The Twilight Zone

by Bad Horse

19. The Element of Audacity (Dash, Cthulhu)

Based on "Cthulhu Passes Over" by DaisyAzuras

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I release another blast from my horn, but the battle is over. The Messengers lie broken, their blubbery mouths open in shock, their gelatinous bodies slowly dissolving in their own foul secretions. One grasps at me with a wet tentacle as I trot by. Its grip is too weak to hold me, but it looks at me, pleading, and I pause.

“Do not fight us!” it slurs. “We offer you glory, glory! The glory that we yearn for, the glory that we have been denied, the glory of feeding the Eater!”

I shrug the slimy thing off in disgust and rush past. We hurry towards the lake. Already it’s strangely silent. The birds have gone. Silver lines flash on its surface. We draw closer, and I see they are thousands of dead fish, bobbing on waves this lake should not have.

Out in the center of the lake the waters stir. Huge bubbles, glistening oily black, surface and break, belching foul sulfurous gases that spread a fine yellow-green mist over the lake. The water rises and pushes, a great green wave surges and sweeps forward and yet still rises and rises behind, rising like a tower, turning blacker as it rises, until the wave breaks and reveals the dark lugubrious glory of the Eater.

We were wrong. We were fools. It Is.

Suddenly I’m covered in sweat. Why am I here? What is there to do but run? We are less than insects before it.

I try to turn away, but can’t take my eyes off of the shimmering spirals of its formless black protoplasm as it oozes and pulses through our reality like gobs of oil dropped in water, taking and discarding the shapes of strange alien organs. It has no shape, and all shapes. Every conceivable form and thought, and many inconceivable.

It shifts, and the black blaze of light reflecting off its glittering carapace hits me like a wave of heat. I raise a hoof to ward it off, and I see eight great white oval discs in rows on its side, black circles growing in their centers, and I have only a moment to think Its eyes, don’t look, I’m not worthy—

and it. Looks. At. Me.

I'm panting. How long have i stood here? Is it possible that i have had Its Eye, even one of Its Eyes, upon me? Could i be found worthy of feeding It?

I thirst for just one drop of the viscous black ambergris i know coils within its hidden intestines. To taste, and be tasted, and trade my stiff, solid, solitary soul for an infinitesimal piece of the bilious Infinite.

Up above, a sky-blue gnat buzzes about before the god’s face. It darts forward and strikes at its squamous hide. Momentarily some tree-like tentacle will swat it out of the air.

Far off inside me something is shouting, shouting the folly that this somehow matters even though the black gates lie open before me, beckoning. My legs claw at the ground; i shamble towards the jaws. Soon Its Eyes will fall upon me, Its jaws will open for me!

But instead the Eyes, pits that pull in my gaze and return nothing, slowly turn towards the blue speck. They stop and focus on it, and i follow Its gaze obediently.

In the sky is a pony like me, blue, with wings. It—the pegasus—she—has too many colors in her head and tail, colors that seem obscene out there in the open, instead of hidden decently within the black intestines of the Eater.

She seems vaguely familiar.

The Eater is still looking at her, and i worry It will forget me. No! Take me! She isn’t worthy!

The tiny creature hovers before the god, her forelegs crossed, and half of me laughs and half of me cries and half of me screams in silent terror.

Something is wrong about how she moves. It is—not in tune with the Eater. She moves unbidden. She—defies—the Eater. I shake my head, trying to understand.

I look down at the hooves beneath me, and wonder. I think a thought, a small one, and receive a small miracle in return: the hooves move. My hooves.

I feel the path from me to my body again, coming to life like a vine in the spring.

I look up.

The vast mouth of the Eater moves, forming words that blast the insolent pegasus backwards, though they rumble out slow and unhurried as elephants.

WHO.

ARE.

YOU.

I feel magic flowing within me. I reach back inside myself, full of wonder, to touch it.

The pegasus leans back in mid-air, raises one eyebrow, and throws her puny voice against the god:

“Who wants to know?”

Author's Note:

From the write-off "Famous Last Words" (titled "...but whose?") Thanks to many people for comments. Also thanks to Steven Utley, whose 1976 SF story "Upstart" I ripped off the basic idea from.

daisymare's original drawing is better, but was just a dark smudge when resized to 100x100.

Comments

[Derpmind]

Once upon a time, Rainbow Dash looked in the mirror. Rainbow Dash has been enthralled to Rainbow Dash ever since.

[Level Dasher]

Now that this story is back to being updated and I've had a good taste of its contents, it's being moved from my Tracking folder to my Faves. I love all the Alts you've come up with.

[Socket]

Radical.

[Southpaw]

Glad you finally brought this one to FF - I felt this was one of the best stories from that competition. I love that you packed so much into such a small space with this, and that last line is perfect and hilarious.

[Ianthe]

There's just something kind of glorious about Rainbow Dash being so damn full of bravado and stubbornness that she'll go up against the Elder Gods of Unspeakable Thingies with nothing but a cocky grin and a couple of one-liners as her back up.

Also, as Neil Gaiman once said, it's not really a good Lovecraft homage unless you get the word "squamous " in there. Which you've done. Jolly good show.

[Titanium Dragon]

This story still makes me grin.

[Kevin Lee]

WHO.
ARE.
YOU.
I feel magic flowing within me. I reach back inside myself, full of wonder, to touch it.
The pegasus leans back in mid-air, raises one eyebrow, and throws her puny voice against the god:
“Who wants to know?”

And thus began a friendship that was the stuff of legends.

[Crack-Fic Casey]

Rainbow is best pony.

[iji]

It is somehow wrong that the raddest shit in the world should be one chapter of a My Little Pony fanfic

[DaisyAzuras]

I actually like the edit of my art. The contrasting color of the sky makes for a different otherworldly take that I honestly didn’t consider. I’d love to see a larger version with the edit in place.

[Bad Horse]

11453132
Oh, wow! I gotta admit I didn't set out with that in mind. I just couldn't make it apparent in the dark that there was a pony up there, and that it was Rainbow Dash. I fiddled around with different colors, but it still didn't seem right; so I added a bunch of dark smudges to make it look like Cthulhu was exuding darkness.

Send me a PM with your email, & I'll try to send you my Gimp files. I think I can make it export psd as well if that's better.

[B_Munro]

One of the greatest menaces of the multiverse meets one of the greatest egos of the multiverse.