poll.
"All done!" Peony smiled, wide as the sky, and then bent her head and nipped off the thread she had pulled tight under a pressing hoof. She carefully snagged the needle the thread was attached to by allowing the tip to barely penetrate the inner curve of her hoof. Her inner hoof wall had hundreds of tiny pits were countless needles had been trapped in exactly the same way. Her farrier thought it was funny, when she had her hooves trimmed. 'So many little holes! You must sew all the time!'
She didn't, of course, it just added up. Peony shook the needle free into the little tray in her sewing kit, and ran her hooves over the back of Tumble's vest. "I couldn't hide the tear, where I fixed it, so I did a pretty pattern. See? Gemstones and crescents and little leaves too!" She had done the embroidery in the same dark color as the material, the result was a bas-relief effect that could be seen in the light as she smoothed the vest.
"Vest better than before! Must fall down more so that vest can achieve vest apotheosis!" Tumble, like most Diamond Dogs, was not a dumb beast as many ponies imagined. He was far more educated than the majority of Dogs, though. Diamond Dogs had not been one of princess Celestia's rescues. They were refugees that had forged their own way into Equestria hundreds of years ago, escaping the destruction of their home cosmos. Their initial interactions had not gone particularly well - indeed, some had been disastrous - and as a species they had withdrawn to avoid further trouble. Isolated, they kept to their own culture, and mostly did not socialize with the rest of Equestria.
Because of the way Diamond Dog brains worked, their speech was unusual by pony standards, though efficient by their own. Many Dogs found ponies long-winded and officious. But over the decades, partly thanks to the arrival of the newfoals, more and more Diamond Dogs had been integrated into pony civilization. Peony had first met Tumblebumble in the Human Masada where he had been a servant in her home. She had fallen in love with him even then, but had not dared to express it.
After her adventure, and her Conversion, she had tracked him down across the length of Equestria, and married him.
"TUMBLE! TUMBLE! TUMBLE!" Clover was kicking her legs up like a gamboling goat, springing about the room. "TUMBLE! TUMBLE! TUMBLE!" She had followed her adopted uncle into the plantation house. For the past few days, the filly foal had been following the poor Dog everywhere, nearly all the time.
"What need, little pony Clover?" Tumble picked up his vest in his large paws and carefully slipped it on.
"TUMBLE! TUMBLE! TUMBLE!" Clover was easily excitable at the best of times.
"What is it dear?" Peony was putting the needle she had dropped in the tray into a more secure spot. She used her teeth to carefully stick it into her tomato-shaped pin cushion.
Clover stared at her Aunt Peony with wide eyes. "Jinx is playing with bunnies! Only th' bunnies aren't there!"
Peony laughed. "The bunnies... aren't there?"
Tumble straightened his vest, and flexed his huge torso. The vest still fit comfortably, despite being positively armored over in embroidery. "Is game. Pretend bunny. Tumble used to have pretend ruby on first collar. Nothing outshine pretend ruby!"
"NO! NO! NO!" Clover had the particular agitation of the small when confounded by something they could not understand, compounded by adults who failed to have all the answers always. She stomped her hoof. "It's not a game! It's REAL not-there bunnies! And Jinx is playing with them and I don't know what they are because I tried to pet one and my hoof just went through it, so I tried to nuzzle it and I couldn't 'cause nothing was there only it was there and I don't know what! NOW DO SOMETHING!"
Tumble and Peony gawked at the firm-set muzzle of the smallest Acres filly. For such a young pony, she was surprisingly intimidating.
"What do you want us to do?" Peony gestured for Clover to come over for a hug, but she was having none of that. Apparently not-bunnies were something unsolved by hugs.
"I don't know! You're the adults! Do adult stuff!" Adults mostly got in the way, except at dinner and when the bed got wet. And breakfast. And lunch. Or when anything weird happened. Or if you had a nightmare. Or when you wanted ice cream or a toy. Or your school saddlebags got busted falling out of the tree you weren't supposed to climb. And the boo-boo from falling out of the tree that you weren't supposed to climb. Clover felt sidetracked. "Do something about things!"
"Want Tumble come look?"
Clover shifted from hoof to hoof, impatient. "Want both of you to come look. Now!" Clover moved toward the door, still fussing.
"Here, I'll come too. I could stand to stretch my legs anyway." Peony carefully moved the last of her sewing materials to the side, and clambered off of the couch. "Unmmm... been sitting too long." She stretched a hind leg out and flexed her hock. "That's better."
"COME ONNN!" Clover had the front door open, letting all of the hot air in.
"Clover, we're coming, but don't leave the door open, remember?"
"COME! COME! COME!" Clover bounced on her hooves, in the open doorway. The issues of domestic thermal regulation mattered little in the face of not-bunnies.
"We see what make little pony upset. Parental figure defined by active demonstration of caring responsibility even when is great disparity between apparent and real necessity." Tumble waited politely for Peony to move toward the door, and followed after her.
"What?" Clover cocked her head.
"Uncle and aunt come. We come see bunny."
Clover nodded. "Then HURRY!"
They found Jinx in the large back yard, behind the plantation house. She was trotting in a wide circle around the well. At first, she appeared to be alone, reacting only to her own imagination. But there was too much dust, dust that moved and bounced, rather than swirled or drifted in the breeze. Dust that followed and sometimes ran ahead of her.
It wasn't dust. They - for there were many - were translucent like small puffs of dust, but they were not dust. Or cloud. Or anything Tumble or Peony had ever seen before. Bunnies, white, fuzzy bunnies, dozens and dozens of them, ran beside, behind, around and ahead of Jinx in her circular orbit of the well. They leaped and hopped and bounced and twirled. They seemed to know choreographic moves, which they delighted in performing as they ran. They looked like they were made of the clearest glass, or water, or heat shimmers in the air, but they were there, only they weren't there, and it was very easy to understand little Clover's fussing about.
"Well, isn't that something!" Peony had never seen bunnies that were not really there before. It was clear they weren't solid, they seemed to have no issue running right through Jinx's legs. Occasionally, one would try to jump onto her back as she trotted, for a ride, only to fall through her torso back down to the ground. Sometimes they fell through the ground too, and presumably found a way back up topside again because the numbers remained constant.
"Tumble is severely ontologically confused now." The Diamond Dog scratched his head with a massive paw. "Dog now forced to confront philosophical conflict between being and not-being in non-abstract manner. Much prefer simple game of fetch or nice bowl of food instead."
"JINX!" Peony had suddenly realized that all the hairs along her withers right up to her poll were standing up. "Get away from those..." Peony blinked. "...um... not... bunnies! I don't think playing with them is a good idea!"
Jinx stopped and the not-bunnies stopped with her, eventually. A few failed to notice the halt and ran on for a bit, then sheepishly returned to the group. "Hello Aunt Peony. Hello Uncle Tumble. Look! They have come back!"
"Come back? Who... who has come back... what?" Peony shook her head. "Nevermind! Just get away from whatever those... aren't." Something about the not-really-there bunnies felt very upsetting to her. Something wasn't right, something she couldn't understand, and she felt a very rare feeling within Equestria. Fear. She was feeling... fear. She hadn't felt it in decades, and it was almost hard to recognize. No, not fear. Dread. Dread verging on terror. Oh, that was unusual! And unpleasant. "Let's... let's go inside, and leave... them... to their... whatever." Peony wanted the not-bunnies to not be... anywhere near her. She wanted that a lot.
"Aunt. You don't understand. They live here. Or, they used to live here. They've just come back."
"Tumble think Jinx should obey nice Aunt Peony now." Tumble had noticed his own hairs, quite a lot of them in fact, were standing up in solidarity with his wife's mane.
"It's okay. Why are you acting so strangely? There are pictures of them all over the house!" Jinx smiled as several not-bunnies jumped through her back. They kept trying, as if they found it fun somehow.
Tumble and Peony looked at each other. Neither had any idea what the older filly was referring to.
"Plantain's show." Jinx observed the ongoing confusion in the face of the two adults. "Plantain's dancing bunnies came back. Partly. I don't think they are all the way here." Jinx did not notice the looks on her aunt and uncle's faces, because she was watching a translucent bunny in a top hat and a cape repeatedly swiping it's paws through her left hoof. "They can go right through stuff, and they can't make any sounds."
Jinx looked up. "Maybe tomorrow they'll be able to touch things?" She seriously expected the adults to know.
It had hit both Tumble and Peony at the same time, as they struggled to remember the stories about Crimson's sister and her traveling 'Happy Pony Show'.
Aunt Peony now knew exactly why all the hairs along her back were standing up. The dusty photographs, all over the house. Old, old photographs, of a career that had ended long, long ago. Photographs of Plantain and her troupe, and her carefully trained, marching, dancing bunnies. Snow bunnies. There had been a terrible incident.
Every single not-bunny on the lawn had been dead for more than sixty years.
The one thing Frontpage had thought, when he had first seen the Tree Of Harmony, was that it did not look natural. Of course, nothing was precisely 'natural', in the earthly sense, when dealing with anything of the Equestrian cosmos. Equestria was not in any way 'natural' by terrestrial standards - Darwin had never visited Equestria, neither had Hawking or Einstein or even Copernicus for that matter.
Equestria, top to bottom and through and through was a Created universe, spelled with a big capital letter 'C', the kind that connotes gods and demons and magic and myth. Certainly the two princesses were, at some level, eldritch entities - Frontpage had long ago been convinced that they were not ponies in the way that ordinary ponies were, and were likely not even properly made of flesh. They might certainly be confused with goddesses, of the ancient Greek sort, or perhaps even the very oldest sort, for they had literally made the world itself.
But in making their cosmos out of Discord's absolute chaos, they had seemingly cribbed from earth in some manner, and so most of what was in Equestria bore only a faint resemblance to what a human might loosely call 'natural'. There was a sun, of sorts, in the crystal dome of the sky - that it was flat and glided across the dome was simply a fact. It looked like a sun, if a very overlarge one, and it brought light, and warmth and brightness into daily life. If not studied overlong, it could easily be accepted as ordinary.
Likewise the moon and stars, which were such in name only, and the grasses and hills and forests and butterflies. Everything in Equestria was natural in seemingness only, and though all of it served the purpose of natural things, and looked roughly like natural things do, not a bit of it had come from uncaring, random natural process - every speck had been consciously, intelligently crafted.
The pentagonal gateway that had grown from the roots of the Tree Of Harmony did not seem to be natural even by Equestrian standards. It had clearly grown, the way crystals do, right out of the substance of the great Tree, and somehow opened, in some direction no pony could hope to point to, into a darkness so profound that light itself seemed to vanish forever within it.
The Tree Of Harmony was itself made of crystal, with thin, glassine struts for branches, and perfect, disk-shaped 'flowers' set upon them like components in a technorganic circuit board. The flowers looked like technology - the pattern within them was regular and geometric, and if studied carefully, finely ordered traceries of microscopic lines and connections could be discerned, running veinlike, through the very substance of them.
Indeed, the entire Tree was built thus, and when Frontpage had been granted carefully supervised audience with the Tree in order to report upon it, he had noted how every part of it looked like some impossibly advanced organic crystalline technology - right out of a fanciful science fiction tale. This had been more than fifty years in the past, and he had speculated ever since on whether Equestrian magic was truly magic, or just sufficiently advanced technology.
He had not been the least alone in that thought; it was commonplace among newfoal scientists of every kind.
"Did you notice the hoofprints?" Crimson scraped at the ground with her foreleg. The soil inside the cave was curious, almost like clay, only it didn't stick to her hooves, and it wasn't messy.
"The big hooves don't have frogs, and the size is singular. The hoof-boot of a princess. That's not surprising - this is all theirs. But... yeah, I noted the new tracks go straight in."
Crimson studied the various parts of the glowing, pulsing tree. "Did you see the other tracks?"
"Unless Luna has a pet Minotaur monster with a false deer leg, Discord escorted her. We're on the right trail."
"I cannot say I am looking forward to the next part." The strange, pentagonal door made of crystal roots opened into what looked like the very definition of Nothing. Crimson shuddered.
"D'ya want to go back?"
"The way we came?"
"There's only one path in or out."
Crimson let her head droop and pawed at the ground. She snorted, softly, then raised her head. "A door is a door, I suppose. It must lead somewhere, despite appearances."
"Yeah, but we're dealing with arcane Macaron here. This is some gris-gris chocolate we've gotten into." Frontpage pulled his canteen out of his saddlebags and held it by the strap.
"Thirsty?"
Frontpage carefully, slowly, approached the impossible door. "For knowledge, yeah."
"Don't hold on too tightly... just in case."
Frontpage looked back and nodded impressed approval. The mare was smart. She was ahead of him at every step. "My bite will be loose, and my hooves ready to run, I promise you."
The blackness was astonishing. It was the blackest black that Frontpage had ever witnessed. He felt something almost like L’appel du vide staring into it. He almost chuckled at the thought that had appeared in his head... that it was undoubtedly staring right back.
Frontpage made sure he had a loose, easy mouth-grip on the very end of the loop of canteen strap. He began to swing the canteen to and fro, his head turned to the side. The canteen swung closer and closer to the threshold of the crystal-root doorway. He carefully stepped forward making sure no part of his muzzle passed the edge of the doorframe.
"Be careful!" Crimson had nightmare thoughts of earthly black-holes and air locks and other science-fiction sources of being sucked into oblivion.
"Uhn-huhn..." Frontpage gave the canteen a very wide swing. Half of the canteen vanished then reappeared as it finished its arc through the black. He repeated the action again several times, to make sure. He backed away, and set the canteen down to study it. Crimson joined him.
"It doesn't appear damaged." She sniffed the canteen, then gave the part that had entered the void a lick. "It isn't cold or anything." Her ears drooped. "Oh, that was silly of me. Considering."
Frontpage nodded. "Next time you need to check temperature, hover your frog. It's surprisingly sensitive to heat and cold. If that's okay, try your pastern, right on the top part. If that's okay, use the bottom of your jaw, and then a lip if you are sure."
"That... that is a very organized approach, Frontpage!"
Frontpage grinned. "I was taught that by a native doctor. I'll leave you to imagine why I needed one."
Crimson smiled back.
"Well... we don't want to go back - probably can't, not safely, not at the moment anyway. And by the way, I agree with you. The Everfree is getting worse. I've only visited it once before, and that by direct teleport - and I'm completely convinced it's worse. We can't stay here indefinitely - I've been told that you can't trust anything in the Everfree, not the grass, not even the water. Only one direction left, I'm afraid." Frontpage noted his own ears. "I don't mind admitting that I am, actually, afraid."
"Direct teleport?" Crimson was not over-eager to jump through a door of infinite blackness, however undamaging it was to helpless canteens.
Frontpage blinked. "Uh... yeah. Got brought here by Celestia herself, long time back. "The Tree Of Harmony: We Visit Equestria's Oldest Spot! A Querier Exclusive! - I stood right over there..." Frontpage nodded towards the front of the cave where they had entered "... for most of it. I was allowed a peek up close, but every second of it I was being watched by her majesty. I felt as if I breathed wrong, the Wrath Of Equestria would fall on me. I think the only reason she allowed it was to stop crazy newfoals from... doing what we're doing now."
"Was the doorway there, back then?"
"No. The door's new." Frontpage looked over the roots. "The rumor is that the tree can grow things on its own, as needed. Whatever 'needed' means. Whatever any of this means." He took a step forward. "I'll go first, and then come back. If I can. If I don't, within a reasonable time, well... I'd suggest you wait. Luna and Discord went in here, it's likely they'll come back out. Eventually. In the mean time..."
Frontpage shook off his saddlebags, and let them drop to the ground. "...you'll have double rations to survive on."
"Frontpage!"
He smiled as he approached the threshold of the doorway. Framed by crystal roots, cloaked by absolute darkness, and devoid of any backside, it was an impossible thing in a world of wonders. Anything could happen. "I want you should know something important, just in case."
"Yes?"
"You've got a swirling magnificent pair of flanks." Frontpage began a short run, and threw himself across the threshold.
Oh man, the bunnies. They'd stopped dancing... I still remember how I felt reading the reveal in HiE. I felt sad... this is sad, and confusing.
Very intriguing though! Loved reading this chapter.
The part with the bunnies made me cry, I'll have you know. That's strangely heartbreaking. I am LOVING Tumble and his weird Diamond Dog-style eloquence, though. That is AMAZINGLY badass. Peony also makes me squee.
As for Frontpage and Crimson... curiouser and curiouser, is the best way I can sum THAT up.
... also, Frontpage is incorrigible. I approve.
About Peony being happy to do women’s work and native Equestrians not understanding may not be strictly true:
Stallions are physically larger than mares. I imagine that Big MacIntosh is stronger than most mares. On the other side, no stallion has teleported on the show. Only mares are Alicorns. Apotheosis has only happened to mares:
Only the PegasusMare Mi Amore Cadenza and the UnicornMare Twilight Sparkle achieved enlightenment and ascended to AlicornPrincesses. The most probable reason stallions cannot find enlightenment is that we are too horny and only think about sex; thus, making it hard to find enlightenment.
Aaaaaand in we go.
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4758477 I disagree. I have met a few sex crazed females, and they tell me that they have had no reason to believe that women's sex drive is lower than males, so I have been lead to believe that women in western culture just don't want to be taken advantage of through the act of sex. This conclusion is further backed up by the observation that horny gay male couples, when not screwing like rabbits, often sit quietly and have deeply philosophical conversations. As for only mares being alicorns *chuckles softly* who's to say that they are/were always mares?
4758771
¡Please ask for them to PM me! ;-)
4758477
4758771
If I recall correctly Starswirl the Bearded would have made it to Alicorn status if he had been able to complete his last spell, so there is no apparent interdiction of a stallion becoming an Alicorn.
Just sayin'
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4758771
Unfortunately, all of the pretty ponies sexually distracted him. Luckily, he saw the problem and became a hermit. Unfortunately, Friendship is Magic; well, his avoiding ponies made it impossible for him to understand Friendship; so, his avoiding Friendship meant that he could not find Enlightenment. Stallions are too distracted to find Enlightenment in PonySociety, but cannot discover the Power of Friendship in isolation. We have the cards stacked against us when it comes to ascending to Alicornhood.
4758477
...That's the stupidest damn reason I've ever heard about why there are no male alicorns, stupid and unbelievably sexist In any case its just a urban myth that males are horny all the time. Just imagine what things would be like if that were actually true
That said I am a bit disappointed we didn't get to see what was inside the door on the tree this chapter oh well we will for sure next time. In any case this chapter does make an interesting point perhaps this Equestria is like the Optimaverse Equestria in that its some kind of super advanced computer program. Maybe this represents some kind of ultimate evolution of the Optimalverse where it literally becomes Equestria in every respect imaginable and not just some program designed to look like it.
L’appel du vide
Well, how about that. I knew the feeling, but didn't know there was a phrase for it.
Huh, guess the younger ponies have higher Will saves than adults.
There's one too many 't's in there; possibly to ensure that there are two 'tit's?
Called it.
Considering how careful they were being with the canteen, I'm surprised he didn't at least run further tests with a hoof, then mouth, then the very front part of the eyes, then the whole head, before throwing his entire self through. What does nothing to a mere canteen might not necessarily work quite the same way on living matter. Especially where Deep Magic From The Dawn Of Time is involved.
4759518 HUMANS are horny all the time, compared to most species. Our mating season is the whole year.
And male and female unicorns are horny all the time. Technically.
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I used to have the call of the void, before my transition, soooo bad. Any tall place, such as mountain climbing, or tall buildings, or overpasses. I used to grab hold of things just to feel like I wouldn't act on it.
After transition, haven't had it.
I cannot help but think that L’appel du vide has a connection with how hard some part of oneself thinks life sucks in some special, personal way.
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And I thought I was a prudish, frigid bitch! Now, I am Queen Of The Clop! (FIXED!)
4758477
#1, re: the show and associated official properties. Two data points do not a trend make. Celestia and Luna, according to official sources, have always been alicorns. Only two ponies we know of have ever Ascended, so even a complete lack of sex bias would yield a one in four chance that both would be female.
#2, re: Bureauverse. Celestia and Luna, creators of the universe, are both female. Who's to say they wouldn't have set limits, intentionally or unintentionally, on the capacity of ponies to Ascend based on how close in physical form they are to the Princesses?
4760370 Prudish? *gigglesnort* Frigid? Not in this weather. Bitch? I thought you were a pony, not a Diamond Dog...
4759245 As a filly Twilight tapped into magic more powerful than ever seen from a unicorn, she has an minor obsession with the cloaks and styles of the long past, and she cared enough about Starswirl to study him, a basically forgotten unicorn, has an affinity for any kind of magic as if she is not casting it for the first time, but merely recalling it, and lastly, have you ever wondered why there are no other dragons around Canterlot if the entrance exam to Celestia's school is to hatch one? The egg was a dud to judge how foals would react to failure; Twilight is Spike's mother. Magic this powerful takes more than a lifetime to learn; Twilight Sparkle is and was Starswirl the Bearded.
Starswirl was yet too young to attain godhood. Luna had met Starswirl well enough to tell Twilight that she had the bells right on his clothes, so if you take the show at face value, he was about one thousand years too inexperienced, the time Luna was banished, but if you see that figure as just a saying for “longer than a lifetime”, as you should, then Starswirl was more like two million years too inexperienced.
4759245
he was too busy polishing his... horn... to become an alicorn?
4759518
well, stallions ARE horny all the time, it's just mares aren't in heat all the time. It's one of the reasons for *cough* alternative lifestyles being relatively common in equines. That, and they're not as hung up about the whole thing to the point of denial like humans mostly are.
Auuugh, another cliffhanger about what's on the other side of that door! At least now we know who went through it, although that was already strongly implied by earlier conversations and the cover image.
Ghost bunnies around a well... Wait, is this well the well? I guess we'll find out...
I always think in that kind of situation, where someone is confronted with a mysterious and already safely interacted-with intelligent force, that it might just as easily be testing your level of trust and/or innocence. Especially if it's like something out of a fairy tale, you might be better off behaving in a way that would be rewarded by an object lesson in acting virtuously open and unguarded when superficial self-interest would dictate otherwise. ...Unless of course that's exactly the kind of adult cleverness it would want to punish
It reminds me of that Clarke story where the kooky astrobiologist says that if it comes to it then yes, the first-contact astronaut really should just stand there and let himself be eaten.
Get out of my heaaaaad...! But it's an awareness of possibility I'd rather have than not, as part of a larger framework of cognitive disinhibition.
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I sorta get the impression you're being facetious, but the Victorians got to you, too, huh?
There's a scene in (IIRC) Heikei Monogatari where a Buddhist nun says she's incapable of attaining enlightenment for exactly this reason, which has been the dynamic for the majority of human history until around the end of powedered-wig times, when they started flipping it around so women could feel morally superior and thus complacent with their role in society.
If nothing else, hang out with more women—No small number of them are insatiable.
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For sure, I was expecting a fallen stick or a leaf. Sure, you can't trust the plants in the Everfree, but then they don't trust the door, either.
hmm, strange things are a foot. They are also a head.
drat, and I thought we'd actually get to the whole... ship-thing you've been hinting at. I'm convinced there's a ship. and sails made of souls, and a shifting sea of stars to sail upon... ooh, ooh, so... who is Equestria's Davy Jones? And FrontPage is really going to regret that leap when he wallops his schnozz on the other side, amirite?
Very much curiouser and curiouser today! I'm guessing that the escaped shadowbunnies has something to do with the overpopulation in the lands beyond... which are now chokka with bunnies. Very excitable bunnies. Who tapdance incessantly.
4760425 If Spike's egg was unfertilized, wouldn't that make Twilight his genetic father, of necessity?
And before you argue that she couldn't therefore make him a male due to having two of the same chromosome... The dragons of our world beg to differ.
4760461 Not unfertilized, but failed from lack of heat, possibly stolen from the dragon's nest and lost during the ensuing battle with whatever creature was attempting to eat it.
"Heaven" (for lack of a better term) is overflowing.
It's overflowing, and their souls can't survive as ghosts indefinitely in Equestria proper. And they may well take all of Equestria down with them, somehow.
Luna, Shepherd of Souls, is taking Discord "Outside" to fix the problem.
Great. The weakness or breach is letting in Things That Should Not Be (which are hanging out in the Everfree), and there's even worse nastiness on the Other Side.
So the Sisters sail Equestria as a bubble of reality through whatever is Outside, and the Tree is their master control panel for the world-ship? Oh, and we have to worry about Discord doing the whole "god flipping out and inadvertently re-writing reality" deal (which we already know Celestia takes seriously), because there's stuff out there that's really going to upset him.
Yep, I like the sound of that.
4760360
True very true. Still I think you will agree with me that while we certainly are more prone to horneyness we are not that way every second of our existence (as I have emphasized this would be stupid on so many levels not least of which evolutionary).
Also I'm sure you will agree that males are not any more so then women (its just are societies pressures on them that makes it seem that way.)
Also good point Unicorns are in fact Horny all the time.
4760883 Regardless of whether or not I agree with your statements, I get really, REALLY irritated when people say things like that. "I think you will agree with me" "I'm sure you will agree" Stop speaking for me. Please.
Apologies if I seem grouchy about it. It's one of my pet peeves.
4760907
Apologies I had no idea that would offend you. I'm sorry
4761055 Apology accepted. Thank you! And I do more or less agree with the statements you were making, it's just the assumption that ruffled my fluff.
4760438
Well, in Renaissance Pony I propose that Starswirl actually was a ponified Leonardo daVinci, who was homosexual and retained his sexual orientation after becoming a unicorn. And he still didn't make Alicorn.
4760390
At the risk of sounding repetitious, in Renaissance Pony I propose that Starswirl actually was a ponified Leonardo daVinci, the greatest polymath that ever lived. But he was not the most outgoing of characters, preferring do to much of his studies alone, or with only a few close companions. And he still didn't make Alicorn.
4760440
Of course, last time Peony interacted with snow bunnies, she nearly died. I can see why she'd want to avoid them in the future, or even their ghosts.
4760425
I've always compared this test to the Kobayashi Maru. Which would make Twilight Sparkle James T. Kirk. Which would break the analogy a bit.
I suspect you're going for a parallel here. We have an adult pony and an adult non-pony outside, with a much younger pony zipping out of the structure and getting their attention while another younger pony stays inside. Hmm...
In any case, I had honestly forgotten who Peony had been. Very nice to see what came of her. Also, Tumble is fantastic. He actually reminds me a little of my father in terms of silliness, brilliance, and parenting skills.
The unbunnies are wonderfully eerie. Going by the suspected parallel, I think they got in because Luna, Celestia, or Discord left the door open. Oops.
As for the two at the Tree, you are a horrible tease. I commend them for being careful, but you are still a horrible tease.
I look forward to more.
That's it. I'm reading Human in Equestria[/].
This is just far too intriguing.
Because love always wins if you let it.
Ghost bunnies?
Yup. Ghost bunnies.
If reality really is breaking down ..hoo boy
The flanks that launched a thousand shippers...